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

By David Bandurski – As one major national newspaper said in its leading editorial today that the “court of public opinion” was turning against local officials from Liaoning’s Xifeng County after news of their attempted arrest late last week of journalist Zhu Wenna (朱文娜) in Beijing, the All-China Journalist’s Association (ACJA) said it was looking into the case. [Below: Screenshot of coverage of the Xifeng case at Chinanews.com].

Editorial writer Zhou Minghua (周明华) said claims by Xifeng’s propaganda chief, Zhou Jingyu (周静宇), that party secretary Zhang Zhiguo (张志国) was unaware of the police action in Beijing were “weak and unconvincing.” He said the actions of Xifeng authorities, presumably orchestrated by Zhang, underscored the inadequate protection of journalists in China:

The mass media are tools for watchdog journalism, and when they are carrying out their various functions, if those are in the public interest, well they are bound to do harm to power interests at certain levels. What our society needs is tolerance and “mercy”, and this is particularly true of those bound to protect the law. What is most discomfiting is that our nation’s laws on the protection of journalists are weak, and there are no relevant regulations.

In typical form, Guangdong’s Southern Metropolis Daily related the Zhao Junping/Zhu Wenna Case [See timeline HERE] to broader institutional problems in China, namely over-concentration of power:

Behind it hides a comprehensive system of government violence served by public security organs, procuratorial organs and people’s courts and beholden to autocratic bullying or to the will of the chief leader. Once the comprehensive power mechanism springs into action, and public instruments are turned to the service of personal ends, they are lethal and oppressive, whether targeting media organs or individual reporters.

But public opinion, the newspaper said, would not stand for such egregious abuses:

The news that Xifeng County sent people to detain the [Faren Magazine] reporter was reported to the world through the newspapers, and as it appeared on the Web voices rallied in support [of the journalist]. In fact, this pallid summons and detention order that could not possibly stand on legal principles has already been “ruled” illegal in the court of public opinion . . . Public opinion in support of the media and journalists has materialized right before our eyes . . . The reporter may choose temporarily to hide away from this wild arrest order. In the long run, however, journalists stand in the sunlight. Public opinion cannot lose, and public opinion will not lose.”

By David Bandurski — “Above there are policies, below there are countermeasures” (上面有政策,下面有对策). So goes the popular saying that more or less sums up the age-old dilemma of enforcement and entrenched local power in China. And as China’s central leadership pushes the principal (if not necessarily the practice) of information openness, local leaders are becoming more cunning than ever in applying countermeasures to deal with increasingly freewheeling media.
Now, it appears, local cadres are taking the fight to places far beyond their jurisdiction.
Last week, a number of national media in China turned to the harrowing story of local Liaoning businesswoman Zhao Junping (赵俊萍), who was detained for seven months in Xifeng County, Liaoning, before being tried and found guilty on charges of defamation and tax evasion in what appears to be a vendetta by local party secretary Zhang Zhiguo (张志国) involving a contested land seizure [See TIMELINE below]. National media coverage followed a January 2 report by Faren Magazine, a spin-off publication of China’s Legal Daily,

