Author: David Bandurski

Now Executive Director of the China Media Project, leading the project’s research and partnerships, David originally joined the project in Hong Kong in 2004. He is the author of Dragons in Diamond Village (Penguin), a book of reportage about urbanization and social activism in China, and co-editor of Investigative Journalism in China (HKU Press).

Raising Up the General Secretary

Written by David Bandurski on . Posted in China Newspeak.

Today the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) celebrated the 40th anniversary of the founding of the Shenzhen Special Administrative Region (SAR), and Xi Jinping’s speech to mark the occasion now tops the news at party-state media.

A quick look through the text of Xi’s Shenzhen speech suggests little or nothing of fresh import. It is very much worth noting, however, that Guangdong’s top provincial leader, Party Secretary Li Xi (李希), talked shortly after Xi’s speech about the need for “raising high the great banner of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for the New Era” (高举习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想伟大旗帜).

Why is this significant?

This is in fact the first time since the onset of the Covid-19 epidemic in January this year that a member of the Politburo, the elite 25 officials who oversee the CCP, has aggrandized Xi (this is what the “raising high” in this case accomplishes) in his presence with reference to his banner term. And even before January, the use of this phrase was exceptionally rare.

At the 19th National Congress of the CCP in October 2017, the phrase “great banner of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” was introduced as a preliminary banner term – as my colleague Qian Gang has pointed out. The ultimate goal ever since, navigating the domestic and international political seas, has been for the top leadership to contract this long phrase into the five-character power-term “Xi Jinping Thought.” This is a game we’ve seen play out in a number of arenas, including most recently foreign diplomacy.

Not at all unlike the Cultural Revolution era phrase, “Raising high the great banner of Mao Zedong Thought” (高举毛泽东思想伟大红旗), once the shortening of Xi’s banner term has been successfully achieved, the phrase, “Raising high the great banner of Xi Jinping Thought” can be introduced normally into media and official discourse.

After the 19th National Congress, we already saw the emergence of “raising high the great banner of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for the New Era.” Where “Xi Thought” (习思想) is concerned, we can now find three distinct formalized phrases in the official People’s Daily newspaper:

“with Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for the New Era as the guide” (以习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想为指导);

“deeply studying and implementing Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for the New Era” (深入学习贯彻习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想);

“raising high the great banner of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for the New Era” (高举习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想伟大旗帜).

The first has been used most frequently. The Work Regulations of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, released on October 13, state in Article 3 that, “The Central Committee holds high the magnificent banner of Socialism with Chinese characteristics, takes Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory, the important “Three Represents” thought, the scientific development concept, and Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a new era . . . . “

The second phrase has appeared less frequently, and the third even less so. Looking at the use of the three phrases in the People’s Daily from October 2017 to October 14, 2020, we find that the first has appeared in 6,121 articles, the second in 2,312, and the third in just 67.

Which members of the Politburo have used the “raising high” phrase in reference to Xi’s banner term? They are, searching the People’s Daily: Wang Chen (王晨), on November 9, 2017; Li Qiang (李强), on December 4, 2017; Chen Quanguo (陈全国), on March 8, 2018; Zhao Leji (赵乐际), on October 30, 2018; Wang Yang (汪洋), on August 30, 2019; and Han Zheng (韩正), on January 11, 2020.

At various meetings after the 19th National Congress of the CCP in 2017, the phrase appeared prominently on bright red banners unfurled at the respective venues. Examples include the 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Youth League, the 17th National Congress of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), and the 12th National Congress of the All-China Women’s Federation.

A banner including the “raising high” phrase appears (top, far left) at the 17th National Congress of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU).

Xi Jinping was in attendance at all three of the above-mentioned congresses, and of course he would have seen this “raising high.” Zhao Leji delivered the main address to the All-China Women’s Federation event, and that address including his own mention of “raising high.” Wang Yang’s 2019 mention came as he addressed an awards ceremony for state-owned enterprise bosses. Han Zheng’s January 2020 mention came as he spoke at a ceremony for the National Science and Technology Awards.

The “raising high” phrase appeared the most in the People’s Daily in 2018, following the 19th National Congress, with 28 articles in total using the phrase, compared to 13 in 2017 (all within two months of the National Congress), and 19 in 2019. This year, the phrase has appeared just 7 times. After all, it has been a year of many distractions.

As Qian Gang argued in his report on Chinese discourse in 2019, the lengthy “raising high” phrase must necessarily be shorted, according the CCP’s political logic, and the ultimate full-phrase goal has to be: “Raising high the great banner of Xi Jinping Thought.” Given the constant difficulties that have beset China ever since the 19th National Congress of the CCP, including domestic economic challenges, the US-China trade war, global frictions over trade, technology and human rights, the issue of Hong Kong, and so on, Xi Jinping’s ambition to seal his legacy with the stele of “Xi Jinping Thought” has been difficult to achieve.

Now, more than nine months after Han Zheng’s mention of the “raising high” phrase, we again have a member of the Politburo using the phrases to express praise and loyalty toward the General Secretary. During the live broadcast of Li Xi’s address on China Central Television, the camera cut away from Li just as he was uttering these words of high praise, a choice that could not have been incidental.

Staring straight ahead, unblinking, against a plain red background, the General Secretary was smiling.

Sour Grapes Over Latest Pew Survey

Written by David Bandurski on . Posted in Going Global.

Earlier this week the Pew Research Center, a non-partisan think tank in the US, released a survey of 14 countries in Europe, Asia and North America showing that negative perceptions of China have reached their highest point since Pew began such surveys more than a decade ago. The survey noted that unfavorable opinion about China has “soared” in 2020. “Today, a majority in each of the surveyed countries has an unfavorable opinion of China,” it said.

The survey suggests Xi Jinping — who himself comes off very poorly in the survey — could face real obstacles in his efforts to expand China’s global influence, and might find cooperation impeded even on issues where the Chinese Communist Party’s positions align with those of other countries.

Is China likely to re-think its recent policies and approaches, including its more aggressive approach to diplomacy? Don’t hold your breath.

The Global Times, a commercial spinoff of the CCP’s official People’s Daily, fulminated against the Pew survey yesterday, dismissing the results as “the inevitable result of the constantly strengthening inherent prejudice against China under the anti-China narrative of Western public opinion.” The US had “roped in” its allies, the article said, seeking to “stigmatize China,” and to “whitewash their inability to handle the deadly virus.”

Never mind that the US fared even worse in the Pew survey, with a median of 84 percent saying the US response to Covid-19 had been poor.

Not only had Westerners been “blinded” by “mainstream Western outlets” infected with prejudice, according to the Global Times, but there were fundamental problems as well with this “clearly biased poll.”

But party-state media have not always been so dismissive of polls from Pew. In fact, official media in China routinely rely on experts and media in the West, implying their credibility, to bolster official propaganda positions — and the Pew Research Center has been no exception.

