[Joint House and Senate Hearing, 108 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
FREEDOM OF THE PRESS IN CHINA AFTER SARS: REFORM AND RETRENCHMENT
=======================================================================
ROUNDTABLE
before the
CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
SEPTEMBER 22, 2003
__________
Printed for the use of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China
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CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS
House
Senate
JIM LEACH, Iowa, Chairman
DOUG BEREUTER, Nebraska
DAVID DREIER, California
FRANK WOLF, Virginia
JOE PITTS, Pennsylvania
SANDER LEVIN, Michigan
MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio
SHERROD BROWN, Ohio
DAVID WU, Oregon
CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska, Co-Chairman
CRAIG THOMAS, Wyoming
SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas
PAT ROBERTS, Kansas
GORDON SMITH, Oregon
MAX BAUCUS, Montana
CARL LEVIN, Michigan
DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California
BYRON DORGAN, North Dakota
EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS
PAULA DOBRIANSKY, Department of State*
GRANT ALDONAS, Department of Commerce*
LORNE CRANER, Department of State*
JAMES KELLY, Department of State*
John Foarde, Staff Director
David Dorman, Deputy Staff Director
* Appointed in the 107th Congress; not yet formally appointed in
the 108th Congress.
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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Page
STATEMENTS
Gong, Xiaoxia, originally from the People's Republic of China,
former director, Cantonese Service, Radio Free Asia, Vienna, VA 2
Zhang, Huchen, senior editor, Voice of America's China Branch,
Washington, DC................................................. 5
Bu, Zhong, former reporter and deputy editor, the China Daily,
College Park, MD............................................... 7
Lin, Gong, program associate, Woodrow Wilson Center's Asia
Program, Washington, DC........................................ 10
APPENDIX
Prepared Statements
Gong, Xiaoxia.................................................... 26
Zhang, Huchen.................................................... 28
Bu, Zhong........................................................ 30
Lin, Gong........................................................ 31
FREEDOM OF THE PRESS IN CHINA AFTER SARS: REFORM AND RETRENCHMENT
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SEPTEMBER 22, 2003
Congressional-Executive
Commission on China,
Washington, DC.
The roundtable was convened, pursuant to notice, at 2:30
p.m., in room 2255, Rayburn House Office building, John Foarde
[staff director] presiding.
Also present: David Dorman, deputy staff director; Selene
Ko, chief counsel for trade and commercial law; William A.
Farris, senior specialist on Internet and commercial rule of
law; and Carl Minzner, senior counsel.
Mr. Foarde. I would like to welcome everyone to this issues
roundtable of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China.
On behalf of Chairman Jim Leach and Co-Chairman Senator Chuck
Hagel, welcome to our panelists, as well as all of you who are
attending.
Last spring's SARS crisis and the increasing
commercialization of China's press have led to significant
developments in China's media in recent months. Some of these
developments have been positive, such as government notices
requiring officials to provide greater access to reports.
But the arrest of writers, censoring and closing of
publications, and the August 2003 announcement that certain
topics are forbidden to be discussed have had a chilling impact
on freedom of expression.
Most recently, Chinese officials have announced plans to
cut ties with government publications that do not meet certain
revenue and distribution criteria.
To help us find our way through this complicated and
rapidly changing situation, we have four distinguished
panelists. Ms. Gong Xiaoxia holds a Ph.D. in sociology from
Harvard. She has taught sociology at UCLA and George Washington
University. From January 1998 until June of this year, she was
Director of the Cantonese Service at Radio Free Asia [RFA].
Mr. Zhang Huchen currently is a senior editor at Voice of
America's [VOA] China Branch. Mr. Zhang graduated from the
school of journalism at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
in 1984, and from 1984 to 1990, worked with the Overseas
Department of the Xinhua News Agency.
Mr. Bu Zhong worked at the China Daily for 6 years as a
reporter and deputy editor, and for CNN for 3 years in Atlanta,
Washington, and Beijing. He holds a Ph.D. in journalism.
Our old friend Mr. Lin Gang is a program associate,
currently at the Woodrow Wilson Center's Asia Program, where we
see him quite frequently. He has served as president of the
Association of Chinese Political Studies and has taught at
American University and Johns Hopkins University.
He has co-edited ``China after Jiang,'' that came out this
year, and ``Transition Toward the Post-Deng China'' in 2001. He
received his Ph.D. in political science from Pennsylvania State
University, an M.A. from Xiamen University, and his B.A. from
Fujian Teachers University.
A word to our four panelists. Our process here has been to
give each of you 10 minutes to make a statement. After 8
minutes, I will alert you that 2 minutes are remaining, and
that is your signal to sort of wrap things up.
Inevitably, no matter how disciplined you are, there are
some points that you will wish to make in your opening
statement that you do not have time to make. We hope to have
time in the question and answer session, after each of you has
spoken, to catch up those points. We will go until 4 o'clock or
until we run out of energy, whichever comes first.
So without any further ado, let me call on Ms. Gong
Xiaoxia, please.
STATEMENT OF GONG XIAOXIA, ORIGINALLY FROM THE PEOPLE'S
REPUBLIC OF CHINA, FORMER DIRECTOR, THE CANTONESE SERVICE,
RADIO FREE ASIA, VIENNA, VA
Ms. Gong. Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, I come here
today to share with you some of my thoughts on the recent
development of press freedom, or lack of it, to be more
precise, in China.
Particularly, I would like to discuss the meaning of the
new regulations we just talked about, issued by the Party,
which are widely hailed as a bold marketization reform and a
step toward press freedom.
I would like to address my concern that the overall
misinterpretation of these new regulations may lead to
misunderstanding of the Chinese political situation, and might
mislead our foreign policy as well.
I think I can skip introducing myself, since you have done
so. Let me quickly outline my main points here.
Based on my research and my personal experience, I believe
that the new regulations recently issued by the Chinese
Communist Party, although they may bring about some competition
among the media, do not imply any fundamental change in the
Party's tight control over the media.
In fact, the new market these rules create may provide the
Party with new means to further suppress press freedom.
Moreover, it may set up a more nationalistic, or even
xenophobic, trend in covering foreign affairs. It may encourage
further America bashing in the Chinese press.
The new regulations were issued between June and August of
this year. They greatly limit the number of newspapers and
magazines owned by the government or Party offices. According
to these regulations, each provincial government office is
given the authority to buy subscriptions, which was the most
resented practice in the past 50 years.
As a result of this regulatory change, most of China's
press organizations, which used to be directly controlled by
the government, have now been thrown into a new media market.
Although the motivation of these new regulations is budget
prudence instead of press freedom, they have raised hope of
limited press freedom in China. Many people believe that, by
introducing marketization, these regulations open doors for
private ownership in the media, which is among the last areas
where government ownership still dominates. In other words, the
trend of marketization in the Chinese economy has now reached
the media.
Will this be the beginning of a new era of press freedom?
Most China observers have given positive answers. We can see,
like Liu Xiaobo, and like many other people, they will say,
``Oh great, privatization. And it will be freedom eventually.''
Undoubtedly, in my view, marketization will introduce
competition and profit seeking among the media organizations,
and thus will indirectly encourage some bold experiments
between the competitors.
However, neither marketization nor competition
instinctively indicate freedom. Those are different things, as
you know. Rather, market competition may provide the Party
authorities another instrument to control the media, since the
terms of competition and the rules of this market are largely
set by the Party.
Therefore, for media organizations, privately owned or
otherwise, winning in a competitive market often means to tilt
in the direction of the government authorities. That is
something we have to be aware of.
There are three key questions which can help us to tell if
the new media regulations are or are not likely to lead to more
freedom. First, do media organizations need approval from the
Party Propaganda Department to operate?
Second, can the Party Propaganda Department interfere with
personnel decisions, especially hiring, firing, and the
promotion of editorial and management staff in media
organizations?
And third, must media organizations follow the guidelines
regularly issued by the Party in order to stay in business?
Those are the three questions we have to ask ourselves.
Unfortunately, in my world, the answers we have to these
questions leave very little room for optimism. Press freedom in
China remains merely an illusion, even within a competitive
market.
In order to survive in today's market, Chinese media
organizations have to yield to the pressure coming first from
the Party, and then from the market. To be in business and
profitable, they must promote the Party ideology but do so in
ways that are attractive to their audience, especially when
compared to the old stiff propaganda style.
In the background, the Party maintains tight disciplinary
power over any members of the media who dare to challenge their
authority. We have seen plenty examples of that.
Marketization in the media does not necessarily indicate
liberalization. In fact, combined with strict dictation from
the Party, it may well open new forms of media control that use
the pressure of the new market to strengthen political
dictatorship.
In fact, the profit-seeking trend has been taking place for
a few years. The new regulations merely make it official. Under
this new trend, I have observed that the Chinese media
organizations have indeed become more diverse and bolder in
reporting social and some marginal domestic political issues,
but few dare to challenge the political authorities.
Meanwhile, I am also greatly disturbed by the intensifying
hostility by the Chinese press toward the United States in its
coverage of international affairs in general, and of the war on
terror in particular.
A review of the Chinese media since September 11, 2001,
shows increasingly negative coverage of the West, and, most
especially, of the United States. During the war in Iraq, for
example, the Chinese media constantly attacked the coalition
forces, even as it kept praising the Saddam regime and the
Iraqi military, which became sort of a laughing stock after
that.
As a Chinese Internet user pointed out, CCTV, the central
TV station in China, was perhaps the only TV station outside
the Arab world that reported so many ``victories'' of the Iraqi
regime, or that launched so many vicious attacks on the
coalition forces.
Another critic said that the Chinese press seemed to want
to
become a ``consultant'' of the Iraqi regime regarding military
strategies. Such a tone was, of course, set by the Party
Propaganda
Department.
Since the beginning of the war on terror, that department
has issued many directives to guide the media in covering this
war. I personally have some experience with these directives,
because they stopped the publication of my book, in fact.
Whereas the Chinese media follows the Party line as a
matter of survival in domestic affairs, it seems positively
enthusiastic in doing so when covering international affairs.
