Journal of Contemporary China

ISSN: 1067-0564 (Print) 1469-9400 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/cjcc20

Institutional Origins of the Media Censorship

in China: The Making of the Socialist Media
Censorship System in 1950s Shanghai

Sei Jeong Chin

To cite this article: Sei Jeong Chin (2018) Institutional Origins of the Media Censorship in China:
The Making of the Socialist Media Censorship System in 1950s Shanghai, Journal of Contemporary
China, 27:114, 956-972, DOI: 10.1080/10670564.2018.1488108

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/10670564.2018.1488108

Published online: 11 Jul 2018.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 258

View Crossmark data

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=cjcc20
JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY CHINA
2018, VOL. 27, NO. 114, 956–972
https://doi.org/10.1080/10670564.2018.1488108

PAST TO THE PRESENT

Institutional Origins of the Media Censorship in China: The

Making of the Socialist Media Censorship System in 1950s
Shanghai
Sei Jeong Chin
Division of International Studies, Ewha Womans University, South Korea

ABSTRACT
This article explores how the Chinese socialist media censorship system
was established and operated without losing legitimacy at the local level
in 1950s Shanghai, and why media workers complied with the censorship
in daily journalistic practice. Under the strong influence of the liberal
model of media in the West that assumes the relations between the
state and media as antagonistic and often reduces state-media relations
to a struggle between the state repression and media compliance/resis-
tance, media or media workers in the PRC are portrayed either as victims of
the strict and repressive media censorship without much agency or as
ready to resist censorship whenever possible. This research demonstrates
that media workers complied with the censorship procedure because they
saw it as a process of legitimization of the news reporting and commen-
taries in the absence of formal institutions for media censorship and heavy
reliance on self-censorship in the People’s Republic of China (PRC).

Introduction
Media censorship in contemporary China is one of the most hotly debated issues in academia and
the global media with the aim of understanding the nature of China’s authoritarianism and political
change. Internet censorship, such as the Great Firewall, keyword filtering, Internet monitors, and
Internet police have gained global attention as the largest such system globally. Ironically, the PRC
government has never established an official censorship organ, and yet has managed to sustain
unprecedentedly strict and effective censorship. More puzzlingly, media censorship in contempor-
ary China is sustained effectively without losing its legitimacy domestically, even when the Chinese
media became much more commercialized through media reform, and censorship in China in the
post-Mao era is highly criticized globally.1 A high level of compliance is evident within the
journalistic field and the general public, although resistance and conflicts are also reported

CONTACT Sei Jeong Chin sjchin@ewha.ac.kr

1
Gary King, Jennifer Pan, and Margaret E. Roberts, ‘How Censorship in China Allows Government Criticism but Silences
Collective Expression,’ American Political Science Review 107(2), (2013), pp. 326–343; Ashley Esarey, ‘Speak No Evil: Mass
Media Control in Contemporary China,’ A Freedom House Special Report 1(11), (2006), pp. 1–11; Ashely Esarey, ‘Cornering the
Market: State Strategies for Controlling China’s Commercial Media,’ Asian Perspective 29(4), (2005), pp. 37–83; Jonathan
Hassid, ‘Controlling the Chinese Media: An Uncertain Business,’ Asian Survey 48(3), (2008), pp. 414–430; Yuezhi Zhao, ‘From
Commercialization to Conglomeration: The Transformation of the Chinese Press within the Orbit of the Party State,’ Journal of
Communication 50(2), (2000), pp. 3–26; Daniela Stockmann, Media Commercialization and Authoritarian Rule in China (New
York: Cambridge University Press, 2012). Daniel Lynch has a slightly different view of emphasizing a state’s eroding control
over communication and thought work without going through liberalization in the context of commercialization, globaliza-
tion, and pluralization. Daniel Lynch, After the Propaganda State: Media, Politics, and ‘Thought Work’ in Reformed China
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999).
© 2018 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
 JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY CHINA 957

occasionally. Scholars of contemporary Chinese media attributed this compliance to market incen-
tives, institutional control, and coercive mechanism.2 Further, Perry Link and Jonathan Hassid
attributed the effective self-censorship to the CCP’s deliberate use of uncertainty as a media
control strategy.3 These insightful studies, however, do not fully explain the institutional origins
of the uncertainty and what the media censorship meant for the media workers within the specific
institutional constraints in daily journalistic practices. Because of the inaccessibility of the party
documents and other materials, most of the studies on media censorship in contemporary China
rely mainly on interviews and both quantitative and qualitative analysis of media contents.4 Thus
understanding the inner workings of the media-censorship system in contemporary China is
challenging. By drawing on previously unassessed archival material, this work looks into the
historical origins of China’s socialist media-censorship system in the initial stage of the 1950s.
This approach proves useful when the Leninist media control structure with the influence of the
CCP’s own revolutionary legacy still constitutes the core of the media system in contemporary
China, despite the important changes in the reform era.5
This article explores how the Chinese socialist media censorship system was established
and operated without losing legitimacy at the local level in 1950s Shanghai, and why media
workers complied with the censorship in daily journalistic practice. Few studies on media in
the Mao era address the issue of media censorship.6 Scholars in China tend to avoid the
study of media censorship in the Mao era, for obvious reasons.7 Because media censorship
during the Mao era is often assumed to have been so effective and repressive that it
silenced dissent almost totally, few studies have asked why and how the censorship was
effective. Further, media workers in the Mao era are often imagined to have become ‘cogs-
screws’ and passive at best without much agency in the nationalized media system. The Cold
War perception of Chinese media censorship as that of the repressive and coercive ‘other’
under a ‘totalitarian regime’ reinforced this tendency. However, recent studies on the CCP’s
media control power,8 and more broadly on state-society relations9 in 1950s China, began to
recognize the limits of the state power and to highlight conflicts, tensions, and resistance at

2
Esarey, ‘Cornering the Market’; Hassid, ‘Controlling the Chinese Media.’
3
Perry Link, ‘The Anaconda in the Chandelier: Chinese Censorship Today,’ The New York Review of Books 49(6), (2002); Jonathan
Hassid and Rachel Stern, ‘Amplifying Silence: Uncertainty and Control Parables in Contemporary China,’ Comparative Political
Studies 45(10), (2012), pp. 1230–1254.
4
King, Pan, and Roberts, ‘How Censorship’; Esarey, ‘Speak No Evil’; Hassid, ‘Controlling the Chinese Media’; Stern and Hassid,
‘Amplifying Silence.’
5
Yuezhi Zhao, ‘Sustaining and Contesting Revolutionary Legacies in Media and Ideology,’ in Sebastian Heilmann and Elizabeth
J. Perry, eds., Mao’s Invisible Hand: The Political Foundations of Adaptive Governance (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia
Center, 2011), pp. 201–236.
6
There are a few important works by Michael Shoenhals and Nicolai Volland, which explore the issue of media control during
the Mao era, yet these works do not make the issue of media censorship the central point of analysis. Schoenhals discusses
the issue of the CCP’s direct control over political discourse by way of centralized management and manipulation of
‘appropriate’ and ‘inappropriate’ formulations, which he perceives as central to the PRC censorship; see Michael Schoenhals,
Doing Things with Words in Chinese Politics: Five Studies (Berkeley: Center for Chinese Studies, IEAS, University of California
Press, 1992), p.3. Nicolai Volland also examines issues of media control in his dissertation, and discusses the issue of
censorship of the post-Mao era; see Nicolai Volland, The Control of the Media in the People’s Republic of China, unpublished
PhD thesis, University of Heidelberg, 2003.
7
Kuisong Yang, ‘Xinzhongguo xinwen baozhi tongzhi jizhi de xingcheng jingguo-yi jianguo qianhou Wang Yunsheng de
“toujiang” yu <dagongbao>gaizao weil’ [‘The Process of Formation of the Newspaper Control Mechanism in New China: The
Surrender of Wang Yunsheng after the Establishment of the PRC and the Case of the Danggongbao’s Reorganization’],”
Zhongguo dangai shi yanjiu [Studies of Contemporary Chinese History], vol. 2, (2011), pp. 49–90; Jishun Zhang, ‘1949 nian
qianhou de zhizhengdang yu Shanghai baojie’ [‘Ruling Party and the Shanghai Newspaper World around 1949‘], Zhonggong
dangshi yanjiu [Studies of Chinese Communist Party History] 11, (2009); Jishun Zhang, ‘Thought Reform and Press
Nationalization in Shanghai: The Wenhui Newspaper in the Early 1950s,” Twentieth-Century China 35(2), (2010), pp. 52–80.
8
Yang, ‘Xinzhongguo xinwen’; Zhang, ‘1949 nian qianhou’; Zhang, ‘Thought Reform”; Sei Jeong Chin, ‘The Historical Origins of
the Nationalization of the Newspaper Industry in Modern China: A Case Study of the Structural Transformation of the
Shanghai Newspaper Industry, 1927–1953,’ China Review 13(2), (2013), pp. 1–34.
9
Jeremy Brown and Paul Pickowicz, Dilemmas of Victory: The Early Years of the People’s Republic of China (Cambridge: Harvard
University Press, 2007); Jeremy Brown and Matthew Johnson, eds., Maoism at the Grassroots: Everyday Life in China’s Era of
High Socialism (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2015).
958 S. J. CHIN

