Former Washington-based columnist for The Hong Kong Standard, The New York Sun, and Insight on the News, an online weekly published by The Washington Times. Covered economic and political relations between the United States and East Asia, with an emphasis on China, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Former chairman of the Hong Kong Journalists' Association. Currently a business executive at a Chinese-language newspaper in Hong Kong.
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Kin-ming Liu
Hong Kong
Former Washington-based columnist for The Hong Kong Standard, The New York Sun, and Insight on the News, an online weekly published by The Washington Times.
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Pakistan is a hell to foreign Ivestors! Don’t go to Pakistan! What is Islamic justice?
Dear Sir,
Pakistani Gov serious violates Int’l Human Rights Law against a foreign woman in Pakistan.
I appeal to the world for holding justice and human rights to victim!
Pls support me to watch,add and pass this video to the world!
I am Ms Jennifer Chim as Hong Kong business woman with British National. I got a persecution with Pakistani police violence, kidnapping, inhuman treatment, arbitrary arrest with unlawful detention, and even criminals wanted to kill me by being shoot at in an assasination attempt.
It is very touching video and proves once more the cruelty of islam and the hypocrisy of Musharraf!
“What he says and what he does?They are difference!”said by the Head of Pakistan Human rights Commission Prof. Asma Jahangir.
I am Ms Jennifer Chim as business woman with British National. I got a persecution with Pakistani police violence, kidnapping, inhuman treatment, arbitrary arrest with unlawful detention, and even criminals wanted to kill me by being shoot at in an assasination attempt.
Since 2004, Pakistani Government persecution has destroyed my life.It brings me a lots of physically, psychologically, respectably and economically problem. According to medical report, I should need a surgery at any time due by this persecution.
Even under all iron proofs Police investigation and Forensic Report, Pakistani Government is intentionally to protect criminals in order to cover this kind of dirty linen. Pakistani Government still protects her criminals to let them remain at large.
British and Chinese Governments have repeatedly 3 times delivered Diplomatic Notes to Pakistani Government for fairly settlement of the persecution within two years, but there is “.No reply!” . So,I am still being persecuted by the Pakistani Government.
1) Why Pakistani police and Criminal Court could abuse the law to issue a non-Bailable arrest warrant, by what evidence and relevant law ?
2) Why I was unlawfully arrested in Muslims Criminal's private car , not a police car to send me to prison? Why I got unlawful detention in prison?
3) Why police used violence and inhuman treatment to me?
4) Why Pakistani Police and Criminal Court still protects Murder Suspects for two years?
5) Why Pakistani Government dare still not terminate such human rights violation against me?
6) Alfalah Islamic Bank issued a CERTIFICATE against the record. Pakistan police used only irresponsible paper, intentionally worked out a “Non-Bailable Arrest Warrant” without any inquiry and due procedure and arrested her without bail.
Without Islamic Banking ‘s falsely issue, there would not have any charges of this persecution against me.
Whether does Islam have Justice?
What is Islamic Justice?
How Islamic Government hold Islamic Justice?
Does Islamic Justice punish Muslim criminals?
I am writing to express my concern regarding human rights situation in Pakistan.
No one follows the ruling of Pakistani Law!
There is no justice and no human rights due to the poor system of Pakistani Gov.
The state must respect the human being and the state must protect the human being ... The key to security is respect for human rights."by Irene Khan, Secretary-General of Amnesty International
We can’t find any justice and human rights in Pakistan, but we believe that we can find it from world’s support! Expecting justice people to support me for fighting back justice and the dignity of Human Rights!
Please hold justice and human rights not only to victims in Pakistan and also to the world! Now,pls support me to add and pass it to others!More people know it,more victims will be saved!
We need your help!
Look forwards to hearing your response!
I am most appreciative of your generosity!
Yours sincerely,
Ms Jennifer Chim(Hong Kong Business Woman Victim)
Oct 11 ,2007
Pls don’t hesitate to contact me for all details with iron proofs for supporting this story!
e-mail:jenniferchimpikyee@hotmail.com
Calling a convicted murderer a saint is not really freedom, it is either insanity or silliness. Al Qaeda is believed to be the nad behind attacks. Therefore it would be silly to say Al Qaeda is a saint. However innocent Muslims should not be targeted and their opinions cannot be suppressed. Even if their views are anti-American it should be openly discussed without government interference. This is freedom of speech.
