In December 2011, Lin Weiping (林卫平), the deputy director of the local health bureau in the southern city of Dongguan, took part in an online discussion on a domestic microblog platform organized by the local government. The microblog discussion was part of a series of chats ostensibly allowing local citizens to ask questions about relevant issues and policies. During the chat session with Lin Weiping, web users asked a series of pointed questions, but Lin seemed to systematically ignore these or offer completely unrelated answers. However, the deputy director responded in great detail to the softball questions asked by one user with the alias “Witty on Dongguan” (东莞才子). Prying by internet users and Chinese media later revealed that the web user “Witty in Dongguan” was in fact Wu Zongcai (吴宗才), the local health bureau’s press relations officer. After the ruse was found out, Wu responded: “I’m a web user too, and I have a right to ask my own questions.” In the above cartoon, posted by artist Cao Yi (曹一) to QQ.com and run in the official People’s Daily, a government official (presumably Lin Weiping) appears behind an empty computer screen. With his left arm, the official reaches over behind another screen and works a pink hand puppet. The signboard beneath the two computers reads: “XX Health Bureau Microblog Discussion.”

Late last month, Hong Kong economist Larry Lang (郎咸平) devoted an episode of his “Lang on Finance” ((财经郎眼) program on Guangdong Satellite TV to the “economics of crummy films.”
In the program, Lang, a professor of economics at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, addressed the issue of state monopoly control of China’s film industry against the backdrop of the new mandate coming out of the Party plenum last October on “cultural system reforms.” His conclusion in a nutshell: the profit-drive state monopoly system is squeezing out creativity.
The program does not address the issue of film censorship, but it is worth bearing in mind that China’s strict political control of film content throughout the production and post-production process (linked also to financing and distribution) is a further substantial disincentive to creative filmmaking beyond the points made by Lang.
The Guangdong Satellite TV program (Chinese), posted to the domestic video-sharing site Youku, is worth watching. But below readers can find our translation of Lang Xianping’s recent editorial on this issue in China Newsweekly magazine.

For more thoughts on so-called cultural reforms (and film), readers may also refer to my November article on the subject.
Readers may note that Lang seems to have some of his facts mixed up, not least on Hong Kong movie ticket prices (see note in comments below). Please feel free to share your own experiences of film ticket prices, attendance or other issues in Hong Kong, China and beyond.

“Why Chinese Films Are Getting Worse and Worse”
Lang Xianping (郎咸平)
January 7, 2012
In the 12th Five-Year Plan, the importance of China’s cultural sector has been elevated to such a high as we have never before seen. The Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Culture, the State Administration of Industry and Commerce, the State Administration of Taxation and other ministries and commissions under the State Council have all said they are working on a series of policies to support [these broader cultural objectives]. But looking at the current situation, and particularly at the Chinese film market in 2011, one can only feel discouraged.
Monopolized to the Core
In the industrial chain of film production and distribution, major actors and directors are upstream and the theatrical [cinema] network is downstream. In the middle is the rest of the film production world.
As for the downstream, a single massive [state-run] film group — [China Film Group] — controls more than 50 percent of the national cinema market, and things have already reached to the point where ticket pricing has become a monopoly. This is why the world’s most expensive movie tickets can be found in mainland China.
The basic ticket price in Hong Kong is 30-40 Hong Kong dollars (US$3.86-5). But here prices are a very minimum of 40 yuan (US$6.3), and it’s not uncommon to find ticket prices of over 100 yuan (US$15.8). This monopolization of ticket prices means that [cinemas] can profit even if few people show up to see a film [relative to capacity]. There is an operating principle in our movie industry not unlike what we find in the petroleum industry, which is to say there is a natural monopoly (自然垄断).
In fact, the costs for cinemas in screening films are very minimal. With costs low, fixed prices [per ticket] are also low. They should be something around 5-10 yuan per ticket (accounting for maintenance and operating costs).
Consider that if tickets are sold for somewhere above or around 5-10 yuan, the per-ticket profit might be just 1 yuan each — meaning 10,000 people would have to see any given film before it could even make 10,000 yuan. But with ticket prices fixed at 40-80 yuan, this means that [very conservatively cinemas can make] 20 yuan per ticket. So in this latter scenario if just 1,000 people show up to see a film it can bring in 20,000 yuan.
The above calculations tell us that the monopolization of ticket pricing does not bring revenues down, but in fact substantially bolsters revenue. [In this monopoly system] it really makes little difference how many people show up to see a film.
Our movie industry right now isn’t very different from our property market. Just as relatively few people can afford to buy property, few people can afford to purchase movie tickets. And all of the bad practices we see in the petroleum industry among the likes of CNPC and Sinopec, can be readily seen in our film industry.
Stones From Other Hills
In terms of film output, China falls behind only the United States and India. But there are ten times as many cinemas in the United States as there are in China. The United States, thanks to the country’s antitrust law, does not have downstream [theatrical] monopoly of the kind [we have in China], but rather free competition among cinemas. The environment [for cinema in the United States] is therefore far better than ours. Cinemas are numerous,and there is no way to monopolize ticket prices, which remain cheap in a relative sense — usually around six or seven dollars, a price acceptable to most people. If cinemas can control their costs, they don’t suffer any great loss, a very different situation from what have here.
In China’s film industry, the upstream market is already monopolized by big-time directors and big-time movie stars, and the downstream market is monopolized by [the state-run] China Film Group. Just as in China’s manufacturing sector, those in the middle can make only the most marginal of profits. Without sufficient profits, of course, the only thing anyone can do is trail along on the tails of others, continuing to make rotten movies.

