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CLUB 2 Lorver Albert Road, Hong Korg Tel: (852) 2521 l5l1 Fu: (852) 2868 4092 E-mail: <ftc@fcchk.org>
Website:
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President
2 t"r,..,
I
to the Editor
Philip Segal
- Christopher Slaughter Ray Rudowski President -
Fint \4ce President Second Vice
TTNTS
C
THE FOREIGN CORRESPONDENTS'
Correspondent Member Governors Lisa Barron, Rowan Callick, Bob Davis, Hubert van Es, Cathy Hilborn Feng, Mark Landle¡ Saul Lockhart, David O'Rear
Jounalist Member Governors Liu KJr-ming, Francis l\4oriarty Associate Member Governors William H A¡esonJr, Ben Beaumont, Jon
3 Uro- the President
I
4
A message from the new President.
nlection Results
Rittger, Carl Rosenquist
t-
Fi¡mce Comittee
iananmen Special Feature
Conamor: Ben Beaumont (Treasurer) Professional Colmittee
5 6 8 9
La¡dler
Conumor: Mark
Plming Comittee Conuenor: Dawd
O'Reat
Membership Comittee Conuqor: Hubert van Es Food & Beverage
Comittee
lon Rittger Entertaiment Comittee Conuenor:
Tiananmen.
Four Eyewitness Accounts. The Goddess of Democracy. One Act, Many Meanings.
10 \A¡hat We Saw...
Conupnor: Carl Rosenquist
Freedom of the Press Comittee Conuenor: Ftancts Molialry
Lunchlines
Wall Comittee Co-conumor.s:
lItbert van
Es
18 Sheridan Morley Theatre cnttc, raconteur. 19 Prof. Arthur Waldron Why Washington Thinks
and Bob Davis
--" Northwest Airlines flies daily to over 250 destinations in all colners of North America. \Øe
1
General Mmager Robert Sanders
Democracy Is Bad For -China.
The Correspondent
20 Prof. Yash Ghai The Right of Abode Controversy. 22 Prof . Harold Goldblatt \Mhy a Chinese Author Isn't Going
O The Foreign Correspondents' Club of Hong Kong
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Detroit, Honolulu, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Minneapolis/St. Paul, New York, San Francisco,
The Correspondent is published 11 times a year. Opinions expressed bv writer s in magazine are not necessarily those of the Club
Seattle and Anchorage. So no matter whether you're going to wodd famous cities or lesser
Conamor: Cathy Hilborn Feng.Dddton Saul Lockhar t Prod,uction'. Terry Duckham
To Win The Nobel Prize- For Literature.
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Editorial Editor: Saul Lockhart Tel; 2813 5284 Fax: 2813 6394
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26
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Pror"ssional Contacts
FCC Faces
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Doug Moeller Cover photogâph by AFP / Robyn Beck
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THE CORRESPONDENT JUNE/JULY 1 999
_T
Statement from the Freedom of the Press Committee The Foreign Correspondent's Club was distressed to read in tJae South China Morning Post on May 27 that an employee of Kroll Associates (Asia) Ltd. had been conducting investigations while posing as a journalist. As a professional journalists' organisation, the FCC takes great exception whenever anyone who is not a
true reporter impersonates one. Working journalists rely solely on the trust of those we interview that we
in
both the
þrint and, international TV
are who and what we say we are. Members of the Board
From Wayne P. Wilcox
of Governors are concerned that extensive use of journalistic "cover" by private investigators risks
Membership No. 6714
undermining this trust and could at some point place working journalists in physical danger. Just as many companies spend thousands of hours protecting well-known brand names from copyright piracy, the media outlets we represent view with the utmost concern the appropriation of our publications' good names in the pursuit of other people's agendas. The FCC was pleased to receive a letter from Kroll Associates, which appears below.
Chinese Embassy Bombing
Philip Segal, President Francis Moriarty, Convenor
From Steve Vickers Kroll Associates (Asia) Ltd. Membership No. 3683
I
reÍer to your letter of 28 May 1999 and our subsequent meeting at the Club. First may I thank you for the oþþortunity to exþlain our side of the story.
I
explained to you ue feel that the article did not adequateþ reflect our þosition and was sensational. I was only þartialþ quoted in the article. Of þarticular concern uas what aþþeared to be an attemþt to link this issue with imþortant rì,o,tters surrounding the freedom of the press and other sensitiue political issues, esþecially in the lead-uþ to the I7Lh Anniaersary ol the Tiananmen incident. I haue been a member of the Foreign Corresþondents' Club for around 15 years and haue aluays suþþorted the Club uhen it took a stand on substantiae issues such as þhysical
attachs on journalists by triads and other meaty or real challenges to the freedom of the þress or the ability of journalists to report the nans. This matter, in the scale of things, is farfrom such (rn eaent. Haaing said the aboae I feel that I must mahe it clear that it is not our corþorate policy to carry out our duties while þosing as journalists. We, like other large comþanies, are
houarr not infallible and sometimes )oung,
inexþerienced
recruits or contractors can be oaerenthusiastic. This is what
While it is regrettable that these persons were accidentally killed while living in the capital city of a nation at wa.:, I must object to the stretch that styles the 'Journalist". The three were employees of the Chinese government, working for a state-controlled media that has kept the truth about Kosovo, duly reported by REALjournalists, awayfrom the eyes of the populace of the country for which they report. Innocent civilians? Yes. Propaganda mongers? Definitely. Regrettable? Absolutely. But journalists to be saluted as fellow professionals by the FCC? Not hardly.
AnnounGG,mGnts
Executive Managing Director & Regional Head Asia
As
med,ia haue used
þretext attempts to obtain information from Kroll. In one incident a "sting" was set uþ against a number of Neu Yorh inaestigatiue agencies, includ,ing Kroll. I haae þassed you a coþ1 of the taþe concerned,. I am pleased to report that we carne through with a clean bill of health, but the fact uas that þretØcts were used and aery aggressiaely at that. I thank you for the oþþortuniQ to resþond, and hope that u)e can nou þut this matter to rest.
I
beline happened on lhis occasion. We thereþre aþologise for any d"istress uhich the newsþaþer reþort may haae caused to the membership of the Club. You uill recall that I informed you that the "boot has been on the other foot" on a number of occasions uhere journalists
HeIp Run the FCC Too many members complain, but refuse to help out. The list of committees with their new convenors is on page 1. They all depend on volunteers, in all categories of membership. Please contact a convenor and assist in running your club.
Banned IVIeat and Daìry Products As a result of the report concerning contaminated animal feed, all dair¡ meat and poultry products from France, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands have been returned to suppliers and replaced by Australian and New Zealand products.
FCC Gym & Sauna The FCC gymnasium and sauna are now open.
THE CORRESPONDENT JUNE/JULY 1 999
A message from the new President irculating around the FCC there is a notion, perhaps once true, which holds that journalists are hopeless with figures. This holds that while we may be good at spotting political and social trends, if you show us a balance sheet we become all tense, forgetting how to calculate percentages and asking what assets are. This year's Board of Governors ought to put to rest
any such assumption, stacked as it is with frnancial journalists who make their livings analysing companies far larger than our beloved institution. I write mostly
admission fees. Prospective members take a look at Bert's Jazz Bar downstairs (well worth the money spent
on the renovations) and happily sign up. That trend should continue, and here I would like to extend a special thanks to Associate Member Dave Garcia, who worked so hard to make Bert's happen. Now, cost cutting, an area we did not discuss much last year: I see no problem with our staffing costs. Our staff do a superb
joti and
deserve the money they earn.
draw
But what about the money we send out of the club? I noticed last year that even though we are in the midst of falling prices, our food and beverage profit margins remained rock steady tliê entire year even though we did not cut menu prices. In February and March our margins jumped, and
upon the resources of a professional economisf
3 percentae'e pornts more
about finance for the International Herald Tribune, the First Vice-President, Chris Slaughter, works for CNBC Asia, and among the correspondent governors
we are able to
and several more journalists for whom finance is nothing mysterious. Treasurer Ben Beaumont is not an accountant, but makes his living as a commercial lawyer. All of this is fortunate, because even though the FCC is in better financial shape than it was a year
âgo, the club is still
running a serious monthly deficit. Like any business, which the FCC is by law and by necessity, we have only a limited number of ways to return to frnancial health. Unlike many firms, we do not have the option of borrowing money, and since we rent we cannot sell the building. Until oil is discovered under the kitchen, we have only a tiny cash pile of some $10 million on which to draw. If we do nothing and continue to lose money the way we did in Apri'l ($297,595 after entrance fees, interest and depreciation), we tan look forward to a few more years of the FCC before the lights go out and we go bankrupt. I do not think this will happen, but in the midst of a still-deep recession, we do not have a lot of options. Signifrcantly raising prices when others all around are cutting them is disastrous. That leaves cutting costs or issuing shares (in our case, this transiates to "attracting more members"). Thanks to measures taken by the previous board led by Diane Stormont, new members are coming in aT a much faster pace than they were a year ago, some 30-50 per month, after we slathed THE CORRESPONDENT JUNE/JULY 1 999
F
we made almost nine
T
on food in March than
3
we had inJanuary. Then
É
l
in April, the margins were back down to where they had been all along. And in a year of
falling prices, our bill
for plants and
flowers
rose by 11 per cent. I wonder why?
