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).

Journalism Denied: How China Views the News

In a report released this week, the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of China (FCCC) released the results of its annual survey on conditions facing foreign journalists working in the country. The report, “Access Denied,” showed that 40 percent of the 117 respondents — from among a membership pool of 218 foreign correspondents — reported a deterioration of conditions during the previous year. Correspondents reported continuing, and in some cases worsening, harassment and intimidation by local authorities and state security, and 15 percent of respondents said they had faced difficulties in renewing their journalism visas.
In a statement accompanying the report, the FCCC said that the survey provided “strong evidence to suggest that, from an already very low baseline, reporting conditions are getting worse.”
Asked about the FCCC survey during a regular press conference on January 30, Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Hua Chunying was dismissive, saying that although she has “yet to see this so-called report,” she found the “accusations in this report very unreasonable.”
Hua then staged a survey of her own:

I would like to ask all of you some questions. How do you like your working environment in China? Has the Information Department of the Foreign Ministry, as the competent department in charge of foreign media organizations and journalists stationed in China, provided you with all necessary convenience and assistance for your coverage? If any of you believes that the FCCC has spoken your mind, or you find yourself approving the contents of this report, you may raise your hand and let me know. (No hand raised)
No one.
Then, you can tell the FCCC that foreign journalists present here today do not agree with its report’s conclusion, so it has in no way reflected the genuine opinion of almost 600 foreign journalists stationed in China. We will continue with our efforts to assist and facilitate foreign journalists’ report and coverage in China, as we always do. If you encounter any problem and difficulty in your work, feel free to contact us anytime.

Some asked on social media outside China why no foreign correspondents present had raised their hands. I think it’s important to point out that this was a formal press conference, where correspondents should be expected to raise their hands for questions, not for the purposes of pop opinion polls conducted by government representatives. In that sense, Hua’s ploy was irregular and improper.


In such a situation, it would be perfectly reasonable for foreign correspondents present to interpret Hua’s words not as an invitation for dialogue and mediation, but as a dismissal of the seriousness of the issues addressed in the FCCC report, and even as an act of further intimidation.
It goes without saying that the Chinese Communist Party has long had a tense and often combative relationship with the foreign press, and particularly with media from Western countries, which it habitually accuses of institutionalized bias. Chinese scholars and government officials have written reams about the predominance of “negative” news coverage about China in newspapers like the New York Times — and such research, usually leading to foregone confirmations of bias, are de rigueur in communication studies circles in China.
In the eyes of many Chinese, the Western media have been thoroughly discredited by their “negative” reporting on China. Perceptions are hardly helped by the fact that most Chinese cannot regularly access foreign media coverage, even if language is not an issue, and by the fact that China’s government regularly attacks foreign media coverage as false or overblown. Nuance is virtually impossible to come by. In a piece last month, an editor at China-US Focus, a research website linked to the China-United States Exchange Foundation launched by former Hong Kong chief executive Tung Chee Hwa, closed a discussion of supposed Western media bias by arguing that while negative coverage is inevitable if media are to fulfill their watchdog role, Chinese people “deserve to be portrayed not as imperial subjects, but as people with autonomy and initiative.”
In light of the FCCC report, and in the midst of ongoing frictions over fairness in reporting, it is crucial to remember that the Chinese Communist Party in fact rejects, in its official position on the media, the entire basis on which we might talk about things like fact, fairness, transparency or objectivity. For the Party, there is in fact no debate about what purpose the media service, or how. As Xi Jinping said back in 2016, the media must all be “surnamed Party,” which is to say that they must love, protect and serve the interests of the Party.
In the articulation of policy, there is the Party’s journalism and nothing else. Nothing, in any case, that can be admitted or accepted.
To understand once again — to remind ourselves — where the Party stands on this issue, we can turn to a very recent piece in the Party’s official Qiushi journal. In speaking the Party’s views, I believe the article will speak for itself.
 

