In recent weeks — as we’ve seen many reports of attacks on schools in China, of suicides, and even more recently controversies over television marriage shows many have seen as inappropriate — a wave of criticism has turned on the mass media and there have been moves to clamp down. I think we should take a hard look at media transmission capacity in China, which is stronger now than it has been ever before, and that we should work in particular to avoid the negative effects media can have. But if tensions that have built up in China over many years are heaped all at once on the media’s head, that is plainly unfair.
When it is our society that is sick, should we really expect the media alone to drink the bitter medicine?
We all know that since economic reforms, the rapid development of China’s economy has created miracles that have drawn the gaze of the whole world. We also know that economic development has resulted in other things that we are now much clearer about (for example, the gap between rich and poor and conflicts between governments and populations at the local level) and still others that we are unclear about (where, for example, we should draw the lines in a world of changing morals).
It is only natural that the public should have their own views on the media. And without criticism from various corners of society, we might see more negative behavior in our media. But only criticism with basis is helpful and convincing. If we lose sight of the rational spirit and let our feelings and emotions be driven by those with ulterior motives, or those who mean well but have a superficial view, and if we do not have a media governed principally by rule of law, then the instances of disorder we see in our media and our society will only multiply.
Dealing first with the issue of school attacks in China, it seems that all at once attacks on the media have been everywhere. It’s as though we believe the godforsaken media have become coffin sellers, every day looking forward to the dead.
Academics inside and outside China have spoken before of the media as coffin sellers, saying that the market has pushed media to report more actively on natural disasters and other tragedies in order to grab attention. This, of course, is something media should be on guard against, avoiding the unnecessary inflation and coloring of stories, avoiding sensationalism and yellow journalism. But the first duty of the media is to observe our natural and social environment and to report on tragedy as quickly as possible. It is not their job to sing praises.
In fact, greater attention to sudden-breaking news incidents has been an important change in Chinese media [under the policies of President Hu Jintao since 2008]. Which is to say that even if media are in fact coffin sellers, the deaths of those inside the coffins were caused by other people and other factors.
Even as many, including a number of experts, were voicing alarm at how media had become accomplices in recent cases of violence, Premier Wen Jiabao stepped out and spoke against popular sentiment by pointing out that much deeper social causes lay behind these incidents.
Look at the perpetrators in these cases. Though there is a lot we still do not know, we do know they are all around 45 years old. They have all suffered job layoffs, broken families, terminal illness and other devastating setbacks. In a period of transition, as the economy is developing quickly, we should expect to see a rise in crime. But if these suffering groups were covered by employment, pension, healthcare and housing systems, their sense of disappointment towards society would only rarely boil over into hatred.
We must be on guard against those who want to use the charge of “sensationalism” against the media to put obstacles in the way of our hard-won concessions on openness of government information. International experience tells us that information openness should include information about various cases of violence, and if we cannot pass this test then there can be no basis for information openness and social transparency.
We have seen no cases in modern nations under rule of law in which such reports in the media have been prevented and attacked. There is some price to pay, of course, for openly reporting on such incidents, but this price is small compared to the relative benefits that come with increased social attention to the causes of these incidents and the strengthening of preventive measures to deal with them.
As the 19th century French sociologist Tocqueville said that the basic contribution of the newspaper was that “the evil which they produce is . . . much less than that which they cure.” If we do not have a clear view of this issue, then we will provide ammunition to those who have been opposed all along to openness of government information.
The controversy over news reports on suicides has still not settled down, and new attacks on suicide reports crop up all the time. The media has been accused of being infectious and an accomplice. These criticisms have been further supported by a 2008 report from the World Health Organization and the International Suicide Prevention Association.
This report points out that suicide is an important public safety issue having a profound and lasting impact on public sentiment and the economy. Approximately one million people worldwide commit suicide each year, and each case of suicide potentially impacts at least six others. The factors influencing suicide and its prevention are extremely complex, and they have still not been researched fully and extensively. However, evidence does suggest that the media does play an important role. On the one hand, vulnerable people will be affected by reports of suicide and may imitate the act. This is particularly true when reports are widespread, prominent and sensational, or when they describe the act of suicide in great detail. On the other hand, news reports on suicide that are handled responsibly can help to educate the public, and can encourage those at risk to seek help.
Naturally, media who report on suicides cannot entirely overlook self-discipline, but rather should as far as possible respect the advice given by the WHO — to avoid language that sensationalized or normalizes suicide, in order to avoid the suggestion that suicide is in any way a solution; to avoid placing news about suicides in a prominent position, and avoid repeating suicide stories inaccurately; to avoid mentioning the specific places where acts of suicide took place; to take care in the writing of headlines; to take special care in the reporting of suicide by famous persons; to be mindful of the impact reports have on family members of the suicide victims; to provide helpful information; to be mindful of the effect suicide cases might have on media personnel themselves.
China’s government has made progress in the area of governance by rule of law, but there are still a number of departments that wield the club of punishment. They seem not to understand the principal of governance that says, “that which is not authorized by the law cannot be done.” There is plenty of decent content on China Central Television, which is directly under the thumb of the State Administration of Radio Film and Television. But there are still many problem, for example the use of fake interviews in the news, the posing of sources by directors, disguised tobacco advertising, the parading of officials who are also business people in such programs as the Spring Festival Gala. But when have we ever seen CCTV punished for problems in its programming?
This editorial was excerpted from a Chinese article appearing in Time Weekly.

