Screenshot of the Japanese News Service on Xinhua News Agency's media platform
China's Xinhua News Agency is to provide news service, including news articles, photographs and video and audio reports, in Japanese language from Feb. 1, the news agency's president said on Wednesday.
Xinhua President Cai Mingzhao said at a launching ceremony here that Japanese is the eighth language in which Xinhua releases news reports, following Chinese, English, French, Russian, Spanish, Arabic and Portuguese news services.
The Japanese news service is also Xinhua's first multi-media news service for an individual country and has a special significance in the course of development of Xinhua, Cai said.
As the first service platform in Japanese language, the news service will allow Xinhua to provide a new channel for Japanese subscribers to access Chinese news more conveniently, Cai said.
He also said that Xinhua's global news gathering and editing network will provide contents for the Japanese news service.
Xinhua, with more than 230 branches and over 4,000 journalists across China and around the world, provides over 6,800 multi-media news reports per day.
Last month, Xinhua launched "Media Brain," an artificial intelligence (AI) platform which applies AI technology to news reporting. The platform, which integrates the functions of intelligent information collection, user analysis, image recognition, and voice synthesis among others, will substantially improve Xinhua's news reporting.
With a globally leading news gathering and editing network, Xinhua will provide plentiful and varied news products to users of the Japanese news service, Cai said.
He also said that this year marks the 40th anniversary of the signing of the China-Japan Treaty of Peace and Friendship. China and Japan, as close neighbors, are both major economies in Asia and the world. The steady development of China-Japan relationship is in the interests of the peoples in the two countries, and of great significance in the region and the world.
It is hoped that the newly-launched Japanese news service will promote the development of China-Japan relationship and friendship between peoples of the two countries, Cai said.
Yasuo Fukuda, former Japanese prime minister, said that Xinhua's Japanese news service is of special significance as China is developing fast and a lot of changes have occurred. The news service will help Japanese people know more about China and help promote mutual understanding between Chinese and Japanese people and the development of Sino-Japanese relationship.
Kyodo News Digital Co., Ltd., and Kyodo News Images Co., Ltd. will serve as agents for Xinhua's Japanese News Service in Japan.
Some 130 guests attended the launching ceremony, including Chinese Ambassador to Japan Cheng Yonghua, Kyodo News President Masaki Fukuyama, former United Nations under-secretary-general Yasushi Akashi, former Japanese Ambassodor to China Yuji Miyamoto as well as representatives from Japanese media, enterprises and Chinese enterprises in Japan.
