Now Executive Director of the China Media Project, leading the project’s research and partnerships, David originally joined the project in Hong Kong in 2004. He is the author of Dragons in Diamond Village (Penguin), a book of reportage about urbanization and social activism in China, and co-editor of Investigative Journalism in China (HKU Press).
The following post by Rongjian2001 (荣剑2001), was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime before 10:50am today, 16 December 2015. The post asks tongue-in-cheek where Facebook is and what kind of book it is — the popular US-based service of course being blocked in China.
The post answers its own question with a reference to the town of Wuzhen in Zhejiang province, currently the site of China’s World Internet Conference. It shares a screenshot of a Weibo post by Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post (SCMP), which reports that guests at WIC can log on to Facebook and Twitter while in Wuzhen if they use special Wi-Fi accounts.
Rongjian2001 notes that China has the stated goal of fashioning itself as a global Internet power, or wangluo qiangguo (网络强国). The implication: Can it accomplish this if its closes itself off from the global Internet?
A translation of the post follows:
I used to have no idea where Facebook is and what kind of book it is. It turns out it’s in Wuzhen, China. China is going to build itself as an Internet superpower.
So far, there seems to be no English-language version of Xi Jinping’s speech to the World Internet Conference earlier today. To make matters more confusing, the WIC’s official website has promoted Xi’s “Message of Congratulations” from last year’s conference to the front page of the English-language side under “News.” So be careful NOT to confuse the two addresses.
There is a “Live Report” up (as of early afternoon) on the WIC website that seems to follow Xi’s address, as given in Chinese, quite closely. Some posts of versions of Xi Jinping’s speech on WeChat have apparently been blocked.
Basically, folks, the World Internet Conference this year is all about China’s attempt to remake global Internet governance, the international aspect of what Xinhua News Agency yesterday characterised as “Version 2.0” of China’s Internet governance. Look at the Chinese-language full-text version of Xi Jinping’s address today and there can be little mistaking this primary agenda.
I’m taking my cues from the online version available from Hong Kong’s Wen Wei Po, which is available here.
I have no time at the moment to get the entire thing up in English. But what I do have follows. And I’ll add to it as time permits.
Full Text of Xi Jinping’s Address to the World Internet Conference
Wen Wei Po / December 16, 2015
[NOTE: I pick up after the point where Xi Jinping welcomes a series of important guests, beginning with Pakistan’s president, Mamnoon Hussain.]
First, in solemn representation of the Chinese government and the people of China, and in a personal capacity as well, I wish you the fondest of welcomes to all of you guests to the 2nd World Internet Conference! And I offer the warmest congratulations for the opening of this conference!
I worked in Zhejiang province for many years in my past, and I came many times to Wuzhen, a place of which I am very fond. The second time Wuzhen underwent regeneration, I was here assisting them with planning, supporting them with the preservation of historic architecture and with the development of the tourism industry. Coming here again today, it feels intimate and familiar, but at the same time so fresh. It’s been so many years since I’ve been here, after all, and my eyes still open wide.
[Xi talks here about the impact of the Internet on Wuzhen, as a microcosm of the influence Internet development has had across China.]
[Xi addresses the historic role of the Internet, the steady progress of humankind from agricultural revolution to industrial revolution, and so on to the information revolution. The Internet has enriched all of our lives, put information at our fingertips, etcetera.]
[Xi introduces the five key development concepts emerging from the Fifth Plenum of the 18th Central Committee of the CCP: “innovation” (创新), “co-ordination” (协调), “sustainability” (绿色), “openness” (开放) and “win-win” (共享). He mentions the development of China as an “Internet power,” or wangluoqiangguo (网络强国), as an important strategy of the 13th Five-Year Plan.]
Guests and friends! In a world characterised increasingly by multi-polarity, globalisation, cultural diversity and social informationization (社会信息化), the Internet is an ever greater factor in driving forward the progress of human civilisation. At the same time, the uneven development of the Internet, the imperfect nature of the rules [governing its use], the unreasonable [situation with respect to] order [on the Internet], are all problems that are increasingly obvious. The information gaps between various countries and regions are being pulled closer together, and the current rules on governance of cyberspace cannot reflect the interests and wishes of the vast majority of countries; across the world, such things as [breaches of] personal data privacy, violations of intellectual property and online crime are happening all the time, and online surveillance, cyber attacks, online terrorism and other activities have become threats of a global nature. Facing these problems and challenges, the international community must, on a foundation of mutual respect and mutual trust, strengthen dialogue and cooperation, promoting a transformation of the global governance system of the Internet — working together to create a peaceful, secure, open and cooperative cyberspace, and to build a multilateral, democratic and transparent global Internet governance system (全球互联网治理体系).