They seem to have discovered that following the Party line here
is quite profitable. That is what we have to know.
Take the Iraqi war coverage by CCTV as an example. The
number of its viewers jumped 28-fold during the period, and the
station earned an extra $100 million.
So in other words, the Chinese media was able to collect
millions of dollars by selling anti-American propaganda. The
Chinese audience, sadly, seems to have a genuine appetite for
receiving and accepting such propaganda.
The Chinese media here have found a niche. In the past few
years, they learned that America bashing is not only
politically
correct, and therefore safe, but also fashionable, and
therefore profitable.
Why so? We can think of several reasons. For example, anti-
West sentiment, we have seen recently. But the underlying
reason remains Party control.
Today, although China has become a member of the WTO and
its economy has become more capitalist than Communist, the
Chinese Government still monopolizes all information resources
from abroad, except for a handful of prudent Internet users and
the audience that listens to international radio stations such
as Voice of America or Radio Free Asia.
The only source of information about international affairs
in China is the government. Unlike in domestic issues, when
most Chinese have first-hand experience to assist their
judgment, the government can easily regulate charges to
dominate the coverage of international issues, and thereby form
and control popular opinions.
Mr. Foarde. All right. Let us leave it there and pick up
the final points during our questions and answers.
Ms. Gong. Sure. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Gong appears in the
appendix.]
Mr. Foarde. Thank you very much.
I would like to go on now to Mr. Zhang Huchen.
STATEMENT OF ZHANG HUCHEN, SENIOR EDITOR, VOICE OF AMERICA'S
CHINA BRANCH, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Zhang. Thank you, Mr. Foarde, and thank you
distinguished panel. I am very happy to be here this afternoon
to talk about the state of the Chinese press in the wake of
SARS.
At the height of the SARS outbreak last April, the
Political Bureau of the Chinese Communist Party held an
emergency meeting in Beijing to discuss how to deal with the
unprecedented outbreak of the epidemic.
Among the decisions made at the meeting was to ask the
media to report truthfully and accurately the magnitude and the
seriousness of the disease. It was a reversal of the earlier
practice of
covering up the disease at both the central and local levels.
Two high-ranking officials, namely the public health minister
and the mayor of Beijing, were sacked for the cover-up.
Drastic changes were seen overnight. Numbers of new cases
and deaths were published daily in the newspapers and on radio
and TV. Press conferences held by the new mayor of Beijing were
carried live on China's Central Television Station.
Mr. Hu Jintao, China's new president and new Party boss,
and Mr. Wen Jiabao, the new premier, were seen on CCTV touring
Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Beijing, visiting people in the
marketplace and people's homes talking about the danger of
SARS.
Many political observers and analysts of the Chinese press
believed that this might be a harbinger for a new beginning for
the Chinese press. However, as the truth of the outbreak
reached the Chinese public, people in large cities, especially
in Beijing, became panicky.
A large number of people, not just those working and living
in Beijing temporarily or peasants from other parts of China,
but also from Beijing itself, fled the city in a matter of
days, bringing the risk of spreading the disease to other parts
of the country, especially the countryside.
This must have made the Chinese leaders realize that in a
country where there has never been any real form of freedom of
the press, the truth of a major epidemic such as the outbreak
of SARS might be a little too much for its people to handle.
Another drastic change was seen in the Chinese press.
Instead of reporting new areas of contamination and public
reaction, the focus was now shifted to reporting the ``heroic
deeds'' of the Chinese medical workers, and what measures the
government was taking to keep the virus under control.
The SARS epidemic came to an abrupt end at the onset of
summer. As the SARS virus evaporated, so did the hope for any
meaningful change on the part of the Chinese press. Gone also
was the hope that the SARS outbreak would lead to any
meaningful political reform and a new era of openness.
Soon after the World Health Organization lifted the travel
ban to Beijing and the other major cities in China, Party
officials in charge of propaganda began to rein in those whom
they believed had gone too far in reporting the outbreak.
Several newspapers were ordered to close or were warned for
interviewing a military doctor who revealed the truth about
SARS to the Western media, for reporting a major corruption
case in Shanghai or discussing any ``sensitive'' topics, such
as political reform and Tibet independence. People who sent
short messaging texts on cell phones were also prosecuted.
A telling example of the increased control of the Chinese
media was the massive demonstration in Hong Kong on July 1
against the proposed article 23 anti-subversion legislation.
After the demonstration broke out, there was a blackout on
the part of the Chinese press. Official news media, including
CCTV, did not report the mass rally at all.
TV signals from Hong Kong carrying news of the mass rally
were cutoff immediately. It was only 12 days later that the
China Daily, the official English newspaper, mentioned the
demonstration in a commentary.
Callers to VOA shows commented that they would have been
kept totally in the dark about the July 1 and subsequent
demonstrations had it not been for the reporting of VOA, RFA,
and other international radio stations.
The ever-increasing control of the Chinese media did not
mean that people stopped talking about political reform,
corruption, and the revision of the Chinese Constitution and
similar sensitive topics. A number of publications carried
articles on these issues, and a conference was held on June 19-
20 in the coastal city of Qingdao to debate constitutional
revision.
This led the Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist
Party to take more action. In August, the department ordered
Party organizations, research institutions, and universities to
stop all conferences and suppress all essays on political
reform, revisions to the Constitution, and the 1989 Tiananmen
Square crackdown.
The department also instructed China's news media not to
report on these ``three unmentionables,'' namely political
reform, constitution revision, and the Tiananmen Square
protests of 1989.
An associate of Mr. Cao Siyuan, the organizer of the June
conference and a leading advocate for political reform, told
VOA that Mr. Cao was under a lot pressure from the authorities
and it would be ``inconvenient'' for him to comment further on
any issues relating to political reform.
At the same time, broadcasting of VOA, RFA, and other
international radio stations continues to be jammed, and
overseas Web sites blocked.
However, we can not say that there has been no change on
the part of the Chinese press since SARS. One ``bright spot''
is the reporting of accidents. For many years, natural
disasters and man-made calamities were deemed ``negative
news.''
Reporting of such negative news, it was believed, would
only bring shame to the leadership of the Communist Party and
political system. One lesson the Chinese leaders must have
learned from the SARS outbreak was that diseases, natural
disasters, and accidents happen to any country, regardless of
its political system.
At the height of the SARS outbreak, the Chinese official
media reported a major submarine accident. After SARS, we have
seen many, many more reports on food poisoning, coal mine
explosions, and other accidents. These reports even led to the
imprisonment of a number of officials who were accused of being
responsible for the accidents or covering up the accidents.
Now how do we explain the back and forth in the battle for
control of the Chinese media? To me, the measures that were
taken at the height of the SARS outbreak were merely measures
of necessity.
China was under a great deal of pressure and criticism from
the international community, especially the WHO. The Chinese
citizens had also lost faith in the Chinese media. They would
rather rely on the grapevine, that is, the central word of
mouth, text messages on their cell phones, and the Internet,
for news of SARS.
The central leadership took those measures to repair its
badly tarnished international image and to restore some faith
in its rule. Had the SARS outbreak lasted any longer, it might
have built some momentum for press reform.
As it so happened, the SARS virus evaporated at the onset
of hot weather, and the party officials congratulated
themselves on their good luck, and went on doing things the old
way.
In any case, the fight for the freedom of the press cannot
be won overnight in China. After all, it will take a Chinese
Gorbachev, not a virus, to bring down the government's iron
rule over the Chinese press.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Foarde. Thank you very much, Mr. Zhang. You are
admirable in your discipline. You came in right on time.
Mr. Zhang. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Zhang Huchen appears in the
appendix.]
Mr. Foarde. Thank you. Let us go on to our colleague, Dr.
Bu Zhong.
STATEMENT OF BU ZHONG, FORMER REPORTER AND DEPUTY EDITOR, THE
CHINA DAILY, COLLEGE PARK, MD
Mr. Bu. Thank you. Distinguished representatives of the
CECC, ladies and gentlemen, China has been in the midst of
rapid change in all sectors. Media reform--I do not know if
this is the right term or not--or media changes, though much
slower than other sectors, are just beginning to catch up.
Very few people predicted that the SARS epidemic could
bring such a widespread panic across China, and give a not so
widespread, but still heavy, push to China's media reform.
As we know, the SARS epidemic first originated in south
China's Guangdong Province in February. It then spread to
Beijing and several other provinces. Not surprisingly, the
government-
controlled media kept tight-mouthed about the disease at the
beginning.
During that period, Beijing residents mainly depended on
the Internet, e-mails, and cell phone text messages for SARS
information. The Internet came to China as the first forceful
reminder that the days of censorship and suppression of
information are numbered.
The media silence was broken in early April after new
Premier Wen Jiabao admitted that the SARS situation was
``grave.'' In those days the reporting was mainly about
government efforts to contain the spread of the disease and
heroic medical workers saving lives.
In May and June, I noticed a few newspapers began to
criticize the government's hiding of SARS information. More
criticism came after the government declared it would punish
any officials who tried to hide SARS information from the
public.
Let me describe a few of the important ways I see China's
media evolving today in the wake of the SARS epidemic.
As one of the first signs of media reform, the media's
commercialization started silently about 10 years ago. The most
dramatic step of the commercialization came in June when the
central government announced that it would end its direct
financial support to all but three newspapers and one journal.
This means that most government-owned print media must
sever their ties with government agencies. As the People's
Daily reports, these media ``would then be free to operate in
the marketplace rather than continuing to serve as cultural
units under government departments or social organizations.''
China now has more than 2,000 newspapers, 2,000 TV
stations, and 900 magazines. But 25 years ago, there were fewer
than 200 newspapers. The rapid growth of the news media has
made government control less effective, and no one can deter
them from going to the market.
The second sign of China's media reform is the end of
compulsory subscription, which also happened this June. In the
past, before the end of each year, the government used to issue
circular orders
requiring all its departments and agencies subscribe to
official
publications. Now this practice is becoming history because the
government has decided to cease it.
Over the past 10 years, the official media has become
increasingly unpopular. On Beijing's streets, no People's Daily
can be found on newsstands. At the same time, the government
has been cutting off its financial support to its mouthpieces.
