In recent days in China, a seemingly routine human resources document arising from a new media training conference at a Party newspaper has feverishly made the rounds on the Chinese internet.
The notice, dated May 22, is from Shaanxi Daily, the official Chinese Communist Party mouthpiece of Shaanxi province. It reports that on May 18, the newspaper held a conference on new media during which the director of the newspaper’s theory and commentary division (理论评论部), Wei Yan (魏焱), “whispered in another’s ear while a principle leader of the newspaper was speaking, showing lack of reverence consciousness [my emphasis], in violation of conference discipline.” A decision had been taken, the notice said, to garnish 50 percent of the director’s performance-related pay for the month.

The Chinese Communist Party has had myriad forms of what it likes to call “consciousness” throughout its history. There was an emphasis in earlier decades, of course, on “class consciousness” (阶级意识). But after the end of the Cultural Revolution, as economic reforms were in the offing, “commodity consciousness” (商品意识) emerged to define a shift in priorities. As reforms took root, there was then “opening consciousness” (开放意识).

In Xi Jinping’s so-called “New Era,” the emphasis has been on the “Four Consciousnesses” (四个意识): “political consciousness” (政治意识), “consciousness of the overall situation” (大局意识), “consciousness of the core” (核心意识) and “compliance consciousness” (看齐意识). I could write a pretty hefty book trying to explain the meaning and histories of each of these “consciousnesses” — but in the current context, they essentially boil down to just one simple demand: allegiance to Xi Jinping.

Up to this point, however, no one anywhere in the Party’s vast structure, from the top to the bottom, has apparently used the term “reverence consciousness” (敬畏意识) to describe so pointedly the expected attitude of subordinates to their Party superiors.

This is why the notice from Shaanxi Daily has drawn so much attention. Writing on Weibo, and on Twitter, the scientific writer Fang Zhouzi asked: “An employee had no ‘reverence consciousness’ toward leaders of his newspaper and was fined half a month’s wages. Does this leader at the newspaper think he is a god?”
The newspaper leader who was apparently disrespected by Wei Yan’s lack of “reverence consciousness” was reportedly Li Wei (李伟), pictured in the featured image above, who serves concurrently as director of Shaanxi Daily and as a deputy minister of propaganda for the province.

According to the Shaanxi Daily notice, Wei Yan, the offending whisperer, was also ordered to write a letter of contrition for failing to show proper reverence to his superior.

One key characteristic of Xi Jinping’s “New Era” has been the progressive elimination of all forms of ideological variance within the Party. Growing centralization of Party power has come with a pronounced narrowing of the discourse spectrum. Everyone must converge at the center — or remain silent.
Now comes the news, not altogether surprising, that Utopia, the leftist website espousing that “our only firm belief is in Mao Zedong Thought,” could be shuttered indefinitely.
Chinese-language media outside mainland China reported over the weekend that Utopia‘s website was no longer available, following the blocking on May 19 of its public account on the popular WeChat platform. Apple Daily cited speculation that one of the key issues was the need to maintain the central position of Xi Jinping’s ideological discourse — an argument that seems at least partly supported by CMP’s recent report on April 2018 discourse in the People’s Daily newspaper, which found legacy terms associated with Xi Jinping’s predecessors disappearing almost entirely.
Other sources speculated that Utopia‘s shutdown was a pre-emptive move by the authorities to neutralize any negative fallout from concessions China might make in the midst of trade negotiations with the United States. The fear, according to one commentator cited by Radio Free Asia, was that Utopia, a site that often harbors extreme nationalist views, might openly characterize Chinese concessions as an “act of treason” (卖国行动), inviting broader criticism from its readership. At the time of the blocking of its WeChat public account, Utopia had an estimated 130,000 followers on the platform.
Utopia has often taken up extreme positions that set it at odds with the Party’s mainstream. After North Korea said in February 2013 that it had successfully tested a miniaturized nuclear device, a move that upset China’s government and prompted rare criticism of North Korea in state-run media, the Utopia website ran a disaccording message of praise — even tossing in a propaganda term, “positive energy,” introduced by Xi Jinping not long before: “For the people of North Korea to conduct a successful test of an advanced nuclear weapon at this time is a contribution to peace in Northeast Asia,” it wrote. “It increases positive energy on the Korean Peninsula, and it adds more positive factors to the future of North Korea.”
Utopia and North Korea were joined in the news headlines last month when it emerged that 32 Chinese tourists killed in a bus crash on the Reunification Highway south of Pyongyang were visiting North Korea on a tour organized by Spark Travel, a company affiliated with Utopia. The website’s editor-in-chief, Diao Weiming (刁伟铭), was confirmed to have died in the crash.
Utopia has weathered temporary shutdowns in the past. The website was handed a one-month suspension in April 2012 and ordered to undergo rectification. The order, coming at the time from the State Council Information Office, reportedly resulted from writings seen as indirectly criticizing the state leaders and “improperly discussing” (妄议) the 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, which at that time was several months away.
In other respects, on other issues, Utopia has been more in line with the views of the leadership. The site had long defined itself in critical opposition to Yanhuang Chunqiu (炎黄春秋), a respected journal of history and politics that frequently ran scholarship from more liberal Chinese intellectuals. The Utopia website, in fact, featured a regular special topic, or zhuanti (专题), on Yanhuang Chunqiu, a column reserved for fulsome rebuttals of the latest outrages committed by the journal — such as well-supported scholarship by historian and former CMP fellow Hong Zhenkuai (洪振快) that questioned the historical truth of a Communist Party myth called the “Five Heroes of Langya Mountain.”
Yanhuang Chunqiu has been effectively silenced as a source of liberal ideas within the Party since its hostile takeover by authorities almost two years ago.
Utopia routinely referred to the liberal journal disparagingly as “the great camp of historical nihilism” (历史虚无主义的大本营). In the context of Chinese Communist Party discourse, “historical nihilism” refers to any act or attitude of denying the Party’s politically convenient view of historical truth, however unsubstantiated. Utopia would seem, in this respect, to be in line with the objectives of the Party under Xi Jinping, which has prioritized the fight against “historical nihilism,” even listing it as number six on its roster of banned ideas laid out in the so-called Document No. 9 back in 2013.
But the fate of Utopia over the past week is a potent illustration of how determined the Party leadership now is to enforce and maintain ideological unity around the “core” figure of Xi Jinping. It is not acceptable for a liberal Party journal on the right to talk honestly about history and advocate constitutionalism as a means of solving China’s problems. Nor is it acceptable for a website on the extreme left to talk as though the way forward is a return to the ideology of Mao.
Right or left, all must come together at “the core.”
 

