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Panel 2: How are Chinese news media controlled? Why the situation of the press in China is worsening with the approach of the Olympic games The new rules governing the work of foreign journalists during the preparation and running of the Beijing Olympic Games, approved by Prime Minister Wen Jiabao (Decree no. 477 of the Council of State Affairs) entered into force on January 1, 2000. These rules did not cover Tibet, where foreign journalists must still demand special permission to operate. On that day, the Reuters news agency interviewed China's best-known political prisoner, Bao Tong. Shortly afterwards, the Reporters without Borders organization sent a delegation to China to meet with government authorities. At that time, everyone thought that the Chinese government had decided to keep the promise it made in 2001 and that this was the beginning of an improvement of the rights of man and freedom of the press in China. Nevertheless, foreign journalists were ceaselessly harassed in their work throughout 2007; they were arrested or beaten more than 80 times, while the number of Chinese journalists and media professionals condemned for their opinions has not stopped increasing. During the demonstrations in Lhasa on March 10, foreign journalists and even those from Hong Kong with permission to work in Tibet were expelled in clear violation of applicable laws. On April 3, 2008, the human rights campaigner Hu Jia, who is equally known as a "citizen journalist," was condemned by the Intermediate Peoples Court in Beijing to three and a half years in prison and loss of his civic rights for a year. As the Olympic Games approach, this cases demonstrates in a terrible emblematic fashion the position of the Communist Party in confrontation with freedom of expression. It also shows the riposte of the Chinese authorities to the demands of the international community. The detention of Chinese journalists because of the Olympic Games did not begin in 2008. I think it is necessary to look at my own case. On September 23, 1993, Beijing failed to obtain the organization of the 2000 Olympic Games. I was arrested on October 2; on November 10 the following year, the Intermediate Peoples Court in Beijing condemned me to six years in prison and a year's loss of my civic rights for "divulging state secrets." During an interrogation I stated that at the beginning of 1993, I had sent two articles on current affairs to the Mirror, a left-wing review in Hong Kong. This was the only proof authorities were able to use against me. They used me as a ''symbol" in confronting the international community, but also as pawn in the negotiations during the visit of President Jiang Zemin to the United States in 1997 and that of President Clinton to China in 1998. During these two years, my prison frequently received orders to arrange my release as part of a "political exchange." But it was not until 1999, during the Chinese New Year, just before the visit of Prime Minister Zhu Rongji to the United States, that I was freed "for medical reasons." Throughout my imprisonment, several international organizations participating in this conference as well as Hong Kong journalists and the Hong Kong Journalists Association, as well as Mr. Ching Cheong, supported and helped me. It is only now, fifteen years later, that I have the possibility of thanking you face to face. But sadly, the situation of the press in China has still not evolved. If you compare my case to that of Hu Jia, my punishment was heavier and the legal proceedings were even more unjust. Not only was my family not allowed to attend my trial, but my defense lawyers were also prevented. Nevertheless, in a comparison between the situation of the press in China in 1993 and in 2008, I think that in this Olympic year it is considerably more catastrophic. The position of human rights and press freedom in China has slowly worsened over the past sixty years, and this tendency has intensified since the Tiananmen Square massacre. Deng Xiaoping did nothing more than carry out economic reforms without advancing political reforms by a single step. Violence and repression have been used to assure the stability of society, while at the same time the gap between rich and poor has been widening in an alarming fashion. Many problems have come to light as a result of the dramatic question of human rights, the fracturing of society, the degradation of the environment, the corruption of officials and difficulties weighing on the poorest sectors of society (such as education, health, housing, land use, financial risks and inflation), and the sharp contradictions at the heart of society. As for the current project of creating a harmonious society, it consists in reality of preventing the population from understanding or even of interesting itself in the somber history of our country, and its present circumstances. Neither the Communist party nor the various authorities have accepted this responsibility. On the contrary, they continue to use the traditional method of controlling the press in order to prevent the population understanding reality. For sixty years, there has been no law to protect Chinese journalists and media professionals. In the 1980s, the National Peoples Congress began preparing a project of a law on the press, but at that time it was impossible to openly defend the rights of journalists. There were