Zhongnanhai

I was struck by a comment on Danwei recently regarding Chinese thoughts on foreign correspondents and foreign NGOs working in China:

In honor of this date, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Reporters Sans Frontières, and the Foreign Correspondents Club of China have all released reports and held press conferences to tell the world that foreign reporters continue to be hassled and the local media still is not free.

Many of your correspondent's Chinese friends think that the organizations listed above are just silly, trouble-making foreigners who don't really get it.

I surely hope the founder of Danwei, Jeremy Goldkorn, wasn't using the words of his friends to illustrate his own beliefs.

Too often, and much to the approval of the Chinese government, critics of foreign journalists lump them into the same ideologically-driven camp as their state-run counterparts, just at opposite ends of the same spectrum. As someone who has worked in a plethora of state-run media (and media in Canada), I can confirm that the two entities are not the same -- not even close.

First of all, it's convenient, for argument purposes, to dismiss critics of China as "silly". But those organizations listed above, and foreign media in general, have a much higher bar to reach than their Chinese counterparts. Let me give you an example:

My loyal Communist party girlfriend, who works in state-run media and can speak perfectly from Communist party talking points, recently dismissed Jung Chang's latest book, Mao: The Untold Story as utter propaganda. No, she didn't read it. But she has read reviews of the book, and I've shared its contents with her on numerous occasions.

The book is not one of my favorites, and I object to Jung Chang's obvious agenda, which is to tear down Mao's image and turn legends around Mao into myths. But the book, which took 10 years of meticulous research, can stand on its own, despite the criticism. There are detailed endnotes supplied and her work will be/has been reviewed and criticized and pulled apart at various academic institutions and by other Sinofiles. This is the process of finding the truth: letting work be dissected by peers.

Foreign journalists must also live up to this responsibility, even if they fail from time to time. If Joseph Kahn of the New York Times writes an incredibly biased story on China, it will be torn apart in the blogosphere, be criticized by other journalists at home, and hurt the reputation and credibility of his employer. It is this peer pressure which helps enforce journalistic ethics. In addition, in an open society, work can be dissected publicly. As a journalist, you do your best to ensure your bases are covered, because your own reputation is on the line.

Now, to Chinese media. As I have mentioned before, I have worked at CCTV 9 and China Radio International, among others. In both places, we talked about how Tibet has been a part of China for centuries, how the living standards of Tibetans have improved, and how Tibetans have embraced the motherland. I don't object to an organization reporting this, if they have the facts to back it up. But other organizations should be allowed to go to Tibet, and talk to Tibetans, to verify this. This is what would happen in an open and free media environment. Because China can report what it wants internally, and control what other media report, it's much less likely the truth will come out. The bar is lowered for what can pass as "journalism", because nobody's personal reputation can be challenged publicly. Thus, the credibility problem.

So when people in China, the government, or other organizations dismiss foreign reporters, the Foreign Correspondents Club of China, or Reporters Sans Frontiers as "silly", it reveals the lack of hard evidence to support critical claims against these organizations and brings them down to the level of their Chinese counterparts.

Foreign journalists aren't perfect, and often foreign organizations have agendas. But in free countries, we are allowed to determine that on our own, and decide which groups we can ignore and which ones are beneficial.

I'm tempted to go into the problems with state-run media (of which there are many), but this subject was summarized well recently on Imagethief and on Richard Spencer's blog. Both are well-deserving of a read.

A huge hat-tip to Danwei for this article on a controversy in Salt Lake City. As I was reading through it, I couldn't believe this wasn't a satire of some kind. There are so many angles to this story.

The premise is this: Real Salt Lake hosted China in a football friendly at Rice-Eccles Stadium. Considering the game was in the United States, it could be expected that the fans cheered for the home team, and they didn't disappoint. That wasn't the problem -- the problem was the taunts given to the Chinese side. Did they hurl racial epithets? Make faces with squinty eyes? No. Their crime was to wave the flags of Tibet and Taiwan.

Coker said he and several others, including five Tibetan men, were escorted out of the University of Utah's Rice-Eccles Stadium by about 10 officials, including stadium personnel and Real Salt Lake representatives, because they had been waving Tibetan flags and had refused to put them away when the officials told them to do so.

The controversy began shortly after halftime, when Chinese players complained about fans displaying Taiwanese and Tibetan flags and a sign that said "6-4," written in Chinese. That sign referred to June 4, 1989, the date of the Chinese government's attack on protesters in Tiananmen Square in Beijing. Members of the Chinese National Team stepped off the field and refused to continue playing unless the flags were put away.

