Unpacking China’s latest policies on cultural reform, which emerged from October’s sixth plenum of the 17th Central Committee of the CCP, will be a process of many months. The October “Notice” on cultural reform is not so much a coherent program of cultural development as a mess of politics, ideology and commercial interests. And the Party’s own attempts to explain what these changes mean lead only to more befuddlement.
Take, for example, today’s edition of the Party’s official People’s Daily. While articles on cultural reform are scattered throughout the paper, page seven offers a series of pieces with the stated goal of “exploring methods of transition and development for the cultural industries.” 

The first piece in the series, “Breaking Through Deep Issues in the Development of Culture Industries,” comes from the Hebei Province Research Center for the Theoretical System of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics. Here is the center’s introduction:

In a modern society, culture and the economy grow together into one with each passing day. Owing to various regional, industry and administrative lines, our country’s cultural industries have not only suffered the limitation of their own development, but the support of and drive for economic and social development in a larger sense has not been fully brought into play [as a result]. Therefore, various regions and industries should, in the forming and implementation of cultural reform and development planning, set their eyes on cooperative development, united development, breaking through . . . [the situation] of the backwardness of cultural development relative to the economic development.

Readers hoping for specifics are rewarded instead with more generalities. The article says that achieving cross-regional and cross-industry cultural industry development requires “the strengthening of top-level design, innovating the systems and mechanisms for cultural construction.”
The objectives broadly defined in this article seem valid enough. China must move toward greater innovation. Indeed. China must transition from a “made in China” model to a “created in China” model. Sure.

While there are many reasons for the emergence of “shanzai culture” [in China], on one level it can illustrate the loss of impetus for innovation and creation in the cultural industries. At the moment, our culture industries lag behind the overall economy and society in terms of innovation and creativity, and this has restrained the development of the culture industries as well as economic and social development. Fostering the impulse for creativity and innovation has become . . . a strategic focus and urgent task in the cultural and also social and economic development. Realizing the leap from “made in China” and “assembled in China” to “created in China” and “brand China” requires a salient emphasis on innovation consciousness (创新意识) and creative thinking (创造思维), making innovation and creativity the leading and driving forces of cultural industry development. [This means] strengthening the protection of intellectual property and creating a social environment that respects knowledge, respects talent, respect work and respects innovation. [This means] strengthening the position of creativity and innovation in the cultural service value chain, raising the quality and effectiveness of acts of innovation and creativity.

But how do you drive home a “salient emphasis on innovation consciousness and creative thinking” and nurture “the impulse for creativity and innovation” without relaxing the political and ideological environment in which people create in the first place? This, as I’ve stressed before, is the fundamental blind-spot of China’s cultural reforms.
How do you create “a social environment that respects knowledge” and innovation when the fundamental law on culture is the Party’s, the demand that culture “follow the correct political orientation” as spelled out in the October “Decision” on cultural reforms?
The paragraph above also talks about the “quality and effectiveness” of innovation and creativity. But what are the metrics for quality and effectiveness? Who decides what is quality and what is effective? Who gets to allocate resources on that basis?
The second article in the series begins with an assessment of the need for more cultural production on the basis of broader trends in economic growth:

In step with our country’s economic development and rising household incomes, the spiritual [or “non-material” = “cultural”] consumer demand of the people has steadily expanded, and this has promoted the emergence of cultural and creative industries. In the past few years, the cultural and creative industries in our country have developed rapidly, and the scope of development has expanded from several large cities like Beijing and Shanghai to principal cities throughout the country.

How will China now meet this rising demand? The article states confidently that “many major cities have placed great priority on cultural innovation and industry development, and have gained clear results.” 

The city of Shanghai has raised the concept of ‘innovation industrialized and industry innovated’; the city of Nanjing has raised [the idea of] ‘making it such that every person’s creativity is encouraged, that every good creation has the opportunity to be marketed (市场化) and industrialized (产业化), and that every creator receives effective institutional support and favorable policy support’; the city of Guangzhou has raised [the concept of] ‘grabbing hold of the animation industry just [as it has] the automotive industry’; the city of Shenzhen has talked about building ‘the capital of innovative design; etcetera.  

So the Party everywhere is talking about innovation. That’s no surprise, of course. They have little choice given that innovation has become the preeminent Party buzzword. And what about action? The article goes on to mention other specific measures, such as a pilot project offering tax reductions for cultural enterprises in Beijing, investment in the building of “cultural industry accumulation areas” (产业聚集区) — culture industry parks, that is — and working with banks to encourage loans to “cultural innovation enterprises” (文化创意企业). 
I may seem to some to be belaboring this point, but there is an ongoing tension here between the “material” of hoped-for culture and the “spirit” of innovation. “Cultural industry accumulation areas” and loans for “cultural innovation enterprises” are all well and good. But the assumption seems to be that people will be innovating simply because these loans and parks exist. And there is that nagging question about the “social environment” for innovation alluded to in the first article in the People’s Daily series. Can you talk about innovation without talking about freedom? Whether you can or not, China is doing just that.
Nor can the discussion of cultural development escape the ideological conditioned response of defining Chinese cultural creation in opposition to the West — and thereby unnecessarily restricting its meaning and twisting its purpose. Who is going to decide whether innovations are sufficiently “Chinese”?
A third article on page 7 of the People’s Daily urges that policy making on cultural development take into account the uniqueness of the Chinese condition:  

The writer believes that every country’s cultural industries have their own soil on which they live and their own conditions that give them full scope. Departing from definite historical conditions and social environments, the development modes of cultural industries must change. Therefore, in setting down policies for the cultural industries, while the advanced experiences of developed Western nations should be adopted, we cannot apply or mechanically copy development modes . . .

