In Hans Christian Andersen’s parable of power, pride and slavish self-deception, The Emperor’s New Clothes, the emperor is himself among the suckers duped into believing the “uncommonly fine” fabric made for him by two swindlers is the real stuff. As everyone doubtless knows, the tale ends with the emperor making a grand procession before the townsfolk without a thread to conceal his nakedness. The act of deception — “Oh, how fine are the Emperor’s new clothes! Don’t they fit him to perfection?” — might have worked had a child not cried out the innocent truth: “But he hasn’t got anything on!”
In China, Andersen’s story (long familiar to Chinese) is now being re-enacted inside out. The emperors, the top leaders of the Chinese Communist Party, are party to the swindle. And the audacious act of deception is to convince the townsfolk that despite all outward appearances, Party leaders are not mantled with wealth and privilege — they are, in fact, naked.
Since he became General Secretary in November, Xi Jinping has made an extreme public relations makeover the centerpiece of his game plan. He wants to convince Chinese that the CCP’s fifth generation of leaders is down-to-earth, spurns ostentation, that it is engaged with the pocketbook concerns of the general population — but most of all that it is clean.

[ABOVE: China’s new Politburo Standing Committee lineup, introduced to the world in November 2012. Are these seven men and their families really open to scrutiny?]
Corruption is a major, life-and-death issue for China’s ruling Party, and this is not the time for the Party be seen, like the emperor in Anderson’s story, wearing “the finest silk and the purest gold thread.”
In recent weeks, China’s state media have been full of accounts of modesty and austerity on the part of top leaders. Working meetings that cut down on speechmaking and posturing and actually get down to business (though there are few down-to-earth reports of what business they got down to). Talk of how Xi shook hands and mingled with the public on his trip to Shenzhen. And on December 31, a Xinhua piece plastered across the top of major internet portals: “Xi Jinping Visits Poor Families in Hebei: Dinner Is Just 4 Dishes and One Soup, No Alcohol.”

[ABOVE: A photograph of the simple menu reportedly prepared for General Secretary Xi Jinping’s official visit to Hebei.]
But this public relations campaign is about more than seeming spartanism; it is about seeming openness. Leveraging state media and the Party’s power to “channel public opinion” — the Xinhua pieces on humble Xi, remember, are promoted to the top of web portals by official order — the new generation of Party leaders is pushing the perception that they are open to public scrutiny.
This is the fable of the Party’s “nakedness.” The most powerful seven men in China are being paraded “naked” in all their finery before the townsfolk, who exclaim: “Look at how exposed our leaders are! They are ordinary men, just like us!”
The grandest procession of “nakedness” came on Christmas Day, as the official Xinhua News Agency rolled out a red-carpet tribute to the Party’s new General Secretary, Xi Jinping, and the other six members of the powerful Politburo Standing Committee. The Xinhua series, “The New High Level CCP Line Up” (中共高层新阵容), included lengthy profiles of the Party’s top seven. How did they get to be where they are today? What did they accomplish along the way? [More coverage on the series from Bloomberg and the SCMP.]

[ABOVE: A series rolled out by the official Xinhua News Agency on December 25 shares personal profiles of the seven members of the Party’s Politburo Standing Committee.]
Chinese media vaunted the Xinhua series as an unprecedented show of openness. In a piece hopefully headlined, “High-Level [Leaders] Set Up Model for Political Openness and Transparency” (高层为政治公开透明树立了典范), the China Youth Daily wrote:

The series of character profiles released in recent days from Xinhua News Agency . . . has resounded both at home and overseas, online and offline. The assessment heard most commonly in the media is that this is something ‘rarely seen’: photos from their lives as rarely seen, personal biographies as rarely seen, family information as rarely seen and life details as rarely seen.

