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).

Was Singer Li Zhi Censored in Sichuan?

This week we have a number of interesting stories in the Chinese media, including new budgetary outlays for the development of local “convergence” Party media — a sign that the Party is looking to rebuild the entire Party media structure from top to bottom — as well as similar news that the Central Propaganda Department is now seeking to employ 150 personnel to further develop the “Xi Study Strong Nation” app that has gotten attention in recent weeks for its gamification of Party ideology.
Also this week, there were suggestions from Sichuan province that the February cancellation of a concert tour there by singer Li Zhi (李志) was not in fact due to his physical condition, but rather to problems with the singer’s “improper conduct,” very likely a reference to his political views. Certainly, this is a sensitive year for the CCP, with many sensitive anniversaries on the horizon.
 

This Week in China’s Media
March 30 to April 5, 2019

3 Die in Sichuan Forest Fire, More than 10 Internet Users Detained for Defaming Firefighting Martyrs
Central Party Adds 1.8 Billion Yuan in Public Financing to Support Building of Convergence Media at County Level
Former Deputy Head of Hunan Broadcasting System is Removed from Both Party and Government Posts, Accused of Conspiracy with Boss
“Study Xi Strong Nation” App Seeks 150 Staff Members for Its New Media Outfit
➢ Sichuan Province Issues Notice Cancelling Concert of “A Certain Famous Vocal Performer”

[1] 3 Die in Sichuan Forest Fire, More than 10 Internet Users Detained for Defaming Firefighting Martyrs

On March 30, 2019, a forest fire broke out in Muli County (木里县) in Sichuan’s Liangshan Prefecture (凉山州), rapidly spreading across the area. By April 4, the fire had claimed the lives of 30 people, including 27 firefighting personnel and 3 others.

At around 6PM on April 4, local police issued a public notice saying that it had identified 13 cases of insults directed at “martyrs” who had joined the firefighting effort. Internet users, said the notice, had broadcast their insults through friend circles (朋友圈) and group chats, and after being locked out of their services by online authorities, two of these had surrendered to local police, and 11 others had been arrested or summoned. Four have so far been subjected to administrative detention (行政拘留), and 7 face detention on criminal charges (刑事拘留).

Authorities in Panyu District, on the south side of the southern city of Guangzhou, also reported on April 4 that an internet user had “openly slandered and insulted” the martyrs of the Sichuan fire. That same day a web user identified only as “surnamed Zhao, age 38, from Guangdong” (男,38岁,广东人) was arrested on suspicion of “disorderly conduct” (涉嫌寻衅滋事罪).

KEY SOURCES: 

The Paper (澎湃新闻网): 少数网民侮辱凉山火灾牺牲英烈,各地公安通报拘留十余人

Sina Weibo account “@GuangzhouPublicSecurity (@广州公安): 网上恶意诋毁四川壮烈牺牲消防战士 一网民被广州番禺警方依法刑事拘留

[2] Central Party Adds 1.8 Billion Yuan in Public Financing to Support Building of Convergence Media at County Level

On April 2, the Central Party published its budget (中央财政预算), which included 14.7 billion yuan allocated nationwide for “local public cultural services development” (地方公共文化服务体系建设), and increase of 14 percent from the 2018 budget. The increase was accounted for largely by nw allocations for the support of “convergence media” (digital multimedia) development at the county level. These “convergence media” will be charged with playing a key propaganda role at the local level.

In recent years, local county-level and other local media in China have faced serious financial shortages, and some areas have been behind in payment of wages. The new budget outlays are apparently an effort to deal with such issues, and to remake and refinance propaganda at the local level.

KEY SOURCES: 

WeChat public account “Broadcast Leads” (广电头条): 中央增加18亿专项资金!各地如何扶持县级融媒体建设?

People’s Daily (人民日报): 扎实抓好县级融媒体中心建设(深入学习贯彻习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想)

[3] Former Deputy Head of Hunan Broadcasting System is Removed from Both Party and Government Posts, Accused of Conspiracy with Boss

On April 4, discipline inspection authorities in Hunan province opened an investigation against Huang Wei (黄伟), the former deputy director of the Hunan Broadcasting System. Huang Wei is accused of violating the spirit of the CCP’s “Eight-Point Frugality Code” (中央八项规定) by accepting monetary gifts and “obtaining advantages and accepting gifts from others through his position” (在职工录用中为他人谋取利益并收受财物).

