David Bandurski, Author at China Media Project

Will China's censorship mandate extend to dirty talk?

Written by David Bandurski on 17 January 2010. Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

By David Bandurski — We wrote in our last post that Google’s row in China should be seen partly against the backdrop of intensifying Web controls in the country. The CCP leadership’s crusade against so-called indecent Internet content has gone on for months now, but grew more tense last month as China announced new Web regulations. And there are some reports that morale in the industry has been seriously shaken.
Now, several days after the Google announcement, there seem to be fewer Google-related posts and editorials in China that include across-the-bow shots at Internet censorship. This might suggest, although it is difficult to tell, that there have been directives from the propaganda department telling editors to dial it back.
One of the strongest editorials in the newspaper pages today is not directly about Google, but gives us an interesting glimpse at other aspects of China’s intensifying campaign to bring information technologies to heel.
Writing at Guangzhou’s Southern Metropolis Daily, CMP fellow and People’s University of China professor Zhang Ming (张鸣) explores the implications of new measures to combat indecent mobile text messages.
As Zhang points out with no small measure of humor, even setting aside the issue of exactly what kind of content classifies as “indecent” (and, we would add, the issue of whether other types of content are being targeted as well), the mechanics of this new campaign should be worrying to the average citizen.
Guangdong’s official Nanfang Daily newspaper first reported on January 13 that new measures were being taken against “indecent text messages,” in which service would be suspended for individual mobile phone users who engaged in the communication of violating content.
The new campaign does seem to be national in nature, carried out by China Mobile in cooperation with the Public Security Bureau.
A January 14 editorial from Information Daily praised the move, saying it was about time.
But there were quickly voices of dissent too, including this look into the legal issues involved by columnist and blogger Wu Yue San Ren (五岳散人). One columnist, writing at Changjiang Daily, questioned the wisdom of entrusting a for-profit enterprise like China Mobile with censoring personal communications.
In a January 14 story, Sichuan’s Huaxi Metropolis Daily reported the case of a mobile user in Dongguan who found that his mobile phone could no longer send or receive instant messages. Hoping to resolve the problem, he changed out his SIM card, but there was still no service. Finally, when he approached China Mobile about the issue, he was told his service had been suspended because of an “indecent text message” (黄段子) he had sent out after receiving it from a friend.
The mobile user was told, according to Huaxi Metropolis Daily, that he would have to present his identification card to local police and fill out a letter of guarantee that he would no longer send indecent messages — only then would his SMS service be restored.
The reporter at Huaxi Metropolis Daily looked further into the practice and was told by someone at the service desk of the local mobile company — presumably a China Mobile affiliate — that they were working with the Public Security Bureau to control illegal mobile messages.
In the arena of information controls, 2010 is certainly getting off to an inauspicious start in China.
Zhang Ming’s editorial in Southern Metropolis Daily, which follows, fortunately adds a much-needed dose of humor to an intelligent discussion of information control and citizen’s rights.

