By David Bandurski — China’s medals tally as we are now halfway through the Olympic Games in Beijing is an impressive achievement for any country, not to mention a country that did not even compete in the Games until 1984. As can be expected, there have been notes of protest about the means by which China has accomplished this — through the mysterious “Project 119” (119计划), for example, a kind of centralized planning model for sports, with its sights on Olympic gold and no concern for the overall health of athletics in Chinese society, etc.
These criticisms are not entirely baseless, of course. China’s victories are not a reflection of the overall health of its athletics system so much as its resolve to win gold. But when this point is made by U.S. media in particular it inevitably comes off as a bit proud and self-congratulatory. Yes, you’ve won all these golds — but we have achieved our victories through a fair and open system not funded with taxpayer money.
For some, this has implicitly become an Olympics of dictatorship versus democracy, the flip side of what Chinese media have called the “Olympic Cold War.”
But this year’s Olympics are much more than an empty, superficial show of China’s national strength. They come, as we have emphasized before, on the thirtieth anniversary of reforms in China. And for all of its problems, China has made remarkable progress as a society over the last three decades.
As we have said repeatedly here at the China Media Project, one sign of China’s growing openness is the growing diversity of opinion you can find in its media, the ugly realities of censorship notwithstanding.
We were pleased, then, but not entirely surprised, to find a thoughtful editorial in QQ.com’s expanding opinion section begging tougher questions about what China’s Olympic medals haul actually means.
For those who think the cries of “Go China!” ringing from the stands in Beijing signal only a shallow, unreflective nationalism, this editorial is a reminder that Chinese can support the home team and still maintain a sense of perspective:

“It is the ‘National System’ That Will Win the Olympic Cold War”
By Liao Baoping (廖保平)
August 16, 2008
We are one week into the Beijing Olympic Games, and China’s gold medal count far surpasses that of the United States. While Chinese Olympic officials have said time and again that winning gold medals is not the chief purpose of holding the Olympics, the U.S.-China war for gold medals remains the topic everyone is paying most attention to.
For a long time, the United States has dominated Olympic medals tally. The U.S. has participated in 23 Olympic Games and has topped the medals chart for 16 of these Games, a remarkable achievement. It is still unclear whether or not China will shake America’s dominance at this year’s Olympics, and it would be rash to make predictions. Still, looking at the current standings, it seems only China has the strength to challenge the U.S. on this count. And who can say China won’t succeed, even if the U.S. may have the upper hand in track and field events.
In a short 20 years China has managed to transition from “the sick man of East Asia” (东亚病夫) to a “sports superpower” (体育强国), from zero gold medals to leading the gold medals table. This is a surprise not just for Chinese, but for the whole world. And this further evidences China’s steady rise over the last two decades.
This perhaps confirms the principle that national power and prosperity leads to strength in athletics. There is some reason in this. After all, if the people of a country don’t even have food to fill their bellies, how can they possibly find the strength for athletics? But this is not entirely true either. We all know that North Korea is not a developed nation, and yet it has not fallen behind in athletics, and in some events, for example women’s soccer and archery, it even excels.
Some countries in the world are rising powers, for example India . . . which in recent years has developed rapidly and bears some similarities to China, but India has won just one gold medal in these Olympic Games — it is 24 years after China in breaking through its slump of zero gold medals. So perhaps this tell us that national strength does not necessarily equal athletic strength.
Strength in athletic competition has to come from physical resources, from investment of wealth — this is a simple fact. Without the investment of people, resources and assets there is no conceivable way [a nation’s] athleticism can win out amidst fierce competition. The only difference is a question of what kind of investment of resources.
From everything we know, China’s method of investing in athletics is a “national system” (举国体制), it is about consolidating national strength and turning it to the athletic system. An academic study has shown that China now has 370,000 students funded by the state for athletic support, and 46,000 professional athletes are supported for sports at the provincial level or above. Such a massive system and group of athletes requires budget expenditures at various government levels, all in order to earn medals at various regional athletic events. Exactly how much this costs no one can say for sure.
In contrast, America’s athletic system was commercialized long ago. According to U.S. Olympic Committee spokesman Darryl Seibel, while it represents the U.S. in Olympic competition, the U.S. Olympic team receives no support from the government, relying instead on support each year from corporate sponsorship, private fundraising and roughly 150 million dollars funds distributed from the International Olympic Committee. America’s ability to maintain its long-standing dominance in athletics under this sort of investment relies on commercialization and on a stable reserve force of society-wide athletics. But in order to meet “fierce competition,” the U.S. Olympic Committee plans to approach the government about providing support to win the “Olympic Cold War” (奥运冷战).
Clearly, China’s “national system” has been effective in its move from weakness to strength in international athletics over such a short period of time. Or we might say, this highly effective system has made the old medals champion, America, very uneasy, and has caused it to think about how it might reproduce these results.
What is different, however, is that the U.S. Olympic Committee seeks additional funding by “requesting” it, and the matter of whether or not the government provides funding is one that must be decided by the taxpayers to see whether they approve of this kind of “campaign of national image building” (国家形象工程). Our own Olympic committee does not, unfortunately, face these sorts of concerns. Under this “national system” money is simply spent when its there, and strength expended. The government takes the initiative in expending resources.
We expended so many resources on athletics, and yet we can still sense how little of this has been shared with ordinary citizens. In our cities, we can see public exercise facilities, but in the countryside perhaps not even a single ping pong table is tough to find. This tells us that our “national system” for athletics is about using our national strength so that a few people can early gold and silver medals, about many people paying so that a few can perform. So, whether becoming a strong gold medal nation means that we’ve become a nation of strong athletics — this is something we have to hang a question mark over.
Of course we hope that China wins many gold medals, that it upsets U.S. dominance in the Games, and that we can hold our heads high in the arena of international sports. But we hope even more that we can also win a gold medal in the development of athleticism among ordinary people. I believe that when that time comes, when we have a solid foundation of society-wide sports involvement, then Chinese men’s soccer will no longer be as it is today, and that everyone will be able to taste the joy of sports.

