A Study Of The Qing Dynasty Newspaper Regulations

In late Qing Dynasty, modern western legal thoughts on news, after spreading into China, were accepted and promulgated by Chinese liberal intellectuals, on the basis of which a new Chinese press and publication theory was gradually formed. With a view to striving for freedom of the press and protecting press and publication industry, Chinese liberal intellectuals appealed to Qing government for the early promulgation of newspaper regulations. After "Reform Movement", two climax of running newspapers were reached in China, which laid a material foundation for the promulgation of newspaper regulations. At the same time, the rapid development of China’s press industry placed Qing government’s rule in imminent peril. Therefore, in order to maintain its feudal rule, the late Qing government gradually began to learn from the West and put on high agenda the formulation of newspaper regulations.The Qing Dynasty Newspaper Regulations enacted under the influence of modern legal thoughts on news has met the legal requirements of modern news. It defines the qualifications that a founder should possess to run the press and stipulates in great detail the methods of censorship and how to manage publishing staff and deal with reporting inaccuracy with respect to press management; it also provides for dos and don’ts with explicit indication of what is accessible to publication. In addition, corresponding provisions are also made regarding the protection of privacy and copyright in The Qing Dynasty Newspaper Regulations.By combining the main content of The Qing Dynasty Newspaper Regulations and laws and regulations of news promulgated in the past by Qing government, we can see that The Qing Dynasty Newspaper Regulations has some special features. Firstly, be it in publishing management, in what is politically prohibited from publishing or in punishment, the provisions made in The Qing Dynasty Newspaper Regulations are relatively slack. What’s more, it has build up a well-structured punishment system with priorities given in right order and narrowed the use of the criminal law with more emphasis placed on the civil law. On top of that, The Qing Dynasty Newspaper Regulations standardizes media behaviors from different aspects to prevent press freedom from being abused.Freedom of the press, as an important component of freedom of speech, is measured by four indicators, i.e. freedom in the press founding, press interviews, press delivery and press review. The author from the perspective of freedom of the press, comments on The Qing Dynasty Newspaper Regulations from the above-mentioned four indicators. It has been concluded that The Qing Dynasty Newspaper Regulations defines qualifications and related procedures needed for press founding, providing laws to abide by for whoever founds the press; it encourages and supports the news gathering and writing by reporters in accordance with other provisions of newspaper regulations; it expressly stipulates the preferential policies on postage one is entitled to provided that the press publishing could be done according to law; it doesn’t diminish press freedom although a lot of restrictions, being reasonable, has been made with respect to press review.