By David Bandurski — Today marks the one-year anniversary of the Wenchuan earthquake. According to the latest official numbers, 68,712 died in the quake, of which 5,335 were students, and 17,921 remain missing, bringing the official human toll of the earthquake to 86,633. Given the importance of this anniversary, one might expect it to dominate the front pages of major newspapers across China. But that’s not exactly the full story today.
The two major stories today are the earthquake anniversary and the discovery of China’s first domestic case of swine flu in the city of Chengdu, which happens to be just 50 miles from the epicenter of last year’s quake.
Both of these stories were given priority on the front page of the party’s official People’s Daily today.
The narrow news space at the top of People’s Daily, generally devoted to important policy announcements, ran a story about an important directive from President Hu Jintao on readiness in dealing with the H1NI virus. Hu said China “needed to further strengthen its leadership, continuing to take the initiative in tackling crisis preparedness work, scientifically and effectively carrying out preventive measures, using all strength to check the spread of the epidemic in our country and ensure the health and safety of the Chinese people.”

[ABOVE: The front page of the party’s official People’s Daily today.]

The larger story below this one (with photo) was about Hu Jintao’s meeting in Chengdu with various diplomats and heads of state present in Sichuan to attend the Wenchuan earthquake memorial event today. Hu Jintao expressed his thanks for the broad international support China was given in its time of need, and praised the way the Chinese people (the People’s Liberation Army, etc.) had “united in the struggle” for rescue and relief following the quake.
Most newspapers, party and commercial, have given prominence to the earthquake anniversary on their front pages. For an excellent collage of front pages across the country, visit this special page set up by QQ.com.
Here is the front page of today’s Southern Metropolis Daily, somewhat reminiscent of front pages we saw across China during the national period of mourning last year:

[ABOVE: The front page of today’s Southern Metropolis Daily: “.”]

But a few papers, notably Shanghai’s Oriental Morning Post, focussed their front page attention on the H1N1 story. Here is today’s Oriental Morning Post, which shows a photo of the swine flu patient — a Chinese graduate student from the University of Missouri — currently under treatment in Chengdu.

[Posted by David Bandurski, May 12, 2009, 12:07pm HK]

By Qian Gang — It has been a year already since the May 12 earthquake in Sichuan. And as we remember that painful experience, we must engage in thorough reflection. That means also taking a fresh look at what actual steps were taken to prevent or mitigate disaster. [Frontpage Image: “China earthquake” by Sweejak, available at Flickr.com under Creative Commons license.]
This does not mean that we must tear everything down and rebuild from scratch. In fact, we have many decent laws in our country that simply need to be put into action, and promptly. We have stringent regulations that through disuse have become empty scraps of paper.
With the help of the Internet, I have ferreted out some of these old documents, and I would like to share them with everyone here, so that we may draw important lessons from them.
On January 31, 2005, more than three years before the earthquake struck, the government of Sichuan province sent down government order No. 6 (“川府发”[2005]6号文件). It was called, “Notice Concerning Further Steps in the Work of Earthquake Prevention and Preparedness” (关于进一步加强防震减灾工作的通知). In accordance with regulations on openness in government affairs, this document was printed in the Sichuan Government Bulletin (四川政报) and is still available online today.

[ABOVE: Screenshot of the Sichuan Government Bulletin online site, with 2005 document No. 06 on enhancing earthquake preparedness. Were any of these steps taken?]

This document deals specifically with the strengthening of work toward preventing and mitigating earthquake damage, and lays out a full-scale strategy on how to “comprehensively improve seismic monitoring” (全面提高地震监测能力), “comprehensively raise our capacity for earthquake forecasting and emergency decision making and management” (高地震预报和应急决策管理水平), and how to conduct earthquake safety work in the countryside.
One thing in the document that should grab our attention as we read it today is its clear language about the need to “urgently rebuild and reinforce various dangerous and old schools” (及时改造和加固各级各类危、旧校舍).
When I continued searching along these lines, I was surprised to discover that many provinces and cities issued similar documents on earthquake disaster prevention and mitigation in early 2005.
Shaanxi said “priority had to be given to primary and secondary schools in rural areas, and to earthquake fortifications at hospitals” (要高度重视农村中小学校舍、医院的抗震设防). Guangxi said “educational departments and other relevant government offices at various levels must work urgently to rebuild and reinforce dangerous or old school buildings of various kinds in all areas” (各级教育主管部门和有关部门要及时改造和加固各级各类危、旧校舍). The city of Xi’an said “there is a need to pay special attention to the fortification of primary and secondary school structures against earthquakes, and those that do not comply with the demands of earthquake protection must be rebuilt” (要高度重视农村中小学校舍的抗震设防，对达不到抗震设防要求的要进行改造).
On July 28, 2005, on the very same day that the anniversary of the Tangshan Earthquake was commemorated, the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development held a national forum attended by the heads of earthquake disaster prevention offices across the country. The ministry demanded that “special attention be paid to the seismic fortification of large-scale public buildings” (特别注意大型公共建筑的抗震设防), that “leadership be strengthened and responsibility be taken, employing measures to ensure every effort is made to reduce injury and loss of life in the event of a disaster.”
Every single one of these documents makes reference to another important document, the State Council’s “Notice Concerning the Strengthening of Prevention and Mitigation Work for Earthquake Disasters” (No. 25, 2004). This document serves as the policy reference for all of these local and regional documents on earthquake readiness.
If you make a careful reading of the speech delivered by Zhang Peizhen (张培震) of the China Earthquake Administration’s Institute of Geology to the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress on June 30, 2008, everything becomes clear instantly. Zhang, who is head of the Institute of Geology, said: “In 2004, the China Earthquake Administration organized earthquake experts from around the country to carry out research on earthquake rise from 2005 to 2020. They designed 22 areas around the country that were considered to be priority regions for earthquake monitoring and defense.”
The documents released by the State Council and by various provincial and city governments at that time were clearly part of an overall government push for earthquake disaster prevention.
But the burning question is: were these documents actually translated into action?
For example, taking into account the fact that most all of these documents mention the urgent need to reinforce school buildings, we must go back and ask: after the government raised this issue, what was the response of the various government officials responsible? Did education offices file their own reports on the situation? Were any funds appropriated for this work? How were housing and development offices involved? Did lower-level governments put these policies or recommendations into effect? Further, did the media play the role it should have in publicizing the issue and monitoring the situation?
It is never too late to make amends. The first goal of reflecting back must be to root out fatal loopholes. We have to take a pragmatic approach in getting a clear picture of what actions were taken after the 2004 State Council document was handed down. With this information in hand, we must take a fresh look at every step in earthquake distaster prevention and mitigation work, up to the moment that the earthquake struck.
The comprehensive push for earthquake readiness that we can glimpse from these government documents, a push that was prompted by long-term earthquake forecasts from experts, was followed not long after by last year’s Wenchuan earthquake. These documents hold extremely valuable lessons as we review our policy successes and failures in disaster warning and prevention. The government, academics, the media, all of us must give these administrative clues the attention they deserve — and we can afford even less to willfully ignore them.
A version of this article appeared in the May 7 edition of Southern Weekend.
[Posted by David Bandurski, May 8, 2009, 12:36pm]