FURTHER READING:
“Phelps, China Dominate Opening Week,” AP, August 17, 2008
“U.S. vs China: Is This Good Versus Evil,” Bleecher Report, August 14, 2008
[Posted August 18, 2008, 12:19pm HK]

By David Bandurski — China’s female Olympic gymnastics team is now coming under intense pressure as evidence mounts that champion gymnast He Kexin (何可欣) is below the age of eligibility for Olympic competition in the event. The evidence against He’s eligibility includes online news coverage by China Daily and the official Xinhua News Agency, which Chinese officials are now saying is inaccurate.
But as Berkeley’s China Digital Times has noted, a number of Chinese newspaper articles last year and early this year reported He’s age as 13. In trying to build a credible case for the gymnast’s eligibility, Chinese officials will find themselves denying a series of independent Chinese news reports.
We’ll begin with the official Communist Party mouthpiece, People’s Daily, which reported on November 3, 2007 (possibly the same source as the online Xinhua News Agency article) that “13 year-old He Kexin” successfully completed an uneven bar routine of high difficulty.
The article appeared at the top of page 7 of that day’s edition of People’s Daily, under the headline, “Cooly Awaiting the Achievements of our Newcomers.”

[Page 7 of the November 3, 2007, edition of the official People’s Daily, with article reporting He Kexin’s age as 13.]

The first two-thirds of the People’s Daily article in Chinese follow, the last paragraph including the sentence about He’s age (highlighted in bold):

冷静看待新人成长
年轻选手在第六届全国城运会上捷报频传,国家体育总局副局长肖天提醒—本报记者汪大昭在结束了大部分场次的比赛后，第六届全国城运会已近尾声。如何看待和评价我国竞技体育后备力量的表现，事关城运会办赛宗旨。记者就此采访了组委会副主任、国家体育总局副局长肖天。
肖天说，参加本届城运会的74个代表团中，已有43个代表团获得了金牌，58个代表团获得了奖牌，70个代表团有运动员打进前八名。奥运会冠军朱启南在10米气步枪射击中，以703.7环的成绩打破李杰7年前创造的全国纪录，超过世界纪录0.6环。女子400米混合泳李玄旭游出4分37秒56，这一成绩排在世界第六。男子举重56公斤级黎立志和陶劲总成绩286公斤，超过今年世界锦标赛冠军成绩3公斤。任龙云在田径比赛中跑出28分08秒64的成绩，打破了男子万米全国纪录。
回顾城运会比赛，肖天认为，一批优秀的年轻选手表现出敢打敢拼的斗志和较好的基本功，他们在城运会上脱颖而出，显示出后备人才的发展潜力。17岁的丁宁战胜世界冠军郭跃和李晓霞，夺得乒乓球女单冠军。13岁的何可欣在女子体操比赛中出色地完成高低杠“李姮空翻”。国手张轶和小将仲春婵在女子10米气步枪射击资格赛中，都以400环的满环成绩平了世界纪录。年轻选手在射箭女子个人赛中发起挑战，使5名国家队运动员无一人进入八强。13岁的李玄旭夺得女子游泳3枚金牌。19岁的陈锦燕获得女子花剑冠军，使所有对手的得分都没能超过9分。我国乒乓球、羽毛球、跳水、体操等优势项目人才济济，梯队建设扎实，城运会比赛可以看作世界同年龄段最高水平的竞争。田径、游泳、水上等基础大项新人成长，部分集体项目涌现出新秀，人才储备有所改观。
(本报武汉11月1日电)

Just five days after the People’s Daily report, a separate news feature appeared on page 19 of Tianjin’s Jin Wan Bao introducing up and coming Olympic stars.

[Page 19 of the November 8, 2007, edition of Jin Wan Bao.]

He Kexin was included among the list of 10 athletes to watch, the first line identifying her clearly as “13 year-old competitor He Kexin.” The following is a close up of the right-hand section of that article:

Less than a month later, on December 2, 2007, the commercial Beijing Evening News reported independently that He Kexin’s age was 13. The report, which bears the byline of journalist Liu Xiaoxing (刘晓星) and does not come from Xinhua, begins:

As the Olympic Games draw closer, China’s gymnastics team has begun active preparations for competition, and coach Zhang Peiwen (张佩文) says the men’s team’s old leader Li Xiaopeng (李小鹏) has returned to form, and that the female team has reconsolidated its strength on the uneven bars, with 13 year-old junior team member He Kexin possibly to become the secret weapon at the Olympics.

The article repeats further down: “The ‘secret weapon’ Zhang Peiwen refers to is recently emerged star He Kexin. This 13 year-old junior team member can not only complete a [difficult manouever/”李娅空翻”], but displays a steadiness in performance inconsistent with her age.”
On January 22, 2008, the Legal Evening Post, a spin-off of Beijing Youth Daily, a newspaper published by the Beijing chapter of the Chinese Communist Youth League, ran an interview with one of China’s gymnastics coaches. The run-up to the Q&A read:

“Don’t rush yourself. Wait ’till your cough is settled and then do [your routine]!” This reporter observed practice on the balance beam at the training facility as 13 year-old junior team member He Kexin prepared for her routine and was suddenly interrupted by a fit of coughing . . .

