China battles to block bad news
16/07/2007 12:10  - (SA)  

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Beijing - The internet, mobile phones and other new technologies are making it harder for China's communist rulers to block negative news, a top government official said in comments published on Monday.

"It has been repeatedly proved that information blocking is like walking into a dead end," the state-run China Daily newspaper quoted Wang Guoqing, a vice-minister with the cabinet's information office, as saying.

Wang said local governments needed to be more transparent, describing some as being "too naive" in thinking they could hide damaging information.

"Wang revealed that some local government spokespeople used to believe that 90% of bad news could be muffled while only 10% would be unluckily exposed by the media," the China Daily said.

He cited the recent case of a slavery scandal that emerged in China's Shanxi and Henan provinces as proving that bad news needs to be managed and controlled, rather than covered up.

Hundreds, perhaps thousands of people had been forced to work as slaves in brickyards for years, but the governments there refused to acknowledge any problem until relatives of victims posted information about the scandal on the internet.

"Keeping the information out of the media spotlight until the scandal came under full public scrutiny left the Shanxi government in a very vulnerable position," the paper said, paraphrasing Wang.

Wang said the central government's commitment to transparency, as well as new information technologies such as the internet and mobile phones, were making it more difficult for local officials to hide bad news.

China an 'enemy of the internet'

However, Reporters Without Borders describes the Chinese government as an "enemy of the internet".

In its annual report in February, the global media watchdog said that China, using "armies" of cyber-police, was spearheading an increasingly sophisticated movement by repressive regimes around the world to restrict the internet.

In a speech in January, Chinese President Hu Jintao also said that the central government intended to keep as tight a rein on the internet as it does on traditional forms of the media such as newspapers and television.

- AFP

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