Some Chinese scholars trace the beginning of Chinese journalism to the dibao, a type of news bulletin in existence as early as two millennia ago announcing appointments, promotions, and demotions at the imperial court. However, such publications were limited in circulation to the officials at the imperial court. Most scholars, however, acknowledge journalism in the Chinese language, as we understand the term to mean today, date from the publication of the first issue of Rev. William Milne's
Chinese Monthly Magazine in Malacca on Aug. 5, 1815. For the next few decades it was Christian missionaries and Western traders who were the ones to start and support journalistic endeavors among the Chinese in Southeast Asia and in China's treaty ports.
Three decades later, news of the discovery of gold became a magnet attracting thousands to
California. San Francisco became the main port of entry. Chinese journalism still remained a Western propaganda tool. In April 1854 the weekly Golden Hills' News began publishing with Chinese help.
According to Howard, the publisher, the aim was "to relieve the pressure of religious ignorance, settle and explain our laws, assist the Chinese to provide [for] their wants and soften, dignify and improve their general character." This pioneer newspaper lasted only a few months before it was supplanted in 1855 by the Oriental or Tung-Ngai San-Luk, another weekly, founded by a Presbyterian minister, the Rev.
William Speer.
The Oriental was intended to serve two audiences. A Chinese-language section, edited by Lee
Kan, a graduate from the Morrison School in Hong Kong and a classmate of Yung Wing, the first
Chinese to have graduated from an American college, was published for Chinese readers while an
English section explained China and the Chinese to the non-Chinese community. At the end of 1856, Ze
Too Yune, a missionary-educated Chinese, also launched what apparently was the first Chinese-language daily in the world, the Chinese Daily News, in Sacramento. These two newspapers failed after about two years, probably because the small Chinese community had a high illiteracy rate. Also, newspapers were still a novel concept to most Chinese.
The Chinese journalistic field was inactive for two decades, but in 1868, when the transcontinental railroad was well on its way toward completion, the U.S. signed the Burlingame Treaty with China to open the door for much-needed labor for development of the West, especially California.
Immigration increased and San Francisco became the major center for Chinese in America. As the community grew in size and established institutions, there were renewed efforts to establish Chinese newspapers.
By this time Chinese-language newspapers had been established in Hong Kong and some
Chinese treaty ports. The decades from 1870 through the 1880s saw the rise and fall of a number of
Chinese newspapers, now, mostly Chinese-owned, in San Francisco. Some of these were San Francisco
China News (weekly founded in 1874); Oriental or Wah Kee (weekly founded in 1875); San Francisco
Chinese Newspaper or Tong Fan San Po (weekly founded in 1876); The Chinese Record (bilingual semi-monthly founded by Prof. Augustus Layres in 1876 to defend Chinese against the anti-Chinese movement); The Weekly Occidental (founded in 1881; changed to Daily Occidental in 1900); American and Chinese Commercial Newspaper or Sui Kee (weekly founded in 1883); and The San Francisco
Chinese Daily Evening News (founded in 1884). Many of these publications had only an ephemeral existence, but one, Oriental, in spite of numerous changes to its Chinese name and management, published for almost three decades.
By the 1880s Chinese newspapers also began to appear in Chinese communities outside of San
Francisco. In Honolulu, there was Hawaiian Chinese News (weekly founded in 1883); W ah Ha Bo

(weekly founded in 1893); and Lai Kee Bo (weekly founded in 1895). In New York, Wong Ching Foo founded the weekly Chinese American in 1883 and then founded the semi-monthly Chinese American in
Chicago in 1893 and the weekly Chinese News in 1896. In Boston there was the Chinese Monthly News, founded in 1890.
However, conditions for Chinese newspapers were favorable only in Hawaii since there were already more than 15,000 Chinese in the islands and more than 5,000 in Honolulu by the mid-1880s.
Honolulu, therefore, quickly became a second center of Chinese journalism. On the East Coast, the New
York Chinese population was less than 1,000 in 1880, with most of them laundrymen living in scattered locations. By 1890, it had only increased to 3,000, while in Massachusetts and Illinois the Chinese populations were even less, at about 1,000 each. Despite zealous efforts, Chinese journalism did not take permanent roots in these areas.
