Chinese Rolling Stone magazine stopped by media watchdogs

BEIJING - The Chinese edition of "Rolling Stone" magazine ground to a halt yesterday after China's ever-vigilant media watchdogs stopped publication of the recently launched Mandarin edition, blaming a legal technicality.

The ban came just three weeks after the first copies of the handbook of rock'n'roll counter-culture hit the news stands to widespread acclaim.

An initial print run of 125,000 quickly sold out.

The Shanghai bureau of the Government Administration of Press and Publications (GAPP), which keeps a close eye on new magazines for signs of dissent, said "Rolling Stone" had not fulfilled all the correct procedures to publish.

Recent months have seen government censors clamp down on free expression in newspapers, magazines and on internet sites and weblogs.

Without being explicit, the watchdog hinted there was more to the decision to stop publication than a mere technicality.

"It's not simply a matter of procedure, because even if they handed in the right application, whether we would approve it remains a question," said Liu Jianquan, a spokesman for the GAPP.

"So we have issued them a warning and told them to stop their illegal action."

It is a far cry from the optimism of three weeks ago when the editor-in-chief, Hao Fang, wrote in a stirring Rolling Stone foreword: "From today onward, let us summon our readers that we may in the East also create a miracle worthy of this era."

The challenge for the magazine, as for many other magazines setting up in China, is to appeal to readers looking for hard stories as well as the propaganda overlords of the Communist Party who brook no dissent.

The inaugural edition bore the craggy features of Cui Jian, China's Bruce Springsteen, glaring in lurid red and gold from the front page.

Also mentioned on the cover was Muzimei, a mainland writer whose steamy online sex diary earned her infamy and saw her weblog banned.

Putting Cui Jian on the cover was a daring choice.

The throaty protest singer is best known for "Nothing to My Name", a song widely seen as referring to the crackdown in 1989 on democracy activists in Beijing.

He has only recently been rehabilitated by the government.

In September last year he played his first concert in 12 years to fans in Beijing's Workers' Stadium.

The interview inside avoided touching on political subjects, something editor Hao insisted the magazine would do during its publication lifetime.

Other bad boys in the inaugural edition were Jimi Hendrix and journalist Hunter S.Thompson, but the overall tone was uncontroversial.

There were translations of stories from the English-language edition about U2 singer Bono and the American actress Jessica Alba, as well as features about the Taiwanese hip-hop star Jay Chou.

Foreign titles have been lured to China by the country's booming advertising market.

Other western glossies on China's news stands include Cosmopolitan, Elle, Harper's Bazaar, Marie Claire and FHM.

While China has opened up many industries to foreign participation, it keeps a firm grip on the media and publishing sector and producing a Chinese-language edition of a western magazine is a tricky process.

Would-be publishers are expected to avoid politics and stick to shopping.

"Rolling Stone" had been trying for a year to get permission to publish, and the Chinese-language edition of "Vogue" took three years to get the go-ahead.

Foreign magazines tend to buy licences from ailing Chinese magazines and relaunch the titles as a foreign lifestyle-focused brand - the US publishing giant Conde Nast linked up with China Pictorial to launch Chinese Vogue last year.

The publications are then at the whim of GAPP and while issues like fashion and lifestyle are rarely controversial, GAPP still regularly bans new titles.

"Rolling Stone" was known as "Audiovisual World" in Chinese and there had been lively debate on various weblogs before its launch about whether it would succeed, or whether it would fall foul of the authorities.

- INDEPENDENT