| Li Chengpeng: Speak Posted: 19 Nov 2012 11:17 PM PST Author and blogger Li Chengpeng, who has 6.4 million followers on Sina Weibo, delivered a powerful speech to students at Beijing University on freedom of speech. Translated by Liz Carter at A Big Enough Forest: Having lost the ability to speak the truth, we will tell many lies. What's even more frightening is that in addition to lies we have invented a new kind of speech: ghost-talk. Lies are just meant to deceive others: our village produces 20,000 jin per acre. But ghost-talk is meant to hurt, to consume: all our country's villages must produce 20,000 jin per acre. Anyone who doesn't comply will be killed, no matter what their rank. When speaking the truth will cost you your life, no one is willing to speak the truth. When telling a lie was rewarded with promotions and wealth, this country became the Kingdom of Lies. This process continues uninterrupted to this very day, and it hasn't yet reached completion. For example, our railways are the fastest in the world, then accidents happen, or "the Chinese people's restoration is 62% complete," and then we discover more than 62% of officials are corrupt….to give you another example, if you want to speak a little truth, there will be a group of people who come out of the woodwork and say, "What makes you qualified to say that so many people died during the Great Famine? Did someone in your family die? Did you see Lin Shao tortured with your own eyes? Were you there at that very moment? If you weren't there, stop spreading rumors." They seem to not believe that there is a such thing as records in this world, or documentaries, or people who have testified to these events. According to their logic, Jews could not have died in gas chambers at the hands of Nazis, because you didn't see it with your own eyes. They can't even prove they are their parents' children, because they didn't see it with their own eyes.
Li has written frequently about the concept of lies and truth-telling in China, notably in relation to natural and manmade disasters such as the collapse of a bridge in Harbin: …The greatest truth in this place is that we know they are lying, and they know that we know they are lying, and we also know that they actually know that we know that they are lying…so we don't care about the truth anymore, we just care about the way they put on their show of "truth," and only the complete compilation of all of these performances is enough to count as the whole truth.
Read more by and about Li Chengpeng via CDT.
© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: accountability, famine, great leap forward, Li Chengpeng, truth
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| Mixed News on Netizen Detentions Posted: 19 Nov 2012 03:31 PM PST Economic Observer reported last month on Chongqing authorities' efforts to "clean up" cases of people sentenced to re-education through labour for online comments during Bo Xilai's rule over the municipality. Among them was Fang Hong, released in April after a one-year sentence for a crudely satirical weibo post referring to Bo as "Mr Erection". One loose end noted in the article was the case of Ren Jianyu, sentenced in August 2011 to two years for re-posting others' criticisms of the local government. According to Tea Leaf Nation, Ren was released on Monday afternoon: Fortunately for Ren, he had thousands of impassioned web users in his corner, who seemed aware that Ren's case would have repercussions for their own ability to use social media. In October, thousands tweeted their support for Ren and outrage at his treatment. What most stirred online ire was not simply Ren's imprisonment., but the evidence against him. When Ren's case was initially tried, authorities introduced as evidence a T-Shirt, found in Ren's home at the time of his arrest, with the words "Freedom or Death" printed in Chinese. […] Ren also has his lawyer to thank. Pu Zhiqiang (@哈儿浦志强有戏) is well known for taking cases involving press freedom, and Pu was aggressive not only in bringing Ren's case to trial, but in using social media to enlist public sympathy. Pu recently told the Global Times, "Ren Jianyu's case has a certain amount of resonance and social influence. Our nation's laws protect the right to free speech, but Ren was imprisoned for a speech crime. His receiving 're-education through labor' was extremely unreasonable." Weighing against encouraging signs from Chongqing, however, is news from Beijing of a 36-year-old fund manager detained on the eve of the 18th Party Congress for "spreading false and terrible information". Zhai Xiaobing, or @stariver, posted a satirical tweet based on the Final Destination series of horror films on November 5th. He has not yet been released. With translation by Yaxue Cao at Seeing Red in China: #剧透推 #慎入 死神来了6即将上映。大会堂突然倒塌，正在开会的2000多人只有7人幸免，事后却又一一离奇死亡。是上帝的游戏，还是死神的怒火，神秘数字18怎样开启地狱之门？11月8日全球院线震撼登场！ — 星河舰队 (@Stariver) November 5, 2012 .