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).
According to CMP’s preliminary analysis, there are a total of 20 articles dealing with “Occupy Central” in China’s newspapers today, appearing in 18 separate newspapers but with substantial overlap of very limited information.
Of these 20 articles, 12 are taken from a single official release, or tonggao (通稿), from Xinhua News Agency. The Xinhua release, filed yesterday, reports remarks by Hong Kong’s chief secretary for administration, Carrie Lam Cheng Yuet-ngor (林郑月娥), to the effect that the Hong Kong government would delay second round consultations on political reform.
In fact, this Xinhua story is woefully dated considering media outside mainland China, including the South China Morning Post, reported widely yesterday on a press conference two days ago at which Lam said: “[H]aving considered [the recent developments], we understand that the current social atmosphere is not good for such a consultation exercise.”
Media outside China reported long ago, in the arc of the Occupy story, that Lam said consultations would be delayed.
Here is a list of papers and headlines using the Xinhua release on second round consultation today:
We should note that with just two exceptions, these newspapers are from the three southernmost mainland provinces of Guangdong, Guangxi and Jianxi. The exceptions are the Changsha Evening Post, a commercial newspaper in Hunan (bordering Guangdong province on the north), and the Chengdu Evening Post, in Sichuan province.
As readers can learn from our Media Map tool, the Nanguo Morning Post and the Nanguo Morning Post are both commercial spin-offs of Guangxi Daily, the province’s official Party mouthpiece. The first paper is located in Nanning, the second in Liuzhou.
The above-mentioned Xinhua article is played on the front page of four newspapers, Guangzhou Daily, Changsha Evening Post, Chengdu Evening Post and Jiangnan Metropolis Daily. In the case of the Changsha Evening Post, the article is in the lower left-hand corner, just above the banner ad (below).
Turning away from the Xinhua release on second round consultations, we have 6 articles in 5 newspapers (+China News Service) based on a second official news release from Xinhua News Agency — though 2 of these articles, at Beijing Daily and Changsha Evening Post are overlaps with the first list above, the two Xinhua releases having been combined.
Much more alarmist in tone, this Xinhua release says in the headline that “‘Occupy Central’ has a serious [adverse] effect on [the] economic livelihood” of Hong Kong.
Here is an image of page 3 of today’s Beijing Daily, the article combining the two Xinhua releases at the bottom left-hand side.
It has to be noted with utmost disgust that the 2nd Xinhua release contains patent falsehoods — the result either of consummately poor reporting or willful distortion of the truth. It reads at one point:
Professor Peter Mathieson, vice-chancellor of the University of Hong Kong, called on students and teachers participating in ‘Occupy Central’ to immediately leave the site of the protest.
香港大学校长马斐森呼吁参与“占中”的师生尽快离开示威现场。
HKU’s vice-chancellor has not today, yesterday or at any time called on students and teachers to leave the protest. As the South China Morning Post has noted here, Peter Mathieson said yesterday that the university “profoundly regrets the escalation of events in recent days. We condemn violence of any kind by any party. We cannot understand the use of tear gas yesterday: the police and the government are accountable for that decision.”
Beyond these two Xinhua releases, we have 3 separate pieces today from the Chinese-language edition of the Global Times:
1. 港各界怒轰“无法无天” 策划者拒绝承担责任“占中”让香港一片狼借 — [not apparently available online] 2.“占中三子”须为骚乱负最大责任 — an angry diatribe arguing that “things unfolding as they have to now, the three instigators of Occupy Central must be given the utmost responsibility for this illegal movement going out of control.” 3.占中”深层震荡香港经济 — about the deleterious affect of Occupy Central on the Hong Kong economy
How and how much are the protests in Hong Kong being reported or talked about inside China?
First of all, searching mainland newspaper pages today for the keyword “Occupy Central” we find around 20 Chinese newspapers that have run an official Xinhua News Agency release filed yesterday evening, September 28. That article is a direct report of a statement highly critical of “the illegal gathering ‘Occupy Central'” issued yesterday by the Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office of the State Council.
