Now Executive Director of the China Media Project, leading the project’s research and partnerships, David originally joined the project in Hong Kong in 2004. He is the author of Dragons in Diamond Village (Penguin), a book of reportage about urbanization and social activism in China, and co-editor of Investigative Journalism in China (HKU Press).
A neologism has been born on China’s internet. A shortened version of the phrase “intelligent governance,” or zhineng guanzhi (智能管治), the buzzword is zhizhi (智治), which we might call in English simply “AI governance” – and it encompasses many of the new approaches we have seen in China to social and political control using surveillance technology and big data. The innovator and originator of this neologism is none other than Chen Yixin (陈一新), director of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission of the Chinese Communist Party, which oversees law enforcement authorities nationwide.
Chen Yixin has been a prolific originator of Party slogans, not least the “New Era” language introduced by Xi Jinping. In 2018, he created the “Six Grabs,” a new set of buzzwords for the idea that authorities must be much more aggressive in six key areas to set the agenda on policing and other law enforcement matters. And on May 21 this year, Chen introduced the “Five Governances,” or wuzhi (五治), which included “politics” (政治), “rule by law” (法治), “moral governance” (德治), “self-governance” (自治) and “AI governance” (智治). “[We must] lead with strong politics, exercise protections through rule by law, govern morals, [encourage] self-governance and [employ] AI governance.”
The first four of these five governances were largely familiar hot-air concepts. “Rule by law” referred not to legal protections but the instrumentalizing of the law for Party control. “Self-governance” was not about autonomy but about enforcing political discipline, about everyone behaving and falling in line. But the fifth concept, “AI governance,” was a novel and important formulation encompassing the new powers of control being applied by the Party.
At a recent training session for local-level politics and law officials, Chen Yixin said:
We must place the process of AI governance development in an even more important position, elevating it as an important means of control – [we must] promote “AI governance” in city-level social control systems, operational mechanisms, and in the restructuring of intelligent work processes, accelerating the modernization of social governance [control] at the city level.
Chen Yixin expressed the conviction that by relying on current technology, the Party can effectively and efficiently identify risks and warning signs at the local level, applying timely responses for risk management. The work, he said, would focus on “priority districts and places” (重点区域部位), and on “critical industry sectors” (重点行业领域) – essentially a reference to the “gridded community management system” we wrote about at CMP back in December. This process would rely, said Chen, on such key infrastructure as the Sharp Eyes Project (雪亮工程), literally “Dazzling Snow,” which envisions comprehensive digital video surveillance linked to a national network.
A search for “X-ray specs” in Google images reveals the term as a popular meme in Chinese for exposure of the private.
Chen Yixin also referred to “AI governance” and big data as offering microscopes (显微镜), X-ray specs (透视镜) and telescopes (望远镜) for public security, which he said could “promote the scientificization of policies on stability at the city level.” The reference to “X-ray specs” should bring home metaphorically the extent to which the Party hopes it can make all aspects of life and business in China transparent to itself for the sake of control. A search of the Chinese term for “X-ray specs” in Google Images turns up results (at left) that can only suggest the complete nakedness of the citizen in the face of these applied technologies.
This is the new state of affairs and long-term objective in China’s push to achieve precision and efficiency in its not-so-new objective of “stability maintenance,” or weiwen (维稳), the broader policy imperative since the 1990s that encompasses policing, the surveillance of society and protest management.
These innovations, a reminder that that particular word is not always positive or progressive, have been actively developed by the Party since 2013. And now, thanks to Chen Yixin – an old comrade of Xi Jinping’s who served under him when he was secretary of Zhejiang province, and who will very likely join the politburo three years from now – we have the perfect phrase for them.
A page-one commentary in the Monday edition of the official People’s Daily newspaper, the flagship publication of the Chinese Communist Party, offered the closest we have yet had to an authoritative response from China’s top leadership on the protests in Hong Kong and related acts of violence that have unfolded in recent days.
The piece is attributed to “a commentator from this paper,” or benbao pinglunyuan (本报评论员), which marks it as executed by top staff at the paper but representing views at the most senior levels of the Party. It essentially takes a strong line on the July 21 incident in which protestors — referred to in the commentary as “radical demonstrators” (激进示威者) and “extremists” (激进分子) — massed at the entrance of the Liaison Office of the Central Government in Hong Kong and pelted the building, including the national emblem of the People’s Republic of China, with black paint, eggs and other projectiles.
The commentary is absolutely firm in its stance that, as the headline itself reads, “The Authority of the Central Government Cannot Be Challenged.” It does affirm the “One Country, Two Systems” formula, but it makes clear that protesters have, in the leadership’s view, “impinged on the bottom-line” by directly attacking the authority of the central government. “We firmly support the Hong Kong SAR Government,” the commentary says, “in employing every legal means to ensure the security of offices of the Central Government in Hong Kong, to preserve rule of law in Hong Kong, and to punish these criminals.”
Firm as the tone of the commentary may seem, it offers few surprises in fact. It recapitulates the logic that stability equals prosperity, and that chaos is the enemy of the people and their true interests. More specific to Hong Kong, the notion of “chaos” is applied as a threat to the rule of law, which the commentary tacitly characterizes as the territory’s core advantage. “If they are allowed to trample on the rule of law in Hong Kong,” the commentary says of the demonstrators, “Hong Kong’s advantages and Hong Kong’s competitiveness will be eroded.”
The People’s Daily commentary avoids outright venom. It does not suggest, for example, that “foreign hostile forces,” or Western governments, are behind the protests in Hong Kong. But the piece presents a rather keen contrast with much of the discourse about Hong Kong appearing this past week in more peripheral sources, and particularly on WeChat. In a moment we’ll offer our full translation of the People’s Daily commentary. First, though, we’d like to run through some of the other sentiments about Hong Kong being expressed inside China, which mark in many instances a worrying escalation of extreme views about the territory and its future.
Among the themes that have been quite dominant in posts about Hong Kong appearing in WeChat public accounts since July 1 are the following: 1) The protests have been infiltrated and to a large extent orchestrated by “Western countries,” and in particular by the United States; 2) Hong Kong’s political and social system is powerless to achieve order (implying the need for intervention from Beijing); 3) the failure of Hong Kong police to establish order owes in large part to insufficient powers and excessive court intervention; 4) protesters in Hong Kong are violent and irrational; 5) the fundamental failure of Hong Kong to recognize and accept its identity as a Chinese territory is an urgent threat to sovereignty, and a lingering legacy of colonialism and foreign contagion.
In order to conduct a brief survey of Hong Kong-related discourse on WeChat, we compiled a list of 200 WeChat articles appearing since July 1. Much of this content was what we might characterize as “junk news,” sensational viral content that resembles the sort of content we have come to expect from right-wing sources of in the West — content that actually proliferates in the Chinese social media space, suggesting, for example, that migrants are sowing chaos in Europe. Given its context in a highly controlled information environment in which the Party line is supreme, we might also consider a neologism like “junk propaganda” to refer to content that is thinly and selectively sourced in order to emphasize the sensational and appeal to emotions, but which at the same time serves to consolidate “mainstream” Party messaging.
