I remember the incident clearly. I had gone to the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco to obtain a visa in advance of an international symposium in Hong Kong. I must have driven past the building a thousand times over the years, this unimposing three-story structure on a leafy corner, tucked into a neighborhood close in to St. Mary’s Cathedral.

Every day for years, orderly protestors carrying signs could be seen in front behind crowd control barriers. So I wondered what I would find, just in case part of the protest was to jam up the system. But, no. It was easy to park, easy to enter the building and easy to follow the signs and inevitable forms.

What wasn’t easy was what happened when I made it to the front of the line.

I’d grown used to the cacophony of Chinese chatter all around me, when I turned my passport and form over to the taciturn clerk behind the double-glass window. He scrutinized the form, front and back, and then slowly scanned every page in my passport. He went back to the form and stabbed one box with his stubby finger, pinning the paper to the counter. He looked me in the eye, and said flatly: “You are media.” I said, “Yes.” This time he turned it into a question, “You are media?” I said, “Yes, I am media.” Continuing to hold my gaze, he said, “You will make no recordings in China.” It was not a statement; It was an order.

I stammered, “No. I will make no recordings in China.” Holding his stare, he repeated his imperative. “You will make no recordings in China.” I was shaking my head, when he said, “Come back tomorrow.” And with that, he picked up my passport, shut down the window and exited through the door behind him.

He had my passport. And he was on sovereign Chinese soil. For all intents and purposes, my passport was in China, and I was not. If I had a mind to catch the afternoon flight to London, I was out of luck.

I went back the next day, and was handed my passport and visa in silence, as if the startling interchange has never taken place. Before I knew it, I was back out on the street, looking at the quiet protestors, shuffling in a circle. On this sunny, quiet, tree-lined street, it was entirely surreal. China was both six feet away, and six thousand miles away. What could the protestors possibly be thinking?

This experience came back to me in vivid colors with the recent news that Yahoo released the email of a Chinese journalist to government authorities. In China – as in every nation – it is illegal to send “top secret” documents out of the country. In this case, the top secret doc in question was notes the journalist took during an editorial meeting where a Communist Party official reviewed the media restrictions for the 15th anniversary of Tiananmen Square. The recipient was a pro-democracy website run by a Chinese immigrant now in the US, the Internet-equivalent of those daily protestors on Geary Street in San Francisco. And the result? The Chinese journalist has just been sentenced to ten years in prison.

The prevailing posture of the Internet giants – Yahoo, Google, Microsoft – and all the rest is this: “We must obey the local laws.” Yet somehow each of us knows in our heart of hearts, this doesn’t quite wash. But whatever the right answer is, make no mistake – you either play by China’s rules, or you play somewhere else.

I'm Moira Gunn. This is Five Minutes.

Back to Five Minutes List