Cooling relations between China and the United States, and grumbling from China’s leaders, have lately prompted questions, both inside and outside China, about the country’s ambitions and changing attitude toward the world. Is China growing arrogant?
In recent weeks, official media in China seem to have stepped up their campaign against perceived American arrogance.
An editorial in the CCP’s official People’s Daily last month threw out the gauntlet and asked: “Is the United States ready to recognize China as a power on the world stage?”
On August 12 and 13, the People’s Liberation Army Daily ran two separate editorials accusing the United States of “provoking China’s dignity.” The August 12 editorial, written by Luo Yuanshao (罗援少), secretary of the China Military Technology Academy, alleged that by dispatching an aircraft carrier to the Yellow Sea, the United States had confirmed its dedication to what Luo called the “three -isms”: hegemony (霸权主义), gunboat diplomacy (炮舰主义) and unilateralism (单边主义). (Those are “isms” in Chinese, mind you.)
But dissenting views are also receiving some attention in China. Scholars have recently warned against a growing arrogance that they say has stemmed from China’s rising economic clout.
More nuanced discussion of the issue of “China’s rise” — and the world’s response to it — has occurred largely in China’s commercially-oriented media, as columnists at metro newspapers and Internet portals have attempted to move past abstract ideology to find points that resonate with their audiences.
Appearing recently on Shandong Satellite TV, veteran Chinese diplomat Wu Jianmin (吴建民) cautioned against taking a confrontational attitude toward the West, and urged the importance of maintaining a “spirit of openness (开放), tolerance (包容), self-confidence (自信) and equality (平等)” as China grew stronger.
The Beijing News ran a transcript of Wu Jianmin’s interview today, which we have translated below:

SSTV: A nation’s rise and fall is connected to its confidence. What spirit and attitude should China have as it rises?
Wu Jianmin: I think we should have a spirit of openness (开放), tolerance (包容), self-confidence (自信) and equality (平等).
Deng Xiaoping once summarized this issue by saying that closing oneself off results in backwardness, and backwardness makes one a victim of aggression. This summarizes thousands of years of the Chinese experience. In the Han and Tang dynasties, and in the Song and Yuan dynasties, we were relatively open in our outlook, so China’s strength throughout history has had a great deal to do with openness. We invited in the best of the outside world. Researchers of Chinese history have told me that in the Tang dynasty, something like 3,000 foreigners served as officials in the imperial government.
As China strengthens and prospers, we have to be alert to a form of great power chauvinism (大国主义). There is, in the Chinese subconscious, the idea of wanting to “be in the lead” (想当头). When we set off on the path of the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, we talked about how Beijing was the center of the world revolution, and how Mao Zedong was the Red Commander (红司令) of the world revolution.
Towards great nations and smaller nations, we should have an attitude of equality. When we confront a great power, there’s no need to ingratiate ourselves. And when we confront a small nation, there is no need to put on an air of importance. Openness, tolerance, self-confidence and equality — these are the attitudes that we should have.
SSTV: Faced with the invasion of Western culture, how should China rebuild its confidence and rebuild Chinese culture?
Wu Jianmin: I think this question of yours is bit self-conflicting. As though we are now being invaded by Western culture, and so we must fight against this invasion.
We have to learn to distinguish between black and white. Has our reform movement been a misstep? Are there not good things we can learn from the West? In fact, there are so many good things. If we make it about aggression and throwing off aggression then we’ve returned ourselves to the past.
Western culture is in a position of strength because it has been at the vanguard of humanity for several hundred years. We will slowly move to the front as well, but this requires a process. This process cannot be about excluding the West. If we exclude the West then we will reap our own troubles. If we took that attitude then all of our students overseas would be prevented from returning. Our children would be prevented from eating McDonald’s, and those who did eat McDonald’s would be heartless traitors.
If we move toward a closed attitude, China will falter once again. I believe we have to gather knowledge from around the world. If you have something good, I acknowledge it, and then I study it. Modern communication technologies are also inventions of the West. Would it be OK for us not to study them?
SSTV: There is a book called China Is Unhappy. The book has sold hundreds of thousands of copies, and it advocates and extreme and narrow nationalism. How do you view this question?
