Chinese media reported this week that police are formally investigating three high-level Chinese football officials for corruption, including Xie Yalong (谢亚龙), the former vice-chairman of the Chinese Football Association. Mid-level football officials have been implicated in the corruption scandal as well, indicating that the government is serious about cleaning up systemic corruption in Chinese football.
It was sometime earlier this year, I believe, that a journalist asked me which I was more hopeful about — Chinese national football or China’s higher education system. I said I was more optimistic about the prospects for national football. And if I were asked the same question today, I would stick with my original answer.
Football may draw a lot of interest and attention, but it is still a matter of choice rather than of necessity. Sure, if watching football is your passion, you can tune in to international matches. If playing football is your passion, you can put together your own match. But most of the rest of us can go through an entire year without giving a moment’s thought to the world’s most popular sport.
Education, unlike football, is serious business. Every family and individual has to grapple with education. For many, our universities in China are a source of anger and frustration. Plenty of Chinese, having lost confidence in our institutions of higher learning, have voted with their pocketbooks, packing their kids off to overseas universities. The vast majority of people can’t opt out, however, and national college entrance examinations are still a critical rite of passage for most.
While higher education is a practical concern facing everyone, reforming our universities is a far more difficult problem than reforming Chinese football. Reforming Chinese football means going in aggressively and cutting out the blight, exactly what we are seeing happen right now. It’s quite a simple matter really. But not so with our university system. People have criticized corruption in our universities for years, but there has never been a concerted effort to reform them.
In fact, Chinese soccer and Chinese education suffer from the same basic disease. In a completely non-commercial environment, the conditions aren’t right for corruption to gain a foothold. Even if you wanted to extort bribes, no one would pay up. At the other end of the spectrum, a completely commercialized market environment is not so conducive to corruption, because in such a system resource allocation is not in the hands of regulators and supervisors. Industry players, in other words, can get all the resources they need from the market.
Our current system of commercialization under institutional control is a breeding ground for corruption. In this sort of commercial environment, gaining access to resources means jumping over administrative hurdles in order to gain all sorts of necessary approvals. Football and education are very similar in this respect. Even though universities rely on tuition money for survival, these revenues can only be utilized with state approval. Kickbacks for the funding of research, the pocketing of research funds, and even corruption in student recruitment — all of these are frightfully common in China.
Why should corruption in national football become a top priority while we turn a blind eye to corruption in our universities?
Football isn’t just the world’s number-one competitive sport. Under our national sports system it is a matter of China’s national pride as well. The unique role of national football means that it commands the attention of state leaders. Corruption in our universities, however, does not invite the same level of attention or resolve. It may be everywhere, but no one wants to face it head on.
The world of Chinese football and the world of Chinese higher education are not so different in their underlying rottenness. Behind their bright and fresh facades, our universities suffer from the same institutional decay. But so long as this corruption is kept out of the open — as corruption in national soccer was until recently — no one will have the courage to face it.
A version of this article originally appeared in Chinese at Southern Metropolis Daily.

During the first session of our “Reporting China” class, part of our journalism master’s program curriculum at the University of Hong Kong, the classroom was full of expectant faces. We had students from all sorts of backgrounds — some only recent college graduates, others experienced journalists returning for further studies. To start off the class, veteran journalist and CMP director Qian Gang asked for a show of hands: how many students planned to make journalism a career? Hands sprung up across the classroom like bright spring shoots.
In the discussion that followed, however, the misgivings of these students became clear as well. “Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the future of journalism in China?” one student asked. Another student, from mainland China, asked: “Should we remain in Hong Kong to work as journalists, or should we return to the mainland?”
These were really two separate but related questions. The first was about the broader environment and outlook for journalism in mainland China. The second was about their own professional choices and planning for the future.
A short time back, the International Press Institute solicited articles for a special volume on the future of journalism to mark the organization’s 60th anniversary. I interviewed a lot of young Chinese journalists to prepare for my own section dealing with China. When I asked for their views on the future of journalism in the country, these journalists were clearly conflicted. On the one hand, there was no denying that media development in China had in some respects been strong in China in recent years. On the other hand, a whole range of pressures on media, both old and new, cast a long shadow over the future of journalism. Journalists faced the usual pressures from state media controls, and they had to grapple at the same time with new and growing pressures from commercial forces. The upshot was that, despite limited gains of sorts, these journalists felt that freedom of speech was being sidelined.