the grassroots level.10 Further, studies on state-society relations in the Mao era began to pay
more attention to the individual motivations behind compliance with and resistance to the
state policies by examining the particular institutional contexts.11 Building upon these
studies, this work also pays attention to the media workers’ motivations to comply with
the media censorship within the particular media-censorship system in 1950s Shanghai, and
ultimately asks how the CCP achieved so much compliance among the media workers,
despite the limits of the state power. Perry Link argued that media workers and the public
in contemporary China complied with the censorship out of fear instigated by the vagueness
of the standards and the arbitrariness of the CCP, and described the Chinese government’s
censorial authority in recent times as a giant anaconda coiled in an overhead chandelier.12
By recognizing self-censorship as a significant control mechanism in addition to coercion and
institutional control, works by Link and Hassid contributed greatly in complicating the
popular mainstream perception of Chinese media censorship as enforced mainly through
outright coercion. Nevertheless, these studies on state-media relations are still under the
strong influence of the framework of civil society and public sphere developed out of the
liberal model of media in the West that assumes the relations between the state and media
as antagonistic and often reduces state-media relations to a struggle between the state
repression and media compliance/resistance. Under the influence of that framework, media
or media workers in the PRC are portrayed either as victims of the strict and repressive
media censorship without much agency or as ready to resist censorship whenever possible.
Close analysis of the media-censorship system in 1950s Shanghai shows that, in the state-
dominated media system, the media-state relation was much more complex than we often
assume.
This article argues that media workers complied with the censorship procedure because they
saw it as a process of legitimization of the news reporting and commentaries in the absence of
formal institutions for media censorship and heavy reliance on self-censorship in the PRC. Whereas
the Nationalist Government, which governed China from 1927 to 1949, and the Soviet Union
enforced formal and bureaucratic censorship, the PRC chose the different path of establishing an
informal censorship system, which was invisible in public. In this system, the CCP relied on the
discretion of the top local party leaders in censorship enforcement and did not officially stipulate
the specific standards of censorship. The only criteria for censorship that were clearly announced
was to accord with the party intention and not to make political mistakes. Under this circumstance,
media workers complied with the censorship procedure because they regarded censorship as an
expedient means to check on the political correctness of the media contents with the party
authority in daily journalistic practice, not always out of fear, although it is not easy to clarify if
this is a survival strategy or wholehearted conformity. Indeed, media workers were subject to the
fear of disciplinary measures and punishments, and the fear probably became an even more
important factor after the shock of the Anti-Rightist Campaign of 1957. However, notably, in the
state-dominated media system, the censorship was not necessarily perceived as something to
evade or resist. The ability to effectively enforce self-censorship by having access to information on
party policies was perceived as an empowerment, and a key to the legitimization of the news
reports and commentaries for the purpose of not risking making political mistakes in the state-
dominated media system.
‘Censorship’ has been a highly contested concept, not only in studies of China, but also in
studies of liberal democratic societies. A new censorship theory, which was developed out of the
skepticism over the idea of ‘free speech’ in liberal societies, went beyond the liberal concept of

10
Elizabeth Perry, ‘Shanghai’s Strike Wave of 1957,’ The China Quarterly 137, (1994), pp. 1–27; Chen Feng, ‘Against the State:
Local Protests in China in the 1950s,’ Modern China 40(5), (2014), pp. 488–518.
11
Huaiyin Li, ‘Worker Performance in State-owned Factories in Maoist China: A Reinterpretation,’ Modern China 42(2), (2015), pp.
1–38; Chen, ‘Against the State’; Zhang, ‘Creating “Masters of the Country”.’
12
Link, ‘The Anaconda in the Chandelier.’
 JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY CHINA 959

censorship as an explicitly coercive process imposed by the state, and paid attention to productive
and constructive forms of ‘structural’ censorship, which is regarded as a ubiquitous and even
necessary part of communication under the strong influence of Foucault and Bourdieu.13 This idea
debunks the myth that the Enlightenment helped the liberal society to abolish censorship.14 Judith
Butler also regards censorship as a productive form of power and as a way of producing speech by
constraining in advance what will and will not become acceptable speech. Bourdieu even argues
that ‘the need for this censorship to manifest itself in the form of explicit prohibitions, imposed and
sanctioned by an institutionalized authority’ diminishes as the ‘structural’ censorship becomes
more effective.15 As Jonathan Abel in his work on censorship in postwar Japan persuasively
pointed out, ‘self-censorship is the goal of all external censorship; to be so thorough that an office
of censorship will not be required’.16 Although new censorship theory grew out of the critique of
the liberal society, it is useful to complicate our understanding of the PRC media censorship.
Schoenhals’ insightful work also paid attention to the productive and structural form of censorship
and examined the CCP’s direct control over political discourse as central to the PRC censorship.17 In
this study, new censorship theory helps to go beyond the dominant perception of the PRC
censorship as simply explicit and coercive, and redirects our focus to the issue of why and how
the CCP established informal, internal, and invisible censorship, which proved to be much more
effective and sustainable in the long run.
Study of the censorship system imposed on Shanghai newspapers is important, because the
Shanghai newspaper industry enjoyed national prominence pre-1949, and the CCP’s control over it
was a crucial task for consolidation of the early PRC regime. Mao’s initiation of the Anti-Rightist
Campaign (1957–1958) by attacking the Wenhuibao, a non-party newspaper published in Shanghai,
proves the influence of the Shanghai newspaper industry in Maoist politics. This study, however,
never meant to imply that the case of Shanghai represents the typical case of initial establishment
of the media censorship system in the early PRC. Upholding the United Front policy, the CCP
allowed the continuing publication of non-party newspapers in Shanghai, which, unlike the party
newspapers, could not be integrated into the party apparatus. In this context, this article will
analyze the CCP’s media censorship system for both party newspapers and non-party newspapers
in Shanghai, because the CCP established different censorship systems for party and non-party
newspapers in the complex political environment of the 1950s. The case of three major news-
papers in Shanghai—Jiefang ribao, Xinwen ribao, and Wenhuibao—will be analyzed by drawing on
the archival materials of the offices of those newspapers and the Shanghai Propaganda
Department, housed in the Shanghai Municipal Archives. These newspapers represent different
styles of management and different degrees of party control over newspapers in the early PRC.

The CCP media policy and the Shanghai newspapers in the 1950s
Unlike the Nationalist Party, the CCP formulated its own coherent media theories to legitimize the
party’s dominance over the media. While advocating ‘particization (danghua 党化)’ of the media,
that is, to put the media under party control, the Nationalist Party did not present this concept
coherently as part of its political ideology, the Three People’s Principle, to the public. Further, the

13
Matthew Bunn, ‘Reimaging repression: New Censorship Theory and After,’ History and Theory, 54, (2015), p. 39.
14
Sue Curry Jansen, Censorship: The Knot That Binds Power and Knowledge (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991),
pp. 3–5.
15
Pierre Boudieu, ‘Censorship and the Imposition of Form,’ Language & Symbolic Power (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1981), pp. 138–139; Matthew Bunn, ‘Reimaging repression,’ p. 41; Sophia Rosenfeld, ‘Writing the History of Censorship
in the Age of Enlightenment,’ in Daniel Gordon, ed., Postmodernism and the Enlightenment: New Perspectives in Eighteenth-
Century French Intellectual History (New York: Routledge, 2000), p. 128.
16
Jonathan Abel, Redacted: The Archives of Censorship in Transwar Japan (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012), p. 16. In
this work on the transwar media censorship in Japan, Abel discusses how the bureaucratic imperial censorship of the prewar
and wartime regime was known, explicit, and direct, whereas that of the postwar occupation was silent, implicit, and indirect.
17
Schoenhals, Doing Things with words, p. 99.
960 S. J. CHIN