By March, everything seem to change. All at once, Chinese-language news reports on China’s Olympic gymnastics team, including one from Beijing Daily on March 8, 2008, were no longer talking about “13 -year-old junior member He Kexin” but about “15 year-old junior member He Kexin.”
FURTHER READING:
“How Old Are the Chinese Female Gymnasts?” ESWN, August 15, 2008
“The Chinese Gymnasts: Age Questions Remain,” TIME, August 13, 2008
“Scandal of the Ages,” David Flumenbaum, Huffington Post, August 14, 2008
“One More Olympic Secret: How Old is He Kexin?” China Digital Times, August 14, 2008
“The Olympic’s Age-Old Problem,” Dan Wetzel, Yahoo! Sports, August 15, 2008
[Posted by David Bandurski, August 15, 2008, 3:15pm HK]

By David Bandurski — The 2008 Beijing Olympic Games are of course the culminating event for China this year. But we should not forget that this year also marks the thirtieth anniversary of economic reforms and the beginning of China’s “economic miracle.” In fact, some of the most thoughtful coverage in China’s media in recent weeks has looked back on the lessons of China’s remarkable trajectory of reform.
In a recent interview with Window on the South, one of China’s more professional magazines, Yale University finance professor Chen Zhiwu (陈志武) offered his views on China’s fantastic economic growth over the last 30 years, its causes and its lingering challenges.
We include a portion, about two-thirds, of the interview below:

Concerning China’s economic miracle, Joshua Ramo, a [former foreign policy] editor at America’s Time magazine, once wrote a report in which he said China had, through great effort, ingenuity and bold experience, managed to find a mode of development that suited its own national realities. He termed this mode the “Beijing Consensus” (北京共识). In his view, China’s experience based on the “Beijing Consensus” has universal value, and can serve as a model for other developing nations, that is to say that it can serve as a model for more backwards countries seeking to spur economic growth and improve people’s lives.
How should we view this synopsis? As institutional economists see it, what neglected factors lie behind China’s economic miracle? Can this high level of economic growth be sustained? On this topic, one of our reporters interviewed Chen Zhiwu (陈志武), a professor of finance at Yale University.
Window on the South: Institutional economists believe that mechanisms for protection of property rights, rule of law, responsible government, etc., are all necessary conditions for economic development. But while China falls short in all of these aspects, it has still managed an “economic miracle.” Has China, then, created a new kind of economic model? How do you assess the “Beijing consensus”?
Chen Zhiwu: Those conclusions from institutional economics are not directed at highly imitative manufacturing economies, because manufacturing does not demand a great deal of institutional environments. For example, when I was a boy in the countryside of Hunan province, we might get scolded by adults for secretly snacking on someone else’s cucumbers. But this was just about taking a bit of cucumber or watermelon, and you would never entertain the thought of taking someone else’s furniture, plundering their belongings, or taking over their house. Clearly, in terms of basic property protection there were strict norms [in my boyhood Hunan], it was only that in that environment the norms governing property rights did not arise from a formal resolution about rule of law, but rather from invisible norms. When life and routine exchanges are confined to those with whom you are familiar, and when the usual products and assets [you come in contact with] are basically tangible things, then the “tangibility” of these tangible things is itself sufficient to guarantee the protection of these assets and their exchange. And so, the crucial thing in this case is not whether there is this solid, non-human system of rule of law.
However, if you want to develop a strong service industry, particularly financial services and other contractually-based economic sectors, and if you want to build a system of intellectual property, then the situation is very different. We are always talking about how profit margins are too low for Chinese manufacturing, that the money is whisked away by Western brands. But turning things around, we must ask why China cannot build its own brands. This is because China’s system of property protection is weak.
A friend of mine who is a lawyer in the United States specializes in patent cases. He has told me that in China if you buy a company’s product (for example, a computer) and afterwards sue the manufacturer, once you get to court, even if you present proof of actual purchase, and even if you present proof that the computer is the brand of the company concerned, Chinese courts will not necessarily agree that your computer indeed was manufactured by the defendant, and the trademark holder will say that the product is a fake in order to avoid taking responsibility. In the end the judges and lawyers will accept this sort of reasoning. If you tell American lawyers about these kinds of decisions, they will find it incredible. Because in the United States if someone buys a computer, even if they do not have a receipt, the trademark holder must take responsibility so long as it is their brand, and they must compensate the consumer. Of course, if it really is a fake, the trademark holder can turn right around and sue the manufacturer of the fake goods, but this is a separate matter altogether. If China’s legal reasoning continues to operate in this way, trademark and intellectual property protection will continue to be a problem, it will be difficult to develop the value of Chinese brands, and Western brands will continue to reap the profits.
As for this “Beijing Consensus,” I think it is too early too say, and it’s a bit hyped. We have to examine China’s economic development for much longer. Each person has his or her own ideals, and when some people rejoice over the victory of the “Beijing Consensus,” I find myself at a loss for words. But it is worth noting that over the last 60 years the international academic community has repeatedly committed the error of drawing conclusions prematurely, and have misled the world. One case in point was the early exaltation of the Soviet model. In the 1930s, the Soviet economy was also growing at a rate of over 10 percent a year. Stagnation in Western economies prompted many people to begin praising public ownership and the planned economy, and leftist economists all believed this was the death knell of capitalism.
From the beginning of the 1940s, Keynes and many other economists promoted the idea of increased government intervention [in economic planning], and the market economies of countries in Western Europe as well as the United States were guided [by national governments]. Many developing nations that achieved independence after the Second World War also looked to the planned economy of the Soviet Union. But by the end of the 1970s and the beginning of the 1980s, this kind of state or controlled economic model had already become impossible to carry on. Renewed privatization became unavoidable. This brought us Reaganomics, the reform of England’s economy under [Prime Minister] Thatcher and a twenty-year tide of global privatization. Many countries have gone full circle because of early, faulty conclusions about the strength of the Soviet economic model and the unfortunate global implications of this.
Another example was the East Asian model. In 1986, not long after I had arrived in the United States as an exchange student, business schools at perhaps every university was looking for scholars who could come and teach who understood the Japanese economy and Japanese culture. They were all researching Asian-style government industry policies and the role of government control in economic development. Japan’s economy began sliding into recession in 1990, and these days business schools don’t teach Japanese management methods or Japanese economic models. In the mid-1990s it was again about the “Asian economic miracle.” Everyone was talking about the strengths of the East Asian model. But when the Asian financial crisis hit in 1997 many people saw their livelihoods destroyed. What will the fate of today’s “Beijing Consensus” be? To each his own view, and history will decide.
Window on the South: What does China’s “economic miracle” mean for people in other parts of the world?
Chen Zhiwu: Chinese manufacturing may have spoiled China’s environment, and the payback for laborers may have been minimal, but it has certainly spurred China’s economic development, and it has at the same time increased the wealth of people in other countries, allowing them to buy more and better products at a lower price. However, for the manufacturing sectors of other countries it is a different picture. Competition from China, coupled with the highly replaceable nature of blue-collar manufacturing jobs and their weak bargaining position, has meant that many workers in many countries have had their opportunities taken. This has to a definite degree exacerbated the conflict between labor and capital in other countries . . .
Window on the South: I think that in order to understand China’s economic miracle, we need to go back to the beginning and look at the course that was chosen. If we don’t understand the early choices we lack the foundation we need to talk about the Consensus.
Chen Zhiwu: Many people attribute China’s economic achievements to the market economy, to its opening to the outside world, to its surplus population, its industriousness and such factors. In fact, these are all true. They are all important. But they are not the foundation [of China’s successes]. In the late Qing Dynasty and the Republican period, China also had a market economy, it had been forcibly opened to the outside world, its proportion of the world population was higher than today, people were just as industrious, but it did not achieve success by the economic standards of today.
What makes China’s economic achievements of the last 30 years stand out? The reason is that China’s economic achievements during this period have been built on a mature [global] foundation of modern industrial technology and a free trade system, and these foundational conditions did not exist in the late Qing or in the Republican period. Today, 85 percent of China’s gross domestic product (GDP) comes from modern industry and service industries, including energy, finance, manufacturing, transport, the Internet, computers, etc. And without exception these all come from the West. China’s products can flow to the whole world because of the free trade system established by the West. So saying China’s economic miracle belongs to China alone is not as accurate at saying it is the product of developments in global modernization.
Naturally, this is just the basis and condition for China’s economic miracle. India, Russia, Vietnam and other countries also have these conditions, but they have not matched China’s miraculous economic growth. This is because China’s national circumstances and conditions differed from these countries during this early round of globalization, and they all took very different development paths.
First of all, since the 1950s China has been through a whole series of poltical movements and human catastrophes, including the Great Leap Forward and the “Cultural Revolution.” Up to the end of the 1970s Chinese society was suffering severe crises on various fronts, and if it did not change it was headed for collapse. This forced people into a process of complete rethinking. When Deng Xiaoping raised his “cat theory” (猫论) those from more left-leaning segments of society perhaps found it difficult to accept, but this became the guiding thought of reform and opening at that time. Moreover, reform and opening gained broad social consensus in China. Even with things as they were, people were propeled by a kind of inertia, and unless they were faced directly with crisis, they were bound to stick to the old path. But by around 1978 the facts already spoke plainly that China’s system was insupportable . . . and in this situation there were few obstacles to carrying out fundamental reforms.
When India achieved independence in 1947 it set up a democratic system with checks and balances on power, elections and a definite degree of rule of law. We know that the goal of democracy is not to seek what are objectively speaking the best possible policy decisions, but rather to prevent others from consolidating power and making poor decisions that harm the society. In this way, democratic systems are about minimizing the degree of bad policy-making, maintaining the status quo, creating harmony and stability and staving off social crisis. Democracy is not suited to grand strokes of reform. Ever since India established democracy the society has been dominated by the [political] left, which opposes marketization, globalization and supports economic planning. Up to 1993, India found it difficult to opt for the reform path of market economics and globalization . . .
[Portion on Russia and China not translated]
Window on the South: Within just a few years of the “Beijing Consensus” being bandied about, Chinese manufacturing has faced numerous difficulties. Do you think China’s high level of economic growth is sustainable?
Chen Zhiwu: It can be sustained. However, this hangs on the question of whether or not China can step ahead in reforming a system the serves the state-run economy, and whether or not constitutional government and rule of law can be developed. Chinese exports have grown rapidly since it joined the World Trade Organization in 2001. In the United States right now, aside from luxury goods consumed by high-income families, nearly all daily household goods consumed by low to middle-income Americans are manufactured in China, from curtains and bedcovers to televisions, computers and furniture. America’s household furniture industry was once centered in South Carolina and North Carolina, but not it has been taken over by Chinese manufacturers. What were once furniture manufacturers have become furniture importers.
At Yale University,where I am now, we have people of all shapes, colors and countries. All of them express great interest in China. This speaks to the influence of Chinese manufacturing, and it also tells us that the likilihood of further Chinese export growth is growing smaller and smaller, that it is no longer realistic to look to expansion of the export market. When we add to this the fact that trade protectionism is now rearing its head [globally], and the fact that manufacturing is on the rise in other developing nations, we can see that China’s current export-led economic model has already run its course, so that it is increasingly unsustainable. The next phase must be led by domestic demand . . .
[Discussion of inadequacies resulting from state control of resource allocation not translated.]
Window on the South: What concerns you most about China’s recent development?
Chen Zhiwu: It is the tendency to “lift the stone and drop it on one’s own foot.” It is human nature “not to weep until you see the coffin.” Even when the situation is serious, if the current system seems sustainable then there is less and less potential for self-examination and innovation. This is particularly true this year, as people [in China] have generally taken a self-defensive posture, and have built themselves up in a frenzy of nationalism, so that they can’t stomach home truths (逆耳忠言). In such a situation, whatever road China wishes to take, those on the sidelines can only look on. When the rain is coming and the bride wants to wed, often times even though you know tragedy awaits, there is nothing you can do. Those who spend all day singing hymns of praise for China accomplish nothing for its progress. Saying pretty things is the easiest thing in the world to do. In fact, those who talk about China’s “coming collapse” are far more valuable for China. We can look constructively at them and try to understand the reasons and forms of collapse they’re talking about, and we can look at what we might do right now to help China avoid this trap.
[Posted by David Bandurski, August 14, 2008, 1:15pm HK]

By David Bandurski — The murder in Beijing on Saturday of American Todd Bachman, the father-in-law of U.S. men’s volleyball coach Hugh McCutcheon, was a major story, particularly coming as it did at the end of the first day of Olympic competition. But while Chinese Web users had a reasonably good chance of running across the story, newspaper readers might have missed it altogether.
The morning after the attack, the brief Xinhua News Agency release on the story was available under the domestic news section of the main news page at QQ.com, one of China’s top Web portals.
The QQ headline clearly linked the murder to the U.S. Olympic team: “Relative of U.S. Men’s Volleyball Team Murdered at Drum Tower.”

