As China’s leaders go into repair mode following the recent spate of international news about Chinese product quality and food safety problems, domestic media must report on the issue only with extreme caution. With few exceptions, the story is about a foreign assault on the “Made in China” trademark and effective official measures to deal with concerns. [Homepage Photo: Chinese scholar Chen Jitong, who wrote in the late nineteenth century of the great reputation Chinese had among foreign traders, see article below.]
The official line was made clear again today in a report in the official People’s Daily praising China’s handling in recent weeks of a series of breaking news events and saying actions in response had shown “transparency, efficiency and cooperation.” The article said governments at various bureaucratic levels were “moving toward maturity” in their handling of such emergencies. Most of the examples in the People’s Daily article dealt with handling of the “spreading of rumors” and “falsehoods.” Labeling foreign news reports on Chinese product safety issues “false,” the article showered praise on party leaders for their “strong counterattack”:

On August 17, the Information Office of the State Council released a 16,000-word white paper called “The State of Chinese Food Product Safety and Quality”. The paper comprehensively introduced a general survey of food product manufacture and safety, the system and execution of food safety inspection, inspection of food imports and exports, laws and regulations on food safety … and the state of international cooperation and dialogue on food safety.
Experts have said that this is a successful case study in “crisis management” (危机公关). A number of foreign media have lately come out with false reports on China’s product quality and food safety problems, casting a shadow over the “Made in China” label. The release of the white paper was a strong counterattack.

Coverage in the overseas edition of People’s Daily similarly praised actions by China’s leadership and criticized “exaggeration” of product quality and food safety problems in the foreign press:

“I believe we can say three things. The first is that Chinese product quality has seen major progress in the last few years – this is the key point to the issue. Secondly, China’s government and Chinese enterprises have attached great importance to recent product safety problems, and they have at the same time made earnest corrections. The third thing is that we oppose the exaggeration and playing up of problem products. We oppose the untrue and exaggerated propaganda and reports undertaken by a few trade protectionists behind the scene who seek to fan up sentiments [against China].”
As head of the agency charged with management of imports and exports, Commercial Bureau Chief Bo Xilai (薄熙来) gave an exclusive interview with China Central Television’s economic channel. Bo Xilai answered head on questions about ‘Made in China’ and Chinese product quality. He affirmed that the reputation of Chinese products on the world market would only grow better and better.

An editorial in yesterday’s China Business Times similarly characterized China’s product safety crisis in warlike terms, as a “siege” on “Made in China”:

There has lately been a spate of incidents in which the West “lays siege” to products made in China. In one case after another “Made in China” products have been exposed as having quality and safety problems, from toothpaste to marine products to food products and toys and cars and tires. Some have said this is the result of many years of rapid export growth emphasizing low prices over quality. But clearly … some Western media have made a conscious effort to blow up the situation, and this is basically a smear on the “Made in China” label.

But the editorial does manage, just barely, to turn from nationalist blameshifting and find a less shallow lesson:

For private enterprises in China, this should be seen as an important opportunity to raise production quality and make an all-round entry into the international market … raising the technological content and innovativeness of products, raising the degree of proprietary products. Taking a longer view of our interests, the more we can raise the added value of “Made in China” products, the more competitive “Made in China” [products] will be on the international market.

For variety of coverage – and there isn’t a great deal – one has to turn, as usual, to the better commercial newspapers. The examples yesterday came again from Southern Metropolis Daily.
One reader’s letter, appearing with other editorials on Page Two, chastised the West over the recent product safety row. But the tone was a personal one, the voice of a single Chinese citizen, stripped of the boilerplate partisan outrage:

My hometown makes a certain kind of dried fruit, well known throughout the world. But or a long time it has only been supplied for export, so that ordinary Chinese have no way of enjoying it. Even if they want to buy it they can’t.
In order to earn foreign exchange, everything good has been given to foreigners. . . . As for the quality of those toys exported to America. Whether or not these toys actually have quality issues, Chinese children by and large have no hope of playing with them.

A separate editorial in SMD takes a more scholarly approach to the issue of Chinese product quality. It asks not just how the present “Made in China” crisis arose, but draws out the deeper question of how China came in today’s world to be synonymous with fakery.
In China, the inland province of Henan is the constant butt of domestic humor. The first paragraph of the editorial ends with the wonderful line: “The people of Henan are the Chinese in miniature. We are all Henanese”:

In China, people from Henan Province have become symbols of all things fake. And now, in the Western world, China has come to symbolize fake products, to the extent that one European has even registered a “not made in China” trademark. China’s image internationally is not unlike the image we have domestically of Henanese. Just as we joke about the Henanese, foreigners now discriminate against us.

