At one level, this is a pretty simple matter. But on another it is highly complicated, largely because media freedom worldwide is in crisis. China's move to full media freedom, surely a pillar of any democratic reform, is made more difficult as a result.

The simple bit for China is to release current journalists from their artificially founded prison sentences for doing no more than their job. Journalists like Ching Cheong, Li Changqing, Huang Jinqui, Yue Tianxiang, Li Yuanlong, Wu Zhengyou, Zhu Wanxiang and Shi Tao ought to be released immediately.

This would be a significant, if improbable, moment in the development of mainland media freedom. But, surprisingly, that is probably the easiest step.

Freeing the media sector from the massive weight of state censorship and coercion in a more structural sense is clearly a vital channel of democratic reform in the mainland.

According to a recent book on China by Susan Shirk, former US deputy assistant secretary of state, media freedom is one means by which China can "help itself" overcome its various domestic problems.

She writes: "A mass media that is market oriented but still controlled by the government is a recipe for increased nationalist pressure on decision makers."

The reference to nationalism is a theme in Shirk's timely book as tensions over Taiwan, Japan and the United States in particular threaten to destroy China's ascendancy as well as regional and global security. She is, of course, correct in recognizing the net negative effect of rabid nationalist tendencies on political stability in a one- party state, but the argument that a free media may solve the problem is a little simplistic.

For instance, in the world's biggest media market, the United States, media freedom, while greater than that in China, is hardly complete.

For one, laws introduced in the wake of 9/11 have curtailed certain media liberties. Bill Keller, executive director at The New York Times, notes: "Some days it sounds like the [Bush] administration is declaring war at home on the values it professes to be promoting abroad."

In a chilling echo of today's China, former Bush adviser and now radio hack Bill Bennett was quoted railing at the temerity of some journalists to expose the inner workings of the CIA: "I think what they did is worthy of jail."

These days in America, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center in Washington, 45 percent of newspaper readers believe little or nothing of what they read.

The incendiary Fox News channel, arguably America's most powerful media institution, is rated as untrustworthy even by most of the Republican voters to whom it pitches.

Freedom has many enemies, including, it seems, freedom itself.

Other media cultures in most democracies around the world are similarly troubled, if not quite in so parlous a state as in the United States. Britain, for instance, is largely consumed by tabloid shlock. The paucity of free media models in free countries gives China few relevant models to base any reform on.

As Shirk rightly notes, nationalism is heated by pro-state media outlets pushing the party line, fanning the flames to keep attention away from domestic points of dissatisfaction.

But, as the United States exemplifies, being a democracy is no guarantee that nationalism - patriotism in Bush-speak - will not become a central theme of a nominally free media.

And it is not just a political issue. Trashy, tabloid media is popular. It brings in the readers/watchers/eyeballs and it attracts advertising revenue. As a business model it is probably easier to sell than hardnosed journalism.

So, a freer media in China, even one unencumbered by edicts from the propaganda department, is likely to remain as is, in many ways. Not only that, it will probably be the major form of media as a) the public is used to it, b) there is no real infrastructure for anything different and c) it sells.

Establishing a free media in China is not as easy as it seems.

James Rose is editor of www.corporategovernance-asia.com