HONG KONG—Nineteen years ago, the world came to understand the June 4 Tiananmen Student Massacre through the eyes of Hong Kong media. As a result, one-million people in Hong Kong (HK) held a demonstration in protest of the slaughter at that time.
Today, when the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) aimed its guns at unarmed Tibetans, the HK media were again among the first to broadcast the scenes of bloody suppression and help foreign media to understand the real situation. However, this time the CCP expelled the HK media soon after the event, and suddenly their views mirrored CCP official reports.
Foreign Media in Lhasa Expelled
Many foreign media, including the BBC, were not allowed to enter Lhasa to report on the incident. The HK media were one of the few exceptions. The HK Cable TV (CATV) entered Lhasa on the March 14 continuously broadcasting videos of the military suppression and live interviews with Tibetans. It provided first-hand information on the incident to the world and to other international media.
Up until March 16, CATV had reported that over 200 military vehicles, led by tanks and armored personnel carriers had entered Lhasa with an estimated 10,000 People's Liberation Army soldiers to be stationed in the city. The soldiers closed off the city and performed door-to-door searches. However, during the night of March 16, all HK media received notice from the Tibetan authorities ordering them to leave Tibet on the next day (March 17). At the same time, 15 reporters from four TV stations, two newspaper agencies, and a radio station were expelled.
During the early morning of the March 17 before the reporters left, domestic security officers and their computer experts entered and searched the reporters' hotel rooms and confiscated some tapes and computer memory cards. Pictures and videos of armed police and public security personnel on duty were deleted from the computers. A reporter from a HK TV station said that he arrived in Tibet on March 15 and before 24 hours had past, an armed policeman came to his hotel and ordered him to 'report on the incident positively.' Two hours later police knocked on his door again and ordered him to leave the next day.
Suppression Described As Demonstration
The HK media, after being expelled from Tibet, quickly changed their view. CATV adopted a report from Xinhua, the CCP's mouthpiece, and repeatedly played the video that shows 'the Tibetans robbing and damaging property' on the street.
CATV addressed the incident as a "demonstration" on March 14 and 15 then adopted the official CCP's language in their reports on March 16, 17, and 18, describing the incident as a "disorder," "riot," and "segregation movement of Tibet."
Media Funded By CCP
A senior reporter in Hong Kong, Choi Wing-Mui commented on the change of viewpoint among HK media. Choi said some media were originally funded by the CCP and some later received money from the CCP. "Needless to say, the CCP's mouthpieces Wenweipo and Takungpao directly quoted what Xinhua had to say. The more independent media acted differently. The Apple Daily and the Epoch Times posted pictures from the human rights group on March 18, these included pictures of corpses of Tibetans killed in Sichuan Province. However, Mingpao and other independent news agencies did not. Most of them questioned the CCP's expulsion of the media but continued to quote official information in their news reports.
The day after the suppression started (March 14) Singtao Daily was the only newspaper that headlined the incident. However the title read "Police and Military Suppress Riots in Lhasa." Choi questioned the headline that read, "Before more evidence comes in, it's not fair to jump to such a conclusion (riot). (Singtao) totally stands on the side of the CCP."
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