China shuts down newspaper supplement

China has shut down a newspaper supplement known for its in-depth reporting on sensitive issues, employees said today, in the latest measure by the communist government to tighten control over the media.

Production of Bing Dian, a four-page weekly supplement of the state-run China Youth Daily, was halted until further notice late yesterday, the eve before its latest issue was to appear, the employees said.

Chief editor Li Datong said he was called into a meeting and notified of the shutdown without being given a reason.

“I’m very angry,” said Li, the supplement’s founder. “We’ll be going through regular channels to appeal.”

The 11-year-old publication had become a must-read among China’s educated elite, running penetrating articles on topical issues such as a chemical spill that polluted a major river last year.

Its closure reflects growing tensions between the Chinese leadership and media outlets that have been pushing the limits of official tolerance in part to capture greater market share.

Staff at Bing Dian – which means Freezing Point – expressed bewilderment with the closure.

“It’s so unfair,” said a woman in the Bing Dian office who declined to give her name.

“It’s hard to tell how long this will last but we were told it can be resumed ‘after improvements’.”

Employees said officials did not say what would happen to Bing Dian’s staff of five editors and eight reporters.

In trying to reassert its authority, the government has cashiered aggressive editors and intimidated and even jailed enterprising reporters.

According to government figures, authorities banned 79 newspapers and seized 169 million publications deemed illegal in a nationwide crackdown last year.

Last month, the government forced the transfer of a senior editor at the Beijing News, a brash tabloid, prompting staff to stage a brief sympathy strike.

No official notice was given for the removal of the editor, Yang Bin, but editors and reporters with the newspaper believe it was for their reporting on acts of official malfeasance and corruption.

At Bing Dian, tensions had been growing between the supplement’s sponsor, the China Youth Daily, and the newspaper’s owner, the Communist Party’s Youth League, over journalistic values, according to a report by Radio Free Asia, a US government-funded broadcaster.

Last August, chief editor Li wrote an internal memo criticising “a reward system linking journalists’ salaries to the good opinion of top government officials,” RFA said today.

Another possible reason for the shutdown is a January 11 report that focused on what it called “mistakes in Chinese history textbooks.”

It criticised the textbooks for using facts that cannot be proved in sections about Japan’s invasion of China during the Second World War and the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, when scores of foreign missionaries were slaughtered.

While it did not go into details, it called on textbooks to “tell the truth to our nation’s youth.”

“It’s our responsibility,” the article said.