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Joyce Hor-Chung Lau Reuters Fellowship Paper, Oxford University THE NARROWING GAP: How Hong Kong media is inching towards the China model By Joyce Hor-Chung Lau Michaelmas 2007 / Hilary 2008 2 The Narrowing Gap: How Hong Kong media is inching towards the China model By Joyce Hor-Chung Lau March 2008 3 Introduction When Hong Kong was handed from Britain to China under the concept of “one country, two systems,” a unique experiment began into whether a city could maintain an outspoken media and other hallmarks of a free society while technically under the jurisdiction of a Communist Party-ruled state. Since 1997, Hong Kongers have continued to enjoy the freedoms of speech, demonstration and movement not granted to residents of Mainland China, while Hong Kong’s judiciary, police and anti-corruption body operate independently of Beijing. Glitches or threats to this system can trigger mass street protests and critical media coverage, which would be forbidden on the other side of the border. There are practical problems, however, with imposing strict perimeters on an industry as fluid and dynamic as the mass media, and with sustaining a “one country, two systems” of journalism. This paper will demonstrate how the wide gap between the two systems of journalism has begun to narrow in the last decade, with an emphasis on the Hong Kong side of that equation. It would be too simple to view developments over the last decade as a black-and- white case of a large Communist country censoring a smaller struggling democracy. The reality is a more complicated one of two journalistic cultures exploring, clashing and interacting. It has as much to do with business interests and technological development as it does with political ideology. Before the handover, there was a clearer line between Mainland China’s overt state censorship and Hong Kong’s boisterous free press. There were different goals, motivations and rewards that determined how journalists and their bosses worked on a day-to-day basis. 4 On the Mainland, the media’s aim was to disseminate government information and promote patriotism; the state rewarded media that were “successful” in this task, and punished or censored those that were not. In Hong Kong, the media had a different goal: to make money. It was not the state that meted out rewards and punishments, but the public, who decided with their pocketbooks. Only media that provided probing, critical, dynamic and interesting coverage could achieve the circulation and readership numbers needed to turn a profit and survive. After the handover, this division became blurred. Mainland China’s economic boom brought about a generation of business-minded media owners eager to please potential customers, not just government officials. Meanwhile, Hong Kong, now a Chinese “Special Administrative Region” (SAR), became more attuned to both the punishments Beijing meted out to journalists and the possible business opportunities with which the state could “reward” favoured media companies. The Communists became more capitalist, and the capitalists became more involved in the Communist regime. Some threats to Hong Kong’s media can be linked directly to the Chinese or Hong Kong governments. These include verbal threats from Chinese officials over the coverage of contentious issues and a proposed piece of legislation that could have curbed free speech. Other problems, like self-censorship or financial pressures are more difficult to identify or quantify, but may contribute to what journalists say is an erosion of freedoms. No study of Hong Kong media can be made without the acknowledgement of both serious rights abuses on the Mainland, as well as great strides the Mainland media has taken in the last decade to narrow the gap from that end of the spectrum. A detailed study of those vast issues, however, is beyond the scope of this paper, and will only be discussed in relation to the Hong Kong question. 5 The global significance of Hong Kong’s media and the problems it faces in a larger Chinese context belies the city’s relatively small size. Hong Kong may act not only as an indicator, but also a catalyst, for media development in the world’s next rising superpower. Historical Momentum Hong Kong’s role as a political and journalistic foil to Mainland China is driven by 150 years of historical momentum. In order to understand the interplay between the two, one must first understand the roots of Hong Kong journalism during early colonial rule in the 19th century. This is important because some critics have used past censorious actions by the British colonial government to argue that Hong Kong never had a truly free press, and therefore is no more controlled now than it was before 1997. This argument is particularly popular among those with pro-Beijing alliances. In 1874, Hong Kong became home to the world’s first modern, independent, Chinese newspaper to be opened by an ethnic Chinese 1 when Wang Tao, known as the “father of Chinese journalism,” launched Tsun Wan Jih Bao. 2 It was followed by Shang Bao and Zhongguo Ribao, 3 which was run by Sun Yat-sen’s revolutionaries and reached out to both Mainland Chinese and overseas Chinese readers. 