Wu Jianmin: Extreme nationalism is on the rise in China. If you look at the history of our Party, you’ll note that its attitude toward nationalism has been criticism and not tolerance. Why are such things emerging now? I think their emergence has a definite background. You’ve mentioned a number of books, and I have read these. They also say that China should encourage militarism (尚武精神), that China must develop the world’s most powerful military.
Why do these people say things like this? There are a number of reasons. First of all, they have failed to see the changes that have gripped our world, and they persist in old ways of thinking. If we behave according to these old patterns of thinking, China will experience major problems.
They fail to see that there are two major trends in the world. The first is peace-seeking, and it is about development and cooperation. But our present world has emerged from an old world, and there is another trend of this old world which is about cold war, opposition and conflict. These two trends exist together in our world. Some see only cold conflict, opposition, attack and they inflate these, believing that this is the only prevailing trend in the world. So China should behave in this way too. This is wrong.
Ours is a country of small-time farming, long gripped by the ideology of “class struggle.” These ideas have had a deep influence on our people.
After economic reforms began, we had no time to cleanse ourselves of the influence of this ideology, and it continues to have an impact. Extreme nationalism is on byproduct of these ideas.
These words and ideas are deceptions, and everyone needs to be alert to them.
SSTV: I recall that there is another book called No Model For China’s Future, which emphasizes that China has its own unique development path. And other scholars have raised the idea of a “China Model.” But a separate group of economists and thinkers believe that there is in fact no difference between China’s development and previous development in the West, in terms of economic concepts and the institutional demands of economic development. And so, they believe, China must do more in the areas of freedom, democracy, human rights and rule of law. So, Ambassador Wu, how do you view this issue?
Wu Jianmin: To be honest, I don’t agree with holding up this “China Model.”
Our country has developed very rapidly, and we’ve drawn many lessons from the rest of the world. Economic reform and opening is about exactly that, adopting good things from human civilization (人类文明). But China’s characteristics and situation, these are something that we have rarely seen with other countries. The leadership position of the Chinese Communist Party emerged out of the circumstances of history, and one important characteristic of China’s model is the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. Now tell me, is this something that other countries can reproduce?
We face so many problems, but do we have ready-made answers for these? No. We must still “cross the river by feeling the stones.”
The “China Model” wasn’t a term brought up by Chinese. Some people feel that talking about a “China Model” is like shouting encouragement. But in Chinese history, how many examples do we have of false maps leading to real tragedy and misery? How much tragedy has our country suffered as a result of those thundering slogans from the left?
China’s changes must draw lessons from all of the beneficial fruits of human civilization.
Some people still see a Cold War going on. They see opposition and conflict and they inflate these, believing this is the way the world works. This way of thinking is wrong.

Despite the fact that I am generally quite busy, I find a bit of time every day to go online.

An article from General Liu Yazhou (刘亚洲) of the National Defense University has appeared online and drawn a great deal of attention. The first section of this article is about how China should place high priority on its strategy for development of China’s western regions. The second section discusses the relationship between our social and political systems and our rise as a nation.
“The secret to America’s success does not lie with Wall Street,” Liu Yazhou writes, “nor does it lie with Silicon Valley. The real secret lies in its unfailing system of rule of law and the mechanisms that lie behind this rule of law.”
Readers of Liu’s article have been picking and choosing, some talking about westward progress, others about systems and institutions. Few people seem to have noticed, however, that there is a clear disjointedness between these two parts, and that there are also points of contradiction.
One journalist who called to interview me already had picked up on this fact. Why, she asked me, did there seem to be such a huge leap between the first and second sections of Liu’s essay. It was as though at one moment we were on westward development, and the next on to a totally different conclusion.
In fact, the root of this issue lies in General Liu Yazhou’s shifting identity and perspective as he explores different problems. When he launches into a major discussion of western development, he is an unparalleled military strategist, showing great acumen and breadth of vision (he pointed out the importance of westward development more than a decade ago, in fact). But after this he changes identities, and becomes an even more masterful political thinker.