Back in July, the People’s Daily ran a large report in its international section called, “Political  Extremes in America an Obstacle to Covid-19 Response,” which drew liberally from the publicly stated views of scholars such as political scientist Francis Fukuyama, journalist and Vox co-founder Ezra Klein, and Darrell M. West, director of the center for technology innovation at the Brookings Institution. The report, filed from Washington, painted a picture – not altogether untrue – of a country deeply divided against itself, and incapable of agreeing on life and death matters in the midst of a global pandemic.

The authority of the sources cited in the report, all American, was taken for granted in this case. And the report began by quoting Pew: “The most recent surveys conducted by the Pew Research Center and other polling agencies,” it said, “show that different political groups in the US show obvious perceptual and party-line differences regarding the epidemic.”

In December last year, another lengthy report in the international section of the People’s Daily underscored racial divisions in the United States, which drew entirely on an April 2019 Pew study called “Race in America 2019.” The People’s Daily report noted, on the basis of the Pew study, the many ways that racism in the US was felt in areas ranging from poverty, education, housing and crime. The article quoted former President Barack Obama, and even singled out a report from the New York Times – a news source frequently singled out by Chinese state media for allegedly “blackening China’s name,” or for “aiding anti-China forces.”

Pew and other Western sources have even been used to shore up the arguments of the People’s Daily’s chief voice on international affairs, the CCP penname “Zhong Sheng” (钟声). Back in February, as the Covid-19 epidemic in China was in full swing, the column fulminated – as it has almost incessantly this year – against “certain US politicians” who “attack China and the Chinese system.” The commentary, called “Ideological Prejudice is Also a Disease,” cited the Pew Research Center to support its view that the behavior of the United States had earned it condemnation around the world. “The Pew Research Center’s survey data last year aptly illustrates the problem –  45 percent of respondents said they believe that the United States is a major threat to the world.”

The “Zhong Sheng” column summed up by pointing to the harm the United States inflicted on itself through its “ideological prejudice”:

Sadly, the self-inflicted harm to the United States can be said to be significant . . . . The world should be clear-headed, and ideological prejudice and the disease of Cold War thinking will inevitably become a curse for international relations.

The column then launches into a hymn about the glorious achievements of the Chinese Communist Party, suggesting that “the actions of the CCP in leading the people of the whole nation in fighting the epidemic have won broad respect and admiration from the entire world.”

If only we had a recent survey from a credible, independent think tank that could be used to test this assumption.

[Featured Image by Prayitno available at Flickr.com under CC license.]

Wasted Words on Climate Change

Written by David Bandurski on . Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

For two years now, tensions between China and the US – over trade, Covid-19, technology and human rights – have simmered in the pages of the People’s Daily, the Chinese Communist Party’s flagship newspaper. Some of the choicest and most churlish barbs have been delivered by “Zhong Sheng” (钟声), a byline reserved for official commentaries on international affairs. Back in June, “Zhong Sheng” – a team of writers, not an individual – responded to US sanctions over Hong Kong by railing against certain “despicable” American politicians who “have no international morality.”

Since last month, the war of words has had another topic of contention – national records on environmental protection. And the sparks are flying in China’s Party-state media.

The bickering was set off on September 23, as Xi Jinping sought in a video address to the UN General Assembly to demonstrate China’s leadership on climate change, pledging that China would reach “peak carbon” before 2030, and would reach nearly zero emissions by 2060. Xi’s speech starkly contrasted that of US President Donald Trump, who savaged China not just for being the top emitter of CO2, but for destroying “vast swaths of coral reef,” and emitting “more toxic mercury into the atmosphere than any country anywhere in the world.”

“Those who attack America’s exceptional environmental record while ignoring China’s rampant pollution are not interested in the environment,” Trump said. “They only want to punish America, and I will not stand for it.”

Xi’s pledge “stunned climate action observers,” some suggesting it could be a “defining moment” in tackling the global climate crisis. Others, meanwhile, cautioned skepticism, noting a clear whiff of opportunism in China’s latest promise. Li Shuo, of Greenpiece Asia, read Xi’s climate pledge as a shrewd geopolitical play, a “calculated move” to capitalize on inaction from the United States – particularly in light of the Covid-19 crisis. “It demonstrates Xi’s consistent interest in leveraging the climate agenda for geopolitical purposes,” Li told the BBC.

It’s an understatement to say that the US, now the only country that has not set a target to reach carbon neutrality, has failed to demonstrate leadership on the environment. Donald Trump has vowed to abandon the Paris Agreement on climate change, and an official exit would come after the November elections. China, eager to step firmly into a global leadership role it has proclaimed perhaps too zealously in the midst of Covid-19 – the latest Pew Research survey showing that unfavorable views of China have reached an historic high globally – has sought to capitalize on the US retreat in this area.

Xi’s pledges aside, the fact remains that China is the world’s biggest climate polluter – accounting for more than one quarter of total global emissions – and its largest consumer of oil and coal. Fossil fuels, including coal, currently account for 85 percent of China’s energy mix. Experts say the country would need to entirely flip its ratio of fossil fuels to renewables by 2060 (meaning 85 percent of its energy would come from renewables) to reach the goal Xi set in last month’s video address. Far from moving in this direction, however, China has continued to commit to new investments in coal, both at home and abroad, and climate experts have warned that a “new wave of coal power in China would pose clear risks for global efforts to limit climate change and could greatly complicate the country’s own energy transition.”

The poor US record on climate change under Trump notwithstanding, some have argued that China’s performance on the environment globally offers the US an opportunity to weaken Xi Jinping’s standing on a key issue internationally. “A more enlightened U.S. strategy could turn China’s environmental destruction – now being exported globally – to its advantage,” Jonathan E. Hillman wrote today for Nikkei Asia. Whatever China may pledge to do, many across Europe and North America have grown weary of its assurances, and the apparent ease with which it promises the heavens (“promise fatigue” being a commonly cited complaint of late).

The US again threw down the gauntlet on September 25, just two days after the Trump and Xi addresses at the UN, as the Department of State released a fact sheet on China’s “environmental abuses,” targeting not just its environmental record at home, but also alleging that it is “exporting its willful disregard for the environment through its One Belt One Road initiative,” referring to Xi Jinping’s signature foreign policy program. As an aside, it is interesting to note that while the State Department fact sheet refers to the “One Belt One Road initiative,” this abbreviation for the policy has not been used since 2016, predating the Trump presidency. The preferred term now, of course, is the “Belt and Road Initiative,” or “BRI.” But the State Department seems recently to have reverted to the use of “OBOR,” as in this recent briefing on restrictions on individuals and corporate entities, and in this recent testimony on countering China.

In any case, China has been quick to register its unhappiness with the US takedown of its record on climate change. In a commentary on Tuesday, “Zhong Sheng” was clearly hot under the collar. “Certain American politicians have become notorious for their ‘great regression’ on climate and environmental issues, and this has long been known,” the commentary began.

