An elderly woman stands near the Citic Securities in Beijing
A leading journalist at one of China’s top financial publications has admitted to causing “panic and disorder” in the stock market, in a public confession carried on CCTV, the state television.
The detention of Wang Xiaolu, a reporter for Caijing magazine, comes amid a broad crackdown on the role of the media in the slump in China’s stock market, which is down about 40 per cent from its June 12 peak. Nearly 200 people have been punished for online rumour-mongering, state news agency Xinhua reported at the weekend.
“I acquired the news from private conversations, which is an abnormal way, and added my personal judgment and subjective views to finish this story,” said Mr Wang in a confession aired on China Central Television. “I shouldn’t have released a report with a major negative impact on the market at such a sensitive time. I shouldn’t do that just to catch attention which has caused the country and its investors such a big loss. I regret . . . [it and am] willing to confess my crime.”
Mr Wang’s confession came after he was detained for allegedly fabricating and spreading false information about the stock market, according to Xinhua.
State TV channels in China frequently broadcast public confessions in high-profile cases. CCTV yesterday also aired a confession by Liu Shufan, an official of market watchdog the China Securities Regulatory Commission, and reported that four senior executives of investment bank Citic Securities had confessed to insider trading.
“Xu Gang, Liu Wei, Fang Qingli and Chen Rongjie, senior executives of the Citic Securities, China’s leading securities dealer, have been put under ‘criminal compulsory measures’ for suspected insider trading. They have also confessed to their violations,” the state-run news agency wrote in a dispatch published yesterday.
Reporting on the case, the Financial Times said yesterday that the journalist’s arrest last Tuesday was condemned by the Committee to Protect Journalists, a US-based campaign group. “Chinese authorities’ hypersensitivity to fluctuations in the financial markets is no reason to intimidate and jail a journalist for covering the news,” it said.
David Bandurski of the China Media Project at the University of Hong Kong said he was deeply concerned by the detention.
“This isn’t about the factual nature of his reporting, it’s about the political impact. This looks like a vendetta,” Mr Bandurski said, quoted by FT, noting that it was much more worrying than previous cases of journalist detentions that have involved allegations of revealing state secrets or media corruption. MDT/Agencies
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