South China Morning Post

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  The South China Morning Post has sat at the center of Hong Kong's public life since the 6th of November 1903, when its first issue landed on the streets of a city still firmly under British colonial rule. It began with just 300 copies a day, founded by an anti-Qing revolutionary named Tse Tsan-tai and a British journalist named Alfred Cunningham. What they built would one day become the world's most profitable newspaper on a per-reader basis, a title it briefly held in the 1990s. Today it reaches 35 million monthly readers across multiple platforms.

  But the story of the South China Morning Post is not simply one of growth. It is a story of contested ownership, of editors who stood their ground and those who did not, of political pressures that bent the newsroom in ways both visible and subtle. Who owns a newspaper shapes what it tells its readers. And as ownership of the Post passed from colonial-era interests to a media mogul, then to a Malaysian tycoon, and finally to one of China's largest technology companies, the question of independence kept returning. The answers were never simple, and they were never final.

• 2. A Paper Born from Conflict

  ›

  Tse Tsan-tai was no ordinary newspaper founder. He was an anti-Qing revolutionary who saw the press as a vehicle for political change in the late-Qing dynasty. His British co-founder, Alfred Cunningham, brought journalistic craft. The paper's precise founding purpose remains disputed, though it has been linked to supporting reform movements in the dying years of the Qing dynasty.

  In those early years, British journalists like Cunningham, Douglas Story, and Thomas Petrie wrote the editorials, while Tse focused on building the paper's commercial base. The paper competed with three other English-language outlets: the Hong Kong Daily Press, the China Mail, and the Hong Kong Telegraph. By 1904, it was printing just 300 copies a day. The relationship between the editors and the Hong Kong government was cooperative from the start, a dynamic that would define much of the paper's early character and one that would later become a source of controversy.

• 3. Elites, Empires, and Profits

  ›

  After World War II, the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation acquired majority shares in the paper. The SCMP was listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange in November 1971, giving it a more public profile, though the listing was short-lived.

  Reading the paper in the 20th century carried social weight. It was described as a status symbol, representing the interests of Hong Kong elites and the British government. Editors attended regular meetings at the Government House, receiving information intended to shape public opinion. The HSBC also gave the paper business briefings, embedding the Post deeply in the financial and political establishment of the colony.

  The paper's most commercially successful decade came in the 1990s. By 1993, daily circulation had passed 100,000 copies, and profits ran to HK$586 million from mid-1992 to mid-1993. Profit peaked in 1997 at HK$805 million. For most of that decade, the SCMP held the distinction of being the most profitable newspaper in the world. That peak would not last, but the paper's reputation for financial strength shaped how subsequent owners saw what they were acquiring.

• 4. Murdoch, Kuok, and the Handover Years

  ›

  Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation bought the paper in 1986 for HK$2.2 billion, or roughly US$284.4 million. Then in September 1993, Murdoch moved to sell a 34.9% controlling stake to Kerry Media, owned by Malaysian businessman Robert Kuok, for US$375 million. Murdoch's motivation was to free up resources for News Corporation's investments in Asian electronic media.

  Kuok's ownership coincided with some of the most turbulent years in Hong Kong history, as the city prepared for its 1997 handover to China. Questions quickly arose about the paper's editorial independence. Cartoonist Larry Feign's satirical strip "Lily Wong" was axed in 1995, with the dismissal defended publicly as cost cutting. It was widely read as political self-censorship ahead of the handover. Humourist Nury Vittachi documented in his book North Wind how editor Jonathan Fenby had suppressed letters about Feign's firing and written letters to international media defending it. Vittachi himself described pressure to avoid topics deemed sensitive, which he framed as a violation of the free speech rights guaranteed under Hong Kong's Basic Law.

  Kuok's direct involvement in editorial decisions became unmistakable in 2000, when the paper ran a front-page story by journalist Willy Lam about Hong Kong tycoons meeting with General Secretary Jiang Zemin. The story reported that business opportunities in China were offered as political quid pro quos. The Chinese Liaison Office objected. Kuok berated editor Robert Keatley in his office and sent a two-page letter, which Keatley then published in the letters section. Kuok stepped down as group chairman that year. Kuok later launched a general offer for remaining shares in September 2007, increasing his stake to 74 per cent at a cost of US$209 million.

