Hong Kong TVB Trivial

In 1998, a TVB reporter was chided by Su Xu, a Chinese embassy official in France, for having "embarrassed" then Premier Zhu Rongji (朱镕基) by asking the latter to comment on the protest action by Journalists Without Frontier.

The group had apparently hurled handbills at Zhu, demanding the release of Chinese journalist Gao Yu.

The embassy functionary threatened to sever all "cooperative relations" with the station if the reporter failed to fall in line.

This episode was mentioned in an article by Carol Lai and Andy Ho titled How Free is the Press (in Chris Yeung, ed, Hong Kong China The Red Dawn, Prentice Hall, 1998) as an example of China's "carrot-and-stick tactics to bring Hong Kong's media into line" after the handover.

Naturally, the incident incited strong reactions in Hong Kong at that time, and was seen as a violation of the territory's free-wheeling press freedom.