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TechnoratiThe Most Potent Weapon Wielded by the Empires of Murdoch and China
A riveting account of two of the world's most powerful forces has been ignored -- blame anticipatory compliance
If you want to know how powerful Rupert Murdoch is, read the reviews of Bruce Dover's book, Rupert's Adventures in China. Well, go on, read them. You can't find any? I rest my case. Dover was Murdoch's vice-president in China, and took his orders directly from the boss. His book, which was published in February, is a fascinating study of power, and of a man who could not bring himself to believe that anyone would stand in his way. So why aren't we reading about it?
Murdoch, Dover shows, began his assault on China with two strategic mistakes. The first was to pay a staggering price -- $525m -- for a majority stake in Star TV, a failing satellite broadcaster based in Hong Kong. The second was to make a speech in September 1993, a few months after he had bought the business, which he had neither written nor read very carefully. New telecommunications, he said, "have proved an unambiguous threat to totalitarian regimes everywhere ... satellite broadcasting makes it possible for information-hungry residents of many closed societies to bypass state-controlled television channels".
The Chinese leaders were furious. The prime minister, Li Peng, issued a decree banning satellite dishes from China. Murdoch spent the next 10 years grovelling. In the interests of business the great capitalist became the communist government's most powerful supporter.
Within six months of Li Peng's ban, Murdoch dropped the BBC from Star's China signal. His publishing company, HarperCollins, paid a fortune for a tedious biography of the paramount leader, Deng Xiaoping, written by Deng's daughter. He built a website for the regime's propaganda sheet, the People's Daily. In 1997 he made another speech in which he tried to undo the damage he had caused four years before. "China," he said, "is a distinctive market with distinctive social and moral values that western companies must learn to abide by." His minions ensured, Dover reveals, that "every relevant Chinese government official received a copy".
But the satellite dishes remained banned, so he grovelled even more. He described the Dalai Lama as "a very political old monk shuffling around in Gucci shoes". His son James claimed that the western media were "painting a falsely negative portrayal of China through their focus on controversial issues such as human rights". Rupert employed his unsalaried gopher Tony Blair to give him special access: in 1999 Blair placed him next to then Chinese president, Jiang Zemin, at a Downing Street lunch. To secure some limited cable rights in southern China, News Corporation agreed to carry a Chinese government channel -- CCTV-9 -- on Fox and Sky. Murdoch promised to "further strengthen cooperative ties with the Chinese media, and explore new areas with an even more positive attitude".
Most notoriously, he instructed HarperCollins not to publish the book that it had bought from the former governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten. Dover reveals that Murdoch was forced to intervene directly (he instructed the publishers to "kill the fucking book") because his usual system of control had broken down. "Murdoch very rarely issued directives or instructions to his senior executives or editors." Instead he expected "a sort of 'anticipatory compliance'. One didn't need to be instructed about what to do, one simply knew what was in one's long-term interests." In this case HarperCollins executives had failed to understand that when the boss objected to Patten's views on China, it meant that the book was dead.
Anticipatory compliance also describes Murdoch's approach to Beijing. Dover shows that the Chinese leadership never asked for Chris Patten's book to be banned: they didn't even know it existed. But when Murdoch killed it, "our Beijing minders were impressed and the Patten incident marked a distinct warming in the relationship".
The strategy failed. Murdoch was astonished that he couldn't replicate "the cosy relationship he enjoyed with Britain's political establishment". For the first time in his later career, he had encountered an organisation more powerful and more determined than he was. He has now retreated from China after losing at least $1bn.
This is a riveting story about two of the world's most powerful forces. Dover's British publisher told me: "I thought this was a natural for serialisation. We had the author primed and prepared to come over here. But we had to cancel as we could not raise enough interest. We've hit brick walls and we don't understand why." The book has been reviewed in the Economist and the Financial Times, but neither other British newspapers nor broadcasters have touched it.