By Qian Gang — In the “great earthquake” of May 12, just one year ago, we saw the combined devastation of a natural disaster and social tensions in a way that was unprecedented. Chinese news reports on this major story unfolded in a complicated environment, and it is impossible to render a simple verdict about media coverage.
As rescue and relief efforts began, the release of information prompted the international news media to note a “rare openness” in news coverage within China. Subsequent restrictions on reporting of shoddy school construction told a very different story.
A Wildfire is Extinguished
The phenomenon of school collapses drew attention on the very day the earthquake struck. Wenchuan was pinpointed as the epicenter of the quake, and rescue teams and journalists sought to make their way there at the first available moment. But because the roads were destroyed, their way was blocked at the city of Dujiangyan.
In Dujiangyan, where the quake activity had not been the most serious, what everyone witnessed was not damage to residential buildings but rather the complete collapse of schools, which had resulted in a disproportionate loss of life among students and teachers. In a news extra in the early morning hours of May 13, Southern Metropolis Daily gave prominent place to a photo essay dispatched by their reporter on the scene in Dujiangyan. It was called “Masses of Students are Buried at Dujiangyan.”

[ABOVE: Screenshot of online coverage of a Southern Metropolis Daily report on school collapses in Dujiangyan, Sichuan, May 13, 2008.]

Early on May 13, the official Xinhua News Agency also released a dispatch called, “Quake Causes the Death of Around 400 Students at a Middle School in Sichuan’s Qingchuan County in Guangyuan Prefecture” [Video of CCTV coverage here].
The bulk of news reports about school collapses came in the first three weeks following the quake. During this time there were in fact bans from the Central Propaganda Department. On May 15 the propaganda department had ordered that “no specific examples of rescue efforts at schools be raised in reports on the Wenchuan earthquake rescue.” But not unlike the propaganda department order that media not dispatch journalists to the quake zone, this order quickly became a worthless scrap of paper.
By May 18, school collapses all over the disaster zone had been reported by Chinese media – in Dujiangyan City, Beichuan County, Wenchuan County, Shifang City, Qingchuan County, Mianzhu County and Pingwu County. In the vast majority of cases these schools had collapsed due to structural weaknesses and had been laid flat within moments. These collapsed structures offered a stark contrast to neighboring buildings, including many previously designated by the government as unsound, which had sustained little damage.
Not to be bested by commercial media such as Southern Metropolis Daily, party mouthpieces like People’s Daily Online, Xinhua Online and Sichuan Television also paid attention to the problem of school collapses in earlier reports. On May 16, People’s Daily Online arranged an online chat between Web users and officials and scholars from the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Housing and the China Earthquake Administration. During that session, officials said that “there were certainly quality issues behind the collapse of school buildings and we will conduct a strict and uncompromising investigation.”
The second wave of reporting on the issue of school collapses came after the national period of mourning from May 19 to 21. For three consecutive days, Southern Metropolis Daily ran a series of reports called “Xue Shang” (学殇), or “The Premature Death of Our Students.” The reports exposed even more bitter truths to the public, reporting how the party secretary of Mianzu City prostrated himself before the parents of primary school students as they petitioned for redress of wrongs. This prompted other news reports, and also resulted in the tightening of controls on reporting about school collapses.
But then came an even more powerful third wave of reporting on the issue. On May 29, Southern Weekend ran a whole series of reports – “Ministry of Housing Experts Rule Juyuan Middle School in Dujiangyan a Substandard Structure: An Investigation Into the Collapse of Dujiangyan’s Juyuan Middle School,” “Mianzhu Fuxin Second Primary: How the Collapsed School Buildings Were Constructed,” “Dongqi Middle School: Could Tragedy Have Been Averted?” On June 6, the weekly newsmagazine Outlook ran a report called, “An Investigation Into School Collapses in the Quake Zone: Why Did Old Residential Structures Stand?” On June 9, Caijing magazine published its own report, “School Buildings, A Chronicle of Concern.”
It was at this time that the Central Propaganda Department and local propaganda offices issued comprehensive bans on further coverage of the issue of school collapses. Caijing’s report was the last to be openly published, and it was also the most serious report.

[ABOVE: Screenshot of online coverage of the Caijing magazine report, “School Buildings, A Chronicle of Concern,” June 2008.]

