China Escalates Campaign Against Critical Voices

Over the last few years, the Chinese government under President Xi Jinping has stepped up a campaign against press freedom and civil society, jailing activists and critical voices while intimidating domestic and foreign media. On Monday, May 18, the OPC hosted a panel to explore the outlook for the country’s future and discuss how far the current crackdown might go.

Kathleen McLaughlin, who is head of the media freedoms committee for the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China (FCCC), and previously reported from China for The Economist, The Guardian, and BuzzFeed, said after increasing pressure and harassment, journalists working in China have lost hope for a more open
government.

“Leading up to the (2008) Olympics in Beijing, we felt like there was this great momentum, that things might be headed in a good direction and that China was maybe becoming more tolerant of critical voices,” she said. Restrictions on travel outside Beijing and Shanghai had been lifted, and journalists could report without being tailed by government observers. “Around 2010 we saw the trend go decidedly in the other direction.”

The FCCC surveyed its members last year and found that two-thirds of correspondents reported experiencing some kind of interference from the government while working in the field. Half of those with Chinese employees said their assistants had been harassed, sometimes at home. Denial of working visas has been used as a tool to control coverage, she added.

The FCCC recently released another report on press freedom based on a suvey of its members, which you can read via the link below.

FCCC Annual Working Conditions Report 2015 >>

Sarah Cook, senior research analyst for East Asia at Freedom House, said China’s crackdown is a sign of insecurity — similar moves from authoritarian regimes around the world come from countries that are “facing a crisis of legitimacy,” she said.

Freedom House published a report in January that concluded Xi has escalated repression and pressure on civil society groups over the last few years, and expanded beyond those who are directly involved in political advocacy to include more subtle kinds of dissent.

“A lot of these people being targeted now are people who had previously been on the safe side of the Communist Party’s red lines,” she said, adding that many more people are now being jailed instead of merely silenced. She warned that “growing quiet resentment” among Chinese citizens could lead to unstable conditions.

Ying Zhu, professor of media culture at the City University of New York, College of Staten Island, said Xi’s campaign is aimed at an ideological return to the old
Communist Party – to restore the credibility of one-party rule and “to reclaim China’s glory, and push for a more assertive China on the global stage.”

She said he has gained grassroots support using the tools of nationalism and patriotism, and though perspectives from scholars and the elite may differ, most Chinese see him as a strong leader.

Jerome A. Cohen, professor at New York University School of Law and co-director of its U.S.-Asia Law Institute, said there are people within China who are working on reforms and strengthening the rule of law, but there are gaps between policy and how provincial police and judges implement those laws.

“Although it is desirable to improve these pieces of paper we call laws and regulations, China in some respects is a lawless place,” he said. Xi, who is living under the specter of the collapse of the Soviet Union, has made it increasingly harder for foreigners to help critical voices within China, he added.

William J. Holstein, OPC Foundation president and former China correspondent who moderated the panel, asked the panelists what might stop Xi from descending into a purge in the style of Mao Zedong or Joseph Stalin.

Cohen answered that Xi is more sophisticated and intelligent than Mao, and not as arbitrary or changeable. Xi has taken a lot of risks in his campaign against corruption, he said, which continues to net more and more influential people. “He’s a high roller. He’s a gambler,” Cohen said. “It could be that in two more years he will have inspired enough reaction that he might not get a second term.”