The political environment in North America and Hawaii allowed the press relative freedom to express a diversity of views. However, Chinese newspapers during the 19th century were not strongly political. This situation began changing in the 1880s when the Chinese community in America was beset on all sides by the anti-Chinese movement. Chinese labor was banned from the U.S. in 1882. Soon afterward both Canada and the Hawaiian Kingdom also restricted their immigration. Violence against
Chinese flared up in many parts of the West. A small middle class influenced by Western republican ideology began to emerge in the community. They looked toward the building of a strong China and establishment of a government that could both act on their behalf and protect their interests in North
America.
In 1898 Ng Poon Chew, a former Presbyterian minister, started the weekly Wa Mi San Po in Los
Angeles. Two years later he and several fellow Christians raised sufficient capital to move to San
Francisco and established the daily Chung Sai Yat Po. This newspaper supported the Chinese fight for civil rights in America and reform of the imperial system in China.
In 1898 in China, the reform party led by Kang Youwei issued numerous edicts in Emperor
Guangxu's name to make fundamental changes in China's traditional system. But after a hundred days, the empress dowager led the ultraconservatives in a coup d'etat and imprisoned the emperor. Many reformers were captured and executed, or were banished to the frontiers. Others, including Kang Youwei, fled abroad in fear for their lives.
In 1899 Kang reached Victoria, B.C., where he founded the China Reform Association, later known as the Chinese Constitutionalist Party (CCP), to voice support for the imprisoned young emperor and to work toward a constitutional government in China. The overwhelming majority of the Chinese abroad were sympathetic with Kang's ideals, and chapters of the association spread rapidly. The Reform
Association thus became the first modern Chinese political party in North America.
The Reform Party recognized the importance of the press to advance its cause. After establishing a party chapter in San Francisco in 1899, Reform Party members converted the Mon Hing Bo weekly, founded in 1892, to a party organ. In 1899 the name was changed to the Chinese World. The newspaper soon began daily publication and it remained a major voice in the San Francisco Chinese community for the next 70 years. Party organs were also started in Honolulu (1900), Vancouver (1903), and New York
City (1904) to serve as part of the first political Chinese newspaper network. It was during this period that Vancouver and New York City joined San Francisco to become the third and fourth centers of
Chinese journalism in the Western Hemisphere.
The reformers' feverish activities stimulated members of the Chee Kung Tong (CKT, also known as the Triad Society or Chinese Freemasons, a far flung South China secret society dedicated to overthrowing the Manchu Dynasty and restoring Han-Chinese rule to China) to establish newspapers in

San Francisco (1903), Vancouver (1907), Honolulu (1912), and eventually in New York City (1913) and
Toronto (1927).
By the 1900s the Sun Yat-sen-led Revolutionary Party, which also advocated the overthrow of the Manchu emperor, began to compete earnestly with the CCP for the support of overseas Chinese. Like the CCP and the CKT, the Revolutionary Party and its successors, the Chinese Nationalist Party or
Kuomintang (KMT), understood the importance of political propaganda. In 1903 party adherents began using Honolulu's Hawaiian Chinese News to advance their cause. Later, when the publishers showed a lack of enthusiasm, the revolutionaries established their own organ, Chee You Sun Po (Liberty News).
On the mainland, revolutionaries established a San Francisco weekly, The Youth, in 1909. In
1910 it changed to daily publication as the Young China Morning Post. In subsequent years, the
Revolutionary Party and its successor, the Kuomintang, established the largest party newspaper network in North America with additional organs in Victoria, BC (1905), New York City (1915), Toronto (1916),
Vancouver (1921) and Seattle (1921).
The early 1900s thus ushered in a new phase of Chinese journalism with China politics dominating the press. Chinese communities in the US and Canada became political arenas with the reformers on one side and the revolutionaries and their sympathizers on the other. It was not unusual for newspapers of differing ideologies to engage each other in editorial wars of words. Sometimes these extended for months and were spiced with frequent use of vitriolic prose.
