THE EARLY CHINESE NEWSPAPERS AND THE CHINESE PUBLIC SPHERE

Author(s): RUDOLF WAGNER

Source: European Journal of East Asian Studies , 2001, Vol. 1, No. 1 (2001), pp. 1-33
Published by: Brill

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 THE EARLY CHINESE NEWSPAPERS AND
THE CHINESE PUBLIC SPHERE*

BY

RUDOLF WAGNER

A Foreign Policy Goal: Developing Civil Society in China?

The European Community and many of its member states

incorporated the goal of promoting the development of 'civil so
in China into their China policy guidelines.1 By this they
supporting more vigorous and independent articulation and or
isation of society in an environment where the Party, and the
under its control, claim a monopoly by right in both fields, and
set up powerful machinery to secure this monopoly. The guid
contain the implicit and certainly not uncontested claim that f
nations have a stake in the development of such articulatio
organisation, and that they consider this to be beneficial to the stab
and predictability of this big country, both domestically and in
international environment. In terms of helping towards indepe
articulation. Some of these nations, such as the UK, France
Germany, have already been taking practical steps for many ye
supporting radio and TV stations broadcasting in Chinese into C
These broadcasts are in no way restricted to news about these fo
countries, but often include news about China that is unavailable
official sources inside China, or opinions by Chinese living in
itself or abroad who do not find an avenue of articulation throu
official media. In their day-to-day practice, these stations function
part of the Chinese public sphere, and are recognised as such b
Chinese authorities, albeit generally as illegitimate imperi
intrusions into the sacred Chinese national space/public sphere
normal times, selected portions of programmes from these fo
stations might be rebroadcast by official stations in China, and, in
of crisis, as in May and June 1989, these stations (and others su
the Voice of America) might be the only ones to provide any d
information about developments on the ground in China. Whe

© Brill, Leiden, 2001 EJEAS 1.1

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 I RUDOLF WAGNER

Chinese authorities run offic

their broadcasts, their reports
country's campuses.
The arrival of the internet has broadened the internationalisation
of the Chinese public sphere. However, the golden age of Chinese
internet access lasted only about three months, from October 1999 to
January 2000. By then, Shanghai alone could boast over a thousand
government censors employed for the single purpose of screening the
few existing China/internet connections for any material that they
might consider to be politically or morally out of bounds. Well in line
with its general attitude towards sovereignty, the Chinese government
has rigorously maintained that the Chinese public sphere is coterminous
with its national space, and that any unscreened material entering the
national territory is contraband or an imperialistic intrusion. While
this attitude shares some features with, say, that of the German courts
when they take action against foreign internet providers such as Yahoo
for carrying information originating in third countries, for example on
the sale of a second-hand copy of Hitler's Mein Kampf, which is illegal
in Germany, China's rigorous and largely successful defence of its
national information space has no real counterpart elsewhere.
One might leave it at that and close the subject with a few remarks
about the sad absence of free speech, a free press and internet access
in China, and the firm expectation that, with the growth of the internet
and the opening of the market that will accompany China's accession
to the WTO, things will 'inevitably' change for the better. Which they
might or again might not.
The worthy goal of promoting Chinese 'civil society', however, is
based less on a specific analysis of the Chinese body politic than on a
general assumption about the necessary and beneficial structure of a
modern society that is extrapolated from that of a few Western states.
This essentialising view goes hand in hand with equally essentialising
views about how 'the Chinese' are, or how 'China' is. As far as China
is concerned, one might argue that the Sinologists have not done
their homework in providing the public, including the officials who
define these foreign policy goals, with studies that they might draw
upon to understand the historical and cultural specificities of the
Chinese case.
Without claiming to be qualified to enlighten the public, or to be a
consultant to any government agency, I would say that there appears
to be a happy and serendipitous convergence between some of the
problems outlined above and some of my own research in the past
decade on the structure and development of the Chinese public sphere,
and especially the early Chinese newspapers.2

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 THE EARLY CHINESE NEWSPAPERS 3

Westerners and the Origin of the Commercial Vernacular Press

The Shenbao newspaper started publication in the In

Settlement in Shanghai in 1872. It is commonly accepte
the most important Chinese-language newspaper, at least
1905, and among the most important until its closure in 194
buildings and plant were taken over by the Jiefang ribao.
The Shenbao was the product of a lengthy development
Chinese society, but in Great Britain and, more generally
Many British newspapers such as the London Times had s
tabloids put out by print shops with the purpose of maki
use of their machines when they were idle. They were
operations, and when the government discovered that t
could have some public impact, it bought their loyalty w
or closed them down with legal charges of libel, blasphemy o
Governments furthermore had their own official, daily m
in the public sphere, in the form of various government
as the London Gazette. When newspaper publishers began
from the 1830s onwards, that there was much more of a
had by publishing news that was gathered independe
government, through reporters and correspondents and e
wire services, they distanced themselves from the governme
up their subsidies and began pushing hard for restricti
government's means of controlling them. This new free
press was accompanied and justified by a dramatic heightenin
to moral status by its practitioners, namely the jour
editorialists, and an equally dramatic enhancement of th
usefulness of a free press for the proper functioning of
and society. By the 1860s the notion that a free press wa
and of itself, and an indispensable accoutrement of social
had become commonplace enough to form the core of th
of the press as given in the great encyclopaedias of the la
The press was the instrument through which society ex
informed supervision of the government.
The Shenbao was published with a small investme
businessmen from the British Isles, and managed by Er
( 1841-1908), a young man in his early thirties who had quick
much-praised fluency in understanding, speaking, reading, a
Chinese and had moved to Shanghai from Ningbo in 187
The Shanghai Settlement was not anybody's colony, bu
settlement. The International Setdement, which united
British and North American sectors, was run by the Municip
whose then unpaid members were elected by the wealthie

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4 RUDOLF WAGNER

the Foreign Ratepayers' Associati

on the amount of real estate owne
Model Settlement because of the p
many different nations, races, cul
or Parsee, Cantonese or Scottish, B
Settlement was fiercely proud of
and stressed its independence from b
consulates to the point where, for
idea of setting itself up as a kind o
opposition of certain British diplo
While Major made sure at the outse
accept a Chinese newspaper pub
nationally in China as a 'fair com
treaties, he turned to the consulate
one of his local distributors failed
hand was constantly irritated at his
in China, the unceremonious tid
turmoil that some Shenbao articles
in Shanghai and nationwide.6 Apar
to advise Chinese officials to sue M
and abrupdy refusing to grant him
his inland distributors, as could ha
the British Consulate had as little
Shenbao in one way or another as
leeway that the Shenbao enjoyed i
International Setdement in Shanghai
by British papers in London itself. T
press bore its finest results in this f
Major was not the only Briton to
called the 'vernacular' press. Decade
William Churchill had set up the
language he did not speak or read), t
In 1872, the Scotsman J. R. Black,
Japanese, pionee-red the Nisshin shin
worthy of the name.9 In India, es
had already been started a hun
Englishman, and by the 1860s and
journalists, had gained a very subst
When the different conditions a
shows a marked singularity even w
Ottoman Empire, Churchill's ne
Tokyo, the Japanese government
any other newspaper from b

