ABSTRACT
Rupert Murdoch’s Star TV satellite television network incurred the extreme displeasure of the Chinese government by carrying BBC World Service Television, which, among other “crimes,” broadcast a program about the late Zhisui Li’s best-selling biography of Chairman Mao Tse-tung. Perhaps surprisingly, a more relaxed attitude has been shown by Vietnam’s communist government, which has allowed foreign companies to enter into joint ventures with state media, albeit under tight control. Last August representatives from the Hong Kong Newspaper Society, a publishers association, traveled to Beijing to seek assurances of continued press freedom. Meanwhile the South China Morning Post fell under the wing of an unlikely new media mogul, Malaysian businessman Robert Kuok, better known for his property, sugar and hotel interests. As matters stand, neither the Western-based media multinational nor Asian-based media companies are making any real money out of regional services in Asia.