Clearly Seeing the Base of the Western Concept of Journalism (看清西方新闻观的本质)
Qiushi 
January 27, 2018
By Wen Hua (闻华)
Concepts of journalism are the soul of news and public opinion work. To do a proper job of the Party’s news and public opinion work, we must take the Marxist View of Journalism (马克思主义新闻观) as our “fixed point” (定盘星), clearly recognizing and consciously resisting Western concepts of journalism, leading the masses of news and public opinion workers in becoming transmitters promoting the Party’s policies, recorders of the conditions of the times, promoters of social progress, and defenders of fairness and justice.
News and Public Opinion Are Manifestly Ideological in Nature
News and public opinion are important [forms of] ideology, and the business of journalism belongs to the superstructure [of governance]. News activities in any society are necessarily guided and limited by the political ideas that dominate in that society and by the political system, and there is no such thing as absolute freedom.
Any news report is subject to guidance, and what is reported, what is not reported, how something is reported, all of these expose positions, viewpoints and attitudes. Through reports on domestic and international events, journalism directly, fully and comprehensively reflects the complexities of changing social life. Objective facts do not have value traits, but journalism, in reporting the facts, must entail an assessment of those facts, and reflect differences in values. News reports all reveal the values and views of the reporter, whether through the gathering of information and its selection, or through commentary, headlines, photographs, layouts and even choice of fonts and font sizes, accompanying content and other means — so that as the audience receives the facts, they receive at the same time the ideas and viewpoints of the reporter.
Therefore, journalism is not just a reflection of an objective society, but rather is a conscious reflection of social life through a process of selection, extraction and processing of objective facts under the guidance of a definite ideological and value framework. Like other social sciences, such as politics, law, religion, the arts and philosophy, is an important form of social ideology (社会意识形态). Journalism, through its unique character of “using the facts to speak” (用事实说话), is always a kind of “invisible opinion” (无形的意见), having an imperceptible influence on its audience that cannot be supplanted by other forms of ideology. Before the annihilation of class (在阶级消灭之前), the ideologies articulated on a social and economic basis are all vested with class nature, and journalism is no different.
The Marxist View of Journalism openly admits the ideological nature of news and public opinion, and it emphasizes especially the Party nature of journalism, seeing publications as weapons of struggle (战斗武器) for the worker classes, and seeing the occupation of journalism (新闻事业) as part of the work of the Party, emphasizing the use of the news and public opinion to win over public sentiment, boost morale and create cohesiveness. Prioritizing the Party’s news and public opinion work is a fine tradition of our Party, and it is a magic weapon leading us constantly to victory. Just as General Secretary Xi Jinping has emphasized, in the beacon-fire days of the revolution, through the years of the building of the nation, and through the surging times of reform, the Party’s news and public opinion work has been a powerful force in “rousing the multitudes of workers and peasants.”
In clear contrast to this, the Western capitalist concept of journalism denies the ideological nature of news and public opinion. But is this really true? Quite to the contrary, Western countries are actually very clear about the ideological nature of news and public opinion, and they are old hands at carrying out ideological infiltration. It’s not difficult to understand, then, why the most important hand for anti-China forces in westernizing and dividing China is ideological infiltration, confusing people’s ideas and undermining the common foundation on which the Party and the people unite in their struggle. This is the fiercest hand, and the most deceptive. From the dramatic changes in the Soviet Union to the instigated and schemed “color revolutions,” the manufacture of democratic calamities, thence to the constant smearing, defaming and demonizing of China, sparing no pains in attacking the leadership system of the Chinese Communist Party and our country’s socialist system, the Western media have always been the daring vanguard of ideological infiltration. Can this not cause us alarm? The undermining of a country, of a political regime, always begins in the ideological realm. Political unrest and regime change may happen overnight, but the transformation of ideas is a long process. If ideological defenses are broken, other defenses are difficult to hold.
Are the Western Media Truly Free and Neutral?
Western capitalism does its utmost to conceal the class nature, Party nature and orientation of journalism. It does its utmost to praise “objective reporting,” “political neutrality” and other such journalism values. It does its utmost to propagate the idea that the media are a “fourth estate,” the “uncrowned kings.” Well then, are the Western media truly as free and neutral as they proclaim themselves to be?
