‘Clampdown’ in China

Press, 13 May 1987, Page 10

‘Clampdown’ in China

By

ANDREW ROCHE

of Reuters NZPA Beijing China’s expulsion of a Japanese correspondent who refused to reveal the source of a sensitive political story is part of a clampdown on foreign and Chinese journalists, Chinese sources said. Its aim is to enforce the Communist Party line in China’s State-run media and to plug leaks of confidential “internai” information to foreigners, which during this year’s political upheavals have threatened to become a torrent.

Several foreign correspondents said they were under intensified surveillance by the State Security Bureau, whose tactics include conspicuously following foreigners’ cars and questioning Chinese who form relationships with foreigners. A campaign is being launched this week to brief Chinese journalists

on the perils of “bourgeois liberalisation,” or Western political ideas, i and warn them against contacts with the Western press, Chinese sources said.

"We have been told to be careful what we say to foreign journalists,” a Chinese reporter said. “The attitude is that foreigners are all after something.”

A series of documents intended only for limited circulation among Communist Party members have found their way to the foreign media this year.

The expelled journalist, Mr Shuitsu Henmi, a correspondent for Kyodo News Service, had published the contents of one dealing with the accusations levelled against the disgraced . former Com- • munist Party leader, Hu ■ Yaobang, and had refused to ’ reveal the source despite heavy pressure for nearly two months.

ste was served with an

expulsion order on Friday and left yesterday. “If this is what happens to the journalist who wrote the story, God knows what happens to the person who leaked it,” a Western diplomat said.

Such leaks have fuelled foreign analyses of Chinese politics as a continuing power struggle. The official “Peking Review" last week called such views "a myth”. The magazine added: “As for those who deliberately create confusion, facts will refute their alarmist remarks.”

The State Security Bureau is charged with the task of protecting State secrets and includes three separate sections responsible for surveillance of foreign journalists, diplomats and businessmen, Chinese sources said.

Henmi’s name topped a list of foreign journalists targeted for investigation by the bureau, the sources said./ f