Murdoch와 중국의 휘둘러지는 가장 유력한 무기
화요일, 2008년 4월 22일
에 의하여 조지 Monbiot |
강력한 Rupert Murdoch가 어떻게 인지 당신이 알고 싶은 경우에, 브루스 도버 책의 검토, 중국에 있는 Rupert의 모험을 읽는다. 잘, 읽는다 그들을 계속하십시오. 당신은 무엇이든을 찾아낼 수 없는가? 나는 나의 상자를 중단한다. 도버는 중국에 있는 Murdoch의 부통령이고, 두목에서 그의 주문을 직접적으로 받았다. 2월에서 간행된, 그의 책은 힘 그리고 누군가는 그의 방법으로 서 있을 것이라고 믿기 위하여 가져올 수 없던 남자의 매혹적인 학문이다. 이렇게 그것에 관하여 읽어 이지 않는가 우리는 왜?
Murdoch 의 도버 쇼는 2개의 전략 과오로, 중국에 그의 돌격을 시작했다. 첫번째 -를 별 텔레비젼 의 홍콩에서 근거한 고장나는 인공위성 방송사에 있는 대다수 말뚝을 - 비틀거리는 가격 - $525m 지불하기 위한 것이었다. 제2는 달 9월에 있는 1993년, 약간 그가 그가 아주 주의깊게 쓰지 않으며 도 아니다 읽었었던 아니 사업을 산 후에 연설하기 위한 것이었다. 새로운 원거리 통신은, 그가 말하기를, "전체주의 어디에나 정권… 인공위성 뉴스방송에 명백한 위협이" 우회 state-controlled 텔레비전 채널에 많은 닫히는 사회의 정보 배고픈 거주자를 위해 가능하게 한ㄴ다는 것을 입증했다.
중국 지도자는 격렬했다. , 국무총리는 중국에서 위성 접시를 금지해 Li Peng, 법령을 발행했다. 기어 Murdoch는 다음 10 년을 보냈다. 사업을 위하여 훌륭한 자본가는 공산주의자 정부의 가장 강력한 후원자가 되었다.
Li Peng 금지의 6 달 안에, 별의 중국 신호에서 BBC가 Murdoch에 의하여 떨어졌다. 그의 출판 회사, HarperCollins는 최고 지도자, Deng의 딸에 의해 써진 등소평의 지루한 전기를, 운을 지불했다. 그는 정권의 주의 장, 사람들의 일간신문을 위한 웹사이트를 건축했다. 1997년에 그는 그가 그가 4 년을 전에 일으키는 원인이 되었었던 손상을 원상태로 돌리는 것을 시도한 다른 연설했다. "중국,"는 그는 말했다, "서쪽 회사가." 지키는 것을 배워야 하는 특유한 사회 및 도덕적인 가치를 가진 특유한 시장이다 지켜진 그의 앞잡이, "각 관련된 중국 정부 관리 사본"를 받은 도버는 계시한다.
그러나 위성 접시는 금지해 남아 있었다, 그래서 그는 더군다나 기었다. 그는 "Gucci에서 주변에 뒤섞어 아주 정치적인 오래된 수도사"가 구두를 신긴다 것과 같이 달라이 라마를 기술했다. His son James claimed that the western media were “painting a falsely negative portrayal of China through their focus on controversial issues such as human rights”. Rupert employed his unsalaried gopher Tony Blair to give him special access: in 1999 Blair placed him next to then Chinese president, Jiang Zemin, at a Downing Street lunch. To secure some limited cable rights in southern China, News Corporation agreed to carry a Chinese government channel - CCTV-9 - on Fox and Sky. Murdoch promised to “further strengthen cooperative ties with the Chinese media, and explore new areas with an even more positive attitude”.
Most notoriously, he instructed HarperCollins not to publish the book that it had bought from the former governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten. Dover reveals that Murdoch was forced to intervene directly (he instructed the publishers to “kill the fucking book”) because his usual system of control had broken down. “Murdoch very rarely issued directives or instructions to his senior executives or editors.” Instead he expected “a sort of ‘anticipatory compliance’. One didn’t need to be instructed about what to do, one simply knew what was in one’s long-term interests.” In this case HarperCollins executives had failed to understand that when the boss objected to Patten’s views on China, it meant that the book was dead.
Anticipatory compliance also describes Murdoch’s approach to Beijing. Dover shows that the Chinese leadership never asked for Chris Patten’s book to be banned: they didn’t even know it existed. But when Murdoch killed it, “our Beijing minders were impressed and the Patten incident marked a distinct warming in the relationship”.
The strategy failed. Murdoch was astonished that he couldn’t replicate “the cosy relationship he enjoyed with Britain’s political establishment”. For the first time in his later career, he had encountered an organisation more powerful and more determined than he was. He has now retreated from China after losing at least $1bn.
This is a riveting story about two of the world’s most powerful forces. Dover’s British publisher told me: “I thought this was a natural for serialisation. We had the author primed and prepared to come over here. But we had to cancel as we could not raise enough interest. We’ve hit brick walls and we don’t understand why.” The book has been reviewed in the Economist and the Financial Times, but neither other British newspapers nor broadcasters have touched it.
As far as I can discover, the book has been reviewed by only one Murdoch publication anywhere on earth - the Australian Literary Review - and that was an article of such snivelling sycophancy that you wonder why they bothered. The editor of another News Corporation title, the Far Eastern Economic Review, commissioned a review, then admitted to contracting “cold feet” and spiked it.
But what of the other papers? Why should they appease Murdoch? “When you see the reaction of the British media to the book,” Dover tells me, “one can better understand why in some respects the Chinese so admired Murdoch - an emperor who inspires fear in his followers need not raise a hand against them.” He might be right, but I think there is also a general bias against relevance in the review sections. When I worked in faraway countries, my books about the tribulations of obscure peoples were comprehensively reviewed. When I came home and wrote Captive State: The Corporate Takeover of Britain, it was ignored. There appears to be an inverse relationship between how hard a book hits and how well it is covered.
Oddly for a publication that inspires such fear, Dover’s story sometimes steps back from the brink. He observes that News Corporation never promised the Chinese government favourable coverage; Murdoch undertook only to be “fair”, “balanced” and “objective”. Dover takes these terms at face value, though it is obvious from his account that they were being used as code for sympathetic treatment. His book does not contain News Corporation’s most direct admission: the statement by Murdoch’s spokesman Wang Yukui that “we won’t do programmes that are offensive in China … If you call this self-censorship then of course we’re doing a kind of self-censorship”. He is wrong to suggest that “Murdoch very rarely issued directives or instructions”. As the testimony by Andrew Neil (a former editor of the Sunday Times) before the House of Lords communications committee shows, the paramount leader micromanages the editorial content of the newspapers he owns that swing the greatest political weight.
But I am sure it is true that anticipatory compliance is Murdoch’s most powerful weapon. I doubt he needed to tell all 247 of his editors to support the invasion of Iraq, but they did. He might not even have had to lean on Tony Blair to ensure - as Blair’s former spin doctor Lance Price reveals - that no British minister said “anything positive about the euro”. Power is sustained not by force but by fear, as everyone seeks to interpret the wishes of his master and to meet them even before he asks.
See More:World NewsHave Your Say: The most potent weapon wielded by Murdoch and China
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This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008at 2:13 amand is filed under Media News, Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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