Aside from use of this official Xinhua News Agency release — deep in the inside pages in all cases — we have only the example of the Chinese-language edition of the Global Times, which has a prominent front page piece with a jump to page 16. That article begins:
In what direction will Hong Kong be led? The violent clashes that played out yesterday on the streets in the vicinity of Hong Kong’s center of government are a cause of concern for all who care about Hong Kong’s future.
香港究竟要被引向何方？昨天，香港政府总部附近街区上演的暴力冲突让所有关心香港前途的人忧心忡忡。
At present, it seems that outside this highly restricted coverage in the news pages we have only the same highly restricted coverage on news portal sites. If we found coverage on major news sites in China, we would expect it to be 1) the Xinhua release on the above-mentioned Hong Kong and Macao Affairs Office statement, 2) information from the address given by Chief Executive C.Y. Leung at 1AM today or 3) shares of Global Times material.
As of mid-day, most major news sites had no prominently placed coverage at all. That includes the Xinhua News Agency website, People’s Daily Online, Sina.com (China), Sohu.com and QQ.com. However, when you select “news” on the home pages of the above-mentioned commercial sites, both Sina and QQ offer the Xinhua version of the already-very-outdated remarks made by Chief Executive C.Y. Leung yesterday, September 28.
The “coverage” on the QQ News site differs from other commercial sites in prominence of treatment. It uses a slightly larger headline, and also links to an August piece in the official People’s Daily addressing Occupy Central.
Searching news sites inside China for any coverage at all of what is happening in Hong Kong, the most current information mainland readers are likely to find is the full text of C.Y. Leung’s 1AM address on the ongoing protests. That information is being relayed by China’s second official news agency, China News Service.
So what about social media?
We encourage readers to use our WeiboScope tool for updates on deleted posts about Hong Kong and other issues in China. But it is clear that there is a flurry of activity about Hong Kong on Sina Weibo. As we would expect, posts about protests in Hong Kong are disappearing almost as quickly as they appear.
A search of “Hong Kong” on Weibo returns mostly entertainment, finance and tourism related results, with odd scattered results including mention of the protests, even some using the Chinese term for “Occupy Central” (占中). Generally, however, when you click into the posts about events in Hong Kong right now, you find the posts are already gone, yielding Sina’s “Sorry” message.
The surest way to get posts through related to the Hong Kong protests at all seems to be stick to the Global Times front page (like this post), its bold headline reading: “Hong Kong Government Fiercely Rejects Illegal ‘Occupy Central.'”
Here is a brief taste of posts deleted today from Sina Weibo. Note that even posts, like the last one, that are critical of the protesters are being removed. (1)
From filmmaker Xu Xin (徐辛XuXin)
With just under 13,000 fans
“microphone”
[話筒]
(3)
From User “Reporting Hong Kong” (報道香港)
With more than 11,000 fans
“So violent like this, and you tell me you want democracy. I don’t want this kind of democracy!”
你們如此暴力，和我說是爭取民主，這樣的民主我不要!
In our ongoing series of posts on media corruption in China, we look at an official perspective on media corruption and its impact on the practice of watchdog journalism — what in China is called “supervision by public opinion,” or yulun jiandu (舆论监督).
Supervision by public opinion has featured strongly in discussions of the role of media and press freedom in China since the late 1980s. In some cases the term can be used, particularly by proponents of an independent and professional press, as a stand-in term for “press freedom,” which is itself used only very cautiously by Chinese media (usually only in pejorative references to “Western press freedom”). Seeing the term as a Chinese cognate of Western “watchdog journalism,” they envision news media operating as a fourth estate, casting light on social, political and economic problems in China.
