Imagine waking up one morning with a nagging compulsion to understand ideas that up to now have been entirely alien to you — concepts like democracy, freedom of speech or separation of powers. Perhaps, the night previous, there were whispers at the next table about a man named “Liu Xiaobo” who harbored “dangerous” ideas of this sort. Liu who?
But, pshaw!, how dangerous can ideas really be?
You reach over to the bedside table and grab your mobile, knowing full well (as an internet literate Chinese “netizen”) that the answers are at your fingertips thanks to the miracle of search engine technology.
Let’s say, for the purposes of this story, that your first gateway to knowledge and discovery looks like this:

Jike.com is a state-controlled search engine launched in 2010 by the People’s Daily, the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party, and its listed internet arm, People’s Daily Online. (You’re not aware of this, but Kai-Fu Lee, the former president of China operations for Google.com, the world’s leading search engine service, had his social media account blocked a few days earlier after making unfavorable remarks about Jike.com and its president, former Chinese table tennis champion Deng Yaping.)
With a slight blush of guilt you enter your first search term: “separation of powers” (三权分立). Your results come back instantly.

The results are topped by the usual basics offered by the encyclopedia service at Baidu.com, Baidu Baike (百度百科), and the Chinese version of Wikipedia. These give you some decent background on the basic concept. But the meatier results that follow explain why “separation of powers” is a terrible idea for China.
First, there’s an April 2009 piece from the official China Central Television under the marathon headline, “Why We Must Cleave to the National People’s Congress System and Must Not Do ‘Separation of Powers'” (为什么必须坚持人民代表大会制度而不能搞“三权分立”). The piece offers a lengthy historical reading of China’s “unique situation” and how it is unsuited to Western political systems:

What political system a country implements is ultimately decided by that country’s national circumstances and nature. The democracy talked about in capitalist societies is bourgeois democracy, a democracy that in fact monopolizes capital, no more than multi-party elections, separation of powers and a bicameral system. The national people’s congress system in practice in our country is a people’s democratic system under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. We cannot put that Western system [into practice].

That sounds reasonable enough. Every country is different, right? You have to do things your own way. The monopolization of capital — how can that be fair?
But this is just one view, and your natural skepticism bids you on. You turn to the next search result, a video from March 2011 in which Wu Bangguo (吴邦国), a senior Party leader and then secretary of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, says categorically that separation of powers and privatization of property are off the table for China because they are not, again, suited to its “unique circumstances.”
The next result, an article from China Youth Daily, published by the Communist Youth League of China, reassures you that while your country will not practice separation of powers, “democracy” remains a priority. An interview with a senior Party official from Hunan province, the article (“Not Doing Separation of Powers Does Not Mean Not Doing Democracy and Rule of Law“) argues that “the people decide on major matters through the people’s congresses at various levels and their standing committees.”

[ABOVE: A Chinese internet cafe superimposed with Jike.com search logo. Photo by Kai Hendry posted to Flickr.com under Creative Commons license.]
This article furrows your brow. You’ve never voted for a single people’s congress delegate, and everybody knows they’re appointed by Party officials. Where do the people come in at all? This local official must be pulling your leg. You’re better off drawing your wisdom from the “center,” from the senior levels, where officials are kinder and more mindful of the people’s needs than entrenched local tyrants like the one who demolished your uncle’s house to build another shopping mall.
Fortunately, just a few search results down — after an article about Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-Shing and “separation of powers” within his family — there is an article from the “theory” section of People’s Daily Online. Its original source is the Party’s official People’s Daily. That should give you a more “central” perspective on this concept.
The article, “There are Fundamental Differences Between the ‘Separation of Powers’ System and the National People’s Congress System” (人民代表大会制度与“三权分立”制度有根本区别), begins with refreshing straightforwardness, cutting straight to its core point:

In order to gain a clear understanding of why we must keep to the people’s congress system and not do ‘separation of powers,’ the problem we first come to is one of how to understand freedom, democracy and human rights.

And, once again, you come up against this irresistible point about cultural relativism:

Under different historical circumstances, in different countries, in different ethnic groups, in different classes, understandings of these problems [of freedom, democracy and human rights] are different.

