They’d Prefer the Truth Not Be Known : Why Beijing Has Singled Out Foreign Correspondents for Special Abuse

Still on the political defensive a year after murderously crushing anti-government protesters in Beijing, China’s increasingly unpopular rulers are again appealing to traditional xenophobia to try to distract public attention from their own failings.

This week the official media have been producing a torrent of criticism of foreign countries--mainly Western--for past actions inimical to China, starting with the Opium Wars of the mid-19th Century. To emphasize its anti-foreign message and make sure that it won’t be dismissed simply as an excursion into history, the regime has singled out foreign correspondents in Beijing for special abuse. A number have been harassed by police at gunpoint. At least a half-dozen have been beaten.

The physical attacks on the journalists occurred in a number of separate incidents over several days. Obviously, as Marxists are wont to say, this series of assaults was no coincidence. The Foreign Correspondents Club of Beijing noted in its formal protest to the government that the attacks were wholly unprovoked.

What was their purpose? Pretty clearly it was the grimly familiar one of trying to force subservience, if not self-censorship. As the Foreign Correspondents Club protest put it, “These actions are an attempt to intimidate members of the foreign press and prevent us from carrying out legitimate reporting activities.”

Those specific activities involved efforts to report on two nights of protests at Beijing universities, on the anniversary of last year’s army massacre of demonstrators. On both Sunday and Monday, journalists representing the Los Angeles Times, Reuter, the West German television network ZDF, ABC and CBS were assaulted. Some had their cameras or video equipment smashed. Several were severely beaten.

Defending the regime’s actions, a foreign ministry spokesman dismissed the protest from the Foreign Correspondents Club as “unreasonable” and described the journalists’ effort to do their jobs as “illegal.” A totalitarian government that is unrestrained in setting the rules can, of course, make anything it chooses “illegal.” The fact is that reporting of the kind that became the excuse for ugly official attacks is--at least in countries that respect and protect civil rights--regarded as routine and unexceptional. What the Chinese government objects to, it’s clear, is not some supposed abuse of its hospitality or disregard of its laws. What it objects to is the determination of foreign correspondents independently to seek out and report the truth.