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The purpose of this paper is to deepen the understanding of the language policy towardmodern standard Chinese – Putonghua – and Chinese dialects in the Chinese newspaper the People’s Daily. This study aims to investigate how the People’s Daily approaches the themes of the coexistence of Putonghua and Chinese dialects, in which societal domains they should be used and the People’s Daily’s view of them. A qualitative thematic content analysis has been performed on articles from the People’s Daily that regard Putonghua and Chinese dialects, dating 1995–2001.

The findings of this study show that the People’s Daily think that the promotion of Putonghua does not mean the abolishment of Chinese dialects and that the two should be able to coexist. At the same time there exists passages that indicate that Putonghua should replace the dialects. The People’s Daily further states that Putonghua should be used generally in all situations, in government bodies, public places, workplaces, broadcasting and in all forms of art apart from local theater and song and does not comment on any area where Putonghua should not be used. Correspondingly, The People’s Daily lists many of these areas as areas in which Chinese dialects should not be used but accepts a moderate use of Chinese dialects in areas related to culture or entertainment. Furthermore, only good qualities of Putonghua are reported in the newspaper, while there is a mixture of good and bad qualities reported of Chinese dialects. Lastly, this study shows that the People’s Daily regard Putonghua to have a positive effect on the language communication, societal development and people in China, while they report that Chinese dialects have the opposite.