The Lifting of the Newspaper Ban: How an Island of 31 Newspapers Was Handed to the Market Overnight

30-Second Overview: After 1951, Taiwan’s newspapers were long restricted to about 31. On January 1, 1988, the newspaper ban was lifted, shifting from a licensing system to a registration-based system, so that the number of newspapers, printing locations, and applications for new news organizations were no longer locked by the same institutional framework. By the end of 1990, registered newspapers reached 313, but free competition also brought new problems such as promotional wars, ownership concentration, and news responsibility. This article truly asks: after political control receded, who took over the public space.

On January 1, 1988, Taiwan lifted the newspaper ban. On that day, newspapers were no longer subject to quantity limits, and new news organizations no longer needed to obtain a rare license first. ¹

Rather than writing this history as a "freedom from then on," a more worthy scene to observe is: a market that once had only 31 legal newspapers suddenly had to face hundreds of people wanting to enter. ²

Caption: Newspapers are not just carriers of news, but also paper traces left by institutions. The image content is the inaugural issue of Taiwan Daily Shinpo in 1898. Image source: Wikimedia Commons: Taiwan daily newspaper, original image URL Wikimedia Commons upload, Public Domain Mark. This article embeds the image directly as requested by the user, without downloading the image.

A Newspaper First Needs Several Permits

In the early post-war period in Taiwan, there were not initially no newspapers. After 1945, both private and party-government-military background newspapers appeared. Minbao and Renmin Daobao also criticized the government, becoming channels for the public to obtain information and express dissatisfaction. This brief period of openness was quickly interrupted by the February 28 Incident and subsequent purges. ³

In 1949, the government formulated the "Measures for the Management of News, Magazines, and Books during the Taiwan Provincial Martial Law Period." This measure implemented the martial law system into the daily management of newspapers, magazines, and books, becoming the specific legal basis for publishing control. Case files left in national archives show that it was indeed used to manage news and publications. ⁴

Starting in the 1950s, control over the newspaper industry gradually formed a set of daily rules. Limiting licenses made it difficult for new news organizations to establish; limiting pages restricted how much could be printed per issue; limiting printing tied newspapers to registered printing locations; and limiting paper made paper supply and printing quantities subject to allocation. Whether a newspaper could be published depended not only on the editorial desk, but also on whether it held those few administrative permits. ⁵

This is the most easily overlooked aspect of the "newspaper ban." It did not necessarily require cutting out an article every day. By simply preventing new newspapers from entering, making existing newspapers afraid to cross the line, and turning paper, pages, and printing plants into administrative issues, the news market would shrink on its own.

📝 Curator's Note: The most effective control of an authoritarian regime is not always deleting a sentence, but ensuring that the people who can speak are always only those few.

The Number 31 Was Not Naturally Formed

Between 1951 and 1988, Taiwan's newspaper industry long maintained a scale of about 31 newspapers. This number looks like market preference, but is actually the result of institutional screening. Researcher Lin Li-yun points out that the newspaper industry structure before the lifting of the ban was jointly influenced by long-term authoritarian rule, protection by regulators, and the accumulation of resources by existing newspapers. ⁶

In such a market, United Daily News and China Times became the main private newspapers not only because their content was loved by readers, but also because they already possessed capital, distribution networks, and management experience during the ban era. Institutions that restrict newcomers turn the advantages of early entrants into decades of compound interest.

The predecessor of United Daily News was a joint edition published in 1951 by the merger of Quanmin Ribao, Minzu Ribao, and Jingji Shibao. After officially changing its name in 1957, it expanded its readership through social news and commentary, exceeding a circulation of 75,000 copies in 1958. ³

The predecessor of China Times was Zhengxin Xinwen, founded in 1950. It started with economic news and price quotes, later transitioning to a comprehensive newspaper, establishing its readership through supplements, cultural pages, and current affairs commentary. ³

The history of these two newspapers illustrates that the newspaper ban was not just "a few fewer newspapers." It also redistributed who could accumulate readers, who could keep journalists, who could buy paper, and who had the ability to expand on the first day the ban was lifted.

Lifting the Ban Is Not Flipping a Switch

After the lifting of martial law on July 15, 1987, lifting the newspaper ban became the next political and administrative challenge. Before the 1988 opening, the News Bureau had invited newspapers, scholars, and representatives to discuss issues such as font size, paper, prices, and printing locations. The policy choice at the time was to first dismantle the licensing system, then let the newspaper industry compete in the market, leaving many details to subsequent administrative and market磨合 (friction/adaptation). ⁷

The 2008 Seminar on the 20th Anniversary of the Lifting of the Newspaper Ban preserved the memories of then-News Bureau officials and newspaper workers. Discussants mentioned that after the opening, the industry moved from "one newspaper, one license, one printing plant, three large sheets, twelve pages" to a registration-based system, with restrictions on the number of newspapers, printing plants, and selling prices gradually removed. ⁷

This turning point is like suddenly opening a long-closed station. People first see the crowd, not the new traffic rules.

