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.]

[Editor’s Note: The following is a partial translation of a lengthy, passionate and strongly-worded discussion of China’s history, current leadership and political reform by CMP fellow and veteran investigative reporter Zhai Minglei posted to his “personal newspaper,” 1bao.org. The article, removed yesterday from a number of mainland websites, is now available only outside the Great Firewall.]
I too have studied Wen Jiabao’s “southern tour” speech in Shenzhen.
We must always be very careful in our choice of words. Since Premier Wen Jiabao scribbled the phrase “Much stress regenerates a nation” (多难兴邦) on a classroom blackboard after the Wenchuan earthquake in May 2008, many disasters in our country have prompted the central Party to summon up this idea of China’s emerging greatness through the pall of adversity.
Internet users have responded by conjuring up their own phrase, “Much stress faced and overcome regenerates a nation,” or duo nan chuan bang (多难穿邦). This is a wonderful phrase.
I once asked Wang Qinghua (王庆华), the wife of Tan Zuoren (谭作人), the activist jailed for investigating the collapse of schools in the Sichuan earthquake, why she and her husband had so much courage to step out and tell the truth. Wang Qinghua lit a cigarette and said faintly, softly, that back in her childhood she had seen with her very own eyes how the Great Starvation in Sichuan had been manufactured.
That year, Sichuan had experienced more than a natural disaster. Its crops that year were bumper crops, but crops were not harvested and were allowed to rot in the fields. Soil was turned over them again, and seeds re-planted. No sooner had the seeds germinated to a finger’s length than soil was once again raked over. They planted again, and the shoots came up again, only to be buried once more. Planting, then burying. Planting, then burying . . . Was this madness? No. In fact, local leaders had ordered them to take photographs of each crop as evidence so they could report production of more than 5,000 kilograms of grain. That year, Sichuan, the Land of Abundance, was under the leadership of Party Secretary Li Jingquan (李井泉), an ardent believer in Chairman Mao. And this was how tens of millions starved. This experience, she said, was what gave her and Tan Zuoren the courage to speak the truth.
Each time, our government describes for us how the courageous People’s Liberation Army is battling this or that natural disaster for the sake of the ordinary people, and we don’t realize how many of them are in fact disasters resulting from human conduct and human decisions.
The Human Folly Behind the Natural Disasters
The estimated thirty million who died in the Great Starvation of the 1960s surpass the sum total of all recorded mass starvations in China’s history. It was a “Great” error by our “Great” leader. The Great Starvation had its origins in the Anti-Rightist Movement, which struck down all those who loved to speak the truth. From the grass roots up to the loftiest heights of leadership, lies seized people’s hearts. A few otherwise normal years wreaked death on a level equal to several atomic bombs dropped in the heart of China. The death toll even surpassed the global death toll for the Second World War, and of course outstripped the death of the Anti-Japanese War by a long margin. There were thousands of documented instances of cannibalism during this tragedy as well. Anyone can read in Yang Jisheng’s book Tombstone (墓碑) about the death toll and how Mao Zedong refused to open China’s grain reserves to save his own people. Close to one million people starved to death in Xinyang in Henan province, right next to a massive granary where harvests from both Henan and Hubei provinces had been stored.
On August 7, 1975, heavy rains in Zhumadian (驻马店) caused the Banqiao Reservoir Dam to burst, sending a massive six million cubic meter wall of water coursing down over the countryside and destroying everything in its path. Other dams burst in the wake of this tragedy, affecting eleven million people and destroying more than 7,000 square kilometers of crops. In all, that disaster killed 85,000 people, and became the world’s most infamous dam collapse.
World experts have been puzzled by this. The second worst dam collapses in history are the 1889 Johnstown Flood in the United States, in which around 10,000 people died, and the 1979 Machhu II Dam Collapse in India, in which 10,000 people died as well. No dam collapse elsewhere in the world has ever resulted in such a catastrophic death toll. So why is this the case? The answer, as we now know, is that more than one-hundred dams were built hastily in the 1950s in mountainous regions prone to severe weather, in a Party-led campaign for rapid progress on water projects. As a result, the dams failed almost instantly — two large-scale dams, two medium-scale dams, and scores of small-scale dams. It was through cascading failure and the combination of hundreds of disasters that so many people died.
Twenty years later Zhumadian became the center of yet another disaster.
HIV-AIDS was spread through the Henan countryside around Zhumadian as blood selling became rampant with encouragement from provincial health authorities who wanted to drive GDP growth. The whole province threw itself into the blood economy, but health and sanitation procedures were seriously poor. Blood products from donors were pooled together, the desired plasma separated out, and remaining blood byproducts re-transfused into donors with the idea that they could donate blood more frequently this way. By 2003 China’s Ministry of Health would finally state publicly that China had more than one million people infected with HIV-AIDS.
