How do you ensure a story has a fairy tale ending? You write the ending yourself of course. In recent days, official state media in China have celebrated the publication of A Battle Against Epidemic: China Combatting Covid-19 in 2020, a book that compiles writing by official state media to paint a portrait of leadership resolve in the face of a major challenge.

So it seems that while we all wait to see how the Covid-19 fares in the rest of the world, the verdict is already out on the epidemic as a major show of resolve on the part of the Chinese Communist Party. The story has already been written.

According to the Xinhua News Agency release on the book, it “collectively reflects General Secretary Xi Jinping’s commitment to the people, his sense of mission, his far-reaching strategic vision and outstanding leadership as the leader of a major power.”

This is a narrative being pushed insistently in the People’s Daily and other Party-state media in recent days. The idea that the Chinese Communist Party, despite all evidence to the contrary, and despite the broad undercurrent of popular anger on Chinese social media, has faced the epidemic with great wisdom and effectiveness from the start.

Just look at page three of today’s People’s Daily, on which an article with the headline, “’China Has Shown Stunning Collective Action and Cooperative Spirit,’” is accompanied by another called, “How Has America Done in the Face of the Epidemic?” While the former, manipulating the remarks of the WHO’s Bruce Aylward, praises China’s readiness and speed of response, the latter accuses the U.S. of being more focused on anti-China smear tactics than on action to prevent the spread of the virus. This piece even manages to justify China’s recent decision to expel reporters from the Wall Street Journal: “They must be made aware that the dignity of the Chinese people must not be compromised, and China’s bottom line must not be touched. A few days ago, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced the suspension of the credentials of three journalists from the Wall Street Journal, delivering a loud slap.”

Yesterday, too, the newspaper ran a prominent front-page piece on China’s epidemic response that characterized the entire crisis as a “test” that the country and its leadership had essentially passed with flying colors: “The results obtained in the epidemic control and response work are no small feat,” it read, “and many sides have undertaken many arduous asks, putting in great efforts, once again making clear the obvious superiority of the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics.”

CMP co-director Qian Gang wrote recently about the puzzling and infuriating tone-deafness of the People’s Daily through January and much of this month, how they were committed to the point of absurdity to pre-arranged propaganda themes about the greatness of Xi Jinping and the realization of a “moderately wealthy society.” He described this inability to shift focus to the most clearly urgent matter at hand, the coronavirus epidemic, as systemic. “The system of the CCP is like a great big elephant,” he wrote. “It is difficult for the sudden and unexpected to force any change to its huge and lumbering gait.”

The elephant has now changed directions. It plods confidently forward with a revisionist narrative of competence and collective victory. And these themes can now return us to familiar tropes, like the notion that China offers an inspirational political model that can better instruct the world. So the Xinhua release reports that A Battle Against Epidemic will be published in English, French, Spanish, Russian and Arabic editions, “the first book to date both domestically and overseas to follow and introduce China’s epidemic prevention and control work.”

Where is this nonsense coming from? The book is published, we are told, by the Central Propaganda Department, the Information Office of the State Council and the China Intercontinental Communication Center (CICC). In fact, these three partners are essentially a single party. Trace CICC in China’s national enterprise credit system and you find that it is listed as being fully run by the “Central Propaganda Department (Information Office of the State Council).”

So of course, no surprise, this was a scheme that must have developed at the top of China’s propaganda apparatus at least a number of weeks ago, possibly from shortly after Xi commented publicly for the first time on the coronavirus epidemic.

Will this nonsense work? China has managed many times in the past to simply move on, brushing uncomfortable facts and even immense tragedies under the rug, and changing the topic of conversation. But there is still a great deal of anger being directed toward leaders, judging from activity on social media, and efforts like this new book to distract and redirect can themselves feed the embers.

Here is one image making the rounds today on WeChat, in which the cover of A Battle Against Epidemic is hemmed in on all sides by Chinese banners that read:

Shameless to the extreme.

Painting fine pictures on the bones of the dead.

Distilling essence from human blood.