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 THE EARLY CHINESE NEWSPAPERS D

mouthpiece. It found broad support for t

Japanese imitators and then competitors
embassy where Ambassador Parkes issu
British subjects from publishing vernacular
successive viceroys wavered between a poli
vernacular papers, whose contents would
interpreters at frequent intervals in orde
declaring an outright ban on such papers, as
Press Act in March 1878, and encouraging fr
came with the repeal of the Vernacular P
Although the Chinese government was w
by the Japanese government against
Vernacular Press Act in India that the ch
support for a ban on the Shenbao were good
in this direction. The Shenbao had acquire
reliable and independent source of inform
the Beijing court to keep tabs on its local
essential part of Chinese public commun
the reputation of being independent and
the other available sources.
No state entity, in other words, had any real regulatory impact on
the Shenbao in Shanghai. Major's commercial orientation prompted him
to gear the paper to Chinese audiences. This, in Major's own words,
effectively forestalled the advocacy of foreign interests. The agenda of
'betterment' and 'improvement' that he inherited, like many British
merchants, from Scottish enlightenment ideas prompted him to adopt
an editorial policy geared to promoting measures that would, in his
opinion, improve the long-term prospects for China's growth and
development.12 This in turn earned the paper respect and influence
among the reform-minded sections of the elite. The constraints on the
paper thus came from the market, and from the core political beliefs
of the editors.
The China in which this newspaper made its appearance was
characterised by a public sphere over which the Qing court had
managed to establish a firm hegemony that left little room for
independent articulation on core issues, room that was in any case not
much used. Apart from some at times highly specialised and valuable
studies on individual periods, papers or problems, the field of research
on the pre-modern public sphere, which began in 1936 with Lin
Yutang's bold overview, History of the Press and Public Opinion in China,
has attracted few scholars.13 Even fewer can claim competence in tackling
the broad range of sources and methods needed for an investigation of
such an elusive topic, ranging as these sources do from collections of

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 b RUDOLF WAGNER

popular ditties to governmen

officials to records of studen
announcements to historical fa
public ritual to architecture a
To foster debate, I shall try —
turn because my research in th
some of the structures and his
sphere. What is presented he
argument must be read as
suggestion of a possibility.
One may argue that the grow
accompanied by an increasin
articulation, and even to cut of
relevant information. The beg
early Shenbao editorial, which
It sees the process as having
Academy in the middle of th
had not risen through the ra
personally and not to the bu
military secrets which they we
to, any other official. This in
the subsequent dynasties. Th
dynasty gready enlarged the
who succeeded them direcdy
publication of a government
emperor's ritual activity, appoi
of approved memorials was o
and restricted vertical top-do
society, and a total ban on ho
On a more general level, ef
diversity through the canonisa
of the classics. As examinatio
create a unified and homogen
the Ming and Qing continued
Zhu Xi's Neoconfucianism as official examination doctrine. While there
certainly was no linear development, studies by Silas Wu, Beatrice
Bartlett and others have shown that the Qing secret memorial system
in effect locked most of the regular and Han-Chinese officials out of
information and the levers of power, and left the general public largely
in the dark as to the actual process and contents of policy formulation
at the centre.16
At the same time, the ideal of an easy flow of information and
opinion between high and low remained enshrined in the Chinese

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 THE EARLY CHINESE NEWSPAPERS 7

political imaginaire and could be called upon to explain

role of the newspaper. The Shenbao again was not loath t
resource. Sage rule is characterised by an open 'path
through which open and often critical talk may reach th
of the administration. A closedyanlu prevents the ruler
his own weaknesses and mistakes and from understan
situation in the country.17 Institutionally, this idea
justify the establishment of the censorate as an offic
in investigating abuses of power and deviations from rit
often with the help of information provided by com
also served to lend support to the idea that anyone pr
the classics should be entitled to have opinions on im
matters, and express them. While these opinions mostly
of the memorial and remained technically internal to of
they were published in collected works or selections of m
often quickly reached broad elite audiences on a nat
official and private histories furthermore contain s
instances of the articulation of political opinion com
margins or from outside official channels. The voice
the pre-modern public sphere would be introduce
statement by means of expressions such as 'those hav
said', lunzheyue, or 'those involved in policy debates s
Not always, but as a rule, the opinions and judgmen
out to be justified and true. In a very large number
articulations are said to have prompted or forced the hig
to react. The emperor would call his top officials and dis
in many cases a decision already taken would be rever
suggested by these anonymous collective statements w
The availability of databases such as the twenty-five d
makes such research possible without whole lifetimes hav
in collecting data. The communications that come from
voices tend to imply often very detailed inside know
argue about personnel and policy decisions, and even mili
They are not in the same league as the sub-rational m
people as expressed in their songs and ditties.19
The numbers of reported public interventions in th
vary dramatically between different dynasties, with
marking a very low ebb. To make such comments in
possible, some record of them must have been kept i
the previous dynasty. Occasionally, and for shor
revolutionary governments such as those of Wang M
and Wang Anshi, institutions were developed to enable
and collection of information on 'public opinion' rangi

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 8 RUDOLF WAGNER

songs to information about gover

by officials. There is, however, to
tion that calibrated the collective
the historians went about construc
to be studied. That construction and intention is involved in these
statements is evident from the fact that these collective voices tend to
be correct in their assessment when they are being quoted. They are
thus inserted into a plot line in which they appear as a rule when they
are right, and this plot line lives off the legitimacy of this type of
articulation enshrined in the imaginaire.
In the Chinese political imaginaire, legitimate rule was seen as rule
not by popular vote but by popular consent. Throughout the ages, this
basic understanding provided legitimacy for the public articulation of
opinion at different levels. Needless to say, the political centres of power
developed their own strategies to deal with this legitimacy problem.
These strategies ranged from the denunciation of critics as people
lacking public-mindedness and only trying to push their own personal
agenda to the engineering of manifestations of popular support and
the claim that manifestations of popular support for people fallen out
of favour were but concoctions.20 Still, these were only ways of skirting
the rather strict requirements within the imaginaire for those claiming
legitimacy of rule. Their efforts contained the admission of the ongoing
validity of this structure.
A third group of players in the pre-modern Chinese public sphere
consisted of the private academies and associations of men of letters.
While, in theory, they were supposed to prepare their students for the
examinations with their canonical reading, they were institutionally
independent enough to be able to develop their own ideological line
and even to have an impact on the criteria for the examinations. Their
claim to legitimacy was based on their familiarity with the legacies of
the sages of old. The networks of their members and graduates were
national in scope, and extended both into the administration and into
society at large. In situations of crisis such as during the late Ming,
some of these academies could become important foci of the public
sphere. In the early Qing reading, it was the multivocality and indepen
dence of these academies that had brought the Ming down; as a
consequence such institutions were banned.
The steps taken by the Qing court to assert hegemony over the public
sphere were for the greater part designed to gain the voluntary
adherence of the Confucian elite and fill the public sphere with
government-approved material, from the moral maxims contained in
the Shengyu (Sacred edict) to the gigantic official editions of classical
works, and only to a much smaller degree to establish rigorous

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 THE EARLY CHINESE NEWSPAPERS 9

censorship. The latter remained primarily reserved f

related to Manchu-Han relations. During the late eigh
under the aging Qianlong Emperor, harsh measures w
to discipline and punish those who spoke out. Howeve
with, for example, France during the same period sh
that Chinese men of letters and officials enjoyed, in the
fact, even during these dark decades. The kaozheng st
so much to undermine the credibility of the inheri
classics and their reading, did not have to be pub
Vietnam or Russia and then be surreptitiously smug
China.21 They were published and circulated in China
One might argue, though, that Han Chinese men o
lithe use of this latitude. Well before the Opium War
civil war, a man like Sun Dingchen (1819-59) was to
much-maligned late Ming academies as the greatest
that dynasty and would wonder aloud about how
happened that Chinese men of letters had lost the wi
solidarity needed to maintain the institution of public re
It would seem that, in the eyes of the court, such m
threat as long as they were not linked to action a
propaganda. The difference is directly visible once t
war is taken into consideration. The Taiping went stra
of Qing censorship when they publicly proclaimed th
as a race, were of the devil; and they saw the Confu
weaklings siding with these devils. They relied heav
propaganda. In this they followed the example o
evangelical missionaries as well as the Chinese court
While this civil war was fought on the battlefield, it was
war to be won and lost in a globalised public sphere with
and international press playing a significant part in
known worldwide and discussing the merits of bo
discussions had a decisive influence on the position taken
governments and on their willingness to side with either
Both sides were keenly aware of these domestic an
factors. They proceeded with precipitation and determ
out what they saw as the propaganda apparatus of the ot
the country. The result was a large-scale cultural destruc
many Jiangnan academies and their libraries burning
curious fact that although the Taiping documents were p
numbers in China at the time, they survive today, w
exceptions, only in copies brought out by missionar
libraries outside China. Both the Qing court and the T
sustained public as well as diplomatic efforts to gain e

