EDITORIAL: A muzzled press and Beijing's antics

It is an indication of how desperate the Chinese government has become that it should blame the Western media for “distorted reports and coverage” on Tibet.

The Associated Press quoted Kuang Weilin (鄺偉林), deputy consul-general at the Chinese consulate in New York, as saying on Thursday that the Western media, and CNN and the BBC in particular, had produced “misleading reports and comments, distorted facts and wrong conclusions, wrong judgments.”

Even casual audiences would find this comment amusing, especially given that CNN and BBC were singled out for “cropping” photos, a practice — together with airbrushing — that the Chinese government itself mastered long ago to eliminate political liabilities.

Whereas countries like Cuba and even Zimbabwe tend to attack media outlets based on their national ties, China has gone one further by implying that the Western media as a whole have launched a conspiracy against Beijing by aligning themselves with the Dalai Lama and Tibetan “independence forces” in a program of mass deception.

As dissembling statements go, this one is right up there with warnings of Tibetan suicide bombers and the nefarious activities of the ubiquitous — yet oddly invisible — “Dalai Lama clique.”

What is remarkable, and sad, about this situation is that when faced with new challenges to its credibility, 21st century China is reverting to the traditional and least credible response: Blaming foreigners en masse and creating enemies within where none need exist. It is “unfair treaty” psychology writ large for globalized media and economies. It is also breathtakingly infantile and will gain no friends among foreigners with money to invest.

It is crucial to understand that the Chinese approach to this issue will not restrict itself to unhappy minorities. With China touting itself as the next capitalist mecca (albeit without such troubling language), economists and financial analysts must harbor some concern that the inevitable economic lull will be accompanied by similar attacks on the foreign media attempting to hold the Chinese government and industry to account.

The professional kleptocracy of Singapore has mastered the balance of an unfree press and relatively transparent information on trade and policy. As much as the Singaporeans would love China to grow in sophistication using its candy-coated autocracy as a model, the basic dilemma is that Beijing has neither the independent agencies nor the skills to emulate its Confucian cousin.

China’s development can only be assured if the government can relent and have faith in the ability of its own people to speak and to be heard without fear of retribution. This is all the more important now that foreign investment places pressure on the government to modernize its regulatory systems and legal channels.

But China does not — indeed, in its current state, cannot — believe in a free press. This means that any “evidence” it presents to rebut allegations and reports — even on economic subjects — can be no more credible than the florid junk that Cultural Revolution wordsmiths churned out to disguise turmoil and praise mismanagement.