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- China, Israel Pledge Closer Military Ties
- Lessons From China’s Online Hatred
- Bo Guagua Graduates From Harvard
- Renowned judge Ma Wen appointed to head Bo Xilai investigation
- With Student Killer Spared, Chinese Netizens Again Seek to Sway Outcome
- Drivers’ Education in Japan: Personality Tests and ‘Road Rage?’
- A New Twist on Chinese Foreign Policy: Beijing Mixing Business with Politics?
- China Says U.S. Subsidies Violate Trade Rules
- Economist: China’s Development Now a “Zero-Sum Game”
- The Daily Twit (@chinahearsay Twitter feed) – 2012-05-24
- Sensitive Words: Show-Off Girl and More
- Taiwan: When News is Sold to the Chinese Government
- Chen Guangcheng’s Brother Escapes Village
- Pictures: Luxury liner bumps into a bridge in Wenzhou
- Why didn’t the gov’t build this village a road?
- Rigid thinking beggars China’s “soft power”
- China Richer But Not Happier
- China’s iPad Generation
- Beijing Unveils Two Fly Policy
| China, Israel Pledge Closer Military Ties Posted: 24 May 2012 10:41 PM PDT China and Israel are taking steps to thaw a frosty relationship with a visit between the two countries' chiefs of staff. From the Washington Post:
In recent years, China has often found itself in the middle of tensions between Israel and Iran, which has bought Chinese military technology despite objections from the U.S. and other countries. For more on this, see a previous CDT post, "Beijing Steers 'Tricky Path' With Iran." Read more about Chinese relations with Israel via CDT. © Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us | |||||||||||||||
| Lessons From China’s Online Hatred Posted: 24 May 2012 03:56 PM PDT It started bad, and got worse from there. Just over two weeks ago, an Englishman was apparently caught on tape attempting to force himself on a Chinese woman on the streets of Beijing. Days after that, anti-foreigner sentiment swelled on Sina Weibo, China's Twitter, after Beijing police announced a campaign directed at foreigners living or working illegally in the city.  Yang Rui, putative world traveler Then, about a week ago, Chinese television host Yang Rui (@主持人杨锐) ignited a full-blown controversy when he used his Weibo account to label a recently expelled foreign reporter a "bitch" (or something close to it), called for foreign "trash" to be cleaned out of the city, and made a series of incredible allegations that the ChinaGeeks blog has translated here. Yang later issued a statement to the Wall Street Journal emphasizing that his words were aimed only at law-breaking foreigners. But anti-foreigner rhetoric persists in Chinese mainstream and social media, prompting name-calling, hand-wringing, and soul-searching on both sides of the cultural divide. In particular, foreign observers are asking why Chinese social media has seemingly turned so nasty, so quickly. But the truth is murkier; Weibo has always been a splintered, cacophonous, trivial, hilarious, and profane maelstrom of 140-character half-thoughts. For those of us who value massive, ongoing cultural exchange, this is somewhat disheartening. Yet as long as Weibo continues its reign as the king of Chinese social media, this may be the best we are going to get. The same characteristics that trivialize the exchange–character limits, social layer, ease of use–are what make it so popular. Bite-size thoughts only, please First, there's that 140-character limit. Even in Chinese, it matters. Admittedly, the restriction pinches less in Chinese than in English; you could fit three Tang dynasty poems in one tweet, and still have a few characters left over for commentary.  He plays video games, and opines on geopolitics on the side Most Weibo users are not poets, however, and they're not trying to be. Netizens tweet between bites of lunch, or as they wait for the bus, or while they're playing video games, or after they've had a few drinks, or after they've been dumped by their boyfriend or girlfriend. Often, they are writing from their heart or from their gut, and they're not always thinking about the consequences their words might have in the wider world. It's not an excuse, but it's the truth. Many netizens don't perceive themselves as writing for a global audience at all. They may purport to hold strong opinions about international relations and military strategy, but in many cases they are writing for their friends. Remember that China's social media isn't bifurcated into Twitter and Facebook–instead, it is dominated by Weibo, a public-facing platform. If you want to vent to your friends on China's premier social media platform, you also need to vent to everyone who follows you or even searches for a keyword your comment contains. The "gamification" of speech Weibo's founders certainly hoped to make the platform fun to use, but they likely never predicted the extent to which speech on the platform would come to resemble a game of "top this," with sometimes ugly results. When sentiment is split, chatter on a given topic can resemble a dialogue, albeit one rife with curse words. Other times, as sentiment begins to tilt, it tilts further and faster the more extreme it becomes. Hoping to be noticed above the friendly fray, netizens vie to see whose tweet can be the most memorable, and that often means most extreme.  