Now Executive Director of the China Media Project, leading the project’s research and partnerships, David originally joined the project in Hong Kong in 2004. He is the author of Dragons in Diamond Village (Penguin), a book of reportage about urbanization and social activism in China, and co-editor of Investigative Journalism in China (HKU Press).
The 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.
On September 31, the Standing Committee of China’s National People’s Congress issued strict procedures for the election in 2017 of Hong Kong’s next chief executive. The NPC proposal essentially gave China’s central government the right to decide who could and could not stand as a candidate for Hong Kong’s top office. Quoted in the New York Times, veteran Democratic Party politician Cheung Man-kwong, said: “By endorsing this framework, China has in truth and in substance reneged on her promise to give Hong Kong universal suffrage.” In the above cartoon, posted by Perverted Pepper to Twitter, President Xi Jinping, in a tank that has haphazardly been relabelled “democratic party,” approaches a man labelled “Occupy Central.” Xi offers a choice between two red puppets, both with menacing teeth. In the background, an anxious Taiwan looks on.
Just last week, in a post called “The Missing Speech,” I discussed the significant omission from a new compilation of speeches by Xi Jinping — A Primer of Important Speeches by General Secretary Xi Jinping — of a speech he made on December 4, 2012, to commemorate the 30th anniversary of China’s Constitution. I singled out the most important phrase Xi uttered during that speech: “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.”
The pair of terms in this phrase — “ruling the nation in accord with the constitution” (依宪治国) and “governing in accord with the constitution” (依宪执政) — received a great deal of attention inside and outside China at the time of Xi’s speech, and they were also for a time widely touted by Chinese media. Some felt that they bore the promise of greater reform. But before long they disappeared altogether. As of August 2014, the former term, “ruling the nation in accord with the constitution,” had been unused for six months, and the latter term, “governing in accord with the constitution,” had been unused for nine months.
I concluded my post by saying that the appearance (or continued disappearance) of Xi’s words during next month’s 4th Plenum of the 18th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party would be an important test of how and whether the agenda has shifted.
As it happens, both terms have already re-emerged. On September 5, President Xi Jinping gave a speech to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the National People’s Congress (NPC). In the speech, Xi said: “The Constitution is the most basic law of our country. Rule of the nation by law means, first and foremost, ruling the nation in accord with the constitution; governing by laws is first and foremost, governing in accord with the constitution.”
For a more detailed look at the strange ups and downs of this important phrase, I refer readers to my earlier piece. But what can we infer from this strange pattern of use of this pair of slogans, what in Chinese we call tifa (提法), or “watchwords”?
In my past analyses of political discourse in China, I’ve defined a four-color spectrum to categorise political speech: DEEP RED, LIGHT RED, LIGHT BLUE and DEEP BLUE.
Terms in the DEEP RED are mostly leftist slogans left behind by Mao Zedong. The Party’s dominant language is in the LIGHT RED, terms like “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” (中国特色社会主义) or “not traveling the old road” (不走老路). LIGHT BLUE terms are more liberal ones that are not used by the Party but are not off limits. They might be seen, for example, in commercial newspapers like Southern Metropolis Daily, and much less frequently in the likes of the People’s Daily.
DEEP BLUE terms like “multiparty system” are off limits, hence the vertical red line in the graphic above. This means they are not generally used at all, at least in a positive sense. Since last year we can say we’ve seen a re-emergence of the DEEP RED in China, and along with this shift we’ve seen a number of terms typically in the LIGHT BLUE — such as “constitutionalism” and “civil society” — shift over into the DEEP RED, become taboo terms.
We can regard Xi Jinping’s above mentioned terms — “ruling the nation in accord with the constitution” (依宪治国) and “governing in accord with the constitution” (依宪执政) — as LIGHT RED terms. And at certain times, we might see these terms banished to the cold house, in which case they move further along the spectrum and become LIGHT BLUE terms (not used officially).
Political watchwords in China run hot and cold, and they can reflect political changes in the country. But the relationship between discourse and political shifts or circumstances is a complex one, and we have to avoid the temptation of oversimplifying.
Based on my observations of the ebb and flow of these constitutional terminologies employed by Xi Jinping, I believe they are closely tied to the internal struggle over constitutionalism in China.
In the summer of 2013, in the midst of a vehement campaign against constitutionalism, “ruling the nation in accord with the constitution” (依宪治国) and “governing in accord with the constitution” (依宪执政) disappeared entirely in the media. In the midst of the 3rd Plenum late last year, the terms came back again briefly. But through spring and summer this year, the anti-constitutionism drums beat strong again, and we saw a corresponding dip in use of these slogans.
