About Hong Kong Commercial Daily

Hong Kong Commercial Daily

The Hong Kong Commercial Daily, known as the HKCD, is a Chinese state-owned newspaper published by Shenzhen Press Group in broadsheet format in Hong Kong. Founded on 11 October 1952, it was the first financial newspaper in the Chinese language. It is one of the few Hong Kong newspapers authorised by the Hong Kong SAR government to publish legal announcements, and one of the Hong Kong newspapers allowed to circulate freely in mainland China. It is controlled by the Hong Kong Liaison Office and Shenzhen Press Group, has a branch office in Shenzhen, and has been dubbed "China's international media window" by the central government. Its website is at https://www.hkcd.com. For readers of Hong Kong's press, the Commercial Daily occupies a distinctive niche: a Hong Kong-published, business-first Chinese daily whose natural territory is the commercial relationship between Hong Kong, Shenzhen, the Pearl River Delta and the wider mainland economy.

Founding on 11 October 1952

The Hong Kong Commercial Daily was founded on 11 October 1952, at a price of 10 Hong Kong cents; the first issue was published on a Saturday. Its stated aim was to serve as the voice of local Hong Kong commerce, with a focus on worldwide economies, especially in Hong Kong and China. In its launch foreword the paper presented itself as speaking for Hong Kong's commercial community at a moment when the city's trading economy was being reshaped by the new order on the mainland. It also covered sport and, on weekends, offered columns and serialised short stories with pictures — a reminder that even a paper founded for commerce understood that a daily newspaper has to hold a general reader as well as a businessman. The founding date makes the HKCD one of Hong Kong's older surviving dailies, launched only a few years after The Standard in 1949 and well before the popular Chinese-language giants of the later twentieth century reached their mature form. Its longevity rests on the specificity of its founding promise: business news, in Chinese, from Hong Kong, about Hong Kong, China and the world.

The First Financial Newspaper in the Chinese Language

The claim most consistently attached to the Hong Kong Commercial Daily is that it was the first financial newspaper in the Chinese language. That distinction explains both its name and its editorial centre of gravity. Where Hong Kong's mass Chinese dailies built their audiences on local news, entertainment, racing and consumer advocacy, the Commercial Daily was conceived as a paper of commerce: markets, trade, companies and economic policy, addressed to readers who did business between Hong Kong and the mainland. Reference descriptions of its later development keep returning to the same emphasis. The upgraded paper of May 2005 emphasised business news from Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta, along with some sports coverage. A Shenzhen Press Group president described its aim as being the authoritative newspaper for Hong Kong people to learn about the mainland economy, and for mainland readers to learn about the Hong Kong and overseas economy. That two-way bridge — explaining the mainland to Hong Kong and Hong Kong to the mainland — is the paper's defining editorial idea, present from 1952 to the present.

Early Decades, Racing Coverage and a Circulation Decline

In its early decades the paper combined commerce with the popular material Hong Kong readers expected, including sport and weekend features. One episode from that period left a clear mark on its history: early coverage of horse and dog racing was curtailed by the government in the early 1970s, so as not to promote gambling, and that curtailment led to a severe decline in circulation. The episode is revealing about the Hong Kong newspaper market of the time. Racing information was not a marginal extra for Hong Kong dailies; it was a major reason many readers bought a paper, as the racing coverage of rivals such as Oriental Daily News also showed. Losing full racing coverage hurt the Commercial Daily precisely because it competed for the same daily buyer. The paper survived the decline and retained its commercial identity, but the episode set the pattern of its later life: a respected, specialised title with a defined role, rather than one of the mass-circulation leaders of the Chinese-language market.

Ownership: Joint Publishing, Shenzhen Press Group and the Liaison Office

The paper is state-owned and controlled by the Hong Kong Liaison Office and Shenzhen Press Group, and published by Shenzhen Press Group. Its ownership history includes a major transaction in December 1989, when a majority shareholding was acquired by Joint Publishing (HK) Company Limited — the joint company of The Commercial Press (H.K.) Ltd, Chung Hwa Book Co. and Joint Publishing — for HK$160 million. The paper has also been listed among Hong Kong's patriotic newspapers together with Wen Wei Po and Ta Kung Pao, and among the Hong Kong media funded directly by the Chinese party-state in critical accounts of the city's media ownership. A later investment episode illustrates its mainland commercial ties: Shenzhen New World Group purchased 45 per cent of the Hong Kong Commercial Daily and became its second-largest shareholder, in a signing ceremony at which Huang Yanglue, president of Shenzhen Press Group and of the Hong Kong Commercial Daily, said the joining of the group would bring an advanced management system and financial support. Huang, born in Guangdong and a 1982 graduate of Zhongshan University who had worked at the Xinhua News Agency's Guangdong branch, was appointed head of the Shenzhen news group in September 2002.