This man, caught in an attempted sexual assault, started the anti-foreigner tide rolling While netizens who agree with the prevailing opinion rush in, those who disagree begin to leave. It's not fun being the voice of reason in an increasingly ugly discussion, and many who could do so simply decide to go somewhere else. Why bother "playing the lute to a cow," as the Chinese say, trying to convince those who are beyond convincing? Instead of explaining the horrors of war to thousands of Counterstrike-addled teens who claim they itch for armed conflict with the Philippines, why not find a new thread and discuss sports, or movies, or love, or a new book, or finance, or anything else? This trend is especially obvious when the rhetorical punching bag is mute. Strident commenters are triply safe–separated from their target by anonymity, by distance, and by the absence of counterargument. Oddly, for the average user, it's quite easy to criticize the central government, or its Ministry of Foreign Affairs; they're not going to bother to write back. For their part, foreigners don't have Weibo accounts, or can't really read Chinese. Or so netizens thought. Know your audience Perhaps the recent controversy's true value is as a reminder that we are all truly connected, even if some of us don't always want to be. Chinese netizens are rapidly learning that the foreign devils are watching. It's every bit as easy to open a Weibo account from Washington, DC as it is in Beijing. (Okay, we lied. It's actually easier.) Anyone who can read Chinese, or even use Google translate, can freely open this window into Chinese netizen sentiment and peer in, essentially undisturbed and undetected. Websites like the humble Tea Leaf Nation are dedicated to transforming the mass of Chinese chatter into bite-sized, English-language stories. If that sounds a bit Orwellian, it isn't. The foreigners are watching because they care. They're watching because they know that netizen opinion, however flawed as a proxy for Chinese opinion, is one of the best available. They know that China is important, that its young Internet users represent its future, and they want to know where that future is going. Words can still hurt Unfortunately, speech isn't actually a game. The facility of writing and sending a tweet belies its potential impact, as Yang Rui, and so many before him, have learned the hard way.  There are plenty of good (and legal) foreigners in China. Former NBA coach Bob Weiss coached the Shanxi Brave Dragons The great bell of racism and xenophobia, even if struck obliquely, is not easily un-rung. It not only tilts the Internet's perverse game mechanics in the wrong direction–leading to ever more outrageous opinions–but it creates an atmosphere of hostility both for countervailing views, and for the people/groups who are the targets of those words. In time, a profusion of these extreme views can become a self-fulfilling prophecy by redefining what is "extreme" and "normal," even in more polite conversation. This slight darkening of the atmosphere also risks undermining the trust that many foreigners living in China, and many Chinese who know or interact with foreigners, have worked hard to build. While a foreigner looking over her shoulder every time she leaves the house is likely overreacting to recent vitriol, it's impossible, as a minority in a strange land, not to wonder: Are my neighbors watching me more closely now? Did they ever really trust me? Am I just imagining this? Or was there a dislike, or something worse, lurking beneath the surface, that I have finally begun to see? A lesson learned, maybe Precisely because the structure of social media makes it easy, each of us must stand individual guard against extremism. That requires vigilance and self-discipline. In particular, if this author could speak to purveyors of anti-foreigner hysteria, he would asks them this: Do the words you write represent the person you wish to become? More immediately, do the words you write cohere with who say you are? If the answer is "no," re-think that tweet. You should be on notice by now: The rest of the world is watching. Perhaps it's time to think of the Internet as a place where you should put your best self forward, rather than your worst.
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| Bo Guagua Graduates From Harvard Posted: 24 May 2012 09:28 PM PDT With his parents embroiled in China's biggest political scandal in decades, Bo Guagua accepted his diploma at Harvard University's Kennedy School on Thursday. From The Wall Street Journal:
Slate's William J. Dobson details the decade-long link between the Chinese Communist Party and Harvard University, looking beyond the educations of "princelings" such as Bo Guagua to call attention to a much less publicized but far more important training program for future party leaders:
© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us | |||||||||||||||
| Renowned judge Ma Wen appointed to head Bo Xilai investigation Posted: 24 May 2012 07:08 PM PDT
The 64-year-old Ma Wen has been likened to a legendary judge from 1,000 years ago. (Photo/CFP) The case against the former Chongqing party secretary Bo Xilai is being headed by Ma Wen, a judge renowned for her investigative skills. Sources in Beijing claim that the government is intent on laying to rest the scandal involving the fallen political heavyweight before the once-in-a-decade leadership transition at the upcoming 18th National Congress in the fall. Bo, who was once tipped for a top leadership position, is under investigation for unspecified "serious discipline violations," while his wife Gu Kailai has been arrested on suspicion of murdering British businessman Neil Heywood, a crime Bo allegedly tried to cover up. Bo's former police chief, Wang Lijun, the man who triggered his boss's downfall by his dramatic flight to the US consulate in Chengdu in February, is said to be facing treason charges for attempted defection. Bo is reportedly being detained at a special location as he awaits the results of the official investigation, and has not been placed under "double regulation" — a form of detention traditionally used by the Communist Party when investigating the actions of officials — as had been initially suspected. To ensure the case runs smoothly, sources say Ma Wen, the deputy secretary of the party's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and head of the Ministry of Supervision, has taken over the handling of the investigation. Ma previously headed the high-profile corruption investigation into Liu Zhijun, the former railways minister, and her presence in the Bo investigation is said to have been personally requested by the party's highest echelons. Chinese media have likened Ma to a female version of Bao Zheng, the legendary mystery-solving judge from the Northern Song Dynasty in the 11th century. Strictly speaking, Ma is the second to have been dubbed the "female Bao" by