By David Bandurski — Last week we reported the arrest of Sichuan-based environmental activist Tan Zuoren (谭作人), who has reportedly been accused of “inciting subversion to state power” after organizing an “independent citizen investigation” into the death of teachers and students in last year’s Sichuan earthquake. But how exactly did Tan and others plan to arrive at a credible picture of the scale of student and teacher deaths in the quake and the deeper causes of this tragedy?
In order to offer a clearer picture of Tan’s activities, we provide several 5.12 documents that were to have been used to conduct the independent survey Tan Zuoren had planned. These were forwarded by a mainland source.

[ABOVE: “People’s Square Candlelight Vigil” in remembrance of the earthquake, by Sinosplice available at Flickr.com under Creative Commons license. Homepage image also by Sinosplice.]

It is worth noting that the Tan Zuoren case gives us yet another a glimpse into the inner workings of China’s emerging, yet troubled, civil society. With that in mind, we have provided a translation further down of a post written last year by writer Fu Guoyong (傅国涌) in which he writes of Tan as an inspirational figure in a society cowed into silence over their own rights.
We begin, though, with the following message, a memorial to students who died in last year’s Sichuan earthquake. This message was sent out by the 5.12 Independent Citizen Investigation Student Archive using a general e-mail address, and was later forwarded to us from a recipient inside China. The message came with a powerpoint presentation that we have posted to Slideshare (contains some graphic imagery):

Grave Sweeping Day. As I write these words to you, my heart is uneasy. Uneasy because I feel a certain terror, that from the time you were buried, the scars of these terrors passed away with you. It is not injury, for all possible injuries of this world are borne and kept by your mothers and fathers, by those close to you . . .
This uneasiness comes from forgetting, from the disregarding of human life, and this indifference to the value of human life is now swallowing the souls of every living person.

Tan Zuoren’s objective, as we have said, was to arrive at a reliable and independent figure for teachers and children who died in the May 12, 2008, Sichuan earthquake. To accomplish this he used grassroots activism and the medium of the Internet to distribute survey materials throughout quake affected areas.
Below is our translation of Tan’s questionnaire, to be distributed in local areas by members of the 5.12 project and then returned to “the person in your area responsible for collection.”

How many children did we actually lose in the May 12 earthquake? The official version is not credible, and the popular version lacks factual support. In order that we respect life, should we not have a parents version that comes closer to the actual truth? Please fill out this form — the one-year anniversary of our children fast approaches!
Scale of Loss of Teacher and Student Lives in Our Education System on May 12, 2008 (教育系统5.12地震死亡师生情况)/Survey Questionnaire (for parents)
Explanation: This questionnaire has been formulated on the basis of objectivity and impartiality in order to investigate the true situation of teachers and students in our province during the May 12 earthquake, and in particular the scale of the loss of life among teachers and students. The aim of this investigation is to understand the principal reasons behind the death of teachers and students in various regions, at various schools through an independent citizen investigation, and to understand the demands and actual situations facing the parents of students who died [in the quake], thereby providing a rational basis for public policy making. The basis goal of this investigation is to gain a clear picture of the losses incurred as a result of the earthquake disaster, particularly loss of life, to understand those people and/or actions legally responsible for causing and/or exacerbating damages, and to encourage citizens to defend their rights in accordance with the law, preserving the dignity of national laws, protecting the impartial nature of the judiciary, and upholding social stability. Therefore, we ask that those taking part in this investigation, in a spirit of responsibility toward those teachers and students who died, truthfully fill in the following questionnaire, using the truth and your own pen to preserve your legal rights and benefits. Thank you!
1. What number for total deaths of teachers and students are you familiar with?
A) Teacher and student deaths in the entire province ____ people.
B) Teacher and student deaths in local area (city or county, district or village) ____ people.
Source of this information: Print Media □ Television □ Internet □ Word of Mouth □ Guessing □ Investigation Results □
C) Teacher and student deaths at your local school ( ______ School) ____ people.
Source of this information: Print Media □ Television □ Internet □ Word of Mouth □ Guessing □ Investigation Results □
2. What do you think is the chief contributing cause of the death of students and teachers [in the quake]?
A) Construction quality issues □
B) The intensity of the natural disaster □
C) Construction + Intensity (A + B) □
D) Other reasons □
3. What do you believe is the chief reason for school collapses?
A) Construction quality was not up to standard □
B) Buildings were old and poorly maintained □
C) The scale and intensity of the earthquake □
D) Combination of factors (A + C □) or (B + C □)
4. Do you accept the government’s public explanations of the causes of school collapses?
A) Yes □
B) No □
C) A combination of both □ (半信半疑)
5. Are you satisfied with the actions the government has taken concerning collapsed schools?
A) Satisfied □
B) Unsatisfied □
C) Don’t know □ (不好说)
6. Are you satisfied with the economic compensation given for student victims?
A) Satisfied □
B) Unsatisfied □
C) Extremely unsatisfied □
7. Do you believe legal responsibility should be sought for those responsible for the accident (事故)?
A) Yes □
B) No □
C) Don’t care □
8. Are you interested in legal defense of your rights?
A) Interested □
B) Not interested □
9. If you face difficulties in your attempts to defend your rights under the law, are you prepared to give up?
A) Yes □
B) No, I won’t give up □
C) I will seek other means □
10. What relationship do you have to students who died in the quake?
A) Direct parental relationship □
B) Relative or friend □
C) No direct relationship □
Notice: Please mark a √ in the relevant boxes above, and then return your questionnaire to the person in your area responsible for collection.
Name of respondent (signed) _________ Contact telephone: ____________
Address: ______ city (county) ________ town (township) _______ village ______ brigade. ______ year ______ month _____ date.
We ask that parents please return their completed forms quickly. Address: XXXXXXXXXXXXX
E-mail: [E-mail and phone for Tan Zuoren provided on form]

In addition to the above questionnaire, Tan had prepared at least two data sheets to be filled out for the 5.12 Student Archive throughout the earthquake-affected region. An image of one of the documents follows:

[ABOVE: Tan Zuoren’s “5.12 Student Death Circumstances Data Sheet,” asking respondents to list deaths of which they have knowledge and the relevant circumstances. Sheet asks for parents names and contacts, student names, ages, male or female, whether died, lost or injured, and injured where (in or outside school).]

To conclude, the following are portions of a November 2008 post by writer Fu Guoyong (傅国涌) in which he discusses what he sees as the grave challenges facing rights defense actions by Chinese citizens since the 2007 Xiamen PX case heightened expectations of progress. Fu reposted the entry, which mentions the work of Tan Zuoren in Sichuan, on his blog on April 3 following news of Tan’s detention, and the article has been passed along via e-mail and on the Web in China over the last few days. Comments on the post can be seen here.