As far as I can discover, the book has been reviewed by only one Murdoch publication anywhere on earth -- the Australian Literary Review -- and that was an article of such snivelling sycophancy that you wonder why they bothered. The editor of another News Corporation title, the Far Eastern Economic Review, commissioned a review, then admitted to contracting "cold feet" and spiked it.
But what of the other papers? Why should they appease Murdoch? "When you see the reaction of the British media to the book," Dover tells me, "one can better understand why in some respects the Chinese so admired Murdoch -- an emperor who inspires fear in his followers need not raise a hand against them." He might be right, but I think there is also a general bias against relevance in the review sections. When I worked in faraway countries, my books about the tribulations of obscure peoples were comprehensively reviewed. When I came home and wrote Captive State: The Corporate Takeover of Britain, it was ignored. There appears to be an inverse relationship between how hard a book hits and how well it is covered.
Oddly for a publication that inspires such fear, Dover's story sometimes steps back from the brink. He observes that News Corporation never promised the Chinese government favourable coverage; Murdoch undertook only to be "fair", "balanced" and "objective". Dover takes these terms at face value, though it is obvious from his account that they were being used as code for sympathetic treatment. His book does not contain News Corporation's most direct admission: the statement by Murdoch's spokesman Wang Yukui that "we won't do programmes that are offensive in China ... If you call this self-censorship then of course we're doing a kind of self-censorship". He is wrong to suggest that "Murdoch very rarely issued directives or instructions". As the testimony by Andrew Neil (a former editor of the Sunday Times) before the House of Lords communications committee shows, the paramount leader micromanages the editorial content of the newspapers he owns that swing the greatest political weight.
But I am sure it is true that anticipatory compliance is Murdoch's most powerful weapon. I doubt he needed to tell all 247 of his editors to support the invasion of Iraq, but they did. He might not even have had to lean on Tony Blair to ensure -- as Blair's former spin doctor Lance Price reveals - that no British minister said "anything positive about the euro". Power is sustained not by force but by fear, as everyone seeks to interpret the wishes of his master and to meet them even before he asks.
--monbiot.com
© Guardian News and Media Limited 2008
32 Comments so far
Show AllIsn't the handwriting on the wall folks-which country is sending out it's intel agencies to subvert the rise of real democratic leaders in places like central and south America and at the same time dropping bombs on countries all over the world-It's not China.
… and likely for "keeps" …
Marcos wrote: China will have been the biggest of the giant rackets of the turn of the millennium.
An interesting thesis, but I will have to disagree. The Chinese are, well, inscrutable, and highly thoughtful and intelligent. Without the smoke and mirrors of capitalism to distract people from reality, I contend that the Chinese are playing the global game their way.
Many years ago, during the time of the "Ellsberg Papers," I knew an investigative reporter who was an ex-FBI man. I asked him if he was censored by his paper.
"No, I'm not censored," he answered, "but it doesn't take a newspaperman long to learn what will be published and what will go in the circular file. You don't write for the circular file, you write to get published. (Besides, too many unpublishable articles and you have to go job hunting again)."
I don't imagine times have changed but for the worse since then.
Murdoch promised the Chinese his coverage would be "Fair and Balanced ". I didn't know that you
could get Fox News in China.
CJM,
You wrote: "One problem with corporate capitalism, or perhaps humans in general, is that if you want to climb the ladder of success you must be a toady."
Actually, Arendt in her book "The Origins of Totalitarianism" identifies this phenomenon as a characteristic of totalitarian regimes. Sycophantcy destroys talent. In the end, individualism is destroyed and total domination pervades society.
To me this is all just a struggle among tyrants of different scales: Murdoch is a singular tyrant with the power to wreck the careers of journalists and book reviewers. The Chinese government is a much bigger one with the power to control the lives of 1.3 billion people. What we need is a worldwide democratic revolution, but it won't happen in our lifetimes, if it ever happens at all. Of course, it needs to be non-violent and based on an organic lifestyle.