Some people believe that the Chinese Communist Party has recognised this issue. Seeing that Xi had once again used these two terms, one scholar friend who specialises in constitutionalism shared his thoughts with me as follows:
These terms “ruling the nation in accord with the constitution” and “governing in accord with the constitution” that Xi is using refer to the preamble to the Constitution, which essentially says that the Chinese Communist Party is the leadership core of the project of socialism with Chinese characteristics. As the CCP understands it, this [sentence?] makes clear the ruling status of the Chinese Communist Party, and this is the basis of the Party’s rule. There is a huge gap between how the system understands this and how the public understands it. If you leave out these eight [Chinese] characters — “ruling the nation in accord with the constitution” and “governing in accord with the constitution” — you’ve lost the basis of Party rule. They’ve realised this. I think these terms missing from the Xi Jinping collection is just about how they mediate things internally.
I agree with what this friend says. Certainly, there is often a “huge gap between how the system understands [something] and how the public understands it.” There are a lot of Chinese who hope ardently for reform, and every time this or that slogan appears they read their own hopes into it, often missing the fact that inside the shiny new bottle it’s the same old wine.
But this does not mean that political watchwords leave us entirely without solutions. In fact, we can often observe what the numbers tell us about “how the system understands” something. In China, to understand how the DEEP RED and LIGHT RED constrain DEEP BLUE, and how the DEEP RED and LIGHT RED often contest one another, all we need is to observe the movement of the term “political reform” (政治体制改革).
Just consider. How is it possible that for such important terms as “ruling the nation in accord with the constitution” (依宪治国) and “governing in accord with the constitution” (依宪执政) — terms that deal with the Party’s core concepts — saying them and not saying them amount to the same thing?
Some people say, well, Xi Jinping has always talked about “ruling the nation by law” (依法治国), which is basically the same thing as “ruling the nation in accord with the constitution” and “governing in accord with the constitution,” right? But the difference in emphasis is, I believe, significant. Look again at what Xi Jinping said in December 2012:
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.
And what he said in this September 5 speech:
The Constitution is the most basic law of our country. Rule of the nation by law means, first and foremost, ruling the nation in accord with the constitution; governing by laws is first and foremost, governing in accord with the constitution.
I think with Xi Jinping’s talk of “first and foremost” and “the crux” in the above two passages we can see clear differences of emphasis between these and “ruling the nation by law.” I cannot possibly be an accident or an incidental choice for Xi Jinping to have used these particular phrases, these slogans, in these two speeches.
Many people, of course, don’t trust the slogans of the Chinese Communist Party. They’ll point out that the Party has always said one thing and done another. So even if they sign these two slogans about the constitution to the heavens, we can’t take this to mean they’re actually going to move in the direction of real constitutionalism. I’ll admit the reason in this too. However, I think it’s worth continuing to watch this deployment of watchwords.
This most recent speech of Xi Jinping’s deserves particular attention. It should be understood as an opening salvo to the upcoming 4th Plenum. It should be a signal of some sort that he has chosen at this moment to once again raise these two terms, “ruling the nation in accord with the constitution” and “governing in accord with the constitution.”
At the same time, it’s not enough to dwell on these terms. Looking at the full text of Xi’s September 5 speech, we can see LIGHT RED terms mixed together with clear DEEP RED language like “dictatorship” (专政). So it’s very hard to tell what positives can be inferred from these nuances of discourse.
One thing we can be quite sure of, however, is that there are people within the Party who are unsettled by Xi Jinping’s decision to use these terms.
With the re-introduction of the above mentioned terms in Xi Jinping’s September 5 speech, the questions I laid out in my last post are not eliminated. For from it. They are more pronounced than ever.
“Ruling the nation in accord with the constitution” and “governing in accord with the constitution” have a directional quality and even possibly are banner term material (representing Xi’s hoped-for legacy like the “Three Represents” for Jiang Zemin and “scientific development” for Hu Jintao). Xi Jinping used them at the beginning of his term in office, and now we see them emerging again.
But why would A Primer of Important Speeches by General Secretary Xi Jinping, the volume intended as “a scientific compass for the unifying of ideas and advancement of [Party] work in the new era,” leave out these slogans? It’s hard to imagine that such a collection, produced by the Central Propaganda Department, would be published at all without the blessing of Xi Jinping. If it did have his blessing, why again would these slogans be removed? And then, just as everyone throughout the Party is poring over their copies of this volume without Xi Jinping’s “ruling the nation in accord with the constitution,” the term crops up again?
Where does this leave the Primer as an authoritative volume?
My friend, the constitutional expert, is right. We have to watch “how they mediate things internally.”
Chinese politics today are an exceedingly complex system in which DEEP RED, LIGHT RED, LIGHT BLUE and DARK BLUE face off in a chess game in which the rules are equally unclear.
As I wrote in my last post, the 18th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party will meet for its 4th Plenum next month. Party media have already reported that the meeting will “research the thorough promotion of rule of the nation by law.” I posed the question: would the Xi Jinping statements that “rule of the nation by law means, first and foremost, ruling the nation in accord with the constitution” or “the crux in governing by laws is to govern in accord with the constitution” appear at the 4th Plenum?
