By Emma Lupano — Just one week after the arrest in Beijing of Li Min, a CCTV journalist accused of taking bribes while covering a story in Shanxi, Chinese media reported last week that Guan Jian, another Beijing journalist, had been “taken away” by the police in early December while on a reporting stint to the same province. [Frontpage Image: “Locked and Chained” by Darwin Bell available at Flickr.com under Creative Commons license.]
It is still not clear precisely what circumstances led to the arrest of Guan, a journalist from Network News (网络报). Accounts in Chinese media say the journalist went to Shanxi province to investigate a local real estate company.
Media reports have said that Guan Jian was spirited away from a hotel lobby where he was waiting on the afternoon of December 1, when five men forced the reporter into a silver Volkswagen Touareg. Evidence of the “kidnapping,” as some called it, came as hotel video surveillance footage was made public by The Beijing News on December 15.
The day after the footage became national news, one of Guan’s co-workers, Li Chuyi, wrote on his weblog that Guan had been found. A partial translation of the blog post can be found at ESWN. Here is a portion:

At 3pm on December 15, 2008, I received a telephone call from the family of Guan Jian. At 12:32pm, a man claiming to be with the Hebei province Zhangjiakou city police department economic crime investigation squad used Guan Jian’s mobile phone to call them. The man said that Guan Jian was taken away by Zhangjiakou police at 6pm on December 1 from the Jinjiang Star Hotel and is presently criminally detained by the Zhangjiakou police. The man asked the family to bring some money and medicine over. When asked why, the man said that the medicine was for Guan Jian’s coronary heart ailment, high cholesterol and high blood pressure, while the money was for improving Guan Jian’s living conditions at the detention center. Why was Guan Jian taken away? What crime did he commit? Why did they notify the family fourteen days later? The Zhangjiakou policeman refused to answer any of these questions. At 5pm, I contacted the Zhangjiakou city police department economic crime investigation squad on behalf of my work unit. I asked about Guan Jian’s present condition, the reason why he was detained and why they waited so long before informing the family. A police officer named Tian gave unfriendly answers such as “It is not convenient to say,” “It was necessary for the case,” “We informed Guan Jian’s family at noon today.”

Li Chuyi argued that police from Zhangjiakou had violated China’s Criminal Law, which requires notification of local police (in this case, Taiyuan) in the event of cross-jurisdictional arrests, and also specifies that family members be notified within 24 hours of the arrest. Zhangjiakou police have since admitted that they arrested the reporter in Taiyuan.
After initial coverage by The Beijing News, scores of Chinese newspapers followed up on the story and many editorial pages questioned the tactics used by Hebei police to arrest Guan Jian.
One of the first commentaries came from Wang Gangqiao (王刚桥), an academic, in The Beijing News on December 16. A partial translation follows:

“Detention by law is OK, but secret arrest is not”
Guan Jian, a journalist from Beijing’s Network News mysteriously disappeared in Shanxi province while carrying out reporting in the region. According to surveillance video from the hotel [where the detention occurred], Guan Jian was taken away on December 1 at around 6pm by five people who restrained his arms and forced him into a Volkswagen Touareg. . .
This news left people astonished. Guan Jian has been missing for half a month already, and it was a week ago that his family went to Shanxi province to complain to police. The police opened a case file and launched an investigation, making a preliminary determination that the reporter was “missing.” Shanxi authorities, the victim’s family and his employer put great effort and resources into tracking down this missing person — then we learn out of the blue that the “missing person” was led away by police. Even those with little or not background in the administration of justice would ask to obvious questions: why didn’t police inform the family about the arrest? Even though police authorities in Shanxi said yesterday that Zhangjiakou police made contact with Taiyuan police before taking Guan Jian away, why was it that Guan’s family received no explanation before this? And what are the crimes for which Guan is begin “taken away”? Is his being “taken away” a matter of “summons” (拘传) or of “detention” (拘留)?
The arrest of a journalist in Taiyuan by Zhangjiakou police has bewildered the public, and the police should give the public, including Guan Jian and his family, a single reasonable explanation. If the “taking away” of the suspect was not conducted according to laws and regulations, then those specific police personnel responsible should face proper legal consequences . . . The police cannot arrest people in secret, because justice without procedure is not justice at all.