Now, clearly waving the Tibet and Taiwan flags would not be appreciated by the Chinese players. Although I'm sure chants of Osama in Mexico City a few years ago didn't impress the American side, either. Unlike Tibet and Taiwan, 9/11 happened only a few years ago and left a deep scar on the American psyche.  It has directly lead to two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Thousands of Americans are dying overseas. Many people lost loved ones in Washington, Pennsylvania, and New York that day.  I would argue most Americans have been personally touched by 9/11 in some way, whether they lost someone in the attacks, lost a family member or friend in the wars, or has seen someone head off to Iraq or Afghanistan. As such, I would argue that the wounds from 9/11 go much deeper to today's generation of Americans than the plight of Tibet does to today's generation of Chinese.

Despite this, fans in Mexico city chanted "Osama! Osama!" to throw off the American players and score political points. One American player summed up his experience in the game this way.

"Since Mexico won convincingly, every fan walked out cheering," U.S. goalkeeper D.J. Countess said Wednesday after training. "I've been hit with bags of urine, limes and batteries. There even was a dead chicken thrown on the field next to me in El Salvador, but since Mexico got the result they wanted, there wasn't much of that.

"I'm sure if we would have won the game, there would have been a lot of stuff thrown at us and a lot of chants."

Dead chickens? Being pelted with batteries? The Americans played through it regardless, even though there were threats against their personal safety. The Chinese can't bear seeing a flag they consider offensive. Draw your own conclusions.

Sports is about having fun, and generally shouldn't be political. That being said, fans will be fans. I'm a big Vancouver Canucks fan, and their playoff drive this spring saw them go through the Dallas Stars and struggling goaltender Marty Turco. Game in and game out, fans chanted "Turco Sucks!" I couldn't image how hearing 18,000 fans, chanting in unison that you suck, could make a player feel. Nonetheless, he played his heart out, was terrific, and was arguably Dallas' best player in the series. In other words, he was mature about it.

I don't totally object to taking things to a political level either, as long as it's done with respect. No burning flags, no burning effigies, no racial epithets. Waving a Tibet flag, while it carries inferences of "Tibetan Independence" does not necessarily mean so. It's a fairly benign way to make a point. Likewise with Taiwan, which has a flag that is flown in Olympic ceremonies and in places all over the world. Perhaps references to 6-4 were a little over the top, but I still err on the side of free speech. At the end of the day, the game was in America, and if you can't make political points there without fear of repercussion, where can you?

I can understand why the government and players objected to having these banners and flags flown while they played. Just like I understand why goalkeeper D.J. Countess didn't like being pelted with batteries, or why Marty Turco didn't like being told repeatedly he sucked. But I can't help but think that this is life, and this is sports -- grow up, and get over it. I'm still waiting for an official Chinese government spokesperson to say that the flags "hurt the feelings of the Chinese people", a phrase that turns supposedly thinking, mature adults into defenseless children. It's a sorry state of affairs when the world's apparent future superpower won't even play football because it's offended by some piddly flags.

Regardless of the political implications, many fans admitted they were just trying to throw the team off.

Fitzgerald said the fans who were ejected weren't really interested in protesting China's politics and instead just wanted to harass and disrupt the Chinese team. He said other fans have frequently complained about those particular fans' use of profanity and sexually explicit language and props during previous games.

Again, trying to distract the opposition is perfectly normal. Just watch an opposing player try and throw a free throw in the NBA.

Despite Fitzgerald's reasons for being there, others were definitely trying to make a political point, and feel their rights were infringed upon -- and rightly so.

Coker admits that he displayed the flag partly to distract and annoy the visiting team, but he said it was mostly a "form of expression about the plight of the people of Tibet."

"I'm going to be contacting the ACLU, and I'm going to pursue it," he said. "I want to hold people accountable if they broke the law, because I know I didn't."

Ironically, the flags flown by Tibetans, Taiwanese, and other concerned Americans was nearly a direct result of China's control of information within the P.R.C. When people can't make these points directly to the Chinese government, they spill out in sporting events and other activities. If China was to allow free debate and discussion on things like Tibet and Taiwan, or engage with those critical of it, perhaps there would be no need to use this kind of an event to score political points. I highly doubt people would be carrying banners saying "6-4" if the Chinese government had already given a full vetting of the event.

At some point the Chinese government and people will have to come to terms with its sometimes brutal and controversial past.  The longer things like June 4th are ignored, the more they will crop up in events like this.  Keeping the people shielded from opinions and events that might be uncomfortable may work inside the P.R.C. for the time being, but it will spill out in other places, like this week's football match. And it's going to spill out a lot more frequently in the years to come.

This also boils down to the players, management, and owners of China's football team.  Were they really so offended that they couldn't play?  Was seeing a Tibetan flag so offensive and utterly disgusting that they were prepared to walk off the field?  Is this the mindset of the Chinese people?  And if so, the rest of the world is scared about what, exactly? 

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Notes:

• Video from the game, including shots of the forbidden flags, can be found here.
  
• A fan, who was at the game and waved an ROC flag, blogged about his experience getting kicked out of the stadium here.