An attempt by China's Xinhua news agency to tighten controls on foreign rivals has sparked fierce criticism abroad and rumbles of discontent at home - but no trace of such negativism finds its way into the agency's own reports.

While international agencies such as Reuters have covered both Beijing's defence of the new rules and opposition to them from western governments, media freedom groups and the American Chamber of Commerce, Xinhua's reportage has remained unabashedly one-sided.