Migrant Worker’s Death: 22-year-old Yuan Liya, who came to Beijing from Anhui Province, fell to her death on May 3 from the Jingwen Apparel shopping mall. While the Beijing police concluded that she committed suicide, hundreds protested on May 8 calling for a full account of her death. Many suspect she was sexually assaulted and thrown from the building where she worked. See also Sensitive Words updates from May 8 and May 9.

• Zhong Tao (钟涛): Head of Jingwen Apparel.
• Jing+wen (京+wen): Alternate writing of Jingwen (京温).
• Yuan Liya (袁莉亚): Alternate writing of Yuan Liya (袁利亚).

Two Weibo Accounts Suspended for “Intentionally Spreading Rumors”: Prominent law professor and activist He Bing (@何兵) can no longer post on Weibo after he reposted a weibo from “Xiaoshanjunzi” (@萧山君子) about the alleged 2009 murder of a Guizhou Province cadre by a young university graduate whose website was shut down [zh]. Xiaoshanjunzi’s account is currently inaccessible.
• He Bing (何兵)
• six-point statement (六点声明): He Bing responded to the suspension of his right to post on Weibo with a six-point statement [zh].

• seven don’t mentions* (七不讲): According to a directive leaked on Weibo, universities are being instructed not to allow lecturers to discuss “universal value, freedom of the press, a civil society, civic rights, historical mistakes committed by the Communist Party, elite cronyism, and an independent judiciary.”

* This post was edited to change the translation of 七不讲 to “seven don’t mentions.”

All Chinese-language words are tested using simplified characters. The same terms in traditional characters occasionally return different results.

Browse all of CDT’s collected sensitive words in this bilingual Google spreadsheet.

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. To add words, check out the form at the bottom of CDT Chinese’s latest sensitive words post.

© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Anhui, Beijing, censorship, Guizhou, Internet censorship, Ministry of Truth, Sensitive Words Series, weibo, Yuan Liya
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Protesters in Beijing yesterday want justice for Yuan Liya, who died on the morning of May 3. (via FreeWeibo)

Beijing Internet Supervision Office: Urgent Notice: Websites which have already posted news about the incident of the young Anhui woman who jumped from the Jingwen shopping center to her death must turn down the heat on coverage. You are not permitted to put the story on the homepage or make it the lead story. Websites which have not yet posted the story may only repost Peaceful Beijing [Beijing Public Security Bureau] weibo. Other information or images related to the incident must be completely erased. Please rigorously implement these work requests. (May 8, 2013)

北京市网监：紧急通知：关于安徽籍女青年京温商城坠楼一事，已发布新闻的网站，必须降低热度，不允许出现在首页及新闻头条。未发新闻的网站，只能转发平安北京的微博。其它关于此事的信息和图片全部清理，请各网站严格落实工作要求。

Hundreds protested in Beijing yesterday to call for a thorough investigation into the May 3 death of 22-year-old Anhui migrant Yuan Liya. The authorities have said Yuan committed suicide by jumping from the fourth floor of Jingwen shopping center, where she worked a late night shift, but rumors spread online that she was raped by mall security guards and thrown from the building. Yuan’s family is pushing to have closed circuit video of the incident released.

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 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: Anhui, Beijing, censorship, Directives from the Ministry of Truth, Ministry of Truth, propaganda, protests, Yuan Liya
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Artillery in Beijing, May 9. (Weibo)

• Anhui girl (安徽女子): Yuan Liya, a poor young woman from central Anhui Province, died on May 3 after falling from the fourth floor of the wholesale apparel mall in Beijing where she worked. While the police have called it a suicide, Yuan’s family and fellow Anhui migrants suspect mall security guards raped her, and that she either jumped to escape them or was thrown off the building by her assailants. Hundreds protested in Beijing yesterday to demand a thorough investigation of Yuan’s case, drawing riot police onto the streets and rarely-seen helicopters into the air.

Deng Xiaoping’s Only Grandson Becomes County Head: Deng Zhuodi has become head of Pingguo County in the southwestern province of Guangxi. Some netizens suspect the younger Deng is a U.S. citizen. A graduate of the Duke University School of Law, Deng was accused of sexually harassing a female colleague in 2011. South China Morning Post, however, says Deng resurfaced in Chinese public life in 2010. Challenges to his citizenship are equally unsubstantiated.

• Deng Zhuodi+U.S. (邓卓棣+美国)
• Deng Zhuodi+sexual harassment (邓卓棣+性骚扰)
• Deng Zhuodi+red third generation (邓卓棣+红三代)

All Chinese-language words are tested using simplified characters. The same terms in traditional characters occasionally return different results.

Browse all of CDT’s collected sensitive words in this bilingual Google spreadsheet.

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. To add words, check out the form at the bottom of CDT Chinese’s latest sensitive words post.

© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Anhui, Beijing, censorship, Deng Xiaoping, Deng Zhuodi, Guangxi, Internet censorship, Ministry of Truth, Sensitive Words Series, weibo, Yuan Liya
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Word of the death spread on the Internet in the days after the woman, whose surname was Yuan, was initially said to have committed suicide by jumping from a top floor or roof of the mall, called Jingwen, last Friday. Rumors on the Internet said Ms. Yuan, a migrant worker from Anhui Province, had been raped by private security guards in the mall, where she worked, and might have been thrown to her death.

A witness told The Wall Street Journal that the protest had swelled by 10 a.m. and had ended by 5 p.m., though a heavy police presence lingered on the scene. CDT’s “Sensitive Words” project also noted that photos of riot police and police helicopters had spread on Weibo, while footage of the demonstration had emerged on Tencent.

The Guardian’s Jonathan Kaiman had more on the protests:

A shopkeeper who gave his name only as Mr Li said that some police had arrived at around 10am, followed by around 200 people who paraded down the street shouting “Protest! Protest!”

The rapidly growing number of officers then closed the road for the rest of the day, he said. Photographs of the scene posted online showed hundreds of people on the street, although it was not clear how many were protesters and how many were onlookers.

One bystander said that officers had clashed with protesters, beating them and dragging them into vans.

While police said a preliminary investigation and autopsy did not indicate foul play, and that the woman did not have any interaction with other people during the hours before she fell to her death, the state-run Global Times reported that the demonstrators demanded a more open investigation:

Rumors have been circulated online that Yuan was gang raped in a enclosed room inside the building by seven security guards, which led to her suicide, or that they even pushed her out. Yuan’s mother visited the Dahongmen Police Station supervising the market but was not allowed to see the surveillance footage, some Web users said.