By Fu Guoyong (傅国涌)
April 3, 2009
[This is an article that I previously posted (on November 22, 2008). The day before yesterday, I received an e-mail from a friend whose name I will not mention informing me that, according to Mr. Tan Zuoren’s wife, Little Wang (小王), Tan was taken into custody last Friday (March 27) and has fallen into darkness. His crime is given as “inciting subversion of state power”! I hope people will closely watch the fate of this big-bearded citizen who was traveling “the third road.”]
The successful opposition of the public in Xiamen in 2007 to the PX [chemical project] brought whoops of joy, as a peaceful march pushed a stern government toward dialogue and eventually toward concession. This case left China’s media drunk [with expectation], and caused some people in our nation to harbor fragile hopes, believing that if they were to face a similar situation, which is to say that their local collective interests stood in harm’s way, this sort of sober and moderate form of expression might be generally effective. Nevertheless, when hundreds took to the streets to march on May 4, 2008, opposing a massive petrochemical project in Pengzhou (彭州) [Chengdu, Sichuan], they were attacked by police and at least four people were taken into custody. That was on the eve of the May 12 earthquake, and as the earthquake struck, news of the disaster drowned out everything else and this incident [in Pengzhou] did not get the attention it deserved. Half a year later, the scars of the earthquake have yet to pass, and in Pengzhou, which is located in just 30 kilometers from Chengdu proper and is one of the areas of the disaster zone hardest hit (just 30 kilometers from the epicenter at Yingxiu), this petrochemical project is about to start up. The National Development and Reform Commission, Ministry of Environmental Protection and the China Earthquake Administration have already signed off on the project. A friend of mine in the Beijing news media said that around 800 scientists and other experts were involved in the discussion of this major petrochemical project, including 103 national-level experts . . . Of these scientists and experts, the vast majority gave the go-ahead for this project, which is so damaging to the interests of citizens (“殃民毁城”的项目). He [this journalist] said with some measure of anger in an e-mail: “They have a duty and responsibility to uphold scientific conscience and the scientific spirit, making a public explanation to the people of Chengdu and to those around the world who care about the people in the area of the earthquake in Wenchuan, Sichuan.”
At this point, it seems that the die has been cast, and under powerful monopolizing interest groups, at the behest of a national machine that grinds everything to dust, all citizen opposition and all voices that differ have been snuffed out. Despite this, the citizens of Chengdu have not been entirely silent. They continue to struggle. Mr. Tan Zuoren is one example. He organized a movement among ordinary citizens to “peacefully surround the city,” encouraging the people of Chengdu to take to the streets carrying a simple piece of A4-sized white paper, wearing white face masks, white hats, white corsages . . . so that the whole city of Chengdu became white, the color white expressing their will. In his words, “using a mass expression of weakness to replace a collective showing of strength, using a passive act in order to actively advocate their own rights. Using white expresses opposition to the black dealings [of local officials], studying the democratic process in an orderly and progressive manner.”
These words are moving, and in China, this land where autocracy has held sway for so long, invisible bonds restrict not only our physical bodies but also our hearts and minds, so that we don’t dare think, don’t dare act, to the extent we refuse even to express our most basic disaffection, and fail to express our lack of submission or our disagreement. In the face of power, we comply with its interests, tell ourselves to persevere, and even refuse ourselves anger, refuse ourselves even that. “Resigning oneself to adversity” has become the wisdom by which we measure ourselves as a people. One could say that in Chengdu, Tan Zuoren created a new model for resistance, thinking to use “a show of weakness” to stand in for “a show of strength,” using non-overt actions to advocate actively for one’s rights. I know in the depth of my being that we must opt for shows of weakness because the state apparatus (国家机器) has deprived us of all possibilities to show our strength. We must opt for passive acts because all routes by which we might actively push for our rights have been sealed off. In a nation where demonstrations are not permitted, where even collective marches (集体散步) are not permitted, his ideas have great significance for action. That is to say, if only one’s heart and mind remain clear, if only one recognizes one’s own rights, no matter what situation you face you can conceive of resistance and find your own special way of saying “No.”
Of course, even this low-key movement of white was regrettably aborted under pressure from local police [in Chengdu]. But this does not mean Tan Zuoren’s actions failed, nor does it mean that the people of Chengdu failed. I believe that this road of civic resistance will continue, and the “storm of environmental protection in Chengdu” is just the beginning . . .

[Posted by David Bandurski, April 6, 2009, 10:58am HK]

By David Bandurski — Unhappy China (中国不高兴), a now best-selling book by several Chinese academics arguing in Darwinian terms that China should carve out for itself a pre-eminent role in world affairs, has been the focus of much coverage outside China, and of fierce debate within China. [Homepage Image: A recent issue of Shanghai’s Xinmin Weekly magazine deals with Unhappy China, its significance and its underlying commercial motivations.]
Some Chinese scholars and journalists have expressed concern about Unhappy China‘s pugnacious and even jingoistic tone. The following are two responses to the book. The first is an editorial by Nanjing professor Jing Kaixuan (景凯旋), which appeared in a recent issue of Southern Metropolis Daily; The second is an interview with Shanghai scholar Xiao Gongqin (萧功秦), part of coverage of the book by Shanghai’s Xinmin Weekly.

[ABOVE: Unhappy China, written by Wang Xiaodong, Liu Yang, Song Qiang, Huang Jisu, and Song Xiaojun, has captured the imagination of many Chinese, and concerned others.]

Jing Kaixuan begins his critique of Unhappy China against a backdrop of the myriad domestic issues with which China must contend — a not-so-subtle suggestion that China has plenty of its own concerns, and does not need to strike a confrontational tone internationally. He also invokes Hu Jintao’s term “boat-rocking,” or zhe teng (折腾), suggesting the path marked by the book’s authors is a dangerous loss of focus on the essentials.

