The Transnational (and Subnational)

Worlds of Shanghai Newspaper Culture

Bryna Goodman (University of Oregon)

(draft prepared for the Urban Cultural Institutions in Early Twentieth Century

　China symposium; not to be cited)

This paper is, in part, a response to a question posed at another conference on Shanghai, one which explicitly posed the much debated, if somewhat wearisome, question of civil society. The question, for papers dealing with the Republican era, was, "To what extent was Shanghai civil society in this period part of a global community?"[1] Posing the civil society question this way, to me, suddenly offered a way out of the constraints of my thinking about "things public"--I'm consciously avoiding using the terms "Chinese public sphere" or "Chinese civil society"--in Shanghai. In talking about public associations and the press my tendency had been to identify them as Chinese. This locked me into both a rather static notion of Chinese culture, identity and behavior--even as I argued against such a thing-- and also averted my eye from all of the ways in which such cultural identification simply did not fit what I was seeing. My current research project involves various sites of the cultural production of new public behavior and notions of new public spaces in Shanghai in the early Republican era. Newspapers and newspaper culture are a prominent part of the story. Just a short engagement with the Shanghai newspaper world reveals how problematic the "Chinese" label is for many aspects of the Chinese language press of the city. Part of the point of this paper is to trace, in a preliminary fashion, the multiple ways in which the early Republican-era Chinese newspapers of Shanghai exceeded national labels and were transnational, in ways that need to be addressed and analyzed.

　　　　　 I should say at the outset, that my understanding of these transnational aspects of the Shanghai press is not congenial to an idea of "global community." In terms of the press, the preeminent material form of public communication in early Republican China, not only is the answer to the "global community" question unclear, but the question is not the right question. Early Republican Shanghai newspaper culture, like the city itself, was positioned internationally within a framework of semi-colonialism, and domestically within a system of political fragmentation and factional military rule. These twin features of the local and global landscape infused the organization of newspaper culture as surely as they infused the contents of the news that was reported. The Shanghai press provides an abundant record of transnational connections, but the uneven dispersal of power that structured these connections suggests the inappropriateness of a term like "global community," elides issues of economic and political inequality.　

　　　　　 The question I am posing for the moment is a modest one: "What were the transnational and subnational connections of Shanghai newspapers, and what difference did they make?" This paper, very much a sketch of work in progress, examines some of the transnational and translingual aspects of Shanghai press culture. I'm at a very early stage of thinking through the second, and most interesting part of my own question, the analysis of how these transnational links affected the constitution of a public realm in Shanghai. This said, I'm persuaded that one can't do justice to this public without taking into the analysis these transnational features which call into question the clear definitions of identity and community that are often taken for granted in our analyses of the foreign and Chinese populations of the city.[2]

　　　　　 In certain respects, the transnational connections–understood as foreign influence–of the Shanghai Chinese-language press have long been recognized, indeed emphasized, from the inception of modern Chinese newspapers in the mid-nineteenth century. The late imperial Chinese press was characteristically tarred by its "clinging complicity with the foreign presence," in the apt words of W. K. Cheng.[3] Alternatively, Rudolf Wagner has recently made a positive argument for the Western role in the creation of a Chinese public sphere, emphasizing the foreign ownership of the Shenbao, the most prominent nineteenth-century Chinese newspaper, in the formative decades of its long history.[4] Nonetheless, a nationally-oriented historiographical emphasis on China–on Chinese newspapers as Chinese, and foreign papers as foreign (characteristic of both Chinese and foreign historiography)–has constrained examination of the precise transnational connections of Chinese newspapers as they developed after the late-Qing.[5]　 The national boundaries that have largely confined historical studies of the Chinese press have been reinforced by a second cluster of historiographical preoccupations, which are centered on questions of democracy, framed as Chinese civil society, or a Chinese public sphere. To the extent that Chinese papers and Chinese journalists are considered only in relation to the (repressive) Chinese state or (repressive) Chinese political parties, the foreign papers and journalists with which and with whom they were intertwined are pushed to the margins of the picture. The scope of analysis is persistently national, positioning Chinese newspapers in opposition to or in alignment with a Chinese state.[6]　

　　　　　 There is a further obstacle to more extensive consideration of transnational and translingual connections of the Shanghai press. The pervasive–but by no means absolute–linguistic and social separation of the Chinese and foreign communities in Shanghai camouflages their connections and makes difficult the historiographical reconstitution of such ties as did exist. For this reason, much of this paper is devoted to the preliminary task of outlining the multi-layered transnational connections of Shanghai newspaper culture in the early Republican period. The pervasiveness of these transnational connections suggests a need to qualify the descriptors, "Chinese" and "foreign," which are habitually used in reference to the press. In the course of my narrative I hope to indicate some of the peculiar characteristics of the papers that flourished in the environment of semi-colonial Shanghai, a particularly cosmopolitan arena which gave rise to a particularly lively press, all manner of political, linguistic and journalistic deceptions, and a wide range of politically strategic maneuvers by Shanghai journalists, Chinese and foreign.

The Shangbao: An Illustrative Story

Let me begin by describing how I came to this topic. For several years I have been working on the case of a female secretary, Xi Shangzhen, who committed suicide at the office of a Chinese-language daily, the Shangbao. Although the Shangbao, which carried the English-language title Journal of Commerce, is not well known today,[7] by the fall of 1921, in terms of circulation it was the third-ranking Chinese newspaper in Shanghai, after the Shenbao and Xinwenbao.[8] Although now largely obscured from historical memory, the sudden emergence of the Shangbao in Shanghai in January 1921 was striking. In the words of the former Shanghai journalist and newspaper historian, Zhang Jinglu, "After the May Fourth Movement, a new newspaper suddenly emerged like an army ingeniously appearing from nowhere. Although it did not have enormous capital or an established reputation, it had a relatively modern program and superlative personnel which combined to make it a revolutionary force within Shanghai newspaper circles."[9]　

　　　　　 One reason for the relative prominence of the Shangbao, despite its newness, was that the managing director, the U.S.-educated Tang Jiezhi, attracted prominent writers for his editorial staff. These included Chen Bulei and his brother, Chen Qihuai (both well-known figures from their earlier association with the Tianyibao), and Pan Gongzhan, formerly associated with the Minguo ribao and the progressive "Xuedeng" supplement of the Shishi xinbao.[10]

　　　　　 The brash challenge of the Shangbao, which appeared with an initial run of 35,000 copies, incurred the immediate resentment of the major established Chinese dailies. According to several Chinese accounts, the Xinwenbao management sent people to buy up all copies of the first issue of the Shangbao and throw them into the Huangpu River.[11] Despite its inauspicious beginning, the Shangbao gained influence. Although it never reached the circulation of the two leading Shanghai papers, it was popular among intellectuals and students and received critical acclaim for in-depth coverage of commercial affairs, national and domestic news. According to the (admittedly biased) account of Zeng Xubai, the editorials of Chen Bulei (who was not yet affiliated with the Guomindang) created "shock-waves" among Shanghai's social and political leaders.[12] If Zeng's characterization is hyperbolic, there is no doubt that the Shangbao was influential. Hu Yuzhi characterized the Shangbao as the "star" of Shanghai newspaper circles.[13] Former Shanghai journalist Xu Zhucheng, recalled walking every Sunday as a middle-school student to the Wuxi City Library just to read Chen Bulei's Shangbao editorials.[14]　

