THE PRESS IN CHINA

Today, Macau is only known through other places of greater importance and renown. To locate it, we say that it is situated close to Hong Kong, on the Pearl River estuary in South China. However, there have been times when this distant Portuguese colony of six square kilometers was known in Europe and outlined in the great navigators' sea-routes. It was well-known to those who ventured in search of spices and trade with China and in the three centuries prior to the rise of Hong Kong it was the name of Macau that featured on the charts and indeed was the only place from where European ideas could filter through to the great Chinese mainland.

The newspaper was one of the principal means of extending those ideas in China, and it was in China that the first newspaper was published. This was the King-pao or King Cháu, (Beijing Gazette) and it lasted for more than one thousand years.

Nevertheless, although this newspaper was a daily publication, the Beijing Gazette did not in any way represent what we understand a modem newspaper to be. It was a kind of official court bulletin. The format was small, measuring some ten by twenty centimeters with ten to twelve sheets sewn together, as was the Chinese custom, thus producing between twenty and forty pages each one of which had seven vertical colums with red lines. These were bound in bright yellow sheets with two small holes on the right vertical border so that the reading could be done in the classical Chinese custom, from right to left. The text, printed with movable wood characters, was derived from the records of official court ceremonies, nomination decrees, promotions and transferences of government staff, as well as exile sentences and decapitations. Imperial orders and proclamations were also a main feature of this newspaper. The whole paper was written in official language and was therefore incomprehensible to nearly all the ordinary people. Given that there were only a few issues available while the subject-matter was of great interest to many people, for example those who needed to be informed about imperial decisions, there were many people in provincial capitals who made their living reproducing the Gazette. These copies were known as Se-Pun (manuscripts).

Up to the beginning of this century, the Beijing Gazette was the only periodic publication in China. The newspaper, used as an instrument to inform and guide public opinion, only came into being in 1822 with the Abelha da China. It was published in Macau and printed in Portuguese. This publication was small and rarely issued. Movable metal type was used for printing it and despite its modest appearance, it was the first real newspaper in the Far East.

Shortly after, the English-language The Evangelist appeared. It had the same size and format as the Abelha and was also printed in Macau. The publisher was the Albion Press from the Protestant Missions. However, this publication was soon forbidden as it attacked the Catholic Church and offended the Portuguese.

At about the same time another paper printed in Macau, the Hong Kong Government Gazette, appeared. This was published by the British Superintendancy of Trade, the representative of the British government in this region. However, after 1842 when the British officially took over control of Hong Kong, the publication was transferred to Hong Kong and became the first newspaper to be printed in the colony.

Although the Manchu government of Canton had forbidden the introduction of new ideas in China, the English-language Canton Register, the first foreign newspaper to be printed in Chinese territory appeared in 1927.

In 1870, the first newspaper printed in Chinese, the Pan Pao, was published in Shanghai. In fact, it was only a pamphlet and lasted for no more than a short period. It was soon replaced by the Sin Pao, which was the property of the British traders in Shanghai, who supported and managed it.

Foreigners had free access and residence in all harbours throughout the Treaty (Canton, Fuchou, Amoy, Ningpo, Shanghai, Chefoo, Kiaochou, Hangchou and Tientsin), which meant that before very long Japanese, French, German, Russian and Italian newspapers appeared alongside those published in English and Chinese.

By the beginning of the twentieth century, the print-run of even the biggest Chinese newspaper did not exceed fifty thousand issues a day, as it was written in a classical style and was therefore confined to the intellectual classes. It was only through the reform of Chinese writing, mainly directed by the philosophers Hu-Shih and Ch'en Tahsiu, that the number of readers increased.

The Cultural Movement of 1919 was the mentor of the reform in writing. The number of characters was reduced from forty thousand to four thousand, this being sufficient to write a text on any subject. For the first time, the concord and syntax rules of the spoken dialect were used in writing and so the classical language was replaced by 'bai-hua' or spoken language. Thanks to this radical change, the less educated people could easily understand what they were reading.

Before the Second World War, international, national and local news was published in the Chinese newspaper, the front page being taken up with main news items and the leading articles or editorial. The remainder of the paper was composed of stories, police news, judicial edicts, commentaries, cooking recipes, announcements and advertisements.

Except for a few quality newspapers, the daily Chinese press in the major cities was characterised by a lack of fidelity to fact in the news. they printed alongside the prevalence of chauvinist attitudes amongst editorial staff, anxious to satisfy the patriotism of the majority of their readers. This resulted in an atmosphere of mistrust and anxiety amongst foreigners as well as an information gap due to their great influence on public opinon.

Many of these siu-pao newspapers, nicknamed by the English 'mosquito newspapers' due to their abundance and annoyance, survived through conspiracy and blackmail. Their power to publish defamatory information frightened people and they were thus able to extort substantial subsidies and 'voluntary donations', which were sufficient for the editors to live like princes, able to exert influence and power locally.

During the last years of the Nationalist government, the freedom of press which existed was accompanied by an uncontrolled glut of printed material. There was a proliferation of daily journals, pamphlets and magazines of all political, religious and ideological colours. With the advent of the new Communist regime this freedom of press came to an end and now, as in all Socialist countries where a single party controls all forms of expression, the Party alone is responsible for stimulating and guiding the national press..

* Ramón Lay Mazo is a sinologist who lived in China for thirty years and in Macau for twelve. He has published several translations and works.