4—
Newspapers

Like spoken dramas and cartoons, newspapers were turned into a propaganda and educational tool during the war. The journalist Cheng Shewo (1898–1991) described the power of the press vividly in his influential article "'Paper Bullets' Can Also Annihilate the Enemy" published in 1938. It would be a grave mistake, Cheng wrote, to belittle the influence of the press, for it was a weapon that could stir up national consciousness and wage political war against the invaders. Like bullets, newspapers "killed," Cheng claimed.^[1] If spoken dramas created heroic symbols of resistance, and cartoons conjured up terrifying images of war, then newspapers waged a different kind of battle against the Japanese: a battle of words.

It was during the War of Resistance that China saw its first generation of war correspondents (zhandi jizhe) come of age. Notable names include Fan Changjiang, Qiujiang (Meng Qiujiang, 1910–1967), Xu Ying (1912-), and his wife Zigang (Peng Zigang, 1914–1988), all of Dagong bao; Lu Yi (1911-), of the The New China Daily (Xinhua ribao); Cao Juren, of the Central News Agency (Zongyang tongxunshe); and Huang Zhenxia, of the Great Evening News (Dawan bao), to mention just a few.^[2] Together they represented a new type of correspondent who challenged traditional journalistic practices, redefined the role of a reporter, created a new language, and, most important, like dramatists and cartoonists, attempted to reach a wide audience. Because of the enormous influence of the press during the war, war correspondents were some of the most important shapers of modern Chinese history.

Wartime Dispatches

The idea of frontline reporting did not come to China from the West. William Howard Russell of the London Times, whose coverage of the Crimean War marked the beginnings of war reportage in Europe, was an unknown name in China. So were other celebrated Western correspondents such as James Creelman of the New York Journal, who reported the Japanese massacre at Port Arthur during the Russo-Japanese War, and Herbert Matthews of the New York Times, who covered the Abyssinian War. Chinese war correspondents like Fan Changjiang and Lu Yi (fig. 43) were homegrown and products of their time. After the incident of 28 January 1932, when Japanese troops attacked Shanghai to divert international attention from their aggression in Manchuria, Lu Yi, then a young reporter for Shanghai's Xinwen bao, was in fact one of the first correspondents to head for the battle zones. He volunteered to go to Zhabei the next day to gather news, thus beginning a distinguished career as one of China's best war correspondents.^[3]

The ensuing conflict with Japan awakened a voracious appetite for information. As public demand for stories about the war grew, newspapers such as Dagong bao and Shen bao began to send their own men and women to the front. The Battle of Taierzhuang in April 1938, for example, drew an unprecedented twenty war correspondents.^[4] Unlike old-style reporters, they were young (90 percent were under thirty years of age)^[5] and daring, with great curiosity and a keen sense of adventure. The new assignment allowed them to watch the military drama at first hand and demanded that they report what really happened with directness and urgency. Suddenly, through the printed page, distant battles in strange places seemed to unfold before one's eyes, as if the thunder of cannons was nearby. War correspondents sent home thrilling accounts of skirmishes and moving stories of bravery—as George Mosse puts it, they were "domesticating the war experience."^[6] At the same time, they delivered the hometown news to the front,^[7] thus narrowing the physical as well as the emotional gap between the two worlds. The power of the "paper bullet" was now beyond doubt. Indeed, coverage of the Japanese invasion by China's war correspondents was the best and fullest in the history of Chinese journalism. As the circulation of newspapers (especially local newspapers) soared during the war,^[8] well-known war correspondents became a selling point for newspapers, and their new style and vivid stories captivated millions of readers. So popular did the war news be-

Fig. 43.
Fan Changjiang (front row, far right) and Lu Yi (front row, second from right)
visited the front in Ruichang, Jiangxi province, in September 1938.
Courtesy of Lu Yi.

come, in fact, that even respected literary journals like Cosmic Wind began to solicit frontline reports from its readers.^[9]

Wartime reporting, however, was a difficult and perilous assignment, requiring physical stamina as well as mental readiness. A good war correspondent, said Liu Zhuzhou, "must have the ability to endure every conceivable kind of exhaustion and pain."^[10] Physical exhaustion was nothing, however, compared to the enormous danger war correspondents faced. Frontline reporting was an endeavor that required reporters to be ever ready to lay their lives on the line. In his The Struggle of Shanghai's Journalists, Zhao Junhao gave frightening accounts of how reporters in occupied Shanghai were gunned down by the Japanese and by Wang Jingwei's secret agents.^[11] The fortunes of war did not always smile on those correspondents who ventured to the battleground.

Like cartoons, wartime dispatches focused on several themes: the brutality of the Japanese, the heroism of Chinese troops, the endless lines of refugees, and the importance of grass-roots support. Unlike cartoons, wartime dispatches were mostly eyewitness accounts written

in a concise narrative format. They unfolded the drama sequentially, often providing a sense of coherence and completeness. While cartoons sought to create a certain immediacy, wartime dispatches strove for a more lingering effect. In "The City of Hanyang in Flames," written in the summer of 1938, Zigang of Dagong bao depicted this gruesome picture after a Japanese air raid:

No sooner was the siren turned off than the Wangjiaxiang Dock was packed with people who wanted to board the ferry [and leave]. We all knew that the city of Hanyang was bombed. It was a scorching day, people were sweating and feeling heavy at heart….

Passengers on board the ferry were anxious to reach the other shore of Turtle Hill. Black clouds mingled with smoke billowing from below and drifted away, as if devils had darkened the city with poisonous black powder.

"Nanzheng Street was hit," someone wailed. Those who had just returned from the bombed area were awash with grief and could not utter a word.

People streamed in and out of narrow Nanzheng Street. As in a funeral procession, many burst into tears….

The section of Kuixin Lane from No. 23 to No. 36 was totally demolished by bombs. This was what the Japanese did best: in the twinkling of an eye, houses and lives were reduced to nothing. In many instances the entire family was lost, so no relatives remained to mourn the dead. Rescuers had no choice but to put their house number plate atop their coffins to identify the victims. A certain Yang Xindan, who was both the leader of the street section and a rescuer himself, was killed. His mother, dumbstruck, used a fan to cool off the body, which lay quietly on a bamboo bed, as if he could still feel the heat….

A section of houses near the bank of the river was leveled. I was told that there were many people gathered at the ferry. [Then suddenly] bombs and machine-gun fire rained down from above, killing almost one hundred people both on the dock and aboard the ferry …

Wuchang and Hanyang added eight hundred new ghosts. They died with an intense grudge.

To avenge the deaths of many who were killed during the Japanese invasion of Wuhan, we must unite to defend the city.^[12]

Such accounts were common in wartime reportage, the images of Japanese atrocities familiar. But instead of relying on pictures, the dispatch gave a concrete account of the destruction left in the wake of a

Japanese air raid. Zigang, one of the few female reporters during the war (the other notable women were Yang Gang [1905–1957] and Pu Xixiu [1910–1970]) was known for her candid reports and moving stories of human suffering, mostly in the interior.

Wartime dispatches were full of reports of Chinese dignity and heroism in which, predictably, men in uniform figured prominently. Generals and commanders were portrayed as calm, determined, and professional men who marched to the front in high spirits and performed their duty with extraordinary skill and courage. Most important, they exuded confidence and optimism at a time when confusion and uncertainty reigned. Such enthusiastic descriptions of Chinese commanders were common in the early days of the war, for they served an important propaganda purpose. Consider this account by Cao Juren, a reporter for the Central News Agency:

In a very relaxed atmosphere, I met a few commanders [at the front]. They gathered around a table and looked at the maps. As though playing chess, they calmly discussed various plans of operation. I had not seen Commander A for a few months; he looked a bit tired from campaigning. He gave me a very satisfactory answer [about the future of the war] by firmly stating, "Only one word: fight!"

[Suddenly] we heard artillery and the roar of guns outside; the situation must have become tense at the front. Commander A left in a hurry…. I told the deputy commander and the chief of staff that over one hundred thousand refugees in Shanghai were standing in the pouring rain anxiously waiting for the news of victory to arrive…. The deputy commander replied with a slow but sure voice: "War is certainly not a fashionable thing…. What we know is that we will fight. The War of Resistance is a struggle to save our nation. We will wage total resistance against the enemy. To score a final victory, we must be patient." … The commanders wanted us to relay these messages to the people, so that they could take realistic measures to work for the cause of the resistance. [Indeed,] we civilians must have patience!

The men in uniform take only concrete steps. They think only of practical issues.^[13]

If commanders appeared to be cool-headed and full of confidence in mapping out strategies, they were also courageous and selfless on the battlefield. Fan Changjiang of Dagong bao described the bravery of Chinese soldiers in an early battle during the Japanese advance southward from Beijing in 1938:

In a small village about one or two miles from the Little Bengbu, we [reporters] met Brigade Commander Dou and Regiment Commander Liang…. On the 8th [of February], when enemy troops overran Little Bengbu, over half a battalion of Liang's regiment was lost. When Commander Dou and his men mounted a counterattack, the enemy across on the southern bank of the Huai River detected them and started to bombard them with artillery. Dou was forced to lie down in the mud. Seven or eight of his men were either wounded or killed. When we met him on the night of the 9th, the mud on his clothes and shoes was still there. Dou, Liang, and their troops had no food for two days and nights, not to mention sleep…. One company commander and his men had twice engaged in hand-to-hand combat with the enemy. They annihilated all the Japanese at the end. [I was told that] some soldiers' bellies were ripped open by the enemy's bayonets, and sections of their intestines oozed out. The soldiers pushed them back into their abdomens and smiled contentedly at the enemy's bodies lying along the banks of the Huai River….

