Hsiao T'ung-tzu (1894-), director of the Central News Agency from 1932 to 1950. Ch'angning, Hunan, was the birthplace of Hsiao T'ung-tzu. Little is known of his early life. He was graduated from Hunan Industrial College in Changsha in 1917. His first known activities were in connection with the Hunan labor movement in the winter of 1920. At that time, Hsiao was associated with Huang Ai and P'ang Jen-ch'uan, who were shot in January 1921 in connection with the strike at the Hua-shih Cotton Mill in Changsha. Hsiao was not a labor organizer; he appears to have restricted his activities to such propaganda work as the preparation of posters and handbills. - Nevertheless, he was forced to flee Changsha in 1921.

Hsiao went to Canton and became associated with the Kuomintang. He reportedly prepared propaganda for the Northern Expedition. After the National Government was established at Nanking in 1928, he became a secretary attached to the Kuomintang's central propaganda apparatus. In 1932 Hsiao T'ung-tzu was named director of the Central News Agency (Chung-yang t'ung-hsün she), which had been established at Canton in April 1924 as a subsidiary of the central propaganda department of the Kuomintang. Before Hsiao became its director, there was no long-term planning with regard to the operations of the agency except for the vague stipulation that Kuomintang branches and members should furnish news to the central party apparatus. For domestic news, the private Kuo-wen News Service of the Ta Kung Pao and the Shun-shih News Service in Shanghai were the leading news sources. Foreign news services dominated the dissemination of international news in China. Hsiao expanded and developed the Central News Agency into a respected news service. He realized at the outset that the agency, to be effective, had to achieve a more independent status. Hsiao's first step was to move the Central News Agency office out of the Kuomintang headquarters building at Nanking. Although he continued to receive party directives, he was given a free hand in establishing a news collection and distribution service. Hsiao opened branch offices in all the important cities of China, organized a wire service with its own telegraphic facilities, and arranged for the exchange of news with foreign news agencies operating in China.

By 1937 the Central News Agency had 10 bureaus and 21 staff correspondents. A total of 159 Chinese newspapers subscribed to the service, which handled 15,000 words of incoming news and 20,000 words of outgoing news daily. The success of the Central News Agency forced the Kuo-wen News Service to close. In 1936, when Sino-Japanese relations were entering a crucial stage, Hsiao recruited Ch'en Po-sheng, a veteran journalist who was known as a Japan specialist, to open a Tokyo bureau, the first overseas branch of the Central News Agency. The same year, Feng Yü-chen, the chief reporter of the agency, was sent to Berlin to cover the Olympic Games. After the Sino-Japanese war broke out, the Central News Agency was forced to close its bureaus in areas of China occupied by the Japanese. Hsiao moved his headquarters to Chungking. Despite the difficulties of wartime operation, he maintained 18 domestic news bureaus in China and a staff of field correspondents. A new photographic department was established to provide pictorial coverage of the war. When Japanese bombing of Chungking was heavy, the central staff worked underground in deep dugouts. By this time the principal foreign news agencies, notably Reuters and the United Press, had concluded arrangements with the Central News Agency by which their dispatches were issued under a joint dateline with the Central News Agency. This development reflected the growth of the agency's English-language department, which served the foreign press. The first Central News Agency office outside the Far East was established at Washington in 1940; within five years bureaus had been opened in New York, London, Moscow, New Delhi, Calcutta, and Paris. The agency's reporters were attached as war correspondents to major commands in the Pacific theater.

At Chungking, Hsiao was elected president of the Chinese National Press Association. He worked closely with Hollington Tong (Tung Hsien-kuang, q.v.), who handled relations with the foreign press corps and distributed official news. After 1938 Ch'en Po-sheng served as chief editor of the Central News Agency and handled much of the technical work of the enterprise.

Hsiao served as director of the Central News Agency until 1950. He then relinquished his post to Tseng Hsü-pai, but remained chairman of the supervisory board. In 1954 he became an adviser to Chiang Kai-shek in Taipei. Hsiao was never regarded as being active in party affairs; however, he was a member of the Central Executive Committee of the Kuomintang after 1934.