China's struggle with media freedom
For journalists from western countries events like riots, disasters and other emergencies are the exciting topics to cover. However, for media workers in China, these topics could be a mine field, at least until very recently. The head of Radio Australia's Chinese service, Julian Chen, reports.

It is reported that Chinese legislators last week revised the draft emergency response law after heated debate over a passage warning the media of steep fines for so-called irregular or fraudulent reports. The earlier version of the law had fines of up to $US13,000 if the reports were deemed by the concerned local governments to have led to serious consequences. Some law makers concerned that local governments could use the law to cover up disasters that might reflect badly on them, such as mining fatalities caused by poor safety measures.

Now the new draft law has dropped the specific reference to the media and no longer mentions fines. But it will still be possible to warn or punish people who knowingly spread false information.

I interviewed Yu Guoming, vice-president of media at the Beijing People’s University. Mr Yu believes that the Chinese government has now realised that such a law acted as an obstacle for the development of Chinese society.

He says that in a modern society, government and media should have their own respective roles. Naturally, what government believes being logical may not necessarily be the case as viewed by the general public.

He says any cover up of such event by the local governments will be detrimental to the interests of the public and society.

As Mr Yu pointed out, in this regard the Chinese government knew that it has to follow the trend worldwide. He says that the central government in China are now becoming more and more aware of the importance of the role media plays in establishing an harmonious society.

Tightly controlling the media in China may give the government a comfort zone, but meantime such practice also increases the potential dangers in the Chinese society.

Mr Yu believes such change of the law can create a win-win situation for the government and media industry in China. And most of all, people in China will be the biggest winner.

He says that the change of the law will make governments at various levels in China more accountable, and the same applies to the country’s media industry as well. Thus people in China will eventually benefit from all these changes.

As for whether this law revision indicates any step forward of the political reform in China, Mr Yu believes that this remains to be seen.

He says since last November, the central government in China has been signalling such moves. However, given the magnitude of the problems existing in the Chinese political and government systems, this has to be a prolonged process. Any hasty move will create more problems for the country.

I guess this is a very popular belief among the scholars in China.

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