By David Bandurski — Reliable CMP sources report that Guangdong’s top official, Wang Yang (汪洋) , ordered the recall of Guangdong journalists from Sichuan after a meeting just before the weekend in which he expressed his dissatisfaction with critical coverage of the quake by Southern Metropolis Daily, Southern Metropolis Weekly and even the official Guangzhou Daily. [Frontpage Image: The cover of a recent issue of Southern Metropolis Weekly, dealing with the Sichuan earthquake.]
This rather unexpected recall of journalists should remind us of the chaos and complexity of China’s media environment.
CMP wrote yesterday about a number of indicators we can use to make educated guesses about the degree of media control or openness on Sichuan quake coverage. One of these was whether or not reporters from commercial media would be recalled from the scene, signaling a more general tightening. This would most likely occur, we thought, through a directive from the Central Publicity Department, with the result that media would be left to use official news releases from, or tonggao (通稿), from Xinhua News Agency.
But Wang Yang’s recall — we have yet to confirm that journalists from Guangdong have in fact left Sichuan — is a reminder of just how sensitive the idea of “cross-regional reporting,” or yidi jiandu (异地监督), has become in recent years in China.
Cross-regional reporting is a complex issue, but it essentially boils down to increasingly bold media, working in an increasingly competitive commercial environment, doing more critical or investigative reporting in someone else’s backyard.
So is Wang Yang offering a nod of respect to his beleaguered party buddies over in Sichuan, who face rising social pressure over, among other things, the issue of shoddy school construction? Is he calling off the watchdogs?
Another interesting point about Wang Yang’s decision is that it follows Hu Jintao’s April 29 statement concerning media, in which the president summarized China’s experience with disaster reporting over the last five years, saying:

1. Chinese media, particularly state media, must “keep a firm grasp” on initiative in reporting (报道的主动权). This means, essentially, that leaders have recognized the disadvantage of hitting hard with control initially, and then opening up only after pressure has been applied (by the public, by international media, etc.). SARS in 2003 was the perfect example of this, and Tibet arguably was too. By moving first (先发制人 for you Sun Tzu fans) with timely reporting, the government can, to a certain degree, control the direction of coverage more effectively.
2. China needs to raise the effectiveness of news, reporting at the first available moment
3. China needs to increase the transparency of news reporting, not covering up public incidents (公共事件)
4. China needs to utilize the strengths of all kinds of media, including the Internet and the mobile phone network

Hu Jintao essentially said that the Central Publicity Department would in future define public incidents, or gonggong shijian (公共事件), as natural disasters, production accidents (like mining disasters) and epidemic situations. In the future, reporters from China Central Television and Xinhua News Agency (at the very least) must be allowed to report from the scene.
When you take a historical view on Hu Jintao’s comments, they show a moderate openness. The flip side of that openness, however, is a much more nuanced approach to CONTROL.
As CMP director Qian Gang has noted again and again, the factors of control and change in China’s media have to be given at least equal consideration. For example, Hu Jintao mentions the use of the mobile network, a new media tool that has arguably been a force of change in recent years (as in the Xiamen PX case). But we cannot forget that the state still controls the mobile network, and that the leadership has actively explored new ways of using the network to shape public opinion.
This dynamic between control and change should persist for some time to come — and the result, the third of Qian’s “Three Cs,” is CHAOS.
And on that note, we share an in-depth news report from the June 2 edition of Sichuan Economic Daily, which should further confuse matters for the reader. The report revisits the problem of shoddy school construction, quoting students and teachers from the scene and offering their eyewitness accounts. This one is another gold star for the “openness” side of our media progress chart. But what an unlikely place to find it!
We don’t have time for translation at the moment, but we’ll try to get to it this afternoon.
We also point readers to Qian Gang’s blog at QQ.com, and an entry discussing the more sensitive aspects of earthquake prediction. The piece could not be printed as planned in a major mainland newspaper because, we are told, it “hit the red line” (碰了红线).
[Posted by David Bandurski, June 4, 2008, 2:27pm HK]

