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).
As we come to the end of 2014, we can say that this year has brought a “hardening” (板结) of China’s political discourse. It’s been a year of cleansing in the ideological sphere, and we find now that virtually all of the terms related to political reform, ones we might previously have classified as “light blue” (浅蓝) — not part of the official Chinese Communist Party discourse but still tolerated — have entered the taboo zone of the “dark blue” (深蓝).
Meanwhile, the “light red” terms (浅红) favored by those in power have undergone a complete shake-up (全面重组). To top it all off, a number of “deep red” keywords associated with the Maoist pre-reform era have made a comeback.
China’s political discourse is at least as enigmatic today as it was in the era of Mao Zedong. Is China heading forward, or back?
What follows is my 2014 Report on Political Keywords in China. Let us begin with the most troubled term of all, the embattled concept of “constitutionalism.” The Term “Constitution” (宪) is Battered About in the Winds
The biggest discourse incident of 2014 was the disappearance for a time of a pair of phrases President Xi Jinping gave some degree of emphasis soon after becoming the General Secretary of the CCP. Those terms are: “ruling the nation in accord with the constitution” (依宪治国) and “governing in accord with the constitution” (依宪执政). The terms re-emerged in September this year, following many months of chilly in-fighting over constitutionalism and its relevance for China.
This pair of terms, which appeared in Xi Jinping’s December 2012 speech to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Constitution’s implementation, descended into a valley of obscurity in the midst of a full-frontal attack on the notion of constitutionalism in 2013 — best illustrated by the “seven don’t speaks” (七不讲), instructions issued by the Party leadership banning coverage and discussion of 1) universal values, 2) press freedom, 3) civil society, 4) civil rights, 5) the historical errors of the CCP, 6) oligarchical capitalism, and 7) an independent judiciary.
In my report on political discourse at the end of last year, I had already noted how the phrase “governing in accord with the constitution” had slipped into obscurity, disappearing altogether from official Party media. In 2014, I discovered that Xi Jinping’s speech to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the Constitution had been omitted from a volume of collected speeches by Xi Jinping published by the Central Propaganda Department, A Primer of Important Speeches by General Secretary Xi Jinping.
The same omission reported occurred ahead of the Fourth Plenum in November this year. A revealing interview with one of the drafters behind the Fourth Plenum’s important “Decision” clued us in to the fact that a draft earlier in 2014 had included Xi Jinping’s pair of Constitution-related phrases, but these were subsequently removed at the request of unspecified interests. The phrases were, according to the same source, added back into the “Decision” on the very last day of the Fourth Plenum at the direction of “a certain leading cadre.”
As I’ve said before, shouting the idea of “governing in accord with the constitution” for all to hear does not necessarily signal full love and respect for the Constitution or constitutional politics. However, the deletion of such language and the active suppression of related ideas does clearly signal the actions of strong forces that fear and oppose constitutionalism.
On the very day the brief communique was released at the Fourth Plenum (in advance of the full “Decision”), a number of important websites in China ran an article with the headline, “‘Governing in Accord with the Law’ Cannot be Confused with Western Constitutionalism” (依宪执政与西方「宪政」不容混淆). The article set the rather subdued tone for understanding the notion of “governing in accord with the law.” A search on Baidu shows that 106 websites ran this particular article, which was clearly propagated under direct instructions from propaganda authorities.
The article was run under the byline Guo Ping (国平) — not in fact a person, but rather the official nom de plume of the Information Office of the State Council.
The People’s Daily can be regarded as an important weathervane, or fengxiangbiao (风向标), of official Party discourse in China. In 2013, as the crusade against constitutionalism went into high gear, the People’s Daily remained extremely cautious. Only two articles openly criticizing constitutionalism were published in the paper through the entire year.
In 2014, looking at the ten months prior to the opening of the Fourth Plenum, there were five articles in the People’s Daily criticizing constitutionalism. However, in the two months since the Fourth Plenum (from October 24 to December 23) there have been 13 such articles.
Among these 13 articles was a November 13 piece called “China’s Governance in Accord With the Constitution Differs From Western Capitalism Constitutionalism” (中国依宪执政不同与西方资本主义宪政), marking the first time in the history of the People’s Daily that the paper gave negative treatment to “constitutionalism” in the headline of a piece dealing with domestic political questions.
