Nearly a quarter century has passed since you were forced into hiding by the Ayatollah’s fatwa. In the ensuing years, how would you assess the worldwide climate for censorship? Have things generally gotten better, or worse?

I’d say that, in general, they’ve gotten worse. But one of the things our report highlights is that people have more tools to resist censorship using new media. For instance, in China,  while there’s increased repression in the form of arbitrary arrests, artists held incommunicado and put under house arrest, and increasing hostility towards literature and free expression, there is at the same time a growing willingness of Chinese citizens to find ways to express themselves. In spite of all the repression, there’s been a  growth of independent, non-state publishers to print things that wouldn’t be approved by state houses, and people have shown the willingness to post things online even if they’re not to the liking of the state.

Is this a battle that China’s citizens will win?

I don’t want to be Pollyannish — it’s entirely possible that they’ll lose. China has been pretty effective over the years in silencing dissident voices — just consider the case of Liu Xiaobao and his wife, who resorted to shouting “not free” in court to remind people of her situation. The Chinese are good at repression and can be pretty ruthless about it.

But I feel that, in the end, China does want to have a more significant role in international affairs, it does want to be seen as a big player in the world, it wants to have authority, it wants to have respect, it wants to be treated as one of the great voices in the world today. They’re beginning to be aware that their behavior is damaging their reputation, though, and I think if you put sufficient pressure on authoritarian regimes they often see that it is in their own self-interest to ease up on repression.

This is not the first time Rushdie has weighed in on China: he has publicly advocated on behalf of political prisoner Liu Xiaobo, has co-authored a letter to Hu Jintao and foreign minister Yang Jiechi protesting travel restrictions on dissident artist Ai Weiwei, has opined that “art will win over tyrants” in reference to China, and has also labeled Mo Yan a “patsy” after the Chinese novelist took the Nobel prize in literature. Also see Rushdie’s recollection of the day in 1989 when he became aware of the Ayatollah’s call to end his life, via The New Yorker.

The Atlantic has also published an excerpt from author Murong Xuecun’s contribution to the PEN report, on “China’s ‘Crappy Freedom’”:

In the past decade or so, the condition of freedom of speech in China has improved remarkably. But if any credit is due the government, it’s due to its powerlessness.

[…] On April 22, 2011, a Chongqing netizen named Fang Hong passed a joke online: When Bo Xilai asked Wang Lijun to eat his shit, Wang Lijun asked the procurator to eat it, who then asked Li Zhuang to eat it. Li Zhuang said: whoever shit it should eat it.

Two days later, Fang Hong was arrested by the Chongqing police and was sentenced to one year of re-education through labor.

Bo Xilai has left Chongqing […]. But the “pile of shit” case has universal significance and symbolism. It’s like the moral of a typical Chinese fable: You have the freedom to take a shit, and you have the freedom to eat it. But you don’t have the freedom to casually comment on it.

Global Times reported last month that Fang, who was cleared of wrongdoing and released in April last year, recently lost a court bid for higher compensation than the nearly 57,000 yuan (about $9,000) he was initially offered. Other high-profile re-education through labor inmates have recently been denied compensation altogether, including Ren Jianyu, also in Chongqing, and “petitioning mother” Tang Hui.

Samuel Wade contributed to this post.

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Post tags: anti-censorship, Bo Xilai, censorship, Chongqing, freedom of expression, Murong Xuecun, novelists, re-education through labor, writers
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To get a better sense of [Xi Jinping] and the challenges he is inheriting, I began compiling a list of stories I wanted to follow – economic, environmental and political – in far-flung parts of the country, including Liangjiahe.

One afternoon, I plotted them on a map and an unexpected pattern emerged: You could draw an extended arc through those dots and trace a course not too different from that of the fabled Long March that Mao Zedong and his Red Armies had taken more than seven decades earlier.

[…] By the time we arrived at the gate of Mr. Xi’s former cave-house, we had seen progress everywhere our trains had stopped: apartment buildings rising from the ground, dirt roads being paved, high-speed railway lines coming into service, mobile phone networks spreading to the remotest corners of the country.

But we also heard again and again how little China has changed when it comes to the rule of law. As in Mao’s time, the Communist Party can still demolish your home, declare that you are a “subversive” element, and send you to prison or a labour camp without any proof or chance to defend yourself.

[…] My trip convinced me that China is going to change dramatically over the coming decade. It is up to the Communist Party – especially Mr. Xi – to decide whether it wants to lead that change or dig in for an existential crisis.

For more from the voyage, see the China Diaries series at The Globe and Mail and photojournalist John Lehmann’s images from the trip.

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Post tags: Chongqing, Cultural Revolution, high-speed rail, Lanzhou, long march, Mao Zedong, nailhouse, trains, Wukan, Xi Jinping
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The source said Wang’s food and accommodation were better than expected. “Wang lives in a single-room which has everything one could expect to find, including a television to watch and newspapers and magazines to read,” the source said.

However, he has no computer and no access to the internet.

He is being held in Qincheng Prison, which is administered by the Ministry of Public Security and was built to hold officials above vice-ministerial level.

