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).
In an opinion piece last week, China Daily, the official Chinese government newspaper published in English by the Information Office of the State Council, criticized the New York Times for being “highly selective” in its news coverage. The Times, said the opinion piece, “selected quotes” in order to “fan the flames of trouble.” It “opted to wear blinkers.”
For example, how dare the Times suggest that regional competitors were loathe to accept Chinese military assistance in the search for the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370.
Woah. Hold on. Did India not reject China’s request to search its territorial waters for the missing airliner? Reports citing concerns over the possibility of Chinese snooping came first from India’s own press, citing government officials.
To prove its point about how stories can be framed differently, China Daily insists leaders behind protests in Hong Kong are just criminals.
Is it reasonable — is it not preposterous? — to expect professional news reporters to suppress what for China are inconvenient aspects of complicated stories simply because China doesn’t like complication?
In its lede, the China Daily piece snidely referred to the famous Times motto, “All the News That’s Fit to Print,” suggesting the words were a ruse, that in fact the New York Times is “highly selective.”
This should be news to no one. The New York Times motto was never seriously intended as a claim to infinite all-inclusiveness.
American University professor Joseph Campbell tackled the Times motto for the BBC back in 2012, as many have before. Campbell noted that for well over a century the phrase “has been admired as a timeless statement of purpose, interpreted as a ‘war cry’ for honest journalism, and scoffed at as pretentious, overweening and impossibly vague.”
Campbell also shared the cautionary tale of US congressman Wright Patman of Texas, who in 1960 asked the Federal Trade Commission to look seriously into the matter of whether or not the New York Times motto could be construed as false or misleading advertising. The Commission poo-pooed the request: “We do not believe there are any apparent objective standards by which to measure whether ‘news’ is or is not ‘fit to print’.”
There’s no need to harp on this point, any more than there is any sense in bickering over whether Jenny’s Diner on Fifth Street really does have the “world’s best cup of coffee.”
Ultimately, questions about bias in the news are about how news is put together: within what sort of news cultures; under what time and resource constraints; under the influence of what sorts of frames or biases, conscious or unconscious.
No journalist who has ever had to grapple under deadline with fussy or vacuous editors, with limitations of time and space (How vexing that we can’t be everywhere at once!), with all the variables that come with the pursuit of professional journalism . . . No journalist would believe that out there lies some Holy Grail of absolute objectivity, a standard to which every report can be held up. Good journalists try their best under imperfect circumstances to get the story right (as vague as that sounds).
And these days, let’s not forget, foreign correspondents are under more scrutiny than ever from a slew of experts and conscientious amateurs with their own blogs, columns and social media accounts. We pick apart their stories, question their methods. We offer alternatives, or additional background.
The problem for official China, and by extension for the China Daily, is that for them the Holy Grail does exist. China’s strategic interests, refracted through the prism of its national leaders, are the gold standard for journalism.
They may whine about “biased” framing of stories in the New York Times, but the overarching official policy on information control in China (and what they hope for outside China) is “guidance of public opinion” — the dominance, in other words, of the story frames of the Chinese Communist Party.
Just a few days after the China Daily fired its shot across the bow of the New York Times, state media in China huddled together in the southern city of Zhuhai for the 16th annual China International News Forum. The topic on the agenda, the same topic that has been on the agenda since the forum began in 1999, was to “raise the level of international news reporting by Chinese media and strengthen dialogue and cooperation among news media.”
Delegates meet in Zhuhai for the annual China International News Forum, sponsored this year by China Mobile.
The forum was hosted by the Central Propaganda Department’s Guangming Daily and the Party leadership of the southern city of Zhuhai. Interestingly, at a time when official media are decrying the corrupting influence of money in the media, the event was sponsored by China Telecom.
The event was attended by representatives from the Central Propaganda Department, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the International Department of the Central Committee of the CCP, the All-China Journalist’s Association, and the Provincial Propaganda Department of Guangdong Province, as well as representatives from around 50 Central and regional media across the country.
Among the media dignitaries was Zhu Ling (朱灵), the publisher and editor-in-chief of China Daily.
The unabashed agenda of the conference, set out in the keynote by the editor-in-chief of the Guangming Daily, was to advance international news in such a way that it serves the Chinese Communist Party’s now dominant notion of the Chinese Dream, or “the great rejuvenation of the Chinese people.”
And there you have it. The Holy Grail. The ultimate story frame. The proper “objective” aspiration of all the journalists of the world where China coverage is concerned.
In its broadside on the Grey Lady, the China Daily predictably concludes by laying the story frame out in patronising, primary school fashion:
With a long history, China is the world’s largest developing country with a population of 1.3 billion. When reporting on China, reporters need to take into consideration China’s history and national conditions, which are very different from those of the West.