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 10 RUDOLF WAGNER

tolerance on the part of the West

opinion. Finally, while actively trying
sphere even in areas controlled by
radical vision of the need for a com
which the other side would have no
us an early precursor of the twentie
propaganda press with its keen awar
most effective arena in which to make
foretaste of the ruthless elimination
sure, on the very same keen awareness
What remained by way of public ar
the. Jingbao as well as organs aimed at
and orthodoxy. While the Jingbao
certainly contained elements of inte
these had to be extracted against the
and cannot deflect our gaze from th
Jingbao to actual policy-making at t
that of the Renmin ribao to the actual
The Jingbao projected a normalcy of
that concealed an excessively secreti
Jingbao is the collective name for a w
reprints of the crudest technical
government-approved public communi
of the liubu, six boards, in Beijing. I
officials with a self-appreciation based
sophistication should have tolerated
that this reproduction should be co
commentary were to be attached. Thes
as a newspaper. They reveal the vast
country and the court, as well as th
issues at stake in China's modernisation and the court's concerns.
However, while frustration about this gap was poured out in private
letters and indirect comments, no media were developed that would
have allowed for a continuous public discussion of national concerns
and the dissemination of relevant information.
The pre-modern Chinese public sphere was thus by and large
peopled by officials or by men who had the educational preconditions
to become officials. As this class of people circulated nationally, the
public sphere was national in dimension. The loudest and most
continuous voice in this public sphere, however, was that of the court.
As the public perception of the legitimacy of the dynasty hinged on its
capacity to unify the thinking of the land, much effort went into the
public performance and regular display of this unity. While the court

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 THE EARLY CHINESE NEWSPAPERS 1 1

allowed its officials to submit proposals for national policie

became public only with the Emperor's approval and when
posted by the Board of Rites.
With the arrival of the newspaper in Shanghai, this voi
court was not silenced. It continued its daily rattle for ano
years. The Shenbao made good on its promise to estab
unications between high and low by publishing the Jingbao da
full. It took a long while for the court to discover the new me
itself and adjust to the new technology. Eventually both th
regional officials did adjust. They continued the Jingbao t
the form of the guanbao, or official gazettes which then b
preferred medium of the governments of the Republican
the true ancestor of the PRC press.
Since Han Wudi's time, the court had always maint
principle of its hegemony over the articulation of public is
it never managed to really assert this hegemony even amo
bureaucrats, and in fact rarely tried to do so by force. In t
philosophy shared by the elite who manned the official pos
emperor as the emblem of the centre remained the most
source of social order and of the spiritual unity that was believ
its basis. The efforts were thus concentrated on making th
live up to this high purpose, not on establishing a system of c
balances that could survive even an inept or cruel emperor
The critics of the Qing and the Republic eventually took
path. The hybrid paper simultaneously claiming the legit
reform and of the voice of the court was first developed
Qichao when he managed to have his Shiwubao transformed
months into a Qing government gazette. After the failur
Hundred Days Reform in 1898, he changed audience and a
'the people' instead of officials. The Chinese Communists m
fully continued on this path of an advocacy press. After
radical merger of the advocacy press and the government gaze
transformed all the media of the country into a unified an
controlled set of instruments of advocacy and propaganda.
To this very day, a multivocal press has been seen in Ch
indicator of weak government. Whenever a government has es
firm central control, it has immediately tried to impo
hegemony over all aspects of the public sphere. The first su
was made by Yuan Shikai, the second by the KMT after 192
third and most successful one by the Chinese Communist P
1949. True, Chinese-language newspapers from the very b
soon found an eager and interested readership. However,
broad and sustained opposition to state control among bot

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 12 RUDOLF WAGNER

and newspaper professionals indicates

popular support for the role of the state
its own follies of freedom. One is led to ask whether the dissidents and
protesters against state control in the public sphere would subscribe to
Jefferson's famous statement that he heartily rejected his opponent's
views but would risk his own life to defend the latter's right to express
them in public.
What then is the narrative logic into which we are to insert the
Shenbao? Are we to say that the Shenbao paved the way for a broader and
more independent articulation of public views decades before this
concept took root among reformers like Liang Qichao? Are we to say
that the rigid reduction of all media to government and party
propaganda in the PRC and, for much of its history, in Taiwan has
been but a temporary lapse, a return to a 'feudal tradition' that will
eventually give way to a free press of the kind that we now see in Taiwan?
Are we to direct our studies accordingly towards this presumed
mainstream of an independent press or towards the huge volume of
Beijing gazettes,jingbao, official gazettes, guanbao, and CCP and KMT
Party papers and their impact? Should we then consider the indepen
dent press as being composed of irregularities and counter-currents in
this mainstream?
Needless to say, studies on the pre-1949 Chinese press, my own
included, have consistendy focused on the independent press, and this
is true even for PRC scholarship, which might have been more alert to
the overwhelming continuity of the state and party press. In the studies
on the development of the European press in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries we find the same overwhelming attention to the
articulations and associations of society be they in the form of salons,
clubs, or associations, newspapers or history books, movements or
revolutions. But, apart from Chartier's Les Origines Culturelles de la
Revolution Française, little work is known on the state as an important,
even extremely important, actor in the public sphere reacting to
challenges with its own papers, histories, and associations.25 I could be
underestimating the long drift towards a public sphere, where conflicts
between state and society as well as within society might take an
essentially non-violent form. However, in my mind there is no question
that, in the cultural construction of the public sphere in East Asia,
there has hitherto been a broad consensus to the effect that the state
centre has the duty and the right to strive always to impose homogeneity
of thought, information, and purpose with whatever means that the
modern world might put at its disposal. Could it be that the 'main
current', zhuliu, of the modern Chinese press is the government/party
gazette? And would one have to say that China — with the possible

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 THE EARLY CHINESE NEWSPAPERS 13

exception of Taiwan after 1988 — has not developed th

mental and institutional structures that would supply the
for the kind of independent and free press that initially
outside central control in the Shanghai exclave?
To put it bluntly, the state is a key player in the public sph
not just operate via negationis through censorship, but engages
advocacy of its views and interests. And this is far more the c
claim broader acceptance among both elite and populace in
pre-modern and modern, than in most West European coun

The International Nature of the Modern Chinese Public Spher

While it may be assumed that the public articulation, in

came from people residing in larger agglomerations
governmentyamen and to which wealthier land owners ha
increasing numbers, and that a fair share of it came from
Beijing, the pre-modern Chinese public sphere was no
character and had no urban foci. This is true even for Qin
Beijing which was quite devoid of any urban identity and s
Europe, the foci of both the pre-modern and the modern publ
were in urban centres. They provided the critical mass of
people, dependent on and actively involved in societal and g
affairs, who created the multi-interest and multi-vocal enviro
with it, the financial conditions for the development of t
media with their overwhelmingly urban focus. These cities
an often patriotic identification, commitment and pride f
citizens which, in many cases, was legally buttressed by th
they were city states, or enjoyed a particular legal autonomy t
as a protective wand for public articulation.
In the modern Chinese case, the urban character of the publ
was radicalised to the extreme. On the mud flats outside the small
district town of Shanghai the Foreign Settlement grew within barely
two decades into not just one among various Chinese urban centres,
but altogether the only modern urban centre on Chinese soil. Obviously,
Shanghai benefited economically from its unique geographical position
which not only made it the transhipment hub linking north and south
with China's richest region, Jiangnan, but also connected these three
regions to the international shipping routes. But there had been many
wealthy towns in Chinese history and none of them could lay claim to
anything even approaching the status of a special and largely
autonomous legal entity. The fact that the International Settlement
was basically shielded not only against the Qing court but also against

