1
The Chinese Media in the United States and Canada Since World War II
Him Mark Lai
NOTE: This article was originally written in 2008 for Chinese American Transnational Politics,
but it was omitted because of space considerations.
When the Sino-Japanese War began in 1937, more than half of the daily newspapers in
American and Canadian Chinese communities were either connected with or supportive of
political groups oriented toward China politics. Throughout the conflict, the Kuomintang (KMT)
in Hawaii and the American mainland, as a branch of the ruling political party in China,
monitored and controlled public opinion in the Chinese American and Chinese Canadian
communities. In support of the war effort, the party ensured that the press, along with
community organizations and institutions, provided unquestioning support to the KMT and the
Nationalist government. Errant editors were taken to task for apparent transgressions. For
example, Hu Jingnan (Gilbert Woo), then an editor at Chinese Times and a critic of the
Nationalist government, once wrote an article in which he placed the Chinese equivalent of
quotation marks around Chiang Kai-shek's title, Generalissimo. Woo was summoned to the
War Relief Association (WRA) to explain his punctuation, which appeared to question the
legitimacy of Chiang's leadership. Woo was also criticized when Chinese Times published an
article describing a Rice Bowl fundraising program as undistinguished. Alleging that this hurt the
war relief effort, the WRA demanded that Chinese Times apologize.1 In this climate of highly
charged nationalistic fervor, few editors dared to risk accusations of being "unpatriotic" and
hastened to conform to KMT views.
By the 1940s KMT sympathizers controlled the editorial departments of major non-party
newspapers, such as San Francisco's Chung Sai Yat Po and Chinese Times, Vancouver’s
Chinese Times, and the Chinese American Weekly of New York. San Francisco’s Chinese Times
began to present the perspective of the Chinese American Citizens’ Alliance (CACA). However,
by this time, a growing number of CACA members were no longer proficient in Chinese and
could not read the paper. Nor were their viewpoints sought and represented in the newspaper,
which thus became an easy target for a pro-KMT group to gain control. After World War II the
newspaper hired Meng Shouzhuang as chief editor, who had earlier successfully established a
second KMT newspaper in New York in 1943.2 A similar example of creeping KMT control also
occurred with Vancouver’s Chinese Times of the Min Chih Tang, the political arm of the
Hongmen Chee Kung Tong [Hall of extreme fairness]. In this instance, however, the party
organizations in both eastern and western Canada called conventions questioning the
newspaper’s deviation from Hongmen policies, thus forcing the editors to moderate their
stands.3 In New York KMT adherents were able to purchase the liberal Chinese Journal of
Commerce in 1943 and changed its Chinese name to Meizhou Ribao [Daily newspaper of the
Americas], to make it the second KMT party organ in New York other than Mun Hey Yat Po.4
Two additional New York publications also emerged. Chin-Fu Woo, who had been
ousted from the editorship of New York's Mun Hey Yat Po after a KMT intra-party power
struggle, founded the news magazine Chinese American Weekly (1942-1970). Featuring a
pictorial section, current events, and articles by Chinese American writers, Chinese-American
Weekly became one of the longest-running and most successful Chinese American
newsmagazines with national distribution for almost three decades. In 1943 another faction led
by J. S. Yu split off from Mun Hey Yat Po and raised capital from KMT members in the US to
establish China Tribune in New York.5
2
There were fewer changes among the smaller Chinese population in neighboring Canada,
less than half that in the US mainland. In 1946 a Chinese community leader recruited editor John
Ong from Victoria’s KMT organ New Republic to start Sanmin Ribao [Three principles daily news] in
Winnipeg, Manitoba. However, Ong soon found that the small Chinese population in central Canada
could not support a newspaper and the venture collapsed within a few months. In 1947 the KMT
organization transferred Ong to New York to edit Mun Hey.6
Soon after World War II ended, civil war resumed between the KMT and the
Communists. Political repression, corruption, and rampant inflation in the KMT-ruled areas led
to widespread disaffection and war weariness. Very little of this was reported by the KMTdominated press. As Chinese American communities learned of the deteriorating conditions
through other news sources, the few Chinese newspapers not controlled by the KMT began to
criticize the Nationalist regime, including two survivors of the once extensive Xianzhengdang
[Constitutionalist Party] newspaper network: Honolulu's New China Daily Press, which had
become a daily during World War II with the financial support of wealthy entrepreneur Chun
Quon (C. Q. Yee Hop), and San Francisco's Chinese World, which Chun purchased in 1945
and placed under the management of former New China Daily Press editor Dai Ming Lee. Lee
reversed the paper's declining circulation by turning it into a third force that attracted readers
disenchanted with KMT rule. 7
Transformations of World War II
After World War II, changes in the international and Chinese situations, in concert with
changes in the status and attitudes of the Chinese communities in the United States and
Canada eventually altered the political orientation of the Chinese community press.
World War II was an important turning point in the status of Chinese in the United
States and Canada. Congress repealed the Chinese Exclusion Act in 1943 and in 1946
Canada also repealed its Chinese exclusion laws. 8 Starting in the late 1940s, discriminatory
laws in the United States and Canada began to be repealed. Many Chinese Americans and
Chinese Canadians had participated in the war effort and gained veterans rights. In general,
they gained access to more mainstream opportunities and a middle class grew with interests
rooted in the United States and Canada. Newspapers expressing its point of view began to
appear. However, Chinese politics continued to have a dominant influence into the 1960s.
Chinese Pacific Weekly was one of the earliest exponents of the emerging Chinese
American middle class. It was founded in San Francisco in 1946 by immigrant Gilbert Woo
and others but assumed the perspective of American citizens.9 In 1948 businessman Thomas
Tong started another short-lived weekly, the Chinatown Shopper, with Herbert Lee and Kew
Yuen Ja as editors.10 However, the new middle class had limited political influence and even
their criticisms of the KMT regime had to be done using translations from the Western press.
The KMT, however, was determined to muffle even these tiny voices of protest. KMT
adherents spread rumors accusing Chinese Pacific Weekly of being a Communist organ
scaring advertisers and subscribers. However, the editors persevered and the paper slowly
gained a following among the more open-minded and was a respected liberal voice for more
than three decades until editor Gilbert Woo's death in November 1979. Chinatown Shopper
was not as fortunate. In its sixth issue on November 20, 1948, Ja wrote an editorial hailing a
Communist-led political consultative conference as the nursemaid nurturing the birth of a
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democratic new China.11 This essay brought heavy KMT pressure on advertisers, and the
paper ceased publication after only seven issues, stating shortage of newsprint as the excuse
for its demise.
The New York left, faced with limited financial resources, focused its efforts on
supporting China Daily News as the principal voice of opposition to the KMT. During this
period, Gen. Feng Yuxiang, who had become estranged from Chiang Kai-shek, had come to
the United States and rallied a coalition of left and liberal opponents of the Nationalist
government to found the Overseas Chinese Federation for Peace and Democracy in China
(OCFPD) in New York in 1947 to urge an end to the Chinese civil war and promoting
democratic reforms in China. Both China Daily News and China Tribune, which had appointed
Feng’s former secretary Lai Xingzhi (Lai Yali) as acting chief editor in August 1945, supported
the OCFPD.12 In retaliation the KMT expelled China Tribune publisher J.S. Yu from party
ranks.
In San Francisco OCFPD members Francis Leong, Kew Yuen Ja, and others began to
raise capital to publish the daily Qiaozhong Ribao [Overseas Chinese masses daily
newspaper] to support the anticipated new Communist regime. 13 However, OCFPD member
Henry Tsoi was one step ahead when he began publishing China Weekly in May 1949 to give
the largest Chinese community in North America a voice from the left.
As the situation in China deteriorated for the KMT and the chorus of dissenters grew
louder, the KMT stepped up efforts to control public opinion in Chinatowns. In October 1949
KMT-hired hoodlums broke up a meeting celebrating the founding of the People's Republic of
China (PRC). The next night leaflets threatening key members of the opposition press were
distributed.14 However, despite this intimidation, tong leaders Joe Yuey and Lok Yip, together
with Stockton businessman Sam Wah You joined the Qiaozhong Ribao group to outbid KMT
supporters for the ailing Chung Sai Yat Po. 15 Under the new owners, this historic
newspaper became the first daily in the western US to openly support the new Chinese
government. Under the guidance of advisor Ma Jiliang, Chung Sai Yat Po set a more
moderate tone than the stridently pro-Communist China Weekly. 16
In New York, however, Kuomintang pressure effectively discouraged advertisers from
supporting China Tribune, and the paper’s revenues plummeted. By 1950 the owner had to
sell the paper, which operated for a year as Guanghua Ribao [Brightness to China daily news]
before selling out to a group connected with the KMT’s C.C. clique.17 The paper’s Chinese
name was changed to Huamei Ribao [Chinese American daily news]. Veteran KMT journalist
Pan Gongzhan became its editor in 1951.18
Kuomintang Influence on Public Opinion
The Korean War and the McCarthy anti-communist hysteria played key roles in
helping the KMT deal telling blows to its political opposition in Chinatown communities. After
being routed in the civil war, the remnants of the Nationalist government retreated to Taiwan
while some adherents fled to the United States, Canada, and other countries around the
world. The newly founded PRC allied itself with the USSR, which was already engaged in a
cold war with the West. When the PRC came to the aid of North Korea during the Korean
War, the United Nations, at the urging of the United States, branded China the aggressor.
After the war ended in a truce in 1953, relations between the United States and the PRC
remained tense and hostile for two decades.
4
This situation brought on hard times for the leftist press in the US. After Chinese
troops entered the Korean War, jittery subscribers and advertisers withdrew from Chung Sai
Yat Po, and it had to cease operations in January 1951 after continuously publishing for fiftyone years. China Weekly was also a casualty of the war when a nervous Chinese Pacific
Weekly declined to continue providing typesetting and printing services. 19 Chinese Pacific
Weekly itself became more circumspect in expressing its views on events in China.
The KMT exploited this situation to attack other critics, including those on the right. In
San Francisco KMT supporters threatened the Chinese World, whose editorial policy opposed
both Chiang Kai-shek and Communists, and for a time the newspaper had to hire Pinkerton
guards to keep a twenty-four-hour watch on its office. 20
China Daily News, however, was the primary target of anti-communist forces. During
and after the Korean War, KMT-hired hoodlums physically forced news vendors to stop
selling the paper. The United States government cooperated by charging the newspaper with
violating the Trading with the Enemy Act because it ran advertisements from two Hong Kong
banks connected with the PRC. The advertisements promoted remittance services for
Chinese Americans sending money to relatives in China. In 1955 a Federal Court convicted
the newspaper and fined it $25,000 while managing editor Eugene Moy received a one-year
jail sentence.21 During this period immigration authorities also pressured a number of the
newspaper's officers and editors to leave the US. These acts of intimidation, along with the
anti-communist hysteria of the era, caused a precipitous drop in the newspaper's circulation,
and it changed to semiweekly publication in 1963.
The KMT effectively cowed or silenced dissenting voices in the Chinese communities
by the mid-fifties and the Chinese community press essentially conformed to a rigid pro-KMT,
stridently anti-communist orthodoxy divorced from reality. News organs maintained the myth of
the Taiwan regime’s legitimate claim to rule the Chinese mainland and referred to Taiwan as
Free China. The Chinese press continued to use the Nationalist system of reckoning dates.
Geographic terms were frozen in their 1949 forms--for example, Beijing was Beiping.22 The
PRC was almost never identified by name and most often its government was referred to as
"Communist bandits" or more moderately as "Chinese Communists."
As the KMT stabilized its rule in Taiwan, it continued to use the extensive party
apparatus that it had built up since the beginning of the twentieth century to consolidate control
over the press and public opinion. Newspapers established during this period generally toed the
KMT line toward the PRC even though they may have differed from the Chiang regime in other
particulars. In New York Chin-Fu Woo founded United Journal in 1952 with no ties to any
political party; however, the paper regarded Republic of China on Taiwan as the legitimate ruler
of China. The profession of non-partisanship enabled the paper to attract a following among
many immigrants who had learned to distrust news published in the KMT party press.23
In 1955, as part of the battle for the allegiance of Chinese students stranded in the US
by the Communist revolution, Voice of Free China partially funded Free China Daily in San
Francisco. At that time the US and the PRC were still negotiating in Geneva, Switzerland,
concerning the return of students and scholars, particularly those in the sciences and
technology, to China. This newspaper under chief editor Wu Siqi, formerly an editor at the KMT
organ Young China, patterned the paper’s anti-Communist editorial policy on that of the Taiwan
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publication Free China. Free China Daily ceased publication in 1957, but by that time the US
and the PRC had reached agreement about the Chinese students and scholars. 24
In 1962 KMT members Shing Tai Liang and Bat Nau Dou founded China Times in New
York.25 When they could not make any headway, they sold it to another KMT supporter, Siu
King Chan, who had grandiose plans for establishing a nationally distributed newspaper with
editing and printing occurring in New York and distribution to other cities by air. In 1964 Chan
persuaded the KMT’s Doon Wong in San Francisco to convert the offices of the defunct Kuo
Min Yat Po to house the San Francisco edition as the western anchor of the national
newspaper. Another office was also established in Chicago.26
In Vancouver KMT loyalist Charlie Young also founded Chinese Free Press in 1954.
It lasted less than a year due to poor management. However, Kenneth Wu, formerly editor
at the KMT organ New Republic and the failed China Free Press, established Chinese Voice
later the same year.27 The Left did not have the financial resources to match the
Kuomintang; however, in 1961, after the first visit of the PRC’s Company of Chinese
Classical Theatre to Canada, members of Vancouver's Chinese Youth Association were
inspired to found the semimonthly Da Zhong Bao [Everybody’s newspaper]. David K. Lam
and members of Toronto's Chinese Welfare Society followed in 1966 by founding the proPRC biweekly, Chinatown Commercial News.28 Although their circulations were limited,
these publications operated on shoestring budgets and volunteer help to off er alternative
perspectives on the politics of the PRC.
Decline of the Community-Based Press
As the status of the Chinese in the United States and Canada improved after World War
II through the 1960s, the Chinese community press faced obstacles to its growth that had no
easy solutions. Accelerating the trend already begun before World War II, the American-born
generations were increasingly illiterate in Chinese and many did not read the Chinese press.
Moreover, since the war’s end, the political and economic status of Chinese in America had
steadily improved so that increasing numbers were playing roles in mainstream society.
Chinese Americans and Chinese Canadians identified more and more with the land in which
they lived than with China. Thus the readership for Chinese newspapers had only limited growth
potential as older Chinese passed on and newcomers were still limited by restrictive
immigration laws. In Honolulu, where Chinese had already entered the mainstream and
Chinese newspapers were struggling to survive even before World War II, the closing of
Chinese-language schools by government order further exacerbated this situation.
The KMT party press was especially hard hit. As news of KMT corruption and misrule
became more generally known, many readers became skeptical of the KMT’s propaganda
claims and party organs lost many readers to nominally non-KMT-affiliated newspapers such
as New York’s United Journal, the Chinese Times and Chinese World of San Francisco, the
New China Press of Honolulu, and Chinese Times. Chinese newspaper readers in North
America were not necessarily pro-PRC or anti-PRC but they did expect the news reporting to
reflect political realities. Thus, when the Chinese Voice of Vancouver, BC named the PRC the
legitimate government of the Chinese mainland after Canada established diplomatic relations in
the 1970s, it was able to pick up some readers.29
From the late 1940s to the 1960s, while the KMT was trying to rebuild a shattered
party and survive on Taiwan, party headquarters was not in a position to provide much
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financial subsidies to its overseas outposts and a number of party organs ceased publication
during this period. The first to succumb was the press in Hawaii, where readership had been
declining due to the assimilation of the Chinese into mainstream society. Liberty Press
stopped around 1947 and soon afterward its rival, United China News had to reorganize as
United Chinese Press in 1951. Next to fall, in 1958, was New York's faction-ridden Mun Hey
Yat Po. North of the border, Victoria's New Republic moved to the larger Chinese community
of Vancouver that same year in hopes of bettering its circulation. 30 San Francisco's Kuo Min
Yat Po [Chinese Nationalist Daily of America] reorganized in 1953 as Chinese Daily Post but
did not change its Chinese name. This move did not staunch its downward slide, however,
and the paper stopped publication in 1958. It reopened in 1959, only to close permanently in
1960. By 1967 Chicago's only Chinese newspaper, San Min Morning Paper, also closed its
doors. Although the party faithful raised funds to resuscitate the newspaper in 1970 as MeiZhong Ribao [Central U.S. daily newspaper], the attempt failed within one year. 31
Sometimes, however, the failure of the pro-KMT organs was due to a combination of
questionable management decisions and unforeseen events. Such was the fate of the
venerable Young China Daily of San Francisco during the 1960s. Attempting to expand its
readership, the newspaper published an English section from 1962 to 1964 th at resulted in a
financial loss of $35,000. This followed a lawsuit in which the newspaper sued its former
manager Peter Chew and lost a judgment of $40,000. The final blow occurred when its
landlord took back the storefront that had housed the newspaper f or years, and the
newspaper incurred remodeling expenses of $30,000 in moving to new quarters. The
financial resources of the paper were so strained that by 1970 Young China tottered on the
brink of bankruptcy. Taiwan’s Central Daily News, and party members in America had to raise
$150,000 to purchase and reorganize the paper to ensure its survival. 32
Other non-party newspapers supporting the KMT regime fared no better. China Times'
ambitious plans for a national paper fizzled out. Operating costs for the arrangement were so
high the San Francisco edition expended its capital and expired after a year. The Chicago
office also soon closed. The New York edition managed to stay afloat but was unable to
improve circulation and revenue. In 1979, it sold its equipment to Sing Tao Daily, which had
just recovered its rights to publish an eastern American edition. 33
The attrition of other conservative non-KMT papers started even earlier. In New York
the Hongmen organ Niuyue Gongbao reorganized as Wuzhou Gongbao [Five continent
public news] in 1947, but the paper expired anyway in 1949. In Toronto Chinese Times
suffered losses too great to continue and shut down in 1957, leaving Vancouver's Chinese
Times as the lone Hongmen organ in North America. In 1980 New York Hongmen members
attempted a comeback by establishing Min Chih Journal in 1960, but it only published until
1966.34
For a time the only remaining Baohuanghui organ on the North American mainland,
Chinese World, flourished under managing editor Dai Ming Lee. Lee was ambitious to
organize a third political force that could influence China politics. In 1949 he tried to expand
his political base by initiating an English section. However, whatever political benefits Lee
gained by this move were more than offset by an ill-considered move to establish a New
York edition in 1957 that failed in two years. The financial losses adversely af fected
operations of the San Francisco head office. After Lee passed away in 1961, the paper’s
operations slid steadily downhill, accelerated by an internal power struggle for control of
the paper. In 1969 the Chun family lost interest in further subsidizing the paper’s
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publication and it closed its doors permanently after publishing continuously for seventy seven years. 35 Its sister publication in Honolulu, New China Daily News, which had a
smaller circulation than Chinese World, managed to linger for almost another decade
until 1978, when it barely edged out Chinese World with a publishing life of seventy-eight
years. 36
By the 1970s the Chinese community press had declined to a low point. Even
though the Chinese population had increased since the 1940s, there were only thirteen
locally owned and published Chinese-language dailies in the United States and Canada, as
compared to eighteen in 1943 (see table 2).
Table 2: Daily Newspapers in US and Canada, 1970
City
Newspaper
Chicago
China Times
Pro-Kuomintang
Honolulu
New China Daily Press
Chinese Democratic Constitutionalist
Party
Kuomintang
Pro-Kuomintang
Kuomintang
Pro-Kuomintang
No party affiliation; right of center
No party affiliation; right of center
New York City
San Francisco
Toronto
Vancouver,
B.C.
United Chinese Press
China Times
Chinese Journal
China Tribune
Sing Tao Jih Pao (eastern US
edition).
United Journal
Chinese Times
Sing Tao Jih Pao (Western US
edition)
Young China
Shing Wah Daily News
Chinese Times [Tai Hon Kung Po]
Chinese Voice
New Republic
CACA
No party affiliation; right of center
Kuomintang
Kuomintang
Chee Kung Tong
No party affiliation; right of center
Kuomintang
The Changing Chinese Community
Changes in American and Canadian societies after World War II opened more
windows of opportunity for Chinese and other minorities. This struggle for equal treatment
in mainstream society fostered a growing sense of community among Chinese in both
countries. As early as 1957, in this spirit Chinese Americans responded to US government
investigation of immigration fraud by organizing the first National Conference of Chinese
Communities in America to discuss immigration issues. 37 In 1965 the United States revised
its immigration laws, putting Chinese on an equal basis with other national groups. Canada
followed with a similar law in 1967. An upsurge in immigration, particularly from Hong Kong
and Taiwan, followed the liberalization of these restrictions. The Chinese population in the
US almost doubled from 237,214 in 1960 to 435,062 in 1970; in Canada it jumped from
58,197 in 1961 to 118,815 in 1971. The number of Chinese immigrants increased even
more dramatically during the 1970s and 1980s due to several additional factors:
resumption of immigration from mainland China after the normalization of relations in the
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1970s; the flight of ethnic Chinese refugees from troubled regions such as Korea,
Indonesia, Philippines, Cuba, Burma, and other decolonizing countries; and passage of US
legislation in 1982 allowing a separate 20,000 quota for immigration from Taiwan and
another 5,000 for Hong Kong. In 1990 the Hong Kong quota was raised to 10,000. By 1987
the Chinese population in the United States swelled to an estimated 1.4 million while the
number of Canadian Chinese jumped to about 340,000. 38 Many existing Chinatowns again
became bustling centers of activity while new concentrations of Chinese shopping malls
emerged elsewhere, taking on the appearance of little Hong Kongs, little Taipeis, and little
Saigons. These transformations of Chinese American demographic and residential patterns
generated new possibilities for newspaper publication and distribution.
A National Chinese Daily, Sing Tao Goes Overseas
The idea of a nationally distributed Chinese newspaper was not new. Without the
same constraints of timeliness imposed on daily newspapers, magazines and weeklies were
the first to distribute successfully to different Chinese communities. One of the earliest and
most successful was New York’s Chinese American Weekly along with other periodicals
during the 1940s and 1950s. As the reliability of communication and transportation systems
in the United States and Canada improved by the late 1950s, politically ambitious newspaper
publishers also considered expanding beyond local markets.
Earlier, both San Francisco's Chinese World and New York's China Times had tried to
establish national papers as part of their political strategies. However, dependence on
telephone communications and air-freight deliveries between offices increased operating
costs. A major recurring problem was delays in the air transportation system’s de livery of
printing mats sent from one office to the other, raising havoc with production schedules.
Faced with limited capital that allowed few chances for errors, it was no wonder that these
early attempts failed. 39
Even before the liberalization of immigration laws in the 1960s, a newcomer served as
a harbinger of great changes to come in the Chinese community press. In 1953 Sally Aw
Sian became chief executive officer of Sing Tao Jih Pao, a newspaper founded by her father
in Hong Kong.40 The next year her father passed away and she inherited the paper. A
shrewd businesswoman who saw the potential in the increasing Chinese emigration from
Hong Kong to North America, Sian worked with a local San Francisco firm, Chong Kee Jan
Company, to distribute an airmail condensed edition of Sing Tao Jih Pao in 1961 as a low-key
test of the North American market.
The paper soon found numerous readers, particularly among the rapidly increasing
number of Hong Kong immigrants eager to keep up with developments in their recent home.
