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).

Professor punished for praise of public intellectuals

Written by David Bandurski on 14 October 2018. Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

This week in China’s media, the authorities seemed not to know quite what to do about a speech by US Vice President Mike Pence sharply criticizing China and accusing it of election meddling. A full-text version of the speech in Chinese was not deleted from the official WeChat account of the US Embassy in China. But authorities still moved to curtail sharing of the post. Meanwhile, the same material on Weibo seemed to still be shareable up through this weekend.
We also had news this week that a professor from Communication University of Zhejiang was disciplined by university officials for apparently putting a positive spin on the notion of the “public intellectual,” or gonggong zhishifengzi (公共知识分子), which has been a highly sensitive notion for the Chinese Communist Party in the past decade — but particularly so under Xi Jinping. The professor’s public speech, delivered during a welcome ceremony for incoming students, was reportedly called, “Public Intellectuals Are a Scarce Resource.” Well, he’s not wrong about that.

THIS WEEK IN CHINA’S MEDIA
October 6-12, 2018
➢ China speech by US Vice-President Pence enters Chinese social media, handled cautiously on WeChat
➢ TV host Cui Yongyuan again accuses police of negligence, and alleges that Shanghai police accepted bribes in pursuit of Fan Bingbing case
➢ Professor accused of inappropriate speech on “public intellectuals” at welcome ceremony for incoming students
➢ Prime-time program on China Central Television introduces the special vocabulary of Xi Jinping
➢ Weibo experiments with “full-site blocking of blacklisted individual accounts” (一人拉黑，全站禁评)
[1] China speech by US Vice-President Pence enters Chinese social media, handled cautiously on WeChat
On October 6, 2018, the U.S. Embassy in China used its WeChat public account to share a Chinese-language version of the October 4 speech on China by Vice President Mike Pence. While the authorities were unhappy with the substance of Pence’s remarks, which dealt with the steps China is allegedly taking to undermine the Trump administration ahead of mid-term elections, they did not move to delete the U.S. Embassy post. However, sharing and saving of the post as well as copying of its link were all disabled on the WeChat platform.

By contrast, sharing and commentary on content about the Pence speech shared by “@USEmbassyinChina” (@美国驻华大使馆) on Weibo was still possible.
Key Chinese Sources:
WeChat public account “US Embassy in China” (美国驻华大使馆): 彭斯副总统讲话全文
Weibo “@USEmbassyinChina” (@美国驻华大使馆): 彭斯副总统讲话全文
[2] TV host Cui Yongyuan again accuses police of negligence, and alleges that Shanghai police accepted bribes in pursuit of Fan Bingbing case
On October 7 and 10, celebrity television host Cui Yongyuan (崔永元) made two Weibo posts — “One sigh and one roll of thunder” (一声长叹一声雷) and “Informing on the police” (举报公安) — in which he accused police in Shanghai of corruption, saying that, “Once, right in my face they drank wine that was 20,000 yuan a bottle, and smoked cigarettes that were 1,000 yuan apiece, and took away hundreds of thousands of yuan in a bag.” In the posts, he also alleged that Beijing police had done nothing in the face of Cui’s reports that he was receiving threats. By the weekend, Cui’s first post had received more than 12 million reads and 9,367 likes.
Facing public opinion pressure, Shanghai police issued a notice on October 10 saying that the accusations made in Cui’s post pointed to possible illegal conduct by their officers, a matter they viewed with seriousness. But they also said they had tried on numerous occasions to contact Cui about these accusations but had been unable to reach him — and they hoped Cui could cooperate with their investigation. Cui retorted that the suggested that he was unreachable was nonsense. And he again accused one officer, Peng Fen (彭奋), the former deputy head of the economic crimes division in Shanghai’s Changning District, of corruption.
Through its official WeChat account, the Legal Daily (法制日报) wrote commented on Cui’s “One sigh and one roll of thunder” post by saying that the case, now exposed, must be investigated thoroughly.
Key Chinese Sources:
Cui Yongyuan’s Weibo account (@小崔读书汇): 一声长叹一声雷
Cui Yongyuan’s Weibo account (@小崔读书汇): 举报公安
Official Weibo account of Shanghai PSB (@警民直通车-上海
警情通报)
WeChat public account “Legal Daily” (法制日报): 法制日报评《一声长叹一声雷》：有人捅破这层纸，就该深查下去!
21st Century Business Herald (21世纪经济报道): “快鹿系”集资诈骗案上海庭审：投资人实际经济损失逾百亿
China Times (华夏时报): “快鹿系”集资诈骗案开审:集资规模超400亿未兑付逾百亿
[3] Professor accused of inappropriate speech on “public intellectuals” at welcome ceremony for incoming students
On October 12, The Paper learned from a source at the Communication University of Zhejiang that the deputy director of the university’s Academy of Literature, Zhao Siyun (赵思运), had been disciplined by the university with the issue of an “serious warning of internal Party discipline” (党内严重警告处分).

Professor Zhao Siyun, whose speech on “public intellectuals” reportedly angered university officials.
On September 30, the Communication University of Zhejiang had held its welcome ceremony for the 2018 entrance class, for which Professor Zhao Siyun had delivered a speech called “Public Intellectuals Are a Scarce Resource” (公共知识分子是一种稀缺资源). The speech treated the notion of the “public intellectual,” a term that now bears deep political stigma in China, as something positive. Not long after the speech, the university issued a formal document deciding that a “serious warning of internal Party discipline” would be issued in the matter.
The university document shows that Zhao Siyun has been accused of “the existence of problems in violation of political discipline” (存在违反政治纪律的问题). According to the document, on September 30, 2018, Zhao Siyun was serving in an interim role in charge of administrative matters at the school, and in his speech for the 2018 welcome ceremony he made “certain inappropriate remarks” (其中有个别不当用语). The university noted in the document, moreover, that Zhao had made certain “erroneous expressions” (发表错误言论) in the 2013-2015 period that had had “definite negative influence” (一定负面影响).
Key Chinese Sources:
QQ Daily Brief (天天快报): 浙传教授赵思运被校方处分，新生开学典礼致辞有个别不当用语
The Paper (澎湃新闻): 开学典礼致辞有不当用语浙传一教授被处分
Bai Jia Hao “Shi Feike” (百家号”石扉客”): 观察｜终于有人站出来为公知正名了
[4] Prime-time program on China Central Television introduces the special vocabulary of Xi Jinping
The “Lecture Room” (百家讲坛) program on China Central Television, the country’s state broadcaster, is now running a special series of episodes called “Bringing the Language of ‘Ping’ Closer to the People: The Dictionary of General Secretary Xi Jinping (平”语”近人——习近平总书记用典). From October 8 through October 19, the program will run at 8PM each night.
The program, created jointly by the Central Propaganda Department and China Media Group, the state-run conglomerate created in March 2018 by combining CCTV and China National Radio, draws on the phrases and concepts in Xi Jinping’s speeches to promote his so-called “banner term” (旗帜语), “Xi Jinping Thought of Socialism With Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” (习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想). The program series will have 12 episodes in all.

According to one report in Guangming Daily, the series has created a stir — and of course they mean that in a good way — among intellectuals in China: “The broad masses of intellectuals have brushed up [their knowledge of Xi Jinping’s] important speeches, again reading his classic writings, and felt deeply heartened by Xi Jinping Thought of Socialism With Chinese Characteristics for a New Era . . . ”
Between September 30 and October 4 this year, another propaganda program on the study of Xi Jinping’s ideas aired on Hunan Satellite TV, Hunan Education TV and People’s Daily Online. This program, “The Tide of Socialism” (社会主义有点潮), was created by the Hunan Provincial Propaganda Department (湖南省委宣传部) and the Hunan Broadcasting System (湖南广播电视台).
Key Chinese Sources:
CCTV Online (中央电视台网站): “百家讲坛”特别节目《平”语”近人》播出
Guangming Daily (光明日报): 人民情怀理政智慧文化自信《平”语”近人——习近平总书记用典》引起知识界热烈反响
Xinhua Online (新华网): 《平”语”近人——习近平总书记用典》引发社会共鸣
People’s Daily Online (人民网): 推动习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想“天天见”“天天新”“天天深”大型理论节目《社会主义有点潮》第二季《新时代学习大会》今日开播
AND: 大型理论节目《新时代学习大会》开播

[5] Weibo experiments with “full-site blocking of blacklisted individual accounts” (一人拉黑，全站禁评)
On September 26, content managers at Weibo issued a notice about a trial system called “comment bans for blacklisting” (博主拉黑禁评), to be tested on September 27, in which account holders who had comments deleted and were blacklisted (拉黑) by other users (博主) would be prevented from all comment functions throughout the Weibo platform for 3 days. This effectively meant that if a user made a comment that resulted in blacklisting by another user with a moderating role on one portion of the Weibo platform (including on the moderator’s own Weibo posts), the user making the comment would be prevented from commenting anywhere else on the platform. The trial was to first be introduced for Weibo users with more than 100,000 fans, and the same services later offered to all verified users (认证用户) and Weibo members (微博会员) on the Weibo platform.
Some remarking on the new trial system argued that it disregarded one of the key steps in the blacklisting process — the mechanism of appeals (申诉机制). The system could mean, they said, that “Big V” users on Weibo, those with large followings, would be able to exercise censorship of others without any oversight or consequences, and ordinary users would pay the price.
Key Chinese Sources:
The Paper (澎湃新闻网): 新浪微博测试新功能：账号被博主删评并拉黑，将全站禁评3天
WeChat public account “Media Observer” (微信公众号”传媒大观察”): 微博推出的“博主拉黑禁止评论”，这些年真是为评论区操碎了心
Zhihua (知乎): 如何看待新浪微博在 9 月 27 日上线的「博主拉黑全站禁评」功能？

Discourse Climate Report: September 2018

Written by David Bandurski on 9 October 2018. Posted in China Newspeak.

