Behind the Bamboo Curtain

March 2017

I will be examining the differences of various media outlets around the world on how they reported two main events in China’s history, the Tiananmen Square Massacre and the Tibet Protests. The target of this report is to look behind the bamboo curtain and discuss the differences of media coverage relating to China as well as debate how we, the West, should view China now. I will include reflections on the coverage itself and on the circumstances in which the news was produced. I will then discuss the different arguments to consider when answering the question of whether China should be reported with a more positive image as its economic power rises.

China has been reported in all sorts of media outlets recently concerning trading with Britain, human rights abuses and the long awaited visit of Xi Jinping to Great Britain. This makes the topic of reporting China a relevant and current topic for discussion and debate.

Key events from history & how they were reported

The Tiananmen Square Massacre

Tanks drove through the streets late on 3 June 1989 as the army moved into Tiananmen Square in China’s capital, Beijing, from various directions, arbitrarily firing on unarmed protesters. The demonstrations have been described as the biggest challenge to the communist state in China since the 1949 revolution. They were called to correspond with a visit to the capital by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, by students seeking democratic reform. Troops were used to clear the square despite reiterated assurances from Chinese politicians that there would be no violence. It has been proposed that the Communist leader Deng Xiaoping personally instructed their deposition in an attempt to shore up his leadership. Hundreds, and possibly thousands, of people were killed in the massacre, although it is unlikely an exact number will ever be known.

Reactions

With such a horrific event in the history of China, it is crucial to examine the reactions of different cultures around Asia and other nations regarding such a significant episode in a series of unfortunate events.

Chinese Communist Party (CCP)

The CCP, under the leadership of Premier Li Peng and party leader Jiang Zemin, pursued minimizing the impact of the Tiananmen Square Massacre on China's global image. “Multiple "reassuring public speeches" were made to avoid the loss of ‘Most Favored Nation’ trade status with the US as well as to change the beliefs of overseas Chinese,” stated in Beijing and Overseas Chinese (1991). Many overseas Chinese, however, view the June 4th Incident as another example of communist repression in a long string of comparable incidents.

Taiwan

The New York Times (1989) reported that many in Taiwan protested the CCP's handling of the massacre, by staging a "hands across the island" demonstration, there seemed to be an uncertainty to the event. Chou Tien-Jui, the publisher of a news magazine called The Journalist commented that "people in Taiwan think that Tiananmen Square is very far away. ... They think that we have plenty of local issues to be concerned about." There was also a "muted and controlled local response to the upheaval in China." President Lee Teng-hui delivered a statement on 4th June commenting that "although (the Taiwanese government) anticipated this mad action of the Chinese communists beforehand, it still has moved us to incomparable grief, indignation and shock".

Hong Kong

In the days following the initial suppression, 200,000 people in Hong Kong made a huge rally, The New York Times (1989) reported, one of the largest in Hong Kong's history, to mourn the dead and dispute the Chinese government's cruelty. Reunification, even under the "one country, two systems" policy sent thousands of Hong Kong residents hurrying for a chance to immigrate to another country. Most moved overseas. “Many Hong Kong victims fled the Chinese mainland and have reacted strongly to the protests there, holding rallies and marches almost daily,” as reported by The News Strait Times (1989).

Canada

Even outside of Asia, there was international responses toward the Tiananmen Square protests. In Vancouver, British Columbia, the Chinese public were among those who stood up against the CCP’s judgement to take military action against the student protesters. To show their support of the students in Tiananmen Square, numerous Chinese Canadian Organizations protested in Vancouver. Ottawa’s External Affairs Minister, Joe Clarke, was also “outraged” by the event according to The News Strait Times (1989).

Reporting

“China's constitution affords its citizens freedom of speech and press, but the opacity of Chinese media regulations allows authorities to crack down on news stories by claiming that they expose state secrets…” Cited from Beina Xu (2014).

Media workers, both foreign and domestic, endured higher constraints and punishment as a result of the massacre. State media reports in the initial aftermath were sympathetic to the students. Consequently, those accountable were all removed later from their posts. Two news reporters Xue Fei and Du Xian, who covered the event on June 4th on China Central Television were fired because they showed sad emotions. Editors and other staff at People's Daily were also sacked. As a result, the Chinese people are not told about the massacre.

On the morning of June 4th, the Chinese Red Cross claimed that 2,600 people had been killed, centered round a survey of the hospitals. The widespread media that has since appeared on the massacre comprises conflicting details of the events of the night. However, there is an overall agreement that the casualties ran well into four figures, and that the military were prepared to kill as many people as necessary.

Granta published a photograph which showed two mutilated bodies. They were those of two Chinese soldiers. These types of images were never seen in mainstream Western media, which maintained a silence regarding the actions portrayed in them. Although, CNN and the BBC broadcasted graphic footage of the shootings, and of the horrible scenes in Beijing's hospitals.

