The Foreign Correspondents' Club Hong Kong

Chris Patten on Hong Kong’s fight for democracy, and his latest memoir

Chris Patten returned to Hong Kong and the FCC to promote his new book and to share his views on democracy in Hong Kong.

Chris Patten addresses the packed September 2017 club lunch.

Chris Patten, who first came to the FCC as a young MP in 1979, then in the early 90s as the last governor, and for three other book launches, was in town to promote his latest book which coincided with the aftermath of the jailing of Joshua Wong and the latest chapter of Hong Kong’s pro-independence tussle.

Patten’s book, “First Confession: A Sort of Memoir”, explores identity politics and the nature of community through the story of his own complicated identity through various political roles in the UK, Ireland, Europe and of course Hong Kong, which is going through the latest version of its own identity crisis.

Students clash in front of a wall of posters for and against independence for Hong Kong. Photo: SCMP

Patten, who is Chancellor of Oxford and who when he was governor was a chancellor of all Hong Kong universities, arrived in Hong Kong just days after a university row saw pro-independence students clash with their peers from the Mainland over posters advocating independence for Hong Kong. These were put up at the Chinese University campus, heightening simmering tensions in the city.

While Patten reiterated his view that the pro-independence movement dilutes the city’s drive for more democracy, he also said that both sides need to keep talking.

“What I hope is that people will start talking to one another again. I hope there’ll be a dialogue. You can’t simply expect people to accept your values or standards or political judgements without talking to them about it. You can’t trample ideas into the dust. You have to talk to people and listen to people,” he said.

People should be prepared to talk to one another, not fight one another, or not talk about killing one another, or not putting out posters welcoming people’s suicides.

“People should be prepared to talk to one another, not fight one another, or not talk about killing one another, or not put out posters welcoming people’s suicides,” he told the packed Club lunch on September 19, where guests included former Hong Kong Finance Secretary John Tsang and ex-Chief Secretary Anson Chan.

Patten said he hoped Hong Kong – “a city which I love as much as anywhere in the world” – would continue to thrive.

When asked what he would do if he were the UK’s leader, Patten said: “First of all I’d be pleased that the last six-monthly report by the Foreign Office was a bit more honest and outspoken than some reports had been in the past. Secondly, I would begin from the assumption that we shouldn’t believe that you can only do business with China over Hong Kong or over anything else from a position of supine deference.

“The fact that the Chinese do it is because other countries allow them to. I don’t think it should be something we necessarily criticise them for if they can get away with it. If they can get away with weaponising trade, for example, they’ll go on doing it. But I don’t think they respect you for it and I don’t think it’s the only way you can do business.

“I would come to Hong Kong, I would make a speech saying that I thought Hong Kong was fantastic, that I thought it was a jewel in the crown for China potentially as we go forward; that it represented in the 21st century an issue which is going to be dominant – that is how you balance economic and political freedom and what sort of role China has in the world today, what sort of role it’s prepared to take in global governance, how it’s prepared to make more of the footprint that it should have because of its economic strength and power.

“And I would hope to go on to China and say similar things.”

Photo: HKFP

He added that he would also raise the issue of Liu Xiaobo’s wife. Liu Xia, who has been under house arrest since her husband, a prominent dissident since the 1989 Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests, won the Nobel prize in 2010. She was last seen in a video recorded in August and posted on social media in which she asks for time to grieve. Many of her supporters and friends, however, have expressed concern for her welfare.

Justice Secretary Rimsky Yuen also came in for criticism from Patten as he was asked for his thoughts on the upcoming trials of nine pro-democracy activists involved in Occupy Central. Patten said he was “loathe to comment on ongoing legal processes in Hong Kong”, and instead chose to speak specifically about Joshua Wong, Alex Chow and Nathan Law – jailed in August for their part in the 2014 protests.

He criticised the Justice Secretary’s decision to appeal their original non-custodial sentences, saying it was politically motivated. “He’s [a] grown-up. He must know, as I said earlier, that actions have consequences, and not to understand what signal that would send to the rest of the world, strikes me as being, to be frank, a little naive,” he said.

Referring to a Reuters report that Yuen had insisted on reviewing the sentences despite opposition from fellow prosecutors, Patten added: “Perhaps it would have been wise to take the advice which we were told he was receiving from someone in his department.”

The politics of identity

Chris Patten’s latest book, First Confession: A Sort of Memoir, looks at the concept of identity politics and the nature of community. Rather than write a another conceptual book on the subject, he chose to explore the issues through the story of his own rather complicated identity. In his lunch address he gave a potted version of his “obsession” with identity.

“I am from a family of Irish potato famine immigrants, lower middle class, scholarship boy and a Catholic. I was not only the first of my family to go to university, but also the first Catholic to become Chancellor of Oxford since 1560 — we’ve waited a long time…

“I am also an endangered species, a moderate Conservative who found myself in jobs where identity politics was the central issue.

“I spent two years as a government minister in Northern Ireland and went back later to reorganise the police service as part of the Belfast Agreement (1998) which bought peace to the province. I was dealing with a problem that was purported to be about religion, but was in fact about power.”

Later as a European Commissioner Patten spent time dealing with the alleged politics of ethnicity between Croats, Serbs and Muslims.

“When I found myself in Hong Kong I was dealing with another aspect of identity politics, the so-called clash of civilisations. A much-advocated concept by Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew. “When I was coming to Hong Kong I was advised to stop off in Singapore to talk to the then Prime Minister Lee, who said to me that first ‘you have to behave like a newly elected prime minister, you have got to have a programme, be clear what it is and stick to it. And secondly, you have to deal with the Joint Declaration and the Basic Law, which you can’t change but you want to fill in all the gaps and make the whole thing as democratic as possible”.

“So I came here and thought I did both things.”

I also had difficulty with the idea of cultural clash or civilisation clash and thought that people in Hong Kong wanted to be in control of their own lives as much as any other people around the world.

