Periodicals and newspapers
Historians of the later Qing period (i.e., post-Jiaqing) will find newspapers a valuable resource for research on a wide range of topics. They are perhaps most important for work on the treaty ports (where the majority were published), but the closer one gets to the end of the dynasty the greater the number of newspapers in inland cities as well, where they can supplement more traditional sources for local history such as gazetteers. Happily for the researcher, the great majority of newspaper and other types of periodicals published in the Qing are now available digitally and are searchable online via different databases.
Official “newspapers” (guanbao 官報)
There was nothing in Qing China like the Times of London (which began publication in 1785) or the New York Times (which began publication in 1851), both of which functioned (and function still) as a “newspaper of record.” The closest thing we find is the Jingbao 京報, or “Beijing Gazette.” Continuing a tradition that began in the Tang, the Jingbao carried edicts and other sorts of announcements the government desired should reach a wider public audience, especially in the provinces. Interestingly, there is much in the Jingbao that does not appear in the Shilu, even though the latter was destined for a much more exclusive readership. Though it was published consistently throughout the dynasty, not much of the Jingbao is available from before the later 19th c., after which time the run is fairly complete. Much of the content of the treaty-port press relied upon translations from the Jingbao.
The dichao 邸鈔 or dibao 邸報 - often translated as "official gazette" or "metropolitan gazette" - prefigured the Qing jingbao and guanbao. Circulating amongst officials to convey administrative reports as well as news, these publications became integral to the operation of the imperial bureaucracy during the Song dynasty after the emperor Taizong 太宗's reforms. Although they were less institutionally crucial during the Yuan and Ming dynasties, they continued to serve the function of disseminating information. This example (alternately titled Wanli dibao 萬曆邸報) dates to the reign of the Ming Wanli 萬曆 emperor. A notable source discussing the general history of the dibao is Lin Yuanqi 林遠琪's 1977 work Dibao zhi yanjiu 《邸報之研究》, which analyzes the major motivations for the creation of the dibao, their historical development, and how that development tracked with changes in the bureaucracy from their first appearance (which he perhaps boldly places in the Zhou and Han dynasties) to their culmination in Qing official periodicals.
Xuebu guanbao 學部官報 GX 32:7:1-XT 3:3:1 (20 August 1906-30 March 1911), monthly, 148 issues, collected into 4 volumes.
The Shanxi Education Commissioner 學政 memorialized in GX 31 (1905) for the publication of this monthly periodical for the newly-established Ministry of Education 學部. Like any other guanbao, the Xuebu guanbao includes imperial decrees related to education and important current vertical and lateral memorials. As such, it provides a cross-section of education administration across the Qing. One can also find many memorials reproduced here that are not immediately available on online collections or in other books. Because education was an important part of the project of national modernization and reform in the late Qing, this guanbao is also useful for understanding the ideas that officials wanted to promote: The guanbao includes regular translations of Western and Japanese literature on education, floor plans of and schedules from model schools, and diagrams of various innovations or inventions to be introduced in schools.
Shangwu guanbao 商務官報 GX 32:4:5-XT 2.11.25 (28 April 1906-26 December 1910), thrice monthly, collected into 5 volumes.
This guanbao is structured rather more like a modern newspaper. Each issues includes essays, discussions of foreign affairs relating to commerce, reports of studies, and explanatory diagrams of things like foreign ministries of education alongside some memorials and decrees.
Foreign-owned Chinese-language periodicals (waibao 外報)
Wanguo gongbao 萬國公報 (The Globe Magazine). Shanghai. 1868–1907 (except for 1883-89).
Founded by an American Presbyterian missionary, Young J. Allen, and published out of Shanghai, this grew to be one of the most widely read journals of its time. It carried many articles introducing aspects of Western learning. See Adrian A. Bennett. Research Guide to the Wan kuo kung bao, 1874–1883 (San Francisco: Chinese Materials Center, 1976) for an index of authors and articles arranged by subject as well as an English translation of amplified tables of contents.
Huazi ribao 華字日報 (The Chinese Mail). Hong Kong. 1864-1941.
The Huazi ribao was established in Hong Kong in 1864 and continued to be published without interruption until December 1941, when the Japanese invaded. It was originally published as a Chinese edition of the China Mail, a well-known commercial English newspaper in Hong Kong. The importance of the Huazi ribao for the study of China in the period it covers lies in the fact that it was published in Hong Kong, out of the control of the Manchus in the later days of the Qing dynasty, and during the first thirty years of the Republic of China. The newspaper was thus in a unique position to comment freely and boldly on current events in China. There is a microfilm edition of Huazi ribao that covers a period of forty-five years, from 1895 to 1940, totaling about 104,000 pages.
