Topic: China to relax reporter restrictions

Team Infidel

CHARLES HUTZLER

Associated Press

BEIJING - China is relaxing restrictions on foreign reporters, announcing new regulations Friday that will give visiting media greater freedom to travel and report leading up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
The regulations, which take effect Jan. 1, temporarily abolish onerous requirements that currently prohibit foreign reporters from traveling or conducting interviews with Chinese residents without government approval. Under the new rules, only the consent of the interview subject is needed.
"It is crystal clear that as long as the interviewee agrees, you can do your reporting," Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told reporters at a briefing on the new regulations.
The new rules mark a surprising step forward in addressing a major concern for the Olympic movement and international media: how China, with its penchant for heavy-handed policing and censorship, would deal with the 20,000 foreign media staff expected in Beijing for the Games.
"In general, this is progress in terms of liberalizing the conditions under which foreign journalists work in China," said Melinda Liu, president of the Foreign Correspondents Club of China and Beijing bureau chief for Newsweek.
The new Olympic regulations contain loopholes and will expire on Oct. 17, 2008, a month after the Paralympics end. The regulations underscore China's desire to use the Beijing Games as a coming-out party and show the world that it is drawing closer to international practices.
"They have understood how important it is to meet the standards of the Olympic Games," Kevan Gosper, a vice chairman of the International Olympic Committee's coordination commission for Beijing, said in a telephone interview. "Over five years, everything that the Chinese said they would deliver they have delivered."
IOC officials have privately described arduous negotiations over media rules and credentials with Beijing Olympic organizers. At times, IOC officials have read aloud to Beijing organizers the promise they made in their bidding book for the Games: "There will be no restrictions on journalists in reporting on the Olympic Games."
Liu, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, said the government knows that, as with previous Olympics, reporters won't limit their coverage to sports. He broadly interpreted the new rules - which cover reporting on the Games "and related matters" - to give foreign media expanded license.
"Foreign journalists will not limit their activities to the Games themselves. They will also cover politics, science, technology and the economy," Liu said. "The 'related matters' ... actually expands the areas on which foreign journalists can report."
Liu acknowledged that implementation would not be friction-free. He said the Foreign Ministry, starting Friday afternoon, would begin briefing central and local government departments on the regulations and urged foreign journalists to contact his office when troubles occur.
Though officials should no longer question reporters as they travel in China, Liu said that police would still have the authority to intervene, especially during emergencies, protests and other incidents "that suddenly arise."
"They will not ask what you are doing there unless there are concerns in terms of public interest and social order," Liu said.

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