Author: David Bandurski

Now Executive Director of the China Media Project, leading the project’s research and partnerships, David originally joined the project in Hong Kong in 2004. He is the author of Dragons in Diamond Village (Penguin), a book of reportage about urbanization and social activism in China, and co-editor of Investigative Journalism in China (HKU Press).

Freezing Formalities

According to a January 2011 report on Rednet.cn, two groups of students from Number Five Secondary School in Changde’s Taoyuan County (桃源县) were forced to wait in the snow for an hour to welcome a visiting government leader, and then had to sit on ice-cold chairs outside the school as the leader delivered a speech. Local weather information indicated that the temperature in Taoyuan that day hovered between 1 and 3 degrees Celsius. In this cartoon, posted by the Kunming-based studio Yuan Jiao Man’s Space (圆觉漫时空) to QQ.com, a government leader dressed in a padded winter coat speaks grandiloquently, his hand slicing through the air, as a fawning assistant holds and umbrella to protect him from the snow. Meanwhile, students bearing red wreaths of welcome stand frozen in obsequious poses..

My 2010 in Photographs

CMP fellow and award-winning news photographer He Yanguang (贺延光) has (at long last!) made a new post to his blog, including his favorite photos taken during the course of his reporting work in 2010. He concludes the collection with the photo he took of the tombstone of literary giant and former People’s Daily reporter Liu Binyan (刘宾雁) during the December funeral in which Liu’s ashes were buried in Beijing five years after his death in exile in the United States.


The post is a rare reference inside mainland China to Liu Binyan’s Beijing funeral, which has not been reported in China’s media.
Click here for MORE . . .

"China's conscience" silently returns

Last month, the ashes of Liu Binyan (刘宾雁), the fearless investigative journalist and literary giant once dubbed “China’s conscience,” were quietly transported to China, where they were laid to rest in Tianshan Cemetery on the outskirts of Beijing, five years after the writer’s death in exile in the United States.
Liu Binyan, who is remembered for his hard-hitting exposes of government corruption in the official People’s Daily newspaper, is still seen by many journalists and intellectuals in China as an enduring symbol of untiring conscience and opposition to abuse of power. In a visible reminder of the legacy Liu left behind, a number of present-day press crusaders, including CMP fellows Hu Shuli (胡舒立) and Lu Yuegang (卢跃刚), can be glimpsed among those who attended the funeral ceremony on December 22.


Chinese authorities apparently disallowed the engraving of Liu Binyan’s memorial stone at Tianshan Cemetery with the epitaph he had chosen for himself shortly before his death: “The Chinese man who rests here did what he should have done and said what he should have said.” The stone appears with only the three characters for his name and the dates “1925-2005.”
In a further reminder of just how sensitive Liu Binyan, his words and his work remain in China, there has been no mainstream press coverage inside China of the return of Liu’s ashes or the funeral ceremony in Beijing. A search for “Liu Binyan” in a database of more than two-hundred mainland newspapers over the past three years (to today) returns only 21 articles mentioning Liu Binyan. All are passing references to the writer, most mentioning him in conjunction with other writers of reportage.
For more on Liu Binyan, his personality and his career, we recommend reading Perry Link on the subject, beginning with this piece for TIME magazine in 2003 and this obituary written for The New York Review of Books.
Below is our translation of the remarks made by Liu Binyan’s son, Liu Dahong (刘大洪), during the December 22 ceremony.