• 5. The Alibaba Acquisition

  ›

  On the 11th of December 2015, Alibaba Group announced it would acquire the media assets of SCMP Group for HK$2 billion, equivalent to US$266 million. The deal closed on the 5th of April 2016. One of its first visible effects was the removal of the paywall on SCMP's website, a move Alibaba said was meant to give the global community broader access to China coverage.

  Joseph Tsai, executive vice-chairman of Alibaba Group, offered a direct rationale. He argued that describing Western news organisations as biased toward China was itself a form of pluralism, and that the world needed a wider range of voices covering China's rise. Critics were unconvinced. Academic studies published in 2021 found that the paper had shifted its editorial stance closer to the Chinese government's position and portrayed the country in a more positive light. A 2021 content analysis concluded that the SCMP was a more effective carrier of China's soft power than state media, precisely because its tone appeared independent.

  In 2020, the paper reversed course on the paywall, reinstating a metered system in August of that year. The paper cited COVID-19 and a tougher advertising environment as factors. Readers could access a limited number of articles before paying. In March 2021, reports emerged that the Chinese government was pressuring Alibaba to sell the SCMP, out of concern over the company's influence on public opinion in Hong Kong. A leaked internal memo from November 2021 showed CEO Gary Liu denying that any sale was underway.

• 6. Editorial Flashpoints

  ›

  Wang Xiangwei, appointed editor-in-chief in 2012 after consultation with the Liaison Office, became the focus of one of the Post's most-discussed editorial controversies. On the 7th of June 2012, staff editors had prepared a full story on the death of Li Wangyang, a prominent dissident. Wang had left the office for the day. He reportedly returned after midnight to reverse the decision. The paper published a two-paragraph report inside the paper while other outlets gave the story prominent coverage. A senior staff member who asked for an explanation circulated the resulting email exchange, which showed a sharp rebuff from Wang. Wang later admitted his decision on the Li Wangyang story was wrong in retrospect.

  Reporter Paul Mooney described the incident as part of a pattern. He said Wang had a long-standing reputation for pulling China stories and steering reporters toward favorable coverage. Mooney's own contract was not renewed in May 2012; he had won more journalism awards than anyone else on the news team but said Wang had blocked him from writing China stories for seven months before his departure.

  In 2017, columnist Shirley Yam published a piece on the 22nd of July insinuating that a woman named Li Qianxin was the daughter of Li Zhanshu, a close ally of General Secretary Xi Jinping. The piece was removed and replaced with a statement citing unverifiable insinuations. Yam eventually resigned. The following year, the paper published an interview with detained bookseller Gui Minhai, drawing sharp criticism. Magnus Fiskesjö, an associate professor at Cornell University and a friend of Gui, said the paper had agreed to interview a torture victim between interrogation sessions, and declared it could no longer be trusted as an independent organisation. In October 2022, former senior editor Peter Langan resigned after the paper rejected his three-month investigation into human rights abuses in Xinjiang.

• 7. Awards and Reach

  ›

  Against the backdrop of editorial controversy, the SCMP's journalism operation collected substantial recognition for its visual and digital work. The paper won three awards at the 2018 WAN-IFRA Asian Digital Media Event, followed by 11 awards at the same competition the following year. In 2020, it won 23 awards at the Society for News Design's Best of Digital Design competition, with three of those for coverage of the Hong Kong protests. It also won four gold medals at the 2020 Malofiej Awards and the grand prize at the 2020 Lorenzo Natali Media Awards for a report titled "The 'thin yellow line' standing between Hong Kong police and protestors."

  The Online News Association named the SCMP winner of its 2020 General Excellence in Online Journalism award for large newsrooms. A Sigma Delta Chi Award in Informational Graphics followed in 2019, for Hong Kong protest coverage, and another came in 2020 for COVID-19 coverage. By September 2024, the paper was reaching 35 million monthly readers across platforms. In 2025, WAN-IFRA awarded the paper its Best Digital Subscription or Reader Revenue Project prize for SCMP Plus, a subscription tier focused on exclusive China content.