Electronic Index to the Early Shenbao (1872-1895)
Index to important articles from the Shanghai daily Shenbao 申報 (1872-1949) from April 1872 to the end of 1898 built by the Institute of Chinese Studies at the University of Heidelberg. In addition, it also includes information about 11,000 entries on articles reprinted from Hong Kong papers, above all those from the early Xunhuan ribao 循環日報 (i.e. 1874 to 1879) edited by Wang Tao. The Shenbao reprints of the Jingbao 京報 (Peking Gazette) and advertisements are not indexed, however. This index provides quick keyword access to relevant articles and entries. A complete displaying record includes information about the date, issue number, genre, and keywords for the content of that article.
Shen bao 申報 (Chinese Daily News). Shanghai. 1872-1949.
Founded by Ernest Major, a British merchant, in partnership with three others, and staffed by a Chinese editor-in-chief, Zhang Zhixiang, Shen bao made its debut on April 30, 1872 and became one of the most influential and authoritative newspapers ever published in China. Its record of publication remains the longest among Chinese newspapers to this day. It was consistently at the forefront of journalism: in 1882, a month after China's first telegraph line was completed between Tianjin and Shanghai, Shen bao became the first paper to use telegraphy in its news gathering. Another early display of enterprise by Shen bao editors was the recruitment of Russian immigrants as war correspondents to report on the Sino-French war of 1884. In 1886, the paper launched China’s first illustrated weekly, Dianshizhai huabao 點石齋畫報.
Upon Ernest Major's retirement in 1889, management passed into more conservative hands, and it catered to a readership made up of officials and gentry. But in 1905, to cope with stiffer competition from other Chinese dailies in Shanghai, Shen bao instituted a whole series of innovations that resulted in a more liberal editorial policy. The paper came under Chinese ownership in May 1909; in 1949 its presses were taken over by Jiefang ribao. A detailed history of Shen bao is presented in Barbara Mittler, A Newspaper for China? (Harvard University Asia Center, 2004).
The digitized Shen bao (part of the Erudition database) collects the complete run from 1872-1949. The searchable database includes a scanned version of articles as well as a parallel transcription that is easy to read (but not very easy to download).
Le Bao 叻報 (Lat Pau). Singapore. December 1881-March 1932.
Le Bao, or better known as Lat Pau, was the longest running Chinese daily in prewar Singapore. This newspaper was started by See Ewe Lay in December 1881 and lasted 52 years before it finally ceased publication in March 1932. Lat Pau is an invaluable historical source for research into Singapore history and the Chinese diaspora during that period. The Chinese Library of the National University of Singapore has digitized the newspaper and made it available online. Unfortunately, the earliest issues of the newspaper were lost and the issues available at the NUS Chinese Library cover only the period from August 19, 1887 to March 31, 1932.
Bingcheng xinbao 檳城新報 (Penang Sin Poe). Penang, Malaya. August 1895-September 1941.
Bingcheng xinbao was the oldest Chinese language newspaper in British Malaya. It was started by the local Chinese community in August 1895 and ceased publication in September 1941 due to the Second World War. Bingcheng xinbao is a useful historical source for research into British Malaya as well as the Overseas Chinese in Penang.
Independent periodicals and newspapers (minbao 民報)
Private Chinese journalism came into its own in the decade of the 1890s, with a whole host of privately run publications, among which numbered the following (many of which can be found in the Quanguo baokan suoyin or Jindai baokan ku database, described below under Indexes).
Subao 蘇報. Shanghai, 1896 1903.
Founded by Zhang Binglin, this daily was responsible for publishing Zou Rong's Geming jun 革命軍.
Xiangxue Bao 湘學報 (April 22nd, 1897-August 1898). & Xiangbao 湘報 (Changsha, Hunan, March 7th-October 15th, 1898).
Issued by Tan Sitong, et al., primary media through which the ideas and activities of the Hunan reform movement were publicized.
Qingyi bao 清義報 and Xinmin congbao 新民叢報. Yokohama, 1898–1901, 1902–1907.
These were both edited by Liang Qichao while in exile.
Zhongguo ribao 中國日報. Hong Kong, 1899 1933.