We are pleased to announce that CMP’s discourse analysis team has now released its monthly “discourse climate report” for September 2018, looking at how the core vocabularies of the Chinese Communist Party are moving in the official media, under the direction of Qian Gang. The report is available in Chinese below.
A few highlights. The report notes that the phrase pairing “one position as the highest authority, making the final decisions” (定于一尊, 一锤定音), which seemed to aggrandize Xi’s leadership position and was used in both July and August in the People’s Daily, was not used in September. You can read our July discussion of the history of these phrases here. The only use last month of the term “one position as the highest authority” in isolation came in a piece about the development of rule of law in China since the 18th National Congress of the CCP, and used the phrase in a negative context: “There does not exist in the world a model of rule of law that is in a position of supremacy, nor does there exist a path to rule of law that can be applied everywhere.”
The September report also takes a look at the history in the People’s Daily of the term “socialist transformation” (社会主义改造). The term became a topic of discussion outside official state media in September, thanks in large part to an online post claiming China was entering a “second era of socialist transformation.” For a summary of this story, our readers can turn to Qian Gang’s October 3 analysis.
Our September report concludes with a look back on the history of the phrase “supervision by public opinion” (舆论监督), which in the reform era has long encompassed the notion that the press should have a role in monitoring power.
The phrase was used more actively after 1992, following Deng Xiaoping’s “southern tour,” and by 1994 was being given a definite degree of priority by the top leadership. The period from 2003-2012 marked what now appears in retrospect to have been a rare decade for “supervision by public opinion,” in which the phrase signaled the rising power (and right) of the media to set the agenda through more critical, and even investigative, coverage — aided by changes in technology, and by the general development of (more or less) civil society (公民社会).
Since 2013, and the final ill-fated “New Century Forum on News Supervision By Public Opinion” (新世纪新闻舆论监督研讨会) — a conference on watchdog journalism organized for more than a decade by CMP fellow Zhan Jiang (展江) — the environment for “supervision by public opinion” has worsened considerably. The phrase “supervision by public opinion” has been usurped almost entirely by the phrase “channeling of public opinion” (引导舆论), a term for the active control by the authorities of news topics and discussion.
As a phrase of importance, it seems, “supervision by public opinion” is history.

——————————————

九月语象速递丨全凭爹爹做主
9月，17级台风“山竹”袭击广东-海南沿海；女性维权声浪中，滴滴事件一波未平，快递事件又掀波澜。在词云图中，16字长语热度不减。

根据香港大学新闻及传媒研究中心中国传媒研究计划（CMP）划分的六级语温梯度（沸、烫、热、暖、温、冷），9月关键词语温分布如下：

数据来源：人民日报图文数据库 *以上语温等级，均使用占比方法测定。参见《钱钢语象报告：党媒关键词温度测试》
九月，关键词语的语温变化几乎为一级升降，只有两词例外：“维稳”跳动两级，由温升热；“雄安”跳动两级，由冷升暖。
全面深化改革、两个一百年、依法治国、市场经济为本月“新烫”，上月为热词。其中，市场经济为八月新词。
结合前几个月看，八月一些热词降了温，九月又纷纷恢复为热词，如：五位一体、四个全面、红色基因、深度贫困。“善治”一词更是三个月以来连连升温，由冷升热。这些词语大多与十九大关联。
也有不少词语热度降低，如军民融合、四风、生态建设由热降暖；协商民主、大众创业、万众创新由暖降温；以德治国、政务公开、妄议、政治建军、邓小平理论、三个代表由温降冷。

13个关键词测温

本月邓小平理论、三个代表两词持续降温，由温入冷。从二月起一直凉凉的“和谐社会”由冷转温，半数相关报道与“三农”问题相关，如9月28日《人民日报》重刊习近平总书记在上海工作期间对推动“三农”发展的思考与实践，其中，他在2007年5月13日上海市委八届十二次全会讲话中提出，要把上海农民民生问题解决好，上海才能率先构建社会主义和谐社会。
“以人为本”和“市场经济”均在经历8月降温后升温，分别回归“暖”“温”序列。
16字长语在经历了8月的短暂降温后，再次回归沸点。

中央政要

他（684次）仍然遥遥领先，李克强持平为烫词（48次），较上月（76次）有大幅下降。九月，他出席中非合作论坛北京峰会、赴俄罗斯出席第四届东方经济论坛、对非洲4国进行国事访问、出席金砖国家领导人第十次会晤。李总理本月出席了第十二届夏季达沃斯论坛、公布《国务院关于修改部分行政法规的决定》，对10部行政法规的部分条款予以修改。
除了这两位，其他人出现频率如图所示。中央外事工作委员会办公室主任杨洁篪（55次）出现次数高于李克强（48次），位居第二，由暖升烫，这一变化与九月外事访问以及国际政要会议较多有关。中央书记处书记、中央办公厅主任丁薛祥（46次），中共中央政治局常委、全国政协主席汪洋（42次）同属烫级。
栗战书（30次）、韩正（24次）、孙春兰（23次）、胡春华（18次）、赵乐际（17次）、王岐山（16次）、黄坤明（15次），跟在后面，为热级。王晨出现14次，有所下降，成为暖，李希由冷升温（4次）。
九月，人民日报上没有见到中共中央政治局委员、重庆市委书记陈敏尔的身影。

地方政要

从地方官媒曝光量来看，和八月份一样，西藏党委书记吴英杰（105次）仍然占据榜首，广东省委书记李希（86次）第二，河北省委书记王东峰（83次）位居第三，由于开展“山竹”防治指挥工作，海南省委书记刘赐贵亮相次数大幅上升，为83次，与王东峰同居第三。随后是山东省委书记刘家义（63次）和广西党委书记鹿心社（63次）。
本月曝光量变动比较大的有广西党委书记鹿心社，和四川省委书记彭清华。前者从上月的21次，上升至本月的63次。后者从上月的34次，上升到本月59次。

外国元首

本月外国政要曝光排名有较大变化，上月位居第一的特朗普大幅下降，排名第四，只出现11次。排在他前面的依次是俄罗斯总统普京（30次）、南非总统拉马福萨（28次）、朝鲜劳动党委员长、国务委员会委员长金正恩（15次）。
本月，习近平赴俄罗斯出席第四届经济论坛，和“最知心的好朋友”普京进行了多次会面。出席中非合作论坛北京峰会、对南非进行国事访问，巩固中非团结合作关系。9月9日为朝鲜国庆70周年，习近平向金正恩致贺电，强调中朝两国是山水相连的友好邻邦，愿携手推动中朝关系长期健康稳定发展。
此前几个月，特朗普在《人民日报》上的出镜率基本第一，八、九两月的排位都相对靠后，提到他，《人民日报》表示“继续对伊朗和其领导人进行抨击”、“特朗普极端的“美国第一”路线甚至在直接受益的群体中都已播下了不信任的种子”、“特朗普政府对自中国进口产品加征关税，是不负责任的贸易保护主义，严重违反了世贸组织规则”。
九月，人民日报上没有见到加拿大总理特鲁多的身影。

本月聚焦

定于一尊？

“定于一尊”“一锤定音”组合曾出现于7、8两月的人民日报，分别为4次、3次，语温属“冷”；9月则在人民日报零出现。
9月7日新华社通稿《努力创造无愧于新时代的光辉业绩》报道对5月中央办公厅印发的《关于进一步激励广大干部新时代新担当新作为的意见》的反应。文章使用了“定于一尊一锤定音”，全国仅19份报纸刊发。人民日报没有转载这篇通稿，而是刊登了该报记者采写的同题材报道《让想干事者有机会让能干事者有舞台》，未使用“定于一尊，一锤定音”。延伸至全国报纸，九月在报纸上未出现“定于一尊一锤定音”的省（市）有：北京、天津、上海、河北、吉林、黑龙江、江苏和安徽。
人民日报本月惟一一次使用“定于一尊”，是负面意义的，《绘就全面依法治国的斑斓画卷——党的十八大以来我国全面推进依法治国新成就综述》一文提到：“世界上不存在定于一尊的法治模式，也不存在放之四海而皆准的法治道路”。
有趣的是，上海新民晚报9月13日刊登《同娱盛夏“大家猜”》的文章，提到在上海工人文化宫的灯谜大家猜活动中，有一条谜面是戏剧中常用的语句“全凭爹爹做主”，打一成语。谜底是“定于一尊”（尊，令尊，父亲也）。