We can note that while few mainstream official sources this month employ the phrase “hostile forces” (though the rhetoric could be on the upswing this week), a substantial number of posts in our WeChat set do, including headlines like:
指挥袭击香港警察的外国人身份曝光！
Identities of Foreigners Who Directed Attacks on Hong Kong Police Are Revealed!
指挥袭击香港警察的美国人身份曝光！
Identities of Americans Who Directed Attacks on Hong Kong Police Are Revealed!
香港修正案暴徒指挥袭击警察的外国人身份曝光,行径令人发指!
Identities of Foreigners Who Directed Attacks on Hong Kong Police in Hong Kong Amendment Riots Are Revealed; Their Deeds Make Ones Hairs Stand on End!
港独暴徒钳断香港警察手指，这是CIA惯用手段
Hong Kong Independence Thug Bites Off Finger of Hong Kong Police, This is a Tactic Used by the CIA
The last of these posts, attributed to the online site Global Horizon (环球视野), deals with a July 15 incident in which a protester in Sha Tin allegedly bit off the finger of a police officer. The post argues on the authority of “famous blogger Cui Zijian” that the cutting off of fingers is a commonly used CIA tactic to sow conflict and color revolution. The Cui Zijian (崔紫剑) referred to here is a frequent contributor to Chawang (察网), a site founded in March 2014 that dubs itself a “well-known domestic patriotism portal” (国内知名的爱国门户).
Here is a taste of the WeChat post as it shares the bizarre analysis it attributes to the authority of Cui Zijian:
In Ukraine and other places, the tactic generally involves shooting. Generally, they mix in with the crowds and fire bullets into both sides, or directly beat participants to death. Then they use powerful public opinion attacks to stir up public anger.
Showing restraint, Hong Kong police have not offered such an opportunity. Add to this the fact that guns are prohibited in Hong Kong, and carrying guns in is difficult. Therefore, shooting is substituted [as a tactic] with cutting off fingers.
This is psychological warfare, and their goal in attacking the police is to cloud the officers mentally, filling the police with terror, undermining their courage and their ability to function.
If the police lose control, or lose their spirit — what follows is the next Ukraine.
Right beside this post at Global Horizon is a purported expose about how non-governmental organizations are used by Western governments to infiltrate and destabilize other countries. The piece even cites the remarks and policies of Viktor Orbán, the right-wing prime minister of Hungary, who has celebrated his own notion of “illiberal democracy,” to support its case.
Another post by the WeChat public account Liangjian Fasheng (亮剑发声) deals with the recent incident in the Hong Kong border village of Yuen Long, in which a mob of men in white t-shirts viciously attacked protesters wearing black just hours after the vandalizing of the liaison office. There are serious questions about whether these white-clad thugs, which Hong Kong media are reporting have links with criminal gangs, were actually mobilized by the authorities to intimidate protesters. There are also now calls for an investigation, and for a peaceful demonstration in Yuen Long this coming Saturday to speak out against the violence. But in the post from Liangjian Fasheng, the attackers in white are portrayed as local villagers defending their beloved homeland from invasion by “toxic extremists” (毒顽固分子). “Poisonous Gang of Hong Kong Thugs Countered by Villagers as They Invade Yuen Long Village,” the headline reads (港毒暴徒团伙在入侵香港元朗时遭到村民自卫反击!).
On the night of July 21, a number of Hong Kong thugs, organized by background orchestrators, made the deranged move of surrounding the Hong Kong Central Liaison Office of the Central Government, and pelted the national emblem outside the office with black paint, sprayed insulting language on the exterior wall and sought to charge into the building.
This conduct was an open challenge to the authority of the Central Government and impinged on the bottom-line of “One Country Two Systems,” [an act] of serious nature with a pernicious influence.
The Hong Kong police took active related measures to prevent the further worsening of the situation, and this was extremely necessary.
. . . . In the chaos of last night’s attack on the Central Liaison Office, the Hong Kong police were at the end of their tolerance and struck back! After certain toxic extremists (毒顽固分子) refused to listen to police warnings, [the police] began using tear gas.
What no one could predict was that this clique of poisonous Hong Kong yellow corpses (港毒黄尸) was already prepared with gas masks, and even though the Hong Kong police used a great deal of tear gas at the scene, still a large number of thugs remained at the scene and refused to leave.
Under this situation, the police raised their force level, firing rubber bullets on the thugs.
. . . .
This past month, we have seen the Hong Kong police taking up the law and taking up guns in order to teach a bitter lesson to these thugs who don’t know their limits, letting them know what pain really means.
After being dispelled by the police, the thugs still refused to desist from their troublemaking.
According to plans and arrangements made many days before, they took up weapons (凶器) and pushed into Yuen Long, seeking to again escalate the situation, expressing loyalty to their British and American masters . . . .
But this time, again, they miscalculated!
When rule of law fails locally, the maintenance of social order and protection of the homeland must rely on salvation from a third party.
The situation in Yuen Long today seems to be one of disorder. This is a situation caused by a weak and powerless Hong Kong police force (owing to judicial power placed not in the hands of the Hong Kong police, but with courts that can be manipulated by foreigners, and which release thugs on bail). In order to maintain the concept of Hong Kong people ruling Hong Kong, the Central Government is not likely to intervene.
The clan-based villages often have strong feelings toward their home countries. The Yuen Long Tautou people themselves have a tradition of patriotism and love for their homeland. Perhaps they aren’t greatly literate, and they aren’t as eloquent as certain so-called cultured people, or those who have been brainwashed. But most of the Yuen Long villagers have a bottom line, and that is a rather deep love of their country.
The white-clad thugs of Yuen Long, who were clearly shown in video footage surrounding and attacking protesters, are cast as patriots out to defend China. This is messaging we certainly would not expect to see in official Chinese media reports, but it has become core to the discourse about Hong Kong on Chinese social media.
Despite the extreme nature of many of these Hong Kong-related posts, they remain available on WeChat. One important question, then, is the extent to which these posts serve Party-state agendas — for example by proliferating views about foreign conspiracy or protester-driven violence that appear to delegitimize civil society action in Hong Kong. As I suggested earlier, the term “junk propaganda” may apply, because while this discourse is not, strictly speaking, official (as are People’s Daily commentaries or Xinhua News Agency reporting), they can potentially serve to disrupt and noise-fill the public opinion space in ways that are at least expediently beneficial to the leadership.
It is perhaps worth noting that Hong Kong’s Umbrella Movement of 2014 happened before China’s WeChat platform had become a truly dominant force in the social media space, and we can now observe the role of WeChat in forming public opinion in mainland China around the question of Hong Kong — a question that merits further systematic study.
It is certainly further testament to the worrisome prevalence of extreme rhetoric on the need to take a stronger approach in Hong Kong that Global Times editor-in-chief Hu Xijin (胡锡进), whose paper has long been the standard-bearer of Chinese jingoism, wrote on Monday against the position that military intervention from Beijing was advisable.