So innovation is great, but China has to make sure that whatever innovation it gets is Chinese enough.
This prerogative of “Chineseness” leads us to another of the bewildering contradictions in this push for cultural reform. As I said at the outset, this policy is a mess. So perhaps it shouldn’t surprise us that the top-down push to create innovative culture that is quintessentially Chinese also maintains as its “guiding principle” the political tenets of a 19th century German philosopher.
An article in the People’s Daily series addressing the “need to thoroughly leverage the capacity of [China’s] excellent traditional culture” offers the following proviso for cultural industry development:

“[We must] adhere to the correct development direction. In bringing traditional culture into [overall] cultural industry development, we must adhere to Marxism as the guiding principle, keeping to the tenets of serving the people and serving socialism . . . ”

Currently secretary at People’s Daily Online’s Public Opinion Monitoring Center and editor of the journal Online Public Opinion, Zhu Huaxin (祝华新) served as a reporter for the CCP’s official People’s Daily from 1986 to 2000. He is the author of numerous articles and reports on public opinion, agenda-setting, the internet and social media in China.

The Beijing News reported on November 30 that a woman from the city of Suzhou named only as “Ms. Wang” recently filed a lawsuit against China’s Ministry of Land and Resources after her request for access to information on a highway construction project under China’s 2008 National Ordinance on Open Government Information (政府信息公开条例) was denied. The case shows the immense difficulties facing citizens in China who attempt to use the open government information (OGI) legislation to monitor the government. The 2008 ordinance specifies that government agencies much keep logs of all available records, defines a range of areas where citizens are ostensibly allowed access to information, and defines the procedures by which citizens can apply for access to government information. In this cartoon, posted by artist Shang Haichun (商海春) to his blog at QQ.com, an ordinary citizen hopelessly tries to raise a huge bottle-opener labeled “open information” to the sealed mouth of a larger-than-life government official.

It’s been a busy year for China’s broadcast authority, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), which has made it its mission to shake up the already messy world of Chinese television. The body’s latest action, formally announced yesterday, is to ban the insertion of advertising in popular television dramas.
Back in July this year, SARFT held a “discussion forum” to address the issue of “entertainment excessiveness” in Chinese television programming, giving bosses from various provincial television networks an ostensible opportunity to offer their views on new restrictions that already seemed a foregone conclusion. The entertainment programming ban, known in China by the shorthand xian yu ling (限娱令), finally came in September and took effect in October. It forced television stations to broadcast “entertainment programs” (娱乐节目) no more than three times a week during prime time (5-10pm).
The latest SARFT ban on advertising in television dramas expressly prohibits the interruption of dramas with ads, but does not prevent broadcasters from airing advertisements before and after dramas, or from placing paid-for plugs directly into the dramas themselves. There are some ambiguities here that could lead to interesting cheats or workarounds from television broadcasters, something we’ll come to later.

[ABOVE: Today’s frontpage at the commercial Dongguan Times makes the latest SARFT ban the leading story. Strips of film labeled “advertising” are crossed into an X with a pair of scissors. The headline: “Ban on [ad] insertion. SARFT: Beginning next year TV dramas can’t insert ads.” The paper reports estimated losses to the TV sector by the move at 20 billion yuan, or 3.1 billion US dollars.]
But behind a swarm of questions like, “Will the rule kill off advertising revenues in the television sector?” and “Will broadcasters find a way to sneak around the rule?”, there looms a far more basic question: Why?
Why, indeed.
The ready answer seems to be that SARFT is putting its regulatory muscle where the Party’s mouth is on the broader issue of “cultural reforms.” To recap, the main theme at the recent plenary session of the Party’s 17th Central Committee was the building of a new cultural vibrancy in China through what was billed as a concerted process of cultural reform. In the Party’s formulation, this policy would bring a windfall of global “soft power” for China and give China the non-material confidence to stand strong “in the forest of nations.”
The talk of “cultural renewal” at the meeting came with a whole set of political and ideological imperatives. And superficially at least, it seems that SARFT is now muscling in on the television sector with some of these imperatives under its arm.
First of all, the “Notice” coming out of the October plenum said culture had to “uphold the main theme” and adhere to “correct guidance of public opinion,” both code for towing the Party’s political line. Further, the “Notice” stressed that “Marxism must be upheld as the guiding principle” of cultural reforms carried out “with the ideological armor of socialism with Chinese characteristics.” This would ensure cultural reforms “moved in the correct [political] direction.”
More directly relevant to this ad-related ban, however, the “Notice” defined “the building of a public culture service system” (公共文化服务体系) as one of the chief goals of cultural reforms. In yesterday’s official notice from SARFT, “actively developing cultural work in the public welfare” as prioritized at the recent sixth plenum is given as justification for the ban on advertising. The idea, basically, is that advertisements pollute the public welfare value of the television space, and removing them from television dramas is a service to the Chinese public.
Some members of the public have understood the ban in exactly this way. Internet user Yan Ni (燕妮) wrote on her weblog today:

The public opinion power of ordinary people is pretty substantial. The new SARFT regulations have surfaced, and beginning January 2012 advertisements can’t be inserted into television dramas. This gives the audience back a harmonious and efficient television environment. The hopes of ordinary people have been answered. This is a good thing, a very good thing.”

This of course is a fair initial reaction from the sofa. But there are important institutional, economic, practical and, yes, political questions that are left hanging by this SARFT action and its public service justification.
The section of October’s “Notice” that deals with “building a public culture service system” states that “public welfare cultural units” will form the “backbone” of this project, “supported by public financing.” The same section also talks about “employing government procurement, project subsidies, direct subsidies, interest subsidies, tax reduction and other policy measures” to “encourage various cultural firms to participate in public culture service.” Clearly, providing state funding for public welfare programming is one thing, and forcing public welfare programming standards on commercially operating enterprises is another.
This begs the question of the exact institutional nature of the television networks that will be impacted by the SARFT policy. Since the 1990s, media in China have been weaned off government support and encouraged to commercialize. In a competitive national market, they have been forced to fight for ad dollars, a fight for their survival. But the Party of course maintains the Party nature of all media in China, which is to say that there are no truly “independent” media even if the vast majority of Chinese media today have become financially independent.
So are these television networks “public welfare institutions”? Or are they for-profit entities? The answer is that they are neither and both, a question that Wei Yingjie (魏英杰) addressed yesterday at the Economic Observer:

. . . [T]he rationality and feasibility of the ‘advertising ban’ policy remain in question. In terms of the policy itself, SARFT can of course issue this or that regulation given that it is the department that overseas broadcast television nationwide. But the question of whether or not the policy is rational is a matter of whether or not it accommodates the industry’s own laws of development. So we have to make clear: are mainland television stations ultimately public welfare institutions or are they for-profit institutions? The answer is that mainland television stations are not purely public welfare institutions, nor are they entirely marketized institutions. Rather, they are compounds of both.

The core question, then, is this. Who is paying for the “public welfare” mandate? And for that matter, who is paying for the cultural reforms trumpeted so loudly at October’s meeting?
Wei sums it up like this: “The issue is really simple. Mainland television stations do not rely on fiscal appropriations to survive, and so they must be permitted to go and find sustenance in the marketplace.” It’s entirely unreasonable, he suggests, to expect profit-driven television stations to take a hit for “public welfare” without the government stepping up with its pocketbook — and arguably goes against the “spirit” of the Party’s October “Notice”, which indicates that public financing will support the so-called “public culture service system” that is the core justification of the SARFT action.
Here is Wei Yingjie again:

This means that while administrative departments [like SARFT] can demand that television stations at various levels have a great public welfare quality about them, the government must finance these stations, otherwise there is no reason to inhibit the television stations in carrying out commercial activities.