Certainly, some Chinese may move on from this crisis and think it better to forget and to say nothing. Others, however, will no doubt remember the very real lives sacrificed for the sake of these political slogans, and these glorious fairy tales.

[Featured Image of Xi Jinping by Thierry Ehrmann available at Flickr.com under CC license.]

Czech writer Milan Kundera once wrote: “Kitsch causes two tears to flow in quick succession. The first tear says: How nice to see children running on the grass! The second tear says: How nice to be moved, together with all mankind, by children running on the grass.” Facing the enormous task of controlling and directing public opinion in the midst of widespread anger over the handling of the coronavirus epidemic, and serious questions about the priorities of the leadership, China’s Party-state media have turned to a tried-and-true formula: turning on the kitsch.

Kundera, as scholar Robert Solomon writes, is “concerned with a particular kind of political propaganda that intentionally eclipses harsh realities with emotion and uses sweet sentiments to preclude criticism.” This exploitation of human emotion, which strips it of the immediacy of felt experience and abstracts it as collective pathos, is an ancient art practiced by dictators. “In politics,” writes Thorsten Botz-Bornstein, “most dictators have attempted to reinforce their authority with the help of kitsch propaganda.”

In yesterday’s People’s Daily we can find a consummate piece of kitsch propaganda given position of prominence right below the masthead. The article, “Heroic City, Heroic People,” is an emotional hymn dedicated to front-line medical workers, officials and ordinary people. But the real objective of the article is to underscore the Chinese Communist Party as the enabler of miraculous human feats.

This is classic propaganda kitsch, and Kundera’s tears flow from the very first lines.

“Doctor, please deep further away from me.”

This statement from a [coronavirus] patient in Wuhan reddened the eyes of the doctor, and it brings tears to the eyes of countless people.

Even as Chinese medical workers from the epicentre of the crisis in Wuhan issued a call in one of the world’s most respected medical journals, The Lancet, for urgent assistance from colleagues around the world as they face physical and psychological exhaustion, the Party’s flagship newspaper transforms misery and desperation into tear-inducing sacrifice. Look, for example, at its description of Peng Yinhua, a 29 year-old doctor who died on February 20:

. . . . 29 year-old Peng Yinhua, a doctor in the Division of Pulmonary Care and Critical Medicine at the First People’s Hospital in Wuhan’s Jiangxia District, had originally prepared for a wedding with his wife on February 1. When the epidemic came, he threw himself onto the front lines. When the patients were greatest in number, this meant working two days and two nights straight, taking responsibility for as many as 40 patients. But who could imagine that this charge into battle would lead to his eternal departure . . . .

In this passage the very human Peng seems not to die with real humanity, but rather to fade, as though he is exiting the stage in a drama.

And of course kitsch propaganda must anneal the softness of personal tragedy into the hard steel of sacrifice. So we are told that “more than 40,000 medical staff from 29 provinces, autonomous regions and cities . . . . were deployed to assist Hubei and Wuhan,” that they “entered the battle as soon as possible, racing against time, testing their strength against the demon of disease, all to continue the relay of life!”

“In the history of the world’s fight against epidemic disease, to gather 40,000 medical personnel in one city over a few short days – this is to generate a miracle!”

But kitsch propaganda can backfire in the face of a public that is digitally connected, and far more savvy than in the past about the tropes used by the state-run media. Earlier this month, internet users responded with irritation to a video posted by the official Gansu Daily newspaper that showed nurses weeping as their heads were shaved before their deployment to treat patients in Hubei province. The video described the female nurses as “most beautiful warriors,” and made emotional fodder of their sacrifice.

As reported by Quartz, a writer named Chen Mashu remarked in a WeChat post since removed by authorities: “The coverage made me think: Why does our media always like to use the sacrifices females make as a tool for propaganda? …for women who don’t cut their hair, aren’t pregnant and are healthy, do they not deserve to be mentioned?”

Chen clearly does not appreciate the finer points of kitsch.

_______________

[partial translation]

Heroic City, Heroic People:

Dedicated to the People of Wuhan in the Midst of the Struggle for Epidemic Prevention and Control

People’s Daily

February 25, 2020

“Doctor, please deep further away from me.”