We could call this “guidance of public opinion.” We could call it “spreading positive energy.” But we might call it just as well: “All the News That’s Fit for China.”
. . .
An excerpt of coverage of the China International News Forum in the Global Times follows:
Guangming Daily editor-in-chief He Dongping (何东平) said in his greetings [to those gathered]: “We hold the China International News Forum today in order to make a profound study of the series of instructions by Comrade Xi Jinping on fostering great nation diplomacy with Chinese characteristics, building a new system of international relations with a core of cooperation and mutual benefit, winning support and understanding among the nations for the Chinese Dream (中国梦). [We meet in order that] our way of thinking might broaden, that our ideas are more liberated, and that the international news reports in which we take part create a more favourable public opinion environment for the achievement of the ‘two century goals’ (两个一百年) and the Chinese dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese people.”
Liu Jianchao (刘建超), assistant to the minister of foreign affairs, and Guo Weimin (郭卫民), head of the external news division of the Central Propaganda Department, gave an addresses about the international situation (国际形势) and the framing of international news reports (国际新闻报道导向) and other issues. At the same time, they raised expectations concerning international news reports and commentaries to come.
As the Chinese Communist Party’s official flagship newspaper, the People’s Daily is not made to entertain, or even necessarily to edify beyond the dictates and doings of the Party itself. But let it never be said that the pages of this strait-laced paper do not disguise gems of any kind.
As a case in point, we’d like to share the following essay from the People’s Forum section on page four of today’s People’s Daily. The piece addresses a phenomenon we are all familiar with — wherever we are — in the age of the ubiquitous smartphone: the “head droppers,” or ditouzu (低头族), who can’t seem to extract themselves from the mobile internet.
It’s OK to live some of the time on the mobile internet, says the CCP’s flagship newspaper. But don’t forget the importance of paying attention. Photo by Jeffrey Timmermans.
The People’s Daily piece manages to bring together the American dystopian writer Kurt Vonnegut, the ancient Chinese philosopher Zhuang Zi (庄子), the GO master Wu Qingyuan (吴清源) and the contemporary Chinese performance artist Xie Deqing (谢德庆) to consider the deep impact the mobile internet has had on all of our lives.
So lift your chin, read, and enjoy.
“You Can ‘Drop Your Head,’ But Don’t Lose Attention” (People’s Forum)
Bai Long (白龙) The People’s Daily
December 15, 2014
Page 4
One thing you see all the time in China is that people have become “head droppers” (低头族). Whether you’re on the underground, on the street, in a university study room or a hospital waiting room, everywhere there are people dropping their heads to look at their mobile phones. Smartphones have become like magic boxes, and like greedy hunters people are constantly on the prowl, waiting to see what rabbits will emerge from the box, so that eventually they are led deep into the gloom of the forest, where they gaze around blankly.
This forest whose boundaries lie beyond all vision is called the mobile internet (移动互联网). It is a completely new territory, and history and experience can offer us little direction where it is concerned. Experts say that from the time humankind could walk upright to about 2003, it produced around 5 exabytes of knowledge (1 exabyte equalling one billion gigabytes); but in 2015, [they expect] the digital information flowing aroudn the world to be reach 966 exabytes. When a vast sea of information appears right there on the few inches of our mobile screen, when it surrounds us ubiquitously, how can it not be a shock to our way of life?
The most severe criticism of the “head droppers” has come from heavy-hearted humanists. They believe that smartphones are destroying subjectivity, making people no longer capable of putting their full energy into things. The American author Kurt Vonnegut suggested last century in a piece of fantasy writing that in the future people with higher intelligence would be required to wear ear radios in order to address inequalities of intelligence, that every 20 seconds they would be subjected to harsh bursts of sound, making it impossible for them to think about anything. [NOTE: The writer is referring to Vonnegut’s 1961 dystopian short story “Harrison Bergeron.”] Well, today mobile phones are disturbance devices for us all. Every time a chime sounds, it’s like we must take a little break [from whatever we’re doing], whether its a nice cup of tea we’ve just made, or a moment deep in thoughtful reading. We must stop and take a look at some new bit of information.
We cannot deny that the mobile internet has brought us immense convenience. The right attitude to have is mastery of technology, accommodating the times rather than avoiding them. In fact, at any point in history, new forms of technology have been criticized for various reasons as they emerge. When printing technology made newspapers widespread, when television sets started appearing in living rooms, these voices of cultural conservatism could be heard.
Nor can we deny that so far no technology has, like the mobile internet, had such a major impact on the attention of human beings. Embracing new technology, but at the same time preserving our attention — these are the twin challenges we face.
