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).

Tech Shame in the "New Era"

Written by David Bandurski on 11 April 2018. Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

When does a corporate apology become a political self-confession, or jiantao (检讨), an act of submission not to social mores and concerns, but to those in power? The line can certainly blur in China. But the public apology today from Zhang Yiming (张一鸣), the founder and CEO of one of China’s leading tech-based news and information platforms, crosses deep into the territory of political abjection.

Zhang’s apology, posted to WeChat at around 4 AM Beijing time, addressed recent criticism aired through the state-run China Central Television and other official media of Jinri Toutiao, or “Toutiao” — a platform for content creation and aggregation that makes use of algorithms to customize user experience. Critical official coverage of alleged content violations on the platform was followed by a notice on April 4 from the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film, and Television (SAPPRFT), in which the agency said Toutiao and another service providing live-streaming, Kuaishou, would be subject to “rectification measures.”

Read through Zhang’s apology and it is quickly apparent that this is a mea culpa made under extreme political pressure, in which Zhang, an engineer by background, ticks the necessary ideological boxes to signal his intention to fall into line. At one point, Zhang confesses that the “deep-level causes” of the problems at Toutiao included “a weak [understanding and implementation of] the “four consciousnesses”. This is a unique Xi Jinping buzzword, introduced in January 2016, that refers to 1) “political consciousness” (政治意识), namely primary consideration of political priorities when addressing issues, 2) consciousness of the overall situation (大局意识), or of the overarching priorities of the Party and government, 3) “core consciousness” (核心意识), meaning to follow and protect Xi Jinping as the leadership “core,” and 4) “integrity consciousness” (看齐意识), referring to the need to fall in line with the Party.

Next, Zhang mentions the service’s failure to respect “socialist core values,” and its “deviation from public opinion guidance” — this latter term being a Party buzzword (dating back to the 1989 crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protests) synonymous with information and press controls as a means of maintaining Party dominance.

Zhang also explicitly references Xi Jinping’s notion of the “New Era,” and writes: “All along, we have placed excessive emphasis on the role of technology, and we have not acknowledged that technology must be led by the socialist core value system, broadcasting positive energy, suiting the demands of the era, and respecting common convention.”

In the list of the company’s remedies, there is even a mention of the need to promote more content from “authoritative media,” a codeword for Party-controlled media, which suggests once again that the leadership has been unhappy with the idea of algorithms that wall users off from official messaging if they show no interest in such content.

We include a translation of Zhang’s apology letter below, excepting (only for the sake of time) the final section on management of online communities. We have left the Chinese alongside the English, believing this letter offers an essential view of the deep tension in China right now between technological innovation and economic reform on the one hand, and the urgency of political controls on the other. Here we have a technologist celebrating innovation and apologizing at the same time for its political crimes — in a way quite redolent, in the sense that this is a jiantao made before the leadership, of the pre-reform era.

Apology and reflection
今日头条的朋友们：
Dear friends of Jinri Toutiao:
我真诚地向监管部门致歉，向用户及同事们道歉。从昨天下午接到监管部门的通知到现在，我一直处在自责和内疚之中，一夜未眠。
I earnestly apologise to regulatory authorities, and to our users and colleagues. Since receiving the notice yesterday from regulatory authorities, I have been filled with remorse and guilt, entirely unable to sleep.
今日头条将永久关停“内涵段子”客户端软件及公众号。产品走错了路，出现了与社会主义核心价值观不符的内容，没有贯彻好舆论导向，接受处罚，所有责任在我。
Jinri Toutiao will shut down once and for all its “Neihan Duanzi” app and its public accounts. Our product took the wrong path, and content appeared that was incommensurate with socialist core values, that did not properly implement public opinion guidance — and I am personally responsible for the punishments we have received [as a result].
自责是因为辜负了主管部门一直以来的指导和期待。过去几年间，主管部门给了我们很多的指导和帮助，但我内心没有真正理解和认识到位，也没有整改到位，造成今天对用户不负责任的结果。
I am responsible because I failed to live up to the guidance and expectations supervisory organs have demanded all along. Over the past few years, the regulatory authorities have provided us with much guidance and assistance, but in our hearts we failed to properly understand and recognise [their demands]. Nor did we properly rectify the situation, which led to the present failure to be responsible to our users.
自责也是因为辜负了用户的支持和信任。我们片面注重增长和规模，却没有及时强化质量和责任，忽视了引导用户获取正能量信息的责任。对承担企业社会责任，弘扬正能量，把握正确的舆论导向认识不够，思想上缺乏重视。
I am responsible also because I failed to live up to the trust and support placed in me by our users. We prioritised only the expansion of [platform] scale, and we were not timely in strengthening quality and responsibility, overlooking our responsibility to channel users in the uptake of information with positive energy. We were insufficiently attentive, and in our thinking placed insufficient emphasis on our corporate social responsibility, to promote positive energy and to grasp correct guidance of public opinion.
同时，我也辜负了投入无限热情和心血打造了这款产品的同事。产品出现这么大的问题，停止服务，我有领导责任。
At the same time, I failed my colleagues who invested such boundless enthusiasm and hard work to create this product. For such major problems to emerge with the product, and for service to halt, I bear leadership responsibility.
3月29日央视报道我们的广告问题后，我不断反思自己以前的想法，反思公司现在的做法，开始大力推进公司员工提高意识、改进管理、完善流程。
On March 29, after China Central Television reported problems with our advertisements, I engaged in steady reflection over my previous ways of thinking, reflected upon the company’s current methods, and began an energetic campaign among our staff to raise their consciousness, improve management and streamline processes.
我是工程师出身，创业的初心是希望做一款产品，方便全世界用户互动和交流。过去几年间，我们把更多的精力和资源，放在了企业的增长上，却没有采取足够措施，来补上我们在平台监管、企业社会责任上欠下的功课，比如对低俗、暴力、有害内容、虚假广告的有效治理。
My background is engineering, and my originating idea in starting this business was to create a product that would facilitate interaction and exchange among users worldwide. Over the past few years we have invested more energy and resources in the growth of the company, but we did not take the proper measures to improve supervision of the platform, and we did not adequately do our homework in terms of effectively controlling such things as low-row, violent and harmful content, and fake advertising.
我们作为一家十八大后快速发展起来的创业公司，深知公司的快速发展，是伟大时代给的机会。我感恩这个时代，感恩改革开放历史机遇，感恩国家对于科技产业发展的扶持。
As a start-up company developing rapidly in the wake of the 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, we profoundly understand that our rapid development was an opportunity afforded us by this great era. I thank this era. I thank the historic opportunity of economic reform and opening; and I thank the support the government has given for the development of the technology industry.
我深刻反思，公司目前存在问题的深层次原因是：“四个意识”淡薄、社会主义核心价值观教育缺失、舆论导向存在偏差。一直以来，我们过分强调技术的作用，却没有意识到，技术必须要用社会主义核心价值观来引导，传播正能量，符合时代要求，尊重公序良俗。
I profoundly reflect on the fact that a deep-level cause of the recent problems in my company is: a weak [understanding and implementation of] the “four consciousnesses” [of Xi Jinping]; deficiencies in education on the socialist core values; and deviation from public opinion guidance. All along, we have placed excessive emphasis on the role of technology, and we have not acknowledged that technology must be led by the socialist core value system, broadcasting positive energy, suiting the demands of the era, and respecting common convention.
我们必须重新梳理我们的愿景。我们说，要做全球的创作与交流平台。这就要求我们必须保证所“创作”与“交流”的内容是积极向上的、健康有益的，能够给时代、给人民带来正能量。
We must make a renewed effort to sort out our vision of the future. We say, we want to make global platform for creation and conversation. This demands that we must ensure that the content of “creation” and “conversation” are positive, healthy and beneficial, that they can offer positive energy to the era, and to the people.
我们必须重新阐释并切实践行我们的社会责任：正直向善，科技创新，创造价值，担当责任，合作共赢。我深刻地认识到，企业的发展必须紧扣时代和国家发展主旋律。
We must renew our understanding and enactment of our social responsibility; upright and good, innovative technology, value creation, taking responsibility, cooperation and mutual benefit. I profoundly recognise that the company’s development must stick closely to the era and to the main theme of national development.
今天，监管部门、公众和媒体指出了公司存在的问题，是对我们的善意提醒和有力鞭策。我跟我的同事们将立即着手改变，改变自己的思想，改变我们的做法。
Today, supervisory organs, the public and the media have pointed out problems in our company, and this is well-intentioned reminder and an encouragement to us. I and my colleagues will work immediately to bring about change — changing our own thoughts, and changing our methods.
一、将正确的价值观融入技术和产品
Introducing correct values into technology and products
1、加强党建工作，对全体员工进行“四个意识”、社会主义核心价值观、舆论导向、法律法规等教育，真正履行好企业的社会责任。
1.1 Strengthening the work of Party construction, carrying out education among our entire staff on the “four consciousnesses,” socialist core values, [correct] guidance of public opinion, and laws and regulations, truly acting on the company’s social responsibility.
2、强化各业务线履行社会责任的制度化机制化，将其列入业务考核范围。
1.2 Strengthening implementation of systems and mechanisms for social responsibility in various business activities, bringing them into the scope of business assessment.
3、进一步深化与权威媒体合作，提高权威媒体内容的分发，保证权威声音有力传播。
1.3 Further deepening cooperation with authoritative [official Party] media, elevating distribution of authoritative media content, ensuring that authoritative [official Party] media voices are broadcast to strength.
4、强化总编辑责任制，全面纠正算法和机器审核的缺陷，不断强化人工运营和审核，将现有6000人的运营审核队伍，扩大到10000人。
1.4 Strengthening the editor-in-chief responsibility system, comprehensively correcting deficiencies in algorithmic and machine review [of content], steadily strengthening human operations and review, raising the current number of operational review staff from 6,000 to 10,000 persons [carrying out content review].
[Translation omitted here for section on management of online communities]
Finally, I again express my apologies to supervisory organs, and to the friends who care about us.
我们理应做得更好。我们一定会做得更好。
We ought to do better. We will definitely do better.
我们真诚地期待社会各界帮助和监督我们的整改。我们绝不辜负大家的期望。
We earnestly await help from various parts of society in supervising our rectification. We will not disappoint everyones’ hopes.
今日头条创始人、CEO张一鸣
Jinri Toutiao founder and CEO Zhang Yimin
2018年4月11日
April 11, 2018

