The invitation that was extended to me expressed an interest in my views on a wide range of issues, including many related to the impact of China’s accession to WTO. Before addressing the issues you have expressed an interest in, however, I should say something about my own background.

I am currently the Vice President for International Affairs of Phoenix Satellite Television. Phoenix is a Hong Kong-based television company that broadcasts in Mandarin Chinese across East Asia, with a special focus on mainland China. Phoenix also has North American and European services, and is seeking to create a global Chinese-language television network that provides Chinese everywhere with current and independent news and commentaries about recent developments. I have attached a brief note on Phoenix which outlines its general philosophy, corporate structure and place in the Chinese media market.

The views that I set out here, however, reflect my personal assessments; they are not necessarily the judgments of the management of Phoenix. These views take into account my sense of China from the perspective of Phoenix Television, but they also draw on my earlier experience in dealing with China and studying Chinese language, literature, culture and politics over the last three decades, first as a university student and subsequently as a diplomat in the Australian foreign service who served as a language officer in China, as an author of several books about China, and finally as assistant secretary managing the analysis of Asian affairs at the Office of National Assessments, Australia’s premier agency for assessing international political, strategic and economic developments.

These introductory comments make it clear that I am better qualified to address some questions rather others, and consequently I will focus on four specific issues: the implications of the reform process; WTO implementation; the place of the media; and the international dimension. I will conclude with some consideration of the prospects for greater media freedom.


REFORM, INTELLECTUAL PLURALISM AND MODERN CHINA WATCHING

Since the late 1970s China has been undergoing a process of fundamental economic reform. This process has also generated significant social, cultural and political change, touching to varying extents every corner of Chinese society. In many respects China is still passing through a transitional phase, however, and what shape China will take as the changes currently underway begin to assume a more settled and permanent form remains to be seen. During the last century Chinese history underwent a series of sudden discontinuities, and China’s experience during that century is a reminder that one cannot predict China’s future by making straight-line projections based on trends over the last decade or so, or by imposing analytical models that derive from non-Chinese experience and overlook China’s unique character. One has to look more closely at the dynamics of Chinese government and society, and the interplay between domestic and foreign factors, in order to assess the direction of China at large.

The fundamental economic changes that have taken place in China have not been matched by commensurate systemic political reform. Although the Chinese political environment is now vastly different from that which existed as recently as the 1980s, and Chinese citizens today have a much greater array of personal, religious and cultural freedoms than they have enjoyed since the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949, the political system itself has not changed in an organic or structural sense. The Communist Party continues to have a monopoly on national political power, and while senior Party leaders are more responsive to public opinion than they have ever been in the past, they consistently seek to stifle calls for the introduction of democratic forms of government at the national level.

Despite the slowness of movement towards democratic political change, however, economic reform has brought about widespread decentralization of power over the last decade. Political authority in China, while still responsive to orders from the central government, is now much more diffuse and layered than it has been since the pre-Communist period. Provincial, city and township governments have much greater autonomy. A similar diffusion of authority has occurred horizontally, and on almost any particular issue the Chinese political public presents a diversity of attitudes: at one end of the spectrum old-style ideologues still advocate socialist policies, while at the other end large number of returned students and entrepreneurs promote capitalist and democratic solutions to China’s problems.

On the periphery of the political mainstream are many smaller and yet still influential groups and individuals: there are numerous religious and quasi-religious sects propagating various views of the world, from those spawned by the revival of Buddhism through underground churches to the Falungong, which in 1998 sought to mount a direct challenge to government authority. There are also networks of neo-conservative politicians and intellectuals, who espouse a form of nationalistic capitalism, and who often portray the United States as seeking to undermine China’s prospects for economic success. A book published in the mid-1990s, The China That Can Say No, is a typical expression of their attitudes.

The proliferation of attitudes, opinions and beliefs that has occurred during the past two decades has important implications for how China operates as a society and state today. For one thing, this diversity of views tends to impact on Chinese politics and governance in two different, contradictory ways: the debates that now often occur promote a sense of democracy and personal freedom, but at times the very multiplicity of views and the lack of consensus reinforces the tendency of the regime to impose policies and solutions on the state at large; political processes have not evolved sufficiently to be able to reconcile differences of opinion through consultative mechanisms, and consequently the central leadership tends from time to time to issue edicts that it expects to be followed by the entire country.

But central government orders are not necessarily implemented fully or uniformly. Moreover, irrespective of government directives, different views continue to flourish, creating a pluralistic environment in which it is increasingly difficult for the government to impose solutions that ignore public opinion.

