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]

By Qian Gang — This has been a winter of unusual weather patterns in China’s media landscape. And the latest drop in temperature came on November 28, as many television viewers in China discovered they could no longer receive programs from Hong Kong-based Sun TV. It is clear now that Sun TV broadcasts to the mainland through the government-operated Asia-Pacific Six satellite have been terminated.
How is it that this “small-scale” network specializing in cultural programming with no direct news coverage has fallen afoul of Chinese authorities?
I have watched Sun TV for a few years now. It was back in 2008 that I came across “Cause” (论衡), which caught me a bit off guard. Sun TV CEO Chen Ping (陈平) opened up the conversations himself, or served as anchor, and I found this unusual.

[Sun TV CEO Chen Ping appears on the program Zi Ye.]

One day in 2009, I saw the program “Zi Ye” (子夜) for the first time. The program was organized into so-called “seasons,” each consisting of at least ten 25-minute episodes. All of the episodes in a “season” dealt with a single topic, and they were broadcast through the week in a kind of unbroken discussion, even over the weekend.
There have been ten seasons of “Zi Ye” already. Large-scale discussion programs of this sort are a rare find, and I was particularly astonished by its boldness of vision.
In “Cause, “Zi Ye” and a number of other Sun TV programs, it gradually became clear to me that this network was blazing its own very unique trail.
In addition to providing viewers with history and culture programs purchased overseas, its own oral history programs, and documentaries, Sun TV also began developing in-depth discussion programs that served as platforms for the serious exchange of ideas (思想谈话节目). The network eventually did a complete makeover of its image and programming, focusing on strongly branded discussion programs running for more than 30 hours a week.
The launch of “Cause” happened to correspond with the onset of the global financial crisis. Conversations at Sun TV offered many perspectives at the time that I found unique and incisive, and which immediately drew me in.
One major flashpoint of the economic crisis has been the “fictitious economy”, but what were the real underlying causes of the crisis? In Chen Ping’s view it was over-capacity of production and undersupply of resources, and one of the deeper causes was that industrial civilization is in decline.
As far as China was concerned, the causes of this crisis were external, at least on the surface. But there were more fundamental causes, in Chen Ping’s view, that were internally derived. The proportion of domestic demand in China’s economy has been steadily shrinking, particularly private demand, while state consumption is rising steadily. In China, the development of new technologies and related mechanisms is lagging behind, and the availability of resources is a problem growing worse by the day.
For Chen, the global economic crisis is a signal that humanity can no longer be dependent on a linear model of production and development based on the consumption of non-renewable resources. We have reached a point where industrial civilization must give way to an ecological civilization. And this is China’s critical juncture too.
China faces immense challenges as it attempts a transitional leap from a traditional Chinese post-authoritarian age to a modern democratic industrial civilization, and from an early industrial civilization to a democratic and ecologically sound society.
Many of the conversations on Sun TV chat programs have dealt with social transition and political reform in China, and sparks of thought have been flying off everywhere.
“Our middle class in China is already of substantial size. The structure of our society already sits in many ways on the eve of massive change,” said People’s University of China professor Wen Tiejun (温铁军). “The key to whether a nation can continue to develop its base of wealth and whether its economy can sustain its growth is whether or not it has a good political system,” said China University of Political Science and Law professor Cai Dingjian (蔡定剑).
“Political reform relies on the one hand on strong political leaders who are clear-minded. It relies on the other hand on the grassroots, including those inside and outside the party, and including popular [or non-governmental] actors,” said Central Party School professor Wang Changjiang (王长江).
Chen Ping’s discourse has a thick reformist bent. He firmly believes that humanity has shared universal values, and he is staunchly opposed to the use of “national circumstances” as a billy club to beat down those who explore the idea of political reform. At the same time, he advocates taking a clear look at China’s history and present, making an earnest and true reading of China’s national circumstances.
When describing China’s history, Chen talks about a transition from “sovereign rule to party rule to popular rule” (君主→党主→民主). He believes that China’s democratic foundations are weak because China has traditionally lacked a cultural sense of the value of the natural person, and a belief in rights and equality.
Here is Chen Ping on “party rule” as a transitional phase:

Party rule is a preparation for democracy, and the age of party rule is a necessary precondition of the arrival of democracy. Party rule can also be seen as a particular historical era, a special form of elite democracy.