Few non-Chinese can claim the odd distinction of having forged a favoured political catchphrase of the Chinese Communist Party. But British psychologist Richard Wiseman may have done just that, thanks to the 2012 publication of his self-help book Rip It Up, rendered in Chinese translation as Positive Energy.
Delivering the keynote speech to the Fifth China-UK Internet Roundtable in September 2013, China’s cyber-security czar, Lu Wei, doffed his hat to Richard Wiseman as he noted that “positive energy” had topped the list of popular new catchphrases for the year. “The phrase ‘positive energy,’” said Lu Wei, “has acquired extra levels of meaning in China today.”
Indeed it has.
The English-language Shenzhen Daily reports that “positive energy” was the most popular new catchphrase of 2012 in China.
And Lu Wei, the director of the powerful Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) — under the Xi Jinping led Central Leading Group for Cyberspace Affairs — has played a critical role in conferring these “extra levels” of meaning.
The first public use of positive energy as part of the Communist Party’s mainstream political discourse came one year ahead of Lu Wei’s roundtable address in London, when he served as minister of propaganda for the city of Beijing. At a discussion forum on September 3, 2012, called “There is a Spirit Called the Beijing Spirit,” Wang Danyan (王丹彦), deputy section head of the Propaganda Management
Division of what was then still SARFT (now merged with the General Administration of Press and Publications), voiced her approval of a TV drama called Beijing Youth (北京青年), saying dramas of its kind “transmit positive energy to society.” The need to spread positive energy as a matter of propaganda policy was a central theme of that forum, where Lu Wei, who would soon rise to a new and powerful post as head of the CAC, was the most senior official present.
Lu Wei’s London speech a year later was called “Liberty and Order In Cyberspace.” Quoting from World Wide Web founder Tim Berners-Lee (“This is for everyone”) and from George Bernard Shaw (who once said “the first condition of progress is the removal of censorship”), Lu cut straight from the privilege of liberty to the imperative of order:
The famous writer George Bernard Shaw once said: “Liberty means responsibility.” I think I can also say “Liberty means order.” The two are closely linked, as liberty is the aim of order and order is the safeguard of liberty. Liberty cannot exist without order. Where there is no order, there is no liberty. The more we seek liberty, the more we need order. The essence of order is exactly that it is “for everyone.”
When he says “order,” Lu Wei of course means control. And control is to be achieved through a campaign of “positive energy.”
The devilish genius of “positive energy” is the way it seems more spiritual than ideological, as though it isn’t about exercising control over the minds of the population so much as engaging in a national project of self-help. Translated overseas, the phrase becomes almost touchy-feely, a saccharine expression of everyone’s fondest hopes. Here is Lu Wei in London once again:
“Positive energy is meant to give people confidence and hope, encourage people to love their country, society and life, as well as to pursue nice things. Everything we do is ultimately for the sake of spreading positive energy. Positive energy knows no boundaries. If everyone were to spread positive energy on the Internet, the world would be a much better place.
Tomorrow, China will host its second World Internet Conference (WIC), actively promoting its vision of cyber-sovereignty as it dangles the fat carrot of its domestic Internet market before global tech firms. Lu Wei and Xi Jinping will no doubt speak again about the imperative of order and freedom, of the restraints needed to save us from ourselves.
Behind the feel-good vibe, of course, this is all about control. And “positive energy” is core to the strategy of control. The following passage from a recent article in Guangming Daily, published by the Central Propaganda Department, allows us to see just how ideological this concept actually is, marking the intensity of Xi Jinping’s struggle against all dissident voices on the Internet:
[We must] focus on our grasp of the “online army” programme. This means that with the demand of “consolidating and expanding the [pro-Party] red zone (红色地带), transforming the [unaligned] grey band into red band territory, and courageously engaging in struggle within the black band (黑色地带)” , [we must] build a powerful “online army” that we can utilise, winning the online battle for public opinion . . .
The characterisation of unwelcome viewpoints in the online sphere as “the black band” is chillingly reminiscent of ideological struggles in the Chinese Communist Party’s past.
