Established on October 1, 1952, China News Service (CNS) is one of the two state-level news agencies in China. Its predecessor, International News Agency, was founded in 1938. CNS has 31 branches in provinces and municipalities on the Chinese Mainland and 21 outbound branches or report stations in regions and countries including the United States, Canada, the UK, France, Germany, Belgium, Russia, the Republic of Korea, Japan, Australia, Thailand and Kazakhstan. As a Chinese-language media source, CNS has been an Asian pioneer since it first set up its internet portal. Its website, www.chinanews.com, was launched in Hong Kong in 1995. At present, it boasts subscribers in more than 100 countries and regions across the world.

As the official website of CNS, China News Network provides news products around the clock based on its sound domestic and foreign news collection and release system, and three news centers in Beijing, New York and Hong Kong. It is now one of the world’s most prominent providers of news content, photos, and videos.

Its media matrix contains affiliated websites, including CNS Video, Economic View, www.chinaqw.com and Qiaobao App for overseas Chinese and Chinese with foreign nationalities, Overseas Chinese Language and Culture Education Online, and ECNS, its official English website. Its articles cover major domestic online media and reach over 100 countries around the world, making China News Network one of the top influential official state websites in the country.

In recent years, various new media platforms under China News Service (CNS) have accelerated the integrated development and the construction of comprehensive media matrix centered around websites, mobile apps, and social media accounts, accumulating nearly 500 million users in total. The China News Network’s official website has daily views of 230 million on average, with more than 60 million APP installations. In addition, China News Network has more than 80 million followers on Weibo, with more than 100 million average daily views. Its official WeChat public account has published over 3,000 articles with over 100,000 views annually. Across platforms including Douyin, Kuaishou, and WeChat Channels and Wesee, it has a total fan base of over 75 million, with a daily playback volume of 200 million. Besides, there are nearly 10 million followers on overseas social media platforms like Facebook, X (formerly known as Twitter) and YouTube.

In 2019 White Paper on the Social Value of China's Online Media, published by the State Information Center (Administration Center of China E-government Network), China News Network came out on top in the “Most Socially Attractive websites” and harvested a bunch of significant awards, including “Top 10 Chinese News Websites”, “Leading News Website”, and “Most Influential Website”.