Editorial
Ta Kung Pao, reputed to be the world’s oldest existent Chinese-language newspaper, hosted a grand ceremony at the Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre on Sunday to celebrate the 120th anniversary of its founding.
President Xi Jinping sent a congratulatory letter, which was read out at the ceremony by Luo Huining, director of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government in Hong Kong.
As reported by our newspaper on Monday, Xi urged the Ta Kung Pao “to carry forward its patriotic traditions, pursue innovative development and write even more splendid chapters of the steady and sustained implementation of ‘One Country, Two Systems’.”
Xi pointed out that for over a century “Ta Kung Pao has played an active role in the building of the New China, reform, opening-up and modernisation,” adding that the newspaper has also played an active role in Hong Kong’s return to the motherland as well as in maintaining Hong Kong’s prosperity and stability.”
Xi also underlined that the newspaper has helped with “forming a closer emotional bond of Hong Kong residents with the motherland.”
The newspaper was founded in the northern port city of Tianjin on June 17, 1902, when the country was still ruled by the feudal Qing Dynasty.
I became aware of the importance of Ta Kung Pao in the early 1980s because a local Chinese friend told me that he was reading it every day as he liked its reporting, patriotic commentary and, last but not least, its erudite use of the Chinese language. When I asked him what the newspaper’s name (大公報; Dagong Bao in Pinyin) meant, he explained that it had something to do with the ancient Chinese saying “dagong-wusi” which can be translated as “selfless” but also as “perfectly impartial”. I was trying to learn written Chinese at that time, but much to my chagrin I soon gave up due to work commitments, which turned out to be one of the biggest mistakes of my life.
Initially, the newspaper had also a French name, L’Impartial, as French then was still the world’s lingua franca. The French name was a direct translation of its Chinese name.
Some two decades ago one of my classmates in a political science master’s degree course at the University of Hong Kong was none other than Tsang Tak-sing, a former chief editor of Ta Kung Pao. Tsang was one of my favourite classmates for two main reasons: his quick wit and keen intellect. He was a deputy to the National People’s Congress (NPC) and an advisor at Hong Kong’s Central Policy Unit (CPU) at that time.
Anyhow, I would like to use this opportunity to congratulate Ta Kung Pao on its 120th anniversary, wishing its team all the best for the future – in the run-up to its sesquicentennial and, let’s be decidedly optimistic, bicentennial.
Incidentally, our newspaper will celebrate its 18th anniversary on August 27. Of course, compared to Ta Kung Pao’s amazing durability, our newspaper is just about to reach adulthood…
– Harald Brüning