But “supervision by public opinion” has also been used frequently by officials in China to talk about the role of news media – under state control – in uncovering issues of official corruption and abuse of power on a range of issues, particularly at lower levels of the bureaucracy. In this official view, this “supervision by public opinion” must be subject to the overarching political demands of party leaders. Since 1989 the term has stood in tension with the cardinal control concept of “guidance of public opinion.”
In response to the recent news extortion scandal at 21cbh.com, China Press and Publications Journal — a publication run by a central-level media group founded in April 2011 by the State Council — ran an editorial by He Yonghai (何勇海) that spoke out sharply against the corrupting influence of commercial interests in the media.
“Media professionals must be independent of commercial interests, avoiding the corrosive affect of commercial interests,” He wrote. “[O]nly then can they earn the trust of the public. Acts like those at 21cbh.com, of using the threat of negative reports to press companies into buying advertising, or taking money to ‘profit from silence,’ without a doubt turn supervision by public opinion into a tool for profit.”
He Yonghai also voices indignation about media “doing excessively positive reporting or covering up negative problems about enterprises they [are] ‘cooperating’ with.”
Typical of official arguments on the question of media corruption, He Yonghai’s editorial blatantly ignores the elephant in the room, the corrosive affect of political power. He talks in an offhand fashion about how media should earn the trust of the public, when in fact the notion that the media should work in the public interest at all can be a highly sensitive one in China.
The media, make no mistake, work for the interests of the Chinese Communist Party, a point Xi Jinping has made more emphatically than his predecessor, telling propaganda leaders they should “show their swords” and “struggle” for domination of the ideological sphere.
Press controls under the CCP have always emphasized that “politicians run the newspapers,” a term that goes back to Mao Zedong. Under this idea of the role of the press, it is the Party’s prerogative to dictate what is meant by such things as truth, fact or rationality. And year after year, propaganda leaders bang their fists about the need to “emphasize positive news” and “speak with one voice.”
Long before money could ever corrupt the relationship between the media and the public, power severed that relationship.
How can this editorial by He Yonghai speak with outrage about media “doing excessively positive reporting or covering up negative problems” when this is precisely what China’s press and propaganda apparatus, one of its most robust institutions, is tasked with accomplishing?
This is the kind of hypocrisy we should be alert for in official reflections on the 21cbh.com case and other incidents of media corruption.
Think of the way, in the heady days of state-sponsored “supervision by public opinion,” two lines would form outside the offices of China Central Television’s “News Probe,” an investigative news program. In the first line were those with urgent complaints petitioning the program to tell their story — peasants whose land was seized, patients who suffered malpractice. In the second line were local and regional government officials (or their representatives) hoping to convince the network not to run damaging segments.
In the latter case, these petitions to do exactly the kind of covering up He Yonghai professes to find so offensive, money and power greased the wheels. And these were not “black-hearted journalists” or fake reporters. This was China’s official national television network.
When this is the sort of press environment created by China’s political institutions, how can we be the least bit surprised when pay-for-play and pay-for-silence become institutionalized forms of media business?
We should be surprised if they don’t.
One of the most interesting veins in He Yonghai’s piece is his principled defense of the “shareholders’ right to know” about possible mismanagement at publicly-listed companies.
Says He:
The acts of 21cbh.com in carrying out “supervision by public opinion,” exacting “protection fees” from listed companies and then doing what they could to sweep negative news clean, or doing excessively positive reporting or covering up negative problems about enterprises they were “cooperating” with . . . all of this seriously damages the interests of the shareholders and their right to know (股民的知情权).
So citizens as such do not have a right to know news and information that might be in the public interest. But shareholders, they do have a right to know — about those companies, at any rate, where their capital is invested.
He Yonghai’s argument exemplifies the corrupt mindset he sets out to criticize and mobilize against. And that is another feather in the cap of Zhu Xuedong, who argued here at CMP last week that China, and its media, are in an “era of corruption.”
He Yonghai’s argument boils down to this. In China, who has a right to information? Well, the Chinese Communist Party, of course. And also those who are able to pay for it.