How exactly can and should the rich and poor learn to live together? This is a tense and intractable global issue, and it is an even tougher problem for China under its current social conditions. Tensions can be glimpsed in particular over the issue of affordable housing in China. China’s government has recently moved to control the housing market, partly out of economic concerns and partly because sky-high housing prices have generated widespread anger.
Now the city of Wuhan is turning heads with its own somewhat unorthodox answer to closing the housing gap between rich and poor — let rich and poor live together, they say.
According to a policy recently announced by Wuhan’s government, the city will no longer open up areas for the exclusive development of affordable housing. Instead, development projects from now on, whatever their nature, will be required to dedicate a specified proportion of their total development area to affordable and low-rent housing.
The government explained this policy as a way of encouraging rich and poor to live together and benefit equally from public services, including transportation. At the same time, they said, this could help minimize misunderstanding between rich people and poor people.
We can’t say for certain whether this is just an idea right now, or whether there are plans in motion to formalize this policy in actual regulations. In any case, if it is only an idea with nothing concrete behind it, people are likely to shrug it off as lovely but empty rhetoric. However, if it is moving in the direction of actual policy, I hope Wuhan moves quickly to explain the nitty gritty of how it intends to accomplish this.
As an idea, this measure in Wuhan deserves affirmation. It accords nicely with one of the United Nations’ key agendas, which has been to address severe gaps between rich and poor. A number of countries have come out with policies encouraging rich and the poor to live together. In most cases, however, these are just trial programs, and the response of the public on the internet has been of two minds — one dismissing such projects as utopian dreams, the other suspecting they are just acts of public deception.
Many people in China have pointed out that Wuhan’s vision could be achieved only in Switzerland or a few other countries in northern Europe, where general wealth is already a reality and nearly everyone can live in spacious homes. But isn’t it possible that mixing up the rich and the poor in China will result in even greater pressure for the poor?
In the very capitalistic city of Hong Kong, I understand things have been mixed up with some success. I have visited Deep Water Bay area on the west side of Hong Kong Island, where you can find luxurious homes with stunning views of the sea. But I was told there is also affordable public housing in the area. As I understand it, these public estates were constructed because people said: Look, if rich people get to enjoy sea views, why can’t the poor enjoy them too?
A few years back, a well-known real estate developer, Ren Zhiqiang (任志强), said: “It’s quite a normal thing for us to have ‘poor areas’ and ‘rich areas’ right now. Just as we let a few people get rich first,” he said, referring to Deng Xiaoping’s words at the outset of economic reforms three decades ago, “we need to let a few people live in luxury districts first. Only later can we make all places luxury districts.”
Ren’s words prompted a lot of criticism, but this sentiment was echoed by other developers. That’s not surprising. One important strategy of consumerism is to create of a sense of social hierarchy. Once a sense of social hierarchy exists, business people can target the rich with luxury goods at higher prices. This is a logic those who are rich enough to consume luxury products already understand. To their mind, it’s only natural that there should be luxury areas and poor areas. In fact, more distant that poor are, the richer one feels.
This idea in Wuhan is something bright and interesting. But what people are most eager to know is how the government expects to convince real estate developers and the rich of its wisdom. Or, seen the other way around, what concessions will the city of Wuhan have to make to developers and the rich in order to ensure smooth sailing for this policy? As real estate developers are already so mixed up with policy makers in China, there is a very real fear that a fair-looking policy might just open up more and wider loopholes for developers to take advantage of.
We can only wait for the appropriate answers to these questions from the government of Wuhan.
This article appeared originally in China at The Beijing News.

