PM Zhu makes great leap forward by using television

Great hopes for economic reform and improvement are attached to the new Chinese Prime Minister Zhu Rongji. Our Asia correspondent Harvey Stockwin reports that Zhu's initial achievement was to step in where Asian politicians often fear to tread -- using television creatively to increase support for legitimate political or economic goals.

HONG KONG (JP): Zhu Rongji initiated a small but significant change in technique as he became China's prime minister at the close of the recent session of the National People's Congress in Beijing.

If this change now becomes the norm among China's leaders it could change the way the rulers of China are regarded, not merely by foreigners but also, and far more important, by the Chinese people themselves.

But initial indications suggest that Zhu's initiative has not yet caught on with his colleagues.

China is faced with vast problems which for sheer enormity and complexity boggle the mind, and will require enormous and sustained national effort for their eventual resolution.

Yet in relation to the use of media political technique to stimulate and arouse such effort -- until last week, that is -- China has been among the poorest performers in the region.

The misuse and abuse of media has contributed to the great economic crisis which has developed many Southeast and East Asian nations since July 1997. With the advantage of hindsight, it is truly amazing that very few Asian leaders have brought media creativity to bear in the resolution of their present troubles.

One fundamental ingredient of the regional crisis, after all, is the simple issue of confidence. How can confidence be aroused by maintaining distance from the people? But that is precisely what Asian leaders, some of them complacently relying on their strictly controlled media, have tried to do.

Recently Russian President Boris Yeltsin well illustrated what a difference a more direct approach to the people can achieve. Yeltsin arrived back in Moscow after an illness and have the nation some shock therapy as he sacked his prime minister and cabinet. Naturally the currency and stock markets plunged on hearing the news. Immediately Yeltsin went on television to explain himself. The same day, he also gave a radio talk to the Russian people.

The explanations may not have been wholly convincing. But at least Yeltsin was there on the TV screen looking fit and reinvigorated. In the end, despite the initial fall, both the ruble and the shares ended up on the day. The use of media to sustain confidence was not the whole story -- but it was an important ingredient.

In one way, China's news bulletins are unique. At least whenever President Soeharto, or Dr. Mahathir, or Goh Chock Tong makes a speech, which is then routinely replayed on the TV news, you hear their real voice. On the main nightly news program on China's television, most of the time the news presenter will talk over the actual words of the Chinese leaders. You hear only what the leaders are said to have said --- but not the leaders actually saying it.

Since the Chinese evening news is strictly controlled and deals exhaustively with the foreign delegation endlessly flowing through the Great Hall of the People, and the degree of respect accorded them, I naturally try to watch whenever I can. Occasionally you get nuggets of insight.

When Antony Lake, then Clinton's top national security assistant saw Jiang Zemin, it was big news for American journalists who proclaimed a great improvement in Sino-American relations. On China's evening news, however, Lake's meeting with President Jiang secured 20 seconds, at the very end of the bulletin, immediately after an item showing PLA soldiers playing volleyball on a beach.

The news also indicates the relative standing of the various communist leaders. When Japanese Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto visited Beijing last year and saw all the top leaders, the news showed him on two nights running negotiating only with his counterpart, Li Peng.

When the nightly news briefly mentioned the death of Diana Princess of Wales, reporters highlighted the brevity of the item as a snub. To the contrary the fact that her death was mentioned was remarkable. Whereas in most countries many items on the TV news have no direct reference to that country but are of broader international concern, in China almost all the items on the news concern China only -- the Diana reference was almost unique.

When the real voices of Chinese leaders are heard on television, it is usually because a whole speech, or large chunks of it, is being relayed verbatim.

Soundbites from China's leaders are relatively rare but the extent to which they are mentioned is often interesting. For years, maybe they still do, the Los Angeles Times kept a careful record of the amount of time accorded each leader on the nightly news, hoping such statistics would offer factional insight.

Of late, over the last six months, Zhu Rongji has been shown more frequently lecturing people on China's way ahead. But his actual words are rarely heard -- the presenter tells the viewer instead. The only time ordinary Chinese people themselves are allowed a soundbite or two is on the rare occasions when comparatively innocuous items are broadcast.

So while the nightly Chinese news interests because of what it may indirectly reveal, its archaic formats, its boring repetitiveness and its dull presentation almost certainly do not entrance its main audience, the Chinese people themselves.

Against this background, it was nothing short of revolutionary when on March 19 the newly installed Prime Minister Zhu Rongji gave a press conference in Beijing which was, as far as I know, broadcast live to the whole nation. It was certainly broadcast live in the main cities.

It was not a great change in substance -- Zhu did not depart from the party line on political matters -- but it was a great change in technique.

Zhu's aides had taken care to plant one or two questions he needed to answer, but anyone could ask questions without prior vetting. Even in private interviews, let alone rare press conferences, the prevailing Chinese practice has been that all questions had to be submitted in advance.

In contrast to the seriousness leaders normally display on camera, Zhu actually joked several times in a self-deprecating way. He did not hog the limelight for himself, but passed some questions to Vice Premiers Qian Qichen and Li Lanqing. In contrast to the official briefings at the Foreign Ministry, instant translation into English was available, and questions could be asked in English, too.

But the great change which would have been noticed by all Chinese watching, from Harbin in the north to Hainan in the south, was a much more simple but very compelling reality.

Zhu spoke without notes. He looked straight at the camera. He never mumbled. Above all, he spoke with conviction and even passion. At one point he was positively Churchillian, as he looked forward to grappling with China's huge problems: "But no matter whether there is a mine field ahead of me, or whether there is a deep ravine in front of me, I will bravely forge ahead, will not turn back, will do my best until my last breath."

Many foreign reporters wrote prematurely that a new day had dawned, missing the anticlimax.

That night, on the national TV news, it was back to square one. The first 12 or 13 minutes of the 30-minute bulletin were taken up with President Jiang Zemin reading his speech to the closing session of the National People's Congress while nearly all of NPC Chairman Li Peng's 20-minute closing speech to the congress occupied the rest of the time.

While Zhu's press conference was mentioned in the headlines, there was no item on it in the news of the day. That Churchillian soundbite was not repeated.

President Jiang at least had some flowers, hiding the pages of his speech from the camera, as he turned those pages and read at a lectern. Chairman Li on the other hand, had the unhappy task of standing at a microphone with no lectern, reading the speech, the pages of which he had to hold in front of him. If you want to risk losing people's TV attention, there could hardly be a better posture than that.

So whether or not the same advisers who persuaded Zhu to head for a new frontier of television technique -- and credibility -- will soon get the ear of Jiang and Li remains in doubt. It could mean a great deal for China if they do.