China: Young and old face the red tape

China is not exactly known for freedom of the press – more accurately it is known for the exact opposite, and as I will later discuss, something I learned firsthand. I learned this week that Caijing, a Chinese business magazine that has taken a more outspoken stance against the government, might soon be another casualty of government pressure and be going by the wayside. By happenstance, the Saturday profile in the New York Times is about a Chinese man, Du Daozheng, who has dealt with Chinese censorship for decades. These two examples demonstrate how little has changed in Chinese censorship over many years.

Last year while I was in Beijing volunteering at the Olympics, I had the opportunity to visit Caijing because a friend of mine from college was interning there. To help recall my first memories of being there, I will excerpt from my old blog, the Beijing Zou:

I also have a friend who is interning this summer at Caijing, a Chinese business and financial magazine. It is an interesting publication because it is one of the few that can get away with discussing what are normally considered taboo topics by the rest of the media, and for one very important reason: money. While the magazine is technically run by the Stock Exchange Executive Council (SEEC), which in turn is financed by the government, in reality the council is controlled by private investors in whose best interest it is to have an honest assessment of China’s economy. They are thus able to stay away from government funding which would demand they follow the rules which apply to other Chinese media. For example, they were able to keep the recent earthquake story on the front page of their magazine while other media were refrained from any criticism.

My friend said that the journalists in China are some of the best and most dedicated she has ever worked with. Two of those journalists are Mizzou alums, I might add. It was nice to meet alums out and about in the world of international journalism beyond the school’s walls. It gives me a bit more hope that there still is indeed a need for foreign journalists, and more specifically me! I got to have lunch with all of them as well as two other interns which I thoroughly enjoyed as there was some frank discussion of Beijing now.

Now things have changed. “Differences” in editorial policy between the managing editor, Hu Shuli and magazine’s owners have seen over 80 people at the magazine resign. The owners are getting pressure to “tone it down,” according to this New York Times article.  I have asked that same friend about what is happening at the magazine with this news unfolding, but she says she hasn’t heard from anyone yet about the situation. The outcome is still unclear, but as the story on Mr. Du explains, censorship can come at any time.

Mr. Du used to be head of the government’s press and publications administration during the rule of Zhao Ziyang. He obviously therefore knows a thing or two about government censorship, and thus provides a fascinating look on the topic having gone from government employee distributing censored information to dissident citizen who now publishes a small magazine revealing what he once censored. He spoke out against the government, supported Zhao’s promise for a peaceful resolution to Tiananmen Square protests and later listened to and transcribed Zhao’s words for his memoirs. While I have never experienced such limitations as a journalist, I personally experienced censorship on a more profound (rather than abstract) level when I was in Beijing airport prior to departing the country. A man came up to me and tried to communicate something to me, but it seemed most of what he was trying to say was lost in translation. He gave me pieces of paper explaining his story of government corruption gone wrong in badly translated English, hoping that I would pass along this information to someone outside China who could do something about it. He had tried to get his story out to the public, but since it was so negative towards the government, it wasn’t touched by the Chinese media. It is an all too common story that gets lost in the huge Communist-run vacuum that is China. It hit home more than ever the limitations on those in the country I was leaving behind and the freedoms I was allowed back home. P.S. If you are interested in more of my personal experiences in China, including this experience I just mentioned, please read the article “Shadow of Censorship” on my Portfolio page.