concept probably was not well accepted by the privately owned media, which dominated the
national newspaper market in the 1930s. The CCP presented the party principle, or party character
(dangxing), the cardinal concept of the CCP’s media theory, as part of socialist ideology. The party
principle emphasizes the newspapers’ close links with the party’s guiding principles and policies.18
The major task of the newspapers is to propagandize the party’s policies, implement party policies,
and reflect party work.19 Stalin’s claim that a ‘newspaper is our (party’s) sharpest and most
powerful weapon’ was often cited in the CCP’s discussion on the role of the media. Based on the
party principle, the CCP established leading party newspapers at each level of the party organiza-
tions, from the center to the municipal level. The CCP confiscated numerous newspapers that were
categorized as ‘reactionary’. Notably, however, unlike the Soviet Union, the CCP allowed the
continuing publication of a few non-party newspapers that had maintained anti-GMD
(Guomindang) stances before 1949, because the CCP set forth the principles of the New
Democracy and the United Front policy and recognized the need to cater to the newspaper
readers who were still not familiar with the party newspapers.20 Chinese scholars such as Zhang
Jishun and Yang Kuisong emphasized that the CCP genuinely intended to implement a new
democracy and accommodate and cooperate with the non-party media workers in the early Mao
era.21 Nevertheless, the CCP nationalized most of these non-party newspapers in major cities,
gained structural control by late 1952, and weeded out undesirable and potentially threatening
media workers through the Thought Reform in 1952.22 Thus, the CCP had successfully established
the state-dominated media system by the early 1950s.
In Shanghai, the CCP also established the leading party newspaper while supporting the continuing
publication of non-party newspapers. The CCP founded Jiefang ribao as a leading party organ of the
East China Bureau and the Shanghai Party Committee in Shanghai, where the party organ’s influence
was historically less prominent. At the same time, as it is shown in Table 1, the CCP allowed the
publication of newspapers, such as Dagongbao and Wenhuibao, which gained political credentials by
maintaining anti-GMD and anti-Japanese stances before 1949. Xinwen ribao was established under
joint public-private management by taking over Xinwenbao, one of the leading privately owned
newspapers, along with Shenbao before 1949. Non-party newspapers, such as Xinwen ribao and
Wenhuibao, also maintained considerable influence on the Shanghai urban readership. Table 2
shows that Jiefang ribao enjoyed its highest circulation by 1952, but at the same time, Xinwen ribao
and Wenhuibao maintained considerable readership. By late 1952, the CCP completed the nationaliza-
tion of all Shanghai newspapers by transforming Wenhuibao and Dagongbao into joint public and
private management. These non-party papers maintained official independence from the party, at least
superficially. Further, the CCP also laid off more than half of the media workers of non-party news-
papers, which participated in the Thought Reform with the goal of weeding out undesirable staff.23
Through this process, the Shanghai local authority managed to establish state-dominated newspaper
industry.

Table 1. Management type of major Shanghai newspapers after the CCP takeover in 1949.
Newspaper Management type
Jiefang ribao Public management (party organ)
Xinwen ribao Joint public and private management
Wenhuibao Private management
Dagongbao Private management

18
‘To the Readers (Zhi duzhe),’ Jiefang ribao (1 April 1942).
19
Zhongguo shehuikexueyuan xinwenyanjiusuo ed., 1980. Zhongguo gongchandang xinwen gongzuo wenjiu huibian [The
Collection of the CCP News Work Documents], vol. 1 (Beijing: Xinhua chubanshe, 1980), pp. 126–127.
20
Chin, ‘The Historical Origins.’
21
Zhang, ‘Thought Reform’; Yang, ‘Xinzhongguo xinwen.’
22
Zhang, ‘Thought Reform.’
23
Zhang, ‘Thought Reform,’ p. 76.
 JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY CHINA 961

Table 2. Daily circulation of major Shanghai newspapers (21 June 1952).

Daily circulation (n)
Jiefang ribao 145,054
Xinwen ribao 98,799
Wenhuibao 41,375
Dagongbao 46,295
Source: Shanghai shiwei xuanchuanbu [Shanghai Propaganda Department],
‘Zhongyang xuanchuanbu qingshi’ [‘Request for Instruction to the Central
Propaganda Department’] (1 July 1952), in SMA A22-1-47.

Intriguingly, the CCP did not establish an official media-censorship organ in the PRC, and
officially abolished prepublication censorship, which was a different path from the one taken by
the Nationalist Government and the Soviet Union.24 The Nationalist Government (1927–1949), a
party-state dominated by the Nationalist Party, enforced strict prepublication censorship by
establishing news censorship offices in major cities. The Soviet Union also established a formal
censorship agency, known as Glavlit, short for its full title of Chief Administration for Literary
Affairs and Publishing, which was responsible for both prepublication and post-publication
censorship.25 In contrast, the CCP established a post-publication censorship system (shihou
shencha zhidu) for non-party newspapers as a basic media policy as early as 1948,26 and did not
enforce prepublication censorship for non-party papers. The CCP internally enforced prepublica-
tion censorship for the party papers. In other words, it became mandatory for the designated
party cadre of the party committee to review and examine the proofs of its own party organ
before publication as early as 1948.27 However, the prepublication censorship for party news-
papers was established as an internal party affair, so it was invisible in public. Consequently, once
the PRC was established, the vocabulary of ‘censorship’ disappeared from the public realm,
although in the pre-1949 period, censorship by the Nationalist Party was a central issue in political
discourse and rendered the Nationalist Party vulnerable to public criticism about the suppression
of press freedom.
The CCP’s decision to not establish a censorship organ and to abolish prepublication censor-
ship can be attributed to the ideological grounding of the media in the socialist system and the
historical legacy from the pre-1949 period, and ultimately aimed at gaining political legitimacy in
the early years of the regime consolidation. First, ideologically, because the CCP officially upheld
the democratic principles of the New Democracy and the United Front policy, the CCP did not
take outright coercive and repressive measures for media control in order to maintain political
legitimacy in the early years of the regime consolidation. As Elizabeth Perry insightfully pointed
out, ‘the conflation of revolutionary mass participation and Communist Party leadership with
“democracy” was certainly a hallmark of Maoism’.28 Article 49 of the Common Program of the
Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, which was approved on 29 September 1949,
and served as a de facto constitution, stipulates that freedom of reporting truthful news shall be

24
Liang Yuan, ‘Jianli shihou shencha zhidu luekao,’ [‘The Brief Study of the Establishment of the Post Examination System’],
Chuban kexue [Science of Publication] 5, (2005), pp. 6–9.
25
Alex Inkeles, Public Opinion in Soviet Russia: A Study in Mass Persuasion (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press,
1950), pp. 185–193; Lilita Dzirkals, ‘Media Direction and Control in the USSR,’ in Jane Curry and Joan Dassin, eds., Press Control
around the World (New York: Praeger Publishers, 1982), pp. 85–103.
26
‘Zhonggong zhongyang guanyu xin jiefang chengshi zhong zhongwai baokan tongxunshe chuli banfa de jueding [‘The
Central CCP Regarding the Decision on the Measures for Chinese and Foreign Newspapers and News Agencies in the Newly
Liberated Cities’], (8 November 1948), in Zhongguo shehuikexueyuan xinwenyanjiusuo, ed., Zhongguo gongchandang xinwen
gongzuo wenjian huibian [The Collection of the CCP News Work Documents], vol. 1 (Beijing: Xinhua chubanshe, 1980), pp.
189–193.
27
‘Zhonggong zhongyang guanyu xuanchuan gongzuo zhong qingshi yu baogao zhidu de jueding’ [‘The Central CCP regarding
the Decision on the Requesting of the Instruction and Reporting System in the Propaganda Work System’] in Zhongguo
shehuikexueyuan xinwenyanjiusuo, ed., Zhongguo gongchandang xinwen gongzuo wenjian huibian [The Collection of the CCP
News Work Documents], vol. 1 (Beijing: Xinhua chubanshe, 1980), pp. 186–188.
28
Elizabeth J. Perry, ‘The Populist Dream of Chinese Democracy,’ The Journal of Asian Studies 74(4), (2015), pp. 903–915.
962 S. J. CHIN

safeguarded. The CCP insisted on upholding the principle of safeguarding the freedom of the
people’s press and depriving the ‘anti-people’s press’ of press freedom in the measures promul-
gated in 1948 for dealing with the Chinese and foreign press and news agencies in the newly
occupied cities.29 This also meant that the CCP could justify the suppression of the press, once
the press was proved to be ‘anti-people’s press’. In other words, the CCP did not even need to
enforce prepublication censorship for the ‘anti-people’s press’, but could simply shut it down.
Second, establishing an outright censorship organ was not an option for the CCP because of its own
historical legacy. During the Sino-Japanese War and the Civil War periods, the CCP maintained a strong
anti-censorship position against the Nationalist Party, along with other intellectuals. During the Sino-
Japanese War, the Nationalist government indeed implemented a strict censorship system against the
Communist news media, which flourished in Chongqing within the framework of the United Front. The
CCP frequently criticized the Nationalist Party for implementing a ‘fascist’ media policy and imposing
repressive censorship, and demanded press freedom.30 By the end of the Sino-Japanese War, there
emerged a Movement to Refuse Censorship. Xinhua ribao, the CCP party organ, actively participated in
the Movement to Refuse Censorship in 1945.31 In response to the Movement, the Nationalist Party
abolished censorship in October 1945. Thus, the CCP presented a media policy distinct from and as an
alternative to that of the Nationalist Party, at least on the surface. Hu Qiaomu, head of the State General
Administration of the Press, in 1950 claimed that ‘people’s newspapers’ were completely different from
the capitalists’ newspapers during the Nationalist period and those of imperialist countries.32 The CCP
intended to gain legitimacy by distinguishing itself from the Nationalist government, and by refraining
from establishing a formal censorship organ and creating visible institutions for censorship in public,
especially in the early years of regime consolidation.
Alternatively, Nicolai Volland sharply pointed out that the shortage of human resources also
prevented the CCP from establishing prepublication censorship, which required a huge number of
literate, politically reliable, and well-trained party cadres.33 However, considering that only a few
non-party newspapers were allowed to be published in the 1950s, the CCP could have enforced
prepublication censorship if it had intended to.

