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]

By David Bandurski — In a CMP-sponsored lecture at the University of Hong Kong last week, Lu Yuegang talked about the role of journalists in documenting the facts of history, and how, in an open society, people must be free to seek historical truth. But as Chinese web users put one up on the scoreboard last month by exposing the South China tiger hoax, did China’s public miss an opportunity to re-visit a critical moment in PRC history?
That’s exactly what Li Gongming (李公明) suggested when he wrote last month in Southern Metropolis Daily, a commercial spin-off of Guangdong’s official Nanfang Daily, that “the writings of various scholars in recent days reflecting back on Russia’s ‘October Revolution’ actually should have drawn more attention from the public.”

[ABOVE: An image from Guangdong’s Tongzhou Gongjin, November 2007, of Soviet leaders, with the headline, “1917-2007: Here We Soul-Search History”.]

Attention to the anniversary had, in Li’s view, been disappointingly scant. “In contrast to the ‘South China Tiger’ affair, which has bubbled with activity all along, attention to the 90th anniversary of the October Revolution has languished. But while the former is all about public opinion in pursuit of the truth, the latter is in fact provides us with a historical case of much deeper importance for this kind of factual pursuit.”
But seriously now, who cares about the October Revolution?
Well, China’s Communist Party used to care, and care very much — and that’s precisely what made this year’s 90th anniversary (which should, numerically speaking, have been a whopper) so interesting.
The anniversary of Russia’s October Revolution, the 1917 coup d-etat that brought the Bolsheviks to power, once loomed large on China’s social and political calendar. The gunshots of that event, as Mao Zedong once said, brought Marxism-Leninism to China — and that was cause for celebration, for a real honest-to-goodness holiday, or jieri (节日).

[ABOVE: Front page of the November 7, 1957, edition of the official People’s Daily.]

But the hold of ideology has progressively weakened in China since the launch of economic reforms more than three decades ago. By the time the revolution’s 70th anniversary arrived on November 7, 1987 — the revolution happened in October of the Julian calendar, hence the “October Revolution” — the day no longer merited distinction as a holiday.
Not surprisingly, this year’s 90th anniversary passed without fanfare. No official celebrations were planned. No top officials stepped out to commemorate the event. The anniversary barely merited mention in the official People’s Daily, where decades ago it would have commanded the front page.
A lone article in the back pages of People’s Daily on November 23 this year announced that “the World Socialism Research Center and Marxism Research Academy of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and other units” had held a discussion forum in Beijing on ‘”The October Revolution and the Contemporary Socialist Road.” The subtitle of the event was: “Studying the Spirit of the Party’s 17th National Congress, Commemorating the 90th Anniversary of the October Revolution.'”
“Those at the meeting believe,” said the article, lamely parroting Mao’s famous saying, “that the ‘gunshots of the October Revolution brought Marxism-Leninism to China.’”
In closing, the article invoked Hu Jintao’s recent political report to the 17th National Congress, saying the party must “press ahead on the road to Socialism with Chinese characteristics” (坚定不移地走中国特色社会主义道路).
Most interesting about this year’s anniversary, however, was the extent to which it WAS covered by non-party media, particularly in more outspoken Guangdong.
Back at Southern Metropolis Daily, Li Gongming wrote that today “there is already an objective and impartial reckoning of the October Revolution among historians internationally . . . and we can say that these historical truths are beyond a shadow of a doubt, unlike the smoke of the South China tiger affair.”
The problem, said Li, was that many people in China were still covering up the truth about the October Revolution and its implications for contemporary Chinese politics as well as history:

The problem now is that more than a few people are still keeping mum about the facts of history, still protecting those myths instilled in us for so long. It seems that determining the fact or fiction of a tiger isn’t too difficult, but letting everyone recognize clearly the fact or fiction of that tiger is not so easy. Why is it that even when the truth has been spoken, falsehood can still obstruct everyone’s vision? We’ve all heard this saying before about lies – that if they are repeated a thousand times they become truth. Jin Yan tells us that hundreds of thousands of copies of the mythical Soviet work “The October Revolution” were printed . . .
For more than a half century these historical materials as broad as the open sea, plus an even vaster volume of ordinary reading material and children’s books, works of art, all were inculcating historical lies. And this raises another question: how is it that lies can survive for so long?

