Globe and Mail: China watchers fear media crackdown

NEW YORK -- As Chinese Vice-President Hu Jintao met with top U.S. officials yesterday to discuss issues such as human rights, many China watchers were worried about press restrictions under the Communist regime. Mr. Hu, the 59-year-old expected to be China's next leader, held separate get-acquainted meetings with President George W. Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney to discuss such issues as human rights, Taiwan and Chinese missile-technology exports.

It was the central day of Mr. Hu's first visit to the United States, and in keeping with the low-key nature of the visit, no joint statement was issued. But after spending a half-hour with Mr. Bush in the Oval Office, a smiling Mr. Hu told reporters, "The meeting was quite good."

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said that "the President talked about the importance of U.S.-China relations and said he is pleased with the relationship.
[He] expressed his belief that the United States and China can work well together on a wide range of issues."

Mr. Hu expected to succeed Jiang Zemin as head of the Communist Party this fall and as China's president in 2003 wants to avoid saying or doing anything that could
jeopardize his heir-apparent status, China watchers in the United States said. Meanwhile, they point to a trend toward increasing control of the Hong Kong media by the government in Beijing, a pattern that began when the former British colony reverted to Beijing's control in 1997.

For example, the South China Morning Post -- long considered Asia's pre-eminent newspaper for getting a realistic glimpse into China -- has been purging veteran
journalists deemed critical of the Communist regime. This week, it fired its widely respected Beijing bureau chief, Jasper Becker, for alleged insubordination. The newspaper's China editor, Wang Xiangwei, used to work for the Communist Party-controlled China Daily, the regime's propaganda outlet. The South China Morning Post has also started carrying news and feature stories from Xinhua, the official news service of China.

Mr. Becker, who worked for the paper for seven years, said the turning point for him was when the South China Morning Post was reclassified as a domestic newspaper.
After that, he said, stories on Falun Gong, Tibet, and human-rights abuses were discouraged. "I don't know to what extent they've been pressured to do this," Mr. Becker said in an interview yesterday. "I wonder if they do it voluntarily, to curry favour with Beijing." Among China watchers, Mr. Becker, 45, was considered one of the best journalists covering the mainland and his work received attention around the world. Yesterday, for example, he too was in Washington, to testify at a congressional committee on the plight of North Korean refugees living in China.

The Hong Kong government, which exists at Beijing's pleasure, is planning to create an antisubversion law in the next year or two, which many believe will censor the
press there in the same way it is in China. "It will make it a treasonable offence for Hong Kong journalists to contradict the government line on Tibet, or Falun Gong," Mr. Becker noted. "The newspaper is already acting as though the law is in place."