Sunset for China's "Sunshine Boy"

Written by David Bandurski on 5 April 2018. Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

Zhou Xiaoping’s praise for Xi Jinping was never faint, but his enthusiasm may have damned him nonetheless. The young internet writer, once praised by state-run Chinese media as a great disseminator of “positive energy,” or zhengnengliang (正能量), through his professions of love for China and a profound sense of grievance directed toward the West, seems now to be fading into the wings.
A report on March 22 noted in an otherwise unremarkable account of the minutes of a conference of the Sichuan Online Writers Association held the previous day that “[the] conference accepted Comrade Zhou Xiaoping’s resignation as chairman of the Sichuan Online Writers Association.”

Zhou Xiaoping is absent from the leadership at the March meeting of the Sichuan Online Writers Association.
By March 24, this detail about Zhou’s resignation had risen to the headlines at Shanghai’s The Paper, and from there was re-posted to other prominent news sites like Sina and QQ. But beyond a suggestive wink to readers there was no attempt inside China to flesh out the story, a fair indication of its sensitivity. Editors merely bolded the above-mentioned line from the original report on the conference, trusting that readers would infer its significance.
Before long, however, Chinese-language media outside of China had offered a credible explanation for Zhou Xiaoping’s not-entirely-unexpected exit: his close connection to ousted internet czar Lu Wei.
Lu, once the confident face of Xi Jinping’s elbows-out approach to the control of cyberspace as head of the new Cyberspace Administration of China, was placed under investigation in November last year for “severe discipline violations.” This news was followed months later, in February, by a notice from the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection that was unusually harsh in its characterization of Lu’s alleged crimes, saying that he had “lacked shame” and “traded power for sex,” that he had been “domineering” and “cruel in his work style,” and the ignominious list went on.
Lu Wei’s star had burned out quickly. And his was the star to which Zhou Xiaoping had hitched his wagon. It was likely Lu’s stunt to arrange for Xi Jinping to single out Zhou Xiaoping for praise during the 2014 Beijing Forum on Literature and Art. At that event Xi laid out his vision of the arts as a vehicle for morally uplifting messages that put the Chinese Communist Party at the center of that morality. “Art and culture will emit the greatest positive energy,” said Xi, “when the Marxist view of art and culture is firmly established and the people are their focus.” To Zhou Xiaoping and Hua Qianfang (another online writer known for his nationalistic paeans) Xi said, shaking hands after the forum: “I hope you create even more works of positive energy.” The scene was referred to repeatedly in official television newscasts.

Zhou Xiaoping’s writings appear in Cankao Xiaoxi in October 2014.
In the wake of the forum, Zhou Xiaoping enjoyed a torrent of state media coverage, including an exclusive interview with the People’s Daily, and publication of his online writing in Reference News, a daily published by the official Xinhua News Agency. Selected pieces often bore overwrought titles like, “Fly, Chinese Dream!” — this being Zhou’s recollection of the May 1999 bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade by American bombers (“The gun barrels of the Americans,” Zhou wrote, “have always pointed directly at the heads of all Chinese.”)
Zhou Xiaoping earned the nickname “sunshine boy,” or nuannan (暖男) — derived from Chinese internet slang for a young man who, like the sunshine, instills people with feelings of warmth — following one of his most famous pieces, titled, “A Sunshine Boy for His Mother Country” (我待祖国如暖男). When the Sichuan Online Writers Association was founded in June 2015, part of a nationwide movement to bring online writers into the Party-led fold represented by the dominant China Writers Association, Zhou Xiaoping seemed the ideal public face for the new organization.
But the “positive energy” emitted by Zhou and other fiery and attention-seeking young nationalist writers online soon became a headache. Zhou’s ardent, boot-licking expressions of national love were a lightning rod for criticism. According to some accounts, they were viewed as ineffective propaganda, embarrassing and counterproductive — or worse, as active attempts to undermine Xi Jinping through “high sarcasm,” or gaojihei (高级黑).

A November 2017 report from Caixin Global on Lu Wei’s anti-graft case includes a picture of Lu’s 2014 visit to Facebook headquarters.
If Lu Wei is the tiger’s head in the old Chinese saying about aggressive beginnings and effete endings (虎头蛇尾), then Zhou Xiaoping is the snake’s tail, quietly slithering into the darkness. The propaganda blitz surrounding “positive energy,” Lu Wei’s pop term for cyber control and censorship (more here), is a thing of the past. The new tiger’s head is an old and familiar one — an emboldened and consolidated Party-state media machine urged once again to go out into the world and “tell China’s story well.”
Some wryly predicted such an end for Zhou even at the moment of his rise. As former CMP fellow and blogger Yang Hengjun wrote in November 2014, closing an essay on Zhou:

Zhou should keep this in mind: in the history of the CCP, people like Yao Wenyuan and Zhang Chunqiao, who sought to curry political favor and make some small profits by praising and flattering officials, wound up on the garbage heap of history. On the flip side, people like Deng Xiaoping and Xi Zhongxun, who boldly presented their own critical viewpoints while suffering torture and censorship, proved to be the greatest contributors to China and the Chinese people.
So let’s turn the page on Zhou Xiaoping; that will benefit everyone.

Goodbye, sunshine boy.

Guerrilla Ideology

Written by David Bandurski on 26 March 2018. Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

The following commentary, written by former CMP fellow Chang Ping (长平), was published in Chinese last week by Deutsche Welle. We offer our translation here to help shed light on China’s recent move to combine its three major state-run broadcast networks into a single super-network to be called, in its external dimension, “Voice of China.”

A 2010 cartoon by Kuang Biao showing Chang Ping under pressure.
Most readers will remember Chang Ping as a news editor until 2001 at Southern Weekly, the relatively outspoken paper based in Guangzhou that has fallen on tougher times since a staff walkout there in 2013. He was later an editor at Southern Metropolis Daily, another paper under the Nanfang Daily Group with a reputation for pushing the envelope — but was forced from this position in 2008 after a strongly-worded commentary criticizing China’s policies in Tibet. Chang continued to write for various publications under the news group until he was finally forced out in 2011.
The essential argument Chang makes in this commentary is that the Chinese Communist Party has never at any point relinquished its Cold War rhetoric in the domain of news and ideology, and has never halted its preparation for an ideological showdown with the West. In fact, he says, the wealthier China has become, the more it has invested in its bid for ideological dominance. The recent announcement of the creation of “Voice of China,” says Chang, is only the latest chapter in the Party’s campaign of ideological opposition, which is colored by a nationalism driven by a narrative of victimization.
One of the most interesting assertions in Chang’s piece, however, is the reference toward the end to Mao Zedong’s 16-character mantra on guerrilla warfare as a way of understanding China’s international media push: “When the enemy advances, we retreat; when the enemy makes camp we harass; when the enemy is exhausted we fight; and, when the enemy retreats we pursue.” In his introduction to the China Story Yearbook 2014, almost two years into Xi Jinping’s (now theoretically unlimited) tenure, editor Geremie Barmé similarly referenced the 16-character mantra as a means of understanding Xi’s approach to foreign policy. “It is an approach, he wrote, “that purposely creates an atmosphere of uncertainty and tension.”
The 16-character mantra may offer more than just a metaphorical lens for understanding China’s actions globally. The West is suffering various forms of democratic exhaustion. The United States is retreating. And China, as evidenced by its second Human Rights Council resolution in nine months and other international actions, is clearly on the offensive.