As a military strategist, General Liu considers the significance of westward progress in opposing China’s containment by the world, and there’s not a soul who could argue this point with greater perspicacity. But when, out of concern for his country and his people, he is driven onto a completely different stage — becoming a thinker on China and the world, on China’s rise — he starts advocating “progress inward” (内进), which is about resolving the problems that exist within our system, and about considering our values and “what, other than money, is important.”
This post isn’t about assessing the General’s article, or discussing the strategy of westward progress with him. He understands these issues far better than I do. Nor is it my intention to discuss the second portion on institutions and China’s rise, because these are irrefutable things about which we are already in complete agreement.
Still, there are a number of sentences in the piece that kindled my intellect, and I want to take this opportunity to talk about why we should need westward progress.
So why? Why must China “drive westward”?
Let’s look first at one of Liu Yazhou’s sections where he talks about China’s need for a drive westward:

“Today, Xinjiang stands as more than a buffer zone. It has a key natural resources role, with great strategic importance for China’s energy security. And particularly, Xinjiang is an important strategic springboard: Xinjiang’s western overland routes connect it to the Middle East, and south through Pakistan one can reach the Indian Ocean and the Strait of Hormuz.” “Aside from its importance in geopolitics, Xinjiang also supports China’s sustainable development in the 21st century as a place of alternative resources.” “China’s west is a vast region. To the west lies not only our strategic orientation, but also our hope, or even the destiny of our generation. Its excellent geographic position (right at the center of the world) gives us great motive power. We should see our western regions as the interior of our progress and advancement, not as the margins.”

The first feeling these words gave me was of a mass of Chinese living at the center and planning to drive boldly ahead into a region critically important to their survival and development, for the sake of the nation’s strength and rise, and opposing containment by the world . . .
My second feeling was that China’s west does not belong to China, or it’s a region of minimal importance that is very far from China. Over there (in the west, or Xinjiang) there is no one at all to speak of — or at least none of us “Chinese” (people of the “middle kingdom”). But now, for the sake of the stability of our nation’s center, we should take a fresh look at this region. Maybe it really is a good springboard . . .
My third feeling is one that stuck. And I would ask everyone to please recall with me how, in the early 1990s, an old retired man, just like a God, marked out a line near the South China Sea, and thereupon was Shenzhen. Before long, leaders emerging from Shanghai and marked out a map there too, and thence, in the east of China, emerged the world’s most rapidly developing city.
So now, it has come to the west?
Just to be clear, please note that for General Liu to employ such words in a discussion of military strategy and a westward push is beyond reproach. I’m simply seizing on this as an opportunity, because I want to talk a bit about our country’s mode of development, about my own perspective on our country and its people, and about the strange circle from which we seem unable, as a collective nation capable of “gathering forces to achieve great things”, to find any escape.
I had the good fortune of working in Hainan Province for several years. Like Xinjiang, Hainan should be regarded as the periphery. During that time I felt a deep sense that we were waiting for “China” (for the Central Party) to announce a new policy for the development of Hainan. Also waiting, of course, were the local leaders — who were being changed out like children on a merry-go-round — and roughly six million Hainan residents who had no way of getting off. It seems almost comical, looking back now.
As to what kind of place Hainan is, and how it should be developed, the local people — and remember, they too are “Chinese” — should make their own determination based on their actual circumstances. Instead, leaders came and went, nothing special happened to the Hainan Special Zone, and the policy favors went instead to Shenzhen and Shanghai.
Ah, poor Hainan. For two decades it waited. And during these 20 years, the dust gathered over the “Hawaii of the East,” over “China’s Bali” and other such branding efforts. Could it be a Hawaii? It could never become Hawaii, because Hawaii is the American interior, don’t you know? This Hainan Island of yours is just a chicken dropping under the ass of the great miser. [NOTE: The word “miser” in Chinese is literally “iron rooster,” and Yang is using this as a reference also to China’s land mass, which is said to resemble a rooster. The suggestion is that the central government has been miserly in withholding beneficial development policies from Hainan.]
And then there’s Xinjiang. But what we see isn’t Xinjiang, nor is it the Chinese people who live there. What we see are the resources. What we see is the positioning toward the Middle East. What we see is the world decades from now and China’s position in it. What we see is where America, Russia and Turkey are likely to compete for dominance. What we see is the threat instability there poses to stability at the “center” . . . So thereupon, we must push into and develop and advance Xinjiang — we must see it as an “interior,” as our own homeland . . .
