By David Bandurski — As China’s annual National People’s Congress opened yesterday, many news headlines pounced on Premier Wen Jiabao’s remarks toward the end of his NPC report (see tab 11), in a section on anti-corruption, about the need for leaders to report their personal assets. But in the margins, commentators railed against shady practices nearer at hand — more than 2,000 laptop computers given away to delegates at the public’s expense.
The laptop story bubbled up out of China’s social media sphere back on March 2, when Chinese Internet users noted an odd mini blog entry from Zhang Xiaomei (张晓梅), a delegate to the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) who is also the publisher of Beauty Fashion magazine. [See Zhang’s weblog here].
Zhang’s entries were succinct, mostly mundane summaries of preparations and speeches ahead of the two meetings.

CPPCC Chairman Tao says: being a national delegate to the CPPCC is a glorious mission, and a post for political participation and discussion. Sichuan party secretary Liu Qibao (刘奇葆) says: last year was the toughest year, this year is the most complex.

But in one entry she wrote: “When delegates report [to the meeting] they each get a laptop computer. What is different from last year is that this year these don’t need to be returned after we’re done with them. This is much more practical.”

[ABOVE: CPPCC delegate Zhang Xiaomei casually revealed the practice of free laptops for delegates on her mini blog at Sina.com]

Web users were angry and incredulous. Free computers for delegates?
A Guangzhou Daily story on March 3 followed up on this news, and confirmed that CPPCC delegates were indeed being gifted with laptop computers:

This year the CPPCC is again giving out laptop computers, but unlike previous years, this year they do not need to be returned! CPPCC delegate Zhang Xiaomei revealed on her mini blog that, “When delegates report [to the meeting] they each get a laptop computer. What is different from last year is that this year these don’t need to be returned after we’re done with them. This is much more practical.” Yesterday evening, two CPPCC press liaisons confirmed to this newspaper’s reporter that the computers being handed out to delegates this year do not need to be returned.
Sitting on the registration table at the Beijing International Hotel is a document called “Notice on the Issuing of Laptop Computers to Delegates to the Third Session of the Eleventh CPPCC,” saying that delegates may take with them one laptop computer.

[ABOVE: Guangzhou Daily reports on free computers for CPPCC delegates at the top of its “two meetings” coverage in its March 3 edition.]

A commentary at Dahe Daily thought the policy stank of behind-the-scenes commercial dealings. They wanted to know who was cashing in on this government hand-out.

What brand of computers are being provided? How much for each one? I understand there are 5,100 delegates to the NPC and CPPCC, and if everyone is entitled to a laptop at 5,000 yuan a pop, that comes to 25 million yuan. 25 million yuan! That’s no small amount. I’m not sure how which brand managed to obtain this order. But I’m sure it wasn’t simple, and probably required slipping over a few red envelopes.

Well, as it turns out, they are gifting Lenovo laptops this year, as CPPCC delegate Zhang Jiaji (张嘉极) confirmed to the Guangzhou Daily reporter.
And that must be music to the ears of NPC delegate Liu Chuanzhi (柳传志) and CPPCC delegate Yang Yuanqing (杨元庆), who are respectively the CEO and board chairman of Lenovo Group. Together, incidentally, they make up one-third of delegates to the “two meetings” from the IT sector.
Internet users quickly estimated that more than 2,000 laptops for the CPPCC, at an estimated value of 5,000 yuan each, would cost — presumably, the taxpayer — upwards of 10 million yuan, or roughly 1.5 million US dollars. And if laptops were being given to delegates to both of the “two meetings,” including NPC delegates, that would mean, as Dahe Daily said, about 5,100 computers for a total of around 25 million yuan.
Shortly after the Guangzhou Daily story appeared on March 3, an open letter appeared online protesting the irresponsible decision to hand out free computers to delegates:

In short, as the haze of the financial crisis has still not cleared, and state funds are of a limited nature, as the people are beset with immediate concerns . . . this action shows little consideration for the livelihood of the people, and is a political misstep.

Lawyer and editorial writer Yang Tao (杨涛) wrote on his QQ blog that clean governance should begin with small and immediate details — like not accepting unreasonable gifts.

Lately, we have entered the age of the computer and the Internet. For the sake of convenience in their work, it may be understandable for the organizers of the ‘two meetings’ to temporarily provide computers for delegates . . . The problem is, why is it that these computers do not need to be returned after they have been used? . . .
And so, I entreat our delegates and committee members to begin [their concern for clean government] by monitoring those things right next to them. They should say “NO” to those things that may be personally beneficial to them, but which are unfair and unreasonable. Let our government organs revive the slogan, “Thriftiness in holding the two meetings”!

In an interview with Jian Guangzhou (简光洲), the reporter for Shanghai’s Oriental Morning Post who broke the poisoned milk scandal back in late 2008, Zhang Xiaomei defended the handing out of laptops as an act promoting the use of computers at the political session.

Jian Guangzhou: But delegates generally have their own laptops. Do you think that by giving each [delegate] a new one, the state will be seen as wasting taxpayers’ money?
Zhang Xiaomei: Sure, delegates are able to buy them. But giving computers at the meetings will generate a certain atmosphere, with everybody using them. This serves to promote the idea.
Jian Guangzhou: Is this money also figured into the budget for the CPPCC session?
Zhang Xiaomei: This is something we don’t know.