　　　　　 I mention these details about the Shangbao, both because it is not well known today and because all Chinese accounts describe it as Chinese. The paper was published in Chinese by an almost exclusively Chinese staff, headed by the managing director, Tang Jiezhi. Through a series of public roles–as the former leader of the activist Shanghai Commercial Federation which underpinned the merchant mobilization of the early May Fourth movement in Shanghai, as a member of the board of directors of the Shanghai General Chamber of Commerce, as a leader of the Guang-Zhao Gongsuo, and as president of the grass-roots Amalgamated Federation of Commercial Street Unions (Gelu shangjie lianhehui)–Tang had established himself as a prominent spokesman of an activist wing of the Shanghai Chinese business community. Through his commercial connections, Tang secured the agreement of more than six hundred Chinese chambers of commerce to send daily telegraphic reports to his journal, so that his readers could "keep their fingers on the pulse of commercial and industrial developments throughout China."[15] He positioned his newspaper as an advocate of middle-class (zhongliu jieji) political activism, rather than pure business.[16] This activist political orientation permitted him to profit from a political climate in which Shanghai residents were deeply concerned with the domestic and international situation and sought a paper which would be more responsive to the political and informational exigencies of their time.[17]

　　　　　 Like numerous Chinese public figures of his time, the linguistic skills and connections that Tang had gained through his U.S. education helped him to maneuver through the complexities of Shanghai's political terrain. In Shanghai Tang was not simply a member of Chinese public associations, but ones which bridged ethnic and national boundaries as well, such as the Good Roads Committee, chaired by C.T. Wang, which included numerous Chinese and Western newspaper owners and managers, among them, John Powell, George Sokolsky, Shi Liangcai and Tang Jiezhi.[18] Such Chinese/foreign associations were possible in Shanghai in the early Republican era, though they would not survive the growing nationalism and ethnic prejudices which characterized the mid-1920s.[19]

　　　　　 Given Tang's cosmopolitanism and the utility of foreign connections in the semi-colonial city of Shanghai, it is not surprising to find a Westerner at the inception of Tang's newspaper. Though largely the investment project of a group of Shanghai businessmen, the paper was founded on the basis of a Chinese-American partnership between Tang and the Russian-American journalist George Sokolsky. Their partnership is only fully evident, however, from the voluminous, recently opened Sokolsky papers at the Hoover Institution Archives.[20] I had known there were some connections between Tang and Sokolsky from British Intelligence Reports, which listed Sokolsky, together with Tang, as co-organizers of a China Bureau of Public Information (Zhonghua gongtong tongxinshe), established in 1919 to provide a China-oriented English-language newsletter to U.S. institutions and public media. I was unaware of Sokolsky's intimate connections to Tang's paper, the Shangbao, until I encountered his name in a police report at the Shanghai Municipal Archives, which identified him as the person who called the police from the Shangbao office on September 8, 1922, to report Xi Shangzhen's suicide.[21] What was he doing there? Answering this question led me to the Sokolsky papers, which proved enormously revealing of connections normally hidden under the national linguistic facades of the Shanghai daily newspapers.

Overview of the Shanghai Press

The diversity, relative size and prosperity of Shanghai's Chinese and foreign populations, in combination with the complex jurisdictional arrangements afforded by the presence of the French Concession and the (Anglo-American-dominated) International Settlement, were conducive to the expansion of a flourishing press. The tremendous outpouring of new periodical publications which characterized the Republican period[22] was facilitated both by rising nationalist sentiment among urban Chinese (and the broad legitimacy of expressions of nationalism) and because of the diminished capacity of the Chinese state to control the public realm. This press expansion took off from the substantial foundation of pre-1912 commercial and political newspapers, largely located in the International Settlement.[23] The political division of China into a variety of competing territorial military factions contributed to a further multiplication of press organs, which competed for the attention of the foreign and Chinese Shanghai public, and indeed, through the circulation of Shanghai newspapers beyond the city, the Chinese public at large. By 1922, a list of major papers operating in Shanghai would include the following Chinese, Japanese and Western-language dailies (this is not a comprehensive list):[24]

English-Language papers　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 French 　　　　　　　　　　　

Shanghai Mercury　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 L'Echo de Chine

North China Daily News 　　　　　　　　　

Shanghai Times　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 Russian　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　

China Press　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 Shanghai Life　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　

Shanghai Gazette　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 Russian Echo

Chinese　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 Japanese-language papers[25]

Shishi xinbao　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 �@Shanhai nippô

Xinwenbao　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 Shanhai nichinichi shinbun

Shenbao　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 Shanhai mainichi shinbun

Shibao

Shenzhou ribao

Xin shenbao

Zhong-wai dashi huibao

xianshi leyuan ribao

Zhong-wai xinbao

Guoyu ribao

Shangbao

Dagongbao

Zhonghua xinbao

Minguo ribao

Yazhou ribao

　

It is tempting to assume that these linguistic groupings correspond, in terms of both journalistic point of view and readership, to the national identities and interests of the groups that made up Shanghai's peculiarly multinational population. The reality, however, was more complex, involving issues of registration, translation, readership, investment, ownership, and subsidy.

Translingual Flows of News and Readerships

Though it is certainly true that, in the main, the foreign-language press served the various sectors of the foreign community, whereas the Chinese press served the Chinese community, the foreign-language and Chinese-language press of Shanghai were more interdependent than is commonly recognized. Literate Chinese residents, many of whom had studied abroad, regularly consumed articles from the Shanghai foreign-language press for a variety of reasons, including language practice, access to Chinese and world news and interest in the politics and perspective of the Anglo-American-dominated Shanghai Municipal Council, which governed the International Settlement in which many of them lived. If only a bilingual Chinese minority read the foreign-language originals, or, for example, the English-language supplement which appeared in a paper like the Zhonghua xinbao, most encountered a daily diet of press translations from the North China Daily News, Millard's Review, the China Press and the Shanghai Mercury in their daily Chinese papers. A brief review of a variety of Shanghai Chinese-language dailies indicates that such translations take up significant portions of the news sections of virtually all of the Chinese newspapers, which made up for a characteristic dearth of reportage through both translation and heavy reliance on Chinese and foreign news agencies. Carl Crow attested that "practically everything" that appeared in Millard's review was translated and "widely published" in the Chinese press. This was done through the Chun Mei News Agency, which Crow had helped establish. This agency also found it profitable to handle American advertising in the Chinese press.[26]

　　　　　 Similarly, the foreign residents of Shanghai–though they at times preferred to imagine that they lived in a small Western republic rather than a Chinese city–were fed a daily diet of translations from the Chinese press (though these took up substantially less space in the Western papers than translations from the Western press which appeared in Chinese papers), and were usually marked off from the regular news as "highlights from the Chinese press." Much of this material was provided by the same Chun Mei agency, which maintained a translation service, supplying subscribers with "translations of editorial comments, special articles, etc., from the Chinese press."[27]

　　　　　 In order to maintain this steady diet of translated material and not to miss any important events in Chinese politics or public discussion, several of the major western papers maintained bilingual Chinese journalists. The most renowned of these was Hollington Tong, of the China Weekly Review,[28] but there were also Jabin Hsu of the China Press, Walter Chen, of the North China Daily News, among others.[29] Chinese papers, if short on reporters, maintained numerous translators on staff. As the case of the Shangbao suggests, these translators were often British colonial subjects from Trinidad and Jamaica, whose command of English was a marketable cultural asset in semi-colonial Shanghai. Chinese papers cultivated connections with particularly useful foreign correspondents, at times featuring their columns (under their Chinese names) on their pages.

　　　　　 But beyond the translingual flow of news and writing, which, to a certain extent, made each Shanghai newspaper into a distorted mirror of the contending perspectives of different national population groups in the city, the national identities of Shanghai newspapers periodically aroused controversy.

