Sars virus attacks state control of the news

By HENRY HOENIG

The Chinese Government's announcement last weekend that the number of Sars cases in Beijing was 10 times higher than previously reported didn't surprise university student Cecilia Hu. And it didn't surprise most of her friends and classmates either. It was old news to them.

"We already knew it was much worse from reading about it on the internet," she said.

An English major at Beijing Language and Culture University, Hu said she believes it was only a matter of time before the Government was finally forced to admit publicly that its version of a major news event didn't correspond to reality. And she believes this week marked the beginning of the end of its iron-fisted grip on the news.

"I don't think they can continue to cover up the truth. The media is so powerful nowadays."

But analysts are divided over whether the Government's admission, as well as its sacking of two top officials and its order that state media report the full truth of the Sars crisis, are aberrations or will lead to greater openness.

Some are predicting a freer hand for the media, at least on certain issues. Others are saying the Sars crisis brought together an extraordinary set of circumstances which forced the Government to act and which are not likely to be duplicated.

Most agreed with Hu, though, that the Government's control of major news events is slipping. With the internet and an increasingly aggressive private media, huge news stories are increasingly difficult to manage. Extremely bad news eventually will leak out and spread.

There have been precedents to the Sars case. When news broke of a poisoning incident in which 42 people died in Nanjing last autumn, the official media refused to disclose the first deaths for several days.

Meanwhile, people turned to the internet and to Hong Kong and even overseas newspapers, and then spread the news further through internet chatrooms. The state media was forced to keep pace with what much of the public had already learned from other news sources.

The result was a loss of credibility for the Government, said Li Xiguang, director of the Centre for International Communications Studies at Tsinghua University in Beijing and an expert on mainland media.

With the Sars crisis, on the other hand, the Government has been forced to reveal the truth for two different reasons unique to the crisis itself, said Ding Xueliang, an expert on Chinese politics at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

First, because the Sars virus is believed to have originated in China and then spread around the world, the virus and the Government's handling of the crisis became a de facto international issue, putting the Government under its most intense international scrutiny since 1989. Beijing's habit of stonewalling while declaring its problems the internal affairs of China and of no concern to foreigners was not a long-term tenable option.

In addition, the Western media's reporting on the issue, particularly its reports that officials in Beijing concealed Sars cases, further pressured the Government to come clean. Ding pointed out that Beijing had largely succeeded in containing the Sars crisis for several months until the Western media became heavily involved. "Without the engagement of international media the Sars problem could have been managed just as previous crises," he said.

Secondly, unlike the poisoning incident or even China's Aids problem, Sars potentially affects every individual's life more immediately, giving most Chinese citizens a visceral sense of having something at stake and upping the ante on the Government.

This unique combination of pressures, Ding said, taught the Government "a very painful lesson" and forced it to reveal the true Sars figures. However, he said, while other big stories might spin out of the Government's control in the future, it is unlikely to open the floodgates of information anytime soon.

"We can expect the Government to reform a particular area related to transmittable diseases but we cannot expect a general opening up of information," he said. "[Total openness] would be a tremendous benefit to the Chinese people and the whole world. But if you are a leader in Beijing you see things from a very different perspective. We see this as an issue of information control in a global, high-tech society but they see it from their own bureaucratic and even career perspectives."

Lee Chinchuan, an expert on Chinese media and politics at City University in Hong Kong, said the Sars crisis might lead to further openness if only because of China's desire to join the highest ranks of the international community.

"Of course, it's premature to make any kind of predictions. But [the Government] is increasingly conscious of their international image. China would like to be perceived as a major power in the world. It is hungry for international status. So international pressure will play an increasingly important role in domestic policies. If China wants to be a part of the international community they have to play by the rules."

If there are reforms forthcoming, they are unlikely to result from any demands by people on the mainland.

However painful last week's announcement, the Government found a receptive audience at home. Most people are far from outraged. In fact, the withholding of sensitive information is not only expected, it is understood and even desired to some degree. Chinese people generally believe that the leaders of a country of 1.2 billion people with a long history of catastrophic instability should take certain liberties with the facts in order to preserve stability.

"It depends on the situation," said Zhang Xianning, a French major at Beijing Language and Culture University. "[The Government's] function is different from the media. They have their own responsibilities. I don't think it's totally wrong or totally right. On the one hand I can understand, but on the other maybe their approach is out of date."

Normally an outspoken critic of the Government's withholding of information, Tsinghua's Li quickly dismissed the idea that the current crisis would lead to any reforms, or that the Chinese public is even paying attention to this particular aspect of the Sars crisis. In this instance, as opposed to the more isolated poisoning incident, the people are looking for protection and reassurance, not to place blame and certainly not to pressure the Government for change.

"Most people don't care about the issue of credibility right now," he said. "They don't watch TV with the eyes of a professional journalist. They are not thinking about what kind of government they have at the moment. Most people want stability and prosperity more than anything else."

Li said he asked his students earlier this week if they would join a public demonstration to protest the Government's actions regarding the Sars crisis. "Not one person said they would."