Exotic welcome relayed to millions

By Karyn Scherer

When Jiang Zemin pressed noses with a Maori elder in Auckland this week, the image was quickly relayed to 3 million readers of China's largest newspaper, the People's Daily. Another 1 million readers saw the photograph on the paper's internet site.

The accompanying story noted that the formal welcome for the Chinese President was "filled with exotic ceremonial colour."

It just happened that the vice-president of the People's Daily, Zhu Xin Min, was in Auckland at the time, accompanying Chinese officials to the Apec summit.

And he couldn't help but skite that the paper had been running an online edition longer than many Western newspapers.

Despite the constraints imposed by its political masters, the People's Daily, like most media at the end of the 20th century, is rushing to embrace the information age.

The paper, which has not felt the need to print in anything other than Mandarin since its launch in 1948, went online at the beginning of 1997. At the beginning of last year, it introduced an English edition and it is now hoping to publish in several other languages.

With internet access still prohibitively expensive in China, it is mostly Chinese living overseas and those wanting to keep in touch with Chinese affairs who read the online edition.

Nevertheless, the popularity of the site has prompted the paper to set up mirror sites in America and Japan and there are plans for others in Australia, Europe and Hong Kong within the next two years.

Like all senior newspaper executives, Mr Zhu is struggling with the problem of how to make the internet edition pay. At present, advertising on the site is limited, but he is confident it will soon increase at a rapid rate.

According to its own publicity, the paper "reflects the views of the Chinese people, advocates justice and condemns malpractices."

While on the face of it that doesn't sound too different to most Western newspapers, the paper doesn't shy away from including editorial comment in its news coverage."

According to Mr Zhu, fierce competition from several rivals has not dented the paper's circulation. However, there have been slight modifications to its content. In recent years, it has boosted its ratio of economic, social and cultural news, and also its analysis of the challenges facing China.

There are around 1500 publishers in China producing more than 2000 newspapers, although only a few are national.

To speed up its own national and international distribution, it has set up 37 printing plants around the country, as well as seven plants overseas. All receive the newspaper's content by satellite.

Its presses also turn out a dozen affiliated newspapers and magazines, as well as another 90 non-affiliated newspapers.

The paper receives more than 2000 readers' letters a day, but only a handful are published, as each edition has only 16 pages.

Nevertheless, it has a staff of more than 700, including more than 30 foreign correspondents.

Around one-fifth of the paper is allocated to advertising, with foreign companies frequently featured.

The advertisements are aimed at China's elite, who are the target audience of the paper, including party officials and senior decision-makers.

While overall readership of newspapers is on the increase in China, Mr Zhu does not expect any new players to enter the game anytime soon.

While foreign media barons are eagerly eyeing the republic as a potential new market, he does not foresee any being allowed to set up shop in the near future.

"I think 2000 kinds of newspapers is quite enough, even for the population of China."

* The internet address for the English edition of the People's Daily is www.peopledaily.com.cn/english