A December 16 editorial in Kunming’s Spring City Evening News by Nuo Song (傩送) used the Guan Jian case to discuss the social role and plight of journalists working in China today. The editorial accused “certain government authorities” of leaving reporters on their one in the fight against injustice:

“Journalist cannot bear on their weak shoulder the entire burden of social justice”
Cases of journalists facing violence have become nothing new in recent years. According to survey conducted by China Youth Daily, journalists rank third on a list of most dangerous professions [in China], falling just behind police and miners. With successive versions of “[outside] police entering Beijing to seize journalists” arising from Liaoning and Shanxi provinces, editorial pages at many media have explored the question: how do we protect journalists’ legal right to carry out reporting? And now, with [reporter] Guan Jian missing, people are once again asking: how do we ensure that the bodily safety of journalists is not violated in the process of carrying out reporting?
But this write cares even more about another question. Namely, who is it that puts journalists in harm’s way?
We live in an age in which journalists are “all powerful.” Journalists aren’t just lookouts on the prow, reporters of the truth, or capable detectives — many dark aspects of our society receive the attention of the government only after journalists have revealed them, and we can see this in the Loufan (娄烦) landslide incident and the Sanlu milk powder scandal. Journalists have become the courageous front-line soldiers in the battle to expose social ills, and this is a very dignified thing. But what is regrettable is that they don’t have the hand-to-hand combat skills of 007, and once they are set upon by dark forces they can only surrender to them.
There are many journalists who, like Guan Jian, exceed the call of duty and go beyond the range of their capabilities, and thereby court danger. In many ways this “going beyond” on the part of journalists owes to the fact that certain government authorities are remiss in their duties.
Looking at the case of Guan Jian’s “disappearance”, we can see at least these two major failings [on the part of the government]. First of all, [while a people’s congress official is reportedly linked to Guan’s detention] the position of deputy director of a local people’s congress means the official in question counts as a national public servant (国家公职人员), and according to the Law on Public Servants, civil servants must not engage in business activities and must not hold positions within companies or profit-making entities. When this deputy director of the local people’s congress took office and was simultaneously a corporate executive at a real estate company, did the local government not know about this, or just pretend not to see?
Secondly, if a Shanxi [real estate] company is suspected of having acted against regulations, should it be necessary to rely on a Beijing journalist traveling thousands of kilometres away to investigate the case? What are the local branches of the national government and the judiciary departments doing exactly? . . .

FURTHER READINGS:
“Chinese reporter chasing corruption claims disappears“, Reuters, December 16, 2008
“Guan Jian’s case needs procedural justice“, Xi’an Evening News, December 17, 2008
“How can they notify family members of the journalist’s arrest 14 days after the fact?“, Chengdu Evening News, December 17, 2008
ON THE LI MIN CASE:
“Shanxi prosecutor goes to Beijing to arrest CCTV’s female reporter“, People’s Daily Online, December 8, 2008
“CCTV Reporter’s Arrest Causes a Stir“, Wall Street Journal, December 9, 2008
[Posted by Emma Lupano, December 22, 2008, 2:53pm HK]

By David Bandurski — When Chinese President Hu Jintao delivered a speech Thursday morning in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People to honor the thirtieth anniversary of economic reforms in the country, his words pointed to a leftward shift in Chinese politics — a possible reaction in part against the recent Charter 08, a manifesto signed by prominent Chinese intellectuals calling for broad political reform.
According to our preliminary analysis of Hu’s speech, more left-trending keywords like “socialism”, “Marx” and the “Four Basic Principles” were prominent in Thursday’s speech — noticeably more so than in Hu’s 17th Congress address last year.
Here are a few keywords whose overall use Thursday surpassed that of Hu’s 17th National Congress speech, which was in fact 10,000 words longer than Thursday’s 18,000 words.

[SWCC = “Socialism with Chinese characteristics”]

More moderate terms, such as “democratic politics” and “intraparty democracy” were less prominent.
Perhaps more importantly, a number of erstwhile Jiang Zemin terms made an unexpected return.
Toward the beginning of his speech, Hu Jintao resurrected the Jiang-era notion of “westernization and separatism”, the idea that hostile Western forces aim to co-opt Chinese and weaken China by exploiting territorial tensions (Taiwan, Tibet, etc.).
In another section of his speech, dealing with institutional reforms as a guarantee for further development, Hu Jintao resurrected the xenophobic Jiang-era phrase “[We must] never copy,” referring to the political and economic models of the West.
Terms we were on the lookout for ahead of last year’s 17th National Congress but which never materialized, including “constitutionalism”, “civil society” and “citizen’s rights”, were absent from Thursday’s speech as well.
FURTHER READING:
“Wuyouzhixiang PK Wen Jiabao,” ESWN, December 21, 2008
[Posted by David Bandurski, December 20, 2008, 1:09am HK]

