The"China Daily", established in 1981, is an English-language daily newspaper published in the People's Republic of China. It is the only national English-language newspaper in China.

The average daily circulation is more than 200,000, one-third of which is abroad in more than 150 countries and regions. The readers of China Daily are from all over the world. Domestic readers mainly include foreigners and high-end nationals, for example, diplomats and governmental policy makers. Overseas subscribers are mostly government officials, members of parliaments, staff members of international organizations and multinationals, professors, researchers and students in universities and institutes.

Headquartered in Beijing, China Daily also has branches in Shanghai and Guangzhou and correspondents in all major cities in China as well as several foreign capitals.

As a newspaper group, China Daily also runs China Business Weekly, China Daily Hong Kong Edition, Reports from China, Shanghai Star, Beijing Weekend, 21st Century, 21st Century Teens Senior Edition, 21st Century Teens Junior Edition and the China Daily Web site (www.chinadaily.com.cn). China Daily is the only representative for China in the Asian News Network (ANN), a non-government media organization consisting of 14 major English-language newspapers, whose total circulation is more than 20 million.

The acclaimed Mission of this paper is Committed to helping the world know more about China and the country's integration with the international community, China Daily is regarded as one of the country's most authoritative English media outlets and an important source of information on Chinese politics, economy, society and culture. It is often called the "Voice of China" or "Window to China" .China Daily also serves as important source for high-end Chinese readers who want to know more about the world.

However, in practice, the current system of running China Daily, in some sense, can hardly fulfill its mission to be the "Voice of China" or "Window to China".

According to a foreign editor working at the "China daily", a high degree of self-censorship is practised by journalists at the paper. Subjects such as Taiwan, Tibet and the religious group Falun Gong are usually "too sensitive" for regular reporters to cover, and articles have to be approved by higher authorities before publication. This often leads to a delay of several days between the occurrence of major news events and their reportage in the paper.

The editor of the "China Daily", Zhu Ling, has told foreign editors that the paper's editorial policy was to support the policies of the Communist Party and only make criticism of the authorities if there was deviation from Party policy though there really are some articles or editorial-kind of passages intended to give critical comments on both domestic and international issues.

The present situation facing "China Daily" is that like most state-owned enterprises, it will no longer receive generous government subsidies and the newspaper's publication group is expected to show a profit. To this end, the paper has adopted a more commerce-oriented approach and its editorial content is being pitched increasingly towards younger readers so as to attract more advertising revenue. The paper is still running at a loss in the increasingly competitive Chinese publication market. Much of the publishing group's revenue comes from real estate investments - including a major new commercial complex being built at the newspaper's Huixing Dongjie compound.