In my time as First Vice-President last year, I was never shown any figures other than a consolidated sheet with categories such as "Sales food" and "Cost of sales-food." With such thin data, it. is impossible to know why our food and
drink margins are the way they are, but things will now change. The convenor of the Food and Beverage Committee, Jon Rittger, and I want to look into how extensively the FCC puts food and drink out to tender. Do we rotate suppliers often enough, or ever? Are we getting good value for all the meat, f,rsh, vegetables and alcohol we buy? Ben Beaumont is already ferreting around in the accounts office. Another thing we want to determine is whether the individual items on the menu which prove popular and profitable are being removed prematurely. Are members getting the kind of food they like? We will find out, and I will report the results as they become available, I hope beginning within the month. There are probably ways to make the main dining room more attractive. \A4rile there is no need to spend the kind of money we spent on the basement, it should be possible to make the room a little livelier while preserving a
more elegant atmosphere than prevails in the main bar
and Bert's. Some friends of mine remarked that it would be nice in the course of a long dinner with a bottle of wine to have armchairs to sit on. What do you think? Write, e-mail, or tell me when we next meet. Now for an unpleasant piece of news: the May 26 hre in the sauna. I was in the club that night and must say that the staff, led by the unflappable and superb Tiger, were at their very best in guiding people out of the basement while the main bar got on with business with hardly an interruption. The cause of the f,rre is still under offrcial investigation, so it would be inappropriate to say what caused it. But I can say with confidence that contrary to some rumours circulating, the fire was not the result of faulty wiring or anything to do with the club's physical plant. We have been up to code since our renovations in 1996. The fire began in, and was contained to, the
sauna which will be replaced after seeking several writ-
ten bids from suppliers. More on this topic in the
months to come. We have plenty more work to do to get the FCC on a sound financial footing, and I remind members that
anyone is allowed to serve on any of the board committees. The only requirement is that a committee be chaired by a board member. So, I encourage you: if there is an aspect of the club you would like to change, approach the committee concerned and give your input. The Corresþondent lísts committee convenors every month, and you can reach them via the main office. I
99 79
CORRESPONDENT MEMBER GOVERNORS: (vote lor not more than eight) (42 ) 1. Saul LOCKFIART (Freelance) 2. David O'REAR (42 ) (The Economist Group)
ïiananmen
Philip Segal
:
1. Ray RUDOWSKI (T\ts) 2. David GARCIA (Glencore Asia)
uú;
ïc'
Fln,H
THE FOREIGN CORRESPONDENTS'CLUB. HONG KONG BALLOT RESULTS The Board of Governors 1999 - 2000 PRESIDENT: 3. Lisa BARRON (CNN) (vote for not more than one) 4. Mark I-ANDLER (NewYork Times) 52 ) 1. Philip SEGAL (IHT) 5. HubertVANES (Freelance Photographer) FIRST VICE - PRESIDENT (vote for not more than one) 6 Bob DA\IIS (The Stock House) 32 1. Chris SIAUGHTER (CNBC) IOURNALIST MEMBER GOVERNORS: 2. Cathy Hilborn FENG (vote for not more than two) (Far Eastern Economic Review) 27 1. Francis MORIARTY (RTHK) SECOND VICE-PRESIDENT: (vote for not more than one)
It
'0qP< FIl
ASSOCIATE MEMBER GOVERNORS: (vote for nol more than four) 1. Jon RITTGER (Davidson & Associates) 2. CaTIROSENQUIST (Sema Group)
3. William H ARESON,JT (Areson & Co.) 4. Ben BEAUMONT (Barrister)
iananmen Square that beautiful, vast plaza in the middle of Beijing. Sadly, the word Tiananmen is now forever tainted. Since 1989, the.word has been associated with carnage.
38 46 36 32
Hong Kong was the only place in all Hong Kong June lggS of China where a mass gathering commemorating the Tiananmen Massacre could be held without fear of arrest. Please note that The Corresþonden / uses the original term 'massacre' and not any of the revisionist terms like 'event', 'incident' or 'protest', all of which soften the image of tanks rolling over makeshift barricades and denigrate those who paid the ultimate price or were imprisoned for their beliefs, or those innocent bystanders who died, or the medical personnel caught in the linê of fìre.
Eong Kong June 1999 5t)
r25 r23 118
rt7
The new board which took office on lt[ay
27'.
(L-R, seateô) First Vìce presidenl Chris Slaughter (CNBC), President Philip Segal (lnternational Herald Tribune), Lisa Barron (CNN) Davld O'Rear (Economist Group)
(Standing) Ben Beaumont (Barrister),
William H Areson Jr (Areson & Co ), Jon Rittger (Davidson & Associates) Francis lVoriarty (RTHK), Hubert van Es (Freelance), Saul Lockhart (Freelance), Bob Davis (The Stock House) Missing: Second Vice
President Ray Rudowski (TVB),
Mark
Landler (New York Times), Carl Rosenquist (Sema Group) Appoinled to fill vacancies: Rowan Callick (Australian Financial Review), Cathy Hilborn Feng (Far Eastern Economic Review), Liu Kin-ming (Apple Daily).
More than 70,000 Hong Kong people showed they remembered that June 4tl;' of a decade ago by turning up for a candlelight vigil in Victoria Park. Hundreds of thousands more citizens of this Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China showed their support by tuning in their televisions to live broadcasts. The Foreign Correspondents' Club of Hong Kong became a emotional platform for eyewitness accounts of that long night accounts which captivated the audience at a Professional Luncheon. Pholos by: AFP / Robyn Beck
THE CORRESPONDENT.JUNE4ULY
1999
THE CORRESPONDENT JUNE/JULY 1999
5
\4rhen, on the Saturday evening, she checked out the ring roads, she finally encountered what she had feared and expected: "As far as the eye could see, there were tanks. Everything was on fire. It was an unbelievable sight." She reached the square, and sawJonathan Mirsky (then reporting for The Obseruer) and Ed Gargan (New York Times) heading dangerously towards Chang Al Avenue. The square was "alive with live gunfire". She headed north through the Forbidden Cit¡ where the Great Within was silent, "and the deeper in, the less you could hear what was going on." Typical of such chaotic situations, the people at the back of the palace were largely still unaware of the slaughter on the other side.
The Ilananmeq
fia$$acre Foun
Ëtõuníiñe$s Acgounts FourCorrespondentswhocoveredTiananmenadecadeagoshared Lunch' s atapacked FCC Professional emotion their and their memories Reuieø reports Financial Rowan Cattickof the Australian D-' rrrnê
TI i,:,ï: ,t I
-u.ruc
The four who talked at the FCC ten years on
in covering China time in tollowing the sufficient und/or had invested ciently experienced
,^. I
I f""'u ,,,ff['il:l." tî1H'îlî::ii"'åîil"iiüJffiå Zhu
to keep the watch up
T
rather forget it, Chinese Premier usually more renowned for Rongji his attention to detail than for absentmindedness
rc
I o
been so busy latel¡
ú
-has what with one thing (the stagnattng economy) and another (NAIO's worrying win against Milosevic), he did
o á
Mirsky had a shower, unaccountably polished his shoes, found a new bicycle and headed back west. A line of tanks sealed off the square, and relatives and friends of students were screaming to be allowed in to them. An officer with a loudhailer told them to leave, counted aloud, then had his troops open fire. "The people dropped to the ground. Then they got up again, and the soldiers shot a lot of people." Doctors and nurses, bloodied from treating other victims, arrived and jumped out of ambulances to treat them. "The army shot the doctors and nurses down, right in front of the Peking Hotel. That was enough for me..." A few weeks later, Mirsky was back at The Obseruer, and the managing editor said of his expenses claims for the period: "Two bicycles. That's an a*{ul lot of bicycles,
t,hemostdramaticsinoleeventlnthe@VictoriaPark70,000rememberedTiananmenofa
50-year history of .oit-.,nist China without at least a glancing thought'
g.
had earlier filed for the next day's paper a well-received "Quakerly story" about the protesters fending off the army with flowers and smiles. He saw an armoured personnel carrier run over a man, "so flat that I could see him like a red pancake glistening under the sfeet lights." A man standing next to him remarked that the army was hring a special kind of blanks. They were his last words. He slumped oveq "a big red circle on the front of his tee shirt." Unsurprisingl¡ Mirsky decided to retrieve his bicycle and head back in the same direction as Burton, to file a somewhat different story from the Jianguo Hotel. He was stopped first, however, and beaten in all likelihood savagely by a squad of armed police being saved by the brave onrush of the Italian vice consul and a Financial Times journalist from the fate of a previous victim who was shot in the head as he lay beaten. The Italian slipped some cartridge cases in his tomorrow they will say pocket, saying: "Keep these they didn't open fire." After eventually hnding his way back to theJianguo, Forbidden Ciq'.