“金融监管”微信指数飙高

全球金融危机之后，我国金融监管经历了一系列的探索和模式演变。2008年推出4万亿的投资计划。在逆周期的经济刺激政策之下，国民经济在2012年之后开始企稳回升，但是由于原有的产业结构升级并未到位，4万亿的投资计划给国民经济带来的负面冲击如产能过剩、资产价格泡沫等问题日益显现。同时，国家经济发展面临的外部环境日益复杂，经济积累的系统性风险上升，每一次危机都意味着金融监管的失败和随之而来的重大变革。
9月，金融监管相关组织也是动作频频，通过“微信指数”，可看出相关活动及讨论的传播走势。

9月伊始，“金融监管”的搜索指数攀升，并于9月5日到达近90日曲线的最高点。归因于8月底银保监会、证监会的一系列举措：8月29日，中国银保监会召开银行保险监管工作电视电话会议，学习贯彻党中央、国务院关于下半年经济金融工作的安排部署，对近期重点工作任务提出要求；8月31日，银保监会依法对5家省联社违法违规问题进行行政处罚，同日，证监会正式印发《中国证监会监管科技总体建设方案》。
第二个峰值出现在9月8日。前一天，国务院金融稳定发展委员会召开第三次会议，分析当前经济金融形势。会议认为，当前各类金融风险得到稳妥有序防范化解，金融市场风险意识和市场约束逐步增强，要防范“黑天鹅”，保持股市、债市、汇市平稳健康发展。据统计，自今年7月新一届国务院金融委亮相至今以来，两个多月时间里已经召开三次会议及一次专题会议，并且都是国务院副总理、金融委主任刘鹤主持。
之后，搜索指数波动下降，16日到达一个低点。9月16日下午纪念改革开放四十年暨50人论坛成立二十周年学术研讨会在北京举行，刘鹤出席论坛，吴敬琏、樊刚、吴晓灵等业界专家学者齐聚北京。论坛上，经济学界的智囊们既总结成功经验，又从不同角度澄清了当前束缚改革的一些阻力和变数。其中，防范系统性金融风险、完善金融监管，仍是讨论的主题之一。次日，搜索指数出现一个新的小高峰。
随后，受中秋假期的影响，22至24日的指数都处于低位，节后略有回升。
与搜索指数情况相反，人民日报和全国报刊中出现“金融监管”的文章篇数，在9月明显下滑（见下图）。

“第二次社会主义改造”

临近改革开放40周年纪念日，2018年9月，中国网络上出现多篇逆改革开放的文章或讲话。
9月11日，一个叫吴小平的人提出“中国私营经济已完成协助公有经济发展的任务，应逐渐离场”。
同一天，人力资源和社会保障部副部长邱小平在一个会议上讲话，号召私营企业职工“参与企业管理、共享企业发展成果”。
仅仅5天后，9月16日，一个党校教授发表下面的文章：

作者称：“共产党人从来不屑于隐瞒自己的观点和意图：消灭私有制”，“中国进入第二次社会主义改造时期已经成熟”。
这一系列逆改革言论，使网络哗然。“社会主义改造”，这个已经很少在媒体出现的词语，又变成了传播热词。
1949年中共建政，实行的是新民主主义制度。从1952年到1956年，对农业、手工业和资本主义工商业进行了社会主义改造，社会主义的基本制度由此确立。毛泽东大规模消灭了私有经济，并试图迅速、彻底实现“一大二公”，一系列灾难就此降临。
从1957年到2017年，“社会主义改造”一语在人民日报的传播频率如图。改革开放以后，“社会主义改造”在人民日报成为冷词。

9月27日，原中共中央统战部副部长胡德平（胡耀邦之子）发表讲话：《警惕打着共享的旗号搞新的公私合营》。讲话披露，1991年中共中央15号文件指出，对私营企业主，不要“像50年代那样对他们进行社会主义改造”。
《中国正处于第二次社会主义改造时期》一文的作者，名曹习华，是长沙市委党校副教授，网络显示，他曾到不同单位宣讲“19大精神”。

曹教授似乎没有注意到19大已淡化对50年代社会主义改造的肯定。但他对近年来“国进民退”的大气候十分敏感，这使他嗅到了“第二次社会主义改造”的味道。

四十年关键词之舆论监督

“舆论监督”是改革开放在新闻传播领域的旗舰性话语。1986年(不含)以前，这个词语在人民日报一共只出现过7次。
党媒语境下的舆论监督，经历了勃发（1988）、消沉（1989-1991）、震荡（1992-2002）、博弈（2003-2012）和淡出（2013-2018）。1980年以来，语温基本保持在“温”和“暖”区间，如下图所示。

“舆论监督”在1987年尚属“冷”词，全年共在20篇文章中出现。
1988年，“舆论监督”首次由冷跃升至暖。这是“舆论监督”元气旺盛的时期，人民日报全年有124篇文章使用此词。4月6日第2版右下，一篇题为《希望公布国家领导人员候选名单》的短文吸引笔者目光。作者认为，“扩大国家最高权力机构政务活动的开放程度，便于实行舆论监督和群众监督。”舆论监督之锋芒可谓空前绝后。

1989-1991年见证了“舆论监督”语温跌入谷底的过程。
1989年2月8日第1版刊登《天津不是害怕批评的地方》，报道天津市长李瑞环在春节前夕邀请中央及外地新闻单位驻津记者谈舆论监督和新闻改革。记者引用李的观点称：加强舆论监督，经常“微调”，可以避免“大修”。
仅过了10个月，李瑞环已跻身政治局常委。1989年11月25日，他在中宣部举办的新闻工作研讨班上发表讲话：《坚持正面宣传为主的方针》，认为“改进新闻工作需要研究和解决的问题很多，……关键的问题是新闻报道必须坚持以正面报道为主的方针”。这篇讲话分10个章节提出“看法和意见”，其中第六条为正确实行舆论监督。
这段论述把新闻舆论监督分成两类，一类是“搞资产阶级自由化的头面认为所鼓吹的”，另一类是“我们所说的”。对于如何“正确发挥新闻舆论的监督作用”，李讲的很实在：“新闻单位通过内部参考、内部简报向上反映问题，必须力求准确，不得掺假，以免提供错误信息”；“要充分发挥新闻的能动作用。要选择那些人民群众普遍关心而又有条件解决的问题作公开报道。”
人民日报在1990年3月3日头版刊登了这篇讲话，讲话也刊登在1990年3月的《新闻战线》杂志上，封面一图胜千言。
1992-2002年，舆论监督与舆论导向提法并重。受邓小平南巡带动，其在1992、1994年的语温皆有升级（冷至温，温至热）。
1994年，中央电视台新闻评论部创办《焦点访谈》，在略有松动的传媒生态中，竖起舆论监督的大旗。1998年10月7日，朱镕基到中央电视台视察，将“舆论监督，群众喉舌，政府镜鉴，改革尖兵”这四句话赠给《焦点访谈》栏目组。他说，“这四句话是我考虑了很久才想出来的，代表我的心声。”“在舆论监督面前没有特权，我本人也属于你们监督的对象。”

胡温主政的2003-2012年，在资讯科技和公民社会的加持下，舆论监督成为媒体与权力、市场的博弈场。
2001年，时任中国青年政治学院新闻与传播系主任展江教授发起并主办“新世纪新闻舆论监督研讨会”，每年征集优秀舆论监督作品，并请主创记者或编辑到会交流。研讨会从门户网站勃兴的Web 1.0时期，延续至微博、微信等社交媒体发挥舆论监督作用的Web 2.0时期，每一届都吸引学界和业界的顶级专家、高手参与，成为业内公认最有影响的年度会议。
2013年后，“新世纪新闻舆论监督研讨会”已难觅寄身之地。党报中，“引导舆论”取代“舆论监督”，“舆论”由主语位置成为被归置的对象。

Chinese Media Mum on Mallet Case

Written by David Bandurski on 9 October 2018. Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

We noted over the weekend that China had responded to the controversy over Hong Kong’s denial of a visa to Victor Mallet, Asia news editor of the Financial Times, as we might have expected — by 1) leaving commentary to peripheral state media (so far, only the Global Times) and 2) emphasizing the visa denial as a decision taken independently by Hong Kong.
So far, China is keeping to this playbook, and no fresh coverage is apparent today, despite continued coverage of the story internationally, and expressions of concern by organizations like the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong.

October 7 coverage in the “World” section of People’s Daily Online reports the release of a statement on the Mallet case by the official of China’s foreign ministry in Hong Kong.
Even the voices speaking from the periphery, like that of the Global Times, seem to be getting little play within the online Chinese news space, suggesting the authorities have sought to minimize exposure. Aside from Sina.com, the Saturday commentary from the Global Times is absent from major media and portal sites. The statement from the Hong Kong office of China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, also posted Saturday, has been reported only by the “World” section of People’s Daily Online.
For more interesting voices from the official periphery, however, we point readers to coverage by Hong Kong’s Ta Kung Pao, a newspaper controlled by the Liaison Office of the Central Government in Hong Kong.
A piece in the Ta Kung Pao today works to paint a portrait of British hypocrisy over press freedom, quoting a journalist from Taiwan who says he was denied a Hong Kong entry visa by colonial authorities ahead of the handover. The journalist is quoted as saying: “During Hong Kong’s British period, Hong Kong government officials were all appointed by the British crown, so where was the democracy then?”
The Ta Kung Pao report concludes:

The Central Government has not tightened its policies toward Hong Kong. It’s just that certain people have purposely crossed the red line. The situation is as though a wall has been built there for 20 years, and today certain people want to remove it and say, ‘Why must there be a wall here?’ This is confusing black and white and goes against reason, and it is a refusal to accept the Constitution and the Basic Law.

