Rupert Murdoch suffering from 'China Syndrome'

In the first of two articles, our Asia correspondent Harvey Stockwin analyses how a battle over a book could affect Indonesia's full freedom of information -- and may be affecting it already.

HONG KONG (JP): At first sight, it seems impossible that the memoirs of the last British Colonial governor in Asia could conceivably affect the future freedom of information within Indonesia.

But as media mogul, and boss of Star TV (which is beamed down to Indonesia from satellites) Rupert Murdoch refuses to publish those Patten memoirs, he gives the clearest signal yet that his Empire is increasingly dedicated to purveying the political viewpoint and propaganda of the People's Republic of China.

The last governor was, of course, Chris Patten who was governor of Hong Kong for the last five crucial years in the countdown to the transfer of sovereignty to China on July 1, 1997. Since then, Patten, whose performance in those last five years has already been detailed extensively in Jonathan Dimbleby's book and TV series The Last Governor, has been holed up in a French farmhouse writing his own book on Asia.

Ostensibly, Patten's residence in France is due to the fact that he was able to transfer his two pet dogs, Whisky and Soda, straight there from Hong Kong without the two terriers having to undergo the torment of six month quarantine in Britain. Given his hefty governor's departure bonus, and substantial book advance, conceivably tax calculations could also have something to do with it.

Patten, the only professional politician to ever hold the governorship in Hong Kong, was highly controversial for the way in which, at the last minute of British colonialism within China, he tried to instill a minimum of democratic habits.

Patten trod where all previous governors had feared to tread.

Far from seeing that, just possibly, Patten was serving their long term interest in sustaining a still-prosperous Hong Kong, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) responded with a fresh display of the intense intolerance and verbal overkill which characterized the way class enemies were treated during the Cultural Revolution.

On these grounds alone, Patten's memoirs should make fascinating reading. Patten, who was firmly on the left of the conservative party prior to his appointment as governor, became a firm advocate of the more rigorously free market way in which things were done in Hong Kong and elsewhere in the region.

So much so, that when the current Asian economic crisis hit, it was assumed by some that his likely comments on Asian economics would now be out of date.

But, in reality, the Southeast Asian stock market and currency slide, and the East Asian economic setback, played to Patten's strong suit. He pushed for greater democratic habits within Hong Kong on the grounds that free market economies and open societies went hand-in-hand. He disagreed openly with the likes of Singapore's Senior Minister, and paramount leader, Lee Kuan Yew, for advocating Asian authoritarian values as the best means for economic growth.

So Patten's memoirs will be interesting not least for the way in which, delicately perhaps, Patten says "I told you so".

All this, plus the fact that Patten can turn a witty phrase with the best of them, obviously offered a book which would sell extremely well, even in insular Britain, but particularly in Asia itself, and in the United States. So, at the basic level of sheer profitability, it came as no surprise that HarperCollins was the highest bidder for the book.

HarperCollins is a publishing conglomerate within the great media empire of the Austral-American media czar Rupert Murdoch. Since Murdoch's empire is not concerned with bearing the "white man's burden" but is instead devoted to the pursuit of profit, Patten's memoir seemed an excellent buy.

Only a few skeptical eyebrows were raised, remembering that Murdoch had not been pleased when "lefty" Patten played a prominent role in sending Mrs. Margaret Thatcher, someone whom Murdoch greatly admired, into early retirement.

There were, in fact, deeper grounds for skepticism. The still- arriving imperialist (Murdoch), unlike the departing imperialist (Patten), had fallen in love with China, and the business prospects therein.

To be more precise, Murdoch had got a very bad attack of the oil-lamps-for-China syndrome, a disease which has been badly distorting the vision of Western capitalists for the last two hundred years.

Essentially, the syndrome consists of seeing the Chinese market place through heavily rose-tinted spectacles. Vision is further distorted by the lip-smacking thought of the profits which can be produced by sales to the sheer weight of Chinese numbers. A bad attack of the syndrome makes it impossible for sufferers to see that, so far, China has not succeeded in fully opening up the Chinese market for the Chinese themselves and that, until it does, it is most unlikely to open it up fully for foreigners.

Ironically, the very lengths to which sufferers from the syndrome go to try and grab a part of the market for themselves only convinces the Chinese that they possess something which they ought to protect.

The prime symptom of the syndrome is, in plain language, appeasement. The syndrome sufferer, like Murdoch, can only calculate that concessions to the Chinese will give him privileged access to the mythical market. The Chinese, not unnaturally, are adept at appointing barbarian-handlers whose job it is to secure endless concessions.

Murdoch first showed clear signs of the disease when he sought to please Beijing by abruptly canceling BBC World Service television as part of Star TV's service by satellite to China and to India. At that time, incidentally, Patten called the cancellation of the BBC Service "the most seedy of betrayals" by a Western media magnate.

The syndrome was clearly taking a firmer hold as Murdoch gave a huge financial advance, of over a million US dollars, to a daughter of the Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, for a biography of her father which, when Murdoch published it, was short on insight and revelations, but long on propaganda. The sales of the book never paid back the advance.

The grip of the syndrome was further indicated as Murdoch invested several million dollars in a joint venture with the CCP's People's Daily, a newspaper which does not pretend to believe in either freedom of the press or freedom of information.

So many wondered if Murdoch's syndrome attack was in remission when he bought the rights to Patten's book. Perhaps the great media imperialist had finally decided that concessions to China were getting him nowhere?

But the oil-lamps-for-China syndrome, once it takes hold, seldom disappears. Sure enough, the worst attack of all has now afflicted Murdoch. HarperCollins canceled the Patten memoirs in such a clumsy way that the basic credibility of the Murdoch publishing and media empire has been severely damaged.

Window: To be more precise, Murdoch had got a very bad attack of the oil-lamps-for-China syndrome, a disease which has been badly distorting the vision of Western capitalists for the last two hundred years.