By David Bandurski — China’s propaganda heavyweight, politburo member Li Changchun, is now visiting the disaster area in Sichuan and meeting with Chinese journalists. Does this signal a broad media crackdown? Not so fast. Yes, the Xinhua News Agency release on Li’s visit does suggest there’s some finger wagging going on here – as though Li is cautioning, “Easy, EASY.” But we should be careful not to read too much into his visit. [Homepage Image: Screenshot of coverage of Li Changchun visit at People.com.cn].
There are notable differences in terminology in this release when compared to news of Li Changchun’s CCTV visit over a week ago. We are not yet seeing the dreaded word “guidance,” or daoxiang (导向). But we are hearing new whistleblows from the referee, like “emphasizing positive propaganda” (正面宣传为主) and “upholding unity, stability and encouragement” (坚持团结稳定鼓劲).
These are important, and we should watch carefully how domestic coverage changes.
For example, there has been a noticeable shift in focus toward emotion, official action and hero worship since President Hu Jintao made his visit to Sichuan. And we know there have been directives limiting coverage of shoddy school construction, against direct criticism of the government’s handling of the relief effort, and against the question of early earthquake warning.
But we need to remember that we are not yet seeing reporters from commercial media recalled, and there is still at least moderate variety in coverage.
This existence of this or that directive does not tell the full story about control, or about the climate in which Chinese reporters are working. Here are some important points to be on the lookout for — indicators, if you will, of the degree of media openness.

1. Are reporters for non-party media (that is, commercial media) allowed to remain on the scene?
2. There has been a directive in force since early on against discussion of the question of earthquake prediction. To what degree has this been followed? For example, QQ.com has set up a special page on the topic, but this is more in the government’s favor, about how it is impossible to make accurate short-term predictions. The more sensitive issue is that of medium to longer term prediction, which might have prompted more attention to building codes, for example. There has been some coverage of this issue in the blogosphere, including by CMP director Qian Gang, but will we begin to see more?
3. The question of oversight of charitable donations. There don’t seem to be bans in force at the moment. But how much discussion can we see? Are there voices that discuss the institutional causes, the reasons and conflicts (内部). Will any investigative reports emerge?
4. Will media continue to report on the views, or even grievances, of ordinary people in the disaster area?
5. Limits on reporting of shoddy school construction are now reportedly in force. To what degree are media complying? What kind of reports or editorials do we see? This topic was in fact sensitive quite early on, so much so that Southern Metropolis Daily dared not address it in a main editorial, or shelun (社论). That didn’t mean, of course, that the topic was absent altogether.
6. To what extent will media talk about the role of NGOs in the relief effort? More particularly, will they discuss the role of religiously-based NGOs (Buddhist communities or Christian churches)?

Could an announcement or visit by Li Changchun potentially signal a change in media policy? Certainly. But let’s not assume that when Li Changchun wags a finger the sky comes crashing down.
[Posted by David Bandurski, June 3, 2008, 12:12pm HK]

MORE READING:
“Senior official Li Changchun visits journalists, victims in quake zone,” Xinhua News Agency, June 2, 2008
(This ENGLISH version of the report on the Xinhua News Agency website mentions nothing about the call to put the emphasis on “positive news.”)

[From the Wall Street Journal] One of the more remarkable aspects of the aftermath of the May 12 Sichuan earthquake is how much the Chinese people know about it. The true extent of the Great Tangshan Earthquake of 1976 was hidden from the nation and the world, despite the loss of 250,000 lives. Other natural disasters traditionally have also been shrouded in secrecy — from seasonal flooding to SARS. In contrast, information about — and images of — the earthquake area have been saturating Chinese media, and may even be helping to shape the official response . . . [Click here to read more at WSJ.com.] [Click here for the article in Chinese].