As demand grew the paper set up offices in San Francisco and New York City in 1964 and
1966, respectively, to print from paper mats flown in from Hong Kong. By 1970 Sing Tao
contracted with William Chang in San Francisco and Edward K. So in New York for separate
editions in the western and eastern United States with their own editorial functions,
publication, and distribution in their respective regions. These editions basically used featured
items and news stories taken from the Hong Kong edition to which were added local
advertisements and a page or two covering community news. Readers also liked a feature of
the American edition--the use of smaller type fonts than other newspapers in accordance with
Hong Kong practices. This permitted more reading material per page. 41 By this time Sing Tao
also had access to the latest advances in communication and transportation that had been
9
unavailable to Chinese World and China Times only a few years earlier. 42 By the early 1970s
Sing Tao Jih Pao had successfully established itself as the only Chinese paper to distribute
successfully on both coasts of the US. The newspaper had only limited local coverage,
however, and the existing community-based Chinese press was already in decline. For the
time being many community-based papers still attracted readers among the rapidly
increasing Chinese population. During the 1970s San Francisco’s Chinese Times claimed the
highest circulation among Chinese newspapers in the region. In New York, the increasing
population stimulated the founding of a number of new newspapers.
World Journal Begins North American Publication
The Cultural Revolution wound down in the 1970s and relations improved
between the US and the PRC. The KMT regime in Taiwan was of course a highly
interested observer of the rapprochement efforts. Given the general ineffectiveness of
existing Nationalist party organs in Canada and United States in reaching the Chinese public,
the KMT thought that a more effective presence was needed in the Chinese communities in
North America. Learning from Sing Tao Jih Pao’s success, Wang Tiwu (Tih-wu Wang), a
standing committee member of the KMT in Taiwan and publisher of one of Taiwan's leading
newspapers, the Lianhe Ribao [United Daily News], went one step further and announced
in early 1976 his intent to establish World Journal in the United States with an initial
investment of $600,000. According to an editorial in World Journal's initial issue, the paper
intended "to serve the interest of the Chinese community and to promote friendly relations
between the people of the United States and of Nationalist China in Taiwan." 43 Using the
latest technology in satellite transmission, the paper published simultaneous editions in New
York and San Francisco. In format, content, and writing technique it was far superior to
existing local papers. The only newspaper to publish seven days per week, World Journal
became widely regarded as the semiofficial voice of the Taiwan KMT, supplanting the earlier
party organs.
When the Sing Tao management in Hong Kong learned of the proposed entry of this
major paper into the North American market, it recognized that World Journa l would be a
major competitor. By this time the paper had a pretty good grasp of the potential of the North
American market and made a major policy decision to compete directly with World Journal.
Sing Tao management took legal action to cancel its contracts with William Chang and Eddie
K. Soo and by 1975 and 1978, respectively, successfully retracted its right to publish and
distribute the western and eastern US editions of Sing Tao.44
Sing Tao embarked on a course to become the first worldwide Chinese newspaper. It
began publishing a European edition in London in 1975, followed by an eastern Canadian
edition in Toronto in 1978 (which was printed in New York until 1981 when the Toronto office
acquired its own printing facilities), an Australian edition in Sydney in 1982, a western
Canadian edition in Vancouver, BC, in 1983, and a Los Angeles edition in 1989. Eventually,
Hong Kong’s Sing Tao Jih Pao also became Sing Tao Daily of the US and Canada.45 A ripple
effect of Sing Tao taking back management of its eastern edition was that a core of former
employees from that office founded The Peimei News in 1978. Briefly in 1983 The Peimei
News also published a Canadian edition in Toronto; however, the management soon
retreated when it realized that it did not have the financial resources to compete away from
its New York City base. 46
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The expansion of World Journal with its ample financial resources caused
consternation among American community-based dailies, which saw it as a serious threat to
their under-financed operations. Editors of several pro-Nationalist newspapers in New York
jointly protested to the Taiwan government, but to no avail. 47 New York's China Post, which
had published a west coast edition for about a month, felt it prudent to beat a hasty retreat. In
a parting shot the final editorial complained bitterly.
We are presently faced with an unfair competitive situation, and also receiving heavy
pressure. The United States of course is a society with free enterprise. Those who
have the means can invest. It is the survival of the fittest. But there should be some
limitations to this competition. In this case a foreign government office organized a
reception to give publicity for the paper. Further, how is it that [the paper] has special
privileges under the regulations controlling foreign exchange so as to be able to
transfer a large sum outside the country [i.e., Taiwan]. This is not only unfair to the
Chinese overseas, but in reality, also a disservice to the hardworking people of
Taiwan.48
Notwithstanding the disgruntlement over its competition, the World Journal began a
new era wherein nationally distributed newspapers established with capital from abroad
grabbed a large part of the Chinese market in North America. 49
Changing Relations with the PRC and the Changing Status of Chinese
The thawing of the Cold War permitted the expression of a greater range of political
opinion, particularly concerning mainland China. As signs pointed toward improved relations
between the US and mainland China, Maurice Chuck, John Ong, and others established the
weekly Chinese Voice in San Francisco in 1969. It was the first paper in the area to openly
support the PRC since the 1950s. However, management had overestimated the changing
political climate’s impact on the paper’s revenues and changed to daily publication in 1971.
When circulation did not increase, financial difficulties gave rise to internal dissen sion, which
led to the paper's demise in mid-1972. Earlier that year Maurice Chuck went on to found the
weekly San Francisco Journal.50
More objective coverage of the PRC became possible, however, with the emergence
of a generation of readers who did not share the bitter animosities engendered by the
Chinese civil war and the communist revolution as illustrated by the Sing Tao Jih Pao's east
coast edition. This may have been a factor causing Sing Tao’s conservative Hong Kong
management to initiate lengthy legal proceedings to recover management rights over the
west and east Coast editions as described earlier. 51 The core of former employees who
founded The Peimei News in 1978 sought to be non-partisan and objective. Around 1982 this
paper became one of the first dailies to adopt the PRC practice of running Chinese text
horizontally from left to right. But it soon had to bow to custom and in 1984 reverted to the
traditional vertical columns reading from right to left. 52
Meanwhile, the PRC began relaxing its domestic political and economic policies in 1979.
By 1981 it also began wooing Taiwan toward peaceful reunification. In turn, Taiwan lifted
martial law in 1987 and began easing restrictions on contacts with the mainland. Attitudes in
North American Chinese communities began to change even more with the increased
opportunities to contact friends and relatives and to forge business connections on the Chinese
mainland. This was reflected in less strident political rhetoric and more balanced reporting of
11
news on the PRC and Taiwan even in newspapers with a political background such as the
World Journal and the China Daily News.
The opening up of Communist China occurred as Chinese were becoming more
integrated into the US and Canadian mainstream and increasingly interested in North American
issues. By the 1980s papers from all parts of the political spectrum emphasized domestic
issues of concern to Chinese Americans, such as equal rights, affirmative action, political
participation, and political empowerment. One of the earliest such dailies, China Post in New
York, founded by motion-picture theater owner Lucas Liang in 1972, was nominally neutral
with respect to the PRC-Taiwan issue and emphasized community news coverage. It also
claimed to be the first Chinese daily to use offset printing technology. 53 Another was Sino
Daily Express, which was founded by radio and television broadcaster Arthur Liu in 1980. The
motto of this daily was "to take root in this land" and "to serve the Chinese in America." Like
China Post it also claimed to be non-partisan and was critical of both the Taiwan and PRC
governments. The paper, like many of its competitors, also catered to immigrants from Hong
Kong by providing news of the entertainment world there. In 1986 it began a Queens edition
to attract readers in the growing Chinese community in that borough. 54
In Canada the PRC-Taiwan conflict also attracted less attention in new dailies. The
Chinese Express Daily News, founded in 1971 by former Shing Wah Daily News editor Robert
Chow, served the rapidly growing Toronto Chinese community. The paper’s first issue
announced that it would hew to a middle-of-the-road policy but in later issues recognized the
legitimate rule of the PRC government and Taiwan as a Chinese province. 55 In 1984 Hui Pei
Sun bought Peimei News' Toronto printing facilities and founded Chinese Canadian Daily.
Hui was a recent immigrant and scion of Southeast Asian Chinese Xu Dongliang, who
headed an investors' group that owned Huafeng Department Store in Hong Kong. The new
paper targeted immigrating Chinese investors, mostly from Hong Kong, who were
apprehensive of the planned return of the British colony to the PRC in 1997. In 1987 Hui Pui
Sun teamed with friends to start Chinese Canadian Magazine, which was the only Chinese
periodical in North America printed in color. Both of these publications were non-partisan
regarding the PRC-Taiwan conflict and emphasized community issues.
Changing attitudes in the Chinese community were symbolized by how newspapers
were dated. In the early 1980s, both Sing Tao and International Daily News still calculated
dates according to the KMT system, which referenced the 1912 founding of the Republic of
China. The Vancouver edition of Sing Tao became the first to use the Gregorian calendar when
it began publishing in the early 1980s, a system adopted by both papers after the mid-1980s.
By 2000, the World Journal, due to its strong KMT connections, was the only major newspaper
that persisted in using the KMT system. Another key change was the use of Beijing rather than
the KMT’s preferred name, Beiping, when referring to the capital of China.
By the mid-1980s, the PRC-Taiwan conflict had receded to a position of secondary
importance in press coverage. However, the influence of China politics still lurked as illustrated
by the Ya-ping Li incident in 1987. International Daily News claimed to be a nonpartisan
newspaper with editorials criticizing both the Taiwan KMT and PRC governments. But it was the
only Chinese American newspaper to assign a reporter to accompany President Reagan during
his visit to the PRC in 1984. This act angered Taiwan authorities and the Taiwan Garrison
Command arrested Ya-ping Lee, publisher and wife of the paper's founder, while she visited
Taiwan in 1984, for allegedly publishing articles supporting Beijing overtures for peaceful
12
reunification of Taiwan with the Chinese mainland. She was released only after vigorous
protests from Chinese in America, members of Congress, and the US State Department. 56
North American Editions of Other Offshore Newspapers
The rapidly increasing Chinese immigrant population and their continued interest in
developments in Hong Kong and China led a number of Hong Kong newspapers to expand
their distribution networks. These offshore-owned newspapers and their interest in entering
the North American market stimulated the growth of a new service. In the mid -1970s, after
losing rights to publish and distribute the west coast edition of Sing Tao Jih Pao, William
Chang formed the Overseas Chinese Publishing Company and Chinese Newspapers
Consolidated Sales (CNCS), Inc. to contract with other Hong Kong newspapers to publish
and distribute their North American editions. To minimize costs, CNCS distributed only
condensed versions of the Hong Kong newspapers’ emphasis on news. Two of the first such
offerings were Ming Pao Daily News and Sing Pao Daily News, which began in 1975. Both
newspapers had non-partisan reputations in covering news of the PRC and Taiwan. During
the 1970s Ming Pao was especially popular with readers for its coverage of the PRC as it
emerged from the throes of the Cultural Revolution. Sino American Daily News started around
the same time and was the North American edition of Hong Kong Daily News. It attracted
readers with sensational or gossip news items. The pro-PRC Ta Kung Pao started in 1979
and Wen Wei Pao in the early 1980s. In 1982 the North American version of Hong Kong
Economic Journal began as Overseas Chinese Economic Journal. These newspapers
basically reprinted items from their home office issues, rearranged and edited somewhat for
overseas audiences. In 1977 CNCS began the North American edition of another Hong Kong
newspaper, Express. However, in the legal action between Sing Tao and William Chang,
Express was adjudicated as being part of the Sing Tao system, which then began publishing
its east and west coast editions. 57
Chang also tried publishing Hong Kong Daily News, which consisted of a composite of
news items taken from Hong Kong newspapers; however, readers did not take to the
publication and it lasted only a few issues. In February 1989 he tried again with Overseas
Chinese News, which was a composite of North American local news items and
advertisements and distributed with each issue of Sing Pao Daily News. This effort was more
successful. Chang and CNCS continued publishing and distributing North American editions
of Hong Kong newspapers until its closure in July 1997. 58
In 1985 Beijing's People's Daily began publishing an overseas edition through firms
known to be friendly to the PRC. The overseas edition was more a part of the PRC's
informational and propaganda effort targeting Chinese overseas rather than a business
enterprise. It carried items tailored to the interests of readers abroad. In 1994 Shanghai’s
Xinmin Evening News became the first regional PRC newspaper to publish an American
edition based in Los Angeles. It was followed in 2004 by a Canadian edition , which
collaborated with the Chinese News and Chinese Canadian Times of Toronto. 59
From the other side of the Taiwan Straits, Central Daily News, the official daily organ
of the KMT, had for many years published an international edition for distribution abroad.
Recent advances in publishing and Internet technology later facilitated printing the paper in
the US. However, after the KMT lost power to the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in the
2000 presidential election, its financial position deteriorated rapidly and the newspaper
accumulated debts exceeding NT$800 million, forcing it to cease publication in May 2006 a nd
13
maintain only an Internet edition. The Republic of China (Taiwan) Overseas Chinese Affairs
Commission also began publishing a US version of its weekly newspaper, Macroview
Weekly, which was founded 1994, containing news relating to ROC overseas Chinese affairs
and the overseas Chinese communities. Earlier in the 1990s, Taipei's Liberty Times, which
supported the Taiwanese presidents Li Teng-hui and Chen Shui-bian, became the first nongovernmental news organ allowed to publish abroad. In 1990 Los Angeles’s Web Offset
Printing, Inc. began publishing the western US edition under the English name, Chinese Free
Daily News. When Liberty Times began publishing an eastern US edition in New York City in
1995, and did not renew its contract with Los Angeles Web Offset Printing, the latter contracted
with Taiwan Daily News, which had evolved from criticizing the KMT government to favoring
Taiwan independence, to continue publication after changing the paper’s English name to
Chinese L.A. Daily News. At first the paper only reprinted news from Taiwan, but the publisher
soon added local news and news of the PRC to reach a wider audience. This led Taiwan
Daily News to accuse the publisher of breach of contract in 2003. However, the publisher
managed to keep the newspaper going until June 2006, when its Taiwan version suddenly
shut down due to financial difficulties. Los Angeles Web Offset Printing changed the paper’s
name to Taiwan Shibao [Taiwan Times] to continue publication. However, journalism is a
risky enterprise. Another venture, Tomorrow Times, was a weekly launched in Taiwan in 2000
and simultaneously published in Alhambra in Southern California. After a year, the venture
foundered when the Taiwan publication went under in 2001 due to financial difficulties.60
Press Competition and the Readers
The principal competitors for World Journal and Sing Tao were other would-be
national papers. Soon after World Journal’s well-publicized entry into the US market, China
Times, a major competitor to United Daily News in Taiwan owned by Chi-chung Yu, another
KMT standing committee member, began publishing China Times Weekly in 1977. It changed
to daily publication in 1982 with editions in New York and San Francisco. 61 China Times was
for a while World Journal's most formidable rival. It was considered more objective in its
presentation of the news and thus was especially appealing to intellectuals. During the 1984
Olympics the paper highlighted the accomplishments of athletes from China. The paper
abruptly ceased publication soon afterward in 1984 and it was widely speculated that a
political struggle in KMT inner circles had led to its demise. 62 In 1985 some former staff
members of China Times began publishing its weekend magazine supplement, China Times
Weekly in New York. In the mid-eighties this was the only Chinese weekly news magazine
published in the United States. Coverage featured political issues of Taiwan, main land China,
and the American Chinese communities. The publication moved its operations to Hong Kong
in 1992, where its Chinese name became Zhongguo Shibao Zhoukan. In 1995 it fell victim to
the price cutting war in the Hong Kong news media and had to shut down. 63
A number of other offshore entities also attempted to enter the North American market
but few were successful. In 1976, the venerable pro-KMT Hong Kong daily Wah Kiu Yat Po
began a North American edition in New York the same year World Journal began its US
edition. When it could not make much headway after two years of effort, its management
called upon veteran journalist Shing Tai Liang to reorganize the newspaper as China Voice
Daily. The newspaper started a Chicago edition and also marketed the newspaper in Toronto
in Canada. However, business failed to improve and the newspaper closed down briefly in
April 1980, reopened at the end of the month, only to shut down permanently in October
1980.64
14
In 1980 Taiwan Times, whose board chairman was Taiwan legislator Wu Jifu, began
publishing Far East Times in San Francisco as a sister publication. However, in 1982 Taiwan
Times reorganized and had to close down the Far East Times, which had failed to develop
much of a readership. 65
The next two national newspapers, however, achieved some success. In 1978 the
Taiwan government had forced Chao-chu Fu to sell its Taiwan Shibao, a paper critical of the
government. Fu then left for Hong Kong, where he founded Centre Daily News, which Fu
declared “harbored good wishes for both sides of the Taiwan Straits.” In 1980 the North
American edition of Centre Daily News begin publishing in New York. Subsequently Centre
Daily News published editions in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, Toronto, and
Houston.66
In November 1981, an immigrant couple Chen Tao and Ya-ping Lee, who had made
money in Taiwan by operating a commercial training school, founded International Daily News
with headquarters in Monterey Park. The newspaper announced that “its objective was to unite
all Chinese to work for the common good” and that “it is neither pro-mainland China nor proTaiwan.” It was distributed in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York. Later, offices for
distribution were opened in Houston, Washington, DC, Toronto and Vancouver in Canada, and
in Panama.67
Up to the late 1970s, the major centers of Chinese journalism--measured by the ability
to support the publication of one or more daily newspapers--included only the five metropolitan
areas of San Francisco, New York City, Los Angeles, Vancouver, BC, and Toronto. As
previously discussed, San Francisco had experienced a decline in the number of communitybased dailies due to political and economic factors. However, the daily Chinese Times survived
together with the weekly newspapers (see discussion on “Weeklies and Monthlies”) that had
emerged during the 1970s and gained readers from the increasing population in the
community.
Developments for the New York press were also favorable. The city had long been
second to San Francisco as a Chinese American center; however, during the 1970s New York’s
Chinese population overtook that of San Francisco, and its daily press also became the most
numerous in North America with the following dailies: China Daily News (founded 1940), The
United Journal (founded 1952), China Tribune (founded 1952), Sing Tao Jih Pao (founded
1966), China Post (founded 1972), World Journal (founded 1976), The Pei Mei News (founded
1978), Sino Daily Express (founded 1980, and Centre Daily News (founded 1982).
After World War II Los Angeles’s Chinese population grew to be the third largest in
the US. However, for many years investors hesitated to risk capital starting a Chinese daily
there. By the 1980s, however, the phenomenal growth in the region's Chinese population,
especially in the San Gabriel Valley, created conditions favoring the emergence and
sustained publication of Chinese-language dailies. By that time the western US edition of the
World Journal that was printed in San Francisco was already gaining readers in southern
California, especially among immigrants from Taiwan. In August 1981, Taiwanese immigrant
intellectuals pooled their resources to publish the first regional Chinese daily, California Daily
News. It was intended to be “middle-of-the-road, neither right nor left.” However, when
Taiwanese immigrants Chen Tao and Ya-ping Lee founded International Daily News with a
similar editorial policy a few months later in November, the California Daily News principals
concluded that they lacked the financial resources to compete for Taiwanese readership. By
15
February 1982 California Daily News management had decided to suspend operations, and
in April 1982 it reopened as The Tribune, a non-partisan weekly that analyzed current
events.68
Centre Daily News began in the area in 1984, followed in 1986 by World Journal, which
Los Angeles edition used the name Chinese Daily News with offices in Monterey Park in the
San Gabriel Valley. The conservative, well-edited Chinese Daily News soon gained a wide
readership, especially among Taiwanese immigrants. Another daily started in 1986 when San
Francisco’s venerable Young China began publishing a southern California edition under the
name of China Daily News; however, its readership remained limited and the newspaper
ceased publication in 1991. The other major dailies, Sing Tao Daily and The China Press also
began publishing Los Angeles editions in 1989 and 1994, respectively.69
As the Chinese American population increased and spread across the US, a couple of
newer communities founded daily newspapers. The earliest was Houston, where the Chinese
population had grown rapidly. Beginning in the mid-1970s, monthlies emerged in response to
community needs for information on local developments. However, these efforts were short lived until 1979, when Wea H. and Catherine C. Lee founded the weekly Southern Chinese
News. By 1984 the Chinese population had become large enough for it to become Southern
Chinese Daily News, Houston’s first Chinese-language daily.70
Chicagoans, who had not had a community-based Chinese-language daily since the
venerable San Min Morning Post became defunct in 1971, once again could read a locally
published daily when the Chicago Chinese Times (founded as a weekly in 1991) began
publishing as Chicago Chinese Daily News in 1995. This paper was part of the Southern
Chinese Newspapers Group formed by Houston’s Southern Chinese Daily News.71 However,
during the early twenty-first century, daily publication was still fraught with uncertainties that
publishers in smaller communities would hesitate to risk.
Competition among the Dailies
The increased competition among the Chinese-language newspapers was a boon for
readers. Daily issues of national papers grew from sixteen pages in the 1970s to 24 or 28
pages in the 1980s. By the first decade of the twenty-first century, World Journal ranged from
64 to 128 pages daily. Typically, an issue covered international news, business,
entertainment, and sports, with an emphasis on America, Canada, local communities, PRC,
Taiwan, and Hong Kong. Issues also included literary, historical, and other feature articles. In
some areas World Journal and Sing Tao published twice daily. In major Chinese
communities the various local editions included a community news section focusing on local
events.72
International Daily News was the first of these nationally distributed newspapers to
use multicolored headlines to attract readers. In 1983 it also began publishing Chinese
Weekly Post, a magazine supplement distributed with its weekend edition. These moves
were quickly emulated by the rivals, China Times and World Journal, which also came out
with magazine supplements. 73 Centre Daily News, however, decided against expending
resources on a Sunday supplement. Sing Tao held off until 1989, when it began publishing
Sing Tao Weekly. Later as competition became fiercer, the western US edition of the paper
produced at different times magazine supplements, such as Real Estate, Singtao Times
16
Weekly, China Insight, US Week, and Eastweek to be given free to readers buying the paper
on different days of the weekend.
These nationally distributed publications made use of the latest advances in
communications technology, such as satellites, to link various offices across the country to
each other or to a home office halfway around the world, thus enabling editions in all cities to
use the same typeset pages. To tailor an edition for a specific city usually required
typesetting a page or two of local community news and local advertisements in allotted
spaces. But cost-effective computer typesetting technology required large amounts of capital,
which were usually unavailable to earlier community-based newspapers.
A distinguishing characteristic of these national newspapers was that they maintained
editorial and business offices and, in some cases, printing plants in several cities. Instead of
waiting passively for news releases to be delivered, as had been the practice of earlier
community-based Chinese newspapers, they sent reporters to cover local events. These
practices have forced existing community-based newspapers to follow their example to
compete, resulting in higher operating costs.
Many staff positions were filled by the numerous intellectuals and university students
who have come recently from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the PRC, some with journalism
training, which has improved the quality of the reporting. However, many of these reporters
were relatively unfamiliar with the US and Canadian contexts and the issues of the Chinese
communities there. Thus, their coverage at times revealed a lack of depth as the reporters
learned by experience. The turnovers in personnel have also been quite frequent, as many
students became reporters to gain permanent residence in the United States and Canada
and then found other work.
Competition and Its Toll
Notwithstanding the expanding Chinese market, escalating costs and the fierce
competition exacted a heavy toll on newspapers from the mid-seventies on. The betterfinanced, large-scale national operations continuously exerted unrelenting pressure on
community-based newspapers with limited capital and small staffs, setting off a second wave
of closures of community-based newspapers. The few remaining KMT organs found that their
anti-Communist, anti-PRC mantras no longer attracted readers in a changing society. In 1976
the Taiwan KMT had to take over the ailing New York party organ, Chinese Journal, only to
shut it down the following year. During that same period Vancouver's New Republic and
Toronto's Shing Wah Daily News both underwent reorganization. By 1979 New York's proNationalist China Times was sold to Sing Tao Jih Pao. In 1986 Taiwan's KMT infused
additional capital and reorganized Young China Daily. It developed a working relationship with
Taiwan's Youth Daily, an organ of the Taiwan's Defense Ministry, and also began publishing a
southern California edition called China Daily News. These efforts failed to improve circulation
and the paper halted publication in 1991.74 It was then the oldest existing Chinese newspaper
in America with a history of eighty-one years.
