For China’s increasingly commercialized media, the New Year means freshening things up, changing the mix, dropping the bad ratings apples. While China’s political apparatus continues to apply pressure on media from above, commercial imperatives raise the threshold below. Journalism is squeezed in the middle. [PDF: pdf_beijing-youth-daily-editorial.pdf, January 1, 2007]. [IMAGE: Logo for the now defunct Today’s Topic program at Beijing TV].

On January 1, Beijing Youth Daily rued the passing of one of the latest victims of China’s ratings game, Today’s Topic (今日话题), an investigative news program produced by Beijing TV. Today’s Topic was one of 11 longstanding programs at Beijing TV to get the axe on December 18 last year.
The Beijing Youth Daily editorial argues that while private media in the West are commercially driven, there are mechanisms in place to monitor journalism as a public trust and solicit feedback from viewers through means other than simple audience ratings driven by the needs of advertisers. China, the author suggests, lacks such mechanisms, so that public-interest oriented programming faces inevitable extinction. The editorial follows in full:
“Shedding a Few Tears for Those Vanishing TV Programs”
Ma Shaohua (马少华) [Professor of journalism at Renmin University]
Beijing Youth Daily
January 1, 2007
The end of one year and the beginning of another is the time for news media to make programming adjustments. These are carried out entirely on the basis of audience polls and market research. And while this is a normal principle for the operation, survival and development of media, if it means serious, public-interest programs vanish in the process people will come to understand sooner or later that the loss is ours.
Beijing TV’s Today’s Topic is one such program. If we look at the shared fate of programs of this kind, the cancellation [of Today’s Topic] can be said to have landmark significance.
Since the launch of CCTV’s Focus [investigative news program] in 1993 [http://www.cctv.com/program/jdft/01/], a large number of similar critical television programs have appeared across the country. They investigated social problems, taking on the task of media supervision [Chinese watchdog journalism]. In the last few years before the new century they held a strong position and had broad social influence. Their ratings held steady at the top of the charts. But since the new century the ratings of these programs have suffered, and a number have been cancelled. One issue is that viewers are trending towards entertainment programming, another that the [scope of] topics available for watchdog journalism is narrowing [IE: it’s getting tougher politically for journalists to push harder-hitting topics]. The pattern of [such investigative] programs is monotone, the cost of making them high and the production time drawn out. When competing with the latest generation of live-broadcast commentary, live studio expert interviews and other low-cost, energetic and enjoyable commentary format programs, these [investigative programs] are at a distinct disadvantage. A more direct reason is that they [these investigative programs] are broadcast at peak viewing times that can draw in tens of millions of yuan in advertising revenues, but their low audience ratings are not enticing to advertising agents.
Ratings are one form of evaluative indicator. They employ statistical methods to obtain results from a sample of viewers. Indirectly, they reflect the influence and quality of programming. But the only thing they reflect directly is the collective viewing habits of an audience [IE, quantity over quality, or how invested a viewer is in a program], so they are of most value to advertising agents and have a direct bearing on the station’s advertising revenues. According to a paper by China Central Television’s Guo Yabing (虢亚冰) and Shandong TV’s Gao Limin (高立民) … evaluation systems employing primarily audience ratings are used internationally mostly for commercial TV stations. When Cui Yongyuan (崔永元) said “audience ratings are the source of innumerable evils”, he was employing an extreme expression but speaking to the important influence audience ratings have over the appraisal and survival of programs.
If these serious TV programs disappear due to low ratings, this means first of all that those households whose TV’s have been installed with audience monitoring devices are not watching them. By working their remote controls viewers are expressing their interests. The problem is that while interest is easy to express, true demand is not necessarily so easy to work out. Just as watching a program does not necessarily imply satisfaction with it, a person’s interest [in a program] does not necessarily mean he benefits from it. Speaking from the standpoint of human nature, we are all inclined to entertainment and relaxation, and we avoid those topics that are rather serious and require using greater energy. Viewed from the surface some topics seem relevant to just a small number of people, while entertainment programming can make everyone happy. People pick up their remotes and cast votes for entertainment, failing to realize the dire straits of those comparatively serious programs actually more relevant to their interests [IE, as citizens].
The idea of providing viewers with what they need and not just what they enjoy has already been endorsed by more aware media people in the West as the social responsibility of the media. OK, then what do viewers need? They need to widen their field of vision, gaining a deeper understanding of information and viewpoints that can help them understand their situation and the problems they might face [in the future].
There are also a number of interests that might not be represented in audience ratings indicators. For example, Zhang Haijun (张海军), one of our former master’s students [in Renmin University’s journalism program] and an editor at Today’s Topic, wrote in his thesis that because audience ratings calculations do not cover viewers in rural areas outside [the city], those programs addressing rural issues cannot get ratings support and therefore will necessarily suffer – notwithstanding the very enthusiastic feedback these programs get from rural viewers.
This example shows clearly that topics discussed in the news media are an important public resource and there should if possible be a more open and public process for determining [the kinds of programs available], eliminating the bias that comes with one-side indicators. Similarly, the cancellation of TV programs has long been seen as an internal business and operational question for media.
Perhaps I’m being too much of an idealist in saying this, because these questions [which involve public discussion, etc] are remote from the everyday operations [of media]. But we should also realize that even in the private [non-state] environment of Western media there are such mechanisms as press councils through which society may become involved, and there are public broadcasting systems not influenced by advertising interests. But in our own system for evaluating news media, aside from an audience ratings system under direct pressure from advertising, we still lack a mechanism for the expression of more open and diverse social interests.
Other Links:
“In Defense of Journalism as a Public Trust“, Poynter.org
[Posted by David Bandurski, January 4, 2006, 3:41pm]

December 28 — Chinese journalist and blogger Fu Jianfeng (傅剑锋) posted an insider’s account [translated at ESWN here] of contacts between himself and his “deepthroat”, a whistleblower offering information on a medical fraud case. The posting offers a sketchy but rare view into the workings of watchdog journalism, or “supervision by public opinion”, in China.
December 29 — China’s top broadcast regulator, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), announced it would take action against online TV stations, referring to those sites advertising themselves as “stations” and offering their own content in addition to video-shared content [more from Danwei.org here].
December 30 — Huang Liangtian (黄良天), editor of Popular Masses (百姓), a magazine published by China’s Ministry of Agriculture, was dismissed from his position and moved to a lesser publication. Media observers speculated the move was due to hard-hitting investigative coverage of worker’s rights and illegal land seizures by officials. [More from Reporters Without Borders here].
January 1 — As Peking University held face-to-face admissions interviews, prospective students were reportedly asked a series of tough social questions, including whether they supported a real-name registration system for the Chinese Internet. Other questions included their views on a number of Chinese cities limiting migrant workers, whether scientists should be involved in politics and business, and what their views were on Hunan TV’s immensely popular Super Girls singing contest.

