Press Review: The View From Beijing

Sick. Sick. Sick. Take a glance at almost any Chinese newspaper since the start of the year and you would think the world's most populous nation is also the most vulnerable to nasty diseases - or is at least suffering from terrible hypochondria.

The dominant stories of 2004 have been three viruses: Sars, avian flu and Aids; the dominant images those of face-masked health workers, bedridden patients and government leaders declaring war on bugs.

The choice of topic says a lot about China and its media. It is in keeping with the national obsession with health also apparent in the amazing range of medicine and vitamin supplement adverts on TV.

But it also reflects the limits placed on the reporting of other issues. With little genuine political debate allowed, many subjects are pushed off the media agenda. According to Chinese journalists, the propaganda ministry calls newspapers and TV stations each week to tell them which topics are not appropriate for public consumption. As every one of these organisations is run by the state or the Communist party, they have little choice but to agree.

Since the Sars outbreak last year, however, public health has emerged as the main topic on which journalists attempt to push the political envelope. For a brief period the government relaxed its control and gave reporters almost free rein to investigate both the origin of Sars and attempts by local officials to cover up the outbreak.

But that brief window appears to be closing. When the South Metropolitan Daily broke the news of a new Sars case at the end of last year, the editor was detained by police. More recently, reporters who have tried to investigate alleged cover-ups of bird flu outbreaks have been denied access to farms and ordered to leave by police.

In Hong Kong, which has greater media freedom, the Standard, a daily newspaper, reported that H5N1 struck two large chicken farms in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong last autumn. This contradicted Beijing's denials that the disease may have originated in China. Most of the mainland publications, however, stuck to the government line that bird flu started elsewhere and is now under control.

One issue on which the government has clearly been influenced by the media is Aids. This time last year, the authorities in Henan were still trying to deny that entire villages in the province had been infected following a blood collection scheme. But, after a raft of reports in the domestic and foreign media, the central government announced this week it would dispatch a team to provide support and information to the people of the area.

According to the Guangzhou Daily, officials will be stationed permanently in the villages and will ensure Aids patients get free medicine. The English-language China Daily had further advice: "Publicising the fight against HIV/Aids should go beyond clean needles and safe sex, and enhance understanding of the need for everybody to join hands in overcoming the deadly threat of this affliction."

The greater openness is being extended to the discussion of other social ills. The deaths of at least 20 Chinese migrant workers in Morecambe Bay earlier this month has led to some powerful reporting of the conditions that drove them to flee their homes in Fujian province.

The Straits City Daily, a local newspaper in Fuzhou, where most of the victims came from, has run long interviews with the families of the victims and reported the activities of the snakehead gangs - subjects that even a few years ago would have been undreamt of because they reflect poorly on the government. Four years ago, when 58 Chinese migrants suffocated in the back of a lorry in Dover, there was almost no coverage of their plight in the local media and reporters were detained if they attempted to talk to the victims' families.

The plight of peasants who move to cities has also moved higher up the media agenda - albeit with the approval of the government. Even the China Youth Daily, which is under the supervision of the Communist Youth League, was able to run a lengthy front-page piece on the dire educational opportunities for the children of such workers.

These kids do not receive the benefits of free state tuition because they slip through a gap between the urban and rural education systems. But not until now, with migrant workers playing a vital role in Chinese industry, has the problem been considered newsworthy.