CORRESPONDENT MARCH / APRIL 2007
THE OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE FOREIGN CORRESPONDENTS’ CLUB, HONG KONG
THE
Behind the Bamboo Curtain
>> THE 11TH HUMAN RIGHTS PRESS AWARDS
THE
CORRESPONDENT
contents
PHOTOGRAPH: KEES METSELAR
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Cover Story Behind the bamboo curtain: dateline China in the 1950s
Travel
Peter Arnett on war and spin Human Rights
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20
Fading Hong Kong
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NoHo before the wreckers’ ball swings Watering Hole
Hitch-hiking through Guangdong Books
The 11th annual awards notch up a record entry East Timor
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The Rugby Sevens
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Media
Then & Now
34
Rick’s Cafe, Casablanca
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China Now: Hu Jintao. China Then: Nixon and Mao
Out of Context
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The FCC Staff
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In Living Memory of the Balibo Five Letters From the President COVER : DAVID CHIPP FILING FROM HIS CHILLY 1950s PEKING HOTEL ROOM CUM OFFICE
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Around the FCC Professional Contacts
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Letters
From Jeff Heselwood, Hong Kong
THE FOREIGN CORRESPONDENTS’ CLUB, HONG KONG 2 Lower Albert Road, Central, Hong Kong Tel: (852) 2521 1511 Fax: (852) 2868 4092 E-mail: <fcc@fcchk.org> Website: <www.fcchk.org> President: Chris Slaughter First Vice President: Keith Bradsher Second Vice President: Kevin Egan Correspondent Member Governors Paul Bayfield, Jim Laurie, Kate Pound Dawson, Matthew Driskill, Ilaria Maria Sala, Luke Hunt, Jeff Timmermans, Ernst Herb Journalist Member Governors Francis Moriarty, Jake van der Kamp Associate Member Governors Andy Chworowsky, Rob Stewart, David Garcia, Steve Ushiyama Hon Treasurer Steve Ushiyama Finance Committee Convener: Steve Ushiyama Professional Committee Convener: Keith Bradsher House/Food and Beverage Committee Convener: Dave Garcia Membership Committee Convener: Steve Ushiyama FCC Charity Committee Conveners: Dave Garcia, Andy Chworowsky Freedom of the Press Committee Convener: Francis Moriarty Wall Committee Convener: Ilaria Maria Sala General Manager Gilbert Cheng
The Correspondent © The Foreign Correspondents’ Club, Hong Kong The Correspondent is published six times a year. Opinions expressed in the magazine are not necessarily those of the Club. Publications Committee Convener: Paul Bayfield Editor: Diane Stormont Editorial and Production Hongkongnow.com Ltd, Tel: 2521 2814 E-mail: fccmag@hongkongnow.com Printer: Hop Sze Printing Company Ltd Advertising Enquiries Sandra Pang, Pronto Communications Tel: 2540 6872 Fax: 2116 0189 Mobile: 9077 7001 E-mail: advertising@fcchk.org The Correspondent welcomes letters, articles, photographs and art-work (in softcopy form only, please – no faxes or printouts etc). We reserve the right to edit contributions chosen for publication. Anonymous letters will be rejected. For verification purposes only (and not for publication) please include your membership number (if applicable) and a daytime telephone number. Contributions can be e-mailed to fcc@hongkongnow.com. Disks should be dropped off at the Club or posted to the Foreign Correspondents’ Club, Hong Kong, 2 Lower Albert Road, Central, Hong Kong and marked to the attention of The Editor, The Correspondent. FTP is also available and is encouraged for large files. Please e-mail us for the settings. The deadline for the next issue is May 25, 2007.
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Tucked away at the back of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club Charity Fund Annual Report is an entry under “Other Expenses” that reads “Entertainment and ball committee meetings: $78,142”. As the idea of the entire operation is supposedly “charity”, is it correct that the Club pays for refreshments or whatever at committee meetings?
Ball Co-chairmen Dave Garcia and Andy Chworowsky reply: Thanks for taking the time to review the annual report. Unlike the other FCC committees, the Club does not pay for any expenses of the Charity Fund; we cover our own expenses so as to keep the Charity Fund cost-neutral to the Club. The ball committee meets every two months generally and once we get within six months of the event, we meet monthly or even more frequently. These expenses mostly include entertainment of the band – usually lunch and dinners, which we are required to do as per
their contract rides, and a meet and greet at the Club on the night of their arrival. It also includes refreshments for the scores of unpaid volunteers who help to set up the ballroom and work during the ball to help ensure its success. We also have two functions with our scholarship winners per year – once after they have won their awards and the other around Chinese New Year. We are proud of the fact that we now have 42 young, underprivileged scholars who have received FCC scholarships studying in colleges and universities. Unfortunately, nothing is free, and those expenses have to be paid for, and this comes from the Fund’s accounts. As a general note to all members, we would welcome any and all who would like to get involved with the FCC Charity Fund. There is always lots and lots to do as we approach the date of the Ball. If you would like to get involved, or have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us at dave@asiairon.com or Andy Chworowsky andyc@fatangelos.com .
From Bruce Maxwell, Peripatetic Absent Member It’s Just Not Cricket. Reciprocal clubs are an important “value added” aspect of an FCC membership, and they frequently provide interesting local insights into wherever one happens to be. When editing The Correspondent years ago, and privately since, I’ve urged members to report on their visits to such establishments, and relatively recently I extolled the FCC’s perhaps surprising links with the superb citycentre Brisbane Polo Club. While briefly in Singapore during the March-April Cricket World Cup in the Caribbean, Channel News Asia was covering match outcomes but The Straits Times barely touched the event, apart from a piece by columnist Rob Hughes bemoaning the fact that Singapore was not taking part, whereas fellow minnows Scotland, Canada, Ireland, Bermuda and the Netherlands were all playing. Hong Kong didn’t have a team either. What better place to catch up on the action than at the venerable Singapore Cricket Club? A quick phone call confirmed that the FCC was still a reciprocal club, and a taxi ride later my wife and I arrived expectantly in the foyer. “Do you have your letter of introduction?” asked the same girl I had spoken to on the phone.
“Letter of introduction? I haven’t needed a letter of introduction at any club for 30, maybe 40 years. Are you serious?” “I’m sorry sir, but since the refurbishment, our committee is very strict on this point. You will have to contact your club, and get them to send you a letter. We will need to know when you are arriving in Singapore, and exactly how long you plan to be here.” I stared at her in disbelief. It didn’t help that, on the way in, my wife had drawn my attention to a shiny brass plaque which said refurbishments to the Singapore Cricket Club were completed in February 2007. The receptionist wasn’t going to budge, and nor did the duty manageress when we tried that course, so there was no option but to beat a retreat to Boat Quay. In the ongoing review of reciprocal clubs, then, it would be worth letting members know about this latest SCC requirement, and if it appears unacceptable vis-à-vis the way SCC members are treated when they visit the FCC in Hong Kong, it may be time to pull up stumps on this particular outfit. Letters of Introduction are available from the Front Office. Please allow sufficient time for processing.