Perhaps next time, before we begin the debate about how money has corrupted China’s media, we should open our wallets, pull out a 100 yuan note and remember whose face is on it.
The Right to Supervision by Public Opinion Cannot Be Warped: It Must Be Independent of Commercial Interests
(舆论监督权绝不可异化 要独立于商业利益之外) China Press and Publications Journal
September 18, 2014
He Yonghai (何勇海)
The news extortion scandal at 21cbh.com has been brewing for days now. The special task force dealing with the case has found that the website targeted listed companies and well-known enterprises under such themes as “listing,” “restructuring” or “business transitions” in order to press willing companies into expensive arrangements whereby they would be given exaggerated praise or have their problems covered up in order to carry out “positive reporting” (正面报道). For those companies unwilling to cooperate, the site would release negative reports seeking to corner them into buying advertising or signing cooperative agreements.
The website and individuals working there reaped huge rewards through such practices, earning several hundred million yuan since 2010. (China Youth Daily, September 11, 2014).
In the past, it was generally fake reporters or “black-hearted reporters” from various media that perpetrated news extortion. Whenever these people would hear about an enterprise or government office that they could “hijack,” they would spring into action, rushing off to carry out “supervision by public opinion.” They would use such threats as the writing of neican to corner these enterprises and earn money. At 21cbh.com people were involved at every level, from the chief editor to the management, editorial and advertising staff — amounting to a news extortion “bomb” that was ready to go off and send shock waves.
The acts of 21cbh.com in carrying out “supervision by public opinion,” exacting “protection fees” from listed companies and then doing what they could to sweep negative news clean, or doing excessively positive reporting or covering up negative problems about enterprises they were “cooperating” with . . . all of this seriously damages the interests of the shareholders and their right to know (股民的知情权). For example, if certain listed companies do not carry out their obligations and reveal information, or if they violate regulations, this might seriously impact the capital of the shareholders.
To accept “protection fees” under the guise of “advertising fees” also harms the interest of certain enterprises that operate in line with standards. Aside from those enterprises that might have real problems, there are those enterprises that are clean but remain concerned that financial media might, in exercising “reasonable doubt,” attack them maliciously with negative reports, damaging their reputations and shaking the confidence of shareholders even when the reports are shown to be false — and so these companies do everything they can to maintain their media contacts, even purchasing peace.
Aside from seriously interfering with the normal operation of the market economy, taking “protection fees” under the guise of “advertising fees” does massive damage to the media industry. Media professionals must be independent of commercial interests, avoiding the corrosive affect of commercial interests — only then can they earn the trust of the public. Acts like those at 21cbh.com, of using the threat of negative reports to press companies into buying advertising, or taking money to “profit from silence,” without a doubt turn supervision by public opinion into a tool for profit.
If we do not severely strike out against this sort of conduct, if we are lenient toward these villains, then the damage to the media’s reputation in society will be serious, poisoning the atmosphere for supervision by public opinion.
Right now, numerous suspects from 21cbh.com are in prison. The soul-searching in the media and in the capital markets cannot stop here. “If those who use the media have evil intentions, the damage done as a result is unthinkable. If things go on like this, not only will be fail to become the promoters of social progress, we will in fact become the destroyers of value.” These were the words spoken in the confession given by Liu Dong (刘冬), the president of 21cbh.com, and all journalists should be warned.
If we are to create a healthy and transparent environment for supervision by public opinion, and avoid supervision by public opinion becoming a tool that is sold at a profit, we must act without fail and without delay.
In late 2012, China’s outgoing president, Hu Jintao, warned that corruption was a clear and president threat to the Chinese Communist Party. “If we fail to handle this issue well,” he said, “it could prove fatal to the party, and even cause the collapse of the party and the fall of the state.”
Since coming to power, President Xi Jinping has tried to shore up the CCP’s legitimacy by launching an aggressive anti-corruption drive combined with a mass line campaign attempting to drum up support for the Party and tamp down dissent [More here].
