Orville Schell, a longtime China observer at the Asia Society in New York, said Mr. Xi’s statements on the foreign news media, the first time he had publicly addressed the issue, were a “dash of cold water.”
“We had thought that China might be slowly evolving away from this retrograde notion of the media,” Mr. Schell added. But he noted that in a speech last month, Mr. Xi had echoed Mao’s view that the news media should function as a “necessary handmaiden of the party.”
via Fruitful Visit by Obama Ends With a Lecture From Xi – NYTimes.com.