Alongside jokes about the former vice mayor of Chongqing’s “vacation-style therapy,” netizens are comparing Wang to Lin Biao, the man once assumed to be Mao Zedong’s successor but condemned as a traitor after his mysterious death in 1971. “Weibers” are also exploiting the “Wang Lijun Incident” to poke fun at the Fifty Cent Party.

U.S. Department of State spokesperson Victoria Nuland confirmed on February 8 that Wang made and kept an appointment at the U.S. consulate in Chengdu and that he left “of his own volition.” The nature of his visit is under investigation. Wang may be dragging Bo along in his fall from grace.

Read previously translated comments here.

@i0301: Why did Wang Lijun flee to the American consulate instead of flying away like Lin Biao? Because he’d read the news and knew the Development and Reform Commission raised the price of oil again.
@i0301：王立军为什么跑到美领馆而不是如林彪一样坐飞机飞走？因为他看过新闻，知道发改委又上调油价了。

@gongminyaoyao: Wang Lijun teaches us that no matter how much of a fifty-center you are, at the moment of truth the Americans are boss.
@gongminyaoyao：王立军教育我们，不管怎么当五毛，关键时刻还是美国人才是亲爹啊！

@hesuoge: Weibo quote: Protective-style demolition, vacation-style therapy, condom-style rape, Chinese-style democracy.
@hesuoge：微博语录：保护性拆除、休假式疗养、带套式强奸、中国式民主。

@ChenQiye: Chengdu, the end point of the Fang-Han War.
@陈琦业：成都，一个终结方韩之争的城市。

@StarKnight: The law is not a shield, nor is the consulate an umbrella.
@StarKnight：法律不是挡箭牌，领馆亦非保护伞。

@hnjhj: To the Fifty-Centers and National Treasures “wiping screens” at this moment:  I am really worried about you guys. This is a very dangerous profession. You need to leave a way out, to give yourselves a lead. You should ensure that at the critical moment you can move freely in and out of America. If that’s not possible, you should ensure that you will not be refused asylum when you seek it at the consulate. And if that’s not possible, you should ensure that your application for a U.S. visa won’t be denied.
@hnjhj：此时此刻在推上刷屏的五毛、国保们啊，真替你们捉鸡啊，都是高风险行业啊，留后路很重要啊，要留足提前量啊。务必确保关键时刻可以自由进出美国啊，不行也要确保去领馆寻求庇护不能拒收啊，实在不行也要确保申请美国签证不能拒签啊。

@YeYing: [Chongqing Model #1]: : Let some people get nervous first (a play on Deng Xiaoping’s “Let some people get rich first”). [Chongqing Model #2]: Let some people fight with each other first. [Chongqing Model #3]: Let some people get vacation-style therapy first.
@叶隐：【重庆模式之一】：让一部分人先紧张起来。【重庆模式之二】让一部分人先咬起来。【重庆模式之三】让一部分人先休假式治疗起来。

@shmueloy: Before Bo Xilai was ready to play Mao Zedong, Wang Lijun was already playing Lin Biao.
@shmueloy：薄熙来还没准备好演毛贼东，王立军就已经入戏演林彪了。

@HistoricalTeacherYuanReturns: “Never believe anything until it has been officially denied.” –Claud Cockburn
@历史袁老师归来：任何消息未经官方否认之前，都不能轻易相信。 ——克劳德·柯克本

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Post tags: Wang Lijun, weibo
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[Lu Yeqin, Villager]:
“Officials from the village sold land. This land originally belonged to the villagers. After it was sold, the [villagers] were not given any money for it. The villagers are upset, and after all, this land was passed down through their family business. They rely on the land for their livelihood, but now it has been sold.”

Police did not stop more than 3000 villagers from marching to the village committee, but neither have the villagers received a response from local officials.

Local resident Mrs. Ma says the turnout has been huge.

[Mrs. Ma, Villager]:
“Everyone from the village came out. Today we will march again, and the whole village should come. I have even seen kids coming out, passing by my building.”

