State and Party-Run Web Sites Publish Op-Ed Critical of Local Censorship

The Web sites of Xinhua and the China Youth Daily published an op-ed on January 20 criticizing Hunan provincial authorities' censorship of a politically sensitive critical news report. According to the editorial, on January 16 Xinhua filed a wire report stating that the National Development and Reform Commission had issued an emergency circular criticizing the fact that the work of closing and suspending the operation of unsafe mines was not proceeding according to schedule in 10 provinces. The commentator saw a version of the report on the Internet saying that Hunan province had been listed at the top of the "10 criticized provinces," but found: "[When] I opened the local newspapers I saw that it was not possible to find this Xinhua article in the mainstream provincial newspapers, and while the non-influential 'Contemporary Commercial Reports' had a portion of the information on page A11, the word 'Hunan' had been deleted."

The commentator cited three groups who may have exercised their influence to ensure that the local media failed to carry the Xinhua report:

• News Media. The commentator said that Hunan was holding its "two meetings," (meetings of the provincial level People's Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference), and speculated that some in the media "may have believed that publishing critical reports was not suited to the time."
• Government Agencies. In an apparent reference to the government agencies criticized in the Xinhua report, the commentator said it could have been "relevant agencies exerting their influence." According to the commentator, the Xinhua report was visible on the Internet on the evening of January 16, and that it was "very possible that upon learning of the critical information, local relevant department personnel became afraid they would be taken to task by representatives and committee members during the two meetings, and therefore launched a secret 'public relations' action."
• The Communist Party. The commentator had recently participated in a meeting in another province attended by nearly 100 domestic media managers, and heard that some provincial and municipal Communist Party Propaganda Departments had openly announced that "if a sudden mass incident took place in their jurisdictions, newspapers and television and radio stations would only be allowed to use articles disseminated by the local Propaganda Department , and could not even disseminate reports by Xinhua on the same event."

The commentator was not criticizing government censorship, but rather was questioning how lower level officials could censor Xinhua, which the commentator referred to as "the mouthpiece of the Party and the nation." As the CECC noted in its 2005 Annual Report -- Freedom of Expression -- Government and Party Use of the Media to Control Public Opinion section, the Party uses journalists to investigate provincial and local officials, and uses news reports to manipulate public opinion. China's state-run news media has published several articles complaining about provincial and local authorities censoring government news reports and obstructing central government journalists. But these articles neither question nor criticize the prior restraint regime under which the Chinese government allows only state-sponsored media to publish or broadcast news, criminalizes unlicensed journalism, and requires news editors to provide politically sensitive news stories to Party and government censors for vetting.

To the extent that provincial and local media, government, and Party officials were attempting to restrict their citizens' access to information critical of local authorities, they were following the example set by their counterparts in the central government:

• Increasing Censorship During Politically Sensitive Times. In January, China's Sweep Away Pornography and Strike Down Illegal Publications Task Force held a teleconference and notified "relevant agencies" that they should be on duty 24 hours a day to "purify the publishing market" in anticipation of the national level meetings of the People's Congress and the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, according to a January 19 article on the Guangming Daily Web site.
• Protecting the Image of the Government. In a June 2005 editorial in "Seeking Truth," the official journal of the Communist Party, Nan Zhenzhong, editor-in-chief of Xinhua, wrote that critical reports should be the exception, rather than the rule. A May 31 People's Daily editorial called on China's state-run media to emphasize "positive" and "constructive" reporting, rather than focus on "exposes and scandals." In the first four months of 2005, the Chinese government promulgated several regulations restricting who could engage in news reporting and editing, culminating in new State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television rules requiring radio and television reporters and editors to "put forth an effort to safeguard the interests and the image of the nation," "give priority to positive propaganda," and "carry out China's foreign policies."
• Restricting Citizen's Access to Critical Political Reports. In November 2005, Shi Zongyuan, then director of the General Administration of Press and Publication, said that Chinese authorities had halted plans to allow foreign newspapers to print in China because of concerns raised by the recent "color revolutions" against Soviet-era leaders in Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan. In mid-2005 the Communist Party Central Committee issued a document directing that state-run news media first report to the Party central committee with jurisdiction over the organization or individual to be criticized before publishing a "critical extra-territorial article." "Extra-territorial" (yidi) reporting, which one Chinese media professor called "the best hope for liberalizing the news media," refers to the practice in which a newspaper from one area publishes critical investigative reports about another area, about matters that officials in the investigated area are preventing their local news media from reporting.