Amazing, ‘Voice of China’ (厉害了，中国之声)
The Party Governs All (党管一切)
“The organizational structures of China Central Television (China Global Television Network), China National Radio and China Radio International are now eliminated. The original names are to be retained domestically, while externally they will now be all known under the name ‘Voice of China.'” This is a passage from the Chinese Communist Party document called Program for the Deepening Reform of Party and Government Organs, a document that is full of word usage and grammatical problems — suited to the rashness and ignorance of leader in the new era.
Many internet users [in China] gleefully shared a joke about a report on Xinwen Lianbo, the official nightly news program, that went: “News from this station: this station is now eliminated.” But in fact the intent of the Program was not to eliminate these media, but rather to combine several official media into a single entity, renaming it the “Central Radio and Television Network,” to be called “Voice of China” (中国之声) externally.
I suspect that my colleagues at Voice of America and Deutsche Welle (meaning “German Wave” but translated into Chinese as “Voice of Germany”) feel a certain strangeness at this. Radio France Internationale (RFI) has recently been referred to the Chinese official Party media Global Times as “Voice of France.” Other media similarly named include “Voice of Tibet” (西藏之声) and “Voice of Taiwan” (台湾之音) — and in history there was “Voice of Free China” (自由中国之声) and “Voice of Asia” (亚洲之声). All of these media perhaps feel that they are different from one another, but in the eyes of the Chinese Communist Party they are all essentially “voices of the hostile foreign forces” (境外敌对势力之声), and China must have in response its own “voice.” Moreover, that voice must be even more powerful. Make no mistake, this naming of China’s new network is no mere coincidence, but a purposeful collision with your names.
The Cold War Isn’t Over
Thirty years after an end was declared in the Cold War, this assertion has been constantly in doubt. Quite a number of articles in the New York Times in recent years, written by a range of observers, have pointed out that the Cold War as an ideological struggle has never passed. Unfortunately, most of the attention has turned on Russia, and has overlooked the importance of China’s role. But today, China’s influence surpasses that of Russia in a number of areas, and [overlooking this fact) is an error that researchers cannot afford to make.
Over more than half a century, the Cold War media of which “Voice of America” was most representative sought to break through restrictions on information in the socialist camp, and to spread Western concepts of democracy. They offered massive amounts of news and cultural programming, reaching audiences through shortwave radio, and made huge contributions to the victory of the West.
After an end to the Cold War was declared, and the West underwent an ideological shift, these media said goodbye to their old mission and entered a new era. They sought an exit from their Cold War mindset, to tone down their propaganda hues, and to become more objective, independent and comprehensive modern media. This didn’t happen just in the media. The think tanks that had been supported and funded by the government during the Cold War experienced similar changes.
Twenty-eight years ago, Chinese students and city residents set the stage for dramatic change. Very quickly, the socialist camp collapsed [on a global scale] and those on the front lines in China fell in a bloodbath. Western societies, eager to celebrate their victory, buried their heads in the sand and believed that China had opted into a new international order. China feigned civility on the one hand, while declaring on the other that “Western hostile forces have never given up their desire to destroy us.” Not only did China not, as the West did, remove, disband and transform its “forces” deployed for media and intelligence activities, but in fact it continued to invest greater resources in its Cold War thinking as it grew in economic strength, building a formidable external propaganda system. “Voice of China” is one result of these efforts.
While one side unilaterally declared an end to the Cold War, entering a post-Cold War era marked by tolerance and diversity, the other side strengthened its state propaganda apparatus, making a large-scale attack on the free world. “Voice of China” can work unhindered on the global internet, while Voice of America, Deutsche Welle, Radio France Internationale and others are restricted by the Great Firewall, left an environment arguably worse than that of the shortwave radio environment during the Cold War.
Chinese on the one hand have brittle glass hearts, so ready to make nationalist declarations of victimization. On the other hand, they act with utter lack of consideration over discrimination against Africans in their official Spring Festival Gala, show contempt online for “Ah San” (a pejorative reference to India), “Bang Zi” (referring to Koreans), “Monkey” (referring to Vietnamese), and “Ghost” (referring to Japanese). What is going on in their heads? When Chinese authorities unleash campaigns to “oppose Christmas,” but also talks about pushing “Spring Festival culture” out into the world — what kind of logic is this? People in the West can very easily spot the unfairness here, but in the nationalist ideology trumpeted by the Chinese government this is characterized as “our victory.” By the same logic, the weakening in firepower among the various “voices of the hostile forces” (境外敌对势力之声) does not call for a transformation of the ideological stance [in China], but instead means “China is amazing” (厉害了我的国). [NOTE: “Amazing China” is the title of a patriotic film released in China last month, becoming the highest-grossing ‘documentary’ of all time in the country.]
The attack prepared by “Voice of China” can be viewed against this ideological backdrop, an incarnation of Mao Zedong’s “small thug strategy” (小流氓战略方针) [or his 16-character mantra on guerrilla warfare]: “When the enemy advances, we retreat; when the enemy makes camp we harass; when the enemy is exhausted we fight; and, when the enemy retreats we pursue.”
Western societies cannot possibly retreat to the point of the Cold War Era. But at the same time they must face the challenges brought by the rise of China.
Chang Ping, a veteran Chinese journalist and commentator, currently lives in Germany.

[Featured image by Gwydion Williams, available at Flickr.com under Creative Commons license.]

When Reform Means Tighter Controls

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

Under an institutional restructuring plan announced today by Xinhua News Agency, called Program for the Deepening Reform of Party and Government Organs (深化党和国家机构改革方案), China has announced a deep restructuring also of the institutions overseeing the media and film industries.
We will have further comments on these changes in due course, but for now we would just like to provide full translation of the portions of the Program dealing with media and public opinion.

Naturally, one of the changes now getting the most attention is the complete razing of three major national media platforms — China Central Television (China Global Television Network), China National Radio and China Radio International — and the formation from their ashes of a new super-network to be called the Central Radio and Television Network (中央广播电视总台). The Program makes clear that the resources of all of three of these networks will be referred to in their external incarnation as “Voice of China” (中国之声).
Just to quickly give readers an indication of what this change means in terms of direct Party control from the center, China Central Television was previously overseen by the General Administration of Press, Publications, Radio, Film and Television (previously just SARFT), a department under the State Council. The super-network will now be situated as a state-sponsored institution, or shiye danwei (事业单位), directly under the State Council, and directly under the supervision of the Central Propaganda Department.
The bear, in other words, will be hugging its “mouthpiece” media even more closely now. And that is largely the point that comes through here — the tighter, more centralized control of media and ideology.
The opening of the Program emphasizes: “The leadership of the Chinese Communist Party is the basic nature and character of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Party, government, army, society and education — east and west, south and north, the Party leads all.”