The Chinese blogosphere is buzzing with chatter about the demonstrations in Panhe East and West, where tensions between local residents and officials have followed a Wukan-like trajectory. From Tea Leaf Nation, which also posted images that had surfaced on Sina Weibo yesterday:

As reported on the Internet portal China.com, the Panhe Village Committee spent the last several years selling off piece after piece of Panhe’s land, all without the villagers’ knowledge. On June 11, 2011, a Wenzhou copper company brought thugs and local police as it began to mine pieces of ancestral land, leading to a confrontation that saw villagers injured, including women and the elderly. The report further states that after villagers’ attempts to report the matter were ignored, they retaliated on October 16, 2011 by attacking the property of another local company. In response, the report continues, the local government arrested nine villagers, two of whom are still in custody.

World Journal, a popular Chinese-language newspaper in North America, reports that government officials and police fled the small village of approximately 5,000 in October of last year following a violent confrontation with villagers in which more than ten were arrested. The reports agree that villagers’ demands for compensation were substantially ignored by authorities.

According to World Journal, the Wukan uprising’s ultimate success inspired Panhe villagers to decide to hold widespread demonstrations starting February 1.  Since that time, the report continues, demonstrators have circled the village unmolested. The street demonstrations shown in photographic accounts include demonstrators waving banners with slogans such as, “Denounce the Local Panhe Government’s Deceit Of The Masses,” “Down With Corrupt Officials,” and “Reselling Land And Destroying Fertile Farmland Is A Heinous Crime.”

See also CDT coverage of a new survey in which 43% of farmers reported being victims of land grabs. The Council on Foreign Relations’ Elizabeth Economy wrote Tuesday that “more Wukans are on China’s horizon” unless China creates a real system of official accountability or enforces the rule of law.

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Post tags: chinese communist party, corruption, Guangdong, land grab protests, Panhe, sina weibo, social media, Wukan, Zhejiang
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“According to information, because of long-term overwork, vice mayor Wang Lijun is highly stressed and in poor health. He is now accepting vacation-style treatment,” Chongqing’s information office posted in a message on its microblog account on Wednesday.

Statements of that kind are extremely rare in China. This one – retweeted tens of thousands of times by microblog users – came hours after large numbers of police surrounded the US consulate in Chengdu on Tuesday evening, blocking off roads around the building.

Chinese microblog users began to circulate pictures of the scene and rumours of a high-profile attempted defection. They claimed a car with what appeared to be official number plates was seen outside the building but was subsequently removed by Chinese police.

Both the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and local Chengdu officials declined to comment on the events at the consulate, but the situation reinforces recent speculation that Wang had fallen out of favor with Bo. Last week, the Chongqing government announced that it had moved Wang from his public security post to take charge of certain economic, political and other affairs. Netizens jeered at the official statement on Sina Weibo today and speculated that Wang had faced a corruption probe, according to Reuters, a situation which could potentially embarrass Bo Xilai and threaten his political aspirations:

“This will be a big blow to Bo Xilai, because Wang was instrumental in his anti-organized crime campaign, and that was instrumental in building Bo’s appeal in public opinion and even among officials,” said Chen Ziming, an independent scholar who studies party politics.

“Now the hero of that campaign has turned into a scandal, so at the least that’s a blow to Bo’s public prestige,” said Chen, a former political prisoner who lives in Beijing.

ChinaGeeks’ Charles Custer wrote that Sina has been censoring searches for “Wang Lijun” on and off today, adding later that some versions of the story claim Wang “may have divulged significant amounts of privileged information to US diplomats,” and discussed the political implications of the situation:

On the international side, the implications of a high-level official defecting or attempting to defect just before soon-to-be-president Xi Jinping makes his visit to the US could be huge. If the US were to grant Wang asylum, that would be….well, awkward probably doesn’t even begin to cover it.

On the domestic side, with China’s leadership transition fast approaching and Wang being high in Bo Xilai’s Chongqing administration, a defection or even just a rumored defection on Wang’s part could seriously damage Bo’s position. Certainly, there are forces within the Party who are very opposed to Bo’s rise, and it’s hard to think of what better ammunition they could have against him than something like this. On Twitter, @niubi theorized that Sina could be allowing some of the posts about Wang Lijun to go through on purpose to damage Bo Xilai’s reputation, and that certainly seems possible.

