By David Bandurski — As the wooden, carefully crafted proceedings of the recent 17th National Congress painfully demonstrated, the public face of Chinese politics is all about, well, “face.” But yesterday’s news brought what by Chinese standards was a jarring story of open and edgy political exchange.
According to reports from newspapers across China, debates on the floor of Guangdong Province‘s “two meetings” (people’s congress and political consultative conference/两会) really heated up this week.

[ABOVE: Southern Metropolis Daily coverage today of Guangdong’s provincial party congress. Headline: “Edgy speech by delegate repeatedly interrupted.” Subhead: “Speaker emphasizes that delegates to the meeting are free to express their opinions, interrupter says, ‘These aren’t the opinions of our delegation’, and leaves early.”]

During a delegate working group (代表团小组) discussion forum on Wednesday, the Guangzhou delegation reportedly launched into an intense discussion of management systems for judicial organs and the problem of moonlighting by government employees for private firms (which raises the question of abuse of official duty).
Addressing the issue of an independent judicial system, National People’s Congress delegate Li Yongzhong (李永忠) said one of the principal problems was local protectionism. “I’ve been an NPC delegate for several terms now, and I often receive complaints from ordinary people about cases that are clear cut,” Li said.
Why wasn’t justice served in these cases, Li asked:

Because of interference by local protectionism. Right now, the courts and prosecutor’s offices at various levels in our country are given financial allocations by the government at that same level. As personnel, financial and material matters are rooted in the local government, its very difficult to expect these courts to render independent rulings.

“Therefore,” said Li, “we must go ahead with reforms by which the central government would directly handle fund allocation [for the courts].”
Delegate Li advised that judicial and inspection organs (司法检查机关), including judicial appointments, be directly handled by the central government, as is the case with customs and other organizations. Tensions mounted after Li’s comments, according to the Information Times:

As discussions over management systems for judicial organs continued and deepened, many delegates became anxious about Li Yongzhong’s ideas, and one made his opposition to his point of view clear. “This is what you’re saying, but we won’t dare say it. You can say it here, but you can’t say it in front of the central government!”
When a reporter started taking pictures, this delegate filed out of the meeting room because the topic under discussion was too sensitive.

According to a report in today’s Southern Metropolis Daily, Li Yongzhong was interrupted by a delegate who left the meeting early, saying, “These aren’t the opinions of our delegation.”
UPDATE:
Comments on Shenzhen-based Web portal QQ.com surpassed 10,000 as of 1:55pm January 25. Here’s a taste:
[From Shenzhen] That representative who left, he’s probably from the prosecutor’s office (procuratorate) anyway, and had his ass kissed all the way up to the people’s congress. It’s even possible he paid for his post as a delegate. How pathetic!
[From Guangzhou] All of those present were officials (做官) . . . Only Li Yongzhong was there as a people’s representative, saying some things that we all know to be true . . . The people there couldn’t stand it and said right away that it had nothing to do with them. How are they any different from feudal officials? They don’t even dare open their mouths, much less talk about discovering and solving problems . . .
[From Futian] Actually, that delegate gave up his credentials as a ‘people’s representative’ as soon as he abandoned the floor. But there are so many of these kinds of so-called ‘representatives.’ They’ve become the ‘talking dogs’ of a bad system. In the name of justice and social conscience, we should make these delegates get the hell out.
[From Shenzhen] I’m totally in support of Li Yongzhong. That delegate that left should be exposed so the whole whole country can remember his idiocy.

[From Guangzhou] We should have the guy’s name so we can see what he looks like!
[From Yichang City] This fake people’s congress system has reached the point where it must be changed!
[From Shenzhen] I‘m firmly in favor of getting rid of that guy who left. He’s not worthy of being a people’s representative.
[Posted January 25, 2008, 11:35am HK]

By David Bandurski – CMP noted recently that there had so far been no news of the annual national meeting of propaganda ministers, out of which we would expect some indication post-17th of any changes to the media policies of China’s central leadership. Yesterday, at last, we had news of a meeting. But instead of a run-of-the-mill gathering of ministers this was a “national propaganda work conference” headed up by none other than President Hu Jintao.

[ABOVE: Screenshot of Xinhua News Agency online coverage of Hu Jintao’s speech to national propaganda ministers on January 22.]