In late 1990s, the financial support that the China Daily
received from the government accounted for less than 10 percent
of what was needed, while the remaining 90 percent came from
its advertising revenue and a few tabloids it published.
Today, all the official newspapers publish one or more
tabloids, which carry a lot of advertisements, and have cut
their official news down to a minimum. These tabloids make so
much money that they can comfortably support their more
official big brothers.
In Beijing, the Beijing Daily publishes a tabloid, the
Beijing Evening News, and the People's Daily tabloid is the
Jinhua Daily.
Now let me talk a bit about Chinese journalists. It seems
to me that many Chinese journalists are pushing the frontier to
put their ``controversial'' stories in print or on air.
China Central Television's TV magazine, ``News in Focus,''
can be a good example. Now and then, it has to pay lip service
to the official line for survival, which is fully
understandable.
But from time to time, it airs the deepest grievances and
the indignation of those oppressed by the sheer greed and
shamelessness of the lower-level government bureaucracy. To me,
the TV show is mainly a muckraker, occasionally, a shocking
muckraker, in the best tradition of American muckrakers.
Now I would like to talk about the top leadership. The
majority of the new top leadership, once in full power, clearly
has in mind the need to ease media control, but ease it little
by little.
As high technology develops at breakneck speed and out of
their control, the Chinese media becomes more and more open,
almost against the Party's will. Some degree of disobedience
and even defiance on the part of the media can be observed in
the past couple of years, and also some official tolerance.
As soon as he gained power, President Hu Jintao invited
experts to give lectures to all the Politburo members
regularly. The main contents of each lecture have been reported
in the press as a subtle means of letting attentive people know
what is on the minds of the top leaders right now.
As I remember, the first study session was on the
Constitution and rule of law, a manifest enough hint to the
public that during Hu's power he is going to rule by law, not
by his personal authority.
The latest lecture they had is about the industrialization
of media content. The concept is nothing new in the West, but
it is in China where media outlets had long been taken as a
propaganda machine.
It seems to me that no change in China's media is
insignificant. Right now, the gains made at every step seem too
insignificant to matter, but the progress is there for people
to see, if they care to see it. These modest gains will in time
amount to marked and
important change.
In China, press freedom and independence is to be a
painfully slow process, but it does shuffle its feet forward in
the right direction. It is unwise, even undesirable, for one to
exercise undue pressure on it, which may yield an effect to the
contrary to that which is
desired.
If you refuse to believe things are going in the right
direction, pick up any newspaper, even the People's Daily, and
compare it with what it was, say, 10, or even 5, years ago. In
those old, dark days, news of a plane crash was suppressed in
media if there were no foreigners on board.
After SARS, everyone in China has seen that suppression of
information and of public deceit could quickly and directly
endanger people's lives by the thousands, and drove the lesson
home in the most convincing manner that the denial of the
people's right to know could be the denial of their very lives.
Finally, I hope the voices from the Chinese people can be
heard in the world. To find out what is happening in China's
media, we must listen to those who still live in China and
those who work in the Chinese news media. I believe they know
the best about China.
Mr. Foarde. Thank you very much for giving us lots of
things to think about, as well as for your brevity and
concision.
Mr. Bu. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bu appears in the appendix.]
Mr. Foarde. We will now go on to our friend, Professor Lin
Gang.
STATEMENT OF LIN GANG, PROGRAM ASSOCIATE, WOODROW WILSON
CENTER'S ASIA PROGRAM, WASHINGTON, DC
Mr. Lin. Thank you, Mr. Foarde, and good afternoon, ladies
and gentlemen. It is my great pleasure to share my personal
observation of Party media reform in China with you.
As you know, one by-product of China's economic reform is
the growing commercialization of the Chinese media. According
to official statistics, between 1978 and 2002, the number of
newspapers in China increased from 186 to 2,137, while the
number of magazines increased from 930 to 9,029.
Most of these media are still owned by the party-state,
receiving more or less of a subsidy from the government.
However, advertising and subscription income has become the
major source of revenue for the media, except for newspapers
and magazines directly run by the Party and government organs,
so called ``dangzheng jiguang.''
Media commercialization has provided new incentives and
opportunities for journalists to cover lively, sensational,
provocative, and diverse stories, and expose political
corruption, even though it may offend government officials.
Amid media commercialization, Party-state organ newspapers
and magazines, continue to lose their readership. The
circulation of the People's Daily, the principal mouthpiece of
the Chinese Communist Party, decreased significantly from 6.2
million in 1979 to about 2 million two decades later.
To increase readership, many Party organ newspapers have to
rely on their subordinating newspapers for financial support.
Two-thirds of Party organ newspapers run by provincial Party
committees have evening newspapers or metropolitan newspapers.
The Guangming Daily, a national newspaper run by the Party,
targeting intellectuals, has benefited from its subordinate the
Life Times. Even the official New Chinese News Agency carries
some sensational stories related to sex on its Web site.
To increase readership, China's new leadership under Hu
Jintao has called for the Party's media to be ``close to the
mass, close to the realities and close to life,'' reducing the
exposure of leaders'
activities in the media to give more coverage to ordinary
people.
Most recently, the Party plans to end its direct financial
support to the mandatory subscription requirement of most
Party-government newspapers and magazines.
At the national level, only three newspapers and one
magazine are the exceptions, they include the People's Daily,
Guangming Daily, Economic Daily, and Seeking Truth, which will
still be run by the Party's central leadership.
At the provincial level, the central leadership will allow
each Party committee to continue operating one newspaper and
one journal. Each municipal Party committee will be allowed to
operate one newspaper only, and county-level Party committees
and governments can no longer operate media publications.
Beijing's reform plan on Party media is based on at least
two considerations. First, to reduce the financial burden. In
today's China, each province can have as many as several dozen
Party newspapers and magazines, starting from the provincial
level down to the county level.
These media are dull in content, relying heavily on
subsidies and mandatory subscriptions by governments at the
different levels. The lower the level of the government, say
the township level, the more Party newspapers and magazines
they are supposed to
subscribe to, thus creating a heavy burden for the grassroots,
particularly to those in poor rural areas. So, first is the
financial consideration.
The second is strengthening the Party media. To maintain
too many Party newspapers and magazines not only increases
government's financial burden, but also makes Party media
either more boring--repeating the same tune here and there--or
inconsistent. This was described by a political scientist as
``different mouths for the same brain.''
By keeping a limited number of Party newspapers and
magazines, Beijing apparently tries to make a distinction
between Party media and the mass media. In this way, it tries
to free the Party media of fiery market competition with less
media, without loosening the Party's guidelines. That is my
personal observation.
The relative retreat of Party newspapers and magazines from
the media market follows Beijing's strategy of retaining large
state-owned enterprises and privatizing smaller ones in
economic reform, so called ``zhuada fangxiao,'' to reform
economic situations.
The commercialization of mass media does not necessarily
mean that the Chinese media will gradually gain political
independence from the state control. For the foreseeable
future, the political taboo will co-exist with Beijing's one-
Party rule.
Chinese journalists have to be cautious in exposing the
dark side of the society, because too much exposure of social
problems will not only shake people's faith in the performance
of the Party-state, but also challenge the legitimacy of the
political regime, and one-party rule. In the absence of
significant political reform, we should not expect media
freedom in China as we understand it in the United States.
That is my personal statement. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lin appears in the
appendix.]
Mr. Foarde. Thank you very much, Professor Lin. Also lots
of food for thought there.
I will give our four panelists a minute to catch their
breath and I will make a couple of short administrative
announcements.
The next week or 10 days is a very busy period for the
CECC. On Wednesday morning, the 24th, we are having a full
hearing on China's WTO implementation and compliance, and
commercial rule of law issues. Chairman Leach will preside, and
Co-chairman Hagel will also be in attendance. That is at 10:30
a.m. on the day after tomorrow, Wednesday, the 24th, in room
491 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building.
In addition to that, on October 2, our annual report will
be presented to the public at a press conference at 10 a.m. in
this room 2255, Rayburn. So, lots going on.
Let us now move to our question and answer period and give
our staff panel here a chance to ask some questions of our
panelists.
I think I would began by addressing a question to Gong
Xiaoxia. First of all, you, and Mr. Zhang also, gave us much to
think about. I knew that you had a point or two that you wanted
to finish making, and so I give you the opportunity to do that
if you would like.
Ms. Gong. Actually, that is pretty much it.
Mr. Foarde. All right. Then I have a question for you.
First of all, how much, here in 2003, do Chinese readers really
trust the press that they read? You say that the Chinese
audience wants the type of anti-American and anti-Western
propaganda that they are seeing, but do they really trust the
press on this and other things?
Ms. Gong. I do not think they completely trust the press or
media. I am from China. I lived in China for 31 years, so as my
fellow Chinese--now I am American, actually--my former fellow
Chinese--I have a really natural distrust of the press. I don't
think the Chinese people trust the press.
On the other hand, in terms of sentiment, many Chinese,
especially the educated Chinese, identify with them and they
reflect that sort of popular anti-Western sentiment.
They would believe that they know even more, and they have
more to support that sentiment. I talk to them--I am from
Peking University--I am still talking to my colleagues, and
that is my
impression.
Mr. Foarde. That is very useful. Thank you very much. I
would address a question to Dr. Bu Zhong. During your
presentation, you were talking about the new tabloids that have
been published by some of the very well-known state
publications, and you said that they are making a lot of money.
How are they making the money? Is it on advertisements or from
subscriptions, or how?
Mr. Zhang. From both, actually, because so many company
officials do not talk about so many political issues in the
newspaper. They just talk about whatever sensational is out
there, maybe something about their life, something that
happened in their neighborhoods.
A good example was by the Beijing Evening News. For so many
years it was so popular, and the sales--when it hit the
newsstands, in 1 or 2 hours, you could not buy it any longer.
Actually, as far as I can remember, all provincial Party
newspapers now publish tabloids.
Ms. Gong. May I add a point here?
Mr. Foarde. Please, go ahead.