A similar piece from the Ta Kung Pao yesterday sought to redirect the controversy by questioning visa denials issued in the past from the UK and the United States, including the 2016 refusal of entry to the US for BBC journalist Rana Rahimpour, who has dual British-Iranian nationality.

Global Times comments on Mallet case

Written by David Bandurski on 7 October 2018. Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

As the news broke last Friday about Hong Kong’s rejection of a visa for Victor Mallet, the Asia news editor of the Financial Times, a case that could have serious implications for freedom of speech and academic freedom in the special administrative region, we wrote that China was likely to respond first through more peripheral media like the Global Times.
Today we do have a response from the Global Times in the form of a commentary in both Chinese and English. The headline given to the English-language version of the commentary is: “Hong Kong has no less speech freedom without Mallet.” The Chinese-language edition is rendered somewhat differently, with a headline that might more properly translate: “Minus one British journalist, and Hong Kong will ‘mainlandize?’”
The commentary seeks to minimize the impact of the Mallet case, mocking the idea that it might have “a chilling effect on freedom of speech.” The basis of the argument is the idea that the visa refusal has nothing whatsoever to do with Mallet actual work as a journalist, and so cannot have any bearing on freedom of speech. Instead, the case — assuming it does relate to the FCC event in July — is a response to “political provocation that goes far beyond the scope of freedom of speech.”
This is a line we can expect to continue to see from the Chinese authorities, that freedom of speech is not absolute, that there are bottom lines, that the FCC crossed these bottom lines, committing an act fundamentally in violation of the Basic Law, etcetera.
The commentary goes on to dispute accusations that the Mallet case suggests Hong Kong has undergone a process of mainlandization:

Accusing Hong Kong of mainlandization, which is nonsensical, is a way of fighting for some Western forces and Hong Kong extremists. The Western media have hardly criticized the US order that requires Chinese news organizations to register as foreign agents. This will hinder their professional work in the country. But the Western media think a visa renewal rejection for a UK editor symbolizes Hong Kong being under more pressure from the mainland. Western media are indeed sophisticated in applying double standards.

According to the Global Times piece, Hong Kong people have “ample channels to voice their views,” and this will not be affected because of Mallet’s departure. “Hong Kong won’t have any less freedom of speech,” the article said. “By contrast, Mallet’s action damaged China’s national security and undermined freedom of expression.”
We also said Friday that China’s government was likely to comment on the refusal of Mallet’s visa as an exercise of Hong Kong autonomy, downplaying its role. In a statement yesterday, a spokesperson at China’s foreign ministry in Hong Kong said: “The Central Government firmly supports the SAR (Hong Kong) Government in handling the related matters in accordance with law.”

Reporter Claims Self-Defense for National Security

Written by David Bandurski on 6 October 2018. Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

This week our top story for China’s media is the case of Kong Linlin (孔琳琳), the CCTV reporter who made a scene at the UK Conservative Party conference in Birmingham. Kong’s case is an interesting (and quite discouraging) look at the growing assertiveness of Chinese official voices, both media and diplomatic, in international contexts. We can surely expect similar displays of bullying and outrage in the future over issues China’s regards as being in its core national interest. In this case, the issue was Hong Kong.
The discussion internally in China of the Kong Linlin case was limited to social media platforms, and the overwhelming majority of responses seemed to be positive and in support of Kong’s temper tantrum as a matter of patriotism. We translate a portion of a rare WeChat post adding a bit of context to the case — talking about how such shows of “patriotism” are the real role of state media in China, which have little interest in professionalism as much of the rest of the world understands it.
One of the most disturbing aspects in China on the Kong case is the tacit support and legitimization of violence when it is seen as serving the fundamental interests of the Party and state. Facing questions of whether it was proper to strike others as she did in Birmingham, Kong responded on Weibo with a smiley face emoticon: “It’s not hitting when it’s legitimate self-defense (正当防卫).” Note that the Chinese here for “legitimate self-defense” suggests defense not just of Kong’s person but of the body, as it were, of the Chinese nation.

THIS WEEK IN CHINA’S MEDIA
September 29, 2018 to October 5, 2018
➢ CCTV reporter heckling panel at an event of the UK Conservative Party receives support from official state media
➢ Decision on discipline of actress Fan Bingbing for “shadow contracts” and tax avoidance made public, she is fined 800 million yuan
➢ Bloomberg releases a report on “spy chips” from China
➢ National Radio and Television Administration launches campaign to clean up advertisements, emphasizing “guidance”
➢ New regulations give broad police inspection powers over companies providing internet services
[1] CCTV reporter heckling panel at an event of the UK Conservative Party receives support from official state media
On September 30, as the Human Rights Council of the UK Conservative Party held a fringe event on the situation in Hong Kong during its annual Conservative Party Conference in Birmingham, panel members, included several prominent Hong Kong pro-democracy figures, were heckled by a reporter for the official China Central Television, Kong Linlin. As the hosts of the panel tried to get the woman to leave, she appeared to slap and event volunteer twice. The exchange was captured on video.
On October 1, the Chinese Embassy in UK issued a statement saying that “the Human Rights Council of the UK Conservative Party had used the annual party conference event to highlight anti-Chinese splittist forces (反华分裂势力), and the Chinese side expresses serious concern and fierce displeasure. We resolutely oppose the intrusion on Hong Kong affairs by any person or any organization.”
Addressing the embassy statement, the deputy chairman of the Human Rights Council of the UK Conservative Party, Benedict Rogers, said the absurdity of the Chinese Embassy statement was clear to anyone who viewed the video from the scene. More than 80 eyewitnesses at the event saw this Chinese journalist slap our volunteer twice, Rogers said. Rogers said that the journalist should immediately apologize, and the Chinese government should withdraw its statement.

A spokesperson for the China Media Group said on October 1: “Kong Linlin, the journalist for the European Center of China Central Television, has already been released. The China Media Group expresses its sympathy to Kong Linlin.”
For nuance on the Kong Linlin story inside China, it was necessary to look at the reflections appearing on the WeChat platform. One example we found was a post at “Shen Mutian” (沈目田), which was called: “Media Must Be Surnamed Party, And Journalists Must Be Surnamed Party.” This was a reference to President Xi’s speech on media policy in February 2016, when he stressed that all media work in the interests of the Chinese Communist Party. That speech came with visits to Kong’s outfit, China Central Television, and to the People’s Daily.
Here is a translation of a portion of the “Shen Mutian” post:

CCTV, which takes the lead in shouting the the media must be surnamed Party, has recently also “sought sunlight for the nation” (为国争光). A CCTV female reporter called Kong Linlin made a big fuss at the annual conference of the UK Conservative Party, engaging in a verbal war of words and even hitting people. Kong Linlin’s “patriotic” move received a lot of support from “patriotic” internet users. Afterward, some suggested that it was not right to hit people. Through her Weibo account, Kong Linlin explained by saying that legitimate self-defense (正当防卫) is not the same thing as hitting people, and the post came with a smile emoticon.
Concerning this question, former journalist Luqiu Luwei (闾丘露薇) said that this journalist based in London had exposed a core aspect of the Chinese media system: that the media serve the Chinese Communist Party, and that they must revere the Party. Daring to ‘show the sword’ was precisely the prerogative of these propaganda workers, and so seeing the high-level support officially and the energetic support back home is not at all a surprise. This is [for them] about responsibilities, and demanded by the media system. The definition of a journalist officially in China is very different from the professional definition provided in classrooms overseas. This is common knowledge.

Key Chinese Sources:
China News Service (中新网): 中国记者在英保守党年会被警方带走中方要求道歉
CCTV Online (央视网): 央视发言人：央视记者孔琳琳已被无指控释放
WeChat public account “Shen Mutian” (沈目田): 央视女记者大闹英国保守党年会
WeChat public account “Shen Tuoshou” (沈舵手): 媒体姓党，记者也姓党
[2] Decision on discipline of actress Fan Bingbing for “shadow contracts” and tax avoidance made public, she is fined 800 million yuan
Actress Fan Bingbing (范冰冰), one of China’s most recognized celebrities, resurfaced as tax authorities in China announced that she had been fined for “shadow contracts” and tax evasion. In an apology shared widely across social media, Fan said she was sorry and would “engage in deep reflection” over the matter, that she felt “ashamed and guilty” (羞愧、内疚).