Go, China!
And for all you numbskulls who believe the lie of contemporary American 'Democracy', please re-read the article. The only democracy that Clinton, Bush, Obama and Murdoch will fit into is of the 'One dollar, one vote' stripe. Capitalism is anti-democratic, as are its supporters.
Old Pigs Never Die!
They just give him another
Pig Heart!
China isn't under our control...they practically own us....probably will if we borrowing for this blasted war.
You're bound to write this off as mere conspiracy theory, but some day my theory will be born out. I believe that China was set up to get the Olympics it wanted in order for it to receive the intense spotlight treatment it has been experiencing recently. The great western "masters of the universe" of business, finance and the markets have tripled their money in China over the past decade or so and its has been targeted for a blow out just like the S&Ls, the NASDAQ and the subprime mortgage market. China will have been the biggest of the giant rackets of the turn of the millennium.
I don't believe that China is under our control....not to a very large extent anyway.
Ask yourself, who has been the biggest beneficiaries of globalization, communist China and former communist Soviet Union (Gorbachev said at the time democracy was simply a ruse to allow capitalists to build them up with free trade). Of course, we had to loot Russia before building them up in order to make sure we owned what we built up. Putin kind of put an end to that. China is partially under our control, as we have infiltrated them at a high level, but the process is not complete, so there will be some friction. Murdoch is simply a propaganda arm of the Globalists. China has a very efficient news propaganda industry, he had a lot to learn from them, and is putting that knowledge to good use in the US.
Anyways, those behind Globalization created Communism, Fascism, and our current financial system that creates debt slaves of people and nations.
National Communism and National fascism are synthesizing to a Global Totalitarian Government called by some other "-ism " The new government might look like one big corporation with many divisions covering different segments of the global economy. The CEO will be king, and God of the corporate religion we will worship. Labour wil be slaves. Family wil be abolished. Women will simply becomes sex slaves and/or breeders of children of the different classes (elite, professional, worker, etc). Only the elite get to have sex, although some slaves may get a taste if they get rewarded. Those unable to work, don't eat, and go to the crematorium. It will be a very efficient world.
These posts echo the ones following "A Bad Week for Journalists" elsewhere on this site.
Check it out.
I wouldn't be so sure media persons' loyalty can solely be reduced to fear, which isn't to contest they are not afraid---they are. In denoting them several times sycophants, we may ponder whether here is implicated something heterogeneous to a simplistic fear.
Why is there no parricide in them?
Be sure that there could not be a shedding of the skin amongst them, and that this is never only because of a looming penal code. Why are some father's laws so cherished by their sons? An answer must establish in greater detail what these "sons" may be afraid of, starting with what they slave to conserve.
Inversely, and then inversely again, Murdoch's desperate plotting illustrates a true weakness. We often think of an iron exterior deflecting and blurring sight of the vital organs of these industry tyrants, but doesn't it always seem like one tiny crack would fracture their armor and every blinding projection bounced off of their reflective plates.
One problem with corporate capitalism, or perhaps humans in general, is that if you want to climb the ladder of success you must be a toady. (Look it up if you don't know what it means). The more you do it, the quicker you rise. If you can anticipate requirements so much the better -- that is, be more like Murdoch (Bush/Cheney/Saddam Hussein/Hitler) that he is himself. As long as there are people willing to prostrate themselves, and there always will be even if they are not the best for the position, nothing will change.
We're all doomed.
The Pigs are running the World Farm! Grab your kids and run for the hills. Perhaps Murdoch should wed Hillary. Together they could obliterate all opposition!
We're going down the plughole, we're going down the plughole...
Stupid humans!
We're living in the Second Dark Ages; the question seems to be, are we able to survive them?
Why are humans so much in love with murder? Is it because true progress cannot be achieved without hard work—physically, mentally and spiritually?
Chuck:
True, but it's the thought that counts !
