I believe that for anyone who personally experiences demolition and removal, this process is a nightmare. Even if the problem is eventually resolved — if the victim does not resort to self-immolation, suffer physical violence, or is not buried alive — the experience of constant resistance becomes a haunting nightmare.
There has been news recently that the Hangzhou home of the well-known writer Fu Guoyong (傅国涌) faces demolition. I called Mr. Fu up to ask him what the situation was, and it was clear his fate is identical to that of all others who have faced eviction. The developers seek to drive the original occupants away at the lowest possible price, and if you won’t budge, then you face removal and demolition by force.
Fu Guoyong’s term of residence at his home has clearly not expired, but he faces demolition because local authorities want to develop a large-scale commercial project along this stretch of the city center.
A recent report from Yangtze Commercial Daily made me break out into a cold sweat. It said that more than 400 villas in the Mahu District of the city of Wuhan, which had been occupied for less than five years, now faced a mass demolition. The purpose is apparently to build high rises so more apartments are available for city residents.
Just four years in a new development — that’s a younger residential district than the one I currently live in. And the buildings in my neighborhood aren’t tall either, just seven stories. Is it not conceivable that some day I too could be forced out of my home and see it demolished so they can put up high rises?
I am confident that the destruction of my own home is entirely within the realm of possibility. So long as real estate prices keep climbing up, China’s cities will continue to play this game of knock down and build back up. Younger and younger projects will go up one after the other. When those buildings that are 20 years old have all been wiped away, they’ll start on those that are just 10 years old.
Demolish the small and build them big. Demolish the short and build them tall. Demolish residential areas to build commercial properties. So long as there is profit to be had, the demolition will go on, until before long the storm of demolition will sweep everyone up into its arms.
Unless you have special powers and privileges as your disposal, this fate will be impossible to escape.
Sure, there is the Property Law. But all of those who have purchased commercial housing cannot guarantee the security of their property rights. After all, the land does not belong to you. You just live right on top of it.
The bricks and the tiles, those are yours, and the law is clear in this regard. But local governments don’t particularly care for all the laws and regulations concerning property rights. What they really care about are the demolition ordinances, those local codes that support the development of the real estate sector.
They don’t care about this law up there, or that law down there. As far as they are concerned, land-based finance is there lifeline, and the best decision they can make is to encourage the constant warming of the real estate market, progressively turning up the heat.
It goes without saying that where there is demolition there is dispute. Developers are all about going in low cost and coming out with high prices on the other end. They are very unlikely to satisfy the demands of residents, even if these are entirely within reason.
The backing for developers has always been strong, and now even large-scaled state enterprises have gotten into the business. They all say that violence is not necessary in the demolition and removal process. But when has the violence ever stopped?
There was once case of self-immolation in Chengdu in protest of a forced removal, but how many other cases are there that no one has ever heard about? In fact, right here in Beijing, not far from me, there have been quite a number of cases of self-immolation, all completely in vain.
The crooked real estate market we have in China today is a masterwork of collusion between property developers and local governments. The enforcement people who carry out these sentences against those who are removed and their homes destroyed, they are unlikely to consider the rights and interests of these victims. So what else can any of us expect?
But this game that singles everyone out as enemies, that does harm to us all — it’s inherent dangers are unimaginable. A home over one’s head is the most basic of hopes. If this hope is always gambled on the table, one can scarcely imagine the kind of opposition that would result.
While the current strategy and approach to demolition and removal is to tackle areas one by one, these actions will before long become more and more concentrated and frequent, and they will lead to much more unrest.
The profit-making impulse, this pair of magic shoes that cannot cease its stride, will ultimately carry the wearer off to a hell of their own making.
(The writer is a professor at Renmin University of China)
This editorial originally appeared in Chinese at Southern Metropolis Daily on March 19, 2010.
RELATED LINKS:
“SOEs barred from realty,” Global Times, March 19, 2010

CMP fellow and Peking University professor Hu Yong (胡泳), one of China’s leading experts on the Internet and new media, pens his own response in Southern Metropolis Daily today to the recent suggestion by several top Internet executives that a “Special Internet Zone” should be created in the southern hub of Shenzhen.
Hu Yong is clearly opposed to the idea of “special zones” for China’s Internet sector, which some have suggested might be necessary to encourage competitiveness within the industry in an environment of rigorous Internet controls. This issue, obviously, is related to the extended Web crackdown in China through last year, and to Google’s recent departure from the mainland.