In his bid to strengthen the ruling Party’s position and dominance, Xi Jinping has actively reigned in China’s media and sent a harsh message to dissidents and rights defenders through the persecution of the likes of Xu Zhiyong and Pu Zhiqiang. In the above cartoon, posted by artist Kuang Biao (邝飚) to Sina Weibo, an ear-tagged pig representing, presumably, the Chinese Communist Party, sits in a pot in which he has built himself a gruesome throne made out of bones. He holds high a red flag emblazoned not with the crossed sickle and hammer, symbols of the Party’s alliance with the workers and the peasants, but with the gun and the cleaver — the brutal weapons the pig must use to maintain his rule.
The following post by ChrisTac, a Sina Weibo user with just 360 followers, was deleted sometime before 5:50PM yesterday, September 22, 2014. [See more deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre]
The post shares an image of the start of university student boycotts in Hong Kong yesterday to protest China’s refusal to grant full universal suffrage to the territory as promised in a 1984 treaty with the United Kingdom. The student boycotts were inaugurated with a mass gathering of students on the University Mall at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.
The image collection on ChrisTac’s Weibo post is topped with a picture showing students holding a banner that reads, “Make a foundation of democracy, to ensure tomorrow is free from trouble.”
A translation of the post follows:
More than 13,000 at the Chinese University of Hong Kong
The recent investigation into alleged news extortion at 21cbh.com, a financial news website under the auspices of China’s 21st Century Business Herald newspaper, is just the latest smudge on the grubby surface of China’s media industry. We can add it to a long list of desecrations, including the shameless media mudfest over the televised confession of socialite Guo Meimei (郭美美) and sensational coverage of prison escapee Gao Yulun (高玉伦).
The 21cbh.com case stands as further proof positive that China’s media has entered an era of corruption. In the coming years, I’m afraid, we will continue to see cases and stories like these.
“Age of Corruption” was the cover of the April 2013 edition of China Weekly, the magazine where until recently I was editor-in-chief. Our coverage in that issue sketched an outline of the present age in which we have found ourselves. In our political, economic and cultural life, we are in an age of corruption. And there is no better phrase to capture the ethos of our present-day media industry.
The April 2014 edition of China Weekly magazine, in fact a monthly, bears the headline, “Age of Corruption.”
Here are some other labels that fit our media: vulgar (粗俗), shallow (浅陋), manic (狂躁), cynical (犬儒), arrogant (蛮横), despicable (卑鄙), shameless (无耻).
It would be wrong to point to some past Eden of professional purity. There was no such place. But there was at least a time — counting from around the mid-1990s — when commercial media in China sought a higher professional character as they pursued greater independence in the marketplace. There was a professional esprit de corps that somehow brightened the darker aspects of media practice.
These days, the environment grows more and more unforgiving for those journalists and media that still strive for self-discipline, determined not to make the fall from grace.
On the one hand, cynical opportunism has become the dominant spirit of our industry. Success is measured by lucre and power, and their attraction to the exclusion of all else is irresistible to most. Meanwhile, institutional factors — both political and economic — work against those who persist in their ideals, raising the real costs of good professional journalism.
This perfect storm of moral and institutional corruption has scattered and dissipated those voices within the industry that once served to check the kinds of abuse we see so readily today.
You can still hear the vocabulary of professionalism at media gatherings. But a lot of the issues we held near and dear before — like balanced reporting or protecting your sources — have been usurped by talk of revenue streams, changing business models and “venture capital investment” (创业融资).
The surest way to elicit general groans is to start the conversation about professionalism. Just say the word “innovation,” however, and you’ll put a glow in every eye. What do we mean when we talk about “innovation”? Well, naturally we mean business. What else could we possibly mean?