Well, that must be true, no? Chinese are not Westerners, after all. And the other way around. They eat beefsteaks on separate dinner plates and separate their powers. We keep our powers all mixed together, like Sichuan hot pot.
Scrolling through other pages of search results, you notice most are papers, or lunwen (论文), of a theoretical nature, the majority from official sources or journals. It’s time to move on.
You plug “Liu Xiaobo” (刘晓波) into Jike.com. Who is this guy anyway?

It becomes instantly clear to you that Liu Xiaobo isn’t just dangerous, he’s a convicted criminal, according to result after result thrown up by the Jike.com search engine.
The first news article result, directly from China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is a response to the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to this man, which was “an interference in China’s internal affairs.”
The next result, from China’s official Xinhua News Service, vehemently attacks the Nobel Committee, saying that “the awarding of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo is absolutely wrong.”
Up next is a People’s Daily article re-run by Sina.com, that says “the actions of the Nobel Committee cannot erase the fact of Liu Xiaobo’s crimes.”
Wait. There is no mention of what those crimes were. . . You scroll through several pages of search results. There are more articles, the bulk from People’s Daily online, labeling the Nobel decision a “mistake” and a “joke.”
Something’s not right. You’re on page 10 of the search results and still you can find nothing but one-sided recriminations. There’s a Xinhua News Agency article saying Malaysian media have called the Liu Xiaobo Nobel decision a “mistaken choice,” but it cites only one Malaysian newspaper. That’s a bit dirty. And there’s an article from the official government website in Tibet calling both Liu Xiaobo and the Dalai Lama “political games of the West.”
There are endless repeats of the response from the foreign ministry. . . But there has to be more.
Now curious about search engines and their limitations, you search Jike.com to learn more. You eventually stumble across this Chinese Wikipedia entry. It mentions that Google.com is currently the world’s leader in the search engine sector. Well, that should give you something.

You plug in “Liu Xiaobo” and suddenly the results look very different. There are news reports and in-depth features from Hong Kong media such as Ming Pao and Apple Daily. There are whole collections available online of Liu’s essays. There are open calls for his release. Even the President of Taiwan, Ma Ying-jeou, is talking about his case as an injustice.
Knowing full well that bias can work both ways, you search for the Jike.com results through Google. You add the search term “Ministry of Foreign Affairs” to “Liu Xiaobo” (刘晓波 + 外交部) and right away you get the foreign ministry’s official statement saying the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Liu Xiaobo is an “interference in China internal affairs.”
That seems fair. You add Google to your favorites.
Clearly, the first search engine was taking you for a ride. Someone was playing political ping-pong with your search results. For the first and last time, you were Jiked.

The following post by Commander Xi Dada (习大大司令) voicing frustration over the blocking of the Weibo account of former Google China founding president Kai-fu Lee after he scoffed online the People’s Daily-run search engine Jike.com and its president, former table tennis star Deng Yaping (邓亚萍), was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime before 8:40am today, February 18, 2013. Commander Xi Dada currently has just under 8,000 followers, according to numbers from Sina Weibo. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre]
Commander Xi Dada wrote:

Just for mentioning Deng Yaping, Kai-fu Lee gets gagged! I’d like to know: 1) Why is taxpayer money used for commercial operations [in running the Jike.com search service]? They can use two billion yuan in taxpayer money to play ducks and drakes? 2) If you provide a search engine service with no ideas about the [free] flow of information, is that going to work? How is it she doesn’t even have her own Weibo account? 3) How is it that the post of president of a search engine company is appointed by the Chinese Communist Party? 4) If back in the day the Democratic Party in the U.S. had appointed Michael Phelps as the CEO of Google, would the search engine ever have ousted Yahoo! as top dog?

The original Chinese-language post follows:

就说了邓亚萍，Li开FU被禁言！试问 1）为何要用纳税人钱来做商业运营？花了纳税人20亿打水漂黑了点吧？2）做搜索引擎，却没有信息通畅开放信念，可能有戏吗？她咋连微博也没？3）一个搜索引擎公司老总，为何由党任命？4）如果当年美国民主党任命菲尔普斯出任谷歌CEO，谷歌能打败雅虎成为搜索老大吗？

NOTE: All posts to The Anti-Social List are listed as “permission denied” in the Sina Weibo API, which means they were deleted by Weibo managers, not by users themselves.