Murky Markers of Identity: Registration and Ownership

It is well-known that in order to gain shelter from Chinese authorities, most prominent Chinese papers chose to locate within the International Settlement, under registration with foreign consulates.[30] According to a British intelligence report of 1918, of nine leading Chinese newspapers, seven were registered with the Japanese consulate general (the Shenbao, Shibao, Shishi xinbao, Shenzhou ribao, Minguo ribao, Zhonghua xinbao and Yazhou ribao), though the shareholders were mostly Chinese. The Xinwenbao, which was owned by the American [John Ferguson] was registered at the U.S. Consulate. Only the remaining paper, the Xin Shenbao, which began as British company, could be considered "now entirely Chinese."[31]

　　　　　 That such foreign registration, if evidently convenient, was not merely a technicality, is witnessed by rumors and lawsuits that emerged periodically, forcing papers to relinquish their claims of nationality. In the course of the May Fourth Movement, the Japanese registration of Chinese newspapers, as well as Japanese investment in Chinese papers created great embarrassment. In June 1919, for example, because of the anti-Japanese boycott, the oldest Chinese newspaper, Shenbao, transferred its registration from the Japanese to the French.[32] After 1919, a recurrent topic in the Chinese and foreign press was the exposure of the hidden foreign connections of Shanghai Chinese-language papers.[33] Western intelligence reports in this period are full of such details, tracing, in particular, rumors of connections between the Guomindang and the American-registered English-language papers China Press and the Tianjin Evening Star.[34]　

　　　　　 An ironically-titled article ("Prostituting Extraterritoriality: Legalizing the Sale of Protection to Chinese Citizens, A Practice involving the Ownership of Foreign Newspapers in China.") in the English-language Far Eastern Review, several years later, reviewed evidence adduced in the case of a lawsuit against the China Press, a case which provides ample example of the complexities of ownership and editorial line.[35]　 Documents of ownership indicated that China Press was an American enterprise incorporated under the laws of Delaware. Beneath this veneer of Western ownership, the article cites proof that the imperial Chinese government–which subscribed forty to sixty thousand dollars of the capital stock–was among its original shareholders, placing its holdings in the hands of the late Wu Tingfang as trustee. "From its start therefore, the China Press was a Chinese American enterprise in which the Chinese official stock holdings were concealed under its American registry." After a number of years China Press came under the control of Edward Ezra, a British subject. In the summer of 1923 the paper came under Chinese control, "but far as the public was concerned its management and policy were dictated by a board of directors including four Americans and two Chinese, with the power apparently held by the American members of the board. After narrating the complex financial ties and manipulations of newspaper ownership, the article concluded that,　

the facts established by the testimony...disclose the edifying picture of an American incorporated and registered enterprise...under option of sale to a group of Chinese warlords and politicians who camouflaged their holdings behind an American board of directors. To heighten the illusion the editor and reportorial staff were, in the main, American. This chameleon of the press posed before the public as the exponent of American ideals and the organ of American interests!

Decrying this "window-dressing of Chinese enterprises with American drapery," the jingoistic Far Eastern Review warned that such covert manipulation of newspaper ownership threatened not only to "hand over to Chinese control the organs of foreign public opinion," but could erode the privileges of extraterritoriality.

　　　　　 It is striking that foreign powers and concerns published Chinese newspapers and that Chinese interests published Western-language papers, and that papers retaining their names and staff passed periodically from Chinese into foreign hands, or the reverse. In these transactions, the surface language of the newspaper may be taken as a mask, or an oblique marker of the varying strategic values of different languages in the unequal power context of semi-colonial Shanghai. Indeed, establishing the precise national identity of a given newspaper could be quite controversial, and was by no means self-evident.

　　　　　 A 1919 report written by Carl Crow for the U.S. Department of State, indicated that the surface languages of the newspapers of China were not necessarily to be trusted. He divided Chinese newspapers into three classes:

1) English-language publications published by and for the English-speaking population of China　　

2) bona fide Chinese newspapers published by and for the Chinese　

3) [a category] growing in importance, consists of newspapers published in the English, Chinese and other languages, but edited in the interests of a certain foreign power, while purporting to be either under British or Chinese ownership.[36]

In the problematic third category, which blurred national/linguistic boundaries, Crow indicated a variety of papers. It is not surprising to find here the China Press, which despite its passage from the hands of Wu Tingfang and Y.C. Tong (who served the Chinese Telegraph Administration in Shanghai) into American, then British hands, enjoyed the largest circulation of any English language daily in China (3,500-4,500). But the China Press was not alone. Crowe reported that the Japanese had "practically gained control" of the Shanghai Times, which was "generally supposed to be British." Though normally subtle, this Japanese control became evident in times of tension between China and Japan. He reported similarly that the Shanghai Mercury had been taken under Japanese ownership and control, though this fact also was poorly known.

　　　　　 There remains the fascinating, and understudied Shanghai Gazette. Crow was less certain of the particulars in this case, but they are clarified by U.S. intelligence reports and the papers of George Sokolsky, who worked briefly for this Chinese English-language paper, which aimed for an "American complexion," evidently to appeal to an American audience for propaganda purposes.[37] The Shanghai Gazette was an organ of the southern government of Sun Yatsen. It was edited by Eugene Chen (Chen Youren), a Trinidad-Chinese of British citizenship who became a member of the Central Executive Committee of the Guomindang.[38]

　　　　　 Most Western-owned Chinese-language papers were commercial rather than political enterprises.[39] The American-owned Xinwenbao is an example, in which the American owner, John Ferguson, did not pretend to interfere with content. There is one case, however, in which British residents of Shanghai created a short-lived Chinese language paper as a propaganda effort to influence the Chinese public and the Chinese government. This was the Chengbao, created in 1918 to propagandize for the Allies.[40]　

Transnational Networks of Information Transmittal: Unusual Westerners and Overseas Chinese: George Sokolsky, W. H. Donald, Roy Anderson and Eugene Chen.

The linguistic and national differentiation of Shanghai newspapers is further complicated by transnational networks of journalists, Chinese and Western, unusual individuals whose lives spanned both the Western and Chinese communities and who regularly supplied material to both Chinese and Western papers. Because–despite the multiplicity of newspapers–the Shanghai newspaper world was relatively small in terms of personnel, these same individuals played a significant role across the range of prominent newspapers.

　　　　　 The Sokolsky papers provide particular insight into the China activities of three unusual expatriate westerners–Sokolsky himself, the Australian journalist W.H. Donald, and the American Roy Anderson, all of whom were politically influential in China and, in regard to Chinese affairs, abroad as well. Sokolsky himself is the best known of the three.[41] The son of Russian-speaking Jewish immigrants from Bialystock (on the border of Poland and Lithuania), Sokolsky attended the School of Journalism at Columbia University, leaving in 1917 for a journalistic adventure in revolutionary Russia, which he quickly left for China, where he arrived in 1918. Soon he was working on the staff of the Shanghai Gazette, meeting daily with Sun Yatsen.[42] It was during this period that Sokolsky became involved with the May Fourth student movement in Shanghai. Though he would soon boast with characteristic hyperbole, that "the Student Movement and Anti-Japanese Boycott in 1919 were to a large extent my work,"[43] there is no question that Sokolsky was deeply involved with Shanghai student activists. Not only did the Shanghai Municipal Police report on his presence at student meetings,[44] but a letter from Song Qingling to Sokolsky documents that she and Sun Yatsen passed information to the students through Sokolsky,[45] The students were apparently attracted by Sokolsky's tales of his Russian experiences and his U.S. connections. Sokolsky apparently also persuaded Sun Yatsen to provide funds to help pay for the rental of the students' headquarters in the French Concession.[46] Though Sokolsky soon quit the Gazette he continued, for a time, to work for Sun.[47] He supported himself through his journalism, marketing his increasing knowledge of Shanghai political affairs to the British North China Daily News as well as to the New York Post, the Philadelphia Ledger, Far Eastern Review, and the Japan Advertiser.