After the 1911 Revolution, the political struggle continued with the main protagonists being the
KMT and the CCP. However, the latter was now joined by the CKT, the revolutionaries' former ally, who had broken with Sun Yat-sen after the establishment of the Republic. After the Kuomintang established the Nanjing government in 1927, however, popular support for its two major rivals declined. The readership of their newspapers dwindled and one by one they closed their doors. For a time CCP's
Chinese World in San Francisco, under the dynamic leadership of Dai Ming Lee, enjoyed a brief renaissance after World War II. However, after a financially disastrous move to establish a New York edition in 1957 and Lee's subsequent death in 1961, the paper went downhill and in 1969 ceased publication. By 1978 the remaining CCP organ, the New China Press of Honolulu, also closed its doors.
A similar fate befell CKT newspapers in various cities. By 1980 the only Chee Kung Tong voice was
Vancouver's Chinese Times.
As for the KMT, an internal struggle broke out in the party after its ascent to power in China in
1927. The KMT purged communists from party ranks. The "left" and "right" factions of the party established rival regimes in Hankou and Nanjing, respectively. In overseas Chinese communities this schism manifested itself in the establishment of two party headquarters and two rival papers, representing a "left" and a "right" faction. In San Francisco the Kuo Min Yat Po (founded in 1927) became the "left" faction rival to the Young China, which supported the Chiang Kai-shek-dominated Nanjing government.
In New York, the "right" faction started a short-lived rival to the existing Mun Hey Daily. More successful rival newspapers were established in Honolulu and Vancouver. A new party organ was established in Chicago.
This intra-party strife continued until the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937, when all factions presented an outward facade of unity. During the war, the Kuomintang papers enjoyed what was probably the apex of their influence on Chinese American public opinion.
After World War II, as corruption and inflation in China became general knowledge among the
Chinese abroad, there was widespread disenchantment with the KMT regime. Soon afterward the KMT was defeated by the Chinese Communists in the civil war and retreated to Taiwan. Greater opportunities for Chinese in Canadian and American society led to more participation in local and national politics.

Thus, the influence of China politics waned. One by one, the papers closed their doors. By the mid-1980s only Honolulu's United Chinese Press, Toronto's Shing Wah, and San Francisco's Young China were left.
Even these were just pale shadows of their former selves with very low circulation.
On the other end of the political spectrum the left-wing press in America dates to the beginning of the century, with socialist and anarchist publications circulated to a limited circle. It was only after the communists and their sympathizers were expelled from the Kuomintang in 1927 that the Marxist left established San Francisco's Chinese Vanguard. This newspaper subsequently moved to Philadelphia, settled down in New York City in 1930, and published as a weekly until 1938.
In 1940 supporters of the left, buttressed by the powerful New York Chinese Hand Laundry
Alliance, established their first daily paper in New York City, the China Daily News. This newspaper supported the communist-led revolution in China, and in the 1940s enjoyed a wide circulation. However, during and after the Korean War it was harassed by the U.S. government and by hoodlums hired by the
Kuomintang. In 1955 its publisher, Eugene Moy, was convicted for alleged violation of the Trading with the Enemy Act. The atmosphere of fear generated by the anti-Communist hysteria of the McCarthy era caused a precipitous drop in the newspaper's circulation; it became a semi-weekly publication in 1963.
However, in 1977, when US-China relations improved, the paper resumed daily publication.
On the West Coast, the China Weekly was established in San Francisco in 1949. This paper, which supported the Communist Revolution, became a casualty of the Korean War when Chinese troops joined the fighting on the side of North Korea and the Chinatown printing company refused to continue printing the newspaper. It was not until 1969 that supporters of the People's Republic of China were able to establish another weekly, Chinese Voice. However, this paper strained its financial resources when it changed to daily publication. Internal dissension soon led to its demise in 1972. It was succeeded by the weekly San Francisco Journal , which in 1983 became daily, but ceased publication on Nov. 15, 1986. It should be noted that unlike the KMT party press, the left-wing newspapers were not officially party organs.
