The past year leaves much to remain vigilant about, despite its positive sides, the statement, said. Self-censorship continues to undermine freedom of expression - and it may get worse. Signs that elements of the media are voluntarily accepting certain boundaries of acceptable expression, notably over questions of secession, is helping to create the climate for other, more restrictive boundaries. China's requirement that there be laws prohibiting subversion and secession, among others, is not simply to have the means to prosecute "offenders" and to provide a legal backstop to protect its interests if the worst were to happen. They are there, like many laws, as a deterrent - to provide an inducement to caution and voluntary compliance. Already, tacitly, these parameters are being accepted and internalized; indeed, this process has been underway for some years. But where does it stop? Freedom of expression is not a divisible concept: to take one step down this road is to accept that others will be that much easier.
One year into the handover, as this statement is made, it is not yet meaningful to judge whether freedom of the press has or has not survived. It is, in our view, a highly ambiguous picture with many evident flaws.
After a month of intense negotiations and specification, the proposed acquisition of one of Hong Kong's oldest newspaper publishing groups, Sing Tao Holdings, by pro-Beijing businessman Cha Chi-Min collapsed on May 20 1998. A thorough investigation into the company's financial affairs and prospects appeared to persuade Mr. Cha that the acquisition would not be a sufficiently going concern. In these difficult economic times, this appeared even to outweigh what otherwise might have been seen as an attractive opportunity by the China camp to gain a stronger voice in Hong Kong's commercial press (China's principal newspapers in the territory - the Wen We Po and the Ta Kung Pop - are not, popular and, consequently, are probably heavily subsidized). That opportunity, nevertheless, had been a source of concern to those who wish to see Hong Kong's press retain a strong measure of independence from the influence - or even the perceived influence - of those close to Beijing and the Chinese Communist Party.
The Sing Tao newspaper group is managed by its majority shareholder, Sally Aw Sian, who took over the reins from her father in 1954 and turned what was a one paper operation, the Sing Tao Daily, into an international publishing concern serving Chinese readers in America, Europe and Australia. Its main market, though, remains Hong Kong through its flagship publication, the Sing Tao Daily. As with other medium-sized mainstream newspapers, the Sing Tao Daily has been facing growing difficulties over the past two years, particularly as its market share has been eroded by the two mass-market dailies, the Oriental Daily News and Apple Daily (see below). According to a February 1998 SRG Media Index Report, the Sing Tao Daily's average daily readership had almost halved from 218,000 at the end of 1996 to 120,000 in February 1998. The current economic crisis has also taken its toll.
