The IFJ and China · application of change as well as the application of party line is unequal. Some media outside the immediate gaze of Party chiefs in Beijing and Shanghai are able

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The IFJ and China

Dialogue For Change

Report of IFJ Mission to Beijing, April 2008

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY On 13 April 2008 a delegation of the International Federation of Journalists from Africa, Europe and Asia flew to Beijing on the first official visit to China. This mission, called for by the IFJ Congress in Moscow of 2007, came as controversy over Tibet, violent demonstrations on the streets of Europe, and talk of boycotts in Western capitals threatens to derail this year’s Olympic Games. The mission had three objectives:

• To investigate and report on the working and professional conditions of Chinese journalists;

• To consider the preparation and arrangements for the media coverage of the Olympic Games and to make recommendations on supportive actions for the 30,000 accredited and non-accredited journalists expected during the Games;

• To consider and make recommendations on the prospects for co-operation

and dialogue between the IFJ and Chinese journalists through the All China Journalists Association on issues such as ethics and editorial independence, and human rights.

The mission members were:

Aidan White (IFJ General Secretary) Gabriel Baglo (IFJ Africa Director, Senegal) Mogens Blicher Bjerregård (IFJ EC, DJ Denmark) Arne Konig (SJF- EFJ President, Sweden) Ulrike Maercks-Franzen (DJU-Verdi, Germany) Michael Klehm (DJV, Germany) Nikos Megrelis (IFJ EC, JUADN Greece) Christopher Warren (IFJ EC, MEAA Australia) Don Gasper (HKJA, Hong Kong)

The delegation held meetings with senior government officials, leaders of China’s major media, foreign correspondents and the leadership of the All China Journalists Association. Other meetings were held with journalism students at Tsinghua University and with officials of European Union delegation to China.

During the visit the mission sought assurances on the prospects for the continuation of official guidelines introduced in 2007, but due to expire in 2008, which allow freedom of movement and freedom of access to local sources of information for visiting journalists.

The first indications are that these guidelines may well remain in place, despite reports of a number of violations. However, official support for this policy is fragile and any prospects for a continuation of this policy will depend upon how media, particularly foreign, perform before and during the Olympic Games.

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Much of the discussion during the mission was driven by rising tensions between Chinese and foreign media over coverage of internal protests in Tibet by the foreign press in March 2008. There were reports that foreign journalists based in China are being targeted and abused on Chinese web-sites as a result of a wave of anti-foreigner hostility. Media coverage of the Olympic torch events in Europe and protests over China’s human rights record contributed to this controversy.

China’s political leaders and media chiefs remain profoundly dismissive of Western media attachment to human rights.

BACKGROUND There were hopes that 2008 would be a breakthrough year for media in China. In particular, the Olympic Games provided an opportunity to showcase the extraordinary growth and development of the Chinese economy in the last decade. After 30 years of progress and success in its economic development, there were hopes that the Olympics would provide an opportunity to further extend the country’s policy of open engagement into the field of communications and journalism. Until March of 2008 the preparation of the Olympic Games had been a masterpiece of political choreography and public relations that began when China was awarded the rights to host the Games seven years earlier. At the time it made a solemn promise to the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to enable conditions for press freedom and to open its doors to foreign media. These aspirations were strengthened by a remarkable change in official policy regarding the rights of journalists. For the first time guidelines issued by the State Council give foreign journalists the right to talk freely to local people. The regulations, which came into force on 1 January last year and are due to expire on 17 October after the summer Games, are a welcome development in a country notorious for its control of information. Press freedom groups consistently complain about how Beijing restricts and censors the domestic press. Vast censorship rules are in place and harassment of journalists occurs with impunity.

Another positive sign was the release from jail in February of Ching Cheong, the chief China correspondent for The Straits Times, after serving two and a half years of a five year sentence for allegedly spying for Taiwan. He was released just before the Lunar New Year holiday, the most important Chinese celebration.

