By David Bandurski — The dynamics of control and change in China’s media are enough to leave even more experienced observers feeling disoriented. China intermittently yields up stories like this one and this one, which tell us things are going from bad to worse, and then puzzlers like this one, which tell us China is on the verge of an Internet-driven glasnost. [Frontpage: 2008 report in SMD of top Shenzhen leader Liu Yupu on “thought liberation.”]
So which version are we supposed to believe?
The shutdown of the Freezing Point supplement of China Youth Daily in 2006 was surely an ill-omen, right? But in his keynote speech at the SOPA Awards the following year, ousted Freezing Point editor and former CMP fellow Li Datong (李大同) threw foreign correspondents a curveball by talking about progress:

And yet, the solid ice is melting, the layers are beginning to soften and split apart, and beneath the crushing of this ice of autocracy, the Chinese people are demanding democracy and freedom.

In one portion of his speech, Li hit directly on the paradox of CONTROL and CHANGE:

In point of fact, there has never been a “loosening” of controls. The censorship system has never undergone substantive change, even if its methods have become more nuanced and concealed. But in spite of this fact, change is unavoidable.
Imagine the traditional news control system as a balloon seeking to encompass the media and prevent their escape. This balloon swells up bigger and bigger, so that its skin becomes thinner and thinner. As this process continues, I leave it to your imagination to picture what will happen.

I was standing right next to Li that night, delivering the translation, and I remember the gaping, incredulous stares. When a journalist challenged Li during the Q&A session to provide one, just ONE, concrete example of the progress he was talking about, he answered simply: “I am an example.”
We are all waiting for the balloon to burst.
Sometimes we stand with the optimists. We feel sure that the last gust of expression is imminent, the one that will strain a failing system to breaking point. Sometimes we stand with the pessimists, marveling at the extraordinary resilience of authoritarianism with Chinese characteristics.
China’s odd ecology of intermittently vibrant but always constrained speech is a difficult environment to understand. But it has to be understood through the dynamics of CONTROL and CHANGE.
We have to begin by divesting ourselves of the notion that CHANGE necessarily means a loosening of controls, or that CONTROL necessarily eclipses change. We need to get rid of the simplistic metaphor we see constantly in foreign news coverage of China’s media — the one about expansion and contraction, of gains made and then reversed by the proverbial “media crackdown.” (There can, of course, actually be crackdowns and reversals — but they happen more frequently, in my view, in Western newspapers than they do in reality).
Let us meditate again on Li Datong’s paradox:

In point of fact, there has never been a “loosening” of controls . . . But in spite of this fact, change is unavoidable.

As we’ve emphasized continually over the last couple of years at CMP, the dynamics of CONTROL and CHANGE are both critical to understanding China’s media environment.
Some of this CHANGE has been propelled by the party itself, with the insistent precondition that CONTROL remain the top priority. The most obvious examples are media commercialization, a process that began in the 1990s, and the building of China’s communications infrastructure (including the Internet).
Some of this CHANGE, arguably, has come as a somewhat organic consequence of the abovementioned changes. One could argue, for example, that media commercialization and the rise of the Internet have helped to foster a stronger sense of professionalism among Chinese journalists, epitomized by the likes of Caijing and Southern Metropolis Daily. The emergence of investigative reporting in China in the late 1990s was certainly one example, although, as I argue in the most recent issue of the Far Eastern Economic Review, those gains are at the moment facing substantial threats.
To complicate matters, CONTROL changes to accommodate CHANGE, which is why we’ve introduced terms like CONTROL 2.0 to describe loosely the evolving techniques of censorship and propaganda. As we’ve already written, examples of CHANGE to propaganda tactics under Hu Jintao have been evident since at least January 2007, and in some sense culminated in his June 2008 speech on media policy.
Getting down to business, the most recent example we have at the local level in China of the dynamics of CONTROL and CHANGE at work in CCP media policy came late last week from the city of Shenzhen.
Shenzhen’s top leaders, including party secretary Liu Yupu (刘玉浦) and propaganda minister Wang Jingsheng (王京生), visited with leaders from the city’s top three media groups on March 12. At the “forum” they heard a report on work carried out by the “city’s propaganda system” (我市宣传系统) and then offered their own remarks.
Secretary Liu emphasized first and foremost the CONTROL aspect of “news and propaganda work.” He spoke in no uncertain terms about the media as “mouthpieces”, or houshe (喉舌), of the local party and the government.

In his speech, Liu Yupu affirmed the achievements made on the front lines of news, propaganda and culture in Shenzhen, saying that news and propaganda work in Shenzhen “had distinguished itself and had its own characteristics” (很有特色, 也很出色). He expressed heartfelt thanks to cadres and employees in the propaganda office and at news and publishing units on behalf of the party and the government. Under the leadership of the [Shenzhen] party committee, he said, and under the direction of the [municipal] propaganda office, media in our city had been of service to overall interests and guided public opinion surrounding core work of the party and government, and had done much highly effective work. The party and government at the city level were “extremely happy and extremely at ease” with the work of [the city’s] three major enterprise groups covering newspaper, broadcasting and publishing.
Particularly in the last year, our city’s news and propaganda system artfully planned a series of propaganda topics and cultural products closely dealing with the 30th anniversary of economic reform and opening, creating a favorable public opinion environment for Shenzhen as a soaring banner of economic reforms. Facing the struggle against snowstorms, the earthquake relief efforts, flood relief efforts and other tough stories, [Shenzhen media] upheld correct guidance of public opinion, playing an important role in mobilizing various forces against these natural disasters, and in stirring the strength and emotions of the people . . .
Liu Yupu expressed an urgent hope that our city’s news and propaganda work and the work of public opinion guidance take a further step of progress under the new circumstances [of the global economic downturn, etc.]. He emphasized that newspapers, broadcast outlets and publishing groups are the most critical mouthpieces of the party and government in Shenzhen, and that they must further strengthen their own sense of political responsibility, remaining firm in maintaining a correct political direction, establishing a sharp political attitude and news orientation, maintaining a high level of consonance with the central party, the State Council, the provincial-level party and government, and the city-level party and government . . . [Speaks about the need for “political acuity” and says the content and presentation of major media “do not just represent the newspapers and TV stations themselves, but also represent the party committee and the municipal government.”] Therefore, [media] must resolutely take as their own “lifeline” the upholding of correct guidance of public opinion (坚定不移地把坚持正确导向作为自己的”生命线”).

This last statement by Secretary Liu — about “guidance” as the “lifeline” — is key because it frames the direct relationship between political good behavior and commercial well-being. These media may rely predominantly or entirely on readers and advertisers, but the most basic precondition of playing that game is that they serve first and foremost the interests of party leaders.
The language of CONTROL is followed directly in Liu’s remarks by the language of CHANGE, and the focus is on commercial viability as a means of achieving both economic and political vitality (so this is at once about CHANGE and CONTROL). The idea, in other words, is that media can serve a propaganda role while at the same time making their “media products” palatable enough that they sustain themselves commercially and even work as an engine of economic growth.
This idea goes back to the 1990s, but it was Hu Jintao again who more concretely formulated this approach to propaganda and commercial CHANGE back in 2002. The policy was known as the “Three Closenesses,” or santiejin (三贴近).
Liu’s statement about “correct guidance” as the “lifeline” of media is followed by an invocation of the “Three Closenesses”:

Liu Yupu encouraged our city’s media to further hold to the principle of the “Three Closenesses,” continuing to strengthen the attractiveness and infectiousness of news and propaganda work and public opinion guidance. They must [he said] stand firm in Shenzhen, face the whole nation, face the whole world, accelerate their development and work hard to create national and world-class media that are unique and of high quality (“努力打造有特色, 高水平的全国, 全世界的一流媒体”). “I hope your newspapers and TV stations have more and more voices of the people, more and more voices from the front lines of labor, more and more voices from the grassroots, making newspapers and television feel closer, more readable and watchable . . . continually broadening the influence of mainstream media, and fighting to become the most welcome newspapers and television broadcasters among readers and viewers,” [said Secretary Liu].

The language of CHANGE in this passage is almost enticing. More “voices of the people”? More “voices from the front lines of labor”? Isn’t Liu Yupu asking the media to serve as vehicles of public expression?
No. Emphatically, NO.
Liu Yupu is, in point of fact, asking Shenzhen media to titillate the masses while they staunchly maintain correct guidance of public opinion.
That does not necessarily mean newspaper pages and television programs will be utterly devoid of substance. But nor does it mean the media will be permitted to do even soft-glove reporting on tough social issues.
It means, if you’re an optimist like Li Datong, that there may be sufficient space opened up in the tug-of-war between CONTROL and CHANGE — what our director Qian Gang has called CHAOS in his “Three C’s” formula — to push relentlessly against the source of CONTROL.
If you’re a pessimist? . . . Stay tuned.
[Posted by David Bandurski, March 19, 2009, 4:03pm HK]

By David Bandurski — The “elude the cat” incident continues to draw some interesting responses, particularly in China’s editorial pages. This time, we spare readers our badgering thoughts and observations and cut straight to the source. Some of the best coverage — thanks to Bill Bishop for the tip — can be found in the most recent issue of Caijing magazine.
The following is a partial translation of an editorial by Xiao Han (萧瀚), Caijing‘s chief legal counsel.
Xiao looks at the “elude the cat” case and argues that China lacks the basic institutional conditions necessary to bear out truths that the public finds credible — “namely, judicial independence, making the investigative process public and freedom of speech.”
Due entirely to time restrictions, we have left out several paragraphs, all of which are valuable. We strongly encourage readers of Chinese to give the piece the time it deserves:

“Truth and Authority”
Xiao Han (萧瀚)
The most important lesson in the establishment and experience of the “online investigative team” in the “elude the cat” incident is in that it reminds all of us: if we cannot effectively improve our basic institutions then we cannot provide the most basic mechanisms to guarantee the truth, and all other extrinsic efforts will come to nothing.
When the “online investigation committee” set into motion and directed by Yunnan’s deputy propaganda chief Wu Hao (伍皓) became involved in the “elude the cat” incident, this drew even more widespread attention [to the case]. But up to now this investigative committee’s report has been unable to draw any of its own conclusions. For anyone with a basic knowledge of China’s current legal system and a basic familiarity with our judicial system, this result can only be seen as normal. In nations with the strictest traditions of rule of law such as Britain and America, the hope that this sort of “online investigative committee” might draw out the truth behind a death case is inconceivable and not something to be taken seriously. How far must the credibility of state judicial authorities sink before people will place their hopes in an investigation of this sort?
The key point does not lie, in fact, in the question of whether or not this “online investigative committee” can draw its own conclusions in this case. It is in not reaching a conclusion that they have acted responsibly, not the opposite. The committee has no legal capacity to investigate this case, nor do they have the kind of legal authority vested in the prosecutor’s office. So it is only natural that the committee should reach no conclusion. This case does have symbolic meaning for social mentality and for public opinion in present-day China — symbolic because the fact that Web users have participated in an investigation in the capacity of ordinary citizens means that a judicial process that has hitherto been beyond public scrutiny has now shown a basic mentality of openness to the public, and this is something to be praised.
Nevertheless, we should not overstate the significance of this, and indeed we should be alarmed under certain circumstances. If situations like this one [in Yunnan] are not institutionally chaperoned, it is entirely conceivable they will bring two ugly consequences: first, the judicial process might be unjustifiably intruded upon by inexpert members of the public, resulting in lack of judicial independence; second, if a professional legal system is not supported by benign institutions, the truth about cases will be abandoned to a cycle of endless public suspicion regardless of whether or not the facts actually emerged in the result rendered by the justice system, and the administration of justice will lose all credibility and authority.
It is plainly inadequate to look to methods like this “online investigation committee” to avoid these two unwanted consequences. This is because the revelation of facts in important and particularly horrifying cases relies on the [justice] system itself. If there is no institutional support [for the truth], extrinsic conditions [like Web user committees] will not bring the truth out even if they are improved. Customarily . . . the bearing out of the truth relies on several basic institutional conditions, namely judicial independence, making the investigative process public (in this process lawyers can enter the picture) and freedom of speech. These institutional conditions are the preconditions for the retaining of truth in any society. China at present lacks these basic institutions.
. . . The problem is that when these three basic conditions are lacking, this creates a situation in which the authority of public power overrides society itself, and this is tantamount to public power being elevated above society [and beyond the lives and psychology of citizens]. This necessarily results in public power’s loss of credibility and authority. Some cases [in China] have arisen as a result of government offices monopolizing information channels, so that the situation becomes, “Whatever they say is subject to disbelief”; and yet the same investigative outcome, if rendered by an impartial and independent news organization, might be met with a definite degree of trust.

[Posted by David Bandurski, March 3, 2009]

By David Bandurski — China’s leaders seem to be scoring major points with the public again this week for making themselves accessible on the Internet. This time it is Premier Wen Jiabao (温家宝) who is grabbing the headlines for an event newspapers and Web portals are reporting — déjà vu — as “unprecedented.” Saturday, we are told, marked “the first time Premier Wen Jiabao has chatted online with Web friends.”
Wen fielded questions about education, healthcare and the progress of reconstruction work in earthquake-ravaged Sichuan. But the real focus is Wen’s act of openness itself, which has been understood by some as a grand gesture promoting “online democracy” (网络民主).

[ABOVE: Screenshot of Gov.cn site with images of Premier Wen interacting with the Web masses.]

Xinhua News Agency writes today that “overseas media have recognized that the Internet has steadily raised the civic mindedness and sense of participation in state affairs among the Chinese public, and 2009 will be China’s ‘Year of Online Politics.'”
One of the overseas media cited, Hong Kong’s PRC-funded Ta Kung Pao, wrote that Wen’s online dialogue “once again threw the spotlight on ‘online democracy,’ this new form of democratic expression.”
It’s all so very exciting, right?
Well, for those who believe Wen’s gesture means the voices of ordinary Chinese are getting heard, let’s begin by boiling down all of this hype with a bit of grade school mathematics. The full text of the session is here, but let’s just suppose that Wen can cogently address one question every 60 seconds. That’s 120 questions from 120 “netizens” during the course of his 120-minute session. OK . . .

120/1,300,000,000 = .00000000923076

So according to our highly scientific “democracy calculator,” roughly 1 in every 10.8 million people had an opportunity to raise a question with the country’s top government leader. How represented does that make you feel?
The limitations of the Web as a vehicle for “democracy” should be clear, insofar as “democracy” assumes the responsiveness of leaders to the concerns, suggestions and policy demands of the public. Just as an official — even if he transforms into an octopus — cannot possibly answer 960,000 phone calls from concerned citizens, nor can he possibly represent the interests of 1.3 billion people through their computer screens.
All of this should be plainly obvious. So why do China’s leaders continue to talk about Internet technology as though it is an exciting and viable new alternative to that old-fashioned democratic technology — the voting booth?
Because, at risk of sounding like a broken record, the Internet is the perfect distraction. It is a far-reaching medium symbolic of change that party officials can use to push the perception that political change is happening in China and that leaders are more responsive to citizens. As we wrote last week:

For the moment, meaningful political reform is off the table in China, and that means any viable form of participation or free expression is inconceivable. But fostering a public perception of self-empowerment and government responsiveness has now become a matter of political urgency for China’s leadership. And that’s what Control 2.0 is all about.

The bottom line is that party leaders cannot truly be more responsive to citizens unless institutions make this possible — or more to the point, imperative.
In its lead editorial today, Southern Metropolis Daily uses the occasion of Wen’s online dialogue and the hubbub about “online democracy” to talk about the need to make the transition to institutional change.
Its criticisms are coached in a powder-puff of praise. The gist of the piece, however, is that China should not only develop “online democracy,” but should use the positive lessons from the Web to develop democracy — read, real democracy:

“Online Chat Between Premier and Web Friends Unlocks the Road to Online Democracy”
In the afternoon the day before yesterday, Premier Wen Jiabao (温家宝) spent more than two hours chatting with Web friends on the official Website of the Central People’s Government. You can imagine how excited Web users were. In the seven hours from the time a pre-announcement was made at 10am to the conclusion of the session at 7pm, more than 300,000 questions were raised by Web users. True to form, Wen Jiabao showed his personal side as he answered a series of questions from Web users on topics ranging from education and healthcare to the work of rebuilding in the earthquake zone. He also shared some of his personal thoughts and feelings, eliciting feelings of intimacy among Web users.
Although everyone knows Wen Jiabao frequently goes online, and that he pays close attention to online public opinion, this is the first time that Premier Wen has had an online discussion with Web friends. Some editorials have said that this discussion between Wen Jiabao and Web users has broken through the boundaries between officials and the public, setting a new trend in “civic dialogue.” This is something we [at Southern Metropolis Daily] support, and we believe that for officials and ordinary people to speak plainly is not only a gesture of closeness to the people, but also a kind of leadership attitude (执政的态度). Of course, the biggest point of significance in Wen Jiabao’s online meeting the day before yesterday should be that it further shows that high-level leaders in China’s government have given Internet politics (网络政治) their attention and affirmation.
In June last year, President Hu Jintao (胡锦涛) spoke online with Web users through [People’s Daily Online’s] “Strong Nation Forum” (强国论坛), and this drew a strong [positive] response. Editorials already said at that time that this was testament to the function and use of the Internet as a gathering place for public opinion and as a platform for political discussion — and that this turned a new page for Chinese democracy. As the National People’s Congress approaches . . . Perhaps we can say that we hope the Internet creates new space for political life in China, that it opens a new path for dialogue between the government and society, that it can tread a path for democratic politics in China. On this point, the hopes of the government and society go hand in hand.
On the basis of this consensus, we can now talk about a number of issues of technical issues. How can the government better use the Web and the popular will expressed on the Web? How can the public opinion power represented by the Web better convey the will of the people, and better achieve communication with the government? How can it better serve a soft monitoring role? Summing up, how can the government, Web users and Internet bodies better promote the development of online democracy?
The newness of the Web as a platform for supporting public opinion lies not in its technological aspects, but in the new speech environment it enables. It is in the ability of Web users to freely express themselves, without bars or restrictions, that our great expectations for online democracy are rooted. If we wish to develop online democracy, we must ensure the freedom of online speech. This is the first thing.
As a platform for gathering public opinion, the Web has places where it is imperfect . . . The imperfection of online public opinion lies in the fact that the process by which it arises is accidental and random, lacking organization and continuity. While Web users may gather according to their values and interests, the situation overall is that our sampling of online opinion relies principally on major Web portals and other large forums such as Tianya], and is obtained either from a limited number of Internet bodies or from administrative departments. Under these conditions, Internet speech is insufficiently independent and cannot therefore adequately represent public opinion. So while its impossible to go to the absolute [in granting freedom], if we want to use the Web to open up the road to democracy, we must do our utmost to ensure the independent of online public opinion. This is the second thing.
The Internet is tied closely to immediate circumstance, and often when it turns to a specific incident it can have a major effect. Take for example the recent “hide and seek” affair. While the investigation conducted by Web users was unable to reveal the truth, we are confident that online opinion lead in this case to the greater efficiency and transparency of the investigation by law enforcement. But what is regrettable is that the victories of Web users in cases like this one always stop with the particular event itself. It is always difficult to ensure that they promote institutional improvements. Even the much-commended Xiamen PX case became an isolated instance, and government decisions to invite effective public participation did not become regular practice. The Web can at times offer successful examples, and if we can reflect practicly on these and improve their duplicability, giving institutional protection to successful practices [ie., protecting freedom of speech], this will not only develop online democracy but will enable us to use the Web to develop democracy. This is the third thing.
The road to development of online democracy should still be a long one, and there will certainly be more than just the above problems that need resolving. We will have to feel our way across the river . . .

