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China Publishing
Background
Publishing in China dates from the invention of woodblock
printing around the eighth century A.D. and was greatly expanded
with the invention of movable clay type in the eleventh century.
From the tenth to the twelfth century, Kaifeng, Meishan, Hangzhou,
and Jianyang were major printing centers. In the nineteenth
century, China acquired movable lead type and photogravure printing
plates and entered the age of modern book and magazine printing.
The largest of the early publishing houses were the Commercial
Press (Shangwu Yinshuguan), established in 1897, and the China
Publishing House (Zhonghua Shuju), established in 1912, both of
which were still operating in 1987. Following the May Fourth
Movement of 1919, publishers, especially those associated with
various groups of intellectuals, proliferated. During the Chinese
civil war, New China Booksellers (Xinhua Shudian) published a large
amount of Marxist literature and educational materials in the
communist-controlled areas. On the eve of the establishment of the
People's Republic in 1949, there were over 700 New China
Booksellers offices.
Between 1949 and 1952, the New China Booksellers offices
scattered throughout the country were nationalized and given
responsibility publishing, printing, and distribution. Also,
several small private publishers were brought under joint stateprivate ownership, and by 1956 all private publishers had been
nationalized. After a brief flourishing during the Hundred Flowers
Campaign of 1956-57, the publishing industry came under strong
political pressure in the Anti-Rightist Campaign of 1957
(see The Transition to Socialism, 1953-57
, ch. 1). The industry had not
fully recovered from this campaign when it was plunged into the
Cultural Revolution, a period in which publishing was severely
curtailed and limited mainly to political tracts supporting various
campaigns. Following the Cultural Revolution, publishing again
flourished in unprecedented ways. In 1982 the China National
Publishing Administration, the umbrella organization of Chinese
publishers, was placed under the Ministry of Culture, but actual
management of the industry was directed through four systems of
administration: direct state administration; administration by
committees or organizations of the State Council or the party
Central Committee; armed forces administration; and administration
by provinces, autonomous regions, or special municipalities.
In 1984 statistics showed that 17 of the country's 418
publishing establishments were in Shanghai, whereas Beijing was
home to 160 publishers. In 1985 plans were announced to foster the
growth of the publishing industry in Chongqing, Xi'an, Wuhan, and
Shenyang to take some of the workload from Beijing and Shanghai.
Different publishers were assigned to specific kinds of
publications. For example, the People's Publishing House was
responsible for publishing works on politics, philosophy, and the
social sciences; the People's Literature Publishing House produced
ancient and modern Chinese and foreign literature and literary
history and theory; the China Publishing House had the principal
responsibility for collating and publishing Chinese classical
literary, historical, and philosophical works; and the Commercial
Press was the principal publisher of Chinese-to-foreign-language
reference works and translations of foreign works in the social
sciences. Other publishers dealt with works in specialized fields
of science.
In addition to the routine method of distributing books to
bookstores in major cities, other methods of distribution were
devised to meet the special needs of readers in urban and rural
areas throughout the country. Mobile bookshops made regular visits
to factories, mines, rural villages, and People's Liberation Army
units, and service was provided in those locations through which
individuals could request books. Arrangements were made with the
libraries of educational institutions and enterprises to supply
them with the books that they required, and books specifically
applicable to certain industries were systematically recommended
and provided to the departments concerned. Also, book fairs and
exhibits frequently were provided at meetings and in public parks
on holidays and other special occasions.
Data as of July 1987
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