Then comes the fundamental issue at hand, the way the Soviet Union failed by not instituting socialist democratic reforms (with China’s own failure presumably the subtext):

In fact, as early as 1918, not long after [the Bolshevik’s] had come to power, [Rosa] Luxemburg issued a warning to Lenin: “Without general elections, without unrestricted freedom of press and assembly, without a free struggle of opinion, life dies out in every public institution, becomes a mere semblance of life, in which only the bureaucracy remains as the active element.” [NOTE: The rest of Luxemburg’s quote, as often cited, goes: “Public life gradually falls asleep, a few dozen party leaders of inexhaustible energy and boundless experience direct and rule. Such conditions must inevitably cause a brutalization of public life: attempted assassinations, shootings of hostages, etc.”]

A feature article by Wang Kang (王康) in Southern Weekend called “Redemption, Tragedy and Inspiration”, running over 13,000 words, said that “whether you support or oppose it, no one can deny the earth-shaking importance Russia’s October Revolution had for human destiny in the twentieth century … ”

[ABOVE: Front page of the November 8 edition of Guangdong’s Southern Weekend, picturing an October Revolution commemoration ceremony in Moscow.]

Wang’s article took an in-depth look at the October Revolution and its significance for world history. The article, which took a centrist position stripped of official ideology, contrasted the hopes of Marx and Engels for the “liberation of mankind” with the failures of the Soviet system, including the evils of Stalinism, over-concentration of power and cults of personality.
The article concluded:

Not only did the October Revolution fail to achieve its beautiful ideals, but in the end was not able to build a modern society of a higher order than that of Western capitalist societies.
The tragedy of this revolution was the material, spiritual, humanitarian and institutional gap that separated their [revolutionary] ideals from the historical conditions and the moral and spiritual force they had rallied.

The most important modifier in the above passage was “institutional”, the “institutional gap” (制度上的鸿沟), the recognition that the Soviet Union had failed to create an adequate political system to ensure the “liberation of mankind”.
Of course, these criticisms of the Soviet Union can apply as well to contemporary history in China, a fact of which writers like Wang Kang are doubtless well aware. It was, after all, Deng Xiaoping who broached the issue of “party-government separation” in the 1980s to resolve the problem of over-concentration of power (权力过分集中), which was seen as having directly caused such calamities as the Cultural Revolution.
The publication that seems to have offered the most in-depth exploration of the institutional implications of the October Revolution is Tongzhou Gongjin (同舟共进), a monthly magazine published by the executive committee of Guangdong’s Political Consultative Conference.
Tongzhou Gongjin‘s November issue was star-studded with leading Chinese thinkers, including Xie Tao (谢韬), the scholar whose call for democracy earlier this year touched off a debate over political reform in China, and Gao Fang (高放), one of China’s leading experts on Marxist history.
“The October Revolution had an immense impact on the lives of people of my generation,” begins Xie Tao, who was born in December 1921, just four years after the revolution:

The buffeting winds of decades, the various difficulties and hardships, gropings and desires [we have endured], the joys of work and the pain of error, all are directly or indirectly connected with it.

In a later section, Xie Tao explores the question of institutional weakness, drawing on the words of Chinese Communist Party founder Chen Duxiu (陈独秀):”‘If we don’t seek out weaknesses in the system and learn from these, merely shutting our eyes and opposing Stalin, then we will never see with clarity. When one Stalin falls, numerous others will emerge in Russia and elsewhere.”
Xie Tao writes:

Why was the Soviet-style path of socialism unable, after the end of the Second World War, to compete with capitalist countries? What happened to the “superiority of socialism”? This question of course has deep institutional and theoretical roots. My feeling is that this was due to inherent weaknesses in the Soviet system.
Simply speaking, the Soviet system was characterized by: a high level of concentration of power and the economy, the application of force to promote economic development, and reliance on force to restrain normal thought [and discourse].