How preposterous it is that lately, in order to discredit China and blacken China’s name, they have with unparalleled foolishness played the ‘environment card’— first, disregarding facts at the United Nations, unjustifiably discrediting China’s efforts on environmental protection in such areas as the atmosphere and the oceans, then, fabricating a so-called ‘Environmental Abuses Fact Sheet’ that slanders China. Seeing this reversing of black and white and weaving of lies, the international community snorts with contempt.

The commentary, appearing on page 3 of the People’s Daily, said again that “certain politicians in the US have tried to conceal themselves through clever actions,” but that the world would not be fooled. “On the climate question, when it comes to who is moving forward, and who is moving backward, who is making contributions and who is causing trouble, the people of different countries have a sense in their hearts,” it said.

Back in April this year, CMP Co-Director Qian Gang noted the use in official statements in China of the term fèngquàn (奉劝), or “advise,” which has a strong admonishing tone, and could be seen to mark a slightly more belligerent or insistent tone in China’s diplomacy. “[The] ‘advisory vocabulary’ of the Chinese Communist Party is something we should watch closely in the party-state media as an indicator of China’s attitude and tone in its foreign relations,” Qian wrote.

Tuesday’s “Zhong Sheng” commentary again uses this more spirited form of “advise,” warning “certain American politicians” to avoid adding to their “list of lies.”  

We advise certain American politicians to stop their political manipulation and malicious slander. The “list of lies” attributed to you by the US media and netizens is long enough already. This so-called “Environmental Abuses Fact Sheet” you have put together for China can only add to this “list of lies.”

A piece yesterday from the official Xinhua News Agency, “America’s ‘Double Standard’ Farce on Climate Change,” said that “US leaders smeared China on environmental issues during the general debate of the United Nations General Assembly, and then the US State Department concocted and published the so-called ‘China’s Environmental Abuses Fact Sheet.’”

There is no disputing that China is the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide, accounting for 28 percent of the global total, according to Earth System Science Data. The US was the largest national emitter of CO2 only until 2006, when China took the top spot. But the Xinhua article dwells instead on cumulative CO2 emissions, a measure that accounts for emissions going back to 1750 and the start of the industrial revolution. The Xinhua article suggests that “analysts have pointed out that the United States is the country emitting the most cumulative greenhouse gases in the world.”

The US government not only turned a blind eye to its own bad deeds, but also discredited and attacked China, which has taken active steps in this area and won praise from the international community. This is a political farce played with ‘double standards.’”

Last month, Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin (汪文斌) also cited cumulative CO2 emissions in responding to Trumps accusations at the UN. “In contrast [to China’s conduct], the United States, as the country with the most cumulative greenhouse gas emissions in the world, refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol and withdrew from the Paris Agreement,” Wang said. “It ignores its own binding and quantitative emission reduction tasks, and refuses to take minimum actions to protect the earth’s homeland.”

Wang also drew attention to other measures of environmental shame. “The United States is the world’s largest exporter of solid waste and a major consumer of plastic per capita,” Wang said. It is certainly true that developed nations in North America, Europe (and Australia) are the largest exporters of waste, heading off for disposal in developing countries. China was long a willing recipient of these global waste flows, but that changed in January 2018, as it banned 24 types of solid waste for import.

On September 28, Beijing Youth Daily ran a strongly-worded commentary that widely made the rounds on China’s internet, directly counter-attacking the US for the State Department fact sheet, which it said had “done its utmost to discredit China on issues of climate change and environmental protection.” The commentary said that the US would “only prove itself ridiculous again” by touting its supposed achievements in an area in which it refused to lead. But the piece could not resist returning to the litany of other disputes with the US — and relishing in its internal problems.

At present, Covid-19 continues to spread in the US, and social strife, racist conflicts and other issues have become prominent. In order to divert the attention of the domestic audience, certain US politicians continue frantically to shift the blame to China, turning it into a ‘scapegoat’ for the problems arising from their own ineffectiveness. Again and again, they display ‘[warning] cards’ on issues such as the South China Sea, Hong Kong, Xinjiang and so on, spreading rumors, engaging in smear campaigns, provoking discord, and suppressing China by all means. The drunkard’s heart is not in the cup.

Whatever measures one applies on the question of the environment, the US and China are undeniably the world’s largest polluters, and the cooperation of both is crucial to tackle what the UN has called “the defining issue of our time.” It goes without saying that the insults and empty promises volleying back and forth between the leaders of the two countries at the moment are wasted words at a time when real action is more urgent than ever.

“His Highness” Xi Jinping?

Written by David Bandurski on . Posted in China Newspeak.

The news headlines on China today are full of references to the duelling addresses delivered yesterday to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) by Xi Jinping and Donald Trump. As many have noted, the contrasts could hardly be more profound. On the one side was Trump’s unstatesmanlike emphasis on “America first,” his clear attack on China, and his stubborn denial of the US record on the COVID-19 pandemic and the environment. On the other side was Xi Jinping’s “We humans” rhetoric of shared values in a short speech projecting Chinese leadership on multilateralism, global health, development and the environment – and, tactfully, not mentioning the United States.

On a rhetorical level, Xi Jinping might seem the steady champion of free trade and world peace, and Trump the selfish and impossible partner, an enemy of shared global values. “Let us join hands to uphold the values of peace, development, equity, justice, democracy and freedom shared by all of us,” said Xi, “and build a new type of international relations and a community with a shared future for mankind. Together, we can make the world a better place for everyone.”  

The convenient international gloss presented by China against the backdrop of Trumpian arrogance easily falls away, however, when we look at Xi Jinping’s power-hungry hubris at home. Even as Xi spoke yesterday of “justice, democracy and freedom,” former real estate mogul Ren Zhiqiang, who dared to criticize the CCP General Secretary this year for his unprecedented consolidation of power and exacerbation of the coronavirus epidemic by limiting speech freedoms, was sentenced to 18 years in prison on charges of corruption. Ren’s case is only the most recent reminder of the true nature of China under Xi’s leadership.

Xi Jinping’s consolidation of power, and his abandonment of collective decision-making in favor of a political culture of fawning obedience, are at the root of global concerns over a range of issues, including trade, human rights, aggressive tactics in the South China Sea, the status of Hong Kong and so on. But in fact we do not have to leave the context of the UN to appreciate China’s aggrandizement of Xi.

What some may not realize, given the dominant coverage of the duelling Trump and Xi speeches yesterday, is that Xi in fact made two speeches at the UN this week – both trumpeted in China’s state media as “important speeches.” On Monday, Xi, identified at the UN as “His Excellency Xi Jinping,” delivered a pre-recorded speech to mark the UN’s 75th anniversary. This was followed by the shorter address yesterday during the General Debate session of the General Assembly.

