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).

The Trouble With Obedience

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


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

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

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

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


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

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

 
 

The Dawn of the Little Red Phone

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Long live the digital dictatorship.

Blockbuster nationalism and viral propaganda

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

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

Weibo posts on Huawei get the axe

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

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


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

PSC Converges for Media Convergence

In perhaps the clearest sign yet of the emphasis the Chinese Communist Party places on digital development, and on control of its social and political implications, all seven members of China’s Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) attended a high-level meeting in Beijing on media convergence in the digital age on January 25.
The session, led by President Xi Jinping, included a visit to the official People’s Daily, where PSC members “heard reports on the development of the newspaper’s Weibo accounts, WeChat public accounts and apps, and viewed demonstrations on new media products.” This was Xi Jinping’s second formal visit to the Party’s flagship newspaper, following a February 2016 visit in which he outlined stricter controls on China’s media, stressing that media must “love the Party, protect the Party and serve the Party.”
But the focus at this session was on leveraging the digital transformation of the media space, both in China and globally, to consolidate the Party dominance Xi underscored three years ago. The crux was the need — as the traditional print vehicles of Party fade into obsolescence — to remake the entire state-dominated media system, creating a whole new generation of digital products by which the leadership can dominate the ideological sphere. “[Promoting] the development of media convergence and building convergence media has become a pressing task facing us,” Xi said.
Xi defined the task as “building up mainstream public opinion” (主流舆论) — mainstream referring, in the context of Chinese political discourse, to the defined priorities of the Party itself, and not simply to prevailing currents of thought.

[We] must utilise the fruits of the information revolution to promote deep development of convergence media, building up mainstream public opinion and consolidating common ideological foundation which underpins the concerted efforts of the entire Party and all the Chinese people, providing a strong spiritual force and public opinion support for the realisation of the ‘two centennial goals’ and the Chinese dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese people.

Xi Jinping and his fellow PSC members visited the “HUB,” referred to in Chinese as the “central kitchen” (中央厨房), essentially a production center at the People’s Daily for multimedia content, including videos and visualizations, that can be shared across various digital distribution channels.

A report from Xinhua News Agency back in February 2017 described the HUB as “a new generation system for content production, broadcast and operation that is audience-facing, global-facing and future-facing, not only serving various media under the People’s Daily banner but also building for the entire media industry a public platform that supports production of quality content.”
Such a centralized content production strategy for an otherwise decentralised digital media landscape naturally benefits the objective of “building up mainstream public opinion.”
In his speech, Xi Jinping emphasized that Party newspapers, periodicals, broadcast stations, websites “and other mainstream media must catch up with the times, bravely utilizing new technologies, new mechanisms and new modes, accelerating the pace of convergence and achieving more expansive and optimized propaganda results.”
That this should happen under strict political controls was of course a given: “[We] must with a clear banner adhere to the correct political direction, to [correct] guidance of public opinion, and [a correct] value orientation, ensuring that there is a clear elevation of the quality and level of positive propaganda through the innovation of concepts, content, styles, forms and methods.”

Xi hosts meeting on "defusing major risks"

This past week, President Xi Jinping signalled a growing sense of insecurity in China by harping on what one official WeChat account called “a comprehensive view of national security” at a meeting in Beijing of top provincial officials. The meeting was called in official media coverage a “provincial-level special topic discussion for principle leaders and cadres on persevering in baseline ideologies and striving to prevent and defuse major risks.” That’s a mouthful. But the basic sense was that times are tough for the Party and for the country, and it is now critical for the Party to maintain “ideological security” in order preserve its ruling position.
In a further sign of unease, a top expert on public financing in China, Jia Kang (贾康), told a forum in Beijing that the country had to take more active measures to lower taxes and fees on businesses in order to encourage growth, and that the country need to overhaul its pensions system.
Also this week, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that writer Yang Hengjun (杨恒均) is being held in Beijing on suspicion of “engaging in criminal activities that damaged China’s national security.” There is no indication yet of what exactly this means, or why it is happening now. We provide a list below of Yang’s writings from the CMP archives, which might help readers better understand Yang’s work and ideas.
 
THIS WEEK IN CHINA’S MEDIA
January 19-25, 2019
➢ Provincial-level “special topic discussion” emphasises “preventing and defusing major risks”
➢ State media report that film and television industries have paid up 11.7 billion in back taxes since October 2018
➢ Public finance expert tells Beijing forum pension surpluses should be transferred to the northwest of offset shortfalls
➢ Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Yang Jun (blogger Yang Hengjun) being held in Beijing
[1] Provincial-level “special topic discussion” emphasises “preventing and defusing major risks”

Screenshot of coverage at People’s Daily Online of meeting of provincial leaders in Beijing.
From January 21-25, a Party conference with the dizzying name “provincial-level special topic discussion for principle leaders and cadres on persevering in baseline ideologies and striving to prevent and defuse major risks” (省部级主要领导干部坚持底线思维着力防范化解重大风险专题研讨班) was held at the Central Party School in Beijing. All seven members of the Politburo Standing Committee, including President Xi Jinping, were present for the session, signalling its importance.
“Xia Ke Dao” (侠客岛), a WeChat public account maintained by the overseas edition of the People’s Daily, ran a commentary that said: “The major risks raised during this discussion session are clearly even more comprehensive. Xi Jinping’s speech dealt with major risks in politics, ideology, the economy, science and technology, society, the external environment, Party construction and other sectors, and it could be summed up as ‘a comprehensive view of national security’ (总体国家安全观).” Xi placed ideological security (意识形态安全) in his remarks on political security (政治安全), emphasising two points: the internet and youth. Xi emphasised the need to ensure that the youth become the next generation of socialist builders, or shehui zhuyi jianshezhe (社会主义建设者), and successors (接班人). This, said Xi, was the meaning of ideological security, and concerns the political security of maintaining of the Party’s ruling status (执政地位).
KEY SOURCES:
People’s Daily (人民日报): 习近平在省部级主要领导干部坚持底线思维着力防范化解重大风险专题研讨班开班式上发表重要讲话强调 提高防控能力着力防范化解重大风险 保持经济持续健康发展社会大局稳定
WeChat public account “Xia Ke Dao” (侠客岛):【解局】开年这场党内高层研讨班,聚焦了一个异常严峻的话题
WeChat public account “Trigger Trend” (智谷趋势): 中国最具能量的人坐到一起,政策信号出现调整,房地产上升到国家安全的高度
[2] State media report that film and television industries have paid up 11.7 billion in back taxes since October 2018
Several state media, including the Legal Daily and Guangming Daily, reported this week that individual and corporate taxpayers in the film and television have reported 11.74 billion yuan in payable taxes since the Central Propaganda Department and four government bureaus launched a campaign in October 2018 to regularise (规范) tax reporting in the film and television industries, which have been accused of rampant use of such workarounds as “shadow contracts.” Of these payable taxes, reporting during a two-month period of “self examination and self correction” (自查自纠), a total of 11.53 billion yuan has already been paid to the government.
The period of “self examination and self correction” has now ended, and the authorities say they will commence a phase of “supervision and correction” (督促纠正), meaning that the government will investigate and audit people and companies in the film and television industries to ensure compliance.
According to the Guangming Daily newspaper, total box office revenues in China were 60.9 billion yuan in 2018, up 9 percent from 2017. The box office take by state-produced (国产电影) films in 2018 was 37.9 billion yuan, accounting for 62 percent of the total box office.
KEY SOURCES:
Legal Daily (法制日报): 国家税务总局 影视行业自查申报税款117亿元
Guangming Daily (光明日报): 民族精神大力彰显 票房口碑高于外片
[3] Public finance expert tells Beijing forum pension surpluses should be transferred to the northwest of offset shortfalls
Jia Kang (贾康), the deputy chairman of the Society of Public Finance of China (中国财政学会) and former head of the Research Institute for Fiscal Science at China’s Ministry of Finance, advised at a forum in Beijing that China quickly move to “lower tax and fees” (减税降费) in order to encourage entrepreneurship and innovation, and that it overhaul the pensions system, redirecting accumulated surpluses in China’s south from recent years in order to offset serious shortfalls in the northwest.
Following these remarks, the Beijing News pointed out that according to the “2016 Annual Report on Social Insurance Development in China” released by the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, there were seven regions in 2016 where pensions were not paid out. They included the northwestern province of Heilongjiang, where the accumulated balance of pension funds was negative 23.2 billion yuan.
KEY SOURCES:
Economic Observer Online (经济观察网): 贾康建议:南方养老金滚存结余调到东北救燃眉之急
The Beijing News (新京报): 养老金“南钱北调”只是权宜之计
WeChat public account “” (智谷趋势): 拿南方养老金支援东北?研究了一组数据后,却发现了一点“劫贫济富”的意思
[4] Ministry of Foreign Affairs: Yang Jun (blogger Yang Hengjun) being held in Beijing
At a routine press conference on January 24, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that Australian citizen Yang Jun (杨军) — a blogger better known to the public by the pen name Yang Hengjun (杨恒均) — was suspected of “engaging in criminal activities that damaged China’s national security” (从事危害中国国家安全的犯罪活动) and was being held by police in Beijing while under investigation.
The WeChat public account “San Xiang Commentary” (三湘评论) posted a screenshot of Yang Hengjun’s WeChat account, noting that he generally posted on a daily basis but had not been active in chat groups since January 18.
The following is a list CMP’s translated writings from Yang Hengjun dating back from 2010 through to his first detention in March 2011.
March 30, 2011, “This is Yang Hengjun
March 18, 2011, “Thoughts on CCTV’s Nightly News
December 17, 2010,  “Why We All Feel So Vulnerable
November 9, 2010, “How Chinese View Foreign Elections
September 22, 2010, “That Old Pair of Shoes is Not Democracy
August 13, 2010, “Where is China’s Center?
KEY SOURCES:
The Paper (澎湃新闻网): 外交部:澳籍人员杨军涉嫌危害我国家安全被依法采取强制措施
WeChat public account “San Xiang Commentary” (三湘评论): 杨恒均被逮捕!

