By David Bandurski — Chinese journalist and blogger Tan Yifei (谭翊飞) wrote earlier this week that “China’s Internet is now going through a most bitter winter [of regulation and censorship controls].” Tan’s remarks would seem to support the suggestion that Google’s decision to go public with its frustrations was at least partly the result of intensifying government pressure in China, a market Google’s chief legal officer said this week had become “intolerable for us.”
Tan writes:

The day before yesterday, I was in the city of Chongqing and I sat down for beers and grilled fish with a group of friends in IT. An air of desolation and death is prevailing in the IT sector as a result of severe controls. One of these friends was preparing his immigration papers. Another joked cooly that he would switch careers and start selling barbecue. China’s Internet is now going through a most bitter winter [of regulation and censorship controls].
I saw news yesterday that aside from the recent ban on individuals registering CN domains, an order had suddenly come down that all individually registered CN domains would be reviewed before January 31, and all overseas agency services for the registration of CN domains would be prohibited.
China’s Web is in the midst of a clean-up and rectification campaign such as has never before been seen. Internet Data Centers at Shanghai Mobile, Shanghai Telecom Company, Bengbu Telecom Company [in Anhui], Jingdezhen Telecom Company, Shandong Unicom and Chengdu Shahebao have been collectively pulled offline for rectification, and have not yet been restored.

Below is a screenshot we took at 12:32 p.m. today of a notice dated December 9, 2009, announcing the temporary shutdown of the Chengdu Shahebao IDC (成都沙河堡机房). These shutdowns were part of the general Internet purge reported last month by the Wall Street Journal and others.

Beginning in late November, services at IDC’s run by telecommunications operators in many provinces and cities across the country were interrupted, temporarily shut down or services thoroughly stopped. In the midst of this, many Websites were shut down without warning, affecting the normal operations of many Websites.
In fact, this round of “Website incidents” is not caused by attacks, but rather by the use of “shock therapy” by various regional IDC’s to prompt self-inspection and correction among Internet services.
IM286.com founder Dong Qinfeng (董勤锋) said his site was unavoidably dragged into this storm. Dong Qinfeng said that the method now being employed by the IDCs was one of “first shutting down, then carrying out inspections” (先封再查), which meant first cutting off all servers and then culling through servers one at a time. Service could be restored for those without problems.

For a good timeline of Internet censorship events in China in 2009, we recommend this post from Tania Branigan at The Guardian.
[Posted by David Bandurski, January 16, 2010, 1:39pm HK]

[Frontpage photo by thaths available at Flickr.com under Creative Commons license.]

By David Bandurski — While the possible exit of the search engine giant Google from China’s market received prominent coverage in China’s newspapers yesterday, it remains to be seen how far China’s propaganda leaders will stomach discussion of the broader significance of this story. There are many sensitive issues and emotions involved, and the CCP is no doubt intent on ensuring this does not spiral into a strident contest over government Internet controls.
For now at least, there have been some interesting remarks on the Google story in China’s media.
Once again we turn to yesterday’s edition of Guangzhou’s Southern Metropolis Daily, where an opinion piece by Liu Hongbo (刘洪波), a regular columnist for Changjiang Daily (长江日报), voiced concern over the impact of Google’s possible exit — and what it might represent for the long-term development of China’s Internet as an industry, social tool and vibrant cultural space.

[ABOVE: Screenshot of coverage at the Southern Metropolis Daily website yesterday of Chinese laying flowers outside Google headquarters in Beijing.]

Liu Hongbo argued in so many words that strict government controls on the Internet could have a devastating impact on China’s international social life.
A complete translation of the editorial follows:

In Suspense About the Fate of Google in China
By Liu Hongbo (刘洪波)
Southern Metropolis Daily
January 14, 2010, A31
When domestic media saw this news [about Google] they were not shocked, only disappointed. They were not shocked because rumors had already been circulating. The announcement on Google’s corporate blog was merely confirmation. Google’s fate in China is still not sealed, but the likelihood of its closure is already there, and I cannot imagine the prospect of life online after Google.
Of course we can still use Baidu. And it’s true that Google in China (Google.cn) was never a match for Baidu in terms of market share. But even if just for the sake of preserving normal market competition in China, Google should still exist.
Even if we imagine Google holding an even smaller market share, what would that really matter? If it were simply an issue of ensuring enough competitors in China’s search engine market, it might suffice, in the absence of Google, to have a new online search provider take its place. But what impact might the departure of the world’s biggest Internet service provider have on China’s Internet?
Whether we’re talking about MSN or Google, these are not just services but forms of culture. They represent the online lives of many people, and they have helped to build many people’s conceptions about the Web. Their existence in China does not just serve to provide competition for Chinese players. As important Internet brands, they demonstrate the Chinese Internet’s connectedness to the global Internet. If Google’s departure does come to pass, this would mean MSN is the only major international Internet service provider still operating on Chinese soil.
China is in the midst of becoming a “major power” (大国). We are in the midst of the online age. And the world’s biggest Internet service provider withdraws from China. If a major manufacturing enterprise of the same caliber were to withdraw entirely from China, I imagine that would cause us to reflect with some urgency on our development environment. So will the closure of Google in China urge us in the same way to consider what sort of environment we are providing for Internet development?
The uncertainty of Google’s fate in China is something we can look at in two ways. First of all, the existence or absence in a given place of products or services that symbolize modern life is one way we can judge the level of openness there. In commemorating 30 years of reform in China, for example, people might rejoice at Coca Cola’s entry into China. Secondly, there is the reverse pressure (反向压力) exerted by the bargaining position and “significance index” (意义指数) of major international enterprises — the sorts of capital forces that are often the object of attack by the left end of the political spectrum in the West.
Google China has said it is considering shutting down, but still hopes to negotiate with those who control China’s Internet (中国互联网管理者). This can be read as a throwing down of the mantle, or as an amorous advance. People deal with threats and flirtation in different ways, naturally, and with varying degrees of urgency. But the threat and the come on are in fact the same thing, the only difference abiding perhaps in the reading of the act as either solicitous or malicious. A challenge that resolves in agreement can be read as amorous. An advance that is disagreeable may be perceived as a threat.
While unhappy all along with China’s Internet environment, Google still made allowances. So perhaps in saying it is considering closing up shop, we can read a measure of hope that concessions might be made. But the situation is such now that those who control the Internet and those who serve it must seriously talk turkey. If the degree of openness and tolerance cannot be readjusted, then management powers [i.e. the government] might face an uneasy situation, and the use of the Internet by society might be affected.
If Google exits China, this will be a setback for Google’s business. It will also be a setback for the development of the Internet in China. This would mean not just the withdrawal of capital but the withdrawal of a brand, the withdrawal of a culture. This would impact not only people’s use of the Internet but would also mean, taking a longer view, their alienation from the mainstream international culture of the Internet.
The Web has already become a form of basic and shared human life. This goes without saying. The Internet is still in a stage of rapid development, and new types of service are emerging all the time. The Internet has freed us from geographical restrictions on information . . . and has flattened the world. And still, controls [on the Internet] may in the end mean “the world is not flat.” This is the reason why we are still unable to fully understand the Internet. Language is not the only obstacle to information access. Imagine if Chinese websites too become inaccessible.
The saga of the Google search engine is already more than a decade long. In recent years we have seen Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and other Internet services emerge. But we have no way of directly accessing these new “international communities” (国际社区). These services have their substitutes, of course. But there is something farcical and cheap in the Internet age about this “substitute provision” of services isolated from the [global] mainstream.
How do we connect with the Web, enter the Internet age and “gear up with international standards”? These are very real questions.

[Posted by David Bandurski, January 15, 2010, 2:33am HK]

By David Bandurski — Since news came of Google’s possible withdrawal from the Chinese market, we have been inundated with media requests for our views and remarks. Bizarrely, from the perspective of observers who rarely lift their gaze from China’s media terrain, the first question many journalists seem to be asking is whether Google’s move is likely to push the Chinese government into changing its policy on censorship. Say again?
Our answer: No, of course not.
There has never, not since the leadership shakeup following the Tiananmen Square massacre in June 1989, been any ambiguity among China’s leaders about the fundamental role of the press and of information in China, and about the need to “guide” or control public opinion in order to maintain social and political stability. And over the past several years, Internet controls have moved to center stage in the CCP’s struggle to control public opinion.
There is no bluff to call in Google’s case. China will, as Jonathan Zittrain said on BBC News this morning, “show Google the door.”

[ABOVE: Google’s possible departure from China gets big play on the front page of today’s Southern Metropolis Daily, one of China’s more outspoken newspapers.]