The following is a partial translation of an article by Xiao Shu appearing on the Chinese website of the New York Times on January 29, 2013.
Social harmony and peaceful social transition can be achieved in China today only through the remaking of state-society relations. The recent Southern Weekly incident, in which people from diverse social backgrounds rallied behind one of China’s leading newspapers and called for an end to censorship, provides a constructive example of how social movements might promote such a transition.
There are five basic conditions oppositional politics (抗争政治) or social movements in China must satisfy in order to have farther-reaching consequences. They must be:
1. mass in scale (大规模)
2. organized (有组织)
3. non-violent (非暴力)
4. low-cost (低成本)
5. sustainable (可持续)
The Southern Weekly incident marked an important breakthrough on the first of these conditions. The incident was mass-scale, drawing support from across the country.
A popular message shared recently across China’s social networks encapsulates quite well the significance of mass scale in social action:

When there are 10 of you, we will destroy you; when there are one-hundred of you, we will detain you; when there are a thousand of you, we will drive you away; when there are ten-thousand of you, we will do nothing; when there are one-hundred thousand of you we will join you.

In China, scale has long been a bottleneck issue facing oppositional politics or social movements. What does it mean for a movement to be mass-scale? It means that the movement must have involvement from ordinary citizens. If ordinary citizens do not become involved, if a movement is sustained only be a handful of leaders, scale cannot be achieved and demands cannot gather momentum.
For rulers having substantial resources with which to constrain social activism, such actions do not pose a clear and present danger. Rulers can simply mobilize their resources and give the order to strike. In such cases, a small minority of dissenters bear the brunt of the repressive force, and the price they pay in turn serves as a general deterrent to other members of the society. Terror will cause the vast majority of people to lose the will to resist, and there will be fewer leaders to sustain action. The bottleneck of scale remains impossible to break through.
China has never been short of individual heroes having the courage to resist. But no matter how many individual heroes emerge, the problem of scale remains. If we assume that the peaceful transition of Chinese society relies on oppositional politics or on social movements, the question then arises: How can isolated instances of resistance by the few be elevated to mass-scale movements drawing the support of large numbers of ordinary citizens?
The question of how oppositional politics can enter Chinese society has become integral to the success or failure of China’s peaceful transition.
Herein lies the significance of the Southern Weekly incident. If we look for similar examples of resistance after 1989 in China, we have only the Wukan incident in Guangdong province in 2011. We could say that the Southern Weekly incident was a media Wukan.
One of the most important reasons violent suppression was avoided in the case of Wukan was that the movement was mass-scale. Nearly all the villagers in Wukan were united in resistance against corrupt local officials. The suppression by force of such a mass-scale movement would have meant paying a high price politically. Fearful of the consequences, provincial authorities relented and opted for negotiations.
This happened too with the Southern Weekly incident. Even generally reticent personalities like Ren Zhiqiang (任志强) and Kaifu Lee (李开复) stepped out to speak for Southern Weekly, along with artists like Yao Chen (姚晨), Li Bingbing (李冰冰), Yi Nengjing (伊能静). Speaking out too were ordinary college students, urban white collar professionals, and even civil servants. Nationwide, those voicing support for Southern Weekly numbered at least in the tens of millions.
How was this significant? The Southern Weekly incident drew participation from the middling masses (中间人群), from those typically alienated from politics. Masses of ordinary people stood up and resisted. They did not do so out of concrete, personal interests, but rather for more general rights such as freedom of speech and the right to know.
This incident marked the first time a social consensus was formed, and collective social action taken, around the pursuit of rights in a more general sense. This was the real breakthrough we saw in the case of the Southern Weekly incident.
If we understand the event’s significance in this way, it’s not difficult to see why it occasioned so much fear on the part of the authorities. Why would the authorities take a heavy-handed approach to famous people like Ren Zhiqiang, Kaifu Lee, Yi Nengjing and others? Why would they seek them out for questioning (“drinking tea”) or shut down their social media accounts?
The fear of the authorities has three root causes:
First, resistance by the middling masses, by ordinary citizens, entirely surpassed anything they had expected. The arrogance and confidence of power was such that they cared little for the feelings of journalists and saw their resistance as insignificant in the scale of things. In their eyes, the worst case scenario might have been the shutdown of the newspaper.
The authorities never supposed that the question of a single media’s fate would stir up such mass support, that the media would form a community of resistance with people from all walks of life that would send ripples through society. This caught them entirely off guard.
Secondly, this incident was one the authorities could not purchase their way out of. The masses driving this social movement could not be bought because the demands they made did not center on concrete claims of interest. One of the most typical stability preservation (维稳) responses, paying off the aggrieved party with Renminbi, was of no avail in this case.
Thirdly, this incident crossed over geographic boundaries. When officials in Beijing ordered media to re-run the editorial from the Global Times making false claims against Southern Weekly staff, this prompted fierce objections from journalists at other media and from a broader segment of society. When staff at another newspaper, The Beijing News, stood their ground and refused to run the Global Times editorial, the fire was burning rights at the steps of Zhongnanhai.
The apprehension of the authorities over the Southern Weekly incident was not without cause. One of the chief reasons the situation did not escalate further was that Southern Weekly staff limited their demands to immediate concessions. Another concrete reason was the fact that Guangdong’s Party secretary, Hu Chunhua (胡春华), was newly in his post and wanted a quick resolution to the stand-off and a return to normalcy. The limited victory by Southern Weekly staff put everyone back to work and calmed the situation.
[The full version of Xiao Shu’s article in Chinese is available at the New York Times.]

