China's outstanding contributions to promoting global economic growth, maintaining multilateral trading mechanisms and supporting the reform agenda of the WTO have received wide endorsements during the ongoing ninth review of the trade policies and practices of China by the WTO being held in Geneva, Switzerland, the Xinhua News Agency reported. 

Representatives of WTO members as well as a WTO report issued on the review have also elaborated on China's unswerving commitment to facilitating trade liberalization, including reducing tariffs, optimizing customs procedures and introducing a negative list. Those measures, according to officials and observers, drive global trade and prompt more countries to integrate into the global supply chain. More importantly, they play an exemplary role in a world that is increasingly fragmented by certain Western countries' protectionist moves and small-clique approach. 

While the US, EU and certain other Western countries have attempted to seize the occasion to slander China's industrial policy, which they claimed "harms other countries," Chinese observers pointed out that those "who shout the loudest" are the ones who weaponize tariff tools and other trade remedy measures to rampantly target other countries' competitive industries. 

Those moves have erected trade barriers and caused chaos in the global supply chain, analysts warned, urging the US and other Western countries to abide by WTO rules and refrain from more protectionist measures that could lead to dire consequences for the global economy. 

The ninth review took place on Wednesday and the second session will be held on Friday. During the review, representatives of WTO members highly praised China's practical support, especially its assistance to the least-developed members, in accelerating development and further integrating into the multilateral trading system, according to the Xinhua News Agency report. 

As an important and responsible member of the WTO, China has made significant contributions to promoting discussion of a range of topics including investment facilitation, e-commerce negotiations, domestic regulation of trade in services, plastic pollution prevention and fishery subsidies. It also supported reforms in the WTO's dispute settlement mechanism and efforts to restore the functioning of the appellate body, according to the representatives.

A report by the WTO Secretariat was issued on Wednesday, which provided a comprehensive evaluation of China's economic and policy measures during the review period, which ran from 2021 to 2024. It listed China's achievements, ranging from an economic rebound, progress in making market-oriented reforms and trade expansion to the further liberalization of the foreign investment framework. 

"It is a fact-based and objective assessment that well recognized China's underpinning role in the global trade system. It also served as a strong pushback against smears by the US and other Western countries against China's trade pattern," Gao Lingyun, an expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Thursday. 

Vice Minister of Commerce Li Fei led the Chinese delegation to attend the review. In a speech, Li stressed that since the last review in October 2021, China has actively practiced multilateralism, continuously played an important role in global development and provided more opportunities to the world with its super-large market. 

Bai Ming, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, told the Global Times on Thursday that it is also worth noting that the report underscored that China not only fulfills its opening-up commitment since joining WTO, but also firmly supports the functioning of multilateral trading system to play a pivotal role in global trade governance.  

While the WTO report also raised concerns on the transparency of government support and export restrictions on certain critical materials, Chinese analysts stressed that those measures taken by Chinese policymakers align with international practices and are in line with WTO rules. 

"The review is also a good chance for China to elaborate policy stance, strengthen communication with the trade organization and dispel unnecessary concerns," Gao said.

China's unwavering commitment to WTO obligations also stands in contrast to the unilateral moves by US and other Western economies, which have been wracking havoc on global supply chain and eroding the prospect of global trade, analysts pointed out. 

It is also ironic that the destroyers of global multilateral trading order are seizing the opportunity to accuse China of its industrial practices that they claimed detrimental to the interests of US and other emerging and developing economies.

According to a Reuters report, in a delivered speech, Washington accused Beijing of "predatory" industrial practices that harm other countries. An EU statement also claimed on Wednesday that China's "distortive" industrial policies create "further overcapacity in China with negative externalities for a wide range of WTO members."

Analysts said that those accusations laid bare the Western countries' double-standard, as they, while taking aim at Chinese practices, did not mention a word about the countless rounds of trade restrictions slapped on Chinese exports and the hefty subsidies provided to shore up industries at home.

"Those claims are not even written into the WTO report, indicating that they're heavily distorted from facts," Gao said. He stressed that regardless of the discords created by foreign forces, China will continue to be a stabilizer of the global trade, with its continuous advancement of reform and opening-up set to bring greater benefits to the world economy.

According to the WTO report, China's importance in the global economy and in trade was further accentuated during the 2021-2024 review period. China's economy expanded 5 percent in the first half of 2024, demonstrating strong resilience in the face of multiple headwinds. 

