A Chinese vacuum tube radio made in 1958. [ www.cnr.cn]

The Chinese have enjoyed radio broadcasts for the last six decades since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. During the years, advancements in radio broadcast technology have reflected the country's economic and cultural development.

1949: New China's Founding Ceremony on the Radio

In August 1949, less than two months before New China's founding ceremony, the Peiping Xinhua Broadcasting Station (formerly China National Radio) was preparing for a live broadcast of the ceremony but was puzzled by a problem: Because of China's undeveloped radio industry, there were no high-power loudspeakers that could broadcast Chairman Mao Zedong's voice from the top of the Tian'anmen rostrum in Beijing to all corners of the square. Luckily, technicians managed to solve the problem by combining nine loudspeakers on one board to form a large-scale loudspeaker.

On October 1, 1949, not only people in Tian'anmen Square, but also those in other areas of China surrounded their radios and held their breath for the exciting moment at 3 p.m. that day, when Mao Zedong proclaimed the founding of New China in his Hunan dialect: "The central people's government of the People's Republic of China is founded today!" People all over China listened to him on their radios and cheered and applauded his words.

1950-1968: Passionate "First Time" of New China's Radio

In the early days of New China, the country's radio industry was so poor that the nation was not able to independently produce a radio. At the time, there were only one million radios for China's 500 million people. Most of the radios were from other countries such as Germany and the United States. Therefore, loudspeakers in the countryside and in factories and schools, served as "public radios", voicing the policies of China to the Chinese people.

Meanwhile, the Chinese government realized the importance of radio for the Chinese people, as 80 percent of them were illiterate. And the Chinese were eager to own their own radios.

On March 25, 1953, the first domestic vacuum tube radio, named "red star 502", was successfully manufactured in Nanjing, east China. Afterwards, the country stopped importing radios from foreign countries. In 1956, the central government called for the development of a national radio industry, ushering in a rapid "10 golden years" of development. During the period, China produced its first crystal triode transistor radio and car transistor radio. And radios became affordable for many families.