Attention is a necessary condition of a full and healthy personality. It is also the foundation of any human cultural or intellectual pursuit. There is a story recorded in the Book of Zhuang Zi (庄子·达生) in which Confucius makes a visit to the Kingdom of Chu, and in the forest there he sees a camel bearing an old man who is using a pole to gather cicadas. He uses the device with ease, as though it is his own limb. Surprised at his skill, Confucius asks the old man if he can teach him. The old man explains that he ascertains the cicadas with his full heart and mind (一心), never looking right or left — and for nothing does he ever break his concentration on the diaphanous creatures. Through time and practice, his success came naturally. Hearing this, Confucius said to his disciple: If the will does not divert from its object, then spirit may be focused” (用志不分，乃凝于神). These words were later applied to the great Weiqi (or GO) master Wu Qingyuan (吴清源). . . For anyone and everyone who has work they must attend to, these words are worth hearing.
Smartphones are just a symbol that epitomizes our information society. The crucial question is how, in a fragmented age, we think, and how we conserve our valuable capacity to pay attention. Just 30 years ago, the contemporary artist Xie Deqing (谢德庆) completed a series of performance art pieces that shocked the world, and one of these was that every hour he would stamp a time card, and in each day he would do this 24 times, keeping it up for a full year. He wanted to use this means to remind others how modern life could be split into fragments like this.
Our lives move forward through splinters of information, and among these splinters we must find the sense of life, piecing them together into a picture of complete value — so that time doesn’t necessarily become a mottled mosaic, so that the human spirit does not crumble under waves of data. Making that happen begins with our control of how we use our own mobiles.
In a news piece promoted to its homepage today, China’s official Xinhua News Agency praised the country’s top internet official, Lu Wei (鲁炜) — the director of the former State Internet Information Office, now called the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) — for his deft sale of Chinese internet policy while on a visit to the United States.
Recapping Lu Wei’s attendance of the 7th Internet Industry Forum in Washington D.C., and his part in a seminar at George Washington University, Xinhua said: “During the day, Lu Wei extended three invitations to the deputy secretary of state and to university students, and the charm of his ‘internet diplomacy’ was on full display.”
Used in this way, bespeaking China’s confidence in making its presence felt in global internet policymaking, this pair of words, “internet diplomacy,” or hulianwang waijiao (互联网外交), mark an important shift. Why? Because it is the very first time state media in China have used the phrase in a positive sense at all, moving beyond the rhetoric of foreign interference.
China, it seems, has entered its own era of “internet diplomacy.” It is ready to embrace the idea. But it wasn’t always so.
On March 14, 2011, the official China News Service reported on a second speech on “internet freedom” (互聯网自由) by then U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton (following on her 2010 speech). In this follow-up speech, the news service noted, Clinton “included this concept [of internet freedom] in the foreign policy framework of the United States.” With slightly pejorative overtones, the report added: “The current situation shows that America’s internet diplomacy has already moved on from verbal utterance to a stage of concrete implementation.”
The brief history of the phrase “internet diplomacy” mirrors the fraught history of US-China relations over the question of information freedom. Composite of photo of Barack Obama by Beth Rankin, photo of Xi Jinping by Michel Temer, and photo of Hilary Clinton by Keith Kissel, all available at Flickr.com under Creative Commons License.
An article posted to Sichuan province’s official news portal on June 19, 2011, spoke of the “web war” (网战) — in Chinese, a play the word “website” — waged by the United States. According to the article’s “web war” timeline, in 1995 “the Pentagon began organizing a group of ‘hackers’ to engage in an information war against America’s enemies.”
Referring to reports of “shadow” internet and mobile systems the U.S. might deploy to assist dissidents living under repressive regimes in circumventing censorship — including the so-called “internet in a suitcase” — the article said such systems were “just the tip of the iceberg of the internet diplomacy pursued by the Obama government.”
China, it seemed, was forever on the receiving end of “internet diplomacy” — a tool, a ploy, or even a conspiracy, of the West.
On January 5, 2012, Liu Zhongmin (刘中民), director of the Middle East Studies Institute at Shanghai Foreign Languages University, wrote a piece called, “The Successes and Failures of China’s Foreign Policy in the Middle East,” published in Shanghai’s Oriental Morning Post. Topmost among China’s successes, Liu listed its adherence to the doctrine of non-interference.
Among the many lessons dramatic changes in the Middle East held for China, however, Liu noted the role of the internet and the nettlesome issue of “social management.”
. . . “Internet politics” and “internet diplomacy” have become a serious challenge facing China. At present, the internet has already become the principal tool by which the United States seeks to export democracy and carry out political infiltration (政治渗透). Responding to “internet diplomacy” will become a normalised political and social issue facing China.
“Internet diplomacy” was a political bogeyman, of a piece with the CCP’s recurring nightmare that the “Arab Spring” might make its way east.
