Author: David Bandurski

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).

Parallelisms for the Future

Written by David Bandurski on . Posted in China Newspeak.

“Parallelism,” or paibi (排比), is a rhetorical method that when used with appropriate measure can strengthen an article, but when used carelessly can have exactly the opposite effect. This is the front page of the March 4, 2019, edition of the Study Times newspaper, published by the Central Party School of the Chinese Communist Party, which just this month was upgraded to a central-level news unit.
The Study Times article, pictured here, totals 6,399 characters, and it makes use of 42 parallelisms, or paibiju (排比句).


To use the unique lingo of Chinese Communist Party media, this is what we call a “response article,” or fanyinggao (反应稿),” a kind of formalized exercise in responding to the instructions or ideological demands of one’s superiors. The fanyinggao can be regarded as one of a number of unique “genres” of Chinese Communist Party writing. In this case, we have a “response article” from a group of young Party cadres taking a study course at the Central Party School’s Chinese Academy of Governance (国家行政学院), and they are responding to a speech President Xi Jinping gave to mark the opening of the course.
As dictated by tradition and by the nature of the genre, such “response articles” generally are, and in fact must be, very enthusiastic (热烈).
This response tells us that the students, “harboring a mood of incomparable veneration” (怀着无比崇敬的心情), listened  to the “important speech” of General Secretary Xi Jinping, that “[their] morale was boosted in no small measure, [they were] educated in no small measure, and [they were] spurred on in no small measure.” For those unfamiliar with the mechanics of the “parallelism,” it is premised on exactly this sort of repetition, which generally occurs in groups of threes. So in this construction, we have a repetition of “in no small measure,” or “deeply receive,” like this:

Deeply receive A, deeply receive B, deeply receive C
深受鼓舞、深受教育、深受鞭策

The Party School pupils praised highly the General Secretary’s “profound thoughts on history, his deeply-layered theoretical implications and the deep hopes [he] entrusted.”  There was, the students noted, the “theoretical hue that keeps abreast with the times,” and the “epochal discourse of dialectical wisdom, which directly faces and assumes practical responsibility,” and “the sincere and guileless ethos of the leader.”
They were not finished.
The General Secretary “stood tall and took a broad vantage, with a manner of full responsibility as a leadership paragon, evincing the personal charisma of the nation and the people, dedicated to the cause of the country, dedicated to the Party and its historic obligations.”
Everyone affirmed that they would actualize in their speech and action the “political character, value demands, spiritual horizons and personal integrity” inherent in Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism With Chinese Characteristics for the New Era — this being Xi Jinping’s developing banner term, his personal brand, which in recent months has been trying its utmost to condense itself into the transcendent “Xi Jinping Thought” (习近平思想). They would apply this lofty thought and all it represents in their attitude, and in their work.
The language of parallelism here is in fact so dense that it is a tall order to accurately render in English. But perhaps readers get the idea.
In this one article alone there are 42 parallelisms, striking like a deafening chorus of drumbeats. One’s feeling in reading the piece is strange, to say the least.
Of course, reading such absurdly lofty language, how can we not then rush off in search of the Xi Jinping speech that inspired this “response article”? We can find the partial text of the speech published on the front page of the March 2 edition of the People’s Daily.


The full-text version of the speech is not available, unfortunately, but we can glean the general content from the report above. As it turns out, the speech itself seems to have been full to the brim with parallelisms. The report here totals 2,900 characters, and it makes use of no less than 24 parallelisms.
If we look just at the brief summary of the text provided at the top of Study Times, to the right side of the masthead, we can get a feel for the sheer density of parallelism deployment. I’ve marked the parallelisms in red:

in this block of text, just 175 characters in length, four parallelisms are used, accounting for 102 characters. The ardent love the speechwriter has for the parallelism comes alive on the page.
The speechwriter is not Xi Jinping himself, naturally. Since rising to the office of general secretary in 2012, Xi Jinping has delivered countless speeches. All of these speeches are written by special teams of speechwriters. In most cases, when a visit is made to a particular department it is that department’s responsibility to prepare the speech. So in this case, with the speech delivered to a group of young cadres at the Central Party School, we can suppose that the speech was prepared by the speechwriting team of the Organization Department (中组部) of the Central Party School.
Still, Xi Jinping would have seen and approved the draft, and we can be sure that no specialized terminologies, or tifa (提法), of which he did not approve would appear in the text. Furthermore, we can sure that stylistic flourishes of which he does not approve could not be allowed to appear again and again, and again, and again.
It is my observation that in the eight years since Xi Jinping came to power, his use of parallelisms has been steadily on the rise. This is particularly true since the 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in November 2017. So it is probably more accurate to say that the speechwriter or speechwriters in this case merely recognized Xi Jinping’s fondness for the drumbeat quality of the parallelism.
There is immense guiding power in this rhetorical preference. After March 4, every edition of the Study Times has felt obligated to publish a “reflection article” about the March 1 speech. Aside from the March 4 piece, I have read three others, published on March 6, 8 and 11.
This is truly an actualization of the ancient saying: “Whatever is favored at the top, must cause a fever down below” (上有所好, 下必甚焉).
The March 6 piece, written by Xu Lanbin (徐兰宾), is called “Constantly Improving Ourselves, Raising Our Capacity for Action” (不断修炼自我 增强担当本领).  It totals 2,131 characters in length, and at six points repeats parallelisms used in Xi’s speech, while offering up 16 more parallelisms not appearing in that speech– for a grand total of 22. So we have, for example, talk about how loyalty and belief (in the Party and its leader) “are concrete, are not abstract, arise from the inner heart, are not floating on the surface, are resolute, and do not emerge all in a moment.”

是具体的、不是抽象的，是发自内心的、不是浮在表面的，是坚定不移的、不是一时兴起的

Moreover, loyalty and belief must “be actualized in speech and in action, be evinced drop after drop, running through one’s life.”

落实到一言一行、体现在一点一滴、贯穿于一生一世

And finally, loyalty to the Party must be “internalized in the heart, planted in the soul and enter the bloodstream.”

内化于心、植入灵魂、融入血脉

All of this is to say that one must, well, be loyal. But more than this, there is a ritual quality to such expressions of loyalty. The parallelism, like the drumbeat, is about the rhythm, music and dance of loyalty. Although, aesthetically speaking, that may be too generous in this case.
The March 8 piece, written by Liu Wei (刘伟), is called “Strengthening Scientific Theories to Arm and Foster a New Generation of Successors” (加强科学理论武装培养新时代接班人). That piece has 8 original and borrowed parallelisms. He mentions, for example, that “Xi Jinping Thought” is “the most important teaching, most authoritative foundation and most fundamental content” of Marxism for the twenty-first century. Then there is the March 11 piece by Liu Yuan (刘渊), “Strengthening Study is the Political Responsibility of Party Members and Cadres” (加强学习是党员干部的政治责任). The piece totals 1,507 characters and includes 13 parallelisms, all of which are apparently original. Liu writes about the need, during study of “Xi Jinping Thought of Socialism With Chinese Characteristics for a New Era,” to emphasize the study of the banner theory’s “scientific nature, modern nature, people nature, practical nature and worldly nature” (科学性、时代性、人民性、实践性、世界性).
And so, may I add to the chorus of parallelisms that we, at this point in China’s history, in this New Era, assiduously follow the New Era, ardently love Chairman Xi, and abundantly employ the parallelism. But forgive me. Writing up to this point I’ve perhaps been infected by spirit. What I wish to say is, that all of those people using parallelisms so lavishly will probably become, before too many years have passed, our new city secretaries, our news provincial Party secretaries, our new Central Committee members, and our new Politburo members.
What can their temperament and the style of their language tell us about our future?

"Low-Level Red" and Other Concerns

Written by David Bandurski on . Posted in China Newspeak.

On the last day of February, a pair of new political catchphrases made their way not just into the Party’s official People’s Daily newspaper but into a central-level Party document. These were “high-level black,” or gaojihei (高级黑) and “low-level red,” or dijihong (低级红). Before we explore how these two terms emerged on the internet and then made their way into central Party documents (中央文件), let us first take a look at some of the key trends that could be noted in Chinese political discourse in February.
Slogans, Hot and Cold
According to the six-level heat index developed by the China Media Project, here is how various important political phrases appeared in the People’s Daily:


One important thing to note as we look at phrase frequencies is that during February the total number of pages in the Party’s flagship newspaper was reduced to eight in light of the Spring Festival holiday, meaning that the total number of articles was likewise reduced, and so word frequencies were about half of what might usually be expected and we don’t see any dramatic changes in the temperature of various keywords.
At the top of the list in the “blazing” (5) category, the highest category in our index, was “opening and reform” (改革开放), but usage of the phrase continued to decline against previous months. It appeared 173 times in February, nearly half of the 339 appearances recorded in January. Meanwhile, “Belt and Road” (一带一路), “feeling of benefit” (获得感), and the “16-character phrase” (16字长语) all maintained their positions in the “blazing” category. The only phrase too newly join the “blazing” category was “battle against poverty” (脱贫攻坚), which rose notably in January but fell just short of the top, landing instead in the “red hot” (4) category.
This month quite a number of phrases actually made huge leaps across the index, in either direction. “Judicial justice” (司法公正) leapt down from “warm” (2) to cold (0). The phrase “the contradiction between unbalanced and inadequate development and the people’s ever-growing needs for a better life” (人民日益增长的美好生活需要和不平衡不充分的发展之间的矛盾), “Lenin” (列宁), “social revolution” (社会革命) and “economic reform” (经济体制改革) dropped from the category of “hot” (3) to “tepid” (1).
The “three stricts and three trues” (三严三实), a phrase introduced by Xi Jinping in March 2014 in reference to the need to maintain strict discipline of Party members, leapt from “cold” (0) to “warm” (2). The phrase was mostly dormant from its introduction in 2014, but reappeared in Xi’s political report to the 19th National Congress of the CCP in 2017.
How the Top Nine Terms Performed
Since the beginning of 2019, we have seen the temperature for the top nine political buzzwords — which we have defined as such because each played a central role in their respective eras within PRC history  — generally in a downward trend. In February, naturally, the drop in the total number of articles using particular terms likely went down as a result of the reduction in total articles published in the paper. The only terms maintaining at least a “warm” (2) rating in light of this were “democratic politics” (民主政治) and “people as the base” (以人为本). All other phrases were  in “cold” (0) territory. Among these, owing to the fading of the commemoration of the 40th anniversary of  Opening and Reform as a priority, we saw a very noticeable drop in the banner terms of previous top leaders, including “Scientific View of Development” (科学发展观), “Deng Xiaoping Theory” (邓小平理论) and the “Three Represents” (三个代表), which all fell to a single use from 10, 9 and 9 uses respectively in January. These banners terms only appeared in “Central Committee Opinion on Strengthening the Party’s Political Construction” (中共中央关于加强党的政治建设的意见), a policy published in the newspaper in full, totaling around 10,000 characters.

