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American Morning

Chinese Government Mutes Nation's Public Reaction

Aired April 06, 2001 - 11:04   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: All week long, we've been checking with reporter Shai Oster. He is based in the Chinese capital, joining us now, once again, on the phone with the latest on the mood in Beijing.

Shai, hello.

SHAI OSTER, BEIJING-BASED REPORTER: How are you?

KAGAN: I'm doing OK.

Have you heard any word or any reaction out of this latest meeting where U.S. diplomats were allowed to meet once again with the crewmembers being detained on Hainan Island?

OSTER: So far, there's been very little word here regarding the meeting, but what's interesting today was that the official press had a very muted reaction. There was -- in fact, some newspapers didn't carry any stories about the spy plane incident, which is an indication that the government is trying to mute the public reaction.

One thing is that students -- university students whose nationalist passions have been inflamed by this incident have been told by the authorities not to protest. So the mood in the city has been fairly subdued. Despite what looks like should be a very, very tense moment, it's been very fairly relaxed here in Beijing.

KAGAN: Tell us more about those tempers that are flaring on university campuses, and why are those opinions different than non- student opinions?

OSTER: Well, students traditionally in China have always had more of a leading role in public opinion, if you look at the pro- democracy protest in 1989, if you look at -- even earlier in history in 1918, it was the Chinese students who took the lead in many of the movements. Basically, these people have more time, they're younger, and their passions are more easily inflamed.

But, also, it needs to be taken into account that Chinese sense of national sovereign is a very delicate one. The -- Chinese has a sense that it's been bullied around by Western powers in -- during the past century when -- you know, all of these concessions and so forth, and so this is seen as an extension of that, you know, the West is, once again, attempting to bully China, and so some people are even saying, particularly students, that the government's reaction has been too soft at this point and that they should be taking an even stronger line toward the Americans.

KAGAN: Shai, speaking of time, there's definitely a difference in -- between cultures between Chinese and American and how they sense time. On the U.S. side, a lot of people looking toward Sunday and saying that's going to be a week for as long as these crewmembers have been held in detention and that there's something about that week-long mark that just marks too long. But, on the Chinese side, is there a sense that this thing is moving along slowly or just about at the right pace?

OSTER: Well, I've spoken to some Chinese professors in the Central Party school, and they said the Chinese have to go slowly because this is a government by consensus. Every move has to be discussed with all sorts of factions within the government, including the military which tends to be more conservative, the foreign ministry which is more concerned with promoting good relations. So everything has to go through slowly, and there's a sense among the Chinese that, if they went fast, they might make the wrong move, and so they tend to move -- go slowly on issues as big as this.

One thing, though, is the longer this standoff continues, the greater the nationalist sentiment, I believe, becomes among the public, sort of letting the -- letting the flames become ever larger. So the government's playing a very delicate game between trying to show that it's strongly nationalistic while, at the same time, making sure that the nationalism doesn't in some way turn against itself. People may begin to feel that the Chinese government's too weak, and if there were to be any protests, which is something they've been careful to keep a lid on at this point, those protests could easily turn against the government itself.

KAGAN: Shai Oster in Beijing, once again. Thanks for the visit. Appreciate it.

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