Sina.com founder and Dianji CEO Wang Zhidong responded: “All along, Shenzhen has had the special zone culture in its veins. In a national context it might be very difficult to resolve the contradiction between the current regulatory approach [to the Web] and [the needs of] Internet innovation, but as a special zone couldn’t Shenzhen become a test case?”
If I hadn’t seen this report on paper and in black ink with my very own eyes, I might have thought it was an April Fools Day joke — and a frosty joke at that.
. . . What we hope, and the most ideal situation, would be the creation of many competing [technology] enterprises overseen by a transparent supervisory mechanism. Supported by good critical citizens, these factors would constitute an optimal force capable of making China’s Internet flexible and responsive in service of the public interest. This work cannot be accomplished by the creation of one or two “special zones” . . .

China is undoubtedly one of the world’s most dangerous environments for miners, and news seems to crop up constantly about serious safety accidents in China’s mines. But unlike the vast majority of mining tragedies in China’s recent past, the flooding incident at Shanxi’s Wangjialing Mine took a positive turn this week, as 153 miners were successfully rescued. With this stroke of good fortune, China’s state media, which have been habituated to bad news in the mining sector, changed their tune entirely.
We had a wave of pro-government hurrahs and jubilation in China’s media this week, hearkening back to an earlier era of “red propaganda.”
“Thanks to our great Mother Nation, and to the great CCP!” “Ah, great Mother Nation! Ah, great Party!” “A song of victory for the CCP!”
On the heels of the good tidings from Shanxi, the Political Department of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) issued a news release instructing PLA and armed police divisions nationwide to appropriate the Wangjialing Mine story as an official teaching manual — not for relief and rescue, mind you, but for the pro-party spirit and the superiority of socialism.
The PLA notice read:

After flooding occurred at Shanxi’s Wangjialing Mine, the central party and the State Council gave top priority to rescue work. General Secretary Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao rapidly issued important instructions for action, demanding effective measures be taken and all available resources be mobilized for the rescue of miners trapped underground. Under the scientific decision-making and determined leadership of the central party and Chairman Hu, relevant agencies of the State Council and local party and government organizations carried out the rescue work scientifically.
Rescue workers did their upmost to rescue the trapped miners, who held on bravely, and the leaders of relevant departments advanced to the front lines. As of present, 115 workers have been successfully saved.