Using the WiseNews Chinese language database to search for all mainland Chinese articles with the keywords “earthquake” and “school collapse” over the past year, you can spot a clear downward trend in the number of reports from late May onward. As the one-month anniversary of the earthquake approached, reports on shoddy school construction were virtually nonexistent.
On June 25, media in Sichuan province ran an article called “The Earthquake is the Culprit in the Destruction of Buildings: Survivors Must Look Rationally to the Future.” At this point, journalists from other provinces were pulled from the earthquake zone under a compulsory order. Media such as Southern Metropolis Daily and Southern Weekend that had reported on the problem of school collapses were severely criticized and eventually subjected to purges of editorial staff.
There have been three notable official overtures on the issue of shoddy school construction. The first came in the early days of the relief effort, the second on the occasion of the six-month anniversary, and the third during the “two meetings” of the National People’s Congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Congress earlier this year. In each instance the resolve to seek out the truth and hold people accountable has weakened.
In the earliest phase Chinese media used circuitous reporting tactics to circumvent propaganda bans. Xinhua News Agency reporter Zhu Yu (朱玉), for example, wrote a report called “The Disaster Prevention Strategy of a Rural Schoolmaster in the Quake Zone.” The report managed to underscore broader failures of government preparedness by glorifying a local school official in Sichuan who had for many years worked privately to reinforce his own classrooms. When the earthquake struck his school was not damaged. The Xinhua report was fiercely criticized by the Central Propaganda Department when it came out on May 23 .
By the time the Southern Metropolis Daily was criticized by authorities in late May 2008 the issue of school collapses was effectively untouchable. But media still seized the opportunity afforded by International Children’s Day on June 1 to honor students who had died.
The next major report skirting the edge of this issue came many months later, on February 6, 2009, as China Economic Times, a newspaper published by the Development Research Center of the State Council, ran a report by veteran investigative reporter and CMP fellow Wang Keqin (王克勤) called, “An Investigation Into the Collapse of the Bank of China Building in Mianzhu.” The report, which exposed construction quality problems very reminiscent of those behind school collapses, was again fiercely criticized by the Central Propaganda Department, which quickly issued an order for the recall of newspaper copies that had already been distributed.
Investigations into the collapse of schools in the quake zone did not cease despite restrictions. Even as the rubble was cleared away — and with it much critical evidence — the parents of students who died in the quake and other citizens in the disaster zone used their own cameras and mobile phones to document the scene. Many journalists from outside China sought at great risk to film documentaries in the quake zone, and many were detained by authorities, but at least three documentaries were completed.
Sichuanese writer and activist Tan Zuoren (谭作人) made scores of trips into the disaster zone, and an incomplete independent citizen survey of 64 schools that he released confirmed the details of at least 5,761 students that had died in the quake, the vast majority due to shoddy school buildings. On March 28, Tan Zuoren was arrested by authorities in Sichuan under charges of “inciting subversion of state power.” Tan’s independent numbers offer an interesting counterpoint to official numbers released this week saying 5,335 students died in the quake.
Beijing artist Ai Weiwei has also sought to conduct a citizen investigation online. His blog entries on his citizen investigation have been deleted as soon as they appear, but he has continued to make updates and re-posts. Up to April 27 he had already gathered specific information about 4,481 students who died in the quake.
The Political Logic of News Controls
News openness in the early stages of the earthquake relief effort was something to which we all bore witness. Controls were relaxed even on the issue of school collapse in the very early stages, and we saw party media like Xinhua News Agency and People’s Daily Online jumping into the fray. Early on, Chinese authorities also indicated that there would certainly be investigations into problems in school construction.
The environment steadily tightened, however, and there were three principal reasons for this. First and foremost, news reports on school collapses were implicating more and more officials. Many officials who previously served in areas impacted by the quake had now moved on to higher positions in the official hierarchy. In one of the more outstanding examples, Sichuan’s provincial propaganda chief, the very man whose responsibility it was to control media in the quake region, had served previously as the party secretary of Dujiangyan.
Former Sichuan officials were also now serving within the central party leadership in Beijing. News reports touching on official negligence were clearly disadvantageous to their “political survival.” And so the tangled fabric of power within the vast bureaucracy quickly knotted together in a recognition of mutual interests, and this force worked against the resolve at the center to get behind the problem of school collapses.
Secondly, the collapse of schools in the quake zone quickly set off a massive grassroots rights defense movement (民间维权行动). And thirdly, the school collapse issue touched on even deeper and more sensitive nerves — the upcoming Beijing Olympic Games and China’s international reputation. A top Sichuan education official, Lin Qiang (林强), even resigned his role as an Olympic torch bearer, saying in an interview with Southern Weekend on May 23, 2008, that “the truth is more important than glory.”
In the official response to reporting on the Sichuan earthquake, we also saw signs of emerging changes to media control and censorship in China, what we have called at the China Media Project “Control 2.0” (传媒控制升级版). It is fair to say that media controls in mainland China have never slackened, but “control” has undergone many changes, not just in methods and tactics but also in the standards applied to control — What should be controlled and what not? What should be controlled more strictly? What areas can be loosened?
In the past controls were largely ideological in nature. Propaganda organs of the party routinely punished media in their capacity as the guardians of Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought. But in the post-totalitarian era in China, in the era of what we can call “market Leninism,” ideology has faded, and as the power of the central party has waned, the power of local interest groups is on the rise.
The primary impetus for media control today is now direct and personal political interest. Officials and interest groups at various levels often manipulate propaganda offices to stifle news media, and the most effective charge they now levy against them is that they are “harmful to the national interest” or “damaging to social stability.” This is why, in the case of the Sichuan earthquake, we saw on the one hand that news reports on the disaster situation itself were far richer than we saw for previous major disasters (such as the quake at Tangshan), and on the other hand that reports on school collapses were suppressed. These reports on school collapses exposed the corrupt and negligent behavior of officials, and so were a direct challenge to their political interests.

