China Daily No Longer Distributed in U.S. House of Representatives: Lessons Learned

(Minghui.org)

China Daily is no longer distributed in House Office Buildings.

The Committee of House Administration announced on March 11, 2025, that China Daily will no longer be distributed to House Office Buildings, ending the 42-year-long delivery of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) propaganda to House members and their staff.

The United States has always valued freedom of speech. Even when speech comes from the country’s adversaries, Americans are trusted to decide for themselves what to believe. Thus, China Daily was registered as a foreign agent in 1983, and issues were delivered to congressional members’ offices ever since.

Looking at the bigger picture, the distribution of China Daily in Congress is just one part of the CCP’s infiltration of media, culture, and other aspects of daily life. America’s open, free society has been taken advantage of by the CCP for years and the U.S. underestimated the far-reaching harm of “soft brainwashing” through this silent infiltration. This is one of many failed experiments of “freedom’s openness to totalitarianism.”

China Daily Collaborates with Western Media

China Daily worked with the New York Times, Washington Post, and other news outlets to include China Watch, a paid advertisement presenting the CCP’s official narratives but made to look like other news pages. Countless readers are thus misled.

This type of collaboration continued for years and only stopped in 2020 due to objections from the public. The CCP used freedom of speech in Western society as a way to “borrow a boat to go out to sea.”

People’s Daily Near the White House

China Daily is only one of the CCP’s major news outlets circulating in the U.S. The English version of People’s Daily, an official CCP publication, can be found in newspaper boxes near the White House.

To put it into perspective, the CCP would never allow the Washington Post tobedistributednear Zhongnanhai (the Party’s compound in Beijing). Perhaps people in most Western countries don’t realize that in China, the CCP bans Google, YouTube, and Facebook.

CGTN Hires Non-Chinese Anchors

As the international division of state-run CCTV, the contents of China Global Television Network (CGTN) are strictly censored by the CCP’s Propaganda Department (also known as the Publicity Department). By hiring non-Chinese anchors and reporters, however, CGTN aims to lower the audience’s vigilance.

The CCP uses democratic societies’ “diverse voices” as a packaging method to “tell China’s story well.”

Cultural Infiltration Through Confucius Institutes

Confucius Institutes are one of the soft power “cultural projects” promoted by the CCP around the world. Although on the surface they teach Chinese language and culture, the institutions are a tool to propagate the CCP’s ideology and narratives while suppressing dissidents.

For example, the Confucius Institute announced that its teachers cannot participate in activities related to Falun Gong, a meditation practice that has been persecuted by the CCP since 1999. The Confucius Institutes’ curriculum strictly follows the CCP’s directives and avoids topics the Party deems “sensitive.” This turned a “cultural exchange” project into a one-way brainwashing tool that erodes the independence of American academia.

Self-Censorship in Hollywood

For decades, American culture has been introduced to the world through Hollywood movies, but as studios were gradually backed or purchased by the CCP, the focus shifted.

In the original plot of Red Dawn, a 2012 American action war film, the U.S. was invaded by China. In order to be shown in China, the studio had to spend millions of dollars to make the invading forces North Korean instead. Such censorship and self-censorship is now common—the arts and entertainment industries lost their creative freedom and bow to the totalitarian regime.

The NBA’s Self-Censorship

When people in Hong Kong protested the Anti-Extradition Bill in October 2019, Daryl Morey, the Houston Rockets’ General Manager, posted a picture on Twitter with the caption “Fight for Freedom. Stand with Hong Kong.” The CCP immediately complained.

Morey was forced to remove the post and apologize. Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James also criticized Morey and implied the post affected the NBA’s business in China. Some feel James’ remarks shows he supports the CCP.

TikTok’s Algorithm

TikTok is the overseas version of Douyin, and its parent company ByteDance is controlled by the CCP. Research has shown that TikTok’s algorithm can be used to amplify pro-CCP content while suppressing topics the Party considers “sensitive.” Instead of obvious indoctrination, these algorithms are designed to create “information cocoons” so that impressionable young people gradually accept the regime’s narratives through entertainment.

These examples point out a free society’s vulnerabilities when it is attacked and infiltrated by the CCP. The freedom we enjoy is being used as a weapon by the regime to erode and destroy our society from within. In China, meanwhile, the CCP blocks information at will.

Taking Action

Democracies are gradually waking up and growing less naive. More efforts have been made to counter the CCP’s infiltration in America. The CCP’s news outlets have been required to register as foreign agents, Confucius Institutes are closing down, and even Hollywood has gradually stopped self-censoring to please the CCP.

For example, during the filming of Top Gun: Maverick, a 2022 American action drama, the flags of the People’s Republic of China and the flag of Japan were initially removed from the main character’s flight jacket. The producer later restored the flags and chose not to release the movie in China. The U.S. Supreme Court also upheld a law requiring that TikTok be either sold or banned in January 2025.

On February 5, 2025, Arizona’s newly elected U.S. Congressman Abraham Hamadeh submitted his first resolution within a month of taking office. H.Res.110, “Prohibiting the distribution of Chinese Communist Party-controlled publications within House facilities, and for other purposes,” had 20 co-signers. Rep. Hamadeh’s official website stated, “It’s personal for him—he believes Congress should be a place where Americans’ voices shine, not a stage for a hostile regime like the CCP.”

The U.S. House of Representatives’ ban on circulating China Daily helps to stop the CCP from continuing to spread lies on Capitol Hill. Although this move came late, it is a step in the right direction.