Noting the many changes in the press environment in recent years, one young journalist remarked how it was now possible, for example, for media to criticize the government with some degree of freedom so long as criticism focused on government below a certain administrative level. And now, they said, Chinese media tended to crowd around major news stories as they broke, affording some strength in numbers. In the past, more outspoken newspapers like Southern Weekend might have acted on their own and taken on greater risk.
One of the most notable changes in recent years has been that disaster reporting is no longer a forbidden zone in China. Natural disasters, such as major floods, are no longer sensitive terrain.
One of the biggest stories in China this year, a string of suicides by workers at the contract manufacturer Foxconn, might have been handled in a sensational manner only a few years ago, the deeper implications glossed over. This year, though, the net impact of the Foxconn suicides was substantial. Mainstream media and the Internet drew widespread attention to underlying issues such as labor conditions, worker’s welfare and mental health. As a result, the government and Foxconn were forced to deal with the issue head on. On the heels of the Foxconn affair, there was a string of strike actions in China as workers demanded wage increases and better conditions. For media and society, these all marked significant progress.
After a toxic spill at a facility in Fujian operated by Zijin Mining Group, Hu Shuli’s New Century magazine and Guangzhou’s The Time Weekly reported aggressively on the incident, exposing close collusion between the mining company and the local government, which had many officials under direct employ by the company. In a follow-up report, China Youth Daily revealed that Zijin Mining Group had tried to pay off news reporters to cover up the toxic spill.
On the flip side of these advances, however, we see the erosion of progress in other areas. For example, we have seen blanket reporting of all sorts of news stories in China in recent years, but seldom do we find in-depth reporting into the causes of these news incidents,such as corruption or lack of institutional readiness. Disaster reports tend to linger on surface details, the deeper causes still a matter of sensitivity.
Journalists say they also have to contend much more with commercial pressures on news reporting. In the midst of fierce competition in the financial media segment, several leading financial publications have expanded their investigative coverage of Chinese listed companies. These companies have fought back with their own pressure campaigns, employing public relations companies (many of which can lobby their connections to suppress coverage), local government patronage, and pressure from the state media control apparatus to pay off and intimidate journalists and media.
The large number of cases this year of reporters being sought for arrest or attacked after writing critical reports on listed companies are good examples of this trend. In two recent cases, Fang Xuanchang (方玄昌), science editor at Caijing magazine, was attacked by hired thugs, and Qiu Ziming (仇子明) of the Economic Observer was sought with an arrest warrant.
The blocking of reports by the National Business Daily on the Bawang affair and media reporting of the Shengyuan milk powder case indicate just how closely economic and political power are working together to suppress news coverage. Media generally lack the strength to contend with pressure from the government and business oligarchy. And rent-seeking behavior by media themselves is also a major problem.
Recent visits by Premier Wen Jiabao and President Hu Jintao to Shenzhen have ignited discussion of political reform, and the political reform issue is absolutely critical to the future of journalism in China. If there is no meaningful change in the political sphere, if administrative power is not effectively reformed, and if the independence of the police, the judiciary and prosecutors cannot be credibly ensured, further breakthroughs for Chinese media will be difficult and the situation for Chinese journalists will not improve substantially.
In his opening lecture to students, Qian Gang played a recording of veteran journalist Liu Binyan (刘宾雁) made late in his life when he was seriously ill and in exile in the United States. “I, a man from China who must come finally to rest here, said what I must say and did what I must do,” said Liu Binyan. “My only wish is that our nation will cherish the brightest and best of her new generation, allowing them to say what they must say and do what they must do on the soil of their mother country.”
The extent to which China’s newest generation of journalists will be able to say what they must depends both on progress in the larger political environment of media in China and the continued efforts of journalists themselves. We will have to keep our eyes on both.

