March 19, 2024

Supporters Back Strike at Newspaper in China

The journalists, who work for Southern Weekend, a relatively liberal newspaper that has come under increasing pressure from officials in recent years, also received support on the Internet from celebrities and well-known commentators.

“Hoping for a spring in this harsh winter,” Li Bingbing, an actress, said to her 19 million followers on a microblog account. Yao Chen, an actress with more than 31 million followers, cited a quotation by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the Russian Nobel laureate and dissident: “One word of truth outweighs the whole world.”

Many of the people who showed up Monday at the newspaper offices in Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong Province, carried banners with slogans and white and yellow chrysanthemums, a flower that symbolizes mourning. One banner read: “Get rid of censorship. The Chinese people want freedom.” Police officers watched the protesters without immediately taking any harsh actions.

The angry journalists at Southern Weekend have been calling for the removal of Tuo Zhen, the top propaganda official in Guangdong, whom the journalists blame for overseeing a change in a New Year’s editorial that ran last week and was supposed to have called for greater respect for rights enshrined in the constitution under the headline “China’s Dream, the Dream of Constitutionalism,” according to the China Media Project at the University of Hong Kong. The editorial went through layers of changes and ultimately became one praising the current political system, in which the Communist Party exercises authority over all aspects of governance.

A well-known entrepreneur, Hung Huang, said on her microblog that the actions of a local official had “destroyed, overnight, all the credibility the country’s top leadership had labored to re-establish since the 18th Party Congress,” the November gathering in Beijing that was the climax of the leadership transition.

One journalist for Southern Weekend said Monday afternoon that negotiations between the various parties had been scheduled later in the day, but there were no results from any talks as of Monday evening.

It was unclear how many employees in the newsroom had heeded the calls for a strike. It appeared Sunday that many of Southern Weekend’s reporters had declared themselves on strike. A local journalist who went by the newspaper’s Beijing office on Monday said the building appeared to be open but quiet. One employee told the journalist that the people there were not on strike. Dozens of supporters showed up outside the building at various times, some carrying signs and flowers.

The conflict was exacerbated Sunday night by top editors at the newspaper, who posted a message on the publication’s official microblog saying that the New Year’s editorial had been written with the consent of editors at the newspaper.

According to an account from a newspaper employee posted online on Monday, that statement was made after pressure was exerted on the top editors by Yang Jian, the head of the party committee at Southern Media, the parent company that runs Southern Weekend and other publications. Southern Weekend’s editor in chief, Huang Can, then pressured an employee to give up the official microblog password so the statement could be posted on the microblog.

Neither Mr. Yang nor Mr. Huang could be reached for comment Monday.

Some political analysts have said the conflict raises questions about whether the central government, led by Xi Jinping, the new party chief, will support the idea of a more open media by moving to support the protesting journalists. In his first trip outside Beijing, Mr. Xi traveled to Guangdong and praised the market-oriented economic policies put in place by Deng Xiaoping, the former supreme leader. But more recently, Mr. Xi has said that China must respect its socialist roots.

Resolving the Southern Weekend tensions could also be a test for Hu Chunhua, the new party chief in Guangdong and a potential candidate to succeed Mr. Xi as the leader of China in a decade. Mr. Hu’s predecessor, Wang Yang, was regarded by many Western political analysts as being a “reformer,” but he presided over a tightening of media freedoms in the province and specifically over Southern Media.

On Monday, People’s Daily, the party’s mouthpiece, ran a signed commentary that referred to a recent meeting of propaganda officials in Beijing and said propaganda officials should “follow the rhythm of the times” and help the authorities establish a “pragmatic and open-minded image.” Some people have interpreted that as support for officials in adopting a more enlightened approach in dealing with the news media.

But Global Times, a populist newspaper, ran a scathing editorial that said Southern Weekend was merely a newspaper and should not challenge the system.

“Even in the West, mainstream media would not choose to openly pick a fight with the government,” the editorial said. Xinhua, the state news agency, published the editorial online.

Jonathan Ansfield contributed reporting. Mia Li and Shi Da and contributed research.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: January 7, 2013

An earlier version of a photo caption with this article misstated the name of a newspaper in China. It is Southern Weekend not Southern Weekly.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/08/world/asia/supporters-back-strike-at-newspaper-in-china.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Merkel Implores German Lawmakers to Back Euro Rescue Measures

“The world is looking at Germany, whether we are strong enough to accept responsibility for the biggest crisis since World War II,” Mrs. Merkel said in an address to the Bundestag, the German Parliament, in Berlin. “It would be irresponsible not to assume the risk.”

Mrs. Merkel also called for a revision of the European treaty to strengthen the union’s ability to police fiscal discipline among members. She argued for stronger regulation of banks, and swift action to get institutions to build up their capital reserves. She implied that investors will have to accept a 50 percent reduction in the value of Greek bonds. And Mrs. Merkel said that Europe should be ready to accept advice and financial aid from the International Monetary Fund.

“Many questions require not only a national and European solution, but also an international solution,” Mrs. Merkel said. She praised Christine Lagarde, managing director of the I.M.F., for her role in the crisis.

With expectations low ahead of a summit of European leaders in Brussels on Wednesday evening, Mrs. Merkel’s speech was a more forceful defense of the euro ideal than has been typical of her in the past. It suggests that leaders could agree to measures to contain the European debt crisis that are broader and more comprehensive than markets and commentators have been expecting.

Mrs. Merkel cautioned that the summit would not produce a “big bang,” and that “this issue will occupy us for years.”