The author turns to the writings of late Qing Dynasty author Chen Jitong (陈季同), who wrote in the late nineteenth century that Chinese were known for their honesty and integrity in trade, that even Westerners talked of the “total honesty with which commercial transactions were carried out” by Chinese. “We can’t suppress a feeling of disbelief,” the editorial writer continues. “How is it that in 100 years the Chinese, so resolute in their honesty, have become the very image of fakery in the eyes of Westerners?”
The blame is not shifted to the West, however. After a brief social and cultural review of China, the author sums up by suggesting institutions ultimately have a more decisive impact on behavior [honest or dishonest] than such factors as “national character”:

All of this shows that circumstances are stronger than people. Present environmental factors are more important than long-standing traditional influences. And hard institutional factors are more critical than cultural factors … So-called national character, or social ethos, these are not preserved unchanged, but sometimes change fickly to suit opportunity.

The point is subtle, but clear enough – more effective institutions are the key to ensuring better product quality and safety.
The editorial concludes with a reference to late nineteenth century Germany, whose manufacturing sector, the author says, faced its own crisis of reputation and eventually launched a successful campaign to build “Made in Germany” into a respected trademark:

Will there be a day when “Made in China” rises like a phoenix from the ashes just as “Made in Germany” did?

[Posted by David Bandurski, August 31, 2007]

China generally avoids making a public display of its media control ideology and tactics, which have scant popular support. As the 17th National Congress nears, however, party leaders are cranking up the volume and urging media not to forget their duty to public opinion guidance (舆论导向). [Below: Screenshot of leftist media educator and former propaganda official Yuan Zhifa at people.com.cn].

One of the most notable examples to appear in recent weeks was a speech, disseminated on August 22 through the Central Propaganda Department’s Guangming Daily and a number of major Websites, by Yuan Zhifa (袁志发), a former Guangming Daily editor with a long resume of propaganda postings.
Yuan, who is now – for lack of a better phrase – a journalism educator, talks about how journalists in China can gain a better grasp of “cadence” (韵律). This is essentially the “art” of knowing what can be reported (from the party’s standpoint, naturally) and how.
“The things of the world must have cadence,” Yuan begins philosophically:

As a form of ideology, news must have its own cadence. Cadence is an expression of the basic attributes of things. I’ve learned that only by grasping the cadence of news can we effectively unite the value orientations of news with its inherent rules and in this way step into the harmonious realm of news propaganda. So I’d like to talk a bit about my knowledge and understanding of ‘news cadence’ (新闻韵律).

The heart of “cadence,” as Yuan goes on to explain, is “correct guidance of public opinion” (正确舆论导向), which this self-proclaimed “old soldier” of propaganda seems to hold as an article of faith.

When people ask me what is the most profound thing I’ve taken away from my decades of work in news, I answer swiftly and with conviction: ‘The most critical thing, where news is concerned, is to uphold correct guidance of public opinion.’

What follows could be called the creation myth of contemporary Chinese media control — the chaos of the late 1980s and its lessons for China:

In this respect, there are two events I will never forget, and which are most stirring. The first is the political storm that swept our country in 1989. The second is disintegration of the Soviet Union and dramatic change in Eastern Europe … It was in just such a climate that some people in the press neglected the instructions of the party, doing whatever they pleased and leading to the perpetration of errors of guidance by some media.
There are many reasons and circumstances behind the disintegration of the Soviet Union, but it must be said that incorrect guidance of opinion is one important reason. After Gorbachev came to power, one rather salient point emphasized in opinion propaganda (舆论宣传) was “openness” (公开性). Anything could be made public, and anything could be said in the media. Stalin was soon gainsaid, and eventually so too was Lenin. Before long, the history of the Soviet Union’s Communist Party was gainsaid. The result was that communist party leaders across the Soviet Union were discredited. As the party was denied, the people lost their backbone, ideological chaos ensued, the hearts of people were scattered, the country disintegrated, everything ended.

The essential point Yuan hopes we take away from this brief historical analysis is tiresomely familiar to journalists across China:

Guidance of public opinion is the lifeblood of news propaganda. Correct guidance of public opinion means the prosperity of the party and the people, while incorrect guidance spells disaster for both. The question of correct and incorrect guidance concerns the fate of the party and the country.

