Barry Petersen Breaks Down The New Rules For Journalists In China
BEIJING: What China-based foreign correspondent would not love a front-page headline like this one in the English language China Daily:
"Journalists Promised Wide Access in 2008"
It's about new rules that basically upend many of the strictures that foreign journalists have lived with for decades in China.
Example: the new rules say we can travel outside Beijing on reporting trips and local officials cannot ask: "What are you doing here?"
(There are two stated exceptions to the rule: travel to Tibet, where they have an independence movement, and travel to the western province of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region – where they have an independence movement. You get the idea.)
The current rules mandate that before we go anywhere outside the capital we must get "permission" from the local officials in the area we plan to visit. On nice stories, permission is often granted.
But talk about doing a story on something like China's pollution problems and, suddenly, everyone is just terribly busy. Sorry. Not allowed to visit.
And foreign journalists are easy to track. Whenever foreigners check into a hotel they must show their passport and their visa. Our visas say, "Journalist." The first question from the front desk is…where is your official escort?
Come without one and the hotel clerks will call the local cops and, bang, someone shows up to shepherd you onto the next flight out of town - after they have confiscated your tapes.
Another example of the rule change: if we want to interview someone, we only need that person's permission. That means, theoretically, that a recent incident we had will not be repeated.
We were interviewing an activist in Beijing about his plans to organize anti-Japanese protests when the police showed up. Again, the questions, and, as usual, the tape confiscated…even though the person we were interviewing was more than glad to get his story out.
Why are the Chinese becoming more open?
Mainly because they promised it at a news conference in July, 2001, the day before the International Olympic Committee chose this city for the 2008 summer Olympics.
The idea of the news conference was to re-assure the world that reporters would have free access to China for the games. It was meant to answer concerns about free press reporting in a tightly controlled Communist country. It worked. The next day Beijing won its bid for the 2008 games.
It would be petty, one supposes, to note that it's taken five years to get from promise to practice by actually changing the rules.
The new rules haven't been tested, so there is still a question of local autonomy once we're outside Beijing. We can quote the rule changes chapter and verse to local officials in some faraway province, but they still have autonomy from Beijing, and they can still march us to the next flight home (after confiscating our tapes).
And then there is the future, which the Beijing-based Foreign Correspondents' Club of China took note of when it issued a statement about the rule change. We quote:
"However the FCCC believes the new regulations should be permanent, not temporary, and moreover should not be restricted to 'the Beijing Olympic Games and related matters' as is currently stated."
What are the chances the rules change will last past the 2008 Olympic games? No one knows.
The optimists among us see this as a major change, that China is taking a giant step forward in allowing the foreign press dramatically broader access to this country. China is growing up (goes the argument) and is willing to allow coverage of the good stories along with the inevitable critical ones.
The skeptical see China as a country where promises and proclamations are easier to make than to carry out. They worry that after this one step forward there might be two steps back after the Olympics should officials decide they've had enough. Maybe sooner, depending on the kind of stories they see.
Where would I put my money? Put it on the square marked Missouri…you know, the "show me" state. I'll believe it when I see it.