As a propaganda instrument, the paper faced competition from the Jiefang Daily, which began publishing on 16 May 1941 under the direct control of Mao Zedong.

[6][7] In June 2022, Jiangsu launched an international communication center called JiangsuNow, which is run by Xinhua Daily.

[8]: 8 In the relatively liberal media environment of war-time Chongqing, the Xinhua Daily competed with other publications of different affiliations, as the Kuomintang was not able to exert ironclad control over speech.

Xinhua Daily published a number of poems by the poet Liu Yazi, many of which commented on the arrival of Mao in Chongqing in 1945 for peace talks with Chiang Kai-shek.

Mao was then believed to be a proponent of multiparty democracy that Xinhua Daily championed regularly.