Ms. Gong. And also corporate sponsorship is well-hidden, or
open.
Mr. Foarde. How is that done?
Ms. Gong. Well, one case I know, one tabloid paper only
reports on the positive news of corporations, health, or
medicine, or something. So now the corporations pay a
tremendous amount of advertising fees for that paper.
Mr. Foarde. In return for positive coverage of their
activity.
Ms. Gong. Exactly.
Mr. Foarde. But I take it that this same publication would
also publish other stories?
Ms. Gong. Yes, of course.
Mr. Foarde. Not just a publication for the company.
Ms. Gong. No. It is not like that. Also, they pay the
reporters under the table. That is something they do.
Mr. Foarde. My final question, as my time is running out
for this round, is to Professor Lin. You said the readership of
the flagship publication of the Communist Party, the People's
Daily, is now about 2 million a day. Where are the readers? Do
you know? Are they concentrated in the cities, or is it all
over the country? Where are most people actually reading?
Mr. Lin. The People's Daily is still required to be
subscribed by grassroots units. Not for ordinary people. My
friend told me just recently it is difficult for him to find a
People's Daily on the newsstand, but basically, through
subscriptions. Those people reading the People's Daily are more
related to government institutions, than not. That is my guess.
Mr. Foarde. I normally do not interrupt these comments with
vignettes, but let me give you a brief one which I think
underscores your point.
After many years away from China, I returned in April 2000,
and went out one early morning to have coffee with a friend.
The fact that you could actually go out to have Starbucks
coffee in Beijing showed that there had been quite a bit of
change.
But I went past the newsstand and I said, let me get a copy
of the People's Daily. And so I went over and asked the woman
in the kiosk for it. She looked at me very funny. And I said,
``What is in the People's Daily today? '' And she replied, ``I
do not know. I do not read that thing any more.'' So, things
really have changed a great deal.
Mr. Lin. Evening newspapers are much more popular than a
daily, say Xinmin Wanbao for Shanghai, and the reporters earn
more money than the chief editor or president of the People's
Daily. So, you can see the difference.
Mr. Foarde. How interesting. My time is up.
I would like to recognize my friend and colleague, Dave
Dorman, who represents Senator Chuck Hagel.
David.
Mr. Dorman. First, I would like to thank each of you for
taking the time today to help us illuminate this important
topic for the members of our Commission. Each of your
testimonies was very valuable.
I would just start with a comment. It is based on something
that Ms. Gong said, and I think Dr. Lin Gang followed up on.
You both made the comment, I believe, that marketization does
not necessarily mean liberalization. I am going to add that
capitalism does not necessarily mean democracy, another proof
of political science demonstrated in China. It is an
interesting point.
I am going to ask each of you to get your crystal ball out
for a second and help us all understand what you think about
the reforms and regulations that have recently been announced.
Ms. Gong mentioned a new media market. If we could fast-
forward, say a year, or even 2 years from now, and imagine that
the SARS epidemic is occurring for the first time, do you
believe that this new media market would report on the epidemic
any differently?
Ms. Gong. Can I go first? I believe, in looking at it,
perhaps the answer is yes. The public thinks, well, if you can
chase a story, find a story, expose social issues, if you find
something worth reporting, you report. You cannot link that to
some subjects--for example, they made a very clear directive to
all the news media that you can discuss SARS, you can go chase
the story of SARS.
Well, actually the media did so. But the bottom line here
is, you cannot link SARS epidemic with the political system. We
cannot say, ``What is wrong with the political system which
caused this disaster? '' That is the bottom line.
So I believe, in a year or two, the bottom line will remain
the same, until we have broad-reaching change and the reporting
itself may be a lot more diverse.
Mr. Lin. As a result of media commercialization,
journalists, in general, may enjoy more freedom on social and
economic issues, but not on political issues. Talking about
SARS. Of course, there was a lot of exposure of that issue. But
for the government, you have to expose the issue positively or
constructively. We do not expect to have some sensational
stories. Say, somebody bravely died because of SARS. We believe
a lot of officials who were responsible for that kind of issue
were sacked, but few were exposed in the media. Then if we make
a comparison--in Taiwan, government officials are held
responsible for all this kind of problem and exposed in the
media during that period. But in China, they just give you some
figures, very commonly, very constructively and positively. You
do not expect that kind of sensational stories on Chinese TV.
Ms. Gong. Another phenomenon is the so-called rule of law
and the responsibility of others. Several times already, the
government has threatened to sue reporters for reporting a
story which caused political damage. That is something we also
have to pay attention to. They may use other tactics to further
suppress press freedom, especially fines, in a money-driven
business.
Mr. Zhang. I have mixed feelings about this question. On
the one hand, I doubt that if the first SARS outbreak were to
happen 2 years from now, instead of disappearing, the result
would be any different. We have seen a lot of growth on the
part of Chinese media and the variety and amount of information
in China.
In China, the Chinese people can get access to a large
variety of information these days, including business,
entertainment, sports, health, and lifestyle. But on the other
hand, the government is still controlling very tightly
reporting of political news and any news that may be deemed
harmful to the image or the actual rule of the Chinese
Communist Party or the socialist system.
The SARS epidemic was quite different news from other
health news. It concerns a lot of aspects, including the
bureaucratic system, how they reacted to the outbreak, or what
the government did to cover it up.
So the SARS problem might be considered a little bit more
than just health news. It is too important. It is almost
political news for the Chinese leadership. So, I doubt that, if
the SARS epidemic were to happen 2 years from now instead of
last spring, the result would be any different.
But, on the other hand, I also think that the SARS epidemic
became such a big thing and had a lot of unique circumstances.
First of all, it was covered up by both the central and local
leaders, officials, the Health Ministry, and officials in
Guangdong Province.
It also happened that the National People's Congress annual
session and the Chinese People's Political Consultative
Conference were held in the beginning or middle of March, just
before the height of SARS. Those two things made the Chinese
leaders realize that they must be very quiet about it so as not
to bring any factor to destabilize the country.
So if the SARS epidemic were to happen 2 years from now
under some different circumstances and at a different time of
the year, the result might be a little bit different.
Mr. Foarde. All right. We are out of time. So, it is time
to go on to our friend and colleague, William Farris, who
follows free flow of information issues for us, and helped put
together today's panel.
Please.
Mr. Farris. Thank you, everyone. I think this question is
probably particularly directed to Dr. Bu, but anyone can feel
free to offer their thoughts on this. Doctor, you mentioned
during your talk that the progress is slow in the right
direction, and we need to be careful about what steps are taken
in order to encourage this to keep going in the right
direction.
I am wondering if you have any recommendations or any
thoughts on, how important do you think it is for the U.S.
Government to continue to fund efforts like VOA and RFA, or
various other Web sites to get information and news into China?
And if you think there are other types of assistance or
activities that the U.S. Government should be undertaking or
funding, what role can the U.S. Government play in encouraging
China's media and China's government to continue going in the
right direction and perhaps speed up the progress?
Mr. Bu. First, I do not understand what VOA or what Radio
Free Asia is doing. Now I cannot listen to them, because in the
United States I cannot. Back in China, they were jammed.
It basically seems to me that we need to listen to the
people living in China. I believe that is very important to
find out what is really in their minds. I keep very frequent
contact with all of my former friends in China--I find so many
changes happening in their minds, in their way to approach new
stories.
One of my friends who works in South China told me he could
virtually write anything nowadays, as long as he does not write
anything against the government. He says, yes, there are so
many things that he wants to write, but could not put in print.
But there are some things he could refuse to write. That, it
seems to me, constitutes very big changes there.
I have never heard of this before. If you were assigned a
story, you must go ahead and cover it, or whatever. Nowadays,
in his situation, he can actually choose that. He can enjoy a
little bit of that kind of freedom.
So my basic point is that it is really important to listen
to the people inside China, especially if you want to know the
media system there. We need to listen to those media
professionals and what is in their minds.
Another point is, and it is maybe risky, we totally do not
recognize the progress China has made. This kind of slow
development can fool us into not seeing the big picture of
China's media system. You know, so many changes have happened,
but we never know. We still get it framed in our minds that is
bad and it is always bad. I see all the progress that the
Chinese are making, and it seems to me that the leadership is
changing, too.
I can give another example. The Labor Minister recently
talked to a group of journalists and said, ``I really urge you
guys to report industry accidents, because I believe 70
percent, even 80 percent of those accidents were caused by
corruption. Your reporting will help us curb this corruption.
We cannot let this happen again and again in this country.''
So, I believe that is progress there.
Also, in some provincial governments, like Anhui--they
punish any official who refuses journalists' interviews. I do
not know if you have heard of that. That was published in the
People's Daily. It really surprised me.
So, from the people we really notice those kinds of
changes. The top leadership, it seems to me, cannot change
everything overnight. But I do see progress there happening all
the time.
Mr. Lin. May I add one sentence? I think we should invite
liberal intellectuals, including journalists, to the United
States to let them have a chance to see what is happening here.
But we don't need to invite radicals to the United States,
trying to educate them, because some of them intentionally
present themselves as radicals, and sell their provocative
ideas to the West.
Ms. Gong. I would like to jump in, since I worked at Radio
Free Asia for 5\1/2\ years. I have to confess, I am sort of a
technological freak. I really love those things. What I fear is
that we have advanced too much in technology. But let me say a
few words on international broadcasting. The international
broadcasting to China has not caught up with technology.
For example, we think of the digital area. They are still
using short-wave broadcasting. I am very obsessed with
broadcasting, since I started listening to all of this since
1971, which was the main source of my outside information,
which also helped me to become a political dissident, and
imprisoned later.
But here I really think the United States can get the
International Broadcasting Board of Governors to put more
effort and put more research into looking at new technological
developments, including the Internet and digital satellite
broadcasting. To push the Chinese media to change, is to have
real competition there.
Also, I was thinking that I talk to a Chinese audience
almost every day. What really impressed me was, during the war
in Iraq, so many Chinese people called in and asked for
detailed information about the war in Iraq, because they have
no trust in the Chinese official media.