Leslie Hook of the Financial Times wrote that the protest, which halted traffic in southern Beijing for hours, “highlights mounting social pressures facing China’s leaders:”

The area where Ms Yuan worked is poor and is mostly populated by “outsiders” such as herself who work in the garment trading industry, according to residents. Scepticism of the police is widespread in China and many smaller protests across the country have been sparked by allegations of malpractice.

By Wednesday evening, the protest had dissipated amid heavy rain, but a large military presence was still visible, with dozens of parked buses carrying special forces, soldiers and police.

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Anhui, Beijing, mass incidents, migrant workers, murder, protest, rape, suicide, women's rights, Yuan Liya
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Yuan Liya (center) “jumped” to her death on May 3. (Weibo)

Around 4 a.m. on May 3, young Anhui migrant Yuan Liya fell to her death from the fourth floor of the Jingwen Wholesale Market in Beijing, where she worked. The Beijing authorities insist that she committed suicide and have refused requests by Yuan’s boyfriend and family to make public the Jingwen closed-circuit video of her fall.

This morning, migrants from Yuan’s home town protested in central Beijing, triggering a massive police presence. Photos of riot police on the streets and police helicopters circling the protesters have circulated on Weibo. Footage of the demonstration is available, for now, on Tencent [zh]. Read more about Yuan’s case and the protest from CDT Chinese [zh].

• Jing+Wen (京+温): For Jingwen Wholesale Market.
• Yuan Liya (袁利亚)
• Dahongmen (大红门): Yuan’s family have brought their case to the Dahongmen Market police station.
• South Third Ring [Road] (南三环): Location of Jingwen.
• Muxiyuan (木樨园): Street blocked by police.
• helicopter (直升机)

Update: More images from the protest and screenshots of propaganda directives have been added to the photo gallery below.

All Chinese-language words are tested using simplified characters. The same terms in traditional characters occasionally return different results.

Browse all of CDT’s collected sensitive words in this bilingual Google spreadsheet.

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. To add words, check out the form at the bottom of CDT Chinese’s latest sensitive words post.

© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Anhui, Beijing, censorship, Internet censorship, migrant workers, Ministry of Truth, protests, Sensitive Words Series, weibo, Yuan Liya
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“Her father’s death, her husband’s persecution, her daughter’s death – everything that happened made her suspicious of the Cultural Revolution … She was sick of [it],” said Zhang.

Eventually conditions improved and she was allowed to sleep at home. Then, one evening, her zealous son accused her of tacitly criticising Mao. The family row spiralled rapidly: Fang called for the return of purged leaders and attacked Mao for his personality cult. “I warned her: ‘If you go against our dear Chairman Mao I will smash your dog head,’” Zhang said, at times reading from his father’s testimony. “I felt this wasn’t my mother. This wasn’t a person. She suddenly became a monster … She had become a class enemy and opened her bloody mouth.”

Fang’s brother begged her to take her words back, warning she would be killed. “I’m not scared,” Fang replied. She tore down and burned Mao’s picture.

When her husband and son ran to denounce her, “I understood it meant death,” Zhang said. In fact, he added, he called for her to be shot as a counter-revolutionary. He last saw her as she knelt on stage in the hours before her death.

The report includes a video interview with Zhang.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Anhui, Cultural Revolution, Mao Zedong, PRC history
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Local residents in Shuangliu and Longchang, two counties located in southwest China’s Sichuan province, have almost cleared shops there of candles and matches after speculation spread online that there would be three straight days of darkness starting Dec. 21, according to state-run Xinhua news agency. Vendors in both places are also selling supply packages and self-help manuals, according to the report.

[…] Worries about the world coming to an end are driving the Chinese to other drastic measures, including getting married. Xinhua reported that marriage registry offices in Xi’an, Hefei, Guangzhou and Shanghai have already maxed out their quota for approving marriages on Dec. 21.

[…] Surprising as it may be, the apocalypse panic in Sichuan pales in comparison to a salt-buying panic in 2011, triggered by more reasonable (though ultimately unfounded) fears over nuclear radiation spilling from Japan’s quake-damaged reactors. Chinese authorities arrested a 31-year old Internet user for “spreading salt rumors” via an online posting that urged people to stock up because radiation from Japan had polluted the sea off of China’s coast. Some Chinese citizens even demand refunds for their salt after finding themselves with more than they could use.

Both spates of hysteria have roots in more general anxieties, according to Peking University sociologist Lu Jiehua, who told Global Times that “this panic buying not only shows people’s fear of an upcoming apocalypse, but also reflects their sense of uncertainty toward life and society.”

Many other retailers have also seen commercial potential in mankind’s looming destruction, to the despair of Global Times’ Xuyang Jingjing:

Stores are […] hyping up their year-end promotions, capitalizing on an “end of the world” marketing opportunity. As the old saying goes, “when life gives you a lemon, make lemonade.” In this case, when the universe gives you a doomsday, cash in on others’ fear!

I’m hardly surprised by such business gimmicks anymore. Over the past few decades of rapid development, we’ve fostered the amazing ability to not just see the silver lining in every cloud; rather, we’ve managed to squeeze silver out of every cloud.

[…] They say money can’t buy you love or happiness. Well, maybe with the money you get from selling your kidney, you can buy that latest gadget that you perceive will make your life complete.

Sure, when the end comes we might die short of a kidney or some other vital organ. But at least we’ll be a lot happier.

(This refers to the case of an Anhui teenager who sold a kidney to buy an iPad and iPhone. The leader of the gang which arranged the operation was sentenced last month to five years in prison, while nine people involved have paid 1.48 million yuan in compensation.)

If retailers have pushed things too far, others have tried even shadier ways of cashing in on the looming cataclysm. From Chen Xiaoru, also at Global Times:

Shanghai police received 25 complaints about people prognosticating doomsday prophecies outside of residents’ homes in eight districts Wednesday and Thursday, the Shanghai Municipal Public Security Bureau said on its official microblog.

The complaints, which police received over a 24-hour period, illustrate how serious some residents are taking the Mayan prophecies about the end of the world, which authorities fear might be exploited. “Police made the announcement because there might be people trying to take advantage of the prophecy to scam residents out of money,” said Zhu Liang, a press officer with Huangpu police.

[…] Other reports have emerged about scammers trying to cash in on people’s beliefs. In Hangzhou, Zhejiang Province, two con artists tried to persuade residents to donate all their money to escape the end of the world, according to the Zhejiang Province police’s official microblog.

