Radio in China

The Republic of China established The Nationalist Government Radio Station in 1928; it was a major mechanism for disseminating ROC propaganda messages.{{Cite book |last=Wang |first=Xian |title=Gendered Memories: An Imaginary Museum for Ding Ling and Chinese Female Revolutionary Martyrs |date=2025 |publisher=University of Michigan Press |isbn=978-0-472-05719-1 |series=China Understandings Today series |location=Ann Arbor}}{{Rp|pages=57-58}}

In December 1949, the PRC established the Central Broadcasting Station.{{Cite book |last=Xu |first=Lanjun |title=Mao's Little Red Book: A Global History |date=2013 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-107-05722-7 |editor-last=Cook |editor-first=Alexander C. |location=Cambridge |pages= |chapter=Translation and Internationalism}}{{Rp|page=90}}

In 1950, approximately 1 million radio sets existed in China, mostly in bourgeois urban households.{{Cite book |last=Li |first=Jie |title=Cinematic Guerillas: Propaganda, Projectionists, and Audiences in Socialist China |publisher=Columbia University Press |year=2023 |isbn=9780231206273}}{{Rp|page=45}} The People's Republic of China began establishing a radio reception network assigning "radio receptionists" in schools, army units, and factories.{{Rp|page=45}} These receptionists organized group listening sessions and also transcribed and distributed written content of radio broadcasts.{{Rp|page=45}} Through the practice of rooftop broadcasting, village criers using homemade megaphones would also relay the content of radio broadcasts.{{Rp|page=45}} Radio receptionists and rooftop broadcasting remained a significant component of broadcasting practices until wireless broadcasting became widespread in the 1960s and 1970s.{{Rp|page=45}}

In April 1950, the Central Broadcasting Station's international department (branded as Radio Beijing) began broadcasting for listeners in Vietnam, Thailand, Burma, Indonesia, and in four dialects for overseas Chinese throughout East Asia.{{Cite book |last=Xu |first=Lanjun |title=Mao's Little Red Book: A Global History |date=2013 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-107-05722-7 |editor-last=Cook |editor-first=Alexander C. |location=Cambridge |pages= |chapter=Translation and Internationalism}}{{Rp|page=91}}

Radio networks grew along with rural collectives in the late 1950s.{{Cite book |last=Jones |first=Andrew F. |title=Mao's Little Red Book: A Global History |date=2013 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-107-05722-7 |editor-last=Cook |editor-first=Alexander C. |location=Cambridge |pages= |chapter=Quotation Songs: Portable Media and the Maoist Pop Song}}{{Rp|page=50}} By 1959, 9,435 communes and 1,689 counties had wired relay stations, and these linked 4,570,000 wired loudspeakers.{{Rp|page=50}}

In 1978, China stopped jamming broadcasts from Voice of America (VOA).{{Cite book |last=Minami |first=Kazushi |title=People's Diplomacy: How Americans and Chinese Transformed US-China Relations during the Cold War |date=2024 |publisher=Cornell University Press |isbn=9781501774157 |location=Ithaca, NY}}{{Rp|page=104}} VOA opened a bureau in Beijing in 1981.{{Cite book |last=Li |first=Hongshan |title=Fighting on the Cultural Front: U.S.-China Relations in the Cold War |date=2024 |publisher=Columbia University Press |isbn=9780231207058 |location=New York, NY |pages=326 |jstor=10.7312/li--20704}} In 1982, Radio Peking and VOA began regular exchanges.

In 1998, the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television (SARFT) began the Connecting Every Village with Radio and TV Project, which extended radio and television broadcasting to every village in China.{{Cite book |last=Shi |first=Song |title=China and the Internet: Using New Media for Development and Social Change |date=2023 |publisher=Rutgers University Press |isbn=9781978834736 |location=New Brunswick, NJ}}{{Rp|page=30}}

In the 1950s and 1960s, Red Star Radios became one of the Four Big Things, important and desirable consumer goods that demonstrated an increase in Chinese standards of living.{{Cite book |last=Chatwin |first=Jonathan |title=The Southern Tour: Deng Xiaoping and the Fight for China's Future |publisher=Bloomsbury Academic |year=2024 |isbn=9781350435711}}{{Rp|pages=39-40}}

Radio manufacturing expanded significantly during China's Third Front campaign to develop basic industry and national defense industry in China's rugged interior in case of invasion by the Soviet Union or the United States.{{Cite book |last=Meyskens |first=Covell F. |url= |title=Mao's Third Front: The Militarization of Cold War China |date=2020 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-108-78478-8 |location=Cambridge, United Kingdom |doi=10.1017/9781108784788 |oclc=1145096137 |s2cid=218936313}}{{Rp|page=4, 219}} In the Third Front regions, radio manufacturing increased by 11,668% percent as a result of the campaign.{{Rp|page=219}}

By Cultural Revolution, battery-powered transistor radios, microphones, mobile public address systems, and loudspeakers had penetrated even remote areas.{{Rp|pages=50-51}}

• Mass media in China
• Media history of China
• List of Chinese-language radio stations

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{{Asia topic|Radio in}}

{{Radio stations in China}}

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