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14 RUDOLF WAGNER

direct interference by the foreign c

the very air of the city 'made its inha
the mediaeval German saying 'Stadt
financial wealth, the magic wand
intellectual potential of China's best
press and publishing business was abl
for all practical purposes, the mode
coterminous with this city for the n
far its most important focus until 1
exclave nature, its wealth, and the a
official, tourist, and new intellectu
Chinese media capital.25
If we borrow the modern image of
found in many developing countries w
coexistence and interaction between
controlled by foreigners and a traditio
elites, then we may speak of a dual
1870s onwards. Its traditional sector
elite having its core at the court, the
private [in the form of letters] and/
its structure was vertical. Its moder
crowd made up of foreign businessmen
new class of Chinese urbanités, the
the new sectors. Its communications
distributed books and, later, radio and
by virtue of its distribution throug
was shielded against the unifying pr
the traditional sector by the status
status, however, also secured goo
unimpeded access to the inland mark
sphere products circulated throughou
Chinese court and other areas in
Thriving on the high status of mod
with goods coming in through Shan
media became the pacemakers and
within China proper without nece
environment that would have allowe
consequence was that the modern sec
to be dependent on Shanghai's partic
ended with the 'liberation' of Sha
Beijing as the media capital with th
the supreme supervising agency tha
and exercised censorship over them.

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 THE EARLY CHINESE NEWSPAPERS 15

media capitals amounted to the merger of public arti

public sphere with government/party propaganda and
the time being, the end of the function of the Chinese
organs of societal articulation.
In short with the Shenbao we have one of the world's mos
papers beginning to operate in a unique and foreign-co
exclave within a public sphere that that elsewhere in Chin
most rigidly circumscribed. As a commercial venture, t
free of the purpose, burden and opprobrium attached t
advocacy papers, but it also lacked the subsidies that
papers to continue publishing even without sufficient m
The Shenbao depended for its success on being accepte
Chinese from many diverse fields who would write for it,
and be willing to defend it even if it came to blows.
with its heavy dependence on the Chinese market, exclu
Chinese language and many Chinese journalists and co
the Shenbao was, as a newspaper, a foreign medium, an
foreign-owned firm until 1905.
We thus have to accept that the modern Chinese pub
and has an important international component that is beyo
of the Chinese centre as well as that of foreign governmen
1949, was largely identical with Shanghai. (The status o
Settlements was done away with in 1943 not through Chin
through the 'anti-imperialist' action of the Japanese gover
was accepted by the foreign governments. The extreme
of media and media professionals in the city, however,
more years for the city as a key centre of the Chinese pub
This important and, at times crucial, international d
the Chinese public sphere was not an exceptional feat
during the last decades of the Qing but a general o
continued in the presence, in China, of many of the m
Chinese and foreign-language papers that were tech
foreign management between the founding of the Re
end of Shanghai extraterritoriality in 1943; and we fin
to this day when, for example, in May or June 1989 th
someone in Nanjing to find out what the situation wa
Chengdu, or Beijing, was to listen to the BBC or Voic
broadcasts. The Chinese government said as much when
hectic days, it would time and again use public loudsp
rumours spread by 'some people'. The loudspeakers gav
these 'people', but anyone with a short-wave radio knew
BBC and the Voice of America. In this act of reje
broadcasting stations outside sovereign Chinese space

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16 RUDOLF WAGNER

recognised as part of the Chinese pub

and highly imperialist part of it.
The literature about the structure a
sphere in Europe, since Jürgen Haber
assumed that the public sphere of a c
national borders. Darnton has gone
Neufchatel printers and publishers o
century and shown in a detailed and
all of the works considered to be
precursors of the French Revolut
encyclopédie to the pornographic Confes
printed and published not in France,
or in Leiden.28 While he never explic
country and its public sphere are cote
best possible evidence for this view. In
is directly supported by large masses
roles and fate of controversial figur
the beginnings of printing to the pres
to Kundera, from the BBC's broadc
Free Europe.
The Chinese example is of a much m
only highlights what in fact is a commo
public sphere. But the nation-state o
modern Chinese scholarship has for t
importance of the Shanghai Intern
Shenbao, because they were not effec
Qing court and therefore were not seen
Some even went through the painful exe
and vapid papers put out under the a
Intendant (Shanghai Daotai) in the m
the Shenbao's growing market and thu
examples of patriotic righteousness ag
the Shenbao.'29 Once these blinkers a
clear that the existence of the Shenbao
the modern development of the publi
transnational and even international
the satellite dish and the internet. It is a
China even if the role of the Shenbao
because, for the first two decades of its
left — it in fact was the only Chinese
circulation and audience outside the go
which, since it was fully incorporated in
read as part of the information provid

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 THE EARLY CHINESE NEWSPAPERS 1 7

The mechanism that unfolded with this free newspaper

in an excessively restrictive state — which could furthermore
the basic acceptance of these restrictions by the lettered class
counter to all notions of a linear 'China-centred' developm
modern Chinese public sphere.
In short, there is a strong strain of enlightenment ideal
Habermasian notion that the educated public learns to
rational public debate. This idealism is already threa
experiences such as those of the Nazi German press or, o
plane, the hysteria of the modern media. The theoretical
however, coming from the East Asian and especially t
experience is of a different kind. The state in both its pre-mo
modern forms here enters the public sphere not as just on
player among others, but as the legitimate player par exce
needless to say, changes the entire dynamics of the publ
concept. It challenges us to enter the fray of theoretical di
just as petty Sinological provincials lapping up the dispensa
scholars dealing with the 'centre' but as critical participants in
whose core concepts are, more often than not, genera
ideosyncratically regional data and, indeed, even lack the
having been strengthened through comparison.

The Functions of the Shanghai Exclave in the Modern Chinese Pub

The exclave character of Shanghai was a necessary condit

viability, but not a sufficient condition for its success. This su
only come from acceptance by the targeted Chinese reader
was highly aware of the need to establish the cultural comp
his newspaper in China. I shall not dwell upon the sophis
diverse strategies he used to secure acceptance. These strate
from the paper's format to its interaction with the read
insertion into a publishing empire that took it upon itself
best of Chinese literary tradition widely available through
set and lithographed editions at moderate prices.
Since the Shenbao was British-owned, it easily came unde
of surreptitiously trying to promote British interests in
very substantial number of editorials right from its inception,
spoke about itself, newspapers in general and their possible
Chinese public sphere. The actual contents of the news and
alone were not enough to dispel this general suspicion, whic
had credence, would have been devastating for the paper's
The paper countered this suspicion at a most critical tim

