MCLC: Yu Hua on censorship

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Martin Winter <dujuan99 at gmail.com>
Subject: Yu Hua on censorship
***********************************************************

Source: NY Times (2/28/13):
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/28/opinion/yu-censorships-many-faces.html
 

Censorship in China conjures the image of rigid, unsmiling authority, but
that disapproving scowl can give way to a different expression — and not
always a consistent one. A film, for example, might be banned for 20
years, while the novel on which it is based sells briskly throughout that
same period.

This might seem puzzling, but the reason is simple. China has more than
500 publishing houses, each with its own editor in chief (and de facto
censor); if a book is rejected by one publisher there’s still a chance
another will take it. In contrast, films are not released until officials
in the state cinema bureau in Beijing are satisfied, and once a film is
banned it has no hope of being screened.

When it comes to censorship in China, the primary factors are often
economic, not political. Publishing houses that were once government
financed have operated as commercial enterprises for years now. Editors
are under pressure to make the biggest profit they can. Even if a book
carries some political risks, a daring editor will take the gamble if
there’s a chance it will be a best seller.

To be sure, there are some limits in book publishing — the Tiananmen
Square protests of 1989 are taboo, for example — but fewer than in film.
That’s because film censors, unlike book publishers, don’t have to worry
about making profits. Each script is scrutinized, and only after it’s
approved can filming commence. Review of the finished product is even more
exacting. Even if they were to reject every project that comes their way,
it wouldn’t affect their salaries, so they are not prepared to take on the
least political risk. That’s why the Cultural Revolution and other
sensitive topics are regularly discussed in print but remain off-limits on
film. If you go to a cinema, all you’ll see, basically, are martial-arts
films, palace dramas, love stories and comedies — and a few American
movies.

Television censorship is a bit less strict. Programming directors decide
what gets broadcast, but the propaganda ministry often demands changes.
China Central Television, the state broadcaster, is the most carefully
monitored; regional stations have more leeway. News programming undergoes
the strictest censorship, while other programs — particularly sports —
have more freedom.

Newspaper censorship is also relatively more relaxed than film censorship,
but stricter than book censorship. Stricter because the Communist Party
puts more stress on control of the press (“journalism is the Party’s
mouthpiece,” the saying goes). More relaxed because the press has to make
its way in the marketplace. Newspapers need circulation and advertising
revenue, so they publish lots of stories about social problems and
injustices, because that’s what readers want. When newspapers got
government subsidies, they were politically and economically beholden. Now
their subservience can’t be counted on. As the economic base crumbles, the
superstructure threatens to collapse.

The newspaper Southern Weekend, based in Guangdong Province, for years
published exposés on corruption and malfeasance, becoming one of China’s
most popular news outlets. Shrewdly, it focused its muckraking on other
provinces, with the result that local censors often cut it slack. Papers
elsewhere began to take their lead from Southern Weekend, dispatching
investigative reporters far afield while carrying upbeat news about the
situation close to home.

The highly publicized demonstrations in January over censorship of
Southern Weekend were a rarity: a “mass incident” (as China calls such
protests) over the media. A propaganda chief who’d parachuted in from
Beijing had meddled so crudely with a routine editorial that he triggered
a revolt among editors and reporters. Other newspapers lent support to the
protesters, while on the Internet the outrage was even stronger. Soon it
was all hushed up. The paper has continued to publish. The authorities
offered vague commitments of gentler censorship, but have quietly begun
retaliating against those who took a stand. The government won in the end,
but its censorship had encountered — for the first time in decades —
head-on resistance from a press that has become far less docile.

On Weibo, a kind of Chinese Twitter, I recently made a joking comparison
between media censorship and the pervasive threat of contaminated food, a
constant source of worry:

“There’s no end to these food scares,” a friend sighed. “Is there any hope
of a solution?”

“Oh, all we need is for food inspections to be as forceful as film
censorship,” I told him breezily. “With all that faultfinding and
nit-picking, food-safety issues will be resolved in no time.”

More than 12,000 readers reposted this. One wrote: I know what we should
do. Let’s have those in charge of film, newspaper and book censorship take
over food safety, and have those responsible for food safety censor films,
papers and books. That way we’ll have food safety — and freedom of
expression as well!

Yu Hua 
<http://www.randomhouse.com/author/42988/yu-hua?sort=best_13wk_3month>,
the author of “China in Ten Words,” is a guest columnist. This column was
translated by Allan H. Barr from the Chinese.