the media, the first being her predecessor Liu Liying. Ma's primary mission is to conduct a full investigation into Bo's alleged illegal activities and draw up a detailed review before providing her recommendations to the party's Central Committee. After the committee session, the discipline inspection commission will then transfer Bo — who has been stripped of all his party posts — for a judicial hearing as an ordinary citizen. Legal experts in Beijing say Ma will not have too much of a political burden to shoulder because most party leaders have already voiced their opinion in the case. But given the potential scope and complexities of the case, completing a comprehensive report in the space of a couple of months is still a major challenge, they added. Recent media reports suggest Wang's trial for treason will commence in June and that the charges against him may include endangering national security and divulging state secrets. Legal experts say no matter what the complete list of charges are, the trial will not be open to the public if Wang is charged with endangering national security as expected. Wang is believed to have conveyed to US diplomats evidence of Bo's alleged crimes, including attempting to cover up his wife's murder of British businessman Neil Heywood, as a means of protecting himself from deadly reprisal at the hands of his former boss and mentor. Source: Want China Times
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| With Student Killer Spared, Chinese Netizens Again Seek to Sway Outcome Posted: 24 May 2012 03:55 PM PDT  The late Liang Rongcai, or "Xiao Mi" Public opinion has once again taken aim at a high-profile legal ruling in China. Just days after a tide of popular and online rage helped propel one criminal, the disgraced financier Wu Ying, out of the death chamber, netizens are flexing their muscle again in hopes of sending another to the gallows. The facts On the morning of November 21, 2011, Liang Rongcai, nicknamed "Xiao Mi," took a bathroom break from her morning classes at Dongguan University of Technology. A fourth-year student, Ao Xiang, a then-21-year-old male almost 6 feet tall, entered the bathroom while Liang was inside, locked the door, and turned out the lights. He donned a mask and gloves, removed his pants and shoes, and pulled out a knife. He set upon Liang, forced her into a bathroom stall, and began to sexually assault her. Liang resisted, and succeeded in breaking back out of the locked stall. But the much stronger Ao set on her again, striking her head and face into the bathroom floor until she was unconscious, then choking Liang for a number of minutes until she died. Liang was 19 years old. Bizarre proceedings  Liang's murderer, Ao Xiang With facts this horrific, the Liang family expected an open and shut case. Murderer Ao Xiang had sexually assaulted at least six young women before he victimized Liang, and, Liang's family maintains, confessed that he had targeted university students "because prostitutes are dirty." Instead, according to a blog post Liang's boyfriend (@BQXY) wrote in March, the court proceedings were marred by irregularities. Then-suspect Ao appeared preternaturally calm. The prosecutor told the family before the argument began to "prepare psychologically" for a light sentence, then did not contest discrepancies between Ao's testimony and his written confession, nor did he dispute Ao's claim that he lacked specific intent to rape Liang. Weibo's starring role Perhaps strangest of all, Weibo, China's Twitter, played a starring role in the defense's case. According to the blog entry, the defense lawyer argued that unlike the Yao Jiaxin case, a murder that lit up Weibo in April 2011 due to doubts that the privileged young defendant was being properly punished, this case "had not caused bad social effects." The boyfriend ends his original March 20 post writing, "I hope this is all normal, and I'm just being delusional and thinking too much. But I can't eat, and I can't sleep." Late on Tuesday night, the "bad social effects" began, almost as if the defense attorney had unwittingly summoned them. The power of Weibo kicked into gear, propelled by the inherent virility and emotional appeal of a video apparently made by the boyfriend, and first posted by Liang's father, "A Video for Mi." It lays out the facts of the case and interviews the decedent's family.  Liang's aggrieved father By early Thursday morning, the stills of the young victim accompanying the video had been reposted over 150,000 times, easily Weibo's most viral image for May 23. Since the video's posting, the boyfriend has confessed to being somewhat overwhelmed. "Woah, I never thought this would have such an effect…I've been too busy to respond to everyone's comments." There are over 31,000 comments. The verdict is in, and netizens are angry On the evening of the 24th, the verdict came out: "A suspended death sentence [which usually coverts to prison time]," the boyfriend tweeted. "Can I curse?" He writes shortly thereafter, "[We] don't have the right to appeal the criminal part…there may not be a rehearing, we'll just get a few pieces of paper [explaining the court's reasoning]. Hmmph, it's not socially influential, I get it."  Liang and her boyfriend. The boyfriend tweeted on May 20, "If you could hear me, I would certainly say those three magic words." The mainstream media is apparently trying to explain the ruling. Chinese news outlet Legal Daily, writes that Ao was sentenced to death for intentional murder, but that sentence was suspended because Ao turned himself in. For their part, netizens have rushed to demand justice and a re-hearing, stressing they do not accept the ruling. It is clear they know that someone beyond their friends and followers might take their comments into consideration. For now, Liang Rongcai's Weibo account (@小米猪儿–彩) continues to stand as a sort of digital memorial. Its final posting, from November 18th, 2011, was a tongue-in-cheek comment about chocolate. That page is now covered with symbols of a burning candle, left by thousands of netizens who feel this case somehow involves them too.