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Club Activities xxxxx
> FROM THE PRESIDENT A
fter a lifetime of working in front of live microphones, you’d think I’d know better. But no .... after the screening of Ruby Yang’s very moving Academy Award-winning documentary The Blood of Yingzhou District, I just sort of... choked. It was a powerful film, and I think it affected everyone in the room, because once it was over, there was a sort of stunned silence when the lights came up. No hands were raised for questions, and as I looked around the room, I said the first thing that came to mind: “Wow ... bummer.” Admittedly, not the most dignified of comments... sounding more like a stoned college student than an FCC President. In my own defence, though, it was a pretty heart-wrenching film, and a rather bleak depiction of the fate of AIDS orphans in China. So it was kind of ... well, a bummer, I guess. But it was also a great film, definitely worth watching and definitely deserving of the international accolades it has garnered. I just wish I hadn’t been so overcome by the moment. Fortunately, Ruby Yang was gracious, graceful and informative, and has promised to bring her next project back to the Club for a screening when it is finished. We also recently held the 11th Annual Human Rights Press Awards (see pp 12 to 15). For my part, you’ll no doubt be glad to know that I pretty much maintained my composure throughout, despite the presence of live microphones and the limitless potential for mayhem they represent. We had an excellent turnout, with plenty of support from both award winners and their organisations; a very satisfying testament to how well-regarded and important this annual award has become. Congrats to Press Freedom Committee Convener Francis Moriarty, and thanks to all those who helped with the organisation, the judging, and the staging of the event. It’s election time again, and we have a fairly contested bal-
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lot this year... that is, except for me and Journalist Governor candidates Francis Moriarty and Jake van der Kamp. Nobody’s quite sure how it happened but all three of us are running unopposed. Even if we’re not exactly running a “selection”, it’s still a pity that no latter-day Alan Leongs have emerged in these two of our admittedly small circles, to at least provide some healthy competition. Actually, what’s an even greater pity is the way the candidate policy statements sent to all members have been used to deliver not-so-subtle personal attacks on some candidates, and to spread malicious innuendo about others. In keeping with the FCC’s long tradition of and deep-seated commitment to free speech, there has been no attempt to edit or influence any candidate’s statement. However, I feel compelled to point out that such negative campaigning runs counter to what I see as the spirit of the FCC – an equally long tradition of amiable discussion and an equally powerful commitment to respectful debate. Healthy competition is one thing, mean-spirited character smears are entirely another. By the time you read this, you should already have had your ballot papers for several weeks, and I’d like to personally encourage you to cast your vote well before the cut-off time of 3 pm on Wednesday, 16 May. Thanks in advance to former Presidents Diane Stormont and Philip Bowring for agreeing to reprise their roles on the Election Committee, and to former President Steve Vines and Correspondent Members V.G. Kulkarni and Patrick Smith for stepping forward to serve as ballot scrutineers. And finally, please join me in thanking the outgoing Board of Governors for their year of service to the Club. For me personally, it’s been a pleasure to serve alongside each one of them, and I look forward to an interesting year ahead with the new Board! Christopher Slaughter president@fcchk.org
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Cover Story
LEFT: David Chipp (right) with Chou En-lai (second from right) RIGHT: Chipp today.
‘I trod on Mao’s toe’ 4
David Chipp is a true trailblazer. In 1956 he was posted to China, the first Reuters correspondent to be based on the mainland after the communists came to power in 1949 and the only resident Western correspondent. Recently visiting Hong Kong for a reunion with old friends, Chipp gave fascinating accounts of what it was like to be a hack working and living at that time in Peking, as he still prefers to call the Chinese capital. Jonathan Sharp* reports
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I
t was the second day of his assignment in China, and Chipp was invited to a reception at the Peking Hotel. There he was formally introduced to Chou En-lai, as his name was spelled in those pre-pinyin days. Chipp recalls this remarkable encounter with one of the most powerful men in China: “He knew all about me. He asked me what I wanted to do. I said I wanted an interview with him, and go to Tibet. I had a couple of the former but never made the latter.” And in a typically disarming gesture, which one could hardly imagine a Chinese leader making today, Chou there and then gave Chipp his Chinese name – Chi Teh Wei, according to the old Wade-Giles system of romanising Chinese. In fact, in some respects at least, access to the Chinese leadership seemed to be a lot easier then than it is today. And there was a degree of informality, which was later lost. Chipp continues: “At later receptions, Chou was happy to talk about generalities in English, which he spoke excellently. But when I asked formal questions he would revert to an interpreter.” Chou had learned the needs of foreign correspondents in Chungking during the Second World War, when the journalists he knew included Doon Campbell of Reuters and John Roderick of the Associated Press. During Chipp’s time in China, Chou was still willing to give foreign correspondents a helping hand. On one occasion, Chou got talking to Chipp at a performance of Romeo and Juliet in Chinese. “Chou said it was a bad transla-
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tion, but I might be interested to know that Juliet was a member of the National People’s Congress then meeting in Peking.” Next day Chou brought the actress, Tien Hua, into the press room so that Chipp could interview her. Chipp had in fact encountered Chou prior to his China assignment. They had met during the 1955 summit of African and Asian leaders in Bandung, Indonesia. Chipp, covering the conference for Reuters, had asked Chou for a visa to visit China. But that cheeky request didn’t get Chipp his Peking posting. The Chinese news agency Hsin Hua (Xinhua) wanted to post a man to London to cover Europe, and, in return, Reuters’ long-standing request for a visa was granted. “It was strange feeling to be without the usual foreign press corps. There were a number of east European communists, and one or two British ‘traitors’ such as Winnington (Alan Winnington, reporting for the
“I heard a ‘Ho, ho, ho’, turned and to my horror saw it was a seemingly amused Chairman. I stumbled through a few words of Chinese explaining who I was and that I worked for Reuters. Alas no interpreters were around and Mao, understandably looking rather bemused, left with a warm farewell.”
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Cover Story
“It was strange feeling to be without the usual foreign press corps. There were a number of east European communists, and one or two British ‘traitors’”
communist Daily Worker in London), and the Australian Burchett (Wilfred Burchett who, like Winnington, reported the Korean War from the North Korean side). It was some relief when there were visits from such people as Dick Hughes (whose bust gazes down at us in the Main Bar).” “Of course there were no Americans. Officially the Yanks called Peking Peiping but to me it was, and still is in my conservative way, Peking.” One of the few Americans to defy US Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, who famously refused to shake hands with Chou in Geneva in 1954, and visit China was William Worthy. He was told by his employers to use the old Nationalist name for Peking. “So I suggested he should end his reports with ‘This is Bill Worthy in Peiping, now back to CBS in New Amsterdam’!” One feature of reporting in China that Chipp experienced, and will be familiar to many China hands, is that requests for interviews with newsworthy persons may be granted
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with unnerving suddenness. For example, Chipp applied to interview Pu Yi, the last Emperor, who was being tried for war crimes. Chipp heard nothing until, at lunch during a visit to northeast China to see industrial development, he was told he could interview Pu Yi – that same afternoon. “Being given last-minute notice of such things was the norm.” As so often in China, there was considerable political ferment during Chipp’s time there. “When I arrived the campaign against intellectuals was gradually dying out, but people often were reluctant to admit to speaking English. This included a couple of university professors who taught English but who did not speak when I was at the same table at a banquet.” This reticence changed during the 100 Flowers Movement, when intellectuals and officials were encouraged to speak out – and were subsequently persecuted for their temerity. “I reported on the tearful confessions of errant ministers at the National People’s Congress.”
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Chipp was able to attend sessions of the NPC but, being a non-communist, he was barred from the Eighth Communist Party Congress held in 1956. “But it was arranged that we were briefed and got important texts. Thus I was able to beat Hsin Hua with reports to the outside world.” Spending a good deal time with the diplomatic corps to glean information, Chipp found the Indians the most helpful source, as India at that time, prior to the Sino-Indian border war, was closer to the Chinese that any other non-communist nation. “But frankly, there could have been civil war going on a few hundred miles away and I would not have known about it. “We knew nothing about the lives of the leaders or their wives. The ghastly Madame Mao was in the background. Chou’s wife was the one wife who appeared in public. “Many members of the government and the diplomatic corps went to the airport to receive visiting foreign leaders. I could roam at will around the tarmac, and it was there that Ho Ch Minh greeted me, remembering me from Hanoi some years before. “It was there too that Chou called me forward to shake hands with Mao.” But a more extraordinary meeting with the Chairman took place in the government compound of Chungnanhai, next to the Forbidden City. “Mao and other top leaders had attended the signing of an agreement with Nepal. Afterwards I was looking at some decorative or symbolic rocks, when I saw Liu Shao-chi approaching. I stepped back with a respectful bow – straight on to someone’s toe. “I heard a ‘Ho, ho, ho’, turned and to my horror saw it was a seemingly amused Chairman. I stumbled through a few words of Chinese explaining who I was and that I worked for Reuters. Alas no interpreters were around and Mao, under-
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standably looking rather bemused, left with a warm farewell.” Towards the end of Chipp’s spell in China, Mao was launching the doomed Great Leap Forward, which involved masses of people building furnaces to produce iron, much of which proved to be unusable. “Though foreign observers thought the backyard furnaces a pretty dotty idea there was not any suggestion at that time of the awful consequences that were to be apparent many years later.” Being a good Reuters man, Chipp had to deal with the company’s business as well as journalism, and in 1957, he opened negotiations with Hsin Hua which resulted in an agreement on the supply of commercial services to the Chinese agency. Later this year Chipp, now approaching his 80th birthday and as full of energy, verve and general joie de vivre as ever, hopes to return to his old stamping ground to mark the 50th anniversary of that accord. He is also hoping that a book he is writing about his remarkable career, first with Reuters and then as Editor in Chief of Britain’s Press Association, will find a publisher. It’s entitled Hell’s Barking Cur – taken from the epitaph about a highly unreliable 17th century journalist called Marchmont Nedham – and, as Chipp says, might also be called Memories of a Happy English Hack. In the book, Chipp argues that the majority of journalists are a fairly unpleasant lot – unreliable, disorganized and with very untidy private lives. “But they are vital because of the role they play in monitoring and criticizing governments and politicians, especially when there is a weak and disorganised opposition.” But, unaccountably, no publisher has taken up the book. Says Chipp cheerily: “It has had more rejection slips than Harry Potter.”