There were also a number of other non-party "independent" newspapers of liberal or conservative bent. The first such successful daily was the previously mentioned Chung Sai Yat Po. For many decades this newspaper spoke for the interests of San Francisco Chinatown businessmen and enjoyed wide circulation in the Western U.S. and Mexico before it ceased publication in 1951. Another influential newspaper was San Francisco's Chinese Times, the official voice of the Chinese American Citizens
Alliance. It was founded in 1924 and, particularly under the management of Walter U. Lum, expressed the concerns of American citizens of Chinese extraction, especially with respect to their political and civil rights. In the Eastern U.S., a similar role was played by the New York Journal of Commerce, representing liberal elements in the community opposed to corruption in the Chinese Consolidated
Benevolent Association. Founded in 1928, one of its most notable accomplishments was the support it gave to New York laundry men to fight discriminatory legislation during the early 1930s. The newspaper was sold in 1944 and became a KMT party organ, the Chinese Journal.
During the postwar era New York became the center for the so-called independents, with the greatest number of such newspapers in North America in the 1980s: namely, the United Journal, China
Tribune, China Post, Peimei News, and Sino Daily Express. While these newspapers claim no official connection to any political party, they do present the political views of specific interest groups that may be so closely allied to political parties that it is difficult to detect the difference.
National Newspapers
In contrast to the above are the newspapers with national distribution. During the period after
World War II, San Francisco's Chinese World and New York's China Times made attempts to launch such newspapers but both failed. However, the large influx of Chinese immigrants since 1965 created

favorable conditions. In 1967 the Hong Kong-based Sing Tao Jih Pao launched a North American edition in San Francisco. The U.S. edition of the newspaper included coverage of the U.S. and Chinese
American community, in addition to features and news stories from the Hong Kong editions of the newspaper. The newcomer introduced a higher standard of professional journalism than previously had existed in the local press. Also, because the newspaper uses the smaller type commonly used in the Far
East, the paper contains more reading material than do existing community newspapers. Sing Tao became an instant success and subsequently established offices in the major North American Chinatowns (as well as in other parts of the world). Its coming launched a new stage in the Chinese American press, in which newspapers financed by capital from abroad competed with community newspapers in the U.S. and
Canada.
Subsequently, other entrepreneurs from abroad began establishing nationally distributed newspapers. In the 1980s the major ones are World Journal (founded 1976: same owners as Taiwan's
United Journal) , International Daily News (founded 1981 by Taiwan immigrant Chen Tao, who also ran the Guoji Shangzhuan [International Commercial College] in Taiwan; and Centre Daily News (founded
1982 by Fu Chao-shu, owner of Hong Kong's Centre Daily News). The first two print regularly in several colors and on weekends publish a Sunday magazine supplement. Taiwan's China Times also began publication of a weekly in 1977 that became a daily in 1982, but the daily suddenly ceased publication in
1984 and weekly publication was resumed. It was thought that political attacks on the paper in Taiwan and a tightening of currency transactions by the government there were the cause of the demise of the daily.
One distinguishing characteristic of the national newspapers is that they maintain offices in several cities. Instead of waiting passively for news items to be delivered to their offices, as was often the case with older community newspapers, these papers send reporters to cover local events or conduct investigations. Such practices have put pressure on existing Chinese community newspapers to take similar steps, and news coverage has greatly improved. However, the operational costs of the nationwide newspapers are high and it is doubtful that any of them are turning a profit.
Other newspapers from Hong Kong, such as Ming Pao, Sing Pao and SinoAmerican Daily News, also began printing abridged versions of the Hong Kong editions in North America. However, these are, except for some local advertisements, only copies of their parent newspapers in Hong Kong. In 1984
Beijing's Renmin Ribao also began printing an edition in the U.S., followed by an overseas edition in
1985 with articles aimed at the overseas audience. Neither edition includes community news or local advertisements.
San Francisco and New York remained the two principal centers of Chinese journalism in the
U.S. By the 1980s, however, Los Angeles lay claim to being the third center; however, the city did not even hace a Chinese daily In Canada the two centers continued to be Vancouver, B.C. and Toronto.