[Screenshot of news page at QQ.com, August 10, 2008, 9am, article on murder circled in red.]

In China’s official party mouthpiece, People’s Daily, it was a very different story. As expected, the dominating meta-story was the Beijing Olympic Games as an unprecedentedly positive historical, political and sporting event.
Media have certainly been instructed to “emphasize positive news” during this key moment for China. And there is the further issue — pressure from propaganda authorities aside — of news choice among Chinese editors, who are likely avoid more unpleasant stories that seem to dampen the positive public mood surrounding the Games in Beijing.
The latter is of course partly a commercial choice, and also, no doubt for some editors, a personal inclination.
For the People’s Daily, the reason for de-emphasizing the Bachman story is clear — it damages the purely positive image China is trying to project for the Games. The story is therefore pushed to the very back of the paper, to page 19, the last page of news. Again, it is the official Xinhua release.
Why run the story at all? To demonstrate, of course, that China does not regard the incident as totally inconsequential.

[Above: Page 19 of the August 10 edition of People’s Daily, story of Bachman’s murder circled in red.]

How did commercial newspapers play the story?
Beijing Times, the commercial spin-off of the official People’s Daily, gave the story no front page coverage. But the paper did play it on page 10 with a slightly larger headline, right below a story about how train tickets in Beijing can now be purchased five days in advance, and right above a human interest story about a Chinese AIDS orphan visiting the capital to attend the Games.
The headline for the Beijing Times story, again the official Xinhua release, emphasized China’s diplomacy and made no reference to the U.S. Olympic team: “China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs Gives Top Priority to Murder of American Tourist.”

[Above: Page 11 of the August 10 edition of Beijing Times, with the murder story circled in red.]

In perhaps the best indication of the pressure coming down from the top for “positive news,” and of the potential risk involved for national newspapers that might consider running the Bachman murder story more prominently, Southern Metropolis Daily, one of the country’s leading commercial newspapers, gave the story no front page attention.
Southern Metropolis Daily buried the story on page 16, deep inside its rosy Olympics coverage. The headline similarly made no mention of the murder’s connection to the U.S. Olympic team, focusing instead on the actions of police: “Beijing Police Issue Release on Murder of American Tourist.”

[Above: Page 16 of the August 10 edition of Guangdong’s Southern Metropolis Daily, with murder story circled in red.]

So, did any of the ten or so mainland Chinese newspapers to run the Bachman murder story on August 10 give it relatively prominent play?
Yes, in fact. Just one.
Xi’an Daily, the official party newspaper of the city of Xi’an, ran the Bachman story at the bottom right-hand corner of the front page. The tiny headline was identical to that of Southern Metropolis Daily, focusing on the actions of police.

[Above: Front page of the August 10 edition of the official Xi’an Daily, with story on Bachman murder circled in red.]

In fact, if we were to offer awards for guts in the placement of the Bachman story in China, they would all go to party newspapers. Commercial papers, stuck between the official priority of “positive news” and the need to please readers with the right kind of Olympics coverage, were in no position to push.
The following is from the August 10 edition of the official Zhejiang Daily, which played the Bachman story on page 2.

[Above: Page 2 of August 10 edition of Zhejiang Daily, with murder story coverage circled in red.]

Zhejiang Daily‘s placement of the story was perhaps extra gutsy considering that Tang Yongming (唐永明), the man responsible for the murder of Todd Bachman, was one of the province’s own, a laid-off factory worker from Hangzhou.
The headline read: “Zhejiang Man Kills One Tourist and Injures Two in Attack at Beijing’s Drum Tower.”
FURTHER READING:
“The Chinese Censorship Foreigners Don’t See,” Rebecca MacKinnon for The Wall Street Journal, August 14, 2008
“Beijing Olympics: Chinese Tanks Watch Over Media Centre,” The Telegraph, August 12, 2008
[NOTE: Richard Spencer mentions an order concerning the Bachman story, and calls it “unusually specific.” In fact, the text of this order (The Telegraph claims to have obtained a list of these orders) sounds very much like what we have seen of such orders, including specific instructions for media to use only Xinhua news or avoid a particular story altogether. It sounds like the newspaper got its hands on a page of routine orders given to various media from the propaganda department and giving instructions on coverage.]
“China’s Media Censored Over Stabbing,” The Age, August 12, 2008
“Unlike Athletes, China’s Media Held to Different Standards During Olympics,” OpenNet Initiative, August 12, 2008
[Posted by David Bandurski, August 12, 2008, 4:37pm HK]

By David Bandurski — There is only one story in China right now. Try to track down anything of substance in China’s media that is NOT about the Beijing Olympic Games and the “race for the gold” and you’ve really got your work cut out for you. But we stumbled on a worthwhile article today from China Business that discusses — low and behold — democracy. So of course we must share. [Homepage Image: Photo from a village election in China, from China’s Human Rights].
The article in question is an interview with Zi Zhongyun (资中筠), a researcher with the Institute of American Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences who specializes in international relations and United States government. [English text of an old interview with Zi Zhongyun via Sina.com here].
In the interview, run on page B8 of today’s China Business, Zi talks about democracy as the “least bad” of political options available to check the misuse of power, and says China will have to address the inadequacies of its “current [political] superstructure” if it hopes to push ahead with its development. She also addresses some Chinese misconceptions about democracy.
A portion of the interview follows:

“We Should Recognize Universal Values: There is No Need Nit-Pick About Democratic Perfection”
An interview with Zi Zhongyun (资中筠)
China Business: As someone who has witnessed the course of economic reforms in China, how do you see the progress China has made in the last 30 years?
Zi Zhongyun: The most obvious achievement over the last 30 years has been China’s economic growth and its material abundance. I think attaining these achievements has owed largely to liberation of thought (思想的解放) and to reform and opening. Among these, “opening” was the most important, so the phrase “reform and opening” could also be called “opening and reform,” because had reforms gone ahead while China kept its doors closed, they would ultimately have been impossible and we wouldn’t see the results we see today.
Any time China has made progress since the Opium Wars, it has been inseparable from the act of opening, whether we’re talking about opening that is passive or self-initiated. This time around we’re talking about a self-initiated opening . . .
The liberation of thought that began 30 years ago can be seen on many levels, but I think the most important is the recognition of the market economy and property rights. When economic reform and opening began, there was deep division over whether we should recognize the market and the private economy. And now, as China’s Property Law is in its early stages of creation, we have a lot of lingering issues in the area of property protection. These are not just economic issues but social ones, and the issue of property right protection is at the heart.
Historically speaking, the question of whether property rights are effectively and systematically protected has been a focus in China for years . . . Once private property is protected under the law, the question is how to use specific measures to ensure that property rights are not stifled by the government, a question of bringing the legal system into play. In order to protect property rights you need rule of law, you need to build rule of law, and you must have democracy – and looking at it the other way around, you need rule of law to safeguard democracy, the two going together. Continuing along these lines, as we move forward step by step, we can see that our reform bottlenecks lie in our current [political] superstructure. According to classical Marxist theory, our current [political] superstructure is not suited to further development of production. Looking at this question in terms of reform, the bottlenecks are a question of system reform (体制的改革). The central party has come out with many good policies, but as soon as the question of implementation comes up, it is difficult to roll them out, and the [political] system itself is one of the major obstacles.
China Business: What will it take to break through these institutional obstacles?
Zi Zhongyun: Reform of the system concerns democracy and rule of law, and this concerns also the question of how we see democracy. Right now, there is an area of misunderstanding that imagines democracy should be able to cut right through any problem, creating equality and at the same time preserving various competing rights and interests. As soon as they see a problem in democratic countries, some people say, “Look, what’s so good about democracy?” as though democracy should necessarily be absolutely perfect. In fact, democracy is simply the system that up to now has proven least bad (比较不坏). There are two core points [about democracy]: the first is the need to check power (限权), which is to say the need to check those who have power (对公权的限制). Any person or group must be checked as long as they have power, and no one must be allowed to act with impunity. The second point [about democracy] is the monitoring and participation of the people. With these two cores you can use many different forms and concrete methods to bring about democracy. The United States uses a two-party system. A number of countries in Europe have many political parties. Japan has a single large party divided internally into several factions. Each country may have its own particular national characteristics, but they all have a common core, and that is the limiting of exercise of power. At the same time, the exercise of power must be transparent and open, and accept monitoring and participation by the public.
Right now, our decision-makers [including President Hu Jintao] have said that the public should have the right to know, the right to express their views and the right to participation (知情权, 表达权和参与权). On the level of vocabulary, this is major progress. If these are really put into effect, it doesn’t matter what form of democracy, there should be no problem pushing them forward. But there should also be specific measures to ensure [these rights]. I believe that [effectively] implementing citizens’ rights is crucial. Right now the two things the people criticize most are the contrast between rich and poor [in China] and corruption. But the root of these problems lies also in the misuse of power, which results in social inequality, and not in the market economy per se. We need to recognize that we are bound to see a certain gap between rich and poor in any society, even though this is indeed a kind of inequality. This is because every person’s level of contribution to society is different. But the serious gap between rich and poor we see now [in China] was to a great degree created under conditions that were unfair to begin with. In many cases, people aren’t clear about the roots of this inequality, and so disenchantment builds up, and this disenchantment is not necessarily vented where it should be. Add to this misuse of official power and we see cases of unrest like that in Weng’an [in late June].

[Posted by David Bandurski, August 11, 2008, 5:07pm HK]

By David Bandurski — Hong Kong’s Apple Daily reported at the tip-top of page one yesterday that the Tuesday edition of People’s Daily reported nothing whatsoever of the terrorist attacks in Xinjiang that left 16 police officers dead and 16 wounded on Monday. Commercial newspapers “like Southern Metropolis Daily, Beijing Times and The Beijing News,” said the Hong Kong paper, mentioned the Xinjiang attack only briefly in the inside pages.
But while Apple Daily‘s point that coverage of the incident was scant is basically sound, it is not true the People’s Daily ran no coverage, and not exactly true that commercial papers ran the story only inside.
So what did the pages look like?
For starters, everyone did use the official Xinhua News Agency release, or tonggao (通稿), so there were no breakthroughs so far as we can see. We recommend that readers visit the Newsweek blog for some relevant observations on breaking coverage of the bombing.
First off, People’s Daily‘s front page looked like this on Tuesday morning.

At top right there is a positive story about volunteers for the Beijing Olympics. Directly below is the leading official news story, about President Hu Jintao heading up a meeting of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The story to the left and below is again about the IOC meeting, this time with the text of Hu Jintao’s remarks.
There is nothing about the Xinjiang attack. That is, until we turn to page two. There we find a busy layout full of mostly snore-inducing official announcements, including a State Council notice concerning China’s anti-monopoly law.
Once you have trudged downhill through all of this stodgy matter, however, you can locate a tiny, timid headline announcing major news: “Severe Violent Attack Against Police in Xinjiang’s Kashgar.”

