I didn't get into journalism to make American foreign policy,"
says
Mike Chinoy. ''I got into journalism because it's an interesting
way
to witness history."
Chinoy has certainly achieved his goal. He was, after all,
CNN's
Beijing bureau chief from 1987 to 1995. But more than
that, he became
a part of history, ''by accident, not by design", he insists.
As he notes in his new book, China Live: Two Decades in
the Heart of
the Dragon, CNN's ability to provide almost instantaneous
coverage of
breaking events in the time leading up to and during the
1989
Tiananmen Square massacre made it the major source of
information for
many of the world's top policy-makers as they struggled
to come to
grips with the turmoil in Beijing.
''James Lilley, the US ambassador during the crackdown,
told me that
CNN was often well ahead of the embassy's political officers
in
reporting major developments, so much so that policy decisions
in
Washington tended to be driven more by what appeared on
CNN than by
the analyses of the US diplomats on the scene," writes
Chinoy in the
advanced reader's copy of his book. ''Hearing this confirmed
my sense
that CNN had suddenly become a player on the global stage.
''It became clear to me that by broadcasting live from
the heart of
the revolution, we had affected the dynamics and momentum
of the very
events we were covering."
Journalists are increasingly aware of this power, but for
Chinoy at
least, it simply means there is even more pressure to
get the story
right: ''It's become an unfortunate fact that the impact
[of your news
reports] makes you a player," he said during an interview
in Bangkok
on Monday. ''The only thing you can do is to take even
greater care
that what we do is right, and fair and accurate. It's
a very delicate
balancing act."
Chinoy is therefore careful to maintain a reporter's traditional
neutrality when discussing the current situation in China.
''My bias
is against simplicity even though that's what you
need in news
coverage because the reality is too complicated,
too paradoxical."
One major paradox he identifies is the situation in Hong
Kong, where
he is now CNN's bureau chief. Chinoy reckons the handover
will go
relatively smoothly. There are likely to be some demonstrations,
he
says, but the journalists may actually end up outnumbering
the
protesters.
''The city does not look like it is heading for the dustbin
of
history," he says, borrowing a phrase from Trotsky. But,
he warns,
''China will happily kill the goose that lays the golden
eggs if it
threatens the Communist Party's hold on power. They don't
want to,
they don't intend to but ... the history of China is littered
with
dead geese."
He identifies two questions that are crucial to the city's
future.
Firstly, Chinoy wonders whether the new political structure
will
pressure the press and rig the rules for next year's legislative
elections to the point where the Democrats a popular,
liberal party
will not be able to win the number of seats they
are expected to.
As important, he adds, is that the business climate may
change if
''the Chinese rules" take hold. Vital economic information
may become
confidential, and disputes may eventually be settled on
the basis of
which company has the best political connections (guanxi).
Partly for
this reason, companies from the mainland are already starting
to throw
their weight around the colony.
To make matters even more complicated, says Chinoy, there
are at least
four parallel centres of power shaping up in Hong Kong:
Xinhua (the
New China News Agency), the Chinese Foreign Ministry,
the general
commanding the People's Liberation Army, and Tung Chee-hwa,
Hong
Kong's chief administrator-in-waiting.
Chinoy also refuses to take sides in the bitter debates
surrounding
the West's policies toward China. The question of whether
foreign countries
should engage China (or Burma for that matter) or punish
it for its human rights
abuses was dangled before him, but he refused to rise
to the bait.
''I think the Communist Party is actually going to be around
for a
while, presiding over a very different China. The party
itself is very
different. Its ideology is meaningless. Its interests
are staying in
power, enriching itself and keeping the economic boom
going at a
sufficiently intense rate to buy acquiescence from the
population."
Chinoy agrees there is a possibility the party may evolve
into
something like the Kuomintang in Taiwan or the People's
Action Party
in Singapore, but warns that its socialist ideology has
been replaced
by nationalism ''a volatile brew given China's history
of xenophobia".
''There's no automatic guarantee that economic openness
will lead to
political openness. [But] I do think it will lead to a
more generally
open society if you define it in the degree to which
the state
messes about with the lives of the people.
''Exposure to outside influences is profoundly subversive
to the
things the West most dislikes. It has eroded the Communist
Party's
ability to control people's lives.
''China is unbelievably more open and the people are much
freer, than
they were 15 years ago, although not politically," says
Chinoy, a
former student radical who first went to China in 1973,
eager to view
the achievements of socialism. ''The state doesn't tell
you what
clothes to wear [any more]. You can travel much more freely.
You can
go into business for yourself. You can get rich. You can
watch MTV,
or CNN," he adds with a laugh.
''The economic reforms have their own internal logic: They
will
eventually have to have a legal system that can regulate
[the
economy]. At the moment they don't, they're betwixt and
between ...
If they don't deal with that, it will become like grit
in the gears.
''I think China is too big and too rural for a Western-style
democracy
to become a likelihood," he concludes. ''[But] to see
it purely as a
decaying dictatorship with no other elements [is a mistake]."
Yes, but this is a misperception fed by the mass media
itself,
although Chinoy defends CNN's efforts to paint a broader
picture of
the country.
''The China story is a process, not an event. 'Process'
makes for bad
television; events make for good television. So we've
had to bend
over backwards to convey snapshots of the process," he
argues.
Chinoy describes CNN itself as a ''work in progress".
''We went on the air in 1980 and haven't gone off since,"
he points
out. ''It's the newscast that never ends."
One of the main reasons he decided to write a book
along with the
need to sum up his near quarter of a century's worth of
experience in
the Middle Kingdom was to ''explain the process
of news-gathering,
especially in a place like China". You might call it meta-news.
''I kept meeting people who asked what it was like to be
a reporter
in China, and I think it's important for people
to become more
sophisticated viewers," he says.
One of the book's most endearing qualities is Chinoy's
willingness to
admit when he was wrong. Nor does he shy away from accepting
criticism of CNN, for instance when people complain that
it lacks the in-depth
analysis of news services such as the BBC.
''I have respect for the BBC; analysis has been their forte,"
he says.
''CNN has made its name from breaking news. When it hits
the fan,
we're there faster. But the critics have a point, and
that's been recognised
by our programme changes. We're much better than we were
five years ago."
New half-hour shows such as Insight and Q&A are designed
to offer more
detailed coverage of particular issues, he explains. The
trend toward
regionalisation providing different feeds for Asia
and Europe, for
example may also help.
''You can never satisfy everyone," he adds. ''The debates
over sports
programming, for instance, have been legendary. Do you
lead with
baseball or cricket?"
He encourages viewers to to write in with their comments.
''We take
feedback very seriously. There are no Nielsen [TV] ratings
in, say,
Greece. So we often have to rely on anecdotal evidence."
As for Chinoy himself, expect to continue seeing him on
CNN news
reports: ''I'll be in Hong Kong until the end of the century.
I like
being a field reporter ... The first time I met Ted Turner,
he
introduced me, not as a guy who's moving up in the organisation,
but
[as] a guy moving around," he laughs.
CNN is probably happy to have Chinoy right where he is.
After all, his
work in Beijing (where he was aided by a hard-working
team of
journalists including Bangkok bureau chief Tom Mintier)
not only
affected China, but also radically changed CNN's prospects.
Thanks to
its Tiananmen coverage, the network went from being an
interesting
experiment to a global news-gathering tour de force.
And considering China's uncertain future, don't be surprised
if Chinoy
has the opportunity to make history again.
China Live: Two Decades in the Heart of the Dragon (Turner
Publishing
Inc) retails for Bt395; available at Bookazine stores.