So, I believe, on the one hand we can see the Chinese press
has been much more diverse and yet in a sense not really free,
but open in social and some political issues. But in
international reporting, that's the blind spot. If you let the
Chinese Government lead on this reporting and to form popular
sentiment--I really think the United States should focus on
this problem.
Mr. Zhang. I would just like to add, briefly. I think it is
very important for the Congress to continue to fund, and even
to increase funding, for U.S. international broadcasting.
Because Mr. Foarde asked the question, do the Chinese people
believe the Chinese press? The answer is, yes and no.
They turn to the press for any kind of information,
including entertainment, health, war, and so on. But the thing
they do not trust, for example, is politics, political news,
and international news. That is why they turn to radio stations
like VOA and RFA, because they want to get more information on
China's political news and international news, unfiltered,
unbiased.
Dr. Gong Xiaoxia talked about how the Chinese media
reported the war in Iraq and other international issues. They
want to hear what is really going on inside Chinese politics,
what is going on in the world, and what is going on in America.
That is where U.S. international broadcasting can provide for
the Chinese people.
Ms. Gong. While you will see plenty of diversity in
reporting social issues, if you use the Internet search engine
and search for some international news, you end up with so many
pages, but usually only one version of the story from the
Xinhua News Agency. I found out that the audience was most
interested in that news and in that reporting. That is an area
where we should really step in.
Mr. Bu. Could I add one more point? In talking about
supporting things, I really hope the U.S. Congress will
continue support for more Chinese students to come to the
United States to take a real look at what is going on here.
My personal experience has shown me this very clearly. The
first time I came to the United States was on a Freedom Forum
fellowship; I came to the United States to get a chance to work
at the various news organizations for 1 year, and to get a
chance to visit Virginia and Tennessee, and a couple of Freedom
Forum offices there. That really helped me understand the
American system better.
While I was working in CNN's news room, I almost always
compared the reporting by my Chinese colleagues and my American
colleagues. This helped me understand better the two systems. I
really believe a better understanding between the two systems
will help us better understand the two peoples.
Mr. Foarde. Thank you very much. William is out of time.
We will go on to our next questioner. I said a few minutes
ago that we are having a busy week or 10 days at the
Commission, but today is a particularly happy occasion because
we have a new staff member who has just joined us.
He is Carl Minzner. Carl is a distinguished attorney with a
great background in China and the Chinese language. This is his
first day on the job, and his first issues roundtable. So,
Carl, over to you for some questions to our panelists, please.
Mr. Minzner. Thank you very much. I appreciate the
opportunity to meet and listen to what each of you has to say.
I will just pick up on one thing that William had raised.
We were just talking about American broadcasts into China.
Particularly, I want to pick up on something that Dr. Gong
brought up, which is that you noted that there is a rise in
anti-Western sentiment in the media.
Part of that may not be merely the fact of government
control of the media, but may also reflect sentiment on the
part of some of the readers, on the part of some of the
consumers of the media.
Given that, how should the U.S. Government alter its RFA
and VOA broadcasts? Is there anything that should be changed to
address this sentiment, and if so, what should be done?
Ms. Gong. All right. Well, I would like to add a little bit
more. My point is that, even as a popular sentiment which seems
to be spontaneous, in that environment, under the political
dictatorship, it was formed by the government, by the
government propaganda. It is a bit of a complicated question, I
have to admit.
If one discusses how the sentiment was formed, actually, I
would like to ask something of Mr. Bu Zhong.
In a way, all the students who studied in America and went
back to China, I would say a large percentage--I am not sure if
it is a majority, but a large percentage--became extremely
nationalistic and anti-America. That is a very sad fact, and we
can discuss that further.
But I think RFA and VOA and organizations alike can do is
to have more extensive reporting. Take the war on terror, for
example. I watch the Chinese media every day and they did
report American opinions, but overwhelmingly reported the
thinking of leftist intellectuals in America. The idea was
``Even Americans think the Americans deserve it.'' That is so
ridiculous, I would say.
So for VOA, and RFA, and organizations alike, in our
reporting, I firmly believe we need to organize and to
coordinate between all of us some in depth informational panels
for the Chinese audience. There are plenty of things we can do.
But facing the new budget cuts in international broadcasting, I
really doubt if we can very well accomplish the job if we have
further budget cuts.
Mr. Zhang. I would like to say that we need to explain U.S.
policies better for our global listeners. The sentiment Dr.
Gong described is very true in China and in other parts of the
world.
I happened to be in Korea to cover the World Cup 2002. I
found that a lot of young people in Korea harbor anti-American
sentiment because of a lot of factors. I am not going to say
anything about that today.
But I think we can do a better job of explaining our
policies to our listeners. Sometimes it is hard for us to find
people who are in the position to explain our official policy
to our listeners.
I am reporting on the Congress. Congress is my beat now.
But, more often than not, I find a lot of people are not
returning my calls. I know they are very busy people. But
sometimes VOA and RFA might not be their priority.
They think it is more important to be responsible to their
own districts, to be responsible to their voters, or getting on
national TV. They do not know it is also important to explain
our policies to our listeners and viewers across the world.
Second, we need to tell people in the world that there are
different opinions in America regarding a lot of things, the
war in Iraq, anything, you name it. I think that is how we can
win more people over to our side. Thank you.
Mr. Foarde. We are out of time.
We will go now to Selene Ko, our colleague who handles
commercial rule of law issues, usually, but also is interested
in free flow of information issues.
Selene.
Ms. Ko. Thank you, everyone, for being here today.
I wanted to switch subjects a little and talk a bit about
the media profession itself, and professionalism and corruption
within the media in China, and whether or not any of you think
that is a serious problem or whether corruption is raised as an
excuse for increased and heightened government regulation of
the industry. If it is a serious problem, how should it be
addressed?
Also, can you tell me whether there are any self-regulation
efforts going on within the Chinese media? Has there been
development of a code of ethics or anything of that nature.
Mr. Bu. Can I talk a little bit about that? While I worked
at the China Daily, first of all, I worked as a reporter.
Someone invited us for a free lunch for something. In the first
year or two, you think, ``Yes, this is so great. I never got a
chance to go to that fancy hotel before. I can go there now.''
That happens with some American companies. They are so
rich, they can afford to rent fancy hotels to treat those
reporters. Then the reporters come back with some stories
there. Because the companies could be Ford, could be Motorola,
whose events are also big stories there because they have
invested so much money in China.
After a while, I found that was a shame to me, especially
when I began to read something about journalism and what we
really should do.
Later I became a copy editor. I could tell if a reporter
got money or not from the sources when his story appeared on my
computer. Sometimes, that is a big story. If that story is not
so important but the reporter wants to get it into the
newspaper there. I will tell him, ``You cannot do this there.''
But it was a common practice. Back then, when I was working
there in the mid-1990s, I believe that more and more
journalists felt that this was not a good practice at all. You
are just like someone who tosses you any food, and you just
hang around like a dog.
So, Chinese journalists want to have their own professional
dignity. They do not want to just stick around all these
issues. I cannot say no one will do that today. As I know,
among my friends there, we talked about this issue. We no
longer feel proud of ourselves to get 1,000 or 2,000 yuan or
something. It is no longer a good thing.
More and more newspapers pay journalists very well now, so
they do not care about this kind of money, or ``taxi fees,''
which it is often called. So, I believe that the more
commercialized a newspaper will be the practice will be less
popular there and----
Mr. Zhang. I think it is a growing problem, but not such a
serious problem yet. If it becomes worse, each news
organization can develop its own code of conduct to fight it.
But right now, they do not have any code for anything, not even
a dress code.
Mr. Bu. Actually, the readers are not stupid at all. You
have got this kind of news that always puts those companies in
a positive light, and they can tell. You cannot survive in the
market at all, not for a while.
Ms. Gong. Talking about corruption, another thing I realize
is plagiarism. It is the overwhelming problem. It has been
problematic for the past few years. Well, I regularly publish
in Hong Kong, not in mainland China, but in the Hong Kong
papers.
Once I published an article about something. I forget.
American marriage, or something like that. I found out, on the
Internet alone, it was copied more than 20 times, published
without telling me, without my name there. So, that is another
problem.
Mr. Foarde. We have some time left. I would like to
continue the questioning by posing a question or two to Mr.
Zhang Huchen, please.
You said in your presentation that, with the
``evaporation'' of the SARS virus in the late spring, the
Chinese media were patting themselves on the back. But you gave
a very downbeat assessment of what the longer term implications
might be.
One of the things that we are all looking at very carefully
is whether SARS will come back as the weather cools off this
fall and into the winter flu season? If it does, can you give
us a sense of whether you think that the Chinese news media
will feel that it is able to, or will be allowed by the
authorities, to report more freely on outbreaks than it was
late last winter?
Mr. Zhang. Yes. I think the reporting of another SARS
outbreak would be much better, first of all. I think the
Chinese Government has learned a lot from the past outbreak. It
was treated merely as a public health issue, not as a political
issue anymore. The Chinese media treated it as such.
Mr. Dorman asked a question about, if this SARS outbreak
happened 2 years from now, and I think I sort of answered his
question. But if another outbreak happens, say next spring or
next winter, would the Chinese Government or the Chinese media
treat it differently?
Yes, I think so. They will treat it merely as a public
health issue, not a political issue any more. They will be
downbeat and downgrade the significance of such an outbreak,
and I think they will do a much better job this time.
Mr. Foarde. So can I ask you a related question? You were
talking also in your presentation about the increased ability
after SARS for the Chinese print media to report sort of
negative news, natural disasters.
Does this include official misconduct? For example, when
people feel cheated out of their property or their rights to
pensions or what have you by local government authorities and
have protested? Have you seen more reports of that sort of
behavior?
And what about, for example, worker protests of the types
that we saw last year in Liaoyang in the northeast, but also
during this year in some other places on a much smaller scale?
Mr. Zhang. I think they are making a distinction between
local corruption and public resentment or unrest on a larger
scale.
The former one can basically be contained locally, like coal
mine explosions.
They arrested and imprisoned a number of local officials
for covering up the accidents and not taking enough safety
measures to prevent these accidents from happening.
