Internal media of the People's Republic of China

Internal media of China enables the officials of China to access information that is subject of censorship in China.

As He Qinglian documents in chapter 4 of Media Control in China, there are many grades and types of internal documents (Chinese: 内部文件; pinyin: nèibù wénjiàn). Many are restricted to a certain administrative level – such as county level, provincial level or down to certain official levels in a ministry. Some Chinese journalists, including Xinhua correspondents in foreign countries, write for both the mass media and the internal media.

The PRC State Secrecy Protection Law (保守国家秘密法; bǎoshǒu guójiā mìmì fǎ) Section Nine stipulates three grades of state secrets: top secret (绝密; juémì), secret (机密; jīmì) and confidential (秘密; mìmì) as well as a fourth grade of information, internal materials (内部资料; nèibù zīliào) that may be read by Chinese citizens only. The Chinese State Secrecy Protection Law Implementing Regulations (国家秘密法实施办法; guójiā mìmì fǎ shíshī bànfǎ) section two defines these grades of secrecy and the permissions allowed to government departments at each level. In each Chinese administrative region, Party organizations such as committees and disciplinary committees, government organizations such as people's congresses, governments, and consultative congresses, and military organizations such as military districts and their provincial military districts, and the hundreds of agencies subordinate to them issue these three types of internal documents.

The level of classification is tied to the administrative levels of the Party and the government in China. The higher the administrative level of the issuing office, the more secret the document. In local governments the issuing grades are province (省; shěng), region (or city directly subordinate to a province) (地区; dìqū or, respectively 省直辖市; shěngzhíxiáshì) and county (县; xiàn). Grades within government organs are ministry (部; bù), bureau (局; jú) and office (处; chù). Grades in the military are corps (军; jūn), division (师; shī), and regiment (团; tuán). The most authoritative documents are drafted by the Central Committee to convey instructions from CCP leaders. Documents with "Chinese Communist Party Central Committee Document" (中共中央文件; zhōnggòng zhōngyāng wénjiàn) written at the top in red letters are the most authoritative.

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