China International Publishing Group


The China International Publishing Group,
also known as the China Foreign Languages Publishing Administration,
is the largest foreign-language publishing organisation in China.
Established in October 1949, it has developed into a global media corporation, providing up-to-date information about China to readers worldwide through books, magazines and the Internet. CIPG is overseen and controlled by the Communist Party of China.
CIPG owns seven subordinate publishing houses, i.e. Foreign Languages Press, New World Press, Morning Glory Publishers, Sinolingua, China Pictorial Publishing House, Dolphin Books and New Star Publishers. The organisation annually publishes over 3,000 titles of books and around 50 journals in more than 10 languages.
Notable periodicals include Beijing Review, China Today, China Pictorial, People’s China and China Report.
Its subsidiary, the China International Book Trading Corporation is in charge of the distribution.
It also runs 20 overseas branches in countries and regions, including the United States, Britain, Germany, Japan, Belgium, Egypt, Mexico and the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, with about 3,000 staff members including around 100 foreign workers.
In addition to publishing, CIPG operates a number of websites, including china.org.cn and chinagate.com.cn,
releasing news in nine languages, including Chinese, English, French, German, Japanese, Spanish, Arabic, Russian, Korean and Esperanto.
It is also responsible for the implementation and management of the national translation test and appraisal for the Chinese Ministry of Personnel.
Prominent people who have worked in the CIPG include Nobel Literature Prize-winning novelist and playwright Gao Xingjian, Nobel Prize-nominated poet Bei Dao, actor and politician Ying Ruocheng, translators Yang Xianyi and Ye Junjian, author Xiao Qian, non-fiction novel writer Xu Chi, cartoonist Ding Cong, former Chinese Foreign Minister Qiao Guanhua and former UN Undersecretary General Tang Mingzhao. Several foreign employees have also gained notoriety, including the pseudonymous author "Alex Hill," whose account of working as a foreign editor for the organization was widely read in 2015. In his account, the author writes of feckless bureaucracy, political correctness, and a general feeling of malaise among the many foreigners working in the compound.