CCTV's "national brand" ploy

This week in China’s media, state broadcaster CCTV got a talking-to for its “National Brand Project,” with regulators saying it might be a violation of the country’s Advertising Law for the network to designate national brand status for sales of prime-time ads.
Another media controversy this week concerned the practice of “article laundering,” after an in-depth report by investigative reporter Wang Heyan available only behind the paywall at Caixin was shared in regurgitated form by a another journalists on his WeChat public account.
THIS WEEK IN CHINA’S MEDIA
January 12-18, 2019
CCTV called in by broadcast authorities for discussions over illegality of “National Brands” advertising campaign
WeChat public account story sparks controversy over “article laundering”
Journalist Wang Zhi’an challenges Baidu over threat to take legal action
Writer Bai Hua (白桦), author of seminal work on the Cultural Revolution, passes away
Ziguange magazine is renamed “Banner”
[1] CCTV called in by broadcast authorities for discussions over illegality of “National Brands” advertising campaign
China’s State Administration for Market Regulation (SAMR) posted a short message on January 17 revealing that it had met with representatives from the state-run China Central Television to discuss the network’s “CCTV National Brand Project” (CCTV国家品牌计划), a scheme possibly in violation of China’s Advertising Law. SAMR has reportedly instructed the Beijing Bureau of Market Regulation (北京市市场监管局) to launch an investigation.
The “CCTV National Brand Project” is an advertising strategy used by CCTV, China’s national broadcaster, in which participating advertisers are offered identification as “national brands” in advertising slots appearing during premium state-run programs such as “Xinwen Lianbo” (新闻联播) and “Focus” (焦点访谈). The network also produces specialised advertising for participating brands, which in the past have included Hongmao Medicinal Wine (鸿茅药酒), Yunnan Baiyao (云南白药) and Luhua (鲁花).


On January 18, China Market Regulation News (中国市场监管报), a newspaper published by the State Administration for Market Regulation, said in a commentary: “General Secretary Xi Jinping has said that ‘advertising must also follow [correct] guidance.’ The greater the influence a media has, the more it must set an example, doing business in accord with the law.” President Xi made the reference to ideological control (“correct guidance”) over advertising during his February 2016 speech on media and public opinion, the same speech in which he said all Party-run media must be “surnamed Party,” serving the interests of the CCP.
Both China Market Regulation News and China Consumer News, the latter published by State Administration for Industry and Commerce, ran front-page stories on January 18 about the advertising violations at CCTV. A commentary in Henan’s Dahe Daily (大河报), a commercial spin-off of the province’s official Henan Daily, said that CCTV, as neither a regulatory body nor an industry association, had no right to offer the designation “National Brand” (国家品牌) as a sales tactic, which misled consumers with “false advertising.”

Key Sources:
State Administration for Market Regulation (国家市场监管管理总局): 市场监管总局就“CCTV国家品牌计划”涉嫌广告违法问题约谈中央广电总台
AND: “国家品牌”作为广告用语违法!”
[2] WeChat public account story sparks controversy over “article laundering”
On January 11, Caixin Online, one of China’s leading online sources of reporting on economics and current affairs, ran a story by veteran investigative reporter Wang Heyan (王和岩) called “Former ‘Fire Secretary’ of Gansu Wuwei Stripped of Post, Once Orchestrated Arrest of Journalists” (甘肃武威原“火书记”被双开 曾制造抓记者事件). Reported first-hand, Wang’s story chronicled the corruption case of Huo Ronggui (火荣贵), the former top leader of Gansu’s Wuwei city, who was behind the detention in January 2016 of three journalists writing for commercial media in Gansu [See CMP’s coverage here].

That same night, another veteran journalist, Huang Zhijie (黄志杰) ran a story called “Gan Chai Lie Huo” (甘柴劣火) on his own public WeChat account, “Yo Yo Lu Ming” (呦呦鹿鸣). The story was essentially a compilation of Wang Heyan’s Caixin story, and reporting from China Youth Daily and other media — but it spread like wildfire on social media.
Wang Heyan responded with consternation in her personal WeChat group: “This article [from Huang Zhijie] is a cost-free ‘copy’ of my own report running at Caixin behind a paywall.” Before long, the Huang Zhijie “copy” had sparked a heated discussion among media professionals about the violations of copyright and other ethical violations in Chinese media, with many people speaking out against so-called “article laundering” (洗稿),  the repackaging and plagiarising of original content.
Huang Zhijie is a former lead writer for Oriental Outlook (瞭望东方周刊), magazine published by the official Xinhua News Agency, and executive editor of the magazine New Media (网络传播).
Key Sources:
Caixin Online (财新网): 甘肃武威原“火书记”被双开 曾制造抓记者事件
WeChat public account “Yo Yo Lu Ming” (呦呦鹿鸣): 甘柴劣火
Nanfang Daily (南方日报): “洗稿”理直气壮令人悲
Yangcheng Evening News (羊城晚报):《甘柴劣火》洗稿争议与媒体著作权的实现
[3] Journalist Wang Zhi’an challenges Baidu over threat to take legal action 
On January 4, veteran journalist Wang Zhi’an (王志安) made a post to his WeChat public account, “Wang Ju’s Private Plot” (王局的自留地), with the no-holds-barred headline: “Quanjian [Group] Should Die, But It Isn’t the Only One That Should Die” (权健该死,但不是只有它该死). Wang’s story used the recent police investigation into Chinese health products manufacturer Quanjian to discuss the 2016 death of cancer patient Wei Zexi (魏则西), who was cheated out of 200,000 yuan in fraudulent cancer treatment after being directed to seek care in Beijing through a paid search promoted by the Baidu search engine. Baidu faced a wave of public anger in 2016 over the Wei Zexi case, prompting an investigation and apparent changes in ad policies, though Chinese media subsequently reported that similar advertising by the search engine had returned within a year of the tragedy.

