Tsering Dhundup
DHARAMSHALA, Aug 6: The UK House of Commons has officially stopped the unsolicited distribution of the Chinese state-run newspaper China Daily to Members of Parliament (MPs), following a formal review prompted by concerns over foreign influence and misuse of public resources.
Conservative MP Alicia Kearns, who chairs the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, confirmed the move on Tuesday, calling the previous practice “completely wrong”.
“It was entirely wrong for this Chinese Communist Party attempt to exert influence over British politics to be inadvertently funded by British taxpayers,” Kearns posted on social media, accusing Beijing of pushing a “false narrative on the many human rights atrocities they have committed and the immense security threat they present.”
According to The Daily Mail, China Daily had been delivered free of charge to MPs’ offices for nearly a decade, raising concerns about the presence of Chinese government propaganda within the UK’s democratic institutions.
In a response to Kearns’ inquiry, Nick Smith, Chair of the House of Commons Administration Committee, said the recent review had resulted in changes to bulk mail distribution rules. Under the new guidelines, only letters and reports under specific size and weight limits may be delivered in bulk to MPs. Any other publications, including China Daily, must now be opted into by individual MPs, and none have chosen to subscribe so far.
The move echoes a similar action in the United States earlier this year, where Republican Congressman Abraham Hamadeh successfully passed a resolution in March halting the unsolicited delivery of China Daily through the U.S. House of Representatives’ internal mail system.
Hamadeh argued that “there are no circumstances under which the halls of Congress should ever become the domain of foreign propaganda.”
China Daily is owned by the Chinese Communist Party’s Publicity Department and has long been used as a vehicle for Beijing to disseminate its official messaging abroad. While the publication maintains English-language editions globally, critics argue that its content downplays or omits China’s human rights abuses, particularly in East Turkestan, Tibet, and Hong Kong, while amplifying anti-Western narratives.