The Reuters news service has now reported the inevitable story, citing a statement from the Information Office, the external voice of China’s government and a core body taking charge of domestic Internet controls:

In a statement posted on the State Council Information Office website, cabinet spokesman Wang Chen warned against pornography, cyber-attacks, online fraud and “rumors,” saying that government and Internet media have a responsibility to shape public opinion.

Moving on from the issue of press freedom in China — which is shot through with disingenuousness on both sides (Did we ever seriously believe Western corporations would unbalance the equation in China?) — there are some interesting questions floating in Chinese cyberspace about how Google was perhaps singled out for attack for activities in China (such as alleged copyright violation) that have arguably been par for the course for years. [The print version of the editorial is HERE].
In the following editorial, writer Feng Lei (冯磊) writes in Guangzhou’s Southern Metropolis Daily, that if Google’s exit from China is about more than simple market pressures, then Chinese “have more to reflect on than just Google China.”
Wink wink.
A full translation of Feng’s editorial follows:

Google’s pullout, a game with many losers
By Feng Lei (冯磊)
January 14, 2010
Google has announced through a [corporate] weblog that it is preparing to withdraw from the Chinese market. This news has struck many web users dumb with astonishment. For some time now, China’s search engine market has been balanced in a state of “70-30” (三七开). Baidu has held a 70 percent market share; Google has held around a 30 percent market share. This share [of the China market], I hear, accounts for less than one percent of Google’s global market share.
As web users, how should we understand Google’s sombre departure? Has this giant truly lost heart over the Chinese market, this piece of the cake? Is its departure for economic reasons, or the result of institutional factors? If the reasons were purely economic, then everyone might feel a sense of gratification — through more than a decade of hardening ourselves [in the market], our domestic Internet industry has chalked up enormous progress in terms of development capacity and management know-how, to the point that even Google has been knocked from its perch. How could we not say that this is a sign of the advancement of Made in China?
On the other hand, if Google has other reasons for exiting [the China market] — for example, institutional strictures or other factors — well then, we have more to reflect on than just Google China.
What is the ideal situation that should prevail in the arena of business competition? Without a doubt, first and foremost is an environment characterized by fair competition . . . Put another way, if Google’s departure is strictly about commercial factors, then this affair would hardly elicit a sigh.
But clearly, things are not so simple. There are many Web users in China who have let out sighs.
Intellectual property protections in China have always been the subject of much criticism in the world. Look at the sharing of information (including online books), for example. Sina’s “Sharing Warehouse” (共享资料库) has consistently permitted Web users to freely upload and download [book content]. Of course, this behavior is in accord with the nature and spirit of the Web. However, it was Google whose electronic library faced attack for operational reasons from the China Writer’s Association, the China Written Works Copyright Society and Internet users. Obviously, the issue of copyright violation needs to be pursued. But there is a fierce tendentiousness about the way we Chinese have applied different standards [to different companies] on the question of copyright.
A number of major Web portals in China have all along adopted an almost free-for-all approach to the provision of works from writers. These naked acts of infringement helped to make these major Web portals what they are, and at the same time posed a major challenge to the commercial subsistence of newspapers and other traditional media. No one in China has raised a finger about these unfair methods of competition.
Moreover, we can see from the [copyright] violations committed by the major Web portals and the controversy over Google’s digital library that some are still being shielded from their own wrongdoings.
Without the availability of the Google search engine, what will the market look like? Some news has said that Yahoo! has welcomed the news of Google’s withdrawal. Well then, can we suppose Google’s actions might invite similar decisions by others? And what would a Chinese Internet look like without the likes of Google and Yahoo!?
Does Google’s exit mean Baidu will be left as the lone, massive player? Particularly intriguing is the question of whether Google’s departure will become a model or example for other international Internet operators to follow.
Without a doubt, Google’s departure [from China] is a game no one can expect to win. A couple like Google not only serves as a technology leader in China’s domestic market, but also, by virtue of their presence, has a “catfish effect” [raising overall performance in the industry]. Without this presence and effect, there will be a definite impact on the development of the industry domestically.
Naturally, as a corporate entity, Google should undergo its own process of self-reflection. As an “overseas competitor”, aside from its the mission of perfecting its own products, [Google] should have understood China’s system and concepts, and the invisible rules that pertain everywhere in China. These are all, in fact, necessary homework.
Another extremely important issue, of course, is how exactly what posture and frame of mind this China and this Chinese market, which are actively integrating into the world economic system, should take in facing competition from others.
Clearly, this game has no winners.