Assessing the likelihood that any of this (beyond the facts) is real is very difficult. On the one hand, the US generally doesn’t grant asylum from in-country embassies, precisely because those embassies are easy to surround with police. A year or so ago, I was asked by a Chinese friend to research this process, and found that generally speaking, it’s much easier to be granted political asylum if you’re outside the country you want asylum from. It strikes me that if Wang Lijun really did flee to the Chengdu embassy to request asylum, he must have been in a rather desperate situation. Otherwise, presumably, he could have waited for an opportunity to travel abroad and had a much greater chance of success.

See also previous CDT coverage of Wang Lijun’s role in Bo Xilai’s 2009 anti-corruption campaign, including reports late last year on the possibility of a new mafia movie based on Wang’s story.

Update: Shanghaiist has posted pictures from Sina Weibo of police surrounding the U.S. consulate in Chengdu last night, adding that the unsubstantiated rumors of Wang’s defection were largely spread by overseas Chinese news site Boxun. The Wednesday morning post on Chongqing’s official microblog quickly attracted a wave of comments about the “vacation-style treatment” (休假式治疗) it prescribed for Wang, according to The Wall Street Journal:

As if often the case when rumors about top officials begin to circulate, Sina’s censors went a bit schizophrenic with the Wang case. Mr. Wang’s name was blocked and then unblocked in searches on the site and appeared briefly on Sina Weibo’s list of trending topics before disappearing. Likewise, the original Chongqing government announcement of Mr. Wang’s vacation was taken down and then reposted in the early afternoon, erasing all comments that had amassed to that point.

Still, the Chinese Internet meme machine powered on. Among those rolling with the vacation theme Wednesday afternoon was the automotive section of the Chengdu Business Daily newspaper, which asked Weibo users which car they would choose if forced to take treatment similar to Mr. Wang’s.

“I’d take a Lamborghini,” responded one reader. “That way if you crash and die at least you die with face.”

The New York Times has more on the rumors surfacing about Wang’s fate:

A Chinese reporter with the newspaper Southern Metropolis said that he had learned from police sources that Mr. Wang had tried to enter the consulate, but had been arrested and that he had since been flown to Beijing for questioning. The post was later deleted from the Sina Weibo microblog.

…

Given the secretive nature of Chinese politics, the fact that the rumors were so widespread suggested that something was amiss. Because Chinese leaders put such a priority on presenting a united front, at least in public, the rumors are seen as hurting Mr. Bo.

“For Bo Xilai it’s not good news,” said Jin Zhong, chief editor of the China-watching magazine Kaifang in Hong Kong. “The Communist Party has always had a lot of internal factions. We don’t know what most of them are but when things like this come up to the top it shows that something is going on.”

ChinaGeeks’ Charles Custer relayed a report from the Oriental Daily News which claims that rumors of Wang’s attempt at asylum are true. He also notes that McClatchy Newspapers’ Tom Lasseter is in Chengdu and Tweeting that “there’s nothing apparently out of the ordinary in front of the Consulate.” Lasseter reported from Chengdu on Wednesday:

Interviews with shopkeepers in the area suggested the police presence there Tuesday evening might have been less overwhelming than presented by Internet reports. A clerk at a nearby drug store, who did not want her name published because it wasn’t clear what had happened, said that while there were police cars parked on the street outside the consulate, the road was not closed to traffic.

A saleswoman at a clothing shop a few doors down gave a similar account.

It wasn’t possible to verify their version of events, however.

Translation: The building sign says: American Consulate, Chengdu
Sign with arrow pointing left says, “Vacation-style Treatment Center”
The figure on the left (Wang Lijun) says: “Boss, my stress is too great!”
The figure on the right (Bo Xilai): “Bastard! Let the leaders escape first!”

Update 3: The United States has confirmed that Wang Lijun visited the U.S. consulate in Chengdu, but did not speak to rumors that he requested asylum, according to Voice of America:

A spokeswoman for the State Department, Victoria Nuland, told reporters Wednesday that Deputy Mayor of Chongqing Wang Lijun had a scheduled meeting at the U.S. consulate in the city of Chengdu. She said the meeting probably took place Monday and that Wang left the consulate of his own volition.

She did not provide information on what the meeting was about.

