'there is no denying' or there is no denying the fact'

[wc34071209]

Hello,

I need some help.

Which sentence is correct?
If both are correct, which one is frequently used?

1. There is no denying the fact that China has made much progress in the past several decades.

2.There is no denying that China has made much progress in the past several decades.

In my opinion, I prefer the first one.

Thanks in advance.

 

[panjandrum]

Inserting "the fact" adds nothing to the sentence that I can detect.
If you look in the BNC and COCA you will see that "no denying that" is more than ten times as frequent as "no denying the fact that".

BNC - British National Corpus
COCA - Corpus of Contemporary American English

 

[Thomas Tompion]

Also the expression there's no denying the fact... is pleonastic. It's in the nature of facts that they can't be denied.