“When I arrived the campaign against intellectuals was gradually dying out, but people often were reluctant to admit to speaking English. This included a couple of university professors who taught English but who did not speak when I was at the same table at a banquet.”
*Jonathan Sharp was interviewed by Chipp in 1967 for a job at Reuters and, amazingly, was hired.
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Cover Story Media
From Delta to Gulf: Arnett on War and Spin A few days after hearing Peter Arnett give a typically trenchant summary of his views at the FCC, two acquaintances at a very different dinner party on the Peak almost drooled with excitement, writes Vaudine England.
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“P
eter Arnett? Here? Oh, he’s my hero!” said one, while her husband said he wished he’d made it to the FCC event. It was a reminder of the impact made by the controversial journalist from one of New Zealand’s more distant towns, Riverton, near the remote but larger town of Invercargill. Arnett is now in our neighbourhood because he’s teaching journalism at the Cheung Kong School of Journalism and Communications at Shantou University. The unaffected enthusiasm was a refreshing change to the jaded cynicism, so easy to find on a late night at the Main Bar on almost any subject, and certainly about journalists more successful than others. Arnett’s is a name that provokes widely varying
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Left: Andy Chworowsky, Jim Laurie, Peter Arnett and Tony Lawrence, Top: Arnett with Clare Hollingworth. Right: With Hugh van Es.
responses wherever he is. And being Arnett, his response is not to shy away. Rather he has become more firm in his opinions – about war, about United States policy, about the right-wing media and more. One questioner asked, in the nicest possible way, why people should listen to Arnett whose credibility had been tarnished on at least a couple of occasions. “My mistakes have undermined me, they have not undermined the media. The difference between those of us in the liberal media and those in the rightwing media is that when we make mistakes, we get fired,” Arnett shot back. “At the time I was being fired [for the Operation Tailwind controversy], my colleague over at Fox News, who had been filmed drawing maps in the sand to reveal US military plans, was being given a chat show of his own,” he said, in a reference to Diego Rivera of Fox Television – which Arnett calls part of US President George Bush’s semi-official media. Arnett’s combative style has been honed over decades of covering combat, starting with the Vietnam War. Writing for The Associated Press from 1962 to 1975, he was soon under pressure for his critiques of US war
operations, and his bosses resisted pressure to sack him. He went on dangerous missions with US forces, he hung out with FCC members like our own Hugh van Es in Saigon, and he travelled with peace activists to Hanoi. And he won a Pulitzer Prize for International Journalism in 1966. Arnett entered the world’s living rooms during his 18 years at CNN, reaching peak-time when he
The next controversy was Operation Tailwind. Arnett narrated a report compiled by others, alleging that the US army had used sarin nerve gas on deserting US soldiers in Laos in 1970. CNN later retracted the story and sacked several journalists involved. Arnett was reprimanded and his contract was not renewed. His major sacking disaster came later, in March 2003, when he allowed Iraqi TV to interview him and he said what he thought – that US war plans had failed so far and were being reassessed. A day later, National Geographic, MSNBC and NBC all severed long relationships with Arnett. Within the day he was offered several new jobs, including one by the British tabloid, the Daily Mirror, which was the most anti the war of mainstream British papers. In his Indochina days, Arnett would swim the Mekong from Laos to Thailand to file his stories. He’s been in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Africa, Chechnya and many other conflict zones, winning 57 awards, interviewing leading figures, and writing his book Live from the Battlefield (Simon & Schuster, 1994). His career raises that most difficult issue facing all journalists
Arnett’s combative style has been honed over decades of covering combat, starting with the Vietnam War.
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became the sole Western reporter left in Baghdad, and able to report, during the first Gulf War. Again he focused on the costs to civilians, the feelings of the people on the ground, and again people in power didn’t like it. And again, he got scoops – a live one-on-one with Saddam Hussein and, in 1997, the first Western media interview of Osama bin Laden. Yet again, controversy dogged Arnett – particularly that pesky baby milk factory. Or was it, as US intelligence insisted, a biological warfare facility?
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Media
– where should fact and opinion meet? Naturally enough, if you’ve been seeing war close up for years and you see patterns of mistakes repeated, surely you’re qualified to say so. No doubt FCC member Clare Hollingworth faced similar thoughts – and has shared them with countless generals at war zones for decades. But where does that leave the idea that journalists are just supposed to report, not opine? That hoary old chestnut, objectivity versus subjectivity, just won’t go away. No doubt there’s a spectrum of possibilities, veering from first person opinionated rants at one extreme, to a recounting of facts so bland as to be stripped of all meaning at the other. At the age of 72, Arnett shows few signs of mellowing. And when his FCC speech assailed the compromises, the weak-kneed namby-pamby uncritical mess seen in most early reporting of the current US war in Iraq, no-one was complaining. Never has so much money been spent by so many media organisations, for so little. “I’ve been a war reporter pretty much my whole life, but I’ve never seen a time when such enormous efforts by the media – in terms of commitment of staff, financial resources, airtime and column inches – have been so ineffective in getting the true story across to the American public,” said Arnett. He pointed out key mistakes made by the US so far: too few troops, not enough body armour, the permitted looting of most buildings except
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the oil ministry, the 400,000 Iraqi policemen and soldiers sacked by US administrator Paul Bremer who are now foot soldiers in the insurgency, the failure to find weapons of mass destruction, the failure to prove any link between Saddam and Al Qaida, the torture and humiliations at Abu Ghraib prison among others. “Winning the war? No, not at any level. Winning the election by saying you are winning the war – and get-
ting away with it,” Arnett said of George W. He recalled other US presidents who actually followed the news – Johnson with wire service machines in his office for example – compared to Bush who appears not to read. Yet the media was badly to blame for its early enthusiasm for the Bush war machine: “It was not a matter of questioning the legality or the necessity of the war, or of the cost in lives and money. No, it was more about the spectacle of war, of superpower America crushing the ant Saddam Hussein; how quick – and satisfying – it would be,” Arnett recalled. Then came the embedding rules, which Arnett calls “the biggest mistake the media has made in years”. Media bosses were so desperate to get close to the action that they signed away key freedoms – such as the right to quote officials without naming them, to discussing the conditions under which they were in the field, to reporting without censorship. It’s not surprising, in Arnett’s view, that it has taken the American voting public so long to realise how bad it is in Iraq. Perhaps the most telling argument against those rules comes from Arnett’s personal experience. If he had been subject to embedding in Vietnam, he would never have been able to use one of the most famous quotes he got from an officer in wartime: “We had to destroy the town in order to save it.”