This timeline shows that lifting the newspaper ban was not an instantaneous "freedom switch." Administrative restrictions loosened first, the number of registered newspapers increased rapidly, followed by the redistribution of printing, distribution, advertising, and talent markets. The historical compilation of the English Taipei Times points out that in 1988, 95 new newspapers were established, and the number of newspapers increased from 31 to 126 by the end of the year. This increase was not simply an addition of items, but also drove the expansion of pages and advertising. The article cites research indicating that China Times' advertising revenue increased by approximately 63% in 1988, showing that competition after the lifting of the ban quickly transformed into industry competition for readers, advertising, and distribution channels. ⁸

By the end of 1990, the number of newspapers approved for registration and publication in Taiwan reached 313, but the daily actual circulation was about 50 to 60. These two figures are not contradictory; the former is the scale of registration, and the latter is the market where newspapers are truly delivered to readers' hands every day. Lifting the newspaper ban did indeed make voices more numerous, but it also meant that every newspaper had to compete for survival in limited readers, advertising, and distribution channels. ³

The first few new newspapers to appear were mostly founded by existing news organizations or people familiar with the newspaper industry. The first batch of newspapers after the lifting of the ban included Zili Zaobao, United Evening News, and China Times Evening News, reflecting that although the new system opened entry, newspapers were still a heavy-capital industry requiring printing equipment, distribution networks, and advertising clients. ⁸

📝 Curator's Note: The first side effect of freedom is often not chaos, but everyone simultaneously discovering that they must compete.

From Political Control to Market Control

Before the opening of newspapers, public discussion in Taiwan did not completely disappear, but often shifted to outside newspapers. After the 1970s, non-party magazines took on the role of breaking news taboos. They discussed democratic politics, Taiwan history, local society, and human rights issues, forming an underground vein of opinion transmission that did not rely on formal newspaper registration. ⁹

This history is important because it shows that social demand for speech already existed. After 1988, these demands obtained a more legal, stable, and sustainable publishing channel. The experience of non-party magazines also leaves another reminder: media freedom depends not only on whether laws allow founding, but also on whether editors, journalists, and readers have the capacity to withstand censorship, economic pressure, and political retaliation. ⁹

After lifting the newspaper ban, the question shifted from "can one run a newspaper" to "who can run one long-term."

The first obvious change brought by lifting the newspaper ban was that new newspapers could enter the market faster. United Daily News and China Times founded evening newspapers in 1988; evening newspapers began adopting more lively layouts and horizontal arrangements, and other newspapers followed. ³

Next came the promotional war. Newspapers gave away gold, cars, and houses; readers were not only choosing which news to read, but also comparing which newspaper could bring home a larger gift. Liberty Times broke into the metropolitan market in the 1990s with free distribution and low-price strategies, showing that newcomers did not necessarily have to rely on traditional newspaper routes to expand. ³

These competitions made newspapers thicker, faster, and better at capturing attention, but also exposed another problem. The institutional design of lifting the newspaper ban mainly handled "who can run a newspaper," but did not simultaneously handle ownership concentration, political intervention by operators, news labor rights, and media responsibility. Lin Li-yun's research therefore calls the lifting of the ban a "historical experiment": the old structure did not disappear, but was placed in a free competition environment to continue deforming. ⁶

After the abolition of the Publication Law in 1999, the old publishing control framework further receded. The space for press freedom grew, but the self-discipline, responsibility, and market norms of journalism did not automatically grow. Records from the 2008 seminar repeatedly discussed how media no longer only faced official control, but also the control of bosses, advertising, and the market. ⁷

What Freedom Left, What the Market Took

In 1999, Kuanghua reviewed the development of press freedom in Taiwan, viewing the lifting of the newspaper ban as an important milestone toward press freedom, while also pointing out that publications in the early post-martial-law period were still restricted by political ideologies and publishing regulations. This reminds us that 1988 was only the starting point; laws, media, and society still had to rewrite rules together. ¹⁰

The Presidential Office's 2008 press release recorded this history from another angle: after January 1, 1988, newspapers were no longer subject to quantity limits, and Taiwan newspapers quickly appeared with dozens or even hundreds of pages. This "thickening" was both a visible result of liberalization and the pressure for the newspaper industry to maintain competition with more content and advertising. ¹¹

The English version of Kuanghua’s review twenty years later placed this history in a context of press freedom understandable to international readers. Its value lies not in drawing conclusions for Taiwan, but in reminding readers: the lifting of the newspaper ban was an institutional transformation event, not just a piece of industry news. ¹²

Today, print newspapers are no longer the only entry point for most people to obtain news. The disappearance of newspapers, the rise of online platforms, and the concentration of media ownership have pushed the problem to the next stage. The diverse voices pursued by lifting the newspaper ban now must not only ask "can it be published," but also "who has the resources to be seen," "who can verify long-term," and "who is willing to be responsible for errors."

Thus, 1988 did not bring Taiwan directly into the light. It handed a public space originally allocated by the government to more people, and also to the market. After handing it over, people began to face the truly difficult questions: how to prevent freedom from being re-monopolized by new power.

Further Reading

• Martial Law Period — The political and legal background on which the newspaper ban relied.
• White Terror in Taiwan — How publishing, thought, and political cases were interconnected.
• Media and Press Freedom in Taiwan — Media structure and contemporary dilemmas after the lifting of the newspaper ban.

References

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