The following post by Feng Liu Yun Shi (風流韵史) about about China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime before 11:58 a.m. today, August 27, 2012. Feng Liu Yun Shi currently has more than 108,000 followers, according to numbers from Sina Weibo. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre].

I strongly call on the Chinese government to dissolve the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, this office that can only again and again express its “deep concern”, “condemnation” and “opposition.” Not only is there no need for it to exist, it also damages the dignity of the people and wastes taxpayers’ money! Those who agree, pass this post along.

The post was accompanied by the following image from a recent press conference held by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The following is the original Chinese post:

强烈要求中国政府撤销外交部，这个只会反反复复的表示“关切”、”谴责“、“抗议”的部门，不仅没有存在的必要，还有损国人的尊严，浪费纳税人的钱！ 同意的请转！ （吴淑平）

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 Chinese legal scholar Xu Xin (徐昕) about democracy in China was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime before 7:13 a.m. today, August 24, 2012. Xu Xin currently has just under 125,000 followers, according to numbers from Sina Weibo. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre].

[Democracy] Democracy is very complex, so complex that it is the only thing China is unable to clone (山寨) — unknown origin.

Xu Xin’s post is accompanied by a cartoon of unknown origin — perhaps concerning the ongoing conflict in Syria — in which two men stand together, one holding a military-grade rifle and peering down its barrel. The man standing next to him asks: “Can you see democracy in there?”

The following is the original Chinese post:

【民主】民主是一种很复杂的东西，复杂到这是中国人唯一没能山寨成功的东西。——作者不详

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 Chinese writer Zhang Yihe (章诒和) about the crippling climate of doubt and credibility created by the control of information in China was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime before 11:56 a.m. today, August 23, 2012. Zhang Yihe currently has more than 275,000 followers, according to numbers from Sina Weibo. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre].

A friend of mine wrote: Was Liu Xiang’s appearance at the Olympics all just a performance? Was Ye Shiwen on steroids or not? Was that really Gu Kailai in the courtroom? Was it really Zhou Kehua (周克华) who was beaten to death? And on and on. This makes one think of the ancient story of the boy who cried wolf, who was lying over and over so no one believed him, until he was eaten himself by the wolf. China’s propaganda machine has cranked out lies for 60 years. Now it has come to the point that anything they say is met with doubt.

The following is the original Chinese post:

一位朋友写道：刘翔的奥运表现是在做戏吗？叶诗文到底有没有服药？法庭上的谷开来是本人吗？被打死的是周克华吗？等等。这不禁让人联想起一则古老故事—狼来了！孩子只说了一次谎，就没有人相信，最后喂身于狼。中国宣传机器命大福大，说了六十多年的谎，现在终于到了每说一句话，都被人怀疑的阶段了。

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.

According to an August 20, 2012, article in the official Hunan Daily, a watermelon seller, Xu Wanqin (徐万琴), made 1,700 yuan selling his watermelons over the course of three days recently. But various fees charged by the wholesale market where he sold his melons came out to 1,620 yuan, and in the end he made just over 100 yuan. The travails of Xu and other wholesalers of agricultural products have, according to the newspaper, prompted authorities in Hunan to review regulations governing wholesale markets in the province. In this above cartoon, posted by artist Chen Shi (沉石) to Sina Weibo, a man in a black suit wearing a red tie (marking him as a Party official, like the local officials who presumably run many local wholesale markets in China) feasts on a plateful of watermelons with a fork and spoon as a farmer sits dejectedly on the plate, his empty cashbox sitting at his feet. A sign in the pile of watermelons reads: “Watermelons, 50 cents.”

The influence of China’s Party-run newspapers has been sliding steadily for almost two decades now. Ever since the mid-1990s, these “mouthpieces“, operated by top Party leaders at various levels of China’s vast bureaucracy — and full of tinder-dry accounts of their official claptrap — have been out-gamed and out-sold by a new generation of metropolitan newspapers offering a much richer variety of news and consumer fare.
In China’s increasingly commercialized media marketplace, Party papers are an impossible sell. And that has presented Party leaders with a challenge. Sure, they can continue to exercise control over media in the crowded marketplace, ensuring journalists and editors don’t cross the line. But how do they get their own message across? How can they be heard above the fray?
As we’ve written often before, President Hu Jintao’s media policy since June 2008 has emphasized the more active “use” of commercial media in China, including “the resources of the metropolitan newspapers.” That means, essentially, that the Party is now determined, when it can, to push its own messages through these market-oriented newspapers.
This is certainly happening. For many major, breaking stories, Chinese newspapers are limited by Central Propaganda Department directives instructing them to use only the official news release from Xinhua News Agency. In this way, mass-circulation commercial newspapers are used to push the Party’s own version of the story.
But another enduring hope within China’s news and propaganda establishment is that official Party media might cross the sea of public scorn to a new promised land of credibility and influence. Hu Jintao has talked about the need to “enhance the reach and influence of public opinion channeling by mainstream media.” And in the Chinese context, “mainstream media” refers specifically to Party-run media — as opposed to market-driven print and online media.
So are China’s Party media changing? And if so, how?
An interesting piece on the front page of yesterday’s edition of the Party’s official People’s Daily touted the provincial-level Liaoning Daily as an example of the possibilities open to Party newspapers if they are willing to “liberate their thinking” and “innovate.”

