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Editorial: The Pied Piper of Beijing

China is planning to let US media giants News Corp and AOL Time Warner broadcast directly to television audiences in a small segment of southern China, in exchange for wide US market access for CCTV-9, the English-language channel of China's main TV network.

Media groups around the world have long salivated over China's TV market, but Beijing had been quite content just to dangle its bait in the air -- until now. Now that the baited hook has hit the water, the question is whether the Western media can grab the bait and emerge unscathed or whether they will end up firmly reeled in until they toe Beijing's line.

The opening up of China's media market is a cause for both joy and worry. Even though the offer of access is severely limited, it is still a giant step in the direction of freedom of information and cultural freedom. If China's citizens can watch CNN uncensored, they will gain a wider knowledge of the world and information on the global trends of freedom and democracy. The changes in popular thinking brought by a liberalized media are a first step toward social change. This will also be an important step by China toward joining the international community as it prepares to enter the WTO.

However, the limited scope of China's offer -- it is confined to parts of Guangdong -- demonstrates Beijing's strategy to add AOL Time Warner and News Corp to the list of companies at its beck and call. Beijing apparently wants them to live in constant fear of losing their broadcasting licenses or being excluded from the next round of offers. If Beijing can get these multinationals to kowtow to it, smaller media groups will follow their lead.

Remember back in 1993 when News Corp's Rupert Murdoch claimed that Star TV was a major force in the resistance to authoritarianism? That resistance did not stand up to much pressure, as Murdoch never even missed a beat when to stay in Beijing's good graces Murdoch ordered Star TV to stop broadcasting the BBC because its coverage of China was too negative (truthful). The international media condemned Murdoch's cravenly kowtowing for the sake of profits as a bad precedent. It hardly bodes well for this latest deal.

The lure of China's media market has also been tough for Taiwanese media to ignore. TVBS, ETTV (東森) and CTV(中視) are all itching to enter the market. TVBS spent US$50 million through Asia Plus (東風衛星電視), its Hong Kong affiliate, to organize a "Three Tenors" concert in the Forbidden City in June as a show of support for Beijing's bid to host the 2008 Olympic Games. Now that China has taken the first big step toward opening its market, Taiwanese media are sure to intensify their knocking on Beijing's doors.

Watching the march of Taiwanese companies into China is akin to seeing the children of Hamelin skipping after the Pied Piper, vanishing after him into a mythical land. President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) recently criticized some local reporters, implying that their stories left readers confused as to whether the authors were from Taiwan or China. As media tycoons try to elbow their way through Beijing's narrow portal into the promised land of the "great China market," there is concern that a pro-Beijing bias will color the bulk of their product.

Whatever scanty amount of information that manages to leak into China through the tiny window allowed by Beijing will certainly have an impact on Chinese society. What is less clear, however, is whether the international media will change China -- or vice versa.
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