The Western media are controlled by capital, and their freedom is false. The Western news system is a so-called independent media system. Independent media refer to media owned by individuals, and here we can see the most vital aspect of the Western capitalist news system. Operating media requires spending money, and only with money can you operate media. Moreover, operating large media is something only big capitalists and big financial groups can do. America’s Wall Street Journal and Fox Broadcasting Group, Britain’s Times newspaper and other media belong to Murdoch’s News Corporation; America’s Sulzberger family controls the New York Times Company’s New York Times newspaper and the International Herald Tribune, while the Graham family has long held the Washington Post, and the Los Angeles Times was long held by the Chandler family; Britain’s Thompson family holds Reuters, one of the world’s four largest news agencies, while Britain’s Financial Times, the Economist magazine and Pearson Television Group, holder of Europe’s largest television distribution network, are all under the flag of the Pearson family. Britain’s Guardian newspaper has always been held by the Scott family; American’s NBC network was purchased by General Electric, the latter being controlled by Morgan Stanley, etc. Not only does it require money to operate media, but so-called “free reporting” is also inseparable from the support of money. Without money, news media can’t possible send journalists all over the world, and they cannot gather news and information welcomed by the market, so they can only purchase the news products provided by these big players, becoming their megaphones and amplifiers.
Clearly, the true holders of the independent media are not the ordinary people who comprise the 99% of Western society, but the major families, big enterprises and huge financial groups, the most powerful [forces] in Western society, which have been called the 1%. Capitalists, by investing in order to operate media, directly control media ownership, through the operation of news agencies they control media content, and through advertising they control the economic lifeline of the media. Media are ultimately the mouthpieces of capitalists and large financial groups, the spokespersons of capital. Lenin said it well: “In societies where the power of money is the foundation,” “it is impossible to have actual or true ‘freedom.'” Independent media can be free of the government, but cannot possibly be independent of capital; they can “freely” question politicians, criticize political parties, criticize the government, but they will not fundamentally question, criticize or oppose the capitalist bosses or the capitalist system. Who a media belongs to may change, but ten thousand changes don’t alter the fundamental fact that capital is absolutely in control.
Therefore, Western media are only tools by which various interest groups contest for power and interest, and what they reflect are the inclinations and positions of the interest groups they belong to — they cannot possibly be neutral. Independent media may “mildly criticize in order to help out” (小骂大帮忙), but as soon as it involves a topic touching on the basis of the capitalist system, reports and commentaries will tread lightly and turn the conversation to other issues. This is why in recent years the global financial crisis created by the avarice and excess of the big shots of Wall Street was never exposed or warned of in America, where we are told that “oversight is everywhere,” and spread its contagion across the world. This is why when the “Occupy Wall Street” movement directed blame on the deep-seated corruption of the capitalist system, the American mainstream media still held that this “had no news value” and turned a blind eye and a deaf ear, scarcely dealing with it at all. The “Occupy Wall Street” movement was a movement of the 99% against the 1%. The 1% the Occupy movement opposed are the very same monopoly capitalist enterprises that control the so-called independent media, and the media are their mouthpieces and tools — so how could they possibly do deep and sustained reporting [on Occupy]?
Quite the opposite situation happens if street protests or even violent terrorist actions happen in other places, especially those places with ideologies that differ from that of the West. Then the Western media will describe these as movements of “opposition” for “democracy,” “freedom” and “human rights” — sparing no space and wantonly adding color. In their reporting on the March 14 riots in Lhasa [in 2008], some Western media threw objectivity and truth to the back of their minds and entirely stood with the “government of Tibet in exile,” their reports full of lies and prejudice. In the same way, for the July 5 Xinjiang incident, which was clearly an orchestrated smash and burn operation marked by violence, some Western media confused black and white, twisting the truth and calling it a “peaceful demonstration” and “peaceful resistance,” even when they hadn’t reported on the ground or didn’t have sufficient evidence in hand. This is their so-called objectivity and neutrality.
The facts show that that the “neutrality” praised by the Western concept of journalism, and its trumpeting of an abstract and absolute “freedom of speech,” is only a way for capital to deceive the masses in order to achieve their commercial and political goals. It is a sham.
Adhering Throughout to the Marxist View of Journalism
The Party’s news and public opinion work is work of core importance. General Secretary Xi Jinping has emphasized many times: “Properly doing news and public opinion work concerns our banner and our road, concerns the implementation of the Party’s theories, line and policies, concerns the smooth advancement of the various projects of the Party and the government, concerns the cohesion and united spirit of the people through the Party and the country, concerns the fate of the Party and the country.” It is from this height that we must come to recognize the Party’s news and public opinion work, fully adhering to the Marxist View of Journalism, and conscientiously resisting Western concepts of journalism.
We must firmly adhere to the principle of Party nature. The principle of Party nature is the fundamental principle of the Party’s news and public opinion work. Ideas are imperceptible, but the media that transmit and carry on ideas and positions are concrete. The media operated by the Party and the government are propaganda positions of the Party and government. They must be surnamed Party, must be grasped within the hands of the Party, and must become the mouthpieces of the Party and the people. [Media] must enhance their consciousness of falling in line (看齐意识), conscientiously following the Party’s central leadership, and conscientiously following the theories, lines and policies of the Party.
 