[ABOVE: The Party’s official People’s Daily runs a front page article praising the provincial-level Liaoning Daily for its “innovative” makeover.]
According to the People’s Daily piece, Liaoning Daily, which of course is the official “mouthpiece” of the provincial Party leadership in Liaoning province, has undergone a radical rethink of its content and form since 2009. The paper, the article explains, has focused on providing relevant content to its readers, not just dry recaps of official Party business.
Today, more than two years after the paper’s makeover, its sells 23,000 copies a day off the newsstand. That’s a drop in the bucket by Chinese newspaper standards, but Liaoning Daily, which like most Party papers has traditionally relied entirely on subscriptions from government offices (which usually have no choice), apparently regards this as a major success.
The People’s Daily article also says that revenues at Liaoning Daily are expected to top 100 million yuan this year, up from just 40 million prior to 2009.
The first thing I did when I read the People’s Daily piece today — thanks to Russell Leigh Moses for the tip off — was visit Liaoning Daily to see what all the excitement was about. I was underwhelmed.
The newspaper’s official website seemed stubbornly stuck in the past, a clunky dinosaur compared to other Party paper sites, like that of Guangdong’s official Nanfang Daily. The link to the paper’s PDF version from the home page didn’t even work.

[ABOVE: The official Liaoning Daily claims it has undergone a revolution of credibility and influence in the past three years, becoming relevant and attractive to media consumers. Maybe it’s time to give their official website a makeover?]
A separate search for the “electronic version” took me to a special page for the Liaoning Press Group and its associated newspapers. Now we were in business.
The page allowed me to download a version of the print newspaper, or read a version online. And what was the top story in today’s Liaoning Daily?
It was a profile piece — the proper term should be “fluff piece” — about Zhou Enyi (周恩义), a retired local propaganda minister in Liaoning. The headline: “The ‘Propaganda Minister’ Who Constantly Has the People in His Heart.” Everyone loves Zhou Enyi. The kids call him “Grandpa Zhou”. Pro-Party wisdom drops effortlessly from his lips: “Zhou Enyi says, if the Party puts its trust in you and puts you here, you must have a sense of responsibility and mission in working for the Party and the people.”

[ABOVE: The front page of today’s Liaoning Daily profiles a local propaganda leader.]
At the bottom of today’s front page at the Liaoning Daily is a narcissistic re-run of yesterday’s People’s Daily piece about the Liaoning Daily: “The Inexhaustible Prime Power of Party Papers.” (And now, let’s have a show of hands from all those who find the layout of Liaoning Daily more “innovative” than that of the official People’s Daily?)
So this is one provincial-level Party paper’s idea of what is relevant and has appeal to the average Chinese reader, to the “grassroots,” as they like to say? A profile of a selfless Party servant, a propaganda minister no less. And for good measure, a paean to the lasting value and importance of Party-run newspapers.
The People’s Daily informs us that this “reform and innovation” at Liaoning Daily was the product of a top-down process of “liberation of thought” — that is, provincial Party leaders are in full support of, and have directed, the changes.
It is emblematic, I think, of the encroaching irrelevance of China’s Party newspapers that Liaoning’s Party leaders should gaze down at the masses in an ostensible attempt to open up to their needs and demands, and see, gazing back, a reflection of themselves.