China's National Immigration Administration (NIA) announced on Monday that the country's 144-hour visa-free transit policy has been expanded to three more entry ports, taking the number of Chinese ports covered by the policy to 37. 

The move marks the ramped-up effort by Chinese government to facilitate international travel and opening-up with more convenient visa policy.

The three new ports are Zhengzhou Xinzheng International Airport in Central China's Henan Province, Lijiang Sanyi International Airport in Southwest China's Yunnan Province, and the Mohan railway port in Yunnan, the administration said in a statement.

Starting from Monday, the 144-hour visa-free transit policy at the Zhengzhou airport will allow visitors to travel within the administrative region of Henan. Additionally, the specific area covered by the 144-hour visa-free policy in Yunnan Province will be expanded from Kunming city to include eight other cities and regions within the province.

With the new addition of entry ports, the NIA has implemented the 144-hour visa-free transit policy in a total of 37 ports in China.

Foreign citizens from 54 countries including the US, Canada, and the UK who enter China through the designated entry ports and hold valid international travel documents and connecting tickets to a third country within 144 hours, will be allowed to stay in designated areas for tourism, business, and visiting relatives visa-free for 144 hours.

The NIA said that the 72/144-hour transit visa-free policies, implemented since January 2013, has played a crucial role in supporting the nation's high-level opening up and facilitating international travel and exchanges. 

The expansion of the visa-free transit policy in Henan and Yunnan provinces will offer foreign citizens more options when traveling to China for tourism and business. 

According to NIA, the total number of visa-free entries made by eligible foreigners exceeded 8.54 million in the first six months this year, accounting for 52 percent of the inbound trips during the first half year and representing a year-on-year growth of 190.1 percent.

China is supporting private enterprises in leading major technological breakthroughs, emphasizing the improvement of mechanisms for their participation in national projects. This is part of a series of significant measures launched following the recently concluded third plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.

The third plenary session adopted a resolution on further deepening reforms designed to comprehensively advance Chinese modernization. Reforms and policies regarding the private economy are crucial components of this resolution.

The meeting highlighted the construction of a high-level socialist market economy system, while also emphasizing the need to better leverage market mechanisms to create a fairer and more dynamic market environment, stimulating the intrinsic motivation and innovative vitality of the entire society, according Han Wenxiu, executive deputy director of the office of the Central Committee for Financial and Economic Affairs.

Enterprises, as an essential part of China's economy, have played a crucial role in the development and construction of multiple innovation and high-tech fields. Enterprises have become the main source of effective invention patents in China. According to the National Intellectual Property Administration, in 2023, enterprises accounted for over 70 percent of effective invention patents, exceeding 3 million in total.

The resolution issued after the third plenary session further emphasized the importance of developing the private economy, aimed at promoting the complementary and common development of various ownership economies in China, Han said.

Further deepening reform comprehensively to advance Chinese modernization is a significant goal of this session, including attention to both private and state-owned enterprises. According to Han, China will push for independent operations and market-driven reforms of state-owned enterprises, and foster a better environment for the private sector, providing more opportunities through a long-term mechanism that supports capable private companies in leading national technological projects.

Administrative inspections involving private enterprises should be standardized, the best business environment is one governed by law, hence the need to formulate and introduce a law promoting the private economy, Han added.

Encouraging private enterprises to participate in major national projects is a development plan China highly values. Zheng Shanjie, chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China's top economic planner, stated in March that private enterprises are encouraged and supported to participate in major national projects and shortfall projects.

The NDRC will continue to recommend high-quality projects to private capital, helping private capital to find projects and assisting private investment projects in fundings, Zheng stated.

Since the Third Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee in 2013, historic and remarkable accomplishments have been made in comprehensively deepening reform. Here are some numbers behind China's deepening reform.

The Asia-Pacifc-6E, or the APStar-6E, China's first all-electric propulsion communication satellite, has successfully passed in-orbit technology verification and ground station technology reviews in Hong Kong, which means the satellite has become fully operational after having successfully passed all in-orbit tests, according to spacecraft manufacturer China Great Wall Industry Corporation (CGWIC) on Monday. 

As of Monday, all tests outlined in the in-orbit testing protocol were completed successfully. The payload of the APStar-6E is functioning normally, with performance consistent with ground test results, meeting contractual specifications and in-orbit operational requirements, the CGWIC told the Global Times on Monday in a statement. 

Both sets of Hall/Ion electric propulsion systems on the platform met the station-keeping requirements, read the statement.

