By David Bandurski — A lot has been written about China’s response to the May 12 earthquake as a test of the leadership’s commitment to openness. But the flood of quake-related news and information over the last few weeks has also tested the Chinese public’s commitment to the truth. [Frontpage Image: Screenshot of QQ.com coverage of policewoman Jiang Xiaojuan, one of several heroes of the Sichuan quake relief effort].
Chinese are increasingly savvy media consumers, and there is no doubting their growing appetite for information. It is probably safe to assume, too, that most Chinese share a basic expectation that the information they read is reliable. Don’t we all?
But when it comes to emotionally charged issues like the disastrous earthquake in Sichuan (or unrest in Tibet, or the Beijing Olympics), views about the relative importance of reliable information over more intangible things like national glory or motherly love can grow very contentious.
This became clear at QQ.com over the weekend, when a special topics page on the “tide of emotion” generated by one fake news story in particular drew hundreds of impassioned responses.
The fake story in question was about a mother who left an SMS text message for her baby as they were trapped in the rubble of the quake (“Sweet child, should you survive, you must remember that I love you.”) The widely discredited story first appeared in a Tianya chatroom and was subsequently reported by mainstream media without verification.

[Above: Screenshot of QQ.com feature page on the fake story that moved China to tears. The characters read: “A bit of fake news.”]

A number of the comments on the QQ feature page, clearly the minority, spoke out against fake news:

“As soon as I saw this I thought it was fake, because it was so much like a novel,” wrote a user from the city of Taiyuan. “We need news that is true.”
“News seeks the truth. Once news departs from the truth it loses all necessity. This information might be well-meant, but it reflects an awful trend toward exaggeration of the news,” said a user from Xi’an.

But the vast majority of respondents were indignant that QQ should turn the truth of this particular SMS message into an issue at all.

“There are always those few who just have to sing the opposite tune from the people, thinking this is the only way you can set yourself apart,” one user wrote, an apparent reference to the need to sing the party’s “main theme” (主旋律). “Get lost! Is there any point to you doing this!”
“Who can doubt a mother’s love,” wrote another Web user in a clearly emotional post trailed with a forest of exclamation points.
“It doesn’t matter whether this information is true or not. What matters is whether the feelings are true,” said yet another.

The problem of fake and exaggerated news underscores two important factors in Chinese society. The first is the legacy of state propaganda, which emphasizes emotion at the expense of reason; party leaders turn the public eye from critical issues of public interest with narratives of public, party, government and military heroism.
The second is growing commercialization, which has led media outfits to seek out stories that “attract eyeballs” but which is also plagued by lack of professionalism and, again, the legacy of state propaganda.
It is encouraging, however, that the question of fake versus factual news has become an important highlight of media coverage following the Sichuan quake.
Just two days after the quake, CMP noted an editorial by Tao Duanfang (陶短房) that urged media against the official news style, in which news stories focus narrowly on the deeds of government leaders:

At this time, of course people are willing to listen to this or that government office talking about what they have already or are planning to do for the disaster victims and the disaster area. But they want more to hear those affected speak for themselves and say what they need the world outside to do for them. At this time, the disaster area and the disaster victims are the only true main characters. Only by listening more to the voices of these characters, by looking at their images, can those of us thousands or tens of thousands of miles distant truly understand what we can do to help, and what we should do.

On May 15, CMP Director Qian Gang similarly emphasized the need to focus on facts and practical measures, and to tone down the party rhetoric:

Big words and empty speeches, gaudy, showy and useless old habits, documents that parade their achievements to those on top, posing and dramatizing for the camera lens . . . At this moment, let this all pass away! Science and expertise is what our brothers and sisters in need hope for most.

The debate has played out again and again in scores of editorials.
Just before the weekend, an editorial in the Yangtse Evening News voiced frustration and concern about the possible longer-term impacts of media exaggeration on public confidence.
The editorial, by Le Yi (乐毅), addressed another controversial bit of news, the story of Jiangyou City policewoman Jiang Xiaojuan (蒋晓娟), who is said to have breast-fed orphans of the Sichuan quake. Le’s editorial began:

At night, as I was watching a disaster relief benefit on television, the male anchor used the emotive strains of a poetic recitation as he introduced the story of the Jiangyou City policewoman Jiang Xiaojuan, who was charged with breast-feeding orphans in the Beichuan earthquake and has been called online the “most beautiful cop mom.” “She set her own six month-old son aside . . . ” [said the anchor] to raucous applause, and a flash of concern crossed my mind — are we going to create yet another “Liu Jigui”? Because I seem to remember that the earliest reports said that Jiang Xiaojuan put her son into the care of her relatives in the countryside, as the disaster situation was tense and she couldn’t shirk her responsibilities to the department. How is it that we now have her making such an unnatural action as “setting [her son] aside.”