Anyway Lee — “who once sent a letter to me asking if we could be on ‘Harry’ and ‘Chris’ terms” — came to Hong Kong and said how much he disagreed with Patten about everything. Lee, of course, chose the most embarrassing moment to say this when he gave a lecture at HKU presided over by Patten in his role as the university’s Chancellor. In response to a question of whether Hong Kong deserved to be a democracy, he replied that it didn’t matter whether Hong Kong deserved a democracy because it wasn’t going to get it as Hong Kong is part of Asia and people in Asia did not care about human rights and civil liberties because they were Confucian.

“I had some difficulty with that argument as I always thought that human rights were universal,” Patten said. “I also had trouble with the idea that there was a political model which would comprehend everyone from Pyongyang to New Delhi. And I also had a problem with the notion that everyone in Chinese societies were Confucian.

“I also had difficulty with the idea of cultural clash or civilisation clash and thought that people in Hong Kong wanted to be in control of their own lives as much as any other people around the world.”

So now after all those experiences, Patten said he is now witnessing the latest manifestations of identity politics with some concern: The first is Jihadist terrorism, “which we live with week by week in European cities, which I do not think has anything to do with the Koran or Islam”; secondly the growing ethno-nationalism, where individual countries seem to think that communities can only be defined by their nationality — a nationalism that defines itself as against others, which so often sentimentalises its own history, glamourises its institutions and xenophobia is given full rein.

“If you look at what’s been happening in Europe, or America’s drive to be great again — if it wasn’t already, or you look at some parts of Asia and closer to home here, all this represents something I thought we all learned about after the Second World War: namely individual countries cannot deal with their own problems without dealing with other countries and sharing or pooling sovereignty — which I think is extremely important lesson we must relearn.”

Article 23: Is Hong Kong’s anti-subversion legislation upon us under Carrie Lam?

In 2003, Article 23 of the Basic Law was withdrawn after it became clear the Legislative Council would not pass it. Fourteen years on, a new government in Hong Kong, new directives from China and a change in mood generally mean the law could be back on the table. Stephen Vines looks at the implications.

One thing is really clear – the government in Beijing is fed up with waiting for Hong Kong to enact Article 23 of the Basic Law and introduce sweeping anti-subversion legislation.

This is why, despite routine denials, the central government will be putting the heaviest of pressure on new Chief Executive Carrie Lam to ensure that her administration will make this a priority. It remains unclear how enthusiastic she is to go forward with this plan, but Ms Lam has no track record of being bold enough to say no to Beijing.

Photo: AFP/Peter Parks

While Ms Lam’s personal views on this matter remains unknown we do know that Tung Chee Hwa, the HKSAR’s first Chief Executive, was an enthusiast for this legislation and needed little encouragement from Beijing to bring in an anti-subversion bill during his fifth year of office.

He failed. But what has changed since 2002 when he tried to get this legislation on the statute books following massive opposition? The answer is that the atmosphere of political confrontation has deepened; tolerance of the opposition has diminished and its legitimacy has been increasingly questioned as both civil society organisations and the media have found themselves in the firing line.

China’s President Xi Jinping, centre, with outgoing Chief Executive CY Leung, left, and incoming CE Carrie Lam, right, at a variety show in Hong Kong on June 28 worry over what form the pending anti-subversion bill will take. Photo: AFP/Anthony Wallace

As journalists we are only too well aware of this, not least because of the vicious attack on one of our colleagues, Kevin Lau in 2014. More generally we have seen our industry come increasingly under the control of pro-Beijing bosses, while newsrooms have felt the heavy hand of both censorship in its brutal form and self-censorship. No wonder Hong Kong is sliding down the global press freedom list.

What all this means is that the environment for introducing a very tough version of anti-subversion legislation is more profound today than it was more than fifteen years ago.

Back then the FCC joined other opponents of the proposed anti-subversion bill. We did so because the fear then, as now, was that the law would bring the mainland’s broad notion of national security and state secrets to Hong Kong. This in turn paves the way for the prosecution of reporters undertaking normal journalistic activities. The FCC statement said that the proposed law would damage “Hong Kong’s reputation for free-flowing information and possibly spark an exodus of journalists and news organisations.” As it turned out cost pressures were primarily responsible for the exodus but there is still scope for further departures.

Hong Kong Secretary for Security Regina Ip speaks to the media about the controversial Article 23 at the Central Government offices in Hong Kong 28 January 2003. The press conference was held ahead of the government's release of an amended draft anti-subversion law after a three-month public consultation ended last month. AFP PHOTO/Peter PARKS

Hong Kong Secretary for Security Regina Ip speaks to the media about the controversial Article 23 in 2003. AFP PHOTO/Peter Parks

Memories are short and people have forgotten the extent to which the proposed law was draconian. It was a direct attack on freedom of speech in as much as writing or speaking about matters that could be deemed to be subversive was put on par with physical action to undermine the local or central governments. The previous bill made it clear that (vaguely defined) interests of national security would override considerations of civil liberties and freedom of speech.

As the FCC pointed out, the law could increase “government’s power to restrict the flow of information without a corresponding statutory right to access information,” while at the same time “placing the onus on reporters to determine whether or not information they obtain has been legally disseminated.”

Moreover Hong Kong permanent residents were liable to prosecution for anything written or said outside the jurisdiction of the SAR.

Shortly before the Hong Kong government introduced its anti-subversion legislation in 2002 a new law was enacted in the Mainland dealing with the “theft of state secrets” and publishing of “unauthorised” news. The law was aimed at preventing publication of more or less any material that the state had not authorised as fit for publication. It added to the chill in the atmosphere of the time, as it was clear that this edict could affect both Hong Kong and overseas reporters.