4, many journalists who had been covering
to be heading nowhere except further and side the papers, or ater and later in the
Tung Chee-hwa has it, shorrlrl be on the alert ^ to d-tt 1",t1'^î a habit, in China, of driving the train
lålro. "n"
Jonathan." He took out a ruler and drew an arrow the pointing out that they were lost on different days second after midnight. "That is tidier. They'll like that a lot better upstairs." When China expelled Mirsky in 1991, a cadre told better for that, edited to the essentlals'
TÈ]E CORRI,SPONDENT JUNE/JULY
1
999
citizen."
irsky watched the military invasion from one of the marble bridges leading to the
:iii,'i:å""jÏ,''':ÏÏi:"':.;':1îÏ':JJ,
ur-rdo
him, 'You have a terrible attitude." HKSAR chief executive Tung Cheehwa, who has urged people to forget the "baggage" of June 4, asked Mirsky what was wrong with communists. He replied, "They've made a counlry where it is a terrible place to be a
THE CORRESPONDENT.JUNE/JULY
1999
particularly because of the fate of a man
he
interviewed, factory worker Xiao Bin, 'Just the kind of person the government feared most." But, said Laurie, "because of me, his life ended up in ruins." Xiao, who expressed outrage over what he saw the army do, was hunted down, his "Wanted" photo shown nation-wide on CCTV as a rumour-monger and counter-revoluti on ary. He was,jailed, and is today free, living in Dalian, but still cannot find anyone to employ him. Laurie decided the hospitals were the best source of information on thç massacre. Many of the fìrst victims he encountered had been shot while standing on their balconies watching the troops shooting randomly as they approached the square. The Chinese Red Cross but withdrew said that 2,600 people had been killed that fìgure the next day.
d Gargan, who reported the events for The l"leu York Times, stressed that "the killing continued throughout the week," all over China. He believes that Tiananmen, in some respects, led to the shift towards democracies in Asia through the 1990s. "People are not prepared to go and shoot people on the streets." While the communist party has in many areas of life lost power since 1989, its insistence on controlling the
flow of information reflects "a fundamental weakness in the party:'Gargan said. "Ourjob is to tell what the truth is, because governments won't give it to you." All four journalists experienced the support of many Chinese people, sometimes on June 4 breaking into applause, for the efforts of the international media in making known what was happening. Ten years on at the FCC, the stories retained the capacity to move and to appal. But they require a venue. No one demurred when new club president Phil Segal concluded: "This is why we need an FCC."
'
The transcrþts of the
þage 10.
four qewitness accounts
begins on
The Goddess
¡ I
T
o =. @
o ã
One of the enduring symbols of Tiananmen of a decade ago. Absent member Melinda Liuis on her second tour as Newsweeå's bureau chief in Beijing. She opened the bureau in 1980 and was an eyewitness
in
1989
MEan¡ The man who stopped the column tanks is andther endurins imaee of Tiananm en. Richard Cordon, co-director, co-producer and cameraman for the film The Gate of Heauenly Peacø, writes about the man and the image
Goddess of Democracy Hong Kong 1999
he appearance of the Goddess of in Tiananmen Square an exhilarating moment in 1989's
Democracy statue
was
arnazing Beijing Spring. I already knew many Chinese thought of America when they thought of freedom. A decade earlie¡ I'd copied down one of the hand-scribbled slogans posted on Beijing's ill-fated Democracy Wall. It read: "I love an American girl; her name is democracy." But the Goddess was a much more dramatic, mediafriendly reminder that America inspired many of the exuberant street demonstrators who paralysed Beijing
Peoria. She was also the movement's Angel of Death' Even China's most liberal leaders were harcl-pressed to defend unruly street protests so clearly inspired by the
West. For many of Èeijing's jittery manclarins, the the Gocldess, the carnival-like scene in fiá.tattmen students' tents, the discarded Styrofoarn food containers, the protest flags flutteriig lì'om official evokãd th" ..uiy "chaos" ãf *t" nadonal flagpoles
-
in May 1989. Holding the torch of freedom aloft, she was the Statue of Liberty with Chinese features. She serenely faced the stern visage of Mao Zedong's portrait on the crimson walls of the Forbidden City, as if using her torch to illuminate a path for the Great Helmsman.
We should have known better. Beijing authorities rarely tolerated unscripted events in Tiananmen. This in-your-face icon could never survive in the vastplazaat the heart of Beijing; the Square has always been the Communist regime's supreme symbol of statehood. Here crowds cheered in 1949 as Mao declared the founding of the People's Republic of China with the words, "The Chinese people have stood up!" But we journalists loved the Goddess. She was the perfect symbol for China's pro-democracy protestors,
an image from Beljing that played equally well in
I
Americans recognise. wal But these days many Chinese believe thc safest own to seek freedom and democracy is alorrg their
parh.I THE CORRESPONDEN'I"I
Lr
NE/JULY
ls09
or the millions of people all over the world who watched this scene on television, or saw the published photographs, its meaning was clear: human hope and courage challenging the remorseless machinery of state power. In China, where the government showed the image widel¡ authorities interpreted the scene diff'erently. The narrator in one fi7m, Fluttea Flag of the Reþubtic, says it is testimony to the restraint of (lhinese soldiers: "Anyone with common sense can see that if our tanks were determined to move on, this lone scoundrel could never have stopped tllem." President Bush, Andrei Sakharov andJoan Baez all hailed the man, but his story and his name are not fìrmly knolvn. The Chinese government claims that he was ncither arrested nor executed. Reports of people < laiming to be "the man" have usually been part of an cfltrrt to get asylum or sell a stôry. From watching the ricleo, we can learn only that he was extraordinarily (orlrageous. He stopped thê column of tanks, blocked thcrn several times as they attempted to maneuver rtrtlund him, then talked with the crew of the lead tank. I'-irrally, people rushed into the street and persuaded llirn to leave. Charlie Cole, prize-winning phôtographer of the t'¡risode, thought it should be remembered as "an rnc¡edible action, not an incredible photograph." In ottt' irnage-based consumer society, though, the image lr:ts taken on a life of its own. One cartoon shows "the I I I l,: (:()RRESPONDENTJUNE/JULY 1999
man," transformed into Mickey Mouse, challenging the Chinese government with Kundun, Martin Scorcese's film on Tibet. It didn't seem to matter to the cartoonist that
Mickey runs his own multinational entertainment empire with a budget comparable to that of the Chinese army, or that Disney had already offered to restrict distribution of Kundun to protect its substantial business interests with China. Benetton used the image in an ad campaign alongside images ofJesus on a cross and Neil Armstrong's first step on the moon. Will the Gap someday run ads revealing that the man was wearing khakis? \A/hy are Westerners so fascinated by this image? Is
because
it fìts so nicely with the story we expect to
it
see
good against evil, young against old, freedom against
-totalitarianism? In the hundreds of hours of network coverage of the Tiananmen story, only a few minutes featured Chinese participants speaking for themselves. Ten years later, the events for many people have been distilled into a single image. The man in front of the tanks now stands as one of the defining iconic images of the 20th century, like a monument in a vast public square created by television. Like most statues, he is
mute.
I
The lfi/edia Studies Journal dnoted
the
Winter 1999 issue to China. The Correspondent wishes to thank the MSJ for Liu and Gordon.
þermission to run articles fu
9
When (w") thought that a crackdown was imminent, (we) thought it would be a crackdown
What We Saw,,,
where they would be able to come in with a minimum of force and get these people out since most of the
Those who attended this FCC Professional Lunch were spellbound by the accounts of four eyewitnesses of the Tiananmen Massacre. It was one of the most emotional events the Club has ever staged. By popular request, The Correspondent presents the transcript Sandra Bturtott
n*" his is sort of a
sentimental way to start, but I thought before we get into the analysis of what this means, which is the important part, the scene setting and the sentiment should
be recalled.
I
brought a little statue which contains a shell casing I picked up outside the gate of the Forbidden City about 1:30 a.m. and kept (it and others) in my Beijing apartrnent after the massacre. But I was sort of worried because the cleaning lady, who was a state employee, loved to dust the inside of my drawers and rearrange the packing boxes, and I thought this was not a good thing to have in the apartment. So on my next trip back to the States I took the bullets. I left them with my parents in their house in Ohio. The next time I saw them was a year later when my parents came to visit me in Hong Kong. My father had fashioned one of the bullets into the crossbar of a cross he was a woodworker by hobby - because he was somebody who and it touched me -was very a political... not outwardly religious, and I had no idea that he had taken these and spent the time to make a little statue with a plaque that says simply'June 4th 1989, Tiananmen Square, Beijing, China". And this is the most prominent reminder to I've taken it everywhere I've gone since Beijing. It reminds me of my father, who is now deceased, but it reminds me of what I saw and it also reminds me of the tremendous impact that this event had on people everywhere outside, who might not have thought about China or its politics, but who were touched by this event... I will sort of set the scene of what I saw and how things were early that evening when I was the designated driver for several correspondents including Ed Gargan (New York Times). Because Time was on a deadline we usually closed on Friday nights and this
-
Drawings by Pam Williams
10
I had to get back to the bureau by was Saturday time that we'd set for f,rling to New the a.m; that was 2 York on what we had assumed would be a crackdown, but we were not yet sure earlier in the evening. At that time... there were no cell phones; you couldn't watch CNN
if you were in Beijing. In fact we didn't
even
realise that CNN was broadcasting live because that was
really the first time that that had occurred. Once you set your plans in motion for coverage you had to stick ro them... So any wa¡ I will talk a little bit about what I saw early in the evening and then I will pass it on to Jonathan (Mirsky, then of the Obseraer) who saw much more, Ed (Gargan) who saw much more, and Jim (Laurie, then with ABC News) who spent sometime in the hospitals gets to the important point of the numbers...
That afternoon it had become clear that after many weeks of "will they crackdown or won't they..." stories... this probably would be the night. That was because there was a lot of nasty stuff going on around the square which later we realised served as a pretext for bringing in the troops. I mean a flimsy pretext, but a pretext. There were weapons trucks left around... always in the view of foreign correspondents and students... people had seized a few of these weapons and so the word was around that the weapons were getting into the hands of the students and this could not be tolerated.
people are unarmed. But there were these reports coming through word of mouth, and also over the loudspeaker system, indicating that weapons were getting into the hands of the students and other demonstrators. So, we were pretty sure that this would be the night. The night before you might remembe¡ there had been this curious phenomenon of thousands of unarmed troops coming in, jogging in, and being stopped by the people and pretty humiliatingly sent back to where they came from. Nobody knew exactly what that meant, but it seemed like it was a probe to see how close they could get to the square.
t any rate, we alerted I'ime in New York and we spent the afternoon and the evening waiting for this crackdown. About dinner time it started to seem like maþe this wasn't the night because the square was very quiet except for these rumours and some activity over at the great Hall of the People where a number of soldiers had materialised from the tunnels under the square. There wasn't anything going on that looked like the start of a crackdown so several of us, after dinner, decided to take another post-darkness tour of the ring roads on the periphery of Beljing to
if there had been barricades.