“Who’s paying for this?” seems a most basic question that neither SARFT nor the Party leaders who presumably back this decision have cared to think about. On page nine of the CCP’s official People’s Daily today, Zhang He (张贺) praises the SARFT action, saying that television viewers have been “held ransom” by advertisements. He concludes with staggering blindness: “I hope television stations won’t focus too much on the short-term impact of the ban on inserting advertisements and will take a longer view, putting their energies into raising their own core competitiveness, constantly creating various unique and excellent content resources.” Pray tell, Zhang, how will these television stations pay for the “unique” and “excellent” programs you imagine populating this idealistic future?
There also seems to be a serious disconnect in the SARFT action between problem assessment and policy prescription. This can be glimpsed again in Zhang He’s editorial, where he argues that while people do not object to “reasonable advertising,” “the values of some television broadcast units have gone seriously awry, and they care more about economic benefit than the public welfare.” Admitting that “some” stations might have behaved excessively, where is the rationale then for banning all ads at all stations?
Further, the inconsistent and apparently unfair application of this public welfare standard calls into question the motives at the very core. Zhang He writes in People’s Daily about advertisements on television dramas “harming the normal viewing rights of the masses.” But what about advertisements inserted into news programming in China? Isn’t that serious too?
A report on the SARFT action at China Enterprise Online today quoted Beijing Huayuan Group CEO Ren Zhiqiang (任志强) as saying: “Why aren’t they limiting the insertion of advertisements in news programming? It seems that a lot of advertisements are still being inserted into a lot of [news] programs like Diyi Shijian [on CCTV 2]. We should treat all equally without discrimination. Every one is equal under the law, you know.”
It is of course a further hypocrisy to righteously defend the right of the Chinese public to be free from advertising during television dramas when there is, too put it gingerly, an insufficient respect for the public’s right to know. Shouldn’t public welfare programming begin by safeguarding the accuracy of news and information in the public interest? This point was made in a backhand fashion by Wang Ran (王冉), the CEO of China eCapital Corporation, again at China Enterprise Online. In reference to China’s official nightly newscast, which is stacked with propaganda about top Party leaders, Wang remarked: “I hope that some day Xinwen Lianbo too will stop its 30-minute advertising insertion.” Wang was of course referring to the news program itself, one big advertisement for top Party leaders.
Beyond the issue of whether these new measures are reasonable or even at their core really about the public welfare, there is the question of whether they will have the intended effect at all. Internet users and commentators are already speculating about how television stations will get around the rules. Many people have suggested, for example, that the rules will result in a flood of product placements in television dramas themselves — arguably more insidiously damaging to the public welfare. Another countermeasure to the rules might be to divide dramas into segments, allowing stations to justify placing ads before and after and argue that they were not actually “inserted.”
Finally, what other unintended effects will these rules — which, of course, deal only with television — have in a changing information terrain, where the Internet and social media are increasingly encroaching on the television space anyhow? One answer comes from ChinaEquity International Holding Co. Ltd. CEO Wang Chaoyong (汪潮涌): “All these various bans from the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television are just marginalizing the whole television sector and actively promoting the development of the internet and mobile media.”

In October and November 2011, an online campaign gathered pace in China around the case of blind lawyer and human rights activist Chen Guangcheng (陈光诚), who has been kept under house arrest at his home in Linyi, Shandong province, since his release from prison in late 2010. Chinese internet users and activists who attempted to visit Chen Guangcheng in response to online calls for action were harassed by local police and thugs. In late October, US Representative Chris Smith, chairman of the Congressional Executive Commission on China, said a congressional trip to Linyi to visit Chen was being planned. The AFP quoted Smith as saying that US lawmakers “desperately hope” Chen is still alive. Smith was subsequently denied a visa to visit China. In this cartoon, posted by artist Kuang Biao (邝飚) to his blog at QQ.com, chains of oppression dripping with blood knot around a pair of dark sunglasses, symbolic of the blind lawyer Chen Guangcheng. The cartoon was drawn for the occasion of Chen Guangcheng’s 40th birthday on November 12.

Today, November 8, is International Journalists Day, and a number of Chinese media have marked the holiday — but none perhaps so forcefully as China Youth Daily, a newspaper published by the Communist Youth League of China.
China Youth Daily, which has been known for its strong professional reporting tradition since the 1980s, tells the story in today’s edition of Fujian television journalist Deng Cunyao (邓村尧), who was brutally attacked on October 18, 2010, while leaving his office, in what was apparently a reprisal for critical reporting.
The assailant, riding a red motorbike and covering his face, drove up behind Deng and hacked at his left leg with a large knife. Deng, a producer at Fujian’s Longyan Television Station, recalled to the China Youth Daily reporter: “I wanted to run, but my leg had been broken by the slash, and I fell.”
As Deng screamed for help, the assailant turned and hacked at Deng’s right leg. Unable to stand, Deng watched as the assailant fled on his motorbike.
The China Youth Daily report explores the Deng Cunyao case in detail, including the threats facing his family. We do not translate the report here, but encourage readers of Chinese to take the time.
China Youth Daily apparently timed the release of the report for today. Here is our translation of the editor’s note:

Today is November 8, Journalists Day. We publish this chilling report today in order to pay our respects to those colleagues in journalism who are struggling on the front lines of watchdog journalism, and in order to tell the public: when journalists are beaten, when they suffer knife attacks, this is not only an injustice to the journalists themselves, or to their news units — it is an injustice to the popular will and to the public interest. Journalists represent the will of the public and the conscience of society. When we face difficulty, what we need most of all is your support.

The term “watchdog journalism” here is in Chinese “supervision by public opinion“, or yulun jiandu (舆论监督). The term, first mentioned at a senior leadership level in China in Zhao Ziyang’s political report in 1987, remains one of the officially recognized forms of power monitoring in China. But the term has now also become a rallying cry for professional journalists in China, and in particular for investigative reporters. For a more detailed treatment of this issue please refer to our book Investigative Journalism in China.
In an opinion piece posted online today in response to the case exposed by China Youth Daily, Yu Deqing (于德清) wrote:

Today many journalists have a deep sense of powerlessness. This kind of powerlessness very often comes from repeated obstruction in carrying out supervision by public opinion, comes from the way professional journalism values are constantly under attack in the real world. And in many cases, obstacles in carrying out monitoring pale in comparison to the harm caused by their powerlessness in protecting the safety of their own family members. This places journalists in a moral dilemma — if you can’t even protect your own family members, how can you even begin to talk about the power of monitoring, about protecting social fairness and the interests of the social underclasses?”