Central Party Leaders
In February, the intensity of use of the names of many central Party leaders in the People’s Daily dropped. Aside from Xi Jinping, who maintained position in the “blazing” (5) category, no other political figures made even the “red hot” (4) category. Premier Li Keqiang dropped from the “red hot” (4) category in January to the “hot” (3) category.

In light of the Spring Festival holiday, the number of official events attended by Party officials declined. Wang Yang (汪洋), Yang Jiechi (杨洁篪), Hu Chunhua (胡春华), Liu He (刘鹤), Wang Chen (王晨), Huang Kunming (黄坤明), Wang Huning (王沪宁) and Sun Chunlan (孙春兰) all dropped from “hot” (3) to “warm” (2). Ding Xuexiang (丁薛祥), meanwhile, dropped two categories, from ”warm” (2) to “cold” (0), appearing just twice in the entire month. Politburo Standing Committee Member Zhao Leji (赵乐际), secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, appeared just four times in February, a lower frequency than recorded for many officials who are not members of the PSC.
Local Leaders
As local people’s congresses came and went, ahead of the March National People’s Congress, the appearances of top provincial leaders in their respective provincial-level Party newspapers also notably declined. The exception to this rule in February was Shandong Party Secretary Liu Jiayi (刘家义), whose frequency in the provincial newspaper rose from 58 in January to 85 in February.
Liu’s rise can be explained, however, by the announcement on January 11, 2019, that Shandong would push its provincial people’s congress back to February, so that Liu’s coverage bump came later than that for others.
Aside from Liu Jiayi’s explainable high this month, the highest performers were Hebei Party Secretary Wang Dongfeng (王东峰) and the Party Secretary of the Tibet Autonomous Region, Wu Yingjie (吴英杰), both of whom were also at the top in January.
Wang Dongfeng has had his hands full, with many projects and scandals that demanding his attention, including the construction of the Xiong’an New Area (雄安新区), preparations for the Winter Olympic Games in 2022, an outbreak of African Swine Flu, investigations into illegal property developments and other matters – including an ideological campaign to “prevent and deal with major political risks” (防范化解重大风险).
The most obvious decline for a provincial leader was recorded for Fujian Party Secretary Yu Weiguo (于伟国), who ranked third in January with 109 article mentions, but fell to just 27 in February.
Foreign Leaders
In February, foreign leaders continued to perform in the “cold” (0) category in the People’s Daily. The average mentions for key foreign leaders dropped from 2.8 in January to 2.2 in February. US President Donald Trump remained in the “warm” (2) category along with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuelle Macron. British Prime Minister Theresa May, who did not appear at all in the People’s Daily in January, appeared 7 times in February, chiefly because of ongoing discussions with the European Union over Brexit.
Russian President Vladimir Putin dropped from “warm” (2) to “tepid” (1) in February, but this drop will almost certainly be reversed in the coming months as China and Russia celebrate the 70th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the two countries, which they date back to the establishment of relations between the USSR and the People’s Republic of China in 1949.
Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe rose in February from the “cold” (0) category to the “tepid” (1) category, but the change in his numbers was not significant.
Nations in the Spotlight
Just as in the previous two months, “America” (美国) has remained in the “blazing” (5) category in the People’s Daily, the only country to do so. The main theme throughout February was the ongoing trade negotiations between China and the United States. Aside from trade negotiations, the United States was most likely to appear in the context of reporting on science and technology, often as a frame of reference for China’s own development.
The majority of foreign countries wavered in February between the “warm” (2) and “hot” (3) categories. But there were three countries that dropped from “red hot” (4) to “hot” (3), namely Spain (西班牙), South Korea (韩国) and Australia (澳大利亚).
Malaysia dropped from “hot” (3) to “warm” (2). Meanwhile, Indonesia, which had for two months running been in the “hot” (3) category, dropped down into the “cold” (0) category in February, the reason being the previous focus on the December 2018 tsunami caused by the Anak Krakatau volcano, a story that has now cycled out.
In January, many Party newspapers reported on Chinese aid to Indonesia, for example the Jakarta-Bandung high-speed railway. In February there were no reports devoted to Indonesia specifically, although the country did appear in a report on the Belt and Road Initiative.
Monthly Highlights
“Political Gaps”
On February 23, 2019, the People’s Daily reported that a meeting of the Politburo Standing Committee of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party had been held the day before, on February 22. At the meeting, one of the most important agendas, as relayed by the paper, was the “2018 Situational Report on Important Work by the Central Inspection Work Small Leading Group” (关于2018年中央巡视工作领导小组重点工作情况报告). The meeting emphasized the need to “deeply search out political gaps (政治偏差) in the implementation of the Party’s political line, guidelines and policies.”
On February 28, the People’s Daily published a long article, totaling more than 10,000 characters, called “Central Committee Opinion on Strengthening the Party’s Political Construction” (中共中央关于加强党的政治建设的意见), which again talked about “working energetically to discover and correct political gaps” (着力发现和纠正政治偏差) as an important focus of the work of the Central Inspection Work Small Leading Group. Moreover, on February 21, the day before the meeting of the PSC was held, Zhao Leji (赵乐际), the PSC member in charge of discipline inspection, mentioned in his work report to the 3rd Congress of the 19th Central Commission for Discipline Inspection that there was a need to “prioritize investigation of the situation with regard to implementation of Xi Jinping Thought of Socialism With Chinese Characteristics for the New Era and the spirit of the 19th National Congress of the CCP, searching out political gaps, serving a political monitoring and political guidance role.”
What exactly is a “political gap”?
Searching through the People’s Daily database,  we can find that this phrase has appeared 27 times in the paper’s history. The first time was in 1991, in a summary of a forum about the publication that year by the People’s Musical Publishing House of a book called Everybody in China Sing: Karaoke Songlist (中华大家唱:卡拉OK曲库). Published in May, this was essentially a pre-approved catalogue of revolutionary songs, songs from the 1930s, folk songs, and some songs from Hong Kong and Taiwan. Cheng Zhiwei (成志伟), who at the time was head of the Arts and Culture Office of the Central Propaganda Department, was quoted as saying: “In entertainment, we also must have a proper grasp of the relationship between diversity and the main theme [of the CCP], the relationship between social benefit and economic benefit, the relationship between promoting folk cultures and inviting excellent cultures from the outside, the relationship between high culture and popular culture – otherwise, entertainment might also cause major cultural gaps, or even political gaps.”
In November 2016, “political gaps” first appeared at a high-level meeting of the Central Committee. At the time, Wang Qishan (王岐山), who was serving as director of the Central Inspection Work Small Leading Group, emphasized that the Party “needs to strengthen the ‘Four Consciousnesses,’ being firm in the political direction, raising political positions (政治站位) and seeking out political gaps (查找政治偏差), focusing the leadership of the Party, construction of the Party,  fully [ensuring] strict governance of the Party, the building of an honest Party and the struggle against corruption.” It was from that point that “political gaps” entered the work and vocabulary of the Central Inspection Work Small Leading Group.
The phrase “prioritize the searching out of political gaps” (重点查找政治偏差) has also appeared previously. In July 2017, the revised CCP Ordiinance on Inspection Work (中国共产党巡视工作条例) was released in full-text form. Three different heads of the Central Inspection Work Small Leading Group all separately wrote articles for China Discipline Inspection News (中国纪检监察报) discussing how to implement the revised Ordinance. All of them included the phrase “prioritize the searching out of political gaps.” Zhu Baocheng (朱保成), for example, wrote: “Deepening political inspections means using the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important speeches as the ‘mirror,’ the Party regulations of the Party Charter with measuring tape, and the ‘Four Consciousnesses’ as the political benchmark, we must work to search out problems in terms of politics.”
On September 6, 2018, Yangzhou Daily (扬州日报), the official mouthpiece of the city-level CCP leadership in Yangzhou, ran an article called “Inspection Oversight to Accurately Scan ‘Political Gaps’” (巡察监督精准扫描“政治偏差”).
The article talked quite directly about how the leadership of the Party is weakening, that Party members are confused in their belief in its tenets, that Party members are generally lax in their political studies, with a weak sense of political consciousness. This description allows us to understand a bit more clearly the basis sense of “political gaps.”
“The Two Protections”
A simple internet search can reveal that there are two permutations of the shortened phrase “Two Protections” (两个维护). The first is: “Protecting the core status of General Secretary Xi Jinping, protecting the authority and the unified collective leadership of the Party’s Central Committee” (维护习近平总书记核心地位、维护党中央权威和集中统一领导). The second, quite common, is: “Protecting General Secretary Xi Jinping as the core of the Party’s Central Committee, and [his] core status within the whole Party, and resolutely protecting the authority and the unified collective leadership of the Party’s Central Committee” (维护习近平总书记党中央的核心、全党的核心地位，坚决维护党中央权威和集中统一领导).
These two distinct phases for a single four-character political phrase appeared at different times. The first formulation first appeared in the People’s Daily on March 29, 2017, and had appeared a total of 52 times (again, total articles using the term) up to the end of February 2019. If we include usage that substitutes “Comrade” for “General Secretary,” the total is then 56 uses. The second phrase first appeared in the People’s Daily on October 26, 2017, in an official commentary (社论) called “The Resolute Leadership Core Leading a New Era” (引领新时代的坚强领导核心). The phrase has appeared a total of 79 times since then (90 times if we include substitutions with “Comrade”).
In February, the first of these phrases did not appear at all, but we can note that it reemerged on March 1 in the People’s Daily – so these are both phrases we can continue to monitor.
Internet Slang Moves Into Party Discourse
In common parlance, the phrase “high-level black,” or gaojihei (高级黑), refers to the act of using humorous language to criticize and satirize, or to offered exaggerated praise on the surface in what is actually an act of criticism. It is not unlike the proverbial “smile that hides a dagger” (笑里藏刀).
The “Central Committee Opinions on Strengthening the Party’s Political Construction” released on February 28 reads, actually includes this pair of phrases, marking their debut in central-level Party documents (as opposed to news media alone). The document said: “[We] must with correct understanding and correct actions resolutely enact the ‘Two Protections,’ firmly preventing and correcting all erroneous statements that diverge from the ‘Two Protections,’ and [we] must not allow any form of ‘low-level red’ (低级红) or ‘high-level black’ (高级黑’), permitting no form of two-faced outer devotion and internal opposition (阳奉阴违做两面人) toward the Party’s Central Committee, any double-dealing or ‘false reverence’ (伪忠诚).”
“High-level black”, which originated on the internet, first appeared in the People’s Daily on June 30, 2014, in a commentary that criticized journalists online for discouraging a top college entrance exam tester from Jiangsu province from entering the journalism profession. The commentary said that the journalists had engaged in “high-level black” by ridiculing their own profession.
On December 29, 2016, the Cyberspace Administration of China posted an article called “How to Prevent the ‘High-Level Black’ of Damning Praise” (如何防范明褒实贬的“高级黑”). On April 19, 2018, People’s Daily deputy editor-in-chief Wang Yibiao (王一彪) published an article called “ (The New Era Calls for Building a Favorable Online Public Opinion Ecology” (新时代呼唤构建良好网络舆论生态).
Wang argued that creating a “favorable public opinion ecology,” meaning one free of political criticism and other undesirable content, required “going deep into social networking platforms,” relying on internet users to conscientiously uphold a “clean online space.” In this context, he specifically cited such examples as internet users playing a role in attacking the “high-level blacking” (高级黑) of Liu Hulan (刘胡兰), a young female spy during the Chinese Civil War who has been upheld as a symbol of the courage of the Chinese people (under the CCP), and of the Five Heroes of Langya Mountain (狼牙山五壮士), a CCP story (largely myth) about five Communist soldiers said to have leapt to their deaths after facing off against invading Japanese.
While the word “black” in “high-level black” makes use of the colloquial meaning of “black,” the phrase “low-level red” now being paired with it operates in a slightly different way.The phrase became widely popular only in November 2018, following the November 18 incident in which long-distance runner He Yinli (何引丽) was interrupted during the last stage of the Suzhou marathon by a volunteer trying to force a national flag into her hands. He fell back in the race as a result, which drew scorn from internet users who felt this was a shameless and stupid display of nationalism that was self-defeating.
In a post made on November 22, the WeChat public account “Chang’an Sword” (长安剑), operated by the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, wrote: “To put it a bit more severely, this is classic high-level black through low-level red (低级红高级黑), and even more it is a profaning of patriotism.”
This first time that “high-level black” and “low-level red” appeared in the People’s Daily was in July 2018, in an article by deputy director of the commentary department Fang Zhengwei (范正伟) called “Using ‘Political Results’ to Measure Political Capacity” (以“政治效果”检验政治能力). In it, Fang wrote: “Therefore, to speak politics one must use discerning eyes to distinguish ‘high-level black’ and ‘low-level red’, resolving the problem of ‘fulsome expressions of loyalty, with little real action.'”
Interestingly, just as these phrases appeared for the first time in a high-level Party documents on February 28, another unfortunate example of “high-level black” meets “low-level red” emerged online in the form of a music video called “Huawei is Beautiful” (华为美). On social media platforms, the video “went red,” as Chinese say in colloquial language to talk about something suddenly grabbing widespread attention. But the video made many Chinese cringe with its shameless anthem of patriotic praise for a domestic technology brand. It was inevitable that many panned the video as “high-level black, low-level red” (高级黑,低级红).

