Chung Hwa Book Corporation, established in January 1912, is one of the presses with the longest history inChina. It was established inShanghaiby Mr. Lu Feikui (Bohong). At the beginning of its establishment, it pursued the purpose of "open the wisdom of the people". It mainly edited and published various textbooks, which played an active role in disseminating science and cultural knowledge, and promoting new education.
In the period from its establishment to 1949, Chung Hwa Book Corporation had published more than 5,800 titles of books in various categories, such as social science, natural science, literature and arts, important ancient books and children's books. It had set up more than 50 branches and more than 1,000 distributing divisions all overChina. It had also set up branches inSingapore,Hong Kong, andTaiwanareas. Its business extended all over the country, and gradually overseas. It is one of the several large-scale comprehensive publishing enterprises inChinaat that time.
After the founding of the People's Republic ofChina, in May 1954, Chung Hwa Book Corporation was in a state-private joint ownership. The headquarters was moved toBeijing, at the same time, maintaining the Shanghai Agency of Chung Hwa Book Corporation inShanghai, which was regrouped into the Shanghai Editorial Institute of Chung Hwa Book Corporation in 1958. In the same year, the ancient books sorting and publishing planning team of the State Council was set up, and Chung Hwa Book Corporation was part of the team. It then became a professional press that sorted and published books on ancient and modern literature, history, philosophy, language, and relevant academic works, and popular reading materials. It undertakes the basic projects of sorting state-level ancient books. Since 1949, Chung Hwa Book Corporation has published more than 7,000 titles of books.
In recent years, seven kinds of books published by Chung Hwa Book Corporation have won national book awards, and nearly 100 kinds of books have won the China Book Awards, Excellent Book Awards set by presses directly under the General Administration of Press and Publishing, and Excellent Book Awards for Chinese Ancient Books, so it is the press that can best represent the publishing level of Chinese ancient books and academic works.
Chung Hwa Book Corporation not only has abundant editors and publishing resources accumulated in 80 years, but also has rich property and real estate resources, namely, the new office building of more than 10 thousand square meters, a factory, and a printing factory covering 80 mu (15 mu=1 hectare), which all have broad developing prospect.