The Chinese soldiers hated the Japanese army bitterly. [Near Linhuaiguan,] once three Japanese soldiers were chasing after seven Chinese women on the south bank of the Huai River. Our soldiers on the north bank tried desperately to find a way to rescue them, but to no avail. They finally took aim and shot and killed those three animals. According to a fifty-year-old woman, she had already been repeatedly raped….^[14]

The victory, however, turned out to be short-lived—the Japanese were soon reinforced and in a few days overran the Chinese army. Fan's vivid accounts nonetheless presented a moving story of the bravery of the Chinese soldiers.

Fan Changjiang and the Rhetoric of War

Among a host of war reporters, Fan Changjiang, already well known even before the outbreak of the war, was a particularly dominant presence. In 1936, Fan published The Northwest Corner of China (Zhongguo de xibei jiao), a collection of articles written in 1935 and 1936 when Fan was traveling in the relatively unknown territories of the northwest as a roving reporter for the famous Tianjin newspaper Dagong bao. This was a time when Japan was intensifying its penetration into Inner Mongolia. Fan, distressed by the political unrest at home and concerned over Japanese aggression in the north, decided to investigate the situation firsthand.^[15] He began his long and hazardous

journey in Chengdu, Sichuan province, and over the next ten months he traveled extensively across Gansu, Ningxia, and Inner Mongolia. Meandering through the shifting sands of the northern desert and scaling the forbidding peaks of the Qilian Mountains, Fan visited remote border regions and sent back sensational reports about the life and customs of the frontier people, the grim reality of political and economic chaos, and racial inequality in China, especially the GMD government's discriminatory policies regarding minority nationalities—ominous signs, Fan warned, of a brewing social and political crisis.

Published when Fan was twenty-seven, this landmark book signaled the rise of the journalist as a social critic and the emergence of a new, witty, personal style in Chinese journalism. It became an instant bestseller, reaching its eighth printing and selling thousands of copies within just a few months.^[16] The book's popularity and authority quickly established Fan Changjiang as one of the most influential journalists of his time.^[17] To be sure, Fan's book was not the only one about the border regions to appear in the 1930s.^[18] Yet his book was definitely the most original as well as the most compelling. Its lucid style, its exotic contents, its firsthand reports, and its fervent plea for a solution to the worsening nationality problem all combined to make The Northwest Corner of China a tour de force in journalistic writing.

Although Fan Changjiang's early work made him widely known as a brilliant reporter, it was his frontline dispatches during the early phase of the War of Resistance that earned him an international reputation as "China's most famous war correspondent."^[19] In 1936 and 1937 he was sent by Dagong bao to cover the fighting between Prince De, who led a combined Manchukuo-Mongol force in rebellion, and the Nationalist government. He was the first reporter to enter Xi'an in early February 1937 after the historic Xi'an Incident, and that same month he was the first Chinese reporter from outside to visit Yan'an. He described vividly his night-long interview with Mao Zedong in his celebrated piece "A Trip to Northern Shaanxi."^[20] All these sensational reports subsequently appeared in another best-selling book, Journeys on the Frontier (Saishang xing), published in 1937.

In July 1937 Fan was sent to report on the Marco Polo Bridge Incident. The next month he covered the fall of Beijing and the fierce fighting at the Nankou Pass in central Hebei. And in early 1938 he covered the bloody battles of Taierzhuang and Xuzhou. From the battlefields, Fan sent back eyewitness reports that won him a devoted audience, the praise of his colleagues, and the enmity of the govern-

ment, for Fan did not hesitate to report on the incompetence and corruption within the Guomindang army. Many of his wartime columns subsequently appeared in book form: Battles on the Western Front (Xixian fengyun, November 1937), The Fall of Beiping and Tianjin (Lunwang de Ping-Jin, January 1938), and From the Marco Polo Bridge to Zhang River (Cong Lugouqiao dao Zhanghe, September 1938), to name but a few.^[21] All were extremely popular during the war.

In reportage about the fighting between the Chinese and Japanese, dramatic and tragic stories abounded. Many correspondents risked and lost their lives, and others established their reputations, filing numerous excellent pieces.^[22] Qiujiang's "Outflanking the Enemy at the Nankou Pass," for example, easily ranks as one of the best stories to come out of wartime China.^[23] Nevertheless, Fan Changjiang was unique among his contemporaries in his grasp of background information and above all in his incisive, insightful commentary.^[24] Perhaps more than any other reporter, he provided an intimate look at the war; as one colleague put it, Fan "creat[ed] a sensation throughout the country."^[25]

Fan often filed dispatches describing emotional victories, but he was noted for bringing home the cruel images of the war and stories of common soldiers struggling to survive on the battlefield. Indeed, Fan Changjiang was at his best when depicting the human agony of the war:

Recently, Japanese planes have flown over Baoding almost every day. They have machine-gunned people down below, wounding many. Only those barbaric Japanese soldiers would not hesitate to shoot at unarmed, innocent civilians…. To avoid mass slaughter, the only outlet for the defenseless people has been to flee. As a result, trains leaving Baoding for the south have been jammed with people, especially women and children…. Their peaceful life disrupted, they had to be parted amid much sadness. On the train I saw a middle-aged Cantonese woman who was sobbing as she bade farewell to her husband. Her two girls and a boy were also in tears, incessantly calling out for their father. Outside the train window was a middle-aged man and a young fellow who looked like his oldest son, gazing morosely at their loved ones. The train started to move, the crying inside and outside the train became more intense and bitter. The men ran after the train, waving. Not until those outside the train could no longer be seen did the mother turn and start to comfort her three children.^[26]

The war with Japan left a lasting impression on those who reported it. Three themes kept reemerging in Fan's and other war correspondents' dispatches: the brutality of the Japanese, the omnipresence of Chinese collaborators,^[27] and the endless suffering of refugees. Even more tragic than the indiscriminate killing of civilians, burnings, bombings, and rapes by the Japanese, Fan Changjiang wrote, was the number of collaborators abetting the enemy in these crimes. Yet always, the sorrowful scene of refugees was the most telling reminder of the terror of the war. A sudden increase of beggars, Fan observed, could be interpreted as signaling the worsening picture at the front.^[28]

Yet the war, brutal and inhuman as it was, had its occasional uplifting moments. Fan captured one such scene:

On the morning of 31 January [1938], the train moved slowly into Xuchang station [Henan province]. In a third-class car were two elderly waiters engaged in heated discussion about the future of the war. The bald-headed fellow, speaking in pure Beiping accent, insisted that he would soon be able to return to Beiping. According to him, the war had finally eliminated regionalism [in China], and everyone was now willing to unite under the banner of the central government—a truly unprecedented phenomenon! "China is a big country," he said. "If everyone can join together, our strength will be awesome!" He went on to make a witty remark: "In fighting against the Japanese, we must not score a quick victory. Doing so would have two serious consequences. First, China will not have enough time to undergo thorough reconstruction, and then more troubles lie ahead. Second, the best strategy against the Japanese is 'wearing them down' [hao ]. Without completely wearing them down, our victory cannot be considered final. Japan is like a candle: the longer we wait, the more damage [we can inflict on them]. This is because in wartime, Japan's industry and commerce cannot operate normally. For a country like Japan, which relies so much on industry and commerce [to survive], how can they withstand 'wearing down'? As for us Chinese, we can rely on farming. No matter how much land is occupied [by the enemy] and how many battles we lose, we can still survive. Based on this general principle, Japan will be defeated!" Everyone listened with rapt attention. To show his respect [for the speaker], one passenger even went over to pour him a cup of tea.^[29]

The narrative is simple and moving. It portrays vividly the common people's confidence in the positive outcome of the war. Yet it is hardly an objective style. Like Zigang and Cao Juren, Fan wrote as a patriot

who hated the Japanese invaders and sought to rally the people for resistance.

If cartoons used forceful images to convey patriotic messages, wartime dispatches utilized a vivid and emotional vocabulary to report on the armed conflict and to recount legends of heroism on the battlefield (such as stories of Commander Yao Ziqing and Airman Yan Haiwen, both killed in the early phase of the war). Here words were more than just a form of communication: they were weapons of politics. Carefully chosen expressions in combination with facts could turn tired propaganda slogans into poignant exhortations or painful reminders of the country's collective fate. This new style of reporting that came to life during the Sino-Japanese War had an internal textual unity based on a simple reality: China's future was at stake. Covering an array of events—scenes of combat, victory, retreat, and so on—the frontline reports were unabashedly patriotic. They were also gripping as historical reports and on occasion attained distinction as excellent literary prose, presenting a refreshing contrast to the stereotypical and platitudinous writing of the past.

In general, Chinese war correspondents told simple but uplifting stories, preferring to speak concretely about what really happened at the front. Whenever possible, names of victims were given (as in Zigang's piece) to elicit readers' empathy. Yet this down-to-earth approach did not preclude the frequent use of high-sounding slogans and phrases to make a passionate appeal. To reporters, the War of Resistance was more than a contest of weaponry: it was a battle of different ideals, a confrontation between the forces of order and of evil. The war therefore had to be addressed at a high moral level if the complete picture was to be gained.