And, just in case anyone missed the implications for the SAR Regina Ip, the Secretary for Security who was mainly responsible for the new legislation and pursued it with vigour right up to the time when she was forced to resign, made it clear that the views of Chinese officials would be taken into account when deciding whether to prosecute the media.

With the hardline came her assurances, as expressed in an Asian Wall Street Journal opinion piece, saying: that the new law would “not have any adverse impact on freedom of expression, or freedom of the press, as they are currently enjoyed.” Her assurances might have been that bit more reassuring had they not come hard on the heels of her now infamous remark that democracy was overrated, using as evidence the mendacious claim that Hitler came to power in Germany as a result of elections.

However, the government propaganda machine, backed by the usual suspects, trundled on peddling the line that opponents of the law were being unnecessarily alarmist and had failed to understand that the legislation did little more than provide a highly necessary backstop in case things got out of hand.

The hollow nature of these claims was laid bare by the behaviour of Chinese officials when, and this was unusual for them, they encountered reporters who did not belong to state run outlets. Famously at a 2000 press conference President Jiang Zemin blew up at a Hong Kong reporter asking a mildly challenging question: “I’m addressing you as an elder,” he said, “I’m not a reporter. But I have seen too much and it’s necessary to tell you: In reporting, if there are errors you must be responsible.”

The same year Wang Fengchao, a mainland official in Hong Kong, said that Hong Kong media should not be allowed to report on Taiwanese or Tibetan independence, even though Beijing has no constitutional right to interfere in matters of this kind which are supposed to be part of the SAR’s autonomous status.

Protesters carry a huge anti-Article 23 banner as they march through the streets of Hong Kong, 01 July 2003, to coincide with the sixth anniversary of the return to Chinese rule. Photo: AFP PHOTO/MIKE CLARKE

Now that Beijing is increasingly dictating how Hong Kong should proceed in all significant areas of local policy formulation, including, of course, anti-subversion laws, it is worth reminding ourselves of the Communist Party mindset that moulds thinking on issues that are seen as challenging the party’s supremacy.

In the world of smoke and mirrors that governs freedom of expression on the Mainland, Article 35 of the 1982 Constitution guarantees citizens “freedom of speech, publishing, assembly and the right to establish organisations, movement and protests”.

That sounds reassuring but it is qualified by Article 38 stating that the reputation of PRC citizens cannot be compromised by humiliating or libellous statements; Article 51 states that citizens cannot, in the exercise of their freedoms, harm the collective interests of the nation, society, or the freedoms enjoyed by other citizens; Article 53 calls for all citizens to “protect state secrets, cherish public assets…respect public order and social morals”. Then there is the killer Article 54 stating that citizens have the duty to protect the “security, honour and interests of the motherland” and that to do otherwise is prohibited.

In other words the constitutional guarantee of freedom of expression is severely undermined by sweeping qualifications that render it meaningless. In practice we see that things have, if anything, become much worse as the Xi regime has been using legal means to jail journalists and place ever tighter controls on social media, now viewed by the Communist Party as the main challenge to its vice-like grip on the media as a whole.

The idea of freedom of expression is entirely alien to dictatorships who, in Mao’s famous words, expect the media ‘to serve the people’. The concept of the media as a monitor for government actions, a platform for the exchange of opinions and a reliable source of accurate information is simply nowhere in the minds of the grey men in Beijing who control everything.

More than 200,000 people marched here to protest an anti-subversion law, known as Article 23, which many in this former British colony fear could erode political freedom six years after its return to Chinese rule. Photo: AFP PHOTO/MIKE CLARKE

Therefore in many ways it is a miracle that Hong Kong continues to enjoy the level of free expression that still prevails. The Communist Party worries about this on two levels, first that this freedom contains the seeds of contagion that can spread to the Mainland and second that the free exchange of information in Hong Kong undermines a clear intention to make the SAR increasingly subservient to Beijing.

It will be noted that Hong Kong’s Basic Law also contains an unequivocal pledge to ‘freedom of speech, of the press and of publication’, as stated in Article 27, mirroring the PRC constitution’s similar pledge. However the Basic Law does not contain the get-out clauses that exist in the Chinese constitution.

This should be reassuring were we not in an era where the National People’s Congress Standing Committee seems so keen to ‘reinterpret’ the Basic Law and where China’s commitment to the pledges made prior to the creation of the HKSAR have been placed in question. This year Chinese officials have gone so far as to state that the Sino-British treaty for the handover of Hong Kong is nothing more than a historical document of no contemporary relevance. In other words even an agreement lodged at the United Nations can be airily tossed to one side when it no longer serves the Communist Party’s needs.

No wonder people are so worried about what the pending Article 23 legislation will contain.

Hong Kong Handover 20 years on: Mixed mood as city marked anniversary

The Club marked the 20th anniversary of Hong Kong’s return to China with an evocative display of images curated by the Wall Committee, rounded off with a video display of the SCMP’s signature images of the past 20 years and a gathering of members and visiting media on the night that reflected a bittersweet occasion for some, no doubt matched by others as a moment of patriotic pride.

This mixed mood within 2 Lower Albert Road mirrored that of Hong Kong’s millions of residents as the anniversary encouraged the contemplation of the past two decades and the prospects for the now less than 30 years to come. If the past is said to be another country, then the future, at least in Hong Kong’s context, looks increasingly like another system.

For the Club’s members, but notably those remaining correspondents and journalists who had covered the events of 1997, the anniversary brought forth – as anniversaries are meant to do – old ‘war stories’ and shared camaraderie. For those new to Hong Kong and the Club it was a good excuse to celebrate and share those memories, as well as look towards Hong Kong’s future.

It was good to see a number of old friends returning for the occasion, others no longer with us remembered and the company of new friends enjoyed.

Patten goes scolds activists for diluting support for democracy

Almost 20 years after that rain and emotion-drenched night when Hong Kong returned to Chinese rule, the last colonial governor Chris Patten revisited his old haunts and proved as incisive, insightful – and newsworthy – as ever, as a sell-out FCC audience discovered. Jonathan Sharp reports.