In today’s China Youth Daily we learn that even as commercial media were turning to the Zhao Junping Case on January 4 — an editorial in Southern Metropolis Daily related it to the Pengshui SMS Case back in 2006 and underscored the need for political reform — local Liaoning officials were in Beijing investigating and intimidating the journalist, Zhu Wenna (朱文娜), responsible for the original Faren Magazine report.
On January 3, the day after Zhu Wenna’s Faren Magazine report was published, the local prosecutor’s office in Xifeng County ordered Zhao Junhua (赵俊华), the older sister of local Xifeng businesswoman Zhao Junping, to appear for questioning. Zhao Junhua tells China Youth Daily she was pressured with accusations that she had paid the Faren Magazine reporter for the negative story. It was not possible, reasoned her interrogators, that a reporter would travel from Beijing to Liaoning for a story unless she had been offered payment.
The next day, Xifeng County’s propaganda chief, Li Fulu (李福路), and the head of the county’s politics and law committee (政法委), Zhou Jingyu (周静宇), paid a visit to the offices of Faren Magazine in Beijing to speak with the editor in chief. That afternoon, a group of Xifeng police officers entered the magazine’s offices with an order for summons and detention. They said a “defamation” case had already been opened against the reporter Zhu Wenna and demanded to speak with her about it.
China Youth Daily quoted Zhou Yi, a law professor from the China Youth University for Political Sciences, as saying that “if Xifeng Party Secretary Zhang Zhiguo believes that the SMS message sent out by Zhao Junping or the report written by Zhu Wenna are defamatory, he can bring a defamation case in a court of law. But for the Xifeng police to formally investigate a journalist for defamation, that is clearly against the law.”
The brazen actions of local officials in Xifeng demonstrate the new and changing pressures facing journalists attempting to carry out cross-regional reporting, or yidi jiandu (异地监督), in China.
Cross-regional reporting, which involves media from one province or city carrying out investigative reporting in another region or area, has typically afforded media more opportunities to tackle tougher stories. As such stories — about corruption, for example — do not implicate officials in their corner of China’s vast bureaucracy, media have generally been able to pursue them without the immediate fear that they will be censored or otherwise punished.
One of the most notable examples of cross-regional reporting was Zhang Jicheng’s seminal 1999 report on the HIV-AIDS epidemic in Henan province. While Zhang worked as a reporter for a local Henan paper, his report on AIDS in Wenlou Village, unpublishable in the local media, was run in Sichuan province’s Huaxi Dushibao.
In recent years, Chinese journalists have reported a number of tactics used by provincial and local officials to curb cross-regional reporting, including you-scratch-my-back-I-scratch-yours pacts in which local party leaders agree to discourage investigative reporting by media under their immediate control.
The following is a timeline of the Zhang Junping case compiled on the basis of the January 7, 2008, China Youth Daily report:

Early 2006 — The Shenfeng Petrol Station (沈丰加油站), run by female business owner Zhao Junping (赵俊萍), owner of two petrol stations and one market, is slated for destruction by authorities in Xifeng County, Liaoning Province as part of local urban development plans. The Property Estimates Office of the local real estate bureau (房产局房产评估事务所) estimates the value of Zhao’s property at 3.64 million yuan (US$501,073). The local demotion and removal office (拆迁办) organizes a second estimation, and the value is given as 220,000 yuan (US$30,284). Zhao Junping objects to the estimate and enters numerous negotiations to no result.
May 2006 – The Shenfeng Petrol Station is forcibly demolished. Zhao Junping files numerous complaints with various government offices.
February 28, 2007 – Xifeng’s top leader, party secretary Zhang Zhiguo (张志国) reportedly orders that no compensation must be paid to Zhao Junping, that her remaining petrol station (not involved in the demolition dispute) must be shut down and that local police must be mobilized to deal with her.
March 3, 2007 – Police in Xifeng County claim to receive information from an “informant” saying that Zhao Junping’s third business, a market (自选商场), was illegally avoiding taxes. An investigation is opened against Zhao Junping and a stink made over the case on local county television (also under the control of top county leaders, including Zhang Zhiguo).
Early March 2007 – Zhao Junping angrily sends out a text message to a number of officials in Xifeng County saying: “In Xifeng, Liaoning Province, there is a major [criminal] case [going on]. The county head surnamed Zhang has lorded it over the county for six years. His corruption through misuse of the law is boundless . . . A major market case afoot/cadre-business collusion black as soot/a cloud gathers over Xifeng County.” The very day the SMS is sent out, “according to direction for county leaders” claiming slander and defamation, Zhao Junping’s sister and others are arrested for alleged role in sending out the message.
March 15, 2007 – Upon learning of the arrest of relatives, Zhao Junping sets out for Beijing with materials concerning the illegal activities of Xifeng Party Secretary Zhang Zhiguo. Her intention is to make a report to the Central Discipline Inspection Commission.
March 21, 2007 – Xifeng police arrest Zhao Junping in Beijing and take her back to Xifeng, confiscating all materials on her person.
On October 30, after Zhao Junping has been detained for more than seven months, the court in Xifeng opens that tax evasion and defamation case against her.
December 28, 2007 – The Xifeng court determines Zhao Junping is guilty on the charge of defamation, and that the nature of the crime is serious, “harming social order.”
January 2, 2008 – Faren Magazine’s report on the Zhao Junping Case is widely disseminated by Web media across China. The same day the prosecutor’s office in Xifeng County issues a notice to Zhao Junping’s sister, Zhao Junhua (赵俊华), asking to appear at the office for questioning the next day.
January 3, 2008 – Zhao Junhua is taken in for 12 hours of questioning by Xifeng authorities, who insist Zhao paid Faren Magazine reporter Zhu Wenna (朱文娜) for the report. Zhao insists she does not know the reporter and did not pay her. Employees in the prosecutor’s office insist this is not possible. There is no way, they say, that the reporter would travel from Beijing to Xifeng without payment.
January 4, 2008 – Xifeng County’s propaganda chief, Li Fulu (李福路), and Zhou Jingyu (周静宇), head of the county’s politics and law committee (政法委), visit Faren Magazine in Beijing to speak with the editor in chief. Later in the afternoon that day, a group of Xifeng police officers arrives at the magazine’s offices saying a “defamation” case has already been opened against Zhu Wenna and demand to speak with her about it.

