Testing the limits of China's free press

How much freedom of the press is China's new leadership willing to tolerate? Last week we took a brief look at journalists protesting in China over some heavy-handed censorship by the Communist Party propaganda department. It was editors at the Southern Weekly – coming out of Guangdong province, a hotbed of journalistic chutzpah – who cried foul. Their customary New Year message was deemed unfit to print and the regional apparatchik replaced it with their own version. What had begun as a call for constitutionality ended as a bland tribute to the party. A three-day strike by journalists ensued and tensions spilled out from the newsroom and into the streets. But there is more to the story than scuffles with security forces and the now familiar online showdown between micro-bloggers and cyber police. This week, Listening Post gets to the heart of the story – a story that involves the Communist Party and its effort to redefine itself for a new decade under Xi Jinping. His talk of a ‘Chinese Dream’ envisages a new, more in-touch Communist Party that will stamp out corruption and usher in a new era of prosperity. But does that dream include a constitution that protects liberties and freedom for the press?