This statement from a [coronavirus] patient in Wuhan reddened the eyes of the doctor, and it brings tears to the eyes of countless people.

Keeping the doctor away is about the concern they might be infected, and it is the hope that “they can protect the lives of more Wuhan citizens.“

“A person holds up the sky, a heart warms a city . . . . “ Many people have left messages like this.

In this city, over these days, this kind of story has unfolded every day. This kind and respectable patient is just one of millions of ordinary people in this city.

An epidemic that suddenly came has changed this city, and it is changing the spirit of the people in this city.

This outbreak with such urgency, has made of the country one community (疫情催人急，家国共同体). Every day, white-clad and fearless warriors, the undaunted people’s police, community officials keeping watch day and night, all are fighting on the front lines; the people of this city come together as a city, keeping watch and rendering mutual aid, seeing the overall situation facing all, conscientiously cooperating with epidemic prevention and control [measures], showing perseverance and a stolid fighting spirit, all writing together a chapter of great unity!

We salute a heroic city, and a heroic people!

“Every second brings hope to more people!”

Were it not for this epidemic, the scene in Wuhan would be a different: Tourists weaving their way toward the Yellow Crane Tower, cars rushing across the Yangtze Bridge, busy scenes at the Hankou Station, laughter and applause rising from Chu River and Han Street, and bosses at the noodle shops along Hubu Lane greeting customers with a “Good Morning!”

Normal life has suddenly been interrupted by this epidemic.

On January 23, Wuhan’s streets were closed, and the city of Wuhan entered “wartime.”

This Virus is Dangerous, But Containment is Imminent

The epidemic is a command, and our hospitals have become the battlefield!

Liu Zhiming (刘智明), head of Wuchang Hospital in Wuhan, rushed to the fire. From January 21, to January 23, Liu Zhiming worked three consecutive nights transforming the Wuchang Hospital into a designated hospital, transferring the 499 patients originally under care there within just two days, and making 500 beds available. Today, more and more patients are being discharged from the hospital, but Liu Zhiming’s life has been fixed at 51 years of age. [NOTE: Liu Zhiming passed away from the coronavirus on February 17.]

. . . . 29 year-old Peng Yinhua (彭银华), a doctor in the Division of Pulmonary Care and Critical Medicine at the First People’s Hospital in Wuhan’s Jiangxia District, had originally prepared for a wedding with his wife on February 1. When the epidemic came, he threw himself onto the front lines. When the patients were greatest in number, this meant working two days and two nights straight, taking responsibility for as many as 40 patients. But who could imagine that this charge into battle would lead to his eternal departure . . . . [NOTE: Peng Yinhua passed away on February 20.]

The epidemic sounded a rally call for all to face a test of life and death. From January 23, medical staff from all over the country and from the army rushed to Wuhan, and the scope of support expanded to the whole of Hubei province. More than 40,000 medical staff from 29 provinces, autonomous regions and cities, as well as from the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps and the entire military system were deployed to assist Hubei and Wuhan. They entered the battle as soon as possible, racing against time, testing their strength against the demon of disease, all to continue the relay of life!

In order to not impact the flow of their work, some doctors and nurses wore adult diapers. In order to save protective gear [which can only be worn once], some extended their shifts from 4 hours to 6 . . . . Their white outfits are war fatigues, and they are the most beautiful resisters, the most adorable people of the New Era!

In the history of the world’s fight against epidemic disease, to gather 40,000 medical personnel in one city over a few short days – this is to generate a miracle!

A notice issued yesterday by the Cyberspace Administration of China, the central agency for control of the internet and social media, provides a glimpse not just of the actions being taken now by the authorities to control information about the coronavirus epidemic, but also of the platforms and activities that have threatened the Party’s dominance of information in recent days.

The notice, for example, singles out a number of WeChat public accounts alleged to have “illegally carried out reporting activities,” meaning that they are accused of acting journalistically, pursuing their own information on the epidemic. It orders the removal from app stores of “Pipi Gaoxiao” (皮皮搞笑), a platform for the sharing of short videos, suggesting that material on the platform has “spread panic.”