Discipline inspection authorities further accused Huang Wei of “losing faith in [Party] ideals and lacking the principle of Party nature,” working together with his superior to seek riches in violation of Party discipline.

KEY SOURCES: 

Central Discipline Inspection Commission website (中央纪委国家监委网站): 湖南广播电视台原党委委员、副台长黄伟严重违纪违法被“双开”

[4] “Study Xi Strong Nation” App Seeks 150 Staff Members for Its New Media Outfit

Recently the China Media Group (中央广播电视总台), also known as “Voice of China,” issued a public call for the hiring of 300 personnel, including 150 people who would be responsible for content operations for the “Study Xi Strong Nation” (学习强国) app, a new platform that seeks to push engagement with official Party ideology and the speeches and statements of Xi Jinping. The positions advertised include editors to produce digital audio and video content, as well as personnel to review content.

The WeChat public account “CCTV News” reported that this hiring for the “Study Xi Strong Nation” app was in response to demands from the Central Propaganda Department for the establishment of a dedicated personnel team for the app’s operation under the leadership of the propaganda department as an enterprise division of the China Media Group.

The “Study Xi Strong Nation” app is managed by the Central Propaganda Department and was formally launched on January 1, 2019. As of April the app had registered more than 100 million users, with 40–60 percent of users active on a daily basis.

KEY SOURCES: 

WeChat public account “CCTV News” (央视新闻): 中央广播电视总台招聘启事

The Paper (澎湃新闻网): 传媒湃|“学习强国”将招聘150人组建新媒体队伍

[5] Sichuan Province Issues Notice Cancelling Concert of “A Certain Famous Vocal Performer”

On April 3, Sichuan province’s Office of Culture and Tourism (文化和旅游厅) held a news briefing (新闻通气会). According to a report from Chengdu-based Red Star News (红星新闻), in February this year the Sichuan Department of Culture and Tourism (四川省文化市场执法监督局) directed culture offices at the provincial and city levels to “urgently cease plans by a certain well-known vocal performer showing improper conduct (某行为不端知名声乐演员) to give 23 personal performances in Sichuan” and to refund 18,000 tickets already purchased.

According to previous promotional materials from Chinese singer Li Zhi (李志), he had been scheduled to perform in Sichuan from February 23 to April 20 this year, with 23 performances scheduled in all. But on February 22, the night before his first scheduled concert, Li Zhi posted an image to his personal Weibo account of a hospital band around his wrist, suggesting that he was seeking medical treatment, and announcing that the Sichuan tour had been cancelled as a result. Members of Li’s band later confirmed that the concert tour had been cancelled for reason’s relating to Li’s physical condition.

On April 4, other media confirmed that the “well-known vocal performer showing improper conduct” mentioned in the official release was indeed Li Zhi. In a subsequent interview with the Beijing Youth Daily, members of Li Zhi’s band claimed to be surprised by reports that Li Zhi was the “well-known vocal performer showing improper conduct” mentioned in the Sichuan release, and they said that the concert tour had indeed been cancelled at the time because Li was scheduled for minor surgery.

Later in the afternoon on April 4, the Sichuan Department of Culture and Tourism issued a statement saying that its actions in February were strictly in accordance with the Regulation on the Administration of Commercial Performances (营业性演出管理条例), and that more should be read into the situation. But the case continued to raise speculation that Li Zhi has faced pressure for his outspoken political views. A number of Li Zhi’s songs, including “The Square” (广场), which deals with June 4, 1989, have tackled sensitive issues, and Li’s Weibo account has been suspended in the past.

