Currently a correspondent for Window On the South magazine and a leading columnist for The Beijing News, Xiong Peiyun is a prolific freelance journalist, contributing also to Southern Weekend, Southern Metropolis Daily and Hong Kong’s Yazhou Zhoukan. Mr. Xiong’s personal Website, sixiangguo.com, features his original writings in both Chinese and French.
According to a recent report from China Economic Weekly, a magazine published by the CCP’s official People’s Daily, 1.41 million Chinese signed up for the most recent government officeholder’s exam (公务员考试) this year, the third time since 2009 that applications for the exam have surpassed one million. In this cartoon, posted by the Kunming-based studio Yuan Jiao Man’s Space (圆觉漫时空) to QQ.com, the artist depicts the examination as a grab for profit, as official posts are seen as lucrative prospects with ample opportunity for rent-seeking, or profit through the exploitation of political circumstances. Hordes of test takers huddle under a massive official cap, representing government offices, that rains down yuan symbols representing wealth. 
On November 10, 2010, China’s State Council emphasized that local governments must “resolutely prevent” the flagrant of abuse the wishes of farmers in carrying out large-scale demolition of residential areas (and confiscation of farmland) to make room for high-rises and other building projects. Reckless and irrational development by many local governments in China has exacerbated social tensions and constantly created new points of tension and unrest. In this cartoon, posted by artist Shang Haichun (商海春) to his QQ blog, a local official paints the bright red character for “demolish” on the pouch of a mother kangaroo and she and her baby look on in puzzlement and the baby shouts an unheeded cry of protest. 
One of the biggest recent topics in China’s news media has been the stark contrast between the opportunities available in China to the sons and daughters of the powerful and the wealthy — the fu’erdai and guan’erdai — and the relative helplessness of unconnected young graduates, who simply can’t find jobs. This issue has focused attention on the deep inequities that have come with economic growth in China. And the issue is backgrounded by the more urgent question of what sort of reform, including political reform, might be necessary to address these problems. In this cartoon, posted to the QQ blog of Zhang Bin (张滨), deputy director of the China News Cartoon Research Institute (中国新闻漫画研究会) and a top editor at Guangzhou Daily, a figure who is perhaps an office manager or company boss, introduces the pumpkin-headed son of an official (identified by the two characters, “fuyin”/父荫, on the piece of paper in his hands, a term referring to those who get official posts on the basis of their parent’s political and business connections). Introducing the new hire, the manager says to presumed doubters outside the picture: “So he has no head! But, look, his connections are great!” For more on this issue, see CMP fellow Yu Jianrong’s piece on China’s new “educated youth.” 
On October 8, as Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo (刘晓波) was announced as the winner of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, I was finishing up a day of meetings in Nanjing. The news, first arrived via CNN news alert, was quickly shared by Chinese Twitter users, who bypassed web controls to share the story. The news also came through on China’s Twitter-like microblogs, but references were oblique.
Sitting in my Nanjing hotel room that night, I kept tabs on domestic microblogs and the reacation to the announcement on my laptop while I monitored Twitter on my Blackberry. Before long, there were reports on Twitter that plans for various celebrations in China were being stopped by police. Some Chinese had reportedly been taken away by police, and their whereabouts were unclear.
In totalitarian states in the past, dissidents met under a veil of secrecy. But here I was following the actions of these strangers in different part of China in real time without ever setting foot outside. In the age of microblogs, every mobile handset and computer is a news broadcast station, a node in a vast information network. Thanks to new technologies, information can now pass easily across national boundaries, both tangible and intangible, and reach millions of people.
Beijing leaders have blamed blame Liu’s winning the Nobel Prize on so-called hostile anti-China forces overseas. But the uncomfortable truth is that the Chinese government itself was the most formidable nominee for Liu.
On Christmas Day last year, a Beijing court sentenced Liu Xiaobo to 11 years in prison, turning the dissident into a martyr for the cause of human rights — and an instant favorite for the Nobel.
