About Xinhua Daily

Xinhua Daily

Xinhua Daily, in Chinese Xinhua Ribao, is a daily newspaper owned by the Jiangsu Provincial Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and headquartered in Nanjing, Jiangsu. Its modern identity as a provincial party newspaper, however, is only the latest chapter of a much older story. Founded in Hankou on 11 January 1938, it was the only newspaper published by the CCP during the Second Sino-Japanese War, published openly in territory ruled by the Kuomintang (Nationalists) at a time when the Communist Party had no other public daily voice there. That wartime origin — negotiated, censored, defended and relocated under fire — makes Xinhua Daily one of the most historically significant newspapers in China, distinct from the many provincial dailies founded after 1949.

Founding in Hankou in January 1938

Xinhua Daily was founded in Hankou, part of present-day Wuhan, on 11 January 1938. Its creation was a product of the Second United Front, the wartime cooperation between the CCP and the Kuomintang against Japan's invasion. Among the points negotiated in that cooperation was the ability of the Communist Party to openly publish newspapers and periodicals in Kuomintang areas. In late August 1937, Zhou Enlai and Shao Lizi, head of the Kuomintang Central Publicity Department, agreed that Xinhua Daily and a weekly, Qunzhong (rendered Chuin Chung in one scholarly source), would be published in those areas. A CCP delegation headed by Zhou Enlai had been sent to Wuhan in December 1937, and the party's Yangtze River Bureau there decided to build a publishing operation, including the China Publishing House, to expand its public voice. The first issue appeared the following month, during the latter part of the Nanjing Massacre, and the new paper began publishing reports of the Japanese Army's atrocities after January 1938, particularly after Western reporting on the subject dwindled in February 1938.

Relocation to Chongqing and Zhou Enlai's leadership

The paper's first home did not last long. After the fall of Wuhan in October 1938, Xinhua Daily continued publishing in Chongqing, the wartime capital. In September 1938 the CCP had replaced its Yangtze River Bureau with a Southern Bureau for party work in the southern Kuomintang-ruled and occupied areas, with Zhou Enlai as secretary, and the Chongqing edition of Xinhua Daily was controlled directly by Zhou Enlai until February 1947. Zhou also served as chairman of the paper's board, leading it for a long period. In Chongqing the paper established the Xinhua Daily Pavilion, which, in addition to publishing the newspaper, ran a publishing department carrying out the party's publishing work under the Southern Bureau's guidance. It issued dozens of titles in its own book series and published works such as studies of the Pacific War in the newspaper's name. Together with allied publishing houses in Yan'an and elsewhere, the Chongqing operation became an important position from which the party propagated its line, principles and policies in Kuomintang-ruled areas.

The only CCP newspaper of the war

Xinhua Daily's published history states that it was the only newspaper published by the CCP during the Second Sino-Japanese War, created in order to consolidate public sentiment against the Japanese. A scholarly study of its wartime discourse puts the same point in operational terms: it was the only publicly issued CCP party newspaper in Kuomintang-ruled areas during the War of Resistance, continuously publicising women's actual living conditions, advocating women's participation in social affairs and arguing that the struggle for national liberation and for women's liberation were connected. Its founding purpose was summarised in that study as broadcasting anti-Japanese thought and consolidating the anti-Japanese national united front — supporting anti-Japanese forces, encouraging wartime industry and commerce, and opposing bureaucratic capital. Within the party's own media system it had a counterpart rather than a superior: Jiefang Daily, which began publishing on 16 May 1941 under the direct control of Mao Zedong, was created as part of a strategy to move the party's propaganda arm under Mao's control, precisely because Xinhua Daily, based in Chongqing, was not controlled by Mao. The wartime archive is substantial: the Late Qing and Republican-Era Chinese Newspapers collection records 3,226 issues of Xinhua Ribao published in Hankou and Chongqing between 1938 and 1947.

Censorship, 'skylights' and protecting readers

Publishing a Communist newspaper legally inside the Nationalist wartime capital required constant negotiation with censorship. Hardline Kuomintang supporters attempted to stifle Xinhua Daily by refusing it legal rights for paper distribution, exerting control over post offices and newspaper vendors, and operating a censorship system that inspected all content the paper published. The newspaper answered visibly. To protest censorship by the Kuomintang government, it marked censored articles through techniques such as 'opening a skylight' — leaving a blank space where a censored article would have been — or through explicit statements such as 'the following deleted by order'. Readers could therefore see not only what the paper was allowed to say, but also where it had been prevented from speaking. It also generally printed only advertisements on its front cover, in an effort to protect readers from being detected as readers of a Communist paper. These devices — the blank skylight, the deletion notice and the advertisement-only cover — have become some of the best-known details of Chinese wartime press history, and they belong specifically to Xinhua Daily's Chongqing years.