Chen approves of the idea that democratic politics could emerge peacefully from party rule, but he confesses that “the most intractable thing to deal with here is [the protection] of vested interests [by party leaders].”
On the program “Cause,” Chen Ping engaged in a dialogue with China Europe International Business School (CEIBS) professor Xu Xiaonian (许小年) about “using pardon and redemption to break through resistance to change.” This conversation made a deep impression on me.
Since the 1980s, the Chinese Communist Party has mulled the idea of sunshine measures that would set up a personal income reporting system for public officials. But to this day no progress has been made on this front. Vested interests have now become the most significant impediment to reform. At the same time, the influence of vested interests is the most basic reason why monopoly enterprises have avoided tackling necessary reforms.
Xu Xiaonian and Chen Ping expressed support for forgiving the crimes of some corrupt officials as a condition for building a system of integrity, and they advocated a policy of universal pardon for monopoly enterprises in exchange for privatization reform. Xu Xiaonian referred to this as “a rather practical path” of “incremental reform.”
These are divisive issues about which there is a lot of disagreement. But the Chen-Xu dialogue was thought-provoking:

Xu Xiaonian: This is about opening a road. If you don’t open up a road then it just won’t work.
Chen Ping: It’s about reform and betterment.
Xu Xiaonian: Reform. Reform.
Chen Ping: And reform means admission.
Xu Xiaonian: Yes, admission of the past.
Chen Ping: Admission.
Xu Xiaonian: Through acknowledgment, we can write off the past and look ahead. For the sake of national development. For the sake of the development of our national peoples. For the interests of each individual person. We must acknowledge the past, and look to the future. Our hope is to develop, and as best as possible to avoid dramatic swings in the process of reform.

This sort of dialogue stirs up complex emotions. It doesn’t simply hand you simple answers. It tells you the truth about the complexity of the situation facing China, and it demands reason of the government, of the party and of the people. It urges us to pull together to find a way out of the morass.
Rational and serious dialogue is not easily found in China. In fact, it is far, far too rare.
“What a revolutionary party should most fear is the failure to hear the voice of the people, for the most fearful thing is utter silence,” Deng Xiaoping said back in 1978. In the 1980s China went through a period of clamoring voices and rich debates. Chen Ping, in fact, was a researcher of political reform during that era. Now, 30 years on from Deng’s words, as China moves at great risk into the deep end of reform, what the country needs most urgently is powerful brainstorming.
At the moment, however, our poverty of good ideas is drowned out by cries heralding a glorious golden age.
In China’s information environment today, already narrow lines of communication are congested with empty and obsequious words serving the interests of power and profit, and harsh truths at the lower-levels of Chinese society are buried over.
Party rule is the reality that Chinese face today. But China’s rulers must be alert to the fact that the greatest danger to party rule is the failure to monitor and check power. The most disastrous result of the monopolization of speech and information is closing of one’s own eyes and ears.
Do our leaders today have friends who can speak up with forthright admonition? Can they tolerate frank remonstration? On major issues that concern the fate of our nation, do they understand the hearts and minds of the people?
Chinese media are venturing today through a deep gorge of history. Political controls, existential pressures, reliance on advertising, restrained by powerful interests — and this has caused many media to keep idealism at an arm’s length. They avoid risk. They listen, do as their told, and make money.
Compliant propaganda is now oddly mixed with the kitsch and low-brow as media bend to the commands of the government on the one hand, and tilt toward the demands of the market. Meanwhile, on those major issues of direct concern to the future of our country, there is no discussion, or there are only fits and starts. Substantive inquiry and argument, and free criticism, are relegated to the sidelines or eradicated altogether.
This is why I have such respect for Sun TV, and why I feel so distressed about the interruption of its mainland broadcasts.
In the past I believed that the space for Sun TV’s development on the mainland would be rather small. A channel that targets a specified audience must rely predominantly on service subscriptions, and this is not yet a mature model for the television market in mainland China. But I discovered this year that even in a tough Chinese media environment, squeezed between political and economic pressures, Sun TV had emerged as a successful oddity. Its investors were not focused on maximizing profits, but instead used investment gains from elsewhere to support media development.
Sun TV acted responsibly and ambitiously, opening up a valuable window on China’s realities, discussing its problems, and seeking solutions. Through its extraordinary efforts, the network brought out the core public character of the media.
And as it had anticipated, Sun TV resonated with audiences in mainland China.
China’s political landscape should not be denied the ray of sunshine afforded by the lively debate at Sun TV. And the public has the right to demand of the government that they make clear the reasons behind the interruption of the network’s signal.
For such a moderate voice to be snuffed out for such mysterious reasons in the midst of this bitter winter sends an ominous signal to the Chinese people.
[Posted by David Bandurski, December 11, 2009, 7:24pm HK]

