In her office one afternoon, I asked Hu why she thought other publications had been punished while Caijing had not. “We never say a word in a very emotional or casual way, like ‘You lied,’” she said. “We try to analyze the system and say why a good idea or a good wish cannot become reality.” When I posed the same question to Cheng Yizhong, a former editor in chief of the Southern Metropolis Daily, one of China’s liveliest papers, who spent five months in jail for angering authorities, he saw it differently. He drew a distinction between his campaign for limiting police powers and Hu’s focus on
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