Many here are aware that within the Chinese territories Dragon Ball has been released with Cantonese and Mandarin dubs in Hong Kong and Taiwan respectively. The former was the first country outside Japan to see the anime when it premiered on TVB Jade on February 21, 1988, and the latter received its own broadcast beginning on August 3, 1997.
These dubs are well known among Dragon Ball dub collectors, but sometime in between the times they were seen on TV, and I believe released on VCD there was another Mandarin dub produced for mainland China that only covered the original Dragon Ball series.
I can confirm that at least 52 episodes of this mainland Mandarin dub can be found, as I believe a VCD release exists. Episodes 53-153, from what I know are lost as they only aired on TV. Although, sometime since 2016 the StarTimes KungFu channel in South Africa began airing this dub with English subtitles, so there may be some hope of recordings surfacing.
In terms of where the mainland Mandarin dub was recorded, everything I've read points to Liaoning People's Art Theatre as the source. I'm not entirely sure if they produced it, or were outsourced by another company, but through a cursory look on various Chinese websites I've seen fans from those areas refer to this dub as the "Liaoyi version", which is potentially a portmanteau of "Liaoyi Art" (which I've also heard being talked about). I've also heard fans outside China call it the Putonghua dub, likely because "putonghua" is the Mandarin word for Mandarin.
Sadly it seems that from some point in the 90s Liaoyi dubs began to decline, and Taiwanese dubbing would take over. There was a mainland Mandarin dub for the first 6 Dragon Ball Z movies, although they were done by Shanghai Audiovisual Publishing House, so I wonder if Liaoning lost the rights, hence why they never dubbed Z or anything afterward.
From what I've seen of the original Dragon Ball dub I can confirm that it leaves Makafushigi Adventure and Romantic Ageru Yo undubbed, I've also read that the few episodes occasionally have Japanese dialogue, although I haven't noticed examples from what I've spot checked. For this reason I am going to guess it was based on the Japanese version.
Cast
Spoiler:
I'd love to hear if anyone knows anything more about this dub, like what channels aired it (I've heard anecdotal accounts of Yunnan and Shenzhen Satellite TV, perhaps some syndication partners but nothing concrete), and it allegedly aired between 17:00 and 18:30, which is interesting because I've heard there were some instances of edited dialogue, although I also recall reading a blog somewhere that stated Ningxia TV aired two episodes between 11:45 and 12:50, so perhaps there are different edits of this dub out there.
Another thing I've heard is that the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television at one point issued a notice for anime, including Dragon Ball to be banned. Does anyone know anything about this? I haven't read anything that specifically names Dragon Ball as being a series that suffered this fate, but as China can be very strict about media I wouldn't rule this out as a possibility.