 |
Panel 6: How does China deal with foreign and peripheral news media? Fan Ho Tsai It is a great pleasure for me to be here today. I am sure the Beijing Olympic Games is going to be a spectacular event which would attract thousands of reporters from all over the world. To be a journalist is a unique career in my eyes. Reporters have a strong sense of commitments. As the Bible says, "You are the salt of the earth, but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? It is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men." Salty is a soul of salt. With a heart of simplicity for probing the truth is a soul of a journalist. As China is still executing a certain limitations to reporting, the reporters who have the heart of simplicity for probing the truth sometimes find it difficult to comprehend. This is the last panel for the conference and I believe you have got the big picture of China from other speakers. We had many discussions yesterday on the human right situation of China, the control of press and about some of the treatments for activists in China, including Mr Hu Jia. The speakers also touched on the situation in Tibet. They had addressed much of the issues I wanted to make. Now I just have to cut short my part. Since the topic for this panel is about how China deals with foreign and peripheral media and I am the only speaker from Hong Kong, I will start my part from the perspective of a humble journalist in Hong Kong to see how we are treated in China. The moderator asked me to say something about Mr Ching Cheong just then. He was invited to this conference but could not make it. We were most delighted that Ching Cheong was released just before Lunar New Year to reunion with his family. In Hong Kong, he met the press in Chinese Valentine's day. There was no statement from the authorities as of the details of his parole. But the meaning of a parole is to serve the terms outside jail; he could be put in jail again if the authorities consider his behavior not good enough. While we were happy for Ching Cheong's release, two months later, on April 3rd Mr Hu Jia was sentenced to a term of three and a half years for what he wrote and what he said. So one was in jail and one was out. It seems that the Chinese authorities maintain a constant number of innocent inmates. Now we would work on to seek for Hu Jia's early release. The Hong Kong Journalists Association issued a statement to express our anger and held a seminar in Hong Kong. That wraps up my report to you about the latest development. Now I would like to turn back to China. I want to stress that China is making a lot of progress, especially after it opened up its economic market in 1979. China was able to earn a near double- digit increase in its GDP somehow over the past ten years. In terms of political aspects, there has been changing of generations for the past few decades with a younger and more open-minded leadership. But obviously there are rooms for improvement in the way the officials handle press enquires and the restrictions on news coverage. According to the information of Chinese Foreign Ministry, there are around 700 foreign correspondents in China. They include the journalists from the two special administration regions, Hong Kong and Macau, and from over 300 news organizations of over 40 countries. The journalists mainly station in three cities: Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. And for every year, the number of reporters to China is around a few thousands. Many of them go to China on project bases. There are some differences in the procedures for Hong Kong media and foreign media to enter into mainland China. To be "political correct", the press in Hong Kong started to use the term "mainland China" instead of "China" after Hong Kong's hand over in 1997. For the foreign journalists, they need to apply for the visa from the Chinese Embassy. Under this system, there are more restrictions on the press. The government can refuse to issue a visa, thus making up obstacles for foreign press. As Hong Kong is a part of China, Hong Kong people can go back to mainland China with a permit called "permit to go home". This is an interesting name of a credential. Why Hong Kong people have to get a permit to go to other places in the motherland? This is because of one country two systems and there is still a boundary between Hong Kong and mainland China. Vice versa, for tourists from other parts of China, they also have to apply for a permit to come to Hong Kong for sight-seeing. Major mainstream news media organizations of Hong Kong now have their own correspondents in the three cities I mentioned. They file important political news back to Hong Kong everyday and the electronic media do live reporting. Other times they dig into in-depth scoops of their own. Major international news agencies also set up their office in China. But if the Hong Kong media want to cover news in other cities, they have to obtain the approval from the Liaison Office of the Central People's Government in Hong Kong. Otherwise, officially their news coverage in those areas is "illegal" in mainland China, and the officials may request the reporters to leave, or they could be in big trouble. But we all agree that news allow no time to wait for documents. So, practically, if there are big