" Think about how American media covered China, Iraq, North Korea, Israel, other socialist countries in the world. Don't you feel they have the same sort of stereotypical censorship ... "
Regardless of whether it's true or not, what this poster is really saying is, why should china be any different? Just because other nations censor the press or the press censors itself due to fear of what might happen if they don't, it's ok for china to emulate them. Bad argument. We all have choices, even in china, and although in a country like China making the wrong/right choice puts your very life in jeopardy, people aren't as powerless as they think. It's just a matter of getting enough people to face-up to the gangsters who rule them. It's like that old anti-war question, what if they gave a war and nobody came?
Mr. Lui's conclusion that people get the press they deserve is a disturbing one only because there's truth in it. Can we ask the same about people vis-a-vis government? We saw how the Soviet Union's eastern european satellite countries took to the streets and defied their oppressors when the Soviet Union collapsed. Relatively peaceful, the people took their destiny into their own hands and were successful. Although press censorship still exists to some degree in those countries and Putin has for all intents and purposes defecated on democracy, courage ruled the day and showed the world that if you want something bad enough, there's always a way to get it. We're still waiting for the Russian people to wake up from their long sleep of benign neglect in the face of a mounting fascist state. China however looks on wide-awake and yet still persists in holding back from taking that one extra step to the barricades. No one is going to help them do it. This is something the Chinese must do on their own, so who's fault is it that they haven't?
I have just returned from China a country where people are still arrested and sometimes killed for what they post on the internet.
China is a communist country with a culture and a 3000 year history that does not value freedom of the press, criticizing leadership or even facts if they do not serve the ruling regime. This country had taken over Hong Kong and forced these values on all the press, the courts, the stock market and all other methods of control.
We can not longer accept Hong Kong as different from China as Hong Kong is a province of China run by the same people with the same Communist values of central control and press censorship.
If anyone has a question about whether the US press is more or less free than the Chinese press then I will prove the US is more free quickly. If I wrote the above in China then the police may show up on my doorstep tomorrow. In the US I have no such fear. Those that have experienced Chinese rule understand this.
People don't go to jail for writing the wrong thing in Hong Kong. It's much more subtle, and in many ways similar to the problems caused by media ownership consolidation in the US.
They won't jail you here. Occasionally, if you get on the big boss's wrong side too many times, they'll quietly fire you. But more likely they'll not print your story, or refuse to consider certain controversial story ideas. Still, a fair amount of stuff critical of the government makes it through. (We even have some pretty good political cartoonists.)
And also, they'll eschew serious in-depth reporting in favour of cheap-to-produce sensationalistic fluff, shallow he-said-she-said journalism, and pointless manufactured celebrity scandals.
And many reporters here are young, inexperienced, and don't take their jobs too seriously - journalism is just something they're doing for a couple of years until they can go get a "real job" in advertising.
On balance, Hong Kong's media is just a little worse than the US media. It's still freer than Singapore's. And not anywhere near as restricted as mainland China's.
There's a big difference between press censorship in the US and China and denying it is ridiculous. I love China, I'm living in Shanghai and I sympathize with the fact that China is still a developing nation with a different history and set of values than Western nations. But China does not have a free press and it could use one badly. An anti-corruption campaign aimed solely at leaders who are in a different camp than Hu is not an anti-corruption campaign, it is a purge. The jailed reporters and newspapers who report on corruption are not a testament to to a free press but authoritarian tendencies that linger amongst the leaders.
Finally, no newspaper would publish an article praising Al Qaeda because there is nothing there to praise. But we can debate how best to deal with Al Qaeda in highly provocative ways. See the link below. This kind of debate simply does not take place in the Chinese press.
Wow, I didn't know the Communist Party of China has their peons writing in to the Washington Post. Your attempts at comparing the Western press with the government press in China is LAUGHABLE! I can say things like, George Bush is an idiot!!! Could you say the same about Hu Jintao in China? Please, try it and tell us how it turns out. If you were a true Chinese patriot, you would work on bringing justice, liberty, and equality to the Chinese people. That should be the true Three Represents--not that mumbo jumbo from Jiang. Be a true patriot, instead of concentrating on kissing the butts of your communist masters!
Your comment that Tawain's newspaper
owners are businessman first is nothing but a fig leaf for their
cowardice or willing complicity in
letting Bejing break many of the promises it made before assuming
control.
How about this Mr. Lui! Why don't you write an article say good thing about the al-Qaeda and see if Washingtonpost (printed and onlined) will posting it? Get out of your bubble that you are living in.
For those of you who are interested in the two extra pieces of information mentioned in my entry, here they are:
--------------------
*Hong Kong Journalists' Lonely Battle
By Liu Kin-Ming
The Asian Wall Street Journal
26 June 1997
When London and Beijing signed the Joint Declaration back in 1984 to seal
the fate of Hong Kong, mainland China promised us some good things: Hong
Kong's current system will be kept "unchanged for 50 years" and "Hong Kong
people will be running Hong Kong." It remains to be seen whether these nice
promises will be implemented or not. However, the signs have not been good.