In Vancouver the pro-PRC weekly, Da Zhong Bao, ceased publication in 1981.
Dwindling circulation led to the closure of the KMT organ, New Republic, in 1985 during its
seventy-fourth year of publication. The Chinese Voice was sold when the publisher was ready for
retirement in 1984. Continued losses led to its sale in 1986 to Li Qiuguo, an immigrant from
Indochina, but the newspaper closed down in 1988. Chinese Times, organ of the Hongmen
17
Minzhidang, managed to stay afloat during the 1980s; however, high costs and the continued
erosion of readership and advertising revenue led to a 1992 All-Canada convention of Hongmen
Minzhidang to pass a resolution suspending operation of the eighty-five-year-old party
organ.75
In Toronto the Chinese Express Daily and Chinatown Commercial News biweekly
closed down in 1986 and in 1988, respectively. Shing Wah, the oldest existing Chinese
newspaper in Canada, saw its circulation dwindle to 600-700 by the 1970s and it had to
depend on subsidies from Taiwan. Matters dragged along until 1990, when the newspaper
was restructured and changed to monthly publication. As for the relative latecomer , Chinese
Canadian Daily, continued losses forced it to change to weekend publication in 1989.
Weekend Edition in turn was sold in 1993 to members of the Toronto Chinese community
only to cease publication in the late 1990s. 76
San Francisco’s Chinese Times, which had been resting on its laurels as one of the
leading newspapers during the early 1970s under the leadership T. Kong Lee, witnessed the
rapid erosion of its circulation by the national newspapers, especially Sing Tao Daily, and
suffered successive annual losses. By 1988 the paper had to be sold to local investors
headed by Stanley Hom. 77 By then it was the only locally established Chinese newspaper
remaining in San Francisco. However, changing ownership did not help the venerable
newspaper to increase circulation and management changed again twice, first to restaurateur
and businessman Lin Guoguang in 1998, then to a group of immigrants headed by Lin
Guangyuan after Lin’s death in February 2002. It changed to an all-color edition but still could
not make much headway in increasing readership. 78
While this winnowing process thinned the ranks of the right-wing press, the San
Francisco Journal, plowing back profits from printing the overseas edition of Beijing's People's
Daily, decided that 1983 was an opportune time to begin daily publication. This soon proved to
be an erroneous assessment when the paper attracted few advertisers and subscribers and
had to cease publication in 1986. On the east coast financial losses also led to the failure of
New York's China Post and Sino Daily Express, which closed in 1986, as did The Peimei
News in 1987.79
Meanwhile, Centre Daily News faced serious financial problems. In 1987 its Hong Kong
edition suddenly ceased publication. In America Chao-chu Fu shocked the Chinese
community when he summarily fired Yu-hsi Chen, liberal deputy manager of the New York
office under whose management the paper had been highly critical of Taiwan's human rights
violations. He also discharged Shih-ying Tan, a respected investigative reporter, for her expose
of Taiwan’s involvement in the 1984 assassination of Henry Liu in San Francisco.80 Soon
afterward, Fu also suspended the operations of its newly established Houston edition. 81 The
political stance of the newspaper became noticeably more subdued and less anti-KMT after the
shakeup. It has been widely speculated that the moves were intended to placate Taiwanese
authorities and persuade them to release Fu's frozen assets on the island. Ironically, despite
these moves, in 1987 the procurator of the Taiwan High Court named Fu to a list of fifteen
"fugitives" wanted for seditious acts against the state, an order which was not lifted until one
year later.82
In 1989 Chao-chu Fu voiced support for the PRC government when it suppressed the
Tian’anmen democracy movement in Beijing and then arrested numerous dissidents all over
China.83 But when he ordered his staff in New York to publish a sympathetic editorial, ten
18
editors resigned in protest.84 Angry supporters of the China democracy movement also
pressured advertisers not to patronize the paper.85 In July Fu stepped down as chairman of the
board of Centre Daily News enterprises and chief editor of the paper's New York edition. On
September 18, 1989, the management of the paper decided on indefinite suspended
publication due to large operating deficits.86
On the left, as tensions between the PRC and the United States relaxed in the 1970s,
New York's China Daily News resumed daily publication in 1977. Much of the additional
operating capital came from firms connected with the PRC. In 1978 the newspaper stationed
a reporter in San Francisco and published an airmail edition for distribution in the area, with
the ultimate aim of establishing a west coast edition. But when there was no appreciable
growth in circulation and advertisements in the region after eight years, this effort was
abandoned for the time being.87
When the Tiananmen protests began after the death of Hu Yaobang, China Daily
News was openly sympathetic to the demands of the student demonstrators. The Chinese
American and Chinese Canadian press widely condemned the crackdowns that began June 4,
including the pro-PRC newspapers Wen Wei Pao and Ta Kung Pao of Hong Kong, and New
York's China Daily News. However, by July, as the Beijing authorities reasserted control, it
began to pressure these wayward newspapers to toe its official line. Allegedly, a third of the
China Daily News’ advertising revenue from PRC firms was giving its management little choice
but to announce a "temporary" halt to publication beginning on July 30, 1989.88 Ironically, the
paper had just observed its forty-ninth anniversary four weeks earlier and was at the time the
oldest newspaper in New York.
A group of China Daily News supporters, the core of who were old members of the
Chinese Hand Laundry Association, formed the Pacific Culture Corporation to found a
successor paper called The China Press. Its Chinese name Qiao Bao, was the commonly used
shortened version of the Chinese name of China Daily News. With the support of the Chinese
News Service, the paper started as a weekly in 1990 and then began daily publication later that
year. In 1992, it established a San Francisco edition, followed by a Los Angeles edition in 1994,
to become another nationally distributed Chinese-language newspaper.89
By 1998 The United Journal found that it could not change fast enough to cope with
the demands of a market consisting increasingly of new immigrants and had to cease
publication. By this time the other remaining daily from the 1950s, China Tribune, also was
reduced to a daily print run of several hundred copies for local readers. 90
In the last decades of the twentieth century, the nationally distributed dailies achieved
absolute dominance in the Chinese press. These were major enterprises requiring
considerable financial resources. Although financial figures are closely held secrets, revenue
from subscribers and advertisers in the Chinese market is obviously limited. One source
estimated circulation figures for various newspapers in the New York region during the 1980s
to be about 212,000. 91 Other major population centers such as the San Francisco Bay Area,
Los Angeles, Toronto, and Vancouver, BC, will have figures of similar magnitudes, indicating
a total readership of over a million.
Hawaii, which has a large Chinese community but relatively few immigrants, did not
follow the same developments as the mainland. In 1975 Ma Zhenji (Jen Kei Ma) began
publishing the daily Honolulu Chinese Press to test the market. Results were disappointing and
19
the trial was quickly terminated after twenty-seven issues. In 1978 the oldest Chinese
newspaper in the islands, New China Daily Press, closed its doors due to lack of readers.92
This left only the KMT-supported United Chinese Press hanging on, publishing more advertising
than news items in its pages. For all practical purposes, the Chinese community press in this
region, once the second largest center for Chinese newspapers in the western hemisphere, had
become a memory of the past.
Into the New Century
In the 1990s, changes in the political climate in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and the PRC
influenced nationally distributed newspapers. The rapidly growing community of
predominantly Taiwanese immigrants based in Los Angeles County provided headquarters
for dailies that competed against the dominant national dailies by being distributed gratis or at
nominal cost. One of these was Chi-Am Daily News (founded 1990), which focused on news
of Taiwanese and Taiwan and favored more democracy on the island. In 1997 Web Offset
Printing, Inc., publisher of a US edition of Taiwan Daily News under the name, Chinese Free
Daily News, also began publishing and distributing Zhong Guo Daily News targeting PRC
immigrants.93
In early 1989 Hong Kong’s Ming Pao cancelled its contract with its North American
printer and distributor, Chinese Newspapers Consolidated Sales, and planned publication of
a Vancouver edition to capture a larger share of the rapidly growing Canadian market. Ming
Pao landed in North America when eastern Canadian editions began publishing in Toronto in
May 1993 and western Canadian ones in Vancouver, BC, in October the same year. 94 In
October 1996 the Raimbunan Hijau Group owned by Malaysia's Tan Sri Datuk Tiong Hiew
King bought controlling shares in combination with Hong Kong's Ming Pao Holdings. The new
group decided to expand Ming Pao’s North American operations by starting an eastern US
edition, which began publishing in New York City in April 1997. San Francisco became home
to a western US edition in April 2004. 95 In anticipation of this last move, the western US
edition of Sing Tao Daily acquired the rights to the name, Chinese Times, in March 2004.
Sing Tao then published Chinese Times as a separate paper until January 2006 to minimize
the impact of the western US edition of Ming Pao, which purchased the printing facilities of
Chinese Times. Chinese Times then became part of the Sing Tao Daily featuring Chinese
community news. When it expired, Chinese Times had been in publication for almost eightytwo years.
In an attempt to attract readers from the rival Sing Tao Daily News, Ming Pao in New
York and San Francisco began distributing MP Free News Mondays through Saturdays. The
MP Free News’ daily distribution in New York went as high as 35,000; however, the 2008
economic crisis in the U.S. forced Ming Pao to cease publication in New York at the end of
January 2009. It appears that the Western edition would shortly follow.96
International Daily News also changed ownership. The newspaper, despite seeming to
compete for a share of the national market, soon found that it could not match the capital
available to World Journal or Sing Tao. By the mid-1980s its management seemed to have
decided to concentrate on southern California and Texas and offered only token competition
on the East Coast. By 1989 the paper had discontinued its magazine, Chinese Weekly Post,
and published instead a weekend supplement with a reduced number of pages. In October
1995 the S.S. Group headed by Indonesian Chinese Ted Siong, who had extensive business
dealings with China, purchased the newspaper. The new owners appointed as publisher Fei
20
Man Hung, formerly of the China News Service, who became head of the board and
publisher of The China Press in 1995. Chen Tao’s son, Simon Chen, was retained as
circulation manager. When Chinese Newspaper Consolidated Sales, Inc. ceased publication
of the North American editions of several Hong Kong newspapers, International Daily News
began publishing Wen Wei Pao, America Edition, and distributed it gratis with each daily
issue of International Daily News.97
In a major transaction in 1998, Sally Aw Sian, who had racked up losses in various
financial dealings, sold 55 percent of her interest in Sing Tao’s eastern Canada edition to the
Toronto Star Holdings and Sing Tao Toronto Edition became one of the few Chineselanguage newspapers in North America to be managed and published by a non -Chineseowned corporation. Hong Kong’s Global China Technology Group, Ltd, led by Charles Ho
Tsu Kwok, acquired the remaining holdings in 1991. 98
The 1990s saw rapid economic growth in the PRC, accompanied by improving living
conditions and some relaxation of political controls. At the same time a large flow of students
and immigrants continued to emigrate from mainland China to North America so that Chinese
from the PRC were becoming a significant percentage of the Chinese community. At the same
time, conditions on Taiwan changed with the easing of political repression, the rise of
Taiwanese nationalism, and the emergence of the Democratic Progressive Party as a party of
significant strength. These demographic and political changes nudged the major newspapers to
adjust. Much of the political dialogue began to focus on the question of reunification versus
Taiwanese independence as the major newspapers' reporting on the PRC became more
factual. Political symbols that used to distinguish between supporters of the KMT regime on
Taiwan and the PRC began to fall.
A contentious issue of long standing was the choice between printing Chinese
characters vertically and reading from right to left following Chinese tradition, or printing
characters horizontally running from left to right as standardized in the PRC to facilitate
including words written in the Latin alphabet. In 1999, The China Press standardized the
horizontal printing of Chinese text and by the early twenty-first century all of the major national
newspapers, including World Journal and Sing Tao, have adopted the standard of horizontal
printing but not without numerous complaints from defenders of Chinese tradition. Of course,
composing copy on the computer, which shows text in horizontal lines on screen, probably was
more compelling than any ideological factors.
Newspapers also had to choose between the reformed Chinese characters that included
simplified (jianti) characters promulgated in the PRC during the 1950s and continuing use of the
traditional (fanti) characters from before 1949 and still employed in Taiwan. Although Chinese
newspapers serving the large Chinese populations in Singapore and Malaysia have long
standardized use of simplified characters, Hong Kong and Chinese communities in western
countries hesitated to make such a change during the anti-Communist atmosphere generated
by the Cold War. Over the decades some organizations have standardized the use of the
simplified system. For example in San Francisco the Chinese American Youth Club had begun
using simplified characters in its club newsletter soon after the PRC government introduced
them in 1956. As the immigrant population from the PRC increased, some of their organizations
probably also used the simplified characters. Newspaper editors, however, procrastinated from
fears of offending conservative readers and advertisers accustomed to reading traditional
characters.
21
With growing numbers of immigrants from the PRC, educated since the mid-1950s to
read simplified forms, this atmosphere has slowly begun to change. Weeklies were first to
cautiously test their readers’ attitudes. When China Journal began publication in 1992 in Los
Angeles, most of its text was in simplified characters; however, in 1994 the editors changed
back to all traditional characters, presumably to suit the preferences expressed by its
readers. However, in 1997 New World Times in Maryland, many of whose readers were from
the PRC, became the first commercial newspaper in the US to successfully standardize the use
of simplified characters when it began publication that September. When Montreal’s weekly
Sino-Quebec Chinese Newspaper started in December 2001, it became the first Canadian
newspaper to use simplified characters. Other editors were more cautious. In 2000 the weekly
Canada China News, Vancouver Edition began printing seven of its twenty pages in simplified
characters. In 2002 the Southern Chinese Newspaper Group used a different approach in
Dallas by publishing Dallas Chinese Times on Thursdays and Saturdays using traditional
characters, and Asian Gazette on Wednesdays and Fridays using simplified characters.
Among the dailies, whose financial stakes were much higher, only The China Press chose this
path when in November 2002 it became the first nationally distributed daily to use simplified
characters.99 The number of newspapers using simplified characters will probably increase in
the future as the PRC plays an increasing role in international affairs, but whether they will
completely displace the traditional forms will also depend on political developments in Hong
Kong and Taiwan.
Weeklies and Monthlies
By the late 1960s technological advances such as offset printing and the availability of
Chinese typewriting services lowered production costs. Soon afterward, these innovations
were superseded by advances in personal computer and desktop publishing technology and
Chinese-language computer software. These developments enabled modest newspaper
publishing operations to require less capital investment and staffing. Weeklies and monthlie s
began to play new and diverse roles in the Chinese communities in niches not served by the
national dailies, such as local community news.
Like the dailies, weeklies and monthlies tended to be published in major US and
Canadian metropolitan centers with large Chinese populations: namely, San Francisco, New
York City, Los Angeles, Toronto, and Vancouver, B.C. During the 1970s San Francisco
Chinatown was still the leading community for Chinese journalism and had the most tabloid-size
semiweeklies, weeklies, and monthlies targeting readers who were mostly immigrants from the
Pearl River delta, Hong Kong, or Macau. The emergence of Chinese Pacific Weekly as one of
the more influential voices in the community demonstrated the niche for weeklies in the San
Francisco Chinese community.
The 1970s saw the emergence of more than ten such publications in the region. Truth
Weekly (1967-86) was a typical tabloid of the period and was founded by Frank Wong,
formerly editor at Chinese World and Chinese Times. It focused on community events with
articles that tended toward sensationalism and gossip. Its success led to the founding of
several similar weeklies. Another pioneering weekly was Chinese Commercial News (197683), founded by Mandarin-speaking Francisco Hsieh, proprietor of a publicity firm. The
contents consisted of advertisements along with brief news items and it was dis tributed free
with the rationale that increased circulation would attract greater advertising revenue ,
offsetting loss of sales and subscription revenues. This method of distribution was later
widely adopted by weeklies, biweeklies, and monthlies, especially those in smaller Chinese
22
communities. Weeklies that were liberal or left-of-center included East-West (1967-1989),
published by educator Gordon Lew, and San Francisco Weekly (1973-76), founded by former
Chung Sai Yat Po editor Herbert Lee. East-West was a bilingual publication that focused on
social and political issues of a changing Chinese community. However, it was the English
section of this paper that was influential, as discussed in more detail in the section on “English
Language Journalism.” Two other papers, Chinese Voice (weekly 1969-71) with former Chinese
World editor John Ong as chief editor, and San Francisco Journal (weekly 1972-82; tri-weekly
1982-83), founded by former East-West editor Maurice Chuck, used weekly publication as
preliminary steps toward daily production. This was the high water mark for weeklies and
monthlies in the San Francisco Bay Area. By the end of the 1980s most of these weeklies and
monthlies had ceased publication due to death or retirement of principle staff and due to
decreasing readership as the Chinese community changed and publications founded by newer
immigrants competed on the market.100
Beginning in the 1980s ethnic Chinese refugees from the war-ravaged Indochinese
Peninsula founded a number of newspapers (to be described in a later section). Immigrants
from Taiwan and Hong Kong were also active in launching journalistic enterprises, many of
which had limited lives. In 1989 Minority Broadcasting Inc., a group supporting Taiwan’s KMT,
founded the weekly, The China Post, in conjunction with the launching of the Hua Sheng
Diantai [Chinese Voice broadcasting] that was part of an intended North American Chinese
Broadcasting Network. However, the newspaper ceased publication after a few months when
the principles moved to St. Louis. Two years later, Hong Kong immigrants founded the more
successful San Francisco Chinese News (1991-1996) that emphasized entertainment and
literary and light reading items favored by Hong Kong immigrants. There were also other
publications, such as North American Weekly (founded in Burlingame in 1999) and Bay Area
Chinese Times (a weekly founded in Millbrae in 1999 as part of Wea Lee’s Southern Chinese
Newspaper Group). The arena of political commentaries included The Chinese Forum, a left
liberal monthly founded in 1999. Global Forum was at the other end of the political spectrum.
It was founded in 2002 in the San Francisco Peninsula as a Chinese and Japanese bilingual
publication that published opinion pieces and cartoons favoring the democratization and
independence of Taiwan. In the high technology center of Silicon Valley appeared
publications, such as Silicon Valley Hi Tech (biweekly founded 1998), The Silicon Valley
Journal (biweekly founded in Santa Clara in 2000), and Silicon Valley Times (monthly
founded in Burlingame in 2001) that published news on technology and its related financial
and economic aspects.101
Across the continent the Chinese population of New York City was rapidly catching up
with that of the San Francisco Bay Area. A number of weeklies and monthlies also emerged
from the 1970s on; however, most lasted only temporarily. An early New York weekly was the
pro-Taiwan government’s New York Jao-Pao Weekly (1972-73). The same year, Ke Din Chow,
the former editor of Chinese Journal, and others founded the weekly Chinatown News that
lasted less than a year. This effort was succeeded by the more successful Chinatown Report
(1973-75) that concentrated on sensational news about the community and individuals. A civilrights activist group founded the monthly Chinatown Community News (1973-75). Another
publication oriented toward community issues was the biweekly Mott Street Journal (1974-76),
founded by Chinatown photographer and later Chinese television producer Chung Long Lo. In
1988 veteran journalist Shing Tai Liang and others founded the weekly New York China
Journal.102
23
Going into the 1980s and after, more weeklies began publishing in the boroughs and
suburban areas outside Manhattan and the New York region overtook San Francisco as the
leading center of Chinese journalism in the US. In 1986 Michael Yung, formerly with The Pei
Mei News founded the community weekly, Eastern Times, in Flushing. The following year
former Centre Daily News editors Yu-hsi Chen and others founded Asian American Times,
also in Flushing, that analyzed current international events. An early suburban weekly was
Global Chinese Times, which claimed distribution in New York, New Jersey, Connecticut,
Pennsylvania, and Delaware under several changes in name since 1991. In 1995 New York
City’s Chinese Commercial Journal (founded 1994), which reported on economic and
commercial developments in the PRC, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, established an office in
northern New Jersey and began distributing New Jersey China Times. Zuang Ren
Community Journal, which began publication around 1997 in Flushing, concentrated more on
community news and issues. In 1998 American Chinese Times was also established in
Flushing, with a branch office in Philadelphia. A weekly targeting middle-class Chinese was
Duowei Times [Multiple media], which emerged in 2002 as a joint venture of Chinese Media
Net, Inc. of New York and the Southern Chinese Newspaper Group of Houston. The latter
also invested capital into Meidong Xinwen [Eastern US news] (founded 2000) of New Jersey.
Besides New Jersey, the weekly was also distributed in New York City, Long Island, and
Pennsylvania. It also published local editions for six regions in the US. In contrast, New York
Community Times (founded 2003) was a weekly based in Flushing that focused on
community concerns. Its motto was: “Guanhuai shequ; zhencheng fuwu” [Concern for the
community; service with sincerity].103
Los Angeles had long played a satellite role in the distribution of San Francisco papers.
Since the departure of Ng Poon Chew’s Wa Mi San Po [New Chinese American newspaper] at
the turn of the century, there had been several attempts to publish a community newspaper to
satisfy local needs for community news. A mimeographed The Chinese Weekly began
publishing as early as 1933 and a similar publication was still being distributed in 1955. After
World War II the first typeset weekly Kwong Tai Press was founded in 1951. When the
enterprise foundered in 1961, it was taken over by another group and became New Kwong Tai
Press. In 1958 KMT member Huang Wenshan founded Pan-American Chinese Weekly as a
bilingual magazine. After it struggled for several years, Lin Yinpu took over in 1963 and began
publishing it as American Chinese News, a Chinese-language tabloid-sized weekly. In 1976 Los
Angeles Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association leader Larry Wong and others founded
Lap Pao [Upright newspaper] as a semiweekly, but it soon changed to weekly publication.104
Demographic transformations due to increased immigration encouraged the emergence
of new publications that eclipsed existing publications targeting the older Cantonese-speaking
community. One of the earliest of these was So-Cal Community News, founded in January
1980 in Monterey Park. After moving to Rosemead in 1989, the paper changed its name to
Chinese Community News, which published until 1995. Another weekly, United Times, was
also founded in Monterey Park in September 1980. In the mid-1990s, the papers stopped
issuing printed editions to focus on the Internet. Both of these were distributed free and focused
on advertisements, community news, and leisure items. Another fairly influential weekly was
The Tribune, a non-partisan weekly that analyzed current events. It was founded April 1982 by
an intellectual from Taiwan who had earlier founded the defunct California Daily News, the first
Chinese daily in Los Angeles. Budgetary problems led to its demise in 1989.
During the 1990s, a number of new publications with differing objectives emerged. The
biweekly Sino Times was founded in the suburban city of Rowland Heights in 1994 by PRC
24
immigrant Chen Yanni. The same year Sino US Weekly was founded in San Gabriel with an
avowed objective of encouraging the Chinese in America to be part of the American multiethnic
mainstream. The paper established branch offices in Seattle, San Francisco, Boston, New
York, Chicago, Dallas, Washington, DC, and Detroit.
