China Youth Daily

The China Youth Daily has been the newspaper of the Communist Youth League of China since 1951. It has occasionally published articles critical of the Chinese government.

Background
The China Youth Daily was established in 1951, six years before the Chinese Socialist Youth League decided to change its name to the Communist Youth League of China (CYL).

The Pan Xiao debate (1980) refers to a published letter sent by a young female reader titled Why is the life path getting narrower and narrower which generated 60 thousand response letters in 7 months. It provoked discussion about the meaning of life in the aftermath of the Cultural Revolution.

Freezing Point (冰点 pinyin: Bing diǎn), a four-page weekly supplement of China Youth Daily was temporarily shut down by the Chinese government in early 2006, due to an anti-censorship letter posted by columnist Li Datong. According to The Washington Post, government censors accused the section of "'viciously attacking the socialist system' and condemned a recent article in it that criticized the history textbooks used in Chinese middle schools." Pressure from retired high-level party officials and senior scholars forced the government to allow publication again, but without its former editor and top investigative reporter, according to The New York Times.

Readership
American journalist Philip Pan has considered China Youth Daily to be one of the best newspapers in China. It had a circulation of 800,000 in 2006.