But anything bigger than that, they are treating it as a
political issue. Right now, they are only addressing the safety
issue and the corruption issue on a local level. They are not
bringing the question to a bigger scale, like, pay more
attention to human rights, to workers' rights, or any
systematic failure on the part of the government. I think that
is going to take some time.
Mr. Foarde. Interesting.
Ms. Gong. Also, there are several official directives on
this issue. If a reporter discovers something like that and
even if they have all the interviews and eyewitness reports,
they have to contact the local related department, which was
the department in charge, in order to publish that story.
Otherwise, they would be held accountable for those
disclosures.
And about the SARS, the question is--and I am from
Guangdong, so I heard from sources in Guangdong that hospitals
got false reports every day. Every day, somewhere there was a
fever that looked like SARS or something.
But the provincial government had already ordered that
whenever there is an outbreak, they will inform the media. But
the line of that is, ``You see, this is an example of how the
government cares for people.''
Mr. Bu. The central government has sent some journalists to
disclose this kind of corruption. I could see this on CCTV's
program ``News in Focus.'' I really, sometimes, just worry for
their safety. They get into that situation and find out what's
really going on, just using hand sticks there, and hand-held
microphones there, just trying to find out who is doing those
bad things there.
Another good example is journalists from time to time broke
some controversial stories, which maybe brought shame to local
governments. But they can still do that. I did observe some
tolerance from the central government about their reporting,
saying that is all right.
Mr. Lin. I think for SARS, I agree with Huchen that this is
a social issue. Also, the government and the people have a
common interest in dealing with SARS. It is not necessarily a
story. Some local governments, they still try to cover up SARS.
Then the upper level government may encourage a person to
expose that kind of problem and some official may be fired. But
that kind of story would not appear too much in the mass media,
saying how many officials are fired or who is fired. They do
not expose that too much, so we do not know.
Mr. Foarde. My time is up, so I will go on to Dave Dorman
for another question.
David.
Mr. Dorman. Each of you have given some very nuanced
answers to the question of press freedom in China. It is
sometimes difficult to understand nuance. It is much easier for
us to understand the press as free or not free.
It would help us understand, and this is just a
hypothetical, if each of you would put yourself in the place--
and many of you have been in this place--of being a journalist
in China. Say that you have uncovered a case of corruption at
the local level that you would like to report.
Could you describe to us the steps that you would have to
go through before you could report this story?
Mr. Zhang. First of all, you have to talk to your own boss,
your section chief. Say, if I am working for the Xinhua News
Agency, I need to get approval from my Overseas Department.
He probably will have to get permission from the central
Xinhua News Agency, depending on the scale and the magnitude of
the corruption case. If it is a big case, the leader of Xinhua
may go to the Propaganda Department of the CPC to get approval.
Mr. Dorman. Then the journalist basically follows his chain
of command at the newspaper for approval.
Mr. Zhang. Basically.
Mr. Dorman. Then the question is not that difficult. You
find a case of corruption. The gray area in terms of what can
be reported and what cannot be reported would be fairly clear
to a journalist at any particular level?
Mr. Zhang. Well, yes. I think it would be clear. But how to
treat it and how to report it requires some skill.
Mr. Dorman. Several of you have mentioned that you have
seen certain reporting or certain articles out of China that
are politically risky, and you wonder whether the writer is
safe. It tells me that there is a bit of gray here in terms of
making a decision on what can be reported and what cannot be
reported. But, based on your comments, you are suggesting that
the decision is fairly clear.
You suggest that there is a clear line for what can be
reported and what cannot be reported. Yet, some other responses
I have heard from you suggested just the opposite. Maybe it is
just the way things are.
Ms. Gong. I think the beauty of the system is, nothing is
that clear. Well, yes, it is clear, you cannot challenge the
Party's authority. There is no question that that is off
limits. But there are some issues you can play. Smarter people
play smarter. Actually, they can play stupidly, also.
But basically the government has left a large area, a gray
area, for people. If they are brave, people can test the limit,
test the limit again, and exceed the limits sometimes. But the
problem here is the gray area, and the down side, the negative
side of the gray area is that it makes people constantly think
of self-censorship.
Mr. Dorman. Who is testing the limit, though?
Ms. Gong. Reporters.
Mr. Dorman. The reporters must get permission from their
direct chain of command. So risk takes place at the management
level.
Ms. Gong. You are questioning about the reporters, or what?
Mr. Dorman. Who are the risk-takers? At what level does the
risk take place?
Ms. Gong. I think it is also a gray area. It depends on
what paper you work in, what organization you work in. For
example, if you work in the Xinhua News Agency, they know
better, and if you work in the local tabloid, you may be the
only person who deals with everything. But the Party line is
always there.
As I said, the beauty of the system is, it makes everybody
constantly think of self-control, of self-censorship. That is a
great threat. You know that the threat is always there. But if
you test the limits, at some point you are there.
Mr. Lin. May I? I think the political factor is very
important here. Say at the People's Daily, which is run by the
central committee of the Party. It is treated as a ministerial
level organ. So if an editor decides to try to stretch the
limits maybe it is all right. But if you want to expose
somebody at the same level, a superior level, the People's
Daily has no such power. It has to be done by the upper level.
So, the hierarchy is still an issue here.
Mr. Bu. Yes. In terms of uncovering corruption cases, like
you said, I think those who work for some national official
news organizations have some privileges over those who work for
local media outlets, for example, those who work for Xinhua
News Agency, the People's Daily, and CCTV.
They might not publicly report some problems, but they can
write internal reference reports to the central government.
That will get noticed by some central government leaders there,
especially top leaders.
When top leaders are involved, the problem reported will be
immediately resolved. That is why so many ordinary people go to
the Xinhua News Agency, to CCTV, to the People's Daily and are
waiting to meet journalists. ``Can you help me resolve this
problem? You cannot publish it in your newspaper? That is fine.
But report this to the central government.'' So, the top
leaders go out of their way to collect information.
Mr. Foarde. I see that our time has come for this
afternoon. We have had an extremely rich conversation, with, as
Dave pointed out a moment ago, very rich and nuanced answers
from each of you on these questions. They have been very, very
helpful to us as we continue to look at our freedom of
expression and free flow of information issues in the Chinese
media.
So, on behalf of Chairman Jim Leach and Co-Chairman Chuck
Hagel, I would like to thank Gong Xiaoxia, Zhang Huchen, Bu
Zhong, and Lin Gang for spending the time with us this
afternoon.
Please, all of you who have stayed with us this afternoon,
thank you for coming. Please check our Web site for information
on the next roundtables, which will be next month, in the month
of October.
We hope to see you at the hearing on Wednesday morning.
Thank you very much. Good afternoon.
[Whereupon, at 4 p.m. the roundtable was concluded.]
A P P E N D I X
=======================================================================
Prepared Statements
----------
Prepared Statement of Gong Xiaoxia
september 22, 2003
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I come here today to share with you some of my thoughts on the
recent development of press freedom, or lack of it, to be more precise,
in China. Particularly, I would like to discuss the meaning of the new
regulations issued by the party, which are widely hailed as a bold
marketization reform and a step toward press freedom. I would like to
address my concern that the overall misinterpretation of these new
regulations may lead to misunderstanding of the Chinese political
situation, and might mislead our foreign policy toward China.
Perhaps I should first briefly introduce my own background. I was
born in the People's Republic of China. I was once a peasant, a worker,
a scholar, and a political dissident there. I came to study in the
United States in 1987, and am now a U.S. citizen. From 1998 to earlier
this year, I worked as director of the Cantonese Service in Radio Free
Asia. I am also a regular contributor to the Chinese language media
outside China. Therefore, monitoring the Chinese media is not only my
job, but also part of my daily life.
Let me quickly outline my main points. Based on my research and my
personal experience, I believe that the new regulations recently issued
by the Chinese Communist Party, although they may bring about some
competition among the media, do not imply any fundamental change in the
Party's tight political control over the media. In fact, the new market
these rules create may provide the Party with new means to further
suppress press freedom. Moreover, it may set off a more nationalistic
or even xenophobic trend in covering foreign affairs. It may encourage
further America bashing in the Chinese press.
These new regulations were issued between June and August this
year. They greatly limit the number of newspapers and magazines owned
by the government or party offices. According to these regulations,
each provincial government office is given the ownership of one
newspaper and one magazine, each municipal government one paper, while
county governments are deprived of media ownership. The government
media can no longer require villages and other groups to buy
subscriptions. Such forced subscription has been a most resented
practice for the last half a century.
As a result of these regulatory changes, most of China's press
organizations, which used to be directly controlled by the government,
have now been thrown into a new media market.
Although the motivation of these new regulations is budget prudence
instead of press freedom, they have raised hope of limited press
freedom. Many people believe that, by introducing marketization, these
regulations open doors for private ownership in media, which is among
the last areas where government ownership still dominates. In other
words, the trend of marketization in the Chinese economy has now
reached the media.
Will this be the beginning of a new era of press freedom? Most
China observers have given positive answers. For example, Liu Xiaobo,
one of the most prominent writers and political dissidents in China,
has pointed out that marketization will certainly expand freedom. Other
critics are even more optimistic. They predict that a profit-driven
competitive media market will expand the horizon of the press, and
eventually bring about liberalization and press freedom in China.
Undoubtedly, marketization will introduce competition and profit
seeking among the media organizations, and thus will indirectly
encourage some bold experiments between the competitors. However,
neither marketization nor competition instinctively indicate freedom.
Rather, market competition may provide the party authorities another
instrument to control the media, since the terms of competition and the
rules of this market are largely set by the party. Therefore, to media
organizations, privately owned or otherwise, winning in a competitive
market often means to tilt toward the direction of the government
authorities.
There are three key questions, which can help us to tell if the new
media regulations are or are not likely to lead to more freedom. First,
do media organizations need the approval from the Party Propaganda
Department to operate? Second, can the Party Propaganda Department
interfere with the personnel, especially hiring, firing, and promotion
of editorial and management staff, in media organizations? And third,
must media organizations follow the guidelines regularly issued by the
Party in order to stay in business?