[Posted By David Bandurski, January 14, 2010, 3:27pm HK]

[Frontpage image by Maxwell96 available at Flickr.com under Creative Commons license.]

By David Bandurski — Yesterday’s edition of Singapore’s Straits Times took an in-depth look at the current state and development of investigative reporting in China. The full-page spread included interviews with China Media Project fellows Wang Keqin (王克勤) and Zhan Jiang (展江), as well as a profile of Pang Jiaoming, a young investigative reporter from Guangzhou’s Southern Metropolis Daily.
The feature is fully accessible only to newspaper subscribers, but a portion is available through Lexis Nexis.

[ABOVE: A portion of the Straits Times page on investigative reporting in China.]

A portion of the Straits Times coverage follows:

“Dancing in shackles: China’s investigative journalists keep pushing the envelope”
Sim Chi Yin, China Correspondent
Beijing: Poor farmers getting Aids from selling blood to illegal collectors. Teenage slaves in underground brick factories. Shoddy ‘tofu’ schools collapsing like a pack of cards in an earthquake.
These eye-popping stories from China’s underbelly were widely reported in the international press in recent years. But behind each of these world headlines is a small army of Chinese investigative journalists who first unearthed the dirt.
While China is still better known for a largely propagandist press and strict censorship, a school of tough home-grown investigative journalists has emerged in the past 10 years or so, documenting scandals, corruption and abuse of power – occasionally toppling officials but sometimes paying a personal price for their efforts. It may not quite be the Fourth Estate as in the Western press but a form of ‘watchdog journalism’ exists in China. >>MORE

[Posted by David Bandurski, January 11, 2010, 9:37am HK]

By David Bandurski — In the most recent, and final, issue of Far Eastern Economic Review, I wrote about China’s “soft power” campaign and its blindness to the more fundamental issues facing China’s global credibility. In an editorial in Hong Kong’s Apple Daily yesterday, Kong Jiesheng (孔捷生), a dissident cultural figure and writer of “scar literature,” offered his own views on China’s present obsession with “soft power.”

Kong writes about China’s “three afflictions,” or san’ai (三挨), which received some attention in 2008 following unrest in Tibet and in the run-up to the Beijing Olympic Games.

The idea, which Kong says emerged from a Chinese government think tank, is that three major factors over the past century have hampered China’s national strength — namely, foreign aggression, a weak economy and basic subsistence issues, and last, but now in the forefront, China’s continued demonization at the hands of proud, ignorant, hateful and fearful Western nations.

[ABOVE: Woodcut depicting the looting of the Old Summer Palace by Anglo-French forces during the Second Opium War in 1860. According to one formula explaining the past 60 years of CCP rule, foreign aggression was just the first of “three afflictions” suffered by China over the past century.]

The first of these afflictions was thrown off by Mao Zedong. The second by Deng Xiaoping. The CCP’s present generation of leaders now face the third.

The “three afflictions” is an interesting formula that can help us understand the thoughts and emotions driving current media policy in China. Specifically, the formula underlines the roots of the CCP’s present “soft power” push in the longstanding narrative of national victimization.

The first public mention of the term “three afflictions” seems to have come on April 15, 2008. An article by columnist Lu Ning (鲁宁), which appeared in the official Guangzhou Daily, in Legal Daily, and at numerous websites, including Hexun.com and China.com.cn, sought to explain the deep psychology of anti-China protests following the Tibet unrest in March 2008 and during the U.S. leg of the Olympic torch relay in terms of disfunctional Western jealousy over China’s rapid and peaceful rise:

There are some American and Westerners, including part of their mainstream media, who see China’s peaceful development as an offense to the eye. They trust overly in the hereditary advantage and moral superiority of Western values that have emerged over the past century, and when they assess China’s development and progress according to their double standards, they fail to understand, are envious, concerned and even frightened — how is it that Chinese have development so rapidly according to their own logic? Misunderstanding and envy, prejudice and fear — all of these are fine. But we Chinese have no need to fuss about it. For more than a century we have suffered from three afflictions . . .

