During the Eid holiday that began Nov. 27, two journalists traveling separately to Kashgar, Xinjiang, were harassed by police and foreign affairs officials — one of whom demanded they leave the city, despite reassurances from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing the city remains open. In both cases, local residents were under apparent pressure to watch for and monitor foreign journalists.
Italian journalist Beniamino Natale, traveling with a photographer friend, attempted to check in at the Seaman Hotel but was refused and sent to Qini Bagh, told it was the only hotel allowed to host foreign reporters. Natale recalls: “The morning after my arrival a policeman was waiting for me in the lobby. He asked me if I was on holiday. I said yes.”
“He said Kashgar has a particular situation and there are particular rules. I told him that I am a guest of China holding a J visa and that I respect the law of China. The day after, as we were walking in the old city, he came shouting after me with another guy. I told him he was abusing his power and that I am a guest of China, and went on walking and shooting photos with my friend.”
An officer from the local foreign affairs office showed up, was very polite and told the journalist the same thing. Later, Natale hired a local guide and noticed on the way back to the hotel, the guide followed him. The guide admitted that he was instructed by police to follow Natale and report back. Earlier in the week, Natale was blocked from entering the Id Kah Mosque to watch prayers for the Kurban Festival, when the mosque and square are packed with people. Natale was barred, while his photographer friend with a tourist visa was allowed in.
“In my view the important thing is that you get more freedom of movement with a tourist visa than with a J visa, a situation similar to that of other authoritarian countries like North Korea and Burma,” said Natale.
In a similar case the same week, an American journalist traveling with a British photographer managed to escape police notice several days in Kashgar by not using her passport, which contains a journalist visa, at the hotel. On the final day she was forced by a cancelled flight to stay an extra day and check into the International Hotel on her passport. Within 20 minutes of check-in, five men (two uniformed police, two without uniform and one from the local foreign affairs office) showed up at her hotel room demanding to know why she was in Kashgar and when she was leaving.
The officials left her room after the journalist repeatedly told them it was improper for five strange men to beat on a single woman’s door at 10pm, with no complaint that she had done anything wrong. The men went to the lobby, where they used a copy of her passport in the automated airline check-in system to check her in for the next day’s flight to Kashgar. The hotel night manager later admitted he had to call the police when he saw the journalist visa on her passport.
“They gave no reason for the disturbance, and seemed to back off when I told them I was calling the Foreign Ministry,” she said. “Yet it was clear this was standard practice when a journalist checks into a Kashgar hotel.”
China was “guest of honour” at this year’s Frankfurt Book Fair, the world’s largest publishing trade event. More than a thousand officials, publishers and writers from the People’s Republic travelled to Germany.
Chinese officials called Frankfurt the “Cultural Olympics”: a showcase for its new strategy of exporting “soft power” and bringing China´s culture to the world – to complement China´s global economic and political rise.
For the rest of the world this was an unprecedented opportunity to get up close and personal with Chinese contemporary authors and their work.
But the question of censorship proved to be the elephant in the room right from outset. Officials, Frankfurt Book Fair organisers, authors and journalists did not always find common ground.
Journalists Kristin Kupfer and Zhou Wenhan as well as Michael Kahn-Ackermann of the Goethe Institute in Beijing were in the thick of things at the fair. At this panel discussion, they will talk about their experiences and publishing expert Jo Lusby will share her observations.
DATE: Friday, December 4
TIME: 7.30pm
VENUE CONFIRMED: Sequoia cafe, beer and wine available, click here for map
ENRANCE: free to FCCC members, 50 rmb on the door to non-members
REGISTRATION: capacity is limited so priority will be given to those who register at fcccadmin@gmail.com
ABOUT THE SPEAKERS
Zhou Wenhan is a freelance author in Beijing who focuses on arts and culture. He contributes to Nanfang Zhoumo (Southern Weekend) as well as travel and art magazines. He was was with Xinjingbao (The Beijing News) until 2008.
Kristin Kupfer is a German freelance journalist based in Beijing. She has studied and lived in China for many years. Her articles appear in a wide range of publications in Europe including Profil magazine and Die Zeit online.
Jo Lusby is General Manager (China) of the Penguin Group, the international publishing comany, in Beijing since 2005. She has lived in Asia for the last 14 years. Her work with Penguin encompasses establishing local publishing partnerships and aquiring Chinese titles for international publication.
Michael Kahn-Ackermann is head of the Goethe-Institute in Beijing. He first came to China as a student in 1975. In 1988 he opened the German Goethe-Institute in Beijing — at that time was the first western cultural institute allowed in China. After stints in Moscow and Rome, he came back to Beijing in 2006 to his old posting.
