In addition to last week’s suspension of Zhao Lingmin, editor of Guangzhou-based news and current affairs magazine Window on the South, the magazine’s president, Chen Zhong, has been removed from his post, though not dismissed. The changes have been linked to Zhao’s 25 July interview with Taiwanese historian Tang Chi-hua, in which Tang had criticised Sun Yat-sen, an early 20th-century political leader referred to as the “Father of the Nation.”
With less than a day to go before the Nobel Committee awards Chinese imprisoned dissident (or convicted criminal if you are the Beijing government) Liu Xiaobo this year’s peace prize, China has been stumbling over itself to create diversions, block news, gather allies, and negate the legitimacy of the award.
The first things to go were the news websites. As early as Thursday 9 December, the BBC, CNN and NRK, a Norwegian television channel, were all blocked on the mainland. Naturally nobelprize.org is blocked.
The English-language domestic press, however, were not shy about raising the issue. In the China Daily this morning, a front page lead declared “’Most nations’ oppose peace prize to Liu.” The story, which was merely reporting comments made by Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu also linked to a curious opinion piece: “Insult of the Nobel Peace Prize,” which selected excerpts from an earlier editorial in an unidentified Norwegian newspaper.
It was a similar story in the other English-language daily, Global Times. “Beijing firm on Nobel,” ran the top front-page story, which also carried Jiang’s comments. The lead editorial, “Oslo puts on a farce against China ,” was much more dramatic than China Daily’s. “It’s unimaginable that such a farce, the like of which is more commonly seen in cults, is being staged on the civilized continent of Europe,” it runs. “Tonight’s political show is not an easy task for the Norwegians. They have to ignore the signs of China’s drastic changes and social progress, in a bid to convince themselves that China’s “darkness” is real.”
At least 18 countries have made their excuses, including Russia, Serbia and Saudi Arabia. That leaves approximately two thirds of embassies accepting the invitation. Western news reports say China has pressured diplomats not to attend, but China denies this while publicly making comments such as: “We hope those countries that have received the invitation can tell right from wrong.”
Meanwhile, in China itself, scores of dissidents have had their movements curtailed — put under house arrest, forcibly moved out of Beijing, prevented from leaving the country and having their phone lines cut. “While such tactics are common before important events such as political meetings, it is rare for pressure to last so long and be applied so extensively,” reports The Guardian. Chinese police have surrounded the home of Liu’s wife, Liu Xia, in Beijing, where she is believed to be under house arrest.
However, perhaps the most perplexing of China’s anti-Nobel preparations was the quick whipping up of a new peace prize to rival the Nobel award. The first Confucius Peace Prize was awarded to former Taiwanese vice-president Lien Chan yesterday at a hurriedly held press conference in Beijing. Lien’s office says it knew nothing about the prize, and an infant girl was carried in to accept the prize on his behalf.
Like Lien, Liu will not be picking up his prize in person. Nobel committee secretary Geir Lundestad said Liu will be represented “by an empty chair … the strongest possible argument” for awarding it to him.
If you want a look at the power of Liu’s pen and why the Chinese government considers him a threat, The Telegraph has published parts of a speech he gave two years ago. Read it here.
Today’s 21st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre has not passed without controversy.
This cartoon, published on Tuesday in the Southern Metropolis Daily was pulled from the newspaper’s website after it started attracting online interest. The image was part of a series commemorating International Children’s Day but it clearly references Tank Man, the lone protester who stood in front of a column of tanks, now the emblematic image of the massacre.
This is a brave move for the Guangdong-based newspaper, which has reputation for being one of the most independent news outlets in mainland China. However the decision to run the print edition and pull the online one has raised questions; was the cartoons publication a mistake — perhaps an overworked editor missed the underlying symbolism — or was the paper simply forced to pull the online version due to government pressure? So far, the Southern Metropolis Daily has declined to comment on the situation.
Elsewhere the authorities have kept tight control around the physical domains of Tiananmen Square and Beijing; on the geography-based social networking website foursquare.com users have staged online vigils, “checking in” to the virtual Tiananmen Square in a show of solidarity. In response, the Chinese government today blocked access to the website from mainland China. Around the world, protests have taken place in cities such as Hong Kong and Tokyo, where one of the original student demonstrators, Wu’er Kaixi, was arrested for trespassing on the Chinese Embassy. Wu’er, an activist of Uighur descent currently lives in exile in Taiwan.
In a strange twist, it was announced today that the June 4th diaries of China’s premier at the time, Li Peng, will be published this month. Secrecy still surrounds the decision to use the military to crush the student-led protests, and the Chinese government still refuses to publish verifiable figures for the number of injured or killed civilians during the protests. Although doubts have been cast on the book’s authenticity, the diaries are rumoured to provide an insight into senior officials thinking during the crisis and background into how government decisions were reached, including the deployment of martial force in the Square. In one of the passages, Li Peng is quoted as saying he will “sacrifice” his life in order to prevent another Cultural Revolution from occurring. If the book turns out to be genuine, it could be the government’s attempt to justify its actions 21 years ago.
A draft decree by the Fiji’s military-backed regime calls for tighter control of the media and increased press censorship. The proposals, announced on Wednesday, would require daily monitoring of all news stories, as well as new restrictions on cross-media ownership. This would directly affect Fiji Times, one of the nation’s oldest and largest newspapers which is owned by the Australian company News Limited. Breaches of content regulation could result in media organisations, publishers and journalists being fined and imprisoned for up to five years.