The Times Is Introducing a Chinese-Language News Site

9:48 p.m. | Updated The New York Times is introducing a Chinese-language Web site, part of a continuing effort to expand its reach to international readers.

The site, which is called cn.nytimes.com and went live Thursday morning China time, is intended to draw readers from the country’s growing middle class, what The Times in its news release called “educated, affluent, global citizens.’’

The site will feature about 30 articles a day on national, foreign and arts topics, as well as editorials. Joseph Kahn, the paper’s foreign editor, said that about two-thirds of the content would be translated from Times articles and one-third would be written by Chinese editors and local freelance journalists.

The Times Company, which is well aware of the censorship issues that can come up in China, stressed that it would not become an official Chinese media company. The Times has set up its server outside China and the site will follow the paper’s journalistic standards. Mr. Kahn said that while the Chinese government occasionally blocked certain articles from nytimes.com, he was hopeful that the Chinese government would be receptive to the Chinese-language project.

“We’re not tailoring it to the demands of the Chinese government, so we’re not operating like a Chinese media company,” Mr. Kahn said. “China operates a very vigorous firewall. We have no control over that. We hope and expect that Chinese officials will welcome what we’re doing.”

The Times is by no means the first paper to have a Chinese-language Web site. The Wall Street Journal and The Financial Times already have Chinese-language sites. But Mr. Kahn said that he hoped the new Times Web site would be “a vigorous competitor.”

The site will rely on Times staff members based in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong for content, as well as 30 new employees who are mainly translators and editors. Philip Pan, an assistant foreign editor, and Cao Haili, who will be the site’s managing editor, will run the site and report to Mr. Kahn. Craig Smith, a former Times foreign correspondent, is running the business side.

In the past few years, many Western publishers have been expanding into China, drawn especially by the promise of luxury advertising aimed at the country’s growing affluent class. So far, the Times site has attracted Bloomingdale’s, Salvatore Ferragamo, Cartier and Milstein China, the real estate company, as advertisers, according to Denise F. Warren, chief general manager of nytimes.com and chief advertising officer for The Times.

Advertising sales will be run out of New York, with help from Cesanamedia on sales in China and Italy. Ms. Warren said she hoped that the range of advertisers would increase in the coming months.

“It’s generally luxury manufacturers,” she said. “But I believe there will also be an opportunity for corporate and financial advisers. We believe we will be reaching a global, well-educated, international audience.”

The new Web site comes only days after The Times announced a deal with Flipboard, a popular app for browsing news and social media on phones and tablets. The paper will make its articles available through Flipboard, the first time it has allowed subscribers to get full access to its Web content through a third party.

Ms. Warren said that at first the Chinese-language site would not require readers to pay for content. “That’s something that potentially down the road we contemplate,” she said. “We have to give this the opportunity to flourish first.”