The Early Chinese Newspapers and the Chinese Public Sphere

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