While impending doom has brought out the worst in some, it has inspired others to impressive feats of inventiveness and engineering. In Urumqi, Lu Zhenghai has invested his life’s savings in the construction of an ark. Should the end not come to pass, the half-finished vessel may have some potential as a tourist attraction. Yang Zongfu, meanwhile, has developed a 1.5 million yuan spherical life-pod capable of holding three people and a year’s supplies. Yang claims to have sold over a dozen of the capsules, though The Wall Street Journal was unable to verify this. The eve of reckoning also moved one Chengdu company to generously grant its staff two extra days of vacation.

Adam Minter examined the 2012 phenomenon at Bloomberg View last week, describing its debt to Hollywood and how it has become a channel for some subtly barbed political commentary.

City Express, a popular, state-owned evening newspaper in Zhejiang province, tweeted photos of the collapses with this commentary:

“Today three major collapses happened nationwide. 1. A sink hole opened near the Palace Station of the Nanjing Metro Line 3 and a bus filled with passengers fell into it … 2. In Xiamen, the Jiangjun Temple Road collapsed and four cars were destroyed; 3. At the Guangzhou headquarters of Hainan Airlines a portion of the construction collapsed, burying alive a father of twins. PS: This convinces one to believe in the Mayans!”

The intent of this tweet is a matter of some controversy. Some netizens see it as an attempt to shake off blame for poor infrastructure. “This is a man-made disaster,” wrote one user in the comment thread beneath the City Express tweet. A second expressed outrage that the Mayans would even be invoked under such circumstances: “Taking this kind of thing as an excuse for shoddy engineering?”

More likely, though, the comments are over-interpreting what is actually intended as a pointed critique of the local governments and contractors thought to be responsible for China’s shoddy buildings. As a state-run newspaper, City Express wouldn’t really dare to criticize so directly (or generally), so it has used the most convenient platform available: Mayan prophecy.

Minter later tweeted:

Anybody taking bets on whether/when Chinese microblogs ban doomsday/Maya/Apocalypse-related search terms? I say Dec 15.

— Adam Minter (@AdamMinter) December 11, 2012

Also on Sina Weibo, a widely shared spoof video of Australian prime minister Julia Gillard comforting her people in the face of “flesh eating zombies, demonic hell beasts or […] the total triumph of K-pop” sparked a clash of political cultures. From Monica Tan at Daily Life:

The video of Prime Minister “Ji La De”, as Gillard is called in Chinese, along with these reactions by Chinese web users says just as much about Chinese politics as it does Australian. The vast majority of Australians might react to such a video with mild amusement, but hardly consider it shocking stuff. In contrast, for Chinese audiences this kind of “larrikin” behaviour coming from the country’s most powerful leader is literally too strange to be believed, with partial credit surely due to Gillard’s deadpan delivery.

User sleepeat said: “This can’t be possible, that a head of state is talking this way.” [Gillard is not, in fact, a head of state.] While another called Sum Shudong wrote, “How many glasses or bottles has Sister Prime Minister drunk?” A few even accused Gillard of being crazy and irresponsible, with user Chen Yue Cyanni writing earnestly, “Why has the Prime Minister of Australia been convinced that all this end of the world business is true when this type of thing has no scientific basis? She’s misleading her country.”

Some sceptics do maintain that life will carry on as usual. Sina Weibo’s explanation of the candle panic-buying when it trended last week concluded (via Tea Leaf Nation) that: “Experts have stated: Anyone with a bit of scientific common sense knows that there will not be three days of consecutive darkness.” Xinhua consulted a range of authoritative figures who assured the public that there is no need to panic—at least, not about the Mayan calendar.

Science fiction author Wang Jinkang believes those convinced by the rumors would do well to focus more on the here and now, stating that they should be more wary of disasters caused by climate change, a possible shortage of freshwater and deadly pathogens.

“The rumors are a misinterpretation of the Maya calendar and are still going on,” said Ouyang Ziyuan, chief scientist for China’s lunar orbiter project, adding that he believes Dec. 21 will be a peaceful and safe day.

“The sun will still rise on Dec. 21. All reactions to the doomsday prophecy show a strong recognition of the crisis of human existence. However, these reactions should be rooted in science,” said Wang Sichao, an astronomer at the Nanjing Purple Mountain Observatory.

He explained that when the sun transforms from its current stable state into a red giant, its expansion will devour Earth, signaling the end for the human race and the very planet itself.

“However, that won’t happen for another 5 billion years. At that time, humans will have to be able to find a new home,” Wang Sichao said, adding that the best reaction to the rumors should be to cherish one’s life and loved ones.

A weary NASA has assembled a Frequently Asked Questions page debunking the 2012 Doomsday prophecies, while astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson addressed the issue in a 2009 video at Fora.TV:

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Anhui, commercialism, consumerism, crime, fraud, Guangzhou, Hangzhou, Hefei, hoaxes, jokes, NASA, Peking University, rumors, scientists, Shanghai, Sichuan, sina weibo, tofu construction, Urumqi, xian, Zhejiang
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The translations are by Rogier Creemers of China Copyright and Media.

4 July 2006, 11:42, Network Management Department, Duty manager

Everyone: the content of the Jinghua Times article concerning “Beijing Communications University Training Class Fakes Overseas Chinese Students” is untrue, everyone must not reprint this, where it has been reprinted, it must be immediately deleted.

4 July 2006, 15:42, Fan Tao

All websites are requested to reprint the Qianlong Net article “5.1 Scale Earthquake in Wen’an, No Destruction or Damage Created in Beijing” in the middle or top part of the important news section (http://beijing.qianlong.com/3825/2006/07/04/134@3282333.htm), when reprinting, the title may not be changed, no news trackers may be opened, no short messages sent. Please immediately delete all articles related to the earthquake apart from Xinhua copy. No special subject sections may be set up for this matter.

4 July 2006, 16:50

Chen Hua: The publication of all blog commentaries is ceased.

8 July 2006, 17:20

Chen Hua: Do not play up the matter of the China International Trade Stimulation Association Vice-Chair and Party Group Vice-Secretary Zhang Zhou committing suicide, please put it in the domestic section, do not set up special subject sections, do not open trackers, use standard copy.

8 July 2006, 19:06

“Chongqing Municipal Public Security Bureau Requires that Internationally Networked Work Units and Individuals Must Conduct Filing” is false news, forums, channels, old and new communities, and special columns may not reprint or comment it; where it has been published, delete it without exception.