I
see
any movement of troops towards the
was the driver. Robert Delfs, the Far
Eastern Economic R¿uian Bureau Chief, and Ed (Gargan)
were in the car.
I don't know, half an hour? We drove for except the troops that had without seeing anything been stopped with people talking to them for days. Suddenly we rounded a corner, a curve on the ring road, looked across to the stretch of highway, of road,
at an overpass known as Muxidi which (is) west of Tiananmen, but which (is) on the main avenue that 'Iiananmen is also located on. As far as the eye could see there were tanks, APCs and everything was on - It was overkill of such fìre. It was an unbelievable sight. a magnitude that you just couldn't imagine that they would send in that kind of firepower to move several hundred people out of the square. We parked, we ran around trying to get some information, to talk to people and get closer to it. It was impossible to get closer to it without getting in the middle of it. There were bullets whizzing around, Molotov cocktails going off. There were tanks of the burning buses from the barricades exploding so we thought the best thing for us to do was to get -back to the square because it was clear that once they broke through the barricades these tanks were bciund for the square. And it would only be a matter of a half an hour before they could get there. e raced back dhrough dne hutongs, the small streets,, and in the process... ran into one of our colleaguep, a foreign correspondent who
was on.a.motorcycle. (He) recoc-nised the handed an object in car (and) hailed ls frantically - put under the front through the window which Gargan seat. We forgot about it for days. But it was the bloodstained hat of an officer who had been killed by the mobs and this correspondent couldn't be seen riding around on a motorcycle holding this. So we knew that there were deaths. He had said that people had killed this gu¡ but there had been lots of people killed already. We parked the car behind the square and then made our way to the square... it was very quiet. Most people didn't know the tanks were headed there. But within about a half an hour of arriving, bullets were
o
here were workers running around brandishing pieces of pipe which they had picked up from god knows where, but they were pointed to as
people who were likely to wreak violence later that evening. In other words there were pretexts and provocateurs who seemed to be very prominently placed. There were only a few hundred people left in the square so it didn't seem as if such actions, such pretexts, were warranted. It always seemed to most of us (foreign correspondents) that it wouldn't have been that difhcult to get the students out. The barricades were set up along all of the roads leading to the square they had been there for the last two weeks since -martial law was declared. The army knew where they (where the) soldiers were still, stuck at many were - barricades with people talking to them and of those g^iving them flowers and so forth. THE CORRESPONDENT JUNE/JULY 1999
Press conference A group of June 4 survivors has released new evidence of the crimes committed by martial-law troops' in the Tiananmen Massacre The evidence includes detailed testimonies describing the killings and woundings of individuals, a list of the dead
and photographs of the victims. (L-F) Han Dongfang, labour leader; former political prisoner Lau Sau-ching; Sophia Woodman, research director for Human Righls in China and Szeto Wah, Legislative Councillor
THE CORRESPONDENT JUNE/JULY 1999
11
I
-T whizzing down the Chang An Avenue and Robert (Delfs) and I took cover in one of the tunnels leading into the Forbidden City which is where I picked up these bullets. We took cover because the bullets were whizzing down the avenue. Before we ran into the tunnel, we saw our friends, Ed Gargan and Jonathan Mirsk¡ heading down the avenue and we thought I think we said, 'You're crazy... these are live bullets." -But they went on down.
e took cover. Students shoved a bus
in
through the gate that we were taking shelter in. The bus eventually burned and exploded, but for a while the bus provided some cover for us. In advance of the troops coming into town and
coming right down the avenue, a bunch of soldiers disembarked from a truck and started setting up their tripods for their guns right in front of our gate. It was the bullets from these guns (that I took). This was quite early in [he evening... about 1:15 a.m. They aimed diagonally down Chong An towards the military museum which was the direction where Ed (Gargan) and I think Jonathan had gone. They were shooting bullets. We couldn't see people dropping because they were shooting at a great distance. This was all in advance of the troops actually pulling up to the
It was approaching 2 o'clock and I had to get back to the bureau. We couldn't possibly run down Chong An towards the Beljing Hotel in order to get square.
out, to get back to the car and get to the bureau, because it was just alive with live gunfire.
We cut back through the Forbidden City and got a
taxi on the other side... The Forbidden City
us and said, "Foreignjournalists?" We said, 'Yes, foreign
journalists." And we had to tell them what was happening; that there was a slaughter taking place on the other side and that the people were not going to be the winners.
o I think again, in setting the atmosphere, in setting the scene, I think it is important to remember, to know, that the distances were great, even people who were defending barricades helping, trying to help this same effort only blocks -away couldn't know what was happening.
-
As we drove back to where the bureau was, we stopped at many barricades and spread the news that the people
were losing.
I think I'll turn it over toJonathan now who, when last saw him, was heading for Chong An coming
12
-
said,
"Don't go thereJonathan, you'll be killed!"
Jonathan
Mirsþ
o
story away and left the Jianguo Hotel and went
o t.
t my age you
nd that is how I
never miss
met Sandy Burton and Robert Delfs.
chance
a
to
stand up... (a)
rare
opportunlty. You can see what a good reporter Sandy
is... she made
my heart pound all over
again. Although it is 10 years later, I had complete recreation of the fear at that time. This remains a debate. There is on this table a media journal in which one distinguished authority on the press says that in part it is we correspondents that have "beat up" Tiananmen and that it is really not very important for Chinese. Well, as Robin Munro (another eyewitness) said yesterday (at an FCC conference on Tiananmen), it is as if it happened yesterday. I have a terrible memory. Not only can I hardly stand up any more, when I was up to see the Chief Secretary today, the guard at the door said "Chief Secretary, Chief Secretary" and I couldn't remember Anson Chan's name very well, but I can certainly remember all these things that Sandy describes. I will tell you what I saw then I will sit down. andy and Robert Delfs disappeared. I went on to one of these marble bridges just outside the
Forbidden Cit¡ sometimes defined as not Tiananmen. I stood on that bridge with a lot of other civilians. I don't know where Ed was. I believe that Andy Higgins of the Independent was literally
I saw an armoured personnel carrier come along and run somebody down. It is the hrst person I have ever seen run down in my life and I remember he was squashed so flat as he was chased around that I could see him like a kind of red pancake glistening under the street lamps. Then the troops began to come up under the walls of the Forbidden City from the direction of Muxidi. I should tell you that I had filed a story that nightfor The Obseraer, a nice anti-violence "Quakerly" story in which I said for the first time in six weeks that I thought there would be no violence that night, the night of the third $une 3). I had fìled this story saying that the citizens of Peking had somehow amazingly managed to stand off the entire army with their flowers and their smiles and my editor congratulated me on this excellent and then he said, "What does 'Mok Xi Ti' story mean?" I said you must mean Muxidi and he said, "Well I have something here on a tape that says that there is hring there. Do you think that's important?" I said underneath that bridge. Presentþ
THE CORRESPONDENT JUNE{ULY
I
999
æ
why don't you throw my
down.
then reporting for The Obseraer
was
absolutely silent and the farther you got, the deeper you got into it, the less you could hear what was going on. You couldn't really hear the gunfìre except in the distance. When we got to the other side and hailed a taxi, the people who were guarding the barricades back on those streets, had no idea what was happening on Chong An. They saw us get into the car. They thought we were foreign journalists foreign journalists were they came up to very welcome in Beijing at that time
I
from the Forbidden City he reminds me. We
So along came the
army and they
were shooting in our direction
and the young man next to me said, in that
authoritative way that people who are ignorant often say about things
o
they are going to shoot
me on the ground
and no-one will know what has become of me. And then they moved away. And the reason they moved away is because a colleague from tj;e Financial Times and the Italian Vice Consul had seen them doing this to me and instead of, like
a normal human
being
running awa¡ they ran towards (us) and told them to stop. They helped
me out of the
square...