On July 1, Hong Kong's Legislative Council will be abolished. The Bill of
Rights will be watered down. Beijing, a regime not well-known for respecting
human rights, democracy and liberty, will be firmly in control, with the
help of a proxy government under C.H. Tung.
Don't get me wrong. We do not have a perfect democratic system to defend in
Hong Kong. Far from it. Britain never granted us a drop of democracy until
recently. But Hong Kong has always enjoyed a high degree of freedom which is
comparable to any other democracy on earth. A lot of these freedoms, I am
afraid, will be curtailed after the takeover.
Hong Kong people are concerned about their future. We journalists in
particular are very worried that press freedom will become one of the first
casualties when Beijing marches in. I envision two major threats to press
freedom after July 1. One is external and the other is internal.
The external one obviously is coming from mainland China, our future master.
Several senior mainland Chinese officials made comments last year which I
think were quite telling. Lu Ping, the most senior official in charge of
Hong Kong and Macao affairs, laid down the theory of reporting and advocacy.
Mr. Lu said journalists in Hong Kong can continue to practice what we have
been doing, namely objective reporting, but we shall not advocate things
like the independence of Hong Kong, Taiwan, or Tibet. These things, he
argued, have nothing to do with freedom of expression and will not be
tolerated. It showed Beijing has no idea of what freedom of expression
really is. What won't be allowed is not advocacy per se but advocating
things they don't like.
Qian Qichen, the Chinese foreign minister, said in an interview with The
Asian Wall Street Journal last October that we journalists cannot launch any
personal attack on senior Chinese leaders. Well, I have two questions for
Mr. Qian. First, what do you mean by "personal attack"? Second, who is to
say who are the senior, medium-ranking or junior officials?
Under the current system in Hong Kong, if we write anything inaccurate or
unfair, people can take us to court and sue us for libel. This is more or
less a fair game. However, it will be very different after July 1. Hong Kong
now has the rule of law. Mainland China has the rule of man, or if you like,
the rule by law. They can pass any law in the morning, change it in the
afternoon, abolish it in the evening, and reinstate the same thing the next
morning. If I write an article criticizing one of the economic policies of
Prime Minister Li Peng, will it be considered as a "personal attack"?
Probably so after the takeover.
The second major threat to press freedom, I would argue, is more serious
than the first one. A recent poll conducted by the Chinese University in
Hong Kong revealed that one in five journalists has practiced
self-censorship and more than half believe press freedom will diminish after
1997. Chief editors and senior management people in newsrooms act as censors
for Beijing. They kill stories which are seen as offensive to mainland China
and water down criticisms of the future master.
Let me give you a tiny example. No media in Hong Kong today call what
happened on June 4th, 1989 in Tiananmen Square a massacre anymore. Instead,
they call it the Tiananmen "incident" or June 4th "incident." According to
the official version from Beijing, there was no massacre; not even one
person was killed in the square. This is a very subtle process which is
extremely difficult to tackle. No censor will admit that his reason for
killing a story is that he is afraid of, or wants to please, Beijing. He
doesn't have to. Instead, a lot of "legitimate" reasons can be used.
Last December I came to the United States for Sing Tao Daily to do a series
of interviews with people like Liu Binyan, A.M. Rosenthal, Perry Link,
William F. Buckley, Jr., Noam Chomsky and others. Most of my reports were
never published. The interviews with Liu Binyan, the well-known Chinese
writer living in Princeton, and Mr. Rosenthal, the New York Times columnist
who is critical of China's human rights record, were the only two that got
into print. Then I submitted the third one to my editor. It was on Perry
Link, a well-known China scholar at Princeton University who has been denied
entry to mainland China since last summer.
A week went by and the interview did not appear. I marched into the office
of the chief editor and asked him why. He said that the interview would not
be published because "there's no substance in your story," "readers are not
interested in what you're writing," and "there's no news angle in it." He
went further to say that had he known I was writing about A.M. Rosenthal, he
would never have published it because "no one knows who A.M. Rosenthal is."
A few weeks after this confrontation, my column was canceled suddenly.
Before I quit my job at Sing Tao Daily last month, I used to write a column
on international affairs. I always left what happened in mainland China,
Taiwan, and Hong Kong for my colleagues at the China desk or the local desk
to comment. But in my last several columns, I started to comment on
Sino-U.S. relations. I was telling the readers that the U.S. media had been
paying a lot of attention to China lately, and I described what publications
like The New Republic and The Nation were saying. I did not spell out much
of my own opinion, but even straight facts were already too much for my
editor to swallow.
