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6月30日 A few faint voices of protest, but mostly silenceApart from the handful of newspapers and magazines that are daring enough to carry comments on the law, everybody's remained mute.
Posts commenting on the law that appeared at the Reporters' Home BBS were removed within minutes. Conveniently, this journalists' online forum is now flooded with posts about the crazy soccer commentator Huang Jianxiang.
There's also talk that after publishing Chang Ping's commentary on the law, the Southern Metropolis Daily received word from provincial authorities to shut up on this topic.
Access to this blog has been unstable, and everytime I post something here I can't log back in for hours afterwards.
The Beijing News, known for carrying interesting, occasionally provocative comments in its prominently-featured op-ed pages (A02-03, right behind front page), has either been under close watch or under acute self-censorship. Interestingly, on
today's A04 page, under the column of "follow-up on hot points", there's a small piece on the law, Kan Ke, chief of the Information Bureau at the National People's Congress.
According to Kan, the clauses providing fines for "wayward press organizations" are "based on many years' of working experience and in line with current practice; the purpose is to better respond to emergency events, safeguard social stability and the people's interests."
This doesn't look good. 6月29日 Keeping Up the Heat, But still Too LittleCaijing Magazine today carried a second piece in what looks like will be a series of tirade against the proposed Emergency Response Law, with even more scathing criticism from journalism educators, perhaps the only people in China these days who can speak up freely against the law without worrying about retribution.
China stands at the risk of becoming a police state, Caijing quoted Yu Guoming, vice president of the Journalism School at Renmin University as saying, if it were left to the local governments to make the rules regarding what the press can do and cannot.
Xu Hong, a journalism professor at Peking University, tells Caijing that the press, who represents the public's right to know, should be protected instead of restricted. She finds the proposed law "unreasonable" for providing economic sanctions against the press.
ReviewsIf the Emergency Response Law ever was passed, on its cover should be printed, in the true best-seller style, such "starred" media reviews:
"A step backward, very confusing ... too ridiculous... very dangerous."
----- Chang Ping, Southern Metropolis Daily
"The outcome would be very uninspiring .... won't help the public get comprehensive, timely information."
----- China Business Post
"If this clause became law, it could lend itself easily to abuse and distortion in emergency management, and thus defeat its own legislative purpose."
----- New Express News
"Without the media as watchdogs, won't those crooked and corrupt officials become even bolder?"
----- Xu Linlin, Eastday.com
"Who Makes the rules (on what can be reported and what not)? For what reason? If these questions remain unanswered, it would provide opportunities for those who seek to restrict freedom of speech, and eventually undermine the public's right to know."
----- Yu An, in Caijing Magazine
Keep 'em coming, folks. 6月28日 Emergency Response Law: Caijing Magazine Kicks Ass!!Three days after the official Xinhua News Agency reported on the Emergency Response Law, Beijing-based Caijing Magazine prints a analysis on its Web site questioning the sanity of that clause and revealing one big secret: someone had "slipped" that clause into the bill at the last moment, and some of the law's very first drafters didn't even know about this before the draft was submitted to the NPC.
The story quotes Yu An, a law professor at Tsinghua University and a member of its drafting committee, as saying, "I have no idea how this clause was added into (the bill). It was not there when the experts first discussed (the bill)."
Ying Songnian, a member of the NPC's Civil and Judicial Affairs Committee who will be one of those reviewing the bill, told Caijing, "based on our experience with SARS, only information openness would help calm people down, and make disaster-relief efforts more effective."
Another interviewed legal scholar, Prof. Zhang Qianfan of Peking University's law school, says that the bill is "inappropriate" because "only under extremely peculiar situations could media coverage render more negative effects (on emergency management) than positive. The bill makes an extreme situation into a general rule, which is unbalanced legislation, and inappropriate."
Another "constitutional law expert" who wishes to remain anonymous is more blunt, if less open about his identity: "What if a local government tries to cover up an emergency situation? Can't the media even expose that?" He goes on to call the proposed fine for media outlets "ridiculous" in the sense that, under the law, a county government trying to manage a local emergency situation like a mining disaster or avian flu outbreak, would have the power to "regulate" all media seeking to cover the incident. "How much discretionary power will this local government have? And who is to supervise it?"