By David Bandurski — This winter has brought another of China’s seasonal purges of fakery in its news media. The government is cracking down on “fake news reports,” and it plans to stamp out the problem of “fake journalists” by getting tougher about press accreditation.
But once again, all of these official measures overlook the fundamental issue driving media corruption in China.
In an environment where there are too few protections for conscientious journalists, and where the party’s chief prerogative remains the control of information, journalism is about monopoly and privilege rather than professional obligation — and that invites abuse, whether one has an official press card or not.

[ABOVE: Screenshot from Yinchuan Evening News of coverage of China’s new press cards in June 2009.]

Issued in October, China’s revised measures on accreditation for media personnel are essentially about making sure the legal right to gather information is granted only to those who can be trusted not to be naughty.
The idea seems to be that if the right people are granted “press cards” in the first place, and these cards are loaded with so many security features that they can’t be forged, then corrupt behavior will simply disappear.
While the General Administration of Press and Publications (GAPP) will do the issuing, news outlets themselves bear responsibility for watching their staff carefully. They must “thoroughly examine the daily work of their news journalists and news bureaus, working to reform and correct behavior in violation of [government] regulations, and carrying out news gathering in accordance with the law.”
Mainstream coverage was quick to seize on a passage about journalists’ “right to legal news gathering” as the “bright point” of the revised regulations.
The official Xinhua News Agency spelled out the key differences from the 2005 regulation in a series of bullet points, putting the rights-related language at the top:

1. [The regulation] further refines the definition of the news journalist and content relating to the protection of [journalists’] rights. The regulation states that those carrying out news and editorial activities in the People’s Republic of China must possess a press card issued by the General Administration of Press and Publications (GAPP). The regulation makes clear that ‘news journalist’ refers to those editorial personnel holding press cards who are under official hire [or “establishment”/编制] by news organizations or otherwise formally employed by them, and who work in a professional editorial capacity. The regulation states that journalists who possess press cards and are carrying out news gathering in accordance with the law are protected by law. Local governments, functional departments and their employees must provide the necessary conveniences and protections for legal news gathering activities. The regulation also states that no organizations or individuals may obstruct or interfere in news organizations or the legal news gathering activities of news journalists.

That might sound encouraging. We can’t forget, however, that there are no additional protections whatsoever to ensure that officials respect these new guidelines. The language about journalist being “protected by the law” is a nice sentiment, but its utility stops there.
And there are, besides, several things about the new measures that are worrying and puzzling.
First and foremost, the scope of the “journalist” has been further limited and demarcated, to the point that the measures seem to criminalize citizen journalism.
Writing in the Oriental Morning Post on November 13, columnist He Sanwei (何三畏) said the regulations on press accreditation went even further in making press passes “badges of privilege” (特权证), the only legitimate and legal manifestation of the public’s “right to know” (知情权) or “right to gather information” (采访权).
As He Sanwei pointed out, according to this revised “Regulation on Journalist Accreditation Cards,” citizens who are not “journalists” in the sense that they do not possess valid press cards issued by GAPP do not have the right to gather news (采访权). A logical consequence, should the regulation be actively enforced, would be that individual citizens and research organizations that carry out investigative work would be, or could be, restricted in their activities.
This creates a strange symmetry of problems with China’s National Ordinance on Openness of Government Information (政府信息公开条例). It has been argued that that legislation, which allows “citizens” to request access to a whole range of government information, does not apply to journalists, who are performing a state function. The updated rules on journalist accreditation, however, give only licensed journalists the right to gather information.
So if citizens attempt to access government information through the former, aren’t they violating the latter? It would certainly seem so, particularly if they share that information through new media of some kind. He writes:

Consider the tension and confusion that will occur simply as a result of the “Ordinance on Openness of Government Information” which has already gone into effect and the backwardness of the “Regulation on Journalist Accreditation Cards.” Before, [at least in theory] citizens could formally request that their local government release information on revenues and expenditures, and government offices that didn’t wish to release them would have no way of refusing. But now things will be different. The latter can simply ask: “Do you have a press card?”

Almost immediately, of course, local governments across China pounced on the opportunity to garnish the national rules with their own local strictures — to show just how serious they are about implementing policies from the center.
Leaders in Sichuan repeated the call to strengthen regulation and control:

We must use effective means to strengthen regulation of the industry, raising the level of management work for press cards and news bureaus. First, we must improve the system of oversight of press cards and news bureaus, building a three-part regulatory system comprising management by news organizations, supervision by the public, and government administrative oversight. We must also improve mechanisms for the reporting of violations, setting up telephone hotlines. Second, we must strictly standardize the conduct of media personnel, building dynamic regulatory mechanisms and a database of personnel showing poor conduct, achieving a situation where legal conduct is the rule and violations are pursued.

As defining and dealing with “poor conduct” will remain the prerogative of the local governments journalists are supposed to monitor and report on, it’s very easy to see how empty the language about rights really is.
But further, the measures may actually contribute to the underlying causes of media corruption by tethering the “right to report” so tightly together with press accreditation. As He Sanwei writes:

The legal right to report (合法采访权) is in fact precisely the legal right to freedom of expression (合法言论权). Even while it is practically impossible, the “regulations” have coupled the right to report (采访权) with press accreditation, and this has turned the press card into a kind of scarce resource with monetary value, and a kind of “dangerous weapon” (带危险性的武器).

In other words, these measures may have paved the way for further abuse. Because when the “right to report” (采访权), or to gather news, is monopolized by the party, this leads to rent-seeking behavior. Journalists without scruples — and what good would scruples do them in the Wild West climate of Chinese politics? — will be able to cash in on their unique privileges.
The government maintains the illusion that this sort of behavior only happens among “fake journalists” who are unlicensed. But it has historically occurred quite routinely even among those GAPP-licensed reporters who have sat through grueling training sessions in the “Marxist View of Journalism.”
These doubts and concerns about how ineffectual strong words and “stricter” press accreditation are in addressing the real underlying problems have been replayed over and over again in China’s commentary pages.
In a column almost exactly one year ago in Beijing Evening News, a veteran “real” journalist quipped about his excitement over China’s new high-tech press cards, which were then still months away, then suggested these would probably do little to curb the practice of “fake journalism.”
A full translation follows:

Only timely release of information can deal with the problem of fake reporters at its roots
December 3, 2009
There has been a lot of news about journalists lately. The reporters who break the news have themselves become a story taking up news space at many newspapers. First there was the Shanxi “hush fee” case, in which it was found that a group of “journalists” bearing fake press cards, after which the General Administration of Press and Publications (GAPP) cooperated closely with police to launch a fierce campaign again fake reporters. And then over the last few days we had this case of a real journalist from CCTV taken into custody, not by GAPP and the police, but rather by the Supreme People’s Procuratorate and local prosecutors in Shanxi province.
We must curb the practice of abusing the mandate of supervision by public opinion (or “watchdog journalism”) to seek personal profit whether it arises from fake reporters or real ones. This is a matter of the breaking of given laws, and ultimately a decision [on each case] must be rendered by a judge.
But this fuss over fake reporters has reached the point where now hundreds of thousands of journalists across the country must change over to new press cards. Around February next year, my colleagues and I will bid farewell to our “2003 version” (03版) press cards, and change over to our “2008 version” passes.
I’m prone to getting excited any time I hear about something new on the way. And even though I’ve only had my original press card for five years, I’m really looking forward to my new one. Of course, I won’t incur the cost [of getting the new pass] myself. The cost of the millions it will take to change them out will be split among Chinese news media. I hear that the new passes have added security measures over the old ones like those used in Renminbi bills [to discourage counterfeiting] — watermarks, security strips, surface gravure printing technology. The inside pages even have English-language content, one page for each year. It goes without saying that local area [governments] across China will also have to be equipped with machines that resemble currency detection devices [that can nose out counterfeit press cards]. Fortunately, press cards are not Renminbi bills, to be replaced with new ones when fakes are discovered. Otherwise the people at Beijing Mint could never keep up, no matter how much overtime they put in.
We should also thank our lucky stars that journalists don’t have professional attire, like the uniforms worn by police and prosecutors. Because there are people who assume their identities too, dressing up and becoming fake police, fake prosecutors, fake judges. In our case the only thing that needs to be done is to round up the fake [passes] — there’s no need to force everyone in the country into a change of clothes.
Media and the capital reported recently on the break up by police of a fake press card racket. Eight people were charging between 5,000 and 15,000 yuan for fake press cards bearing the name “China Law Observer Online” (中国法制观察网站). They were setting up “news investigative divisions” and “internal reference divisions” all over the country, making money by intimidating companies and lower-level governments with what they claimed were “reports undertaken jointly with CCTV, People’s Daily and 16 other central-level media”
Interestingly, the head of the site was named Ge You (葛优), and I don’t know whether this man just happened to have the same name as Ge You the movie star, or whether this was a purposeful lie . . . Besides reporting on work-related and medical accidents, this group of people had the gall to issue “news investigation dossiers” to local police offices in Henan, Shaanxi, Yunnan and other areas [to extort money with the threat of exposure]. Isn’t this a bit like the rat licking the cat’s nose? Surely, they are asking for death. To be honest, as a real journalist these last 30 years, I’ve never dared mess with these state offices. But then we have this female reporter from CCTV stepping right up and causing trouble.
In setting up this website and selling fake press cards for which people were willing to pay between 5,000 and 15,000 yuan just to join the ranks of the fake press, the people running this racket were looking to use the threat of negative news exposure against government offices to unjustly cash in. At the same time we know that many local governments are willing to fork out “silence fees” (封口费) in order to [buy off journalists and] prevent exposure — and this clearly shows us that the wolves and weasels go after the sickest ducks. As the saying goes: Don’t sell out your conscience, and the ghosts won’t come knocking at your door at night. If you’re guilt-free, why are you handing out “silence fees”? What is it you have to fear? The enterprise of the fake journalist, in other words, is on a certain level just the black eating the black.
Right now, when lower-level governments or bureaus get themselves into a bind, they don’t come clean to the news media. Instead they “pay money to sweep it under the rug” (花钱遮丑), “fork out cash to buy peace” (花钱买平安), “open their checkbook to save their official heads” (花钱保乌纱帽). And this is exactly the kind of behavior that has created an opportunity for extortion by fake journalists. I am quite certain that if problems can be quickly opened up to news media, then the market for “silence fees” will dry up for fake journalists. Then, of course, fake press cards would become worthless.
Once the new “08” press card versions are out, will there still be people counterfeiting them? That’s hard to say. Will fake journalists become extinct? That’s even harder to say. If we do not eradicate the soil that nurtures the fake journalist, if we still fall back on “silence fees” as expedient solutions, then even if our press cards are [loaded with security measures] like our Renminbi currency, then it will be difficult to ensure that journalists don’t fake it.

[Posted by David Bandurski, December 9, 2009, 5:39pm HK]