Hu’s piece was called, “Hong Kong is in Chaos: Should Beijing Show a Strong Hand?” (香港乱了, 北京该不该强力出手). “Does everyone support the idea of Beijing showing force, for example by ordering the PLA troops stationed in Hong Kong to take to the streets and maintain order?” Hu asked at the start of his piece, before offering his own view through his preferred alter ego, “Old Hu”:
I don’t know what you think, but Old Hu is very much against [the idea]. Why?
Some people say if things go wrong just do One Country One System, but that would mean a revolution in Hong Kong society, and the price and risk it would entail would be greater than the trouble we’ve seen thus far in implementing One Country Two Systems.
If the PLA gained control of the situation in Hong Kong, and suppressed all of these thugs, what then?
Indeed. What then?
Before we turn now to our full translation of Monday’s commentary in the People’s Daily, we have one last recommended post for our readers, a chilling treatise that appeared on July 3 at Red Flag Online (红旗网), a well-known leftist website, after first appearing in late June at Red Song Society (红歌会网), a self-described Maoist site devoted to “red culture.” Tellingly, perhaps, the post, called “Smashing Hong Kong’s Color Revolution” (粉碎香港颜色革命), is still available inside China and shared quite widely on WeChat. While the author is not entirely clear, there are a number of passages that suggest the piece has its origins somewhere in the PLA. The first passage of the lengthy piece ends, for example, after summarizing the “chaos” in Hong Kong, with the line: “Therefore, this [unrest] must incur the tremendous anger of China’s entire mass of 1.4 billion people, including all members of the Chinese Communist Party, all the generals in China’s People’s Liberation Army, and all commanders of China’s public security!” A similar formulation can be found in the concluding passage.
At another point, the piece says, unambiguously advocating PLA action in Hong Kong in light of the failure of the SAR government to maintain control during the 2014 Occupy Central movement:
Therefore, leaping beyond the current judicial process in Hong Kong, and unifying the superstructure, must become an urgent task of the Hong Kong SAR government. The focus of this should include, but not be limited to: imposing martial law in Hong Kong; firing, arresting, expelling or refusing entry to foreign judges that refuse to cooperate with the Hong Kong SAR government; arresting and sentencing those who organize street riots; arresting or expelling the intelligence personnel of foreign forces intervening in Hong Kong affairs, etc.
That is chilling stuff. But it is just the beginning in a piece that holds nothing back. The final section offers 10 recommendations for action in Hong Kong, beginning with the takeover of the government and the establishment of a Hong Kong Work Committee of the Chinese Communist Party.
The post is an excruciating read for all concerned with the future of Hong Kong, but it is nonetheless essential for anyone who wishes to understand one of the most radical Chinese positions on the territory, points of which may be shared in various corners of Chinese society and the Party-state.
Read through the fiery passages of “Smashing Hong Kong’s Color Revolution” first, and the firm-fisted Monday commentary in the People’s Daily begins to sound almost conciliatory. And that my tell us something — though we need a great deal more research on the subject — about the possible utility of “junk propaganda.”
_______________
On July 21, a few radical demonstrators surrounded the Liaison Office of the Central Government in Hong Kong, destroying equipment, defacing the national emblem, and spouting out language that insulted the nation and the Chinese people. This sort of conduct tramples Hong Kong’s rule of law, is an open challenge to the authority of the Central Government, and touches the principle bottom line of “One Country Two Systems,” with pernicious effects, and this must not be tolerated.
For successive days, a series of violent incidents have caused disquiet in Chinese society. A number of extreme radicals have in the name of opposing amendments [on extradition], attacked the Legislative Council building, destroyed public facilities, beaten police, manufactured explosives, and these violent acts have seriously damaged social order in Hong Kong, and trampled on Hong Kong’s rule of law. This time the surrounding of the Central Liaison Office has already completely gone beyond the scope of peaceful protest, and the level of violence has been escalated. The Liaison Office is the representative office of the Central Government in the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and it exercises its responsibilities in Hong Kong according to the Constitution and Hong Kong’s Basic Law, and empowered by the Central Government, and this cannot be challenged. The violent conduct of these extremists (激进分子) seriously violates the Basic Law and Hong Kong’s local laws.
Since Hong Kong’s return, the Central Government has fully adhered to and implemented the “One Country Two Systems” [formula], the principle of “Hong Kong people ruling Hong Kong” (港人治港) and the policy of [offering] a high-level of autonomy, and it has acted strictly in accord with the Constitution and the Basic Law in handling matters — acting as a defender of “One Country Two Systems” and the Basic Law, as a supporter of progress on various issues in Hong Kong, and as a protector of the legitimate rights of our Hong Kong brethren. For the past 22 years, the government (国家) has offered staunch support for the development of Hong Kong. And Hong Kong’s development is thoroughly linked to the mainland.
[Tung Chee-Hwa once said:] “If Hong Kong is good, the nation is good. If the nation is good, Hong Kong is even better.” These words spoke of the inextricable link between Hong Kong and the nation (国家). Only by properly protecting the authority of the Central Government can we ensure that the implementation of “One Country Two Systems” in Hong Kong does not go awry, that it is not distorted — and only this way can be ensure Hong Kong’s long-term prosperity and stability (香港长期繁荣稳定) and the welfare of its residents.
We can no longer find justifications for acts of violence! In a civilized society under rule of law, the peaceful and rational expression of demands on the foundation of mutual respect is a basic demand. There is no excuse for violence, and the threshold of rule of law cannot be violated. Compromising with, defending, beautifying and tolerating violence can only result in the continued escalation of the violent behavior of extremists. If they are allowed to trample on the rule of law in Hong Kong, Hong Kong’s advantages and Hong Kong’s competitiveness will be eroded. Hong Kong residents must see clearly the harm and basic nature of the violence perpetrated by a minority of extremists, and must resolutely protect “One Country Two Systems,” resolutely defend law and order in Hong Kong, and preserve the beautiful home of 7 million people.
[As the saying goes:] “Nothing is more beneficial than stability, and nothing is more detrimental than chaos.” We firmly support the Hong Kong SAR Government in employing every legal means to ensure the security of offices of the Central Government in Hong Kong, to preserve rule of law in Hong Kong, and to punish these criminals. We also call on all of our Hong Kong brethren to work together to oppose violence, and preserve rule of law, and to treasure peace. We firmly believe that with the support of the Central Government and the people of Hong Kong, the Kong Kong SAR Government can reinstate normal social order; we firmly believe that the tried and tested “One Country Two Systems” formula can continue to show more vitality.
The Three Gorges Project, the gravity dam and hydroelectric power station on the Yangtze River that is currently the world’s largest power station, is back in the news in China. And state-run media are pushing to reassure the public that the dam is safe. So why is this becoming an issue now?
In recent days, posts on social media have suggested satellite imagery of the mega-structure now shows that it is warping, calling into question its structural integrity. Other posts have reported so far unsubstantiated claims that authorities have halted tours to the area.
The post to the right-hand side above reads: “Comparing images from 2007 to 2018, it can be confirmed that the Three Gorges Dam has experienced serious warping.” The lower post on the left-hand side reads: “Terrifying! Expert team from the Three Gorges Dam has confirmed that the dam has changed shape!”