On January 17, Wang Zhi’an again made a post, this time called “Baidu, I Invite Your Lawsuit!” (百度,欢迎来告!”), in which he revealed that Baidu had filed a complaint after his Quanjian post. Baidu’s complaint to WeChat reportedly read: “This article has already constituted a malicious slander against the Baidu brand, seriously harming the reputation of our company and our brand. We ask that you assist us in deleting this article. Our company will use legal means and channels to protect its own legal rights and interests.” Wang Zhi’an publicly denied that his post had infringed on Baidu’s rights, and said he would “see the matter through to the end” (奉陪到底).
Wang Zhi’an stressed growing public frustration over problems in the healthcare sector and government failure to bring them into check. “For so long this evil eludes attention and correction by authorities,” he wrote, “and the anger of the people builds up like a volcano until it erupts around a tragedy [like the Wei Zexi case], and only then does the system act to set things right. This is always the way it goes, whether we’re talking about the Quanjian incident or the Wei Zexi incident.”
Key Sources:
WeChat public account “Wang Ju’s Private Plot” (王局的自留地): 权健该死,但不是只有它该死
AND: 百度,欢迎来告!
[4] Writer Bai Hua (白桦), author of seminal work on the Cultural Revolution, passes away
At 2:15AM on January 15, poet, playwright,  novelist and essayist Bai Hua (白桦), one of China’s best-known artists of so-called “scar literature” looking back on the repression and chaos that descended on China from the late 1950s through to the end of the 1970s, passed away in Shanghai at the age of 89.
In September 1979,  Bai published his most famous work, Bitter Love (苦恋), which dealt with the suffering that the Cultural Revolution had inflicted on China, earning sympathy from the public and sharp criticism from Chinese authorities. In 1982, Bai’s work was adapted for the screen in Taiwan by director Wu Nien-jen and given the English title “Portrait of a Fanatic.” In one of Bitter Love‘s most famous (and for authorities, unwelcome) lines, the main protagonist, Ling Chenguang (凌晨光), is asked by his daughter: “You love this country, bitterly love this country . . . but does this country love you?” The line became immensely popular at the time.
Key Sources:
Beijing Daily (北京日报): 铃声已逝金戈芒颓“白桦”犹在
WeChat public account “1980s” (八十年代): 徐庆全:白桦与《苦恋》风波始末
[5] Ziguange magazine is renamed “Banner”
According to the People’s Daily, Banner (旗帜) magazine, an official publication of the State Organs Work Committee of CCP’s Central Committee, was launched in January on the foundation of the previous Ziguange (紫光阁) magazine. Banner is an openly circulated magazine apparently dedicated to the so-called “banner term,” or qizhiyu (旗帜语), of President Xi Jinping. The statement in the inaugural issue of Banner read: “The official publication [of the State Organs Work Committee] is called Banner, is about thoroughly raising high the great banner of Xi Jinping Thought of Socialism With Chinese Characteristics for the New Era . . . . and working to promote the study and development of the banner among Party members and cadres.”

According to information from the National Radio and Television Administration (NRTA), the decision to rename Ziguange as Banner, and to change its publishing institution, was approved on November 14,  2018. “Ziguange” is the name of an ancient building in Zhongnanhai (中南海), the former imperial garden, that is routinely used by State Council leaders to great foreign guests.
Key Sources:
People’s Daily (人民日报): 中央和国家机关工委机关刊 《旗帜》杂志创刊
Banner Online (旗帜网): 《旗帜》创刊词:高举旗帜勇向前
National Radio and Television Administration (NRTA), “Administrative Permit Decision” (行政许可审批结果)

A censor for every 1,000 videos please

One prominent aspect of media control in the Xi Jinping era has been its growing brazenness. No longer is censorship quite so shrouded in secrecy as it once was. Rather, it is announced openly as a matter of social and political necessity, and as the legal obligation of every company seeking to profit from the potentially lucrative digital space.
A pair of binding documents released this past week by the China Netcasting Services Association (中国网络视听节目服务协会) are a great case in point. They openly set out the “content review” standards expected of companies providing online video services, including the removal of content that “attacks on our country’s political or legal systems”, and “content that damages the national image.” One of the documents even specifies that companies expand their internal censorship teams as business grows and changes, and that they keep at least one “content review” employee on staff for every 1,000 new videos posted to their platform each day.
Make no mistake, censorship is deeply imbedded in China’s digital media industry, so that every company must internally balance the demands and costs of political content control and commercial profitability.
Also this past week, we had the National Propaganda Ministers Conference. The message coming out of that was the need to promote “banners of thought for the New Era” (新时代的思想旗帜). That is tantamount to saying that propaganda should focus on upholding Xi Jinping’s ideas. Will that mean we see “Xi Jinping Thought” come out into the open as a propaganda phrase? Something to key an eye on.
THIS WEEK IN CHINA’S MEDIA
January 5-11, 2019
➢ National Propaganda Work Conference Opens with the Theme of “Banner Thoughts for the New Era”
➢ CCTV runs news documentary on illegal development in protected areas of the Qinling Mountains
➢ WeChat publishes statistics on user behaviour and is accused by users of monitoring chat histories
➢ Regulation on management and content review for short videos takes effect, “bullet screen” real-time commenting also subject to prior censorship
[1] National Propaganda Work Conference Opens with the Theme of “Banner Thoughts for the New Era”
The National Propaganda Ministers Conference, a gathering of top national and provincial propaganda leaders, was held in Beijing on January 6. According to reports by state media, Wang Huning (王沪宁), a member of the Politburo Standing Committee and secretary of the CCP’s Secretariat, emphasised during the session that the “important thought” (重要思想) of President Xi Jinping on the conduct of propaganda work provides the “program of action” (行动纲领) for propaganda work in the “New Era.”

Wang Huning (center) addresses the National Propaganda Ministers Conference.
The conference was led by Huang Kunming (黄坤明), minister of the Central Propaganda Department. According to an account reported in the People’s Daily on January 8, Huang told those present that “[the Party] must raise high the banners of thought for the New Era, promoting the deeper development of the study, propagation and implementation of Xi Jinping Thought of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for the New Era.” Huang Kunming’s use of the phrase “banners of thought for the New Era” (新时代的思想旗帜) marked the second time the phrase has been used in the official People’s Daily newspaper. The phrase appeared for the first time in the January 6, 2019, edition of the paper, in an article called “Guarding the Correct Path and Blazing New Trails: Discussion of Propaganda, Ideology and Culture Work Since the Party’s 19th National Congress” A sub-head in the article was also, “Soaring Advancement of Banners of Thought for the New Era” (高扬奋进新时代的思想旗帜).
Key Sources:
People’s Daily (人民日报): 全国宣传部长会议在京召开 王沪宁出席并讲话
[2] CCTV runs news documentary on illegal development in protected areas of the Qinling Mountains
Screenshot of CCTV’s news documentary on illegal development near Xi’an.
On the evening of January 9, 2019, China Central Television broadcast an official state-produced news documentary, or xinwen zhuantipian (新闻专题片), called “Until They Are Caught” (一抓到底正风纪). According to the documentary, from May 2014 to July 2018, President Xi Jinping put his signature six times to actions against illegal construction in protected areas of the Qinling Mountains (秦岭) near the city of Xi’an.
According to this account, the Central Party dispatched Xu Lingyi (徐令义), a deputy director of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) to serve as head of a special task force to deal with illegal development in protected areas. Since July 2018, more than 1,100 illegal developments along the northern edge of the Qinling range near Xi’an have been legally demolished, said the news documentary, and many local officials are now under investigation.
Key Sources:
CCTV.com (央视网): 一抓到底正风纪
WeChat public account “Xia Ke Dao” (侠客岛):【解局】整治秦岭违建拍成了专题片,背后大有深意
Xinhua News Agency (新华网): 从六次批示看习近平一抓到底的工作作风
Shaanxi Daily (陕西日报): 深刻汲取教训 以实际行动坚决做到“两个维护”——央视专题片《一抓到底正风纪》在我省干部群众中引起强烈反响
[3] WeChat publishes statistics on user behaviour and is accused by users of monitoring chat histories
On January 9, Tencent released a statistical report on its WeChat platform that included the emojis frequently used by users, their sleep patterns and their video and conversation habits. The report said that users aged 55 and older tended to sleep earlier and rise earlier, and pursued a wide range of leisure activities online throughout the day, including chatting, shopping and reading, and that they typically enjoyed video chatting with their children after dinnertime. The report even provided details the various emojis preferred by various age groups. For example, millennials prefer “facepalm” emojis, while post-90s prefer “laugh until you cry” emojis and post-80s prefer “toothed smile” emojis.
Discussing the Tencent report, some WeChat users voiced the view that the data released by the company showed that WeChat chat histories are closely monitored. Noting, for example, the observation in the report that “those aged 55 and older enjoyed video chatting with their children after dinner,”  one user responded, in a complaint echoed by many others: “How does WeChat know what their relationships are?”
WeChat responded these concerns by saying that the statistical report was made strictly in accordance with relevant laws and regulations,  and that all data had been handled with sensitivity to privacy concerns.
Key Sources:
Beijing Youth Daily (北京青年报): 微信“监控”隐私?腾讯:均已匿名脱敏
[4] Regulation on management and content review for short videos takes effect, “bullet screen” real-time commenting also subject to prior censorship
The China Netcasting Services Association (中国网络视听节目服务协会), an ostensible membership organisation of broadcasters that actually serves an indirect regulatory role, released two documents providing the basis for the control and review of short video broadcasting in China. These are “Management Regulations for Online Short Video Platforms” (网络短视频平台管理规范) and “Detailed Standards for Content Review of Online Short Video” (网络短视频内容审核标准细则).

