Murdoch calls for free media in China

[FT_news]

Rupert Murdoch called for China to allow a more open media sector, saying Beijing needed to compete in a global "marketplace of ideas" just as it had opened up its industrial economy 30 years ago.

The tycoon’s call came as he joined scores of international media executives in paying homage to the country’s Communist leaders at a conference organised by Xinhua, China’s official news agency and one of its main propaganda tools.

“In this new world, China will also have to compete in the marketplace of ideas – the media. That’s a noisy, messy, colourful market,” the News Corporation chairman and chief executive said in an address to the conference.

His visit, crowned by an embrace with Hu Jintao, China’s president, is his first in years and follows a decade of stormy relations with the Beijing government.

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