[4] The predecessor of the Qapqal News, the Sulfan Jilgan (Xibe: ᠰᡠᠯᡫᠠᠨ ᡪᡞᠯᡤᠠᠨ; Chinese: 苏尔凡吉尔干; pinyin: Sū'ěrfán Jí'ěrgàn; lit.

Of the subscribers, about 500 are government organisations, twenty are enthusiasts of the closely related Manchu language in places as varied as Shenyang, Beijing, Hubei, Guizhou, Sichuan, and a dozen other provinces, and the remainder are local Xibe people, mostly those in rural areas.

Their full-year revenue is thus only around ¥10,000; the county government gives them a subsidy to cover roughly ¥30,000 of annual paper and printing costs and ¥3,000 of salaries paid to reporters.

[5] About 80% of its content consists of translated reports from China's official Xinhua News Agency and other wire services, with the remaining 20% written by the paper's own staff.

The editors of the Qapqal News thus worry that their desire to reach the widest audience possible conflicts with their role as a guardian of the standard language and of Manchu culture in general.

[1] The current editor-in-chief, Iktan (伊克坦, Yīkètǎn), is a graduate of the Minzu University of China; aside from Xibe, he also speaks Chinese, Uyghur, Kazakh and Russian.