The notice also says that Sina Weibo, Tencent, ByteDance and other internet companies will now be under “special supervision” (专项督导), which means essentially that the companies operating many of the country’s biggest and most popular internet platforms and services have been put on notice and are subject to much more active supervision and management by the CAC.

Here is a translation of the notice:

In recent days, the Cyberspace Administration of China has, on the basis of reports from the masses, directed local CACs to seriously deal with such information and content as the “Pipi Gaoxiao” (皮皮搞笑) online social platform which has distributed harmful short videos about the coronavirus outbreak, and has spread panic, [ordering them to] remove the app from the app store immediately. Concerning certain products on the Baidu web platform posting information in violation of regulations to users and conducting lax management, and Huxiu and other online platforms illegally engaging in internet news information services in epidemic-related reports and other problems, [the companies] have been called in for discussions in accord with the law. They have been ordered to immediately stop all illegal conduct and to carry out comprehensive and deep rectification, and these relevant online platforms [have been ordered to] close down problem sections (问题栏目). Concerning Sina Weibo, Tencent, ByteDance and other internet companies, special supervision (专项督导) will now be in effect. Concerning [the WeChat public accounts] “Netease Finance” (网易财经), “Sina Weitianxia” (新浪微天下), “Guyu Laboratory” (谷雨实验室), “Jianmeow” (史上最贱喵) and other online accounts that have illegally carried out reporting activities (自采), broadcast untrue information and other problems, they will be handed in a timely manner.

The CAC continues to strengthen its direction of provincial-level CACs, demanding that online platforms strictly carry out their responsibilities [in regard to content controls], and that local CACs actively exercise their management responsibilities, creating a favorable online environment for winning the war for prevention and control of the coronavirus outbreak.

[Featured image by Chinwag posted to Flickr.com under CC license.]

A notice released to Chinese media this week concerning the coronavirus outbreak suggests that in terms of information and media policy we have now entered a new phase in which propaganda authorities are making a renewed push to secure the source of information and wrestle back control of public opinion.

Over the past two weeks, as the scale of the epidemic and the attempted cover-up became clear, Chinese commercial media and “self-media” (自媒体) led the charge in reporting and commentary, and authorities found it difficult to restrain information — particularly in the face of public anger and insatiable demand. This pattern is very similar to what we saw in the aftermath of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake and the 2011 Wenzhou train collision, providing a narrow window of opportunity to more enterprising media.

That window now seems to be closing. The focus of the authorities is on controlling the source and then pushing reporting and framing by trusted Party-state media as “authoritative” information. The instructions are as follows:

Reports concerning the epidemic must take [information from] authoritative departments as the standard. Sources of articles must be strictly regulated (严格规范), independent reporting (自采) is strictly prohibited, and the use of non-regulated (非规范) article sources, particularly self-media (自媒体) is strictly prohibited. Without joint arrangements [with authorities], daring to use outside media reports is strictly prohibited. When distributing authoritative reports, the original meaning of the news must not be twisted, such as through “misleading headlines” (标题党). Pop-up means must not be used to push unregulated articles or information, unverified information and information that might have a negative influence. Do not render commentary on our global mobilization to purchase prevention and control materials, in order to avoid interference with our overseas purchasing work. Do not render commentary on the economic impact of the epidemic, resolutely preventing talk of the Chinese economy being undermined by the epidemic. On the extension of the Spring Festival holiday in various locales, do not collect [information], do not make comparisons, and do not relate this with hyping or commentary to the impact on economic development.

[Cover image by Nicolo Lazzati available at Flickr.com under CC license.]

As it grapples with the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak, China is now dealing with the most serious infectious disease crisis since the 2003 outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS). Many experts agree that China’s monitoring and response systems have progressed a great deal since the cover up that year proved a major embarrassment to the government and prompted a rethink of policies to deal with so-called “sudden-breaking incidents,” or tufa shijian (突发事件). 