The Anti-Indecency Sweep Must Not Sweep All the Way Under Our Bed Sheets
By Zhang Ming (张鸣)
Southern Metropolis Daily
January 16, 2010
A news report said recently that if telecom users sent out indecent, or “yellow”, instant messages, their SMS service would now be suspended. If they wished to re-activate the service, they would have to first file a self-criticism with the Public Security Bureau pledging to refrain from such behavior in the future.
These days it’s fairly common to find indecent content, a bit of dirty humor, in text messages sent between lovers, or between husbands and wives. If this ban is actually enforced, I imagine people will simply turn to good old-fashioned phone calls the next time they get the itch.
But when you think about it, can these tactics really be limited to SMS messages? What should worry us even more is exactly what is going on behind the scenes here.
If you extrapolate from this control mindset, will mobile phone conversations and idle fixed-line chatter result in service suspensions if one is careless? And further, if people sit down to dinner and the conversation gets a bit raunchy, will they be ordered to hold their tongues just because someone happened to hear?
When a husband and wife are in bed together, should they, from this day forward, refrain from playful whispering? . . . Oh, forget it. I can’t go on speculating like this. Before long, I’ll be imagining everyone from the censor to the policeman and the city inspector so busy keeping our mouths shut that nothing else gets done. The guilty, with their mouths zipped shut, will form lines outside police headquarters or the city inspectors barracks to deliver their signed self-criticisms.
The strangest thing of all is: How exactly do the relevant [government] departments find out about a dirty message texted by some young person in the first place? Does this mean everyone’s text messages are being monitored? Are human beings listening in on us, or are machines being programmed to keep watch? If keyword filtering is being used, how is it possible for technology to make the judgement call so clearly? Won’t a lot of messages that aren’t actually dirty or indecent be filtered out too? Can’t we expect to have a lot of “unjust prosecutions” (冤假错案)?
In fact, there are already numerous restrictions on the sending of mobile messages to groups. If you do send dirty messages . . . these should belong to the category of interpersonal communication. And according to our Constitution, the freedom of communication between individuals is protected. That means that government departments cannot assign guilt or exact punishment on the basis of the content of interpersonal communications. If they do not concern issues of national security, nor can interpersonal communications be monitored.
This being the case, how is it that the youth’s SMS messages are being monitored in the first place? Why is his messaging service being suspended? Why is he required to file a self-criticism in order to restore it?
Fighting indecency is a really great pretense, a banner of uprightness. What reason can anyone muster to oppose fighting indecency. But when [the government] launches a sweep against indecency, they must not sweep into our very homes, and under our bed sheets.
Ordinary citizens and sweethearts still have the right to dirty it up a bit every once in a while in personal conversation. How can people not feel [given this policy] that their personal communications are being monitored all the time? In a normal society, the government’s authority does not extend into the homes of citizens, unless they are selling or using drugs or committing other such illegal acts. Even cases of domestic violence require reporting by a family member before the police get involved. The things that people write or say, no matter how dirty they are, do not constitute mass media . . .
If the government is permitted to intrude our private space at will, punishing us in the name of battling indecency, what sort of principle is that? . . .
Acting against indecency is necessary. But if we sweep on in this way, we will achieve exactly the opposite. We will find ourselves unable to put a stop to indecency, and we will kick up great storms of anger and resentment.

[Posted by David Bandurski, January 17, 2010, 1:07am HK]

A "bitter winter" of controls for China's Internet

Written by David Bandurski on 15 January 2010. Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

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.

News coverage late last month in China unambiguously reported the shut down of IDC’s as a “shock therapy” action to combat indecent content:

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.]

Will Google's exit mean alienation for China's Web users?

Written by David Bandurski on 15 January 2010. Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

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]

Weighing in on Google's predicament in China

Written by David Bandurski on 14 January 2010. Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

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.]

Grabbing the reins of "online political participation"

Written by David Bandurski on 12 January 2010. Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

By David Bandurski — Is the Internet changing China? Yes, of course. But as we have tried to illustrate again and again at the China Media Project, the Internet is just one of a number of factors pushing change in China’s media landscape. And neither should change be understood in simplistic terms, as a forward charge into some luminous future.
CMP Director Qian Gang has used what he calls the “three C’s” — Control, Change and Chaos — to describe the dynamic factors at work in China’s media.
Three of the major forces of change in China’s media since the 1990s have been 1) the growth of the Internet, 2) advances in journalistic professionalism and 3) commercialization. Meanwhile, control of the media has remained an uncompromising priority of the CCP leadership, and methods of control have themselves undergone constant change and innovation.
The net result is a climate of chaos in which conscientious journalists may find ways to push the envelope in spite of the party’s determination to maintain “guidance.”
As a force of change in China, the Internet of course raises a whole host of issues for China’s leadership. One of the most urgent questions is the real and potential impact of the Internet on politics and governance. There are a lot of controversies in this boggy terrain, so I’ll just pose the issues as questions.
Is the Internet offering a new platform for political participation in China? Is the Internet holding officials more accountable to the public than they have been in the past? Can China develop and encourage a kind of “online democracy” in lieu of substantive institutional change?
As China grapples with these questions, we can see clearly at work once again the vectors of Control, Change and Chaos Qian Gang has spoken about.
In the piece translated below, published in a recent issue of China Development Observation and re-posted at the official website of China’s Xinhua News Agency, Wang Qingsong (王青松), an official from the Party School in the city of Fuzhou, writes about the challenges posed by what he calls “online political participation, or wangluo zhengzhi canyu (网络政治参与).
While Wang seems to recognize the importance, and inevitability, of greater public participation in political affairs via the Internet, regulating and controlling this new form of behavior is also an urgent priority.
He writes about the need for more laws governing the Internet. He emphasizes the primacy of “correct guidance of public opinion,” the CCP buzzword for information control. And he talks about the need to build stronger “commentary” teams to police public opinion on the web.
Roughly three-quarters of Wang’s piece on “online political participation” follows:

The Road to Regulated Development of Online Political Participation
In recent years, as the use of Internet technologies has become widespread and the political consciousness of Web users has grown, a new kind of political phenomenon has emerged in online space — online political participation. So-called online political participation can basically be understood as ordinary citizens using legal channels to influence government decision-making or public management activities in online environments.
The means of online political participation are various, including online election, online petitioning [or letters and calls], online public opinion, online monitoring, etc. Owing to ease of access, low cost, strong influence and interactivity, online political participation has lately received more and more attention from leaders at the top all the way down to ordinary people below. Up to now, online political participation has already become an important channel by which the party and government learn of public feelings, understand public opinion, listen to the voices of the people and gather the wisdom of the people. It is also an effective channel by which ordinary people can carry out social monitoring (社会监督), protect their rights and interests and voice their wishes.
But online political participation is still in the early stages of development in China, and a number of problems have emerged in the process. These include problems of insufficient legality and legitimacy, disorderliness, lack of [broad] representativeness [of opinions expressed] and irrationality. In addition, in guiding and using [online opinion], governments have responded weakly, have channeled [public opinion] in an inconsistent manner, have failed to perfect mechanisms [for the handling of online public opinion], and technological platforms lag behind. Therefore, there is a need for urgent research into how online political participation can develop in a more regulated fashion.
Regulating Online Political Participation by Improving Systems and Mechanisms
1. Building adequate systems and mechanisms in order to systematize and regularize online political participation
According to constructivism (建构主义), [the theory of epistemology], things exists as social constructs. Currently, China has constructed a relatively complete system for participation in immediate political life. The Internet has already developed from its early stages as [a platform for] information exchange and resource sharing to [a platform] concerning interests, rights and power on a political level. Its influence on the nature of political life grows deeper by the day, and the phenomenon of politics in the Internet sphere can be ignored by no one.
Judging from the current state of online political participation, we are both practically and theoretically at the exploration stage. We still do not have mature systems and mechanisms for defining online political participation, for determining the subject and object of online political participation, or for identifying the most effective means of online political participation. Looking at actual undertakings of online political participation in various regions, we see that development is uneven. Coastal areas are ahead of mountainous inland areas, and the cities are ahead of the countryside. In coastal cities with more developed economies, online political participation consists largely of platforms to test popular opinion and to meet demands essential to popular interests (提供一些必要利益诉求), but there has not yet been any clear direction as to what governments or other official offices must do [in the way of facilitating participation]. It has therefore been hard to ensure that those Web users who seek to defend their rights and interests and express their will can exercise their legitimate rights.
As the number of Web users [in China] has grown and political consciousness has risen, the influence of online political participation on actual politics has become broader and deeper. There is an urgent need, therefore, to better systematize and regulate the behavior of online political participation. The strengthening and building of external institutions to preserve the normal and healthy development of online political participation may be considered within the our nation’s existing political system, in light of present realities . . . and on the basis of internal institutions.
2. Working to optimize operational mechanisms for the routine exercise of online political participatory behavior
If we only build and improve institutions for online political participation on a macro level, this will not be sufficient to ensure that online political participation will be exercised in an orderly manner. In order that online political participation develops in a healthy, regularized and orderly manner, [the party] must exercise effective monitoring, control and guidance [or channeling] of online political participatory actions . . . This article argues that [the party] can work in the following three areas: 1) [We must] be clear about the subjects and objects of online political participation and their interrelationships; 2) [We must] identify the effective forms of online political participation; 3) [We must] establish what specific duties are incumbent on the government in the process of guiding and developing the process of online political participation.
Strengthening Internet Laws, Preserving an Orderly Online Space
The regularized development and reasonable exercise of online political participation is inseparable from [the issue of[ a favorable Internet environment. Of late, such extremes as “online trial” (网络审判), “online violence” (网络暴力) and “human flesh searches” (人肉搜索) have emerged in the online space. These can be seen to be related to the absence of relevant laws on the use and monitoring of the Internet, which is disadvantageous to the normal and reasonable exercise of online political participation. “A democratic society must needs be a social ruled by law, and rule of law is an important protection and marker of democracy.” [NOTE: This quote is from Zhao Zhenjiang’s (赵震江) Forty Years of Rule of Law in China: 1949-1989, 中国法制四十年: 1949—1989, Peking University Press, 1990, pg. 124]. Therefore, we must strengthen laws dealing with the Internet, making sure there are laws to go by and rules to follow.