But the optimism generated by these limited steps had been diminished by the time of the mission visit which coincided with a surge of Chinese hostility (both official and popular) towards perceived bias in coverage by some Western media of events in Tibet and the Olympic torch relay. It came also in the wake of the launching in the West of a concerted political campaign, backed by some media-focused rights groups, to promote a boycott of the Games. These developments reinforced the necessity of a better dialogue on media issues.

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On 3 April, out of the glare of Tibet-inspired publicity, a Beijing court sentenced human rights activist Hu Jia to three and a half years’ jail and one year’s denial of political rights on charges of “inciting subversion to state power”– because he talked to foreign media and published articles criticising China’s human rights record on a Chinese language website based in the United States.

In a country where government is rumoured to have thousands of employees monitoring information entering and leaving the country, few people were surprised by a report released prior to the mission visit by Amnesty International which finds that China has fallen well short of its pledge to provide unrestricted Internet access leading up to the Olympics.

Instead, Beijing is tightening its grip on the flow of information. YouTube, BBC, CNN and Yahoo News websites and the fact-site Wikipedia have been regularly inaccessible and more government intervention is feared as the opening ceremony nears.

When it comes to the Internet, the co-operation of major companies such as Google, Yahoo! and Microsoft in helping to silence China’s independent voices on the Internet has been telling. In one shocking case information supplied by Yahoo! helped convict journalist Shi Tao for sending information abroad. He was jailed for ten years in 2005.

Fears have been expressed that during the Games web access may be limited to certain users (accredited journalists) in privileged locations (five-star hotels), instead of the promised provision of unrestricted Internet access, including to all Chinese web users, throughout the competition.

Having said this, pressure for change in Beijing is building. There is inexorable pressure on old-fashion structures of control as a consequence of modern communication technologies such as the Internet, cell phones, and satellite broadcasts.

The IFJ in the Asia-Pacific region has just agreed a project to establish a monitoring centre in Hong Kong. This is part of our campaign to strengthen conditions for independent and professional journalism in China.

The campaign will work with IFJ affiliates in the region and throughout the world to create an active monitoring network to report on media rights violations. Through the reporting and publication of repressive actions against journalists, the network will exert greater pressure on the government and thus contribute to a more free and democratic China for the future. The IFJ launched its inaugural Open and Free - Towards a Democratic Media Culture in China monthly bulletin on March 8 to mark five months until the beginning of the Beijing Olympics. See the Bulletin on the IFJ web-site. It is available in English, Traditional Chinese, or Simplified Chinese.

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At the same time, China is lobbying for international acceptance of a text containing restrictive norms for cyberspace content. A report, Does China Hope to Remap the Internet in Its Own Image? is posted on the site of the World Press Freedom Committee http://www.wpfc.org/Statements.html. Surveillance measures have led to the jailing of journalists and bloggers. Journalists need to know how to cope with China’s control measures, journalistically and technologically. A blog dedicated to monitoring Chinese official efforts to censor or restrict access to the Internet has been set up http://wpfc.org/blogs/chinablog.html.

These initiatives are useful in monitoring evidence of continued authoritarianism in media policy. Nevertheless, there are reasons to be optimistic. Chinese journalism remains captive, but the ties are loosening particularly as the expansion of internet activity provides more opportunities for more voices to be heard.

JOURNALISM IN CHINA

Although article 35 of the Chinese Constitution states that Chinese citizens enjoy freedom of speech and freedom of the press and other legislation, such as China's Publishing Regulations, stipulates that groups and individuals may not interfere in the lawful exercise of these rights, it’s a freedom that exists in twilight conditions.

Media remain under the tight control of the Communist Party. The All China Journalists Association, which is very close to the Party apparatus, is an organisation made up of affiliated media organisations. It does not have individuals as members although it claims to cover around a million journalists through its institutional membership.