Can you glimpse yet the silly and regrettable aspects of this logic?
Since ancient times, have the people who have lived in Xinjiang, or the people who have lived in Hainan, ever been Chinese, or people living in the “middle country”? Why is it that only when the nation has a need do we decide to go and develop these areas? Or that we finally introduce policies allowing them to develop themselves? Why is it that hitherto we have only recognized the existence of these places under the slogan of “preserving the territorial integrity of our nation”?
The theory behind this logic is the idea of “the state as the base” (以国为本). The state has become the center leading 1.4 billion people. Or the state, you can say, has been abstracted, so that all “regions” and all people become vassals of the state, and exist for its purpose. Development serves the state, as do sacrifice and backwardness . . . As to which areas should be developed, and what kind of lives the people should live, these are questions of whether or not it ultimately serves the interests of the state, whether it serves the great plan of “the whole country” (全国一盘棋).
This is a unique characteristic of ours as Chinese. Go to the U.S. State of Hawaii and ask people, and they will definitely tell you that they are the American interior. Go to the State of Alaska and ask around, and you’ll find that local oil resources have, first and foremost, brought riches to the local people.
President Hu Jintao’s slogan of “people as the base” (以人为本) is meant to correct the concept of “the state as the base,” but of course the road is still long.
Even Liu Yazhou, excellent thinker though he is, has not leapt beyond this strange circle of thinking. When he discusses national strategy, westward development and ethnic policies, he persists in seeing Xinjiang as a “springboard,” as an interior into which we must advance.
What Liu overlooks is that, for those who live there, Xinjiang is already their “interior,” and the leap that needs to be made from this springboard is the economic development of their western region, the improvement of the lives of those living in the west. It’s not about some “national rise” . . .
Naturally, when General Liu Yazhou later examines his own westward strategy in terms of political thought and institutional rethinking, he comes to a conclusion that may feel to us to be a bit out of joint.
So the center of China is . . . ?
What do we mean when we say “people are the base”? If you look at our mode of economic development you’ll discover that “people as the base” is a long way from becoming a working part of our governing mentality. It is even farther from becoming part of our values as a population. We’ve always taken the state as our base.
And when the state has become the center, you’ll discover that the state stands in for all individuals. Moreover, all provinces become “peripheral regions” (边疆).
People as the base means the people of Hainan as the base, the people of Wuhan as the base, the people of Xinjiang as the base, the people of Hong Kong as the base. It’s not about those who deign to represent the people and the nation gazing down from the heights and saying, “You are the base.” Rather, everyone is their own base. Only when we have achieved this “people as the base” will we be able to realize the greatness of China and the beauty of China. Only then will we be able to answer the question: where is China’s center?
Is it Beijing, or Shanghai? Is it Wuhan, or Nanjing?
Having had the opportunity to live in both America and Europe for more the a decade all told, I am struck by the degree of autonomy and self-governance shown by their states (which are like our Chinese provinces). As migrants, we flock to our country’s largest cities, because we feel that they are somehow China’s “center”? As time went on, though, I really felt how much, in these other countries, there was a high degree of regional autonomy, and how every person was so conscious of “people as the base” (and the individual as the base), not as an abstract concept but as a concrete way of life.
As a result, as most Europeans and Americans will tell you, the place where they live is the “center.” Or, you might say, they completely don’t buy the notion of a “center.” You won’t find anyone who will say that Washington, D.C., or Canberra is the center of the United States or Australia. Nor will you find anyone in the northwestern American city of Seattle waiting anxiously for the government to come and develop this “peripheral region.”
Well then, where is China’s center?
What we can all anticipate is this sort of answer . . . China’s center is where you are standing right now. It’s in Qiqiha’er, where you are now, and in Hothot, and Haikou and Hong Kong and Urumqi and Nanning and Qinghai and Taipei . . .
When Xinjiang, Haikou, Hong Kong, Wuhan and such places become China’s “center” . . . [NOTE: Yang purposely leaves this thought unfinished.]
China is a big place, and you’ll often hear people say it’s very difficult to manage as a result. But having developed to this point, shouldn’t China change out its way of thinking and allow local governments and populations to manage their own affairs?