What does a bribery case involving a hospital director in the Chinese city of Changde have to do with Hollywood actress Demi Moore? Absolutely nothing. But a perplexing mixture of pilfered Web photos and sensational law and order content smash the two together on a recent issue of Legal News Compendium (法制文荟), one of many “law and order” tabloids now available at newsstands in China. The tabloids, most of which appear to be fronts for soft pornography, provide an interesting glimpse into the dirty bargain basement of Chinese media commercialization. [BELOW: Legal tabloids sold at a newsstand in Shanghai, See PDF for larger image].

The growing popularity of “law and order” tabloids follows a general trend in Chinese media. “COPS”-style television shows are all the rage on local and national television in China, stealing the ratings thunder from once popular news programs like China Central Television’s “News Probe”. The shows generally receive the support of local police, who see them as a good opportunity to advertise their efforts to combat China’s growing public safety problem. For the first time this year “public security” rose to the top of the list of concerns voiced by officials in a survey conducted by the Central Party School [link to Chinese news here].
The explosion in law and order related programming has already brought tension between the policy goal of educating the general population about the law and the government’s efforts to keep a lid on sensational or indecent content.
In late November national media announced the release by the propaganda department of a “Decision” calling for strengthening of legal education among the general population. Officials said at a forum on law and order programming in late November that to “promote the legal system and realize its use in protecting social harmony [China] must strengthen publicity work and education for the legal system and propagate legal knowledge”.
But China’s top broadcast regulator, the State Administration of Radio Film and Television (SARFT), made it clear on November 20 this year that law and order programs would have to tone down their content. SARFT said it would reign in programs showing violent or explicit content, or that leaked facts about critical cases.
Browsing a newsstand in Shanghai last week, CMP found 10 “law and order” tabloids that seem to be riding the wave of interest in good-guys-bad-guys stories — and giving their circulations an extra boost with salacious content. All of the tabloids sell for just one yuan. All have blue banners and are called “Legal” (法制) something or other: Legal Viewpoint (法制视点), Legal Weekly (法制周刊), Legal Spectacle (法制大观), Legal Life (法制生活). Only three have the required publishing license numbers on display on their front pages, but some have licenses for unrelated publications listed inside. The papers cover a range of legal cases and information apparently from police blotters.
The top story in the Changde (Demi Moore) issue of Legal News Compendium is about the busting up in 2005 of a crime ring selling Chinese women across provinces [Internet photo of Moore used by the paper here]. There are no datelines or bylines for any of the stories, suggesting they might be robbed from other media. However, CMP could not locate coverage of any of the front page stories in Legal News Compendium in a database of Chinese newspapers going back to the late 1990s. Other stories in the issue include:
*A man jailed 10 days for writing a poem on the Great Wall
*A purse snatcher nabbed after hiding out in a public toilet
*A man “tricking” his girlfriend into becoming a prostitute
*A man severely beaten “over a cigarette” . . .
The Legal News Compendium is far and away the tamest of the bunch. Slightly farther along the sleeze scale is Legal Times (法制时报), which sprinkles prurient images of women among its crime reports. The front page story is identical to that of Legal News Compendium, about a crime ring selling women. This time, though, there is an image at center of a young woman lying on a sofa in her nightgown. The source of the photo has been photoshopped away and the words “photo and text not related” added. This newspaper is the only one to bother pointing out the obvious to readers [BELOW: Image of Legal Times].

Flip through the pages of Legal Times and you get the usual crime stories with the occasional leering woman and advertisements for sex hotlines crowding together at the bottom of each page.
At Legal World (法制时报) the marriage of sex and the crime story makes it more boldly to the front page. Photos of women beneath the banner refer readers to unrelated law and order stories on the inside. On the inside pages, once again, sultry personals and ads for sex hotlines. [BELOW: Image of Legal World].

The rest of the tabloid “law and order” newspapers follow the same model of crime content allied with sex. The only other characteristic worthy of note is how these newspapers make use of their publishing licenses.
Returning to the Legal News Compendium, there is no license number listed on the front page. But the title “Northern Family Newspaper” (北方家庭报) appears in small vertical characters beside the larger title. Turn to the center spread and a larger banner for “Northern Family Newspaper” appears, this time with the date (December 10) and the publishing license number (CN15-0051). It’s as though the paper is reversible, so that it can be turned inside out from the center to display its legitimate publisher. Needless to say, the paper is hardly offering family-oriented content.
The same is true of the Legal Spectacle (法制大观), whose center spread has an additional banner for Science and Technology News (科技信息报), apparently the tabloid’s sponsoring institution (主管单位), and the license number (CN15-0047). [BELOW: Image of center of Legal News Compendium with banner at top for “Northern Family Newspaper”]

[Posted by David Bandurski, December 20, 2006, 5:03pm]