Qiu Liben (邱立本), the editor-in-chief of the Chinese-language newsweekly Yazhou Zhoukan, also used the term in an August 2008 editorial on the importance of the Olympic Games for China, but Qiu emphasized the importance of real attractiveness, a core component of soft power:

If you wish to turn around this suffering of criticism (“挨骂”局面), you must do more than move others with emotion and reason. You must act justly, so that others admire you and adore you from the bottoms of their hearts. They must not simply ingratiate themselves with you for the sake of wealth and power. This is the human gold medal that the Chinese people truly yearn for, and it is the national prize of which modern China is in pursuit.

In yesterday’s editorial on media policy and soft power, Kong Jiesheng attributes the term “three afflictions” to the Sino-U.S. Research Center, a think tank under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

A translation of Kong’s editorial in Apple Daily follows:

Zhang Yimou’s Latest Film and the “New Three Character Primer”

I’m not so clear about the story line of Zhang Yimou’s new film, “A Simple Noodle Story,” but I do keep hearing about how terrible it is. Can Zhang Yimou really make anything worse than “Hero” and “Curse of the Golden Flower“? This is not inconceivable . . .

While I’m unclear about the specifics of “Noodle Story,” I do know that Qingdao had its own “three gunshot mystery” last year — and this offers sufficient proof that the facts of the real world are always stranger than fiction. [NOTE: The film title sounds very similar to the name given to the case of a suspicious death in Qingdao last year.]

It was reported that a huge swindler went missing in Qingdao after cheating people out of hundreds of millions, and his corpse was subsequently discovered with three gunshot wounds. Police in Qingdao launched an investigation and then wrapped up the case by concluding that he had “committed suicide.” Web users quickly had a field day with this — a suicide with three gunshots? Had he first tested the authenticity of his bullets on the thick hide of his ass? Where had he aimed the second shot? And perhaps, after all this trouble, the third shot had turned out to be a dud and a counterfeit? This is the real life version of “the three gunshot mystery” [“A Simple Noodle Story”].

I’ll turn now to the issue of the new three character primer (三字经). The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences is similar to the Imperial Academy (翰林院), and there are numerous research centers under the aegis of this “national think tank.” Mr. Huang, the head of Sino-U.S. Research Center, one of these [centers], is a new leftist, and it would seem more apropos to rename the center the “Center for Criticism of the US” (美国批判所).

It is the view of this Hanlin academician that this 60-year dynasty [of the CCP] has resolved what he calls “three afflictions” (三挨). Mao Zedong’s achievement was resolving the problem of China’s bullying [at the hands of foreign powers] (中国挨打的问题); Deng Xiaoping’s achievement was resolving the problem of Chinese subsistence (中国挨饿的问题); and now, in an era of peace and happiness, the problem of the dressing down of CCP rule [at the hands of foreign nations] (中共政权挨骂的问题) must be resolved.

This is about the universal values promoted by mainstream international civilization and about public opinion in the West directed against authoritarianism in China and its human rights record.
How is China to resolve this problem? The serious punishment rendered against Liu Xiaobo is a strong signal [of China’s stance]. China has risen to greatness, and it has no need to heed instruction from the West with its tail between its legs. It sees the three major human rights codes of the United Nations as so much dung and mud. What universal values? What mainstream civilization? Now is the moment for Beijing to grab hold of the discourse power and export its own value system. You dare to lecture me? Well then, I will say categorically that Liu Xiaobo will serve out his sentence. That game of “catch and release” we played with the West during the Jiang Zemin (江泽民) era won’t be replayed under the leadership of Hu Jintao.

So what then is this Chinese-style value system? It is written plain as day in the judgement against Liu Xiaobo (刘晓波) — it is the “people’s democratic dictatorship and the socialist system,” and wherever Chinese citizens act against this or commit acts of “subversion,” wherever foreigners seek to criticize, this will not be stomached. You have the power to look after your own turf, but don’t fuss with my accounts, and don’t come begging for me to purchase your bonds.

There is another road to resolving the dressing down problem [of Western nations lecturing China], and this involves purchasing [global] discourse power by investing 40.5 billion yuan in a massive “external propaganda” (大外宣) campaign, all the while milking the Chinese people dry on human rights, welfare and the environment. It involves expanding “soft power” internationally. I remember more then twelve years ago when I had just moved into an apartment in Washington, D.C. Right nearby was a three-story red building occupied by Xinhua News Agency. I often watched the Xinhua expatriates come and go. They kept a low key, acting and speaking with utmost caution.