And the “news workers” said: “Amen!”
Further testifying to the surge in use of the term “guidance of public opinion” as the congress approaches, the following graph plots “guidance” over the last eight months in more than 300 newspapers (via the WiseNews database):

[Posted by David Bandurski, August 30, 2007, 11:25am]

August 24 — In a rare show of tolerance in Internet policy, top party and government leaders in the prefecture-level city of Luoyang released a notice (通知) recently prohibiting subordinate offices from employing technical means to dig up information on individual Internet users with an eye for retaliation, Henan’s Dahe Daily News reported. The policy comes as ordinary Internet users are increasingly being targeted by local authorities in China for posting content regarded as damaging to local government reputations [See CMP on use of new public security law]. [See ESWN on Pengshui SMS case].

The Luoyang notice said, according to Dahe Daily News, that “in order to safeguard citizen’s freedom of expression” (公民言论自由), there will be a “strict prohibition” on the use of information technology tools to obtain actual data on Web users in “so-called ‘investigations'” aimed at making vindictive attacks (打击报复). The notice said telecoms operators and various online forums and government offices under Luoyang jurisdiction would have to “strictly” carry out various policies, laws and regulations concerning protection of the privacy of Web users. Violations would be reported immediately to law enforcement, the notice said.
Many Internet users responding to the news on major Chinese web portal Sina.com Friday expressed their support for the Luoyang policy.
“Freedom of expression! Luoyang’s actions aren’t bad!” wrote one Web user.
“I’m really in support,” read the next comment down the roster. “This thing is really good. The impact on democracy and Chinese society is no less than that of the [Beijing 2008] Olympics.”
“Revenge, that’s exactly the reason they go after [personal information],” vented a third user.
IP:222.70.87.*, writing from Shanghai’s Pudong New Area, said: “That’s the way to face the facts straight on and fix the problem!”
[Posted by David Bandurski, August 24, 2007, 12:53pm]

As October’s 17th National Congress draws closer, the word “democracy” (and its numerous permutations) is being tossed around like a hot potato in China’s media, from official party journals to more liberal commercial papers. Not long ago, an article from Asia Times suggested the late-breaking debate in China over political reform was flash-in-the-pan, “unlikely to last much longer.” But how much of the “democracy” talk inside China is really substantive, and how much can be dismissed as posturing, pandering and doublespeak? [IMAGE: News coverage of “inner-party democracy” begins in November 2006/frontpage of Jinghua Times announcing increase in “differential rate” (see below)].

An article by Liu Junning (刘军宁), a Chinese reform scholar who has often fallen afoul of propaganda authorities, argued earlier this summer that the “fact that ‘political institution reform’ [政治体制改革] has become a widely-accepted term reflects that the ruling party and the public have reached a consensus, the only consensus ever, that political reform is highly necessary.”
One can of course wonder about how deep that consensus runs, but Liu’s general point, that the notion of “political institution reform” — alternatively translated “political reform” — has gained some traction in recent years, is spot on. As Liu points out, however, the term that really seems to be gaining momentum is “inner-party democracy” (党内民主), and in China the devil is in the details of terminology.
The general upward trend of “inner-party democracy” is moderate but sure when we plot the term’s use in China’s media generally. The trend is much more prominent when we isolate official party publications. Study Times, for example, is a journal published by the Central Party School, where much of the party’s thinking and strategizing about political reform happens. The following graph plots articles in the journal that make primary use of particular political reform terms (measured by appearance of these terms in headlines):

It is important to recognize that there are many words to describe the process of political reform in China, some solidly “party”, others neutral, still others redolent of Western-style constitutional democracy (and therefore regarded with caution by party leaders). The term “political institution reforms”, or zhengzhi tizhi gaige (政治体制改革), is a more neutral term, the preference for which, according to CMP analysis, has marginally declined over the last few years.
Another term in the graph above is “political civilization” (政治文明), a creation of former President Jiang Zemin, and essentially “political reform” shrouded in a noncommital fog. The term has, not so surprisingly, plummeted during the Hu Jintao era.
The term “inner-party democracy”, an old term that has blown hot and cold in the past, is quite clearly on the rise under Hu. And much of the buzz about “political reform” in China’s media lately has been about “inner-party democracy.”
A Chinese government white paper on “democratic rule” by Chinese Communist Party (CPC) following the Fourth Plenum of the 16th CPC Central Committee in September 2004 said that “promoting people’s democracy by improving inner-Party democracy” was “an important component of the CPC’s democratic rule.” The basic idea of “inner-party democracy,” as reflected in this paper and other official documents, is about “making efforts to establish and improve a mechanism to guarantee the democratic rights of Party members.” That is, allowing party members a more equal say in decision making on policy, appointments, etcetera.
The term sounds unavoidably slippery to anyone who hopes and supposes China can achieve multi-party democracy without passing GO. But there are interesting — if not quite earth-shattering — things happening under the aegis of “inner-party democracy.”
When a list of all 2,217 delegates to the 17th National Congress was made public through newspapers across the country on August 2 [See image below], this received little or no attention outside China. And yet, nodding to the usual need for caveats and potent scepticism, this clearly was a historic first for China.