“Management Regulations for Online Short Video Platforms” provides guidance for the overall management of platforms providing online video (or “netcasting”) services, including management of user accounts, content controls and technical procedures. The document, for example, specifies that online video platforms must implement systems of prior review of content(节目内容先审后播制度), and review must cover program title lines (节目的标题),  program introductions (简介), bullet screens (弹幕), comments (评论) and other areas. The document requires that service providers build content review and supervision teams . (审核员队伍) in step with the development of product areas. There is even a stipulation in the document that a minimum of one content reviewer (审核员人) be on staff for every 1,000 new videos post online every day — which suggests, for example, that a platform posting 1 million new videos per day would require at least 1,000 content reviewers on staff.
“Detailed Standards for Content Review of Online Short Video” is directed specifically at content review personnel at online video platforms, and provides 100 “review standards” (审核标准) to be followed in the course of content review. These include “attacks on our country’s political or legal systems” (攻击我国政治制度), “content that [encourages] national separatism” (分裂国家的内容), and “content that damages the national image” (损害国家形象的内容).
Key Sources:
People’s Daily Online (人民网): 《网络短视频平台管理规范》《网络短视频内容审核标准细则》发布
Hexun.com(和讯网): 十大关键词解读短视频平台管理规范及100条细则
China Netcasting Services Association (中国网络视听节目服务协会): 网络短视频平台管理规范
AND: 网络短视频内容审核标准细则
 

WeChat Exposes

This round-up of Chinese Media stories, which covers the holiday period, offers us an encouraging glimpse of how social media platforms, including the super-platform WeChat, can potentially provide an avenue for writers and journalists to expose malfeasance — something we have seen far less in China under Xi Jinping than we did prior to 2012.
First, we have an expose by “Ding Xiang Yisheng” (丁香医生) that alleges that Quanjian, a company marketing various drug regimens, including cancer treatments, has cheated unsuspecting customers, mostly the poor. This follows another big WeChat story earlier in 2018 about tainted vaccines making it onto the Chinese market. Both of these stories, says one media expert, are cases of “knight-errant journalists” (新闻游侠) who were formerly with traditional media, such as newspapers, finding a way to pursue stories in the tougher media environment of the “new era.”
We’re not holding our breath — after all, our other stories here are mostly about tighter controls. But the “Ding Xiang Yisheng” is important to note.
 
THIS WEEK IN CHINA’S MEDIA
December 22, 2018, to January 4, 2019
WeChat public account exposes a fraudulent health empire in rare investigative report
Allegations by former TV host Cui Yongyuan force China’s highest court into an admission
CAC launches a “special campaign” to clean up “harmful information”
China’s Public Security Bureau issues fines and warnings for mobile “wall-climbing” by individual Chinese users
People’s Daily and other Party-run newspapers to get page reductions for 2019
[1] WeChat public account exposes a fraudulent health empire in rare investigative report
On December 25, 2018, “Ding Xiang Yisheng” (丁香医生), a self-media dealing with health and medicine, ran a report called “The Billion Dollar ‘Quanjian’ Health Empire, and the Chinese Families in its Shadow” (百亿保健帝国权健,和它阴影下的中国家庭). Taking as its starting point the death of a four year-old girl who ended her chemotherapy treatment in the hospital in favour of an oral medication offered by Quanjian, the article reported on Quanjian and its multi-level marketing approach to the sale of what it alleged are fraudulent and ineffective treatments, with sales mostly targeted on low-income working families.


On December 26, Quanjian issued a response in which it accused “Ding Xiang Yisheng” of cobbling together unverified online accounts and information, and demanded that the public account remove its article. “Ding Xiang Yisheng” responded that it would not comply with the request, and that it invited legal action from Quanjian.
According to journalist Zhang Feng (张丰), the “Ding Xiang Yisheng” story is a bona fide work of investigative reporting, and its author is former newspaper journalist. Zhang pointed out that another of the most influential reports in 2018 had been “Vaccine King” (疫苗之王), an article posted to the WeChat public account “Shan Lou Chu” (兽楼处) that exposed problems in China’s vaccine industry, and that that report too had been written by an investigative reporter using information available online. Zhang Feng referred to these former journalists as “knights-errant” (游侠) who continued their old methods of interview, investigation and writing after moving on from jobs at traditional media. Zhang said that with the global collapse of traditional media, the era the “knight-errant journalist” (新闻游侠时代) had arrived.
Key Sources:
WeChat public account “Ding Xiang Yisheng” (丁香医生): 百亿保健帝国权健,和它阴影下的中国家庭
Tencent “Dajia” (腾讯大家): 传统媒体营造的世界已崩塌,新闻游侠时代开始了
WeChat public account “Middle Class Life Observer” (中产生活观察): 新闻游侠靠什么吃饭
[2] Allegations by former TV host Cui Yongyuan force China’s highest court into an admission
On December 26, celebrity and former television host Cui Yongyuan (崔永元) made posts to Weibo alleging that China’s Supreme People’s Court had lost key case documents in an ongoing dispute between two large Chinese mining companies. Initially, on December 27, the Supreme People’s Court issued denial of what it called “rumours,” saying the documents in question were safe. But Cui continued to pursue the issue, questioning whether the court was in fact lying about the documents. Finally, late at night on December 29, the Supreme People’s Court issued a “Situation Notice” (情况通报) in which it admitted that documents were missing and that it would conduct an investigation: “If it is determined that court personnel violated procedure, this will be handled seriously in accord with the law and Party disciplinary regulations,” it said.
The documents in question reportedly include key details of a 2006 lawsuit brought by Kechley Energy Investment against the state-owned Xian Institute of Geological and Mineral Exploration.
Key Sources:
WeChat public account “Huaxia Investigations” (华夏调查): 疑似最高人民法院法官自述视频流出:证实卷宗被盗、监控黑屏
FT Chinese (FT中文网): 从最高法院卷宗失踪案看中国的“人治”与法治
China Youth Daily (中国青年报): 崔永元说的陕北千亿矿权案到底是什么案子
Sina Weibo account of Cui Yongyuan (新浪微博@崔永元): Post 1 and Post 2
[3] CAC launches a “special campaign” to clean up “harmful information”
The Cyberspace Administration of China announced on January 4 that it would launch a “special campaign” (专项行动) from January-June 2019 to “clean up the online ecology” (网络生态治理). The campaign, to be conducted in four phases, will target websites of all kinds (各类网站), mobile apps (移动客户端), forums and message boards (论坛贴吧), instant messaging tools (即时通信工具), video streaming platforms (直播平台) and other services that disseminate 12 categories of content, as follows: 1. pornographic or obscene (淫秽色情); 2. vulgar (低俗庸俗); 3. violent (暴力血腥); 4. frightening and horror (恐怖惊悚); 5. fraudulent and gambling (赌博诈骗); 6. online rumour (网络谣言); 7. feudal superstition (封建迷信); 8. deriding or spoofing (谩骂恶搞); 9. threatening or menacing (威胁恐吓); 10. sensational headlines (标题党); 11. inciting hatred (仇恨煽动); and 12. broadcasting harmful lifestyles and harmful popular culture (传播不良生活方式和不良流行文化). The CAC said the campaign would investigate and shut down illegal websites and accounts, “effectively preventing the power of harmful information to bounce back and return.”
On January 3, CAC authorities in Beijing targeted accounts and products on Sohu’s mobile-based platform, Sohu WAP (搜狐WAP网), the Sohu News app, and certain Baidu products, calling in the managers responsible for discussions. The Sohu News app and Sohu WAP were ordered to suspend posting of new content for one week. Content suspensions were also ordered for Baidu’s mobile search engine (百度手机网页版), the “Recommendations” section of the Baidu News App (百度新闻客户端“推荐频道”), and the “Women’s Channel” (女人频道), “Comedy Channel” (搞笑频道) and “Feelings Channel” (情感频道) of the Baidu APP.
Key Sources:
People’s Daily Online (人民网): 国家网信办启动网络生态治理专项行动 整治12类有害信息
WeChat public account “Media Observer” (传媒大观察): 网信办约谈搜狐、百度,新一年整改正在进行中!
[4] China’s Public Security Bureau issues fines and warnings for mobile “wall-climbing” by individual Chinese users