It is exactly this kind of domestic media fire what we need to thwart this EVIL attempt to silence the country's honest media outlets. So far it seems only a few are daring enough to do this, including Southern Metropolis Daily. I just hope it's not too little too late. 6月27日 How I scared innocent people into not honkingAn amusing episode for a blog otherwise filled with bitterness and cynicism:
A friend who was totally unimpressed with my previous hate-mongering entry about car drivers in Beijing messaged me today to ask if I was hanging out near Andingmen last night.
Actually yes, I said, I was coming out of a friend's birthday party half drunk and trying to hail a cab.
I passed right by you, she said. I thought of honking to get your attention by was afraid you'd throw a brick at my car!
Yeah, I replied. You never know what I am capable of while sober, not to mention half drunk! 6月26日 Follow-up on Emergency Response LawThe only hope remaining of killing this ugly law is for the National People's Congress Standing Committe, where the law has been submitted, to reject it. To do that, the country's media outlets have to start raising hell, right now. They should cover the hell out of it, with a rapid fire of analyses, interviews with legal experts, and most important, op-ed pieces blasting it.
Whoever's behind this vicious bill, they have issued no ban so far on the media covering this. And this provides a precious window for the country's press and broadcast news organizations to act. The window may last only a few days. It's time to act. The conspirators picked a good time to publicize about it: a humid, sleepy Sunday when hardly anybody's reading the newspapers. And, in typical Xinhua-Governent style, the the part about restricting press freedom is buried in the last paragraph of the story. Had it not for the attention-grabbing headline by Sina news, it could just pass as another uninteresting piece of legislative news.
Meanwhile, foreign press is promptly starting to realize what's wrong with this law and what it means for the Chinese press: here are Reuters, UPI and AFP coverage.
In the blogsphere, at least there is some domestic protest already: Lian Hongyang's Blog (Chinese) modestly calls that clause "questionable", but makes a sound point by saying that the "rules" the law stipulates that media must comply with in reporting on disasters should not have been set at all. Also, the author points to inconsistencies between the new law's malicious clauses and recent government directives aiming at increasing transparency. Apparently not everybody is as dumb as Xinhua. 6月25日 An Audacious Assault on Press FreedomOr whatever is left of it. The official Xinhua News Agency has reported that the draft version of the Emergency Response Law, "recently" submitted to the National People's Congress for approval, stipulates that news media are liable to fines between 50,000 and 100,000 yuan if found to have "violated rules by releasing information on response measures to emergencies, development in such events without approval, or for releasing false information."
The law also requires governments to release emergency information in a "unified, accurate and timely manner, and regulate relevant media reports, except when releasing such information is negative for emergency response."
I have no doubt that's the worst piece of proposed law the legislature has seen in recent years. It provides the perfect excuse and 120% immunity for all levels governments to lie to the public and conceal information inconvenient for them. Worst of all, as many readers commented on Sina, the law will in effect repeal much of the hard-won freedom for the press in reporting on natural disasters, accidents and other emergency events. While there was no such national law governing how and what the media can cover in emergency events, China's media, in the past decade, have through pricey experiments and daring operations gained much ground in reporting on emergency events. Encouragements by the national government in recent years, especially in reporting on mining disasters and local government cover-ups, have also helped empowering the media.
Now this law threatens to destroy all that, with the thump of a rubber stamp. There is no mistake who inserted that infamous clause, or even cooked up the whole bill: the wording reeks heavily of the P-department on the central level and local authorites burned on emergency response in the past. Xinhua has every reason to gloat: the law helps reaffirm their monopoly over such information releases. It is precisely in this regard that Xinhua has seen its ass kicked badly in recent years, and lost most of its credibility.
Against all odds, I hope the legislators are wise, or independent-minded, enough to see through the conspiracy and kill the bill. At least kick it back in the face of the P-department and tell them to revise that clause. The governments can lie and cover up as they used to do, but at least let the media have a free hand in exposing them and telling the truth. In fact, this bill gives rise to a perfect opportunity for the National People's Congress to show its legislative discretion, gain public credibility and assert its power.