“‘Unhappy China’ is All for Show”
By Jing Kaixuan (景凯旋)
Southern Metropolis Daily
March 31, 2009
PG A31
When I first heard about the book Unhappy China, I thought it was probably about how laid-off workers were unhappy, or about how peasants who had lost their land were unhappy. Maybe it was about how college graduates searching for work were unhappy, about how stock market investors were unhappy, or about how victims of the poisonous milk powder scandal were unhappy. [This would make sense], because the actual expression of such unhappinesses is a mark of the progress China has made. Instead, the book’s authors cast their sights much farther afield for the source of China’s unhappiness. They talk about the collective anger of Chinese toward Western nations, and say that Chinese anger demands the emergence of a group of heroes to “lead our people to successfully control and use more resources, ridding [the world of] of bullies and bringing peace to good people.”
No sooner do we drop our guard than we find others speaking once again on our behalf. But I wonder, if this is really about an invasion by foreign enemies, whether we shouldn’t be furious rather than merely “unhappy.” Relationships between nations are not like romantic relationships, which might demand a bit of petulance and coquettishness. If this [issue the authors are talking about] indeed amounts to an international dispute, it should be a matter for diplomatic negotiation to mutual benefit, not something handled with this sort of bluffing and spitting nationalism. When I read an interview with the authors at Sina.com, I found that the whole thing surged with naked Darwinism. The world works by the laws of the jungle, and if Western nations are insolently hegemonic, well then, we should behave like that too. China, therefore, must define its major objective as “first, to get rid of the bullies and bring peace to good people and, second, to control more resources than China currently has in order to bring blessings to all the people of the world.” Even Hitler’s old slogan about “using the swords of Germany to gain lands for the ploughs of Germany” was dragged out and given a new face with the Chinese term “conducting business with a sword in hand” (持剑经商).
Other than these [sentiments], I detect no other basic concepts in the authors’ work . . . In the words of one of the authors, a former author of China Can Say No, Song Qiang (宋强): “Saying ‘no’ expresses the idea that ‘China just wants to govern itself,’ while ‘unhappiness’ expresses the idea that ‘China is able to lead the world.'” If you want to rule this world, though, you must first suppose China already possesses both super powers and lofty ambitions in a number of [strategic] areas. Clearly, the “unhappy” authors don’t see things this way — they believe China can already lead the world, and they object to the idea of “soft power.” The net result is that they ring empty when they talk about China’s internal affairs, and they come off as falsely proud when they talk about foreign affairs. Moreover, realizing their ultimate goal of overthrowing the global capitalist structure would mean not just a “qualified break” with the West, but could only be accomplished through [what they call] the “liberation of the whole world.”
These authors hail from neither the left nor the right. Rather, they are modern proponents of realism . . . thinking about problems only from the standpoint of “power,” hoping that some day the politicians will offer their good graces. In the pre-Qin, there was a school called the “political strategists” (纵横家), and unlike the Confucians and Moists, they subscribed to no clear value concepts. They spent all of their time stumping for this or that cause, using their tongues as weapons, maneuvering about, always changing sides, empty of knowledge but full of tactics. But the political strategists were at least able to size up the situation and to come up with positions to argue . . . In this way, they were quite unlike our “unhappy” authors, who disregard all facts and all logic and sink into their own fantasies, saying what they please without presenting an argument, subjecting themselves to fits of conspiracy theory, and remaining all the time entirely amused by their own boat-rocking (“zhe teng”/折腾) . . .
I hear that the book is selling well, and that it has caught the attention of the Western media — perhaps this is what they mean by a “qualified break.” Generally, I don’t like to speculate about others’ motivations in writing this or that book, as this is something you can never be clear about. But [Phoenix TV correspondent] Luqiu Luwei (闾丘露薇) has revealed that: “On the day it was published, one of the books authors told me that this was a kind of method of (speculation) (“是一种(炒作)手法”), to publish a provocative book and then bandy it about. Having written this commentary up to this point, I confess I’m beginning to feel a bit thick — expostulating with such seriousness about [a book that is little more than] a circus of patriotism with its eye on the bottom line.
The writer is a professor at Nanjing University.

The following is a partial translation of an interview by Xinmin Weekly with Shanghai scholar Xiao Gongqin (萧功秦):

“Xiao Gongqin: I Oppose the Nationalism of False Pride — A Criticism of Unhappy China”
On March 27, 2009, Xiao Gongqin, a professor of history at Shanghai Normal University, agreed to an interview with Xinmin Weekly at his Shanghai residence.
Xiao Gongqin was born in Shaanxi Province, and his ancestral home is Hunan. This well-known scholar, who in the 1980s became synonymous with theories of “neo-authoritarianism,” has for many years researched contemporary political developments in China, the history of modern Chinese ideas and culture, and the political history of China in the 20th century. A few years ago, Xiao Gongqin wrote a piece entitled, “Why I Oppose Radical Nationalism” (为什么我反对激进民族主义), which was broadly influential, and he has been a shrewd observer of the latest nationalist currents.
