Media group has played crucial role in reporting on China growth for 40 years

China Daily readers around the globe have hailed its development over the past 40 years, saying the national English-language newspaper has presented the country's reform and opening-up and played a crucial bridging role between China and the rest of the world.

Erik Solheim, former under-secretary-general of the United Nations and currently Norway's environment minister, said China Daily started during the early days of China's opening up to the world.

Solheim said the newspaper has been an essential companion to the rise of China, which has moved from poverty and isolation to affluence, advanced technologies and global prominence.

Kenneth M. Quinn, president emeritus of The World Food Prize, said: "It is impressive that editions of China Daily over the past 40 years have formed an enduring substantive record of China's actions, initiatives and revised policies that have produced such a dramatic economic and agricultural change in your country in such a relatively short period of time."

Over the past four decades, millions of China Daily readers have been able to follow China's dramatic economic transformation and the elimination of poverty, Quinn said.

Ronnie Lins, director of the China-Brazil Center for Research and Business, said China Daily has always stood out for having reliable and transparent content produced by top professionals. "I am sure that these 40 years of existence are only part of a long path, which will always continue to contribute to helping the development of the People's Republic of China and better relations between countries."

Stephen Orlins, president of the National Committee on US-China Relations, recalled the launch of China Daily in 1981, saying he was living in the Beijing Hotel at the time. "There was little news of the world or of China in English at that time in Beijing, and I always welcomed the delivery of the paper to my door," Orlins said.

The quality of the journalism has improved immeasurably over the past 40 years, he added, and he still reads it to understand the Chinese government's perspective on developments in China and the world.

Bernard Dewit, chairman of the Belgian-Chinese Chamber of Commerce and recipient of the 2017 Chinese Government Friendship Award, said he started reading China Daily in 1985, and it "has constantly provided me with very useful information on China and has greatly helped me to better understand the country, its internal policies, its foreign policies and its culture, among others."

Henry Lim Bon Liong, president of the Federation of Filipino Chinese Chambers of Commerce and Industry, said that over the past four decades, China Daily has grown to become a very important source of "timely, accurate, balanced and interesting" news and commentaries about modern China for the rest of the world.

"We need more media organizations like China Daily to proactively explain China, its audacious reforms, its rich civilization, its stunning socio-economic progress and its commitment to global multilateralism. We wish China Daily continued success, excellent journalism, vigor and great dynamism as a bridge of better understanding between China and the whole world."

Dina Yulanti, director of the Indonesia Center for Middle East Studies at Padjadjaran University, said that as an academic and Middle East researcher, she understands how the media greatly influences this region, where tensions run high.

"China Daily provides unbiased reporting, background and context about various conflicts in the Middle East. This kind of journalism is like an oasis amid massive coverage that favors the perpetrator rather than the victim," she said.

Oleg Timofeev, an associate professor at the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia, said China Daily has an enormous effect on the international media, as well as global politics and economic and cultural exchanges. He said he hoped China Daily developed further and continued telling the world the China story.

Chris Horn, managing director of Gold Key Media, said he is an avid reader of China Daily, and its in-depth content, written from a Chinese perspective, which allows him to gain a clear perspective on all aspects of life in China.

Asif Shuja, senior research fellow at the Middle East Institute at the National University of Singapore, said the world is deeply interested in the stories of China's growth, and by telling such stories in the English language, China Daily has successfully filled a communication gap between the East and the West.