The role of official media is very much to apply the line of politics and vision as articulated by the Party. But this does not mean that the dead hand of politics is working in all newsrooms. In a country as great as China, localism means that the application of change as well as the application of party line is unequal. Some media outside the immediate gaze of Party chiefs in Beijing and Shanghai are able to report with a reasonable degree of freedom. On the other hand, local corruption and local political leaders put additional pressure on journalists. The process of news gathering is part of the ethic of “social responsibility” which is imposed on journalism. Complaints are gathered through media and official channels – referred to as “readers’ letters.” (This is almost a modern form of the ancient process of “petitioning” whereby people took their causes directly to the Emperor for his consideration.) Today, reporters are sent to investigate reports of official corruption and misconduct and sometimes with considerable authority. They are able to override the obstructions that may be placed in their way by local police or political chiefs.

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Although this delivers some monitoring of corruption (and the Peoples’ Daily proudly produced examples of how they had exposed misconduct) it is also driven by political imperatives and guidelines set down by the Party and the government. However, there are examples of courageous journalism by individuals which are not subject to political stage-management which can lead to official reprisals and editors who go their own way soon find themselves out of a job. There is no doubt, though, that outside the official media networks there are fresh opportunities for free expression and alternative journalism thanks to the use of web-based tools through the Internet. China has responded very quickly to the information revolution and has developed one of the world’s most efficient and ruthless cyber police forces. The use of the Internet is monitored by tens of thousands of officials and electronic monitoring of e-mail and internet use is highly developed. Nevertheless, networks of bloggers and Internet users who are able to access social networking sites – Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Flicker, etc – have been able to create a viable mechanism for exchanging information both inside China and with the outside world. Many foreign correspondents use these new networks to gain access to information not available through official sources. The professional restrictions on many foreign journalists, who often find it difficult to gain access to official sources of information, also prevail in the treatment of local reporting staff. The philosophy of “social responsibility” through respect for state and Party is the driving force of journalistic endeavour and was the source of sharp discussion between mission members and leading media representatives. Although the Party continues to dictate the pace of change and most journalists are obliged to follow its lead there are indications that the new, unorganised and amateur sources of information now emerging through the internet are providing a challenge to controls imposed on official media.

The All China Journalists Association is an organisation made up of affiliated media organisations. It does not have individuals as members although it claims to cover around a million journalists through its institutional membership. All the leading party and state media – Xinhua News Agency, the People’s Daily, CCTV, for example, -- are all prominent members of the ACJA. The current chairman is the head of the Xinhua News Agency.

The journalists employed in these media are covered by the ACJA, which provides guidance and direction in terms of their social responsibility to the State and Party. The ACJA is also responsible for China’s media contacts and relations with foreign media and journalists’ groups and some of the major IFJ unions have had links with the ACJA over many years. The ACJA has extremely close links with the apparatus of the Communist Party.

The conditions of work of journalists – wages and employment benefits – vary considerably, but the elements of corrupt practice which are common in many

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developing countries – the payment of “brown envelope” incentives to cover events, for instance, is known in China as “red packets” – are widespread, indicating that low pay is a major problem even in metropolitan centres like Beijing. The ACJA plays an important role in shaping the organisation of media development – it is involved with journalism training schools and universities and is also concerned with encouraging debate on the introduction and application of new media technologies – but it does not have any standing as an independent voice of journalists because of its close relations to power. However, the ACJA provides the only real opportunity for further dialogue within China and in framing conclusions; mission members were of the view that the IFJ should build links between the IFJ and the Association.

WORKERS’ RIGHTS IN CHINA

China is one of the world’s major manufacturing centres and is the largest exporter of toys, textiles and clothing. The majority of the world’s clothing production will move there in the coming years. China’s accession to the WTO in 2002 has catalyzed this growth.

