Chinese social media have increasingly offered a platform for cartoonists to share more critical work. In this cartoon, shared by Sina Weibo user Koudai Yeshi (口袋野史), a giant hand smashes a tiny human being with its forefinger, a simple image of violence and cruelty. Koudai Yeshi writes: “This is the cruel situation facing ordinary Chinese: for each 10 you pay, you are exploited 7, for every 10 you dedicate, you have 7 forcibly seized. For each time you are vulnerable, you will once be raped, for each time you are conciliatory, you are once beaten. For each time you are foolish, you will once be cheated. For each time you are charitable, you will once be duped.

The following post by Sun Yaoyang (孙钥洋) sharing the personal assets of six Chinese officials found guilty of corruption was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime before 9:50am Hong Kong time yesterday, June 25, 2012. Sun Yaoyang, a Chinese writer from Harbin, has just over 84,000 followers, according to numbers from Sina Weibo. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre].

The post, which makes tongue-in-cheek reference to the issue of reporting the assets of government officials (an issue that crops up repeatedly, but on which there has been no real progress), reads:

［Reporting the assets of Chinese official begins] 1. Maoming Deputy Mayor Yang Guangliang (杨光亮), properties 140, cash 1.2 billion. 2. Chuxiong Prefecture Head Hong Wei (红卫), properties 230, cash 1.7 billion. 3. Hangzhou Deputy Mayor Xu Wangyong (许迈永), properties 250, cash 1.4 billion. 4. Shanxi Pu Country Coal Office Director Hao Pengjun (郝鹏俊), 350 properties, cash three billion. 5. Shandong Deputy Governor Huang Sheng (黄胜), properties 460, cash nine billion US$. 6. Zhejiang Provincial Food and Drug Administration Director Huang Meng (黄萌), properties 840, cash two billion.

The original Chinese post follows:

【中国官员财产公示终于启动】：1.茂名副市长杨光亮房产140套，现金12亿；2.楚雄州长杨红卫房产230套，现金17亿；3.杭州副市长许迈永房产250，现金14亿；4.山西蒲县煤炭局长郝鹏俊房产350套，现金30亿；5.山东副省长黄胜房产460套，现金90亿美元；6.浙江省药监局长黄萌房产840套，现金20亿。

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.

As we edge closer to the 18th National Congress of the CCP, we can expect hard news to enter a new cycle of tightening at every level in China. No local leader wants “negative news” to erupt on their turf, especially now. So the soldiers of “news and propaganda work” will be working overtime to ensure the most “harmonious” environment possible for this crucial leadership transition.
On the policy side, we can see hints of this anticipated tightening in a “movement” unveiled earlier this month to combat various forms of media corruption, including “news extortion” and “paid-for news.” The campaign, coordinated by the Central Propaganda Department, cites specifically the need to “create a favorable climate for the successful opening of the Party’s 18th National Congress.”
This campaign almost certainly signals the generalized tightening on hard news and investigative reporting, not just a renewed determination to grapple with poor ethics in the news profession.
But while keeping bad news under wraps is an obvious priority for Party and government leaders, something we’ve seen play out for decades in China, there have been slight changes to the tone of media control as well, particularly over the past three to five years.
Leaders, particularly at the national level, seem far more sensitive now to the international impact of domestic stories than they have been in the past. And many seem to understand that in this age of rapid, decentralized sharing of information, it is difficult to separate domestic public opinion (and the project of information control) from the issues of foreign news coverage, China’s international image and — yes, here comes that magic word now so cherished by Chinese leaders — soft power.