Last month, Geir Lundestad of the Norwegian Nobel Institute arly last month, told the Guardian: “We’ve studied this for several years: Who are the right dissidents? We felt, obviously, that Liu was very important in his own right . . . But the Chinese government solved the problem for us. On 25 December 2009, they sentenced him to 11 years in prison. And automatically, he became not only one, or perhaps the leading representative of human rights but he also became a universal symbol of human rights.”
Liu is a moderate who has in the past advocated dialogue with the Beijing government and non-violent opposition. An advocate of Western ideas of freedom and democracy, he is not a figure without controversy, and there has been much debate both inside and outside China about his ideas and writings.
But the relentless repression of China’s government makes debates over Liu’s ideas an intellectual exercise. Liu Xiaobo has become a symbol of resistance against suppression of speech and abuse of power. Liu represents the common human pursuit for freedom of expression, human rights and rule of law.
Beijing has not only turned Liu Xiaobo into a hero, it has also suffered a major defeat over the issue of the Nobel Prize, an important battleground for soft power.
In its callous response to the prize, the government has rubbed salt into its wounded international image.
With the whole world watching, China has suppressed Liu’s supporters. It has ordered strict controls on the issue in mainstream media and online, and silence now reigns over China’s internet. Liu’s wife, Liu Xia, has been kept under house arrest and prevented from communicating with the outside world. All of this in total defiance of the law.
The government has prevented lawyers and academics from leaving their homes, meeting with reporters or holding meetings. Some have been taken away by force, without reasons given or warrants served. The list of those suffering this brutal treatment seems to lengthen all the time: Cui Weiping (崔卫平), Teng Biao (滕彪), Xu Youyu (徐友渔), Yu Jie (余杰), Li Xiong (黎雄)…
China has sent diplomatic notes to Western nations, warning them against taking part in December 10 awards ceremony for the Peace Prize. The vice-minister of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Cui Tiankai (崔天凯) said support for Liu Xiaobo would be an “affront to China’s legal system.”
Begging their pardon, but it not an affront to China’s legal system for Chinese citizens to be placed under house arrest and police surveillance?
The media outside China have overwhelmingly hailed the decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu.. But there are also critical voices. .In Hong Kong, the South China Morning Post ran an editorial by Hong Kong University of Science and Technology professor Barry Sautman and Hong Kong Polytechnic University professor Yan Hairong (严海蓉), which argued that awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xia went against the spirit of the prize itself.
In the Nation in the US, Robert Dreyfuss argued that while giving the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo increased international attention to the suppression of dissident voices and freedom of expression in China, it might also lead to stronger anti-China voices and an irrational fear of China’s rise.
In the online Comment is Free section of the Guardian, Nick Young wrote a piece titled “Liu Xiaobo wins Prize, reform loses” the day after the Nobel announcement, arguing that Liu’s win was a loss for China’s “painful and precarious” reforms. Nick Young lived for years in Beijing, where he published the highly respected China Development Brief (CDB), In 2008, the newsletter was shut down for unknown reasons. Young was forced to leave China shortly afterwards.
In a normal society, open debates and the clashes of ideas is an ordinary and familiar process. Throught debtes, society forges consensus, seeking common ground while keep differences. But the uncompromising attack launched by China’s government in response to Liu’s Nobel award has stifled even those voices (inside and outside China), that might otherwise have expressed their own misgivings about the decision. In this sense, Beijing’s clamorous counterattacks have actually encouraged the relative one-sidedness than can now be seen in international public opinion over this issue.
Conservative elements within the Chinese Communist Party are the most serious enemies to China’s interests and those of the Party. I call them “conservative elements” because I can’t believe that the higher levels of the CCP leadership are so completely devoid of people who understand the mechanisms of international politics, public diplomacy and foreign relations.