SARS in 2003 and the window of relative openness that followed the humiliating revelations of a cover up, the first great challenge to face the Hu Jintao administration, offered a new generation of Chinese media opportunities to break out professionally. The year was in many ways the culmination of changes happening progressively in the Chinese media through the second half of the 1990s.

This year we can see the difference clearly enough if we visit the websites and front pages (and news apps) of major commercial media such as The Beijing News, Southern Metropolis Daily and The Paper.  

Here is what you see today if you visit the website of The Beijing News, for example. The coronavirus outbreak is the top story, completely dominating the photo feature space with scenes from Wuhan.

Reporting at The Beijing News comes not just from official Xinhua News Agency releases, or from “mainstream” (in the official sense) Party media such as China Central Television. There are bylines from the newspaper’s own reporters, one interviewing an infectious disease expert in Wuhan, another offering current updates on the situation in various cities, another reporting statements from health officials in Beijing. There are reports from the ground in Wuhan, and also from Hong Kong.

This is not to say, of course, that the coverage is comprehensive, or that it necessarily offers a full balance of perspectives. Official sources of information seem to take precedence.

But in lieu of a more detailed content study – which we’re not attempting here – we can say that the story is front and center at The Beijing News. The story that most concerns people right now is the story receiving the most attention.

The same is true if we look at the front page of Guangzhou’s Southern Metropolis Daily today. Sure, official sources dominate here, the focus apparently on reporting the official numbers and official actions being taken. But all of the bold headlines on the front page deal with the coronavirus outbreak.

At The Paper (澎湃), the headlines on the website and news app again focus on the coronavirus outbreak, with scores of stories, national and local, dominating the page, to the point it seems there is no other news to talk about.

But of course there is other “news” to talk about if your point of reference is the burning priorities of the Chinese Communist Party, and not necessarily the issues of clear and present concern to the public.

This most recent infectious disease crisis, with its echoes of SARS, once again exposes the basic nature of China’s Party media outlets, and their interest in “serving the Party” over the public interest – the domination of the “Party nature” (党性) over the “people nature” (人民性), to reference the debate over news values that raged in the late 1980s between then People’s Daily editor in chief Hu Jiwei (胡绩伟), a proponent of liberalization of the press, and the hardliner Hu Qiaomu (胡乔木).

If we look today at central Party media, we can see the Party agenda obliviously playing out right in the midst of this latest health crisis.

At the People’s Daily Online today, the epidemic appears but is pushed down below six other stories of quite questionable news relevance – unless one understands the way CCP leaders define priority and relevance.

The report that gets top billing at the site today is about a gathering yesterday of former senior officials ahead of the Spring Festival. It is essentially just a list of names, including Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao and Zhu Rongji, that ends with expressions of support for Xi Jinping: “The old comrades expressed their thanks and high assessment of how the Party with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core had led the whole Party, the whole army and all the people’s of the country in realizing historic achievements, and they voiced their heartfelt support for Secretary Xi Jinping as the core of the CCP and of the whole Party.”

Why would such a story be emphasized over a national health crisis? The reason is not necessarily distraction, though the leadership certainly wishes everyone could look away. This story is there to serve the paramount purpose of reiterating Xi Jinping’s power and status, one of the primary roles played by Party media.

Second billing goes to a story about Xi Jinping sending a congratulatory letter to the China-Italy year of culture and tourism in Rome, along with Italian President Sergio Mattarella. Again, there is little real news value for the public, but the chief objective here is to show Xi Jinping engaged internationally. The third story at the top of People’s Daily Online, a report about Xi Jinping’s visit to Myanmar, serves the same purpose, to show Xi as a leader engaged in the region. The report, full of Xi governing concepts, talks of the goal of “opening a new era of community of common destiny between China and Myanmar” (开辟中缅命运共同体的新时代), a reference to one of Xi’s core foreign policy terminologies.

Three more stories follow these, about Wang Yang and religion, about Wang Huning and culture, and about Han Zheng at the World Economic Forum, before we even get to any acknowledgment whatsoever that China is facing a new disease outbreak. 