There has been a great deal of speculation over the last several days about possible fallout for bolder southern Chinese newspapers following up on the case of Gao Qinrong (高勤荣), the reporter who was released from prison on December 7 after eight years in jail [read about the case at ESWN]. There has been, according to Jonathan Ansfield, news from major Chinese Web portals suggesting at least a limited ban on Gao Qinrong coverage (the purpose of which might be to limit a flood of online opinion), but CMP has so far been unable to confirm the existence of a blanket ban from the Central Propaganda Department. In fact, coverage in southern Chinese media continues, with the Information Times, a commercial spinoff of Guangzhou Daily, today re-running the Southern Metropolis Daily editorial from December 15, and coverage appearing yesterday in Strait News, a commercial newspaper in Fujian province.
The absence of the Gao Qinrong story in Beijing media such as Beijing Youth Daily and The Beijing News suggests local bans might be in force there. It should be remembered that “bans” in China are issued informally, usually via telephone, by a complicated bureaucracy, and are often difficult to pin down.
But setting aside the issue of what ramifications the Gao Qinrong interviews might have for Southern Weekend and/or Southern Metropolis Daily, CMP noted with interest that the entire last issue of Southern Weekend had a bit of the newspaper’s long-lost boldness about it. The piece on Gao Qinrong was not necessarily the boldest of all, in fact.
Throughout the 1990s, Southern Weekend was the primary target of the Central Propaganda Department’s News Commentary Group (阅评组), facing frequent censure and restructuring for pushing the bounds of news coverage. In the years following the ouster of editors Zhang Ping and Qian Gang 2001, many readers and media commentators said Southern Weekend had been effectively tamed by authorities and had lost its spirit of outspokenness.
The recent issue of Southern Weekend arguably recovers some of that old spirit. Starting from the top of Southern Weekend‘s front page on December 14, we have the list of the newspaper’s 12 candidates for “person of the year”, to be featured in the December 28 issue. Roland Soong has translated the list of candidates here, but the placement of former People’s Daily deputy editor-in-chief Zhou Ruijin (周瑞金) in the first spot can be read as a mildly audacious move.

[Front page of December 14 edition of Southern Weekend]
Zhou Ruijin has been as the center of calls this year for greater political reform. In a May essay, “How Should We See The Third Reform Debate?”, Zhou said China’s third round of debates on its reform path had focused since 2004 on internal contradictions in China, issues such as healthcare, education, affordable housing and the widening gap between rich and poor. Zhou wrote: “I believe that a whole range of problems now appearing in China’s economic reforms today are largely because we’ve not had political system reforms and legal reforms going along in step [with economic reforms]. Along with this, it’s not that these problems are the result of economic reforms so much as that economic reforms have been insufficiently deep, comprehensive and integrated”.
Zhou’s words came on the heels of political reforms in Vietnam, whose Communist Party for the first time held multi-candidate elections for its party chief this year. Zhou Ruijin made the controversial suggestion that China should hold multi-candidate elections for the position of General Secretary in 2007 [More analysis from Willy Lam at The Jamestown Foundation]. By all accounts, Zhou Ruijin’s writings this year met strong opposition from top propaganda officials, so a great deal could potentially be read into Southern Weekend’s decision to place the postage stamp-sized photo of the former editor ahead of the others on its list.
Moving down the front page, we have a large grey headline announcing the Gao Qinrong story on the inside: “One reporter’s eight years in jail”. The tagline reads: “What did eight years in prison mean for a former news reporter? Gao Qinrong, who is now already 46 years old, has no way to answer this. He says only that when he walked out of the prison gates he felt the value of freedom, “Getting out of prison is good — I can go to sleep whenever I please”.
The story dominating the front page of Southern Weekend’s December 14 issue is the sort of “defense of rights” (维权) story CMP said recently seems to be on the rise in China. The story is an investigative piece about citizens in Fujian’s Sanming City pushing the issue of child safety at a local park. The story isn’t the boldest in this edition and is unlikely to raise any red flags with censors, but it does recall Southern Weekend’s tradition of investigative reporting.
Below the investigative report is an editorial by Guo Guangdong (郭光东) about the legal controversy surrounding the “Temple Slayer” case. The editorial again raises the question of rights protection and rule of law. It issues a clear challenge to courts in Shaanxi Province to listen to appeals from prominent legal experts and evaluate the psychological fitness of the defendant in the case, Qiu Xinghua, who was sentenced to death in the first instance trial. The issue at hand is not merely this case, the editorial says, but China’s “legal history” at a crossroads. “Are we not hotly debating ‘The Rise of Great Nations‘? Vast territory, a huge population, or even wealth and a strong military are not enough to make us a great nation. Only as rule of law and human rights are upheld through one after another Qiu Xinghua case will our mother country truly be regarded as a great nation and receive the praise of the world”. CMP noted recently the sensitivity of the term “human rights” in China, a term this editorial did not shrink from using, even in reference to China’s domestic situtation. [SCMP on CCTV’s “Rise of Great Nations” series]. [David Bandurski on series at WSJ].
An article on page B11 of the recent Southern Weekend probably surpasses the Gao Qinrong interview in sensitivity. This is a half-page profile of lawyer Zhang Sizhi, who has represented a legendary line-up of defendants including the “Gang of Four“, China’s most famous dissident, Wei Jingsheng, and Shanghai lawyer Zheng Enchong. Most recently, Zhang Sizhi was an outspoken critic of new government rules placing curbs on rights lawyers in China. [“Zhang Sizhi: Notes from the Wei Jingsheng Case”].
The Zhang Sizhi article, centered around his birthday celebration in Beijing on November 26, takes a close look at China’s most outspoken legal figure, who has tried many of China’s most sensitive and high-profile cases, at a time when the topic of freewheeling lawyers is not particularly welcome in China. Does the article mention the case against Wei Jingsheng in 1995? Yes. Does it mention the case against Zheng Enchong? Yes. The article lists many of Zhang Sizhi’s top cases under his photograph.
The article concludes by describing the scene at Zhang Sizhi’s party, in which he sits together with Mao Zedong’s former secretary Li Rui (李锐), leading legal scholar Jiang Ping (江平) SARS hero Jiang Yanyong (蒋彦永) and reformist economist Mao Yushi (茅于轼). All of these figures are regarded as key proponents of reform in China. Li Rui and Zhang Sizhi were in fact two of the 12 reform-minded former leaders and intellectuals who signed an open letter protesting the shutdown in January 2006 of the weekly Freezing Point. Back in 2003 it had been an interview with Li Rui in which he advocated political reforms that had resulted in the shutdown of 21st World Herald [More from CPJ here]. The Southern Weekend profile concludes by writing of the men as they sit together on November 26: “When well-wishers Li Rui, Jiang Ping, Jiang Yanyong, and Mao Yushi sit together with Zhang Sizhi, these five old men who bow only to the truth constitute a classic and abiding image”.
Strangely, though, this sentence is not finished in the print version of Southern Weekend, where it reads: “When well-wishers Li Rui, Jiang Ping, Jiang Yanyong, and Mao Yushi sit together with Zhang Si …” The complete version is available on the Internet, but one can only speculate as to the reasons for this error.
Other Sources:
[“Gao Qinrong Silenced Again“, China Digital Times]
[“Sketch of a media blackout“, Danwei.org]
[Posted by David Bandurski, December 19, 2006, 4:57pm]