Rapping the China Monologue

Written by David Bandurski on . Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

China’s annual “two sessions” are now, well, in session. And that means it is time again for the Chinese Communist Party to live out another of its timeless obsessions — trying to introduce life and colour into what is otherwise mystifyingly dull.
For years now, China has experimented with newer and more youthful approaches to propaganda. Take, for example, this video posted over the weekend by the official Xinhua News Agency, in which “Xinhua correspondents” Katie Capstick and Roisin Timmins are rallied to produce Xinhua’s best approximation of a BuzzFeed-style approach to the “two sessions” — a series of quiz questions beginning with “What are the two sessions?”
But one of the hands-down favourites this year will certainly be this English-language rap video about the “two sessions” co-produced by Xinhuanet Co. Ltd. and Su Han Studio.
A number of media have reached CMP for comment on this phenomenon (don’t forget the Chinese-language rap at People’s Daily Online last year). Are state media targeting foreign audiences with products like this? Are they likely to be successful?
I’ll share just a few thoughts.
First of all, the rap video is a must-watch for its shamelessness, and for its often bewildering cluelessness. “Cringe with us at China’s parliamentary propaganda rap,” wrote the SCMP’s Inkstone as it introduced the video today. From start to finish, the video remains solidly in the self-parody zone, and one of my personal favourite moments is when the line, “We keep the environment alive,” is juxtaposed with scenes of recreational jet-skiers and parachute surfers. The only thing missing is the shark.


How can we account for such total nonsense?
In my view, what we are witnessing here is not a coordinated or well-considered strategy of external propaganda or attempts at foreign influence. What we are seeing is the inevitable outcome of a propaganda system that is cash-rich and culturally and intellectually bankrupt. Leaders understand, on the one hand, that propaganda products must “modernise” and have broader appeal. They must, as President Xi Jinping himself has said, find audiences wherever those audiences are. “Wherever the readers are, wherever the viewers are, that is where propaganda reports must extend their tentacles,” he said in a speech during a visit to the People’s Liberation Army Daily in December 2015, “and that is where we find the focal point and end point of propaganda and ideology work.”
On the other hand, this is a political system in which the Party’s own culture dominates in ways that can be all-encompassing, and this is truer today under Xi Jinping than it was even just seven years ago. Despite the image it tries to project — innovation, innovation, innovation — the system is engineered to promote itself, rather than to respond to a fluid culture and society. And in this system, the most important audience is always the Chinese Communist Party.
Even if the stated objective as a matter of policy is to target overseas audiences, this is not what generally happens in practice, because official China is only really interested in its own monologue. Xinhua is not out to please us. It is out, primarily, to please those within the system who foster and finance projects like the “two sessions” rap video — which by my count required 29 people to produce. The resources required are substantial to say the least.
China’s global propaganda campaign can be “audacious,” as scholars Louisa Lim and Julia Bergin wrote recently. But even when they are out in the great wide world, the products that enact that campaign can be astonishingly insular and self-absorbed. This is hardly a recipe for success.

Suspect Confessions

Written by David Bandurski on . Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

Topping our short list of media stories for the past week, the controversy over missing documents in a contract dispute between the private Kechley Energy and the state-run Xian Institute of Geological and Mineral Exploration — a case driven into the public eye by former television host Cui Yongyuan (崔永元) — took a bizarre turn as the key whistle-blower in the case, supreme court judge Wang Linqing (王林清), confessed on national television to taking the missing documents himself. Chinese commenting online and on social media were understandably skeptical, sensing powerful interests at play. Over the past six years under Xi Jinping, CCTV has developed quite a track record of airing the ostensible “confessions” of detained individuals before they have appeared at trial or had access to legal advice.
Also this week, a local Party-run newspaper is called out and apologises after being caught plagiarising another Party-run newspaper; China’s internet users surpass 800 million; and the official Study Times, a journal under the Central Party School, is upgrade to a central-level Party news unit, bringing the country’s total back to 18 after structural reforms last year reduced the number.
 
THIS WEEK IN CHINA’S MEDIA
February 23 to March 1, 2019
➢ Supreme court judge confesses to removing documents in high-profile contract dispute, internet users skeptical
➢ Yingkou Daily admits to plagiarised article and issues apology
➢ Study Times to be upgraded to a central-level news unit
➢ New report shows total internet users in China topping 800 million
[1] Supreme court judge confesses to removing documents in high-profile contract dispute, internet users skeptical
On February 22, a joint investigation team led by the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission (中央政法委) and including the National Supervisory Commission (中央纪委国家监委) and the Supreme People’s Court (最高人民检察院), released the findings of its investigation into files that went missing in the “Kechley Energy” missing files case (凯奇莱案) and the related legal dispute between two resource-extraction companies. According to the investigation results, Wang Linqing (王林清), the supreme court judge who previously blew the whistle on the fact that the documents in question were missing, confessed to the investigative team that he himself had intentionally removed them out of anger, and in order to prevent others from handling the case because he felt the case was an important one and did not want to share credit.
On March 1, Wang also appeared in a televised confession on China Central Television, saying he had taken the case documents home. A report on CCTV said that Wang faces charges of illegally obtaining and leading state secrets. These seemingly contradictory statements from the man who was the original eyewitness in the case were mocked by Chinese online.


The papers, which dealt with a contract dispute between a private energy company called Kechley Energy, and Xian Institute of Geological and Mineral Exploration, a state-run company. The private company won its case in China’s supreme court in 2017, but the ruling was never acted upon. The case, including the missing documents, finally became public in December last year, thanks to posts made to social media by Cui Yongyuan (崔永元), a former television host.
KEY SOURCES:
People’s Daily (人民日报): 中央政法委牵头的联合调查组公布“凯奇莱案”卷宗丢失等问题调查结果
Weibo account “News Headline Express” (新闻头条快报): 王林清，你就是个蠢货！
Sougou Encyclopedia (搜狗百科): 凯奇莱案
[2] Yingkou Daily admits to plagiarised article and issues apology
On February 25, the self-media account “@ZeiCha” (@贼叉) revealed through its Weibo account that Yingkou Daily (营口日报), the official mouthpiece of the Party leadership in Yingkou City in Liaoning province, had published a commentary called “Fully Creating the ‘Yingkou Courtesy’ City Calling Card” (全力打造“营口有礼”城市名片) that blatantly plagiarised an article published in the May 16, 2018, edition of Zhejiang Daily (浙江日报) and bearing the byline of Xu Wenguang (徐文光), the Party secretary of Quzhou City. The post said that the article in Yingkou Daily was 70 percent identical to the Zhejiang Daily article.

