One evening in June 2013, I received a call from a man who identified himself as an official for the Chinese Communist Party’s Propaganda Department in Beijing. He asked me to publish an internal party directive on Mingjing, a Chinese-language news portal I run out of New York.
Western media had already reported on the key segments of the directive, known as Document No.9. Many analysts saw it as President Xi Jinping’s attempt to adopt a traditional leftist and anti-West agenda.
The caller claimed that Document No.9 was merely a routine directive that analyzed new political trends and that journalists should not read too much into it. By sending me the full text, the official said he intended to provide a proper context. “The political situation in China isn’t all that bad,” he told me.
I wasn’t sure whether the call was part of a deliberate leak with tacit approval from the senior leadership or an individual acting alone. He sent me the document, and though I thought that its significance might have been overblown in the earlier press accounts, I believed it offered a rare glimpse of the inner workings of the Chinese government. I verified its authenticity and published it in Mingjing Magazine in July 2013.
In April 2014, Gao Yu, a journalist friend, disappeared in Beijing. The next month I was shocked to learn that she had been arrested for allegedly leaking Document No.9 to me via Skype. The police claimed to discover on her computer three digital copies of the paper, which they used as evidence against her. Ms. Gao countered that she had downloaded them from the Internet and that they were slightly different from what I posted online.
Earlier this month, Ms. Gao, 71, was sentenced to seven years in jail for leaking “state secrets.” The judge based his conviction chiefly on her “confession,” which she retracted because, she said, it was given after threats against her son by the police.
Did the propaganda official leak the document to me with the intent to frame her, I wondered. Or, did the police simply find a convenient excuse to lock up Ms. Gao, who had been blacklisted because her writing had frequently appeared on overseas websites? I chose to believe the latter.
Document No.9, written in a typical jargon-studded language, warns party leaders against seven political “perils,” including the promotion of constitutional democracy, universal values, civil society and Western-style press freedom.
As a publisher of United States-based magazines about Chinese politics, I frequently receive news tips and government documents — a mélange of truth and rumors — from Chinese officials, scholars and business people. Some expose scandals within the government out of a sense of justice, while others aim to advance a political agenda or to smear political opponents. One thing is certain: The “deep throats” know that China’s senior leaders care about what the overseas news media reports about them.
I have known Ms. Gao since the late 1980s, when we were both journalists for state media organizations. In China, where most journalists are mouthpieces of the party, she has kept her independence and paid a hefty price: She was put in jail in 1989 for her support for the 1989 student protest movement, and again in 1993 because of her connection with a Hong Kong magazine. In recent years, Ms. Gao’s commentaries and analyses published in the West have offered valuable insights into Chinese politics, especially during the internal wrangling surrounding Bo Xilai, the former Politburo member purged in a cloud of scandal in 2012.
Ms. Gao frequently gives voice in her articles to the liberal and moderate factions within the party that have become disillusioned with President Xi Jinping, the man whom they called China’s Vladimir Putin. Document No.9 was reportedly directed at this group. But Ms. Gao has never allied herself with any political factions.
In 2012, when Mr. Xi’s relatives sought her help in clarifying Western media reports about his family’s finances, she agreed and presented their views through Mingjing. At the same time, she was not afraid of speaking out against Mr. Xi. In a private talk, she described China under Mr. Xi as a combination of a modern-day Nazi and Stalinist state.
Before Ms. Gao’s trial in November 2014, I drafted an affidavit detailing how I had received Document No.9 from a party propaganda official. The Chinese Consulate in New York refused my notarized statement. I then FedExed it to Ms. Gao’s defense attorney, but the Beijing Third Intermediate People’s Court excluded my testimony in its deliberation.
If the leadership punished Ms. Gao to intimidate future leakers, their efforts are in vain. As long as the Chinese public craves Chinese news from overseas, and trusts Western media over state-controlled propaganda, China’s elite will continue to feed Western journalists “exclusives.” Our stories will influence Chinese politics more than ever as factions compete to smear their opponents, intensify power struggles and hasten changes within the party.
Ms. Gao’s real crime had nothing to do with leaking Document No.9. She offended the authorities by speaking out against government policies. Even though Mr. Xi has recently announced plans to make the legal system more transparent, Ms. Gao’s conviction shows that nothing has changed under a dictator who cannot abide dissenting views.
The case also reflects China’s increasing arrogance toward the West, which is increasingly tolerant of Beijing’s growing human rights violations and nationalistic behavior. Corporations are caving in to Chinese demands, placing short-term business gains ahead of principles, thus confirming to China the diminishing influence of the West. Consequently, the Chinese government feels free to imprison and bully Chinese and foreign journalists. Standing up to China will not only guard basic human values, but protect Western economic interests. No business is safe in a totalitarian country.
Gao Yu has sacrificed her personal freedom three times for the cause of free speech because it is the cornerstone of all freedoms.
Ho Pin, the founder of Mirror Media Group, and Wenguang Huang, who translated this essay from the Chinese, are co-authors of A Death in the Lucky Holiday Hotel: Murder, Money, and an Epic Power Struggle in China.