An open letter to the Central Committee of the CCP in mid-October demanding that it correct the “illegal and wrong verdict” in the Liu Xiaobo case was signed by many former Party officials. I’m confident there are people within the CCP who support the criticisms made by these Party elders, who said the verdict against Liu perverted the administration of justice and blackened the image of the Party’s reform and opening policy.
I prefer to think that this is a momentary loss for the more rational and enlightened minds within the CCP, and that this is why we’ve lately seen the “left” hold sway, paving the way for the savage and shameful behavior we’ve seen recently from China on the international stage.
I am gratified in Liu winning the Nobel, and I hope he can soon return home and be reunited with Liu Xia.
But as a Chinese person — a Chinese who grew up under British colonial rule and spent more than two decades away in the United States — I also feel deep sadness. I can’t bear to watch as my country acts before the world with such contempt for reason and such scorn for the rule of law, forfeiting all human respect and even the most basic social grace.
The “Three Supremes,” first introduced by Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡锦涛) during a 2007 session on national politics and law attended by senior judges and prosecutors, represents a sharp change — and many say a clear step backward — in China’s judicial policies. The buzzword was actively implemented as policy in 2008 as Wang Shengjun (王胜俊) became head of the Supreme People’s Court of the People’s Republic of China.
The “Three Supremes” are as follows:
1. “Supremacy of the business of the CCP” (党的事业至上)
2. “Supremacy of the interests of the people” (人民利益至上)
3. “Supremacy of constitutional law” (宪法法律至上)
What do these mean? Many lawyers and legal scholars in China say that the “Three Supremes” enshrine the notion that the law must serve the basic strategic interests of the CCP by taking into primary consideration the CCP’s own notion of pressing national priorities, interests and realities.
As well-known Chinese legal scholar He Weifang (贺卫方) told Hong Kong’s Asia Weekly magazine in August 2010: “Who is supreme in this Three Supremes? When a family of three has a disagreement, who do they listen to? . . . Between the interests of the CCP, the interests of the people and the interests of the Constitution, who is bigger?”
He Weifang says that legal system reforms in China now face a major challenge in the form of this policy, and the term “Three Supremes” has entirely replaced the erstwhile policy goal of “judicial independence” (司法独立).
The policy means that the work of China’s legal system, and specific legal cases, must now be considered in light of the basic tasks and development priorities defined by the party and government in China.
A recent move by the U.S. Federal Reserve to print dollars to purchase U.S. Treasuries (in order to lower long-term interest rates) drew fire from many leaders in G20 countries, who feared the new money would rush into their economies in search of higher investment returns. Many sought to stave off pressure on their own currencies. On November 9, China introduced measures to stop speculative inflows of U.S. money, including new rules controlling equity investments by foreign companies. In this cartoon, posted by artist Fan Jianping (范建平) to his QQ blog, Uncle Sam grins as he packs U.S. dollars into a fat cannon and fires them out into the world.
As I browsed through the usual mainland Chinese news sites on November 2, I was struck by how many banner headlines announced the mid-term elections in the United States. “Voting Opens Today in U.S. Mid-term Elections,” read the first headline. I visited as many sites as I could and found that they were all reporting, sometimes even with special topic pages, on how the American people were heading to the polls.
Actually, this is something I’ve had my eye on for some time. I’ve watched Chinese media obsess over elections in Australia, Taiwan, the United States and, most recently, Burma. I seriously doubt the media of any other country on earth would put so much emphasis on elections happening in other countries. Nor would the people in any other country care so intently about the outcomes of these elections.
It’s worth thinking about why this is happening.
In democratic countries, or in regions like Hong Kong, democratic elections are a part of life, and they occur routinely. Insofar as they engage people in the management of the affairs of their country or community, elections are a valuable part of citizens’ lives. Generally, I think voters tend to see their own elections as having immediate relevance, while elections happening elsewhere in the world are of only remote importance — something to interest policy makers, academics and various other experts on international affairs. Moreover, it can often be difficult for people from one democratic country to grasp the issues at stake in elections happening in another.
