April 16th, 2010
The
South China Morning Post issued a
formal apology on Wednesday after misprinting a front page photograph caption of President Hu Jintao arriving in the US to meet President Obama. Instead of printing Hu Jintao’s name in Chinese, the paper accidentally published that of
Hu Jia, the Chinese political dissident who was recently denied medical parole by Beijing authorities. On its front page, the South China Morning Post stated that it “sincerely apologises for the Chinese name translation error”.
April 16th, 2010
The People’s Daily newspaper published
a lengthy article on ex-Party General Secretary Hu Yaobang on Thursday penned by President Hu Jintao. During his time in the Party,
Hu Yaobang was known for endorsing a number of economic and political reforms, as well as helping those persecuted during the Cultural Revolution. His death and subsequent public mourning on 15 April, 1989 was the trigger for the ensuing Tiananmen Protests. Hu Jintao’s article has been
analysed by many critics, and whilst some see it as a step forward towards greater openness, those more cynically minded regard it as a “calculated effort by China’s leadership to placate intellectuals, journalists and some retired party officials” in order to enhance its own national image.
July 23rd, 2009
China’s Propaganda Department has ordered media and news websites to censor reports about a corruption case with links to President Hu Jintao’s son. Nuctech, a Chinese company that until 2007 was headed by Hu’s son Hu Haifeng, is alleged to have bribed a Namibian company in order to sell airport security scanners to Namibia. Read more
here
