Censorship and Publication Control in Early Post-War Taiwan: Procedures and Practices

Abstract

This article explores how state institutions and party organs of the Kuomintang used various means of exercising power and projecting authority in order to shape the literary scene and literary production in Taiwan during the early post-war period (1945–1949). Censorship is examined from two complementary perspectives. First, integrating the Taiwanese case into a broader political and social context, the presentation focuses on the legal framework of the publishing law of Republican China and on regulations propagated in local official bulletins. Second, the article analyses censorship as a practice and set of procedures. This second part is based on the archival files of Taiwan Historica, which holds official documents from both early post-war governments. The archival material unveils some of the motivations behind censorship practices, and helps us to understand chosen strategies to legitimise sociocultural norms.