“Well, I think you’re referring to reports about the vice mayor of Chongqing – right – City. So his name is Wang Lijun. Wang Lijun did request a meeting at the U.S. Consulate General in Chengdu earlier this week in his capacity as vice mayor. The meeting was scheduled, our folks met with him, he did visit the consulate and he later left the consulate of his own volition. So – and obviously, we don’t talk about issues having to do with refugee status, asylum, et cetera.”

See also a video of Wednesday’s State Department Press Briefing (beginning at 3:22), in which Nuland addresses questions about Wang Lijun. China’s Vice Foreign Minister called Wang’s visit to the consulate an “isolated incident” and said it would not affect Xi Jinping’s upcoming visit to the United States next week, according to Reuters. But the Sydney Morning Herald’s John Garnaut writes that several of Wang Lijun’s close associates in Dalian have also been taken into custody, according to Chongqing sources, and adds fuel to the rumor mill surrounding a potential corruption probe against Chongqing’s leadership:

Speculation was swirling last night that Mr Bo himself was a target of the central investigation, after he had unsettled senior figures in the Party, and that Mr Wang sought refuge in the US consulate after turning witness against him.

…

Two close political watchers, with connections with Party and military investigators respectively, speculated that the Chongqing corruption probe might involve a degree of payback from a separate probe initiated by Mr Bo’s close friend and “princeling” ally, Liu Yuan, inside the People’s Liberation Army.

On January 19 the Herald/Age first reported that General Liu Yuan had staked his career on a “do-or-die” corruption campaign.

He told officers he would pursue his investigation to the end regardless of “how high one’s position is or how powerful the background”.

The official Chongqing Daily ran a front page article heralding “Peaceful Chongqing” on Thursday, though China Media Project’s David Bandurski writes that “all is not well on Chongqing’s political scene” ahead of this year’s CCP leadership transition:

In light of the breaking Wang Lijun story, the front-page article in Chongqing Daily looks like a concerted effort — even possibly a desperate one — to burnish and defend Bo Xilai’s legacy. Chongqing’s fight against crime from 2008 to 2010 is probably the most important feather in Bo Xilai’s cap as he pushes ahead with his bid for promotion to the Politburo Standing Committee.

Given Wang Lijun’s status as a crime-busting bigshot, his name nearly synonymous with Chongqing’s anti-vice campaign, questions that encircle Wang are questions that encircle Bo Xilai.

Update 4: ChinaGeeks’ Charles Custer has the latest on the censorship – or lack thereof – of certain discussions about Wang Lijun and his “vacation-style medical treatment” on Sina Weibo as of early Thursday evening:

At the moment, Wang is back on the Sina Weibo trending topics list twice. “王力军” (an intentional mistyping of his name is #2 on the trending topics list, and the phrase “vacation-style medical treatment” is #7. Searches for “Wang Lijun” (typed correctly) remain uncensored. It’s quite clear that Sina is not trying to suppress this story at all, which begs the question: is someone at Sina trying to damage Bo Xilai?

Meanwhile, Reuters reported on Thursday that any conclusions about the fate of Bo Xilai may be premature:

“I think Bo Xilai is a bit like the Chinese version of Newt Gingrich — he’s so battle-scarred that does this really add or take away from a guy who is controversial?” said Kerry Brown, head of the Asia Programme at Chatham House, a London foreign policy institute, referring to the Republican aspirant to the White House.

“If he’s known for being a controversial character, I don’t think these things have a big impact,” Brown said of Bo. “It may just as well work to his advantage.”

…

Chinese citizens can’t vote for their leaders. But an informal poll on the city’s steep streets suggested it was too early to count out Bo, whose ill-concealed ambition and privileged background have attracted naysayers.

“From almost every perspective, Chongqing is better since Bo came,” said Wu Jun, 25, when asked about Bo, a previous mayor of Dalian, a port city in eastern China.

“Look at Dalian too. When Bo was there, they also were developing well. So there is something to the man. I think a lot of people my age like him because he seems real,” he said, adding that he wasn’t concerned about the rumors swirling around Wang.