Rooting out gangs, and talk of gangs

On January 25, 2018, China’s Procurator-General, Cao Jianming, the country’s top prosecutor, announced a nationwide campaign against organized crime, and against those within the Party and government who cooperate with crime syndicates.
The campaign was spelled out in an official notice from the Central Office of the Chinese Communist Party and the State Council called “Concerning the Carrying Out of a Special Action to Sweep Away Black and Eliminate Evil” (关于开展扫黑除恶专项行动的通知). The term “black and evil forces” (黑恶势力) refers in Chinese to organizations, such as crime syndicates and gangs, engaged in criminal activity. In the wake of Cao’s announcement, commentators quickly noted that the phrasing of this latest campaign seemed calculated to avoid association with the “strike black” campaign undertaken in Chongqing in 2010 by Bo Xilai, a princeling who had been seen as a potential rival to Xi Jinping before his dramatic downfall in 2012. This latest campaign by Xi, which seems in some sense modeled on Bo’s 2010 campaign, has come with official language that speaks not of “striking” but instead of “sweeping away black and eliminating evil,” saohei chu’e (扫黑除恶).
In his announcement, Cao said the campaign would be a “crushing tide” against organized and gang crime — but he seemed also to indicate that the campaign could broaden to “fight against acts of secession, infiltration, evil cults, and espionage to resolutely protect the state and political security.”
One key focus of the nationwide campaign seems to be corrupt grassroots-level officials — county, township and village — who cooperate with crime syndicates. In a piece over the weekend, the official Xinhua News Agency said the campaign targeted “organized crime and officials who hide criminal organizations.” Organized crime, said the Xinhua article, is “deeply interwoven with corruption,” and the campaign would deal with the “protective ‘umbrellas'” — meaning the Party and government officials — who sheltered gang activity.

A cartoon accompanying the deleted Weibo post by “Liu Yun PhD” shows a shovel rotting out a cluster of criminals, including a “village tyrant” and an “evil clan force,” huddling under an “umbrella of protection.”
Any serious campaign to deal with organized crime in China, and those who shelter it, would have to deal aggressively with widespread abuses at the village and township level. Criminal gangs and hired muscle are regularly involved, for example, in cases of demolition and land requisition. [See this recent Chinese report on a case in Guangdong province].
But try talking publicly on social media about village corruption and links to criminal gangs and you’ll probably find that you’ve stepped over an invisible red line.
On January 27, “Liu Yun PhD” (刘耘博士), a Weibo user from Hunan with more than 373,000 fans, made a post in relation to the new “sweep black” campaign that alleged corruption in the village of Luozhuang in Jiangsu province’s Donghai County.

[Why must the Central Party sweep black and remove evil? Look at these “village tyrants” and you’ll understand] (2018-01-26 Study Group) “Village tyrants” run amok in the Chinese countryside, evil forces that bully ordinary people and corrode political power at the grassroots level. And Gao Maoyi (高茂义), the Party branch secretary of Luozhuang Village (罗庄村), Wenquan Township (温泉镇), Donghai County (东海县), Jiangsu province, is a classic “village tyrant.” Luozhuang Village is a provincially-designated impoverished village, with no collective enterprises and no other mining or other resources, but in this village . . . .
【中央为什么要扫黑除恶?看了这些“村霸”你就懂了】(2018-01-26 学习小组) “村霸”,是横行中国乡里、欺压百姓,侵蚀中国基层政权的恶势力,而江苏省东海县温泉镇罗庄村党支部书记高茂义就是一名典型的“村霸”。 罗庄村是一个省级贫困村,村子里既无集体企业也无其他矿产资源,但就是这样的村还…全文: http://m.weibo.cn/3197077575/4200897321931903 ​

A link to a full post, perhaps a news article, about Luozhuang Village is now deleted, calling up an error page claiming the page was blocked out of privacy concerns.