Now that the sixth plenary session of the 17th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party is history — see our coverage of so-called cultural system reforms announced at the meeting — it’s time to begin looking ahead to next year’s 18th National Party Congress, which will mark a critical transition in China’s top leadership. So much seems bewildering about China’s closed and secretive political system. But we’ll do our best to shed some light on the messy process in a series of posts in coming months.
In a post later this month we’ll discuss the issue of leadership selection and so-called “intra-party democracy” in China, and the (for many) bewildering notion of the “election differential” (选举差额). For now, however, we turn to a recent interview with retired senior cadre Du Daozheng (杜导正), the publisher of the progressive monthly journal Yanhuang Chunqiu (炎黄春秋).

[ABOVE: Du Daozheng appears on the cover of the most recent edition of Guangdong’s Southern People Weekly.]
In the interview, published in the most recent issue of Guangdong’s Southern People Weekly magazine, Du discusses Chinese politics and history in light of its present challenges, offering a good overview of some of the issues at stake in the lead up to the 18th Congress.
For more background on Du Daozheng, we encourage readers to turn to this 2007 interview translated by Roland Soong, and this 2009 interview in The New York Times.

Du Daozheng: I’m optimistic about the China’s prospects
— a conversation with Du Daozheng (杜导正)
Southern People Weekly: You compare China’s political situation to a pressure cooker. Would do you think the people inside the pressure cooker should do?
Du Daozheng: Pressure cookers have a valve, and the more you turn this valve the more pressure builds up, until one day the whole thing explodes. Once the explosion happens everyone falls on hard times, and no one has an advantage. And so, I hope we can take the path of reformism (改良主义).
The tension in China rights now can be summed up in 16 words: “Official corruption, a wide income gap, a collapse of ethics and morals, and poor public security.” [NOTE: The 16 “characters” in Chinese here are, 官场腐败，贫富悬殊，道德滑坡，治安不好]. Chinese now have food on the table and roofs over their heads. They are no longer at war, and feel they can get by. But corruption is so severe, the gap between rich and poor continues to widen, and the level of frustration ordinary Chinese feel with the government continues to rise. This is really dangerous.
Southern People Weekly: We’ve just celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Xinhai Revolution. How do assess these past 100 years?
Du Daozheng: Sun Yat-sen had a profound influence on China, on the [Chinese Communist Party], on generations of intellectuals. The Xinhai Revolution was a banner, and this is something that even the Democratic Progressive Party in Taiwan doesn’t dare deny. It’s really regrettable that in mainland China we have failed to use the 100th anniversary of the Xinhai Revolution as an opportunity to promote the democratic process.
When we look back on Sun Yat-sen’s “Three Principles of the People” (三民主义), we can see their relevance still. Mao Zedong made many mistakes, but on the issue of national sovereignty, judging historically, what he collectively represents has merit. When I was young we would read the newspapers and be left with the sense that the country was doomed. We lost China’s three northeastern provinces [to the Japanese], and then came Chahar and Rehe [both Mongolian provinces]. National independence, and equal status among nations, this was raised by Sun Yat-sen, it was a concern of Chiang Kai-shek’s, but ultimately the issue was resolved in the era of Mao Zedong.
The leadership position of the Chinese Communist Party has relied upon both “nationalism” and the “people’s welfare,” [two of Sun Yat-sen’s original “three principles”]. But now corruption and the wealth gap has reached such a point that the problem of “people’s power” [or “democracy”] must be resolved. Power must be checked. We cannot rely on morality to provide a check, so this commending of moral principles that we’re seeing right now is of no use. Dealing with internal corruption at the roots is something very difficult for [the Party] to handle itself — it’s like growing a huge boil on one hand and trying to cut it off with a knife in the other. You can’t do it.
There are three things we have to do now. The first is intra-party democracy. The second is reforming the people’s congress system. The third is opening up public opinion [NOTE: in other words, relaxing media policy].