An October 3 announcement from tax authorities said that in the process of making the film “Unbreakable Spirit,” directed by Xiao Feng, in which she stars with American actor Bruce Willis, Fan Bingbing received “shadow contracts” that enabled her to evade more than 6 million yuan in personal income taxes, and more than 10 million yuan in small business taxes. In total, the authorities said, the actress would have to pay more than 800 million yuan in fines and back taxes. In language reminiscent of public confessions seen in recent years in China, she also thanked the Chinese government and the Chinese Communist Party for the opportunities afforded to her.
Online in China, views of the Fan case were varied. Some wondered at the fairness of Fan receiving only fines for tax evasion involving enormous sums when Li Xiaohang (李晓航) a former airline stewardess involved in cosmetics sales, received a prison sentence of 3 years for evading just over 1 million in taxes.
The WeChat public account “People’s Daily Commentary” said: “We will not offer special treatment because the violator of the law is a public figure. At the same time, we will not afford public figures punishments that exceed what is necessary.”
Key Chinese Sources:
Xinhua Online (新华网): 税务部门依法查处范冰冰“阴阳合同”等偷逃税问题
Weibo Account of Fan Bingbing (@范冰冰): 致歉信
CFI.net.cn (中财网): 为什么空姐代购逃税被判刑范冰冰却只用交罚款？
WeChat public account “Xinhua News Agency” (微信公众号”新华社”): 范冰冰案教育警示文艺影视从业者遵纪守法
WeChat public account “People’s Daily Commentary” (微信公众号”人民日报评论”): 范冰冰“阴阳合同”案：法律面前没有例外
Guangming Daily (光明日报): 更须重警示守规矩立德行
[3] Bloomberg releases a report on “spy chips” from China

A report published on October 4 in Bloomberg Businessweek alleged that Chinese spies had hacked into the networks of nearly 30 U.S. companies, including Apple and Amazon, by using a “tiny microchip, not much larger than a grain of rice,” imbedded in server motherboards sourced from China. The report, which quickly sent ripples through tech and foreign policy communities in the U.S., seeming to substantiate calls for a harder line on China (one lawmaker calling it the “holy grail of hacking”), was denied by at least three of the major companies involved, Apple, Amazon and AMD. Super Micro, the supplier mentioned by Bloomberg as the source of infected motherboards, denied that its products contained such chips, which it said had never been found in its products.
Official state media in China remained silent about the case through October 5, but there was some discussion across tech sites and WeChat public accounts about which version of the story to believe. A post at the WeChat public account “Gui Xing Ren” (硅星人), did a full summary of the Bloomberg report and related coverage and then proceeded to look carefully at a number of “odd points” in the stories. The post bore the headline: “Bloomberg Exposed ‘Spy Chips’: I Can Buy One on Taobao for 1 Yuan” (彭博社曝光的“间谍芯片”，我在淘宝1块钱就能买一个).
Key Chinese Sources:
Huxiu (虎嗅网): 解码中国超微超级间谍芯片丑闻：我们知道些什么？谁在说真话？
AND: 一篇彭博报道引发的中美科技股血案
WeChat public account “Gui Xing Ren” (微信公众号”硅星人”): 彭博社曝光的“间谍芯片”，我在淘宝1块钱就能买一个
[4] National Radio and Television Administration launches campaign to clean up advertisements, emphasizing “guidance”
A notice from the National Radio and Television Adminstration on September 30 announced that the agency would carry out a “cleanup campaign” (整治工作) from now through the end of 2018 to eliminate 9 types of television advertisements are false and misleading. According to the notice, called “National Radio and Television Administration Notice on Special Cleanup Work for Television Advertising” (国家广播电视总局关于开展广播电视广告专项整治工作的通知), this campaign is being carried out under the principle that advertisements, like all content, must “strictly grasp correct guidance of public opinion, energetically promote socialist core values, fully place social benefit in the first position,” “resolutely implement General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important statements on how advertisements must also adhere to guidance, endeavoring to sing the main theme [of the Party], promoting truth, goodness and beauty, transmitting positive energy and arousing positive spiritual forces.”
Key Chinese Sources:
WeChat public account “National Radio and Television Administration” (国家广播电视总局): 国家广播电视总局关于开展广播电视广告专项整治工作的通知
Tencent (腾讯网): 广电广告专项整治，这些领域是重点
[5] New regulations give broad police inspection powers over companies providing internet services
According to an October 4 report from the official Xinhua News Agency, the new “Regulations on Internet Security Supervision By Public Security Organs” (公安机关互联网安全监督检查规定), released by the Ministry of Public Security last month and due for implementation on November 1, 2018, will extend broad policing powers to local and central-level authorities in ensuring cybersecurity broadly defined. The regulations stipulate that public security organs may enter places of business where companies are engaged in the provision of internet services, inspecting computer rooms and offices, and requiring “responsible persons” of these companies or employees dealing with network security to explain information and procedures relevant to cybersecurity. The regulations specify that copies of these materials and information can be made available to police on request.
Official media in China explained the regulations as a means to provide greater security from such dangers as hacking, but the breadth of the regulations ensures that they can also be applied for the purposes of information control. In fact, police in China have long had the power to act in the way outlined in these new regulations, but these serve the purpose of formalizing this power.
The full text of the new regulations is available here.
Key Chinese Sources:
Xinhua Online (新华网): 公安部发布公安机关互联网安全监督检查规定
Public Security Bureau Website (公安部网站): 公安机关互联网安全监督检查规定（公安部令第151号）

How Will China Respond to the Victor Mallet Case?

Written by David Bandurski on 6 October 2018. Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

There is so far no official media response from China on the decision by Hong Kong authorities to deny a visa to Victor Mallet, the Asia news editor of the Financial Times. The story is most certainly a sensitive one, dealing as it does from China’s perspective with issues of national security and national sovereignty — and with the tinder-dry issue of separatism.
We can assume that China’s foreign ministry is closely monitoring international coverage, and can anticipate that at some point we will have a statement running through all of the sovereignty bullet points and claiming respect for Hong Kong’s decisions on this matter. At some point, too, we might expect a few attack pieces from more peripheral state media, like the Global Times.
Before these moves, however, it might be fruitful to review some of the previous official voices on the August event hosted by the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents Club, which is likely at the heart of Mallet’s visa denial.
Interestingly, one of the attack pieces back in August from the Global Times was fairly dismissive of the impact of the decision by the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents Club to host a talk with pro-independence activist Andy Chan. Here is what the paper said:

The actions of the FCC this time around is a classic case of foreign forces interfering in the affairs of Hong Kong and all of China. On the one hand, their actions should be censured and exposed. On the other hand, everyone is clear that this is a routine clash, and that once Hong Kong and Beijing have registered their attitudes there is no need for everyone to think too much (高看) of the vile actions of the FCC. This was a dirty stunt by certain people, and we can’t let it taint the agenda of Hong Kong and the whole country.

No need to worry then. This is conflict as usual in Hong Kong. A momentary heightening of tempers.
Except that it now clearly isn’t. The denial of Mallet’s Hong Kong visa is a clear escalation that will surely ripple through Hong Kong society and transform views globally about how credible the “one country, two systems” arrangement remains. And this is why it will be important to watch the way China characterizes the incident, and how it responds to the resulting international public opinion.
The provide just a bit more retroactive context, we translate below the August 15, 2018, report in the overseas edition of the People’s Daily, another of the more important (among few) semi-official voices emerging in response to the Andy Chan event. We say “semi-official” because the overseas edition of the People’s Daily is not exactly the same beast as the domestic edition of the People’s Daily. We don’t yet have responses from the core-most official media — the People’s Daily, Xinhua News Agency and CCTV — and until we do the article below will be one of the closest approximations we have to an “official” view of the matter, and the attitude of the leadership, outside of statements from the foreign ministry.
We have italicized certain portions in the translation we think are of particular significance.
_________________________________
HKSAR Government Says
Openly Spreading “Hong Kong Independence” Speech is Unacceptable
Ministry of Foreign Affairs Office in Hong Kong Issues Condemnation
People’s Daily (Overseas Edition)
August 15, 2018, page 4
By Lian Jintian (连锦添), Chen Ran (陈然)
The Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region issued a statement on August 14 expressing deep regret over the decision of the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents Club to invite a speaker promoting “Hong Kong independence” to give a lunch talk. A spokesperson for the HKSAR Government said that anyone openly proclaiming or promoting “Hong Kong independence,” and any organization providing a platform for such speakers, was entirely inappropriate and unacceptable.

