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China news tagged with: Caijing (27)

• New Caijing, Same Values Promised

  

  Wang Boming, publisher of Caijing, writes an editorial in the latest issue, the first to be released without Hu Shuli at the helm. Wall Street Journal’s China Real Time blog translates:

  The 300-desk Caijing editorial department on the 19th floor of [Beijing’s] Prime Tower could have been considered the most modern news bureau in the country, but now it’s just an empty office. Over the past week, the editors and reporters who stayed on only occupied a small corner of the big office. The current team of less than 20 people had to finish the work that was formerly done by 200. They worked very hard to get this issue to you — our most-respected readers. Right now, sitting among these hardworking colleagues, It’s very clear to me, this issue won’t be satisfactory enough for you.

  Overnight, an editorial team that took 12 years to put together up and left. It was this team that achieved a leading position in the industry, and turned Caijing magazine into a top brand. Ms. Hu Shuli, the representative figure of this team, also won applause from both our readers and public, thanks to her sharp personality and her commitment to ideals. I deeply regret the separation from a partner of so many years.

  » Read more
  • November 23, 2009 10:37 PM

• Hu Shuli and the Future of Chinese Journalism

  

  Both China Media Project and Evan Osnos of the New Yorker look at the departure of Hu Shuli from Caijing and its implications for journalism in China. From Qian Gang at CMP:

  As could perhaps be expected, media outside China have leapt directly to speculation about the political factors behind Caijing’s troubles. Some have positioned this as yet another story about a media crackdown in China.

  But things are not so simple.

  Anyone who has observed the ups and downs of Chinese media over the past decade will recognize that Caijing’s troubles are very different in nature from explicit official moves in the past against such publications as Southern Weekend, Southern Metropolis Daily, and Freezing Point.

  Based on what we know thus far, the Caijing affair arose primarily out of a row over ownership and interests between the editorial team led by Hu Shuli and the magazine’s bosses at the HK-listed SEEC Media, led by Wang Boming.

  Beyond that, we are far from knowing the full story behind the upheaval at Caijing. But we can safely suppose – this is China, after all – that the story is a complicated knot of factors. It is about politics, yes. But it is also about profit, about dollars and cents. And further, it is about varying visions of how media reform in China should proceed.

  
  And from Osnos, who wrote a lengthy profile of Hu for his magazine in July:

  The young reporter, who covers mostly politics for a Chinese magazine, said that one way to gauge how Hu’s resignation is being interpreted by the broader community of Chinese journalists is to consider the fact that when she resigned, she did not announce it to a large group of employees, but only to her deputies. Yet, as word spread, scores of other employees resigned as well. She did not call for an exodus, it seems, but the fact of her departure was enough to trigger it. I can’t vouch for the details, but, if true, it’s a measure not only of Hu’s personal following, but also of how much Chinese journalists aspire to do the kind of work she inspired.

  “How is the resignation being interpreted in the West?” the reporter asked me. I said the audience that pays attention to this kind of thing is finite, but interested, and that people are concerned that it will set back progress toward professionalism and internationalization in the Chinese media. He agreed that it probably would. I’ve known him since he got out of college and watched him take on increasingly creative and challenging pieces. As we talked, he surprised me: “Who knows? Maybe in five years we’ll look back on this and it will have been for the better,” he said of Hu’s departure. “She could end up establishing a new magazine with the same standards and energy” and none of the baggage from so many years of tension with the executives who once had to run interference for her with the government. I told him that I had not expected him to see reason for optimism. He shrugged. “What choice do I have?”

  » Read more
  • November 13, 2009 12:48 PM

• Hu Shuli’s Successor at Caijing Confirmed; Views Diverge on Tumult

  

  The Economic Observer is reporting that a few of its own may be taking over the helm of Caijing, following Hu Shuli’s departure:

  Yesterday, He Li, the former editor in chief of China Business Weekly and one of the founding editors of The Economic Observer, confirmed that he had quit his current job but refused to provide further details to reporters from Sina Finance.

  However, despite his reticence, Sina is reporting that he will indeed take up the position of editor in chief at Caijing.