The Weibo post by “Liu Yun PhD” was deleted from the platform just over an hour after first being posted.

Declarations for Xi Jinping

Those who were staying current last week on the rumblings of the Chinese Communist Party’s flagship newspaper — and don’t we all? — would surely have noticed the editorial carried at the bottom of the front page on Monday, January 15. The headline of the piece began as usual with fist-clenching resolve: “Firmly Grasping a Historic Period of Opportunity with Great Prospects.”
The piece was attributed to “Xuan Yan” (宣言), which in Chinese means “declaration,” almost certainly a byline invented for the marshalling of important viewpoints from somewhere close to the top of the power pyramid. And here is how “Declaration” began:

On January 5, General Secretary Xi Jinping gave an important speech at the opening of a study session for the spirit of the 19th National Congress of the CCP, clearly pointing out that our nation now stands at a time of great prospects and historic opportunity. This was General Secretary Xi Jinping’s comprehensive survey of historical advances in the past, present and future, and it looked at the ebb and flow of the country, political parties and the national people, making major strategic assessments. [It] was an expression of how the nation and the national people have entered a new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and it revealed a far-sighted Chinese Communist Party that can see history clearly, and has the courage to make history.

The piece was replete with such triumphant language, imbued with a sense of glorious arrival. Victory is in sight, it said — not just for China but for socialism, whose 500-year history (The CCP likes to count from the publication of Thomas More’s Utopia in 1516) has just received from China “the most resplendent of chapters.”
But perhaps the most important passage comes toward the end of the article, which refers to the “core,” a status conferred on Xi Jinping back in the fall of 2016, and to “the leader,” or lingxiu (领袖), a word that hardly rings in English but in Chinese bears far more weight than a simple lingdao (领导), which can also be translated as “leader.”

Coming upon this great age, we have matchless pride and self-confidence; facing this precious historical opportunity, we have a great sense of responsibility. Let us give firm allegiance to the core (拥戴核心), standing loyally with the leader (紧跟领袖).

Back in the fall, several weeks ahead of the 19th Party Congress, there was some chatter about whether Xi Jinping might be elevated from “core” status to reach “leader” status. After a speech in which Fan Changlong (范长龙), the vice-chairman of China’s Central Military Commission, referred to Xi Jinping as “leader,” BBC Chinese ran a report with the headline: Will ‘Xi the Core’ Be Upgraded to ‘Xi the Leader’ at the 19th Congress?”
The 19th Congress marked an unmistakable elevation, with Xi Jinping being “crowned” with his new banner term, “Xi Jinping Thought of New Era Socialism With Chinese Characteristics” (习近平新时代中国特色社会主义) which was quickly shortened to “Xi Jinping Thought” — putting Xi more or less on a level with Mao Zedong. And in the wake of the congress, we saw various efforts at the local and provincial level to voice allegiance to Xi.

Qianxinan Daily refers to Xi Jinping as “Great Leader” in a caption in November 2017.
Qianxinan Daily (黔西南日报), the official Party newspaper of a small prefecture in Guizhou province, even took the extraordinary step last November of running Xi Jinping’s airbrushed official portrait — which played on front pages across the country — with a red caption that identified him as, “Great Leader Xi Jinping, General Secretary” (伟大领袖习近平总书记).
“Great leader” is just about the roundest praise possible for a Communist Party official in China, the only precedent being Chairman Mao himself. But the praise was also, it seems, too excessive. Some time afterward, the Qianxinan Daily front page was removed from digital archives, replaced instead with not just fake news but a fake newspaper.
The same edition of Qianxinan Daily eventually shows an entirely new layout and content.
The word lingxiu appearing as a designation for Xi Jinping in this prominent piece in the People’s Daily is significant because this is the first time this elevated title has been extended in the pages of the Party’s flagship paper. As we saw above, the strongest praise has come up to now from local jurisdictions scurrying to show their allegiance.