The founding of China Guide in 1994 in Monterey Park reflected the increasing
importance of Sino-US trade focusing on news of business opportunities in China and targeting
Chinese businesses in the US as its principal audience. The ambitious enterprise published
Chinese and English editions and also opened branch offices in San Francisco, Boston,
Houston, New York, Chicago, Seattle, and Atlanta. However, by 1995 the paper had to
reorganize and changed its name to US China Tribune.105
For many years a number of smaller Chinese communities did not have enough
people to support community-based newspapers. However, improved publishing technology
in conjunction with population growth enabled local umbrella community organizations to put
out newsletters providing information about local events. For example, during the 1960s
Seattle's Chong Wa Benevolent Association published the bilingual monthly Seattle Chinese
Community Newsletter. During the same period, the Portland Chinese Consolidated
Benevolent Association periodically published Oregon Chinese News, which was also
bilingual. Improved publishing technology made it financially feasible to publish smaller
numbers of copies for even smaller communities and by the 1970s, weeklies, biweeklies, or
monthlies were being published regularly in many smaller Chinese communities. One of the
earliest was Boston’s Sampan, founded in 1972 by the civil-rights group, Chinese American
Civic Association, which started as a monthly and later became a biweekly. In 1975 the
Oakland Consolidated Chinese Association began publishing Voice of Oakland
Chinese. 106
As Chinese immigration increased rapidly after the Immigration Act of 1965, commercial
newspapers also began to appear in smaller, newer Chinese communities beginning in the mid1970s. The southeastern part of America had hitherto been home to very few Chinese.
However, the region’s rapidly expanding economy attracted many Chinese scientific and
technological professionals, thereby changing these dynamics. In Houston in 1975, Taiwan
immigrant C. Y. Shen founded the monthly Chinese Voice, which later became a biweekly and
then a weekly. The publication included community news, news from Taiwan, a literary
supplement, and advertisements. This was followed by William Y. Sim’s bilingual monthly and
later semimonthly Southwest Chinese Journal (1976-1985), which was distributed from Florida
to southeast Texas. During this same period Jame C. Wei founded the biweekly, Metro Chinese
Journal, in Maryland in 1979, targeting the growing Chinese community in the Washington, DC,
region. A few years later in 1983 the rival Washington China Post also began publication in the
nation’s capital. In the Pacific Northwest, Assunta Ng founded the weekly Seattle Chinese Post
in 1982, which became an important community-based paper. However, that same year a
group in Chicago, a community with a population twice that of Seattle, founded the weekly
Zhijiage Luntan Bao [Chicago Tribune]. It closed shop after only six months and Chicagoans
had to wait until 1989 when a reporter associated with New York’s World Journal founded the
successful weekly Chinese American News.107 Despite the difficult challenges, weeklies and
monthlies continued to proliferate in other small Chinese communities such as Detroit, Denver,
Miami, Atlanta, Phoenix, St. Louis, New Orleans, Cleveland, Tucson, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas,
Austin, and Portland, that previously did not have regularly published community-based
newspapers.108
25
It was a similar story in Canada. Weeklies and monthlies founded by new immigrants
began to increase in numbers during the 1980s. Toronto, which had become the Canadian city
with the largest Chinese population by the 1980s, also overtook Vancouver as the leading city
for Chinese-language weeklies and monthlies. Chinese News was a relatively long-lived weekly
founded in Montreal in 1985 that moved its operations to Toronto in 1994. Weeklies and
monthlies were also founded in the smaller communities of Montreal, Ottawa, Calgary,
Edmonton, Winnipeg, and Saskatoon.109
These publications contributed to greater awareness of developments in each
community; however, due to the relatively small number of readers, limited advertising revenue,
and high production costs, publishers often had to struggle with austere budgets and limited
staffing, which affected the quality of the coverage and the longevity of the operations.
The Magazine Format
Chinese publications appearing in the magazine format were often responses to the
demands of current political and social movements. The War of Resistance against Japan
spurred the emergence of publications supporting China’s war effort. As part of these
propaganda efforts, KMT members Li Shizeng and Wu Xiufeng published a Chinese edition of
the monthly Ziyou Shijie [Free World] (1942-44). The US Office of People’s Foreign Relations
Association of China under N.C. Chan also published the monthly Guomin Waijiao Yuebao
[National diplomacy monthly] (1943-44) with the goal of sending propaganda on the War of
Resistance to Chinese in America.110
The improving economic status of Chinese in Hawaii and North America during and
after World War II created a market for light, entertaining reading materials, leading to the
founding of a number of non-news magazines. However, market conditions proved to be
difficult to judge and many publications failed, especially in New York City, the new center for
Chinese-language magazine publications. Contemporaneous with the Chinese American
Weekly was the fairly successful China Post (1942-1964), which began by publishing at ten-day
intervals and then changed to weekly publication after World War II. Other magazines that
followed proved to be more short-lived. Chun Phone [Spring wind] (founded 1945), which published once every ten days, lasted only the greater part of a year. Chinaweek (founded 1949)
published only six issues before folding. The 1950s started with the founding of Congtan [Collection
of chats] (founded 1950), which existed only briefly. The semi-monthly China Life, founded the same
year, managed to struggle along for three years before giving up. In 1952 author Lin Yutang
funded the literary magazine Tienfeng [Winds from heaven] with his daughter Anor as editor and
modeled on the format used by Readers’ Digest. But despite Lin’s fame, the venture failed within a
year. The monthly Chinese-American Digest (founded 1954), however, published until 1962. A
colored pictorial Guangming Huabao [Brightness pictorial] also appeared in newsstands in 1954,
which the publisher began supplementing with the weekly Xinwen Daguan [Grand spectacle of the
news] a month after the initial issue, was able to survive until 1968.111
There were far fewer launchings of new magazines in other Chinese communities.
Vancouver had the monthly Chinese in America (founded 1950), the Life Mirror (founded 1956 as a
semimonthly, later became a weekly, and then published once every five days), and Scholar's
Digest (semimonthly founded in 1961). In Honolulu, where the Chinese press was already on the
decline, there was Honolulu Chinese Monthly (founded in 1954).112
26
The late 1940s experienced a proliferation of literary publications. The two succeeding
decades were dominated by the works of Taiwanese students. However, due to the limitations
of the Chinese-language press at the time, many of their works were published in Taiwan or
Hong Kong. After the mid-1970s, there was again a flurry of literary publications in North
America and Hawaii by refugee and immigrants from the Indochina peninsula, followed by
immigrants from the PRC after 1980.
Increased competition among newspapers since the late 1970s encouraged editors to
publish the works of various literary groups to increase readership. Selected poems by
members of San Francisco’s Dunfeng [Sincere style] Literary Society were published at
intervals in Chinese Times, and in Sing Tao after it acquired the former. In the 1980s San
Francisco's Chinese Central News published "Wanqu Wenyi” [Bay Area literature] edited by
Jinshan Wanqu Huawen Wenyijie Lianyi Zhongxin [Fellowship center for Chinese language
literary writers in the San Francisco Bay area]. Centre Daily News also regularly published
“Dong Xi Feng” [Wind east and west] that included works by Chinese in North America and
Hawaii.113
Writers also formed groups that published literary magazines that usually circulated
within limited circles. (Publications by refugees from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos will be
discussed separately in the section “Refugees from the Indochina Peninsula.”) Honolulu’s
Hawaii Chinese Writers Association began publishing the semiannual literary publication Pearl
Harbor around 1993. In the San Francisco Bay Area, Meiguo Huawen Wenyijie Xiehui
[Association of people in Chinese language literary and artistic circles n America] founded the
literary bi-monthly publication The Literati in 1995, which later became a quarterly. In 2006 the
magazine Chinese Literature of the Americas began publication with the support of the Asian
American Studies Program at the University of California, Berkeley.
Since the 1970s a number of Chinese-language magazines have tried to capture the
expanding Chinese market but few achieved any great degree of success. Orient Publications
Ltd. of Vancouver launched an early attempt in 1975 when it began publishing Orient Weekly
and the monthly magazine Orient Vancouver. Aimed at a general audience, the publications
included news, consumer-oriented articles, and light reading material. Both failed within a short
period. With the great increase in the Chinese population in the 1980s, however, others were
still willing to venture into this market. In 1988 there was the Big Family Quarterly (founded
1988) of New York and the bilingual Lifestyle Magazine (founded 1988) of Vancouver. By 1989
the latter magazine also appeared in a Toronto edition. A periodical that concentrated more on
Canadian current events and life was Toronto’s Chinese Canadian Magazine (monthly founded
1990). Canada had different market dynamics due to Canada’s national policy of
multiculturalism and the fact that Chinese comprised approximately three percent of the
Canadian population as compared to one percent in the United States. One manifestation of
this difference was that at least two mainstream Canadian publications, Toronto Life and
MacLean’s, began publishing Chinese-language editions in 1995.114
During the 1970s, publications featured more scholarly articles on politics, humanities,
and the arts. Examples include Crossroads (bilingual monthly founded 1977) of Toronto, Hai
Nei Wai (bimonthly founded in 1976), Hsintu (monthly 1978-81), Chinese Intellectual
(quarterly founded 1984) of New York City, and Eurasian Bilingual Monthly Magazine, a
scholarly publication founded in New York City in 1988. Such publications often had only
short life spans due to the limited readership. However, one that lasted more than a decade
was the bimonthly East West Forum founded in New York City by David S. C. Liu in 1991. The
27
contents included essays on culture, society, and current events. The short-lived New York
monthly Yi Shi Zhu Xing [Clothing, meals, domicile and activities] (founded 1986) featured
articles about the quality of life of the Chinese in America. The magazine’s motto was “to
enable the Chinese to understand life in American society and to suitably survive.” Another
magazine targeting the middle class was California Sunshine, published in San Mateo,
California and founded in 1994. New York's People and Events had a different emphasis but
enjoyed some degree of longevity. This monthly, founded in 1982 by Ke Din Chow, specialized
in hard-hitting sensational exposés on Chinatown personalities and events.
Targeting Specific Ethnic Communities: Refugees from the IndoChina Peninsula
The increasing diversification of the Chinese population gave rise to publications
targeting specific ethnic groups in the community. The most numerous and widespread have
been newspapers established by ethnic Chinese from the Indochinese peninsula, more than
half of whom came from Vietnam and the remainder from Cambodia and Laos. They began
arriving in large numbers as refugees in the mid-1970s. In IndoChina, they had developed
complex institutional structures to manage internal community affairs under French colonial
rule. These structures remained operational with some modifications after the colonies gained
independence. When the flow of refugees from Indochina began, their leaders drew upon these
institutional experiences to help them adjust to their new lives in North America.
The press was among these institutions that was quickly established in their new
homes. In less than a decade Indochinese journalists established newspapers in many smaller
communities that previously did not have any. Most of the publications were weeklies
distributed free at businesses patronized by ethnic Chinese. The first to appear was VietnamChinese Newspaper, founded in Los Angeles in 1980 by Vincent Siu-Gong Ly.115 In San
Francisco the first Vietnamese Chinese newspaper was the weekly Bao Trung Nam (Newcomer
News), founded in 1983. By 1986 this paper also published a Houston edition, which had a high
concentration of Indochinese refugees. It also had a cooperative arrangement with Chinese
News, founded in Seattle in 1986. The large numbers of ethnic Chinese from IndoChina in
southern California have supported the largest number of Chinese-language papers, followed
by the San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle on the Pacific Coast. Newspapers were also
founded by Indochinese in New York City, Philadelphia, Houston, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton,
Winnipeg, and other cities. During almost three decades since the end of the Vietnam War, this
group and its offspring have become part of American society. The total number of newspapers
has shrunk because the younger generation has not learned Chinese and growing publication
costs have led some newspapers to cease publication while others restructured. However,
during the turn of the twenty-first century a few new publications were still being founded that
targeted this ethnic community.116
Immigrants from Taiwan and the PRC
The rapid increase of the immigrant population from Taiwan and the PRC encouraged
the founding of newspapers targeting their specific interests. One of the earliest examples of
this was the monthly New Immigrant Report founded by Young’s Planning and Development
Company of Monterey Park around 1983, which provided information to help new immigrants,
mostly from Taiwan, adjust to life in southern California. In Flushing, George Chen, a founder
of Asian American Times, left to establish the weekly Neo Asian American Times in 1991, also
targeting the large Taiwanese immigrant population. In 1993 the paper changed its name to
28
Chinese Free Daily News, Eastern Edition and began publishing sections of Taiwan’s Liberty
Times, while Neo Asian American Times became a special section at the rear of the paper.117
The growing population of PRC immigrants during the 1980s also spurred the
emergence of new newspapers. In 1992 medical doctor Shen Yong founded China Journal in
Monterey Park, advocating a unified, democratic, and economically prosperous China and
opposed independence for Taiwan. By 1995 it was publishing different editions in Northern
California, Southern California, eastern US, Chicago, Seattle, Houston, and Atlanta. Across
the border a Vancouver edition began publication in 1997. 118 Another newspaper was the
monthly New Continent, founded in 1993 in Seattle by two visiting scholars but later moved to
San Francisco. It was intended to assist new immigrants adjust to their new environment and
published many items reflecting the experiences of recent immigrants. At its peak the paper
was distributed in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Boston, Atlanta,
Houston, Dallas, San Diego, and Vancouver, BC. 119 In Southern California other publications
targeted the burgeoning new immigrant population. There was the biweekly China Signature
Journal founded in El Monte in 1999, which claimed on its front page that it was the first
Chinese-language newspaper in America that “truthfully and regularly reported news from
different regions of China.” Other weeklies, Huaxia Time and Chinese Weekend, founded in
2000 in Los Angeles and the City of Industry, respectively, also focused on China. On the other
hand, New Immigrant Times, founded in Monterey Park the same year, focused on immigrant
life in the US.120
Canada China News was founded in Ottawa in 1995 for new immigrants from the
PRC. By the first decade of the twenty-first century it was also publishing editions in Toronto,
Vancouver, and Edmonton. PRC immigrant Jane Zhang, former circulation manager at
Vancouver’s China Journal, founded Global Chinese Press in 2004 in Vancouver. The
newspaper was published twice weekly, with a western Canada edition distributed in the
greater Vancouver area, Calgary, Edmonton and other cities in western and central Canada,
while an eastern Canada edition was published in Toronto and distributed to cities in Ontario
Province.121
Fuzhouese Community
Immigrants from the Fuzhou region in Fujian Province were another sizable new and
distinctive community. In 1986 a group connected with the San Francisco Journal started
Fukien Chinese Weekly, the first paper targeted at the growing Fujianese population in
America. However, the effort failed within a year due to their limited numbers in the San
Francisco Bay Area. The larger Fuzhouese community centering on New York City, however,
had to wait until May 2002 for the founding of the monthly news magazine, Fujian Qiaosheng
[Voice of Fujianese immigrants]. The magazine soon ran into management problems and was
restructured as Zhongguo Qiaosheng [Voice of Chinese immigrants] in 2004. That year the
Fujianese community in Philadelphia began publishing Fujian Times, claiming to be “the first
newspaper using simplified characters that targets Fujianese immigrants and new immigrants
from mainland China,” In 2007 Fujian Qiaosheng also began publishing Fujian Qiaobao on an
experimental basis.122
Chinese Medicine
The growing Chinese immigrant population, coupled with the desire to learn more about
PRC advances in traditional Chinese medical practices, created a market for publications on
29
this subject. Health and Life Weekly, founded in El Monte in 1993, published news giving
guidance for healthy life styles, as did Health Today, a biweekly founded in Flushing in 2002.
The Chinese Medical Report was a monthly founded in Flushing in 1995 with a northern
California edition based in San Francisco. This publication reported the latest developments in
Chinese medical practices in the PRC. Another monthly was Sciences of Traditional Chinese
Medicine, founded in 1995 in Alhambra by the American Institute of Traditional Medicine, USA
and covering the practice of Chinese traditional medicine in America. In 1999 Jen-On
Pharmaceutical Enterprises founded the monthly American Journal of Traditional Chinese
Medicine in Rowland Heights in suburban Los Angeles to promote Chinese traditional
medicine.123
Entertainment and Business
The growth in the Chinese American population also gave rise to a rapidly expanding
Chinese-language television industry in major population centers such as New York, Los Angeles,
and San Francisco starting in the early 1970s. The industry was accompanied by weekly
television guides slanted more toward diversion and recreation. Beside program listings, these
usually included popular reading materials such as news, anecdotes, and gossip about the
community and the entertainment industry.
By the 1980s, some magazines had become very specialized in such areas as computers,
children’s education, real estate, investments, buying and selling of items, automobiles, job
hunting and offers, and even philately and numismatics. For example, in Vancouver there was the
weekly Buy & Sell (founded around 1965) for merchandise and services offered by businesses
and individuals. In Monterey Park, Chinese Consumer Weekly, Buy & Sell Classified offered
similar services. The rising interest among Chinese in American sports even led to the launching
of American Football Weekly and Chinese Sports Weekly in San Francisco in 1990. These last
ventures, however, proved to be short-lived.124
English-Language Journalism
The acculturation and assimilation of Chinese into American and Canadian mainstream
societies had been proceeding since the early part of the twentieth century, producing a
westernized sub-community that shared English as a common language. Efforts to
communicate the hopes and aspirations of this sub-community began before World War II.
Despite the continually increasing numbers in this population, which by the 1950s comprised
about half of the Chinese population on the continental US and more than 80 percent in Hawaii,
English-language community newspapers found survival difficult. After World War II only two
tabloid-size English weeklies had survived from the pre-war period. Honolulu's Hawaii Chinese
Journal, founded in 1937 and edited by William C. W. Lee, continued publication until the end of
1957. It was succeeded by the Hawaii Chinese Weekly, "The Only English Weekly for Hawaii's
Chinese," which started in mid-1958 but lasted only a little more than a year.125 Since then, the
large English-reading Chinese community on Hawaii has had to depend on Honolulu's
metropolitan dailies or non-community publications to learn about news of the Chinese
community.
On the continental US there was Chinese Press, which was founded in 1940 and that
resumed publication in 1948 after a hiatus while the editors were in the armed forces. Founder
and editor William Hoy passed away in 1950,126 and Charlie Leong struggled in his place
before giving up in 1952. In 1953 Leong teamed up with Jake Lee to start the biweekly Chinese
30
News, which focused on Chinese American social events. The publication did not catch on with
the reading public and faded away in the late fifties.
English-language Chinese community journalism did not take root in New York City,
home to many ethnic newspapers, until a significant Chinese American population emerged
during the post-war period. In 1955 William Y. Chang founded Chinese American Times, which
ran until
In Canada, the weekly New Citizen appeared in Vancouver in 1949. However, in the still
small Chinese Canadian community, the newspaper had only a limited circulation. The paper
moved to Toronto in 1951 but had to suspend publication in 1952.
During this period a number of editors of Chinese-language newspapers toyed with the
idea of publishing English sections to bridge the gap between the older Chinese-speaking and
the younger English-speaking generations. Both Honolulu's Liberty News and San Francisco's
Kuo Min Yat Po briefly attempted English news supplements during the thirties and forties, but
that move failed to increase the circulation despite additional expenditures. However, with the
continued westernization of more and more of the Chinese population, the concept remained
attractive. In San Francisco Thomas Tong tried briefly with the bilingual Chinatown Shopper
and then publishing an English supplement for Chinese Pacific Weekly. Frank Nip tried again in
the early 1950s with the same paper. All of these attempts were abortive.127
In the growing Los Angeles Chinese community the Pan-American Chinese Weekly was
also published bilingually for a short while in 1959. Then in 1962 Young China published a daily
English supplement edited by Charles Leong. It resulted in reported losses of $35,000 in two
years. The only daily paper that persevered and sustained such an effort was The Chinese
World, which started in 1949 and published until 1969. But this paper had the backing of
wealthy Hawaii Chinese Chun Quon (C.Q. Yee Hop).128
The struggle for equal opportunity, led by middle-class intellectuals and professionals
beginning in the late sixties in America, stimulated the growth of activism and fostered feelings
of concern for the Chinese community among Chinese Americans and Chinese Canadians.
Many believed that Chinese- and English-speaking Chinese should work together to bring about
change, which led to an emphasis on the bilingual format as a vehicle for communication. This
cooperation would prove difficult due to cultural differences between the two groups.
The bilingual East/West, established in 1967 by Reverend Gordon Lew in San
Francisco, represented this hope of getting Chinese- and English-speaking Chinese to work
together for the betterment of the community. For more than two decades until September
1989, when it closed due to continued operating deficits, this weekly was noted for its coverage
of Chinese and Asian American issues, in particular in its English section. East/West was one
of the earliest Chinese papers to use Chinese typewriters to typeset copy, and offset printing to
publish the newspaper.
During this period many Asian Americans, including Chinese Americans, were inspired
by the African American civil-rights movement to pursue similar goals for Asian Americans. A
number of militant Asian American organizations rose to advocate social change. Many
published newsletters and newspapers that focused on issues such as racism, housing,
employment, the plight of the underprivileged, and so on. Some better-known Asian American
movement publications, mostly monthlies with predominantly Chinese American participation,
31
were the Marxist-oriented Getting Together (1970-78), published in New York and San
Francisco by I Wor Kuen; Wei Min Pao (1971-75), published by Wei Min She in San Francisco;
and Equality (founded 1977), published in New York City by Asian Americans for Equality.
Other papers in the movement were Chinese Awareness (founded 1971), connected with the
Los Angeles youth organization Teen Post; Working Together (founded 1971), published by
The Third Arm in Honolulu; and Yellow Seeds (founded 1972), published by the Philadelphia
organization of the same name. These monthly publications used the bilingual format
extensively. With changes in the radical movement and the rightward drift in America in the
eighties, most of these have ceased publication. However, these experiences demonstrate the
utility of the bilingual format for leaflets, pamphlets, and instructions that were costly in
commercial newspapers, journals, and books since it usually only increased production costs
without much increase in circulation.
To expand beyond the limited Chinese American market, many English-language
publications have chosen to reach out to the broader Asian American market. Like the militant
Asian American publications mentioned earlier, but not as strongly ideological, Seattle's
International Examiner (founded 1974) attracted strong Chinese American and Japanese
American participation. The English edition published separately by San Francisco Journal from
1976 to 1980 also reached out to Asian American readers. But a Chinese American Englishlanguage press did not reappear in New York City until 1988, when James Dao, Yuen Ying
Chen, and others founded New Asian Times. This liberal monthly emphasized east coast Asian
American issues but only published a few issues before suspending operation. Other papers
targeted more middle-class Asian Americans and were not as issue oriented. Three of the most
successful were San Francisco's Asian Week, founded by John Fang in 1979, Houston's
USAsia News, founded by Wea Lee in March 1985, and Seattle's Northwest Asian Weekly,
which was founded by Assunta Ng in February 1983 as the English-language section of Seattle
Chinese Post. It was distributed as a separate newspaper in 1989 and changed its name to
Northwest Asian Weekly in 1992. Since 1989 publisher Ng has received numerous awards for
her accomplishments as a journalist and as an entrepreneur.129
Unlike the Chinese-language newspapers, the readers of which were overwhelmingly
first-generation immigrants, the English-language community press has not attracted offshore
newspaper interests. Their attention was more focused on attracting English-language readers
in the mainstream. Thus, in 1983 Beijing's English-language China Daily began publishing in
New York. A few years later, Sing Tao International was published briefly, targeting businesses
interested in East Asia.
English-language magazines included feature articles rather than news items. The
earliest post-war magazine of this type was East Wind, which was spawned by attendees at a
1945 Chinese Christian youth conference at Silver Lake. This modest quarterly edited by Henry
S. Louie claimed to be "The Expression of Chinese Youth." It was first published in Cleveland,
Ohio, and then moved to San Francisco in 1947, where it continued until 1948.
More than two decades would pass before another Chinese American English-language
magazine appeared. Bridge Magazine (1972-1985) was founded by Basement Workshop, a
New York cultural organization of Chinese and Chinese Americans. A product of the civil rights
era, its objective was to build a bridge "between Chinese and Chinese, between Chinese and
the larger society."130 The semi-annual East Wind had a more pronounced Marxist ideological
bent and was founded in San Francisco in 1982. It focused on Asian American politics and
32
culture. Some of the principals were formerly with Getting Together, Bridge Magazine, and
other Asian American publications.