There is no need for us to “manufacture” enemies
Xinmin Weekly: Lately, the book Unhappy China has been the source of much debate. What are your thoughts?
Xiao Gongqin: Over the last few days I’ve gone online and checked out pages dealing with Unhappy China, and in the last few weeks the number of pages dealing with it have surpassed two million, so clearly this book has had a substantial social impact. There is no question that what the authors of this book are promoting is a high-pitched, vainly arrogant and radical form of nationalism. One of the book’s authors, Wang Xiaodong (王小东), has been a friend of mine for many years, and many of the liberal intellectuals singled out for criticism in the book are also friends. China’s intellectual culture has, it seems, already entered a period of diversity, and although I do not agree with many of the views expressed in Unhappy China, as one among many voices in this developing culture, its existence, and its dialogue with differing viewpoints, can at least serve to catalyze a clash of ideas. What is most terrible, for any society or any people, is homogeneity of thought. The balancing and clashing of varying voices, whether liberalism or nationalism, cultural protectionism, etcetera, can only have a positive outcome for the enriching of our people’s capacity for thought. People holding different views should have an attitude of tolerance.
The publication of this book has created ripples, and there are many reasons why it has had such an influence, including its jarring title and its clever commercial strategy or “build up.” But one reason is certain, and that is because it seeks to answer the question of modern China’s relationship with other peoples of the world. This question tugs at people’s hearts because 30 years of reform have made the Chinese people stronger, and so after a century of shame Chinese people face the question of how to re-define ourselves.
XW: One of the book’s authors, Song Qiang (宋强), has said that he prefers the term “new patriotism” (新爱国主义) to describe the popular sentiment of nationalism [today]. What are your thoughts?
Xiao Gongqin: I’ve long held the view, even before this book came out, that China’s nationalism was marked by a reactive quality, that it was goaded by a sense of tragedy and shame over the Chinese experience in the last century. This form of reactive nationalism could be stirred up, and so if these stimuli from the outside world vanished, this sort of nationalism would fade as well. Look, for example, at the May 8, 1999, incident [in which the U.S. bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade], and the 2001 collision of a Chinese fighter jet and an American spy plane. Both could be seen as examples of this reactive form of nationalism.
Nevertheless, the form of nationalism represented in this book can no longer be defined in these original terms. Overall speaking, the attitude of Western countries toward China is warmer now than it has been in the past, particularly in the midst of the economic crisis, as the West has looked to China . . . hoping for friendly cooperation, and peaceful development has already become a general consensus among nations. Under this situation, the nationalism as represented by Unhappy China, which persists in striking this menacing tone, cannot be characterized as reactive. I believe that for some time to come this nationalist wave as epitomized by Unhappy China will continue to exist, and foreigners will have to learn to come to terms with this non-reactive form of Chinese nationalism.
What is the character of this new nationalism? Its crucial point is the positing by necessity of an “external enemy,” and this is seen by the authors as a basic condition of China’s existence and development. One of the authors, Wang Xiaodong (王小东) holds precisely this. He believes that, “any species, if it is not challenged by its external environment, will certainly degenerate.” He finds a root for this new nationalism in social biology. He believes also that China has at present no “selective pressures,” so “everyone believes that things are fine, and that its OK to muddle along, and this makes degeneration unavoidable.” Particularly interesting is this line: “America too faces this problem, and so it actively goes in search of enemies.” I’m not sure, but it seems Brother Xiaodong is actually suggesting that in order for our people to grow strong, China must, lacking “selective pressures,” go and search for “selective pressures.”
I think the logic here can be summed up like this: If external pressures are the necessary condition of the development and existence of a people, if they then lack pressures, they must as a matter of course manufacture these pressures. If this is the argument, then it is both fearsome and dangerous. I really, really hope this is not what the authors mean, but what of the “angry youth” who are more radical than they are? They can certainly seize upon this logic . . . It is in this theoretical logic of nationalism that I see something frightful and dangerous. It does not lie too far, in fact, from bullying racism and jingoism.
More than ten years ago, Xiaodong applied himself to promoting nationalism, and I don’t question his academic earnestness, but if a thinker finds himself invested in a theory fraught with danger, and this framework of thought once again drags into peril a people who have only just emerged from a century of pain and who have the opportunity to thrive, that is poor timing.
Perhaps the authors will think I’ve made my case too strongly, that this is not what they intend, that they only want to urge the Chinese people not to grow idle. But what is crucial to realize is that this form of nationalism is by its own logic a Pandora’s box that will release monsters that cannot be put back.

