Detained journalist admits publishing false accusations for bribes

Journalist Chen Yongzhou has made a public confession in a CCTV programme aired last week, admitting to accepting bribes and publishing articles containing false accusations against Zoomlion, China’s second-largest maker of construction equipment.

Over the last 18 months, Chen has written a series of articles on Zoomlion suggesting the company has falsified sales figures.

Chen was detained in Guangzhou last week on suspicion of ‘fabricating facts in his reportage’ and ‘damaging the company’s commercial reputation’.

Chen told the CCTV that almost all the stories were pre-written and fed to him by a third party. He was paid thousands of yuan for each article he published. He was also paid a total of 530,000 yuan to fly to Hong Kong and Beijing in June to meet with regulatory authorities and report Zoomlion’s alleged fraudulent practices.

Chen’s confession surprised his fellow journalists, who in the past weeks had rallied for his release. On 23 October, 2013, the front-page of New Express, the newspaper Chen writes for, carried the first of two editorials questioning the decision by the Hunan police to prosecute Chen for his reports regarding Zoomlion. Other newspapers had since then joined the New Express in a campaign for Chen’s release.

The officially sanctioned All-China Journalists’ Association and the State General Administration of Press, Publication, Radio Film and Television had intervened and expressed concern about Chen’s detention. It also urged Hunan authorities to justify Chen’s arrest.

Zoomlion, listed in both Hong Kong and Shenzhen, saw its stock price tumble after Chen’s arrest. In Hong Kong, Zoomlion’s share price went down more than 9% in two days, losing about HKD 930 million in market value. In Shenzhen, the loss amounted to around HKD 2.5 billion.

Chen stated in the programme that he is ‘willing to confess and repent [his] crimes’ and would like to ‘apologise to Zoomlion, its shareholders [and] the media groups whose credibility suffered’.