In March this year, even as the power of China’s new internet czar grew, “internet diplomacy” was still an exclusively American matter. Here is a portion of a report by China Youth Daily about First Lady Michelle Obama’s China visit:
The U.S. government is also promoting with full force its strategy of “internet diplomacy”, with the belief that America’s global foreign policy relies not just on the diplomatic corps, but on the “online diplomacy of the people,” in which American citizens are encouraged to interact with foreigners on the internet . . .
But today, December 4, 2014, we can finally say that “internet diplomacy” is China’s strategy, pursued with a gusto China’s own state media see as only befitting its status as a great nation.
Mirroring the praise of Lu Wei from Xinhua today was an article in the overseas edition of the official People’s Daily, the gist of which was that foreign media had voiced admiration for Lu Wei’s nuanced understanding of the internet.
The final section of the overseas People’s Daily article offered the views of never specified Chinese scholars, who gushed (apparently in unison): “It would be apt to dub this ‘the year of internet diplomacy.’ These actions show the pluck and confidence of a great nation!”
The following post from “Han Dai Fu 2013 (汉大赋2013), which criticizes what the user sees as China’s lack of resolve in attacking the United States over recent riots in Ferguson, was deleted from Weibo sometime before 12:52AM today, December 3, 2014. The post was live for just over an hour before being removed by censors. [Explore more deleted posts by using the Weiboscope, created by the Journalism & Media Studies Centre.]
Here is a translation of the post:
The American imperialists have been talking nonsense about Occupy Central in Hong Kong, which gives China the perfect opportunity to attack the American imperialists over the resistance of black people at Ferguson to oppression. But so far [the government] doesn’t have the courage or attitude, but just talks about this new type of great-power relationship. Has this new type of great-power relationship kept the American imperialists from meddling in China’s internal matters? Why don’t we give them a taste of their own medicine? Why don’t we make it hurt rather than going on in this passive sort of way?
I’ve read a number of books on Chinese politics published overseas, and they all wantonly attack and criticize Chinese leaders past and present but make an exception for a certain current leader. This is something I worry about too. I’m guessing this post won’t be around too long. Start the clock.
With last week’s inaugural World Internet Conference, held in the Zhejiang water town of Wuzhen, China tried to put itself on the map of global web development forums. The country’s internet chief, Lu Wei, said the summit, which he likened to a “Davos of the East,” would be an annual event drawing together leaders from foreign governments, key non-profits (like ICANN) and major internet companies.
But behind the obligatory feel-good panels, with titles like “Creating an Online Global Village Together,” lingered tougher questions about China’s goals and hopes in hosting the event.
What business did a country with the world’s most robust system of information controls have talking about more “democratic” internet governance systems?
We explicated some of China’s core intentions here last week, arguing that the World Internet Conference was really about “a more assertive foreign policy for cyberspace” wrapped up with the CCP’s priority of strategic information control.
But if China’s intentions were at all opaque, they became clear in the most illuminating of ways right in the midst of the conference. The CCP’s very exercise of control on social media came back to haunt the “Wuzhen Summit” on — where else? — social media. A new online meme defined the mood and meaning of the event in ways Xi Jinping’s propaganda chieftains could scarcely have envisioned.
The dogs of propaganda bit their own tails. Or, more appropriately perhaps, were caught licking their own back ends.
Meet Hua Qianfang (花千芳).
Hua Qianfang is the nom de plume of Ning Xueming (宁学明), a “grassroots online peasant writer” from Liaoning’s Qingyuan Manchu Autonomous County (清原满族自治县). He is a member of the local official writer’s association in Fushun, and he has been called — along with Zhou Xiaoping (周小平) — one of the “four principal online positive energy writers (中国网络正能量四大写手之一).
Zhou Xiaoping (left) and Hua Qianfang (right) appear on state television as they attend the CCP’s forum on arts and culture.
For more on Xi Jinping’s new propaganda phrase, “transmitting positive energy to society,” and its grassroots pundits — given plaudits at the recent CCP forum on arts and culture — readers can visit this earlier piece, and this one.
Recently, in the wake of Lu Wei’s crackdown on “Big Vs” on Weibo, Xi Jinping said he hopes that “Big Vs” (meaning his kind) do more to “spread positive energy.” Hua Qianfang and Zhou Xiaoping are the faces of this new “positive” approach to control.
Hua’s best-known work is, “Ours Is A Journey Through a Sea of Stars”(我们的征途是星辰大海), the title of which Hua quite unwittingly stole from Japanese writer Yoshiki Tanaka.
Plagiarism notwithstanding, on October 15, 2014, Hua attended Xi Jinping’s Forum on Arts and Culture, where the president mentioned him by name as an exemplary writer.