The story of Liu Jigui, which the writer references above, was a bone of contention following the disastrous snowstorms that hit China earlier this year. After Liu, a simple farmer, helped 44 travelers stranded by the storms, state media painted him as a selfless hero and he made several very dramatized television appearances.
Le Yi continues, talking about the dangers of exaggerated and constantly embellished news:

Nevertheless, this sort of elevated reporting carries with it major risk. For one thing, if it is found that a report is manufactured, this can make people distrustful of all publicity-style reports, like the mouse that ruins the whole pot of soup. In addition, the unnatural details of these exaggerated reports can lead people to think something’s wrong.
When you put these two things together, they will often cause people to have serious feelings of doubt about the credibility of media, and this lack of confidence can ultimately lead them to lose confidence in the government. Just as in the recent scandal over the misuse of disaster relief tents, the local Youth League secretary in Mianzhu, Fan Xiaohua (范晓华), was verbally abused just because his name was similar to the ‘Fan Xiaohua’ (范小华) being tossed around in rumors. Even after the truth was out, many Web users stubbornly believed it was Fan Xiaohua who had maliciously misused tents and harmed others. Clearly, this lack of confidence owes in large part to the poor influence of this kind of Liu Jigui reporting style.
I sincerely hope that in reports about quake heroes after this disaster we can avoid the reappearance of “Liu Jigui.” Only truth can lead to confidence, and only confidence can make society full of strength.

[Posted by David Bandurski, June 9, 2008, 1:28am HK]
FURTHER READING:
For another great look at this issue, see Alice Poon’s translation of a Southern Weekend commentary by Xin Lijian.

By David Bandurski — There is now much less coverage in China’s traditional media of shoddy school construction and its devastating effects during the Sichuan quake. Media have, however, turned to more general coverage of a series of related issues, including inadequate government oversight of the construction industry (leading to the problem of “tofu construction”) and poor disaster preparedness. ” [Frontpage Image: John R. Chapin sketch of the Great Chicago Fire, from Harper’s Weekly, 1871.]
When open criticism of the powers is a sensitive matter, allegory can prove a powerful tool. And one of the most interesting pieces to appear today, a rehashing by the official China News Service of an article in Hong Kong’s Wen Hui Bao (文汇报), compares the May 12 Sichuan earthquake to the Great Chicago Fire of 1871.

If Chicago had not had only 185 firefighters at the time, and only 17 fire engines, had its safety and warning system been more systematic and scientific, and had the government and city residents had a stronger sense of prevention, then the losses that year would have been much less significant. In the same way, if buildings in Sichuan, particularly school buildings in the disaster area, had been built with more care to quake resistance, and had city residents and students received better and more effective earthquake preparedness education, then the costs of the earthquake would have been much lower.

On the problem of poor-quality construction and its systemic causes, one of the best examples today comes from The Beijing News, which has a lengthy report on page B12 called, “Construction quality issues point to ‘unspoken rules’ in the industry.
The report outlines a series of problems and scenarios, using specific cases to illustrate each point. It begins:

For years now, construction quality has been a problem concerning both home buyers and industry experts. And although, according to this reporter’s investigation, few severe cases owing to problems with principal building structures have occurred in Beijing, bad plumbing, detached walls and other structural quality issues routinely crop up, so that instances of rights defense among homeowners have not slackened. In order to once again draw attention to the issue of construction quality, we hope to bring out the unspoken rules that exist in the construction industry by writing about how various quality issues emerge at various points in the real-estate development process, so that we can reflect on the abnormalities that still exist in the real-estate sector.

The report points out, for example, that there is an urgent need to strengthen government oversight of construction projects, and that the present inspection system lacks the proper personnel and resources. In addition, the deterrents to illegal behavior are not sufficient, according to industry insiders:

Only a small portion of developers who initiate projects against regulations act with impunity, but there are a large number of violators who approach the Commission of Urban Planning directly to ‘admit their errors’ (承认错误), and those who show sufficient remorse can fudge their way through by paying only a minimal fines and earn their check and acceptance permits (竣工验收表).
We can see from the disciplinary actions undertaken by the Municipal Commission of Urban Planning that fines are the most common form of disciplinary action. But fines are actually a limited deterrent for real-estate developers. Some industry insiders believe that in cases where developers defy regulations, hearings should be held, and other disciplinary measures should be considered in addition to fines, including return of the site to its original state, in order to exercise more pressure [on developers to comply].

For an interesting look at officially registered violations of construction code, readers might explore this portion of the Beijing Municipal Commission of Urban Planning website, which provides company names, registration numbers and specific code violations.
[Posted by David Bandurski, June 6, 2008, 6:15pm HK]

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]