The Italian put a handful to me, "They- are not of the empty cartridges The speakers (L-B) Jim Laurie, Jonathan Mirsky, Sandra Burton using real bullets." I was my pocket and said into and Edward Gargan, ",keep these. Tomorrow watchins these sparks bounce of the paving stones so I said to him, "Well what they will say they never o1iêned fire." I didn't find those are those sparks then?" He said, "It's a special kind of until I got back to,London. blank that they use." And those were his last words. I have never heard a person's last words before or since. hen I went intg the Peking Hotel where the staff, And then he slumped over the railing. I pulled him up now fully ..Lig.a u. *...riity men, which is what and he had a big red circle on the front of his t-shirt. they.ívere and probably still are, were beating up I also could see now this all happened very thè foreign photographers who were coming in I could see the army who had their cameras with them so I then went quickly as you can imagine coming in our direction and I- remembered something upstairs. I spent a number of hours in Melinda Liu's that an old hand had told me, a Marine Offrcer had room with the Nattsweeh people who were trapped up told me in Vietnam. \A4ren you can see somebody's face there. Six o'clock in the morning, I made my way back if he is shooting in your direction of course he can up the avenue to theJianguo Hotel. Along the way I felt -see your face and that if he feels like -it he can shoot you very bad I mean this was all very terrible and I am journalist. In the avenue was as individually. So I found this very awful, this person havnot a 'bang-bang' ing been shot next to me and so I thought I will go back peculiar a scene as you can imagine... along came one into the Forbidden City. (I will) get on my bike, which of these people with a trishaw with a flatbed on the back I had leftjust before I saw Sandy and Robert, and I will and I stopped him and said, "Would you turn this ride back to theJianguo Hotel and I will file a different around and take me to the Jianguo Hotel?" He said "I story. don't carry people." And I said, "Here is 100 yran, take me up there." o I got off the bridge. I noticed as I was leaving So I was lying on the back of his little trishaw feeling the bridge, still on the outside of the Forbidden very bad and he turned around at one point and said "What's the matter with you?" I said that I had just been City, that a squad, or maþe an enlarged squad, armed police had appeared from inside of the in the square and that I was beaten up and they have Forbidden City. They were on the next bridge and were killed a lot of people. Arrd he said "Who has killed a (a) man on that beating up young bridge. And when lot of people?" You see he had come in from a village they had beaten him to the bridge floor, they then shot and did not know what was happening. And then a (him) on the ground with tlieir ¡iistols. So this was very very beautiful young woman with long pigtails with alarming. I thought, I have to trot by these guys and I've little red bands on the end came by very elegantly on got to get off this bridge, get ihto the city and get on my her bicycle, actually holding her skirt down with one bike. So I try to lay this kind of stupid amiable smile on hand and riding with the other. As she came by she my face. As they noticed me and came towards me, I said, "Were you in the square?" and I said "yes." She said "Did you see it?" and I said 'Yes, I saw it a11." And she put my hands up and I said, in Chinese, "I am a foreign journalist, don't beat me." And they said, "you mxxxxxwent like this at me. (I) went back to the hotel, had a shower, polished fkx*x)r<* journalist" and rammed me up against the wall of the bridge. (They) proceeded to beat me very hard. my shoes don't ask me why- got another bicycle - bicycle had vanished the night before. I They knocked out two of my teeth and broke my arm, because my so that it's still too short. cycled back down. It was 10:15 in front of the Peking I thought in a minute I am going to go down and Hotel on Sunday morning and there were many family they are seeing
he said
THE CORRESPONDENT.JUNE/.JULY 1999
13
members of people who had been in the square and they were running around near the square, but also ir-l front of the hotel...They were trying to get into the square to see where their young family members were and there was a line of tanks in between them and the
square, facing Hotel.
up the avenue
He said, "There, that's tidier. They'll like that better upstairs."
Jim Laurie
ABC
Nt.t
towards the Jianguo
lä,ï.*,;;'jä:
shot down the doctors and nurses. So that was enough for me, I crawled away, left another bicycle and made my way back and eventually came back to London. Two or three weeks later my managing editor said to me "I have been looking at
your expenses, you did wonderful work in Peking. I just have one (question) - this is after I? years on the paper, the first time I had been queried about expenses. He said I had two bicycles... (in)... one night. "That's an awful lot of bicycles .fonathan." So I explained tl:rat a bicycle was not expensive although they were rented, (that) I had to leave my passport. I lost the first bicycle and then the second bicycle. (I
explained) what had happened then. When I explained that I had crawled away from in front of the Peking Hotel leaving my bicycle behind he said "you didn't feel you could go back and get it?" I said, "No Bill, I really didn't." e said, "Two bicycles, two bicycles..." and then... "when did all this happen?" We were looking at
the expense sheet which had times and dates. He said, "This hrst bicycle was really the night of third and the second bicycle was the morning of the fourth. Right?" He was a very tidy man. IIe took a little ruler out. He had a stylograph pen and he drew a little arrow to show that the bicycles weren't on the same day. 14
it?" He was a mere rubber product plant worker in Dalian, just the kind of person that the government in
life.
Beljing might have feared most
-
a worker.
to devote my entire few minutes to both Jonathan and Sandy have mentioned that
was at
screeri saying "Wanted: this man, rumour-monger and
the hospitals that but I wanted to focus on something night and I v¡¿s a little bit different to start with. Slightly different tack, possibly a controversial one... (an)... emotional one. and the You've heard a lot of emotion here emotional impact of China in 1989 on this reporter was greater, I think for all of us, almost than any other story. In my career (Tiananmen was) greater than anything except perhaps for the coverage of the fall of sorry, the rise of the the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia Khmer Rouge in Cambodia or the communist takeover of Vietnam in 1975. I often wonder if we still see, as journalists, China through these emotional blinders. I am not saying this is necessarily bad. I am simply suggesting that we should recognise up front that at least my view of China today is still clouded by some very human emotions. For me it's a bit like when I drive in Vietnam today... I still cringe, expecting to be under a sudden Vietcong ambush.
counterrevolutionar¡ turn him in to your local Public Security Bureau." The video had been intercepted by the Chinese government, (the) downlink of a satellite we could not transmission out of Hong Kong transmit from Beijing at the time. My friend, Jasper Becke¡ has done a very nice article in this morning's paper (South China Morning Posf) , but he writes "shooting down live on television". No! There was no live television from Beijing. There was live radio with some still pictures. Everything was done-live on the telephone because satellite transmissions had been interrupted at the time. a few days later he was turned Back to Xiao Bin It hit me hard. Xiao Bin I in, convicted, sentenced. felt was my responsibility. I could do nothing about what was happening generally in Beijing at that time, but journalists are supposed to protect those they interview in some way. I had failed to protect Xiao Bin. Ten years later, toda¡ he struggles to support his in any country I famil¡ he has no job prospects don't suppose you can get much-of a job if you're a convict. IIe's unemployable, he's still watched. He lives in Dalian with his wife and son (and) turned 53
three or five or whatever and then you have to go away."
this all after, jumped out of the ambulance happened in a trice and they came in -amongst all - lying down and the army shot these people who were them down. Yes, right in front of the Peking Hotel they
last February. His son recently graduated from school. His wife has a job but he is, of course, one of those
wenty four hours later Xiao Bin made his we were not appearance on ABC in America broadcast in Asia, I hasten to add. But he also made his appearance on China Central Television. lle was seen by 200 million viewers in China with a blue Chinese characters scrolled across the
to depart from what I had originally wanted
ut from between the tanks ran a lot of PI-A rrren and all these parents and others were screaming at the PI-A men that they were murderers and to let them into the square. An officer came out with a loud hailer and said, "I am going to count to They didn't even... I think they didn't even hear this. He counted to three or five and then the soldiers frred into the air and everybody dropped flat, including me. And then they got up and I, the foreigner lying in the dog shit at the edge of the road in the grass outside the hotel, yelled at them. Of course they couldn't hear me and I loòked like a beat up drunk foreigner anyway. I was screaming at them "these people are using real bullets" which they then used on this crowd. They shot a lot of people down. Down the avenue, and you will hear about hospitals in a second, came an ambulance from my father's old hospital. Doctors and nurses, with their smocks covered with blood from the patients they had been looking
flailing, he was more emotional than any Chinese I had seen that night. Emotion. The camera rolled. "The bastards killed thousands," he cried, "tanks ran over people crushing them, tens of thousands... did you see
I
o China is a very emotional subject and I'd like to explore four things that reporters went under at that time; emotion, fatigue, guilt and responsibility. I picked up the paper today and (a) South this is what prompted a change in my talk (headline) "TV Figure Scared to China Morning Post Discuss Killings". It cites ABC and a man named Mr. Xiao. I was the reporter who interviewed Mr. Xiao. And I would like to tell you first his stor¡ and then I will go back to the hospital scene. I know that CNN and a lot of others who talk about China like to proclaim Tiananmen as one of the most defining moments of their broadcast history. I sort of look at Tiananmen as a very mixed picture, because I think we made some terrible mistakes, and one mistake I made was in the interview of an angry man named Xiao Bin. He was a
Back to the hospitals. I had arrived in Beijing on the 1Oth of May from Moscow, having lived in Beijing in the early Eighties. The last story I had covered in China was the Shanghai Student Movement of 1986-1987 and my first instinct when we got the word that the 38th At-y, as I recall, was moving from the west was to head for the
hospitals in the Muxidi area of town, because that's where I had heard everything was happening. I figured
the hospitals were the best place to try to get a what was happening, the handle on the numbers se f6¡¡¡ of us went out. I had a new dimensions
cameraman who hâdjust arrived from Los Angeles and I had a wonderful interprete¡ a 6'4" tall Chinese fellow from Beida (Beijing University) named Wei Jun, who now happilyworks for CNN. And there's mywife whose
one great frustration iri lifè was that during Vietnam she was too young to be a pl-lotographer during the Tet offensive, so she was out there for the first time under fire. went first to a small clinic. If you were to go to where the old Chinese radio station is, the old wedding cake Russian style building, just e
off there was a clinic which was totally overwhelmed with wounded coming in on bicycle, on cart. It was amazing because as the troops were coming down and we're talking 11 o'clock to midnight now they were fìring in all different directions. It (the -gunfire) was not specifrcally aimed and as a result people on balconies overlooking the avenue were shot, just for being bystanders. We crouched down under cars and the bullets whízzed over our heads just near this clinic.
Hong Kong Baptist University (in 1989 he
was with ABC News); Yau
Shing-mu,
assistant news controller, Hong Kong Economic llmes (then, deputy China
lactory worker from Dalian. He was a man who, jail and whose life toda¡ ten years later, remains in ruins. His crime was he talked to me on television. He was one of dozens of people the day after the massacre that my colleague EliseJoyce and I talked to in a crowd just off Dongdan.