(Section 11)
The Central Propaganda Department (中央宣传部) has unified supervision over news and publishing work. In order to strengthen the concentrated and unified management of news and public opinion work, strengthen the management of publishing activities, and develop and invigorate the publishing-related undertakings of socialism with Chinese characteristics, the management responsibilities of the General Administration of Press, Publications, Radio, Film and Television in the areas of news and publishing will be transferred to the Central Propaganda Department. Externally, the Central Propaganda Department will bear the sign ‘National News and Publishing Administration (National Copyright Office’) [‘国家新闻出版署 (国家版权局)].
Following reorganization, the principal responsibilities of the Central Propaganda Department concerning news and publishing management will be to put into practice the Party’s propaganda work policies; draw up management policies for the news and publishing industries and supervising implementation; manage administrative affairs for news and publishing; overall planning, guidance and coordination for news and publishing activities; industry development; supervising and managing the content and quality of published materials; supervising and managing the printing industry; managing copyright issues; managing the import of published materials.
(Section 12)
The Central Propaganda Department has unified supervision over film work. In order to better develop the unique and important role of film in disseminating ideas and in culture and entertainment, and to develop and invigorate the film industry, the management responsibilities of the General Administration of Press, Publications, Radio, Film and Television in the area of film management will be transferred to the Central Propaganda Department. Externally, the Central Propaganda Department will bear the sign ‘National Film Bureau’ (国家电影局).
Following reorganization, the principal responsibilities of the Central Propaganda Department concerning film management will be to manage administrative affairs for film; guide and monitor film production, distribution and screening work; organize the censorship (审查) of film content; guide and coordinate major film-related events of a national nature; to assume responsibility for overseas co-productions, and cooperation and discussion on film import and export.
(Section 35)
The creation of the National Radio and Television Administration (国家广播电视总局). In order to strengthen the Party’s centralized and unified leadership of news and public opinion work, and strengthen the management of important propaganda positions (宣传阵地), firmly grasping the right of leadership over ideological work, adequately develop the role of radio and television as the mouthpiece of the Party (广播电视媒体作为党的喉舌作用), the National Radio and Television Administration, a department directly under the State Council, will be built on the foundation of the radio and television management responsibilities of the [former] the General Administration of Press, Publications, Radio, Film and Television.
Its chief responsibilities will be to implement the Party’s propaganda guidelines and policies; to draw up, supervise and implement policies and measures for the management of radio and television; overall guidance and coordination of the radio and television industries, and of industry development; to promote the reform of system and mechanisms in the radio and television sector; to supervise, manage and censor (审查) the content and quality of radio, television and online audiovisual programming; take on responsibility for the import, storage and management of radio and television programming; to coordinate the promotion of the going out [overseas] of the radio and television section.
The General Administration of Press, Publications, Radio, Film and Television will no longer be retained.
(Section 36)
The creation of the Central Radio and Television Network (中央广播电视总台). Adherence to correct guidance of public opinion (坚持正确舆论导向), placing a high priority on the building and innovation of dissemination methods (传播手段), raising the dissemination force (传播力), guiding force (引导力), influence (影响力) and credibility (公信力) of news and public opinion — these are the key starting points in firmly grasping the right of leadership in ideological work. In order to strengthen the Party’s concentrated development and management of important public opinion positions, in order to enhance overall strengthen in radio and television media, in order to promote the integrated development of radio, television and newly emerging media, accelerating the disseminating capacity of international broadcasting, China Central Television (China Global Television Network), China National Radio and China Radio International will be combined to form the Central Radio and Television Network, which will serve as an institution (事业单位) directly under the State Council, returning to the leadership of the Central Propaganda Department.
Its principal responsibilities will be to propagate the theories, political line and policies of the Party; to plan and manage major propaganda reports; to organize the production of radio and television; to produce and broadcast premium radio and television products; to channel hot social topics; to strengthen and improve supervision by public opinion (舆论监督), to promote the integrated development of multimedia; to strengthen the building of international broadcasting capacity; to tell China’s story well.
The organizational structures of China Central Television (China Global Television Network), China National Radio and China Radio International are now eliminated.
The original names are to be retained domestically, while externally they will now be all known under the name ‘Voice of China’ (中国之声).

Xi Jinping, Constitutional Reformer

Written by David Bandurski on 13 March 2018. Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

“Entering a New Era, Achieving New Acts.” This is the bright gold slogan emblazoned this week across the top of the official website of the People’s Daily — right over the top of an image of President Xi Jinping, identified as “the people’s leader,” or renmin lingxiu (人民领袖).
Xi Jinping’s new act, the amendment of China’s Constitution to remove term limits on the country’s presidency, paving the way for his own indefinite period of rule, has been the subject of fevered discussion outside China. Inside China, the topic is virtually impossible to broach, unless privately and in person.

The authorities have actively policed social media, including private chat groups, ensuring networked citizens do not have an opportunity to comment or speculate en masse. China’s cowed news media, meanwhile, have drowned the issue in a parade of noise, glorifying “the amendments” without offering any clear explanation of what these are or what they entail.
This approach was on full display in the article pinned to the top of the People’s Daily website yesterday. The piece, “Web users hotly discuss the constitutional amendment passed by the NPC,” is a compilation of comments reportedly made to the Strong Nation Forum (强国论坛) and the People’s Microblog (人民微博) about “the amendments” . They purr with praise about “protecting the fruits” of reform, “realizing the organic unity of the Party’s position,” or “enriching the constitutional spirit.” But the only hints as to the content of the recent amendments to the Constitution, which formally passed a vote by more than 3,000 NPC delegates on Sunday, come in a pair of posts alluding to the constitutional creation of a National Supervision System and the inclusion of “Xi Jinping Thought” in the Constitution’s preamble.
Unsurprisingly, the published comments make no mention whatsoever of the removal of presidential term limits.
But as I read through China’s non-coverage of these constitutional amendments, it struck me how far we have come in the dashing of liberal hopes for constitutional change since these hopes were voiced in late 2012 and early 2013, just at the dawn of the Xi era.
Marking the 30th anniversary of China’s 1982 Constitution on December 5, 2012, just weeks after he became general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi Jinping said: “We must firmly establish, throughout society, the authority of the Constitution and the law and allow the overwhelming masses to fully believe in the law.” He also emphasized that “[no] organization or individual has the privilege to overstep the Constitution and the law, and any violation of the Constitution and the law must be investigated.”
In the wake of the anniversary, political reform advocates in China drew inspiration from Xi’s remarks. For them, “firmly establishing the Constitution” could be construed, and seized upon, as a means to push deeper social and political change through a process of actualization. The Constitution, they argued, already formed a consensus about China’s direction for the future. If the country could just put into practice the rights laid out in the Constitution — rights like “freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration” — this would be immense progress.
On January 2, 2013, the China Media Project published an English-language translation of the New Year’s Greeting that opened the January edition of the liberal journal Yanhuang Chunqiu. Called “The Constitution is a Consensus for Political Reform” (宪法是政治体制改革的共识), the article argued that divisions over how to promote political reform, a “task of pressing urgency,” could be bridged by turning to the language of the Constitution. “As this new year begins, we have a new group of leaders, and certain changes in the way these leaders operate have been cause for encouragement,” said the article. “In this new year, what we hope among a multitude of other things is that there can be real action to make our Constitution real.”
This week, China’s Constitution did indeed get more real — in ways that liberal intellectuals find impossible to accept. The removal of presidential term limits came as a kind of culmination of the illiberal march of Chinese politics, through the very document liberal intellectuals had hoped just five years ago to make the blueprint of meaningful reform.
One has to imagine the insult cuts deep. Xi Jinping, it turns out, is a constitutional reformer after all. And now that he has detonated term limits on his own position as head of state, he can continue to be.

But the strange ambiguity in China’s constitutional pledges still runs just beneath the surface, even in the Party’s propaganda.
One of the comments in the piece on the People’s Daily website, reportedly offered by an internet user writing under the alias “Welcoming Justice” (欢迎正义) said: “Encouraging the people to study the Constitution, standardizing words and actions, will lend even more vitality to the new era. Revering the Constitution, respecting the Constitution, studying the Constitution and cherishing the Constitution. Those serving as officials and cadres must practice [the Constitution] through their actions, establish themselves as examples, and lay down the constitutional spirit. Those cadres who don’t understand the law, the people don’t need. Those officials who don’t understand the law, the ordinary people don’t welcome.”
And what if the people do study the Constitution? What if they expect the document, and the rights it stipulates, to be taken seriously by their officials?
Not to worry. These questions, and all others, are now firmly in the hands of one man, and there really is no need to “hotly discuss” them.