Update 4 (Feb. 9, 1:30 PST):

Through a brief Xinhua dispatch, the Chinese government today acknowledged that Wang had spent time at the U.S. Consulate and said he was under investigation. From the Guardian:

The terse, one-line statement about Wang Lijun from official news agency Xinhua – issued at around 11pm Beijing time on Thursday– came one day after the announcement that he was receiving “vacation-style treatment” owing to stress.

The fall from grace of Chongqing’s vice-mayor and former police boss has triggered intense speculation of a political struggle because of his close ties to the city’s ambitious party secretary, Bo Xilai, who had been tipped for promotion when a new generation of leaders takes power this year.

Wang’s transfer to non-police duties last week led to suggestions that the two men had fallen out amid a possible corruption investigation.

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Bo Xilai, CCP 5th generation, censorship, Chengdu, Chongqing, corruption, defection, microblog, netizens, online public opinion, Politburo, sina weibo, u.s.-china relations, Wang Lijun, Xi Jinping
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Facebook said last week it was contemplating re-entering China, the world’s second biggest economy, after being blocked nearly three years ago.

But its offering would likely face intense competition, political meddling and little commercial success.

Few foreign internet companies have succeeded in China. EBay Inc, Google Inc, Amazon.com Inc, Yahoo Inc and most recently Groupon Inc form the list of notable online players who have failed to gain traction in the fast-growing nation of 1.3 billion people.

“It’s actually a bit late for Facebook,” said Hong Kong-based CLSA analyst Elinor Leung, who added that the market was already quite saturated with local players such as Sina Corp, Renren Inc, Kaixinwang001 and Tencent Holdings.

Read more about Facebook in China, via CDT.

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Lin, a former Harvard star who went undrafted out of college, gives up 14 inches and roughly a hundred pounds to Yao, the former No. 1 draft pick and recently retired center of the NBA’s Houston Rockets. He’s also an American by birth, the California-raised son of Taiwanese immigrants.

But none of that appeared to matter to China’s basketball fans after the second-year player exploded for a career-high 25 points in leading the New York Knicks to a victory over the New Jersey Nets on Saturday then went on to top that effort with 28 points in a win over the Utah Jazz on Monday.

Video clips of Lin’s performances have circulated widely on China’s popular Twitter-like microblogging service Sina Weibo, where the 23-year-old’s Chinese name, Lin Shuhao, ranked among the top 10 most searched terms Monday.

Images of the 6-foot-3-inch guard outperforming NBA veterans, including All-Star point guard Deron Williams, have garnered him global acclaim, including on Twitter, where the hashtag #linsanity has been trending. But he seems to made a particularly big splash with Chinese viewers, some of whom had begun to lose interest in the NBA following Yao’s retirement in July last year.

ESPN spoke with Lin following his latest scoring outburst, a contribution which gave the New York Knicks a two-game “Lin-ning Streak”:

Because, as improbable as it sounds, Jeremy Lin’s fingerprints were all over both victories.

That’s the same Jeremy Lin who was cut by two teams in the preseason.

It’s the same Jeremy Lin who played a grand total of 16 minutes in his first two weeks with the Knicks.

And it’s the same Jeremy Lin who spent six days in the D-League two weeks ago.

“I definitely couldn’t have imagined this,” Lin said after scoring a career-high 28 points and handing out eight assists in his first NBA start, a 99-88 win over the Jazz.

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Post tags: basketball, Jeremy Lin, NBA, New York Knicks, online public opinion, sinaweibo, sports, yao ming
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Han Han’s early replies were entertaining in their earnestness and snarky vulgarity. He provided a straightforward account of his blog-writing habits to explain how he could post in between race events, and then flipped Mai Tian’s reasoning around to cast aspersions on his sexual prowess. He offered a 20 million yuan purse and the copyrights to his entire oeuvre as a reward anyone giving conclusive proof of having ghostwritten for him. And, perhaps unwisely, he took a few potshots at Fang Zhouzi (方舟子), who up until that point had needled Han Han for a few minor writing mistakes but had otherwise shown no great interest in the argument.