After some time, they wanted to expand the building, but this was refused by the American side because the property was too close to the Pentagon. At the time this even boiled over into an episode of anti-American resistance. The Americans asked rhetorically: are foreigners permitted to buy properties near Zhongnanhai and the Central Military Commission?

Back then you could hardly imagine today, when China Central Television has set up its U.S. bureau directly across from the White House. And I’m confident that the “monkey-snakes” (mouthpieces) coming and going do so with strutting confidence, not bothering to keep a low profile [NOTE: The Chinese words for monkey and snake together form a synonym of the word “mouthpiece”, or houshe.]. One need only look at rental prices at that address to understand the grandness and magnificence of Beijing’s “external propaganda” today.

But the real question is, can a nation’s soft power and discourse power be purchased in such a way?

[Posted by David Bandurski, January 5, 2010, 1:46pm HK]

By David Bandurski — “There is a new Cultural Revolution taking place in 21st century China, and it is a lot healthier than the old,” former British prime minister Tony Blair wrote in the Wall Street Journal a couple of months back. Films, art, fashion and pop music are “thriving” in China, said Blair, who apparently observed this cultural ferment during a tour of Guiyang back in August.
Blair’s argument about the “health” of social and cultural change in China is difficult to refute. After all, how can we possibly not concur that the slow simmer of change we see in China today is “healthier” than the brutal, decade-long political upheaval of the Cultural Revolution?
Come to think of it, a lot of things are “healthier” than violent political persecution. But where exactly is this new “cultural revolution” Blair is talking about?

[ABOVE: Jiangxi’s top leader, Su Rong, speaks at a recent conference on “cultural sector reform.” See below.]

As I read Blair’s editorial, I pictured the faces of a lot of active artists, journalists and filmmakers who, to me anyway, epitomize China’s cultural vitality. All of them share the distinction of being shut outside the CCP’s political “mainstream,” where creative space is walled in by narrow political and ideological demands.
The week before Blair declared a “new Cultural Revolution” in China, I was in New York for the premiere of Ghost Town, a documentary film that — like all independent films from China, unsanctioned by government authorities — can be shown on the mainland only in limited unofficial forums, where it can fly under the radar.
Just as Blair was making his declaration, renowned journalist and CMP fellow Dai Qing was making her way to the Frankfurt Book Fair, and Chinese authorities were doing everything in their power to ensure she could not attend.
Culture is still subject to rigid controls in China. The most vibrant cultural activity goes on in the margins, in that strange grey space between the cracks of official control. And much of this activity is permitted to go on precisely because it has been so effectively sidelined by the authorities that it is not perceived as a threat.
Films made without official approval are effectively prevented from broader distribution inside China. Nonfiction works like CMP fellow Yang Jisheng’s Tombstone, a breakthrough two-volume investigation into the great famine of the late 1950s and early 1960s, can find an outlet only in neighboring Hong Kong.
China’s creative potential is marvelously rich.
But let us take a realistic look at how China’s leaders talk about the role of culture, its development and control — without resorting to worthless apple-and-orange comparisons spanning four decades.
I’m going to take a stab in the dark here and suppose that as Blair toured China at summer’s end, the term “cultural reform” was hanging on the tongues of his official hosts. That would make sense, because the term “cultural sector reform,” or wenhua tizhi gaige (文化体制改革), has been an important part of the official lexicon in the news and propaganda sphere for years now.

[ABOVE: Occurrence by number of articles of the term “cultural sector reforms” in mainland Chinese media. Source: Wisenews.]

What Chinese officials are essentially talking about is the commercial development of the “cultural sector.” The focus is on maintaining strict political control over cultural messages while building culture as a force of economic growth.
But don’t take my word for it.
Earlier this week, a provincial conference on cultural reform opened in Jiangxi’s capital city of Nanchang. Jiangxi’s top leader, Su Rong (苏荣), spoke about “revitalizing the cultural sector,” but at the same time made it patently clear that political controls would be maintained in order to ensure “harmony and stability.”
Specifically, Su emphasized in his closing remarks that the party would firmly maintain “decision-making power over major projects, control over asset allocation, [and] final power of approval over propaganda and cultural content.”
Then came the political bottom line:

[We must] ensure that the principle of party control over ideology does not change, party control over the media does not change, party control over cadres [appointments, etc.] does not change, and correct guidance of public opinion does not change.