11 July 2006, 15:17, Chen Hua

All websites are requested to make “Fire Phoenix,” “World Connect” (software name), “Use News to Influence Today – A Chronicle of Freezing Point,” and “A Record of the Storm” (book name) into keywords. Please make “12 Springs and Autumns” (book name) into a keyword, and strictly filter search results;

It is stressed again: do not play up or speculate about the civil servant salary system reform, it is strictly prohibited to translate, edit, and transmit foreign media information and comment related to this reform and standardization work without authorization, strengthen management over forums, news trackers, blogs and other interactive columns, timely delete all sorts of harmful information not conform to requirements.

Do not play up the two cases of Huang Jing and Gao Yingying, do not put news on the case process in the important news section, do not set up special subject sections, do not open two-sided debates, close attention must be paid to discussion trends in interactive segments, delete discourse attacking the judiciary and the cadre system.

11 July 2006, 17:34

Today, some websites issued the 21st Century Business Herald information “Anhui Vice-Governor He Minxu Put Under Shuanggui, Central Discipline Inspection Committee Enters Anhui for Inspection.” At present, reports on this matter have not yet been approved by the relevant departments, websites may not publish this without exception, news articles and posts that have been published must be immediately deleted. All localities and all websites must strengthen management over forums, blogs and other interactive columns, and timely block and delete this kind of information.

11 July 2006, 21:08, Lu Chao

News and posts that have emerged on Public Security Bureau investigation methods may not be uploaded.

2006年7月北京网管办发出的禁令（一）
2006年7月4日11时42分 网管办值班

各位：京华时报关于“北交大培训班伪造华侨生”一文，内容不实，大家不要转载，已转载的要立即删除

2006年7月4日15时42分 范 涛

请各网在要闻区中上部转发千龙网稿件《文安发生5.1级地震 对北京未造成破坏和损失》（http://beijing.qianlong.com/3825/2006/07/04 /134@3282333.htm），转发时不要改标题，不要开跟帖，不要发短信。请立即删除新华社以外有关地震的所有稿件。此事件不要开办专题。

2006年7月4日16时50分

陈华：每个博客的评论停止发表.

2006年7月8日17时20分

陈华：中国贸促会副会长、党组副书记张周自杀身亡一事，不炒作，请放国内区，不做专题，不开跟贴，用规范稿源。

2006年7月8日19时06分

“重庆市公安局要求国际联网的单位和个人必须进行备案”为不实新闻，论坛、频道、新老公社、专栏不转载、不评论；已经发现的一律删除。

2006年7月11日15时17分 陈华

请各网将“火凤凰”、“世界通”（软件名）、“用新闻影响今天——〈冰点〉周刊纪事”、“风波记”（书 名）设为关键词。请将“十二个春秋”（书名）设为关键词，并严格清理搜索结果；

再次强调：公务员工资制度改革不渲染、不炒作，严禁擅自编译转发境外媒体有关此次改革规范工作的消息和评论，加强对论坛、新闻跟帖、博客等互动栏目的管理，及时删除各类与要求不符的有害信息。

黄静、高莺莺两案，不要炒作，案件进程的新闻不放要闻区，不开设专题，不开正双方辩论，要密切注意互动环节的言论动向，删除攻击司法、干部制度的言论

2006年7月11日17时34分

近日，一些网站转发《21世纪经济报道》“安徽副省长何闽旭被双规 中纪委进驻安徽彻查”消息。目前，此事的报道尚未经有关部门批准，网站一律不得刊发，已刊发的新闻稿和帖文要立即撤除。各地各网站要加强对论坛、博客等互动栏目的管理，及时封堵删除此类信息。

2006年7月11日21时08分卢超

出现公安局侦查手段的新闻、帖子都不能上

These translated directives were first posted by Rogier Creemers on China Copyright and Media on November 29, 2012 (here).

© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 21st century business herald, Anhui, Beijing, Beijing Internet Instructions, censorship, Censorship Vault, Chen Hua, Chongqing, Directives from the Ministry of Truth, earthquakes, Freezing Point, Gao Yingying, He Minxu, Internet censorship, Lu Chao, Ministry of Truth, Public Security Bureau, Shuanggui, Xinhua
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It’s tough to spin an orgy. The local Party office in question first claimed that the images had been photoshopped; then they dropped that angle and said they were, instead, simply old pictures from elsewhere in China, unrelated to the county. But that explanation ran aground when one of the men—identified in state press reporters as Wang Yu, a deputy secretary of the Youth League Committee of Hefei University in Anhui province—while insisting that “the two other men are his friends, not government officials, conceded that “he regretted his behavior.” (The photos, it seems, were plucked from the computer of one of the participants after the machine was brought in for repair.) Another Party organ was not as contrite. “NAKED GUY IS NOT OUR PARTY CHIEF: LOCAL AUTHORITY” was the headline in the Global Times after the Communist Party committee in Lujiang county declared a case of mistaken identity in response to the suggestion that a bespectacled participant bears an extraordinary resemblance to Wang Minsheng, the local Party secretary. Wang said he had been “slandered” most likely because he was investigating others for corruption, and his office vowed that revenge: “Those behind the smear campaign will be held legally responsible.”

At bottom, the sex party is vexing for the Party because it highlights the gap between the artifice of official solemnity and the unadorned reality beneath, a gap that has become more pronounced in recent years as the Web eats away at the monopoly on authority. The downfall of Bo Xilai is of interest to the Chinese public not simply because it involves murder, corruption, and betrayal but because it is unfolding noisily just offstage from where the Party is desperately seeking to convey the sense that everyone is proceeding according to plan. As the Global Times commented of the group shots, people “feel that this is but scratching the surface of the lives of luxury and sin that many officials secretly enjoy. Such activities are being pointed to as evidence for the decaying morality of government officials.”

Offbeat China has posted a couple of the photos in question, and details the reaction among journalists and netizens:

Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of pro-government newspaper Global Times, also stood in defense of Lujiang government, and he certainly has a point: “I didn’t go over all the photos from the Lujiang group sex set. However, anyone with the slightest understanding of politics in China won’t believe that these are photos of county Deputy Chief and Secretary of county Party committee. The Internet is a platform for bottom-up supervision. Let’s protect it together and shield it from rumors.”

Later, journalists from Nanfang Daily also dug out an apology by netizen anhui1234567q on Lujiang Baidu Tieba (a large online community hosted by Baidu) explaining how the whole group sex rumor started: “I saw a set of unverified photos on Sina Weibo and thought one of the guys looked like Deputy Chief of Lujiang. I suggested that they photos were of Lujiang county Deputy Chief in accident. I never imaged it would lead to such severe consequences. I feel very sorry. Hereby I sincerely apologize to Deputy Chief Mr. Wang. I’m kneeing down asking for his forgiveness. It wasn’t on purpose. Announcement by anhui1234567q. 8/92012.”