In a recent meeting of China’s top discipline inspection leaders, the Party officials charged with monitoring corruption within the Party, Xi Jinping pledged to “strike the tigers as well as the flies” (high officials as well as low) and “shut power in the cage of regulation” (or “cage of the system”). This was some of Xi’s most evocative anti-corruption language yet. On his blog, CMP fellow Yang Hengjun shared his thoughts on Xi’s remarks, anti-corruption and political reform in a dialogue with web users.

Web User: In his speech to the Central Discipline Inspection Commission on the 22nd, Xi Jinping emphasized that [the Party] needs to strengthen controls and monitoring of public power, that power must be shut into the cage of regulation (制度的笼子里) – so a system is created that deters corruption . . . What are your views on this?
Yang Hengjun: It’s all very well said. My impression is that the last time we heard something like this was from U.S. President George W. Bush [in his farewell speech] (“putting leaders into cages” “把统治者关进笼子里”). At the time this phrase really took off online [in China], and I used the phrase a number of times too on my blog. I remember some internet users at the time added comments to my post saying, Aye, when can our leaders talk that way? So, our Party Secretary Xi has now said it.
Web User: Yes, Xi Jinping said it, but how big do you think the gap is between words and deeds here? Things are easier said than done. I’d like to know – what needs to be done in order to shut power into the cage of the system?
Yang Hengjun: It’s very simple. You must use the system to shut power into a cage. Given China’s circumstances, perhaps this means progressing step by step like other authoritarian regimes that have undergone transition (Taiwan, for example). The first step would be the immediate institution of rule of law, using the legal system to control power, to limit power. The second step would be to implement a system of constitutional democracy, giving power back to the people, which would mean allowing the people to use this “democratic system” to put power into the cage of the system.
Web User: I’m sorry, you’ve taken me for a loop. Can you explain what you mean by what you just said? I didn’t understand the difference between the two.
Yang Hengjun: Hah hah. I’m not taking you for a loop. What I’m doing is trying to use just a few sentence to explain clearly a very complicated political question.
Let’s put it this way. When General Secretary Xi talks about stuffing power into the cage of the system, this raises an important question — and that is, who is going to stuff power into this cage? Is there someone higher than the system itself, such that they have the power to stuff the power in the hands of others into this cage? If you note that Xi Jinping made these remarks before a full session of officials from the Discipline Inspection Commission, you might feel a bit disappointed by that, because according to the standards of those civilized nations that have already successfully stuffed power into the cage, an organization like the Discipline Inspection Commission isn’t a particularly good example of rule of law in action. The Commission itself is obligated to first be stuffed inside the cage of the system.
However, in an authoritarian era, this is something that probably cannot be done instantly. So I can only hope that all of you discipline inspection officials present understand General Secretary Xi’s words, that you first put the power in your own hands inside the cage. Anti-corruption has to happen according to the law. It must not go around the law, using the courts and prosecutors as tools. That kind of anti-corruption is in fact the most dreadful form of corruption — corruption of power. Of course, really answering this question requires me talking about step two, and that is the step from rule of law to constitutional democracy. Once that step is made, we can remove the quotation marks from “rule of law.” Once that step is made, it’s no longer about the nation’s ruler shutting power into the cage, it’s about giving power back to the people, about a democratic system that puts rulers in the cage.
Web User: I think I sort of understand. What you mean is that there’s a long way to go before absolute power can be truly shut in the cage. It’s no wonder that while many web users were supportive after reading the news and commentary about Xi’s words, quite a number were also taking a wait-and-see attitude, and some even refused to believe it. How do you see this situation?
Yang Hengjun: I think the vast majority of web users rejoiced after hearing about Xi’s speech, though you can understand why some would remain skeptical. Some Chinese leaders are all talk and no action, and this causes disappointment. But even through disappointment after disappointment, I don’t stand with those persistent deniers. Remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day, and tyranny was not made by one single individual or political party. If it wasn’t for minions and numbly callous bystanders, we wouldn’t have so many evil systems on earth. What I mean to say is that your parents, brothers, sisters and friends, even you yourself, everyone must take responsibility for a bad system and the situation we face today. If you want to change it, you have to act. Even if acting means doing something seemingly insignificant . . . this has far more benefit than all of those who just stand by. Fighting for our rights and freedom is our own business.