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 18 RUDOLF WAGNER

when there was the threat of another war between China and Great
Britain. A number of high officials felt that China was now strong
enough to win such a war. The paper came out against hostilities. Its
stand could not but provoke questions about its loyalties. While these
criticisms cannot be documented from the surviving written records,
the paper reacted to them in an editorial which opened with the amazing
sentence, 'This paper has been established to make a profit'.30 This
sentence must be read against the silent countertext which read that
the paper was not a subsidised missionary or advocacy paper, but was
dependent on acceptance by its Chinese readers. Evidently, a paper
advocating British interests would not have been commercially
successful among Chinese readers. The editorial did not stop here. A
newspaper, it continued, sold best in times of war and conflict; the
commercial interest of the paper would thus favour fanning war and
conflict. But as the paper was convinced that China would lose a war
with Great Britain and would be ultimately forced to pay huge
compensations, and that these in turn would weaken the Chinese state,
impoverish its population and slow down its modernisation, it was
advocating negotiation and peace. It was doing so even though its
attitude would certainly not increase sales and might even nourish
suspicions about its motives. This dedication of the paper to what Major
saw as China's enlightened interests in turn gave it the leeway and
even the duty to openly criticise policies of the court and actions by
local officials that ran counter to this goal.
In short, the paper setded in a well-defined niche in the Chinese
political imaginaire, that of loyal remonstrance. In its many editorials
about the purpose and functions of a newspaper, the earliest and,
together with Wang Tao's editorials in the Xunhuan ribao in Hongkong,
easily the most sophisticated theoretical reflections on the place of
newspapers in Chinese political culture, the Shenbao boldly inserted its
own agenda into the Chinese imaginaire.
The core pieces of this imaginaire in Chinese classical education,
familiar to the lettered classes, contain a surprising number of
statements and narratives about the functioning of an ideally ordered
society. Such a society, typified by the reign of the mythical emperors
of old, is characterised by the unimpeded flow of communication
between high and low, shang xia tong. This flow ensured that the people
were informed about the grand plans of the emperor and his court
and were thus able to reach beyond what might otherwise be purely
personal or local considerations; and it ensured that the court was
informed about the life circumstances, grievances and apprehensions
of the people, and was thus able to adjust state policies accordingly.

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 THE EARLY CHINESE NEWSPAPERS 19

The Shenbao essays on newspapers contain a wealth of

from the imaginaire of the Chinese polity which show t
with which these sage emperors went about collecting inf
as well as opinions and criticisms from, the people — th
being on encouraging 'those below' to speak out orally or
anonymously or in person. In this world, closing the pat
and criticism, was a sure sign of a ruthlessly despotic rul
wise ruler would be eager to get advice, information and blu
Time and again editorials listed the pre-modern public m
this flow of communications, whether these were the b
wooden tablets for complaints set up on the road side, or
banners of praise, under which one could make publ
recommending qualified persons for official positions. Newsp
but a modern and more easily distributed form of thes
institutions. One editorial nicely suggested that the sages
had understood the ideals of the Chinese sages and
newspapers. In their essence, newspapers were a Chinese
This appeal to the idealised imaginaire shared by the let
was designed to prove the compatibility of this Western m
the teaching of the Chinese sages.
We see the same intellectual process at work in th
ambassador Guo Songtao in London, an avid reader
Chinese papers from Shanghai and the London Press. Po
question of whether newspapers had a place in China
precedent in an obscure and high-brow passage of the £h
Zhou) where, once a year, the elders and nobles were said
with the king in attendance, to deliberate on great questions
At the same time, as both Barbara Mitder and Natascha
have shown, this appeal to the idealised past had a critical edg
against a present in which these ideals were most co
unfulfilled. Historically, these precedents were evoked in
they were not followed, and many of the reformers of the p
Wang Mang, Wu Zetian or Wang Anshi, added legitimac
own rule by restoring the institutions of remonstrance of th
One should add that the newspaper's assumption that th
role of the remonstrator represented the public interest a
a scathing commentary on the inability of contemporary
the natural candidate for this role, to perform its duty.
The Shenbao printed the Jingbao, the reports of its C
correspondents and international news. Its editorials and read
offered a platform for public discussion of important is
manner it served to restore the communication between h

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 20 RUDOLF WAGNER

that had been progressively reduced in

was in fact the real prerequisite for Ch
wealth and power. It was as a silent and
government of the day that an instituti
live and flourish in the Shanghai Settlem
Qing Court, whose offices, as it happen
eager and nervous readers.
Here and there, the paper moved b
traditional imaginaire and suggested th
of the government's finances, or the need
Forbidden City and personally familiari
of the country. But otherwise, the pape
discursive limits of the traditional imag
editorials contained the clearest artic
political and institutional agenda for
democracy, no eulogy of the charms
suggestion of a rationality prevailing in
even when the paper — sometimes with
voices from opposite ends of the spect
pages as the platform for the articulat
present and future agenda, and thus
which, under the prevailing circumstan
formulated and discussed.
It does sound ironical that a paper with which a young Englishman
was out to make a small fortune for himself should, somewhat
pompously, claim such a role. But there was more than advertising
hype in this claim. To put it bluntly, Chinese officials considered foreign
journalists to be infinitely more credible, reliable and honest than their
own countrymen. They praised Western newspapermen to the skies.
The reliability of their information and their impartiality was held to
be beyond question. Early Chinese diplomatic officials described
newspapers in foreign countries and foreign-language newspapers in
China as extremely interesting, and they could also imagine such things
existing in China. It was Major's achievement to create a Chinese
newspaper that could be measured by these high Western standards.
Within a very short time, the fact that the Shenbao was under the
commercial and editorial control of a foreigner became the
institutional and public guarantee of its abiding by foreign rules of
reliability and impartiality.
The assumption that the general public would think in the same
way can be read from a curious incident. In 1874, the Shanghai Daotai
decided, along with some compatriots from Xiangshan county in
Guangdong, to counter the Shenbao with a paper of their own, the

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 THE EARLY CHINESE NEWSPAPERS 21

Huibao. It collapsed after a few months even though it was

printed on imported Western paper, unlike the Chinese paper
the Shenbao. Most decisively, the Daotai tried to publicly signal t
that his paper was abiding by the same standards as the She
appointing Yung Wing (1828—1912) as editor. Yung Wing, by
American citizen, was married to an American lady and was
promoting friendly relations between China and Western cou
For the successor paper to this first attempt, the Daotai wen
further and hired a bona fide foreigner as editor, a Scotsma
Gill, on the assumption that the public credibility of the pap
rise steeply as a consequence. In these cases the Daotai was co
not so much with his journalists' lack of credibility as with his o
perceived lack of credibility as the de facto editor of the new
was only after the Shenbao had humbly and patiently managed, t
its editing and hiring policies, to elevate the overall public st
journalists and after the Sino-Japanese war had taken the cre
of officialdom down another notch, that Liang Qichao and
were able to step in and assume the high stance of the jour
the voice entitled to tell the nation what to do, and curse it
not follow his prescriptions.
Nor is the negative mirror image of the gloriously impar
accurate Western journalist lacking. The same officials who en
these bold thoughts on the possibility of a Chinese press su
switched to a completely different language register once con
with Chinese journalists, even those working with foreign ed
China. I am fully aware of the huge trap of political incorrect
yawns before me but there is no way to avoid it.
Guo Songtao hired a Shenbao journalist to join him in the e
in London, but the very minute some rather innocuous articles a
in the Shenbao about his London activities — articles that furthermore
were translations from the British press — he started suspecting a dark
conspiracy by his arch-enemy the vice-ambassador, and was sure that
this man had bought the former Shenbao journalist to plant these articles
in order to slander him.
Time and again we find statements in the official correspondence
between the Zongli Yamen and the British Plenipotentiary as well as
between the Jiangnan officials and the Shanghai consulate claiming
that the Chinese working in these newspapers were a miserable lot of
cunning loafers bent on venting their grievances over their own failures
on other luckier and more gifted individual who had become officials.
By definition, the information purveyed by these Chinese journalists
was ill-intentioned slander. The otherwise utterly correct Westerners,
the officials claimed, were not knowledgeable enough to understand