4 1 C.K. Lau, Hong Kong’s Colonial Legacy: A Hong Kong Chinese’s View of the British Heritage, Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press, 1997, 153. 2 The newspaper’s name in modern Mandarin pinyin would be Xunhuan Ribao, meaning “Circulation Daily” or “Circulation Newspaper.” 3 The name means “China Daily,” though it should not be confused with the current Beijing- controlled newspaper of the same name. 4 Steve Tsang, A Modern History of Hong Kong, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2004, 74-78 6 “Hong Kong and its Chinese-language newspapers provided a convenient, safe and free venue for conducting the important debates on the direction China should follow towards the end of the imperial era.” 5 In 1903, The South China Morning Post added an English-language newspaper to the mix,6 giving local expatriates and other foreigners access to local news. In the 1920s, press censorship occurred as part of a larger government scheme to deal with a workers’ strike.7 In a pattern that would repeat itself in the post-colonial period, this attempt at denying basic rights caused a backlash that resulted in greater freedoms and political participation. The government “gradually changed the arbitrary way that many working-class [Hong Kong] Chinese had routinely been treated” once they realized that they “were able to organize themselves to defend of even assert their rights.” 8 The government founded a public broadcaster based loosely on a BBC model in 1928; it became officially known as Radio Hong Kong in 1948 and later Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK). It was at this time that China established what is now known as the “pro-Beijing press” in Hong Kong. Xinhua, the official state press agency, would operate as a de facto Chinese embassy for about half a century of colonial rule. Just before Mao Zedong founded the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the Communists took control of the newspapers Ta Kung Pao and Wen Wei Po in Hong Kong, the latter of which is still published. 5 Tsang, 75; the imperial era ended with the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1912. 6 www.scmpgroup.com 7 Tsang, 97 8 Ibid, 101 7 Meanwhile, the Nationalists, or Kuomingtang, who would later go on to found a democratic Taiwan, opened The Hong Kong Times, which is now out of print.9 For decades to come, Hong Kong newspapers’ political affiliations would be defined by a pro-Beijing / pro-Taiwan divide, with the “ideological identities” of various publications running “from the extreme right to the extreme left.” 10 Hong Kong media went through important changes during the Cultural Revolution and deviated even further from what was happening in Mainland China, where there was only state propaganda. In Hong Kong, newspapers thrived and the colonial government proclaimed press freedom a foundation for liberty. However, it still cracked down on press sympathetic to the Communists. During disturbances in Hong Kong from 1967 to 1970, dozens of journalists were jailed, three newspapers were barred temporarily from publishing, and five newspaper executives representing four firms were charged with sedition. 11 While these actions were minor compared to punishments meted out to Mao’s critics in Mainland China, it drew criticism, which indicates that Hong Kongers already had a basic concept of a free press. A document from the U.K. Foreign and Commonwealth Office quotes Tony Elliot, the political advisor in Hong Kong during the 1967 riots, on how a heavy hand backfired in Hong Kong. “The experience of the last six months has shown that interference with the press produces more violent reactions than anything else,” he wrote. 12 9 Carol P. Lai, Media in Hong Kong: Press Freedom and Political Change, 1967-2005, Abington, Oxfordshire: Routledge, 2007, 9 10 Ibid, 21 11 Ibid, 17 12 Ibid, 29 8 After the 1967 disturbances, RTHK was given its own independent news section. It was also during this time that other broadcasters, like Commercial Radio, set up news desks. Wong Chi-keung, writing in “The RTHK I Know,” describes the period: “Between 1967 and 1970, the attitude of the Hong Kong government in relation to her people changed subtly. This had a bearing on RTHK too. For instance, those officials who used to write news bulletins were transferred to the Government Information Services (GIS) and editorial responsibility was handed back to RTHK.” 13 In 1968, the Hong Kong Journalists Association (HKJA) was founded as a union to protect journalists’ rights.
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