Chapter 7 03. News writing of missionaries in China

Georgia Southern Methodist Younger J. Allen (1836–190), the most active of the Anglo-American missionaries, published news and commentary on the Western world in Chinese to encourage Reform movement in China at the end of the 19th century.These missionaries, mainly located in Shanghai and Beijing, share a common belief in their work: Christianity, science and democracy are integral parts of God's material and spiritual progress for mankind.Allen specifically pointed out that women's emancipation is a sign of the progress of civilization.His education at Emory University gave him an understanding of basic science.Thereafter, he continued to promote and found common schools and universities for Christian training, and he edited Chinese-language publications in China emphasizing non-religious learning, especially the study of science and technology.He renamed his "Ecclesiastical News" (1868-1874) as the "Gazette of Nations" (1874-1883, 1889-1907).From 1881 to 1883, the "Wan Guo Gazette" received a sum of money from religious missions, purchased 800 religious pamphlets and sent them to Chinese government officials for free.From 1881 to 1893, Allen served as the head of the Southern Methodist missionary group in China. In 1883, he suspended the publication of his publications. In 1889, he revived the Bulletin of Nations, which remained published until his death in 1907.He has put a lot of effort into this publication.

Allen's magazine was popular in major parts of East Asia, especially the treaty ports of China. The "Wan Guo Gong Pao" was an important news medium at that time. It not only spread Christian teachings in Chinese, but also acted as the mouthpiece of the developing Chinese Christian groups, and became a forum for Chinese Christian writers to publish news and opinions. church institutions developed from this material. Equally important, Allen's publications carried news from China (including translations or excerpts of the Beijing Gazette) and the international community.The name of the 1874 publication was changed due to the increasing content of the publication.This weekly magazine (changed to a monthly magazine from 1889 to 1907) was the pioneer of news publications in China. With the expansion of content, there were more and more Christian readers in the interior, but this magazine has gone far beyond the scope of Christian religious life .The development of science and technology in the late Victorian era, the rising enthusiasm of nationalism and the increasingly close international ties made this period full of explosive news and new changes in society, which eventually made religious content and religious themes lose their luster.For a while, this magazine became the main window for the world to see China.

Of course, in the era when changes were brewing, Western editors and Chinese and foreign contributors were seeking to change the lives of Chinese people, and the seeds of improvement were widely disseminated through this medium.Like patriotic intellectuals in most countries, Chinese historians have tried to get some historical record from the reports of foreign sojourners, whatever their influence.Future researchers may hope to discover in this publication some of the individual and native ideas of Sierra that were embedded in the reform movement that took place between 1894 and 1911. The "Wan Guo Gong Bao" left a record of many social changes - such as the women's liberation movement in China.

This article, in part, was published in the January 1984 issue of the International Bulletin of Missionary Studies and is a review of Adrian A. Bennett's Missionary Journalists in China: Young J. Allen and His Magazine, 1860–1883" (Arsens, University of Georgia Press, 1983).