02.09.07

Enemies of the Free Press: China

Posted in General at 8:16 pm by ZoeWashburne

A few years back, I had the opportunity to visit Beijing, China with my husband and his parents.  It was a fully guided tour that took us and about 30 other Americans on the trip of a lifetime to the mysterious land of China.  When we arrived in Beijing, we found that we were staying at one of the most luxurious hotels I’ve ever stayed at.  This was quite a surprise since the entire package, hotel, meals, tours, and air travel from the United States only ran us around $900 each!  Inside the rooms, we were surprised to find CNN International on the televisions.  This was such a shock since we had been told that China did not allow international TV in the country at the time.  As we toured the countryside and were shown the China that they wanted us to see, we quickly realized that we were simply pawns in China’s media marketing scheme that wanted to show Americans that they were just like us.  Forget about that little thing called Communism and see our beautiful new skyscrapers and listen to our kindergarteners sing English language songs!  I have to tell you, it was more than a bit creepy.

Later, as we got to know our government sponsored tour guide, we all tried to get as much out of her as possible about the “real” China.  She was a sweet young girl, a dutiful daughter of the state, but there was still something there that seemed to indicate to the rest of us that there was something she wasn’t telling us.  As the week wore on, we were able to pull some little tidbits out of her about her life in China.  This was more difficult than you can imagine because our bus driver, who claimed to speak no English, was always there looming over us.  It became a joke amongst the tour group that he was actually a high-level government agent and was probably monitoring our group and our tour’s every move.  In retrospect, I don’t think it was a joke at all.

One of the most interesting things that we learned was that our luxury hotel was only available to westerners.  The less-than-luxurious, dilapidated hotels that surround ours were designated for Chinese visitors only and the price to stay there was many times the rate of our own.  As for the CNN International access in our rooms, that was strictly available to western visitors and was allowed solely to show us that they have a free press.  What was not explained to visitors of the hotel was that viewing CNN or any western television channels was illegal and criminally punishable for all Chinese citizens.  Of course, the first thing we asked about was how they prevented the hotel staff from sneaking peaks at the broadcasts.  All the tour guide was able to tell us was…they have their ways.

In light of the upcoming 2008 Summer Olympic Games in Beijing, it makes me wonder how the Chinese government is going to maintain its stranglehold on its people with their strong Communist beliefs and their obvious desire to become major players in the world market.  While they are going to extreme lengths to prove to the western world that they are “just like us,” which has been seen in a series of marketing ads lately, don’t believe it for a second.  China is still considered one of the most human-rights-squelching, media-suppressing, closed-off societies in the world.  According to Reporters Without Borders, a free world press organization, China still uses its network of secret police, undercover neighborhood spies, and government sanctioned threats to control the people of China.  Hu Jintao, China’s President, Communist Party Leader, and Army Commander, has used his newly created Propaganda Department to monitor the country’s media outlets.  Since December of 2005, the department has imprisoned dozens of journalists, disallowed full access to the World Wide Web to its citizens, and secretly monitored foreign journalists as they try to report on what is really going on in China.

The point of all of this is that you need to be very, very careful about making judgments about what other countries are all about.  While we certainly have our own propaganda problems in this country, it’s most certainly much worse in many other countries.  In order to fight government control of the media, we need to do our best to educate ourselves about the rest of the world.  Traveling to other countries, watching international news coverage on TV or the Internet, and just being aware that what you see is probably not what you really get.  Big Brother is still watching us and his vision is getting better and better every day!

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