Love Affair with China Ends Badly

2000/08/04

San Francisco Chronicle

After spending 15 years in China -- most of his adult life -- American journalist Scott Savitt left abruptly. He was stopped on a traffic violation in Beijing, pummeled by a crowd, questioned for three days, thrown into prison, then deported. He arrived in San Francisco last week, shaken.

Savitt, 36, first went to China as an exchange student, became a foreign correspondent and published the bilingual weekly Beijing Scene starting in 1995. It was shut down for the third and probably final time in mid-April; 30 employees were laid off.

On June 28, Savitt illegally changed lanes within 100 meters of an intersection in Beijing, where traffic rules are routinely ignored. The police signaled to pull over.

He drove through the intersection -- for safety's sake, he says. A policeman jumped on the car. Savitt rolled to a stop. Seeing the situation -- Chinese person on hood, foreign guy in car -- the locals dragged him out and worked him over. Savitt was driving with a (recently) expired driver's license and his beloved but unlicensed Tibetan spaniel, Naonao. He was taken to the station, questioned for three days but allowed to go home to sleep. Naonao was killed. (That's the law on unlicensed dogs. The fee for a license is $650.)

The officers' interest quickly shifted from traffic to Savitt's newspaper which, he says, had up to $2 million in annual advertising revenue. Where is the money? Reinvested, he said, but ``they don't understand anything that isn't done for short-term gain.''

Like other foreign-run media companies, Savitt's operated in a gray area. He says he paid $10,000 a month for a ``partnership'' with the People's Daily but that did not fully immunize him against other party or government agencies. Beijing Scene published a Page One feature, news snippets, an advice column, restaurant and video reviews and a calendar of events. It was a version of the Bay Guardian or S.F. Weekly, only much tamer. But what seems innocuous here is daring there -- for example, an article about foreigners adopting an abandoned Chinese child. Worst of all, this was a foreign independent enterprise.

Another problem, perhaps decisive, was Savitt's glib article in the February issue of the Duke alumni magazine: ``Welcome to the world of easy money, convenient alliances and shady deals that is today's `Communist' China.'' He wrote about protection money and bureaucrats who stole equipment. He took credit for a proliferation of art exhibits, screenings, plays, dance and music. He told of covering Tiananmen Square for United Press International: ``My clothes and hands are soaked with blood from carrying assault-rifle victims to hospitals.'' He concluded: ``Marx said capitalism would produce the rope to hang itself. Perhaps `socialism with Chinese characteristics' will do the same to the Communist Party.'' The article was readily available as a link on Beijing Scene's Web site. A translation was in his police dossier.

Savitt says he spent 25 days alone in a 10-by-10-foot cell with a bucket and a broken box spring. The cell may not have been cleaned in a hundred years. He was let out once a day to wash. No change of clothes. The temperature was above 100. He says he was beaten several times, heard prisoners beg for mercy and saw a bucket of feces poured on a man's head.

This was a time to be obsequious -- ``I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.'' The guards came by to chat and ask about America. They were OK, but the outside interrogators were brutes. He said to himself: ``Let me get out of here without permanent damage.'' Maybe he did. Get in shape if you plan to have this experience. (He's a mountain climber.)

The American Embassy was of little help and expressed little interest. The interrogators did not like Americans: ``You bombed our embassy and are trying to divide our nation. You lecture us on human rights.'' The authorities said they could keep him for a year. Instead, they took $5,000 from his bank account -- his ``fine'' -- and put him on a plane. His China career was over.

Savitt warns: Don't think normal logic applies in China, and don't think being an American is protection. At one point, Savitt told his captors that he published his weekly out of ``a sense of obligation. I'm a friend of China.'' They weren't buying.