During the seventies and eighties Chinese American entrepreneurs also started
magazines targeted at successful, upwardly mobile, middle-class Asian Americans. An early
one was Los Angeles' Jade (1974-1984), “the magazine of Asian-American Identity" founded by
Gerald Jann. After its demise came San Francisco's monthly Rice, "the Magazine of Asian
Influence" (1987-1989), with Douglas F. Wong as the initial chief executive officer. These
periodicals emphasized success stories and non-controversial subjects. Chinese American
Forum featured more analytical articles and was founded in 1984 by middle-class Chinese
Americans in Silver Springs, Maryland. It aimed at "US citizens and residents with Chinese
American bicultural interest or heritage . . . to bridge the cultural gap between Chinese
Americans of different generations as well as between Chinese Americans and fellow
Americans in general." The Forum was non-partisan on the PRC-Taiwan issue, but supported
the concept of a peaceful unified China as being ". . . in the interest of America and the cause
of world peace."131
One of the most successful English-language magazines was Chinatown News, a semimonthly initially named Chinatown that was founded by Roy Mah in Vancouver, BC, in 1953.
This publication reprinted many articles from other English-language publications. It also
included guest columns from the San Francisco Bay Area and Honolulu. The coverage included
a selection of articles on the Chinese in Canada, the US, and different regions of the world. It
continued publishing into the 1980s. In Vancouver, BC, Ma Chaolin (Cheolin Mar) founded the
tabloid-sized bilingual monthly Chinese-Canadian Bulletin (1961-early 1990s).132
Almost a decade after the Asian American movement started in the United States, Asian
Canadians became involved in similar struggles, giving rise to the quarterly Asianadian
(founded 1978) in Toronto. The magazine continued publishing until the early eighties.
A common characteristic of English-language newspapers and magazines was their
high failure rate. When the Chinese and other Asians become part of mainstream American
and Canadian societies, their ties to and interest in the ethnic community tended to attenuate.
But the continued existence of numerous ethnic newspapers indicated the ongoing need and
desire for knowledge of events and developments in their own ethnic community. This need and
desire did not appear to be any less among the Chinese, but the key was in finding a formula
that would attract readers whose lives and careers were no longer limited to the ethnic
community but also intertwined with that of American and Canadian society at large.
Chinese-Language Radio and Television
The population increase after World War II stimulated more attempts to establish
commercial Chinese-language radio programming. In New York, record shop owner Louis Chu
and his wife, cooperating with Lyle Stuart, a non-Chinese, began hosting an hourly show (later
extended to ninety minutes) four nights per week. The Cantonese and English Chinese Festival
aired on FM radio in 1951, featuring news, interviews, commercials, and Chinese recorded music.
This popular program continued until 1961.133
In Los Angeles, Dan Yee founded the weekly hourly Huazhong Guangbo Diantai [Chinese
bell broadcasting station] in 1955; however, insufficient advertising revenue forced the program off
the air in less than a year. In 1963 and 1967, Yee tried again with Zhongsheng Guangbo Diantai
33
[Sound of the bell broadcasting station] in partnership with Hong Kong immigrant Wen Yuming but
with no better success.134
San Francisco remained the most active center for Chinese American broadcasting
activities. In addition to the Golden Star Chinese Hour, which continued broadcasting until 1978,
Frank Lee worked with the newspaper Young China to produce nightly hour-long broadcasts of
the Voice of Chinatown in 1957. In 1959 the program moved to FM radio and expanded its airtime
to three hours. In November 1960 the program also aired in southern California and continued
until 1974. Except for newscasts and some special programming, other programs were mostly
produced in Taiwan.
In 1957 Chinese Times also sponsored a weekly radio program. However, its influence
was limited since it had to compete against the longer airtime of similar programs presented by
the Golden Star Chinese Hour and Voice of Chinatown. Chinese Times ceased sponsoring the
program in spring 1959.135
Non-Commercial Radio and Television
The civil rights movement contributed to community pressure in the 1970s for the airing of
Chinese radio and television programs in a number of cities, mostly on non-commercial stations.
In San Francisco the Chinese Media Committee of the civil rights organization Chinese for
Affirmative Action produced and aired Sut Yung Ying Yee [English for practical use], which
received the 1971 Emmy Award. In 1974 it sponsored production of the children’s program Yut
Yee Sahm, Here We Come. In 1971 CAA also sponsored a Mandarin program Chinese Youth
Voice, founded by activists from the Diaoyutai movement. Produced by volunteers, the program
was one of the earliest Mandarin-speaking programs in the San Francisco Bay Area. Besides
newscasts, the hour-long program introduced the literature and music of the PRC. Shortly after
the launching of Chinese Youth Voice, Asian American activists joined the group to begin
producing a weekly half-hour English segment named Dupont Guy, which discussed Asian
American issues. The same year Chinese Media Committee also sponsored Hon Sing Chinese
Community Hour, a Cantonese program manned by volunteers with programming that included
news commentaries and discussions of community issues in Cantonese as well as community
announcements and Chinese music presented in a bilingual format. In 1972 the Chinese Media
Committee also initiated Cantonese "simulcasts" of English-language television newscasts and
in 1973 it produced and broadcasted Learning Mandarin. These programs ceased operating
during the resurgent conservatism and tightened fiscal policies of the mid-1970s and loss of
volunteer personnel. Thus, Chinese Youth Voice became silenced in the mid-1970s, while
Dupont Guy lasted until the early 1980s. Hon Sing, however, continued broadcasting for
thirteen years until a shortage of program personnel forced a suspension of operations during
the mid-1980s. In 1980, Boston community activists also broadcast a weekly hour-long
Cantonese and English radio program on Zhonghua Zhi Sheng Guangbo Diantai [Chinese
Voice broadcasting station].136
In New York, the non-profit Asian Cine-vision, founded in 1976, housed Chinese
Television, which produced and aired programs on community issues. Similar community-oriented
media programs also arose in other Chinese communities during the 1970s. By the 1980s,
however, tighter fiscal constraints and a conservative political climate led station management to
become much less cooperative in helping to produce and broadcast community oriented
programs. But, some individuals involved in these community programs were able to gain
recognition by the larger society as professionals in the field.137 These programs produced on
34
limited budgets at times lacked the polish of professionally produced programs; however,
undoubtedly they recorded important events as they occurred in the community, and also opened
the way for Chinese professionals to enter the field.
Commercial Radio and Television
In 1964 Chinese paid-radio began in New York when Jiang Difen and Luo Zhonglang
(Chung-Long Lo) founded Zhonghua Zhi Sheng Guangbo Diantai [Chinese Voice broadcasting
station]. After several changes in ownership the enterprise became Chung Hwa Commercial
Broadcasting Company, which piped Cantonese programs fourteen hours per day via telephone
lines to subscribers.138 The rapid increase in the Chinese population since the 1970s created an
inviting market for Chinese-language broadcasters. Around-the-clock broadcasting came when
Arthur Liu's Sinocast (1976-1987) began airing Cantonese programs in New York City on special
receivers. This was the first Chinese broadcaster to rent an entire channel to transmit programs.
Liu also founded the newspaper Sino Daily Express in 1980 to help publicize the program. Then
in 1982 Liu founded Multicultural Radio Broadcasting, Inc. (MRBI), which in 1987 began
broadcasting programs in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Boston, Seattle, Philadelphia,
Houston, Sacramento as well as Toronto and Montreal in Canada to form a US-Canadian radio
broadcast network with about 800,000 listeners. By 2006 the corporation was operating forty-four
radio stations in twenty-two US cities, broadcasting in more than thirty languages, including
Cantonese and Mandarin in areas with a large Chinese population. In 1984 Zhonghua Zhi Sheng
(Southern California Chinese Broadcasting, Inc.) began broadcasting twenty-four hours in
Mandarin, Cantonese, and Minnan dialects. In 1988 Josephine Chain founded the Chinese Radio
Network to broadcast programs in Mandarin with headquarters in New York City. Later the
Network also broadcasted in Los Angeles (founded 1988), San Francisco Bay Area (founded
1988), and Dallas (founded 1993).139
During the decades since the 1970s, Chinese-language radio broadcasts became
commonplace in a number of Chinese communities, especially in metropolitan areas with a large
Chinese populations--New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco, where a large part of the
immigrant population, and to some extent, also some of the English-speaking American-born
generation, depended on them for information and entertainment. However, less favorable market
forces led investors to be more cautious about investing in launching radio broadcasts in smaller
Chinese communities.
Chinese-language television programming also expanded in the wake of demographic
growth, facilitated by the expansion of television programming in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and the
PRC as well as the development of technology facilitating storage and packaging of program
materials. In the United States most of the early developments occurred in the Chinese population
centers of New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. In 1972 Taiwan immigrant Arthur Liu
founded C S Television, which broadcasted a weekly program. Later the program changed to
cable and increased to six hours daily. In 1973 Chung-long Lo founded Chinese Community
Television Network in New York to broadcast an hour-long program on cable, at first once weekly,
and later daily.140
In San Francisco, university professor Leo Chen founded Amasia TV Productions in 1974
to begin airing weekly programs. Finding a receptive audience, Chinese television rapidly
expanded in the San Francisco Bay Area. In April 1975 Taiwan immigrants Wu Fengkun and Wu
Fengyi founded Overseas Chinese Communications that began airing a weekly program on cable.
Later, the program was increased to five days per week and two-hour segments. In 1976 board
35
member Huang Ying of Taiwan’s China Television and his son James Hwang founded Chinese
Television Company, Inc. that began airing Cantonese programs in 1976. The same year United
California Communications (UCC) began broadcasting, only to go off the air in 1978. In the
meantime UCC program director Phillip C. Chan negotiated with Arthur Liu of New York’s Huayu
Guangbo (Sinocast) to bring piped in radio programs to San Francisco beginning February 1977.
Chan also restructured UCC to add cable television programs to Sinocast. In 1981 Chan and Liu
terminated their partnership, and Chan became sole owner of Sinocast Radio and Television.141
The growing Chinese community in southern California proved to be a more difficult
market to develop. In 1972 Taiwan immigrant Fu-chuan Ma and his wife established Zhonghua
Haiwai Chuanbo Gongsi [Chinese Overseas Broadcasting Corporation] to air Chinese television
programs from Taiwan. However, the Chinese population was dispersed over a wide area, making
it difficult for business development. The program ceased operation after a year due to insufficient
advertising revenue. Shortly afterward, another Taiwan immigrant Liang Xinggui found the Qihai
Dianshi [Seven seas television] in Los Angeles, which began broadcasting programs four days
per week in 1979 but suffered the same fate as its predecessor. In 1984 an immigrant from
Japan, banker Ming-yu Tsai of the World Chinese Trust Group, founded Chinese World
Television in 1984 and with great fanfare began broadcasting in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New
York, and Chicago with ambitious plans to produce programs in America. However, financial
losses in the bank soon caused the television company to fail around 1986.142
The limited size of the Chinese-language market in North America and high production
costs restricted locally produced programs to newscasts, interviews, public announcements, and
advertisements while the rest of the programming consisted mostly of entertainment produced
abroad. Chinese television began in North America when there were no commercial relations and
cultural exchanges between the US and the PRC. Most of the earliest Chinese to venture into
Chinese television were immigrants from Taiwan, giving Taiwan television productions a
commercial advantage during the early years in North America. However, because most viewers
were Cantonese speakers, as competition for audiences intensified, some broadcasters began
airing more costly Hong Kong programs. In 1980 Taiwan sought to strengthen its position with the
three principal television companies in Taiwan together with the Taiwan News Bureau to found
International Audiovisual Communication, Inc. to market Taiwan television programs. Beginning in
1981, using the name United Chinese TV, the group purchased airtime to televise two-hour long
programs on weekends. By the 1990s these programs were shown in San Francisco, Los
Angeles, New York, Honolulu, Chicago, Houston, and Washington, D.C., making Chinese
television, at least a Taiwan version, available to wide audiences.143
Television programs from the PRC began entering the North American market when
normal diplomatic relations were restored. In New York Debbie Chen founded Maple Wood
Production Corp, known in Chinese as Hong Sheng Television, which broadcasted PRC-produced
Mandarin programs via cable to Manhattan in October 1980 and eventually shown nine hours
weekly. By 1984 the corporation added an English-language program on China broadcast via
satellite. It also showed a weekly two-hour long program in Washington, D.C. In New York Apple
TV was founded in December 1984, with Wayne Tam of China Daily News and his wife holding
sixty percent of the shares. By 1989 it was broadcasting sixteen hours daily in Mandarin and
Cantonese, covering Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn. After China Daily News ceased
publication in 1989, Sinovision was founded in 1990. With Philip Chiang as manager, the
company was closely allied with The China Press, successor to China Daily News. It broadcasted
over two cable stations and one non-cable station a total of six hours daily, covering all five
boroughs and parts of Connecticut, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania.144 Such large-scale
36
operations did not happen in other communities broadcasting PRC-produced programs, such as
Hua Sheng Television in San Francisco (founded 1982) and Dunhuang Television and Panda
Television (founded 1984 and 1990 respectively) in Los Angeles.145
Watching Chinese television became popular and quickly spread to smaller Chinese
communities. By the 1990s television companies emerged in communities such as Washington,
DC (1984), Houston (1988), Chicago (1988), and Seattle (1991), broadcasting mainly in Mandarin
or Cantonese although some programs from Taiwan were also in Taiwanese.
One of the chief regrets of Chinese broadcasters was that they did not own their stations
and had to purchase time on commercial stations to air their programs. In 1986 David Li, a retired
executive from Taiwan Television, and a group of investors formed Pan Pacific TV, Inc., which
received a license to operate KPST-TV (Channel 66) as the first Chinese American-operated
station in the San Francisco Bay Area. The same year Leo Chen and a group of ethnic minority
investors formed West Coast United Broadcasting, Inc. to operate Station KCNS (Channel 38),
which aired English and Asian languages programs. In 1991 the station began producing and
broadcasting Caihong Dianshi [Rainbow TV], an English-language program introducing China and
Chinese culture to the viewers. However, the operating licenses of channels 38 and 66 were
taken over by non-Asian American investors in 1994 and 1996, respectively.146
The potential of the expanding Chinese market led Station KTSF (Channel 26) in San
Francisco to become one of the first non-Chinese-owned stations to produce and broadcast
Chinese programming in the US when it began airing news in Cantonese in 1989 with Nine
O’clock News and in Mandarin in 1991. It also broadcasted feature programs produced in East
Asia. Faced with this better financed competition, the Chinese-owned cable and non-cable
television broadcasts, which had made the San Francisco Bay Area one of the liveliest regions for
Chinese television on more limited budgets, ceased airing programs one after another by the turn
of the twenty-first century. The only broadcasts of Chinese programs were by World Channel for a
limited number of hours during the week over non-commercial public television station KMTP
(channel 32). However, the area still attracts investors and in 2006, Arthur Liu’s MRBI acquired six
television stations including Station KCNS (channel 38), which still broadcasts Chinese-language
television programs.147
Canada’s Chinese radio and television offerings also grew rapidly. Canada’s official policy
of multiculturalism, implemented in 1971, produced a different pattern of development. In
November 1972, Ruth Koo Lam founded the thrice-weekly two-hour Chinese Radio Program in
Cantonese in Montreal that by 1988 was broadcasting twelve hours, six days per week. The next
year, 1973, Hong Kong immigrant Hanson Lau founded OCV Broadcasting in Vancouver, BC. By
the early 1990s the station was broadcasting mostly in Cantonese with some Mandarin programs
for nine hours daily. In 1993 the program became part of Main Stream Broadcasting Corporation,
owned and operated by Vancouver businessman James Ho. In the early 1980s the program
Liming Zhi Sheng [Sounds at dawn] also emerged in Vancouver, broadcasting in Cantonese from
7 to 9 AM five days per week. It was metropolitan Toronto, with its large Chinese population, that
had the greatest number of Chinese-language broadcasts, including Toronto US-Canadian
Chinese Radio Broadcast, which beginning in 1988 broadcasted around the clock. It was part of
the US-Canadian radio broadcast network, Multicultural Radio Broadcasting, Inc. The Toronto
Commercial Radio began broadcasting five hours daily in September 1995. A variety of entities
offered Chinese radio programming during the first decade of the twenty-first century, including
Sing Tao Daily, Toronto Edition and also Toronto First Radio.148
37
Shijie Zhongwen Dianshi [World Chinese Language Television] (name later changed
to Guotai Zhongwen Dianshi [Guotai Chinese Language Television]) began broadcasting
cable television programs eleven hours daily beginning in 1976. Most of the programming
was provided by Hong Kong’s TVB. Montreal’s Ruth Koo Lam founded Chinese TV
Program/La Voix de Chine, the cable Chinese television network that began broadcasting
several hours daily beginning in 1978. Toronto’s Chinavision Canada Corporation, founded in
1984 by Frances Cheung, broadcasted eight hours of programs on weekdays and ten hours
on weekends to most parts of Canada, coverage that was claimed to be second onl y to that
of the Canadian Broadcasting System. In 1993 Canada’s Happy Valley Investment in
partnership with Hong Kong’s Condor Entertainment formed Fairchild Broadcasting Group in
Vancouver, BC, which purchased Guotai Zhongwen Dianshi and also Chinavision. The latter
was reorganized as Talentvision. Fairchild Television served Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton,
and Vancouver, BC, while Talentvision served Vancouver, B.C.
Canada’s multicultural policy encouraged the emergence of a number of radio and
television broadcasting companies and programs. Vancouver viewers could watch the
Chinese-owned multicultural stations, Shaw Cable 20 and Channel M. In 1990 an Asia
Broadcasting Station was established in Calgary. During the first decade of the twenty -first
century, Montreal began broadcasting its first program in Mandarin, Mengcheng Huayuan
[Chinese garden of Montreal]. 149
The possibilities of the radio and television broadcasting market attracted entrepreneurs
marketing offshore-produced Chinese programs. In 1985 Hong Kong's TVB, whose highly popular
video cassettes had been distributed by Hong Kong Television in the US since the early 1980s,
established Hong Kong Television Broadcasts (USA) in Los Angeles that eventually broadcast
around the clock.150 In 1990 another big technological advance occurred when North America
Telecommunication Corporation of Rosemead began direct reception of satellite broadcasts. The
telecasts were available in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, Dallas, Honolulu, and
Washington, DC, with reception requiring special installations by subscribers. Other companies
soon formed to compete for a share of this market. These programs served to enrich the lives of
viewers by making available offerings reflecting the different perspectives of the offshore
entities.151
The Internet
The development and expansion of the Internet around the 1990s added yet another
dimension to Chinese journalism in America. The rise of the Internet made it possible for
newspapers in widely dispersed communities to pool their resources to publish. Some of the
earliest journalists to make effective use of this media was Wea and Catherine Lee, founders
of Houston’s Southern Chinese Daily News, which served as the base for the Southern
Chinese Newspaper Group in the mid-1980s and reached out laterally to Chinese
communities across the nation, concentrating on smaller but growing communities, to found
or form alliances with a number of community-based newspapers, mostly weeklies. 152
Meanwhile, a group of students from the PRC established the first Chinese-language
news website in North America. In March 1989, during the tumultuous prelude to the
Tian’anmen Incident of June 4, 1989, two PRC students in Canada, with the help of two
counterparts in the US, set up a list-account communications network named News Digest. In
September of that year it combined with Electronic Newsletter for Chinese Students and
China News Group and was renamed China News Digest. Since then a number of Chinese
38
news websites have been established. Wenxuecity.com (Chinagate.com) was founded in
Silicon Valley in 1997 and claimed to be “the largest overseas Chinese community portal in
the world.” Its avowed mission was “to provide the overseas Chinese with in-depth, updated
local, national, and worldwide community-focused contents, engaging news, original articles,
interactive forums.” Another popular website was Duowei Chinesenewsnet, established by
New York City’s Duowei Media Net, Inc. in January 1999. 153
Competition to provide timely news coverage forced conventionally published media
outlets to follow the suit of Internet services. By the mid-1990s many of the major national
dailies in the US and Canada had established websites. Southern Chinese Newspapers
Group claimed to have introduced the first electronic newspaper for Chinese overseas with
the inauguration of Global Chinese Electronic Daily in July 1995.154 A number of weeklies
and periodicals also established websites as they entered this market.
Political and Religious Advocacy
Advocacy or support of political causes has been part of the role played by Chinese
journalism in the United States and Canada since the turn of the twentieth century. After World
War II, much of this discussion concerned the conflict between the PRC and the Taiwan
regimes. As more types of media have become available, different political causes would
seek to use the new options to propagate their messages. In such endeavors they were
limited only by their budgets and their familiarity with the various types of technology.
The Taiwanese Democracy and Independence Movements
In the 1950s the PRC-Taiwan conflict was not the only political cause that led Chinese
groups to use the media to present their cases. A major group included Taiwanese
organizations opposing KMT authoritarian rule on Taiwan and a variety of messages pushing
for either greater democratization or for independence.155 This opposition began with the arrival
of Taiwanese students in the late 1950s, became increasingly active in the 1970s and 1980s,
and did not end until the lifting of martial law in Taiwan in the late 1980s.
Taiwanese dissidents aimed to lobby politicians, especially those in the United States,
and rally support among Taiwanese immigrants. Some of their earliest publications were the
English-language quarterlies, Ilha Formosa and Appeal for Justice, both founded by United
Formosans for Independence (UFI) in 1958. By 1966 Formosagram, another UFI publication,
had changed to Chinese in order to better convey its message to Taiwanese students.
Magazines founded by Taiwanese students sympathetic to the movement followed, including
the bimonthly Mayflower (founded 1969 in Houston), which was later published by the
Taiwanese Association of America.156.
In 1979 the Taiwan government banned the dissident magazine Formosa Weekly after
the Kaohsiung incident and imprisoned or forced its principals into exile. In August 1980
expatriate Hsin-liang Hsu began publishing Formosa Weekly in Los Angeles, the center of a
large Taiwanese population, as the American-based successor to the Taiwan publication.157 It
advocated a democratic national revolution in Taiwan based on socialism. The same year
Kenjohn Wang and other Taiwanese in southern California founded Asian Journal in Monterey
Park.158 This was the first Chinese paper to focus on news of the Taiwanese community in
America. Its coverage also criticized KMT violations of human rights. The paper published until
1983. In 1985 Taiwanese dissidents, including those connected with the above two
39
publications, met in Washington, DC, to form the Association to Promote Formation of a Democratic Party in Taiwan. Soon afterward Formosa Weekly merged with the newly founded Taiwan
Times.159 Published in Westminster, California, this paper proposed organizing an opposition
political party in Taiwan. However, Taiwan Times soon ceased publication to be succeeded by
Pacific Times, founded in Alhambra, California in 1987. Another faction of the Taiwan dissident
movement founded New Asian Weekly in 1993 in Los Angeles.160
On the East Coast UFI began publishing Taiwan Tribune in Long Island City, New York,
in 1981. Around 1988 the paper moved to Gardenia in southern California. Several other
periodicals criticized Kuomintang rule on Taiwan and advocated more political rights for the
Taiwanese, including the Taiwan and the World (1983-87) monthly founded in New York City;
Taiwan Digest semimonthly, which was founded by the Taiwanese Cultural Center of
Westminster in 1984; Taiwan Tiante bimonthly founded in Alief, Texas, in 1985 by the Xin
Taiwan Tongzhihui [Society of comrades of a new Taiwan]; The Taiwanese New Society
monthly founded by the Taiwan Cultural Association of Los Angeles in 1985; Taiwan Culture
bimonthly, which was founded by the Taiwan-US Culture Exchange Center of Long Island City
in 1986; and Taiwan Review bimonthly, which was founded in 1978 in Los Angeles and
published both pro-independence and pro-unification articles. During the 1990s, some of these
newspapers have become close to one faction or another of the Democratic Progressive
party.161
Protect Diaoyutai Movement
In contrast to the Taiwanese democratization and independence movements, the
Protect Diaoyutai movement was inspired by Chinese nationalism and was of short duration
between 1970 to 1972. Nonetheless, it stimulated a flood of publications, mostly in the
magazine format, by students from Taiwan and Hong Kong on campuses in the United States
and Canada.162 Most of these magazines were short-lived and few lasted beyond 1972. A radio
show, Chinese Youth Voice, broadcasted in Mandarin from Berkeley. After the movement
subsided most participants resumed their scholastic careers, but it provided a stepping stone
for some activists to join the editorial staffs of Chinese community newspapers such as China
Daily News, San Francisco Journal, and Asian American movement publications such as
Getting Together and Wei Min Pao.
