Beijing: Chinese media in recent years has given up its pretence of journalism and exists solely to elevate President Xi Jinping's status and attack critics of the Communist Party of China (CPC), a media report said.

Chinese state media has been involved in the creation of a personality cult around Xi and it has been reduced to being propaganda outlets for the CCP, reported The Singapore Post.

The state media's propaganda is not aimed at only its domestic people, it also attempts to influence mass a large following on western social media sites. But the country has been failing terribly in doing so.

However, the state media's efforts aimed to defend Beijing in front of a worldwide audience has proven to be ineffective and recently the missing case of China's tennis player Peng Shuai suggests the same.

Recently, Peng was reported to be missing after she accused a top-level CCP executive of sexual harassment, her social media posts were deleted and after a while, it is said she has disappeared too.

After the global outcry, Chinese propaganda outlets posted a video of her having dinner at a restaurant. This video seems like a shoddy attempt to convince the global public that Peng has not disappeared. Last checked the video had no takers, as there has been Peng has still not come in front of the camera, said The Singapore Post.

Similarly, when former US President Donald Trump had said that COVID-19 originated in China, Beijing's state media outlets hit back with unbounded claims reporting that coronavirus originated at Fort Detrick, a US military base in Maryland.

According to The Singapore Post, China's state media organisations receive mandates from Beijing to do certain stories. Often, they run the mandated programs during periods of lowest viewership.

However, experts said that Beijing's this approach may backfire on itself as Chinese society has not tolerated personality cults after Mao.