This second social media post actually refers to efforts by the authorities to counter discussion about possible problems with the project. It shares an image of coverage yesterday from The Beijing News.
The apparent point of the article in The Beijing Newswas to urge calm, citing a team of experts who certify that the project is safe, and that “the warping of the dam’s shape owes to its elasticity” (坝体变形处于弹性状态). The report was based entirely on a public relations release from the state-run China Three Gorges Corporation(中国长江三峡集团有限公司), which explained that the project had undergone regular safety inspections since the formation of its safety inspection team in 1999. The release even included an image of the log books published annually to document the dam’s operation.
Clearly, not all have been comforted by the affirmation from experts that the dam warps because of its “elasticity.” And part of the problem may be mixed messaging as the government tries to contain speculation. According to other official statements circulating after the story began trending around July 1, the inaccuracy of satellite imagery from Google, which is blocked in China, is the source of the misunderstanding.
On July 2, an official speaking with the Shanghai-based news outlet The Paper said that the satellite imagery circulating online had been generated from Google, and was a product of Google algorithms rather than a reliable and accurate image of the Three Gorges project. According to a report on the website of The Observer (guancha.cn), the official said that “the topography of the Three Gorges region shown on Google Maps often shows inaccuracies, because ‘the coordinates have been processed.'”
Naturally, given the fact that the Three Gorges has for some stood as a point of pride and a symbol of China’s technological and engineering prowess, accusations are also surfacing that the whole focus on the Three Gorges Project over the past five days has been a conspiracy cooked up by “anti-China forces.”
“Once Again Certain People Cause Trouble Over the Three Gorges Dam,” reads the headline of the following post. It goes on to say that, “[We] must forcefully strike the faces of anti-China forces(反华分子), building a sturdy dam against public opinion in society.” In other words, the discussion itself is the problem that needs fixing.
Throughout its history — and we are now at the centennial, we might note, of the first mention of the project by Dr. Sun Yat-sen in 1919 — the Three Gorges Dam has been a source of controversy. And at no point since the project’s construction got underway in the 1980s has discussion of the possible implications in terms of environmental or human cost been truly possible. For a look at the history of that discussion, we can recommend our 2015 piece by author Xiao Shu, and of course also Dai Qing’s groundbreaking work Yangtze! Yangtze!, published in 1989.
It is interesting to see this latest surge in interest inside China in a project that deserves a great deal more discussion. But this will almost certainly be a short-lived discussion — a momentary breach of the dam.
(Featured image by Michael Gwyther-Jones available at Flickr.com under Creative Commons license.)
Reading the official propaganda from Beijing in the wake of last week’s G20 Summit in Osaka, one might have the impression that the Group of Twenty is actually now the “1+19,” and that this “premier forum for international economic cooperation” relies on the forcefulness, grace and wisdom of China’s top leader, Xi Jinping.
Two pieces of propaganda in particular give us a glimpse into the self-aggrandizing spirit of present-day politics in China, and how the current leadership views itself, narcissistically, in the mirror of global turmoil.
The first of these is the transcript of a discussion with China’s foreign minister, Wang Yi (王毅), published on the front page of the official People’s Daily newspaper last Friday, June 30, the day after Xi Jinping’s visit to Japan. The second is a very similar “roundup” (综述) released by China Central Television’s official news program, Xinwen Lianbo (新闻联播).
Taken together, these articles are quite shameless examples of “adulatory articles,” or chuipeng wenzhang (吹捧文章), in this case depicting General Secretary Xi Jinping as the leader of the world.
Let’s just walk through the CCTV piece, which is titled (fasten your seatbelts) “Not Fearing that Drifting Clouds Will Obsure The Eyes—A Summary of President Xi Jinping’s Attendance at the G20 Summit in Osaka” (不畏浮云遮望眼——习近平主席出席二十国集团领导人大阪峰会综述). The line at the front of the headline is the first half of a couplet from the verse of Wang An’shi (王安石), a poet and government official from the Northern Song dynasty. The word “transience” here, or fuyun (浮云) points to the changeable nature of global affairs today, and a more literate reader would naturally think here of the second part of the couplet, which goes: “As I occupy the highest levels” (自缘身在最高层). The couplet together would be rendered something like:
Drifting clouds cannot obscure my vision, For I am at the top of the world.
The unmistakable implication here is that Xi Jinping is supreme, on high, at the highest levels – and of course that China stands atop the world.
The transcript begins:
From June 27-29, General Secretary Xi Jinping attended the 14th Leadership Summit of the G20 in Osaka, Japan. This G20 Summit took place at a historical juncture at which the international situation is interwoven with turmoil. Standing in the tide of the times, none of these drifting clouds obscure the vision of General Secretary Xi Jinping, who from the heights of building a new form of international relations and a community of common destiny for mankind, has pointed a clear direction for the world economy and for global governance, has taken the pulse (把脉开方) of relations among the major powers and in international cooperation, and who has shown the vision and sagacity of Chinese leaders, playing the role of a responsible major power.
This talk of “standing in the tide of the times” suggests that it is Xi Jinping who now defines this global era and points the way forward. The “building of a community of common destiny” is Xi Jinping’s chief foreign policy buzzword. The idea of Xi “pointing a clear direction” is premised on the notion that the world has lost its direction and now relies on the enlightening leadership of Xi, who is serving in the role of the doctor, “taking the pulse.” This talk of his “vision and sagacity”– that is of course unalloyed eulogizing.
The transcript continues:
Within these two days, Chairman Xi Jinping took part in more than 20 consecutive events, raising high the banner of multilateralism, advocating the spirit of cooperation in partnership, putting into practice the concept of mutual benefit and win-win, and explaining the proposition of common development. Inside the Summit, Chairman Xi Jinping’s important speech resonated, and the China concept and plan [for the world] were broadly supported. Outside the Summit, Chairman Xi’s summit diplomacy drew the eyes of the world, and the meeting of the leaders of China and the US was a focus of attention. Public opinion inside and outside [China] gave a lofty assessment, holding that Chairman Xi’s visit served to build consensus, enhance understanding, promote cooperation, and convey confidence, making important contributions to the success of the Summit, and increasing stable prospects for the peace and development of the world.
What evidence can the People’s Daily present to support its claim that Xi Jinping’s speech “resonated”? Is it true that there was “broad support,” or that “public opinion inside and outside [China] gave a lofty assessment”?
However valid, these questions are pointless in light of the narrative these propaganda pieces are building around Xi’s presence at the G20. The point of the story is that Xi Jinping was the presence at the G20, that Xi stands at the very top of the pyramid of national leaders.
As the global economy stands at a crossroads, as a crucial stage of transformation of the international system, the importance and urgency of the G20 for increasing policies for cooperation and coordination is enhanced not diminished. Chairman Xi Jinping, focussed on the development requirements of the times, advocated that all sides respect objective principles, grasp the overall development trends, embrace their common future, and persist on the following four points: 1. persist in reform and innovation, unearthing the forces of growth and achieving high-quality development; 2. persist in keeping up with the times, perfecting global governance and promoting reform of the global financial system; 3. persist in rising to challenges, breaking through development bottlenecks and allowing more countries and regions to benefit from economic globalization; 4. persist in the spirit of partnership, handling differences properly and expanding consensus through equal consultation. These calls pointed the direction for dealing with the challenges facing the global economy, and they serve to further broaden space for global development, helping to create a positive environment for international cooperation.