Apparently, this is not the first government computer giveaway this year. Guangzhou’s Yangcheng Evening News reported back on January 19 that Beijing’s Haidian District had purchased 750 laptop computers for its people’s congress and consultative congress delegates, at a total cost of around five million yuan.
An opinion piece in Guangzhou Daily railed against this action. While Haidian District officials explained that this was a move to “save on the cost of paper,” an explanation that has also been given this week, Guangzhou Daily countered that delegates would fall into one of two categories. Either they would already have computers, bought personally or provided by their work units. Or they would not have computers, in which case they would probably be unable to use them properly anyway.
So what brand of laptop do Haidian District delegates now have sitting in their homes? See for yourself, courtesy of Yangcheng Evening News.

[Posted by David Bandurski, March 6, 2010, 12:06am HK]

[Frontpage image by Masaru Kamikura available at Flickr.com under Creative Commons license.]

China’s annual full session of the National People’s Congress, the country’s highest government body, will convene this week, and Premier Wen Jiabao’s online chat with Internet users last Saturday, in the run-up to this week’s session, has prompted varying reactions in Hong Kong. Personally, I do not agree with those who are completely dismissive of the move, saying it is purely a publicity stunt — “putting on a show,” or zuo sao (做骚), in Cantonese, and what we mainlanders would call to zuo xiu (作秀).
I feel quite sure that Premier Wen speaks from his heart when he hopes that “ordinary people can live with more dignity,” or when he talks, as he has in recent years, about the need for democracy (民主), political reform (政改) and supervision by public opinion (舆论监督).
But Wen Jiabao is powerless. His remarks, as pleasing and encouraging as they may sound when they come off his tongue, are rendered totally void by the stubborn powers that surround and constrain him.
While Wen’s chat may not be conceived as an empty “show,” I do think this online exercise is a seriously inadequate way of listening to public opinion in China. The premier may wish to speak directly to Internet users, but it goes without saying that the vast and intrusive system of controls on the Internet erases a great many opinions that should be heard.
And even if the conversation were not manipulated and restricted, this kind of spontaneous fast-food dialogue cannot possibly be an effective way of exploring policy issue in any meaningful depth — even if it does allow the leadership to dip its toes into the pool of public sentiment.
As an alternative to this shallow exchange, I suggest that Premier Wen Jiabao take a hard look at the ideas expressed by media of conscience in China. He might begin, for example, by looking at the March 1 editorial issued jointly by 14 newspapers and three Websites, “Will Our NPC Delegates Please Turn Their Attention and Efforts to the Reform of the Household Registration System.”

[ABOVE: 16 of the 17 commercial media in China that issued a joint editorial on the household registration system on March 1.]

Generally reported to have the support of 13 newspapers, the joint editorial was in fact endorsed by the following 14 newspapers:

1. Economic Observer (经济观察报)
2. Southern Metropolis Daily (南方都市报)
3. Yunnan Information News (云南信息报)
4. Inner Mongolia Evening Post (内蒙古晨报)
5. Southeast Evening Post (东南晚报)
6. Huashang Bao (华商报)
7. Anhui Commercial Daily (安徽商报)
8. City Evening News (城市晚报)
9. Xin’an Evening Post (新安晚报)
10. Chongqing Times (重庆时报)
11. Dahe Daily (大河报)
12. Xiaoxiang Morning Post (潇湘晨报)
13. Metro Times (都市时报)
14. Liaoning Evening Post (辽沈晚报)

Sina.com, Economic Observer Online and Phoenix Online provided support on the Internet side.
All of these newspapers and Websites are what we would call “commercial media” in China, differentiated from the “party media,” by which we mean media that are operated directly by party organs.
In China and elsewhere, the joint editorial is a rare form of expression. Ahead of the climate change conference in Copenhagen, 54 newspapers from 44 nations ran a joint editorial calling for reductions in carbon emissions. Included on that list were just two Chinese publications, China’s Southern Metropolis Daily and Economic Observer.
“China has long suffered under the household registration system!” the March 1 joint editorial declared. In clear violation of China’s Constitution, it said, the two-tiered system of household registration cleaves China’s urban and rural residents into two distinct and unequal classes, and restricts the free movement of Chinese citizens.

Will this [system of] segregation persist for several generations more? . . . Will this inequality persist for several generations more?

The editorial “strongly urged” the National People’s Congress to pressure relevant government ministries to abolish the 1958 Household Registration Ordinance (户口登记条例).

We hope that the millions of our nation will not be separated into north and south, into city and countryside, that they all enjoy the right to employment, medical care, pensions, education and freedom of movement. We hope that the rigid household registration system ends with our generation. Let the next generation enjoy the sacred rights enshrined in our constitution, to freedom, democracy and equality.

[ABOVE: The joint editorial runs on page one of the Economic Observer on March 1.]