Creating a censorship system for party newspapers

The CCP established Jiefang ribao as a leading party organ (Jiefang ribao she, 1949a) in Shanghai.
Jiefang ribao was founded on 26 May 1949, as an organ of the CCP East China Bureau (huadongju)
and the Shanghai CCP. Yun Yiqun, who had much experience with the Shanghai newspaper
industry before 1949, was appointed as the President and Editor-in-Chief of Jiefang ribao in
October 1949. Yun Yiqun was an underground CCP member who worked as a journalist for the
Xinsheng News Agency and from 1935 worked as an editor for Libao, a privately owned commer-
cial newspaper published in Shanghai.34 However, the real power lay in the party secretary of the
CCP East China Bureau. According to Wang Wei, who worked at the Propaganda Department of the
CCP East China Bureau from 1952 and Jiefang ribao from 1954, Rao Shushi, the party secretary of
the CCP East China Bureau, himself was responsible for exerting editorial control of Jiefang ribao.

29
‘Zhonggong zhongyang guanyu xin jiefang chengshi,’ pp. 189–193.
30
Xinhua ribao (31 March 1945); Xinhua ribao (1 October 1945).
31
Fang Hanqi, Zhongguo xinwen shiye tongshi [The History of the Chinese News Industry], (Beijing: Zhongguo renmin daxue
chubanshe, 1996), pp. 1038–1052.
32
‘Zhonggong renmin zhengfu xinwen zongshu shuzhang Hu Qiaomu zai quanguo xinwen gongzuo huiyi shang de baogao’
[‘Report of Hu Qiaomu, the head of the State General Administration of the Press of the People’s Government of China in the
National News Work Conference’], in Zhongguo shehuikexueyuan xinwenyanjiusuo, ed., Zhongguo gongchandang xinwen
gongzuo wenjian huibian [The Collection of the CCP News Work Documents], vol. 2 (Beijing: Xinhua chubanshe, 1980), p. 42.
33
Volland, The Control of the Media, p. 230.
34
Wu Chengping ed., Shanghai mingren cidian [Dictionary of the Shanghai Notable] (Shanghai: Shanghai cishu chubanshe,
2001), p. 385.
 JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY CHINA 963

After Rao was relocated into the center in 1952, Tan Zhenlin, who became the party secretary of
the East China Bureau, controlled Jiefang ribao.35
Then, can we simply assume that Jiefang ribao would automatically function as a mouthpiece of
the local party committees and would be under the tight control of the local party committees? For
a newspaper to uphold the party principle, it had to closely follow the party’s guiding principles
and policies, by maintaining close relations with the local party authority.36 This research reveals
that the close relations between the local party authorities and the party newspapers in Shanghai
in the early years of the PRC were not naturally given. Rather, the local party authorities imple-
mented various measures to strengthen these relations and exert its control, that is, first, establish-
ing prepublication censorship as an internal party affair, second, establishing the self-censorship
system, and third, institutionalizing transmission of the party directives as ‘prescriptive censorship’.
In fact, as early as 1948, Mao lamented that the party authorities’ abandonment of the leadership
responsibility over newspapers and news agencies resulted in the wide spread of incorrect views.37
This, however, does not mean that the party organ readily resisted the party directives or orders in
the state-dominated media system. What concerned Mao in 1948 was probably the result of the
shortage of party cadres, who often tended to neglect the media work among all the other more
urgent tasks rather than the newspapers’ resistance against the party. Rather, whereas the party
organ was usually eager to follow the party policies, there still existed potential for conflicts and
tension within the newspaper offices as well as between the newspaper offices and the party
committees at the local level, in addition to the problem of the shortage of party cadres paying
attention to the media work.
First of all, the CCP enforced prepublication censorship for the party newspapers, such as
Jiefang ribao, as an internal party affair, and top leaders at the local party committees, such as
the East China Bureau and the Shanghai Party Committee, were responsible for reviewing and
examining the newspaper proofs before publication. By doing so, the CCP did not have to
officially acknowledge that prepublication censorship existed. Mao Zedong on 3 June 1948,
gave directive (zhishi) to party committees at each level to make sure that party cadres in
party committees with ‘complete understanding of the correct party line and policy’ should
examine the full-page proofs of its own newspaper once before the publication.38
Responding to Mao’s directive, the CCP Central Committee issued a Directive on the
Requesting of the Instruction and Reporting System in the Propaganda Work on 5 June
1948. Full-page proofs of party newspapers had to be sent to a cadre in charge in the
party committee at each level for examination every day before publication. Particularly,
editorials and editor’s commentary and responses to the readers’ questions on the political
and policy-related news could be published only after examination and approval by one or
more cadres in charge in the party committee.39 Notably, the CCP relied on the discretion of
the top local party leaders in the censorship enforcement. As for Jiefang ribao, the party
designated one of the top party leaders who would be able to exert direct control over the
daily work of the editorial department at Jiefang ribao, although the party secretary of the
East China Bureau was supposed to exert direct control over the paper. The East China

35
Wei Wang, ‘Gongzuo shang zhongshi zhengzhishang aihu-Ji jiefangchuqi huadongju lingdao jiefangribao de yi xie qing-
kuang’ [‘Valuing at Work level, Cherishing at Political Level, Remembering the Situation of the East China Bureau’s Leadership
over Jiefang ribao in the Early Liberation Period’], in Jiefang ribao baoshi bangongsh, ed., Jiefang ribao Xinwenribao baoshi
ziliao [Material for Newspaper History of Jiefang ribao and Xinwen ribao] vol. 2, (1993), pp. 1–9.
36
‘To the Readers (Zhi duzhe),’ Jiefang ribao (1 April 1942); ‘Zhongxuanbu wei gaizao dangbao de tongzhi’[‘Central Propaganda
Department’s Circular on Reforming the Party Newspapers’] (16 March 1942), in Zhongguo shehuikexueyuan xinwenyanjiu-
suo, ed., Zhongguo gongchandang xinwen gongzuo wenjian huibian [The Collection of the CCP News Work Documents], vol. 1
(Beijing: Xinhua chubanshe, 1980), pp. 126–127.
37
‘Mao Zedong tongzhi guanyu jiaqiang baozhi tongxunshe lingdao de zhishi’ [‘Comrade Mao Zedong’s Directive on
Strengthening the Leadership over Newspapers and News Agencies’] (3 June 1948), in Zhongguo gongchandang xinwen
gongzuo wenjian huibian [The Collection of the CCP News Work Documents], vol. 1 (Beijing: Xinhua chubanshe, 1980), p. 184.
38
ibid.
39
‘Zhonggong zhongyang guanyu xuanchuan gongzuo zhong qingshi,’ pp. 186–188.
964 S. J. CHIN