For a reason as yet unknown, Xi Jinping was identified for the General Debate session on the webpage of the Journal of the United Nations as “His Highness Xi Jinping,” while others, including Trump, were identified (with the exception of a king and a sheikh from Jordan and Qatar respectively) as “His Excellency.”

The reference to Xi as “His Highness” was likely a mistake, but if so this was an oddly insightful error – coming, not least, on the very day of the sentencing of Ren Zhiqiang, who in his essay called Xi “a clown stripped naked and insisting on being emperor.” Beyond the nice-sounding rhetoric, the aggrandizing of Xi is the most crucial fact to understand about China as a global power. We need not delve into the content of either speech, both full of tired rhetoric about China as the world’s largest developing country, not seeking hegemony but committed to peace and to “cooperative and common development.” The key question is not what Xi Jinping said but why BOTH speeches were delivered by Xi Jinping himself.

China, lest readers have forgotten, also has a premier, the formal head of the PRC’s government. But anyone might be forgiven for forgetting. Li Keqiang, after all, has been effectively side-lined by Xi. It might have made sense for Premier Le Keqiang to deliver at least one of this week’s UN addresses, most probably the address to the General Assembly, while Xi addressed the Monday event for the 75th anniversary. Instead, we had double servings of the CCP’s General Secretary as China’s “head of state.”  

Li Keqiang has been repeatedly side-lined in recent months in China. As we showed last month, coverage of Li’s mud-stained trip to flood-stricken areas in Chongqing was completely eclipsed by coverage of an immaculate Xi visiting Anhui province. In today’s edition of the official People’s Daily, we see the same pattern. The first three pages of the newspaper are dominated entirely by coverage of Xi Jinping alone, including the full-text of his address yesterday to the UN General Assembly.

No other members of the Politburo Standing Committee appear until page four of the paper, when at last there is mention of Premier Li and his inspection visit to Shanghai. Vice Premier Hu Chunhua is mentioned in an article just below Li’s. The rest of the newspaper is otherwise virtually silent on the top leadership – unless, of course, the focus is on Xi Jinping.

Reporting on Xi’s second UN speech, the top headline on the front page of today’s edition of the Global Times newspaper, published by the People’s Daily, reads: “Major Countries Should Act Like Major Countries” (大国应该有大的样子).

In my translation of this headline, I am deferring to CGTN’s English translation of Xi’s speech, in which the line from which this headline derives is rendered: “In particular, major countries should act like major countries.” The operative word in the Chinese original, however, is not the verb “act,” but the more ambiguous word yangzi (样子) referring to an “appearance,” “manner” or “model” — or even to a “face,” as in the English phrase, “to put on a brave face.”

I would submit that an at least equally valid translation of this phrase, and certainly of the Global Times headline, would be: “A major power must have a major face.”

We don’t have to guess whose face this must be.

Old Ideas From Xi’s New Era Theorist

Written by David Bandurski on . Posted in China Newspeak.

As head of the Central Policy Research Office for almost two decades, Wang Huning (王沪宁) is China’s most influential political theorist, the chief architect of the political thought of three generations of top leaders. He was the key drafter of Jiang Zemin’s “Three Represents” and Hu Jintao’s “Harmonious Society,” political banner terms framed during a period when China’s CCP-led political system seemed to be progressing toward a more deliberative form of collective leadership. He is behind the theoretical confections of the so-called “New Era,” political phrases including “Xi Jinping Thought” that point to the unravelling of collective leadership and the consolidation of personal power under an increasingly authoritarian General Secretary.  

But before he was theorist-in-chief, writing speeches for China’s top leaders, Wang, who since October 2017 has served on the CCP’s Politburo Standing Committee, was a professor in the politics department at Shanghai’s Fudan University. In the balmier reform days of the 1980s, he once appeared on the cover of the Party’s official China Comment journal under the headline: “China’s Youngest Associate Professor.” What ideas did he espouse as a young thinker in that old era of reform?

“Life in Politics,” a collection of Wang Huning’s diary entries published in 1995.

Last week, a number of accounts on WeChat, including CCVI and “Guangxun Vision” (广讯视界), posted an early piece of writing from Wang Huning that provides a fascinating answer to this question. The essay, “Reflections on the ‘Cultural Revolution’ and Political Reform” (“文革”反思与政治体制改革), was published in May 1986 in Shanghai’s World Economic Herald (世界经济导报).

One of the most critical newspapers of the day, the World Economic Herald had been founded in 1980 by Qin Benli (钦本立), a former Wenhui Bao journalist who had been harshly disciplined during the Anti-Rightist Movement of 1957, and who had been imprisoned for seven months by Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution. By the late 1980s, Qin’s newspaper had become a leading advocate of political reform, seeking to move China away from the excesses of Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution.

Wang Huning is now the most defining figure of Xi era political theory, the creator of political formulas that have made the case for a return to centralized power and charismatic politics – and his 1986 essay in the World Economic Herald reads today like a dissenting voice against this “new era” orthodoxy. “Twenty years ago, the ‘Cultural Revolution,’ which subjected the Chinese people to untold disaster, occurred in the vast land of China,” the young Wang writes. “Ten years ago we turned over a new and profound page. And yet, there is reason for us to continue to reflect on the chaos of those times. In order to prevent such a disaster from happening again.”

Summing up the causes of the Cultural Revolution, Wang continues: “Aside from historical, social, economic and other causes, the imperfect and incomplete nature of political reforms were a cause that cannot be underestimated.”

Wang Huning’s 1986 essay from the World Economic Herald on a recent WeChat post.

Here is Wang laying out the specific failings of China’s political system, including the inability to achieve “vertical decentralization” of power. I have included under his bullet points only the original bolded statements summarizing his arguments:

Analyzing from the standpoint of the political system, we can see the following structures and functions are connected to the inability to prevent the Cultural Revolution: 

1.     The ruling party as the core of the country’s political life had not formed a complete set of democratic systems. The system for division of roles between the Party and government was not sound, and balance of power within the political system had not been clearly .

2.     The National People’s Congress was unable as a national authority to effectively exercise its powers. 

3.     There was a lack of a strong constitutional guarantees in political life.

4.     In social life, there was a lack of an independent judicial system.

5.     There was no adequate mechanism for vertical decentralization in the political system.

6.     There was no sound national public servant system.

7.     There was no strict system in political life to protect the rights of citizens.

All of these reflections on the political system and the conditions that made the Cultural Revolution possible are sharply at odds with the principles Wang has championed since becoming a member of the Politburo, including his promotion of the so-called “442 formula,” an abbreviated reference to a set of political principles now used to signal loyalty to Xi Jinping and his leadership of the CCP.

China’s Story Comes to Brussels

Written by David Bandurski on . Posted in Going Global.