In another essay in Tongzhou Gongjin, Cao Lin (曹林), an editor at China Youth Daily, picks up on the institutional threads of earlier articles (such as Xie’s) dealing with democratic socialism. In the piece, “Who Says Ordinary People Can’t Compete with Officials?”, Cao writes directly about the virtues of competitive electoral politics, drawing on recent regulations passed in some areas of China that establish acceptable ratios of party cadres in local people’s congresses.
Xinjiang, for example, reportedly passed a regulation on September 19 this year saying that at least 75 percent of delegates to city and district-level congresses in the autonomous region must be workers, farmers, intellectuals or other “ordinary” people (NOT, that is, party officials).
But why, asks Cao, do we need quotas of this sort when free, competitive elections would do the trick?:

If an industrial worker can represent the interests of farmers after being elected as a delegate, if he can submit proposals that reflect the interests of farmers, then farmers can put their votes in for this worker. In the same way, if a cadre can win an election on a pro-business platform, then he can earn the votes of business people . . . If its a competitive election, then having more cadres isn’t a problem — the presence of cadres would indicate that they had greater trust among voters. If elections are the result of competition, there’s not way you can control ratios, and there’s no need to do so, because competition ensures delegates speak for the interests [of others] and not for their own interests . . .
. . . In this way, there’s fundamentally no need to limit the ratio of cadres [in people’s congresses]. Who says ordinary people can’t beat out officials?

By Cheng Jinfu — Addressing an audience at the University of Hong Kong yesterday, Lu Yuegang, former deputy editor of China Youth Daily’s Freezing Point supplement, expressed optimism for the press situation in China today. “Although there have been unhappy events,

By David Bandurski — In an article earlier this week, Nick Young explained the circumstances surrounding the shutdown this summer of his non-profit journal, the China Development Brief. Based on Chinese journalist Zhai Minglei‘s (翟明磊) account of the closure of the civil society journal Minjian, both publications seem to have been the victims of a concerted campaign by government authorities against publications servicing the NGO sector in China.
The decisions to shut down the China Development Brief and Minjian were not made in consideration of China’s laws, but administrative regulations offered the pretext when those in power — fearful, says Young, of “color revolutions” elsewhere in the world — felt it was time to move against them. Alluding to periodic law-enforcement crackdowns, Zhai has suggested the recent moves are part of an “intellectual strike hard campaign.”
Both journals had taken advantage of a degree of apparent tolerance in China’s publishing sector that allowed them to operate without official publishing licenses, or kanhao (刊号).
Young and Zhai Minglei cite similar reasons for deciding to publish in the way they did:

YOUNG: “Neither [our English or our Chinese] newsletter complied with China’s highly restrictive publishing laws, which entail political controls that prevent the kind of objective and independent reporting that we offered. But we seemed to have found a lacuna of tolerance that, I believed, might presage the gradual advance of free expression.”
ZHAI: “One reason Minjian did not have a publishing license is because under China’s current publishing environment, publishing licenses are held and controlled by publishing organs designated by the state . . . As a resource for the public good promoting action on public welfare, Minjian had no aims to profit in the marketplace, nor did we want to bear this unjust cost. Even more important was the sponsoring institution and press censorship that would come with the publishing license. [Note_Bandurski: In China all licenses for publishing are held by sponsoring institutions, or zhuguan danwei (主管单位), that are responsible for ensuring party propaganda discipline at publications under their watch.] Minjian had no intention of tying its own hands and feet.”

Zhai and Young were not alone. Literally thousands of magazines and newsletters, academic and otherwise, continue to publish in China without licenses. And as Zhai points out, if the authorities were to uniformly apply their logic in going after Minjian and the China Development Brief , then . . .

“all of the internal organizational publications and materials of NGOs in China are illegal publications . . . [a]nd so it is with all of those small booklets we circulate among friends and acquaintances in China as a form of interaction or to seek the appreciation of friends, or those various poetry collections we call people’s publications (民刊), all reading materials shared among colleagues. All they need is to be printed and they are illegal publications.”

