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Beijing Olympics 2008: Winning Press Freedom 88 Comment from the audience: Radio station couldn’t find mysterious code words Jay Henderson Director for East Asia & Pacific, Voice of America The Dalai Lama said, “If you have evidence that we have been providing direction for what the Tibetans were doing inside Tibet, then prove it. Show me evidence.” And [Premier] Wen Jiabao gave a press conference and he said, “Here's the evidence.” Included was an accusation that the Voice of America was being used to send coded messages into Tibet. They said that every time we used the word “skirt,” for example, it was a reference to the Tibetan flag. Every time, we used the word “uncle” it was said allegedly a reference to the Dalai Lama. Well, Wen Jiabao needs to know that we searched our scripts for about a month backwards and didn't find a single use of either of those words. So we really don't know how credible the rest of the evidence that he put forward might be. Concluding speech From the Opium Wars to the Olympics Jean-Philippe Béja Senior Research Fellow, CNRS (French National Center for Scientific Research)/CERI-Sciences-Po (International Studies Center) I know I'm keeping you from lunch, and spiritual food is okay but material food is also very useful. As a Marxist, I should say that material food is even more important. To continue with Marx, I will quote him: “The free press is the ubiquitous, vigilant eye of the people's soul. It is the spiritual mirror in which the people can see itself and selfexamination is the first condition of wisdom.” May I remind you that Karl Marx is revered in the People's Republic of China So, to sum up these one and a half days of debate ... we had an extensive presentation on the working conditions of foreign journalists in China and we have also had a comprehensive presentation of the way censorship is organized in China. There were very good papers on the way the Central Propaganda Department works, and on the structure of this department, with its local branches down to the lowest administrative echelons. And this morning, we also had a lot of information about how the Internet is controlled, and on how the Chinese leadership is proactive where control of opinion is concerned.
Beijing Olympics 2008: Winning Press Freedom 89 Of course, the authorities do control the flow of opinion towards China, using all kinds of censorship mechanisms, but they are also very proactive on Western and foreign web sites. I think this is a very interesting aspect that many people don't talk about too much. Richard Winfield asked this morning, why does the Chinese government control the press, and he recited the parable of the scorpion and the dog. [Scorpions sting because it is their nature, and Chinese Communists censor the news because it is also their nature]. I think I do not really agree with what he said because what we have seen during this day and a half is that the situation is not static. Although the censorship organizations are quite impressive, we also noted that - whether it is on the Internet, in the press, or in society - things are happening. Some journalists are trying to push the envelope. They test the limits on the Internet. It is true that some of them are arrested, but it is also true that information continues to circulate on the Internet. So this, I think, is very important. And what is interesting is that the government also makes concessions, that sometimes it changes policies. Freedom has been more and more restricted since 2001, but the authorities have never been in a position to silence divergent voices completely, and so what we are faced with is a very dynamic situation, where a society which is more and more complex is pushing for some space for expression. It is true that in times of crisis, such as we are witnessing now, the government returns to traditional methods to control opinion, to control society. But still, I think it is a cat and mouse situation. You could say that the authoritarian government is in place and that it will remain so until it changes its nature. But I think that change is possible in China. I think that this is what you, as journalists, are supposed to convey - the complexity of the situation, the multi-faceted aspects of the situation. I'll now try to provide you with some background about the political framework in which the Olympic Games are going to happen. First of all, why do the Chinese authorities consider them so important? You have to go back to the Opium Wars if you want to understand what's happening. I think that ever since the English gunships arrived in China, Chinese elites, whether political or intellectual, have had only one obsession - to make China a strong and rich country (fuguo qiangbing), to restore its place on the world scene. And this objective unites not only the political leaders but also the intelligentsia, which has been instrumental in the struggle for the democratization of China. This is where the Olympic Games come in. You have the discourse of humiliation. China was humiliated by the West in the mid-19th Century. Now, it wants to come back. Of course, one can say that the discourse of humiliation is exaggerated, that it has been a long time since China was humiliated. But it is still a part of the collective consciousness. It is important to bear this in mind when we study China, when we try to report on China. The Communist Party now is saying that the country has had 30 years of peace during which it could develop. What happened after the Tiananmen massacre in 1989 is that the Communist Party looked at the Soviet example and said that if China went on with
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