But what netizens choose to believe is another story. At least, the official website of Lujiang government was reported to be hacked hours after the photos went viral online. While most netizens are either actively looking for download links for the photos or are condemning the decayed morality of government officials, some others came up with another hypothesis, that is, to use a group sex rumor to distract people’s attention away from the trial of Gu Kailai, wife of disgraced Chinese politician Bo Xilai, who confessed to murder of a Briton on court yesterday.

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Anhui, Hu xijin, information control, Internet censorship, Lujiang Indecent Photos Incident, online public opinion, sex scandals
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State Council Information Office: All websites must stop following and hyping the so-called “Lujiang Indecent Photos Incident.” Interactive platforms must quickly remove all related photos.

国新办：所有网站不再跟进炒作所谓庐江不雅照事件，互动环节需迅速删除有关照片。

© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Anhui, Directives from the Ministry of Truth, Ministry of Truth, officials, State Council Information Office
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“The trial finished this afternoon and the court adjourned,” official Tang Yigan told reporters. “The trial committee will announce the verdict after discussion. The date of the verdict will be announced.

“The accused (Gu) Kailai and Zhang Xiaojun did not raise objections to the facts and the charges of intentional homicide.”

[…] Gu and her co-accused were charged with poisoning Briton Neil Heywood, a family friend, last year. The official said the court was told Zhang, the family aide, had put poison in a drink of water that Gu then gave to Heywood who was drunk at the time.

Recent reports suggested that Gu had been treated for depression, and her lawyers told the court that her “ability to control her own behavior was weaker than a normal person“. Other possibly mitigating factors are Gu’s professed belief that Heywood posed a danger to her son, Bo Guagua, and her reported cooperation in providing details of unspecified others’ crimes. According to Xinhua, four police officers will also be tried on Friday for shielding Gu from investigation.

The proceedings were tightly controlled, reflecting the case’s sensitivity. Streets near the courthouse in Hefei—a thousand kilometres from the scene of Heywood’s death in Chongqing—were cordoned off, while the South China Morning Post reported that police visited nearby hotels to check guests’ identities. CNN’s Steven Jiang unsuccessfully sought permission to attend the hearing, and was later involved in a scuffle with police while filming interviews on the street. At least two protesters were also accosted at the courthouse. From Tania Branigan at The Guardian:

As the hearing began, police dragged away two singing protestors who appeared outside the Hefei intermediate people’s court in Anhui. “I don’t believe it. This case was decided well in advance,” Hu Jiye, a middle-aged man wearing a T-shirt and baseball cap, told reporters at the rear of the courthouse.

His friend shouted “Why are you taking me?” and struggled as some of the dozens of plain clothed officers surrounding the building shoved the two men into a car.

[…] Hefei, the capital of Anhui province, is known as the home of Lord Bao, an eleventh century official still seen as an icon of justice and righteous officials in China.

“Today you should go to the Lord Bao temple, steal his statue and put it in front of the court,” wrote one user on Sina’s Weibo microblog. Lawyer Li Fangping wrote: “The security of the Hefei intermediate court is definitely number one in the world but whether it can ensure just proceedings is another question.”

Discussion on Sina Weibo was hampered by keyword and re-post blocking and an unexplained outage, though the latter may have been a happy/unhappy coincidence. From Loretta Chao and Brian Spegele at The Wall Street Journal:

Sina published a message on its official Weibo account suggesting it could be a technical error.

“Currently, parts of our users’ microblogging input box and groups cannot be displayed,” it said. “These problems are under emergency repair, please forgive us for any inconvenience this may have caused!”

[…] The Sina Weibo traffic on Ms. Gu’s trial appeared moderate earlier Thursday, though likely in part because the site blocked the use of the names of people involved, including the accused and her husband. Users still found ways to discuss the case, though—for example, by referring to Ms. Gu as “G.”

Some messages criticized the government, including questioning why the trial is closed to the public. Government officials have said all the available seats in the courtroom had been filled.

The careful control of information appears to be part of a political quarantine isolating Gu from her husband and, by extension, the Party. From Evan Osnos at The New Yorker, writing before Thursday’s “show trial without the show”:

[…] In the months since this case broke, the Chinese press has largely ignored the corruption allegations—the reports of overseas account, and bribes, and luxuries—and focussed ever more narrowly on the murder and the wife. Moreover, the South China Morning Post reports that Gu “confessed to murder as well as ‘economic crimes’ ” but was only charged with murder, concluding that the “absence of the economic crime charges could be the clearest sign yet that authorities do not plan to criminally prosecute her husband, the former Chongqing party boss, who is believed to still have support within the party.”

Overlooking those economic crimes amounts to “a serious dereliction of prosecutorial duty,” Pu Zhiqiang, a respected defense lawyer told Perry Link in the New York Review of Books. In an essay on the trial, Link writes that, no matter what sentence she receives, Gu “is still a scapegoat—not for her husband but for the whole Communist Party. By focusing all the blame on her, and ‘bringing her to justice,’ the Party, in its tradition of maintaining decorous exteriors, can extend the fiction that everything is basically fine.” It is far easier, after all, to hold high one bad apple than to upturn the entire cart in search of the worm.

In the final stifling weeks of the Beijing summer, there is no more prevalent and unanswerable debate than this: What will become of Bo Xilai? When I discussed it not long ago with a friend who monitors élite politics closely, he said, “Bo could end up with a long sentence, though it won’t be physically arduous or hard labor. Or they might just find a way to get rid of him politically, by putting him in charge of a think tank or something.”

Also ahead of Thursday’s trial, Jeremy Page dug into the case’s political implications at The Wall Street Journal. Benjamin Kang Lim and Lucy Hornby profiled Gu Kailai at Reuters, while at The Los Angeles Times, Barbara Demick focused on her less prominent co-defendant, and Bo Guagua told CNN that “I have faith that facts will speak for themselves” in the courtroom. See also previous CDT posts on Bo Xilai and Gu Kailai.

Updated at 21:33 PST: A CCTV report (in Chinese) includes footage from the courtroom:

The Sydney Morning Herald’s John Garnaut discussed the trial on ABC Radio Australia, while The Guardian’s Tania Branigan looked at the unanswered questions left in its wake. Some light on these, such as why Gu believed Heywood posed a threat to her son, came from an observer in the courtroom. From Keith Richburg at The Washington Post:

A copy of Heywood’s purported e-mail, written in English, was displayed in court with a Chinese translation, the person attending the trial said. According to the Chinese translation, Heywood supposedly warned Bo Guagua that if he did not pay the money, “you will be destroyed.” There was no verification that Heywood actually wrote the e-mail.