Hong Kong’s last British colonial governor Chris Patten gestures as he speaks at the Foreign Correspondents Club in Hong Kong on November 25, 2016.
/ AFP PHOTO / Anthony WALLACE

According to the billing for his appearance at the FCC, Patten was going to give his views on what the world was like, and could expect, following this year’s two seismic electoral shocks, the UK’s pro-Brexit referendum vote and Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election. But if any of those who packed into the Main Dining Room thought that Patten was going to stick to that script and not hold forth on the fraught political environment in his old bailiwick of Hong Kong, then they were in for another shock.

In fact it was his trenchant views on what he termed the oath-taking “antics” in the Legislative Council by activists favouring Hong Kong’s split from China that made headlines, not just locally but also back in the UK.

Patten, who during his 1992-97 governorship sought to quicken the pace of political reform and was excoriated by Beijing as a “sinner for 1,000 generations”, emphasised that he remained as devoted as ever to the cause of full democracy for Hong Kong. He also admired the Umbrella Movement that blocked some Hong Kong streets for 79 days in 2014.

“Two years ago many brave young people in Hong Kong established moral high ground about democracy and governance. It would be a tragedy if that high ground was lost because of a few antics about so-called independence for Hong Kong.”

The antics he spoke of were the actions of young elected lawmakers Sixtus Baggio Leung Chung-hang and Yau Wai-ching, who were banned from taking their seats in Legco after giving their own colourful versions of the oaths at the swearing-in ceremony. They declared allegiance to the “Hong Kong nation”, unfurled banners that said “Hong Kong is not China” and Yau gave allegiance to “the Hong Kong special administrative region of the People’s Refucking of Cheena”, the last word, among others, deemed derogatory. (The pair’s use of salty language is not confined to oath-taking ceremonies, as FCC stalwart Dr Feng Chi-shun reminded us in an opinion piece in the South China Morning Post. He also noted how, at a separate forum, an audience member got his own back at Leung Chung-hang by calling him “Lun Chung-hun” – Cantonese for “itching of private parts”.)

Chris Patten arrives at the FCC with his wife, Lavender (left), and FCC President Tara Joseph (right).

Patten said such actions by pro-independence localists – some of whom were in diapers or not even born when he checked out of Hong Kong in 1997 aboard the Royal yacht Britannia — were diluting, not strengthening, the support for democracy. They were making a mockery of a serious political argument. Independence for Hong Kong is simply not going to happen, so why waste energy, time and popular support by saying that it could come about? It was “dishonest, dishonourable and reckless” to conflate the drive for greater democracy with the argument for independence. Adopting what he called his “headmasterly” manner, Patten, who has been a frequent oath-taker in his marathon career in political and public service and is now ennobled as Lord Patten of Barnes, said: “Taking an oath is a serious business… it isn’t something of a lark.” Patten also told Agence France-Presse: “There are lots of people who agreed with them on democracy who won’t touch this stuff about self-determination with a barge pole.”

Understandably, the localists did not take Patten’s stern admonishing lying down. Leung told the Guardian that he and his Youngspiration party “respectfully disagreed with Lord Patten’s comments about the so-called ‘moral position’” of the 2014 protests, adding that the past two years had proved that a strong moral position yielded nothing “when you are negotiating with the immoral and authoritarian Chinese communist party”.

He was further quoted as saying: “If there is no legitimate election and political discussion, how can we even start our discussion on governance and democracy as advised by the very learned Lord Patten?”

Who loses under Brexit and Trump?

Lord Patten’s talk at the FCC made headlines both in Hong Kong and the UK.

Returning to the advertised theme of his FCC talk, Patten was asked by FCC President Tara Joseph what his verdict was on the year 2016, and his reply was: “Terrible”. Expanding on this terse judgement, Patten expressed his fears: “I think that, unfortunately, the people who are most likely to suffer from Trumpian protectionism, if it happens, are the people who voted for Mr Trump. Just as in Britain, the people who are most likely to suffer from the consequences of Brexit are people in some of the disadvantaged parts of the country who voted for it. I think that’s a real tragedy.”

The seemingly tireless 72-year-old Patten enlarged on this and many other themes at a succession of events during his Hong Kong visit. The day after his FCC appearance, he attended a Project Citizens Foundation forum entitled “Governance in Hong Kong: Are the Pillars Crumbling?” He said that during his career he had worked with several different bureaucracies – in the UK and Europe as well as Hong Kong.

“Without any question the most competent civil service that I worked with was that in Hong Kong in the 1990s. I hope it has not lost any of its vitality and morale since then.” The unequivocal response came from Anson Chan, the former Chief Secretary before and after Hong Kong’s handover to China, who told the forum in no uncertain terms that Hong Kong’s civil service had indeed gone downhill in many sad ways since she had been in charge.

Patten also said that his five years as Hong Kong governor were “the happiest years of my life”. And many Hong Kong people accord him a warm welcome whenever he comes back and gives us the benefit of his wisdom laced with dry wit. Which makes one wonder: how many other former governors of colonies, British or otherwise, are held in the same esteem in the territory they used to run as is Hong Kong’s last “colonial oppressor” – Patten’s joking term for himself?

AFP beachhead in North Korea

Hughes MD-500 helicopters perform a fly-by during the first Wonsan Friendship Air Festival in Wonsan on September 24, 2016. AFP PHOTO / Ed Jones

Agence France-Presse’s new bureau in Pyongyang, which opened in September, is already churning out the stories.

The bureau, which was officially opened by Emmanuel Hoog, the group’s chief executive and chairman, so far has been focusing on producing video and photographic content.

It was able to open following an agreement made earlier in the year between AFP and the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), following “about 10 rounds of negotiations that began in 2012”, said Philippe Massonnet, AFP’s Asia-Pacific regional director.