Legal Announcements and Free Circulation in Mainland China

Two official privileges distinguish the Hong Kong Commercial Daily from almost every other Hong Kong title. It is one of the few newspapers authorised by the Hong Kong SAR government to publicise legal announcements. And it is one of a very small number of Hong Kong newspapers allowed to be circulated freely in mainland China — reference accounts describe it both as the only Hong Kong newspaper allowed that free circulation and, in the most recent reference wording, as one of three Hong Kong newspapers allowed to be circulated freely on the mainland. It has a branch office in Shenzhen, and reference accounts record that it had the largest circulation among Hong Kong newspapers in China. Those facts give the paper a function beyond ordinary news publishing. A business reader in Guangdong or elsewhere on the mainland could buy a Hong Kong commercial paper through normal channels; a Hong Kong company could place a legally recognised announcement in a paper that mainland partners could actually read. That cross-border utility is central to the description of the paper, by the central government, as "China's international media window."

Mainland Edition, Online Edition and the 2005 Upgrade

The paper developed its cross-border model in stages. In 1995 the HKCD launched a mainland edition, in cooperation with mainland publishing companies. Since 1996, an online version has been available — early for a Hong Kong newspaper, and consistent with a title whose readers were businesses that adopted the internet quickly. In May 2005 the paper was upgraded and repriced: HK$3 in Hong Kong and overseas, while in mainland China it sold for 3 yuan within Guangdong Province and 5 yuan in other provinces. The pricing itself tells the distribution story — a single paper, sold on both sides of the boundary, priced in two currencies for two markets. The new version emphasised business news from Hong Kong and the Pearl River Delta, along with some sports coverage. Its website, hkcd.com, carries the paper's news and archive, with past news and features accessible through a searchable archive in earlier descriptions of the online service. For business historians, that archive, together with the print run back to 1952, is a continuous Chinese-language record of Hong Kong commerce.

Editorial Leadership: Chen Xitian and the Paper's Journalists

The paper's recorded editor is Chen Xitian, also rendered Cheng Xitian. Reference accounts describe him as the chief editor of the HKCD and a deputy of the paper who had previously been an editor of the Shenzhen publishing group, a part-time professor at Renmin University of China and Wuhan University, a 1966 journalism graduate of Renmin University, and a journalist of more than thirty years' standing who was given the title "Unique Journalist" by Deng Xiaoping in 1992. His 1992 Chinese publication on Deng's southern tour won major mainland press awards, including a first prize at the Chinese News Awards and a special prize at the Guangdong News Awards, and in 2000 he received the Taofen Journalism Award, described as the most honourable prize in the mainland press. Huang Yanglue, discussed above as president of both the Shenzhen group and the paper, was also a part-time professor at the Business School of Jinan University. The leadership profile — senior mainland journalism figures holding academic posts alongside editorial ones — reflects the paper's position at the junction of Hong Kong publishing and the mainland state media system.

The Long Zhenyang Case of 2015–2016

The paper's recent history includes an episode reported internationally by the BBC and Hong Kong Free Press. In 2015, assistant editor-in-chief Long Zhenyang was placed under disciplinary "political measures" for comments he had made during the 2014 Hong Kong protests and regarding the demolition of churches in Zhejiang. For the following year he did not work as an editor but was allowed to continue writing, and in February 2016 he resigned and sought political asylum in the United States, comparing the sociopolitical climate in Chinese politics to the Cultural Revolution and saying that all hope for social reform and reform of China's political system had been extinguished. The case is recorded here because it was widely reported and because it illustrates, from inside the newsroom, the political pressures surrounding a state-owned Hong Kong title during a period of protest and tightening control. It stands in the paper's history alongside its commercial milestones as part of a complete, unsanitised record.

Format, Language and Position Among Hong Kong Newspapers

The Hong Kong Commercial Daily is published in broadsheet format, in Chinese, as a daily newspaper and state medium, with its headquarters in Hong Kong and a branch office in Shenzhen. Its political alignment is described in reference works as pro-Beijing, which follows from its ownership by Shenzhen Press Group under the Liaison Office's control. In lists of Hong Kong newspapers it belongs to the group of established Chinese-language dailies, but its identity within that group is specialised rather than mass-market: it does not compete with Oriental Daily News on entertainment or with Apple Daily, in its lifetime, on pro-democracy politics. It competes on authority in commerce — on being, as its own leadership put it, the paper through which Hong Kong learns the mainland economy and the mainland learns Hong Kong's. Its authorised status for legal announcements reinforces that official, business-facing character, giving it a formal function that entertainment-led papers do not perform.

Why the Hong Kong Commercial Daily Matters

The Hong Kong Commercial Daily matters, first, for its historic first: founded in 1952 as the first financial newspaper in the Chinese language, it created a category that later Hong Kong and mainland business papers would fill at much larger scale. Second, it matters for its cross-border position, which no purely local Hong Kong title replicates: authorised for legal announcements in Hong Kong, circulated freely in mainland China, published with a Shenzhen branch, a mainland edition from 1995 and differentiated mainland pricing from 2005. Third, it matters as an institution of the Hong Kong–Shenzhen–Pearl River Delta economy, owned by Shenzhen Press Group and described by the central government as China's international media window. A reader who wants to understand how Hong Kong commerce talked to itself, and to the mainland, across the decades from 1952 through the handover and beyond, will find few more direct sources than this paper.