Unfortunately, the answers we have to these questions leave little
room for optimism. Press freedom in China remains merely an illusion,
even within a competitive market.
In order to survive in today's market, Chinese media organizations
have to yield to the pressures coming first from the Party, and then
from the market. To be in business and profitable, they must promote
the Party ideology but do so in ways that are attractive to their
audience, especially when compared to the old stiff propaganda style.
In the background, the Party maintains tight disciplinary power over
any members of the media who dare to challenge its authority.
Marketization in the media does not necessary indicate
liberalization. In fact, combined with strict dictation from the Party,
it may well open new forms of media control that use the pressures of
the new market to strengthen political dictatorship.
In fact, the profit-seeking trend has been taking place for a few
years. The new regulations merely make it official. Under this new
trend, I have observed that the Chinese media organizations have indeed
become more diverse and bolder in reporting social and some marginal
domestic political issues, but few dare to challenge the political
authorities.
Meanwhile, I am also greatly disturbed by the intensifying
hostility by the Chinese press toward the United States in its coverage
of international affairs in general, and of the war on terror in
particular.
A review of the Chinese media since September 11 shows increasingly
negative coverage of the West, and, most especially, of the United
States. During the war in Iraq, for example, the Chinese media
constantly attacked the coalition forces, even as it kept praising the
Saddam regime and the Iraqi military. As a Chinese Internet user
pointed out, CCTV, the central TV station in China, was perhaps the
only TV station outside the Arab world which reported so many
``victories'' of the Iraqi regime, or that launched so many vicious
attacks to the coalition forces. Another critic said that the Chinese
press seemed to want to become a ``consultant'' of the Iraqi regime
regarding military strategies.
Such a tone was, of course, set by the party propaganda department.
Since the beginning of the war on terror, that department has issued
many directives to guide the media in covering this war. Such
directives, although rarely openly publicized, are handed down to each
media organization. One of those directives, for example, was issued
before the 16th Party Congress. It forbade the publication of
background information about any of the terrorist organizations before
the Congress. It instructed the media to wait for an official party
line. After the 16th Congress,
another directive was issued forbidding negative reporting about any
Palestinian terrorist organizations, such as Hamas. To the contrary,
those directives were filled with anti-Western messages.
Whereas the Chinese media follows the party line as a matter of
survival in domestic affairs, it seems positively enthusiastic in doing
so when covering international affairs. They seem to have discovered
that following the party line here is quite profitable. Take the Iraqi
war coverage by CCTV as an example. The number of its viewers jumped 28
fold during this period. The station consequently earned an extra 100
million US dollars. In other words, the Chinese media was able to
collect millions dollars by selling anti-American propaganda. The
Chinese audience, it seems, has a genuine appetite for receiving and
accepting such propaganda.
The Chinese media have found a niche here. In the past few years,
they learned that America bashing is not only politically correct, and
therefore safe, but also fashionable, and therefore profitable.
Why so? I can think of several reasons, including the popular
nationalistic and anti-West sentiment, which has been repeatedly
demonstrated in such events as the EP3 spy plane incident and the
bombing of the Chinese embassy in Yugoslavia. However, the fundamental
underlining reason remains the government's tight control over the
media.
Today, although China has become a member of WTO and its economy
has become more capitalistic than communist, the Chinese government
still monopolizes all information resources from abroad. Except for a
handful of prudent Internet users and the audience that listens to
international radio stations such as Voice of America and Radio Free
Asia, the government-controlled press is the only source of information
about international affairs in China. Unlike in domestic issues, when
most Chinese have first-hand experience to assist their judgment, the
government can easily and does continue regulatory charges
notwithstanding to dominate the coverage of international issues and
thereby form and control popular opinions. The popular nationalistic
sentiment mentioned above is itself largely a product of government
propaganda.
In the past 10 years, people in the United States witnessed
increasing hostility from the Chinese media toward their government,
their political system, and their foreign policies. The Chinese
government should be held responsible for such hostility, since it is
this government that sets the tone for China's press. The Congress of
the United States should be aware this basic fact, and not be thrown
off the track by the Chinese Communist Party's efficiency-focused
marketization of the media.
______
Prepared Statement of Huchen Zhang
september 22, 2003
My name is Huchen Zhang, I'm a senior editor at the China Branch of
Voice of America. I'm very happy to be here this afternoon to talk
about the state of the Chinese press in the wake of the SARS outbreak.
Before I begin, I'd like to tell you a little bit about myself. I
attended the Journalism School of the Chinese Academy of Social
Sciences from 1982 to 1984. From 1984 to 1990, I worked as a reporter
at the ``Central News Desk'' of the Overseas Department of the Official
Xinhua News Agency, covering the National People's Congress, the
Chinese parliament, and a number of government ministries. I came to
the United States to study in 1990 and have been working for the Voice
of America since 1991.
At the height of the SARS outbreak last April, the Political Bureau
of the Chinese Communist Party held an emergency meeting in Beijing to
discuss how to deal with the unprecedented epidemic. Among the
decisions made at the meeting was to ask the media to report truthfully
and accurately the magnitude and the seriousness of the outbreak. It
was a reversal of the earlier practice of covering up the disease at
both the central and local levels. Two high-ranking officials--the
public health minister and the mayor of Beijing were sacked for the
cover-up.
Drastic changes were seen overnight. Numbers of new cases and
deaths were published daily in the newspapers and on radio and TV.
Press conferences held by the new mayor of Beijing were carried live on
China's Central Television Station (CCTV). Mr. Hu Jintao, China's new
president and Party chief, and Mr. Wen Jiabao, the new premier, were
also seen on CCTV visiting hospitals, shopping centers and homes in the
cities of Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Beijing, and saying how worried and
concerned they were about the outbreak.
Many political observers and analysts of the Chinese press believed
that this might be a harbinger for a new beginning for the Chinese
press.
However, as the truth of the outbreak reached the Chinese public,
people in large cities, especially in Beijing, became panicky. A large
number of people, not just those working and living in Beijing
temporarily, but also Beijing residents, fled the city in a matter of
days, bringing the risk of spreading the disease to other parts of the
country, especially the countryside.
This must have made the Chinese leaders realize that in a country
that has never seen freedom of the press, the truth of a major epidemic
such as the outbreak of SARS might be a little too much for its
citizenry to handle. Another drastic change was seen on the Chinese
press. Instead of reporting new areas of contamination and public
reaction, the focus was now shifted to reporting the ``heroic deeds''
of the public health workers, and what measures the government was
taking to keep the virus under control.
The SARS epidemic came to an abrupt end at the onset of summer. As
the SARS virus evaporated, so did the hope for any meaningful change on
the part of the Chinese press.
Gone also was the hope that the SARS outbreak would lead to any
meaningful political reform and a new era of openness. Soon after the
World Health Organization lifted the travel warning to Beijing and
other major cities, Party officials in charge of propaganda began to
rein in those whom they believed had gone too far in reporting the
outbreak. Several newspapers were ordered to close or were warned for
interviewing a military doctor who wrote to the western media to reveal
the true states of the SARS outbreak, for reporting a major corruption
case in Shanghai or discussing any ``sensitive'' topics, such as
political reform and Tibet independence. People who sent short
messaging texts on cell phones were also prosecuted.
A telling example of the increased control of the Chinese media was
the massive demonstration in Hong Kong on July 1 against the proposed
anti-subversion legislation. After the demonstration broke out, there
was a blackout on the part of the Chinese media. Official news media,
including CCTV, did not report the mass rally at all. TV signals from
Hong Kong to the mainland containing the demonstration were cutoff
immediately. It was only 12 days later that the China Daily, the
official English newspaper, mentioned the demonstration in a
commentary. Callers to VOA shows commented that they would have been
kept totally in the dark about the July 1 and subsequent demonstrations
had it not been for the reporting of VOA and other international radio
stations.
The ever increasing control of the Chinese media did not mean that
people stopped talking about political reform, corruption, the revision
of the Chinese Constitution and similar sensitive topics. A number of
publications carried articles on these issues, and a conference was
held on June 19-20 in the coastal city of Qingdao to debate
constitutional reform.
This led the Propaganda Department of the Communist Party to take
more action. In August, the department ordered party organizations,
research institutes and universities to stop all conferences and
suppress all essays on political reform, revisions to the Constitution
and the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. The department also instructed
China's news media not to report on these ``three unmentionables.'' An
associate of Mr. Cao Siyuan, the organizer of the June conference and a
leading advocate of political reform, told VOA that Mr. Cao was under a
lot of pressure from the authorities and it would be ``inconvenient''
for him to make any more comments on revising the Constitution.
This month, the government held another meeting on ``consolidating
and rectifying'' newspapers and periodicals. Decisions made at the
meeting included closing several hundred local papers and magazines and
upholding the Communist Party's guidance in news reporting.
At the same time, broadcasting of VOA and other international radio
stations continues to be jammed and overseas web sites continue to be
blocked.
However, we can not say that there has been no change for the
better in the Chinese news media. One ``bright spot'' is the reporting
of accidents. For many years, natural disasters and man-made calamities
were deemed ``negative news.'' Reporting of such negative news, it was
believed, would only bring shame to the leadership of the Communist
Party and socialist system. One lesson the Chinese leaders must have
learned from the SARS outbreak, I think, is that diseases, natural
disasters and accidents happen to any country, regardless of its
political system. At the height of the SARS outbreak, the Chinese
official media reported a major submarine accident. After SARS, we have
seen more and more reporting on food poisoning, coal mine explosion and
other accidents. These reports even lead to the imprisonment of a
number of officials who were accused of being responsible for the
accidents or covering up the accidents.
Now how do we explain the back and forth in the battle for control
of the Chinese media? To me, the measures that were taken at the height
of the SARS outbreak were merely measures of necessity. China was under
a great deal of criticism from the international community, especially
the WHO. The Chinese citizens had also lost faith in the Chinese media.