By David Bandurski – While some analysts of China’s technology sector have suggested new regulations for the online audio and video industry slated to take effect on January 31 do not “actually represent a change in policy,” they have more edgy Chinese media up in arms, and CMP sources indicate authorities are already moving to quiet dissenting voices.
The State Council’s Information Office (the primary office tasked with policing China’s Internet) ordered the removal yesterday of an online editorial from Shanghai’s Oriental Morning Post criticizing the regulations, a media source told CMP [Homepage Image: Youku.com, one of China’s leading video sharing sites].
Saying the new MII/SART regulations a were “clearly an act of establishing administrative licensing”, the Oriental Morning Post editorial [still available here] suggested they were a clear violation of Article 15 of China’s Administrative License Law, which additionally says that the setup of administrative licensing systems should primarily address such special areas as national security, public safety and limited national resources having a direct bearing on the public interest.
“An icy wind is cutting across the Internet as we enter the new year,” said the lead editorial in today’s Southern Metropolis Daily.
The newspaper said plainly that the new regulations “would bring the diversity of online video programming under much stricter controls”:

According to the regulations, companies hereafter applying to offer online video and audio services must be wholly state-owned (国有独资) or state-controlled (国有控股), and must have no record of violations in the three years prior to application. Many people believe that the lately very rich culture of online audio and video programming will soon lose its shine as it is “led to health and order.”

The Southern Metropolis Daily editorial argued that the SARFT/MII regulations are a “shocking intrusion” regardless of whether the government’s goal is to promote cultural development and innovation (a key Hu Jintao policy buzzword), or to ensure fair market competition.
“Industry controls on the online video and audio industry are unfair and directly concern the development interests of countless companies. They are also unjust, binding the civil right to expression in the online age,” the newspaper said.
RELATED READING:
“SARFT, MII jointly regulate and control online video business“, Caijing magazine, December 30, 2007
Supplementary Note, January 4, 2008, 8:35pm Hong Kong:
An additional point to note, as the debate over these new regulations unfolds in the Western media and blogosphere, is that these regulations should not be seen as an attempt to “shut down the industry.” Kaiser Kuo noted this correctly on his Digital Watch blog last month, and Jeremy Goldkorn of Danwei.org has concurred. But we can eliminate the “shut down” thesis (as to the motivations of MII/SARFT) out of hand by simply looking at the party’s official media policy (“Three Closenesses”, “Media Strengthening”, etc.), which is about the perfect marriage of control and commercial growth. No, leaders have no wish to shut down the online video and audio industry, or to shake it up unnecessarily. They want it to flourish, and for service providers to make money hand over fist. But they also want to bring it to heel.
The crucial point is to observe how leaders might seek to accomplish these twin objectives through regulations of this sort.

By David Bandurski – While business headlines have been bullish on China’s digital television, or DTV, market in recent months, there are some indications consumers have been arm-twisted into making the switch, and many are unhappy about poor quality, insufficient choice and higher costs. But the message is out from China’s propaganda czars: DTV conversion is the future, and criticism must not impede technological and commercial progress.
According to a CMP source, the Central Propaganda Department issued a ban early last month on all coverage criticizing the rollout of DTV services in the country. Censors, the source said, singled out a December 7 editorial from the official Xinhua News Agency’s Xinhua Daily Telegraph. The article was called, “Overbearing ‘digital TV’ harms our self-respect.”
The Xinhua Daily Telegraph article was still available on the Xinhua News Agency website this month [See image below], but the propaganda department ban expressly directed all national and local media against excerpting the article or attempting their own coverage of the issue.