　　　　　 Sokolsky's second Chinese journalistic enterprise, which was already underway in July 1919, proceeded from his visibility as a sympathetic American in the May Fourth movement. As he tells the story, he was approached by activist Shanghai students and businessmen who enlisted him in the project of creating "consistent and pro-Chinese sentiment" throughout the United States. This led to the creation, together with Tang Jiezhi, of the news agency, the Chinese Bureau of Public Information. Tang Jiezhi was Chair of this Bureau, and Sokolsky was Manager. The Advisory Committee for the China Bureau of Public Information was all Chinese.[48] After several years of working together to produce the Bureau's English-language newsletter, Sokolsky began a second venture with Tang, this time the creation of the Chinese-language daily newspaper, the Shangbao. Officially Sokolsky was Shangbao treasurer and a shareholder, but he also regularly wrote weekly columns for the paper on foreign affairs, under his Chinese name Suo Kesi.

　　　　　 Though Sokolsky did not speak much Chinese,[49] he gained access to influential levels of Chinese society through his marriage in October 1922 to Rosalind Phang, an accomplished musician who was a licenciate of the Royal Academy of Music in London.[50] Phang was the daughter of Charles Phang, a Balaclava Jamaican Cantonese.[51] In Shanghai, the highly cultivated Phang was a close friend of Song Meiling, and the Song and Kwok families.[52] The wealthy Australian Cantonese Kwok family owned one of the premier department stores in Shanghai.[53] If, as a Jew, Sokolsky was on the social margins of Western society in the semi-colonial city, his marriage to Rosalind Phang brought him into the high social life of the cosmopolitan Chinese elite, connections which he quickly turned into political capital.[54] As American diplomats understood him, Sokolsky was "a literary assistant to many of the Chinese, in that he formulates their views for publication, at the same time...injecting numerous of his own views into Chinese procedure relative to student and other activities."[55] His deepening understanding of Chinese affairs provided him with not only a journalistic income, but also an increasing reputation as one of the most knowledgeable Western journalists on China. He used this knowledge to deepen his connections with U.S. consular and State Department authorities, sending them unsolicited reports on Chinese affairs, and then trading on his connections with U.S. authorities to impress various Chinese authorities who would find cause to invest in him.[56]　

　　　　　 Sokolsky's Chinese political connections were complex and can only be described as opportunistic, even though he justified his mission in China through a general desire for reform and national strengthening, goals he shared with Tang Jiezhi.[57] He routinely denied connections for which there is clear evidence, or, if complete denial was impossible, claimed that he was only associating with particular individuals for instrumental purposes, but that his loyalties lay elsewhere. There is no evidence that any of his contacts were aware of his full range of social and informational networks. Sokolsky's network of connections nonetheless bear testimony to the interdependence of Western journalists and Chinese politicians who vied for international acceptance. As Sokolsky solidified his relations with a range of Chinese figures he increased his range of political knowledge, which, in turn, increased his influence and desirablilty. Among those who invested in Sokolsky's journalistic enterprises, or decorated him for his work between 1919 and 1922, were Li Yuanhong, Wen Zongyao (Guangxi faction), Li Qun (Military Governor of Jiangsu), and the Peking Government (through W.H. Donald), though none of these interests was uniformly satisfied with his journalistic portrayals of their respective causes.[58] Their common investment in either the Chinese Bureau of Information or the Shangbao may be taken as evidence of the importance of the Shanghai press in national contests for power.[59]

　　　　　 Sokolsky's freely-roving journalistic entrepreneurship–which he justified as necessary to carry out his journalistic enterprises–knew no loyalty, except to himself. His remarkable political expediency was something of an enigma to his Chinese associates. As he remarked to one of his American subordinates, in regard to criticisms he received from a Chinese colleague associated with the Southern government of Sun Yatsen: "Ma Su is all wrong about me. He is perfectly right that I am playing with the North and South at the same time. I also am playing with the East and West and the Southeast and the Northeast. I am a foreigner trying to interpret conditions in China to the outside world. Why should I limit my activities to any one group?"[60]

　　　　　 Although Sokolsky at times expressed gratitude in regard to his associate and employer Tang Jiezhi, who "with great sacrifices kept me alive during [1920],"[61] Tang's closest ties were to two expatriate Westerners who, like himself, were intimately involved in Chinese politics and journalism. Both of these men were more knowledgeable about Chinese affairs than Sokolsky, and he traded in their knowledge for his own journalistic writing. One of these was W.H. Donald, the Australian journalist who served, over time, as an advisor to the revolutionary Tongmenghui, to Sun Yatsen, to the Zhili clique and eventually to Zhang Xueliang and Chiang Kaishek.[62] Donald is perhaps most legendary for his intervention in the negotiations surrounding the Xian Incident. During the time that Sokolsky was most closely associated with him, Donald was employed by the Beijing government, which funded his Chinese Bureau of Economic Information. Sokolsky soon persuaded him to open a branch office in Shanghai, which he located in the Shangbao building. This arrangement provided Sokolsky with an important source of regular monthly income.[63] After he fell out with Donald and resigned in May 1923, he characteristically and ingratiatingly claimed to Eugene Chen (who was by this time foreign affairs advisor to Sun Yatsen) that he was pleased to be freed from "the stigma of drawing a salary from the Peking Government."[64]

　　　　　 The other individual with whom Sokolsky identified was the American Roy Anderson, a legendary and mysterious figure who evidently entered more deeply into Chinese political life than any other foreigner in his time. Anderson was born in China, the son of Dr. D. S. Andrews, the founder of Suzhou University. Though he attended high school and college in the U.S., he returned to China in 1902. He spoke and read Chinese, reputedly speaking eight dialects.[65] Like W. H. Donald, Anderson had served on the revolutionary side in the Chinese Revolution of 1911, reputedly as a general in a Tongmenghui Army. At this time the two men became acquainted. Anderson served as economic and political advisor to large U.S. corporations, notably Standard Oil. He wrote for the North China Daily News under the name Bruce Baxter. Though Anderson was known as the "right-hand man" of Paul S. Reinsh when he was American Minister to China, he was largely out of public view until he distinguished himself in the Lincheng Incident of 1923 as the envoy of the Chinese government who successfully negotiated in local dialect with Chinese bandits for the release of twenty-seven foreigners who had been kidnapped on a train.[66] Like Sokolsky, Anderson made entrepreneurial use of his local knowledge, which was far more extensive than that of Sokolsky because of Anderson's linguistic prowess and his travels throughout China in the service of various Chinese officials. At the time of his premature death from pneumonia in 1925, Anderson was under consideration by President Coolidge for appointment as Minister to Peking.[67]

　　　　　 As Sokolsky explained in his oral history, "There was always in those early days the need for a trusted foreigner who could do something no Chinese could do without danger. The most trusted of such men was Roy Anderson. He was a middleman in all transactions. He spoke Chinese and was born in China. His assistant was W.H. Donald, who gained more fame from it than Anderson because Donald knew no Chinese and talked to foreigners about what he was doing...Anderson belonged originally to the [Guomindang] in first revolution. Then he was tied up in Beijing with the ministers of finance and communications. Anderson helped to bring American companies all over...and developed mining in Yunan.[68]

