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 James Rose Add in the concerns of a gigantic investment community clamoring for increased disclosure, clashing with a culture in which the exact opposite is set like concrete, and you have a recipe for an administrative migraine. Can those hapless cadres find a cure and keep their jobs? History may give them guidance. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the leader of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev, introduced extraordinary initiatives to reform the nation's hopeless systems. He sought to safely dismantle structures he had identified as moribund and unsustainable.  Media reform was foremost in this movement. In July 1990, ruling party restrictions on the USSR media were removed. Gorbachev saw clearly that media freedom is the key to a functioning modern society. 
Media reform was foremost in this movement. In July 1990, ruling party restrictions on the USSR media were removed. Gorbachev saw clearly that media freedom is the key to a functioning modern society. The USSR was indeed reformed, but Gorbachev and his party paid a price. In just a few months the Soviet Union was effectively annulled and Gorbachev deposed. His country entered into a period of upheaval. Gorbachev had tried to control a long-overdue reform process and became overwhelmed by it. He tried to introduce freedom while saving the party he led, which was ideologically predisposed to fight such freedoms. It could never work. He would have been better advised to forget about controlling the process in his party's interest, and concentrate on managing the inevitable change in his country's interests. While the ending of Soviet communism was in itself undoubtedly a good thing, Russia is still dealing with the repercussions of the manner in which Gorbachev introduced the changes in the lead-up to the 1991 revolution. Russia today is perhaps the only large state in history run by the local mafia. One wonders if China's leaders are aware of the historical lessons. It would of course be simplistic and foolish to make too much of the obvious connections, but Hu Jintao is now confronting many of the same challenges faced by Gorbachev in his attempts to hold the Communist Party and the country together. And then some. No leader of a one-party state the size of China has had to deal with the Internet and its ever-mutating potential while simultaneously facing the problem of holding the center while all around is spinning with furious centrifugal force. So, here we have Beijing's media freedoms: give the state media more power, crush internal attempts at independent journalism, censor the Internet, curtail the ability of foreign media to establish anything like a counter-voice, but tell China and the rest of the world you are in favor of media freedom. So, here we have Beijing's media freedoms: give the state media more power, crush internal attempts at independent journalism, censor the Internet, curtail the ability of foreign media to establish anything like a counter-voice, but tell China and the rest of the world you are in favor of media freedom. As a means of proving their credentials, the state media are trying to look independent. For instance, a state-run legal publication has opened up on the corruption scandal exposed in the Shenzhen judicial system. An article in the state-run Democracy and Law Times admits that government control of the courts provides opportunities for graft. The official Xinhua News Agency, meanwhile, is running material that encourages improved government-media relations. But the proof of these acts is in the pudding. While the Shenzhen case is now getting coverage in the state media, the scandal is at least five months' old. Xinhua's attempt to make government- media relations better is based on talking up the appointment of departmental media spin doctors. At the same time, real journalists like Shi Tao and Gao Qinrong suffer the reprisals of the state because they did their job. Xinhua's attempt to make government- media relations better is based on talking up the appointment of departmental media spin doctors. At the same time, real journalists like Shi Tao and Gao Qinrong suffer the reprisals of the state because they did their job. No-one should want China to spontaneously unravel a la post-Gorbachev USSR. The ramifications would be too terrible to contemplate. Remember Boris Yeltsin. A reformist Gorbachev, or Hu, while not perfect, are probably better than the alternatives. Yet, in China's case, if Hu is to become a successful reformer at a time, arguably, during which his country is being challenged as never before, then the media need to be allowed to take real steps in the direction of actual freedom. To date, it has not, and the very foundations of the Harmonious Society are being built on sinking ground as a result. Media freedom may indeed lead to the Communist Party's eventual, hopefully organic, demise. That may be in the best interests of China, its people, and its growing list of stakeholders. A cuckolded media, on the other hand, may save the party, but it may be writing no more than China's epitaph. Unless China's leaders understand the difference between controlled reform and managed change, and heed the lessons of Gorbachev's reformism, they are ensuring China's evolution into a modern post-Maoist state is ill-conceived. The country may well blow up in their faces too. Pity those bureaucrats.
James Rose is editor of www.corporategovernance-asia.com
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