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Media
1A1NNtUhAL
ENGLISH-LANGUAGE CATEGORIES GENERAL NEWS PRIZE Huaxi Riot
Didi Kirsten Tatlow
SCMP
Philippines Left
Jason Gutierrez
Agence France-Presse
Bingdian Weekly
Vivian Wu
SCMP
Afghanistan
Sardar Ahmad
Agence France-Presse
For a body of work on India
Amelia Gentleman
IHT
An Invisible Army
Mei Fong
WSJ Asia
AIDS series
Didi Kirsten Tatlow
SCMP
Plight Club
Peter Kammerer
SCMP
Speaking Out
Geoffrey A. Fowler & Jason Dean
WSJ Asia
Singapore’s ‘Martyr,’ Chee Soon Juan
Hugo Restall
Far Eastern Economic Review
Seeds of Fury
Hannah Beech
Time Asia
Enemies of the States
Hannah Beech
Time Asia
Long Walk To Freedom
Bill Powell
Time Asia
China: Selling Out The Family Farm
Benjamin Robertson FEER
Finding China’s Missing Farmers
William MacNamara FEER
MERIT
Record number of submissions for the 11th Annual Human Rights Press Awards A total of 339 submissions were received for the 2006 Human Rights Press Awards, setting a record and exceeding the previous high of 319 in 1997. The enthusiastic participation of local journalists and correspondents across Asia demonstrates the continuing importance placed on rights reporting in Hong Kong and throughout the region. It marks just the third time the total has exceeded 300 since the Awards’ inception in 1996. There were 305 entries in 2005. The winners were announced at an awards luncheon held on Saturday, March 24, at the FCC. The independent judging panels of journalists, professionals, academics and human rights experts awarded 11 Prizes and 16 Merit Certificates in English-language categories, five Prizes and 13 Merit Certificates in Chinese-language categories, and one Prize and 10 Merit Certificates in Photography. The English-language panel also awarded a Special Prize for Commissioning Human Rights Stories to the Far Eastern Economic Review.
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NEWSPAPER – FEATURE PRIZE
MERIT
MAGAZINES PRIZE
MERIT
COMMENTARY & ANALYSIS PRIZE Vietnam’s Hostages
Danny Gittings
WSJ Asia
THE CORRESPONDENT MARCH/APRIL 2007
Amelia Gentleman
IHT
China’s Shadow Censor Commissars
David Bandurski and Lin Hui
FEER
CHINESE-LANGUAGE CATEGORIES GENERAL NEWS PRIZE
China’s Legal Reform
Jerome Cohen
FEER
Indignation over Ching Cheong’s conviction on spying charges
Upholding public order
Zama Coursen-Neff FEER
Child Labor
MERIT
BROADCAST – RADIO PRIZE China Unrest Land
Luis Ramirez
Voice of America
Guy DeLauney
BBC
Andrew Harding
BBC
BROADCAST – TELEVISION PRIZE Burma – Torture
MERIT Rights Wrangle Cambodia Tribunal
Ming Pao
Chow Chin-hung, Ko Ming-chu, Tsang Kam-man, Law Wing-chung
Ming Pao
MERIT Wiretapping Bill: a more severe damage than Article 23
MERIT Cambodia Human Rights
Wong Tsang-ming, Chow Chin-hung, Law Tsui-yan, Ko Ming-chu
Christopher George TVB Pearl Lincoln Joe Kainz
Star TV
SPECIAL AWARD For Comissioning Human Rights Stories
FEER
NEWSPAPER – FEATURE PRIZE New contract terms at Food & Health Wai Ka-yan Department: lower wages and more hardship for cleaners
Sing Tao Daily
MERIT A long hot summer in Tung Chung / walled city
Wu Kwok-yan
Ming Pao
Hearing-impaired’s struggle for readable voices
Wai Ka-yan
Sing Tao Daily
Chan Hiu-lui
Ming Pao Weekly
Tung Tsz-kwan, Fiona Shek
Oxfam “Mokung”
Rigid school rules suffocate students’ Alice Tong, Ada voices Wong, Emily Li, Tammy Tse
U Beat Magazine
Report on Shanwei’s crackdown
Open Magazine
MAGAZINES PRIZE Our peasant workers
MERIT Working poor
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Liu Xiao-bo
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Media
COMMENTARY AND ANALYSIS MERIT Pentaprism
Lau Ka-yee
Organ Failure & Kanga-Ruse Steven Gan RTHK
Ding Xiao
Radio Free Asia
MERIT Masjid for women in Hong Kong
The Standard
Henry Wong
SCMP
Zunzi
Apple Daily
Martin Chan
SCMP
MERIT Religious Freedom In Chain
Chinese MERIT
BROADCAST – RADIO PRIZE Brutal suppression of rights-defending villagers in Shanwei
Gavin Coates
Yip Koon-lam
RTHK
Spying charges
PHOTOJOURNALISM PRIZE WTO
Gao Zhisheng being beaten by plain- Ding Xiao clothesmen (RFA special report)
Radio Free Asia
MERIT
Field report on the killings in Dongzhou Shanwei
Radio Free Asia
ICU overcrowded by sick babies from the mainland
Chun Ping-on
East Week
Child with facial burns rejected by school
Tsang Hin-wah
Apple Daily
Asylum seekers have no place to stay
Chun Kok-wai
Ming Pao
Rebel Territory
Tomas Van Houtryve Time Asia
James Zhu
BROADCAST – TELEVISION PRIZE Justice Crusader
Chan Po-wah
Cable TV
The War for China’s Soul
Nelson Ching / Sipa Time Asia
Dare to face our sin?
Wu Lik-hon, Hu Jie
Cable TV
The Defence Rests
John Kwok
EyePress News
Hong Kong Connection – We Grant No Asylum
Eddie Ho
RTHK
Classroom for One
Beck Wu
EyePress News
MERIT
CARTOONS English PRIZE
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Right of abode seekers protesting out- Ricky Chung side CGO to demand family reunion
SCMP
Ching Cheong
Vincent Yu
The Associated Press
Leprosy
Steve Cray
SCMP
THE CORRESPONDENT MARCH/APRIL 2007
Robin Munro, author of China’s Psychiatric Inquisition: Dissent, Psychiatry and the Law in Post-1949 China, was guest speaker. Munro said that since the mid1990s, the Public Security Bureau has been using psychiatric detention as a tool of political repression, mainly against “whistleblowers, those who expose official corruption, and persistent petitioners, rather than classic-style political dissidents. But these are precisely the kind of civicminded people whom the country urgently needs, if the government-espoused ‘harmonious society’ is to become a reality.” The FCC, the Hong Journalists Association and Amnesty International Hong Kong – joint organisers of the event – welcomed the record-setting submissions. FCC President Chris Slaughter said the Awards “acknowledge the important role and responsibility of the media in reporting on human right issues; they recognise the difficulties inherent in reporting and publishing or broadcasting such stories, and they honour those journalists who have not only been committed to covering these topics but whose reports stand out as examples of excellent journalism.” Amnesty International Hong Kong’s Director, Milabel Amar, said, “never before has the role of the press been of such importance as in this age of immense advances in communications technology. Its role in defending and protecting human rights, in spreading the message in the different parts of the world, will truly
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be meaningful with a vocal and assertive press, true to its responsibility to be champions of the freedom of expression.”
JUDGES FOR 2006 AWARDS
Serenade Woo, chairperson of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, said: “We hope the Human Rights Press Awards can courage more journalists to be concerned about the human rights situation in China.”
CHRISTOPHER SLAUGHTER, president, The Foreign Correspondents’ Club, Hong Kong
The judges found this year’s winners to be of very high quality overall, but they said that some journalists need to sharpen their appreciation of what makes a news story into a human rights story. They noted that the entries came from a variety of news organisations, and highlighted a range of rights issues affecting greater China and the wider Asian region ranging from Pakistan to the Philippines. Francis Moriarty, Chairman of the FCC Press Freedom Committee, reminded the assembled journalists and guests that Hong Kong reporter Ching Cheong, who works for the Singapore Straits Times, was imprisoned in China and he urged them to work for his early release. Previous speakers at the Awards luncheon include Cardinal Joseph Zen, Bishop of Hong Kong and an adviser to Pope Benedict on China; dissident Chinese journalist, Gao Yu; Malaysian human rights activist, Irene Fernandez; chairperson of Hong Kong’s Equal Opportunities Commission, Anna Wu and Asia programme consultant for the Committee to Protect Journalists, Lin Neumann. – Amnesty International Hong Kong.