If the trend of self-censorship continues at its current rate, Beijing will
not have to lift a finger to crack down on us after the takeover. Media
owners in Hong Kong are businessmen first, second, and last. They care about
only one thing: money. Most of them have heavy investments in mainland China
and maintain very good relations with the leaders in Beijing. They will not
rock the boat. I believe most of the front-line journalists do have the
integrity to do their jobs, to report accurately and objectively. However,
they cannot decide what gets published in the papers.
We at the Hong Kong Journalists Association publish an annual report on
freedom of expression in Hong Kong, along with London-based Article 19. We
hope to keep the issue on the agenda and appeal to our colleagues to stand
up against the censors. We have to let the newspaper owners know they have
to pay a price in silencing us. We will publicize the cases and shame them.
This is primarily a battle we journalists in Hong Kong have to fight
ourselves. Facing the 1997 takeover crisis, it boils down to two options for
us: clear out of here or stay on and defend our ways of life. Press freedom
is an important cornerstone of any free and democratic society. I am
committed and determined to stay on and fight the uphill battle ahead.
Around 8,000 journalists from all over the world are on their way to cover
the big party in Hong Kong. I hope they will not just disappear and move on
to another hot spot after they have found out there's no drastic change
overnight. In many ways, the Chinese takeover started many years ago. The
process is slow and subtle. Please continue to keep an eye on Hong Kong.
Despite what Beijing says, China's leaders do pay attention to outside
opinions. We Chinese have a saying: "To beat a dog behind closed doors." You
can certainly lend us a helping hand by preventing the door from being shut
totally.
"In the past, it has been difficult to find specific instances in which self-censorship killed a story or suppressed an editorial. The pressure appears to be more subtle, coming not as a direct order to refrain from writing, but as subjective exercises of special care toward topics of particular sensitivity, such as PRC leadership dynamics, Taiwan, Tibet, or military activity. One indication that self-censorship may become a problem came to light during a December 1997 presentation at the Freedom Forum Newseum in Rosslyn, Virginia, where Hong Kong Economic Times op-ed editor Liu Kin-ming told the audience that he had "taken lots of heat" for printing a Chinese translation of an article written by the Dalai Lama's representative in Washington. After the article appeared, Mr. Liu received a note from his publisher saying that he should not give so much space or attention to the issue of Tibet because the paper's readers were not interested."
Your argument here is very weak. Get an op-ed piece praising communism and see if you can publish it in the Washington Post--if American media do believe the freedom of speech? I don't know the details about your reports about A.M. Rosenthal, but I can understand your editor's view: who cares who Rosenthal is? He's a dissident, but that doesn't justify his views are correct and should be in the newspaper. I agree that there's some press control in China, but honestly, having lived in the U.S. for the past four years, one thing I've learned is that there's as much press control here in America as in other countries and American journalists are doing the same sort of self-censorship as what you feel about Chinese reporters. Think about how American media covered China, Iraq, North Korea, Israel, other socialist countries in the world. Don't you feel they have the same sort of stereotypical censorship (or political agenda) at all sorts of levels (or you can say they have some freedom, but they're just too stereotypical to challenge their own views, so they're abusing the freedom)? Every country and every social system has its strengths and weaknesses, that's what I've learned after living, studying and working in two strikingly different countries in the past years. Frankly and honestly, you get paycheck from America because your agenda fits their agenda.
I think that the culture of Hong Kongers is to go with the wind that is blowing; therefore, it would be stupid to upset Beijing because upsetting the country that is pouring money into Hong Kong or even providing more information and oportunities for Hong Kong's Government or even press agencies. Therefore, please China!!!
PostGlobal is an interactive conversation on global issues moderated by Newsweek International Editor Fareed Zakaria and David Ignatius of The Washington Post. It is produced jointly by Newsweek and washingtonpost.com, as is On Faith, a conversation on religion. Please send your comments, questions and suggestions for PostGlobal to Lauren Keane, its editor and producer.
All Comments (16)
qcms rinb mvhdbquo myzwcbus cnybx ypkwarz rjvqa
February 18, 2008 1:59 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on February 18, 2008 13:59
Pakistan is a hell to foreign Ivestors! Don’t go to Pakistan! What is Islamic justice?
Dear Sir,
Pakistani Gov serious violates Int’l Human Rights Law against a foreign woman in Pakistan.
I appeal to the world for holding justice and human rights to victim!
Pls support me to watch,add and pass this video to the world!