Bureau’s decision to strengthen Jiefang ribao’s work in March 1954 suggested that the East
China Bureau should delegate Shu Tong, a member of the Standing Committee and the head
of the Propaganda Department of the East China Bureau, to be responsible for guiding
Jiefang ribao’s daily work of the propaganda report. The Shanghai Party Committee delegated
Peng Baishan, then the Head of the Shanghai Propaganda Department, to be responsible for
guiding reporting concerning Shanghai.40 Further, the East China Bureau established the
Party Newspaper Committee (Dangbao weiyuanhui), which consisted of Shu Tong, Liu Xiao
(the Second Secretary of the Shanghai Party Committee), Wei Wenbo (Secretariat of the East
China Bureau), Xia Yan (Shanghai Propaganda Department head), and Yun Yiqun (President of
Jiefang ribao). The Party Newspaper Committee would hold meetings for discussion whenever
they faced important problems.41
Nevertheless, an editor-in-chief of Jiefang ribao could use discretion to decide which manu-
scripts should be sent to the party committee. A designated party official of the party committee
did not seem to have always examined the full proofs in the daily enforcement of the prepublica-
tion censorship. In 1951, Jiefang ribao established a system of sending manuscripts for examination
(gaojian songshen zhidu), with the aim of ‘guaranteeing appropriate propagation of party policies,
fulfilling the intention of the party committee, and not committing political mistakes’. The editor-
in-chief was responsible for deciding which manuscripts should be sent to the party committee.
When sending manuscripts, the editor-in-chief had to provide his/her opinion and explain the key
points of the issue for purposes of effective censorship (shencha).42 If necessary, the editor-in-chief
could telephone the party committee and ask for instructions.43 The following manuscripts were
sent to the East China Bureau for examination. Manuscripts concerning Shanghai were sent to the
Shanghai Party Committee for examination.
This document did not stipulate the specific standards of censorship, but stipulated what kinds
of manuscripts should be sent to the party committees and be subject to the discretion of the top
party leaders. The only criterion that is specified is whether the news reporting is in accord with the
intention of the party directives.
Further, in particular political circumstances, top managers of Jiefang ribao became sufficiently
bold to publicize criticism of local authorities without sending the proofs for censorship. For
example, during the New Anti-Three Campaign in 1953, which targeted the government and
party officials, Zhang Chunqiao as President of Jiefang ribao, decided to publish criticism of Chen
Shifu, Vice-head of the Department of Civil Affairs of the East China Military and Civil Committee,
without getting approval from the party committee. As no. 10 of Table 3 demonstrates, manu-
scripts ‘containing open criticism of the party committee or party cadres’ are also subject to
prepublication censorship. However, because the Central CCP Committee promoted the attack
against the party and government officials during the New Anti-Three Campaign in 1953, Zhang
Chunqiao might have felt empowered to publish criticism of the local officials without the local
party approval with the endorsement of the central government.
Because he enjoyed the privilege of attending party committee meetings, he probably had a
clear understanding of the policies of the party center. However, in response to this, local party
leaders—such as Chen Yi, Tan Zhenlin, and Shu Tong—invited the editor-in-chief and vice editor-
in-chief, members of the Editorial Committee of Jiefang ribao, to the secretariat of the East China
Bureau and expressed concern over the attempt to bypass the censorship of the party committee

40
Huadong ju [East China Bureau], ‘Zhonggong zhongyang huadongju guanyu jinyibu jiaqiang jiefang ribao gongzuo de
jueding,’ [‘The Central CCP East China Bureau’s Decision on Further Strengthening the Work of Jiefang ribao’] (March 1954),
Shanghai Municipal Archives (SMA, hereafter), A73-1-164.
41
Wang, ‘Gongzuo shang zhongshi zhengzhishang aihu,’ p. 2.
42
Jiefang ribao she. 1951. ‘Jiefang ribao she gaojian songshen zhidu’ (Jiefang ribao’s system of sending manuscript for
examination), SMA, A73-1-47.
43
Zhang Chunqiao, ‘Guanyu zhixing “jieangribao she guanyu jiaqiang baodao shanghai gongzuo de jueding” de qingkuang
baogao’ [‘Report on the Situation in Implementing ‘Jiefang ribao’s Decision on Improving the Reporting of Shanghai Work’],
(28 August 1952), SMA A73-1-92.
 JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY CHINA 965

Table 3. Types of manuscripts required to be sent for examination to the party committees.
1 Editorials, comments on current events, and short comments.
2 Final report of the whole of East China, or a province or city.
3 Typical reports summarizing basic experiences.
4 Reports that raise new issues or have a discrepancy with the original intention of party directives or regulations.
5 Reports with which a lower party committee or department does not agree.
6 Reports related to national defense and military issues.
7 Manuscripts related to diplomatic issues.
8 Speech and reports by comrades of the East China Bureau and Shanghai Party Committee, or other comrades’ speeches
with political or policy characteristics.
9 Manuscripts from the Xinhua News Agency regarding their systematic experience of other regions.
10 Manuscripts containing open criticism of the party committee or party cadres of the same level.
11 Important political calls, or news, reports, and papers with mass and international characteristics that had not yet been
published by the center.
12 Other important writing, news, editorial comments, or letters with political and policy characteristics
Source: Jiefang ribao she, ‘Jiefang ribao she gaojian songshen zhidu’, [Jiefang ribao’s System of Sending Manuscripts for
Examination], (1951), SMA A73-1-47.

and publish criticism without approval.44 This incident demonstrates that there was still some
tension and conflicts between the party committee and the party organ at the local level in the
early years of the PRC. Nevertheless, this incident might be exceptional. In routine daily journalistic
practice, media workers probably checked media contents with an authority to prevent political
mistakes, especially regarding criticism of party officials.
Second, the CCP set self-censorship as the basic principle of media censorship for both party and
non-party newspapers. The CCP emphasized that the newspaper offices themselves should be
responsible for what they published. Hu Qiaomu, then the head of the General Press Administration
(xinwen zongshu), urged the newspaper offices to take responsibility for the contents of the news-
papers and to maintain independence from the party authority. He explained that this did not mean
that the newspaper offices did not have to obey the party authority. The newspaper offices should
obey the orders of the party authority while maintaining independence and taking responsibility for
the contents. Hu emphasized that newspaper offices could not evade accusations of making mistakes
in the newspapers’ contents using the excuse of having sent the proofs to the party authority.45
However, the difference between party newspapers and non-party newspapers was that party news-
papers had better access to information on the party policies and intentions of the party officials than
non-party newspapers did and so could enforce self-censorship more effectively. When the basic
censorship was to enforce self-censorship, having access to the information on party policies and the
intentions of party officials was a great privilege. In this sense, the party newspapers were much more
privileged than the non-party newspapers. Notably, because the CCP established self-censorship as a
basic principle and established prepublication censorship only for party newspapers as an internal
party affair, the censorship procedure became invisible in public after 1949.
Jiefang ribao established a self-censorship system within the newspaper office. Layers of self-
censorship from each section up to the editor-in-chief were enforced to ensure that their content
conformed to party policies and avoided committing political mistakes; ultimately, the editor-in-
chief was responsible for the contents. The heads of each section, such as the Industry and
Transportation Section (gongye jiaotong zu), the Culture and Education Section (wenjiao zu), the
Literature and Art Section (wenyi zu), the Finance and Economics Section (caijing zu), the
International Section (guoji zu), and the Political Section (zhengzhi zu) were responsible for the
first review of the newspaper contents.46 They were supposed to ensure that the news contents of
their section did not make a political mistake and conformed to the principles of Marxism-Leninism

Wang, ‘Gongzuo shang zhongshi zhengzhishang aihu,’ pp. 1–9.

44
45
'Zhongguo renmin zhengfu xinwen zongshu shuzhang Hu Qiaomu zai quanguo xinwen gongzuo huiyi shang de baogao'
['Report of Hu Qiaomu, the head of the General Press Administration of the Chinese People's Government in the National
News Work Conference'] in Zhongguo gongchandang xinwen gongzuo wenjian huibian, vol. 2 (Beijing: Xinhua chubanshe,
1980), pp. 50-51.
966 S. J. CHIN

and Mao Zedong Thought, together with party and government policies. Then, the head of the
Editorial Department (bianjibu zhuren) was responsible for reviewing and examining the accuracy
of the news manuscript. Finally, the editor-in-chief was responsible for reviewing and examining
important news manuscripts based on ‘the intention of the party committee, principles of Marxism-
Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought, and party and government policies’. Further, the editor-in-
chief decided whether a manuscript should be sent to the typesetters or to the party committee for
review, and was supposed to guarantee the absence of political mistakes. Furthermore, the editor-
in-chief was responsible for examining the newspaper proofs.47 In this system, the role of the
editor-in-chief was critical in enforcing self-censorship. Because the local party authority had the
power to appoint and dismiss the editor-in-chief of party newspapers, the editor-in-chief had a
strong institutional incentive to follow the party line and enforce self-censorship.48 More impor-
tantly, it was critical for Editorial Department staff to enforce self-censorship, because they would
be subject to disciplinary measures if they made political mistakes. These disciplinary measures
included criticism, warning, recording demerits, demotion, and dismissal.49
Nevertheless, even in the party newspaper, effective enforcement of self-censorship was not
guaranteed, because of the diverse political backgrounds of the staff of the Editorial Department in
1949. Jiefang ribao’s final report of 1949 complained that many of the Editorial Department staff
were incapable of implementing party policies effectively. According to the report, the Editorial
Department included CCP cadres from CCP-controlled areas and members of the Shanghai under-
ground party. The report complained that the staff from CCP-controlled areas were aware of the
importance of paying attention to party policies, but were unfamiliar with the local situation. In
contrast, staff who formerly were members of the Shanghai underground party were relatively
familiar with the local situation and with the work, but did not have a good grasp of party
principles. The report concluded that the general level of political consciousness was insufficient,
and the staff was unsure of ways to publish a newspaper well in Shanghai’s complex
environment.50
Finally, the CCP took various measures to institutionalize the effective transmission of party
policies to the party newspaper office and to expedite the process of making media workers
correctly understand the party intention in order to strengthen the relations between the party and
the newspapers. At least for the party newspapers, the CCP did not seem to have intentionally used
the uncertainty to make the media personnel anxious and fearful in order to control them. First of
all, the Propaganda Department would send propaganda directives to the newspaper offices
regularly to communicate party policies. Party policies and propaganda directives were transmitted
during meetings of the Editorial Committee (bianji weiyuanhui)51 which consisted mostly of party
members and included Shu Tong, Head of the Propaganda Department of the East China Bureau in
1949.52 Further, in 1952, Jifang ribao decided to draft the ‘Key Point of Propaganda’ based on the
intention of the party committee, and to implement it after receiving approval from the East China