Web users hotly discuss the constitutional amendment passed by the NPC
March 12, 2018
On the afternoon of March 11, “Amendment to the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China” (中华人民共和国宪法修正案) passed by a substantial margin, drawing the focus of internet users. The vast majority of web users on Strong Nation Forum (强国论坛) and the People’s Microblog (人民微博) expressed the major significance and far-reaching impact of this amendment and urged its endorsement and active implementation.
. . . .
Web user “Daigo” (津哲代后) said: “The passing of the amendment shows the heart of the Party and the sentiment of the people.”
Web user “Little Cutie” (小可爱) said: “The amendment of the Constitution helps with sustainable development, helps with the continuity of the system, and lets the ordinary people see hope and an objective.”
Web user “Ren Yiping” (任毅平) said: “The advancement of the Constitution with the times preserves the people’s management of their own affairs, strongly defends national integrity, ethnic unity and social stability, and protects the fruits of 40 years of reform. It provides a powerful protection for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese people from standing up to becoming prosperous to becoming strong.”
Web user “Erlong’s Truth” (二龙实话) said: “I wholeheartedly support the constitutional amendment. The times are changing, society is progressing and there is always room for the innovation of theories.”
Web user “Ding Guisheng” (丁贵生) wrote: “Governing the nation according to the law establishes the basis for justice and fairness. This is an important choice in ensuring the peace and stability of the country. Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism With Chinese Characteristics for the New Era (习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想) benefits the long-term stability and development of the country . . . .
Web user Xu Xiaolin (絮筱霖) said: “Elevating the great achievements and precious experiences created by the people to the national constitution, realizing the organic unity of the Party’s position, the national will and the people’s wishes, is a successful instance of our Party’s governing of the nation.”
Web user “Aiminmao” said: “The writing of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism With Chinese Characteristics for the New Era into the preamble to the Constitution provides a safeguard for the course of realizing the Chinese dream of the Chinese people! The constitutional amendment of the National People’s Congress will surely bring health and well-being to China in the new era.”
Web user “15191221122” said: “The Constitution has not only force but warmth, and is closer and closer to our ordinary lives.”
Web user “Crying Bird” (啼鸟) said: “If there are no laws to govern a country it will slip into chaos, and if the laws do not change they will decline. We must resolutely protect the authority of the constitution, supporting changes that accommodate the new situation of the new era.”
Web user “Big Meat-Eating Rabbit” (吃肉的大兔子) said: “The constitutional amendment will have an important influence on the struggle against corruption, patching up shortcomings in supervision, and it can more effectively support the development of the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics.”
Web user “Mu Yanhong 102” (慕艳红102) wrote: “The life of the Constitution is in its implementation, and the authority of the Constitution is in its implementation. The process of constitutional amendment is also an opportunity to spread knowledge of the Constitution, and a process of enriching the constitutional spirit. We must fully utilize the rare opportunity afforded by the constitutional amendment, raising the constitutional consciousness of all the people, achieving among the people a consensus about the Constitution. This is especially the case for leading cadres, who must be models in the study of the Constitution, in honoring the Constitution and in promoting the Constitution.”
Web user “Welcoming Justice” (欢迎正义) said: “Encouraging the people to study the Constitution, standardizing words and actions, will lend even more vitality to the new era. Revering the Constitution, respecting the Constitution, studying the Constitution and cherishing the Constitution. Those serving as officials and cadres must practice [the Constitution] through their actions, establish themselves as examples, and lay down the constitutional spirit. Those cadres who don’t understand the law, the people don’t need. Those officials who don’t understand the law, the ordinary people don’t welcome.”
Web user “Bluetooth Dream Release” (蓝牙放飞梦想) said: “As a discipline inspection official, I resolutely support the constitutional amendment. The establishment of a National Supervision System will enable full-coverage monitoring of all public officials who exercise public power . . . . ”
Web user “Yun Liu Yi Jiangnan” (云柳亦江南) said: “As a grassroots Party member and official, I must take the earnest study and respect of the Constitution as the base of my life and work. I must do my part, protecting the Constitution and respecting the law, contributing my energies to this great Mother Country of ours!”
Web user “Not Forgetting the Original Intention, Always Moving Forward” (不忘初心一直向前) said: “As members of the Chinese Communist Party, we must support the amendment of the Constitution, serving as good and law-abiding citizens, and as qualified Party members.”

Will China's President Be Informed?

Written by David Bandurski on 3 March 2018. Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

“To err is human,” Deng Yuwen, the former editor of Study Times, wrote in the South China Morning Post today. “And a leader who tolerates no checks on his power is even more likely to err, because power can make one arrogant and impervious to other views.” As the National People’s Congress opens tomorrow, one crucial focus will be a proposed change to China’s Constitution removing term limits for the presidency. As many commentators have warned this week, such a change would pave the way for Xi Jinping to rule for an indefinite period, and would undo a key political reform measure introduced by Deng Xiaoping. Potentially vesting great power in the person of Xi Jinping, as opposed to collective leadership, it would also raise serious questions about whether Xi’s leadership can be sufficiently adaptive, or whether it will, as Deng Yuwen said, be “even more likely to err.” There has long been reason to wonder, in fact, whether Xi Jinping isn’t sealing things up so tight that the system is gasping for air. In late 2015, one year before his elevation as “the core,” Xi Jinping put his foot down on “improper discussion of [the policies] of the central Party,” or wangyi zhongyang (妄议中央), a phrase that was added to the Party’s updated Disciplinary Regulations. Don’t chatter about the Party’s business, he seemed to say: Just follow my lead. Visiting key Party media a few months later, Xi gave a speech in which he stressed that the media “must be surnamed Party” — meaning that they must do the Party’s bidding. In the same speech he mingled oil and water by stating that “positive propaganda,” which has traditionally signalled suppression of critical news coverage, is at one with “supervision by public opinion,” the phrase that has long been synonymous with more probing, and even investigative, coverage. “Supervision by public opinion and positive propaganda are unified,” Xi said. Yikes. So where, then, does China’s Mr. Personality get his information? Some technologists argue that new technologies have already presented authoritarian states like China with a solution, making possible “a big-data dictatorship.” Those in power can count on endless streams of information, from social media sentiments to credit information, all harnessed through artificial intelligence. “Given that many dictatorships collapse as a result of poor information,” Mark Leonard, director of the European Council on Foreign Relations, wrote on Project Syndicate this week, “digital technologies could become an even more powerful prophylactic against bad decision-making than term limits.” In fact, the Chinese Communist Party has long dealt with the delicate balance between information controls it sees as imperative, and the need to ensure restricted flow of valued intelligence. We can see this tension in one of the Party’s oldest systems of official intelligence, the insider news briefs and journals known as “internal references,” or neibu cankao (内部参考). Cheng Li, a senior fellow at Brookings, noted in his book The Power of Ideas that these internal references are produced by a range of actors, from think tanks and government departments. They can sometimes circulate only at the most senior levels — for example, among Politburo members — and at other times may be available to provincial or county-level leaders. During the heyday of the commercial press in China, from the mid-1990s through around the Beijing Olympics, internal references were often tip sheets used by enterprising reporters, clueing them in to potential stories. A journalist for a major Party-affiliated newspaper in Beijing once told me that his paper produced internal reference documents only on an irregular basis, whenever there were critical stories that editors or their Party superiors determined could not be made public. When they did produce an internal brief on a story, this could circulate at quite senior levels in the capital, sometimes even getting an endorsement from a member of the Standing Committee. Other media may produce internal references on a more regular basis. Systematic study of the internal reference system would present obvious challenges. But it would be fascinating to discover how the system might have changed, or is now changing, in light of the explosion of big data. My guess is that internal references remain as much or more relevant today. Despite the faith of technologists, there are plenty of facts and observations that must still derive from good old-fashioned reporting.

In any case, the news media in China remain very much involved in the manufacture of internal references — a reminder of how the Party regards media as arms of intelligence gathering as well as propaganda. Earlier this month, a commentary in The Beijing News voiced concern over the abuse of two local news journalists in Hebei province who had been investigating a pollution case. According to media reports, journalists from the Internal Reference team of Hebei Television, the province’s official television network, had gone to Quzhou County (曲周) in southern Hebei to follow up on reports of pollution by a local enterprise. The journalists were mobbed and seriously beaten by assailants who also stole their filming equipment, wallets and mobile phones. At some point, one of the journalists was bound by the assailants, who threatened to throw them down a well. A subsequent investigation showed that the enterprise in question had identified itself as a goat breeding cooperative, but in fact was manufacturing industrial plastic sprays, and flouting environmental laws. The commentary in The Beijing News portrayed the case as a worrisome disruption by local thugs (with the possible involvement or negligence of county officials) of a necessary process of supervision by the media — not as an agent of the public interest per se, but as an indispensable arm of the provincial leadership. “The undercover journalists had a special mission,” the paper wrote, “to represent the Hebei Committee of the Chinese Communist Party in conducting an undercover investigation, performing a supervision role.” The paper continued in its affirmation of the role of Internal Reference-related investigations:

Undeniably, if it had not been for the investigation by these journalists, this illegal workshop would have continued to illegally pollute. . . . Protect the journalist’s right to report, and allow them to carry out their work with ease, with the courage to expose problems in society, and they will uphold the social and public interest. If the opposite occurs, and the environment for reporting grows serious, and certain people can use violence to prevent reporting, beating and threatening journalists with impunity so that they feel a general chill, then this will necessarily mean the loss of the front line in news supervision (新闻监督), and the greatest loss will be the social and public interest.

It is fascinating to note what this passage reveals about mainstream official views of the role of the “journalist.” There is clearly a righteous tone about the value of their work — and yet, there was never any real expectation of exposure in this case, not public exposure anyway. The point was internal exposure to provincial leaders, who apparently tasked the reporters with the investigation. In this case, the “social and public interest” is to be served only in secret. In fact, the “general chill” of which the writer speaks has already happened to the media in the broader sense. Nothing makes this point more clearly than Xi Jinping’s conflation of “supervision” and “positive propaganda.” In the face of severe restrictions on news reporting, one might imagine the internal reference system offering some relief in the form of premium restricted access content. But one substantial weakness of the system is that it maps right on top of the Party-state bureaucracy, meaning that provincial officials, for example, who have direct control over outfits like Hebei Television, have an incentive themselves to remove or tone down reporting of potentially damaging stories. By contrast, one reason that the investigative reporting carried out (largely) by commercial newspapers from the end of the 1990s was so effective was that it utilized “cross-regional reporting,” or yidi jiandu (异地监督), meaning that papers from one administrative region would report on malfeasance in another. A paper in Guangzhou could report on corruption at the city level in a neighboring province without immediate fear of reprisal from its Party bosses in Guangdong. Xi Jinping does not seem to have much interest in this sort of intersectional supervision. He has brought to heel China’s once unruly (by today’s standards) press. His leadership has been marked across the board by greater centralization and a top-down approach. We might suppose that information is not getting bottlenecked, that it is filtering up to Xi, and to others who make the key policy decisions — that they are not “arrogant and impervious.” But the reality is that we have no way of knowing. No one does. And that has to tell us something.