But it was on November 21, 2014, as Hua Qianfang took part in China’s inaugural World Internet Conference, that the fun really began.
Posting on Weibo about attending of the conference, Hua wrote that, “In its determination to lead the Information Age, China already has the heart of Sima Zhao.”
Who is Sima Zhao? Si Mazhao (司馬昭) was a war general during China’s Three Kingdoms period (AD 220–280) that followed the end of the Han dynasty.
Before I get into the sub layers, here is Hua’s delightful quote in Chinese:
「中国引领信息时代的决心，已经是司马昭之心了。」
And here is a screenshot of the Weibo post in question, which set off a firestorm of giggles and groans on social media that eclipsed all other news of China’s ostensibly landmark internet conference.
The problem with Hua Qianfang’s remark is that Sima Zhao is a historical figure associated with deception, with knavish intrigue that despite its supposed secrecy everyone knows is happening.
This is why the ancient adage goes: “Even those passing on the road know what secrets Sima Zhao harbours in his heart”(司馬昭之心，路人皆知也).
And this is what makes Hua’s statement so blindly astute. Yes, indeed, China’s global internet ambitions are a transparent deception.
Sima Zhao is not, as Hua seems to believe, a paragon of strength and determination. He is, instead, a scoundrel.
So the “Sima Zhao heart,” or Sima Zhao zhi xin (司马昭之心), is a heart of deception.
Journalists, academics and internet users of all stripes quickly picked up on Hua Qianfang’s enlightening gaffe, and the hubbub over the idea of “Sima Zhao’s heart” as the ethos of the “Wuzhen Summit” quickly drowned out the official narrative.
There are lessons to be had here — yet again — about the pitfalls of propaganda in an age where citizens (or at the very least, netizens) are far more savvy and skeptical than the purveyors of propaganda can afford to be.
Encourage “positive” ignorance and fawning blindness among the “Big Vs” you trumpet as your champions, and they are bound to make you look foolish.
The “Bring-Your-Own-Grainer,” or BYOG (自干五), is a new term in Chinese referring to a pro-government propagandist who willingly serves as an apologist, needing no payment in return. This image by writer Shi Feike shows the BYOG as a self-walking dog, holding its leash with its own tail.
Hua Qianfang’s foolishness is on shameless display in a recent interview with Portrait (人物) magazine. Hua readily admits to his sparse reading of historical and political matters, and says he gets “all of my knowledge from online posts.”
The profile and interview in the November 22 edition of Portrait is called, “Hua Qianfang: America has Taken Our Respect, Piety, Virtue and Righteousness and Translated It As Universal Values” (花千芳：美国把我们的忠孝仁义翻译做了普世价值). That headline derives — mischievously, I think — from Hua’s absurd suggestion that Westerners just took traditional Chinese values and ripped them off by calling them “universal values.”
A translation of the Hua Qianfang interview follows. We also recommend that readers interested in the whole “positive energy” propaganda craze and the Bring-Your-Own-Grain pro-government commentators turn to this piece by former CMP fellow Yang Hengjun, written as a tongue-in-cheek defense of Hua’s compatriot, “Sunshine Boy” Zhou Xiaoping.
P：That day when Xi Jinping entered the hall, and later when he mentioned a number of you by name and shook hands with you — how did you feel right then? H：What I felt right then, let me tell you, was happiness (幸福). P：What did you say to him? H：Hello Great Uncle Xi! I said that twice. Once when he said our names, and again when he shook my hand. P：Everyone knows you for your essay, “Ours Is A Journey Through a Sea of Stars.” (我们的征途是星辰大海). This saying is from a Japanese writer, did you realize that? H：You mean Haruki Murakami? P：No, not Haruki Murakami. A writer called Yoshiki Tanaka, from a fantasy novel called Legend of the Galactic Heroes. H：I’ve heard of the book, but I haven’t read it. Let me tell you, I get all of my information off the internet. I mean I haven’t read many books. I mean history books, politics books, science books, popular science — I’ve basically not read them. I get all of my knowledge from online posts. P：So you browse the chat threads and look at what other people are saying? H：Yeah. I see what other people are saying and then write down the really good parts. I don’t write it down, of course, but copy and paste you know. There’s a problem in doing that, which is that if people say it right I write it right, but if people say it wrong I might write it wrong. P：How do you separate different viewpoints? Do you have your own standard of judgement? H：I don’t have a standard of judgement. If someone says something reasonable I listen. This is the simplest point of view. Black is black, and white is white. It’s that simple. I’ll tell you, if I want to who’s right and who’s bad, the simpler the viewpoint the better. The prettier something is the more likely it is to be false. P：Could you explain that? H：For example, the notions of respect, piety, virtue and righteousness (忠孝仁义). China’s traditional value system. I can’t necessarily achieve this, but I think the sense in saying this is that we should respect the nation and act with goodwill toward our friends. I think these are things we should do, as a basic belief in being people. In America they translate this as “universal values.” P：Have you had posts deleted or been prevented from posting