Politico reported this week that China Media Group (CMG), the state media super-conglomerate created in March 2018 through the merger of three major media groups, including China Central Television, China National Radio and China Radio International, is now planning to open a European office in Brussels. CMG, which is also known as “Voice of China” (中国之声), has been portrayed by state media sources as a key step in “advancing [China’s] international transmission capacity and telling China’s story well,” both demands that Xi Jinping made in his political report to the 19th National Congress of the CCP in October 2017.

The establishment of the Brussels office almost certainly signals China’s intention to bolster its media presence and deployment of CCP narratives in Europe, and perhaps to seek partnerships that can help to advance coverage in the region that is favorable to China’s interests. The move comes as the CGTN, part of the group, faces possible sanctions in the UK over its broadcasting in 2013 of a forced confession by British national Peter Humphrey.

A chart from the WeChat public account of the official People’s Daily explains the merger of major state media entities into China Media Group in 2018.

So it seems that the “China story” could soon be broadcast loudly from the CMG headquarters in Brussels. What does it mean to “tell China’s story”?

One of the clearest definitions of Xi’s phrase, which is not about Chinese voices but rather about national discourse power, came in an article written for the People’s Daily by Xu Shana (徐姗娜), head of the Fujian provincial section of the All-China Women’s Federation. In her article, “Strengthening Agenda Setting, Telling the China Story Well”  (加强议题设置 讲好中国故事), Xu breaks “China’s story” down into four aspects.

The Party

First, and this should not surprise, comes the Chinese Communist Party.  Xu begins by explaining that “the core of telling ‘China’s story’ is the ‘story of the Chinese Communist Party, and the crux of telling the story of the Chinese Communist Party well is properly explaining why the CCP ‘can’.” The point here is that the CCP must be portrayed as pre-eminently competent. This fits with the foreign and domestic propaganda we have seen from China this year, emphasizing the CCP’s leadership of the effort against COVID-19, and even the superiority of China’s political system in grappling with the crisis.

Xu writes:

We must scientifically set up issues around why the Chinese Communist Party ‘can,’ in this way fully demonstrating the Chinese Communist Party’s political wisdom, its sense of responsibility about its mission, the care it shows for the people, and how its experiences can provide lessons for political parties in developing countries.

Stories in the media, Xu adds, must “clearly speak to why history and the people would choose the Chinese Communist Party, showing the political advantages of adhering to the leadership of the Party.”

Screenshot of a section of Xi Jinping’s political report to the 19th National Congress of the CCP discussing the priorities of external propaganda and “soft power.”

The Dream

Next, telling China’s story well means telling stories about “the struggle of the Chinese people to fulfil their dream.” This, of course, is not at all about personal aspirations, but rather about Xi Jinping’s so-called “Chinese dream” of the “great rejuvenation of the Chinese people.” It is wrapped up with nationalistic notions of China’s inevitable return to the center of the global stage, and its newfound prosperity and strength.

Xu writes:

Telling the Chinese dream well is about [conveying] the dream of national prosperity, national rejuvenation, and the happiness of the people, showing the essential content of the Chinese dream. To tell the Chinese dream comprehensively and accurately it is necessary to make it clear that the essential content of the Chinese dream is the prosperity of the country, the revitalization of the nation, and the happiness of the people.

But if telling China’s story well is about “soft power” – Nye’s term that China’s has appropriated, and reinterpreted, in official documents since the 2007 CCP National Congress – how do such nationalistic aspirations speak to foreign audiences? Isn’t this just “China First”? Xu suggests that the story of the “great struggle of the Chinese people” (中华民族的伟大奋斗精神) has resonance for other countries, because it is also, she says, “a dream of peace, development, cooperation and win-win.” The logic here, at the heart of China’s foreign policy thinking around such phrases as “community of common destiny for mankind” (人类命运共同体), is that China’s ascendance enmeshes it more deeply with the world in ways that benefit all.

This is where the Belt and Road Initiative, Chinese investment and Chinese aid come into the picture, though these of course have generated a great deal of opposition in recent years as “an unsettling extension of China’s rising power,” as clearly evidenced by ongoing US-China tensions and by the changing debate in Europe. For China, building a global media presence through the China Media Group and other players is about combatting such reservations and smoothing the way for Chinese engagement, as much as possible on China’s terms. And in Xu’s discussion of the “Chinese dream” we can also detect a strong whiff of what has been called “wolf warrior diplomacy,” or zhanlang waijiao (战狼外交), the readiness to be tough and raise China’s hackles over what are seen as counter-narratives:

We must actively set a positive agenda and a counter-agenda, actively showing our swords, eliminating misunderstanding, speaking clearly from a historical perspective about how certain Western hegemonic countries are self-interested, hypocritical and cold-blooded. [We must] make it clear that no matter how far China develops, it is always a builder of world peace.

In this passage we can note a clear disconnect that runs through Chinese diplomacy, and at least partly explains the difficulties Foreign Minister Wang Yi had on his recent trip to Europe. China’s attitude toward partners in the West has seesawed from friendly overtures about “win-win” and “cooperation,” to aggressive displays of intractability that underscore fundamental gaps in core values. Xu’s language, intended for an internal Party audience, is in a sense more honest – making clear that undermining the credibility of the “hypocritical and cold-blooded” West is an ongoing strategy.

The Culture

Moving on, Xu highlights the importance of using “China’s excellent traditional culture” as a means to convey the “true,” the “good” and the “beautiful” of China in the world. Here we get the usual language about traditional culture as “China’s deepest source of cultural soft power” (最深厚的文化软实力).  There is little else to say here, except to observe that this is another aspect on which the CCP’s policies could be said to show incredible short-sightedness. The focus on “traditional culture” smacks of the sort of narrowness that has characterized much of China’s cultural diplomacy for decades, which has focussed on “art troupes” and colorful performances that lend, as I wrote five years ago, a “circus quality” to China’s outreach activities.

These criticisms have, on rare occasions, been made by people within China’s cultural diplomacy apparatus, as they were in 2015 by Zhou Hong (周虹), the director of the Cultural Division of the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the State Council. “The belief that culture equals the arts means that overseas performances are almost without exception arts troupes,” Zhou wrote, “giving foreigners the impression that Chinese culture is all about singing and dancing.” Moreover, he said, the “habitual reliance on government planning and financing” for such programs overseas, which have a “thick government tint,” invites “suspicion and resentment.”

Behind Zhou’s cautious criticisms is a key point of weakness in China’s efforts to manufacture “soft power” – the failure, and the inability given political restrictions at home, to harness the strength of civil society. Now, more than ever, more even than was true in 2015, China equals the CCP. And the CCP is not itself revered as a cultural phenomenon.

Win-Win Cooperation

In the last section of her article, Xu address the fourth and final aspect of “telling China’s story,” which readers will recognize for its overlap the Chinese dream. Here again the talk is about convincing the world that China’s rise is peaceful, and that its fundamental interest is to build a “community of common destiny for mankind” in which all countries and peoples can benefit. To do this, Chinese media and exchange initiatives must “break through” the notion, which Xu associates with the West and the proponents of the “China Threat Theory” (中国威胁论), that “countries that strengthen must seek hegemony” (国强必霸).

