The market versus the state: the Chinese press since Tiananmen.

• Author: Zhang Xiaogang
• Position: Power of the Media in the Global System

Great changes in a society are often heralded by an unprecedented diffusion of information and debate over public affairs among individuals involved in increasingly diverse political and economic activities. This is the way civil society grows.(2) China can by no means remain an exception, no matter how much the nation's uniqueness is emphasized.(3)

There is, however, something unique about the press in China's transition to the market, namely the duality of its formal and informal roles. On the formal side, all media are required to toe the official propaganda line.(4) Press controls in China are not based upon codified censorship but are issue-specific. In order to ensure that the media interpret the news in a way favorable to the regime, the state decides what the press can and cannot report, who deals with particular issues and how these news items are to be presented. On the informal side, journalists have been attempting to break free from state control as their media seek liberties in the marketplace. Though all Chinese media have bureaucratic affiliations, their operations have been increasingly commercialized, and they can express opinions which are quite different from those prescribed by their bureaucratic affiliations.(5)

The period since the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing in June 1989 illustrates both the obstacles to press freedoms and hopes that they will grow along with the country's market-oriented reform. For the Chinese press, the past four years can be divided roughly into three periods: the setback from June 1989 to the turn of 1990; opposition to the post-Tiananmen regime's recentralization program from early 1990 to 1991; and most recently, amid more open economic debates, renewed political demands.

Before Tiananmen, an informal coalition existed between journalists and other forces pursuing market-oriented reform and greater civil liberties. Though the millions of people who have interests in a market economy might not understand the meaning of freedom of the press, their economic interests were inherently in conflict with intervention from the state. The increasing flow of information, as a necessary condition of the market, in turn fed on the demand for a redefinition of the meanings of society, individual and authority. Journalists welcomed these changes and wanted to earn the expected financial rewards and acclaim from the marketplace. During the inspiring, though very brief, moment of the mass protests in 1989, Chinese journalists proved as capable as their overseas colleagues in running a free press. Since the crackdown, however, they have been forced to resume serving their old masters at the central propaganda authorities.

The suppression of press freedoms essentially destroys both the meaning and the means of journalists' lives while the market can provide the conditions for the flourishing of both.(6) Since Tiananmen, Chinese journalists have tried tenaciously to retain a free flow of information and exchange of ideas in the face of state repression -- and they have met with certain successes. Their efforts focused on safeguarding the market; by continuing to sponsor debates, they and their coalition forces thwarted the regime's recentralization program. The program, which was slated to last until at least the end of 1992, began to collapse in 1990 and was officially abandoned in early 1992. At the same time, the press further expanded its own market.

This article will detail the developments in Chinese press freedoms since the initiation of market reforms in the late 1970s. It will demonstrate that the dynamics of market-oriented reform and greater freedom of the press have reinforced one another, although press freedoms have not yet been institutionalized, as have some market reforms. The ongoing struggle between the state and the media over the presentation and freedom of information will show that China stands at a crossroads of political and economic development: The path taken by a new generation of leaders will prove critical to the future of press freedoms. Despite the movement toward greater freedom of the press in recent years, the Chinese media still face a long march in asserting themselves amidst the historic changes occurring in China.

CHANGES IN THE PRESS SINCE THE LATE 1970s

Press debate over policy issues had been virtually unthinkable until economic reform was set in motion during the late 1970s. By the 1980s, however, such exchanges had become a significant part of Chinese politics. The debates exposed many problems that the regime had pretended to ignore. Individuals began to question nonsensical explanations given by those who had claimed to monopolize the truth. Question after question knocked the bottom out of the official ideology. At first, press debates helped individuals relate improvements in their living standards with the market's underlying concepts. For instance, people began to ask why the quality of the goods and services provided by state-owned enterprises was so poor compared to that of free market products. Economists explained that the state-owned enterprises were not yet truly free market operations, but rather bureaucratic extensions of the state. While the direct consequences of market reform were modest in the beginning, the debates eventually succeeded in drawing people away not only from old economic concepts but also from the entire ideology of the Stalinist-Maoist state.

The regime, however, was too faint-hearted to suffer more questioning. It soon tried to intervene by requiring the press to reserve 80 percent of its coverage for so-called positive reporting, or reporting favorable to the regime's image.(7) The press continued to host critical opinions of Chinese intellectuals who were calling for price reform, a new ownership structure and political liberalization. The notion of neo-authoritarianism, an idea first raised in late 1986, sparked a debate over political theories that lasted for more than two years. Both the advocates and opponents of this concept were removed from Marxist orthodoxy, which illustrated how free these debates were from state control.(8)

Freedom of the press was also addressed more candidly than ever before. Journalists, including those long affiliated with the Communist Party, began to urge reform of state press policies. They argued that the press be divided into a party press and a non-party press; that it facilitate the spread of political opinions -- including objections -- before decisions were made; and that non-party political journals be established "to provide a forum for free discussion."(9) They demanded that each news organization be granted "adequate decision-making power," that the Communist Party "keep interference to a minimum" and that the multiple functions of the media and the "opinions of editors and readers" be institutionalized.(10) Throughout this period, journalists strove to show that they chose to support the general direction of the changes in Chinese society, and that they were not acting out of loyalty to certain pro-reform power factions.

Amid the early efforts at market-building, the press also began to experience major structural changes. First, the number of press outlets increased, and their sponsorship became more decentralized. The number of publicly circulated newspapers grew to more than 1,600 in 1988 from only 200 ten years earlier.(11)

There are several reasons for the proliferation of press outlets during this era. Since the early 1980s, one bureaucratic institution after another had become interested in running its own newspaper. The state, besieged by a severe economic crisis, had shifted its priorities from pure ideology to development. This change forced the regime to take on more diverse operations as the division of functions between ideological and economic bureaucracies became more distinct. Of the economic bureaucracies, some were virtual national monopolies complete with work forces of more than a million each. The ideological bureaucracies were too dogmatic and slow to formulate useful operational policies. And the media under their direct control were too few and too unfamiliar with economic affairs. This encouraged the various economic bureaucracies to seek self-reliance in information services. In turn, this development broke down the monopoly that the central ideological authorities held over the media.

The second structural change of the press in the 1980s involved the emergence of a media market. With the increase in the number of the media, a circumscribed -- though one with much potential -- information market appeared. The media with loose state associations, the local media, the press under the central ideological authorities' direct control and the print and television media began to compete for audiences. During this time, television sets became one of the most popular durable goods in Chinese households.(12) Consequently, the burgeoning advertising business also provided the potential for the media's financial autonomy.

The third change was in the personnel structure of the press. The media expanded due to the need to employ the millions of rehabilitated intellectuals who had been victims of persecution and labor re-education, a Chinese version of the Soviet Gulag. Chinese universities also produced more than 5,000 graduates of journalism between 1984 and 1989. The press corps numbered about 70,000 in 1985 and was composed mostly of university graduates from the humanities and social sciences.(13) In 1988, total employment in the press and publishing industry had risen to about 600,000.(14) Many young journalists were either related to the persecuted intellectuals or had themselves experienced labor reeducation, and they tended to share the sensitivity of intellectuals from other fields. They sought the respect of their educated compatriots, while the bureaucrats habitually viewed journalists only as lifeless...