I’ve advocated democracy just about everywhere I can in recent years. Some of my friends have found it hard to understand what I do. Others have dismissed my talk as empty or too grandiose. Then there are those who think my whole approach is wrong. “Why don’t you pay more attention to livelihood issues, or go and help farmers get their land back?” they’ll ask. Or: “Why don’t you fight back against forced property demolition? Or taxes? Or corruption? For that matter, why don’t you go and oppose the keeping of mistresses? Why all this empty talk about democracy? Hardly anyone talks about democracy in China. Most people do real things instead. Doing substantive things, now that’s real democracy . . . ”
In the eyes of some Chinese, democracy is like a roundabout. The best thing is not to talk directly about democracy, but rather to work one’s way around to it.
I’ve had young readers pipe up in conversation and lump me together with various contemporary writers or rights defense heroes. “Those of you who pursue democracy . . . ,” they begin. And I head them off by interjecting: “Look, the way I see it, this character you’ve just mentioned isn’t really someone who pursues democracy!”
At the risk of sounding curt, I’ve had enough of this blurring of lines. In China today, one of the biggest errors we fall into constantly is to assume that someone who opposes social injustice, or advocates for common livelihood issues [like education and healthcare access], or someone who opposes autocracy and the over-concentration of power must necessarily be a champion of democracy.
But in point of fact, the above-mentioned activities are not the same thing as pursuing democracy, however worthy of praise they might be. In fact, counterparts can be found throughout thousands of years of Chinese history for all of these things done in opposition to autocratic defects and various forms of injustice. By contrast, the pursuit of democracy has a history only a century long in China.
When challenged by those who want to know why I don’t do anything substantive, I usually deflect the question politely: “There are already so many people doing real work, so I’ll just stick to advocating democracy,” I say. Many who disapprove insist that my talk about democracy is just empty bluster. To them democracy is already a closed book, an issue settled long ago.
But there’s one point I want to make emphatically, and that is that opposing autocracy does not equal supporting democracy!
Over the years I’ve come across many people who oppose autocracy but haven’t in fact the least notion of democracy. In many cases they actually uphold autocracy in order to oppose it.
It would be a challenge these days to find anyone who says they can stomach corruption. The vast majority of people loathe unchecked power. But few people actually understand that democracy is the means by which such scourges can actually be removed.
A great number of academics and experts in China, including quite a few opinion leaders, are first-rate at exposing the dark corners of our society and ferreting out corruption. But deep in their bones they have little notion of democracy. Some think that we simply need to change out emperors. Some think we would be better off if they themselves were promoted to the top. Some believe we should return to the Qing Dynasty. Some believe we should turn the clock back to 1949. Others believe we should back-step to 1965 . . .
There is a clique of cynicism now emerging in China that wants to drag our people back to some beautiful past. For various reasons (for example, not wanting to be branded as traitors or slaves of the West), they refuse to move forward. They refuse to stride into the future.
I’ve said before that my favorite essay writer is Lu Xun (鲁迅). His laying bare of Chinese nature and his lampooning of rulers are unmatched to this day. But in terms of his thinking on democracy and his conception of the future Lu Xun has little to offer, whether one sets his work against his Western contemporaries or against Chinese writers and thinkers of his day.
The West has always had a rather pale assessment of Lu Xun. I once thought this was a mark of discrimination against Chinese writers. But a foreigner familiar with Lu Xun’s work later explained that so far as Lu Xun’s description of the darkness of Chinese nature was concerned, you could have found the same sort of thing in Texas or in the European countryside during his day. His brand of exposure of the darker side of human nature could be readily seen in Western art and literature as early as the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Most of this work was far more profound than Lu Xun’s. And the West had ultimately found a road out in the form of the Enlightenment!
In our country, those who expose the darkness are often accorded great status. But those who point the way to the light are most often met with doubt.
It’s terrible to note the way that Lu Xun, who could gaze so far into the darkness, in the end turned back to the arms of tyranny. The brighter qualities of human nature were completely invisible to him, and the only Chinese he could see were Ah Q’s of debased character.
Lu Xun’s satire cut to the quick of the Chinese character. And his vision begs the question: if the Chinese people are nothing more than a handful of Lu Xun characters, how can such a people possibly be suited to life in a democratic society? Lu Xun’s answer in the end is to hope that a master much stronger than the ineffectual Kuomintang can take the stage, a master that can help the Chinese people stand on their own two feet.
In time, China’s new master would take Lu Xun and elevate him as one of humankind’s intellectual greats. But Lu Xun is ultimately no more than a great man of letters. He is not so different from any of those many writers in Chinese history who exposed China’s darker corners and the wickedness of human nature.
I don’t mean to gainsay my own love and admiration for Lu Xun. I simply want to drive home the point that while we do need people like Lu Xun to go and expose the darkness, we also need people who can point the way to the light. The problem in China today is that so many people see the darkness even as they are absorbed by it. They are unable to see the light and step beyond the darkness.
In China today, we can choose to carry out rights defense actions, we can work to expose corruption and oppose injustice. But if we fail to see beyond this to democracy, none of these actions will carry us very far. Believe me when I say that our only advantage today over the ancients lies in our modern values and democratic institutions.
This essay is translated and edited from a Chinese blog post made by Yang Hengjun on December 30, 2011, and dated December 29.