How much stranger is it, then, that mainland Chinese, who don’t have democratic elections, but only Communist Party conferences every five years, should be so keenly interested in watching others exercise their democratic rights?
I can imagine someone saying, well, elections in Taiwan directly concern the cross-straits relationship. Or the outcome of mid-term elections in America could affect US-China relations or the Renminbi exchange rate. OK, sure. But cross-straits relations have been a thorny issue for 61 years already, and US-China relations have always worked this way. When in the past have we ever kept our eyes so glued to coverage of elections around the world?
By contrast, our lack of engagement with political issues that immediately concern us is astonishing. The average Chinese person doesn’t even think to ask where the top Communist Party leader in their county is actually from. They don’t question whether the demolition of their neighbor’s home was lawful or not, or whether the taxes they pay out annually are being used properly.
The average news reader in mainland China almost certainly knows more about democratic elections in America than they do about how their local People’s Congress works. We should know from a recent case in China, in which a university student was killed by a luxury sedan driven by the self-indulgent son of a local police official, that the question of how those in power behave can be a matter of life and death for our own children. But how many Chinese know who their deputy police chief is?
One might imagine that all this attention to elections in other countries is fostering more democratic attitudes in China. Strangely, the opposite is often true, and misunderstandings abound. Completely divorced from the real questions and decisions upon which foreign elections turn, Chinese news consumers often come away with the impression elections are just a big pain, stirring up chaos and division. More serious is the impression many have that elections create new problems rather than solving existing ones. They come away with the basic impression that elective systems are riddled with problems.
One mental stumbling block is the notion of the “loser” in democratic elections. In China, where people have never experienced democratic elections, it’s impossible to imagine how social harmony can result when close to half of the voters in any election back candidates who “lose.” How much better it is, many Chinese imagine, to have instead of an elected government one that represents the interests of all people — where there is no need for elections, and everyone wins, even if decisions are made in secret.
Figures from foreign opinion polls also take on an interesting life of their own in the mainland Chinese context. These polls, which are done by professional pollsters in democratic countries, are quite easily understood in their home countries. But transplant them to China, where there’s no such thing as a true opinion poll, and they are often lost in translation.
A news report on China Central Television, for example, plucked out some numbers from an opinion poll taken ahead of the recent mid-term elections in the United States, which said that 47 percent of American voters cited the economy as the top issue. Less than twenty percent said they were most concerned about “political issues,” which Americans might understand as such things as gridlock in Washington.
One friend of mine saw these poll results and said, look Yang, most American voters don’t care about politics — even fewer care about democracy, and all they really care about are economic issues. Brooding, I said nothing, so he piped in again: “You should wake up, old man. It’s the same in China. All people really care about is the economy, about living well, about how they can get their piece of the pie of opening and reform. So long as people have food on the table they don’t give a hoot about this democracy you go on and on about.”
A lot of my friends felt the same way. People want to know whether there will be food on the table, or whether property prices will go down.
What all of them fail to understand, however, is that all of these economic issues Americans have cited as the number one issue in the election are political issues all the same. Your average American voter, taking politics into their own hands by heading to the polls, would understand this as a matter of commonsense. Sure, Americans may say the economy is their top concern — but the point is that they already have the political right to exercise their vote as a means of shaping economic policy.
Chinese have to understand the fundamental difference between Americans focusing concern on economic issues and Chinese focusing concern on economic issues. If the people lack the most fundamental political right to participate in decision making, the economic issues they face will never completely be resolved.
I don’t deny that there have been supreme rulers in Chinese history who have loved their subjects as they do their own children. A few managed to accomplish things within a short period of time that democratic governments might be unable to accomplish at all. But if you look at the whole sweep of our history, covering thousands of years, isn’t the problem plain as day.
If so-called economic issues could be tackled effectively by economic means alone, our country would have solved them long ago. Once our benevolent leaders understood the will of the people, they would act to solve those problems near and dear to them. When, though, have things ever worked this way? When have we seen real control of such problems as corruption, staggering inequity of wealth, and runaway power? And if we can’t truly get a handle on these things, how far can we go in solving other problems?
