State Council Information Office

Template:Short description Template:Infobox government agency Template:Politics of China The State Council Information Office (SCIO) is the chief information office of the State Council of the People's Republic of China and an external name of the Central Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party.

Historically, 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

Template:FurtherThe SCIO was formed in 1991 when the CCP Central Committee decided that the External Propaganda Leading Group (Template:Lang) of the CCP Central Committee should have the name of State Council Information Office externally.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> The External Propaganda Leading Group was transformed into the Office of External Propaganda (OEP, Template:Lang), officially called in English as the International Communications Office.<ref name=":1">Template:Cite web</ref> The office was created with the goal of improving the Chinese government's international image following the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre.<ref name=":0" /> 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."<ref name=":0" />

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.<ref name=":1" /> In September 2018, the Press Conference Hall of the SCIO from 225 Chaoyangmennei Street, Dongcheng District to the Beijing Telegraph Building in 11 West Chang’an Avenue, Xicheng District.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

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.<ref name=":1" />

The SCIO oversees the China Internet Information Center.<ref name=":02">Template:Cite web</ref> 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.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref> 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).<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> 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.<ref name=":1" />

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.<ref name=":1" />

List of directors

Every SCIO director except Zhao Qizheng have also served as deputy heads of the Central Propaganda Department.<ref name=":1" />

Name	Chinese name	Took office	Left office	Template:Ref.
Zhu Muzhi	Template:Lang	1991	November 1992
Zeng Jianhui	Template:Lang	November 1992	April 1998
Zhao Qizheng	Template:Lang	April 1998	6 August 2005
Cai Wu	Template:Lang	6 August 2005	30 March 2008
Wang Chen	Template:Lang	30 March 2008	26 April 2013
Cai Mingzhao	Template:Lang	26 April 2013	9 January 2015
Jiang Jianguo	Template:Lang	9 January 2015	25 July 2018
Xu Lin	Template:Lang	21 August 2018	9 June 2022
Sun Yeli	Template:Lang	17 January 2023	11 April 2024	<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>
Mo Gaoyi	Template:Lang	11 April 2024	Incumbent	<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>