“National propaganda work” conferences, or quanguo xuanchuan sixiang hui yi (全国宣传思想工作会议) are held on an ad hoc basis in China, as top leaders perceive the need to send a strong message on ideology and media control. In this case, Hu Jintao apparently made no changes to existing policy, but rather cranked up the volume — by virtue of his presence, mind you — on “correct guidance,” pushing “scientific development“, etcetera.
Hu’s appearance was most probably timed to send a strong message at the outset of China’s Olympic year about the need to control the press and public opinion, and manage China’s image overseas.
The last time such a conference was called was on December 5, 2003, in the aftermath of SARS and the Sun Zhigang Case. That conference was held nearly one year after the first meeting of propaganda ministers, or xuanchuan buzhang huiyi (宣传部长会议), following the 16th National Congress, at which top propaganda leader Li Changchun (李长春) announced Hu’s new policy of the “Three Closenesses.”
This year’s conference, moderated by Li Changchun, apparently subsumed the meeting of propaganda ministers (Li emphasized to top provincial propaganda chiefs and ministers that Hu’s speech was a “programmatic document”, or 纲领性文献).
Also attending the event was recent politburo standing committee entry Xi Jinping (习近平).
The content of the conference was replayed today in the lead editorial of the official People’s Daily.
Hu Jintao told ministers that “propaganda work is a key, integral part of the work of the party and government,” and said propaganda work had maintained a “favorable state of health and vitality” (积极健康、蓬勃向上的良好态势) over the last year thanks to the “laying out of a series of guideline policies” (方针政策) and a series of major actions taken by ministries.
Hu urged those in attendance to study and implement the “spirit of the 17th National Congress, and hold high the banner of Socialism with Chinese characteristics,” all with a mind to “overall interests.”
Right. And those would be? . . .

Centering on overall interests (围绕大局) means we must conscientiously carry out the decisions of the central party, firmly encompassing the core of economic construction, upholding correct guidance (正确导向), placing social effects (社会效益) first, grasping prosperity in one hand, grasping control in the other, energetically pushed forward with scientific development, promoting social harmony, creating a strong ideological guarantee and creating a favorable public opinion environment for economic reforms and socialist modernization.

Aside from the annual meeting of propaganda ministers and these so-called “national propaganda work” conferences, the media-related meetings of greatest significance are full politburo sessions, or zhongyang quanhui (中央全会), devoted specifically to ideology. The last politburo sessions of this kind were in 1983 (when Deng Xiaoping and others voted to uphold the party’s opposition to “bourgeois liberalization”, much to the delight of Leftists in the party) and 1996.
[Posted January 24, 2008, 5pm HK]

In recent years, as editorial pages have debuted and expanded at commercial newspapers across China, some have heralded the coming of a new “age of citizen speech.” The editorial section at Southern Metropolis Daily, a commercial spin-off of Guangdong’s official Nanfang Daily, is one of the most prominent examples of this trend in China’s media. Since its launch in 2002, Southern Metropolis Daily’s editorial section has expanded to include a number of different pages reflecting a variety of viewpoints.
In this lecture, Southern Metropolis Daily’s chief editorial page editor, He Xuefeng, will talk about the history and vision behind the newspaper’s editorial section, and how it goes about creating a unique voice in China’s strictly controlled press environment.
Speaker: He Xuefeng (何雪峰), chief editorial page editor for Southern Metropolis Daily
Date: January 29, 2008 (Tuesday)
Time: 5:30 pm to 7:00pm
Place: Foundation Chamber, Eliot Hall, University of Hong Kong
Lecture will be conducted in Mandarin.
For more information, please contact Rain Li at (852) 2219 4001.

By David Bandurski — Zheng Jichao (郑继超) has a brand new roof over his head. Zheng Jichao has a cozy cotton jacket. Zheng Jichao has a shiny new methane stove. And he has — hallelujah! — the Communist Party to thank for it all.
It is a narrative universally recognizable in China, where propaganda conventions urge media to emphasize proactive leadership and minimize the grisly facts of catastrophe and human error. A typhoon strikes, a flood devastates, and party cadres descend like gods in a Greek tragedy, showing the masses just how human they really are.

[ABOVE: Screenshot of online BBS coverage of President Hu Jintao’s visit with peasant Zheng Jichao.]