In 2003, disaster struck yet again — this time Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. As the whole world was engaged in a desperate fight against SARS, China, the place where the disease originated, was busy trying to cover the epidemic up through controls on the news media.
One Shanghai official even said to foreign media at the time: “You foreigners care more about each individual life than we do because your populations are so small. We care more about social stability. Covering up the death of a small number of people helps to preserve stability, and this is the proper way to handle things.” One high-level provincial official said: “It’s not the plague that we should fear, it’s the media we should fear.” Experience showed, of course, that the epidemic itself would not heed CCP leaders. But the bureaucratic system, in which one is responsible to one’s superiors and not to the people, could only try to kill off information for its own political ends and leave the disease to its own devices.
In 2008, thousands of students were buried during the Sichuan earthquake as their shoddily-built schools collapsed. A tragedy wrought by human folly.
This year we have the Zhouqu mudslide, a direct result of the systematic destruction of the ecological environment in the area through excessive logging and mining. In 2005, years before this year’s tragedy, twelve disastrous mudslides struck in the vicinity. Tragedies wrought by human folly.
The poisonous milk scandal of September 2008. A tragedy wrought by human folly.
What about the sandstorms that blanket our skies? I’ve been to the high plain. I’ve spoken to experts and herdsmen. The destruction of our high plains is a direct result of our destruction of indigenous nomadic herding culture. The high plain is a place of many different types of climates, prone to all different kinds of disasters. It’s ecology is fragile. Just a meter under the surface of the topsoil there is sand. There is perhaps a week out of the year when different parts of the plain are suited to grazing. And then the plains rest again. Now look what has replaced nomadic herding — the same contract responsibility system used in the Han Chinese regions of the mainland. The high plains have been parceled out, and each parcel is subjected to grazing for half the year, or even all year. How can the environment right itself? Plains that have been green for a thousand years have been destroyed within our lifetimes. This is a fact I have seen with my own eyes.
Is this a natural disaster, or a tragedy wrought by human folly?
Why are disasters happening more and more frequently? Because they are tragedies wrought of human folly. Tragedies wrought by human folly.
If political reform continues to be deferred these disasters will continue to come with different names. None of us are safe.
All of these disasters remind us insistently — in the same way that the Xinhua Daily (新华日报) once judged the Kuomintang government and its “one-party tyranny, wreaking havoc universally” — that only through democracy can we crawl out of this abyss of history.
Democracy is the Way, There is No Other
“Much stress regenerates a nation” means nothing if there is no process of reflection on the lessons of disaster. Today, we cannot even talk about a museum to the Cultural Revolution. We cannot publish books about the Cultural Revolution. We cannot ask after the issue of school collapses in the Sichuan earthquake. We cannot ask whether some level of warning system for the quake might have been possible.
We must ask, how has disaster made us strong? Only by facing and overcoming disaster can we grow stronger!
What is democracy? And why democracy? Actually, democracy is the best of our poor choices. As Winston Churchill said in his famous dictum: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.” And just as Ludwig Von Mises once said, wars and violent revolutions are evils, and without democracy they are difficult to prevent. Democracy means avoiding destruction.
Democracy is not at all as many people have described it, leading to internal chaos. When governments work for the will of the people it is the plotters and tyrants who are most unhappy. Von Mises said: “For the sake of domestic peace, liberalism aims at democratic government. Democracy is therefore not a revolutionary institution. On the contrary it is the very means of preventing revolution and civil wars. It provides a method for the peaceful adjustment of government to the will of the majority.”
But wherever there is oppression there is opposition, and the opposing of tyranny is a basic human right. Therefore, if democracy does not form the basic fabric of society, then those who oppose potentially become a force of unbridled destruction, and this is the terrible soil of revolution. But when democracy forces political power to yield to the popular will, the basis for revolution is removed.
When people say things like, “Democracy is not suited to the temperament of the Chinese,” the people of India laugh. When people say things like, “Asian culture has no tradition of democracy,” the people of Taiwan, Malaysia, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia and Thailand all laugh. It was on Chinese soil that Asia’s first republic was founded last century, and 98 years later Chinese now say democracy is unsuited to China.
OK, so even if we do not oppose undemocratic systems, I’d like to ask how exactly it is that our good Party leaders are to be chosen. If it is not through democratic means, are we to resort to royal succession? Or executive appointment? None of these traditional ways can be used. If you don’t employ democratic means, what will you use — the laws of the forest?