The Wangjialing case, said the PLA news release, “demonstrates the great superiority and cohesiveness of the socialist system.” It must, therefore, be used to instruct soldiers, “enhancing the awareness and determination of officers and soldiers in holding high the banner [of the CCP], heeding the Party’s commands, and fulfilling their missions.”
I urge everyone to please not forget that even as these “red slogans” were being plastered across state media, rescue workers were hauling up the dead from the mine, and many miners remained missing. Meanwhile, the family members of missing miners waited bitterly for any news of their loved ones.
Nor can we forget the traumatic nature of the ordeal surviving miners have been through, and the fact that they have not been freed from long-term dangers. Before long, they must return to work. And under what conditions?
During my career as a news reporter in China, I interviewed surviving miners on two different occasions. The first was after the earthquake at Tangshan in 1976, the second at Yixian (义县) twenty years later.
After the Tangshan Earthquake struck, five miners were trapped in a collapsed mine. They managed to use trowels to dig their way 800 meters toward the surface, inch by inch, by means of a transport tunnel. Suffering from thirst, they were forced to the extreme measure of drinking their own urine, and later filthy water seeping into the tunnel. They were finally rescued 15 days after the quake.
After a mine in Yixian, Liaoning Province, collapsed on December 15, 1996, four miners were trapped underground. They spent the first few days eating bark they managed to strip off of the wooden supports for the mineshaft. Before long, they considered taking their own lives put an end to their suffering. The local government organized a massive rescue effort, and even transferred an oil drilling crew to the scene hoping to open up a passageway to the survivors.
Once the drilling had reached the miners and communication had been established, there was some hope of survival. But progress in freeing them was gruelingly slow, and freezing water leaking into the tunnel presented a grave danger. I watched with my own eyes as the miners passed notes up to the waiting rescue team members, twelve in total. They were on the verge of psychological collapse, their spirits near breaking point. Just as in Tangshan, the Yixian miners were saved after 15 days.
Together these reporting assignments had a profound impact on me. And I realized only too clearly that the chief — indeed, the only — motivation and desire to go on living came from the miners’ concern over the welfare of their wives and parents.
When I first made contact with the miners from Yixian, they had no wish to speak with me. They were even less willing to re-live their experiences underground. As I sat in their sickroom, the door swung open and in marched a television reporter decked out in his armed police uniform. He wanted to talk to the miners about the armed police units who had pulled them to safety. In fact, given the chaos of the scene and the fact they had been wearing protective headgear, the miners had no way of knowing the identities of their rescuers. But the men relented and accepted the interview. They faced the camera and offered words of thanks to their official liberators, which they had no doubt done many times already.
In mainland China, red propaganda of this kind — about the glories of the CCP and the gracious concern of government leaders — has become an ingrained habit for journalists and the public alike. Having served for many years in the party media, I remember those red days only too well. Many leaders still turn to this tried-and-true tactic, transforming sorrow into joy, bad things into good, and using the miracle of rescue to gloss over the fact of human error and responsibility.
The rescue of more than a hundred miners at the Wangjialing Mine is certainly a stroke of good fortune in the midst of tragedy. The government spared no effort to free the miners, and this fact should be recognized. But they are under no obligation to utter words of thanks. Rescue, and all the resources it requires, is not a gift — it is a responsibility hundreds of millions of Chinese taxpayers expect of the government, and no more. And this is a capacity that can be naturally expected of the government given a highly nationalized system like China’s.
It goes without saying — but has not been said in China’s media — that the fact of the government’s negligence in properly monitoring safety in China’s mines precedes the “miracle” of this rescue.
The rescue effort itself is a cost incurred by our nation. Nor can we overlook the human cost — at least 17 miners have died at the latest count, and 21 are missing.
The blood of these miners, and the tears of joy shed by the survivors, both speak of a tragedy that must serve as a lesson for us, not about the glories of socialism but about our failings in protecting the lives of our workers, about the value of life and the need to protect it.
The miners themselves are the focus of this story. Naturally, their perseverance in the face of mortal danger is an inspiration. But once the curtain goes down on this grand drama of red propaganda, they will return quietly to lives of dangerous and grueling labor in the mines. And the trauma they have suffered will add to their burdens.
All of this should be cause for self-reflection by the government. How can you dare use the blood of our miners to paint your red graffiti, boasting about your greatness and achievements?
According to media reports, ChinaCoal CEO Wang An (王安) has apologized to the miners at Wangjialing. He has admitted that the blind expansion of output led to oversights in safety. But what about the State Administration of Work Safety? And the governor of Shanxi province? Higher-level state leaders?
Who will step up?
I am confident that the most effective means for the party and government to earn the trust and confidence of the people is to apologize publicly, and to thoroughly look into the question of responsibility for this tragedy. The singing of red praises will have precisely the opposite effect.

At FT Chinese, CMP fellow Chang Ping writes about the impact inside China of Google’s departure from the mainland, focusing on recent comments made by key figures in China’s IT sector.

The signal fire of Google’s departure from mainland China is still burning strong, and there are now un-harmonious voices emerging from the mainland IT sector. At the IT Leaders Forum held recently in the city of Shenzhen, Ma Huateng (马化腾), Wang Zhidong (王志东), Ding Jian (丁健), Wang Weijia (王维嘉) and other industry leaders all expressed dissatisfaction with the government’s censorship of the Internet. Wang Zhidong and Ding Jian even proposed the creation in Shenzhen of a special Internet zone . . .

Read more at FT Chinese.

The police department in Huai’an has recently set up Internet Public Opinion Offices at all levels. All police divisions are now equipped with press spokesperson offices, so that when sudden-breaking incidents occur we can release information at the earliest moment, which means within two hours or so.

