Freedom of Expression
Phoenix Satellite Television, the only private television network that the Chinese government has authorized to broadcast news in Chinese, was profiled in a September 19 article in the Washington Post. The article detailed the political self-censorship that Liu Changle, Phoenix's founder, must impose to continue broadcasting. Liu, a former People's Liberation Army colonel and military journalist with Central People's Radio, and now one of China's richest men, told the Post reporter: "We walk on a tightrope. If we do everything the government wants, people will treat us with contempt. If we follow the people completely, the government will wipe us out. . . . It can be very uncomfortable." The director of Phoenix's news channel said that Liu once told her: "Why should we make Beijing angry? Let someone else do it."
A group composed of six inspectors from the Communist Party Central Propaganda Department, the National Sweep Away Pornography and Strike Down Illegal Publications Task Force, and the General Administration of Press and Publication praised officials in Gansu province for the success of their recently-concluded campaign against illegal publications, according to a September 12 article on the People's Daily Web site. The article stated that Zhou Dexiang, director of the Gansu Press and Publication Administration, told the inspectors that during that campaign, which lasted from mid-June until the end of August, authorities in Gansu confiscated 12,600 "pornographic, political, and other illegal books and periodicals."
In the first four months of 2005, the Chinese government has promulgated several laws to regulate news reporters and editors. While ostensibly intended to curb what the state-controlled news media portrays as rampant corruption and fraud in Chinese journalism, these new rules and regulations also dictate who may engage in journalism, what their political orientation must be, and when they must submit to Party and government censorship:
On March 23, the CECC noted that Chinese authorities had launched a propaganda campaign that portrayed Western media, in particular U.S. media, as corrupt and government-controlled. The campaign was intended to encourage support for the promulgation of the "Interim Rules for the Administration of Those Employed as News Reporters and Editors," which were issued on March 22 to "strengthen the building of the news profession's ethics."
The Heilongjiang division of the National Sweep Away Pornography and Strike Down Illegal Publications (SAPSDIP) Task Force has established two new systems to "gradually establish and perfect long-term supervision and administration mechanisms for the publications market," according to an August 15 post on the Task Force's Web site. Under the Publication Marketplace Special Agent System, agencies in the province responsible for regulating the media and publishing will dispatch officials with "a relatively high political consciousness" to publication marketplaces to perform the following duties:
The following is a partial translation by CECC staff of a report that appeared on the Web site of China's national Sweep Away Pornography and Strike Down Illegal Publications Task Force:
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According to reports, currently the publications market continues to have some outstanding problems. One of these is that there has been a clear increase in the illegal publications that foreign hostile forces are directing at our country.
The following is a partial translation by CECC staff of a report that appeared on the Web site of China's national Sweep Away Pornography and Strike Down Illegal Publications Task Force:
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Liu Yunshan [Member of the Political Bureau and Secretariat and Director of the Communist Party's Central Propaganda Department] pointed out that, the fundamental way to implement treatment of both the symptoms and the root cause of problems in the publishing market is to build perfected mechanisms for investigating and prosecuting in accordance with the law, enforcing law in a cooperative way, and comprehensively administering public order. It is necessary to have a complete grasp and proper utilization of legal weapons, to investigate and prosecute cases in a timely manner, and use the power of the law to intimidate criminals illegal publishing behavior.
The following is a partial translation by CECC staff of a report that appeared on the Web site of China's national Sweep Away Pornography and Strike Down Illegal Publications Task Force:
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While monitoring postal merchandise, Xian customs uncovered 1,826 VCDs propandizing the "Falun Gong" evil cult mailed from places abroad like America, Japan, and Malaysia. They uncovered a batch of illegal political publications and propaganda materials with reactionary content, and were effective in preventing these illegal political publications from being disseminated in Xian. In 2004, [officials] city-wide confiscated over 260,000 volumes of illegal political publications, and 280,000 volumes of illegal pornographic publications.
The following is a partial translation by CECC staff of a report that appeared on the Web site of China's national Sweep Away Pornography and Strike Down Illegal Publications Task Force:
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The State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television (SARFT) has "tightened its control over the cooperation between Chinese media and foreign companies" by issuing a regulation banning cooperation between local television and radio stations and foreign companies, according to state-run news media. In October 2004, SARFT issued regulations that allowed foreign companies to take non-controlling stakes in Chinese television program producers.