On May 1 and 2, 2012, in the midst of an ongoing standoff between China and the Philippines over the Huangyan Islands in the South China Sea, Chinese online chat rooms and social media (examples here and here) buzzed with satirical posts about the People’s Liberation Army and a series of public quilt folding exercises publicized by official media in recent years. Chinese internet users quipped that China was invincible as its military excelled in the art of quilt folding, not to be bested by any military in the world. This post on one chat room gathers together scores of photos — indeed hilarious — of Chinese soldiers and officers seemingly preoccupied with quilt folding, while soldiers from the United States seem correspondingly undisciplined with regard to bedding and obsessed with weaponry. In this cartoon, shared by artist Kuang Biao (邝飚) and others through Sina Weibo — we’re not sure yet exactly who is responsible — a diminutive spear wielding warrior called “Xiao Fei” (小菲), a reference to the Philippines, looks on in disbelief as an oversized People’s Liberation Army soldier explains: “Xiao Fei! A truly awesome military is not about subduing others with force of weaponry. Come here! Fold a quilt and let me have a look!”
[Backup PDF of Luo.bo forum with images of Chinese and U.S. military: bedding and supremacy_luo.bo 5.2.2012]

Today’s edition of the Chinese-language Global Times newspaper ran what appears to be the first Chinese-language piece on blind lawyer Chen Guangcheng (陈光诚) in China’s domestic media since Chen escaped house arrest in Shandong province late last month. But the editorial, which was dismissive of the Chen Guangcheng case as a Western public opinion fixation, had been removed by midday from many websites, including the Global Times website.
The English-language version of the editorial, with slight variations from the Chinese, is still (not surprisingly) available under the headling “US embassy in a quandary over Chen.”
Of the top five search results for the editorial on the Chinese search engine Baidu at noon today, two (Yanzhao Metropolis Daily and 21CN) were still active). The other three results, including for the Global Times website, returned warnings saying the page was no longer available.

[ABOVE: A screenshot showing the top 5 search results returned on May 2 for a Global Times editorial about blind activist Chen Guangcheng.]
Censorship of terms related to Chen Guangcheng remains strong this week on social media. Search tests on Weibo performed by CMP showed that the following terms all returned warnings saying the results could not be shown “according to relevant laws, regulations and policies”:

1. Chen Guangcheng [Chinese] (陈光诚)
2. “Chen Guangcheng” [English]
3. “Guangcheng” [English]
4. “blind man” [English]
5. “blind person” [English]
6. “blind” [English]
7. “blind person” [Chinese] (盲人)
8. 陈GC [Chinese surname with English abbreviation of name]
9. “CGC” [English abbreviation of full name
10. Guangcheng [Chinese name minus surname] (光诚)
11. Linyi [Chinese] (临沂)
12. “Linyi” [Pinyin romanization for prefecture in Shandong where Chen Guangcheng was held]

[ABOVE: A screenshot showing the English-language version of the May 2 Global Times editorial about blind activist Chen Guangcheng.]
The full Chinese-language version of the Global Times editorial follows:

环球时报：挟洋能自重的时代早已过去
2012-05-02 08:57:38 燕赵都市网 www.yzdsb.com.cn
近日围绕山东临沂盲人陈光诚的事情，美国等西方国家媒体出现惊人的报道量。这些报道纷纷说陈光诚已经“闯入”北京的美国驻华使馆，并且向中国政府提出一些个人要求。美国国务院发言人在记者会上连续以“无可奉告”回答包括陈光诚究竟在不在美国使馆等提问，美国领导人则避免提及陈光诚的名字。
陈光诚一段时间以来一直被形容为中国地方政府的“烫手山芋”，现在终于美国政府也变得十分难受了。陈光诚不是当年的方励之，也不是不久前的王立军，他的抱怨大多是一个村民针对基层官员的，所涉层面很低，很多都让清官“难断”。他从临沂跑进美国使馆，很多具体的难题一下子变成了美国的。
如果美国政府把陈光诚的要求当成很正经的东西拿到对华谈判桌上，大概他们自己都会不好意思。况且美国政府很清楚，具体“指挥”中国人如何如何做，这犯了干涉中国内政的大忌，北京断不会理睬它。
每个国家都积累了一些民怨，谁也都知道中国一些人上访的复杂性，如果上访失败者转去向美国驻华使馆“上访”，这决非仅仅是中方的尴尬，美方的尴尬只会更多。
谁说美国政府真的有兴趣帮助所有自认为受到不公平对待的中国人？美国使馆大概不想变成接待“告洋状”的“信访办”，他们更希望向中国人宣扬“普世价值”，偶尔找一两个有价值的典型“帮帮”。他们从未表现出愿意卷入中国社会要多少有多少的具体纠纷之中。
无论最初是怎么回事，陈光诚被西方舆论和中国一些人捧成“盲人维权英雄”，这像是给陈光诚本人造成了“他对美国的确很重要”的错觉。他对自己个人在中国影响力的认识也脱离了实际，一些舆论对他的利用和忽悠似乎毁掉了他的判断力。
中美关系不应该受陈光诚事件的影响，即将举行的中美战略与经济对话也不太可能为了他单独辟出时间，否则将是奇怪的。中美关系没那么小。
挟洋自重仍是一些失意中国人对解决问题的思路之一。其实这种想法已经很烂。今天的中国如此强大，外国政府能够主导或者调控中国人做事方向的时代早已一去不复返。最近几十年，一头扑进西方怀里而不顾及中国社会感受的人，没有一个获得他们期望的“成功”。
人权进步说到底需要一个社会的综合发展和进步支撑，需要全社会投入大量人力物力细心雕琢。西方社会向中国输送了人权观念，中国对它总体上是接受的，在中国没有该不该发展人权的思想对立，一些所谓的“人权对立”通常是对具体难处和矛盾朝人权方向的生拉硬扯。
中国进一步发展人权的动力来自中国内部，西方已无能力继续在人权领域推动中国。西方自己的人权问题在越积越多，既无财力物力支持中国，也缺少在中国崛起并对其构成竞争的时候真诚帮中国出主意的胸怀。西方现在给中国出的主意经常驴唇不对马嘴。“人权”现在更像是美国政府给中国添乱的口实，解决中国的问题非其所愿。
在中国这样复杂的大国里，陈光诚的故事被简单标签化的程度反映了西方舆论的巨大能量以及它们的胡作非为。过去陈光诚在临沂基层，“错”全怪到中国政府头上。现在他据说进了美国使馆，情况出现戏剧性的变化。
我们很想看看，美国政府究竟怎么做，才能让陈光诚和西方舆论都“非常满意”。

The following post by billionaire investor Wang Gongquan (王功权) on credibility and China’s information control policies was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime before 12:08pm Hong Kong time yesterday, May 1, 2012. Wang Gongquan currently has more than 1.4 million followers, according to numbers from Sina Weibo. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre].

So long as the Central Propaganda Department kills speech, the credibility of the Chinese Communist Party cannot possibly be built up. It’s just that simple.

Wang’s post is a response to a separate Weibo post by well-known lawyer Chen Youxi (陈有西) — also now deleted by censors — that discusses heightened controls on Chinese social media in recent weeks:

This killing of Weibo [posts and accounts] without rhyme or reason shows the extreme idiocy of China’s rulers. This law-of-the-forest approach to governance constitutes malpractice. If social management is without principle and does not abide the law, then the country lacks confidence and the people are in a state of disorder — and if the people are in disorder the country must grow chaotic. When this sort of violence by public power is exercised in an information society, and [power] itself feels proud of its actions, this must result in a deep social crisis. The people who send out orders for this kind of action are bringing calamity to our country and our people.
不告知不说理封杀微博，体现了中国的统治者非常愚蠢。丛林法则是管天下的大忌，社会管理无规则不依法，国无信则民无序，民无序则国必乱。信息社会行此公权暴力，还自以为得意，必引深层社会危机。下令这样干的人是在祸国殃民。

The original Chinese post by Wang Gongquan follows:

只要中宣部还在封杀言论，共产党的公信力就不可能建立起来。道理就是这么简单。

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.