In China the problem of “news extortion”, in which reporters (or supposed reporters) arm-twist officials or companies into paying up to keep stories under wraps, has complicated causes. One key problem is the awkward marriage of official control and commercial wantonness in China’s current media climate. While media are still regarded as important tools of the party — which can make journalists formidable (depending on who’s being “investigated”) — they are under ever greater pressure to generate ad revenues. In a country where media are just beginning to learn about meeting the needs of the reader (to the extent that’s possible under state control), the threat of an expose can be a powerful inducement to advertise. [SEE “China’s Yellow Journalism”, Far Eastern Economic Review, June 2006].
Most of the institutional reasons for corruption in journalism get short shrift in China. In rare cases where “news extortion” does come up, the language generally turns to the “responsibility” of the individual “news worker”. Journalists are showered with ideological terminologies, like the Marxist View of Journalism or the Socialist View of Honor and Shame.
Lately, attention seems to be turning to a convenient scapegoat: the “fake reporter”. These are people without the required press credentials (记者证) and working for unauthorized or apocryphal newspapers and magazines.
But a December 12 editorial from China’s official Xinhua News Agency — whose own journalists were found guilty of corruption in late 2003 — seems to suggest, as it reflects on the media climate in China, that a vast area of grey exists between the “real” reporter and the “fake” reporter. In many cases these so-called “fake reporters” might in fact be unofficial hires for “real” media. The implication: this problem calls for institutional reform, not just law enforcement action.
The news peg for the editorial, “Who let fake reporters get this savage?”, is the recent arrest of 44 “fake” reporters in the city of Lvliang (吕梁), in China’s northern Shanxi province, in what national media called a “collective campaign against fakes” lasting over three months.
The Xinhua editorial follows:
“Who let fake reporters get this savage?”
Xinhua News Agency
December 12, 2006
. . . Lvliang’s fake reporters were merciless. These fake reporters would wave the banner of working for the good of the people, conducting watchdog journalism. The would display journalism credentials on their cars and carry counterfeit press badges. They would present fake materials they had gathered [on companies, etc], and would solemnly carry out activities in the name of news organizations . . . or but into village elections, or provoke conflict with village-run mines [NOTE: Chinese mines are notorious for their poor safety record and violation of regulations] . . . or extort money from corporate bosses, or swindle money. They were in the habit of doing all manner of things with the goal of benefitting financially from their illegal activities.
People can’t help but ask: Why are these fake reporters so savage? Who is it that gives them ground to stand on?
The lax management of news bureaus by a number of smaller newspapers and journals is one reason for fake reporters running amok. Some media seek only economic benefit, set up branch organizations in a careless way and are reckless in the hiring of personnel. On top of this oversight measures are nonexistent, so that some reporters act wildly against the law and public opinion. What’s more, some fake reporters use contacts and connections among real reporters at small newspapers or journals, so that it’s difficult for local officials to tell one from the other. Owing to the easiness of the extortion process and the motivation to profit, personnel [at media] without fixed duties follow the example [of fake reporters] . . .
It is also true that the repeated successes of extortion by fake reporters owes to problems endemic to some [media] work units. One deputy county head in Lvliang says: “We can’t bear being baited by these fake reporters, but neither can we bring them in. There’s nothing we can do. They’ve got a hold on us”. The boss of one unregulated mine says that he receives about 20 or so fake reporters each year and pays out roughly 100,000 yuan (US$12,300). Illegal coalmines and law enforcement offices are also frequent targets of fake reporters’ activities. From this one can see that the flies don’t pester the eggs that aren’t cracked. Wherever there are problems that are not dealt with quickly, then naturally weaknesses will emerge [把柄/or evidence reporters can hold over the heads of companies or officials] and end up in the hands of fake reporters. Those units that are blackmailed fear their problems will be revealed and that the fever will spread to the whole body, so that they’ll lose a great deal over a small matter. Often, not ever daring to uncover the fake reporter’s real identity they’ll bankrupt themselves to avoid utter disaster, diffusing the situation. This provides opportunity after opportunity to fake reporters. The severity of the fake reporter problem also reveals loopholes in government management and the problem of corruption.
Journalism is a sacred profession, and its inundation with fake reporters is disastrous, not only disturbing the normal social order but also doing severe harm to public confidence in the news media …
Dealing with the problem of fake reporters is critical, but stopping at [one-off] strikes against them is insufficient . . . Alleviating symptoms does not deal with root causes and cannot guarantee another group of fake reporters won’t crop up again. Only by dealing clearly with the causes, ensuring departments responsible for media (主管单位) take realistic steps to strengthen their management of media branch organizations, that there is a working system in place that removes obstructions to watchdog journalism by real reporters — and at the same time intensifying the anti-corruption campaign — can we make sure fake reporters lose the habitat [in which they now thrive].
[Posted by David Bandurski, December 15, 2006, 1:25pm]

