893.918/145: Telegram
The Chargé in China (Atcheson) to the Secretary of State
[Received June 25—3:55 p.m.]
999. It may be of interest to Department in connection with problem of evaluating news despatches from China for us to describe briefly and comment upon certain aspects of the operation of the Chinese censorship and publicity system.
While there appear to exist no formal or definitive rules governing censorship, the general policy appears to be to prevent the sending out of China of any material which conceivably might cause the government political, diplomatic or economic embarrassment. Special attention seems to be directed toward avoiding (1) embarrassment in internal political matters through the republication in the local press of news despatches to foreign countries on Chinese domestic affairs and (2) embarrassment in regard to China’s international, political and economic position through publication abroad of news which might tend to weaken the case for China’s stability and strength which Chinese representatives have built up in Washington, London, etc.
As regards domestic policy, subjects, of which no mention is permitted in the news despatches of the foreign correspondents, include Communist-Kuomintang differences; the existence of cliques or quarrels within the Kuomintang; the movements and personal life of the Generalissimo (except for occasional carefully edited special articles in which reference to him may be only [in] honorific terms); the circumstances surrounding the writing of the Generalissimo’s book China’s Destiny, and direct quotations therefrom; and subjects which might cast reflection upon China’s Government and administrators such as corruption of public officials.
As regards economic matters the subject of inflation is a forbidden one specifically and generally; price levels, the prices of food and other ordinary consumer goods (unless reference can be made to something officially published) and descriptions of the economic situation as being “serious” or “critical”, etc., are forbidden. An example of the extent to which restrictions are applied is that correspondents may not mention that any Chungking street is dirty.
As regards foreign affairs, mention is prohibited of any subject which might conceivably offend or cause offense to an ally (such as discussion of the Indian situation and Chinese reaction thereto; mention of possible divergence of views among China, Britain and Russia with regard to Tibet, Mongolia and Turkestan and questions of the rendition of Hong Kong and Kowloon). There is sporadic but not continuous prohibition of discussion of Soviet-Jap relations.
[Page 65]Various devices some bordering on trickery are employed to impel correspondents to write the kind of press despatches desired by Chinese authorities. One such was the calling out of the correspondents at 1:30 a.m. on May 24 (Embassy’s 782, May 25, 7 p.m.76) to cause them to send home, without opportunity to check accuracy or veracity of the material, urgent radiograms that the Japs had begun large scale drive on Chungking. This device was repeated about June 3 when Publicity Bureau of Foreign Office routed correspondents out of bed at 2:30 a.m. and handed them a release describing China’s “great victory” against the Japs (one request [result?] of the latter occasion it is understood was an editorial in the New York Herald Tribune describing the fighting along south bank of the Yangtze as a second Stalingrad and a battle that might be a turning point in the war).
Contentions by correspondents that this censorship policy may in the end do this country untold injury when the truth in regard [to] unhappy conditions here becomes generally known abroad have been ineffective assumably because the policy is dictated from the highest places. The correspondents in general are friendly to China and we believe their opinion this respect is basically sound. We have not perceived on their part any desire to belittle China, to disparage the [various?] aspects of China’s struggle for survival or merely to carp at something they do not like. They realize that censorship and publicity policies of the Chinese are important among the [apparent omission] which have created in the United States and elsewhere or which perhaps that is falsely colored and extravagantly distorted. And they recognize the possibility that when true picture eventually emerges there will result a disillusionment on the part of China’s friends at home or abroad that in their chagrin over those deceptions that have been practiced upon them these erstwhile supporters of China will lack the perspicuity to retain their faith in the many worthwhile and admirable aspects of China’s political, military and social structure.
Despatch follows.77