Reuters reports that blind lawyer Chen Guangcheng (陈光诚) is now under the protection of the U.S. embassy in Beijing, according to human rights advocates inside and outside China. Chen, who has long been an international symbol of China’s human rights abuses — and who became the focus of domestic attention through Chinese social media last year — escaped from house arrest in Shandong province last week.
If Chen Guangcheng is indeed under U.S. protection, the delicate matter of Chen’s escape (already potentially damaging in light of the constant refusal of Chinese officials to deal with clear and systematic abuses) has now become a major diplomatic matter.
The sensitivity of the Chen Guangcheng story can be glimpsed today both in the total blanket of silence that has enveloped Chinese traditional media, and in the robustness of social media controls.
CMP was able to find no coverage of Chen Guangcheng whatsoever in traditional media, and so far (as of 6pm today) there has been no official word from official outlets like Xinhua News Agency.
Following a flurry of discussion of Chen Guangcheng on Chinese social media Friday, we see far more robust controls today. Nearly all possible searches have been blocked, and even the Chinese word for “blind person”, or mang’ren (盲人) — Chen Guangcheng lost his sight during his early childhood — turns up the familiar warning that: “According to relevant laws, regulations and policies, these search results cannot be shown.”

[ABOVE: A search for the words “blind person” brings a warning from Sina Weibo that the search results cannot be shown.]
A number of other search terms we attempted are shown below, with images of the warnings returned from Sina Weibo.

[ABOVE: A search for the Chinese surname of Cheng Guangcheng, but replacing the last two characters of his name with the letters “GC” brings a warning from Sina Weibo that results cannot be shown.]

[ABOVE: A search for the English initials of the three Chinese characters making up Chen Guangcheng’s name, “CGC”, brings a warning from Sina Weibo that results cannot be shown.]

[ABOVE: A search for Linyi (临沂), the now-infamous prefecture in Linyi where Chen was held under house arrest for 19 months, brings a warning from Sina Weibo that results cannot be shown.]

[ABOVE: A search for the word “embassy” (大使馆) brings a warning from Sina Weibo that results cannot be shown.]

[ABOVE: A search for a shortened form of “U.S. embassy” (美使馆) brings a warning from Sina Weibo that results cannot be shown.]

[ABOVE: A search for the word “consulate” (领事馆) brings a warning from Sina Weibo that results cannot be shown.]
So how do you talk at all about the Chen Guangcheng story on social media? It seems to be a game of cat and mouse with diminishing prospects for the mice — at least over this particular story.
But we did happen across this post by Chinese professor Zhu Dake (朱大可), who wrote cryptically:

[The Story of the Mole] Once upon a time there was a mole who was surrounded by a pack of wolves, but with the help of some mice he managed to escape. The wolves were furious. The mole’s older and younger brothers, his mother and his baby still lived in the burrow. They became the hostages of the wolves. The escaped mole hid in the forest and called out to the lion, but the lion could not hear his fragile voice. The mice in the walls and the mice in the field all passed along the welcome news, but they couldn’t decide whether the [mole’s] escape was a victory, or whether it was just the beginning of more hardship.
【鼹鼠的故事】从前有只鼹鼠被狼群围着，却在老鼠帮助下逃走了。狼们很生气。窝里还有鼹鼠哥哥，鼹鼠弟弟，鼹鼠妈妈和鼹鼠宝宝。它们成了狼的人质。逃走的鼹鼠躲在森林里向狮子喊话，但狮子听不见这微弱的声音。家鼠和田鼠们互相传播着喜讯，但它们也弄不清，逃亡究竟是胜利，还是另一轮苦难的开始。

