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More voices don't equate to clarity

By Zhang Jin
Updated: 2010-07-12 00:00

BEIJING — Those who believe that a spokesperson will enthusiastically press ahead to disseminate information in China should think twice.

On June 30, representatives from 11 departments of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee appeared together to meet with domestic and overseas journalists.

The 11 spokespersons represent a number of departments, one of which was the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the Organization Department, the disciplinary watchdog of the Party that addresses one of China’s major social concerns — corruption.

The move came a day ahead of the 89th anniversary of the founding of the CPC, which has nearly 78 million members, and appeared to be a gift to the Party.

Looking at the meetup at face value, having a spokesperson was a good step for the Party and the government to shrug off its reputation — as labelled by some Western critics — of keeping people in the dark.

“The spokesperson system is the key to ... promoting intra-Party democracy and improving the Party’s governance,” said Wang Chen, minister of State Council Information Office, on the debut of the 11 representatives.

But having a spokesperson does not necessarily ensure a greater flow of information.

There are also worries that having these spokespersons would only result in tightening the control of information, making the lives of journalists harder and depriving the public of its right to information.

“The system may become the shield for some officials who refuse interviews and the vehicle for them to monopolize information,” wrote the Southern Daily, a Guangzhou-based newspaper known for its sharp criticism, in a column.

Some journalists have in the past complained that they can’t get any information after a spokesperson has been appointed because other sources from the ministry or a department are not authorized to talk to the media.

The point is that it doesn’t matter whether there is a spokesperson or not. It does matter whether officials really respect the media’s role as an information sender and, more importantly, a supervisor.

But to the government’s credit, the appointment of spokespersons for a Party organization and government department is nothing new.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs had the first spokesperson in 1983, and spokespersons mushroomed among departments since the SARS outbreak in 2003, when the public was angered by the government’s opaque information disclosure that at the initial stage of the epidemic led to panic and misunderstanding.

Some ministries and departments such as the Foreign Ministry and Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council regularly organize press conferences.

Without a doubt, Beijing has been releasing information more timely and proactively in recent years because officials realize it is sometimes better to disclose the news than bury it.

After all, in a globalized world where Internet communication has taken on many, many forms — such as blogs, text messages and social-networking websites — it’s getting more and more unlikely and, more importantly, silly, for officials to keep the public in the dark.

But on the same day that the 11 spokespersons made their debut, a humorous event created the potential to unravel the government’s work of being more transparent.

Wang Xichen, director of land resources department of Gongzhuling in Northeast China’s Jilin province, asked a journalist, “You are just a reporter. Are you qualified to check these documents? You are neither from a government department nor from the public security bureau.” Wang was responding to the reporter’s inquiry of a local government’s suspected abuse of land in the establishment of industrial zones.

Wang is not the only official who has indulged his or her belief that the media are merely the mouthpiece of the government and the Party.

At the sidelines of the annual National People’s Congress conference in March, Li Hongzhong, provincial governor of Hunan, snatched the recorder from a reporter and gave the reporter a scolding when Li thought a question was akin to a slap on the face. The reporter was asking for the governor to comment on a case in which an 18-year-old hotel waitress stabbed an official to death. The official reportedly coerced the girl to have sex with him in a hotel in Badong county of the province, in central China, last year.

Both Wang and Li likely hold the view that the government is the manager of the media.

If all Chinese officials behave like that, the spokespersons won’t help too much.

 

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