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| China and Its President Greeted by a Host of Indig 2006-4-21
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By Dana Milbank
Friday, April 21, 2006; Page A02
Chinese
President Hu Jintao got almost everything he wanted out of yesterday's visit to
the White House.
He got the 21-gun salute, the review of the troops and
the Colonial fife-and-drum corps. He got the exchange of toasts and a meal of
wild-caught Alaskan halibut with mushroom essence, $50 chardonnay and live
bluegrass music. And he got an Oval Office photo op with President Bush, who
nodded and smiled as if he understood Chinese while Hu spoke.
If only
the White House hadn't given press credentials to a Falun Gong activist who five
years ago heckled Hu's predecessor, Jiang Zemin, in Malta. Sure enough, 90
seconds into Hu's speech on the South Lawn, the woman started shrieking,
"President Hu, your days are numbered!" and "President Bush, stop him from
killing!"
Bush and Hu looked up, stunned. It took so long to silence her
-- a full three minutes -- that Bush aides began to wonder if the Secret
Service's strategy was to let her scream herself hoarse. The rattled Chinese
president haltingly attempted to continue his speech and television coverage
went to split screen.
"You're okay," Bush gently reassured Hu.
But
he wasn't okay, not really. The protocol-obsessed Chinese leader suffered a day
full of indignities -- some intentional, others just careless. The visit began
with a slight when the official announcer said the band would play the "national
anthem of the Republic of China" -- the official name of Taiwan. It continued
when Vice President Cheney donned sunglasses for the ceremony, and again when
Hu, attempting to leave the stage via the wrong staircase, was yanked back by
his jacket. Hu looked down at his sleeve to see the president of the United
States tugging at it as if redirecting an errant child.
Then there were
the intentional slights. China wanted a formal state visit such as Jiang got,
but the administration refused, calling it instead an "official" visit. Bush
acquiesced to the 21-gun salute but insisted on a luncheon instead of a formal
dinner, in the East Room instead of the State Dining Room. Even the visiting
country's flags were missing from the lampposts near the White House.
But
as protocol breaches go, it's hard to top the heckling of a foreign leader at
the White House. Explaining the incident -- the first disruption at the
executive mansion in recent memory -- White House and Secret Service officials
said she was "a legitimate journalist" and that there was nothing suspicious in
her background. In other words: Who knew?
Hu did. The Chinese had warned
the White House to be careful about who was admitted to the ceremony. To no
avail: They granted a one-day pass to Wang Wenyi of the Falun Gong publication
Epoch Times. A quick Nexis search shows that in 2001, she slipped through a
security cordon in Malta protecting Jiang (she had been denied media
credentials) and got into an argument with him. The 47-year-old pathologist is
expected to be charged today with attempting to harass a foreign
official.
Bush apologized to the angry Chinese leader in the Oval Office.
"Frankly, we moved on," National Security Council official Dennis Wilder told
reporters later. It was, he said, a "momentary blip."
Maybe, but Hu was
in no mood to make concessions. In negotiations, he gave the U.S. side nothing
tangible on delicate matters such as the nuclear problems in North Korea and
Iran, the Chinese currency's value and the trade deficit with
China.
Wilder pleaded for understanding. "Some people today want to see a
quick fix to the trade imbalance," he explained. "But in the new global economy
there is no quick fix."
In the arrival ceremony, Bush, after leading Hu
on a review of the troops, welcomed him to the White House. Hu clapped for
himself. He was less enthusiastic about the long list of demands Bush made in
his welcome speech: expand Chinese consumption of U.S. goods, enforce
intellectual property rights, and allow freedom to assemble, speak and
worship.
Hu's reply was overshadowed by what the White House transcript
politely called an "audience interruption," as if somebody had
sneezed.
The meeting in the Oval Office brought more of the same. In
front of the cameras, Bush thanked Hu for his "frankness" -- diplomatic code for
disagreement -- and Hu stood expressionless. The two unexpectedly agreed to take
questions from reporters, but Bush grew impatient as Hu gave a long answer about
trade, made all the longer by the translation. Bush at one point tapped his foot
on the ground. "It was a very comprehensive answer," he observed when Hu
finished.
