Sing Tao Daily, a Chinese-language newspaper known for its backing of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), will end its print version in Canada in late August, laying off 83 employees in Toronto, Vancouver, and Calgary.
Headquartered in Hong Kong, the Canada Sing Tao Daily was established in Canada in 1978 and is co-owned by Torstar, the same parent company of the Toronto Star.
“The [Sing Tao Group] has decided to stop printing the ‘Sing Tao Daily’ in Canada on Aug. 28, 2022, and will concentrate resources on the development of new media platforms,” the publication said on its Chinese-language website on July 25.
Sing Tao Daily has an editorial relationship with the Sing Tao parent company in Hong Kong, Sing Tao News Group. The former Chairman of Sing Tao News Group, Charles Ho, is a member of the Standing Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, a distinctive circle for the Chinese Communist Party’s political elites.
The newspaper often publishes content that favors the CCP regime. In May 2020, it published a full-page commentary by the paper’s chairman in support of Beijing’s national security legislation in Hong Kong, which Canada and other allies have called an affront to democracy.
The Jamestown Foundation, a U.S. think-tank, published a report in 2001, revealing that Sing Tao Daily and Ming Pao Daily News, among many Chinese-language publications in North America, are under the direct influence of the Chinese communist regime.
“As preparation for Hong Kong’s return to China in 1997, the Chinese government made vigorous attempts in the early 1990s to purchase several major media agencies in Hong Kong. This was done through the use of third-party merchants who have close business ties with China,” said the report.
The report added that Sing Tao Daily transformed into “a pro-communist newspaper” starting around the 1990s after the communist regime provided financial support to the owner of the publication.
In 2021, the U.S. Department of Justice ordered the U.S. subsidiary of Sing Tao to be registered as a foreign agent, following two other Chinese state-owned media – CGTN and Xinhua.
