The editor-in-chief of Global Times was Hu Xijin until December 2021, who has been described as an early adopter of the "wolf warrior" communication strategy of loudly denouncing perceived criticism of the Chinese government and its policies.

[17][18] Established as a Chinese-language weekly publication in 1993, an English-language version was launched on 20 April 2009 as part of a Chinese government campaign to compete with overseas media.

[19][20][1] In 2009, Hu Xijin, the editor-in-chief of both Chinese and English versions at the time, stated that he expected it to make a loss of 20 million yuan in its first year as an English-language publication.

[1] In 2016, it was reported that the English-language edition then had approximately 20 "foreign experts" who were involved with assigning stories and copyediting, "as long as the coverage [wa]s not about politics".

[25] In 2019, the Global Times won a three-year contract with the Foreign Minister of the People's Republic of China to monitor overseas social media and provide regular briefings and "comprehensive response plans.

[39] Hu Xijin has been described as an early adopter of the "wolf warrior" communication strategy of aggressively hitting back at criticism of the Chinese government.

[9] Journalist Joshua Kurlantzick wrote in 2022 that the Global Times "has taken approaches like the provocative, argumentative, and conspiracy-minded Russian outlets, mixing nationalism with efforts to mock the United States and other countries".

He added, "Outside China, Global Times has used its uber-hawkish editorials and its top editor's skill at sparking controversies to make it relevant on social media internationally, in part because its content elicits responses from foreign officials and opinion leaders.

[43] In August 2019, Global Times editor Hu Xijin accused the United States of instigating the Hong Kong pro-democracy protests.

The Global Times reported his speech as saying that the "Chinese Dream" would "make great contributions and exert a positive impact on human development."

"[3] In 2019, the Global Times was criticized for perceived bias in its portrayal of Uyghurs and of disinformation campaigns regarding the Xinjiang internment camps, which led Twitter to ban it and other state-sponsored media outlets from ad purchases.

[67] In May 2022, the Global Times said that a Canadian sniper who volunteered to fight in defense of Ukraine had "accused the Ukrainian army of inadequate weaponry, poor training, heavy losses, profiteering and desertion", citing a report by Russian state media outlet RT.

The fact-checking website Polygraph.info found that RT and the Global Times had cherry-picked a report published by the Canadian newspaper La Presse to make the claim.

[69][70] In June 2023, the Global Times accused Western media of "hyping" the Wagner Group rebellion and did not report on Yevgeny Prigozhin's claims that Russians were deceived into believing NATO was responsible for the invasion.

[3] In September 2020, India's Ministry of External Affairs issued a statement saying that comments made by the Global Times were falsely attributed to Ajit Doval.

[12] In September 2016, the Global Times published an article, titled "Singapore's Delusional Reference to the South China Sea Arbitration During the Non-Aligned Movement Summit".