So-called “digitalization” of television services in China is a top priority of state economic planners, and the rollout of DTV has intensified over the last two to three years. According to China Netmedia, a market research division of the broadcast industry regulator and minder, the State Administration of Radio Film and Television (SARFT), there were 23.7 million DTV subscribers in China by the end of November last year.
Morgan Stanley indicated last month that it expected digital TV to be China’s fastest growing consumer segment through 2010, with the number of DTV users tripling annually.
But Xinhua’s recent criticism of DTV services — and the propaganda department’s aggressive move to limit similar coverage — suggest a deeper story. Yes, China’s DTV “subscribers” are growing by leaps and bounds. But are they opting for digital services or being cornered into them?
The Xinhua article raises a basic question about consumer choice and the legal rights of consumers. Shouldn’t consumers be able to opt against more expensive digital services without seeing their existing analog services disappear?
“At the very least, we should preserve their right to choice,” says the writer. “Those who wish to pay for TV service can have it installed, and those who don’t wish to pay for TV service can choose not to have it installed. Why is it that everyone is being forced to have it installed?”
The Xinhua article referenced an earlier editorial [available here] on DTV that pointed out the legal basis for consumer right to choice in China, Article 9 of “Law of the People’s Republic of China on Protection of Consumer Rights and Interests” (January 1, 1994) which clearly states that “consumers have the right to choose goods or services.”
“This means that users have the right to choose to continue using analog television [services] and refuse digital television,” that editorial concluded. “But in fact, the vast majority of users are actually compelled to accept this sort of service without choice and the extremely unreasonable prices that come with it. This is without a doubt a breach of their legal rights.”
The article also argued that as “digital television belongs to the category of ‘public utility’” it is wrong for operators to determine prices without first seeking consultation through a public hearing process according to law. Consumers, it said, “have a right to know why they have to pay over 1,000 yuan for a set-top box and then hundreds of yuan per month [in regular service fees].”
Then came the recommendation:

Taking this into consideration, we advise that the work of [digital conversion] not go ahead blindly, before measures have been taken by relevant parties to ensure the protection of legal rights. After all, the digitization of the community antenna TV (CATV) system concerns [the rights of] a great many people and has a strong public character. Government departments must not unilaterally call the shots, turning a project of popular favor (民心工程) into a project of popular resentment (民怨工程).

A deeper problem, though, is state monopolization of DTV services, which are being pushed (apparently rather aggressively) by provincial broadcast authorities across China. These are the very authorities, of course, who have a vested interest in DTV and will undoubtedly grab a portion of DTV revenues to pad their own administrative budgets.
The December Xinhua Daily Telegraph editorial follows:

In recent days, a new slang has materialized in our neighborhood – thieves. You can often hear such things as, “Have the thieves made it to your house yet?” or “Look, that thief has come again.”
This so-called “thief” is the guy from the provincial broadcast authority going door-to-door to install digital television set-top boxes.
[Why are they called “thieves”?] The reason is that everyone is extremely unhappy with the forcible way in which provincial broadcast authorities are pushing television reform. This round of digital television reform involves installation of a set-top box on existing television sets. Once they have been installed people consistently say that they are a pile of trouble and that reception quality suffers.
Before, watching television required just two steps. You turned on the power, grabbed your remote and that was it. But once the set-top box is installed the process becomes far more troublesome and it takes longer to switch channels [people say]. Most importantly, the picture quality clearly suffers . . . Moreover, there is no increase in the number of channels available.
Everyone feels that there’s no real need to install the set-top boxes. Despite the fact that they are provided with “inferior goods”, annual fees go up from 198 yuan to 296 yuan, a one-third increase. What’s more, you can’t opt out of it. If you don’t buy it, your existing television services first dramatically shrink, and then eventually disappear altogether.
Broadcast authorities have said that digital TV will allow viewing of “home movies”, “cartoon channels”, “cutting-edge documentaries” and other offerings, but charges are added for these. Television is the entertainment of the poor, and a sizeable proportion of ordinary users have no interest in paying money for television services. At the very least, we should preserve their right to choice. Those who wish to pay for TV service can have it installed, and those who don’t with to pay for TV service can choose not to have it installed. Why is it that everyone is being forced to have it installed? For a lot of people, the extra 98 yuan may be nothing . . . but in this age of rising prices for such basic necessities as rice, noodles and vegetables, a roughly 100 yuan increase is a lot to ask of lower-income people.
It’s no wonder many people are saying the aggressive pushing of set-top boxes it buying and selling under duress, that it is an act of robbery.