By David Bandurski — Today is the 30th birthday of economic reforms in China. And as a tribute to both sides in the ongoing debate in China over the spirit of reforms, we share with readers two recent writings on the subject. [Frontpage Photo: “Great Candles” by BodHack available at Flickr.com under Creative Commons license.]
In the December issue of the Chinese journal Yanhuang Chunqiu, writer Yang Min argues that the successes of China’s reform era owe not to unique “Chinese characteristics,” but rather to China’s adoption of universal values that are a product of the human cultural experience.
“The secret to China’s miracle lies not in its differences from the world, but rather in its affinities,” Yang writes.
Yang’s article has ruffled the feathers of Chinese leftists at the socialist website Utopia, which offered its own rebuttal of the essay on December 8.

[Screenshot of Yanhuang Chunqiu online, Deng Xiaoping appears with American President Jimmy Carter on a visit to the U.S. from January 29 to February 4, 1979]

Portions of the Yanhuang Chunqiu and Utopia articles follow:

“Reform and Opening and Universal Values”
By Yang Min (杨民)
China can boast major accomplishments in its 30 years of reform. This is especially true for the economy, with average annual GDP growth of 9.8 percent, urban and rural incomes rising 40 and 30 times respectively between 1978 and 2008, Chinese GDP accounting for five percent of the world’s total in 2007, up from just one percent in 1978, and China’s portion of global foreign trade rising from less than one percent to eight percent. Such a massive economy, with such rapid growth over such an extended period of time — this is something that has not been seen in recent history, what has been widely labeled as “China’s miracle.” The very life of this miracle and of economic reforms is inseparable from universal values.
The secret to China’s miracle lies not in its differences from the world, but rather in its affinities.
There is a popular wisdom that says that says that “China’s miracle” is the product of China’s having taken a path that is different from that of other countries and regions, that it has arisen not from “copying” but from “unique Chinese characteristics” (中国特色). There are even a number of investors and speculators outside China who have bet on the unique merits [of China], researching the so-called “Chinese mode” (中国模式), or “Beijing Consensus” (北京共识). These terms are not entirely without merit. From a certain perspective it is safe to say that the modernization drives of all nations are unique in one way or another, and this means China’s modernization necessarily has its own Chinese characteristics.
It may be true that a number of Chinese characteristics are preconditions and assurances of China’s rise, such as the upholding of the leadership of the CCP, the system of centralization (举国体制), etc. However, it is not enough to have these “special characteristics” alone, these “differences” or “non-imitations,” because we have upheld the leadership of the CCP and the system of centralization since the founding of the People’s Republic of China. If it were true that we could create a “Chinese miracle” by relying only on these “Chinese characteristics,” on these “differences” we have with other countries, then China would not have gone to the brink of economic collapse prior to reforms, and tens of millions of people would not have died in the tragedy of the Great Leap Forward.
Clearly, in searching for the secret of “China’s miracle,” we must look not only to China’s supposed differences with the rest of the world, but more to the point to the differences between China today and China in the past. It is not hard to come to the realization in what created “China’s miracle” was reform and opening, was the introduction of the market economy, of democracy, freedom, rule of law, human rights and other concepts that are universal values. Progress in our society over the last 30 years is inseparable from reform and opening and the practice of universal values in China. Of course you can also say that “reform and opening” is a Chinese characteristic, but what exactly is this special characteristic? At its base, the special characteristic is the study and borrowing from developed nations of civilized ideas that have universal value.
Therefore, “China’s rise” actually relies upon things that are “the same,” and represents the success of “the drawing of lessons from other countries” (拿来主义). It is principally the success of “sameness,” and not the success of “difference.” We can say that these 30 years of reform and opening represent the success of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and that they represent also the flowering in China of human culture imbued with universal values . . .
When we look back on the past 30 years, we see that China’s opening and reform began with the process of opening. Opening drove reform, and reform drove development. From the economy to society, successful reforms relied at every step on the study of the methods of advanced nations.
The Cultural Revolution was a major disaster for China. But what direction should [China] take in turning away from the Cultural Revolution? Deng Xiaoping, one of the century’s greats, clearly recognized the most effective path: opening to the outside world. In 1978, he not only went himself to the United States, Japan and other developed nations, but he also sent a hundred or so observation groups out into the world to seek the secrets of rapid development in developed nations. Very quickly, a consensus emerged throughout the CCP: Western nations were more advanced than us, and there were many cultural traits that deserved our study. National isolation was a dead-end. China must open its doors to the outside world.
Opening meant not just a geographical opening of the doors to the nation, nor did it carry a purely economic meaning about trade with other nations. More importantly, it meant tearing down the bulwarks the sealed China’s value system off and opposed [incursion]. It meant moving toward a more equal and rational vision that could allow the acceptance of all of humanity’s cultural assets with an attitude of tolerance and study. The most important asset was the adoption of the market economy.
In November 1979, when Deng Xiaoping met with the head of the editorial committee for America’s Encyclopedia Britannica, Frank Gibney Jr., and others, he pointed out that: “It is an error to hold that the market economy belongs only to capitalist societies” . . . “Why can’t socialism do the market economy?” . . . “Socialism can also do the market economy.” Deng Xiaoping’s meaning in these statements was clear, and that is that the market economy has universal value. In the southern dialogues (南方谈话) of 1992, he again emphasized that planning and the market were both economic tools, not core differences between socialism and capitalism . . .
The ideological debate has never abated over whether the market economy is surnamed “Socialism” or surnamed “Capitalism,” but in actual practice the marketization of the economic sector was staunchly carried out from the beginning of reform and opening.
The core value of the market economy is freedom. Nobel prize winner Amartya Sen, who has been called the “conscience of economics,” has drawn a number of salient results from his substantial experience analyzing many developing nations: Freedom is the core value of the market economy, and development means the expansion of freedoms; freedom is the primary goal of development, and also an indispensable tool toward promoting development.
China’s 30 years of reform offer the best possible annotation for Sen’s theories.
In the days of the planned economy, control was our sole “talisman,” and it permeated every aspect of people’s lives . . . Everything was to be controlled, and nothing was free. Lack of political freedoms [in that time] go without saying, and 800 million Chinese had only a single mind . . . It was the same economically. It wasn’t just that the top leadership decided what factories were to produce — they even decided what farmers would plant in the fields. They even talked such nonsense as, “We want only socialist grass, and we don’t want capitalist seedlings” (宁要社会主义的草，不要资本主义的苗). Under such controls, what impetus could people possibly have to produce, and is it any wonder that people starved?