SERENADE WOO, chairperson, Hong Kong Journalists Association
TAN KONG-SAU, chairperson, Amnesty International Hong Kong FRED ARMENTROUT, president, Hong Kong English-speaking branch of PEN International BOBBY YIP, vice chairman, Hong Kong Press Photographers Association LAW YUK-KAI, director, Hong Kong Human Rights Monitor DOMINIQUE MULLER, vice chairperson, Amnesty International Hong Kong JOSEPH CHAN, professor, School of Journalism and Communication, Chinese University of Hong Kong JOYCE NIP, assistant professor, Department of Journalism, Hong Kong Baptist University JACQUELINE LEONG SC, former chairperson, Hong Kong Bar Association JIM LAURIE, Director of Broadcasting Programme, Journalism and Media Studies Centre, University of Hong Kong, former correspondent of ABC News ANGELA LEE, former board member, Amnesty International Hong Kong HUBERT VAN ES, photographer, former board member, FCC
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y
Cover Story Media
In Living
Memory BY PAUL STEWART
Y
et another version of how five Australian newsmen met their deaths in Balibo, East Timor, at the hands of the Indonesians in 1975. The story is close to me as one of them was my brother, 21-year-old sound recordist Tony Stewart, from HSV7 in Melbourne. My family has heard so many different versions of how these boys died, it hardly affects me any more. Now, a new inquest, which opened in February, has heard they were shot after raising their hands to surrender. You can add this to other eyewitness accounts of how they were captured, wrapped in barbed wire and set on fire, mutilated with knives, buried alive and shot in the back after running away. Most people I know have lost a family member or close friend, but not many have had to face more than 30 years of hearing differing accounts of how their loved ones met their grisly deaths. My old mum June has done well to keep her sanity against the constant onslaught. Balibo has now entered Australian folklore. The house where the journalists died has gone on to earn more infamy. During the troubles of 1999 when East Timor voted to break away from Indonesia, anti-independence militia used the house to commit several atrocities. In a series of bizarre and chilling incidents local women were forced to put on lipstick and then kiss the walls before being savagely raped. There is only one good aspect to the story and that was the decision by the State Government of Victoria several years ago to buy the house in
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EAST TIMOR President Xanana Gusmao (right) and Australia’s Victorian state Premier Steve Bracks bring flowers for a memorial ceremony in the village of Balibo in 2003 for the five dead Australia-based journalists who were killed by Indonesian forces in 1975. The ceremony was held at the house where the five were killed in October 1975 as they filmed Indonesian troops attacking the village. AFP PHOTO Balibo where the journalists met their end. It was set up in their honour as a community house to benefit local families. This was thanks to the efforts of Victorian Premier Steve Bracks. Most people would be amazed by the lack of respect and dissembling many Australian politicians have served up to the families of the newsmen since 1975.
Labor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam basically gave the Indonesians a green light for their 1975 invasion. This led to the deaths and rapes of countless East Timorese and a feeling among the invading military forces that they could do anything they wanted to. This led directly to the deaths of the journalists. It is now widely documented that
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he knew the fate of the slain journalists, days before the news was given to their families. He also gave the green light to the mock burial of the supposed remains of the newsmen at a graveyard in Jakarta His replacement, Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, certainly never told the families of the murdered journalists the full story and his successor, Bob Hawke (Labor), seemed more concerned about his hair than foreign affairs. Worst of them all was Paul Keating, also Labor, who seemed to bend over on every occasion possible to please the Indonesians. At one stage he suggested the families were upsetting the Jakarta elite by wanting to know exactly how our loved ones died. Steve Bracks was the first politician to take our feelings into account. He is an honourable man. He finally gave us a voice. When we all went up there to open the house as a community centre he didn’t try to pull any creature comforts for himself or his wife They got bitten by the same mozzies as the rest of us. Little wonder the East Timor leaders, including Xanana Gusmao and José Ramos Horta, were so impressed with him. Bracks showed great respect for the Timorese when it came to the delicate process of buying the house. It is a respect rightly deserved, as the small nation was vital in the defence of Australia during World War II. East Timor was officially neutral as it was a Portuguese colony but Australian commandos used it as a base. As a consequence, the Japanese invaded. It is a little known fact that more Timorese died at the hands of the Japanese than Londoners during the blitz. Shamefully Australia abandoned its allies when it withdrew its forces from the island leaving our Timorese allies on the beach when the commandos were evacuated. When the East Timorese sought our help during the invasion by Indonesia in 1975 their cries were ignored.
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Trying to make good this debt is World Vision Australia which manages the Balibo house along with members of the local community. Handson help and support come from Tim Costello, the head of World Vision Australia, and his team of Julie Smith and Fiona Hamilton. World Vision began working in East Timor in 1995, and was involved in the large relief and reconstruction effort both before and after the 1999 referendum. Their projects have focused on long-term community development and they deserve credit for the popularity of the Balibo house among the locals, going out of their way to give locals control over the destiny of the dwelling. Now other villages want a place just like it. The Balibo house is now used as a crèche, sewing school, computer centre, carpentry workshop, sports facility, meeting place and a safe environment for local women and children. The house needs support for its everyday functioning and for special projects. For example, its library needs books in the Timorese language. “Great things can come from tragic circumstances,’’ Alpio dos Santos, chairman of the house’s Community Management Committee, said recently “I am glad of the opportunities given to the Balibo community to learn diversified skills and to organise the activities at the house ourselves. “On behalf of the village I would like to give thanks to donors and World Vision for guiding us during these past two years. “We hope that we can continue to learn and develop the facility.’’
There is only one good aspect to the story and that was the decision by the State Government of Victoria several years ago to buy the house in Balibo where the journalists met their end. It was set up in their honour as a community house to benefit local families.
Paul Stewart (paulieboys@mac.com) is a Melbourne writer More information about World Vision Australia and its work in East Timor is available at: http://www.worldvision.com.au/ aboutus/projects/easttimor.asp
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Photography
Then
Now
The changing face of Hong Kong The Rugby Sevens. The top photograph was taken in 1991 and features the Royal Regiment of Wales. The bottom shot was taken this year and shows how security needs have changed the spontaneous nature of the event.
Š Bob Davis
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Web: http://www.bobdavisphotographer.com E-mail: bobdavis@netvigator.com
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Cover Story Travel
The Hitch-hiker’s Guide to Guangdong BY CECILIE GAMST BERG
H
onestly, I don’t understand what’s with this prejudice some people have against China. Even telling people that I’m off to innocent Shenzhen for a weekend of cavorting with foot masseurs and having clothes tailor-made always elicits the same knee-jerk reaction: be careful! It’s not only people who have never been across the border but also an astonishing number of fairly seasoned travellers in this most intriguing of countries who seem to harbour an underlying worry that the great dark Communist land mass of China is actually something to be, if not entirely avoided, at least treated with the greatest of trepidation.