The joint editorial’s style, and its tone of righteousness, imitate the style of Chinese literati toward the end of the Qing Dynasty and the beginning of the Republican period. Writing of this kind, which boldly and directly faces the present realities, is rarely seen in openly published newspapers and magazines in China — and it is increasingly scarce even in “free” Hong Kong.
Without a doubt, Chinese media are struggling through a thorny terrain of public opinion controls. But media professionals pursuing their right to free expression have not yielded to adversity.
There are courageous and intelligent journalists in China who understand where the boundaries lie, but who also work conscientiously to make progress where there are gaps and opportunities for expression.
The issue of reforms to the household registration system will not necessarily become a key item on the agenda for this session of the NPC. But calls for action are growing louder both inside and outside the system, and we are already approaching a critical point for reform of the system. This is the most opportune moment for the media to make their voice heard.
China’s media have a long road ahead in seeking independence, and true freedom of speech is a distant goal. Some journalists and media have thrown up their hands and turned away from this struggle. They do as they are told, steering clear of controversy and serving as tools of government propaganda — making money the whole time.
Other journalists are overly anxious and take a contrarian attitude regardless of present circumstances. What the government opposes, they stand for as a matter of principal. What the government advocates, they oppose in turn. They have utterly given up the idea that progress can be made by inching forward.
This joint editorial should inspire us, and at the same time remind us that reform in China must be achieved from inside and outside the system. Achieving democracy in China demands that everyone of strong will and conscience works steadily and unceasingly to reach this goal by steps.
I hope Premier Wen Jiabao gives this joint editorial the attention it deserves. And I hope delegates to the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Congress likewise give it its due.
Aside from the points the joint editorial urges, I hope China’s leaders also understand and recognize the importance of the “intermediary class” (中间层) in the process of developing Chinese democracy. This class includes intellectuals, citizen’s organizations, and the media. They are in tune with public sentiment. They sort through the views and concerns of the public and relay these to policy makers. They criticize public policy and offer alternatives.
The knowledge conveyed by this “intermediary class” includes the opinions of China’s massive Internet population. But their facts, ideas and opinions are fuller and more rational than any that might be shared by an average Internet user through a superficial online exchange.
With all due respect to the premier, it is much less profitable for him to spend his time chatting online with “netizens” of dubious identity — in an exchange that will inevitably be dismissed as a publicity stunt — than it would be to interact more readily with the media, and particularly with those media who have the courage to speak the truth.
In fact, the process of running this joint editorial never went smoothly. Of the 14 newspapers involved, about half ultimately did not dare to publish it. In mainland China, this is called “being harmonized,” or bei hexie (被和谐) in tongue-in-cheek reference to President Hu Jintao’s policy of the “harmonious society.”
Other newspapers ran the editorial but altered the headline, replacing the more aggressive words “strongly urge,” or duncu (敦促), with softer pleas.
This is simply the way things work in China. People are not yet accustomed to making their own independent voices heard outside the tone set by the government. This is true for more timorous suggestions on issues of reform, and it is certainly true for jointly organized acts of expression on matters of public policy.
But there is another fact to glimpsed here. And that is that the trend toward political democracy is unstoppable in China. Reform will come. That much is certain.

By David Bandurski — More than one and a half years after the Beijing Olympic Games, which came with tougher controls on China’s news media, journalists are daring to speak out (just a bit) on the problems facing China’s national sports system. Bringing the issue back into the spotlight this week is news from the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) that it has concluded its inquiry into the problem of underage Chinese gymnasts.
The FIG has determined that Chinese gymnast Dong Fangxiao (董芳霄) falsified her age in 2000 so that she would be eligible to compete in the Sydney Olympic Games. The body has recommended that the International Olympic Committee “withdraw the Bronze medal obtained by the Chinese Team including the results of Dong Fangxiao in Sydney.”
The FIG also issued a warning to Sydney competitor Yang Yun (杨云), saying that “concrete and objective evidence” was insufficient to show that Yang’s birth date had been falsified on her official documents to make her eligible for competition, despite Yang’s own statement during an interview on China Central Television in which she said she had been 14 during the Sydney Olympics.
IOC rules specify that female gymnasts must turn 16 during the year of competition in order to be eligible to compete [more on rules from Wikipedia].
Responding to the FIG findings, and to reports in China Youth Daily that women’s gymnastic coach Lu Shanzhen (陆善真) had admitted problems with Dong Fangxiao’s age, the director of the Gymnastics Center of the General Administration of Sport of China, Luo Chaoyi (罗超毅), said yesterday that Dong Fangxiao’s age is a “personal issue” (个人问题).

[ABOVE: Coverage of the FIG decision concerning Dong Fangxiao Sichuan Online today, with a photo of Dong competing in Sydney.]

This dismissive attitude toward the FIG findings is not likely to satisfy Chinese columnists, who have written today and yesterday — almost exclusively in commercial newspapers — about the case as a smear on China’s national image caused by a culture of cheating in national sports.
Writing in the Chongqing Morning Post, columnist Huang Deqiang (黄德强) said that athletes who had committed fraud “were driven not only by a desire for fame and fortune, but by ‘projects of achievement’ undertaken by certain officials.”

These actions were prompted by self-interest, but also in the interest of satisfying the patriotic feelings of the national audience. But these actions hold no positives for the development of Chinese sports. In our view, selling out good faith in exchange for earning a reputation as a ‘sports power’ is a disgrace for the athletes of China.