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22 RUDOLF WAGNER

the dark workings of Chinese political cu

Chinese employees, unwittingly helped
This argument had a legal ring to it;
issue of going to court in Shanghai
constructed a case of 'Chinese against
Daotai's direct jurisdiction. But this ty
into such a standard feature, even in
Qing officials such as Zuo Zongtang
prejudice. Natascha Vittinghoff has con
generation of Chinese journalists did not
educational levels were relatively high
good. The type of cheaply bought journ
had not yet emerged in China.33
We see the weight of this prejudice e
offers with their extreme insistence t
truth in facts', did not 'knowledgeably
investigations', and were not 'honest and
These advertised jobs also must be rea
perception of rampant corruption and
officials; in this context they become an
who in the traditional view, were the o
speak about national policy.
We thus have the curious structure i
Chinese public sphere needed an excla
centre. In order to gain credibility, the p
in this public sphere also needed to be
foreigners, or Chinese who had made t
journalistic behaviour second nature.
The analysis of the Chinese case thus
lacunae in the concept of the public
importance of other elements within thi
believe, research in the field of the Ch
contribute data from another 'case' to fle
but can substantially contribute to enrich
and draw attention to features overloo

Afterthoughts

Research on the early Chinese newspap

of the conceptual problems already di
Chinese and sinological scholarship on

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 THE EARLY CHINESE NEWSPAPERS 23

Ge Gongzhen published his <'hongguo baoxue shi (Histor

Chinese press), in 1927 under the impact of a nationalisti
bering and rewriting of recent history.34 While it was no
history of the Chinese press to come out during the pre-w
it has remained by far the most influential. Ge was himself a
working on the Shenbao, and he wrote from memory and
rather than on the basis of any broader source-based rese
since he wrote his book it has been maintained that theoretical and
conceptual thinking about the role of newspapers only started with
Liang Qichao.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Even the Shanghai xinbao,
published from the same stable as the North China Herald since 1862,
already contained hints of a programme. Its inaugural announcement
stressed that it would publish 'all news concerning the military situation
of the government with an emphasis on commercial news' and added
that it would append more detailed reports on the Taiping as well on
as the Qing court's military actions. It furthermore declared itself willing
to 'publish anything a Chinese might have in terms of pressing
contemporary matters, whether from hearsay or as a personal witness,
so long as it was of benefit for the Chinese and for mutual understanding
[among Westerners and Chinese]'. The emphasis here is clearly on
news, including information carried in advertisements, and not on
commentary.35 While this was a conscious attempt to stay clear of
Chinese officialdom, the double emphasis on 'benefit for the Chinese'
lyouyiyu huaren) and 'contribution to mutual understanding, (youyiyu
tonghao) as criteria for selecting articles submitted by Chinese from
outside the group of editors signals a programme. The paper was to
reflect the interests of its intended Chinese readers, but would not
carry inflammatory articles.
The first conflict came as early as 1866 when Li Hongzhang prodded
the Tsungli Yamen to send a letter to the foreign embassies asking them
to intervene against what it called 'defamatory articles', huibang, the
publication of which, he said, was an act 'of the same kind as that of
circulating anonymous [and calumnious] placards', a legal offence
under the Qing code?6 The publication of Chinese language papers,
which Prince Gong, the Manchu official in charge of the newly
established Foreign Affairs Office, the Zongli Yamen, called 'newspapers
with Chinese characters' (hangi xinwenzhi), suddenly brought this matter
into the Chinese public sphere, and this changed the entire situation.
'As these newspapers are read by many Chinese merchants and
commoners', he wrote, the consequence of such defamatory articles
would be that 'if officials were slandered in their pages, their reputation

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24 RUDOLF WAGNER

would deteriorate to the point where the

would all be prompted to have cont
became public knowledge, and were to
stability of public order, in which, Pri
powers had as much interest as the Qin
Prince was careful to point out in a first
that was to be repeated time and again
the foreign owners of these papers, bu
Chinese are not all equally good, and t
without proper social standing [wulai
penalties of the law fabricate rumour
shengshi\; these they either openl
communicate. Without carefully inves
then print and circulate them'. Failin
their Chinese employees, who were, i
because they had no respectable way of
by the general title of 'vagrants', Bri
abetting the offence rather than actua
officials coming from such unauthoris
channels of remonstrance was by defi
motives. Legally, this approach focused
worked in these papers, and probably p
way it was made into a case of Chinese ve
to be outside the jurisdiction of the M
Knowing the importance of the inst
West and being a regular reader himse
whose liberal tone is not to be found in o
with newspapers over the following thirt

As to the fair discussion of all kinds of

[government] is desirous to rely on it [
the impartial [assessments] of public o
want to impede it; but as to the manuf

In the much more elegant British emba

reads even more stunningly:

The Chinese Government far from desirin

— courts the fair and just discussion by

The vagrant j ournalists could not be trus

but they would vent their private frustr
on their luckier contemporaries. In pri
here, for once, that public opinion ha
The truly legitimate field of the press

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 THE EARLY CHINESE NEWSPAPERS 25

especially news about foreign trade, and within these limits even
managed Chinese papers would be acceptable. This was the b
the Chinese government tried to establish.
When the Shenbao entered the scene in 1872 a new chapter
Major's Chinese language skills had been legendary for some
kept himself at a critical distance from British power project
the blatant and deleterious opium trade as well as from mis
endeavour. His earlier social environment in Britain suggests
and critical commitment to the betterment of China with th
adapted Western institutions. Finally, he was soundly comm
running a profitable business in whatever he did. From the very
the Shenbao introduced the editorial essay as a forum for di
The authors were Major himself and many of his journalists a
the writers of letters-writers that landed on the editorial desk,,
they agreed with the Shenbao owner and staff. By regularly rep
editorial essays from Wang Tao's Xunhuan ribao in Hongkong
had been founded shortly after the Shenbao, and by inserting a
of the Jingbao with its memorials, many of which again de
national affairs, the Shenbao set itself up as the public forum in
During these early decades it did not try to project a strong
line for itself. Any direct editorial line that it took always dealt
paper itself, and was clearly marked as such. In its news sectio
quickly able to draw on a network of correspondents in all t
centres of China. This in turn helped it fuel a drive quickly to es
a national distribution network across China, and to a certain
the Chinese-speaking world. The Shenbao was the first Chinese-la
paper to deal at length with the particular role and functio
paper might have in the Chinese context. The Xunhuan ribao,
only small segments of the early years remain, pursued a similar
This was done through many dozens of editorial essays thro
the first decades. Some of these essays are remarkable f
historical understanding of the structure of the Chinese publ
and its changes.
In Ge Gongzhen's depiction, however, Chinese newspapers
the advent of Liang Qichao on the scene in the late 1890
marginal affair. The main paper, the Shenbao, was foreign-o
was only concerned with business and had no editorial policy.
employed as journalists were Chinese who had flunked the i
examinations if indeed they had ever tried their hand at the
consequence, the newspaper was held in the lowest possible
among its envisaged readership. Only with Liang Qichao 's a
press and his 'new style' did Chinese newspaper history begin in

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26 RUDOLF WAGNER

This story, which is a sub-story of th

plot machine, became officialised thr
of Ge Gongzhen's work in the PRC. By
way to the West in 1933 through Britton
a summary of it.38 Recent studies by
Hanqi have begun to distance themselve
under the impact of a rewriting of Shang
day aspirations of Shanghai in stressing t
the West and Chinese during the late Qin
of the imperialists.39 Flowever, there
are actually based on an analysis of thi
newspaper. The single exception is the
at the Shanghai Bureau of Cultural Af
entitled Qingmo sishinian Shenbao ziliao (
last forty years of the Qing).40 It certain
at least it is based on a thorough read
these early years. Recent Western s
Australia and Joan Judge in Santa Barb
of empirical newspaper research.41 Ho
years of the Qing and not the pre-190
within Ge's chronology.
This points to the problem of the im
on the development of Chinese stud
officially streamlined argument is fleshe
selected and edited as well as easily acc
points then cascade down to the summary
of that segment in the relevant 'unifi
articles in the encyclopaedias and finall
the constandy updated dictionaries su
customers of these dispensations are th
to a smaller degree, the overseas Chine
impact on sinological research. To go o
during the last decades with many of t
libraries being-more accessible. But, by
immensely more arduous because of th
through very large amounts of unselec
in unstable Chinese, supplemented by s
with all of this material being widely
careful reading of studies of similar t
Chinese to enrich one's choices of thou
the risk of running afoul of the shared
existing scholarship.

