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| May 12, 2001 | atimes.com | ||
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China
Liberal Shenzhen reveals protectionist spots MACAU - A sizeable "civil war" has broken out in China, with the battlefield in Guangdong, the richest province in the south. The rival parties are the province and the city of Shenzhen, an economic boomtown nominally still under the province's supervision but on the verge of breaking away. The cause of the "war" is over newspaper sales. On Wednesday, May 9, one in every two people who appeared at the roughly 2,000 Shenzhen newsstands for their used copy of a daily paper came away disappointed. Their normal reading matter at the yumcha dining table, the Nanfang Metropolitan News (NMN), was not available. According to news vendors, the paper, which has been commanding more than half of Shenzhen's retail circulation, was banned for reasons of being pornographic, reactionary or illegal. It was later learned that what can best be described as a mobilization assembly was held at the newspaper and periodical circulation bureau on Tuesday, May 8. All major newspaper distributors were summoned to listen to a new administrative decree. All mobile phones had to be switched off and no attendee was allowed to leave until after office hours. They were to study a notice which sought to prevent "pornographic, reactionary and illegal publications and newspapers from outside the mainland" to infiltrate newsstands. The real purpose was more clearly spelled out in the four-point action program: 1. Non-(Communist) Party newspapers and periodicals from outside the city can be displayed for sale in newspaper outlets only after being sanctioned by the supervisory departments of the Shenzhen SEZ (special economic zone) Daily and the Shenzhen Economic Daily. (The two papers are, respectively, the official organs of the party committee and the government of Shenzhen.) 2. Operators (news vendors) must not receive or sell non-party newspapers and periodicals from outside the city before obtaining approval from the circulation departments of the two Shenzhen papers. Offenders will be punished according to the seriousness of their misdeeds. The heaviest punishment will see the news vendor's license revoked. 3. All retail outlets must actively promote and sell party newspapers and periodicals. 4. Supervisory departments from the two Shenzhen papers will conduct joint inspections. During Tuesday's assembly, it was clear that the exercise was to target the NMN, although it stopped short of explicitly naming it in black and white. Inspectors calling at newsstands on the following days also focused on the NMN. According to the NMN, the only cardinal offense it has committed in Shenzhen is being the best-selling newspaper. The sales volume of the NMN in Shenzhen newsstands is more than the total of all other papers together. News vendors made a daily profit of 300 renminbi (US$36.25) on average by selling the NMN alone, in a city where a family income of between 3,000 to 10,000 renminbi per month is considered middle class. The NMN is by no means a non-party publication from outside the city. It is published by the Nanfang newspaper group, the publicity arm of the provincial party committee of Guangdong. Despite the fact that Shenzhen is poised to break away from Guangdong and become a provincial-level municipality in two years, it is still part of the province and under the domicile of provincial party organs. To make the issue more ironic, incumbent Shenzhen mayor Yu Youjun was, until last year, the province's propaganda chief. He still holds a Guangdong office as a standing committee member of the provincial party committee, ranking him higher than an ordinary provincial vice governor. It might have been calculated timing that the "civil war" broke out when Yu was leading a delegation to Hong Kong to attend the Fortune Global Forum. "It is a blatant act of territorial protectionism and market monopoly," said Yu Huafeng, vice chief editor of the NMN. He pledged to go all-out to counter Shenzhen's assault and to ensure deliveries to all newsstands even before the administrative decree is lifted. The success of Shenzhen has been a story of China's opening-up policies. It was unthinkable before Wednesday that the SEZ, the growth of which has always been based on market liberalization, would one day resort to closing up that particular shop. Moreover, the iron gauntlet was laid before provincial authorities, who nominally are still their superiors. ((c)2001 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for information on our sales and syndication policies.) |
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