The following is a rebuttal of Yang Min’s piece at the website Utopia:

“Yanhuang Chunqiu’s Mythologizing on Universal Values Is Actually a Capitalist Restoration“— criticizing Yang Min’s “Reform and Opening and Universal Values”
The December edition of Yanhuang Chunqiu published an article by Yang Min called “Reform and Opening and Universal Values,” which prattles on in an attempt to deify universal values, saying they are connected “as life to death” to [China’s] reform and opening . . . Why does this Yang insist on elevating universal values? From head to tail, the fine print of Yang’s article clearly exposes his evil goal beyond any doubt — a capitalist restoration.
First of all, it opposes the Marxist doctrine of class struggle, promoting bourgeois universal values, carrying out theoretical propaganda for a capitalist restoration.
Comrade Mao Zedong pointed out in “Losing our Fantasies, Preparing for Struggle” (丢掉幻想，准备斗争) that: “In class struggle, some classes are victorious while others are annihilated. This is history, the history of civilization for thousands of years.” . . . Democracy, freedom, human rights, and even the market economy all have class nature. These universal values that are said to transcend class are merely tricks used by the apologists of capitalism to deceive others and promote capitalist values or push the restoration of the capitalist system.
Yang’s article says that when we look back over the last 30 years “successful reforms, whether economic or social, have all taken their cues from the methods of advanced nations.” Who are these advanced nations? They are “the United States, Japan and other developed nations.” We have [Yang says] studied the universal values of these advanced capitalist nations.
The reactionaries in America, Japan and Europe often throw around the big clubs of democracy, freedom and human rights to attack our country and interfere with our domestic politics. As though only they really talk about democracy and freedom, and respect human rights. This is thoroughly a fabrication. Under the veil of democratizing the Middle East, American imperialism invaded Iraq and Afghanistan and now threatens Iran. American general elections are merely a matter of choosing between the Democratic and Republican parties . . . Human rights has ever been a plaything of the bourgeois classes, and capitalism had its start by exploiting and enslaving the black man. Over the last century and more, so many lives have been taken by the wars and incursions of capitalism, and the exploitation now continues as it always has. Look at the new social classes in our own country. We have illegal mine bosses, and brick kiln operators [who enslave workers], factory bosses who exploit the blood and sweat of the workers . . . These bourgeois intellectuals in our country, including Yang Min, are for the revival of capitalism, for a reversion to capitalism, for a joining up with global capitalism, and they speak with the same accents as the reactionaries of America and Japan, welcoming attacks on Chinese socialism.
Not only this, but they carry out irrational attacks against those of us comrades who have not forgotten the class struggle and who continue to uphold Marxism . . .
Yang’s article praises the economic theories of liberalism, holding that “the core value of the market economy is freedom.” He is swept off his feet by Amartya Sen, and admires his [notion that] “freedom is the core value of the market economy, and development means the expanding freedoms; freedom is the primary objective of development, and an indispensable tool in promoting development.” Yang’s article also says that China’s 30 years of reform are the best annotation for Sen’s theories . . .
But the economic crises that the capitalist world has suffered over the past century stem from the disorderly, unplanned and uncontrolled free competition of the capitalist market economy.