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“China is dangerous!” they wail. “It’s dirty! You’ll get robbed! Or worse!” So when I announced just before Chinese New Year that I would go hitch-hiking in China, I expected many a dark warning about getting murdered or worse. But it seemed that my friends have already written me off as lost. A couple of feeble be carefuls was all I got. I was almost disappointed. As it turned out, and as I fully expected, hitch-hiking in China beats every other means of transport, including the sacred train, hands down. It wasn’t the first time I and my trusty fellow China-lover Lee had hitch-hiked in our beloved motherland. Only the year before we had stuck our thumbs out with great success in Inner Mongolia. Stranded on grass-
lands somewhere outside Hohhot and freezing our arses off waiting for a bus that never came, we got picked up by the second car passing that day, that of a kind doctor, and driven all the way to our hotel amid much exchanging of telephone numbers. This time we wanted to see the innermost regions of Guangdong, a province criminally overlooked by the Hong Kong tourist industry. Surely Guangdong is one of the most wondrous provinces of China and without doubt the one with the friendliest and most accommodating people. And believe me, that says a lot. We had already tried hitch-hiking just outside Guangzhou, but after one lift we were stuck. People seemed to think that sticking out your thumb at the side of the road meant you were
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signalling: “Great car!” All we got were plenty of thumbs-up in return – as well as a number of drivers stopping to tell us where we could get a bus. Holding up posters with our destination written in Chinese resulted in people stopping briefly to tell us that yes, we were heading in the right direction. We therefore decided to get well away from big cities by taking the first bus to anywhere small outside Shenzhen. After a quite harrowing three-hour journey (anybody who has ever perused the “bus crashes in China” pages of the South China Morning Post is bound to be a little wary of bus travel in China and they will be right) we got off in Sei Wui (Sihui). Despite its propensity for huge Arc de Triomphe-like structures and a screaming Chinese New Year atmosphere, it turned out to be lovely. After mistakenly gatecrashing a rather large private party in the hotel, we were duly drunk out until 6 am and were invited to celebrate the New Year with a young man’s family the next evening. After forcing down some wine steeped in the bosoms of several snakes for a number of years, we fell in with the general merry-making of the family, most of whose members were glued to the television screen throughout. The evening’s programme showed an extravaganza of Tibetans in festive national costume, welcoming through song and dance the influx of Han Chinese carried into the “province” by train after endless spanking new train. The next day our adventure started in earnest in a light drizzle and under a huge poster proclaiming in text and pictures that the PLA and the people of China were as one. We stuck our thumbs – and chests – out and before long a car with three young guys stopped, wondering what we were doing. Didn’t we know the bus stop was on the other side of town? By this time we had learnt the term “hitch-hiking” in Cantonese. After much discussion, however, they sud-
denly drove off. But to us even having a car stop was a victory. And when the trio returned to pick us up 15 minutes later, we were away. Far into the hinterland they took us to meet the driver’s father for breakfast in their home village, a road lined with the inevitable tiled monster-houses signifying that a lot of
tion of where we were going and so always picked the closest destination to where we were being picked up, with great success. So when two guys in the smallest vehicle I’ve ever seen picked us up just as we were getting out of the car of a kind family of three travelling around Guangdong province, I wisely said we were going to Mocun, 20 kilometres down the road. Our destination was actually Siu Heng, one of the best party towns in China, where we would spend our last night. Neither Lee nor I are particularly small people and with his rucksack and my wheelie bag we had to fold ourselves into their car. Listening in on their conversation I heard that they were going to Siu Heng. Really? That’s where we’re going too! I beamed. A decidedly morbid atmosphere descended upon the car. After much prodding I got it out of the driver: Yes they were indeed going to Siu Heng but with the additional weight of us on board they wouldn’t be able to drive fast enough to get there in time for work. Oh, the Chinese penchant for hospitality! We had to beg them to let us off at the next stop so they could get to their destination on time. They drove off, hesitantly at first and then at increasing speed, flying over the many bumps and holes in the road having shed 200 kilograms of foreigner. Back in Hong Kong many people I know expressed great surprise at seeing me alive. Honestly, what are these people like? I used to swear by train travel in China but from now on, only hitch-hiking will do for me. In April, I’m set to hitch from Tibet to Guangzhou. That ought to freak them out.
The further we got from the big towns, the more frequently cars stopped to pick us up.
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people had come into money by foul means or fair. With many admonitions from the father (a party bigwig) to call him at his government office at the first sign of trouble, we hitched on, much to the amusement of the children of the village. And the adults. The further we got from the big towns, the more frequently cars stopped to pick us up. Past the last frontier of Guangling and its charming bamboo forest and dreamy lakes, it was all systems go. We barely had time to get out of one car, let alone stick out a digit or anything else, before another car, sometimes two, stopped. The road, meanwhile, started to give up all pretence of ever having been covered in tarmac. Only my underwired bra saved me from serious injury as I was thrown about in the steering cabin of trucks. We quickly learnt that saying, “Oh, anywhere!” was not the right answer to the ques-
Cecilie Gamst Berg is a Norwegian who teaches Cantonese in Hong Kong. Her recent novel, Blond Lotus, is available at http://www.happyjellyfish.com/
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Cover Story Books
Hu Jintao
the man behind the mask Angelo Paratico reviews Willy Wo-Lap Lam’s latest offering, Chinese Politics in the Hu Jintao Era. New Leaders, new Challenges.
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hinese President Hu Jintao is one of the most powerful world leaders. He is also one of the most mysterious and least known. Willy Lam’s new book fills the gap. Well-known to many in Hong Kong for his expert analysis on China in his journalist days corresponding for, among others, Asiaweek, the South China Morning Post and CNN, Lam is now teaching at Akita International University in Japan. Official biographies of Hu Jintao state that he was born in1942 at Jixi, Anhui province, but the truth seems to be that his ancestors left that place 120 years before. He was in fact born in Taizhou, Jiangsu province, where he attended primary and secondary school. The reason for such a small geographical adjustment lies perhaps in the fact that Taizhou is too close to Yangzhou, where Jiang Zemin was born. Hu’s parents were poor teachers, but his grandfather and great grandfather were rich tea merchants. This was not the best possible proletarian background for a young man in those years and could have had grave consequences on his career. But the
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fact that he was a brilliant student, blessed with a powerful photographic memory, eased his way. In 1959 he managed to enrol at the prestigious Tsingua University where his life as a student was harsh: this was the time of the Great Leap Forward and the Maoist folly caused a terrible famine. But Hu steered a
steady course and graduated with a degree in hydraulic engineering, very much in fashion at that time. It was considered the right background for the new communist man, seen as a builder of dams and canals. Apparently Hu was loved by his university peers and instructors for his intelligence, his meekness, and his strict adherence to the red orthodoxy. As a result, he was asked to remain and teach Marxism-Leninism to new students. In 1968 he was sent to “learn from the masses” in the wilderness of Gangsu, where he started to climb the regional party ladder. Leaving the city behind at that time was a blessing in disguise. He escaped being “struggled against” for his unclean family background. While in Gangsu he married and sired his two children. In 1980 he became the vice director of the construction commission of Gangsu, an enviable position for a young man of 38. His mentor was the provincial governor, Li Dengyin, a great friend of his wife’s family Another stroke of good luck arrived in 1981 when he was sent
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to Beijing for a course of political indoctrination at the Central School of the Communist Party. There he found himself rubbing elbows with Hu Deping, the son of Hu Yaobang who in 1982 was nominated as General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party. Hu was able to build a strong personal relationship with the great man and when he returned to Gangsu, he had in his pocket the nomination for general secretary of the league of young communists for the province. Soon after, he became a deputy secretary at national level and then, first secretary. This move enabled him to return to the comfort of the capital. In 1985 he was dispatched to another poor province, Guizhou, to prepare him for promotion to a ministerial position. Hu Yaobang spent the lunar new year festivities of 1986 with him, a sure sign of the esteem and respect he held for his young protégé. That temporary exile was another stroke of luck. It meant he was far away and safe when in January 1987, Deng Xiaoping fulminated against Hu Yaobang. Hu Jintao refused to join the chorus of criticism of his former boss. As a result he was handed an extremely hot potato – Tibet. Again Hu turned this potential downturn to his advantage in a Machiavellian way. As Lam puts it: “While Hu is generally credited with brandishing the iron fist in Lhasa, what happened in the night of March 5 1989 – which marked the climax of anti Han Chinese anti Beijing demonstrations – reveals a level of cunning and political maturity rare for a forty-seven-yearold cadre. According to sources close to the Hu camp, the then Tibet party boss played a crafty game. Earlier on that fateful day, angry Tibetans had been surrounding the police headquarters of Lhasa. By early evening, there were signs that the police and PAP (Peoples’ Armed Police) guards were no longer able to maintain control. The head of police had sought instructions from Hu
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by telephone since the late afternoon. The police chief wanted to know whether they could use force to disperse the mob. Hu’s reply was: ‘Keep a close watch on the situation. Don’t act yet – wait for my instructions’. By early evening, however, the protesters had started throw-
Hu was able to build a strong personal relationship with the great man and when he returned to Gangsu, he had in his pocket the nomination for general secretary of the league of young communists for the province.