KEY SOURCES: 

Red Star News (红星新闻): 四川叫停某行为不端知名声乐演员23场次个人巡演

The Paper (澎湃新闻网): 官方回应“声乐演员因行为不端巡演被叫停”:不要对号入座

WeChat public account “8-Character Intersection” (8字路口): 关于逼哥我知道的不多

Law professor suspended for critical writings

This week we have a wide range of stories to pick from in China’s media, dealing with everything from dramatic falls from official grace to odd official appointments that expose the opacity of official appointment to begin with.
To start with, we have the sentencing of former cyber czar Lu Wei, a key architect of the reengineering of the internet controls (and media regulation) around the Cyberspace Administration of China, to 14 years in jail, quite a hefty sentence. Unsurprisingly, official reports say Lu has decided not to appeal the decision — as though he has any real decision-making power in the case. The sentence brings to an end the saga of one of the most flamboyant officials to make his way through the propaganda system in recent decades.
In another sign of just how sensitive the political climate is in 2019, with its raft of historical anniversaries, we have news this week that law professor Xu Zhangrun was suspended from teaching and other duties at Tsinghua University after writing a series of critical articles over the past year warning against a return to Cultural Revolution-style thinking in China.
We have a local hospital chief in Hunan appointed suddenly as the head of the local TV station — a decision leaving internet users scratching their heads (and local officials defending their actions). And finally, we have the emergence of a brief discussion around the apparent designation by local governments of “families having lost an only child” as problems of social instability that need to be eliminated — a language scandal somewhat resembling the 2017 wave of anger over the “low-end population.”
 
THIS WEEK IN CHINA’S MEDIA
March 23-29, 2019
Tsinghua suspends law professor for writings on present-day politics and the Cultural Revolution
Propaganda officials emphasize strengthened controls at 2019 Media Oversight Work Conference
Problem of “lost child families” mentioned in anti-crime campaign
Hunan hospital chief promoted to post at head of TV station, and web users scratch their heads
➢ Former cyber chief Lu Wei sentenced to 14 years in jail

[1] Tsinghua suspends law professor for writings on present-day politics and the Cultural Revolution
Xu Zhangrun (许章润), a professor in the School of Law at Tsinghua University, posted a message to social media saying he had received the following disciplinary decision from the university: “On these problems [concerning your writings], investigative procedures are being carried out, and we await the results of the investigation; in the meantime, your classes are suspended, your research activities are suspended, your recruitment of students is suspended, and you are relieved of all duties:

对其问题启动调查程序,等待调查结果;在此期间,停课、停止科研活动、停止招生,免除一切职务。

Xu Zhangrun has posted numerous articles in recent years that have cautioned against the return of a Cultural Revolution mindset in China, including “The Fear and Expectation Facing Us” (我们当下的恐惧与期待), “Preserving ‘Reform and Opening'” (保卫“改革开放”), “Bow Your Head in Devotion, Heaven and Earth Have No Boundary” (低头致意,天地无边), and “Revisiting the Republic, This Grand Idea” (重申共和国这一伟大理念). In an article on March 28 suggesting that international media had exaggerated Xu’s case, the Global Times newspaper said: “Especially since last year, he has written a number of articles that are quite extreme politically, making him stick out instantly among dissidents domestically.”
Peking University law professor Zhang Qianfan (张千帆) responded to the storm surrounding Xu by saying that he felt the university leadership at Tsinghua were making this move, going after a “scholar of conscience” (良心学者), to protect themselves politically in a tense political climate.
KEY SOURCES:
FT Chinese (FT中文网): 哪有学者不表达?(郭于华)
AND: 清华应善待自己的优秀学者(张千帆)
Global Times (环球时报): 搞批评应守住三个原则,实现建设性
[2] Propaganda officials emphasize strengthened controls at 2019 Media Oversight Work Conference
On March 21, the 2019 Media Oversight Work Conference (传媒监管工作会议) was held in Beijing. The meeting was chaired by Li Hongkui (李宏葵) the deputy head of the Media Oversight Office (传媒监管局) of the Central Propaganda Department (中宣部), and focussed discussion on planning for “media oversight work” in 2019. The meeting suggested that “publishing resource deployment policies” (出版资源配置政策) in 2019 should “suppress volume, control scale and raise quality” (压数量、控规模、提质量), all rather oblique references to the need to cool down publishing activities during the year and ensure published materials are in line with political objectives.
In terms of news media oversight priorities for the year, the meeting emphasized the need to “strengthen the management of local offices of news units” and “tighten approvals and issuance of press cards” (严格新闻记者证审核发放), to “strengthen monitoring of illegal news and information” (加强新闻违法信息监测), and to “strengthen the monitoring and oversight of personnel and newspapers and magazines” (强化对报刊所办媒体及从业人员监督管理). Strengthening management of new media (新兴媒体) through “reform and innovation of oversight mechanisms” (改革创新监管机制) was also emphasized as a priority.
KEY SOURCES:
China News Publishing and Broadcast Web (中国新闻出版广电网): 2019年传媒监管工作会议召开 努力开创传媒监管工作新局面
[3] Problem of “lost child families” mentioned in anti-crime campaign
On March 26, images circulated online in China of a number of social welfare announcements from Xiangtan in Hunan province that dealt with “10 Priorities in Sweeping Away Black and Eliminating Evil.” This phrase, to “sweep away black and eliminate evil,” or saohei chu’e (扫黑除恶), is often used in the context of policing and social management to refer to negative social influences. But this particular list caught the attention of internet users because included on the list was the category “members of families that have lost an only child” (失独家庭人员). The text in full was: “Members of families who have lost an only child, serious cases of mental illness and other priority targets of oversight.”