[Posted by David Bandurski, December 18, 2008, 11:47am HK]

By David Bandurski — Hong Kong’s Yazhou Zhoukan has reported that the Chinese journal Yanhuang Chunqiu, which has lately faced pressure from authorities, is now officially out of the woods [more from ESWN here]. The Hong Kong weekly also reports that the group behind the action against Yanhuang Chunqiu was the propaganda department’s news commentary group (NCG), or yueping zu (中宣部阅评组). Sound familiar?
When Freezing Point, the weekly supplement of China Youth Daily, was shut down in January 2006, the action also stemmed from a criticism issued by the NCG.
In his open letter protesting the move, Freezing Point editor Li Datong (李大同) openly mentioned the NCG’s role, calling the group a “sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of China’s media.” [Here is Roland Soong’s translation of Li Datong’s open letter, in which he renders yueping zu as “Criticism Group”].
In a separate open letter protesting the shutdown of Freezing Point, former party officials and newspaper bosses called for the disbanding of the NCG.
If what Yazhou Zhoukan is now reporting is true, the NCG is alive and well as an informal organ of post-facto censorship. But the Yanhuang Chunqiu affair has played out very differently from what we saw two years ago, and this might suggest some measure of change to the group’s role and influence.
Little is actually known about the secretive NCG. But for a taste of who they are, we point readers to several of our own past writings on the group.
“China’s Shadow Censor Commissars,” published in the March 2006 edition of Far Eastern Economic Review [subscription only], gives an overview of the NCG and their role since the 1990s and their part in the shutdown of Freezing Point.
“Garden of Falsehood,” published in the Spring 2008 edition of Index on Censorship, includes examples of (sometimes comical) NCG criticisms.
For readers of Chinese, we recommend Qian Gang’s essay, “From Liu Binyan to Freezing Point” (从宾雁到冰点), which tells the story of how celebrated journalist Liu Binyan (刘宾雁) was “struggled against” (揪斗) as a right-roader at the outset of the Cultural Revolution in 1966.
As Liu Binyan sat across from his accusers, his most vicious critic was none other than Liu Zuyu (刘祖禹), the leftist propaganda official who sat at the helm of the NCG when the group targeted Freezing Point forty years later.

“Liu Binyan! You must toss aside this guise of yours and honestly face the fact that you are guilty of opposing the CCP and opposing socialism!”
This “most vicious” Liu Zuyu is today head of the Central Propaganda Department’s News Commentary Group.

Word went round in 2007 that Liu Zuyu was no longer a member of the NCG, but little birds now tell us he is back.
[Posted by David Bandurski, December 16, 2008, 1:53pm HK]

By David Bandurski — We are now just one week away from the official anniversary of 30 years of economic reform in China, and more voices are speaking up about the nation’s future. Earlier this week, more than 300 intellectuals, lawyers, business people and human rights defenders signed an open letter, “Charter 08,” that said “the decline of the current system has reached the point where change is no longer optional” [English translation by Perry Link here]. [Frontpage: Beijing government building by “Buck82” available at Flickr.com under Creative Commons license.]
There is no question that “Charter 08,” which calls for separation of powers (ever a tinderbox term in China), legislative democracy and a new Chinese constitution, will infuriate Chinese leaders already on high alert for a series of sensitive anniversaries this year and next. And there are reports already that dissident Liu Xiaobo has been detained for his role in drafting the letter.
But the party’s own prominent scholars are stepping into the spotlight too.
This week, a number of newspapers ran an interview with Yu Keping (俞可平), a liberal party scholar who serves as director of the Central Translation Bureau, a CCP think tank, and is an outspoken proponent of democracy.
Yu has said in the past that China is evolving toward “its own unique form of democracy.” [See ESWN’s translation of Yu’s essay, “Democracy is a Good Thing“].
China News Service coverage of Yu Keping’s comments on the fight against official corruption appeared in several major papers, including Guangzhou’s New Express and Southern Metropolis Daily.