[Posted by David Bandurski, May 7, 2009, 1:54pm HK]

By David Bandurski — May 1 this year marked the one-year anniversary of the implementation of China’s ordinance on government information disclosure, a moment hailed by some as a breakthrough for information access in China. Since late April, Chinese media have used the occasion of the ordinance’s one-year anniversary to talk about supposed advances in information freedoms in China — and also, in more isolated cases, about lingering challenges.
For the obstinate optimists there is no doubt reason enough to remain positive about the promises of the Ordinance on Openness of Government Information, or zhengfu xinxi gongkai tiaoli (政府信息公开条例). After all, as they frequently point out, it does mark a break in principle with the assumption that information should be secret as a matter of course.
But the real track record so far, as commentators such as Xu Zhiyong (许志永) have noted (BELOW), is certainly less than stellar.
In the rosy camp today is a piece from the Jinghua Times appearing also at People’s Daily Online. The article talks about how changes in China’s handling of the SARS outbreak in 2003 and the Sichuan earthquake last year reveal its changing attitude toward information release.

Concerning the release of information, there are many examples both positive and negative. Of these, there are two examples in particular etched into the minds of Chinese.
The negative [example] is the SARS epidemic six years ago. At that time, a small number of officials, out of various considerations, covered up the epidemic situation and spoke lies to the people, vastly delaying the opportunity to check the spread of SARS. Later, the reason we could win the battle against SARS was because we learned our lesson, releasing information on SARS every day through the media.
The positive [example] is the Wenchuan earthquake one year ago. Faced with a disaster of epic proportions, the government released information at the earliest moment, and people could access reliable information quickly through the Internet, radio, television, mobile SMS and other channels. The anxieties of the people quickly settled, and there was no place for rumors to abide. People across the country united as one, gathering their strength for the disaster relief effort.

“Late reporting and the cover up of ‘negative news’ suggests a guilty conscience and a basic inadequacy, and this is also a failure to understand the importance of information openness,” the article concluded. “Openness of information is about being earnest and withholding nothing; it is an expression of a government’s confidence.”
This statement about openness and government confidence needs to be tallied, of course, with the steady suppression of information that began just one week after the earthquake struck, and which stood in sharp contrast to the earlier overtures of openness. Many key issues, such as the collapse of school buildings and disaster preparedness (long-term earthquake prediction, etc), quickly became off-limits. And to this day, much information about the Sichuan quake, particularly touching on government decision-making, has been suppressed at the local, provincial and national levels.
In another piece of positive news today, the official Xinhua News Agency hailed the pending launch (on May 30) of a comprehensive national online platform for the release of government information. It appears that the site, clearly still in the works, will serve as a kind of information release clearing house, providing on a single platform bulletins and reports released by local governments across China.
Further coverage at Sichuan Online (SCOL) today provides a slightly more neutral view of the information release ordinance and its accomplishments.
The article cites as a further example of China’s new attitude of openness the degree of access afforded to foreign journalists in China during the Beijing Olympic Games. “The right of foreign journalists to report legally in our country has gained new long-term protections under Chinese law,” it says.
A number of the inherent weaknesses in China’s approach to information openness do come out in the Sichuan Online piece, the bulk of which is an interview with legal scholar Wang Xixin (王锡锌). Wang points out, for example, that China’s secrecy laws are overly broad and this often results in the failure to release information that falls under the new ordinance.
But one of the strongest criticisms of the inadequacies of the new information openness legislation came late last month from legal scholar and activist Xu Zhiyong (许志永), who in his personal blog turned a sharp eye on official work reports on information release put out by government offices in Beijing’s Haiding District.
A translation of Xu’s blog entry follows, but we also suggest that readers of Chinese take a quick look at another April 30 entry in which he discusses information release by looking at India as a case study:

After the Ordinance on Release of Government Information took effect, governments at various levels all built websites, formed information release work groups and designated special personnel in charge of information release. And for certain basic categories of information, such as government duties, laws and regulations, organizational guides (办事指南) and work briefs (工作动态), they did make information available. In Beijing’s Haidian District, for example, they set up a special government office — the information release management section of the district government — as well as six district-level government information release locations (政府信息公开场所). Various administrative organs and institutional units in the district set up active information release locations and mechanisms for information release upon request, and also designated special personnel to deal with the work of information release. According to Articles 9 through 12 of the Ordinance, which dictate the scope of information to be released, administrative organs throughout the district worked to sort through information and generate indexes, and according to Article 15 they released these of their own accord through government websites, government bulletins and other means making access convenient for the public . . .
Generally speaking, if citizens apply for the release of standard government documents (规范性文件), government work briefs (政府工作动态), work plans (工作规划), summary reports (总结报告), punitive administrative actions (行政处罚) and other government information of an ordinary nature, most of this information can be made available . . .
If citizens request information that perhaps touches on corruption, the abuse of administrative power and other rather sensitive types of information, they find it difficult to receive an answer. In Haidian, when citizen Zhu Fuxiang (朱福祥) requested information about land compensation, resettlement and land use contracts in Sijiqing (四季青镇), he was told that such information did not exist. When citizen Chen Yuhua (陈育华) requested that police authorities release receipts from the collection of fees for dog permits and registration, he received no answer. When lawyer Yang Huiwen (杨慧文) filed a request with 73 relevant government departments and district governments for the release of expenditures on public transportation and the use of public funds, no office released the information within the legally designated 15-day period, 34 offices demanded an extension for response to this request, and 20 were simply silent.
In a number of other well-known cases, such as a request by Shanghai lawyer Yan Yiming (严义明) that information be released concerning a 400 million yuan project, information release requests were denied.
According to the 2008 report released by the Information Release Management Section of the Haidian District Government, Haidian received 350 information requests in 2008. Of these, 340 requests were made in person, accounting for 97.1 percent of the total, and 10 requests were made via the Internet, accounting for 2.9 percent of the total. Looking at the content covered by these requests, matters of urban construction, neighborhood planning, housing rights and land rights, demolition and removal compensation, etc., accounted for 308 cases, or 88 percent. There were 13 requests [for information] concerning environmental impact assessments and environmental quality, accounting for 3.7 percent of the total. There were also 13 requests [for information] concerning population statistics and public sanitation, accounting for 3.7 percent of the total. Other types of requests accounted for 4.6 percent. As of December 31, 2008, of these 350 requests for information release, 340 were answered. Of these: 229 resulted in “agreement to release” (同意公开), accounting for 65.4 percent, and most of these concerned urban development, neighborhood planning, housing rights, land rights and demolition and removal compensation. Eight cases resulted in “agreement to partial release” (同意部分公开), accounting for 2.3 percent, and these largely concerned land requisition and compensation for demolition and removal. In 12 cases, accounting for 3.4 percent of the total, the ruling was that the information was “not permitted to be released” (不予公开), and these largely concerned land requisition and development. In 47 cases, 13.4 percent of the total, the response was that the “information does not exist” (信息不存在). In 10 cases, or 2.9 percent, the response was that the “information is not in the possession of this office” (非本机关掌握). A further 12 requests, or 3.4 percent, came back with responses saying that the “information requested is not clearly specified” (申请内容不明确). And for 23 requests, or 7.7 percent, the information requested was “not government information” (非政府信息).
Aside from this, a total of 168 requests for information release were made in 2008 [at lower administrative levels] in Haidian District if one adds together the annual work reports of the various council committees (局委), neighborhood units (街道) and townships and villages (乡镇). Of these, 35 were answered “”agreement to release”,” 40 were answered “agreement to partial release,” 39 were answered “information requested does not exist,” 12 were answered “not in possession of this office” and six were answered “release not permitted.” In 36 cases, the information requested was either deemed non-government information, the information requested was not clearly specified or corrections to the request were demanded.
I cannot say for certain whether or not the figures from the Haidian District Government are meant to include numbers from its lower offices, but when you add all of these various reports together, the annual report [on information release] released by the Haidian District Government does not tally with the numbers of its subordinate offices. And judging generally, the situation of information release requests being accommodated is not cause for encouragement.
The chief obstacles to the release of government information
The first issue is inherent flaws in the ordinance on information release. Compared to information openness laws in many other countries, our information release law is merely an administrative regulation (行政法规) and not a law formally promulgated by a legislative body. According to our regulation on information release, the scope of information release applies to the government only in the narrowest sense, not including legislative bodies, the political party or social organizations. The ordinance is overly general on the question of information secrecy, erecting a roadblock to the release of information from certain government offices. Then there is the further issue of blocks put in place by the law on secrecy and other laws (保密法等法律).
Inherent flaws in the ordinance have meant that information about the vast majority of actual policy decisions that impact on the lives of the people cannot be released. Many local governments are meticulous and prissy about the release of information. In its annual report, for example, the State Asset Regulatory Commission in Wenzhou expressly emphasized the issue of secrecy protection, and had the audacity even to define the three broad categories of “petitioning by the masses” (群众信访情况), “sensitive issues in enterprise restructuring” (企业改制敏感问题) and “enterprise commercial secrets” (企业商业秘密) as information that could not be released and that should be actively restricted. They required at the same time for “reliance upon distribution procedures for public documents, so that information planned for release is examined on a case to case basis prior to release in a three-step process, with examination first by office personnel, verification and approval by office heads and final re-checking by leaders in charge. Only pre-approved documents may be posted on the Web, to ensure that no secrets are leaked.”
What’s more, information release requests lack a system of legal recourse. Article 33 of the Ordinance states that in the event that the government fails to release information, the applicant may lodge a complaint with superior offices, and if the government violates the legal rights of the citizen “in the process of information release,” [the applicant] may bring administrative litigation. This stipulation lacks specificity — exactly what kind of government behavior warrants administrative litigation in refusing information release? Experience teaches that while some courts do accept such administrative litigation from citizens, other courts do not.
Legal recourse is extremely critical. There is an urgent need, therefore, for the Supreme People’s Court to come out with a judicial interpretation that clarifies the situations in which administrative litigation can be brought when information release requests are denied.
Thirdly, a civil society is insufficiently developed [in China]. The work of information release is inseparable from non-government organizations in our civil society at are concerned with the public welfare. These organizations are natural monitors of the government. Social organizations in our country are insufficiently developed, and they do not yet constitute movements for information release such as those we see in India and other countries.

FURTHER READING:
“Chang Ping: Openness and Privacy Must Switch Places in China,” China Media Project, August 28, 2008
“What Happened to China’s Era of ‘Sunshine Government’?” China Media Project, August 6, 2008
“China Newsweekly: Government ‘Cold’ on ‘Information Openness’“, China Media Project, July 31, 2008
[Posted by David Bandurski, May 5, 2009, 12:18pm HK]

By David Bandurski — In an article posted earlier this week at QQ.com’s select blog column, “Views” (腾讯评论), People’s University of China professor and former CMP fellow Zhang Ming (张鸣) discusses two recent cases in which Chinese citizens were jailed for criticizing local officials.
A number of Chinese commentators have related the recent Wang Shuai (王帅) and Wu Baoquan (吴保全) cases to the imperial practice of wenziyu (文字狱), or “incurring guilt by one’s words,” about which we have written previously.
But in the course of discussing these recent cases, Zhang Ming brings out their points of difference with the traditional notion of wenziyu, and makes the case for deeper political reforms to allow the monitoring of power from three levels, “the system, the public and the media.”
In his closing remarks, Zhang also relates the problem of monitoring local power to the question of how China can achieve the goals it has laid out in its Human Rights Action Plan.