During the 1970s and 1980s numerous existing and newly-founded newspapers competed for a share of the rapidly growing Chinese market. However, by the late 1980s soaring costs and limited returns in a restricted market took its toll as many community-based dailies ceased publication. By the 1990s Sing
Tao and World Journal dominated the market with separate editions published in several North American communities. Two other papers competing for the national market are China Press , which came into being when the China Daily News became defunct after the Tian’anmen Incident of June 4, 1989 and was reorganized with connections to the PRC’s China News Service, and International News, which had ran into mounting financial problems when the Taiwan Ministry of Education ordered owner Chen Tao’s
International Commercial College to cease operations for four years in 1990. It was sold in 1996 to
Indonesian Chinese immigrant Ted Siong. A late arrival was Hong Kong’s Ming Pao , which in 1993 established editorial offices in Vancouver and Toronto to publish Western and Eastern Canadian editions, respectively. In 1997 it also came out with a Eastern United States edition published in New

York City. These editions represent a step forward from the former North American edition that was published in San Francisco, in that local community news are an important part of each issue.
Weekly Publications and Periodicals
Due to the perceived lower cost of production, weekly publication was attractive to many would- be journalists. This concept was usually implemented where the market was limited. Thus in the 1930s a short-lived mimeographed newspaper, Chinese Weekly, appeared in Los Angeles . After World War II several more weeklies were founded. The one with the longest history is New Kwong Tai Press, founded in 1961.
The first successful one of this genre was New York's Chinese American Weekly (1942-1970), published as a newsmagazine featuring current events, a pictorial section, and special articles. Chinese
Pacific Weekly, founded in 1946 in San Francisco, was closer to a conventional Chinese newspaper, except that it was a smaller tabloid-size paper. For three decades, this weekly edited by Gilbert Woo was a liberal voice on the West Coast. It specialized in immigration news, features about Chinatown, and court trials. After Woo’s death in 1979, David Shew managed the paper for a few years before it was merged with the bilingual East/West Newspaper in 1983.
Many community-based publications chose not to compete directly with the national dailies.
Instead they targeted niche audiences, publishing weekly or monthly. Due to the lower production costs and staff requirements as compared to the dailies, such newspapers, generally weeklies, semi-monthlies or monthlies were founded in smaller Chinese communities such as Boston, Houston, Seattle,
Washington D.C., Atlanta, Denver, and etc.
Some of these newspapers aimed at special constituencies. Earlier examples are the Asian
American movement and the Diaoyutai Movement of the early 1970s, which gave birth to many journals.
Many of these publications had short lives. Some better-known Asian American movement publications were Getting Together (1970-1978), started in New York in 1970 by I Wor Kuen, a militant Asian
American group (it moved to SF in 1971 and later became biweekly), Wei Min Pao in San Francisco
(1971-1975), and Chinese Awareness in Los Angeles (founded 1971). These monthly publications used the bilingual format.
In recent years supporters of the Taiwan independence movement began establishing news organs such as Los Angeles' Formosa Weekly (founded 1980) and New York's Taiwan Tribune (founded
1981). Refugee Indo-Chinese of Chinese extraction have also established newspapers, generally weeklies, for their community. The earliest of these is Vietnam-Chinese Newspaper, founded in Los
Angeles in 1981. This was followed by Indo-Chinese News in 1982. In San Francisco there is the weekly
Bao Trung Nam or The Newcomer News, founded in 1983. Other newspapers have also been founded in other Chinese communities. There had also been some periodicals, but few with longevity.
As PRC dissidents took refuge in this country they also published newspapers and periodicals.
By the early 1990s, as students, visiting scholars, and immigrants from the PRC also settled in America, publications appeared expressing their concerns and interests. Many other groups such as Buddhists, evangelical Christians as well as other special interests also had their own regular publications.
Publishing Chinese newspapers has seldom been a profitable business. Often political or wealthy sympathizers subsidize them. Most papers were established to promote specific political caused. Because of low circulation, 10,000-15,000 or less, capital is not available for expansion and improvements.
Up to the late 1960s, the writing styles were hackneyed and production methods archaic.