Realizing the power of words to arouse people, war correspondents created a host of new words and descriptions that served as political weapons. Theirs was a language of combat, a charged rhetoric intended to heighten the Chinese people's sensitivity to the unfolding crisis. This new political language was more than just a reflection of the realities of war or a departure from the past; it also went beyond the Durkheimian notion that language is a carrier of cultural integration. Rather, it was "an instrument of political and social change"^[30] and a means for political integration, a tool that was used to shape public opinion in a time of national crisis.

Fan Changjiang belonged to a new generation of reporters who were dissatisfied not only with traditional journalistic practices but also with the traditional use of language. In their view, most reports in

the established press were stilted and dull. The traditional journalistic language was often too sophisticated for common people to understand. It showed little variation of vocabulary, syntax, and style, and its descriptions of battle were monotonous and uninspiring, devoid of human sensitivities. Worse still, it could not adapt quickly to the changing demands and responses of audiences. As a result, Chinese newspapers were riddled with what the young journalists called "eight-legged news essays" (xinwen bagu)^[31] —in which clichés such as "the ultimate victory belongs to us" and "our troops scored a resounding triumph" were repeated ad nauseam—which could render the newspaper unreadable, thus destroying its value as a vehicle of communication.^[32] Thus the new generation of reporters aspired to create a language that would speak to the masses and to intellectuals alike, a common tongue that could unite a country divided by regional and cultural differences. The trend was away from elegant prose and toward facts and figures, but with a personal touch. An excellent reporter, these reformers argued, should captivate readers both with his or her knowledge and with exciting, well-written stories. Fan's book The Northwest Corner of China and his wartime dispatches were models to be emulated. His delivery, paired with imaginative titles such as "Mourning Datong" and "Recalling the Battlefield at Night," evoked both anger and sadness among his readers and won him quite a few followers. Pieces by Qiujiang like "Outflanking the Enemy at the Nankou Pass" and "Lament for Zhangjiakou" bore the unmistakable imprint of Fan.^[33]

The wartime political vocabulary comprised a small number of emotionally charged and timely words and phrases. This was a new journalistic language that bore little resemblance to that of the past. Its effectiveness depended on a vivid use of metaphors and the ability to render complicated national issues in simple and memorable terminology. Chinese journalists took advantage of popular sayings of the time, and they often embellished their rhetoric with familiar military imagery. The channeling of news to the frontline was itself compared to a military campaign. The journalist Gao Tian (1917-), for instance, called on reporters to establish "cultural war stations" (wenhua bingzhan) to communicate vital information to the soldiers at the front and launch what he called "a total cultural attack against the enemy."^[34] Putting this idea into practice, in 1938 the Chinese Young Journalists Society established a "Battlefront Newspaper Supply Team" (Zhandi baozhi gongyingdui), which brought newspapers and magazines to the front. This "spiritual supply line" (jingshen bujixian), as Gao Tian

called it, created a unique bond between soldiers at the front and the people at home.

Others stated, "Wartime journalists must not 'fight in isolation' [gujun zuozhan ]."^[35] The importance of unity was repeatedly stressed. Memorably, as we have seen, Cheng Shewo described newspapers as "paper bullets": tools that could not only channel vital news to every village but also score a propaganda victory against the enemy.^[36] The juxtaposition of paper and bullet was striking, for it reminded people of the power of words and the ability of the press to achieve something extraordinary. The press, in other words, was more than a vehicle of communication; it was a weapon that could inflict heavy damage on the enemy.

To emphasize the importance of propaganda work behind enemy lines, the correspondent Shi Yan proposed that a kind of "journalism guerrilla warfare" (xinwen gongzuo de youjizhan) be waged. "Let's call upon those hundreds and thousands of courageous, determined journalists to go behind Japanese lines to establish dailies, rural wall papers, and mobile journals" that would constitute "a network of cultural battle lines" (wenhua huoxianwang).^[37] Although it is not known how many of these "guerrilla" newspapers were established in those territories, or where, the repeated call for their creation indicated the seemingly limitless forms that resistance could take.

The call for journalists to wage "guerrilla warfare" against the invaders underscored the importance of their involvement in the resistance movement. The search by reporters for a new role in turbulent times and a new vocabulary to describe the armed conflict created an original rhetoric couched in military phraseology, which in turn shaped public knowledge about the war, providing a feeling of actual participation. The war of words could be as important to success as actual combat on the battlefield. Journalists were no longer mere by-standers. In interesting juxtaposition to the intellectual in Ye Qianyu's cartoon "Let's Change into New Uniform" (fig. 26), journalists were combat troops dressed in civilian clothes.

The War Correspondent

Wishing to be accurate, involved, and responsible, Chinese war correspondents employed a writing style drastically different from anything in the past. They used simple language, registered personal observations, recorded statements verbatim to provide a more intimate sense of reality, and, above all, wrote with feeling. "In filing a wartime dispatch," wrote Fan Changjiang, "we must invest it with emotion."^[38] It

was precisely this ingredient of emotion that brought force and passion to wartime journalism.

Yet to be a good war correspondent was not easy, Fan Changjiang warned, and in this he was echoed by numerous reporters looking for a more effective role.^[39] Could a war correspondent be accurate and objective yet patriotic at the same time? Could a story written in a highly emotionally and personal style even claim to be objective? Was there a difference between propaganda and honest reporting? What was the role of a reporter vis-à-vis the government? Should reporters be independent critics, or should they collaborate with their news sources?

In an interview with Fan Changjiang and Lu Yi in July 1938, Edgar Snow, who shortly before had achieved celebrity status in China with his book Red Star over China (1937), pointed out three serious threats to the objectivity and independence of a wartime report: poor observation, resorting to stereotyped accounts, and use of unreliable information. Such shoddy practices, Snow warned, could easily undermine the credibility of the press.^[40]

Snow's concerns were not entirely new; in fact, they had already been intensely debated within the Chinese Young Journalists Society (CYJS). The founding of the society in March 1938 was certainly a high point in the history of modern Chinese journalism, in part because it came at a time when the left and right were still talking to each other in the name of national unity, before ideological differences split them asunder. The society comprised a host of distinguished reporters, editors, and politicians, including Shao Lizi (1882–1967), the former director of the Guomindang Central Publicity Department; Xiao Tongzi (1895–1973), director of the Central News Agency; and Guo Moruo, head of the Third Section of the Political Department in charge of literary propaganda. From the beginning, it stressed that in the face of mounting Japanese pressure it was imperative for journalists to coordinate their activities and share the nation's limited publication resources.^[41] Fan Changjiang and Lu Yi, the central figures of the society, saw the CYJS as a location where professional knowledge could be learned and experience shared, and where camaraderie could be promoted in a time of adversity. The feeling of solidarity was reinforced by the establishment of a "Reporters' Hostel" in Hankou in September 1938, providing peripatetic reporters with a temporary abode and a place to share views about the crisis.^[42] In addition to launching an influential journal, the Reporter, the society also published A Primer for Wartime Journalism, the most exhaustive discus-

sion of the subject to appear during the war. The book examined in great detail various aspects of wartime journalism: its theory and practice, the distribution of newspapers, and above all, "the cultivation and learning of a war correspondent."^[43] The Reporter did essentially the same thing. Besides soliciting support for the correspondents' endeavor, the journal's major function was to provide a forum for reporters to define their own role. "How to be a good war correspondent" became a topic of major concern.

To Fan Changjiang, poor observations by a reporter—the first of Snow's concerns—stemmed from a lack of knowledge and proper training. True, a good war correspondent needed to have "courage, solid military knowledge, a knack for careful attention, objectivity, and an excellent writing technique," as his friend Qiujiang suggested;^[44] but to acquire these qualities required painstaking effort and constant practice. Fan suggested that novices start with the fundamentals, then continue to study, and ultimately pursue specialized learning—a process of what he called self-cultivation."^[45] This approach stood in sharp contrast to that of old-style journalists, who, Fan maintained, spread themselves too thin as generalists. Professionalization, he argued, meant having thorough knowledge of the event one wants to write about and a solid command of the facts. To be topnotch, therefore, war correspondents had to possess at least basic, up-to-date military information. "Accurate and wide knowledge," Fan wrote, "is the supreme authority of life."^[46] Fan practiced what he preached.^[47] His The Northwest Corner of China demonstrated a remarkable command of the history and geography of the remote lands,^[48] and his wartime dispatches only bolstered the impression of solid observation and possession of the facts.^[49]

To be a good reporter, one must also master writing and learn how to communicate effectively in the simplest way. Formalistic, stereotypical writing—Snow's second concern—rendered news coverage uninteresting and uninspiring. Besides making conscious use of a new political vocabulary, war correspondents paid particular attention to the art or craft of writing. For the journalist Bu Shaofu (1909-), a good reporter was someone who took writing skills seriously, who considered the style of a dispatch as important as the subject matter. A good report, according to Bu, should exhibit the following qualities: concreteness, vividness, depth, and pithiness.^[50] Such qualities would allow a war correspondent to present his story in the most direct and realistic way possible, so that it, in turn, could exert a powerful impact on its readers. Again among Chinese war correspondents, Fan

Changjiang stood out as one of the best writers of his generation. He frequently opened his pieces with a brief but forceful line. In his "Beside the Marco Polo Bridge," for instance, he began: "China's repeated minor conflicts with foreign powers [particularly Japan] are a good indication of how this country is raising its head every day;"^[51] and in "Marching to the Western Front" he started out on an equally upbeat note: "It's hard to express my feelings, but every time I reach the front, hope fills my heart."^[52] These short lead-ins each introduced an intricate political and military story. For Fan and others, approaching the topic in this personal and emotional manner was the best way to grasp the reader's attention. If brevity and interest were paramount in a dispatch, Fan believed, then each word must be direct and forceful.