There is still at least a superficial respect for the idea of pursuing the truth and serving the public interest, but these have been relegated to the margins. In China, we have an ancient literati tradition that emphasizes solicitude for the homeland. We also have the liberal tradition fostered by the newspaper professionals of the Republican Era. And we have, finally, the liberal and professional current that emerged at the outset of the commercial media era in the 1990s and never fully bloomed. But all of these legacies have been rapidly undone in recent years by political and economic pressures and by our darker human instincts.
Short-sighted opportunism — the dominant value in our society today — already reigns supreme in a media industry that once, not so long ago, stubbornly resisted such corrupting influences. The logical and real consequence of this is that the professional capacity of the media industry has not only failed to advance along with social change, but in fact has suffered continuous erosion.
The author, Zhu Xuedong.
In the past, you could find journalists striving for professional space even against immense institutional pressures, a process that often required yielding to the second-best choice (like Southern Weekly‘s old battle-cry, that while there might be truths that could not be told, they would not tell outright lies). Now, even this instinct is lost among media leaders and editorial staff.
With experienced professionals few and far between, expedience is now the name of the game. Online rumors are accepted as “news” without any effort to confirm, fact-check or actually conduct interviews. This is so frightfully common you can even find it at well-regarded media that consider themselves serious professional players.
Our content has become homogenous and superficial. I doubt you could find any time when reporting and writing in our media was so degenerate. These days, news stories slip carelessly into snap political judgements. Even profanity is used without care.
We all know the tendency our online media have to fish for readers with the sensationalizing of headlines. We now use the term “headline party,” or biaotidang (标题党), to refer to those who practice this special form of opportunism. But even our so-called serious media can be found hyping female sexuality on the front page or in prominent headlines. There’s almost nothing we won’t do, however undignified, to attract the all-important eyeball (吸引眼球).
When an official news release came out on the “confession” of Guo Meimei, we threw professional conduct and ethics aside entirely, becoming nothing more than an attack mob. Everyone used the information in the release and not a thing more. We didn’t even bother to attempt the most perfunctory of interviews.
Have we really abandoned the high road for the low road?
There are still media in China struggling to hold on to their professional standards. There are still journalists doing their best to take the high road, pursuing truth for the betterment of our society. But we cannot deny that the travelers on that road are an ever rarer sight. Nor can we deny that the other path grows more crowded by the day. This article is a translated and edited version of a piece appearing on Tencent’s Dajia platform on September 17. Zhu Xuedong (朱学东) was the editor-in-chief of China Weekly magazine until his resignation earlier this year. He served formerly as deputy editor-in-chief at the Information Morning Post, executive editor-in-chief at Media magazine, and editor-in-chief at Window on the South. He is now working as a freelance writer.
The following post by China Daily (中国日报), an English-language newspaper published by the Information Office of China’s State Council, was deleted sometime around 11AM today, September 17, 2014. [See more deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre]
The China Daily post on Weibo summarizes a report published on Monday by Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post (article in Chinese here) that said Oxford University, which has produced “a long list of political leaders in many different countries” now hoped to “produce its first Chinese president.”
The post from the Weibo account of the government’s own English-language external propaganda newspaper was presumably censored because the idea that the sons and daughters of CCP elites — sometimes called the “second-generation reds” — are studying at universities like Oxford (and might be expected to become senior leaders themselves) is a sensitive notion, underscoring the disproportionate opportunities available to Party leaders and their families.
A translation of the post follows:
[Oxford University seeks to train China’s future leaders] Andrew Hamilton, the vice-chancellor of England’s Oxford University says that many political leaders have studied at Oxford, and now Oxford hopes that a future Chinese General Secretary with emerge from Oxford. Currently, says Hamilton, around 900 students from China, Hong Kong and Macau are studying at Oxford. China, says Hamilton, is now a major priority for Oxford, and as move further into the 21st century China will only become more important for Oxford. http://t.cn/RhaVBZL
The shortened link at the end of the China Daily post takes readers to the Chinese-language story at the South China Morning Post.