-
events ten years ago, including, in a small wa¡ my own
Freedom Forum'Covering Tiananmen' was the subject of another discussion about the events of 1 989 lL-Æ) Arnold Zeitlin, director of the Freedom Forum's Asia Center, Todd Carrel, a Knight lnternational Press Fellow teaching at
editor of Ihe Hong Kong Standarcl\¡ Philip Cunningham, author of a new book on the subject, Beaching for the Sky (Then an interpreter for the BBC); and Lucy
because of me, ended up in
He stood out
thousands of people whose lives were altered by the
Chan Wai-yee, political edilor, Apple Daily (Ihen a reporter for TVB)
he was taller than the rest, his arms we re THE CORRT,SPONDENT JUNE/JULY 1999
THE CORRESPONDENT JUNE/JULY 1 999
15
ut the mosl devastating scenes I saw were at the children's hospital, a short distance away. A most amazing scene for me and another image of that night was, as we- approached, there was tremendous applause. There were thousands of people (who) started applauding outside the hospital. I looked around and I said "\Arho are they applauding?" They were applauding us! They were saying, 'You're here, tell the story, get the story out. Come here..." They wanted to show us what was going on in the hospital. I often wondered after that, if we in the media, you
know, keep these things going perhaps longer than they might otherwise. I mean "do we give people false hopes" is a question that I always raise in these situations. Nevertheless, the scene was totally chaotic inside the children's hospital. I was unable to get to the morgue. I was told that there were hundreds of bodies and by this time we're talking well after midnight -in the morgue. Many friends of mine have interviewed (philosophy) Professor Ding Zilin (Beijing's People's University) - well, her son (fiang Jelian) had been taken to this hospital. He had been killed along the
road. Of course I didn't know that at that time, but there was this mixture of chaos the hospital authorities began to change around one or two in the morning and they started to try to kick us out. We were armed with little walkie-talkies and were trying to broadcast reports back to the States. At one point we got a report from the Chinese Red Cross and I broadcast that night quoting "that 2,600 people had been killed". The next day that report was withdrawn by the Chinese Red Cross. Sandy was telling me earlier that her editors
in New York were quoting my report and asking if she could confirm the figure and I hasten to add that I was - Red Cross. From my personal quoting the Chinese observation in the hospitals, I could not count more than 30 or so people, that I could see with my own eyes, that were dead. I don't know.. I don't think that we know for sure, any of us, what the true figures are. All I can say is that for all of us, it was the emotional night as a reporter. And as we look back upon it, all I can say is that we hope eventually that we will learn the truth about all of these things. Thank you.
Edward Gargan
(Nru
York Times):
l-tim**
veniently forgotten,
that some of
wrrst...
I wan I if I I .rro, I.r"fru,
bit different as talked in terms about rather than
perhaps recapitulate my own, what I saw, supplementing what Sandy saw, andJonathan andJim, maĂže I could talk a little bit about what does Tiananmen mean, and
what has happened since Tiananmen, and
why
Tiananmen is important. I go to China quite a bit and I don't have minders when I go. I just go out and talk to people. It seems to I'm sure many of you go to China as well me that and I am-sure much of what I have to say is a bit repetitive or a bit obvious. To me one of the things which is abundantly clear is, in the ten years since the massacre and I think the important thing is to use the word -massacre which T\{B does not use to its great shame. In myjudgement, since the massacre the communist party has lost an immense amount of its power and you can see this ever;rvhere in China; in every city, in every town to whom ever you talk to. It continues to lose its power and it continues to lose its authority and power over people's lives and their thoughts, and one of the obvious reasons that this has happened, in addition to Tiananmen I think, is that the economy has changed in the most dramatic ways imaginable. People have freedom to work where they want, to Iive where they want, to travel where they want. You get in a cab you can talk about any subject. The most in Beijing these days are cab drivers. If political people you talk to a cab driver in Beijing, I've yet to hear one of them say the government is worth anything. From Li they think they are all Peng on down. Jiang Zemin corrupt; they think they are-useless; and the sooner they are gone the better. And they say this quite openly without any fear of retribution. The problem is not getting cab drivers to talk about what they think of the leadership, it's getting them to shut up. Having heard this many times, I often struggle to do that. I think that there is also and I think it is surpris- go to China so frequenting to some people who don't ly lhere is an enormously wide exchange of views - in universities (and) to some extent publications. both I think that the climate has changed dramatically and this is one of the consequences of Tiananmen, either
intended or not.
the
events she described
around Tiananmen Gate involving me, are not qulte accurate. She and Robert (Delfs) had made an
16
ironclad promise to meet me under the portrait of Mao when the shooting started and. when I arrived under the portrait of Mao, she was gone. And so I felt terribly abandoned I must say, (a) public slap on the
Jung, who spent years and years and years in prison,
is
the President of Korea. Taiwan, which was still struggling with the issue of whether to become a democracy or not, is a full democracy. Everyone is elected in Taiwan. The Philippines is now a completely they've democratic country with a strong democracy elected a guy that some people think perhaps should not have been elected, not the least because he's a
terrible actor, but of course the United States had a terrible actor as a President so why should the Philippines be barred from that privilege. who would have ou look at Indonesia today - have been topimagined that Suharto would pled by student protests? Who could have imagined that? I remember, we talking we r e l.t ' about this before. tlft. ' Some of you may ÂĄO work for the big investment banks here _ I remember in }./.ay 1997,
just before
should remember what has happened in Asia in the last ten years. Democracy has flourished here. Kim Dae rHE CORRESPONDENT JUNE4ULY
I
999
in fact cable television and- the his great chagrin internet are opening up China and are ultimately going to destroy authoritarianism, because much of what the people in China know today, they know from television. hey know now in a small way from the Internet, because not that much of a percentage of the population is connected to the Internet. But
information and knowledge is spreading in o
..
.t '.
'-t
ll
a. t
a a
e"
the
China despite the efforts of the
tnongnanhai clique to control the information the people
have
to. I think that we all know that if we go to
access
we
read the newspapers, that the newspapers are controlled and conformist, but tkrat that can't happen forever... For some reason we all know that
financial collapse,
Morgan Stanley put out awonder-
ful report that said Indonesia: Now More Than Ever. True in a way, yes. Tiananmen Remembered in Hong Kong Authoritarian rule has largely collapsed in Asia and democracy has become firmly embedded. I think that is an enormously important phenomenon in Asia and I think Tiananmen in some ways led to that because people are notwilling to go out and shoot people in the streets. Perhaps even more dramaticallÂĄ look at the world around. Look at what happened to communism in Eastern Europe, in the Soviet lJnion, in (the former) Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria. Remember in East Germany the wall coming down? I mean the most remarkable transformations in ttiese societies, without violence, except in Rumania of course, where (they) tried to prevent the overthrow of Ceausescu. In South Africa Nelson Mandela was elected and today Thabo Mbeki was elected as the second President of South
hese are great changes that have occurred and
I i $ I $ 5
China and
Handover and just before the
Africa.
ut I think that there are other consequences of Tiananmen, things that have occurred in the wake of Tiananmen that are equally important both in Asia and the rest of the world. One
are very much out of step with what is going on in the world. Nevertheless, it seems to me that in China there is a tremendous amount that has to be done. If I can quoteJim Laurie's new boss, or at least paraphrase him, to in a famous comment that Rupert Murdoch said
it
CNN needs maintenance in Beijing today and for the next week or so. I didn't realise that cable television coming down from satellite needed maintenance in June, but I'm not in television so perhaps Jim can explain that... But to me this reflects avery interesting thing, it reflects the fundamental weakness in the communist party in Beljing. They feel that they have to control the flow of perhaps no greater indication of the information
weakness and insecurity of the communist party are the
six policemen who are standing outside the apartment of Ding Zilin today, the woman and her husband whose ... (son)... $iangJielian)... Jim referred to was killed
during the massacre in Tiananmen. These are old retired professors and they have six policemen guarding them. So I think that while these are terrible things for them to be guarded, I think that ultimately it reflects the insecurity and ultimate fragility of the communlst party.
seems to me that in the wake of Tiananmen,
In the long run I think that the legacy at Tiananmen
democracy has become embedded frrmly in the world and in Asia. Demonstrating it seems to me, that that political leaders who live in Zhongnanhai
will be a more democratic China and a less corrupt China and a place where people will actually want to
THE CORRESPONDENT JUNE/JULY 1 999
live. Thank you.
I
I7
o
Sheridan
l
o
o
-l Þ
= Þ' 3
Plalwright. Composer. Actor. Theatre critic. Raconteur. Steue Vines reports heridan Morley's grandmother was Gladys Coope¡ the well known British actress. She had fixed views about certain things, for example she was convinced that General Motors had served with great distinction in Britain during World War IL Sheridan Morley's father was the portly and much loved character actor Robert Morley who took pleasure in winding up the writer Graham Greene about his new
found Catholic faith. His particular delight came from inventing a story of an audience with Pope Pious XII, "a tiny fascist in white". Mr Greene was, well, green with
material' Much of it -^.^r':-^' -¡ith some very amusing . , Noel \r^ ^l Coward, r'^,^,. -.1 -^'h whose ^.ster', d this Year. Mr MorleY not biograPh¡ but is resPonsiecß the writer's legacY and m his works' oes not Pretend that Noel
Cowardwasagreatwriter,buthewasasuperbcraftswring every.drop oFemolion out man who knew how to everv laugh out of a ptav and deliver
;;i';;;;'
.";rv
able one-liners. Sheridan ines with relish. The one I t Noel Coward Passing bY a
envy.
rding
All this is by way of explaining that Sheridan Morley
The Sea Shall Not Have up and said, "I don't know
seems to have the raconteur's blood pulsating through
his veins. By the time he reached the FCC, his second visit after a gap of over a decade, he was in full flight. The whiff of a slightly bygone London theatrical world envelopes his large form. He tells outrageous stories, some of which may actually be true, with the air of someone who is recalling them for the first time. But, of course, he is not. It is Mr Morley's talent to make it appear so. Yet he is in effect delivering a rather polished and well rehearsed act. An act ? But this Mr Morley is supposed to be a theatre critic not a bleeding performer. Ah yes, but performance is in the veins and cannot be suppressed by
vulgar division
of labour considerations.
