Falling Short As the 2008 Olympics Approach, China Falters on Press Freedom A special report of the Committee to Protect Journalists Issued August 2007 Founded in 1981, the Committee to Protect Journalists responds to attacks on the press worldwide. CPJ documents hundreds of cases every year and takes action on behalf of journalists and news organizations without regard to po- litical ideology. To maintain its independence, CPJ accepts no government funding. CPJ is funded entirely by private contributions from individuals, foundations, and corporations. Falling Short: As the 2008 Olympics Approach, China Falters on Press Freedom Editorial Director: Bill Sweeney Designer: Justin Goldberg Copy Editor: Barbara Ross Proofreader: Joe Sullivan Cover photo credits: Clockwise from top left: soldiers (Reuters); Hu Jintao (Agence France-Presse); stadium construction (Reuters); cam- era operator (Agence France-Presse); reporters (Associated Press). Back cover: photographers (Associated Press). © 2007 Committee to Protect Journalists, New York All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. BOARD OF DIRECTORS Honorary Co-Chairman Chairman Honorary Co-Chairman Executive Director Walter Cronkite Paul E. Steiger Terry Anderson Joel Simon The Wall Street Journal DIRECTORS Andrew Alexander Gwen Ifill Clarence Page Cox Newspapers PBS Chicago Tribune Franz Allina Steven L. Isenberg Norman Pearlstine The Carlyle Group Christiane Amanpour Jane Kramer CNN The New Yorker Erwin Potts Dean Baquet David Laventhol McClatchy Newspapers The New York Times Anthony Lewis Dan Rather Tom Brokaw HDNet David Marash NBC News Al-Jazeera English Gene Roberts Sheila Coronel Philip Merrill College of Journalism, Kati Marton Graduate School of Journalism, University of Maryland Columbia University Michael Massing Sandra Mims Rowe Josh Friedman Geraldine Fabrikant Metz The Oregonian Graduate School of Journalism, The New York Times John Seigenthaler Columbia University Victor Navasky The Freedom Forum Anne Garrels The Nation First Amendment Center National Public Radio Andres Oppenheimer Paul C. Tash James C. Goodale The Miami Herald St. Petersburg Times Debevoise & Plimpton Burl Osborne Mark Whitaker Cheryl Gould The Dallas Morning News NBC News NBC News Charles L. Overby Matthew Winkler Charlayne Hunter-Gault The Freedom Forum Bloomberg News About this Report ts that Inhibit he bulk of this report was researched and written by Kristin Jones, senior Asia research associate Tfor the Committee to Protect Journalists, and Bob Dietz, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator. The reporting is based on interviews with Chinese journalists, lawyers, and academics conducted during Jones’ research trips to China in March 2006 and April 2007, along with research and interviews conducted from CPJ’s New York offices. The report follows a November 2006 meeting between representatives of CPJ and the Interna- tional Olympic Committee at IOC headquarters in Lausanne, Switzerland. CPJ board member Jane Kramer and Jones met with Olympic Games Executive Director Gilbert Felli and IOC Communica- tions Director Giselle Davies to urge them to do more to ensure that Chinese authorities fulfill their promises of media freedom in the run-up to the Olympic Games in Beijing in 2008. CPJ research shows that domestic journalists continue to face severe threats and restrictions. This report is a further attempt to describe these conditions in detail and to make known our recommendations for change. CPJ gratefully acknowledges the vital work of several contributing writers. Chapter 3, “Commerce and Control: The Media’s Evolution,” was written by David Bandurski, a freelance writer and media expert based in Hong Kong. Ashley Esarey, a political science professor at Middlebury College in Ver- mont who has written extensively about the Chinese media, wrote the Chapter 5 sidebar, “The Media Managers.” Esarey also provided guidance for Chapter 5, “Censorship at Work: The Newsroom in China.” Jonathan Watts, Beijing correspondent for The Guardian of London, wrote Chapter 10, “An Open- ing: Foreign Media See Gains.” Jocelyn Ford wrote the sidebar for that chapter, titled “Guidelines for Reporters on the Ground.” Ford, head of the press freedom committee of the Foreign Correspon- dents Club of China, has reported from Beijing for U.S. public radio since 2002 and for state-run China Radio International in 2001. CPJ Deputy Director Robert Mahoney wrote the Chapter 9 side- bar, “Writing (Ethical) Code.” CPJ research assistant May Yang compiled the Chapter 2 quotations, “What They Said,” and the Chapter 3 timeline, “Politics and the Press.” CPJ also wishes to acknowledge the important research by Benjamin Liebman of the Columbia University School of Law and Chen Zhiwu of the Yale Uni- versity School of Management, which is cited in Chapter 7, “The Libel Card: Suits That Inhibit.” For information about China’s Internet policies, CPJ drew from research conducted by OpenNet Initia- tive, a collaborative partnership of four academic