By David Bandurski — When Chinese President Hu Jintao pledged in his political report to the recent 17th National Congress to “promote [the] vigorous development and prosperity of Socialist culture,” he was talking not just about a re-awakening of arts and letters, but more importantly about a renaissance in China’s global power and influence.
He was talking about taking the kid gloves off and hitting hard with cultural “soft power.”

[ABOVE: Screenshot from Friends of Party Members and Cadres website article on ‘soft power’ showing an American student holding her Chinese language textbook.]

The language of “soft power” has come on strong in recent months in China, where leaders clearly now see culture as a key point of global contention among nation states.
“We cannot be soft on ‘soft power,'” declared an item in the official People’s Daily on March 31, 2006:

Just as experts have said, [despite China’s being] a cultural fountainhead with more than 5,000 years of civilization, we only export television sets and don’t export content to be televised. We have become an “assembly plant.” Actually, culture is a key integral part of a country’s overall national strength, what people have called “soft power,” and it has become a point of competition between national powers.

“If China is to become a powerful nation,” the article concluded portentously, “culture, politics and the economy must strengthen in step.”
The rise of “soft power” as a buzzword for China’s political elite was further signaled in May of this year as propaganda chief Liu Yunshan (刘云山) made a tour of Henan province to push local “cultural industry development” (文化产业发展):

[Liu] said the first 20 years of this century were a key strategic period in China’s modernization process and also a key strategic period for cultural development. We must firmly grasp this historical opportunity, energetically promoting cultural development, working hard to achieve a major rise in our nation’s cultural soft power.” [Hong Kong’s Ta Kung Pao, May 21, 2007]

With all this talk of power and cultural prowess, it comes as no surprise, perhaps, that Samuel P. Huntington has emerged as the theoretical darling of China’s “soft power” set.
Huntington’s ideas, though, seem to have been applied in reverse, not as a descriptive thesis about culture and conflict in the post-Cold War world, but rather as a kind of 21st-century Art of War — a lesson, if you will, in cultural realpolitik.
Take this passage from Li Shulei (李书磊), a recent CPC congress delegate from the Central Party School, quoted in an interview with 21st Century Business Herald back in October:

Culture is first and foremost an expression of our souls and emotions, our spiritual home. But to speak plainly some powerful foreign nations wish to use culture as a weapon against other nations, and for this reason we must work hard to raise our country’s “soft power.”

Li Shulei speaks of two aspects of culture. First, there is the pure and peaceful aspect, in which “Socrates belongs to China, and Confucius belongs to foreign nations.” Then there is the clash or struggle of cultures — culture as conspiracy. One culture — or nation (his lines blur on this critical distinction, but then China, we are elsewhere told, is “a civilization masquerading as a nation-state”) — attempts to spiritually colonize another.
Li’s historical examples, Christian missionaries and the English language as tools of Western colonialism, don’t seem too far-fetched. But then his left hook swings for American pop culture:

When we speak of culture as impure and as struggle, we mean that culture has always been used as a tool by people in international struggles. We glimpse this in the earliest colonialists using English and Christianity to rule peoples in colonized regions, and today as America uses its movies and popular music to disseminate its ideology and expand its national interests.