The China Youth Daily story pointed out that what the public generally expects to see through news reports are “leaders in official speeches, going through diplomatic formalities or in the television lens.” But now, “thanks to this feature series,” Chinese can now see “a group of leaders with more personal charisma and more feeling who are much closer to us.”
The importance of the Xinhua series, says the paper, goes beyond the details themselves. The profiles are “profound models for the promotion of reform in a top-down fashion.”
There is little question that the Xinhua series is, in a sense, unprecedented. There is a personal edge and tone to the series quite out of line with the serious and cautious (i.e, “dull”) treatment of state leaders that has been par for the course in China for decades. According to the Party’s orthodoxy, leaders are not supposed to stand out. They are supposed to reflect the Party’s consensus-based politics. Charisma is delicate word, synonymous today with the Party’s fallen star, former Chongqing chief Bo Xilai.
But the profiles are by no means a treasure trove of information. The “political achievements,” or zhèng jì (政绩), of the Standing Committee members form the bulk of this revelation of “personal details.” In fact, there is little real information at all. One veteran Chinese journalist I spoke to called it “pathetically sparse.”
What is new is the personalization of these paltry details. The past “achievements” of Standing Committee members are presented by Xinhua as “personal political achievements” (个人政绩), or geren zhengji. And leaders are generally portrayed in more “personal” contexts. There is Xi Jinping joining in farm work on a tour in the Fujian countryside in 1988; he is smiling, a hoe slung over his shoulder. There is a youthful Xi Jinping on an “overseas tour” of San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge in the background.
The Xinhua profiles also talk about the families of the various leaders, a departure from usual practice. At the tail end of the Xi Jinping profile, there is mention of his marriage to singer Peng Liyuan (彭丽媛), followed by a laudatory list of her accomplishments.
Here is one of the personal moments in which we see the Party’s General Secretary in the role of husband:

In Peng Liyuan’s eyes, her husband is at once a distinguished person and an ordinary person. He enjoys eating home cooking from Shaanxi and Shandong, and when he gets together with friends he will drink and be lively with them. He likes swimming, hiking and watching basketball, soccer, boxing and other sports matches. Sometimes he’ll watch sports programming on TV late at night.

Though understandably welcome to some for their symbolism, these details are not evidence of greater openness in China’s politics. If anything, their preciousness makes the closed nature of Chinese politics even more apparent — like drops of water in the desert that only make one’s thirst that much keener.
The Xinhua series should remind us too that publishing information about state leaders remains a special right and privilege enjoyed by Party-run media. Other media, including commercial metro newspapers like Southern Metropolis Daily or The Beijing News have no right to do so, and would attempt such coverage at grave risk.
One of the most revealing facts since the series came just over a week ago is that these “details” cannot be freely discussed on Chinese social media. While posts about the series have been shared on platforms like Sina Weibo, many comments have been deleted, signaling that the leadership has little interest in inviting real scrutiny.
The bottom line, of course, is that real exposure of information about leaders can only happen in a more open society, where politics is competitive, and where truly independent monitoring by the media can happen. In politics, can there be anything revelatory about self-revelation in the absence of independent pressure? That’s doubtful. Openness has to mean that details are revealed, and that the truth is told, against the objections of political leaders.
The Xinhua series on China’s leaders reminded me of the comic story in Boccaccio’s Decameron of Capperello da Prato, the scoundrel with a lifelong tapestry of misdeeds who on his deathbed confesses trifling sins to the priest so theatrically that the Church declares him a saint. The Xinhua profiles are tell-alls that tell us nothing about the true characters or deeds of China’s most powerful men. But the fawning follow-up coverage by state media makes it look like China’s top leaders are being sainted for humbly confessing that they are in fact men, not saints at all.
In China’s present-day fable, The Emperors, No Clothes, foreign media play the role of the disbelieving child who sees through the obvious artifice. Examples of real journalism like Bloomberg’s “Revolution to Riches” series, and David Barboza’s ongoing revelations in the New York Times about China’s Party elite, tell a very different story.
The emperors are not naked. They are, as ever, enrobed and protected by a closed political system subjected only to self-scrutiny.
There is always the hope, of course — I’ve heard it insistently over the past decade I’ve spent watching signs in China’s media — that these symbolic gestures point to deeper change to come. As the official China News Service wrote in its rosy assessment of the Xinhua series:

This group of character features differs from past official text, revealing many details and filling the rest of the world with surprise. Public opinion at home and overseas has had a largely positive assessment of this. The general view is that this is the first time official media have actively ‘released material’ [about leaders]. Aside from projecting an image of leaders close to the people, this sends some signal of political reform (一些政改信号).