Su’s words may invigorate propaganda leaders. They probably will not resonate with creative spirits.
News of Su Rong’s speech from official Jiangxi media follows:

Provincial Conference on Cultural Industry Reform and Cultural Industry Work Opens — Chairman Su Rong Gives an Address
On December 15, [Jiangxi’s] Provincial Conference on Cultural Industry Reform and Cultural Industry Work opened in Nanchang. Provincial party secretary Su Rong (苏荣) emphasized that in order to unswervingly promote cultural sector reforms and thoroughly revitalize the cultural sector in our province, [we] must cleave to a correct cultural development direction throughout, must endeavor to build systems and mechanisms that benefit and liberate the development of cultural productivity, must seize the opportunity to realize striding development in our province’s cultural sector, and must work hard to create the combined strength necessary to promote cultural sector reforms.
Provincial party committee standing committee member and provincial propaganda minister Liu Shangyang (刘上洋) led the conference and discussed concrete strategic measures for cultural sector reforms and cultural sector development. Provincial people’s congress vice-chairman Wei Xiaoqin (魏小琴), provincial consultative congress vice-chairman Chen Anzhong (陈安众) also attended the conference. Vice-governor Sun Gangzuo (孙刚作) gave a summary speech.
Cultural Products Must Be Enjoyable to the Masses
Deepening cultural sector reforms is a matter that concerns national cultural security and concerns the harmony and stability of society. 　
“Quintessential cultural products (文化精品) must be enjoyable to the masses, otherwise they are not cultural products but rather tributes.” This was Su Rong’s classic definition of quintessential cultural products (文化精品). Culture, Su Rong said, combines industrial and ideological attributes. Deepening cultural sector reforms concerns national cultural security and concerns the harmony and stability of society. Any reform and development measure must, [said Su], benefit the consolidation and strengthening of Marxism’s leading position in the ideological sphere, must benefit the adherence to the correct guiding principles of service to the people and service to socialism, and must benefit the carrying forward of the socialist core value system . . . making culture glow with powerful vitality, attraction and appeal.
Using the Best System and Mechanisms
If we remain fettered by tradition and walk over our own footsteps, then we will be eliminated from the competition and be cast aside by the times.
Su Rong said that in deepening cultural sector reforms, innovating systems and mechanisms was most key. If the system had vitality, there would be vitality overall. If mechanism were new, then the aspect [of culture] would be new. Whatever system was good, whatever mechanisms were effective, those systems and mechanisms should be used, so long as they benefit the glorious development of socialist culture.
Experience has shown that only be staunchly liberating thought and renewing systems and mechanisms can cultural enterprises and the cultural sector find the road ahead and have vitality. If we remain fettered by tradition and walk over our own footsteps, then we will be eliminated from the competition and be cast aside by the times . . .
[We] must, in accordance with the overall demands of the central party on pilot tasks in cultural sector reforms by end-of-year 2010, foster cultural market entities that are up to standard, must apply our efforts to asset restructuring for for-profit cultural units, and must build up backbone cultural enterprises . . . [A list of broad strategic goals here] . . . [We must] create a modern cultural market system . . .
The Rise of Guangxi is Inseparable from the Revitalization of the Cultural Sector
Fostering the cultural sector as a core strategic, backbone sector in our province, moving quickly to implement a development plan for cultural sector development.
“The history of a nation or a region is ultimately a cultural history,” Su Rong said. Looking at the development of culture through history, Su said, even in periods of economic crisis or slump, culture often reverses the trend and emerges as a force driving the rapid rise of the cultural sector and the ushering in of a golden age. We must seize the opportunity and stay abreast of the times.
While the cultural sector in our province has made major advancements lately, we still fall behind in comparison to a number of developed regions. It should be said that the support of the cultural sector is vital to Jiangxi’s development, and that Jiangxi’s rise is inseparable from this revitalization of [the province’s] cultural sector . . .
Su Rong emphasized that cultural sector reforms are a complicated systematic social project, and that the scale of reforms, their rate of progress, their level of effectiveness, relied on the energetic support of party and government entities at all levels, and on the support and cooperation of relevant departments. [We] must, [he said], firmly grasp throughout the decision-making power over major projects, control over asset allocation, final power of approval over propaganda and cultural content, the power over appointment and approval of key leaders and cadres, ensuring that the principle of party control over ideology does not change, party control over the media does not change, party control over cadres [appointments, etc.] does not change, and correct guidance of public opinion does not change.