The HKSAR Government spokesperson emphasized that the Basic Law clearly stipulates that the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region is is inseparable part of the People’s Republic of China. Promoting “Hong Kong independence” is an open violation of the Basic Law, and even more directly harms national sovereignty, national security and territorial integrity.
The statement reaffirmed that the government fully attaches importance to press freedom and freedom of speech, but these freedoms are not absolute (这些自由并非绝对), and must be exercised in accord with the law. In recent decades, the Hong Kong government has all along supported the work of the Foreign Correspondents Club, but this meeting providing a platform to a speaker promoting “Hong Kong independence” entirely treats with contempt Hong Kong’s statutory duty to uphold national sovereignty, and it cannot be accepted.
The Hong Kong office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement on August 14 severely condemning the invitation by the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents Club of a speaker promoting “Hong Kong independence.” The statement emphasized that China’s Constitution and the Basic Law of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region have a bottom line and limitation, and “Hong Kong independence” is a violation of the Constitution and the law, and fundamentally does not belong to the category of freedom of expression (言论自由范畴). On the major question of opposing “Hong Kong independence,” the Central Government [of the People’s Republic of China], the SAR Government and the full people of China will not permit “Hong Kong independence” forces and the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents Club to step on this red line, crossing the bottom line. The statement pointed out that we encourage the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents Club to carry out introspection, to correct this wrong, to take actual actions to respect the laws of the People’s Republic of China and the SAR, with that respect including for the feelings of 7 million Hong Kong compatriots and 1.4 Chinese people. Any statements regarding the futile attempt to divide Hong Kong from China will be punished in accord with the law.
A joint statement by 32 pro-establishment lawmakers strongly condemned the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents Club for inviting a speaker promoting “Hong Kong independence.” Related matters have also stirred the resentment of various quarters of Hong Kong society. Hong Kong National People’s Congress Delegate Ma Fung-kwok (马逢国) said that in providing a platform to a “Hong Kong independence” speaker, the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents Club was complicit in harming national security, and the conduct was extremely inappropriate. On August 14, more than 10 groups gathered outside the Hong Kong Foreign Correspondents Club, opposing the group’s us of property of the Hong Kong government to aid the promotion of “Hong Kong independence.”

Missing Compliments

Written by David Bandurski on 5 October 2018. Posted in China Newspeak.

Back in June this year, ahead of the July 1 anniversary of the founding of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), politburo member Ding Xuexiang (丁薛祥), director of the CCP’s General Office, delivered an instruction talk, or dangke (党课), to a group of offiicials. The substance of Ding’s talk was not made public at the time, but when it did surface several weeks ago it generated a lot of hubbub and discussion online.
Why the interest? Because Ding’s remarks, and how they have subsequently been treated in China’s political discourse environment, again provide clues to the political environment in China.
The point of keenest interest as news of Ding’s remarks made the rounds was the language he used to describe President Xi Jinping and his leadership. “Having read the works of General Secretary Xi Jinping, having listened to the general secretary’s instructions, coming to appreciate the general secretary’s feelings, I have a rather deep understanding of the general secretary’s longstanding devotion, his continued devotion, his selfless devotion,” Deng said.
He then introduced “three terms” (三个关键词) that to his mind summed up the essence of Xi. They were as follows:

“goes willingly into a sea of bitterness” (甘入苦海) — meaning Xi takes a courageous and good-humored attitude to adversity, bravely facing it.
“attends to public affairs day and night” (夙夜在公)
”dedicates himself to the cause of the Party” (以身许党).

Ding Xuexiang has a rather elevated status within the Chinese Communist Party, and the three terms he employed in praise of Xi Jinping naturally drew some interest in light of general questions about Xi’s strength and stature within the leadership.
But the pattern of propagation of these three terms online was also an area of interest. What does this pattern tell us?
First, we can see that the “three terms” were not propagated broadly across the usual platforms one would expect once news of Ding’s remarks emerged. If the terms were coming into broader “mainstream” use — as part, that is, of the Party’s official line — then we would expect to see the terms used and explained at People’s Daily Online, Xinhua Online and on official WeChat accounts and the like.
But reports on Ding’s speech were carried instead by commercial portals such as Sina, Netease, Sohu and Phoenix Online. And if we probe further, turning to a national database of newspapers for the entire period following Ding’s speech, from July through to the end of September, we find that not a single paper used Ding’s “three terms” of praise for Xi.
So the terms are absent not just from high-level, central Party media, but also from provincial and city-level Party newspapers.
Some websites have suggested that Ding’s speech was “an internal speech” (内部讲话). But this is in fact untrue. It was a public speech published in Secretariat Work (秘书工作), a journal run by the Secretariat of the General Office of the Central Committee. But when I conducted a targeted search within this website, I discovered something strange. The edition including the Deng Xuexiang lesson should have come out in July. It is now October, but the July edition has yet to appear on the journal’s website.

The period immediately after last year’s 19th National Congress brought a wave of personality worship (个人崇拜), and the three terms used in praise of Xi Jinping at the time were: “endorsed by the whole Party” (全党拥护), “love by the people” (人民爱戴) and “worthy of the title” (当之无愧). For a brief time, a number of local and regional media even used the highly honorific phrase “great leader” (伟大领袖). But these three phrases rapidly cooled off, possibly due to a personal directive from Xi Jinping to make it stop. Last month, just three local newspapers in China made use of these particular terms.
So how do we explain the pattern we are witnessing here with Ding’s remarks on Xi Jinping?
It could simply be that now is not the time to stroke Xi’s ego or elevate his greatness — any more, that is, than is already being done. In July, Xi Jinping faced numerous challenges. So the personality worship still continues in all sorts of ways, but it may lack fresh kinetic energy.
At the outset of the Cultural Revolution, Lin Biao (林彪) praised Mao Zedong for “defending and developing Marxism-Leninism with genius, with creativity and with totality” (天才地、创造性地、全面地继承、捍卫和发展了马克思列宁主义). This was a high compliment, and at that time “with genius, with creativity and with totality” (天才地、创造性地、全面地) became “the three adverbs” (三个副词) used in praise of Mao. But as Lin Biao and Mao had their falling out, Mao saw that the “three adverbs” were struck from official documents, and he indicated that he found the “Four Greatnesess” (四个伟大) used to praise him “disagreeable” (讨嫌).
For now, Ding Xuexiang’s three terms of praise have gotten the cold shoulder from official media at all levels. Being on the outside, it is difficult for us to know exactly why. Is this something compelled by the circumstances? Or is it that Xi faces headwinds within the Party?
Or is it, perhaps, just that Xi Jinping finds these three terms “disagreeable”?

The Return of "Socialist Transformation"

Written by David Bandurski on 3 October 2018. Posted in China Newspeak.

As the 40th anniversary of reform and opening approaches in China, we have seen the emergence online in September of quite a number of posts or speeches from various quarters expressing some level of opposition to reform and opening.
On September 11, a post by Wu Xiaoping (吴小平), a finance expert and web entrepreneur, suggested that “China’s private sector has already done its job in aiding the development of the state economy, and it should now leave the stage” (中国私营经济已完成协助公有经济发展的任务, 应逐渐离场). Wu’s suggestion that China’s private sector should yield to the state so that China could consolidate its strengths and prepare in a unified and concerted way for an economic showdown with the United States and other major competitors generated a great deal of debate last month.
The very same day as Wu Xiaoping’s provocative post, Qiu Xiaoping (邱小平), deputy director of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, delivered a speech at a meeting in which he suggested employees of private companies should “participate in the management of enterprises, and share in the fruits of enterprise development” (参与企业管理、共享企业发展成果).

Just five days later, on September 16, a professor from the local Party school in Changsha published an even more eye-catching article under the headline: “China Is in its Second Wave of Socialist Transformation” (中国正处于第二次社会主义改造).
“The Chinese Communist Party has never deigned to disguise its viewpoint and intention: the annihilation of the private ownership of property,” the author wrote, adding that “the time is ripe for China to enter its second era of socialist transformation.”
This series of anti-reform remarks caused quite a stir on the internet in China. How was it that “socialist transformation,” or shehui zhuyi gaizao (社会主义改造), this phrase already seen very rarely in the media, had again become a focus of discussion?
With the establishment of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, a system of new democracy (新民主主义制度) was put into place. From 1952 to 1956, a process of so-called “socialist transformation” was carried out across sectors, from agriculture and handicrafts to the capitalist commercial sector. It was from this process of “transformation” that the basic system of socialism in China was established. Mao Zedong carried out a wide-scale program of elimination of the private sector, and he sought to rapidly and completely realize what he called “large in size and collective in nature,” or yida ergong (一大二公). This phrase, first appearing in a commentary in the People’s Daily on September 3, 1958, referred to the establishment of people’s communes – which opened the curtain for China to a series of social and political calamities.
The following graph shows the occurrence of the phrase “socialist transformation” in the People’s Daily from 1957 to 2017 in ten-year increments, based on the total number of articles in the People’s Daily database including the phrase. Consider the the dramatic decline in use of the term happens also as the People’s Daily itself expands in size through to the present day.