“The Inexhaustible Prime Power of Party Papers: A Record of Reform and Renewal at Liaoning Daily”
By He Yong (何勇)
People’s Daily
August 20, 2012
How can provincial-level Party newspapers, as regional mainstream media, raise their own competitiveness and enhance their public opinion influence and reach as they are challenged by the internet and other new media?
Since 2009, Liaoning Daily has renewed its news reporting, renewed its format and layout and renewed its circulation system through a process of deep reform and innovation . . . achieving successes both in terms of economics and social benefit (社会效益). Prior to reforms Liaoning Daily relied entirely on administrative mobilization to achieve its circulation [NOTE: This means the paper pushed Party and government offices within the province to “subscribe”]. Now the paper sells 23,000 copies daily. Prior to reforms, Liaoning Daily had annual advertising revenue of around 40 million. Today, revenues are expected to surpass 100 million.
The people are the same. The paper is the same paper. So what is the “secret” behind this dramatic change? “The key is that under the support and leadership of the provincial Party committee, Liaoning Daily returned to news reporting, pushed boldly into the market, and found the vitality as a Party paper that was already there,” says Liaoning Daily director and editor-in-chief Sun Gang (孙刚) with deep feeling.
A News-based Party Paper (新闻党报)
Competition is fierce in the media sector. For a number of reasons, some traditional media have lost their appeal and their credibility and influence have weakened. A single wry remark, “Ten minutes on Weibo requires a month of positive reporting (正面报道) to heal”, sums up the immense challenge facing traditional media under the onslaught of new media.
How can Party papers win readers and win the market, thereby achieving the goal of “serving the overall [political] situation (服务大局)?” The method at Liaoning Daily is to transform concepts (转变观念), operating the newspaper according to the principles of the news (新闻规律) and communications — running a “news-based Party paper” from outer appearance to content, as opposed to publishing a “conference bulletin” (会议简报). [NOTE: The suggestion here is that the newspaper is no longer reporting dry news about local leaders holding meetings and giving speeches, but rather is reporting the news].
On April 1, 2009, the editorial committee of the Liaoning Press Group decided to entirely makeover the newspaper, moving away from stiff formats and a focus on reporting on [Party] activities, creating a “news-based Party paper” with broad influence. The Liaoning Daily dispensed of its old format of 55 years and adopted the internationally popular “tabloid” (瘦报) format. It made bold use of images with greater impact. In terms of content, according to the demands of readers, [the paper] developed six major news categories close to [people’s] lives (贴近生活): economic and political news (政经新闻), hot news (热点新闻), discovery news (发现新闻), service news (服务新闻), commentary news (评论新闻) and image news (图像新闻). [NOTE: The phrase “close to life” here is a reference to the 2003 media policy under President Hu Jintao of the “Three Closenesses“.]
Articles were now shorter, more numerous, and images were larger. “We now use language that ordinary people are willing to read, can understand and can remember to write our stories and headlines. This is the paper’s basic demand and the the goal editors and reporters alike are after,” says reporter Liu Ligang (刘立纲).
. . .
The reform, makeover and innovation at Liaoning Daily is an instance of top-down liberation of thinking (思想解放). The provincial Party committee of Liaoning is the firmest supporter of the changes at Liaoning Daily, and it has become a consensus among the top leaders in Liaoning that more important pages in the paper be devoted to the grassroots and the ordinary masses.
A Party Paper for the Market
“How can a paper that can’t sell itself on the market talk about having influence?” asks Zhang Jiang (张江), Liaoning’s propaganda chief and a member of Liaoning’s provincial standing committee, who has staunchly pushed Liaoning Daily into the retail marketplace.
He pays careful attention to Liaoning Daily’s circulation figures. In the early days of the paper’s reform he was in the habit of going everyday to a certain newsstand to see how the Liaoning Daily was selling.
. . .
A Party Paper with Vitality
Pleasing, interesting and useful — this is the assessment many readers now generally have of Liaoning Daily. As a regional mainstream media, Liaoning Daily‘s overall competitiveness and public opinion influence (舆论影响力) are steadily rising. . .
The post-reform Liaoning Daily has made use of the characteristic closeness to the people shown by the [new generation] of metropolitan newspapers (都市类媒体), but has at the same time avoided the shortcomings of news fragmentation (碎片化) and pandering [from which such papers suffer]. [The paper] uses readability to achieve [the Party’s goal of] guiding [the public] (指导性), and uses closeness [the people and their lives] to rediscover its influence. At the same time, through its political, policy and personnel advantages, it takes on the important tasks of the mainstream media [NOTE: this means “Party” media] in guiding [the opinions of] the social mainstream population and propagating the core values of socialism. “Through a series of innovative means, Liaoning Daily now has more vitality and more charisma,” says Li Dong (李东), a professor in the School of Culture and Communications at Liaoning University.
By finding vitality and winning a market, Liaoning Daily now has confidence that it can actively plan around major issues, become involved in discussion of complex issues, respond to doubts, and channel public opinion in society (引导社会舆论).