According to CMP sources, propaganda officials have lately sprinkled their directives to media rather liberally with cautions about maintaining the party’s “image,” or xingxiang (形象). But the power of the Web is presenting leaders with unforeseen challenges as they resort to old norms in managing the party’s image.
The cadre ex machina story was replayed last week on China Central Television as President Hu Jintao appeared on the nightly national newscast, Xinwen Lianbo (新闻联播), visiting a region of Anhui Province plagued by floods last year [VIDEO available here].
Official television coverage showed President Hu visiting the home of peasant Zheng Jichao (郑继超) in Anhui’s Wangjiaba Town to make sure the government was rendering all possible assistance. Here is the scene recounted in an English news report from Xinhua News Agency:

President Hu, showing concern for the disaster-hit people, visited a local village to see whether people got their flood compensation.
Hu said the life of villagers was always on his mind. Villager Zheng Jichao told Hu that his family had built a new house and his life was guaranteed.
“Have you received the flood compensation fund yet?” Hu asked.
Zheng then showed him a red bankbook. Reading the entries marking the amount of money allocated each time for disaster victims, Hu smiled, “I feel great relieved after seeing this.”

What followed was a sublimely human moment. President Hu leaned over, cupped his hands, and drank from Zheng Jichao’s faucet. It was this dramatic scene that captured the particular attention of Chinese blogger “Zuo You Yi Guo Hui” (左右一锅烩).
“I saw the news today of President Hu Jintao’s visit to the home of that peasant, where he takes a drink of cold tap water, and naturally I was moved,” the blogger wrote on January 18. “So I made note of the peasant’s name.”
Putting “Zheng Jichao” through a search engine, Zuo You Yi Guo Hui found that the villager had had at least seven visits from party leaders within a period of just two months. The blogger’s post included the key graphs of official news stories going back to November 2007, with working links to official news sites on which the stories appeared.
There was a constant progression of courtly cadres. Local township and county leaders, Anhui provincial party congress delegates, Anhui’s vice-governor and his entourage, Anhui’s deputy secretary and his entourage, local city leaders, and finally Hu Jintao himself.
Through all of this, of course, Zheng Jichao was reportedly euphoric. He was described as “very happy,” “extremely excited,” “moved to tears.”
There was scarcely any need for the blogger to editorialize. Clearly, Zheng Jichao had become the latest poster boy in the party’s ongoing charm offensive: “The people love us! You all love us! . . . Just look at Zheng Jichao!”
Zuo You Yi Guo Hui’s revealing news smash-up is the latest example of how the Internet is changing the nature of news consumption in China even as the party does its utmost to control public opinion and monopolize the message.
A simple act of connecting the dots on China’s censored Web and Hu Jintao’s genuine moment becomes what we all quietly supposed it was — a naked act of self-interested party publicity.
And this is probably not the last we will hear of Zheng Jichao. Those online spoofs should be coming out any day now.
A translated portion of the original blog entry follows:

First Time
November 15, 2007
On November 15, the vice-secretary of the work committee, Zhao Kai (赵凯), went in a spirit of profound friendship to Fuyang City (阜阳) to carry out inspections and ask after [residents]. He was accompanied by Hu Liansong (胡连松), deputy director of the standing committee of the provincial party congress and Fuyang party secretary, Zhang Shaochun (张韶春) and Li Hongta (李宏塔) of relevant departments, and vice-mayor Liu Shaotai (刘绍太).
—–
“The house has been roofed, the road widened, we cook with gas now. Our lives have improved, and for all of this we must thank the party and government for their care and support,” . . . 50 year-old Zheng Jichao said happily as he shook the hand of Zhao Kai.
—–
Second Time
November 23, 2007
Like Liu Wenge (刘文阁), Zheng Jichao of Wangjiaba Town . . . has been very excited these last two days. On November 23, county, township and village cadres came together to his home with cotton-padded coats, cotton quilts and flour and asked how he was getting on with the cold and if there were any difficulties he needed help with. Only when county vice-secretary Li Guoqing (李国庆) learned that Zheng’s house had already been rebuilt and they were well fed and clothed was he satisfied enough to take his leave. Wearing his new cotton-padded coat, Zheng Jichao said excitedly: “This wadded jacket is new and thick. When I put it on I feel warm in my heart. All those things we didn’t think about, the government thought about for us!”