China’s market liberalisation has been accompanied by enormous socio-economic problems. Flagrant and persistent abuse of workers’ rights is one of the most serious of these problems. In China, it is illegal for workers to organise independent unions and to strike, and independent union efforts and protests against unfair conditions are often strongly suppressed.

Furthermore, workers’ rights violations – such as forced labor, child labor, excessive overtime, substandard wages, and hazardous working conditions – are commonplace. While Chinese labor law provides strong protections for workers’ rights, these laws are poorly enforced.

With unemployment and poverty a continuing problem in parts of China, there is the danger that workers could sacrifice more of their rights to keep their jobs, making it ever more crucial that China enforce fair labor standards and protect its workers

Most Chinese workers are organised in the All China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), which has been around in one form or another since 1925. Shortly after its emergence it was stifled by the government of Chiang Kai-shek and did not rise in prominence again until the Communist Party claimed control of China in 1949. By the mid 1950s, its usefulness waning, the ACFTU went into decline and was dissolved in 1966. In 1978, as China began its great economic experiment, the ACFTU was revived and was tapped later by President Jiang Zemin as a potential tool for managing China’s rising social problems as labor troubles began surfacing after years of unrestrained and unguided growth.

Today it is back in business. In 2005, as the ACFTU marked its 80th anniversary, its membership had risen to 134 million from 130 million three years earlier.

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The federation is now acting as a tool of the central government and top Communist Party leaders. Its recent push into foreign enterprises represents a significant shift in Chinese business relations. In March 2006 the ACFTU announced a new campaign to unionize foreign firms in China. The media help this process with campaigns criticizing foreign companies for their treatment of Chinese workers.

The days of rapid and unrestrained foreign investment may be grinding to a halt as the central government, reasserting itself as the driver of Chinese economic activity, considers actions once deemed unthinkable against foreign firms. The Shenzhen city government two years ago listed 30 foreign-funded enterprises that must establish trade unions affiliated to the ACFTU. These include the makers of iPod and Wal-Mart.

As far as Chinese workers are concerned, though, the ACFTU provides little protection. Its unions are largely benign. Their primary activities include occasional rallies, picnics and distribution of free tickets for the cinema to its members. Strikes are forbidden, and other collective action is rarely seen. The deeper penetration by the union into foreign firms serves as a tool to control the domestic labor force.

By including state workers, unemployed laborers, migrant workers and those employed at foreign enterprises, the ACFTU is a way to measure worker discontent, highlight potential hot spots and keep alternative unions or interest groups from forming.

JOURNALISTS AND THE OLYMPICS

The mission met with senior officials associated with the organisation of the Olympic Games due to take place in August 2008. There are expected to be 21,000 journalists and media staff who will receive official accreditation into conditions defined by the International Olympic Committee.

A further group of foreign journalists and media staff, up to 10,000 in number, is expected to be present during the time of the Games. Special arrangements to deal with this extra number of journalists have been made through the organisation of a special media centre which will be operated by the ACJA.

The mission met with the Foreign Correspondents Club of China (FCCC) who welcomed the suggestion of an IFJ initiative to provide support for visiting journalists during the period of the Olympic Games. The Club, which has no full-time secretariat is not legally recognised and is hard pressed to provide support for journalists and to take up press freedom issues, but was willing to discuss co-operation with the IFJ to try to assist journalists who may face difficulties during the Games.

The mission discussed the viability of establishing a 24-hour hotline for journalists as well as setting up a dedicated web-site perhaps with the assistance of the Danish-based organisation Play the Game.

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The opinion of some correspondents on the spot and the leadership of the FCCC was that the situation for foreign media had become more difficult and tense and actions to create more dialogue and support for media would be welcome. The FCCC has since expressed publicly its concern over the deteriorating reporting conditions for international media. Just 100 days before the Beijing Olympics, death threats against foreign correspondents risk had created a hostile environment for foreign journalists based in China and for tens of thousands of additional media planning to cover the Games they announced on April 30. In addition to urging authorities to investigate the death threats, which violate Chinese law, the FCCC recommended a number of actions to improve reporting conditions:

• Nationwide implementation of the Olympic reporting regulations, including full media access to Tibet and Tibetan areas in the provinces of Sichuan,Gansu, Qinghai and Yunnan.