Or, if worst comes to worst, the law is passed, at least let whatever agency is going to enforce it stick to the word of it: the 50,000 - 100,000 yuan fine, just like most damage awards in libel cases, isn't too big a sum to deter the media. 6月14日 How could they get it so wrong?Came across some violently contradictory headlines on Monday:
China Business Post （《第一财经日报》）, Beijing Morning News (《北京晨报》）, along with several other newspapers, prominently sported headlines like "美拟放行47类高科技产品对华出口", and "美国将修改现行法规 放宽对华高科技出口" ("US to Relax Controls on 47 Types of High-tech Exports to China", "US to Mend Current Law, Relax High-tech Export to China"). All these stories are based on recent press briefings and speeches given by US Undersecretary of Commerce David McCormick about impending moves in the US export control regime. And it seems the Chinese papers have reached a concensus that Uncle Sam will remove some barriers in selling some fancy gizmos to China. So far so good. Another feel-good story no one really understands.
But Caijing Magazine doesn't think so. This story, published also on June 12, reads "美国对华科技出口管制调紧" ("US Tightens Control on Technology Export to China"), a direct contradiction to the above stories.
In particular, Caijing's story clashes with the newspaper stories on the issue of 47 types of export items, with Caijing sayin these items previously wouldn't require a license to be exported to China but under the revised law would do. China Business Post has the contrary: the US will loosen controls on exact the same 47 items, it says.
So what really happened? Both publications cited a McCormick speech (link blocked in China) at the DC-based conservative thinktank Center for Strategic and Internaitonal Studies. NewsBlaze, who also had someone on the ground there, published this grossly summarized version of the speech. McCormick talks about "improving controls", which doesn't do anything in clearing up the confusion. Neither does the story include any mention the 47 items. But a quick read would show that the general tone of McCormick's speech is not about "relaxing controls", but quite the contrary.
Thank goodness, here's another story which does cut through all the polite crap and gets to the core, although painfully slow: US to restrict high-tech exports to China.
"...
Speaking at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, undersecretary of commerce David McCormick said his department plans in the coming weeks to release preliminary rules spanning 47 categories of technology goods. ..."
OK. So what exactly are they gonna do about those 47 categories?
" ... That means other, as-yet-unregulated technologies may also be worth scrutiny, McCormick indicated. "US policy should facilitate sales of American-made semiconductors to companies in China for use in stereos or a child's Game Boy but not for advanced missile systems or submarines," he said."
Now we get it. Caijing is right, the others are wrong. But how the hell could they be so wrong? This Xinhua story in English seems to suggest that they got the general direction of the story wrong (relaxing controls vs. tightening controls) from the very beginning, when McCormick visited Beijing in late May and first broke the news to the Chinese that the US will revise its export control regime regarding China. In all fairness, they didn't actually get everything wrong: at least according to McCormick, the export review process would be made a lot quicker and easier for certain "certified" Chinese companies with good track records of complying with US end-use and end-user rules. In this narrow sense, one could say the restrictions are kind of loosened. But compared to the added restrictions on the 47 catetories of goods, the effect of this "positive" move is much smaller. And, judging from the general tone of US coverage, the revision is moving towards tighter, not looser, export controls. So the Chinese press didn't bother to check their stories with what's being reported in the US press. Big surprise. But one thing is for sure: the US government and its embassy must have known about this confusion in the Chinese press from the beginning, as the embassy closely monitors Chinese media coverage of bilateral relations, but they didn't do anything to clear it up. In fact, the confusion might just have served their purpose beautifully: we are kicking your ass and you're saying this is good for both of us. How much more successful than this can one's foreign policy get? Apparently all these stupid newspapers, including Xinhua, fell for the diplomatic pleasantries that McCormick wrapped his real message in. Of course, at his May 22 press conference in Beijing, McCormick was as vague and ambiguous as any US cabinet official could be. But journalism is about cutting through the crap and presenting your readers with the real thing, not the other way around, stupid! 6月10日 TV Hostess Suspended After Posing in Nud* Ad These three young ladies are two TV hostesses and a college student. This public-good commercial, which appeared at bus stops all over Changsha recently, is about raising awareness over female health. Again, , bored-shitless, controversy-hungry, goodie-two-shoes members of the public have drummed up so much talk that one of the TV hostesses, which one not clear yet, has been suspended by her employer.
The story from Changsha Evening News quoted sources with the employer as saying that they did it because the hostess "damaged the image" of the TV station, and that she hadn't obtained employer approval before shooting this ad. How stupid is that? How could they possibly have damaged anybody's image? What the heck do they want really? Remove their arm or hair? I, for one, condemn this hypocrisy. I don't even care if the girls really did it for public good or for self-promotion.