Life in Chongqing's wartime press world

Wartime Chongqing had a relatively plural press environment, because the Kuomintang was not able to exert ironclad control over speech. Xinhua Daily competed there with publications of different affiliations, including Ta Kung Pao, then an independent newspaper, and the Kuomintang's own Zhongyang Ribao, the Central Daily News, alongside many smaller papers. Cultural choices marked the political differences. Along with Ta Kung Pao, Xinhua Daily published vernacular poetry, in contrast to the strictly classical poetry published by the Central Daily News — written vernacular Chinese, baihua, having been associated with the progressive movement since the New Culture Movement of 1917, while classical language was associated with conservatism. The paper published a number of poems by the poet Liu Yazi, many commenting on the arrival of Mao Zedong in Chongqing in 1945 for peace talks with Chiang Kai-shek, at a time when Mao was believed to be a proponent of the multiparty democracy that Xinhua Daily championed regularly. That record — a party newspaper arguing its case in open competition with rival papers in the same city — is a large part of why historians continue to study it.

From wartime daily to Jiangsu's official newspaper

After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, the CCP established official newspapers in the major cities it took over, and accounts of that reorganisation list Xinhua Ribao in Nanjing alongside Jiefang Ribao in Shanghai and Dazhong Ribao in Jinan. A specialist account of Chinese newspaper insignia summarises the outcome plainly: founded in 1938 by a group of revolutionaries that included Zhou Enlai, Xinhua Daily has been, since 1952, the official newspaper of the Jiangsu Provincial Committee. Nanjing is Jiangsu's provincial capital, so the wartime national paper became the party daily of one of China's most populous and economically important provinces. It retained its historic name through that transformation — it did not become a new 'Jiangsu Daily' — which is why a provincial newspaper in Nanjing today carries a founding date, and a wartime record, older than the People's Republic itself. Princeton University's Chinese newspaper indexes accordingly list Xinhua Daily among China's national as well as provincial newspaper holdings.

Headquarters, group and sister titles

The newspaper's headquarters today is the Xinhua Newspaper Media Plaza at No. 369 Jiangdong Middle Road, Jianye District, Nanjing. Its official e-paper site is xh.xhby.net, and its catalogue record is OCLC 779979039. The paper is the flagship of Xinhua Newspaper Media Group, the Jiangsu provincial news group that also sponsors the Xinhua Summit, an economists' and entrepreneurs' forum described in 2016 coverage as having been held for ten sessions and become one of the most influential economic activities in Jiangsu, including the selection of an annual 'economic cover personage' for the paper. The group has continued to build new ventures around the flagship, including cooperation with Nanjing University on an Intelligent Media Innovation Joint Laboratory addressing digitalisation and intelligent media. Most importantly for Jiangsu readers, Xinhua Daily is also the parent that created the province's great commercial evening paper: the Yangtse Evening Post was established by Xinhua Daily in Nanjing in 1986, a classic example of a party newspaper giving birth to a mass-market sister title while retaining its own official role.

Recognition and JiangsuNow

In March 2018, Xinhua Daily won a place in the Third National Top 100 Newspapers in China, the national 'Top 100 publications' selection announced that month. In June 2022, Jiangsu launched an international communication centre called JiangsuNow, which is run by Xinhua Daily. That assignment extended the paper's historic function — explaining the party's position to audiences beyond its own system — into international communication: in the 1930s and 1940s that had meant publishing openly in the Nationalists' capital and reporting atrocities when Western coverage faded; in the 2020s it means operating a dedicated centre presenting Jiangsu to the world. The paper's provincial leadership has continued to inspect and direct that work: Jiangsu's party chief, visiting Xinhua News Media Group's all-media command centre in 2023, urged the province's news organisations to promote integrated development and improve the efficiency of international communication while enhancing their credibility and influence.

Legacy and significance

Xinhua Daily occupies a double position in Chinese newspaper history. As a wartime paper, it was the CCP's sole public daily in Kuomintang territory during the Second Sino-Japanese War, led directly by Zhou Enlai in Chongqing until February 1947, marked by its skylight protests against censorship and its reporting on the Nanjing Massacre. As a contemporary paper, it has been Jiangsu's official party daily since 1952, headquartered in Nanjing, recognised among China's top 100 newspapers, parent of the Yangtse Evening Post and operator of the JiangsuNow international communication centre. The continuity between those two identities is the point: the same title that once protected its readers by printing advertisements on its cover now serves, openly and officially, as the voice of a provincial party committee. Few newspapers in the world can trace an unbroken line from a negotiated wartime newsroom in Hankou in January 1938 to a modern all-media news group in Nanjing — and that line is Xinhua Daily's claim on history.