[January 22, 2008, 1:37pm HK]

By David Bandurski – It’s been more than three months now since the 17th National Congress, and still we’re waiting with bated breath for news of China’s all-important national meeting of propaganda ministers (宣传部长会议), which should signal any changes in media policy at the top. So far, nothing — a great big, substantial NOTHING.
This is very unlike what we saw five years ago, when 2003 dawned with a whole constellation of media terms dragged along by “The Three Closenesses.”
Today, however, we have news of the first important speech by politburo member and propaganda chief Liu Yunshan (刘云山) since the close of the congress last October. The gist, obscured by a fog of anti-pornography rhetoric, is an intensified push against political content.

[ABOVE: Screenshot of a release on the January 17 conference call and Liu Yunshan’s speech at the Shanghai Municipal Government website].

In a national conference call with local leaders of China’s “sweep pornography and strike illegal publications” campaign, or sao huang da fei (扫黄打非), Liu Yunshan urged an intensification of last year’s efforts to “struggle” (斗争) against unfavorable publications. Topping the list were “illegal publications of a political nature” (政治性非法出版物), which would presumably include the likes of journalist Zhai Minglei‘s Minjian magazine [more from CMP here].
The release on the Liu Yunshan-led conference posted on Shanghai’s official government website said:

In 2007, deployed in concert by central and city leadership, various Shanghai districts and counties carried out a struggle to “sweep pornography and strike illegal publications,” organizing a series of targeted clean-up campaigns and achieving clear results in dealing with (查堵) illegal publications of a political nature (政治性非法出版物), indecent or pornographic publications, etc., and pirated or copyright violating publications.

The emphasis on “illegal publications of a political nature” suggests leaders intend to leverage law enforcement in 2008 to target print and online content deemed “unfavorable.”
“We must continue and deepen the struggle against pornographic and illegal publications in order to promote a rapidly developing and booming socialist culture, and create a favorable thought and public opinion climate and cultural environment,” the release said.
The very phrase employed for the official campaign — “sweep pornography, strike illegal publications” (扫黄打非) — speaks volumes about the willful conflation by Chinese authorities of the anti-pornography crusade and political censorship generally.
In an unaccountable exception, no release was apparently made available from the official Xinhua News Agency.
[Posted January 18, 2008, 12:52pm HK]
ADDITIONAL SOURCES:
“30 Key 2007 Cases in the National ‘Sweep Pornography, Strike Illegal Publications’ Campaign“, Chinacourt.org, January 18, 2008
China’s official “sweep pornography, strike illegal publications” Website
Following the Liu Yunshan tele-conference, the City of Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, touts its own “sweep pornography” record, January 18, 2008

By David Bandurski — When news broke across China last week that top officials from Liaoning’s Xifeng County had dispatched police to Beijing to arrest a reporter on defamation charges, readers were appalled by the brazenness of the act — these two-bit tyrants had really stepped over the line. The tide now seems to have turned in the case, and despite an apology from Xifeng authorities reporter Zhu Wenna (朱文娜) says she is determined to take the fight to her accusers.
But the Xifeng case is all the more disturbing when you understand just how commonplace it really is. The truncheon of “defamation” has come down hard on ordinary Chinese citizens in recent years — the Chongqing Pengshui (彭水诗案) SMS case, the Shanxi Jishan (山西稷山) Open Letter Case, the Henan Mengzhou (河南孟州) Case.

[ABOVE: Screenshot of Xinhua News Agency (Chongqing) online coverage of Lan Qinghua, former top leader of Chongqing’s Pengshui County, speaking at an economic development forum in 2004, two years before his unlawful arrest of Qin Zhongfei on defamation charges.]