By providing highly cost-effective, high-throughput broadband satellite resources, the APStar-6E will aid the development of the regional information industry and address the digital divide faced by developing areas, according to the CGWIC.

Developed by the China Academy of Spacecraft Technology using the DFH-3E satellite platform, the APStar-6E is the first satellite of its kind. 

The APStar-6E is operated by Hong Kong-based APT Mobile Satcom Limited and managed by APT Satellite Company Limited. The APStar-6E focuses on the Southeast Asian market, providing high-capacity, cost-effective broadband communication services to the region.

The APStar-6E communication satellite and its independent propulsion module were successfully launched by a Long March-2C carrier rocket at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Southwest China's Sichuan Province on January 13, 2023. 

After separating from the propulsion module on January 23 of the same year, the satellite used its onboard Hall/Ion dual electric propulsion systems to autonomously change orbits, reaching geosynchronous orbit (GEO) and positioning at its test location on June 10, 2024. 

The APStar-6E satellite is the new generation of all-electric propulsion commercial satellites in the DFH series, and is also the first Chinese satellite to achieve autonomous orbit transfer. 

After reaching the GEO, the in-orbit testing of the APStar-6E proceeded smoothly. Following the completion of the first phase of in-orbit testing on July 9, 2024, the satellite was repositioned to its operational slot at 134°E, co-located with the APStar-6C and APStar-6D. 

It is equipped with 25 Ku-band user beams and 3 Ka-band gateway beams, with a communication capacity of approximately 30 Gbps and an in-orbit lifespan of 15 years. 

The successful operation of the APStar-6E is significant for achieving high-capacity and low-cost satellite platforms, enhancing the international competitiveness of China's communication satellite platforms, realizing fully autonomous orbit raising and long-term autonomous operations, and improving the intelligent autonomy of China's satellite platforms, according to the CGWIC.

CGWIC, a subsidiary of the state-owned space giant China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), has conducted 13 in-orbit delivery communications satellite programs for international customers so far, and has delivered its communications satellite system to multiple countries and regions including Nigeria, Venezuela, Pakistan, Bolivia, Laos, Belarus and Algeria, the Global Times has learned.

Senior government officials and scholars from more than 110 countries and 30 international organizations gathered in Beijing at the second High-Level Conference of the Forum on Global Action for Shared Development on Friday, where they highly praised China’s Global Development Initiative (GDI), saying that it’s bringing a new model of sustainable development cooperation that better aligns with the interests and demands of Global South countries. 

Under the GDI, China has brought tangible benefits to their countries’ economic and societal development on the basis of mutual respect, participants at the conference said, which are showcased not only in funding, creating job opportunities, and alleviating poverty, but also in upgrading their industries and addressing climate change.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi delivered a keynote speech at the opening ceremony on Friday, as he elaborated on the achievements made in the past three years since the initiative was proposed in 2021. By far, more than 80 countries have joined the “Group of Friends” of the GDI, with more than 40 countries and international institutions signing cooperation memoranda of understanding with China.

During last year’s high-level conference, China announced the establishment of a global project pool and raised a special development fund to support it. To date, the pool includes over 1,000 projects, with more than 500 projects completed or underway.

China will continue to expand the pool and increase its funding, prioritizing “small and beautiful” livelihood projects, said Wang, who is also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee. 

In the context of a turbulent world with global economic recovery facing setbacks and the gap between the Global North and South continuing to widen, China, as a member of the Global South, firmly stands with developing countries, the top diplomat noted.

“We advocate for the advancement of dialogue and cooperation between the Global South and North, and we call on developed countries to fulfill their commitments and provide more effective and targeted support to developing countries,” Wang said. 

Prime Minister of the Republic of Vanuatu Charlot Salwai, who is visiting China from July 7-12, attended the conference, where he said the GDI “ushered in a beam of hope for global development.” Three years on, Vanuatu has become a true beneficiary of this great initiative, Salwai said. 

Thanks to the joint efforts by the two sides, the total value of trade between China and Vanuatu in 2023 reached $138 million, up by 27 percent year on year. “Although the world faces increasing uncertainties and instabilities, Vanuatu will always trust China as a reliable development partner,” the Salwai said.

During a panel on the sidelines of the conference on Friday, Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, explained his “passion and sincerity” for voicing for the Global South. 

“The United States, my country, has many strange ideas. That's part of the reason for the division in the world … The whole idea that we're in some kind of confrontation is a profound misunderstanding,” Sachs noted. 