violent discussions between defenders of the project such as Hu Jiwei, a member of the congress, who supported a text guaranteeing respect for the law by the Communist party and the government. But a representative of Leftist forces, Hu Qiaomu, in charge of ideology, argued that the law should apply only to journalists and information professionals. Hu Jiwei refuted this: "It is necessary also to control those who control the press, those who control the officials as well as the organs in charge of the press." Following three modifications of the text, the Leftist current succeeded in stifling the voice of the reformers. After the Tiananmen massacres, the project was completely abandoned. That is why today, the various echelons of power can exert pressure on journalists in total impunity. Freedom of the press and human rights constitute the most serious problem currently facing China. At the approach of the Olympic Games, all Chinese who have suffered oppression hope to be able to utilize this occasion to seek justice; the international community hopes that the Chinese government will improve the situation of the press and human rights in line with the promise made in 2001. But the Chinese authorities see these internal and external pressures as "politicization of the Olympic Games." Unhappily, counter-attacking against these criticisms by repressing the freedom of the press only underlines this contradiction. Today, the Chinese press industry is increasing at the same rate as the economy of the country. In 2005, it represented one seventh of the world press industry. But this so flourishing industry has unhappily not changed since the epoch of Mao Zedong. The director of the Publicity Department (formerly the Propaganda Department) was promoted to the Politburo by the Communist party's propaganda departments and bureaus at the Party's Fourteenth Congress. One change is that it is not possible today to control the press by increasing the number of posts in the propaganda bureaus. As a result, the Publicity Department and the General Administration of Press and Publications (GAPP) have recruited a large number of press-review officials, and the provincial and local bureaus have done the same. The press-review officials are generally senior retired functionaries who are, above all, required to be politically "reliable." They obtain supplementary payments for their work. In general, they write one report a month, or more if the situation demands. These reports are used by the Publicity Department and the GAPP as sources for articles in Xinwen Yueping (Review of the News), a publication of which the tone and the language are reminiscent of those of the Cultural Revolution. The affair of Bing Dian (Freezing Point), which concentrated the attention of the international community, began in fact with an article that appeared in Xinwen Yueping. China is the only country in the world that practices this kind of censorship of the press and of all publishing outlets, as shown by the surprising number of such press-review officials. During situations of crisis, the media have no right of initiative and are obliged to carry information coming from the official agency Xinhua. It is thus that the Publicity Department has managed to extend its control over the press and publications all over the country. This system is a hundred times more perverse than the one in Prussia that even Marx criticized in his time. Let us give some other examples: in March 2007, the economic magazine Caijing appeared with a cover-page interview with the jurist Jiang Ping, which stated that "the General Affairs Office of the Central Committee had ordained that the Law on property should be adopted by the National Peoples Congress." The Publicity Department, in a fit of fury, ordered that all copies of the magazine should be withdrawn from sale, and that a new cover page should be substituted at the expense of the magazine. On January 19 2008, the weekly Nanfang Zhoumo organized a prize-giving ceremony for the year 2007. A special prize in the magazines category had been awarded to the review Yanhuang Chunqiu (Spring and Autumn of Yanhuang). As the name of the magazine appeared on the screen, Du Daozheng and Wu Si, respectively the editor and assistant editor, went to collect the prize, expressing courtesies. At that very moment, a call was received from the Ideology Department, insisting that the prize be withdrawn. This incident became the "scoop" of the ceremony. Du Daozheng, having been director of the GAPP, dared to denounce this situation to the Publicity Department, which denied having issued the order. Du Daozheng then referred to "the mystery call." From this, once can see to what point the functioning of the organisms for controlling the press is secretive and obscure. No written document is accessible by the public, whether at the national, provincial or local level, and no meeting of the central committee at the national media can be recorded. It is not only the Publicity Department by other government organs that interfere with the press. On July 3o and 31, 2007 the daily Xiaoxiang Chenbao (the Hunan Daily) and the Economic News of Hunan television channel issued information about an increase in the price of tofu and losses suffered by producers of food based on soya. The National Development and Reform Commission alleged that this information was false, and on August 5, it got the Xinhua