Hong Kong and the Chinese mainland are very different in this respect. I was fortunate also to have had the opportunity to work in Hong Kong for several years. When I was there I had contact with many mainland officials and cadres (some of whom even had the power to affect policy decisions concerning Hong Kong). When I look back now, I shiver all over at the thought of how few actually understood Hong Kong and the Hong Kong people. What gave them the right to determine Hong Kong policy?
After the problems in Xinjiang last year, the statement that most saddened me was: “They are seeking to . . . ” Well, who are “they”? In the hearts of many of us, “they” are those Chinese who are different from us, or perhaps even are no longer “Chinese.” They want to splinter China, and to destroy our harmonious environment. “They” think nothing of overall priorities, and even deign to think that they are the masters of that region.
I have appreciation, of course, for the CCP policy toward Hong Kong, which shows some respect for the views of Hong Kongers and allows for self-governance. But I am even more appreciative for pending changes in our policies toward Xinjiang. These policies aren’t actually difficult to rework. It requires only getting out of the office, stepping out of one’s element, and really moving among the Chinese people of Xinjiang — living, working and thinking among them. Then you will know how they think, what they want, and what they despise.
When you understand this, you realize that like us they are all Chinese. However, they too believe that Xinjiang is the center of China, so naturally they are the bosses there! But you have no need to fear. Because when they proudly believe that the places where they live — Xinjiang (or Haikou, Hong Kong, Wuhan, Shanghai) — are the “center” of China, you’ll have no need to go and open things up, to develop the periphery.
And then too, harmony will truly come.
This essay appeared originally in Chinese at Yang Hengjun’s Blog.

So I have to confess. Why concern myself with the fact that it’s impossible to be three different things at once? After all, I do have a wife and a child! So I hereby solemnly confess: I am vulgar; and my son, who I brought into this world, he is cheap; and for my wife to have married me, well that was just tasteless!

In the most recent edition of Guangzhou’s Southern Weekend, CMP fellow Wang Keqin (王克勤) is interviewed about his thoughts and experiences as an investigative reporter in China. Wang speaks principally about the need for more professional and ethical conduct by journalists.
The interview is part of the newspaper’s “Chinese Dream” series.
Southern Weekend‘s interview with economist Wu Jinglian (吴敬琏) on China’s future economic development is also well worth a read:

Southern Weekend: You are perhaps the oldest of China’s investigative reporters. Moreover, you are the most enthusiastic and vigorous of investigative reporters. Judging from your writings, I would say that you see journalism not just as a profession but as a religion.
Wang Keqin: Some have asked me whether if I saw someone fall into the water, my first reaction would be to save them or to photograph the scene. My answer is that the choice is simple. You save the person first. They say, well aren’t you a journalist? And I say, look, I’m sorry, when my mother gave birth to me, I was a human being first and foremost, then a citizen of this society of ours. It was only later that I became a journalist.
Southern Weekend: So you’re not reporting for the sake of reporting?
Wang Keqin: That’s right. If you want to talk about reporting for the sake of reporting, I could list of so many examples [of other’s work]. There was one report in 2004 by a media outfit in Jilin Province about a migrant worker who had leapt out of a window and died. The report’s headline was, “High altitude flight staged last night” (昨夜上演高空飞人). In September of that same year, a newspaper in Jiangsu Province reported how an agricultural transport vehicle struck a bicyclist in the head, killing them. The headline of that report was: “Bicyclist hit right in the head, dies vicious death” (骑车人中头彩：惨死). From these headlines you can glimpse their cold and cynical view of life.
But examples of this kind appear not just in local media. On September 6, 2004, there was a television station that, reporting on a human tragedy in Russia, invited viewers to participate in a contest, guessing the number of children who had been brutally murdered and sending in their answers by instant message [CMP Note: this “television station” was China Central Television, reporting on the Beslan school hostage crisis.]
Now I would ask, if it was your child who was senselessly murdered, would you want the audience playing lottery over it? So, I often discuss this with people. What does it mean to do journalism?
The most elementary goal is to transmit information and report the facts. But journalism has another ultimate goal and end. What is that? It is about protecting the rights of individuals.