If I really had to pick bones out of this nice little show, I would ask if and how much they got paid. When you do a public-good ad, you're not supposed to get a ridiculous amout of dough for showing your boobs, even tastefully-hidden ones. Remove your eyes from the center(s) of attention for a while and go after the sponsor, the "xx gynecology hospital" whose name is obscured on the top right corner of the ad, stupid.
PS: I don't believe MSN wouldn't even let me put "nude" in the headline, when I got away with some more offensive language in the body text. Online media or offline, it's apparently all about the headlines! From Lunar Land to Deutsch Fussball LuftThe same "Embassy of the Moon" which has been trying to sell land from our shiny satellite to ordinary earth-dwellers in Beijing, has now taken on a different business strategy: peddling air from German soccer fields by the whiff.
According to CEO (shouldn't it be Ambassador?) Li Jie, in the "Beijing Star Daily" story, they supply little green bags full of "world cup air" from freshly-mowed soccer fields in Germany at 50 yuan (US$ 6.3) a bag, for soccer fans to inhale and get a sense of being there when they sit in their dingy little living-rooms and watch the games on TV. Simply a genius idea, isn't it?
Ambassdor Li lost his business license (diplomatic credentials?) last year for the offense of "business speculation" after he placed ads saying he was going to sell lunar land to Beijingers. Earlier this year he claimed he owned all the clouds in Chinese airspace but found it hard to get that notarized. But the lunatic energy apparently drives him on.
I gotta give it to him. The ambassador is exactly what we lack here in China. Be he a crooked fraudster or a real lunatic, we just don't have enough of such colorful characters around. His determination, his sense of humor, his fearless challenges of government bureaucracies (someday someone may just lose the patience to play along, cook up some lame excuse and put him away for a long while), is simply adorable. If "Uncle Bus" is seen as the spiritual symbol of a high-strung Hong Kong, why not Ambassador Li the innovative, restless alter ego of the staid Beijingers? 6月9日 After Short-lived Hit Run, Da Vinci Code Banished from Chinese TheatersFollowing up on a previous post: This is a good example of how the state maintains a distorting hand even in entertainment, probably among the most liberalized industry in China: a newspaper in Shenyang has reported that the Da Vinci Code, after a wildly popular run of less than 3 weeks (box office revenues shot through US$ 5 million in the first week alone, not much for international standars but pretty impressive for China) nationwide, is suddenly being pulled June 9 from theaters all over the country, upon government orders. The reason, speculated the newspaper, is either to make way for a bunch of domestically-made movies to hit theathers this summer, or because of "religious controversies" .
On the second possibility, which I do believe holds some water: there must be some real sick, paranoid people that rack their brains everyday hunting for "controversy" in life, and unduly reflect these in their decisions on what is "fit" for the public to see and hear, and what not. But when there is no relevant controversy, they either invent, or borrow some. As in this case, I just couldn't help snorting out loud: are we even a freaking religious country to give any serious thoughts about what the Vatican says about the movie? It is someone else's religion, someone else's heresy for Confucius's sake! Are the censors so crazy they want to borrow someone else's excuse to shut something down? When have they become so scared of any "public" reaction over anything? 6月7日 Get Your Priorities Right, BroApparently the Iranian embassy is putting together a "media delegation" consisting of journalists from 10 Chinese media outlets to travel to their great country next month.
This is the kind of privilege journalists from a semi-ally country rightfully enjoy, one of a few things that make expat journalists, who usually don't give a rat's ass about their Chinese colleagues, really jeaous of them. I, too, am tormented by the poisonous flames of jealousy after learning that a friend has graciously accepted the offer. Just to think about it makes me drool, but of couse there is also the fear that some lunatics on the other side of the world may see fit to sent a not-so-welcome delegation to visit the great Persian state at the same time.
But I must not get ahead of myself. According to the Iranian embassy in Beijing, the purpose of the trip is to "examine the development of the Iranian tourism industry", of all possible topics at this moment. Their sense of humor is beyond admiration. But that's really not the biggest problem-- good journalists can always use such opportunities to get what they really want. But our Iranian friends also made sure that that doesn't happen with most of the invitees: the delegation is going to include mostly journalists from official news organizations. In that case, it probably will turn out to be a tourist delegation after all. Judging from some news stories I have read in the last few years with datelines from North Korea, written by an old pal working for the prestigious Xinhua News Agency, I can almost guess headlines and quotes for the majority of stories to come out of this trip. |
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