disasters in China, the news organizations would dispatch crews to the scene as soon as possible, without prior approval from the liaison office, as competition is very tough among media these days. Sometimes, the officials would turn a blind eye of the presences of reporters and give discretions. It depends very much on the sensitivity of the news. At this point, the Hong Kong journalists, mostly comprise of ethnic Chinese, should have more advantages than their foreign counterparts. Because they have the "permit to go home", they can mingle easier with other ordinary tourists to the primary sources of news. How about if it is a news story about the government or if the coverage is by invitation from the government? Twenty years ago I saw a stand-up on TV which the reporter was telling the audience that they were monitored by the officials all the way for the whole day, standing only a few feet behind them while they were doing interviews, and the citizens did not feel free to answer their questions on camera, because they were being observed. The citizens were afraid of not giving the "right answers". I have been around the industry for more than 20 years. Frankly speaking I do not enjoy trips to mainland China, because I was always caught and riding on a police vehicle. I would like to share with you one encounter. In the summer of 1996, I worked for the radio and I went to the province of Anhui, in the middle part of China, to cover a serious flooding. I went along with a TV crew to share the expenses of renting a car. We visited different districts to see the aftermath of the disaster. Thousands of houses were destroyed, some people died, and more people were left homeless. We managed to talk to the victims, only on the second day we were discovered by the officials that we were doing "illegal reporting". At first we were led to a big room where over 10 officials from various departments asked us to present our personal identity documents before they preached to us that we were in breach of the regulations. Hours later, we were held separately to talk to the officials one on one. Don't worry; they did not use torture on me, they only taught me the guidelines of how to behave like a "responsible journalist", that was to make application first and notify the government of our presence. When I was totally exhausted in the evening, they asked me to hand over all the audio recordings. I refused their requests and insisted that the tapes were the property of my company. But you have to surrender after a whole day's fidget. I just cleared off some recordings in front of them and kept the rest secretly to do a voice- over for my story later. They also asked me to write a letter of repentance. I insisted I was dispatched to cover the assignment and I did nothing wrong. I only compromised to write a statement before I could be released. They even treated us a big dinner, which later we learnt that was a farewell dinner. And the next morning, their men were at the hotel to make sure that we headed for the airport to go back to Hong Kong. We had no choice because the officials talked to our driver not to drive us anywhere other than the airport, or he would be in big trouble. Chances of hiring another driver were slim, because they actually talked to every driver who got a car to rent in the vicinity. This is a typical experience of a reporter stepping feet on the soil of the motherland without approval. Some of the restrictions have been lifted and the officials are becoming more open-minded in handling the press nowadays. But as we can see from the unrest that erupted in Lhasa, Tibet in March, the Chinese government is still very skeptical of the press. After two or three days' coverage, the reporters were placed under escort and ordered out of Lhasa. We found the act unjustifiable and regretful. After foreign press left, only the state-own media organizations such as CCTV released the news source, it was very difficult to prove the truthfulness and credibility of official news coverage, or to monitor the situation. Although the authorities invited some media organizations to go back to Lhasa later, the itinerary was set by officials who accompanied reporters all the way. It only left us an impression of putting up a show by the government. As the Beijing Olympic Games is drawing near, the government made announcement that some of the restrictions for reporters would be relaxed. The new rules came into effect on January 1st 2007, will expire on October 17th 2008, less than two months after the completion of the Beijing Olympic Games. Under the new rules, accredited journalists are allowed to interview Chinese citizens or organizations without prior government approval, as long as consent is sought from the interviewees. Foreign media can also hire local Chinese as their assistants through authorized agencies. The procedure of bringing equipment into the country was also simplified. A massive influx of visitors to China is expected for this spectacular event. I believe many journalists and tourists would make their first trip to Beijing. I hope that the Chinese government can take this opportunity to show the modernization and opening -up of the country to the world, as it would be the focus of the whole world for the months to come. Thank you. April 22nd, 2008 |
