China clamps down on media protests Crackdwon: Southern Weekly supporter newspaper is urged to leave by policemen China's Communist party has intensified its crackdown following a week-long stand-off over press freedom, as it reinforced its censorship of Southern Weekend, the newspaper at the heart of the dispute, and broke up a protest outside its offices. On Thursday morning, uniformed and plainclothes police surrounded the paper's headquarters, where a small crowd had been demonstrating since Monday. When men and women tried to stage a protest, plainclothes agents dragged them away. The protests have put China's new leadership to the test, and the clampdown aims to prevent the dispute snowballing into a broader movement. Xi Jinping, who became the new party chief in November and is expected to become president in March, has been sending cautious signals that his administration could revive reforms largely stalled under his predecessor Hu Jintao. Mr Xi's first trip in office took him to Shenzhen, the city across the border from Hong Kong where China piloted many of its economic reforms over the past three decades. He has also raised hopes for a cleaner and less bureaucratic leadership by pledging to clamp down on corruption and official waste. But introducing freedom of speech has not been part of the new administration's reform agenda. The censorship row broke out last week when party propaganda officials rewrote an editorial that had originally called for political reform, transforming it instead into a piece that parroted party propaganda. When Southern Weekend editors protested this move as a stricter than usual censorship measure, they received a wave of public support on the country's vibrant social media and through a street protest outside their offices. Police had tolerated for three straight days the demonstrators" calls for press freedom and even broader democratic reforms. Most participants had been intellectuals and students. But since Wednesday, the site started attracting other protesters, confronting the authorities with the risk of a continuous street movement. The party also further reasserted its authority over the media by axing an editorial about the role of the media in society that editors tried to run in Southern Weekend's Thursday edition. Under a deal reached on Tuesday, editorial staff had ended their strike in protest of the censorship of the paper in exchange for party officials" assurance that some recently stepped-up censorship measures would be taken back. But when journalists tested the situation, they were barred from publishing their editorial. The draft article, seen by the FT, argued that the paper - a commercial subsidiary of the party publication Nanfang Daily which has traditionally enjoyed some independence - played a special role. "Southern Weekend itself is a product of reform, and it must take the responsibility of a pathfinder for reform," it said. But instead of carrying the editorial, the edition published on Thursday reprinted part of an opinion piece from People's Daily, the party's mouthpiece, on how the Communist party's way of controlling the media must change with the times. While the paper was available as normal in other big cities in China, distribution was limited in Guangzhou on Thursday.