[ABOVE: A poster for the state-financed propaganda film The Founding of a Republic, which hoped to make the Party’s line not just palatable but popular and profitable.]
Last week, the Party’s official People’s Daily ran an interesting piece exhorting Party cadres at the “grassroots level” — those officials at the bottom rungs of the power bureaucracy — to be mindful of the international implications of their handling of local incidents. The bottom line was that local leaders must recognize that their decisions about how to handle a “sudden-breaking incident” on their turf could impact China’s international image and the country’s ability to engage on global issues.
What I find most interesting about the People’s Daily piece is how it exhibits a more open and proactive attitude toward news stories — the idea, for example, that facts and transparency, and not just cover-up, are crucial — while it argues that “China’s voice” must be uniform and harmonious, which of course implies centralized control of the message (the “main theme,” as the Party calls it).
The most critical question facing China’s “soft power” is the question of whether “China’s voice” is diverse and multifaceted, or whether it is the product of government-engineered uniformity. Are we talking about “China’s voices” or about “China’s voice”?
The People’s Daily piece obviously answers for the latter. China has a single voice, one that is “full and accurate” in the sense that it is in line with the Party’s priorities — but is not messy or strident.
The concluding paragraph of the People’s Daily piece refers to a speech given in Hong Kong by the Chinese writer Lu Xun in the early 20th century. In that speech, “Silent China” (无声的中国), Lu Xun bemoans the silence not of “China” per se, but of the Chinese people, who have not had the means to articulate their own views partly because of the dominance of an official discourse in classical Chinese.
Lu Xun never talks about “China’s voice”, or zhongguo shengyin (中国声音). He talks about “the voice of the Chinese people themselves”, or zhongguoren ziji de shengyin (中国人自己的声音).
A vast gulf opens between “China’s voice” as conceived by China’s leadership today and the “popular Chinese voices” that Lu Xun called for. And that gulf explains, I would argue further, the most elementary of all problems facing China’s real “soft power”. “China’s voice” as modulated by the Chinese Communist Party can only be a limited voice, subjected to an unspoken political violence, and that invites a mistrust that ultimately undermines China’s soft power efforts.
To put it more simply, official soft power is soft power in which the individual “person”, or ren (人), is eliminated. It is “China’s voice”, or zhongguo shengyin (中国声音), as opposed to “Chinese voices”, or zhongguoren de shengyin (中国人的声音).

[ABOVE: Did Lu Xun, one of the leading lights of modern Chinese literature, speak the secret of China’s soft power?]
Before we move on to the People’s Daily article, let’s consider the following portion from Lu Xun’s “Silent China”:

The youth can first turn China into a China with voices. They can speak with boldness, having the courage to move forward, forgetting all gains and losses, shoving aside the ancients, giving expression to their own truest words. The truth, naturally, is not easy. For example, in our comportment, it is difficult to be truthful. When I give a speech like this, this isn’t my true demeanor. Because when I conduct myself before my friends and my children, this is not my way. But still we can say things of relative truth, give expression to voices of relative truth. Only with voices of truth can we touch the people of China and the people of the world; we must have true voices, for only then can we live together in the world with the people of the world.
青年们先可以将中国变成一个有声的中国。大胆地说话，勇敢地进行，忘掉了一切利害，推开了古人，将自己的真心的话发表出来。——真，自然是不容易的。譬如态度，就不容易真，讲演时候就不是我的真态度，因为我对朋友，孩子说话时候的态度是不这样的。——但总可以说些较真的话，发些较真的声音。只有真的声音，才能感动中国的人和世界的人；必须有了真的声音，才能和世界的人同在世界上生活。

Those words, it seems to me, speak to the heart of China’s soft power. For Lu Xun, the voice of a nation is the sum of that country’s voices, spoken not from the heart of political power, but from the heart of the individual.
But let’s leave it there and move on to the People’s Daily piece, which is translated in full below.

“The Government Must Consider the International Implications When Dealing With Domestic Issues”
People’s Daily
June 21, 2012
In recent years, China, now the nation with the world’s second-largest economy, has constructively engaged the international community on both a government-to-government basis and a citizen-to-citizen basis, whether this has meant involvement in the six-party talks or grappling with the global financial crisis, the [global expansion of] Confucius Institutes or the promotion of national propaganda films (国家形象片). China has worked actively to tell China’s story, making “China’s voice” resound.
This “chorus” has resounded not just through the central Party, our foreign affairs departments and the official news media, but has involved another crucial mass group — our leaders at the grassroots level.
Think, for example, of the deputy mayor of Wuhu in Anhui province, who was photographed taking his daughter to school on a bicycle. That photo was “wildly shared” by internet users, who chattered about how he showed the down-to-earth nature of the Chinese cadre.
Then there is the example of a woman in Ankang, Shaanxi province, who was seven months pregnant and forced to have an abortion. How can you calculate the kind of adverse impact a story like that has on China’s international image?
The question then becomes: in the midst of an ever more resounding “China’s voice”, how can we become part of the melody and avoid becoming contributing noise and cacophony. This is something that now tests cadres at every level.
This, what we will call the “ability to engage public opinion” (舆论贯通能力), is a crucial part of the “world view” of those who govern. There is little question that epoch-making changes in technology have meant that information has broken through the boundaries between nations and between media. Everything is now a single interconnected platform. And these deep changes in the [global] public opinion environment can now have negative implications. Two ounces can be weighed up to a thousand pounds, and a single mouse dropping can spoil the whole batch of soup.
Against this backdrop, where is the key to the “ability to engage public opinion”?
Faced with complex changes in the public opinion environment, the first thing many people might think of is how they can “say the right thing”, how they can improve their ability to use the microphone in their hand, or how they can make their voice more readily heard.
This so-called “ability to engage public opinion” should first and foremost be about the capacity to negotiate the contrasts between public opinion and reality — and not just the ability to utilize public opinion sphere and command discursive power. For those who lead, what is most critical is how to support the conceptual through pragmatic steps, using facts to win understanding, using action to preserve one’s image [and that of the Party]. It should not be just about ways of dealing with the media, of reining the media in, or simply about handling all aspects of any given sudden-breaking incident.
We have a number of informative examples we can draw from. In the midst of the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, timely and effective relief efforts and open and transparent reporting substantially raised China’s international image as a country with a deep respect for human life. Also, the Chinese government’s large-scale evacuation of personnel from Libya ahead of that country’s civil war was hailed as a success that reflected well on China’s international image.
We often say that actions speak louder than words, and that secondary public opinion is determined by primary conduct. This is because the facts ultimately win out over rhetoric. If leaders at various levels want to join the great harmony of “China’s voice,” and contribute to lifting the volume of harmony, they must concern themselves with more than just how the newspapers tell the story, how the television stations report it, or how it plays out online. It is more important to use good governance to write China’s melody across the great land of China, raising from the foundations the transmission capacity and influence of “China’s voice.”
Central party leaders have repeatedly emphasized that local leaders must consider the “international impact” of “domestic issues” as they handle them. If a local government unit does not plan with a clear sense of both the domestic and international [dimensions], if there is no sense of the “pre-positioning of public opinion” before actions are taken, it will be difficult to make “China’s voice” clear on the crowded canvas of international public opinion. And it will be very difficult to exhibit a full and accurate image of China.
Not only is there a need to raise discursive awareness, but even more is there a need to follow the main objective of governing for the people, to uphold the concept of governing the country according to the law, to hold to the principle of democratic politics, in order to increase the “favorable views” held by the people, and to strengthen “China’s voice”. There is a need to form a [positive] image of China through the steadily lifting the “prosperity index” of the people.
Eighty-five years ago, in a speech in Hong Kong called “Silent China,” Lu Xun called for for the “transformation of China into a China with a voice.” From the “silent China” of that era to today’s “China with a voice”, and now as we consider “how China should speak,” we have moved steadily through history, resolving issues as we go. If Lu Xun’s prescription back in his time was to “do away with ancient Chinese and survive”, what answer should leaders throughout China give today?

Chinese media reported in mid June 2012 that the city of Hangzhou in Zhejiang province has issued new regulations on migrant workers demanding migrants hold a high school degree in order to obtain a residence permit, or juzhuzheng (居住证). Migrants must also be able to show that they have a stable work in the city and no criminal record. In the following cartoon, posted by artist Cao Yi (曹一) to Sina Weibo on June 18, a street cleaner sweeps the migrant rubbish (rural migrants who don’t meet the high school degree threshold) into the sea outside the city of Hangzhou with a broom made out of the cleaner’s own “high school degree”.

The following post sharing a quote and picture from well-known CCTV anchor and former China Media Project fellow Chai Jing (柴静) was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime before 12:35pm Hong Kong time today, June 22, 2012. The post was made by Zatan Wuwei (杂谈五味), a user with just over 10,000 followers, according to numbers from Sina Weibo. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre].

The post reads:

[Tyranny must fall] “Why must authoritarian [regimes] necessarily fall? That’s because authoritarian system do not have the capacity to housekeep themselves, and the wicked will not withdraw of their own will. Authoritarian systems can only become more and more sordid, more and more bloated. Democracy, on the other hand, is a political form that does have the capacity to clean its own house and to root out the wicked. And so [democracy] can continue to develop” — Chai Jing, CCTV anchor

The original Chinese post follows:

【专制必然倒台】“专制为什么必然倒台？那是因为专制制度不具有自我清洁能力，恶人不会自己退出，专制体制只能越来越肮脏，越来越臃肿；而民主，是具有自我清洁能力的政治制度，淘汰恶人的制度。所以能够持续发展。”—中国中央电视台主持人 柴静

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 showing Chinese artist Ai Weiwei (艾未未) dressed up in a public security bureau uniform was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime before 7:05am Hong Kong time today, June 22, 2012. The post was made by Sunny Lee (李成贤), a journalist for The Korea Times. Lee currently has just over 10,000 followers, according to numbers from Sina Weibo. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre].

The post reads:

Is he a good cop or a bad cop?

International media reported this week that Ai Weiwei, one of China’s most recognized artists and dissident thinkers, was barred by police from attending a court hearing concerning tax evasion charges against him that some say are politically motivated.

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 State Administration of Radio Film and Television (SARFT), the government office charged with regulation and control of broadcast media and film, announced today that it was launching a three-month nationwide campaign to “combat news extortion and clean up paid-for news.” According to a news release posted to SARFT’s official website today, a notice on the campaign was sent out to broadcast authorities at the provincial level on June 13.
The news release on the action cites specifically the need to “create a favorable climate for the successful opening of the Party’s 18th National Congress” later this year. The action, which was apparently coordinated by the Central Propaganda Department, also involves the General Administration of Press and Publications, the office that controls and regulates print media — suggesting this is a unified national program affecting all media.
Both news extortion (in which media use the threat of supposed investigative reporting to pressure relevant parties to pay cash or take out advertising contracts) and paid-for news (in which soft content is placed for pay and not marked clearly as advertising) have become serious problems in China’s highly commercialized media environment.
But while official actions, like the present SARFT campaign, tend to focus on media corruption as an outcome of poor personal ethics and insufficient ideological training, some of the chief causes are institutional. Newspapers and broadcast media, most of which remain connected to official Party and government organs (through supervising institutions, for example), are often incentivized to cash in on the convenience of their official or quasi-official status, or “rent-seek” — particularly as the would-be rewards of real professional reporting are often erased by news and propaganda controls.
In the past, ostensible campaigns to combat “news extortion,” “fake news”, “paid-for news” and other forms of media corruption have also been used to target legitimate hard news or investigative reporting. The timing of this campaign ahead of the 18th National Congress of the CCP might suggest a general vigilance by the authorities over news content regarded as sensitive, and that might upset the CCP session.
The announcement from SARFT begins:

On June 13, the State Administration of Radio Film and Television sent out “Notice on the Carrying Out of a Special Campaign to ‘Combat News Extortion and Clean Up Paid-for News'” to broadcast authorities in the provinces, autonomous regions and centrally-administered municipalities . . . The notice said that, according to unified arrangements by the Central Propaganda Department, in order to further regulations the order of news collecting and editing, and preserve the credibility and authoritativeness of news work, creating a favorable climate for the successful opening of the Party’s 18th National Congress, the General Administration of Press and Publications and other relevant departments will effective immediately carry out a three-month campaign to “combat news extortion and clean up paid-for news”.

The full Chinese text of the notice follows:
关于开展“打击新闻敲诈、治理有偿新闻”专项行动的通知
6月13日，广电总局向各省、自治区、直辖市广播影视局，新疆生产建设兵团广播电视局，中央三台、电影频道、中国教育电视台发出《关于开展“打击新闻敲诈、治理有偿新闻”专项行动的通知》（广发〔2012〕46号），通知说，按照中宣部统一部署，为进一步规范新闻采编秩序，维护新闻工作公信力和权威性，为党的十八大胜利召开营造良好氛围，国家新闻出版总署等有关部门将从现在开始开展为期3个月的“打击新闻敲诈、治理有偿新闻”的专项行动。专项行动的基本任务是：严厉打击假冒新闻机构和采编人员开展“新闻采访”活动及利用“新闻采访”活动敲诈勒索的行为。治理新闻采编人员利用采访活动谋取利益，或接受采访对象、单位、利益相关方和公关公司“红包”等不良现象。治理新闻机构及其工作人员以新闻报道形式发布广告，搞有偿新闻、有偿不闻的行为，规范新闻采访活动秩序，清除新闻工作中存在的不正之风。
近年来，全国广播电视系统认真组织“三项学习教育”和“走转改”活动，严格有关制度和规范，加强职业道德建设，树立了广播电视媒体的良好社会形象。但是，社会上不时出现一些不法分子利用或假借广播电视新闻采访活动进行敲诈牟利，损害了广播电视的良好声誉；个别广播电视从业人员违纪违规，成为队伍中的害群之马。全国广电系统要认真贯彻落实专项行动的有关部署要求，并结合自身行业特点，积极做好宣传报道、制度建设、内部管理等工作。具体事项通知如下。
一、深入宣传引导，为“打击新闻敲诈、治理有偿新闻”专项行动提供有力舆论支持
（一）中央三台、各上星播出广播电台电视台频率频道和各省级广播电台电视台地面主频率（频道）要在重要时段节目突出宣传报道专项行动的重要意义、目标任务和工作安排，介绍新闻机构和采编人员开展新闻采访活动的有关管理规定，展示有关部门打击新闻敲诈、治理有偿新闻、有偿不闻的有效做法和成效，树立主流媒体严格执行有关规定、遵守职业道德准则的正面形象，形成打击新闻敲诈、治理有偿新闻的强大舆论声势。
（二）各电台电视台要积极宣传有关部门和新闻单位规范制度规定、强化有效管理，及时报道治理有偿新闻、有偿不闻等违规行为的新经验、新做法、新典型。
（三）中央人民广播电台、中央电视台要积极开展舆论监督，可组织记者深入调查采访，揭露社会上假媒体假记者行骗事例；对新闻单位个别媒体人员违法违规行为典型案例，可按统一安排部署予以曝光。
二、严格执行各项管理规定，严肃查处违法违规行为
各级广播电视播出机构要认真贯彻执行中宣部等四部门印发的《关于禁止有偿新闻的若干规定》（中宣发〔1997〕2号）和《中宣部、国家广电总局、新闻出版总署关于新闻采编人员从业管理的规定（试行）》（中宣发〔2005〕29号））等规范性文件。同时，要根据新形势和新问题，不断完善内部管理机制，切实采取有力措施坚决抵制有偿新闻、有偿不闻等违法违规行为。
（一）广播电视新闻类节目的采访、编辑、播出等任何环节，广播电视机构及其工作人员不得以任何方式向节目涉及任何方面、个人收取任何费用。
（二）广播电视新闻类节目工作人员不得从事或参与营利性活动，不得在企业或其他营利性组织中兼职取酬。
（三）新闻报道与广告必须严格区别，新闻报道不得收取任何费用，不得以新闻报道形式为企业或产品做广告。
（四）新闻报道与赞助必须严格区分，不得利用采访和新闻报道拉赞助。
（五）各级广播电台、电视台必须坚持新闻真实性原则，不准弄虚作假，不准以个人或小团体的利益决定新闻的取舍，不准利用工作之便或以新闻报道为条件搞交易。
（六）各级广播电台、电视台的编辑、记者在采访、编辑、制作、播出过程中，要廉洁自律、出以公心，不得利用职务之便牟取私利，不得接受宴请和馈赠，不得以新闻采访为名敲诈勒索，不得徇私隐匿应报道的新闻事实。
（七）舆论监督采编人员除正常采访活动外，应尽量避免单独同利益相关方接触，更不得以任何方式与任何方面进行幕后交易或谈判。
（八）各级广播电台、电视台的创收活动，由广告部门和经营部门统一经营管理，编辑、记者不得从事广告业务，从中牟利。
（九）对违反有关规定搞有偿新闻者，除追缴其违规所获钱物，还要视其数额大小和情节轻重依法给予直接责任人相应的行政和党纪处分；触犯刑律的，移送司法机关处理。
（十）对发生新闻敲诈、有偿新闻、有偿不闻等违法违规现象的播出机构，要依法依规追究直接责任人及其分管领导的责任。对多次出现新闻敲诈、有偿新闻、有偿不闻等违法违规现象，严重损害党和政府形象、损害公共利益或造成恶劣社会影响的，还要依法追究播出机构主要负责人责任。
三、建立打击新闻敲诈、治理有偿新闻的长效机制
（一）加强思想教育和制度建设。各级广播电视播出机构要以此次专项行动为契机，与深入开展“三项学习教育”活动相结合，普遍开展一次严肃宣传纪律、遵守职业道德、杜绝新闻行业不正之风的思想教育活动。各级广播电视播出机构要运用讲座、报告、培训班、研讨班、学习考察、经验交流、案例警示等形式，全面开展新闻宣传工作规章制度、新闻工作者从业规范和廉洁自律要求的学习，强化全体干部职工的责任意识和自律意识。各广电播出机构要完善相关制度和机制，如跑口记者参加企业组织的采访活动事先报批制度、记者采访经费保障制度等，从根本上消除有偿新闻滋生的土壤。
（二）接受社会监督。各广播电台、电视台要向社会公示所有持新闻记者证、有新闻采访权的人员名单、社会监督电话和联系电话，方便社会各界对采访活动进行监督，对新闻违法活动进行举报，对新闻采访人员身份进行核实。要设立并公布新闻违法活动的举报电话、邮箱，健全举报及投诉的受理、核实、处置和反馈等程序机制，安排专门部门和人员处理群众举报、投诉，及时反馈核查结果，及时发布处理新闻违法违规活动情况。
（三）开展自查自纠。各广播电视播出机构及干部职工要对照国家广电总局关于禁止有偿新闻的若干规定、关于新闻采编人员从业管理的规定等文件，认真开展自查自纠工作。自查自纠主要围绕以下几个方面进行：本单位及采编人员是否存在索要、收受采访、报道对象或相关利益人、公关公司财物的问题，本单位是否存在以新闻报道形式变相发布广告、利用新闻采访活动索取或收受采访报道对象财物的问题，本单位是否存在新闻报道与广告、发行经营活动未分离的问题，本单位采编人员是否从事或参与营利性活动，是否在企业或其他营利性组织中兼职取酬的问题等，查找存在问题的根源，提出改正的工作措施。
（四）及时沟通情况。中央三台和各省（区、市）广播影视行政部门要认真做好专项行动总结工作，并于专项行动结束后按要求上报。各单位如有采编人员因新闻违法违规受到刑事处罚、行政处罚处理，要及时单独报送相关情况。来源广电总局网站)

Several weeks ago, the Chinese-language Global Times drew widespread opprobrium on Chinese social media for an opinion piece arguing that the Chinese people should accept a “moderate level of corruption,” understanding that the country requires an attenuated period of gradual reform in which some corruption will be inevitable. CMP fellow Yang Hengjun (杨恒均), a former foreign ministry official, offered a rebuttal to that Global Times piece here.
Yesterday, the Global Times again stepped directly into online controversy by running a piece by Zheng Ruolin (郑若麟), the European correspondent for Shanghai’s Wenhui Bao, arguing that China is already “in the orbit of democratic nations.” Zheng argued essentially that while “a number of scholars” have completely overblown the role of elections in democracies, elevating elections to a kind of holy standard, elections are not the be all and the end all.
Fair enough?
What Zheng does not address is who exactly these “scholars” are who have simplistically cast elections as the international democratic gold standard. He sets up a fanatical straw man, which he then proceeds to knock down:

Former French Prime Minister Raffarin once said: “Elections cannot sweep away all of our problems.” Elections cannot erase France’s 1.71 trillion Euro debt. Elections cannot change France’s less than one percent annual GDP growth rate. Elections cannot lower France’s unemployment rate of close to 10 percent.

Yes, Zheng is certainly right. Elections can’t make my breakfast either. But who in the West, or anywhere I wonder, has ever argued such absurdities?

[ABOVE: Wenhui Bao correspondent Zheng Ruolin, author of yesterday’s Global Times piece, appears on a French talk show.]
Global Times editorials are often a treasure trove of grade-school fallacies. But here, at any rate, is another clip for the political reform file ahead of the 18th Party Congress.
Enjoy.

“China Long Ago Entered the Orbit of Democracy” (中国早已进入民主国家的范畴)
Zheng Ruolin (郑若麟)
June 20, 2012
Democracy has been broadly accepted [as an idea]. This is a fact. The core of democracy is “rule of the people, by the people” (以民执政、为民执政). But as there is no way for the people to govern directly, a system of representation become the only option. The way for representative government to emerge is then through elections. But in recent years, a number of scholars have overblown the role of “elections”. “Elections” have been dissimilated into a standard against which moral judgements are made about political legitimacy. This is absurd, and it is dangerous.
Consciously or unconsciously, the question of whether there are elections or not, particularly elections that the West has accepted as legitimate, has been applied as the only standard by which as country is judged to be democratic or not — which, moreover, constitutes a “moral” standard. Political power emerging through elections is democratic, and that which is not is autocratic (专制的). Thereupon, elections are the be all and the end all. National development owes to elections. Everything is good about a country with elections. One election erases a hundred blemishes. If social unrest occurs in a country where there are elections, this is because “elections are not sufficiently free.” If an economic crisis occurs, that is because “elections were not thorough enough.” If crimes occur [within the elected government], if corruption occurs, that is because “elections are not yet sufficiently fair.”
It seems that, beneath this absolutely correct thing that is democracy, these scholars also have an omnipotent thing called the election!
But history has already proven that elective systems are little more than a way for national leaders to emerge. As for any other problem that a country faces, elections are powerless to solve them. Presidential and parliamentary elections recently held in France offer us an enlightening example.
After these two important elections were concluded, a new president emerged in France, along with a new government and a new parliament. Everything changed hands, on both the executive and the legislative sides. These two elections were perhaps as thorough as the French Revolution. And still, aside from a number of details and limited changes — for example, a temporary 30 percent drop in remuneration for the president and his cabinet, a minimum wage increase of .46 Euros per hour, allowing 18 year olds to work, and those of age 60 working for 41 consecutive years to retire — on critical problems facing the country, the elections could not possibly give [President] Hollande a magic wand. Former French Prime Minister Raffarin once said: “Elections cannot sweep away all of our problems.”
Elections cannot erase France’s 1.71 trillion Euro debt. Elections cannot change France’s less than one percent annual GDP growth rate. Elections cannot lower France’s unemployment rate of close to 10 percent. Even less can elections fix the underlying cause of all of these problems — the fact that the “fictitious economy” that financial capital “created” hollowed out the real economy of industrial capitalism.
Nor can elections ensure that a good leader is selected. They can only ensure that a good candidate is selected. Western democracy has already been twisted into “election dissimilation.” Everything revolves around the election. The importance of election capacity far surpasses governing capacity. Hollande is a clear example of this. What makes Western scholars even more anxious is that domestic electorates are the core of elections, but what France and Western countries face are difficulties stemming from globalization. This contradiction has left a gap that is difficult to cross between elections and governing of the country. In this sense, elections have even obstructed the painful reforms that countries need in order to accommodate the global economy. Because voters are opposed [to these reforms]. Therefore, Sarkozy, who carried out some 931 different reforms, was elected out of office.
Some people believe that the most important advantage of elections is that they can keep tyrants from coming to power. Perhaps. But how should we understand the words of University of Paris philosophy professor Rang Salaimu (?), who writes in his book Elections: A Trap for Fools?: “Why would the people of Germany elect Hitler to power? Because what is the majority is not necessarily right!” [NOTE: I could not find the name of the French professor whose name directly rendered in pinyin would be Rang Salaimu (让·撒莱姆), but “Elections: A Trap for Fools” is a political essay written by Jean-Paul Sartre and published in the 1970s. More here.]
Of course, what must be criticized is not the election itself, but the fantasy that “elections are everything” or that “elections can solve everything.” Elections cannot solve the problem of corruption. They cannot solve the problem of high housing cost. They cannot solve the problem of traffic accidents on the expressway. . .
Elections can only help the ruling class find a mantle of legitimacy, and give those who are ruled the feeling of “freedom”, the idea that “my rulers were chosen by me.” This feeling is an extremely important one, and the reason why those who are ruled sometimes accept what can in some cases be extremely unfair rule or rulers. This is one of the important reasons why countries with elections are generally stable.
Therefore, the day will come when we too select our leaders through an elective process. It’s just that before that time we first need to resolve other issues that elections cannot address.
Elections are just the final attribute emerging from democracy, but they are not the principle attribute. Nor are they the ultimate goal of democracy. Once a countries leaders do not come to power by hereditary right, and once they must [as in the case of China] leave office after a set term, then this country is not only already a republic, it has entered the orbit of democratic systems. Because only under a democratic system will leaders leave their positions because their terms have expired. The lowest attribute of democracy is the way that leaders leave office. If we see how leaders come to office as the chief sign of whether or not there is democracy, well then how do we understand the fact that Mubarak [of Egypt] and Ben Ali [of Tunisia], who are continually elected and served in office, were overthrown?
And so, if that Western election standard is applied as determine whether or not [a country is democratic], then China is not a democratic country. But in fact, China already long ago entered the orbit of democratic countries.

The following post about Chinese President Hu Jintao appearing at the G20 summit in Mexico was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime before 3:42pm Hong Kong time yesterday, June 19, 2012. The post was made by Sichuan CPPCC delegate Fan Jianchuan (樊建川), who currently has just under 237,000 followers, according to numbers from Sina Weibo. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre].
Fan Jianchuan’s post is accompanied by the following photo of television coverage of the G20 summit in Mexico this week showing Chinese President Hu Jintao. The caption on the television coverage reads: “Hu Jintao meets with German leader: we continue to support the Eurozone.”

The post from Fan Jianchuan reads:

[We continue to support the Eurozone], but aren’t quite so sure how to support it?

The post was presumably removed not for the sensitivity of its remarks but because it contains an image of the Chinese president.
Fan Jianchuan’s original Chinese post follows:

「继续支持欧洲」，不太清楚怎么支持？

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.

On June 16, China’s fourth manned space mission, the Shenzhou-9 capsule, made a successful launch from the Jiuquan spaceport. The three-person crew of Shenzhou-9 included China’s first female astronaut, Liu Yang. The launch was hailed by Chinese media as an overwhelming success. Some Chinese on social media, however, questioned spending on prestige-building endeavors in space when China faces pressing inequalities on the ground. In the following cartoon by artist Ah Ping (阿平), shared widely on Sina Weibo this week, a bedraggled teacher in a clearly dilapidated rural school excitedly explains to his students that the successful launch of Shenzhou-9 is a victory for China, even as the students’ own condition tells the story of another China left behind. The teacher holds up a copy of People’s Daily and says: “With the successful launch of Shenzhou-9, our mother country’s space endeavors have taken a giant leap forward. I’d like all of you students to write a commentary about this!.”
A user from Shandong who shared the cartoon on Sina Weibo wrote: “This cartoon isn’t bad at all . . . What will the flight of Shenzhou-9 really give the ordinary people of China?”
Readers can follow more of the conversation HERE.