“‘Opposing Defamation’ Means Covering Up and Protecting Your Official Post”
By Zhang Ming (张鸣)
After reading about Henan’s Wang Shuai (王帅) case and Inner Mongolia’s Wu Baoquan (吴保全) case (both were accused of crimes after criticizing the government), my initial response was that these were classic cases of wenziyu (文字狱), [or being jailed for one’s words]. But when I thought more carefully about it, these cases are a bit different from ancient cases of wenziyu [in China]. Ancient cases of wenziyu were generally initiated on the behalf of rulers at the highest level [such as the emperor], and the goal was to strive for uniformity of thought and opinion. Clearly, those who pursued and persecuted Wang Shuai and Wu Baoquan did not have such lofty priorities. What they wanted, first and foremost, was to ensure that information did not leak out, and secondly, that the dignity of the [local] ruler was preserved . . . We have every indication that this first priority was the most pressing of all.
We must admit that some of our local officials have made progress, and if the people, having had a bit too much to drink, criticize those who govern them, most will be spared revenge so long as they don’t publicly shake a finger at a leader’s nose. And there are even those [leaders] who might hear [the insults] but pretend not to. But when [local officials] mobilize police strength to conduct a manhunt for Wang Shuai over vast distances, when they direct the courts to sentence Wang Baoquan, answering his subsequent legal appeal by upping the severity of his sentence, when they march to war, when they break a butterfly on the wheel — this, certainly, is about expending every possible effort in the shortest space of time to keep a lid on information. It is about silencing the crowd with a single act of violence, so that they think twice before following the example.
I has to be said that some of our officials are rather incapable of hearing other opinions, particularly when these opinions are expressed in public forums. Their faces grow ruddy, their hearts race, and before long their anger is insatiable. If the opinions come from outside [their jurisdiction], from the media, their anger can only simmer. There are those bold enough to go after journalists [in other jurisdictions], but this is still rather risky. Therefore, most officials expend their energies on strengthening preventive measures. Just as one protects against the contingencies of fire and theft, they protect against reporters — they raise barriers, stop up holes, surround and harass invaders (防火防盗防记者，防、堵、围、缠). They stop at nothing. In some local areas, it is said, they have comprehensive response plans in place to deal with reporters [from the outside]. As soon as something major happens, the plan rolls into action, a complete three-dimensional defense system ensuring that all violating journalists go home empty-handed.
If the attitude [of these officials] to outsiders is one of resignation and impotent fury, just imagine the ulcerous, teeth-grinding hatred they must feel for those people under their hand who step out and expose things. The consensus among some officials is that internal matters must be handled internally, and those things that cannot be handled internally simply have to wait for internal resolution. Exposing problems to the outside is blasphemous, an act of betrayal, and these betrayals naturally have to be cleared away, however heavy a hand it takes. [Given this unspoken principle at work], to fall afoul of one leader is to fall afoul of them all.
American scholar Philip Kuhn wrote in his book Rebellion and Its Enemies in Late Imperial China that under the imperial system in China the relationship of the center to the localities was in fact a relationship premised on information control. The emperor wished to know all, but local officials expended every effort to ensure the emperor did not know everything. It is not difficult to imagine the upshot of this worry and paranoia at the top and beguilement below . . . This war of information control is not necessarily behind us today. In an administrative system in which only the higher-ups can promise blessing or misfortune, it doesn’t matter what you’ve done so long as you can conceal it from your superiors, so it’s as though nothing ever happened. Bureaucratic organs are by nature bottom-loaded pyramidal structures, so there is ample room for deceiving those above. And if someone exposes information to the outside, you need only handle the situation quickly so things don’t get out of control . . .
In this sort of system, the proverb that says a straight foot is not afraid of a crooked shoe has no currency . . . If we really want to achieve openness in government affairs, we must first reform this system, in which [officials] are only responsible to their superiors. We must achieve monitoring at three levels — the system, the public and the media. We must start with institutional reform, enabling our Human Rights Action Plan to be implemented truly. Otherwise, stories like those of Wang Shuai and Wu Baoquan will be replayed over and over again.

[Posted by David Bandurski, April 30, 2009, 12:01pm HK]

By David Bandurski — Censorship in China is bewildering in its complexity and often its inconsistency. On April 25, the Yangcheng Evening News ran an editorial by Yuan Minjie (袁敏杰) that scratches its brow over the highly inconsistent censorship standards applied at Internet sites in China. The editorial raises at least two points of interest concerning media control policies and news and editorial coverage in China.
The first is that we do see journalists, in editorials in particular, turning to the issue of censorship itself, giving us public glimpses into the inner workings of media control. Obviously, this coverage has its limitations, and in-depth news coverage of censorship tactics like the news commentary group (阅评组) or Internet commentators is off limits.
Secondly, Yuan Minjie’s editorial suggests, contrary to the dominant narrative about the Internet in China — namely, that it is purely a force of openness constantly frustrating attempts at government control — that controls on content are often stricter for the Internet than for traditional media.
One important but often overlooked reason for this is that Internet companies are not part of China’s traditional news structure, and therefore do not have the powerful official backing that sometimes allows newspapers and magazines to be bolder. Websites, that is to say, are more exposed.
For an in-depth study of how Chinese Internet companies censor content, readers should see Rebecca MacKinnon’s excellent study, “China’s Censorship 2.0: How companies censor bloggers.”