“The US has these two big oceans that separate it from the rest of the world, and from knowledge – they don't understand. So my first advice is that [US] congressman should get a passport and go see the world and visit these beautiful countries represented on stage here, then we would have a different kind of world,” he continued.

It is “ironic and notable” to see China hosting this “great forum” while in Washington, they are having the NATO Summit, which “is never going to solve anything: what is NATO going to solve except the waste of money and lives?” Sachs told the media at the panel.  

In response to Western hypes about China’s cooperation with the Global South countries is a way to “assert influence,” Hamad Al Hosani, researcher at TRENDS Research and Advisory, a think tank from the United Arab Emirates, told the Global Times, and said his country never sees it that way.

“China’s focus is on trade and investment, economy, technology, and we need China to help find solutions to many problems we’re having today. They don’t use guns and violence, and it’s not about politics,” Hosani said. 

For the first time, astronomers have spotted a middleweight black hole in the nearby universe. The discovery could help solve the riddle of how even heftier black holes form and grow up with their host galaxies.

The black hole, which sits about 16,000 light-years from Earth in the center of star cluster Omega Centauri, is at least 8,200 times as massive as the sun, putting it squarely in a rare category of intermediate-mass black holes, researchers report July 10 in Nature.
Most of the black holes astronomers have detected fall into one of two categories. They’re either stellar-mass black holes, with masses up to about 100 times that of the sun, or supermassive black holes, which reside in the centers of galaxies and clock in at hundreds of thousands to billions of times the mass of the sun.

Black holes with masses in the middle could help span the gap between the two categories and explain how the supermassive ones got so big. But these black holes are a little like Bigfoot: There have been many claimed sightings, but most turn out not to be real (SN: 2/8/17).

“There’s this rather wide mass range, between 100 and 100,000 solar masses, where there are only very few detections,” says astronomer Maximilian Häberle of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg, Germany. “It’s interesting to find out whether they are there, and we just don’t see them because they are hard to detect. Or maybe there’s also a reason why they don’t exist at all.”

One reason to think midsized black holes should exist is because the supermassive black holes astronomers have spotted in the early universe didn’t have time to grow so big if they were just eating gas and stars like black holes do today (SN: 1/18/21). If those black holes grew from mergers of intermediate-mass seeds, that could solve the puzzle (SN: 6/2/23).

“It’s like a missing link that is needed to explain the existence of the supermassive black holes,” says Texas-based astronomer and data scientist Eva Noyola, who was not involved in the new work. “If it’s proven that [intermediate-mass black holes] happen in dense stellar clusters, you have a solution there that’s pretty elegant and simple.”

So astronomers have been hunting for midsize black holes for decades, and searching Omega Centauri specifically since at least 2008. As the most massive cluster of stars in the Milky Way, it’s a relatively easy spot to search, and it may be the remnant core of another galaxy that merged with the Milky Way about 10 billion years ago (SN: 11/1/18).

“It’s basically a galactic nucleus frozen in time,” says study coauthor Nadine Neumayer, also of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy. Its black hole could be representative of all small galaxies’ black holes 10 billion years ago. “It tells us immediately something about the seed mass for black holes.”

But previous studies left it unclear whether Omega Centauri hosted a single medium-size black hole, or a bunch of smaller black holes close together.

Using 20 years of Hubble Space Telescope observations, Hӓberle and colleagues tracked the motions of 1.4 million individual stars in the cluster and searched for stars moving faster than expected.

The team found seven stars zipping around the innermost regions of the cluster at speeds between 66 and 113 kilometers per second — speeds that should have rocketed the stars out of the cluster altogether. The only way those stars could remain in the cluster is if a single massive object is holding them close, the team concludes.

The observations of superfast stars, combined with other observations through the years, should resolve the debate about the black hole in Omega Centauri, says Noyola, who was on the team that first claimed to see the black hole in 2008 and faced skepticism when they reported the result.

It wasn’t until over a decade later that astronomers nabbed undeniable evidence of an intermediate mass black hole. The first solid detection came from the LIGO gravitational wave observatory, which recorded ripples in spacetime shaken off after two smaller black holes merged to form a single black hole with about 142 solar masses (SN: 9/2/20). But that collision occurred about 17 billion light-years from Earth, making it challenging to study.

Omega Centauri’s black hole has two advantages over that one, from an astronomer’s perspective: It’s in our galactic neighborhood, and astronomers can continue to observe it. Hӓberle and his colleagues are planning to use the James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST, to get more information on the orbiting stars’ speeds, which will let them put better limits on the black hole’s mass.