Investigative-type reporting was rare. A few years ago, with the older generation dying out and the
American-born generation losing the ability to read Chinese, Chinese newspapers seemed doomed to an early extinction. However, the increase in immigration since the early 1970s, especially to continental

North America, has given the Chinese-language press a new life. The lone exception is Hawaii, which has had fewer immigrants than the mainland, with the Chinese community there being assimilated into
American society to a much higher degree. By 1978 the Chinese community was left with one Chinese newspaper, the almost moribund United Chinese Press , which finally ceased publication in 2000, when it lost its offices in the Chinese Cultural Plaza .
English-Language Press
Another important category is the English-language press. Accompanying the growth of the
Hawaii-born Chinese population, an Americanized Chinese Hawaiian middle class of professionals and businessmen had emerged by the 1920s and began to develop a sense of community. Organizations such as the University Club (founded 1919) arose to express their aspirations to achieve equal status in
Hawaii's multi-ethnic society. In 1925 a group of native-born formed the Hawaiian Chinese Civic
Association to strive for the civil and political rights of the Chinese. In 1926 a member of the association,
Dr. Dai Yen Chang, became the first full-blooded Chinese to be elected as county supervisor.
The same year the first Chinese published bilingual paper in the New World, Hawaii Chinese
News, was founded as part of this effort of Hawaii-born Chinese to become part of mainstream society and to express their existence as a Hawaii Chinese community. Ruddy Tong was the weekly's first editor and manager.
Hawaii Chinese News ' premier issue states that it "... is the proud child of an ideal developed within the Chinese community and the happy realization of the long cherished expectation and hope of the Chinese people throughout the territory. It has been established to serve, to help, and to promote the best interests of the thousands who make up the Chinese community. It answers the flood of inquiries from thoughtful Chinese as to why the present generation, educated in American schools and colleges, cannot conduct a newspaper of their own; it fulfills the dreams of farseeing individuals who years ago, had already pictured the progress of the Chinese along all lines of endeavor ....". The motto on the newspaper's masthead was "For richer life among the Chinese" and "For more friendly relations with others."
This weekly was the first Chinese community newspaper to express a U.S. citizen's viewpoint and paid more attention to community, social events, and sports news than Chinese-language newspapers.
It targeted the younger Hawaii-born element as its audience. However, when its rivals began publishing more local Chinese news by 1930, Hawaii Chinese News began to lose circulation and advertising revenue.
1 It ceased publication in 1932.
2 For a short time during the mid-1930s, the United Chinese News tried to attract the growing number of English readers by publishing an English-language section. This effort ended around 1938.
3
During this period a growing number of locally born Asians were rapidly becoming
Americanized. In the process many had lost fluency in their ancestral tongues; however, the common experiences of the several Asian groups striving for equality in Hawaii and their common use of the
English language became factors drawing them together. On Jan. 20, 1936 Charles Ling Fu started publication of the English-language weekly Oriental Tribune, "aimed at and dedicated to the Westernized
Oriental of Hawaii Nei." This, the first newspaper to use the Asian American concept to unite people of
Asian descent, lasted less than a year, as there apparently were not enough readers ready to embrace this principle.
4 The next year another weekly, Hawaii-Chinese Journal , "The Voice of 27,000 Chinese," began publication on November 12, 1937. The first manager of this new venture was Chock Lun, and the editor William C. W. Lee.
5
Hawaii Chinese Journal emphasized local community news but also included China news of concern to Hawaii Chinese. During World War II, from August 29, 1940 to Dec. 7, 1944, this publication was bilingual. In 1952 it published a special issue to commemorate the Hawaii Chinese centennial. This

newspaper had a life of two decades before it ceased publication on December 31, 1957. It was succeeded by Hawaii Chinese Weekly, "The Only English Weekly for Hawaii's Chinese," which began publication on July 3, 1958. However, a little more than a year later, on Nov. 16, 1959, the paper closed its doors forever.
6 Since that time English readers have had to depend on Honolulu's metropolitan dailies or outside publications such as Vancouver's Chinatown News to read whatever news the editors choose to print on the Hawaii Chinese community.