The first acknowledgment we have is a report about a press conference this morning in Beijing in which Liu Wei (李斌), head of China’s National Health Commission, spoke about the latest situation and the government’s priorities. The second is a commentary in which the writer urges all members of society to consider the common good in light of the epidemic, and not to take actions out of personal interest that risk further spreading disease. The commentary talks about a number of reports that have infuriated some Chinese, like reports that even after the extent of the situation was known tourism authorities in Wuhan had issued 200,000 free travel coupons to tourist sites around the city, effectively encouraging crowds that could further spread the disease.

And what of local Party newspapers and websites?

Here is the front page today of Tianjin Daily, the official mouthpiece of the municipal Party committee there. It is virtually identical to the People’s Daily, first emphasizing next to the masthead Xi Jinping’s visit to Myanmar, then a big headline about Xi visiting Kunming and offering his New Year’s greetings.

Two stories about the coronavirus outbreak are squeezed into the bottom one-fifth of the front page, the first on Xi Jinping’s instructions and the second, quite predictably, about the actions being taken by the top leader of the municipality, Secretary Li Hongzhong (李鸿忠). This is very typical Party treatment, focusing on official actions (and away from details and human stories) with sensitivity to national and local power dynamics. Mention Xi Jinping first, then the local Party leadership.

If we turn to Beijing Daily, the official Party mouthpiece of top Party leaders in the capital city, we can find the most hard-headed example of focus shifting and insensibility among official Party media outlets. The front page of the newspaper today does not deal at all with the coronavirus outbreak.

The top stories in the Beijing Daily are, in order of layout:

• Xi Jinping’s visit to Myanmar and building of a “community of common destiny”
• A story (with jump to page three) about Xi Jinping emphasizing a “strong military” during his visit in Yunnan province
• Xi Jinping’s positive New Year’s message to people during his visit in Yunnan
• A report about Beijing’s top leader, Cai Qi (蔡奇) meeting with “old comrades”
• A report about a city-level conference of the Party leadership

One might suggest that Party media at the local and national levels do not have their priorities straight. But these pages are clear declarations of priority, and they point to the very nature of the so-called “Party nature.” It is only that the sense of dissonance becomes more pronounced when the country faces a real and pressing crisis that should dominate the news.

For months now, fires across Australia have drawn the attention of the world, demanding people sit up and take notice of climate change and ecological crisis as well as hard questions about disaster response and readiness.

Meanwhile, in the Chinese social media space, an article comparing Australia’s unprecedented crisis to a major forest fire that occurred in China in 1987 itself fanned a wildfire over the weekend – raising questions about factual news reporting over self-aggrandizing propaganda.

The article, called “Without this Australian Fire, I Wouldn’t Know the Awesomeness of China 33 Years Ago!” (没有澳洲这场大火，我都不知道中国33年前这么牛逼!), characterized the 1987 Daxing’anling Wildfire, a devastating tragedy that had bitter lessons for China, as a moment of great heroism. All of the failings, pain and loss of the 1987 fire were twisted in the article into evidence of the “awesomeness of China 33 years ago,” contrasted with the supposed incompetence of the Australian government.

Despite the distressing level of ignorance the article showed toward history, it quickly attracted more than 100,000 views, and an image from the backend of the WeChat platform shared in private chat groups showed that by Sunday afternoon the article had been read 23 million times, and “liked” 300,000 times. These numbers are still climbing.

As a researcher of journalism and mass communication, I am familiar with the 1987 Daxing’anling Wildfire because the reporting of this story was a major event in Chinese media history. I still remember sitting in a classroom at Peking University and listening to news editors who had been involved in the story discussing the event.

A Human Disaster

On May 6, 1987, Daxing’anling prefecture in China’s northeastern Heilongjiang province experienced the most serious large-scale forest fire in the history of the People’s Republic of China. The fire raged for close to a month, swallowing up more than a million hectares of forest, a fifth of the total forest area in the prefecture. Close to 200 lives were lost in the fires, and more than 50,000 people were displaced.

