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C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BEIJING 024242 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/01/2031 
TAGS: PGOV PHUM KCUL SOCI CH
SUBJECT: CHINESE MEDIA TREADS CAREFULLY IN COVERING  RECENT 
UNREST 
 
REF: A. BEIJING 22812 
     ¶B. CHENGDU 1228 
     ¶C. GUANGZHOU 32264 
     ¶D. BEIJING 13858 
 
Classified By: Classified by Political Internal Unit Chief Susan A. 
Thornton.  Reasons 1.4 (b/d). 
 
Summary 
------- 
 
¶1.  (C) Recent flashes of violent unrest have gotten 
uneven coverage in the Chinese media.  Although news 
of a toddler's death that touched off a hospital 
rampage in Sichuan appeared in local newspapers and 
reports of student riots in Jiangxi aired on 
provincial television, local press has remained mum on 
other violent incidents.  Journalists told us that no 
new media guidance on reporting unrest has been issued 
and, when it comes to coverage of local clashes, 
provincial Propaganda authorities decide on their own 
what to ban.  While they made clear that reporting on 
incidents touching on stability is risky for editors 
and journalists, they argued that the spread of news 
through informal channels is forcing some media 
outlets to step up sensitive reporting.  Regarding the 
trend in unrest incidents, contacts we spoke with 
dismissed recently released Ministry of Public 
Security statistics indicating that the number of 
protests has fallen this year, noting that the numbers 
are structurally inaccurate and that instability will 
not abate.  End Summary. 
 
Land Seizures, Health Care Trigger Protests 
------------------------------------------- 
 
¶2.  (C) Several violent protests have grabbed the 
attention of Chinese and western journalists in recent 
weeks: 
 
-- College students in Nanchang, Jiangxi rioted 
October 23-24 after they were told the government 
would not recognize their diplomas (Ref A). 
 
-- In Shandong province on November 5, thousands of 
villagers and police clashed over the alleged corrupt 
handling of a land compensation deal. 
 
-- After a three-year-old boy died from pesticide 
poisoning in Sichuan province November 7, thousands 
ransacked a local hospital after learning that medical 
staff allegedly refused to treat the boy without 
advance payment (Ref B). 
 
-- Villagers in Sanzhou, Guangdong province took some 
300 officials and dignitaries hostage November 8, also 
to protest land confiscation (Ref C). 
 
¶3.  (C) Only the Jiangxi and Sichuan incidents 
received play in Mainland media, in both instances 
mostly at the local level.  News that Jiangxi students 
trashed their vocational school's campus appeared on 
provincial television, but the slant of the reporting 
was to caution against further demonstrations and to 
highlight the responsiveness of the local government, 
contacts said.  (Note:  Dramatic photos of the riot 
appeared on overseas Chinese websites.  End Note.) 
Similarly, the Guang'an Daily in Sichuan ran an 
article about the boy's death and subsequent protest 
that laid the blame for the events on the family and 
on a "speculator" who urged them to demand 
compensation.  After several foreign news outlets 
reported that medical staff refused to treat the 
three-year-old without advance payment, the English- 
language China Daily published a piece stressing that 
the hospital provided adequate care and that blame for 
the boy's death rests with the family. 
 
No Propaganda Guidelines 
------------------------ 
 
¶4.  (C) The Propaganda Department has issued no 
blanket guidelines on how to handle unrest, said Zhou 
Qing'an (protect), a regular contributor to The 
Beijing News.  When a flare-up receives intense 
international attention, censors are likely to hand 
down coverage rules, often with only the official 
Xinhua News Service permitted to report developments. 
Such was the case when a video emerged showing thugs 
using lethal force to evict Hebei province villagers 
 
BEIJING 00024242  002 OF 003 
 
 
from wheat fields in June 2005.  After the footage 
appeared on the BBC and articles ran in Mainland 
dailies such as The Beijing News, Propaganda officials 
made Xinhua the sole conduit for news on the issue. 
But for the most part, provincial Propaganda 
Departments are supposed to take the lead in issuing 
rules on a case by case basis, Zhou said.  Despite 
extensive foreign media coverage of the Sichuan 
confrontation, Zhou said he is unaware of specific 
rules from the central Propaganda Department relating 
to the incident. 
 