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| Drivers’ Education in Japan: Personality Tests and ‘Road Rage?’ Posted: 24 May 2012 03:50 PM PDT Memo #158 By Joshua Roth – jroth [at] mtholyoke.edu
Recognizing the range of temperaments in the driving population, psychologists working for the National Police Agency incorporated a personality inventory into a driving aptitude test. It is now part of the curriculum in officially certified driving schools. This inventory, adapted from the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, was first developed as a means to evaluate military recruits during World War I. Recent versions have been used in many countries to screen candidates for jobs where other people's lives are at stake – such as firefighters, police, pilots, and nuclear plant operators. Since its adoption by certified driving schools, more Japanese have taken a brief version of this personality inventory than any other people. Interestingly, the inventory is not used to screen potential drivers in Japan. You can't fail it. The point is to encourage self-reflection (hansei), according to psychologists at one testing company. They believe that self-reflection among student drivers will allow them to modify their behaviour or take special precautions. Those who score high on the "sensitivity" scale may be expected to adopt a zen-like attitude of tolerance and not assume that the acts of other drivers are provocations. Those who score low on the "emotional stability" scale are exhorted to focus on driving only. But it is doubtful that the brief explanations following these exams can spur the kind of self-reflection that would make a difference in driving. Whether or not personality testing is effective in reducing traffic-related accidents, its continued use suggests that the turn towards neoliberal governance that emphasizes financial incentives has not completely displaced older forms of governance that stress moral suasion and self-reflection. If you enjoyed this memo, subscribe to our e-newsletter for free and receive new memos 2+ times per week via email. Links:
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| A New Twist on Chinese Foreign Policy: Beijing Mixing Business with Politics? Posted: 24 May 2012 12:38 PM PDT  One of the cardinal rules of Chinese diplomacy is that China doesn't mix business with politics. The precept fits in nicely with the primacy that China places on sovereignty, respecting the right of a country—or at least the leaders of the moment—to determine how things ought to work. And, of course, it also provides Beijing with the opportunity to rationalize its lack of enthusiasm for tough foreign policy action in places such as Iran, Syria, Sudan, or Zimbabwe as a matter of principle. Of course, as I have written elsewhere, doing business in any country—particularly when you supply a country with arms as Beijing has done in both Sudan and Zimbabwe—is in fact mixing business with politics. And the ongoing competition between Beijing and Taipei to purchase diplomatic relations with small, often poor, states is nothing if not the blatant mixing of business with politics. So on the face of it, the claim is rather silly. Moreover, there have been more subtle cases in the past—such as when Beijing postponed a purchase of Airbus planes after then-President Sarkozy agreed to meet with the Dalai Lama in 2008 and its rare earth export slowdown to Japan in the wake of the East China Sea dispute in 2010, to name a few—that suggest Beijing has not been unwilling to exert a bit of economic leverage to punish a perceived political transgression. In fact, it appears that Beijing's willingness to mix business with politics is increasingly an open secret. In the midst of China's dispute with the Philippines over control of a shoal in the South China Sea, Beijing has called on Chinese travel agencies to suspend tours to the Philippines. There have also been some fruit shipments blocked from the Philippines to China, although this problem apparently began before the standoff in the South China Sea. A similar theme is playing out this month across a couple of oceans. The state-supported Global Times has called for Beijing to suspend some economic cooperation with the United Kingdom in retaliation for Prime Minister David Cameron meeting with the Dalai Lama. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has chimed in by saying that the meeting "Seriously interfered with China's internal affairs, undermined China's core interests, and hurt the feelings of the Chinese people." And of course, Tokyo felt Beijing's political sting when it hosted the World Uyghur Congress, an exile group opposed to China's policies in Xinjiang that is considered by Beijing to be a terrorist organization. Beijing cancelled a meeting between Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi and Hiromasa Yonekura, the Chairman of the Japanese business group Keidanren, to demonstrate its displeasure with Tokyo. Despite Beijing's massive economic weight, however, its efforts to throw that weight around are unlikely to succeed. The problem for Beijing, as I see it, is three-fold. First, on the rare occasion that anyone listens to China's protestations and does what Beijing wants, it seems that Beijing doesn't then return the favor. (See, for example, President Obama postponing a meeting with the Dalai Lama before his trip to Beijing in 2009, and China's ungenerous treatment of the U.S. president in return.) Once countries see that China takes without giving back, no one will want to give any more. Second, it is very difficult to use economic leverage to get other states to adopt your interests as their own when they really don't want to. Here Beijing can look to the United States for instruction. At a recent meeting I attended, when a senior Myanmar/Burmese official was asked whether the U.S. sanctions had any impact on the country's decision to transition to