Yuan’s arguments about censorship are also interesting because he makes a case against the arbitrariness of blog censorship even as he supports (at least publicly) the broader goals and priorities of media control.
“Yes, we need to safeguard the overall situation and online propaganda discipline; we need to clear up the Internet environment and uphold correct guidance of public opinion,” he writes. “But this process of safeguarding, clearing up and correcting should happen rationally, with fairness, seriousness and strict principles guiding behavior.”
A partial translation of Yuan’s editorial in Yangcheng Evening News follows:

“Posts Should Be Deleted Rationally”
Yuan Minjie (袁敏杰)
On the evening of April 12, I posted an article called “The Heights of Niu Han and the Sadness of the Literary Man” on my personal Weblog, and a friend of mine who is a veteran media worker wrote a very long comment post in response after reading through it. He raised a number of important and profound points exploring the maladies of cultural figures today, their root causes and the climate facing cultural people today. His overall tone was one of concern. This journalist also provided examples like one he saw with his own eyes, how when an artist who typically spoke about “artistic integrity” went before the head of the government department that oversaw him he became a servile toady, behaving in such a fawning manner it made [the journalist] sick. I appreciated his remarks. But when I opened my blog to have a look on the 13th, I found that this comment had already disappeared! Plenty of other comments were there, but this one had gone “missing.”
Was that not strange? Clearly, it had been deleted by the manager of the blog site! I couldn’t understand it. This comment was talking about quite ordinary truths, and contained nothing that went over the line. What exactly had been its crime? Where had it gone wrong that it should be obliterated?
What’s more, I cannot understand why some words and sentiments can appear as a matter of course in the print media, but are a problem as soon as they make it into Internet blogs. Could it be that there is an entirely different set of propaganda policies and news discipline for Internet media? I really don’t get it, and I can’t understand it.
I completely understand that online media also [like their traditional media counterparts] must respect relevant regulations, that they must have relevant controls, that they are subject also to news and propaganda policies and discipline, that they work by their own rules and special nature. At the same time, there is the question of the media environment [of competitiveness for limited resources] and the need for self-preservation. These things I can understand. But the problem is that those in the online media need to raise their level of personal character, correctly ascertaining how relevant policies and discipline should be carried out.
In my view, the way managers of blogs at Sina.com, for example, delete posts from Web users needs to be further considered. Personally, I think that in order to maintain the overall [political] situation (维护大局) there are some comments that should be deleted. Nevertheless, some opinions from Web users that should not be deleted meet their doom. What I find puzzling is that you can also see this bizarre situation whereby the most raw verbal streams of abuse and nastiness are systematically overlooked, and this kind of stuff is hardy enough to survive, so that is comes “completely ordinary.” That which should be deleted remains, and that which should not be deleted is deleted without an afterthought. Is that ordinary, I ask? I cannot for the life of me understand what principles and standards for deletion are being applied at Sina.com. Perhaps these content managers are “following their own inclinations” (跟着自己感觉走)? As I see it, they have at the very least very strong subjectivities . . . I’m afraid the problem is one of personal character. That is to say, the personal characters of these content managers determines their “level of post deletion.”
Yes, we need to safeguard the overall situation and online propaganda discipline. We need to clear up the Internet environment and uphold correct guidance of public opinion. But this process of safeguarding, clearing up and correcting should happen rationally, with fairness, seriousness and strict principles guiding behavior. This [business of discipline] should not come down to the arbitrary personal acts of content managers. This is exactly where the problem lies. The low personal character of a number of Internet content managers has lowered the character of online controls generally and blog controls specifically, so that the whole business has reached a point of ridiculousness . . .

[Posted by David Bandurski, April 28, 2009, 11:44am]

By David Bandurski — Over the weekend, the official party daily newspaper of Tieling, one of the largest cities in China’s northern Liaoning province, celebrated its fortieth anniversary. The official news release on the anniversary of this local party newspaper offers an unexceptional but nevertheless interesting glimpse at the dynamics of CONTROL and CHANGE in China’s media.
The news release focusses, first and foremost, on propaganda discipline (CONTROL) and the paper’s role as the voice of CCP officials at the city level. It is considered a mark of excellence that the paper has “held steadfastly these forty years to correct guidance of public opinion.”
This first section, then, is a reminder that the unshakeable principle governing China’s media today remains: “the party runs the media” (党管传媒).

[ABOVE: The April 25, 2009, edition of Liaoning Evening Post runs news of the 40-year anniversary of Tieling Daily.]

Nevertheless, CHANGE has happened in China’s media, with commercialization and the rise of the Internet being two major contributing factors.
In the second portion of the news release on the newspaper’s anniversary, Tieling Daily is praised for moving forward with commercial reforms, which encompass enterprise-style management and business tie-ups with other local and regional media (“integration of news assets”).
It should be noted that these commercial reforms, which fall under the general category of “cultural industry reforms” (文化体制改革), are not meant to be a challenge in any way to the principles of CONTROL stated above. [SEE ALSO Hu Jintao’s “Three Closenesses” policy.]

Tieling Daily Marks 40 Years (《铁岭日报》纪念创刊40周年)
On April 24, Tieling Daily celebrated its 40th birthday, and the newspaper held a proud celebration in honor of the occasion. As an organ newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party in Tieling, Tieling Daily has, under the correct leadership of the city’s party committee, held steadfastly these forty years to correct guidance of public opinion, deeply propagated the party’s lines, principles and policies, faithfully recorded the historical process of vigorous social and economic development [in Tieling], earnestly eulogized the achievements of building a new and great Tieling, truthfully reflected the voices and demands of the masses in Tieling, and served as a spiritual impetus and public opinion support for promotoing the scientific development, harmonious development and striding development in Tieling.
Particularly over the past year, under the correct leadership and support of the CCP at the provincial and city levels, [the paper has] carried out strategic and cross-regional cooperation with the Liaoning Newspaper Group (辽报集团), and has succeeded in cooperating to publish the Tieling edition of the Liaoshen Evening Post (辽沈晚报), setting a [historical] precedent in national cultural industry reform (全国文化体制改革) by becoming a successful example of regional resource integration (区域整合资源). Whether it has been in integration news assets or in raising the quality of the newspaper, whether it has been in stabilizing economic benefits or elevating the behavior of its work force, whether it has been in publishing a full-color newspaper or in launching a “skinny edition” (瘦报) [NOTE: This is a tabloid-sized paper of dimensions 1:1.629], [Tieling Daily has] not only achieved clear results but has drawn a powerful response within the industry.