[ABOVE: Yesterday’s coverage of Yu Keping’s remarks in Southern Metropolis Daily.]

In the China News Service article, Yu Keping argues that as China looks ahead to further reforms “one important area of breakthrough will have to be government corruption.” Specifically, Yu takes issue with the present one-dimensional focus on monitoring of officials in the present anti-corruption regime, which fails to take into account the need for more fundamental change to institutions.
A partial translation follows:

Professor Yu Keping (俞可平), director of the Central Translation Bureau, who became a familiar name at home and overseas for his article, “Democracy is a Good Thing,” has said amidst the 30th anniversary of the Open Door Policy that reforms in China have reached a critical point that demands a “breakthrough.” In an interview with our reporter recently, Yu Keping said he believed that one important area of breakthrough will have to be government corruption.
“. . . According to China’s traditional culture, corruption is acceptable in all but two areas — the first is teaching, the second is medicine. These two areas have been seen as representing the conscience of society. Regrettably, these two areas have already begun to degenerate. The reasons for this, aside from personal factors, stem primarily from the social environment, and particularly from the serious problem of official corruption. Government officials play an especially important role in China, defining the direction of society as a whole. It is inevitable that this kind of environment [of official corruption] should affect the educational and medical sectors.”
Yu Keping, who in past research has expressed optimism on the question of corruption, has now begun to consider anew the serious nature of government corruption [in China], and he hopes to lead people away form some misconceptions about corruption and the monitoring of power.
Yu Keping pointed out in particular that as soon as discussion in academia and in the media turns to the fight against corruption these days, the topic inevitably turns to the question of power monitoring. While this view is basically correct, he says, it is incomplete.
“Practically speaking, the party and the government have already paid sufficient attention to the monitoring of power in recent years, and many inspection mechanisms have been established from the central government down to the local governments . . . a whole series of [discipline] inspection mechanisms have taken the stage one after another. I can be said that no country has, like us, been so expansive and so specific in the making of regulations, so that we even have a special rule for the entertainment of guests with public money, specifying only “four dishes and one soup.” Aside from this punishments can’t be said to be too light — how many corrupt officials have been killed or locked away? There has been no shortage of awards for clean officials, and anti-corruption education has been emphasized every year, every month, every day even. We’ve done so much and reaped results, but why is the corruption problem still so serious? This requires that we do some earnest self-examination. I believe we need some breakthroughs on the question of corruption. This includes both conceptual and institutional breakthroughs. ”
If compensation is sufficient, why does corruption persist?
Yu Keping believes that officials are already compensated adequately, but corruption persists nevertheless, and the numbers are more and more stupefying. What do they need with so much money? “There are many reasons for official corruption. Some people are corrupt in their natures . . . but this kind of corrupt official is extremely rare. Another two types of official corruption should be given our utmost attention: the first is the keeping of mistresses, and the second is [corruption lavished on the] sons and daughters [of officials]. According to authoritative media reports, 95 percent of all corrupt officials have mistresses. In fact, they would more accurately be called “second wives” or “third wives.” These relationships are not romantic but rather pure instances of the exchange of sex and power. These “mistresses” are not after love but after money. Aside from this, a number of corrupt officials send their sons and daughters overseas to study, even buying homes and cars for them, and this requires a great deal of money.”
Therefore, Yu Keping said, “If we only emphasize the monitoring of power in fighting corruption . . . then the results will be limited. As we improve our capacity for monitoring power, we need to go beyond power monitoring in seeking points of breakthrough. As the central party leadership has emphasized, in fighting corruption we need to begin by getting to the root of the problem, particularly the issues of the selection and appointment of officials, restraints on power, responsibility systems for cadres, and transparency in government affairs,” building a system of clean governance.
On the issue of cadre responsibility systems (干部责任体制) as they currently stand, Yu Keping said he believed that creating responsibility systems (干部问责制) marked a point of real progress in our building of a responsible government. But some responsibility systems, [he said], needed to be reformed. For example, we have these systems called “the first person responsible system” (第一责任人负责制) and “the single vote rejection system” (一票否决制), which as systems sound well and good, but which are inherently insufficient. This is a bit like “political contracting” (政治承包). If you make the official in the top post take on all of the responsibility [for a given problem], whatever the problem is, then you must also give him the appropriate degree of power. Absolute responsibility requires absolute power. And absolute power by definition surpasses all monitoring. So the problem that arises is this: if you let him take on absolute responsibility, then you must give him absolute power, but absolute power will inevitably result in a failure of monitoring and supervision. If you want to effectively monitor officials in top posts (一把手) you cannot give them absolute power, but if you do not give them absolute power, you cannot let him take on total responsibility.