Information made public through the Guangdong Public Security Enforcement Information Platform (广东公安执法信息公开平台) on December 28, 2018, revealed that one internet user in the city of Shaoguan (韶关) had been fined 1,000 RMB for “daring to set up and use of a VPN to “access the international web.” The image available of the “Decision on Administrative Punishment” showed that the accused, 30 year-old Zhu Yunfeng (朱云枫), had installed Lantern Pro, a software application that allows open access to blocked websites and apps, on his mobile phone in order to access websites outside China, a process often referred to in Chinese as “climbing the wall” (翻墙).

Key Sources:
Guangdong Public Security Enforcement Information Platform (广东公安执法信息公开平台): 行政处罚决定书[2019]1号
Toutiao account “Moonlight Blog” (月光博客): 网民“翻墙”被罚:建立使用非法定信道进行国际联网
[5] People’s Daily and other Party-run newspapers to get page reductions for 2019
The WeChat public account “Media Observer” reported on January 3 that a number of key Party-run newspapers, including the flagship People’s Daily, Guangdong’s Nanfang Daily, and Zhejiang Daily, started out 2019 with makeovers, including page reductions and the introduction of new columns and other features.
The People’s Daily introduced full-colour printing for the first time in history, and reduced its total number of pages from 24 to 20, with the usual 12-page weekend editions reduced to just 8 pages. Nanfang Daily, meanwhile, launched a new column called “Theory Weekly: (理论周刊) with which, it said, it intended too “consolidate the high-ground of southern commentary” — presumably meaning that it wished to create a new voice on ideological matters that would showcase the ideas of the Guangdong leadership.
Zhejiang Daily, which has said it will capitalise on its advantages as “the place where the shoots of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for the New Era sprang up” — meaning that Xi was Party Secretary there from . 2002 to 2007 — has introduced several new page sections, including a “Hot News” section (要闻板块) showcasing the “most valuable news”, a “City-County” section (市县板块) introducing innovations in governance at the local level (a chance for local officials to advertise themselves?), a “Viewpoint” section (观点板块) that will deal with ideological hot issues (showcasing Party officials and their neologisms?).
Key Sources:
WeChat public account “Media Observer” (传媒大观察): 解读三大日报改版,一起看看有哪些变化

China Discourse Report 2018

For 2018, we could say that the most important testing point (测试点) in China’s political discourse arena was the contraction of President Xi Jinping’s political “banner term,” or qizhiyu (旗帜语), “Xi Jinping Thought of Socialism With Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” (习近平中国特色社会主义思想), which was formally introduced at the 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party in November 2017.
What do I mean by contraction?
This long and unwieldy political phrase is meant to be Xi Jinping’s political brand, forming and consolidating his legacy, and it is set apart from the banner terms of Xi’s predecessors, Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin, by including his name, an important mark of Xi Jinping’s power. But to become a phrase on par with previous legacy phrases like Mao Zedong Thought (毛泽东思想) or Deng Xiaoping Theory (邓小平理论), both of which “crown” (冠名) top Party leaders, this latest banner term would need to undergo a process of contraction. And of course the contraction we should expect is “Xi Jinping Thought,” which was strategically imbedded in the expanded “Xi Jinping Thought of Socialism With Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.”
We have to assume, given the nature and role of political discourse within the Party’s political culture, that this was the intention all along — that “Xi Jinping Thought of Socialism With Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” was introduced with a mind to reducing it down as soon as the conditions were right.
The pace of this contraction process is a reflection of the degree of power wielded by Xi Jinping and the core of top Party leaders at his side. At CMP, we predicted previously, as Xi Jinping’s banner term became clear, that the contracted “Xi Jinping Thought” would emerge within the year following the 19th National Congress. In fact, we could see the process unfolding in the Party-state media, with the emergence of a number of transitional phrases (过渡性提法), but this process was ultimately slower than we anticipated, impacted by the broader domestic and international environment.
We’ll come back to this question of banner terms at the end of this report.
When the National Language Resources Monitoring and Research Centre for Print Media (国家语言资源监测与研究中心) at Beijing Language and Culture University released its list of “Top Ten Terms in the Chinese Media” for 2018 on December 24, these included “constitutional amendment” (宪法修正案) and “trade tensions” (贸易摩擦), phrases we should understand as reflective of these environmental factors to which I just alluded.
From Hot to Scalding


According to the “heat index” CMP has developed for the intensity of certain phrases in the Chinese political discourse as reflected in the People’s Daily, the flagship newspaper of the CCP, in 2017 the phrases that were hottest, in the “blazing” category, were the “Belt and Road [Initiative]” (一带一路), “19th Congress” (十九大), “Socialism With Chinese Characteristics” (中国特色社会主义) and “with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core” (以习近平同志为核心). This means that each of these phrases appeared in 2,000 or more articles in the People’s Daily for the year.
For 2018, we have four phrases making it into the “blazing” category: “Belt and Road,” “Xi Jinping Thought of Socialism With Chinese Characteristics for a New Era,” “19th Congress” and “Reform and Opening” (改革开放).
Since 2013, “Reform and Opening” has consistently been a “red hot” phrase in the People’s Daily, but has not until now entered “blazing” territory, and in fact we have seen the steady decline of the phrase from year to year. This year, owing  to the 40th anniversary of “Reform and Opening,” the phrase rapidly heated up. You can see the heat intensity of “Reform and Opening” plotted below for each year from 2013.

In 2018, we also saw a slight increase in the use of Deng Xiaoping’s name in the People’s Daily, but the previous state in which we  could say, “Mao is red hot, Deng is just hot” (毛烫邓热,毛高于邓) — meaning that Mao is consistently elevated above Deng — was unchanged.

Another word we saw rising quite dramatically this year was “red” (红色), which of course is typically an indicator of tribute to the history and legacy of the Party. In 2018, the word remained in the “red hot” sector, but was up substantially, its frequency of use this year being in fact a 169 percent increase on the frequency five years ago.
The political slogans (政治口号) of China’s leadership are generally reflected in those political phrase making it into the top three sectors of the heat index, “blazing,” “red hot” and “hot.” Here, then, are those political slogans so defined:

In the second category, “red hot,” we see a number of phrases that should be quite familiar to anyone with an eye trained on Chinese political discourse, phrases like “with Comrade Xi Jinping as the core,” “community of common destiny for humanity,” “Chinese Dream,” “supply side,” “attack on poverty,” the “Four Consciousnesses,” the “Four Confidences,” “national security” and so on.
We defined for this study 13 “old” Party terminologies, terms like “Deng Xiaoping Theory,” to monitor whether or not there was any change, and found that these held steady, with no notable alteration in intensity. Meanwhile, terms we  generally look to as indications of more progressive agendas in the direction of political reform, in particular “political system reforms” (政治体制改革) and ”intra-party democracy” (党内民主), continued in their track as “cold” terms (冷词), defined in our index as those terms having 0 occurrences in the People’s Daily.
“A Perilous Situation”
The image you see below is a portion of the front page of the People’s Daily from August 11, 2018. It is a highly unusual page to find in the newspaper, and it is the first time that the term “stable expectations,” or yinyuqi (稳预期) has appeared in a headline in the Party’s flagship newspaper. In this case, “expectations” is essentially about confidence (信心) — specifically, confidence in China’s economy and its general health.