Playing on the meme of 2012 as a year of pending apocalypse or Armageddon, and ongoing economic weakness in the Eurozone, the January 5, 2012, edition of the English-language China Daily ran this cartoon by Will Luo (罗杰), which was also posted to Luo’s comic blog at QQ.com. In late December, NASA scientists addressed the history and science of 2012 end-of-the-world scenarios on the organization’s website, saying that sound science dispelled all concern. All of these facts and ideas come together in the Will Luo cartoon, for which the accompanying text at QQ.com reads: “NASA announced that 2012 would not be the end of the world, that there would be no asteroid collisions with earth. As for the Euro, it’s hard to say.” At the left-hand side of the cartoon, a NASA official stands at a podium and says confidently, “Nothing will collide with the earth in 2012.” On the right, meanwhile, a meteor tipped with the symbol of the Euro currency blazes down down earth.

The following is a translation of an essay written by veteran Hong Kong journalist Luqiu Luwei (闾丘露薇) late last month for Southern Metropolis Weekly, a magazine published by Guangzhou’s Southern Metropolis Daily. The essay, framed as an end-of-year letter written to Luqiu’s teenage daughter, expresses the author’s hopes for her own child and all children in Hong Kong and mainland China.
The essay is indirectly critical of problems in Chinese society, including school bus safety (which has recently gotten more attention in the Chinese media), food safety and recent cases of sexual exploitation of children by government officials. The essay also makes indirect reference to the annual commemoration of June 4 at Hong Kong’s Victoria Park.
The following translation is based on the full version posted by Luqiu Luwei to her Tencent blog.