　　　　　 Sokolsky revered Anderson and carefully cultivated this connection, which brought him a far deeper understanding of Chinese affairs than he could have gained on his own. Anderson's extensive knowledge of Chinese politics is evident from certain of his manuscripts, which survive at the Hoover Archives and from his correspondence, which includes some of his political reports, with Sokolsky.[69] Though evidently trading on his China knowledge, Anderson's writing about China and his correspondence is infused with passion, and none of Sokolsky's cynicism. He described their journalistic endeavors as "our work in aid of China." He urged Sokolsky to "expose all of the rottenness we know of in official China," or risk delaying "the day when China is to get on her feet." Politically, Anderson leaned toward Chen Jiongming's idea of federated provinces. Sokolsky solicited information, reports and interviews with Anderson for publication in the Shangbao, and together he and Anderson arranged English-language press coverage for Tang Jiezhi. Anderson also provided notes for Tang's speeches and for the Shangbao editorial line.[70]

　　　　　　　　 As the journalistic line of Sokolsky and Anderson became more critical of Sun Yatsen, their writings (under their pen-names G. Gramada and Bruce Baxter) came under attack by Eugene Chen, who, as foreign affairs advisor and personal secretary to Sun Yatsen denounced foreign correspondents as subsidized political propagandists. When Chen learned that Gramada was Sokolsky he denounced him for his connection with the Government Bureau of Economic Information, claiming that this made him an incompetent witness of Chinese affairs.[71] Chen's rivalry with Sokolsky/Anderson was not only political. As a Trinidad Chinese who practiced briefly as a barrister in London before he came to China and edited, first, the English-language Peking Gazette, and then the Shanghai Gazette, he had English linguistic skills, journalistic experience and overseas connections to rival his foreign expatriate colleagues. His passionate nationalism and deep understanding of Chinese affairs made him impatient with the Western journalists' superior ability to gain access to the influential North China Daily News and other Western-owned English-language papers.

(Notes Toward a Conclusion)

Preliminary examination of Western and Chinese-language newspapers from Shanghai, together with the papers of George Sokolsky suggest a deep interpenetration of Western and Chinese newspapers. This interpenetration was infused with the complex social and racial prejudices and inequalities that characterized life in the semi-colonial city. Nonetheless, Chinese journalists with foreign connections–of whom Tang Jiezhi is only one example–evidently used them to broaden the scope of their influence and to bolster the legitimacy of their writings and their point of view, by arranging for the publication of some of this material in major Western-language venues. Western journalists in Shanghai also clearly depended on Chinese connections for strategic information, access and their own political schemes. These transnational and translinguistic connections, combined with the regional political factions and rivalries of Chinese domestic politics, gave rise to a number of political and journalistic strategies–on Chinese and foreign sides–to camouflage news sources, or otherwise publish politically delicate material in newspapers that apparently originated from the other side. In many cases Chinese journalists found it convenient to leak information to the Shanghai Western-language press, and then cite this material in Chinese translation (really the Chinese original!) in the Chinese press, to avoid censure by Chinese authorities, or simply to avoid social awkwardness in the Chinese community.[72] Foreign papers were, for example, supplied with copies of a sensational order by Li Qun for the arrest of Wang I Tang for "conspiring to foment trouble" in Jiangsu. After Wang, the Chief Northern Delegate, refuted the accusations and the police found them groundless, the Shanghai Municipal Council traced the source of this report, which evidently worked in the interest of the Southern government, to Tang Jiezhi and his associate Sokolsky.[73]

　　　　　 The system worked both ways. It was also convenient at times for foreigners to place news in Chinese papers for strategic purposes. In one case, for example, Donald asked Sokolsky to get the Chinese press to criticize a particular political appointment: "You can see the Chinese newspapers and get them to write articles. Then get translations put in the foreign press, if possible. Don't involve yourself however."

　　　　　 Though it is certainly possible, through the densely interconnected but rival transnational and regional webs of personal and political connections, to describe a broad scope of journalistic possibilities for Shanghai journalists, who were not always constrained by national or linguistic boundaries, it would be problematic to suggest that this flexibility was more than an accidental effect of the juxtaposition of nationalities, political, personal and national interests in the semi-colonial city of Shanghai. Terms like "global community" are too suggestive of mutual responsibilities and affections to properly describe the kinds of strategic and unequal friendships which were more likely to thrive in this peculiar atmosphere of entrepreneurial rivalries, secret connections, social prejudices and growing nationalisms.

　　　　　 [As for interpretations which hold the Western press up as a liberating model, it is clear that the model of the Western press that presented itself most insistently before Chinese journalists was the Shanghai version. In this world, Westerners like Sokolsky, Donald and Anderson surely matched their Chinese colleagues in political intrigues, personal attacks, misinformation and other strategic tactics.]

　　　　　 The Tang/Sokolsky partnership ended prematurely because of Tang's arrest in connection with Xi Shangzhen's suicide. It nonetheless speaks eloquently to the potential vicissitudes of such mutually instrumental transnational relationships. As Sokolsky explained to Donald, Tang's political enemies made great capital of Tang's personal embarrassments in connection with his secretary's suicide. Tang's subsequent arrest for defrauding his secretary of funds in connection with the Shanghai stock market, may have been related to a quarrel between the China Merchants' Steam Navigation Company and the Ministry of Communications, as Sokolsky mused at one point, or it may have been related to a quarrel that had developed between Tang and He Fenglin, the Shanghai military commander, as a result of embarrassing materials Tang published in the Shangbao, as would seem to be indicated by He Fenglin's subsequent removal of Tang to a military prison. In any event, when Tang fell, Sokolsky cut his ties. He quickly removed the Shanghai branch of the Government Bureau of Information from the Shangbao premises, severed all of his connections with the newspaper (fearing exposure in court), facilitated the sale of the newspaper to a Ningbo businessman, and apparently ceased communication with Tang.[74] Not only did Sokolsky desert Tang personally, but it would appear that the U.S. authorities and the extraterritorial jurisdiction of the International Settlement deserted him as well. Tang lived, conducted business, and paid taxes in the International Settlement. Technically he should have been subject only to the jurisdiction of the Mixed Court. When he was seized by Chinese (not Municipal Council) police, Tang called on the foreign authorities of the International Settlement for help, on the grounds that the Chinese police had infringed on their proper jurisdiction. In this instance, the Western parties, normally so defensive of all of their rights of extraterritoriality, demurred. The minimal response of the Municipal Council and the U.S. authorities, evident from the archival sources, indicates little desire to help this Chinese nationalist agitator, who only a few years earlier had, after all mobilized a tax strike against the Municipal Council under the banner of "no taxation without representation."[75]

---

[1] "Political Culture and Political Experimentation in Modern Shanghai," held at the Fairbank Center, Harvard University, November 2-4, 2001.

[2] By noting that elements of Shanghai press culture were, in many respects transnational and translingual, I do not mean to suggest that national and linguistic boundaries were unimportant. They remained crucially important.

[3] W.K. Cheng, "Contending Publicity: The State and the Press in Late Qing China," Asian Thought and Society 23:69 (September-December 1998), p. 179.

[4] "The Role of the Foreign Community in the Chinese Public Sphere," China Quarterly, 142 (June 1995), pp. 423-443.