This means that it is often misleading to use the words “China” or “the Chinese” as if they denoted a single, unitary actor. One can find in China people who will espouse whatever view one would like to hear. The trick of modern China watching increasingly lies in distinguishing the fringe from the mainstream, and then working out how much is posturing designed to advance careers or institutional interests and not indicative of real attitudes and intentions.

THE GOVERNMENT RESPONSE AND WTO COMPLIANCE

The Chinese government appreciates that continuing reform is necessary to sustain the economic growth that is essential to maintaining social stability and to realizing China’s ambition to become a modern state. At the same time, however, the Chinese authorities realize that reform has produced many sources of instability. These range from macro-economic structural factors such as the growing wealth gap between the coastal provinces and the hinterland and between the entrepreneurial class and the lower levels of urban and rural society, to the increasing access Chinese have to foreign news and information and the diminishing effectiveness of the Communist Party propaganda apparatus in shaping popular opinions and views. The Chinese authorities consequently seem to be performing a balancing act, on the one hand taking at times quite bold steps to maintain economic growth, while on the other hand trying to prevent the reform program from undermining social stability and perhaps eventually even the foundations of the regime.

The tensions which pervade the government’s mode of operation are reflected in the Chinese approach to WTO. The Chinese government, and a large part of the Chinese public, is extremely gratified that China has finally been accepted into the WTO, which is seen as recognition of China’s status as a full member of the international trading system. Besides releasing a sense of national pride---the 2008 Olympic decision had a similar effect---WTO entry is also welcomed as a step that will enhance Chinese economic prospects. Elite economic policy makers also regard it as providing a rationale for further economic reform.

The Chinese approach to the requirements of WTO membership is more complex. While national leaders and central government ministries understand the implications of WTO and expect to implement China’s commitments fully, at the local level many agencies are unfamiliar with the requirements set out in the WTO agreements. The customs authorities in many areas are unclear what tariffs apply after WTO entry. This problem is further exacerbated by the authorities’ slowness in publishing a Chinese translation of the WTO agreement. The sensitivity that they attach to this was underscored when a Shanghai publishing house was prevented from publishing its own translation of the WTO documents by the central propaganda apparatus.

Many local authorities will continue to take an approach that favors local interests, just as they did before China entered WTO. This is not a sign of a lack of national commitment to WTO, but a consequence of the process of decentralization of power and the difficulty of ensuring that regions and localities follow central government policy. While directives from the central government on matters of great importance are generally observed at the local level, on issues of more limited significance, especially those touching on local, economic interests, provincial and lower level officials tend to disregard or even deliberately undermine central directives.

The problems that are likely to result from this situation are not intractable, but require sensitive and special handling. The WTO has a disputes mechanism whereby aggrieved parties can protest at the action of others, but in many instances resort to these processes is likely to delay rather than facilitate resolving China-related problems.

A more effective approach might be to establish a joint commission that could receive complaints about non-compliance with WTO provisions and then investigate them with a view to bringing them to the attention of the central authorities without the risk of one side or the other adopting an inflexible position in a public disputes forum. A bilateral review mechanism could also, of course, consider complaints about non-compliance on the part of the United States as well. In short, a mechanism that initially handled non-compliance in a low-key style and involved officials from both sides would be able to clear away many of those cases that resulted from local officials ignoring or resisting the wishes of the central authorities.

THE MEDIA TODAY: FREEDOM OF INFORMATION V. OLD HABITS

The terms of China’s entry to WTO have little direct relevance to the Chinese government’s handling of information and the media. Apart from requiring that the quota of foreign films admitted each year into China be increased from 10 to 20, WTO does not contain any provisions that call for greater freedom for the media or for the general flow of information.

But the dynamics of reform have inevitably involved a large measure of opening up to the outside world, and this has progressively created a much freer environment in which the media operates. An enormous quantity of information about both China and the outside world is now available in China. The widely shared realization that economic modernization requires a relatively free flow of information has given great impetus to the process of intellectual liberalization.

Another important driver has been the success of China’s economic reform program in creating an entrepreneurial community, which has led to a proliferation of media, publishing and information businesses. The commercialization of the media, and the spectacular growth of advertising, has made the media and publishing businesses extremely lucrative. As a consequence China today has over 1000 television stations, and probably more than 2000 newspapers. The sheer numbers involved make it difficult for the government to enforce standards or even monitor the content of the regional and provincial media, opening the way for a much broader array of news and opinions to be aired. The popularity of the local print media is so pronounced that the People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s main mouthpiece, has recently begun to experience difficulty in maintaining its circulation. A signed commentary article in the People’s Daily on 31 December last year addressed this problem, and accused local officials of engaging in “local protectionism” and being concerned with “local interests” and “departmental interests”.

