Bill Powell is Fortune magazine’s China bureau chief and Asia editor. He has been based in Shanghai for the past six years, and reported in Beijing from 2000 to 2001. IPI spoke to him at the 2011 IPI World Congress in Taipei, Taiwan.

IPI: What do you see as the main trend or next big story for China?

BP: We’re going to go into a decade in which, inevitably, the massive infrastructure build-up that we have seen is going to taper off a bit. You’re not going to see the incredible Chinese demand for commodities and steel and cement and all the stuff that is critical to the infrastructure build-up.

From the domestic China standpoint, what they’re trying to manage is a transition from investment-led growth, which has been what this decade has been all about, to one in which consumption plays a much more important role. Partly that will come because consumption growth is very strong, though it has not been as strong as investment growth as a percentage of GDP. But as investment tapers off a bit, there’s no reason to believe consumption will also taper off. I still think even if China slows down macro-economically — for instance from 9 percent to 7 percent growth – it still will be a very target-rich environment for exporters, particularly of consumer goods. I think the business transition from investment-led growth to one driven by consumption will be a critical theme in the decade going forward.

IPI: How is being a journalist in China different today from when you first began reporting in China (in 2000)?

BP: The impulse is to say things have gotten better, that it’s gotten easier, but it’s actually not true. The government under Hu Jintao has been more suspicious of foreign journalists in general, and I have found it to be tougher to get interviews even with state-owned companies on business subjects.

It’s tougher now to get interviews with them than, for example, in 2000, 2001, as China was planning to accede to the WTO. They were pretty open in those days. They wanted to let international audiences, especially business audiences, know that the state-owned sector was making these adjustments.

Now they’re a little more wary, especially now that we’re in this transition period. It’s not good now. It’s obvious your email is hacked; both my Time magazine account and my personal Gmail accounts have been hacked. If you need to have a private conversation with a source, you don’t do it on the
phone.

IPI: Do you feel the press restrictions in China affect the ability of reporters to get the impartial, true story?

BP: It depends on what the subject matter is. To cover politics on a national level in China is an extremely difficult proposition. You can write broad thematic stories, but who actually knows what goes on in Zhongnanhai (the central headquarters of the Communist Party of China, located in Beijing)? God help you if you have to report on those things, because who the hell actually knows?

I find private entrepreneurs and private business people to be more accessible than they were earlier this decade. But for whatever reason, it’s gotten a little tougher to talk to people in the state-owned sector.

IPI: Foreign journalists often rely on Chinese fixers, translators and journalists for help on stories. What are some of the risks that Chinese assistants and journalists face, and how do you deal with that as a foreign
journalist?

BP: They absolutely face the possibility of reprisal. In a lot of cases, I’ve used Chinese journalists or relied on them, basically interviewed them. They often know much more about a subject than they write. If they need to be protected, then you try to make sure you have a meeting where they’re not going to be followed. The key thing is to make sure they are aware of the risks; make sure you don’t ask them to do anything they don’t want to do or put them in an awkward position.

I did a story a few years ago for Time, about the heparin scandal with Baxtar, a big U.S.-based pharmaceutical company. They made this drug that was killing people, and they traced it through the supply chain to China. I worked with Chinese journalists in Zhejiang, where a lot of these suppliers were.

Sometimes, even when they want to go to a place, do an interview, if you think it’s too risky, you have to pull them back. There are also times when if I think the local journalist is clear-headed, intelligent, knows the risks and is careful, then if he or she says, ‘I can go try to find this out,’ then you say, ‘Go for it.’ It’s judgment calls. A lot of young Chinese journalists are very aggressive, gung-ho, pissed off that they can’t write about things they otherwise would because of censorship from the government.

IPI: What has been the effect of social media sites, such as Sina Weibo, on the media sphere in China?

Sina Weibo has become a force. They have become an incredible factor in the whole media equation. I had an interesting discussion in Beijing last week with a friend of mine who used to work for a big U.S. media multinational … she was arguing that if they ever try to completely block Weibo, there would be revolution.