“Not that there was any resistance by the authorities, but it was only a matter of time as we were not only dealing with KCNA, but other government departments as well.”

The Pyongyang bureau will be staffed by a locally hired videographer and a photographer, who will work in conjunction with visiting foreign correspondents, which mirrors what other international news bureaux, including the Associated Press, Xinhua, Ria Novosti and Japan’s Kyodo News. AP opened the first foreign bureau in 2012.

As a big international newsagency “we have to be wherever we can”, Massonnet said. “For us, it is normal and natural to open an office in North Korea, as we open offices everywhere in the world – in some we cannot employ locals, in others it’s foreigners.”

With North Korea’s total media censorship and control it must be a struggle for the locally hired staff to function properly for foreign media – even with training. “We brought the North Korean staff to Hong Kong in August for training sessions about how AFP works as well as going on shoots to take care of the practical aspects,” Massonnet said. “The two were competent and open and enthusiastic about the training and even though they were accompanied by an KCNA official the training was unsupervised.

The AFP team check out the work of local artists in a Pyongyang park. Photo: AFP

“We had worked with the same official before during the negotiations and got on well, so we took the opportunity to show him how we deal with photo and video stories from other countries – which he found interesting even though he acknowledged that many of those types of stories would not be done by KCNA.”

AFP’s Seoul bureau chief will run the bureau while teams from South Korea, Hong Kong or China will be sent every two months or so as part of the deal. “So far, we sent a team in July, again in September and another is planned for November,” he said. “There are no visa problems and now the visas are issued in Hong Kong rather than having to go via Beijing.”

The November mission we will try to get, among others, the August flood aftermath story, but it is difficult – or at least time consuming – to get approval. “Typically, we submit a list of say 20 potential stories in the hope of getting five or six to run with.”

So far the Pyongyang team has been involved in stock footage shoots of the capital as well as getting on the streets and train stations and the like; or reacting when someone noteworthy visits Pyongyang. “We did cover the 15th Pyongyang International Film festival [brainchild of the cinema-obsessed “Dear Leader” Kim Jong-ll in September.

“It’s really a way of showing as much as we can about what’s happening in Pyongyang. Many of our clients – particularly in South Korea and Japan – want as many images as they can get from the country.”

In this picture taken on September 29, 2016 commuters wait for a bus during the morning rush hour in Pyongyang. / AFP PHOTO / Ed Jones

One of the ways the AFP team gets around in North Korea is to work with NGOs, “often going to places that are normally difficult for journalists to get to”. A case in point is that they were able to cover the floods in North Hamgyong province, where some 140 people were killed and 35,000 homes destroyed, by being part of an NGO team. “It enabled us to get some great footage,” he said.

Everything produced by AFP in North Korea will be edited by AFP people, mainly at the regional headquarters in Hong Kong. “There is no difference from anywhere else in the region where we have people taking photos or videos or writing stories. They send their material to Hong Kong, and it will be exactly the same for North Korean stories.”

As in other countries where AFP operates there is official monitoring. “But monitoring is not a problem. It would be a problem if we were censored. The big issue for us is to go there and to report or shoot what we see… and this job won’t be much different than the one we do in
other countries where it is difficult to work.”

Once a story is finished and on the “wires” that might be another story. “So far we have had no negative feedback from government officials,” Massonnet said. “We will see where the limits are of what is possible to do and what is not. If we think it is worth doing and reporting about, then we will do it. It may be difficult sometimes, but that doesn’t prevent us from working and getting good material.”

Apart from a few big occasions such as mass rallies and big celebrations, foreign media don’t report from North Korea very often. “So we have a very rare opportunity to be there every month and to deliver content to our Asian clients who have big expectations about our North Korea coverage.”

Portraits of former North Korean leaders Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il are displayed on buildings of the Pyongyang skyline on July 27, 2013. North Korea mounted its largest ever military parade to mark the 60th anniversary of the armistice that ended fighting in the Korean War, displaying its long-range missiles at a ceremony presided over by leader Kim Jong-Un. AFP PHOTO / Ed Jones / AFP PHOTO / Ed Jones

Portraits of former North Korean leaders Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il are displayed on buildings of the Pyongyang skyline on July 27, 2013. AFP PHOTO / Ed Jones / AFP PHOTO / Ed Jones

Massonnet likened the Pyongyang experience with Beijing in the 70s and 80s when correspondents had no official contacts or news sources and had to rely on what they saw in the streets as reporting beyond the city was all but impossible. However, when the big story came – China opening up – the resident bureaux could move fast.

“It makes sense to be in Pyongyang, not only because we don’t have much competition from the few journalists who go there, but also there are some opportunities to make connections so that you are ready when the big story breaks,” he said.

Massonnet said that even today in China, how many sources are there within the Chinese Communist Party to cover real political stories? You are left with the economic stories and speculation.

“The opening of an AFP bureau in Pyongyang will further strengthen the agency’s international network,” said the AFP chief executive, Emmanuel Hoog at the opening ceremony. “AFP’s role is to be present everywhere in the world in order to fulfil its news mission as completely as possible, in particular through images.”

AFP – which is a public company but governed by a board of representatives from French news organisations and the government – has 200 bureaux across 150 countries.

Dying in the pursuit of news

Journalists as targets in conflict zones is a relatively new thing as militias and some governments around the world seek to control the message by killing the messenger. The FCC’s Journalism Conference heard from those who have been there.

The FCC’s Roll of Honour lists those killed in Indochina and Korea while on the job: a case of wrong place, wrong time. However, a new name was added in 2014, Sky News cameraman and former member Mick Deane. In late 2013 he was filming in the Rabaa al-Adawiya protest camp in Egypt when he was shot and killed by a sniper.

“In the old days, a press card was like a protection, but now more and more journalists have been targeted and killed,” said Eric Wishart, a member of AFP’s global news management, who led a panel discussion on the increasingly dangerous world for journalists.

