China TV Focuses On Summit Pomp, Not Protest

For days, U.S. media coverage of Chinese President Jiang Zemin’s visit has focused on the intense debates about serious issues such as human rights.

But the world’s largest television audience - the 800 million Chinese who regularly watch the evening news on China Central Television Station, or CCTV - has seen a very different picture.

CCTV’s sanitized report on the post-summit news conference Wednesday with President Clinton and Jiang omitted the American president’s pointed remarks on human rights, as well as both leaders’ views on Tibet and the 1989 crackdown against protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. CCTV’s otherwise detailed coverage of the summit also failed to mention a key agreement - China’s pledge to stop selling nuclear technology to nations such as Iran that are viewed by the United States as “rogue states.”

Outside the White House, Chinese camera crews focused on the state honors - the red carpets, motorcades and honor guards - while shutting out images of hundreds of human rights protesters and celebrities rallying across the street from the White House.

“Chinese are used to reports that show only the bright side,” said a Beijing employee of a U.S. corporation with access to CNN’s satellite broadcast. “But allowing people to see this positive dialogue would not have hurt China.”

Chinese reporters interviewed a not-so-random sampling of Americans, from Washington pedestrians to former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger. All of them presented a united front in their upbeat assessments of the summit and U.S.-Sino relations.

Analysts say Chinese media have been careful to polish Jiang’s domestic image as a high-powered statesman in a dark suit, as a reaper of international respect for China’s growing geopolitical clout. This has meant denying Chinese audiences a glimpse of their 71-year-old leader dancing the hula or swimming at Waikiki beach in Hawaii.