Chinese-Language Newspaper Sing Tao Daily Ends Print in Canada

Sing Tao Daily's Toronto office building is seen in a file photo. The Epoch Times

The Chinese-language newspaper Sing Tao Daily which often takes pro-Beijing positions is shutting down its print version in Canada, shifting its operations entirely to digital platforms starting late August.

“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.

The company will be laying off 83 employees in Toronto, Vancouver, and Calgary, and keeping over 80 staff members, the company’s CEO said in an article published in the paper.

The publication, which is headquartered in Hong Kong, was established in Canada in 1978.

The publication’s content favour the Chinese Communist Party. 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.

Beijing Ties

In 2021, the U.S. Department of Justice ordered the U.S. subsidiary of Sing Tao to be registered as a foreign agent, joining Chinese state-owned media CGTN and Xinhua in carrying the designation.

The company denies that it’s under the direction of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), saying that it is neither “controlled nor influenced” by the CCP, reported Radio Free China.

The Canada Sing Tao Daily is co-owned by Torstar—which is also the parent company of the Toronto Star. The newspaper 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.

According to a 2001 report by the U.S. think-tank The Jamestown Foundation, many Chinese-language publications in North America including Sing Tao Daily and Ming Pao Daily News 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 procommunist newspaper” starting around the 1990s, after the communist regime provided financial support to the owner of the publication.