“A Letter to My Daughter at the Close of 2011”
By Luqiu Luwei (闾丘露薇)
December 31, 2011
My beloved Fan Fan,
I’m sorry that this is the first time I’ve written you a letter. It’s true we have many opportunities to talk to each other. I listen to you talk about things at school. I listen to you talk about the music you like, and your favorite movie stars. From time to time I offer suggestions to you — most often, of course, reminding you to do your homework and push you to be more diligent in your studies.
But sometimes there are certain things I don’t know quite how to talk about with you, things I hope you’ll spend more time thinking about. Perhaps it’s because these things are too solemn, and because I don’t know quite how to begin. Of course, the chief reason is really that I don’t feel overly concerned. Just like I’m not too worried about it when I learn that your test results aren’t so great. I always feel the best way is to let you figure things out for yourself.
I think of the way you told me recently that you learned how to leap the Great Firewall (翻墙) — because you couldn’t stand it anymore, the way that as soon as you crossed over the river to Shenzhen you couldn’t watch your favorite online videos or chat with your friends. But you studied up and took matters into your own hands, doing your little bit to change the situation and live the kind of life you want.
During summertime last year we went to Victoria Park. And even though all along you kept your head down and buried in the mobile phone of yours, I knew that you actually did hear what my friends and I talked about. I know in fact that you patiently listened to me as I related in detail certain historical episodes [NOTE: The author is referring here to June 4, 1989. The event is the annual commemoration of June Fourth at Hong Kong’s Victoria Park]. I think that you and those other kids your age who were there with their moms and dads probably all understand quite well why we drag you there every year. You are fortunate, because you at least have the luxury of some impression and recollection [of this history], and you won’t remain utterly ignorant of our history.
Do you know how fortunate you are? When I was writing [recently] about what had to be done to ensure that school buses were safe, the thing I thought of in the very first instant was of course you. Because as a working mom I understand only too well how hard it is to care for a child and work at a career. If the society one lives in offers many conveniences and also helps keep us safe, our quality of life benefits substantially. But do you know that like school buses that in your eyes are never a problem are a big, big problem in many places in China? This problem has actually existed for a long time. The media have reported on it every year, and every year children are killed or injured because of school bus safety problems. But the government never paid any attention to this problem, up until a school bus tragedy in Gansu this year killed 21 people. Only after that did the government finally begin to recognize that the best way is to use the law to build the [right] system [to ensure safety]. This was of course progress, even if it came far too late. But then more problems have emerged in this process, like parents discovering that they no longer have access to school buses at all.
Every time we go to mainland China you hear me talk angrily with other adults about problems like food safety. We are always reminding you to be extremely careful with all of those mainland foods, worrying ourselves sick about your health and well-being. Do you realize again just how fortunate you are that we have the means to pay more for our food, buying a bit of piece of mind? But there are many more people who don’t have such a choice. A few days back I was reporting from the outskirts of Hangzhou. My colleagues and I were really hungry, but we didn’t dare buy breakfast at a street-side stall, no matter how steaming hot and fragrant it seemed. At the time in fact I was shaken with this feeling of guilt. While I chose to spurn these cheap foods, I knew that was what the vast majority of people ate every single day. When we enjoy such privileges, shouldn’t we think more about how we can ensure that these privileges become rights that every single person can enjoy?
You’re already a teenage girl, Fan Fan. And for this reason I know that every time you see news reports about girls about your age who have been raped or sexually exploited by officials or government functionaries in mainland China you feel a certain gloom you find it hard to talk about. The way I see it, there is nothing at all to discuss on this issue. The sexual exploitation of a minor is a criminal offense, and the issue of whether or not the child involved was a willing participant does not enter the equation — because kids as young as you don’t yet have the full capacity for independent decision-making, and the responsibility for looking after you lies with society and with your family. But unfortunately the real outcome [in China] of what I see as an issue not even admitting discussion was quite the opposite of what I would have expected. This caused me to feel that safety was lacking on yet another front in this society [in mainland China].
Every time I go to the mainland, people around me feel they must remind me to keep a careful eye on my things. And if you were to go over to Shenzhen on your own I would worry constantly about whether you might cross paths with some unsavory person. [This society], whether by design or by accident, gives rise to so many pressures and concerns in people’s hearts. I often ask myself how things could get this way. Actually, it’s not just that I lack trust in this society. It’s more that I worry law enforcement authorities aren’t reliable. I wouldn’t know where to turn for help, or whether if I sought help I would actually get it.
I know you don’t really take these concerns to heart, because you’re still young. That’s a good thing of course, because if you worry too much and are too much on your guard you’ll lose all innocence and belief in the goodness of human nature. It’s also for this reason that I’m often conflicted inside. I still remember that time we went to the World Expo in Shanghai. There were so many people queuing up for refreshments, and you and your friends kept getting pushed to the back. I had to teach you how to protect yourselves. At the same time, watching you with mainland friends of your age, who were so capable in certain areas of their studies and so ambitious, I even found myself worrying about your prospects. What if the society of the future was like that, naked competition trumping all else and no diversity of choices — would you be seen by society as a failure? I didn’t know whether you were prepared to deal with such a world.
Ultimately, though, you are very fortunate to have more choices than so many other people. I only hope that you have interests of your own, that you have the ability to make your own way. I hope that you’ll be a decent person, that if you see little Yue Yue lying on the street you’ll have the sense to notify the police immediately, that when you see an injustice or feel that you’ve been treated unjustly, you won’t be afraid to stand up and speak out.
In Hong Kong in the future, maintaining a life of simplicity and dignity won’t be a problem.
My expectations aren’t so high — for you, or for this society. I only hope that other children who are less fortunate than you will be able to grow up in a society that allows them to feel a sense of happiness. That’s all. I use this phrase ‘sense of happiness’ because the external world can only create the necessary conditions for happiness, but happiness is something that emerges from the heart of each person. If this society does not destroy the capacity for people to feel a sense of happiness, then there is still hope.
I’m always reminding myself that I shouldn’t underestimate kids. Recently, in particular, I’ve seen quite a few essays written by high school students that have reaffirmed this for me. We adults always make the mistake of thinking there are things you young people can’t understand. I know actually that in your hearts you and others your age understand very well.
I hope this letter is just a beginning.
Signed,
Your loving mother