Perhaps China’s new top leaders are serious about political reform — the only thing that can ensure real openness and accountability, and deal effectively with corruption. Xi Jinping has showered us with apparent surprises, with changes of tone and style. And who can say with certainty that more substantial surprises aren’t in the works.
But until then, I suppose, we can only savor the paltry “details.” And enjoy the emperor’s parade.
Below is a partial translation of the Xinhua profile of General Secretary Xi Jinping:

Character Feature: “The Masses are the Source of Our Strength” (人物特稿:”人民群众是我们力量的源泉”)
—— Xi Jinping, General Secretary of the Communist Party of China

[Xi Jinping, second from left, in Shaanxi’s Yanchuan County (陕西延川县) in 1973, during the era of educated youth being sent into the countryside. Xinhua News Agency]
Xinhua News Agency, Beijing, December 23 —— On December 7, 2012, Xi Jinping, who had been elected General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party just 23 days earlier, left the capital for the first time to tour other areas [of the country as General Secretary]. He went to Guangdong, the province on the leading edge of economic reform and opening, and made Shenzhen his first stop. On this trip, he traveled without pomp and connected directly with the masses, having close exchanges [with them].
On December 8, he arrived at Shenzhen’s Lianhuashan Park and laid flower at the feet of the statue of Deng Xiaoping as crowds of tourists looked on. After that, Xi Jinping moved among the people, shaking hands and waving.
During his tour of Guangdong, he emphasized that the whole Party and the peoples of the whole nation must steadfastly take the strong nation road of reform and opening, giving greater priority to systematic, complete and coordinated reforms, achieving continued reform and opening.
There is profound meaning in the fact that the route taken by Xi Jinping on this trip to Guangdong is one Deng Xiaoping traveled 20 years ago in his tour of the south. [At the time] media remarked: This is a leader who brings a news leadership style, who is steadfast in carrying out economic reform and opening, and who leads the Chinese people toward achieved the Chinese dream (中国梦).
On November 15, 2012, 59 year-old Xi Jinping was elected general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party at the 18th National Congress of the CCP, becoming the first top CCP leader to have been born after the founding of the new China.
. . .
As China enters a decisive stage in comprehensive building of a moderately wealthy society, Xi Jinping strides to the center of China’s political stage and takes the baton of history. At the same time, as the leader of the world’s second-largest economy, he stands also at the front of the world stage.
All China, and all the world, have their eyes on Xi Jinping:
—— How will he lead the world’s largest ruling political party, with 82 million members, toward better serving the people?
—— How will he lead the 1.3 billion people of China toward winning the struggle toward the two great goals of “completely building a moderately wealthy society by the 100th anniversary of the founding of the CCP [in 2021], and achieving a prosperous, democratic, civilized and harmonious modern socialist nation by the 100th anniversary of the founding of the republic [in 2049]”?
—— How will he lead China in contributing to world peace and development?
. . .
At midday on the final day of the 18th National Congress, as Xi Jinping met more than 500 foreign journalists, he took up his heavy burdens with candidness, summarizing the mission of central Party leaders as three responsibilities: responsibility to [China’s ethnic] groups (对民族的责任), responsibility to the people (对人民的责任) and responsibility to the Party (对党的责任).
This solemn promise shows that Xi Jinping will define a historical responsibility to the Chinese people as the guiding concept and pursuit of his personal leadership.