“China and the Internet: Myths and Realities” calls attention to scholarly work that helps to separate fact from fiction about the Internet in China. Does the Internet bring more democracy to the country? Is there freedom of expression on the Internet? Does the Internet foster greater integration of China and its diaspora? Do the Chinese use the Internet for entertainment only?
Since the mid-1990s, Internet usage in China has grown very rapidly. As of September 2007, China boasted 172 million Internet users, the world’s second largest, behind only the United States, and 523 million mobile phone users, by far the largest in the world. To track these developments, the Annual Chinese Internet Research Conference (CIRC) brings together academic scholars, policy analysts, industry leaders, journalists and legal practitioners from around the world.
This year, for the first time, this prestigious conference will take place in Hong Kong, China. As the attention of the world will be focused upon the upcoming 2008 Olympic Games, this timely event will explore the political, social, economic, cultural and institutional aspects of Internet development in China. With simultaneous translation in English and Mandarin, the event will be of great interest to anybody who studies Internet developments in China.
Click here to go to the official Website for the conference.
When: June 13-14, 2008
Where: University of Hong Kong

By David Bandurski — One of the most persistent issues to emerge in the aftermath of the Sichuan earthquake is of course the question of shoddy school construction. In a column running in The Beijing News just before the weekend, Peking University professor Zhang Qianfan (张千帆) argued that the building of local “democratic mechanisms” was necessary if China wished to avoid repetition of the tragedies of Wenchuan. [Homepage Image: Screenshot of Sohu.com coverage of rescue efforts at Juyuan Middle School in Sichuan on May 13, 2008.]