[Posted by David Bandurski, April 27, 2009, 2:50pm HK]

By David Bandurski — The 2009 Group of 20 summit concluded in London earlier this month, but debate continues in China’s media over whether and how the summit reflected China’s changing role in the world. Many news articles and editorials in China played up the country’s role and reception in London. But some in China have expressed concern that China’s reach has become greater than its grasp.
The discussion surrounding the G20 summit is also part of a more extended debate over China’s role and identity in the world, which has also centered recently around Unhappy China, a controversial new book arguing for a more robust role for China in international affairs.

[ABOVE: Xinhua News Agency coverage online of the G20 summit. Where does China stand?]

In the following editorial, published in Wuhan’s Changjiang News yesterday and re-run widely at major Chinese Web portals, journalist Ding Gang points to a gap in perceptions of China’s role at the recent summit and suggests China should be more cautious in making noise domestically about its preeminence globally.

“Does China Stand at the Center of the World Stage?”
By Ding Gang (丁刚)
Changjiang Times
April 14, 2009
The curtain has gone down on the G20 Summit, and China’s “showing” has made a deep impression on people across the world. As an emerging force, China plays a vital role in this globalized age of ours. But saying on this basis that China “stands at the center of the world stage,” that “China has risen in the ranks of world leadership,” or that an elevation of China’s role has “overturned American-European dominance” is, I’m afraid, a bit premature.
In recent days I have met a couple of [Chinese] reporters who just returned from covering [the summit] in London, and based on their experience the attention China received fell far short of that loudly exclaimed by China’s own media, and this was very different from the sense they had upon leaving China [for London]. I hear that one Chinese reporter in London nudged in a question at a news conference: “How much money does China plan to donate to the International Monetary Fund (IMF)?” he asked.
Clearly, in this reporter’s question one can sense a fullness of pride and eagerness. But unfortunately he hasn’t gotten the most rudimentary facts straight. First of all, China was deciding only whether to buy IMF bonds, not whether to donate funds. Secondly, how many bonds China buys is entirely a question of its “purchasing power,” and compared to other developed nations China is not a strong “buyer.”
There can be little doubt that at this summit meeting it was still U.S. President [Barack] Obama who drew the most attention, and the topic most discussed were various conflicts over how Europe and the U.S. should carry out reforms and rescue the markets. French President Sarkozy also managed to steal away some attention, principally because of his public relations finesse in going up against Britain and the U.S. ahead of the summit. Generally speaking, the degree of attention paid by the global media to various participants in the summit was commensurate with the position of these participants internationally.
This makes me think of a survey released not long ago by a well-known global market research firm. In this survey, 92 percent of respondents in China believed that “China plays an active role in the world.” Only 39 percent of respondents in the 20 other countries surveyed held the same view [of China]. America’s Washington Post remarked on this note that, “China is overly optimistic about its own image.”
The Washington Post‘s conclusion was far too subjective. Because the cause of Chinese people’s understanding of China’s role was not a surplus of optimism, but rather a different “standard.” What foreigners look at is how much China has paid out internationally, how much responsibility it has taken up, and what sort of values it has provided that resonate with others; Most Chinese, on the other hand, believe that if you handle your own business well, that is the best way to prove useful. The gap between these two [understandings] suggests that China does not right now have the actual strength to stand center stage globally, nor has it prepared itself psychologically on this account.
Actually, rights and responsibilities go hand in hand in the international system. If we are not psychologically or materially prepared and have neither the ability or the inclination to take on more responsibility, but still we give ourselves high-pitched praise for China’s role, this will invisibly raise the expectations of the international community toward China and ultimately expose a gap between our words and our actions.
Judging from China’s current level of development, we can say that we have just walked from the audience onto the stage, but we are far from being the principal performer. I’m afraid that China’s road to center stage is still a long one. We cannot underestimate ourselves, but no good can come either from overestimating ourselves — that would only make us incurably unhappy.

The following Web postings appear after the above editorial at QQ.com.

From Beijing: Chinese have too high an opinion of themselves. This is the ugly result of media propaganda.
From Nanning: The Chinese people are standing at the center of the world stage, it’s just that white people don’t want to admit it. Chinese people don’t want to pull out money to fix problems that white people created in the first place . . . Honestly, if it were me, I wouldn’t want to help them solve problems either. I would just fix the problems of the Third World and make white people feel bitter.
From Urumqi: Our grade school children need to study up on the saying, “Every dog is a lion at home.” [An idiom about extreme arrogance]
From Wenzhou: China is so lacking in people of ability, we fall way behind in youth education, we face various problems, including societal problems, that are serious and vexing — at this time we need to keep our heads clear. There is no need for pessimism. Nor is there any cause for extreme arrogance.
From Loudi: Who cares what others think about us. The important thing is that we keep getting stronger.
From Xi’an: We need to be small on enemy talk and big on action.
From Huizhou: Those hot-headed people who think China is so developed and so powerful need to wake up and go to the countryside that accounts for most of our population and land mass. The vast majority of people there subsist [not live] in a poor state. Can our country call itself great? Stop dreaming and take some real action. The important thing is whether we can ensure that our own people can buy homes, seek medical care or get an education.
From Yangquan:
All of these achievements belong to the media of our great Motherland. Is the nightly newscast on CCTV even watchable these days? Aside from the empty boasting, all you can hear are songs of praise.

[Posted by David Bandurski, April 15, 2009, 12:55pm HK]