Yet the new signs of the times are obvious. Watershed events such as the 'Tiananmen Square crackdown have stopped showing up in high school textbooks. Distributors have repeatedly held back the showing of 'anti-China' films such as Red Corner and Seven Years in Tibet. (After much delay, the latter film was shown in April 1998.) In accordance with the zhuada fangxiao principle, Beijing has let minority media such as Cheng Ming alone while tightening its grip over the mass media. This is evidenced by the growing intensity of self-censorship on the part of TV and radio stations as well as mass-circulation newspapers.
The taming of the media is all the more remarkable given the fact that the Beijing leadership has defended much of the mainstream media without having to play hardball," in Lam's view. Most of the owners of large TV stations and papers have huge business interests in the mainland-and they seem reluctant to risk losing Beijing's goodwill. Media companies also need advertisements from PRS-affiliated companies in Hong Kong. Moreover, Beijing's method of subtle intimidation, known as "killing the chicken to scare the monkey", is paying off. No media owner wants to suffer the fate of independent publisher Jimmy Lai's Apple Daily or Next magazine, whose journalists are not allowed into China to cover even routine news stories. (5)