Now, one month ahead of the Plenum, Xi Jinping’s September 5 speech seems to have raised the probability that we will see these watchwords next month.
I urge observers of Chinese politics to watch these words closely. Though of course, things are never quite so simple. I noticed, for example, that while the full text of Xi Jinping’s September 5 speech as released by Xinhua News Agency does have both of these terms, Xinhua’s official news release on the meeting did not mention them at all. Nor did the news about the meeting on the front page of the People’s Daily make any mention of them.
Was that negligence too?
An official tome released this summer from the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Propaganda Department, A Primer of Important Speeches by General Secretary Xi Jinping is the talk of the town in Beijing. It is estimated that some 10 million copies have circulated since the middle of August alone, and the collection has been touted as “a scientific compass for the unifying of ideas and advancement of [Party] work in the new era.”
According to the book’s preface: “The structure of this book was designed on the basis of the study and review of a series of important speeches made by General Secretary Xi Jinping. The discussions and opinions herein are faithful to the originals.”
However, upon careful review of the collection I discovered a very significant “error” in the compilation of the material. One important speech is missing.
This book, totaling over 110,000 words, includes some 40 or so speeches made by Xi Jinping since he became general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party. Some of the speeches are directly quoted in the book, while for others the editors explicate the “spirit” of Xi’s language.
Generally, all of the speeches Xi Jinping has made since the 18th National Congress in November 2012 should be eligible for inclusion, excepting of course those that cannot be included for reasons of sensitivity. But for some reason, the volume has passed over Xi Jinping’s speech on “ruling the nation in accord with the constitution” (依宪治国) and “governing in accord with the constitution” (依宪执政).
On December 4, 2012, Xi Jinping made a speech in Beijing to commemorate the 30th anniversary of the promulgation and implementation of China’s constitution. This speech attracted a great deal of attention both inside and outside China. In the speech, Xi Jinping said: “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” (People’s Daily, December 5, 2012). For Xi Jinping to use the words “first and foremost” and “crux” in these remarks represented a marked departure from the language of his predecessors, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao.
Xi Jinping’s December 2012 speech commemorating the 30th anniversary of China’s Constitution becomes a hot topic in the Party media, including the People’s Daily.
In the wake of Xi Jinping’s December 2012 speech on the constitution, the terms “administering the nation in accord with the constitution” and “governing in accord with the constitution” became hot-button terms in China’s media. In fact, the Party’s official People’s Daily newspaper wrote a series of three editorials from “this paper’s editorial writer” (本报评论员) expounding on this particular speech. Here is what one of those editorials said:
Rule of law means first and foremost rule by the Constitution. The “law” we refer to when we speak of ruling the nation in accord with the law are is the body of law of which the constitution forms the core, and the complete legal system. Here, the Constitution, as the major basic law of the country, is the most important law among laws, the core of the entire legal system. All of our country’s laws are made in accordance with the constitution, and set out specific systems and principles in line with the spirit of the constitution. Therefore, ruling the nation in accord with the constitution (依宪治国) is not only a necessary demand of rule of the nation in accord with the law (依法治国), but is also the foremost meaning of rule of the nation in accord with the law.
An editorial in the People’s Daily by “this paper’s editorial writer” explicates Xi Jinping’s remarks on “rule in accord with the constitution.”
At around the same time, the People’s Daily ran an article by Jiang Bixin (江必新), the vice-president of the Supreme People’s Court, called, “Ruling in Accord with the Constitution to Open a New Era of Rule of Law” (依宪执政开启法治新时代). Jiang spoke with high regard of Xi Jinping’s speech on the constitution and rule of law, saying that “it is a declaration that fully promotes rule of the nation in a accord with the law, and accelerates the building of a socialist nation ruled by law.” He added that Xi’s speech was a “mobilization order” and a “blueprint for the building of rule of the nation in accord with the constitution, and governing in accord with the constitution.”
Such an “error” of omission, an “error” of such magnitude, is virtually impossible in China’s sensitive political culture. We have to understand that specialist vocabularies are what constitute the political discourse of the Chinese Communist Party, and the discourse we glimpse in the dissemination of news and information in China — particularly from official CCP media — is a reflection of the Party’s agenda.
As I’ve pointed out before, the People’s Daily byline “this paper’s editorial writer” (本报评论员) points at a very minimum to the fact that what your are reading is the paper’s official editorial — not forgetting, of course, that the People’s Daily is the official mouthpiece of the CCP’s Central Committee. And if the editorial in question is part of a special series of editorials, it carries even greater weight.