The prosecution said Zhang, the aide, told Gu about the threat, because Gu apparently did not use e-mail, the observer recounted. Prosecutors said Gu then asked Heywood to travel to Chongqing to meet, and, on Nov. 13, Zhang escorted the Briton from his home in Beijing to Chongqing’s Nanshan Lijing Holiday Hotel, a resort with spacious villas.

Gu had already prepared a poison concoction made from rat exterminator, after having a local party official search various vendors to find one who sold rodent poison containing cyanide, the courtroom attendee said, quoting the prosecution. The vendor who sold the poison was also arrested, the observer said in recounting the testimony.

According to another person present, Bo’s former ally Wang Lijun was also implicated in Heywood’s death. From Gillian Wong at the Associated Press:

The scandal came to light in February, when longtime Bo aide and former Chongqing police chief Wang Lijun suddenly fled to the U.S. Consulate in the city of Chengdu. Apparently fearing for his safety if he remained in Chongqing, Wang told American diplomats about his suspicions that Heywood had been murdered and that Bo’s family was involved.

However, in a surprising twist, a man who attended the trial said the court heard evidence that Gu had reported her plans to Wang before she committed the crime, as well as after the deed was done. “Wang Lijun knew all about it, and even participated in planning it,” said the man, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the secrecy surrounding the case and fear of government retaliation.

The South China Morning Post’s Choi Chi-yuk reports that Wang is to face trial next week, though no part in Heywood’s killing was mentioned:

A Chengdu-based source said Wang will be charged with treason, which carries the death penalty. But the source said a lenient sentence would be handed down because Wang earned “merits” during the investigation. Another source, close to the Chongqing government, confirmed that Wang’s trial would open in Chengdu in a few days.

[…] “The trials and everything related to Bo is going on according to the script written by the authorities,” said political analyst Johnny Lau Yui-siu. “The authorities want to first handle Gu and then other related cases, well before the start of the party congress, avoiding any impact on the leadership transition.”

Evan Osnos commented on the brevity of Gu and Zhang’s trial at The New Yorker:

For those in American politics and business who are tempted to rhapsodize about the efficiency of the Chinese system, the murder trial of Gu Kailai has set a new standard. This complex, multi-layered legal drama—involving multiple defendants, allegations of high-level corruption and large cross-border transfers of money—opened on Thursday and was over by nightfall.

[…] The court added that the accused were “defended by lawyers they had respectively engaged” and mentioned that “more than one hundred forty people attended the hearing, including friends and relatives of Bogu Kailai, Zhang Xiaojun and the victim Neil Heywood, British consular officials, journalists, People’s Congress delegates, People’s Political Consultative Conference members and members of the public.” But those statements did not jibe with evidence that is more accessible. Family and friends of the accused had complained in advance that lawyers were prevented from meeting the defendants before the trial. As for the “open trial,” that did not apply to foreign reporters, evidently.

Madeline Earp of the Committee to Protect Journalists noted the use of some relatively low-tech information control equipment outside the courthouse:

Longtime China watchers may remember security officials brandishing parasols in Tiananmen Square on June 4 in 2009, apparently trying to deflect reporters covering the 20th anniversary of the 1989 crackdown on anti-government protesters. While they may have obstructed a few standard shots of tourists in the square, the footage of serious-looking security forces toting the colorful barriers in front of the cameras more than made up for the blocked shots.

[…] Use of the umbrella in this context may be entertaining, but we don’t welcome its return to China’s panoply of censorship apparatus. It hugely undermines the transparency and due process which every defendant–not just the wife of a disgraced leader– deserves. If security officials are willing to flout media freedom at such a public event, what hope is there for open coverage at trials of the lesser-known?

Christina Larson also wrote on the trial’s opacity at The New Republic:

“If this is a show trial, we aren’t getting any of the show,” says Alexander Cook, an assistant professor at University of California, Berkley, who is working on a book about China’s most famous twentieth century show trial, that of the Gang of Four, when the main architects of the Cultural Revolution—including Mao Zedong’s wife as a stand-in for the deceased Great Helmsman—stood trial in spectacular fashion for a full month in 1980. A lengthy indictment was published in newspapers, cataloguing the various “counterrevolutionary crimes.” The live audience inside the courtroom numbered several hundred. Each day, a highlight reel of trial proceedings was aired on the nightly news. “It was saturation coverage,” Cook explains. “But I guess one thing they learned: when you run a show, not everyone is going to be cooperative. There’s a risk of something backfiring.”

[…] Of course, what’s still to be determined is whether China’s high-profile trials can still succeed in serving as a willful distraction or distortion from other political controversies. “It’s always about ‘don’t look here, look over there,’” as China-based author and analyst Paul French told me. And one long-standing trope that has traditionally been deployed to that end in China is the blame-the-woman syndrome: a disturbing pattern in which wives of disgraced emperors or politicians have been depicted as corrupt powers behind the throne, and frequently the reasons for dynastic downfall.

The Economist also suggested that Gu’s prosecution was designed to divert attention away from the Party:

Party leaders have a good motive for containing the case against Mr Bo: they do not want to highlight the wealth amassed by his family. Many of them have rich friends and relatives of their own. This may explain why Ms Gu faces prosecution for murder but not, as yet, for economic crimes. Mr Bo was dismissed from the Politburo in April on suspicion of “serious discipline violations”. So far there has been no campaign to smear him for criminal offences.

Yet Mr Bo does not seem the type to go gently into the night. Xi Jinping, like him the son of a revolutionary hero, is to take the reins of power in a once-in-a-decade leadership transition later this year. He might want to make sure Mr Bo’s political career really is over. Expulsion from the party followed by a criminal sentence would do the trick. For perverting the course of justice, perhaps? That would be another open-and-shut case.

Whatever ultimately happens to Bo, some damage to the Party’s reputation may be unavoidable. CTV’s Janis Mackey Frayer spoke about the case to Zhang Sizhi, Jiang Qing’s defender in the Gang of Four trial.

Do you see any way for [Bo] to survive this politically?

No it is absolutely impossible for him to emerge. Whether or not he is going further downhill depends on the trial result.

[…] What does this case expose about the inner workings of the Party and politics?

First, you can see that some of China’s high-level officials are indeed very corrupted. Second, you can see that there are conflicts at the highest levels. They disagree with each other in a lot of things. Third, the current power group, the core leadership, they don’t have enough resolution to deal with this sort of thing. Why, why did they let Bo Xilai rise for such a long time in Chongqing? So it has something to do with their incorrect judgment.