Good writing also included choosing a good title—in the journalist Zhang Youluan's (1904–1990) words, this was the "most important [aspect] of the editorial process,"^[53] for it brought out the essentials of a story and captured the imagination of readers at first glance. A good title could hold the key to a story's success. We have seen some of Fan Changjiang's and Qiujiang's titles; Xiao Fang's (Fang Dazeng of Dagong bao) "The Bloody Battle at the Juyong Pass" ("Xiezhan Juyongguan") was another memorable example. Such a dramatic style, it need hardly be stated, had little in common with traditional journalistic practice.

Perhaps the most serious problem facing war correspondents was inaccurate or false information—the third concern raised by Snow. To be fair and accurate, it was argued, reporters should seek out the news exhaustively and approach a story from many different angles, especially that of the common people. In this view, to file a report about a military clash without taking its larger context into full consideration was to present a partial and perhaps distorted picture. The journalist and educator Xie Liuyi (1898–1945), for instance, charged that Shanghai's newspapers often ridiculed refugees and failed to present an accurate picture of their plight.^[54] The same inaccuracy occurred in war reporting, Shi Yan observed. He pointed out that in the past, coverage of wars tended to be dull and shallow—straightforward, factual accounts of military campaigns, interviews with commanders, details about the enemy's brutality. Such an approach, he said, hardly did justice to the complexity of war. Instead he proposed a new "three-dimensional" (litihua) method: it encouraged reporters to look beyond government briefings, which could color one's stories, and seek out unofficial sources and ask more questions. In a war, reporters

should make use of such channels as common foot soldiers, for example, and probe into the hidden meaning "behind the news," Shi Yan suggested.^[55] The nature of a battle could be comprehended fully only by independently examining socioeconomic conditions and political factors. A good reporter would therefore base his or her reports on exhaustive, objective, on-the-spot investigation; it was this that would make a story credible. "Even a refugee or a prisoner-of-war will tell us something about the war," Liu Zhuzhou said.^[56] Gao Tian elaborated: "Horizontally, the coverage of the war should especially include information about the crucial supporting force behind the campaign—the mobilization of the common people…. Vertically, the reporter should gather information not only from commanders, but also from the rank and file."^[57] "The closer you get to the rank and file," Liu Zunqi (1911-) echoed, "the richer the material."^[58]

Shi Yan's and Liu Zunqi's proposal pointed to a fundamental truth of journalism: the one-source story is not only bad but potentially dangerous. More important, their approach underscored the importance of independence in journalism. The gathering and dissemination of information had to be freely conducted by those who were specially trained, whose minds were unclouded by biases and stereotypes, and who could make use of reliable sources. As the newspapers became more and more politicized, reporters' personalities took on increasing significance. Because of their unique profession, Fan Changjiang warned, reporters were natural targets for special interest groups who would seek every opportunity to influence them to write something in their favor. Sometimes pressure was exerted, other times monetary rewards were given. A reporter's integrity was at stake. "Political or military subsidies," warned Fan, "carry deadly poison that can easily ruin the career of a promising reporter."^[59]

How objective were Chinese wartime dispatches? There is no question that many war correspondents, as professionals, made a conscious effort to maintain a high standard of accuracy and thoroughness in their articles. Yet reporting human emotion is the most difficult kind of writing. Clear documentation of battles and scenes of refugees was one thing, describing intangible feelings another, with excessiveness, hysteria, and vindictiveness too often the result. Striking a balance between heart and mind was no easy task.

For this reason, the highly personal and emotional language style of Chinese war correspondents had its share of critics. As the veteran journalist Zeng Xubai (1895-) pointed out, news reporting was frequently confused with literature. Yet "good literature," he wrote, "is

not necessarily good reporting; and the reverse is also true…. Literary works can be subjective, whereas news reports must be absolutely objective."^[60] To Zeng, wartime news reports were long on personal sentiment but short on dispassionate observation. Lu Yi agreed, arguing that in contrast to literature, which is a product of the imagination or a blending of fact and fiction, wartime dispatches must contain three distinct ingredients: authentic news, actual observation by the reporter, and timeliness. "It would be a mistake to label Qiujiang's report on the Battle of the Nankou Pass as literature, because it was an eyewitness account," he added.^[61] But by creating a new, personal rhetoric, wartime journalists committed themselves to a literary language that too readily allowed exaggeration, impaired judgment, and colored the stories presented.

In the end, it was not the fairness and balance of their stories that made China's war correspondents influential, but the liveliness, passion, and easy-to-read language of their reports. Reporters like Fan Changjiang and Qiujiang seemed to believe that a frontline dispatch could be both objective and involved at the same time. But in time of war, when not only the reporter's own survival but the survival of his or her nation was at stake, maintaining journalistic objectivity was difficult, perhaps not even desirable. Objectivity is certainly not the best description for Fan's and Qiujiang's writings when they used the press as "paper bullets." The War of Resistance called for commitment; journalistic detachment could be interpreted as avoidance of responsibility. The calamity of the war compelled reason to give way to strong emotion—pain, anger, and patriotism. With the nation's fate at stake, Fan Changjiang wrote emphatically in 1938, "we must place national interest above everything else."^[62] As the Chinese press became ever more involved in the campaign against the Japanese invasion, many journalists found it extremely difficult to follow Walter Lippmann's advice and keep a "certain distance" from their subjects, assuming instead an overtly political and patriotic outlook.^[63]

The Journalist as Critic

During these dire times, new journalists like Fan Changjiang and Qiujiang, despite earlier efforts to maintain reportorial objectivity, often followed their predecessors' lead and wrote without making a clear distinction between news and commentary. Many journalists' wartime dispatches thus resembled personal views more than news reports as they simultaneously played the dual role of fair-minded news reporter and conscientious social critic. "A reporter must serve society," wrote

Zhang Jiluan.^[64] "He must be both a critic and a guide to society," affirmed the veteran journalist Chen Bosheng (1891–1957).^[65] Hu Zhengzhi, Zhang's colleague and the general manager of Dagong bao, echoed these views.^[66] Such an assertion went beyond the notion of journalism as a profession, for it demanded in addition social commitment and frowned on apathetic withdrawal. The line between a reporter and a commentator hence remained nebulous.

The image of intellectuals as social critics is an ancient one. In the Confucian tradition, intellectuals were the enlightened few who concerned themselves with important matters. Refusing to close their eyes to social and political ills, they acted as the conscience of society, responsible for righting wrongs through either moral suasion or active participation in social reform. Journalists, by casting themselves in a role similar to that of the scholar-official, took over that tradition. To remain independent of political interest was in any event almost impossible at this time of national struggle against an invasion and continued strife between the Nationalists and the Communists. As emotions took control, reporters easily turned into critics, and newspapers became a voice for social justice.

As the war progressed, many journalists were appalled by the poor discipline and low morale of the GMD army. True, there were those who displayed great valor on the battlefield, but there were also many soldiers who acted ignominiously. Government troops, underpaid and undernourished, often resorted to indiscriminate looting. Worse still, they did not hesitate to commit violence against Chinese civilians. "It is our own troops who were the first to make the lives of the people miserable," Fan Changjiang lamented.^[67] Growing disappointment with the Guomindang turned Fan and many other reporters into vocal critics of the government.

War correspondents soon discovered that problems in the military were not confined to the rank and file, but extended far up the hierarchy. Higher levels were plagued by corruption, incompetence, and insubordination. Many officers were negligent of their troops; they embezzled funds and made fortunes by selling surplus grain to profiteering merchants. Clearly, winning the war required the coordination and support of all military units, yet many, instead of fighting the Japanese, jealously guarded their own territories. Perhaps the most notorious case was that of Liu Ruming (1895–1975). Liu, commander of the Twenty-ninth Army, was assigned to guard Zhangjiakou, a strategic position northwest of the Nankou Pass between Inner Mongolia and Beijing. During the critical Battle of the Nankou Pass in

August 1937, Liu, fearing casualties to his men and thus a weakening of his own position, intentionally delayed reinforcing the Second Army Corps, commanded by General Tang Enbo (1899–1954), which guarded the pass. The underarmed and undermanned Tang troops fought gallantly against three much stronger, mechanized Japanese divisions in one of the bloodiest battles of the war. In the end, the pass fell quickly to the Japanese when a Japanese unit attacked Tang's troops from the rear. The tragic loss of the Nankou Pass—described most vividly in Qiujiang's famous report "Outflanking the Enemy at the Nankou Pass"—prompted Fan Changjiang to call for the "execution of Liu Ruming."^[68] If the Cantonese Nineteenth Route Army, which valiantly resisted the Japanese in Shanghai in 1932, was an apt symbol for the bravery and heroism of Chinese soldiers, then Liu Ruming represented cowardice, insubordination, and defeat.^[69]

Underneath the corruption and incompetence of the military, many journalists charged, lay the grim reality of politics in faction-ridden Chongqing. Before the war, journalists' criticisms of the government, if any, were veiled. In The Northwest Corner of China, for instance, Fan Changjiang described how the once-fertile Chengdu Plain in Sichuan province had been reduced to poverty. The villages were devastated, and starving peasants lay dying along the roadsides. "Who caused this, and what made it happen?" Fan asked rhetorically.^[70] During the war, however, the criticism became more direct and open.