On May 14, after the fire had raged for a week, the China Youth Daily newspaper sent a reporters to the scene to report the story. China Youth Daily, a paper published by the Chinese Communist Youth League, had substantial credibility and influence at the time. Before the paper’s journalists set out for Heilongjiang, they made a solemn promise to themselves: “We must remember not to take this tragic song and sing it as a hymn of praise!”

Why would they make such a promise? The reason, as the newspaper later made clear in its own summary of its reports, was that up to that time disaster reporting in China had been all about “handling funerals as happy events, greeting small misfortunes with small hymns, and treating major tragedies and great victories.”

“In the magical writings of journalists, the catastrophe often becomes a triumph of communism,” they wrote. “This was at the time the entrenched way of doing things in disaster reporting.”

But in the new climate of reform and opening, as respect grew for the value of factual reporting, a number of aspiring professional journalists were unsatisfied with this way of working. Yang Lang (杨浪), the domestic affairs editor at China Youth Daily responsible for the Daxing’anling reports, said at the time: “Everyone recognizes that a disaster is a disaster. Turning a disaster into a triumphal hymn is heaping disaster on top of disaster.”

Following these principles, journalists on the front lines in Daxing’anling went in search of the facts and tried to report the truth. Through the reports they filed, we saw clearly that the origin and spread of the fires had much to do with local officials and with bureaucratic work styles. We saw how local country leaders in the area of the fire had sent out truckloads of people to sweep and tidy up the streets to ready them for visiting officials from Beijing, even as the fires were raging. We even saw, amid the rubble of the county seat of Mohe, a single red-brick building standing alone, miraculously saved from the devastation. This was the home of the county chief and the fire department head, and local residents had told reporters that the home had been spared because the fire department head had dispatched fire trucks and a bulldozer to the scene to protect it.

These reports, the newspaper said in its own assessment, relayed to the public with a deafening sound that this was not just a natural disaster but a human disaster (人祸). “This is us—our severe bureaucratism and our rigid system have made us bureaucratic. Even as we are spared, this fire consumes us.”

The China Youth Daily series contained three reports in all. The headlines were: “The Red Warning” (红色的警告); “The Black Sigh” (黑色的咏叹); and “The Green Sorrow” (绿色的悲哀). People referred to the series at the time as the “three color reports” (三色报道). They were widely praised, and they earned the newspaper a special award that year for best national news reporting.

One reader in Hubei province wrote a letter to China Youth Daily saying: “In the past, I always thought that journalists in our country were just in the business of pretending everything is fine, but after reading these reports I strongly feel you reporters are worthy soldiers of our times.”

In Chinese media history, the “three color reports” occupy an extremely important position. They are a milestone in disaster reporting, marking the return of disaster reports to the plane of factual reporting, respecting news values.

In fact, China Youth Daily was not the only newspaper at the time to report the Daxing’anling fire in a new spirit of thoughtfulness. Even the Party’s official People’s Daily published reports of this kind. As veteran People’s Daily journalist Zhu Huaxin (祝华新) has recalled, “the People’s Daily published 64 consecutive news reports and commentaries [on the fire], and within one month 22 news articles on the fire appeared on the front page.”

One of these reports directly questioned the idea that the disaster had been inevitable: “Many facts suggest that the fire was not a natural disaster whose containment was beyond our powers, and that this terrible, heart-wrenching misfortune should not have happened; or if it indeed it had to happen, it should not have resulted in such calamitous losses.”

The People’s Daily also addressed the question of the red-brick house belonging to the country chief and the fire department head. Journalist Wei Yanan (魏亚南) filled in a key detail of this story – that two homes to the right and left of the chief’s red-brick house had been demolished in order to help protect it.

A disaster is a disaster, as Yang Liang said. And turning a disaster into a hymn of praise is heaping disaster on top of disaster.

Reporting Against the Odds

Under the circumstances of that time in China, it was not easy to make breakthroughs in reporting. While there was talk of the need for liberation of thought, there were also of course very real restrictions and difficulties to work through for news media.