¶5.  (C) Cai Wei (protect), who writes for the popular 
magazine Sanlian Life Weekly, observed that local 
officials will sometimes use the media to promulgate 
their side of a given story or to expose misconduct of 
rivals and score political points.  Cai surmised that 
in the Sichuan hospital episode, the reporting that 
appeared was meant to tamp down rumors.  Propaganda 
authorities may have even written the copy of the 
articles themselves, Cai said.  As for the China Daily 
piece, the newspaper's role is to present the position 
of the Chinese government to the outside world, not to 
engage in aggressive journalism, remarked Wang Feng 
(protect), a journalist at the influential bi-weekly 
Caijing Magazine.  Wang said the China Daily article 
was meant as a rebuttal to the foreign coverage, which 
focused on problems in China's medical system.  The 
China Daily piece, by contrast, "blames the poor 
family" for the poisoning, Wang remarked. 
 
Sudden Incidents Law Still In Draft 
----------------------------------- 
 
¶6.  (C) A draft law that would strictly limit 
reporting on protest incidents is controversial and 
faces numerous hurdles before being approved by 
China's legislature, the National People's Congress, 
our contacts said.  Under the proposed legislation, 
news outlets would be required to obtain local 
government approval prior to running related stories 
or risk fines of up to RMB 100,000 (USD 12,500). 
Reporting "false" news could incur similar penalties. 
Wang of Caijing said deliberations on the law are 
progressing slowly, adding that contacts have told him 
NPC members are divided over how to proceed.  (Note: 
Media outlets greeted the announcement of the draft 
law with vocal opposition, including in print.  See 
Ref D. End note.)  In the meantime, reporting on some 
stories that would squarely fall under the "sudden 
incident" category, such as mine accidents, continues. 
Our contacts have broadly defined "sudden incidents" 
as disasters, health crises or social unrest. 
 
¶7.  (C) When a protest or accident occurs, word gets 
out in the local population via phone and text 
message, said He Jiangtao, an editor at Citizen 
Magazine.  The local press is then compelled to 
publish a report, even a partial one, to retain a 
degree of credibility among readers.  In He's view, 
people are sophisticated enough to know that what 
appears in print isoften only the official side of 
the story.  This fuels more rumors about what is 
really happening, he said.  Meanwhile, student 
demonstrations are a growing worry for the censors, 
claimed Zhou Qing'an.  Students are so tech savvy 
these days that they post descriptions and digital 
photos of protests on blogs and overseas Chinese 
websites, using proxy servers to navigate around 
firewalls, almost instantly -- and well before 
authorities can impose restrictions. 
 
Social Frictions Not Waning 
--------------------------- 
 
¶8.  (C) Government claims that social unrest in China 
is waning were dismissed by scholars and journalists 
we spoke to as unlikely.  At a November 7 press 
conference, the Public Security Bureau announced that 
the number of so-called "disturbances of public order" 
in China has declined in 2006 by 22.1 percent, but 
contacts criticized the figures as structurally 
inaccurate.  They ascribed the upbeat statistics to 
underreporting on the part of local officials who are 
under pressure from central authorities to prevent 
conflicts in the face of increased protests.  Contacts 
we spoke to, on the contrary, posited that social 
unrest is not waning, but increasing.  The issues that 
generate protest activity -- corruption and abuse of 
power, land seizures, environmental degradation and 
 
BEIJING 00024242  003 OF 003 
 
 
failings in the health and education systems -- are 
not being effectively addressed. 
 
¶9.  (C) In this vein, the Sichuan hospital incident 
did not come as a surprise to Ma Rong, director of the 
Sociology Department at Beijing University.  "Everyone 
hates doctors these days," he said, commenting that 
medical fees are exorbitant no matter what a patient's 
income is.  He added that while elimination of 
agricultural taxes and school fees has boosted incomes 
in the countryside, access to reliable health care 
outside urban areas remains spotty.  Li Dun, a 
professor at Tsinghua University's Center for the 
Study of Contemporary China, separately made a similar 
point, emphasizing that close to 90 percent of China's 
rural residents are uninsured.  What would happen if 
an epidemic broke out, Li wondered, suggesting that 
the strains on the health system could give rise to 
major social frictions. 
 
Comment 
------- 
 
¶10.  (C) The Chinese leadership clearly continues to 
view press reporting on controversial issues as a 
threat to social stability.  As such, even if the 
draft law limiting media treatment of "sudden 
incidents" does not move forward, propaganda 
authorities will strive to keep a lid on reports about 
social unrest or to spin stories so as to bolster 
public confidence in the authorities and tamp down 
resentment.  The ability to manage this, however, is 
already spotty and, several contacts predicted, will 
get more difficult over time. 
Randt