Post-Olympics China pursues further opening-up

(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-09-26 20:03

BEIJING -- When thousands of overseas visitors headed home from Beijing after Olympics, most left with fond memories of the "exceptional Games", friendly and open gestures of the host, but also doubts over whether the country goes further to open itself up like it did.

About a month after the Olympics, a raft of news-making events in China has showed positive signs of further opening, notably evident from space program to military maneuvers this week.

When China touched off its third manned space mission Shenzhou-7 on Thursday, 11 journalists from Taiwan, the United States and other countries and regions were present at the Jiuquan launch center. They were the first group of overseas reporters to witness such a space mission launch in about five decades.

The reporters were impressed at the access they had been given. Vicky Chan, a reporter with TVBS of Taipei, saw the opportunity as rare because the base is "a military off-limit even to the general public."

"I would call it a big step taken by the Mainland as it continues to open up to overseas media," she said.

To facilitate reporters who are assigned to cover the space mission, a press center has been set up in Beijing, and regular press conferences are held in the State Council Information Office.

Organizers said they want to help the reporters acquire information more conveniently and accurately, and similar practices to aid reporting have been successful during the Party congress last year and the just-concluded Olympic Games.

"It's excellent to have the chance to speak to Chinese experts, " said Jocelyn Ford, a US public radio correspondent, at an experts briefing in the press center on Friday.

"When I covered the Shenzhou-5 in 2003, there was hardly any information available, and I had to talk to American experts. It's different this time," she said.

The signs of opening-up, however, were not only found in the much hyped spacewalk mission. On a prairie in northern China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, foreign military observers spoke highly of the degree of openness at a 5,200-person military exercise, coded "Warrior 2008".

"This is my first time here, but the US was also invited last year. We appreciate the invitation...These are great efforts toward China's military openness and transparency," said Brigadier General John Seward of the US Army. He was among more than 110 overseas delegates from 36 countries invited to observe the maneuver.

A press officer with the Defense Ministry Geng Yansheng said one of the goals of the exercise was to raise China's military openness and transparency.

The invitation was the sixth ever and the largest scale, he said.

One of China's key steps in opening to overseas media was a regulation relaxation in January 2007 to allow foreign reporters more freedom to conduct interviews without having to first seek government consent. Since the regulation was adopted, a mindset that encourages openness and accepts scrutiny has been increasingly popular in the Chinese leadership, at both the national and local levels.

Despite persistent doubts over whether the door would be closed after the Olympic Games, officials have assured the regulation is a long-term policy and will stay effective.

Not coincidentally, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao sent out an affirmative note to an international audience earlier this week that China will remain committed to opening itself to the world when speaking at the United Nations Headquarters.

"Let me tell you in unequivocal terms that China will remain committed to the path of peaceful development, unswervingly pursue reform and opening-up, and continue to adhere to an independent foreign policy of peace," Wen said at a debate in the United Nations General Assembly on Wednesday.

He noted that was "a choice of vital importance to the development of China today, and it is also a strategy that will shape China's future".

Indeed, as China reviews its decades-long reform, it's easy to conclude that opening-up is the only way to go. And as the country becomes a more engaging player in the global economic, political and technological endeavors, it realizes the door can't be shuttered any more.