No, not the Xinhua News Agency. The Xinhua Daily. And those demands were made rather a long time ago. The paper was launched in 1938 as the mouthpiece of the Communist Party in KMT-controlled regions. (In Communist-controlled territory, the main official paper was the Liberation Daily.) After the defeat of the KMT, the Xinhua Daily became the official party newspaper of Jiangsu province. Sunday will be its 71st anniversary.
So what about those demands for democracy and human rights, not to mention universal suffrage, general elections and freedom of speech? These were the subject of many editorials in the Xinhua Daily before 1949. Since all of these things were put into practice after 1949, there was no need for the Xinhua Daily to continue calling for them.
Below is a collection of headlines from the paper during those early years, arranged by number of characters in a blog post by Wang Xiaofeng:
Running for election
Safeguard human rights
On the right to have elections
Democracy first
The spirit of democracy
Democracy and honesty
Strength and democracy
Democracy and the state of the nation
The true meaning of democracy
China needs change
Risk death for democracy
Law and human rights
On academic freedom
Democracy is not an empty slogan
Engineers and democracy
The sword of democracy
No one has monopoly rights on freedom
The sharp blade of democracy
Commemorating Mr. Jefferson
A true democratic warrior
Freedom of speech and democracy
A new theory of democracy and freedom
All honor lies in democracy
Only that which is democratic is legitimate
On the spirit of British and US democracy
US education and democracy
Earnestly protect the people’s rights
Democracy is all that China demands
A day that stands for democracy and freedom
Schools must be a fortress of democracy
China needs a real general election
Innate human rights cannot be violated
The first step in safeguarding personal freedom
Implementing freedom of association
One party dictatorship is a disaster everywhere!
The party cannot give orders to the government
Democracy is the essence of life
Without democracy, everything is mere window-dressing
On the issue of academic freedom of thought
Problems can only be resolved through real democracy
Democracy is the greenhouse for developing production
Does freedom depend on the conditions of the time?
China and the US are natural allies
Only with personal freedom can there be national freedom
The struggle for democracy is everyone’s business
The Chinese students who strive for freedom and liberation
Freedom of the press is the foundation of democracy
Political democracy and economic democracy cannot be separated
Only when one-party rule is ended can democracy be possible
Who is making it impossible to stabilize China? The government dictatorship!
We believe in democracy and we’re practicing it
Personal freedom of the common people is the gauge of political democracy
Freedom of expression: the source of vitality of the press
Only when the people have the right to speak can the country be a true republic
In praise of democracy — dedicated to America’s Independence Day
Commemorate May 4th, struggle for democratic freedom
Newspapers must get rid of the dictators who don’t allow the people to speak
Are democratic elections impossible when people’s education level is low?
The main task of the student movement is to struggle for democracy
The right path for democracy: unconditionally return government to the people
The publications law should guarantee the freedom of non-government publishers
American Independence Day — a day dedicated to the great struggle for freedom and democracy
Only when the people can supervise the government will the government not dare to slack off
Let the people think! The greatest threat to democracy is your indifference
The Chinese student movement will not stop until democracy is achieved
We’re not afraid of democratic America’s influence, we welcome it
Art and literature must strive for democracy, only with democracy can creative freedom be guaranteed
Every US soldier in China should be a living advertisement for democracy
China’s shortcoming is its lack of democracy, it should practice democracy in all fields
A political party is not an organ of power, it cannot put itself above the masses and the government
You cannot refuse democracy because the level of the nation’s people is low, use democratic politics to teach the people and raise the level of the people
These headlines were presumably selected from the contents page (see Page 2 of this post) of the 1999 book “Heralds of History - Solemn Promises Over Half a Century Ago.” In order to safeguard democracy, the book was banned. However, almost all the articles can be found online. I haven’t got a copy of the book, but I suspect one or two of the above quotes are actually from other party publications from the 1940s and not the Xinhua Daily.
BLACK AND WHITE CAT
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