On February 25, Yingkou Daily issued an apology for the incident on its official Weibo account, apologising to Zhejiang Daily and pledging to discipline those responsible.
KEY SOURCES:
WeChat public account “Media Observer” (传媒大观察): 那个抄袭文章的《营口日报》道歉了
“@ZeiCha” (@贼叉): 《营口日报》的这位评论员，word整挺好啊。。。
Yingkou Daily (营口日报): 全力打造“营口有礼”城市名片
Weibo account @YingkouDaily (@营口日报): 致歉信
[3] Study Times to be upgraded to a central-level news unit, bringing total back to 18
In March 2018, with the merger of three broadcast networks, China National Radio (中央人民广播电台), China Central Television (中央电视台) and China Radio International (中国国际广播电台), China had its total number of central-level news units (中央媒体单位) — meaning those directly under the leadership of the Central Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party — reduced from 18 to 16. In May 2018, the upgrade of the People’s Consultative News (人民政协报) brought the number of central-level news units back up to 17. With the elevation of Study Times, China has returned to a new era of (18 central media).
The media include:
People’s Daily (人民日报)
Xinhua News Agency (新华社)
Voice of China (中央广播电视总台)
Seeking Truth (求是)
People’s Liberation Army Daily (解放军报)
Guangming Daily (光明日报)
Economic Daily (经济日报)
China Daily (中国日报)
Science and Technology Daily (科技日报)
People’s Consultative News (人民政协报)
China Discipline Inspection News (中国纪检监察报)
Study Times (学习时报)
Worker’s Daily (工人日报)
China Youth Daily (中国青年报)
China Women’s News (中国妇女报)
Farmer’s Daily (农民日报)
Legal Daily (法制日报)
China News Service (中新社)
The supervising institution of the Study Times is the Central Party School of the CCP (中共中央党校). The journal was launched in September 1999, the calligraphy on its masthead written by President Jiang Zemin ( 江泽民) and an opening message penned by Hu Jintao (胡锦涛).
KEY SOURCES:
WeChat public account “Media Tea Party” (传媒茶话会): 独家！17家中央新闻单位将添新兵！
Study Times Online (学习时报网)
[4] New report shows total internet users in China topping 800 million
On February 28, the China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC), an administrative agency under China’s Ministry of Information Industry, released its 43rd China Statistical Report on Internet Development (中国互联网络发展状况统计报告). According to the report, the number of . internet users in China reached 829 million by December 2018, adding more than 56 million internet users in the past year, with total internet penetration reaching 59.6 percent of the population.
KEY SOURCES:
Guangming Daily (光明日报): 第43次《中国互联网络发展状况统计报告》发布 我国网民规模已达8.29亿 互联网普及率近6成

China's About-Face on Education

Written by David Bandurski on . Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

In late January, Introduction to Constitutional Law (宪法学导论), a textbook on China’s Constitution first published in 2004 and now in its third edition, vanished from online bookstores, including Amazon.cn, JD.com and dangdang.com. Offline, the book was apparently pulled from shelves at Xinhua Bookstore, a government-affiliated book chain that is also the country’s largest.
Written by Zhang Qianfan (张千帆), a law professor at Peking University and one of the country’s leading experts on constitutional law, Introduction to Constitutional Law has long been essential and required reading for students of law in China. While the precise reasons for the textbook’s disappearance were not entirely clear, rumors posted across social media suggested the textbook had run afoul of the authorities for “promoting western ideas, and singing praise of western systems” (宣扬西方思想, 鼓吹西方制度).


The book’s sudden change of fate is one of the latest and clearest indications of a deeper ideological shift in China under Xi Jinping (习近平), one that puts Marxism — with “Chinese characteristics,” of course — back in the driving seat, with real and felt implications for all aspects of society, including education.
Whatever the backstory concerning Zhang’s book, the news of its disappearance came amid a nationwide operation targeting college textbooks.
Earlier in January, China’s National Textbook Committee asked schools for scrutiny of all Constitution-related textbooks in use, according to a notice published on January 7 on the website of Jiangxi Provincial Education Bureau. That notice, which had been removed from the internet by February, is still cached here.
And as Zhang’s book vanished, one clear winner emerged in the arena of constitutional law that illustrates what is at stake for legal education in China. Several colleges, including Jiangsu Normal University, demanded teachers use instead a textbook called Constitutional Law (宪法学), published in 2011 as part of the “Marxism Theory Studies and Construction Project” (马克思主义理论研究和建设工程), an initiative launched back in 2004 — the same year Zhang’s book was first published — by the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party during the tenure of Xi Jinping’s predecessor, Hu Jintao (胡锦涛). The ostensible goal of the project was the “prosperous development of philosophy and social sciences” (繁荣发展哲学社会科学) in China through the application of Marxism.
The results — for the field of constitutional law at any rate — were not exactly inspiring. A search for Constitutional Law on China’s most popular and trafficked book-rating website, Douban, shows the book earning a lackluster rating of 2.5 out of a possible score of 10, while various editions of Zhang Qianfan’s Introduction to Constitutional Law uniformly receive ratings of between 9.1 to 9.8.
An “Ideological Three Gorges Dam”
The “Marxism Theory Studies and Construction Project” that spawned the poorly-rated alternative to Professor Zhang’s book is perhaps a reminder that the ideological turn we associate with President Xi Jinping was already nascent in the Hu Jintao era. And its fruits — such as they are — were not clearly in evidence until 2012, eight years after the project’s initiation, and right on the eve of Xi Jinping’s rise to power.
Searching the official People’s Daily newspaper, we can find 605 results for the “Marxism Theory Studies and Construction Project” in the 15 years since its introduction. The first article appears in March 2004, mentioning the project in a report to that year’s session of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).
By the dawn of the Xi era in 2012, the project had published 25 textbooks on philosophy, arts and the humanities. Its first book, “Ideological and Moral Cultivation and Basic Law Education” (思想道德修养与法律基础), was published in 2006  following a one year process of compilation and editing. The People’s Daily reported in late 2006 that 5.3 million college freshmen – almost all first-year students in China – used this new textbook.
It would be a mistake to underestimate the reach and importance of this publishing initiative. Today, most college students graduating sometime in the past eight years have at least used one of its textbooks. And this is meant only as the beginning. The Ministry of Education has been charged with managing the publication of 93 textbooks in total, while a central government office established especially for the project is responsible for a further 41 textbooks. The fields of study and research involved include history, ethnic studies, religious studies, and even more specialised subjects like the history of Chinese classical drama.
Aside from new subject-area books, China is promoting the advancement of whole new areas of study. Marxist theory, for example, which used to be a secondary subject under the social sciences, has been elevated to a first-degree subject, the highest degree possible in China’s higher education system.
In recent years, mention of the “Marxism Theory Studies and Construction Project” in the People’s Daily has decreased, but the project itself continues to be a core part of China’s cultural development planning. It received prominent mention in the “12th National Five Year Plan for Cultural Reform and Development” (国家“十二五”文化改革发展规划纲要) issued in February 2012,  and was also included China’s “Mid and Long-Term Education Reform and Development Plan: 2010-2020” (国家中长期教育改革和发展规划纲要 2010—2020年), in which universities were told to “positively engage” with the project.
The project is also not limited to textbook publishing. It has produced documentaries, and has even supported the creation of an online encyclopaedia, developed by the Xi’an Institute of Political Science, that collects materials on the “theoretical system of socialism with Chinese characteristics.”
The scale of the project’s output is immense. So immense, in fact, that one expert involved in the project, Xin Bensi (邢贲思), referred to it, in a 2015 article published in the Party’s Seeking Truth journal, as an “ideological Three Gorges Dam” (意识形态的三峡工程).
The Changing Constitution of Legal Studies
The Constitutional Law textbook was officially introduced in 2012. The People’s Daily offered its endorsement on February 29 that year by describing the book’s basic, defining character — which in retrospect might help to explain the recent textbook replacement. According to that article, the textbook is “firmly against the blind copying of Western constitutional theories” (坚决反对盲目照抄照搬西方的宪法学理论).
The People’s Daily piece also criticised constitutional definitions offered by Western scholars, saying that they “describe the form but do not touch on the nature and essentials” (从形式上描述而不触及本质).
The new textbook also sought to offer “response and guidance” on the “misunderstanding and erroneous tendency in international and domestic ideas” that held that the Preamble to China’s Constitution — which mentions, for example, the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and the “dictatorship of the proletariat” — was not legal binding. The book sought to address such “wrong views about the Constitution’s Preamble,” establishing the principle that the Constitution is a binding document in full. One of the most compelling arguments against such an understanding has come from Zhang Qianfan, who wrote in the Yanhuang Chunqiu journal in 2013 of the Preamble to China’s Constitution that “we believe that it does not have common ‘legal effect.'”
The 2012 textbook also presents what it calls a “Marxist View of Human Rights” (马克思主义人权观),” a direct response to criticisms of China’s human rights record, which the book refers to as “attacks from international powers on human right issues.”
A basic idea underlying the textbook is the notion of national relativism, that constitutions must accommodate the unique characteristics of their own countries. “Constitutions take different routes in different countries and regions,” Xu Chongde, the chief editor of the textbook, wrote in the People’s Daily in 2013. “[We] cannot copy directly from others.”
This official textbook on China’s Constitution is directed not just at legal students in China, but has become regular and required reading for college students more broadly, with the premise that students should become more adept at refuting frequent criticism from the West on China’s failure to abide in terms of policy, practice and law enforcement by many of the stated rights and principles outlined in the Constitution.
“[We should] establish the noble spirit of our Constitution in all citizens,” said Luo Shugang, deputy director of China’s Central Propaganda Department, in a 2014 meeting reported by the People’s Daily. “[Meanwhile, we must] clearly outline the difference between our Constitution-based governance and Western ‘constitutionalism’.”
Huge Cost, Mixed Reviews
The textbooks created as part of the “Marxism Theory Studies and Construction Project” are part of the fifth generation of textbooks introduced at Chinese universities on “ethics and politics,” which is essentially code for the study of Marxism.
Generally speaking, the renewal of texts and reworking of classes and curriculum requires a huge input in terms of capital and human resources. By the end of 2008, the People’s Daily has reported, colleges in China employed more than 60,000 teachers for courses in “ethics and politics,” and a further 91,808 undergraduate mentors. That means that for every 207 students studying at the undergraduate level in China, there is one mentor in Marxism studies.
Since 2008, more than 10 universities, including Peking University and Renmin University, have established new centers for Marxist theory, and a national forum bringing together related experts has been held every year since. At the university level, human resources have been devoted to Marxism studies on a massive scale. Renmin University alone reported in 2012 that it had 151 teachers involved in the writing and editing of textbooks on Marxism.  
But this massive outlay of resources has yielded only mixed reviews when it comes to quality.
According to state media, students and teachers have nothing but praise to the new textbooks. “[I] never expected the textbook will be so interesting,” said Liu Xiaojun, a first-year college student at China Agriculture University, in an interview with the People’s Daily in 2012 when talking about the book “Ideological and Moral Cultivation and Basic Law Education” (思想道德修养与法律基础), “this is one of the most helpful courses to freshmen like us.”
But the feedback online is less encouraging. The book received a rating of just 3.5 on Douban, where many called it “dogmatic” and “brainwashing.”
Some have panned the textbook as “rubbish.” “It includes nothing [valuable],” an anonymous user on Zhihu, China’s equivalent of Quora, complained of one textbook. “Our teacher had to add extra contents to it, and students had to make extra notes all the time.”
Just this week, the Chinese Communist Party released an ambitious blueprint to modernise the country’s education system by 2035, and state media reported that the plan “demonstrated China’s active participation in global education governance.” But others argue that the advancement of compulsory textbooks designed to place ideology over substance threaten the quality of education in China and its engagement with the world.
In an interview with WeMedia NGOCN, Zhang Qianfan, author of the banned book, disputed the criticism that his book “promotes western ideas.” “China’s existing Constitution borrows heavily from the achievements of world civilization,” he said. “What we are promoting is not some ‘Western civilization’ . . . but rather clauses in our own Constitution.”