  The 47 year-old He once worked alongside Hu Shuli at China Business Times, the first privately-invested newspaper to be published in the People’s Republic of China. He worked there from 1989 to 2000, while Hu headed up the paper’s international department from 1992 to 1998.

  He left the paper to help establish The Economic Observer in 2001, we he served as editor in chief and then president from 2001 to 2005.

  Besides He, Zhao Li, another founding member of The Economic Observer, is also reported to have been appointed to Caijing’s new editorial board.

  See also the Committee to Protect Journalists’ summary of recent events at Caijing.

  Update: The Wall Street Journal has more details about Hu’s departure from Caijing which they gleaned from listening to the tapes of a recent staff meeting:

  Now, details about the exodus are emerging from staff meetings, helping to explain the falling out between Ms. Hu and Wang Boming, the head of SEEC, the company that owns Caijing. Ms. Hu and Mr. Wang had founded the magazine together in 1998. The upheaval is being closely watched here and abroad, given the magazine’s ability to generate income and its willingness to push the limits of Chinese censors by publishing hard-hitting commentaries and investigative articles.

  The differing accounts of the situation were reflected during staff meetings Tuesday and Wednesday, according to people present. Mr. Wang and other SEEC managers talked to the employees Tuesday, with Mr. Wang saying that the issue wasn’t philosophical differences with Ms. Hu.

  [...] Mr. Wang was followed by Zhang Zhifang, a member of SEEC’s board… Mr. Zhang also said Ms. Hu’s reporters violated “reporting discipline” in covering ethnic riots in China’s western territory of Xinjiang in July.

  Ms. Hu sent a team of reporters to Xinjiang but little of their work was published in print or on the Caijing Web site. Caijing’s coverage of the riots led to government criticism of SEEC.

  On Wednesday, Caijing’s managing editor, Wang Shuo, who this week submitted his resignation, gave a rebuttal to the staff. According to staffers present, he said that after the Xinjiang riots, Caijing was handed an ultimatum by SEEC, essentially requiring the magazine to go to the parent company to vet any cover story, any controversial story or any story not having to do with finance and economics.

  » Read more
  • November 11, 2009 2:50 PM

• Hu Shuli, who Led Independent Journalism in China Resigns

  

  Peter Ford reports in the Christian Science Monitor:

  Independent journalism in China, never a robust phenomenon, has taken a body blow with the resignation from the country’s top investigative business magazine of its pioneering editor.

  Hu Shuli, editor and founder of the biweekly Caijing, stepped down Monday after a prolonged tussle with the magazine’s owners over financial and political differences.

  “The course of advancing freedom of expression is not very straight … and there is not a very strong force behind it,” adds Gong Wenxiang, a journalism professor at Peking University. “I don’t think the environment for people like her [Ms. Hu] is very positive.”

  “Caijing is one of a kind,” says Xiao Qiang, head of the China Internet Project at the University of California at Berkeley. “The fact Hu has to leave symbolizes the failure of that kind of experiment. The space she created has been closed down, and I don’t think anything like Caijing will come up soon.”

  » Read more
  • November 11, 2009 4:45 AM

• Editor Departs China Magazine After High-Profile Tussle (Updated)

  

  Jonathan Ansfield reports for the New York Times on Hu Shuli’s plans following her departure from Caijing, following the recent upheaval at the well-respected financial magazine:

  In a well-publicized exodus earlier this autumn, nearly 70 business employees resigned. Ms. Hu held on until Monday.

  She has now accepted a new post as the dean of the journalism school at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, a job she had been offered before it became clear that she would leave Caijing.

  At the same time, she, along with a large contingent of editors and executives departing Caijing, was working to secure new licenses and open a new venture, said the employees, who had knowledge of the plans but were not authorized to speak publicly about them.

  Caijing’s parent company, the State Exchange Executive Council, or S.E.E.C., had already recruited a new team of editors from another progressive publication, The Economic Observer in Beijing, they said.

  Read also a report from the Guardian and Time Magazine.