From the close of the 18th National Congress in December 2012 up to the closing date of the recently released published collection in June this year, the People’s Daily ran 10 special editorials from “this paper’s editorial writer” dealing with various speeches made by General Secretary Xi Jinping. (There was one other dealing in a more general sense with Xi’s speeches). We can fairly say that the People’s Daily dealt with Xi Jinping’s speech to commemorate the 30th anniversary of China’s Constitution in the loftiest way possible, and engaged in a very detailed explication of the phrase “ruling the nation in accord with the constitution” (依宪治国).
For this recent collection and review of Xi Jinping’s speeches to exclude this particular speech by the General Secretary is in fact an almost unimaginable turn.
Of the speeches previously receiving strong emphasis in the Party press, there are at least four others missing from the new collection. First are a pair of speeches Xi Jinping made on the issue of Xinjiang. Second are two speeches Xi made at the Central Work Conference on Politics and Law (中央政法工作会议). The omission of the Xinjiang speeches is easy enough to understand, dealing as they do with sensitive issues of separatism and terrorism. The omission of the latter two speeches, however, deserves some special attention.
The published collection on Xi’s speeches is divided into 12 topical sections. The section most relevant to the pair of speeches to the Central Work Conference on Politics and Law would be section 5, which is copiously titled, “Making Full Use of the Superiority of our Country’s Socialist System: On Developing Socialist Democratic Politics and Rule of the Nation by Law” (充分发挥我国社会主义政治制度优越性——关于发展社会主义民主政治和依法治国). The second heading under this section deals specifically with the question of rule of law, and introduces four key points under the following terminologies: scientific legislation (科学立法); strict enforcement of the law (严格执法); judicial justice (公正司法); the populace abiding by the law (全民守法). The collection avoids reference to important original language Xi Jinping used at the Central Work Conference on Politics and Law, namely his remarks on “strengthening and improving of the Party’s leadership of political and legal work . . . using rule of law modes of thinking and rule of law methods to lead political and legal work. However, section 5 of the collection did mention “using rule of law modes of thinking and rule of law methods to deepen reforms.”
So we can see that not only does the collection fail to mention Xi Jinping’s important speech on the 30th anniversary of China’s Constitution, but it also entirely omits from its section on “rule of the nation by law” (依法治国) the original language used by Xi: Administering the nation by laws means, first and foremost, administering the nation in accord with the constitution; the crux in governing by laws is to govern in accord with the constitution.
We can only say that this is a manifest “error” on the part of the collection’s editors. But was this a error of selection, an editorial slip? Or does it mark a dramatic departure in the dominant terminology of Party discourse, what we call tifa (提法)? And if this is an example of the latter — meaning a discourse shift — who made the decision? Was it the Central Propaganda Department? Or was it the general secretary himself?
Not privy to those internal discussions and decisions, I can only make a judgement on the basis of the discourse as it has trended in the Party media.
The emergence in the Party media of the terms “ruling the nation in accord with the constitution” (依宪治国) and “governing in accord with the constitution” (依宪执政), and the eventual fate of these terms, is in fact quite a fascinating subject.
After the 18th National Congress in 2012, they appeared for the first time in headlines in the official People’s Daily. In December 2012, there were six articles in the People’s Daily using either or both terms. In my view, the combined phrase — ruling the nation in accord with the constitution; governing in accord with the constitution — was very possibly conceived originally as a Xi Jinping banner term, like Jiang Zemin’s “Three Represents” (三个代表) and Hu Jintao’s “Scientific View of Development” (科学发展观). But as we entered 2013, the terms cooled off.
These were Xi Jinping’s most jarring slogans after taking the Party’s top post in 2012, and they were closely tied to the subsequent championing of “constitutionalism” that we saw among intellectuals in China. The rise and fall of these terms reflects internal political sensitivities. In January 2013 — the month that the Southern Weekly incident erupted in Guangzhou around the censoring of the New Year’s message on constitutionalism — the terms did not appear in the People’s Daily. Then, after appearing once each in February and March that year, the terms disappeared from the paper altogether from April to July. In August, there was one appearance of either term, just as the propaganda tide against constitutionalism reached its height. In October 2013, there was one appearance. In November, two appearances. In February, 2014, there was one final appearance — and since then we’ve not seen the terms at all.
During this period, there are three articles the especially deserve our attention. After the “Seven Don’t Speaks” came out — targeting discussion of such things as “constitutionalism” and “civil society” — they caused ideological confusion in China.
On October 17, the People’s Daily re-ran in full an essay from the Party journal Qiushi attributed to “Autumn Stone” (秋石) — a writer, or group of writers, of unknown identity. It was called, “Firming Up the Common Ideological Basis for United Struggle by the Party and the People” (巩固党和人民团结奋斗的共同思想基础), and was essentially an open version of the “Seven Don’t Speaks.” But while many Chinese objected to the clear leftist tone of the piece, I realized that in fact it made some fine adjustments to the notion of “Seven Don’t Speaks.” For example, the piece admitted to the existence of commonly shared human values, but made clear its objection to a notion of “universal values” that were, in its view, patently Western values. Furthermore, the piece did not criticize “civil society.” And while it continued the attack on “constitutionalism,” it professed support for something it called “socialist constitutionalism” (社会主义宪政) — and in related discussions it again raised the terms “ruling the nation in accord with the constitution” and “governing in accord with the constitution.”
