News Journal: Are journalists, scholars kowtowing to China?

Whatever newspaper or magazine you are reading, whatever you see on television, or whatever Internet sources say, the one thought you should have when the news comes from inside China is –is this the whole story, or even the real story?

Americans tend to think of censorship as an obvious black-and-white process. If you are old enough, you remember how ham-handed Soviet censors were back in the Cold War days. Chinese government censorship doesn’t often operate that way. It is subtler, but just as effective.

For example, last week The New York Times reported China had rejected the visa application of a Reuters journalist who had, on a previous visa, written from inside China for a Hong Kong newspaper, sometimes about human rights abuses. He had been waiting in San Francisco for a new visa for eight months. In one interview at the Chinese consulate there, he was told, “If we give you a visa, we hope you’ll be more balanced with your coverage.”

Obviously, they didn’t think he would be. The rejection was a real blow to the American journalist, Paul Mooney, who said, “China has been my career. … I’m sad and disappointed.” Did fellow journalists take note? How could they not?

The Times also reported Bloomberg News had decided to withhold publication of an extensive investigative report about the hidden financial ties between Chinese government officials and the country’s wealthiest families. Why? The fact that another part of the Bloomberg conglomerate sells its terminals in China might have had something to do with the decision. But according to the Times, “Company employees said the editor-in-chief, Martin Winkler, defended the decision by comparing it to the self-censorship by foreign news bureaus that sought to remain inside Nazi Germany.”

The Times article went on to report, “The websites for Bloomberg News and The New York Times have been blocked in China for more than a year following the publication of investigative articles by both news organizations that detailed the wealth accumulated by relatives of top Chinese leaders. Since then, employees for both Bloomberg and The Times have been awaiting residency visas that would allow them to report from China.”

I spent 13 years until 2009 on the board that oversees the Voice of America and made several trips to Beijing to meet with Chinese officials about their jamming our broadcasts, although Chinese media had free access everywhere in the United States. Have you been in one of those endless meetings where you get polite smiles, followed by absolutely no action? That’s how I’ll always remember Beijing.

China doesn’t just use visa rejections to tame foreign media. If you are an academic who wants to do anything inside China, your research and resulting papers had better not deviate from what the government deems appropriate. I’ve read a lot of papers that were obviously written by people who were worried about continuing to be able to travel in China.

In its latest annual report, Freedom House, an organization that monitors press freedom around the world, summed up China’s media environment as “one of the world’s most restrictive in 2012.” The report went on to say: “Constraints on print media were especially tight in advance of a sensitive leadership transition in November, and several journalists were dismissed or demoted for violating censorship discipline. Internet users who disseminated information deemed undesirable by the ruling Chinese Communist Party continued to face punishment, with dozens of cases of harassment, detention, or imprisonment documented during the year. Meanwhile, conditions in Tibetan areas and for foreign journalists deteriorated.”

What the Chinese call their Third Plenum, a meeting in which members of the Central Committee plan the economy for the next 10 years, has just ended. A series of reforms has been announced that will allow the private market to play a greater role in the Chinese economy, although state ownership will continue to be the dominant force. Promises were made to crack down on the endemic corruption that permeates the relationship between business and government. There will be an easing of the one-child restriction on families. But nothing was said about greater freedom of information.

Justifiably proud of the great economic advances it has made, China is constantly sending out signals that it is ready to take its place as a major partner in the world community. That simply will not happen unless and until the country develops a better balance between economic and political freedom.

Ted Kaufman is former U.S. senator from Delaware.