INTRODUCTION

John William Powell was the editor of the China Weekly Review, an English language journal published in Shanghai from December 1945 to July 1953. When Powell came to China as a journalist for the U.S. Office of War Information (OWI) in 1943, his views were not unlike those of other American correspondents in wartime Chongqing. As the Nationalist government and the ruling Guomindang (GMD) Party began to falter during the Chinese Civil War of 1945-1949, Powell’s China Weekly Review became more critical of the corruption and ineptitude of the Guomindang and more insistent on the importance of reform.