1. Strengthening the scientific creation of laws
Our nation’s socialist legal system comprises laws, administrative regulations and local decrees or rules . . . Laws are a manifestation of the national will, and they are meant principally to maintain order, and after this to coordinate benefits, and to ensure equity and freedom . . . And so, in order to clean up the online sphere and regulate online political participation, [the party] must strengthen laws pertaining to the Internet. Facing the task of making Internet-related laws necessitates hard research into the state of the Internet, its characteristics and the principles of its development. At the same time, in the process of making such laws, drafts of laws and regulations should be made available to the public through various major news media so that the opinions of society can be sought and the law-making process be more scientific.
2. Promoting democratic law-making
Democratic law-making essentially means protecting and realizing people’s democracy, thoroughly expressing the interest demands and will of the people through the framework of democracy and rule of law, and turning these into an expression of national will through the law-making process . . . [The author writes about the need to educate the public on legal matters and increase the transparency of the law-making process, etc.].
Building Online Propaganda Teams, Prioritizing Active Guidance of Online Public Opinion
1. Strengthening the building of online propaganda teams to ensure the active power of correct guidance of public opinion
The 2004 CCP Decision on Strengthening the Building of the Party’s Leadership Capacity made clear demands concerning the establishment of online propaganda teams, saying: “[We must] pay great attention to the influence the Internet and other newly emerging forms of media are having on public opinion. [The party must] accelerate the building of a control mechanism comprising laws and regulations, administrative oversight, industry self-discipline and technology-based measures. [We must] strengthen the building of Internet propaganda teams (互联网宣传队伍建设), so that positive public opinion has the upper hand on the Internet.
In March 2005, the propaganda department of the Fuzhou Municipal Committee became the first in the province to form its own team of online news commentators (网络阅评员队伍). [NOTE: These are paid Internet monitors with party propaganda offices who are active online in disseminating the party’s message and watching for potential flash points on the Web. They are just one part of the larger phenomenon of for-hire Web censors that have been referred to colloquially in China as “fifty-centers” or members of the “50-cent Party”. “Internet news commentators”, or wangluo yuepingyuan, can be seen as the Internet equivalent of the News Commentary Groups operated by the Central Propaganda Department and local propaganda offices, which have traditionally been a post-facto form of media control to complement the prior controls, including media “self-discipline”, that form the bulk of China’s media control regime. “Internet commentators,” or wangluo pinglunyuan, do not necessarily have relationships with propaganda offices.]. This was an operating mechanism whereby Internet commentators were charged with actively monitoring online information, actively reporting unfavorable information that perverted the truth, damaged a civilized online environment, did harm to the image of the party or government, or hurt social stability and national unity, and also using accurate theoretical frameworks and objective and positive information to redress [errors] and channel [public opinion]. Experience has shown that such teams can effectively ensure the correct guidance of online public opinion, and help the masses of Web users rationally discriminate information in the online public opinion sphere.
2. Raising the information literacy/quality of Internet commentators, fully utilizing them as an active component
“Information quality” or “information literacy” refers to an individual’s understanding of the value of information and their ability to obtain, use and create information. It is revealed in the [individual’s] ability to handle and use information technologies. The measure of a person’s information literacy is not the volume of information in their hands but rather the strength or weakness of his ability to handle or use information. According to their obligations, as workers for the positive channeling of online public opinion, [Internet commentators] must actively raise their own information literacy, holding themselves to strict standards, enhancing their political sensitivity, improving their scientific and cultural understanding, raising their knowledge of [party and government] policies, serving as courageous advocates [of the party and government], and raising the speed of their response to public opinion and information. Only in this way can [Internet commentators] clearly distinguish between right and wrong at the crucial moment, effectively utilizing the active role of propaganda and public opinion channeling.
3. Building Internet news commentary teams, breaking through the individual propaganda mode
The present Internet news commentator system is essentially in the exploratory stage, and we must continue to learn from our experiences . . . Therefore, we must accelerate the building of our Internet news commentator system, ensuring at the institutional level that the work of Internet news commentary is carried out smoothly. At the same time, we must strengthen the organization and management of Internet news commentators, raising their zeal by means of adequate pay and conditions, regularly organizing group training sessions for news commentators, helping them understand relevant [party and government] policies, and raising their consciousness of their political responsibilities and their capacity for commentary work . . .
. . . .