A look at the news in China today suggests that the ongoing standoff in the village of Wukan is being given a high level of priority by provincial leaders in Guangdong, who appear eager to demonstrate that they are on top of the incident and take the concerns of villagers seriously.
The constructive tone coming out of Guangdong’s upper echelons contrasts starkly with remarks made yesterday by the top leader of the city of Shanwei (汕尾), Zheng Yanxiong (郑雁雄), who acridly criticized villagers for “placing their hopes with rotten foreign media, rotten foreign newspapers and rotten foreign websites.”
Guangdong Satellite Television reported late yesterday that Guangdong’s top leader, Wang Yang (汪洋) — who has been tipped as a possible candidate to enter the Party’s powerful politburo standing committee late next year — has said the Wukan incident was the result of tensions that had been allowed to build up without being addressed and resolved.
The Guangdong Satellite Television report is based on an address given yesterday by Guangdong’s deputy party secretary, Zhu Mingguo (朱明国), to a gathering of Party leaders in the city of Lufeng. Zhu has been appointed to head up a provincial government working group to resolve the Wukan incident.

Wang Yang’s basic “direction” on the Wukan incident, as conveyed by Zhu Mingguo yesterday, is as follows:

The occurrence of the Wukan incident was accidental in nature, and at the same time it was inevitable. This is a result of the long-time ignoring, through the process of economic and social development, the build up of tensions occurring in the process of economic and social development. It is an inevitable result of our emphasis on ‘one hand tight and the other hand loose’ in the course of our work.

