China Pulls Article on Controversial Property Rights Bill

By Radio Free Asia
March 14, 2007

The Chinese authorities, divided over private property rights, have effectively pulled a top magazine article covering implications of a draft Property Law to be tabled at the annual parliamentary session in Beijing.

The article, in the popular business magazine Finance, was to have been the cover story on this week’s edition of the publication, but editor Yang Daming said it couldn't go to press.

“The article was in the process of being approved, but that approval still hadn’t been completed by the time we reached the deadline, so we made some changes,” Yang told RFA’s Cantonese service.

“As I’m sure you know, the issue of the property rights law is quite a big one. Given the circumstances of our news industry at the moment, that’s what they wanted us to do,” he told reporter Grace Kei Lai-see.

Partially replaced pages

Regular Finance reader Zan Aizong said: “When I got to the newsstands I saw that saw that the holes made by the staples were larger, which makes me think that they didn’t reprint the whole thing...Rather, they just replaced a section of it.”

Asked which department refused to give the final go-ahead for the story, Yang said: "It's very hard for me to tell you. Let's just say it's orders from higher up."

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