Information Office

The State Council Information Office (SCIO; ) is the chief information office of the State Council of the People's Republic of China. In 2014, SCIO was absorbed into the Central Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

History

The SCIO was formed in 1991 when the CCP Central Committee made the External Propaganda Leading Group of the Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party its own office. The office was created with the goal of improving the Chinese government's international image following the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre. According to scholar Anne-Marie Brady, the SCIO became a separate unit from the CCP Central Propaganda Department but still connected to it and was the "public face of this new direction in foreign propaganda work."

The office formerly had responsibility for internet censorship in China. The SCIO's Internet Affairs Bureau dealt with internet censorship and repressed "disruptive" (anti-Chinese government) activity on the web in mainland China. However, in May 2011, the SCIO transferred the offices which regulated the internet to a new subordinate agency, the Cyberspace Administration of China. In 2014, the SCIO was absorbed into the CCP's Central Propaganda Department.

In November 2020, the director of the SCIO, Xu Lin, gave a speech in which he emphasized the need to "resolutely guard against digitalisation diluting the party’s leadership, resolutely prevent the risk of capital manipulating public opinion."

List of directors

# Zhu Muzhi, 1991–1992
# Zeng Jianhui (), 1992–1998
# Zhao Qizheng (), 1998–2005
# Cai Wu, 2005–2008
# Wang Chen, 2008–2013
# Cai Mingzhao, March 2013 – December 2014
# Jiang Jianguo, January 2015 – August 2018
# Xu Lin, August 2018 – incumbent

References

External links

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{{Authority control
State Council of the People's Republic of China
Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party
Chinese propaganda organisations