State Council Information Office
External name of the Central Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party
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ToursExplore Lably’s 3D toursHistorically, SCIO was the external name of the Office of External Propaganda (OEP) of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) under an arrangement termed "one institution with two names." In 2014, OEP was absorbed into the Central Propaganda Department, turning SCIO into an external nameplate.
History
The SCIO was formed in 1991 when the CCP Central Committee decided that the External Propaganda Leading Group (中央对外宣传小组) of the CCP Central Committee should have the name of State Council Information Office externally. The External Propaganda Leading Group was transformed into the Office of External Propaganda (OEP, 中央对外宣传办公室), officially called in English as the International Communications 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."
In May 2014, the OEP was formally abolished, with its functions absorbed into the CCP's Central Propaganda Department. The SCIO turned into an external nameplate for the Propaganda Department, used primarily for activities of one of its bureaus. In September 2018, the Press Conference Hall of the SCIO was moved from 225 Chaoyangmennei Street, Dongcheng District to the Beijing Telegraph Building in 11 West Chang'an Avenue, Xicheng District.
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Structure
Before its absorption to the Propaganda Department, the OEP had nine functional bureaus, with corresponding ones in the SCIO, as well as supervised organs. It oversaw the China Foreign Languages Publishing Administration, while its seventh bureau oversaw the China Society for Human Rights Studies (CSHRS), a front group established in 1993 dealing with human rights-related narratives towards China.
The SCIO oversees the China Internet Information Center. The SCIO formerly had responsibility for internet censorship in China, with its Internet Affairs Bureau overseeing internet censorship and the suppression of "disruptive" activity on the web in mainland China. In May 2011, the SCIO transferred the offices, namely its fifth and ninth bureaus, which regulated the internet to a new subordinate agency, the State Internet Information Office (SIIO). In May 2014, with the abolishment of the OEP, the SIIO (renamed in English as the Cyberspace Administration of China) was absorbed into the newly established Central Leading Group for Cybersecurity and Informatization.
Since the 2014 merger SCIO's nine bureaus are now controlled by the Central Propaganda Department, sometimes used by the department's bureaus as external nameplates.
List of directors
Every SCIO director except Zhao Qizheng have also served as deputy heads of the Central Propaganda Department.