Going up against Fang Zhouzi is a risky thing. A science writer better known for his work exposing academic fraud and intellectual dishonesty, Fang Zhouzi is a tenacious opponent who has an arsenal of online debating tactics at his fingertips. He brings up questions one by one, beginning with minor points that might seem trivial to explain or brush aside, and then when his target takes the bait, he charges in with more evidence showing a pattern of deceit. This technique, which he employed successfully in 2010 to reveal Tang Jun’s worthless diploma as well as in a more recent campaign to completely discredit Luo Yonghao (罗永浩), a popular internet personality who had insulted his wife, is how he went to work on Han Han ….

As in the best flame wars, Han Han PK Fang Zhouzi has been a comedy goldmine. Quick wit, outrageous accusations, dodgy amateur textual analysis, passionate debaters falling prey to the simplest of conversational gambits – if I was a conspiracy theorist I’d wonder whether Sina had engineered the whole thing to keep people refreshing their microblog feeds over the long holiday.

Read more about Han Han and Fang Zhouzi via CDT.

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Post tags: blogging, danwei, Fang Zhouzi, Han Han
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@Journalist Li Guosheng: Hunan Provincial Discipline and Inspection Commission Order to Detain Petitioner: Li Xiang is from Kaifu District in Changsha. In 2006, her village land was reclaimed and her house was demolished.  She then began to petition.  In July of 2011, she once again petitioned the Hunan Provincial Discipline and Inspection Commission.  Shockingly, the provincial Discipline and Inspection Commission’s petitioning office sent the following letter to the Kaifu District Discipline and Inspection Commission: “If she goes to Beijing to petition, you may detain her.”  After this news got on the web, the head of the petitioning office found Li Xiang and implored her to delete the post, saying, “I’m begging you.”¹

¹ Literally “I’m calling you Grandma and Grandpa.” To be a “grandchild” is to humble yourself before your elder. It implies kneeling to someone in supplication.

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- A female colleague just came back from a blind date. She is quite excited. She said to me, this man is quite accomplished. He is just over thirty and is already the Chief Manager of the China Office of the Facebook. I said to her: grab him, don’t miss this one.

Following are some of the comments under this post:

- We are in the same business then. I am the CEO of the China office of Youtube*.

- I won’t tell you that I am the chief representative of the China office of Twitter*.

- I am exactly 30 this year. My father is the Commander-in-Chief of Mongolia’s Navy.

- Facebook’s prospectus has listed four countries which limited their citizens to visit their website: Syria, Iran, China, and North Korea. These are what in history books will be called the “four ancient civilizations.”

- The acronym [of the "four ancient civilizations"] is SICK.

- The sin of Facebook is that it lets people meet whom they want to meet. The sin of Twitter is that it lets people say what they want to say. The sin of Google is that it lets people know what they want to know. The sin of YouTube is that it lets people show the reality which needs to be shown. Almost all the world’s top ten websites are blocked in China. Why do we want to be the enemy of those technologies that have changed the world?

* [YouTube and Twitter are also blocked inside China]

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Post tags: Facebook, Internet censorship, jokes, Twitter
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Wednesday’s voting will result in the selection of an independent election committee to supervise upcoming rounds of voting for villagers’ representatives and a new village committee, according to election procedures.

Eleven villagers who will make up the election committee will not be permitted to run for the village committee.

“This is to ensure fairness in the coming village committee election,” said Lin Zulian, the village’s Communist Party of China (CPC) secretary. Lin was appointed secretary following last year’s protests.

The Telegraph’s Malcolm Moore, the first foreign reporter to breach the December police blockade of Wukan and report from within the village, reported today that the election went smoothly other than a “small scuffle at the beginning over access for Hong Kong journalists.” Even though today’s vote only serves as the prelude to the main election in March, its symbolism was evident:

“We had to make a big thing, a big show, out of it to underline its importance and to guarantee that it was all fair and transparent,” said Yang Semao, one of the chief organisers.

“Wukan has been in the dark for so many years; its elections always manipulated. It is the first time we have done this so we want to do a good job,” he added. In the past few days, several academics and students have also arrived in Wukan, partly to observe the proceedings, and partly to offer advice to the villagers.

“This is very meaningful,” said Chen Liangshan, 61, who used to work in one of the village’s temples. “I have already got the list of people I will vote for in my mind. I am glad to get the chance to choose people who will actually do something. This is the first time we have ever seen a ballot and we are excited about it.”