Fulminating About Freckles

Written by David Bandurski on . Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

This week we have a People’s Daily commentary from a former New Zealand prime minister (who did not actually write it), a social media controversy over freckles that some felt insulted women across China, and a senior editor at a Party-run news website suspended for running fake news about an official appointment.
To add a bit of extra fun, we even have an interesting social media post about two very bizarrely named official offices in China, reviewed by a WeChat public account linked to Beijing Youth Daily, including the ”Suzhou City ‘To Forge Iron One Must Be Hard’ Special Operation Leadership Office.” Just imagine that name card!
THIS WEEK IN CHINA’S MEDIA
February 16-22, 2019
➢ People’s Daily runs article attributed to former prime minister of New Zealand, who then denies writing it
➢ ZARA is accused of insulting Chinese model, state media say it is an unfair label
➢ “Mimeng” has her accounts shut down across several platforms in crackdown on “marketing of anxiety”
➢ Two odd new and unusual official phrases garner attention 
➢ Securities Daily deputy editor-in-chief suspended for writing fake news
[1] People’s Daily runs article attributed to former prime minister of New Zealand, who then denies writing it
On February 18, the English language website of People’s Daily Online, run by the Chinese Communist Party’s official People’s Daily newspaper, ran an article under the byline “Dame Jenny Shipley,” the former prime minister of New Zealand.  The article was headlined “We Need to Learn to Listen to China” (我们需要学会倾听中国), and it spoke in lofty praise of China’s recent economic development. “The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) proposed by China is one of the greatest ideas we’ve ever heard globally,” the article said at one point. “It is a forward-looking idea, and in my opinion, it has the potential to create the next wave of economic growth.


The article created a firestorm in New Zealand, where Foreign Affairs Minister Winston Peters sharply criticised Shipley for “selling out New Zealand interests” by speaking for China at a period of heightening tensions between the two countries. But the story took an interesting turn when Dame Jenny denied having written the article for Chinese state media, saying that she had instead accepted an interview in December that had already been published. “It is important for the foreign minister and prime minister and others to understand that I would never think of getting into a public situation like this, at such an important time for New Zealand’s relationship,” she told the New Zealand Herald.
Dame Shipley claimed that the Chinese article attributed to her had in fact been manufactured from an interview she gave the People’s Daily back in December 2018. A Chinese version of the article, clearly attributed to Shipley, had in fact already been published on January 23, almost a month earlier.
In fact, such conduct by state media in China, writing interviews with sources as commentaries written by them, is not at all uncommon.
As the controversy raged in New Zealand, People’s Daily Online apparently added a line to the top of the article that read: “The article is based on the interview by journalist with People’s Daily in December 2018.” But the paper did not issue a former correction for what was clearly a blatant misrepresentation.
Asked about the incident on February 21, Foreign Ministry Spokesman Geng Shuang (耿爽) said he was unaware of the situation and advised the reporter to approach the “relevant media” for answers. Reuters subsequently reported that it . had spoken to the People’s Daily, which said the situation was being investigated and refused to comment. 
KEY SOURCES:
BBC Chinese (BBC 中文网): 中国《人民日报》“编写”新西兰前总理署名文章
Lianhe Zaobao (联合早报): 《人民日报》网站刊“新西兰前总理希普利”文章 当事人否认撰文
[2] ZARA is accused of insulting Chinese model, state media say it is an unfair label
After the European fashion brand ZARA released an ad in which a Chinese model is clearly shown with freckles on her cheeks, some Chinese accused the company of smearing Chinese women and insulting Chinese.
“Are you trying to uglify Asians?” one user posted angrily to the Sina Weibo platform.

Unlike the scandal last year involving Dolce & Gabbana, during which remarks made by the designer were labeled as “insulting to China” (辱华) by state media, the official Beijing Daily called the ZARA scandal a misunderstanding and said in an editorial that some people had become too sensitive when it came to questions of Chinese pride: “If we raise accusations of insulting China at every turn, we come off as petulant and this is counterproductive to our development.  In the case of this recent storm, if there is a real agitation to boycott this brand, affecting all of its stores in China, this will impact countless employees there, and the baseless damage to society will be substantial.”
KEY SOURCES:
Beijing Business Today (北京商报): ZARA陷丑化中国模特舆论风波
Beijing Daily (北京日报): 不宜动不动扣“辱华”帽子
[3] “Mimeng” has her accounts shut down across several platforms in crackdown on “marketing of anxiety” 
On February 21, “Mimeng” (Ma Ling), a blogger and entrepreneur known for her social commentary and clickbait headlines, had her WeChat public account and its subsidiary account, “Talent Limited Youth” (才华有限青年), shut down by the platform.  The same day, both Jinri Toutiao and Phoenix Online shutdown the “Mimeng” accounts on their platforms, saying that they were resisting “foul culture” (污文化) and “poisonous chicken stock” (毒鸡汤), the latter a term for content that on the surface seems to be wholesome but in fact is fraudulent and misleading.
On February 21, the official Weibo account of Weibo Community Management (新浪微博社区管理) made a post saying that it was conducting an aggressive campaign against what it called “marketing of anxiety” (贩卖焦虑) and other forms of negative and low-end content. Accounts shut down as part of this push, it said, included “@Mimeng” (@咪蒙) and  “@TalentLimitedYouth” (@才华有限青年).
Mimeng’s style of writing, which invites readers to vent their frustrations, has earned her huge commercial success. On January 29, a post on her WeChat public account called “The Death of a Lowborn Top Tester” (一个出身寒门的状元之死), an ostensibly non-fiction story about a gifted young man struck down by misfortune, drew widespread criticism, some charging that it was, though cleverly written, inauthentic and sensational.
KEY SOURCES:
Beijing Youth Daily (北京青年报): 别了“毒鸡汤” “咪蒙”微信公众号注销 公众号巅峰时头条广告80万 广告投放频率26.9% 商业价值随之受损
Netease (网易): 咪蒙被关不得转世：被那个5万月薪的实习生毁了
[4] Two odd new and unusual official phrases garner attention 
“Zheng Zhidao” (政知道), a WeChat public account under the banner of the Beijing Youth Daily newspaper, the official publication of the Beijing committee of the Chinese Communist Youth League, made a post on February 20 introducing two quite unusual Party and government organs (党政机构) inspired by equally unusual phrases.
The first was the “Suzhou City ‘To Forge Iron One Must Be Hard’ Special Operation Leadership Office” (苏州市打铁必须自身硬专项行动领导小组办公室). This office was set up almost three years ago, and the supervisory commission of Suzhou’s local office of discipline inspection (苏州市纪委监委) has said that the office’s primary task is to “strengthen honest work (廉政工作) within the discipline inspection team” in order to prevent “[doing] black under the lamplight” (灯下黑). The office, in other words, is discipline inspection for discipline inspectors. The office was set up at the behest of provincial-level discipline inspectors in Jiangsu as a provisional office without independent organisational status, with staff taken from the discipline inspection office. Many district offices in Suzhou have apparently also conducted “special campaigns” under the name “to forge iron one must be hard.”

