China launches media crackdown

China announced the launch of a broad crackdown on false news reports and illegal publications Wednesday as authorities struggle with a spate of embarrassing scandals and look ahead to the most important event on the country’s political calendar.

Although China’s one-party leaders face no popular election, they are extremely sensitive before major political meetings, which tend to be heavily scripted. Wednesday’s announcement comes as President Hu Jintao moves to consolidate his power at a Communist Party congress expected in October, set the conditions of his second term and secure his place in history.

China is battling a wave of bad press at home and abroad over the safety and quality of toys, tires, toothpaste, seafood, pet food, pharmaceuticals and food additives, among others. But the media crackdown, announced on a central government website and in the People’s Daily, the main party mouthpiece, is ostensibly a reaction to a couple of recent scandals.

In one, a television station reported that pork buns were being stuffed with cardboard. The report received widespread attention, but the government ruled that the story was a fake and sentenced the recently hired journalist to a year in jail.

Even if the story was false, some Chinese journalists and international rights groups have criticized the sentence as excessive, arguing that media ethics issues are best handled by news organizations.

In another case, a journalist was beaten to death in January by thugs while reporting about a coal mine.

Accounts differ on exactly what happened, but a cottage industry has grown up in which owners of illegal mines are blackmailed so that reports on their dangerous, unlicensed operations do not reach the public.

Some say these cases were only convenient pretexts for a crackdown.

“They need to control the society to be on the safe side and avoid anything that might spoil the happy atmosphere of their meeting,” said Jin Zhong, chief editor of Open magazine, a Hong Kong-based monthly. “They don’t like diverse opinions because they don’t understand that debate is good for society. They feel that any criticism makes the government lose face.”

Others said the move was justified because of the expansion of Internet reporting in China, which has proved difficult to control.

“Some people are even afraid to eat stuffed pork buns now,” said Huang Nanping, a professor at Peking University’s Marxism and Leninism Institute. “Fake news makes their lives unstable.”

As part of the campaign announced Wednesday, which is to last through mid-October, the government also announced a crackdown on illegal publications, including those that target the military, leak state secrets or “fabricate political rumors,” the People’s Daily said, quoting Liu Binjie, director of the General Administration of Press and Publications.

In a step felt by China’s nascent nonprofit world, the publication China Development Brief newsletter was shut down last month, ostensibly for conducting “illegal surveys.” The publication tracked local and international civic organizations working on health, labor, environment and other issues.

China’s government has made no secret of its fear that foreign-funded nonprofit groups might try to unseat the Communist Party.

On Wednesday, authorities shut two offices of a small group called China Orchid AIDS Project in Henan province. This followed the forced cancellation of an international conference on AIDS in early August and of a meeting of Chinese AIDS activists Wednesday.

“This is very disturbing,” said Sara Davis, executive director of Asia Catalyst, which has worked with several of the groups. “And it comes just at the moment when international eyes are on China.”

Reporters say a directive by propaganda officials in July has barred the state-run press from writing any “negative” news on the safety and quality scandals.

“Food safety is a very sensitive issue right now,” said a Guangzhou-based reporter. “The domestic media can’t touch it right now.”

Chinese leaders are also facing discontent over a sharp increase in food prices. The consumer price index rose 5.6% in July, its steepest increase in 10 years. This comes at a time when the Communist Party has made a reduction in China’s wealth gap a cornerstone policy.

“I can’t afford to buy much now, and the government really should do something to control this inflation,” said Wang Shen, 29, a Beijing resident who works in marketing. “The price of almost every consumer item is going up, and people’s lifestyles are deteriorating.”

The government’s response to the wave of negative publicity has been to focus on the messenger. Zi Beijia, a reporter for Beijing Television, was jailed after the government determined that he had concocted a report in which makers of steamed pork buns were said to soak cardboard in caustic soda to soften it before flavoring it with pork juice.

Analysts said the government was particularly angry because the report came from China’s mainstream press.

“I think the issue is politicized,” said Jiao Guobiao, a former professor at Peking University, now in Germany, who lost his job after criticizing the propaganda ministry. “Does this mean the authors of all fake news get jail terms in the future?”

In a memo leaked to the press this year, Chinese censors listed 20 topics off limits to reporters before the party congress, which occurs every five years. Among these are judicial corruption, campaigns for individual rights, sex crimes, lifestyles of the rich, and extramarital affairs.

“The government can make real news turn into fake news,” said one anonymous Internet posting. “I think they’re worse than those stuffed bun makers!”

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mark.magnier@latimes.com