Media Moguls Party In Beijing

Tom Curley, AP's President Off To Beijing

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The fallacious and cynical argument of so-called constructive engagement with communist China, which has failed utterly to moderate that state’s odious record on human rights, or ease the oppression upon the people’s of occupied Tibet and East Turkestan, generates some stomach-churning displays of appeasement from goverments around the world. Its corrosive reasoning has also permeated the media, with reporters and editors eager to comply and cooperate with the Chinese regime. The coverage of events in East Turkestan was a recent example, where the majority of reportage was processed and sanctioned by the communist authorities, which foreign media happily regurgitated.

This willingness to collaborate with the Chinese government also produces surreal events which trample over any consideration of ethics or moral responsibility. Today  for example Beijing is hosting the World Media Summit, a two day conference, at which no doubt journalism’s upper eschelons will be grateful reciprients of the pleasures of plate-and-bottle extended by their communist Chinese hosts. Will there be rigorous and open debate on free speech and an independent press? Can we expect those gathered will speak-out in support of media-independence and oppose state harrassment and persecution of journalists? As compliant guests of the world’s most oppressive totalitarian state is it too much to hope that such issues will be championed?

David Schlesinger Reuters Chief Editor Guest In Beijing

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For anyone with a sense of integrity or principle this event presents some worrying associations, and should surely question the conscience of those attending. Would reporters have flocked to a media conference in Nuremburg during the Nazi period, or in Apartheid South Africa, knowing their presence would serve the purposes of propaganda and not in any way moderate the atrocities and suppression? Given the violent suppression of press reporting in communist China, the arbitrary arrests, torture and imprisonment of those willing to report on the odious realities of life under communist Chinese rule, it is particularly sickening that a reported 130 foreign media organizations will be gathering in Beijing. This event is being organized by communist China’s official propaganda mouthpiece, Xinhua, the department which is implacably opposed to the factual reporting, specialising in concealment, evasion, distortion, lies and distortion. The same agency which reported ‘Tiananmen, what massacre?’

Prominent participants include News Corporation Chairman & CEO Rupert Murdoch, AP President & CEO Thomas Curley, Reuters News Editor-in-Chief David Schlesinger and BBC Director-General Mark Thompson. This appalling convention has attracted criticism from a anumber of human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch (HRW), who released a press statement Wednesday October 7

“The Summit’s participants need to know that this event is being convened by a government that regularly denies basic press freedoms,” said Sophie Richardson, Asia advocacy director at Human Rights Watch. “Without a candid discussion about the difference between genuine media and propaganda, the need to stop harassing and abusing Chinese and foreign journalists, and the importance of reliable, real-time information from inside China, the summit runs the risk of eroding rather than defending media freedoms.”

Mark Thompson BBC Director Hosted By China's Propaganda Agency

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As rightly stated by HRW, communist China’s internal media has for decades been exposed to strict government controls, all of which ensure a total compliance to official propaganda. HRW reported that:

“In May 2009, the Guangdong provincial government demanded – in the name of “harmony,” “stability,” and “national interests above all” – that state media outlets reduce “negative” coverage of issues ranging from government officials to public protests.”

It is well known too that overseas journalists have been banned from entering Tibet, following the pro-Independence demonstrations in 2008. Only stage managed and limited media tours have been permitted.

Although Article 35 of the Chinese Constitution guarantees freedom of the press and the Chinese government’s April 2009 National Human Rights Action Plan reiterates that commitment, both Chinese journalists and foreign correspondents are regularly harassed, detained, and intimidated by government officials, security forces, and their agents. In the past month alone a group of unidentified individuals attacked, hit, and pushed to the ground three reporters from Japan’s Kyodo News Agency who were covering a rehearsal in Beijing for the October 1 National Day parade. On August 31, 2009, two private security guards employed by the Dongguan municipal government in southern Guangdong province to maintain order at a crime scene attacked Guangzhou Daily reporter Liu Manyuan when he attempted to take photos at the scene. The guards shoved Liu to the ground and beat him for around ten minutes, leaving bruises on his neck and arms and prompting his temporary hospitalization. These issues and developments do not appear on the Summit’s official program. (HR Press Statement October 7)

Rupert Murdoch Honoured Guest of Communist China

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“Silence at the World Media Summit about the Chinese government’s restrictions on press freedom would betray the courageous Chinese journalists who strive day after day to defy state censorship..There is no doubt that press freedom needs more allies in China,” said Richardson. “The question is whether some of the world’s biggest media companies will fulfill that role.”

For more Human Rights Watch reporting on China, please visit: http://www.hrw.org/en/asia/china