Another group, led by astrophysicist Oleg Kargaltsev at George Washington University in Washington, D.C., is using JWST to look for light emitted by super-hot gas flowing into the black hole.

“It will be a completely independent, very different method of proving that there is an intermediate-mass black hole,” Kargaltsev says.

After the Philippines repeatedly denied the "Gentleman's Agreement" and was later refuted by China with solid evidence, Manila has started a new political performance. On Wednesday, around 200 people on board five commercial fishing vessels set off from the Philippines, sailing toward the waters of Huangyan Dao under the banner of "defending rights," with an expected arrival on Thursday. The Philippine government has dispatched coast guard ships to escort this so-called "civilian fleet," and some Western media outlets have quickly picked up the story. This well-coordinated and professional approach is something we have seen in several previous incidents where the Philippines has stirred up trouble in the South China Sea.

Before departing, the Philippine Coast Guard deliberately emphasized that they have "nothing to do with the Philippine government," while the organizers loudly proclaimed their actions to be "civilian" and "peaceful." Such strenuous preparation has just given themselves away, revealing they know well that the move to challenge Huangyan Dao is neither a civilian action nor a peaceful one. What they are truly doing is using Philippine "fishermen" as a backdrop to provoke incidents, attempting to interfere with the normal law enforcement of the China Coast Guard and the regular fishing activities of Chinese fishermen. At the same time, they aim to gain sympathy from the international community through Western media, smear China, and incite a new round of friction or even confrontation between China and the Philippines at Huangyan Dao.

Noticeably, the so-called "civilian organization" behind this activity is far from being genuinely civilian. Its spokesperson previously publicly stated that all of the organization's activities are supported by the Philippine military. Additionally, media reports have revealed that this organization is funded by relevant American institutions. Therefore, this show is actually another act in the US' Project Myoushu in the South China Sea. Through this project, the US aims to increase its interference in the South China Sea situation, smear the law-enforcement actions of the China Coast Guard, encourage relevant countries in the South China Sea region to adopt a tough stance against China, and undermine the peaceful situation that China and other regional countries have been striving to establish. Thus, although this organization deliberately downplays its political nature on its website, it is essentially a business deal between Filipino politicians and Washington.

Huangyan Dao has always been China's territory. China has indisputable sovereignty over Huangyan Dao and its adjacent waters. China, as a party with absolute advantages in all aspects, has shown enough goodwill and patience toward the Philippines. China made a goodwill arrangement in 2016 for Filipino fishermen to fish with a small number of small fishing boats in the adjacent waters of Huangyan Dao, while China continues to oversee and monitor relevant activities of the Filipino fishermen in accordance with law. China has shown its utmost patience and tolerance toward the Philippines.

On one hand, the current Philippine government has accepted China's goodwill arrangement, but on the other hand, it greedily attempts to seize more benefits. It has used the urgent desire of the US to intervene in the South China Sea situation to support itself. China has always been against bullying small countries by big powers, but it will not accept any political blackmail from any country. Regarding the Philippines' show on Huangyan Dao, China has issued a clear warning: "If the Philippines abuses China's goodwill and infringes upon China's territorial sovereignty and jurisdiction, we will defend our rights and take countermeasures in accordance with the law. Relevant responsibilities and consequences shall be borne solely by the Philippines." China has always been low-key in its actions, but it will follow through with its words. Manila should understand and take in the meaning and weight of these words.

When Global Times reporters interviewed locals in the Philippines not long ago, many fishermen expressed unwillingness to participate in the Philippines' provocative actions against China. Even some US media outlets discovered during on-site interviews in the Philippines that local farmers praised a China-funded irrigation project. The outcome of the latest performance on Huangyan Dao is not difficult to predict: It will not have any impact on China's normal exercise of sovereignty on Huangyan Dao, but will only show the international community another act of lack of credibility by Manila. Not only does China see this clearly, but regional countries and the international community also see it very clearly. The current situation in the South China Sea is generally stable, and peace and cooperation are the mainstream in the region. In response to Manila's adventurism, other ASEAN countries have in general kept their distance.

There is an ancient Chinese saying: "A gentleman's acquaintance is as light as water, and a villain's acquaintance is as sweet as alcohol." Manila should carefully consider who is applauding its show in the South China Sea, giving it one sugar cube after another, and where these things that do not belong to it will ultimately push it.

