WORLD PRESS FREEDOM DAY: CHINESE REPORTERS AND

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 BEIJING 001249

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 05/08/2029
TAGS: PROP PHUM PGOV PREL KFLU CH JA
SUBJECT: WORLD PRESS FREEDOM DAY: CHINESE REPORTERS AND
BLOGGERS VOICE FRUSTRATION OVER MEDIA RESTRICTIONS

REF: A. BEIJING 1096

B. BEIJING 905

C. BEIJING 1066

Classified By: Charge d'Affaires, a.i.,
Dan Piccuta. Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).

Summary and Comment
--------------


1. (C) PRC journalists and bloggers lamented
continued government restrictions on the media and
the Internet at a May 3 Charge-hosted dinner,
organized jointly by Embassy POL and PAS sections,
to mark World Press Freedom Day. Our contacts,
mostly outspoken journalists and bloggers in their
early 30s, noted the self-censorship that results
from fear of overstepping the Party line. Though
the Internet remains less restricted than
traditional media, blogger Ai Weiwei described how
his online postings regarding the high death toll
among school children in the May 12 Sichuan
earthquake are regularly deleted by censors. A news
assistant for a Western paper described how security
forces regularly intimidate Chinese employees of
foreign news bureaus. Despite these limitations,
all agreed the "cage" for China's media and
individual speech is now bigger and gradually
expanding. (Note: That we were able to hold this
dinner at all shows a degree of progress. So far,
none of our guests have reported any repercussions
for their attendance.) Propaganda officials have
not restricted reporting on the H1N1 outbreak,
mainly because the disease is seen as a "foreign
problem," our guests noted. The 20th anniversary of
the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, however,
remains a third-rail for the domestic media. Our
guests predicted there would be no mention of
Tiananmen, even indirectly, in the Chinese press,
though some reporters plan to wear white that day as
a sign of remembrance/protest. Our interlocutors
discussed the launch of the Global Times' English-
language edition and the efforts of China's foreign-
language media to gain credibility with foreign
audiences. Domestically, these journalists/bloggers
said, propaganda officials still push nationalist
themes. For example, Party authorities are
encouraging extensive positive coverage of a new
film depicting the 1937 rape of Nanjing by Japanese
forces. End Summary and Comment.

Journalism Contacts Celebrate Press Freedom Day
-------------- --


2. (C) To commemorate World Press Freedom Day May 3,
the Charge hosted a dinner with six outspoken
journalists and bloggers. The guests were:

-- Ai Weiwei (protect),an artist and blogger who
participated in the design of Beijing's iconic
"Bird's Nest" Olympic stadium;

-- Wu Wei (protect),Beijing correspondent for the
independent, Hong Kong-based South China Morning
Post (note: Though she writes for a Hong Kong
newspaper, Wu is a PRC citizen.);

-- Guo Yukuan (protect),a correspondent for
Southern Metropolis Weekly (Nandu Zhoukan),a
magazine published by the Guangdong Party Committee
that is known for its cutting-edge reporting;

-- Li Xin (protect),deputy international desk chief
for the private, Beijing-based financial magazine
Caijing;

-- Du Juan (protect),a news assistant for the
British newspaper Financial Times and the founder of
an unregistered professional association of Chinese
citizens who work for foreign news organizations;
and

-- Wang Zheng (protect),a professor at the
Communications University of China and popular
blogger.

Media Controls
--------------


3. (C) Our Chinese guests described a media
environment in which self-censorship by editors and
reporters results from knowing intuitively where the

BEIJING 00001249 002 OF 004


boundaries lie. Guo Yukuan said that the Communist
Party Propaganda Department was becoming more savvy
and sophisticated in its methods of shaping public
opinion. Timing and connections were important when
pushing the envelope, the group told us. For
example, Li Xin said that when Caijing magazine was
considering publishing a story questioning the
exorbitant expense of the Olympics, editors --
knowing such a story would be "off-limits" during
the Games themselves -- decided to print the piece a
week prior to the opening ceremony. Caijing got
away with bolder reporting, Li Xin explained,
because of the strong political connections of the
magazine's editor-in-chief Hu Shuli.


4. (C) Ai Weiwei, who has been engaged in a high-
profile project to compile names of children killed
when their schools collapsed during the May 12, 2008
Sichuan earthquake, said that talk of expanding
media freedoms in mainland China was "all
(nonsense)" and that the situation was not getting
any better. Other guests, however, pushed back at
this, noting gradual expansion of the media's
ability to discuss some topics. Ai noted that the
Internet remained relatively free compared to
traditional media. Nevertheless, Ai said, his blog
postings were sometimes altered or deleted outright.
(Note: The host of Ai's blog, sina.com, recently
deleted at least 100 of his posts related to the
quake. Ai managed to repost some of the deleted
entries.) Ai indicated there were limits to
official tolerance of his blog. For example, he had
recorded numerous interviews with parents who lost
children in last year's earthquake, but posting such
recordings on his blog would cause officials to "go
crazy."

Most Chinese Unconcerned about Press Freedom
--------------


5. (C) Ai Weiwei said the Chinese Communist Party
(CCP)'s controls on free speech were motivated
simply by a desire to stay in power. "There is no
ideology in China," Ai pronounced. "The Communist
Party is just a mafia." With the regime lacking
clear values and ideology, Ai argued, Chinese people
did not see the CCP leadership as standing for
anything in particular beyond the pursuit of
personal wealth. Others at the table agreed and
lamented a general political apathy among college-
age Chinese. Wang Zheng, who teaches television
journalism at the Communications University of
China, said his students were interested in the
field mainly as an opportunity to "become rich and
famous."