Last July media consumers in China were chilled by news of the brutal murder of 10 people in a Taoist temple in northwest China’s Shaanxi province. In the days that followed, the manhunt centered on Qiu Xinghua [Baidu Image], a 47 year-old Shaanxi resident who eventually confessed. On October 19, in a trial watched closely across China, Shaanxi’s Ankang Intermediate People’s Court sentenced Qiu Xinghua to death.
The case was far from over. Qiu’s defense attorney, Zhang Yong (张桦), filed an appeal in October, and the trial resumed on December 8 in Shaanxi’s Ankang Railway Transport Court. Zhang Yong submitted evidence from Qiu Xinghua’s local village committee testifying that he had a history of mental illness, but the court rejected the lawyer’s motion to submit his defendent for psychological evaluation.
Since December 10 haggling over legal procedure in the Qiu Xinghua case has gone public with a controversial open letter [Chinese here] from five prominent legal scholars, including Peking University’s He Weifang (贺卫方). The letter calls on the appeals court in Shaanxi to conduct a psychological evaluation of Qiu Xinhua based on Article 18 of China’s Criminal Law, which says “a mentally ill person who causes dangerous consequences at a time when he is unable to recognize or unable to control his own conduct is not to bear criminal responsibility after being established through accreditation of legal procedures.”
The drafters of the letter have said their concern lies not so much with the “Temple Killer” case itself as with the question of legal procedure in China.
There have been a number of similar public appeals from academics, journalists and citizens in recent years, often through open letters circulated via the Internet or newspaper editorials. As they spark debate on various social or policy issues (such as the proposed emergency management law this summer), they can be seen as a part of a growing climate of public opinion in China — tolerated to varying degrees for varying issues.
The drafters of the October 10 open letter, which was circulated on the Internet, argued that “the matter has already come to its final juncture”. “The case is already on appeal, and if other actions are not taken, Qiu Xinghua will sentenced to death. By using the form of an open letter we hope to draw the attention of the court and society”, said He Bin, a professor at China University of Politics and Law and another drafter of the open letter.
The letter said that following media coverage of the case “a number of psychological experts believed Qiu Xinghua might have a psychological condition as evidenced from a number of his behaviors …”
In a November 30 article in Southern Weekend psychology expert Liu Xiwei (刘锡伟) raised concerns that Qiu Xinghua might be mentally ill, a defense his lawyer had not explored during the original trial. Some opponents of psychological evaluation in the “Temple Killer” case point to the fact that Qiu Xinghua said during trial that he was not mentally ill. Other experts have countered that such a self determination of mental fitness does not provide legal certainty. As Renmin University of China professor Chen Weidong (陈卫东) put it to Legal Daily: “Someone who is truly ill more often than not believes he has no problem”.
An article in yesterday’s Beijing Morning Post headlined “Open letter from 5 legal scholars invites controversy”, quoted another Renmin University professor, Yang Jianxun (杨建顺), as saying he felt the use of an open letter was inappropriate. “I understand the sense of public welfare among these legal scholars, but I personally think its improper to use the method of an open letter”, said Yang. “Using an open letter is really leveraging public opinion (社会舆论) to put pressure on the court, using the power of the media to influence the judicial process. This is incommensurate with the ‘judicial independence’ we’ve been promoting.” Professor Yang suggested that a more appropriate action would be submitting a letter of legal opinion (法律意见书).
One of the letter’s five assignees, He Bin, countered: “Of course scholars can openly offer their opinions on cases that are currently being tried. Independence of the courts doesn’t mean that the people can’t express their opinions. The most important sense of judicial independence is that society be allowed to monitor [the actions of the courts] (社会监督)”.
In China judicial independence is a chronic issue. Official interference in court decisions is common, proceedings are generally not open to the public, and there are no peer juries for criminal cases [Click here for information on “people’s assessors”].
An editorial in yesterday’s Southern Metropolis Daily supported the drafters of the open letter, saying it was the duty of court prosecutors to admit evidence “impartially”, including evidence seemingly beneficial todefendants in criminal cases.
“According to homegrown, popular notions of justice it is a divine rule that murder should punished with death. However, when we try capital punishment cases, the point is to break away from barbarous retribution and take a more civilized approach (实现文明),” said the newspaper. “The people of our nation, who have set off on the road to rule of law, should be more tolerant and open in attitude toward the judicial appraissals [of evidence] in the Qiu Xinghua case and the calls of these legal experts who are sparing no efforts [to ensure a just outcome].”
An editorial in today’s Legal Daily advocated following the suggestion of the legal scholars and conducting a psychological evaluation of Qiu Xinghua to ensure a fair verdict and said such measures to ensure accuracy and fairness were a “touchstone of the humanity and reason of the law”: “Actually, there is a high probability that Qiu Xinghua will face death. And even if [psychological] evaluation does go ahead, there is no reason to believe that [Qiu] will be spared death for psychological reasons. But if this small evaluation is foregone, there’s not even a one-thousandth of one percent chance [that he will be spared]. This tiny supplementary evaluation process is not just a little decision at a fork in the road, it is quite simply the touchstone of the humanity and reason of the law”.
Other links and sources:
[Angola Press (Dec. 14) “Experts call for psychiatric assessment of temple slayer“]
[People’s Daily (Dec. 8) “Chinese court hears appeal of temple slayer“]
[China Daily (Oct. 20) “Shaanxi Temple Axe Murderer Gets Death”]
[Sina.com ENGLISH (Oct. 14) “Trial of accused temple slayer to be televised“]
[ESWN (Aug. 29) “The Psychological File of a Mass Murderer“]
[China Daily (Aug. 8, 2006) “Police Search Mountains for Temple Murder Suspect“]
[BBC Online (oct. 31) “China tightens death penalty law“]
[Posted by David Bandurski, December 14, 2006, 5:15pm]

China brought its growing online music industry under closer strutiny, announcing new regulations calling for tighter control of original, not-for-profit creative works as well as foreign-produced music distributed within China [Coverage at Sina.com].
The announcement of the regulations said written requests must be submitted to the Ministry of Culture for all “imported” music products to be broadcast on the Internet by “Web-based cultural businesses”. Proof of copyright, copies of relevant online licensing agreements and “other documents”, as well as a copy of the music on disk, would be necessary for the approvals process.

Those “making bold” distribute foreign music in China via the Internet and without prior approval from the Ministry of Culture would be punished, said the announcement. [ABOVE: News of the new online music regulations top the headlines at Sina.com this morning.]
Without offering specifics, the announcement also said Web portals and other companies offering online music would be required to “strengthen examination” of not-for-profit music posted by Web users, citing the need for a more “civilized” online culture.
The regulations also ban foreign investment in Internet entertainment companies.
[“China tightens control on ‘network music‘”, People’s Daily Online]
[Posted by David Bandurski, December 12, 2006, 6:37pm]

Chinese media seldomly use the highly sensitive term “human rights” (人权) to talk about China’s own rights issues, but the use of a stand-in term, weiquan (维权), roughly translated “rights protection”, has risen rapidly in recent years as media have turned to such issues as public health, land rights, the rights of migrant workers, etcetera. The rapid climb in use of the term “rights protection” suggests growing attention within China, particularly among commercial media, to a range of issues like those mentioned above as they pertain to citizens’ rights.
Looking at the term “rights protection” as it appears in three party publications and corresponding commercial publications since 2002, the numbers show not only growing attention to rights issues, but also a growing gap between coverage at party and commercial media. In 2002, use of the term was roughly neck-and-neck, with commercial publications accounting for 45 percent of the total. Commercial publications accounted for close to 60 percent of uses last year, and this year 72 percent. There are also marked differences in use of the term between party and commercial publications, a topic for another time.