“The game and the stakes have changed tremendously,” according to Marc Lavine, AFP’s editor-in-chief for Asia. ”In the mid-90s when I went to Afghanistan as a war correspondent, I had very little training and was equipped with just a pen and notebook.

“There was always the danger of being hurt or killed if you happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, but you were not targeted so you weren’t always looking over your shoulder expecting to have someone come out at you.”

In the past 15 years we have seen a complete move away from that, with militants targeting journalists in a propaganda game. “Film of executions in Syria illustrate that incredibly well as killing a journalist stops the message and sends its own brutal message across the world,” he said.

“In Pakistan we saw protesting journalists attacked by police with live rounds and baton charges. While, closer to home journalists were targeted in the Mongkok riots earlier this year.”

The figures speak for themselves: the Committee to Protect Journalists said that 970 journalists have been killed in the past 20 years – two-thirds in the past 10 years alone. Of the 72 killed last year, two-thirds of them were targeted.

“One of my big fears is the kidnapping of journalists,” said Roger Clark, CNN’s vice-president for Asia and Hong Kong bureau chief. “If ISIS kidnapped a Western journalist from a big news organisation it would use that to maximum effect across social media – that scares the hell out of me.”

No press here

Always in the past journalists would identify themselves as journalists – not such a good idea
these days.

For AFP, Lavine said, “we have taken identification from our cars and some of our offices, although we mostly still have PRESS tags on our flak jackets. However, in some sensitive areas it’s more a liability than a protection.”

For Roger Clark there are some situations “where you do want to be identified as PRESS on your car, or on your flak jacket, but for other situations like when we recently sent one of our correspondents to Syria where she kept the lowest of the low profile and tried to blend in.

“When you talk to our security specialists the phrase they use all the time is ‘blend in’, which, thankfully, is easier these days with the cameras being very small. Unlike when we were in Iraq where we had to keep a low profile by using old cars to get around – we were constantly re-spraying them.”

CNN’s senior international correspondent Ivan Watson says the precautions journalists should take depend on the conflict. “If you are dealing with conventional armies then you do identify yourself as the military usually represents the government, and has a chain of command and responsibility.

“But when you are dealing with militias it’s all about blending in,” he said. “During the US occupation of Iraq we used to hide in the back of crappy old taxis – basically our best defence at that point.

“It is a very strange development that we think that the violence against journalists – most of it directed against local journalists – has grown even though the number of cellphones and distribution systems for pictures and information now in use has magnified.

“It kills me that some governments will go after me and my professional TV crew, yet all those people running around with cellphones taking pictures – and uploading them to Facebook – don’t appear to be targeted.”

Clark spoke about recent threats to major news organisations by the Taliban in Afghanistan for not properly presenting the Taliban’s views. “However, the people who take the brunt of these threats are not the guys who parachute in for a story, it’s the guys who have to stay behind in those worlds – and very often the least protected.”

Covering disasters and surviving

Photo: AFP

The CNN team led by Andrew Stevens was on Tacloban in the Philippines and faced the full force of Typhoon Haiyan in November 2013 as it devastated the island. Dramatic – and award-winning – footage was shown of the typhoon which killed more than 10,000 people.

“They were there before the storm hit,” Clark said. “With our good contacts in the country we got our reporters there very quickly.”

At the time Clark was director of international coverage in Atlanta and, like they always do with big stories, sat down and did a review.

“We knew we had let the front-line team down badly because we could not supply them with the support they needed,” he said. “Normally we pride ourselves in making sure our correspondents and producers can eat, sleep in reasonable conditions and drink clean water. Now, we had supplies but they were stuck on another island.”

Out of this experience CNN now has a different deployment procedure. “When we deploy – whether on disaster or high-security stories – someone has to hit the pause button and take stock.”

CNN has now put together what they call “grab bags” that are in every bureau designed to support a team of three for three to four days – everything from toothpaste to tampons, including first aid kits, tents, sleeping bags, floor liners, mosquito nets, water-purification tablets, matches, sun cream, walkie-talkies, satellite phones, batteries and even instant noodles.

“It’s a great asset and you don’t have to think about logistics as you race off to do a story,” Clark said. “You also need to ensure that your team is not bigger than the resources you have.”

Sometimes what they need to bring doesn’t fit into the grab bag. “Sometimes we need to bring a generator – and find fuel – to a disaster zone as part of the philosophy that we have to create all our own infrastructure to operate,” Watson said. “It means you don’t have a cameraman falling down from dehydration because he is carrying heavy equipment around.”

Having sufficient cash is another issue. “Keep in mind that ATMs often don’t work in disasters,” he said. “We have had to bail out other journalists many times.

“It’s all in the preparation: you may need body armour, gas masks or long underwear, but it’s the grab-bag idea that ensures survival.”

Watson, reflecting on his experiences in Afghanistan and Iraq, said it’s absolutely essential to do specific hostile environment training. “And it’s not for just surviving war, conflict or disaster, you need to able to know how to begin surviving when the whole structure of the society has been ripped apart.”

Local riots

Marc Lavine’s advice to Hong Kong-based journalists thinking of diving into the next riot: don’t rush in when you don’t know the score.“All it takes is a big rock hitting your head, or finding yourself between the police and the rioters.”

“We are always trying to get to the scene to see what’s happening,” says Ivan Watson, “but at some point you have to assess what’s going on around you – the worst place you can be is between two groups shaping up for a fight.”

He suggests that you need to try and figure out which side you are safe on… “or the side with the better guns”.

“It’s also important to remember that the riot or conflict always evolves or degenerates during the course of the conflict. When I first started going into Syria from Turkey the government didn’t welcome us and we would need to hide among the rebels. However, in the course of a year, the rebels started kidnapping journalists so they became a bigger threat. We finished up going in with the same military which had horrified us before.”

