MAINLAND NOT IMMUNE TO PRESS POWER

Last week the Yangcheng Evening News ran a series of investigative
reports "uncovering" rampant prostitution and drug-dealing at small
hostels near the Guangzhou railway station, which is the target of a
major clean-up operation launched in May.

In as much as it is difficult to uncover something that everybody
knows about, the fanfare with which the News surrounded its reports
was overblown.

The fact that some small hostels in and around Sanyuanli, an area just
north of the railway station, harbour prostitutes, drug-dealers and
drug-users is an open secret in Guangzhou. But the reports
nevertheless reveal much about how Guangzhou newspapers can exert
pressure on government officials - and increase newspaper sales.

On June 12 the News splashed across its front page photos of four
heroin addicts shooting up, drug dealers conducting transactions and
prostitutes soliciting passersby. The next day it published a
gratuitous picture of a young woman covered in blood. She had been
attacked and robbed at a hostel.

The stories accompanying the photos were written by a team of
journalists who spent a week living undercover in the hostels. They
discovered small stores that doubled as man-traps. The old women
running the stores spent most of their time on the lookout for
clients, who they brought to prostitutes holed up in nearby hostels.

Three such stores were found on Kangying Avenue, which, ironically,
translates as "Resist the English" Street and is a patriotic landmark.
It is the site of one of the few Opium War skirmishes that the Chinese
won.

One prostitute, 21, said business was good, thanks mainly to the
ticket touts and drug pushers who work the railway station. "They eat
the railway station and we eat them," she said.

Heroin was available for anywhere between 50 and 400 yuan (HK$47-376)
per gram, depending on the quality. "You can buy it on the streets in
broad daylight," an addict noted. "It's not as furtive a thing as
everybody thinks it is."

The reports sent government officials scurrying. Guangzhou party
secretary Huang Huahua deplored the situation and said the Government
had to act. Guangzhou's police chief, Zhu Huisheng, paid a personal
visit to the newspaper's headquarters on June 13 to express his
concern and to thank the reporters.

Officials in Baiyun district, where the hostels investigated by the
News are located, held a three-hour emergency meeting just hours after
the first reports appeared. They sent 1,400 police to sweep hostels in
the district, netting more than 200 suspected criminals.

The News then increased the pressure by establishing special hotlines
for readers to call to air their views on the subject. In five hours
it fielded more than 1,000 calls.

With public opinion running so strongly in its favour, the newspaper
aimed higher. On June 15 its lead article alleged that some public
security officers provided a "protective umbrella" for criminal
elements, citing specific instances where rogue police in Baiyun
district had abused their powers.

Thus in the space of four days the Yangcheng Evening News progressed
from running common-knowledge reports to challenging Guangzhou's
public security organs, and in the process it sold many copies. On
June 13 the paper, which hits the streets late in the afternoon, was
sold out by 5pm.