While the section on the Chinese dream was primarily about a domestically focused aspect of “telling China’s story,” hinting that the rise of the Chinese people is a story that can be shared by all, it is this section that concretely mentions the Belt and Road Initiative, which Xu says, with a tone-deafness that now seems prerequisite in Chinese officialdom, has “received widespread enthusiastic responses from countries along the route.”

China’s tasks here are two-fold: to break through the “anti-Chinese politicians and media in the West,” and to showcase China as a successful model that can be admired, and perhaps emulated, by the world. Xu writes:

Talking about the concept of a community of common destiny for mankind, we can set agendas around the solution for the global governance crisis, clarifying the practical and effective “Chinese solutions” that China today offers for world development, showing the world China’s wisdom as a major power and its [warm] feelings for the world.

Will the “China story” as outlined above actually translate? Keep your eyes on Brussels.

Trumpets and Whispers

Written by David Bandurski on . Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

The top official news story in China today is the national celebration event for the country’s fight against COVID-19, a so-called “commendation ceremony,” or biaoyang dahui (表扬大会), televised live from the Great Hall of the People. The event culminated as Xi Jinping, who delivered a speech about how “China’s power” and “China’s responsibility” were proven by its pandemic response, draped a golden Medal of the Republic, the country’s highest honor, over the neck of respiratory disease expert Zhong Nanshan (钟南山).

Three others, including disease experts Zhang Boli, Zhang Dingyu and Chen Wei, were given People’s Hero medals, all four taking to the stage to a chorus of trumpets. Zhang Boli, president of Tianjin University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, has this year been an outspoken advocate of the use of TCM to fight COVID-19. Zhang Dingyu is the top official at Wuhan’s Jinyintan Hospital (and state media have made much of the fact that he suffers from ALS, a true selfless soldier). Chen Wei is a medical researcher with the People’s Liberation Army who has been involved in vaccine research.

The entire front page of the People’s Daily newspaper is dominated today by the declaration of the Chinese Communist Party’s victory over the disease, and a lead editorial refers to the anti-epidemic effort as a “great spiritual achievement.”

The final, penultimate paragraph of this shelun (社论) provides the clearest picture of what the pomp and circumstance today were really about – namely, the home stretch in the leadership’s marathon re-positioning of the COVID-19 pandemic as a story about the power and position of Xi Jinping and the CCP. The paragraph is jam-packed with political phrases meant to signal loud and clear that Xi Jinping is strong, and that the CCP is back on track when it comes to central agendas for 2020, including the achievement of “a comprehensively well-off society.” 

In quick succession, it gives us a poetic reference to Mao Zedong (乱云飞渡仍从容), a reiteration of Xi Jinping as the CCP’s “core,” and a mention of the so-called “442 formula,” ultimately about pledging allegiance to Xi.

Riotous clouds sweep past, swift and tranquil, and we move forward through the storm unimpeded. Let us unite even more closely around Comrade Xi Jinping as the core of the CCP Central Committee, strengthening the “four consciousnesses”, strengthening the “four self-confidences,” and achieving the “two safeguards,” bearing forward the great spirit of the anti-epidemic fight. [Let us] bravely open our sails and take the lead, turning crisis into opportunity, daring to overcome difficulties, resolutely achieving the great victory of building a comprehensively well-off society, taking advantage of the situation and embarking on a new journey of fully building a socialist modern society, and marching bravely towards the second centenary goal!

The Mao reference here to “riotous clouds” sweeping past should be understood as a reference to storms of criticism from other countries that have buffeted China in recent months – from the United States, Australia, Canada, India, the Czech Republic and other EU member states. The winds may be strong, the reference suggests, but Xi Jinping steadies the Party as helmsman.

Sweeping away international concerns about human rights in China –which were recently raised during Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s recent trip to Europe — Zhong Nanshan said in his address to the commemoration ceremony today (pictured at the top of this article): “What is the greatest human right? We saved so many lives, and this is the greatest expression of our human rights.”

But beyond the official propaganda today there were eyerolls of irritation, sighs of resignation, and sometimes lightning flashes of oblique disobedience.

Even as the live “commendation ceremony” commemorated the heroic eight-month “struggle,” emphasizing Party and country, users on social media fought to raise the voices of those who were conspicuously absent. Many of the comments were tributes to Li Wenliang (李文亮),  the Wuhan doctor who was interrogated and harshly reprimanded by police in December 2019 for sharing information about on WeChat about suspicious cases of pneumonia.

State media made no mention whatsoever of Li Wenliang today, but users flocked to the Li’s account on the Sina Weibo platform, which remains available, and posted comments, many addressing him directly.

“They have begun the praises, but we have not forgotten you,” said one user as the ceremony was underway. Wrote another: “It doesn’t matter who they praise, or whether or not they mention you. We remember.”

Referring to the live ceremony, one user wrote: “All of these awards go to Li Wenliang, and they are just collecting them on his behalf. It’s so excessive!” Another said, addressing the deceased doctor directly: “It is you who are our hero.”

Still others rejected the notion of heroism, suggesting such honors only spoiled the genuineness of basic acts of professional courage, such as that shown early on by Li Wenliang. “Doctor Li was a good doctor, but don’t render him as a hero.”

Direct criticism of the government could not be readily found among the comments, but one user could barely contain his scorn for the proceedings. He referenced Lu Xun’s 1919 short story “Medicine,” the writer’s indictment of dimwitted superstition and conformity to power, in which poor and illiterate parents attempt to cure their son’s tuberculosis by offering him a steamed bun soaked in the blood of an executed revolutionary. “How do the blood-soaked dumplings taste?” he asked.

Weibo user “Che Su Youth” (尺素芳华) aggregated 8 images of recent comments made to Li Wenliang into a single image with a commemorative sketch of Dr. Li at the center, a post that itself received 217,000 “likes.” Since February 1 this year, more than one million comments have been left on Weibo account of Li Wenliaang, who passed away on February 7 from COVID-19.

A Leftist Magazine Rises Again

Written by David Bandurski on . Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

On August 24, a post on the WeChat public account “Progress Culture Online” (进步文化网) announced the launch this year of a “large-scale thought and humanities magazine” to be called Midstream Collections (中流丛刋). For those whose memory of press events in China goes back two decades, this is interesting news, because the name of this new online publication is a clear reference to Midstream (中流), a leftist magazine launched in 1988 by poet and novelist Wei Wei (魏巍), pictured above.

A novelist and poet from Henan province, Wei Wei joined the revolutionary Eighth Route Army during China’s civil war. He held firmly to his leftist political convictions even after the end of the Cultural Revolution. Midstream, a leading leftist voice in its day, was shut down in 2001 following sharp criticism of Jiang Zemin’s so-called “July 1 speech,” in which the leader urged that private entrepreneurs be allowed to join the Chinese Communist Party.