46
Jiefang ribao she, ‘Jiegang ribao she ge bumen fuzeren mingdan’ [‘The Name List of Each Departments’ Leading Cadres at
Jiefang ribao Office], (9 July 1949), SMA A73-1-9.
47
Jiefang ribao she. 1951. ‘Jiefang ribao she gaojian songshen zhidu’ (Jiefang ribao’s system of sending manuscript for
examination), SMA, A73-1-47.
48
Fang Hanqi, Zhongguo xinwen shiye tongshi [The History of the Chinese News Industry], vol. 3 (Beijing: Zhongguo renmin
daxue chubanshe, 1999), pp. 121–122. This is similar to the appointment system in the post-Mao period. (See, Esarey, ‘Speak
No Evil,’ p. 3.)
49
Jiefang ribao she, ‘Jiefang ribao she bianjibu gongzuo renyuan zai bianji yu chuli gaojian zhong de zhize’ [‘Duties of the staff
of the Editorial Department during editing and handling manuscripts at Jiefan ribao office’], (28 November 1951), SMA A73-1-
47.
50
Jiefang ribao she, ‘Jiefang ribao she 1949 nian gongzuo zongjie baogao ji 1950nian gongzuo jihua dagang (cao’an)’ [‘Jiefang
ribao’s Final Work Report of 1949 and Outline of the Work Plan of 1950 (Draft)’], (1949), SMA A73-1-3.
51
Jiefang ribao she, ‘Xinwen bianji ji yanlun gongzuo’ [‘News Editing and Editorial Work’], (1950), SMA A73-1-22.
52
Jiefang ribao she, ‘Bianwei fengong yewu lingdao’ [‘Editorial Committee’s Leadership in Division of Labor in Work’], (1949),
SMA A73-1-9. The editorial Committee was also responsible for guiding various sections of Jiefang ribao. Editorial Committee
members included Yun Yiqun, Wei Keming, Zhang Ang’yu, Liu Shiping, Hu Zhongchi, Ke Lan, Chen Yusun, and Chen Xuzong
as of 9 July 1949.
 JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY CHINA 967

Bureau and the Shanghai Party Committee.53 The East China Bureau’s decision on strengthening
the party’s control over Jiefang ribao in 1954 suggested that the East China Bureau and the
Shanghai Committee would provide timely and concrete instructions regarding the paper’s cover-
age of important issues.54
However, the most important measure taken to transmit party policies to the newspaper offices
was person-to-person contacts between the party committees and the party newspaper office.
Local party authorities were also encouraged to allow newspaper personnel to attend meetings of
the Party Committees to transmit party policies, improve their understanding of party policies, and
guarantee effective self-censorship. The East China Bureau’s decision to strengthen Jiefang ribao’s
work in March 1954 suggested that it allowed the cadres and journalists dispatched by the
newspaper office to participate in party meetings, provide the necessary documents, give instruc-
tions, and be cooperative. The East China Bureau frequently provided propaganda material, news
sources, and comments on improving propaganda reports.55 Zhang Chunqiao, the President and
Editor-in-Chief attended the meetings of the East China Bureau as an observer. Yang Yongzhi, a
vice president, and Wei Keming, as vice-editor-in-chief, attended the meetings of the Shanghai
Party Standing Committee as observers.56 The Shanghai Committee was required to inform the
Editorial Department of Jiefang ribao of urgent measures related to party work.57 After Jiefang ribao
became an organ of only the Shanghai Party Committee in December 1954, the editor-in-chief was
required to work at the Shanghai Committee for half of each day.58
Party newspaper workers were privileged in the sense that they had easier access to information
on party policies because of the presence of party cadres in the workplace and their right to attend
the meetings of party committees. Most senior managers of non-party newspapers did not have
this privilege, and only a few top party leaders had limited access, as is discussed in the following
section. The senior managers of Jiefang ribao were required to formulate an editorial policy that
prevented political mistakes in news contents by having an accurate and clear understanding of
party policies. The local party authority was also supposed to make use of newspapers to imple-
ment party policies by informing them of the party policies. As the party organizations were often
short of personnel and extremely busy with work other than propaganda, party organizations often
did not consider propaganda as a priority. Thus, the CCP encouraged the party organizations to
cooperate with party newspapers by promulgating ‘Publishing Newspapers by the Whole Party
(quandang banbao)’. Ironically, during this process, the party newspapers themselves actively
sought closer relations with the party committee to make the latter responsible for the editorial
policies by including them in formulation of editorial policies and to lessen the possibility of
committing political mistakes. Because an important criterion for reviewing manuscripts was the
‘intention of the party committee’, the editors needed to understand the party policies and the
intention of the party clearly in order to review the manuscripts and effectively enforce self-
censorship. This meant that the successful enforcement of censorship relied on the editors’ ability
to have access to information on the party policies and the intention of the party. In this sense, the
media workers sought to gain improved access to information by participating in the party
committee, an experience that was frequently perceived as empowering.
To conclude, the process of establishing a censorship system for party newspapers was not
always smooth. Although the CCP’s media policies in the 1950s gradually resulted in a high level of
control by the local party over the party newspapers in Shanghai, the party’s institutional control

53
Zhang, ‘Guanyu zhixing ‘jieangribao she.’
54
Huadong ju [East China Bureau], ‘Zhonggong zhongyang huadongju guanyu jinyibu.’
55
ibid.
56
Wang, ‘Gongzuo shang zhongshi zhengzhishang aihu,’ p. 2.
57
Zhang, ‘Guanyu zhixing ‘jieangribao she.’
58
Shanghai shiwei xuanchuanbu [Shanghai Propaganda Department], ‘Zhongguo gongchandang shanghai shiwei yuanhui
guanyu guanche zhixing zhongyang ‘guanyu gaijin baozhi gongzuo de jueyi banhao jiefang ribao de jueding,’ [‘CCP
Shanghai Committee’s Decision on the Successful Publication of Jiefang ribao for the Purpose of Implementing the
Center’s ‘Resolution on Improving Newspaper Work’] (December 1954), SMA A22-1-181.
968 S. J. CHIN

was far from complete. Jiefang ribao also reported ineffective enforcement of censorship, which
caused the paper to make political mistakes in 1949.59

Censorship system for non-party newspapers

In the absence of an official censorship organ, it was challenging for the CCP to establish a
censorship system for non-party newspapers. Because the CCP had officially abolished prepublica-
tion censorship, it could establish only post-publication censorship. The CCP announced the
requirement for post-publication censorship for all newspapers in November 1948. The criteria
for post-publication censorship were prohibition of behaviour violating government decrees,
propaganda against the people’s liberation war, against land reform, and the people’s democratic
system, propaganda against world people’s democratic movements, and leaking of national or
military secrets.60 The standard for post-publication censorship was defined quite broadly and even
vaguely. As direct interference by the CCP in the editorial policy of non-party newspapers was not
legitimate, the CCP enacted various measures to ensure that these non-party newspapers enforced
self-censorship. The CCP appointed non-party intellectuals supportive of the CCP as the editor-in-
chief, exercised editorial control through the party cadres, and appointed the officials responsible
for media control. These individuals had accumulated extensive social contacts in the Shanghai
newspaper industry before 1949. In this section, the author will focus on Xinwen ribao and
Wenhuibao as major non-party newspapers in Shanghai.
First, the CCP appointed non-party intellectuals who were well-disposed towards the CCP
and were willing to cooperate with the party as senior managers of the major privately
managed newspapers in Shanghai. Because the CCP did not have institutions that would
enable control of these privately managed newspapers, it relied on personal networks to
facilitate voluntary cooperation. Jin Zhonghua, Wang Yunsheng, Xu Zhucheng, and Zhao
Chaogou were the four major members of the ‘Intellectuals’ Northern Journey (zhibeiyou)’, in
which the state invited several hundred intellectuals and local dignitaries to Beijing in
1948–1949.61 These intellectuals were perceived as maintaining a friendly and favourable
attitude toward CCP policies and were willing to cooperate with the CCP. Jin Zhonghua
became the President and Editor-in-Chief of Xinwen ribao, and Wang Yunsheng became the
President and Editor-in-Chief of Dagongbao. Xu Zhucheng became the President and Editor-in-
Chief of Wenhuibao, and Zhao Chaogou became the President and Editor-in-Chief of Xinmin
wanbao. Zhang Jishun argued that these people not only possessed political credentials
(honor) but also had actual power and control over the newspapers.62 Even the Shanghai
News Associations’ Leading Party Group (Shanghai xinwen xiehui dangzu), which was estab-
lished in July 1950, mainly in order to consolidate the party’s control over non-party news-
papers, did not interfere directly.63 The party cadres in Xinwen ribao, even by 1955, reported
that Xinwen ribao still tended to break away from party guidance, although they also acknowl-
edged that the Democratic Personnel, or non-party staff in the paper, did not agree with their
opinion.64 Cooperation from these non-party intellectuals was critical in maintaining editorial
control over non-party newspapers. Indeed, these non-party intellectuals as editors-in-chief
were quite supportive of CCP policies and played an important role in implementing self-
censorship. In an interview, Zou Fanyang, a leading party cadre of the party cell (dangzu) in

