20th century In the final years of the
Qing dynasty,
Ying Lianzhi, a Catholic
Manchu aristocrat, founded the newspaper in
Tianjin on 17 June 1902, in order to, "help China become a modern and democratic nation". The paper put forward the slogan
"Four Noes" () in its early years, pledging to say "No" to all political parties, governments, commercial companies, and persons. It stood up to the repression at the time, openly criticising the
Empress Dowager Cixi and reactionary leaders, and promoted democratic reforms, pioneering the use of
written vernacular Chinese (
baihua). The paper's 1902 criticism of the foreign forces of the
Eight-Nation Alliance (which had established posts in Tianjin following the
Boxer War) resulted in French authorities issuing fines against the paper; Ying moved its operations from the French concession to the Japanese concession. In 1912, the Republic of China banned
Ta Kung Pao after it criticised
Yuan Shikai. As the war raged on, the newspaper's staff fled to other cities, such as Shanghai,
Hankou, Chongqing,
Guilin and Hong Kong, to continue publishing, but local editions were abandoned as the Japanese captured more and more territory. After the war was won, , the chief editor, re-established the Shanghai edition on 1 November 1945, in the format and style of the old Shanghai edition. They had also planned to issue editions for other cities, including
Guangzhou, but the
Chinese Civil War forced this proposal to be shelved.
Ta Kung Pao supported the
Kuomintang at the beginning of the Civil War, but switched its sympathies to the
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the repression of intellectuals, hyper-inflation, and other violent purges of political opponents by the Kuomintang. In March 1948, the Hong Kong edition was re-established. A major newspaper during the
Republican years, it continued to be influential after re-publication by Fei Yi Ming, the subsequent publisher in Hong Kong after 1949, as one of few newspapers that survived foreign invasion and civil war. In April 1952, the colonial authorities in Hong Kong tried the newspaper's proprietor, publisher, and its editor for violation of the
Sedition Ordinance.
Ta Kung Pao, along with the
New Evening Post and
Wen Wei Po, were charged with inciting an uprising by negatively reporting on the colonial authorities' response to a fire in
Tung Tau Tsuen. As a result,
Ta Kung Pao's leadership was fined, jailed, and ordered to cease reporting for six months. On March 5,
New Evening Post,
Wen Wei Po and
Ta Kung Pao reprinted an editorial from ''
People's Daily'', the newspaper of the
Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, but removed references to "massacre of our countrymen" to avoid violating Hong Kong's Sedition Ordinance. However, the Hong Kong government accused the newspapers of sedition.
Ta Kung Pao, its owner Fei Yiming and publisher Li Zongying received to nine and six months of prison sentence and fined a few thousand Hong Kong dollars. In 2019, the
Chinese University of Hong Kong's Centre for Communication and Public Opinion Survey ranked
Ta Kung Pao as having the lowest credibility score among all paid newspapers in Hong Kong. During the
2019–2020 Hong Kong protests,
Ta Kung Pao published
antisemitic George Soros conspiracy theories, displaying Soros as a reptile in collusion with
Jimmy Lai. In 2020,
Ta Kung Pao frequently attacked judges perceived as siding with pro-democracy protesters, causing Chief Justice
Geoffrey Ma to make an 18-page plea against attacking judges and the judiciary system. In November 2020, the
Hong Kong Bar Association (HKBA) published a letter to Secretary of Justice
Teresa Cheng, accusing
Ta Kung Pao of publishing false material that claimed judge Anderson Chow was being supportive of criminal activities. In 2022, the newspaper launched investigations into several Hong Kong academics that it deemed "anti-China scholars." In May 2023, the newspaper attacked housing and urban planning NGO
Liber Research Community, saying the NGO was "taking things out of context with groundless evidence." In 2024, the newspaper partnered with the Heilongjiang Daily Newspaper Group to establish the Heilongjiang
International Communication Center. In March 2025,
Ta Kung Pao ran a series of articles and editorials, republished by the CCP's
Hong Kong and Macao Work Office, criticizing
CK Hutchison Holdings and
Li Ka-shing for agreeing to sell the company's Panama ports stake to
BlackRock. In May 2025, in response to declining press freedom and greater
censorship in Hong Kong,
Ta Kung Pao called
Reporters Without Borders a "thug" and termed its
World Press Freedom Index a "political smear tool". == Editorial stance ==