I apologize for interrupting you while you’re enjoying all of the election coverage. But I encourage you to try to really understand the significance of those boisterous elections you are watching, which provide the answer to all of the questions I’ve just raised.
This article is a translated and edited version of a November 2 post to Yang Hengjun’s Blog.
BELOW IS A SELECTION OF CHINESE ONLINE NEWS PAGES APPEARING YESTERDAY, ALL OF WHICH INCLUDE PROMINENT COVERAGE OF ELECTIONS IN BURMA.
Shanghai’s First Financial Daily and other Chinese media reported yesterday that a signing ceremony was held on Shanghai on November 5 for Shanghai Disneyland, signaling that construction of the four square-kilometer theme park will formally begin soon. In this cartoon, posted by the Kunming-based studio Yuan Jiao Man’s Space (圆觉漫时空) to QQ.com, Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck step off the plane in Shanghai and are greeted by a entourage of local Chinese characters, including Shanghai Expo mascot Haibao, the Monkey King from the Chinese classic Journey to the West, and Chinese heroine Hua Mulan (about which Disney has already made a film).
CMP reported earlier this week about a bold feature page at Sohu.com, one of China’s top internet news portals, that took a not-so-subtle jab at a heavyweight series of official Party editorials appearing recently in People’s Daily under the mysterious assumed name “Zheng Qingyuan” (郑青原). Topping the Sohu page, which was quickly “harmonized” but can be downloaded in PDF form here (Sohu Missing Page 11.2), was an unmistakable visual reference to the disquieted era of the Cultural Revolution, when ideological rancor tore the country apart.
The Sohu feature page dealt with so-called “writing task groups”, or xiezuo xiaozu (写作小组) — referring to teams of editorial writers generating pieces to articulate the voices and viewpoints of specific political interests within the Communist Party — as a unique feature of China’s political environment and history.
Here is the “Editor’s Note” accompanying the feature page:
Lately, a series of articles under the assumed name “Zheng Qingyuan” have sailed into the world, and have been re-posted by major internet portals. Masses of [Chinese] readers have speculated as to who this person is? So suddenly commanding banner positions at major sites, this must be [someone] of no ordinary background. Actually, “Zheng Qingyuan” is not any specific person, but rather is [the name given to] a writing task group. But its “background” is out of the ordinary indeed. In the history of New China [since 1949], these writing task groups have existed all along.
A couple of subsections on the feature page linked to the same Beijing Morning Post article, called “Who is People’s Daily’s ‘Zheng Qingyuan’?” The Sohu page originally containing the article was expunged along with the feature page itself, but is still available elsewhere.
We have a (more or less) full translation of the Beijing Morning Post piece below.
Further down the feature page, Sohu provided a convenient table revealing a number of important “writing task groups” and the specific political interests behind them. The assumed name “Tang Xiaowen” (唐晓文), for example, is used for editorials from the Central Party School. The assumed name Ding Xuelei (丁学雷) is used for the Shanghai Party Committee, representing the city’s top Party leaders. Readers can see the full (unfortunately brief) list by clicking on the link to the feature page PDF at the top of this post.
“Who is People’s Daily’s ‘Zheng Qingyuan’?” [original link, now “missing”]
Beijing Morning Post
November 2, 2010
Readers who read the People’s Daily and People’s Daily Online will know that commentaries at the newspaper and website have a pre-eminent place among central Party media. In the past, aside from essays from a number of well-known commentary writers, there have been other bylines, like “Ren Zhongping” (任仲平) and Zhong Zuwen (仲祖文) with unique backing. Ren Zhongping is byline referring to group commentaries by People’s Daily, and a series of influential commentaries on the occasion of the PRC’s 60th anniversary were written under the name “Ren Zhongping,” a writer who is expert at commenting on major affairs, but who is really a group of handsome guys and pretty girls at People’s Daily. These sorts of commentaries have not only tight logic, but are written with literary grace as well, and they are generally well received by readers.