The revolution in information technology, and especially the internet and satellite television, has also accelerated the freeing up of the information world in China. While the authorities have blocked a number of foreign news organization web sites from being accessed through Chinese internet service providers, it is virtually impossible for government agencies to censor e-mail traffic, or indeed prevent Chinese citizens with the financial capacity to make international telephone calls from logging directly onto foreign web sites by making IDD calls to Hong Kong or other external locations. As a consequence the Chinese media is under considerable pressure to provide news and information that at least on the surface is broadly comparable with that available outside China, although a considerable gap often exists between what appears on Chinese news services and what is available internationally.

But the Chinese government remains especially sensitive about the free availability of information and appears to be committed to maintaining the capacity to control the media and publishing worlds. This situation is the product of a range of factors, one of the most significant of which is the legacy of the Communist system, and the impact of Leninist concepts of political control that were prevalent in China from the 1920s onwards. This legacy has attached great importance to the role of propaganda as a means of influencing public opinion and exercising political control over society. The Chinese Communist Party continues to maintain a Propaganda Department, which sets policy guidelines for the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, a government agency which is responsible for supervising the media and publishing world. With a key transition in political leaders occurring later in 2002, the propaganda machinery seems at present to be unusually active in trying to control over the media.

This sensitivity to media issues is also conditioned by a strong sense of the “foreign” or “external” identity of the international media. This phenomenon is part of a broader Asian paradigm, and other countries in the region have a similar sense of being distinct, national entities that only accept external media, cultural and informational products on a selective basis. This mentality is reflected in the Republic of Korea’s exclusion of Japanese cultural products, including films and music. It is also illustrated by the Taiwan government’s refusal to allow Phoenix Television to be downloaded and distributed in Taiwan by a local cable provider. As long as this sense of the need to contain or at least filter “foreign” influences persists in the region the Chinese government will feel that it can afford to take a conservative and restrictive approach to opening up to foreign sources of media, information and culture. Taiwan, being a Chinese society that only in the 1980s dismantled the mechanisms of media control inherited from pre-Communist mainland China, still takes a more restrictive approach towards outside media than to domestic media.

This reality is illustrated by the situation that Phoenix finds itself in. Although Phoenix is based in Hong Kong, which is now under Chinese sovereignty, the Chinese government still considers Phoenix as a foreign entity, presumably because the government in Beijing is conscious that under the terms of Hong Kong’s return to mainland sovereignty it cannot directly control the content or orientation of the media in Hong Kong. Consequently the propaganda apparatus continuously seeks to curb Phoenix’s access to the mainland audience. The authorities in Taiwan also take a similar approach, and have sought to use a law governing the entry into Taiwan of cultural products from Hong Kong and Macao to stop Phoenix being broadcast in Taiwan. Both systems treat Phoenix as a “foreign” entity.

The economic impact of the reform process, and the commercialization of much of the media, has also created new motivations for the government to maintain control over the media. In particular the government is keen to maintain the commercial viability of major state-owned media entities such as the central television system (CCTV). During the last decade CCTV has developed a very considerable advertising revenue, which in 2000 amounted to some US$662 million, far outstripping the mere US$3.6 million that the central government contributed to CCTV during the same period. But CCTV is in many respects a highly bureaucratic organization which lacks the flexibility to deal with serious commercial competition, and consequently it looks to the government apparatus to maintain its market share and its advertising revenue. For its part, the government regards media controls as effective means of protecting CCTV’s revenue.

The Chinese government’s continuing desire to maintain control over the media has recently been manifested in a concerted attempt to limit the reception of satellite television programs in China. During recent weeks the State Administration of Film, Radio and Television (SARFT) has been dismantling satellite dishes in Beijing and other major cities that have been erected without official authorization.

The SARFT has also been planning to create a uniform satellite platform, whereby all foreign satellite programs will be broadcast from a Chinese controlled satellite to a Chinese audience that has been authorized to receive foreign television programs. The reason for establishing this platform is that it will enable the Chinese authorities to control the downloading of satellite signals, and thus turn off any broadcaster that is regarded as broadcasting views or information that is unacceptable to the government.

But conscious that it cannot simply stamp out foreign satellite broadcasters, the Chinese government has at the same time given permission for three foreign TV broadcasters, including Phoenix, to download programs in the Pearl River Delta cable system. This appears to be a calculated gesture, however, conveying a sense of openness to the external media, while only giving a geographically restricted market that is unlikely to have any impact on broad, nation-wide attitudes.