before? H：Well, everything I write are positive energy articles (正能量的文章), all propagating patriotism and calling on people to love life. I don’t know why there’s any cause to remove them. Generally, when I make a Weibo post there are at least 5,000 views, but sometimes I’ll post something and check back an hour later and find there are just a few views. Once I wrote a piece called, “I Support the Party Commanding the Guns” (我赞同党指挥枪), and that one was removed. I’m not sure why. [EDITOR’S NOTE: Hua’s ignorance of his nation’s political culture is astonishing, even for a layman. One of the most sensitive taboos in China is discussion of privatisation of the armed forces. Even voicing support for the Party’s control of the military assumes there is a debate at all, and so would tend not to be welcome — particularly on social media where comment threads would quickly grow sensitive.] P：What about there being no blocking or deletion, and everyone can converse freely. Do you think that’s a possibility? H：I don’t think that’s possible, because in America it’s not even possible. P：So you believe there’s such a thing as [pro-American] paid web commentators (五美分) . H：I think there must be, but I don’t have evidence. P：What about 50-centers (五毛), [or pro-government paid web commentators in China]? H：There definitely isn’t such a thing. There’s no need. Anyway, they have propaganda workers, and they can post on their own and that’s enough. Why would there be any need to hire others? If they need to pay people [to make positive comments online], then what are those propaganda workers for? P：How do you understand the words [of Xi Jinping], “Ultimately, writers will guide this age”? H：There are some who are pretty successful right now, like the ones writing fantasy novels, or online novels. They’re already quite successful. So far, positive energy writings, patriotic writings, haven’t yet found their path [to success]. P：So people look at positive energy stuff, but even more people read stuff criticising the government? H：It’s no big deal. We can each do our own thing. There’s no tension here. P：Well then, shouldn’t you head to where there are more people [interested]? I’m mean, seeing as you just said you write whatever it is people want to read. H：Too many people go looking for problems, and not enough people go this route (patriotism, ‘positive energy’). Our readers should be the bigger group. P：How do you arrange your time these days? H：During planting season I’m busy in the fields. Then when I rest I write essays. That’s it. When there’s work in the fields you have to heed the call. P：Have you ever thought about not writing, but making a living writing books? H：I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was 13. If the opportunity comes up of course that would be better. But still, I don’t really think I can give it up. I think growing crops is a lofty and honourable thing. Just think, a piece of land, and nothing’s there, and you grow corn and in this way provide for people’s survival. How mysterious is that! P：Your family’s corn crop, once it’s ready . . . H：We have 50 mu. Enough for you to eat. Enough for you to eat (laughs).
At China’s first World Internet Conference in the Zhejiang canal town of Wuzhen — nicknamed “the Wuzhen Summit” — Chinese President Xi Jinping said in his welcoming remarks that China encouraged the creation of a “multifaceted, democratic and transparent governance system for the international internet” (多边、民主、透明的国际互联网治理体系”. [Homepage image created with “iPhone 6 Plus” by Luke Ma, available at Flickr.com under Creative Commons license.]
Xi Jinping was not, in fact, present at the conference. His written remarks were recited by vice-premier Ma Kai (马凯). But the president’s bold presence could be felt in China’s assertiveness at the summit, which leaders pledged to hold every year, fashioning it as the “Davos of the East” (东方达沃斯).
The water town of Wuzhen in China’s Zhejiang province, where the first World Internet Conference is being held. Photo by “setiadi” available at Flickr.com under Creative Commons license.
In much the same way that China has pursued a more assertive foreign policy under Xi, it is now staking its claim to the right to decide how the global territory of the internet should be governed.
This is about a more assertive foreign policy for cyberspace. And China’s vision is a carving knife.
The internet is global. That, at least, is the originating vision of the internet. But official China, which now recognises a global internet premised on free and fair access as an imminent threat, wants instead an international internet, a splinternet governed and limited by specific national interests. China’s interests, as defined by the ruling Chinese Communist Party, should be appropriately represented, seeing as the country now accounts for almost one-quarter of the world’s internet users.
When Xi Jinping talks about a more “democratic” governance system, what he means is that China wants its rightful say in this international order — a seat, if we may, on the hypothetical Internet Security Council.
Gone are the days when China’s so-called Great Firewall – its hardware for filtering internet traffic — was the physical manifestation of a chronic insularity. Back then, the world of ideas was bisected into the “internal,” or dui nei (对內), and the “external,” or dui wai (对外). The purpose of the Great Firewall was to hold back the tide of foreign influence.
