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2 SUN WUKONG When 'foreign intervention'
is welcome By Wu Zhong, China Editor
news coverage by foreign
journalists. "How to understand 'related matters'?
According to historical experience, foreign
journalists will not limit their activities to the
Games themselves. They will also care about the
politics, economy, society, culture, education,
science and technology and other aspects in the
host country."
The new regulation could be
seen as an experiment by the Hu-
Wen
leadership in expanding freedom of the press in
the country. Deng started the economic
restructuring by introducing foreign capital. Now
Hu may want to take the opportunity of the Beijing
Olympics to pilot some sort of freedom of the
press, starting with foreign journalists.
Hu and Wen may have realized that greater
freedom of the press would be of great help to
them in tackling bottleneck problems facing the
country's economic reform and opening up, such as
social injustice, runaway corruption among
officials, protectionism, the widening wealth gap,
and irregularities in business operations. These
problems are becoming increasingly acute because
of a lack of public supervision, in spite of
government's efforts to crack down on them.
What is tricky is that freedom of the
press can be a double-edged sword. So Hu has to be
careful in pushing for it. That's why he wants to
start with foreign journalists.
The
"step-by-step" gradualist approach has been key to
the success of China's overall economic reform and
opening up over nearly three decades. In Deng's
metaphor, it is like "crossing a river by touching
stones on the riverbed".
Hu and Wen are
fully aware how complicated and difficult it is to
open the media in one step given the current
system. Strong resistance can be expected from the
party propaganda czars whose power lies in their
control of the media. They will lose their jobs if
there is full freedom of the press.
Many
of the local officials also do not like to be
grilled by the media as they fear their abuse of
power will be exposed. Cai Wu hit the nail on the
head when he said: "Some local officials do not
want to be interviewed by the media because they
are afraid of losing their jobs."
Liu
Jianchao, the Foreign Ministry spokesman,
acknowledged that implementation would not be
friction-free. He said the ministry would brief
central and local government departments on the
regulation and urged foreign journalists to
contact his office when encountering trouble.
Though officials should no longer question
reporters as they travel in China, Liu said police
will still have the authority to intervene,
especially during emergencies, protests and other
incidents that suddenly arise. "They will not ask
what you are doing there unless there are concerns
in terms of public interest and social order," Liu
said.
The enforcement of the new
regulation also shows Hu's and Wen's
self-confidence in their leadership. There have
been fears that Chinese people might be influenced
by negative reporting about China and shaking
confidence in Communist Party rule. "Now tens of
millions of mainland Chinese travel to Hong Kong
and many foreign countries, fully exposed to all
kinds of negative reports about China. So what?" a
Hong Kong-based China watcher said.
In
fact, analysts in Beijing say, the government
hopes foreign journalists will help expose
official corruption and other scandals,
particularly those involving construction of
Olympic projects, so that they can be dealt with.
This is perhaps one of the "ulterior motives" of
the leaders.
While the new regulation is
officially effective only for 21 months, it is
widely expected that some of its stipulations will
become permanent after it expires if it works
well.
"Many years have passed since 1990,
during which big changes have taken place in China
as well as in the world. It is thus in accordance
with the trend of the times to make revisions to
the 1990 rules," Cai Wu said. "Therefore, if the
provision regulation [for the Beijing Olympics]
proves good in practice in next more than one year
... I think it is unnecessary to make changes in a
good policy."
So far, the implementation
seems smooth, as many of the reports by foreign
journalists traveling in China have been
immediately translated into Chinese and published
on Xinhua News Agency's Reference News, the
largest-circulation daily in China.
If
things work out well, some of the rules might be
extended to the domestic media. But it will take a
long time for domestic journalists to enjoy the
same freedom as their foreign counterparts. So
like economic reform, liberalization of the media
will take place gradually, if it happens at all.
Nevertheless, this is another case where a
foreign force - journalists this time - is being
used to spearhead a new kind of reform. So who is
to say that "foreign intervention" is not always
welcome in China?
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