  Update: Danwei translates a post from blogger He Caitou about Hu’s departure:

  Hu Shuli’s resignation totally kills off the possibility of the style of news that would kill her off. The media has its own life force and free will, and the power that once protected and supported it may in the end turn into an obstructive force. And this test of strengths is no purely capital operation or business transformation; what lies behind is something far more complicated that the norms of an industry can tolerate. A model in which media professionals provide knowledge services in return for limited, conditional cooperation cannot be sustained for very long. Within this model, the passage of time and the accumulation of profit will cause both sides to feel that they’ve put in an unfair share, and that the opposite side has contributed nothing substantial. There will always come a day to fight over “who has the final say,” but the victor was decided upon on the day the partnership was set up. Good business, a professional team, and high-quality news content may make it seem like this was a media outlet operating under a free market system. It looked like it could really continue to develop and become an independent media entity that could possibly go public. At issue: Who started this game? Who decided upon the rules?

  See also Xinhua’s minimalist announcement of Hu’s resignation.

  » Read more
  • November 9, 2009 12:14 PM

• Caijing Meets Law of Resistance (Updated)

  

  Forbes looks into the possible reasons for the shakeup at Caijing Magazine:

  Has the propaganda ministry applied pressure to the magazine’s owners? Have long-running internal financial squabbles come to a head? Is the magazine’s indomitable editor, Hu Shuli, maneuvering to ensure she can continue pushing the boundaries of press freedom, either at Caijing or at a new publication?

  Any one of these three scenarios is plausible, and they are not mutually exclusive. As a July New Yorker profile of Hu points out, Caijing has accomplished a rare feat in China by becoming both influential and highly profitable while also reporting aggressively on stories that extend beyond business to politics and social issues, from SARS to the shoddy construction of schools that collapsed in the Sichuan earthquake. Though they have been slapped on the wrist many times, Hu and Caijing’s investors have managed to avoid the harshest of reprisals through a combination of keen political instincts and by having the right friends in high places.

  But Caijing may now be testing the Chinese media’s equivalent of Ohm’s law: The more readers, money and fame a publication accrues through muckraking, the greater official resistance becomes.

  See also articles from Reuters and the AP.

  Update: Read Evan Osnos’ take on the current situation at Caijing:

  I profiled Hu Shuli, the founding editor, in the magazine in July, and she struck me as determined to significantly expand the impact of her news organization. Caijing, which began as a magazine, had expanded into a conference promoter and an online news provider, and it is developing a wire service called Cai to compete with the likes of Bloomberg and Dow Jones. But that has also put her even farther out of step with China’s media mores. Caijing is a restless competitor in a sphere that operates on the principle that the media knows its own boundaries and rarely crosses them. As Caijing has grown, it has become both expensive and profitable, making it harder for everyone involved to take the risks that it could when it was just a fledgling print magazine a decade ago. There has been growing pressure from advertisers to print rosier business news, which Hu rejects, and, of course, there is the usual pressure to avoid controversial subjects. For years, she has stepped as close to those as she can without getting the place shut down. Rumors have circulated recently that senior government media officials are unhappy with Caijing’s aggressive reporting.

  Also, China Daily has a surprisingly candid report on the resignations:

  The mass resignations followed escalating pressure in recent months by the SEEC to rid the outspoken magazine of its widely reputable editorial independence, two inside sources told China Daily on the condition of anonymity.

  “The key is, the SEEC wants to intervene and censor all of our financial stories, particularly cover stories and investigative reports. That’s unbearable (for us),” one source said.

  “None of the real stories we used to run would have been OK (with the SEEC) if they stepped in,” the source said.

  Hu Shuli, Caijing’s founder and editor, is also likely to leave the publication, according to both sources, who said most editorial staff will “fight on” with her and leave if she does.

  » Read more
  • October 13, 2009 10:22 AM

• Chinese Magazine in Turmoil After Resignations

  

  The New York Times reports on the upheaval at the ground-breaking financial magazine Caijing:

  Caijing, the highly respected Chinese business magazine, has been thrown into turmoil after 11 high-ranking business executives resigned because of a dispute over its shareholding structure and its future development, according to people who work at the magazine.

  Caijing’s general manager, its top advertising executive and the head of its conference unit all submitted resignations over the past few weeks, along with nearly 70 other business-side workers, according to several current and former magazine staff members, all of whom requested anonymity because they feared losing their jobs.