In yesterday’s edition of the Beijing Morning Post, an editorial on the scandal — which in Chinese has been called “Age-gate” (年龄门) — was provocatively titled, “It’s a Good Thing Only Dong Fangxiao Was Found Out.”
The piece, by journalist Liu Yishi (刘奕诗), suggested that age fraud was a common practice in Chinese gymnastics, aided by the national system itself:

I once had a conversation with a world champion female gymnast, and at the time she was concerned about her future path. Not yet 20 years old, her body was clearly beginning to mature, and she was mulling whether or not she should retire. There were younger athletes out there, with more limber bodies . . . And so, when these age scandals happened concerning Dong Fangxiao and other female gymnasts, I understood just how they had ‘been matured’ (被成熟).
That’s right. I said how they had ‘been matured.’ At those times, how could a 13 or 14 year old child really understand what particular steps were necessary to make sure their ages were registered with the International Gymnastics Federation so they would be able to compete? The most common thing journalists hear athletes say is that, “After I joined the national team, everything was done according to instructions from the top.” . . .

“Sports in China is an act of state,” wrote columnist Liu Hongbo (刘洪波) in yesterday’s Southern Metropolis Daily.
Liu said that while the “falsifying of ages in Chinese sports is not a secret, but a more or less openly acknowledged fact,” Chinese sports officials had failed to take responsibility. The result, he said, was a crisis of national credibility. [See our translation of the full editorial below].
These writers are all urging the point that the age scandal is not the mere “personal issue” gymnastics director Luo Chaoyi is making it out to be.
Exactly how widespread and endemic is cheating in Chinese gymnastics? There is little concrete evidence beyond the widespread confusion over a question that should be patently simple — when was an athlete born?
When the age scandal broke ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games in 2008, I conducted my own search of Chinese media to find out what Chinese newspapers might have reported about the ages of female gymnasts competing that year. My findings on China’s “secret weapon”, He Kexin (何可欣), were quite suggestive, if not conclusive.
China’s official People’s Daily reported in November 2007 that He Kexin was just 13. By the time the Games rolled around, she was was miraculously 15 — and due to turn 16 during the year of competition.
Shortly after my investigation into press coverage of He Kexin, I stumbled across another interesting bit of coverage that I never got around to sharing.
This time it was a Chinese-language piece from the Journal of the Puyang Vocational and Technical College, which I dug out of a China periodicals database. Published in May 2006, and written by Wang Cunhua (王存华), the journal article criticized a national gymnastics system geared to producing younger and younger athletes.
In particular, Wang revealed that the system of local and national-level competition in China — the very system that brought China’s top national gymnasts to the fore — was out of sync with international rules. If that is true, it goes a long way to explaining why China’s top-performing gymnasts should be underage as a matter of course.

The principal reason for lowering ages (低龄化) in China’s female team is the national games system [inside China]. In order that the training of new athletes was pegged to the Olympic strategy, more than 10 years ago the national team made a stipulation concerning participating female athletes: those taking part in individual competition must be 14; and for the 6 who would participate in the team competition, four needed to be 14 years of age, and two could be 13.

The article quoted China Gymnastics Association president Gao Jian (高健), who suggested the whole system of national and city competitions in China needed to be adjusted, so that it was not producing top athletes who were ineligible for international competition.
“In planning for the selection and training of female athletes for an Olympic year, we must make necessary adjustments. And the ages for competition at the city and national level must be changed,” said Gao.
As Wang Cunhua himself explained Gao Jian’s recommendation: “The goal in doing this is first of all to bring the training of talent in line with international [rules], and second to avoid the professionalization of female athletes at too young an age.”
“That female gymnasts are too old at 17 or 18, and that male gymnasts are too old at 25 or 26, this sort of viewpoint must be changed,” Wang wrote in his summary arguments.
The journal article even related a story from Gao Jian about how he had met a former world champion in the airport on the way back from a trip.

I asked what she planned to do next, and she said without hesitation — retire! This made a deep impression on me. At the time, the athlete had only recently turned 16.

Perhaps the most damning detail in the article is a passing reference to the ages of gymnasts who competed in the 2004 Athens Olympic Games, who have never to my knowledge come under scrutiny at all.

At the Athens Olympics, a number of youthful 15 year-old women, including Yi Fanye (以范晔), Li Ya (李娅), Zhang Yufei (张育菲) and Wang Tiantian (王恬恬), left a deep impression. Of course, it was not their surpassing technique, but rather that they were like dumplings just dropped from the press. Among the group, the oldest was Zhang Nan (张楠), who was just 16 at the time. And those athletes younger than Zhang Nan were all around 13 years old.

Wang Cunhua seems to be suggesting that China’s national gymnastics team in 2004 was stacked with 13 year olds being passed off as 15 year olds. And his remarks on the structure of the “dumpling press” of national gymnastics in China clue us in to why this might happen.
In the end, Dong Fangxiao and her “personal issue” may become the scapegoat for Chinese gymnastics. But fortunately, for now, Chinese journalists are showing some courage in asking questions about the deeper institutional causes at work.
A translation follows of Liu Hongbo’s column, which appeared in yesterday’s edition of Southern Metropolis Daily.