PRC Democracy Movement
Publications of PRC dissidents began to emerge after China relaxed restrictions on
travel abroad in the late 1970s. A group of dissidents led by visiting scholar Wang Bingzhang
founded one of the earliest such publications, China Spring, in 1983. In 1993 Zhongguo
Minzhu Lianhe Zhenxian [United Democratic Front of China] took over editorial responsibility
for China Spring while the editor Hu Ping founded Beijing Spring. Recent disclosures have
revealed that Taiwan’s military intelligence had subsidized China Spring for two decades. 163
Quest, another dissident publication, was founded in Beijing by dissident Wei
Jingsheng in 1979 and subsequently banned by the PRC government. Wei's supporters
revived the magazine in the United States in 1983. In 1989, five days after June 4th, a group
of former PRC journalists led by Cao Changqing established Press Freedom Herald in
Alhambra, California, to voice support for the Democracy Movement. Democracy Movement
organizations in different cities in the United States and Canada provided funding for the
paper. Seven issues were published during the first eleven weeks of its existence.
40
However, the fervor of the dissidents attenuated rapidly as a series of power struggles
plagued and split the movement. Funding for the movement also became increasingly
difficult. Many dissidents turned to other pursuits to go on with their lives, some e ven
engaging in commerce with the PRC. In the twenty-first century dissident publications have
only a negligible influence on the Chinese American community.
Religious Advocacy
Religious groups also publish to report on developments within their organ izations and
to offer guidance on religious issues. Most of these publications were distributed locally. One
such publication was the weekly China Post, founded in 1990 by Christina Sung in San
Gabriel, close to Los Angeles, with writings about Christian doctrines. The Chinese Christian
Herald Crusade in New York was another active Christian group that founded the nationally
distributed monthly newspaper Herald in 1988. In 2005 the group also founded the monthly
Delicacy of Life that discussed food and drink from a Christian perspective, and in 2006, a
bimonthly magazine Passion, which discussed evangelical activities. In Canada, the
Vancouver Chinese Christian Short Term Mission Training Centre founded Truth Monthly in
1993, which was distributed in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Seattle, Winnipeg, and
Victoria.
Buddhist sects are relatively new among Chinese in North America, but a few have
become very active since the 1990s. These include True Buddha News, founded in
Vancouver by Lu Guangyan in 1991, the bilingual Tzu Chi World Journal published by the
Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation USA in Alhambra, California , in 1991; the
bilingual Buddha’s Light Newsletter of Los Angeles, published by Buddhist Light International
Association in California’s Hacienda Heights in 1994; and the bilingual Merit Times, founded
by Master Xingyun in 2000 and published in Monterey Park, California. The bilingual quarterly
Dong Shan Newsletter was an interesting publication founded in 1996 by Master Huang
Shengxian, a former Marxist who was converted to Buddha’s teachings in 1989 and later
established Dong Shan Institute in Graham, Washington. 164
Multi-media Advocacy
Advocacy groups often lacked the financial resources and talent to use a diversity of
media to advance their causes, but the Falun Gong cult was an exception that emerged
during the first decade of the twenty-first century and reached the public using different media
to advance its cause. Cult supporters formed the Epoch Media Group anchored by the
newspaper The Epoch Times. It began as a weekly in May 2000 in New York City and was
distributed free in several American cities. By 2004 the newspaper began daily publication on
weekdays in cities such as Washington, D.C. By late 2007 the paper was publishing seven
days per week in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Vancouver, BC. In August
2004 the group also began publishing a weekly newspaper and operating an English language website, which later expanded to several other languages. The Ethnic Media Group
also includes New Tang Dynasty Television, which began operating in February 2002 and
Sound of Hope Network radio, which began broadcasting in June 2003 using volunteer
workers. The thrust of all these programs was advocacy of Falun Gong teachings and
criticism of the PRC. 165
41
In general, well-financed national companies are the entities with enough resources to
use different media, including the most modern communications technology to more
effectively reach the public. In 1984 the New York office of World Journal founded W.J.
Bookstore. This was followed by branch stores in other Chinese communities in the United
States and Canada. World Journal of New York City also established World Television
Corporation in 1985. In some areas, the World Journal also established centers for cultural
activities. For example, a W.J. Cultural Center, opened in October 2003 in San Jose,
provided space for activities and classes in Chinese arts and culture. 166
Sing Tao in San Francisco, tapping into the talent pool among recent immigrants,
chose to use radio for greater outreach. In 1996 and 1997, it began broadcasting programs in
Cantonese on two separate stations for several hours each weekday. Another program in
Mandarin began broadcasting from 7 AM to 2 PM starting in 1997. Call-in talk shows were a
popular feature. 167
The China Press and related enterprises took another tack. Asian Pacific Culture
Enterprises became the parent company of a conglomerate including The China Press' San
Francisco and Los Angeles editions, The China Press Weekend Edition, Chinese Digest, and
a Chinese Cultural Development Center (established 1995). The China Press' home office in
New York maintained a close working relationship with the Chinese Cultural Development
Center, Sinovision, and the weekly The SinoAmerican Times it founded in 2002 and
distributed in New York and Boston. 168
An English weekly USAsia News was founded in 1985, targeting American-born
Chinese in Houston. A US Asian Art Center opened in 1986 for the exhibition and tea ching of
Chinese fine and performing arts in the area, which had been hitherto considered somewhat
of a desert for Chinese culture. In 1988 Meinan Huayu Diangshi (Texas Chinese Television)
began broadcasting Chinese television programs provided by Taiwan’s International
Audiovisual Communication, Inc. In 1989 it worked together with other Asians to establish the
Texas Asian Network. 169
A relatively new arrival in the field was Chinese Media Net, Inc., founded in 1999 by
Hu Pin, former editor of China Times and China Times Weekly. In an interview in 2006 Hu
claimed that the corporation was publishing eight newspapers, one of which had six local
editions for different localities, and three magazines as well as operating three websites,
including the popular Chinesenewsnet (name later changed to dwnews).170 However, the
effective exploitation of different media to reach the public is still in its beginning stages as
different groups are seeking through trial-and-error to find the most effective usages.
Conclusions
The Chinese media in North America and Hawaii have developed over a century and
a half from a few struggling weeklies to the widely read national publications of today. By the
early twentieth century, Chinese political groups considered the US mainland, Hawaii, and
Canada as interrelated and established a network of party organs linking the three regions.
This practice was emulated by the national newspapers of the late twentieth century that
continued still to treat the regions as interrelated markets. However, differences such as
national laws regarding political activities of foreign groups, immigration policies, immigration
rates, and race relations affecting assimilation into mainstream society affected the
42
development of the media in each region, which diverged over time according to national and
local conditions.
In the mid 1980s, readers could choose from about thirty daily newspapers, including
community-based newspapers, local editions of national newspapers, and overseas editions
of foreign newspapers published in Chinese communities in the United States and Canada.
Attrition during the late 1980s and the 1990s allowed the nationally distributed dailies owned
by offshore capital to gain dominant roles among the daily newspapers. However, numer ous
community-based semiweeklies, weeklies, biweeklies, monthlies, and quarterlies held onto a
share of the market. The following table offers a count of past and present newspapers and
periodicals in the United States and Canada. 171
Table 3. Total numbers of newspapers by type, and numbers still in publication
Dailies
Weeklies,
monthlies
Periodicals
Organization
Publications
Nature Unknown
Grand Total
United States
Grand Total
Still
over the
Publishing as
Years
of 1999
69
14
296
75
251
137
753
39
5
133
Canada
Grand Total
Still
over the
Publishing as
Years
of 1999
19
3
52
23
33
16
7
5
2
0
122
38
It is doubtful whether any other ethnic community in the United States and Canada of
comparable size has access to such a varied bill of fare. The great number of publications
reflects the diversity of the Chinese American community. Since the turn of the twentieth
century, political conflicts in China have influenced the local community press. Before World
War II such divisions were reflected in the proliferation of dailies speaking for different
political groups. But with its rise to dominance during the Sino-Japanese War, the KMT gradually imposed a political orthodoxy that lasted through the Cold War of the 1950s and 19 60s-American and Canadian support for the KMT regime in Taiwan and hostility to the Communist
PRC.
After World War II, however, as opportunities opened for Chinese in the United States
and Canada to enter the mainstream, community and national issues began to assume
greater importance. Chinese politics began to recede to secondary importance for most
Chinese. By the mid-1970s these developments led newspapers to focus increasingly on
issues relevant to the hopes and aspirations of Chinese in American and Canadian society
and to support causes advancing their status in North America.
As Chinese increasingly participated in mainstream society, Chinese-language
newspapers suffered a decline in the 1950s and 1960s. But this trend was arrested in the
1970s and 1980s due to the rapid influx of Chinese immigrants and refugees from the China
mainland, Hong Kong, and Taiwan and other parts of the world. This period saw a great
increase in the numbers of nationally distributed dailies owned by substantial off shore fi-
43
nancial resources. San Francisco, New York City, Los Angeles, Vancouver, BC, and Toronto
became the major centers for dailies, with Houston, Chicago, Calgary and other growing
communities close behind.
During this time advances in publishing technology also allowed the founding of
weeklies and monthlies to serve smaller Chinese communities and various targeted groups
within the communities. These publications offered essential services providing news and
information to the large Chinese-reading and mostly foreign-born population. However,
despite the seemingly flourishing condition of Chinese newspapers on the North American
mainland, the moribund condition of the Chinese community press in Hawaii raises questions
about the eventual fate of Chinese journalistic enterprises in Canada and the continental
United States if the flow of Chinese immigration subsides substantially and more of the ethnic
Chinese participate primarily in the mainstream. The answer to this question may not be clear
for at least another decade. For the immediate future it is safe to predict that the Chinese
community press will continue to exist in some form.
As for news media in the English language, past experience indicates that when the
second and later generations became integrated into mainstream society, then issues
concerning society at large also became their issues as well, and issues of the ethnic
community often receded to secondary importance. But in a situation where many Chinese
are not yet fully integrated into society at large socially, culturally and politically, as tends to
be the situation in many locations, then there is still a need for reporting on community issues
in English. However, because this part of the Chinese community is limited in numbers,
broadening the discussion to issues shared by different Asian American groups would appear
to be the more workable strategy in ensuring the survival of such media.
Radio and television are other forms of media that have expanded greatly since the
1970s. They possess the advantage of being able to reach and be understood by a large part
of the Chinese population regardless of educational level, including many who could never
read the Chinese newspapers. However, due to the limited size of the Chinese market and
the high cost for producing programs in North America, the greater part of the programming
consists of entertainment features produced in East Asia. Locally produced programs were
basically limited to newscasts, a few talk shows, and occasional coverage of some special
events. Thus the popularity of radio and television was due more to its entertainment and
educational offerings than to its coverage of current events and issues.
Of more immediate concern to the press is the rapid development of the Internet since
the 1980s, with its availability of timely up-to-date news coverage. Its effect on the traditional
published media is an issue that cannot be ignored, and it is safe to speculate that as more
and more people turn to the Internet for news, the modus operandi and allocation of
resources of the press will have to be greatly modified in order to stay relevant in Chinese
America. It appears that this situation tends to favor the national dailies that would have the
resources to use the different forms of media.
44
Endnotes
1
Chinese Pacific Weekly, Feb. 20, 1975.
Pei Chi Liu, Meiguo Huaqiao Shi, Xubian [A history of the Chinese in the United States of
America, Vol. 2] (Taipei: Liming Wenhua Shiye Gongsi, 1981), 388-89 (hereafter cited as Liu,
Chinese in the United States II).
3
Huaqiao Huaren baikequanshu, xinwen chuban juan [Encyclopedia of Chinese overseas;
volume of media and publication] (Beijing: Chinese Overseas Publishing House, 1999), s.v.
“Dahan Gongbao (Chinese Times)” (hereafter cited as Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media
and Publication Volume).
Editor’s Note: Chinese newspapers usually had both Chinese and English names. In many
cases the English name was not a direct translation from the Chinese. In this essay when both
the English and Chinese names are given, the official English name will be enclosed in
parenthesis (). When only a literal English translation of the Chinese name was available, the
name will be enclosed in brackets [].
4
Liu, Chinese in the United States II, 373, 385, 388-89
5
Pei Chi Liu, "Meiguo Huaqiao Baoye Fazhan Shi [The history of the development of the
Chinese press in America]," in Wenyi Fuxing Yuekan (Literary renaissance monthly), no. 19
(1971): 49-56; Liu, Chinese in the United States II:386-92; Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia,
Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Dahan Gongbao (Chinese Times).”
6
Weng Shaoqiu, Wo zai Jiujinshan Sishinian [I was in San Francisco for 40 years] (Shanghai:
Shanghai Renmin Chubanshe, 1988), 32-37; David T. H. Lee, A History of Chinese in Canada
(Vancouver, B.C.: Jianada Ziyou Chubanshe, 1967), 351-352 (hereafter cited as Li, Chinese in
Canada).
7
Quon Chun, "Bashiyi Zishu" (Autobiography at 81) in Chen Kun Xiansheng Shou Ji [Tributes
to Mr. C. Q. Yee Hop on his 81st Birthday] (Honolulu, 1947), 91-117; "Ji'nian Chen Kun
Xiansheng Shishi 13 Zhou'nian" [In commemoration of the thirteenth anniversary, of the passing
of Mr. Quon Chun], Chinese World, Aug. 11 and 12, 1967; Liu, Chinese in the United States II:
370-71.
8
Edgar Wickberg, ed., From China to Canada: A History of the Chinese Communities in
Canada (Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1982), 208 (cited hereafter as Wickberg, From China
to Canada).
9
Norbert Woo, interview with author August 10, 1974. Gilbert Woo and Yuk Ow were fellow
editors at Chinese Times. When Chinese Pacific Weekly was founded, Woo was an editor of
Kuo Min Yat Po.
10
Thomas Tong, interview with author, January 17, 1948. Tong ran the Golden Star
Cantonese-language radio program. He was also owner of a printing shop. Ja was a Chinatown
merchant and was also once associated with the radio program. Lee edited Chinese Times
after Gilbert Woo left.
11
In 1948 the Chinese Communist party called for a political consultative conference to discuss
the establishment of a democratic coalition government. The next year in June and again in
September the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference met in Beiping (Peiping;
subsequently changed to Beijing). It was attended by 134 delegates from the Chinese
Communist Party, other political parties, mass organizations, and nonaffiliated individuals. The
conference passed a common program defining the nature of the new Chinese government and
its organizational structure. It also elected leaders for the newly established republic, with Mao
Zedong as chair. On October 1 Mao officially announced the establishment of the People's
Republic of China at Tian'anmen Square.
12
Wang Shigu, Meiguo Huawen baokan jianzhi [Brief list and descriptions of Chinese-language
2
45
periodicals in the USA] (1854-1997) (Beijing: Zhongguo Renmin Daxue Xinwen Xueyuan
Haiwai Huawen Baokan Yanjiu Ketizu [Committee on topics on “The Study of Chinese
Overseas Periodicals” of the College of Journalism, People’s University of China], 1999), s. v.
“Niuyue Xinbao (China Tribune),” cited hereafter as Wang, Brief Descriptions of ChineseLanguage News Publications; Liu, A History of the Chinese in the USA II, 391.
13
Hongda Feng and Huaxin Yu, Feng Yuxiang Jiangjun Huan Gui Zhonghua [General Feng
Yuxiang's spirit returned to China], (Beijing: Wen-shi Ziliao Chubanshe, 1981), 123-29.
Branches of the Chinese League for Peace and Democracy in America were established in San
Francisco, Washington, D.C., and Minnesota.
14
Him Mark Lai, "Chinese Politics and the US Chinese Communities," in Emma Gee et al, ed.,
Counterpoint: Perspectives on Asian America (Los Angeles: Asian American Studies Center,
1976) 152-59. On October 9, 1949, KMT-hired hoodlums broke up a public program organized
by the Chinese Workers Mutual Aid Association at CACA Hall in San Francisco to celebrate the
founding of the PRC. The leaflets attacking the opposition press called on Chinese "to eradicate
the traitorous Communist bandits." Of the fifteen people accused, eight were connected with
Qiaozhong Ribao, two with China Weekly, one with China Tribune, one with China Daily
News, two with the Chinese Workers Mutual Aid Association, and one with Chinese American
Democratic Youth League. According to Norbert Woo, Gilbert Woo's name was on the list at
first, but a KMT member friendly to him prevailed on others to delete it (interview with the
author, December 13, 1988).
15
Joe Yuey was a leader of the Suey Sing Association; Lok Yip was a leader in the Ying On
Association. Both were Chinese secret societies. Sam Wah You owned a chain of
supermarkets in Stockton, California.
16
Ma Jiliang was chief editor at Hong Kong's Wen Wei Pao during the late forties. Before
becoming a journalist Ma acted under the stage name Tangna in Shanghai. During the thirties
he was married to Jiang Qing, who later married Mao Zedong. After working at Chung Sai Yat
Po for almost a year, Ma left and settled in Paris. See K.Y. Ja, interview with author, March 9,
1989; Xu Zhucheng, "Tangna Juekou Butan Jiang Qing Jiu Shi" [Tangna was close-mouthed
regarding his old relationship with Jiang Qing], in China Daily News, Sept. 20, 1988.
17
The group in the KMT was headed by the brothers Chen Guofu and Chen Lifu, who
controlled the investigative division and organization department of the KMT during the 1930s.
18
Lai Ching-hu, Yan Yun Si Wang Lu [Memories of past events which seemed like changing
mists and clouds] (Taipei, Zhuanji Wenxue Chubanshe, 1980), 161-62, 277-79; Liu, Chinese in
the United States II: 35, 391; Rongma Shusheng, "Meiguo Xing" [Journey to the United States],
installment no. 61, in Sing Tao Jih Pao, Apr. 17, 1972. Pan Kongzhan was a prominent member of
the KMT’s C.C. clique and also managed the Shanghai newspaper Shen Pao.
19
China Weekly, Dec. 13, 1950.
20
Ronald Leslie Soble, “A History of the Chinese World, 1891-1961” (M.A. thesis, Stanford
University, 1962), 99. Cited hereafter as Soble, Chinese World.
21
Lai, "A Historical Survey of the Chinese Left in America," 63-80; The Committee to Support
the Chinese Daily News, The China Daily News Case (New York 1952); Liu, Chinese in the
United States II:390. The revenue for the advertisements amounted to less than six hundred
dollars. However, it was technically a violation of the trade embargo imposed by the US against
the PRC.
22
After the Chinese Nationalists established a national government in Nanking (Nanjing) in 1927,
they changed the name of Peking (Beijing) to Beiping (Peiping). To avoid confusion the city will be
referenced as Beijing in this essay regardless of the historical period.
23
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Lianhe Ribao (The
United Journal).”
46
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Ziyou Zhongguo
Ribao (Free China Daily).”
25
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Zhongguo Shibao
(China Times).”
Shing Tai Liang edited the KMT organ Chinese Journal. He was also instrumental in founding the
National Chinese Welfare Council, an organization formed by Chinese Consolidated Benevolent
Associations of various cities during the late fifties. Dou and Liang were also presidents of the New
York Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association in 1940 and 1956, respectively.
26
Liu, Chinese in the United States II: 391-92. Chan and Wong were prominent leaders in the On
Leong Tong and Bing Kung. Tong and KMT members.
27
Li, Chinese in Canada, 352; Weng Shaoqiu (John Ong), Wo Zai Jiujinshan 40-nian [My forty
years in San Francisco] (Shanghai: Renmin Chubanshe, 1988), 26-27; Chinese Overseas
Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Zhongxing Ribao (Chinese Free Press),”
“Qiaosheng Ribao (Chinese Voice).”
28
Wickberg, From China to Canada, 235, 258-59; Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and
Publication Volume, s.v. “Dazhong Bao,” “Duolunduo Shangbao (Chinatown Commercial
News).”
29
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Qiaosheng Ribao
(Chinese Voice).”
30
Li, Chinese in Canada, 350.
31
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Sanmin Chenbao
(San Min Morning Paper).”
32
Liu, A History of the Chinese in the USA II: 378.
33
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Zhongguo Shibao
(China Times).”
34
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Hongzhong Shibao
(Chinese Times),” “Minguo Gongbao (The Chinese Republic News).”
35
Liu, History of Chinese in the USA II: 371.
36
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Xin Zhongguo Ribao.”
37
The National Conference of Chinese Communities in America was held March 5-7, 1957, in
Washington, D.C. A corresponding conference for Chinese Canadians took place eighteen
years later in Edmonton, Alberta, on August 29-31, 1975. The issues discussed were
immigration and multiculturalism (Chinatown News, Sept. 3, 1975).
38
Huaqiao Jingji Nianjian [Overseas Chinese economy handbook] (Taipei: Shijie Huashang Mouyi
Huiyi Zong-Lianluochu, 1987), 378, 405.
39
Soble, Chinese World, 82.
40
Hu Wenhu (Aw Boon Haw), who had made his fortune selling Tiger Balm, a medicinal
ointment used extensively by Chinese for minor ailments, founded Sing Tao Jih Pao in Hong
Kong in 1937.
41
Soble, Chinese World, 53.
42
Xianggang Bao ye Wushi Nian: Xingdao Ribao Jinxi Baoqing Tekan [Fifty years of journalism
in Hong Kong: special publication to commemorate the golden anniversary of the Sing Tao Jih
Pao] (Hong Kong: Sing Tao Jih Pao, 1988), 56-61.
43
San Francisco Examiner, March 9, 1976.
44
East/West, June 18, 1975; June 30 1976; Truth Semi-Weekly, June 19, 1977; June 22,
1978; People's News, July 2, 1977.
45
Encyclopedia of Chinese Overseas, Volume of Media and Publication, s.v. “Xingdao Ribao
(Jia Dong Ban),” “Xingdao Ribao (Jia Xi Ban),” “Xingdao Ribao (Mei Dong Ban),” “Xingdao
24
47
Ribao (Mei Xi Ban),” “Beimei Ribao;” “Xingdao Jituan jianjie” [A brief introduction to the Sing
Tao Group], retrieved Sept. 21, 2007 from website
http://www.sintaonet.com:82/Copyright/newscorp/p2.html
46
China Daily News, Sept. 12, 1978; Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication
Volume, s.v. “Beimei Ribao.”
47
San Francisco Weekly, Feb. 25, 1976.
48
China Post, Feb. 28, 1976. The press offices of the Legislative Yuan of Taiwan in New York
and Los Angeles held cocktail parties to publicize the World Journal’s publication in the US.
49
“Beimei Shijie Ribao,” retrieved Sept. 22, 2007 from website
http://www.worldjournal.com/About_us-e.php; Xu Xinhan, Huang Yunrong, “Jianada Huawen
chuanmei de jinkuang” [Recent situation in the Chinese language media in Canada] (Chinese
Media Summit, 2004, retrieved Sept. 13, 2007 from website http://www.thecima.org/thesi_.html.
50 Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Huasheng Bao,”
“Shidai Bao.”
51
East/West, June 18, 1975 June 30 1976; Truth Semi-Weekly, June 19, 1977; June 22, 1978;
People's News, July 2, 1977.
52
China Daily News, Sept. 12, 1978; Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication
Volume, s.v. “Beimei Ribao (The Pei Mei News).”
53
China Daily News, Feb. 24, 1986.