FURTHER READING:
“Book Stokes Nationalism in China,” Jason Dean, Wall Street Journal, March 30, 2009
“China is Unhappy: censors take hands-off approach to bestseller,” Jane Macartney, The Times, March 26, 2009
“A new book reveals why China is unhappy,” Austin Ramzy, Time.com, March 20, 2009
“‘Unhappy China’ bestseller claims Beijing should ‘lead the world’,” Malcolm Moore, The Telegraph, March 29, 2009
[Posted by David Bandurski, April 2, 2009, 11:34am HK]

By David Bandurski — Reuters reported 20 minutes ago the news of the detention of environmentalist Tan Zuoren in Sichuan, so we’ll post now an evolving translation of a personal e-mail we received early this morning from a prominent Chinese filmmaker familiar with the case. Prior to his detention, Tan had been conducting independent research on the death of students in last year’s Sichuan earthquake, in many cases a direct result of shoddy building construction.

[ABOVE: “Mourning,” by Joshua and Eva, available at Flickr.com under Creative Commons license. A collage of Chinese newspaper front pages on the Sichuan earthquake from May 2008 ]

Our translation of the letter, which includes the text of Tan’s formal proposal urging the creation of a “May 12 Student Archive” (5·12学生档案), follows:

Tan Zuoren is a good friend of mine. He is a very reasonable and good person. Signed, ****
Friends:
On March 28, Chengdu-based environmentalist, writer and former editor of Literati magazine (文化人) magazine Tan Zuoren (谭作人) was taken into custody under charges of “inciting subversion of state power” (涉嫌颠覆国家政权). [NOTE: This is the same charge that was leveled against Hu Jia (胡佳) in January 2008]. Prior to this Mr. Tan was working on an investigation into the death of children in shoddy school buildings during the Sichuan Earthquake, and was verifying a list of students who died. On the morning of the 28th, police barged into his home and took away all computer disks, handwritten notes and other materials. Only his children were home at the time, as the police proceeded to photograph the scene.
Tan Zuoren was an organizer and participant of many charitable events that drew attention from citizens in Chengdu and wider Sichuan. He organized a “peaceful protection” (“和平保城”) movement concerning a petrochemical project in Pengzhou (彭州), and submitted to the local government a petition called “Opinions and Proposals from Citizens Concerning the Penzhou Petrochemical Project” (关于成都彭州石化项目的公民意见建议书). Following the earthquake in Sichuan last year, Tan Zuoren published many analytical articles. This spring Tan Zuoren wrote a formal written proposal for the creation of a “May 12 Student Archive” (5·12学生档案) and began research on the ground with the hope that he might complete an independent citizen investigation in time for the one-year anniversary of the Sichuan quake.
Tan Zuoren’s mobile phone cannot be reached at present, and his wife and two small children have been along at home since his detention. Prior to his detention, his computer was stolen and his household dog was stabbed with a knife [by an unknown person]. Tan Zuoren felt that these were possibly acts of revenge against himself, and he had considered separating from his family in order to protect his wife and children from harm. As of now, Tan Zuoren’s friends have managed only to reach his home phone: ******.
Below is a copy of Mr. Tan’s formal written proposal:
Where there are Web users, there is openness and fairness. Web users of China, let us do our bit for the children!
A Proposal Concerning the Creation of a “May 12 Student Archive”
For the children who died in the May 12 earthquake disaster, Chinese law has collectively been lost. This is to the shame of judicial circles, and to the collective shame of Chinese people today.
Through 30 years of reform, the Chinese people have drawn the lessons of an autocratic society (人治社会). They have put right to wrongs, and steadily built the system and laws and the judicial system demanded of a society ruled by law. In the last 30 years, the idea of governing the country according to the law has entered the hearts of the people, becoming a basic consensus praised by all.
Nevertheless, following the May 12 earthquake in Sichuan, in the faces of masses of school buildings that collapsed without reason and before thousands of students and teachers who perished as a result, China’s courts have closed their doors and China’s laws have retreated. The house of rule of law that the Chinese people have worked so hard to build is lurching on its foundations, and is in peril. China’s has started to turn back on its journey toward judicial reforms, and reemerging is the idea that power is above the law and that public power can be used for private gain.
Owing to severe restrictions by the local government on investigation into the cause of the collapse of school buildings [in Sichuan], owing to the fact that education authorities have not launched their own investigations, and owing to the fact that building departments, seismological departments and justice departments have neglected their responsibilities, no one has looked into the reasons behind the collapse of the schools. And so, before the caprice of a small number of local officials and the ridiculous lies of a number of non-experts, China’s media has fallen silent, China’s laws have shrunk away, and Chinese society has turned a blind eye to these crimes against the truth and their terrible repercussions. Given such a state, the conscience and dignity of the Chinese people has already fallen victim to the political expedience and scheming of local officials. This is not right! And it is shameful!
What is tragic is that, out of a need to cover up guilt, we still do not really know how many children we lost in the May 12 earthquake! Because of this, China stands mute before the world — of course, those [local officials] who open their eyes and speak untruths, who close their eyes and speak crosswise, are exceptions.
Particularly disgusting is the fact that when the parents of students who perished in the May 12 earthquake organized themselves and sought to defend their rights in accordance with the law, using actions to preserve the gains of legal system building, they were again faced with man-made setbacks!
The children of May 12 are children of China. Every Chinese person of conscience should feel a twinge of guilt in their hearts and feel responsible for these children. When our children face unfairness and misfortune, can we not, aside from saying a simple “sorry,” take more concrete actions on their behalf?
Only by respecting the dead can we be kind to the living. As the one-year anniversary of the May 12 quake approaches, we hereby propose to Internet media: Web users of China, take action. Put into action all of your resources and build and participate in a “May 12 Student File,” so that the teachers and students who died in the earthquake can receive the respect that should be theirs.
All life is equally valuable. In assessing our losses, we must first calculate the loss of human life. As official statistics are not accepted as credible, and as popular estimates are not substantiated, what we suggest is this: Let China’s Web users act, building on the Internet a “May 12 Student Archive” on the basis of independent citizen investigations that is validated by parents of students who perished, using the Web to return to ourselves the truths that have been glossed over. On this basis, moreover, we must build an online “May 12 Student Memorial (5·12学生墓园) . . .
We recommend the following specific plan for the “May 12 Student Archive”:
1. We request that Web volunteers organize themselves and proceed to disaster-stricken areas in Sichuan, Gansu, Shaanxi to conduct independent citizen investigations. Through interviews with the parents of students, [these groups should] verify the numbers of deceased students in every class, in every schools, in every township and village and every region, in this way building various “May 12 Student Archive (XX Group)” survey databases that can be stored on their own blogs.
2. Through independent citizen investigations, solicit name lists of deceased teachers and students, and through the gathering of survey questionnaires (please see ATTACHMENT) seek the true causes that resulted in the senseless death of students and teachers, the real facts concerning those responsible for these accidents, and come to understand the principle demands of parents of students who have sought to defend their rights according to the law as well as the specific difficulties they face, so that these cases may be quickly moved into judicial proceedings and legal evidence presented in support.
3. To gather and compile the investigation results submitted by the independent citizen investigative groups, providing these to functional departments, decision-making departments, judicial departments and the news media, promoting reasonable public policy decisions and orderly channels for resolution [of lingering issues], fundamentally ensuring social stability and preserving conscience.
4. The facts will serve as evidence, and the law as the yardstick. Through the “May 12 Student Archive” we will preserve Chinese law and dignity, consolidate our gains in the building of rule of law, and work together to build China’s civil society.
Proposal author: Tan Zuoren (谭作人), Chengdu Web user
E—mail：*********
电话：**********
February 20, 2009

FURTHER READING:
“Chinese Quake Activist Arrested,” BBC, April 1, 2009
“Chinese Official Calls for Heightened Security,” Associated Press, April 1, 2009
“Chinese Officials Defend Construction of Schools Felled in Quake,” Keith Bradsher, New York Times, March 8, 2009
Online interview with Tan Zuoren at Vimeo.com, about the Sichuan earthquake
“Our Land is Under Seige,” Tan Zuoren, Human Rights in China, 2006
Link to Tan’s NGO, Green River [List of volunteers at Green River in Chengdu, including Tan].
[Posted by David Bandurski, 2:53pm HK, April 1, 2009]

By David Bandurski — For those who have not discovered it yet, China’s leading business and finance magazine, Caijing, has now launched its own online blog section at Caijing Online. Contributors, including Caijing‘s founder and editor-in-chief, Hu Shuli (胡舒立), also a former CMP fellow, write on a range of topics, including business, politics, current affairs and media.

For just a taste, we translated Hu’s March 25 blog entry, in which she muses about the confusion that ensued at Caijing‘s Washington, D.C.-based finance forum earlier this year, when one audience member asked the panelists how they would suggest translating Hu Jintao’s newest CCP buzzword, “bu zheteng” (不折腾).

