January 2 — A new local regulation designed to combat official corruption and abuse of duty took effect in Henan’s capital city of Zhengzhou, making specific mention of watchdog journalism, or “supervision by public opinion” (舆论监督), as a key form of monitoring. The ordinance designates a range of areas — a “region of priority supervision” — for monitoring of government behavior by prosecutors and the press. These include, among others, official expenditures (treating of guests, etc), and the levying of educational fees.
January 5 — A number of media reports in China discussed the growing popularity of new “ID generation” software among Chinese Internet users, suggesting users might be finding ways around the proposed real-name registration system even before it has been implemented.
January 5 — Southern Metropolis Daily, a commercial spinoff of Guangdong’s official Nanfang Daily, called for Chinese leaders to strike a pact with domestic media similar to that it announced recently with foreign media, which have been promised greater access in the run up to the 2008 Olympic Games. In a page 2 editorial, the newspaper sought to dovetail the notion of a freer domestic press with Chinese President Hu Jintao’s social policy of the “harmonious society”, saying that if “this [concept of] ‘constructive and cooperative partnership’ were extended the government’s relationship with domestic media, this would … allow the media to take a more active and professional role in the building of a harmonious society”.
January 7 — Chinese media continued to reflect back on the jailing of journalist Gao Qinrong, who was released recently after eight years in prison. [Coverage from ESWN].

Carrying its recent tradition of outspoken editorial writing into 2007, Southern Metropolis Daily today offered backhanded praise for the State Council’s “constructive” relationship with foreign media and said the same relationship should apply to domestic media. [pdf_editorial-on-domestic-partnership_smd.pdf: Today’s A2 editorial page in Southern Metropolis Daily].
The editorial, again a case of jieti fahui (or using the opportunity afforded by an official pronouncement to make one’s own point), followed a statement by Cai Wu, a minister of the State Council Information Office, on December 28 in which he said foreign reporters were welcome in China and that the government viewed them as “constructive and cooperative partners”.
The editorial also sought strategically to dovetail the notion of a freer domestic press with Chinese President Hu Jintao’s social policy of the “harmonious society”, saying that if “this [concept of] ‘constructive and cooperative partnership’ were extended the government’s relationship with domestic media, this would … allow the media to take a more active and professional role in the building of a harmonious society”.
The editorial follows in full:
“Government and Media Should Be Partners in Cooperation”
Southern Metropolis Daily
January 5, 2007, A2
2006 has passed, and the echoes of promise give us cause to anticipate more bright things to come. For the media, the new relationship State Council Information Office minister Cai Wu has forged between the Chinese government and international media is a self-confident, professional and worldly action. If this brilliance shines in all directions, touching domestic media too, this will earn worldwide respect for the position of Chinese media.
According to the Chinese News Service, Information Office head Cai Wu announced that China would relax its restrictions on foreign media reporting activities in China, that it would explain Chinese policies and release information “as quickly and accurately as possible” through a more comprehensive and normalized press announcement system. Moreover, [Mr. Cai said] contacts for press spokespeople would be publicized for media and society, allowing spokespeople to “go out” and directly meet with reporters and answer questions. He said China would better accommodate the trends of globalization, internationalization and information exchange, taking the initiative in providing the public and media with authoritative and accurate information.
This active initiation of a new strategy for media meets international practice and displays self-confidence. It is also beneficial in molding the image of a China opening up. Of course, the thing to most take notice of is this new conceptualization of the relationship between the government and the media. Cai Wu described the relationship of the Information Office with foreign media as one of “constructive and cooperative partnership”.
“Constructive” means Chinese officials recognize foreign media play a positive role in constructing an image of China and advertising its policies, and that they no longer view them [foreign media] entirely as vehicles for disparaging [China] with negative news. “Cooperative” means Chinese government officials will “not be afraid of having contact with media”, that they will help media to carry out reporting in a public, transparent and timely way, avoiding the release of inaccurate, incomplete or false information by foreign media. “Partnership” means the government and the media are on equal terms, that there are no hierarchies of status but rather mutual respect and responsibility.
Viewing the international media in such a broad-minded and rational way is sure to draw the respect of the world. It goes without saying that this policy will have a major affect on China once it goes into effect … and [the policy] has already been reported widely and with enthusiasm by international media.
If this [concept of] “constructive and cooperative partnership” were extended the government’s relationship with domestic media, this would not only gain more respect for China internationally, but would also allow the media to take a more active and professional role in the building of a harmonious society. Speaking in terms of their abilities as media, there is fundamentally no difference between domestic and international media — both are fast, accurate ways to transmit various kinds of information, particularly concerning government affairs, letting the people know the true state of things and the true meaning of policies. If the government uses domestic media as a professional and duty-bound equal partner, then many of the careless remarks of Western media about China will disappear automatically.
Actually, domestic media are more constructive than international media. In the first place, domestic media do not have an ideological and cultural gap with the government, and share with the government a lofty sense of responsibility to protect the country and the interests of the people. For this reason there’s no need to set up defenses, and even less need to worry about impure motives. Moreover, the media can be more comprehensive and in-depth than the government in gathering of facts about society. What they see and feel (their news reports and editorials) not only help the people better understand the situation at the national, provincial and city levels, but also can inform the government in a timely way about what is going on in society, serving as a reference for officials in making government policy. If the government relaxes its hand and allows the media to independently realize a professional spirit, then many of the crooked paths of contemporary history will be avoided, not to mention numerous accidents in everyday life.
In the same way, domestic media have greater capacity than international media to “cooperate” with the government. After going through decades of opening and reform experience and political training and experience, domestic media are no longer colored with a Lu Xun-style critical complex, nor do they blindly admire the West. Rather they deal more with the concrete matters of their work, meeting all manner of social problems and breaking news with seriousness, pursuing the truth. They are most contented when employing their own professional vision and a spirit of reason to help the government solve all sorts of social problems, when they raise public confidence by getting an accurate grasp of policy and the facts. In terms of their value orientation and the fundamental interests of the people, the government and the media are in fact united — and this is especially the case in China.
Right now what we need to work harder to redefine [“recreate”] is the question of the [relative] standing of government and the media. In China, the political system determines that government and the media are intimate “partners”. But for reasons of historical legacy, the media’s subordinate status has meant it cannot carry out news reporting and commentary in a professional and timely way. As a result it happens that media are in the doubly embarrassing position of [A] not being able to transmit the government’s will quickly and in an easily understandable fashion and [B] not being able to provide an accurate picture of government policies. When public confidence in the media is weak this actually damages public confidence in the government. If the government relaxes its hand and allows the media to use their own principles to carry out reporting and the transmission of information, this will go a long way toward promoting government effectiveness in dealing with change [emergencies, etc] and the accuracy of government policies. At the same time it will help the government more quickly and comprehensively understand the political situation and the will of the people, making [relevant] policies and promoting the project of building a harmonious society. (The writer is a journalist).
[Posted by David Bandurski, January 5, 2007, 6:20pm]