I am Ms Jennifer Chim as Hong Kong business woman with British National. I got a persecution with Pakistani police violence, kidnapping, inhuman treatment, arbitrary arrest with unlawful detention, and even criminals wanted to kill me by being shoot at in an assasination attempt.
ISLAMIC INJUSTICE to BRITISH WOMAN in PAKISTAN
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOg2nx299XQ
It is very touching video and proves once more the cruelty of islam and the hypocrisy of Musharraf!
“What he says and what he does?They are difference!”said by the Head of Pakistan Human rights Commission Prof. Asma Jahangir.
For more details: http://www.pakistanchristianpost.com/newsdetails.php?archives=1&newsid=907
I am Ms Jennifer Chim as business woman with British National. I got a persecution with Pakistani police violence, kidnapping, inhuman treatment, arbitrary arrest with unlawful detention, and even criminals wanted to kill me by being shoot at in an assasination attempt.
Since 2004, Pakistani Government persecution has destroyed my life.It brings me a lots of physically, psychologically, respectably and economically problem. According to medical report, I should need a surgery at any time due by this persecution.
Even under all iron proofs Police investigation and Forensic Report, Pakistani Government is intentionally to protect criminals in order to cover this kind of dirty linen. Pakistani Government still protects her criminals to let them remain at large.
British and Chinese Governments have repeatedly 3 times delivered Diplomatic Notes to Pakistani Government for fairly settlement of the persecution within two years, but there is “.No reply!” . So,I am still being persecuted by the Pakistani Government.
1) Why Pakistani police and Criminal Court could abuse the law to issue a non-Bailable arrest warrant, by what evidence and relevant law ?
2) Why I was unlawfully arrested in Muslims Criminal's private car , not a police car to send me to prison? Why I got unlawful detention in prison?
3) Why police used violence and inhuman treatment to me?
4) Why Pakistani Police and Criminal Court still protects Murder Suspects for two years?
5) Why Pakistani Government dare still not terminate such human rights violation against me?
6) Alfalah Islamic Bank issued a CERTIFICATE against the record. Pakistan police used only irresponsible paper, intentionally worked out a “Non-Bailable Arrest Warrant” without any inquiry and due procedure and arrested her without bail.
Without Islamic Banking ‘s falsely issue, there would not have any charges of this persecution against me.
Whether does Islam have Justice?
What is Islamic Justice?
How Islamic Government hold Islamic Justice?
Does Islamic Justice punish Muslim criminals?
I am writing to express my concern regarding human rights situation in Pakistan.
No one follows the ruling of Pakistani Law!
There is no justice and no human rights due to the poor system of Pakistani Gov.
The state must respect the human being and the state must protect the human being ... The key to security is respect for human rights."by Irene Khan, Secretary-General of Amnesty International
We can’t find any justice and human rights in Pakistan, but we believe that we can find it from world’s support! Expecting justice people to support me for fighting back justice and the dignity of Human Rights!
Please hold justice and human rights not only to victims in Pakistan and also to the world! Now,pls support me to add and pass it to others!More people know it,more victims will be saved!
We need your help!
Look forwards to hearing your response!
I am most appreciative of your generosity!
Yours sincerely,
Ms Jennifer Chim(Hong Kong Business Woman Victim)
Oct 11 ,2007
Pls don’t hesitate to contact me for all details with iron proofs for supporting this story!
e-mail:jenniferchimpikyee@hotmail.com
October 11, 2007 1:32 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on October 11, 2007 01:32
aogqzs lwpgat stqpwlumk osjufgr xnvqd dukitxs lszpwa http://www.zwsar.msau.com
March 2, 2007 8:56 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on March 2, 2007 08:56
kqoms qayor nwjax msqyx hsrvobiun tecdx alodushcb
March 2, 2007 8:55 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on March 2, 2007 08:55
Calling a convicted murderer a saint is not really freedom, it is either insanity or silliness. Al Qaeda is believed to be the nad behind attacks. Therefore it would be silly to say Al Qaeda is a saint. However innocent Muslims should not be targeted and their opinions cannot be suppressed. Even if their views are anti-American it should be openly discussed without government interference. This is freedom of speech.
October 9, 2006 11:00 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on October 9, 2006 11:00
" Think about how American media covered China, Iraq, North Korea, Israel, other socialist countries in the world. Don't you feel they have the same sort of stereotypical censorship ... "
Regardless of whether it's true or not, what this poster is really saying is, why should china be any different? Just because other nations censor the press or the press censors itself due to fear of what might happen if they don't, it's ok for china to emulate them. Bad argument. We all have choices, even in china, and although in a country like China making the wrong/right choice puts your very life in jeopardy, people aren't as powerless as they think. It's just a matter of getting enough people to face-up to the gangsters who rule them. It's like that old anti-war question, what if they gave a war and nobody came?