Of course the image of the Communist Party has been damaged because it is a very high level family with such a big problem. Chinese people will have an opinion on that. Think about it: If Gu Kailai can kill an Englishman, how easy would it be to kill a Chinese?

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | 2 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Anhui, Bo Xilai, Chongqing, criminal rights, gu kailai, Hefei, murder, Neil Heywood, trials
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Two officials from the U.K. Embassy in Beijing will be given access to the trial of Gu Kailai, according to an official of the mission who spoke on condition of anonymity yesterday. China unveiled formal charges against Gu, accusing her of “intentional homicide” in the death of Briton Neil Heywood, the official Xinhua News Agency reported on July 26.

Gu “is almost certain to be convicted,” according to The Australian’s Michael Sainsbury, who writes that this week’s trial and verdict will pave the way for the government to also formally punish Bo Xilai before the 18th Party Congress in October:

Jin Zhong, chief editor of Open Magazine in Hong Kong, said Ms Gu was likely to likely to receive the same treatment as Mao Zedong’s wife, Jiang Qing, who was involved in a plot to seize power after his death. Jiang’s death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.

“The treatment of Bo might be between August and September, after the party’s working summer retreat at the seaside report of Beidaihe,” he said.

“Bo cannot be completely cut off from Gu’s murder. At the very least, he knew of it but didn’t report to the central government, and it is severe violation of the party’s discipline. The party has never lowered its extreme caution of ambitious politicians. In this sense, the more severe the crime of which Gu is found guilty, the easier it is to subdue Bo.”

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 18th party congress, Anhui, Bo Xilai, CCP 5th generation, gu kailai, legal system, murder, Neil Heywood
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The trial of Gu Kailai, the wife of disgraced former Politburo member Bo Xilai, is expected to start Thursday in the eastern city of Hefei, according to the friend, who did not want to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Gu and a family aide were charged in the November death of British businessman Neil Heywood. If convicted, Gu could face the death penalty, but the friend said her life is expected to be spared.

Each of the defendants will be allowed to have two relatives at the trial, which is expected to be speedy, according to the friend.

Reuters reported that two sources, also anonymous, had given the same start date, and that British diplomats had requested access to Gu’s trial.

Much else about the trial remains unknown, as NYU law professor Jerome Cohen wrote in a South China Morning Post article republished by the US Asia Law Institute. He recently argued in the same newspaper that infringements of criminal defendants’ rights “make a mockery of China’s claims to have established ‘a socialist rule of law with Chinese characteristics’“, and sees signs of similar infringements in Gu’s case:

What kind of trial can Gu and her present co-defendant, a former assistant, expect? Will it be open to the public and foreign and domestic media? Thus far, the indictment has not been released and we do not know whether the trial has been officially characterised as secret. It is likely to be closed if the authorities believe there might be a risk of disclosing, for example, either how the defendants allegedly obtained the cyanide that reportedly killed their victim or lurid details of personal and business relations among Bo, Gu, Heywood and others. An open trial might also risk a defendant’s revealing emotional outburst.

Will the accused have capable, independent defence counsel? They have been denied the right to select their own lawyers. Their families retained experienced Beijing attorneys many weeks ago, but neither lawyers nor family members have been allowed to contact defendants. Instead, Hefei authorities have reportedly appointed local lawyers, who are plainly under their control and can be relied on to follow orders. This is common practice in “sensitive” mainland cases, including that of Chen Guangcheng’s nephew, Chen Kegui, for attempted murder.

Amidst this uncertainty, the verdict—though not the sentence—appears to be a foregone conclusion: Xinhua’s announcement of the charges last week stated that “the facts … are clear, and the evidence is irrefutable and substantial.” From Tom Lasseter at McClatchy:

Unless there’s a radical departure from established practice, the proceedings will serve as yet another reminder that while this nation has the trappings of government and a court system, it’s the Communist Party that wields ultimate power.

“There’s no use talking about frustrations. I just need to tell you the fact, the conclusion: China’s judiciary is not independent,” said Mo Shaoping, a prominent rights lawyer whose firm represented Liu Xiaobo, a dissident who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize while sitting in a Chinese prison cell.

[…] “With a case like this, with a lot of attention and sensitivity, the verdict is not going to be decided by a judge from the . . . intermediate people’s court,” Mo said.

That is, the party, not the jurist, will call the shots.

Perry Link questioned a number of friends—”well-known critics of the regime”—about the case and the political factors driving it. He describes how Bo’s rise and fall have both threatened to disrupt the country’s impending leadership transition, and examines some of the many “black-box mysteries” surrounding the trial. From The New York Review of Books:

Did she really do it? “China’s justice system is the fairest in the world,” quipped one. “They don’t even arrest you unless they know you did it.” Jiang Qisheng, who spent four years in prison for organizing a candlelight memorial for victims of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, has published an essay in which he compares Bogu Kailai’s fate to that of Mao’s wife Jiang Qing after Mao died. Jiang puns on fazhi “rule of law” and fazhi “the law knows.” The prominent rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang notes that Bogu has not, as far as anyone knows, been able to consult a lawyer.

[…] Is it possible, I asked, that Bo’s wife is being targeted as a scapegoat for Bo, in order to leave the way open for an eventual return by Bo? I had seen speculation of this kind in the Western press, but from my friends in Beijing heard only a contemptuous response. “When has the Communist Party ever done this?” asked an eminent historian. “When has any struggle like this ever not ended in total victory for one side and total defeat for the other?” The book dealer said, “The only question now is the length of Bo’s prison term. Nothing can free Bo short of a collapse of the whole system.”

Nevertheless, an article in The Jamestown Foundation’s China Brief suggests that Bo’s punishment may be relatively light:

[… A]s noted Beijing-based human rights lawyer Pu Zhiqiang pointed out, “if Gu has not been implicated with corruption-related offences, it is likely that her husband Bo will also not be accused of a similar crime.” In other words, since Bo, the 63-year-old son of revolutionary elder Bo Yibo, has only been cited for a “serious breach of party discipline” by party authorities—and not for corruption-related offenses—he need not even appear in a court of law. According to CCP regulations, cadres suspected of breaking party discipline may only be investigated by the Central Commission for Disciplinary Inspection (CCDI)—and such proceedings are usually not publicized (Ming Pao [Hong Kong], July 28; Cable TV News [Hong Kong], July 26).