How will the Party win this “battle for public opinion”? Among other tactics, such as the expansion of “online news commentary groups’ (网评专家组), achieving these goals, says the Guangming Daily, would necessitate “developing and strengthening teams of [pro-Party] Internet commentators (网评员) online . . . and creating a new matrix of “online armies” (网军) that could concentrate positive energy online.”
As we’ve been saying for some time now, “positive energy” is a Party catchphrase to watch — not only for its mobilisation in the arena of press and Internet control, but also for the way it strikes a different tone among CCP terminologies.
For more on this catchphrase we direct you to a recent piece by former China Media Project fellow Zhang Ming (张鸣), a professor at Renmin University of China. In tracing the origins of the super-popularity of “positive energy,” Zhang goes back to the 2012 film Beijing Blues, which is possibly indebted to Wiseman’s book.
If one can be convicted by several Weibo posts, then every Weibo user is guilty, and everyone should be imprisoned. During the Cultural Revolution, people were killed because they wrote complaints on the wall. This can count as the first instance of “guilt by Weibo.” So, let’s wait for the trial result and then we can conclude whether or not this country has made any progress in terms of civilisation since the Cultural Revolution.
Who came up with the phrase “positive energy” I don’t know. But the phrase getting hot goes back to a Zhang Lixian film called Beijing Blues, in which his character says “positive energy” over and over again — and that’s how its popularity took off. Of course, anyone who knows the rudiments of physics knows that energy doesn’t give a hoot about positive or negative, that it’s all about where energy goes or is induced. But when people in the arts use such a term it has a kind of infectious simplicity about it, and it goes right to the heart.
However, this term having now become popular, we find that the Party and government, and those closely aligned with them, are especially fond of using this term too. they open their mouths or shut them, and it’s all about positive energy.
Originally, the notion of positive energy was directed in our minds toward light, sunshine, love and decency. So a play, or a novel, so long as it made one feel a sort of warmth, we could say it was full of positive energy. Now, however, as use of the term has become habitual, we find its meaning has changed its flavour.
So-called positive energy now denotes patriotism, love for the government, love for the Party. It even bears along with this the sense of opposing Japan, opposing America and opposing the West. Articles, or posts on Weibo, no matter what the content, even if they are nothing more than abusive name-calling, are considered positive energy as long as they have this flavour. Some people make the most outlandish claims online, saying that the United States has no forced demolition because it massacred all of the native Americans, that the French president’s dining budget runs to 96 million euros, that US President Barack Obama and his family spend four million dollars each time they dine together, or that Obama’s mobile costs 27 million dollars. But because all of these statements suit the demand that we love the Party, the government and the country, and that we oppose Japan, America and the West, they all pass the positive energy test.
Positive energy having evolved to this point, we are now in a state of confusion as to what exactly is positive and what is wicked. Even if it were true that the American and French presidents were unpardonably evil, that they were the chieftains of imperialism, we can’t just throw mud indiscriminately, can we? If the definition of political correctness makes allowances for wild rumourmongering, if the ends justify the means anda all is fair however foul, how do we think the people of the world will view this country of ours?
The authorities, perhaps, have seen the situation prevailing online and feel that their own image is too lamentable, that there is too much praise for South Korea, Japan, America and the West. They imagine articles leaning in a different direction, that can be written in such a way as to suit the online style and earn approving eyes, and that they might, if energetically promoted, bring some balance or even turn the tide of public opinion in their favour. For the authorities, this is a kind of Operation Rescue, and there is no time to consider its implications more carefully.
But this term, “positive energy,” has been utterly befouled. It has become a political correctness utterly devoid of principle. And as a direct consequence people not only hold the concept itself in low regard, but beyond this look down on the authorities themselves, who have seen fit to elevate [online propagandists] like Zhou Xiaoping (周小平) so solemnly. The inference people draw from this is that the authorities have a weak capacity, insofar as they are incapable of finding writers of better quality.
Actually, in most places in the world, when people talk about positive energy they mean pretty much the same thing — those things that warm our hearts like a ray of sunshine. In any country in the world, regardless of its political system, regardless of the complexion of its people, love is something invariable. Without love, there is no positive energy. To politicise positive energy, and to uphold as champions of positive energy a group of hacks who will say anything in the pursuit of political correctness — this might deceive fools who lack any basic common sense, but the losses ultimately outweigh the gains.
In the end, public opinion cannot be swayed by the lowliest of fools. They are credulous and fickle. And never in history have they won the day.
The sun will be up soon!
The lawyer Pu Zhiqiang is a courageous and principled citizen of China. Today at 9AM, he will be brought before the Beijing Second Intermediate People’s Court to face trial.