Jia Yong (贾永), a journalist who took part in reporting at the time as an intern at China Youth Daily, later continued to work as a journalist, serving for a time as director of the People’s Liberation Army desk at the official Xinhua News Agency. He later said in a piece looking back on the Daxing’anling fire that in fact the whole reporting process was extremely difficult, because many local leaders and offices worked with a “news control” mentality.

But the China Youth Daily reporters did not give up in the face of these restrictions. “With the exception of Lei Shumai (雷收麦), who was almost 40, the other three of us were young, had experience reporting through adversity on the front lines, and we were up to the challenge,” Jia Yong said. “We worked hard and with full confidence to get first-hand materials – at the scene of the fire, at the cemeteries, in the ruins, from local broadcasters, hose operators, bulldozer operators. During the day we toughened our skins and visited local government offices, and at night we were together with those who had been displaced by the disaster, sleeping together in cold tents with 40 or more people.”

Jia Yong said they felt they had to face danger and difficulty to get to the story “in order to protect the people’s right to know about this major event.” And their efforts were repaid: “More and more affected people who at first did not dare voice their anger opened up to us and told us the real situation,” he said.

Ye Yan  (叶研), a reporter who later won China’s Fan Changjiang News Award, recalled that he had photographed a group of people at a local dining hall eating a meal together, and as a result was stopped in the road by a group of about 20 officials, including the head of the tourism office. He and several other reporters we set on and beaten by the group. “It was nothing for them to attack people,” he said. “And we were taken in by the Public Security Bureau for two days of questioning.”

After more than a month in Heilongjiang, the journalists returned to the newsroom to write their stories. This was at the height of the hot summer in Beijing, and an article in China Youth Daily later recalled the lengths the reporters had gone to to finish their stories. “Lei Shumai and Jia Yong were living in an underground room near the China Youth Daily newsroom that cost 35 cents a night, and together they consumed 40 bags of instant noodles. To make sure they didn’t have stomach problems, Jia Yong used a grain coupon to buy five kilograms of garlic.”

Twisted Histories

The WeChat public account that ran “Without this Australian Fire, I Wouldn’t Know the Awesomeness of China 33 Years Ago!” this past week is called “Youth Courtyard” (青年大院). In fact, this is the new name for an account that was previously shut down on the platform.

If we click into the “Youth Courtyard” account and go into the information section, we can see that the operator is “Beijing Fuguang Yuejin Cuture and Media Company Limited” (北京浮光跃金文化传媒有限公司). And when we click the name of this company we find that the account is the new name for the previous account “90s Tonight” (今夜90后). In fact, it does not really hide this fact. In fact, at  the top of the article itself and in the subhead, you can clearly see mention of “90’s Tonight.”

For some readers, this may not ring a bell. Others will know that “90s Tonight” is the same outfit that published another controversial article in 2018 about teen idol Yang Chaoyue (杨超越) that drew over 100,000 reads, and later faced accusations of fabrication along with a detailed analysis from Newslab.

Later, this same public account  ran an article with the headline, “That 17 Year-Old Shanghai Youth Decided to Commit Suicide by Jumping off the Bridge” (那个17岁的上海少年决定跳桥自杀), in which it engaged in pure speculation about the facts behind the suicide in April of a teenager who jumped from the Lupu Bridge. The public account was subsequently shut down.

Searching job search websites we can see that this company behind “90s Tonight” proudly declaring recently that it is “starting up again as a completely new public account.” But while the account is a new one, it seems that the tactics and flavor are the same ones we are familiar with.

What should particularly distress us all is to see that this attitude of “greeting small misfortunes with small hymns, and treating major tragedies and great victories,” which was rejected by Chinese journalists 33 years ago, is now, in the traffic-oriented social media environment of the 21^st century, being plucked off the garbage heap of history by this “90s Tonight” public account.

To the team behind “90s Tonight,” I wish to say: The professionalism with which journalists like Yang Lang, Lei Shumai, Li Weizhong, Ye Yan, Jia Yong, Wei Yanan and others worked to dig out the facts and get at the truth, exposing our maladies – therein lies the true awesomeness of what happened 33 years ago. And to employ cheap emotional language to cynically draw traffic is a most irresponsible exploitation of that tragedy.