Freedom of Expression
Citing Voice of America, the Epoch Times reports that Ding Zilin, one of the founders of the "Tiananmen Mothers," has issued an open letter to French president Jacques Chirac saying: "You expressed that the arms embargo imposed on China 15 years ago no longer has any meaning with respect to China today, that it lacks faith in this great nation, that it is an ineffective and unnecessary measure, and that for these reasons France hopes to remove the arms embargo. . . . I and many other families of victims of June fourth [the 1989 Tiananmen massacre)] oppose your position."
Media reports stated that in an interview with China's official news agency Xinhua conducted prior to his departure on a state visit to China, President Chirac said: "We are trying to obtain from the European Union the lifting as soon as possible of an embargo that dates to another time and that no longer corresponds to the reality of things, and thus that we don't approve of.”
The People's Daily reports that China's State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television has issued two regulations that are intended to allow increased foreign investment in China's domestic film and television broadcast market. The regulations, the "Interim Regulations for Qualifying for Authorization to Engage in Movie Enterprise Operations" and the "Interim Regulations on the Administration of Sino-Foreign Joint and Cooperative Ventures in Broadcast Television Program Production Operating Enterprises," (the People's Daily report mistakenly omitted the "Interim") took effect on November 28, 2004, and confirm that foreign enterprises may invest in Chinese film and television program production enterprises through joint venture and cooperative venture investment vehicles.
The official China news agency Xinhua reports that China will enforce a 24-hour monitoring over the Internet during the annual plenary meeting of the National People's Congress. According to the report: "Chatrooms and forums of major Chinese Internet portals will be monitored by "security guards" at these Web sites. Any messages submitted by Internet users will go through rigid censoring and filtering before appearing on the Internet."
According to a report on Xinhua's Web site, Ministry of Culture officials claim that Chinese authorities sanctioned 21,000 Internet cafes, revoked the licenses of 2,131 others, and shut down 47,000 others between February and December 2004.
The New York Review of Books has published a review of "How the Chinese Government Controls the Media" by He Qinglian, an economist and journalist from China who currently resides in the United States. The review was written by Professor Perry Link, one of the United States' foremost experts on contemporary Chinese politics. As Professor Link notes, the book concentrates on two questions: How is real news suppressed? And what is the effect on popular thinking of the restricted political information the government offers the public instead? Some excerpts from the review:
The human rights organization "Reporters Without Borders" (RSF) reported on February 8 that Chinese police have told the wife of pro-democracy activist Zhang Lin that he has been ordered to serve two weeks administrative detention. According to RSF, security authorities arrested Zhang on January 29 in Bengbu, Anhui province, for posting articles on various Web sites.
On January 30, the Hong Kong-based Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy reported that Zhang Lin and Wang Tingjin had traveled to Beijing on January 27 for the funeral of Zhao Ziyang, but that their request to attend the funeral was rejected by the funeral committee set up by the Chinese Communist Party. ICHRD said that the two were arrested at the Bengbu train station upon their return on January 30, and that, while Wang was released after being detained for five hours, authorities told Zhang he would be detained for 15 days.
According to the Hong Kong newspaper Cheng Ming, an internal circular issued by China’s Central Commission for Comprehensive Management of Public Security reported that more than 2 million peasants in 122 counties took part in a total of 705 demonstrations and other forms of protest in October 2004. The list of protests reportedly includes incidents involving 50,000 in Heilongjiang, 100,000 in Anhui, 150,000 in Chongqing. Eighty-two of the demonstrations are described as involving damage, injuries, or death, with more than 320 people were killed or injured.
The following is a partial translation prepared by the Congressional-Executive Commission on China of the "Registration Administration Measures for Non-Commercial Internet Information Services" issued by the Ministry of Information on January 28, 2005. The Chinese text was retrieved from the Ministry of Information Industry Web site on March 7, 2006.
The People's Daily Web site has published the text of a speech given by Liu Binjie in October, 2004. Liu, deputy director of the General Administration of Press and Publication (the agency responsible for enforcing China's strict publishing and censorship laws), was once quoted as saying that "Currently China is one of the world's countries richest in freedom of speech and freedom of publication." The text of Liu's speech clearly indicates that Chinese authorities are continuing to struggle with two conflicting imperatives: on the one hand the government wants to encourage China's media to become economically profitable and globally influential:
According to a report issued by the Committee to Protect Journalists, China, Cuba, Eritrea, and Burma account for more than three-quarters of the total number of journalists imprisoned around the world. Of 122 imprisoned journalists, CPJ found that the Chinese government, which it called the "leading jailer of journalists," was responsible for jailing 42.