After the start of economic reforms in the late 1970s, the phrase “socialist transformation” grew cold in the People’s Daily. The same trend could be observed at Party Congresses. From the 8th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, held in 1956, to the 11th congress, held in 1977, on the cusp of reforms, the phrase was always treated positively in the political report—with the exception of its absence from Zhou Enlai’s political report to the 10th congress, composed while Zhou was ill. The reports to the 9th and 10th congresses both emphasized that once the socialist transformation had been completed, the “class struggle,” or jieji douzheng (阶级斗争) would still exist, and that the “dictatorship of the proletariat” (无产阶级专政) would still need require strengthening.
After reforms being, we see the situation change. In Hu Yaobang’s political report to the 12th congress in 1982, the term cannot be found. In Zhao Ziyang’s political report to the 13th congress five years later, it appears three times. But let’s have a look at three points of context:

[1]
……Beginning from the latter part of the 1950s, owing to the influence of the “left,” we were impatient for success and blind to quality, mistakenly believing that with only our subjective desires and by relying on mass mobilization, we could drive dramatic increases in productivity; mistakenly believing that the bigger and more communal the system of socialist ownership the better. We even for a time placed the development of productivity in a secondary position, keeping “class struggle as the central task” even after socialist transformation.
……从五十年代后期开始，由于”左”倾错误的影响，我们曾经急于求成，盲目求纯，以为单凭主观愿望，依靠群众运动，就可以使生产力急剧提高，以为社会主义所有制形式越大越公越好。我们还曾经长期把发展生产力的任务推到次要地位，在社会主义改造基本完成后还”以阶级斗争为纲.”
[2]
…… Our country, from completion of the socialist transformation of the privatized means of production in the 1950s, to the basic realization of socialist modernization, requires at least more than a century, and we are in the primary stage of socialism.
……我国从五十年代生产资料私有制的社会主义改造基本完成，到社会主义现代化的基本实现，至少需要上百年时间，都属于社会主义初级阶段.
[3]
…… Our nation’s current political system was born from the war of revolution and firmed up in the process of socialist transformation, and it developed [further] through a process of large-scale mass movements and constant strengthening of command programs. It is unsuited to the carrying out of economic, political, cultural and other modernizations under conditions of peace, and unsuited to the development of a socialist commodity economy.
……我国现行的政治体制，是脱胎于革命战争年代而在社会主义改造时期基本确立的，是在大规模群众运动和不断强化指令性计划的过程中发展起来的。它不适应在和平条件下进行经济、政治、文化等多方面的现代化建设，不适应发展社会主义商品经济.

Looking at these three contexts, we see that the 13th congress did not offer a positive affirmation of the notion of “socialist transformation.” Zhao Ziyang’s purpose in raising the term was to delineate and emphasize reform.
From the 14th congress to the 17th congress, the phrase “socialist transformation” disappeared altogether from the political reports that came every five years. In fact, the economic system instituted after the onset of reform and opening was essentially a denial of socialist transformation. China not only pushed back to the era of new democracy, but drew even closer to capitalism.
Since the 18th National Congress of 2012, when Xi Jinping came to power, the situation has been more complex for the term “socialist transformation.” In the political report to that congress, delivered by Hu Jintao but drafted with Xi Jinping in the lead, the phrase ended its long hiatus, appearing once more:

…… The first generation of the collective leadership of the Central Committee, with Comrade Mao Zedong as the core, led the entire Party and the people of the entire nation in completing the new democratic revolution, carried out a process of socialist transformation, firmed up the foundational system of socialism, and successfully realized the greatest social transformation in the history of China, laying the basic political conditions and system foundations for all development and progress in modern China.
……以毛泽东同志为核心的党的第一代中央领导集体带领全党全国各族人民完成了新民主主义革命，进行了社会主义改造，确立了社会主义基本制度，成功实现了中国历史上最深刻最伟大的社会变革，为当代中国一切发展进步奠定了根本政治前提和制度基础。

This passage was a high-level affirmation of the socialist transformation of the 1950s, and it is of a piece with the “two undeniables” (两个不能否定) that Xi Jinping introduced early in his first term: “[We] must not use the period of history after reform and opening to deny the period of history prior to reform and opening; [we] must not use the period of history prior to reform and opening to deny the period of history after reform and opening.”
But in the most recent political report for the 19th congress last year, we again see the term “socialist transformation” disappearing.
This absence in the 19th congress report is something to consider. On September 27, Hu Deping (胡德平), the son of Hu Yaobang (胡耀邦) and former deputy head of the United Front Work Department, delivered a speech called “Remaining Alert to New Joint State-Private Ownership Under the Banner of Sharing” (警惕打着共享的旗号搞新的公私合营). The term gonghe siying (公私合营) in this headline, which roughly translates “joint state-private ownership,” is closely association with the socialist transformation process of the 1950s. That process began in June 1953 after an investigation conducted by the United Front Work Department that resulted in the drafting of “Opinion on the Use, Limitation and Transformation of Capitalist Commercial Businesses” (关于利用、限制、改造资本主义工商业的意见).
Hu Deping’s speech revealed that a Central Committee document in 1991 had directed that the owners of private businesses not “like in the case of the 1950s be subject to socialist transformation.”
Cao Xihua (曹习华), the author of the article that began this discussion, “China Is in its Second Wave of Socialist Transformation,” is an assistant professor at the Changsha Municipal Party School. Materials online show that he has lectured on “the spirit of the 19th congress” at many departments and companies.
Professor Cao may not actually realize that the most recent political report to the 19th congress already took the step of toning down affirmation of the 1950s socialist transformation. But he is surely sensitive to the larger atmosphere in recent years of “the state advancing while the private sector retreats,” or guojin mintui (国进民退), and perhaps he felt that talk of a “second wave of socialist transformation” had a certain ring to it.

Informants in the Chinese Classroom

Written by David Bandurski on 27 September 2018. Posted in Tracking Control.

Teachers hold your tongues. What you say in a Chinese classroom may or may not be held against you. Xu Zhuanqing (许传青), an assistant professor at the Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture, learned this lesson the hard way back in April. She was alleged to have made, during a class on probability theory, unspecified remarks suggesting Chinese people were inferior to Japanese. A notice from the university dated April 4 said Xu had been disciplined as a result of her “inappropriate comparisons,” which were “reported by a student after class.”

In early June, Xu Zhuanqing’s case became a focus of interest on WeChat and Weibo, in part due to the popularity of a post on Weibo by user “LiuHu9plus” (刘虎9plus), who introduced a concept to the discussion around the disciplining of Professor Xu that was unfamiliar to many, and an open secret to many others — the use of “student informants,” or xuesheng xinxiyuan (学生信息员), to keep tabs on China’s classrooms.

In a May 30 post, LiuHu9plus wrote: “A professor at Zhejiang University says he originally thought ‘student informants’ only carried out surveillance of teachers in the humanities and social sciences. But after seeing this disciplinary decision [against Xu], they realized that teachers in science and engineering were treated in the same way.”

The topic of “student informants” was cracked wide open. Who were these classroom spies? How and under what conditions were they deployed? By whom? How long had this been going on?

As interest rose, the spotlight turned to other cases. Also in April, Zhai Jiehong (翟桔红), an assistant professor at Wuhan’s Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, was stripped of her teaching responsibilities after she was accused of criticizing recent amendments to China’s Constitution.

In a story about Xu and Zhai with a suggestive headline about “Cultural Revolution winds returning” (文革风重来), Hong Kong’s Sing Pao Daily News quoted a university professor in Shanghai as saying the problem of students informing on their teachers was worsening. “At university students inform against their teachers,” the professor said. “In the future, out in society, who will they inform against?”

The sentiment was echoed in a WeChat private group, where one user remarked, referring to the former East German secret police: “We are all Stasi” (人人都是斯塔西).

Discussants on social media then started digging, and exposed the various “informant systems” (信息员制度) in place at universities. In fact, they realized, universities in China had organized teams of student informants as early as 2008. Ferreted out by one user, a document from the Hunan University of Commerce showed that this was characterized as “intelligence work” (情报信息工作) that was “secretive in nature” (具有隐秘性). It was also paid work. Generally, student informants would receive between 20 and 50 yuan for providing a single piece of information, and for information regarded as more critical they could be paid 200 yuan.

Informant systems were in place not just at universities, however. Others contributing to the discussion found evidence — most of it right out in the open — that the same systems were being implemented in middle schools and even in primary schools. And beyond the education system, there were even “stability maintenance informants” (维稳信息员) being cultivated and deployed in rural townships.

These systems, which in the beginning had been treated as highly secret programs, had in recent years become increasingly open, and it was possible even to find academic papers online that studied these systems. Take, for example, this 2012 paper published in Vocational and Technical Education Forum, a journal openly circulated by Jiangxi Science and Technology Normal University. Written by Yan Guirong (闫贵荣), a scholar from the Tianjin Vocational Institute, the paper is rather explicitly titled: “A Study of the Building and Operation of Student Informant Systems in Professional Schools: Drawing on an Exploration of Practices at the Tianjin Vocational Institute.”

This paper, accessed through the CNKI database of Chinese periodicals, a leading resource for academic studies in Chinese, was shared and discussed in June as attention turned to the issue of “informant systems” and “student informants,” or xuesheng xinxiyuan (学生信息员), a term that appears in the paper. Search the CNKI database now, however, and you find that the paper is missing. In its place is a notice that reads: “The paper you are looking for does not exist.