Aside from charges of “defamation”, all of these cases have one thing in common. They involve the abuse of public power by county officials to silence dissent, cover up their tracks and attack political enemies. They are what columnist Xiong Peiyun (熊培云) termed the use of “public power to vent personal anger” (挟公权泄私愤).
In fact, the story of China’s capricious county cadres is as old as the hills.
The county system (郡县制) was instituted in the Qin Dynasty (秦朝), and the Chinese character for “county” xian (县), is intimately connected with the Qin Empire. After Qinshihuang united China, he not only instituted the county system but also standardized the Chinese writing system.
In reference to the county system, the character xian simply denoted an administrative jurisdiction. But in his “Explication of Simple and Compound Characters” (说文解字), the second-century Confucian scholar Xu Shen (许慎) says the character xian is actually an inverted head — a testament, some commentators say, to the brutality of feudal rule at the county level, where severed heads were routinely on display (砍头示众) to discourage misbehavior.
According to this reading, the Chinese character xian was purposely devised to give Chinese the chills. It was the most basic explication of violence as the source of a county official’s power.
In the Qing Dynasty, other sources say, county officials, or xian guan (县官) were sometimes called the “family destroying county patriarchs” (破家的县爷).
But the story of China’s capricious county cadres is also as young as rapid economic development.
As the emphasis on GDP and raw economic growth has approached obsession over the last decade, local officials have come under increasing pressure to deliver the numbers. The single-minded pursuit of growth has invited abuse by local leaders who have been invested with greater power and are subject to less scrutiny.
County officials often overstep the law to post their own economic (=political) gains. If their rough tactics draw the attention of administrative superiors, the latter have every incentive to cover up the problem to avoid censure by those higher up the food chain.
With no external checks and balances, one commentator noted recently, “the monitor becomes the accomplice” (监督者会变成同谋者).
Adding to the legacy of county-level autocracy (专制) and the political pressures of economic performance is the age-old ailment of entrenched power. Uncontrollable local officials are a notorious historical problem in China, where, as the saying goes, “Even the mighty dragon can’t flush the snakes out of their holes” (强龙打不过地头蛇).
While counties are beyond the gravitational pull of the center in Beijing, and sufficiently far from provincial centers of power, their leaders have comprehensive sets of public tools at their disposal — the police, courts, prosecutors.
Counties are therefore the most comprehensive manifestation of government power to interface directly with ordinary citizens. And as rights consciousness grows among ordinary Chinese, and social problems loom, this becomes a national recipe for personal disaster like that which faced Liaoning businesswoman Zhao Junping (赵俊萍).
As Nanjing University professor Jing Kaixuan (景凯旋) wrote recently:

The recent upsurge in tensions between officials and the public demonstrates two important trends. The first is the awakening of rights consciousness among the public, which amounts essentially to the consensus among the people for a society based on rule of law. The second is the expansion of power among a number of local officials, which fundamentally impedes realization of the concept of “administrating according to the law and ruling for the people” and has become a negative factor in reforms. These two trends have ushered previously concealed tensions to the surface.

These tensions are clearly visible in the surge of “defamation” cases that have emerged recently from county governments across China. And these cases are just the tip of the iceberg, freak instances where information about local wrongdoing trickled up and out to national media.
These defamation charges are bold attempts by local officials to restrain the power of speech and public opinion as a challenge to their authority.
The recent Xifeng Case and the Pengshui SMS Case are now reasonably well documented. But consider also the Henan Mengzhou Case reported on June 28 last year in Southern Weekend.
In that case, six peasants from Mengzhou County, Henan Province, were charged with defamation by the local county secretary and jailed for six months after issuing a “Call for Justice” (正义的呼唤) that informed on the economic problems of a village-run business.
In a disciplinary action reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution, the peasants were even twice paraded through the streets to serve as an example to others.
“Ah, another official is defamed,” Xiong Peiyun winked from the pages of Southern Metropolis Daily shortly after the Mengzhou case went to trial.
And the columnist returned us (as in our history of the word “county”) to China’s violent opening act in the Qin Dynasty, to the fateful contorting of the characters fei (诽) and bang (谤) (“defamation”):

The unfortunate transformation of public space [as it stood before the Qin Dynasty] is similarly revealed in the transformation of the meaning of the word “defamation” (诽谤), or feibang. In the era before the Qin Dynasty, feibang was not unlike today’s “criticism” (批评/piping) or “editorializing” (评论/pinglun). It was a neutral word, not like after the Qin, when the word made hairs stand on end. After the “burning of books and burying of scholars” (that happened during China’s Qin Dynasty), defamation was essentially a crime punishable by death. In the 2,000 years of history that followed, perhaps the only spot of light came from Empress Dou (竇皇后) (of the Western Han Dynasty), who briefly abolished “defamation” law. By the time of Emperor Wu Di (武帝), “defamation” had emerged again with greater ferocity.

