Rupert Murdoch suffering from 'China Syndrome'

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.