54
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Huayu Kuaibao (Sino
Daily Express);” I-hsiung Lo, "Zhengzhi Xinwen Nong Kua liao Huayu Kuai Bao" [Political news
caused the fall of Sino Daily Express], in Young China Daily, Feb. 26, 1987, Feb. 27, 1987 [hereafter
cited as "Fall of Sino Daily Express"].
55
Chinatown News, June 18, 1976; Crossroads, Feb. 1977, 60.
56
Chinese Weekly Post, no. 131 (Sept. 28, 1985); International Daily News, Sept. 28, 1985,
Oct. 23, 1985.
57
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Ming Bao (Ming
Pao),” “Cheng Bao (The Sing Pao Daily News),” “Xin Bao (Sino American Daily News),” “Xin
Bao (Overseas Chinese Economic Journal),” “Dagong Bao (Ta Kung Pao),” “Wenhui Bao
(Wen Wei Po),” “Kuai Bao (Express).”
58
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Xianggang Ribao
(Hong Kong Daily News), “Meijia Xinwen (Overseas Chinese Daily News),” “Renmin Ribao
(People’s Daily);” China News Service, Hong Kong Office, ed., Gang, Ao Tai ji haiwai Huawen
chuanmei minglu [Listing of Chinese media of Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan, and overseas]
(Hong Kong: Hong Kong China News Publishing, 1997), 86;
59
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Renmin Ribao Haiwai
Ban (People’s Daily, Overseas Edition);” “Xinmin Wanbao Meiguo Ban (Xinwen Evening
News, US Edition);” “Zhongwen chuanmei tian xinyou; Xin Wanbao Jianadaban mianshi”
[Chinese language media adds a new friend; the Canadian edition of Xinmin Wanbao is born]
(Nov. 7, 2005), retrieved Dec. 3, 2007 from website
http://www.cacareer.com/oldbbs/htm_data/200/0511/27815.html;
60
“Central Daily News,” retrieved Feb. 7, 2008 from website
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Daily_News; Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and
Publication Volume, s.v. “Hongguan Bao,” “Ziyou Shibao (Chinese Free Daily News, Chinese
L.A. Daily News);” Yi Shui, “Wo yanzhong de Meiguo Zhongwen baokan [Chinese-language
newspapers in America that I had seen] (Bolan qunshu [Viewing broadly all books], 2000 No. 4,
retrieved Feb. 14, 2008 from website http://shanshuiyouyan.blog.hexun.com/9994811_d.html;
Lin Senqi, “Wei Taiwan Ribao daguansi, Nanjiazhou Taiqiao faqi mujuan” [Taiwanese in
Southern California initiated donation campaign to raise funds for Taiwan Daily News to pursue
48
a lawsuit] (Feb. 13, 2004, Xin Taiwan Xinwen Zhoukan [New Taiwan News Weekly]), retrieved
Feb. 14, 2008 from website http://www.newtaiwan.com.tw/bulletinview.jsp?bulletinid=15733;
Wang, Brief Descriptions of Chinese-Language News Publications, s.v. “Zhong Guo Ribao
(Zhong Guo Daily News).
Issue No. 24874 of Central Daily News was dated Nov. 24, 1996, which agrees approximately
with the 1928 date given above; however, information is unavailable as to whether the
international edition started at the same time as the domestic edition.
61
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Zhongguo Shibao
(China Times).”
62
San Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 14, 1984.
63
The Tribune, Mar. 9, 1989; Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume,
s.v. “Shibao Zhoukan (China Times Weekly); Wang, Brief Descriptions of Chinese-Language
News Publications, s.v. “Shibao Zhoukan (China Times Weekly).”
64
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Huasheng Ribao
(China Voice Daily).”
65
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Yuandong Shibao
(Far East Times).”
66
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Zhong Bao (Centre
Daily News);” “Taiwan Ribao,” retrieved Sept. 21, 2007 from website
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E5%8F%B0%E7%81%A3%E6%97%A5%E5%A0%B1; Luo
Kedao, "Zhong Bao Ting Kan de Xuanxu" [The mystery of the closing of Centre Daily News], in
90-Niandai Yuekan (Nineties monthly) (May 1987): 26-29 (hereafter cited as "Closing of Centre
Daily News").
Fu owned Taiwan Ribao (Taiwan Daily News), which criticized the KMT regime and reported on
the activities of dissidents. In 1978 the Taiwan Defense Ministry forced Fu to sell the paper to
one of its companies. Fu left for Hong Kong, where he established Centre Daily News in 1980.
In 1981 Fu visited Beijing. In retaliation the Taiwan authorities froze his assets in Taiwan and
detained his family on the island until 1986 (Centre Daily News, Apr. 18, 1986).
67
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Guoji Ribao
(International Daily News);” “International Daily News," 368-76 in Huaren Bai Shang [Chinese
business in America] (Monterey Park: Young's Planning and Development Co., 1985).
Chen made a fortune as owner of the International College of Commerce and also founded the
Commercial News Journal in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.
68
Liu Bing, Chuban yinshua ban shiji [My involvement with a half century of publishing and
printing] (Los Angeles: Changqing Wenhua Gongsi, 2000), 177-182; Chinese Overseas
Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Guoji Ribao (International Daily News);
“Jiazhou Ribao (California Daily News),” “Luntan Bao (The Tribune),””
69
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Shijie Ribao (World
Journal),” “Shaonian Zhongguo Chenbao (Young China),” “Xingdao Ribao (Meixi Ban) (Sing
Tao),” “Qiao Bao (The China Press).”
70
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Meinan Xinwen
(Southern Chinese Daily News),” “Meinan Baoye Chuanbo Jigou (Southern Chinese
Newspaper Group),” “Zhijiage Ribao (Chicago Chinese Daily News);” Wang, Brief Descriptions
of Chinese-Language News Publications, s.v. “Meinan Xinwen (Southern Chinese Daily
News).”
71
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Zhijiage Ribao
(Chicago Chinese Daily News).” The newspapers began as a weekly Chicago Chinese Times
in 1991. In 1994 it changed to its present name and began daily publication.
72
“Beimei Shijie Ribao” [World Journal of North America], retrieved Feb. 3, 2008 from website
49
http://www.worldjournal.com/About_us-e.php.
73
The Tribune, Mar. 28, 1984.
74
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Shaonian Zhongguo
Chenbao (Young China Morning Paper);” Chinese Times, Aug. 3, 1970; San Francisco Chronicle,
July 11, 1988.
75
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Dazhong Bao,”
“Qiaosheng Ribao (Chinese Voice),” “Dahan Gongbao (Chinese Times),” “Xin Minguo Ribao
(The New Republic).” Zhongguo Hongmen Minzhidang [Chinese Hung Men Democratic
Association] was established by a 1946 convention of world-wide delegates in Shanghai as the
political arm of the Hongmen.
76
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, “Duolunduo Shangbao
(Chinatown Commercial News),” “Kuai Bao (Chinese Express Daily),” “Xinghua Ribao (Shing
Wah Daily News),” “Jiahua Ribao (Chinese Canadian Daily).”
77
World Journal, July 3, 1988.
78
World Journal, April 19, 2001; Chinese Times, July 20, 2002.
79
Lo, "Fall of Sino Daily Express;" China Daily News, Nov. 9, 1987.
80
Tribune, July 2, 1987, July 16, 1987.
81
Luo Kedao, "Closing of Centre Daily News."
82
Tribune, July 30, 1987; Centre Daily News, Dec. 5, 1988.
83
The death of former Chinese Communist Party secretary-general Hu Yaobang on April 15, 1989,
sparked student-led demonstrations all over the country with the largest in Beijing using Tian'anmen
Square as a staging area to demand reforms and more democratic rights. These protests attracted
worldwide media attention. On May 20 the PRC government imposed martial law in Beijing and
called in People's Liberation Army units. During the early hours of June 4, soldiers used weapons
and tanks to clear the square and the streets of Beijing. The images of the violence, transmitted live
on television to many countries evoked, international protests.
84
Asian-American Times, May 29, 1989.
85
Centre Daily News, June 15, 1989; July 10, 1989; July 13, 1989.;
86
Centre Daily News, July 5, 1989; Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication
Volume, s.v. “Zhong Bao.”
87
China Daily News, Jan. 6, 1978; China Daily News letter to readers announcing
discontinuation of airmail edition, dated March 20, 1986.
88
World Journal, July 31, 1989.
89
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Qiao Bao (The China
Press).”
90
Cheng Manli, Haiwai Huawen chuanmei yanjiu [Research on Chinese language media
overseas] (Beijing; Xinhua Chubanshe, 2001), 201-202.
91
Mitchell Moss, “The Structure of Media in New York City,” in John Hull Mollenkopf and
Manuel Castels eds., Dual City: Restructuring New York (New York: Russell Sage Foundation,
1999), downloaded Oct. 9, 2007 from website
http://www.mitchellmoss.com/books/nycmedia.html.
92
Chinese Times, Aug. 8, 1978.
93
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Tiantian Ribao (ChiAm Daily News), “Ziyou Shibao (Chinese Free Daily News, Chinese L.A. Daily News);” Yi Shui,
“Wo yanzhong de Meiguo Zhongwen baokan [Chinese language newspapers in America that I
had seen] (Bolan qunshu [Viewing broadly all books], 2000 No. 4, retrieved Feb. 14, 2008 from
website http://shanshuiyouyan.blog.hexun.com/9994811_d.html; Wang, Brief Descriptions of
Chinese-Language News Publications, s.v. “Zhong Guo Ribao (Zhong Guo Daily News).” See
Note 67 for a short history of the evolution of the Taiwan Daily News.
50
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Ming Bao (Ming Pao).”
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Ming Bao (Ming Pao);”
“Dama Xinzhou meiti yu Gang Ming Bao jituan hebing jian Zhongwen chuban jituan”
[Malaysian-Singaporean media merge with Hong Kong’s Ming Pao Holdings to build a Chinese
publishing group] (Zhongguo Xinwenwang [China News Network]: Jan. 30, 2007), retrieved
Sept. 25, 2007 from website http://news.qq.com/a/20070130/001092.html; Ming Bao Meixi ban
jinianjibian [Collection commemorating the founding of the Western US edition of Ming Pao
(San Francisco: Ming Pao, 2004)
94
95
96
“Niuyue Huawen baozhi Ming Bao jiang tingkan, zhuanwei wanglubao [The New York
Chinese newspaper Ming Pao ceases publication and will change to publishing on the internet]
(China Review News, Jan. 23, 2009), downloaded Feb. 13, 2008 from website
http://gb.chinareviewnews.com/doc/1008/6/7/1/100867114.html?coluid=49&kindid=972&docid=
100867114&mdate=0123165057 .
97
Chinese Overseas, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Guoji Ribao (International Daily
News); “Wenhui Bao (Wen Wei Po, America Edition).”
98
Xu Xinhan, Huang Yunrong, “JIanada Huawen chuanmei de jinkuang” [Recent situation in
the Chinese language media in Canada (Chinese Media Summit, 2004, retrieved Sept. 13,
2007 from website http://www.thecima.org/thesi_.html; “Xingdao Ribao, Wikipedia,” retrieved
Sept. 26, 2007 from website
http://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E6%98%9F%E5%B3%B6%E6%97%A5%E5%A0%B1#.E6.98.9F.
E5.B3.B6.E6.97.A5.E5.A0.B1.E5.9C.A8.E6.B5.B7.E5.A4.96; Susan Berfield, “Fall of the House
of Aw” (Asiaweek), retrieved Sept. 27, 2007 from website
http://www.asiaweek.com/asiaweek/99/0212/cs1.html; “Sing Tao News Corporation-Wikipedia,”
retrieved Sept. 27, 2007 from website
http://en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Sing_Tao_News_Corporation_Limited.
Charles Ho Tsu Kwok was a standing committee member of the PRC’s People’s Political
Consultative Conference.
99
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Shenzhou Shibao
(China Journal),” “Xin Shijie Shibao (New World Times);” Wang Enkui, “Tan haiwai Zhongwen
meiti shang shiyong jianhuazi de yiyi [On the significance of the use of simplified characters by
Chinese media abroad],” retrieved Jan. 17, 2008 from website
http://www.chinadv.com/tech/143609;” “Mengcheng Huaren Bao jinqi quanmian caiyong jianti
hanzi chuban” [Sinoquebec will use all simplified characters to publish beginning now], retrieved
Sept. 28, 2007 from website http://www.sinoquebec.com/bbs//archive/index.php/t-128621.html;
“Welcome to Dallas Chinese Times,” retrieved Mar. 1, 2008 from website
http://www.accyellowpage.com/cyp/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=17&Itemid=3
4; “Ben bao jianjie [A brief introduction to this newspaper], retrieved Mar. 1, 2008 from website
http://lusoft.com/reporters/readnews.cgi?category=19&id=1027723514; New York Times,
March 25, 2002;.
100
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Zhengyan Bao (Truth
Weekly),” “Shang Bao (Chinese Commercial News).”
During the 1970s some San Francisco weeklies similar in style to Truth Weekly included
Cathay Times (1972-89), founded by Timothy Chan; Kiu Kwong Pao (1970-74), founded by
Taiwan immigrant Feng Dongguang; People's News (1971-73), with writer Ma Senliang as chief
editor; Wah Kue Pao (1975-77), founded and edited by Ma Senliang. Power News (founded
1979) of Oakland with an office in San Francisco was a left-of-center biweekly, later monthly.
Other weeklies included Mon War Weekly (1971-72), founded by David Yu; One World (197576), founded by Kenneth Joe; Sun Yat-sen News (weekly 1975-1983; monthly 1983-2007),
founded Lily Yeh Tsao, and Tien Shing Pao (1977-83), founded by Calvin Chan. There was
51
also a shot-lived semi-monthly China Times founded in 1974. Chinese Voice changed to daily
publication from 1971 to 1972. San Francisco Journal was a bilingual publication from 1972 to
1973. It was a daily from 1983 to 1986. See Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and
Publication Volume, s.v. “Guanghua Bao (Cathay Times),” “Qiaoguang Bao (Kiu Kwong Pao),”
“Ren Bao (People's News),” “Huaqiao Bao (Wah Kue Pao),” “Pao Bao (Power News),”
“Wenhua Bao (Mon War Weekly),” “Tianxia Huabao (One World),” “Hua Bao (China Times),”
“Hua sheng Bao (Chinese Voice),” “Shidai Bao (San Francisco Journal),” “Jiujinshan Zhoubao
(San Francisco Weekly),” “Zhongshan Bao (Sun Yat-sen News),” “Dongxi Bao (East-West),”
and “Tiansheng Bao (Tien Shing Pao).”
101
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Zheng Bao (San
Francisco Chinese News);” Wang, Brief Descriptions of Chinese-Language News Publications,
s.v. “Zhongguo Youbao;” The China Post, Feb. 17, 1989.
102
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Niuyue Zhoubao
(New York Jao-Pao Weekly),” “Huabu Xinwen (Chinatown News),” “Huabu Daobao (Chinatown
Report),” “Jiefang Bao (Chinatown Community News),” “Hua Bao (Mott Street Journal),” “New
York China Journal (Niuyue Xinwen Bao).”
103
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Meidong Shibao
(Eastern Times),” “Yamei Shibao (Asian American Time),” “Xinya Shibao (Neo Asian American
Times),” “Ziyou Shibao (Chinese Free Daily News, Eastern Edition),” “Xinzexi Shibao (New
Jersey China Times);” issue no. 63 of American Chinese Times was dated Mar. 23. 1999;”
“Duowei Shibao,” retrieved June 19, 2006 from website
http://www.chinesemedianet.com/gb/duoweitimes.html; “Duowei Shibao lianmeng shu [Letter on
alliance with Duowei Shibao], retrieved June 19, 2006 from website
http://www.chinesemedianet.com/gb/partship.html.
104
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Luosheng Zhoubao
(The Chinese Weekly),” “Xin Guangda Bao (New Kwong Tai Press),” “Meihua Xinbao
(American Chinese news),” “Li Bao (Lap Pao).”
105
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Nanhua Shibao (SoCal Community News),” “Huaxing Shibao (Chinese Community News),” “Lianhe Shibao
(United Times),” “Luntan Bao (The Tribune).”
106
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Zhonghua Yuekan
(Seattle Chinese Community Newsletter),” “Wulun Huaren Zhi Sheng (Voice of Oakland
Chinese);” Wang, Brief Descriptions of Chinese-Language News Publications, s.v. “Zhonghua
Shikan (Oregon Chinese News).”
107
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Huasheng Daobao
(Chinese Voice),” “Xi’nan Shibao (Southwest Chinese Journal),” “Huafu Xinwen Bao (Metro
Chinese Journal),” “Huafu Youbao (Washington China Post),” “Xihua Bao (Seattle Chinese
Post),” “Meizhong Xinwen (Chinese American News); Wang, Brief Descriptions of ChineseLanguage News Publications, s.v. Zhijiage Luntan Bao [Chicago Tribune].
108
Following are some examples of these pioneer outposts of Chinese American journalism
and their founding dates: Detroit Chinese News (monthly founded 1975), Denver Chinese News
(weekly founded 1988), Chinese Community News (monthly founded 1988 in Miami, Florida),
Miami Chinese Times (biweekly founded 1989), Yada Xinwen [Atlanta News] (weekly founded
1989), Arizona Chinese Times (monthly founded 1990 in Phoenix, Arizona), Sheng Luyi Shibao
[St. Louis Times] (weekly founded 1990), Huafeng Bao [Chinese News] (frequency of
publication unavailable, founded 1991 in New Orleans), Marketing News and Chinatown News
(monthlies founded in Cleveland, Ohio, 1991 and 1998, respectively), Pacific Chronicle
(monthly founded in Tucson, 1994), Eastern Trends (semi-monthly founded in Salt Lake City,
1994), Dezhou Shoufu Xinwen [Texas state capital News] (frequency unavailable, founded in
52
Austin, 1994), Las Vegas Chinese News (frequency unavailable, founded 1996), and Portland
Chinese Times (weekly founded 1997). Sacramento Chinese Community Newsletter also
began publication in 2002, the first newspaper published in the area in a century and a half.
See Encyclopedia of Chinese Overseas, Volume of Media and Publication, s.v. “Zhicai
Huawenbao (Detroit Chinese News),” “Danfo Huabao (Denver Chinese News),” “Mai’ami
Youbao (Chinese Community News),” “Maiyamei Shibao (Miami Chinese Times),” “Yada
Xinwen [Atlanta News],” “Yalisangna Sheng Hua Bao (Arizona Chinese Times),” “Sheng Luyi
Shibao [St. Louis Times],” “Zhongyuan Bao (Pacific Chronicle),” “Dongfang Bao (Eastern
Trends),” “Jincheng Huabao (Las Vegas Chinese News);” Wang, Brief Descriptions of ChineseLanguage News Publications, s.v. “Huafeng Bao [Chinese Scenes News],” “Tuiguang Bao
(Marketing News),” “Dezhou Shoufu Xinwen [Texas state capital News],” “Botelan Zhoubao
(Portland Chinese Times);” Issue No. 1 (Dec. 24, 1998) of Chinatown News, Cleveland, Ohio.
109
Following are some examples of other Chinese Canadian newspapers. In Toronto there
were Chinatown (biweekly found 1982), Modern Times Weekly (founded 1985), Chinese
Canadian Newspaper Weekend Issue (weekly founded 1989), Chinese Canadian Times
(founded 2002), and Very Good News (weekly founded 2004); in Montreal Wah Sing Po
(weekly founded 1979), The Chinese Press/La Presse Chinoise (weekly founded 1981), World
Wide Chinese Journal of Montreal (ten-day publication founded 1989), and The Chinese
News/Les Nouvelles Chinoises (weekly founded 1991); in Ottawa, The Capital Chinese News
(monthly founded 1977); in Vancouver, The Canada China News (weekly founded 1995) and
Modern Times Weekly (founded 1985); in Edmonton, Edmonton Chinese News (weekly
founded 1983); in Calgary, Calgary Chinese News (weekly founded 1984); in Winnipeg,
Manitoba Chinese Post (monthly founded 1978) and Prairie Chinese News (monthly founded
1986); in Saskatoon, Sha Sheng Wah Po [Chinese newspaper of Saskachewan Province]
(monthly founded 1991). See Encyclopedia of Chinese Overseas, Volume of Media and
Publication, s.v. “Tangrenjie (Chinatown),” “Shidai Zhoubao (Modern Times Weekly),” “Jiahua
Ribao Zhoumoban (Chinese Canadian Newspaper Weekend Issue),” “Huasheng Bao (Wah
Sing Po),” “Huaqiao Shibao (The Chinese Press/La Presse Chinoise),” “Mandike Daobao
(World Wide Chinese Journal of Montreal),” “Huaqiao Xinbao (The Chinese News/Les
Nouvelles Chinoises),” “Zhonghua Daobao (The Canada China News),” “Shidai Zhoubao
(Modern Times Weekly),” “Jiajing Huabao (The Capital Chinese News),” “Aihua Bao (Edmonton
Chinese News),” “Kacheng Aihua Bao (Calgary Chinese News),” “Miansheng Huabao
(Manitoba Chinese Post),” “Zhongyuan Qiaobao (Prairie Chinese News),” and “Shasheng
Huabao (Sha Sheng Wah Po);” “Jiazhong Shibao (Chinese Canadian Times),” retrieved Nov.
15, 2006 from website
http://jpg.cctimes.ca/Edition/Get.asp?Folder=2002090701&File=A1&lang=gb; “Hua Bao
chuangkan ci,” [Words on the first issue of Very Good News] retrieved Jan.15, 2007 from
website http://www.verygood.ca/ckc/ckc.htm; “Canada China News-About us,” retrieved Jan.
17, 2008 from website http://www.canadachinanews.com/about us.e01.htm.
110
Liu, A History of the Chinese in the USA II, 391, 401; Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia,
Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Zhongmei Zhoubao,” “Dahua Xunkan,” “Guomin Waijiao
Yuebao,” “Ziyou Shijie (Free World);” Howard L. Boorman, ed., Biographical Dictionary of
Republican China (New York: Columbia University Press, 1968), s.v. “Li Shih-tseng.”
111
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s. v. “Dahua Xunkan
(China Post),” “Chunfeng (Chun Phone),” “Tianfeng,” “Zonghe (Chinaweek),” “Shenghuo (China
Life),” “Guangming Huabao,” “Xinwen Daguan;” Wang, Brief Descriptions of Chinese-Language
News Publications, “Congtan,” “Huaqiao Shehui Zazhi (The Chinese Community Magazine),”
and “Guangming Zazhi (Chinese American Digest),”
112
Karl Lo, H. M. Lai, comp., Chinese Newspapers Published in North America, 1854-1975
53
(Washington, D.C.: Center for Chinese Research Materials, Association of Research Libraries,
1977), s.v. “Chinese in America;” Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication
Volume, s. v. “Rensheng Mantan (Life Mirror),” “Renwu Pinglun (The Scholar’s Digest),” and
“Tanshan Huaqiao Yuebao (Honolulu Chinese Monthly)”
113
Chen Xianmou, Wu Yiqi, Chen Jianhui, Haiwai Huawen wenxueshi chubian [First edition of
the history of Chinese literature overseas] (Xiamen: Lujiang Chubanshe, 1993), 569-571; Pan
Yadun, Haiwai Huawen wenxue xianzhuang [Current situation of Chinese literature overseas]
(Beijing: Renmin Wenxue Chubanshe, 1996), 299-304.
114
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s. v. “Huaqiao Zazhi
(Orient Vancouver),” “Dajia Zazhi (Big Family Magazine),” “Shenghuo Zazhi (Lifestyle
Magazine),” “Jiahua Yuekan (Chinese Canadian Magazine),” “Duolunduo Shenghuo,
Zhongwenban (Toronto Life, Chinese edition),” and “Maikelai’ensi Zhoukan Zhongwenban)
(MacLean’s Weekly Chinese edition.” Chinese Canadian Magazine originally was a monthly
magazine supplement to Toronto’s Chinese Canadian Daily.
