Public interest in media communications in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China has mainly focused on how Hong Kong can maintain its autonomy and freedom of speech under Chinese sovereignty. Despite such concerns, the media in Hong Kong has differed widely from the Mainland even following reunification in 1997. For example, with regard to newspapers in Hong Kong, there are commercially driven
neutral papers that are largely managed with the objective to “write what is marketable” as well as
leftist papers that are the propaganda organs of China's central government. Moreover, surveys have generally demonstrated that freedom of speech has been maintained in Hong Kong under the
One Country and Two Systems structure.
According to such considerations, this paper examines the meaning of the Hong Kong media for China's central government. First, this paper assesses the recognition and correspondence of the central government with the Hong Kong media. Second, this paper analyzes the differences of reporting style on Japanese affairs between newspapers in Hong Kong and the Mainland, and the implications of such differences on the central government.
This paper also describes the possibility that Hong Kong has been used as an “experimental area” where the central government observes the response of public opinion in its decision-making process through examining reports on a series of anti-Japan demonstrations in April 2005. In short, it was April 9 when the
leftist papers started to publish editorials regarding the anti-Japan demonstrations whereby insisting the importance of rational behavior against Japan; meanwhile, the Mainland media remained silent. Articles expressing the need for rational behavior had appeared repeatedly in the
leftist papers and had been gradually introduced to the Mainland although the Chinese government still held a tough posture against Japan. For example,
Xinhua News Agency, China's national news agency, reprinted articles with such tones of the
leftist papers into the Mainland paper,
Reference News, before the official announcement. It was ten days later, April 19, when the central government formally announced its position on the anti-Japan demonstrations, officially demanding the rational behavior against Japan.
Such a course suggests that the central government defined its attitude against the anti-Japan demonstrations very early on behind the tough posture against Japan but deliberately planned the release of the official announcement of its stance through utilizing the articles of the
leftist papers to observe responses from the readers in both Hong Kong and the Mainland.
抄録全体を表示