Image from Baidu.com depicts the phenomenon of the “family with a lost only child,” a very serious social issue in China in the wake of the One Child Policy.
Soon after the images made the rounds on the internet, media reported that the prefectural-level city of Xinzhou in Shanxi province had also entered “families that have lost an only child” on their list of targets in “sweep away black” campaigns. They shared an article from September 19, 2018, called “Carried Out Black Sweeps to Eliminate Chaos, Protecting the Normal Operation of Healthcare” (开展扫黑除恶治乱,维护正常医疗秩序) that had been posted to the WeChat public account of the central blood bank in Xinzhou, which mentioned “families that have lost an only child” on the list of priority targets.
A commentary in The Beijing News suggested on March 28 that the “black sweep” lists issues by these local governments were highly inappropriate, and that they highlighted serious problems in the way some local governments deal as a matter of public policy with the psychological problems and the subsistence issues associated with the loss of children by Chinese families under the legacy of the One Child Policy. Many Chinese of around 50 years of age and older who have unexpectedly lost an only child face the prospect of having no one to look after them in old age, and many can suffer serious psychological trauma as a result of the loss.
Another commentary in China Youth Daily argued that while preserving social stability is naturally a key priority for local governments, they must at the same time ensure standards of social justice (社会正义) and act in a humanitarian spirit (人道主义).
KEY SOURCES:
The Paper (澎湃新闻网): 湘潭一社区将失独家庭列入扫黑对象?回应:内容不妥已撤下
The Beijing News (新京报): 失独家庭需要关怀而不是防备
WeChat public account “Beijing News Commentary” (新京报评论): 将“失独家庭”列入扫黑除恶对象,怎么想的?|新京报快评
China Youth Daily (中国青年报): 失独家庭成“扫黑对象”不是简单的失误
[4] Hunan hospital chief promoted to post at head of TV station, and web users scratch their heads
On March 20, “Wei Ba Ling” (微巴陵), the official WeChat public account of the local propaganda office in the city of Yueyang in Hunan province, made a post announcing new appointments and terminations in which it revealed that Yu Xinya (喻新亚), the director of the Yueyang People’s Hospital, had been relieved of the post and promoted as Party secretary and director of Yueyang’s county-level television broadcaster.
Web users seized on this bit of news to criticize the move and indirectly cast light on the appointments process in China. “Letting a cadre who had completely no media experience become director of a television station is without a doubt a thorough change in profession,” wrote one web user. “These two professions are both highly technical in nature, and the gap between them couldn’t be wider.”
Responding to these questions online, the Yueyang county propaganda chief, Li Yuezheng (李月争), said that the appointment had been carried out according to the spirit of discussions with superior cadres (“按照上级干部交流的精神执行”) and that it met with requirements and was considered a normal move.
KEY SOURCES:
People’s Daily Online (人民网): 湖南一医院院长调任电视台台长引争议 官方回应
WeChat public account “Wei Ba Ling” (微巴陵): 我县召开机构改革干部任前集体谈话会
[5] Former cyber chief Lu Wei sentenced to 14 years in jail
Lu Wei (鲁炜), the former head of the powerful Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), an agency whose role he helped to shape after its formation in 2014 under the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission (中央网络安全和信息化领导小组), was sentenced today to 14 years in jail for bribery. The sentence, which according to a brief official release from China News Agency, Lu Wei said in court that he would not appeal, marks an ignominious end to Lu’s long career as a propaganda official.