The portions highlighted above convey the clear idea that Xi Jinping is striding out in front, pointing the way for all of the world’s major countries. He is the leader of the “1+19.” This is even clearer in the People’s Daily version of the discussion with Wang Yi, which says that “Xi led G20 cooperation in the right direction” (引领G20合作的正确方向).
But let us continue with the Xinwen Lianbo tribute:
Linking with relevant agendas of the G20 summit, Chairman Xi Jinping introduced the high-quality establishment of the “Belt and Road” concept, and energetically called for international innovation and cooperation, emphasizing the need to transcend territorial confines and artificial borders, letting the fruits of innovation reach more nations and more people. These calls were self-confident and magnanimous, powerful and resonating, showing the enormous embrace between China’s own development and the common development of the world.
“Self-confident and magnanimous.” “Powerful and resonating.” “Showing enormous embrace” of the world. China’s Party-run media have shown a superlative knack for lining up superlatives in support of Xi Jinping. So perhaps these, however over-the-top, are no surprise.
But let’s remember also that are delivered in what is packaged as a discussion with Wang Yi, China’s foreign minister. The piece concludes with an assessment of Xi Jinping’s enormous, stupendous and prodigious contributions to China’s foreign relations history:
On this trip Chairman Xi Jinping coordinated multilateral and bilateral [engagements], covering both developed countries and newly-emerging markets as well as developing countries—another successful example of China’s comprehensive diplomacy. Since June this year, Chairman Xi has made four trips abroad, notching up a record in the history of foreign relations in the New China [since 1949]. These four important foreign relations events were closely connected or coordinated, achieving a further raising of China’s international influence, a further perfecting of our overall diplomatic arrangements, and a further expansion of our strategic operational space. As change and disorder continue in the world today, as a number of factors of instability and uncertainly continue to spread, we must take Xi Jinping’s Foreign Relations Thought (习近平外交思想) as our guide, maintaining clarity, responding steadily, being proactive, striving to create new achievements for Great Nation Diplomacy with Chinese Characteristics (中国特色大国外交).
In the seven years since Xi Jinping came to power, China has utterly cast aside Deng Xiaoping’s foreign policy strategy of “hiding one’s capabilities and biding one’s time,” or tao guang yang hui (韬光养晦). Increasingly, it has taken a more aggressive tone, elbowing its way forward and inspiring global unease. There are plenty of indications that the international situation for China has grown worse, with countries across Europe, Asia and North America becoming far more vigilant about its ambitions. As China’s ultimate decision-maker, it is Xi Jinping — and not the country’s top diplomat, Wang Yi — who bears the brunt of responsibility for this situation.
When reading high praise in the context of Chinese political discourse, it is always important to remember that praise, particularly when excessive, can be a way of damning as much as cheering. One wonders, when Wang Yi voices praise so insistently in the wake of the G20 Summit — is this a sign of confidence, or a sign of unease at home? Should we read this as an act of high-level satire, or gaojihei (高级黑), through an act of clumsy and ill-wrought Chinese Communist Party verbiage (低级红)?
Is this Wang Yi’s way of being diplomatic?
This week the producers of the much-anticipated Chinese war epic The Eight Hundredannounced through the film’s official Weibo account that its July 5 release had been cancelled. While the statement said that a future release date would be forthcoming, the news was quickly understood to signal that the film’s journey had ended before it began.
The film almost certainly fell afoul of unspecified authorities and other influential figures with the Chinese Communist Party because it depicts the heroism of soldiers in the National Army during the 1937 Battle of Shanghai — at a time when China’s ruling Nationalist party was allied with the Communist Party to resist the invading Japanese. Films in China dealing with this period of history generally emphasize the actions and sacrifices of the Communist Party, and downplay the role of the Nationalist party, a bitter enemy during the civil war that followed.
The film’s fate has angered and disappointed many Chinese, for whom the story of Xie Jinyuan, the famous commander of soldiers holed up in Shanghai’s Sihang Warehouse, is an inspirational example of patriotism that should transcend petty ideology.
The following is our translation of one post to WeChat that makes the sense of disappointment very clear.
________________ This Age of Ours Doesn’t Deserve the Heroism of Commander Xie
As I was browsing through Weibo this morning, I saw the news that the July 5 release of Director Guan Hu’s film The Eight Hundred had been cancelled — which means that the film has been formally blocked, and will now sink beneath the waves.
Ever since the cancellation of The Eight Hundred’s credentials as an opening film of the Shanghai Film Festival, I had some sense of foreboding about the film’s destiny. But actually coming to this day I still can’t help but feel a bit hurt.
For the vast majority of Shanghai people, the Sihang Warehouse (四行仓库) on Suzhou Creek is a name that can’t be wiped from our memories.
It was around the time I was in primary school that I read the story of the 800 hundred fighters in the publication Shanghai Stories (上海故事), which was popular at the time — and the way the regimental commander Xie Jinyuan (谢晋元) and the 400 men under his command stood alone constitutes my earliest impressions of the concept of heroism.
Decades have past now, and countless American-style heroes have crossed the screen and entered the entered the minds of the Chinese people, but there there have perhaps been no Chinese heroes of truly international influence.
This is one reason I felt really excited when I learned that Guan Hu’s film The Eight Hundred would be screened, and that it would, no less, be the opening film of the Shanghai International Film Festival.
But as everyone now knows, it was changed out on the spot on June 15, and then the July 5 screening was also cancelled completely. We heard all this claptrap about “technical reasons,” and how “negotiations are underway,” when everyone knows that the real accusation here was that the film “used fragments of history to disguise the basic truth of history” (用历史碎片掩盖历史的本质真实), and that it “showed signs of deviating from historical materialism” (偏离历史唯物主义的创作倾向).
What a joke this is. Is history not always formed from fragments? If we cannot even admit the fragments, or we are unwilling to face them, what kind of historical truth can we speak of at all?
But I’m afraid it’s not quite fair either to heap all of the blame for the fate of The Eight Hundred on the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television (SAPPRFT). As a film bound for the cinema, The Eight Hundred passed examination long ago, and it had received its permit for cinematic screening.
The reason the film ultimately cannot be seen by audiences, I’m afraid, has to do with interference from all sorts of mysterious actors we generally don’t see — from “old leaders” and “old cadres,” from “___ Friendship Society” and “____ Association,”
These people generally engage in no productive activities of their own, but just eat and drink all day, and then split hairs and nitpick. If you make a film about the National Army fighting the Japanese, they will pipe up and say you are combining historical fragments and have a hidden agenda. If you film something about the Communist Army fighting the Japanese, and if it depicts a victory, they’ll pipe up about how you are making an “anti-Japanese drama” that over-emphasizes heroism and is not sufficiently objective. (If you don’t believe me, just go into the BBS chatrooms and see for yourself all of the criticisms there from old cadres over the Drawing Sword series).