If you woke up in the morning and discovered you’d lost a few hairs, would you be alarmed about that? It’s only when hundreds of hairs fall out at once that you have cause to notice.

Professor Yu Jianrong is head of the Rural Development Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Born in Hengyang, Hunan Province, in 1962, he studied politics and law at Hunan Normal University in the 1980s, and in 2001 received his post-doctorate in legal studies from Huazhong Normal University. Professor Yu’s writings include “Change in Political Structures at the Village Level in Transitional China,” “Rights Defense and the Modern Rural Population: An Investigation of Hengyang, Hunan” and “Class and the Contemporary Chinese Worker.”

According to recent news coverage, ten domestic websites have been chosen to make forays with A-share listings in order to promote the development of new media in China, and at least one or two news websites aim to complete successful listings this year. Included on this list of 10 websites is Zhejiang Online.
Our market economy has allowed private internet portals to flourish, and it has also provided opportunities for a number of “official” and “state-funded” websites. This is beneficial for China’s political, economic, technological and cultural development. But we cannot forget that the market economy assumes an economy ruled by law, and the market economy cannot stomach rampant illegal activity. There is no reason whatsoever why major national priority websites with [government support and] all the advantages of the system backing them up should be exceptions to the same rules that apply to commercial websites.
The way things should be, however, is not always the way things actually are. There have been a number of times in recent years when internet portals have found themselves plaintiffs in lawsuits for re-publishing articles without permission, and most of these have ended in out-of-court settlements that were agreeable to both sides.
But the recent case brought by The Beijing News against Zhejiang Online in the Hangzhou Intermediate Court should make people turn their heads. Two years after The Beijing News brought its case, the Hangzhou court has still not rendered a verdict, but instead demands that The Beijing News bring a separate lawsuit for each of the 7,706 articles [for which copyright was allegedly violated]. The Beijing News has said it cannot agree to this, and so the Hangzhou Intermediate Court has rejected the suit outright.
Commentators have already pointed out that in this case the Hangzhou court has stepped way beyond the maximum trial period of one year. As to the Hangzhou Intermediate Court breaking this case into 7,706 separate cases, the former head of the intellectual property office of the Supreme Court, Jiang Zhipei (蒋志培), has said that “judicial organs should not commit such errors of common sense.” For Zhejiang Online’s part, their grounds of opposition have run as follows: all of the articles were “reasonably used,” and they are part of the “national team” (国家队), [in other words, state media], and “an important priority website of Zhejiang Province.”
When the local court decision has been infected by local protectionism even as these instances of widespread intellectual property violation are so plain to see, this means, I’m afraid, that Zhejiang Online, which refuses to acknowledge its own illegal activities but is now on a list of 10 websites preparing to go public, must deal with the problem of “credibility” before it can hope for a successful market listing.
When a website that serves as a public information platform, or for a commercial organization, has such an awful record of dishonesty and yet stubbornly refuses to recognize and rectify its errors, I’m afraid it must face questioning by the China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) and the public, and cannot be allowed to enter China’s stock markets, which have already suffered so much “hurt.”
In less than a month, China’s first official law concerned with internet regulation, the Tort Liability Act (侵权责任法), will take effect. Article 36 of the law clearly states the responsibilities of internet users and those who provide internet services: “Internet users and providers of internet services who use the internet to infringe the rights and interest of others, must assume legal responsibility.”
Even though Zhejiang Online cannot be pursued for its liability under the Tort Liability Act, it is very possible that the website’s credibility will suffer as a result of the recent case and reports in the media. After so many crises of integrity, the regulators of China’s stock markets and the public will watch and examine much more closely the records of integrity of those companies seeking public listings.
This article originally appeared in Chinese at The Beijing News.

A: So if you only have 50 yuan in your pocket, but you use all kinds of numbers to show you really have 100 yuan, what kind of person are you?
B: A cheat.
A. Wrong, you’re a statistician.

In recent years, we have used the internet to resolutely organize and develop positive propaganda, actively strengthening public opinion channeling, and serving an important role in advancing the major objectives of the party and the nation. This has become a major innovative achievement of party news and propaganda work in the new era.