They would rather rely on the grapevine, that is, word of mouth, short
texts on their cell phones and the Internet, for news of SARS. The
central leadership took those measures to repair its badly tarnished
international image and to restore some faith in its legitimacy. Had
the SARS outbreak lasted a bit longer, it might have built some
momentum for press reform. As it so happened, the SARS virus evaporated
at the onset of hot weather, and the party officials congratulated
themselves on their good luck, and went on doing things the old way.
What about the future of the Chinese press? I see two forces at
work: one is the conscientious effort on the part of Chinese
journalists to break the control of the government. Journalists
continue to report on sensitive political issues either out of their
sense of social responsibility or because of the forces of market
economy. As more and more newspapers and other news organizations fight
for their survival in an ever-growing market economy, they feel the
need to increase their market share by reporting on topics people are
concerned about. The other force is the Communist Party's desire to
polish its image and consolidate its rule. Reporting of large scale
corruption and systematic failure would only weaken its rule.
In any case, the fight for freedom of the press cannot be won
overnight. After all, it will take a Chinese Gorbachev, not a virus, to
bring down the iron rule on the Chinese press.
Prepared Statement of Bu Zhong
september 22, 2003
Distinguished representatives of the CECC, Ladies and Gentlemen:
China has been in the midst of rapid change in all sectors. Media
reform, though much slower than other sectors, is now beginning to
catch up.
Perhaps few predicted that the SARS epidemic could bring such a
widespread panic across China, and a not so widespread, but still
heavy, push to China's media reform.
china's media during sars
As we know, the SARS epidemic first originated in South China's
Guangdong Province in February. It then spread to Beijing and several
other provinces. Not surprisingly, the government-controlled media kept
tight-mouthed about the disease at the beginning. During that period,
Beijing residents mainly depended on the Internet, e-mails and cell
phone messages for SARS information. The Internet came to China as the
first forceful reminder that the days of censorship and suppression of
information are numbered.
The media silence was broken in early April after China's new
Premier Wen Jiabao admitted that the SARS situation was ``grave.'' In
those days the reporting was mainly about government efforts to contain
the spread of the disease and heroic medical workers saving lives.
In May and June, however, a few newspapers began to criticize the
government's handling of SARS information. More criticism came after
the government declared it would punish any officials who tried to
cover up SARS information from the public.
Let me describe a few of the important ways I see China's media
evolving today in the wake of the SARS epidemic.
media's commercialization
As one of the first signs of media reform, the media's
commercialization started silently about 10 years ago. The most
dramatic step of the commercialization came in June when the central
government announced that it would end its direct financial support to
all but three newspapers and one journal.
This means that most government-owned print media will soon have to
sever ties with government agencies. (I'm not sure how the broadcast
media will be affected.) As People's Daily reports, these media ``would
then be free to operate in the marketplace rather than continuing to
serve as cultural units under government departments or social
organizations.''
China now has more than 2,000 newspapers, 9,000 magazines, and
2,000 TV stations. But 25 years ago, there were fewer than 200
newspapers. The rapid growth of the news media has made government
control less effective, and no one can prevent them from going to the
market.
the end of compulsory subscriptions
Another sign of China's media reform is the end of compulsory
subscription, which also happened this June. In the past, before the
end of each year, the government used to issue circular orders
requiring all its departments and agencies subscribe to official
publications. Now this practice is becoming history because the
government has decided to stop it.
changes within official newspapers
Over the past 10 years, the official media have become increasingly
unpopular. On Beijing's streets, no People's Daily can be found on
newsstands. At the same time, the government has been cutting off its
financial support to its mouthpieces. In late 1990s, the financial
support China Daily received from the government accounted for less
than 10 percent of what it needed, while the remaining 90 percent came
from its ad revenue and a few tabloids it published.
Nowadays all the official newspapers publish one or more tabloids,
which carry a lot of ads and have cut their officialdom to a minimum.
These tabloids make so much money that they can comfortably support
their more official big brothers. In Beijing, the Beijing Daily
publishes a tabloid, the Beijing Evening News, and the People's Daily's
publishes the Jinhua Daily.
journalists push frontier
Many Chinese journalists are pushing the frontier to put their
``controversial'' stories in print or on air. China Central
Television's TV magazine, ``News in Focus,'' offers a good example. Now
and then, it has to pay lip service to the official line for survival,
which is fully understandable. But from time to time, it airs the
deepest grievances and the indignation of those oppressed by the sheer
greed and shamelessness of the lower-level government bureaucracy. To
me, the show is mainly a muckraker, occasionally, a shocking muckraker,
in the best tradition of the American muckrakers.
changes in top leadership
The majority of the new top leadership, once in full power, clearly
has in mind the need to ease media control, but to ease it little by
little. As high technology develops at breakneck speed and out of their
control, the Chinese media becomes more and more open almost against
their will. Some degree of disobedience and even defiance on the part
of the media can be observed in the past couple of years. And also some
official tolerance.
As soon as he gained the power, China's President Hu Jintao invited
experts to give regular lectures to all the Politburo members. The main
contents of each lecture (already 10 or so lectures to date) have been
reported in the press as a subtle means of letting attentive people
know what's in the minds of the top leaders right now.
As I remember, the first study session was on the Constitution and
Rule of Law--a manifest enough hint to the public that during Hu's
reign, he's going to rule by law, not by his personal authority. The
latest lecture they had is about the industrialization of media
contents. The concept is nothing new in the West. But it is in China,
where media outlets had long been taken as tools of ideology, and
propaganda machines.
no change is insignificant
It seems to me that no change in China's media is insignificant.
Right now, the gains made at every step might seem too insignificant to
matter, but the progress is there for people to see, if they care to
notice it. These modest gains will in time amount to marked and
important change.
In China, growth in press freedom and independence will likely be a
painfully slow process, but the media are shuffling their feet forward
in the right direction. One can coax, cajole and coerce it to move a
little more quickly. But it is unwise, even undesirable for one to
exercise undue pressure on it, which may yield an effect to the
contrary. If you refuse to believe things are going in the right
direction, pick up any newspaper, even the People's Daily, and compare
it with what it was, say, 10 or even 5 years ago. In those old, dark
days, news of a plane crash was suppressed in media if there were no
foreigners on board.
And next to Internet then came the second great shock that shook
the leaders to their nerve-ends, the misfortune of SARS. It showed the
deep-rooted practice of suppression of information and of public deceit
in the worst possible light. Now all see that this hated practice can
quickly and directly endanger the lives of thousands of people. And the
epidemic drove the lesson home in the most convincing manner that the
denial to the people's right to know could be the denial of their very
lives.
Finally, I hope the voices from the Chinese people can be heard
here. To find out what's happening in China's media, we must listen to
those who still live in China and those who work in Chinese news media.
Thank you very much.
______
Prepared Statement of Lin Gang
september 22, 2003
One by-product of China's economic reform is the growing
commercialization of the Chinese media. According to official
statistics, between 1978 and 2002, the number of newspapers in China
increased from 186 to 2137, while the number of magazines increased
from 930 to 9029. Most of these media are still owned by the Party-
state, receiving more or less subsidy from the government. However,
advertising and subscribing income has become the major source of
revenues for the media, except for newspapers and magazines directly
run by Party and government organs (dangzheng jiguang). Media
commercialization has provided new incentives and opportunities for
journalists to cover lively, sensational, provocative and diverse
stories, and expose political corruption, even though it may offend
government officials.
Amid media commercialization, Party-state organ newspapers and
magazines continue to lose their readership. The circulation number of
the People's Daily, the principal mouthpiece of the Chinese Communist
Party, decreased significantly from 6.2 million in 1979 to about 2
million two decades later. To increase readership, many Party organ
newspapers have to rely on their subordinating newspapers for financial
support. Two-thirds of Party organ newspapers run by provincial Party
committees have evening newspapers (wanbao) or metropolitan newspapers
(dushibao). The Guangming Daily, a national newspaper run by the Party,
targeting intellectuals, has benefited from its subordinating Life
Times. Even the official New Chinese News Agency carries some
sensational stories related to sex in its web site.
To increase readership, China's new leadership under Hu Jintao has
called for the Party's media to be ``close to the mass, close to the
realities and close to life,'' reducing the exposure of leaders'
activities in the media to give more coverage to ordinary people. Most
recently, the Party plans to end its direct financial support to and
mandatory subscription requirement of most Party-government newspapers
and magazines. At the national level, only three newspapers and one
magazine are the exceptions, including the People's Daily, Guangming
Daily, Economy Daily and the Seeking Truth (Qiushi), which will still
be run by the Party's central leadership. At the provincial level, the
central leadership will allow each Party committee to continue
operating one newspaper and one journal. Each municipal Party committee
will be allowed to operate one newspaper only, and county-level Party
committees and government can no longer operate media publications.
Beijing's reform plan on Party media is based on at lease two
considerations:
Reducing the financial burden. In today's China, each province
can have as many as several dozen of Party newspapers and
magazines, starting from the provincial level down to the county
level. These media are dull in content, relying heavily on subsidy
and mandatory subscription by governments at the different level.
The lower level of the government, the more Party newspapers and
magazines are to be subscribed; thus creating heavy burden for the
grassroots.
Strengthening the Party media. To maintain too many Party
newspapers and magazines not only increases government's financial
burden, but also make Party media either more boring--repeating the
same tune here and there--or inconsistent. By keeping limited
number of Party newspapers and magazines, Beijing apparently tries
to make a distinction between Party media and mass media, freeing
the former of fiery market competition with the latter without
loosing the Party's guideline.
The relative retreat of Party newspapers and magazines from media
market follows Beijing's strategy of retaining large state-owned
enterprises and privatizing smaller ones (zhuada fangxiao) in economic
reform. The commercialization of mass media does not necessarily mean
that the Chinese media will gradually gain political independence from
the State control. For the foreseeable future, political taboo will co-
exist with Beijing's one-Party rule. Chinese journalists have to be
cautious in exposing the dark side of the society, because too much
exposure of social problems will not only shake people's faith in the
performance of the Party-state, but also challenge the legitimacy of
the political regime. In the absence of significant political reform,
we should not expect media freedom in China as we understand in the
United States.
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