The following post by Zuo Yeben (作业本) responding to Xi Jinping’s statement that he would “shut power up in the cage and strike the tigers [of corruption] as well as the flies”, was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime before 11:02am today, January 23, 2013. Zuo Yeben currently has just over 4.9 million followers, according to numbers from Sina Weibo. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre]

I’m begging you [Xi Jinping] not to throw power into the cage first!!!! We are all still here inside the cage!!! If you let them in without letting us out first they’ll bite us to death!!!

The original Chinese-language post follows:

求先别把权力关进笼子！！！！我们都还在笼子里！！！不把我们先放出去就把他们关进来会把我们咬死的！！！[泪]

NOTE: All posts to The Anti-Social List are listed as “permission denied” in the Sina Weibo API, which means they were deleted by Weibo managers, not by users themselves.

Last week, a book tour by celebrity blogger and social critic Li Chengpeng (李承鹏) was hijacked by local authorities, and by vocal leftists who oppose his critical writings on China [Summaries by TIME and SCMP].
Ahead of his first signing in his hometown of Chengdu to promote his new book, Everybody in the World Knows, Li was ordered not to say a word. In a now widely known act of silent protest, Li appeared at the signing wearing a black mask and then opened his coat to reveal the words, “I love you all,” written on his undershirt.

[ABOVE: Li Chengpeng appears before thousands of readers in Chengdu wearing a black mask after he was ordered not to say a word.]
In Guangzhou, the final leg of Li’s tour, the signing was cancelled at the last minute because the building where it was being hosted was closed for fire safety inspections.

[ABOVE: An image posted to Sina Weibo shows the notice of fire safety inspections to be carried out at the offices of Tianya in Guangzhou, where Li Chengpeng’s book signing was to take place on January 17.]
Li Chengpeng apologized to his readers for the Guangzhou cancellation with a tongue-in-cheek post to his Sina Weibo account playing on the title of his book: “Once again I apologize to everyone: Because fire safety inspections are happening at the Tianya Building, outsiders cannot go in, and therefore my book signing for readers is cancelled. I’m accepting this fact, because this place is really in need of a fire safety inspection. Everybody in the world knows, fire safety is really important.”
For all of its hitches and hijinks, Li Chengpeng’s book tour illustrates the limitations of control in the era of social media. Li’s “silent” signing in Chengdu was anything but silent — it was broadcast loudly across the internet. Every leg of his tour became the subject of fevered discussion online, pitting the values of speech and openness against controls that appeared foolish and anachronistic.
Yesterday, Li Chengpeng reflected back on his book tour with an interview published on Sina Weibo addressing some of the questions he has faced since it all began in Chengdu. The following is a partial translation:

There are some strange questions that deserve answers. These are not responses. They are not counterattacks. I just want to explain exactly what happened. I hope I can answer lingering doubts people have. Here are my answers:
QUESTION: I really don’t understand why the government would allow you to publish [your book], but not permit you to say anything at book signings. That seems like a huge contradiction.
ANSWER: This is what they call special characteristics (特色) [NOTE: Li is playing here on the Party term “socialism with Chinese characteristics”]. Here [in China] only publishing houses under the leadership of the Party can issue publishing numbers (书号). Because for many years they’ve been trained a certain way, many harmful works are refused publishing numbers and cannot circulate. But there are also some bolder publishing houses, the ones that haven’t been trained so well, that go against the grain and publish works [others will not].
But the publishing of a book is just the beginning. Because of the post-publication censorship, some books are banned from sale after they’ve been quietly published despite this high-pressure environment. For example, the book Urban Dirge (城市挽歌). There are also books that [authorities] got wind of only after they were published, and which to this day sit in the warehouse — for example, Mr. Yu Jianrong’s (于建嵘) True Account of Anyuan (安源实录). . . . There are plenty of examples like this. . . For a book to be published is just the beginning. After that there is still a tortuous road ahead. And who can say that one day someone might just deal the final blow [to your book]. Under this sort of situation, you have to understand the fact that although Everybody in the World Knows has been published I cannot speak at signings as a part of the normal process of publishing [in China].
Authorities in Chengdu were worried because I have a lot of readers, and [they thought] if they weren’t careful they might have a mass incident on their hands. So it was out of a concern for stability that they made their decision. It makes no difference that in my view there is no connection whatsoever between these two.
When the several heavy-fisted orders came down that I sign in silence, the poet Li Yawei (李亚伟) and the scholar Ran Yunfei (冉云飞) were both there to witness it. In case you suppose these two, who are my friends, might speak untrue then let me tell you I also have an audio recording. I don’t think recording the unreasonable demands of public power is a base act at all. In any case, it is a good way to avoid these strange questions I’m now getting.
In all likelihood, you will find it base of me to have done so. I can only say by way of comparison that after suffering a rape it is a shame if you decide to destroy the physical evidence.
QUESTION: If things were that unreasonable, couldn’t you just have avoided book signings altogether?
ANSWER: My first response was to not go through with it. Everyone who was there at the time can vouch for what I said — basically, that this was an insult, and one’s dignity is more important than the selling of books. Why, otherwise, would I have said no to a substantial advance of the kind Lu Jinbo (路金波) gets? Why would I have opted for the Xinxing Publishing House (新星出版社), which couldn’t offer a cent but could promise to preserve the draft in relatively complete form? However, one of my friends made the compelling point that avoiding the signing was improper, that I had to consider my readers. A sudden cancellation of the book signing, they said, was irresponsible to my readers. How many readers had come from other places to take part? (Indeed, there were readers from Xi’an, Chongqing and even Shanghai there).
I remember very clearly that that night when I posed this question on Sina Weibo and asked, “What should I do?”, the majority of readers supported signing in silence as a form of silent protest . . . Some people even suggested that I hold the signing instead on the side of the street next to the bookstore. When I considered that suggestion my feeling was that this would seem to the authorities like a provocation. There was the risk that readers could come to harm. And I couldn’t turn an ordinary book signing into a street movement. This just wasn’t my character. Late that night a reader from Shanghai even went to a hotel near the bookstore to see if the signing could be held in the lobby. I wouldn’t agree to that. It would impact the normal business of the hotel, and people with sensitive nerves would claim I had orchestrated it this way, wanting purposely to cause trouble . . . I worried this problem over until very late and finally sought the advice of Tu Jia Ye Fu (土家野夫), who was far off overseas. He said, first ensure that your book gets out there and your ideas reach an audience, then see how it goes from there. This is the most important work of the writer, he said. What do other indignities matter?
In the balance, my decision was to sign in silence (默签). I don’t have powerful backing from anyone. I don’t have the support of insiders. I don’t have high-level leaders giving me the green light. All I could do was sign in silence. . .
QUESTION: Even though they didn’t allow you to speak, I don’t believe that if you had said something they really would have done anything. I still think you were just trying to put on a show.
ANSWER: This question is logically unsound. The forces that be were very strong in their insistence that I sign in silence. How is there any problem in my complying? But another important reason was that the two people responsible at the bookstore repeatedly pressed us on this point: if we violated the orders, even speaking a single sentence, they would both be let go from their jobs. This was a hard order sent down from the leaders. I didn’t entirely believe it, so I said, look, it can’t be that serious. They said very seriously to me: you can’t say a single word. The leader is waiting . . . for your answer right now. . . Li Yawei and Ran Yunfei also asked me to consider their situation [as well–known local dissidents who could face punishment or intimidation]. At around midnight that night, I asked one final time whether I could just say, “Happy New Year!”, or just introduce [the poet] Liu Shahe (流沙河), [who planned to attend the signing]. We pledged not to say a single thing having to do with ideology. But this boss from the bookstore said: No, if you say a single thing I’ll lose my job. Brother, please consider my position . . .

