GOP congressmen stop distribution of Chinese Communist Party's China Daily to House offices

GOP Reps. Bryan Steil, Wisconsin, and John Moolenaar, Michigan, said Tuesday that China Daily, a newspaper owned by the Chinese Communist Party, will no longer be circulating in the House.

"We took action to directly block the Chinese Communist Party from using the halls of Congress to spread its propaganda," Steil, chair of the House Administration Committee, said in a press release in which he also thanked Moolenaar, chairman of the House Select Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, for his efforts.

He said that the China Daily will not be distributed by National News, a longtime newspaper distributor in Washington, D.C. and on the Hill.

Some GOP members in Congress have long been critical of the China Daily being delivered to House and Senate offices, such as Indiana Rep. Jim Banks. 

In 2019, he wrote a letter to the House Chief Administrative Officer asking for answers on why the paper was distributed along with other outlets such as The Washington Post.

“There’s a lot of rhetoric in Congress about ‘combatting Chinese influence’ and being ‘tough on China.’ Americans won’t take our claims seriously if we can’t prevent China from running a propaganda campaign in our own workplace,” Banks wrote in a letter, according to the Roll Call outlet.