January 18, 2005 Tuesday

Totalitarian governments the world over always put a premium on control of information and the merciless promotion of "correct" thought amongst the citizenry.

The Chinese government, among the dwindling remnants of communist regimes in spirit if not in fact, allows little room for public debate on social and political issues. Even the end of communism as a supreme creed and the transition of China to "capitalism" has not lessened the state's fear of unfettered access to information.

Editors who fall foul of party leaders are routinely detained. The state employs about 30,000 people to monitor the Internet and close off access to unacceptable views whether it be The New York Times, the BBC or Chinese essayists like the young woman known as Steel Mouse.

In recent months, there has been a harsh state campaign against "public intellectuals." These netizens are a particularly Chinese phenomenon whose origins are in the poetry clubs of imperial times that drew together scholars and the literati to discuss and write about cultural, social and political issues.

But Beijing's desire to control news and views is a doomed endeavour, especially outside China.

In 2002, for example, some Chinese Americans started New Tang Dynasty TV aimed at countering the information pablum peddled by Beijing's state-owned satellite channel CCTV. NTDTV says it aims to be "the Chinese-language PBS" and it already has more than 50 news bureaus, about half of them in the United States.

Beijing believes NTDTV is a front for Falun Gong, the organization that promotes spiritual well-being through exercise and meditation and which the Chinese government banned in 1999 [...].

It appears that, on the basis of this alleged association with Falun Gong, the Chinese embassy in Ottawa has refused visas for an NTDTV cameraman and reporter to accompany Prime Minister Paul Martin on his visit to China this week.

It is undoubtedly true that many of the people working for NTDTV are Falun Gong practitioners, though there is no evidence of a corporate link. But very many people in the Chinese diaspora in general are followers of Falun Gong, as are millions within China where their ruthless persecution is one of Beijing's worst abuses of human rights.

But the members of the NTDTV news crew are Canadian citizens. Their spiritual beliefs are protected by law, as is their freedom of journalistic expression.

Martin has said he finds Beijing's refusal to issue the visas "a very serious issue" and his government will continue to press the case for the NTDTV crew.

He should also point out to his hosts that such sensitivity over uncontrolled information and alternative viewpoints does not create an attractive climate for trade and investment.