The experiences of Zhai and Young suggest publications in this grey area may be living on borrowed time as Chinese leaders grow ever more wary of China’s nascent civil society, particularly amidst growing civil unrest.
As Young put it: “The tolerance evaporated this summer.”
In many cases, the accusations leveled against the editors by state police cross the border into the bizarre, suggesting Chinese leaders are growing increasingly paranoid about social and political unrest and the role information might have in organizing resistance.
Both Young and Zhai attempt to reassure authorities that their actions are not politically motivated, that they are not “enemies” taking part in conspiracies against those in power. Nevertheless, Zhai is accused at one point, utterly without basis, of helping form a “reactionary organization” with U.S. backing:

Last year the Center for Civil Society held a workshop and posted a pre-announcement online. After the announcement appeared, the abovementioned Web authorities maintained that a reactionary organization called “Workshop” had recently been formed, supported by Americans. Only after a lot of explaining from a number of sides did the authorities admit they had been seriously misinformed by this grave notice of enemy threats.

Likewise, when facing his mysterious interlocutor, Mr. Song, Young gets a glimpse of the brutal, manichean logic of Chinese security officials, for whom there are only enemies and friends. “You can be the government of China’s friend or our enemy; there is no other way,” he is told.
In an interesting parallel with Zhai’s case, Mr. Song tells Young police have “evidence” that the China Development Brief was linked to Xinjiang freedom fighters:

He began by saying he had evidence of our links with Xinjiang separatist organizations. This opening gambit shows both how closely we had been monitored and how sensitive an issue Xinjiang is for Beijing. The “evidence” almost certainly referred to an e-mail exchange two years ago with a Uighur exile group. We contacted them while researching a report that, in the end, I did not publish because it had been too hard to find information that was both new and reliable.

In both cases, the editors fail ultimately to reason with authorities. In response to the suggestion of “links” with Uighur separatists, Young says to Mr. Song:

I told Song this [about an e-mail contact with a Uighur exile group], adding that I believe Beijing is courting disaster in Xinjiang by using heavy-handed treatment against its Muslim population. China, I argued, should learn from rather than mimic the calamitous failures of Western countries in their relations with the Islamic world.

Young’s only answer is his brutal choice: enemy or friend. When he attempts to re-enter China after a stay overseas, he is turned back and his visa nullified.
As a Chinese citizen, Zhai Minglei potentially faces more serious consequences for his actions –even if they do not violate Chinese laws — and that could include a prison term.
Nevertheless, Zhai too attempts to meet the authorities with reason. Faced with the same confrontational logic, Zhai Minglei’s first words to his own interlocutors last week re-iterate that he is not an enemy.
The following is a translation of Zhai’s exchange last Friday with officers from the Cultural Sector Enforcement Squad. The entry was posted on his personal blogpaper, Yi Bao, which Zhai continues to maintain:

An Unforgettable Night
On the morning of the 29th, five people from the Cultural Sector Enforcement Squad (文化市场执法大队) paid a visit to my home and took away my hard drive and copies of the magazine. To guard against the unforeseen, I went to an internet bar and sent an urgent message to a friend, asking him to post it on Yi Bao. I suppose I was thinking that if things got worse that would be my goodbye to readers.
That afternoon and evening I received more than 40 phone calls and short messages from friends and fellow journalists.
Haipeng was the most amusing. As soon as he opened his mouth it was: “Ah, Minglei, don’t go and do this Minjian — do a pornographic magazine instead. Look, I had a word with the head of the squad and told him you had a bunch of ancient Chinese pornographic art stashed away at your place, and it would be a lot less trouble if they went after you for that. As a prize for informing against you they’re going to give me a post as number two at Wenhui Publishing … ” Before long, he called again. He was clearly trying to get me to relax.
When Wang Keqin called it was with a strand of strange laughter. “Ay, Brother,” I said, “How is it that you’re laughing up your sleave when I’m beset with troubles?”
“I never thought the axe would fall on you, my chubby friend!”
“Yeah, I know,” I said, “I’m the least combative one in our circle!”
“Ha ha. So, have they found any gold bullion yet?”
“No, but they did find the sword Chiang Kai-shek gave me.”
“Well, I didn’t call last time you were shut down, so I thought this was a rare opportunity to call and express my condolences.”
When I heard Wang’s great big laugh, I felt like there was nothing on earth to worry about.
“Hey there, Matador,” another old friend began when they called.
“What matador?” I said. “Fighter of dogs, more like it.”
It’s funny, but the first thing I think of with all of these friends in support of me is that shady third party [i.e., the authorities].
There are other calls etched in my heart.
After that came a lot of calls for interviews, from as far away as Spain and as near as Hong Kong. When it was time to sleep I was tired but couldn’t settle down.
Thoughts kept running in my head: Running Minjian, being shut down, doing Yi Bao online, being blocked, and now my hard drive gone so I can’t even write with my computer. If I must, I’ll take my pen out onto the streets and scribble on the walls.
At 3:30 in the afternoon on the 30th I was talking with a couple of old guys from the enforcement squad. According to their way of talking I was ‘accepting questioning and cooperating with the investigation’.
First, I said a few things: “You guys are enforcement, and you’re my antagonists, but we are not enemies. In my 13 years as a journalist I’ve criticized many people, and some of these have later became my friends because of that criticism.”
“I ask that you please let those men pulling the strings behind the scenes know that I thank them for their help in making my journey toward winning freedom of speech and press. And now that I’ve started I won’t stop. As a veteran journalist with a calling I will not rest until I’ve reached my goal. And that goal is to rehabilitate Minjian, to make clear that it is not an illegal publication. Please also thank them for opting for these comparatively civilized tactics, even if this began with a rather undignified raid of my personal residence.”
“I ask that you inform me of what organization you are from, and as you are not police, what legal grounds you have for searching a citizen’s place of residence.”
(After this my lawyer informed me that now even police need a warrant to search the residence of a private citizen. With only a Certification of Illegal Publication (非法出版物鉴定书) the Cultural Squad cannot enter a private residence. Thinking back now to that morning I realize that those five men standing in my doorway did not express any intent whatsoever to search my home. They said only that they wanted to come in and talk, and only then did I allow them in. After that they searched everything, including the paper for my printer. Is that not false pretenses? Afterwards, when my wife asked why a policeman had come along with them — this policeman never came in) — they joked and said, “We have to have police along for all our enforcement activities. They’re afraid you’ll pull knives on us.”)
I pointed out that the determination Minjian was an illegal publication violated the constitution. As soon as they heard that they cut me off. That was a question about the system, and we didn’t need to talk about that, they said. Do with it what you like, but I’ve got to say it, I said. Article 35 of the constitution says that citizens of the People’s Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly and of demonstration. The constitution defines the boundaries between the government and civil rights and is the highest law of the land. You have entered a private resident bearing only a publishing ordinance from the State Council — and, notice, that this is a regulation, only a regulation, NOT a law passed by the National People’s Congress. That ordinance says: publications that are not approved … are illegal publications. As to who must approve, what agency must approve, it says nothing. Is there not a contradiction here between this approved publication and the freedom to publish? This is where our grief lies, and it’s a problem for you too [because your enforcement actions are based on a contradiction]. We don’t have a press or publishing law, and you guys can enter people’s homes holding just an ordinance and violate their private property! The constitution guarantees citizens the right to publish, and the government prevents it. In advanced nations, publishing licenses are there for the taking. There is not need for approval! But even if this ordinance from the State Council stands, Minjian is not in violation. We have approval from Sun-Yatsen University, with more than 20 public seals.
They said to me: “Now, now, let’s not get carried away!”
I said, “Besides that, we were circulated internally. Please show me the regulation that says internal materials require a publishing license. When authorities in Guangzhou did a search they were bearing a document from Guangdong provincial authorities saying ‘printing and reproduction of books, periodicals, audiovisual materials, etc, for internal use without prior approval from administrative offices dealing with publishing’ is illegal. Well, does Shanghai have this sort of decision on record?
They said: “Whether or not it is an internal publication is not for you to say.” I responded: “Nor is it decided by you.” They said: “We are acting with the approval of authorities.” Then they pulled out a document from the Shanghai Administration of Press and Publications (上海新闻出版局) signed by Zhang Yongfa (张永发). On it was the following passage:
“According to the State Council’s Publishing Management Ordinance (of December 25, 2001, No. 343), Clause II, Article 9: Newspapers, periodicals, books, audiovisual materials and electronic publishing must be published through a [designated] publishing unit.”
“According to Article 12: The set up of a publishing unit must be approved by the publishing agencies of the people’s government of the relevant province, autonomous region or municipality following application by the sponsoring institution (主办单位).
“According to Article 24 of ‘Regulations on Management of the Publishing Market’, No. 20, 2003, issued by General Administration of Press and Publications (GAPP) of the People’s Republic of China, and Article 22 of ‘Shanghai Municipal Ordinance on Management of Circulation of Published Materials’, we determine that the following publication is an illegal publication.”
I laughed out loud. “Exactly what office of GAPP is this? I’ve heard that in Guangzhou there is some so-called Publications Authorization Committee (出版物鉴定委员会). It resembles a religious inquisition, and if this group of guys decides your an illegal publication, then you are.”
I emphasized again that Minjian was an internal academic publication put out by a university, that it was nonprofit and had no content of a reactionary, religious, political or pornographic nature. Whatever regulation they were trying to nail us with, it didn’t apply.
I asked for a copy of this document and they refused, so I took a picture:

“You use an order from an invisible office to limit freedoms. You say it proceeds from China’s unique character and situation (中国国情), and that the Chinese people must respect it. Well, foot-binding is also a product of China’s unique character and situation — should we bind our feet too?”
“Look, we’re not out to get you,” they said.
“I’m not afraid if you’re out to get me. My letter to Minjian readers was a personal statement I made out of conscience as a journalist.”
They eventually admitted that I wasn’t an editor acting on my own, but that I was hired by a university. I said that any questions concerning the content [of Minjian] could be addressed to me.
“Why do you insist on carrying this rotten potato all by yourself?” one of the officers said.
“What are you saying? Minjian is a publication with dignity, not a rotten potato. It would be more appropriate to call it a hot potato.”
This guy said: “We’ll give you three ways out … ” And I broke in, saying, “I’m not a criminal, I don’t need your way out!”
Then I showed them four documents of proof stamped by Sun-Yatsen University and demanded they return my hard drive as they had arranged for the day before. Much to my surprise, they refused. I was furious. I had my reasons, so I stood firm. “You’re not living up to what you promised,” I said.
In the end they referred the matter to their superiors and compromised, saying they would return my hard drive after they had confiscated all of the materials concerning Minjian.
In my anger I said, “This damned kid!” Later I apologized to the guy for this. Through the whole process I rationally defended my rights, dealing with matters not with men.
Because they had entered my home and confiscated all copies of 10 issues of Minjian I had saved, this meant they might deal with me more severely [having more physical evidence against me]. One of officers joked, saying: “Guangzhou fined you 30,000 yuan, so we’ll fine you 300,000.” I laughed out loud: “Money is the root that feeds me, so you might as well take my life.”
The way I see it, things could get rough for me, and this might even mean jail time. But even if it means giving up everything I have, I’ll continue this precious journey toward freedom of expression. I have no idea what’s in store for me.
If I go to prison for my words (坐文字狱), I won’t be the first, nor will I be the last — but I can make it mean something.

[From the Far Eastern Economic Review] When some of the world’s top technology companies, including Yahoo!, Intel, Nokia and Ericsson, formed the Beijing Association of Online Media three years ago, the group seemed to be a typical trade association, sponsoring social activities and facilitating networking. Even when its activities widened last year to include “self-policing” the Internet, it seemed to be benign, targeting content that “contradicts social morality and Chinese traditional virtues,” i.e. pornography. The message was that the companies were providing a public service in spaces used by Chinese teens, not helping the government maintain political control . . . [Click here for a full version at FEER.com]