Yesterday we posted a partial translation of an essay by CMP fellow Zhai Minglei (翟明磊) that discussed the failures of CCP leadership, the need for political reform — and singled out Premier Wen Jiabao (温家宝) for criticism as a leader who has failed to act on his convictions.
A great deal of debate this year over Wen Jiabao’s various remarks on political reform, modernization, anti-corruption, the need for Chinese to live with greater dignity, etcetera, has focused on Wen’s sincerity. Does he really believe in universal values, or in human rights, or in democracy? Or is he just playing good cop for those hard-faced men in China’s politburo? Is he a true reformer? Or is he “China’s best actor“?
A recent piece by Hu Ping (胡平), the New York-based editor of the overseas Chinese publication Beijing Spring and a democracy activist, provides a concise and cool-headed reading of Wen’s recent remarks and his corresponding lack of action on political reform.
Hu Ping’s piece, which we have translated below, reminds us also that the fissures we glimpse in China’s politics today are not necessarily sudden and surprising rifts. They are the very nature of Party politics, and have been for some time.

“How Should We View Wen Jiabao’s Words?”
Hu Ping
September 8, 2010
Wen Jiabao’s repeated remarks on political reform have stirred up a great deal of debate, both inside and outside China. A number of my friends have remarked that his rhetoric must be backed up with action. It is not enough for Wen Jiabao to speak empty words. He needs to take real and concrete steps. What must Wen Jiabao do for us to trust in his sincerity? It’s simple, some people say. He needs to release the political prisoner Liu Xiaobo (刘晓波). If this is something Wen Jiabao cannot do, he is exposed as nothing more than an insincere cheat.
Of course I support the idea of releasing political prisoners as a basic gesture of justice. But I don’t think we can determine Wen Jiabao’s sincerity on this basis.
I am reminded in particular of two stories relating to the reformist Hu Yaobang (胡耀邦). Back in 1979, when the dissident Wei Jingsheng (魏京生) was arrested, Hu Yaobang is said to have voiced his opposition during an internal meeting. But even through the whole period during which Hu Yaobang served as general secretary, Wei Jingsheng remained in prison.
On the question of the rehabilitation of rightist Li Xiling (林希翎), General Secretary Hu Yaobang issued several declarations saying that Li should be rehabilitated. But by the time of Hu Yaobang’s death in 1989, Li Xiling had still not been rehabilitated. The reason for this was simple. Even though Hu Yaobang was in a high position, he could not enact many of his ideas and positions. His rather liberal positions had many outspoken opponents in high levels of leadership, and in those days the strength of the liberal faction was insufficient to fight off conservative forces to achieve his objectives.
Simply put, on the questions of releasing Wei Jingsheng and rehabilitation Li Xiling, Hu Yaobang did not lack the inclination so much as real ability.
Today, the situation facing Wen Jiabao is much the same as that which faced Hu Yaobang, and perhaps even nastier. The idea that words must be backed up with action — this is something that applies to those who have a real capacity to match words with actions. Only in the following two situations could Wen Jiabao satisfy our expectations: 1) Wen Jiabao is a true dictator; 2) those in the highest levels of power share Wen Jiabao’s convictions. If these preconditions are not satisfied then Wen Jiabao cannot live up to our expectations.
Please note that I am not throwing my hat into the ring on whether Wen Jiabao is sincere or insincere in what he says. What I am saying is that even if Wen Jiabao is sincere, he is nevertheless unable to satisfy our expectations in this regard. So we cannot determine that he is a cheat simply because he has not acted on his words.
If Wen Jiabao were not the only one, if the other eight members of the politburo had made similar pronouncements, then in that case we would certainly be right to demand the release of political prisoners as a token of sincerity. So far, Wen Jiabao is singing all on his own, and that is another matter altogether.
Let’s think about this. Under the current situation, would it be better of us to voice our demands to Wen Jiabao, asking that he release political prisoners? Or would it more productive to demand of the other eight that they make a clear showing of where they stand of the question of universal values?
The answer is obvious. Pursuing Wen Jiabao is of less avail than pursuing those eight others.

[Frontpage photo by citizenoftheworld available at Flickr.com under Creative Commons license.]