[5] This general approach characterizes the two most recent histories of the Chinese and Shanghai press. See Fang Hanqi ∑Ω∫∫∆Ê£¨Zhongguo xinwen shiye tongshi ÷–π˙–¬Œ≈ ¬“µÕ® ∑, (Beijing, Zhongguo renmin daxue chubanshe, 1996), volume 2, Ma Guangren ¬Ìπ‚» , Shanghai xinwenshi …œ∫£–¬Œ≈ ∑ (Shanghai: Fudan daxue chubanshe, 1996).

[6] These historiographical tendencies derive in part from the two primary theoretical frameworks for understanding the press in this period, one deriving from Benedict Anderson's emphasis on the role of print capitalism in the development of nationalism and the other deriving from Jürgen Habermas's work on a European bourgeois public sphere. Because discussions of the public sphere in China occur within the context of a consideration of the domestic state/society relationship, both frameworks have been deployed within a national context.

Another issue which is often an unspoken assumption of Western studies of Chinese newspapers is the idea of the (generalized) Western press as a positive, liberating model. This both minimizes examination of the specific practices of the Western press in Shanghai, and also the censorship of the Shanghai Chinese press by Western authorities in Shanghai [some examples: FO 228 3176: Concessions and Settlement Shanghai 1922-1925, Freedom of Speech and the Municipal Council. Letter to Peking Consular Body, signed the Chinese Publisher's Guild, Chinese Publishers Association, Association of Chinese Newspapers in Shanghai, Shanghai Publisher's Union, re new bylaw resolved at Ratepayer's meeting April 19, 1922. Municipal Gazette, 13 April 1922: Registration of Printers and Publishers. July 1919 Resolution passed to authorize licencing. Include fn on libel prosecutions of Chinese editors from press paper, plus Xu Xiaoqun's good comments here.]

[7] The Shangbao is barely mentioned in the massive newspaper histories of Fang Hanqi and Ma Guangren.

[8] U.S. Department of State Archives, 893.911/133. Report on the Chinese press prepared by Carl Crow, dated September 13, 1921. Crow was the former Chair of the U.S. Committee of Public Information for China. Crow gives a circulation figure of 10,000. A report prepared by George Sokolsky in 1922 provides the same ranking for the Shangbao, with a slightly higher circulation figure of 12,000, which may be considered overly optimistic, given Sokolsky's association with the paper. Sokolsky Papers, Hoover Institution Archives, 125.22.

[9] Zhang Jinglu ±i¿R√f, Zhongguo de xinwenzhi §§∞Í_∫∑sªDØ», (Shanghai: Guanghua shuju, 1928), pp. 48-49; a nearly identical description of the Shangbao appears in Hu Daojing ≠JπD¿R, ed., "Shanghai de ribao," Shanghai tongzhiguan qikan 2:1 (June 1934), pp. 283-284.

[10] �¯–È∞◊£¨Zhongguo xinwenshi ÷–π˙–¬Œ≈ ∑, pp. 329-332; Zhang Yufa ±i�…_k Xinwenhua yundong shiqi de xinwenyu yanlun"�¬ŒƒªØ‘À∂Ø ±∆⁄µƒ–¬Œ≈”Î―‘¬€£¨Zhongyang yanjiuyuan jindai yanjiusuo jikan 23 (June, 1983), p. 295.. Chen Bulei is best known as Jiang Jieshi's confidential assistant, in which position he served from 1935-48). Pan Gongzhan is remembered as a publisher who founded the Chenbao, for his leadership in the Shanghai municipal government (1927-1937) and for his later service as Vice Minister of Information under Jiang Jieshi (1939-41).

[11] Zeng, p. 331; Zhang Qiuchong, pseud, ±i¨Ó¶‰, "Shangbao suowen" ∞”≥¯∫æªD [News scraps relating to the Shangbao], Shanghai difang shi ziliao (Shanghai: Shanghai shehui kexueyuan chubanshe, 1986), 5, pp. 66-69; "Shangbao touru Huangpu jiang" [Journal of Commerce Thrown into the Huangpu River], Baoxue (Taipei), 1:1 (June 1951), p. 165. The number of copies is from NCH, January 29, 1921, p. 285. The NCH article appears unaware of the reason for the run on the first edition of the Shangbao, noting simply that "all of [the copies] were eagerly snapped up." Indeed, though the full run of the Shangbao is available at the Shanghai Library, the inaugural issue is missing. Advertising rates for the Shangbao were based on a circulation of 15,000 copies [Sokolsky].

[12] Zeng, p. 331.

[13]

[14] Xu Zhucheng, "Chen Bulei yu Shangbao," Baohai jiuwen, p. 30. The era of the newspaper's influence was relatively brief however, and did not outlast the mid-1920s.

[15] North China Herald, January 29, 1921, p. 285.

[16] Shangbao, January 24, 1921.

[17] Zeng, p. 329.

[18] On Tang's political activities see Bryna Goodman, "Being Public: The Politics of Representation in 1918 Shanghai," Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies, (June 2000), pp. 45-88; and "Democratic Calisthenics: The Culture of Urban Associations in the New Republic," in Elizabeth Perry and Merle Goldman, eds., Changing Meanings of Citizenship in Contemporary China, Harvard University Press, 2002 (in press).

[19] Great Britain, PRO Report for 31 Mar 1922 [file #xx]; Sokolsky complained bitterly when foreigners were eliminated from the Good Roads Committee, finding the "sudden and despotic" action by CT Wang dismissing the foreign members of the committee unforgivable. [Sokolsky papers, Hoover Institution, Box xx]

[20] Because these materials at the Hoover Institution were not open at the time he did his research, Warren Cohen was unaware of the depth of Sokolsky's involvement with the Shangbao. Warren I. Cohen, The Chinese Connection: Roger Greene, Thomas W. Lamont, George E. Sokolsky and American-East Asian Relations (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978). 　The Sokolsky papers at the Hoover Institution consist of 392 boxes of documents, many of which contain Sokolsky's voluminous correspondence from his years in Shanghai (1919-1931). Among his correspondents were not only the Western editors of English-language newspapers in Shanghai, but numerous Chinese political and cultural figures of the time, including Sun Yatsen, Song Qingling, Hu Shi, Tang Shaoyi, Wang Zhengting, Wen Zongyao, Wen Shizhen, Li Qun and others.

[21] Police Daily Report, Shanghai Municipal Council, (Shanghai Archives), entry for September 9, 1922.

[22] Chow Tse-tsung, Research Guide to the May Fourth Movement (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1963).

[23][Important work on the late Qing press by Heidelberg group, esp. Barbara Mittler, Natascha Vittinghoff. Both have raised the issue of the "foreignness" of the newspaper medium and also the foreign training of Shanghai journalists [Vittinghoff prosopography shows 40% late Qing journalists studied abroad].

[24] Hu Daojing ≠JπD¿R, ed., "Shanghai de ribao," Shanghai tongzhiguan qikan 2:1 (June 1934), pp. 219-326;　 H.G. W. Woodhead, ed., China Yearbook, 1921-1922 (Peking: Tientsin Press, 1922), pp. 93, 115-118.

[25] Hu Daojing ≠JπD¿R, ed., "Shanghai de ribao," Shanghai tongzhiguan qikan 2:1 (June 1934), pp. 285-286; Joshua Fogel, "The Other Japanese Community: Leftwing Japanese Activities in Wartime Shanghai" , in Wen-hsin Yeh, ed., Wartime Shanghai (New York: Routledge, 1998), p. 43.

[26] USDS 893.91 Report of Carl Crow, June 5, 1919.