[Posted by David Bandurski, December 11, 2008, 11:37am HK]

The Journalism and Media Studies Centre, HKU is pleased to host a public lecture and exhibit on: “Doubleness: Photography of Chien-Chi Chang” on 13 December, 2008(Saturday). Chien-Chi Chang is an accomplished photographer and member of the prestigious photographic cooperative Magnum Photos. He will present four projects at the lecture; The Chain; I do I do I do; Double Happiness; and China Town.
Each photograph deftly captures the synergy between him and his subjects without being intrusive. Chang’s purposeful style of repeating a particular scene and moment in a series of photographs of different people results in a clever conveyance of ‘doubleness’ in the partnership of his subjects. In the tireless pursuit of truth, these unadorned works reveal Chang’s fascination about relationships and his concern for the human condition. Working along the margins of documentary, journalism and art, the photographs and videos in this lecture not only document injustice; but more importantly, they lead us to confront the issues, the people and, in the end, ourselves.

Speaker: Mr. Chien-chi Chang
Date: 13 Dec 2008 (Saturday)
Time: 7pm to 8:30pm
Venue: Agnés b Cinema! Hong Kong Arts Centre, 2 Harbour Road, Wanchai
Language: English
*Exhibition of students’ work at 6 p.m./Lecture 7-8:30 p.m.
Admission is free. For details and online registration, please visit this link.
About the Speaker:
Chien-Chi Chang, born in Taiwan in 1961, joined the agency in 1995. He currently lives and works in Taipei and New York City. For more about Magnum Photos, please visit www.magnumphotos.com
This event is co-sponsored by Muse Magazine. For enquiries contact Kylie Chan at [email protected] or 2219-4416.

By David Bandurski — As hard news, particularly investigative reporting, faces intensifying pressure in China, one of the rare bright spots on China’s media landscape is the genre of the current affairs commentary, or shiping (时评). Since at least 2002, but particularly since 2005, editorial space at major newspapers and on the Internet in China has grown substantially, and writers from diverse backgrounds now express increasingly diverse views on a range of news topics and critical issues. [Frontpage: “Chinese writing practice,” by Matt Hamm available at Flickr.com under Creative Commons license.]
Last week, for example, writers all over China drew out the social and institutional lessons of the alleged firing of professor Yang Shiqun for “counter-revolutionary” teachings.
Searching for a fresh perspective on the Yang case, readers might have stumbled upon this commentary in Changjiang Daily, arguing that Yang’s case is a blatant violation of academic freedoms, and that the pair of female students who informed on the professor fail to understand the true spirit of “revolution,” which requires the interchange of differing viewpoints.
They might have found this editorial at Zhejiang Online, cautioning media and the public against criticizing these tattle-tale pupils too viciously before all the facts in the case are known. Or they might have read this commentary by Qu Weiguo (曲卫国), provocatively invoking the words of columnist Chang Ping’s (长平) controversial Tibet editorial earlier this year, saying that “only in an open opinion environment that permits full revelation and discussion do we have the opportunity to progress toward truth and justice.”
And if readers were hungry for an inane reading of the case from the extreme left, they were sure to find it at the leftist website Utopia (乌有之乡), where one writer argued that the whole affair was a mark of social progress — because, get this, students are actually questioning their teachers. [SEE Southern Metropolis Daily for a thorough review of the Yang Shiqun case, including an interview with the professor, in English at ESWN].
But as current affairs commentaries play an ever more prominent role in Chinese society, more attention is turning to the “movement” itself — its vagaries, strengths and basic motivations.
Chinese commentaries are in fact a more complicated phenomenon than they might seem at first glance. They point, superficially at least, to broader participation in public debate — we use the term very loosely — on a range of social issues.
But press controls have arguably grown stronger in China since 2004, and this is a factor in the development of the commentary too. That may seem counter-intuitive at first, but as the space for news has diminished at China’s more dynamic commercial media (and information is increasingly monopolized by “authoritative” state media), the editorial pages have become the refugee camps of professional journalism in China. [Nanfang Daily on the link between commentary development and “guidance of public opinion“].
We can’t possibly encompass the debate over the rise of the Chinese commentary in this space. Suffice to say this is a trend for media watchers to watch. As one commentator wrote on his Sina.com Weblog, in a piece called, “A Commentary on Commentaries“:

“Commentaries have already become the weathervanes of the media. To be without a commentary section means a media trails behind the trends, that it dares not speak up, that it is not mainstream, that it is out of touch with the people . . . In the information age, it is impossible to imagine media without commentary sections.”