• Investigation of reports of official harassment of foreign media. • Timely issuance of press visas to foreign media planning to report in China

during the Olympics period.

• Improved government transparency, especially in Olympics-related departments.

• Guarantees that Chinese nationals who speak to foreign media will not be punished or intimidated.

• An early pledge to extend the current foreign media reporting

regulations after they expire on Oct. 17, 2008. The FCCC also issued a “Reporters' Guide to China” (available on the IFJ site www.ifj.org and the FCCC website www.fccchina.org). This was put together by veteran correspondents and provides insiders' tips for reporting in China.

FINDINGS AND CONCLUSIONS Although the mission was limited by time and was only based in Beijing, this initial contact proved useful and productive. It is clear that the modernisation of China and its improving social, industrial and economic conditions provide opportunities for expansion of the influence of media and journalism. The sense of national self-confidence, which prevails in the large cities, is evident also in journalism, even the staid and more conservative branches of official media and certainly in the atmosphere of the journalism schools. The IFJ will have to take time for its relationship with the ACJA and journalism in China to mature. It will, however, be useful to put in place practical steps to provide a

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vehicle for more co-operation. In a letter to the ACJA after the mission the General Secretary outlined a number of practical proposals. These are:

1. A continuing exchange between IFJ unions and ACJA representatives on human rights and press freedom on “professionalism” and “social responsibility.”

2. Co-operation in efforts to ensure that new guidelines which have extended

journalists rights in the period of the Olympics are extended indefinitely after the Games.

3. A proposal to work together providing support for journalists and media staff

during the Olympics and to place an IFJ representative in Beijing for the time of the Games to assist in dealing with any major problems which may arise for foreign journalists.

4. To establish a joint forum for discussion of issues of common concern

including professional and social rights of journalists that could also provide the basis for more formal relations between the IFJ and ACJA leading to annual or biennial discussions between IFJ and ACJA leaders.

5. To develop co-operation with the FCCC including proposals for joint actions

both related to the Games and concerning the preparation of a new dialogue with Chinese journalists.

In addition the IFJ Executive Committee should

• continue to support, through its affiliates in Hong Kong and Taiwan, the development of projects to improve understanding of the current media situation and to strengthen links with China’s journalists

• request IFJ unions to inform the IFJ and liaise with the secretariat on national

contacts between Chinese media and journalists’ groups

• consider sending a second smaller mission to China, with a more focused agenda, in advance of the next Congress to develop detailed proposals for further action.

• prepare for the next congress a special debate with associated action

programme on relations with China Following the mission, the General Secretary traveled to Hong Kong on May-1-3 to attend World Press Freedom Day Events and to meet with colleagues from the Hong Kong Journalists’ Association (HKJA). During these meetings the outcomes of the mission to China were discussed. Although the HKJA is in the process of preparation for internal elections, there were indications of broad support for the proposals to develop some framework for

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discussion with mainland journalists and to put in place some practical support during the time of the Olympic Games. At the same time, the General Secretary has been approached by a European-China Institute seeking co-operation in the development of a Europe-China dialogue on a number of political and trade related issues. The IFJ has been asked to take the lead in establishing a journalism dimension to such a dialogue. Another Europe-China link is being considered in the journalism training area, possibly involving the Arhus School of Journalism in Denmark and the Tsinghua University Department of Journalism. The Executive Committee is asked to consider this report and endorse the findings of the mission.