[Posted by David Bandurski, March 2, 2009, 4:30pm HK]

By David Bandurski — Responding earlier this week to Yunnan’s special investigation into the “elude the cat” case, we wrote at CMP that we could see a strange phenomenon emerging in China: the rise of virtual political participation as a proxy and foil for real political empowerment.
This trend — if we are right in calling it a trend — can be glimpsed partly in a confusion of public and private identities. As real political reform is unforeseeable, we wrote, political rights are off the table for China’s citizens. But the rights of China’s “netizens,” in contrast, are being hyped all over China’s media.
Very much along these lines, columnist Chang Ping (长平) urges readers in the latest edition of Southern Weekend to be mindful of the difference between officials and “Web friends” (网友), between “netizens” and citizens.
A great deal more can be read between the lines of Chang Ping’s editorial.
When he suggests that the role of healthy citizens should not be as “fans” of their leaders, for example, and then talks about Barack Obama‘s transformation into “Mr. President” on his inauguration day, one cannot help but think of the silly fan site the CCP has set up for its own president.

[ABOVE: People’s Daily Online’s special fan page for President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, set up in 2008.]

A complete translation of Chang’s editorial follows:

“Are You a ‘Web friend’ or an Official?”
By Chang Ping (长平)
Once they take up their government posts, they are no longer netizens or kindly elders, they are officials; and our identities should not be as “Web friends” or fans, but as citizens.
The “elude the cat” affair rolls on, but the character roles grow more and more chaotic. I don’t know now whose eyes have been blindfolded, who is cowering in their own lies, or for that matter whether anyone else will die as a result of this game. One of the most dazzling characters in this game is Wu Hao (伍皓), who is Yunnan’s deputy propaganda chief and at the same time a veteran netizen. But his wise and witty balancing of these two roles has left me somewhat lost.
A wrongful death occurred in a detention center in Puning County (普宁县), and the police explained to the public that a number of prison mates had played a game of hide-and-seek during which two men ran into one another, causing one to slam his head against a wall and incur fatal injuries. Netizens strongly doubted this explanation, and “elude the cat” (躲猫猫) rapidly become a popular online phrase. It was at this moment that Wu Hao stood up and organized an investigative team comprising mainly Web users, which then went to the detention center to carry out their own investigation in coordination with authorities. The investigation came to nothing, and Wu Hao and his team have once again come under scrutiny.
I believe that as a propaganda official Wu Hao’s objective was to come up with some fresh ways of doing things, and to draw more public attention to this affair — and these efforts deserve some affirmation. But the problems that have emerged in this process must also be considered carefully. And one of these issues is the lack of clarity in defining roles.
There is no question that this investigative team garnered such broad attention because it was organized by Yunnan’s provincial propaganda office. Wu Hao has said that “quickly exposing the facts, discovering the facts, investigating the facts and presenting the facts” was the responsibility of the propaganda office, and that’s why he stepped into the picture and came up with the idea of letting investigative team members go to the detention center.
At that time his role was as deputy head of the provincial propaganda office, and he had behind him a definite degree of official resources. Nevertheless, he was at the same time playing the role of netizen. His way of organizing the investigative team was through an entirely personal online act. He started by putting out information through his own QQ group, and then chose the director and deputy head [of the investigative team] according to the order of Web users signing up. Once the results of the investigation came out, he even said in his capacity as a Web user: “I too am unsatisfied.” Faced with public skepticism, he came clean by releasing his online chat record.
It’s not a problem for a person to take on separate roles . . . But you should not conduct business according to one role and then transfer this business onto another role. And you must not, more to the point, carry out official business in a private capacity. Strictly speaking, “Web friends” (网友) are friends. How can you organize a bunch of friends to enter a detention center in violation of legal procedures and investigate a public incident (公众事件) in your capacity as deputy head of the propaganda office?
Confusing public and private identities is not a special invention of Wu Hao’s — it is a time-honored tradition among our leaders, and can even be regarded as an effective way of doing work . . . And if you’re taking on a role as a close buddy everyone likes, then the role of “Web friend” is a new and popular one . . . Web users also enjoy it when high-level officials come out and chat as Web users . . .
But this now routine method disguises a serious problem. There is a passage in the Analects in which Zi Lu (子路) asks Confucius: “If you had an opportunity to govern, what is the first thing you would do?” Confucius answers him: “First you must have the right title and claim.” Then he said: “If you don’t have the right title and claim, then your words have no weight, and if your words have no weight then none of your affairs will be accomplished.” I remember Leung Man-to (梁文道) once wrote in an essay that after the American president came to office even his fast friends had to address him as “Mr. President.” This is because “the president is an institutional title,” [wrote Leung]. On the day of President Obama’s inauguration, an editorial in the Financial Times had a line that made a deep impression on me: “This is a great gathering not of fans but of citizens.”
Among our leaders there are many “netizens,” many icons and many kindly elders. But we must remember that once they take up their government posts, these are not their identities — they become officials. And our identities should not be as “Web friends” or fans or as junior kids [to kindly elders], but as citizens. With the right title our words carry weight (名正言顺) — in today’s world this principle [from the Analects remains an important one].

[Posted by David Bandurski, February 27, 2009, 1:15pm HK]

By David Bandurski — It’s been a topsy turvy week for Wu Hao (伍皓), the deputy propaganda chief who orchestrated the much-discussed “Internet investigation” into Yunnan’s “eluding the cat” case. The young journalist-turned-cadre has been both roundly praised and widely criticized. So far, however, Wu Hao has managed to keep his cool.
Many have marveled at his frankness, such as when he shared his online chat record with reporters. Yesterday, at Sina.com and other major sites, he once again met skeptics and critics head on, speaking in an open and conciliatory manner about how Yunnan’s propaganda office had only the best interests of citizens at heart:

Our original thought once after this [case] became a public opinion incident was that the public had an urgent hunger for the facts, and so it was incumbent upon our propaganda office to assist the public in understanding the nature of the case and getting back to the truth as much as possible. So we organized an investigative committee with participation from netizens and the public. Our goal was not to take on the role of the justice departments, and we had no such authority under the law.
However, I think that the right to know, right to participate, right to express and right to supervise are fundamental rights granted to citizens in our constitution. So our goal was to respect online public opinion and ensure the basic rights of the people, and to work with law enforcement authorities from this perspective — allowing our netizens participate in the process of investigation and stand on the scene of the case so they could understand the facts more closely.

There is no question that Wu is affable, likable, even cool, and he’s probably assured a place already in Southern Weekend‘s “People of the Year 2009″ edition.
It is even conceivable — I tread lightly — that this young propaganda official actually believes what he espouses, that openness can send the most powerful message.
However, the most critical point to bear in mind in Wu’s case is that the policy of openness is being applied not to the matter that started this whole affair to begin with — the death of a young man in a detention center — but to the grand distraction of Wu’s “Internet investigation” itself.
Notice that in Wu’s statement above he says it was “incumbent upon our propaganda office” to reveal the facts in the case. But why is that? Why was this act of truth-seeking not the responsibility of the news media?
The simple answer, of course, is that this was never about the truth, but rather about managing a “public opinion incident” (公共舆论事件) — a phrase that takes us right back to the control culture of “guidance,” based on the notion that public opinion is something unruly and dangerous that must be mobilized against.
It is also worth noting how deftly Wu Hao works Hu Jintao’s 17th Party Congress language about the “right to know” into the explanation of his office’s response. Make no mistake, this guy is sharp.
So what else do we know about Wu Hao?
As a brief aside, one of my personal favorites from the Wu Hao archives is this brief passage from his recent book, Wu Hao Talks About the News.

In the section, Wu Hao is asked to deliver a speech to propaganda officials from the forestry division of Yunnan’s armored police brigade. He takes the opportunity to offer a few cautionary thoughts on what he calls “garbage news” in China.
As it happens, Wu himself has managed to generate one of the most memorable bits of “garbage news” we can expect to see this year. He writes:

The division hoped that I could talk about how to write news. I felt that the only way one could learn to write was by applying oneself to the task, something that could not be conveyed in three short hours. But I had been thinking about the topic, “What Kind of News is Garbage News?”
I simply spoke about this topic as it came to me . . . “Fake news” has been a hotly debated issue in the news media recently, and in fact aside from “fake news” our media is also full of stuff that, while not strictly speaking fake, is entirely without value. Let’s just call this “garbage news” for the time being. In the age of information explosion, this “garbage news” is a total waste of the reader’s time and pollutes their eyes. I earnestly hope that those of you propaganda cadres here today — and of course I hope that all reporters and editors — will not become creators of garbage news.

Aside from these idle musings of a state journalist, is there anything that can tell us more about how Wu Hao approaches the work of propaganda? Yes, in fact.
One of Wu Hao’s first policy addresses in his role as deputy propaganda chief tells us what a solid grasp he has of the CCP’s marriage of press controls and commercially-driven change in the media industry. Speaking one month ago at a forum on news programming to mark changes at the official Yunnan TV, Wu spoke about the need for more “attractive” and “relevant” news products, a clear nod to Hu Jintao’s 2003 policy of the “Three Closenesses.”
Wu also demonstrates that he has an artful grasp Hu Jintao’s new approach to public opinion guidance. He understands that in the information age “correct guidance of public opinion” has to mean pushing more of the right kinds of messages out, not just clamping down the lid on information.
Here are his January 22 remarks as reported in Yunnan’s media:

Wu Hao expressed his confidence in program changes and innovations in news and propaganda at Yunnan TV. Wu Hao urged Yunnan TV to improve upon its reporting of leadership events and meetings in the future, strengthening news reform and innovation in Yunnan and reporting more on content close to the people. Wu Hao stressed that news reports needed to enhance program series planning for topical (主题报道), in-depth (深度报道) and model reports (典型报道), drawing on the wisdom of the masses and seeking new innovations in topic selection, content, perspective, form and method . . . Topical reports [said Wu] needed to seek breakthroughs in depth and scope, scaling down the propaganda flavor [of programs] (淡化宣传味道) and making them more relevant [to viewers], and commentary reports needed to be increased to achieve better public opinion guidance for sudden-breaking news events (努力提高突发事件舆论引导水平).
Wu emphasized that improving the quality of news programs rested on the character of news reporters and editors, and that media needed to invest more energy in the training of their editorial teams, encouraging reporters and editors to renew their news production concepts. Television news reports, he said, needed especially to bring out the fresh and on-the-scene nature of news reports, and this required further raising the reporters grasp of the scene. [Media must] increase the authenticity (真实性) and infectivity (感染力) [of news reports] in order to fully bring out the special character of television news. Wu Hao also expressed the hope that Yunnan TV would capitalize on Yunnan’s status as a major tourism destination to push out more new programs.