The war exposed China's ills, Fan Changjiang wrote in 1938, and no ill was more serious than the ineffectiveness and demoralization of the government.^[71] To Fan, in short, China's woes stemmed not so much from the worsening economy or growing social unrest, but from the ineptitude of the GMD regime. This view was of course shared by many, including such foreign journalists as Theodore White.^[72]

Shortly after the war erupted, Fan Changjiang and other reporters issued a scathing indictment of the government's lack of a comprehensive war plan and its failure to prepare its citizens for Japanese aerial attack. "Not only did the people not know how to avoid air raids," Xiao Fang said after a raid on Zhangjiakou in 1937, "they even gathered naively in the middle of the street to look up at the enemy planes."^[73] The lack of preparedness resulted in the avoidable loss of numerous lives. Worse still, people were frequently forced to evacuate without any warning, which not only caused panic and confusion but also provided ample food and supplies to the approaching enemy troops, Qiujiang charged.^[74] The transportation system was in such a shambles that food and fuel could not be moved from one place to the

other when they were urgently needed. Wounded soldiers perhaps fared the worst because of this situation, combined with a general unavailability of medical care. Fan Changjiang described a perennial scene during the war:

There were only a few paramedics, and ambulances were in acute shortage. As a result, when the number of wounded soldiers suddenly increased, they jammed the road and no help was given to them…. Those suffering lesser injuries stumbled miserably along the roads, still bleeding. Those left with one leg managed to hobble forward with the help of staves. And those unable to walk lay trembling on the roadsides, moaning incessantly.^[75]

Qiujiang reported this depressing scene on the streets of Taiyuan in Shanxi province in late 1937:

A wounded soldier, like a frog badly hurt by an oxcart, managed to crawl and find protection from the wind and lie down. Half of his left thigh had been blown away by a shell. Another, his left hand severed, huddled like a hedgehog. In the frigid temperature, they managed with difficulty and in pain to reach Taiyuan in the dark, and then they found that there was no hospital. They could do nothing except wander helplessly through the streets.^[76]

Fan Changjiang lamented: "The soldiers devoted their lives to defending their country, yet after they were wounded we could not even provide them with sufficient medical care…. Our country and people had indeed let them down!^[77] The agony of the wounded also greatly concerned Western journalists, who issued blistering attacks against the government's deplorable medical service.^[78]

But to Fan Changjiang and Qiujiang, the most serious wartime problem was the government itself, which, pursuing what Fan called an "obscurantist policy" (yumin zhengce), deliberately kept the people in the dark.^[79] This practice, Fan suggested, stemmed from the government's deep-rooted mistrust of its own people. Because the GMD regarded any popular movement as Communist-inspired, it viewed grass-roots action with trepidation and suspicion. The government's disastrous policy of conscripting civilians as coolies in the war resulted in people fleeing en masse (known in those days as "escaping to the mountains," taoshan).^[80] The gap between the government and the people was only widening, Xiao Fang warned, and this could bring disaster in the future. "It was a grave mistake to dub any [grass-roots] resistance movement reactionary," he wrote.^[81] The war against Japan,

Fan Changjiang and Xiao Fang argued, was not just a government's or a soldier's war, but a people's war. If China was going to defeat Japan, the common people needed to be awakened, the peasants needed to be organized.^[82] Denying the strength of the people was the gravest mistake that any government could make.

Like many of his friends, Fan championed a united front policy against the Japanese. In his view, Jiang Jieshi, by turning his guns against the domestic "threat" rather than joining the Communists to force the invaders out, was pursuing a wrong course that would bring ruin and humiliation to China. "Resisting the Japanese is the top priority" (Kang-Ri gao yu yiqie), Fan proclaimed, repeating a popular slogan of the time.^[83] "We must place national interest, the War of Resistance, and people's livelihood at the top of our priorities."^[84]

As Chinese journalists became more openly critical of the government's war effort, the Chongqing government immediately clamped down on them. Any material unpalatable to those in power was to be suppressed. "Seditious literature" (such as subjects related to communism) and criticism of the government (for internal corruption, for example) were censored. If such stories were printed anyway, newspapers were confiscated and their editors incarcerated.^[85]

The political climate grew so oppressive that the truth was scarcely to be found, Fan Changjiang lamented. What actually appeared in the newspapers were dull government propaganda announcements. "People rush to buy newspapers, but nobody believes what is printed."^[86] The restrictive Chinese press law (issued in 1937), Fan pointed out, would not only undermine the credibility of the press, but it would also further tarnish the image of the government, and this at a time when it desperately needed the press to reach the people. "Today's slogan in China should be 'Resisting the Japanese is everything, fighting is everything, and victory is everything.' Anything else should be considered secondary…. Anyone should have the right to criticize any action that contradicts our national interest."^[87] In times of conflict, he continued, "I feel that we journalists must uphold a certain standard, simply because the most influential things in the war are newspapers. … Realizing this potential impact, we must always take a responsible attitude!"^[88] This strong statement reflected Fan's belief in the critical role of the reporter, and it served as pointed criticism of the government.

Not surprisingly, Fan's writing won few friends in Chongqing. It also caused uneasiness and anxiety at Dagong bao. By the time the war broke out, in fact, Fan may have already developed an ideological, if not personal, conflict with Zhang Jiluan, editor-in-chief of the paper.

Zhang, despite his avowedly independent stand, generally sympathized with the Nationalist cause and was more or less tolerant of the government's censorship. He was also highly respected by Jiang Jieshi. Zhang insisted that in a time of national crisis, every citizen must support the government.^[89] This position Fan found unacceptable,^[90] and he warned against "political subsidies," whether financial or symbolic. To him, Zhang's virtual adoption of the official line ran counter to the original editorial manifesto of Dagong bao: "No partisanship."

The gap between Fan and the Dagong bao editors widened as the war continued.^[91] By 1938, Fan discovered that his dispatches were occasionally being rejected and that portions of articles critical of the government were being deleted. Infuriated, he left the newspaper in the fall of that year. In September 1941, in an article memorializing Zhang, Fan referred in passing to their differences: "He [Zhang] was one of the few who made an earnest effort to teach me. Later we disagreed on a number of major issues; I therefore left Dagong bao at the time of the Battle of Wuhan [October 1938]."^[92]

Fan's fervent nationalism and disillusionment with the Chongqing government drove him gradually to the left. Persistent chaos and the continuing ideological battle between the Nationalists and the Communists led him increasingly to believe that the press was in fact inseparable from political interests. It would be naive, he argued in January 1939, to say the press could even function independently.^[93] As he put it, "Lacking a proper understanding of politics [on the part of journalists] is like sailing a ship without a compass."^[94] Fan moved further to the left, and in May 1939 he joined the CCP, reportedly through the introduction of Zhou Enlai.^[95]

In the 1920s and 1930s, Chinese journalists clearly sought to professionalize their craft, thereby making their work more respected, elevating their social status, and freeing the press of vested interests. Reporters' associations were established, professional journals launched, and journalistic ethics debated. Such laudable efforts came to an end for many journalists when they declared their allegiance to a political party. Fan Changjiang, of course, did not shy away from social and political commentary even in his early years as a journalist. But for most of his career, such commentary was made in light of the higher ideal that the press should be free from political influence and journalists should struggle to obtain objectivity. He condemned "political subsidies" and embraced knowledge, which he thought to be the best defense against bias and stereotypes. As an ardent patriot, his political writings before 1939 were inspired more by his strong nationalism

and his earnest hope for a united front against the Japanese invasion than by any commitment to the communist cause. But the war, the ills of the GMD government, and the harsh censorship policy called his early journalistic beliefs into question, and ultimately caused him to turn to communism. Even here, though, his decision was prompted not so much by his embrace of socialist ideas, but largely by his patriotism and his deep dissatisfaction with the GMD government.

The road to an independent press in modern China was a twisted and painful one. Although young journalists started out by attempting to break the traditional bond between the press and politics and establish their occupation as a respected field, when their country came under attack they realized that they were Chinese first, and journalists second. Ironically, they became unabashed patriots in a profession that increasingly played down open emotion as undermining the principle of objectivity. Given their personal and often emotional language and style of writing, it is clear that their main contribution to modern Chinese journalism does not lie in their role as unbiased observers, which remained an unrealized ideal. Rather, their contribution lies in their role as active promoters of the patriotic cause, which was strengthened immeasurably by their firsthand reporting, passionate language, and simple prose.