Back on April 11 and 13, two separate CMP posts looked at how the official line from the CCP’s Central Committee on the Bo Xilai (薄熙来) case had been forcibly jammed into Chinese media of all stripes — from Nasdaq-listed commercial websites to major market-driven metro newspapers and subsidized Party “mouthpieces.” Everyone had to run the Party’s version of the top news prominently.
As I told The New York Times late last week, “We haven’t seen this kind of direct meddling with the media across the board in a long, long time.” And we certainly have not seen the sort of biaotai (表态) — or affirmation of loyalty toward the central leadership — that we have seen in recent weeks on China Central Television and in local Party paper editorials since the aftermath of the crackdown on democracy demonstrators in Beijing in June 1989.

[ABOVE: A local Party cadre says on the official nightly newscast on April 11 that “all local Party cadres must maintain unity with the Central Committee of the CCP through and through.”]
We may speculate over whether the shift in the political winds in recent weeks will or will not bring substantive change on key issues like political reform. But certainly the politics we have seen at play in the Bo case hearken back to the past, not to the future. This is old-style power politics — and it’s the factions or alliances that happen to hold sway that get to control the news coverage.
For China’s Party-run media, apparently, the recent success of the imposed monopoly of the Party line on the Bo Xilai story is a source of pride.
The Oriental Morning Post, a leading commercial newspaper in Shanghai, reports today on a talk given at Fudan University this week by Zhang Yannong (张研农), the director (or top Party official) at the CCP’s official People’s Daily.
In his talk, “The People’s Daily‘s Historical Undertaking and Pursuit of Innovation” (《人民日报的历史担当与创新追求》), Zhang spoke openly about how editorials in the People’s Daily had “set the tone” (确定了基调) for the Bo Xilai affair and had “served to create unity of thought for the Party and nation, and to reassure the public and stabilize the overall situation.”
In its treatment of the Bo Xilai affair, Zhang added, the People’s Daily had “shown a powerful capacity for channeling public opinion, and had had great value.” Moreover, it should be “written into political history and journalism history.”

[ABOVE: Zhang Yannong, the director of the CCP mouthpiece People’s Daily, tells an audience at Shanghai’s Fudan University that the paper made “political history” with its “channeling” of the Bo Xilai affair.]
The following is a portion of Zhang Yannong’s speech at Fudan University:

Most recently the news that has gotten the most attention concerns the Bo Xilai affair. In propaganda and reporting on this story, the People’s Daily, and particularly the editorial section of the People’s Daiy, played an important role. If you opened the April 11 edition of any newspaper, whether it was a paper paper or a metropolitan newspaper, they basically all ran the People’s Daily editorial “Strongly Supporting the Correct Decisions of the Party’s Central Committee“. The two editorials that followed, “Conscientiously Safeguarding a Good Situation for Stable Reform and Development” and “Conscientiously Observing Party Discipline and National Laws”, also had an immense impact.
These three opinion pieces were done within a period of two days by a pair of young “post-80s” [writers] under the direction of the head of our editorial department. Aside from these three opinion pieces, we also successively ran eight related editorials in the “Today’s Topic” column on the front page. If we can say that the news releases [from Xinhua News Agency] were only about relaying information, then these editorials were about setting the tone. To a great extent, they served the purpose of uniting the thoughts and understanding of the Party and the nation [on the Bo Xilai affair], reassuring the public and stabilizing the overall situation. These reports and articles made the situation known in a timely manner, and also offered timely viewpoints, having a powerful public opinion channeling capacity, and vested with high political value, news value and practical relevance. They should be written into political history, and into the history of journalism. The role played by the People’s Daily during this affair has illustrate very well that the People’s Daily is still the first and foremost representative of mainstream public opinion (主流舆论) in our country.

