China’s Echo Chamber

Editorial | The New York Times
September 13, 2006

China has long prided itself on its ability to master capitalism without indulging in the messy business of democracy. So Beijing got a twofer this week when it gave the state-run Xinhua news agency monopoly control over the lucrative financial news business and the power to administer broad censorship rules for all foreign news entering China.

Xinhua even got to announce the news of the new regulations. Not surprisingly, it didn’t quote any critics.

Foreign agencies have long been barred from selling general news directly to the Chinese media. Some foreign companies have been quietly testing the limits as the number of Chinese media outlets has grown and Chinese editors have become more daring. Xinhua sent a clear warning to all sides, listing 10 categories of news covering politics, religion and national unity — code for Taiwan —that could not be released into China.

For the last decade financial news providers received better treatment and were allowed to sell their less politically sensitive information directly to banks and brokers. Now, under the new rules, they will have to distribute their wares through a designated agent of Xinhua — a fine way to get Xinhua, which is eager to sell its own financial news, a guaranteed cut of that multimillion-dollar action.

All of this comes at a time when honest journalism is increasingly under attack. Last month, a Chinese court sentenced Zhao Yan, a New York Times researcher and journalist, to three years in prison on a specious fraud charge. Soon after, another court sentenced Ching Cheong, a reporter for The Straits Times newspaper of Singapore, to five years in prison on trumped-up espionage charges.

Media organizations and governments, including the Bush administration, are right to protest these abuses as loudly and as often as they can. But the painful reality is that China’s autocrats aren’t usually moved by appeals to their better nature — or for that matter warnings that keeping such a tight lid on a society undergoing rapid changes could eventually explode in their faces.

What they do understand is how rich they’ve gotten since joining the World Trade Organization. These new rules appear, at a minimum, to violate their W.T.O. pledges to liberalize access to financial information. Trade officials and foreign business leaders need to remind Beijing’s leaders of those promises. And they need to warn them that a country that keeps a stranglehold on information is not a great place to invest. [emphasis by TAC]