  Caijing’s editor, Hu Shuli, and several top executives have been trying to gain greater control over the publication’s finances in order to expand its operations and develop new media properties, including a news service. Caijing’s top executives have also been trying to bring new investors into the magazine, hoping to expand its shareholding structure, these people say.

  See also reports from:
  - Wall Street Journal
  - China-based Alibaba.com
  - Financial Times
  - The Australian

  » Read more
  • October 12, 2009 2:34 PM

• Cartoon: “Take it Off. Now It’s Your Turn!” (Updated)

  

  

  The above cartoon, from Southern Metropolis News, has become an online phenomenon in China: More than 4560 websites have posted it. On Kaidi.net, one of China’s most popular online communities, this cartoon was visited more than 780,000 times in the last nine days and has received over one thousand pages of reader comments.

  The related news event took place during the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, when one unnamed representative, a provincial-level official (“The Representative”), answered Caijing Online’s reporter’s question: “How do you see the proposal of publicizing government officials’ financial status?” The representative’s answer was, “Why don’t we publicize financial records of ordinary people?”

  After Caijing.com.cn publicized this news on March 10, without mentioning the official’s name, netizens started to heatedly “publicize my financial status.” And the above cartoon became extremely popular in this context.

  Here is the original dialogue between the Caijing reporter Wang Heyan (王和岩) and the representative translated by CDT:

  Reporter: “Chairman So-and-So, How do you see the proposal of publicizing government officials’ financial status?”

  The Representative answered with a smile: “I am sorry. I did not look into this question.”

  Reporter: “Aletai in Xinjiang, and Cixi in Zhejiang are all experimenting with this… Would your province be willing to experiment as well?”

  The Representative: “I don’t know.”

  Reporter: “Have representatives discussed this question?”

  The Representative, walking while answering: “No. In our Chinese Communist Party discussion group, no one discussed this.”

  Reporter, not wanting to give up: “Would you raise such a proposal or suggestion?”

  The Representative turned around and looked at the reporter: “No. If this needs to be publicized, why don’t we publicize financial records of ordinary people? Why are the profits of corporate bosses not publicized to their workers?”

  “Why don’t we publicize financial records of ordinary people?” The reporter almost could not believe his own ears and asked immediately, “Corporate bosses? Do you mean managers from state-owned enterprises?”

  The Representative answered: “No. I mean bosses of private enterprises.”

  » Read more
  • April 14, 2009 2:17 PM

• Caijing: SAFE Spokesman Falls in Investment Probe

  

  From Caijing.com.cn:

  No names were mentioned when the administrator of China’s State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE), Hu Xiaolian, used an internal meeting in late March to call for further regulation of administrative power and improving supervision methods to combat corruption.

  But the implication was obvious. Only one week earlier, authorities had launched a bribery investigation targeting Zou Lin, SAFE’s spokesman and chief of the General Affairs Department.

  The charges against Zou, who was sacked as well, are linked to a series of bribery cases revolving around Guo Jingyi, a former Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) official detained by the Communist Party’s disciplinary agency last August for alleged bribery tied to a foreign investment project.

  » Read more
  • April 12, 2009 3:25 PM

• Li, Caijing Said to Be Planning News Venture in China

  

  Richard Li, son of Li Ka-shing, plans to launch on online financial news service with Caijing Magazine. From Bloomberg:

  The venture, which will focus its coverage on China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, may start operations by the end of the year, according to the people, who declined to be named because the plan is confidential. Journalists are being recruited for the mainly English service, two of the people said.

  Li, the 42-year-old son of Hong Kong’s richest man, is raising investments in business media after Shanghai stocks rallied the most of any major market this year. Caijing, China’s top finance publication, may gain international readers through the partnership with Li, who controls the Hong Kong Economic Journal newspaper and the Now pay-television service.

  [...] Plans for the Internet news venture are at a preliminary stage and details of the business model and distribution methods haven’t been completed, said three of the people.

  » Read more
  • February 27, 2009 12:55 PM

• Andy Xie: Back to Earth

  

  Andy Xie, board member of Rosetta Stone Advisors Limited, wirtes in the Caijing Magazine:

  With the Olympics over, it is time for China to face some unprecedented challenges including lower foreign demand, rising costs at home, and liquidity.