It is important to note that Wang Yang is most certainly not suggesting here a contrast between economic policy and political reform — i.e., that lax economic policies combined with tight political controls are behind crises like this one. He is not suggesting that more should have been done, or should now be done, on the political reform front.
Wang Yang’s remarks are reminiscent of those made earlier this month by security chief Zhou Yongkang (周永康), about the need to “improve social management.” The idea is that while Guangdong has taken an active approach (一手硬) to economic development, it can do more to improve “social construction,” or shehui jianshe (社会建设).
There are a total of 8 articles on the Wukan incident appearing today in 7 mainland media. There are two articles in Guangdong’s official Nanfang Daily as well as articles in Southern Metropolis Daily, Shenzhen’s Daily Sunshine, the Shanghai Morning Post, Guangzhou Daily (the official Party paper in Guangzhou) and China News Service.
The above articles are all based on today’s report from the Nanfang Daily concerning the work team in Lufeng led by Zhu Mingguo. There is virtually no variation in the reports, the only point of departure being the sourcing of the information in the Daily Sunshine, which says its report comes from the official website of the Shanwei party and government.
All of the reports convey the news that Zhu Mingguo addressed cadres in Lufeng as the head of the provincial working group, and said that “the provincial Party committee and the provincial government give a high level of priority and concern to the interest demands of the masses of Wukan village.”
The reports go on to outline the basic points of Zhu Mingguo’s speech, as follows:

1. The basic demands of the villagers are reasonable, and there are discipline issues among village leaders.
2. The extreme behavior of the villagers can be understood and forgiven, and the Party and government will not hold them responsible. For those who engaged in destructive activities and admission of wrongdoing will be sufficient to exonerate them.
3. Anything is on the table for discussion so long as villagers agree to sit down with the government to earnestly resolve issues. The government guarantees freedom of movement for those chosen to represent the villagers in negotiations.
4. The government pledges to refrain from entering the village to make arrests so long as illegal conduct does not continue and anti-government actions are not again organized.
5. Lin Zulian (林祖恋), Yang Semao (杨色茂) and other organizers and instigators know only too well that the government is already working to resolve the reasonable demands of the villagers. If they remain obstinate, continuing to stir up villagers in resistance to the government, irredeemably allowing themselves to be used by domestic and international hostile forces, they will be pursued.

The sternness of this last point recalls remarks made in a very different spirit at the Lufeng meeting yesterday by Zheng Yanxiong (郑雁雄), the top Party leader in the city of Shanwei (汕尾市), the prefectural-level city in Guangdong that administers Lufeng County where Wukan is located.
Zheng, who was sitting to the right of Zhu Mingguo during the meeting, seemed to be boiling over with anger at the recalcitrance of Wukan villagers and the (as he saw it) depravities of foreign media. A video of portions of Zheng’s address follows, but here are a few of his choicer remarks:

“If you can trust in outside media, then pigs can climb trees.”
“If you don’t make any more trouble, if you don’t break the law, the government will say, look, they can be relied upon, it looks like they won’t stir up chaos again — then there’s no need to have the armed police come. Do you think the armed police don’t cost money? Hundreds and hundreds of armed police are here now, and this comes every day out of the purse of our Mayor Qiu.”
“There’s only one group of people who really experiences added hardships year after year. Who are they? Cadres, that’s who. Me included. Did party secretaries before ever feel as tired as this? You have to handle everything. Your powers decline every day, and you have fewer and fewer methods at your disposal — but your responsibility grows bigger and bigger every day. Ordinary people have bigger and bigger appetites every day. They grow smarter every day, and they are harder and harder to control.”
“A responsible government like this, and you don’t look to us. You look to a few rotten foreign media, and rotten foreign media, foreign newspapers and foreign websites! You confuse good and bad entirely! What responsibility can they take? They can’t accomplish anything! If you can’t come together and socialism falls into chaos then they’ll be happy!”

The following report, printed on page 16 of today’s Nanfang Daily, the official newspaper of the Guangdong Provincial Committee of the CCP, is the only news report in China’s press today on the ongoing stand-off between villagers and authorities in Wukan Village.
The report is essentially an announcement by the top Party leader in the prefectural-level city of Shanwei that the negotiations for an end to tensions will now be principally the business of Shanwei, not of Lufeng, the county in which Wukan Village is located. The bottom line: this hot potato has been bumped up a level on the Party power ladder.

[ABOVE: A report on the Wukan incident appears on page 16 of Guangdong’s official Nanfang Daily newspaper. The report is in the middle, under the uppermost photo.]
The appearance of the article in Nanfang Daily is most likely meant to reflect to leaders around the country that Guangdong is prioritizing the handling of this crisis.