Li Datong's Open Letter

Written by David Bandurski on 28 February 2018. Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

The following open letter was posted to WeChat on February 26, 2018, by Li Datong (李大同), the former top editor of Freezing Point, a respected supplement of the China Youth Daily newspaper. The letter has been one of the most prominent voices of criticism in the wake of the announcement that China would eliminate term limits for the president and vice-president, paving the way for Xi Jinping to serve beyond the end of his current term in 2023.

To: Xu Tao (徐韬), Ren Ming (任鸣), Yang Yuanqing (杨元庆), Chen Jining (陈吉宁) and the rest of the 55 Beijing delegates to the National People's Congress.

Greetings All!

I am a Chinese citizen, and a voter in Beijing. You are delegates chosen by us, and you represent us in political deliberations and in political action — and you represent us in exercising the right to vote (表决权).

After speaking with many other voters who are of the same opinion as me and reaching common agreement, I decided to make an urgent call to you, urging you to enter dissenting votes during the 13th session of the National People's Congress that is about to take place, overruling the decision taken by the Party's Central Committee concerning the amendment of Article 14 of the Constitution to abolish term limits for the president.

As I understand it, the stipulation in the 1982 Constitution that the national leaders of China may not serve for more than two terms in office was political reform measure taken by the Chinese Communist Party and the people of China after the immense suffering wrought by the Cultural Revolution. This was the highest and most effective legal restriction preventing personal dictatorship and personal domination of the Party and the government, and it was a major point of progress in raising the level of political civilization in China, in line with historical trends. It was also one of the most important political legacies of Deng Xiaoping. China can only move forward on this foundation, and there is emphatically no reason to move in the reverse direction. Removing term limitations on national leaders will subject us to the ridicule of the civilized nations of the world. It means moving backward into history, and planting the seed once again of chaos in China, causing untold damage.

I ask you please to take the greatest interests of the Chinese people into consideration first and foremost, earnestly considering our request and submitting your dissenting vote — for the long-term peace and stability of China, and for the preservation of political civilization in China.

Respectfully,
The Citizens (公民敬礼)

Signed,
Li Datong (李大同)

Goodbye Republic

Written by David Bandurski on 26 February 2018. Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

As Xi Jinping's "New Era" ushers China back into the authoritarian past, paving the way for the Putinesque removal of term limits for the president and vice-president, there is so much to say. But the thing about such atavistic acts is that we have reflected on them before. We have been there. We have done that.

And so, without further ado, I share a translation of a piece written back in 1980, almost two years before presidential term limits were put in place in China's 1982 Constitution. The piece, written by Yan Jiaqi (严家其), the former political advisor to Premier Zhao Ziyang who fled China in the wake of June Fourth, was published in the Party's official People's Daily after first appearing in a journal called New Period (新时期) — or "New Era," as it might alternatively be translated.

Yan's piece reserves criticism for "capitalist dictatorship" — there were still ideological lines to uphold — but is absolutely clear in its assessment that the abolishment of "lifelong tenure," or zhongshengzhi (终身制), is a mark of progress for political systems, and that the return of "lifelong tenure" for top leaders spells the death of a republic.

Lifelong Tenure is an Ancient Form of System

By Yan Jiaqi

"Lifelong tenure" (终身制) is an extremely ancient system. Since humankind entered the class society and established states, two systems have had long histories: one is "private ownership" of the social and economic system, and the other the statist political system of "lifelong tenure."

Way back in the time of dictatorship by slave owners, the lifelong tenure of heads of state came to form one type of system. The leaders of ancient Egypt, Babylon, Persia, India, China and other lands all had lifelong tenure. Of course, there were also exceptions. In the Roman Republic of the 6th century B.C., the position of Roman head of state was held by dual consuls. A consul's term was set at one year, and every year an election was held.

Looking back on history, the system of "lifelong tenure" of heads of state under private ownership is closely connected to the system of monarchy. We can say that perhaps all lands with monarchies in history are inseparable from "lifelong tenure." But under republics, establishment of "lifelong tenure" usually presages the restoration of monarchy. If no term limits are applied to the head of state, republics undergo metamorphosis and become monarchies. Toward the end of the Roman Republic, those military chiefs who emerged during the period of civil war did their utmost to abolish strict term limitations, first announcing time after time that they would extend their terms, then ultimately declaring that they would hold lifelong terms. At the end of the 1st century B.C., with the establishment of "lifelong tenure" for heads of state, the Roman Republic became the Roman Empire.

Aside from ancient Rome, in more contemporary history, we have Napoleon Bonaparte in France, and Yuan Shikai (袁世凯) in our country after the Xinhai Revolution — all extending their terms and then declaring lifelong tenure before ultimately destroying their republics and ascending to imperial thrones. Like the system of monarchy, "lifelong tenure" is an ancient system gradually being phased out of history.

The abolishment of "lifelong tenure" is an important transformation in the history of human development where political systems are concerned. This transformation has been achieved by many countries through periods of bourgeois revolution (资产阶级革命时期) or revolution. The terms of office in various countries are all different. In Switzerland, the highest administrative organization is the Federal Council, which serves for terms of just one year. The American president serves for four-year terms, and the French president for 7 years. The United Kingdom is a monarchy in name, but the highest powers are not held in the hands of the monarch but are exercised through parliaments, cabinets and prime ministers with definite terms of tenure (5 years) — and "lifelong tenure" is purely a figment.

The bourgeoisie abolished the "lifelong tenure" of those at the height of power, effectively preventing the restoration of despotism. However, in these countries, the system of private ownership that has a long history equal to that of "lifelong tenure" continues to exist in the private ownership of capitalism. Owing to the existence of capitalist private ownership, the fact of bourgeoisie dictatorship cannot be changed regardless of how the bourgeoisie determines the terms of presidents or prime ministers, or what political system is employed.

(Excerpted from "On the Abolishment of Lifelong Tenure," published in the March 1980 edition of New Era (新时期).)

China's Race Against History

Written by David Bandurski on 20 February 2018. Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

There has been a burst of commentary over the past few days about the overtly racist Africa skit that aired during the official Spring Festival Gala last week on China Central Television. I won’t recap the arguments here, except to note that we don’t need to read intent to appreciate the very real racist impact of a Chinese actress wearing blackface and butt padding to portray an African mother figure. Despite this well-intentioned argument, the link between racism and intentionality is a commonplace misunderstanding of the complex dynamics of racism.
If we do look at the intent behind the Africa skit, however, it’s not hard to make out that the purpose of Chinese leaders in airing the segment was to promote China’s strategic relationship with Africa through its Belt and Road Initiative. At the end of the skit, Lou Naiming, the Chinese actress playing “Mama” in blackface, praises a China that “has done so much for Africa,” and declares with feeling: “I love Chinese people! I love China!”
The Belt and Road theme figured strongly in this year’s Spring Festival Gala, and it directs us to a second controversy, one that has gotten far less air time outside China.
During a special segment under the title “A National Treasure Returns Home” (国宝回归), actor Zhang Guoli introduced a mysterious “special guest” who “left the mother country in the 1930s and drifted overseas for more than 80 years.” The guest, a “green-black scroll” measuring over 30 meters in length, was now “returning home.”
Shan Jiaxiang (单霁翔), director of the Palace Museum, explained to the audience that this scroll had been lost to Japan in the 1930s, but in 2002 was purchased by a Beijing auction house and returned to China, where it was subsequently donated to the Palace Museum after being purchased by Hong Kong tycoon Hui Wing-mau, who joined Zhang and Shan on stage.
“It’s name is ‘Landscape Map of the Silk Road’,” said a slightly uneasy looking Shan Jiaxiang.
“Would you like to see this ‘Landscape Map of the Silk Road!” Zhang boomed out to the audience.
“Yes!”

