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Dan Bloom

Is it genuine, and more importantly, will it last longer than a year and a half?

From the New York Times to CNN, international reporters and their editors are wondering if China really means business, or if the apparent shift in policy is just a public relations charade for the sake of headlines.

For about 18 months, starting now, China's media minders say they will allow foreign journalists unprecedented freedom to work inside the country.

But Agence France Presse, in a recent report from Beijing, wrote that while "foreign journalists in China began a new year of supposedly more open reporting, [there is] lingering skepticism over how faithfully local-level officials will implement relaxed media rules."

According to the new regulations, foreign reporters will be able to "travel freely and interview anyone with the interviewee's consent, dropping cumbersome official approvals which were often denied anyway by security-conscious authorities."

In theory, the changes should grant foreign reporters access to Chinese dissidents and other critics of the Chinese Communist Party -- and to those people inside China who recognize Taiwan as a separate country and who support Taiwan's nation-building process.

The Foreign Correspondents Club of China (which is composed of reporters from such publications as the New York Times, Newsweek, Time, the Guardian and from CNN) has encouraged its members to report any abuses of the new rules and plans to collect the data to show to Chinese officials later, said Melinda Liu, the club's president and the bureau chief for Newsweek magazine in Beijing.

One wonders if these new regulations will allow foreign reporters to call Taiwan a "country" when they send out their dispatches, especially during the Summer Olympics, when Taiwanese athletes participate in the Games in Beijing.

While AFP reported that a top Chinese official said that he hoped the new rules would be extended after the Olympics "if all goes well," such an outcome is highly unlikely.

Some international observers feel that the new rules for foreign journalists could have the same effect as China's entry into the WTO, which created greater openness in the country's economy. But others remain skeptical.

Liu told AFP that the new regulations were "a welcome development." But she added that "if grassroots officials are not well-briefed or actively drag their feet, there will still be problems."

And what if a reporter for the New York Times or Newsweek wants to interview Taiwanese athletes at the Summer Olympics about their feelings about Taiwan's sovereignty or the insulting "Chinese Taipei" moniker imposed on them by PRC pressure on the International Olympics Committee?

Will Beijing allow foreign journalists to report their real responses, in print and on air? While China is trying to show the world a new openness in the year-long run-up to the Summer Olympics, much of the world remains skeptical about how long this openness will last.

Expect some good official foot-dragging. And expect some significant problems when it comes to reporting the truth about Taiwan from inside China.

If China still regards Taiwan as "a renegade province," as it loves to tell the world, how will it ever allow foreign media to report that Taiwan is not a renegade province, but a separate country, a free, independent, sovereign nation unto itself?

The answers will become apparent next year.

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