The judge should understand that all the Chinese people of the world will be waiting for this 9AM, waiting and watching: Under the greatness of the “Chinese Dream,” how will the machinery of the state handle Pu Zhiqiang and the 600 words that he wrote?
That’s right, Beijing, please show us what you do. We want to know just how civilised this “Chinese Dream” of yours is.
Lung Ying-tai (3:10AM)
Just over a year ago, leaders from tech firms around the globe converged on the ancient canal town of Wuzhen, in China’s Zhejiang province, for the 1st World Internet Conference (WIC). At the event, which Reuters dubbed China’s “online coming-out party,” Internet industry leaders from China rubbed shoulders with executives from Apple, Microsoft, Amazon and Samsung — to name just a few — as well as attendees on Internet governance, such as Fadi Chehade, president and chief executive of the non-profit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).
If China’s agenda in establishing the WIC “summit” was unclear to anyone at the start, it became unsettlingly clear after the Chinese hosts slipped a draft declaration under the hotel room doors of attendees on the eve of the conference’s final day, hoping to rush through a “consensus” on the need to establish “an international Internet governance system of multilateralism, democracy and transparency” that would “respect [the] Internet sovereignty of all countries.”
[ABOVE: “Xi Jinping, Painted Portrait,” photo by Thierry Ehrmann available at Flickr.com under Creative Commons license.]
Internet sovereignty, or cybersovereignty, is now a central policy concept for the Chinese Communist Party in dealing with the Internet. And the concept will be the unquestioned theme from the get-go at this year’s World Internet Conference, to be held once again in Wuzhen from December 16–18: “An Interconnected World Shared and Governed By All: Building a Cyberspace Community of Shared Destiny.”
Last year’s event apparently had something of a slapped-together feel. That’s understandable, perhaps, when you consider it was China’s first official international summit on the Internet. But there have obviously been hiccups this year too. The first announcement for the event came in late September, and said the conference would be begin on October 28. This was eventually pushed back six weeks. (Could international guests not make it on such short notice?)
The WIC, it seems, is still a bewildering work in progress. Don’t believe me? Go to their English-language website and scroll across the content tabs.
Click on “Sponsors” and you get “Coming Soon.” Click on “EXPO” and you get “Coming Soon.’ Click on “Partners” and you get “Coming Soon.”
But of course, the 2nd World Internet Conference is just around the corner. So, how soon is soon?
What about the conference agenda? There’s a special tab for that on the WIC website too. Let’s have a look . . . Oh.
Well, fortunately we have China’s trusted state media to tell us everything we want to know. And today, in anticipation of the upcoming World Internet Conference, the “Studying Xi on the Road” column is devoted to Xi Jinping’s utterances concerning the Internet.
Enjoy.
Studying Xi On The Road (学习路上): Xi Jinping’s “Web View”: Working to Build an Strong Internet Power, the Fruits Benefitting the People People’s Daily Online / December 8, 2015
The Internet is one of the great inventions of the 20th century, turning the world into a “global village,” and profoundly changing people’s basic production and living conditions. As a term, the Internet has featured highly in the speeches of Xi Jinping, [with such utterances as] “letting the 1.3 billion people of China benefit from the fruits of Internet development,” “the Internet is not a ‘realm outside the law,’” and “without cybersecurity there is no national security.” These involve both practical considerations and strategic considerations.