#SpoilerTweet #Enter-at-your-own-peril "Final Destination 6" has arrived. In which the Great Hall of the People collapses all of a sudden. All 2,000+ people meeting there died except for 7 of them. But afterwards, the seven die one after another in bizarre ways. Is it a game of God, or the wrath of Death? How will 18, the mysterious number, unlock the gate of Hell? Premieres globally on November the 8th to bring you an earthshaking experience! Twitter is sometimes seen as a relatively safe haven compared with domestic services like Sina Weibo, but as past cases show, the service is actively monitored. In 2010, user @wangyi09 was sentenced to a year of re-education through labour for tweeting the five characters, "Go, angry youth!", jokingly encouraging anti-Japanese protesters. A petition has been set up to call for Zhai's release, with signatories so far including Bei Feng, Hu Jia, Mo Zhixu, and Ai Weiwei. The petition letter concludes, from Oiwan Lam's translation at Global Voices Advocacy: We hope the the Beijing police shows a sense of humor and do not create a big incident out of a small issue. In particular, do not ruin the image of the new leadership soon after the 18th Party Congress. Such groundless prosecution against citizen who exercise their freedom of expression is disgraceful. We urge the immediate release of Twitter user @stariver.
© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 18th party congress, Ai Weiwei, anti-Japan protests, Beijing, Bo Xilai, Chongqing, Internet censorship, netizens, online censorship, pu zhiqiang, re-education through labor, sina weibo, social media, Twitter, wang yi
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| China: A Meritocracy of Mediocrity? Posted: 19 Nov 2012 01:44 PM PST With the recent handover of power to a new Politburo Standing Committee, a debate has broken out between China watchers over what to term the method through which China chooses its new leaders. In the corner arguing for "meritocracy" are Daniel Bell and Zhang Weiwei, who have recently written and spoken about how the current government has drawn on its Confucian heritage to advance only the most qualified individuals for positions of power. In a recent New York Times op-ed, Zhang, a professor at Fudan University in Shanghai, wrote: Meritocratic governance is deeply-rooted in China's Confucian political tradition, which among other things allowed the country to develop and sustain for well over a millennium the Keju system, the world's first public exam process for selecting officials. Consistent with this tradition, Beijing practices — not always successfully — meritocracy across the whole political stratum. Criteria such as performance in poverty eradication, job creation, local economic and social development, and, increasingly, cleaner environment are key factors in the promotion of local officials. China's dramatic rise over the past three decades is inseparable from this meritocratic system. Sensational scandals of official corruption and other social woes aside, China's governance, like the Chinese economy, remains resilient and robust.
Other observers believe that "official corruption and other social woes" are enough to discredit the argument that China is a meritocracy, especially with this year's scandal involving disgraced Chongqing Party Chief Bo Xilai. The Economist argues that people who laud China's meritocracy are missing the point: …To believe virtue always floats to the top in a system such as China's is fantasy. Chinese government and society are shot through with corruption. Even official media report about cadres gaining promotion through connections, not merit, and despite the occasional execution of corrupt officials, the government can do little about it. The Confucian ideal of self-cultivation is admirable, but it neglects the crucial detail known as human nature.
Regardless of what term is used, it is clear from looking at the line-up of the new Standing Committee that the members drew on deep-seated networks of family and professional ties to advance up the rings of power. Just before the Standing Committee was announced, Ian Johnson wrote in the New York Times about the newfound power of China's "princeling" class, or the sons and daughters of China's revolutionary leaders: Despite rising controversy over their prominent role in government and business — highlighted by recent corruption cases, as well as the fall of Bo Xilai, whose wife was found guilty of murder — China's princelings, who number in the hundreds, are emerging as an aristocratic class with an increasingly important say in ruling the country. While they feud and fight among themselves, many have already made their mark in the established order, playing important roles in businesses, especially state-owned enterprises. Others are heavily involved in finance or lobbying, where personal connections are important. "Many countries have powerful families, but in China, they are becoming the dominant force in politics and business," said Lü Xiaobo, a political science professor at Columbia University. "In this system, they have good bloodlines."
