Investigative journalist Wang Zhian (王志安) once exposed corruption, land seizures and medical malpractice in China, with millions of viewers and a powerful platform: state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV).
Wang now lives alone in central Tokyo after being blacklisted in his homeland. His journey from on-air personality at the heart of China’s vast state media apparatus to reporter in exile illustrates how even government-backed critical reporting has been curtailed under Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), the country’s most authoritarian leader since Mao Zedong (毛澤東).
Unlike many muckrakers, Wang has not given up. Deep in debt and armed with little more than a laptop, a tripod and a camera borrowed from a friend, Wang is back in business — this time on YouTube and Twitter, both banned in China.
“Here I can tell the truth, and nobody will restrict me anymore,” Wang said, sitting in his Tokyo studio, a living room in his modest three-story walk-up.
Thousands of delegates are congregating in Beijing this week to reaffirm Xi as leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) for a third term, at the country’s most important political meeting in a decade.
Fearing arrest, Wang said he would not return until Xi is out of power.
“He demands absolute obedience,” Wang said. “The media has become like the army: a tool that pledges unconditional allegiance to the party.”
Under Xi, China’s once feisty reporters have fallen in line. The CCP’s propaganda arm has taken direct control of agencies managing newspapers, broadcasters and radio stations. A powerful new agency has silenced critical voices on the Internet, creating a vast censorship apparatus powered by thousands of censors.
CONCEALED CRITICISM
Privately, many Chinese journalists say Xi has quashed independent reporting. Publicly, they stay silent. Xi’s very name is mouthed carefully, in scripted lines, whispers or pseudonyms.
“The change these past 10 years has been dramatic,” said Zhan Jiang (展江), a retired professor of journalism at Beijing Foreign Studies University.
Wang never imagined a life outside China. A native of mountainous Shaanxi Province, Wang joined CCTV in 1998 after obtaining a master’s degree in history.
At the time, Chinese media was on the cusp of what Wang calls a “golden age.”
Investigative journalism flourished under then-Chinese president Jiang Zemin (江澤民), who talked about Taiwan, Tibet and other topics with Western journalists, and then-Chinese premier Zhu Rongji (朱鎔基), a tough, reform-minded official who battled corruption.
It nurtured hopes of reform in China’s one-party state — more like Singapore than the former Soviet Union, with some space for free discussion.
“Just because China is under the leadership of the Communist Party doesn’t mean it can’t have an active media,” Zhan said.
At CCTV, Wang was first a producer, then commentator, before he moved to investigations in 2011.
There, he developed a reputation as a tough, experienced journalist, two former CCTV employees said, although they added that his critical tendencies could make him difficult to work with.
They declined to be named to speak candidly about Wang.
Soon after, Xi took power in 2012.
At first, Wang looked forward to the new leadership. With the country’s economic boom, officials raked in millions in brazen backdoor deals, their sons and daughters flashing Rolexes and racing Ferraris across Beijing’s flyovers.
Xi promised to change all that, vowing to crush corruption. He visited a humble bun shop, portraying himself as a man of the people.
The crackdown came.
Banquets were banned, red carpets rolled up and thousands of officials were arrested.
However, as Xi consolidated power, signs of trouble started emerging at CCTV. Controls tightened. One by one, top reporters trickled out.
Then, in 2016, Xi visited CCTV and other state media.
“Party media should be surnamed the party,” he said, urging loyalty to the CCP above all else.
“We knew then there would be earth-shattering changes,” Wang said.
Although Xi was combating corruption, instead of wielding transparency and the rule of law, Xi empowered a secretive organ of the party to detain officials instead.
“Xi doesn’t think the media should be a watchdog,” Wang said. “He thinks they just need to be propaganda organs.”
The final straw was when an investigation he worked on for months was killed, he said.
It was an expose of Beijing’s ambulance dispatch system.
Through backdoor connections, Wang found that an official had set up a parallel network that whisked patients to a second-rate clinic in Beijing’s far north, generating revenue for hospital management, but causing life-threatening delays.
Days before Wang’s story went to air, the CCP’s Central Propaganda Department said it was canning the story.
Infuriated, Wang stopped coming to work, then resigned.
It was not just CCTV. Across China, thousands of journalists quit the industry.
At Caixin, a respected financial magazine, the politically connected editor-in-chief stepped aside. At the Beijing Daily News, a tabloid with a rebellious streak, the publisher stepped down and was later detained. At the Southern Weekly, a revered liberal broadsheet, propaganda officials tangled with reporters.
SWITCH TO SOCIAL MEDIA
Wang tried to continue. He switched outlets, hosting an interview show that garnered tens of millions of views online, but in June 2019, his social media accounts were suddenly deleted, depriving him of millions of followers.
Overnight, Wang was politically toxic. His new outlet, once eager to capitalize on his star power, backed out of renewing his contract.
For a couple of years, Wang mulled what to do. The COVID-19 pandemic left him stranded during a visit to Japan, and when he returned to Beijing late last year, he heard that he would not be able to work in media again.
If he wanted to stay in China, he would have to quit the job he loved, Wang realized.
Wang made his choice. He bought a one-way ticket back to Japan.
“I can’t go on in China,” Wang said. “If I became a public relations director, it’d be a betrayal of my career.”
Now, Wang is teaching himself Japanese. He has learned how to edit video on his own and operate on a shoestring budget.
Since he started broadcasting in May, he has attracted many viewers, with nearly 500,000 followers on Twitter and 400,000 subscribers on YouTube. Although both are banned in China, Wang hopes his reports will trickle over China’s Great Firewall and into the country.
Wang said that his aim is fact-based news for Chinese, one that stands apart from conspiracy-laden competitors driven by hatred of the Chinese government.
“Nobody believes a serious Chinese outlet can be established overseas, but I want to give it a try,” he said. “I think it’s very important for the whole Chinese-speaking world.”
In July, he spent hundreds of thousands of dollars hiring a crew and flying to Ukraine.
Wang said he wanted to bring frontline reporting to a Chinese audience.
Only one channel viewable in China sent reporters to the war, with the result that China’s coverage of the war was saturated with Russian misinformation, he said.
“Such a large country with only one source of information on such a huge event,” Wang said. “That’s very sad.”
Wang has plenty of detractors. Nationalists brand Wang a “traitor” online, questioning why he lives in Japan and accusing him of peddling “anti-China” content. On the other extreme, some critics of the Chinese government suspect Wang’s motives, saying that he spent decades inside state media toeing the party line.
Zhang Dongshuo (張東碩), a lawyer in Beijing, said he appreciates Wang’s channel, tuning in occasionally to get news unavailable on state media.
However, Zhang added that Wang’s lack of access has made his reports duller, and the difficulties of scaling Internet censorship has shrunk his audience.
“It’s going to be tough,” Zhang said. “He’s in an awkward situation.”
Still, outside of Xi’s China, Wang hopes there is space for someone like him.
He narrates the news, talking about China’s “zero COVID-19” policy and the CCP congress, peppered with observations drawn on his experience inside the system.
At times, he cuts in with commentary.
“We’ll have to wait till the day journalists can truly express themselves freely,” Wang said, signing off on a recent broadcast. “I hope that day comes soon,” he added.
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