Legal Protection Of Freedom Of The Press From The Late Qing Dynasty To The Period Of Nanjing National Government

Freedom of the press is written as a basic human right in the constitution, and is always animportant democratic right that is protected by laws and carried out through the constitution andrelative press laws and rules in democratic countries. In contemporary China, with the rapiddevelopment of press, it becomes more and more necessary to protect the freedom of the pressthrough legislation. But now in China the protection of freedom of the press is only shown in theconstitution in the form of freedom of speech, but not through legislation on freedom of the press. TheChinese government is paying much attention to the importance of press laws and is now draftingsuch laws. This thesis, based on the research of the laws protecting freedom of the press from the lastyears of the Qing Dynasty to the period of Nanjing National Government and relative historical data,from the perspective of the development of the relationship between law and freedom, analyzes thespecific situations of the protection of freedom of the press in this period of time, in the hope that itcan provide beneficial ideas for the future legislation on freedom of the press in our country.This thesis is divided into six parts. The first part mainly presents the basic concepts of thefreedom of the press, from the constitutional perspective introduces the relationship between freedomand law, especially the relationship between freedom of the press and law, and based on theseanalyzes the protection of freedom of the press by laws in various periods. The second part presentsthe law system protecting the freedom of the press in the last years of the Qing Dynasty with briefcomments and analysis. The third part puts forth the laws protecting the freedom of the press in theperiod of the Interim Government of the Republic of China with brief comments and analysis. Thefourth part presents the laws protecting the freedom of the press in the period of Northern WarlordsGovernment of China with brief comments and analysis. The fifth part introduces in detail the lawsprotecting the freedom of the press in the period of Nanjing National Government with briefcomments and analysis. The last part, based on the above content, the comparative analysis of thelegislation on the press of China and the western countries, and the historical reference of theprotection of freedom of the press from the last years of the Qing Dynasty to the period of NanjingNational Government, presents some suggestions of the author on China’s future legislation onfreedom of the press in the hope that this study can offer some help to Chinese legislators of presslaws.