Shanghai Evening Post & Mercury

Last updated
The Shanghai Evening Post and Mercury
Shanghai Evening Post and Mercury 1938-09-27.jpg
Frontpage of The Shanghai Evening Post and Mercury (September 27, 1938)
TypeDaily newspaper
Format Broadsheet
Owner(s)Post-Mercury Co.
Founder(s) Carl Crow
Founded1929
Ceased publication1949

The Shanghai Evening Post & Mercury was an English language newspaper in Shanghai, China, published by the Post-Mercury Co. The newspaper represented the point of view of Shanghai's American business community. [1] The newspaper offices were located across from the Shanghai International Settlement. Life reported that the magazine was "old and respected". [2] Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, author of Patterns in the Dust: Chinese-American Relations and the Recognition Controversy, 1949-1950, said that the newspaper was "conservative". [1] The paper had a Chinese edition, Ta Mei Wan Pao [2] (simplified Chinese :大美晩报; traditional Chinese :大美晩報; pinyin :Dàměi Wǎnbào [3] ). The newspaper was American-owned, [2] and had been founded by Carl Crow. Randall Chase Gould was the editor. [4] Cornelius Vander Starr was the owner. Until his July 1940 death, Samuel H. Chang was the director of the Post and Ta Mei Wan Pao. [2]

Contents

History

American expatriates established the English version of the newspaper in 1929. [5] Carl Crow, a newspaper businessperson, was the founder. He edited the newspaper for a period, before selecting Randall Gould, a longtime acquaintance, as an editor; Gould began work for the paper in 1931 and remained with the paper until its end in 1949. Paul French, author of Carl Crow, a Tough Old China Hand: The Life, Times, and Adventures of an American in Shanghai, said that the paper, from the beginning was "strongly pro-Chinese though it looked thoroughly American" and had U.S. content. [4] The Chinese edition, Ta Mei Wan Pao, began publication in 1933. [5] Crow worked for the newspaper for a period and left, with Cornelius V. Starr replacing him as the manager of the paper. Starr believed that Crow was not a good choice for a longer term manager but had been a good choice as the founder of the newspaper. [6] Maochun Yu, the author of The Dragon's War: Allied Operations And the Fate of China, 1937-1947, said that the English version "grew into a respectable and influential newspaper in China" and that the Chinese version was very successful. [5] French said that the paper would "become one of the major sources of news on the fluctuations in the Chinese Republic" while it occupied a "heady and competitive atmosphere". [6]

During World War II

French said that the paper "continued to be a major evening paper in Shanghai through to the 1940s." [4] In 1937, after invading Shanghai, the Japanese authorities attempted to close down Ta Mei Wan Pao but were unable to do so because it was American-owned. The Japanese continued to allow the production of the English and Chinese versions. [5] Ralph Shaw, a former British soldier and an employee of the North China Daily News , a competing newspaper, said that it was "a large-circulation evening newspaper" which had an "outspokenly anti-Japanese" editor and publisher, Gould. [4] In 1938 journalist Robin Hyde wrote to Woman To-day stating that the offices of the Post had been bombed on two occasions; she said that the Japanese had used bombings of newspaper offices as a method of "newspaper terrorism". [7] In July 1940 the Japanese authorities in Shanghai killed Samuel H. Chang and ordered Starr and Gould to leave China. Starr remained for four additional months before leaving China, with plans to return. Gould remained in China, defying the Japanese order. [2] On December 8, 1941, the Japanese authorities moved into the foreign settlements and forced the English and Chinese papers to close. At that time the Ta Mei Wan Pao had a circulation of 40,000. [5]

In December 1942 Starr asked the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) to use his newspaper as a form of conducting morale operations against the Japanese and as intelligence gathering. The OSS accepted Starr's offer on January 1, 1943, and, as a way of gathering intelligence, established a new New York City edition of the newspaper. Gould resumed publication from Chongqing on October 31, 1943, and resumed in Shanghai in August 1945 after the Japanese surrender. [8] The OSS had spent $350,000 ($6.1 million in today's currency) on the editions by July 1944, 18 months after the start of the New York edition. New York and Chongqing editions remained as intelligence projects until the end of World War II. By that month the paper had composed 1,500 papers on various intelligence reports and analysis and an edited information catalog of over 5,000 people of various backgrounds. [5] Yu said that a senior intelligence officer of the OSS explained "Newspapermen everywhere are expected to stick their noses into everybody's business" and therefore their targets do not grow suspicious of their curiosity, so a newspaper business would be "automatically almost indestructible cover for the collection of information." [5]