Has Google left China? No. Google has left mainland China and moved its search engine operations to Hong Kong. What exactly will Google do? We will have to wait and see.
China’s government, which does not wish to see Sino-American relations continue down their present path, has emphasized that Google’s departure is purely a commercial matter, and that it should not be politicized. At the same time, however, many state media have gone on a political crusade, criticizing Google and defending Internet controls in China.
Information search technology is the pillar of Internet technology, upsetting the traditional relationship between the broadcaster and the receiver and creating a world in which users themselves are free to search, organize and derive information.
Google is cutting edge, one of the world’s most non-conformist companies. Google is not just a search engine but a new form of media, setting new standards. What Google wished to accomplish in Beijing was the creation of a media free of censorship, allowing mainland Chinese to access information freely.
Not long ago, the Washington Post ran a story by correspondent John Pomfret called, “In China, Google users worry they may lose an engine of progress.” One source interviewed for the story, an academic, said: “If Google is blocked, we will see nothing but darkness.”
The Washington Post story set off a firestorm of speculation in the media. Would China descend into darkness without Google? In my view, this is a pseudo question. The question of whether China grows dark or not does not hinge on any one factor. Google’s exit from mainland China is a certainly a loss for the people of China. But there are thousands of journalists in China fighting every day for freedom. They will continue to work, inching ahead, regardless of whether or not topics like June Fourth or Liu Xiaobo can be discussed. This is why the flame of professional media in China burns on, and why we see sparks like investigative reporter Wang Keqin’s expose last week on faulty vaccines in Shanxi. Light and dark dance around each other every day in China.
Google is keeping the future and its long term goals in sight. It wishes to be a thoroughly free and uncontrolled media, something that cannot exist in today’s China. Given the facts as they are known at present, I still cannot entirely understand Google’s true reasons for quitting mainland China. But I feel quite strongly that Google’s decision to shift to Hong Kong and develop Google.com.hk is a stroke of good news amid the bad.
Google has not exited China. It has sought shelter in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China and the policy of “one country, two systems.” The SAR government stated at the earliest possible moment that it would not censor content at the site and would respect information freedom.
In this special place, somewhat paradoxically called “the domestic outside” (国内境外), Google can continue to provide their services to Chinese — including search services that will be limited for mainland users by censorship actions within China, but which cannot be entirely controlled.
“One country, two systems” is not an expedient policy, but rather a long-term state policy arranged by Deng Xiaoping himself. The “one country, two systems” policy shows great political wisdom, leaping out of the life and death ideological struggle between socialism and capitalism and the rigid thought so pervasive in Chinese politics. In spirit it was not unlike Khrushchev’s 1959 doctrine of “peaceful coexistence, peaceful transition and peaceful competition,” which allowed for the coexistence, comparison, competition and integration of differing systems.
Looking back now, the richness and imaginative possibility of the policy surpasses the original intentions of its framer.
As China moves into the future, Hong Kong will have important contributions to make to the nation’s development, not just economically, but socially and politically as well. Hong Kong is an incubator for democracy, freedom of expression and civil society in China. Everyone on the mainland with an active interest in China’s future and progress of China is watching Hong Kong’s development closely.
Freedom of expression must be fiercely protected in Hong Kong, and we must not grow complacent. Some are concerned that freedoms here are suffering. But there is another important aspect to this issue — do local Hong Kong media make sufficient use of the freedom they have? Do they work tirelessly to raise standards of media professionalism, serving as a model for mainland journalists in the two crucial areas of “freedom and responsibility”? As Internet technologies progress with each passing day, has Hong Kong stayed on top of the trends, accelerating the development of new media in the territory?
Hong Kong’s future is closely tied to the future of mainland China. I feel regret at Google’s departure from mainland China, but I do not feel sadness or despair.
The goal Chinese media are fighting for on a daily basis is not the ultimate goal Google was angling for. Chinese media are fighting a constant struggle for the right to expose, for example, the full facts in the Shanxi vaccine scandal. They are fighting for the right to criticize Hubei governor Li Hongzhong. Their reports are constantly censored, “harmonized” (prevented from being posted online) or subjected to “404 errors” (their articles deleted across the Web). In extreme cases, media may be purged or suspended. But they do not turn back. They gain modest victories again and again. And many small victories can add up to tremendous progress.
Hong Kong’s Google is still China’s Google. Words like “June Fourth” and “Liu Xiaobo” are sensitive words that must be filtered out inside China’s firewall today. But I would ask, what will the situation be in three years? Or in five years, or ten years? I don’t believe that China’s Great Firewall will stand unshaken in ten years time.
And perhaps history will change must faster than we anticipate, and we will not have to wait 10 years for Google’s return to mainland China.