We can see that the smaller headline boxed in in red reads: “Looking At the Economic Situation at Mid-Year.” And down below this, the first bold subhead reads: “Our Country’s Economy Maintains Overall Stability.” So the claim on the surface is that things are generally going well for China’s economy. There is no cause for concern.
But reading Chinese political discourse is of course all about reading between the lines. Party leaders in China have made a virtual art form of writing, signalling and reading between the lines. So what does this actually indicate to us?
In the history of the People’s Daily to date, “stable expectations” has appeared in a headline just twice, both times in August 2018. If we then look at occurrence of this term in a full text search, we find that it appears just three times in the first half of 2018 in the newspaper, but appears 48 times in the second half of the year.
This seems to suggest that “stable expectations” has been a term of some significance since the middle of 2018. If we then turn to the Qianfang (前方) database, which gives us access to a broader range of periodicals in China, here is the trend we can see with respect to this term “stable expectations” in Chinese newspapers.

The ongoing trade war between China and the United States has resulted in a dramatic reconfiguration of the Chinese political discourse as it concerns questions of economy and trade. The first half of 2018 and the second half of 2018 are vastly different in the terms that dominate and characterise them. “Stable expectations” is just one example, a term that seems to signal an effort to put a pleasant face on the situation while not overplaying China’s hand.
Another mark of the change between the first and second halves of the year is the phrase “Amazing, my country” (厉害了,我的国), which now seems to epitomise China’s overplaying of its hand. The phrase follows a state-produced documentary film of the same name — referred to in English as “Amazing China” — that in March 2018 became the highest-grossing documentary film of all time in China. The documentary was a boastful paean to the great technological and economic achievements China has made, particularly under the leadership of President Xi Jinping. The documentary was loudly trumpeted by state media through March. But, tellingly, the film was pulled from store shelves in China toward last spring.
In 2018, Chinese internet users riffed on the documentary to create the neologism “amazing country” (厉害国). But here is what the phrase “Amazing, my country” looks like if we divide occurrences of the term in Chinese newspapers between the first and second halves of 2018.

In a sense, we have the mirror image of “stable expectations.” Overbrimming confidence gives way to cautious reassurance. What a difference a few months can make.
During the second quarter of 2018, as the trade war between China and the United States was just starting, the tone of China’s media (媒体语气) was notably hard-line and unyielding. The following is an opinion piece in the Global Times, published by the People’s Daily, that speaks in hard-line terms of the need to stand up and resist the United States. It speaks openly of both sides making preparations for a trade war.

And we have also this headline, from July 2018, in which the Global Times speaks of a “war of self-protection” against the United States, with a visually arresting image of conflict and opposition.

But things change quite remarkably when we move ahead just a few months into the second half of the year. Here is another piece, also from the Global Times, but from October 2018. The headline of this later Global Times piece, “Trade War Wakes China, Our Society is Maturing” (贸易战唤醒中国, 我们的社会在成熟), is far more circumspect, and far less combative.

The article itself speaks of the trade war as a “tremendous test” (巨大考验) of China’s “strategic patience” (战略耐心), as opposed to the anger, impetuousness or despair with which China might respond to such challenges from a trade partner. The message is that China should hold steady to its path, and not allow the shock of the trade war, which it calls “sudden” (突然), send it either along a path of foolhardy resistance to the death, or a newly conservative isolation.
Here is what we find when we look at two other phrases that have spoken to China’s unbridled confidence in its strengths, “Made in China 2025” (中国制造2025), referring to the industrial development strategy that has been the focus of a great of concern from many developed economies, and the “China Solution” (中国方案), the idea that China has a unique model for development that might be emulated by other countries — with implications, some fear, for global norms. The following charts show the proportion of total articles in China’s newspapers using the terms “Made in China 2025” and “China Solution” in the first and second halves of the year.


Clearly, both of these terms were far more prevalent in the first six months of 2018 than in the second six months, suggesting that both, as terms in the official discourse, were subject to some level of restriction as the leadership responded to changes in the international environment, and to subject impacts on the domestic political environment.
The signs in the discourse indicate that the pressure has been very real. In his most recent address to commemorate the 40th anniversary of China’s reform and opening policies, President Xi Jinping spoke of  “a perilous situation that beggars the imagination” (难以想象的惊涛骇浪), a clear warning that China faces immense challenges ahead.
If we look at the phrase “financial risks” (金融风险) in the People’s Daily, we again see a noticeable rise in the prevalence of the phrase. In 2015 and 2016, “financial risks” was in the “warm” sector, but by 2016 it had become “hot,” according to our index. And the term has continued to rise, as you can see here:

There is also very clear talk of downward pressure on China’s economy such as has not been experienced in four decades. The following graph shows articles using the term “downward pressure” in each quarter of 2018, based on a search of the full Qianfang database of more than 400 mainland newspapers. We can see use of the term more than doubling from quarters three to four.

Praising the Leader
In our discourse report for 2017, we noted an instance late in the year of the “rapid deceleration” (刹车) or “temporary stop” (‘临时停车) in certain key terminologies in the wake of the 19th National Congress of the CCP. On November 1, 2017, the Central Committee released a document called “Decision Concerning the Study and Implementation of the Spirit of the 19th Congress” (关于认真学习宣传贯彻党的十九大精神的决定),  which spoke of “focusing on General Secretary Xi Jinping as the Party leader [1] cherished by the whole Party, [2] loved and respected by the people, and  [3] worthy of the title” (聚焦到习近平总书记是全党拥护、人民爱戴、当之无愧的党的领袖上).
I’ve added the numbers in the translation above to show what have been called the “Three Standards” (三语标配), which were very widely propagated by China’s Party-state media during the first half of November 2017, but which noticeably dropped in the second half of the month. Why did we see this rapid deceleration? It seems to me that the push to emphasise Xi Jinping’s preeminent status as the head of the Party backfired somewhat as local and regional leaders fell  over themselves to pay tribute to Xi. As we documented in last year’s annual report, there was at least one case of a local Party newspaper honouring Xi Jinping as the “Great Leader,” or weida lingxiu (伟大领袖), an honorific used in the past for Mao Zedong alone.
This tide of praise seems to have prompted a backlash, and so the “Three Standards” were quickly reeled in. However, other honourifics quickly emerged in their place, as though the leadership was testing the political waters. We had: “Leader of the Party, Commander of the Army, Leader of the People” (党的领袖,军队统帅,人民领袖); and “Respect the Core, Gives Allegiance to the Core, Protect the Core” (忠诚核心,拥戴核心,维护核心,捍卫核心). Both of these phrase rose rapidly during the first quarter of 2018, but diminished sharply in the second quarter. And by the third quarter, heading into the second half of 2018, all of these phrases had fallen low. The following graphs show total articles using the phrases in Chinese newspapers, on the basis of the Qianfang database:

 
Aside from these three phrases, there was another this year, a rather strange one, that emerged only in June with the publication by the CCP’s Central Office of the July edition of the official magazine so enticingly called Office Administration (秘书工作). Chinese discussants on the WeChat social media platform noticed something interesting about the edition, namely that Ding Xuexiang (丁薛祥), the head of the office and general regarded as Xi Jinping’s most important political aide, had used a new set of three buzzwords to refer to Xi.

Those three buzzwords were:

“goes willingly into a sea of bitterness” (甘入苦海)
“attends to public affairs day and night” (夙夜在公)
”dedicates himself to the cause of the Party” (以身许党).