And if your film depicts defeat at the hands of the Japanese, this of course is even worse. How can you spread such a spirit of defeat?
The battle by the “eight hundred fighters” at the Sihang Warehouse on Suzhou Creek went on for four days and four nights, but the victory and heroism notwithstanding, it was but a tiny and relatively insignificant part of a much greater war.
The reason why Xie Jinyuan and the 400 fighters under his command (aside from the handful of turncoats who in the end murdered Xie) are revered as true heroes in the hearts of generation after generation of Chinese is because, more importantly, Xie and his regiment remained intact [and a source of morale] for the next few years even while imprisoned in the foreign Settlement.
Without heavy weaponry, boxed in on all sides, refusing all forms of compromise and capitulation, they persisted day after day with training and raising the flag, even in the face of pressure on all sides, maintaining the discipline and dignity of soldiers.
This unswerving determination in the face of desperation became an inspiration for the whole of China at that time. It was written into song, inspiring young people to join the war to save the country: “China will not fail, China cannot fail, just look at national hero Commander Xie!”
But today, when at last some are willing to invest vast resources of money and time to properly tell this episode in history through a film, it still faces this irrational and ridiculous accusation of “historical fragmentalism” (历史碎片论). It suffocates one to speechlessness.
Saving Private Ryan told the story of how, when Americans landed on the beach in Normandy, in a shower of bombs and bullets, eight people did their utmost to save a single man, and none of you said this was “historical fragmentalism.” Hacksaw Ridge told the story of a soldier who refused to bear arms and yet saved others on the battlefield, and none of you said this was “historical fragmentalism.”
But today, people go and tell this story of how more than 400 Chinese sacrificed out of deep love for their country, and you say it is “historical fragmentalism,” that it should not be screened, that it cannot be screened, that it is not permitted to be screened. Actually, I don’t think any of these people who nitpick over The Eight Hundred would actually have the courage to take up arms and sacrifice their lives defending our country if it came again to such a moment of foreign aggression.
So in the end, The Eight Hundred will not be shown. . . .
Goodbye, The Eight Hundred. In this dog shit age of ours, we don’t deserve such a hero as Commander Xie.
“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet,” declares Shakespeare’s Juliet, rejecting the notion that she and her lover should be torn asunder by the feud between their two houses. “‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy,” she says.
These days, names matter deeply in China. In an article published on June 15 in the official Party journal Seeking Truth (求是) and given the most prominent treatment possible on the next day’s edition of the People’s Daily, Xi Jinping declared that China’s cultural confidence, or wenhua zixin (文化自信), arises from three great cultural traditions: “Our cultural confidence is confidence in the organic integration of a culture of socialism with Chinese characteristics including China’s excellent traditional culture, revolutionary culture and advanced socialist culture.”
In practice in recent days, acting on this sense of “cultural confidence” means pushing a revolution in place names, expunging names that are excessively foreign, exaggerated, strange or redundant. When it comes to the West, in particular, it is about clearly distinguishing between the Montagues and the Capulets, between us and them — and so, out with the Hollywoods, Viennas and Victorias.
In December 2018, six Chinese ministries jointly issued a document called “Notice from the Ministry of Civil Affairs and Five Other Departments on Disposing of and Rectifying Irregular Place Names” (民政部等六部（局）关于进一步清理整治不规范地名的通知). The document stipulated that by March 2019 a list of so-called “irregular place names” should be determined and created. We are now beginning to see the process of “rectification” taking place in China.
Recently, the local civil affairs office in Hainan released its own “List of Irregular Place Names Requiring Rectification” (需清理整治不规范地名清单), demanding that place names in the province must be changed if they are “exaggerated” (大), “Western” (洋), “strange” (怪) or “repetitive” (重). Classic examples included places like “Victoria Gardens” (维多利亚花园), “Sunshine Baroque District” (阳光巴洛克小区), “Vienna Hotel” (维也纳酒店), and the “Diaoyutai Mansions” (钓鱼台别墅). All such place names must undergo a process of “renaming” (更名改姓).
Chinese media have also reported that structures such as bridges are being renamed. In Fujian province, for example, bridge names that include the word “big” or “mega” (大), are being downsized if they are not sufficiently large. This means that the names “Dongfeng Mega-Bridge” (东风大桥), “Meixi Mega-Bridge” (琯溪大桥) and “Nanshan Mega-Bridge” (南山大桥) will all have to be changed in light of the clear prohibition against “deliberate exaggeration of names” (名称刻意夸大). In these specific cases, then, the structures will be renamed simply “Dongfeng Bridge,” “Meixi Bridge,” and “Nanshan Bridge.”
“SOHO” as the name of a commercial complex has been deemed under the campaign as “weird and bizarre” (怪诞离奇). And even using letters of the English alphabet to denote buildings within residential complexes, with designations like “Block A” (A座) and “Block B” (B座), has been deemed unacceptable in places like Xi’an.
The city of Wenzhou in Zhejiang province has reportedly gone into something of a fever over place name changes. “European City” (欧洲城), a property complex, has been renamed “Aidengqiao District” (矮凳桥小区). “Central Park,” apparently too clear a reference to the famous park in New York City, has been renamed “Hongxi Garden.”
This nationwide purge of names could in fact have unforeseen consequences in a number of areas, such as for citizen ID cards, residential registration and even real estate registration. One chat thread on China’s Zhihu platform this month shared an official notice from Hainan on the necessary name changes and asked: “Is the name of your residential area safe?” Another post last Friday analyzed various place names, particularly for residential districts, as well as company names, and suggested that the implications of this movement from the top could be enormous if it is taken at its word.
One Chinese internet user ridiculed the name-change policy by creating a table showing the typical Chinese translation of foreign place names like “Queensland,” “New York” and “Red River Valley” alongside literal translations from English to Chinese, resulting in humorous variations such as the English-language “Hollywood” becoming “Jilin,” the same characters as China’s northeastern province of Jilin.
Jokes aside, the announcement of the national measures at the local level has already created a great deal of confusion, not least among hotels and other businesses making use of names that might be regarded as too Western.
After Hainan province released its official notice regarding name changes, seen below, the local “Vienna Hotel” made its own statement through its official Weibo account making clear that its name in fact is a registered trademark, successfully registered with the Trademark Office of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, and was legally used.
Reached subsequently by a reporter for China News Service, Shi Qingli (石清理), deputy head of Hainan’s provincial office of civil affairs, clarified that as a trademark in this case, “Vienna” had not being used as a place name and so the designation “irregular place name” did not apply. But the confusion is sure to continue as the campaign unfolds.
A commentary on the name changes at China Business Online said: “Will this broad demand for a purge really be able to raise our sense of cultural self-confidence, and bring results in regulating place names? I’m afraid we’ll just have to wait and see.”
“Ultimately, cultural self-confidence isn’t something that emerges from restrictions. Real cultural confidence should mean not viewing outside cultures with a sense of fear and foreboding.”