If the Bo case will be handled only by CCDI investigators, his punishment is unlikely to be severe. As things stand, Bo may be charged with trying to intercept the phone calls of senior party leaders as well as failing to maintain discipline among his subordinates. The ousted “warlord” might need to take political responsibility for former Chongqing police chief Wang Lijun’s attempt last February to seek political asylum in the U.S. Consulate in nearby Chengdu. Wang, a former protégé of Bo’s, had apparently fun afoul of his patron by exposing Gu’s involvement in the Heywood murder. The results of the investigation, which are expected to be announced at the 7th Plenary Session of the Central Committee scheduled to take place about one month before the 18th Party Congress, are likely to be little if anything beyond Bo’s expulsion from the party (Oriental Daily News [Hong Kong], July 30; Sina.com, July 28).

Link continues:

In a larger sense … Bogu Kailai is still a scapegoat—not for her husband but for the whole Communist Party. By focusing all the blame on her, and “bringing her to justice,” the Party, in its tradition of maintaining decorous exteriors, can extend the fiction that everything is basically fine. We, the Party, the center of China, are fine. Shortly after Wang Lijun went to the US Consulate, a joke appeared on the Chinese Internet. Wang Lijun is an ethnic Mongolian, and Bogu Kailai is said to have permanent-resident status in Singapore. The joke said: “This whole case is about a Mongolian who ran to the Americans to expose a Singaporean who killed a Brit. Nothing to do with China.”

The Economist’s Banyan column concluded this week that, in light of the Bo-Gu scandal, “the whole edifice [of Party rule] begins to look rather brittle.”

THUGS and bandits. Any day now, the world will hear the guilty verdict handed down by a Chinese court on Gu Kailai, the wife of Bo Xilai, a disgraced Chinese politician. China’s rulers hope this will draw a line under an embarrassing, lurid murder trial. They may get away with it. But the episode gives the lie to many of the myths they foster: that, despite being unelected, they are “meritocrats”, in their jobs because they are good at them; that they are, if not entirely honest, then at least corrupt within forgivable bounds; and that the way a new generation of leaders is chosen every ten years is orderly and consensual. The Bo Xilai case has lifted a curtain on a world of thuggery, banditry and vicious, personalised power struggles, reminiscent in some ways of the ten-year nightmare from which the country spent a generation trying to awaken: the Cultural Revolution.

[…] China’s leaders are highly sensitive to the notion that the Bo-Gus are not freaks, but actually typical of the ruling class. Bloomberg, a news agency, has suffered sanctions for reporting on the wealth amassed by relations of Xi Jinping, China’s next leader. Mr Xi, like Mr Bo, is a revolutionary aristocrat, the son of a civil-war hero. Some “princelings” feel themselves born to rule.

In an apparent effort to resist any such comparisons, Xi issued a barely veiled denunciation of Bo in a recent speech. From The Telegraph’s Tom Phillips:

In a recent speech, reproduced this week in the Qiushi Journal, an official policy magazine controlled by China’s Communist Party, the country’s current vice-president, Mr Xi, said not staying “in close contact with the people” would lead to “frustration and failure”.

“It should be noted that there are indeed some party members and cadres who have spent lavishly, developing a taste for extravagance and luxury, pursuing personal political performance and individual pleasure,” Mr Xi said, according to the magazine.

“Some party members and cadres are even indulging in feasting and pleasure-seeking, and have consequently fallen into the abyss of luxury and corruption. The lessons are profound,” he added.

Several of the arguments in the Perry Link and Banyan articles above bear on Eric X. Li’s debate with Minxin Pei on ‘China and Democracy’ at this summer’s Aspen Ideas Festival. Also see yesterday’s round-up on CDT for more recent news on the Bo and Gu cases and their fallout.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Anhui, Bo Xilai, CCP, Chongqing, criminal rights, gu kailai, Hefei, Jerome cohen, leadership transition, legal rights, legal system, Liu Xiaobo, Mo Shaoping, Neil Heywood, perry link, pu zhiqiang, Wang Lijun, Xi Jinping
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Guo is now expected to be a shoo-in to join the party’s decision-making Politburo during the leadership change at the 18th national party congress later this year.

President Hu has not made public his plans for retirement but, unlike in the West where former presidents and prime ministers tend to fade from the public eye, Chinese leaders seek to maintain influence to avoid possible adverse political repercussions.

Guo spoke at the end of the municipal party committee’s plenary session, according to the China Daily:

“The standing committee must at all times and under all circumstances adhere to the Party’s mass line, and regard the people’s interests as the starting point and goal of all our work,” said Guo, who became the municipality’s new Party secretary in a decision announced at the end of the 11th Beijing Municipal Party Congress.

Guo told reporters that the municipal Party committee will be persistent in the reform progress and will continue to solve problems regarding employment, housing, education, medical care, social security, environment and transportation, which were the top concerns of the people in Beijing.

He also emphasized that members of the standing committee must always be honest and remain uncorrupted.

Business Insider published Guo’s full resume from the time he joined the party in 1979 in Sichuan Province, where he spent 15 years before moving to Tibet, Anhui and then joining the Beijing municipal government as Mayor. Guo was also sued during a February visit to Taiwan by a group of local Falun Gong practitioners, who claimed he had committed crimes against humanity in connection with the torture and abuse of both Falun Gong followers and Tibetans.

See also previous CDT coverage of China’s upcoming leadership transition.

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Anhui, Beijing, CCP, CCP 5th generation, Falun Gong, Guo Jinlong, Hu Jintao, leadership transition, Sichuan, Taiwan, Tibet
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According to today’s Beijing News, Zhao was mistaken for a petitioner when he booked into a Beijing hotel on the evening of Sep 15. The report states that Zhao was taken away by people dressed in military fatigues the next morning.

Together with “real” petitioners, Zhao was forcibly removed from Bejiing and sent back to Luoyang. On the way back to his home town, Zhao was beaten and not provided with any information about why he was being held against his will ….

When he finally regained conciousness on the evening of Sep 16, he was confused and couldn’t remember clearly what had happened.

For more on China’s booming interception industry, see The Interceptor: “Persuading the Return” of Petitioners and Saving Face in Beijing: Regional Policemen Sent to Intercept Petitioners, on CDT.

In Anhui, meanwhile, a migrant worker asking to be paid was beaten to death, while his brother was hospitalised with a broken back, according to Caijing:

A family member of Wang Genxiang is crying with one part of his skull at her hands on September 19. Wang Genxiang, a migrant worker in north China’s Anhui Province, was beaten to death when asking salaries from the employee, a construction project in Wuhu city of Anhui on September 14. His brother, Wang Genhai, has also got beaten, with his left hand and left leg hurt and his back broken.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2011. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Anhui, Beijing, local government, Luoyang, migrant workers, petitioners, private security
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