Abstract: Confucianism has the ideal of “Gonglun” (to debate publicly) or “Gong shifei yu tianxia” (to publicize the debates about national policies all over China), which had been realized, though in a limited way, in Chinese ancient history. One media to realize the ideal is Dibao (court bulletin), which could be traced back to the Song Dynasty and had been revived and reached its peak in the Ming Dynasty. This paper tests in the textual data the existence and importance of Dibao in the Ming Dynasty and argues that it had promoted the transparency of politics, especially in the mid and late Ming Dynasty. The contents of Dibao were imperial edicts and the memorials to the emperors from the scholarofficials, with the purpose to discuss national policies, under the permission of the emperors. During the mid and late Ming Dynasty, Dibao reached almost all counties of China, the lowest level of the imperial government, including remote counties in Guangdong, Guangxi and Yunnan Provinces, the farthest provinces from the central government. The debates were made available to all scholarofficials and they all could have a part in the debates. Moreover, Dibao played an important role in circulating those memorials held by the emperors without responding to the scholarofficials who sent them, a phenomenon called Liuzhong. This was especially the case during Wanli, one of the most inactive monarchies during Ming Dyansty. Dibao had its limit though: it was not available to all Chinese people but scholarofficials. Even the nonofficial students in official schools had no access to it. Despite this, the publicity mediated by Dibao could not be neglected. 

Key words: Dibao , Gonglun , Gong shifei yu tianxia , Liuzhong