About T Magazine China

T Magazine China

T Magazine China (T China) is the Chinese edition of T: The New York Times Style Magazine, the style magazine of The New York Times. Launched in China in 2013 and published in Beijing by Huasheng Media, it is a Chinese-language magazine of fashion, design, travel and culture aimed at affluent, culturally engaged Chinese readers. It localised the T brand with Chinese cover stars, Chinese arts and design coverage and original local content, and it became the flagship of Huasheng Media's portfolio of licensed international titles — a portfolio that came to define a second, more niche generation of foreign magazine publishing in China.

T Magazine China is distinct from The New York Times' other China ventures. The Times' Chinese-language news site was a separate operation, and T's Chinese publisher, Huasheng, later added a second Times title, The New York Times Travel Magazine, in 2017. T China itself was a style publication: as the Times' chairman Arthur Sulzberger explained when its Chinese online edition opened, "Our new site is not focused on politics, or foreign policy or business news. It's a lifestyle site."

The American original

The parent magazine, T: The New York Times Style Magazine, was launched in the United States in August 2004. Despite its name, T is not a supplement of The New York Times Magazine but a distinct publication with its own staff, covering fashion, living, beauty, holiday, travel and design. It is distributed with the Sunday edition of The New York Times and, since January 2017, has been published 11 times a year. An international edition has been distributed with the weekend international edition of the newspaper since December 2007, and country-specific licensed editions followed: T Qatar was the first, in 2010, and T China, T Japan, T Singapore and T Spain followed in the 2010s, with T Australia added later.

That licensing history matters for understanding the Chinese edition. T was never a newspaper supplement in China; it was a standalone glossy produced under licence by a Chinese partner, following the standard structure of foreign magazine publishing in China, where international titles must operate through local companies. What Huasheng Media bought was a brand, a design language and a stream of international content, which it combined with Chinese editorial production for the mainland market.

Launch in China, 2013

The New York Times opened the Chinese online version of its lifestyle magazine on 10 October 2013. Caixin's contemporary report, quoting Sulzberger's email comments, recorded that the Chinese publication was based on T magazine and covered areas including culture, art, real estate and food. The print Chinese edition followed as a monthly published by Huasheng Media in Beijing, the form in which T Magazine China became known to readers, advertisers and the fashion industry.

The launch came at a turning point in Chinese fashion media. The first licensed generation — Vogue China, Elle China, Harper's Bazaar China, Cosmopolitan China — had been built by large groups such as Condé Nast and Trends Media and sold glamour at scale. Huasheng, backed by CMC Capital Group (China Media Capital), pursued the opposite opportunity: licensing maturing, niche Western titles whose cultural prestige exceeded their mass profile, and building them for China's growing class of design-conscious, middle-class intellectual readers. T was the foundation title of that strategy, later joined by Wallpaper, Kinfolk, Nylon, Drift, WSJ. Magazine and The New York Times Travel Magazine in Huasheng's portfolio.

Huasheng Media and Feng Chuxuan

Huasheng Media's founder and chief executive is Feng Chuxuan, known in English-language coverage as Chuxuan Feng. The Business of Fashion's BoF 500 profile describes him as the founder of a media group that works with several foreign magazines to expand Chinese media on a global platform, including the Chinese editions of T, Wallpaper and Kinfolk, and notes that he secured deals to produce the Chinese-language print publications of WSJ. Magazine and New York Times Travel, attracting luxury advertising to the company's publications. Feng previously held a role at Lifestyle Media Group, the publisher of titles including the Chinese edition of Madame Figaro, before building Huasheng with financial support from Ruigang Li, the founder of China Media Capital.

Feng himself served as editor-in-chief of T Magazine China: when The New York Times launched its Chinese Travel Magazine in August 2017, its press release identified Xuan Feng as that magazine's editor-in-chief and noted that he also served as editor-in-chief of T Magazine China. In late 2017 Huasheng strengthened its fashion leadership by bringing in Dan Cui, formerly fashion director of GQ China and editor-in-chief of GQ Style, as a partner and co-editor. In 2026, Huasheng appointed Shaway Yeh — the veteran editor who had transformed Modern Weekly as its group style editorial director and founded the sustainability agency Yehyehyeh — as editor-at-large of T Magazine China, a role the Business of Fashion describes as helping widen the group's footprint beyond China, particularly in Europe and Southeast Asia, through creative and purpose-led content projects.