Months after he formally became General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, we still know virtually nothing about Xi Jinping. As Elizabeth Economy noted recently, “the sound of speculation around Xi [Jinping] has become deafening.”
Most everything we do know about Xi Jinping is “style” over substance. He has tried to project a more casual image, suggesting he is a new kind of leader — the kind that repudiates overabundance, whether on his dinner table or in his official speeches.
But how new and extraordinary is this really?

[ABOVE: China’s new propaganda chief, Liu Qibao, on a visit to the official People’s Daily on January 17.]
When I read the news in the official People’s Daily today that China’s new propaganda chief, Liu Qibao (刘奇葆), had visited the newspaper to promote the “innovation of reports” and urge state journalists to “improve their writing style,” it all felt very familiar. And of course it is. These are all things we heard 10 years ago after China’s last leadership succession.
Click here for the soundtrack to accompany the rest of this post:

Meet the new boss.
Same as the old boss.

Remember the “Three Closenesses“? Anyone?
Here is Li Changchun, the Politburo Standing Committee member in charge of ideology from 2002 to 2012, talking about Hu Jintao’s “Three Closeness” — closeness to 1. reality/fact (实际), 2. life (生活) and 3. the masses (群众) — in the Party’s official journal Qiushi in 2003. Let’s listen:

Closeness to reality demands that we follow the epistemology of Marxism, uphold [the principle] that all must begin with reality and [we] cannot, fundamentally, begin with concepts and not resolve real issues. Closeness to reality demands that we accommodate the receptive abilities of the masses, generating ideas and concepts that sit the basic economic system of the primary stage of socialism. [We] cannot jump beyond [our present] stage, forcing moralistic lessons on others that depart from [prevailing] reality. Closeness to reality means . . . [we] cannot depart from the main battlefield of reform and opening and modernization . . . Closeness to reality means speaking the truth (说实话), acting according to real principles and seeking real results. [We] cannot simply seek a surface vigor and vitality, engaging in formalism (搞形式主义).

Li Changchun is giving us a ten-course meal of Party-speak. But what he means to say is pretty much exactly what Xi Jinping has said. The Party needs to start talking the people’s talk, and it needs to put practical deeds ahead of pretense. Why? Because it needs to stay relevant and make a compelling case for its relevance.
So here is Liu Qibao at the People’s Daily in the People’s Daily, delivering the “spirit of the 18th National Congress” and saying in essence that things will now be as different as they have always been. And we must note that the report of his visit is itself unapologetically old-style, beginning with a breathless description of Liu Qibao’s rank and position:

Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, January 17, [2013] — On January 17, Political Bureau of CCP Central Committee Member, Secretariat of the Central Committee Member and Minister of Propaganda Liu Qibao made an inspection visit of the People’s Daily, emphasizing that [all] must center on the principal line of studying the spirit of the 18th National Congress, adhering to correct guidance (坚持正确导向), innovating [news] reports, improving the style of writing, raising the reach (传播力), credibility (公信力) and influence (影响力) of the news media, and strengthening the focus and effectiveness of public opinion channeling (舆论引导).