And another article from the New York Times from this weekend examines the wider networks of ties that helped launch and develop the current crop of leaders, resulting only in the "meritocracy of mediocrity": The seven men on the Politburo Standing Committee have forged close relations to previous party leaders, either through their families or institutional networks. They have exhibited little in the way of vision or initiative during their careers. And most have been allies or protégés of Jiang Zemin, the octogenarian former party chief. The Communist Party and its acolytes like to brag that the party promotion system is a meritocracy, producing leaders better suited to run a country than those who emerge from the cacophony of elections and partisan bickering in full-blown democracies. But critics, including a number of party insiders, say that China's secretive selection process, rooted in personal networks, has actually created a meritocracy of mediocrity. Those who do less in the way of bold policy during their political rise — and expend their energies instead hobnobbing with senior officials over rice wine at banquets or wooing them with vanity-stroking projects — appear to have a greater chance of reaching the ranks of the top 400 or so party officials, the ones with seats on the Central Committee, the Politburo or its standing committee. Instead of pure talent, political patronage and family connections are the critical factors in ascending to the top, according to recent academic studies and analyses of the backgrounds of the leaders. There are growing doubts, even among party elites, over whether such a system brings out those best equipped to deal with the challenges facing this nation of 1.3 billion people, with its slowing economic growth, environmental degradation and rising social instability. A series of recent scandals and revelations that the families of top officials can hold billions of dollars' worth of investments have also led to greater scrutiny over the role of patronage.
Read more on the debate over meritocracy in China: - Getting Ahead in the Communist Party: Explaining the Advancement of Central Committee Members in China, by Victor Shih, Christopher Adolph, and Mingxing Liu in American Political Science Review (PDF)
- The unintended consequence of the "China-as-meritocracy" debates, from Peking Duck
- Economic Observer podcast: China: A Meritocracy? with Daniel Bell
- The Real China Model, by Mark Elliot in the New York Times
© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Confucianism, Daniel Bell, meritocracy, Politburo Standing Committee, princelings, Xi Jinping
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| Photo: Untitled, by Bert van Dijk Posted: 19 Nov 2012 12:40 PM PST |
| Ministry of Truth: Two-Child Policy Posted: 19 Nov 2012 09:36 AM PST  The following example of censorship instructions, issued to the media and/or Internet companies by various central (and sometimes local) government authorities, has been leaked and distributed online. Chinese journalists and bloggers often refer to those instructions as "Directives from the Ministry of Truth." 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.
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 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. Guangdong Propaganda Department: Do not report or comment on expert discussion of a "two-child policy." (November 6, 2012) 广东省委宣传部：有关专家学者讨论放开二胎生育问题，不报道不评论。
© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: censorship, Directives from the Ministry of Truth, media censorship, Ministry of Truth, one-child policy, population control