Mr. Lui's conclusion that people get the press they deserve is a disturbing one only because there's truth in it. Can we ask the same about people vis-a-vis government? We saw how the Soviet Union's eastern european satellite countries took to the streets and defied their oppressors when the Soviet Union collapsed. Relatively peaceful, the people took their destiny into their own hands and were successful. Although press censorship still exists to some degree in those countries and Putin has for all intents and purposes defecated on democracy, courage ruled the day and showed the world that if you want something bad enough, there's always a way to get it. We're still waiting for the Russian people to wake up from their long sleep of benign neglect in the face of a mounting fascist state. China however looks on wide-awake and yet still persists in holding back from taking that one extra step to the barricades. No one is going to help them do it. This is something the Chinese must do on their own, so who's fault is it that they haven't?
September 29, 2006 2:21 AM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on September 29, 2006 02:21
I have just returned from China a country where people are still arrested and sometimes killed for what they post on the internet.
China is a communist country with a culture and a 3000 year history that does not value freedom of the press, criticizing leadership or even facts if they do not serve the ruling regime. This country had taken over Hong Kong and forced these values on all the press, the courts, the stock market and all other methods of control.
We can not longer accept Hong Kong as different from China as Hong Kong is a province of China run by the same people with the same Communist values of central control and press censorship.
If anyone has a question about whether the US press is more or less free than the Chinese press then I will prove the US is more free quickly. If I wrote the above in China then the police may show up on my doorstep tomorrow. In the US I have no such fear. Those that have experienced Chinese rule understand this.
September 28, 2006 9:26 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on September 28, 2006 21:26
People don't go to jail for writing the wrong thing in Hong Kong. It's much more subtle, and in many ways similar to the problems caused by media ownership consolidation in the US.
They won't jail you here. Occasionally, if you get on the big boss's wrong side too many times, they'll quietly fire you. But more likely they'll not print your story, or refuse to consider certain controversial story ideas. Still, a fair amount of stuff critical of the government makes it through. (We even have some pretty good political cartoonists.)
And also, they'll eschew serious in-depth reporting in favour of cheap-to-produce sensationalistic fluff, shallow he-said-she-said journalism, and pointless manufactured celebrity scandals.
And many reporters here are young, inexperienced, and don't take their jobs too seriously - journalism is just something they're doing for a couple of years until they can go get a "real job" in advertising.
On balance, Hong Kong's media is just a little worse than the US media. It's still freer than Singapore's. And not anywhere near as restricted as mainland China's.
September 28, 2006 2:24 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on September 28, 2006 14:24
There's a big difference between press censorship in the US and China and denying it is ridiculous. I love China, I'm living in Shanghai and I sympathize with the fact that China is still a developing nation with a different history and set of values than Western nations. But China does not have a free press and it could use one badly. An anti-corruption campaign aimed solely at leaders who are in a different camp than Hu is not an anti-corruption campaign, it is a purge. The jailed reporters and newspapers who report on corruption are not a testament to to a free press but authoritarian tendencies that linger amongst the leaders.
Finally, no newspaper would publish an article praising Al Qaeda because there is nothing there to praise. But we can debate how best to deal with Al Qaeda in highly provocative ways. See the link below. This kind of debate simply does not take place in the Chinese press.
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/09/14/time_to_talk_to_al_qaeda/
September 27, 2006 11:59 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on September 27, 2006 23:59
Wow, I didn't know the Communist Party of China has their peons writing in to the Washington Post. Your attempts at comparing the Western press with the government press in China is LAUGHABLE! I can say things like, George Bush is an idiot!!! Could you say the same about Hu Jintao in China? Please, try it and tell us how it turns out. If you were a true Chinese patriot, you would work on bringing justice, liberty, and equality to the Chinese people. That should be the true Three Represents--not that mumbo jumbo from Jiang. Be a true patriot, instead of concentrating on kissing the butts of your communist masters!
September 27, 2006 10:22 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on September 27, 2006 22:22
In my previous comment I wrote
Tawain when I meant to write Hong Kong. Sorry.
September 27, 2006 3:51 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on September 27, 2006 15:51
Your comment that Tawain's newspaper
owners are businessman first is nothing but a fig leaf for their
cowardice or willing complicity in
letting Bejing break many of the promises it made before assuming
control.
September 27, 2006 3:48 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on September 27, 2006 15:48
How about this Mr. Lui! Why don't you write an article say good thing about the al-Qaeda and see if Washingtonpost (printed and onlined) will posting it? Get out of your bubble that you are living in.