On November 9, the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party opened in Beijing. That day, the People’s Daily ran a lengthy front-page piece called, “A New Starting Point for History on the Chinese Road” (中国道路的“历史新起点). On November 11, the newspaper ran another piece called, “A Magnificent Chapter: A Review of the Building of Democratic Politics Since the 18th National Congress (政治文明的壮丽篇章——十八大以来民主政治建设述评). These two articles did use General Secretary Xi Jinping’s original language about “ruling the nation in accord with the constitution” and “governing in accord with the constitution.”
These three pieces in October and November 2013 account for the peak that can be sign in the middle of the above graph showing us of Xi Jinping’s term relating to the constitution. But after the Third Plenum, we find that the decision emerging from the plenum about “deepening reforms” does not include the Xi Jinping’s terms.
Since the “Decision” emerging from the Third Plenum, we have not seen the term “governing in accord with the constitution” in the People’s Daily. There is only one instance where we’ve seen the second term, “ruling the nation in accord with the constitution,” in the People’s Daily. That was on February 28 in an article called, “Strong Rule of Law Means a Strong Nation: An Interview with National People’s Congress Legal Committee Vice-Chairman Xu Xianming” (法治强则国家强——访全国人大法律委员会副主任委员徐显明).
Counting from December 2013 to August 2014, we’ve seen the absence of “governing in accord with the constitution” for 9 months already. Counting from March 2014 to August 2014, we’ve seen the absence of “ruling the nation in accord with the constitution” for 6 months.
The collection of Xi Jinping’s speeches was published in June, and in July we once again saw a cresting of the ideological restrictions we call the “Seven Don’t Speaks.” The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences moved to strengthen ideological controls. The Organization Department of the CCP Central Committee sent out a notice on strengthening the ideological training of Party cadres (在干部教育中加强理想新年和道德品行教育). Finally, a piece from Han Qingxiang (韩庆祥), deputy head of education at the Central Party School, appeared in the People’s Daily on July 23. Han’s article, “Having a Deep Understanding of ‘the New and Great Struggle'” (深刻理解“新的伟大斗争”), once again launched an attack against “constitutionalism,” “universal values” and “civil society.”
The above attacks form the larger background against which we can consider the absence of Xi’s remarks on the constitution from A Primer of Important Speeches by General Secretary Xi Jinping. The terms “ruling the nation in accord with the constitution” (依宪治国) and “governing in accord with the constitution” (依宪执政) undoubtedly ruffle the feathers of those who oppose constitutional governance. The champions of the ideologically-laden discourse that I refer to as “deep red” treat even the “light red” discourse used by some Party leaders as a matter of great sensitivity. They will actively resist any language that smacks of reform.
Next month, the 18th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party will meet for its 4th Plenum. Party media have said recently that the meeting will “research the thorough promotion of rule of the nation by law.” Soon after he took office, Xi Jinping said that “rule of the nation by law means, first and foremost, ruling the nation in accord with the constitution” and that “the crux in governing by laws is to govern in accord with the constitution.”
Will Xi’s words appear next month as Party leaders meet to discuss “rule of the nation by law”? We can regard this question as an important test of how and whether the agenda has shifted.
In recent months, propaganda officials and communications pundits have spoken with a sense of newfound purpose about the need to revolutionize “news and propaganda” in order to achieve “the revival of the Party’s mass line.” Much of the dogmatizing is eerily redolent of China’s Maoist past, not a surprise considering that the idea of the “mass line,” or qunzhong luxian(群众路线), is closely associated with Mao Zedong. But there is a sense too that the most recent developments in communications technology, those “me-media” that promise to transform everyone’s future, have brought the Party back — at least potentially — to its roots.
The odd amalgam of romantic return and future promise is possibly best expressed in a piece recently published in People’s Forum magazine and re-run in the “Theory” section at People’s Daily Online. The piece is written by Li Xiguang (李希光), former executive dean of the School of Journalism and Communication at Tsinghua University and the current director of the university’s International Communications Center.
Li Xiguang, Executive Dean of Tsinghua School of Journalism and Communication. Image by Beijing Association of Online Media (BAOM).
Professor Li, who presents himself to the outside world (what he calls the waibu/外部) as a champion of press reform in China with credentials in the West (he was a fellow at Harvard’s Shorenstein Center and was very briefly at the Washington Post as an Alfred Friendly Press Fellow in 1995), is also closely aligned with the CCP leadership. He often writes in confrontational terms about the need to counter “Western public opinion guidance” — public opinion guidance being the dominant term within the CCP since 1989 to refer legitimately to press controls, a strange confuting of vocabularies for an ostensible communications scholar — and about the challenges facing the Party’s “mainstream” ideology.