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 THE EARLY CHINESE NEWSPAPERS 27

The second problem has to do with the development of

studies in the West, especially in the United States, after t
War. After an attack on what was called the 'imperialist' pe
the research of John Fairbank and his students whose focus, in
the materials of the Tsungli Yamen and the missionary r
been on the interaction of China with the West, an ap
suggested that would stress the internal dynamics of Chin
in its modern transformation, with a strong emphasis on the
right of the Chinese to write and control their own history. T
such a China-centred emphasis, like any approach with a cl
has its worth, notwithstanding its ideological origins, and
its merits in a number of outstanding studies on the late Q
early Republic. At the same time, it has also often become
creed and political correctness, signalled, for example, by the r
references in a plethora of dissertations and articles to P
Discovering History in China and by the claims heard here and
the effect that the only legitimate course of western Chin
was to familiarise the West with the thinking of Chinese schol
their culture, society and history. The gain has been that m
attention has been paid to bonafide Chinese sources, especia
sources. On the debit side, there has been a decline in
understand China's development in the international c
interaction as well as a fearful avoidance of topics or argum
might be labelled imperialist, colonialist, paternalist or orie
The early Shenbao, for example, with its British manager Er
and its four foreign shareholders might have been the most
and most influential commercial newspaper at least throu
Guangxu reign, but it certainly could not qualify as a legiti
authentically Chinese thing within this perception. Initially
centred emphasis tied in well with the strongly internali
Chinese writings and drew some strength from it. This f
matter as much of ideology as of a lack of linguistic comp
library access to sources not written in Chinese. Ironically, by
the 'China-centred' approach had become fashionable in the
the outside world had been increasingly written out of rec
history, the dramatic changes in China's post-Cultural Re
policies prompted a major rewriting of China's recent histor
the impact of the West suddenly, and retroactively, becam
and was viewed in a more positive light. This rewritin
organised by the Chinese state/party through assignments
last two five-year plans, and has in the meantime filtered d
another high-level intervention, in the form of such stunning i

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28 RUDOLF WAGNER

as the insertion of a few lines of biograp

residents into the new gazetteer of wh
Setdement in Shanghai.42 While the stud
of the Shanghai Setdement in its enti
lurking suspicion among some Wester
another aspect of Fairbankian imperia
attracting much interest in a China, whic
away from a largely internalist perspec
Recently, a debate has begun on some
organised by the journal Modern China
of the internal dynamics of Chinese s
Rowe's work on Hankow, Fred Wakema
Hankow merchants doing their internalis
compradors for Western firms, and w
happenings in their own town from M
turn of course was printed in the
Shanghai.43 Obviously, the boundaries
to be the true and authentic China ar
so. The Shanghai International Setdeme
there is a newcomer, a settler, a sojour
Sikh, Yankee, or Scot. For the visitor f
but a West largely populated by Chine
on a cruise this was China but governe
Shenbao might have been edited by an
officials read their Beijing Gazette as it
with metal fonts and the high speed
transmission, instead of waiting
reproductions that were shipped in ar
Baofang, its private distributors. And
probably could not help having a look at
The third problem is one of metho
some thirty or forty years of one or
unpunctuated literary prose (wenli)
controversies with other papers, Chine
Shanghai, Hongkong or elsewhere at th
that there is only one life to waste. Th
and narrational features of historical s
have alerted us to the need to read sou
come with a high degree of selectivity
much more attentive reading of histo
not just to extract factual informat
accurately translate it to a level of cul

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 THE EARLY CHINESE NEWSPAPERS 29

'receiver' to also understand these other and very interesting

the texts. A highly precise and contextualised methodology h
be developed for the handling of a daily collective product such a
with its short shelf-life and rapid changes, one that was furt
written by an unknown number of contributors most of whom
anonymous. The scholar working in this field is torn by cons
hard-to-resolve conflicts between the extensive and fast reading,
to master the huge bulk of material, and the intensive and v
reading, needed to achieve the necessary depth and precisio
available Chinese secondary literature for the most part do
back to the sources. It tries to come to general conclusions by
out the financial, institutional or personal connections of the
question and fleshing out the argument with a few endlessly
quotations such as to Huang Xiexun's Shenbao editorial again
Youwei after the latter's dismissal in 1898. As Kang Youw
officially recognised 'progressive personality' in the PRC disp
this editorial can figure as sufficient proof for the utterly react
character of the Shenbao altogether, quite apart from prov
irrelevant the paper must have been to all Chinese who count
this mix of secondary and primary data is certainly economi
shaky on both legs, and operative only under the condition t
result is predetermined by higher authority and only needs illus
with a few historical tidbits.
The researcher who leaves this well-trodden path is, however, n
be envied. Different strategies have been tried out in o
accommodate these conflicting demands. They include the s
of a representative diachronic sample; the treatment of a
newspaper, including advertisements, as published on a single
few days and taken as a somehow linked and cohesive body
focusing on one feature such as the editorial for a given pe
treatment of a historical moment or event with the related articles
one or more papers coming in as one among many sour
sociological approaches dealing with the journalists and editor
these texts. While none of these approaches can claim to re
quality/quantity problem, each of them has yielded substantial r
and they have ended up mutually enriching each other. Unusually
circumstances have, for a few years, brought a number of yo
highly gifted scholars together in the Heidelberg Institute to
the pre-1900 Chinese-language papers. While engaged in the
projects and using methods suited for them, their common f
the newspapers of this period has made for gratifying synergetic
within a research group, Structure and Development of the

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 30 RUDOLF WAGNER

Public Sphere.44 As this paper has benef

in this group, I wish to express my pro
years during which I enjoyed the priv

Institute of Chinese Studies, U

wagner @gw. sino. uni-h

* The board of the European Association of

in Barcelona in 1996 to introduce the new f
honour and burden of this first address fell o
address. I will begin by summing up some o
development of the Chinese public sphere, the
and institutional problems I came across in do
about my hopes concerning future developme
opinions and arguments are very much my ow

1 See, for example, 'Asienkonzept der Bundesre

government), Aktuelle Beiträge zur Wirtschafts u
economic and financial policy), Bonn: Pr
Bundesregierung, No. 24 (20 October 1993),
2 Rudolf G. Wagner, 'The Role of the Foreig
Sphere,' China Quarterly, No. 142 (June 1995),

3 Various such definitions are collected in

Western Medium Creating Chinese Identity? Metam
1912) (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard Council on

4 I am preparing a biography of E. Major

other things, his experiences in learning Chin

5 Major to Davenport, 4 April 1879. FO 67

6 Rudolf G. Wagner, 'The Shenbao in crisis: t
conflict between Guo Songtao and the Shenb
(1999), pp 107-38.
7 Wagner, 'The Shenbao in crisis', pp 107-38

8 Kemal H. Karpat, 'Turkey' in Robert W

Political Modernization in Japan and Turkey (Prin
p. 257 If.

9 Albert Altman, 'Shinbunshi: the early Meiji adaptation of the Western-style

newspaper' W.G. Beasley (ed.), Modern Japan: Aspects of History, Literature and Society
(London: Allen and Unwin, 1975), pp 52-66.