September 27, 2006 2:22 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on September 27, 2006 14:22
For those of you who are interested in the two extra pieces of information mentioned in my entry, here they are:
--------------------
*Hong Kong Journalists' Lonely Battle
By Liu Kin-Ming
The Asian Wall Street Journal
26 June 1997
When London and Beijing signed the Joint Declaration back in 1984 to seal
the fate of Hong Kong, mainland China promised us some good things: Hong
Kong's current system will be kept "unchanged for 50 years" and "Hong Kong
people will be running Hong Kong." It remains to be seen whether these nice
promises will be implemented or not. However, the signs have not been good.
On July 1, Hong Kong's Legislative Council will be abolished. The Bill of
Rights will be watered down. Beijing, a regime not well-known for respecting
human rights, democracy and liberty, will be firmly in control, with the
help of a proxy government under C.H. Tung.
Don't get me wrong. We do not have a perfect democratic system to defend in
Hong Kong. Far from it. Britain never granted us a drop of democracy until
recently. But Hong Kong has always enjoyed a high degree of freedom which is
comparable to any other democracy on earth. A lot of these freedoms, I am
afraid, will be curtailed after the takeover.
Hong Kong people are concerned about their future. We journalists in
particular are very worried that press freedom will become one of the first
casualties when Beijing marches in. I envision two major threats to press
freedom after July 1. One is external and the other is internal.
The external one obviously is coming from mainland China, our future master.
Several senior mainland Chinese officials made comments last year which I
think were quite telling. Lu Ping, the most senior official in charge of
Hong Kong and Macao affairs, laid down the theory of reporting and advocacy.
Mr. Lu said journalists in Hong Kong can continue to practice what we have
been doing, namely objective reporting, but we shall not advocate things
like the independence of Hong Kong, Taiwan, or Tibet. These things, he
argued, have nothing to do with freedom of expression and will not be
tolerated. It showed Beijing has no idea of what freedom of expression
really is. What won't be allowed is not advocacy per se but advocating
things they don't like.
Qian Qichen, the Chinese foreign minister, said in an interview with The
Asian Wall Street Journal last October that we journalists cannot launch any
personal attack on senior Chinese leaders. Well, I have two questions for
Mr. Qian. First, what do you mean by "personal attack"? Second, who is to
say who are the senior, medium-ranking or junior officials?
Under the current system in Hong Kong, if we write anything inaccurate or
unfair, people can take us to court and sue us for libel. This is more or
less a fair game. However, it will be very different after July 1. Hong Kong
now has the rule of law. Mainland China has the rule of man, or if you like,
the rule by law. They can pass any law in the morning, change it in the
afternoon, abolish it in the evening, and reinstate the same thing the next
morning. If I write an article criticizing one of the economic policies of
Prime Minister Li Peng, will it be considered as a "personal attack"?
Probably so after the takeover.
The second major threat to press freedom, I would argue, is more serious
than the first one. A recent poll conducted by the Chinese University in
Hong Kong revealed that one in five journalists has practiced
self-censorship and more than half believe press freedom will diminish after
1997. Chief editors and senior management people in newsrooms act as censors
for Beijing. They kill stories which are seen as offensive to mainland China
and water down criticisms of the future master.
Let me give you a tiny example. No media in Hong Kong today call what
happened on June 4th, 1989 in Tiananmen Square a massacre anymore. Instead,
they call it the Tiananmen "incident" or June 4th "incident." According to
the official version from Beijing, there was no massacre; not even one
person was killed in the square. This is a very subtle process which is
extremely difficult to tackle. No censor will admit that his reason for
killing a story is that he is afraid of, or wants to please, Beijing. He
doesn't have to. Instead, a lot of "legitimate" reasons can be used.
Last December I came to the United States for Sing Tao Daily to do a series
of interviews with people like Liu Binyan, A.M. Rosenthal, Perry Link,
William F. Buckley, Jr., Noam Chomsky and others. Most of my reports were
never published. The interviews with Liu Binyan, the well-known Chinese
writer living in Princeton, and Mr. Rosenthal, the New York Times columnist
who is critical of China's human rights record, were the only two that got
into print. Then I submitted the third one to my editor. It was on Perry
Link, a well-known China scholar at Princeton University who has been denied
entry to mainland China since last summer.
A week went by and the interview did not appear. I marched into the office
of the chief editor and asked him why. He said that the interview would not
be published because "there's no substance in your story," "readers are not
interested in what you're writing," and "there's no news angle in it." He
went further to say that had he known I was writing about A.M. Rosenthal, he
would never have published it because "no one knows who A.M. Rosenthal is."