This burying of major news on page two of the People’s Daily is something that happens quite frequently in China, and something we’ve called attention to before.
Moving on to the Beijing Times, a commercial spin-off of the official People’s Daily, we see a slight change in treatment of the Xinjiang story, reminiscent of the way the two papers treated the Liu Zhihua corruption case in 2006.
Here is Tuesday’s front page at the Beijing Times.

The leading news stories are about the Beijing route to be taken by the Olympic torch, and the starting time for the opening ceremony in the “Bird’s Nest” (4 pm for those of you who are curious).
The larger headline toward the bottom of the page — the one circled in red — is about the Xinjiang attack. The headline reads: “16 Killed in Bomb Attack on Border Police in Kashgar.”
We are then referred to page 17 for the full article, presumably the Xinhua news release, but the page has, for some unknown reason, been removed from the newspaper’s electronic version.
Readers should notice, however, that aside from placement and headline size, the Beijing Times has reported the number of police who died in the attack directly in the front page headline.
And what about Southern Metropolis Daily, one of China’s leading commercial newspapers singled out by Apple Daily?
Southern Metropolis Daily does in fact give the Xinjiang story front page treatment, emphasizing again the number of dead and injured. “Bomb Attack on Police,” announces a bold yellow headline against a black background, “16 Dead, 16 Injured.”

We are then referred to page A23 for more coverage. There we find a great big headline again announcing 16 dead and 16 injured, but adding that two suspects are now in custody. At right, in the upper right-hand corner of the page, we find the Xinhua release.

The Oriental Morning Post, one of Shanghai’s leading commercial newspapers, gives the story even more prominent front page play.
The headline is less conspicuous, placed underneath a fatter banner headline for a story about the closure of stores in subway stations as an Olympic Games safety measure. The smaller headline reads: “16 Killed, 16 Injured in Bomb Attack on Border Police in Kashgar.”
But directly below this small headline is a dominating image, an artist reconstruction, of how the Xinjiang attack might have happened.

Oriental Morning Post coverage continues on page 3 with the Xinhua release on the Xinjiang attack, following immediately below by the paper’s own report on statements by Olympics officials about safety and anti-terrorism during the Games.

Like the Oriental Morning Post, the Metro Times, a commercial newspaper in China’s southwest Yunnan Province, augments the Xinjiang release on the terrorist attack with comments from the IOC on safety at the Games — this time a news release from China News Service.
Directly below the official wire story on the IOC is the paper’s own commentary, followed by comments from Web users taken from major Internet news sites.
The result at Metro Times is what looks like more comprehensive coverage. Look more closely, however, and you will realize that all of the coverage keeps tightly to party discipline — there is a clear emphasis on positive news.

That said, Metro Times does give us what is probably the boldest front page headline on the Xinjiang attack, spread right across the top of the page and giving us the number of dead and injured.

Clearly, given a propaganda department ban, no newspapers have gone out on a limb on this story, unlike the Liu Zhihua case two years ago, when the Oriental Morning Post made the gutsy move of augmenting the official news release with information on Liu given on the Beijing city government website.
That information, following Xinhua’s report of Liu’s “corrupt and degenerate” activities, pointed to his senior position in the Beijing city leadership — and also, we should remember, to the fact that he was responsible for overseeing the construction of sporting venues for this year’s Olympic Games.
[Posted by David Bandurski, August 7, 2008, 5:29pm]

By David Bandurski — As Chinese citizens attempt with little success to obtain access to government information whose release is mandated by the national ordinance on openness of government information, the new legislation is looking increasingly like an empty slogan. [Frontpage: Screenshot of information openness coverage on the Greatwall Broadband Network website. The “black box” of secrecy is dropped and the open box of “openness of government information” upheld.]
So what of the era of “sunshine government” that Chinese leaders promised when the ordinance was approved in 2007?
Realistically, of course, the legislation, which faces a recalcitrant political culture of secrecy, will need time to become effective.
But while China Newsweekly has argued repeatedly that realization of the ordinance’s promises will require pressure through repeated cases brought by citizens, cases have so far fizzled. China’s court system, which is often manipulated by party officials, seems utterly unable to push the government to live up to its promises.

[ABOVE: Want government information? It’s this easy in Weihai’s Yuancui District.]

An editorial in the Xi’an Evening Post added its own soft pressure on the issue of information openness on Monday, arguing that government decisions against releasing information should be made according to the law.
A translation of the editorial follows:

To Release or Not is a Question for Law
By Qiao Shan (乔杉)
Recently the Beijing city government issued a document stating that if government information cannot be made public, then the reason for this should be explained to the public. Just days ago the city government’s most recent communique included five documents concerning openness of government information, stating that administrative offices must set up information platforms (信息平台) in order to swiftly gather information from the public about false information.
The timely release of government information is of great importance to ensuring the public’s right to know (公众知情权). We should see that in recent years, from the central government right down to local governments, this issue has gotten a lot of attention, and the public’s right to know has been elevated to a level not previously seen. As we acknowledge this, however, we cannot deny that some local areas still make an empty show of openness. Others avoid the release of information if at all possible and decide to release information selectively only under pressure from superior officials and public opinion. This kind of selective openness is regrettable.
It is a positive development that the Beijing city government has issued a document saying that reasons should be given in cases where there is no way to make information public. But we must also realize that under the notion of there being “no way to make information public” (无法公开) we are shielded from much information that really can be made public. This leads us to a problem, and that is the question of who has the right to say whether government information can be made public or not? The public certainly feels that the more information that can be made public the better. As for those in positions of power, they harbor the sense that less public information is better. We should say that on the law can decide the question of whether information is made public or not.
The People’s Republic of China Ordinance on Openness of Government Information (中华人民共和国政府信息公开条例) that went into effect on May 1 ths year clearly lays out the nature of information that should be released public and the procedures for doing so. Governments at various levels should act in line with the spirit of the ordinance, “releasing [information] according to the law.” It is a fact that some government information will concern issues of national and commercial secrecy, and under specified circumstances there will be information that it is not convenient to release. As to what information cannot be released, this should be a question of law – [the government] must “release [information] according to law” and “not release [information] according to law.” Article 14 of the ordinance states clearly that, “before releasing government information administrative departments should conduct a review according to the PRC National Secrecy Law (中华人民共和国保守国家秘密法) and other relevant laws, statutes and national regulations of the information to be released. When administrative departments cannot determine whether or not information can be released, they should, according to laws, statutes and relevant national regulations, make a report to their [superior] administrative departments (主管部门) or work departments at the same administrative level which deal with issues of secrecy for their determination.” Looking at these stipulations [in the ordinance], only after they have gone through the proper legal procedures concerning a particular item of information can they determine that it cannot be released.
When the “legal release [of information]” (依法公开) is so difficult, and when it is even harder to [get governments to make] “legal determinations of non-release” (依法不公开), this reveals at a higher level the government’s [weak] sense of rule of law and transparency. Because only when information release is denied in accordance with the law can we ensure that national secrecy does not become a pretext for not making information public.
(The writer is a journalist)

