The Chinese Communist Party’s Use of Homophonous Pen Names: An Open-Source Open Secret

Executive summary

This article examines the evolving commentary system in the People’s Republic of China that utilizes homophonous pen names to transmit official Chinese Communist Party (CCP) views and assesses the system’s utility as a credible information source for foreign analysts.

Main argument

The CCP uses an evolving system of homophonous pen names to write authoritative commentary that accurately propagates its views. Since the mid-1990s, this system has been repurposed to circumvent growing resistance to CCP propaganda by both the Chinese public and the ranks of the CCP itself. Its commentary covers policy-relevant topics pertaining to China’s most important domestic and foreign affairs, and at times has been used to issue ominous warning statements to foreign countries over sensitive areas of dispute. The article concludes that the pen names investigated within verily represent the views of their superior regime organ. While the system’s effectiveness to achieve its intended purpose seems uncertain, these commentaries provide a readily exploitable resource for foreign analysts that can supplement the long-monitored and more authoritative premium commentary vehicles of the party mouthpiece, the People’s Daily.

Policy implications

• • If foreign analysts systematically monitor and analyze the messages transmitted by the CCP’s homophonous pen name system, then the policymaking community can take advantage of more complete information to devise more effective China-oriented policies.

• • Analysts can accurately identify new homophonous pen names by understanding the history of established pen names and the commonalities found in their linguistic components.

An indispensable form of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda since the founding of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has been authoritative regime commentary. Written for the regime’s official publications, such commentary conveys the collective views of party bodies and is meant to be recognized for its weight. Until the 1980s, the CCP’s traditional commentary system enjoyed a full monopoly over shaping the Chinese public’s views. Editorial content from CCP Central Committee mouthpiece the People’s Daily (PD) was reprinted in local party newspapers nationwide and broadcast over state radio and television to a captive audience.¹ Although many Chinese citizens became numb to this constant barrage of dogma, they had no other opinion source to tune in to.

Unfortunately for party spin doctors, the commercialization of China’s media that began with the reform and opening up (gaige kaifang) period—when most newspapers were made to operate by market principles in order to reduce the state’s burden—introduced many new voices to the commentary landscape. The unintended result was that the country’s media grew to have two masters: the party and the public. Before long, most Chinese found that commercial media sources better catered to their interests and, in critical ways, were more trustworthy than dogmatic party papers. Additionally, new information technologies such as the internet and social media platforms enabled a plethora of different opinions to spread nearly instantaneously. This relative diversity of views threatened the long-held monopoly on opinion-setting that the CCP considers vital to its resilience and power. As an important part of its solution, the party resurrected an old tool: homophonous pen names. This commentary system employs pseudonyms that at first glance look like an individual author’s name but in actuality are homophones for specific CCP regime organs. By repurposing this system, propagandists hope to reassert dominance over China’s opinion environment, which they perceive as chaotic and replete with messages that stray from the party line. Teams working under these pen names write prolifically on China’s major domestic and foreign affairs in party papers and professional journals, as well as on official government websites.

Foreign analysts of China stand to benefit from this system if its commentary truly represents the views of the CCP center. To our knowledge, the only other publicly available English-language study addressing this system’s authoritativeness was written by Wen-Hsuan Tsai and Peng-Hsiang...