“Who Should Be Responsible for Athletes Falsifying Their Ages?”
Southern Metropolis Daily
Liu Hongbo (刘洪波)
According to a Xinhua News Agency report, an investigation by the International Federation of Gymnastics confirmed that Chinese gymnast Dong Fangxiao (董芳霄) falsified her age [in order to compete in the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games], and announced that her results from the Sydney Olympics would be nullified. At the same time, Yang Yun (杨云), another competitor from the Sydney Olympics, was issued with a warning, saying evidence was insufficient to prove that she had falsified her age.
The Xinhua News Agency report was quite objective, saying that Dong Fangxiao was listed with the International Federation of Gymnastics as being born on January 20, 1983. But when she worked for the Beijing Olympic Games, her birthdate was given as January 23, 1986 . . .
During the Beijing Olympic Games, the ages of Chinese female gymnasts drew the attention of international public opinion. Eventually, the ages of Chinese gymnasts taking part in the Beijing Olympics were not found to have been falsified. Nevertheless, the problem of ages [of gymnasts] during the Sydney Olympics has now basically been confirmed. And it can be said that the clean image of Chinese gymnastics has been affected.
Yes, the finding by the International Federation of Gymnastics that Dong Fangxiao’s age was falsified indeed impacts the clean image of Chinese gymnastics. Moreover, regardless of any FIG determination, the cleanness of Chinese gymnastics has long been a problem. It’s just that, while a determination had not been made, Chinese gymnastics that had long had issues was still able to put on a clean face.
What is most regrettable is that the determination of Dong Fangxiao’s age was not done by China’s own sports authorities. Even while the Chinese gymnastics team said it would fully cooperate with FIG’s inquiry, FIG’s inquiry was carried out solely on the basis of a number of public doubts, and these doubts never entered the sight of Chinese sports authorities.
Even more regrettable is the fact that after FIG made its determination, Lu Shanzhen (陆善真), the head coach of the women’s gymnastics team and deputy director of the gymnastics center of the General Administration of Sport of China, and the Chinese Gymnastics Association still maintained that FIG “lacks complete proof.” They found the decision “extremely regrettable” (感到非常遗憾), and they said they “reserved the right to further explain [their position] or appeal [the findings].”
I can understand the awkwardness of the situation in which these relevant persons and institutions find themselves, but I cannot understand the attitude with which they have met this scandal.
What exactly is “complete proof”? Even the specific days and months of the birthdays of Chinese athletes are impossible to get clear — there are so many versions and changes, and their student status cards, their athlete registrations, their identification cards, their work permits, all are different. Athletes themselves go back and forth over their own birthdays, and that is a problem . . .
Last year, in response to the FIG investigation, Lu Shanzhen said: “I believe that what the provincial and city sports bureaus have reported are the real ages of the athletes.” Lu emphasized that “the two athletes have not had their ages falsified.”
The question of whether the ages reported by city and provincial sports bureaus are accurate or not, whether the ages of Dong Fangxiao and Yang Yun were falsified, or whether ages in Chinese gymnastics or in Chinese sports more broadly are falsified, is not a question of “lacking complete proof” but of whether [authorities] can face the problem head on or not. The falsifying of ages in Chinese sports is not a secret, but a more or less openly acknowledged fact. So long as the fraud is perpetrated with sufficient safeguards, it becomes difficult to detect . . .
Sports in China is an act of state, and not a simple matter of personal interest or a social undertaking. The nationalized sports system (举国体制), gold medal wining strategies and the lyrics that come with victory, “Five-star red flag I am proud of you,” are all functions of this. Therefore, problems in national sports are read and understood as problems of national conduct. Problems like doping and falsifying of ages are basically seen as stains on the nation.
When the nation exercises full authority over sports, it bears full responsibility for the consequences. Instances of fraud on the part of athletes may have personal causes, but when athletic fraud becomes a common occurrence, it is difficult to deny that this is a form of institutionalized behavior.
When fraud emerges openly on the international stage, this potentially generates basic skepticism about information provided by China. This is not about a few gold medals . . . but also impacts general trust of Chinese. For example, the academic degree and achievements you list, your birthdate, your work experience, the papers and work you have done may all be subject to doubt. The testimonials, performance reports and costs provided by [Chinese] companies or organizations might all be seen as lacking in credibility. Statistics provided by the national government might be seen as unreliable.
A society that is powerless to prevent fraud, and which, moreover, tolerates it, will be doubted by international mechanisms of trust. All members of this society of fraud will suffer as a result, and all social relationships will be poisoned.
Sports fraud under the national sports system, in which basic information is falsified and international organizations, the international sports community and the international community are cheated, does serious harm to the country’s reputation, social trust and interpersonal trust . . .
If we cannot even convince others of the ages of our athletes, how can we earn the trust of the world?
(The author is a columnist for Changjiang Daily)

UPDATE, March 3, 2010:
The following is an excerpt from a March 3 editorial in Guangdong’s Nanfang Daily:

The Gymnastics Center cannot shove off responsibility. Even if Dong Fangxiao underreported her age at the time out of ‘personal conduct’ in order to be eligible for competition, cheating the organization, then they [the Center] at the very least were negligent in looking into this, and they should apologize to the people of our country.
It was through Dong Fangxiao’s interview during the Beijing Olympic Games that foreigners discovered [she had] given herself away by dropping the matter on her own feet. It would be far easier for our [government] offices to get at the facts, but clearly, theirs is a case of choosing not to, not of being unable to.
Moreover, if this was a case in which they tailored ages according to some “national need” for medals, then it would simply be normal for someone to want to change their age back once they were retired [from the sport]. If this was the case, then the key factor leading to Dong Fangxiao’s “personal conduct” is still an act of “collective conduct.”
It is not difficult to read the bad temper, and even the stern warning to others, in Director Luo’s remarks [about Dong’s “personal conduct”]. Perhaps, in the view of the Gymnastics Center, if it’s changed it’s changed, and what need is there to change it back? If things go wrong, you take the rap [and they wash their hands of it].
Just as with statistics, changing ages to suit practical demands is perhaps one of our country’s national characteristics — and this is true outside of sports as well. In officialdom, how many people have messed with their ages in order to [get around age limits] and serve a few more years? Just recently, there was the case in which the personnel bureau discovered that the former deputy party secretary of the Communist Youth League in Shijiazhuang City in Hebei, Wang Yali (王亚丽), had “committed fraud to keep a post.” Wang Yali dropped five years off her age before being appointed as deputy secretary . . .

MORE READING:
Wu Yue San Ren, “Organization Should Not Sell Out the Individual,” (组织不该出卖个人) [Chinese], Dahe Daily, March 3, 2010
“The Gymnastics Center Cannot Push Off Responsibility,” (体操中心不能推却责任) [Chinese], Nanfang Daily, March 3, 2010
“Exactly How Old is Dong Fangxiao?” (董芳霄到底多大?) [Chinese], Beijing Evening Post, March 3, 2010
[Posted by David Bandurski, March 2, 2010, 2:48pm HK]






The following is an untranslated commentary from blogger Wu Yue San Ren (五岳散人) from March 3.
体育总局：组织不该出卖个人
来源：大河网 作者：五岳散人 2010年03月03日15:55
我来说两句(0)复制链接大中小
　　2月27日，国际体联公布了对中国体操女队悉尼奥运会年龄造假事件的调查结果。调查认为董芳霄年龄造假，宣布取消她在悉尼奥运会时取得的成绩。然后，我们的体育总局出来说话了，他们的意思是说，中国体操协会一直配合国际体联对此事的调查，到目前为止并无充分证据证明董芳霄1999年和2000年的参赛年龄有问题，对国际体联这一处罚决定感到非常遗憾——请注意这个“非常遗憾”的外交辞令，一般这种事我们常用的都是伤害了某某人民的感情，表达愤慨或者强烈愤慨。说到了遗憾的话，就是放弃了申诉，双肩一耸：OK，就这么样吧。
　　按照体育总局的说法，之所以“遗憾”是因为这是董芳霄自己改了年龄，而且是她退役后改的。我们都知道，事关国家形象的事我们这里还是很要面子的，如果就是这点自己改年龄的小事，那里有不抗争到底的？奇怪的是，不但体育总局只是遗憾，连当事人也沉默不回应，这不像是视体育奖牌如面子的做法嘛，转性了？
　　尤其是我国的户口制度到目前为止还是执行的相当严格，更改年龄并非易事，相差三岁的话，几乎所有的个人信息都要进行更改才行——按照我们的入学年龄，6岁才能入学，要是三岁之差的话，这位就是三岁即入学了。而且说起来董芳霄虽然是女士，但也岁数不算大，在青春年华+3岁的情况下依然是妙龄女子，至于改动这三岁让自己变得理论上更年轻么？更何况体操运动员本身是从小训练，在我们的举国体制与集训制度之下已经固化的年龄，怎么可能到了地方上再全部都改一遍？
　　同样被调查的还有退役多年的另外一位体操选手，这个更有意思，其年龄造假之明显已经到了无所顾忌的程度。这些体育小将们在小小年纪时参加国内比赛是没有限制的，脱颖而出的时候，报纸上不免大加赞扬。本来应该引以为耻的年龄，往往在当年是夸奖的内容之一。当年她改年龄就是为了参赛，明显可以看出背后是一整套的政府行为。所以，这位当年报纸上年龄未到的情况早就被搜了出来，结果居然没事。
　　其实这里面的事情看上去蹊跷，实际上并不是什么怪事，更改运动员年龄以参赛在体育界至少是半公开的秘密。在体育比赛当中，年龄优势不可请看，有些是大一点才有优势，有些是小一些才有优势，体操这个项目是小一些才有优势。但未成年人参加比赛，必然会造成低龄化竞争，孩子的心理、生理会受到竞技体育残酷的扭曲。所以，规定16岁才能参加比赛是为了孩子考虑。但如果视奖牌如命的话，牺牲个把孩子又算得什么？记得当年批判资本主义初级阶段时有童工与血汗工厂的说法，这种工厂现在我们这里还有，但毕竟已经是违法行为，而使用童工去夺奖牌，竟然成了为国争光的好事。这种价值观之颠倒，已经有点颠倒众生的味道了。
　　更有甚者，当国际体联宣布这个调查结果以及处理结果的时候，体育总局的发言人不但否认了中国体操女队主教练陆善真已承认董芳霄年龄存在问题的报道，居然说出这是她个人原因的话来。造假到底尚还不失光棍儿气度，把责任推到个人头上，则在无耻之外另开生面，连肩膀都是软塌塌的。
　　不过话说回来，这倒是与奖牌=国家面子的逻辑是一致的，都是牺牲了个人而追求面子，只不过一个是挣得面子、一个是保住面子罢了。这种连耍赖都显得那么无担当的面子，不知道是盖在谁的脸上，反正正常人都觉得这是一种耻辱。