Dissemination and Decentralization

Wartime reporters did not concern themselves only with creating a new journalistic language or participating in the resistance movement; they were also involved in deciding how best to spread the news in a land plagued by illiteracy and poverty. Together with the dramatists, that is, they faced the issue of popularization and dissemination. Cheng Shewo put it this way:

Even though our country is in grave danger of being subjugated [by a foreign power], many people are still living in the dark…. The reason the people are so ignorant and uninformed is largely because they never read newspapers. We journalists must take the most responsibility for this unfortunate situation. Our newspapers never pay any attention to mobilizing the people, to making them understand the importance of their nation, their role as citizens of this country, and the danger facing China today.^[96]

Modern social scientists have demonstrated the vital link between mass media and national development. Wilbur Schramm, for example, argues convincingly for the power of modern communication (news-

papers, radio, television) to promote rapid change and reshape social values in traditional villages, and Herbert Passin shows the influential role the press played in disseminating information and winning public support for reforms in some Asian countries in the early decades of the twentieth century.^[97] In China, the dissemination issue became particularly acute with the eruption of war. Before July 1937, Chinese newspapers remained highly concentrated in major cities (see chapter 1). Moreover, of the eighty-two radio broadcasting stations registered in 1936, sixty-five were found in Jiangsu (47), Zhejiang (10), and Hebei (8); only a few could be heard in the rest of China, and only the Nanjing station was of international significance.^[98] The Chinese press, according to Rudolf Löwenthal, faced three major obstacles: low circulation, small size, and insufficient income. He estimated in 1936 that "every person in China on the average obtains two copies of a newspaper annually."^[99] In another study conducted in the mid-1930s, Löwenthal and his colleague Vernon Nash concluded that "only one person out of 800 to 1,000 receives a copy of a newspaper daily in the rural districts."^[100]

The paucity of local newspapers as well as the lack of other effective communication tools posed a formidable obstacle to the whole mobilization campaign. In the provinces, news of the conflict was inevitably slow to arrive. When it did filter through, local presses, if they existed at all, printed it faithfully. Should more regional newspapers be launched at a time of extreme paper shortage and financial difficulties? Should regional papers devote more space to news about their own localities, or should they print more national news? These issues aroused passionate discussion among journalists and politicians alike.

The clustering of the press in the cities has been a problem in many developing countries.^[101] But in China the issue was complicated by a number of factors. The backwardness of the transportation system in such a vast nation was one major barrier to the flow of information. In a short but revealing article, "Newsreels and Newspapers," published in 1935, the dramatist Hong Shen warned that the overconcentration of newspapers in the urban centers would severely hinder the flow of information, thus thwarting the development of the country. Few journalists, Hong Shen lamented, were willing to venture beyond the city limits to report on remote rural areas, "where many things were happening that might affect our life."^[102]

Rudolf Löwenthal, Vernon Nash, and Hong Shen were by no means the only ones to comment on the urban concentration of Chinese newspapers. In the mid-1930s, with the Japanese military

threat looming ever larger and the coastal cities seeming particularly vulnerable to attack, many journalists began to realize the urgency of spreading newspapers to rural areas. The respected Journalism Quarterly, for instance, in 1935 published a special issue entitled "How to Develop Newspapers in the Interior and the Border Regions."^[103] Journalists also called for closer cooperation between the cities and the interior generally, and between urban and border-region newspapers more specifically. This would lessen the gap between the city and the hinterland, one reporter wrote, and arouse the patriotic sentiments of the frontier people, now increasingly under threat from "imperialist aggression."^[104] Stressing the importance of spreading literacy to the interior, and possibly anticipating an imminent Japanese attack, the journalist Tang Ren'an warned that it would be a serious mistake to put too much emphasis on "foreign concession culture" and "urban culture." Instead he called for moving Chinese culture "away from the concession area and the city to the village."^[105]

The distribution of newspapers to the interior was one important issue; another was the popularization of the press.^[106] While the former focused on locality and quantity, the latter stressed the importance of simple language and efficient communication. Dissemination and communication—those were the keys to the resistance movement. And the principal voices stressing these points were Cheng Shewo and Zou Taofen (1895–1944).

In the early 1930s, Cheng Shewo voiced his concern over the unhealthy trend of what he called the "elitism" of the press in China. The majority of newspapers, he said, aimed not at serving the public, but at catering to the special interests of the rich and powerful. Cheng charged that newspapers had become "nothing more than charts of official promotion, records of the daily life of the famous, and entertainment features about the wealthy."^[107] And he devoted his whole life to trying to correct this tendency.

Cheng was born in Nanjing in 1898. Like many young patriotic Chinese in the early years of the Republic, he was captivated by the ideals of a republican form of government, taking part in the second revolution against Yuan Shikai's restoration of monarchy. Inspired by the rising influence of the press, Cheng began to think seriously about becoming a journalist when he was a student at National Beijing University in 1918. He paid for his education by working as an editor for Tianjin's Yishi bao. In 1924, he founded his first paper, World Evening News (Shijie wanbao) in Beijing. But it was not until he launched the highly successful World Daily News the following year in the same

city that he won national prominence. In 1927 he inaugurated the equally successful newspaper People's Livelihood News (Minsheng bao) in Nanjing. His critical and uncompromising stance often incurred the wrath of both warlords and GMD leaders (such as Wang Jingwei); indeed, he was jailed several times.^[108] Yet he felt strongly that China needed an independent, mass-oriented press, and these ideas exerted a lasting influence on the history of modern Chinese journalism.

A man committed to modernization, Cheng Shewo saw the potential of the press for bringing about public enlightenment and fostering social reforms. But they would be useless unless they could be purchased and read by the general public. Besides condemning urban newspapers for emphasizing sensationalism and rumors at the expense of serious reportage, Cheng argued that their high price prohibited them from reaching a wider readership. An average Shanghai daily newspaper, for example, was priced at 3 to 4 fen, which amounted to more than 1 yuan per month; yet an average worker's daily wage was only about 30 to 60 fen. This was far more expensive, relatively speaking, than in England, for instance, where newspapers generally cost one penny apiece, or only about one-hundredth of a worker's daily income.^[109] Because of a shortage of advertising revenues, papers had to raise prices to cover the cost of publication. The high price also covered the cost of newsprint, almost all of which was imported (mainly from Canada and the United States) and therefore quite expensive.^[110] In any event, Cheng thought, Chinese newspapers wasted newsprint by printing far more pages than necessary. The "principle of economical editing" (jingbian zhuyi) was what Chinese newspapers needed.^[111] An ideal paper, he suggested, would be in tabloid size, sell at a reduced price, and reach as many people as possible.

But how could a newspaper be truly mass-oriented? Cheng was not naive; he realized that money played an important role in determining the fate of a newspaper. Nevertheless, he argued that the ownership of a newspaper should not be placed in the hands of "a few selfish capitalists." Rather, it should be in the hands of those who actually put the newspaper together, including the publisher, editors, and typesetters.^[112] Cheng, of course, was not a socialist. What he had in mind was simply an "affordable newspaper" (pingjia bao) with a focus "directed toward the people"^[113] —in brief, a people's paper rather than a commercialized, elite press.

Cheng realized his dream by founding Stand-up Journal (Li bao) in Shanghai in 1935.^[114]Stand-up Journal was a tabloid (xiaoxing bao), smaller than a regular newspaper (in quarto format rather than folio)

and priced at only 1 fen. More important, it was distinctly different in character from Shanghai's entertainment-oriented "mosquito papers" such as Crystal and Diamond, which featured popular fiction, sensational news, and scandalous gossip.^[115] Under the slogans of "popularization of the press" and "fair-mindedness," Stand-up Journal printed concise hard news using simple language in a fresh new layout. It also created a few highly acclaimed columns, including "Little Teahouse," edited by Sa Kongliao (1907–1988), which contained articles about, in Sa's words, the "blood and sweat" of the workers.^[116] The result was a spectacular success: Stand-up Journal soon rivaled the two largest Shanghai newspapers, Shen bao and Xinwen bao, in popularity, and its circulation quickly soared, reaching an unprecedented 200,000 on the eve of the Sino-Japanese War.

Cheng Shewo, naturally, was not alone in recognizing the importance of a more popularized press geared to the majority of the people rather than to a tiny few.^[117] Zou Taofen was perhaps equally vocal on the subject. Born in Fujian, Zou studied English at St. John's University in Shanghai. He became a well-known name in journalism when he assumed the editorship of Life Weekly (Shenghuo zhoukan) in 1926, promptly turning it from a vocational education journal into a popular forum for discussing political and social concerns. "In this publication," Zou declared, "we want to avoid the esoteric writings of the elite and utilize the plain and simple writings of the people."^[118] In addition to introducing cartoons and printing articles of interest to the readers, he created a special "Brief Discussions" column oriented toward contemporary social issues and instituted a highly popular "Letter Box" section, printing readers' letters together with his replies on a mosaic of daily concerns—marriage, family, jobs. The weekly enjoyed enormous popularity, its circulation soaring to 150,000 in 1932, a record in the history of Chinese journal publications.^[119] As time went on, Zou drew the ire of the Guomindang by becoming ever more outspoken on government corruption and the official policy of appeasement toward the Japanese. He joined the China League for the Protection of Civil Rights in 1933. Predictably, the GMD put pressure on the magazine and finally ordered it to close in December 1933.

