Journalist Chen Yongzhou is escorted by police at the Changsha detention center. REUTERS/China Central Television
Three days after a Chinese newspaper issued an unprecedented appeal for his release, jailed reporter Chen Yongzhou went on state television this Saturday to confess to wrongdoing. His alleged crime: accepting bribes from an unnamed interest group to publish libelous articles about industrial giant Zoomlion.
The reversal shocked many who had joined a media campaign in support of Chen, not least of all his employer, regional newspaper Xinkuai Bo. The Guangdong-based paper published two front-page editorials in the days following Chen’s October 18 arrest in a rare rebellion against tight media controls. Another Guangdong paper, the Southern Metropolis Daily, published an editorial defending Chen after his arrest and accusing government officials of abusing their power. Even China’s central publishing regulator spoke out on Chen’s behalf.
But the confession itself is unsurprising: televised confessions are part and parcel of China’s justice system, especially in high-profile cases. These confessions are often coerced, despite a 2013 amendment barring authorities from forcing people to incriminate themselves. Government censorship of media outlets is even more common. Media gag orders were reportedly issued last week, when Chen’s arrest — and Xinkuai Boi’s front-page appeal — began to gather support.
Could the pressure be coming from Zoomlion? Perhaps. The construction equipment manufacturer’s largest shareholder is the provincial government in Hunan province. As the campaign for Chen’s release accelerated, Zoomlion’s stock price tumbled 9%. The drop slowed once the support campaign was blocked by China’s Propaganda Department. Well before Chen’s Saturday confession, analysts were speculating that Zoomlion was using its considerable influence to engineer the reporter’s arrest.
Yet Xinkuai Bo has backed away from its defiant appeal for Chen’s release. The shift in tone is radical. After publishing a confident, at times sarcastic, editorial on Wednesday — when it noted that after combing through Chen’s stories, editors had only found one minor error — the paper issued this repentant admission on Sunday:
This newspaper was not strict enough about thoroughly fact-checking the draft of the report. . . . After the incident occurred the newspaper took inappropriate measures, seriously harming the public trust of the media.
For now, it remains impossible to know with absolute certainty if Chen’s confession — or Xinkuai Bo’s apology — was coerced. Smart money says at least Chen’s was: he made his confession in a prison cell. But voluntary or not, the apologies attest (as if more evidence were needed) to the exiguous media freedoms enjoyed in China, despite the so-called reformist ambitions of President Xi Jinping’s government. And the revolt against China’s repressive (and dangerous) media climate Xinkuai Bo’s spirited defense of Chen last week hinted at looks dead in its cradle.