  No other country has spent even close to the money China has on the Olympics. But with the largest domestic gold haul in the nation’s history, Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt, all that money seems worth it.  That China could spend that kind of money on the Games is due to its economic successes in the past three decades. Of course, Deng Xiaoping’s ‘Reform and Opening Up’ policy led the country down the path of success. That policy should have received the shiniest gold medal at the games.

  The Olympic Party is over. We must come back to real world again, which can be unpleasant. China’s economy is facing unprecedented challenges, though most have nothing to do with the Olympics. First, for the first time in three decades, the economies of Europe, Japan, and the U.S. may be contracting simultaneously. It is putting severe downward pressure on China’s exports. Second, China’s own assets bubbles, fueled by hot money (partly due to optimism related to the Olympics), have burst. Many businesses and local governments have over-expanded on bubble-related revenues or borrowings. They are facing a liquidity crunch as asset prices decline. Third and more fundamentally, rising production costs are casting doubts on China’s low-cost expansion strategy.

  » Read more
  • September 2, 2008 8:48 AM

• Auditor Finds Weak Spots in Quake Relief

  

  Ouyang Hongliang reports in the Caijing magazine:

  A state audit has uncovered no evidence of widespread fraud tied to a massive relief effort for the millions of survivors of southwest China’s May 12 earthquake.

  But the National Audit Office report June 24 found that only 19 percent of the cash donations funneled through central and local government agencies had reached quake regions, and said some hard-hit areas were still waiting for assistance a full month after the disaster.

  The chief auditor concluded that, based on the obvious weakness in quake-assistance management, China needs a standard system for managing donations during disaster relief operations.

  The audit found that 81 percent, or 24 billion yuan, of the donated money collected by governments from domestic and international contributors had failed to reach relevant offices handling relief efforts, including those in quake-hit areas. Governments altogether received some 45 billion yuan in cash and goods from donors.

  » Read more
  • June 27, 2008 5:31 AM

• Caijing And Xinhua: A Hasty Comparison of Party and Commercial Earthquake Coverage

  

  From China Media Project:

  In a scurry to live up to CMP’s promise to provide sideline analysis of Chinese media coverage of the Sichuan quake, we offer the following selections from Caijing magazine, one of China’s leading business and current affairs publications (now strongly online), and Xinhuanet, the online site of the official Xinhua News Agency.

  Impressionistic and totally unscientific, these selections prove a point, admittedly, that hardly needs proving – that there are substantial differences in reporting style and focus between China’s commercial media and official party outfits like Xinhua and CCTV. While noting obvious differences, we should also recognize that not all reports from Xinhua, CCTV, China National Radio, etcetera, have focused narrowly on political figures and their movements and emotions.

  » Read more
  • May 16, 2008 10:46 AM

• Galacticos Of Newsmen Reunite At A Web site

  

  
  In China’s widening portal wars, a dark horse to watch right now is Hexun ÔºàÂíåËÆØÔºâ. The site acquired a license to carry news at the end of last year, and since then has brought on-board four fallen soldiers who once figured in the rise (and demise) of Southern Metropolis Daily ÔºàÂçóÊñπÈÉΩÂ∏ÇÊä•Ôºâ and The Beijing News (Êñ∞‰∫¨Êä•). They’ve been tasked with morphing the decade-old financial information site, known as Homeway in English, into more of a full-service news portal geared toward Financial Street types. The “portal of the middle class” (‰∏≠‰∫ßÈò∂Á∫ßÈó®Êà∑), Hexun bills itself. The idea, said one of the new editors in a recent chat, is to run a brainier portal with a serious market focus. “This is a good environment for us right now.”

  » Read more
  • April 27, 2007 10:17 PM

• Trade Dispute Marks New US View of China – Caijing

  

  Caijing Magazine’s cover story is on U.S.-China trade. See here for links to all articles. From “Tough Love: Building a Durable Sino-U.S. Trade Relationship”:

  The recent flurry of activity on the U.S.-China trade front has caused consternation on both sides of the Pacific. Has the Bush administration changed course? Are we entering a new phase in the trade relationship? Is a trade war imminent? No, yes, and not at all. [Full text]

  » Read more
  • April 19, 2007 9:02 AM

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