Below we provide excerpts from just a couple of recent editorials discussing the phenomenon of the Chinese commentary. The first, by Wang Dahao (王大豪), appeared at Donghu Commentary (东湖评论) on December 1, and argued that unreasonable commentaries have become a “common danger” in China.
The second, which appeared in the December 3 edition of China Youth Daily, and subsequently in the Oriental Morning Post, urged those who are snobby about the apparent stylistic weaknesses of the commentary to be more understanding of how this genre differs from its cousin, the essay.

“Commentaries Lacking Rationality Have Already Become a Common Danger to Society”
There are a number of areas where Chinese people can be ugly, and commentaries have perhaps made the greatest contribution to the weeding out of ugliness. But then, the commentary field is imperfect. There are some commentary writers who simply can’t get used to the idea of accepting criticism from others. This is a persistent condition from which commentaries suffer. The duty of the commentary field has always been to reveal and root out the ugliness of society, but commentaries tend to turn a blind eye to their own ugliness. And the greatest ugliness of the commentary field is intolerance toward those who point out one’s own ugliness.
For a number of negative social phenomena, the mindset of some commentary writers is not that of the doctor seeking to heal the sick, but rather of mob violence against the already injured. When doctors conduct surgery, they stitch as well as cut, they give blood even as they draw it, and the basic goal is to mitigate pain, not to do harm. Mob violence is different, the objective being to attack, plunder and burn out of the narrow desire to conquer. The editorials of these writers brim with the violence of shameful intellectual attack. This is not the attitude with which a doctor treats a patient, but the attitude of a thug toward his victim. This is not the healthy and rational attitude a writer of commentaries should have . . .
If a person cannot recognize themselves with rationality and objectivity, how can they possibly see their own society objectively and rationally? And how can they possibly write commentaries that benefit social progress?

“From the Essay to the Commentary”
China Youth Daily, December 4, 2008
There has been a lot of debate lately about the successes and failures of commentary writing (时评) [in China]. The rise of the commentary in China’s media landscape of late is an encouraging sign. While the good is intermingled with the bad in the various commentary pages, the general vitality of commentary is far preferable to silence.
Some have expressed disatisfaction with the current state of commentary writing, and they are focusing on stylistic matters. Some domestic writers of commentary are converted essayists (杂文作者), and a number of readers are admirers of the essay. Perhaps they take Lu Xun’s essays as a measure of commentary pieces, and find that the words lack sufficient humor, that they are not breezy or witty enough, and so find them pale and disappointing. It’s certainly true that Lu Xun’s essays have particularly aesthetic value, but there is no need whatsoever for Chinese current affairs commentaries today to draw near to them. Good speech is speech that holds itself accountable, speech that seeks to advance public policy and promotes institutional input. It is most important that its style be clear, simple, accurate and well-knit. Commentaries do not exclude expression of feeling. But more often than not, they should set forth facts, evince reason, and win out with rationality — not simply rely on the release of emotion.
Commentary writers today are basically of two groups. The first are the erstwhile essayists that now write commentaries, and the second are those who write commentaries as experts or scholars. Generally, essayists are marked by a sensitivity to style and write prolifically. Experts and scholars, on the other hand, are distinguished by their combination of depth and expertise. The publishing cycles of newspapers demand that there be professionals whose primary work is the writing of commentaries, but at the same time there is a need for experts and scholars to maintain the depth of commentaries. Many affairs, whether international or domestic, are complex issues . . . Often, through different competing opinions, we can find more insightful thoughts. This really requires that an attitude of humility be encouraged in commentaries. I can disagree with your point of view, but I respect your right to express your opinion. We can’t have a winner-take-all approach.
China is at a point of historical transition. New problems and new things are emerging all the time. Many conflicts happening now are new to ordinary Chinese, who don’t know how to handle them. Nor do leaders have experience [with such things], and there are no ready-made panaceas. If we wish to do things well, then we must draw on the wisdom of the masses.
At this point, commentaries have just begun to develop — they are very uneven, and not easy and smooth enough. Given this situation, we need to have a bit more goodwill and a bit less hypercriticism. The emergence of the commentary and its acceptance by society is a mark of social progress in China today, a sign of the general advancement of culture, and also an embodiment of the value of freedom of expression in China.

[Posted by David Bandurski, December 8, 2008, 10:25am HK]