Chinese state media reported yesterday that Hu Lianyou (胡连友), a resident of Hunan’s Dong’an County (东安县) with a long history of rights defense actions against alleged abuses by local officials, was sentenced to two years in jail by a Dong’an court on the charge of defaming the local police chief.
The allegations against Hu Lianyou by Dong’an police chief Zheng Hang (郑航) stemmed from comments Hu allegedly posted to Sina.com and other websites in September 2010. The comments were reportedly directed at Zheng Hang and another officer, Qin Liangbei, and detailed violent enforcement actions, corruption and other issues. Zheng Hang responded by filing a defamation case against Hu and another local resident, Wei Aiguo (魏爱国), in the local court.
Hu Lianyou reportedly applied for a change of venue, arguing that a fair verdict could not be rendered in the local court when the plaintiff was the local police chief. But Hu’s request was denied.

[ABOVE: Dong’an police chief Zheng Hang (郑航) alleges that he was defamed through Sina.com and other websites in 2010 by local petitioners accusing him of violent enforcement tactics.]
In today’s edition of The Beijing News, three separate Chinese legal experts raised a range of issues stemming from the Hu Lianyou case.
Zhang Shuyi (张树义), a professor at China University of Politics and Law, warned against the use of defamation as a “weapon” (武器) by public officials. Zhang suggested that public officials bringing defamation cases against individual citizens over matters of public affairs could constitute an abuse of power.
“If [an official] is dealing with a private matter as a private citizen, then a charge of ‘defamation’ may hold,” Zhang wrote. “But can’t acting in the capacity of a citizen over a public matter be seen as another form of ‘abuse of official power’?”
Zhang Qianfan (张千帆), a professor of law at Peking University, voiced concern that the guilty verdict in the Hu Lianyou case could have a “chilling effect” (冷缩效应) on other citizens trying to exercise their constitutional right to criticize the government.
According to Article 41 of China’s constitution, all citizens in China “have the right to criticize and make suggestions to any state organ or functionary.”

Citizens have the right to make to relevant state organs complaints and charges against, or exposures of, violation of the law or dereliction of duty by any state organ or functionary; but fabrication or distortion of facts with the intention of libel or frame-up is prohibited. In case of complaints, charges or exposures made by citizens, the state organ concerned must deal with them in a responsible manner after ascertaining the facts. No one may suppress such complaints, charges and exposures, or retaliate against the citizens making them. Citizens who have suffered losses through infringement of their civil rights by any state organ or functionary have the right to compensation in accordance with the law.

Yang Tao (杨涛), a Chinese prosecutor and frequent media commentator on legal issues, questioned too whether the decision by the Dong’an county court had been influenced by the local government’s past dealings with Hu Lianyou, who had a long history of petitioning over various rights issues and was therefore regarded as a “troublemaker” (头疼人物).

The following post relating to the 1989 Tiananmen protests by Zhang Qianye (张倩烨), a reporter with the Hong Kong newsmagazine Yazhou Zhoukan (亚洲周刊), was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime before 12:05pm Hong Kong time today, April 26, 2012. It was posted yesterday, April 25. Zhang Qianye currently has just over 7,000 followers, according to numbers from Sina Weibo. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre].
The post from Zhang Qianye shares an image of the front page of the People’s Daily on April 26, 1989, with its lead official Party editorial, “We Must Take a Clear-Cut Stand in Opposing Disorder” (必须旗帜鲜明地反对动乱).

The hard-line editorial, published in the midst of pro-democracy demonstrations in Beijing that year, is notorious in the eyes of many for having pushed the government into a position of direct opposition to protesting students. One of the goals of hunger strikes by students in May 1989 was to force a retraction or revision of the April 26 editorial and its position.

Let us remember this “tomorrow” in our history, for the sake of all of our future tomorrows.