During the Chinese Communist Party takeover

In 1949, Gould voiced support for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) because he had grown tired of Kuomintang rule and believed that improvement to the situation would result from any change from the KMT status quo. Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, author of Patterns in the Dust: Chinese-American Relations and the Recognition Controversy, 1949-1950, said "If conscience prevented de jure recognition of the CCP, he argued that business affairs dictated dealing with the authorities of an ever larger part of China on a de facto basis." [1] After the CCP took power, Gould criticized certain conditions in a manner described by Tucker as "blunt". [1] In June 1949 Gould criticized CCP policies and labor strikes. In response, the printers of the newspaper halted publication and engaged in lock-ins and other disputes. Gould closed the newspaper as a response. [1] Gould said that this incident and other similar incidents "temporarily shattered the relative calm of America's commercial enclaves in China." [1]

Contents

The paper included columns from about six news syndicates, crossword puzzles, Dorothy Dix material, and Ripley's Believe It or Not . [4]

See also

Notes

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Tucker, p. 124.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 "Where U. S. newsmen block the road of Japanese ambition," p. 111.
  3. ↑ Yu, Maochun. "The Role of Media in China During World War II." (Archive) The Institute of 20th Century Media (20世紀メディア研究所), Waseda University. November 22 (year unspecified). Retrieved on November 4, 2012.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 French, p. 172
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Yu, The Dragon's War: Allied Operations And the Fate of China, 1937-1947, p. 160.
  6. 1 2 French, p. 174.
  7. ↑ Hyde, p. 363
  8. ↑ "Selected newspaper-Shanghai Evening Post and Mercury." (Archive). Retrieved on August 20, 2020.

Related Research Articles

<i>Wen Wei Po</i> Hong Kong-based Chinese language newspaper

Wen Wei Po is a pro-Beijing state-owned newspaper based in Hong Kong. The newspaper was established in Hong Kong on 9 September 1948, 10 years after the launch of its Shanghai counterpart in 1938.

<i>Ta Kung Pao</i> Chinese state newspaper

Ta Kung Pao is the oldest active Chinese-language newspaper in China. Founded in Tianjin in 1902, the paper is state-owned, controlled by the Liaison Office of the Central Government after the Chinese Civil War. It is widely regarded as a veteran pro-Beijing newspaper. In 2016, it merged with Hong Kong newspaper Wen Wei Po.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Qian Qichen</span> Chinese diplomat

Qian Qichen was a Chinese diplomat and politician. He served as Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Politburo member from 1992 to 2002, China's Foreign Minister from April 1988 to March 1998, and as Vice Premier from March 1993 to March 2003. Since then, no other diplomat-turned-politician has attained such a lofty status in China's political hierarchy. Qian played a critical role in shaping China's foreign policy during CCP general secretary Jiang Zemin's administration, and was a key player handling the return to Chinese sovereignty of Hong Kong and Macau. He was in charge of border negotiations with the Soviet Union in the 1980s, resulting in a successful settlement of the border dispute and the thawing of the relations between China and Russia. He was also instrumental in handling China's normalization of relations with the West in the difficult period after the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wan Li</span> Chinese Communist Party leader (1916–2015)

Wan Li was a Chinese Communist revolutionary and politician. During a long administrative career in the People's Republic of China, he served successively as Vice Premier, Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress (NPC), and a member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Secretariat and its Politburo. Wan joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1936 and led revolutionary and wartime resistance activities in his native Shandong province. After the founding of the communist state in 1949, Wan served in a series of government ministries, then worked as a member of the municipal leadership in Beijing. He was purged during the Cultural Revolution, but was eventually rehabilitated and returned to work as party chief of Anhui province, where he led the implementation of successful agrarian reforms centered on the household-responsibility system. In the 1980s, Wan became one of the leading moderate reformers in China's top leadership, advocating for constitutional reforms, the strengthening of legislative institutions, and the abolition of 'lifelong-terms' of top political leaders. He was named head of the national legislature in 1988. He retired in 1993.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fan Changjiang</span> Chinese journalist and writer (1909–1970)

Fan Changjiang, born Fan Xitian (范希天), was a Chinese journalist, war correspondent, and writer. One of the most famous wartime reporters during World War II, he had become well known for his reporting during the 1936 battles in Inner Mongolia and his interview with Mao Zedong in 1937. Fan was persecuted during the Cultural Revolution and committed suicide in 1970.

<i>Xinhua Daily</i> Simplified Chinese newspaper

Xinhua Daily was the first newspaper published in the People's Republic of China by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). It is owned by the Jiangsu Provincial Committee of the CCP.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cornelius Vander Starr</span> American businessman

Cornelius Vander Starr, sometimes known as Neil Starr, was an American businessman and founder of C.V. Starr & Co. in Shanghai, China, which became insurance giant AIG.

<i>Crows and Sparrows</i> 1949 Chinese film

Crows and Sparrows is a 1949 Chinese film made by the left-leaning Kunlun Studios on the eve of the Communist victory, directed by Zheng Junli and scripted by Chen Baichen. Notable for its extremely critical view of corrupt Nationalist bureaucrats, the film was made as Chiang Kai-shek's Nanjing-based government was on the verge of collapse, and was not actually finished and released until after the Chinese Civil War had ended.

