Now, China's advancing society has reached a new turning point, where public interest and suggestions are more and more independent and diverse. Public awareness and participation is strengthening. Societal conflict is gradually becoming more complex and prominent. Is it better to keep society in the dark in order to preserve stability, or to have them understand more? Of course the latter is better. At the same time, the government's positive response to public feedback is an extremely wise way of going about things.

EO: [The law's] related sections are actually a question of how the government should deal with the media at this turning point.

Cai: Yes. Without media strength, you can't smoothly transform society. The more social conflict and transformation, the more need there is for an authoritative and trustworthy media. Only this can benefit social stability. We can think back to previous times when there were turning points or some large problems—why did rumors fly? Because during these times the public needs information the most, and true news was not made publicly available. If we continue to use the old methods of controlling the media, and everywhere we leave intact the grapevines and gossip, it will engender even more destabilizing elements. We should be able to see media's positive function. Many examples prove that the media has been positive for stabilizing society these past few years. It's like before SARS, there were rumors and the government was taking action, but because of the secrecy, the public panicked. After information was made public it, on the contrary, people were relieved.

Another example is South Korea.. After the financial windstorm broke, because Korea had implemented a democratic system, and the whole of society was very public, public knowledge of the government's difficulty led to solidarity with families donating money and heirlooms to ease the government's financial burdens. Here, the dissemination of news is a positive force, and it results in people having more trust in government.

EO: The law was drafted with SARS as a backdrop, so why is there always this kind of force that takes the nation's interest, and public interest, as an excuse to inhibit the media's involvement in breaking events to the extent that rules like that are included.?

Cai: This goes against what we learned from SARS. One nation, one society, of course will have national and public interests, but some local officials, what they call national and public interest, are all subjective, and not authentic. Society's stability primarily requires the government's compliance with the aspirations of constituents. But some local officials—like those who [appropriate land and] tear down houses—oftentimes use national and public interest to restrict freedom of speech. This is a kind of excuse.

EO: To the point where it actually stems from personal interest.