But when Wu Hao pays rhetorical homage to Hu Jintao’s language about “achieving public opinion guidance,” there is a personal dimension too. Wu Hao’s views on propaganda have been shaped directly by his own experience working as a state journalist.
Most importantly, Wu was directly involved in the mediation process that followed a mass uprising by rubber farmers in Yunnan’s remote Menglian County last year.
In a piece published in Jin Wan Bao, Wu quoted local officials as saying the incident bore sobering lessons for party leaders in the handling of popular discontent.

[ABOVE: A report by Wu Hao appears in Jin Wan Bao last August discussing the lessons of Yunnan’s Menglian uprising.]

A portion of the Jin Wan Bao article follows. We have removed a number of portions that provide a rather detailed timeline of events in Menglian. These are valuable, and we point interested readers to the original Chinese:

The “Menglian Incident” Deserves Reflection by Cadres (“孟连事件”促干部反省)
Wu Hao (伍皓) and Wu Xiaoyang (伍晓阳)
After four days of arduous negotiations, a violent conflict between the public and police that broke out on July 19 in Pu’er’s Menglian Dai-Lahu-Wa Minority Autonomous County was at last handled effectively on July 23. After receiving satisfactory responses, the rubber farmers who had gathered returned to their separate homes, and the bodies of the dead were cremated and buried. But the fact that the usually mild-tempered Dai people would take up knives, axes and clubs and do battle with police to defend their rights was cause for reflection among local cadres.
Rights Disputes Long-unresolved Causes Conflict
On the morning of July 19, as police authorities in Gongxin Village in Menglian County . . . were carrying out law and order activities, and as they were taking a number of criminal suspects into custody in Mengma Township, they were attacked by more than 500 rubber farmers bearing long knives, clubs, hoes and other implements. The conflict resulted in the injury of 41 police officers and the destruction of nine police vehicles. Deputized police protected themselves with baton guns, and 15 rubber farmers were injured and two killed. Subsequent investigation by journalists found that the cause of this conflict was an intricate and complex economic benefits arrangement between rubber farmers and the local rubber company ((错综复杂的利益关系)), and a disagreement that had gone on for some time.
According to the Menglian County government, the rubber industry is the backbone of the local economy in Menglian, and Gongxin Village and Mengma Township are the center of rubber production in the area . . . [Tells history of area rubber industry through the planned economy period to the present] . . . For more than 20 years, the rubber company went through a process of restructuring and eventually became a private enterprise. In this process, the program for the distribution of benefits from rubber production was not adjusted in a timely manner.
Liang Mingmian (梁名锦), head of the Gongxin Rubber Company, told reporters that in recent years the international price for natural rubber rose from around 7,000 yuan per ton to 27,000 yuan per ton, surpassing the originally agreed upon benefit distribution framework, and the clamor from rubber farmers for an increase [in benefits] grew by the day. After reforms were begun of the collective forestry rights system, a number of social idlers (闲散人员) and lawyers inserted themselves into the situation, saying they would represent the rubber farmers in applying for a “forestry rights certificate (林权证) in exchange for fees from the farmers of around one or two thousand yuan . . . [The tale of conflict continues, up to an a battle with police on September 12, 2007, as police try to prevent farmers from selling their rubber on the open market rather than to the local rubber enterprise.]
After two rubber farmers were killed [in the conflict with police], more than 100 farmers carried their bodies to the Mengma Rubber Company. They believed that it had been the company that had urged police to make the arrests [that prompted the conflict], and they angrily demanded that the boss of the rubber company pay with his life. After they heard about this, neighboring rubber farmers also went over to gather.
Given the anger of the masses there was the risk the situation could escalate at any moment. After receiving a report, the party secretary of Menglian County, Hu Wenbin (胡文彬), went to the scene and spoke calmly and carefully with the farmers, attempting to ease their concerns. Later that afternoon, the party secretary of Pu’er City went also to the scene to participate in rubber farming. The incident was given high priority by Yunnan’s provincial party committee and the provincial government, and provincial party secretary Bai Enpai (白恩培) and provincial governor Qin Guangrong (秦光荣) ordered an investigation into the causes and urged that the demands of the masses be properly heard and addressed . . . so that the situation could be quieted and the facts quickly be made known . . .
Yunnan politics and law committee chairman Meng Sutie (孟苏铁) and deputy governor Cao Jianfang (曹建方) went [to the scene] with a working group late in the night. Meng Sutie and his team arrived in Menglian at 1am on the 20th and immediately held an emergency meeting to conduct research and coordinate relevant work. At 5am Meng Sutie and his team went directly to the gathering place of the rubber farmers, which was about 40 kilometers away, and there they spoke directly with the farmers. Making sure not to stir up the masses, Meng Sutie and his team went without police escort . . .
“That the mild-mannered Dai people, whose hearts are full of thanks for the party, could take up knives, hoes and clubs against police and use violence to uphold their own rights and benefits. This matter must cause all of us politicians to reflect hard. It must drive us to think profoundly about its consequences!” At a meeting of Pu’er City leaders on the night of the 22nd, Yunnan Deputy Secretary Li Jiheng (李纪恒) issued this stern warning to officials present . . . Li Jiheng pointed out that the demands of rubber farmers had long gone unresolved, that their hopes for more prosperity had been toyed with by bad men, and that their longstanding anger against the rubber company had gradually shifted onto grassroots party leaders and the government, causing them ultimately to unite in struggle [against them]. Inadequate systems for the expression of rights grievances, the fact that the people have no place to speak and the situations they complain about are never handled — these are the important lessons this conflict holds for party and government leaders. “We must build and perfect mechanisms allowing the people to voice their demands, and allow them to have a place where they can speak,” Li Jiheng said. “Every effort should be made to resolve all reasonable demands of the masses. When these issues cannot be resolved all at once, more effort should be made to explain the situation and create the conditions for resolving issues.”
Xu Sheng (旭升), party secretary of Pu’er City, believes that the demands of rubber farmers were long ignored, and this reveals problems with the work attitude and actions of a number of cadres, who are too far removed from the hopes and expectations of the people . . . Pu’er City standing committee member and CPPCC secretary Xie Qiankun (谢丕坤) says that there are criminal forces at work in the villages and that the Mengma Township in Menglian County was stirred up and instigated by idlers [NOTE: this very likely refers to rights lawyers or activists] so that it was difficult for village organizations and grassroots party organizations in Gongxin to operate normally and play the role they should have. In some areas, criminal elements [said Xie] actually managed to control village organizations, holding their own village-wide meetings and electing “village representatives” to organize the people against the rubber companies and forestry officials
in the government.
“They speak and no one listens. They make decisions and no one follows them. The people come after them with knives. When cadres have arrived at such a point as that, they might as well jump in the river,” Li Jiheng (李纪恒) says critically of this sort of state of affairs. He points out that various local governments should read this as a lesson, strengthening their party leadership teams at the grassroots level and improving the credibility and cohesiveness of the party and government as the grassroots level. They must enhance the ability of cadres at the grassroots to resolve disputes and deal with emerging problems and conflicts in a timely manner . . .

[Posted by David Bandurski, February 26, 2009, 5:26pm HK]
WORTH READING:
“Stop Criticizing Internet Investigation Promoter Wu Hao” (Chinese), Rednet, February 25, 2009
“Wu Hao: My Thoughts at the Time Were Simple” (Chinese), Xinmen Weekly, February 25, 2009

By David Bandurski — The so-called “eluding the cat” or “hide-and-seek” incident (躲猫猫事件) continues to take China’s media by storm this week. Those who aren’t yet familiar with the story can find a good round-up at ESWN and a decent summary at Global Voices of skeptical responses from Chinese Web users.
Your options are limited if you’re on the prowl for English-language press coverage of this interesting (and, yes, significant) story. You might try this Shanghai Daily report, or this follow-up story from the official Xinhua News Agency. But foreign press coverage is so far disappointingly credulous.

[ABOVE: February 21, 2009, coverage of the “Duo Mao Mao” case an official Yunnan website. Among the headlines: “In the Web age anyone can be an investigator.”]

The Times reported the story over the weekend, and managed to reach one of the so-called “Internet investigators” involved in the enquiry into the case. But the Times story, with all due respect, seemed to swallow — story hook, line and sinker — the official line from Yunnan propaganda authorities and state media.
The Yunnan case, The Times told us, was “unprecedented”:

Internet users have taken part in an unprecedented investigation brought about by an online uproar after a man died in police custody and an official report blamed his death on a violent game of hide-and-seek . . .
Nevertheless, the entire procedure is a remarkable first for China. Yunnan province has taken some pride in announcing its intention to ensure more transparent government. Gong Fei, Yunnan’s propaganda chief, said: “We’ve invited internet users to investigate the case, and we hope they can made their own judgment and spread the information they see with their own eyes to as many as possible.”
The incident is another example of how Communist Party officials are paying increasing attention to internet discussion, in effect the sole forum in the country with relative freedom of expression.

