If anyone had doubts about the future health of Caijing magazine as a place for harder-hitting journalism after the departure of founding editor-in-chief Hu Shuli (胡舒立) in November 2009, the magazine’s latest issue is cause for optimism, if not applause.
Archived report available here:
Report 1
Report 2
Report 3
Report 4
Report 5
A new investigative report in Caijing from journalist Luo Changping (罗昌平), known for his recent book about the 2003 Chenzhou corruption scandal, uncovers how the corruption cases against a number of prominent officials in recent years, including former Qingdao party secretary Du Shicheng (杜世成) and former Sinopec CEO Chen Tonghai (陈同海), all have a shadow figure in common — a former Vietnamese refugee named Li Wei (李薇).
The Caijing report alleges that Li Wei (李薇) used her relationship with her husband, a former tobacco official, to get close to top officials in Yunnan, Guangdong, Beijing and Qingdao, creating a vast network of protection and favor that she used to personally enrich herself.
The report’s title, “The Public Band”, or gonggong qundai (公共裙带)), references the intersection of money and power, or “crony capitalism,” which in Chinese can be literally translated “skirt-band capitalism,” or qundai ziben zhuyi (裙带资本主义).
According to the article, many high-level officials now being held in Beijing’s Qincheng Prison — including former Yunnan governor Li Jiating (李嘉廷), former Beijing deputy mayor Liu Zhihua (刘志华), former deputy judge of the Supreme People’s Court Huang Songyou (黄松有), and former deputy chief of the China Development Bank Wang Yi (王益) — all had previous dealings with Li Wei’s network of power and money.
The report also mentions, withholding names, two high-level state officials who previously supported Li Wei. As a matter of general practice in China’s media, the withholding of the names of “high-level officials” in news reports indicates those concerned are officials at the most senior levels.
Many of the corruption cases crossing through this Caijing report stretch back years. The Li Zhihua corruption case, for example, hit headlines in China well ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008, and was handled with great care in the state media, given that Li was responsible for the construction of Olympic sites in the capital.
We’re just poring through this report now, but we commend it to readers of Chinese. As there are signs of a tightening climate for domestic media in China — and particularly as investigative reporting has grown more difficult in recent years — the appearance of a report of this nature is highly significant.

It is understandable that the Chinese child-raising style of Chinese-American “tiger mom” Amy Chua has ignited controversy in the United States. But Americans may find it difficult to understand why the “tiger mom” controversy has blazed across China. Many assume the “tiger mom” child-rearing style portrayed in Chua’s book is the dominant Chinese way. What they may not realize is that in China, especially in the major cities, the “tiger mom” style of discipline and education has faded into the past.
For thousands of years, the Chinese family style was the “tiger mom” style. The will of the parents dominated in all things, and little thought was given to the autonomy of the child. The parents’ will was forced on the child, with the cudgel if necessary. According to modern concepts of child-raising, this is unacceptable. It doesn’t jive with child psychology, and it doesn’t respect the child’s character.
Whatever the shortcomings of this style, however, we have to acknowledge that it didn’t fail to produce stand-outs. Most of China’s strong personalities in the last century were products of this child-raising style — the poet Hu Shi (胡适), the writer Lu Xun (鲁迅) and the novelist Lao She (老舍). By contrast, the children of these more modern fathers failed to distinguish themselves through their actions.
Actually, the Chinese family is now in trouble. For families that can have only one child, raising them well is a real challenge. The old paternal style of raising children with a heavy hand has been shoved aside in favor of indulgence on the one hand and hand-slapping on the other.
While parents are anxious to instill their child with every ability in the world, they are often helpless in the face of the child’s resistance to normal studies. The family dynamic is all about encouraging the child to study, and so long as they study they can do whatever else they please. Everything else is handled by the parents, even routine cleaning at the child’s school.
Children spend money as they please, without restrictions, so long as it is falls within their parents’ means. If children resist anyhow, refusing all boundaries, parents are basically powerless to do anything. Many parents in China today don’t have an iota of authority with their own child. Parents, in fact, have become more like play companions.