Like Cheng Shewo, Zou's main concern was how to reach a wide audience through publications catering to the interests of the majority. His principles were straightforward: Zou insisted that the issues addressed relate to the masses, that ideas be kept simple, and that the language be direct and easy to understand. After Life Weekly was forced to shut down, he continued to publish highly popular maga-

zines according to these principles. In November 1935 he started Life of the Masses (Dazhong shenghuo) in Shanghai, whose circulation soon surpassed even that of its predecessor, reaching a new record of 200,000 (it was banned by the government the following year);^[120] and in June 1936 he launched Life Daily (Shenghuo ribao) in Hong Kong, for which he wrote: "I hope my 450 million compatriots will look at this daily as a public property."^[121] The theme of serving the interests of the general public was familiar, but, told with sincerity and zest by Zou, it continued to draw readers. All three of Zou Taofen's major publications bore the word life, which to him meant the daily tribulations of the common people. Unlike Cheng, Zou was sympathetic to the socialist cause. He moved even more to the left in his final years, especially after visiting the Communist-held areas of northern Jiangsu in late 1942. On his deathbed he expressed his wish to join the CCP; it was granted by the Communists two months after his death in July 1944.

The eruption of war lent new meaning and urgency to the idea of "popularization of the press." But how could journalists spread patriotic values among a largely illiterate population? What kind of information should newspapers transmit? What kind of language was most appropriate?

Like dramatists, wartime journalists were concerned not only with the idea of "popularization," but also with how it might be achieved. Transportation was a major problem, to be sure, but illiteracy was an even bigger one, and at the time no one knew how to tackle either. Xie Liuyi nevertheless believed that journalists had certain options for making newspapers more accessible to their readers. For one thing, he proposed that the number of written characters used in newspaper articles be limited, which also meant that journalists should avoid using difficult words. In the case of local correspondence, reporters should make the widest possible use of dialects.^[122] These proposals, however, were problematic. How many characters were appropriate for a newspaper? What were the drawbacks of using dialects in an article? Without disputing Xie's views, the leftist journalist Liu Shi (1903–1968) proposed a more realistic approach. To enhance a paper's readability, Liu recommended the inclusion of popular songs: ballads such as "Anti-Japanese Mountain Songs" ("Kang-Ri shan'ge"), extremely popular in Hunan, Hubei, and Shanxi, and pieces like "Along the Songhua River" ("Songhuajiang shang") and "Ballad of the Great Wall" ("Changcheng yao"), which were winning hearts and minds all over China.^[123] Moreover, writings could be more easily

digested if illustrations accompanied them. The combination of cartoons, pictures, and simple essays was put to good use by Zou Taofen in his wartime magazines, especially War of Resistance (Kangzhan) and its successor, United Resistance (Quanmin kangzhan). The down-to-earth approach and striking graphic covers gave the magazines a special appeal.

Another notable name in the popularization of journalism was Li Furen (1899–1958). Li, a Communist since October 1937 but working under the guise of the Democratic League,^[124] was educated in Japan and was a great lover of Chinese folk songs and proverbs. In November 1937, as a teacher at the Xi'an Normal School, he launched a successful and influential weekly, The Common Folk (Laobaixing). The contents and candid language made the publication unique. Like Zou's magazines, The Common Folk proposed all-out resistance to the Japanese invasion. But unlike Zou's, it catered to the rural population in the interior and touched on a variety of rural subjects: planting, sanitation, epidemic prevention. Its language was plain and sometimes inelegant, to the point of including common profanity. Li Furen made no bones about his anti-Japanese stand, nor did he intend to polish his language. Since common people themselves used unrefined expressions, he pointed out, any embellishment or refining would distort the real picture, rendering it hypocritical and unnatural. "He uses people's language to talk about their ups and downs," one of his friends said about him.^[125]

Li Furen's style was unorthodox and imaginative. He did not shy away from controversial subjects, and his skillful use of folk songs and proverbs gave his ideas a natural forcefulness. The circulation of The Common Folk climbed to ten thousand by its first anniversary in 1938, with copies reaching as far as Xinjiang province.^[126] As a Communist, Li Furen was of course critical of the Nationalist government. Like Zou Taofen, he attacked the corruption and weakness in Chongqing, and he supported the GMD-CCP alliance against the Japanese. And like Zou Taofen's magazines, The Common Folk drew the suspicion of the Guomindang and was ordered to close down in April 1940.

Li Furen apparently found the right formula for a magazine acceptable to commoners, and The Common Folk proved a success. But how influential was it? In May 1938, one of Xi'an's newspaper reported: "The Common Folk enjoyed great popularity here. Although the majority of the peasants cannot read, they pay special attention to the weekly. They enjoy the weekly when others read it to them. Therefore,

as soon as the paper is out, they snatch it up."^[127] Li Furen's diary entry for 31 March 1938 noted: "Today there are more subscribers. It's a good feeling."^[128] Based originally at Xi'an Normal School, the paper had another advantage over other periodicals: students, after they graduated from the school and went on to serve as teachers in various parts of the province, could spread the journal to villages far removed from Xi'an. This kind of person-to-person connection was important in rural China, where the communication process was intimately related to personal ties. However, although one source claims that in its two and a half years of existence The Common Folk had subscriptions surpassing ten thousand, and, with a total of 113 issues, over a million copies were printed,^[129] its influence was still very much restricted to the northwestern corner of China, especially Shaanxi.

While popularization of the press made some strides before the war, in reality it remained largely a theoretical ideal. Despite their enthusiasm for establishing a closer link between the cities and the interior, Cheng Shewo's and Zou Taofen's publications stayed in cities like Shanghai and Nanjing and were aimed largely at urbanites rather than rural people. Although it is impossible to know just where the readers of the Stand-up Journal lived, there is no reason to believe that this successful paper had a distribution far beyond metropolitan Shanghai.

Dramatic change came only after the eruption of the war. Fleeing from Japanese occupation, journalists headed for the interior, taking their newspapers with them. The Japanese step-by-step advance forced newspapers to move from place to place. The famous Tianjin-based Dagong bao is a case in point. In 1936, when the Japanese military presence in north China became too strong to ignore, Zhang Jiluan and Hu Zhengzhi, the guiding spirits of the Dagong bao, decided to divert parts of their investment to south China. The Dagong bao Shanghai edition made its debut on 1 April 1936, and the paper's main office in Tianjin was closed down when the Japanese army occupied the city in early August 1937. A week later, Shanghai's stability was again threatened when Japanese forces opened their southern front. Undaunted, Zhang and Hu launched a Hankou edition of Dagong bao on 18 September 1937. Subsequently, a Hong Kong (13 August 1938), a Chongqing (1 December 1938), and a Guilin (3 March 1941) edition were published successively as Japanese troops flooded into China proper, forcing the GMD government to withdraw into Sichuan.

The nomadic moves of the Dagong bao give an idea not only of the uncertain footing on which the press rested, but also of the enormous personal danger that journalists faced. Those who stayed in the

Japanese-occupied areas lived a life of fear. Even those who remained in the so-called Orphan Island (Gudao) in Shanghai, where newspapers registered under foreigners' names in the concession areas were free of direct enemy control for several years, could expect to be harassed by Japanese soldiers, and subsequently by Wang Jingwei's secret agents. Many journalists were murdered in broad daylight, their bodies tossed onto the streets, for publishing articles critical of the occupation force and Wang's puppet government.^[130] As a result, it was not uncommon for journalists to flee to the interior, and there the idea of dispersion of the press was put into practice, by choice or not, thus changing the course of the Chinese press.

Local Newspapers

The distribution of newspapers to the interior provinces was only part of the pressing problem of wartime journalism. As the hinterland became the bastion of China's resistance, an equally urgent issue began to draw attention: how to develop local newspapers (difang baozhi) to further the national cause. In "'Paper Bullets' Can Also Annihilate the Enemy," Cheng Shewo proposed that a small local paper—which he called a "people's edition"—be set up in every county not yet under Japanese occupation.^[131] The value of the local press during the war was quite apparent to journalists. In a country where regionalism prevailed and the lack of communication channels often thwarted national campaign efforts, promoting local newspapers seemed the only viable course of action. But to wartime journalists, the local press was more than a mere vehicle of communication; it was also a window onto the outside world, a forum for contemporary politics and society, and a tool to break regional barriers. In other words, it was crucial to national unity. Feng Yingzi (1915-), a member of the Chinese Young Journalists Society and an enthusiastic advocate of local newspapers, argued that China's size and the backwardness of the transportation system, together with urban papers' sophisticated language and high price, rendered such publications ineffective in advancing local reforms and mobilizing the people in the interior. A local paper, by contrast, printed hometown news with a sensitive touch and conveyed a sense of intimacy to the readership. It had few distribution problems because it was printed locally, and it cost less. Because it worked within customary linkages and organizations, Feng noted, the local paper wielded enormous influence in the immediate area.^[132]

But local newspapers should be careful lest they succumb to parochialism, warned Liu Shi. He argued that for a local press to be

effective, its editors had to have a broad vision. They must encourage their readers to extend their imaginations beyond their own communities, helping them to gain a bigger picture of the world. The resistance movement demanded a large degree of national awareness; regional self-interest was not the goal. In Liu Shi's eyes, therefore, the local press should act as a vital link between local people and the central government.^[133] As another commentator put it, it should "function like a postman," forming an information bridge between the outside world and the interior.^[134]