[Xi Jinping in 1972 returning to Beijing to visit his family after joining a production team. Xinhua News Agency.]
“The people’s yearning for a good life, that is the goal of our struggle.”
“The people’s yearning for a good life, that is the goal of our struggle.” In his first speech after being elected general secretary, Xi Jinping clearly expressed his unfailing confidence in leading the Chinese Communist Party to govern for the people.
After taking his new post, he took part in the “Road to Revival” exposition with other members of the Politburo Standing Committee and said: “Right now, everyone is talking about the Chinese dream. It’s my view that achieving the great revival of the Chinese people is the greatest dream of the Chinese people in modern times.”
All along, Xi Jinping has taken the dreams of the people and made them his dreams. 43 years ago, he joined a work brigade in Shaanxi as an educated youth, and spend seven years there. His first “official rank” was Party branch secretary of the production brigade, what was then the “cell” of the Communist Party organizational system. In 2007, after years of toughening work at the local level, Xi Jinping was elected a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, serving as a member of the Secretariat of the Central Committee and Chairman of the Central Party School. He later served as a Deputy Secretary of the People’s Republic of China and as Deputy Chairman of the Central Military Commission. Over the past five years, he has directly taken part in the study and formulation of fundamental Party and government policies, and has taken part in the organization and implementation of major decisions and deployments.
From Shaanxi to Beijing, from Hebei to Fujian, from Zhejiang to Shanghai, from poverty-stricken areas of the west to the cultural and political center of the country, from undeveloped areas of the east to developed coastal areas, Xi Jinping has experience at the village, county, city (prefecture), province (municipality) level as well as experience at top Party and military posts. . .
The Chinese Communist Party is the core leadership carrying the Chinese people toward realization of the Chinese dream. Before he became the top Party leader, Xi Jinping long served in local Party posts. Once he entered the central Party leadership he led the daily work of the Central Secretariat, in charge of Party affairs, and he knows only too well the importance of the building of the Party. He prioritizes the strengthening of regulations within the Party, and he has led the formulation of many regulatory documents within the Party.
He has continually emphasized that the Party must continue to manage the Party, that the Party must be run strictly. On November 17, he pointed out during the first collective study session of the 18th Central Committee of the CCP that, “When things rot, the worms take hold.’ The facts overwhelmingly tell us that when the problem of corruption grows more and more severe, it just ultimately mean the destruction of the Party and the nation! We must remain vigilant!”

As New Year’s approaches, China’s leadership seems to be making its case for tougher internet controls in 2013.
Earlier this month, the country’s new propaganda chief, Liu Qibao (刘奇葆), said China must “deeply research the strengthening of the building, operation and management of the internet, singing the main theme online.” Singing the “main theme” refers explicitly to staying in line with the ruling Party’s political, social and economic priorities and does not, as the Wall Street Journal‘s recent translation suggests, refer blandly to “mainstream online themes.”
Since Liu Qibao’s remarks there have been a number of editorials in state-run media calling for a tougher stance on internet governance. While these editorials have talked about the need to address legitimate concerns such as the protection of personal data online, they have also cast a wider net over unspecified issues like the spread of “rumor.”
On December 18, a front page piece in the Party’s official People’s Daily warned that while the internet “facilitates social interaction” it brings such “complications” as “business fraud, malicious attacks and the spreading of rumors.”
On December 24, an editorial on the official web platform of the People’s Daily recapitulated the arguments made by the December 18 piece, this time referring to rule of law as a “bind” — or a “tight hoop,” jingu (紧箍) — needed to restrain the internet for the good of all. The editorial said “lines of conduct” should be stipulated and supervision enhanced online in order to “restrain irresponsible rumors, restrain the leakage of personal information, and make the internet clean again.”

[ABOVE: Is a restraining “ring” of “rule of law” needed to make China’s internet healthier? That’s what a recent editorial on People’s Daily Online argues. Photo a composite of China map and image by Kyz available at Flickr.com under Creative Commons license.]
This language sandwiches the relatively clear-cut agenda of personal data protection between moral and political goals that are harder to define and are probably code for increased political controls on the internet.
What exactly are “irresponsible rumors”? If, as some have reported, new regulations for China’s internet are in the offing, how exactly will they define “irresponsible rumors” and other “harmful” information?
A full translation of the People’s Daily Online editorial follows:

Putting the “Binds” of Rule of Law on the Online World (给网络世界套上法治“紧箍”)
Ma Bi (马碧)
December 24, 2012
People’s Daily Online
For many people in today’s society the internet is as essential as the air they breathe. Amid the flow of positive, constructive and healthy information there are rumor, cheating and scandal mixed in. People are deeply moved by the “good stuff,” such as the scene of a street worker blowing his partner’s hands warm after she finished shoveling snow. They are panicked by the “bad stuff,” like the “apocalypse rumors.” And “bad stuff” like the sale of personal information online are a threat to public safety and damage the interests of ordinary people.
The internet is a free and open stage. It is precisely because of this freedom, in which everyone can speak freely, that some active users can gain a large number of fans. But absolute online freedom does not exist, and online there must be a basic line, which is to not impinge on the freedom of others. We must accept moral restrictions, and respect laws and regulations. After all, no one wishes to live in an actual world in which there are no rules and no order, and no one wishes to live in a virtual world in which there are no rules and no order.
The real world and the virtual world are inseparable, and harm done to individuals online does not exist in the virtual world alone. The pain of those victims whose rights are infringed, who are cheated or attacked, is no less keen than that felt in traditional forms of harm. Particularly in the face of the information power wielded by online criminals, ordinary web users are little more than fish and fowl to be snared. As the whole world is now linked together in this way, strengthening supervision and management of the internet is not just a need but a matter of urgent necessity.
The internet is public space, and public order and good customs require the common efforts of web users, demanding that each web users “purify themselves” (自我净化), recognizing from the bottom of their hearts that the internet is not a utopia where they can do as they please, that it is not a “Garden of Peaches of Immortality” [i.e., a paradise] existing outside the law. But on this massive platform comprising 538 million web users and more than a billion mobile users, it is impossible byrelying on self-discipline alone to achieve regulation and order (规范有序) and to eliminate every single person with ulterior motives (别有用心者) or every doer of mischief (恶作剧者).
Without wings, the bird of freedom cannot fly high. Without rule of law, a free internet cannot go far. Today’s society reveres rule of law, and just as our actual society needs rule of law, so does our virtual society need rule of law. Cleaning up the online world demands the self-discipline of web users, but even more it demands the interventionist discipline (他律) of rule of law. Only by putting the “binds” of rule of law on the internet, by stipulating the lines of conduct and adding supervision according to the law (厘定行为边界，依法加以监管), only by making violators of the law bear the burden of illegality [as opposed to victims of crimes], only then can we possibly restrain irresponsible rumors, restrain the leakage of personal information, and make the internet clean again.
“It is the most splendid and the noisiest . . . ” This way of describing the internet is how many people feel. An open China requires a healthy online world governed by law. Only by putting the “binds” of rule of law on the internet can our internet be more civilized, healthier and safer, and only then can we increase the share of the “good stuff,” casting out the wicked and cherishing the virtuous.

The following post by Sina Weibo user “Youth Is Humanity and Heroism” (有仁有侠是青春) was deleted sometime before 8:09 a.m. today, December 20, 2012. The post is a comment on a previous post, also translated below, about a visit by Chinese Academy of Social Sciences scholar Yu Jianrong (于建嵘) to a resident of Changsha whose home faces demolition. “Youth Is Humanity and Heroism” currently has just over 5,000 followers, according to numbers from Sina Weibo. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre]

The people must unite in rebellion!// @10 YearsHexi10YearsHedong (@十年河西十年河东0: //@YuJianrong (@于建嵘): Just now when I said goodbye to Old Peng, he hugged me and wept bitterly. I am so sad [he said]. The property developer won’t offer compensation, won’t even negotiate. In the black of night they come and knock the walls down. They use criminal gangs to vandalize your car. Call the police and they don’t even bother. The government doesn’t show its face. What is the government for?![NOTE: This is Yu Jianrong’s comment]

This post is a response to the following as-yet-undeleted post by “Social Robin Hood”, which includes an image of Yu Jianrong with the property holder facing demolition: “Professor @YuJianrong came especially from Beijing to Changsha to see this old warrior fighting against the forced demolition of his home.”

The original Chinese-language post follows:

人民只有联合起来暴动了！ //@十年河西十年河东: //@于建嵘:刚才与老彭告别时，他抱着我痛哭。我非常难过。开发商不赔偿、甚至不谈判，黑夜挖别人墙角、利用黑社会砸人家的车，报警警不管，政府不出面，你这个政府是干吗的？！

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 post by Sina Weibo user “Hong Kong Cheng Dong” (香港成东1) was deleted sometime before 8:13 a.m. today, December 20, 2012. The post shares a post made to the China.com website that purports to show images from a protest, apparently (if true) in September this year, by members of the South China Sea Fleet (南海舰队). According to the post, officers of the South China Sea Fleet have protested the sale to a private developer of land set aside for affordable housing for the fleet. The post is unverified, and a number of responses on Sina Weibo, also deleted, called for confirmation. “Hong Kong Cheng Dong” currently has just under 35,000 followers, according to numbers from Sina Weibo. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre]