10 Kalpana Bishui, 'The vernacular newspaper press of Bengal of the post-Mutiny

period with particular reference to the period 1880-1892' in S.P. Sen (ed.), The Indian
Press (Calcutta: Institute of Historical Studies, 1967), p.2.

11 'Official Paper', The North China Herald and Supreme Court and Consular Gazette, 9
March 1876, p. 3.

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 THE EARLY CHINESE NEWSPAPERS 3 1

12 Documentation specific to Ernest Major on this point is weak. I am

the argument from his social environment in London as well as a type o
agenda common among British merchants in the eighteenth century, stu
Hancock in his Citizens of the World: London Merchants and the Integration
Atlantic Community, 1735-1785 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Pre

13 Lin Yutang, History of the Press and Public Opinion in China (Chic
University Press, 1936).

14 Qingyi, 'unprejudiced statements of opinion', made full use of th

right of officials to comment on matters even outside their responsibili
late Qing they became an important instrument for the opponents o
generate political support for their positions.

15 'Lun Zhongguo Jingbao yiyu waiguo xinbao' (On the difference

Chinese 5Jingbao and the foreign newspapers)', Shenbao, 18 July 1873, p

16 Beatrice S. Bartlett, Monarchs and Ministers: The Grand Council in Mii

1723-1820(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991); Silas L. Wu, C
and Imperial Control: Evolution of the Palace Memorial System 1693-173
Harvard University Press, 1970).

17 'Lun Zhongguo Jingbao yiyu waiguo xinbao', p. 1. 'Lun xinwenzhi z

benefits of newspapers)' Shenbao August 11,1886. For a detailed summar
of these two editorials cf. Barbara Mittler, 'Domesticating an ali
incorporating the Western-style newspaper into the Chinese public sphe
Wagner (ed.), Joining the Global Public: Text, Image, and City in Early Chin
(Cambridge: Harvard University Council on East Asian Studies, forth

18 For an analysis of these records and voices, see Rudolf Wagner, 'T
public opinion in pre-modern historical records', unpublished paper pre
EACS conference, Barcelona, September 1996.

19 For a study of these ditties see Wolfgang Bauer, Das Bild in der Weis
Chinas. Prophetische Texte im politischen Leben vom Buch der Wandlungen bis
(The image in Chinese prophecy literature: prophetical texts in political
Book of Changes to Mao Zedong) (Munich: Moos, 1973).

20 This was the case for the flood of such manifestations in favour of
as recorded in the Hanshu (History of the Han Dynasty) (Beijing: Zho
1964), 99A, p. 4076.
21 Most of the books considered instrumental in undermining the au
state and church and preparing minds for the changes to come wit
Revolution were printed in Neufchatel or Leiden, not in France. Rob
The Literary Underground of the Old Regime (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard Un
1982).

22 Sun Dingchen, 'Lun zhipian,yi' (On government, 1), in Ge Shijun (ed.), Qingchao
jingshiwen xubian (Sequel to the Qing Dynasty collection of documents on state craft)
(Taipei: Wenhai, 1972), pp. 325-6. This treatise 'On government' is translated and
analysed in Andrea Janku, 'Nur Leere Reden. Das Genre 'Leitartikel' in der chinesischsprachigen
Tagespresse Shanghais (1884-1907) und die Revolutionierung des 'Weges der Rede' (Only empty
talk: the 'editorial' genre in Shanghai Chinese-language newspapers, 1884—1907),
unpublished doctoral dissertation (Heidelberg: University of Heidelberg, 2000), pp.
183-218.

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 32 RUDOLF WAGNER

23 Rudolf Wagner, 'Operating in the Chi

technique of Taiping propaganda', in Huang
Norms and the State in China (Leiden: E.J. Brill
Taiping Christian China: analogy, interest an
Christen und Gewrze■ Konfrontation und Interaktion k
(Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1998

24 Mittler, A Western Medium Creating Chinese Id

25 Roger Charrier, Les Origines culturelles de la R

26 Wagner, 'The Role of the Foreign Comm

pp. 423-43.
27 Jürgen Habermas, Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit. Untersuchungen zu einer Kategorie
der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft (Structural transformation of the public sphere: an inquiry
into a category of bourgeois society) (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp 1990; 1st ed., 1963), with
a new preface.

28 Darnton, The Literary Underground of the Old Regime.

29 Fang Hanqi (ed.), fhongguo xinwen shiye tongshi (General history of the news business
in China) (Beijing: Zhongguo Renmin Daxue Chubanshe, 1992), vol. 1, p. 487.

30 'Lun benguan zuobao benyi' (On the basic purpose of our company coming out
with a paper)', Shenbao, 11 October 1875

31 Wagner, 'The Shenbao in crisis', p. 117, note 37.

32 Yung Wing, My Life in China and America (New York: Henry Holt, 1909). This
very selective autobiography passes over this episode in silence.

33 Natascha Vittinghoff, 'Freier Fluss. fur Kulturgeschichte desfruehen chinesischen

Journalismus' (Free flow: for a cultural history of early Chinese journalism), unpublished
doctoral dissertation (Heidelberg: University of Heidelberg, 1998), ch. 5.

34 Ge Gongzhen, Zhongguo baoxue s hi (A history of the Chinese press ), reprinted

in Minguo congshu (Collection of works from the Republican period) (Shanghai: Shanghai
Shudian, 1990, 1st ed., 1927), series 2, Vol. 49. All PRC editions apart from this one
have been tampered with.

35 Shanghai xinbao, No. 45, 28 May 1862.

36 For the following pages see Rudolf Wagner, 'First Encounter: Securing the
Status of the Chinese Language Newspapers: Legal Guarantees and Cultural
Acceptance, 1868-1890,' (manuscript, 1997). Cf. Wagner, 'The Role of the Foreign
Community in the Chinese Public Sphere', p. 433 ff; Mittler, A Western Medium Creating
Chinese Identity?; Vittinghoff, 'Freier Fluss. Zur Kulturgeschichte des fruehen chinesischen
Journalismus', p. 35 ff.

37 FO 230/79, No. 59.

38 S. Roswell Britton, The Chinese Periodical Press 1800-1912 (Taipei: Ch'eng-wen

Publishing Company, 1966; lsted. 1933).

39 Ma Guangren, Shanghai xinwen shi 1850-1949) (A history of Shanghai

newspapers) (Shanghai: Fudan Daxue Chubanshe, 1996).
40 Xu Zaiping, Qingmo sishinian Shenbao ziliao (Materials on the Shenbao for the
last forty years of the Qing) (Beijing: Xinhua Chubanshe, 1988).

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 THE EARLY CHINESE NEWSPAPERS 33

41 Joan E. Judge, Print and Politics: Shibao and the Formation of the Publi
Qing China, 1904-1911 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996). Ter
'Making the News in Shanghai: Shen Bao and the Politics of Newspape
1912-1937,' unpublished doctoral dissertation (Canberra: Austra
University, 1989).

42 Zhou Taitong et al. (eds), Huangpu quzhi (Local gazetteer of Huan

(Shanghai: Shanghai Shehui Kexueyuan Chubanshe, 1996), pp 1395-
biography of Ernest Major.

43 William T. Rowe, Hankow: Conflict and Community in a Chinese C

(Stanford: Stanford University Press 1989). Frederic Wakeman, 'The c
public sphere debate: Western reflections on Chinese political culture', Mo
19, No. 2 (1993), pp 108-38.

44 Most of the studies by members of this research group ha

completed. See Mittler, A Western Medium Creating Chinese Identify?-, J
Reden'-, VittinghofT, 'Freier Fluss. PJa Kulturgeschichte des fruehen chinesischen
Catherine V Yeh, 'The lure of the big city: Shanghai entertainment
1910 (forthcoming). See also the papers by members of this research gro
Joining the Global Public.

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