Foreign journalists in China face new set of dangers
Vincent Brossel
Head, Asia Desk, Reporters Without Borders

The crisis in Tibet and the international protest demonstrations that accompanied the running of the Olympic torch have awakened the old demons of Chinese nationalism. With the complicity of the authorities, Chinese Internet users, journalists and ordinary citizens have gone to war against "Tibetan separatists" and their supporters, notably the international media. Some journalists working for liberal Chinese publications, especially the Nanfang Dushi Bao, have also been harassed.

Since March 10, there have been more or less spontaneous demonstrations against foreign media accused of being anti-Chinese which has  extended to a commercial boycott  which no doubt seeks to put pressure on countries hesitant about the posture to adopt in the run up to the Olympic Games.

At the very time when Beijing was expelling the last foreign journalists from Tibet, Chinese bloggers and the official press launched a violent attack against the "Dalai Lama clique" and western media that devoted much space to covering the events in Lhasa.

Usually on the Chinese Internet, it is impossible to publish a message about Tibet unless it is first filtered and controlled by the cyber-censors. Yet all of a sudden, we have seen e-mail messages calling for death for "Tibetan separatists." These threats were turned against foreign media after the fiasco of the visit to Lhasa arranged for a score of foreign correspondents. Alerted to what was going on by a group of Tibetan monks, the reporters wrote about repression and a climate of fear rather than, as the Chinese authorities had hoped, about the return to order and the sense of responsibility of the Tibetans.

The virulent campaign against foreign journalists has been particularly directed against the CNN television news channel, whose journalists are accused of being "leaders of the liars" and racists. The web site anti-cnn.com, which claims to "expose the lies and distortions in the Western media" and to be maintained by volunteers not connected with the government, asks young Chinese to send faxes and e-mails to CNN demanding apologies.

Messages with formula insults - "You running dogs are not welcome in China," "You are going to suffer as a result of your biased  reporting," "sooner or later I am going to kill you," are sent by the dozens to journalists. Chinese web sites post the personal contact details of journalists, particularly those working for the Associated Press, the Wall Street Journal and USA Today, making them easy targets for the nationalists who have been so strangely authorized to protest.

In the face of this crisis, the foreign correspondents club of China sent security advice to all its members on April 7, advising them to get in touch with their embassies, to conceal personal details, to leave notice of their whereabouts when traveling and to report the most flagrant threats. The Chinese foreign ministry says it is not in a position to control the threats.

So it is in a tense and hostile climate that tens of thousands of journalists are about to arrive in Beijing to cover the Olympic Games. Nothing suggests that this nationalist wave is going to calm down. Indeed, the repression in Tibet and the refusal of the authorities to concede improvements in human rights threaten to radicalize the two camps.

Foreign journalists are going to be faced with many other problems. First, will be that of finding Chinese interlocutors who can talk to them about the human rights situation. Even if tongues have loosened in recent years in China, and particularly in Beijing, it is still very risky to speak about the lack of freedoms on camera in front of a foreign journalist.

Those dissidents who have sought to draw attention to lack of liberty in the period leading up to the Olympic Games have been the targets of a merciless repression. The best-known example is that of the dissident Hu Jia, whose imprisonment is clearly linked to his pivotal role in denouncing human rights violations to foreign journalists and diplomats.

In arresting and punishing Hu Jia, the government is addressing a clear message to Chinese dissidents: "Watch out. If you talk to foreigners about the Olympic Games, you will suffer the same fate." The authorities are also sending a warning to the foreign press: "You see, we can arrest and condemn those you interview and there is nothing anyone can do to stop us."

Lastly, the Chinese authorities are cocking a snoot to western diplomats, particularly Europeans, who had found Hu Jia to be both moderate and charismatic.

To cynically rub in the message, the police and the prosecutor cited two interviews that Hu Jia had given to the foreign press - just to be sure the message was well understood.

Other embarrassing witnesses have also been imprisoned. One of the founders of the Chinese Democratic party, Zhu Yufu, was condemned in the eastern province of Hangzhou. The human rights activist Zheng Mingfang was sent to a labor camp for two years because of an open letter he had written about the Olympic Games.

In March, Yang Chunlin, initiator of the campaign "We want human rights, not the Olympic Games" was sentenced to five years in prison by the intermediate court in Jiamusi, while two other participants in the campaign have also been detained.

Wang Lianmin, a resident of a neighborhood condemned to be demolished to make way for Olympic installations was arrested this month because he objected to the destruction of his house.

Police have been ordered to turn back foreign journalists who attempt to enter villages that have been the scene of disturbances.  In 2007, no less than seven journalists were stopped for questioning or attacked when they attempted to enter the village of Shengyou, south of Peking, the scene of fighting in 2005 in which at least six people were killed when thugs sought to take land away from farmers. The journalists attacked included Barbara Luthi of Swiss TV, who was beaten up by police.

German journalists were stoned by thugs, apparently employed by the police to dissuade them from visiting the house of the wife of the imprisoned blind lawyer Cheng Guangcheng.

To do reporting other than of a sporting nature, the thousands of foreign journalists, of whom only a tiny minority will be able to speak Chinese, are going to have to find Chinese journalists or translators willing to take risks.

There is a shortage in Beijing of good "fixers" capable of helping a foreign reporter in a sensitive investigation.  Resident correspondents in Beijing work with researchers or translators due to the fact that it is always impossible to hire a Chinese as a journalist.  Working for the foreign press is a risky calling, as shown by the case of Zhao Yan, a researcher for the New York Times, who is serving three years in prison. Through him, authorities are apparently seeking to intimidate others who might want to work for the foreign press.

The official guide for journalists covering the Olympic Games recommends working with accredited organizations to find a translator. This must absolutely not be done, since it would mean employing a potential spy who would report everything the foreign journalist says or does to his employer, and thus to the government.

A British journalists working on a story about preparations for the Olympics was forced to change fixers twice, since those he employed were terrified by the idea of working on subjects such as the illegal imprisonment of petitioners or dissidents.

Fixers are also essential to decipher the propaganda in the official media, which has intensified on sensitive subjects like Tibet, the autonomous Xinjiang region or dissidents.

The government has prepared other obstacles for foreign journalists - the blocking of hundreds of Internet information sites, particularly those of non-government organizations and Chinese media abroad, the jamming of international radio stations and the bugging of phones and other communications.

So that journalists will have no time to dig into sensitive topics,  the Games organizers are planning to inundate them with information and invitations  that will keep them busy round the clock.

The promise made by Wang Wei, executive vice president and secretary general of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games in Moscow in 2001, to guarantee total press freedom for the Games is a dead letter. It is for this reason that Reporters without Borders is campaigning against the Olympics - to remind the Chinese authorities of this promise so cynically betrayed.