Clearly, our our traditional parenting style has already undergone fundamental change. No one dares parent with the cudgel anymore, moulding kids into dutiful children. When discipline is used, it comes hand in hand with reward. So long as a child takes on heaps of knowledge at the parents’ bidding, they earn exemption from household chores and are showered with all the comforts money can buy. Even if the child ultimately digs in its heels and does nothing, becoming completely indolent, unable to hold down a job, living at home, there is nothing the parents can do.
Of course, even this parenting style has its examples of success. Some children, even without the most basic self-reliance, find their strengths in the course of their studies and achieve excellent results at school. Some even test into foreign universities, becoming Harvard graduates and otherwise distinguishing themselves.
We must confess to ourselves, however, that we face a parenting vacuum in China. We have left the old style behind, and in its place we have nothing. This presents us with hidden perils on a scale overseas Chinese “tiger moms” like Amy Chua probably cannot even fathom. In America, versions of the tiger mom’s strict parenting style are reproduced in various forms in schools and in society. Not so in China. Not only that, but our schools and our society at large are just as shaky as our families on the question of education and character building.
In the midst of this ailing education environment, our children don’t know the meaning of gratitude, responsibility or self-reliance. And the full effects of this may not be felt until these children have become adults and entered society.
This editorial originally appeared in Shanghai Morning Post, a commercial spin-off of Shanghai’s Liberation Daily.
[Frontpage photo by “whisperwolf” available at Flickr.com under Creative Commons license.]

Their names sometimes stretch back farther than our memories: King Norodom Sihahouk of Cambodia, Kim Jong-il of North Korea, Cuba’s Fidel Castro, Egypt’s Mubarak, and a handful of others. For me, a student of international relations, their names are like the very ghosts of history, arrayed across the sky, haunting us always.
But today we can rub out one of these names. Hosni Mubarak, who ruled Egypt for more than three decades, has resigned under the relentless pressure of his own people. The age of Mubarak has ended.
Not having stood beside these Egyptians who have taken to the streets, or experienced what they have, I cannot feel any deep hatred for Mubarak. I even feel somewhat at a loss. Egypt without Mubarak? Isn’t Mubarak part of what Egypt is all about?
Certainly, for people of my age who grew up reading about Egypt, Mubarak is an integral part of the Egypt we know, as symbolic as the mummies of the Pharaohs. We have long seen facts, or been presented with Mubarak’s facts, showing that he ushered in decades of stability for Egypt in a historically turbulent North Africa. Under Mubarak’s rule, Egypt enjoyed a period of rapid economic development. And his government, moreover, was one of the most secular in the region.
It was Mubarak who resolved the basic deprivation of the Egyptian people and brought stability. He became, along with Egypts mummies, a ready symbol of the country. For some time, this name, Mubarak, bore the dreams and glory of the Egyptian people and defined the vision the world had of this ancient nation.
Egypt and Iraq are among the world’s most ancient civilizations, along with a number of countries in East Asia. In countries in these regions, modern ideas of democracy have often come into conflict with deep-rooted ancient traditions, and they have been among the last to explore the possibilities of democracy.
Ah, Mubarak, this might have been a wonderful opportunity for you! Had you only realized that democracy, while it can be delayed for some time, cannot be stopped indefinitely. Why, during the more than thirty years that you ran the country, did you not make an effort to promote change, using the political power in your grasp to stand with your people, reinvigorating an ancient civilization? Instead you played for time, standing against reforms that might have bettered Egypt and provided for you a way out. Now, in the bitter end, you have no choice but to somberly step down.
Mubarak might have carried on the hopes of the Egyptian people. If he had carried out political reforms, even in the last moments of those thirty plus years during which he held nearly absolute authority [NOTE: the parallel between Mubarak’s 30 years and the 30 years of economic reform and opening in China is subtle but clear in the Chinese original]. If he had seized the opportunity, heeding the good advice of his own people, he might have been regarded not just with dignity but with gratitude as well, his place in the heart of Egypt secure. Egyptians might have regarded him as Americans regard Washington.