The domestic Chinese film industry is the target of a similar desire to control what is put before the public. Indeed, some observers consider that the Chinese film industry is more tightly controlled now than it was fifteen years ago. In recent years there have been a number of instances of Chinese films being awarded prizes at international film festivals and yet not being permitted to be distributed in China. One film that suffered such a fate, The Devils Are Coming, recounted how a group of Chinese villagers successfully resisted Japanese invaders during the Sino-Japanese War. The problem for the propaganda apparatus was that the villagers’ victory was won despite the absence from the story of any Communist Party members or soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army to provide the peasants with leadership.

While local film production has to avoid sex, violence, and sending the wrong political message, China is increasingly open to joint venture-productions involving large Western film corporations. The fact that many foreign-made films are Western in terms of perspective and story line, and use China as an exotic backdrop almost devoid of contemporary content, means that they are much less likely to jar with the sensitivities of Chinese politics and society. They also involve relatively large financial investments in China.

The Chinese government seems to be less concerned about the print media, presumably because its impact is more local in character and effects fewer people. An enormous number of daily, weekly and monthly publications are now available in China and for most of the time the government seems prepared to rely on the good sense of editors and publishers to avoid unacceptable material.

Nonetheless the authorities continue to suppress issues of news publications that contain information considered to be particularly damaging to the interests of the government or of senior leaders. All copies of a recent issue of Securities Weekly, for example, were seized because it contained an article alleging that Zhu Lin, the wife of Li Peng, the chairman of China’s National People’s Congress, was involved in improper business dealings. The author of the article was also reported to have been arrested. The propaganda apparatus also suppresses certain books. While James Joyce’s Ulysses , banned for many years in the United States, is now available in a newly completed Chinese translation, the writings of Gao Xingjian, the Chinese Nobel laureate who has lived in virtual exile in France for over a decade, are not available in China---less because of any explicit anti-government views than because the propaganda apparatus finds it difficult to concede that it previously suppressed works that have earned China its first Nobel Prize for literature.

While it is unrealistic to expect the Chinese government to permit the publication and distribution of material that directly attacks the regime or propagates dissident perspectives, a much freer media and information environment would provide important benefits for China and the region at large:

• In terms of economic development, a freer media environment would make a significant contribution to enhancing transparency in commercial and business dealings. This would be a deterrent to corrupt practices, and would also help China to avoid the sort of excessively close government-business linkages that were one of the main causes of the 1997 East Asian economic crisis.
• A freer media would facilitate a greater understanding of the outside world by Chinese society at large. Although the number of Chinese with direct and extensive experience of the outside world is now much greater than it was a decade ago, many Chinese continue to have a limited knowledge of the international community, and especially of the way Western political systems operate. This impedes the process of building linkages between China and the outside world, but also creates an environment in which nationalistic neo-conservative intellectuals can spread their own distorted views of the West.
• An unrestricted flow of information about developments in Taiwan would contribute to reducing the likelihood of any crisis breaking out in the Taiwan Strait. While China now has a better understanding of Taiwan politics than it did less than a decade ago, a more thorough knowledge and understanding of Taiwan would help ensure that China did not unintentionally put itself in a position that caused a cross-Strait crisis.
• A greater flow of information and entertainment would provide a potentially important source of nourishment for Chinese intellectual and cultural life, thereby facilitating further social and economic development and providing an outlet for social and economic frustrations that could otherwise generate serious social disorder.

In short, a freer media has the potential to perform a constructive and positive role in China, contributing to healthy economic development, domestic social stability and peaceful external relations.

MAINSTREAM CHINESE PERCEPTIONS OF THE OUTSIDE WORLD AND MEDIA FREEDOM

Pervading Chinese government thinking about the media is the fundamental issue of China’s relations with the outside world, which draws together China’s desire for economic modernization, the fear of a breakdown in social stability, the perennial question of Taiwan, and its interest in maintaining its own national security. The mainstream Chinese political community’s approach to the outside world is shaped by five major factors:

• The desire to see China accepted as a major power on the international stage. This desire is conditioned by China’s view of its historical role as the most powerful state in East Asia, but is not a retrospective desire to recreate the “middle kingdom”. The modern Chinese approach is more related to being accepted as a nation state that is respected by other states as a responsible and pacific influence on the global community.

• The realization that China’s economic development, which is essential for the survival of the regime, requires stability on China’s borders.

• The related realization that the modernization of the Chinese economy cannot be achieved without a high degree of integration with the outside world, and in particular with the United States and other developed Western countries, which represent the bulk of the world’s markets and are major sources of investment funds and high technology.