reading: "Michael
Sheridan
Morley is indeed a critic, but he is aìso a playwright, a prolific writer of biographies ("about 30, I think") and,
under the auspices of the International Herald Täbune, for whom he pens his theatrical columns, he has what may be described as a travelling one-man show "I got fed up with all the cliches about being someone who knows the way but can't drive the car," he said. In other words he was not satisfied with merely commenting on the work of others, but wanted to be part of the action. "I think critics ought to stand up and be counted." So Sheridan Morley stands up and counts like mad. He is a naturally amusing man and fortunately is 18
;;;;;;
at the ase
*ït1999 THE CORRISPONDENT JUNIì,{ULY
Ufhy Washinston Thinks Democnacy ls Bad Fon Ghina One of Arnerica's leading China experts, Professor Arthur Waldron, Lander Professor of International Relations at the University of Pennsylvania and Director of Asian Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, tries to make sense of Sino-US relations. Hans Vriens reports hy does the political establishment in Washington think democracy is good for the rest of the world, but not for China? \44ry does Clinton in his speeches regularly mention
the word "democracy" for Europe, but for China uses the words "opening up"? Why does the Clinton
administration think a change of regime wouldn't change China's foreign policy? Professor Waldron started with a confession. Ten years ago, during the largest human-rights demonstrations in histor¡ he came to the same conclusion as the Washington establishment. "When asked by WalI Street Journal (and Asian VVS/ veteran Claudia Rosett, who called me from Beijing for a comment on the demonstrations outside her hotel 'Should they call elections?' she asked. I replied: 'Oh no, absolutely not, that would be deeply destabilising; reform has to be gradual. China isn't ready for elections. Elections would be big mistake.' "As these words came out of my mouth, I was astonished. Was that really what I thought? I think of myself as a supporter of democracy and human rights and here I was opposing them for China. This was a rather uncomfortable moment of selÊrevelation." Since then Waldron has-chariged his mind. But Washington hasn't. "\A/hy does the Clinton administration think talking about democracy in China is a big mistake? Because they are of the opinion that Beijing has more or less got it right. They don't believe dissidents and democracy are good for China," he stated. Washington denies there is a re,lation between democracy and international behaviour. This is strange. In other countries, changes of regime have made a big impact on foreign policy. Take for example Germany, its foreign policy has varied strongly as the resime changed from Imperial to Weimar to Nazi and THE CORRESPONDENT JUNE,{ULY 1999
finally to the FederSl .Republic. The same is tnre for Japan. for Russia and Italy. Indeed most would accept that its make's a big difference which party is in power even within a single regime. "Flowever for China that view represents a distinct minority. The Washington establishment is of the view that China is at root nationalistic and always will be, and that therefore any regime will pursue a nationalistic foreign policy." In other words, whatever sort of China you have -its communist, fascist, liberal, democratic, federal foreign policy will always be the same. "That means specifically that zny Chinese government will insist on controlling Tibet, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia and other areas; that any government will take a hard line on the South China Sea,Japan, Taiwan and so forth. That any government will be nationalistic and spend money on the military," he noted. "A second ¡,iew is that democracy will make China even more nationalistic. In Singapore I was treated to a terriSring scenario of demagogues stirring up the Chinese masses with cries to liberate Taiwan and generally embarking on wild aggression. This was clinched with assertions that democracy in Germany had pro-
duced Hitler. This tlpical Singapore point of view is wrong. Hitler never came to power through elections," he revealed.Waldron pointed out that India culturally
such a more confidant country than China. "Is it because India is a democrac¡ has a free press an independentjudiciary and allows dissidents to speak out?" The future? "The WTO and the forces of globalisa-
tion will change China. Perhaps, one day Chinese leaders no longer will be able to afford to travel abroad constantþ to look for support. Instead they might have to travel more to the provinces to give support to local politicians who are fighting to win an election," Waldron predicted.
I
19
LuNcrruNES
Æhe
Yash Ghai, one of Hong Kong's leading constitutional law experts and the Sir Y. K. Pao Professor of Public Law at the lJniversity of Hong Kong, spoke recently to the Club on the constitutional challenges of 'One Country -Two Systems'. Francis Moriarty looks at the Right or
yåi'#J".:ïI;".,¡;'
rofessor Yash Ghai told his FCC audience rhat Hong Kong was undergoing a major change in its political and legal structures. His talk followed
the decision by the HKSAR government to seek a determination from the Standing Committee of the National Peoples Congress (NPCSC) as to rhe correcr interpretation of the Basic Law provisions governing right of abode. By way of background, the highly controversial move by the administration followed a landmark decision by the Court of Final Appeal (CFA), in its first m4jor constitutional case, granting residency rishts to what the government claims to be as many as 1.67 million people. The government holds that the CPA erred by granting the right of abode to more people than was ever envisioned by either the signers of theJoint Declaration, the drafters of the Basic Law or the pre-Handover Preparatory
correction, a kind of constitutional mea cuþa that would admit 'misjudgement' and obviate any need for involving Beijing. While the CFA stopped shorr of making a correction, it did issue a second judgement, reasserting its original finding, but stating more
explicitly its general obligation to apply any interpretations of the Basic Law when reaching judgements on constitutional
7-f I +
he government did not spell out exactly what it wanted clarifìed, referring only [o certain pages in the original decision and leaving the court to o é
T l
ã 3
asserts
that
the
NPC's power of ultimate interpretation of the Basic Law that document, and its decision to go to the NPCSC is thus legal,
is clearly spelled out in
constitutional and essential
if Hong Kong is not to be overrun with more people.
ln court One of the Right of Abode hearings
-f n reaching its ruling, argues the government, the l: Co.ttt misunderstood the intent of the abode I_ provisions, failed to request an NPC interpretation (something for which the Basic Law provides), substituted its own errant interpretation and exceeded jurisdiction. It was in part to obtain an explanation of the CFA s view of its own jurisdiction relative to the NPC in interpreting the Basic Law that the government made its unprecedented request for the CFA to 'clarify' its decision. This was seen by a some observers as the government's bid to have the CFA perform a selfits
assess
what the problem might
be. But offrcials have said that
in the Basic Law is the Mainland's, and here Prof. Ghai sharply diverges from the HKSAR view. "The Mainland is not a civil law system but a MarxistLeninist one, and the concepts are different." Under the Marxist-Leninist model, the law is flexible, an instrument of government that "represents the current fad in Beljing." Prof. Ghai noted that the NPC had already made three previous rulings regarding Hong Kong (including nationality) and they had all suited the authorities for whom they were made. owever the second model incorporated
"This is rule åy law," he emphasised, "not rule gflaw". And this is the paradigm shift Hong Kong has moved lry law... I can't emphasise enough the difference between the two systems."
from rule of law to rule
He said cases involving the New China News Agency (Xinhua) and the interpretation of laws, as well as asking the CFA for a clarification, were all breaches of the rule of law, but the government had defended them through the rule of law and the common law framework. But now the justification was being done in terms of the Mainland system and
not the common law system. The inherent contradiction between these two models could be found in
Article 158 (Interpretation and Amendment of the Basic Law), which spells out the powers of interpretation vested in the NPC and the Hong Kong courts. "There is a confusion between the rule of law and the rule by law," he noted, "but a government concerned with the rule of law would not have chosen the option it did." rof. Ghai accused the government of giving the CFA a "slap in the face" Ity saying it was wrong, when it could have said the court was right but the matter now required corrective action. Instead, officials had "created this panic, throwing figures at us... figures," he adeled, that were never given to the CFA, which when it asked about the number of people involved was told "some 60,000". He said it was "silly and deceitful" to ask the NPC to overrule the CFA, addirig that asking for he NPC's interpretation to be'made retroactive to July 1, 1997 "would open the possibility for enormous confusion in interpretation of the law." Prof. Ghai said the affair might lead to reSìgnations by judges who "could be reluctant {o be part of the charade, or they may feel that they must do what they can despite difficult
þ f +.
circumstances."
I
if
the result is in line with the government's expectations, then the number of so-called 'first generation' arrivals would be slashed to 200,000. Enter Prof. Ghai, who began his sometimes impassioned speech by saying that
EXPATRIATE MORTGAGES
the Mainland simply has a different view of the nature and purpose of law, and he had syrnpatþ for Hong Kong
Committee.
It further
issues.
bureaucrats govern and lawyers advise clients. In short, there is the rule of law But he cautioned that "the rule of law is very hard to define it's a spirit that animates those who work in the system... and this spirit pervades most of the Basic Law."
offrcials "though they - better thancould have done they have". But, he proposed, "by referring questions decided by the CFA for reinterpretation by the NPCSC, we have a paradigm shift in the nature of
law and politics in Hong Kong."
ne problem is that the Basic Law contains two "the way we know" legal ìnodels, one - of the law, very clear includes supremacy procedures for interpretation, judicial autonomy, equality before the law and the relation of the government to the governed. Very importantly, said Prof. Ghai, the law is predictable: The legislature makes laws, courts apply them, and these decisions form the basis upon which THE CORRESPONDENT JUNE4ULY Ì999
THE CORRESPO
N
DENT
JUNE4ULY
l
999
21
Ghine$e_Autlor WLn The lsn Gri¡ñ-'To -Fi'izn Fol' [i GF ]uFe ¡[li-b of contemporary for
most translators , orlr- \-,r Lrrv Chinese at the lJniversity , i, u professor of Colorad o at Boulder. Hans Vriens reports hinese authors don't understand why the whole
"
world is winning literary prizes except ll:t After listening to f.ot .roi Howu.d Goldblatt's luncheon speech, it is apparent whY this provocative statement is true. "There are many reasons for this misunderstanding. Chinese authors
don't know what is happening outside China. Very few of them can read a foreign language. As a result
of their inability to read world literature in the original, theY depend on Chinese translations. Unfortunately Chinese translators are poorly paid, not well read and not terribly concerned with language and style, story and structure,"
ã.cãrding to Profi Goldblatt, ¡¡'ho has proulflr translated more Chinese literature into the English language than anybody else. "If translations are what Chinese writers are basing
their understanding and appreciation of the world
literature upon, no wonder'ti.ey can't figure out why everybody Èut them gets international notice"' he noted.