The phrase “forging iron still requires one’s body to be hard” (打铁还需自身硬) first appeared in the political report to the 18th National Congress of the CCP in November 2012, and in the political report to the 19th National Congress in 2017, this was changed into a new official terminology, or tifa (提法): “to forge iron one must be hard” (打铁必须自身硬). 
The second office introduced by “Zheng Zhidao” was the “Only Run Once Reform Office” (最多跑一次改革办公室).
On February 11, 2019, the official Zhejiang Daily ran a commentary called “There Are No Protagonists in ‘Only Run Once’ Reform” (‘最多跑一次’改革没有局外人) which revealed that the Once Run Once Reform Office is an independent office setup by Zhejiang’s Party Committee in the midst of institutional reforms, and the only new institution to be overseen by two members of the provincial Party standing committee.
KEY SOURCES:
WeChat public account “Zheng Zhidao”  (政知道): 这些党政机构，因名称成为网红！
Zhejiang Daily (浙江日报): “最多跑一次”改革没有局外人
[5] Securities Daily deputy editor-in-chief suspended for writing fake news
After many self-media (自媒体) reported that Yi Huiman  (易会满), a Chinese banker, would possible serve as chairman of the China Securities Regulatory Commission (证监会), the Securities Daily website, operated by the central-level Economic Daily Publishing Group, ran a report on January 25 denying what it said were baseless rumours of Yi’s appointment, and emphasising that “relevant people point out that the self-media are not a land outside the law, and they must face legal responsibility for the transmission of fake news.”
One day later, Yi Huiman was indeed appointed as chairman of the Chinese Securities Regulatory Commission, and the Securities Daily came under sharp criticism.
The Securities Daily subsequently issued an internal notice in which it said it had found through an internal probe into the incident that its deputy editor-in-chief, Dong Shaopeng (董少鹏), had written the article without permission and without verification,  and had arranged for the new media centre (新媒体中心) to which he had been assigned to publish it. This failure to carry out proper interviews and go through the established editorial channels for such a major report on personnel assignments had resulted in a “major reporting error.” Because of this, the Securities Daily had decided to suspend Dong Shaopeng and order him to reflect (停职反省), as well as pay a fine of 5,000 RMB.
KEY SOURCES:
WeChat public account “Deep Blue Finance” (深蓝财经): 辟谣“易会满或任证监会主席”出错 ，证券日报副总编被停职罚款
Ce.cn (中国经济网): 易会满履新 8年来四大行董事长“轮流”当证监会主席

The Trouble With Obedience

Written by David Bandurski on . Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

In this imagined “New Era” of governance for China, President Xi Jinping has emphasised again and again the need to shore up the Chinese Communist Party’s dominance of all aspects of society. The media, as constructors and communicators of the Party’s “mainstream” ideology, are absolutely core to this mission, and so we have seen not just a consolidation of controls over traditional media but a renewed push to exploit digital technologies in order to ensure the Party is enmeshed with daily life.
In this political environment, in which governance equates with obedience, it has been increasingly challenging to find critical voices, despite the proliferation of the media tools and platforms that would seemingly empower such voices. But the critical voices are there, and they can assert themselves at times in the most surprising of places — a reminder of the complexity of the Chinese context.


One interesting example came yesterday as Chen Dongshen (陈东升), director of the news station for the Legal Daily (法制日报) newspaper in Zhejiang province, wrote a critical post on his WeChat public account about an advertisement appearing in Wenzhou Daily (温州日报), the official Party publication under the oversight of the top leadership in the city of Wenzhou.
The advertisement in question, which appeared across a full page, was taken out by VOC, a private company specialising in smart locks. Against a simple, putty-coloured background were the giant words “Thank You!” They followed a message that read: “We take this full page only with a wish to say the words THANK YOU to the Party Committee and Government of Wenzhou and to the Ouhai District Party Committee and Government!” At the very top of the page was the insignia of the People’s Republic of China. In the upper right-hand corner were the words, “Special Report for the 2019 Two Meetings of [Wenzhou] City,” referring to upcoming local session of the people’s congress and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).
Chen Dongshen had a number of serious objections to the appearance of this advertisement in the official Party newspaper of the city of Wenzhou, and he laid these out in a careful and well-reasoned manner in his post.
In Xi Jinping’s political culture of praise and obedience, how can such expressions of gratitude to the local leadership occasion open criticism?
Before I get into the details of his argument, we should note that Chen’s paper, the Legal Daily, is the official publication of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission, the body under the Party’s Central Committee that overseas law enforcement, including the police. As such, Chen of course is a journalist within the Party press system, and exactly the sort of “press worker” (新闻工作者) envisioned as carrying out Xi Jinping’s mandate (remember his February 2016 speech on media policy) to “love the Party, protect the Party and serve the Party” — to be, that is, “surnamed Party.”
The Chinese Communist Party regards the Party-run press in particular as the “vanguard,” as the means by which the “correct” political orientation — the desired attitude toward key issues, breaking news and policies — can be signalled and enforced throughout the broader field of public opinion.
Chen, moreover, is a locally-based journalist for this national-level Party publication, a Zhejiang native, which makes his criticism all the more extraordinary. As one veteran journalist wrote on WeChat, responding to Chen’s post: “This piece written by Chen Dongshen, the director of the Zhejiang news desk of the Legal Daily, is written rationally on the basis of facts. For a central Party media journalist who is a native of Wenzhou to make such a serious and impartial criticism of the Party and government of his hometown in such a way is no easy thing — a friend capable of open admonition!”
Quite a number of media professionals commenting on WeChat have suggested, in fact, that the advertisement appearing in Wenzhou Daily should never have appeared in the first place, given that the newspaper is a Party-run paper, or dangbao (党报). And some have suggested the advertisement showed a glaring lack of political sensitivity, and was an act “without Party spirit” (没有党性).
Here we begin to see just how complicated the simple injunction to obey the Party can become. Xi’s 2016 speech on the role of the media was chockfull of talk about the need to uphold the “Party spirit,” the concept at the heart of the notion of being “surnamed Party.” The injunction to “love the Party, protect the Party and serve the Party” must apply at the local and regional level as much as at the national level. But how does one balance this all-encompassing, veto-power value with the values the Party and government ostensibly uphold on a practical level? . . . Values, for example, like putting the people first, or serving the development of the private sector, or upholding law-based administration?
As a fundamental, infrangible rule of conduct, obedience undermines the very authority it is meant to protect.
But let’s take a quick look at Chen Dongshen’s objections. His post is titled “Why Is the Full-page Thank You From a Wenzhou Company Ahead of the People’s Congress Strange?” It lays out three primary objections to the advertisement, as follows.
First, he asks, “Where is the need for thanks?” He points out that the local government’s role and responsibility, given that it is supported by taxpayers, which includes businesses, is to make matters convenient and conducive to entrepreneurship and business development.
“Anyone who is in the least bit enlightened about such things,” Chen writes, “knows that the government is product of a ‘social contract’ between the government and the taxpayers, and taxpayers yield a measure of powers so that taxes can be collected and the government supported. The government is then responsible for providing the public with social services and public security.” Chen adds, moreover, that far from expecting gratitude out of hand, the government should expect and accept criticism should it fail in its obligations.
A more sensitive point, which Chen raises rather obliquely, is that acts of illegality and corruption might be suspected if indeed a private company does have reason to “thank” Party and government officials: “If the Ouhai District Government offered any convenience to this company outside of the legal procedures, this of course is another matter entirely,” he writes.

Second, Chen voices his objection to the fact that this advertisement from VOC is appearing as part of “special coverage” for the local Wenzhou people’s congress and consultative conference, important annual political sessions that correspond with the national-level National People’s Congress (NPC) and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), generally referred to as the “two meetings,” or lianghui (两会). These associations, made clear at the top of the advertisement, appear to suggest that this is something more than a simply private sector thank you.
“Why,” Chen asks, “do we hold our local congresses every year?” Citing the Organization Law for the formation of local people’s governments, he says that the primary task of these events is to “discuss and decide major matters concerning politics, economy, education, science, culture, sanitation, environment and resource protection.” According to this law, the author points out, people’s congress delegates are empowered by the law to speak without fear of repercussion. They can submit ideas, opinions and criticism. With 10 signatures or more, they can initiate formal inquiries and petition to remove officials.
So why, again, this sense of gratitude from the private company, particularly in the context of a political session that is meant to underscore the government’s responsibilities and to direct its work? “One thing that the law does not stipulate,” Chen writes, “is that people’s congress delegates or companies should openly express their thanks to the government while congress is in session.”
Private sector businesses must look to their own interests and development, says Chen. Beyond that, they have no obligations to the government. “Any private enterprise can hold itself high and live and develop with dignity so long as it stands on its own, creates wealth, generates employment and pays its taxes. There is no need for it to bend its knee and cup its hands in servile tribute.”
Third, Chen criticises the advertisement in Wenzhou Daily for encouraging the misperception that “Wenzhou’s investment environment has already been perfected, and that there is no need for further advancements,” when the provincial leadership has already stated repeatedly that “reforms are only ever in progress, never complete” (改革只有进行时没有完成时).
But beyond this general question of complacency and self-congratulation, there is the more serious charge of misconduct by local governments. On this count, Chen mentions Ouhai District, whose government and Party committee are thanked in the advertisement, as an example of rampant problems:

In recent days I have received a number of documents regarding complaints brought against the Ouhai District Government, or regarding lawsuits it has lost. For example, the Ouhai Economic Development Commission (瓯海经济开发区管委会) and the district’s Comprehensive Law Enforcement Bureau [this is a body in charge of urban management matters], without having gone through the proper legal procedures, forcibly demolished a factory complex in the name of industrial upgrading, and was taken to court by the company. Wenzhou’s Yongjia County People’s Court, after hearing the case, recently determined that the defendant was in violation of the law.

Chen posts an image of the court verdict in the forced demolition case, which clearly notes that the above-mentioned offices in Ouhai District carried out an illegal demolition of the complex operated by the plaintiff, a private company, on August 2, 2018.


The question that lingers tantalisingly at the end of Chen’s post is whether such acts of servile gratitude should be accepted, while criticisms are discouraged by a culture of loyalty.
Chen brings his point home by turning the situation around, imagining a very different add purchased by the above-mentioned company suffering illegal demolition of its facilities:

“To offer an example, what I mean to say is, if this company wanted to pay money to post an ad in the newspaper that read ‘We take this full page only with a wish to say to the Ouhai District Government: you have acted recklessly!’ — what media would have the guts to run that?”

 
 

The Dawn of the Little Red Phone

Written by David Bandurski on . Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

On January 25, all seven members of China’s elite Politburo Standing Committee, including President Xi Jinping, gathered at the headquarters of the flagship People’s Daily newspaper to underline the importance of “convergence media” and digital media development as a means of strengthening the Party’s dominance of ideas and information.