In contrast to the piecemeal approach that has marked European policy so far, she touched on all the main issues of the crisis and called for ambitious measures to ensure stability in the future. For example, she said, the European treaty should be revised so that the union could impose changes on countries that are losing economic competitiveness. Greece’s dysfunctional economy is at the root of its problems.

Mrs. Merkel has often seemed a reluctant European, unwilling to risk domestic political capital on unpopular measures to prop up Greece and save the euro. But she adopted loftier rhetoric Wednesday, reminding members of Parliament of the work that an earlier political generation had done to unite Europe after a century of bloodshed.

“Nobody should believe that another half century of peace and prosperity is a given,” she said. “If the euro fails, then Europe fails. We have a historic duty.”

Mrs. Merkel has been under pressure from other leaders, including President Barack Obama, to be more decisive in response to the crisis, which has become a grave threat to the global economy. Earlier this month, former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, during an event in Frankfurt at which both spoke, delivered her a lecture on postwar European history and the toil involved in creating a unified continent.

Frank-Walter Steinmeier, leader of the opposition Social Democrats in the Bundestag, complained that Mrs. Merkel’s conversion to European advocate had taken too long. Taking the floor after the chancellor, he said, “I would have liked to hear these phrases a year ago.”

But Mr. Steinmeier said the Social Democrats would support expansion of the bailout fund, the European Financial Stability Facility, and other measures, because it is important to show that the euro project has broad support. Mrs. Merkel did not give details of how the clout of the €440 billion, or $612 billion, fund would be expanded, and said that Germany’s contribution will not increase.

Mrs. Merkel also expressed sympathy for anti-Wall Street protesters in New York as well as similar actions in Frankfurt and Berlin, saying she understood how ordinary people have suffered from the financial crisis.

She took a hard line with the banking industry, saying banks must increase their capital reserves to reduce risk, accept stricter regulation, and be subject to a tax on financial transactions.

Investors must also accept a deeper cut in the value of their Greek bonds, she said. Greece’s debt must be brought down to 120 percent of gross domestic product, she said, a figure that implies a 50 percent reduction in the value of Greek bonds.

Mrs. Merkel took a more forgiving line toward the Greek people, who have been stereotyped as lazy spendthrifts by the German tabloid press. In addition, a strong faction among German economists has pushed for Greece to quit the euro area.

“We want Greece to quickly get back on its feet again,” Mrs. Merkel said.

Article source: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/27/business/global/merkel-implores-german-lawmakers-to-back-euro-rescue-measures.html?partner=rss&emc=rss

Greece Feels Push Toward Euro Exit

In fact, that is the sentiment a growing number of reputable economists and other commentators, particularly from fully liquid Germany, have been expressing lately.

Greece, they say, should leave the euro zone for its own good, as well as the Continent’s. Some German economists argue that other members of the 17-nation currency union, like Portugal or even Italy, might need to leave as well.

“It is better for all concerned, in particular for Greece, if the country leaves the euro temporarily,” Hans-Werner Sinn, president of the influential Ifo Institute at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich, wrote in an essay published two weeks ago.

Continuing to throw money at Greece will only reduce incentives for the country to restructure its economy, he and other experts say, while pushing Europe toward a so-called transfer union where the stronger countries are required to prop up the weaker ones.

As it turns out, there is no provision in E.U. law for a member to be ejected, according to legal experts. Greece would have to withdraw voluntarily. But if the other countries cut off aid, it might have little choice.

Among European economists outside Germany, the idea that a country should be put under pressure to leave the euro zone is regarded as reckless and cruel. Greek banks would fail, the country would default on its debt and would lack a credible currency with which to buy essential imported goods like oil or even food. The whole euro area would suffer as investors feared the disintegration of the currency union and perhaps even the European Union itself.

“It’s very risky,” said Silvio Peruzzo, an economist in London for Royal Bank of Scotland. “It would set a precedent for other countries leaving the region, and the market would start to flirt with the idea that the euro as a whole doesn’t make sense.”

But in Germany, with its embedded fear of inflation and insistence that individuals should suffer the consequences of their actions, the idea that Greece should just leave is gaining wider currency, even in elite circles.

Otmar Issing, a former chief economist of the European Central Bank and one of the architects of the common currency, has implied that Greece should exit.

Asked about his position by e-mail, Mr. Issing answered indirectly, saying that countries that break the rules of monetary union — as Greece did — should have to fend for themselves.

“If a country does not comply with the conditions agreed on, it should not get further financial aid,” he said. “A country which does not get further support has to decide what to do.”

Mr. Issing and Mr. Sinn are both extremely influential, and their thinking provides an intellectual foundation for opinions widely held by ordinary Germans. Chancellor Angela Merkel is facing intense pressure within her own center-right party, some of whose members are pushing for a special party congress to discuss the debt crisis.

Meanwhile, such German attitudes get plenty of publicity in Greece and other stricken euro countries, where they feed stereotypes of arrogant, domineering Germans and stoke the resentments that are already deeply straining European unity.

Greeks, it seems, are as fed up with Germany as Germans are with Greece. As plumes of tear gas bathed the streets of Athens in June, for example, many protesters volunteered that they wanted the drachma back.

“We don’t care about staying in the euro,” said one protester, who gave his name only as Dimitris. “It would be costly, but at least with the drachma we would be able to control our own currency and our own future.”

Greeks have still not gotten over a cover of the German magazine Focus last year that depicted the Venus de Milo raising a middle finger. “Cheats in our euro family,” said the headline, a reference clearly aimed at Greece.

“People believe Greeks don’t pay our taxes and we don’t want to work,” said Christos Manolas, a Greek businessman. “That’s a myth perpetuated by the Germans.”

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=8b142267ba1c293d99cde752e4b3b3cb