“Local Democracy is the Basis for Rebuilding after the Disaster”
By Zhang Qianfan (张千帆)
The recent Wenchuan quake resulted in massive injury and loss of life, including the death and injury of many students and teachers as their school buildings collapsed, something that has saddened our whole nation. After experiencing this massive earthquake . . . we cannot help but soberly consider the institutional causes of this phenomenon [of shoddy school construction], and how we might remedy these institutional problems as we go through the process of rebuilding. Only in this way can we avoid repeating the tragedies of Wenchuan.
The school buildings that collapsed in the disaster area were those of five-stories and higher, and most were pre-fabricated, in direct violation of the Primary and Secondary School Architectural Design Standards (中小学校建筑设计规范). While some government administrative buildings in the disaster area were similarly constructed, the vast majority were not, and this has invited controversy among Internet users. Officials from the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Housing (建设部) have publicly addressed the concerns expressed by Web users, and the Ministry of Housing has also asked that the Ministry of Education join it in conducting a joint inquiry. But while these are signs of definite progress, they are insufficient to address the problems exposed by the Wenchuan quake.
As one researcher from the China Earthquake Disaster Prevention Center (中国地震灾害防御中心) has pointed out, “Earthquakes in and of themselves are not killers, rather it is the destruction of buildings that causes injury and loss of life.” If we explore this a bit deeper, we understand that while these collapses owe to quality issues, human beings built the buildings themselves. So why weren’t they built to national standards? And why is it that government buildings are of much higher quality than the school buildings?
The answers are not difficult to find. The reason is that a great deal more is spent on constructing government buildings than on constructing schools, so of course they are of higher quality and better able to resist earthquake damage. But where does the government’s money come from? Some of it comes from central government outlays, but the majority comes from taxes on ordinary local people. If we were to allow the local people to determine how to spend this money, what would they decide? Would they reserve more money for government buildings, or for the school buildings where their own children carry out their studies? There’s no sense in even answering this question – what family doesn’t care more for its own children?
So why are there so many school buildings of inferior quality? The answer is simply that ordinary people have not had any real say in how tax money is spent – this phenomenon cannot otherwise be explained. Governments and schools both are public entities sustained by tax revenues, and the structures that house them are built with appropriations determined by local governments. But because the specifics of appropriation are primarily determined by the government, it naturally follows that more building funds are budgeted for government buildings. The natural result is that schools face funding shortages, inferior quality and construction that falls short of national standards.
Why is it that local governments fail to implement national standards? Is it because supervision from the central and regional government is to no avail? The specific case in Wenchuan has already drawn attention from the central government and the whole nation, and the Ministry of Housing has already said it will conduct a thorough investigation. And perhaps we can hope that the central government will resolve the problem of school building quality in Wenchuan through direct intervention. But of course there is no conceivable way that the Ministry of Housing, the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Supervision and other central government authorities can remain in Wenchuan for the long haul, fixing their eyes on local officials to ensure they abide by national construction standards. They have plenty of other priorities. Once they have made their exit, how are we to ensure that rebuilding in the earthquake zone is done with a mind to the basic interests of the people?
And across China, how many Wenchuans are there exactly? We cannot possibly expect the central government to keep its eye on every local official in order to ensure national regulations are followed. If we rely exclusively on the top-down supervision of the central government, well then, even if we do solve the problem of substandard school buildings in the area of Wenchuan, problems in other areas will remain. The tragedies of Wenchuan will be played out in some other place.
This being the case, how can we ensure that schools in other areas do not collapse? Essentially, this needs to happen through local democratic mechanisms making local officials answer truly to the local people. More specifically, ordinary people must either directly or indirectly participate in the government budgeting process so that expenditures become truly “public expenditures” rather than budgets made at the discretion of the local governments themselves.
In Zhejiang’s Wenling (温岭) and other areas, local governments have already begun conducting so-called “democratic consultations” (民主恳谈), budgetary hearings and other experiments to protect the rights of local constituencies to participate in the budgetary process. These are very valuable democratic experiments, and they deserve to be energetically pushed out into other areas.
Naturally, ordinary people do not necessarily have the time or the interest to directly participate in the political process, and this is why, in democratic nations, they generally entrust their own representatives to supervise government administration and make budgetary decisions. From the beginning, decisions about taxation and budgeting are passed by local congresses, and the role of local governments is simply to execute these budgets. This means of course that taxes won’t simply be channeled into the construction of government buildings.
Why would these representatives (代言人) of the people give more money for the building of schools? Because they are elected by the local people. Should their decisions contravene the interests of the local people, or jeopardize the safety of children, or should they squander the public’s money to build lavish offices or other pointless ventures, the people can in similar fashion vote them out. If the representatives of the people wish to be elected, and if they wish to remain elected, then they must act in the interest of the electorate, and they must exercise their authority to ensure that the whole government operates for the good of the people.
In 1982 China’s constitution stipulated that local people’s congresses and people’s congress delegates across the country had the authority to supervise the budgetary process. But due to numerous problems in the elective process for people’s congresses [IE, local party leaders controlling the selection process and/or serving on the congress], the stipulations of the constitution could not be actually be carried out. It is for this reason that we now see this phenomenon of luxurious government complexes contrasting with the frailty of school buildings . . . And therefore, to say that the Wenchuan earthquake exposes the frailty of a great number of rural school buildings is not as good as saying that it reveals the need to improve democratic mechanisms at the local level in China.
If we wish to ensure school buildings stand up in the midst of disaster just as government buildings do, the only way is to actually implement the elective systems (选举制度) mandated by our constitution. Reconstruction in the disaster area looms on the horizon, but what we need to rebuild first and foremost are local democratic mechanisms.
[Posted by David Bandurski, May 26, 2008, 6:35pm]

By David Bandurski — While the initial dangers of the Sichuan earthquake seem to have passed, the area continues to be rocked by aftershocks, landslides and mud and rock flows that endanger survivors and rescue workers. In his latest column on the Wenchuan quake, CMP director Qian Gang re-visits the Diexi earthquake of 1933 and the lessons it holds for today.

