Dawn of a freer press?

Last fall, a magazine editor in Beijing named Li Datong decided to feature a historical article about Taiwan in his weekly, Freezing Point. It was a straightforward account of Taiwan's harsh political repression in the 1950s and how democratically elected legislators are coping with that history. In China, where Taiwan is routinely criticized, the article passed the usual censors at the Ministry of Propaganda, which screens all of the nation's publications.

Once it was published in November, however, sophisticated readers could see that the article drew a clear if unstated contrast between politics in Taiwan and in China. One is now a democracy that is openly debating past repression, and the other is not. The article was eagerly passed around by liberal intellectuals in Beijing who enjoy nothing more than a chance to chuckle when a subversive article sneaks into print.

There are dozens of editors like Li — working within China's restricted media and yet fighting to bring in a little daylight. As Internet access expands the flow of information in China exponentially, despite the blocking of overtly political Web sites, Chinese journalists are straining at the old leash of Communist Party control. Chinese society as a whole is becoming more open and permissive, and while the Ministry of Propaganda is still a tough media overlord, editors like Li are making the landscape of information control undulate unpredictably.

American companies that traffic in information technology, such as Google and Microsoft, have recently been debating the upsides and downsides of doing business in China, generally arguing that they have to accept Chinese law in exchange for access to its lucrative market. Yet what is Chinese law? Because Chinese courts still take orders from the Communist Party, the law is often whatever the most powerful official within earshot says it is. There is no simple recipe for international information-based companies — or for Chinese ones — to operate in China without constant wrangling and second-guessing. But the first step is to recognize that the media business is in flux.

In recent months, Chinese editors and reporters have begun to openly question the legal basis for censorship. Li goes so far as to argue that the Ministry of Propaganda operates beyond the law and relies on fear and intimidation. When enough people stand up to the ministry, he says, it will no longer rule with impunity. That is starting to happen. Open protest letters recently came from two editors at newspapers that had been singled out for censure, while reporters at another newspaper in Beijing held a strike, which was followed by a string of resignations.