The 2nd World Internet Conference (Wuzhen Summit) will be held in Wuzhen, in Zhejiang province, from December 16 to 18. In light of this, “Studying Xi On The Road” will look back with you at Xi Jinping’s “Web View.” 1. Building a Strong Internet Power (建设网络强国)
“Cybersecurity and informatisation concern national security and national development, and are a major strategic issue for the work and lives of the masses. [We] must, starting from major international and domestic trends, make overall arrangements, coordinate various aspects, and seek innovation and development, working hard to build our nation as a strong internet power.” — February 27, 2014, Xi Jinping addresses the first conference of the Central Leading Group for Cyberspace Affairs
“Strategic deployments for the building of [China as] an internet power must proceed in step with the struggle toward the ‘Two Centenary Goals’, with steady progress toward basic popularisation of Internet infrastructure, the strengthening of our capacity for basic innovation, the full development of the digital economy, and strong cybersecurity protections.” — February 27, 2014, Xi Jinping addresses the first conference of the Central Leading Group for Cyberspace Affairs
“China is now actively promoting Internet construction, so that the 1.3 billion people of China benefit from the fruits of Internet development.” — November 19, 2014, Xi Jinping’s message of congratulation to the 1st World Internet Conference
2. Safeguarding Cybersecurity
“Internet and information security are matters of national security and social stability, and they are a new comprehensive challenge that we face.” — November 15, 2013, Xi Jinping in “Explanations Concerning ‘Decision of the CCCPC on Some Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening Reforms’”
“Without cybersecurity there can be no national security; without informatisation there can be no modernisation.” — February 27, 2014, Xi Jinping addresses the first conference of the Central Leading Group for Cyberspace Affairs
“Cybersecurity and informatisation are two wings on a single body, two driving wheels, and they must work together, be deployed together, be advanced together, and be implemented together. To properly do the work of cybersecurity and informatisation, [we] must properly handle the relationship between security and development, ensuring they are coordinated and advance together, so that security guarantees development and development guarantees security, and we make efforts for the long-term and secure growth of the industry.” — February 27, 2014, Xi Jinping addresses the first conference of the Central Leading Group for Cyberspace Affairs
“In the world today, the Internet raises new challenges for national autonomy, security and development, and we must meet these seriously. Although the Internet is highly global in nature, the autonomy of no country must be encroached upon in the information sphere. Even as Internet technology continues to develop, the information autonomy of no country can be violated. In the information sphere, there are no double standards, and every country [has the right] to defend its own information security. It must not be the case that one country is secure while others are not, or that some countries are secure while some others are not. Nor can [a country] seek its own so-called absolute security while sacrificing the security of other nations.” — July 16, 2014, Xi Jinping speech to National Congress of Brazil
“As one of the great inventions of the 20th century, the Internet has made the world a ‘global village,’ profoundly changing people’s basic production and living conditions and promoting social development, and it is highly global in its character. However, this ‘new frontier’ (新疆域) is not ‘a realm outside the law,’ and it too must respect rule of law, it too must preserve national autonomy, security and development interests.” — September 22, 2015, Xi Jinping in an interview with the Wall Street Journal 3. Grasping Core Technologies
“To build an internet power, [we] must have our own technologies, technology of the highest quality; [we] must have full and comprehensive information services, and a rich and developed Internet culture; [we] must have a sound information infrastructure, creating a strong information economy.” — February 27, 2014, Xi Jinping addresses the first conference of the Central Leading Group for Cyberspace Affairs
“Information technologies and the level of [Internet] industry development determine the level of development of informatisation. [We] must strengthen independent innovation of core technologies and the building of basic infrastructure, raising our capacity in terms of information gathering, handling, dissemination, use and security, ensuring the people benefit.” — February 27, 2014, Xi Jinping addresses the first conference of the Central Leading Group for Cyberspace Affairs
“In many ways, scientific and technological strength determine changes in terms of where [a nation] stands politically and economically in the world, and it determines too the fate of the people of various nations.” — June 9, 2014, Xi Jinping speech to the Chinese Academy of Engineerring general assembly at the 17th Academic Conference of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
“Only with core technologies in our own hands can we truly grasp the initiative in competition and development, and only this way can we ensure national economic security, national defence and other forms of security from the roots.” — June 9, 2014, Xi Jinping speech to the Chinese Academy of Engineerring general assembly at the 17th Academic Conference of the Chinese Academy of Sciences
4. A Clear and Bright Online Space
“[We] must consolidate and strengthen [the Party’s] mainstream ideas and public opinion, carrying forward the main theme (弘扬主旋律), spreading positive energy (传播正能量), exciting among the whole society a great strength in moving forward. Most critical is raising quality and properly grasping the timing, degree and effectiveness [of information], increasing its attractiveness and infectiousness , so that the masses love to listen to and watch it, and [so that they] develop a sense of resonance, giving full play to positive propaganda in inspiring and motivating people.” — August 19, 2013, Xi Jinping to the National Propaganda Work Conference
“[We must] persist in the active use, scientific development and legal management [of the Internet]. With the guiding principle of ensuring security, we must increase the intensity of legal management of the Internet, and improve our leadership system for Internet management (互联网管理领导体制).” — November 15, 2013, Xi Jinping in “Explanations Concerning ‘Decision of the CCCPC on Some Major Issues Concerning Comprehensively Deepening Reforms’”
“Properly conducting public opinion work online is a long-term task, and [we] must innovate and improve our online propaganda, using the principles of Internet communication, carrying forward the main theme, exciting positive energy, and energetically fostering and fulfilling the socialist core values, ensuring a good grasp of the timing, degree and effectiveness of online public opinion channeling, so that the online space becomes clear and bright.” — February 27, 2014, Xi Jinping addresses the first conference of the Central Leading Group for Cyberspace Affairs
[NOTE: Two sections following, on “gathering Internet talent” and “increasing international cooperation,” are not translated.]