Back in May, there was a flurry of announcements from websites and social networking apps in China indicating that they would be suspending their interactive features – such as basic comment functions and so-called “bullet comments” proliferating across video in real-time – in order to carry out “upgrades.” In some cases, the suspensions were by all accounts permanent.
Users in China were quick to pick up on the fact that these were not at all about improving services, but rather pointed to a concerted effort by internet control authorities to restrict interactivity for the sake of convenience in exercising control over public opinion.
The same sorts of suspensions had already been happening in April, likely in response to the approach of sensitive historical anniversaries, like the centenary of the 1919 May Fourth Movement, the 30th anniversary on April 15 of the death of reformist party chief Hu Yaobang, and of course the 30th anniversary of June Fourth.
The suspensions were likely extensions of a special cleanup campaign announced in January this year by the Cyberspace Administration of China, aiming to “resolve outstanding problems in the online climate.” Commenting in one chat thread on April 12, as someone asked about the seven-day suspension of commenting functions at Snowball (雪球), an investment information platform, one user said: “Technical upgrades are just an excuse; this is actually about speech prohibitions.” In some cases, public notices were made of suspensions with express mention of violations of China’s Cybersecurity Law and Regulation on Internet Information Service — as was the case with Jianshu (简书), a user-generated content platform similar to Medium, which in April underwent “a full and comprehensive rectification (全面彻底的整改) of its content starting April 19.
A number of sites and services announced in mid-May that suspensions of interactive features such as comments would last between several weeks and three months. On May 10, the Ding Talk (钉钉) mobile communication app, developed by Alibaba, and the Momo instant messaging app both issued notices saying that their “friend chat” services resembling the chat services offered by WeChat would be suspended for upgrades.
The animation-themed video site Bilibili (哔哩哔哩), which has been extremely popular, also announced that it would suspend “bullet comments” on its video service from May 29 to June 6. Tencent also reported in May that other services, including YY, Douyu (斗鱼) and Huya (虎牙) had suspended “barrage” comments.
On May 27, Qdaily(好奇心日报), a site offering current affairs and lifestyle content, much of it translated or summarized from foreign sources, announced that its website and app would suspend content refreshing from May 28 for a period of three months. During this process readers were encouraged to read existing content, the site said.
To get a clearer idea of just how disruptive these controls can be for media like Qdaily, just try visiting their site and having a look for yourself. Here is the site’s front page on June 21, three weeks into their suspension.
The headline under Einstein reads: “There is an app called ‘Very Strange’, come and see.” Click into the article and you find it is dated May 27, 2019. Another featured article, dealing with bluetooth earbuds, dates back to May 24.
Right below the feature slider, with its black-and-white image of Einstein, is the announcement of Qdaily‘s suspension, the publication’s logo set against a sunset backdrop. There is no talk of “illegal information,” or the need for a clean “online ecology.”
The notice, just four lines, reads:
From midnight on May 28, the Qdaily website and App will suspend content refreshing for 3 months.
During this time readers can enjoy our past content.
Reader comments and other interactive services will be suspended.
Interactive features for Qdaily Research will appear in another App called ‘Very Strange,’ and readers can participate there.
There is no indication in the notice that Qdaily is facing anything at all serious. Nothing fatal, at any rate. But how is that even possible? How can any for-profit media venture simply live in cryo-freeze for a period of three months and then wake to the world again as a viable source of information?
In decades past, it was impossible in China to kill a publication or render it comatose without some degree of uproar. Just think of the international stink that ensued in 2006 when authorities ordered the shutdown of the respected Freezing Point supplement of the China Youth Daily newspaper.
But for propaganda controls, this is indeed, as Xi Jinping is so fond of saying, a “new era.” These days, an interesting, vibrant and cool platform like Qdaily could simply walk off into the sunset, without a fuss and without so much as a goodbye.
And who really cares? After all, there is always something new.
This is the June 19 edition of the People’s Daily. Notice the news at the upper right-hand corner. Concerning the recent earthquake in Sichuan, Xi Jinping “issued important instructions” (重要指示) and Premier Li Keqiang “gave his written comments,” or pishi (批示).
Translated into English, these two phrases, to “issue important instructions” and to “make written comments” may not sound altogether different. They might even sound to the untrained ear like very basic descriptions of the work of senior leaders. Aren’t they always issuing “important instructions,” and aren’t they constantly “making written comments”?
The phrases in fact have very important distinctions. But this was not always the case. And by looking at changes to how these two phrases have been used, we can gain a glimpse into the dynamics of power in China today.
In both cases, these phrases involve orders sent down from senior leaders to subordinates. “Written comments” refer to orders made to a document or report either presented by subordinates to senior leaders, or issued from senior levels. “Instructions,” by contrast, can sometimes also be spoken, and this helps to distinguish the two.
During the Hu Jintao era, “important instructions” could be issued of course by China’s top leader, Hu Jintao, but also by Premier Wen Jiabao and by other members of the Politburo Standing Committee.
We can see record of one of these cases below, in a report published in the People’s Daily on October 21, 2000, this relating to an earthquake in Yunnan province. The headline mentions that “Hu Jintao, Wen Jiabao and other central leading comrades” issued important instructions.
In the case of the 2008 Wenquan earthquake, Hu Jintao’s “important instructions” were reported in the People’s Daily. But the role of Premier Wen Jiabao as the one leading rescue and relief work on the front lines was made very clear.
During the Wenquan earthquake, both Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao issued “important instructions,” and are often mentioned together, as in this front-page report from May 28, 2008.
From 2003 to 2012 we can actually find this joint mention of “important instructions” quite frequently in the People’s Daily. We saw it in the case of earthquakes, in the case of floods and serious fires, in the case of mining accidents and serious cases of industrial pollution. Whenever, it seemed, there were sudden-breaking stories with potentially serious consequences, not just for those affected but for perceptions of the Party’s leadership and responsiveness, both Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao were front and center, making “important instructions.”
The following is a front-page from the People’s Daily in 2001 that deals with serious drought in China’s southwest. Hu and Wen appear together right at the start of the headline, and again they have issued “important instructions.”
At the start of the Xi Jinping era, the Chinese Communist Party kept to its prior norms from the Hu-Wen era in mentions of “important instructions” on key breaking matters. We have cases from that time of both Xi Jinping and Li Keqing “making important instructions.”
The following report concerns rescue work happening in Tibet after a disastrous landslide occurred there in 2013. There is even mention in the small subhead that “Liu Yunshan, Zhang Gaoli etcetera” (meaning other members of the Politburo Standing Committee) also issued “instructions”.
It is from this point, around the spring of 2013, that mentions of Xi Jinping jointly issuing important instructions vanish from the People’s Daily. When Sichuan’s Lushan (芦山) earthquake happened in April 2013, the newspaper made its first report of exclusive “important instructions” from Xi Jinping.
By 2015, we can clearly spot sharply distinguished use of the two phrases referring to “instructions” (指示) and “written comments” (批示). In January 2015, right at the new year, a major tragedy occurred in Shanghai as people were trampled in crowds along the Bund. Here was the front page of the People’s Daily.