Southern People Weekly: Have the heard the various voices among those now in power [on this issue]?
Du Daozheng: There are good people inside officialdom too right now. A central Party leader stepping down told me that one time he visited a certain province and the situation as introduced to him by the Party secretary [of that province] was one thing, but after the meeting the two of them spoke privately and that provincial secretary said that everything he had just said was said out of obligation only.
If there’s anything I’ve learned through my life of experience it’s that any person, any group, any ruling party, any particular matter, is always very complex, nuanced and changeable. And so when we look at, analyze and handle issues, we must avoid over-simplification and absolutism. I think this applies to all problems.
Southern People Weekly: There are some people who believe that the violent revolution set off by the Xinhai Revolution created a century of unrest for China, that if the self-strengthening movement at the end of the Qing dynasty had been successful, creating a constitutional monarchy, things in China would have gone very differently.
Du Daozheng: The Guangxu Emperor wanted to take the path of Japan’s Meiji Restoration, and if he had been successful this would have been a boon for China. China would not be as it is now, but would be a powerful capitalist nation. But he failed after all. The Empress Dowager Cixi suppressed him. Before her death her own thoughts turned to reform. At the time, forces within the court began to rise [in favor of reform] and many ministers from many parts [of China] had different ideas, that not seeking reform was not an option. She [Cixi] permitted privately-run newspapers, and almost immediately more than 100 publications were launched in Shanghai. But it was too late. The United League had already risen and was calling for revolution. This is the concern in China right now. The lessons of history are rich indeed. All blood and tears.
Southern People Weekly: America is right now experiencing this “occupy Wall Street” movement, and some Chinese have rejoiced in this, saying that the West is in decline and the East is rising.
Du Daozheng: Compared to China the problems facing the West are minor ones. Even if they make a bigger fuss, it won’t come to armed insurrection, because their democratic institutions determine that the people have the right to choose and remove their government. It’s possible under democratic social institutions to constantly reform and correct errors [in society]. There is great vitality, and therefore stability. Internally, they are far more stable that appearances suggest.
Southern People Weekly: Lately, one of the terms that makes governments at all levels of [China’s bureaucracy] nervous is stability preservation. What do you think makes for a stable society?
Southern People Weekly: Lately, one of the terms that makes governments at all levels of [China’s bureaucracy] nervous is stability preservation. What do you think makes for a stable society?
Du Daozheng: Right now large-scale revolution is impossible in China, but small-scale unrest is widespread. In my view, the best thing would be to take a number of quick steps forward while preserving the leadership status of the Chinese Communist Party, preserving current political power, and preserving the present social structure. Recently, a number of sons and daughters of old cadres have talked about how aside from truly advancing intra-party democracy, there is a need to quickly advance the reform of the people’s congress system, including raising the quota of people’s congress delegates for the people by 20 percent. I think this is a good idea.
Southern People Weekly: Recently in Guangdong there was a child who was struck twice by vehicles and then was ignored by 18 passersby who rendered no help at all. How do you see that incident?
Du Daozheng: There is a moral collapse behind this incident, and also weakness in our legal institutions — after I’ve saved you, and you turn and level charges against me, I could face prison time.
Morals are far too weak as a part of our education system. Right now we stop at nothing for scientific and technological development. Just look at how our country places little priority on culture and human affairs, but only awards science and technology. This is not unlike [the situation under] Stalin. Stalin had little regard for the humanities and only cultivated Gorky and a number of intellectuals who would do his bidding. Mostly he supported and cultivate those in the sciences and technology.

