ESWN has translated an interesting Southern Weekend article (Chinese) on foreign correspondents in China. The Chinese journalist, Zheng Yan, interviewed a eight foreign correspondents, including AP's Beijing bureau chief, Charles Hutzler, the New York Times' Shanghai-based China business reporter, David Barboza, the Guardian's Johnathan Watts and NBC's Beijing bureau chief, Eric Baculinao and others. The article is long on the fascination of being a journalist in China, and fairly short on the bureaucratic hassles, run-ins with cops and propaganda authorities and other difficulties (not to mention pesky China flacks). As the person who delivers "foreign media relations" training to my company's Chinese employees, its interesting to see how the Chinese press reports on foreign correspondents (from ESWN's translation):
Following the increase in emphasis and space for China-related reporting, China has become the paradise for foreign reporters.

As of December 25, 2005, the New York Times has published more than 3,000 pieces related to China for the year.  Of these, 445 were written by their China-based reporters and 86 of these made the front page.  Compared to the same period in the previous year, the total volume is three times as much and the number of front page stories has doubled.

When British reporter Jonathan Watts returned home the last two years, he frequently encountered ambitious colleagues: "They tell me that they are learning putonghua.  Some of them asked me outright when I intend to return home (they want to take over my job)."

"Heavens!  I hope that I can hang around until at least the 2008 Olympics," said Watts.

The Guardian where Jonathan Watts worked moved its office from Hong Kong to Shanghai in 1999, and then from Shanghai to Beijing in 2003.  Watts moved the office to Beijing's Dashanzi district, in which virtually all of the major contemporary artists in China work.

It is not just the western media, but even Qatar's Aljazeera television channel came to China in 2002.  At the entrance to its Beijing office, there is a promotional poster: "If everybody is watching CNN, then what is CNN watching?"  At present, there are four reporters from the Arab world based regularly in Beijing.

Sports reporter "Ma Meng" from Pakistan frequently hears his friends tell him: "You should stay in China.  There is no war over there."

Tsinghua University International Communications Research Center researcher Zhou Qing'an describes the foreign reporters in China that he knows: "Most of them have better language backgrounds that their predecessors; many of them admire Chinese culture; some of them are even married to Chinese women, or else they are of Chinese descent.  Based upon these factors, they have deeper understanding of Chinese society and culture."

Of the eight foreign reporters that this reporter interviewed, two had been to China before 1980, and their experiences of China are even more experienced than those who were born in China after the 1980's.  These are old China hands.

Four of the others have experience studying in China for relatively long periods of time.  Reuters' Christopher Buckley even chose a very special major -- the history of the Chinese Communist Party.  He was the only foreigner who studied this at the Chinese Renmin University back then.  "If I want to understand China, I must first understand the Chinese Communist Party," said Christopher Buckley.
A reader is left to wonder what the eight journalists interviewed said and didn't say when talking to Zheng Yan, and what editing decisions Southern Weekend made in assembling the final piece. You'll note the avoidance of the usual taboo subjects and the odd gaps in the history of interesting things that foreign correspondents have witnessed in China over the past twenty years. It is, for instance, noted that the New York Times' Beijing-based Jim Yardley and Joe Kahn won this year's Pulitzer Prize for foreign reporting. That the prize was won for a series of articles looking at the deep problems with China's legal system is, however, gracefully omitted.

Nevertheless, it's interesting both how the correspondents represent themselves to the Chinese press --in so far as that can be gleaned from the quotes actually included-- and how the Chinese press represents foreign correspondents to its readers. The article also remarks on the growing size of the foreign press corps in China, commenting on the growing China coverage in overseas press and noting that there are 516 reporters in China represengint 291 organizations from 46 countries. I wonder how many more unaccredited stringers and part-timers also file stories out of China.

Finally, a photograph of the AP's Hutzler --looking a little fried, I think-- is gifted with one of the best captions ever, which was recalled with much mirth over drinks last night by a former colleague of Hutzler's from the Wall Street Journal's Beijing bureau:
他们用蓝色的眼睛看着这个红色的国家，我们无法回避。
They use blue eyes to observe this red nation, we cannot avoid it.
No. But they can and do complicate it.