democracy and open the economy, the official said—rather unsurprisingly, I think—that they really hadn't, because the sanctions had been around for years. Third, Beijing may simply be in danger of overestimating its economic leverage. In the case of the Philippines, for example, even though China is the Philippines' third largest trading partner, the Chinese are not among the top three tourist groups visiting the Philippines and Filipino Tourism Secretary Ramon Jimenez Jr. seems unfazed by China's pullout. He has simply suggested that the Philippines will look to Japan and other "traditionally stronger markets" to make up the difference. China has long mixed business with politics in a most unattractive fashion; it just hasn't been willing to admit it. Will it make a difference if Beijing finally fesses up? My guess is that greater honesty won't make much of a difference outside China, where everyone is pretty well aware of the gap between Chinese rhetoric and Chinese actions on the ground. The opportunity rests within China itself. If China's leaders can take the first step to acknowledge honestly what it is they are doing, they may be able to take the second step and realize that what they are doing is not, in fact, yielding what they want. That, at least, might put them a step ahead of the United States, where we are still waiting for Cuba to see the error of its ways. | |||||||||||||||
| China Says U.S. Subsidies Violate Trade Rules Posted: 24 May 2012 01:18 PM PDT In the latest missive in an ongoing trade dispute between the U.S. and China over renewable energy issues, China has filed a complaint with the WTO over U.S. subsidies to clean energy projects. From Bloomberg:
MarketWatch has more on the background of the dispute:
Read more about renewable energy in China, cooperation with the U.S. over environmental issues, and about U.S. trade with China, via CDT. © Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us | |||||||||||||||
| Economist: China’s Development Now a “Zero-Sum Game” Posted: 24 May 2012 10:08 AM PDT  From left to right: Earth, consequences If China's economy collapses, you certainly won't be able to say that well-known commentator Liu Shengjun (@刘胜军改革) didn't warn you. On Sina Weibo, China's Twitter, Liu started an ongoing thread entitled "China's Miracle is an Illusion." He wrote: "I was speaking about reform at a gathering of colleagues. Our view: At present, the Chinese economy has become a zero-sum game, with a tiny minority using pollution, IPO[s], [and] real estate to plunder wealth from the majority. The growth in income among the majority is insufficient to offset the losses arising from environmental pollution, [lack of] food safety, high housing prices, and negative [real] interest rates. But because the consequences of pollution require a period of time before they are fully exposed, the majority lives with the illusion that their lives are improving."  Liu Shengjun, looking un-terrified This argument has been made before, including by Liu himself. But it has seldom been made so concisely and vividly. Liu's post, which dates to November of last year, has slowly accumulated over 1,000 comments from like-minded observers. Liu has kept the thread going with selected quotes that, taken together, suggest that China's economic growth depends on unsustainable resource consumption which ignores the costs of environmental behavior. Pollution's true cost is hidden "If this kind of model of relying on resources and consumption continues to develop, the resources will be hard to support, the economy hard to sustain." [Li Keqiang] "Everyone just started paying attention to environmental costs. [Reporting of] Beijing PM2.5 [particulate levels] was motivated at first by attention from foreigners. Our polluted environment seems not to have costs, our using [up] clean air and water resources is without costs, but [in fact] in this world everything has a cost. [But] we put it aside, seeking our fast economic development." [Xu Xiaonian(@许小年)] "Out of deep concern for its position and interests, Guangxi University doesn't even dare to use the word 'pollution' in international academic discussion panels. In 2006, China saw a total of 600,000 environmental lawsuits, with year-on-year growth of 30%." [Caixin] Don't eat that! "Among the heavy minerals found in Fujianese rice exceeding standards, the highest proportion is lead, up to 100% [over the standard]." [Caixin] "Nationwide, 24% of children are overweight. Chinese children (using Guiyang as a representative) average over three times as much Mercury in their blood as [do children] in Europe." [Caixin] Don't drink that!  Tianjin Port is not easy on the lungs, or eyes. Author: Arrorro "Approximately 10 years of accumulated consumption of the excess minerals contained in water will lead to a high incidence of disease. Judging from this, China is entering into a high-incidence period of disease from mineral pollution. China has 200,000 chemical companies built along rivers, with over 2,000 of these built near water sources. [Caixin] "The Xiang River [in Hunan province] is among the rivers most seriously affected by pollution from heavy metals. Hunan province's water has the highest incidence of mercury, cadmium, chromium, and lead pollution in the nation. In Hunan's Zhuzhou Xinma village, 1,100 of 1,800 villagers show excess levels of cadmium." [Caixin] Don't breathe that! "In a Ministry of Health report on workplace illness in 2010, there were 749,970 reported cases nationwide, with Pneumoconiosis [a lung disease that results from breathing coal] comprising 676,541 (or 90.2%). For that shockingly high group of people, until now the protection of their rights has floated outside of the law. Some sufferers have been unable to get the medical attention or the compensation they need, appealing to every level of government, even surrounding government offices. This is how economic problems are [felt socially]."