The BBC’s coverage of the event in 1989 was mostly negative using wording such as: “bloody military operation,” “to crush democratic protest,” “extreme response” and “clamp down on social chaos.” Also, it mentions that there was “Several hundred protesters” which, judging by other sources, can be argued. It also seems that the BBC was very judgmental of the Chinese government by describing it as corrupted and undemocratic. Lastly, the report states that people could be heard shouting “fascist”, but is this the truth or does it shine a light on the BBC’s judgement of the action taken during the event and the Chinese government.

Furthermore, it is crucial to consider how America reported the event, more specifically the broadcast made by NBC entitled ‘China in Crisis’, even the title suggests a similar judgement made by the BBC. The network presenter, Tom Brocaw describes Beijing as a “Capital city still up for grabs” implying a sense of unorganization and chaos. Footage of the Chinese military such as soldiers, tanks and weaponry is also shown to portray a country unable to politically and peacefully resolve issues involving protests. However, the Chinese army is described as “defensive” rather than offensive suggesting the protesters have turned violent and are the offensive side which could be debated. Surprisingly, the NBC broadcast contradicts the BBC, another Western media outlet, by stating that there was “thousands of people dead,” whereas the BBC said there was only “several hundred protesters.” Furthermore, the public protesters were described as “confronting” the troops, also contradicting the BBC who suggested the protesters were peaceful. The programme then speaks to a reporter at the scene, Keith Morrison, who speaks about how Chinese TV portrayed the incident. He says the Chinese media described the situation to have a “ long a difficult struggle to come,” this comes from the open letter which addresses Chinese people from Leadership, Keith Morrison then shows some judgement by saying the Chinese leadership were taking an “unusual approach” by congratulating the Chinese troops. Morrison then goes on to say that, “when Chinese television says ‘a long and complicated struggle to come’, it generally means, reading between the lines, things are in bad shape within the leadership…” Yet, further judgement on the Chinese government from a Western media outlet.

Tibet Protests

In March 2008, anti-china protests escalated into the worst violence Tibet had seen in 20 years, five months before Beijing hosted the Olympic Games. Also, pro-Tibet activists in several countries focused the world’s attention on the region by disrupting progress of the Olympic torch relay.

Hundreds of Tibetan monks gathered in Lhasa in protest to mark the 49th anniversary of a Tibetan rebellion against the Beijing rule. Protesters wanted the release of fellow Draping monks, who were apparently detained, as they attempted to celebrate the awarding of the U.S. Congressional Gold Medal to the Dalai Lama months earlier, according to foreign Tibetan rights groups. As the week wore on, protests and violence worsened. Rights groups said more than 140 people died, while Chinese authorities put the figure at 22 dead as CNN (2012) explains.

Lastly, in April 2008, the global Olympic torch rally for the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics began but became a crisis for protests a month after the conflict in the Tibetan Autonomous Region. Thousands protested on the streets of San Francisco, and the disruptive scene of the London leg of the torch run was branded "a public relations nightmare" by The Times.

In November 2008, China sentenced 55 people for involvement in anti-China protests, out of the 1,300 originally detained, according to the Chinese state media, although the charges and sentences they received weren't exposed.

Also, in December 2008, Chinese authorities arrested 59 people in Tibet suspected of spreading rumors and provoking sentiment against the state and public safety, state-run media reported.

Reporting

Originally, Chinese officials attempted to contain information about the conflicts and play down protests. According to The Guardian correspondent Tania Branigan, the government blocked foreign broadcasters and websites and denied journalists access to areas of conflict. Video sharing websites like YouTube, the entire The Guardian website, portions of the Yahoo! portal, and part of The Times website had been limited.

In Western newspapers and TV, oppression of Tibetans was apparently reported imprecisely, with little independent cross-checking, according to the Chinese press. The Chinese newspaper, The China Daily reported that there had been bias in the western media's coverage of the conflicts in Tibet, including purposeful misunderstanding of the incidents. The newspaper portrayed that Western media outlets such as the Washington Post used photos of baton-wielding Nepalese police in collisions with Tibetan protesters in Kathmandu, stating that the officers were Chinese. The article specified that Chinese citizens across Beijing were enraged by what they saw as "biased and sometimes dishonest" broadcasting by Western media. Also, there was disapproval of CNN's use of a cropped picture. John Vause, who reported the story, replied to this criticism saying "...technically it was impossible to include the crashed car on the left". Although, CNN later substituted the image with a picture that was cropped differently.

On March 24, 2008, the German TV news channel RTL revealed that one photograph showing rioters had been mistakenly captioned. Furthermore, another German station, n-tv, admitted that it had incorrectly aired footage from Nepal during a story on Chinese riots. AFP reported that Chinese students in other countries had set up a website, called Anti-CNN, to gather evidence of "one-sided and untrue" Western coverage. Media outlets accused of "falsified reporting" include CNN, Fox News Channel, the Times Online, Sky News, Spiegel Online and the BBC. Spiegel Online has rejected the claims in an article. According to the New York Times, CNN apologized on May 18 over some comments made on April 9.