Big things are happening at the South China Sea Fleet, with hundreds of officers making trouble — It’s said that South China Sea Fleet transferred a section of land given to the fleet for the building of affordable housing for officers to a private boss building an auto parts warehouse, and this has prompted resistance from officers who do not have housing. http://t.cn/zjCmxeY

The original Chinese-language post follows:

南海舰队出大事了，数百军官闹事 – 据说南海舰队把给军官建经适房的一块地转让给了老板建汽配城，从而引发了没有住房的转业军官的抗议。 http://t.cn/zjCmxeY

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.

China’s Communist Party leaders are matchless masters of formalized bluster and braggadocio. This is true for the basic reason that learning to live and work (and think) within the Party’s linguistic framework is an absolute necessity for any Chinese official. The Party’s political culture is conditioned by the language officials use — by its tifa (提法), or what we might call its “watchwords” or “New China Newspeak.”
In recent weeks, media have hyped Xi Jinping’s professed drive to reshape the Party’s rigid “working style”, or zuofeng (作风), and its exasperating “language style”, or wenfeng (文风), which puts slavish parroting of Party slogans above down-to-earth speech. And there is now fresh talk in China’s state media about making news coverage of official Party and government activities less rigid and more accessible.

[ABOVE: Is Xi Jinping the cool, casual new task-master of the Chinese Communist Party. Or will he recast the Party’s image in the same old mould?]
But what does this campaign — which of course has its own slogans — actually mean? Are Xi’s apparent efforts real, or is this another flavor-of-the-month Party mobilization, doomed to fizzle into the old, familiar formalism?
Is Xi really a “casual communist” out to shake and remake a rigid bureaucracy increasingly distant from the lives of ordinary people?
Real change is impossible to rule out. But it may be most helpful to refresh our memories about the Party’s history on this issue of language and style — which makes Xi Jinping’s Party makeover at least seem far less fresh.
This is not the first time Party leaders have talked, in the lofty tones to which they are so conditioned, about “reforming language style” (改文风). The talk goes back at least to the Yan’an Talks in 1942, where there were high-minded ideas about “opposing subjectivism to rectify the style of writing” (反对主观主义以整顿文风).
More than 30 years ago, in the wake of the Cultural Revolution, a new sense of alertness to the “fake, exaggerated and empty” nature of media during this decade of terror was the primary driver behind media reform. There was a new emphasis on shorter news stories grounded in facts. This sort of journalism, including critical news reporting and more serious discussion of social issues, was pioneered by papers like China Youth Daily, the official newspaper of the Communist Youth League, and by Shanghai’s World Economic Herald.
In the midst of Xi Jinping’s “new” approach to the walk and talk of Chinese politics, this old phrase, jia da kong (假大空), has popped up again.
An article in the Party’s official People’s Daily on Monday remarked changes in “working style” at the Central Economic Work Conference held over the weekend. There were no flowers on the dais, and fewer officials were seated there. Discussions, officials told the paper, were focused on practical questions. Bao Kexin (包克辛), chief executive of the China Grain Reserves Corporation, remarked:

Everyone already abhors things that are false, exaggerated and empty (假大空), so changing our style of work and our style of speaking is a popular sentiment.

In fact, the issue of changing the Party’s “language style” has returned to the official People’s Daily with stubborn persistence over the past three decades.
Back in 2001, the Sixth Plenary Session of the 15th CPC Central Committee issued a “Decision” — written, naturally, in the Party’s uniquely obscure political discourse — in which the issue of “strengthening and improving” the Party’s “working style” was addressed.
On November 23, 2001, the People’s Daily relayed the lessons propaganda leaders had drawn from the buzzword-laden “Decision”:

The Core Group of the Central Propaganda Department learned much from the “Decision,” and it deeply recognizes the importance and urgency of strengthening and improving the Party’s building of its working style. Everyone believes that working style is inextricably linked to language style, that working style determines language style and language style embodies working style. On the basis of serious research into the actual situation regarding propaganda work, they raised a number of specific measures for grasping working style, changing language style and avoiding and opposing formalism (形式主义) — these included opinions on the improvement of news reports on [Party] meetings and leaders events, an area in which breakthroughs have not been made over many years.