A whole new set of terms is emerging in China to describe the country’s growing national power. Taken together, these form what might be called a “discourse of greatness,” or shengshi huayu (盛世话语). China’s discourse of greatness includes such terms as “China in ascendance” (盛世中国), “the China path” (中国道路), “the China experience” (中国经验), “the China pace” (中国速度), “the China miracle” (中国奇迹), “the rise of China” (中国崛起) and, last but not least, the “China Model” (中国模式).
Using China’s domestic Baidu search engine to track use of the term “China Model” over the past few years, we can clearly see the upward trend.

In the past, China and the CCP have suffered bitterly at the hands of their own “models.”
As economic reforms were just starting out in the early 1980s, economist Xue Muqiao (薛暮桥) wrote in the official People’s Daily newspaper that China’s planned economy, the “iron rice bowl,” had been fashioned on the Soviet Model (People’s Daily, October 13, 1980, p. 5).
In 1988, then People’s Daily editor-in-chief and reformer Hu Jiwei (胡绩伟) and Chang Dalin (常大林) again emphasized the roots of the old CCP model as they urged political reforms in People’s Daily: “In terms of its system, [reforms mean] carrying out necessary reforms and improvements to the socialist system built by the Chinese Communist Party on the basis of Marxism-Leninism and the Soviet Model” (People’s Daily, December 30, 1988).
In 1982, Deng Xiaoping (邓小平) raised the concept of “socialism with Chinese characteristics” (中国特色的社会主义) at the 12th National Party Congress. This term, which has been used ever since, was originally employed by reformist CCP leaders as a term of compromise to contend with more conservative, leftist elements in the party. It essentially took the bottle of “socialism,” which conservatives in the party still staunchly defended, with the new wine of reform.
The characteristics of this reform became gradually clearer through the 1980s. Economic reforms meant progress toward a market economy. Political reforms meant progress toward democratic politics (民主政治).
After the June 4th crackdown of 1989, as Deng Xiaoping strove to protect and uphold the banner of reform, the slogan “socialism with Chinese characteristics” was sustained, but its meaning underwent a mutation.
In 1991, the term “China Model” appeared for the first time in People’s Daily. It had its origins, apparently, in praise of China from some unspecified commentators in Romania (People’s Daily, October 29, 1991). The Berlin wall had fallen. The Soviet Union and socialism in Eastern Europe had all but disintegrated. And yet, China avoided the collapse many Westerners had supposed would come. China took another path, promoting capitalism on the economic front while maintaining a tight CCP monopoly on power.
This path of political tightening and economic opening became the “Chinese characteristics” that many people spoke about — and it was, some said, the envy of the Third World. Those who voiced praise for China and its “China Model” included Benin parliamentary member Adrien Houngbedji (1994) and former Zambian president Kenneth Kaunda (1997).
Commemorating the twentieth anniversary of economic reforms in 1998, People’s Daily wrote that “when you search the four corners of the earth, you find that the prospects here [in China] are particularly fine. International public opinion has accoladed China’s development path, and the fruitfulness and effectiveness of the ‘China model'” (People’s Daily, November 22, 1998).
After President Hu Jintao took office in 2002, the term “China’s rise” swept China. If “China’s rise” is a verdict on China’s accomplishments, the “China model” is a summary and description of China’s experiences and their supposed applicability outside China.
In 2004, American Joshua Cooper Ramo http://joshuaramo.com/ promoted the idea of the “Beijing Consensus” in a pamphlet (download here) first written for the Foreign Policy Centre in London.
In his paper, Ramo postulated a “Beijing Consensus” against what he called the “widely-discredited” Washington Consensus, “made famous in the 1990s for its prescriptive, Washington-knows-best approach to telling other nations how to run themselves.” Ramo also referred to the “China model,” or “Beijing model,” of development, and argued for its attractiveness to the rest of the world.
Chatter about the “China Model” really took off in China in 2008 and 2009. We started seeing headlines like these in the Chinese media. “It is the time to establish the China Model.” “The dominance of the China Model.” “The China Model as a preserver of human rights.” “Viewing the China Model through the troubles in Eastern Europe.” “Russian scholars believe the China Model benefits the whole of humankind.” “American scholar: the success of the China Model shames the West.”
An official Xinhua News Agency commentary on the occasion of Chinese National Day last year suggested that the global financial crisis marked the ascendance of the “China Model.”