59
Jiefang ribao she, ‘Jiefang ribao she 1949 nian gongzuo zongjie baogao.’
60
‘Zhonggong zhongyang guanyu xin jiefang chengshi,’ pp. 189–193.
61
Zhang, ‘Thought Reform,’ p. 57.
62
Zhang, ‘1949 nian qianhou de,’ p. 68; Chen Yusun was appointed as the secretary of the SNAPC.
63
Zhang, ‘1949 nian qianhou de,’ p. 72.
64
Zou Fanyang and Xing Xiangchao, ‘Xinwen ribao guanyu guanche zhixing zhongyang di yici quanguo xuanchuan gongzuo
huiyi guanyu gaijin baozhi gongzuo jueyide qingkuang baogao’ [‘Xinwen ribao’s Report on the Situation of Implementing the
Decision on Improving News Work Made by the First National Propaganda Work Conference of the Center’] (17 March 1955),
SMA A22-2-359.
 JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY CHINA 969

Xinwen ribao,65 claimed that, at least in the early years of the PRC, these non-party media
workers complied well with the CCP’s guidance and, in fact, were supportive of the CCP at least
before the Anti-Rightist Campaign and the Great Leap Forward.66 On the one hand, they might
genuinely have been supportive of the CCP in the early years of the PRC. On the other hand,
because their authority derived from the CCP’s approval, not from their control over the papers,
their position might have been vulnerable to control by the CCP. Thus, it is unsurprising that
they were willing to follow party policies and party lines.
Nevertheless, the CCP could not afford to rely solely on non-party intellectuals. Party cadres also
played an important role in implementing self-censorship and transmitting party policies. Zou
Fanyang claimed that the CCP exercised editorial control over non-party newspapers by means of
individual party cadres, not by party organizations.67 Party cadres were appointed as members of
the editorial committee, which played an important role in establishing collective leadership of the
non-party intellectuals and the party cadres.68 After the Thought Reform, party/government
organizations were required to designate one cadre to participate in the Editorial Committee of
non-party newspapers.69 For Xinwen ribao, 3 of 10 editorial committee members were party cadres,
who were responsible for transmitting the party policies and intentions at meetings of the editorial
committees.70 Shanghai News Association’s Leading Party Group (Shanghai xinwen xiehui dangzu),
which consisted of a few of the top staff of non-party newspapers, also played an important role in
transmitting party policies to non-party newspaper offices and to guarantee the newspaper’s
political correctness. In August 1954, a party branch (zhibu) was established in Wenhui bao and
consisted of 13 party cadres.71 In 1955, Xinwen ribao established a Leading Party Group (dangzu),
which consisted of five party cadres, to strengthen the party’s guidance of the paper. These
members were allowed to attend meetings of the Shanghai Propaganda Department and were
allowed to read party documents. In 1955, the Shanghai Propaganda Department was urged to
examine the news proofs of Xinwen ribao before publication.72 Hence non-party newspapers
gradually became subject to prepublication censorship leading up to 1955. Nevertheless, in
principle, the party organizations were not supposed to interfere directly in the newspaper work.
As late as 1954, the Shanghai Propaganda Department reported that it was still not easy to guide
non-party newspapers in the name of the party because those papers were under the control of
democratic personnel.73
Finally, the CCP appointed the party officials in charge of media control, who had much
experience and possessed extensive social contacts in the Shanghai newspaper industry, as under-
ground party members before 1949 to facilitate cooperation by the non-party newspapers and
implement media control more effectively. Party officials’ ability to draw out cooperation from the
non-party newspapers was critical prior to establishment of an institutional mechanism for media

65
Shumei Jia ed., Shanghai xinwenzhi [Shanghai Press Gazetteer] (Shanghai: Shanghai shehuikexue chubanshe, 2000.
66
Author’s interview with Zou Fanyang, Shanghai, 18 July 2011.
67
ibid.
68
The CCP was able to influence the selection of the members of the editorial committees of non-party newspapers. In the case
of Xinwen ribao, the list of members of the Editorial Committee was suggested by the Leading Party Group of the Shanghai
News Association. And after getting agreement from the Shanghai Propaganda Bureau, the Shanghai Culture and Education
Committee appointed the members of the Editorial Committee. Shanghai shiwei xuanchanbu. n.d. ‘xinwen ribao qingkuang
baogao’ [‘Report on Xinwen ribao’s Situation’], SMA A22-2-249.
69
Shanghai shiwei xuanchuanbu [Shanghai Propaganda Department], ‘Guanyu shanghai xinwenjie sixiang gaizao hou jiaqiang
lingdao wenti de tongzhi,’ [‘Circular on Strengthening the Leadership of Xinwen ribao after the Thought Reform of the
Newspaper Circle], 10 January 1953, SMA A22-2-163.
70
Shanghai Propaganda Department (Shanghai shiwei xuanchuanbu). n.d. ‘Xinwen ribao qingkuang baogao.’
71
Jishun Zhang, ‘Cong minban dao dangguan: Shanghai siying baoye de gaizhi yu gairen (1949–1954)’ [‘From Independent
Newspapers to the Party-Controlled Newspapers: The Reform and Personnel Changes of Shanghai Independent Newspaper
Industry’], in Zhang Jishun, Yuanqu de dushi: 1950 niandai de Shanghai [The City of the Past: Shanghai in the 1950s] (Beijing:
Shehui kexue wenxian chubanshe, 2015), pp. 135–188.
72
Shanghai shi weiyuanhui [Shanghai Party Committee], ‘Guanyu gaijin xinwen ribao gongzuo de tongzhi,’ [Circular on
Improving the Work of Xinwen ribao] (5 November 1955), SMA A45-1-2.
73
Zhang, ‘Cong minban dao dangguan,’ p. 175.
970 S. J. CHIN