[Search for the party publications People’s Daily, Nanfang Daily and Sichuan Daily and their corresponding or other regional commercial publications, Jinghua Times, Southern Metropolis Daily and Huaxi Dushibao.]
One focus of the rights protection issue, particularly visible at commercial publications, is the need for specific legal safeguards for citizens’ rights and the need for the government to take a more service-oriented approach to the public, as opposed to a paternal, authoritarian role.
In the following editorial from the Yangcheng Evening News, a Guangzhou-based commercial newspaper, the writer accuses government officials of neglecting citizens’ rights when considering policy measures, pushing off rights protection with a dismissive, “We will take it into consideration”. The editorial is relevant to a number of policies in the news lately, including China’s proposed real-name Web registration system.
The Yangcheng Evening News editorial follows:
“When things are “taken into consideration” and not guaranteed in law this is a “neglect” of rights”
Yangcheng Evening News
December 9, 2006

Government offices, when faced with public opinion, are particularly fond of saying, “We’ll take it into consideration”. For them to say this is to shove their own obligations onto the people. When [the people’s] responsibilities are clearly documented, but their rights and benefits are stuck at the point of “being considered”, where do we stand?
[China’s] personal income tax declaration system is right around the corner.. Because this system puts the onus largely on the citizens themselves, the government is promoting the system actively to the population. Wang Jiping (王纪平), director of the Beijing Municipal Tax Bureau revealed [recently] that when they assess personal income tax they will take into consideration the taxpayer’s overall family income (12/7/2006 The Beijing News). In the example of a family of four, in which the two elderly parents do not have incomes, the grandson is in college and the father makes just over the assessable minimum of 1,600 yuan, because the family’s overall income is low, the tax bureau will take into consideration not charging tax, making sure the end result is fair.
For tax assessors to assess tax on the basis of overall household income is of course much fairer than the current system . . . By all appearances, the tax authorities wish to show with this [idea of] “[we] will take overall household income into consideration” that the personal income tax assessment process is ethical and legal. The secret script here is: you guys [the citizens] take the lead in filing your taxes and the tax bureau will take into consideration your overall household income. To tell the truth, I object to the government occupying a commanding position and setting its own rules with this “we will take it into consideration”. On what basis is the public to believe that you will “take it into consideration”? Rights and benefits must be made clear in articles of law before anything can be anticipated.
Recently more than a few government departments, when faced with public opinion, have grown fond of saying “we’ll take it into consideration”. Take the real-name Web registration system for example. Faced with concerns that the public registering their real names might constitute a violation of their privacy, the relevant offices responded [that they] “would take protection of privacy into consideration when implementing [the system]”. To offer another example, as many areas installed close-circuit surveillance in public places [in recent years] no prior measures were taken to protect personal privacy. The answer from relevant government offices was again, “we’ll take it into consideration”. In levying fuel surcharges, the Civil Aviation Administration said it would take into consideration the public’s ability to support them. When water prices in Beijing were to go up, it was said that the needs of the poor would be taken into consideration. During breeze sessions for various price increases the Development Reform Commission also said that next year price increases for various energy products would not come all at once, that price adjustment proposals would take into consideration the ability of the people to support them.
The popularity of “we will take it into consideration” among government offices underscores the weak standing of public rights. All of these things the government says it will “take into consideration” are rights the public should by law enjoy — like privacy under a real-name registration system, like privacy under camera surveillance, or the right to survival under increases in public commodity prices, etcetera. When things are to be “taken into consideration” by government authorities, this signals that rights lack specific institutional and legal protection, that officials are free to handle things as they please, and [we are simply to] trust that good and just officials will “take the rights of the public into consideration”. But how exactly will those officials with a hold on power take things into consideration? Fuel prices have gone up repeatedly, water prices are going up everywhere, and news of rising energy prices is everywhere too – have these officials really taken into consideration the public’s ability to support these? We can’t depend on officials to take things into consideration. Rights and fairness must be realized through means visible to us all, particularly the law.
When many government offices say to the people, “We will take it into consideration”, this is shrugging off their duty. For them to say, for example, that they “will take into consideration the total household income of the taxpayer”, this means the onus is entirely on the public in declaring their personal tax; when they say they will “take personal privacy into consideration”, this means the onus is on the public to be monitored by cameras. [But when] the responsibilities [of the citiznes] are written out clearly, and it is left to officials to “take into consideration” our rights, this is unfair. Actually, rights and obligations should both be written equally onto paper. We can’t set rights aside in the unreliable realm of that which is to be “taken into consideration”. In creating real-name Web registration or public camera surveillance regulations, it should be laid out clear in the regulations themselves how exactly the public’s right to privacy is to be protected. Only when privacy is protected does real-name registration constitute a just obligation. When personal income tax is assessed and the total household income of the taxpayer is taken into consideration, rights should be balanced by a system and should not be up to the consideration of government offices and those carrying out the process. It should be the same way with price increases for various public commodities, and the public should stand up and appeal directly for their rights when faced with price increases. They should not wait idly for others to “take things into consideration”.
[Posted by David Bandurski, December 12, 2006, 1:17pm]