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| Censorship Vault: Beijing Internet Instructions Series (12) Posted: 19 Nov 2012 09:02 AM PST In partnership with the China Copyright and Media blog, CDT is adding the "Beijing Internet Instructions" series to the Censorship Vault. These directives were originally published on Canyu.org (Participate) and date from 2005 to 2007. According to Canyu, the directives were issued by the Beijing Municipal Network Propaganda Management Office and the State Council Internet management departments and provided to to Canyu by insiders. China Copyright and Media has not verified the source. The translations are by Rogier Creemers of China Copyright and Media. 31 March 2006 Information on "Minsheng Bank Aims 3 Million Yuan Credit Limit Card at Vice-Ministerial Level Cadres" is a false report, please do not reprint it, where it has been reprinted, delete it immediately. Please acknowledge receipt, thank you. 30 March 2006 Network Supervision Office notice: everyone: if you see articles concerning the poisoning of the band "Super Mary" (Luo Jing, Han Xuan), if the article attacks the police, delete it. 30 March 2006 Concerning the case of NetEase thanking for a loan in Japanese Yen, the original text may not be distributed, but if there are positive guiding articles on forums, refuting the notion of NetEase's Japanese Yen loan, they may be distributed and posted on forums, but firmly grasp the extent, they cannot have radical acts, or whatever calls for demonstrations, etc. Attention must also be paid to the fact that reactions in forums concerning this matter cannot be too ardent or animated. 29 March 2006 If reports have already been reprinted about the opening of the trial on the daughter or a Tsinghua University professor being throttled to death by a ticket seller, please delete it immediately. 26 March 2006 The report "Jiangsu Police Hit on the Head with Gun by Colleagues in Bathroom in Violent Attack" is untrue, please delete it immediately. 24 March 2006 Articles that the Information Office notified to be deleted: (1) Who Burnt the Summer Palace, Has Nothing to Do With Patriotism! (2) After Chen Yizou Leaves, the Beijing News Does Not Understand Win-Win 22 March 2006 Articles that the Information Office notified to be deleted: (1) Only Re-Evaluating Mao Zedong Can Strengthen the Masses' Faith in Reform (2) "Yang Xiaokai – A Record on Random Thoughts on Chinese Politics" (3) A Strong Speech by Hu Jintao to Japan that Is Rarely Known by the People! 21 March 2006 (1) Some Japanese members of parliament have inspected the Diaoyu Islands from an airplane, do not report it, forums are also not to discuss it. Please acknowledge receipt, thank you. (Delete) (2) Please do not reprint the reported text of the Chongqing Morning Times of Chongqing Plans to Build Two More Dams in the Yangtze – The Total Amount of Installations Exceeds the Gezhou Dam, if it has been reprinted, please immediately remove the article. Please acknowledge receipt, thank you. (Delete) (3) Please delete the text on expert suggestions to change Beijing into a special administrative zone, and expanding the area by eight times. Please acknowledge receipt, thank you. 2006年3月北京网管办发出的禁令（三）
2006-03-31
"民生银行300万元透支卡瞄准副部级干部"的消息，为不实报道，请不要转载，已转的立即删除。 收到请回复，谢谢。 2006-03-30 网监处通知：各位：如果见到关于超级玛丽组合（罗惊、韩萱）中毒的文章，如果文中有攻击警察的就删除。
2006-03-30 有关网易感谢日元贷款一事，原文不得放行，但论坛如有正面引导文章，反驳网易日元贷款观念的可以放行，发在论坛，但要把握度，不能有过激行为，什么号召游行呀等。也要注意论坛里关于此事件的反应不能太热烈和激励。
2006-03-29 如已经转载清华大学教授女儿被售票员掐死一案开庭的报道,请立即删除.
2006-03-26 "江苏警察浴室里遭同行枪顶脑袋暴殴"的报道不实，请立即删除。 2006-03-24 新闻办通知删除的文章 1、圆明园是谁烧的，与爱国无关！ 2、程益中走后，《新京报》不懂双赢
2006-03-22 网监通知删的文章 1：重新评价毛泽东才能坚定民众改革信心 2：《杨小凯－－中国政治随想录》 3：一段鲜为人知的胡锦涛对日强硬讲话 ！ 2006-03-21 1.日本几个议员乘飞机视察钓鱼岛，不报道，论坛也不讨论。收到请回复，谢谢。 （删除） 2.《重庆晨报》"重庆拟在长江再建两大坝 装机总量超葛洲坝"一文，请不要转载报道，已转载的请即撤除稿件。收到请回复，谢谢。(删除） 3.专家建议将北京改为特别行政区 面积扩大8倍一文，请予删除。收到请回复，谢谢。
These translated directives were first posted by Rogier Creemers on China Copyright and Media on November 19, 2012 (here).
© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Beijing, Beijing Internet Instructions, Beijing News, Canyu, censorship, Censorship Vault, China Copyright and Media, Chongqing, diaoyu islands, Directives from the Ministry of Truth, Hu Jintao, Internet censorship, Japan, Jiangsu, Luo Jing, Mao Zedong, Ministry of Truth, netease, Old Summer Palace, patriotism, police, reform, Tsinghua University, Yangtze
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