Liu Dahong’s Remarks at His Father’s Burial
My dear predecessors, friends and family:
I thank you all for coming out on such a cold day to be a part of my father’s funeral, sending my father off on this the last stage of his journey.
My father was born in 1925, and he passed away through illness in the United States in 2005. Today, five years later, my father has finally returned for burial in the soil of his homeland. My father returns to this land of his, but the social justice for which he struggled throughout his life has yet to be manifested in this land. More than 30 years ago, my father sounded an alarm to the whole nation about the dangers of corruption. More than ten years ago, far away across the ocean [in America], he issued many warnings from exile about the dangers of China taking the path of Latin America. All that he warned us against has come true, and is demonstrated again and again in the facts and fabric of life in our country.
My father said before he passed away that he hoped the following words could be engraved on his tombstone: “The Chinese man who rests here did what he should have done and said what he should have said.” But the memorial stone standing before us today bears no words at all. And this stone without words makes a measure here and now of the distance that still separates us from a modern civilized society. I am confident that those who come after will some day be able to read these words of my father’s, and that they will hear the stories that lie behind this stone.
Today is the winter solstice. The winter solstice is a day when the Chinese bury their dead, tend to their graves, offer sacrifices to their ancestors, and remember those who came before. Let us remember him. Let us remember the way he spurned the banquets of the rich and powerful and chose to stand on the side of conscience and the people. Let us remember the rough path that his life took, and how he fought unremittingly against the darkness, raising his voice for those who were oppressed and disgraced.
Today is the winter solstice. The winter solstice is the longest day of winter. Let us remember him, and let his convictions add to the warmth of our own.

Public Rides, Private Perks

Chutian Metropolis Daily, a commercial spin-off of Hubei’s official Hubei Daily, reported in January 2010 that Internet users had exposed the use of two public vehicles during a Chinese wedding in the city of Tianmen (天门市) over the New Year holiday. Videos released online showed the sedans, bearing official license plates, being used to pick up the bride and her entourage and escort her back to the wedding (a tradition during Chinese wedding ceremonies). In this cartoon, posted by the Kunming-based studio Yuan Jiao Man’s Space (圆觉漫时空) to QQ.com, a white luxury sedan with official red stamps in the place of its wheels (an obvious reference to its official purpose) is decorated with wedding messages. The characters for “double happiness” grace the windshield, and a plaque over a symbolic red heart on the front bumper reads “one hundred years of harmony.”

The Surrounding Gaze 围观

The “surrounding gaze” is the notion, rooted in modern Chinese literature and culture, of crowds of people gathering around some kind of public spectacle. Related to Lu Xun’s notion of kanke wenhua (看客文化), a term the writer used to describe the cultural phenomenon of Chinese who would look on blankly, with cold indifference, as their fellows were dragged off for execution or subjected to other injustices, the “surrounding gaze” has taken on a new and different meaning in the Internet age. The term can now point to the social and political possibilities of new communications technologies, such as the Internet and the microblog, which might, say some, promote change by gathering public opinion around certain issues and events.
The term wei guan can refer to the larger phenomenon of the “surrounding gaze,” including its pejorative sense, but also often refers to its positive or potential dimension as concentrated public opinion. The term “online surrounding gaze,” or wangluo wei guan (网络围观), is also commonly used today.
In an interview with CMP fellow and Peking University professor Hu Yong (胡泳) posted in January 2011, blogger Xiao Mi (小米) addressed the issue of “the surrounding gaze,” and its historical roots and importance. Here is a translated portion of Hu Yong’s response:

Xiao Mi: So exactly what idea does the “the surrounding gaze,” or wei guan (围观),
Hu Yong: Lu Xun once expressed extreme concern over the coldness and indifference of Chinese, and “the culture of the gaze”, or kanke wenhua (看客文化), he chose as an expression for this coldness and indifference is in fact the surrounding gaze. [NOTE: In his short story Medicine (药), Lu Xun wrote about the “culture of the gaze,” referring to the crowds of ordinary Chinese who craned their necks to dumbly watch the spectacle of the beheading of revolutionaries who had fought for the freedom of these same people]. When, though, did this idea (of the surrounding gaze) take on such a strongly positive meaning? The change in [the import of] this expression stems from this technology age in which we now find ourselves. It stems in large part from the age of the Internet. Put another way, there has been some evolution of the surrounding gaze in the era of Internet. In the process of this evolution what might be called “the politics of the surrounding gaze” has emerged.
Xiao Mi: Has the surrounding gaze brought change to the distribution of so-called discourse power in China?
Hu Yong: I want to stress the point that the surrounding gaze is a kind of minimal (or “bottom-line”) form of public participation (公共参与). In fact, it is very far from the process of reaching consensus through participation, or reaching the stage of policy-making and action through consensus. So, if we hold the simplistic view that by means of the surrounding gaze we can change China, this is most definitely based on a naive reading of the Chinese situation. On the other hand, we cannot for these same reasons make the mistake of underestimating the importance of the surrounding gaze online (网络围观). This is because it has lowered the threshold for action, making it possible for many people to express their positions and their demands, and these positions and demands, though small, add up to a great deal (积少成多). Taken together, they can make for a formidable show of public opinion. And there is another important aspect of the surrounding gaze. And that is that the so-called surrounding gaze enables us to see those standing across from us, and this mutual seeing is also very important.
Organized strength without organization rests on the micro-forces (微动力) arising from the voluntary engagement of masses of people (是大量人群自愿形成的微动力). Change in China today does not require a powerful revolutionary force of some kind — what it requires are this kind of micro-forces. Why are these micro-forces important? Because in the past the relationship between the many to the few was fractured. There were always small numbers of people vested with an abundance of force who advanced certain matters or causes [NOTE: such as the revolutionaries in Lu Xun’s Medicine]. But what these [energetic minorities] could never figure out was why the vast majority of people cared so little about what they were doing, even when they were fighting on behalf of this majority. And the majority would often believe that these energetic minorities were too political in their outlook, and suspect that they had their own agendas. In my view, the emergence of micro-forces will serve to build bridges across this fracture between the two sides, and this is one function micro-forces have.

Has the "surrounding attention" of new media changed agenda setting in China?

In a recent interview, CMP fellow and Peking University professor Hu Yong (胡泳) discusses “surrounding attention,” or wei guan (围观) — the notion that new communications technologies have allowed citizens (or Internet “netizens”) to influence agendas simply by gathering opinion and attention behind issues or news events. In the interview, Hu Yong deals with the question of whether the phenomenon of wei guan has transformed the nature of “discourse power” (话语权) in China.
Click HERE for more in Chinese . . .

How do we face 2011?

Writing at Caixin Online, New Century magazine editor-in-chief (and former Caijing head) Hu Shuli writes about the raft of problems and challenges (including inflation) facing China as a new year dawns, and asks: “How should we face this new year?” She concludes: “Whether it’s about ensuring a reasonable level for commodity prices or accelerating changes to our mode of economic development, these are at their root inseparable from necessary changes to our old patterns of thinking and resolving deep institutional problems.”
Click HERE for more in Chinese . . .

Mass incidents have been demonized in China

The International Herald Leader, a spin-off publication of China’s official Xinhua News Agency, runs an interview in its latest issue with scholars Yu Jianrong (于建嵘) and Wang Yukai (汪玉凯) in which the two discuss a number of “sensitive issues,” including so-called “stability preservation,” a massive nationwide policy of keeping down individual and mass protest actions by disenfranchised and angry Chinese.
The following remark from Yu Jianrong, a CMP fellow and outspoken critic of many government practices to ensure social stability, begins the International Herald Leader article: “In Chinese society today, too many things, people, topics and moments are regarded as ‘sensitive,’ to the point that just about anything dealing with the people’s welfare is called ‘sensitive.'”
Click HERE for more in Chinese . . .