Xi Jinping told those present that the Party “must utilise the fruits of the information revolution to promote deep development of convergence media.” The objective was to “build up mainstream public opinion” — meaning, of course, Party-led public opinion — and to “consolidate the shared ideological foundation underpinning the concerted efforts of the entire Party and all the Chinese people.”
As we wrote at the time, Xi’s stilted and jargon-filled speech was essentially about the Party finding new ways to reengineer its dominance over the realm of ideas in the face of dramatic changes to the media environment brought on by the digital revolution. But what exactly does this mean in practice? How can, and how will, the Party leverage digital technology to re-program propaganda in the 21st century?


Already this year we have witnessed one product that provides at least part of the answer, a prime example of how the Party can leverage digital media products to reshape the whole process of ideological control in ways that are far more personal, and far more effective, than anything we have witnessed in the reform era. “On New Year’s Day, many Party members and cadres found to their delight that ‘Xi Study Strong Nation,’ an authoritative and content-rich platform especially for theoretical study, had formally been launched,” the official People’s Daily reported on January 15.
Skirting past this questionable assertion about the delight Party members have derived from this new app, what exactly are we talking about here?

Available at the website xuexi.cn, the “Xi Study Strong Nation” app is tool by means of which, once installed, the Party can assert its ideological and intellectual authority over Party members and employees of Party-run institutions, including schools and media. Beyond making Party messages passively available, as Party newspapers and state controlled media have done for decades, the app commands engagement, by which users can earn “Xi Study Points” (学习积分). Once engagement with the app is enforced by administrative demands that it be installed and used, something that is already happening, the messages of the Party become inescapable.

Gone are the days when you can simply ignore that stack of Party newspapers in the corner of the office, or switch off the Party’s nightly newcast, “Xinwen Lianbo.”

The app’s name, “Xi Study Strong Nation,” or Xue Xi Qiang Guo (学习强国), is derived from a now widely used official pun on the surname of China’s top leader. The surname “Xi” is also the second character in the Chinese word xuexi (学习), meaning “to study.” The app, designed and built by the Propaganda and Public Opinion Research Center of the Central Propaganda Department of the CCP (中共中央宣传部宣传舆情研究中心), an office previously known as the “Research Center on Ideology and Political Work” (思想政治工作研究所), is organised into several sections. These include, to name just a few, “Important News” (要闻), “New Thought” (新思想) and “Summary of Current Politics” (时政综合), all aggregating the speeches and statements of Xi Jinping, as well as audio and video content.

The platform has been designed with a built-in “Xi Study Points” system (学习积分系统) that allows users to accumulate points on the basis of habitual use of the platform, from reading and viewing of content to the posting of comments and other forms of engagement. It has been widely promoted by local governments and ministries and departments across China, and there have also been reports that some work units have ordered employees to attain specified point levels, with disciplinary measures to be imposed for those who fail to comply.

Here is one post to the official WeChat account of the district of Songhan (松山), in the Inner Mongolian city of Chifeng (赤峰), that reports on a “work training” for 170 Party and government employees on the “Xi Study Strong Nation” app.

A post on the WeChat account of the Songshan District Government in Inner Mongolia shows a study session for the “Xi Study Strong Nation” app.

According to the post from Songshan, offices and departments at all levels in the district were tasked with fully implementing study mechanisms by January 27, so that “all Party members under [district] jurisdiction download the ‘Xi Study Strong Nation’ app and go online to take part in studies, ensuring the full uptake of the ‘Xi Study Strong Nation’ study platform in our district.”

The app is obviously also about promoting the dominance of the ideas and policies of Xi Jinping as the “core” of the Party, and marks a continued push toward the reification of these ideas under the banner of “Xi Jinping Thought” (习近平思想). An introduction to the platform at Sohu.com reads:

“Xi Study Strong Nation” is an authoritative study platform designated by the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party for [use by] Party members and cadres, organised and built by the Central Propaganda Department, and covering all Party members and office workers across the country. The platform’s chief content consists of Xi Jinping Thought of Socialism With Chinese Characteristics for the New Era and the spirit of the 19th National Congress of the CCP, gathering together a mass of freely available reading materials, from periodicals, ancient works and open courses, to songs, dramas, films, books and other materials. Its study materials are authoritative, accurate, rich and vivid.

The platform is interesting and significant not only for the nature of its content as reflective of a renewed push to enforce the dominance of the Party’s ideology and positions, and to consolidate the power of Xi Jinping around the developing notion of “Xi Jinping Thought,” but also for the way it reinvents the process of ideological dominance for the digital era.

This is most evident in the points system employed by the “Xi Study Strong Nation,” the way it is engineered to make demands, in actionable and measurable ways, on how Party members spend what might otherwise be considered their personal time.

The idea is that users of the platform earn points through their active engagement with the material, so that more time on the platform rewards more points. Reading one article earns you 0.1 points. Watching a single video earns you 0.1  points. And a full 30 minutes of either reading articles or viewing video content earns you a full 1.0 points. The beauty of digital media technology — disquieting for those who care about privacy and freedom from intrusion — is that our smart apps know a great deal about our actual behaviour. This means that “Xi Study Strong Nation” (and by extension the Party) cannot be bamboozled into awarding points in the absence of real engagement, meaning that you will have to not just open an article or video but will have to stick with it. The app will know if you’ve only viewed the first paragraph, or if you’ve moved away from the video. If you want to earn points (and you are probably now required to), you will have to devote your full attention to the Party.

Consider how the “Xi Study Strong Nation” point system is engineered and you realise that the advancement of the platform is about the real and measurable engagement, and thereby domination, of the individual within the broader Party-led system.

The app defines several periods of activity as “lively intervals,” or huoyue shiduan (活跃时段), during which users engaging with the platform can earn double points — 0.2 for each article or video, 2 points for a full 30 minutes of use, and so on. The intervals are Monday through Friday from 8:30 PM to 10 PM, and on Saturdays and Sundays from 9:30 AM to 10:30 AM, and 3:30 PM to 4:30 PM. The system, then, incentivises Party members, once home from the office and done with family dinner, to spend golden hours of otherwise discretionary personal time engaging with “Xi Jinping Thought.”

The platform also places upward limits on points that can be earned on a daily basis from certain activities. For example, users can earn 0.1  points by commenting on an article, but commenting can earn only a maximum of 0.2 points per day. So only two comments per day will be rewarded. This means in practice that to earn points users have to engage more broadly with the platform across content categories, and it is not possible to simply do a Saturday binge in order to pile up points. The app means that anyone required to download and use it must be regularly engaged and active.

This has very real implications at the personal level. In a post to the social networking site Douban last month, a post since deleted (archived here), one user talked about how her mother, a teacher at a small town school, had been required to earn a minimum of 40 points a day on the “Xi Study Strong Nation” app. This particular user was not familiar with the new app until they noticed on a trip home during winter break that their mother, typically not a habitual smartphone user, was spending a great deal of time glued to the screen.

When I went home over winter break, I discovered that my mom, who generally didn’t use her mobile so much, was on it every single night, and even would not sleep until late into the night (while she generally was asleep by 10PM). I found this really strange, and only after I asked about it did I learn that the education committee at the subdistrict level had ordered teachers at all schools to download an app called “Xi Study Strong Nation,” and to earn points by fulfilling various tasks every day.

For the writer’s mother, the demand from education officials had already become taxing. Not a digital native, the poor woman could only diligently apply her time after work hours, wading endlessly through the prepared materials on “Xi Jinping Thought.”

“Mom is already approaching  50, her eyes aren’t so good anymore, and for someone so unfamiliar with how to use a smartphone earning 40 points was  for her an extremely difficult thing,” the user wrote with concern. “Moreover, this app makes quite total demands on one’s time, and by nature is extremely intrusive, so that it’s virtually impossible to operate it simultaneously while one reads a book or otherwise relaxes.”

As with anything in China, there are possible workarounds, and these have already been the topic of some discussion on Chinese social media. In the Douban piece, the writer introduces a “plan” for their mother — potentially of utility to others — that includes a number of possible cheats by which the overtaxed users of the “Xi Study Strong Nation” app might earn points more efficiently. For example, by ensuring their mobile screens are timed to lock out only after at least 10 minutes of inactivity (meaning that it will not seem that they been inattentive while the app is open). But “Xi Study Strong Nation” illustrates and underscores, nevertheless — for even circumvention demands engagement — the potential of the smartphone as a tool through which authoritarian regimes can shape and reinforce dominance over the population.

Like “The Little Red Book” of the Mao Zedong era, “Xi Study Strong Nation” puts the core thought of the supreme leader  in the palm of your hand. But the book has been revolutionised. It now interacts with you, and takes the measure of you. It can determine just how “smart” you are when it comes to your devotion and your grasp of the ideological essentials.

Long live the digital dictatorship.

Blockbuster nationalism and viral propaganda

Written by David Bandurski on . Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

In Mao’s China, it was not at all uncommon for the Party to expunge from official photographs people who were deemed either irrelevant or politically toxic — the objective being to highlight Chairman Mao and those who were seen as his loyal followers. Some interesting examples of these acts of rewriting visual history are documented in this 2013 post by Oiwan Lam. In the early 1970s, as Lin Biao and Peng Dehuai fell into disfavour, they were systematically scrubbed from photographs with Mao.
This week we have an interesting contemporary example of this kind of image scrubbing for propaganda purposes. But the erased is not a political leader in disfavour, but rather a celebrity in the midst of scandal, and therefore deemed morally unsuited to appear in a prominent program on Beijing TV to celebrate the Spring Festival.
Also this week, readers should note how the Chinese Communist Youth League is discussing its own propaganda efforts over the past year, and the need to leverage social media platforms and other emerging media to find new ways to reach young people with the Party’s messaging. Worthy of attention, too, is the discussion taking shape in China around the release of the science fiction blockbuster film “The Wandering Earth.” To what extent does the film pander to nationalist sentiment, going against the work of short fiction that inspired it?
 
