The dissemination of court news of the Qing Dynasty

The Peking Gazette（邸報 Dibao, also called 邸抄 Dichao, 京報 Jingbao and 京抄 Jingchao）was a daily periodical reporting on the emperor’s movements, edicts and memorials. For bureaucrats and scholars of the Qing Dynasty period, as well as foreign missionaries and diplomats residing in China, it was an important means of grasping the social situation and obtaining information from the central government. Despite its importance, there remain such basic questions as to who edited and published the gazette, and how it was prepared for circulation throughout the country. This article explores these problems in analyzing the characteristics of the dissemination of court news in Qing China.<br> The regulations established for the Peking Gazette in the Da Qing Huidian 大清会典 regulations were not strictly observed, as the edicts and memorials were collected and copied by metropolitan clerks, and the printing of the gazette was entrusted to commercial publishers during two-thirds of the whole period. In addition, the content of the gazette included not only the official edicts and memorials, but also unofficial political information obtained from palace guards and other personal sources. Therefore, the dissemination of information through the gazette was subjected to a minimum of scrutiny by the Dynasty’s central government, which neither edited or even reviewed the content, nor provided funds for printing, only punishing those responsible for any false reporting after the fact. Rather than describing the gazette as an initiative taken by the central government to publish official governmental affairs, it would be better to characterize the missive as an opportunity on the part of clerks and merchants to profit from the thirst of local officials and scholars for central government information with the government’s tacit approval.<br> By the end of the 19th century, the central government’s passive attitude towards the dissemination of information was unable to adapt to the new demands of modernization, leading to the release of the Zhengzhi Guanbao 政治官報（renaming it Neige Guanbao 内閣官報 in 1911）, defining the journal as “ the official organ of law and order” , thus clearly distinguishing it from the Peking Gazette both at the level of policy intent and that of distribution and circulation.