The perils of being a journalist in China: Guangzhou

On my third trip to China, in 2003, I was teaching university and writing for an English language magazine in Guangzhou. I was also arrested for inciting freedom of speech and dissent.

Guangzhou is one of the most populated cities in the world, situated about 120 km northwest of Hong Kong, in the southeast of China. It is the heart of the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area, which has about 70 million residents.

After having left Jiangdu, I managed to secure a job with Australia’s Monash University, teaching the Academic Preparation Program to students hoping to study at university in Australia and other English speaking countries. The school was called the Guangzhou Training School for Studying Abroad.

As with Huai’an and Jiangdu, this also had the problem of teaching things like freedom of speech and equal rights, which are both banned in China.

Having learnt in the previous two cities that the authorities turn a blind eye to this, I didn’t feel too threatened by it. Indeed, that wasn’t the reason I ended up getting arrested.

My work there brought me into contact with the Australian Consulate in Guangzhou, and I was invited along for their regular drinking sessions on Friday nights.

The Australian Consulate was the only consulate in Guangzhou that had it’s own bar, and this attracted foreign diplomats from the other consulates in the city, as well as local business leaders. It was located in the GITIC Building (pictured left).

Of course, being part of the Australian Consulate, the bar also had consular immunity, meaning it was classified as Australian sovereign territory. This had the unexpected consequence one Friday night where a group of North Korean refugees, posing as South Korean businessmen, gained access to the bar and immediately asked the Australian Consul-General for political asylum.

Of course, the Australian Consul-General couldn’t refuse, so started negotiating with them. However, as can be expected, there were also Chinese government operatives coming to the bar every Friday night, presumably hoping to gain some information from the large assembly of foreign diplomats in one place at the same time.

It didn’t take long for word to get out that the North Koreans were there, and the place was soon surrounded by Chinese immigration police. This led to a tense standoff that lasted several days, and none of us were allowed to leave.

This meant we were trapped in the bar for almost two days, with nothing to do but eat and drink. Everybody found it to be a bit of an adventure, and spirits were generally fairly high. The combination of alcohol and lack of sleep led to some bizarre ideas being put forward, such as organising a helicopter and flying the North Koreans to Hong Kong from the roof of the consulate building.

Eventually, the Australian, American, British and German diplomats were able to negotiate safe passage for the North Koreans to Hong Kong, where I believe they were granted political asylum in the USA.

It was in the bar during these drinking sessions that I met up with a number of people who would play an important part during my stay in Guangzhou. The first was Frank Tan, who was the editor of That’s Guangzhou magazine.

This was an English language magazine, part of an English language group of magazines that had gained prominence in China after being founded by Englishman Mark Kitto (his story can be found here). Frank invited me to write for the magazine, which I happily did.

The second was Chucky, an American Secret Service agent who was head of security at the American Consulate in Guangzhou. He and I became reasonably good friends, and he helped me out later in the story when I was arrested.

The third was Bonnie, A Chinese journalist, who took an interest in my writing for That’s Guangzhou. It was Bonnie who introduced me to the English Corners that were conducted in various parks throughout Guangzhou on Saturday and Sunday afternoons.

It was also Bonnie who announced excitedly one night that she had obtained two tickets for us to attend the public executions at the local sports stadium, and perhaps I would like to report on them for the Australian media.

I politely declined the offer, and was somewhat horrified that this was actually a public event conducted at a sports stadium.

Still, the English Corners were quite fun. The idea is that groups of English speaking foreigners met with larger groups of Chinese citizens, and speak with them in conversation so they can improve their English. There were literally thousands of Chinese people turned up for these events.

I started making public speeches during these gatherings, and that was my downfall. People were interested in my work as a journalist, and my experiences as a social justice campaigner in both Australia and China.

Emboldened by the attention I was getting, I started speaking about freedom and human rights, and also writing about these for the magazine. In hindsight, it was foolish, and I should have been a little more guarded in what I said and wrote.

As I should have expected, it came to the attention of police. It was one thing to talk to a group of twenty students in a classroom, but quite another thing to address thousands of people on the same issue.

After one of the gatherings, I was hustled into a police car, and whisked away to meet with the Public Safety police. My passport was taken, and I was told I would have to pay a A$1300 fine, or go to prison. It was then that I realised I was in a spot of bother, as I had no money, and without a passport, I couldn’t get money from the bank.

After being released, without my passport, I went to the Australian Consulate. They refused to help. The money to be paid was a bribe to a Chinese cop, and not a fine, which meant it was illegal for an Australian official to pay it. In desperation, I went to the American Consulate, and asked Chucky for help.

He negotiated with the Australians and the Chinese, and the Australian Consulate eventually agreed to lend me the money to pay the “fine” myself, as long as the Australians didn’t know about it. The “fine” apparently had to be paid in cash to the head policeman, and not the court. They also agreed to lend me the money to leave China, a condition the Chinese police made clear wasn’t open to negotiation.

The Chinese gave me seven days to get out of China, but it only took me two days. Back in Australia, I repaid the Australian government the money they had lent me.

In hindsight it was quite the adventure, but something I didn’t particularly want to go through again. It would be another five years before I would return to China, but that’s a story for another day.

Craig Hill is a Brisbane-based Social Justice Campaigner, Writer, Teacher and Business Consultant. He has campaigned for social justice in Australia, promoted human rights in China and worked with the homeless in Honolulu. He holds a Graduate Certificate in Education and a degree in Management.