On this note, we can look carefully at a case that happened in 2007. After suggestions surfaced of an outbreak of swine flu in eastern Sichuan that year, a Hong Kong television station went to the area to report, as was their duty I guess you can say. But what they did afterward was shockingly unbelievable. They hired a local peasant to dig three meters down and unearth the carcass of an infected pig so that they could film it.
This coverage drew huge audiences in Hong Kong, and the reporters benefitted greatly as a result. But there are at least three basic problems here. First, it deviates from the ultimate value of journalism in that this behavior might conceivably endanger the very life of another person. All of our work in society should be conducted with the idea of making people’s individual lives safer, healthier, freer and more prosperous. This is an ultimate human value, and it is the basic starting point of journalism.
Second, their conduct was fraught with discrimination. This is a problem from which many journalist suffer. We have these prejudices tucked away. The prejudice of the journalist toward the ordinary individual. The prejudice of the city resident toward the rural peasant. I once saw a news report from a major media outfit in China about a migrant worker’s death by high-voltage electricity. Do you know how they described it? It was like roasted duck. That’s how they described it with deep-laden prejudice to their readers. And many readers no doubt were influenced subconsciously by this prejudice.
Third, this conduct by the Hong Kong journalist was illegal. According to our laws on the prevention of communicable diseases, human conduct resulting in second-hand transmission of disease is a criminal offense.
So on the one hand, Chinese journalists face the dilemma of receiving no protection under the law; and on the other hand, Chinese journalists, like the rest of us, operate in an environment that is essentially lawless. This is a monstrous situation.
Southern Weekend: The proper respect for life isn’t just an issue for journalism.
Wang Keqin: Yes. I’ve always said that I’m a human being first, a citizen second and a journalist last. I’ve often had people say that I do too many things that don’t fall in a journalist’s purview. They say that I step over the bounds. I say, look, I’m sorry, in my reports I follow the rules of professional reporting and conduct very strictly. But after I’m done reporting, as a citizen, I can seek to do more for the rights and interests of the weak with whom I am faced. In such cases I must act as a citizen.
As an individual, when I see others in pain I feel pain with them, and the solution to this pain is action. What is humanity? It is about feeling pain in your heart of hearts when you see others who are suffering pain. If what you feel at seeing others suffer is excitement, this indicates that your humanity has already been distorted.

Journalists have recently been the target of attack and ridicule, not just from the authorities, who, true to form, have sought reporters across provinces, but also from celebrities, who have dropped all good form to heap bile on the press.
After real-estate mogul Yu Jinyong (禹晋永) was accused of cheating and fakery, he called a press conference to issue his flat denials. He said: “If I want to close the door and beat the dogs, I have to first let them into the house. So there are a lot of media with us today.” After the pupil and relative of crosstalk performer Guo Degang (郭德纲) struck a reporter from Beijing TV, he continued to pile on the verbal abuse, saying that “Beijing TV is a filthy outfit” and that “journalists are no better than whores.”
Film director Feng Xiaogang, for whom scolding reporters has become something of a sport, responded that journalists “have no humanity” when he was asked an uncomfortable question about product placement while promoting his new film Aftershock.
I understand that I live in a coarse and vulgar society, but for these holders of public, economic and cultural power to conduct themselves in such a way, showing such poor judgment and character — this fills me with astonishment.
The Czech writer Vaclav Havel once advocated “eight principles of dialogue.” Two of these principles were: do not issue personal attacks, and do not persist in defending one’s errors. In China, these two principles have been turned on their heads, and [these upside-down principles of dialogue] have become part of the playbook of success for officials and other personalities.
Yu Jinyong has even shamelessly declared that, “Integrity doesn’t need to be expressed in words, and even less so in our actions,” but is evinced rather in “persistence in one’s heart.”
In each of these recent examples, personalities have blown their lids over journalists, voicing their utter disdain for the press.
A rather pure hearted colleague of mine, who has a great deal of respect for our profession, asked me how I viewed our work in light of these recent blow-ups. It was my view that even as we angrily defend ourselves against these attacks, we must seize this opportunity to ask ourselves tough questions.