Debate Rages Over Treatment of Chinese Tourists

Written by David Bandurski on 22 September 2018. Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

The following is our quick roundup of several key stories in the Chinese media this week. On the policy side, the story to watch most closely is that last in our lineup — language in the share prospectus of Chinese mobile content provider Qutoutiao, which listed on Nasdaq last week, saying the company may offer “shares with special rights” to a state-owned Chinese media firm in order to assist with its application for an “Internet news license.”
Another big story this week was the accusation by state media that police in Stockholm, Sweden, treated three Chinese tourists cruelly by refusing to let them remain in a hotel many hours ahead of their scheduled booking. Cue online rage — and some skepticism too.
THIS WEEK IN CHINA’S MEDIA
September 15 to September 21, 2018
➢ Party Media Do Intensive Coverage of Taiwan Spy Case, Keeping Close to Official Line
➢ Film Director Reveals Problem of Falsified Ratings, National Radio and Television Administration Launches Investigation
➢ Chinese Tourists in Sweden Claim Police Abuse, Opinions in China Deeply Divided Over the Issue
➢ The Chinese Economists 50 Forum Opens in Beijing, Discussion of Public Versus Private Sector Role in Economy a Focus
[1] Party Media Do Intensive Reporting on Taiwan Spy Case
On September 15, the official nightly news program Xinwen Lianbo (新闻联播) reported that China had uncovered a major Taiwanese spy operation in 2018. The “Focus” news program on China Central Television ran a two-part special program called “Wei Qing Die Ying” (危情谍影) over two consecutive days, introducing what it characterized as several “representative examples” of breakthroughs into alleged Taiwanese espionage operations. According to official news reports, Taipei had sought to lure mainland Chinese students in Taiwan into taking part in spying activities.
For this sensitive story, the only sources available inside China were official state media sources, and reports showed little or no variation in facts and details. Experts commenting on the coverage outside China said the case reflected growing tensions between China and Taiwan.
Key Chinese Sources:
China Central Television, “News Probe” (央视《新闻联播》): “2018-雷霆”专项行动：破获百余起台湾间谍案件
China Central Television, “Focus” (央视《焦点访谈》): 20180915 危情谍影（上）
WeChat Public Account “Zheng Zhidao” (微信公众号“政知道”): 这次披露的台湾间谍案，和之前有何不同？
Hunan Daily (海南日报): 海南公布两起台湾间谍案：旅行社司机兼职拍摄三亚某军用机杨
Global Times (环球时报): 社评：高度警惕台湾间谍诱骗大陆学生
Xinhua Online (新华网): 国台办发言人：台湾有关方面应立即停止针对祖国大陆的情报破坏活动
[2] Film Director Reveals Problem of Falsified Ratings, National Radio and Television Administration Launches Investigation

On September 15, film director Guo Jingyu (郭靖宇) exposed through his social media account the problem of ratings fabrication for television serials in China, writing that before his latest serial, “Niang Dao” (娘道), was broadcast a satellite broadcaster he did not name demanded he purchase ratings before the program could be broadcast.
Guo called on the television industry to unite against such practices, rooting out the problem of false ratings. Guo also alleged that another of his serials, “Tian Sheng Chang Ge” (天盛长歌), was dropped by a broadcaster after just 14 episodes because he could not afford to pay their exorbitant ratings fees.
On September 16, the National Radio and Television Administration (NRTA) announced through its official WeChat account that it was launching an investigation into the practice. One has to wonder: How could officials at the NRTA have been previously unaware of such abuses?
Key Chinese Sources:
Weibo Account ‘@GuoJingyu (新浪微博@郭靖宇)
Qilu Evening News (齐鲁晚报): 郭靖宇捅破收视率造假“窗户纸”
WeChat Public Account “National Radio and Television Administration” (微信公众号”国家广播电视总局”): 总局就收视率问题展开调查
China Business Journal (中国经营网): 严肃查处收视率造假行为

The National Radio and Television Administration (NRTA) announces through its official WeChat account that it will launch an investigation into fraudulent ratings.
[3] Chinese Tourists in Sweden Claim Police Abuse, Opinions in China Deeply Divided Over the Issue
On September 15, Chinese media widely reported the story of the alleged abuse of three Chinese tourists in Sweden that took place almost two weeks earlier, on September 2. The coverage ran at many outlets under the headline “Chinese Tourists Cruelly Treated by Swedish Police” (中国游客遭瑞典警察粗暴对待). The story quickly became the focus of anger and heated debate within China, with opinions divided.
For some, the story was confirmation that Westerners apply a double standard to Chinese, treating them with prejudice and disdain. For others, the story once again highlighted ugly behavior by Chinese tourists abroad, who lashed out with extreme actions when rules or misfortunes went against their favor. Still others, noting the high-level register of anger from China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs over what they felt was a trivial matter suggested the real issue was diplomatic tension between China and Sweden.

Screenshot of video shared online of Chinese tourists in Stockholm, Sweden, being forced out of a local hotel.
The incident in question occurred on September 2 outside Generator Stockholm, a hotel located in the center of Stockholm. A Chinese guest, Mr. Zeng, arrived with his parents after midnight, with a room booked for later in the day — with check-in generally not possible, as most travellers should know, until mid-morning or early afternoon. Mr. Zeng suggested they be permitted to wait in the chairs in the hotel’s lobby. Staff at the hotel called the police, who according to accounts in the Chinese media then dragged Mr. Zeng’s father from the hotel. When a police vehicle arrived, the three Chinese were placed — “forcibly” (强行) according to official Chinese media reports — in the vehicle and taken to the skogskyrkogården area of Stockholm, near a subway station, church and cemetery. The Chinese Embassy in Sweden said publicly that it had on numerous occasions tried to hold “serious negotiations” (严正交涉) with the Swedish side over the incident.
While the position in Chinese media coverage clearly focused on the incident as an outrage against Chinese tourists, some internet users also questioned whether Mr. Zeng and his parents had “unreasonably made a scene” (撒泼) and “acted out to demand special treatment” (碰瓷), both relatively common behaviors in China.
Before long, these criticisms were also attacked in state media as anti-China conspiracies. On September 19, the WeChat public account “China Anti-Cult” (中国反邪教) ran an article called “Behind the Inverted Storyline of the Chinese Tourism Incident in Sweden: What is Hiding There?” (中国游客瑞典受辱事件剧情反转的背后，究竟藏着什么?) . The article alleged that the Falun Gong spiritual cult overseas had sought to tar the reputations of Mr. Zeng and his family by accusing them of “making an unreasonable scene” (撒泼) and “stirring up trouble” (胡搅蛮缠). On September 20, the WeChat public account “People’s Daily,” the official WeChat account of the flagship newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, re-posted the article.
Key Chinese Sources:
WeChat public account “CCTV News” (微信公众号”央视新闻”): 中国游客遭瑞典警方粗暴对待，一家三口被扔坟场！
And: 中国游客遭瑞典警方粗暴对待任何原因都不该成为粗暴执法的理由
WeChat public account “Global Times” (微信公众号”环球时报”): 看完能气炸中国人！瑞典就是这么一个国家？！
WeChat public account “China Anti-Cult” (微信公众号”中国反邪教”: 中国游客瑞典受辱事件剧情反转的背后，究竟藏着什么？
WeChat public account “People’s Daily” (微信公众号”人民日报”): 中国游客瑞典受辱事件剧情“反转”的背后，究竟藏着什么？
[4] The Chinese Economists 50 Forum Opens in Beijing
The 20th annual gathering of the Chinese Economists 50 Forum was held on September 16 at China’s historic Diaoyutai Guest House. This year’s event commemorated the 40th anniversary of economic reforms in China. The theme of the forum was “New Missions for Reform and Opening in the New Era” (新时代改革开放的新使命), a title making obvious reference to the banner ideology of President Xi Jinping, “Xi Jinping Thought of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for the New Era,” which has been prominent in the official discourse across disciplines since entering the Party Charter in October last year.

Screenshot of the official website of the Chinese Economists 50 Forum.
The consensus among those commenting on this year’s meeting seemed to be that the views being aired regarding the state of the domestic economy were unusually frank. The state and role of the private sector was reportedly an issue of intense interest, particularly given the recent post by economist Wu Xiaoping (吴小平) arguing that the private sector should now take a back seat to the private sector so that China could consolidate its national strength and effectively counteract the trade actions taken by the United States — a view that last week was criticized by some state media.
Ma Jiantang (马建堂) the deputy director of the Development Research Center of the State Council, said at the forum that the concerns of many in the private sector have to do with fair competition, insufficient rule of law and inadequate intellectual property protections. Other issues, he said, included debt and financing. But the deeper question addressed at the meeting was “how to view the private sector” (怎么看待民营经济). A common theme in discussions at the forum, related to all of the above concerns, was the phenomenon of “the state sector advancing while the private sector recedes” (国进民退).
Key Chinese Sources:
Phoenix Online (凤凰网): 纪念中国经济改革开放四十年暨50人论坛成立二十周年学术研讨会
The Enterprise Observer (企业观察报): 聚焦国企混改激辩民企发展 2018中国发展高层论坛专题研讨会及中国经济50人论坛在京召开
Deep Blue Finance (深蓝财经): 纪念改革开放四十年暨50人论坛成立二十周年学术研讨会（全程实录）
Sina Finance Topics (新浪财经专题)
[5] Qutoutiao Lists on Nasdaq, May Seek “Special Management Shareholding” from State-Owned Media Company
On September 14, the Chinese mobile content provider Qutoutiao Inc listed on the Nasdaq exchange. In its initial share prospectus, the company said it was considering the provision of “special management shares” (特殊权利股份) to a Chinese state-owned enterprise in order to advance its application for an “Internet News Service License” (互联网新闻服务许可证). In August this year, a foundation directly under People’s Daily Online and Shanghai -based news group The Paper (澎湃新闻) both became strategic investors in Qutoutiao.