Free China

Free China was a semi-monthly magazine founded in Taiwan in 1949 by liberal intellectuals including Hu Shih and Lei Chen. It was the only public dissent publication in Taiwan in the 1950s, under the authoritarian rule of the Kuomintang. From its inception in Taipei on November 20, 1949, to its official closure on October 4, 1960, when Lei Zhen was convicted, Free China published a total of 260 issues.

The magazine was founded on good terms with the Kuomintang government, and was first conceived in Shanghai in 1949, before the KMT's defeat in Taiwan. At the time of its launch, Hu Shih, then in the United States, served as the nominal publisher, while Lei Chen managed daily operations. The magazine was primarily aimed at opposing the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda at the time. When the Republic of China first moved to Taiwan, Chiang Kai-shek appointed many liberal intellectuals in order to gain support from the U.S. and to demonstrate his determination to carry out political reforms. Lei Chen was appointed by Chiang as an advisor on national policies in 1950.

In June 1951, Free China published an editorial critical of KMT policy titled “The Government Must Not Lure the People Into Crime,” revealing that military and political officials’ premeditation to lure the people to commit crimes in pursuit of bonuses for solving crimes. The article upset the KMT, which did not expect that the magazine would also criticize it. At the end of 1954, the magazine published a reader's submission titled “Solving the Education Crisis,” criticizing the KMT party-state for interfering with school education. Chiang Kai-shek was outraged, announcing that Lei Chen had been expelled from the KMT.

In 1957, the magazine published a series of fifteen editorials in a row titled “Issues of the Day,” discussing a full range of political issues. The first one was penned by Yin Haiguang, titled “On Retaking the Mainland,” which was a taboo subject for the KMT; the last piece, titled “On Opposition Parties”, advocated that “opposition parties are the key to solving all problems”. From June 1959 onwards, Free China also published a number of articles opposing Chiang's attempt for a third consecutive term as president. In 1960, in addition to publishing articles advocating opposition parties, the magazine further angered the KMT authorities as Lei Chen and other opponents in Taiwan and Hong Kong prepared for a new China Democratic Party.

Volume 23, Issue 5 of Free China included an editorial written by Yin Haiguang titled “The River Flowing East Cannot Be Stopped,” advocating for the forming of an opposition party. On September 4, 1960, the Taiwan Garrison Command used the piece as a pretext to arrest Lei Chen and the others, on suspicion of crimes of insurrection and harboring CCP spies, with Chiang Kai-shek explicitly instructing that Lei Chen's “sentence shall not be less than ten years” and that “the sentence cannot be changed by appeal.” On October 8, Lei Chen was sentenced to ten years in prison, and Free China magazine was officially shut down.

At a time when the KMT authoritarian regime was tightening its grip on the press, Free China insisted on freedom of the press, setting a good example of the fight for freedom of the press for subsequent Tangwai (independent) magazines. Many of those persecuted under the KMT are now celebrated in Taiwan as seminal figures in the island’s democratization. Yin’s former home, for example, is now listed as a historic site.