Tested by a public opinion environment on the outside that is complex and severe, we must maintain clear minds, heightening our sense of readiness against hardship, and we must further strengthen our building of the socialist core value system, promoting the solid advancement of China’s international communication capacity, working hard to create an objective and favorable international public opinion environment beneficial to the project of socialism with Chinese characteristics.
In his most recent piece, Li writes a sort of re-cap of President Xi Jinping’s statements on propaganda and ideology over the past year and says Xi “points a clear reform direction in order to build the proper Party news and propaganda systems and mechanisms to enable the maintaining of correct guidance of public opinion.” For those who don’t recognize it, this last term is synonymous with the Party’s dominance of the agenda through news and information control.
The key to building the “proper Party news and propaganda systems and mechanisms,” says Li, is to re-envision the work of propaganda and “make the transition from a [vertical] bureaucratic system of administrative management (科层体系的行政主导) to a flat system of political management (扁平组织的政治主导). In other words, the whole Party propaganda culture must “flatten” in order to become more responsive and effective on all key battlegrounds in the war for public opinion dominance:
Only if we have our own voices in every field of public opinion can the Chinese Communist Party occupy the heights of public opinion, and grasp the power to channel public opinion.
The ultimate goal, says Li, is the “political mobilization [of the masses] in the internet era.” And he finds his corollary in the heady days of the revolution. “The organizational flattening (组织扁平化) of news and propaganda systems and mechanisms was in fact a fine tradition of our Party’s news and propaganda work during the revolutionary and reconstruction periods [of the CCP],” he writes. “For example, at important stages of the revolution, or important points in battle, Comrade Mao Zedong would personally write or edit the news articles of [the official] Xinhua News Agency. In the revolutionary period, the Chinese Communist Party was a flat structured organization, and so it was close to the people and could accomplish things especially for them.”
Introducing a new term for the loyal subjects who are to embody this new “flattened” structure, Professor Li says the Party must “actively find and foster propaganda activists (宣传积极分子) at the Party’s grass roots.”
In Li’s re-envisioned propaganda system, these “propaganda activists” will be working within the “mobile community of the me-media,” by which he means the new world of user-generated content.
Using the great ship of the new media to take to the seas, the propaganda workers of the Party can take their propaganda work among the masses to the mobile community of the me-media. Through the mass line, the Party’s policies and political line will be understood and accepted by the masses.
Only time will tell whether Li Xiguang’s vision of a new “flattened” news and propaganda system is visionary, or self-delusional — or actually policy.
Until then . . .
Our partial translation of Professor Li’s piece in in People’s Forum magazine follows:
“Clearly Ascertaining the Field and Position of Ideology”
August 22, 2014 People’s Forum
People’s Daily Online “Only if we have our own voices in every field of public opinion can the Chinese Communist Party occupy the heights of public opinion, and grasp the power to channel public opinion.”
A whole series of remarks from Comrade Xi Jinping, including his “August 19” speech a year ago and his February 17 address to the Provincial and Ministerial Seminar at the Central Party School, provide a thorough analysis of the difficulties and problems facing guidance of public opinion in our country today. [In these remarks, Xi] touches on the crux of these issues in terms of systems and mechanisms, and he points out the inherent requirements for reforming and rebuilding the ideological foundations for our news and propaganda system. The Importance and Urgency of Reforming and Innovating the Party’s Propaganda Work
Comrade Xi Jinping maintains a focus on matters of practice . . . and on the foundation of a sober awareness of the public opinion situation facing our country today, and taking the fundamental interests of the Party and the people as his jumping off point, he points a clear reform direction in order to build the proper Party news and propaganda systems and mechanisms to enable the maintaining of correct guidance of public opinion.
News and propaganda systems are not castles in the air. One of the objectives of reform to the news and propaganda system is the strengthening of the Party’s capacity to set political agendas, public agenda and news agendas, and in this way lead public opinion in society — so that the Party’s own direction for reform and development, and its own reform agenda, can take the lead in the development of public opinion in society. Reforming the mechanisms and systems of news and propaganda is also about ensuring that the Party’s future designs for reform are met with scientifically [i.e., that the proper preparations are made for their realization], that they follow the mass line, that they heed the voice of the masses, that they break through the black-box monopolization of reform questions by small numbers of elites and by capital interests.
Comrade Xi Jinping pointed our clearly in his “August 19” speech that ideological work concerns the fate of the Party and the long-term peace and stability of the country. It [also] concerns national cohesion and unity, and it is an absolutely critical task for the Party. In facing the false understandings in public opinion in our society today — for example, the disavowal of China’s development model and development path, the advocating of a capitalist China, the application of Western standards to China, the use of Western ideologies to counter Chinese ideology, the replacement of Chinese political systems by Western political systems, or the use of historical nihilism to deny the legitimate political power of the CCP or the validity of its revolutionary history — Xi Jinping has demanded that ideological departments must be ultimately and imperatively responsible for holding the ground.