THIS WEEK IN CHINA’S MEDIA
February 2-8, 2019
➢ Chinese Communist Youth League takes year-end stock of its top attempts at viral propaganda
➢ Actor edited out of Spring Festival television event after scandal breaks
➢ Blood plasma products reported to be contaminated with HIV
➢ “The Wandering Earth” hits screens to general praise, and discussion of nationalism as a selling point
[1] Chinese Communist Youth League takes year-end stock of its top attempts at viral propaganda
Beginning on February 5, the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Youth League (CCYL) began running reviews on its official WeChat account of how the League, nicknamed “Tuan Tuan” (团团), engaged with audiences over the past year through various social media channels. The point of the reviews is apparently to highlight the work the CCYL has done to modernise propaganda and reach younger audiences with the messages of the leadership.
One example on the CCYL’s review of what it characterised as its “top” posts on Zhihu (知乎), a Chinese question-and-answer website similar to Quora, was a discussion about the CCYL’s opening of accounts on two popular video streaming sites, Kuaishou (快手) and Tik Tok (抖音). The question was phrased: “How should we view the Chinese Communist Youth League’s announcement that it will join Kuaishou and Tik Tok?” The answer: “When the Chinese Communist Youth League officially joined Kuaishou and Tik Tok on October 1, 2018, this received both attention and ridicule from internet users. Facing this situation, this team responded on Zhihu: ‘General Secretary Xi Jinping has said before that wherever the youth are, the league’s organisation and work must extend there, and so Tuan Tuan is coming for the sake of the youth!'”
The CCYL’s top-ten list of songs over the past year consisted entirely of patriotic songs, including “Born Unbending” (生来倔强), a tune produced by the CCYL-operated China Youth Workshop (青微工作室) about military maneuvers in the South China Sea.
Such public acts of taking stock of the implementation of Party policies are common in the Chinese political system, as various offices and institutions strive to signal to the leadership that they are proactive.
KEY SOURCES:
WeChat public account “CCYL” (共青团中央): 喜欢动漫就是“精日”？中国是一个幸运的国家吗？| 团团年度知乎文章榜TOP10
AND: 不看后悔系列！「那兔·生于忧患」「中国的未来拜托了」 团团年度视频音乐TOP10
Bilibili:【刘老师】走心解说这部讲述中国近几年飞速发展的电影！
AND: 南海阅兵MV震撼发布
[2] Actor edited out of Spring Festival television event after scandal breaks

Comparing the original footage of the Beijing TV Spring Festival Gala and the edited final broadcast, one key host is found missing.
Wu Xiubo (吴秀波), an actor and musician best known in China for his leading role in the television series “Before the Dawn,” was hastily removed from the pre-recorded broadcast of Beijing Television’s annual Spring Festival Gala (春节联欢晚会) after his extramarital affairs with several women, including actress Chen Yulin (陈昱霖), became public.
In its broadcast on the night of February 5, Beijing Television deleted portions of the program led by prominent hosts, including Wu, and made an awkward substitution of on-screen text. For the program opening and for bridging scenes in which the appearance of the hosts was unavoidable, the network digitally removed Wu Xiubo, as can be seen from the following screenshots of the original and edited versions.
At a national conference on management of programming for television and online video, held in Beijing on November 28, 2018, the National Radio and Television Administration (NRTA) emphasised a policy called the “Four No Uses” (四个坚决不用), instructing broadcasters “resolutely not to use actors whose conduct and morals are at odds with the Party” (对党离心离德), who are “coarse, vulgar or kitsch” (低俗、恶俗、媚俗), who “do not have a lofty ideological horizons and character” (思想境界、格调不高) — meaning in accord with the ideas of the Party — and who are “tainted by scandal” (有污点有绯闻).
KEY SOURCES:
WeChat public account “Li Shang Wang Lai” (里上往来): BTV春晚就这样创造了历史
Baidu Encyclopedia (百度百科): 吴秀波出轨门
Guangming Daily (光明日报): 全国广播电视与网络视听文艺节目管理工作会议召开 坚决向追星炒星、高价片酬等说“不”
National Radio and Television Administration (国家广播电视总局): 聂辰席同志部署全力推进春晚冲刺阶段工作
[3] Blood plasma products reported to be contaminated with HIV
Chinese media reported on February 5, drawing on public notices from various provincial health departments, that a blood plasma product tested in Jiangxi province and manufactured by Shanghai Xinxing Pharmaceutical had been found to be contaminated with the HIV virus. The same day, the China National Health Commission (国家卫健委) ordered hospitals across the country to avoid use of the product and to monitor patients closely who had been exposed.
A post on the official WeChat account of Science and Technology Daily discusses the discrepancy between official tests on blood plasma products — but is deleted by censors.
On February 6, the China Food and Drug Administration (国家药监局) released the preliminary findings of its investigation into Shanghai Xinxing Pharmaceutical, and said blood products it had tested came back negative for HIV, hepatitis B and hepatitis C.
On February 7, the WeChat public account “Science and Technology Daily,” operated by the newspaper of the same name, quoted a health expert as saying that the positive result obtained by the facility in Jiangxi, followed by a negative result from national health authorities, suggested the issue might be “a discrepancy in detection technology yielding two results.” By February 9, this WeChat post had already been removed from the platform, but versions were available on other websites.
KEY SOURCES:
Caixin Online (财新网): 上海新兴一批号血液制品曝出艾滋病抗体阳性
WeChat public account “Chong’an zu 37” (重案组37号), under The Beijing News (新京报): 上海新兴医药1.2万余瓶血液制品疑染艾滋，或因采血流程出问题
WeChat public account “Healthy China” (健康中国): 国家卫生健康委关于“静注人免疫球蛋白艾滋病抗体阳性”有关问题的回应
Beijing Daily (北京日报): 国家药监局公布涉事免疫球蛋白检测结果
WeChat public account “Science and Technology Daily” (科技日报): 上海新兴免疫球蛋白两次官方检测结果为何相反？
[4] “The Wandering Earth” hits screens to general praise, and discussion of nationalism as a selling point
“The Wandering Earth,” the blockbuster science fiction film epic produced by China Film Group Corporation, and based on a short story by writer Cixin Liu, was released in Chinese theaters on February 5 to a generally positive reception. As of February 7, the box office take had reached 800 million RMB, or roughly 118 million US dollars. The Xinhua Daily Telegraph, a newspaper published by the official Xinhua News Agency, said that as the country’s first major science fiction film, “The Wandering Earth” had established a strong foundation for future Chinese science fiction films. But plenty of commentators also noted the strong strain of nationalism in the film.
Among such views on the film voiced domestically, that of media personality Song Jinbo (宋金波) was rather representative of the overall tone. Song said that the original science fiction work behind “The Wandering Earth” had achieved, in its measure and perspective, a kind of storytelling that evinced the notion of a “community of common destiny,” or renlei mingyun gongtongti (人类命运共同体). This phrase used by Song is an official one employed by the Chinese Communist Party since 2012, and is now a central feature of foreign policy under President Xi Jinping. But Song seemed to appropriate the official phrase to denote a quality more universal, and less specific to the foreign policy goals of the CCP. He remarked that film version of “The Wandering Earth” had gone beyond this notion of a “community of common destiny” to highlight the aspect of “national honor and shame” (国族荣辱), something the original work by Cixin Liu had avoided and in fact opposed.
KEY SOURCES:
Xinhua Daily Telegraph (新华每日电讯): 中国科幻电影一大步 首部国产科幻大片《流浪地球》口碑票房双丰收，靠什么?
The Beijing News (新京报): 剧组成员90%“纯国产”，都是国内团队，绘制3000多张概念图，新京报专访主创聊幕后故事《流浪地球》 中国科幻片的种子终于发芽
WeChat public account “Fei Teng” (沸腾): 《流浪地球》虽好，但“降维打击”了原著的价值观 | 沸腾

Weibo posts on Huawei get the axe

Written by David Bandurski on . Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

Conduct a search on Weibo today for “Meng Wanzhou” (孟晚舟), the chief financial officer of the Chinese telecoms giant Huawei, who was indicted by the US Justice Department today along with her company, and you are treated to a list of search results top-loaded with the official state view on the affair.
Right at the top is a report from the nationalist Global Times, a tabloid published by the official People’s Daily. The report says that the Chinese Embassy in Canada has “expressed its intense displeasure and resolute opposition.” “The Meng Wanzhou affair,” says the Global Times, “is not an ordinary legal case, but rather a serious political incident.”
Next up comes a post by China Central Television, again channeling the words of the Chinese Embassy and suggesting that Meng’s arrest back in December was “a serious violation of the legal rights and interests of a Chinese citizen.” After another post by the Global Times, the stories follow a familiar pattern, laying blame squarely at the feet of the US for politicising a case they say is really about economic competition.
“Just as the Chinese government has said before, this incident is about the United States abusing extradition treaties, and it is a violation of the personal security and legal rights of a Chinese citizen, and a naked attack on Chinese high-tech,” says the post right below the second Global Times story, an article written by a columnist named Li Guangman (李光满).
Meanwhile, even the simplest and most straightforward of posts about the Meng Wanzhou case today can fall under the axe of social media censors, particularly if the post is from a prominent figure likely to serve as a magnet for attention and commentary. So it was this morning as Caixin founder and publisher Hu Shuli (胡舒立) sent out the following Weibo post:

2019-01-29 10:50:21 | [U.S. Justice Department formally indicts Huawei and Meng Wanzhou, submits extradition request to Canada] U.S. Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said at a press conference on January 28 that the Justice Department indictment of Huawei is a legal case, and is separate from trade talks between US and China http://t.cn/Et6CXRh (from the Caixin app)
2019-01-29 10:50:21 | 【美司法部正式起诉华为及孟晚舟 将向加拿大提引渡要求】美国商务部长罗斯在1月28日的一场新闻发布会上表示，美国司法部针对华为的指控“是执法行为，与我们和中http://t.cn/Et6CXRh（来自财新客户端） ​


Posted at 10:50 AM, the post was deleted about 45 minutes later. Presumably, the sin Hu Shuli’s Weibo post commits is to quote US commerce secretary Wilbur Ross as saying the Huawei charges were not linked to ongoing trade negotiations. Gainsaying the official narrative — now that’s a no-no.

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