115
Qiaoxun, Feb. 1, 1981; Newcomers News, Dec. 12, 1986.
116
Dai Thiet Tran, "Qianshan Wanshui Dai Fei Yue" [Myriads of mountains and streams await
the flying Viet people] in Overseas-Chinese Magazine (July 1987):17-20; Wang, Brief
Descriptions of Chinese-Language News Publications, s.v. “Jiahua Shibao.”
Some other newspapers in the Los Angeles area founded by this group include
Indochinese News (weekly founded 1982), Chung Hing News (weekly founded 1985), Asia
News (weekly founded 1987), China Weekly (weekly founded 1987), and Far East News
(weekly founded in 1997).
In 1989 writers publishing in Los Angeles' Vietnam-Chinese Newspaper’s literary section
"Nan-bei Yan [Wild geese flying north and south] and writers publishing in Indochinese News
founded the bimonthly Ours in Los Angeles in 1986 as a literary magazine. It became a monthly
in 1987, then a biweekly in 1989. The publication expanded its coverage to include news from
Beijing and Hong Kong publications on Indochina, discussions of current events, and items for
light reading.
The large Indochina Chinese community in the San Francisco Bay Area supported
various newspapers, including the successful China News (also named China Weekly News)
(founded 1984 as a weekly, but changed to semiweekly publication in 1986), which established
a Los Angeles office in 1994, followed by one in Sacramento; Amerasian Businews (weekly
founded 1987), Four Seas Chinese Weekly News (San Jose biweekly founded 1987),
Amerasian Post (weekly founded in San Francisco 1991), Mekong Tunan Vietnam (bilingual
biweekly founded 1992), Tianhong Zazhi [Rainbow magazine] (monthly founded 1996 in
Sacramento), and Viethoa Weekly (founded 2006 in San Francisco). In July 2007 San
Francisco’s China Weekly News was restructured to become US Chinese News of San Jose,
California.
San Diego’s first Indochinese newspaper Chinese News (Chinese name Yuandong Bao)
appeared in 1981 but ceased publication after a few issues. After restructuring it resumed in
July 1983 under the Chinese name Jiahua Shibao. San Diego Chinese Weekly News was
founded in 1998.
Some newspapers established in other American cities include New York’s Vietnam
Post (founded around 1982), Houston’s Gangfeng Bao (founded around 1985), Seattle’s The
Chinese News (frequency unavailable, founded 1986) and Asia Today (weekly founded 1988),
Philadelphia’s Cheng Kung News (weekly, later a biweekly, founded 1986) and the bilingual
Viet Hoa China Vietnam News (weekly founded 1997).
In Canada there were Toronto’s Vietnamese Cambodia Laotian Chinese Journal
(weekly founded 1983), Edmonton Chinese News (weekly founded 1983), Calgary’s Indo
54
Chinese News (weekly founded 1983), Calgary Chinese News (weekly founded 1984),
Winnipeg’s V.C.L. Chinese Journal (monthly founded 1984), Manitoba Indochina Chinese
News (monthly founded 1984), and Edmonton’s Alberta Chinese Times (founded, 1986). See
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Yuemianliao Bao
(Indochinese News),” “Zhongxing Bao (Chung Hing News),” “Yuejianliao Bao (America Asian
News),” “Women Huibao (Ours),” “Xin Yazhou Bao (Asia News),” “Zhonghua Shibao (China
Weekly),” “Yuandong Shibao (Far East News),” “Zhongsheng Bao (The Chinese News),”
“Zhonghua Luntan Bao (China News, China Weekly News),” “Meiya Shangbao (Amerasian
Businews),” “Sihai Bao (Four Seas Chinese Weekly News),” “Yuandong Bao (Amasian Post),”
“Jiahua Shibao (Chinese News),” “Meijiang Bao meijiang (Mekong Tunan Vietnam),”
“Chenggong Bao (Cheng Kung News),” “Yuenan Xinbao (Vietnam Post),” “Yuemianliao
Huabao (V.C.L. Chinese Journal, Vietnamese Cambodia Laotian Chinese Journal),” “Aihua Bao
(Edmonton Chinese News),” “Qiaosheng Bao (Indo Chinese News),” “Kacheng “Aihua Bao
(Calgary Chinese News),” and “Jiazhong Bao (Alberta Chinese Times);” Wang, Brief
Descriptions of Chinese-Language News Publications, s.v. “Yuehua Bao (Viet Hoa China
Vietnam News),” “Tianhong Zazhi [Rainbow magazine],” “Yuandong Shibao (Far East News),”
and “Huasheng Bao (Asia Today);” issue No. 69 of Shenghua Zhoubao (San Diego Chinese
Weekly News) was dated July 9, 1999.
117
Issue No. 4 of New Immigrant Report was dated April 14, 1983.
118
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Shenzhou Shibao;”
Wang, Brief Descriptions of Chinese-Language News Publications, s.v. “Shenzhou Shibao.”
119
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Xin Dalu (New
Continent);” Wang, Brief Descriptions of Chinese-Language News Publications, s.v. “Xin Dalu
(New Continent);.”
120
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Nanhua Shibao (SoCal Community News),” “Huaxing Shibao (Chinese Community News),” “Lianhe Shibao
(United Times),” and “Luntan Bao (The Tribune).”
121
“Zhonghua Daobao (Canada China News),” retrieved Jan. 17, 2008 from website
http://www.tibet,cn/zt/zt2002002913111035.him; Vancouver Sun, Mar. 14, 2004; Xu Xinhan,
Huang Yunrong, “Jianada Huawen chuanmei de jinkuang” [Recent situation in the Chinese
language media in Canada (Chinese Media Summit, 2004), retrieved Sept. 13, 2007 from
website http://www.thecima.org/thesi_.html.
122
China Daily News, Apr. 21, 1987; “Fuwu sanshi duo wan Fujian xiangqin, Fujian Qiaokan
yuekan zai Meiguo chuangkan” [Fujian Qiaokan monthly begins publication to serve more than
300,000 fellow villagers], retrieved Apr. 8, 2006 from website
http://www.66163.com/Fujian_w/news/fjqb/020517/3_3.html; “Mei Huaren zazhi Zhongguo
Qiaosheng sanyue jiang mianshi” [The American Chinese magazine Zhongguo Qiaosheng will
begin publication in March], retrieved April 8, 2006 from website
http://qwb.sh.gov.cn/gb/shqb/xxdt/hwqx/userobject1ai2478.html; issue No. 5 of Fujian Times,
dated March 16, 2004; The China Press, Oct. 2, 2007.
123
Issue No. 18 of Health and Life Weekly was dated Sept. 19-25, 1993; Issue No. 50 of
Health Today was dated Mar. 27, 2004; Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and
Publication Volume, s.v. “Zhongguo Yiyao Daobao (The Chinese Medical Report); Vol. 6, Issue
No. 10 (Total No. 70) of Sciences of Traditional Chinese Medicine was dated Oct. 2000; Issue
No. 7 of American Journal of Traditional Chinese Medicine was dated July 1999.
124
Issue No. 1978 of Buy & Sell was dated Nov.5 through 12, 2004; Issued No. 980 of Chinese
Consumer Weekly, Buy & Sell Classified was dated July 7 though 13, 2000; Wang, Brief
Descriptions of Chinese-Language News Publications, s.v. “Meishi zuqiu zhoukan (American
Football Weekly); Issue No. 1 of American Football Weekly was published Aug. 11, 1990; Issue
55
No. 1 of Chinese Sports Weekly was dated Sept. 12, 1990.
125
Tin Yuke Char, "Chinese Newspapers in Hawaii," The Bamboo Path: Life and Writings of a
Chinese in Hawaii (Honolulu, Hawaii Chinese History Center, 1977), 220-223.
126
California Press, Sept. 2, 1950
127
California Press, Sept. 2, 1950; Interview with Norbert Woo, Dec. 13, 1988.
128
Liu, A History of the Chinese in the USA II, 370, 378.
129
“Asian Week,” retrieved Oct. 12, 2007 from website
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_Week; Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and
Publication Volume, s.. “Meinan Baoye Chuanbo Jigou;” Northwest Asian Weekly 11th
Anniversary Special Magazine (Seattle: Northwest Asian Weekly, 1993), 49; “Northwest Asian
Weekly: Our Timeline” (Northwest Asian Weekly, Oct. 6, 2007), retrieved Oct. 12, 2007 from
website http://www.nwasianweekly.com/200726041/timeline2007241.htm.
130
"Editorial," in Bridge Magazine, 1, no.1 (July/Aug. 1971): 4.
131
Wang, Brief Descriptions of Chinese-Language News Publications, s.v. “Chinese American
Forum.”
132 Chinatown News, Dec. 3, 1973; Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication
Volume, s.v. “Huabu Zazhi (Chinatown News);” “Huaqiao Daobao (Chinese-Canadian Bulletin).”
133
Franklin Ng, ed., Asian American Encyclopedia (New York: Marshall Cavendish Corp.,
1995), s.v. “Louis Chu;” Franklin Ng, ”Louis Chu,” 73-75 in Hyung-Chan Kim, Distinguished
Asian Americans (Westport, CT; Greenwood Press, 1999). Louis Chu was the author of the
Chinese American novel, Eat a Bowl of Tea (1961).
134
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Huazhong Guangbo
Diantai.”
Dan Yee was involved in some of the planning of the first Chinese New Year Festival when
he was in San Francisco during the early 1950s. See Yu Jinyuan, “Huiyi chuban Huabu nongli
xinnian qinghui zhi qiyuan” [Reminiscences on the origin of the planning for the first
traditional Chinese new year festival in Chinatown], Chinese Times Jan. 18, 1975.
135
Liu, Chinese in the United States II, 403-404.
136
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Huaren Guangbo
Xiehui,” “Hon Sing Chinese Community Hour,” “Zhongguo Qingnian Zhi Sheng,” and “Zhonghua
Zhi Sheng Guangbo Diantai.”
137
Lai, From Overseas Chinese to Chinese American, 434-435.
138
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Meiguo Huayu
guangbo dianshi [Chinese language radio and television in the US],” “Zhonghua Shanye
Guangbo Diantai (Chung Hwa Commercial Broadcasting Co.).”
139
“Arthur Liu,” retrieved Oct. 24, 2007 from website http://us_asians.tripod.com/news-0405.html; “Meiguo Duoyuan Wenhua Chuanbo Jituan jiang chuanmian shiyong Zhongxin She
xinwen zixun” [Multicultural Broadcasting, Inc. of America will be using entirely news, data, and
information provided by the China News Service] (Aug. 22, 2006), retrieved Oct.24, 2007 from
website http://www.Chinanews.com.cn/hr/mzhrxw/news/2006/08-22/777406.html; Chinese
Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Mei-Jia Huayu Guangbowang
[US-Canada Chinese language broadcasting network],” “Zhonghua Zhi Sheng (Southern
California Chinese Broadcasting, Inc.),” and “Zhongguo Guangbowang (Chinese Radio
Network).”
Some other radio broadcasting stations were San Francisco's Sinocast (founded 1977;
Cantonese), Houston’s Huaxia Zhi Sheng [Chinese voice] (founded 1986; Cantonese, Mandarin,
and Taiwanese), Flushing, New York's Chinese American Voice (1986; Mandarin and
Taiwanese), Los Angeles' Radio Chinese (1993; Mandarin) and Lianbang Huayu Guangbo
[Federal Chinese radio] (1994). See Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication
56
Volume, s.v. “Huayu Guangbo Dianshitai (Sinocast),” “Huaxia Zhi Sheng [Chinese voice],”
“Zhongwen Guangbo Diantai (Radio Chinese),” and “Lianbang Huayu [Federal Chinese radio]
Guangbo.”
140
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Huayu Dianshi (C S
Television),” “Zhongguo Haiwai Dianshi Gongsi (Chinese Community Television Network).”
141
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Yamei Dianshitai
(Amasia TV),” “Haihua Dianshi (Overseas Chinese Communications),” “Zhonghua Dianshi
(Chinese TV Production Co.),” “Tianxiang Dianshi (United California Communications),” “Huayu
Guangbo Dianshitai (Sinocast Radio and Television).”
142
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Zhonghua Haiwai
Chuanbo Gongsi [Chinese Overseas Broadcasting Corporation],” “Qihai Dianshi [Seven seas
television],” and “Shihua Dianshi (Chinese World Television);” “Tangrenjie shang de
yingguangmu: Meiguo Zhongwen dianshi fazhan xiankuang” [The fluorescent screen in the
Chinatowns: The current status of development of Chinese language television in America],
China Times Weekly, Jan. 28, 1986.
143
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Guoji Shiting
Chuanbo Gongsi (International Audiovisual Communication, Inc.),” “Lianhe Huayu Dianshi (United
Chinese TV).”
144
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Hongsheng
Dianshitai [Hong Sheng TV],” “Pingguo Dianshi [Apple TV],” Huasheng Dianshi,” “Meiguo
Zhongwen Dianshi (SinoVision).”
145
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Huasheng Dianshi
[Huasheng TV],” “Dunhuang Dianshi [Dunhuang Television],” and “Xiongmao Dianshi [Panda
Television].”
146
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Meiguo Huayu
guangbo dianshi [Chinese language radio and television in the United States],” “Taipingyang
Dianshi (Pan-Pacific TV);” “Wanqu 38 dianshitai si yue qi huobo Huayu jiemu” [Channel 38 in
the Bay Area may be broadcasting Chinese language programs in April], in Ming Pao, Jan 6,
2007, retrieved Oct. 24, 2007 from website
http://www.mingpaosf.com/htm/News/20070106/sf1b.htm
147
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Jiudianzhong Xinwen
[Nine O’Clock News];” Franklin Wu, “The Development of Chinese-Language Television in
Northern California,” (in Chinese), 183-184 in “Branching Out the Banyan Tree Conference
Proceedings,” Chinese America: History and Perspectives 2007 (San Francisco: Chinese
Historical Society of America, 2007).
148
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Zhonghua Zhi Sheng
Diantai (Chinese Radio Program),” “Huaqiao Zhi Sheng Guangbo Diantai (OCV Broadcasting),”
“Liming Zhi Sheng [Sounds at dawn],” “Duolunduo Mei-Jia Huayu Diantai [Toronto US-Canadian
Chinese Radio Broadcast],” “Duolunduo Shangye Diantai; (Toronto Commercial Radio);” and
“Fairchild Group,” retrieved Dec. 6, 2007 from website
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairchild_Group; “Xu Xinhan, Huang Yuanrong, Jianada Huawen
chuanmei de jinkuang [Recent developments among the Chinese media in Canada], retrieved
Dec. 3, 2007 from website http://www.media.people.com.cn/GB/22114/54742/3830008.html.
149
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Guotai Zhongwen
Dianshi [Guotai Chinese Language Television],” “Zhonghua Zhi Sheng Youxian Dianshitai
(Chinese TV Program/La Voix de Chine),” “Jianada Zhongwen Dianshi Youxian Gongsi
(Chinavision Canada Corporation),” “Xinshidai Guangbo Jituan (Fairchild Broadcasting
Group);” “Xu Xinhan, Huang Yuanrong, ‘Jianada Huawen chuanmei de jinkuang’ [Recent
developments among the Chinese media in Canada],” retrieved Dec. 3, 2007 from website
57
http://www.media.people.com.cn/GB/22114/54742/3830008.html.
150
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Feicui Dianshi (Hong
Kong Television Broadcasts (USA)).”
151
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Meiguo Huayu
Guangbo Dianshi [Chinese language radio and television in the United States],” “Beimei
Weixing Dianshi (North America Telecommunication Corporation).”
152
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Meinan Baoye
Chuanbo Jigou (Southern Chinese Newspapers Group);” Southern Chinese Daily News, 10th
Anniversary Special, 1979-1989 (Houston: Southern Chinese Daily News, 1989), 52-59.
The newspapers in the group included Dalasi Shibao (Dallas Times, founded 1986; its
forerunner was the Dallas edition of Southern Chinese Daily News, founded in 1982),
Huashengdun Xinwen (Washington Chinese News, founded 1990 in Maryland), Zhijiage
Shibao (Chicago Chinese Daily News, founded as weekly Zhijiage Shibao [Chicago Chinese
Times] in 1991; changed to daily publication and present name in 1995), Yatelanda Xinwen
(Atlanta Chinese News, founded in 1992, Bosidun Xinwen (Boston Chinese News, founded in
1992), Siyatu Xinwen (Seattle Chinese News, founded in 1993), and Beijiazhou Wanqu
Xinwen (Bay Area Chinese News, founded in 1993 in San Jose).
153
“CND Celebrates 10th Anniversary on March 6, 1999 (GL99-029), retrieved Feb. 28, 2008
from website http://www.hxwz.com/CNDhistory.html; “Guanyu women [About us],” retrieved
Mar.2, 2008 from website http://www.wenxuecity.com/aboutus/; “Duowei Meiti [Multimedia].
Duowei Xinwenwang [Multimedia newsnet],” retrieved June 19, 2006 from website
http://www.chinesemedianet.com/gb/cnewsnet.html;
154
“Xingdao Meixiban sanshi zhounian jishi [Thirtieth Anniversary Chronology of Sing Tao Daily
News, Western US Edition], 17 in Xingdao Meixiban chuangkan jinian tekan [Special
publication commemorating the thirtieth anniversary of the inauguration of Sing Tao Daily
News, Western US Edition] (San Francisco: Sing Tao Daily News, 2005); Encyclopedia of
Chinese Overseas, Volume of Media and Publication, s.v. “Meinan Baoye Chuanbo Jigou
(Southern Chinese Newspapers Group),” “Huanqiu Dianzi Ribao (Global Chinese Electronic
Daily).”
155
Taiwanese here refers to descendents of aborigines and descendents of Chinese who
settled on the island before World War II.
156
Liu Zhongyi, Li Fengchun, Chen Zhiqing, Lin Taiyuan, Fengqi yuyong: Haiwai Taiwan duli
jianguo yundong [Rising wind and gathering clouds: The movement overseas for Taiwan
independence and nationhood] (Taipei: Ziyou Shidai Zhoukan, 1988), 61-62; Chen Mingcheng,
Haiwai Taidu yundong sishinian [Forty years of the Taiwan Independence Movement overseas]
(Taipei: Ziyou Wanbao She wenhua chubanbu, 1992), 87; Encyclopedia of Chinese Overseas,
Volume of Media and Publication, s.v. “Wang Chunfeng (Mayflower).”
157
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Meili Dao (Formosa
Weekly).” In 1979 the dissident magazine Formosa Weekly defied a Taiwan government order
forbidding public gatherings and organized a meeting in Kaohsiung commemorating Human
Rights Day. The military police used tear gas and force to break up the crowd of about ten
thousand injuring a number of people who resisted. A few days later the authorities ordered
Formosa Weekly to stop publication. Eight dissidents were arrested and accused of seditious
acts.
158
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Yazhou Shangbao
(Asian Journal).” Kenjohn Wong was a Taiwanese immigrant businessman who founded the
Taiwanese-American Foundation, which provides financial support to reward and encourage
achievements by Taiwanese scholars and scientists.
58
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Taiwan Min Bao
(Taiwan Times);” Taiwan Times, Aug. 3, 1985.
160
Centre Daily News, June 6, 1987; Wang, Brief Descriptions of Chinese-Language News
Publications, s.v. “Xinya Ya Zhoubao (New Asian Weekly)”.
161
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Taiwan Gonglun Bao
(Taiwan Tribune),” “Taiwan Tiandi (Taiwan Tiante),” “Taiwan Wenzhai (Taiwan Digest),”
“Taiwan Wenhua (Taiwan Culture),” “Taiwan Xin Shehui (The Taiwanese New Society),”
“Taiwan Yu Shijie (Taiwan and the World),” and “Taiwan Zazhi (Taiwan Review).”
162
The Diaoyutai movement protested Japanese claims of sovereignty over the Diaoyutai
Islands between Okinawa and Taiwan. Participants were mostly intellectuals and students in the
US and Canada from Taiwan and Hong Kong. It was the first significant political movement among
Chinese students in North America during the post-World War II period.
163
Sing Tao, Sept. 24, 2007.
164
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Xinsheng Bao (China
Post);” “Haojiao (Herald),” “Zhenfo Bao (True Buddha News),” “Meiguo Ciji Shijie (Tzu Chi
World Journal);” Vol. 2 Issue 4 of Delicacy of Life was dated April 2006; Issue No. 1 of Passion
was dated May 2006; Issue Vol. 7, No. 5 of Truth Monthly was dated May 1, 1999; Wang, Brief
Descriptions of Chinese-Language News Publications, s.v. “Foguang Shijie Luoshanji Ban
(Buddha’s Light Newsletter of Los Angeles),” “Meiguo Ciji Shijie (Tzu Chi World Journal).”
Huang Shengchang arrived in the US as a student in 1969. He became the editor of the
Chinese Voice Daily succeeding John Ong. When the newspaper closed in 1972, Huang
moved to Houston, where he opened a restaurant. While in Beijing in 1989 he brought and read
Zhao Puchu’s Fojiao changshi da-wen [Questions and answers on the elements of Buddhism]
and converted to Buddhism after having been a believer in Catholicism, left-wing liberalism,
socialism, and agnosticism. In 1991 he and a group of other believers moved from Houston to
Graham, Washington, to establish Dong Shan Institute for the study and propagation of
Buddhist doctrines. See “Dongshan Jiangtang [Eastern hills lecture hall],” retrieved Mar. 6,
2008 from website http://www.e-redant.com/publishintro.aspx?pubid=76.
165
Wang Zhen, “Chinese–language Epoch Times to Go Daily on West Coast," retrieved Oct. 9,
2007 from website http://en.epochtimes.com/news/7-10-3/60373.html; “About Us,” retrieved
Oct. 14, 2007 from website http://en.epochtimes.com/aboutus.html; “New Tang Dynasty TV,”
retrieved Oct. 14, 2007 from website http://em.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Tang_Dynasty_TV;
“Sound of Hope,” retrieved Oct. 14, 2007 from website
http://em.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_of_Hope.
For more about the Falun Gong, see “Falun Gong,” retrieved Oct. 14, 2007 from website
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falun_Gong.
166
"Wu she jianjie," [Brief introduction to the five offices], retrieved Sept. 12, 2002 from website
www.chineseworld.com/about_us/5news.htm; Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and
Publication Volume, s.v. “Shijie Dianshi (World Television Corporation,” “Shijie Ribao (World
Journal);” congratulatory advertisement on opening of W J Culture Center,” World Journal, Oct.
17, 2003.
167
"Chinese Radio," retrieved Nov. 10, 2007 from website www.chineseradio.com/about.htm.
168
"Introduction to the Chinese Cultural Development Center," downloaded from website
www.edeo.tv/culture, Sep. 13, 2002; issue 00115 of The SinoAmerican Times was dated Feb.
28, 2004; “The SinoAmerican Times Overview,” retrieved Feb. 29, 2008 from website
http://http://sinovision.net/html.php?act=en&kind=newspaper&id=22.
169
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, s.v. “Meinan Xinwen
(Southern Chinese Daily News),” “Meinan Baoye Chuanbo Jigou (Southern Chinese
Newspapers Group),” “Meinan Huayu Dianshitai (Texas Chinese TV);” Wang, Brief Descriptions
159
59
of Chinese-Language News Publications, s.v. “Meinan Xinwen (Southern Chinese Daily News).”
170
“Duowei de fangxiang [Duowei’s direction],” (May 29, 2006), retrieved Feb. 29, 2008 from
website http://blog.dwnews.com/?p=11558.
171
Chinese Overseas Encyclopedia, Media and Publication Volume, 570-578.