Nanfang Daily
December 20, 2011
A16
By Xin Junqing (辛均庆), Hong Jiyu (洪继宇)
Shanwei Party Secretary Zheng Yanxiong Makes a Bulletin on Decisions Relating to the Wukan Incident: Government Will Return and Compensate for 269,000 Square Meters of Land
Nanfang Daily reporting — Yesterday, the Shanwei (汕尾) Party Committee and Shanwei Government held a press conference concerning the Wukan incident (乌坎事件). Shanwei Party Secretary Zheng Yanxiong (郑雁雄) said at the meeting that the [Shanwei] party committee and [Shanwei] government had decided to elevate the pledges and commitments of the Lufeng [county-level] party committee and government concerning the demands of the villagers and solutions to the issue, and implement these at the Shanwei [prefectural] Party and government level. Moreover, the original land for use by Country Garden (Holdings) Limited, which is already frozen, will be negotiated by the [Shanwei] government, compensation will be made for those who lost out in the land requisition, the 404 mu [269,000 square meters] of land involved in this incident will be returned, and new developments will be carried out in consideration of the views of planning departments and villagers, fully protecting the interests of villagers.
It is reported that on December 18, principal leaders from the Party and government of Shanwei city held a face-to-face meeting with more than 500 cadres, masses, teachers, student representatives and others from Wukan Village and surrounding areas. Additionally, Wukan Village party branch leader Xue Chang (薛昌) and village committee director Chen Shunyi (陈舜意) were detained and interrogated (双规) on December 16 by discipline inspection authorities. [NOTE: Detention and interrogation by discipline inspectors, known as shuang’gui, is a disciplinary measure for Party officials that lies outside the normal legal system.]
Zheng Yanxiong pointed out that the incident in Wukan village emerged from the masses being unhappy with the party branch chief and principle responsible persons in the village party committee who had remained in their posts too long, [and the villagers] out of concern for a change in their interests, demanding the protection of their own legal rights and interests in the management of village affairs, and in the transfer of land-use rights and the rise in value of land whose use had already been transfered. The nature of the incident, [Zheng said], is that of an internal interest dispute within the village, and [Zheng remains] confident that it will be handled as it should (相信一定会处理好).

The most recent edition of Caixin Century magazine, part of the line-up at Caixin Media — the group headed up by former Caijing editor-in-chief Hu Shuli (胡舒立) — offers a series of reports on high-speed rail in China. The series includes an in-depth look at the corruption case against Zhang Shuguang (张曙光), the engineer once dubbed “the grand designer of China’s high-speed rail.”
The Caixin Century issue, which bears the headline “The Secrets of Zhang Shuguang,” includes photographs of Zhang’s Los Angeles home and calculates the home’s value on the basis of documentary transfer tax paid back in 2002 by Zhang and his wife, Wang Xing.

The report dealing with Zhang’s US home purchase, “American Mansion of ‘China High-Speed Rail Grand Designer’ Zhang Shuguang Revealed,” says Zhang’s property is located at 688 Pierre Road in Walnut, California, a community about 20 miles east of Los Angeles.
Assuming this information is accurate, here is an aerial close-up of Zhang Shuguang’s Walnut property courtesy of Google Maps.

View Larger Map
Here is the photo of Zhang Shuguang’s Walnut home Caixin posted online yesterday along with its series, which was promoted to the front page of the group’s website.

The following is a partial translation of the Caixin report on Zhang Shuguang’s California home.