There is more: "I don't think Chinese writers read each other critically either. And their editors don't help
a bit. Then, of course, to top it off, their novels don't sell, so they have to go elsewhere to find a livelihood TV, the movies, whatever. For a select few, publication in the West offers a way out. But to achieve that' what to write and how to write it?"
utting aside most of these writers' monolingual restrictions and the other outside forces workI ing on them, there are several reasons to be it' concerned about what they write and how thel'write "4" -y Chinese friends and students never tire of their views - too have a Particular their own litetatY images' allusions' are' And thel' they etc. could and should be better than
tend to be sloppy, prolix and rough around the edges'
22
of
As for sloppiness, editors might normally help out here; but the writers themselves ought to be careful about pencils becoming fountain pens on the same page, characters changing names,
Uiewed Fnom Ahnoad Two organisations, the Committee to ProtectJournalists and Reporters Sans Frontières, recently reviewed the state of the post-Handover Fourth Estate in Hons Kong n uneasy status he return of Hong quo prevailed Kong to China on during the first full
dates wrong, and all the rest. Verbosity, of course, is a curse that may be linked to the length of classical novels, to the payment
Hong Kong journalists are finding a relative lack of openness in the administration of Tung Chee-hwa,
schedule, or simply to the belief that more is more," he explained. "The cynicism I am detecting (even) filtered through my own
the chief executive, but they still enjoy one of the freest
cynical views of contemporary
more and writing from the PRC more has less to do with society, the social costs of consumer capitalism, than the fact that writers eet paid (the average print run of a novel is China in very little with writing itself...The standards of than copies¡ 4,0ô0 I am afraid, are plummeting reading, and both writing PRC' in the "It is the almost cynical attitude toward their own craft. They ramble. Their knowledge of the Chinese language and Chinese history is often poor. Chinese authors hat'e no good understanding of their own literary tradition. Writing novels is a way to get somewhere else and make money b¡ for example, writing scripts for sit-coms," he said'
s what I have been talking about the imposition of standards of writing? non-Chinese Western - elitism?" Goldblatt queried rhetoricalEurocentric more he does than anyone else in that out ly, pointing (Chinese) world to make that the Englistr-speaking "That is certainly anyone what who writing available. is usually accused But maybe views of. such espouses th".. ur. some standards and literarl' views - dealing not with style but with dedication to style; stressing accúracy, consistenc¡ homework; clarity; character, image, pace, etc. - that are more or less universal. notjust Westerners, butJapanese, "rCthers writers
-
Indonesians, Vietnamese, Africans
simply do better."
Professor Goldblatt's most recent collection of
Chinese literature is callecl Mao Wou,kJ Not
he
Am"tsed.l
THE CORRESPONDENT'JUNE/ JULY 1999
July 1,1997 does not
year of Chinese sovereignty after the Handover of the former colony by Britain in 1997.
presses in Asia.
ln the grips of its worst economic downturn in a generation and with China cracking down on free expression in the mainland, Hong Kong remains both the international centre for independent Chineselanguage journalism and the headquarters for most of the regional media.
Fear of political pressure and signs
of
an
appear to have been
I lr s
I
I
I
l
0 ]r T r rR
too prejudicial for the state of press freedom. Subjects that
are banned in the
Chinese
s i: ff
,?:il",'"x r' ;i' :.ï:i. l: with Taiwan, autonomy for Tibet and'lack of respect for human rights in the People's Republic although it is difficult to assess s
f
R
E
how much selÊcensorship goes on. The Hong Kong press is varied and displays a wide range of political views.
Nonetheless, journalists in the... (HKSAR)... who are anxious to preser\¡e the freedom their Chinese counterparts do not always enjo¡ did notice some causes for concern during 1998. In February, the
Hong KongJournalists' Association published a survey
showing that 69% of members thought the
uncharacteristic reticence to ruffle feathers continue to
government had been "less open" since the Handover.
sudace, however. ln July, 1998 television repofter Christopher Leung angrily denounced the failure of China Television Network (CTN) to air a documentary he had produced on ethnic unrest in the Western province of Xinjiang. The documentary, Crying Wolf, offered a rare glimpse into a little-known Muslim separatist movement in one of China's most remote and forbidden areas. Leung said the piece was killed
The HKJA also complained about the difficulty
because CTN, a satellite network owned by Taiwanese
and broadcast in Mandarin to Chinese audiences worldwide, caved in to politìcal pressure from Beijing, a charge the network dònied. As a result of the controversy, Leung quit his job and returned to the United States, his adopted home.
ocal reporters and editors say that selfcensorship of issues that might be sensitive to Beijing remain a problem,'as it has been for
several years, even before the Handover. Other concerns are on the horizon. A provision in Hong
Kong's Basic Law, which governs the territory as a ...(HKSAR)... mandates the eventual drafting of a law THE CORRESPONDEN'I"JUNE/JULY
I999
journalists sometimes experienced in obtaining public documents. ...Foreign media are allowed to work freely in Hong Ko.ng and residents have access to all the television channels available by satellite.
attacked Journalists Two strangers stabbed Albert Cheng, presenter of the program
Teacuþ
in a
Storm (The
Corresþondent
September 1998) on Radio Commercial, as he turned up at work on August 19, 1998. He suffered serious leg, arm and back injuries and had to have several hours of surgery. A few days later, Albert Cheng said he was sure the attack was connected with his work as a.journalist, in the course of which he often criticised the government and organised crime.
threatened Journalists A reporter with the privately owned Hong Kong television channel TVB was upbraided by the first secretary of the Chinese embassy in Paris, Su Xu, on 6 April. The.journalist, in France to cover an official visit
2t
punishing sedition. Journalists and civil libedarians worry that the definition of sedition could make it a crime to publish material related to independence for Tibet or Taiwan - topics that are extremely sensitive to Beijing. Others complain that the government is less accessible than it was during the last years of British rule.
I
by Chinese prime minister Zhu Rongji, had askecl the prime minister what he thought about a demonstration organised by Reporters Sans Frontières calling for- the release of Chinese journalist Gao Yu. Su Xu threatetìed to stop all government cooperation with the TV chan_ nel if the reporter continued to ask such questions.
Pressure a-nd obstruction
Committee to Protect Journalists 330 Seventh Avenue New York, NrY 10001 USA Tel: (212) 465-1004 Fax: (212) 465-9568 E-mail: info@cpj.org Website: httpz / / www..pj. otg
Reporters Sa¡rs Frontières 5, rue Geoffroy Marie 75009 Paris, France ^Ielz 33-l-44-83-84-84 Fax: 33- I -45 -23-ll-51 E-mail: asie@rsf.fr Website: http: //www.rsf. fr
Xu Simin, Hong Kong representative of the Cìrinese People's Political Consultative Council, hit out at state rarlio and television (RTHK) on March 3, lggg,
claiming that "under cover of editorial indepencle nce,', its journalists "systematically criticised Beijing and Hong Kong policies." It was learned... that the pr-ivately owned television channel CTN had decided to drop a documentary about the Uigur indepenclence movement in Xinjiang province, northwester-n China. The channel's management denied the report, saying the documentary was not yet finished and rvr¡uld be broadcast at a later date. Even so, the producer and several journalists resigned from CTN in protest at what they regarded as selÊcensorship.
Opening a steei' tning to do in C
Xiglgg ìf you are Dave Garcia (teft) of Ltd. who's Manaçjing H,r,9lç9re.,Asia of thís enterprise in Nanjing. (Z-,9j :'j9^9t"r uano Chan, Hubert vail Ës'anó Sqf.crq
I
Press Conference
lnternational Advertising Association The lAA, a group of
The Asian Human Rights Commission discussed the situation in Malaysia and Singapore (L-R)fian Chua, Vice
marketing professionals, meets regularly in Bert's.
President, Malaysia's National Justice Party (recently freed
on bail and facing charges of illegal assembly and polìce obstruction) and James Gomez, a senior researcher with Friedrlch Naumann Foundation (Singapore),
FCC PRTVATE ROOMS The FCC offers members the use of two large inter-connected rooms' the Albert and Hughes Rooms, for private functions, meetings and seminars. The Main Dining Room and the Verandah areas can also be used by members for large parties, business conferences and wedding receptions. For booking contact Don on tel252l 24
l5l1 or fax
fiddle and vocal), Patrick Macoun (guitar and
2868 4092
THE CORRESPONDENT.ILTNI'1,/
Mind Your Head Debuts in Bert's with Robin Lynarr on guitar, Karin Malmström (electric vocal) and Colin Tillyer (drums).
f
u LY 1999
THE coRRtsr,oNDENT
JUNEduLy
1
999
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27
FCC Facns
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A monthly portrait of
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Doug Moeller Member since: Age: Profession:
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Photographed by: David Garcia 28
THE CORRESPONDENT JUNE/{ULY 1999
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