MANY PEOPLE talk about self-censorship in Hong Kong. It is rare, however, to come across an actual, documented instance.
Now Professor Jerome Alan Cohen, a leading scholar of Chinese law at New York University, has furnished an example. Professor Cohen, who testified to the Congressional Executive Commission on China in Washington in July on the plight of Chinese criminal defence lawyers, was invited by the journal China Law & Practice (CLP) to turn his testimony into an article.
Professor Cohen e-mailed his article on August 12 to Arjun Subrahmanyan, the editor of China Law & Practice. The next day, the editor asked Professor Cohen: 'Are you OK with me editing it and publishing it in China Law & Practice? I'll show you the edits before we publish it.'
On August 20, he e-mailed Professor Cohen: 'Attached please find my initial edit of your statement. I would like to use it in the September issue of CLP. I have also tried to tone down some potentially 'sensitive' language/issues, but I tried to do this only sparingly. Please let me know if it's OK.' In response, the professor thanked Mr Subrahmanyan for his 'skilful editorial job' and said he accepted 'most but not all of your proposed changes'.
After an exchange of faxes over various editing changes, the edited version was agreed upon by author and editor and set in type. Publication was the next step. However, on August 27, Subrahmanyan sent Professor Cohen the following e-mail: 'I'm sorry to say that CLP will not be publishing your article about problems in criminal justice in China in September. I'm very sorry about this. I discussed it with our managing editor and we sent it to our lawyers in the UK. The gist of their feedback, and something I had thought of myself earlier, was that we might have problems if the PRC government takes offence at some conclusions about the methods and function, or lack thereof, of the legal system [if they happen to read it, that is], even though, or precisely because, the description of the cases you present is the reality of what is happening.
'I think it is the most interesting piece that I've seen or planned to use in CLP since I came here last summer. In addition, it is the most useful analysis from a social standpoint of how PRC law 'works' that I've seen here. Unfortunately, we have engage [sic] in a trade-off between political realities, which are unpalatable to me, and the viability of our commercial enterprise. It's an old story, as you well know.'