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| The Daily Twit (@chinahearsay Twitter feed) – 2012-05-24 Posted: 23 May 2012 08:59 PM PDT
© Stan for China Hearsay, 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us | |||||||||||||||
| Sensitive Words: Show-Off Girl and More Posted: 24 May 2012 07:59 AM PDT As of May 15, the following search terms are blocked on Weibo (not including the "search for user" function):  I'm taking my Godfather into battle! Hot Topics:
Internet "Nicknames" for Security Chief Zhou Yongkang, an alleged backer of Bo Xilai:
Note: All Chinese-language words are tested using simplified characters. The same terms in traditional characters occasionally return different results. CDT Chinese runs a project that crowd-sources filtered keywords on Sina Weibo search. CDT independently tests the keywords before posting them, but some searches later become accessible again. We welcome readers to contribute to this project so that we can include the most up-to-date information. © Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us | |||||||||||||||
| Taiwan: When News is Sold to the Chinese Government Posted: 24 May 2012 12:14 AM PDT In recent years, more and more Taiwanese media workers have been worried that press freedom has been eroding since the lifting of martial law in 1987. In fact, Taiwan's ranking in Freedom House's Annual Press Freedom Report has been regressing since 2008. In addition to the "embedded marketing" practice which cloaks advertising as news and makes journalistic articles less reliable, the mainland China government has extended influence on the Taiwan public sphere through news industry acquisitions. Influence of mainland China On May 7, 2012, a public hearing was held because the Want Want China Times group plans to acquire the second largest cable television system in Taiwan. Since Taiwanese businessman Tsai Eng-Meng purchased the media group in November 2008, China Times, one of the most influential newspapers in Taiwan, has made a subsequent change in editorial policy [zh] in the direction of softening criticism of the Ma administration, Beijing, or improvements in cross-strait ties.  Image from Reject China Times Facebook Campaign Page More than 50 social science and journalism professors in Taiwan signed up to the 'Reject China Times' campaign [zh] in February 2012, in response to Tsai's interview with the Washington Post, in which he claimed that the June 4 Massacre (Tiananmen Square) did not happen. The campaign statement pointed out that:
In fact, since Mr. Tsai purchased China Times, a large number of "self-censorship" incidents to "erase words that are critical of China" have taken place and the knowledge community has been very critical of such practice. Mr. Tsai obtains his capital from China and has turned into a media tycoon. His interview in the Washington Post which praised the authoritative mainland Chinese government is repressive towards the development of democracy and human rights in China. Such ridiculous comment has also proven our worries that the Chinese government has control over Taiwanese media, our public opinion and our citizens' rights to truthful reports. The further expansion of Want Want China Times from printed media to cable television has undoubtedly alerted many Taiwanese. In fact in the recent public hearing, Tsai admitted that he had received money from the mainland Chinese authorities to publish "news" that propagates a positive imagine of mainland China. However, his defence was that "embedded marketing" has been a common practice in Taiwan and there is no reason to stop China Times from doing it. Journalism Professor Chang Chin-hwa pointed out that such political advertisement is a potential threat to national security (via a report from 'Reject China Times' [zh] campaign website:
Professor Chang Chin-hwa is worried and reminds the public that "not only our government is buying news, now the People Republic of China (PRC) is buying news in Taiwan". She urged the Control Yuan member Frank Wu to start an investigation and condemn such practices, "in this incident, the China Times is the prime suspect. Want Want China Times takes the money, however, it not only sells its own news, but helps other newspapers to sell their news! The Control Yuan has already pointed out [in 2010] that such practice has affected the professionalism in journalism and posed threat to our national security." Embedded marketing For years, the issue of "embedded marketing" has been criticized by many media workers. Back in 2010, an experienced journalist Dennis Huang (黃哲斌), quit his job on the China Times and launched an online protest [zh] against embedded marketing:
Yesterday I left China Times, where I have worked for 16 years and 5 months. It is more and more difficult to focus on my personal interests and pretend not to see the ugly truth that the embedded advertisement (cloaked as news) gradually invades more and more pages in the newspapers. News becomes a kind of good that we can calculate its value by counting the number of words. Trashy news releases are sent to the editors one by one, and the editors are told, 'this is embedded marketing and we cannot change any word in it.' Later, they invade the pages for 'real' news like aliens, and those articles written by hard-working reporters are shortened or thrown away. Both reporters and their supervisors are given the responsibility for selling news, so they need to ask the interviewees shamelessly for budgets and embedded marketing.
I believe that there is something in your life not for sale. For example, the trust of my readers, professional judgment, my conscience, my integrity, the reputation of a newspaper company, and the freedom to decide whether to write or not. However, the embedded marketing destroys all of them and takes them away. It makes news a piece of cheap merchandise on a shelf.
In various kinds of embedded marketing, the most arguable one is government sponsored news. The government pays the media with taxpayers' hard earned money. I like to put it like this: 'the government puts its left hand into our pocket to get the money to bribe the media, and then it can extend its right hand into our brain.' …[By doing so] the government does not need to defend its policy or communicate with the citizens. Now the government is so lazy that it does not want to write its own propaganda. They just need to buy up the news. This is the most tedious and obscene kind of media control. Written by Huma Yusuf · comments (0) | |||||||||||||||
| Chen Guangcheng’s Brother Escapes Village Posted: 24 May 2012 02:54 AM PDT Chen Guangcheng's older brother, Chen Guangfu, has also escaped their home village of Dongshigu and made his way to Beijing, where he met with his son's would-be lawyers. Chen Kegui is in custody awaiting trial for the attempted murder of a guard involved in a raid on the family's home. From Tania Branigan at The Guardian:
Reuters' Sui-Lee Wee met with Chen Guangfu to discuss his son's case, his own reported torture, his brother's departure, and other events of the past month.
Chen Guangfu said that the security presence around Dongshigu has only intensified since his brother's escape. As Charles Custer commented at ChinaGeeks in the immediate aftermath of Chen Guangcheng's escape, this security apparatus had become a significant factor in the local economy, which various parties had a strong interest in sustaining. McClatchy's Tom Lasseter reported from the area last week on the persistent cordon around the village.
