What does the ban of the China Business Post mean?

Image via WikipediaFor those who have missed the affair: media czars in Inner-Mongolia have banned for three months a newspaper, exploited by Sun media, owned by tycoon Bruno Wu. It seemed to be a rather smallish issue, but has not gotten onto the human-rights track, so it might be interesting to have a closer look. The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) got involved and that makes an already messy situation even more complicated.
Bruno Wu is a wealthy business man, belonging to the China rich lists, who has been trying to enter the China media scene. I have met him personally once when I organized a meeting years ago when I was presiding the Shanghai Foreign Correspondents Club, together with Shanghai AmCham. He for sure knows how to make himself heard.
His efforts to enter the media scene were and seemed to have been marginally. The industry is well cordoned off and as a private business person you can only set up a marginal operation, literally often, since Bruno Wu had to go to Inner-Mongolia and was only allowed to run the commercial side of this business paper. Real media business is always done by government entities in different appearances.
One of the rules of the media game is that you cannot run a national weekly from one of the provinces: in principle media have to stick to the province where they get their license from. Of course, like many rules, they are only implemented when you stand on some sensitive toes and that has happened, according to the FT. A story on operation of the Agricultural Bank of China is Hunan, was not liked by the bank and they took action beyond writing to the editor

An official of the Inner Mongolia bureau of press and publications said it had ordered the journal to cease publication for three months from September 8 because it had defied restrictions on cross-province reporting and had failed to seek comment from the Agricultural Bank of China properly.
“The reporting went against regulations,” the official said.Agricultural Bank of China has strongly denied the allegations of the mishandling of problem assets at its operations in southern Hunan. The bank declined to comment further on the China Business Post report.According to one person familiar with the case, Hunan officials complained to authorities in Inner Mongolia about China Business Post’s report, prompting action by Inner Mongolia’s Communist party secretary, a former Hunan provincial governor.

Sounds like a rather local affair, doesn't it. Here we see a rather simple business conflict that is fought with typical Chinese tools. Interesting to watch, but this is a bit different from a principal fight for media freedom.

Commercial
Making sense out of China's media scene is not easy. Fortunately, at the China Speakers Bureau we have a range of leading speakers on the Chinese media. If you are interested in hearing some of the real battle stories, do get in touch.