[Posted by David Bandurski, January 12, 2010, 2:38pm HK]
[Frontpage image by NinJa999 available at Flickr.com under Creative Commons license.]

China's investigative journalists keep pushing the envelope

Written by David Bandurski on 11 January 2010. Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

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]

SCIO outlines core external propaganda work for 2010

Written by David Bandurski on 6 January 2010. Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

By David Bandurski — The head of China’s State Council Information Office (SCIO), the primary external voice of China’s government and the chief office in charge of domestic Internet controls, said yesterday in remarks setting out the general direction of external news and propaganda for 2010 that China “must effectively engage the international struggle for public opinion” and “raise our nation’s cultural soft power.” [Frontpage photo: SCIO head Wang Chen, from SCIO website.]
At China’s annual national conference on external news and propaganda, held in Beijing on January 4 and 5, SCIO director Wang Chen (王晨) outlined core tasks for the coming year, including “being firmer and more timely in broadcasting China’s voice to the world.”
Wang emphasized that China must “do external propaganda well this year, planning comprehensively with the overall situations domestically and internationally taken into account together.”
China must, he said, “grab the discourse power, win the primary leadership right [in public opinion], and enhance its international communication capacity, working to realize an external public opinion power commensurate with China’s level of economic development and its international status.”
China must, he added, “improve its working mechanisms and muster various forces [within the government] in order to form a sizable external propaganda structure, working hard to raise our nation’s cultural soft power; [and China must] establish and project a favorable national image of booming development and cultural openness, continuing to create an objective and favorable international public opinion climate for China’s development and progress.”
[Posted by David Bandurski, January 6, 2010, 2:32pm HK]

CCP media policy, soft power and China's "third affliction"

Written by David Bandurski on 5 January 2010. Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

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]

Looking back on China's media in 2009

Written by David Bandurski on 30 December 2009. Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

By David Bandurski — Earlier this month The Journalist Monthly, a magazine published by Shanghai’s Wenhui Xinmin United Press Group, which also publishes the English-language Shanghai Daily, ran a lengthy article recounting the most important Chinese media events of 2009. They were listed out month by month, with brief summaries citing news coverage and including quotes from officials and academics.
One might expect the article, re-posted in the media section at People’s Daily Online, to offer a sanitized view of the major events of the year. But the piece is not so simple, in fact.
In the January section, for example, the magazine seems to attack head on the recent (and not so recent) official standpoint — driving the vociferous campaign in China this winter over “fake reporters” — that poor ethics in the media owe to lax accreditation procedures and poor oversight, and not to more fundamental institutional problems.
Noting the debate over media corruption that followed the so-called “gag fee incident” in late 2008, the magazine quotes the published views of senior party thinkers. There is He Zengke (何增科), [a scholar] from the Compilation and Translation Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, saying that “the system in which institutional units in news publishing and radio and television combined official and commercial roles [is] the institutional root of various unwholesome tendencies in this sector.”
Language is pulled as well from Gongjian: A Research Report on Political Reform in China After the 17th National Congress, a book released in late 2007 by several scholars from the Central Party School: “Only with relative independence from party organs and government power could media truly carry out the responsibilities they should have.”
In another section, the magazine offers an interesting summary of new rules passed by leaders in Guangzhou in March that seemed to stipulate that officials not cooperating with efforts by the media to carry out watchdog journalism, or “supervision by public opinion,” would be held responsible. This simplistic reading — reported by the party’s official People’s Daily on March 19 this year — is quickly dispelled by the comments of journalist Pan Hongqi (潘洪其), writing in Yangcheng Evening News:

[W]hether or not officials can accept and cooperate with public opinion monitoring is not of great importance; what is most important is whether or not media can confidently and unswervingly carry out monitoring of officials. Imagine that media can be bold in their monitoring, then it would be entirely possible for them to expose ‘refusal or non-cooperation’ by officials – this itself is a form of watchdog journalism . . . What watchdog journalism needs most urgently is not ‘acceptance’ or ‘cooperation’ by officials, but rather more robust institutional protections [for journalists] in order to safeguard these rights to expression, criticism and monitoring . . .

This summary of the year by The Journalist Monthly is well worth a careful read.
We offer here only as much as we can — a partial and cursory translation:

JANUARY
*Web Supervision
On January 3, People’s Daily published the results of a joint online survey by its social observation section (社会观察版) and People’s Daily Online showing that “87.9 percent of web users pay close attention to Web supervision [or using the internet to expose instances of injustice, etc.], and when they come across unfavorable things in society, 93.3 percent of web users choose to expose them on the Internet. The Internet has already become a convenient and effective method for conveying the public will, protecting people’s rights and interests and punishing corruption. 40.8 percent of web users believe that Web supervision lacks legitimacy and is merely a form of online violence.” An editorial in People’s Daily by Fu Dinggen (傅丁根) the same day argued that, “The significance of Web supervision lies in it provides a new driving mechanism for the fight against corruption, the regulation of society and the building of harmony.” . . . “While Web supervision is not a panacea, without Web supervision we would be absolutely powerless,” the article said. The special character of the Web was in making “Web censorship present everywhere at every time ….. and the public’s right to know, right to participate and right to express is in large part realized through the process of Web supervision.”
*The Law of Four Intersections in Journalism and Politics (新闻与政治四点交叉律)
In the first issue of News Frontline (新闻战线), former People’s Daily deputy editor-in-chief Liang Heng (梁衡) raised this concept, arguing that journalism and politics at their very base represent the aspirations of the masses. Both had a shared objective and purpose. Both had their own “selfish interests” (私利) in the form of “media interests” (媒体利益) and “group interests” (集团利益). In order to cooperate for the realization of the public will and the promotion of social progress, when news is in violation of the rules, then politics takes charge of it in the name of the people, utilizing the tool of state control. On the other hand, when politics is corrupt, journalism monitors power in the name of the people, performing the role of watchdog journalism . . . [Liang said that] “while 30 years ago journalism was the tool and servant of politics, today journalism is an ally and friend capable of direct admonition. This is a fundamental change in the relationship between politics and journalism over the past 30 years.”
*Accepting Red Envelopes is Illegal Behavior
The first issue of Rule of Law in News Broadcasting used laws and regulations governing journalism to address the “gag fee incident.” [Communications scholar] Zhan Jiang (展江) said that the acceptance of “red envelopes” has long been regarded as illegal behavior arising from ethical problems, and this problem has become more and more severe in [China’s] news media, developing from the acceptance of cash payments by individuals toward the brazen use of payoffs as a part of the media business. The article quoted the views of He Zengke (何增科), [a scholar] from the Compilation and Translation Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, who said that “the system in which institutional units in news publishing and radio and television combined official and commercial roles was the institutional root of various unwholesome tendencies in this sector.” . . . In the same issue, China National Radio’s Xu Mingwen (徐明文) revealed that in late 2007, the Central Party School’s Gongjian: A Research Report on Political Reform in China After the 17th National Congress said that, “Only with relative independence from party organs and government power could media truly carry out the responsibilities they should have.” Breaking through the official monopoly of the news industry and realizing the release of information through numerous channels, “and, moreover, the diversification of information channels would mean less likelihood of [information or media] being suppressed” [through payment, etc]. . . [NOTE: A bit more interesting stuff on the origins of media corruption follows here.]
*In 2009, the development of China’s radio and television industry becomes a top priority
The second issue of China Radio and Television Journal (中国广播电视学刊) published statements by Wang Taihua (王太华) at the national meeting of the State Administration of Radio Film and Television saying that [the development of] a public service structure for radio and television would enter state budget allocations. . . . Cooperation agreements would also be reached [said Wang] with the Ministry of Science and Technology for the building and implementing of the next-generation television and radio network, accelerating the digitizing of television and radio stations. [Wang] also emphasized that international radio stations would continue to push into Latin America, Central Asia and other areas . . . China Central Television would push strongly to enter fixed, wireless and and satellite platforms overseas with its international channels, as well as hotels, accelerating the transition from a primary focus on the domestic to a greater emphasis on the international dimension. China National Radio would continue to build its cooperative network of Chinese-language broadcasts across the globe. Peripheral provinces and regions, such as Xinjiang, Tibet, Inner Mongolia, Yunnan and Guangxi would accelerate [broadcast] penetration into neighboring countries . . .
*Business of foreign news wires in China changes to require approval by the Information Office [of the State Council]
[Specifics not translated here. Read Danwei.org interview with David Wolf.]
FEBRUARY
*Media Must Not Contribute to Crises of Confidence
On February 4, China Youth Daily published an article by Chen Fang arguing that “while it is very necessary for media and consumers to pay ever greater attention to the release of information on food safety, some media only run information about problems and faulty food products when re-running information, and make no attempt to comprehensively explain that these faulty products have already been dealt with according to the law. Biased selection of information by media and superficial reporting has created misunderstanding among consumers.” Chen said that “of course it was the responsibility of the media to put the interests of the public first and preserve public safety.” But “these sorts of reports must be comprehensive and not done selectively according to the interests of the reporter himself” . . .
