Postage stamps and postal history of the People's Republic of China

Mail

Mail, or post, is a system for transporting letters and other tangible objects: written documents, typically enclosed in envelopes, and also small packages are delivered to destinations around the world. Anything sent through the postal system is called mail or post.In principle, a postal service...

in China goes back some 2,500 years, modern postal services were not established until 1877 by the Qing government. The postal system of the People's Republic of China

People's Republic of China

China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...

was established as the General Postal Administration in Beijing

Beijing

Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...

in 1949, growing out of the posts that had been operating for several years in the liberated areas. Development was slow; by 1949 there was only 1 post office for every 370 square kilometers. Several of the liberated areas continued to operate their own postal systems; most were ordered to stop selling regional stamp issues by June 30, 1950, while the Northeast Liberation Area and the Port Arthur and Dairen Post and Telegraph Administration continued to use their own stamps (due to the different currencies) until the end of 1950.

Postage stamps

The unified administration issued its first postage stamp

Postage stamp

A postage stamp is a small piece of paper that is purchased and displayed on an item of mail as evidence of payment of postage. Typically, stamps are made from special paper, with a national designation and denomination on the face, and a gum adhesive on the reverse side...

s on October 8, 1949, consisting of a set of four depicting a lantern and the Gate of Heavenly Peace, commemorating the 1st session of the Chinese People's Consultative Political Conference. This issue also inaugurated the innovative practice of numbering each type of stamp issued, usually in the lower left corner. For instance, the $800 value in the Dove of Peace issue of 1950 is numbered "5.3-2", indicating that it is the second stamp of three in the fifth stamp issue of China. The practice is only followed for commemorative and special stamps, regular definitive stamp

Definitive stamp

A definitive stamp is a postage stamp, that is part of a regular issue of a country's stamps available for sale by the postal service for an extended period of time...

s having no special markings.

The first definitive series came in February 1950, and featured the Gate of Heavenly Peace against a background of clouds. The nine values ranged from $200 to $10,000. The design was modified several times over the next year, and again in 1954, resulting in what philatelists call the "second" through "sixth" issues, each varying in minor ways, such as the layout of the clouds.

The postal system found it necessary to surcharge

Overprint

An overprint is an additional layer of text or graphics added to the face of a postage stamp or banknote after it has been printed. Post offices most often use overprints for internal administrative purposes such as accounting but they are also employed in public mail...

stamps of the previous government, with issues in March and August 1950, and May 1951. In addition, leftover stamps of the Northeastern Provinces were pressed into service in July 1950, and those of East China

East China

East China is a geographical and a loosely-defined cultural region that covers the eastern coastal area of China.Although an intangible and loosely defined concept, for administrative and governmental purposes, the region is defined by the government of the People's Republic of China to include...

in December 1950.

In the meantime, various commemoratives marked conferences and other events of the young republic. In June 1952 a set of forty stamps depicting physical exercises was issued in conjunction with a radio program; ten exercises were illustrated, each with a block of four, where each stamp shows a different position of arms and legs for the exercise.

Cultural revolution

Reduced stamp sales and withdrawals from issue of several stamps during the Cultural Revolution

Cultural Revolution

The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, commonly known as the Cultural Revolution , was a socio-political movement that took place in the People's Republic of China from 1966 through 1976...

resulted in a few stamps that are quite scarce, especially used. The typical pattern resulting in rarity was unauthorized sales before the official date of issue by isolated post offices of stamps which were then withdrawn from issue before the official date of issue. One rarity, an unissued 8f stamp from 1967 commemorating the 40th Anniversary of Establishment of Jing Gangshan Revolutionary Base, popularly known as "Big Blue Sky", which pictured Chairman Mao and Lin Biao

Lin Biao

Lin Biao was a major Chinese Communist military leader who was pivotal in the communist victory in the Chinese Civil War, especially in Northeastern China...

on the podium overlooking Tienanmen Square exists only as scraps salvaged from the destruction process. Only scraps from one stamp in the withdrawn set are known to exist.

Postal service

The postal service was established rapidly in the 1950s and 1960s. By 1952 the principal postal networks centered on the capital, Beijing

Beijing

, and links to all large cities had been established. Great progress was made in improving the postal service under the First Five-Year Plan

Five-Year Plans of China

The five-year plans of People's Republic of China are a series of economic development initiatives. The economy was shaped by the Communist Party of China through the plenary sessions of the Central Committee and national congresses...

. Postal service was also developed in the rural areas. Besides extending rural postal routes, the problem of delivering mail

Mail

to places below the county level was solved by enlisting the aid of the population. From 1954 onward a system of mail delivery by rural postal worker

Postal worker

A postal worker is one who works for a post office, such as a mail carrier. In the U.S., postal workers are represented by the and the American Postal Workers Union, part of the AFL-CIO. In Canada, they are represented by the Canadian Union of Postal Workers and in the United Kingdom by the...

s was tried in agricultural cooperatives, and in 1956 this system was extended throughout the country. By 1959 the national postal network was complete.

Postal service was administered by the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications (now the Ministry of Information Industry), which was established in 1949 and reestablished in 1973 after a two-year period during which the postal and telecommunications functions had been separated and the ministry downgraded to a subministerial level.

In 1984 China had 53,000 post and telecommunications offices and 5 million kilometers of postal routes, including 240,000 kilometers of railroad postal routes, 624,000 kilometers of highway postal routes, and 230,000 kilometers of airmail

Airmail

Airmail is mail that is transported by aircraft. It typically arrives more quickly than surface mail, and usually costs more to send...

routes. By 1985 post offices were handling 4.7 billion first-class letters and 25 billion newspapers and periodicals. In 1987, after a six-year hiatus, six-digit postal codes were ordered to be put into use.

For many years, China was not a member of the Universal Postal Union

Universal Postal Union

The Universal Postal Union is an international organization that coordinates postal policies among member nations, in addition to the worldwide postal system. The UPU contains four bodies consisting of the Congress, the Council of Administration , the Postal Operations Council and the...

, and while using Arabic numerals for the denominations, did not include the country's name in Latin letters as required of UPU nations. The addition of "CHINA" to stamps' inscriptions began in 1992. Western collectors typically differentiate earlier stamps both by the serial numbers in the lower corner, and by the first character of the country name 中, the "square box with a vertical bar" being visually distinct from the inscription used by any other Asian country.

Postage stamps

Cultural revolution

Postal service

See also