Here, Xi Jinping is clearly the one making the “instructions,” and he is doing so without mention of other members of the Politburo Standing Committee. In the subhead underneath the bold and dominating headline, we see mention of Li Keqiang, who has made “written comments.” In this case, the distinct usage of each term serves to set the top leader apart from his number two. By this time, we were already seeing clearly in China’s official Party discourse that Xi Jinping was being more and more boldly propagandized as an individual and distinct leader, and the gap in power between Xi and Li was clearly widening.
For a time, there were clear cases, however, of local and regional media failing to fully understand and reflect the growing gap between “instructions” and “written comments” and what this gap signified.
Official news releases by Xinhua News Agency in 2015 were already distinguishing clearly between Xi’s act of “instruction” and Li’s act of “written comment,” but sometimes newspapers still got it wrong. In the newspaper headline for this story on a serious fire in Henan province, the local Dali Daily in Yunnan, still reported that “Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang” had issued “important instructions.”
Clearly, this local paper hadn’t yet fully understood that Li Keqiang’s role was not at all like that of Wen Jiabao in the previous era, and that it was policy at Party media to not have Li issuing “important instructions” alongside the General Secretary.
The new norm now is for the general secretary to issue “important instructions,” and for the premier to “make written comments.” The issuing of “important instructions” has now fully become a special right and privilege of Xi Jinping himself.
Frivolous though it may seem to some, this is much more than a word game. It reflects the political norms of Xi Jinping, and it goes to the very heart of Chinese politics today.
If you are a subscriber to China Legal Studies (中国法学), the official quarterly journal published by China’s Ministry of Justice, and if you have in your possession a copy of the journal’s June edition — well, the Central Communist Party would like it back, please.
In a notice issued on June 10, the Beijing Circulation Bureau of China Post Group Corporation (中国邮政集团公司北京市报刊发行局), the entity responsible for coordinating the circulation of periodicals in China, said that “owing to an accident in Issue 3 it requires reprinting and recirculation.” The notice asked that “respected units” — in this case, meaning its divisions and partners across the country involved in distributing the publication — “immediately stop delivery and sale [of the publication], and shred or incinerate it on site, strictly preventing it from entering the scrap market.”
Why such violence against a printed publication? Why must its destruction be guaranteed to the extent that it not even be allowed to survive in the garbage heap?
The “accident” referenced in the notice is probably, in our estimation, the misplacement of the Xi-era qualifier “New Era,” or xin shidai (新时代), in the headline of the journal’s leading article, written by Li Lin (李林) [seen in the featured image above], a Member of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and former director of its Institute of Law.
The headline of Li’s piece, which rather slavishly affirms the need for China to “travel the path of rule of law with Chinese characteristics,” can be translated: “In the New Era, Unswervingly Taking the Socialism with Chinese Characteristics Rule of Law Path” (新时代坚定不移走中国特色社会主义法治道路). You can see the headline right at the top of the journal’s table of contents below.
The problem here is almost certainly that the mini-phrase “New Era” has been woefully misplaced, with the result that Xi Jinping’s phrase “socialism with Chinese characteristics for the New Era” has been mutilated. Properly written, the headline should be instead, “Unswervingly Taking the Rule of Law Path of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for the New Era” (坚定不移走新时代中国特色社会主义法治道路).
The notice from the Beijing Circulation Bureau, calling for the ripping asunder and incineration of an entire print-run of a legal journal, is once again a very clear illustration of just how seriously the Party views the use and deployment of its official discourse as a reflection of internal power dynamics.
As trade tensions between the United States and China have escalated this week, we have seen a series of commentaries and signals from China in the state media, the most important of these appearing in the Chinese Communist Party’s flagship newspaper, the People’s Daily. Today, we have another important commentary in the newspaper, and this time it gets more real estate on the front page, as opposed to page four, where most of these statements have lingered through the week. The piece this time is from “Zhong Xuanli” (钟轩理), a moniker that marks it as coming from the Theory Division of the Central Propaganda Department.
The piece, called “There is No Force that Can Impede the Chinese People as They Stride Toward Realization of Their Dream” (没有任何力量能够阻挡中国人民实现梦想的步伐), does seem (I say cautiously) to dial up the nationalist rhetoric just a bit in comparison to previous commentaries, which emphasized the irrationality of American actions and underscored Chinese readiness to endure, whatever comes.
Just to review, we looked at the first “Zhong Sheng,” or “Voice of China,” commentary on Tuesday in this CMP post, noting that while the tone in official comments on trade tensions was resolute with a mind to projecting strength and shoring up domestic confidence, it was probably premature to characterize it as “nationalistic” as quite a number of international media seemed to be doing. The following day, we looked at the second “Zhong Sheng” commentary and related remarks on this Twitter thread, noting in particular the stress on the word “stability” as the Party again tried to project confidence. Finally, in another thread yesterday, we looked at the third “Zhong Sheng” commentary, which accused the U.S. of blowing hot and cold in trade negotiations, and painted a picture of U.S. as a quitter — “pulling out of the Paris Agreement, pulling out of UNESCO, pulling out of the Iran nuclear deal, pulling out of the UN Human Rights Council.”
Today’s “Zhong Xuanli” piece is the most direct invocation yet — at least in the pages of the People’s Daily — of trade tensions with the United States as an affront and challenge to the inevitable rise of the Chinese people, and the link to Xi’s notion of the “Chinese dream” is directly there in the headline. By comparison, much previous language was abstract. Think of the way, for example, the CCTC anchor on “Xinwen Lianbo” on Monday, starting off the week of accusations, spoke of how Xi Jinping had said that China’s economy is a “great ocean,” not a pond, and while winds and storms can trouble the pond, they cannot trouble the great ocean, and so on.
The language in today’s page-one commentary reads: “In the great journey toward national rejuvenation, the Chinese people are at one in their conviction to protect the interests of our people and the dignity of the nation, our resolution firm as stone and unyielding.”
The language of national rejuvenation and dignity underscores trade tensions with the United States as a direct challenge to China’s rise. “We deeply know that the great rejuvenation of the Chinese people cannot be realized gently, or with the banging of gongs and beating of drums, but requires even more formidable and even more difficult efforts,” the commentary concludes. “We firmly believe that through the centuries and millennia, the Chinese people have stored up abilities of unmatchable strength, and that no force in this world can impede the progress of the Chinese people toward realizing their dream!”
The commentary makes a series of bolded key points, including that 1) the direct cause of escalating trade tensions has been “asking of sky-high prices” by the U.S., that 2) the basic reason for trade tensions is that “the American side respects only itself,” that 3) “the trade war cannot strike China down, but can only cause us to grow stronger on the whetstone,” that 4) the trade war will not result in a cheap deal but will only damage U.S. interests, and that 5) the trade war cannot earn popular support, but will only result in greater factors of uncertainty globally. These are the principal points made in the piece as it appears on the front page of the People’s Daily, and they continue on page four.
We should also note that we have a fourth “Zhong Sheng” commentary today on page three of the People’s Daily, this one ridiculing the suggestion by Donald Trump — though once again Trump is not named — that the U.S. “rebuilt China” by extending the country unfair advantages.