China's restraining of the event ended soon after. Rebellions against non-Tibetans started on Friday, March 14. Chinese TV channels aired hours of anti-Chinese rebellions in Lhasa as well as the aftermath. As of March 18, 2008, no coverage of protesters acting peacefully were shown. The People's Daily, called on the government to "resolutely crush the 'Tibet independence' forces' conspiracy and sabotaging activities". The People's Daily also blamed the Dalai Lama and the Central Tibetan Administration for creating the protests in its commentary. Yahoo! China also published "most wanted" posters’ over its homepage to aid Chinese authorities to catch 24 Tibetans. MSN! China published the same list as well.

Furthermore, to counter what the Chinese government entitled biased Western reporting on the calamity, overseas journalists were permitted to access the area again. Agence France-Presse (AFP) and Deutsche Welle (DW) stated that the Chinese government had permitted a little collection of foreign journalists on a tour of Tibet. The reporters comprised of journalists from the American Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Britain's Financial Times, Japan's Kyodo News Agency, KBS of South Korea, and Al-Jazeera. Although, on March 27 in Lhasa, an uprising by a group of monks from the Jokhang Monastery disturbed a media tour established by Chinese authorities throughout Lhasa. The designation was a group of reporters from the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times, USA Today, Al-Jazeera and the Associated Press. The reporters were chosen by the Chinese authorities and were kept under surveillance while they were in Lhasa.

Conclusion

To Conclude, Western coverage of China can be described as negative, imprecise and judgmental. While, it is hard to report on China with its state media control used during the Tibet protests, for example, it can be argued that Western coverage of China isn’t fair and should focus on more positive aspects of China like its extreme economic growth. However, it could be down to a lack of journalistic expertise as Mike Cowley (2015), Media lecturer at Edinburgh College, states, “The decline of specialist journalism following cost cutting by profit driven media corporations has meant that on national papers and newsrooms, there is a paucity of expertise.”

In summary, up to the end of the 1980s, China was seen as a reforming country moving towards market economics and an ally of the West to counter the then-Soviet Union, which China also feared despite being Communist as well. The collapse of the Soviet Union around the same time, as well as the Tiananmen massacre, changed that view; China’s political value to the West lessened due to the demise of the Soviet Union and political critique of China could therefore become more pronounced.

There is tremendous commercial interest by outsiders with China, and some of that may explain the economic-friendly-but-politically-neutral-or-weak front that many Western countries and their businesses have with China. To this day, many raise concerns in the political, commercial, social, and environmental concerns. Some are happy to point out problems in China, while overlooking problems in their own countries.

If one danger of China-hating media coverage is that it shuts off our ability to better understand and address what's going on in China, another danger is shutting off Chinese audiences. The infuriated responses across the Chinese media and blogosphere to the Western media's coverage of Tibet show just how damaging simply the perception of China-bashing can be.

Certainly, it is crucial that the Western media's reporting on China be as critical as it would be anywhere else. In doing so, it needs to also be both accurate and fair. Even for the Western press, which we consider to be free, it is dangerously easy to skimp on at least one of those.

There could be justification for the Chinese being upset over the Western coverage of their take on the Tiananmen Square and Tibet but although these, albeit negative reports are factual, if the Chinese don’t want to be reported negatively, handling these types of incidents needs to be improved by the Chinese government.

Bibliography

BBC News (2015) China Profile – Timeline (Online) Available from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-pacific-13017882 Accessed - October 29th 2015

BBC News (1989) – Massacre in Tiananmen Square Available from: http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/june/4/newsid_2496000/2496277.stm Accessed - November 4th 2015

Beina Xu (2014) Media Censorship in China (Online) Council Foreign Regulations Page 1 Available from: http://mercury.ethz.ch/serviceengine/Files/ISN/177388/ipublicationdocument_singledocument/c3e38383-a371-429c-a256-ca6ddaa957cc/en/Media+Censorship+in+China.pdf

CBC News (2014) How China has rewritten the history of Tiananmen Square (Online) Available from: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/how-china-has-rewritten-the-history-of-tiananmen-square-1.2657042 Accessed November 12th 2015

CNN News (2012) Timeline of Tibetan protests in China (Online) Available from: http://edition.cnn.com/2012/01/31/world/asia/tibet-protests-timeline/

Cowley, M (2015) interviewed by Gregor Thomson 16th November 2015

The Guardian the "Tiananmen Square massacre" is constantly referred to. Why have I never seen film or video footage of a single death? The cameras were there, were they not? Available from - http://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-2317,00.html

NBC News (1989) China in Crisis (News Programme) Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hc9T10WLF3w Accessed – November 6th 2015

News Strait Times (1989) World Leaders Outraged at Army Action Available from: https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=vrUTAAAAIBAJ&sjid=NpADAAAAIBAJ&pg=6544,1211131&dq=&hl=en

New York Times (1989) The West Condemns the Crackdown (Newspaper/Online) Available from: http://www.nytimes.com/1989/06/05/world/the-west-condemns-the-crackdown.html

New York Times (1989) Crackdown in Beijing; in Taiwan, Sympathy and Aloofness (Newspaper/Online) Available from: http://www.nytimes.com/1989/06/04/world/crackdown-in-beijing-in-taiwan-sympathy-and-aloofness.html