The headlines on Sunday declared that China and the United States had agreed to pull back from a trade war and call an end to a round of escalating tariffs. The announcement followed a mission to Washington by Chinese vice-premier Liu He (刘鹤), a seasoned politician who is also known in China as one of the country’s top economists.
Details of the negotiations and the agreed-upon measures were as yet unclear, but there were reports that China had pledged to purchase more American goods and services, including agriculture and energy, in order to offset the trade imbalance.
As the news trickled back to China, comments on social media were mixed, with some users claiming that China got the upper hand and others suggesting President Trump — “the madman,” as some called him — managed to gain the advantage.
For reasons not entirely clear, quite a number of such posts offering speculation as to which side came out on top were deleted by censors from the popular Weibo platform. One reason might be that the authorities are keen to tone down any suggestion of having been forced into concessions. Another reason might be the impulse to offset language that seems to suggest bi-lateral trade is not, as China now likes to say, “win-win.”
In any case, the following is a selection of deleted Weibo posts. The last one deals with an obvious point of sensitivity, speculating (perhaps tongue in cheek) about whether or not it is possible that Google might “return” to China:

2018-05-20 04:23:55 | [Second round of China-US trade negotiations concluded, Premier He returns home] This round of China-US trade negotiations has ended, and He has returned to Beijing today. The Chinese side has concluded that “negotiations were positive, constructive and produced results.” The US gave no official assessment. Various information sources suggest: 1) China has agreed to increase imports of American products. The US side demanded that the Chinese side provide trade goals, tariff and non-tariff reforms, and new measures and results on the protection of intellectual property. 2) China’s concerted push for the US to let ZTE off the hook was unsuccessful.
2018-05-20 04:23:55 | 【中美贸易第二轮谈判结束，鹤总回国】这轮中美贸易谈判结束，鹤今天返京。中方结论是“谈判是积极的、有建设性的和富有成果的”。美方没有官方评价。从各种信息显示：1)中国承诺增加美国商品进口。美方要求中方提供贸易目标、关税和非关税改革和知识产权保护措施未果。2)中国极力让美国放行中兴未果。 ​
2018-05-20 02:50:05 | [Ceasefire in China-US trade war! China-US issue joint statement on trade negotiations] the two sides agreed: 1) to make a substantive decrease in the gap in trade between China and the US; 2) to significantly increase US exports of agricultural and energy products to China; 3) to discuss trade in industrial products and services; 4) to increase cooperation on intellectual property protection. http://t.cn/R38fYnw ​
2018-05-20 02:50:05 | 【中美贸易战停火！中美就经贸磋商发表联合声明】双方同意：1、实质性减少美对华货物贸易逆差。2、有意义地增加美国农产品和能源出口。3、就扩大制造业产品和服务贸易进行讨论。4、加强知识产权保护合作。http://t.cn/R38fYnw ​
2018-05-20 07:28:16 | Judging from the content released, the madman won. How is that? After all, you can’t enforce protections forever [on China’s side], and domestic consumers [in China] have received real benefit. Besides, when other things are discussed later on, it’s hard to say things won’t take a wrong turn. 
2018-05-20 07:28:16 | 从公布的内容看，疯子赢了。又如何呢？反正不可能永远护着，国内消费者也得到了实质利好。另外后续还有东西谈，说不准还会出岔子
2018-05-20 09:00:23 | The crux of China-US trade negotiations: the attempts by the American Empire to throttle the China 2025 plan have dematerialized. This is the most fundamental. The other points of compromise — or kneeling, to put it more sharply — are small matters. Of course, given Trump’s erratic character, and the fact that there is now already an anti-China consensus in America, this will not be the last we hear of this. I personally think that it’s far from over, especially with respect to the midterm elections. Friction between China and the US will get more and more severe. In order to satisfy the growing consumption of the Chinese people . . . . [Full text]
2018-05-20 09:00:23 | 中美协议的关键在于：美帝扼杀中国制造2025的内容已经消失了 这才是最根本的 其他暂时的妥协，乃至说难听点，跪，都是小节 不过按床铺反复的性格，以及美国内已经形成反华共识 这次不是是一张一弛，个人认为远未结束，特别是中期选举后，中美之间的交锋只会越演越烈 为满足中国人民不断增长的消费…全文： http://m.weibo.cn/1365426941/4241676820233822 ​
2018-05-20 08:14:58 | So, will Google be returning [to China] this time around?
2018-05-20 08:14:58 | 此次谷歌会不会回来？ ​