Shan explained that this was “a map of the Silk Road that was drawn during the reign of the Jiajing Period of the Ming dynasty.” It drew out 211 geographical coordinates between the city of Jiayuguan (in present-day Gansu province) in the east and Bakkah (present-day Mecca in Saudi Arabia) in the West, and also described customs and local conditions in ancient cities along the route.
The discovery of the painting, the segment explained, had “epoch-marking significance” (划时代意义) for the archeology of the Silk Road. “Yes, it is extremely valuable,” said Shan, following Zhang Guoli’s lead. “It proves that we Chinese already had a clear understanding of the path of the Silk Road as early as the middle of the 16th century.”
Here, in the form of a designated “national treasure” returned to its rightful home, was irrefutable proof of the Chinese agency behind the whole idea of the Silk Road, vesting Xi Jinping’s visionary Belt and Road Initiative with a sense of historical destiny.
This is a good time to remember that old rule of thumb: if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.
In any case, the gala’s “Landscape Map of the Silk Road” (丝路山水地图) quickly sparked a controversy online in China. Internet users pointed out that many things about the map had been tampered with or misrepresented, including its name and its age. These alterations had been made, they suspected, in order to make a stronger political case for China’s Belt and Road Initiative.

Baron Ferdinand von Richthofen, the German geographer who coined the term “Silk Road” in 1877. Source: Wikipedia Commons.
Beginning with the question of the map’s name, it is common knowledge among historians that the term “Silk Road” did not appear until 1877, in a map collection by German geographer Ferdinand von Richthofen. In this work, called China, Richthofen refers to the term twice, first as he traces the history of trade routes between Europe and China through Central Asia, and second in reference to a map by Greek geographer Marinus of Tyre, which Richthofen calls “die Seidenstraße des Marinus,” or “the Silk Road of Marinus.”
At this point, a bit of basic math is required. In the gala segment, “A National Treasure Returns Home,” Shan Jiaxiang dates the map in question back to the “middle of the 16th century.” That means that this map called “Landscape Map of the Silk Road” is supposed to have been created more than 300 years before the term “Silk Road” was actually coined — again, by a German geographer.
It’s completely impossible, of course, that a map drawn during the reign of the Jiajing Emperor (1522-1566 A.D.) in the Ming dynasty would be given a name including a term that would not appear until more than three centuries later. But Shan Jiaxiang is not a career archaeologist or geographer, but a career official, and so long as he can ensure that this map has “epoch-marking significance” for the political archaeology of the new Silk Road, he presumably cares little about the archaeology of the “Silk Road” concept itself.
Another key problem is that much of the trade through Central Asia was in fact cut off by the middle of the Ming dynasty, and these routes were diminishing in importance. As enthusiasts and amateur historians on China’s internet pointed out, it seems highly improbable that Chinese at this point during the Ming dynasty would painstakingly produce a map of the route.
The age of the map in question has in fact long been contested. As Shanghai’s The Paper noted in a backgrounder on the scroll, it was previously in the collection of Japan’s Museum of Fujii Yurinkan, where experts had dated it to the Qing dynasty. After the scroll was purchased and returned to China in 2002, it was referred to, as in this news story on its appearance at an auction by Poly Auction, as the “Mongolian Landscape Map,” using the name apparently added to the back of the map by “Shang You Tang” (尚友堂), a Beijing bookshop, sometime at the end of the Qing dynasty or the beginning of the Republican period.
Professor Lin Meicun of Peking University began researching the “Mongolian Landscape Map” in 2004, and subsequently argued that it dated instead to the middle of the 16th century. In 2013, Lin gave a talk at Cambridge, the Facebook announcement offering this description:

This lecture introduces a 16th century Ming dynasty map which covers the Silk Road regions in the Mongolia Empire. Recently discovered in Japan, the Mongolian Landscape Map (蒙古山水地璺) is a hand scroll in ink and color on silk, 0.59 meters wide and 31.2 meters long.

Professor Lin has insisted the scroll was used by the Jiajing Emperor during the Ming dynasty, but the exact nature and origins of the work remain disputed.
In an article posted yesterday to the Caijing website, columnist Yang Lang (杨浪) said it was reasonable “from an academic standpoint” to question the naming of the scroll and its age and provenance. The reference to the “Silk Road” in the name given during the CCTV gala, which has been used by state media for a number of years, is clearly problematic, said Yang, given the origins of the term in the 19th century. Nor is there any indication that the name on the scroll itself, “Mongolian Landscape Map,” offered more than a century ago by the Beijing bookshop, is any more authentic. Yang also noted intriguing comments from another expert writing online, who said that the “map” seemed to resemble in every detail — including its length — a scroll listed in a record of imperial palace treasures from the Qing dynasty.

A google search entry for an article at The Paper quoted an expert as saying the so-called “Landscape Map of the Silk Road” is not, in his view, from the middle of the Ming dynasty.
Earlier today, The Paper ran an interview in which Nie Chongzheng (聂崇正), an expert in ancient drawings at the Palace Museum, directly voiced his doubts about the scroll. Nie, who claimed to have studied the scroll personally, said he believed that the work was not, as characterized during the CCTV gala, a scroll painting from the middle of the Ming dynasty. “My feeling,” he said, “is that this is a painting work from the early Qing.”
The interview with Nie — which bore the headline, “Ming Painting or Not? Behind the Renaming of the ‘Mongolian Landscape Map’ as the ‘Landscape Map of the Silk Road'” — is now, quite tellingly, missing from the website of The Paper. It can still be viewed at Sina.com, however.
Dating the so-called “Landscape Map of the Silk Road” to the early Qing dynasty puts it back anywhere from 100 to 200 years later than claimed in the CCTV gala segment.
Why should that matter at all?
We understand why if we look at the state propaganda surrounding the scroll. Here, for example, is a piece run by China Daily, published by the State Council Information Office, nearly five years ago, just months before the unveiling of the Belt and Road Initiative:

Researchers have discovered that a document long thought to be a landscape painting from the Qing Dynasty, is in fact one of China’s earliest world maps from the Ming Dynasty. . . . Matteo Ricci, the Italian missionary who arguably published the first Chinese-language world map during his long stay in China, was believed to be the source of Chinese people’s knowledge of world geography. But now a newly appraised Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) world map proves that the Chinese’s exploration of world geography had started long before his arrival in 1583.

In dating this hand scroll back to the reign of the Ming dynasty Jiajing Emperor (1522-1566 A.D.), in other words, official China is in a race against history. It must get its mapmakers far enough back into the 16th century to pre-date the arrival of Matteo Ricci. The date to beat: 1583.
1566 certainly does the trick. But then, isn’t that almost too good to be true?

Mobilizing for the "China Solution"

Written by David Bandurski on 13 February 2018. Posted in Headlines and Hashtags.

China’s comeback story is playing on repeat these days. According to this feel-good narrative, the country has returned to the center of the world stage after weathering two centuries of misfortune. And now, As Xi Jinping told fellow leaders last month, China faces an historic opportunity to contribute to the world (为世界作贡献). The model that empowered China’s restoration, newly encompassed by the grandiose notion of “Xi Jinping Thought,” “has the potential to correct and transform the existing world order.”
The underlying idea here is that China’s unique system of leadership under the Chinese Communist Party has been tested, validated and even vindicated by the country’s rapid development and newfound prosperity, and that this “model” — this “China Solution” (中国方案) — constitutes “an important consensus of global development.” The not-at-all-subtle implication is that it offers an alternative to the Western democratic governance model.
But is it possible that China is vastly overplaying its hand? Is it possible that its confidence (particularly in the face of American retreat) is overheating into degenerative hubris?
In fact, the vehemence with which China is now declaring its glorious return is itself a sobering reminder of the basic character of its “model.” China’s Leninist political system has a tendency in its DNA to melt the finer points of policy down in a white heat of enthusiasm. For evidence, we could turn to the most obvious examples of the pre-reform era, including the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. But even after four decades of reform, the politics of the Chinese Communist Party remain fundamentally unchanged — and the growing cult surrounding Xi Jinping, recently christened “leader of the people,” is an illustration of its atavistic tendencies.

Sun Liping’s post on movement-style governance now calls up a message that reads: “This content cannot be viewed due to violations.”
Over the weekend, Sun Liping (孙立平), a professor at Tsinghua University, posted an article on his public WeChat account, “Social Observations” (孙立平社会观察), in which he discussed one of the most fundamental aspects of China’s form of governance — the “movement method.” This is essentially about the power to mobilize and direct all sectors of society toward a concrete policy objective, even if it means (and it always does) casting procedure aside.
In China, the “movement method,” which, as Sun notes, marks a form of governance distinct from that of systems based on rule of law, can be seen in everything from the eviction of migrants in Beijing back in November, to the recent declaration of a “sweep the black” campaign against organized crime, to the official response to an isolated knife attack in a Beijing shopping mall last week. It can be seen in the elevation of Xi Jinping, and in the trumpeting of his flagship slogan — “Xi Jinping Thought of Socialism With Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.” It can be seen in the rollout of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). And it can be seen in China’s declaration of a “new era” for the rest of the world.
If we seek to understand the true distinguishing characteristics of China’s “model,” this movement-style governance is an excellent candidate for the list. The information control so crucial to this style of governance — the narrative, after all, must be directed — is another important candidate. And right on cue, we find today that Sun Liping’s article has been removed from WeChat. No doubt it hit too close to home.