Another name often seen at People’s Daily is “Zhong Zuwen,” who we understand is a name given to commentaries written in the name of the Organizational Department of the CCP Central Committee. So if there is expounding on principles that touch on issues of ideological building (思想建设) or organization building (组织建设) within the Party, these come under the name “Zhong Zuwen.” For example, the study and practice of the scientific view of development (科学发展观), creating excellence (创优争先), and important language about various important movements in the past, are all expounded under the name “Zhong Zuwen.” There is no specific writer behind the name, and the focus is on the importance of the essay, the depth of its thought, and on how its views serve to direct . . .
Plainly, among these two bylines, the political status of the latter is greater than that of the former. While the former (“Ren Zhongping”) is after all the voice of the editorial department at People’s Daily, commentaries from the latter must go through the approval of the Organizational Department.
Following the [recent] Fifth Plenary Conference of the 17th Central Committee, an article under the name “Zheng Qingyuan” (郑青原) appeared to the world at People’s Daily and People’s Daily Online. This is an entirely new name that has never before appeared, and People’s Daily and People’s Daily Online have run three consecutive pieces under this name, including “To Promote Reform With Greater Resolve and Courage,” “Strive for a Brighter Future” and “Moving in a Correct Direction to Reliably Advance Political Reform“. Each article was weightier than the last, particularly the third, an essay that dealt with the sensitive issue of political reform and which was posted to the very top of People’s Daily Online for 24 hours, something itself unprecedented. All of this points to the importance of these pieces under the name “Zheng Qingyuan,” and implies that this “Zheng Qingyuan” is no ordinary writer [or set of writers], something that has piqued the curiosity of readers.
The piece, “Moving in a Correct Direction to Reliably Advance Political Reform” was released after the official bulletin on the resolutions of the Fifth Plenary Conference of the 17th Central Committee, and in an atmosphere in which the high expectations of some people ahead of the conference that there would be [actions on] political system reforms were disappointed. The article was brief and concise, offering a full description and clarification of the major question of political system reforms in our country. The article stated clearly that “the question of what kind of political system [a nation] employs, and what path of political development it takes, is something determined by the will of that country’s masses, and by the specific national circumstances, history and culture of that nation. Looking back on 30 years of opening and reform in our country, [the article said], it was clear that political system reforms had never ceased, that [reforms] had been promoted steadily while keeping to a correct political direction, and that the results obtained had been impressive; [the essay] struck back against a number of overseas media that had criticized our country for “lagging seriously behind on political reforms,” and once again raised Deng Xiaoping’s three standards by which to measure political reform . . .
The raising and emphasizing of these major viewpoints is clearly not something a single individual alone would have the ability to accomplish. Moreover, the conspicuous placement of these articles in People’s Daily and People’s Daily Online suggests that these are articles meant to explain and publicize the spirit of the Fifth Plenary Conference of the 17th Central Committee, and that they set the direction on the issue of political system reforms in the near term. They serve as bugle calls to set the tone, and they are of no ordinary political significance. For the outside world, and for people’s understanding of political reform, they serve to clarify matters and get to the bottom of things (正本清源). Therefore, internet users [in China] have, according to the past tendencies of People’s Daily [in selecting special bylines of this sort], taken [the name] “Zheng Qingyuan” to mean “clarifying matters and getting to the bottom of things. It is understandable that they have drawn wide interest.
However, analyzing the content of the above-mentioned articles, it seems to me that this understanding [of the significance of the pen name] is a more superficial understanding. I think [the name] represents a much higher-level personality or concord, and we can only understand this series of articles from “Zheng Qingyuan” as the public opinion guidance (舆论导向) [emerging from] the level of the politburo. These are the views emerging from the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the CCP, a masterwork making clear the shared will and ideology undertaken by the whole Party, given an assumed name as befits media practice and other considerations and needs.
