MCLC: blackout of US media cannot be ignored

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: pjmooney <pjmooney at me.com>
Subject: blackout of US media cannot be ignored
************************************************************

Why is it that other countries open their doors to China, and yet it seems
that China feels no obligation to reciprocate? There are some 700 Chinese
journalists in the US, far more than the number of American journalists in
China, and yet people are waiting months, and in some cases more than a
year to get their visas. Some people are completely barred for no
justifiable reason--they have broken no laws. The government just doesn't
like their reporting.

Paul

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Source: Washington Post (7/10/13):
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/chinas-blackout-of-us-media-can-no-l
onger-be-ignored/2013/07/10/2bdea62e-e7f5-11e2-a301-ea5a8116d211_story.html

China’s blackout of U.S. media can no longer be ignored
By Jim Sciutto

Jim Sciutto was chief of staff at the U.S. Embassy in Beijing from 2011 to
2013. Before that, he was senior foreign correspondent for ABC News. He is
on Twitter: @JimSciuttoChina <https://twitter.com/jimsciuttoChina>.

From the moment we land in China, Americans must adjust to an aggressively
censored version of the Internet, sanitized of the United States’ most
iconic brands. Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube are blocked. Google is
partially blocked and sometimes runs through a ringer of digital
interference that makes it painfully slow. The New York Times and
Bloomberg News are off-limits, while the Wall Street Journal and other
U.S. news sites endure targeted blockages of stories deemed sensitive.

This censorship is not just an inconvenience but also a reminder that many
leading U.S. media and technology companies are excluded, or largely
excluded, from one of the world’s largest markets and this country’s
largest trading partner.

The United States should act forcefully to make this media freedom issue
also about trade.

The international community missed an opportunity when China was allowed
to enter the World Trade Organization in 2001 while refusing to sign the
media portion of the membership agreement.

But China’s Web-site-blocking appears inconsistent with its broader
free-trade commitments under WTO and related agreements, including the
General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) and the General Agreement on
Tariffs and Trade (GATT). As the Georgetown Journal of International
Affairs has noted 
<http://journal.georgetown.edu/2013/02/06/evaluating-us-government-initiati
ves-on-chinese-censorship-james-zimmerman/>, GATT Article III stipulates
that countries should apply “no less favorable” treatment to goods or
services imported from other member countries. China’s arbitrary blockage
of U.S. Web sites would seem to violate this: The New York Times and
Bloomberg are blocked while other U.S. and international news sites are
not. Similarly, Facebook and Twitter are shut down, while Chinese social
media sites, such as Renren, are allowed to operate with censoring.

China’s blockages are either punitive or a matter of policy, or both.
YouTube has been blocked since 2009 after a video
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3OBrVo929Ns> was posted showing Chinese
security forces beating Tibetans; Twitter and Facebook since the Chinese
government nervously witnessed the role of social media in the Arab
Spring; Google since 2010, after the company stopped censoring searches on
its own. Bloomberg and the Times were restricted after publishing stories
documenting the immense wealth of the relatives of China’s senior leaders.

China’s methods are sometimes more disturbing. American journalists
covering sensitive topics have received messages containing threats to
their safety. China has delayed
<http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/31/chris-buckley-new-york-times-chin
a_n_2389309.html> or refused visas to many U.S. journalists
<http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/blogs/citydesk/2010/03/10/washington-po
st-kissinger-team-up-on-reporters-access-to-china/>, feeding suspicions
that the approval process has become a form of blackmail. Meanwhile, the
United States has granted and continues to grant visas to nearly 700
Chinese journalists to report in the States, most of whom work for Chinese
state media.

U.S. officials have repeatedly raised these issues with their Chinese
counterparts, so far with few results. The time has come to exact a price
for unfair behavior.

First, at this week’s U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue
<http://blogs.state.gov/stories/2013/07/09/your-special-access-pass-us-chin
a-strategic-and-economic-dialogue>, Washington has an opportunity to raise
this as a violation of China’s trade commitments. Beijing has denied the
New York Times and Bloomberg millions of dollars in revenue. Meanwhile,
Chinese media — including the state-run China Daily, which is available on
street corners across Washington — face no trade barriers in the United
States. The effect on U.S. technology companies is even broader. By
interfering with Google, for example, the government has helped funnel
most of China’s 600 million Internet users to a homegrown search engine,
Baidu <http://www.baidu.com/>.

Second, the United States can execute a more reciprocal visa policy.
Denying visas to Chinese journalists would undermine the U.S. commitment
to a free press. The State Department could, however, make it more
difficult for executives of Chinese state media to obtain visas for travel
not related to news-gathering.

Finally, the United States should name and shame the government ministries
responsible, much as it has done with Chinese cyberattacks. U.S. media
outlets have been reluctant to discuss China’s abusive tactics for fear of
tempting a more aggressive crackdown. Washington can and should assume the
burden.

As many diplomats have concluded, the United States must deal with the
China that is, not the China it wants. And today China has no free press
or Internet. Yet while American journalists are subject to Chinese laws,
they have broken none in reporting the stories cited above. They are
simply doing their jobs. Their employers are implicitly being asked to
soften their China coverage or pay a price. To their credit, they have
refused to be cowed.

A Google executive explained to me once that China is building its own
massive intranet rather than open itself to the challenges of a vast and
free Internet. Other countries similarly committed to stifling public
discussion, including Russia, are following China’s lead.

The health and wealth of leading U.S. media companies in one of the
world’s largest markets are a matter of national interest, not simply of
China’s “internal affairs.” Americans should ask: Where will our premier
media companies be in two, five or 10 years if they are shut out of China?
And how will this affect our commitment to the free flow of ideas
globally? U.S. core interests are at stake. We have every right to defend
them, even in China.