It was just after the new year at 1775 Massachussets Avenue in Washington, D.C., the home of the Brookings Institution. For the second year in a row, Caijing magazine was holding the “overseas portion” of its annual conference on “Strategies and Forecasts” at this location, and the main auditorium and two video-conferencing venues were full to capacity.
Later in the afternoon, the conference began its last panel discussion and exchanges were lively between speakers and members of the audience. Suddenly, one audience member asked a question of Chinese economist Xu Xiaonian (许小年), who was onstage as a panelist: “You were just talking about deepening reforms and loosening controls. China observers have noted that Party Chairman Hu Jintao has recently used the term “bu zheteng” (不折腾) in official speeches, and I’d like to know — the concept behind this word is at once very simple and very complicated, so how should we translate it?”
From what I know, it was on December 18, 2008, as Hu Jintao spoke to mark the 30th anniversary of economic reforms [in China] that he used for the first time the phrase, “don’t shake (动摇), don’t slacken (懈怠) and don’t zheteng” (折腾) [NOTE: The full phrase is “不动摇、不懈怠、不折腾”]. And from that time on how to translate the phrase “to not zheteng” became a point of difficulty among experts. Many translations of this term have so far come out among everyone from journalists to Chinese officials, including “don’t make trouble, “don’t do something that will finally prove useless,” “don’t do something that only wastes time,” and even “don’t flip flop,” “don’t get sidetracked,” “don’t sway back and forth” or “no dithering.” There is also the more down-to-earth version “no major changes.” But there has so far been no translation everyone is satisfied with. At a State Council Information Office press briefing on December 30, not long after the term first emerged, a use of the term by [Information Office director] Wang Chen (王晨) was rendered simply [in pinyin] as “buzheteng.”
Xu Xiaonian of course was familiar with all of this background. Thereupon, this man with top-notch translation experience, an American resident PhD economist, responded quite frankly: “I don’t know. I really don’t know.”
Global finance expert Wang Jun (王君), who was also on Xu’s panel, then chimed in, saying he had heard [China’s deputy finance minister] Jin Liqun (金立群), [who was also present in Washington], talking about this same problem. “Would Mr. Jin care to offer his thoughts?” he suggested.
“That’s right, we have a linguist in our midst,” Xu Xiaonian mused.
China Investment Corporation chairman Jin Liqun had already spoken as a guest earlier that afternoon, and he was sitting on the second row in the audience listening in on this session. Amid a peal of applause, the 59 year-old Jin Liqun stood up and shared his own knowledge. A translation of his remarks follows:
“We’ve not yet seen the final version in translation from our officials. The principal point in undertaking translation is to seek out a word that accords with the original meaning, but this is an impossible mission. Therefore, I won’t attempt this myself. As to this “bu zheteng” I think we must not seek out a particular cognate, but must instead work hard to understand history, the history following the establishment of the People’s Republic of China. For example, from the Great Leap Forward to the Cultural Revolution . . .
That is to say, you wish to accomplish something, and you believe it is something monumental, but the result is utter chaos, so then you decide you want to do something else [monumental that ends in disaster]. This history shows that our nation has been through “zhe teng” many times.
(Laughter rolled through the audience.)
So, “zhe teng” is something that cannot be translated into English, just as there are English words that are difficult to translate into Chinese. I think that certain words and expressions within a language, slang in particular, are difficult to translate. The best thing, therefore, is to bring these words directly into English. The English language has accommodated various foreign vocabularies, such as French and German.
So, why go and trouble yourself over a translation? There is no need. Don’t.
(Laughter.)
I feel the only thing I can do is convey this sense, but it is still not enough. Moreover, some people have suggested that Shakespeare has already provided an appropriate expression: “much ado about nothing” (in Chinese translated wushishengfei, 无事生非). There is some reason in this. “Much ado about nothing” is also an acceptable translation, giving us some of the sense. But I still feel it’s not adequate enough. Why? Because “zhe teng” is a verb in Chinese, an intransitive verb, while “much ado about nothing” is a noun phrase and so can’t be used quite in this way.
And so, my answer to the question of translation, still inadequate, is to first propose that the word be directly introduced into English as “buzheteng.” If you insist upon a translation, then I think the closest phrase is “don’t rock the boat,” or “no boat rocking” (in Chinese rendered directly bu huangchuan, 别晃船). Because we are all having a good time and then somebody is starting to rock the boat. So, “buzheteng” is do not rock the boat.
Thank you, everyone.
(Laughter and applause.)
Frankly speaking, Jin Liqun is an English expert, and my own translation [of the exchange at the conference] is possibly insufficient. I’ll only offer my apologies right here, then, and return to the original [English] at the end. An english transcript of this year’s conference is already available at the conference channel on Caijing Online, so those who are interested can go and see for themselves.

[Posted by David Bandurski, March 27, 2009, 8:21am HK]
　　

By David Bandurski — Tibet is a touchy tinderbox of a subject — not to mention an incredibly complex one — and so we have long avoided mention of the “T” word on our project Website. Sifting through Chinese news coverage, however, is our raison d’être at the China Media Project. And as we’ve gone about minding our daily business in recent days, the headlines have doggedly clamored for our attention:

In People’s Daily: “Treasuring the fruits of democratic reform: celebrating the 50th anniversary of the liberation of millions of Tibetan serfs”
In Guangming Daily: “Treasuring the fruits of democratic reform: celebrating the 50th anniversary of the liberation of millions of Tibetan serfs”
In Economic Daily: “Treasuring the fruits of democratic reform: celebrating the 50th anniversary of the liberation of millions of Tibetan serfs”
At Xinhua Online: “Treasuring the fruits of democratic reform: celebrating the 50th anniversary of the liberation of millions of Tibetan serfs”
In Sichuan Daily: “Treasuring the fruits of democratic reform: celebrating the 50th anniversary of the liberation of millions of Tibetan serfs”

. . . and in Zhejiang Daily, People’s Daily Online, Gansu Daily, Beijing Daily, CPPCC Daily, CCTV.com, Qinghai Daily, Science & Technology Daily . . .

[ABOVE: “Megaphone” by Just Marc, available at Flickr.com under Creative Commons license.]

The list goes on and on. The above article, amplified across scores of official newspapers yesterday, even got a steroid injection of pre-publicity on Sunday’s official nightly newscast at China Central Television.
You can’t buy that kind of publicity — unless, of course, you’re an authoritarian government.
We don’t mean to dredge up that old wisdom — Vladimir Lenin’s, wasn’t it? — about how, if you repeat a lie often enough, people will begin to believe it. This isn’t a provocative post about whether the CCP has its facts right or wrong. (For that, we refer you to the latest English-language coverage of protests in Tibet, a rather stark counterpoint to the carnival atmosphere in the official media).
But when we sat down yesterday to sort through a cross-section of Chinese coverage of Tibet in the last few months, it was eye-opening to realize just how much there was. There have been 3,087 articles with the keyword “Tibet” in Chinese newspapers this month according to our database, and 817 of these have had “Tibet” in the headline.
These numbers actually pale in comparison to coverage in March and April last year, when Chinese media heaped scorn on the “Dalai clique” and the “hostile foreign forces” sowing unrest in China after large-scale riots in the region. But last month, even as the CCP was gearing up for the sensitive anniversary of the 1959 uprising, there were half as many articles with “Tibet” in the headline as there have been so far this month — with days yet to go until the 28th, which the CCP has designated “Tibetan Serf Emancipation Day”.
This spring surge in Chinese coverage of Tibet is entirely understandable given the historical significance of this month and what are clearly ongoing political sensitivities in the region.
What struck me, however, as I read through People’s Daily coverage of Tibet yesterday — my database print-out gave me a 183-page tome of coverage in this official paper alone going back to March 1 — was just how insulated and pointless China’s attempt to push its own message seems to have been so far.
There has been a great deal of coverage this year about how China plans to launch its own international media ventures with the (greatly misguided, I think) hope of upping its “share of global public opinion.” Judging from the international response to all of the CCP’s noise on Tibet, it seems they could really use the help. But if these new international outlets play the same game, offering one-sided coverage, they can probably expect the same results.
If you go back just a few weeks, China has spoken volumes about Tibet, the “true situation” in Tibet, the CCP’s cultural contributions to Tibet (gainsaying the “Dalai cliques” supposed slander about the “destruction of Tibetan culture”). It has published supposed personal accounts that testify to progress wrought by the CCP in Tibet. And of course it has peddled the usual propaganda tropes: “Only in the embrace of the socialist national family, upholding the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, cleaving to the socialist system . . . has Tibetan society been able to achieve continued development and the Tibetan people enjoy a prosperous today and an even brighter tomorrow!” (That’s from Sunday’s People’s Daily).
But nothing speaks better to the seeming pointlessness of this public relations effort than the reception given to a flesh-and-blood delegation to the U.S. and Canada recently, which included NPC delegate and “Living Buddha” Shingtsa Tenzinchodrak.
People’s Daily covered the delegation again yesterday, with an article on page 3 that quoted Tenzinchodrak as saying:

“Right now many people in the West have misconceptions about Tibet and basically fail to understand Tibet. I and the other four members of the delegation are all Tibetans, born and raised, and we all come from the grassroots. We are officials, doctors, village cadres, and we understand Tibet and represent the Tibetan people. We have made this journey with the hope of connecting with them face-to-face and having a discussion. I am confident this will help them better understand Tibet.”

Tenzinchodrak was in Toronto, where he hosted a “forum” on Tibet and later, said People’s Daily, gave “exclusive interviews to several major Canadian broadcasters.”
Strangely, though, this official delegation, “Living Buddha” notwithstanding, seems to have gotten no coverage where it counts — zero, zip, ling (零).
The delegation traveled thousands of miles, straight into the milling media hives of North America (Washington, New York and Toronto), with all the propaganda power and determination China’s government could muster. They endured jetlag and bad airline food. And for what?
That’s right. Resounding silence.
A search of the last week for “Tenzinchodrak” in Google News brings up only one small piece from Canada’s National Post , which maintains a sceptical tone about the China delegation and focusses mostly on an October 2007 meeting between the Dalai Lama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The article’s headline refers to Tenzinchodrak as “Beijing’s ‘living Buddha’.”
The rest of the news coverage stays entirely within the family:

* Xinhua News Agency, in English (also in French)
* China Daily
* Radio China International (also in Polish)

The delegation did manage to earn this story from Epoch Times, but it hardly makes the scoreboard — it is about how certain journalists were allegedly ejected from the Toronto forum by Chinese consulate representatives.
Was it necessary for the delegation to travel so far to get such “positive propaganda”?
The delegation fares no better in a Lexis-Nexis database search for coverage over the last week in major U.S. and international media (including broadcast transcripts).

The articles on the roster are basically: Xinhua, BBC Monitoring Service regurgitation of Xinhua (identified as Xinhua), Xinhua, and China Daily.
Further down there is a brief article from Voice of America, which tags onto Tenzinchodrak’s comments an unflattering “meanwhile” about the ongoing “security clampdown in Tibet”:

A Chinese official has downplayed expectations for further talks between Beijing and the Dalai Lama’s envoys on Tibet. Meanwhile, China has launched a security clampdown in Tibet and neighboring regions to prevent protests marking the 50th anniversary of a failed uprising against Chinese rule. Tibetan rights groups have reported small protests in Tibet and nearby areas in recent days . . .

The last bit of coverage is an item that appeared in the White House Bulletin on March 17. As it reports the delegation’s activities in the U.S. capital, the item sums up very well both the significance of China’s aggressive public relations campaign on Tibet and its enormous challenges:

A delegation of five Tibetan deputies in China’s National People’s Congress said Tuesday morning that economic and social conditions in the troubled region — wracked by political violence last year — are improving across the board.
The group spoke at the Chinese Embassy, and the event was probably more remarkable for what it represented than for what was said. By bringing the deputies to speak in Washington, the Chinese government is showing a far greater willingness to be active in Washington public relations efforts on a deeply sensitive internal issue.

This engagement may for China mark the beginning of a long, arduous and productive lesson in how to build real international credibility. First, of course, they will need to learn from their mistakes.
[Posted by David Bandurski, March 24, 2009, 12:26pm HK]
FURTHER READING:
“Chinese in UK mark reforms in Tibet,” China Daily, March 23, 2009
“West ‘lacks information about Tibet’,” China Daily, March 23, 2009

By David Bandurski — It is no big secret that policies made with the best of intentions can be foolishly unworkable, and perhaps party leaders in the city of Guangzhou should be given the benefit of the doubt — about their intentions, that is. Earlier this week, top city leaders in Guangzhou rolled out measures for a bold new “accountability system” designed to “further systematize” good behavior among cadres.
The only problem, as a few Chinese commentaries have pointed out, is that under these “new” measures, just as under the old status quo, the mandate to supervise rests entirely in the hands of the cadres themselves.

[ABOVE: Screenshot of news coverage of Guangzhou’s “accountability system.” Gov’t document at right says officials will be held accountable for not accepting media supervision. Thought bubble says: “I have to publicly apologize too . . . “]

But let us assume for a moment that the Guangzhou measures are preferable to, say, nothing. We can at least argue — can’t we? — that they make more explicit statements about the kinds of behavior leaders should be held accountable for. [The full text of the Guangzhou document is available here].
Take Article 2, for example, which specifies in general — I realize that’s an oxymoron, but it fits — the various grounds on which a leader may be held accountable for negligent behavior:

1. Formulation and promulgation of decisions or orders that violate the party constitution and other party regulations, and/or [violate] laws and regulations.
2. The making of policy decisions outside one’s scope of authority.
3. Violation of procedures in the selection of cadres, or serious misuse or abuse of employees.
4. Failure to act in accordance with procedural rules in carrying out major policy decisions.
5. Failure to act in accordance with regulations that call for evidentiary hearings, public hearings or other forms of opinion-seeking in carrying out projects that have broad social implications directly touching on the interests of the masses.
6. Failure to make public information on policy decisions that should be made public in accordance with regulations.

Further down, Article 11 deals with the “acceptance of supervision” by officials, and defines four more situations in which they are to be held accountable for being naughty:

1. Failure to accept or cooperate with intra-party supervision, legal supervision, democratic supervision, supervision by public opinion [“watchdog journalism”] and supervision by the masses.
2. Inciting, leading or tolerating employees of one’s department in suppression of, tampering with or opposition to supervisory inspections or case investigations, or physical acts of revenge against those responsible for filing cases, informants, plaintiffs or witnesses.
3. Failure to execute decisions rendered by the People’s Court or administrative decisions.
4. Failure, without proper cause, to rectify violations of the law or party discipline after opinions and comments have been rendered by superior organs, discipline inspection organs or administrative supervision departments.