The three buzzwords were a great deal more humble, focusing on Xi Jinping’s sense of dedication and service, his tireless dedication. They are of course important and noteworthy because we have them from Ding Xuexiang, at the highest levels of the Party. They were used quite a bit at the time on social media, including official accounts. But somewhat puzzlingly, they did not appear at all in the People’s Daily or in other official Party publications. There is only the single mention in Office Administration.
When we talk about this sort of propaganda around the person of Xi Jinping and his position and importance to the Party, we cannot overlook the term “Great Teaching of Liangjiahe” (梁家河大学问), which CMP took a look at back in June 2018. Liangjiahe refers to the village in China’s northwestern province of Shaanxi where Xi Jinping spent seven supposedly formative years as a sent-down youth during the Cultural Revolution. Tales of Xi’s time in the village have become an integral part of the myth building up around the president. In our June piece, we looked in particular at a notice posted by the Shaanxi Academy of Social Sciences to its official website calling for submissions for new research projects dealing with the “Great Teaching of Liangjiahe,” one of a number of signs of a rising attitude of worship around Xi.
The phrase “Great Teaching of Liangjiahe” actually has its origins in something Xi was reported to have said in 2015 when he made a return trip to Shaanxi: “Do not underestimate Liangjiahe, for this is a place of great teaching” (不要小看梁家河,这是有大学问的地方). As the 19th National Congress approached in the fall of 2017, the phrase “Great Teaching of Liangjiahe” was propagated quite enthusiastically in the Party-state media surrounding the publication of the book Xi Jinping’s Seven Years as a Sent-Down Youth (习近平的七年知青岁月). And during the first half of 2018, the phrase was solidly in “hot” territory, according to our index.
But in the second half of 2018, propaganda surrounding the phrase “Great Teaching of Liangjiahe” was also reined in. Here is how the word “Liangjiahe” appeared through the four quarters of 2018 in the People’s Daily, which among state media was relatively conservative in its use of the word, and of the full phrase “Great Teaching of Liangjiahe.” The graph plots the total number of articles using the word “Liangjiahe.”


All of the above-mentioned phrases concerning the status of Xi Jinping, which in various ways reflect the level of respect and power accorded to him, share a common pattern — namely, that they were robustly put into play in the first half of 2018, and then moderated or dropped in the second half. So the pattern is clearly the adjustment and holding back of discourse signalling Xi’s power and authority. But of course, it is impossible for us to know exactly what the situation is internally.
“One Position as the Highest Authority”
One of the most particular phrases to emerge within the political discourse in 2018 was the Chinese idiom “one position as the highest authority,” or dingyu yizun (定于一尊), which we wrote about at CMP back in late July. This phrase has long been used with quite negative connotations in Chinese, linked for example to the rule of Emperor Qin Shi Huang (秦始皇), who unified China with the end of the Warring States period in 221 BC, and to the notion generally of power that escapes constraint. In his political report to the 19th National Congress in November 2017, Xi Jinping himself used it in a negative sense, saying that political systems “cannot [establish] one position as the ultimate authority” (不能定于一尊).
Strangely, however, this phrase had been used since 2017 with exactly the opposite meaning as well. On March 14, 2017, the Three Gorges Metropolis Daily (三峡都市报), a commercial newspaper published by the official Chongqing Daily (under the municipal Party leadership), reported that leaders in Chongqing’s Wanzhou District had stressed the need to  “protect with real actions the authority of the Party’s Central Committee to set the tone for all and be the ultimate authority” (以实际行动维护党中央一锤定音、定于一尊的权威). Then, on June 16, 2017, the People’s Daily reported that “central governmental organs and departments protected unflinchingly with real actions the power of the Party’s Central Committee with Xi Jinping as the core to set the tone for all and be the ultimate authority” (中央国家机关各部门以实际行动坚定不移地维护以习近平同志为核心的党中央一锤定音、定于一尊的权威).
These departures in the original sense of the phrase dingyu yizun did not draw notice until the same departure was delivered from the mouth of the highest authority himself. Finally, on July 5, 2018, the People’s Daily reported that Xi Jinping had said at the National Organisational Work Conference (全国组织工作会议): “The Party’s Central Committee must set the tone for all and be the ultimate authority” (党中央必须有定于一尊, 一锤定音的权威). From that point, of course, Party-state media all followed suit.

But the use of “set the tone for all and be the ultimate authority” actually varies between various local and regional Party media. When we look at media from region to region, we find that Jiangxi, Shaanxi and Xinjiang use the term with the greatest frequency, and Tianjin, Beijing, Shanghai and Hainan use the term the lowest frequency. Use of the term in Jiangxi, for example, is 15 times that of Beijing, as you can see from the following map:

But if we search the People’s Daily and provincial-level Party newspapers on a monthly basis across the year, we find that use of the phrase “set the tone for all and be the ultimate authority” is steadily declining across the board through 2018. In December, the phrase is used in just four articles in both Xinjiang and Heilongjiang.

In mid July, the following front page of the People’s Daily, from July 9, 2018, was shared across social media, with some  wondering why Xi Jinping was missing altogether.

Some media outside China followed up on the discussion, suggesting  that the July 9 edition was unusual — and some even reporting that this was the first time in five years that Xi had not been on the front page of the People’s Daily. In fact, a quick search reveals that this in fact is untrue.
In the almost six years from the time Xi Jinping came to power in November 2012 to December 28, 2018, there have been a total of 482 front pages of the People’s Daily without headlines or subheads  including “Xi Jinping,” “General Secretary” or “Chairman Xi.” There were 111 such pages  in 2013, 74 in 2014, 97 in 2015, 88 in 2016,  and  20 in 2018.
What we should notice is that in 2018 front pages of this kind were  far fewer than in previous years. In other words, 2018 has been a year during which Xi JInping is in the headlines on the front page of the People’s Daily with much greater frequency than in previous years.
During the first half of the year, we have March and May during which Xi was in front page headlines every single day. Then we have July and August, each of which had four days without Xi Jinping in the front page headlines (including the day that led to the misleading speculation).
During the second half of the year, September and November were also months during which Xi was in the front page headlines every day. Page layout choices are of course also a form of  discourse, and page layout choices at Party newspapers are closely connected to those in power.
“442”
The formula “442” is a fixed combination of various Xi Jinping catchphrases that we should observe. This formula first appeared in September 2018, a shortened reference to “strengthening the ‘Four Consciousnesses,’ adhering to the ‘Four Confidences,’ achieving the ‘Two Protections.'”
These three political phrases are themselves combinations of other phrases, as follows:

Four Consciousnesses” = consciousness of the 1) need to maintain political integrity, 2) think in big-picture terms, 3) uphold the leadership core, and 4) keep in alignment”Four Confidences” = 1) confidence in the path, 2) confidence in the theories [of the Party], 3) confidence in the system [of socialism with Chinese characteristics, 4) confidence in [China’s unique] civilisation
“Two Protections” = 1) protecting the core status of General Secretary Xi Jinping, protecting the central, unified leadership of the Central Committee of the CCP