“’Bursting ‘earthquake lakes’ send us a warning through history”
Qian Gang (钱钢)
A magnitude 8.0 earthquake, powerful aftershocks and massive landslides and mud and rock flows superimposed on one another have made the Wenchuan earthquake extremely destructive. Many rivers have been obstructed, resulting in at least 21 barrier lakes in the area. These lakes are large and their water levels high. In some areas, destroyed homes have already been submerged. Disaster relief headquarters has already ordered a thorough investigation of these barrier lakes. The Ministry of Water Resources, armed hydroelectric police units and experts organized by the Sichuan provincial government are closely watching the situation.
The largest barrier lake collapse in China in the last century had cataclysmic results. Well-known Chinese earthquake forecasting expert Geng Qingguo (耿庆国) observed the disaster scene at that time first-hand, and he wrote about it in “The Collapse of ‘Earthquake Lakes’: The 1933 Diexi Earthquake” (published in the book One-hundred Major Disasters in 20th Century China/二十世纪中国重灾百录).

[ABOVE: Image of remains of the Diexi barrier lake, from the Science Museums of China website.]

Notice the name of this place – Diexi. Diexi is a town in Sichuan’s Mao County (茂县), and it falls within the area of today’s major quake. At 3:50 pm on August 25, 1933, a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Diexi, with an epicentral intensity of X. The town of Diexi was entirely destroyed. As is the case in Wenchuan, the Diexi quake brought massive landslides at three points in Diexi, obstructing the Minjiang River (岷江). Eleven days after the earthquake a lake had appeared high up in the gorge. The water in the lake stretched back more than 12 kilometers, and at its widest point it was two kilometers across. It had become a major lake.
45 days after the quake, at 7pm on October 9, 1933, powerful aftershocks burst the barrier lake. The water gushed forth from the lake, tearing away the steep slopes on either shore and sending towering floodwaters rushing down the valley.
Geng Qingguo leaves us the following startling account:
“The waters gushed forth at 7pm, reaching Mao County by 9pm, Weizhou (威旧) by 11pm, reaching Wenchuan (汶川) by midnight and Guan County (灌县) by early the next day . . . “
These historical records reveal that the Wenchuan earthquake region of today was in fact in the past wiped out by the catastrophic bursting of a barrier lake caused by a quake. And the bursting of that barrier lake 75 years ago reminds us of the immense secondary dangers posed by earthquakes. In the Diexi earthquake itself, an estimated 7,000 lives were lost, but in the secondary bursting of the barrier lake 20,000 people died. 4,000 corpses alone were pulled out of Dujiangyan.
The aftershocks of today’s Sichuan earthquake have not yet ceased, landslides and mud and rock flows are still occurring, and precipitation is still building. Those 20 or so barrier lakes are ticking time bombs. I hope engineering experts conduct further inspections in order to fully understand the potential dangers, and take effective measures, diverting water and ensuring the safety of survivors and rescue workers in the disaster area.
I once worked at the China Earthquake Administration’s China Disaster Reduction Press. The editor in chief was Geng Qingguo. He is a scientist who has devoted his life to the study of earthquake prediction, and in The Great Tangshan Earthquake I make many references to his work. After the Wenchuan quake occurred, I recalled that when I was working together with Mr. Geng, I often heard him talking with other earthquake experts about a place called “Maowen” (茂汶). This, in fact, was Mao County and Wenchuan. In 1958 they were merged into the Maowen Qiang Autonomous County (茂汶羌族自治县). This is an area earthquake specialists in China have long paid attention to.
Probing deeply into this massive earthquake will be the work of many days. At present, relief work goes ahead under precipitous circumstances, as the barrier lakes are raised like swords overhead. By recalling the historical facts of the Diexi quake, I want only to encourage those leading the relief effort to be watchful!
[Posted By David Bandurski, May 23, 2008, 1:47pm]

FURTHER READING:
“Rains threaten China quake lake disaster“, Reuters, May 23, 2008
“Rain forecast for SW China, adding to ‘quake lake’ risks“, People’s Daily, May 22, 2008

By David Bandurski — As the hope of finding survivors in the rubble of the Sichuan earthquake grows dim, the focus of the relief effort is turning toward the needs and conditions of the close to five million people left homeless by the disaster. Disease prevention is a key priority. In his latest editorial on the quake, CMP director Qian Gang talks about the urgency and enormity of disease prevention efforts on the ground in Sichuan.

