On Friday, Beijing answered a question foreign correspondents in China have no doubt eagerly awaited: Would it scrap loosened rules for foreign media now that the Olympics have passed? The answer was no. The Chinese Communist Party extended the rules that it introduced more than a year ago.
Back then, Beijing was compelled by promises made to the International Olympic Committee to give media free rein during the Games. Today, its insincerity is equally apparent: The laxer regulations will not apply to China’s own press corps.
China has complained that foreign reporters do not understand the country well enough and produce biased reports on developments there. Yet it remains a mystery why Beijing will not afford these same, basic freedoms to domestic media, who understand China and have undergone decades of political indoctrination in an environment replete with propaganda. If Beijing can’t trust these people to produce reports to its taste, it might do well to ask itself why.
Censoring its own journalists has at times had dire consequences, yet Beijing refuses to loosen its grip. The state-imposed silence as an outbreak of enterovirus spread in March brought to mind the SARS debacle. Likewise, Reporters without Borders has accused Beijing of stifling early reports of the melamine scandal, when parents should have been informed post haste about the danger posed to their children’s health.
China also kept a tight grip on reporting about the corruption trial of former Beijing vice mayor Liu Zhihua (劉志華), who played a key role in preparations for the Olympics and has just been sentenced to death.
Among the rule changes that apply to foreign correspondents are free movement within China and freedom to interview any citizen. This looks great on paper, but as observed over the last year and a half, the new regulations may have simply been a publicity stunt.
Complaints gathered by the Foreign Correspondents Club in Beijing indicate there have been at least 336 violations so far of the increased rights promised to reporters from abroad. In particular, the physical abuse of several foreign reporters during the Beijing Olympics shocked the international community.
Beijing also came out with extra restrictions on who foreign journalists could hire as assistants, guides and translators — designed to make it easier for authorities to keep an eye on those who help reporters and thus the reporters themselves.
Reports have emerged of those who speak to foreign journalists being harassed or assaulted afterwards.
China has shown scant concern for these violations and other problems, meaning there is little reason to believe any of this will change.
Recently a CNN correspondent met furtively with a lawyer counseling parents who hope to sue milk companies responsible for their children’s medical bills. Good reporting may remain a matter of getting to the source of information before authorities know who you intend to interview.
China can afford to extend the measures for foreign journalists because empty gestures are cheap. Meanwhile, the only people who stand to gain from the muzzle on local reporters are businesses and officials uninterested in shouldering responsibility for their actions and scared of swelling public discontent.
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