Fan Changjiang went a step further in elaborating the importance of the local press. Not only were local newspapers an important means of communication, he said; they were also a key vehicle in fostering social and political change. As a journalist, Fan believed that the local press had a greater social impact than other media because it was a better and more regular news channel. And its role kept growing as China concentrated its resources in the interior in the battle against the Japanese. In an article entitled "The Movement to Unite Journalism and Journalists in the New Era" published in 1939, Fan contended that the vast majority of China's human and natural resources lay not in the coastal cities, but in the countryside. If these resources were to be fully developed, he continued, effective means must be found—and what better way than by using local presses? Like Hong Shen, Fan criticized the overconcentration of newspapers in urban areas. However, the breakdown of local power and traditional norms during the war, he noted, offered new opportunities and hope for journalists to address the imbalance in newspaper distribution. Newspapers should no longer be concentrated in major cities; instead they should be spread to "the counties and villages in the vast interior."^[135]

Fan made an appeal to the high officials in Guangxi during a trip to this southwestern province in April 1939. "Guangxi today is a resistance stronghold in South China. Strengthening Guangxi's local newspaper network would not only benefit this particular province, but also set a good leadership example for other southern provinces to follow." Then, even though parts of Guangxi might fall into enemy hands in the future, "we still can form a powerful link with the Guangxi people based on this previously established network." The more regional newspapers there were, the better future national reconstruction would be, he said. "Once this cornerstone is solidly laid, it will become a potent tool for promoting popular culture after Japan is defeated."^[136]

But how should journalists proceed with the task? Fan proposed an

ambitious plan: the entire province could be subdivided into many microregions, each with a local newspaper (to be supported by local funds) under the supervision of the Guilin-based and government-funded Guangxi Daily (Guangxi ribao), the largest newspaper in the province. Because of the acute shortage of newsprint and modern printing presses, editors could substitute handmade paper (tuzhi) and rely on mimeograph machines. As far as staff was concerned, a number of young journalists could first be trained in a central training program. Each graduate would in turn train a new group of local reporters when he or she was sent down to the county or village to work. News sources could come partly from radio and partly from the Guangxi Daily, which would gather, analyze, and then distribute national and international news to local branches. Local news could then be added, to produce a finished, readable product.^[137] Underlying Fan's proposal was a genuine professional desire to bring newspapers to the grass roots. The notion resonated in many corners of the journalistic field. An article in the influential Reporter, for example, urged correspondents to "go to the countryside" in order to establish a "rural communication network."^[138] Fan's local newspaper scheme was in fact one of the most comprehensive projects advocated by any journalist during the war, and it fell on receptive ears: top-level Guangxi officials responded with enthusiasm. In October, Governor Huang Xuchu (1892–1975) initiated a series of concrete plans to develop local newspapers in his province, which yielded considerable results.^[139]

Activities in the rest of interior China were equally impressive. True, the war had either ruined or bankrupted more than six hundred newspapers in its first year and destroyed newspaper communication in the coastal cities.^[140] In the interior, however, the newspaper industry managed to survive and even flourish. The arrival of many journalists in the hinterland, including such influential men as Fan Changjiang, Zhang Jiluan, and Cheng Shewo, contributed to a remarkable period of vitality and growth. Also important was the multiplication of a single newspaper into many—"breaking the whole into parts" (hua zheng wei ling), as one scholar later described it.^[141] The Tianjin-based Dagong bao, which proliferated into Shanghai, Hankou, Hong Kong, Chongqing, and Guilin editions, was but one of many such examples. The GMD's military paper, Mopping Up News (Saodang bao), originally based in Hankou, was soon appearing in Chongqing and Guilin editions. Similarly, the Central Daily (Zhongyang ribao), the GMD's party paper, multiplied into Chongqing, Kunming, Guiyang, and Hunan editions; subsequently more than thirty editions

were printed. Even the Communist New China Daily, after moving from Hankou to Chongqing, appeared in two additional editions: North China (Huabei) and Guilin.^[142]

The tabloid presses flourished during the war as well, appearing in various forms: as local newspapers, the frontline press, and occupied-area news. In Zhejiang, for example, although at the outbreak of the war 28 newspapers were closed down, two years later over 185 papers had emerged, two-thirds of them mimeographed tabloids. In Shanxi, 11 newspapers were destroyed in 1937, but close to 100 tabloid papers had emerged in the same province by 1939.^[143] Even in provinces as far removed as Guizhou and Yunnan, the number of newspapers increased: from 6 and 10 in prewar years to 14 and 22 respectively for these two provinces.^[144] Moreover, whereas in the past most newspapers were located in urban centers, now they could be found all over the country. Jiangxi's newspapers, for example, had been clustered in Nanchang, its provincial capital, before the war, but after 1937 they spread to places like Ji'an, Taihe, and Suichuan.^[145]

The rise and diffusion of local newspapers in China's hinterland during the war must be analyzed with caution, however. Local presses differed from their urban counterparts not only in location, but also in size and production. The shortage of newsprint and modern printing presses meant that a large proportion of local newspapers were tabloids. They were smaller in size (usually a single sheet as against four sheets in a prewar urban paper, and the smaller quarto format as against the folio), mimeographed in form, and limited in circulation (fewer than three thousand copies).^[146] Although newspaper publishers were encouraged to seek local funding, the insolvency of the rural economy due to war and heavy taxation made extra money unavailable. Insufficient government funding further complicated the issue.^[147] To save newsprint, publications might be reduced from daily to semiweekly or even weekly. Their quality was uneven. Regular correspondents, if any, were poorly trained. And the news was often hopelessly out of date and monotonous, gleaned largely from the government-controlled Central News Agency.^[148] The absence of an efficient distribution system and a high rural illiteracy rate further obstructed the flow of information. Furthermore, the government's attitude was frequently ambiguous. While GMD officials proposed dispersion of the press to minimize the impact of enemy attacks and endorsed the idea of launching more newspapers to spread the resistance cause,^[149] they also feared that the Communists might initiate their own newspapers to spread socialism and undermine the government's authority.^[150]

Continued rivalry between the Guomindang and regional military powers also cast doubt on the government's sincerity in wishing to promote local presses in such provinces as Guangxi, which was under the control of General Li Zongren and General Bai Chongxi (1893–1966). The fierce competition for readership between the GMD-controlled Central Daily and the Guangxi faction's Guangxi Daily was a well-known story in the war.^[151]

Despite numerous impediments, local newspapers did thrive in China's hinterland. But did they actually reach the grass roots? How influential were they really? We should not forget that Chongqing, the wartime capital, was the de facto center of journalism during this period. By 1939, most of the major prewar national newspapers had relocated to that city, among them Dagong bao and the Central Daily. At one time, twenty-two newspapers and twelve news agencies clustered in the capital.^[152] Nevertheless, the printed media flourished in provincial cities and towns as well. Not only major inland cities such as Chengdu (Sichuan) and Hengyang (Hunan), but also medium-size towns like Dushan (Guizhou) and Yongchun (Fujian) experienced a journalistic boom.^[153] Nor was the circulation of local newspapers confined to cities and towns: it reached down to the villages as well, though just what impact these publications had is difficult to assess. Many, apparently, were brought by young activists who read aloud to the illiterate peasants.^[154] The quality of these local newspapers was no doubt uneven; still, it is hard not to be impressed by the extent of this local journalistic activity and the sincere effort that so many made to reach the rural masses.

The dispersal of the Chinese press and the exodus of journalists into the interior underlined the shift of cultural activity from the urban toward the rural. This change would have a profound impact both during and after the war. Wartime journalists such as Fan Changjiang and Cheng Shewo repeatedly argued that the clustering of newspapers in major cities like Shanghai and Beijing could severely impede social advancement, breeding mutual mistrust and animosity between urbanites and villagers and furthering cultural and social imbalance—all detrimental to China as a united country. Their appeal to focus on the interior no doubt reflected an interest in the press as a resistance tool; but it also showed journalists' intent to use it as an instrument of national integration. The general assumption among reporters was that a heightened flow of information would lessen regional division and bring the country together, transforming discrete voices into collective action. In the eyes of Fan Changjiang and Liu Shi, the press was

also an ideal agent of social change. Newspapers could introduce new knowledge, break down class barriers, and encourage literacy. Such views, of course, represented the hopeful aspirations of young journalists. These aspirations inevitably collided with the harsh realities of the war.

The thriving of local newspapers during the war did, however, raise hopes that China might one day come together. Even with irregular quality and limited circulation, more and more local newspapers were launched. Many journalists observed this change with excitement and anticipation. In 1941, Fan Changjiang described his feelings:

[In the past three years] while urban newspapers fell behind, interior newspapers advanced with great strides. Formerly, people living in Shijiazhuang and Baoding considered only Beiping and Tianjin newspapers worth reading. Shanghai newspapers gained a respectable market in Nanjing. And if people in Guangzhou and Wuzhou missed reading Hong Kong newspapers, they would think that they had lost touch with current political reality. All these cases apparently stemmed from the fact that as far as information sources, reporters' abilities, business profits, printing facilities, transportation systems, and sources of newsprint are concerned, urban newspapers were in a far superior position [than papers in the interior]. But what about now? … Interior newspapers have made great advances. This is no doubt crucial for mobilizing every Chinese citizen…. It [also] indicates that the cultural level in the interior has been substantially raised…. These interior newspapers will no doubt be an important component in China's future journalism.^[155]