Commercial Press

The Commercial Press (Chinese: 商務印書館; pinyin: Shāngwù Yìnshūguǎn) is the first modern publishing organization in China. The Commercial Press is known for its academic publishing and translation work in humanities and social sciences, as well as the Xinhua Dictionary.

In 1897, 26-year-old Xia Ruifang and three of his friends (including the Bao brothers Bao Xian'en and Bao Xianchang) founded The Commercial Press in Shanghai. All four were Protestant Christians who received their training at the American Presbyterian Mission Press. The group soon received financial backing and began publishing books, such as Bibles.

From 1903 to 1914, The Commercial Press operated as a joint venture with Kinkōdō, one of the largest Japanese textbook publishers. Through the joint venture, The Commercial Press obtained the latest printing technology as well as lantern slides and cinema.

From 1903, Zhang Yuanji (张元济, 1867–1959), reacting to China's moves towards a new curriculum, created several textbook and translation series, and from 1904 onwards he launched popular periodicals, such as Dongfang Zazhi (Eastern Miscellany, 1904), Jiaoyu zazhi (The Chinese Education Journal), Xiaoshuo Zazhi (Short Story Magazine, later Fiction Monthly), Xuesheng Zazhi (Student Magazine) and Funü Zazhi (Women's Journal).

The Republic of China succeeded the Qing in 1912. In January 1914, the founder of The Commercial Press, Xia Ruifang, was stabbed to death.

The Commercial Press acquired film studio equipment and camera from a failed American-owned business in Nanjing in 1917. The Commercial Press's film production focused on documentaries. The Commercial Press explicitly sought to domestically produce films as a substitute for foreign imports, which The Commercial Press described as "flippant and mendacious, very harmful to the maintenance of customs and popular sentiment. [Foreign films] frequently satirize inferior conditions in our society, thus providing material for derision."

In 1932, The Commercial Press was bombed by the Imperial Japanese Army during the January 28 Incident. The bombing destroyed its headquarters in Zhabei, Shanghai, and its attached Oriental Library (Dongfang Tushuguan) and its collection of more than 500,000 books, including tens of thousands of rare books. Also destroyed in the bombing were Commercial Press's management offices, warehouses, and four printing presses. The bombing destroyed 80% of its assets in total.

In 1949, The Commercial Press' operations were relocated away from China after the People's Liberation Army entered Shanghai. In 1954, The Commercial Press' headquarters was moved from Shanghai to Beijing, shifting its focus to academic works published in the West. In 1993, the separate Commercial Press companies in mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia established a joint venture, becoming The Commercial Press International Limited. In 2011, the Beijing office was became a limited liability company (商务印书馆有限公司). When China publishing and Media Holdings Co., Ltd. (中国出版传媒股份有限公司) was founded on 19 December 2011, the newly founded company became the parent company.