PRESSURE ON THE PRESS

One area where the party might be able to keep the ducks in line is the Internet. Just last week it got Microsoft to agree to blanket censoring of entry-line words like "democracy" on new blogging services MSN has on the mainland. Earlier this month Beijing ordered all bloggers to register with the government by the end of June--using their real names--or face possible closure and penalties of up to $120,000. Cybercensors have shut down thousands of Internet sites in recent years, and now they can use sophisticated software to cross-check China's URLs against the list of new registerees, says Xiao of UC Berkeley. Meanwhile, local governments are sending spies with fake identities into chat rooms to ferret out Web activists.

It's not certain even the scrappy Beijing News will be able to completely resist the latest efforts to rein in the press. Recently, the paper took considerable flak for an unauthorized interview with a Japanese diplomat it ran after thousands of Chinese protesters trashed Tokyo's embassy in April. But even Hu Jintao himself can't seem to resist the paper's fierce independence. On April 29, Hu met the leader of Taiwan's Nationalist Party, Lien Chan, in Beijing. Official media photographers took conventional close-up shots of Hu and Lien gripping hands and grinning for the cameras--the pose circulated on state wires and published in most papers. But on an airplane later, says a Beijing-based media executive with ties to Hu's entourage, the Chinese leader fawned over an unofficial and unconventional bird's-eye shot of the historic meeting printed in the Beijing News. It showed Lien's hand reaching out to shake Hu's. The Chinese leader apparently liked it because the pose aped a famous shot of Nixon's meeting Mao in 1972. Every now and then, it seems, even China's leaders enjoy a free press.

WITH SARAH SCHAEFER IN BEIJING

© 2005