The basic problem with the Guangzhou measures is evident if you give even cursory thought to any of the specifications listed above.
It is already a serious problem, for example, for officials to “violate procedures in the selection of cadres.” Nevertheless, it happens all the time. Similarly, overstepping one’s line of authority is by definition a breach of responsibility — that’s why the lines are there to begin with.
What good is an “accountability system” if it is nothing more than a verbal statement of the obvious? If it establishes no real cross-checks?
Giving Guangzhou leaders the benefit of the doubt, we can see from the second group of specifics above that they are in fact including external forms of supervision in their “accountability system.” They talk about “legal supervision,” “supervision by the masses,” and about media supervision, or “supervision by public opinion.”
But it is here especially that the tougher institutional questions come to the fore. Clearly, supervision, insofar as it means placing real checks on power, demands some level of independence from those carrying out supervision — and that requires some form of institutional reform, whether it be a more independent legal system or political protections for more independent journalism.
None of these nagging issues come up in the Guangzhou measures, and this is where Chinese critics have cautiously found fault this week.
But we’ll start out with a more positive take by Xu Xunlei (徐迅雷) that appeared in CNHubei’s Donghu Commentary column (东湖评论) on March 18, and dealt with the relationship between officials and the media.
Xu’s column begins with a quote from Abraham Lincoln, the Chinese translation of which cleverly employs the adverbial phrase jianding buyi de (坚定不移地), which Chinese President Hu Jintao used at the 17th Party Congress in October 2007 in language about the need to develop socialist democratic politics:

“I believe resolutely in the people. If we allow them to know the truth then we can rely upon them to resolve any crisis facing the nation. The important thing is to answer them truthfully.” These words were left to us by the great American president Abraham Lincoln.
“Answering [the people] truthfully” is [a concept] inseparable from the media. Transmitting information down [to the people] is work that requires the media; The expression of public opinion comes from the media; monitoring by society cannot happen without the media. The power of the media and the news is an important extension of soft power. In the modern age of globalized information, the relationship between officials and the media must grow ever closer.
Here is a bit of good news: Guangzhou’s “Provisional Measures for Accountablity Among Guangzhou Party and Government Cadres” state that [leaders will be] held accountable in cases where personnel are misused, sudden-breaking events are not reported, are reported to late or are not reported truthfully, and in cases where information about policy decisions is not made public in accordance with regulations (Southern Metropolis Daily, March 17). On the question of accepting supervision, [the measures] state clearly that cases where party and government officials do not accept or do not cooperate with media supervision will fall within the scope of accountability. Relevant experts have said that this move clearly shows the enlightened and progressive stance of government offices [in Guangzhou] (New Express, March 17).
This is happy and welcome news. Before the face of public opinion, we can see and touch political democracy (政治民主). Guangdong province is on the front lines of economic reform, and it makes sense that it should be one step ahead in the building of an accountability system for party and government leaders . . .
If our government is to make the transition for a control-based system to a service-based system, it must demand that officials put a premium not on power but on accountability. Accepting supervision should be a clear institutional responsibility. Shanxi province has already chalked one up for progress [on this front]. The attitude toward the handling of the February 22 gas explosion at the Dunlan Mine was essentially one of openness and transparency toward reporters, unlike in the past, when the first thought governments had after mine disasters was to prevent reporting and cover up the truth. Media from outside [Shanxi] said: “This time around it’s completely different. The local authorities employed a high-level of transparency in handling [the disaster], and when reporters showed their press cards to police at the entrance, they were immediately granted entry and were free to move about the area . . . ”

The tone of Xu’s editorial is almost jubilant. One must suppose that he is either genuinely optimistic about changes in Guangzhou, or feels that the change in tone is positive and therefore deserves boisterous praise, whatever the outcome might be in practice.
The final line of Xu’s essay suggests, however, that he has woefully misread the measures, having confused the text with institutional reality. He writes exultantly that, in Guangzhou, “the system has determined that ‘accepting media supervision’ is the first choice.”
Begging Xu’s pardon, but the “system” has done no such thing. The measures no more ensure acceptance of media supervision by Guangzhou officials than China’s constitutional language about free expression (Chapter 2, Article 35) ensures citizens can publicly speak their minds.
One of the best criticisms along these lines came yesterday in the commentary pages at Guangzhou’s Yangcheng Evening News, where Pan Hongqi (潘洪其) wrote that what media supervision required was not “acceptance” by party officials but real institutional protections for journalists:

According to some relevant experts, these regulations in Guangzhou underscored the importance of supervision by public opinion [“watchdog journalism” or “media supervision], and reflected the progressiveness and enlightened attitude of the government. Still, the demands in the “Measures” that officials accept and cooperate with media supervision are still enough to make one feel unsure.
When media carry out supervision of officials, the relationship between media and officials is one of monitor to monitored. When it comes to specific incidences or events, if those who are monitored are confident there are no problems they will have no fear of being monitored, and of course they will openly accept supervision and offer up their cooperation. That sort of supervision is quite safe for those being monitored, and the monitor also feels quite obliging, so the relationship on both sides is quite accommodating and harmonious. But the case more frequently is that officials either worry that this or that small problem will be uncovered by the media, or they are determined at whatever cost to cover up some major scandal. In such cases it is clearly difficult for them to accept and actively cooperate with media supervision.
In the first case above, the official has no problems that prevent him from accepting and cooperating with media supervision (and some officials will artfullyl use active “cooperation” to turn so-called supervision into “positive news reports” about themselves). Therefore, regulations about “officials being held accountable for not accepting or cooperating with media supervision” have no real meaning for them. Moreover, in the second case mentioned above, the fear among officials that they be held accountable for not accepting or cooperating with media supervision is much smaller than the fear they have of being held accountable or being disciplined by the party discipline inspection apparatus as a result of a scandal unearthed through media supervision. In the vast majority of cases, officials will opt against accepting or cooperating with media supervision because in their view the costs of not accepting supervision are much smaller than the cost of a media expose of wrongdoing. In this situation regulations about “officials being held accountable for not accepting or cooperating with media supervision” will be equally meaningless.
In point of fact, whether officials accept and cooperate with media supervision or not is not greatly important. The real important question is whether or not media can confidently and firmly carry out supervision of officials. Supposing media can be bold in conducting supervision, then they can simply include the fact of an official’s “failure to accept and cooperate” in their report — this is itself a form of media supervision.

[Posted by David Bandurski, March 20, 2009, 4:47pm HK]

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]