Using Baidu News search, we find that in the ten months leading up to the Fourth Plenum, there were 120 articles using “constitutionalism” in a negative sense in the headline. In the two months since the Fourth Plenum, that number has catapulted to 689.
On the left, total articles in the People’s Daily in 2014 criticizing “constitutionalism,” 28% before the Fourth Plenum and 72% after. On the right, the same in Baidu News, reflecting online Chinese coverage, with 85% of negative coverage appearing after the Fourth Plenum.
No sooner had the Fourth Plenum with its stress on abiding by the Constitution concluded than Party media were let loose to carry out a full disinfection of the phrase at the heart of the question, “governing in accord with the constitution” (依宪执政). The propaganda surrounding the “spirit” of the Plenum, which should have been all about a full explanation of what “governing in accord with the constitution” meant, became all about what the phrase wasn’t, what the phrase could never be.
This strange situation reflected how various forces within the Party leadership were struggling for the right to define what is meant by “ruling the nation in accord with the law” (依法治国).
“Rule of the nation by law means, first and foremost, ruling the nation in accord with the constitution; the crux in governing by laws is to govern in accord with the constitution” (坚持依法治国首先要坚持依宪治国，坚持依法执政首先要坚持依宪执政). This phrase in the “Decision” of the Fourth Plenum places the Constitution at the very core of what it means to govern the nation in accord with the law, or yifa zhiguo (依法治国).
Governing the nation in accord with the law must entail the question of whether China will have rule of law (法治) or rule by men (人治). It must entail the question of delineating the relationship between the Party and the state. The implementation of the Constitution (宪法实施), enforcement of the constitution (宪法监督) and constitutional review (违宪审查) are all necessary components of governing the nation in accord with the constitution (宪法监督).
There was once a consensus inside and outside the Party over what governing in accord with the Constitution meant, which was the “checking of power, and protecting of rights” (People’s Daily, May 14, 2012). And this is generally the sense in which constitutionalism is understood.
What we can read very clearly in the anti-constitutionalism backlash from Party propaganda organs in the wake of the Fourth Plenum is the dread with which they regard the very idea of checking power. These pieces loudly reiterate the Party’s leadership of the process of so-called rule of law. They speak of the positive role of state power. They speak of “constitutionalism” as a conspiracy by hostile forces (敌对势力) to subvert China. They suggest that “constitutionalism” has its own special colors, not suited for use by the Chinese Communist Party.
The term “constitutionalism” was once a positive one within the CCP lexicon. During the Sino-Japanese War, Mao Zedong talked about the idea of “new democratic constitutionalism” (新民主主义的宪政). In 2008, the head of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, Wu Bangguo (吴邦国), said that the “entering of human rights into the Constitution” (人权入宪) had been “an important milestone for constitutionalism in our country” (People’s Daily, March 22, 2008).
In general, national Party leaders before the 18th National Congress in 2012 were cautious about the term “constitutionalism,” never using it lightly. But use of the term in society and in the media was tolerated. Like so many terms the CCP favors today, including the “market economy,” “rule of law” and “human rights,” “constitutionalism” hails from the West. But this was never a problem.
Before the 18th National Congress, “constitutionalism” could be discussed as an academic topic. It was frequently seen in a positive sense in the commercial media. And this meant also that China’s leader had sufficient space to discuss and consult over the question.
In 2013, “constitutionalism” and “civil society” were tossed over to the other side of the red line. And in the immediate aftermath of the Fourth Plenum, another storm of criticism whipped up.
The anti-constitutionalist craze has been resisted by a handful of scholars within the Party ranks. For example, Lin Zhe (林喆), a professor at the Central Party School, has said, as others have: “Constitutionalism is not a great scourge” (China Youth Daily Online, October 24, 2014). Gao Shangquan (高尚全), the former head of the China Society for Economic Reform, has said: “Constitutionalism is not the sole province of capitalism” (Sina.com, November 15, 2014).
But the voices of dissent on this issue have been swallowed up by a raging sea of official invective. The Ups and Downs of Party Discourse
Given this discourse environment, the political language of the Chinese mainland has undergone many changes recently. In 2014, the term “judicial independence” (司法独立), which former Premier Wen Jiabao once championed as a positive concept, was also added to the list of terms thoroughly rejected a negative by Party media.