Mr Chen filled in his ballot, a sheet of A4 paper, at a table covered by a bright red tablecloth and deposited it in one of seven shiny aluminium ballot boxes. According to an official press release, he was one of 7688 eligible voters, with 1043 voting by proxy.

Villagers believe the election is China’s first fully transparent and democratic vote, Moore wrote yesterday, though Voice of America reported skepticism from some that corrupt officials would ultimately regain power. Today represents “a small step towards grassroots rights,” according to Reuters:

At the end of polling, villagers burned unused ballot papers and clapped in jubilation at a largely orderly and trouble-free poll with turnout well over 80 percent.

“This far exceeded our expectations,” said Yang Semao, a village elder who helped officiate. “It shows our passion for democracy.”

Earlier, Xue Jianwan, daughter of village protest organizer Xue Jinbo, who died in police custody last year sparking further protests, visited her father’s memorial in the village square before voting. His body, which family members said bore marks of torture, has yet to be returned by authorities.

“This is something my father would have hoped for,” she said, bursting into tears after casting her ballot. “We just want to do our best to fulfill his final wishes.”

BBC News published a brief photo series with several shots from today’s election, including one of newly-installed village chief Lin Zulian, a leader of the protest movement who has taken charge of organizing the elections. The voting “marked the peaceful denouement” of the December standoff between villagers and armed police, according to the New York Times, which reported differing expectations among two Chinese observers:

Li Fan, an election expert at the World and China Institute in Beijing, thought the best one could hope for was an uncompromised election in Wukan. “It should be better given that all the media is watching,” he said. “If it is a good election, that will be unusual for China.”

But Lin Jiang, a professor at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, said he hoped that the once-belligerent fishing village could serve as a high-profile counterpoint to those who argue that democracy is ill-suited for China’s rural citizenry. “Peasants in China may be undereducated but the election in Wukan shows that just because you don’t have a good education, doesn’t mean you can’t elect officials to represent your interests,” he said.

One expert called today’s election a “paradigm shift” in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. While the Chinese government censored nearly all information from the Internet amid the protests in December, The WSJ’s China Real Time Report noted the “unusually open-and borderline euphoric” dialogue about Wukan now permeating the Chinese blogosphere:

“This is a model,” Chinese real-estate mogul Ren Zhiqiang said Wednesday via the popular microblogging service Sina Weibo, where searches for Wukan were producing nearly a million posts.

“The start of something new,” observed another user of the service.

…

For many, the election brought to mind one of Mao Zedong’s favorite revolutionary slogans/sayings: “If you want freedom and democracy, you have to fight for it yourself,” wrote one Internet user in the popular discussion forum Maoyan Kanren. “A single spark can start a prairie fire.”

Others saw in the elections a rebuke of people, like martial-arts star Jackie Chan, who’ve questioned whether Chinese culture is compatible with democratic government.

“After this, whoever says Chinese people aren’t good enough for democracy, I’ll sue the bastard,” one particularly excited blogger promised on Sina Weibo.

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: corruption, democracy, Jackie Chan, land grab, Lin Zuluan, microblogging, online public opinion, protests, sina weibo, village elections, Wukan, Xue Jinbo
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In charting its growth, CCTV is closely studying other models, especially Al-Jazeera, which rolled out a global English language 24-hour news network five years ago and quickly made a name for itself.

Qatar’s government bankrolled the station as part of its ambitions to parley its massive energy wealth into international influence, much as China is seeking global media stature behooving its booming economy, which now ranks second largest in the world behind the U.S.

But while Al-Jazeera’s access and deep knowledge of the Middle East — and a hands-off approach by its masters — have been its greatest assets, state-run CCTV’s emphatic allegiance to the authoritarian communist state and the party seem to be its biggest liability.

This greatly challenges CCTV’s credibility and agenda to influence and channel global public opinion, said David Bandurski, editor of the China Media Project website at the University of Hong Kong.

Read more about CCTV and about China’s efforts to extend its global media influence, via CDT. In particular, see an essay by an Al Jazeera correspondent in China on his perspective of Chinese official media coverage of the Arab Spring.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: CCTV, external propaganda, official media, soft power
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