Urgent Business: Hong Kong, Freedom of Expression and 1997
Perhaps the most visible internal dissent came from within what is loosely known as the left- wing cultural sector," and particularly from the collection of local media organs tied to the Propaganda Department of Xinhua News Agency. Most prominent among these was the Wen Wei Po, the most important of four CCP-controlled newspapers in Hong Kong. Under veteran publisher Lee Tse-chung, a loyal follower of party ideology for more than 40 years, and a member of the Standing Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the newspaper had developed an increasingly independent line through the pro-democracy protests, and in its editorials had bitterly denounced the "fascist" Beijing authorities for using force, and called for the overthrow of the leadership.28 From a low market share, the newspaper expanded its daily circulation fourfold to over 200,000 at the height of the protests."
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The gradual transformation of Wen Wei Po from party organ to virulent critic was particularly intolerable to Beijing since the newspaper was also permitted to be distributed within China, its articles finding their way regularly to protesters.30 Yang Shangkun, the Chinese president, accused the paper of being "more counter-revolutionary than counter-revolutionary [Taiwan-owned] papers", while Li Peng, the prime minister, vowed to bring Hong Kong's leftist media, especially Wen Wei Po and Ta Kung Pao, back under the Communist Party's firm control.31
The announcement of plans by overseas Chinese in the United States to form an "Association of Friends of Wen Wei Po" to channel financial support to the editorially independent newspaper were said to confirm Beijing's worst fears. Led by exiled dissident journalist Liu Binyan, and supported by Lu Keng, publisher of the Hong Kong-based Pai Shing Semi-monthly magazine, the group had written to editor Lee to inform him of their intentions and had apparently received his approval.32
27 Id.
28
29
"Media's red barons", Far Eastern Economic Review, 27 Sept. 1990, at 24-25.
Joseph Man Chan and Chin-chuan Lee, supra note 12; the authors report a peak circulation of 220,000 and a tripling of overall sales, though separate pre-protest circulation figures of 50,000 suggest a fourfold increase.
30 Even immediately after 4 June, when distribution had been disrupted, photocopies and faxes of Wen Wei Po articles were still circulating. Before municipal authorities had restored order in Shanghai on 9 June, for example, news in Wen Wei Po of the massacre in Beijing was avidly read from noticeboards at universities, and from sides of buses commandeered by students and young workers for roadblocks. Shanghai, ironically, was where Wen Wei Po had its origins, and its sister publication of the same name continued to appear alongside the Hong Kong version throughout the same period. Both Wen Wei Po and Ta Kung Pao were banned from China after 4 June; restricted sales to the mainland began again on 1 Dec. 1989, five months later.
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32
it
Joseph Man Chan and Chin-chuan Lee, supra note 12, at 121 and 181. ̧
"Cracking the whip", Far Eastern Economic Review, 3 Aug. 1989; "Beijing Fires Vocal Hong Kong Publisher", Asian Wall Street Journal, 17 July 1989.
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