The character bang is linked also to the famous ornamental columns, or huabiao (华表), that were erected in the Chinese capital during dynastic times, and at which people could gather to safely voice their opinions. These columns were also called bangzhu (谤柱), or “columns of criticism and opinion,” in some instances incorrectly translated as “slander posts”. [Baidu.com photo search for huabiao].
The deeper national issue lurking behind county tyranny is, of course, the urgent need for political reform. In the midst of the stink over the Xifeng “defamation” story, columnist Jing Kaixuan (景凯旋) wrote about reform as a key antidote to local abuse of power.
The attempted arrest in Beijing of Faren Magazine reporter Zhu Wenna (朱文娜) had prompted some discussion in China’s media about protection of the constitutional right to expression [Chapter II, Article 35]. Yes, constitutional governance is important, said Jing, but we need to talk about democracy too.
“In modern nations,” said Jing, “constitutionalism is inseparable from democracy.” While the former deals with the distribution of power and checks and balances (权力的配置和制衡), the latter addresses the origins of power (权力的来源) and is a fundamental restriction on its exercise.
Officials, he concludes, should “emerge through election by citizens, receiving the support and encouragement of the majority, and their power should be checked by citizens.”
There can be little doubt that without deeper political reform, China’s capricious county officials will continue to act with impunity. And as they go up against citizens ever more aware of their rights, and more willing than ever to express and assert them, we should expect to see a rising tide of “defamation” cases.
The law, after all, is in the hands of the lawless.
Xiong Peiyun said it perhaps most succinctly following the Henan Mengzhou Case last year when he echoed the words of the French revolutionary Madame Roland:

Oh, defamation! What crimes are committed in your name!

RELATED READING:
“Calamity descends from a poem“, Southern Weekend, October 19, 2006
“Chongqing police admit error in arresting author of satirical poem“, China Media Project, October 26, 2006
“SMS case dropped“, Danwei.org, October 26, 2006
“The Pengshui SMS Case“, ESWN, October 21,2006
[Posted January 16, 2008, 12:15pm HK]

By David Bandurski — Following a popular march in Shanghai on Sunday to protest the proposed extension of the city’s magnetic levitation (“maglev”) train line, the official Liberation Daily ran an editorial today criticizing the action. The thinly veiled message to Shanghai residents: Let’s be “rational” and “orderly” about our opinions — and don’t let it happen again.
While the tone of the editorial from the official Shanghai party newspaper was paternalistic and remonstrating, it seemed also to tread a fine line, at no point making direct mention of the events of last Sunday.

[ABOVE: Image of the front page of today’s Liberation Daily, with its lightly veiled criticism of the Sunday protests circled in red at center.]

“Shanghai is now entering a key stage in its development and transition,” the editorial began. “The city has promoted economic and social development and done real things for the people through a scientific and democratic process of decision-making. In the process the government has listened to the popular will in good faith, and therefore the people also must express their demands in an attitude of good faith.”
All actions of the Shanghai government, said the editorial, were about “doing good work for the people.” The editorial outlined “reason” and “order” as the two points of understanding between Shanghai’s government and its people:

Reason is about recognizing where the basic, long-term and comprehensive interest of society lies. In fact, this is about the immediate public interest of the vast majority of the people. In the midst of our scientific development, there is much real work to be accomplished that has both beneficial and harmful sides but for which the benefits outweigh the negatives. In such cases, we must think about the greater good. At the same time, the people are entirely able to offer suggestions to government offices. Only by breaking through difficulties in a scientific manner can we avoid harm from the very base. When certain actions are necessary or inevitable under the present conditions, we must respect science, be practical, work together and develop scientifically and intelligently.

“We must understand the whole body (识大体), take the general situation into account (顾大局), talk scientifically, see the big picture (看全局),” the editorial continued in party jargon that essentially meant understanding and respecting the interests and priorities of party leaders. “Only then can we show the ‘capacity’ (大气) and ‘intelligence’ (大气) of the Shanghai people.”
By this “reason,” of course, the editorial meant the PARTY’s reason, the kind of “reason” acceptable to party leaders and conducive (in their view) to social stability and development.
Next up was “order”:

Order means that when we express our own opinions or demands we must do so through normal channels, strictly upholding the law. In fact, we have many legal and effective channels through which [people] may thoroughly express their opinions. Only normal expression through stable, orderly and legal channels will bring the most effective results.