Chinese President Xi Jinping poses with leaders at the China-Africa Summit in Johannesburg on December 4, 2015. But a piece circulating online and across social media today manages, with a wry artfulness that makes it a must-share, to tease out several thorny questions surrounding Xi Jinping’s “throwing around of money” while in Africa.
The piece is apparently the latest instalment of “Shiguang Talks Straight” (世光直言), an online column by a writer identified as Yu Shiguang (余世光) listed in some sources as being from the city of Ezhou in Hubei province. (There is an archive of the author’s other writings here at Tianya, assuming they are one and the same.)
Yu Shiguang’s humorous piece manages to touch, with pretended vacuousness, on an astonishing array of issues, from rule-of-law and representative government, to domestic poverty, corruption and, finally, media control.
Enjoy.
Shiguang Talks Straight (12): General Secretary Xi, what does it mean when you go overseas and throw money around?
Yu Shiguang / December 6, 2015
General Secretary Xi, being poor myself, I cannot for the life of me understand why it is you scatter money around every time you go on an overseas visit. Why is that?
Is it because a nation, in order to improve its international standing, must toss money around? If that’s the case, then I think it’s just as well if you don’t use money to buy international standing.
Are there leaders of other countries that go around tossing money this way when they’re overseas? I really don’t know.
When you toss money people’s way, what good does that do us here in China? I’m a lowly person, so please don’t blame me for being so crass.
Is it that our country just has too much money, and if we don’t toss money away other people won’t know Chinese people actually have money? That seems an unnecessary expense, like punching your own face to look fatter, considering there are so many poor people like me in China.
This money you’re throwing around, is that your own personal money, or is it the people’s money? I’m afraid we really should make clear whose money this is!
If it’s not your personal money, then I believe the matter of tossing money around should go through the National People’s Congress, even if this is just a formality. I mean, the National People’s Congress represents the people, so that way at least there’s some deference to the law.
If you don’t take this through the National People’s Congress, and if you don’t go through legal procedures, then you are personally tossing around the people’s money, and isn’t that corruption in disguise?
Ordinary people really can’t get their heads around this tossing money around thing. Ordinary Chinese are so poor. Could you please explain this to us?
General Secretary Xi, this throwing around of money, it’s really quite an unpleasant thing to witness. It really inspires envy among us ordinary people who don’t know our manners. It makes us itch to steal! How are we to understand such a thing? General Secretary Xi, could you maybe just listen to this one piece of advice: Next time you go overseas and toss money around, could you please make sure the media don’t blow their horns about it quite so indiscriminately?
In a study published earlier this year, CMP director Qian Gang found that Chinese leader Xi Jinping had a much higher profile in the People’s Daily, the flagship newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, than any of his predecessors going back to Mao Zedong and Hua Guofeng. Isolating the first year and a half of the terms of leaders past, Qian Gang found that mentions of Xi Jinping in pages one through eight of the People’s Daily were more than double figures for Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao.
When isolating front-page coverage, Xi Jinping’s frequency in the flagship newspaper remained more than 20 percent greater than Jiang and Hu both. The graph to the left, “Leader Frequency on the Front Page of the People’s Daily,” shows Qian Gang’s results for each 18-month period of leadership, with top leaders listed left to right beginning with Mao Zedong and ending with Xi Jinping.
There are a many other examples, outside the pages of the People’s Daily, showing how Xi Jinping has been elevated on all propaganda fronts. In the latest edition of Southern Weekly, once the standard bearer of a more freewheeling style of professional journalism in China, praise for the glorious leadership of Xi Jinping is marquee coverage. Read the Southern Weekly piece, which runs more than 10,000 words, and weep: Oh, how far the mighty have fallen into the pit of positivity!
A 13,000-word paean to the reform leadership of President Xi Jinping is the cover story in Southern Weekly this week, with the headline: “Three Years of Reform Under Xi Jinping.”
The propaganda is also more interactive than ever before. But don’t take my word for it. Scan the QR code below and begin your first Xi Jinping knowledge quiz.