agency to publish an article denouncing the information. But by that time the price of tofu had already increased. Journalists who tell the truth are punished, and the rewriting of articles by the official media has become a Chinese specialty. For example, the journalist Xiao Shifeng of Xiaoxiang Chenbao was fired and in another case, the reporter Zi Beijia of Beijing TV was condemned to a year in prison for having made a false report about cardboard in food. The journalist Pang Jiaoming of the China Economic Times (known for its articles about attacks against "false journalists") received death threats after publishing an article denouncing the poor quality of materials used in the manufacture of rails for the first high speed railway line between Wuhan and Canton. The government denied the information and used a regulation on the responsibility of newspaper directors to oblige the China Economic Times to fire the reporter. Zhu Wenna, a journalist on the magazine Faren -- which belongs to the official newspaper Fazhi Ribao (Juridical Daily) -- published an article on January 1, 2008 accusing Zhang Zhiguo, a party official in Xifeng (Liaoning province) of failing to follow correct juridical procedures in a case against an entrepreneur who had sent a satirical text message about him. The management of Fazhi Ribao ordered the journalist not to return to work, provoking such an outcry that the party official was dismissed. Since the Tiananmen events of 1989, a new method of controlling the press by exerting economic pressure has seen the light of day. Of the media belonging to the party, only the People's Daily, the Guangming Ribao, the Jingji Ribao, the China Daily and the Qiushi review are supported entirely by public finances. The other publications have been pushed onto the market and have to compete with one another for advertising revues. The advertising agencies and enterprises have thus become the "soft power" of the party. No company wishes to place its advertising in a publication that is not in the good graces of the authorities or which is liable to be criticized. This soft power combined with the iron methods of the Publicity Department does nothing but increase censorship and self-censorship. Not a single journalist dares write an article criticizing the Olympic Games. To do so would reduce the advertising in his publication, and that he would then risk being fired or having his pay cut. Copy editors need an even more critical spirit in order to control the articles written by the journalists. The editors are in effect the guardians of the Publicity Department, since their task consists of supervising the journalists and copy editors to avoid attracting the wrath of the authorities. There is a saying that Chinese journalists attribute to their editors: "I am the watchdog of the party. I stand in front of its door. If it asks me to bite someone, I obey." The professionalization and liberalization of the media have not been followed by progress in press freedom, and this double control has created serious problems of corruption among the media. I write in-depth articles. Several newspapers have sections dedicated to this kind of publication. But my friends tell me that these departments are not the same as they were 20 years ago. Now, investigations carried out by reporters are not meant to be published or used to increase the value and authority of their publications, but to obtain advertising and financing. The reporters carry out their investigations in secret, and once they have gathered information concerning illegal acts by a company, they write a report that is used to extort large sums for "publicity" from the company. Journalists are very generous with such reporters, and give them up to 40 per cent of the sums obtained. The national journals are in contact with the big companies, including those quoted on the stock exchange, while the small journals content themselves with striking up deals with mines or illegal brick-making works. The death of Lan Chengzhang of Zhonggguo Maoyi Bao (Journal of Commerce of China) at the hands of men from an illegal coalmine in Shanxi occurred under such circumstances. The weekly China Economic Times carried out an investigation and published articles affirming that Lan Chengzhang was a "false reporter" -- not because he did not possess a press card but because in the three years he had been employed in a local reporting bureau he had not published a single article. Apparently, in this province, it is not rare to see dozens of journalists turning up at a mine where an accident has taken place to receive a handful of yuan as "expenses for keeping their mouths shut," as the local jargon puts it. Sometimes, the same newspaper can send six or seven of its employees. Before coming to France, I interviewed Hu Jiwei, former editor and director of the People's Daily and president of the National Association of Journalists in China, today aged 92. He said, "One cannot hope that the Communist party and the government of Beijing resolve all the problems of human rights and press freedom before the Olympic Games. But the Chinese government ought to free all those imprisoned because of their opinions, including all journalists and cyber-dissidents." I think that if the authorities do not listen to our appeal for the freeing of Hu Jia, the Olympic Games will do nothing but worsen the situation of freedom of the press in China. |
