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| Type | Online newspaper |
|---|---|
| Owner(s) | Kuomintang |
| Founder(s) | Kuomintang |
| Founded | 1 February 1928 |
| Language | Mandarin Chinese |
| Ceased publication | 1 June 2006 |
| Relaunched | 13 September 2006 |
| Headquarters | Taipei,Taiwan |
| Central Daily News | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Traditional Chinese | 中央日報 | ||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 中央日报 | ||||||
| |||||||
TheCentral Daily News was the officialnewspaper of theKuomintang and is one of the world's oldestChinese language newspapers, having been in circulation since 1928. The Kuomintang made the decision to temporarily cease publication of the newspaper effective June 1, 2006, because it could no longer subsidize the newspaper's snowballing debts, which had amounted to aroundNT$800 million (US$24.5 million), almost twice the overall assets of the party.
After ceasing its print operations, theCentral Daily News became a dedicated online publication available to Taiwanese and Chinese readers in bothTaiwan andMainland China, written in bothtraditional andsimplified Chinese characters. Its online operations ceased in 2018.[1]
Relations between both sides of theTaiwan Strait were one of its most important topics, as well as business.
Central Daily News was launched inShanghai on 1 February 1928, as a mouthpiece of the Kuomintang and began circulation in the then Chinese capitalNanking. The first editor-in-chief wasKu Meng-yu. The paper had previously temporarily ceased publication on 13 December 1937, when the capital was occupied by theJapanese military in theSecond Sino-Japanese War.[2] The paper was relocated to the temporary Chinese capitalChongqing and resumed publication on September 1, 1938, before returning to Nanjing after the war. In 1949, the paper was relocated to yet another temporary Chinese capital,Taipei on the island ofTaiwan, when the Kuomintang fled mainland China during theChinese Civil War.[3]
In 1950, the Kuomintang, fearing sociopolitical instability and communist insurgency, began a four-decade-longauthoritarian rule, beginning with thesuspension of the constitution, which included a ban on thefree press. During this time, theCentral Daily News became the most widely read newspaper in Taiwan.[4] However, when the ban on free press was lifted in 1987, the newspaper began facing fierce competition and, as a result of itsconservative image and connection with the past Kuomintang authoritarianism, it began losing popularity.
By April 2006, the paper accumulated debts exceeding NT$800 million and was sustaining losses of NT$8.44 million each month in the same year. As part of new austerity measures implemented by Kuomintang ChairmanMa Ying-jeou, theCentral Standing Committee resolved to cease publication of the paper by the end of May 2006. The paper retained a small staff of 70 to update its website.[5]
After being shut down in June, the newspaper was reborn on September 13, 2006, as an electronic newspaper.[6] The website was taken down during a personnel change in May 2018, but remains down to this day.[1]