[Posted by David Bandurski, August 6, 2008, 10:46am HK]

By David Bandurski — Since China’s National Ordinance on Openness of Government Information, or xinxi gongkai tiaoli (政府信息公开条例), took effect back on May 1 this year, domestic media say the government has faced a “wave” of formal information requests from aggrieved and inquisitive citizens. And as CMP noted earlier this month, Chinese media have been using the ordinance to push the topic of information openness as well as related issues like freedom of expression.
However, a report from last week’s China Newsweekly magazine, which has offered continued coverage of the ordinance since May, suggests party leaders are (as is to be expected) less than enthusiastic about the prospect of greater public scrutiny.

[ABOVE: Image of cover of publicly available version of China’s national openness of information ordinance.]

The article, “Information Openness Face-off: Citizens Are ‘Hot’ and the Government is ‘Cold,‘” begins by reiterating a point China Newsweekly has made repeatedly, that “the strongest force in pushing openness of information comes from various specific demands.”
But up to now, those demands have been getting the cold shoulder, and the net result is not encouraging.

[NOTE, August 1, 2008: When we posted this piece yesterday, we neglected to mention or translate one of the most revealing facts in the China Newsweekly report. Concerning Huang Tianyou’s request for release of information, discussed in the portion below, the article says: “On June 23, a judge from the intermediate court said to him, ‘This case of yours has a major impact, not just domestically but internationally, so the opinion of the provincial court and the supreme court must be sought before a decision is made.” This is a wonderful example of how court officials in China often render political rather than legal decisions.

A partial translation of the magazine’s report follows:

Up to now, Huang Youjian (黄由俭) has still not received notice of whether his case has been accepted by the superior court in Hunan province. As of July 14 it had already been 20 days since he first brought the case to court.
Upset at problems stemming from enterprise restructuring efforts, a number of retired workers from the water works in Hunan’s Rucheng County (汝城县) [including Huang] had continually attempted to voice their grievances through the petitions system. When they heard later that the Rucheng county government had carried out an investigation of problems in enterprise restructuring and had “produced an objective investigative report,” they demanded that the government make the report public.
Because they opted to bring their case at the first opportunity after the National Ordinance on Openness of Government Information took effect [on May 1], their case was widely viewed as a test case.
It was called China’s “first openness of information suit.” But so far no court has even agreed to hear the case, nor have they received any formal notification of denial.
The twists and turns of this case demonstrate the difficulties facing openness of information.
The materials under question in the case are readily available, so why won’t the courts accept it?
It is 11 o’clock in the evening before 67 year-old Huang Youjian returns home. The situation of the case has become “more and more critical,” and he must work night after night with more than 20 of his fellow retirees to work out a plan of action. It is July 13.
The consensus is that they should get in touch with the media and fish about for support.
They have decided to turn from the path of legal remediation and seek media support because Huang and his colleagues “already see no hope of resolving the problem” through the county, city or provincial courts.
When the banner advertising the national ordinance was hung over the entrance to the county government on May 1, Huang felt excited, but now, he says, he has “once again returned to that place of helplessness” . . .
In a series of requests made by Zhu Fuxiang (朱福祥), a resident of Si Ji Qing Township (四季青镇) in Beijing’s Haiding District, concerning land and environmental planning, you can see even more clearly the state of implementation of the “ordinance.”
On May 8, Zhu Fuxiang filed a request with the Beijing Municipal Planning Commission to obtain Si Ji Qing Township’s report on environmental planning for a building project by [developer] Chang Qing Tong Da (常青通达建设项目). The planning commission instead gave him a document explaining planning conditions for the project, and when he told government employees that this was not what he had requested, he was told: “Our bosses said to give you this response.”
When he applied to the Land Bureau for release of information about land use for the Mentou New Village project (门头新村建设项目) things played out in the same way. “What we asked them for was information about how much peasant land was used, and how much was used for development of marketable housing. What they gave us was an approval document for requisition of the land,” Zhu Fuxiang said.
When he applied with the township government for information about the mode of use of two buildings in Si Ji Xing Township’s jurisdiction, they responded: “The information you requested does not exist.”
On June 23, Zhu Fuxiang went again to the planning commission, this time to request information concerning the planning permit (规划许可证) for one of Chang Qing Tong Da’s commercial projects. A government employee told him that if he wanted to obtain the information, he first needed to track down the number of the document he required, otherwise they could not provide it. “We’ve never seen this document, so how could we possibly know what its number is?” Zhu Fuxiang said discouragedly . . .
In the space of two months, Zhu Fuxiang faced perhaps every excuse that could be given for not providing information: the answer to the wrong question, the information does not exist, and it is inconvenient to provide the information you ask . . .

[Posted by David Bandurski, July 31, 2008, 11:38am HK]