A new book by CMP fellow Yang Jisheng, published in February, compiles more than 100 articles by the veteran journalist reflecting on China’s reform journey over the past 30 years. The book is called “30 Years East of the River: the Plight of the Power Market Economy” (三十年河东：权力市场经济的困境).
Chinese news coverage of the book is available here and here.

CMP fellow and Peking University professor Hu Yong spoke recently with The Beijing News about the impact of microblogging at this year’s “two meetings” of the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Congress. Hu Yong calls microblogs a “new form of broadcasting” and argues that the medium has four basic characteristics.

The Beijing News: You have observed the development of the Internet for a long time. How do you view microblogs, this new type of communication tool?
Hu Yong: Microblogs are a new form of broadcasting, and I think they have four basic characteristics. The first is speed. This represents the new direction of Web development. Traditional media all grapple with the issue of news cycles. Newspapers, for example, make news calculations on a daily cycle. But microblogs are not limited by this as they belong to the instantaneous medium of the Web . . .
Second, they are fragmented. This has a major impact on thinking. In the past, mass media distributed information from the center to the periphery. For example, when a news story breaks in a certain place, media must send journalists to the s scene to report. Those reports are then published [in the newspaper], and then they are subsequently run online. The media that break the story are the “center.” But today there might be microblog users at the scene of the story, and they can transmit information instantly. People who were unknown or insignificant might now become the center of the information [dissemination process], having a powerful influence.
Third, they are direct. There is no mediator, so they are very direct . . . For example, making statements through the traditional media has required going through layers of intermediaries. Now microblog users can go directly into their topics . . .
Fourth, is their micropower (微动力). In my view, micropower is nothing more than each individual taking responsibility. “Micro” is about every ordinary citizen. “Power” is about translating language into action. Through “micro-information” and “micro-conversation” we can together exercise “micropower” and influence the development of conscience in Chinese society.

A report by veteran investigative reporter Wang Keqin published last week in China Economic Times has sent ripples through China’s media and sparked widespread public concern. The result of months of hard-nosed reporting, Wang Keqin’s report exposes how vaccines that had been improperly stored and distributed throughout Shanxi Province resulted in the death of several children and seriously injured many others.
Vaccines are bio-products that have to be handled with extreme care, and the entire distribution process, from manufacture to injection, requires cold transport and storage. But beginning in 2006, the Shanxi Center for Disease Control entrusted vaccine manufacture and distribution throughout the province to a businessman who claims that his enterprise was “a sub-unit of the Ministry of Health.”
According to Wang Keqin’s investigation, this businessman paid 3.8 million yuan to the Center for Disease Control in exchange for exclusive rights to the sale and distribution of vaccines in Shanxi Province. Fixing the market with the blessing of a provincial government body, this enterprise was able to draw in an estimated 120 million yuan over two years.
It was also during this time that many vaccine stocks in Shanxi were damaged by heat exposure. Vaccines that were harmful and should have been immediately destroyed were instead administered to children throughout the province.
The facts revealed in Wang Keqin’s article point to extreme carelessness and negligence on the part of the company involved in this scandal. One eyewitness remarked that in 2006 and 2007, the owner of the company in question instructed employees to move vaccine stocks from cold storage to another room so that they could be labeled with stickers advertising the vaccines as products approved by provincial authorities – the stickers apparently would not adhere while the boxes were in cold storage.
“It was summer, and everyone was wearing shorts, but still as usual they were working every day in the sweltering lobby to stick labels [on the vaccines],” the eyewitness said.
A driver interviewed for Wang Keqin’s story said that at the time “the refrigeration was broken for the storage truck used to deliver vaccines all over the province, and it was never fixed. When we were out on trips, especially in the summer, [the truck] became a stifling hot tank.”
In 2007, the newspaper China Youth Daily exposed the problem of monopoly control of Shanxi’s vaccine market, pointing to unsavory deal making between the company and provincial health officials. But news stories at the time never went deeper into the possible consequences.
As vaccine stocks damaged through heat exposure were not recalled, children in Shanxi were being administered with these potentially harmful vaccines up to the end of 2008.
Wang Keqin’s investigative report comprehensively documents the awful effects of the vaccines, and the report has caused widespread concern and outrage.
A Web user in Shanxi fumed:

Playing games with the lives of children, using the lives of children for filthy profiteering — this scandal is every bit as big as the Sanlu milk powder scandal [of 2008!