At this time, plagued with the global economic crisis, the world economy faces a low point such as has not been seen in decades. Meanwhile, in the east of the world, socialist China is as ever maintaining a relatively high-level of economic development.

Four events in particular backgrounded the sudden rise of the idea of the “China Model” in China in 2008 and 2009. First, there was China’s hosting of the Olympic Games in 2008. Second, there was the thirtieth anniversary of economic reforms in late 2008. Third, in 2009, there was the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. And, finally, there was the global financial crisis.
At the end of last year, the Central Compilation and Translation Press published a book called The China System: Reading 60 Years of the People’s Republic of China (中国模式: 解读人民共和国的60年). As the book’s editor, Pan Wei (潘维), , the director of Peking University’s Center for Chinese and Global Affairs, explained to China’s Oriental Outlook magazine:

The economic model of the ‘China model’ has four pillars: state control of land and of the raw materials of production; a state-run model for the financial industry and large-scale enterprises; a free labor market; free commodity and assets markets. The political model [of the China model] has four pillars: the democratic concepts of modern democracy; an emphasis on the passing by officials of selection and evaluation mechanisms; an advanced, selfless and united ruling group; effective mechanisms of government division of labor, error-correction and checks and balances.

Pan believes that “breaking through the superstition surrounding [democratic] elections is an urgent task of the intellectual and political elite in our country,” and that China has not collapsed “precisely because it resisted the system of multi-party elections promoted by the West.”
Fang Ning (房宁), head of the Political Science School of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, writes in the The China System that “carrying out this sort of development model requires a relatively centralized system.” The institutional secret of China’s rise, he says, “is that one-time authorization [of political power] lowers the cost of decision-making.” What he is suggesting is that the Chinese Communist Party’s sixty-year hold on power has been an extension of a one-time authorization [of political power] that took place back in 1949.
China’s leadership elites have generally maintained a subtle and noncommittal attitude toward the idea of a “China Model.” While Li Changchun (李长春), the politburo standing committee member in charge of ideology, and propaganda chief Liu Yunshan (刘云山) have both used the term before (in fact, the discourse of greatness is itself a product of their national image and propaganda strategy of “grabbing the discourse power” and “expanding influence”), President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao have never used the term in formal remarks.
A number of Chinese intellectuals take a critical attitude toward the use of the “China model” and other such vocabularies of glory. They call for a more honest account of China’s problems and its crises, for a more direct look at the many and various reasons for China’s rapid economic growth and a number of “secrets” that must not be overlooked.
Tsinghua University professor Qin Hui (秦晖) said to Guangdong’s Window on the South magazine in 2008:

Aside from the traditional advantages of low wages and low welfare burdens [because basic services like education and healthcare are not provided to the workforce], China has used the ‘advantage’ of ‘low human rights’ (低人权) to suppress human, land and capital costs as well as the price of non-renewable resources. By preventing bargaining, and by limiting or even canceling many transaction rights, [China has] ‘reduced transaction costs’. By suppressing participation, disregarding ideas, conscience and justice, and by stirring people’s minds to pursue mirages of material prosperity, [China has] achieved a level of competitiveness that is frightening to all countries, whether they are free-market nations or welfare nations. Moreover, nations on the democratic path, whether they are making progressive steps or employing ‘shock therapy,’ have all been left behind.

In September 2008, Ding Xueliang (丁学良), a professor at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, wrote a piece on the Chinese-language website of the Financial Times called, “Why the ‘China Model’ is difficult to promote” (“中国模式”为何不好推广？). In it, Ding argued persuasively that China had paid a massive social cost for its rapid economic growth, including the destruction of the environment and a severe failure of social justice.
Professor Ding said the Beijing Olympic Games had shown off both the frightening achievements and the frightening costs of the “China Model.” “Many nations of the world have the economic means to hold an Olympics on such a scale, but they do not wish to because they believe there are other areas where money might be spent more productively,” Ding wrote.
Earlier this month, Yuan Weishi (袁伟时), a professor at Guangzhou’s Sun Yat-sen University, voiced his doubts in an interview with Hong Kong Commercial Daily about whether a “China Model” had actually taken shape at all. Yuan said China was now entering a period of sharpening social tensions, and that once problems of subsistence had been resolved people would begin to express greater demands for the protection of their rights. Such social tensions could only be resolved, he said, through democracy and rule of law.
Scholar Wu Jiaxiang (吴稼祥) wrote on his blog recently that China’s model under economic reforms has been one of market economy + authoritarianism (市场经济加威权政治). To understand an abstracted China Model as a replacement for freedom and democracy, he wrote, amounted to “using honeyed words to get others to smoke opium and experiment with recreational drugs.”
Perhaps the most interesting dissenting views of all came on December 27, 2009, in the official CCP journal Study Times (学习时报), published by the Central Party School. Study Times ran four essays urging caution over the “China Model.” The writers of these pieces included former State Council Information Office head Zhao Qizheng (赵启正) and Li Junru (李君如), vice president of the Central Party School.
Stay tuned. In the future ups and downs of China’s discourse of greatness, we might find clues to changes in China’s political climate.
[Posted by David Bandurski, February 23, 2010, 2:10pm HK]
[Frontpage image by Matthew Stinson available at Flickr.com under Creative Commons license.]