This insular outlook was reflected in the institutionalisation of controls. The dui nei concerns, how to control the Chinese public by “guiding public opinion” (to call it simply “censorship” belittles the ambitions of Chinese authorities), were the province of the Central Propaganda Department.
But from the early days of internet control, when the web was an indistinct force and the lightning was on the horizon, the management of the internet was placed under the Information Office of the State Council, the government agency dealing expressly with foreign, or dui wai matters — the same office that publishes the English-language China Daily, the newspaper meant for foreign readers of China.
The internet was a foreign thing. And like all foreign things, it was something to emulate and fear.
The internet is no longer lightning on the horizon. A new generation of social media promise global information sharing in multiple formats in real time. A report in the New York Times about the family fortune of a senior Chinese Communist Party official is no longer a dui wai matter — it can (and will) be shared almost instantly on Chinese social networks. Internet control is not just the new heart of censorship and propaganda, it is a life-and-death matter for the Party.
The walls have come down. The time for half-measures is over. The only choice China’s ruling Party now has is to march forth and make its insularity global.
The following post by Duan Guifa (段贵发) making a quip about corruption and patriotism was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime before 2:02PM today, November 17, 2014. Duan Guifa currently has more than 102,000 followers on Sina Weibo. [See more deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the University of Hong Kong’s Journalism and Media Studies Centre].
The post shares a still from a Chinese period film or television serial in which a man shuts his eyes in revery as he sits before a lavishly-set table. The man standing behind the seated man says (in dialogue pasted over the top), “How can you in good conscience love your country when you’ve taken 800 million?” To which the seated man responds: “Nonsense! I could take 800 million, so why wouldn’t I love this country?”
The post is an apparent reference to widespread corruption in China. The Associated Press recently reported that, according Beijing estimates, 16,000 to 18,000 corrupt officials and state enterprise employees have fled China since the mid-1990s, stealing assets worth more than 800 billion yuan.
The original Chinese-language post follows:
One week ago we wrote about the ascendance in China of the propaganda term “positive energy” (正能量) — generally referring to news coverage, online content and cultural products that are uplifting in character, not dwelling on the negative side of Chinese society and politics. A few days later, we translated a report in the official Liaoning Daily attacking what it said was an overwhelming current of negativity about China among university instructors in the country.
Xi Jinping seems to be launching a full frontal attack on negativity. Not just in journalism, on the internet, in arts and culture, and in academia, mind you, but in China’s foreign and trade relations as well. “Positive energy” is a one-size-fits-all prescription targeting both dissent at home and “negativity” towards China in every other context.
If only it came in pill form. “Positive energy” seems to be Xi Jinping’s prescription for a whole range of domestic and international issues. Image from “HealthGauge” available at Flickr.com.
At the CCP’s forum on arts and culture in September, President Xi Jinping praised blogger Zhou Xiaoping, known for his fawning praise of all things officially Chinese. “Zhou Xiaoping,” said President Xi, shaking the blogger’s hand, “from here on out you must carry forward positive energy on the internet.” This mirrored what Lu Wei, the Beijing propaganda minister who is now China’s internet czar, said back in January 2013 when he issued a broad call for more “positive energy” on the web — a code for tighter controls in order to quiet dissenting and “negative” voices, like the Big Vs on Weibo Lu went after so aggressively just months later.
When Xi met with former U.S. President Jimmy Carter in 2012, he said that what the US-China relationship needed was more “positive energy.” And he told APEC leaders this month that regional economic cooperation was paramount and “it is hoped that all parties contribute positive energy to APEC’s long-term development.”
The emphasis on “positive energy” is about more than just attitude. It is about expunging dissent and silencing those “negative” voices that dwell on China’s problems.
The recent article in the Liaoning Daily has left some in China fearing that a new round of ideological controls is underway against those who dare to speak up — something akin, though this is so far a vast overstatement, to the anti-rightist campaigns of the 1950s.
Zhang Ming, a professor at Renmin University of China and a former CMP fellow, wrote on Tencent Weibo this weekend: “For some time I’ve heard people talking about how there is a new anti-rightist movement underway. I didn’t buy this at first, but the Liaoning Daily open letter to teachers made me believe. How many on the right will be arrested this time around?”
On Saturday, the Guangming Daily, published by China’s Central Propaganda Department, went so far as to identify a “group” of voices on the internet that it said sought to “slander” China with outright lies laced with quotes (Oh, horror!) from Westerners. An excerpt of the article, on page ten, follows:
In recent times two online groups have been engaged in fierce debate.