There’s been hardly a peep about the proposed real-name registration system for the Web in China since the chairman of the Internet Society of China, charged with creating the system, stepped out on November 28 to calm fears such a system would violate personal privacy. Officials have said the system is necessary to enforce “responsible” Web use in China and combat such behavior as online character attacks and fraud.
But a ripple of recent reports about new “ID generation” software in China suggests Web users might be finding ways around the real-name system even before it’s been rolled out.
The so-called “personal ID generation tool” (身份证生成器) software, available online for more than a year now, has become one of the hottest downloads on the Chinese Internet in recent months, according to Chinese media reports. The tool enables Web users to generate personal IDs that allow them to bypass real-name registration fields.
The tool is currently being used by online game players who either do not wish to offer up their personal information or are under the legal age required for certain games. But experts have said, according to Guangzhou’s Yangcheng Evening News, that the software could pose a major challenge to a broader real-name registration system for the Chinese Internet, the kind of system the ISC is in the process of creating.
Mr. Huang, an expert at a Hebei-based technology firm, told the Yangcheng Evening News ID generation tools were being downloaded at record rates because users were concerned about personal privacy as the practice of requiring one’s personal ID number became more and more widespread in China.
In a news story posted on China Central Television’s international Website, a reporter watched an online forum as a user with the alias “Minnow” posted the request: “I want to register an account to play online games. Who can loan me an ID number?” Within five minutes a user with the alias “Master-Hand” had posted a link to a site where “Minnow” could download a personal ID generation tool. Speaking with the reporter via the forum, “Minnow” said he was 14 years old and wanted to play online games against the wishes of his parents, whose ID’s (and supervision) would ordinarily be required for online games.
According to Chinese authorities, the use of personal ID generation tools constitutes forgery and is punishable by law, with fines of between 200 and 1,000 yuan and up to 10 days detention, Yangcheng Evening News reported.
MORE LINKS:
“‘Personal ID Generation Tool’ Becomes Hot Download, Challenges ‘Real-Name System‘”, ChinaNews.com.cn
“Appearance of Personal ID Generation Tool Means Real-Name System Serves Practically No Function“, CCTV.com
[Posted by David Bandurski, January 5, 2007, 12:25pm]

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]