As to the urgent work that the Party’s ideological departments must turn to now, the first matter is to ascertain clearly where their own thought and ideology territories are, where their battlefields are, where there main batteries are, where their main force lies, where the soldiers are who will defend the territory, and where their allies are. The propaganda departments of the CCP must make clear assessments of their advantages, disadvantages, opportunities and risks as they pertain to news and propaganda and to public opinion channeling.
Comrade Xi Jinping’s two important speeches on public opinion channeling help us make a clear diagnosis of our propaganda systems and mechanisms and focus on the crux of the issue. In the process of innovation of the systems and mechanisms of news and propaganda, we must emphasize “problem consciousness” (问题意识) and grasp the “principal contradictions” (主要矛盾). The Objective of Reform and Innovation of the Party’s Propaganda Work
Through reform of the systems and mechanisms of news and propaganda, we can protect the masses’ feasible (切实的) rights to expression. The Party and the government should encourage rather than restrict the thoughts and opinions of the people on the future direction of the country, on political and economic reform and other major matters. Only if the calls of the masses are reflected proportionally in their free transmission can the elite levels of the Party accurately ascertain popular opinion, and have a correct grasp of the prevailing situations and trends in Chinese society. Party leaders must not live in dread of the voices of the people on the internet and social media. Where the views of the masses are concerned, they cannot simply be obstructed, and we cannot take the attitude of the ostrich who hides his head from reality.
According to the spirit of Comrade Xi Jinping’s speeches, the goal of the reform of propaganda work is: in ideology to uphold the leading position of Marxism; in action, to uphold the principle of serving the people (为人民服务) and serving socialism (为社会主义服务) as the guiding direction; in organization, to ensure that the leadership positions of various propaganda and culture organs at various levels are held by those who have respect for the Party and for the people, and who in action maintain a high level of uniformity with the Center; in terms of objectives, [the goal is] to build a news and propaganda system that is vested with Chinese characteristics, that is Chinese in style, that has substantial attractiveness, that has the power to convince and to create cohesion, to build new concepts, new categories and new formulations to connect China and the outside, in order to explain China’s basic national circumstances, its value concepts, its development path, its domestic and foreign policies, for a “news and propaganda discourse system” (新闻宣传话语体系) to emerge that can accurately, fluently and concisely transmit socialism with Chinese characteristics.
The propaganda organs of the Chinese Communist Party must carry out deep and thorough analysis of the domestic and international political situations and public opinion situations facing the Chinese Communist Party, researching the following urgent tasks: the correct public opinion channeling (正确舆论引导) of major current issues in thought and ideology; the correct public opinion channeling of major historical issues and the assessment of historical personalities; the public opinion channeling of sudden-breaking incidents and public incidents; public opinion channeling on social media and mobile media; public opinion channeling among the masses at the bottom [socio-economically]; public opinion channeling among the middle classes; public opinion channeling among intellectuals and social elites. And they must, on the foundation of the political consensus of the “Chinese dream” and through the process of public opinion channeling, establish a new united front of political conceptualization. Strategies for Mass Work and Political Mobilization in the Internet Age
In terms of the management of news and propaganda, propaganda work must make the transition from a [vertical] bureaucratic system of administrative management (科层体系的行政主导) to a flat system of political management (扁平组织的政治主导). This is a basic preparation for doing a proper job of Party propaganda work. The flattening (扁平化) of the Party’s news and propaganda system also involves the organization, training and strengthening of propaganda teams and propaganda organs at the basic level.
The organizational flattening (组织扁平化) of news and propaganda systems and mechanisms was in fact a fine tradition of our Party’s news and propaganda work during the revolutionary and reconstruction periods [of the CCP]. For example, at important stages of the revolution, or important points in battle, Comrade Mao Zedong would personally write or edit the news articles of [the official] Xinhua News Agency. In the revolutionary period, the Chinese Communist Party was a flat structured organization, and so it was close to the people and could accomplish things especially for them. Cadres and soldiers had to ensure that they . . . “removed the concerns of each and every family” (为家家户户排忧解难). This was the root of the flesh-and-blood relationship between the people and the Party.
In an age where social media have brought the differentiation and fragmentation of society, it is all the more important that we actively find and foster propaganda activists (宣传积极分子) at the Party’s grass roots. These are the public opinion leaders of society’s grass roots, and they are the fertile soil on which the renewal of the Party’s propaganda work will emerge. Only the creation of a flat structured propaganda system can serve the revival of the Party’s mass line, once again mobilizing the masses together, organizing them, allowing the people to serve as the masters of the process of social and economic reform, and rebuilding the people’s trust and confidence in the Party.