Continuing our coverage of culture and politics in China in light of the recent “Decision” on “cultural system reforms” released by the Sixth Plenary Meeting of the 17th CCP Central Committee — the annual full meeting of China’s topmost Party leaders — we offer a translation of the latest blog essay by race-car driver and cultural critic Han Han (韩寒).
In the essay, Han Han talks about his personal experiences with censorship, which he likens to castration, and offers his own (humorous) reflections on the question of building China as a “cultural strong nation.”
UPDATE: Han Han’s essay had been deleted from his blog by today, November 4, 2011. Left in its place was the headline: “What can you do when your taste is too low.” Readers will understand the headline’s meaning after reading his essay.

[ABOVE: A screenshot of Han Han’s blog today, showing the deleted November 2 post at the top.]

I haven’t written anything since [my July post] “Nation Derailed.” In point of fact, I’m not very diligent about my writing, and each time I do finish writing something and then can’t see it [after I post it, because it has been censored], I get despondent. And there are just so many government departments [to get past]. Even if the propaganda department and the General Administration of Press and Publications are fine with something, any department issued with Passats and above can wipe your essay away with a simple phone call. Of these, the most merciful are in fact certain local public security departments. Back in 2008 I wrote an essay that wasn’t deleted until a after a lapse of a whole year. No wonder people complain about slow police response times. It’s true. There are so many places that delete articles that one doesn’t know how to begin writing.
I’ve been involved in this work [of writing] for around 13 years now, and I now understand just how powerless and of no account cultural workers (文化工作者) really are. Owing to a richness of restrictions, people in this line of work are unable to produce anything truly special. Allow me to share a few stories.
China’s publishing industry actually isn’t so subject to official censorship. People will find that strange, because it goes against the common understanding. But I can tell everyone that there really is no censorship in the book publishing industry. This is because tens of thousands of books are published every year in China, and it’s actually impossible to censor them all. Moreover, I believe that most of those comrades charged with reading books [to censor them] don’t really enjoy reading books, so book censorship has actually been left to the publishing houses themselves.
But this doesn’t amount to the opening of one-hundred flowers. Of course it doesn’t. To put it rather more expertly, this is what they call a system of post-facto censorship (事后审查制). In fact, post-facto censorship is stricter than prior censorship, more lethal and having more adverse reactions. This is something of which those who have used postcoital contraceptives have a rather deeper sense.
Only if you obtain a book license [or “book number”] can you publish, only publishing houses can issue book licenses, only the authorities can operate publishing houses, and so from the very fountainhead publishing freely is impossible. Owing to the fact that the vast majority of state-run publishing houses are of no use, many privately-run cultural enterprises (民营文化公司) have gotten into the book publishing business. The method of publishing is either joint publishing [with a state-run house] or purchasing a number of book licenses from publishing houses. This, however, cannot change the situation facing publishing, because the publishing house still has the ultimate decision.
In the past when a book was not allowed to be published, the reason given was that it was counterrevolutionary. But this term counterrevolutionary later fell out of use because while counterrevolutionary activity was still frowned upon no one wanted exactly to encourage revolution either. In the view of the authorities, the work of the revolution had already been accomplished, and so while counterrevolutionary behavior was a no-no, revolution was equally unwanted. The best thing was for the masses to just live their lives by staying put.
So now the reason for not being able to publish things is that they are deficient in taste (格调不高). My first book, The Three Doors (三重门), was dragged about in coming out precisely because it was deficient in taste. If something’s deficient in taste this can be fatal. After all, if the writing isn’t strong enough, it can be improved. If the logic isn’t there, it can be worked out. But deficiency of taste is a real headache, and you just don’t know how you can lift up your taste. If you ask them what they mean by taste, they don’t know either. Only now have I come to understand that taste actually means to cut out (割掉), so deficiency of taste actually means that not enough has been cut [NOTE: This is a play on words, as the words “taste”, gediao, and “to cut out” are homophones in Chinese]. So you think that just by symbolically smoothing out the calluses on your feet you can make it in the creative industries [in China], eh? No, you have to make sure you cut high enough. If you spare that part just below the waist, you might still be too manly for the creative industries.
I’ve long been subjected to the bitterness of censorship. But since I managed to raise my taste somewhat, I have fortunately been able to publish books. And because some books have enjoyed substantial sales, I’ve sometimes been able to get the publisher to push the taste down just a bit. Each time before I write I have to go through a process of self-censorship. Perhaps some who have never worked in this industry might feel that doing this makes us somehow cowardly, not MAN enough. For example, before my book Solo Troupe (独唱团) was published I went through all sorts of difficulties. Some of my friends couldn’t stand it. They said I was selling out, and if it were them they would say forget the book number, take it right to the printers, print tens of thousands of copies and start selling them. While I admire these friends for their deficiency of taste, they don’t understand that the printers can only run their machines once they’ve received a printing authorization from the publishing house. Otherwise you can’t print a single copy without someone informing the police. If your own grandfather opens up his own printing house and you manage to print tens of thousands of copies, without a book number no bookstore or newsstand is going to carry your product. Even those people who sell pirated copies won’t help you sell it.
These friends might say, well then, I would just put it up on the internet and sell it on Taobao. Let me tell you then that if you want to sell books on Taobao you first have to have the credentials, you can’t just tack a book cover right up there. You have to enter the book number, and once the system has verified the book number and the book title, only then can your book go up.
And so up to this very day, everyone and anyone involved in culture is engaged in a painful process of self-censorship. So can we look forward to publishing houses lowering their taste a bit? This is of course impossible. As soon as a publishing house shows any sign of notching down its taste — remembering that these are state-run units — the authorities will just send over a new publishing chief. The nasty thing about post-facto censorship is how it exacts penalties. It says, look, I’m not going to look over your shoulder, but if you publish something improper I’ll have your head for it. If it’s something less serious I’ll fire you from your post or disband the publishing house; if it’s serious I’ll lock you up. So, you decide how you want to do it.
As for myself, while every single essay I write goes through a process of self-censorship and castration, sometimes unavoidably the fashion of my castration is still insufficient to pass muster. This has to do with the level of sensitivity at various publishing houses. For example, my most recent novel has been killed outright, because the protagonist in the novel is surnamed Hu [like China’s president]. So even though I have only written 5,000 characters so far, the publisher assumes there must be political allegory somewhere. By the time I realized I had to avoid this name and changed the character’s surname it was too late.
I don’t know how a country where a writer trembles when he takes up his pen can build itself into a cultural great nation (文化强国), or how a country where you have to avoid using the names of [politburo] standing committee members and therefore can’t find the [Tang dynasty poet] Li Bai in a Google search can build itself into a cultural great nation. I have no idea how these cultural system reforms are supposed to work. I just have one wish, and that is that Mr. Han Zheng (韩正), [currently the mayor of Shanghai], is not promoted again. Otherwise, I won’t even be able to come up with myself in a search.