This article from more than 11 years ago acknowledges that the Party had tried, and failed (repeatedly), to change the way it works and talks.
That failure is not surprising when you understand CCP discourse as core to the way the Party works. Sloganeering is key to the mobilization approach that drives China’s vast bureaucracy. Leaders define priorities, which are then drummed through the bureaucracy, from the top all the way to the bottom, through slogans that encapsulate those priorities.
When Hu Jintao made pronouncements about “building soft power” in the 2007 political report, even local township leaders jumped on the soft power bandwagon. Now that Xi Jinping has pronounced his intention to make the Party look and feel more in touch, is it any surprise that everyone is jumping on his anti-bandwagon bandwagon?
In Chinese politics, everyone needs to be on the same page. And that’s difficult to accomplish when everyone is reading from a different phrase book. That’s important to remember for those who feel so sure Xi Jinping is throwing that book out the window.
But who knows? Perhaps if enough Party cadres heed Xi Jinping’s call . . .
As a reader’s letter to the People’s Daily said on July 25, 2001, when talk of a change of “style” was also the prevailing weather of the day: “Language style is a kind of ‘breeze,’ and changing our language style demands more than just blowing the breeze. It requires the real and long-term efforts of everyone.”

An article on the front page of the official People’s Daily today serves as a cautionary note to Chinese: the internet is as much a tool of rumor and misinformation as a platform for information sharing, and everyone must be as responsible and law-abiding online as they are offline.
The article, which appears in the “Today’s Topic” column, is at the bottom of the People’s Daily front page. The article is written by “Mo Jinjin,” almost certainly a byline standing in for an official government department.

[ABOVE: In China, those going online should remember there are lines that cannot be crossed, cautions today’s People’s Daily. Photo by “eviltomthai” posted to Flickr.com under Creative Commons license.]
The People’s Daily article has no new significance as a reflection of the Party’s policy on media and information, but it does serve as a reminder that the internet and social media are now a core focus of media controls in China. The article follows a statement earlier this month by the new propaganda chief, Liu Qibao, that China must research ways to strengthen internet controls.
Perhaps the most interesting line in the article (underlined below) is its admission — a rather moderate position on China’s media control spectrum — that it is “impractical” to expect people always to say the “correct” thing.
A translation of the article follows:

“The Internet is Not Outside the Law” (网络不是法外之地)
People’s Daily
December 18, 2012
Page One, “Today’s Topic” column
By Mo Jinjin (莫津津)
“It’s the greatest, but it’s also the most clamorous . . . ” Many people would sympathize with these words as a description of the internet. As a brand new platform, the internet facilitates social interaction, providing information, the sharing of points of views and other things, but at the same time it causes many complications, such as business fraud, malicious attacks and the spreading of rumors.
Rapid development and ease of use, combined with the virtuality and anonymity of the online space, have driven many people to participate online “without giving it any thought.” We must recognize that the online world is not a space beyond the law. Our words online can, whether intentionally or unintentionally, violate the law. Because the damage caused to individuals or to society [by actions online] is not limited to the virtual world. Those who are subjected to fraud, those who are the victims of infringements or attacks, suffer no less than those who harmed in traditional ways.
An open China requires a civilized and healthy online world governed by rule of law. Everyone, whether supervising government bodies or the masses of internet users, must treasure this platform. Demanding that people all use the correct means to say the correct things is not practical, but they must have a consciousness of the law and take responsibility for their words — this is a must. Because regardless of whether online or offline, this is the foundation on which public order and good habits are built.

The following post by Simon Zhou (我是西蒙周), a journalist for Hong Kong Commercial Daily, was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime before 10:33pm yesterday, December 16, 2012. The post is one of a number, all deleted, sharing photos from Xi Jinping’s visit to the United States in February 2012. Simon Zhou currently has just under 70,000 followers, according to numbers from Sina Weibo. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre]

[Not such old photographs] Wait a minute . . .