The list, which appeared in full on page two of People’s Daily, was announced with a headline at the top of the official paper’s front page.
Quoted at Southern Weekend, in one of few domestic news reports to tease out the importance of the candidate list, the director of the History Division of the Central Party School, professor Wang Guixiu (王贵秀), noted this was the first time a list of delegates to the National Congress had been published prior to a session.
Analysts said the move demonstrated the party’s increased attention to public opinion and public feeling. “Before, candidacy was limited to those within the party [SEE People’s Daily coverage] and announced [only] within limited circles,” said one veteran expert on party building at the Central Party School, quoted by Southern Weekend.
Another scholar, Xie Chuntao (谢春涛), said publication of the list meant drawing in the participation of the people in order to better monitor delegates.
But wait a minute. If the public were never involved in nominating or electing these delegates in the first place, what does this sort of “inner-party democracy” have to do with public opinion and feeling?
In the glass-half-full reading of the People’s Daily list (to which CMP does not necessarily subscribe) , this is important because democracy (insofar as it is a process) doesn’t necessarily mean a summary mandate for direct public election of delegates. The publishing of this list injects a tiny but, some would say, unprecedented degree of transparency into the process of the National Congress by allowing a window of opportunity for “participation” through China’s very imperfect court of public opinion.
Yes, the media are controlled by authorities wielding the mandate of “correct guidance of public opinion”. Yes, the people have limited channels to express their views. The idea, nevertheless, is that party officials might begin to hear, between now and the National Congress, the whisperings of unfavorable opinion about delegates now so publicly on the list.
This step toward more transparency and participation within the party structure, and more feedback from society at large, may seem like a silly half-measure from the outside. But it’s more than probable, given the prevalence of corruption in the party’s ranks, that some National Congress delegates are jittery about the People’s Daily list and take it very seriously. One thing to watch between now and October is whether any particular delegate on that list becomes the target of scrutiny from discipline inspection officials.
Other milestones of “inner-party democracy” that have drawn attention from domestic Chinese media this year are the “election” of delegates from a broader segment of Chinese society [See People’s Daily coverage], and the selection of delegates from a larger pool of “candidates” than was the case for the 16th National Congress.
The latter rather esoteric measure refers to the “differential rate” (差额), or cha’e, the ratio between delegates nominated by party standing committees at various levels to the total number of National Congress seats available.
For appointment of delegates to the upcoming 17th National Congress, there was reportedly a five percentage point rise in the differential rate, 15 percent as opposed to 10 percent, from the 16th National Congress back in 2002. That means, basically, that for every 100 seats available for this year’s congress, an additional 15 nominees were chosen (by party committees at various levels) and eventually pared down by party members (any who chose to vote) at those levels.
The list of 2,217 delegates published in People’s Daily represents the results after 15 percent of nominees were removed in the differential rate process (被”差”掉), which means they were pared down from an initial pool of around 2,550 nominees. (Domestic coverage of the increase in the differential rate for the 17th National Congress, courtesy of Xinhua News Service, appeared back on November 13, 2006, suggesting selection of the final list of delegates occurred sometime shortly after that date.)
How significant are those numbers? At this point, they are more symbolic than anything else. Consider that with 30 provinces and autonomous regions in China, there are just over 300 differential candidates, or an average of around 11 per province. That means that in the vast majority of voting districts (county or city, etc.) there are no additional candidates. While party members are theoretically tasked with “electing” their delegates, there are in most cases no decisions to be made.
That doesn’t mean the differential rate is worthless as a measure of political liberalization in China. As Southern Weekend noted indirectly in its recent analysis of the delegate selection process, the rate was higher than at present, over 20 percent, during the relatively liberal Zhao Ziyang era leading up to democracy protests in Beijing in 1989.
Conclusions? We’ll just have to wait and see what changes, however incremental, the upcoming CPC congress brings. But as unappetizing as the concept of “inner-party democracy” may seem, this is a process anyone interested in political reform in China will need to watch closely and seriously.
MORE SOURCES:
“China’s quest for political reform: intra-Party democracy or constitutional democracy?“, China Elections and Governance, June 23, 2007
“China’s inner-party democracy: toward a system of ‘one party, two factions’?“, The Jamestown Foundation, December 6, 2006
“Important measures for developing inner Party democracy and safeguarding Party members’ rights“, People’s Daily, October 26, 2004
[Posted by David Bandurski, August 14, 2007, 11:32am]