The significance of the shift was noted by the Global Times, in a piece bearing the headline: “Party Paper Swears Loyalty to Lingxiu Xi.

It is the first time for People’s Daily to refer to Xi as lingxiu. The CPC identified Xi, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, as the core of the Party in 2016.

And what does lingxiu signify? “The word lingxiu means more than just a leader,” Su Wei, a professor at Chongqing’s Party School told the Global Times. “It is often bestowed to a leader who enjoys the highest prestige, who is the most capable and who is widely recognized by the entire Party.”
China is at a glorious crossroads, master of a 500-year history of socialism that has culminated in a new model for the whole world. As the “Declaration” piece argued, “the shortcomings of capitalist-led political and economic systems are becoming clear, the global system of governance is undergoing deep change — and a new international order is emerging.”
Three guesses as to who is the leader — the lingxiu — of this new international order.

Unwelcome Comparisons

Austria’s new chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, made a visit to Germany this week, where he met with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, discussing issues such as refugee distribution in Europe.
On Twitter, Kurz said the meetings had been productive. “On the way back to # Vienna after good appointments in #Berlin,” he wrote. “Looking forward to working with our neighbor #Germany on bilateral concerns, but especially on European issues!”


But one Chinese reader of international affairs was struck not so much by the substance of the meetings as by how Mr. Kurz had apparently left Germany, based on the photograph accompanying the Tweet. Weibo user “Director Zhao Rui” (赵锐导演), wrote at 8:20PM:

【看又是别人家的高官】新上任的奥地利总理,结束了对德国的访问,坐着民航飞机回维也纳。 ​
[Looking at other’s high-level officials] The new chancellor of Austria, concluding his visit to Germany, takes a commercial flight back to Vienna.

The post, taken by censors as a clear attack on high-level Chinese leaders using more extravagant means of transportation, was removed from Weibo just over two hours later.
Some readers may recall the storm of interest and admiration online in China back in August 2011, when a photo circulated of the new U.S. ambassador to China, Gary Locke, carrying his own backpack and buying a coffee at Starbucks as he prepared to leave for China from Seattle.
“To most Chinese people, the scene was so unusual it almost defied belief,” Chen Weihua, an editor at the official English-language China Daily wrote at the time.

On Weibo, Deleting the Past

In China, even issues in the remote past can be seen as having an immense potential impact on the politics of the present. Therefore, discussion of such events as the Cultural Revolution and the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre are highly restricted in the media and online. We had a glimpse of this recently with the censorship controversy involving the blocking in China of certain peer-reviewed articles appearing in academic journals published by Cambridge University Press.
As documented by China Digital Times, most of the articles blocked from the Journal of Asian Studies had to do with either the Cultural Revolution or Tibet.
The high degree of sensitivity surrounding topics like the Cultural Revolution means that even today, a half century later, discussion of any kind is discouraged — even if it might seem to offer favorable views of how Chinese society and politics have developed since that time. And so it is that the following post, arguing that the Cultural Revolution could not be repeated in China today, was deleted from Weibo at around 8:30AM today, January 10, just an hour after it was posted.

Is it still possible for a Cultural Revolution to happen again in China? — Definitely not! The closed and ignorant social fabric required for the Cultural Revolution was long ago a thing of the past, and the post-80s, 90s, and naughts will definitely not become the Red Guards of the new century!

The post was in fact a response to an earlier post linking to a WeChat article (since deleted) arguing that China was in danger of repeating the excesses of the Cultural Revolution and criticizing trends like the 2014 online hit song “Dumpling Shop“, which sang Xi Jinping’s praises as a man of the people after he visited a local Beijing dumpling shop in December 2013.

Xi Gets Research Centers to Match His Thought

According to a report this week from China’s official Xinhua News Agency, the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party has approved the creation of 10 special research centers devoted to “Xi Jinping Thought,” the top leader’s brand new “banner term,” or core political ideas and legacy, introduced at the 19th Party Congress back in October.
Xi’s full banner phrase is the rather less catchy “Xi Jinping’s new era thought of socialism with Chinese characteristics” (习近平新时代中国特色社会主义思想). But in much state media coverage, including coverage announcing the new research centers, this banner has been shortened to “Xi Jinping Thought.”