It was not until 1935 that the first all-English Chinese community newspaper in the continental
United States, Chinese Digest, was founded in San Francisco. Reflecting the growing importance of the
American-born community, this weekly journal gave emphasis to activities of the Americanized generation. Founded during the Great Depression, the Chinese Digest's circulation never reached a thousand and it finally ceased publication in 1940. It was followed by the short-lived Chinese News
(1940-1942). A weekly founded during the same period was California Chinese Press (the name was later changed to Chinese Press , which published from 1940 to 1952. During the war years, however, the paper had to temporarily suspend publication because the editors had to serve in the armed forces.
In Canada, the first English-language newspaper was Chinese News Weekly, a short-lived publication founded in 1936. After World War II, Chinese Canadians founded the New Citizen in
Vancouver in 1949. Later the newspaper moved to Toronto and published until 1952. Another more successful publication is Vancouver's semi-monthly Chinatown News, started in 1953 by Roy Mah, which published continuously for more than three decades. Chinatown News published original articles and reprints on the Chinese communities that attracted many readers in Canada and the United States.
New York City, however, proved to be barren soil for English-language community newspapers. New
York's only English weekly, Chinese American Times, was founded in 1954 but ceased publication by the early 1970s. There has not been another since.
The bilingual East/West was established in 1967 by Gordon Lew in San Francisco with the avowed objective of bridging the gap between Chinese and American cultures in the Chinese American community. In 1976, John Fang, who earlier had been the editor at Young China and left that paper after a bitter dispute and litigation, founded the rival Asian Week with middle-class Asian Americans as its intended audience.
Over the years some Chinese newspapers, such as Kuo Min Yat Po, Young China, and Chinese
Pacific Weekly experimented with publishing an English supplement together with the main Chinese section, but the efforts were ineffective in increasing circulation and ultimately ended in failure with little to show for the funds expended. The only one that maintained publication for any great length of time was the Chinese World, which published an English section from 1949 to 1969. The newspaper was subsidized by C. Q. Yee Hop of Honolulu . Chinese Times , which as the news organ of the Chinese
American Citizens’ Alliance would have been a logical candidate to publish an English edition.
However, aside from discussions at various times over the years, the paper never made any moves toward implementation.
Radio and Television
The growth of the Chinese community also fostered the growth of radio and television. The growth of non-English broadcast programs in multi-ethnic Hawaii led Liberty News to organize the
Chinese Broadcast Bureau to initiate a weekly hour-long Cantonese program on Honolulu’s Station
KGU on April 30, 1933. One day later on May 1, 1933, a rival effort, Chinese Radio News also began broadcasting thrice weekly hour-long programs on the same station. By 1935, however, Radio News had encountered financial difficulties and aired only one hour per week on Station KGMB, It soon ceased operations and was succeeded by the short-lived New World Radio News . This left Chinese Broadcast
Service , which was reorganized from Chinese Broadcast Bureau when Liberty News severed relations

with the latter in October, 1933. It continued to service the Chinese community in Hawaii until World
War II.
7
On the mainland, regularly broadcasted Chinese radio programs did not begin until after the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War when the need for media to support the war effort led businessman
Thomas Tong to launch the Golden Star Chinese Radio Hour on San Francisco station KSAN in April
1939.
8 After the war other programs also emerged. From 1957 to 1959 the newspaper Chinese Times had a weekly broadcast. But Golden Star
’s greatest rival was
Voice of Chinatown, established by Frank Lee in 1957 in partnership with the KMT newspaper Young China. At first it also broadcasted on Station
KSAN, but in 1959 it moveed to Station KDFC, which used newly introduce technology FM and increased its daily broadcast to three hours duration. The program operated until 1974. It was outlasted by Golden Star Chinese Radio Hour, which continued until 1978, when it yielded the airwaves to a new crop of radio programs.
9
In New York City in the East, Louis Chu and Lyle Stuart collaborated in 1951 to initiate Chinese
Festival, a bilingual radio program on Station WHOM. The program was aired four nights per week until 1961.
