The Beijing Review Celebrates 50 Years

September 27, 2008 Posted by China Briefing Reading Time: 3 minutes

Influential magazine founded by Chairman Mao has overseen dramatic moments of Chinese history

BEIJING, Sept. 27 – Beijing Review, China’s only national English weekly news magazine celebrated its 50th anniversary last night in a prestigious anniversary party held at the Grand Millennium Hotel ballroom. Attendees included several vice-ministerial members of the Politburo of the CPC Central Committee and from the State Council information office, in addition to many foreign embassy officials and of course the publication’s staff and writers.

The magazine is politically important and highly influential—it was founded by Chairman Mao in March 1958 (first issue pictured on the right) and has subsequently been supported by successive Chinese leaders. The magazine reports and comments on China’s social, political, economic and cultural affairs. The senior partner of Dezan Shira & Associates, and publisher of China Briefing, Chris Devonshire-Ellis, has written the magazine’s “Legal Ease” column, outlining changes in China’s foreign direct investment laws, for the past six years.

Beijing Review has had a colorful history over the past half century. Starting life as “Peking Review,” the magazine was intended to be the mouthpiece for the Communist Party of China globally. It is distributed to all Chinese embassies and consulates overseas, as well as to foreign embassies and consulates in China. It also is placed in all major hotels and newsstands in the country. The magazine prints in many languages, including French, Spanish and Arabic, which have been available since 1963, German since 1964, and Portuguese since 1979. It has constantly reported on some of the pivotal moments of contemporary Chinese political history, including the visit of U.S. President Richard Nixon to China in 1972, the trial of the “Gang of Four” in 1981, Deng Xiaoping’s policies of political structural reform in the eighties, and the continuation of Deng Xiaoping’s reform policies by Presidents Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao.

Today the focus of the publication is more related to the promotion of international trade and investment, and as such, it regularly features interviews and commentary from both Chinese and world leaders on the subject of China’s increasing integration with global affairs.

We wish the Beijing Review a very happy anniversary and look forward to continuing our close cooperation and friendship with them.