According to a 2011 report from the official China News Service, Midstream and Pursuit of Truth (真理的追求), both magazines strongly associated with old leftist figures within the CCP (many being veterans of the Yan’an days), had continuously published articles ahead of the CCP’s 80th anniversary in 2001 stressing the Party’s “proletarian character” and strongly opposing membership by capitalists.

Following Jiang’s “July 1” speech, Wei Wei led “a group of CCP members,” including the critic Lin Mohan (林默涵) and journalist and former press official Wu Lengxi (吴冷西), in writing a petition to the senior leadership called “On the Major Political Error of the “July 1 Speech” (“七一讲话”是极其重大的政治错误事件). The petition accused CCP leaders of “surrendering to capitalism” and of carrying out a “theoretical coup d’état” (理论政变), and it directly criticized the “Three Represents,” the banner term meant to encapsulate Jiang Zemin’s legacy.

The petition from Wei Wei was published in Midstream the same month as Jiang’s speech, and the shutdown of both Midstream and Pursuit of Truth followed shortly after. The petition was itself harshly criticized by state media and prominent scholars, including economist Hu Xingdou (胡星斗), who said the petition “irrationally attacked the Party’s general secretary.”

The announcement on “Progress Culture Online” made plain the new publication’s association with Wei Wei’s leftist legacy: “Wei Wei was an outstanding contemporary proletarian writer in our country. He launched the magazine Midstream in the 1980s, and before his death [in 2008] left behind the words, ‘Continue the revolution, and never surrender.’” Noting that this year marks the centennial of Wei Wei’s birth, the announcement added that “to launch this year, and to use the name of a publication launched by Wei Wei, has clear symbolic significance for Midstream Collections in the continuation of the spirit of Wei Wei.”

So far, there is no evidence that the newly launched Midstream Collections has support from influential figures within the CCP, but it has invited speculation on social media that leftist voices are now generally more accepted as China under Xi Jinping has reembraced Marx. The crucial question may be whether the magazine is able to publish openly offline. For now, Midstream Collections is being distributed only online to users who follow the public account of the publication’s editors. But “Progress Culture Online” reports that the print edition of the publication will be released “when conditions are right.” If that does happen, it would mean that a highly visible leftist publication is able to find an official government office to serve as its sponsoring institution, something necessary in China for any publication. And that would also mean official endorsement of the magazine’s content.

Li Keqiang in the Muck

Written by David Bandurski on . Posted in Tracking Control.

Over the past week, as floods continued to devastate communities across southwestern China, the country’s top leaders descended from the capital to tour flood-stricken areas, visits meant to signal their resolve in dealing with the crisis.

Xi Jinping’s destination was Anhui, where he “delivered instructions to guide flood control efforts” and visited local residents, credited by party-state media for his “people first” approach. Meanwhile, Premier Li Keqiang, the head of the government and Xi’s number two on the Politburo Standing Committee (PSC), visited the city of Chongqing, where already this year the Yangtze River has topped its banks five times.

But beyond signalling the resolve of the leadership, these visits offered a glimpse of apparent divisions behind the scenes, and revealed how efforts to elevate Xi Jinping over his peers have led to a politics of the preposterous. The goal of the men driving the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda efforts – right-hand ideas man Wang Huning (王沪宁), propaganda chief Huang Kunming (黄坤明) and China Media Group boss Shen Haixiong (慎海雄) –  may be to show Xi in the best light, and to ensure that he dominates centre stage. But the result of such determined efforts in the digital age can be to focus attention instead on the act of propaganda itself, highlighting its grotesqueness.

The problem begins with Xi Jinping’s bright white shirt and shiny, shiny shoes. Throughout his visit to Anhui, the “core” leader was depicted as immaculate. He gave pep talks to workers and soldiers. He visited museums and businesses. But he never, ever, got his feet or hands dirty. Readers can click here for a Google Image search of his Anhui visit.

An immaculate Xi addresses his immaculate comrades during the trip to Anhui.

And what of Li Keqiang? The iconic image of the premier’s trip to Chongqing (below), which was shared on Friday through the State Council’s own www.gov.cn (中国政府网), shows Li trudging through the muddy waters, engaged in an active discussion with local officials. A man of the muck. A man of the people.

Image of Li Keqiang visiting Chongqing. Shared via www.gov.cn.

In a second image, featured at the top of this article, Li stands in the clay-coloured slurry holding a shovel.

But it is not just the contrast that matters. On both Friday and Saturday, Premier Li was entirely excluded from China’s official nightly newscast, Xinwen Lianbo, save for a passing mention in the lower-third of his planned participation in the third Lancang-Mekong River Cooperation (LMC) leaders’ meeting taking place today. In the People’s Daily too on Saturday, Xi Jinping dominated the headlines, while Li received only a tiny mention on page three – again, of the LMC meeting.

The August 21 broadcast of Xinwen Lianbo should be archived and studied, against the absent news of Li Keqiang’s visit, as an outstanding example of the vagaries of official propaganda that makes its chief priority not any particular policy objective but rather the center-staging of a single leader, elevating his personal image and interests over all else.

The effect, one could argue, is to achieve exactly the opposite. It is to make Xi not a dynamic leader – as Li appears to be in the Chongqing images – but an almost comically static figure, as though he was photoshopped into his own tour.

Individual scenes from the first 25 minutes of the August 21 broadcast of Xinwen Lianbo.

The first 25 minutes of the August 21 broadcast deal entirely with Xi Jinping in Anhui, a tiresome succession of clips, including (lofty, distant) drone footage of the flooded region. The only action that is remotely human and relatable is that of the soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army, who are shown in scenes of mucky action after Xi had blandly directed them.

PLA soldiers work to clear flooded homes in Anhui.

In the digital age, the apparent restraints on the use of footage of Li Keqiang’s Chongqing tour present a real problem, but one of which the CCP’s top propaganda masters, including Wang Huning, seem unaware.

Here, for example, is a screen capture of the release on Xi Jinping’s trip to Anhui (left) as it appeared on the official WeChat account of www.gov.cn on Friday. Next to it (at right) is the release about Li Keqiang’s trip to Chongqing. Notice that while the Xi Jinping news has just 2,240 “likes,” the Li Keqiang story already has more than 11,000.

The contrasts were certainly noted by Chinese readers, whose chatter was picked up also by Chinese-language media internationally, including Deutsche Welle and RFA. The ultimate effect is arguably something for which the Chinese Communist Party has lately shown great sensitivity, the phenomenon of “high-level black,” or gaojihei (高级黑), in which CCP ideals, principles, policies and discourse are interpreted in such a way as to achieve a critical or embarrassing result.

Whatever tensions might lie behind the headlines are a matter of speculation. But this story of contrasts, the tale of two official visits and how they were portrayed and then amplified, can reveal the pitfalls of propaganda – in all eras, but certainly in the digital age.