The real factors and events behind Lu’s fall from grace remain unclear, but today’s news release suggested Lu had engaged in corruption through roughly 15 years in senior positions of power, from 2002 to 2017.
The release said Lu had “used the convenience of his positions as a member of the Party Committee, and as secretary and deputy director at Xinhua News Agency, as a member of the Standing Committee of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee, as [Beijing’s] minister of propaganda, as Beijing deputy mayor, as director of the Cyberspace Administration of China and as director of the Office of the the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission” to illegally exact around 32 million yuan in bribes.
The language of the release, though vague, suggests that Lu is accused essentially of monetizing his position of power within the propaganda system by offering related assistance to companies and individuals. It said that he had leveraged the above-mentioned positions to “offer help to relevant companies and individuals in such areas as internet regulation (网络管理), corporate business (企业经营), job promotion (职务晋升) and work reassignment.”
Photos from the courtroom were posted today through the official Weibo account of the Ningbo People’s Intermediate Court (宁波市中级人民法院).
KEY SOURCES:
Xinhua Daily Telegraph (新华每日电讯): 鲁炜受贿案一审宣判
WeChat public account “Political Knowledge” (政知道): 中宣部原副部长鲁炜获刑14年

Former Cyber Czar Sentenced to 14 Years

Lu Wei (鲁炜), the former head of the powerful Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), an agency whose role he helped to shape after its formation in 2014 under the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission (中央网络安全和信息化领导小组), was sentenced today to 14 years in jail for bribery. The sentence, which according to a brief official release from China News Agency, Lu Wei said in court that he would not appeal, marks an ignominious end to Lu’s long career as a propaganda official.
The real factors and events behind Lu’s fall from grace remain unclear, but today’s news release suggested Lu had engaged in corruption through roughly 15 years in senior positions of power, from 2002 to 2017.


The release said Lu had “used the convenience of his positions as a member of the Party Committee, and as secretary and deputy director at Xinhua News Agency, as a member of the Standing Committee of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee, as [Beijing’s] minister of propaganda, as Beijing deputy mayor, as director of the Cyberspace Administration of China and as director of the Office of the the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission” to illegally exact around 32 million yuan in bribes.
The language of the release, though vague, suggests that Lu is accused essentially of monetizing his position of power within the propaganda system by offering related assistance to companies and individuals. It said that he had leveraged the above-mentioned positions to “offer help to relevant companies and individuals in such areas as internet regulation (网络管理), corporate business (企业经营), job promotion (职务晋升) and work reassignment.”
Photos from the courtroom were posted today through the official Weibo account of the Ningbo People’s Intermediate Court (宁波市中级人民法院).
 

Converging on Control

The most important media story for us over the past week was the publication in Seeking Truth of the full text of President Xi Jinping’s recent speech to a collective study session of the Politburo on “media convergence.” We’ll have more to say about this text in the coming days, but it should be seen as a crucial statement on how the Chinese Communist Party intends to leverage new developments in media and information technology to further consolidate control over society.
We offered a bit of analysis in late January of the language, as we could glimpse it from state media reports, coming out of the collective study session.
As the news came last week that Hu Haifeng, the son of former Chinese President Hu Jintao, has been promoted to the top Party post in the city of Xi’an, readers may be interested to note the ways the Chinese media played down his appearance at the National People’s Congress — as a member of the provincial delegation of Zhejiang, where he has been serving as the party secretary of the city of Lishui.
 