How do you stack up against the 200+ thousand others who have so far run the gauntlet of ten questions like the following: “When he led the 15th collective study session of the Poliburo, Xi Jinping said we must learn to correctly use the ‘invisible hand’ and ‘visible hand’ in order to properly drive _______ ?”
If you have kept your eyes trained faithfully on the headlines, the answer should come naturally enough: The relationship between the government and the market. For thus spoke the toweringly wise (and yet, so cartoonishly approachable) President Xi.
If you selected option one: Congratulations. And if you didn’t: Congratulations. In any case, your first quiz question has brought you that much closer to China’s president.
But topping the many, many recent examples of Xi Jinping’s growing profile in China’s media is today’s edition of the People’s Daily, in which Xi Jinping’s name appears in all but one of the twelve headlines (and makes it into the subhead of the last).
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The parade continues on page two of the newspaper, on which Xi’s name begins each and every headline — and the entire page is a photo gallery of the president meeting with various African leaders:
HEADLINE: “Xi Jinping Meets Individually With Various African Leaders During the African Summit in Johannesburg” HEADLINE: “Xi Jinping Meets With President Nyusi of Mozambique” HEADLINE: “Xi Jinping Meets With President Kenyatta of Kenya”
African Summit content from the front page then spills over to page 3 of the newspaper, occupying the bottom half. At the top of the page, there are three more headlined pieces, of which two are about — you guessed it — Xi Jinping.
HEADLINE: “Important Speech by General Secretary Xi to Central Party Conference on Poverty Relief and Development Draws Strong Response From Cadres and Masses in Impoverished Areas: Taking Hard Steps Toward a Moderately Well-Off Society” HEADLINE: “Book Exhibition Themed on Xi Jinping’s The Governance of China and Other Works Opens in South Africa”
The third headline on the page is for a separate piece on poverty relief written by a professor from Singapore. Mercifully, it does not mention Xi Jinping.
From that point on, the flagship newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party gives us a rest from the parade of Xi Jinping headlines. Pages four and five move on to other Party business. We see for the first time on page four the mention in a headline of Premier Li Keqiang (李克强). Right next to that article is a headline mention of Zhang Dejiang (张德江), another member of the powerful Standing Committee of the Politburo.
It is too early, perhaps, to formally call Xi Jinping’s personality cult. But it is a perfect time to review Clause 6 of Chapter II of the Constitution of the Chinese Communist Party:
6) The Party forbids all forms of personality cult. It is necessary to ensure that the activities of the Party leaders are subject to oversight by the Party and the people, and at the same time to uphold the prestige of all the leaders who represent the interests of the Party and the people.
On Monday and Tuesday this week, as a noxious cloud of pollution sat across a broad swathe of northern China, the country’s immense environmental challenges made international headlines, even as China’s president attended climate talks in Paris. The irony, not at all lost on Chinese, was a sore point for propaganda officials. They scrambled against all odds to position the story, purging snide posts on social networks and pushing knottier questions, like why the government hadn’t issued a “red alert,” onto trusted state news sources, like the official Xinhua News Agency.
Meanwhile, at the headquarters of Xinhua News Agency, just two blocks west of Tiananmen Square, media representatives from the world’s five emerging national economies, known collectively as the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), gathered to discuss — according to their Chinese hosts — how to strengthen the “international discourse power” of the member nations. They claimed — in any case, their hosts claimed — to “support the voices of the developing world.”
On December 1, representatives to the “Presidium” of the first BRICS Media Summit link hands in Beijing. They are, from left to right: Karima Brown, group executive editor of South Africa’s Independent News and Media SA; Americo Dos Santos, chairman of the Brazil Communication Company; Cai Mingzhao, president of China’s official Xinhua News Agency; Narasimhan Ram, of India’s The Hindu Group; and Pavel Andreev, deputy editor-in-chief of the Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency.
The elephant in the room, of course, was the West. Changing the strategically weak position of the BRICS countries in terms of information would mean, according to Xinhua, “changing the current situation in which Western media dominate the media industry.” More important was addressing the imbalance of agendas. Western industry dominance meant that the West had come to dominate the global conversation as well as the accepted facts that formed the basis of that conversation. “BRICS countries,” said an English-language report from China Central Television, “should have a bigger say on global issues such as climate change and cybersecurity.”