Reading Between the Crowds

Written by David Bandurski on . Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

Earlier this week, I looked at how party-state media in China have been flagrantly one-sided in their reporting of the ongoing protests in Belarus, clearly standing with embattled President Alexander Lukashenko. Though a small-scale rally in support of the Belarusian leader over the weekend was dwarfed by large-scale demonstrations calling for his ouster, a headline in the official Xinhua News Agency on Monday read: “Large-scale rallies held in Belarusian capital to support the government.”

Given the widespread propagation of this cynically twisted version of events, combined with determined censorship of international coverage, one might suppose Chinese readers have little choice but to swallow the official spin. Outside perhaps a handful of stories from the likes of Caixin Media, which reported (behind its paywall) on Monday that opposition demonstrations “surpassed 100,000,” the pro-Lukashenko narrative has seemed to dominate.

But we cannot forget that despite layer upon layer of control, China’s information landscape remains complex, and acts of dissonance and creative resistance — from the oblique to the audacious — can be found for those who care to look. Today we have a delightful example in an article posted by the WeChat public account “Lao Yu Chui Niupi” (老鱼吹牛皮) that looks more critically at official news coverage of the demonstrations in Belarus.

The article does not directly criticize China Central Television for its clearly misleading suggestion this week that “huge street demonstrations are held in Minsk in support of the government.” It does, however, offer a knowing wink to the reader as it shows rather convincingly on the basis of photographic evidence that the pro-Lukashenko rally over the weekend was dwarfed by opposition demonstrations.

Turning to Shanghai’s Dragon Television, operated by the state-owned Shanghai Media Group, the post is more direct, noting that the network even mis-identified footage of opposition demonstrations in Minsk as showing pro-government demonstrators.

The “Lao Yu Chui Niupi” story remains on WeChat, but can also be found archived over at China Digital Times (just in case it disappears)

I include a translation of the article below.

_____________________

Is Dragon TV Trying to Fool Me About the Belarusian Language?

In recent days, Belarusian citizens have taken to the streets in protest because they are dissatisfied with the results of the recent election and suspect that Lukashenko falsified [the ballots]. Meanwhile, Lukashenko has been very busy these days, asking his old pal Putin for assistance, and then calling his own supporters out onto the streets.

In order to better understand the background, you can read my previous article, “Is Putin’s Close Buddy Finished?”

But an awkward picture has emerged as massive crowds have taken to the main square in Minsk, the capital of Belarus, to oppose Lukashenko, contrasting with sparse groups in support of the leader. The awkward picture looks essentially like this:

An image of a pro-Lukashenko rally, marked with arrows by the Chinese author, being dwarfed by opposition demonstrators who vastly outnumber them.

Some might wish to ask how I can tell from the image which are crowds opposing Lukashenko, and which are supporting him? Never fear, we will come back to this in time.

Even though the nation of Belarus is quite far from us [in China], our country’s media must of course report on such a major story when it unfolds. And so yesterday we had this news from a number of television stations.

First, from China Central Television:

A broadcast on CCTV 13 reports that “huge street demonstrations are held in Minsk in support of the government.”

Hmm. Many people no doubt saw this. In fact, there is some truth to what CCTV says here. In fact there were street demonstrations in support of Lukashenko, though the idea of using “street demonstrations” to voice support for leaders is a somewhat strange concept. [CMP NOTE: What the author neglects to note, likely as a means of not obviously crossing the line with content monitors, is that CCTV is in fact misleading viewers by mentioning only demonstrations in support of the government. It is not technically untrue that there were such demonstrations, but anti-government rallies and their overwhelming size are a more sensitive matter in China.]

Next we have this image from [Shanghai’s] Dragon Television (东方卫视):

A report by Shanghai’s Dragon TV reads: “Belarus: Around 70,000 people gather in the capital to support the government and preserve peace and stability.”

Now this is interesting. The scenes following on the channel include a few close-up shots of groups of demonstrators, but anyone who understands a bit of Belarusian could easily detect the problem.

Footage of demonstrations shown on Shanghai’s Dragon TV as pro-Lukashenko include a sign that reads: “A murderer cannot be president.” In the back, labelled by the author, is another sign that reads: “Step down!”

Are these [placards] not criticisms of Emperor Lukashenko? They refer to him as a “murderer.” And they call on him to step down. Mao Zedong once said that in this world, conscientiousness is to be feared. I have a good friend who went and checked [on these slogans] through translation software.

We can give thanks to the power of the internet:

Clearly then, this is a harsh criticism of him [Lukashenko].

SO, Dragon Television has taken footage of the opposition and made it out to be that of the crowd supporting Lukashenko. I would imagine that the editor here, an expert on international news, isn’t without knowledge of  foreign languages – so he is certainly pulling the wool over the eyes of those of us who don’t understand Belarusian.

In fact, there is an even easier way to make out which are the Belarusian demonstrators opposing Lukashenko, and which are the ones supporting Lukashenko. And that is to look at the flags they are waving.

For example, those supporting Lukashenko wave this sort of flag:

This is the national flag of Belarus, with its classic pattern and bands of red and green. The flag was originally designed in this way to show that the Belarusians are descendants of nomadic Scythians, who later migrated to the Eastern European plains. [NOTE: Readers can find out more about Belarusian flags here].

And so the footage shown on CCTV was also correct:

Screenshot shared by the author of coverage of Belarus on CCTV 13. The text in the crawler reads: “Large-scale demonstrations in support of the government held in Belarusian capital.”

The people in this image [from CCTV] are all hoisting the red-and-green flag, which is the current national flag of Belarus.

The opposition, however, are flying a flag with two white bands and one red, like this:

This is the flag of the short-lived Belarusian Democratic Republic of 1918 and the First World War. These colors derive from the historical Grand Duchy of Lithuania, mirroring the current national flag of Lithuania, which is also white and red – because Belarus was once part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

After the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, this flag was used for a short time by Belarus. The current national flag dates back to 1995, used only after Lukashenko became president. The opposition side uses this [white-red-white] flag to express its rejection of today’s leaders.

Therefore, from the images above, we can see that Dragon TV has things entirely turned around in its explanation of its footage. It just doesn’t match up [with the facts].

Oh, Dragon TV, you can support Lukashenko if you wish. But as a television station, when you make programs can you not at least show a bit of honesty? Don’t cheat those of us who can’t understand foreign languages. If you continue this way, people might mistakenly think that you are trying for underhanded criticism (高级黑).  

Facing the current situation,  Lukashenko has remained firm. He has said that the election is already a done deal, and [the opposition] cannot just refuse to accept it. There won’t be new elections “until you kill me,” he said.

The people of Belarus, it seems, are not to be cowed.

As the situation develops, he is now saying he would be prepared to entertain new elections and hand over power if there was a constitutional referendum.

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