Six years apart, China's spokesmen tell different stories of facing media

Bao Suixian, an ex-spokesman for China's Ministry of Police Security, looked a bit nervous at Thursday's police press conference when facing nearly two scores of reporters.

It was just another weekly press meeting for the ministry's current spokesman Wu Heping, who sat beside Bao throughout the conference. But to Bao, it was his debut.

"It is my first press conference, though I had been the ministry's spokesman for two years before 2000," said Bao, who looked up and managed a slight smile.

But today, he sat in the press hall as deputy head of the public order management bureau under the ministry to brief the press on issues concerning the renewal of resident's ID cards.

"At the time when I was the spokesman, we did few interviews and released almost no information to the public," Bao said after he sat through the two-hour press conference. "As the spokesman, my sole responsibility was just to answer a handful of reporters' calls."

Even in such telephone interviews, Bao said he seldom answered the questions immediately. Instead, he would fax the answers, after he had checked the reply to fall in line with the ministry's propaganda agenda.

But six years on, Wu, who took up the post last year, says he is not so "lucky".

The ministry has increased the intensity of press conferences, from once in a month in 2004 to once a week at present. Dozens of domestic and foreign press are invited to each.

Wu said his office phone "has rung incessantly" from the first day he took up the post and now he has to arrange 80 percent of his work time to deal with the press.

On Thursday, nearly 40 journalists crammed the press hall. Camera lights were flashing, video tapes were rolling, and LAN-connected lap-tops were broadcasting every word to the world.

"The police affairs are now wide open to the public and actually, 80 percent of our work can, and should be, known by the masses," Wu said, adding that the ministry is working on unveiling once "secret" police affairs to the general public.

The Chinese government only began to acknowledge the importance of information being released in 2003, when the foreign press attacked the government for an information blackout that might put millions of lives in jeopardy.

Before that, spokesmen with the various government organs were ridiculed as only an ornament, or sometimes a "plug" that prevented the journalists from legitimate reporting.

"Wu is now in a very crucial position. He shoulders a great deal of responsibility and is under heavy pressure," Bao said.

Official statistics show that more than 70 departments under the State Council, or the central government, have appointed a spokesman by now. And about 27 of China's provinces have established a government spokesman system.

The press conferences chaired by these spokesmen rose to 1088 in 2005, an increase of 17 percent from the figure in 2004, according to the Information Office of the State Council.

"Government press conferences serve as a crucial way to protect the pulic's knowledge rights and to guarantee the democracy of the Chinese political system," said Cai Wu, head of the Information Office.

"Improving the press conference system is an important component part of government's political reform and part of the nation's drive to build a people-serving government," he said.

Currently, departments such as the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Health, and the Ministry of Public Security have made press conferences a routine on a monthly or even weekly basis.

The once "secret" Organization Department of the Communist Party of Cjoma has also held two press conferences in the last year, inviting a handful of foreign media who brought up "sensitive" issues like rural riots and protests, once a taboo for the authority.

"On press conferences, I was often confronted with sharp questions, but I just answered them frankly and with the facts that I knew. And guess what, reporters would understand and make no trouble," Wu said.

He said facing the reporters was not like marching through a mine field as many government officials had thought.

Transparency in politics was also seen in the annual parliamentary session that ended Tuesday. Reporters were for the first time allowed to sit in on the small-group discussions of nearly every group of the NPC deputies.

Experts said all these changes would help China turn into a nation with a more open and mature political system.

Source: Xinhua