In the spring of 1998, Gao Qinrong, a journalist, was riding high. Although a freelancer, his expose of a fraudulent multimillion-dollar irrigation scheme in Shanxi Province had made its way into half a dozen prominent state newspapers, including the People's Daily of the Communist Party.
He had also presented his work to the Communist Party's Central Discipline Inspection Committee. And his investigation was featured on China Central Television.
But these days, Gao shares a cold, cramped cell in Jinzhong prison with criminals, serving a 12-year sentence for fraud, taking bribes and pimping -- charges that his many defenders say were invented by local officials when his reporting went too far.
"He never dreamed this would happen," said Duan Maoying, his wife, an accountant, who has told their 10-year-old daughter that her father is in the US.
"He knew he was telling the truth, so he didn't think it would be a problem."
Although Chinese officials have long criticized the foreign press for sullying China's image, in the last few years they come across a far more vexing foe: a growing number of smaller newspapers and semi-independent reporters like Gao, who operate mostly outside of the official state media and respond far more quickly to the lure of a good story than to pressure from the Communist Party's Propaganda Department.
The influence of this shadow media is growing exponentially, along with China's Internet, as articles from even the most obscure newspapers quickly find their way onto Web sites and into chat rooms. And that, in turn, has put new pressure on the official media, which are losing readers and credibility in the face of this new information.
Although all news outlets in China are technically owned by the government, in many cases the connection is rather indirect.
While major newspapers are owned by Communist Party organizations and subject to tight propaganda control, smaller "mass media" papers are often started as business ventures by quasi-governmental bureaus, like a local disabled persons federation.
And controls are far more lax.
The evolving power of the shadow media was on display after an explosion at an elementary school in Jiangxi Province on March 6 left dozens dead.
While top government officials blamed a suicide bomber -- an explanation that was dutifully repeated in the main state media -- small papers and magazines like the Yangcheng Evening News and the South City News weighed in with reports from the scene, contending that the school had been forcing children to make firecrackers.
Though Chinese officials say the reporters are "irresponsible," their reports have continued to fill China's Web chat rooms.
And at the close of China's annual legislative session on March 15, Prime Minister Zhu Rongji felt compelled to promise that he would pursue a thorough investigation of the charges.
At its fringes, at least, China's news media are looking more and more like a free press -- although one whose reporters live with the risk of criticism, detention or -- like Gao -- even arrest. "The media are definitely becoming more diverse and relaxed," said a young editor, who in 1999 lost his job for publishing an article that he believes would be no problem now. "But for journalists there are still risks involved."
He, like most of the journalists interviewed for this article, spoke on condition of anonymity. The Web site where he now works was criticized for posting articles about the Jiangxi explosion.
Officials in Beijing have been deeply ambivalent about the rise of this new media, sometimes praising reporters like Gao for unearthing local corruption that would otherwise go unnoticed, but also regarding their unruly existence as deeply threatening.
"The party would like to exercise control, but with more than 2,000 papers and so many issues now open to public discussion, they can't watch them all and it's impossible to have a policy for every issue," said a senior journalist at a major party newspaper.
Originally the government's policy had been to insure that large media outlets marched in step, while leaving small ones to their own devices. "But clearly that isn't working any more," he said.
In the past year, the newspapers and magazines of the mass media have come up with the following offerings:
-- As the large Communist Party papers dutifully reported China's success in combating AIDS, the shadow media exposed a huge epidemic of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, among farmers in Henan province that had been covered up by the provincial government.
-- About a dozen smaller publications decried the use of torture by the police, giving extensive coverage to the case of a man whose tongue had been severed for criticizing conditions at a local school.
-- After the State Environmental Protection Agency declared the clean-up of China's notoriously polluted Huai River a success, small newspapers featured on-the-ground investigations showing that the water was still so polluted in some areas that it could not even be used in factories.
-- Caijing, a business magazine, has run several shocking exposes about how the Chinese government manipulates the domestic stock market in recent months.
In the past year, frustrated party officials have repeatedly exhorted reporters to speak with one voice in support of national policies. The Propaganda Department has recently initiated a campaign aimed at young reporters, to inculcate a sense of national duty and a Marxist perspective. "They are too easily influenced by the bourgeois western view of journalism," wrote Zheng Mingxiong, party secretary of the All-China Journalists Association this week.
And each week the Propaganda Department continues to issue detailed instructions aimed at the major media. For example, it recently insisted that the Falun Gong spiritual movement should be described as "crushed" rather than "banned."
Many journalists attribute the new diversity and freedom to the "marketization" of the Chinese media.
Since China has trimmed the budgets of the state bureaus that own newspapers and magazines, all but the largest publications now have to be self supporting, and that has changed their priorities. They have been forced to become more lively and interesting in order to attract readers and advertising. "In the past, reporters wouldn't dare to cross the boundary into politics," said the editor at the Internet news site. "But now readers expect to hear more of the story -- the background, the dirt."
Still, it is a risky business. When officials felt threatened by Gao Qinrong, they followed him to official meetings in Beijing and kidnapped him, driving him back to detention in Shanxi. Although many journalists and lawyers tried to attend his 1999 trial -- which he and others said featured paid witnesses and fabricated evidence -- they were not allowed in. The Shanxi High Court has refused Gao's appeal.
Many small and mid-size newspapers have protested his treatment, including this week's China Business Times. But the powerful large party papers, which once celebrated his reporting, have remained mostly silent. The All China Journalists Association does not return his wife's calls. "I feel like we're at a dead end," she said.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique