Chinese reporter at G20 steals show and slammed

Rui Chenggang

/ Courtesy of China Daily

By Sunny Lee

BEIJING ― Rui Chenggang, a reporter with China’s state-controlled CCTV, went to Seoul to cover the G20 summit and became a news story himself due to his controversial remarks.

“I think I get to represent all of Asia,” Rui told President Barak Obama during a press conference last week, in an exchange with the American head of state, who said he would answer a final question from the press of Korea, the host.

Rui raised his hand and Obama thought he was Korean. “Unfortunately, I hate to disappoint you, President Obama, I'm actually Chinese,” Rui said.

Obama clarified: “In fairness, though, I did say that I was going to let the Korean press ask the last question.”

Rui was unwavering: “Will my Korean friends allow me to ask a question on your behalf? Yes or no?”

After a round of exchanges, Obama relented.

The episode soon became an attention-grabber on the Chinese Internet, outstripping the popularity of the currently unfolding Asian Games in the southern city of Guangzhou.

Michael Anti, a Chinese journalist and a former Nieman fellow at Harvard University, felt so embarrassed by the episode that he posted an apology on Facebook on behalf of Rui. “Sorry, Obama and Korean journalists,” he wrote.

“It was an impolite move. I thought Obama and the Korean journalists deserved an apology,” he later said in an interview.

“Watching it, I felt very awkward. It almost seemed like he was trying to push confrontation,” said Mark MacKinnon, a Beijing-based correspondent for Canadian newspaper, the Globe and Mail, in an interview. “It put Obama in a very uncomfortable spot for having to accept the premise that China could speak on behalf of, or Chinese reporters could speak on behalf of the Asian press corps.”

Rui became a celebrity figure in China in 2007 when his blog ignited a grass-roots patriotic movement that helped push Starbucks, an American coffee brand, out of Beijing’s historic Forbidden City. Now, Chinese tea is served there.

Naturally, in some pockets of China, Rui is very popular as a symbol of patriotism and as a hero who stands against the West, which they think is trying to undermine China’s rise.

Some Chinese saw a symbolic jostling of power between China and the U.S. in Seoul. A blogger named Wangzifeicun said: “America often says it represents freedom and democracy of the world. Why can’t a Chinese journalist represent Asia then?”

“Rui Chenggang is China’s pride. Can’t you realize that?” A reader on the website Caixin said.

Some supporters of Rui pointed out that journalism by nature is a competitive profession and argued that he simply did his job, adding that what he did was very much acceptable in Western practice.

MacKinnon, the Canadian journalist, doesn’t think so. “There is a difference. If you’re in a scrum, then it’s sort of free for all journalists. You sometimes shout over each other. But there is a different protocol. In a formalized press conference, especially in an international press conference where Obama was giving a question to the host country, to jump up and insist to ask a question and also claim to represent the entire continent, was inappropriate.

“The G20 was hosted by Canada earlier this year. And if a president gave the question to a Canadian reporter, then an American stood up and say, ‘you know I speak on behalf of the North American continent,’ that would be very offensive,” MacKinnon said.

After the eruption of the controversy, Rui responded on his blog, saying he was no more aggressive than American journalists. “Actually, asking a question of an American president is not a big deal. Obama almost every day faces various challenging and even a (verbal) assault from journalists. This is part of his job.”

Yet a Chinese blogger challenged whether Rui would behave the same way in front of a Chinese president. “Certainly, he wouldn’t dare to,” he said.

It’s Rui’s over-confidence, not the substance of his question, that unnerved people who saw Rui as cocky and overbearing. Some critics say Rui is a vignette of today’s China, with two conflicting identities. On the one hand, it is increasingly confident and powerful, but on the other this is seen by some as increasingly being arrogant and domineering.

“China has a really bad image problem,” Rui told the American media last year. Some observers say he has contributed to it. “Rui’s behavior might undermine the image of Chinese journalists, or even that of China abroad,” said Wang Zhaokun, a journalist with the Global Times.

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