The original Chinese post follows:
Statement from Prison by Mr. Guo Feixiong
In the process of hearing the case against me for so-called ‘disturbance of public order’ (聚众扰乱公共场所秩序), there have been numerous instances of violations of legal procedure. In particular, there have been violations of Article 38 of the Criminal Procedure Law, namely the preventing of my defense lawyers, Chen Guangwu (陈光武) and Zhang Xuezhong (张雪忠), from copying eight discs of digitized case materials (including video taken at the scene, photographs and other evidence). This already constitutes a serious violation of the legal right of defense of myself and my defense lawyers.
If the court continues tomorrow (September 12, 2014) to proceed according to its original designs, well then, the court and the trial will be improper and illegal, and therefore entirely null and void. Tomorrow, in the midst of this illegal and entirely void trial process, I will maintain silence throughout.
Here I wish only to voice my utmost resistance and condemnation to the tyrannical stability preservation system, which flagrantly violates the law and tramples on its spirit, and which regards the basic interests of the Chinese people — namely, the realization of constitutionalism and democracy — as an abyss that means the end of the world.
If those in power wish, in disguised fashion, to do away with the legal defense system, returning us to the kind of criminal justice system we had in the days before the end of the Cultural Revolution, when [the right to] legal defense did not exist and family members could not attend trial proceedings — well then, let them begin with the cases against me and against Sun Desheng (孙德胜)!
Guo Feixiong (郭飞雄), a.k.a. Yang Maodong (杨茂东)
September 11, 2014
Speaking to a panel on “the future of the internet economy” at the World Economic Forum’s 2014 Summer Davos in Tianjin yesterday, Lu Wei (鲁炜), the director of China’s State Internet Information Office (SIIO), said there must be “mutual integration” of international rules for internet governance and the national laws of various countries.
“Freedom and order are twin sisters, and they must live together,” said Lu Wei, according to a report from the official Xinhua News Agency. “The same principle applies to security. So we must have a public order [internationally]. And this public order cannot impact any particular local order.”
Lu Wei, a former municipal propaganda minister for Beijing, has a reputation in China as a hard-liner bent on strengthening control over the internet, and particularly social media. Many Chinese journalists attribute China’s 2013 crackdown on “Big V” users on Sina Weibo to Lu.
Suggesting that controls should be built into internet technology as it develops globally, Lu likened the internet to a car, for which brakes are an absolutely necessary feature.
“The internet is like a car,” said Lu Wei. “If it has no brakes, it doesn’t matter how fast the car is capable of traveling, once it gets on the highway you can imagine what the end result will be. And so, no matter how advanced, all cars must have brakes.”
A full translation of the Xinhua report of Lu Wei’s remarks follows:
The Speed of China’s Internet Development Has No Equal
During the dialogue, Lu Wei remarked that over the past 20 years, China’s internet has developed at a fierce pace. China now has close to four million websites, 600 million internet users and 1.3 billion mobile phone users, of which 500 million use mobile internet services. The number of internet users in China is greater that the total populations of many countries, and accounts for one-fifth of all internet users in the world. Internet enterprises in China have also developed rapidly, and of the 10 most competitive internet enterprises in the world, China is home to four. E-commerce in China has grown at double-digit pace, at nearly 30 percent, in fact — a level of growth that has no equal in the world. Looking at e-commerce in China, annual business transactions total more than 10,000 billion (10万亿), and this is expected to grow 20 percent in 2014. We have already seen a 20 percent increase in e-commerce growth during the first half of the year.