Carl Crow (1884–1945) was a Highland, Missouri-born newspaperman, businessman, and writer who managed several newspapers and then opened the first Western advertising agency in Shanghai, China. He ran the agency for 19 years, creating calendar advertisements. He was also the founding editor of the Shanghai Evening Post and Mercury.

Shanghai Animation Film Studio, also known as SAFS, is a Chinese animation studio based in Shanghai, China, as part of the Shanghai Film Group Corporation. Shanghai Animation Film Studio was officially established in April 1957, led by pioneering animators and artists, including Te Wei, and the Wan Brothers. It has produced around 500 films with over 40,000 minutes of original animation data source, covering 80% of China's domestic animation production.

<i>North China Daily News</i> 1850–1951 English newspaper in Shanghai

The North China Daily News, was an English-language newspaper in Shanghai, China, called the most influential foreign newspaper of its time.

<i>Shen Bao</i> Newspaper in Shanghai, China

Shen Bao, officially transliterated as Shun Pao or Shen-pao, known in English as Shanghai News, was a newspaper published from 1872 to 1949 in Shanghai, China. The name is short for Shenjiang Xinbao, Shenjiang being a short form of Chunshen Jiang, the old name for the Huangpu River.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yang Gang (journalist)</span> Chinese journalist, novelist, and translator

Yang Gang, also known as Yang Bin (杨缤), was a Chinese journalist, novelist, and translator. She gained prominence reporting for the influential newspaper Ta Kung Pao during the Second Sino-Japanese War, and was considered one of the top four female journalists in China. After the Chinese Communist Revolution, she served as Premier Zhou Enlai's secretary and later Deputy Chief Editor of the People's Daily. She committed suicide in October 1957, after being forced to persecute her colleagues during the Anti-Rightist Campaign, although the exact reason for her suicide remains undetermined.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hu Di</span> Chinese filmmaker and Communist secret agent

Hu Di was a Chinese filmmaker and Communist secret agent during the Republic of China era. After the Kuomintang (KMT) began the Shanghai massacre in 1927, Hu worked as a mole in the Kuomintang secret service, together with Qian Zhuangfei and Li Kenong. Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai called them "the three most distinguished intelligence workers of the Party." Hu was executed in September 1935 by renegade Chinese Communist Party commander Zhang Guotao during the Long March.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hu Zhengzhi</span> Chinese newspaper publisher (1889–1949)

Hu Zhengzhi or Hu Lin was a Chinese newspaper publisher and political figure in Republican China. He is best known as the chief editor of the Ta Kung Pao from 1916 to 1923, then as its publisher until his death in 1949. He stood for an independent press and raised professional standards in journalism, but supported the Nationalist government's resistance to Japanese aggression in China, and tried to bridge the gap between the Chinese Communist and Nationalist parties after the war.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lee Tze Chung</span> Hong Kong journalist

Lee Tze Chung was a Hong Kong journalist. He was the president of pro-Beijing newspaper Wen Wei Po from 1952 to his dismissal in 1989, when he criticised the Chinese government for imposing martial law in response to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.

Wah Kiu Yat Po, or Overseas Chinese Daily News, was a Chinese-language newspaper based in Hong Kong. It was published between 1925 and 1995. It was founded by Shum Wai-yau after the Shum family took control of the company.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yu Zisan Incident</span> A cause célèbre during the Chinese Civil War

The Yu Zisan Incident, also known as Yu Tse-san Incident, was a series of political events ignited by the death of Yu Zisan, then 23-year-old chairman of the Students' Autonomous Association (SAA) at National Che Kiang University (NCKU) during the Chinese Civil War. Suspected of links with communist factions, Yu was detained on 25 October 1947 at Hangzhou Garrison Headquarters and died there five days later. The Nationalist government asserted that Yu committed suicide fearing conviction, a claim the university did not endorse. His death, widely seen as a government effort to quell student activism, sparked widespread anti-government protests across China in November and December 1947.

<i>Ta Kung Pao</i> (1902–1949) Historical editions of Ta Kung Pao, the longest running newspaper in China

Ta Kung Pao is the longest-running Chinese newspaper in China and was one of the most influential newspapers of the Republic of China on the mainland.

The Min Kuo Jih Pao, or the Republican Daily News, was a Chinese-language daily newspaper published from 1916 to 1947. It was founded in Shanghai by Chen Qimei and others on 22 January 1916, and had Ye Chucan and Shao Lizi as its chief editors. Initially, it served as the primary publication for the Chinese Revolutionary Party before transitioning to the official party newspaper of the Kuomintang (KMT). The newspaper pioneered a management model where the chief editor assumed full responsibility, breaking away from the traditional practice of newspaper operations being dominated by a managerial figure.

References

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.