The Chinese people, bored to death with state-run programming, had taken enthusiastically to Star TV, which offered MTV, BBC news, and a wealth of uncensored Western and Chinese movies. New regulations restricting the sale or installation of a private satellite dish are expected to take effect in April. Apart from this threat to his anticipated China market, Murdoch faces stiff competition from heavyweight media conglomerates that are leasing transponders on at least three new satellites being launched in Asian skies to take advantage of the prosperity of the region's burgeoning middle classes. All this competition, together with a rapidly evolving communications technology, is good news for those who advocate the free flow of information, bad news for governments that seek to control it. Some of the new satellites, like AsiaSat II, are said to be so powerful that programs can be received on an antenna that is only eighteen inches long.
Print is easier to control.
Daisy Li Yuet Wah, chairman of the Hong Kong Journalists Association, which has about 500 members, minced no words when she told a World Press Freedom Conference in October that arrests by China of several Hong Kong journalists were clearly intended to intimidate the local press. Under the Communist regime . Their function is to serve the party, instead of acting as a watchdog on behalf of the people. A journalist's normal practice of gathering information would be equated with espionage. . . . Beijing has never forgiven the Hong Kong media for their forthright reporting of the 1989 prodemocracy protests. . . .