“American Mansion of ‘China High-Speed Rail Grand Designer’ Zhang Shuguang Revealed”
December 19, 2011 (posted to website)
The mansion is located in Walnut, USA, covering an area of 30,000 square feet, with a floor area of 4,100 square feet. There are five bedrooms, and the price is 860,000 US dollars.
Not long after Ding Shumiao (丁书苗), a businesswoman from the [prefectural level] city of Jincheng in Shanxi province, was arrested, Zhang Shuguang hurried off to the United States, taking this mansion that had originally been registered jointly in the name of himself and [his wife] Wang Xing (王兴) and putting it entirely under Wang Xing’s name.
Reporters Gu Yongqiang (谷永强), Wang Chen (王晨), Zhang Tao (章涛) and Li Yongchun (李永春)
In recent days, the U.S. mansion of Zhang Shuguang, the former deputy engineer [of China’s Ministry of Railways] and director of the National Transport Administration (运输局局长) who was suspended pending [a corruption] investigation, and who has been called “the grand designer of China’s high-speed rail,” has been revealed.
According to reports by Caixin Century, Zhang Shuguang’s mansion is located at 688 Pierre Road in Walnut, [California].
It’s total area is 4,100 square feet (about 381 square meters), with five bedrooms.
In November 2002 Zhang Shuguang and his wife Wang Xin paid in full for the property. At the time, they paid 946 dollars in documentary transfer tax. Calculating on this basis, we can estimate that Zhang and Wang paid about 860,000 US dollars for the property (the rate of documentary transfer tax in Los Angeles is 1.1 US dollars for every 1,000 US dollars).
In 2002, 860,000 dollars was no paltry sum, and according to the exchange rate at the time (1:8.28), the Renminbi equivalent at the time was 7.12 million yuan. It is difficult to imagine that Zhang Shuguang, who at the time was serving as the head of the passenger car division at the Ministry of Railways, was making a monthly salary of just around 2,200 yuan.

The ongoing standoff between villagers and local authorities in Wukan, Guangdong province, has received big play today in Chinese-language newspapers outside the mainland. The bulk of the reporting is from Hong Kong media, and most of that is from two newspapers, Ming Pao and Apple Daily. The story continues to receive strong coverage by foreign media, including the Financial Times, Reuters, The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and others.
There seems to be no coverage at all today in mainland Chinese media, which must lead us to ask: What next? How do China’s leaders plan to respond to this developing crisis?
A news search for “Wukan” on Baidu.com (4pm, Hong Kong, December 19, 2011) turns up only one result for December 19, which is from the Chinese-language edition of the Wall Street Journal Online.
A search for “Wukan” in the WiseNews Chinese-language newspapers database for today, December 19, 2011, returns 0 articles for mainland newspapers. That means no coverage among the 200+ mainland newspapers archived by the service. A search for all regions, including the mainland (0), Hong Kong and Taiwan, returns 58 articles in total — 37 from Hong Kong, 6 from Taiwan, 0 from Macau, 14 from Malaysia and 1 from Singapore.

[GRAPH: Share of Chinese-language coverage of the Wukan story by number of articles, December 19, 2011.]
While there seems to be no mainstream media coverage inside China today of the Wukan story, news is flittering across domestic microblogs. Searches for “Wukan” remain blocked on Sina Weibo, bringing up a notice that results cannot be shown “according to Chinese laws and regulations”:

[ABOVE: Screenshot of search for “Wukan”, December 19, 2011, 5:15pm Hong Kong.]
However, searches for “Shanwei,” which were blocked late last week, are now freed up and reveal plenty of chatter about the situation in Wukan Village, for which a number of new keywords have cropped up, including “W-kan” (W坎), which uses the English letter “W” with the second character in the village’s name, and “Wu-K” (乌K), which combines the character for “wu” with the English letter “K.” Another term being used is the simple “WK.”
Plenty of microblog posts have shared Chinese-language coverage today from Hong Kong. Here, for example, is a post in which the original poster writes: “The whole world is watching Wukan Village, except for us fools!” The re-poster seen here responds: “Please spread this. A harmonious society. This has been going on so long and we just find out. Reports overseas have been all over the place.” The image accompanying the post is the frontpage of today’s Ming Pao.

In this post, the user again shares an image of the frontpage of today’s Ming Pao. The original post is titled: “Concerning Hong Kong media reports of the latest information on grain shortages in W-Village.” A news brief style summary follows, and the re-poster remarks: “Pay attention to W-kan!” (关注W坎!).

Several images of Hong Kong newspapers reporting the Wukan story today follow, including the Ming Pao frontpage being shared on Sina Weibo and other microblog platforms.

[ABOVE: The frontpage of Hong Kong’s Ming Pao on December 19, 2011.]

[ABOVE: Page four of Hong Kong’s Ming Pao on December 19, 2011.]

[ABOVE: Page five of Hong Kong’s Ming Pao on December 19, 2011.]

[ABOVE: Page two of Hong Kong’s Apple Daily on December 19, 2011.]

[ABOVE: Page two of Hong Kong’s Apple Daily on December 19, 2011.]