Many visiting media representatives believe that while the five BRICS nations have large populations and huge economies, with proportionally large contributions to the global economy, the BRICS nations have not yet attained an international communication capacity commensurate with their economic weight. The media of BRICS nations must strengthen their own capacity building, making their own voices heard in the global public opinion sphere. [SOURCE]
On the issue of climate change, let’s remember, these words were fired off by Chinese state media at precisely the time that the leaders of both China and India were in Paris for the COP21 climate change conference. Let’s also not forget that China has silenced its own powerful voices on environmental issues, including the much-lauded documentary “Under the Dome,” by journalist Chai Jing.
One of the key suggestions to emerge from the event, the first BRICS Media Summit (金砖国家媒体峰会), came from Dmitry Kiselev, director of the Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency. He proposed that the BRICS nations “achieve an information ‘handshake,’” by which he meant strategic cooperation in the release of news and information that was — again, in the words of Xinhua — “timely and accurate, overcoming the interference caused by untrue reporting of BRICS countries by certain Western media.”
The first BRICS Media Summit in fact continues a discussion that began at BRICS Russia 2015 back in October, when representatives of major media groups from BRICS countries discussed the possibility of a “joint newswire” and a “joint broadcaster” to counteract the influence of Western media and create a “common information space.”
This is what Kiselev had in mind when he spoke this week of a strategic “handshake” — a strong, unbroken chain, if you will, of BRICS media.
And without further (editorialising) ado, I give you Kiselev’s own words, spoken at the opening of the summit, on the possibilities inherent in this “precious opportunity.” Or, hold on, perhaps these are Beijing’s words. There are no quotation marks, you see — and the voices are so very hard to distinguish.
Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency Director General Dmitry Kiselev Calls for Creation of BRICS Nations Information Service and BRICS Nations Broadcaster
Xinhua Online, Beijing, December 1, 2015 — Bosses from 25 media agencies from 5 BRICS member states took part in the first BRICS Media Summit held in Beijing on December 1. Rossiya Segodnya International Information Agency Director General Dmitry Kiselev (基谢廖夫) delivered a speech at the opening ceremony.
Kiselev said he thanked his dear friends and was very happy. Like the rest of my Russian colleagues, [he said], I am delighted to have this opportunity to take part in the first BRICS Media Summit. Permit me first to thank Mr. Cai Mingzhao (蔡名照), [the head of China’s Xinhua News Agency], and his agency for their high level of work in organising [this event]. I thank you all for creating this very important platform for us. At the same time, I also thank Mr. Liu Qibao (刘奇葆), [the chief of China’s Central Propaganda Department], for his [recent] remarks. As he said, we must do our utmost as media to seize this precious opportunity, investing our strengths, and I hope our relationship of cooperation is a stable and reliable one.
Rossiya Segodnya held a media summit in Moscow back in October this year, and although it was not a media summit of BRICS member nations, it was a meeting among media leaders from BRICS nations. In the midst of those meetings, we discussed the building of a common information space (统一的信息空间) among Brazil, South Africa, India, China and Russia. For all of us, this is an extremely important issue, because I understand that we must do more to broadcast timely and effective information about our respective economic developments. I believe my colleagues here agree with my view, that the more important issue right now with respect to the transmission of information is how to guarantee reliable and accurate information sources. At present, the principle sources of information are the United States, Great Britain and other European nations. And their information sources are often not very accurate, and at the same time their information is transmitted to South Africa, to Brazil, to Russia — and the transmission of information that is not particularly accurate (不是特别准确的信息) tends to create problems. So we must create a common information space.
In Syria recently, a whole series events occurred, and related news coverage once again demonstrated that we our proposition and thinking here is extremely important. I hope that through our efforts we can communicate and transmit more accurate information. And I also hope very much that we can each make our own contributions [to this cause] through our respective efforts. To start off, I propose the following:
First, that we create an information network for BRICS nations (金砖国家的信息网). Through this information network we can publish or promulgate accurate information in a timely manner. At the same time we believe that such a proposal must receive the support of the various [BRICS] nations, and in fact it has already received the support of China and other BRICS members. The various member states have always done their utmost to ensure the accuracy and openness of information. And so, we hope very much that through our efforts we can achieve a tight and timely linking of hands in the area of information.
Second, and this was proposed by our news agency, we should create a broadcaster for BRICS nations. This is an issue we have already discussed, because everyone knows that every country has its own FM frequencies, and we should fully use these frequencies as information windows (信息的窗口). China, Russia, Brazil, India and South Africa all have their respective frequencies for information transmission. What’s more, we hope very much that this proposal from the Russian side receives your support and active response. On information cooperation (信息握手), we also hope to have your support and active response.
