Recently I was asked, “Is China making any progress at all in allowing a free and independent media to happen; or is the Party still controlling the flow of the news?”
The question is interesting; as it invites speculation about the “state” of the “free and independent media” (other than in these hallowed pages, of course) as well as China’s direction in these matters. To put the question in perspective, I changed it around and substituted “Rupert Murdoch” for “China.”
“Is Rupert Murdoch making any progress at all in allowing a free and independent media to happen? Or is he still controlling the flow of the news?”
Why mention this? In theory, Rupert and the Communist Party are on polar opposites of the ideological spectrum, but the realities of power put them closer together than perhaps either would want to admit. Does Rupert call every reporter/editor every day to vet their stories and editorial slant? Of course not, and neither does the Communist Party, but each exerts an unrelenting steady pressure.
This is not to equate the two, but merely to point out that things are often not as clear-cut as we would like.
Then there is the question, what is the “Party?” Now 80 million and growing, with members who cover the left, right and middle of the ideological spectrum, it’s hardly something Karl Marks would recognize. Then again, Adam Smith might have trouble pigeonholing the United States.
So what does it all mean?
In terms of the original questions, the short answer to both is yes. Yes, China is making progress on allowing a “free and independent media,” sometimes voluntarily with stories about official misconduct, environmental issues and social problems, and sometimes involuntarily, through viral social media. And, yes, the Party, which is the largest media owner, is still controlling the flow of the news.
But, the short answer is not the whole answer.
There seems to be a gap between the Chinese government and the ideas we have about the function and role of a “free and independent media,” especially when it comes to print and TV, which can be seen in how they approach the issue. From the Chinese government’s perspective, they are concerned with the stability and governance of a fairly new republic. From the perspective of the foreign media, it is a mixture of ideas about the role of the press in a democratic society and media as a business.
For example, Liu Yunshan, three-term member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, who served for 10 years as head of the CPC Publicity Department, has been quoted as saying “Let facts tell China’s story. The truth is told best in an honest, matter-of-fact way. Painting rosy pictures doesn’t work; beautifying us isn’t helpful. Real-life stories count. Dig out life experiences; reveal innermost thoughts. That captures the real China.”
From his perspective, the Chinese people welcome “constructive and good-intentioned criticism, but disagree with it when Western politicians and media make irresponsible accusations. We will not accept criticism with ulterior motives. Obviously China has many problems. We have 1.3 billion people, but the trend is positive: our problems are ‘growing pains.’ We want more journalists to visit China, not fewer.”
To bolster his point, he cited his response to the Sichuan earthquake, where he called the president of CCTV and told the national broadcaster to start live broadcast 24 hours a day, to let people know what was going on in the progress of the rescue and relief work.
Looking at this dispassionately, you can see quite clearly the power the government has over media, as well as its more open policy direction: in the past, such disasters could have been put under a media blackout.
From the foreign journalists’ side, it is a difficult time for the industry, as it faces new competition from the internet and hostility to their role. In China, journalists face bureaucratic dangers, and in the rest of the world their lives are often at risk.
This is a message sent by the Foreign Correspondents Club of China to the Chinese government about a snub to two prominent news agencies, which were not given invitations to Xi’s inaugural speech: “The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China is dismayed that so many foreign correspondents were denied the opportunity to attend the presentation of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the new CPC Central Committee on Thursday morning…The FCCC would be very concerned if the Chinese authorities had decided to exclude them in response to their recent coverage of Chinese political leaders. The FCCC asks that in the future Chinese authorities be more transparent in explaining the criteria by which they select invitees for official events such as Thursday’s presentation of the new President.”
The “recent coverage of Chinese political leaders” is a reference to stories printed by The New York Times and Bloomberg News about Wen Jiabao’s family and their financial holdings. That story was not reported in China and resulted in both publications being blacked out from the Chinese internet.
I asked a senior journalist if this surprised her, given the government’s dim view of what they saw as politically motivated anti-Chinese stories aimed at destabilizing what was already a delicate political transition. The answer was that it was the “right” and duty of the press under various international charters, to which China is a signatory, to report what they liked. I asked her if she was a guest in China or something else, to which she replied that the government was free to accept or reject her credentials but once here she had the right to pursue the stories as she saw fit.
Whether you admire, dislike, a bit of both, or try to ignore China, if you have been in China, the first thing you notice, after the scale of development and number of people, is that it is not what you would expect from reading the “free and independent media.”
No machine guns, no menacing soldiers, no lurking plain-clothes policemen, no throngs of anti-government protesters, no downtrodden masses, shuffling along in some modern day version of Animal Farm. The simmering pot of anti-authoritarianism does not materialize.
Do people complain? Yes, about everything, like food prices; nothing to watch on TV; house prices; the school system; corrupt, incompetent, lazy officials; terrible calls by the referee; the weather; their spouses, jobs, wages and their mother-in-laws. In essence, they complain about the same thing all humans complain about.
But this is not the stuff of revolutions. From the press side, they see positive changes, but as they freely admit, such news will not make it past the editors’ desk.
The irony, which seems to escape our otherwise insightful experts and journalists, is that the overwhelming majority of “anti-government protests,” apart from political protests linked to Tibet and Xinjiang, are aimed at getting the central government to intervene in cases where corrupt, bungling local officials have mishandled economic or environmental issues, such as property compensation or dangers to people’s health.
The truth is neither central government officials in Beijing or Washington are interested in abetting or colluding with corrupt or bungling local officials. To the contrary, the reason local Chinese officials resort to heavy-handed tactics is the fear that if they are not able to crush the protests quickly and quietly, their activities will attract the attention of the central government.
The point, if you want to understand something about China, you may have to think carefully about the questions you ask and the assumptions they imply. At a time when the ideological foundations of the last 350 years appear to be in disarray, it might be time to be more pragmatic and less dogmatic.
Media in China is not “free and independent” according to our definition, but the question is: Does our media match our definition? n
Einar Tangen, formerly from Milwaukee, now lives and works in Beijing, China. He is an adviser to Heilongjiang Province, Hebei Province QEDTZ, China.org.cn, China International Publishing Group, Beijing Baotong and DGI DESIGN. He is also a weekly public affairs commentator for CCTV News’ Dialogue and the author of “The Kunshan Way,” an economic development history of China’s leading county level city. While in Milwaukee, he was a partner at Jackson, Morgan and Tangen, president of E-Tech and a senior vice president at Stifel Nicolaus. He chaired various boards in Milwaukee and was a member of the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago. Readers who would like to submit questions or suggest areas of interest can send an e-mail to steve.jagler@biztimes.com.