AFP reported today that China has close to 20 million bloggers. Right now, most are anonymous, their real identities protected, and many argue that in China, where speech freedoms are not protected despite a constitutional guarantee of “freedom of expression” (言论自由), this is a basic condition of vitality on the Chinese Internet. A real-name Web registration system reportedly being ironed out at the Internet Society of China in the name of social “responsibility” could change all that.
Yesterday, CMP translated an article from China Youth Daily arguing against China’s proposed real-name Web registration system on the grounds of the practical challenges it posed to protection of personal information as well as infringement of freedom of expression. The day after the China Youth Daily editorial, an argument from the opposite side appeared in the Liberation Daily. Written by Yin Xiaohu (殷啸虎), director of the Center for Politics and Law Research at East China University of Politics and Law, it largely parrots the “responsibility” argument of the pro-registration camp, drumming home the point that the right to freedom of expression is by its very nature conditional.
Like much of the language arguing in favor of a real-name registration system for the Internet, the Liberation Daily editorial sticks principally to theoretical issues and avoids discussion of practical problems, such as who ensures the personal information of Web users is not pilfered under a system of forced registration, and how. De-contextualizing comments on freedom of expression from Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. and F.A. Hayek, it attempts to build a theoretical argument for limiting free expression on the Web in China. Once this argument is made, it is more or less taken for granted that the real-name Web registration system is the best tool for the job.
The purported quote from Holmes is used to make the point that even in America the right to expression is not absolute. The quote in Chinese, which CMP has not translated (nor found an appropriate English original) is as follows:
“就像其他权利一样，关于言论出版自由的权利是有限制的，就是说，它的自由行使意味着一个有组织的社会的存在，一种公共秩序的存在，没有这种秩序，自由就会被滥用，或者丧失殆尽.”
It should be remembered that it was Holmes who created the libertarian test for free speech, saying it should be curtailed only in cases where there was a “clear and present danger” to society: “The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent.” (Schenck v. United States).
We have also from Holmes: “Only the emergency that makes it immediately dangerous to leave the correction of evil counsels to time warrants making any exception to the sweeping command, ‘Congress shall make no law … abridging the freedom of speech.'” (Abrams et al. v United States).
The Liberation Daily editorial follows:
“Does the ‘real-name Web registration system’ contravene the principle of free expression?”
Liberation Daily
December 4, 2006
Yin Xiaohu (殷啸虎), Director of the Center for Politics and Law Research at East China University of Politics and Law
Question from Crystalsmile, a Web user on Dongfang Online: “From online forums requiring real-name registration to Web bars requiring real-name registration to go online, to more recent news that a real-name registration system will be implemented for ‘blogs’ as well, China’s Internet seems to be facing ever greater pressure from real-name registration. The goal of the ‘real-name registration system’ is to supervise and urge self regulation of speech by Web users. But ordinary Web users like us are still a bit worried about whether the so-called ‘real-name registration system’ is necessary and whether it violates the principle of freedom of expression (言论自由)?”
. . . To answer this question we must first be clear about what freedom of expression means. It essentially includes three important factors: first of all, that citizens have the right to use language and other relevant means [of expression] to express their ideas and views; [secondly,] that citizens are free to remain silent in public or specially designated places (特定场合), that is the freedom “not to speak”; [lastly,] that citizens have the duty and the ability to take responsibility for their own language.
In the past when we’ve talked about freedom of expression, we’ve largely laid emphasis on the rights of citizens and overlooked the responsibilities of the citizen in this regard. Actually, freedom doesn’t just mean that a person has choices and bears principle responsibility for these choices, but also means that they must bear responsibility for [the consequences of] the choices they make. The famous social theorist [Friedrick A.] Hayek once said [translated directly from Chinese]: “An age convicted about personal freedoms, is also thoroughly an age that upholds personal responsibility”. [NOTE: Hayek did say that: “Liberty not only means that the individual has both the opportunity and the burden of choice; it also means that he must bear the consequences of his actions and will receive praise or blame for them. Liberty and responsibility are inseparable. A free society will not function or maintain itself unless its members regard it as right that each individual occupy the position that results from his actions and accept it as due to his own action…. “].
… As a fundamental right of citizens, freedom of expression has the special character of not being subject to encroachment. But as we make sure the fundamental rights of citizens are not intruded upon we must also admit the conditionality of these fundamental rights. Marx once said [translated directly from Chinese]: “Freedom is the right to participate in activities that do not do harm to others.” The lines of all actions that do not do harm to others are determined by the law, just as boundaries on the earth are determined by boundary markers.
From the standpoint of constitutional law, this conditionality includes both intrinsic and extrinsic aspects. Intrinsic conditionality refers to restrictions on rights that come as a matter of course with rights themselves, limitations that reside within the rights themselves. The right by its own virtue assumes the limitation that the right cannot be exercised in such a way as to intrude on or do harm to the rights of others – this is the intrinsic conditionality of rights. This is to say, the exercising [of one’s personal] rights, must not constitute an infringement of the privacy, dignity or other freedoms or rights of another. It goes without saying that this is a conditionality that naturally accompanies freedom of expression as a right. Extrinsic conditionality is imposed from the outside, those restrictions allowed according to the objectives of the constitution. Restrictions of this kind are based on both the modern constitution and the notion of public benefit … and can be called the “conditionality of (public) policy”. Therefore, the personal rights of citizens must submit to the good of the country, society and the collective. When citizens exercise their rights and freedoms, they must not do harm to the legal rights of other citizens.
Once we understand what is meant by citizens’ freedom of expression, we discover that it is actually erroneous to regard the real-name Web registration system as a contravention of the principle of freedom of expression.
First of all, freedom of expression is, in and of itself, limited. Freedom of expression must always be accompanied by responsibility. Online posting, discussions and public diaries cannot be exempted [from this rule]. The [current] anonymous system of the Web means avoiding responsibility while exercising one’s rights. Implementing a real-name system, on the other hand, means a more reasonable marriage of the exercise of rights and the assuming of responsibility, and this means better ensuring the exercise of citizens’ freedom of expression. The Internet is a public platform, not a personal space. On this platform anyone can enjoy the public resources provided by the Web and express their own views publicly. But because this is a public platform, [users] must respect public rules and receive monitoring from the public – these are necessary if rights are to be equal. Lastly, the connection between rights and responsibility means that while protecting citizens’ rights we must not intrude upon the good of the nation and society, or the rights of other citizens. The rights and freedoms guaranteed in the [Chinese] constitution are rights and freedoms belonging to all citizens, not the rights and freedoms of any particular person …
Among the reasons for opposing a “real-name Web registration system” one finds a popular view that holds that everyone needs a true self and a virtual self. In the virtual world of the Web, we can say what we please and be ourselves. Perhaps we don’t need the law to regulate the “virtual world”, but the problem is that none of us can be sure that what we are talking about on the Web is purely virtual. It might in fact be exactly the opposite, people online using virtual identities and holding “real” discussions, criticizing actual things or people. In such a situation, using a public regulation to create boundaries for speech behavior on the Web is commensurate with the demands of society and the law.
The Web has provided a platform for citizens to exercise their right to freedom of expression. But it is a public platform, and so naturally it needs a definite public policy to keep it within bounds. As a routine management measure of modern public administration with few side effects, a “real-name Web registration system” is a necessary and reasonable limitation on actual exercise of freedom of expression, and does not violate the principle of freedom of expression …

[Posted by David Bandurski, December 7, 2006, 5:30pm]]

On November 28 the chairman of the Internet Society of China said China was in the process of exploring and testing a system of “limited real-name registration” for the Internet capable of “balancing personal privacy, the public good and the national interests”. The announcement was an attempt to calm controversy over a proposed system many Web users feer could destroy the vitality of the Chinese Internet and trample the limited but growing speech freedoms online platforms provide in China, where the very idea of personal expression in a public forum is in its infancy.
This weekend, an editorial in China Youth Daily, a newspaper published by the Chinese Communist Youth League, said the debate over the proposed real-name Web registration system in China, while “animated”, had shown an unprecedented degree of civility, with emotions less prominent and more “reasoned criticisms approaching [the question] from a technological standpoint”. There is no clear indication yet as to whether the debate happening in traditional media and online will forestall or otherwise impact the registration system, but the frankness of the debate could itself be read as encouraging.
The China Youth Daily editorial is translated in full below:
“Real-name Web Registration System Should Go Forward Only With Extreme Caution”
China Youth Daily
December 3, 2006
Recently the Internet Society of China has proposed trying out a limited real-name registration system for the Web, so that when a user registers their account with a blog or bulletin board (BBS) site, they must provide their identity card, other necessary documents, their real surname, etc. But when they are onstage (在前台) they may use whatever name pleases them. This proposal has brought animated discussion from a number of quarters.
The real-name Internet registration system first became a hot topic in 2003 after a conversation involving Tsinghua University professor Li Xiguang was leaked, in which he advised the People’s Congress to prohibit anonymity online and roll out an Internet real-name registration system. At the time this proposition was strongly opposed by the vast majority of Web users. In recent years, as space on the Web and the population of Internet users has grown by leaps and bounds, the role of the Web in [China’s] daily work culture has become more obvious by the day. A number of things have also smeared the Web and had an increasingly negative impact — for example, insults and attacks appearing on a number of Web forums and blogs, pornographic materials hidden on personal Websites, etc. Given this situation and in the name of better regulating behavior on the Internet, the [idea of] a real-name registration for the Internet has floated to the surface again. Like before, [differing views on this issue] are at a deadlock. But what is different now is that the debate is so hot it burns one’s brain. Still, emotions are less a factor, and more people are offering reasoned criticisms approaching [the question] from a technological standpoint.
Lately, the Internet has entered a period of rapid growth. If the rules for the Internet are changed suddenly, this might actually worsen the situation. It can be said that the original beauty of the Internet lies in its anonymity. “Online, no one knows that you’re a dog”, “small dogs can bark as loudly as big ones” — these basic principles of the Web are the source of its vitality. They safeguard its vital force. But [the idea of] “anonymity onstage, true identity offstage”, while it may seem to allow Web users to avoid facing most people [online] using their own identities, [while it may seem] to preserve their freedom to write, actually means that at no time and in no place will they be free of scrutiny from a set of strange eyes. This [real-name registration] means essentially that the virtual world is dragged into the real world, and Web users forfeit the possibility of flying freely. What’s more, the creative potential of the Internet and the thirst to express oneself are both thrown into question.
If a real-name registration system for the Web is now implemented, and Web users must register in blogs and online forums, offering up their actual identity card numbers, surnames, addresses and other information, how is their safety to be ensured? Currently, there are more than 100,000 Websites available to the [Chinese] people. How will the government carry out its oversight of this vast group? And what government office is going to take responsibility in the event the personal information of Web users is compromised? We already have real examples of this in cases where Websites have sold the personal information of users for profit, doing damage to users’ legal rights. Because of the loss of personal information, people are now routinely pestered by commercial businesses [spam], their personal accounts plundered, the information on their computers pilfered, their personal privacy thrown to the winds – the problems are numerous. Considering the current state of the Internet and the management capacity of relevant [government] authorities, it would be difficult to avoid the abovementioned conditions [should a real-name system be put in place]. The plug all of the loopholes, moreover, would require significant resources and a great deal of time.
Aside from these [considerations], what is to ensure that once the Internet real-name registration system is put in place and the official notice sent out people will register their identities according to regulations? If [the system] doesn’t mean people have to go out and register in person, then what’s to prevent Zhang Three from using Li Four’s name to register? In today’s world, where honesty is not in plentiful supply, I’m afraid a real-name Internet registration system will descend into [worthless] formalities. And if registering for Web use requires us to register in the same way as we would to open bank accounts, well then how much more does that ratchet up the superfluous costs [of such a system]?
Summing up various opinions [on the topic] we can come to a conclusion about the long-term development of the Internet: before we are able to adequately eliminate the negative affects the real-name registration is likely to bring, the real-name Internet registration system can only go forward with great caution. Well then, can we think in some other way about how to address the original intention of better regulating Internet culture? Researching the current state of the Internet, we find that the vast majority of those expressing themselves through blogs or online forums are basically conducting themselves in a civil and ethical manner. They go online in order to get information, interact with their friends, come into contact with ideas, and to varying degrees they are able to find what they’re looking for. Only a very few people issue verbal attacks, or physical threats. But even this has to be looked at from two aspects. [First of all] if language of this kind is limited, then in the short term it does not pose serious spiritual [psychological] harm or have widespread impact – well then, let’s leave that issue to the Website operators and Web authorities (网管). [Secondly] if their language has already transgressed the limits of the law, endangering personal rights or social stability, then using technology already at hand, law enforcement authorities have sufficient means at their disposal to weed out these harmful elements and deal with them according to the law. That is to say, promoting [the idea of] taking responsibility for one’s language and ensuring order on the Web can be thoroughly accomplished through other technological means. It’s not necessarily the case that we must use the double-edge sword of a real-name Web registration system.
[Posted by David Bandurski, December 6, 2006, 1:07pm]