But John Tkacik, a former US State Department official who spent a decade working in China, disputed Shao's contention.
Since the bloody Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989, economic reforms seemed to have increased "exponentially" but not democractic freedom, he said.
"The linkage between economic freedom and democratic reforms doesn't exist in China," Tkacik said.
"The news media in China will be the last sector that will be reformed," said Arnold Zeitlin, an visiting US professor at the school of journalism and communication at Guangdong University of Foreign Studies.
RSS