"China," he said, "is a distinctive market with distinctive social and moral values that western companies must learn to abide by."
Get that straight - you grovelling money pigs!
Hey Conrad . . . Did you miss that his son is working for him . . . Getting ready to take over and what a starting ramp he has.
Rupert is old. He will die relatively soon.
In the meantime, BOYCOTT THE BEIJING OLYMPICS AND PRODUCTS MADE IN CHINA !
As an Australian, I was always ashamed and horrified that Murdoch was born in Oz, but since he abrogated his citizenship and took on American citizenship, all I can say is: America, you deserve the dick.
"The capitalists will sell us the rope with which we shall hang them." Lenin appears to have been right about something after all.
The big media conglomerates have been the tool of money and power for as long as I have been a journalist - some 30 years. Always has, always will. The difference is that a lot of smaller chains have also sold out.
To get the "real" news, you have to go elsewhere - the alternate, non-aligned, independent press and radio - and websites like this one.
If we don't know what is going on in the world, it is our fault. We have the resources at our fingertips now. Ignorance is NOT bliss.
Somewhere the truth exists. The trick is to find it - and then to recognize it. These basic lessons should be taught in school.
As the US burns itself out, China holds billions of dollars of US debt, makes everything the US doesn't make anymore, and will soon be the new corporate, consumer superpower, while the US goes belly up.
While watching the most dangerous man in the West grovel to the Communist dynasty (the Chinese Communist Party is another dynasty in the tradition of the Ming & Han for all intensive purposes, save for the method of choosing the figurehead), while amusing on one level, is truly dangerous for the future of this planet. It set a bad precedent: all must bow to the will of the ruling bureaucracy of China or else. Thus the Murdoch clan were the first to make the Chinese bureaucracy de-facto rulers of much more than just their bit of Earth. Considering the capricious history of Chinese governance, that is not an attractive future.
Hey Lefty, I'm as disgusted as you are but you gotta change your strain man. "..they'll turn his head into a canoe" ?
How would you paddle it?
And Rupert, sadly, is not an animal. He's just a kind of concentration of nasty traits that Capitalism allows to rise to the top, until nasty decisions are being made for all of us. Control over public perceptions seems to make these monsters; these Hearsts and Blacks and Murdoch's. Our minds are being farmed. Thankfully they don't want us for meat, yet.
This all causes us to wonder which is worse. To live in a place like China where an authoritarian government has too much power over media and media moguls? Or to live in the USA which, though still sorta "great" is now less great than it used to be because media moguls are usurping the minds and the power of the citizens (and the government is unwilling or unable to stop that downward slide)?
P.S. Don't tell me I'm wishing for a Communist government
to censor everything. I'm just wishing for an American government that knows onerous concentration of corporate power from a hole in the ground.
We should remember that Clinton allied herself with Murdoch; yet another reason not to vote for her.
From Jack London's IRON HEEL :"You have forgotten the editors. They draw their salaries for the policy they maintain. Their policy is to print nothing that is a vital menace to the established. The press of the United States? It is a parasitic growth that battens on the capitalist class. Its function is to serve the established by moulding public opinion, and right well it serves it."
Hoa binh
Corporate Feudal Slavery - why would the Media be any different than the society? No religion that attacks the core behavior of a State lasts more than 20 minutes, therefore ALL religion supports the State. The same can be said for Media. The richfilth and privileged may squabble and fight for position and DOMINANCE but they all regard us, as all religions do, as NOTHING, fungible. We are nothing more than the vassals on the plantation. We are the 1000 cows they throw into a vat and grind into profits. Nothing more.
Rupert's just another pigshit RICHFILTH animal (non-human). The day folks decide they've had enough of him, they'll turn his head into a canoe just like all the rest of the RICHFILTH animals. I am not holding my breathe because here in America all the boys want to grow up and become a RICHFILTH animal and rape the planet, Just Like Rupert.
Peace.