control. Xia Yan, who was active in Shanghai from the 1930s, was appointed as Head of the
Shanghai Propaganda Department, and Yao Zhen, who was also an active underground party
member in Shanghai during the Civil War period, was appointed as a vice-head of the Shanghai
Propaganda Department. Xia Yan was also a deputy head of the East China Bureau’s Propaganda
Department. Shu Tong, the head of the East China Bureau’s Propaganda Department, might be
rather exceptional in that sense, because he was a military man before 1949. In particular, the role
of Yun Yiqun, the head of the Press and Publication Bureau of the East China Bureau, was
important in terms of drawing out the cooperation of non-party personnel of the non-party
newspapers, because of his rich experience in the Shanghai newspaper circle since the 1930s. As
Zhang Yingwu and Xu Luye recalled, Yun enthusiastically implemented the united-front policy with
the intellectuals toward non-party friends in the Shanghai newspaper world. According to Zhang,
Yun was very good in uniting with Jin Zhonghua, Wang Yunsheng, Xu Zhucheng, Zhao Chaogou,
and Liu Simu. Through the Party Cell of the Shanghai News Association, Yun could communicate
with them. He transmitted the party policy and directives to them and helped them solve problems
in publishing newspapers.74 Chen Yusun, a secretary of the Shanghai News Associations’ Leading
Party Group (Shanghai xinwen xiehui dangzu), also played an important role in controlling the non-
party newspapers,75 in particular because of his extensive contacts in the Shanghai newspaper
world as a CCP underground member before 1949. Chen Yusun as a CCP underground member
began working for Wenhuibao in 1945.76 Chen played an important role as a leading editor of
Wenhuibao . Since then, Chen has maintained close relations with Xu Zhucheng as well as Yan Baoli
as an ‘old friend (lao pengyou)’.77 Appropriating personal networks, Chen successfully implemen-
ted the Thought Reform of the Shanghai newspaper circle and carried out reorganizations of non-
party newspapers, including Wenhuibao.
Thus, at least in the early 1950s, the CCP did not exert direct editorial control over non-party
newspapers, such as Wenhuibao and Xinwen ribao. Rather, the CCP used social networks and party
cadres to ensure compliance by non-party media workers. On the one hand, this demonstrates that
the CCP felt sufficiently confident not to enforce prepublication censorship in the 1950s because of
the successful nationalization of the Shanghai newspapers. On the other hand, however, this shows
that the CCP still strove to hold to the principle of the United Front and the New Democracy to
gain political legitimacy with the media system of the new regime.
In any event, media workers of the non-party newspapers complied with party policies in the
state-dominated media system, in which the party became the dominant source of power, and
thus the workers were required to understand the intention of the party to decide on an editorial
policy. The CCP skillfully appropriated these circumstances by giving the party cadres access to
party documents and by excluding the non-party media workers from the access. Even the top-
level managers of Xinwen ribao and Wenhuibao, who were not party members, did not have direct
access to party documents and thus, in this sense, experienced a disadvantage. Xinwen ribao and
Wenhuibao’s media workers were not allowed to attend meetings of the party organizations and
thus had difficulty in gaining access to the news sources. As late as March 1955, it was reported
that even the party cadres of Xinwen ribao had difficulty understanding the party’s intentions
because the Shanghai Propaganda Department did not provide guidance to the party cadres of
non-party newspapers on a regular basis.78 During the Hundred Flowers Campaign, Xu Zhucheng,
a President of Wenhuibao, also complained about the abuse of power by the party cadres in
Wenhuibao, who enjoyed the privilege of a better understanding of the intention of the party and

74
Zhang Yingwu, and Xu Luye, ‘Yisheng duo kanke changhuai chizixin-Wei Jinian Yun Yiqun tongzhi danchen ba shi zhou nian
er zuo’ [‘Always Having the Mind of the Newborn Baby in the Rough Life: Writing for the Commemoration of the 80th
birthday of Comrade Yun Yiqun’], Xinwen zhanxian [News Front], vol. 3, 1985, pp. 17-18.
75
Zhang, ‘Cong minban dao dangguan,’ p. 175.
76
Guangren Ma, Shanghai xinwenshi [History of the Shanghai Press] (Shanghai: Fudan daxue chubanshe, 1996), p. 1021.
77
Zhang Jishun, Yuanqu de dushi: 1950 niandai de Shanghai, p. 176.
78
Zou and Xing, ‘Xinwen ribao guanyu Guanche.’
 JOURNAL OF CONTEMPORARY CHINA 971

its policy. Xu finally demanded that officials in the Shanghai Party Committee should be in contact
with the non-party newspaper managers of Wenhuibao, and the Propaganda Department should
regularly organize meetings of the party and non-party members of the newspaper. Further, Xu
demanded that these officials should find time to visit newspaper offices to discuss matters and
assist resolution of internal conflicts.79 Xu was purged from his position because of his outspoken
critique of the dominance of the party cadres in the non-party newspapers during the Hundred
Flowers Campaign after going through the Anti-Rightist Campaign. Interestingly, Xu did not
necessarily complain about the party’s strict censorship, but rather about not having access to
party documents; indeed, he demanded closer contacts between the party organizations and non-
party media workers. As Jonathan Hassid pointed out, whoever understands the party intention
more clearly by maintaining closer ties to the media control apparatus becomes the organizational
winner in the party-dominated media system in contemporary China.80 This can also be applied to
the 1950s Shanghai newspaper industry.
Under these circumstances, non-party media workers often felt anxious about figuring out what
was acceptable media coverage and needed to identify the boundary, which seemed to be quite
ambiguous at times. Editors-in-chief of non-party newspapers desperately sought access to infor-
mation on party policy and the intention of the party so as not to cross the boundary set by the
party. According to Zou Fanyang, Jin Zhonghua and Liu Simu, as Editor-in-Chief and Vice Editor-in-
Chief, always listened to the radio and paid attention to domestic and international news dis-
patched by the Xinhua News Agency. When facing important news, Liu would telephone the head
of the Shanghai Propaganda Department and ask for instructions. Yao Zhen, a Vice-Head of the
Propaganda Department, who was responsible for news, frequently received telephone calls from
Liu Simu in the middle of the night. Liu devoted much attention to understanding the spirit of the
higher authority. If Yao Zhen did not speak clearly on the telephone, Yao had to come to the office
to talk in person. Yao Zhen complained, ‘Liu was too tense!!’81 We can infer from this episode that
the media workers perceived censorship as an expedient to confirm the political correctness of the
contents with the party authority to ensure their survival in daily journalistic practice.

Conclusion
This research demonstrates that the media workers of both party and non-party newspapers
actively sought to comply with media censorship as an expedient to confirm the political correct-
ness with the party authority and to avoid making political mistakes in the absence of formal
institutions and the heavy reliance on self-censorship. In other words, in the state-dominated
media system, media workers complied not only because they were afraid of punishment, but
also because they needed party approval for their content and to pass censorship in daily journal-
istic practice. The CCP’s reliance on informal institutions for media censorship and the discretion of
the top party leaders explains why the Chinese state seemed arbitrary and schizophrenic at times,
but also explains why the media censorship still continues to be quite effective because of the
informality and flexibility in adapting to the new media environment in the reform era.
The ways in which the media-censorship system was established in the 1950s have likely had a
lasting impact on the compliance of media workers and the general public in the contemporary
Chinese media system. Since that time, the vocabulary of ‘censorship’ has disappeared from the
public realm. It is unsurprising to hear a Chinese official who is in charge of controlling the Chinese
Internet say that the term ‘content censorship’ is not appropriate to describe the Chinese media
system.82 Nevertheless, the CCP leadership currently faces new challenges with the rise in Internet

Xu Zhucheng, ‘Qiang shi nenggou chediaode’ [‘Wall can be torn down’], Wenhuibao, (19 May 1957).
79

Hassid, ‘Controlling the Chinese Media,’ pp, 414–430.

80

Zou Fanyang, ‘Tong Liu Simu yiqi banbao’ [‘Publishing Newspapers with Liu Simu’], Zhongguo jizhe [Chinese Journalists]
81

(1994), pp. 31–32.

972 S. J. CHIN

use and flourishing of social media. It is a formidable task to maintain political legitimacy for media
control in a fast-changing media environment. When the media theory based on socialist ideology
was no longer appealing to the Chinese public, the President, Xi Jinping invoked the old family ties
between the party and the media by claiming that the media should be surnamed ‘party’. Although
this can be interpreted as an effort to maintain the political legitimacy of media control in the new
media environment, it also indirectly demonstrates the weakness of the institutional mechanisms
for controlling the media, that originated in the early PRC period.

Acknowledgments
This article was inspired by the author’s conversation with Elizabeth Perry, who pointed out the need to better
understand the media censorship of Mao era. She also offered many insightful comments on an earlier draft of this
article. The author would like to express gratitude to Denise Ho, Peter Perdue, Reiko Tsuchiya and anonymous
reviewers, who offered valuable suggestions on this work. The author also benefited greatly from feedback on the
presentations in the Symposium on Japan-China-War and Media at Waseda University, at the University of Hong
Kong’s the University Service Center, and at Yale University’s Council on East Asian Studies.

Notes on contributor
Sei Jeong Chin is an associate professor in the Division of International Studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul,
Korea. She received her B.A. and M.A. from Ewha Womans University, and Ph.D. from Harvard University. Her research
focuses on modern Chinese history, specializing in media history, and political and social history in twentieth century
China. She published articles on Chinese media in Modern China, China Review and etc. She is currently working on a
book manuscript, which explores the historical transformation of the media culture in the rise of the authoritarian
party-state from the Nationalist period (1927–1949) to the early PRC (1949–1958). Her new project explores the
Chinese propaganda during the Korean War (1950–1953) and the Cold War culture in East Asia. She was a visiting
scholar of Harvard Yenching Institute in 2016–2017 and visiting scholar of Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences in
2004–2005.

‘Lu Wei: Zhongguo kaifang hulianwang qiye “neirong shencha” yongci budang,’ [‘Lu Wei: China has Opened the Internet
82

Industry. The Term, “Content Censorship,” is not Appropriate’], Zhongguo wang, 9 December 2015, accessed 27 May 2016,
http://news.china.com.cn/2015-12/09/content_37271504.htm.