“The Decisive Battle Against Disease in the Quake Area Has Begun!”
By Qian Gang (钱钢)
The most important matter now facing the disaster area [in Sichuan province] is disease prevention. Temperatures are rising by the day, and many bodies of the lost have yet to be recovered from the rubble. Threats to the well being of quake survivors and relief workers are on the rise.
32 years ago, when I entered Tangshan as a member of the disease prevention team, I witnessed abysmal living conditions in the disaster area. Tangshan and the Sichuan quake are similar in the sense that the lifelines for cities and towns — things like electricity and water – have been completely wiped away, and poor sanitation and lack of drinking water are major problems. Mechanisms for removing human waste, polluted water and other garbage have all been totally paralyzed. Medical and disease prevention systems have been seriously impacted. After Tangshan, the bodies of 240,000 victims had to be disposed of. Disease did not break out, but this was a miraculous stroke of luck.
But there are several things that make the battle against disease today different from the situation following the Tangshan quake.
For starters, the area encompassed by the disaster [in Sichuan] is many times larger than that of the Tangshan earthquake, and severely damaged towns and cities are spread throughout the area. The upshot of this is that the battle lines in the fight against disease are incredibly long. In the city and countryside, there are vast numbers of corpses of domesticated animals in addition to human bodies. As areas are cut off from the power grid and large-scale cooling facilities either destroyed or out of operation, a great mass of other items is now rotting as well. The amount of daily garbage now rotting out in the open is truly staggering. All of this distinguishes the present situation from what we saw back in Tangshan, in a time when goods were scarce. Disease prevention will be a major undertaking. The current strategy from the [earthquake relief] command headquarters, in which disease prevention teams from various provinces spread out and cover particular counties [in the disaster area], is correct, but what we don’t know is whether these disease prevention teams are sufficient.
The task of clearing bodies from the rubble is more difficult than for Tangshan. The collapsed structures in the Sichuan quake area, with their steel-reinforced concrete, far surpass the scale of Tangshan. That is to say, rescue workers will have to work through a mass of complex and intricate collapsed structures in order to find survivors and clear out bodies. In the coming few days, this work will go ahead under increasingly tough conditions. In the end, I’m afraid there may be many bodies that cannot be retrieved.
The management of disease prevention is more complex than it was for Tangshan. 32 years ago, in the final days of the Cultural Revolution, the disaster area was managed almost like a militarization. In today’s disaster area, it is much harder to handle things as they were handled in Tangshan, when corpses were gathered and buried expediently. In this quake, the government has given consideration to the feelings of the bereaved in formulating procedures for the handling of corpses. The government has designated a procedure for the claiming of bodies, even allowing the laying out of corpses prior to cremation. Some relatives of the dead have resisted the idea of mass burial, which has added a new level of difficulty to handling the situation.
This time, the rescue workers, news reporters and volunteers in the disaster area are also far more diverse than was the case for Tangshan. There is the potential for inadequacies in the handling of personal hygiene and protection. Journalists on the front lines tell me that their own disease protection and sterilization is being handled by volunteers. While this is an effective method, I hope it can be extended to everyone.
As we see on television, ordinary people in the county-level city of Wenchuan are now using cardboard to shield themselves from the sun. The temperature in the disaster area has already reached 30 degrees Celsius and is steadily going up. In the two weeks following the Tangshan earthquake the temperature quickly dropped, exactly the opposite situation. A crisis in the handling of bodies in the Sichuan earthquake region is already imminent . . .
In Tangshan, many bodies were not buried deep enough, and toward the end of the year, the Ministry of Health issued an order for mass exhumation and reburying. In Sichuan, if the same thing happens in the hot summer just around the corner, the ramifications are hard to even imagine.
The war against disease has already begun. The leaders of the relief effort are taking decisive measures, cordoning off areas of rubble where contamination is severe and arranging for temporary quarters for disaster victims further away from the rubble. Here, I want to offer my deepest respect to those brave soldiers doing the difficult work of removing bodies!

[Posted by David Bandurski, May 22, 2008, 12:03pm]