See also Chen Guangfu's earlier account of his torture by local security officers, news of Chen Guangcheng's arrival in New York and the start of his family's new life there and more on the Chen Guangcheng saga via CDT. © Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us | |||||||||||||||
| Pictures: Luxury liner bumps into a bridge in Wenzhou Posted: 23 May 2012 06:52 PM PDT How did this happen??? A large cruise ship as tall as a seven-storey building hit a bridge in Wenzhou City on May 23, when it was being dragged by four tugboats to pass through the bridge on Oujiang River. With a loud bang, the luxury liner Pearl No. 7 lost its chimney and left a mark on the bridge. But no casualties were reported at the moment. It was said the luxury cruise ship that is equipped with shopping mall, entertainment center and restaurants and can hold more than a thousand tourists a time had its sea trial on May 22. The incident is believed to be caused by miscommunications of the liner's height. Some netizens satirized the Wenzhou bridge is not shabby this time, while some others warned people to be careful over the safety of the bridge now after the collision.
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| Why didn’t the gov’t build this village a road? Posted: 24 May 2012 01:57 AM PDT Over the past few days, I've mentioned the village on the cliff several times, but haven't yet discussed one of the biggest questions I had on my mind during my time there, Why didn't the gov't build this village a road? Why is it being left to charities to do the gov't's work? I should say that we aren't just talking about a single road, the majority of the projects we visited were infrastructure projects. One involved repairing an irrigation system, another was to fix a broken water pump, and the third was to build a water pump. Throughout China this charity is also involved in rebuilding schools, roads, bridges and village clinics. This ties back into an important argument made by economists who say despite the hundreds of billions of dollars the Chinese gov't has poured into infrastructure over the last few decades, China's infrastructure investment is still far behind the US and other developed countries. This, they argue, means that China's investing is still producing excellent returns, and is far from the waste of resources that more pessimistic economists allege. Perhaps this is why I was so frustrated by what I saw in the countryside. Yes, there is still clearly a need, and yes, China is still funding infrastructure with billions of dollars, but a tiny percentage of that is reaching those who live in poverty. These optimistic economists fail to ask whether or not these resources are being used to fulfill actual needs, or if they are being wasted on vanity projects (like turning bridges into tunnels). The Chinese aid worker I talked with about this issue tried valiantly to come up with a politically safe answer to my question, "Why didn't the gov't build this village road?" Finally she said, "They didn't build it because it wouldn't help local GDP very much. They are only interested in projects that build their resume and reputation." The ugly fact is that instead of building a road that would have allowed these 40 families access to the city and its markets, which did make a huge difference for them, the local gov't decided instead to invest in a new old looking town that might someday attract tourists. Click to view slideshow.The same was true of the other projects that had been ignored by local officials. In the most remote village we visited the charity had built a water pumping station. I had heard about how villagers prior to the pump had been forced to walk several kilometers and cross over a mountain to the next valley for fresh water, and how much better off they were now thanks to our efforts. So you can imagine my surprise when the village was next to a rather large stream. "Why don't they just use this water?" I asked, "Why were they going so far away?" The first response was, "They have always done it this way." The second response was, "During the 60′s a mine was built upstream, it released a lot of contaminates into the water which caused many diseases." So even here, in one of the most isolated villages I had ever been to, reckless gov't projects had created a need that had never existed before AND then refused to address the problem (a similar theme appeared today in People's Daily). It should be noted that gov't officials took us to see the pump in new cars, and then asked the charity to help pay for the needed repairs. As you can probably tell reading this, I am more than a little frustrated by this issue. China's gov't has footed the bill for Olympic stadiums, high-speed railways, airports, space shuttles, and who knows how many official cars and banquets, but somehow still fails to provide the basics. While many have been impressed by China's political system when visiting Shanghai and Beijing, one would have the exact opposite impression if they visited these villages. Filed under: Development, Environment, Life in China, Rural Life Tagged: Beijing, Bo Xilai, China, development, Government, People's Daily, United States, Village, water         | |||||||||||||||
| Rigid thinking beggars China’s “soft power” Posted: 24 May 2012 12:35 AM PDT In recent weeks, China has emitted glints of intensifying anti-Western xenophobia. Last week, following the announcement of a three-month crackdown on foreigners without valid visas, CCTV anchor Yang Rui (杨锐) encouraged police to "clean out the foreign garbage". Yang seemed to revel in China's recent decision to expel Al Jazeera reporter Melissa Chan ("that foreign shrew," he called her), the first case since 1998 of a foreign journalist kicked out of China. Like the last wave of populist anti-Western sentiment to hit China back in 2008 (remember the "Cafferty Affair" and the controversy over the Olympic torch relay?), these recent remarks — including a number of editorials in state media — stem from a foundational sense of victimization at the hands of the West. And Western media, once again, are bearing the brunt of the attack. This root sense of victimization is enforced in China through education and propaganda, for Party leaders an important part of building and maintaining legitimacy. The phenomenon is what Chinese historian Yuan Weishi has called "growing up on wolf's milk," or chi langnai zhangda (吃狼奶长大). In a 2006 piece published in the journal Freezing Point, Yuan discussed how Chinese history textbooks vastly oversimplified historical episodes like the destruction of the Summer Palace in Beijing by Anglo-French forces during the Second Opium War to bolster the narrative of national unity against the ever-looming threat of foreign aggression. He wrote:
This constantly reconstructed and reinforced sense of national victimization also underpins official thinking on China's strategic remaking of its international image — its concerted push for global press-tige (i.e, positive news coverage) and "soft power". Since Chinese President Hu Jintao defined "soft power" development as a key national strategy in his political report to the 17th Party Congress in 2007 — and outlined the media "going out" strategy more explicitly in his June 2008 speech at People's Daily — China has spent billions of dollars expanding its global "transmission capacity." The basic premise: China is in the midst of a zero-sum "global struggle for public opinion", and in order to grab its share, it must beef up its soft power arsenal. Otherwise, it will continue to be "victimized" by Western media. It's a soft power push conceived in the hardest of terms. Which also means, of course, that it's a hard sell. China has expanded and re-outfitted Xinhua News Agency bureaus worldwide, launched multi-language editions of China Daily as well as an English-language edition of the Global Times, linked to the Party's official People's Daily. And this year it launched CCTV America, a 24-hour international news channel broadcasting from Washington. And yet today, almost exactly four years on from Hu Jintao's June 2008 speech that offered his boldest strategic response to China's international media woes, it seems China has little "soft power" to show for its global media deployments. This year, just as Chinese leaders are bogged down with domestic social and political concerns ahead of a crucial (and somewhat troubled, apparently) leadership transition, China has suffered a spate of stories with erosive consequences for China's official "soft power." Wang Lijun. Bo Xilai. Chen Guangcheng. In a recent opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, Harvard professor Joseph Nye, who introduced the idea of soft power to the world, said that China was "once again torpedoing its soft-power campaign" by failing to protect basic rights, and by strangling the emergence of a vital civil society that would otherwise showcase diverse, creative and attractive voices. "No amount of propaganda can hide the fact that blind human rights attorney Chen Guangcheng recently sought refuge in the U.S. Embassy in Beijing," Nye wrote. Chinese strategizers have conceived of China's soft power deficit as the country's "third affliction," the idea being that while China is now economically and militarily strong (having thrown those afflictions off) it is still demonized by a hateful West. In fact, the narrative of victimization is itself one of the root maladies from which China's soft power campaign suffers. The ideological conviction that Western media and culture must be the tools of Western political power blinds the pundits of Chinese soft power to the very mechanisms by which credibility and attractiveness are created. The most salient symbol of China's official failure to grasp the game rules of soft power and credibility is in fact Melissa Chan, the Al Jazeera correspondent China sent packing earlier this month. Launched in the late 1990s and broadcasting 24 hours a day only since 1999, Al Jazeera was feted by many Chinese officials and scholars as the act to follow, a new international channel that was non-Western but could gain a high degree of credibility for its coverage. Back in 2009, Yu Guoming, dean of the journalism school at Renmin University of China, and a consultant for China's media push, told Singapore's Straits Times that a new 24-hour television channel would have to adhere to "objective, professional international practices."
By ejecting Chan and forcing the closure of Al Jazeera's Beijing bureau, China has effectively admitted the impoverishment of its hopes of building a credible international news channel. Whatever its ambitions may be, it is determined to control the "voice" of China — as though it were not the product of the full complexity of China's culture and ideas, but rather a megaphone to shout over the heads of international audiences. I'll close these lengthy musings with a translated portion of an article run yesterday on People's Daily Online that shows quite clearly how observations — which of course should be the basis of policy and strategy — can be horribly wrong-headed when they are colored by ideology. The piece apparently took three scholars from the China Institute of International Studies, including its director, Qu Xing (曲星), to write.
[Frontpage photo: A drawing by Emile Bayard depicting fighting during the Second Opium War, superimposed with a Chinese flag. Flag photo by "nist6ss" shared under Creative Commons license.] | |||||||||||||||
| Posted: 24 May 2012 12:01 AM PDT At American Public Media's Marketplace, Kai Ryssdal and Rob Schmitz discuss a recent study from the University of Southern California which suggested that rising incomes in China are failing to bring greater happiness to broad swathes of the population. Rising prices and growing income inequality appear to be undermining any expected gains, and may be sowing the seeds of social unrest.
The Los Angeles Times reported the study's release last week, and described China's use by economists as "a real-life laboratory to study how money, inequality and change are tied to our satisfaction with life".
At TIME, Austin Ramzy noted that Bo Xilai's gestures towards addressing economic inequality helped build his broad popularity among Chongqingers.
© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us | |||||||||||||||
| Posted: 23 May 2012 11:57 PM PDT At Foreign Policy, Deborah Jian Lee and Sushma Subramanian describe the effects of China's mass labour migration on the families it pulls apart. Absent parents leave tens of millions of rural children vulnerable to depression, suicide and kidnapping, but the discriminatory hukou registration system makes it difficult for families to move to the cities together.
Xinhua photographer Liu Jie poignantly captured the problem of divided families last year in a set of group portraits in which absent family members were represented by empty chairs. See past posts on CDT for more on labour migration and the hukou system. © Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us | |||||||||||||||
| Beijing Unveils Two Fly Policy Posted: 23 May 2012 11:56 PM PDT Hot on the heels of the new "Three Have-Nots" campaign against undocumented foreigners, Beijing authorities have announced new guidelines for the city's public toilets, including a limit of two flies per facility. From the BBC:
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