hanghai, Guangzhou Morning Post in Guangzhou) and television (Shanghai Broadcasting Network in Shanghai) while radio is gradually fading out (Shanghai Calling only relays CRI English service now). Despite the decentralization tendency in the 1990s, the political nature of the international communication in China has led to the central dominance of the English-language media at the central-level, all of them based in Beijing such as China Radio International, Beijing Review, China Daily Newspaper Group, CCTV-4 and now the six major media-affiliated English websites are all located in Beijing. If the central dominance is a result of political consideration, then the prosperity of English-language media in Shanghai may be related with its historical tradition of launching English media before 1949, by foreigners (Huang, 2001). Even though not as influential as Beijing, the capital, Shanghai, the city with the largest number of foreign-owned English media before 1949, and now with the strong economic momentum, can still be considered the largest regional center for international communication in mainland China. Shanghai is the first city to start English radio (Shanghai Calling) and TV (Shanghai Broadcasting Network) services, though not fully developed these days. At present, Shanghai is also the only regional city that possesses an English daily (Shanghai Daily) and an English TV service. 2. Ownership & Investment Like other media in China, the English-language media are also state-owned, which means government provided investment for one media institution in its initial stage and even subsidies in later stages before the 1980s. However, the practice of providing subsidy was discontinued in the late 1980s after China adopted a market economy and media institutions were allowed to start advertising, thus leading to their financial independence (Guo, 1999: 60). As a result, three trends of media investment can be noticed during the process of launching English-language media in the past two decades. (1) Investment from Chinese-language media institutions: CCTV-4, the international channel, has been supported by China Central TV (Jiang Heping, deputy supervisor of CCTV-4, personal communication, 2001). Shanghai Daily, the first regional English daily, has been invested by the Xinmin & Wenhui Group in Shanghai. This is also true for Guangzhou Morning Post and Shenzhen Daily, Beijing Today, which have earned their respective funding from Guangzhou Daily Group, Shenzhen Special Economic Zone Daily and Beijing Youth Daily. (2) Investment from English-language media institutions: Tabloids like Business Weekly, Beijing Review, Shanghai Star and 21st Century have all been launched and invested by the China Daily Newspaper Group in the past 20 years. (3) Self-supported magazines: These magazines are supported by advertising with complimentary distribution, most of them run by foreigners even though they have a cooperative partner in China. They include Beijing Scene, City Weekend and Metro in Beijing, and Shanghai Talk and That’s Shanghai in Shanghai. 3. Dual Roles As is mentioned above, English-language media in China started with its sole purpose for information-oriented international communication targeting only foreign audience. Even at present, the major function of English language media, both at the central and regional levels in China, can still be defined as one for international communication, because there is no English-speaking Chinese community; nor does English serve as a communicative among the nation’s fifty six ethnic groups. The role of the English-language media in China has always been to provide information or report China to the outside world or to the foreign population in China. This role can be further justified when more foreign population are now swarming into China. It is estimated that in Beijing, the number of foreign tourists in 1999 is 8.43 million, 40 times the figures in 1978 (China Apec website). In Shanghai, among the 160 million population, more than one million is floating population with permanent foreign residents coming close to 100,000 in 2000, working at foreign-invested enterprises, financial institutions, consulates and foreign news organizations. (Shanghai Daily brochure). However, the effectiveness of the communicative role of the English-language media in China is yet to be known, as no formal survey has been done so far. In fact, as most English-language media in China are funded by government or state-owned news institutions, they do not really have to care a lot about audience feedback. Despite that, when one of the writers interviewed the chief executives of almost all the central-level English media last year (July 2000-May 2001), most of them are still concerned about the effects of their coverage. “We have not done a formal reader’s survey yet, which, to some degree, is literally impossible to do among our international readers. So we do not know how effective our newspaper really is. However, through our emails from readers and the wide citations by major Western media on important issues about China, we do know that we are becoming important sources and of course are exerting influences among our readers, overseas and domestic” (Huang Qing, executive deputy editor-in-chief of China Daily, personal communication, 2000). But as more Chinese are learning English, which is now nationally required from the third year of primary education (21st Century report), the English-language media in China are also finding themselves increasingly popular among Chinese English learners, with an estimated number of 200 to 300 million people learning and using English (Zhao, 1995:377). Although most Chinese are not using English for communicative purposes among themselves, they have to demonstrate their English ability for social mobility and / or promotion (Zhao, 1995:383). As a result, Chinese English learners normally turn to the English-language media in

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