The opportunity has passed. Mubarak’s greatest mistake was not to heed those words of Dwight D. Eisenhower, who said: “If you want total security, go to prison.”
Based on my limited knowledge of international affairs, I honestly don’t think the Egypt of the future will necessarily experience better economic development than it did under your rule, Mubarak. The country’s political situation won’t necessarily be more stable, or Egyptian society more “harmonious.” This was always the justification you waved for holding back political reform and refusing to hand the power to the people. It was also the reason you always enjoyed support from the United States.
But if you are a student of history, it should be clear to you that no matter what pain or hardship Egypt faces in the future, it will never return to the era of Mubarak. Before long the people of Egypt will come to realize that the chaos of their country’s democratic transition is not without your shadow, Mubarak. For its roots will lie in part in the very fact that your rule was so unduly extended. Goodbye, Mubarak!
When I was in college, I learned by heart how you ruled your people, how you led them to war, and how you brought them out of an era of deprivation, using your own method with Egyptian characteristics to build a harmonious society [NOTE: this is a clear play on CCP discourse about “socialism with Chinese characteristic” and the “harmonious society”].
My son has read about you in his own history books. But now the people of Egypt have stood up, and they have given you and the world its most important lesson yet in how nations must be governed: illegitimate political power can never be legitimized, it says — no matter how high and mighty the justifications given may be, no matter how exalted the words, no matter how powerful the military. For an old man such as yourself, this is understandably the final lesson. But for the few people in the world who still wield absolute political power in a handful of countries, this is not the final lesson. I truly hope that you have the opportunity to speak about your own experiences in this moment, so that you might leave something beneficial behind for the world.
In the past few weeks, as your people took to the streets, the situation shifting so rapidly, you must have hesitated, not knowing which way to go. Perhaps you even considered ordering an attack on your people. In the end, you hoped the people would give you some time, even if it was just a few months.
Some have said you wanted this time to prepare your route of retreat, and transfer the vast riches your family and the special interests around you had amassed during your rule. I have a different take on this — a different fancy, you might say. Perhaps you, an old man in his eighties, struggled in those weeks to hold on to power because you woke rudely to a fresh regret. Is that it? And at that moment you hoped to use your final burst of power to do something meaningful for your people, giving them the right to free and fair elections. This way you might have, all at once, given hope to the people and left in a cloud of glory, preserving your place in history?
Oh, but it was too late! You had more than thirty years, but you never gave the people of Egypt an opportunity. So of course they were not willing to give you even a few days. You were unworthy.
Because you have exited the stage, it is as though Valentine’s Day has come early this year. It has suddenly dawned on the people of Egypt, who have lived so long in a nation musty with the smell of its mummified rulers, that every one of them has an unmissable date with a precious life of freedom and democracy.
Goodbye, Mubarak!
February 12, 2011, two days from Valentine’s Day.
[Frontpage Photo by “darkroom productions” available at Flickr.com under Creative Commons license.]

Lu Xun’s short story Diary of a Madman, published almost a century ago, ends famously with the appeal: “Save the children!” In an age of social media the Chinese writer surely never envisioned, has this rallying cry found its most potent means and support?
One of the biggest domestic stories of the week in China has been a grassroots, web-based initiative to locate abducted children and reunite them with their parents. Dubbed the “take a picture” movement, the initiative calls on Chinese internet users to photograph children seen begging on the streets and post these photos with time and location on special community groups formed through Twitter-like “microblog” platforms (or weibo) at QQ.com and Sina.com. [Roland Soong is posting copiously on this story in China, and his translations are well worth a read].
So far the movement, launched by CMP fellow and Chinese Academy of Social Sciences professor Yu Jianrong (于建嵘), who has a reputation for uniting social research with social action, is credited with locating 6 children. In one of the first signs of the government grappling with the swell of opinion around this issue, the Public Security Bureau called yesterday on police around the country to “staunchly prevent such crimes from occurring.”
But while the response from Chinese citizens seems so far to have been overwhelming supportive of Yu Jianrong’s inspired idea, there are also isolated voices of dissent who are raising some very valid doubts.