The first Chinese revolutionary daily, published by the Xingzhonghui 興中會.
Dongfang zazhi 東方雜志 (Eastern Miscellany). Shanghai, 1904-1948.
This was the premier general monthly of its time and one of the most widely read magazines of the 1930s. For contents, see Dongfang zazhi zongmu (Beijing: Sanlian, 1957).
Minbao 民報. Tokyo. 1905–1908, 1911 , monthly.
The most important Chinese revolutionary periodical before 1911 and the organ of Sun Yat sen's Tongmenghui.
Baihua bao 白話報 (newspapers in vernacular Chinese)
The first periodical in vernaclar Chinese (baihua bao) was the short-lived Minbao 民報, which was issued by a publisher of Shenbao in 1876. Along with the reform movements of the late nineteenth century in the wake of the First Sino-Japanese War (1894-1895), publication of vernacular periodicals had boomed in major cities of China.Yanyi baihua bao 演義白話報, which was published in Shanghai in November 1897, was the first of its kind. During the period from 1897 to 1918, 170 different periodicals in vernacular Chinese appeared in different regions around China. These vernacular periodicals functioned as a means to educate and enlighten people, and influenced the ‘Baihua Wen’ movement during the May Fourth Movement afterward.
Zhongguo baihua bao 中國白話報. (Shanghai. 1903-1904) was first published in 1903 in Shanghai, and it contained literature of the general history of China in vernacular language for the first time. Hangzhou baihua bao 杭州白話報 (Hangzhou. 1901-1910) and Ningbo baihua bao 寧波白話報 (Ningbo. 1903-) published histories of foreign countries in their issues, thus providing new knowledge as well as advocating the new style of Chinese literature.
Yili baihua bao 伊犁白話報. (Ghulja or Huiyuan. March 1910-November 1911) is a good example of the broad interpretation of the term baihua. Published in Chinese, Uyghur, Mongol, and Manchu for a polyglot audience, and apparently with the cooperation of local Tatars, the Ili Vernacular Newspaper is now among the rarest of printed materials for the modern history of Xinjiang. It is reproduced, in part, from photographs taken of a copy discovered in a closet in Ghulja in Tang Yongcai, ed., Xinjiang Xinhai Geming shiliao xuanbian, Urumchi: Xinjiang People's Press, 1991, pp. 150-160.
Foreign-owned English-language periodicals
Chinese Repository (monthly), 20 volumes published in Canton and Macao between 1832 and 1851.
A rich source for understanding the early 19th-century Western encounter with the Chinese world. Contains notes on just about every topic under the sun, from the Confucian classics to ornithology. Also included translations of the Peking Gazette. Available online via the ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chinese Newspapers Collection.
China Mail, published in Hong Kong, 1845-1849. The bi-weekly edition was entitled Overland China Mail.
North China Herald, 1850-?, published in Shanghai. Also included translation of the Peking Gazette.
North China Daily News. Shanghai. 1864-1951.
The North China Daily News commenced publication on July 1, 1864 and closed its presses on March 31, 1951, two years after the founding of the People's Republic of China. No other foreign language newspaper published in China can look back on such a long publishing history, spanning the three periods of modern China. However, since practically none of the twentieth-century issues of this newspaper can be found outside China, and since its nineteenth-century issues are also very rare, its name is perhaps not so well known as it deserves.
The newspaper came into existence as a result of the growth of the North China Herald, which had been founded as a weekly by Henry Shearman, a Briton in Shanghai, on August 3, 1850. In keeping pace with the influx of foreigners and growing commercial activities in Shanghai and China as a whole, the name was changed to North China Herald and Market Report on April 8, 1867. In 1870 it became the North China Herald and Supreme Court and Consular Gazette. With the expansion of commercial activities, the Herald began to publish a supplement entitled Daily Shipping News in 1856, which became the Daily Shipping and Commercial News in 1862. From this supplement developed a regular daily newspaper which began to include reports from Peking, Hankow, Canton, and Hong Kong, as well as from Singapore, Tokyo, Paris, and San Francisco. That the paper was influential can hardly be denied. Its subscribers in the main were business and professional men of exceptionally good education.
The North China Daily News is undoubtedly a vital source for the understanding of the ruling mercantile group in Shanghai, the structure of the treaty port, Western impact on China, and the internal political development of the country. The existence of the treaty ports and the foreign concessions afforded the foreign press in China an excellent opportunity to freely report on political and military events and to adopt an independent and vigorous editorial policy in its discussions of public affairs, privileges which the native Chinese press did not enjoy. This unique position of the foreign press should always be kept in mind when a foreign newspaper published in China is used to support research.