Movement, Movement, Movement
By Sun Liping (孙立平)
Movements are an operational form of governance of life and society used routinely within certain systems.
If we wish to understand how the movement method operates, we can first look at its opposite side. Generally speaking, in doing a certain thing, there are two basic methods of approach. The first is to act according to rules and procedure, proceeding step by step. The other is to employ the movement method, proceeding with great fanfare. In the former case, procedures, systems and rule of law are very important. In the latter case, power, mobilization and force are the most important factors.
There are also grades within the movement method. In his early dissertation, the American political scientist Thomas Bernstein (伯恩斯坦) divided movements into two types. The topic of his research was the process of forming cooperatives in China and the USSR. He argued that the social mobilization used in the process of the Soviet Union’s collectivization drive could be called “command mobilization.” In the Soviet case, the enactment of rural collectivization relied on urban work team implementing forced measures in the countryside. Any rural peasants who resisted efforts the formation of communes were forcibly suppressed by the dictatorship. And so, the revolution in the Soviet Union was achieved through a process of urban uprising, and had more to do with a mass bass that was not deeply rooted in the countryside.
The process of collectivization in China was different. The movement method employed in the process of Chinese rural collectivization can be labelled “participatory mobilization” (参与式动员). In the process of Chinese rural collectivization, while work teams were also dispatched widely, their primary role was not to force measures upon the peasants but to carry out propaganda and persuasion so that they came to recognize that the present situation with regard to land holdings and operation was unreasonable and not in their long-term interests — that individual farmers would see brighter prospects for the future only by taking the road of socialist collectivization. Through this whole process happened along with “visits to the poor” (访贫问苦) and “appeals to present prosperity” (忆苦思甜). The goal was to vest the peasantry with ideas of class consciousness, to elevate their political understanding. The result was to have peasants voluntarily opt in to the rural collectivization movement.
This could also be seen at the time through the method of class struggle. In the USSR, major purges, including of counter-revolutionaries, were carried out by organs of dictatorship). But in China at the time, class struggle emphasized the participation of the masses, and it was carried out through a method of mass struggle (群众斗争). According to Mao’s ideas, the goal of this was to educate the masses and to elevate their consciousness. Of course, it also owed to the relative weakness of administrative organs.
Regardless of which method a movement takes, all share a number of common characteristics. First, they have revolutionary inertia (革命的惯性), because movements are all in fact forms of revolution; second, their goal is to achieve a broad reordering of society, and this goal cannot without great difficulty be achieved through conventional means; fourth, [movements happen because] conventional means are not adequate, have insufficient capacity, prove generally ineffective, or are so riddled with problems that they cannot be reversed.
Not all societies have the capacity for social mobilization or for the creation of movements. For the movement method to be possible, the first requirement is a certain kind of system. In this system, there must be a center (中枢) [or central administration] that is capable of mobilizing the populace, or that can efficiently direct the system of administration, or that can achieve both simultaneously. At the same time, the entire society must have a high degree of integration, or [a high degree of] linkage (联动性), so that in the process of social mobilization the whole of society can be spurred into action — and the condition necessary for action is entails all different sorts of organization, or administrative methods of organization, or some other form of organization.
The combination of the above-mentioned institutional factors amounts to a nationwide system (举国体制), [or “whole-nation system”], so that whatever task is concerned the mobilization happens on a national scale, and the entire population is mobilized. Thereupon, a single word reverberates (一声令下), and the entire society acts together. But in this process, expert division of labor is smashed, and every department and unit has its own targets and quotas.
For example, a number of years ago when many locales [throughout China] were promoting investment, offices including [chapters of] the Chinese Communist Youth League, the All-China Women’s Federation and the Department of Family Planning all had investment promotion targets, and if those targets were not met then the leaders responsible for those offices would be removed. Land reclamation and demolition is also achieved through this process of mobilization of [responsible] units (单位动员) — and even primary and middle schools employ mobilization, making primary and middle school students return home to engage their parent in ideological work. Some places even have rules about penalization by association (连坐的惩罚办法) [for example with offending parents or relatives, in order to force compliance with overall objectives]. When social tensions arise as a result of demolition and land requisition, the task of stability preservation (维稳) falls to a number of different departments. I have a friend who labors free of charge and without real authority for the China Association for Science and Technology, and even he has been issued quotas for house visitations to offer sympathy and comfort [in complaint cases]. During these visits, he must offer a bit of money as a means of placation, or if there is no money must draw upon his meager research funds.
The result of this is the chaos of social functions throughout the society. In the midst of a movement, various offices and departments have no choice but to set aside the [normal] functions of their office and to engage in matters outside their own familiarity and expertise. In order to complete these tasks, and in order that the boss isn’t punished, these offices and departments must do whatever they can, by means fair or foul.
Then we can observe the various stages in the exercise of a movement. If the movement is to be successful, these various stages are essential. Creating an atmosphere for success relies on creating the atmosphere first through a kind of environmental pressure, whether that means pressure over political correctness or pressure on moral grounds. The concentration and the surge, the mobilization of every possible resource to be mobilized, is half the battle. You institute harsh punishments and strict evaluation. Under these circumstances, magnifications and distortions are perhaps utterly unavoidable. An at-all-costs and through-all-methods ethos is something common to such movements.
The result is that the negative effects quickly rise to the surface. One chop of the cleaver and a huge grunt, repeated wave after wave, and when the task is done you’re left with a single chicken feather. Sometimes, movement-style governance devolves into a competition between officials. You’re fierce, so I must be fiercer than you. You’re extreme, so I must be even more extreme. You did it in three days, so I must do it in one. Where did the Great Leap Forward come from? Aside from the fantastical nature of the goals themselves, one very important reason was the wave-upon-wave logic (加码的逻辑).
Periodic movements and routine inertia (常规性的惰性) often go hand in hand. The necessity of movement-style governance methods is directly related to general negligence, and directly related to the breakdown of regular procedures and rules that occurs in the midst of movements. Movements very often become a race to destroy the rules, and the result is that rule of law is destroyed. What of those original agreements? What of those contracts? What of those approvals that relevant departments previously signed off on? They mean nothing now. “Sell coal and we’ll arrest you, emit smoke and we’ll demolish your home” (卖煤就抓人，冒烟就拆房). In a banner such as this one [posted to deter air pollution], can you see even the shadow of rule of law? And when movements become a commonly used form of governance, they can very easily encourage an opportunistic mentality among officials to the point of making a complete mess of things. The good cadre becomes the one who stands out in the midst of the movement, and they are showered with favor and possibly promotion.
Just as I was writing this essay, I saw two bits of news. This first said that after [leaders at] the top deployed their “sweeping black” campaign, certain provinces ordered that prosecutor’s offices at every level throughout the province must handle at least one case this year against organized crime (涉黑案件). The second said that there had been a knife attack at the Joy City Mall in Beijing, and that the City of Beijing had deployed 200,000 personnel to carry out patrols through the night. Moreover, official news sources said that beginning with the next day, starting the very next day, there would be deployed in Beijing a 700,000-strong security patrol force consisting largely of volunteers. Consider that number for a moment. Beijing’s total population is estimated at 20 million, and according to a perhaps somewhat exaggerated figure about 10 million people will be leaving Beijing during the Chinese New Year. How many people do you think will be left in Beijing?
This calls to mind a metaphor that emerged during the stock market crisis of 2015. Imagine that someone who fears you and is by nature a bit hesitant is serving as your driver. You tell them how they should drive. You tell them to go just a bit faster, or that they should slow down. OK, so you want to go a bit faster? Well, let’s just push the accelerator to the floor. But all at once this is too fast for you, so you ask to slow down — we don’t want an accident after all. OK, so you’re scared, right? You want to slow down? Their foot goes off the accelerator and slams hard on the brakes.
This, it must be said, is how it normally works with the movement-style approach. And herein we can glimpse some of the most basic secrets about how the movement-style model of governance (运动式治理) works.

Author: David Bandurski

Tech Shame in the "New Era"

Sunset for China's "Sunshine Boy"

Guerrilla Ideology

When Reform Means Tighter Controls

Xi Jinping, Constitutional Reformer

Will China's President Be Informed?

Li Datong's Open Letter

Goodbye Republic

China's Race Against History

Mobilizing for the "China Solution"

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