Paper, the "blood" and "food" of the newspaper industry, is an important index to measure the development of newspaper. Due to the backwardness ofpapermaking, modern Chinese newspaper has been plagued and attacked by paper shortage for a long time, and thus formed a high dependence on paper importedfromthe West. The shortage of paper is a chronic disease of the development of newspaper in modern China. It not only shapes the external form of newspaper, but also profoundly influences the operation philosophy and media ecology of Chinese newspaper. The shortage of paper forced the Chinese newspaper to fnd the way to solve the problem in the plight of paper shortage, and to struggle to move forward under the condition of scarce materials and technologies.