The founding publisher of the mainland's most outspoken political magazine yesterday accused authorities of trying to use a cultural-sector reform initiative to weaken the editorial independence of his publication.
At a new year celebration with more than 150 of Yanhuang Chunqiu magazine's writers and supporters in Beijing, 88-year-old Du Daozheng delivered an emotional speech spelling out his worries over the fate of the publication he founded 21 years ago.
Among the supporters were Hu Dehua, son of late reformist leader Hu Yaobang, and children of other late party elders Ye Jianying and Tao Zhu, as well as respected writers such as Zhang Yihe.
'Some want to use the opportunity of the cultural-sector reform to change Yanhuang Chunqiu's editorial line of the past 21 years,' said Du, who has been repeatedly told to step down by the Culture Ministry and the General Administration of Press and Publication, the central government's regulator and censor for print media.
Du accused authorities of using the new government mandate, aimed at turning state publications into for-profit enterprises, as a pretext to strip his magazine of its relative independence.
The mandate, which came under a broader initiative to 'deepen the cultural-sector reform' announced at the sixth plenum of the Communist Party Central Committee in October, was intended to stop newspapers and magazines from receiving government subsidies, restructure them into for-profit enterprises, but continue to keep them under the party's editorial control.
But Du insisted that his magazine, unlike many ordinary state publications, receives no government money and is already financially independent, so there is no need to restructure the company.
