Du Daozheng ( simplified Chinese: 杜导正), né Du Yuzhi (杜毓芷) (born 1923) is a Chinese journalist who served as the head of National Press and Publication Administration in China and the founding director of the liberal journal Yanhuang Chunqiu. [1] [2] [3] He was also the editor-in-chief of Guangming Daily and Yangcheng Evening News. [1] [4]
Du was born in 1923 in Shanxi, China. [1] He joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1937. [1] [4]
After the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, he served as the branch director of the Xinhua News Agency in Hebei, and then in Guangdong. [1] He later became the chief editor of the Yangcheng Evening News. [1]
After the Cultural Revolution, Du served as the editor-in-chief of Guangming Daily during the first phase of the Reforms and Opening-up, which was launched by Deng Xiaoping and other reformists within CCP. [4] [5] In 1987, Du became the head of China's National Press and Publication Administration. [1] [4] [5] Under Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang, the liberal General Secretaries of CCP in the 1980s, media freedoms reached their height at that time. [4]
However, Zhao was ousted and detained amid the crackdown of Tiananmen protests in 1989, and Du only re-connected with Zhao privately in 1992 after Deng Xiaoping's southern tour. [5] He later published the book Du Daozheng Diary: What Zhao Ziyang Said in Hong Kong. [5] [6]
In 1991, with the support of Xiao Ke, a liberal general of the Chinese People's Liberation Army, Du founded the Yanhuang Chunqiu journal in Beijing and served as the director of the publisher. [7] But the traditional version of the journal was cracked down by Xi Jinping's administration in 2016, with Du and other editors replaced by pro-Xi personnel. [2] [3] [4] [8] [9]