Author Wang Gang will discuss his book, “English”, a semi-autobiographical account of growing up in the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, or bing tuan (literally “army group”) – the 2.6 million member-strong all-important instrument of state control in the territory.
The novel, published in Chinese in 2004 and now translated into English, was critically-acclaimed and a bestseller in China, winning the “best novel of the year” prize in 2005 by the prestigious People’s Literature Publishing House. It has been translated into seven languages.
Set in the Cultural Revolution, it tells the story of a 12-year-old boy Love Liu who wonders what life is like beyond the region of Xinjiang in China’s remote northwest. There, conformity is valued above all else and suspicion governs every interaction among neighbours, classmates, and even friends. Into this stifling atmosphere steps a tall, clean-shaven teacher from Shanghai, wearing an elegant grey wool jacket and carrying an English dictionary under his arm.
Love Liu turns to the dictionary for answers to his most pressing questions about love and life, and a whole new world opens up for him.
This talk will be in Mandarin, with interpretation into English
DATE: Wed, November 25
TIME: 7.30pm
VENUE: Trends Lounge, The Place (details below)
ENTRANCE: free to FCCC members, 50 rmb on the door to non-members
REGISTRATION: email fcccadmin@gmail.com
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Wang Gang was born in in 1960 in Xinjiang, where he spent his entire childhood. The son of Han parents in the predominantly ethnic Uighur region, Wang’s father followed Communist general Wang Zhen to Xinjiang in 1949 as a volunteer. It was there that he met and married Wang’s mother. He started writing short stories and novels in his spare time in the 1980s. A graduate of the Chinese department of the Northwest University in Xinjiang, Wang moved to Beijing to attend Beijing Normal University and Lu Xun Literature Colleage for post-graduate studies and to develop a writing career.
Following a short spell in real estate, Wang returned to writing in 1996, beginning work on his semi-autobiographical novel English, which took him eight years to complete. Wang Gang also started what was to become a long-term collaboration with renowned film director Feng Xiaogang, writing scripts for movies such as The Dark Side of the Moon (1997) and A World without Thieves (2005). To date, he has published three novels, and is a member of the Chinese Writers’ Association. He currently lives in Beijing, and is married with one son. “English” is Wang’s first novel to be translated into the English language.
Trends Lounge 时尚廊
L214, 2/F, Trends Bldg (connected to The Place’s north building), 9 Guanghua Lu, Chaoyang District
朝阳区光华路9号时尚大厦2层L214
6587 1998
**Fully subscribed. All those registered have received acknowlegdements. Waiting list on the gate for those willing to wait for a spare place. Camerapeople should get there in good time to set up, as space is limited.**
U.S. President Barack Obama and other world leaders have agreed that they have run out of time to forge a treaty on greenhouse gas reductions at next month’s global warming summit in Copenhagen. The summit’s chairman, Danish Prime Minister Lars Rasmussen, is now pushing instead for a “politically binding” agreement.
Is Copenhagen a bust? Where does the world—and China—go from here? What CO2 emissions targets are reasonable and acceptable to the Chinese government? How might climate change affect China and what kinds of impacts could be expected if nations fail to seriously rein in carbon emissions? A panel of experts will address these and other questions. The panel is being finalized and details will be confirmed later.
Panel
1. Wu Changhua, director, Climate Group Greater China
2. Hu Angang, Tsinghua University economist and leader of a climate policy thinktank
3. Leszek Sobkowiak, water expert and visiting scholar at Chinese Academy of Sciences
4. US embassy – to be confirmed
Opening remarks
Danish Ambassador Jeppe Tranholm-Mikkelsen
DATE (changed): Tuesday, November 24
TIME: 1.30pm
VENUE: Danish embassy (address below)
ENTRANCE: free to FCCC members, 50 rmb on the door to non-members
REGISTRATION: email fcccadmin@gmail.com to reserve your place and for security clearance
Embassy of Denmark
San Li Tun, Dong Wu Jie 1
Beijing 100600
People’s Republic of China
丹麦王国驻华大使馆
中国北京三里屯东五街1号100600
Tel. +86 (10) 8532 9900
http://www.ambbeijing.um.dk/en
The Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China regrets the missed opportunity to demonstrate openness when Chinese President Hu Jintao and U.S. President Barrack Obama read statements to the media at a press conference Nov. 17.
Following the prepared statements, there was no chance for reporters attending the event to ask questions, which would have highlighted what Obama told college students in Shanghai earlier in the week about the benefits to society of freedom of expression.
“This was an historic meeting between the two leaders, and journalists should have had the opportunity to ask questions, to probe beyond the statements,” said FCCC President Scott McDonald.