Essentially, Liu Qibao’s speech is an elaboration of the propaganda policy outlined by Hu Jintao back in June 2008. The foundation is Jiang Zemin’s “correct guidance of public opinion,” or zhengque yulun daoxiang (正确舆论导向), which is Party code for media control.
But in addition to “guidance,” the Party must recognize that the game has changed. Restricting information is no longer enough. The Party must drive the agenda actively, what Hu Jintao in 2008 called “channeling public opinion,” or yulun yindao (舆论引导). State media have to be on top of news stories and issues that people are concerned about, “channeling” information and discussion in line with the Party’s strategic objectives.
To “channel” public opinion effectively, of course, state media have to be more accessible and relevant, just what Li Changchun was talking about in 2003.
Here is Liu Qibao again at the People’s Daily:

Liu Qibao said the [we] must establish a news concept with people at the center (人民为中心的新闻理念), writing for readers, reporting for readers, making reports cleave closely to the demands of the reader (贴近读者需求) . . .

Once again, “closeness” and putting the people at the core. Things Party media have struggled to do for years as commercial media have made advances and the internet has upended the media environment.
There are some interesting specifics in Liu Qibao’s remarks. He says, for example, that the People’s Daily must develop its editorial page in order to strengthen its influence. But the Party’s elusive desire to get “close” to the people while putting news controls first is what we have seen now for more than a decade in China.
Is anything really changing on the propaganda front? We’ll have to wait and see.
Are China’s Party media kidding themselves. Will they get fooled again?

The following post by Jing Hai Xin Yu (静海心语), a repost on a much earlier post from another user about ousted Chongqing secretary and prominent princeling Bo Xilai, was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime before 7:19am today, January 18, 2013. Jing Hai Xin Yu currently has just over 3,800 followers, according to numbers from Sina Weibo. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre]
The original post from January 12, as yet undeleted, includes a picture of marchers apparently holding up a red sign that reads, “We will forever support the people’s secretary, Bo Xilai.” The photo is below. The text on the original post reads: “Even though Bo Xilai has been removed from his post, the ordinary people still believe he is a good [Party] secretary.”

The original post also links to a blog on the Sina platform that kicks up a message saying the post has already been deleted.
It is interesting to note that this topically sensitive original post about Bo Xilai on Sina Weibo is still available, but that the blog post and the re-post from Jing Hai Xin Yu have been deleted. Why would that be? One possible explanation is the fact that Jing Hai Xin Yu has more than 3,000 followers, while the original poster of the Bo Xilai text has just four followers.
The original Chinese-language post follows:

【抗命中宣部 新京报社长获中国年度传媒大奖】有风骨者，才会真正有影响力！日前带领报社挺《南方周末》、对宣传干预新闻自主说不的《新京报》社长戴自更，荣获金长城传媒奖2012中国传媒年度影响力人物。@南方周末@新京报@记者刘向南 @徐昕 @左小祖咒 @袁腾飞

NOTE: All posts to The Anti-Social List are listed as “permission denied” in the Sina Weibo API, which means they were deleted by Weibo managers, not by users themselves.

Early this month, on the eve of the Southern Weekly incident, news came that a number of prominent Weibo users had had their accounts suspended. They included Cheng Yizhong, the former editor-in-chief of Southern Metropolis Daily, activist Ran Yunfei, investigative reporter Shi Feike and cartoonist Kuang Biao. This week Kuang Biao has returned to Weibo with a new account. His first post, “Tea”, is a drawing of an empty interrogation chair, with a blazing naked bulb overhead casting the dark ominous hole of a shadow underneath. On the chair sits a cup of tea, a reference to “invited to tea,” a phrase that become synonymous with dissidents being taken in by state security for questioning and intimidation..