Roger Clark says it is down to training. “We need to be trained well enough to know just what our limits are before it is too late to turn back.”

Lavine agrees and adds that “we need to look at the kind of training we are delivering to journalists these days.

“Some 10 to 15 years ago in the time of Afghanistan and Iraq, war-type training was needed,” he said. “Often these days it’s training around public order – riots and the like. The chances of you getting killed in a riot in Hong Kong or wherever is fairly small, but with the huge amount of stones and bottles flying around, serious injuries are likely.”

While body armour is useful, it appears reinforced glasses and hard hats are more the thing for riots.

“When you are in a country that is going through destructive changes or conflict, you need exceptional planning for your teams – with the expectation that nothing works according to plan,” Watson said.

A dramatic video was shown of an incident in Iraq in 2014 when Watson joined an Iraq air force relief helicopter to take aid to a religious group besieged on the top of a mountain by ISIS forces. In the end the helicopter crew had to fire machine guns to protect the craft coming and going. Besides dropping relief goods, they also picked as many terrified people people as they could. Inevitably families were split up with the ensuing emotional chaos.

Watson said “there was little advance warning of what we were getting into”.

“This sort of stuff isn’t a game and it messes you up for a while. After some of these types of incidents I have gone into counselling – it’s essential to do this and playing at being a tough guy is not on.”

Trauma and PTSD can also occur well away from the field. Clark said that on the CNN international desk they have Arabic speakers vetting all this horrific footage pouring in relentlessly from the Middle East – sometimes the footage is worse than what you see in the field.

“So as managers we have to keep a close eye on these people,” he said. “At CNN we are pretty good in making sure that people know what to do if they are struggling to cope. It is only in recent times that it has been recognised that PTSD affects journalists in the field and back in the newsroom.”

Photos: AFP

Covering news in the era of digital disruption

The FCC’s first Journalism Conference saw a packed house in the Main Dining Room and Verandah as panelists of senior editors and reporters talked about the issues confronting journalists in the era of digital disruption.

Although Paul Beckett, Asia Editor for The Wall Street Journal, did not see it as digital disruption, rather that it was the “most creative – and best – era for journalists”.

The first session really got to the meat of it: kickstarting your journalism career. The panel of senior editors, moderated by Tara Joseph, Chief Correspondent Asia for Reuters TV, spoke about what they thought were the key qualities for aspiring journalists.

David Merritt, Executive Editor, Asia for Bloomberg News: “Passion for news.”

Anne-Marie Roantree, Hong Kong Bureau Chief for Reuters: “Curiosity and perseverance.”

Beckett: “All journalists should be digital journalists.”

Phil Pan, Asia Editor for the New York Times: “Someone who stands out in their reporting and writing.”

You might expect financial news reporting to require financial expertise. While such experience can be an advantage, Merritt says Bloomberg doesn’t require detailed financial knowledge. “Most of this stuff can be taught on the job through our big training team,” he said. “Passion and curiosity are more important.”

Merritt, who noted that he had a degree in English literature, said they do subject job candidates to a three-hour writing test which not only tests writing ability, but as importantly news judgement.

Merritt said Bloomberg has a policy of moving people around into different roles, many of which they could be
completely unaware of initially. “However, a strong newsroom has a mixture of those with a financial background and those with other kinds of backgrounds – you need diversity to make a newsroom vibrant.”

Language skills seem to be essential for Hong Kong-based reporters.

“In Hong Kong at the moment, a lot of our reporters are trilingual, which is a necessity at this time,” said Roantree. “However, I don’t agree that a reporter has to be a fabulous writer.

“We have a number of brilliant reporters who are not the best writers – that’s why we have editors.”

Besides languages, should everyone be also experts in some of the tech areas?

“We have people who do great video or graphics or video editing,” said Beckett. “But ideally, as an editor you bring all the elements of a story together – from beginning to end using all the available talent in the newsroom. I don’t need you to know how it is done, but I need you to be aware what the possibilities of the various media are.”

Beckett said when he interviews someone he always asks, “Do you have any questions?” So when he gets the the common reply of, ‘no, I think you have covered everything’, it’s not the answer he wants to hear. “As a journalist your job is to ask questions, so come up with some – even if you can’t think of anything relevant – to show what you can do.”

It is a very competitive landscape for people aspiring to New York Times jobs.

“Job candidates – or even NYT staff – should be thinking about what they want to be doing in five years’ time,” said Pan. “Then make sure you are doing the jobs and learning the skills that will help to achieve those goals.

“If you are thinking of applying for NYT, then you should be doing the jobs that you think the NYT might be looking for.”

Following the money: the document dive
The next session covered how to find, access and interpret documents to build paper trails for companies and individuals.

The panel included Michael Forsythe, Reporter, The New York Times, Ben Richardson, Freelance Editor and Tom Wright, Reporter, The Wall Street Journal. The moderator was Natasha Khan, Reporter, Bloomberg News.

Khan, Richardson and Forsythe were part of an award-winning Bloomberg News team that produced “Revolution to Riches” in 2012, a series that uncovered the financial holdings of China’s ruling families. Tom Wright was involved in uncovering the story of Malaysia’s 1MDB scandal.

For Michael Forsythe, “document diving changed my whole journalistic career, thanks in part to Bo Xilai”.

When he was at Bloomberg the team was trying to get ahead of the story that had seen the Wall Street Journal produce a series of scoops about Bo Xilai. “We started writing about the Bo family fortune. There was so much noise in the Chinese journalism world you didn’t know whether to believe it or not. However, when you attach on-the-ground reporting to documentation it becomes clearer. It’s not rocket science but you need a lot of patience.”

For Ben Richardson, document diving “was a revelation for me, how much you could prove and how independent it made you, no longer relying on sources except for confirmation”.

It was during the Xi Jinping story (links to the favoured wealthy families) “that we came up with rabbit-holing where you spend hours and hours a day going through, say, registry filings, and you end up following this trail of coincidental things that eventually turns into an investigation.”