OK, sure. It is arguably fair, in one sense, to call the actions of Yunnan propaganda authorities “unprecedented.” But we need to be clear about what kind of precedent we’re talking about here. Was this an “unprecedented investigation” or an unprecedented propaganda stunt?
Surely, it must be the latter. Unless, of course, we suppose that propaganda department meddling in criminal investigations sets a viable precedent for greater justice and public participation in China. I’m skeptical. Shouldn’t we all be?
So this is an unprecedented propaganda move, right? Not exactly.
Does anyone remember January 19, 2003? No? Well that day, China’s media told us at the time, was an absolutely historic one for the Internet in China, and for participation in public affairs by ordinary Chinese.
January 19, 2003, was the day that Guo Zhongxiao (呙中校), an ordinary Web user, was granted a face-to-face audience with Shenzhen Mayor Yu Youjun (于幼军) after Guo’s online essay questioning the city’s competitiveness became a hot topic in cyberspace. The essay, “Shenzhen, Who Has Let You Down?”, discussed Shenzhen’s investment environment, state enterprise reforms, administrative efficiency and other issues.
Mayor Yu’s response to Guo’s biting criticisms was a stunt the likes of which had never at the time been seen (it was “unprecedented”). He arranged to meet with Guo, under a blinding media glare of course — a simple matter to arrange when the local media are under your thumb — and they had a “discussion” about Shenzhen’s future. National media quickly picked up the story, and Yu managed to turn online embarrassment into public relations gold.
These days, Yu Youjun’s own future is a far more interesting problem than Shenzhen’s. He was kicked out of the Chinese Communist Party in October last year and now faces corruption charges centering on his business in Shenzhen.
Guo and his essay are at best a distant memory.
The 2003 hype surrounding the Yu-Guo meeting is astonishingly reminiscent of the nonsense surrounding the February 19 decision by propaganda authorities in Yunnan province to include Web users in a special investigative commission.
We were told last Friday that the actions of the Yunnan government were historic: “This is the first time in the history of Internet broadcasting in China that the government has taken such a lofty position, inviting Web users to participate in an investigation,” reported the Yunnan Information Times in coverage re-played across the country. Replace “an investigation” with “policy planning” and it’s déjà vu 2003.
State media are playing this story as a case of popular empowerment. Chinese “netizens” are, we are told, taking the initiative and making real Hu Jintao’s 2007 promise that the party would “guarantee the people’s right to know, participate, express and supervise” (保障人民的知情权、参与权、表达权、监督权).
Admittedly, it’s a great story. The only trouble is, it’s absolute fiction.
The real story here, folks, is very, very simple. It’s not about social and political change. It’s not about the CCP’s pledge to bring greater transparency to government affairs. It’s not (really) about the power of the Internet in China.
It’s all about Wu Hao (伍皓).
That’s right. It’s about an intelligent, 38 year-old former Xinhua News Agency reporter who is rising rapidly through the ranks of China’s propaganda apparatus. It’s about the fresh new face of Chinese propaganda controls in the information age.
Control 2.0 now has its poster boy.

[ABOVE: Yunnan deputy propaganda chief Wu Hao appears in recent coverage of the “Duo Mao Mao” case on a Yunnan-based Website.]

Yunnan’s ingenious approach to “public opinion guidance” in the “eluding the cat” case was masterminded by Wu, who has explained the thinking behind the action in numerous media interviews, like this one that appeared in Southern Metropolis Daily.

“But we didn’t wish to have a repeat of the South China Tiger affair,” Wu Hao told Southern Metropolis Daily in an interview last night. He believes prior experience tells us that the doubts of netizens will not simply evaporate as time passes, but will rise wave upon wave . . .

And there is his classic and revealing line, which we will come back to:

“As for online public opinion, it is best resolved by the laws of the Internet itself.” (“对网络的舆论,要用网络的办法来解决.”)

[ABOVE: February 21 coverage of Yunnan’s response to online criticism of the “eluding the cat” case.]

But who exactly is Wu Hao?
We know from recent news reports that Wu Hao is now deputy propaganda chief of Yunnan province, a post he has held for just two months. Prior to this career move, Wu was a top reporter and editor for the Yunnan provincial branch of Xinhua News Agency. There, among his other accomplishments, he launched and eventually oversaw the top-secret Yunnan Internal Reference (云南内参), a regular compilation of sensitive news reports available only to high-level provincial officials.
We know also that Wu Hao has written a book about his experience as a state journalist, published last year by Xinhua News Agency’s official publishing house. The book is called “Wu Hao Talks About the News” (伍皓说新闻).
A native of Sichuan’s Dazhou City (达洲市), Wu set himself apart at Peking University in the early 1990s as a “distinguished university student representative” (优秀大学生代表). In this capacity, Wu had two separate audiences with then-President Jiang Zemin (江泽民).
Upon graduation with a degree in Chinese Studies in 1992, Wu Hao requested an assignment in Tibet with Xinhua News Agency. He worked as a reporter there for several years before becoming Lhasa bureau chief. In October 1999, Wu was transferred to Xinhua’s Yunnan provincial bureau where he served as head of the political desk. He launched Yunnan Internal Reference in April 2003.
So what do we make of Wu Hao’s first major public move as a propaganda official, which has won him headlines across the country? Is this yet another steady step of progress toward the “sunshine government” Yunnan has been boasting about for at least the last two years?
Of course not. This is an ingenious example of Control 2.0 creative strategizing that is destined to become a propaganda classic.
If you look carefully at the language Wu Hao and others use to talk about this “unprecedented” event, you’ll notice it is not at all about more transparent governance, how to better handle policy or law enforcement issues, or how to ensure greater responsibility and oversight.
Let’s look again at Wu’s now famous line to explain his handling of the “eluding the cat” case:

“As for online public opinion, it is best resolved by the laws of the Internet itself.”

As this sentence should make patently clear, Wu’s objective is not to “resolve” the investigation into the “eluding the cat” case, to make it fairer or more transparent. His objective is to “resolve” the problem of online opinion itself.
In fact, Wu and his office are responding actively to set the agenda in the “eluding the cat” case, exactly what Hu Jintao exorted propaganda officials to do in sections three and four of his important media speech back in June last year. The party, Hu said in that speech, needs to “actively set the agenda” (主动设置议题):

We must perfect our system of news release, and improve our system for news reports on sudden-breaking public events, releasing authoritative information at the earliest moment, raising timeliness, increasing transparency, and firmly grasping the initiative in news propaganda work.

This story is about Wu Hao because he represents, right now, the future of propaganda controls in China. He is a youthful, media savvy, Internet-literate cadre eager to show the CCP bigwigs that he understands the logic of the Internet age and can deliver what Hu Jintao has asked for: a “new pattern of public opinion guidance.”
If we snap out of the fairy tale of Wu Hao’s “Internet investigation”, we realize that progress on real media independence and the independence of China’s court system are the only viable means toward a fair and truthful outcome in cases like this one.
Right now, China is moving backward on both counts. Investigative reporting, in particular, is in a state of rapid decline, and we can suppose there will be no independent investigation by the media of the death of Li Qiaoming.
For the moment, meaningful political reform is off the table in China, and that means any viable form of participation or free expression is inconceivable. But fostering a public perception of self-empowerment and government responsiveness has now become a matter of political urgency for China’s leadership. And that’s what Control 2.0 is all about.
In the government handling of the “eluding the cat” case we can glimpse an eerie phenomenon emerging in China: the rise of virtual political participation as a proxy and foil for real political empowerment. Notice, political rights are not on offer to China’s citizens. But if we believe the hype China’s state media are selling us, China’s “netizens” are in political ascent.
If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you.
[Posted by David Bandurski, February 24, 2009, 4:24pm HK]

By David Bandurski — We wrote in a recent post about the history of China’s relationship with the United States, drawing in particular on two Chinese perspectives. One of these was from Liu Shahe (流沙河), a writer and poet denounced as a rightist in the 1950s. [Frontpage Image: Headquarters of the Shansi Fund at Oberlin College.]
In his essay, delivered as a public lecture, Liu tells a second-hand story about the history in China of the Shansi Fund, an educational initiative undertaken by Oberlin College and supported, according to Liu, with U.S. Boxer Indemnities.
While the work of the Shansi Fund in China was effectively suspended when the Communist Party came to power in 1949, the connection was renewed at the outset of economic reforms. Liu says:

In the early days of economic reform and opening, Oberlin College’s “Shanxi Fund” dispatched a representative, a young man just 27 years of age, to mainland China to speak with Chinese government representatives. When they asked what business he had, he said he wanted to know whether the Mingxian Academy still existed. He was told by everyone that this Mingxian Academy had been moved back to Shanxi since the foundation of the P.R.C., and that the “Shanxi Engineering College” and “Shanxi Agricultural College” had been set up in its place. Later, this young man sought out a number of old teachers to find out whether or not this was true. Once he had sussed things out, he left without a word.

Shortly after posting the Liu Shahe translation, CMP did receive word from this “young man,” who has spent three decades with Oberlin Shansi and is now executive director:

I was charmed by the comments of Mr. Liu Shahe on Oberlin’s relationship with China — a good bit of myth, but well-intentioned. I think I must be the 27 year old he refers to. I’m now 62. I visited China first in 1979 and have been the Shansi Director since 1981. Our exchange programs in China are in some ways so much less than what Mr. Liu gives us credit for, and in many ways much, much more: less because we never have sent money to Chinese institutions since 1979, much more because since 1979 we have been engaged in people-to-people exchanges, sponsoring young Chinese intellectuals for a year at Oberlin and sending young Americans to China for two-year terms where they acquire language and culture and, above-all, appreciation for China’s social context. We have provided the support on our side and the Chinese institutions have provided the support on their side. Judging from the all of the challenges and triumphs of young, smart people from both sides that I have witnessed, I feel quite sure that this work of my lifetime has been worthwhile.
Carl W. Jacobson
Executive Director
Oberlin Shansi

Mr. Jacobson adds:

We do have a very extensive archive housed at Oberlin College. It is filled with letters, minutes, scrapbooks, photos, personal recollections, diaries, that sort of thing going back to 1881. You can locate the finding guide here. On the occasion of our centenary last year we published a retrospective volume . . .
The Shansi Association did provide considerable funding to the Ming Hsien Schools from the founding in 1907 until 1951. We helped create the institution which is now known as Shanxi Agricultural University, but our relations with that school since 1979 have been mutually supportive with each side covering in-country costs.
all the best,
Carl

[Posted by David Bandurski, February 11, 2009, 12:31pm HK]

By David Bandurski — Not long ago, I sat like a fly on the wall and listened to a group of Chinese editors talking about the political challenges they had faced in 2008. One young editor spoke enthusiastically about how journalists might make some headway covering the topic of history as pursuing hard news became more and more difficult. [Frontpage Image: Bian Zhongyun, the first schoolmaster to be murdered by Red Guards at the outset of the Cultural Revolution. SEE below.]
The next editor to speak, who had a few more grey hairs on his head, pulled out his own quick breakdown of the proportion of shake-ups at media in recent years accounted for by various types of off-limits coverage. History topped his list, with actions like that against China Youth Daily‘s Freezing Point supplement in 2006 standing out.
He turned with a smile on the young editor. “You see, history is very dangerous,” he said as the room rustled with general laughter.
This exchange has particular relevance this year, as China is nettled with sensitive historical anniversaries, from the 50th anniversary of the Dalai Lama’s flight from Tibet to the 20th anniversary of the June 4 crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators.
If 2008 was a great big year because China sought to make its mark on history, 2009 is a great big year because China will (or won’t) choose to mark history.