Another wrote:

If a society, for the sake of personal gain, cannot even spare its own young generation, can such a society possibly have a future?

The well-known blogger Wu Yue San Ren struck a nerve when he wrote that “this was a deadly business done right under the noses of power.”
Wang Keqin is well regarded in China as a corruption reporter. We have hosted him twice here at the University of Hong Kong twice as a China Media Project fellow.
It was back in 2002 that China Economic Times ran Wang Keqin’s 30,000-character report on corruption in Beijing’s taxi industry. The report, which covered five pages in the paper, made quite a stir in professional journalism circles in China, and it defined a flurry of watchdog activity that followed.
Thanks to the tireless work of Wang Keqin and other dedicated investigative reporters, watchdog journalism was invigorated between 2002 and 2004. Since 2005, however, special interests in China have worked to strike out against investigative reporting and investigative reporters have borne the brunt of tightening media controls.
This latest report from Wang Keqin quickly brought pressure to bear on Chinese media. Even from Hong Kong I could sense the chill. I first read Wang’s report at the web portal QQ.com at 9:20 am on March 17, where it was featured prominently at the top of the news headlines. Just half an hour later the headline was removed and the report buried deep among run-of-the-mill news stories. At the same time, the government moved to control the agenda. A news release from Xinhua News Agency carried the response from provincial health officials in Shanxi, who denied the allegations in Wang’s report and said “Shanxi Province has never received any report indicating mass adverse reactions as a result of vaccinations.”
Wang Keqin’s report revealed just the tip of the iceberg. He traveled around Shanxi interviewing the families of scores of affected children
But there were limits on how far Wang Keqin could proceed with his investigation without the cooperation of authorities. Health authorities in Shanxi refused to speak to him, saying “interviews require approval from relevant departments.” They told him “take his questions to the Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection.” When he sought a response from the commission he was told that the “Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection has no time to receive interviews from reporters.”
Wang then tried to go directly to the division chief at the commission who would have been responsible for looking into possible official misconduct in the vaccine case, but he was again brushed off. “What is it you want to accomplish by looking into this case?” the division chief asked. Wang’s response was, “Watchdog journalism.” “We haven’t finished looking into the case yet,” the division chief said before hanging up.
Reading the full Wang Keqin report, I am left with many questions. Most crucial is the question of the role of China’s Ministry of Health in the whole affair. The negligence of provincial health authorities in Shanxi begs the question of exactly what sort of oversight role of the Ministry of Health was playing.
In November 2008, the Ministry of Health reportedly dispatched an investigative team to Shanxi Province. What were their findings? What persons, companies or agencies did they look into? As to the possible harm done to children by vaccinations, did the Ministry of Health conduct any sort of general survey or census? Did they adopt any emergency measures?
Even more seriously, how is it that this businessman who monopolized the market for vaccine distribution in Shanxi Province manage to use the label “a Ministry of Health enterprise”? Was this man just an ordinary charlatan working on his own? Or was he in cahoots with officials from the Ministry of Health?
At this year’s National People’s Congress Wen Jiabao spoke of “creating the conditions for the people to monitor the government.” The Shanxi vaccine scandal is the first test for the government since the NPC. The China Economic Times report is an act of monitoring of the government in Shanxi and of the national Ministry of Health.
As a government agency whose priority should be protecting the health and safety of the public, I encourage the Ministry of health to make the first move. Health Minister Chen Zhu (陈竺), how will you face the appeals made by the parents of children who were harmed? How will you face the questions raised by the media and the anger of Internet users? Will you, like Hubei Governor Li Hongzhong (李鸿忠), see the media as your enemy, or will you use the strength of public opinion wisely, conducting a thorough investigation of the vaccine incident beginning with your own ministry?
Everyone inside and outside China who cares about the country’s progress is watching closely.
[A version of this article appeared in Chinese at China Reform.]