A dynamic country where its “netizens” – most of them no less skeptical than their Western peers – have launched online campaigns uttering dissatisfaction at a government policy and sparing no efforts to expose official corruption, writes Addie Chen Bei.
Guanny Liu would have never thought of China as her overseas experience (OE) destination – even though the Kiwi graduate journalist’s parents are Chinese immigrants. Even more surprising, she extended her stay in Beijing for another year after her scheduled 3-month internship ended.
“I just felt I hadn’t got enough of Beijing,” she told Pacific Scoop when recalling her “life-changing experience”.
After finishing her internship with chinadaily.com.cn, the website of China’s first English language newspaper, Liu moved to China Radio International, where she spent a year producing and hosting a weekly show about foreigners living in China.
OE is popular among young New Zealanders and most of them choose European cities, especially London, as their place of expanding horizons.
Liu’s trip to China could not have happened if she had not received a airfares scholarship of $2500 funded by the Asia New Zealand Foundation and organised by AUT’s Pacific Media Centre. Plus support from the China Daily with accommodation and a living allowance.
The grant was provided as part of the foundation’s media programme and the AUT/China Daily Journalism Exchange project.
“The media grant supports young journalists and recent journalism graduates to attend internships with media organisations in Beijing, Shanghai, Phnom Penh, Bangalore, Jakarta, Manila, Hong Kong and Singapore,” said Rebecca Palmer, the foundation’s recently appointed media adviser.
City choice
About 10 to 15 recipients receive a grant each year. The journalists are usually free to decide which city they travel to.
More New Zealand journalists have shown an increasing interest in China in recent years because of its fast growing economy, according to Palmer.
“I presume China is now the most popular destination with New Zealand journalists, thanks to the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the two countries,” she said.
Since the FTA came into effect in 2008, New Zealand exports to China have increased by 144 percent, which makes China New Zealand’s second largest export market, according to NZ Trade Minister Tim Groser, who visited Beijing last week for bilateral trade issues.
To Guanny Liu, business and economics will play a huge part in New Zealand journalists’ coverage of China.
But she was more interested in the role China’s social media played to expose corruption and the lives of China’s youth as well as what they will bring to the international stage.
The Chinese-New Zealand journalist did not think Kiwi mainstream media presented a true picture of current China.
“It’s easy to simplify China as either a superhero flying in to rescue the West from financial ruin, or as a big bad villain taking over the world,” said Liu.
Behind the image
She hoped more journalists would get a chance like she did to personally experience life in China.
What she read about Chinese youth in the media were tales of robotic rote-learning and extreme consumerism. But what she had seen with her eyes in Beijing were many passionate, bright, hardworking young people.
Liu’s opinion happened to converge with what was held by Yvonne Brill, the latest recipient of the Asia internship scholarship funded by Asia New Zealand Foundation and organised by the PMC as part of the AUT/China Daily exchange.
Brill has flown to Beijing for a 3-month stint at chinadaily.com.cn
“I don’t think the NZ mainstream media covers China issues as well as it could – much of the coverage we get here is about natural disasters or about economic issues such as trade deals with China,” Brill said.
She believed such coverage was not comprehensive enough, though New Zealand media should have certainly reported the events like natural disasters or civil unrest. The journalism postgraduate hoped she could present a “de-labeled” China to New Zealanders after a personal touch with the ancient-modern country in the East.
A stereotyped China does not quite match a real China.
Focused on issues
That is also the personal view of top AUT journalism graduate Kim Bowden, who stayed in Beijing for nearly three months.
“Before coming, I was so focused on issues like the Communist Party, the Great Firewall, human rights and ‘Made in China.’ As soon as I arrived and started to interact with people, I realised I underestimated the vitality of the people and culture,” said Bowden, who is nearing the end of her trip to Beijing.
Bowden did not deny the evident contradictions and frustrations China is experiencing. These issues, however, went beyond what the West mainstream media simply defined as “people living without human rights” or “the Chinese Communist Party brainwashing its citizens”.
What Bowden met was a dynamic country where its “netizens” – most of them no less skeptical than their Western peers – launched online campaigns uttering dissatisfaction at a government policy and sparing no efforts to expose official corruption.
The largest gain from their experience in China, both Bowden and Liu believe, is they were taught journalists never took for granted a country as it was tagged.
“I think that’s something to remember as a journalist – behind every story are real people,” said Liu.
Addie Chen Bei is an AUT/China Daily exchange journalist on the Asia-Pacific Journalism course at AUT University. Her article was first published on Pacific Scoop.
Asia-Pacific Journalism