THIS WEEK IN CHINA’S MEDIA
March 9-15, 2019
Food safety incident at school in Chengdu prompts arrest of parents, removal of principal, after trending on social media
Sina rumor-busting account highlights old article on televised confessions newly making the rounds on the internet
Full-text version of Xi Jinping speech on media convergence released
➢ Hu Haifeng, recently elevated to top post in Xi’an, takes part in the “two meetings,” but media go light on reporting
[1] Food safety incident at school in Chengdu prompts arrest of parents, removal of principal, after trending on social media
In the midst of China’s annual “two meetings” of the National People’s Congress (NPC) and Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), the parent of a student in the primary school division of the Chengdu No. 7 Experimental Middle School posted a photo to social media raising concerns about the possible use of spoiled food in the school canteen. The photo suggested that the school was serving rotten and dangerous meat products and spoiled frozen food products, and vegetables such as potatoes and ginger that were also of questionable quality and safety. The parent alleged that substandard food was the cause of health problems suffered by some students, including diarrhea and bloody stools. Soon parents posted other photographs of food reportedly taken at the school’s canteen, which showed mold growing on slabs of meat.

Images posted online by school parents claiming to show rotten food in the school canteen.
On March 13, parents from the Chengdu No. 7 Experimental Middle School gathered outside the school gates in Chengdu to protest the lack of food safety. The protests moved on to local government offices, and video posted to social media showed protesters being met with police and sprayed with tear gas. The use of tear gas was confirmed by as post made by police from Chengdu’s Wenjiang District (温江区) to their official Weibo account: “In the process, a minimal amount of tear gas was used against certain persons who seriously inhibited the work of law enforcement,” the post said.
Soon after the protests, the Chengdu government announced that it had established a “joint investigative task force” (联合调查组) to look into the accusations against the school. Finally, at a press conference on March 17, a Chengdu police spokesman said that it had been discovered upon review of video cameras in the school’s kitchen that they had had reason to suspect that certain people had entered the canteen’s kitchen and fabricated images of food like those shared online. The spokesperson said that further investigation had revealed that three people, parents of students at the school, had forced their way into the school at around 10PM on March 12 and had ripped open packages of food and damaged it with the intention of making photographs and video to post online. Police said the three were now under investigation for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” (寻衅滋事罪) — this being a charge frequently leveled at those engaged in acts of protest.
A social media account operated by the official Sichuan Daily shows image comparisons purporting to expose faked online images of substandard food at the Chengdu school.
Chengdu authorities also announced at the press conference that the school’s principal, Jiang Hong (江宏), had been dismissed for inadequate management and lack of responsibility.
KEY SOURCES:
WeChat public account “Sichuan Observer” (川报观察): 现场视频:抹姜黄粉照片如何出炉?看刚刚成都新闻发布会你关心的都回答没?
Peaceful Wenjiang, official Weibo account of police in Chengdu’s Wenjiang District (@平安温江): 警方通报
Weibo account @SichuanDaily (@四川日报): #成都七中实验学校事件调查结果#
China Business Journal (中国经营网): 成都七中实验学校食堂承包商背后利益链调查
[2] Sina rumor-busting account highlights old article on televised confessions newly making the rounds on the internet