However, to do that “it’s incredibly important at the outset to set up a spreadsheet with the appropriate parameters and fields so you can track the details – whether it’s nominees, corporate secretaries or addresses”. It helps that all financial documents are basically the same language, whether you look up filings in London, Hong Kong or Singapore, they all have common fields.

“All this needs to be inputted at the start otherwise you can end up six months down the line scrabbling through piles of documents to find some vague reference you remember that is now crucial to the story.”

Tom Wright said you should not start with the documents before the reporting as you will be dealing with a mountain of stuff without a clear direction to go. “So you need to match your traditional bootstrap reporting with the documents.

“You are going to need to go to local reporters, talk to people and find the rumours and then you can find the documents to back up what you are trying to prove.

“In our case it was a rumour that 1MDB was overpaying for assets and then those people who were overpaid were donating the funds to charities. And we were able to prove that by looking at things like intangible assets in corporate filings. This is extremely tedious, but we found what we needed.”

News in the digital and mobile era
The next session discussed the evolving digital landscape for news and its relevance to reporters of any medium.

The panelists included Austin Ramzy, Reporter, The New York Times; Anjali Kapoor, Head of Digital Asia Pacific, Bloomberg Media; and Heather Timmons, Senior Asia Correspondent, Quartz. The moderator was Angie Lau, Anchor of “First Up”. Bloomberg TV.

Austin Ramzy said that when presenting news on mobile devices the writing needs to be tighter and faster. “So at the NYT we find that long stories and investigations can also work well on mobile devices. We also try to do a lot of stories with graphic elements, like incorporating people’s Tweets and video.

“This is the main way we try to capture a mobile audience.”

Anjali Kapoor said that with mobile devices you are talking about engaging the attention of someone who can flip off in a second, “so it’s very important how you engage people on the small screen”.

“You need to use the headline, image, caption…the experience…to draw them in so they want to read on. This works whether it’s short or long-form. In fact, long-form stories are popular on mobile devices.

“When you think about mobile tech – it’s the next generation from what the PC was and what websites were many years ago.

“With the small screen you want readers to stay. It makes you think about your journalism and the way you tell a story and the way you present it to keep them engaged and make them want to go on to your website or publication.”

One of the most engaging aspects of mobile devices are the mobile alerts. “People actually love mobile alerts. Putting together a mobile alert strategy takes some thought given the different time zones, markets opening and closing times, and which countries you are aiming for.”

Heather Timmons said that Quartz did research on what people read on mobile devices. Quartz then came up with something called the Quartz Curve which determines the length of a story. “As it gets longer – say in the 600 words bracket – people stop reading. So everything we now do is under 500 words or it is long and investigative – so we cut the 600-1,000 word trough.”

With regard to making a story engaging to keep readers, Timmons gave as an example the story Quartz did when Tsai Ing-wen was elected Taiwan’s president. “In the headline we said she was a cat lover and the story had amazing pick-up. We saw through the analytics that people had read through the whole story.”

It seemed to gain traction in Taiwan as well: for her Christmas message the president put out a video of her with cats.

“People came for cats and stayed for Taiwan’s history… it was a wonderful moment.”

The following were some of the other workshops and panel discussions.

Sourcing through social media
The potential and perils of reporting in the age of Weibo and Twitter. How to find trustworthy sources and verify online information. The panelists were Iain Martin, Asia Editor, Storyful; David Bardurski, China Media Project Editor; and Sam Dubberley, Co-founder, EyeWitness Media Hub.

Challenging authority
Reporters are not there just to take notes – a conversation about how to challenge sources at the very highest levels of officialdom. The speaker was David Schlesinger, former Editor-in-Chief of Thomson Reuters in conversation with Juliana Liu, BBC Correspondent.

Cybersecurity
How to protect your digital devices – and your source – in the era of government surveillance and rampant online hacking. The moderator was Nan-Hie In, Freelance Journalist. The panelists were Ewen MacAskill, Defence and Intelligence Correspondent, The Guardian (via skype); and Leonard Weese, President, Bitcoin Association of Hong Kong.

The art of long form: feature writing
In the era of listicles and mobile readership the demand for compelling long reads is still strong – but keeping the reader’s attention is the key. Learn how to build rich narratives with strong characters, great anecdotes and the biggest context. The speakers were SK Witcher, Deputy News Editor, The International New York Times; and Phred Dvorak, Asia Money and Investment Editor, WSJ.

Covering conflict and disaster
From covering the civil war in Syria to violence in the streets of Hong Kong, a discussion of how journalists should prepare themselves for working in hostile environments. The moderator was Eric Wishart, AFP Global News Management; Speakers were Roger Clark, VP Asia Pacific and Hong Kong Bureau Chief, CNN; Ivan Watson, Senior International Correspondent, CNN; and Marc Lavine, Editor-in-chief Asia Pacific, AFP.

Front page photographs with your smartphone
Tips and tricks on getting maximum impact for your news photography. The speakers were Pedro Ugarte, Photo Director Asia Pacific, AFP; and Palani Mohan, Freelance Photographer.

The future of journalism
The moderator Richard Salamat, Anchor, Bloomberg TV. The panelists were, Jamil Anderlini, Asia Editor, Financial Times; Phiippe Massonnet, Regional Director, AFP; Ying Chan, Founding Director, HKU’s Journalism & Media Studies Centre; and Kristie Lu Stout, Anchor and Correspondent, CNN.

Photos by: Terry Duckham/Asiapix Studios

Human Rights Press Awards

High-quality investigative reporting scoops prizes
at Human Rights Press Awards

By Joyce Lau

The 274 entries submitted to the Human Rights Press Awards this year were of the highest quality that the Awards has received in its 20-year history. All major categories – in English and Chinese, in print, broadcast and (more…)