The original Chinese post by Zhang Qianye follows:

记住这个历史上的“明天”，是为了我们的每一个明天。

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 April 25, 2012, the government of the Hong Kong Special Administration Region (SAR) announced that private hospitals would cease admitting pregnant mainland Chinese women hoping to give birth in the city and obtain Hong Kong residency for their children beginning in 2013. In recent years, rising numbers of mainland mothers in Hong Kong hospitals have put pressure on the territory’s health system, and Hong Kong campaigners have pushed for limits. In early 2012, the issue became rancorous in Hong Kong, with many Hong Kong locals referring to mainland mothers seeking entry to the territory as “locusts.” In this cartoon, posted by artist Shang Haichun (商海春) to QQ.com, a pregnant couple with their bags packed ambles up to a door labeled “Come to Hong Kong to Give Birth”, but find that a large hand blocks their way.

Two weeks ago, we wrote at CMP about how China’s central leadership was actively controlling and using the news media — including commercial newspapers and websites — to push its message on the Bo Xilai case. The heavy hands-on tactics, including orders that all papers run the April 13 People’s Daily editorial and explicitly mention its source on the front page, hearkened eerily back to China’s propaganda past, in which the dominance of Party propaganda “mouthpieces” was uncontested. This was also one of the keenest reminders we’ve had in the recent two decades that China’s Communist Party leaders still firmly uphold the Mao Zedong-era principle that “politicians run the newspapers.”
As the Party maintains its stranglehold on the Bo Xilai story, it might be convenient to forget just how much China’s media environment has changed since the early 1990s — even as control, or “guidance,” has been consistently maintained as policy, and principles like “politicians running the newspapers” have been reaffirmed openly by the likes of Jiang Zemin (in the midst of his anti-Falun Gong obsession).
Yes, we repeat here, yet again, our emphasis on Qian Gang‘s Three C’s, control, change and chaos, to describe China’s confusing (there’s a fourth “C”) information landscape.
Control remains in the form of propaganda policies, restrictive regulations, and a recalcitrant political culture of secrecy. But change constantly shakes the snowglobe of the Chinese status quo (economic development, globalization, media commercialization, a savvier population, new technologies, developing ideals of journalistic practice, political decentralization, advancing approaches to control). The result is a chaos of overlapping and self-contradicting factors.
Control is undeniable, but so is opportunity. Which is why we see the constant emergence of public opinion flashpoints in the newspapers and on Weibo; and why we are treated to regular pleasant surprises in the form of hard-hitting investigative exposes by the likes of Wang Keqin (王克勤).
The buffeting blows of CONTROL can often make it seem as though change is constantly in retreat; it can tempt us to the cynical view that those apparent signs of change (like the introduction of open government information legislation in May 2008) are no more than window-dressing for a determined authoritarian regime.
But conscientious observers of China have an obligation to grapple with the complexity, to avoid simplistic readings — including the oft-heard suggestion that China is too exceptional, mysterious or complex to understand.
With apologies for that harangue of “C’s” . . .

China. Control. Change. Chaos. Confusion. Complexity. Conscientious observation.