[Posted by David Bandurski, December 17, 2009, 1:27pm HK]

By David Bandurski — CMP wrote last week about China’s concerted campaign against “fake reporters” and “fake news,” and how it fails to address the core issue driving media corruption in the country — the state’s monopolization of the “right to report” as a vested power and privilege.
A recent news report from Hainan province demonstrates just how attractive press cards have become for charlatans looking to pull off lucrative scams.
Last week, a reporter from Nanhai Online accompanied authorities to a marketing event at which it seems heedless senior citizens were being lured into a health products marketing scam backed by what was purported to be “the Haikou circulation center of [Xi’an-based] Healthy Life Weekly.”

[ABOVE: Screenshot of online news coverage of the Nanhai Online story.]

As authorities and the Nanhai Online journalist gathered photographic evidence together at the scene — an interesting illustration itself of the underlying crisis of professional ethics caused by the blurring of lines between media and authorities — a man turned his own DV camera on them.
When the authorities asked why he was filming them, the man reportedly responded: “I’m a reporter from Healthy Life Weekly, and I have the right to report.”
But while the original Nanhai Online news story makes it clear that the questionable press card did not belong to the man who had it in his possession, subsequent reports, like this one, suggest the card was nonetheless issued by Healthy Life Weekly, a publication launched by Xi’an Commercial News, itself a spin-off of Xi’an Daily, the official party newspaper in the city of Xi’an. And the man to whom the card actually does belong, Wang Libao, was reportedly taking part in the marketing scam in Hainan.
So is Wang Libao a “fake reporter”? Or a “real reporter” committing illegal acts?
Here is the response by Xi’an Commercial News as reported in other media:

A spokesperson from Xi’an Commercial News said that the newspaper was closely watching this incident, and had decided so far to [handle the case by] erasing Wang Libao’s name [from its staff list] and ordering a self assessment and correction by its special publications division resulting in an in-depth report from the head of the division. The newspaper said the person’s behavior was personal, and expressed their deepest apologies for the negative impact and uncivil treatment of colleagues in the Hainan media.

The rest of the story follows below.

Journalist Hassled by Fake Reporter While on the Beat
On the morning of December 10, this reporter from Nanhai Online went with industrial and commercial authorities to investigative a health product sales “brain washing” racket and was threatened and pushed away by a man claiming to be a reporter for Healthy Life Weekly (健康生活周刊). Cultural authorities later confirmed that the so-called “press card” presented by this man was a fake.
Following the incident, the suspect was “invited” to the Haifu Police Substation in Haikou City for questioning. Cultural authorities from Hainan province and from the provincial office of the All-China Journalist’s Association arrived at the substation. Further investigation by cultural authorities confirmed that the card was not an authentic press card, nor did it belong to the man who had possession of it.
The cover of this “press card” was printed with the words “News Working Card.” The inside page was printed with words indicating that the bearer’s work unit was Healthy Life Weekly, that his name was Wang Libao (王立宝), and that he worked for the [magazine’s] special business column as a reporter. The document bore only the seal of Healthy Life Weekly.
Cultural authorities said that they established first off that this “press card” had not been issued by either the General Administration of Press and Publications or the State Administration of Radio Film and Television. Next, they established that the card did not belong to the bearer, and using another’s credentials to carry out reporting activities is illegal. Thirdly, even if the card had been authentic, it is not permissible for news workers to involve themselves in business activities.
After cultural authorities raised questions [about the document], the man changed his story, saying that the pass was in fact his friend’s and that he was borrowing it. But, he said, the document did belong to Zhang Libao, another worker involved here (in the marketing event). He also said that as the card was not his, he was not aware of the full situation. He mistakenly identified the publication’s sponsoring institution as Xi’an Daily instead of Xi’an Commercial News.
Further investigation showed that Wang Libao, the owner of the pass, had in fact been the very same man who had obstructed and hassled this reporter at the scene of the “brain washing” event.
Cultural authorities said they would further investigate whether or not the pass was issued by Healthy Life Weekly, and would make a report on the matter to the General Administration of Press and Publications, further pursuing those involved.

[Posted by David Bandurski, December 15, 2009, 2:15pm HK]