Political cartoonist Rebel Pepper depicts Xi Jinping’s symbolic “crowning” by imagining the embalmed body of Mao Zedong resting in state reaching out of his crystal coffin to transfer the red crown of officialdom to Xi.
As CMP has noted previously, Xi Jinping’s “crowning” (or use of his name) in his banner term is a significant development, and the attachment of “thought” to his banner term indicates an even higher profile, arguably equal to that of Mao Zedong.
Xinhua reports that the research centers for Xi Jinping Thought will be located at the Central Party School, the Ministry of Education, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, the National Defense University, Beijing Municipality, Shanghai Municipality, Guangdong province, Peking University, Tsinghua University and Renmin University of China. The 10 centers, said the report, “all have robust research capacity and very strong research teams, and will certainly play an important role in researching, propagating and explicating Xi Jinping’s though of new era socialism with Chinese characteristics.”
I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say we just can’t wait.
In the wake of the 19th Party Congress, many universities have reportedly been angling for their own Xi Jinping Thought research centers, and this first group of 10 is almost certainly just the beginning. And of course, even those universities that do not yet have approved research centers are eagerly arranging for study sessions, conferences and propaganda events to study the “spirit” of the 19th Party Congress and display their loyalty to Xi. Yesterday’s edition of Guangming Daily, the official newspaper of the Central Propaganda Department, carried a report about such events at Shanxi University.
 
 

China's Cyber Struggle Rages On

At last month’s 19th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi Jinping demonstrated that he is at present the untouchable core of political power in China, like a great big spider sitting at the center of the Party’s vast web. He has but to pluck at his fibers and his message will slavishly reverberate.
In CCP parlance, that message is referred to as the “spirit.” The “spirit of Xi Jinping’s important speeches,” for example. Or, more recently, the “spirit of the 19th National Congress.” If we look at how the “spirit” is being delivered and studied and enforced at the local level in China, this can help us better understand Xi’s message.

Cyberspace officials in Sichuan province attend a lecture series on the “spirit of the 19th National Congress” on November 16.
It is worth noting that as the “spirit” has recently been conveyed in study meetings on information and cybersecurity in Sichuan and Chongqing, the hardline term “public opinion struggle,” or yulun douzheng (舆论斗争) has cropped up again. In an analysis in September 2013, following Xi Jinping’s August speech that year on ideology, CMP Director Qian Gang noted that this term, harking back to the Cultural Revolution, was “a dangerous sign.”
On November 16, a team from the Cyberspace Administration of China arrived in Sichuan province to host an “explanation lecture for the study and implementation of the spirit of the Party’s 19th Congress.” Think of it as a propaganda roadshow. One of the key speakers at the event, attended by journalists and press officials, was Ruan Zongze (阮宗泽), acting vice-president of the China Institute for International Studies, a research institution attached to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Ruan told his audience, according to a paraphrasal from the provincial government’s official news site, that “properly doing cyber work in the new era requires holding the position, the main battlefield and the front line in the online public opinion struggle.”
In keeping with what seems a very clear CCP obsession in Xi Jinping’s “new era,” the news article noted that “during the 160 minute explanation lecture, the applause was constant.”
The November 16, 2017, edition of the official Chongqing Daily runs an article under the headline “Firmly Grasping the Main Position in the Online Public Opinion Struggle” (at right).
The provincial meeting in Sichuan was preceded by an identical series of “explanation lectures” in Chongqing, held on November 14 and 15, in which Wu Zequn (吴泽群), the director of the Central Party School’s Research Center for the Theoretical System of Socialism With Chinese Characteristics (and, the article noted, a “PhD in philosophy”), said that “[the Party] must hold the main position in the online public opinion struggle.” The officials of the cyberspace administration and its local agencies, he said, are “the pioneers in protecting national political security.”
 