[ABOVE: Photo of a ceramic figure depicting the persecution of a “capitalist roader” during the Cultural Revolution, by t-salon available from Flickr.com under Creative Commons license.]

In the most recent issue of Yanhuang Chunqiu (炎黄春秋), a liberal history-related journal that met with some official resistance late last year, Chinese scholar Zi Zhongyun (资中筠) urged China to reflect on its suppression of contemporary history.
Zi, director of the American Studies Department of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the former editor of the journal American Research (美国研究), writes of a recent example of how history must be erased in China even as it is commemorated.
The example centers around the anniversary of a local Beijing school and the 1966 beating death of schoolmistress Bian Zhongyun by Red Guards at the outset of the Cultural Revolution.
The essay offers an excellent reference as China sets off on what might be called its “Year of History.”

Only a Nation that Can Reflect on its Past Can Have a Bright Future
I saw in the news recently that the BBC polled 3,000 members of the [British] public on major historical figures and found that 23 percent of those polled believed Winston Churchill was a fictitious character, and 58 percent thought Sherlock Holmes was a real person. A number of other historical figures, including Gandhi, were thought by many to be fictitious. This is certainly startling news. I noticed that many of our country’s newspapers reported this story, some in tones of mockery, others with exasperation. Shanghai’s Wen Hui Bao ran a small article under the headline, “To Forget One’s History is Betrayal,” and even talked about how the Japanese knew nothing of the Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal, and how our own Romance of the Three Kingdoms covered up the truths of the History of the Three Kingdoms, etc. The article urged educators to reflect on these lessons.
That British citizens would not know who Churchill is certainly invites surprise. Still, we don’t know the ages of these 3,000 people polled, their cultural backgrounds, or whether they are a representative sample. And as we laugh mockingly at others, as we invoke our ancient ancestors’ knowledge of history, perhaps we should take a hard look at our own understanding of contemporary history.
A recent matter comes immediately to mind . . .
It was several months ago that The High School Affiliated to Beijing Normal University celebrated its 90th anniversary. The school dragged out former Red Guard Song Binbin (宋彬彬), one of the first to rise up in the red ferment of the early stages of the Cultural Revolution, and lionized her as a “friend of the school.” They even displayed that photograph from the time when she stood beside Mao Zedong, as they did a photograph of Bian Zhongyun (卞仲耘), the schoolmistress they [the Red Guards] cruelly murdered. Bian’s surviving husband wrote an open letter to the school’s current principal to express his opposition to this. But as you can imagine, this letter came to nothing, and there was of course no way the story was going to make its way into the media . . . Did the school’s ceremony take this course out of ignorance, or was this intentional? As to what Song Binbin might have done subsequently to be honored by her alma mater as a “friend of the school” I have no idea. As far as Chinese know, Song is “famous” for that particular photograph with the Leader, and for the title of honor [Mao Zedong] bestowed upon her, “Yao Wu” (要武) [NOTE: One translation of this name might be “essential weapon.”].
In the period that followed, the slogan urging people to “use culture to struggle, not weapons” (要文斗不要武斗) fell on deaf ears. The entire country was engulfed in an orgy of violent “persecution” in which bodies were broken and spirits crushed. Not only the murder of schoolmistress Bian Zhongyun was tacitly accepted — many other schoolmasters and teachers died at the hands of the students they had once taught and cherished. And of course the vagaries of the Cultural Revolution were not confined to the world of education.
It can of course be said that there were tens of thousands of so-called “Red Guards” . . . that this was the product of a particular time in history and that there is no point in chasing after personal responsibility [for such violent acts] . . . But the special situation here was that schoolmistress Bian Zhongyun was the first school head in China to be brutally beaten and killed by Red Guards from her own school, and this served as a precedent in blood of what was to come.
I have no evidence to suggest that Song Binbin participated directly at the time, nor do I wish to discuss her personal culpability. It has to be said also that there is an important sense in which she and her classmates were also victims. But she was the leader of the Red Guards at the school, and in that respect her responsibility is undeniable. More important is the fact that she later received a visit and commendations from Mao Zedong. I know nothing of Song Binbin’s thoughts or her heart’s journey. She eventually set aside the nickname “Yao Wu,” and she does not seem proud of this distinction. As an individual, even if her path changed afterwards, her participation in acts of cruelty stands as a black mark that cannot be wiped away by any number of “brilliant deeds.” . . .
If the school had not held this commemoration, Song Binbin and the others would not have been dragged out under the public eye. The problem is that over the decades The High School Affiliated to Beijing Normal University must certainly have turned out students who achieved all manner of things and made contributions to society. Why then should they bring out this particular “famous” alumnus on such a momentous occasion? Was this a spur-of-the-moment decision, or is there some other explanation? And if she had made some other form of contribution [to the school] in the intervening years, why was this not emphasized? Why was her experience during the Cultural Revolution stressed and that symbolic photograph dragged out? How do the present-day leaders of the school approach that bloody episode in the school’s history, or the insults and violence visited on schoolmistress Bian Zhongyun? More than that, how to they approach an historical episode that was a great calamity for the Chinese people?
German author Günter Wilhelm Grass won the Nobel Prize for Literature, and yet it was later disclosed that he had a dark past [as a member of the Nazi Waffen-SS]. As to his subsequent admissions, people might have had different reactions, some blaming him for keeping his secret so long, others welcoming his good conscience or forgiving him for the foolish indiscretions of his youth. But no one would have contended that these admissions he made were things to be proud of. German fascism was a scourge of mankind, but the German people have risen with hope from this experience because they have shown throughout a capacity for self reflection and repentance.
There are many different views on China’s history under Mao, and I’m afraid this debate will go on for another century. But as for the Cultural Revolution he set into motion, the CCP long ago rendered its own conclusion — it was a calamity for the people, particularly in its destruction of the spirits of the nation’s young people, something of which those above the age of 50 [in China today] have direct experience. That famous photograph [of Song Binbin and Mao Zedong] and the matter of the naming [of Song by Mao] stand as evidence with powerful symbolic meaning.
For a long time, whether in our propaganda [or media] or in our education system, the history of the Cultural Revolution has been avoided, and whether secretly or in the open a tide of reversing the verdict [on the Cultural Revolution] has roiled up. Recently, some people even said the verdict should be reversed on the Gang of Four, and they advocated another round of cultural revolution.
In part, these new ideas stem from lies that twist and disguise the truths of history. In part, they capitalize on the maladies facing our society today and entirely deny the accomplishments of reform and opening. They pull the wool over the eyes of impressionable youth and ordinary people.
As far as I know, The High School Affiliated to Beijing Normal University holds a special place in Beijing. Its endowments and facilities are first-rate, and it manages to attract both the highest achievers and the progeny of the business and political elite. After these students graduate, in other words, they have ample opportunity to mark themselves as “distinguished” alumni. I have no idea why, at such a school, leaders would show such contempt for history and defy conscience in such a way. In objective terms, this commemoration ceremony suited the purposes of the camp that pushes for a reversal of the verdict on the Cultural Revolution, and so it cannot be treated lightly. If an entire generation of elite youth know absolutely nothing of the history their parents and teachers experienced, if they are catered to with lies and upturned facts, what direction will education in our country go?
I also saw news recently that the Ministry of Education plans to add Beijing Opera to the music curriculum in order to promote the national spirit. They will begin with pilot programs and then roll it out nationwide. Of the 15 dramas to be taught, roughly half will be drawn from the Model Plays (样板戏) of the Cultural Revolution. To say nothing of the issues raised by forcing Beijing Opera on the youth of our country, these eight Model Plays are symbols of the weeding out of traditional culture and of a cultural despotism that brought about cultural desolation in the first place . . . I remember old cultural figures saying that every time they heard the Model Plays they thought of the wrongs they suffered during the Cultural Revolution and felt a shudder of cold fear. Isn’t it confusing night and day to use these to promote traditional culture? That those responsible for selecting the repertoire would give a special nod to the Model Plays when there are so many to choose from in the Beijing Opera tradition is even further cause for anxiety . . .
On both a personal and national level, it is only through facing history straight on and having the courage to reflect [on our experiences] that we can ensure for ourselves a bright future. And so, facing this episode [at the school anniversary commemoration] and sensing this unhealthy trend [toward historical lies], my heart feels unsettled and I sense danger for the coming generation and for the future of our people. We must understand history, and we must understand contemporary history all the more.
Ridiculing others for their minor ailments is of less help to us than tending to our own grave condition.

