| Leaked Speech Shows Xi Jinping’s Opposition to Reform Posted: 27 Jan 2013 10:42 PM PST While a recent crackdown on wrongdoing by officials has encouraged those who want to see an end to official corruption in China, hopes are diminishing over the prospects for more substantive political reform under incoming president Xi Jinping. A speech Xi gave in Shenzhen in December has recently been released and appears to indicate that Xi will not encourage any systematic reforms that will threaten the leadership of the Party. Seeing Red in China has translated an essay by veteran journalist Gao Yu, who spent time in prison after the 1989 protest movement, in which she analyzes Xi's speech: As if to clear up the political smog, Xi Jinping's "new southern tour speech," made in early December, began its circulation last week in the party. To my surprise, Xi's speech reads like a perfect confirmation to MacFarquhar's prediction. The new leadership's "honeymoon" is hardly over, but it has already become clear that the Party and the people don't share the same "China Dream," as the Southern Weekend incident has abundantly indicated. The most striking part of Xi Jinping's "new southern tour speech" is his revisiting the topic of the Soviet Union's collapse. He said, "Why did the Soviet Union disintegrate? Why did the Soviet Communist Party collapse? An important reason was that their ideals and beliefs had been shaken. In the end, 'the ruler's flag over the city tower' changed overnight. It's a profound lesson for us! To dismiss the history of the Soviet Union and the Soviet Communist Party, to dismiss Lenin and Stalin, and to dismiss everything else is to engage in historic nihilism, and it confuses our thoughts and undermines the Party's organizations on all levels." "Why must we stand firm on the Party's leadership over the military?" Xi continued, "because that's the lesson from the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the Soviet Union where the military was depoliticized, separated from the Party and nationalized, the party was disarmed. A few people tried to save the Soviet Union; they seized Gorbachev, but within days it was turned around again, because they didn't have the instruments to exert power. Yeltsin gave a speech standing on a tank, but the military made no response, keeping so-called 'neutrality.' Finally, Gorbachev announced the disbandment of the Soviet Communist Party in a blithe statement. A big Party was gone just like that. Proportionally, the Soviet Communist Party had more members than we do, but nobody was man enough to stand up and resist." [...] Xi Jinping didn't mention "political reform" in the new southern tour speech. In fact, he has not made any reference to it since after the 18th Party's Congress. Instead, in his southern tour speech, he laid out his ideological bedrocks: "Only socialism can save China. Only (economic) reform and opening-up can develop China, develop socialism, and develop Marxism."
See also: "Xi Jinping's opposition to political reforms laid out in leaked internal speech" by John Kennedy on the South China Morning Post blog.
© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: gao yu, political reform, Soviet Union, Xi Jinping
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| Photo: Eating out in Guiyang, by barockschloss Posted: 27 Jan 2013 09:54 PM PST |
| Ministry of Truth: Guangdong People’s Congress Posted: 27 Jan 2013 05:53 PM PST  The following censorship instructions, issued to the media by central government authorities, have been leaked and distributed online. Chinese journalists and bloggers often refer to these instructions as "Directives from the Ministry of Truth."
Guangdong Propaganda Department: No media are to sensationalize the topic of government officials making public their personal assets or related issues. Do not place reports on the front page, and do not lure readers to coverage. (January 24, 2013) 广东省委宣传部：关于政府公务员财产公示及相关问题，各媒体不炒作，不上头版和导读。
CDT has collected the selections we translate here from a variety of sources and has checked them against official Chinese media reports to confirm their implementation. Guangdong Propaganda Department: Regarding the secretary of the provincial People's Congress and the governor's statements during discussions among leaders, all media are to cover this strictly according to news wire copy. Do not independently produce any other type of report. (January 24, 2013) 广东省委宣传部：关于省人大会议书记、省长下组讨论发言，各媒体一律严格按新闻通稿刊播，不自行作其它任何报道。
Guangdong Propaganda Department: Do not report or comment on issues concerning Guangdong Lanyue Energy Ltd. (January 24, 2013) 广东省委宣传部: 对广东蓝粤能源有限公司有关问题不报、不评。
Guangdong Propaganda Department: When covering the income allocation of provincial officials, use the authoritative notices issued by the Department of Human Resources and Social Security as the standard. Do not independently produce reports or commentary. (January 24, 2013) 广东省委宣传部: 对我省公务员收入分配的报道，以人社部门发布的权威信息为准，不作自行报道评论。
Guangdong Propaganda Department: During the group discussion of the Zhongshan district delegation at the provincial People's Congress, Li Yumei mentioned a case under investigation in which a main level cadre embezzled public funds for a family grave. Without exception, no media will report this. (January 25, 2013) 广东省委宣传部：李玉妹在参加人大会中山团分组讨论时讲到目前正在查处一正厅级干部挪用公款修祖坟一事，各媒体一律不报道。
Guangdong Propaganda Department: During the provincial People's Congress and People's Consultative Conference meetings, all media must earnestly deploy the requests set forth at the previous propaganda meeting. Strictly control negative coverage (in principle, such reports should not be featured prominently). Except for wire copy, content which touches upon provincial and municipal leaders' statements must be submitted for approval according to regulation. Be sure to make final checks on reports about statements made at the People's Political Consultative Conference. Do not make obvious revisions to content that touches on sensitive issues. (January 26, 2013) 广东省委宣传部：省两会期间，各媒体认真按此前宣传会议的部署要求，严格控制负面报道（原则上不放头条导读）；除通稿外，对涉及省市级领导的发言内容稿件，要按规定送审；对政协大会发言的报道要注意把关，对涉敏感话题内容不作突岀处理。
Since directives are sometimes communicated orally to journalists and editors, who then leak them online, the wording published here may not be exact. The original publication date on CDT Chinese is noted after the directives; the date given may indicate when the directive was leaked, rather than when it was issued. CDT does its utmost to verify dates and wording, but also takes precautions to protect the source.
© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: censorship, Directives from the Ministry of Truth, Guangdong, media censorship, Ministry of Truth, propaganda
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| Bo’s Influence “Banished” as Trial Rumors Swirl Posted: 27 Jan 2013 03:53 PM PST Amid conflicting reports about the date of Bo Xilai's trial, China's Global Times reported on Monday that the proceedings would not start that day in Guiyang, as previously rumored. According to "a source close to the country's top judicial body", the start date will be announced well in advance. Due to the complexity of the case, it claimed, the trial may last up to ten days, and is unlikely to begin until after the Two Sessions of the National People's Congress and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in March. On Saturday, meanwhile, the mayor of Chongqing proclaimed the "banishment" of Bo's influence from his former power base. From Ben Blanchard at Reuters: Speaking at the opening session of the city's largely rubber stamp legislature, Chongqing mayor Huang Qifan, who had served with Bo when Bo was the city's party boss, described the past year's events as "extraordinary". "Against such an exceptional backdrop and complex circumstances, we resolutely followed the decisions of the party … and worked hard to banish the serious impact of the Bo Xilai and Wang Lijun cases," Huang said, according to a transcript of his speech carried by Chinese news websites. […] "We must strictly define authority in accordance with the law and … never allow any group or individual to have special rights which exceed the constitution or the law," Huang said. Part of the exorcism has involved the rehabilitation of netizens, lawyers, policemen and others wrongly prosecuted for crossing Bo and Wang, his former police chief. Radio Free Asia reported on Friday, for example, that journalist Gao Yingpiao had been released early from a three year prison term thought to be linked to a series of critical blog posts. On the other hand, The New York Times' Edward Wong reported that the gang behind last year's notorious Lei Zhengfu sex tape scandal had escaped prosecution under Bo's rule, and has only now been brought to light. China's state news media reported on Friday details of a sex extortion ring that brazenly operated "honey traps" in the southwest metropolis of Chongqing for several years. The widening scandal, which first emerged late last year, has led to the dismissals of at least 11 officials of the Communist Party, the government or state-owned companies for having sex with women from the ring and then being blackmailed by the men who had set up the snares. […] The sex scandal might have come out earlier, but Bo Xilai, the Chongqing party chief at the time, and Wang Lijun, his police chief, buried the results of an investigation into the ring, according to news reports. Mr. Bo and Mr. Wang were both felled last year by the fallout from the murder of a British business executive that the party said was arranged by Mr. Bo's wife; Mr. Bo is expected to be tried soon on a wide range of criminal charges. While the two scandals are unrelated, the airing of the blackmail ring at this time could reflect a decision by the Chinese leadership to highlight other problems in Chongqing under Mr. Bo's rule. There are apparent limits to the new transparency surrounding the case, however. After receiving a sudden visit from security officers on Sunday, Zhu Ruifeng, the blogger who originally brought the Lei Zhengfu tape to light, believes that Chongqing authorities are aggressively moving to tie up loose ends. From William Wan at The Washington Post: "They are standing outside my door right now, knocking and even kicking the door, telling me to open it," he said in a frantic phone call to a reporter. As he talked, men could be heard shouting in the background. "I think they're coming to take me away," Zhu said. "I talked to too many in the media and it must have irritated someone." […] The men claimed to have come from a local Beijing security station, but Zhu suspected that they had actually come from Chongqing and that their true intent was to take him away and recover the five additional sex tapes he had threatened to release. Just recently, a source told him Chongqing authorities had destroyed all other recordings related to the extortion case in an attempted cover-up, leaving only the video Zhu had already made public.
© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Bo Xilai, extortion, Guiyang, Huang Qifan, sex scandals, trials, Wang Lijun
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| I Can See Your Mom from Space Posted: 27 Jan 2013 03:31 PM PST Every year, China's rail system is seized by Chunyun (春运), the mad rush to get home in time for the Chinese New Year (also called Spring Festival). For millions of rural migrants on the country's factory floors and construction sites, this is the one chance to see family all year long. Chunyun begins about two weeks before Spring Festival and lasts for almost a month after; it is a wave of humanity whose participants exceed China's total population in number [zh]. The lines to buy train tickets can truly reach epic proportions. This year, Spring Festival falls on February 10. The race is about to begin. You cannot really see the Great Wall from space, by the way. 
By Mr. Stone (@二混子–Stone). Via CDT Chinese.
© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Great Wall, political cartoons, political humor, Spring Festival, transportation
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| Xi’s Visit Lifts a Village, But Lays Bare Rural Woes Posted: 27 Jan 2013 02:49 PM PST China's countryside, where almost half of its population still lives, lags far behind the cities in its level of development. Average incomes are less than a third of their urban counterparts, and economic migration has eroded the social fabric of rural communities. Further urbanization, repeatedly championed in recent months by premier-to-be Li Keqiang, is one approach to addressing the urban-rural divide. To show that the countryside will not be forgotten, however, new Party general secretary Xi Jinping recently made a highly publicized visit to the poor Hebei village of Luotuowan, followed by a procession of media, researchers and well-wishers bearing gifts amounting to some US$50,000. Among the journalists were The New York Times' Andrew Jacobs and Jonah Kessel: [F]or all Mr. Xi's celebrity wattage, the real manna began to rain down on Luotuowan after he and his entourage left. Money, quilts and pledges of government help have been pouring in from across the country. The government arranged for each household to receive $160 in cash, a bottle of cooking oil and a sack of rice, a precious commodity where corn gruel and corn cakes are often the main course. That was just the beginning. A businessman from China's northeast was so moved by Luotuowan's suffering that he drove 500 miles with more cash and a carload of flat-screen televisions. A government work crew whitewashed the village's stone walls, adding a band of turquoise paint for good measure. Then came the government researchers, who were instructed to solve Luotuowan's intractable poverty, perhaps by pursuing Mr. Xi's suggestion that, with outside expertise, "the people can make yellow soil into gold." But whether the official visit by Mr. Xi, who was recently named Communist Party secretary and scheduled to be anointed president in March, will have a lasting impact on this isolated community — much less others like it — remains to be seen. The average per capita income here, about $160 a year, is less than half the official threshold for poverty, and it is a tiny fraction of the average urban income of slightly less than $4,000. Most young people have long since fled for jobs in distant cities.
© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Li Keqiang, migration, rural areas, rural development, rural poor, urban rural divide, urbanization, Xi Jinping
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| China’s Transport Aircraft Takes First Flight Posted: 27 Jan 2013 10:20 AM PST Chinese state media reports China's first transport aircraft, dubbed the Y-20, has taken its first successful test flight. The Y-20 is China's first domestically made jumbo air freighter, from Xinhua: The Yun-20, or Transport-20, is a huge, multi-function airfreighter which can perform various long-distance air transportation tasks targeting cargo and passengers, Xinhua learnt on Saturday. The successful maiden flight of Yun-20 is significant in promoting China's economic and national defense buildup as well as bettering its emergency handling such as disaster relief and humanitarian aid. The giant aircraft will continue to undergo experiments and test flights as scheduled.
This comes amid concerns over China's focus on aerospace development. With the unveiling of a stealth fighter, according to Bloomberg, the new freight plane is extending China's military modernization program: China achieved a military milestone when its fighter jet landed on its new aircraft carrier in November, extending a modernization bid that's recorded advances in submarines, cyber warfare and in outer space. The aircraft tests underscore China's progress in military modernization, which has been accompanied by a doubling of the defense budget in six years. China, the biggest spender on defense after the U.S., has become increasingly assertive in the region as President Barack Obama executes a strategic shift toward Asia and tensions rise with Japan and other nations over territorial disputes. China's defense spending, estimated at 670 billion yuan ($108 billion) in 2012, has more than doubled since 2006, tracking a rise in nominal gross domestic product to 47.2 trillion yuan from 21.6 trillion yuan.
Read more about aviation in China, via CDT.
