- Introduction
- I. Risks and Rights
- II. Outside the Arena
- III. Security, Surveillance, and Safety
- IV. Protecting Your Chinese Contacts
- V. The Great Firewall
- VI. Practical Information
- Map of China with 2008 Olympic Sites
- Download PDF / English
- Download PDF / French
- Download PDF / German
- Download PDF / Japanese
- Download PDF / Spanish
Safety Tips
Some simple precautions you can take before you leave home and throughout your stay in China can better secure your safety.
Before your trip and upon arriving in China
Before you travel to China, ask your home country’s foreign ministry or state department for information on how to register with your embassy in Beijing and for embassy addresses, email contacts, and fax and telephone numbers. If you go missing, this should make it easier to find you. When you register with your embassy in Beijing, provide your name, date, and place of birth; your passport number and when and where it was issued; where you are staying in Beijing and, if possible, a telephone number; your travel itinerary; and a contact name and telephone number in your home country. During your stay in China, keep the information about your embassy with you at all times. Nationals from countries without representation in Beijing should check with their home governments about whom to contact in an emergency (medical or other).
Documents to carry while in China
Carry the original or photocopies of your passport with you at all times; leave another copy with your bureau in Beijing, if you have one, or in your hotel room. Report a lost passport immediately. Two reports are required: one to your country's embassy or consulate and one to the local police. In China, a police report is necessary for the issuance of a new visa.
We also recommend that you carry a Chinese copy of the “Regulations on Reporting Activities in China by Foreign Journalists During the Beijing Olympic Games and their Preparatory Period,” reproduced at the end of this Guide in English and Chinese. If necessary, you can show an official that you are reporting legally within the Olympic regulations. Reporters who have faced interference from local authorities when attempting to cover sensitive issues have successfully enlisted help from China’s Foreign Ministry media office, which in some instances has instructed local officials not to obstruct reporting.
Travelling within China
Purchase plane tickets at the airport and as close to your departure time as possible to avoid alerting authorities where you are headed. Choose local transportation that makes you inconspicuous—for example, a taxi instead of a hired car.
Have a security protocol which will enable you regularly to call an editor or a friend to identify where you are going along with your expected arrival and departure dates. Hotels are required to report foreign guests to the police, so check in as late as possible and check out before morning business hours.
Assume your mobile phone and computer are monitored. Change your phone chip periodically. Use public phones when possible. Turn off your mobile phone in instances when you do not want the authorities to be able to locate you. If you must leave your laptop in your hotel room, make sure it does not contain files that could endanger your sources. Keep any sensitive digital files on a portable USB drive that you keep with you.
Limited-access areas and sensitive regions
China limits access to public areas that journalists might ordinarily expect to be open. In addition to the restive Tibet and Xinjiang regions, other limited access areas include Olympic training sites, military areas, border regions, prisons, and courts dealing with human rights issues. The government occasionally arranges visits to these types of locations for groups of journalists, so it is worth making joint requests with other organizations. Apply early and follow up.
Assess the risks in advance
Before visiting political dissidents, consider the risks to yourself and to them. You may be searched and deported; dissidents and their families may face intense interrogation, increased surveillance, and even arrest. If you are asked to carry photographs, letters, or documents out of the country and decide to comply, the risks to all involved parties multiply.
Radio and television reporters, photographers
Be aware that your camera or recording equipment may draw greater attention to your reporting and to those whom you interview. Radio and television reporters should try to use discreet cameras or recording equipment. Change your storage device often and hide any such device. Try to avoid naming or showing the faces of vulnerable sources. Protect contact information by encrypting it on your computer (a procedure which the Chinese government unsuccessfully sought to ban in the 1990s), using pseudonyms, and/or sending it out of the country.
If you are detained....
Detention, or at a minimum, the threat of detention, are real risks faced by reporters in China. The Foreign Correspondents Club of China recorded more than 180 incidents of illegal reporting interference—harassment, intimidation, and detention—in 2007. In the last two weeks of March 2008, the FCCC recorded more than 50 incidents of reporters being harassed, detained, and intimidated while attempting to access the Tibetan Autonomous Region and Tibetan communities in neighboring provinces of Gansu, Sichuan, Qinghai, and Yunnan.
If in spite of the above safety tips you are detained, and especially if any issue of alleged criminal offense arises, call your embassy and National Olympic Committee. Insist on access to a consular official. Embassies and consulates are not automatically notified when one of their citizens is being held. Although consular officials may visit and give you advice, bring you mail, facilitate messages between you and your family, and assist in transmitting money, food, and clothing, they cannot get you released. Before leaving home, find out your rights under your own country's consular agreement. The US Embassy human rights officer is willing to raise the case of any foreign journalist who is detained.
Be polite and avoid escalating the situation. Remain calm and avoid physical confrontation. Try to get the name and contact information of the officers who detain you. If you are allowed multiple phone calls, call the Chinese Foreign Ministry to complain (see Vital Numbers at the end of this Guide). Much that happens to you subsequently depends on your alleged offense. Chinese officials are not trying to create incidents that will result in international repercussions, but, under certain circumstances, they are likely to engage in extensive questioning, seek a written confession, and then order your expulsion.
One major category of offense is the transmission of sensitive information, particularly in relation to political dissidents, religious restrictions, prison conditions, economic instability, and Tibet. If the Chinese government suspects you of carrying records or official documents, even if already public, the questioning would be more intense. You would be asked about your contacts in China, and they would, at a minimum, come under increased surveillance. You, your room, and your belongings would be searched for “incriminating” evidence. Remember that the persons facing the greatest risks are your Chinese sources and contacts. The following section outlines how to best protect them.