Through flattened propaganda mechanisms, we can rebuild the offline connection and the online links between the Party and the people, [and we can] rebuild the mass propaganda methods of our grass-roots Party organizations. Party leaders and cadres must have the courage to walk the mass line offline, rapidly moving from “Weibo as a means of engaging in politics” (微博问政) to “directly listening to the people in politics” (问政于民) — for example, “engaging in politics in the fields” (田头问政), “engaging in politics in the villages” (村头问政), “engaging in politics at the worksite” (工地问政), “engaging in politics on transportation” (车间问政) and “engaging in politics on the street” (街头问政). Only by going and listening to the political and economic views of the people at different levels of society can we ensure that thoughts and viewpoints are pluralistic, and only then can we ensure that political struggle and mass line struggle in the public opinion sphere are realistic — and only then can the ruling Party innovate its work among the masses and arrive at a strategy for mass work (群众工作) and political mobilization (政治动员) in the internet era.
The propaganda work of the Party must directly serve the masses, and at the same time must serve various media from different social communities. The rapid development of new media has resulted in a great diversity of news and propaganda forms, news and propaganda products, news and propaganda production processes and news and propaganda channels. Using the great ship of the new media to take to the seas, the propaganda workers of the Party can take their propaganda work among the masses to the mobile community of the me-media. Through the mass line, the Party’s policies and political line will be understood and accepted by the masses. At the same time, the social reform voices of the broad masses of people will be transmitted to the upper levels [of the Party leadership], so that the voices of the masses take a prime place in reform discourse . . .
Last week, authorities in Beijing ordered a stop to the Beijing Independent Film Festival, organized since 2006 by cultural critic Li Xianting (栗宪庭). Although festival organizers had already announced the cancellation of the event on social media, police raided the offices of Li Xianting’s film fund on August 23, confiscating the fund’s collection of Chinese independent films and removing computers and other documents.
Xiao Xun: Why don’t you start by telling us about what happened recently with the surprise attack on the fund’s offices? Please give us a sense of whether this is something you were prepared for. And what exactly did they take away?
Li Xianting: We were not prepared for what happened. Because we had already received a notice from the police, from security departments and from local leaders that we were to stop [holding the festival]. The opening day was to be August 23. On the 22nd, we had already decided to accept the warning from the government, and we had already sent out notices of cancellation through WeChat and Sina Weibo.
But on opening day they suddenly blocked off all the roads leading in to the fund. Then, that afternoon, police came with officials from the Cultural Office (文委) and the Politics and Law Committee (政法委) and flooded into the building. The actually came over the wall, because the main gate couldn’t be opened — it was padlocked from the inside. They leapt over the wall and then made a forced inspection of the premises. We asked to see documentation, but they had none. They then confiscated and took away our entire collection of films from the festival going back to 2006, as well as other DVDs not from the festival that we had collected. They also took away more than ten computers.
Xiao Xun: Why do you think the authorities are so fearful of this festival of yours?
Li Xianting: I’ve been organizing this film festival since 2006, and in the beginning it didn’t draw attention from up top. Later, it met with all sorts of interference. Beginning in 2010, other independent film festivals in China — like the indie festival in Nanjing, Yunfest in Kunming, and also the Chongqing Independent Film and Video Festival (CIFVF) — were all subject to cancellation or forced to move locations. We persisted, but every year we were told to stop. I never thought, though, that things we get as serious as they did this year, that they would barge in and confiscate all of our computers and other materials.
It’s a mystery to me too why they are so nervous.
Xiao Xun: Could you please explain to us why you wanted to set up this kind of fund at the time, and to start this kind of film festival? What does independent film mean for Chinese film in the larger sense? Is it that you want to foster a group of filmmakers who approach film as an art form? Or does it arise from a sense of social responsibility?
Li Xianting: My interest in the existence of independent film arises entirely from the standpoint of a critic and a researcher of the arts. Because since the development of digital video (DV) technology in the 1990s, we have seen films that are very different from the celluloid films of the past. Anyone could pick up a DV camera and make a film. In fact, the lines are very blurry here between film on the one hand, and video as we see it applied in contemporary art on the other.
In fact, I noticed in the 1990s that a lot of artists had already started to take up DV cameras and make films as a way of expressing themselves. In my view this was the most experimental, and the most challenged, group among contemporary artists in China. In 2006, when I was serving as curator of the Songzhuang Art Gallery (美术馆馆长), I focused on this as a separate branch [of the arts]. But because there was no money for such things in our country, I sought out a number of artists for support. I set up the fund originally for the purpose of these donors. It was a very individualized organization, the idea being to accommodate these donors.
Later, we were ejected from the Songzhuang Art Gallery, and I started using my personal courtyard home as an office and screening venue. The approach was entirely that of a personal research studio — and under the auspices of academic interest I would invite independent directors as well as researchers interested in independent film. It was actually a pursuit of creative independence and research independence.
