As he returned from his summer holiday last week, Xi Jinping made a massive splash across the front-page of the Chinese Communist Party’s official People’s Daily newspaper. It was a return to headline-dominating form for the leader — who, since early this summer, has faced speculation internationally that his position in Chinese politics might be slipping. 

The occasion was a rare official visit to the Tibetan capital of Lhasa to mark the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the Tibet Autonomous Region. Over two editions of the paper on August 21 and 22, Xi Jinping was everywhere. Walking the red carpet on the airport runway, and presiding over official celebrations held on the Potala Palace Square. Of 10 front-page articles on those two days, just one did not carry Xi’s name in a headline or large subhead. 

Since late June, when analysts argued that “citations of Xi’s name have become thinner and thinner in authoritative official media,” and speculation soared that other contenders like Central Military Commission vice-chairman Zhang Youxia (张又侠) could be ascendent, CMP has published regular breakdowns of the headline and image performance for China’s topmost leaders in the People’s Daily. As the “mouthpiece” (喉舌) of the CCP — this being a formal definition of the paper’s status — the People’s Daily plays a crucial part in building and signaling consensus. For this reason, any meaningful shift with regard to “authoritative official media” can be glimpsed in its pages. 

So how are the numbers trending as we approach summer’s end? 

A Break Does Not a Challenge Make

Before digging in, one observation from this month might be helpful in better understanding how to read headline trends in context. 

Over the past two weeks, right in the middle of August, images and headlines mentioning Xi Jinping in the People’s Daily dipped substantially. That is because for a fortnight each August, Xi and other members of the Politburo Standing Committee go off on vacation to the seaside resort of Beidaihe, which since the days of Mao Zedong has been the summer getaway for the Party leadership — a sun-swept refuge for frank exchange within a bubble of secrecy. 

Generally, the Beidaihe break results in a gap of headline frequency for the top leader and all others in the PSC. This year was no exception. 

The gap also makes an important point about the nature of the People’s Daily and other Party-run outlets when it comes to signaling and the frequency of both leaders’ names and signature concepts — that while there is general consistency in the baseline for names and terms over longer periods of time, they also track with the political schedule. An uptick or burst in the itinerary for given leaders, such as an overseas tour or an important policy-related meeting, will result in observable changes in names and other keywords. 

The Beidaihe break is a perfect case of the reverse, a natural lull in the political cycle. Other lulls may occur, and sometimes for reasons that are less obvious from the outside. 

In Xi’s Tibet visit and the triumphant coverage that attended it, we can see the rebound in frequency. And this again allows us to observe the primary signaling role of Party media coverage. In most newspapers as we generally understand them, the August 21 front page on Xi’s arrival in Lhasa would merit a single prominent headline (assuming its relevance to readers). In the People’s Daily, however, we can see multiple repeated headlines, all beginning with “Xi Jinping,” and even images that are echoes of one another. 

Why must Xi’s name appear five times rather than just once? This is what power signaling looks like in practice.  

This amplification — which to many news readers outside China may seem entirely unnecessary, is not applied evenly to all members of the PSC. Had it been Premier Li Qiang (李强) instead who had made this visit to Tibet, we can expect the coverage would have mirrored the relatively understated approach seen when he attended the BRICS summit in Xi’s place earlier this year. At previous BRICS meetings, each and every action by Xi warranted its own front-page article, while Li’s actions at BRICS this year resulted in a single article, halfway down the page. 

Headline frequency is significant not just because this or that leader is in the news. It matters also because it can reveal how a particular figure is or is not being amplified. 

Now, on to those numbers.  

Our headlines count, updated to today, August 29, continues the trend we have observed in previous counts. The longer-term pattern — related to the general consistency we wrote about earlier — is largely unchanged. There is a dip for Xi Jinping compared to 2023, but this is likely explained by the busy schedule of diplomatic events for Xi that year, the tracking with the political schedule discussed above.  

The most important point to bear in mind when looking at these totals is that no other figures in the CCP leadership have surged in any way. Their headline counts, even with modest bumps like that Li Qiang experienced last year, resemble dwarfs lined up behind a giant. When we observe the level of fanfare over Xi’s trip to Tibet, the unique amplification he receives is a reminder again of his exceptional and unshaken status within the leadership. 

As we have said, there could be merit in observations elsewhere — as in concrete moves within the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) — that the Party’s internal balance of power is shifting. But when it comes to power as discernible within authoritative official media, Xi Jinping’s position remains, for the moment, unassailable. 

At 6 a.m. on July 28, a wall of water inundated the small town of Taishitun (太师屯), barely a two-hour drive from central Beijing. The floodwaters — flowing at 1,500 times the normal rate of the Qingshui River, which usually trickles slowly through town — burst the banks and surged through streets and alleyways. While many residents found shelter on rooftops, the 62 residents of a local elderly care home had few options: 80 percent were unable to walk. The waters moved so swiftly that rescue workers could not reach them for three hours. By 10 a.m., 31 residents were dead.

The Taishitun care home tragedy accounted for the majority of Beijing’s 44 flood casualties during torrential rainfall last month. Yet the story, typical of disaster coverage that China’s leadership has long feared could raise questions about readiness and responsibility, received cautious treatment from Chinese media. 

In Action, Never Inaction

From the outset, propaganda authorities sought to turn attention away from the death toll, and away from the more jarringly human aspects of the story. The focus was on the actions and declarations of central and local leaders, projecting an image of selfless leadership on the front lines. 

In Party and commercial newspapers alike, and in the news apps that mirrored their messaging, the focus was entirely on high-level statements urging rescue and relief efforts. On June 29, the day after the floods struck Tashitun, the Beijing Daily (北京日报), the official newspaper under the city leadership, included just one tiny image on its front page — of three digging machines at work, but no hint of the human cost. Leading were statements about Xi Jinping’s “important instructions” (重要指示) and their response across Beijing and Hebei. 

On the front page of the more commercial Beijing News, which is also under the Beijing city leadership, Xi Jinping’s words again had top billing. There was a large image. But again, it was a scene of rescue — all hope harnessed for impact, and not a whiff of despair. 

When emotion did enter the official narrative, media outlets again forefronted Party leaders. The story was about their empathy as they grappled with the immensity of the situation, or about their selfless dedication. 

The most direct expression of emotion came on August 1 from Yu Weiguo (余卫国), the top official in Beijing’s Miyun District, who made a rare admission during a press conference that they had been inadequately prepared. “For a long time, the nursing home’s location in the town center was considered safe, and our emergency plans did not include it in the evacuation range,” said Yu. “This shows our plans had loopholes, and our understanding of extreme weather was insufficient.”

Yu admitted to the inability of the emergency services to reach the home in time, and made a rare public apology that the care home had been overlooked in local government flooding plans. “These elderly people were about the same age as my parents,” said an emotional district Party secretary Yu Weiguo. The Beijing News ran an article on the press conference, as well as a piece with Party Secretary for Beijing Yin Li (尹力) visited the silted-up care home and relayed his plans for safety guarantees for the future.

During the first 24 hours, these remarks were widely reported by other outlets, including Shangguan News (上观新闻) and the state broadcaster China Central Television. News sources also more readily reported the death toll. 

This pattern is a familiar one when it comes to official treatment of disaster stories. In the initial phase, as the tragedy (a word the leadership will rarely ever use) is fresh, the authorities will struggle to balance the need to inform a concerned public, allow emotion to be directed then dissipated, and ensure that media are restrained. The situation can be complicated by the chaos of a fast-moving situation, and by bureaucratic wires that get crossed. 

For journalists and outlets that hope to push the bounds of reporting, this confusion can equal opportunity (借题发挥). Statements by officials, particularly from the scene, may be interpreted as a green light — or at least political cover — for reporting. The Beijing News (新京报), known in the past for its more freewheeling reporting, with hints of that old spirit re-emerging in recent months, sent a journalist to the scene and published a piece by close of business the same day the story emerged. 