The breathtaking landscapes of Altay in Northwest China's Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, as depicted in the popular mini TV series "To the Wonder," have mesmerized audiences, drawing visitors to the city and significantly boosting tourism in Xinjiang.

Filmed in this pristine area, the drama showcased the stunning natural beauty and unique cultural charm of Altay, which sparked widespread online discussions about touring the city. 

Since the release of the series on May 5, the internet searches about Altay more than doubled, with searches for Altay homestays increasing by 200 percent over the previous week. The same cabins which featured in the drama have become too popular to book. Additionally, bookings for group tours across Xinjiang have increased by 247 percent compared to the previous week, according to Beijing Youth Daily on Wednesday.  

According to data from domestic travel platform Fliggy, since the screening of To The Wonder, searches about Altay tourism on the platform has surged by over 500 percent. Flight bookings to Altay have increased by over 50 percent compared to the previous week, while car rental bookings have nearly doubled. 

Fei Fei, a publicity official with the Altay bureau of culture, sports, radio, television and tourism, told the Global Times that the bureau has been committed to carrying out various promotional and publicity campaigns aimed at attracting more tourists to experience the natural beauty and rich cultural heritage of Altay. 

"The number of tourists to Altay has grown significantly since the airing of the TV series. Tourists from the Chinese mainland, in particular, showed great interest in the Altay scenery and folk culture," said Fei. 

"We will continue to combine culture and tourism to further enhance the popularity and reputation of Altay. Various promotional activities will be carried out to attract more potential visitors," Fei noted. 

Located in the northern part of Xinjiang, Altay is also one of the best destinations for tourists and photography enthusiasts to view the natural wonder of the aurora borealis.

The peak tourist season in the Altay region typically lasts from July to August. However, spurred by the impact of the TV drama, this year's peak season in the area is expected to arrive earlier. Additionally, the most popular months for visiting Altay's Kanas scenic area, which usually starts at the end of August and extends into September, is predicted to commence as early as June this year.

According to the bureau, during the May Day holidays, the city received a total of 106,900 tourists, marking a year-on-year increase of 45.04 percent. The city generated 86.16 million yuan ($11.9 million) in tourism revenue, reflecting a year-on-year growth of 43.19 percent. 

Lying between the southern foot of the Altai Mountains and the northern edge of the Junggar Basin, Altay boasts abundant natural tourism resources, including grasslands, snow-capped mountains, deserts, rivers, gorges, wetlands, and more. The area has always been recognized as a paradise for photographers, skiers, birdwatchers, and independent travelers.

Douyin, one of the most popular short-video apps in China, released new regulations restricting users from disseminating political and social affairs, financial, legal, or medical content for commercial purposes.

Accounts with a substantial fan base and significant influence will no longer be permitted to own authorization with commercially promoted accounts, granting them the ability to create content covering political, social, legal and medical content.

In response, Douyin told media that to protect the rights of creators and optimize the creator experience, Douyin has adjusted the account authorization function for commercial promotion. This includes no longer supporting government media organizations or accounts that primarily focus on social, political, economic, legal, or medical content, or accounts with a large number of followers and significant influence, to establish authorization relationships with commercial promotion accounts that include content publishing capabilities.

A representative from Douyin’s customer service department told the Global Times that under the new rule, the app will no longer support or grant authorization for individual users (whose who don’t affiliate with any organization) to publish content addressing political, social affairs, legal and medical issues.

The customer service stated that the move aims to safeguard creators' rights and optimize their overall experience on the platform. The revised regulations primarily target collaborations with huge amounts of commercial promotion accounts and local push-outs.

Wang Sixin, a professor of law from the Communication University of China, told the Global Times that as a shepherd in China’s social media arena, Douyin’s move may exert significant impact on self-media accounts. Currently, there is a mixed bag of self-media creators, and the government's regulation of online platforms is closely linked to their social communication effects. "The government has always encouraged mainstream media to regulate professional information related to the industry. Unrestricted publishing of contents on social media will not only cause trouble for regulation, they also bore severe political risks,” Wang said.

Last month, the Cyberspace Administration of China announced this special campaign. The campaign is designated to crack down on influencers' boundless behavior of rubbing and creating heated spots, which mix virtuality with reality. It will rigorously rectify influencers who disregard public interest, violate morals in order to gain public attention.

It will target self-directed fabricating stories, such as unscrupulous manipulation of trending social news, international and domestic news, and indiscriminate distribution of vulgar news to fool netizens and sabotage the internet environment.