OPINION> Commentary
Public shows prove nothing
By Huang Qing (China Daily)
Updated: 2008-10-10 07:43

If you do not know the city of Shijiazhuang, the infamous dairy company Sanlu Group will offer you some reference points. The city caught people's attention since its government withheld the tainted milk information for more than a month. Furthermore its Vice-Mayor Zhang Diankui drank a cup of milk in public recently, attempting to assure people of milk safety.

As someone who earns a living in the discipline of journalism - and who in the past saw several politicians make the same show, albeit drinking lake or river water - I am less impressed.

While people now rely on the media for more milk-related information, few are enthralled with the coverage of Zhang's reported show. In fact the public, especially parents with children affected by the tainted milk, resent his public performance.

As a vice-mayor, Zhang represents the government. There are a hundred things he can do to restore people's confidence in milk. However, drinking milk in public only contributes more background noise than any original answer to the tainted milk problem since the dairy ripple effect cuts deep across the nation.

We can rightly ask: Who protect the public? We hold the government accountable for supervising food quality as we know without rock-solid supervision there will be no milk safety to speak of.

* * *

A friend told me last week that she decided not to buy an apartment she had wanted for years partly because the property price is going down.

True indeed. Both Beijing and Shanghai real estate markets are entering a downward trend, experiencing an unusually poor business season.

However, the majority in China keep complaining about housing price, comparing that with their relatively low incomes. So people are anticipating further price cuts.

But wait. The government of Nanjing would not let this scenario happen and it came out with some 20 measures at the end of last month to rescue the real estate market.

It is interesting to read online analyses as most agree that the action is in the interest of real estate companies and the government as well. Netizens criticize the measures as "not serving people's demand" since housing prices are still far above the average resident's financial abilities. They claim the government would not let the tax it collects from real estate slip by and would definitely come first to help the business side.

Indeed it is legitimate to ask: Is the government doing this to rescue the market or to serve its own interest? If the market is correcting the government's previous lousy land policy, should anything be done to undo it?

* * *

It is a good signal that the Guangdong government has introduced a mock news conference for some 40 people who took part in a selection test of its future officials.

Few local government officials are competent at handling media relations. In the eyes of local officials, media practitioners are often seen as trouble-makers who find faults with the government.

As I see it, officials in this country never need to be media-savvy and many take condescending or dismissive attitudes toward media practitioners.

Now that the Guangdong government considers media-handling competence a necessary official quality, we can expect more officials in Guangdong, and hopefully, in other places as well, to help facilitate better access to government information. Will media be blessed then?

(China Daily 10/10/2008 page8)