ABSTRACT
The process of establishing China’s modern propaganda system was a process of creating propaganda audiences. Early propagandists, such as Liang Qichao and Sun Yat-sen, felt that China lacked qualified propaganda targets. Christian propaganda, influenced by the prohibition of religion, surprisingly influenced the history of modern China in a strange way, as can be demonstrated by the Taiping Rebellion, which took place throughout southern China in the mid-nineteenth century. In propaganda ideas and practices, the Taipings’ movement possesses many modern characteristics that distinguish it from previous peasant uprisings, which used superstition and witchcraft to mobilize people. The unification of the military and government system in the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom brought the idea of Christian propaganda into military and political activities and opened up the connection between the two. In reality, three major propaganda methods were adopted by constitutional reformists: newspapers, schools and the academy.
