China Development Brief is an online information service about development issues and NGOs in China. It was founded by Nick Young 12 years ago in Yunnan as a print newsletter. He moved to Beijing in 1999 and started a Chinese language version. In 2004, both versions went online.
Subscribers to the newsletters include NGOs, multinational corporations, United Nations and government entities, and journalists. Despite a level of official scrutiny, Young’s organization has operating without interference, and he was in the final stages of arranging a handover to his local colleagues and staff, before a planned move back to the UK at the end of the summer.
But on July 4, the nasties came walking though the door. In a written statement, Young explained what happened:
On July 4 our Beijing office was visited by a joint delegation of a dozen officials from the Beijing Municipality Public Security Bureau, the Beijing Municipality Statistical Bureau, and the Beijing Municipality Cultural Marketing General Legal Implementation Team.
After investigations and interviews lasting around three hours, they ordered the Chinese edition of China Development Brief to cease publication forthwith. The authorities appear to be deciding what punishment to apply.
I, as editor of the English language edition of China Development Brief, am deemed guilty of conducting “unauthorized surveys” in contravention of the 1983 Statistics Law, and have been ordered to desist. I have since been interviewed by the police section responsible for supervising foreigners in China.
Why did the nasties move on China Development Brief now? The shut down was probably caused by a number of factors, that may include a recent China Development Brief party attended by more than 300 people mostly in the NGO community, and Young’s plans to hand over the entire operation to Chinese citizens after his departure.
In the wake of recent demonstrations in Xiamen against a chemical factory, the nationwide outpouring of anger about the Shanxi brick kiln slaves, and growing citizen concern about pollution, it seems that organizations that enable grass roots networking around social issues will be monitored closely, harassed and shut down.
In a phone interview this morning, Young commented that he had initially wanted to stay hush hush and try to sort the problem out. But someone yesterday posted information about the police raid to an email listserv that is read by many foreign correspondents in China. Within 24 hours, the following articles had appeared on the Internet:
Time blog: Beijing stops the presses
Wall Street Journal: Nick Young’s statement, China Closes Newsletter
Middle East Times: China shuts down Web site popular with Western NGOs
Tim Johnson: More pressure on the media
Guardian: China bans influential NGO newsletter
New York Times: China shuts down Western run newsletter
UPDATE: The Wall Street Journal has published a translation of a a statement faxed to their offices from the Beijing Statistics Department that confirms the charges against Young, and ends ‘the officials immediately requested Nick Young to cease his illegal research activities.’