SEPT. 6, 2015
A screen grab of CCTV footage of Wang Xiaolu, a journalist with the Caijing business magazine. He was compelled to confess that he had written a “sensational” and “irresponsible” article on the stock market. Credit Cctv/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
HONG KONG — When the Chinese Ministry of Public Security arrested nearly 200 people at the end of August for “spreading rumors,” one of the most prominent targets was Wang Xiaolu, a reporter for the respected business magazine Caijing.
Mr. Wang was compelled to confess on television before going to trial. Dressed in a green polo shirt and looking downcast, he told viewers of China Central Television, the main state network, that he had gathered information using private sources “through abnormal channels,” then added to this his “own subjective views.” The article in question, Mr. Wang said, was a “sensational” and “irresponsible” report on the stock market.
That the state would take aim at a publication like Caijing came as a surprise to many. The magazine has a strong reputation for hard-hitting investigations and pushing the boundaries of what the government might deem permissible. Yet it has steered clear of prohibited topics like the Falun Gong movement.
“I know how to measure the boundary lines,” Caijing’s founder, Hu Shuli, told The New York Times in 2005. “We go up to the line — and we might even push it. But we never cross it.”
So the public shaming of one of its journalists has raised fears about prospects for journalistic freedom within China — and the direction of Caijing itself.
The publication was set up in 1998 by Ms. Hu, a former propaganda writer for the Communist Party publication Workers’ Daily, and it took an aggressive journalistic approach from the beginning. The cover of the first issue focused on a property company with a rocketing share price that had been suspended from trading after overstating its profits. A few insiders were tipped off beforehand and managed to unload their shares.
In an editorial on the future of journalism in China, Ms. Hu wrote: “By simply reporting the story and pointing out places where the system failed to protect small investors, we incited a stir. Government watchdogs immediately criticized Caijing.”
Caijing, a biweekly magazine with a circulation of 225,000, has continued chasing the same types of stories. Exposés by Caijing — which means finance and economics in Chinese — have covered such topics as illegal securities trading, stock price manipulation and falsified profits. Some of the reports have prompted regulatory investigations.
But for a business-focused publication, it has also ventured further into less traditional territory.
In 2003, Caijing was one of the few Chinese media outlets to report critically on the SARS crisis. The government tried to control the story, said David Bandurski, an editor at the China Media Project based at the University of Hong Kong.
“Some media, Caijing and Southern Metropolis Daily, decided they were going to report,” Mr. Bandurski said. “Hu Shuli was going into West China with her hazmat suit. Around the time of SARS, April 2003, was the beginning of what they think of as the media spring. Official guidance totally fell apart.”
In 2008, Caijing reported on how construction standards had been ignored and public money was wasted in Sichuan, leading to the collapse of many schools during an earthquake. Other publications were punished for covering the collapsed schools, but Caijing was not.
Mr. Bandurski said the importance of economic reform to the government meant elites wanted strong financial reporting. Caijing seized the opportunity.
But it also occasionally crossed the line, from Beijing’s point of view. Wang Boming, who helped obtain financing for the publication when it started, told The New York Times in 2005 that people from the magazine had been called to perform “self-criticism.”