A few weeks after this confrontation, my column was canceled suddenly.
Before I quit my job at Sing Tao Daily last month, I used to write a column
on international affairs. I always left what happened in mainland China,
Taiwan, and Hong Kong for my colleagues at the China desk or the local desk
to comment. But in my last several columns, I started to comment on
Sino-U.S. relations. I was telling the readers that the U.S. media had been
paying a lot of attention to China lately, and I described what publications
like The New Republic and The Nation were saying. I did not spell out much
of my own opinion, but even straight facts were already too much for my
editor to swallow.
If the trend of self-censorship continues at its current rate, Beijing will
not have to lift a finger to crack down on us after the takeover. Media
owners in Hong Kong are businessmen first, second, and last. They care about
only one thing: money. Most of them have heavy investments in mainland China
and maintain very good relations with the leaders in Beijing. They will not
rock the boat. I believe most of the front-line journalists do have the
integrity to do their jobs, to report accurately and objectively. However,
they cannot decide what gets published in the papers.
We at the Hong Kong Journalists Association publish an annual report on
freedom of expression in Hong Kong, along with London-based Article 19. We
hope to keep the issue on the agenda and appeal to our colleagues to stand
up against the censors. We have to let the newspaper owners know they have
to pay a price in silencing us. We will publicize the cases and shame them.
This is primarily a battle we journalists in Hong Kong have to fight
ourselves. Facing the 1997 takeover crisis, it boils down to two options for
us: clear out of here or stay on and defend our ways of life. Press freedom
is an important cornerstone of any free and democratic society. I am
committed and determined to stay on and fight the uphill battle ahead.
Around 8,000 journalists from all over the world are on their way to cover
the big party in Hong Kong. I hope they will not just disappear and move on
to another hot spot after they have found out there's no drastic change
overnight. In many ways, the Chinese takeover started many years ago. The
process is slow and subtle. Please continue to keep an eye on Hong Kong.
Despite what Beijing says, China's leaders do pay attention to outside
opinions. We Chinese have a saying: "To beat a dog behind closed doors." You
can certainly lend us a helping hand by preventing the door from being shut
totally.
------------------------
#From United States Hong Kong Policy Act Report, as of April 1, 1998
http://www.usconsulate.org.hk/ushk/pi/980401.htm#vii.g.
"In the past, it has been difficult to find specific instances in which self-censorship killed a story or suppressed an editorial. The pressure appears to be more subtle, coming not as a direct order to refrain from writing, but as subjective exercises of special care toward topics of particular sensitivity, such as PRC leadership dynamics, Taiwan, Tibet, or military activity. One indication that self-censorship may become a problem came to light during a December 1997 presentation at the Freedom Forum Newseum in Rosslyn, Virginia, where Hong Kong Economic Times op-ed editor Liu Kin-ming told the audience that he had "taken lots of heat" for printing a Chinese translation of an article written by the Dalai Lama's representative in Washington. After the article appeared, Mr. Liu received a note from his publisher saying that he should not give so much space or attention to the issue of Tibet because the paper's readers were not interested."
September 26, 2006 11:13 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on September 26, 2006 23:13
Your argument here is very weak. Get an op-ed piece praising communism and see if you can publish it in the Washington Post--if American media do believe the freedom of speech? I don't know the details about your reports about A.M. Rosenthal, but I can understand your editor's view: who cares who Rosenthal is? He's a dissident, but that doesn't justify his views are correct and should be in the newspaper. I agree that there's some press control in China, but honestly, having lived in the U.S. for the past four years, one thing I've learned is that there's as much press control here in America as in other countries and American journalists are doing the same sort of self-censorship as what you feel about Chinese reporters. Think about how American media covered China, Iraq, North Korea, Israel, other socialist countries in the world. Don't you feel they have the same sort of stereotypical censorship (or political agenda) at all sorts of levels (or you can say they have some freedom, but they're just too stereotypical to challenge their own views, so they're abusing the freedom)? Every country and every social system has its strengths and weaknesses, that's what I've learned after living, studying and working in two strikingly different countries in the past years. Frankly and honestly, you get paycheck from America because your agenda fits their agenda.
September 26, 2006 9:32 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on September 26, 2006 21:32
I think that the culture of Hong Kongers is to go with the wind that is blowing; therefore, it would be stupid to upset Beijing because upsetting the country that is pouring money into Hong Kong or even providing more information and oportunities for Hong Kong's Government or even press agencies. Therefore, please China!!!
September 26, 2006 8:53 PM | Report Offensive Comments
Posted on September 26, 2006 20:53