[27] USDS 893.91 Report of Carl Crow, June 5, 1919

[28] Hollington Tong (Dong Xianguang) was educated at a missionary school in Suzhou and moved to Shanghai to work for the Commercial Press. After this he traveled to the U.S. where he studied first at the newly founded School of Journalism at the University of Missouri, and then at the School of Journalism at Columbia University. After he returned to China 1913 he became Beijing correspondent for the influential English-language weekly, China Weekly Review (formerly Millards Review). In 1920 he took a post with the Chinese Ministry of Communications. In 1931, as managing editor of the English-language Chinese paper China Press Tong hired, among others, the American reporters Tillman Durdin and Harold Isaacs. By 1935 he had a controlling interest in three Shanghai newspapers (China Press, Shishi xinbao, Da wanbao as well as the Shun Shi News Agency. See Hollington Tong, Dateline: China; the Beginning of China's Press Relations with the World (New York: Rockport Press, 1950).

[29] Sokolsky Papers, Hoover Institution Archives, Box 43.8-10 (Correspondence dated October 12, 1920).

[30] [USDS 893.91 Report of Carl Crow, June 5, 1919 Above report indicates extent to which Japanese influence has attempted to dominate the Chinese pres. Chinese powerless to combat w/out cooperation of foreign interests. I have had half a dozen Chinse propositions involving Chinse and American ownership in Chinese publications. None demand any large American investment, just enought to enable independence of petty Chines officials.] As Xu Xiaoqun rightly points out, however, it was not at all the case that Chinese papers were free of censorship in the International Settlement. [details and other refs.]

[31] FO 228 3214 Shanghai Intelligence 1918-20. Meeting of 12 Dec., 1918

[32] Great Britain, Public Record Office, FO 228 3214 "Shanghai Intelligence 1918-20." Document dated 19 June 1919.

[33] See for example, Shenbao, 28 Aug 1921: "Zilinbao ji wenhuibao yu riren guanxi." [The North China Daily News　 says the Shanghai Mercury has Japanese connections].

[34] "The prominence given to utterances of SYS, and the further fact that these journals are operating in the closest union with the Shanghai Gazette, which is a Southern periodical, gives considerable credence to the rumor that these journals have been purchased by Sun Yatsen's representatives." USDS 893.911/162 [Aug 23, 1922]; see also US DS 893.911/88 (roll 222): "So Called American Newspapers in Jinan" (4 Oct. 1920).

[35] October 1924, pp. 461-463. The Far Eastern Review was owned by the American George Bronson Rea.

[36] USDS 893.91 June 5, 1919

[37] Crow.

[38] Sokolsky papers,　 Box 125.22 (date approx 1922). Manuscript entitled "Foreign Press"; FO 238. 3291 Report of 30 Sept. 1921. 31 Dec 1921. The Shanghai Gazette was registered with the British. In Chen's absence it was edited by Corinth Henry Lee, who also claimed British nationality on strength of his Trinidad birth certificate. See also FO 228 3214 Shanghai Intelligence 1918-20. Aug. 28 1919; USDS 893.91

[39] Whereas Western-language papers served a quite limited foreign population in Shanghai of at most 7,000, and could only sell a few thousand copies at best. The circulations of Chinese papers were considerably higher. The circulation of the Xinwenbao, for example, was 35,000.

[40] Shanghai tongshe, Jiu Shanghai shiliao huibian [Shanghai yanjiu ziliao], 1936, Beijing tushuguan chubanshe reprint, 1998, v. 1, p. 430.

[41] This is owing to Warren Cohen's biography, the preservation of a number of Sokolsky's papers at the Columbia Archive, and two oral histories conducted w/ Sokolsky at Columbia, one by Martin Wilbur.

[42] This narrative follows the text of Sokolsky's 1956 Oral history (Columbia University Oral History Archive, #219 George Sokolsky). Though daily meetings with Sun Yatsen may be an exaggeration (Sokolsky was prone to exaggerate), the Sokolsky papers at the Hoover archives substantiate a close working relationship with Sun and Song Qingling and include tea and dinner invitations to the Sun's Shanghai home on the Rue Molière. Sokolsky evidently polished Song Qingling's translations of Sun Yatsen's writings and helped prepare English-language propaganda.

[43] Sokolsky papers, Box 50/5 (Correspondence with Charles Fox). See also George Sokolsky, The Tinderbox of Asia (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1932).

[44] Police Daily Report, Shanghai Municipal Council (Shanghai Archives), entry for June 17, 1919.

[45] The letter is dated July 11, 1919. It reads: "Do you know that the machinery guild at Shanghai has decided not to boycott machineries from Japan? This is a fact. Please let the students know and agitate this matter all you can." Sokolsky Papers, Hoover Institution Archives, Box 113/3 (Correspondence with Sun Yatsen). There is also evidence that Sokolsky wrote English-language letters from the Shanghai Students' Union, which were published in the China Press and the North China Daily News. Sokolsky Papers, Hoover Institution Archives, Box 18/14 (Correspondence with Roy Anderson, February 13, 1920).

[46] Sokolsky papers, Hoover Institute Archives, Box 126/16 (Sokolsky Speeches and Writings, "In Memory of Sun Yat-sen," undated).

[47] Sokolsky had quit the Gazette by mid-July, after a conflict with C. H. Lee []. Sokolsky Papers, Hoover Institution Archives, Box 113/3 (Correspondence with Sun Yatsen). Sokolsky to Sun, July 10, 1919. Sokolsky's correspondence with Sun and Song Qingling indicates a close working relationship throughout 1920, and a cooler relationship afterward, owing to a report of Sokolsky's links to Wen Zongyao and the Guangxi clique.

[48] USDS 893.91 July 16, 1919; USDS 893.912.6 August 8, 1919. Copies of the agency's newsletter were sent to various members of Congress, government departments in Washington and various newspapers in the U.S. [see xeroxes of newsletter from Nat Arch]. The letterhead for the Bureau lists the Board of Advisors, which includes Dr. W.P. Chen, Chinese Christian advocate, P.K. Chu, World's Chinese Students Federation; Fong Sek, Commercial Press; S.S. Fung, Shanghai Commercial Federation; Ho Pao Jen, president, Shanghai Students' Union; Huang Yanpei, Vice President, Jiangsu Educational Association; TH Lee, President, Western Returned Students Union and Fudan University; Y.S. Tsao, Western-Returned Students Union of Shanghai, and Wen Tsung Yao, Canton Guild. (Sokolsky papers, Hoover Institution Archives, Box 108/8 (Correspondence with Rosalind Phang, Letterhead is on letter dated August 15, 1919) Hu Shi joined the Advisory Board in November (Sokolsky papers, Hoover Institution Archives, Box 64/9, Letter from Hu Shi, dated November 4, 1919).

[49] Sokolsky knew enough Chinese to joke about Chinese terms, which occasionally appear in his correspondence, however, his papers demonstrate that he was accustomed to use English in his extensive correspondence with his Chinese acquaintences (whose elegantly written letters to him attest to the remarkable English skills of this cosmopolitan circle of the Chinese elite). There is very little Chinese-language material in all of the Sokolsky collection at the Hoover Institution. Even in his boasts Sokolsky did not claim to know much Chinese.