ing stones into the premises and some policemen were hurt. And still Hu’s instructions on the phone were the same: ‘Remain on high alert and wait for my instructions’. Then, shortly after nightfall, the police chief called again saying the rioters were trying to burn the place down. Hu’s reply was the same. After this, the party boss ordered his aides to unplug the telephone so that the police chief could no longer get through. What happened later was expected. Even without an explicit authorisation from the party secretary, the police chief had no choice but to order his men to use force – and shoot to kill if necessary – to chase away the rioters. He also called for help from PAP officers. The ‘rebellion’ was quickly suppressed because the protestors
did not have heavy weapons and were badly outgunned. Late than night Hu reported to Beijing that the situation had come under control after some ‘valiant action’ by the police and the PAP. The credit for this successful restoration of order would of course go to Hu.” It is still a mystery why in 1992 Deng Xiaoping decided to anoint him the representative of the fourth generation of Chinese communist leaders and to assign for him a place in the Standing Committee of the Politburo, a move opposed by Jiang Zemin. Perhaps it was because he felt sorry for Hu Yaobang and his camp and the way in which he had dumped them. Now the position of Hu Jintao is stronger than ever and he is cooperating well with Wen Jiabao. The two men are similar: of the same age and hailing from the same technical and political background. Both keep a very low profile, both believe in top to bottom leadership for science as well as political orthodoxy, both are men of all seasons. Here, according to Lam, may lie both their strengths and their weaknesses. They show little sign of courageously embracing true reforms and pluralism. Under the Hu-Wen government, censorship is growing stronger and dissenting voices are less and less tolerated. In the past, China was ruled by emperors, and when they were good the whole country flourished. But they could count on an unmatched civil service selected by merit through the examination system and not as a result of corruption and nepotism. Unfortunately for China this ancient system seems to have disappeared, without leaving a trace.
Chinese Politics in the Hu Jintao Era. New Leaders, New Challenges By Willy Wo-Lap Lam ME Sharpe, New York / London 2006. PB, 360 pp ISBN 13 978-0-7656-1773-0 / 10 0-7656-1774-9
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Books
Baring All FCC bookworm Angelo Paratico plucks some little-known and tantalizing tales from Margaret MacMillan’s informative opus about Richard Nixon and the Sino-US rapprochement.
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t started with armed clashes between Soviet and Chinese troops in 1969 on the Ussuri river, 250 miles from Vladivostok that were widely reported in the west. What went unreported at the time was the spark that ignited the powder keg. But thanks to a KGB document, which ended up in the Mitrokhin archives, we now know. Apparently, Chinese soldiers, feeling slighted by the haughty behaviour of a Soviet officer on the opposite bank of the river, turned around, dropped their pants and “mooned” the Soviets. The next morning, when the Chinese flashed their buns once again, their opposite numbers were ready. They raised portraits of Mao Tsetung (Zedong). The Chinese were flabbergasted: they had insulted their Great Helmsman. Deeply offended and probably scared, they started firing. The baring of those buttocks was one element that helped set in motion a series of events that culminated three years later in Richard Nixon’s breakthrough visit to Peking (Beijing). This is just one of the delicious details contained in Margaret MacMillan’s book which
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charts the tortuous paths that culminated in that historical 1972 trip. Three-and-a-half decades later we are still feeling the aftermath. Few people will dispute the fact that Richard Nixon was one of the most knowledgeable presidents in American history as far as foreign affairs are concerned. The idea of engaging with China was his brain-
child and a dream he held before his elevation to the White House. Henry Kissinger was against it at the very beginning, even though he spins a different tale in his memoirs. At the time, the Chinese were concerned about the threat of a possible Soviet invasion. The Americans, meanwhile, believed that the key to terminating the war in Vietnam was to be found in Peking. That was the background to Kissinger’s secret trip to China on a Pakistani plane in the summer of 1971. Officially he was recovering from a bout of diarrhoea in Rawalpindi. In practice he had been smuggled to the airport for his flight, where a stringer for a London newspaper, who was seeing his mother off, noticed a flurry of strange activity. He asked a Pakistani policeman what was happening. “It’s Henry Kissinger. He’s going to China,” was the answer. The diligent journalist promptly filed a story only to receive a warning from his editor to drink less if he cared to keep his job. Kissinger was so unnerved by the prospect of entering the dragon’s den that he asked the President of Pakistani to accom-
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pany him. Yahia Khan was too busy and declined. The flight went well, save for an outburst of rage from Kissinger when he discovered an aide had forgotten to pack spare shirts. He borrowed some from a bigger fellow which, unfortunately, were prominently labelled: “Made in Taiwan”. During his two days in Peking he was said to bear a resemblance to a large penguin. Back in Washington the news of this top secret visit nearly broke when Marshal Green, the Assistant Secretary of State for Asia, cracked a joke in front of his colleagues about the elusive envoy. “Perhaps we can’t find Kissinger because he’s gone to China ...” Realising what he had just said, he rushed to warn his boss, Secretary of State William Rogers, who went pale. After it was officially announced that Nixon was indeed bound for China, the White House received masses of unsolicited advice from “old China hands” – much of it dubious. Nixon’s wife Pat was urged not to wear red because red was the colour of prostitutes. She ignored that piece of “advice”. Nixon summoned from Paris the “old and mendacious” André Malraux who bragged of being a China expert on the grounds he had once, briefly, met Mao. John Scali, who was present, said: “I felt I was listening to the views of a romantic, vain old man who was weaving obsolete views into a special framework for the world as he wished it to be.” When Nixon left Washington for the Chinese capital he had received no assurance that Mao would receive him. What he did not know was that the sickly Chairman was just as eager as Nixon to meet. Perhaps the Chinese wanted to punish the Americans for John Foster Dulles’s refusal to shake hands with Chou Enlai at a Geneva conference in 1954, a rebuff that still stung. The plane landed in Shanghai on February 12 where a local pilot climbed aboard to fly it to Peking,
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petrifying those in the cockpit when it dawned on them that he had no idea how to use the sophisticated instrumentation. He ignored the technology and navigated by flying at low altitude. The press travelled on a separate aircraft. “Clowns,” Nixon called them. He believed they all hated him in return “because I have beaten them so often”. He had personally picked the journalists permitted to follow him into China. Not everybody was happy about the trip. On seeing Nixon toasting Chou Enlai, conservative journalist William Buckley commented that it was as if “Sir Hartley Shawcross had suddenly risen from the prosecutor’s stand at Nuremberg and descended to embrace Goering and Hess, begging them to join with him in the making of a better world”. Others were less cynical. Canadian journalist John Burns picked up the chopsticks used by Nixon at the gala dinner as a souvenir. A New York dealer wired him with an offer of US$10,000 for them. Burns refused. To prove their sincerity, the Americans passed to the Chinese entire cases of classified documents, including secret treaties with Moscow, photos of military installations and files about new Soviet weaponry which many credit as kick-starting later disarmament treaties with the Soviet Union. Mao was very impressed by Nixon, but of Kissinger he had this to say: “Just a funny little man. He is shuddering all over with nerves every time he comes to see me.” Time magazine named both Nixon and Kissinger as Men of the Year for 1972, something that angered the President who never forgave his adviser.
The press travelled on a separate aircraft. ‘Clowns,’ Nixon called them. He believed they all hated him in return ‘because I have beaten them so often’.