But the window is often narrow. Just as outlets are scrambling to get reporters to the scene, propaganda authorities are working to wrestle back control. A typical missive that might come down from on high: “Do not look back” (不要回顾). The phrase is code for deep reporting, fact finding, and storytelling — those things that are likely to emotion, even anger, toward the more human dimensions of the tragedy, including human error. 

Moving On From the Loopholes 

One of the first signs that the flood story was pivoting away came as references to the death toll were suddenly taken down. In some cases, lingering references to Yu Weiguo’s press conference also focused on the recitation of statistical points, avoiding any mention of more sensitive admissions like “our plans had loopholes.” Significantly, the original report from the Beijing News mentioned above went dark. Multiple reports from the professional news outlet Caixin (财新) reporting the incident were also removed, including one claiming that local residents had not been given prior warning of the dangerous floodwaters.

But it was also at this point that the clearest hints of more assertive professionalism emerged from the first round of deeper reporting.

On August 3, Sanlian Life Weekly (三联生活周刊), a general affairs magazine, published a long-form article full of eyewitness accounts that gave life to the tragedy. Among those interviewed was Li Meihua (李梅花), whose sister was among the 31 victims who had been trapped inside the elderly care home. Her son, in fact, had until recently been cared for at the facility, and the story began a deeply human account of what might have been: 

When news broke on July 31st about 31 deaths at the Taishitun Town Elderly Care Center, Li Meihua shuddered. She felt fortunate. Just 20 days earlier, due to the scorching weather, she had brought home her son, who suffered a cerebral thrombosis and was partially paralyzed. She couldn’t bear to think about the “what ifs.”

The crucial difference in the case of the Sanlian Life Weekly was the way it combined on-the-ground reporting and gripping local accounts alongside official statements — including Yu Weiguo’s admission about lack of preparedness. Far from a report about swift and efficient action, it was a portrait of a community abandoned to the floodwaters. But it was clearly too much for the authorities, whose priorities had already shifted to preventing such acts of factual reflection. It was pulled from the internet within 24 hours.

Such signs of more probing coverage — even if faint and fleeting — are a welcome reminder that there is life beneath the ice. 

Sanlian Life Weekly is an outlet that produced quality in-depth reporting in the early 2000s, including a 2014 report on Bo Guagua, the son of the fallen official Bo Xilai. Like the Beijing News and Caixin, it is an outlet that has quietly endured a widespread contraction of space over the past 15 years, worsening considerably under the press policies of Xi Jinping, who has emphasized the principle that media must do the bidding of the Party, and must adhere strictly to “public opinion guidance,” a legacy of the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre that links media control to social and political stability. In this environment, acts of resistance from the media have been exceptionally rare. When they do emerge, they should  at least be acknowledged, if not exactly celebrated. That outlets like Sanlian Life Weekly, which is helmed by the naughts-era investigative reporter Li Honggu, continue to seize space, even if they are forced back, is a welcome sign that Chinese journalism still has a pulse.

Remember that time the Chinese Communist Party’s official People’s Daily newspaper sharply criticized chipmaker Nvidia over allegations that its H20 chip had “backdoor” vulnerabilities? Yeah, never happened. I’ll explain.

On July 31, the Cyberspace Administration of China summoned Nvidia to explain security concerns it had aired in a public release related to its concerns over its H20 chip. The CAC claimed that US lawmakers had previously called for exported advanced chips to be equipped with tracking and positioning functions, and that American AI experts had revealed that Nvidia’s tracking and positioning technologies were “already mature,” to use the CAC’s language.