. . . let us turn to a story in China today that illustrates quite well just one aspect of change in China’s media, the way news reporters in China do increasingly antagonize government representatives over issues in the public interest.
At a press conference on “green travel” (绿色出行主题) organized by the Shenzhen city government yesterday, reporters from four different Chinese news outfits pressed for specific figures on the number of “public vehicles” being used by government officials.
So-called “public vehicles,” or gongche (公车), are often luxury sedans or SUVs purchased with public funds (from taxpayers, that is) for use by government officials. The use of such vehicles for private purposes — such as weekend sightseeing or taking one’s kids to school — is a sore point and regular source of public friction in China.
The questioning over public vehicles was kicked off yesterday by a reporter from China Youth Daily, who asked the deputy head of Shenzhen’s transit authority, Xu Wei (徐炜), if he could reveal how many of the two million vehicles reported to be on the roads in Shenzhen were public vehicles. Xu Wei responded by passing the hot potato to another office: “As to the situation concerning the management of public vehicles, I’d like to ask Director Cai of the Development and Reform Office to answer that,” he said.
The question thrown into his lap, Cai Yu (蔡羽), the deputy director of the Shenzhen Office for New Energy Vehicle Promotion (深圳市新能源汽车示范推广办公室), talked about the various ways the city had sought to exercise oversight to ensure public vehicles were not misused. He offered no numbers for public vehicles in the city.
The next opportunity for a question fell to a reporter from the Shenzhen Special Zone Daily (深圳特区报). As the question about public vehicle numbers was still hovering in the ether, the reporter decided to tack the question to one of his own . . . And if you could also answer the question about the number of public vehicles?
After Xu Wei answered the reporter’s first question, all eyes turned back to Cai Yu, according to an account in today’s Southern Metropolis Daily. The host broke the awkward silence that followed by inviting another question.
The microphone was passed to a reporter from Guangdong’s official Nanfang Daily, who asked again, along with a second question: “Right now, what is the approximate situation concerning public vehicles in Shenzhen?” Suspension was in the air, the Southern Metropolis Daily reports. Reporters began whispering among themselves. Why was this question so intractable?
After the Nanfang Daily reporter’s second question had been addressed, all eyes turned back to Cai Yu.
Finally, Cai Yu spoke up, saying China applies strict management standards to public vehicles, and determined public vehicle numbers on the basis of official personnel numbers (在编人数). But just as everyone was expecting the long-awaited number to drop, Cai instead tossed the hot potato across to another unsuspecting official.
“According to my understanding,” said Cai Yu, “public vehicles in Shenzhen are all managed and allocated by the province. The handling of public vehicles in the city falls to the transport department (交通运输委), which assists [the province] in handling management and allocation. I think this question is something the transportation department can help you to answer.”
Cai turned to his left and set his eyes on Yu Baoming (于宝明), the deputy head of Shenzhen’s transportation department. The room was again silent. “Facing every eye in the room,” the Southern Metropolis Daily wrote, Yu Baoming “did not immediately respond.”
At this point, a reporter sitting on the back row of the hall called out, not waiting for an invitation: “So what is the number?”
Patience was waning.
Finally, Yu Baoming opened his mouth, offering reporters their fourth, and most involved, non-answer:
“Everyone cares a great deal about this question. First, there is the question of how to define public vehicles. Public vehicles can include many different types. One type is the allocated vehicle that people tend to think of. According to national regulations, these numbers are determined by the provincial government. These vehicle numbers are subject to strict examination procedures according to national regulations. Other vehicles are for the purpose of administrative management, production and other uses and are bought without the use of fiscal funds, but they are managed uniformly and subject to partial reimbursement with public funds, for example for daily operation costs, including parking and fuel, etcetera. Therefore, in calculating the number of public vehicles consistent statistical requirements must first be determined.”
Given the sketch of complexity I outlined at the outset, how exactly should we read this story. Is it an illustration of failure? An indication of hope?
I don’t claim to have a definitive answer, but perhaps I can make amends by offering a joke Shenzhen journalists would no doubt appreciate:
QUESTION: How many Shenzhen officials does it take to answer a simple question?
ANSWER: No one knows yet.

Chinese media reported in April 2012 that high levels of hormones and antibiotics were being used on Chinese milk cows and to reduce inflammation. Responding to public concerns, the head of the China Milk Association (中国奶协) did not deny that antibiotics were being used on stocks, but said that milk produced while milk cows were being medicated was discarded and not introduced to the market. In this cartoon, posted by artist Kuang Biao (邝飚) to Sina Weibo, the “x” of a pair of bandages and a suture scars an udder depending from a red and white pill, a graphic illustration of the concern that milk products in China might be super-charged with antibiotics to the detriment of consumers.