One of these groups the “citizen-intellectual” group (公知), combining together the identities of the “citizen” and the “intellectual.” They seek out the dark side of society and magnify them infinitely, then start making irresponsible remarks online while throwing in language from Westerners (洋人) — speaking lies with their eyes wide open . . .
There is another group called the “BYOG 50s” (自干五), “the 50 centers who bring their own grain,” meaning that out of their own will [without government pay] they praise positive energy in society (社会正能量). They are web users who offer encouragement for the development of China.
Those who disparage the “BYOG 50s” say they’re even worse than the “50 Cent Party” (五毛党) who get paid by the government. Not even paid, they have to bring their own food.
Here, I would like to say some things to stand firmly with the “BYOG 50s,” because they, with a factual attitude, carry out rational, historical and objective rumor-denying, explanation and criticism of language that slanders China.
. . . They are tolerant of those who are able to provide materials and offer rational argument — fundamentally unlike those so-called “citizen-intellectuals” and “elites” who view society with coloured glasses and use sharp and mocking language to attack the government and society.
An article on page 10 of the November 15, 2014, edition of Guangming Daily attacks “citizen-intellectuals” online for their “slander” of China. Article on upper-right.
As the Guangming Daily lobbed its attack on “elites” and “intellectuals,” Caixin Online, one of China’s most critical news voices in a media environment increasingly a wasteland of “positive energy,” interviewed Zhan Jiang, a professor of international journalism and communication at Beijing Foreign Languages University and a former CMP fellow, about the contention in Liaoning Daily that university instructors are too negative about China’s social problems.
Tellingly, perhaps, for the disciples of “positive energy” who grind their teeth over how intellectuals tend to quote Western ideas, Zhan threw Jurgen Habermas and John Milton into his Caixin interview.
By mid-day today, the Caixin interview with Zhan Jiang had been removed from the internet in China, yielding only a 404 Error.
And that, folks, is what “positive energy” looks like.
Below is a partial translation of the Caixin piece written from an interview with Zhan Jiang, followed by a few social media posts from Zhang Ming of Renmin University of China.
Zhan Jiang believes that while Liaoning Daily has a right to conduct watchdog journalism on social issues. But the public has an even greater right to fully know the sampling and investigative methods in order to be assured of the conclusions rigor. . .
Zhan Jiang said: “University teachers in the social sciences, humanities and philosophy in particular require a critical mindset in order to do research. If we want to change our society, if we want this society to improve, then first we have to identify our deficiencies and inadequacies.”
Lu Xun is remembered and celebrated as “the backbone of the Chinese people” because of his tough-love attitude, criticising ugly phenomena in China and awakening an awareness of the struggle.
Zhan Jiang disagrees with the accusations in the open letter, that criticisms of the society and nation in Chinese classrooms would lead to erroneous value systems in students just stepping out into the world, making them lose faith in society. University students, he said, are already mature and full of ideas. They are not vulnerable to indoctrination as they were in the closed-off era before economic reform and opening. Information is shared rapidly today, and students can access numerous sources via the internet. They are capable of forming their own opinions about society in the process of receiving various information. The teacher’s opinion is just one point of view. Students are able to think and form opinions on their own. According to John Milton’s theory of a “marketplace of ideas,” differing ideas can form an opinion marketplace where knowledge can emerge from among competing views.
Zhan Jiang pointed out finally that as a media, Liaoning Daily had the credentials to investigate and criticize university teachers. But whether this is done as journalism or social science research, the method of investigation should be rigorous in order to arrive at accurate conclusions. And so he hopes the paper is able to be open about the subject of investigation, it’s sampling methods and its investigation process.
Zhang Ming, of Renmin University, a frequent critic of China’s educational system, kept most of his criticism of the Liaoning Daily “report” on China’s university classrooms to Tencent Weibo. A few of his posts are translated below:
Of those attacking me on Weibo, saying I spread poison through my lectures, none have actually attended my classes. They can’t even utter a word about how I supposedly spread poison. In the same way, instructors who have had their classes suspended for punishment haven’t been presented with any reasons [for their being disciplined]. There are no procedures, there is no public debate, nor are they given any opportunity to defend themselves. Meanwhile, those who don’t take teaching seriously, who don’t know their stuff, who talk total nonsense — they face no consequences. Our universities care only about political correctness.
————-
In fact . . . The greatest problem among university instructors is not criticism of the government but lack of seriousness and expertise in teaching.
————-
In the history of world journalism, has there ever been undercover reporting of university instructors teaching class? Filming and recording in secret? The goal of Liaoning Daily is not to instruct or advise instructors on how to teach, but rather to gather evidence of guilt and hold these instructors to account.
————- Liaoning Daily has sent reporters undercover to collect materials for [political] smears. This isn’t normal reporting activity but cultural spying. This is essentially turning instructors into the enemy.