But wait just a minute. What are these “effective” normal channels? The media, which are controlled by party officials? The overloaded letters and calls (信访局) system?
And what about the law? Were Shanghai citizens acting illegally when they gathered on People’s Square? The editorial drones on with its paternalistic tisk-tisking:

We must not use “street politics” (街头政治) and these sorts of extreme means to express opinions and demands. This will only disturb the stable basis of our harmonious society and derail the normal process of opinion expression. This is entirely unbeneficial to the realization of the interests of various parties and this trend must be prevented.

What the editorial refers to as “street politics” is in fact protected under Article 35 of China’s constitution, which says “citizens of the People’s Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration.”
This was, nevertheless, not to be tolerated.
The editorial went on to say the party and government must patiently carry out thought work (思想工作) — or propagandizing of its “rational” and “scientific” policies — as they gave ear to the opinions of the people.
The final sentence was an unambiguous warning shot of resolve:

As for those illegal acts that do damage to the public interest, we must with clear minds resolutely oppose them.

[Posted January 15, 2008, 8:03pm HK]

By David Bandurski – “Five minutes of darkness,” in the words of columnist Xiong Peiyun (熊培云). That was all it took for the “urban management officers” (城管) of Hubei’s Tianmen City (天门市) to tragically end the life of Wei Wenhua (魏文华), the general manager of a local architectural engineering firm who dared to step out of his car and document a violent attempt to bring local villagers to heel.
According to Chinese media reports, Wei Wenhua was beaten to death by a mob of more than 30 “urban management officers”, or cheng guan, in Hubei’s Wanba Village (湾坝村) on January 7 as he attempted to take photos with his mobile phone of a dispute involving villagers and local authorities.
Wei might be considered China’s first “citizen reporter” to be killed while attempting to document a breaking news event.
We don’t know at this point, however, how Wei might have intended to use the photographs. [BELOW: Screenshot of 2006 Legal Evening News coverage of a crackdown on tricycle cabbies carried out by urban management officers.]

According to Chinese media reports, the conflict between villagers and officers centered on a dispute over a garbage dump site. The village committee of Wanba had agreed to allow city authorities to dump garbage at a location in or next to the village for a period of two years. When the agreement expired in November last year, the village decided not to renew it because the stink from the dump had become too imposing on the lives of villagers.
Urban management officers — deputized security forces generally charged with dealing with such issues as unauthorized street vendors and carrying out demolition and removal orders — continued to dump garbage at the site after the expiration of the agreement. On January 4, villagers blocked the main street leading to the dump site.
When city authorities attempted to unblock access the next day, villagers gathered to stop their vehicles. An altercation ensued in which several villagers were badly beaten.
Just as this was happening, Wei Wenhua (魏文华), general manager of Shuli Architectural Engineering (水利建筑工程公司) was driving by the scene with Wang Shutang (王述堂), head of the company’s party branch.
According to Wang, as quoted in Southern Metropolis Daily yesterday, “Wei saw the violent enforcement activities of the city inspectors at the Wanba garbage collection site and stopped the car. He said, ‘There they go beating up people again’, and got out of the car, pulling out his mobile phone to take photos.”
When the city inspectors realized someone was taking photographs, Wang told Chinese media, about 20 or 30 of them rushed over and started beating Wei Wenhua. Wei shouted that he would hand over his phone and delete the pictures, but the city inspectors didn’t stop. One eyewitness said Wei was shouting: “I surrender!”
After the beating the urban management vehicles pulled away, but Wang Shutang convinced one group of officers to take Wei to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.
The Wei Wenhua Affair, vaguely reminiscent of the Sun Zhigang story back in 2003, could become one of the most important China stories of 2008. Some media and Web users are already calling for the disbanding of the urban management system.
“Five minutes of darkness, and who will be next?” Beijing scholar Xiong Peiyun wrote in today’s Southern Metropolis Daily and The Beijing News. “Perhaps no one wishes to face this question. Wei Wenhua’s death stands as clear proof of the violent ways of local urban management officers. It’s 2008 and another citizen goes down. When will we stand up and restrain the law enforcement violence of this urban management system?”
Prompted by local protests, police in Tianmen City have reportedly questioned 24 people about the attack on Wei Wenhua, and four remain in custody [report from BBC.com here].
Further Reading:
“Chinese man killed after filming protest“, Guardian Unlimited, January 10, 2008
“Public anger over ‘parapolice’ reveals city administration dilemma”, CCTV.com, January 9, 2008
“Beijing to standardize conducts of city inspectors“, China.org.cn, December 5, 2007