At the same time, the discourse employed by recent top leaders has continued to undergo change has well. At the end of 2013, a host of terms associated with Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao had reached their lowest points of relevance in 10 years. These included: “Deng Xiaoping Theory” (邓小平理论), the “Three Represents” (三个代表), the “scientific view of development” (科学发展观), “harmonious society” (和谐社会), “people as the base” (以人为本), “political civilization” (政治文明), “democratic politics” (民主政治) and “intra-party democracy” (党内民主). The term “political reform” (政治体制改革) had reached its lowest point in official Party media in 7 years. As of December 29, 2014, all of these but “democratic politics” and “political civilization” have continued their downward slide. As for “political reform,” it has reached its lowest point since 2002.
“Political reform” in the People’s Daily, 2002-2014
It is not all that surprising to see the banner terms (旗帜性用语) of previous leaders, such as Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, drop in relative importance under a new administration. What is worth noting, however, is that “political reform” and related terms underwent quite an extraordinary change in 2014.
“Political reform,” or “political system reform,” is a term we have seen in every political report since the 13th National Congress of the CCP in 1987. While we have seen words without deeds on this count, and the term has become empty talk, it has nevertheless remained an important discourse facade. It was raised again at the Third Plenum in 2013.
As I’ve said, the main stated purpose of the Fourth Plenum was to tackle the issue of “governing the nation by law” (依法治国). That stated purpose is of course inseparable from political reform. And yet, the term “political reform” does not appear anywhere in the “Decision” emerging from the Fourth Plenum.
The term “political reform” appeared in just 43 articles in the People’s Daily this year. But over the same period, another new phrase, “the modernization of the national governing system and governing capacity” (国家治理体系和治理能力现代化) rapidly became red hot, used in 457 articles for the year in the People’s Daily. For comparison, consider that the height of the term “political reform” in the People’s Daily was 1987, the year of the 13th National Congress, when the term appeared in 348 articles.
In the Jiang Zemin era, political reform was mostly talked about under the auspices of the new slogan “political civilization.” In the Hu Jintao era, the favored term relating to political reform was “intra-party democracy.” So, is Xi Jinping favoring this new phrase about the “modernizing” of governance as a constructive form of discourse, without the layers of historical meaning, and without the associations with Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang, that “political reform” carries within the Party? “Decision-making power, executive power and supervision power should mutually restrain and coordinate one another” (决策权、执行权、监督权既相互制约又相互协调). This phrase, used in the political report from the 17th National Congress in 2007, gets to the essence of political reform, the most core concept being the restraint of power. The idea could be found in both the 17th and 18th national congresses. But when it came to the Third Plenum in 2013, the idea was confined within “government organs” and “administrative mechanisms,” meaning that the sense of mutual and external checks was lost. Then, finally, in the “Decision” from the recent Fourth Plenum, the language is gone altogether. When we search the People’s Daily for the entire year, we find the phrase about “mutual restraints” appearing only six times.
After the 18th National Congress, Xi Jinping’s phrase about “shutting power in the cage of the system” (把权力关进制度的笼子) became extremely popular. 2014 has been the year of “striking tigers,” or going after more senior corrupt officials. Every day calls within the Party for turning the system against the scourge of corruption seem to grow louder and louder. But in the “Decision” from the Fourth Plenum, with its ostensible emphasis on governing the nation in accord with the law, we see nothing whatsoever of this biting slogan about tigers and cages. “Power is given by the people” (权为民所赋). This is a phrase Xi Jinping spoke before he became General Secretary of the CCP in 2012. In 2014, despite the fact that Xi Jinping seems to have a great deal of space to propagate his ideas, we see virtually nothing of this idea. Search record after record of Xi’s remarks and you’ll find neither hide nor hair of it. The phrase appears in just four articles in the People’s Daily for the entire year.
The cooling off of the “Party language” (党语) above is linked to the anti-constitutional wave. The four phrases bolded above all deal with the question of whence the legitimacy of power arises and how power is to be restrained, what are in fact the pillars of “governing in accord with the constitution.” These have naturally been spurned under the present environment by those who hold the reins of the press.
The Fourth Plenum called for rule of law (法治), but immediately after the plenum restraint took hold in the dominant Party discourse; while one eye was trained on “the law,” the other looked to the “the Party,” or in fact to the strongman.
Fang Ning (房宁), head of the Politics Research Center at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, stated publicly that, “We cannot hold rule of law up as sacred while demonising rule by man” (People’s Daily Online, December 6, 2014).