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APPENDIX 1

IFJ Relations with China Motion Adopted by IFJ Congress, Moscow 2007 The World Congress of the International Federation of Journalists, meeting in Moscow from May 28th-June 1st 2007,

Noting the continued lack of freedom of the press in China and the need for urgent action on the part of the Chinese government to encourage a culture of media freedom beginning with the granting of an amnesty to all imprisoned journalists; Welcoming the decision by the Executive Committee to introduce new policy on relations with China in order to encourage the Chinese government to address human rights abuse, to take steps to guarantee press freedom, to open up its doors to the international media and to release jailed journalists; Condemning the active compliance of new media companies such as Yahoo, MSN and Google in providing the Chinese government with information it uses to censor the internet and jail journalists; Noting that, as well as the setting up of a China Press Freedom Network to campaign for press freedom and respect for human rights in China, the new policy gives authority to the secretariat to:

• coordinate among affiliates their contact with Chinese organisations in particular the All-China Journalists’ Association,

• participate in the actions of the global trade union movement seeking

new links with Chinese labour organisations, and champion trade union rights for Chinese journalists whenever possible on the programmes of co-operation between China and the international community, through the ILO, UNESCO, ITUC and other relevant international organisations,

• seek support of all IFJ affiliates to support this work through days of action, a dedicated webpage, publishing advertisements, articles and open letters in Chinese language publications and the targeting of global media companies investing in China, and

Insisting that the IFJ will work to support internal and external efforts by journalists, media, trades unionists and human rights’ groups campaigning for reform and respect for human rights in media and at work,

Instructs the Executive Committee to:

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• participate in meetings set up by affiliates with Yahoo, MSN, Google and other companies to impress on them the need to protect from authorities the data that passes through their servers;

• ensure that the China Press Freedom Network includes the fight against

internet censorship campaign in all its activities and publications;

• develop in consultation with appropriate affiliates international standards that acknowledge and protect independent journalism and the right to know and communicate and resist global mechanism of surveillance, command and social control;

• work with affiliates to organise a global campaign to negotiate the adoption of these standards by new media companies working in China and in their worldwide operations;

• Call on all governments to insist on freedom of the press, freedom of expression and human rights in general as a condition of continuing to trade with China;

• Urge the Chinese government to permit foreign journalists to work without restriction in China and to implement freedom of the press in Chinese society before the Olympic Games in 2008;

• Organise an independent fact-finding mission to China in the period 2007-2010

with a view to strengthening actions aimed at achieving freedom of media and free expression in China and establishing the conditions for free and independent Chinese organisation of journalists.

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APPENDIX 2 Press Release: 16/04/2008

“Let’s Open door to Dialogue” Says IFJ as Safety Fears Cast Shadow over Media Work in China The International Federation of Journalists today ended a four-day official visit to China in positive mood, welcoming the prospects for a new era of dialogue between Chinese and Western journalists. But after a series of high-level meetings the IFJ says concerns remain over the safety of journalists and media staff in the run up to the Olympics. “It has been a sweet and sour experience,” said Aidan White, IFJ General Secretary. “We are impressed by a new willingness to talk through our differences over press freedom and journalism, but the problems facing reporters on the ground cannot be ignored.” The IFJ met with Chinese state officials as well as leading media and the government-backed All China Journalists Association and talked to a number of foreign correspondents, some of whom have found themselves threatened in the wake of Chinese anger over foreign media coverage of disturbances in Tibet and the Olympic torch rally which has run into protests on its way through major world cities. “In the last few weeks some journalists have been threatened and there has been an increase in violations of promises to let media work without interference,” said White. “It’s time to lower the temperature and start talking about making journalism safer and take reporters out of the political crossfire.” The IFJ is planning immediate follow-up work on actions to ensure journalists’ safety during the Olympics and to establish a framework for joint actions designed to improve communications between Chinese journalists and their colleagues overseas. “We have our eyes wide open in this process and we have raised concerns over journalists in jail,” said White. “Our key aim is mutual understanding. We may not get agreement but talking issues through allows us to challenge the prejudice and hostility that puts journalists at risk.” The IFJ mission met with the Beijing Olympic Committee on arrangements to protect journalists. Around 30,000 officially accredited and non-accredited journalists are expected in Beijing for the Games. After the Games in August the IFJ aims to work closely with China’s journalists to ensure that promises to end repression of journalists made before the games and new guidelines giving journalists the right to work freely will remain in place. The IFJ says there have been more than 200 violations of these guidelines since they were introduced last year.