• The htmiration to effect the reintegration of Taiwan into a single Chinese polity, not for economic or strategic reasons, but because of the impact of history on China’s sense of national identity. Despite China’s refusal to renounce the right to use force to resolve the Taiwan issue, tension between the two sides is minimal compared with other divided states. But while conflict would only occur if one of the parties seriously mismanaged the situation, the political imperatives facing both governments complicate rational policy making in Taiwan and the mainland.

• The commitment to maintaining China’s security from external threats. From 1959 through to the end of the Cold War this was directed against the perceived threat from the Soviet Union, but during the 1990s is no longer focused against any single perceived adversary. Some elements in the Chinese governmental system argue in ways that highlight specific threats, such as a possible revival of Japanese militarism or a perceived U.S. intention to weaken and “contain” China, but other parts of the system have a broader view that sees potential security problems having a multi-dimensional character and not being focused on any specific country.

These factors each contribute to shaping the Chinese government’s approach to the media. China’s deep desire to be recognized as a sovereign state leads it to react negatively to external pressure, especially when deployed in public, to change its internal arrangements. But its need for expanded economic ties with the West make a freer flow of information essential, although this is inevitably moderated by concerns about social stability and the need to maintain the dignity of the state and its leaders. Similar concerns about national dignity condition attitudes to the Taiwan media, while Taiwan’s approach provides a justification for China’s policy of controlling the access of the foreign media to China. And perceptions that Western powers might seek to “contain” China sometimes convinces its leaders that they must curb the Chinese public’s access to foreign media and information lest it be used by hostile powers to undermine or subvert the Chinese government or political system.

THE OUTLOOK FOR MEDIA FREEDOM

The liberalization of the Chinese government’s treatment of media and information is thus a multifaceted process, shaped by a set of often conflicting domestic and international factors. The cumulative impact of these factors, however, and in particular the priority attached to economic development, means that the underlying trend is towards greater openness to information from the outside world, irrespective whether this comes via modern communication technology such as satellite television and the internet, or by more traditional means such as the print media, books, overseas travel by Chinese, and the ever increasing number of foreigners visiting and residing in China. This process will sometimes move forward with sudden and sweeping movements, but at other times go into reverse as a consequence of any one of a number of factors.

But in the longer term China will inevitably be pulled in the direction of greater media and press freedom. The advent of a new generation of political leaders following the Sixteenth Party Congress in October 2002 will introduce a measure of new thinking, as will the retirement of some of the more conservative officials from the propaganda and cultural apparatus. But forward movement will be uneven. The sense of the importance of the media and of information to social stability is deeply ingrained in modern Chinese political culture, both in Taiwan and on the mainland, and the pressures on government to retain the capacity to control the media will remain strong for at least the next five to ten years.


ATTACHMENT: A BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO PHOENIX SATELLITE TELEVISION

“As the Chinese connection, Phoenix Chinese Channel is the window to the world for the Chinese global community and is renowned for its international quality and unique presentation.”
Source: The Television Asia Satellite and Cable Annual Guide

• Phoenix is a Hong Kong-based television broadcaster that seeks to promote a free flow of information and entertainment within the Greater China region. In effect Phoenix is a key player in the process of bringing to China the media freedom that is a natural consequence of China’s economic reforms.

• Phoenix features a broad mix of programs, ranging from political and economic news and current affairs through talk shows and film and music reviews to movies and miniseries of both Chinese and foreign origin. Phoenix, which broadcasts in Mandarin Chinese, draws its presenters from different parts of mainland China, Taiwan and in one case from Singapore.

• The CEO of Phoenix, Mr. Liu Changle, consequently describes Phoenix as a TV broadcaster that is different from mainland channels, different from Hong Kong channels, and also different from those on Taiwan. Phoenix seeks to transcend the various components of the Greater China and offer Chinese viewers a media service that is global in outlook and independent of local political attachments.

• Phoenix broadcasts internationally, and is distributed by cable in Southeast Asia and by satellite in Europe and the US. But its largest audience is mainland China, where it reaches over 40 million households, according to a survey conducted by the State Council Statistical Bureau. This equates to more than 130 million viewers.

• Phoenix is a public company free from the control of any government. Phoenix is listed on the Hong Kong Growth Enterprise Market, and its two largest shareholders are News Corporation and Today’s Asia, a company that is largely owned by the CEO. These two corporations own over 75 percent of Phoenix. Public investors own 16.4 percent of the company. The sole government shareholder is The Bank of China, which only holds 8.4 percent.

• The Phoenix news service is watched by many senior Chinese leaders and officials, who regard it as a valuable source of international news broadcast in Chinese. Phoenix is the only foreign TV channel broadcast in the Foreign Ministry canteen.