The “Decision” of the Fourth Plenum is quite a hodgepodge. As I said, “political reform” does not appear, but a number of deep red terms, like the “Four Basic Principles” and “dictatorship,” are also absent. What we have are conservative assertions of the Party’s rights combined with suggestions of institutional shift (制度变革).
I have focused on 8 terms in particular, looking at their occurrence in the media before and after the Fourth Plenum: A. “Building a system for recording, reporting and handling instances of intrusion on judicial activities by leading cadres” (建立领导干部干预司法活动、插手具体案件处理的记录、通报和责任追究制度). B. “Adhering to an organic unity of the leadership of the Party, the people as the masters, and governing in accord with the law” (坚持党的领导、人民当家作主、依法治国有机统一). C. “Strengthening the judicial protection of human rights” (加强人权司法保障). D. “Exploring the mutual separation of the judicial administrative management authority and jurisdictions of courts and prosecutors” (探索实行法院、检察院司法行政事务管理权和审判权、检察权相分离). E. “[We must] take the regulation and restraint of public power as our point of emphasis” (必须以规范和约束公权力为重点). F. [The Party must] “act within the scope of constitutional law” (党要“在宪法法律范围内活动”). G. “Legalization of civil rights protection” (公民权利保障法治化). H. “Implementing and lifelong responsibility system for case handling, and a responsibility system for wrongful cases” (实行 终身负责制和错案责任倒查问责制).
In the People’s Daily the order of the above in the foot race of most-used to least-used was: BFACHDGE. In the WiseNews database, reflecting mainland newspapers more broadly, the order was: ABCHFDGE.
Looking for commonalities, we find that in both cases, B (“Adhering to an organic unity of the leadership of the Party, the people as the masters, and governing in accord with the law”) is in prime position, being first in the People’s Daily and second in WiseNews.
And in both cases, G, “Legalization of civil rights protection,” and E, “[We must] take the regulation and restraint of public power as our point of emphasis,” are at the bottom of the list.
The implication here is clear enough. The emphasis on Party control is supreme, while restraints on power are conditional.
I also looked at 5 other keywords in the Fourth Plenum “Decision”: 1. “Constitutional supervision” (宪法监督) 2. “Governing the nation with virtue” (以德治国) 3. “Intra-party regulations” (党内法规) 4. “Judicial protection of human rights” (人权司法保障) 5. “The leadership of the Party + governing the nation in accord with the law” (党的领导+依法治国), looking for articles using both terms together.
In the WiseNews database, the term with the highest degree of use was “intra-party regulations.” The combination of terms in 5 came in second. In third place was “ruling the nation with virtue,” followed by “judicial protection of human rights” and finally “constitutional supervision.”
The first term in the above lineup was used at 7 times the frequency of the last term.
Frequency of terms appearing in the “Decision” from the Fourth Plenum. From the left: “The leadership of the Party + governing the nation in accord with the law”; “Intra-party regulations”; “Governing the nation with virtue”; “Judicial protection of human rights”; “Constitutional supervision”.
The situation we see in regards to Fourth Plenum keywords and their deployment shows us guidance of public opinion (舆论导向) in action — official manipulation, in other words, of public perception and the public agenda. The discourse of cautious reform takes the lead, while those terms dealing with institutional change fall far behind.
As for the heating up of “Party language” (党语), this might bear little fresh meaning for the liberal intellectuals who have been pressed into silence, but it is a worrying sign for more reform-minded forces within the Party. The Crudeness of the “Deep Red”
Let’s move on now to the far end of the Chinese political discourse spectrum, to the “deep red” words that hark back to the years before the reform era.
In 2014, a number of these words, having disappeared in the Deng Xiaoping and post-Deng Xiaoping eras, made unexpected returns.
First we have “class struggle” (阶级斗争) and “dictatorship of the proletariat” (无产阶级专政). We find these redeployed by Wang Weiguang (王伟光), the head of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, in a September 2014 edition of the journal Red Flag.
Wang’s piece was called, “There’s Nothing Wrong With Adhering to the People’s Democratic Dictatorship” (坚持人民民主专政并不输理). The article stressed that “the dictatorship of the proletariat is a tool by which the proletarian class as the ruling class carries out its class rule,” and class struggle, said Wang, remained the “main line” today, “that cannot be extinguished.”
