Thursday, May 2, 2002

NEW YORK -- As Chinese Vice-President Hu Jintao met with top U.S. officials yesterday to discuss issues such as human rights, many China watchers were worried about press restrictions under the Communist regime.

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China watchers in the United States [...] point to a trend toward increasing control of the Hong Kong media by the government in Beijing, a pattern that began when the former British colony reverted to Beijing's control in 1997. For example, the South China Morning Post -- long considered Asia's pre-eminent newspaper for getting a realistic glimpse into China -- has been purging veteran journalists deemed critical of the Communist regime.

This week, it fired its widely respected Beijing bureau chief, Jasper Becker, for alleged insubordination. The newspaper's China editor, Wang Xiangwei, used to work for the Communist Party-controlled China Daily, the regime's propaganda outlet. The South China Morning Post has also started carrying news and feature stories from Xinhua, the official news service of China.

Mr. Becker, who worked for the paper for seven years, said the turning point for him was when the South China Morning Post was reclassified as a domestic newspaper. After that, he said, stories on Falun Gong, Tibet, and human-rights abuses were discouraged. "I don't know to what extent they've been pressured to do this," Mr. Becker said in an interview yesterday. "I wonder if they do it voluntarily, to curry favour with Beijing."

Among China watchers, Mr. Becker, 45, was considered one of the best journalists covering the mainland and his work received attention around the world. Yesterday, for example, he too was in Washington, to testify at a congressional committee on the plight of North Korean refugees living in China.

The Hong Kong government, which exists at Beijing's pleasure, is planning to create an antisubversion law in the next year or two, which many believe will censor the press there in the same way it is in China. "It will make it a treasonable offence for Hong Kong journalists to contradict the government line on Tibet, or Falun Gong," Mr. Becker noted. "The newspaper is already acting as though the law is in place."

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