On March 9, “Rumor Grabbing Chronicles” (捉谣记), an account on Sina Weibo devoted to the busting of rumors, made a post saying that in the midst of the “two meetings” an article called “CPPCC Delegate Zhu Zhengfu: Confessions of Criminal Suspects on Television Are Not True Confessions” (政协委员朱征夫:嫌犯电视里认罪不等于真有罪) that had made the rounds on social media was in fact an article from 2016 — and so was a classic case of “old news making the rounds again” (旧闻新传).
The old article on televised confessions was apparently of fresh interest to users of Chinese social media due to the recent televised “confession” of Supreme People’s Court judge Wang Linqing (王林清), who was accused by authorities of secreting documents in a high-profile company dispute after first being named as the whistleblower in the case. Many Chinese still suspect there is more to Wang’s case than the authorities are letting on.
KEY SOURCES:
“Rumor Grabbing Chronicles” (捉谣记): 网传朱征夫建议电视认罪要慎重 系2016年报道
The Beijing News (新京报): 全国政协委员朱征夫呼吁,减少甚至取消让犯罪嫌疑人上电视认罪的做法 朱征夫 嫌犯电视里认罪不等于真有罪
[3] Full-text version of Xi Jinping speech on media convergence released
The latest edition of the official Seeking Truth (求是) journal, published on March 16, includes an article called “Accelerating the Development of Media Convergence, Building a Full-Media Broadcasting Structure” (加快推动媒体融合发展 构建全媒体传播格局). The piece is attributed to Xi Jinping.
The Seeking Truth text is in fact a full-text version of a speech President Xi Jinping delivered on January 25 to the 12th Collective Study Session of the Politburo. In the speech, Xi Jinping says: “Our promotion of the development of media convergence is about building and strengthening mainstream public opinion, consolidating the common theoretical foundation for the united struggle of the entire Party and the people of the entire country.” His reference to “mainstream public opinion” is an unambiguous reference in Chinese to public opinion as it is manufactured and controlled under the leadership of the Party, particularly through Party and state-run media.
An article published on the website of Seeking Truth journal bears the byline “Author: Xi Jinping.” This is the full text of Xi’s speech on media convergence.
Xi Jinping also emphasizes: “The development of media convergence is not just a matter for news units, [but we] must transform the social, ideological and cultural public resources, social management big data and policy making authority in our grasp into comprehensive advantages in consolidating and strengthening mainstream public opinion.” This language is the latest and clearest indication that the Chinese Communist Party aims to leverage changes in the nature of information technology to achieve greater social and political control over the Chinese population.
KEY SOURCES:
Seeking Truth (求是): 加快推动媒体融合发展 构建全媒体传播格局
[4] Hu Haifeng, recently elevated to top post in Xi’an, takes part in the “two meetings,” but media go light on reporting
Hu Haifeng (胡海峰), son of Xi Jinping’s predecessor as president and general secretary, Hu Jintao (胡锦涛), attended this year’s session of the National People’s Congress as a member of the official delegation from Zhejiang province, where he has been serving as the Party Secretary of the city of Lishui since July last year. Though Hu is a natural source of interest and public speculation as son of a former top leader who was recently promoted to vice-ministerial rank as the new party secretary of the city of Xi’an, the Chinese news media treated him very cautiously, with coverage understated even in Zhejiang.
Zhejiang Daily (浙江日报), the official Party mouthpiece of Zhejiang, and its commercial spin-off, Qianjiang Evening Post (钱江晚报), published the same article on March 6 bearing the headline: “Zhejiang Delegation Deliberates Government Work Report, Wang Zhen gives Speech, Che Jun and Yuan Jiajun Attend” (浙江代表团审议政府工作报告 王晨讲话 车俊袁家军出席). Che Jun (车俊) is the party secretary of Zhejiang province, and Yuan Jiajun (袁家军) is the current governor and deputy secretary.
The Procuratorate Daily publishes a photo of Hu Haifeng, son of Hu Jintao, as a member of the Zhejiang delegation to the “two meetings.”
The Procuratorate Daily (检察日报), a newspaper published by the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, published a report on March 12 that included a picture of the Zhejiang delegation, Hu Haifeng included.
On March 14, Guangming Online, the site operated by the official Guangming Daily newspaper, reposted an article from the Zhejiang’s official provincial news app that reported on the Zhejiang delegation and identified Hu Haifeng as the “Lishui Party Secretary Hu Haifeng” in the context of a discussion of environmental policies.
KEY SOURCES:
Procuratorate Daily (检察日报): 浙江:推进开放型经济再上新台阶
Zhejiang Daily (浙江日报): 浙江代表团审议政府工作报告 王晨讲话 车俊袁家军出席
Guangming Daily (光明网): 书记市长面对面丨胡海峰:促进生态保护与经济发展的良性互动
 

Parallelisms for the Future

“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

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

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

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

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

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:
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