Xi's Cyber Control Star Faces Investigation

In a terse announcement posted to its website late today, China’s top anti-corruption watchdog confirmed that the country’s headline-grabbing former internet czar, Lu Wei (鲁炜), is now under investigation. Lu, who served as the first head of the powerful Cyberspace Administration of China directly under President Xi Jinping’s central working group on cybersecurity, was known from 2013 to his surprise exit in June 2016 as the architect of a bold and even aggressive strategy to reign in what the Chinese Communist Party saw as the destabilizing force of the internet. It was widely rumored that Lu personally directed the 2013 campaign against liberal-minded top influencers on China’s Weibo platform, the so-called “Big V’s.”
In what seemed to reveal a much more confident attitude within Xi Jinping’s administration toward the tactics of information control, Lu Wei made no apologies, even internationally, for restrictions on the internet. He once told a gathering at the World Economic Forum’s Summer Davos that the internet must have built-in safety mechanisms to allow the management of ideas. “The internet is like a car,” said Lu. “If it has no brakes, it doesn’t matter how fast the car is capable of traveling, once it gets on the highway you can imagine what the end result will be. And so, no matter how advanced, all cars must have brakes.”
Lu was also a key figure behind the crafting of China’s highly restrictive Cybersecurity Law.
The announcement of the corruption case against Lu Wei made no mention of the nature of his alleged offenses. It contained a single line announcing that he was “lately receiving organizational examination” (this being a more recent designation for anti-corruption investigations of a serious nature) and then detailing his resume.

Deputy Minister of the CCP’s Central Propaganda Department Lu Wei is suspected of serious disciplinary violations and is lately receiving organizational examination.
Lu Wei Resume
Lu Wei, Male, Han ethnicity, born January 1960, native of Chaohu (巢湖), Anhui Province, member of Chinese Communist Party. . . .

The announcement mentions Lu’s last position, held from June 2016, as simply “deputy minister of the CCP’s Central Propaganda Department.”
Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post reported that Lu was taken in last week by anti-corruption investigators, and that his secretary, personal driver and two other related officials of “medium ranking” were also taken in. Caixin Global reported that Lu Wei was last publicly seen during of Yan’an University on October 26.
So far, Lu Wei’s successor as cyber chief, Xu Lin (徐麟), has kept a much lower profile. In this June 2016 post, we looked into Xu and his history with Xi Jinping.

A bold headline on the official website of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection today (second to the right of the image) announces the investigation against Lu Wei.

Shoot 'Em Up, And Study Up

Speaking to propaganda officials and state media representatives back in February 2016, President Xi Jinping said that media must be “surnamed Party” — that is, they must “love the Party, serve the Party and protect the Party.” In the same address, he also made clear that the Chinese Communist Party would exercise control not just over news content, the traditional focus of controls, but also over advertising and entertainment. All of these, said Xi, must be surnamed Party.
Released recently by Netease, the online videogame Wildness Action, a shoot-’em-up adventure in which you take part in training for peacekeeping operations, is the latest example of just how far propaganda messages are being extended in the Xi Jinping era. As Quartz and others have reported, the game is festooned with red banners bearing propaganda slogans from the recent 19th National Congress of the CCP.


Chinese authorities have lately had violent online games like PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG) in their crosshairs, saying they are too violent and lacking in positive messages. This is why Netease — and there are no doubt others to follow — has infused its game with messaging more in line with that of the Party. Preparing for peacekeeping operations? A perfect alignment with China’s longstanding vision of itself as a savior of the developing world. The slogans and buzzwords of Xi Jinping? Fantastic — you can study up on the “spirit” of the 19th Congress as you shoot from the hip.
The slogan on the image at the top, posted by Quartz, reads: “Do not forget where you started, hold tight to your mission” (不忘初心 牢记使命). This is one of the key phrases introduced by Xi Jinping in recent months, conveying the idea that Party officials, and the country, must stick to the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics — the utmost aspect of which, naturally, is the rule of the Chinese Communist Party.
The survival of the regime is, well, no game.
 
 
 

Panda Paints Koala

In recent months, concerns have grown in Australia over potential Chinese Communist Party interference in the country’s domestic politics, and in other areas such as education. Most recently, Charles Hamilton, a professor at Australia’s Charles Sturt University, revealed that his book about Chinese interference had been dropped by its publisher, Sydney-based Allen & Unwin, because it feared “potential threats to the book and the company from possible action by Beijing.”
The above cartoon, by Melbourne-based artist Badiucao (巴丢草), quite jarringly captures the sense of Chinese interference by playing with the two countries’ cuddliest identity stand-ins — the panda and the koala.