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

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.