*Reporting Rules for Hong Kong and Macau Journalists are Promulgated
On February 6, a rule issued by the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council said all Hong Kong and Macao journalists reporting inside mainland China must first obtain Hong Kong-Macao Reporting Cards (港澳记者采访证) at either the Hong Kong liaison office or the Macao liaison office. Hong Kong or Macao journalists reporting in the mainland must first obtain permission from the work unit or [company or government office] individual they intend to interview, and for the interview must carry along and show press credentials from the permanent office of their foreign media organization or their Hong Kong-Macao Reporting Card . . .
*The CCTV Tower catches fire
According to news reports, fire broke out at the new headquarters of China Central Television on February 9 and blazed for close to six hours, causing severe damage to the external structure of the project, which had already cost two billion yuan (and was listed as three billion on CCTV’s asset assessment). At 3:05pm on February 10, CCTV apologized via a news program for the loss of state assets resulting from the fire, and for the inconvenience caused to those living near the building. The Beijing City Fire Department determined that the fire was caused when the person responsible for construction of the building dared hire a crew to set off Class A fireworks in clear violation of city regulations. The city’s official Beijing Daily criticized CCTV in an editorial for ignoring regulations to “play with fire” . . .
*Still no budging on press cards for personnel at websites
On February 12, Southern Weekend ran an exclusive interview with Nong Tao (农涛), head of the the news periodicals division of the General Administration of Press and Publications revealing that [authorities] had not yet been relented on the issue of press cards for Web journalists because commercial websites were not yet qualified to issue [their own] news reports. News websites operated by traditional media can apply for press cards if these personnel are journalists for traditional media.
*New standardized press cards issued nationwide
Beginning February 25, the General Administration of Press and Publications issued standardized press cards for newspapers, periodicals, news agencies, radio stations, television stations and other news organizations nationwide in place [of the previous press cards]. Old press cards were all nullified as of July 1. On February 11, [the official] People’s Daily reported that added to the “issues attended to” by the new press cards was that “people’s governments at various levels must offer the necessary protections and convenience to news workers bearing these cards.” . . . A February 13 report in People’s Daily quoted an official from GAPP’s newspaper and periodicals office saying that “without good cause holders of public office may not decline interview requests.” The official also revealed that a database of news workers showing poor conduct was being compiled and improved . . .
MARCH
*Officials must respect the rules of news and public opinion transmission
On March 1, Xi Jinping (习近平) demanded during a speech for the spring term at the Central Party School that leaders and cadres at all levels “raise their ability to work with news media, respecting the rules of news and public opinion transmission. Correctly channeling public opinion requires that [leaders] maintain close connections with news media and willingly accept supervision by public opinion [or press monitoring.” In the eleventh issue of Young Journalist (青年记者), [communication scholars] Chen Lidan (陈力丹) and Wang Jingwen (王晶文) revealed that Xi’s words had originally been: “[Officials] must raise their ability to work with news media, correctly controlling media, scientifically managing media, effectively channeling public opinion.” [The scholars] commented on the change represented in these words, saying that the change “in discourse from using the media and controlling the media to respecting the rules of news and public opinion transmission and accepting supervision by public opinion represented a conceptual change toward the news media.” On March 27, People’s Daily ran an editorial by Xu Qingchu (余清楚) . . . arguing that “reporting on sudden-breaking incidents means serving as the eyes, ears and throat; it means reaching a concrete unity between the interests of the party and the interests of the people. For government and relevant departments at various levels to work with the media, to make friends, this is something we need to accomplish our work, and it is the realization of the party spirit.” Writing in China Youth Daily on January 13, Chen Jieren (陈杰人) said that, “In the sphere of public service, the most important thing for propaganda offices is to enable the active role of the media, satisfying the public’s right to know, right to express, right to participate and right to monitor, providing the masses with information services . . . ” On February 4, [columnist] Yan Lieshan (鄢烈山) wrote in China News and Publishing that: “For those people who still wish to [enforce] ‘unity of message’ and stamp out diversity of voices (lit. ‘seven mouths and eight tongues’), the most common and effective method is to maintain strict power over the fates (命门) of those who would tell the truth (and that means principally their rice bowls and official caps), and to apply pressure and use intimidation, so that those who might speak out worry themselves over the consequences and swallow their own tongues. The method of snuffing out voices through ‘self-discipline’ is used to deal with leaders up above, to deal with foreign journalists, and to obstruct all channels of expression including the Internet. This has definitely proven effective, but of course it does not serve the interests of social progress or harmony.”
