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Premier Wen Jiabao's new regulations on press freedoms allow foreign reporters to travel throughout the country and interview people without prior official permission, in accordance with a promise that China made to the International Olympic Committee to allow free reporting during and before the 2008 games. However, events indicate the game plan is only to convince the world that China has become an open and "harmonious society." What it misses by a wide margin is a real commitment to play by the rules, in a spirit of genuine sportsmanship.
Reporters Without Borders has recorded up to 32 cases involving foreign journalists who have either been detained, prevented, or refused permission to report by the police since January. "The way the authorities have treated journalists from Agence France-Presse, the BBC World Service and other international news organizations in recent weeks do not bode well for the ability of the foreign media to work during the Olympic Games," the press freedom organization said in a report on the government's Olympic promises of media freedoms.
One of the AFP reporters illegally detained during a visit to Shengyou said, "Other than being surrounded by 20 men who refused to identify themselves and having them knock about the car and kick the tires, they asked us to confess that we were illegally reporting, but we refused." The AFP reporters, who asked not to be named, were on their way to cover a land feud case in the village where six locals were killed by thugs hired by local Communist Party officials.
Dan Griffiths, a BBC World Service reporter, was also detained and turned back from Shengyou. When the police questioned the nature of his work and his sources and escorted him to the motorway leading to Beijing, he asked them whether they would treat journalists any different during the Olympics. An official replied, "Oh, everything will be different then." Though the Foreign Ministry reportedly apologized over this incident, it sends a warning to journalists that wander off the officially approved paths.
In yet another recent case, seven foreign journalists including a TV crew were barred from meeting Yuan Weijing, the wife of imprisoned lawyer Chen Guangcheng, at the Beijing home of activists Hu Jia and Zeng Jinyan on Aug. 24. Besides, they were made to register at the nearby police station.
On Aug. 10, security guards at a court in Yixing prevented reporters from the New York Times and South China Morning Post from attending the trial of environmental activist Wu Lihong. Reporters also complained of police harassment outside the courthouse.
China's gigantic economic growth has opened the floodgates to international scrutiny of its internal realities. Media companies are eager to cover domestic issues and internal political rifts. While basking in its financial success, China has tried to avoid the increased domestic transparency that its international reputation and image demand.
A former reporter at the Chengdu Daily newspaper who gave her name as Shiny Zhang said, "Many things are still forbidden, like reporting on local politics. And despite new press regulations, foreign journalists need permission for interviews and visits to villages. This is a serious problem."
The APF reporter says that detention of foreign journalists is routine. "I have been subjected to this many times. I'm more upset about getting caught than by actually being caught and having to go through the routine interrogation and procedures," he said. In their latest brush with the law, he and his co-worker got the authorities to back off by handing them a copy of new media regulations issued by Premier Wen Jiabao. "I never expect the regulations to end these detentions, but the new rules have apparently made it easier for us to be released," he said.
The indications are that the Chinese government is backtracking on promises to provide greater autonomy to foreign journalists. Sophie Richardson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, believes that the Chinese government is already failing to deliver on its pledge to lift restrictions for foreign journalists ahead of the Beijing Games. "These arbitrary restrictions on press freedoms undermine the new regulations, and raise questions about the government's commitment to implement them in the first place." HRW claims that China already jails more journalists than any other country in the world.
According to statistics compiled by Reporters Without Borders, 40 percent of the 163 China-based foreign journalists polled by the Foreign Correspondents Club of China in 2007 experienced some form of interference by the authorities since Jan. 1, and 157 incidents involving arrests, surveillance, intimidation of sources, violence or threats were reported to the FCC. When asked if China had kept the promise made in 2001 by Wang Wei of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympic Games to give the foreign media complete freedom to work, 67 percent answered in the negative while only 8.6 percent said yes.
China is bent on making the 2008 Olympics its greatest national spectacle. It very likely will produce a spectacular show for those willing to remain in the spectator stands. But a deeply ingrained culture of putting face ahead of fact means that peeking behind the scenes, as journalists like to do, may prove a daunting task.