Content and editorial identity

T Magazine China's remit, inherited from the American T, spans fashion, design, travel, food, arts and culture, produced for affluent Chinese readers with a strong emphasis on Chinese subjects. Commentary on Huasheng's rise notes that T created a Chinese identity for the middle-class intellectual: minimalist, moody editorials in which celebrities discussed their philosophy of life, coverage of niche young creatives, artists and DJs, and fashion stories in which models such as Liu Wen and Ju Xiaowen appeared through a neo-Oriental visual filter. The tone was deliberately quieter than the in-your-face glamour of the first-generation glossies — sophistication and taste, rather than logos and wealth display, were the selling points.

The magazine's covers show how that identity worked in practice. Industry coverage records that T Magazine China was the first magazine to persuade the actress Fan Bingbing, making her comeback in 2020 after a tax-evasion scandal, to appear on a cover together with her younger brother Fan Chengcheng, a member of the boy band NEX7, wearing outfits from Loewe's spring 2021 collection; the Weibo hashtag for their joint cover recorded 43 million views. In April 2024 the cover star was the singer Jackson Wang, photographed by Theo Liu with styling by Sabina Schreder. Covers of that kind — a Chinese or regional star, an international luxury brand, and a social-media conversation measured in tens of millions — were the commercial engine of the Huasheng model.

A magazine beyond print

Huasheng's leadership has been explicit that print is only part of the product. Feng told Women's Wear Daily, in remarks widely quoted in industry coverage, that print publications are only part of the fashion media matrix, and that many Chinese readers first encounter the publications through social media, offline events, videos and creative projects. T Magazine China was built inside that matrix from the start: it launched online in 2013 before its print presence was established, and its publisher group grew by adding titles, events and content projects rather than by chasing print circulation alone.

The group's expansion illustrates the model. Three new magazines were launched in 2017 alone, including The New York Times Travel Magazine, a Chinese-language print publication circulated six times a year throughout mainland China, combining curated travel coverage and photographs from The New York Times with original local content and distributed in Beijing, Shanghai, Xi'an, Shenzhen and other cities through newsstands, bookstores and boutiques as well as luxury hotels, high-end stores and airport VIP lounges. T China's editor-in-chief doubled as the travel magazine's editor-in-chief, making T the senior brand in a small Times-licensed family within Huasheng.

Position in the Chinese market

By the end of the 2010s, industry analysts were treating Huasheng as the coming power in Chinese fashion media. When Angelica Cheung's departure from Vogue China in 2020 ended the founding era of the first licensed generation, Feng Chuxuan was widely identified as the editor-publisher best placed to fill the vacuum. Coverage by Women's Wear Daily and the Business of Fashion credited Huasheng with a crucial role in the emergence of a China-centric aesthetic, through collaborations with local creative talents such as photographer Leslie Zhang and stylists Jeff Li and Audrey Hu, and through covers mixing local actors, directors, influencers and advocates to generate social-media attention.

That position rested on a calculated difference from the older groups. Where Trends Media's 18-title portfolio and Condé Nast China were built in the era of print advertising abundance, Huasheng was assembled in the 2010s, when luxury brands were looking for culturally credible, niche environments and when being new was itself a virtue. T Magazine China — American in brand, Chinese in content, intellectual in tone and digital in distribution — was the title that proved the formula.

The Huasheng portfolio around T

T Magazine China did not stand alone. Around it, Huasheng assembled the Chinese editions of Wallpaper and Kinfolk, the lifestyle and design titles that matched T's affluent, design-literate readership; the youth-culture title Nylon; the coffee-culture magazine Drift; WSJ. Magazine, whose Chinese edition was announced in July 2019 under a five-year licensing partnership with Huasheng, as a monthly of men's fashion, lifestyle and business content whose editor cited rising Chinese demand for globally focused luxury and lifestyle content; and The New York Times Travel Magazine, launched in 2017. Each title was niche by the standards of China's mass glossies, but together they gave Huasheng a portfolio that luxury advertisers could buy as a single cultural environment — and T, the first and best-known of them, was the portfolio's flagship and proof of concept.

Profile at a glance

T Magazine China is the Chinese edition of T: The New York Times Style Magazine, launched online in October 2013 with a print monthly published in Beijing by Huasheng Media. Its founding editor-in-chief was the group's founder, Feng Chuxuan; Dan Cui joined the group's leadership as partner and co-editor in late 2017, and Shaway Yeh was appointed the title's editor-at-large in 2026. It covers fashion, design, travel, food and culture for affluent Chinese readers. It is classified in WorldNM's directory as a magazine published in Beijing, China.