The following post by Chinese cultural critic Luo Xue Shi Hua (落雪是花) about anti-Japanese protests in China this week over the issue of sovereignty of the Diaoyu Islands, which are claimed by both China and Japan, was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime before 1:50pm today, August 20, 2012. Luo Xue Shi Hua currently has more than 87,000 followers, according to numbers from Sina Weibo. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre].
The post includes an image of Chinese smashing a Japanese vehicle during protests on the mainland. Protesters in Shenzhen yesterday overturned Japanese-brand vehicles and smashed them as crowds cheered.

A translation of Luo Xue Shi Hua’s post follows:

Wang Shuo [said]: People who wouldn’t even dare berate the thief on the street, but they’re brave enough to call for the destruction of the Japanese. A band of people who don’t give a damn about the sufferings of the living all around them, but they have the nerve to say they won’t forget the lives of brethren long dead. In Japan, these people would be called fascists, in Germany they would be called Nazis, but in China they are called patriots.

The following is the original Chinese post:

王朔：一些连街边小偷都不敢呵斥的人，却勇于高呼灭了小日本。一帮连活着的人民的痛苦都漠不关心的人，却有脸说不忘死去的同胞。有那么一群人，在日本叫法西斯，在德国叫纳粹，在中国叫爱国者。

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 Chinese poet “The Wastrel Doesn’t Turn Back” (浪子不回头) about the photoshopping yesterday of a Taiwanese flag in an iconic image of activists reaching the disputed Diaoyu Islands, was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime before 10:01pm yesterday, August 16, 2012. “The Wastrel Doesn’t Turn Back” currently has just under 16,000 followers, according to numbers from Sina Weibo. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre].
The post includes an image juxtaposing the full picture of activists from Hong Kong landing on the Diaoyu Islands, with a man at center bearing a Taiwanese flag, with a Photoshopped picture run in a Chinese newspaper.

The post from “The Wastrel Doesn’t Turn Back” follows:

Media openly engaging in fakery! What kind of country is this?! Ah!

The following is the original Chinese post:

媒体公然造假！这是一个什么样的国度？！呸！

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 standoff between China and Japan over sovereignty of the Diaoyu Islands, a set of islands and rocky atolls northeast of Taiwan and southwest of the Japanese island of Okinawa, is figuring prominently in China’s headlines today. Central to the story is Japan’s arrest yesterday of 14 activists who sailed from Hong Kong on a vessel called “Defense of the Diaoyu II” and landed on one of the islands, climbing atop it with flags and banners.
But one of the most interesting substories today has involved the handling inside China of an image of the landing by Hong Kong activists. The image shows a man in a white shirt bearing the national flag of the People’s Republic of China. Right below him is a man in an olive-colored vest bearing the flag of the Republic of China.

[ABOVE: A complete, unedited image of the Hong Kong activist crew landing on the Diaoyu Islands, with Taiwanese flag fully evident.]
The image quickly became iconic on China’s internet, and many were quick to note the obvious presence of Taiwan’s flag alongside that of mainland China.
But how were Chinese media to deal with the iconic image today? How could they use this powerful visual to assert China’s sovereignty over the Diaoyu Islands while dealing at the same time with the super-sensitive question of sovereignty that still hangs over the Taiwan issue?
The Chinese-language Global Times, a paper frequently dismissed as a “nationalist rag” (and that very often looks like one), in fact made one of the bravest shows. The paper ran the full image — no wily cropping or Photoshopping.

[ABOVE: The August 16 edition of the Global Times run the full image of the Hong Kong activist crew landing on the Diaoyu Islands, with Taiwanese flag evident. A Weibo user circled the Taiwanese flag and remarked: “This is the truest [use].”]
The Yimeng Evening Post (沂蒙晚报), a commercial paper in the city of Linyi in Shandong province, also ran the full image.

The paper was congratulated by some Chinese on Weibo for its show of courage and principle, but by Thursday afternoon the link to the front page on the paper’s electronic version had already been disabled. Indeed, this is the kind of risk that might better be run by bigger players like the Global Times.
So how did other Chinese newspapers deal with the Taiwanese flag?
Recognizing the sensitivity of the image, but still apparently feeling it was the best front page option, the Wuhan Evening Post splashed its bold black headline — “Setting Foot on the Diaoyus” — right across the Taiwanese flag. A deceitful, but of course resourceful, workaround.