Nixon in China: The Week That Changed the World By Margaret MacMillan Viking Books, 2006 HB 395 pp ISBN 10: 0-670-04476-8 / 13: 978-0-670-04476-4
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Through the lens
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DISAPPEARING
HONG KONG No great city is complete without its street life and in Hong Kong, Graham Street market and its surrounding alleys pictured here are gems that once discovered, cannot be forgotten. Yet plans from the Urban Renewal Authority envisage destruction of the market, abolition of the pedestrianised area, and erection of several skyscrapers including carparks. If the URA gets its way, another part of Hong Kong will die away. PHOTOGRAPHED BY KEES METSELAAR
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Through the lens
>
And, surprise, earnings from one of the last valuable sites in western Central, shown in these photographs, will be maximised for the developers at the expense of us all. The arguments about heritage are obvious. Why destroy things that give a city character and replace them with more faceless towers? But it’s more complicated than that, because clearly the people living in cramped and crowded Graham Street, Gage Street and nearby would like to have more salubrious homes. They would like proper bathrooms and kitchens for a change. No problem there but why is it that in Hong Kong, building owners who let their structures rot and fail to install basic necessities such as loos or running water get bailed out rather than called to account? There’s something wrong here. These buildings date back only a few decades. Surely it’s not beyond the capability of your average Hong Kong sanitary engineer to install basic modern necessities. Something stinks and it’s nothing to do with night soil. But the lesson this government hasn’t yet managed to learn – despite the protests over Wedding Card (Lee Tung) Street and many other human-scale neighbourhoods – is that ordinary Hong Kong people are accustomed to shopping, eating, selling and cooking on the street. This is not just about heritage, it’s about economic fairness. Wipe out the markets and wipe out the alternatives to being forever forced to shop at the monopoly supermarkets. More, wipe out street markets and wipe out small business, family enterprises in short, the opportunity for ordinary people without connections to make a living.
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Through the lens
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Through the lens
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Cover Story Watering hole
Of All the Gin Joints... Michael Mackie stumbles across a Rick’s Café in Casablanca.
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F
or something that shouldn’t be there it was pretty solid-looking. I scanned back through what I’d drunk the night before – nothing likely to destroy brain cells. This was Morocco where getting a drink is not straightforward but the guidebook had been quite clear – maybe emphatically so: there is no Rick’s Café in the city of Casablanca. Well it was wrong. Rick’s Café was there – right in front of me. For those seemingly immune to cultural icons, Casablanca, the film, was not made in the Moroccan city of the same name. It was instead shot on a lot in Burbank, California, in 1942. It was rushed out in three weeks – they worked fast in those days – to become deeply embedded in the popular imagination. Some folk swear by this film and even those who don’t like it know better than to swear about it, so great is its shadow. None of this was being considered that morning. Simply put, there should not be a building there called Rick’s Café. But it was and it was open. In the interests of cinéma vérité one just had to check it out. It’s impressive, no doubt about that. Maybe not the first time that real life has imitated art – or at least Hollywood – but a very good adaptation of a cherished concept. It does feel like the film; the waiters wear the same uniform – a tasselled fez, white shirt and black trousers. The décor is all whitewashed walls and rather graceful Moorish arches. Maybe there are a few more potted plants than in the celluloid version. But unlike Rick’s Café Burbank, Rick’s Café Casablanca has an imposing and eye-catching staircase and an atrium which bathes it in a great deal of natural light. The bar, it has to be said, is the exact shape as the one in the film although the wall behind it has some additions that may be a bit too touristy for aficionados.
THE CORRESPONDENT MARCH/APRIL 2007
The initial impression is, however, a striking one; no matter how dimly you remember the film it feels like you are on set rather than in the real Casablanca in 2007. “We took the movie and added to it,” explained Kathy Kriger, part-owner and manageress who has on occasion been referred to as Madam Rick. “You don’t replicate the exact set. That was all fake.” There are more tables than the movie version suggests and a couple of dining rooms which are available for private hire. The menu has moved
on a bit and so, presumably, have the prices. Dinner costs about US$3540 per person including a couple of drinks. True believers will notice things like more tassels on the table lamps but can get their fix in the new lounge. Set above the main entrance, this room with its comfortable chairs around lower tables, could lend itself to late night intrigue or just plain gossip against a TV endlessly reeling the film Casablanca with the sound off. You could intrigue or just plain gossip here but with the world changing and Casablanca once again a nodal point in north Africa, it is one of the most charming places around to sit and wonder who will be next to wander into what is an admirable gin joint. Or order a gin and tonic and realise your guidebook is hopelessly outdated.
Rick’s Café Casablanca 248, Bd Sour Jdid. Place du Jardin Public, Ancienne Médina, Casablanca, Morocco. Tel:: +212 (0) 22 27 42 07 / 08 Fax: +212 (0) 22 48 78 84 http://www.rickscafe.ma/
35
Around the Club
Assorted wee, sleeket, cowran, tim’rous beasties celebrate Burns Night at the FCC.
Together with his wife, China Vogue managing editor Angelica Cheung, notoriously prolific freelance Mark Graham has co-authored his greatest opus, with the March arrival of Hayley Cheung Graham. Sales of Cuban cigars reportedly soared in Sai Kung and Mark, who writes for the Wine Spectator, was recently seen at the Main Bar demanding of the staff : “A bottle of your finest whites, if you please!” Rumour has it that he is already pitching a book idea to Penguin Publishing: “The Ancient Art of Chinese Swaddling, as Practiced by a Cultured and KnowledgableYorkshireman.”
Jason Furness (left) celebrates his victory in the annual Rocky Lane 9 Ball Cup. The new FCC champion defeated Joe Nieh in the finals of the two-day tournament. A total of 32 competitors took part. Rocky Lane is pictured right
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THE CORRESPONDENT MARCH/APRIL
Professional Contacts FREELANCE PHOTOGRAPHERS BERTRAND VIRGILE SIMON — Editorials and corporate brochures Tel: 2526 4465 E-mail: info@red-desert.com.hk Website: WWW.RED-DESERT.COM.HK RAY CRANBOURNE — Editorial, Corporate and Industrial Tel/Fax: 2525 7553 E-mail: ray_cran bourne@hotmail.com BOB DAVIS — Corporate/Advertising/Editorial Tel: 9460 1718 Website: www.BOBDAVISphotographer.com HUBERT VAN ES — News, people, travel, commercial and movie stills Tel: 2559 3504 Fax: 2858 1721 E-mail: vanes@netvigator.com FREELANCE WRITER AND GHOSTWRITER Mark Regan - Writer of fact or fiction, biographies, memoirs and miscellanea. Also speechwriting, features, reports or research. Tel: 6108 1747 E-mail: mrregan@hotmail.com Website: www.markregan.com FREELANCE ARTISTS “SAY IT WITH A CARTOON!!!” Political cartoons, children’s books and FREE e-cards by Gavin Coates are available at http://wwwearthycartoons.com Tel: 2984 2783 Mobile: 9671 3057 E-mail: gavin@earthycartoons.com FREELANCE EDITOR/WRITER CHARLES WEATHERILL — Writing, editing, speeches, voice-overs and research by long-time resident Mobile: (852) 9023 5121 Tel: (852) 2524 1901 Fax: (852) 2537 2774. E-mail: charlesw@netvigator.com PAUL BAYFIELD — Financial editor and writer and editorial consultant. Tel: 9097 8503 Email: bayfieldhk@hotmail.com MARKETING AND MANAGEMENT SERVICES MARILYN HOOD — Write and edit correspondence, design database and powerpoints, report proofing and layout, sales and marketing, event and business promotions. Tel: (852) 9408 1636 Email: mhood@netfront.net SERVICES MEDIA TRAINING — How to deal professionally with intrusive reporters. Tutors are HKs top professional broadcasters and journalists. English and/or Chinese. Ted Thomas 2527 7077.
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THE CORRESPONDENT MARCH/APRIL 2007
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39
Out of Context
THE FCC StaďŹ&#x20AC; Party 2007
What the FCC Staff get up to when away from the Club
Once a year the tables are turned and the men and women who serve FCC members 52 weeks a year get the chance to let their own hair down.
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THE CORRESPONDENT MARCH/APRIL 2007
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