The “Four Confidences” emerged in its earliest  form in 2013, as Liu Yunshan (刘云山) raised the “Three Confidences” (path, theories and system). In 2014, after the Second Session of the 12th National People’s Congress, Xi Jinping added culture to the mix, forming the “Four Consciousnesses,” though the shortened phrase did not formally appear until July of 2016 in the People’s Daily.
The “Four Consciousnesses” are clearly associated with the “core” status of Xi Jinping, but the un-shortened form of the phrase had already been raised at a meeting of the Politburo in January 2016, nine months before Xi Jinping was formally conferred “core” status at 6th Plenum. Three weeks after the Plenum, Party media began using the shortened form of the phrase.
The notion of “protecting Xi” (维护习) emerged in the military. In March 2014, Zhang Youxia (张又侠), a member of the Central Military Commission introduced the language, “resolutely protecting the authority of General Secretary Xi” (坚决维护习主席的权威), which appeared in the Liberation Army Daily on March 21, 2014. In February 2015 the Work Committee for Departments Directly Under the CCP Central Committee first introduced the phrase “resolutely protecting the authority of the Party’s Central Committee, resolutely protecting the authority of General Secretary Xi Jinping” (坚决维护党中央的权威, 坚决维护习近平总书记的权威), which appeared on February 9, 2015, in the People’s Daily. Two weeks later, an article clearly originating with the People’s Liberation Army first introduced the phrase, “resolutely protecting the authority of the Party’s Central Committee, resolutely protecting General Secretary Xi Jinping as the core” (坚决维护中央权威, 坚决维护习近平总书记这个核心), which appeared in the February 25, 2015, edition of Legal Daily. Clearly, the “Two Protections” appeared in Chinese newspapers far in advance of Xi Jinping’s formal designation as “the core.”
On November 15, 2016, after Xi Jinping had been designated as “the core,” Politburo Standing Committee member Li Zhanshu (栗战书) published a piece in the People’s Daily called “Resolutely Protecting the Authority of the Central Committee” (坚决维护党中央权威), which included the phrase “protecting the authority of the Party’s Central Committee means first of all protecting the core status of General Secretary Xi Jinping” (维护党中央权威首先要维护习近平总书记的核心地位).
On September 21, 2018, Xi Jinping led a meeting of the Politburo at which the “442” formula packing together all of the above phrases was raised formally for the first time. And on December 27, 2018, “442” made it into a front page headline in the People’s Daily for the first time.


This report concerned a recent Democratic Life Meeting (民主生活会), a periodic meeting of cadres during which they engage in self-criticism, an older CCP practice revived since 2013 under Xi Jinping. It praised Xi Jinping, saying: “Taking the long and broad view in strategic assessments, superbly adept in his political leadership, his position with the people clear and firm, fierce in taking up his historical responsibility, he is fully confirmed as worthy core of the Central Committee, and the core of the whole Party.”
If we look at Party newspapers regionally, we find that Guangdong province has used the “442” formula most readily, followed by Xinjiang, Shandong and Sichuan, while Beijing, Jilin, Ningxia, Tianjin and Shanghai have used the formula much less. The following map is based on a search of newspapers in each region in the Qianfang database for the total number of articles in 2018 mentioning the formula. While the number of newspapers in the database for each region vary, there seems to be no correlation with the number of articles using the term. For example, Beijing, which has more newspapers represented than any other region, made very little use of the term.

In December 2018 (up to the 29th), the People’s Daily had 23 articles using the “442” formula, making it a “hot” term for the month. When we look at the formula’s use in all newspapers across the country during the second half of 2018, we see a clear pattern emerging.

We can see that the political buzzwords and related formulas referring to China’s top leader have been in a state of flux, with many readjustments through the year. And in the midst of these fluctuations, the recent rise of the “442” formula is one of the most obvious signs that the process continues.
Banner Terms
The political report to the 19th National Congress of the CCP was the work of Xi Jinping, and when it came to framing his own banner term for the report, it was not yet political convenient for him to attempt crowning himself, or guanming (冠名), by including his name in his chosen catchphrase. And so it became in the report: “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for the New Era” (新时代中国特色社会主义思想). The process of crowning nevertheless happened almost simultaneously, as Zhang Dejiang  (张德江), Yu Zhengsheng (俞正声) and Liu Yunshan (刘云山), all three retiring  members of Politburo Standing Committee, used the phrase “Xi Jinping Thought of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for the New Era” during a group discussion (分组讨论) on October 18, the first day of the congress, which appeared the next day in the People’s Daily.
This exceedingly long banner term is most definitely not the final version. It awaits contraction. In the history of the Chinese Communist Party, the combination of a person’s name with the word “thought” was a momentous event, and only Mao could achieve it. As soon at the 19th Congress was over, the process of contraction toward “Xi Thought” began.
In fact, as early as 2013 we could find Chinese periodicals using the phrase “Xi Jinping Economic Thought” (习近平经济思想), as the People’s Tribune, a journal launched under the People’s Daily during Jiang Zemin’s administration, did in  its 12th edition in 2013. After Xi Jinping’s formal designation as “the core” during the 6th Plenum in the fall of 2016, there were attempts to test the waters through the pages of the People’s Daily. In March 2017, Ji Bingxuan (吉炳轩), a vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, used “Xi Jinping Economic Thought” in  remarks included in the newspaper. In June 2017, foreign minister Wang Yi (王毅) used “Xi Jinping Foreign Relations Thought” (习近平外交思想). Three months later, in September, Tie Ning (铁凝), the head of the All-China Writers Association, introduced the phrase “Xi Jinping Thought on Literature and Art” (习近平文艺思想).
In 2018, by our estimates, at least 23 various forms of “Xi Thought” appeared in the Chinese media, including: “Xi Jinping Economic Thought” (习近平经济思想), “Xi Jinping Foreign Relations Thought” (习近平外交思想), “Xi Jinping  Thought on Literature and Art” (习近平文艺思想), “Xi Jinping Strong Military Thought” (习近平强军思想),  “Xi Jinping Education Thought” (习近平教育思想), “Xi Jinping Ecological Civilisation Thought” (习近平生态文明思想), “Xi Jinping Party Construction Thought” (习近平党建思想),  “Xi Jinping Thought on Rule by Law” (习近平法治思想), “Xi Jinping Thought on Battling Poverty” (习近平脱贫攻坚思想), “Xi Jinping Rural Revitalisation Strategy Thought” (习近平乡村振兴战略思想), “Xi Jinping News and Public Opinion Thought” (习近平新闻舆论思想), “Xi Jinping News Thought” (习近平新闻思想), “Xi Jinping’s Important Thought on Work on Taiwan” (习近平对台工作重要思想),  “Xi Jinping Thought on Precision Poverty Alleviation” (习近平精准扶贫思想), “Xi Jinping Sports Thought” (习近平体育思想), “Xi Jinping Thought on Youth Work” (习近平青年工作思想), “Xi Jinping Finance Thought” (习近平金融思想), “Xi Jinping Thought on Ethnic Work” (习近平民族工作思想), “Xi Jinping Thought on Ethnic Unity” (习近平民族团结思想), “Xi Jinping Thought on Clean Government” (习近平廉政思想), “Xi Jinping Thought on Belt and Road”  (习近平一带一路思想), “Xi Jinping Thought on Maritime Development” (习近平经略海洋思想), “Xi Jinping Thought on Civil-Military Integration” (习近平军民融合思想) — and the list, we assume, goes on and will continue to develop.
Here is a composite image including the top of a front page from the People’s Daily in July, and two inside pages from June and January 2018. We can see in these cases various forms of “Xi Thought” making it into the headlines, regarding so-called “Party construction,” news policy and arts and literature:

Among the various forms of “Xi Thought,” the ones used most frequently so far are “Xi Jinping Strong Military Thought,” “Xi Jinping Foreign Relations Thought,” “Xi Jinping Ecological Civilisation Thought” and “Xi Jinping Economic Thought with Chinese Characteristics” (习近平中国特色社会主义经济思想). The areas in blue show total number of articles using any one of the above-mentioned four leading forms of “Xi Thought” over the four quarters of 2018, while the areas in orange show the total number of articles using other forms of “Xi Thought.”

And here is how the four leading forms of “Xi Thought” appeared in the People’s Daily in 2018, with “Xi Jinping Strong Military Thought” clearly in the lead.

This prevalence of “Xi Jinping Strong Military Thought” will strike familiar notes for those who are students of the history of the Chinese Communist Party. They may remember that in August 1956, “Mao Zedong Thought” was actually removed from the Party Charter, with Mao’s nod of approval. That was three months after the start of the Hundred Flowers Campaign. But after the Lushan Conference (庐山会议) in 1959, during which Mao was sharply criticised for the failings of the Great Leap Forward, “Mao Thought” began to reemerge. It was a time at which it became clear that Mao’s personal power exceeded all notions of collective leadership. And we should note that the first permutation of “Mao Thought” to make a comeback  was “Mao Zedong Military Thought” (毛泽东军事思想).
History is never very far behind.