*China Football News stops publishing
On March 3, China Football News . . . announced that it would suspend publication after a 15 year history. This is a government organ-styled expert newspaper about sports. In the mid-1990s, its circulation reached as high as 400,000 copies and was regarded in the industry as the standard for “football reporting in China.”
*”Provisional Methods for a Responsibility System for Party and Government Leaders in Guangzhou”
On March 19, People’s Daily reported that *”Provisional Methods for a Responsibility System for Party and Government Leaders in Guangzhou,” to take effect on April 1, clearly stipulated that party and government leaders who do not accept or cooperate with intraparty monitoring, legal monitoring, democratic monitoring, supervision by public opinion and monitoring by the public should face responsibility . . . The same day, [Guangzhou’s] Yangcheng Evening News published a commentary by Pan Hongqi (潘洪其) called, “Giving Public Opinion the Courage to Monitor is More Important Than Official Cooperation.” The editorial argued that, “whether or not officials can accept and cooperate with public opinion monitoring is not of great importance; what is most important is whether or not media can confidently and unswervingly carry out monitoring of officials. Imagine that media can be bold in their monitoring, then it would be entirely possible for them to expose ‘refusal or non-cooperation’ by officials – this itself is a form of watchdog journalism.” “What watchdog journalism needs most urgently is not ‘acceptance’ or ‘cooperation’ by officials, but rather more robust institutional protections [for journalists] in order to safeguard these rights to expression, criticism and monitoring . . .
APRIL
*”Guiding Opinions Concerning Further Promoting News and Publishing System Reforms”
On April 7, China News and Publishing reported that the “Opinions” issued by the General Administration of Press and Publications made clear four points of reform [of the news and publishing industry] for the future: 1. Promoting a transformation of the enterprise system for for-profit news organizations, with units [or news organizations] belonging to party or government organs de-coupling from their administrative sponsors (主办单位) and competent units (主管单位); 2. Promoting asset reorganization on the basis of enterprise system transformation, accelerating the development of backbone enterprises and strategic investors in media and publishing; 3. Guiding the healthy development of non-public sector publishing studios (出版工作室), fostering new and developing productive forces in publishing, encouraging and supporting the bringing of non-public sector publishing studios into the arena of policy legitimacy (鼓励和支持非公有出版工作室进入政策许可领域); 4. Expanding dialogue overseas, actively implementing the “going out” strategy, encouraging qualified publishing and media enterprises to launch periodicals, newspaper and other entities outside China. On April 19, [GAPP Director] Liu Binjie (柳斌杰) said on CCTV’s “Dialogue” program that “[media] enterprises going public now no longer had to separate their editorial and business sides, and [enterprises] like Liaoning Publishing Group were now listing their complete assets, including content, operations and advertising, so that there was no artificial split within the industry.” [He said that] “at the same time [China] needed to develop a set of withdrawal mechanisms enabling those news and publishing units that don’t emphasis their social responsibilities (不重视社会责任的新闻出版单位) to exit the market.” Liu said that in some countries in the West, mainstream media were controlled through a method of government shareholding and the government serving as an independent director. People’s Daily, Xinhua News Agency, China Central Television and other entities serving as principal agents of China’s image and China’s voice serve an important role in transmitting the public opinion of the nation. Reform is principally about turning them into public service media.
*”Notice Concerning Practical Measures to Combat Fake News Reports”
On April 17, The Beijing News reported that a “Notice” from the General Administration of Press and Publications had ordered newspapers and periodicals to strengthen their management of news content, taking practical steps to prevent the fake news reports from happening again. “Reporters who are found through inspection to have written fake or erroneous reports will be issued warnings and placed on a list of journalists with a record of poor conduct. In cases of serious violation [reporter’s] press credentials will be revoked, and will be prevented from working as journalists for a period of five years. In especially serious cases, journalists will be prevented for life from engaging in editorial work.” “News reports being re-run [from other sources] must first be checked for accuracy, and publishing units must establish and improve examination and management systems for re-running reports.” [The notice] also demanded that publishing units must establish and improve mechanisms for holding [journalists] accountable [for errors].
. . .
JUNE
*CCTV Sets Up Emergency Reporting Stations
On June 12, China News and Publishing News reported that China Central Television would set up emergency reporting stations (应急报道驻点) in eight cities including Beijing and Shanghai, to be operational that month. In the event that sudden-breaking events occurred, journalists from emergency reporting stations would be able to reach the scene within 4 to 6 hours to issue news reports. All stations were equipped with wireless video cameras, portable video cameras, editing stations and other audiovisual equipment in addition to small satellite broadcasting vehicles, maritime satellite terminals and other equipment for the transmission of information . . . .

[Posted by David Bandurski, December 30, 2009, 4pm HK]

A few words on China's new "cultural revolution"

Written by David Bandurski on 17 December 2009. Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

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]

Author: David Bandurski

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