Autocracy will not only destroy society, it will engender struggle within the ruling party and ultimately destroy it as well. This is Wen Jiabao’s basic logic in his words of support for democracy.
How Many People Believe?
Premier Wen Jiabao has made many speeches on trips to the south, but we’ve not seen any collective effort to come up with new and better ways to do things. So why is it that people no longer believe? Who will believe you when you speak empty words so many times and don’t follow up with real action? These are no longer the days when Mao Zedong speaks and everyone beats their drums and gongs in rhythm.
People ask, why have we paid lip service to political reform all these years, just so much thunder without rain? Why does Wen Jiabao say nothing about all of the specific reform plans reformers have come up with? Like Mr. Cao Siyuan, who has suggested that political reform begin with the live broadcasting of the National People’s Congress (NPC), so that television viewers can gain a sense of the real debates and conflicts that go on within the NPC — the idea being that there is hope for political reform only if the people attend to it. What a wonderful idea.
Why is it that while Wen Jiabao pays lip service to political reform, a reform experiment in Luojiangwan (罗江迈), Sichuan province, in which People’s Congress delegates serve full-time terms as representatives rather than just attend occasional meetings, is brought to an end? This, a small success in democracy, and its planner and executor was the public intellectual Yu Jianrong (于建嵘), one who has favor with the government. Not even this can be done?
Mr. Wen, you should do more to encourage the people to believe you.
The poet Lin Zexu (林则徐) wrote in the 19th century: “One must uphold the interests of the nation with his life, not looking to personal gain or evading his duty for fear of personal loss.” [NOTE: This is also a phrase Wen Jiabao used early on in his tenure as premier to express his sense of duty.]
This is a calling that Tan Zuoren (谭作人) has lived up to, that Hu Jia (胡佳) has lived up to, that Chen Guangcheng (陈光诚) has lived up to. You, sir, have not.
And you have the capacity. As someone who has walked a mile as a political figure, as someone who saw for himself the tears of the students in the Square, who is literature and has read widely, who has always rushed to the front lines of disaster, I do not believe you are insincere. After I published a series of articles on earthquake prediction, the scientific experts I had interviewed were pressured.
At his most desperate, Mr. Pan Zheng (潘正) was visited by a certain mysterious official in the General Office of the State Council, who said he had a request from Wen Jiabao to read Yibao‘s series on earthquake prediction. Pan Zheng put all of the Yibaoarticles into his hands, and the official said to Pan Zheng as he left: “The Earthquake Administration in Sichuan will suffer its own major quake.” But after this there was nothing but silence. Eventually, Xinhua’s Oriental Outlook magazine ran its own series on earthquake prediction, sharply at odds with Yibao‘s series. This suggested that the State Council’s attitude toward the question of earthquake prediction had totally changed. Before long, the head of the Sichuan Earthquake Administration, Wu Yaoqiang (吴耀强), stepped down. This suggested wisdom on your part.
The Lazy Politics of Hu-Wen
One evening I watched the documentary film Living With Tears, which told the story of a Shanghai youth who had worked for more than twenty years in Japan, and only after some 13 years apart was able to see his wife again. When he laid his hand on his wife’s shoulder, he used only three fingers — their love was no longer familiar. He expended all of his energy on his wife and daughter, eventually sending his daughter to study at an American university and allowing his wife to live a prosperous life. In the end, he said: “Just as the Premier is responsible to the nation, I am responsible to my family, to my wife and child. The people of Japan have an unbending spirit that we in China would do well to learn from.”
I cried as I watched this Shanghai man on the screen that night. Exactly how many ordinary Chinese are paying the bill for China’s frightful policies, and paying with their lives?
Most ordinary Chinese take responsibility for their families. And who, in contrast, does not take responsibility? Is it you, the Premier of our nation?
Yes, it’s true that during SARS you acted resolutely, harboring in people’s hearts some anticipation of the new politics of Hu-Wen. You were acute in your handling of the Sun Zhigang (孙志刚) case. The repeal of the agricultural tax won the support of the people. But on freedom of expression we are stepping backward. The Golden Shield Project [for control of the Internet] is advancing, and judicial independence is failing.
The new politics of Hu-Wen that people looked to with such anticipation have become the lazy politics of Hu-Wen. You have performed poorly. Please do not fault people when they refer to you as “China’s best actor.” Because you have said so many things, and you have shed so many tears. But through it all there has been no real show of action.

The core question is not whether the system should be reformed, but in what direction it should be reformed.