Pop music and American strategic interests? Clearly, they don’t watch enough MTV over at the Central Party School.
Hu Jintao is dead serious, though, when talks in section seven of his political report about “promoting [the] vigorous development and prosperity of Socialist culture.”
In the preamble to that section Hu says China “must keep to the orientation of advanced socialist culture.” That, in turn, will “bring about a new upsurge in socialist cultural development, stimulate the cultural creativity of the whole nation, and enhance culture as part of the soft power of our country to better guarantee the people’s basic cultural rights and interests, enrich the cultural life in Chinese society and inspire the enthusiasm of the people for progress.”
How does Hu Jintao propose to accomplish this?
That’s where section seven, part four of his political report comes in. Hu’s strategy for cultural development and the raising of China’s “soft power” profile involves a range of policy mechanisms to “stimulate cultural innovation.”
Freedom of expression is not among them.
“The only way to invigorate culture,” says Hu, “is to promote innovation in its content and form, its structure and mechanism, and its means of dissemination from the high staring point of our times and release and develop its productive forces.”
China must “create more excellent, popular works that reflect the people’s principal position in the country and their real life.” It must “vigorously develop the cultural industry, launch major projects to lead the industry as a whole, speed up development of cultural industry bases and clusters of cultural industries with regional features, nurture key enterprises and strategic investors, create a thriving cultural market and enhance the industry’s international competitiveness.”
Since Hu’s pronouncements came out last October, we’ve gotten a glimpse of what the above passage means — basically, more media commercialization under party control. It means the creation of bigger, more powerful, more consolidated Chinese media groups that do the party’s bidding, an intensification of Hu’s earlier policies of the “Three Closenesses” (三贴近) and “media strengthening” (做强做大).
It was no mere coincidence when GAPP minister Liu Binjie (柳斌杰) announced on October 17 that China would now allow “comprehensive listings” (of both business and editorial sides) by media companies and invite an infusion of capital from major state-owned enterprises. Nor was it a surprise when news followed on November 20 that Liaoning Publishing & Media Company Limited (辽宁出版传媒股份有限公司) had become the first Chinese media company to make a so-called “comprehensive listing.”
Both moves were further signs that Chinese media consolidation and commercialization are heading into high gear.
But while culture must contribute to GDP and to “soft power,” control remains the paramount priority. It is embedded in the language of innovation.
“We must step up the development of the press, publishing, radio, film, television, literature and art, cleaving to correct guidance and fostering healthy social trends,” read section seven, part two, dealing with buiding a “culture of harmony.” “We will strengthen efforts to develop and manage Internet culture and foster a good cyber environment.”
For party leaders, creating “favorable conditions for producing fine works, outstanding personnel and good results” has nothing to do with a climate of free expression. It is not about liberating, it is about mobilizing.
Which is why China announced over the weekend that it is beginning work on a national awards system (荣誉制度) — proposed in the last line of section seven, part four of Hu’s report — as a means of impelling the people to greater things and “achieving victory over material desires.”
In the absence of specifics about how the system would take shape and what standards would be applied, a handful of Chinese media voiced their concerns.
At Yanzhao Dushi Bao (燕赵都市报), columnist Guo Songmin (郭松民) wrote plainly in his concluding paragraph about his fears that national awards might be manipulated by those with power and money:

What needs to be emphasized here is that the trend a future national awards system most needs to avoid is the route taken in education and academia, in which all one needs is money and power to obtain [awards]. This would lead ultimately to a surplus and abuse of awards and make the national awards symbols of bribery and abuse of power. If we cannot ensure that we avoid this kind of situation, we should not be in a hurry to build a national awards system.

True to form, Southern Metropolis Daily implicitly linked the question with larger concerns like political reform and rule of law.
Awards of this kind, the editorial’s logic tiptoed, are “achievements based upon values,” and “history has shown that those national honors that are truly commended and remembered by people of the world must be those that can be shared by humankind.”
Furthermore, “we’ve seen that many universal values, including democracy, freedom, fairness, rule of law, human rights and human dignity were written into the 17th National Congress report this year within the system of Socialist value objectives,” so . . .
The upshot was to caution that national awards should be made in a spirit of openness and be based on universal human values, not serve narrow national goals.
Hu Jintao, however, has already defined the spirit of these awards. They will serve the interests of the party in its goal of building of an “advanced socialist culture”, the kind that can make money hand over fist while minding propaganda discipline.
Suppression, macro-meddling, nationalism and cultural snobbery. Now there’s a recipe for a cultural renaissance.
But the proof, as Hu would tell you himself, is in the business. And the question is now set: when the flowers of China’s “soft power” are brought to market, will the free world care to buy them?

By David Bandurski — When a frenzy of hatred turned on Chairman Mao Zedong‘s fourth wife, Jiang Qing, and the Gang of Four in October 1976, one of the most shocking revelations about Madame Mao’s excesses concerned her use of tens of thousands of yuan from the Chairman’s publishing royalties to fund her extravagant lifestyle. The Chairman himself was blameless, of course, hovering godlike above scrutiny.
But China had brutalized itself for a decade in Mao’s struggle against the “liberal bourgeoisie,” and some wondered privately why the Chairman should have royalty monies at all when writers like Ba Jin (巴金) had been persecuted for such bourgeois crimes.

