China's media fairer toward Japan
By RALPH JENNINGS (japantimes)
Updated: 2005-11-09 08:58

When Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi visited Tokyo's war-related Yasukuni Shrine last month, two local Beijing newspapers reported his explanation of the visit alongside the Chinese government's accusation that he had hurt China's feelings by honoring war criminals enshrined there.

After Sino-Japanese talks last month on natural gas exploration in a contested area of the East China Sea, the official Xinhua News Agency covered the basics without editorializing on the outcome or on either side's position. It said both sides discussed joint exploration.

In September, state-run China Central TV aired an interview with a Dalian-based Japan External Trade Organization official talking about how Japanese businesses could succeed in China.

Recent breaking news stories about Japan's internal politics, including the Oct. 31 Cabinet reshuffle, generally cover bare basics without China's spin. Some local papers republish Japanese press reports.

"On Sino-Japanese relations, we can see some changes toward being more restrained, more analytical and less emotional," said Liang Yunxiang, an associate professor in international relations at Peking University.

This approach to China's Japan coverage, different from a year ago when Chinese media omitted Japan's perspectives or ran only negative Japanese domestic news, reflects a half-year-old government directive to sober Chinese citizens on the country's most inflammatory bilateral relationship as well as a maturity of Chinese journalism, experts said.

Since tens of thousands of Chinese demonstrated against Japan in cities around China in April, causing damage to Japanese diplomatic property in Beijing and Shanghai, government leaders have retooled their Japan-related media strategy to calm the public, said Jiang Wenran, acting director of the China Institute at the University of Alberta in Canada.

"The total directive from the top is to say, 'Hold on, don't let things get out of hand,' " Jiang said. "The directive seems to be more like, 'You will report accurately' (without) unnecessary hostility that leads to instability."

China thought sober coverage of Koizumi's Oct. 17 visit to Tokyo's Yasukuni Shrine could sway public opinion outside China, Jiang said. "It's better to be cool and not to be overly emotional and let the world see China is fair," he said.

On Oct. 18, official media, including Xinhua and China Central TV, reprinted the Chinese Foreign Ministry's statement condemning Koizumi.

Beijing papers -- a growing number of which are not state owned though they follow news regulations -- also published a timeline of Koizumi's shrine visits, his stated reasons for visiting on Oct. 17 and a description of the visit itself. These papers include the Beijing News and Beijing Times, both popular tabloids among public transit commuters.

A summerlong series of retrospective feature stories on Japan's 1931-1945 occupation of Chinese territory, published to mark the 60th anniversary of the World War II surrender, was planned before the anti-Japan demonstrations.

The media's take on the war is "more and more objective," said Mou Jianmin, a former Beijing magazine editor who now runs a cultural exchange service. He said no one had the right to criticize the coverage.

Chinese authorities are in general relaxing control over all but the official media to make them more readable and more market-driven, specialists say. For Sino-Japanese news, the lighter grip means more photos, more quoted sources and more feature stories, just no pro-Japan editorials, said Li Kun, a Peking University journalism professor.

"Journalists want to do real journalism," Li said. "The more professional (media) can balance the old ones, which are more propaganda."

Zhou Ying, a reporter with the weekly Beijing Today, said, "As far as I know, a reporter will choose either to give up the sensitive topic or report it in an objective way."

Expect a gradual drift toward fairer, more professional Japan coverage, said Liang of Peking University.

On Sept. 1, the Guangzhou-based paper Southern Weekend said Japanese prime ministers had visited Yasukuni Shrine 20 times without China's opposition before Class-A war criminals were enshrined there.

The Foreign Ministry in Tokyo asked the paper to publish a correction.

"The truth is, they visited the shrine 20 times after Class-A criminals were enshrined, without any Chinese reaction whatsoever," Foreign Ministry Assistant Press Secretary Akira Chiba said.

While corrections are not required in China, and editors often ignore complaints of inaccuracy, Southern Weekend corrected its mistake.

Chiba also disputed the accuracy of a Sept. 3 editorial in the Communist Party mouthpiece People's Daily on the approval of contentious Japanese history textbooks.

Keiji Ide, spokesman with the Japanese Embassy in Beijing, said Chinese journalists are using his comments increasingly often. They have quoted him on the lack of censorship in Japan, for example. But there is room for further improvement, he said.