10 A few years later in 1964, Chung Hwa Broadcasting Company began continuous radio broadcasts on cable.
11 In 1976 Sinocast eliminated cable connections by using newer technology where subscribers received continuous broadcasts through a special receiver furnished by the company.
12 In
1977 Sinocast also began broadcasting in San Francisco, 13 which probably was a factor in the decision of the venerable Golden Star to cease broadcasting.
In Los Angeles, the third center of Chinese population in America, Dan Yee was the pioneer broadcaster when he inintiated the weekly Huazhong Guangbo (Chinese Bell broadcast) broadcast in
1955. However, the program had to cease operations the same year when it could not accrue enough revenue to cover expenses. Yee tried again in 1963 and 1967 with financial support from Hong Kong, but failed each time after short runs.
14 A few years later in 1960 San Farncisco’s Voice of Chinatown began broadcasting through Los Angeles station KBCO for a few years.
15
With the rapid growth of the Chinese communities after 1965, mostly due to immigration,
Chinese television programs also began during the early 1970s in Los Angeles, New York, and San
Francisco. By the next decade such programs also appeared in other communities. By the 1990s satellite programs were also available for those willing to pay the fees. Both Chinese radio and television relied heavily on programming material, most often serial dramas. During the early years they came from
Taiwan and Hong Kong, but by the 1980s and 1990s, PRC and even Southeast Asian productions were being broadcast. Local programming were usually limited to news broadcasts and interviews.
Chinese television programs also stimulated the creation of businesses for rental and sale of video tapes. These became important factors contributing to the decline of Chinese motion picture theaters that had appeared around the 1930s in major communities and flourished during the 1950s and
1960s.
Conclusion
It seems fairly certain that as long as immigration continues and Chinese communities continue to exist, Chinese newspapers, radio, and television will continue to exist. But the financial pressures will continue the fallout in which only the well financed or subsidized or those able to modernize will survive.
1 Clarence E. Glick, Sojourners and Settlers: Chinese Migrants in Hawai’i (Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii, 1980), 295.

2 Hawaii Chinese Annual 1933 (Honolulu: Overseas Penman Club, 1933), 16.
3 Feb. 10, 1988 communication from Mary Ann Akao, Hawaii State Archives.
4
5
Hawaii Chinese Annual 1936 (Honolulu: Overseas Penman Club, 1936), 14.
Hong Wai (Feng Yulong), "Huabao lishi jishi" (A Historical account of Chinese newspapers), The Chinese of Hawaii Who's Who,
6
1956-1957 (Honolulu: United Chinese Penman Club, 1957), 32-33.
Tin Yuke Char, "Chinese Newspapers in Hawaii," The Bamboo Path: Life and Writings of a Chinese in Hawaii, (Honolulu,
7
Hawaii Chinese History Center, 1977) , 220–223.
Hawaii Chinese Annual 1934 (Honolulu: Overseas Penman Club, 1934), 19; Hawaii Chinese Annual 1935 (Honolulu: Overseas
8
Penman Club, 1935), 42; Hawaii Chinese Annual 1936 (Honolulu: Overseas Penman Club, 1936), 15.
Xuan Manhe, “Xie zai Jinxing Diantai sanshiwu zhounian ji’nianri” [Written on the commemoration of the 35 th anniversary of
Golden Star Chinese Radio Hour], Chinese Times, April 22, 1974.
9 Pei Chi Liu, A History of the Chinese in the United States of America (Taipei: Liming wenhua Shiye Gufen Youxian Gongsi,
1981), 403-404
10 Chinese Press, Aug. 17, 1951; “Chu, Louis H.,” Asian American Encyclopedia (North Bellmore, NY: Marshall Cavendish, 1995)
341.
11 Ye Lili, Qiaoxin yu guoyun [Heart of the Chinese overseas and the fate of the nation] (Taipei: Qiaolian Chubanshe, 1967), 414-
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12 Cathay Times Weekly, June 1, 1977.,
13 Sun Yat-sen News, Nov. 16, 1981.
14 Liu, Op. CitedI, 403.
15 Liu, Op. CitedI, 404.