[50] [wedding notice in Millards Review], Prior to their marriage, Phang worked for Sokolsky at the Journal of Commerce. Although Sokolsky described his wedding to Phang to W.H. Donald in cavalier terms ("I suppose I will have to get married in a couple of months to avoid paying Miss Phang her salary,") there is substantial evidence that Sokolsky held her in high regard. After her death and his eventual remarriage, he instructed his new wife to continue to display photographs of Phang in his house and to help preserve her memory in the mind of his (and Phang's) son. Sokolsky papers, Hoover Institution Archive, Box 43.9 (Correspondence with W.H. Donald, August 15, 1922); Sokolsky papers, Columbia archives, Sokolsky scrapbooks 40, 41 "In memory of Rosalind Sok. Oct. 6 1933," [find re. second wife].

[51] An unlabeled clipping in the Sokolsky papers at the Columbia Archives provides the information that the　 wedding was solemnized at Ohel Rachel Synagogue. The bride was given away by Eugene Chen. E.B. Ezra was best man. On Sokolsky's marriage, see also Warren Cohen, The Chinese Connection, p. 76.

[52] Columbia, Sok scrapbooks 40, 41 "In memory of Rosalind Sok. Oct. 6 1933." Sokolsky reminisced that until 1927 social intercourse between Chinese and foreigners was quite restricted, limited to business relationships. "I remember the first time Chinese and foreigners danced together: at party given by a group of friends when my wife arrived in Shanghai from England. They screened us off in restaurant." On the margins of the Western community, Sokolsky explained that his social relationships were limited to "my wife's people." Sokolsky and Phang married three years after her arrival in Shanghai, and were, by his report, extremely happy. He compared his Chinese marriage with that of Hawks Pott and his Chinese wife, noting that they too "were supremely happy as long as she lived."

[53] Columbia Box 7.

[54] Cohen []; USSD archives [].

[55] USDS: 893.912/3 Aug 8, 1919 "Chinese Bureau of Public Information."

[56] Sokolsky papers, Hoover Institution Archives, Box 40/1 (Correspondence with Edwin Cunningham, U.S. Consul General); Box 45/7 (Correspondence with W.S. Drysdale, Office of Military Attaché, American Legation, Beijing).

[57] In his early years in Shanghai, Sokolsky clearly shared Tang's vision of creating greater democracy in China through the political mobilization of an enlightened middle class. In these early years he became a supporter of the creation of a provincial federation, which, as Waren Cohen notes, may explain Sokolsky's increasing distance from Sun Yatsen. See Cohen, p. 75. (In this matter Sokolsky's views aligned him with Chen Jiongming. Note Duara, Chen Jiongming biography). In these years he evidently was sympathetic enough to Tang's nationalism, to feel self-conscious about his role at the Shangbao. As he commented to Merryle Rukeyser, "I hope to eliminate myself from this work in about one year as I feel that a Chinese newspaper should be entirely managed by Chinese and should not have foreign influences." Sokolsky papers, Hoover Institution, Box 102/1 (Letter of January 6, 1921). Sokolsky quickly got over any such guilt, which of course conflicted directly with his self-interest. In a short period he lost sympathy with any criticism of foreign correspondents–and foreign meddlers like himself–in China.

[58] Sok papers [Box 79/4 (Correspondence with Li Qun); 121/5 (Correspondence with Wen Zongyao); others]

[59] Because of the political delicacy of Sokolsky and Tang's position, and their relations with different military factions, the funding arrangements for the Shangbao were complex. Sokolsky went to great lengths to keep contributions secret. At one point, for example, he instructed Wen Zongyao to send funds through a foreign bank and use only the name of his Chinese wife, so that nothing could be traced to him or to Tang. [The awkwardness of his connection w/ the Beijing Gvt prevented him from keeping separate accounts for Donald...]The question is what such contributions meant. While Sokolsky's deceptions do provide evidence of his ability to maneuver his way through a complex political climate while maximizing his income, they do not necessarily demonstrate that Shangbao served a particular clique, particularly given the complaints of some of Sokolsky's patrons.

[60] Sokolsky papers, Box 28/2 (Correspondence with Herbert Bratter).

[61] Sokolsky papers, Box 43/8 (Correspondence with W.H. Donald)

[62] Though Donald's influence over each of these Chinese figures is generally acknowledged, little reliable material existed on the details of his Chinese activities. The only biography of Donald is poorly documented, adulatory, and insufficiently reliable. See Earle Albert Selle, Donald of China (New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1948). See also Winston Lewis, "The Quest for William Henry Donald (1875-1946)," Asian Studies Association of Australia Review 12:1 (1989), pp. 23-29. The opening of the Sokolsky papers at the Hoover, which include several files of correspondence with Donald, provide a new avenue of research not yet explored by Donald scholars. Recently Donald has received new attention in China. See Xing Jianrong �œΩ®È≈, "Duan Na yu guomin jingji yanjiusuo jianlun," Shilin (1993/4), pp. 59-62; and "Zhongguo de Duan Na ji qi shiliao jiazhi pingshu," Mingguo dang'an (1996), pp. 65-70.

[63] A 1922 report of Sokolsky's Shanghai office of the Government Bureau of Economic Information shows that Sokolsky received monthly salaries from Donald's office of seven hundred and two hundred dollars, respectively. In addition the Beijing government also paid the following salaries in Sokolsky's office:

Statistician　 $350　　 (Herb Bratter)

Stenographer $200　　 (Rich Doering)

Chief Translator　　　 $150　　 (Joseph Yuh)

2 translators $150

2 typists　　　　　　　　 $100

boys/coolies 　　　　　 $　 50

It appears from the Sokolsky papers, particularly the correspondence with Donald and Donald's increasing concerns about accounting, that these funds and personnel were shared by the Journal of Commerce, which, via Sokolsky's creative accounting, the Government Bureau inadvertently subsidized. Politically, of course, the Journal was opposed to the Beijing government.

[64] Sokolsky papers, Hoover Institution Archives, Box 35/9 (Correspondence with Eugene Chen, May 4, 1923).

[65] "Roy Anderson Succumbs to Pneumonia at Peking," China Press, March 13, 1925; "Roy S. Anderson, China Expert, Dies: Long Power in the Orient, He Forced Bandits to Free Foreign Captives Last Year." Unlabeled clipping, Sokolsky papers, Box 304 (Roy Anderson). Sokolsky wrote the obituary for Roy Anderson for the North China Daily News, March 12, 1925. Sokolsky papers, Box 19/1 and 304.

[66] One monograph [Lincheng!-Stanford library] features a photograph of the immensely corpulent Anderson in a sedan chair hastening to Lincheng borne by six sedan carriers.

[67] Sokolsky papers, Hoover Institution Archives, Box 43/10 (letter from W.H. Donald dated April 17, 1925.) Donald received this information in a letter from Larry Lebras.

[68]

[69] [describe small Anderson collection], Sokolsky papers, Box 239/6 (Roy Anderson memos)

[70] Sokolsky papers, Hoover Institution Archives, Box 18/14 (Correspondence with Roy Anderson), See especially Anderson's letters of February 1922.

[71] [to Donald, Jan 17, 1922)

[72] [describe press commentary on western reports in Xi case].

[73] Shanghai Archives, U1-3-1000, Files of the Secretariat of the SMC, Extract from Police Daily Report July 27, 1920. "There is perhaps nobody who has done more to promote recent agitations in the Settlement than Tang, while Sokolsky will be remembered for the part he is believed to have played in the students' strike of 1919 and other activities." See also extract from Council Minutes, July 28, 1920.

[74] (Donald correspondence, Bratter, etc.) It is possible that he destroyed his correspondence with Tang. Though Sokolsky's papers are extraordinary for the care he took to preserve his numerous and extensive correspondences with his Chinese associates from his time in Shanghai, there is no box containing correspondence with Tang.

[75] This is discussed in Goodman, "Democratic Calisthenics.