Global communication cannot be understood without taking international relations into account, since both are so dynamically intertwined that it is impossible to explore international information flow without looking at the political realities. In this article, content and translation in Chinese library and information science literature in different political circumstances (1890-1949; 1949-1962; 1963-1976; 1977-1989) were used to examine the changing behaviour in trans- border information flow. It was found that transborder information flow is dynamic and the direction of flow is heavily influenced by the political realities.