01: CRI pamphlet). The CRI’s English Service has always been one of its most important divisions which was founded on September 11, 1947 and now offers over 60 broadcast hours per day, with about 60 million overseas listeners from more than 100 countries and regions (Zhang,2001:website). The programs of the English Service are comprehensive, which focus on news, features and music programs, including popular programs such as Talk to the Minister, People in the know, Sports World, China Horizons, Voices from Other Lands, Life in China, Listeners' Garden and In the Spotlight. It is acknowledged that the CRI English Service is one of the world's most effective and convenient media to learn about China and that CRI's English Service has become a popular choice of domestic listeners as well who want to keep informed with current affairs, learn English and enjoy music(Zhang, 2001:website). As more foreign tourists came to visit China in the early 1990s, regional English radio services also came into being. On October 1, 1992, Shanghai Calling, the first regional English Service, was officially launched by Shanghai People’s Radio Station. At the beginning, Shanghai Calling broadcast for about 12 hours a day, focusing on the local news, weather, music and services for foreigners in the local area (Zhu, 1992: 2). In the same year, Radio Guangdong was started, appealing to the local audience in the Pearl Delta area in South China (Ranny Lei, vice head of International News Section of Guangdong TV Station, personal communication, June 11, 2001). On May 8, 2001, Beijing also started a three-hour English service known as Touch English, targeting Beijing listeners with local news and Chinese culture, information about easy life in Beijing. Touch English aimed to create a better language environment in the capital and to help raise the current 15 % English-speaking population to 30% by the year 2008, as part of the bidding effort for the 2008 Olympics (Sina website). However, except for Touch English which has just been started for the sake of the 2008 Olympics, other regional English radio services have been shrinking and are almost diminishing to non-existence. Shanghai Calling ceased broadcasting in 1998 and now only relays the English broadcasts of CRI (He Guangyu, deputy director of Editor-in-Chief’s Office, Shanghai People’s Radio Station, personal communication, June 11, 2001). 1.2 Magazines Before 1981 when China Daily was launched, except for English radio services, the only other English media available in China are English magazines such as Beijing Review, China Today, China Pictorial and China Women, all sponsored by such Beijing-based organizations as China Foreign Language Publication Administration and All-China Women’s Federation. The total circulation of all the magazines published by the China International Publishing Group is 100,000 copies both domestically and overseas (Jiang, 2001). Launched on March 5, 1958, Beijing Review started as the first multi-lingual news weekly in China, published in English, Japanese, French, German and Spanish. Since early 2001, the full-color English edition will be the only printed form of Beijing Review, with all other editions be published on the Internet (China Net Website). China Today is a monthly magazine published in five languages including English. The first issue of China Pictorial was published in 1950, and late Chairman Mao Zedong inscribed the title for the magazine. China Pictorial is also a monthly magazine and published in Chinese, English, French, German and Spanish. During the past 50 years, China Pictorial has mainly focused on changes in China through true-to-life pictures and stories (China Net website). Women of China, launched in 1956, is a comprehensive English all-color monthly on the life of Chinese women. In addition, local English magazines were published in big cities like Shanghai. Shanghai Today is a monthly that reports on the culture in Shanghai (Zhang Ciyun, editor-in-chief of Shanghai Daily, personal communication, June 11, 2001). Some specialized journals such as Chinese Medical Journal (English edition) are also available in China. They are normally published by associations of the kinds. For instance, China Medical Journal (English edition) is published by the Chinese Medical Association (Medical Journal website). 1.3 English Release of Xinhua News Agency Although it is not a medium directly targeting audience, the English news release of Xinhua News Agency also plays an important role in the international communication in China. The English news release of Xinhua News Agency started on September 1, 1944 with a staff of only three (Ju, 1994:12). Now the English news release has become a major information source for media institutions in China and in the world as well. It is estimated in 1999 that Xinhua now releases more than 260 news stories and two feature stories in English each day to about 1,000 news media in more than 100 countries (Guo, 2000: 54). The English release of Xinhua News Agency may be large enough for a news agency in a non-native country, but the news flow still can not be compared with the news agencies in English-speaking countries. Therefore, its influence is still limited to some degree (Yang Guoqiang, head of VIP News Section of Xinhua, personal communication, 2001). 2. Newspaper Era Before 1951, China had several influential English newspapers, most of them were located in Shanghai, such as North China Daily News, Celestial Empire and Shanghai Mercury. But during the next thirty years, the existence of English newspapers was virtually made impossible by continuous political campaigns, which basically isolated China from the rest of the world. In this sense, the launching of 12-page China Daily, the first national English daily, on June 1, 1981, means more than just an English-language newspaper. “It signifies that an open China is integrating itself with the world and therefore needs

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