[ABOVE: The Wuhan Evening Post cleverly blocks out Taiwan’s flag with a strategically placed headline.]
The Chongqing Commercial News solved the problem by doing some heavy-handed cropping of the image of the Diaoyu Island landing. The paper isolates the portion at the top of the photo in which the man in the white shirt climbs with the PRC flag.

[ABOVE: The Chongqing Commercial News crops out everything but the PRC flag bearer at the top of the image.]
Not unlike the Wuhan Evening Post, Shenzhen’s Daily Sunshine chose to block out the Taiwanese flag with a bold headline. This time, the headline reads: “We Salute You! Heroes on Diaoyu!” But the Daily Sunshine treatment is done so cleverly that the reader sees only the red on the flag — not the white and blue — and can only assume that this, too, is a PRC flag.

[ABOVE: The Daily Sunshine uses a headline to block the Taiwanese flag, and suggest it is a PRC one.]
The day’s Infamy Prize goes to the Xiamen Commercial News, a commercial newspaper in Fuzhou province, and right across the straits from Taiwan. Taking the lowest of the ethical low roads, the paper simply photoshopped the Taiwanese flag, bringing the PRC flag tally in the image to three.

[ABOVE: The Xiamen Commercial News rubs out historical fact with the help of software.]
In a Weibo post earlier today, Chinese legal scholar Xu Xin (徐昕) shook a finger at the Xiamen Commercial News, writing: “You can decide not to use the whole image, but you cannot outright fabricate it. I pay my respects to the Yimeng Evening Post and observe a moment of silence for Xiamen Commercial News.”
It should also be noted that an earlier image of the “Defense of the Diaoyu II” vessel en route to the Diaoyu Islands shows that several flags were flying during the journey. A PRC national flag was affixed to the front of the vessel, and Hong Kong and Taiwan flags flew at the top of the vessel.

In recent years, the internet has become the leading source of information for a large swathe of the Chinese population. An interactive medium, the internet enables Chinese to become sources of information, not merely passive audiences. Online bulletin boards and chatrooms, and now of course Twitter-like Weibo, have allowed Chinese to share facts and opinions about the world around them. This epic shift in the information environment has also meant that Chinese often share information China’s government leaders, companies or individuals would rather keep quiet. In the cartoon above, a classic from 2011, artist Kuang Biao (邝彪) humorously conveys the impact of the internet on authority with his own rendition of the Last Supper. Jesus is sitting at the table with his disciples. They have just finished their meal, what looks to have been a hearty meat dish (evidenced by the lingering bones). Jesus, having apparently just learned of his betrayal by someone among them (Is that Judas holding the mobile device?), says: “Ok, which of you leaked the contents of our meal on the internet?”

The following post by writer Shiqi Jinzhi ( 十七进制) about how some students at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) greeted female astronaut Liu Yang (刘洋) and other visiting Chinese astronauts with signs that read “Get Out!”, was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime before 6:12pm on August 15, 2012. Shiqi Jinzhi currently has just over 11,000 followers, according to numbers from Sina Weibo. Apple Daily reported on August 15 that some CUHK students had carried signs protesting the astronauts’ visit to the university in the midst of the ongoing controversy over proposed “patriotic education” in the territory, but there was in fact very little coverage of the dissenting CUHK students in local Hong Kong media. Positive coverage of the visit to the university is available from China Daily here. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre].
Shiqi Jinzhi’s post follows:

[Hong Kong university students do no love their country, and SAY “Get out” to Chinese cosmonauts]. Cosmonaut Liu Yang and two other male cosmonauts visited the Chinese University of Hong Kong with [mainland] officials, and the students met the group with shouts of, “Get out!” Hong Kong people are really put off. It’s said that Olympic athletes from the mainland will also visit Hong Kong. Picture: The deputy head of the cosmonaut group (in the foreground wearing grey) faces university students shouting “get out” and holding up signs that say “Get Out!”. (Looking for confirmation)

The following is the original Chinese post:

【香港大学生不爱国,对中国航天员团SAY“滚吧”】航天员刘洋和另外两位男性航天员以及官员一行到达香港中文大学，大学生面对该团高喊“滚吧”。港人挺反感，据说内地奥运会的运动员又要去港。图片：中国航天员团副团长（前灰色背影）面对大学生“滚吧”牌子和齐声高喊“滚吧”。 电视截图(求消息真伪)

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.