On February 9, Hecaitou (和菜头), a prominent Chinese internet writer, provocatively likened China’s unquestioning internet masses to the children in the legend of the Pied Piper of Hamelin, who follow the piper right out of town. Everyone, in other words, is jumping on the bandwagon — and no one is asking some very basic questions.
Hecaitou takes issue with the logic and economics of one of the fundamental premises of the “take a picture” movement, the notion that children in China are being routinely abducted, then mutilated by their keepers to ensure they become more pitiable and profitable beggars:

Buying an abducted child happens because one lacks a child. Begging happens because one lacks a means of livelihood. No matter how you figure it, whether from the standpoint of risk or cost, abducting a child then handicapping them in order to turn them to begging is something that can only be a very rare occurrence. But now the whole country is up in arms, as though there is a class of people in China who are willing to spend years slowly creating handicapped children and dragging them all over the place. Moreover, [we suppose] this must be a very profitable business, otherwise why would this group of people dare to face the risk of exposure . . . ?

Hecaitou suggests by implication that it is much more reasonable to suppose the vast majority of abducted children are now living undetected with families that “adopted” them. That’s a tragedy social media will undoubtedly prove less effective in dealing with.
The rights and privacy of individuals are also recurring concerns in the rare instances of dissent over this hot-button issue. Is it right for web users to be photographing child beggars in every corner of the kingdom, then posting their photos online?
In a blog post yesterday, a Chongqing-based blogger writing under the alias “Flying Nuthouse” (飞越疯人院) — “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest”? — argued that the justice-fueled emotions of China’s internet users are little more than a form of cowardice. It is the government they should be monitoring and pressuring, he says, not the poor street urchins and their (illegal) guardians.
The following is a partial translation of the post:

I’ve felt a bit uneasy these past few days, and it’s all because of this “microblog anti-abduction” campaign that has blown up on the Internet leaves me apprehensive.
The “microblog anti-abduction” campaign was launched by Yu Jianrong. This person is known to the world largely for his role in organizing the citizen investigation group that went and probed into the reasons for the death of [village leader and activist] Qian Yunhui (钱云会). The “microblog anti-abduction” campaign is said to have arisen after a woman from Fujian province sought help from Mr. Yu, saying that her child was abducted, turned into a cripple and forced to beg on the streets. Thereupon, Yu Jianrong used his microblog and called on internet users to take up their cameras, take photos of juveniles out begging, and post these on the web, with the idea that these parents might more easily track down their lost children. At the same time he urged internet users to report cases of child begging to the police.
I immediately harbored doubts about Yu Jianrong’s call. What if the child was not being forced in any way but rather was out begging of their own free will? Isn’t taking a picture of someone begging and then posting it on the internet an infringement on their rights?
As soon as I voiced these reservations, I was verbally attacked . . . They said that children shouldn’t be begging, and there was no such thing as children “begging of their own free will.” If a child could not meet the basic needs of existence, then the state should care for them, and they should not be left to beg on the streets.
There is of course of lot of reason in what these web users said. You could say they are entirely right. But this absolutely right response not only failed to dispel my doubts — it could not possibly explain why this photographing [of children] was warranted.
Imagine for a moment a child without means of subsistence — the famous cartoon character San Mao, for example — left to beg on the streets. Not only has the child not received assistance from the government, but their most basic level of dignity has been intruded upon by these internet users. Can this be called humane?
If internet users believe there should be no beggars in our society, and that the government should take responsibility for these child paupers, well then, ather than taking casual pictures of these begging children and post them online, what these internet users puffed up with a sense of justice should do is press their government to take on the responsibility is should have. But the reality is that it’s much easer to trample on the weak than it is to probe those in power. It seems to me that these justice-loving web users much prefer doing things that come easily.

Headlines in China are now telling us that the recent annual Spring Festival Gala on China Central Television was an immensely popular success. But it’s no secret to anyone that the annual CCTV gala is increasingly falling on deaf and inappreciative ears. On the Internet, this massive show of entertainment, national unity and feel-good cheer has already become the butt of much amusement. According to one telling quip, the gala’s greatest comic impact comes after the show.