What is it that has driven the ferocious development of China’s internet? Lu Wei believes that, first of all, it has been China’s open policy approach. Without the policy of reform and opening, China’s internet would not have grown so rapidly. Secondly, Chinese internet enterprises have a strong sense of innovation. Without this level of innovation, these enterprises could not have performed so well. Thirdly, Chinese internet enterprises have worked with internet companies around the world and accommodated the global trends in internet development. Fourthly, China’s internet is managed in an orderly manner. It’s precisely because of this orderly management that China’s internet has developed in a scientific manner. Finally, China has gathered together a group of elite internet experts. Internet Governance Must Be “Multilateral, Democratic and Transparent’
In addressing the issue of internet governance, Lu Wei used three words. The first was “multilateral” (多边), meaning the accommodation of various interests to a single goal. The second was “democratic” (民主), meaning that we discuss decisions together, and no single person, or no single country, or no single interest group can have the final say all on its own. The third was “transparency” (透明), meaning that internet governance must operate by transparent rules, and the whole world must be clear about these rules.
Across these three principles, said Lu Wei, we have a consensus [globally], and we can certainly reach the best methods that allow the internet to become Alibaba’s treasure box rather than Pandora’s box. Combining International Public Order and Respect for National Laws
Lu Wei said that the establishment of rules was necessary, that if there were no rules governing e-commerce then problems such as piracy would result . . . Freedom and order are twin sisters, said Lu Wei, and they must live together. The same principle applied to security. So we must have a public order. And this public order cannot impact any particular local order. Therefore, there was a need for the mutual integration of the international public order [of the internet] and the laws of every nation. Only then will the internet be ordered as it should be. The Basic Line of Thinking in China’s Approach to Internet Management is Respect for the Law
Lu Wei emphasized that the basic line of thinking in China for the management of the internet was respect for China’s laws. More concretely: 1) protection of China’s national interests; 2) protection of the interests of Chinese consumers. These are China’s legal bottom lines. What we cannot permit, [said Lu], is the taking advantage of China’s market, of profiting from Chinese money, but doing damage to China. This will absolutely not be permitted. It is unacceptable to harm China’s interests, to harm China’s security, or to harm the interests of China’s consumers. Assuming respect for this bottom line any internet company is welcome in China. We Must Have a Clear Consciousness in the FAce of Rapid Technological Development
Discussing what sort of internet should be built, Lu Wei said that, first of all, the internet space should be peaceful (和平的), promoting the peaceful interaction among people, and it cannot provoke war in the world. Second, it must be secure. It cannot make people like goldfish in a fishbowl, their personal information revealed for all to see, or suffering slander at the hands of others. Third, it should be open, being interoperable at all access points in the world — because without openness the internet effectively does not exist. Fourth, [the internet should be] cooperative.
Lu Wei emphasized that we must remain clearly conscious about the rapid development of internet technologies. On the one hand, we cannot restrict the development of technologies simply because it is too fast; on the other hand, we cannot lose sight of security as technologies develop. The internet is like a car, [said Lu Wei]. If it has no brakes, it doesn’t matter how fast the car is capable of traveling, once it gets on the highway you can imagine what the end result will be. And so, no matter how advanced, all cars must have brakes.
The following post by “Bai Gu Lun Jin” (摆古论今), was deleted sometime around 8AM today, September 10, 2014. [See more deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre]
The post shares quotes from health professional and SARS hero Zhong Nanshan (钟南山) [official paean here], spoken in March 2014 during the annual full session of the National People’s Congress (NPC). The quotes, in fact, are all available publicly in coverage from of the NPC from the official Xinhua News Agency — making this an apparent case where social media censors are far more sensitive than their counterparts in traditional media.
During the March NPC, Zhong harshly criticized China’s medical profession, which he said relied on “selling prescriptions” that patients didn’t necessarily need. He urged reform of China’s healthcare system, and decried reform trends that put the health business before the well-being of patients.
A translation of the post follows:
“Doctors all around the world rely on their art to fill their bellies, but in China doctors rely on the sale of prescriptions.” “In half a day one doctor sees 50 patients. What time does he have to talk with those who are ill? You wait in line for three hours, and you see a doctor for three minutes. With such little interaction its easy for tensions to emerge.” “We can talk about the ethical shortcomings of our doctors, but it’s better to talk about the problems in our healthcare system. Healthcare reform must not be about economic ways of thinking, but about how to respect life.