[ABOVE: Screenshot of recent coverage of the Mao Zedong royalties issue at people.com.cn.]

The issue did not surface again until 1999, when Wang Binbin (王彬彬), a well-known writer and People’s Liberation Army officer, published an article in Guangdong’s Southern Weekend (then under the tenure of CMP co-director Qian Gang) called “Mao Zedong’s Royalties“.
Wang’s article began with an innocent recollection of Mao Zedong’s generous spirit, then peeled back the layers to expose the larger implications of that kindness:

After Mao Zedong quit the world, there were often words recollecting that Mao Zedong had used his writing royalties to aid his old friends and acquaintances and those who worked by his side. For example, every year he would send someone off to give 2,000 yuan to Zhang Shizhao (章士钊). When Zhang protested that he didn’t want it, Mao would explain that he had withdrawn it from his own royalties, that it was a personal gift, and only in this way would Zhang be set at ease. When people told these sorts of stories it was to show not only that Mao Zedong was gracious and enjoyed helping others, but that he was clean, honest and self-disciplined, that even as a man of unlimited power he used the fruits of his own labors when helping others, and dared not use public monies.
As Mao repeatedly applied his royalties to help others, he certainly had no small sum of royalties stashed away. As to how much exactly, I once surmised that it must have run into the tens of thousands. This, already, was a bold guess, for in those times this was an earthshattering amount. But it was only recently, when I read through A Record of Mao Zedong’s Relics, edited by the Shaoshan Memorial to Comrade Mao Zedong, that I realized my numbers had been hilarious underestimates.

Wang went on to calculate — quite reliably, on the basis of party records — that Mao’s revenues from his writings had been around 240,000 yuan per annum before and during the 1960s, and that annual interest from deposits stood around 15,000 yuan.
But the PLA writer’s revelations got worse. He even exposed the gifts (legitimate inheritance?) given to Mao Zedong’s daughters and son by the General Offices of the CPC in the 1980s:

For many years after Mao Zedong’s death no one brought up the question of the assets he had left behind. Until, in 1981, the General Offices of the CPC sent someone to inquire after Li Min (李敏). Li Min said: ‘I don’t have any expectations in particular, but if it’s possible I’d just like to get the portion dad originally gave me.’ In this way, Li Min received from the General Offices in 1981 the sum of 8,000 yuan, one 20-inch color television, and one refrigerator. At the same time, the General Offices gave a color TV and a refrigerator to Li Na (李纳), another of Mao Zedong’s daughters. It turned out that Mao had given Li Na 8,000 yuan back in 1975, and Mao Anqing (毛岸青) had received the same.

Wang’s facts were a slander on Mao Zedong’s good and holy name. The Central Propaganda Department’s secretive News Commentary Group (阅评组) was furious, and issued a harsh criticism that resulted in Wang Binbin’s discharge from the PLA.
Once again the matter dove into the deep. There were only whispers in private, about, for example, how Mao had dipped into his horde to pay for the building of a private swimming pool.
Over the last few days, however, this touchy issue has resurfaced in a big way, offering a more critical picture of the legendary Chairman, and an interesting counterpoint to Hu Jintao’s re-iteration of the Four Basic Principles (including Mao Zedong Thought) at the recent 17th National Congress.
Even as Mao’s legacy remains an important ideological bargaining chip in leadership circles, it seems — on a preliminary analysis of this recent news wave — that his legacy is now more open to scrutiny.
Have the clouds parted over this erstwhile taboo?
An article in the December issue of China’s Literary Circles of Party History (党史文苑), called “The Controversy over Mao’s Royalty Millions” (毛泽东亿万稿酬的争议), reported that Mao’s royalties, including interest, totaled a staggering 131 million yuan, or roughly 17.6 million U.S. dollars as of May 2001 [Coverage from China.com.cn].

[ABOVE: Literary Circles of Party History, an official journal of history relating to the Communist Party of China, reopened the issue of Mao Zedong’s royalties this month.]

The numbers, long assumed to be top secret, reportedly came out in the wash in July 2003, when the Historical Research Center of the CPC (中共中央党史研究室) and the Central Working Committee (中直机关工委) stumbled onto the question of whether or not copyright fees for a new edition of Mao Zedong’s Selected Works should be taxed. The question was referred to the State Council and the details of Mao’s treasure house were subsequently laid bare.
The Literary Circles of Party History article, which made the rounds on such Web portals as the official People’s Daily‘s people.com.cn on December 10, also discussed the intra-party controversy over Mao’s millions:

After Mao Zedong’s death, there was a dispute within the CPC about how to deal with the assets from his royalties. According to Wang Dongxing (汪东兴), Mao Zedong himself said that after he died the monies should be applied to his party membership fees (党费), and that the cash on hand should be divided amongst his bodyguards. But one view in the Central Party was that Mao Zedong belonged to the party as a whole, that Mao Zedong’s works were the crystallization of the party’s collective knowledge, therefore the royalties Mao Zedong left behind are not for Jiang Qing (江青) and other relatives.

Jiang Qing, the article said, had made at least five formal appeals saying she had a right to Mao Zedong’s assets and wished to recover 50 million yuan for her two daughters and other relatives. Her requests were denied. Li Min and Li Na reportedly also made demands, which were similarly refused until the General Offices of the CPC gave both daughters the sum of around two million yuan to purchase homes and cover other miscellaneous expenses.
Coverage has followed from Guangzhou Daily and other newspapers this week, and the story is bubbling through portals and chatrooms.
It’s in the editorial pages, though, that the facts concerning Mao’s millions have widened into a debate not just about how they should be disposed of, but about whether they are “legal” at all. There are deeper questions too about what the case reveals about where to draw the line between the public and private spheres.
A December 10 editorial, “’Who Should ‘Mao’s Royalty Millions’ Belong To?” (“毛泽东的稿酬”应该归谁?), addressed the royalties issue from the standpoint of law, and took issue with the previous party position that his works were the “crystallization of the party’s collective knowledge, therefore the royalties Mao Zedong left behind are not for Jiang Qing and other relatives.”
Writing in Southern Metropolis Daily yesterday, Xu Youyu (徐友渔) concurred with the first editorial, saying the royalties issue was for “private law”, and not to be politicized. But the editorial then veered purposefully into the mess of history: “[A]s Mao Zedong is a great political and historical figure, the connection of his royalties to political and historical conditions needs to be talked about,” he writes.
As he picks out the facts of history, Yu becomes increasingly uncertain about the “legality” of Mao’s millions. “Because if we want to talk about rule of law,” he says, “the first principle is that people all have equal rights. If royalties were utterly abolished during the Cultural Revolution, and Mao Zedong was the only exception, then this legality becomes a problem.”
In another editorial in today’s Southern Metropolis Daily, Ge Jianxiong (葛剑雄) argues that Mao’s royalties should be dealt with differently for different historical eras — that, for example, he should not have monies from periods during which royalties were abolished:

And so, the legal and reasonable way to resolve this would be to take “Mao Zedong’s royalties” and divide them up. In those times when the country did have a system of royalties, the works Mao published can be factored in. For those works Mao Zedong published after the royalties system was abolished, and through the Cultural Revolution, monies should be factored only according to per-word article fees [Note_Bandurski: We are dealing with three phases here. Up to the early 1960s, a royalties system was in place. For a brief period up to the onset of the Cultural Revolution in 1966, per-word fees were paid for writings. During the Cultural Revolution nothing was paid. Article fees were re-instituted in the mid-1980s, and royalties reintroduced in the early 1990s]

One of the most interesting questions to come out of the debate over Mao’s millions is whether party cadres should earn royalties on writings done in an official capacity.
In his editorial, Xu Youyu raises the prickly question, for example, of whether “we might put our Great Leader in the compromising position of ‘using power for personal gain'” by allowing him (and his descendants) to profit from works, like the Sayings of Chairman Mao (“Little Red Book”), that achieved wide circulation not through sales but through political mobilization.
And what about official telegrams and notices and documents gathered together in the various “selected works” of Jiang Zemin and others? Should party leaders receive royalties on these? Or do they belong not to what Xu Youyu calls “private law” but to a separate public, government sphere?
The answer may seem obvious to some, but in China this is an open question. And Mao’s millions are now at the center of that question.
Which means it is not entirely frivolous for us to wonder:
When Xi Jinping (习近平) and/or Li Keqiang (李克强) are calling the shots in 2013, and Hu Jintao settles back into a not-so-quiet retirement, mightn’t he dine on his political report . . . and practice his backstroke in a pool of royalties?
[Coverage Continues: See the latest article on Xinhua News Agency’s official website, December 15, 2007]