The Chinese Recorder, published in Shanghai by the American Presbyterian Mission Press from 1879-1941. Focus on missionary work, but contains some interesting ethnographic and philological articles as well.
Indexes
Zhongguo jindai qikan pianmu huilu 中國近代期刊篇目彙錄, Shanghai, Shanghai People's Press, 1980. 6 vols.
Contains tables of contents for hundreds of newspapers, including guanbao, sorted by issue.
This is the most comprehensive database that contains all the available newspapers and periodicals from the mid-nineteenth century to 1949. It permits comprehensive search by keyword, or you can further search by source type, publication date, sub-database, author, press, etc. One can also browse online or download, if available. A very useful and handy database.
Jindai baokan ku 近代報刊庫 (要刊編)
This database is part of the Erudition 愛如生 collection of sources, holding hundreds of important (and many obscure) periodicals and newspapers from the late Qing to the Republican period, such as Xiang bao 湘報, Xin qingnian 新青年, and Xinmin congbao 新民叢報, including many with very short print runs (e.g., Hanfeng zazhi 漢風雜誌, which published just one issue in Tokyo). These are categorizes by type (e.g., zaoqi kanqu 早期刊物, Xinhai geming kanwu 辛亥革命刊物, and nüxing kanwu 女性刊物), which is useful for research on certain topics. Full-text searchable.
Dacheng Database of the Complete Text of Old Periodicals 大成老旧刊全文数据库
This online resource contains .pdf images of 140,000 periodical issues and 2.6 million articles from the pre-1949 period, some of them from the late Qing. It is not full-text searchable, but is searchable by author, periodical title, and article title. It only becomes useful for research on topics beginning in the late 19th century, though it can also be useful for finding pre-1949 academic articles on earlier topics.
Chinese E-Resources in the NUS Libraries
This index lists about ten important Chinese newspapers in Southeast China, including Le Bao 叻報 and Sing Po 星報 from Singapore. Each entry has a link to a database that contains scanned copies of all the articles.
A searchable full-text database built by the Shanghai Library covering around 250,000 articles from 300 kinds of journals produced from 1833 to 1910 in late Qing China. One can search the articles by the title of journal, title of article, and the name of author, to find and download the .pdf version of the articles.
- Not a full-text database, strictly speaking. Contains partial views of over 2 million titles, including recent publications, all in Chinese. Given the significant overlap between the books contained here and the books in HYL, this can be an effective way to digitally search much of the library's Chinese collection.
Indexes on Chinese Education
The NUS Chinese Library maintains online indexes of three local newspapers - Lat Pau 叻報, Nanyang Shangbao 南洋商報 and Sin Chew Jit Poh 星洲日報. These indexes focus on the issues surrounding Chinese education among the Overseas Chinese in Malaya and Singapore. The indexes are:
1. 《叻报》教育篇目索引 (1887-1932)
2. 《南洋商报》教育类编目索引(1923-1959)
3. 《星洲日报》华文教育类篇目索引(1929-1959)
Reprint Series and Collectanea
Qingdai baokan tuhua jicheng 清代報刊圖畫集成. 13 volumes. Beijing: Quanguo tushuguan wenxian weisuo fuzhi zhongxin 全國圖書館文獻微縮複製中心, 2001.
Qingmo Minchu baokan tuhua jicheng 清末民初報刊圖畫集成. 20 volumes. Beijing: Quanguo tushuguan wenxian weisuo fuzhi zhongxin 全國圖書館文獻微縮複製中心, 2003.
Qingmo Minchu baokan tuhua jicheng xubian 清末民初報刊圖畫集成續編. 20 volumes. Beijing: Quanguo tushuguan wenxian weisuo fuzhi zhongxin 全國圖書館文獻微縮複製中心, 2003.
Bibliography
- Jonathan Ocko, “The British Museum’s Peking Gazette,” Ch'ing-shih wen-t'i 11.9 (1973), pp. 35-49.
- Josef Fass, “Chinese Newspapers” in Leslie, et al., eds., Essays on the Sources for Chinese History, pp. 221-228.
- Zhuo Nansheng 卓南生.Zhongguo jindai baoye fazhanshi, 1815-1874 中國近代報業發展史, 1815-1874. Taibei Shi : Zhengzhong shuju, 1998.