It does not take much effort, actually, to realize that CCTV’s Spring Festival Gala has never had an easy time of it so far as pleasing the audience goes.
The primary aim of the event has always been to achieve so-called “closeness to the people,” and this could be glimpsed this year as three performers took to the stage in a blatant appeal to grassroots sympathies. I’m referring to the performance by guitarist Liu Gang (刘刚) and singer Wang Xu (王旭), the duo behind the band Xu Ri Yang Gang (旭日阳刚), who became Internet sensations after stepping into the national spotlight with their rendition of the song “In the Springtime” in the 2010 state film production Labor in Flux. Liu and Wang took the stage with singer Ren Yueli (任月丽), known by her stage name Xidan Girl (西单女孩) and another popular artist born of the Internet.
In an attempt to add to the grassroots feel, the CCTV gala was also sprinkled liberally with Internet slang.
The ordinary Chinese who are the focus of this “closeness,” however, just don’t buy this kind of forced cozying up. These grassroots gestures and slangs are like dragging Cinderella straight off to the royal court. It changes nothing. The royal court is still the royal court, and the commoners resent it nonetheless.
Ultimately, the Spring Festival Gala isn’t something that fills everyone with joy. Even those who manage to get into the actual event are shrink-wrapped with caution, forced to sit stiffly at attention.
We have an ancient saying in China about “teaching through lively activities.” But truly successful instruction through amusement can only happen as an unintentional consequence of arts and entertainment. If the didactic purpose is too intrusive, teaching becomes teaching, and joy can’t find a way in.
Just think, how many of our traditional Chinese dramas could be taken as examples of this idea of teaching through lively activities? Many of them, to be sure. But how many were were created and put on by the government? They were almost all genuine grassroots efforts. In fact, the Chinese gentry rarely took part in them at all.
The way ordinary Chinese see it, the Spring Festival Gala should be a massive celebration for them, a time when everyone can sit back, relax and have a great time. But the host of this celebration has become so serious about the whole thing, and can’t resist the temptation to preach through the performances. This is so woefully removed from public feeling that no matter how “close” the host gets it can never close the gap.
Encroaching seriousness is also evident from the changes made in recent years to spoken comedy acts, which have always been a staple of the Spring Festival Gala and something people have eagerly anticipated. Now, apparently, satire is off limits in these acts, though I’m not exactly sure when this started. In my view, satire is essential to the art of crosstalk, China’s unique brand of stand-up comedy, and without satire crosstalk comes off as soulless.
All acts performing for the Spring Festival Gala are limited in the space they can safely explore. You can imagine the shriveling limitations imposed in terms of both topic and interpretation.
The result is a critical and fundamental departure from the moods and opinions of the people. It’s only natural that through the course of the year people will harbor some form of resentment or feel disgruntled in some way. Enjoying a bit of satire during the annual gala can help them relax a bit and free themselves up.
But when would-be comic acts can only tiptoe around, when they must take care to avoid the pitfalls of [President Hu Jintao’s] “Three Vulgarities,” when they can only seek pleasure in a senseless vacuum, this creates and perpetuates misunderstanding.
The arts and entertainment are products of the spirit. Their closeness to the people isn’t a matter of form, but rather of content, of spiritual energy and meaning. It is no longer possible for the annual Spring Festival Gala, so saddled already with official errands, its planners and performers strapped in tight, to cozy up to the people in earnest.
Nothing in heaven or on earth could save the Spring Festival Gala in its present form. The only possible cure is openness. We 1.3 billion Chinese deserve more than just one Spring Festival gala. We should be able to enjoy a few more celebrations, of all different kinds, with more people actually taking part, so that everyone can relax and have a great time. If that could happen, any sickness might be cured.
A version of this editorial originally appeared in the February 5 edition of Southern Metropolis Daily
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SUGGESTED READING:
“Glimpsing [Comedian] Zhao Benshan’s Heart of Fear from This Year’s Spring Festival Gala” (Chinese)