institutions. Particularly valuable was OpenNet’s 2005 study of Internet filtering in China. We are grateful to Li Datong for allowing us to reprint excerpts of his May 2007 address to the Society of Publishers in Asia, and to Pu Zhiqiang for allowing use of his letter in defense of clients Chen Guidi and Wu Chuntao. Translations of many Chinese laws and regulations were provided by the firm TransAsia Lawyers, the firm TransPerfect, and the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. We are also grateful to Roland Soong, New Century Net, and TransPerfect for other translations used in this report. New Century Net graciously granted reprint rights to Cheng Yizhong’s 2005 remarks in acceptance of the 2005 Guillermo Cano Award. Soong’s blog, EastSouthWestNorth, was an important source through- out. Table of Contents ts that Inhibit Preface 1 Summary 8 2 Words and Deeds: Confronting the Contradictions 10 What They Said 12 3 Commerce and Control: The Media’s Evolution 14 Politics and the Press: A Timeline 15 4 Inwardly Restricted: Domestic Repression Remains 18 An Editor’s View: Tunneling Through Stone 21 5 Censorship at Work: The Newsroom in China 24 The Media Managers 26 Directing the News 29 6 Local Threats: The Bureaucrat’s Tyranny 31 Common Sense as a Weapon 32 7 The Libel Card: Suits That Inhibit 35 Waiting for a Verdict 36 8 ‘Secrets’ and Subversion: The Limits of Expression 38 The Spy Trap 40 9 Online Rules: A Study in Paradox 42 Writing (Ethical) Code 44 10 An Opening: Foreign Journalists See Gains 46 Guidelines for Reporters on the Ground 47 11 Recommendations 50 12 Appendix I: Constitutional and International Guarantees 52 Article 35 of the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China 52 Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights 52 Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights 52 Appendix II: Media Law in China 53 Excerpts of the Regulations for the Administration of Publishing 53 Excerpts of the Regulations for the Administration of Radio and Television 55 Excerpts of the Provisional Rules for the Administration of Online Publishing 56 Excerpts of the Provisions on Administration of Internet News Information Services 58 Excerpts of the Secrecy Rules in Respect of News Publishing 60 Full Text of the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Guarding State Secrets 61 Excerpts of the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China 65 Full Text of the Regulations on Reporting Activities in China by Foreign Journalists During the Beijing Olympic Games and their Preparatory Period 68 Full Text of the Rules for Taiwan Reporters Reporting in the Mainland During the Beijing Olympic Games and their Preparatory Period 69 Full Text of the Rules for Hong Kong and Macau Reporters Reporting Inland During the Beijing Olympic Games and their Preparatory Period 70 Appendix III: Journalists Imprisoned in China 71 Preface espite explosive economic growth and more Internet users than any country besides the United States, DChina remains backward in allowing its people access to news. Deep concern about China’s lack of press freedom and scant regard for the rights of journalists prompted the Committee to Protect Journalists to write this report as China prepares to host the 2008 Olympic Games. Just one year before the world’s finest athletes fill Beijing, China is holding at least 29 reporters and editors behind bars because of their work. Most are imprisoned on vague security-related charges such as revealing state secrets or inciting subversion of state power. Relying on such catchall accusations, China has led the world in the number of jailed journalists since 1999. Despite knowing this record, the International Olympic Committee in 2001 awarded the August 2008 Games to China. The negotiations and agreement between China and the IOC have not been made public, but both sides assured skeptics that all journalists would have unrestricted freedom to cover the Games. More broadly, the scenario put forward by friends of the IOC and of the Chinese government was that, buoyed by Olympic ideals, China would grow away from its insistence on tight government control of the flow of information and its harsh punishment of those who dare to work outside that system. Under this scenario, the media, unfettered for the Games, would continue to be freer after the world’s attention moved on. That broad opening has not happened, although China lifted some restrictions on foreign journal- ists in January 2007. In fact, since the Games were awarded, media restrictions ordered by the govern- ment and the Communist Party have grown. Cen- sors still issue day-to-day “guidance” on exactly what can be reported in print, on the air, and on the Internet in all its manifestations—Web sites, blogs, message boards, discussion groups, and even instant messaging and texting. Pro- longed detentions and closed-door trials of jour- nalists have continued as well. That China so far has failed to fulfill its pledges on press freedom is not news to local reporters.