© Melissa M. Chan for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: aerospace industry, aircraft, aviation, military spending, planes
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| North Korea Calls Plastic Surgery Rumors “Sordid” Posted: 27 Jan 2013 10:04 AM PST CDT previously reported on the recent "Directive From the Ministry of Truth" that sent out instructions to Chinese journalists to stop reporting on the personal lives of North Korean leaders, with a particular emphasis on Kim Jong-un's facelift. Rumors of Kim Jong-un's facelift were originally reported on Shenzhen Satellite TV. Mark Fisher says North Korea has chastised China by publicly rebuking the rumor, from The Washington Post: Rather, it's surprising to see state media even acknowledging the coverage of the rumor, and thus implicitly the rumor itself. Perhaps most significant of all is North Korea's decision to chastise Chinese media. Beijing isn't just North Korea's most important ally, its policies – watering down U.N, sanctions, limiting the flow of North Korean defectors, providing investment and hard currency – are crucial for the regime's survival. You would think that North Korea's propagandists would be extremely careful to avoid even the slightest sliver of daylight between the two countries. Still, even if this incident is over, it might not be the last time that Chinese media and social media, where the rumor circulated long before appearing on Shenzhen TV, upsets North Korea. The recent scandal over censors restricting Southern Weekend, long relatively free for a Chinese paper, exposed the degree to which the Chinese increasingly consume and even expect news media that serves them. Social media's reach and raucous freedom are expanding as well, all of which threatens to bring Chinese attitudes toward North Korea closer to the surface. North Korea is still seen as an ally by many people in China, where students learn in school about the "Help Korea, Oppose America" war, Beijing-based journalist Helen Gao wrote in The Atlantic last year. But there is also a growing sense that Pyongyang's backward policies are an embarrassment to and burden on China, according to Gao. Those sentiments, as well as the usual interest in juicy rumors about plastic surgery and the sort, could drive more Chinese public interest in stories like this one. And that could translate into Chinese media interest, or at least public pressure for it. This all comes at a time when Beijing had been struggling a bit to keep Pyongyang close. In a post at Johns Hopkins's Korea-focused blog 38 North, analyst Stephanie Kleine-Ahlbrandt argues that the relationship is souring a bit. "Kim Jong Un is determined to set a course for greater political independence from Beijing," she writes. "This has left China in a state that one insider has referred to as 'desperate' over its rocky relations with the country since Kim Jong Un came to power." She says she's found no evidence that Beijing is anything less than fully committed to its policy of maintaining regional stability and a reliably pro-Beijing regime in North Korea.
North Korea has responded by calling the rumors "sordid" and "hackwork" published by "rubbish media." According to NKNews.Org, the rumor had circulated for months in South Korea, but it was not until the Shenzhen TV report that North Korea responded to the rumors: What was particularly noteworthy was that the Chinese censors had specifically ordered their media to censor their country's own state media report from Xinhua in a bid to prevent Chinese citizens from reading their own governments official propaganda, which had in this case been written for consumption by a foreign audience. Regarding the report on Kim Jong Un's plastic surgery, apparently Pyongyang communicated their grievances to Beijing and China's ruling party instructed the official party media organ, Xinhua, to debunk the stories. As such, this Tuesday Xinhua issued a report that cited two of its correspondents in Pyongyang who denied the plastic surgery rumors. The rumours of Kim Jong Un having a face lift have been fed by Pyongyang's propaganda apparatus for months who have carefully crafted a meticulous written and pictorial narrative trying to evoke similarities between Kim Jong Un and his grandfather, including through his dress, haircut, gestures and public appearances. Following the new censorship directive, Xinhua said that "there have been no news reports in North Korea about Kim Jong Un's plastic surgery" and that there was "nothing suspicious" about Kim resembling his grandfather since they carry the same genes. While Kim tries to dress, walk and smile like his grandfather, together this just aims to give the impression that he "holds the people dear," Xinhua reported.
This incident comes amid tensions between Beijing and Pyongyang due to North Korea's satellite launch. China has called on the UN Security Council for prudence on North Korea, but tensions continue to mount as the UNSC, including China, passed a resolution calling for tightened sanctions against North Korea with a unanimous vote. The New York Times reports: Kim Jong-un, the North Korean leader, has ordered his top military and party officials to take "substantial and high-profile important state measures" to retaliate against American-led United Nations sanctions on the country, the North's official media reported Sunday. "At the consultative meeting, Kim Jong-un expressed the firm resolution to take substantial and high-profile important state measures in view of the prevailing situation," said the North's Korean Central News Agency, or K.C.N.A. "He advanced specific tasks to the officials concerned." The K.C.N.A. dispatch, which was distributed on Sunday, was dated Saturday, indicating that the meeting in Pyongyang, the capital, took place then. That was the same day on which the North's main party newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, said that the United Nations Security Council's resolution last Tuesday calling for tightening sanctions against the North left it with "no other option" but a nuclear test. The resolution was adopted unanimously — with the support of the North's traditional protector, China — as punishment for its Dec. 12 rocket launching. The Security Council determined that the launching was a cover for testing intercontinental ballistic missile technology and a violation of its earlier resolutions banning North Korea from conducting such tests.
Read more about the Directives From the Ministry of Truth, via CDT.
© Melissa M. Chan for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: censorship, Kim Jong-un, media censorship, North Korea, rumors, UNSC
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