Nvidia strenuously denied the allegations, saying that “Nvidia’s chips have no backdoors and do not allow anyone to remotely access or control them,” according to Taiwan’s United Daily News. The next day, headlines in Chinese and English around the world reported that the Chinese Communist Party’s official People’s Daily had published a commentary called “How Can I Trust You, Nvidia?” (英偉達讓我怎麼相信你), warning that cybersecurity breaches could trigger nightmare scenarios and declaring that “safeguarding cybersecurity is just as important as protecting national territory.”

When you understand the highly disciplined nature of the editorial process within the flagship newspaper of the CCP, which can be read as signal tower transmitting views from the top leadership, then you understand how serious the commentary in question would be. At just 20 pages on its fullest day, with anywhere from two to seven pages being ads, the People’s Daily is precious political real estate — and it is reserved for seriousness.

Make no mistake: a signal to Nvidia about its alleged security vulnerabilities on the commentary page of the People’s Daily would be serious. But that is not — not exactly — what this was.

“Your Party newspaper commentary guy here.”

In fact, the “How Can I Trust You, Nvidia?” commentary was not published in the print newspaper. It was posted to the “People’s Daily Commentary” (人民日报评论) account on the popular Chinese social media and messaging app WeChat.

Some of you are already saying: What difference does that make? A lot of difference. Sure, this commentary was also “official” in important ways. It was written by Meng Fanzhe (孟繁哲), a boy-faced commentator at the People’s Daily who has been cited jointly as an editor of the page-five commentary section of the paper.

But there are many layers of “official” in China, and these can be (and are) exploited by state media for varying strategies.

This was not a stern commentary of reprimand in the pages of the People’s Daily. It was an unmuzzled and more tonally personal rebuke that was tailor-made for viral dissemination on social media. If you look at the commentary in context — and how many media reporting the story actually did this, I wonder — it is clear that this is exactly how it was pitched. Meng was pushed out to center stage and his youthful face presented to the audience — something that the People’s Daily newspaper never does. His written commentary was accompanied by a video version for the chummy series “The Comment Guys Speak” (评论君开讲).

To see just how invisible Meng Fanzhe generally is at the People’s Daily, check out this in-site search at the People’s Daily Online portal (also, mind you, not the same thing as the newspaper), which yields exactly 0 results. At people.cn, which skews heavy toward content from the newspaper, he does appear, nearly always in his role as a joint editor on page five. He has also managed a handful of front-page commentaries like this earnest one on flood season vigilance from the “Today’s Talk” (今日谈) column.

Meng was pushed out to center stage and his youthful face presented to the audience — something that the People’s Daily newspaper never does.

Then, importantly, look at how Meng identifies himself in his post. He finishes with the buddy-buddy line: “Your Party newspaper commentary guy here. I welcome everyone to leave comments and share your views and opinions.” But he never identifies himself as “a People’s Daily commentator” (人民日报评论员). Why? Because that is the ultra-serious suit-and-tie designation for official commentaries that speak clearly to the consensus views of the leadership. Here, instead, we have the suits nudging a youthful voice out into the open, as if to say: “Fanzhe, go toy with Jensen Huang and the Nvidia people. Let’s make them squirm a bit.”

This is the important distinction that perhaps every media outlet reporting on this story missed. And how, in fact, they all collectively became part of the viral wall of intimidation facing Nvidia in China. This was not a statement from the Party’s lectern. It was an attack-dog tactic, not unlike the way the Global Times, a pugnacious spin-off of the People’s Daily, is often used to gnash its teeth, even when the flagship newspaper keeps its rhetorical cool.

Speaking of the Global Times, we can also note in this case how its former editor-in-chief Hu Xijin (胡锡进), a Party media guy through and through, referred to Meng’s commentary. Writing on Weibo about the WeChat post — it was never anything more — he pushed the piece as a “Party newspaper blockbuster commentary” (党报重磅评论). Hu’s “blockbuster” language perfectly encapsulates the nature and intent of Meng Fanzhe’s viral commentary, which was meant to kick up a storm because a storm might be useful. Hu did not call it a People’s Daily commentary.