UPDATE: February 6, 2009
Uln commented below on how interesting the comments below Zi’s piece were at QQ. As of 11:36am today 190 comments were shown on the site. For a bit of perspective, that’s not a great deal at QQ, where comments on really hot pieces generally climb to several thousand. But it is worthwhile to make sure some of these are saved, as they stand the risk of being removed at any moment.
We’re pasting as many as we can below:
[热帖]腾讯网友： 老先生所言不差！国风以歪，谁能正之
属七和弦 [等级一]：历史那些是真实的，一般的平民根本都弄不清楚。真正可恶的是掩盖历史的真相人！
腾讯网友：废话!只有能让最大多数人民说话的民族才有未来!
腾讯网友：拿历史吓唬人帽子太大，历史有两部：一部是掩盖现实的功德簿，一部是还原事实的血泪史。。。
腾讯网友：尊敬的老先生！很可爱！
腾讯网友：中国人只有解放思想,从过去的错误决裂并进行反思和批判,才能真正发展!
腾讯网友：本文所言并无缪误,问题是老先生不知道只要土壤不彻底铲除,野草就有春风吹又生的可能,当初导致文革成为可能的所有机制现在是否还在呢,答案大家都明白.
腾讯网友：写此文的人算什么样人，现在的社会对青少年好吗？盗窃，吸毒，就让你本人和你的子孙去享受盗窃吸毒吧
腾讯网友：我们现在对文革都不提了，还谈得上对文革的反思吗？
腾讯网友：时间，把历史切割成了碎片，记录，使历史清晰起来。
腾讯网友：[太天真太无耻]赤手空拳的民众，面对枪杆子里面出的政权..能有啥表现？
腾讯网友：中国修改历史不是一天两天的事了…虽然比起韩国还是望尘莫及!
腾讯网友：不管太祖有什么错，它的子孙还是捧他的！以是证明自己血统的高贵与合法！
腾讯网友：敬佩德国人有勇气正视希特勒统治时期的那段历史。
腾讯网友：[其实中国人在这一点上和日本人的德行一样！]上海《文汇报》刊登一篇短文提到“忘记历史就是背叛”，还举一反三联系到日本人不知道“东京审判”，我国《三国演义》掩盖了正史《三国志》等等。并提出要引起教育界的反思。
腾讯网友：连眼前的错都不能改正，整天就是在回顾历史了
腾讯网友：卖犭句皮阿胶的标题档。。。
腾讯网友：牛被偷，A捉贼未果。。。后村民纪之，老先生说：纪什么纪，还不知不是A所为还未可知。。。
腾讯网友：[可惜我们这里喉舌说历史是公共汽车]他们想上就上 还把它开到了悬崖边上。
腾讯网友：偷梁 换柱 ，我只看见资你在狞笑
腾讯网友：我只看见资你在狞笑
腾讯网友：资说的不是历史的良知，良知是让人思考，不是让人接受，那是你的历史观。。。
腾讯网友：拿历史吓唬人帽子太大，历史有两部：一部是掩盖现实的功德簿，一部是还原事实的血泪史。。。
腾讯网友：废话!只有能让最大多数人民说话的民族才有未来!
来自：广州市腾讯网友：[北京好出弱智人，没什么可奇怪的。]北京好出弱智人，没什么可奇怪的。例如北大的~~
无限飞猪/zt [等级一]：历史是有权人手中的玩物,说改就改…………
腾讯网友： 历史那些是真实的，一般的平民根本都弄不清楚。真正可恶的是掩盖历史的真相人！
那些掩盖真相的人往往就是想骑在他人头上作威作福的人！
来自：深圳市腾讯网友：历史是真实的，遮掩的人是可耻的。
来自：上海市 2009-02-02 16:42:33腾讯网友：谁能力挽狂澜？谁能扶大厦于将倾？
金华市腾讯网友：尊敬的老先生！很可爱！
腾讯网友：[老先生所言不差！国风以歪，谁能正之]老先生所言不差！国风以歪，谁能正之
属七和弦 [等级一]：历史那些是真实的，一般的平民根本都弄不清楚。真正可恶的是掩盖历史的真相人！
[Posted by David Bandurski, February 4, 2009, 5:06pm HK]

By David Bandurski — With a new administration in Washington, more attention has turned to America’s international relationships and to possible mood changes in foreign policy. As could be expected, there is enlivened discussion about the nature of the U.S.-China relationship, although this has so far turned mostly to such prickly economic issues as trade protectionism and currency manipulation. [Frontpage Image: Top-ranking Chinese general Liu Yazhou, who has in the past voiced more moderate views on the United States].
The U.S.-China relationship is of course a long and complicated one, and we won’t presume to tackle it head on here [Click here for more recent news coverage of the issue].

[ABOVE: U.S. guided-missile cruisers pass through Hong Kong on a scheduled deployment in June 2008, image from Voxeros available at Flickr.com under Creative Commons license.]

Our point is simple — to share just a couple of more moderate and good-humored takes on America and its relationship with China. To that end, we selected two articles from among a roster of pieces shared recently among Chinese journalists and academics through e-mail and the Internet on the eve of Obama’s inauguration.
The idea, according to the journalist who compiled the articles, was to promote an “objective, fair and true assessment” of U.S.-China relations. We do not mean to suggest, however, that these are somehow representative.
The first is a 2005 article by Liu Yazhou (刘亚洲), a top-ranking Chinese general who has often in the past voiced more moderate views on a range of issues, including democracy, U.S.-China relations and tensions over Taiwan. Li is a prominent “princeling” (太子党), or influential scion of a high official, and a lieutenant general in the People’s Liberation Army Air Force.
In the essay below, Liu analyzes the “threat” that the United States poses to China as well as the relationship between American policy making and the American character. The essay is humorous at points, as when the senior military official confesses to frequently wearing a pair of stars-and-stripes underpants, “a kind of psychological release and satisfaction.”
The second piece is by writer and poet Liu Shahe (流沙河), an elder man of letters who was denounced as a rightist in the 1950s. In his talk, Liu reflects on U.S.-China relations going back to the Boxer Rebellion, and draws on his personal experiences as a boy in the 1930s.

What Is It That Truly Makes America Scary?
By Liu Yazhou
So what is it that really makes America scary? While the United States has the world’s most powerful military, and the most advanced technology, I don’t find these frightening at all. I understand that its stealth airplanes go back and forth freely over China, but there’s nothing frightening about this either. These are not the things that make America scary.
In 1972 I was studying at Wuhan University and taking political science courses there. I remember one of my politics professors saying: “America is in decay, a moldering specimen of a capitalist nation, its sun already setting, its life ebbing away.” I, a student from the Workers, Peasants and Soldiers University, decked out in my military uniform, stood right up and challenged him: “Teacher, I believe what you have just said is wrong. While the U.S. is not like China, where it’s 8 or 9 a.m. and the sun is just coming up, it’s not at sunset, but rather at high noon.”
The teacher’s face went white, and he spoke falteringly. “You, how can a student dare say such a thing!” He did not even bother to ask why I had said what I did, but came straight out with this word “dare.”
There was yet another way to approach this question, I thought. America was made up of thousands upon thousands of people who felt no great love for their motherlands, but who all loved America very much. While many [Chinese] leaders at the time had harsh words for America, they were all packing their sons and daughters off to America. How stark was the contrast!
But the more you talk about it, what is it exactly that makes America so scary?
Personally, I think there are three things. First of all, America’s meritocratic system cannot be underestimated. Its leadership system, and its mechanisms of competitive election, are sufficient to ensure that policy makers come from the intellectual elite. The tragedy of China is that from the heights of the state to the lows of the individual work unit, in the vast majority of cases, those with ideas do not make decisions and those who make decisions have no ideas. If you have a decent head on your shoulders there is no place at the table for you. In America it is exactly the opposite — a pyramid structure sends the intellectual elite to the top.
And so, in the first place, Americans don’t make mistakes; second, they make few mistakes; and third, when they do make mistakes they can correct these quickly. [In China] we make mistakes in the first place; second, we make mistakes often; and third, when we make mistakes it is almost impossible to correct them. Using just one tiny little Taiwan, America has managed to hold China down for half a century . . . One Taiwan has transformed the climate of international politics in East Asia.
What I worry about most is that China’s strategic framework for development in the new century might become distorted by Taiwan. In these times, the importance of territory is vastly diminished for the strength of nationalities, and the pursuit of territory has given way to the pursuit of national power and influence (国势). Americans harbor territorial demands toward no country. America does not trouble itself with the question of territory. All of its actions in the twentieth century were about creating power (造势). What does it mean to create power? Aside from economic strength, this is about popular morale (民心)! Nations bolstered with popular sentiment achieve cohesive power. If territory is lost it can be returned. But if popular sentiment is not with you, the territory you do have will undoubtedly be lost. Some national leaders see only one step ahead. America often thinks ten steps ahead when it takes action. It is because of this fact that every major global crisis since the Second World War has strengthened America’s position.
If we let America lead us by the nose, we stand a chance of throwing away all of our strategic capital. I stress again and again that America’s strategic center will not shift to Asia, but this does not mean that it will not envelop China. Many of my comrades see only the ways in which America surrounds China militarily. Many see only the gap in technological and military might separating America and China. They overlook the fact that on larger strategies, particularly on the level of foreign relations, there is an imbalance far more serious than that of arms. Our foreign policy toward America has tactics but no framework, specifics but nothing comprehensive. After the 9.11 attacks, America moved quickly within the space of two months to secure Afghanistan, pushing up to China from the western flank. Meanwhile, military pressure from Japan, Taiwan and India has not flagged. It may seem that we gained some advantages from the events of 9.11, but these will likely dissipate in the space of two years.
I believe our country has been strategically contained in a completely different way. It is not about military affairs. It surpasses military affairs.
Look at the way that, over the last several years, the social fabrics of countries surrounding us have been transformed, becoming so-called “democratic” nations [NOTE: In the original the second character of “democracy” is replaced with an “X” to elude automated censorship mechanisms]. Russia and Mongolia have changed. Kazakhstan has changed. Add to this South Korea, the Philippines and Indonesia, and then Taiwan. This threat to our country is far more fierce than that posed by military might. Military threats are effective only in the short term, while being enveloped by so-called “democratic” nations has a lasting impact. And then there is America’s energy and tolerance (大气与宽容). If you you go to Europe and then to America, you will discover a significant difference. On European mornings the streets are empty, but American mornings teem with people going about their exercises, and this is something you might see all day long. I have a theory, and that is that exercise is a measure of character. Exercise reflects the vigor of a culture. Whether or not a nation has vitality can be measured by how many of its people engage in active exercise.
Americans can take their national flag and wear it as underpants. When I was in America I bought a pair of stars and stripes underwear for myself. I wear them often. I wear them as an act of scorn, a way of letting off steam, a kind of psychological release and satisfaction. For Americans wearing them is a kind of joke. The act is fundamentally different. Americans can set fire to their own flag on the streets. Dai Xu (戴旭), an author and friend, once said: “If a nation can burn even its own flag, what possible reason can you then have for burning it?”
Third, there is [America’s] great strength of spirit and morality. This is the scariest of all. September 11 was a disaster. When disaster struck, the physical body was the first to fall, but the soul stood. When some people meet with calamity, their bodies stand but their spirits give up. Three things happened during 9.11 that allow us to see the strength of Americans.
The first thing happened in the time just after the [first] plane struck the World Trade Center, as the flames spread and at the most critical juncture. As those in the buildings fled through the emergency exits, the scene was not particularly chaotic. People traveled down, and the firefighters pushed their way up. They yielded to one another and there was no conflict whatsoever. When women and children or the blind came through, people naturally made way for them, letting them through first. Even a small pet dog was let through. If a nation’s spirit is not strong to a certain degree, there’s simply no way its people can behave in this way. Facing death with such calmness, if that is not saintliness it at least approaches saintliness.
The second thing happened on day two after 9.11, as the world discovered that this was the work of Arab terrorists [NOTE: This is a literal translation of the Chinese, 阿拉伯恐怖分子]. Many Arab businesses were attacked by angry Americans. A number of Arab businessmen were also attacked. At this moment, a large number of Americans organized themselves and gathered at Arab restaurants and businesses to stand guard for them. They patrolled Arab neighborhoods to prevent further harm. What kind of spirit is that!
The tradition of revenge has been handed down to us from ancient times. I live in Chengdu. After Deng Ai (邓艾) [of the Three Kingdoms Period] destroyed Chengdu, Pang De‘s (庞德) son murdered everyone in Guan Yu‘s (关羽) family, young and old. The blood of revenge stains the books of history.
The third thing [demonstrating the strength of Americans] was the crash in Pennsylvania of a 767 meant [by terrorists] to crash into the White House. Passengers struggled with terrorists onboard, and this is why the plane crashed [rather than struck its target]. Because they knew at the time that the World Trade Center and the Pentagon had been struck, they decided that they could not stand idly by, that they must struggle to the death with the terrorists. Even at such a moment, they did something else: they decided to determine by vote whether they would do battle with the terrorists. Even at such a crossroads of life and death [they thought], I cannot impose my will on others. Eventually, all agreed, and only then did they enter into struggle. What is democracy? That is democracy. The idea of democracy has already sunk into their very life and spirit, it is in their blood and in their bones.
Who would rise if such a people as this did not rise? If people such as this do not rule the world, then who will rule the world? I often think to myself: perhaps it is most appropriate that the world’s most advanced weaponry, most advanced science and technology, and the greatest military should be in the hands of people such as this. Is this not better than such power in the hands of Japan, or in the hands of Libya, or in the hands of the Iraqi people? Even if it were in our own hands, there is no way of knowing what we would do. This nation, America, holds many successful lessons, and it behooves us to study and learn from them.
August 2, 2005