NOTE: This post had been deleted from Han Han’s blog by Friday, November 4. We post the Chinese here for the convenience of our readers:
http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_4701280b0102dwvy.html
格调不高怎么办 (2011-11-02 18:42:22)转载
标签： 杂谈
自从《脱节的国度》不见了以后，一直都未写东西。因为我着实是一个写的不勤奋的人，每次写完，隔日不见，真的扫兴，而且国家部门繁多，就算宣传部门和新闻出版部门觉得没问题，所有配备了帕萨特以上公务车的部门也都可以一个电话把你文章删了。其中最仁慈的反而是某地方的公安部门，08年有一天我写了一篇文章，事隔一年多，他们删除了这篇文章。难怪大家都说公安出警慢。没错。删文章的地方太多了，就不知道该怎么下笔了。
从事了这个工作大概十三年，我发现文化工作者在地位上真是一个特别下三滥特别窝囊废的工种。这个工种所出产的作品由于受到诸多的限制，所以肯定没有那么奇特的经历更加精彩。我来说一些小故事。
在中国的出版行业，其实是没有官方的审查的。大家都应该觉得很奇怪，因为这违背了常识。但是可以告诉大家，出版行业的确没有审查。这是因为中国每年要出几十万本书，实在审查不过来。而且我相信管那些读书人的同志大部分都不爱读书，所以图书审查其实一直由出版社独立完成。
但是这样一来岂不是百花齐放了。当然不是。比较专业的说，这叫事后审查制。事后审查制其实要比事前审查制更加紧，杀伤力和副作用更大。这点用过事后避孕药的朋友肯定深有感触。
只有拥有书号才能出版，只有出版社才能发书号，只有官方才能有出版社，所以从源头上，自由的出版其实是不可能的。而由于大量的国有出版社能力不济，很多民营文化公司开始运营图书出版。出版的方式就是合作出版或者从出版社那里购买一些书号。但这依然不能改变出版现状，因为出版社依然是终审方。而一本书如果不让出版，在以往理由是反革命，后来反革命这个词不太出现了，因为反革命既然是不好的，那岂不成了鼓励革命。而官方认为，革命工作已经完成，所以既不能反革命，也不能革命，群众最好的生活方式就是呆着。于是现在不能出版的理由就是格调不高。我第一本书《三重门》就是因为格调不高，迟迟不能出版。格调不高是致命的，因为文笔太差可以改，逻辑不清可 以理，唯 独格调不高让人头疼，你也不知道怎么能让自己的格调提高一点。你问他什么是格调，他也不知道。一直到现在，我才明白了，格调其实就是割掉的意思，格调不高就是割掉的不够高，你以为象征性的把脚底板的老茧磨磨平就能从事文化行业了么，你要割掉的够高。凡是保留腰以下部分的，从事文化行业明显还是会显得雄性气息太浓厚。
我是一直饱受审查之苦的。但在格调稍微高了一点以后，我还是侥幸可以出版图书，并且因为图书的畅销，有的时候还稍微可以在小问题和出版方争取格调稍微降低一点。每次写作前，我都要进行一次自我审查。也许很多没有从事过这个行业的朋友会觉得我们这样做特别怂，不够MAN。比如当年《独唱团》出版前遇到很多的困难，一些朋友看不下去了，说你太娘们了，这要是我，不要书号了，直接拿到印刷厂去，印个几十万本，这就开卖了。我欣赏这位朋友的没有格调，但他们不知道印刷厂只有收到了出版社开具的委托印刷单以后才能开机印刷，否则你非但印不了一本，人家就报警了。其次就算你爹开了一个印刷厂，你印刷出了几十万本，你没有书号，就没有一家书店和报刊亭是会进你的 货的。连 卖盗版的都不敢帮你卖。也许这位朋友会说，那我就放到网上去，在淘宝卖。那我告诉你，在淘宝销售图书，首先你得拥有资质，其次你不能随手拍一个封面就上架了，你必须输入书号，当系统把你输入的书号和书名对应起来，你才能上架。
所以一直到今天，所有的文化人都在进行着痛苦的自我审查。那我们能否指望出版社突然格调降低呢，这当然也不可能，一旦出版社有格调降低的迹象，由于都是国有单位，官方再指派一个社长过去就是。而那些格调降低的同志就可以去妇联残联养养老。事后审查制最恐怖一环在于惩罚，就是我不管你，但你要是出版了什么幺蛾子，我罚死你。轻则撤职撤社，重则投进大牢，所以你看着办吧。
至于我本人，虽然每一篇文章都经过了自我审查和阉割，但有的时候难免也会出现阉割的形状不符合认证的情况。这个和每个出版社的紧张程度有关系。比如我最新的小说就被枪毙了，因为新小说里的主人公姓胡，虽然我才写了五千字，但是出版社认为这必然是有政治隐喻的。当我明白了要避讳的时候再改姓已经晚了。但避讳要记住勿忘前朝，我还有一篇小说中，因为出现了“江河湖海”四个字，被更直接的枪毙了。如果说之前我犯了错误的话，那这一个就是两倍的错误。连我都不能原谅我自己，明知道惹不起，怎么连躲都没躲利索呢。
我不知道一个文化人提笔就哆嗦的国家怎么能建设成文化强国，一个因为要避讳常委所以在谷歌上搜索不到李白的国家怎么能建设成文化强国。我不知道该怎么一个文化体制改革法，反正我只有一个愿望，就是韩正老师别再升官了，要不然我就搜不到我了。
谨以此文纪念一期被停的《独唱团》以及两期被停的《大方》。