Why can’t we garner even the most basic level of respect? Aside from the aggressiveness of those in positions of influence, are there reasons for how we are treated that lie with our own conduct? Aside from those honest, brave and professional top journalists who command respect, what is the situation for our media at large?
In modern societies, the press has a pivotal role, and has been called the “fourth estate” after the legislative, judicial and executive branches of government. The press serves three principal roles. First, to provide information for the convenience of citizens in their daily lives, seeking out the facts and helping them distinguish between truth and falsehood. Second, to monitor power, preventing its abuse by fulfilling the public’s right to know. Third, to serve as a platform for free opinion, so that differing views can be expressed.
The second of these tasks can easily turn journalists into heroes opposing power. And journalists who actually serve this role might be accorded great respect.
Many journalists in China today invoke the words of Joseph Pulitzer, who once said: “A journalist is the lookout on the bridge of the ship of state.” They believe it is a journalist’s duty to survey the seas, watching out for rough waters ahead and issuing timely warnings. And they know the words of Thomas Jefferson, who said: “Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”
There are many journalists in China who goad themselves on with sentiments like these. And when they’ve chanted them often enough, they begin to actually believe their work embodies the noble mission set down in the words of Pulitzer and Jefferson. But in fact, even Western media, working in much freer environments, cannot fully live up to these expectations — and in the age of new media things have even perhaps slid backwards.
Admittedly, Chinese media have experienced major change over the past 20-30 years, and have begun now to have a greater sense of independence and professionalism. The problem is that as they have been squeezed between government restrictions and the market, Chinese media have been seduced to the filthy road of temptation before they’ve even had an opportunity to find the true road to professionalism.
I remember a discussion journalists had last month during a “China-Europe Social Forum” I attended in Chengdu about the taking of “red envelopes” (or cash payments). “Red envelopes” are extremely common in China’s media, and have become a primary source of income for some journalists. Professor Zhan Jiang of the Foreign Languages University and other communications experts in attendance characterized the practice as abhorrent. After all, no one can reasonably suppose that a journalists who accepts cash gifts will maintain independence in their reporting — and even supposing they could, this is still a harmful practice.
But many Chinese journalists at the forum were wearied of this discussion. They grumbled that every time this sort of forum is arranged, the intractable issue of “red envelopes” comes up. They made the point that as nearly every newspaper maintains lists of advertisers who have to be protected from negative coverage, so even if journalists don’t accept cash gifts the integrity of their work is compromised.
Western journalists in attendance couldn’t get a word in edgewise on this topic. I think they just couldn’t understand this point of view. Fishing desperately for common ground, some recalled how Hollywood corporations would invite European reporters to attend film screenings, and there was a debate over whether it was OK for journalists to accept plane tickets to these events. But the idea that journalists would accept money directly from those they were reporting on, regardless of the industry, surpassed their imagination.
Alain Frachon, the editor in chief of France’s Le Monde newspaper said that when he was a deputy editor he did everything possible to avoid dinners with political leaders in order to avoid emotional interference, even if dinner parties were of a personal nature.
I have to say quite honestly that not only would the vast majority of Chinese editors — no matter how big or small their publications — not dare to spurn an invitation from a government leader if it happened to come, but in fact they would feel a deep sense of honor, to the point that they would write it directly into their advertising brochures and even report the meeting as news.
Given the way our media operate as a general rule, is it any wonder personalities like Guo Degang and Feng Xiaogang have expressed such disdain for the press?
Responding to questions from young reporters, Feng Xiaogang often refers to them as “little sisters.” You’re too young, he suggests, and you don’t understand things. You’re all little children. You don’t know your manners. But while Feng’s harsh response to reporter’s questions about product placements in his latest film may expose his agism and sexism, they also reflect his legitimate doubts about the character of journalists generally. After all, Feng understands that the product placements in his latest film have a corollary in the soft content that is so ubiquitous in China’s media.
There are indeed journalists in China who can be admired and respected for challenging the forces of power and money and bravely providing facts to the public. But while such professional conduct should be the norm for Chinese journalism, I often find myself saddened by the extent to which it is not.
So perhaps, when we’re speaking about our press as a whole, the contempt others feel for us is not such a grave injustice.
A version of this article appeared originally in Chinese at Southern Metropolis Daily.