Chinese education, breaking the crucible

All sorts of things require permits and approvals in China, things that in other countries are done without the least involvement or interference by the government. In our country, for example, women must first obtain “birth permits” before a child can be brought legally into the world. Legacies of the planned economy, these permit systems are perpetuated today by special interests who are personally enriched by the bureaucracies they create. But these “birth permits” seriously hold us back — and nowhere is this more evident than with our higher education system.
For three years now preparations have been in the works for a new university in Shenzhen. Modeled on the nearby Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) — and having already signed a cooperative agreement with the top-ranking Hong Kong institution — Nanfang University of Science and Technology has pledged to operate with a non-bureaucratic style and could serve as a new model of higher education in China. The new university’s president has been hired. The financing for the university is in place. The faculty are all there and ready to teach. Even the first class of 50 students have been enrolled, and are due to begin classes on March 1 this year.
But the university’s “birth permit” has yet to be approved by authorities at China’s Ministry of Education. Imagine a woman who is nine months pregnant. Her water has broken. But because of a bureaucratic hold-up, she has no birth permit in hand, and she is told her child must remain pent up in her womb for the time being.
The lack of approval is a major hurdle for Nanfang University of Science and Technology (NUST). Without its “birth permit,” the university cannot formally award degrees to its graduating students. Why? Because all degrees in China, regardless of which university they are from, are conferred by the Ministry of Education. The role of our universities is simply to pass diplomas on to students.
In this sense, there is only one university in China — the University of the Ministry of Education. All of the other institutions we refer to as universities are really just branch campuses of this one main university.
This is a legacy of state economic planning and an awkward distinction China has from higher education in the rest of the world. Economic reforms have gone ahead for 30 years, and in most sectors of our economy people clamor to make sure they are recognized as part of the market economy, operating according to its principles.
It’s only in higher education that the whiff of centralized planning is still so strong. Nearly all aspects of higher education are subject to approval and planning by the Ministry of Education — administrative evaluations, undergraduate evaluations, research student evaluations, facility evaluations. Even the design of degree programs, procedures for student recruitment, postgraduate admissions standards (for national examinations) and postgraduate examination papers are set or approved by the Ministry of Education.
Right before our eyes, in much the same way as our cities are all beginning to look alike through the latest feverish round of urbanization, all of the universities across our country are rapidly being homogenized.
No one in the world does things like we do. Every university in the world issues its own diplomas. Only in China are diplomas conferred instead by a government ministry. Not only that, but historically our universities issued their own degrees. Universities during the Republican Era, such as Tsinghua University, Peking University, Nankai University and Southwest Associated University (西南联大) — universities we now generally believe to have been excellently established — all conferred their own degrees.
Why do we insist on swimming against the current of history and world norms? And why do our universities have such a fear of the market?
This bureaucratic university system of ours, so powerful in the sense that it holds all the assets of national higher education in its hands, is actually very weak. When a handful of universities in Hong Kong began recruiting mainland students a few years ago, our finest universities, Peking University and Tsinghua University, trembled in their boots. This is the root of the fear that has held back approvals for the new Nanfang University of Science and Technology. If just a handful of universities like the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology were to appear on the mainland landscape, they would not only suck away the best students, but the best professors would quickly follow.
For our puffed up university system, which has grown complacent playing by its own game rules, Nanfang University of Science and Technology poses a major challenge. No one in Chinese higher education would dare openly oppose its approval by the Ministry of Education. That, after all, might invite scandal in the age of the Internet and the microblog. But they can apply pressure behind the scenes, pushing approval of NUST’s “birth permit” further and further into the future, until the child dies in the womb.
Responding to the constant foot-dragging over the approval, NUST president Zhu Qingshi (朱清时) told media recently that Nanfang University of Science and Technology will wait no longer. If they don’t receive approval from the Ministry of Education for the conferment of degrees, he said, they’ll issue their own diplomas instead.
This puts NUST in a risky position. It’s possible that from this point on it will be impossible for the university to get its permit approved. It might become a “black university” operating outside of the state system, and its graduates might be unable to claim their degrees when applying for all sorts of positions, government or otherwise. If, on the other hand, the university does indeed successfully come into the world without government approval, this will have a different sort of ripple effect, encouraging others to jump ahead with their own experiments in open opposition to the Ministry of Education.
What we need instead is serious reform, an institutional rethink of how higher education operates in China. On the surface, the obstacles reform has run up against in China are ideological in nature. But in fact they all have to do with resistance from vested interests. Our education sector today is ripe with opportunities for special interests to line their pockets. So long as the system remains in place, these opportunities will abound.
But must we all be educated inside this dark crucible? Unless this crucible is broken, there will be no hope for universities in our country.
This is a translated and edited version of an editorial first appearing in Southern Metropolis Daily.