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“We recognise and welcome steps taken to allow journalists to work freely, but this must not be a one-off Olympics gesture. China must deliver on its promises and open the door to a durable process of dialogue and co-operation among journalists,” said White. “Change is inevitable and journalism can play a vital part in confronting ignorance, misconceptions and hostility along the way.” The members of the mission are: Aidan White, Gabriel Baglo (IFJ Africa Director, Senegal); Mogens Blicher Bjerregård (President, Danish Union of Journalists); Arne Konig (Swedish Journalists Federation and Chair of the European Federation of Journalists); Ulrike Maercks-Franzen (Secretary Deutscher Journalisten Union-Verdi, Germany); Michael Khlem (Deutscher Journalisten Verband, Germany); Nikos Megrelis (Journalists Union of Athens Daily Newspapers, Greece); Christopher Warren (Federal Secretary, Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance, Australia); Don Gasper (Hong Kong Journalists Association).

Press Release: 12/04/2008

IFJ Mission to China Calls for Dialogue and Free Journalism as “Antidote to Ignorance and Prejudice” The International Federation of Journalists today began a four-day official visit to China aiming to put in place measures that will protect journalists facing new threats as political confrontation intensifies in the run up to the Olympics. “In the last few weeks the political heat has been turned up over Tibet and the Olympics and journalists have found themselves in the crossfire,” said Aidan White, IFJ General Secretary, who is leading a group of journalists’ leaders from nine countries. “Our aim will be to take journalists out of the firing line and help them to do their job without interference.” The IFJ is meeting with Chinese state officials as well as leading media and the government-backed All China Journalists Association and will also be talking to a number of foreign correspondents, some of whom have found themselves threatened in the wake of Chinese anger over foreign media coverage of disturbances in Tibet and the Olympic torch rally which has run into protests on its way through major world cities. “The row over Tibet and the Olympics is a matter for politicians not media support groups,” said White. “Our aim will be to get China to deliver on its promises of ending repression of journalists in the country and to open itself to independent media coverage around the Games.” The IFJ mission will discuss with the Beijing Olympic Committee how to ensure that journalists can be protected and exercise the right to report without interference during the Games. The group will also raise with government officials the continuing detention of a number of journalists in China’s jails and will seek to establish new structures for

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dialogue to ensure to encourage fresh debate on press freedom issues between Chinese journalists and their colleagues abroad. “Journalists given a free hand to do their job responsibly are an antidote to ignorance and prejudice. It’s time for more dialogue and less confrontation if we want to help Chinese journalists operate freely and get our colleagues released from jail,” said White.

APPENDIX 3 Meetings of the Mission Qian Xiaoqian State Council Information Vice Minister Jiang Xiaoyu Executive Vice President, Being Olympics Organising Committee Yang Zhenwhu Deputy Editor in Chief, People’s Daily He Ping Editor in Chief, Xinhua News Agency Guan Jianwen Deputy Director www.people.comcn Zhou Xisheng Vice President, Xinhua News Agency Sun Bingchuan Deputy Editor in Chief, CCTV Li Xiguang Dean and professor, Tsinghua University School of Journalism Serge Abou Head of Delegation, European Union Melinda Liu Chair, Foreign Correspondents Club (Newsweek) Scott McDonald Associated Press, Beijing Rowan Callick The Australian Laura Daverio La 7, Italy Richard McGregor Financial Times William Fingleton European Union Delegation All China Journalists’ Association: Wang Juyi Fang Xin Jian Zhu Shouchen