Censorship In Shanghai French Concession( 1919-1943)

Since 1919, the introduction of Ordonnance consulaires concernant la presse, the Shanghai Settlement has officially been into the era of Censorship. Despite the continual failure of legislation related to Press Bylaws in Shanghai International Settlement during the first 30 years of 20 th century, the Shanghai French Concession has successfully regulated the press due to its efficiency of European authoritarian bureaucratic system, compare to the English parliamentary system based on democratic and time-consuming disputation.Shanghai Censorship Institution synchronically consists of three parts, which arethe Censorship in Shanghai International Settlement, Shanghai French Concessionand Shanghai Municipality respectively, while, on the other hand, diachronicallyduring the first half 20 century this institution had being developed interactively withthe domination up and down. Conclusively, censorship in Shanghai InternationalSettlement as the core of whole system had been playing the most critical role inShangai, almost exclusively bringing influential features that had being affectedpositively the Shanghai media even consensus and culture economically and socially,which enabled Shanghai to be the biggest market of media and cultural industry atthat time.Since the French Concession authority started to be on the path to independence of censorship regulation from international settlement, all press houses who were willing to publish, distribute and retail needed to be authorized by French police(mainly Political Service) and the French consulate. In terms of the affiliated position under International Settlement in Shanghai media, French authority had being concentrated on the enforcement of press distribution and retail due to most and popular press houses set up their business in the international Settlement, while French execute strict investigation in post-censorship in order to keep the stability and peace of shanghai exterior environment.The principle of censorship was always peace order and morale, but these standards varied considerably with the political environment change in Shanghai. During the chaotic demonstration and unstable public circumstance, the authority of Shanghai Settlement carried on severe censorship significantly so as to maintain the existence and neutrality of Settlement while easing the severity and loosing control over the press at peaceful and stable times, which spontaneously and necessarily promote the flourish of media in Shanghai compared to the extremely severe and intentional censorship measures with the interest of Chinese governments. Specifically, the other criteria designed and instructed to balance the complicated situation in the Settlement included the control of press and public opinion related to anti-imperialism, communism, anti-France and other pan-political news and comments. The other media approaches such as broadcasting and motion pictures were also governed by these principles whereas they are influenced from Sino-Japan relations up and down.As for the relationship with International Settlement and Shanghai Municipality, the pattern was constantly fixed, which always placed the cooperation of two settlements the first, such as the two peas in one pod, and then they together with agreement argued and disputed with Chinese. However, with Shanghai occupied by Japanese, the gravity of censorship interaction discourse had been slipped gradually to Chinese municipality which is puppeted by Japanese military. The censorship featured and dominated by press freedom philosophy in shanghai turned out to be military press regulation, extinguishing the exterior and interior press environment down to soulless tool.