The original Chinese-language post follows:

【不太老的老照片】等一下……

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.

Chinese media reported in mid December 2012 that a migrant worker living under a bridge in the city of Zhengzhou died of exposure to the cold, the second such death of a rural migrant worker (农民工) in China within days. The news prompted debate over the predicament facing migrants from the countryside working (or looking for work) in China’s cities. In the above cartoon, posted by artist Kuang Biao (邝飚) to Sina Weibo, a worker, his body cracked and broken, huddles on the ground to support a naked human figure trying in vain to take flight on feeble wings — a comment on the stark contrast between the official triumphalism of China’s current development and the hardship often suffered by the migrant workers fueling much of China’s development. Kuang Biao reported on Sina Weibo that the cartoon nearly made the cut for his newspaper, Southern Metropolis Daily, but was later left out for unexplained reasons.

The unexplained absence last week of newly-appointed propaganda chief Liu Qibao (刘奇葆) generated a great deal of speculation in Chinese-language media outside China — particularly after reports that Liu’s former second-in-command in Sichuan, Li Chuncheng, is facing corruption charges.
In shades of Xi Jinping’s sudden re-emergence after a strange and troubling absence in September, Liu Qibao reappeared last Friday, according to a report by the official Xinhua News Agency, but with no attempt to explain the gap. Liu made official visits to the Information Office of the State Council and the Ministry of Culture, where he spoke in muddy Party rhetoric (despite Xi Jinping’s calls for fresh language) of “implementing the spirit of the 18th National Congress.”

It may never be clear why Liu Qibao was missing from the public eye for more than a week. Looking at the Xinhua release marking Liu’s return, however, it is clear that the new propaganda chief is so far living up to his image as a hard-liner on media control.
Liu Qibao’s hints on the direction of media policy in China should be weighed carefully against Xi Jinping’s much-touted New Deal on Party rhetoric. Less jargon does not necessarily spell more openness.
In particular, we should note Liu Qibao’s recent call for more “research” on the strengthening of internet controls, ensuring that the “main theme” — in other words, the Party’s line and priorities — are sung loudly in the online space.

“Liu Qibao Demands Research on Strengthening Internet Management”
Xinhua News Agency
December 7, 2012
Liu Qibao . . . Minister of the Central Propaganda Department, made visits to the Ministry of Culture and the Central Foreign Affairs Office [Information Office], emphasizing that the propaganda, ideological and cultural front must take the study and implementation of the spirit of the 18th National Congress of the CCP as the main line of their work, solidly promoting the building of a socialist cultural power, and further promoting a new tide of publicizing and implementing the spirit of the 18th National Congress.
Liu Qibao pointed out that the propaganda, ideological and cultural front lines must act according to the strategic objectives of the Central Committee, this being their chief political task and their cardinal task. [They must be] meticulous in their organization, ensuring real results, explaining profound theories in simple language (深入浅出), working to enter people’s hearts and minds.
Liu Qibao pointed out that [the Party] must deeply research the characteristics and principles of foreign publicity (对外宣传) and international cultural dialogue (对外文化交流), seeking to deepen the channels and methods for work [in propaganda, ideology and culture]. [The Party must] deeply research the strengthening of the building, operation and management of the internet, singing the main theme online.
Luo Shugang (雒树刚), deputy minister of the Central Propaganda Department, and others accompanied [Liu Qibao] on the tour.

The following post by Sina Weibo “News is Already Dead” (新闻已死) was deleted sometime before 8:30 a.m. today, December 10, 2012. The post shares a news page from Taiwan’s Want Daily months ago about a survey from Freedom House in which Taiwan was ranked second in Asia for its degree of press freedom. The article mentions in the subhead that mainland China was 187th in the ranking, coming in near the bottom. The post wryly remarks that at least China is still ahead of countries like North Korea and Myanmar. “News is Already Dead” currently has just under 62,000 followers, according to numbers from Sina Weibo. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre]

Number 187, that’s still not bad. At least we’re still ahead of those “golden nations” that neighbor us. This is neither a gift nor an utter shame.

The original Chinese-language post follows:

187名，还好，最起码高于邻邦“金国”。既不知耻，亦不后勇。

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.