Last came the unofficial state luncheon. After the butter
heirloom corn broth and the ginger-scented dumplings had been consumed, Hu rose
with a toast that proclaimed he and Bush had "reached a broad and important
agreement on China-U.S. relations."
The White House didn't see it that
way. Instead of a statement about a new accord with China, it issued a press
release titled "MEDICARE CHECK-UP: Prescription Drug Benefit Enrollment Hits 30
Million . . . ."
------------------------------------
Under Hu, China
Tightening Media Reins
By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN
The Associated
Press
Friday, April 21, 2006; 12:22 PM
SHANGHAI, China -- From Rolling
Stone to online essayists to a scrappy Beijing newspaper, a wide range of media
have felt the pressure of an official campaign to tighten controls on what
Chinese see and read.
Under President Hu Jintao, who was in the United
States this week, the communist government is challenging a growing public
appetite for information with a stepped-up campaign to block content deemed
politically or morally dangerous.
Chinese residents watch news
report about Chinese President Hu Jintao's visit to the U.S. at a store in
Zhuhai, China, Friday, April 21 2006. Chinese news reports Friday about
President Hu Jintao's White House visit avoided mentioning a Falun Gong
protester and a gaffe over China's name. But comments by ordinary Chinese on Web
sites accused U.S. President George W. Bush of insulting Hu. (AP Photo/Color
China Photo) (AP)
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Hundreds of small publications
have been shut down. Regulations on Web site content have been tightened. Dozens
of journalists have been jailed, while others have been fired or
demoted.
"All Chinese journalists to whom I have spoken say that freedom
has vastly decreased since 2003," the year Hu became president, said Ashley
Esarey, a scholar of Chinese politics and media at Middlebury College in
Vermont.
Hu appears committed to media policies aimed at ensuring
one-party rule by restricting free speech and reducing exposure to Western
concepts of multiparty democracy and human rights.
Freezing Point, a
weekly supplement in the Communist Party's China Youth Daily newspaper, was
ordered to halt publishing after it printed an article in February questioning
the official approach to history.
Editor Li Datong and his deputy, Lu
Yuegang, were fired. When the supplement reappeared a short time later, it
lacked its pointed content.
The government used to distribute regular
memos to editors telling them not to report on sensitive topics. Now
publications are instructed "not to sensationalize," said an editor in Shanghai,
who asked that neither she nor her publication be identified for fear of
official retaliation.
Esarey said a survey he led of more than 10,000
Chinese newspaper articles published since the 1980s showed a steady decline in
content critical of the government.
He said Hu's lack of popular support
may be making him even more inclined toward tight control.
Activists have
accused foreign companies of cooperating with Chinese censors in their zeal to
win access to a market with 111 million Internet users and hundreds of millions
of potential magazine and other customers.
Yahoo! Inc. handed over
e-mails that Chinese prosecutors used to convict dissidents. Microsoft Corp.
agreed to shut down the blog of a Chinese user. Google Inc.'s new Chinese search
engine filters out results for sites banned by Beijing.
Rolling Stone's
troubles appeared to be political, though not due to its content.
The
Chinese edition was launched in March, but was quickly declared illegal _
apparently due to a little-known government order last year that banned new
magazine joint ventures. Officials have offered few details.
The magazine
returned with a second edition in April, replacing the name Rolling Stone with
the title Audiovisual World but with the content largely unchanged.
"We
just wanted to keep the style of the magazine," said editor Hao Fang, who
laughed but offered no explanation when asked the reason for the name
change.
In a typically vague pronouncement, Chinese media were told
recently to use less foreign content.
Television channels such as CNN and
the British Broadcasting Corp.'s BBC World are limited to hotels and apartment
buildings where foreigners live. But the government still monitors the signals
and routinely blacks out broadcasts on sensitive topics.
On Friday, CNN
and the BBC were repeatedly blacked out, apparently to prevent viewers in China
from seeing a Falun Gong protester at Hu's White House appearance a day
earlier.
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