In 1918, the China Continuation Committee (CCC), a Protestant organisation in Republican China that aimed at fostering greater cooperation among mission groups, appointed a special committee to promote the widespread use of the National Phonetic Alphabet, a set of phonetic symbols officially promulgated by the Beiyang government in the same year to standardise Mandarin pronunciation. It was hoped that the work of the special committee, known as the Phonetic Promotion Committee (PPC), would improve biblical and general literacy in China.

This lecture explores the history of the PPC from its inception to 1922, when it ceased to be the CCC’s special committee. It illustrates how the PPC emerged and operated as an organisation of the Sino-Foreign Protestant Establishment (SFPE) in early Republican China. It argues that the PPC can be seen as a case of how Chinese Protestants and Western missionaries of the SFPE collaborated to serve the needs of the nascent Chinese republic with enthusiasm, expertise, and experience, contributing to the promotion of mass literacy and the spread of Mandarin as a national language.