Another deep red term is “against the Party and against socialism” (反党反社会主义). An article in Red Flag this month said that on the internet [the Party] “must strike out fiercely against the ‘black line’ [working] against the Party and against socialism.”
“The hilt” (刀把子). This is another term from the Mao Zedong era, referring specifically to the organs of dictatorship (专政机关). An article in the January 9, 2014, edition of the People’s Daily, “We Must Maintain the Party’s Leadership of Political and Legal Work” (毫不动摇坚持党对政法工作的领导), said: “Political and legal organs, as organs of state power for the people’s democratic dictatorship, are the hilt grasped by the Party and the people, and it must be under the leadership of the Party.”
The day after this piece in the People’s Daily, Chinese media ran the text of a speech by China’s Ministry of Public Security under the headline, “Political and Legal Organs are ‘the Hilt’ Grasped By the Party and the People” (政法机关是党和人民掌握的“刀把子’).
“The hilt” is an example of what we can call crude discourse (粗蛮话语), discourse that reflects the brutal politics of raw power.
In 2014, we have seen the proliferation of crude discourse.
Another example is the phrase, [We cannot] “allow the eating of the Communist Party’s food by those who smash the Communist Party’s cauldron” (不允许吃共产党的饭，砸共产党的锅). In a November issue of Red Flag journal, Zhang Quanjing (张全景), former head of the Organization Department of the Central Committee, said: “There are Party members who wear the costume of Chinese Communist Party members, who work against the Chinese Communist Party, who eat the food of the Chinese Communist Party, who break the cauldron of the Chinese Communist Party.”
The idea of a Party under attack has gained prominence in the official media. Said one recent article: “Slandering the Party, slandering the leadership of the Party, does greater damage than the graft to the tune of one million yuan.”
The obsession has even led to the rise of the term “cauldron destroyers” (砸锅党) to refer to those who threaten the Party’s position. The People’s Liberation Army Daily said on December 24, 2014: “As for those who eat the Party’s food and break the Party’s cauldron, we must not only deny them food but must also take away their bowls; for those cauldron breakers who act with reckless disregard for others, we must never be too soft hearted to break their bowls.”
An article in the People’s Liberation Army Daily urges action against the “cauldron breakers” who damage the Party’s leadership.
These pieces published in Red Flag and other Party publications have been widely distributed on the internet.
Also in 2014, terms like “hostile forces” and other terms alluding to foreign and otherwise unwelcome involvement in the Party’s affairs — such as “outside forces” (境外势力) and “external forces” (外部势力) — have become lively terms, along with the notion of “color revolutions” (颜色革命).
“Hostile forces” and related keywords appeared in 120 articles in the People’s Daily in 2014, higher than the 98 recorded in 2013.
Thanks to the unwelcome addition of “color,” the word “revolution,” once the number one red word in the CCP lexicon, has undergone a dramatic change in valence. In China’s media we now see a discourse revolution against revolution. Do a headline search on People’s Daily Online for the term “color revolution” and you find this was its blowout year.
The term “color revolution” on People’s Daily Online, 2009-2014.
Such a dramatic ascendence of the discourse of fear leads one to infer a general sense within the Party that the shadows are flickering everywhere, that trouble is on the way. This sort of language is almost disorienting, as though here we are again in an era of all-round dictatorship in which enemies are perceived on all sides.
On the heels of the 18th National Congress, I conducted a discourse analysis with my students at the University of Hong Kong, and we concluded that: “Conservative forces remain very powerful, and substantive progress on political reform will be difficult to advance.”
The past two years have in fact shown that not only has advancement been difficult, but we have actually seen substantial backsliding, at least in terms of public opinion controls. The progressive and political reform discourses that have emerged over the past 30 years of reform have never before suffered the level of attack we see happening right now.
To the extent that we saw efforts at institutional reform from the third and fourth plenums, these have been forcefully neutralised by the ideological extreme left.
It seems at the moment that China’s rulers are taking steps backward from Deng Xiaoping. Despite the reinvigoration of deep red keywords, however, few people dare to really entertain the possibility that a full return to the politics of Mao Zedong might be possible. One reading of the deep red rally — hardly a heartening one — is that these are being flashed like knives to strike terror into people’s hearts and make them step into line.
So will China’s rulers take a path that is neither Deng nor Mao? What kind of road might that be?
Those are the core questions to bear in mind as we continue to observe the political discourse in China.
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:
