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.

On June 11, 2012, China Central Television anchor Cui Yongyuan (崔永元) wrote angrily on his Sina Weibo account that the official response from education authorities in Hunan province to a training session for rural Hunan teachers organized by Cui Yongyuan’s charity fund was: “[We are] not opposed, not in support, and not participating.” In response to these “three No’s”, Cui gave his own furious assessment of education authorities in Hunan: “No effort, no principle, no face!” The story quickly became the focus of a debate over the relationship between the government and charity work. Some criticized Hunan authorities. Others criticized Cui Yongyuan, saying his criticism of authorities had gone too far — or that there was no sense in his seeking out the authorities in the first place.
By nature, I don’t like to jump into the fray. Seldom do I play the spectator when this or that debate rages. So when CCTV anchor Cui Yongyuan denounced the “three No’s” he received from Hunan education authorities in response to his proposed charity training program for teachers, I didn’t pay much attention. When I read subsequent pieces critical of Cui by Guo Yukuan (郭宇宽) and Bin Yingjie (魏英杰), however, I felt I had to make my views known.
First let me talk about the experiences I’ve had myself doing community teaching (支教) that are similar to those of Cui.
One event I took part in was called the “Candle Movement” (燃烛行动), and was organized by Southern Weekly, China Ping’an (中国平安), the Pingxing Charity (平行公益) and the website Healthy Life Ensures in March 2008. The goal of the project was to help substitute teachers who had been discharged before they were formally employed [by the government]. We offered assistance of 5,000 yuan to older teachers who had served in probationary roles for ten years or more and whose families were in a dire financial state. For younger teachers we offered basic professional training in areas like farming, forestry and animal husbandry, helping them find ways to transition their livelihoods.

[ABOVE: Celebrity CCTV anchor Cui Yongyuan, at the center of the latest debate over the role of charity in China — and how exactly citizens should engage with issues that concern them.]
Our limited resources could only be applied selectively. In 2008 and 2009 we focused on Weiyuan County (渭源县) in Guizhou province, and in 2010 we focused on the Guizhou county of Liping (黎平县). The “Candle Movement” went ahead smoothly and successfully.
Last year over Spring Festival, I took part in a “Candle Movement” event Shaanxi province. There were three of us [from Southern Weekend] along with another journalist from Shaanxi.
We went first to pay our respects to the head of the local county education office. Paying our respects was of course essential, otherwise we wouldn’t possibly have been able even to obtain the list of probationary teachers in the area that would allow us to begin our charity work. If we didn’t have the support of the authorities and instead went directly to the towns and villages (town and village education offices have already been disbanded, management happening directly through the principals of core local schools), no one would have had anything to do with us.
Even though prior to our trip we introduced ourselves to provincial education authorities and to local county-level China Red Cross representatives, stressing again and again that we wanted to help out, not to “cause trouble,” the education director remained wary. The fact that we had brought hundreds of thousands of yuan to dole out to dismissed teachers was no threat whatsoever to his political rank and standing. But he had once had a teacher petition at the provincial level, and even though that matter had long ago been settled, he feared inviting further potential trouble.
Getting nowhere with the education director, we made contact with two deputy directors of the local county China Red Cross (because our project had received the support of the China Red Cross) and prepared to visit an adjacent county. The deputy directors quickly contacted the director (typically the person in local areas across China who handles everything), and the director (also the county Party secretary, as it happened) directed education authorities and various departments to support our movement. The education director didn’t dare to obstruct us then, of course.
So next we chose a couple of towns in which to investigate the situation with respect to former substitute [or non-official hire] teachers. Former local education officials and teachers were very much in support of our efforts, and they assisted us in locating those in need of assistance.
We had to make sure the money made it into the hands of those who most needed it, so this process of confirmation was absolutely necessary, and we could not have done it without the cooperation of local authorities. In fact, not all those appearing on the list of substitute teachers provided by provincial education authorities were actually teachers, but had worked as cooks or in other positions. There were also some former teachers who had not been terminated but had left voluntarily for personal or family reasons.
Other Party and government departments in the county were all very much in support of the efforts of the “Candle Movement.” The local Party school offered free facilities for the conduct of training sessions. The agricultural office provided instructors for skills training. The former teachers who took part in our program were all very happy, and they had no intent to “cause trouble.” Never once did they voice their complaints to us.
Let’s move on then to Cui Yongyuan’s “rural teachers training” program (乡村教师培训). Cui’s plan was to select 100 teachers from Hunan to go to Beijing for training. This couldn’t possibly happen without the agreement of education authorities in Hunan province. If Cui’s program were to sidestep provincial education authorities and go directly to the counties, these lower-level officials would be in a tight spot. And without direct approval from local education authorities, few school principals would dare have their teachers attend. Finally, even if teachers were quite eager for the opportunity to go to Beijing and expand their horizons, they wouldn’t dare run off to Beijing without approval from their school principals — even though they’re on summer break.
For authorities, there is the added concern of what kind of place Beijing is. What if these teachers run amuck? There isn’t just the risk that teachers might take past grievances to petition officials in the capital — there is the additional risk that they might talk to journalists. In this day and age, what office at what level anywhere can say for certainty they don’t have ugly secrets hiding in their closets, just waiting to get out?
Clearly, education authorities in Hunan feel uneasy about Cui Yongyuan, a man with a reputation for telling it like it is. Cui says his project has been frustrated at every turn by local authorities in Hunan.
I believe in the words of Chinese poet Hu Shi (胡适), that the struggle for one’s own rights is struggle for the right of the whole nation. And I don’t think Cui Yongyuan was at all out of line when he accused Hunan education authorities of showing “no effort, no principle and no face” in their response to his training program.
What did they mean when they said they “don’t oppose” the training program? What reason could they have for opposing a program in which people pay to help train teachers in their area? They seem to suggest that they have the right to oppose it in the first place, as though Cui should be grateful for their restraint. When someone wants to do a good thing, on what basis would you “not support” it?
But some of the criticism of Cui Yongyuan has itself been a bit off base. Guo Yukuan suggested that if “education authorities take the lead in organizing teacher training, then it will definitely have a very thick official coloring to it.” When did Cui Yongyuan ever talk about having education authorities “take the lead in organizing” the training? What he’s looking for is the approval of the local authorities in carrying out the training to begin with.
Guo also suggested that he and some friends had done training a number of years back for teachers in [privately-run] schools for the children of migrant workers, and that they had never considered going to education authorities for approval. But for education authorities teachers at migrant schools aren’t even afforded the status of “temporary workers” (临时工) — they’re just languishing in obscurity. The comparison of Cui’s training program to Guo’s for migrant school teachers doesn’t stand. And to suggest Cui is just an “imperial envoy of charity” (公益钦差) is unfair.
Bin Yingjie’s views as expressed in his piece, “Cui Should Understand that the Government Not Participating is Encouragement for Non-Governmental Charity” (小崔要明白，政府不参与就是支持民间公益), are quite frankly impractical, completely divorced from the prevailing reality in China today.
Generally speaking, education authorities should “support” teacher training done on a charity basis, and they should be happy to provide assistance for such work. We cannot mistake ideals for reality. As everyone knows, the situation in China right now is “big government and a small society” (大政府、小社会), a “strong government and a weak society” (强政府，弱社会). Non-government organizations and charities are now in their infancy stage, and its not always true that they can effect change without the support and encouragement of the authorities.
Let’s not kid ourselves and pretend that China already has a full-fledged civil society.
This is a translated and edited version of an opinion piece originally appearing in Chinese in the Southern Metropolis Daily.
[For more coverage of the recent Cui Yongyuan charity debate, see the June 16 special topic page at QQ.com]

The following post about a riot against alleged police violence in Heilongjiang province was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime before 5:29pm Hong Kong time yesterday, June 18, 2012. The post was made by writer and journalist Guan Jun (关军), who currently has just over 52,000 followers, according to numbers from Sina Weibo. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre].
Guan Jun’s post is accompanied by the following composite photo showing what appear to be scenes from a riot in Heilongjiang, in which thousands surrounded police officers allegedly assaulting a motorcycle driver who was not carrying his drivers license.

The post reads:

Heilongjiang has really been in the news lately. A) a derailed train, and then B) a police vehicle overturned and surrounded by thousands.

The first story refers to the derailing of a freight train in Heilongjiang on June 16.
Guan Jun’s original Chinese post follows:

黑龙江今成新闻热点。A，火车脱轨，B，警车被掀，围观者数千

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 criticizing censorship was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime before 5:32pm Hong Kong time today, June 4, 2012. The post was made by Zha Liangjun (查良钧), who currently has just over 13,000 followers, according to numbers from Sina Weibo. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre].
Zha Liangjun’s post, in which “all of you” refers to Chinese leaders, reads as follows:

Do all of you really believe that by plucking off every flower petal you can keep Spring from coming?

Zha’s original Chinese post follows:

你们以为掐掉所有绽放的花朵，春天就不会来么？

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 about the social consequences of violent enforcement of urban regulations, particularly against migrant populations in China, was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime before 10:32am Hong Kong time today, June 4, 2012. The post was made by scholar Cui Weiping (崔卫平), who currently has just under 77,000 followers, according to numbers from Sina Weibo. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre].
Cui Weiping’s post reads as follows:

Nothing that happens disappears lightly, but rather it conditions our life in this world. A massive secret becomes a vast void. Long silences emerge as new histories and responsibilities. Aren’t certain things, when avoided, the avoidance of certain important things? How far exactly have our morals slid? How deep is our spiritual fall?

Cui’s post is accompanied with a lengthy text-as-image file topped with a photo showing a young boy who seems to be seething with anger as he is apparently forced up against a wall by urban enforcement officers, or chengguan (城管), who are tasked with dealing with unlicensed peddlers in China’s cities, “illegal” construction and other matters. According to the description, the boy is the son of a migrant woman who has just been dragged away by the officers. The crying girl just visible behind the boy is his sister, according to the text file. The men in uniform standing behind the children wear different hats denoting different government offices.

Cui Weiping’s original Chinese post follows:

所有发生过的，都不会轻易消失，会成为我们在这个世界上生活的前提。某个巨大的秘密会成为一个巨大的虚空。长期的沉默构成了另外一些历史和责任。回避了某件事情，是不是也回避了另外一些重要的事情？到底我们道德尺度滑出了多远。我们在精神上的沦陷有多深？

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 oblique joke about online censorship on the occasion of the 23rd anniversary of the June 4th, 1989, crackdown on demonstrators in Beijing, was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime before 3:02am Hong Kong time today, June 4, 2012. The post was made by journalist Chen Baocheng (陈宝成), who currently has more than 60,000 followers, according to numbers from Sina Weibo. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre].
Chen Baocheng’s joke goes as follows:

WOMAN: I miss you, why don’t you come to my place tonight?
MAN: Oh, is your husband away on a business trip?
WOMAN: He’s working overtime tonight deleting posts [on social media] and so he can’t come home. He’ll be busy through to tomorrow.

Chen Baocheng’s original Chinese post follows:

女：想你，晚上来我家吧。男：怎么，你男朋友出差了？女：他今夜加班删贴回不来，得忙到后天呢.

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 piece is a response to a May 29, 2012, editorial in the Chinese-language Global Times called “Fighting Corruption is a Crucial Battle for Chinese Society”. The article created a sensation last week on China’s internet, where some portals used an altered headline: “China Must Permit Moderate Corruption, the Public Should Understand”. The term “moderate corruption,” or shidu fubai (适度腐败), quickly became an online buzzword, drawing scorn from many Chinese.
On the Global Times take on the issue of corruption, response to Web user 1: It is all true to say [as the Global Times editorial does] that, to varying degrees, all countries in the world have corruption, that in China it is relatively serious, and that at present there is no way to utterly root it out. Some web users believe that the Global Times . . . has spoken the truth, that it is like the courageous child pointing out that the emperor’s news clothes [are a fraud]. But this isn’t where the problem lies. The problem lies in the conclusion the paper comes to after it has pointed out that the emperor is wearing no clothes — that the naked emperor is pleasing to look upon. They have broken through the floor of universal human values.
On the Global Times take on the issue of corruption, response to Web user 2: Some official media go even faster and farther than the authorities in challenging universal values, as though they are testing the intelligence and patience of the people. Monopoly media that go unchecked are not an outgrowth of freedom of speech, but rather brainwashing propaganda, a hotbed of fascism. If we do not refute them, they will someday reach the following conclusion — that in fact rape exists in all countries, that it cannot be utterly eliminated, and therefore a moderate level of rape is reasonable, something that women who are raped should understand and accept.
On the Global Times take on the issue of corruption, response to Web user 3: We must remember that there are certain lines that humanity must not cross. All countries in the world have corruption, but our official media, the Global Times, is the only to have put into words the idea that the people should understand and accept corruption! There are cheats in every nation, but no cheat harmed more people than [the official] People’s Daily newspaper during the Great Leap Forward, when it printed fake news about historic harvests. There are some lines that our official media must respect, otherwise our country and our people have no hope!
On the Global Times take on the issue of corruption, response to Web user 4: If our country is to jumpstart political reform and take to the road anew, then this must begin with freedom of speech. Only if the people are permitted to speak can consensus values emerge from among the people. Over the years, value concepts that are generally accepted by humanity have quietly and steadily found a place [in China], and even Party and government leaders have increasingly accepted them, but still time and again we see words that challenge the basic threshold of humanity emerging from our official media, always anonymously. Really, who are they?
On the Global Times take on the issue of corruption, response to Web user 5: There are also tabloid newspapers in the West that publish unreliable information and sensational accounts, but these newspapers cannot become the mainstream, and even less can they obtain the support of government, having a monopoly on discourse power. The key of course is that their readers are few. But in China the Global Times has a massive circulation, and some young people take to it like a drug. So ultimately we cannot entirely blame the Global Times. The readers determine the nature of the medium. Happy Children’s Day.
[This is a translation of a post Yang Hengjun made to his blog on June 1, 2012.]

The following post on alleged police violence posted by Zhang Zhou (张洲), a Chinese film director, was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime before 5:39am Hong Kong time today, June 1, 2012. Zhang currently has more than 75,000 followers, according to numbers from Sina Weibo. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre].
Zhang Zhou’s post includes the following photograph apparently showing a Chinese police officer pinning a woman to the pavement by placing his knee on her neck.

Zhang writes:

A policeman locking his knee into a woman’s neck and looking coldly at her — this photo definitely has the potential to win the Pulitzer Prize for best news photo.

Lei Yi’s original Chinese post follows:

执法者将膝盖顶在一名妇女的脖子上，轻蔑而冷漠的看着她——这张照片绝对有获《普利策新闻摄影奖》的资质

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.