Intimidation Continues
--------------


6. (C) Some of our guests complained that official
harassment of reporters and sources remained a
problem. Du Juan, the Financial Times assistant,
said a new "code of conduct" (ref A) imposed on
Chinese staff of foreign news bureaus represented an
attempt by the regime to reassert control of
overseas media via their local employees. Du said
she knew several Chinese assistants at foreign news
organizations who had been approached and
"intimidated" by state security agents. Similarly,
Ai reported that he was often monitored by public
security and state security personnel during his
frequent trips to the earthquake zone in Sichuan.
Often, he said, parents refused to meet with him
because state security officers had warned them not
to cooperate with his investigation into the deaths
of school children in the quake.

No Restrictions on H1N1 Reporting...
--------------


7. (C) In contrast to the Severe Acute Respiratory
Syndrome (SARs) outbreak of 2003, when authorities
suppressed news related to the health emergency,
mainland journalists are free to report on the H1N1
flu outbreak. Wu, Guo, and Du all noted that the
key difference was that the H1N1 outbreak had
originated outside China and thus was a "foreign
problem." The CCP Propaganda Department, they
claimed, had not issued guidance on reporting the
flu outbreak, though they noted this hands-off
approach could change should H1N1 grow into a
significant domestic health crisis.

BEIJING 00001249 003 OF 004



...But Plenty on Tiananmen
--------------


8. (C) The dinner guests agreed that there would be
no mention of the 20th anniversary of the June 4,
1989 Tiananmen crackdown in the mainland media. Guo
said that some in China would mark the event by
wearing t-shirts with references to June 4. Wu Wei
said she planned to wear white that day. Wu said
her editors at the SCMP were "not encouraging"
extensive coverage of June 4. She said that because
she was a mainland Chinese and did not hold a
foreign or Hong Kong passport, her editors sometimes
kept her off the most sensitive human rights
stories. Nevertheless, Wu said she planned to write
a feature on how history was so easily forgotten and
to explain why so many young people had forgotten,
or did not know about, June 4.


9. (C) Ai Weiwei was dismissive of efforts by
Chinese to commemorate June 4 with "meaningless
gestures." "Flashing t-shirts" meant nothing and
would not lead to any positive change in China, he
argued. Ai compared June 4 to the 1976 Tang Shan
earthquake in which an estimated 300,000 died. Only
recently, Ai commented, had intellectuals in China
been allowed to write extensively about the
disaster. "It is too early" to discuss Tiananmen in
a meaningful way, Ai argued, saying that more time
needed to pass. Both Wu and Guo took issue with
Ai's arguments, saying that commemoration of June 4,
however small, was important. Both Wu and Guo noted
that even though they were both born in the late
1970s and had only vague memories of the events of
1989, they still wanted to remember June 4. Du Juan
agreed, saying all journalists had a responsibility
to do something to remember Tiananmen. Du said
that, contrary to popular belief, young people who
knew about Tiananmen did care, and it was important
that the events not be forgotten.

Expanding China's Global Media Influence
--------------


10. (C) Wu Wei noted that high-level leaders,
including Politburo Standing Committee Member Li
Changchun and Propaganda Department Director Liu
Yunshan, had recently delivered speeches about the
need to expand China's global media influence (ref
B). (Note: Wu wrote a widely-circulated article in
the January 13 edition of the South China Morning
Post revealing that the Chinese government had
allocated RMB 45 billion (USD 6.6 billion) for its
global media expansion project.) Wu said, however,
that Chinese leaders were only able to discuss the
technical aspects of building "global media," not
how to professionally report for a foreign audience.
Several guests commented that the newly launched
English-language edition of the Global Times
(Huanqiu Shibao, a paper published by the CCP's
People's Daily; see ref C) was part of this effort
to reach out to foreign audiences. Guo Yukuan said
the English-language edition could push the envelope
more than the Chinese-language Global Times because
it was aimed primarily at non-Chinese. The new
English-language paper, he said, was trying to gain
credibility outside of China and its editors
realized they had to provide some balanced reporting
to be taken seriously. Still Guo noted, the
English-language Global Times maintained a hard line
on "key issues" like Taiwan and Tibet. (Note:
While the English-language edition of the Global
Times runs the occasional huffy anti-Western
editorial, it has also printed bolder stories that
report critically on domestic events. For example,
the May 5 edition contains a report on Ai Weiwei's
efforts to compile a list of student earthquake
victims. The piece, which did not appear in the
Chinese edition, acknowledges censorship of Ai's
blog, though it does not say specifically who is
behind these deletions.)

Nationalism and the Media
--------------


11. (C) Our guests were universally dismissive of
the book "Unhappy China" (Zhongguo Bu Gaoxing). The
book, a nationalist rant against both the United
States and China's own "pro-American" elites, was "a
joke," Ai Weiwei declared, saying its radical tone
was merely a ploy to sell books. While the

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leadership was not necessarily promoting "Unhappy
China," Wu Wei and Guo Yukuan said, propaganda
officials were hyping another nationalistic work,
the movie "Nanjing, Nanjing!" The film, which
depicted the 1937 "rape of Nanjing" by the invading
Japanese, was designed to stir up nationalism, Guo
said, and the Party was encouraging the media to
report favorably on the movie and depict it as a box
office hit. In reality, Guo added, the film had not
done very well and had yet to recoup its production
costs.
PICCUTA