China's Enduring Free-Speech Advocates

An anticensorship letter from former high-ranking Communist Party officials is a bold move, but it's unlikely to affect Beijing policy

It's a bold statement. A letter signed by high-ranking former Chinese Communist Party officials -- including a secretary to Mao Zedong and former chiefs of top media and propaganda organs -- decries censorship and calls on China's leadership to enforce press freedom. "Depriving the public of free speech will bring disaster to our social and political transition," states the letter, dated Feb. 2 but released on Feb. 14.

Does the letter signal an unprecedented blowback to the party's rigid control of information? Will China's top leaders now be forced to loosen the reins on the press? Will Google (GOOG ), Yahoo! (YHOO ), Microsoft (MSFT ), and other Net companies now be free to do business on the mainland, without bending to the will of China's Web police? The answers, in order: No, No, and No.

If anything, this high-profile display of dissent may provide more ammunition to nervous party censors who say China's fragile social stability must be protected by quashing contrarian voices. That means an ongoing media crackdown is likely to get worse before it gets better.

After an initial honeymoon back in 2003, when some analysts and Western journalists predicted that the incoming administration of President Hu Jintao would push for a more open China, any such hopes have been dashed. Indeed, political analysts in China and abroad say that in 2004, Hu cited North Korea and Cuba as positive examples of press management.

SOCIAL UNREST. In fact, the government's push to control the media seems to be gathering steam. Editors from adventurous newspapers such as Southern Metropolitan Daily, Beijing News and, most recently, Bingdian (aka Freezing Point, an investigative weekly that was shut down on Jan. 24) have been dismissed.

And Beijing shows no signs of loosening controls over foreign and domestic Web companies operating in China. On Feb. 14 the State Council Information Office held a press conference to rebut criticisms of China's Internet censorship, including those being aired at Congressional hearings in Washington this week. "Regulating the Internet according to law is international practice," official Liu Zhengrong said. It's common to control "illegal and harmful" information online.

It's obvious what Beijing is afraid of: social unrest. Tens of thousands of protests occur every year over everything from land seizures by corrupt local officials to unpaid wages in failing factories. And China's wealth gap continues to widen, with the 800 million rural residents now earning, on average, less than one-third of the urban per-capita income of $1,295. Beijing has decided that the best way to keep a lid on the potentially explosive country is to carefully control what the Chinese get to see and read.

FAR FROM POWER. Granted, mainland newspapers and magazines have become increasingly bold, and dissident bloggers are proliferating on the Chinese Web. Beijing ultimately may discover that the best way to deal with its mounting social issues is to allow the media to play a stronger watchdog role. At least that's what the anticensorship letter's authors would tell you. "Experience has proven that allowing a free flow of ideas can improve stability and alleviate social problems," the letter stated.

These folks, though, are far from the real center of power in today's China. While once influential, the letter's 13 signatories have been long retired or were pushed out for showing similar outspokenness. Many of them worked under the two relatively reformist party chiefs of the 1980s.

For instance, Hu Jiwei, a former editor of People's Daily, was removed from his official positions following the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989. He has spent years vainly calling for rehabilitating reformer Zhao Ziyang, who was officially denounced for his support of the protesting students at Tiananmen.

HIGH STAKES. Signatory Zhu Houze was a protégé of Zhao's predecessor Hu Yaobang, who was tossed from office in 1987, in part for encouraging intellectuals to speak out and the media to be more independent.

And Mao's former secretary, Li Rui, criticized the Three Gorges Dam in the early 1990s, saying it was a costly boondoggle that would destroy too many cities and too much valuable farmland. A lot of good that did. The $21.7 billion dam is scheduled to be completed this May.

This time around, the stakes are probably even higher. Freeing the mainland press and allowing greater public discussion on the Internet could well help China, both politically and economically. But Beijing's current leaders are unlikely to listen.

READER COMMENTS

Roberts is BusinessWeek's Beijing bureau chief

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