Zhongguo zujiequ de yingwenbao yu Nanjing Guomin zhengfu zhanqian de guoji xuanchuan" (The Treaty-Port Newspapers in China and the Nanjing KMT Government’s International Propaganda before the Outbreak of the Full-Scale Sino-Japanese War)

The treaty-port newspapers played an important part in China’s press history. Considered as mouthpieces of colonial empires, however, they haven’t been recognized as part of China’s press worthy of scholarly attentions. Typically with multi-national backgrounds and intensely competing with one another, these English-language newspapers were the kind of media hard to control, which naturally made them valuable outreach resources for the Nanjing KMT government with its international propaganda purposes to serve. Intrigued by this particular role played by these treaty port newspapers, the essay examines first the complicated media environment for their operations. It then explores how the Nanjing KMT government endeavored to regulate and penetrate these newspapers before the outbreak of the full-scale Sino-Japanese War. Characterized by their ambiguity in media identity and the obscurity of their news sources, these treaty-port newspapers somehow influenced those KMT officers who sought to voice through them. Various KMT groups and factions tended to conceal their party links and factional identities in order to secure smooth penetrations. Such penetrations not only greatly expanded the Nanjing KMT government’s information contacts and networks, but also laid the foundation for the covert news policy endorsed by Hollington Tong after the outbreak of the full-scale Sino-Japanese War.