In a ceremony in Beijing earlier this week, the director of the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), Xu Lin (徐麟), presided over the inauguration of the China Federation of Internet Societies (CFIS), a broad internet industry grouping whose stated purpose is to “promote the development of Party organizations in the industry.” The federation’s establishment is a clear sign of the growing involvement of the Chinese Communist Party in private internet firms, and further reflection of the broader trend of closer Party governance and scrutiny of all forms of media.
Prominent industry leaders, including Tencent chairman Pony Ma, Alibaba’s founder Jack Ma and Baidu chairman Robin Li, have been appointed as vice presidents of the new federation.
The Global Times quoted Zhao Zhanling of the Beijing-based Internet Society of China as saying that the formation of the federation was about leveraging the “voluntary” participation of internet companies in order to improve the governance of cyberspace. “Just relying on government authorities,” said Zhao, “is far from enough in administering cyberspace, and it’s more important that CFIS members voluntarily clean the cyberspace environment.”
But such industry groupings in China are never voluntary or independent. For many years the Party has used such intermediate structures as vehicles to assert control through means that appear more autonomous and legitimate. More than 10 years ago, I wrote about how the Beijing Association of Online Media, an organization claiming membership by some of the world’s top technology companies, including Intel and Nokia, served as an organ of state censorship.
According to a CAC press release appearing at People’s Daily Online and other state media sites:

The China Federation of Internet Societies said it would conscientiously study and implement the spirit of Xi Jinping’s Strategic Thought on [Building] an Internet Power (习近平网络强国战略思想) and the National Cybersecurity Work Conference, serving as leader for internet social organizations in upholding a correct political direction; serving as a motivator for internet social organizations in serving function roles [in internet governance]; serving as a protector of the interest demands of internet social organizations; serving as a promoter of Party building within internet social organizations; serving as a monitor of the regulated operation of internet social organizations; and promoting the healthy development of internet social organizations on the path of rule by law.

It appears that the primary role of the federation will be to exercise tighter Party control over the complicated ecosystem of various organizations, companies and groups involved in cyberspace governance. The Global Times quoted an official from the Institute of China Cyberspace Strategy as saying that “the Party should step up its guidance of CFIS members so that internet companies could raise their awareness in safeguarding China’s sovereignty and interests.”
The most crucial part of that strategy will be to build and strengthen Party units within these organizations and other CFIS members, including private internet companies. This is something we have already seen in recent months. We wrote last month about a Party study course held inside Beijing Byte Dance Telecommunications, the operator of Toutiao.
And yet somehow, against all reason, the Internet Society of China’s Zhao Zhanling managed to reassure the Global Times: “But the Party units will not interfere in the operations of these companies.”
 
 

In the New York Times today, Raymond Zhong and Paul Mozur write about how China risks spoiling its innovative technology sector through increasingly heavy-handed intervention. While China has in recent years “defied the truism that only free and open societies can innovate,” they write, the country’s “tilt toward strongman rule” under Xi Jinping could put that reputation at risk.
Private technology firms in China are being drawn closer to the Chinese Communist Party across a range of technological development initiatives — from self-driving cars to social credit scoring, from voice and facial recognition to satellite navigation. At the same time, the Party is being introduced more forcefully into technology firms themselves. Zhong and Mozur deal with this latter aspect toward the end of their piece, noting how this is visible at the Shenzhen headquarters of Tencent, China’s largest technology firm:

A chart on the wall shows how many employees are party members (more than 8,000 this year). Another display lists the monthly schedule for employees’ party education. (This month’s offering: training sessions on “New Era, New Thought, New Journey.”)

Tencent’s mascot, a jaunty winking penguin, appears throughout with a hammer and sickle on its chest.

But what does the process of “party education” actually look like? In fact, we had a hint last week from China’s Economic Daily newspaper, which reported on a study session a one of China’s leading start-ups, Beijing Byte Dance Telecommunications Co. Ltd., which was harshly disciplined by authorities last month, its CEO issuing an abject apology.