Freedom of Expression
On March 15, the official news agency Xinhua reported how the Chinese government's policy of restricting politically sensitive information harms not only foreign media, but also China's domestic news reporters. A Xinhua report described how public security authorities in Qingxu county, Shanxi province, "interfered with the regular interviews of a Xinhua reporter" and "illegally restricted his personal freedom."
The CECC noted in its 2004 Annual Report that government officials in Dingnan county, Jiangxi province, removed pages of the People's Daily before it was distributed in August 2003. The excised pages included a report about corruption in the county government. In September 2003, the China Youth Daily, the People's Daily, and Xinhua published a series of reports decrying the Dingnan censorship, which they deemed "appalling."
See below for excerpts and analysis.
In September and October 2004, several sources reported that Xiao Weibin, editor-in-chief of the magazine "Tong Zhou Gong Jin," was fired for publishing an interview with former Guangdong Party leader Ren Zhongyi. In December 2004, the South China Morning Post reported that Ren Zhongyi and four other members of the six-member Tong Zhou Gong Jin advisory board had resigned to protest Xiao’s dismissal.
Two recent reports have examined China's burgeoning markets for books and electronic media:
In November 2003, the Chinese government promulgated the Notice Regarding Issuance of National Uniform Journalist Accreditation. Pursuant to this notice, in January 2004, Chinese authorities began issuing a national journalist "ID Card" and maintaining a database of government-accredited journalists, as well as individuals whose journalistic credentials had expired or been revoked. The official news agency Xinhua recently published several articles (in Chinese) on the first anniversary of the Notice, and has announced that new regulations will take effect on March 1, 2005 (click "more" below to view summaries of the articles).
The People's Daily Web site reports that China's State Administration for Radio, Film, and Television ("SARFT") issued a Notice last week further restricting foreign participation in China's domestic television and film production. The Notice cited the need to improve control over the political and ideological content of television programs produced in cooperation with foreign companies.
The China Youth Daily summarized China’s 2005 legislative plan in a March 3 report. According to the report, the NPC and its Standing Committee will consider 31 legislative proposals, including 20 draft laws and 11 amendment proposals, in 2005. The NPC’s legislative priorities reportedly include the Law on States of Emergency, the Anti-Monopoly Law, the Law on Administrative Coercive Measures, and amendments to the Securities Law. For the full agenda, see below.
On February 18, China's General Administration of Press and Publication ("GAPP") issued the Urgent Notice Regarding Carrying Out a Directed Investigation into Books Containing False Propaganda Information. The following week the Notice and its implementation began receiving extensive coverage in China's state-run media:
New Regulations on the Administration of Book Quality became effective on March 1, according to a March 2 report carried on the People's Daily Web site. Administered by the General Administration of Press and Publications ("GAPP"), the new Regulations were enacted on December 24, 2004 and supersede a similar regulation from 1997.
In "China's Problem with Dissent," journalist Haoyu Zhang of BBC Chinese.com looks at what he describes as "China's continued intolerance of any form of political dissent." The article focuses on Ding Zilin, a retired university professor in her 70s, who leads the "Tiananmen Mothers." The group comprises Ding and a few other parents who lost sons and daughters during and after the 1989 Tiananmen massacre. Since that time, the Tiananmen Mothers have been calling on the Chinese government to apologize.
The article notes that the government's response to their request has been to subject them to "imprisonment, house-arrest, phone-tapping, and constant surveillance." According to the report, Ms. Ding had just told the BBC "I can't even go and get groceries without them following me and harassing me; neither Deng Xiaoping nor Jiang Zemin treated me as badly as…" when the phone line went dead.