A partial translation follows of a lecture by poet Liu Shahe on the U.S.-China relationship:

American’s Are Our Best Friends
(A lecture by Liu Shahe)
My friends (hearty applause), I’m a much older fart than everyone seated here. I’m 74 years old this year. I can’t really talk about any “ideas” (思想). But because I’m much older than the rest of you, I’ve been through historical episodes such as the War of Resistance Against Japan that you never experienced, and this is where you and I are really different. I come today simply to talk about two things with everyone . . .
. . . My second story is also something I saw with my very own eyes. I want to tell everyone: Americans are our best friends. China’s greatest friends in the whole world are Americans. The year after the eight armies entered Beijing in 1900 [during the Boxer Rebellion], when eight nations received Boxer indemnities (庚子赔款), there was only one country that did not use this money for its own ends, and that was America. Later, through various channels, the money was given back. One of these channels was the Boxer Indemnity Overseas Study Program (庚款留学生). Another was the subsidizing of our universities. I want to let all of you know that during the war of resistance [against Japan] there was in Shanxi a so-called “Mingxian Academy” (铭贤学院) that was established in my neck of the woods. The school was connected to America’s Oberlin College, and Oberlin had a “Shanxi Fund” that was established by the U.S. government using Boxer Indemnities. The “Shanxi Fund” monies were used to support the Mingxian Academy, and this was the case from its founding in the 1930s onwards. As the front of the war of resistance advanced thousands of miles to my hometown, and one of our biggest landlords, a certain Mr. Zeng, voluntarily vacated his fort and offered it on loan to the academy. So this was how the school came to be. After the changeover in political power, the school became the “Shanxi Agricultural College” (山西农学院). And finally, after relations worsened with the U.S., the annual funds stopped flowing. At the time no explanation at all was given. We simply said on our side: “Ours is a nation of revolution, and no one wants this stinking imperialist money of yours!” So this money was cut off for decades after the founding of the People’s Republic of China.
In the early days of economic reform and opening, Oberlin College’s “Shanxi Fund” dispatched a representative, a young man just 27 years of age, to mainland China to speak with Chinese government representatives. When they asked what business he had, he said he wanted to know whether the Mingxian Academy still existed. He was told by everyone that this Mingxian Academy had been moved back to Shanxi since the foundation of the P.R.C., and that the “Shanxi Engineering College” and “Shanxi Agricultural College” had been set up in its place. Later, this young man sought out a number of old teachers to find out whether or not this was true. Once he had sussed things out, he left without a word. Some time passed and finally the American side sent some representatives in an official capacity. They said that those people [in charge of] the original Mingxian Academy, now referred to as the “Shanxi Engineering College” and the “Shanxi Agricultural College,” were entitled to a substantial portion of funds.
You can imagine just how interested these officials of ours were when they heard the word “funds” (sound of laughter). They sought the party leaders from the engineering and agricultural colleges straight away, and representatives from all the work units showed up — party secretaries, presidents. But they didn’t bother to get in touch with a single flesh-and-blood person from the Mingxian Academy. The [American] representatives from the “Shanxi Fund” said, look, everyone here is a government official, but we want to see people from the Mingxian Academy. What to do? What to do? So at last they thought of this old rightist from the Shanxi Agricultural College who had once been at the Mingxian Academy, and they went and got this old guy, who was making ends meet by cleaning out toilets, and said, look, we need you to come along with us and walk at the head of the delegation. Finally, they saw someone they recognized, so from that time on 200,000 U.S. dollars came each year without fail, half for the agricultural college and half for the engineering college. In this way, everyone eventually realized how it was. After power changed hands [in China], this money stopped flowing, but the Americans didn’t touch a penny of those funds. All of it was socked away, even collecting interest all those decades, and now they can give away 200,000 a year to each of these colleges.
This is a story a friend of mine who studied at Mingxian Academy told me. I wept when he first told me (applause). Of the eight foreign powers [that received indemnities], no other nation behaved in this way. Two of these countries were the worst. The first was Japan, which took our indemnities and turned around and bought military weaponry with them. The second was Russia, which acted with impudence and greed. Not long ago, I read a Chinese memoir written by someone who went to America in the Late Qing. At the time, when the American president met with this foreign minister, he said there are two countries that have designs about invading you – one is Japan and the other is Russia. We feel sympathy for you, this great nation that has been cheated, he said, and we hope you will grow stronger. A strong China suits the interests of America . . .
When the war of resistance against Japan broke out I had just begun primary school. By the time I entered middle school, the war had already entered its finally stage, also its most difficult stage. The year I was 13 years old I went with some of my classmates to the American military airfield. Like the adults there, I offered my labor. We all ate . . . and there were eight people to each table. There was just one small bowl [on each table] of shredded carrot without a hint of oil. And this is how we went through a whole week doing repairs on the airstrip. Our thought then was that if we didn’t put in an effort our country would perish. Because our teachers had said to us from our first days that we must not become the slaves of a destroyed state (亡国奴), that if we became slaves of a destroyed state we would be like the Koreans, who had to stand at attention and bow whenever they saw Japanese . . . We knew from a young age that we should love our own country. At the time, whether it was the Kuomingtang government or our teachers, when anyone talked about loving one’s country they did not use the word “patriotism” (爱国主义). You know, when love of one’s country (爱国) becomes patriotism it becomes a kind of doctrine. And doctrine is absent of feeling (applause). Our teachers said we should “love our country.” [Poet] Xu Guangzhong (余光中) once said to me that love of one’s country was an emotion, not an “ism”. I’ve been restricted by this emotion ever since I was a child.
So eventually this airstrip was repaired. As a student I remember seeing watching with my own eyes from the courtyard of our house as the American pilots took off on bombing raids to Tokyo . . .
I’d also like to talk about the goodness of Americans. We Chinese were poor, we lacked self-respect, and we didn’t pull ourselves together. So many of us Chinese would go and steal items from the American airfield, but the Americans never once sought us out. Every day after dusk in our village, the black market stalls overflowed with military stuff that had been taken. Army-issued leather boots and belts and jackets and canned foods – they were all hot. We even stole cans of peanut butter. And toilet paper. All of it was stolen on that side and sold on this side. Never once did the American military look into this matter. That’s something no other country would be capable of.

RELATED READINGS:
“Bumpy Road Ahead for US-China Relations,” UCLA International Institute, February 3, 2009.
“A Mystery in Beijing: Who Runs the Military?” International Herald Tribune, June 22, 2007
“A Young Turk in China’s Establishment: The Military Writings of Liu Yazhou,” China Brief (Asia Foundation), via AsiaMedia, September 13, 2005.
“China President Moves to Rein in Military,” Malaysia Star, July 27, 2005.
[Posted by David Bandurski, February 3, 2009, 12:30pm HK ]