[…] The source said some supporters from Chongqing or Wang’s hometown in Liaoning province had taken dishes of dumplings to the prison and dedicated them to Wang on the eve of Lunar New Year last month. “It was a heartfelt gesture even though he [Wang] failed to receive the gifts,” the source said.

Confiscated dumplings aside, Wang’s reported circumstances are rather softer than those he is said to have presided over as police chief. The municipality’s new administration has promised to “banish” his and Bo’s influence. Supporters of Bo, who is still awaiting trial, gathered in Chongqing on Thursday to protest the exorcism. From Patrick Boehler at South China Morning Post:

“The people of Chongqing do not welcome an organised crime lawyer,” one banner read, according to photos that spread on Sina Weibo and forums. “Fight organised crime, eliminate the evil.” Many of the comments on Weibo reflected some nostalgia for Bo’s rule, which ended last year and became China’s most spectacular political scandal in decades. “I only trust Bo Xilai,” one person commented on the photos. “Justice will prevail.”

The red banners they were holding were directed against lawyer Li Zhuang, who is leading appeals against what he says were politically motivated convictions during Bo’s tenure. He himself has been sentenced to two and half years in prison for fabricating evidence in 2010. The small protest shows that Bo, son of revolutionary hero Bo Yibo, still has at least some support in his former Central Chinese power base.

Li himself has memorably described Bo and Wang’s rule as “like a crazy mouse on a rollercoaster going to a slippery slide“.

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Post tags: Bo Xilai, Chongqing, Li Zhuang, prisoners, strike black, Wang Lijun
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During the course of that broader probe, the Justice Department approached News Corp.’s outside counsel in early 2012 and said it had received information from a person it described as a whistleblower who claimed one or more Journal employees had provided gifts to Chinese government officials in exchange for information, according to people familiar with the case.

[…] According to U.S. and corporate officials, News Corp. has told the Justice Department that some company officials suspect the informant was an agent of the Chinese government, seeking to disrupt and possibly retaliate against the Journal for its reporting on China’s leadership. The company officials came to that view after finding no evidence of the alleged bribery and because of the timing and nature of the accusations, company officials say. It isn’t clear what, if any, evidence the company officials have for that claim, which reporters for this article couldn’t independently verify.

[…] The Chinese bribery allegations against the Journal arose around the time that U.S. and Dow Jones officials believed Chinese hackers were targeting Dow Jones’s computer systems, according to people familiar with the matter. That is one reason company officials say they suspected the informant’s actions were part of a broader attack on the paper.

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Post tags: bribery, Chongqing, corruption, foreign media, hackers, news media, newspapers, United Kingdom, United States
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According to news portal China.com.cn Huang yesterday urged judges to watch these types of foreign films as they would improve their ability to make decisions on important legal cases. But, he added, they should leave their viewing until Sundays – their day off.

[…] Watching action-hero films, Huang said, would improve judges’ abilities to balance emotion with rational thinking when making decisions.

Huang also encouraged judges to study Western courtroom dramas, particularly films about American jury trials in which defendants and plaintiffs try to influence the jury’s final decision.

Sadly, Huang did not offer specific recommendations, but the recent unblocking of film site IMDb may assist English-literate judges in their research.

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Post tags: Bo Xilai, Chongqing, films, hollywood, Huang Qifan, judges, movies
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In November 2011, just days after Mr Heywood’s body was discovered inside a Chongqing hotel room, Mr Wang allegedly disguised himself as an “old man” and “snuck” into the British Consulate-General in the city of Guangzhou.

[...] A spokesperson for the British Embassy in Beijing said: “We don’t have any record of any such meeting. We have no record of Wang Lijun visiting the consulate at that time.”

[...] Before fleeing to the US consulate in Chengdu on February 6 2012, Mr Wang “contacted officials at the consulates of the United Kingdom and Germany in Chongqing”.

British officials have confirmed that Mr Wang did set up a meeting at the UK consulate in Chongqing but say he failed to show up.

See more on Wang Lijun and Bo Xilai via CDT.

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Post tags: asylum, Bo Xilai, Britain, Chengdu, Chongqing, defection, Guangzhou, United Kingdom, Wang Lijun
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With his five cellphones constantly ringing, it is not easy these days to get the undivided attention of Zhu Ruifeng, a self-styled citizen journalist whose freelance campaign against graft has earned him pop-star acclaim and sent a chill through Chinese officialdom.

[…] A former migrant worker with a high school education, Mr. Zhu has become an overnight celebrity in China in the two months since he posted online secretly recorded video of an 18-year-old woman having sex with a memorably unattractive 57-year-old official from the southwestern municipality of Chongqing. The official lost his job. Mr. Zhu gained a million or so new microblog followers.

The takedown was just the opening act, Mr. Zhu says. He promises to release six more sex videos that he predicts will make a number of other men run for cover. “I’m fighting a war,” he said with characteristic bombast, his voice a near-shriek. “Even if they beat me to death, I won’t give up my sources or the videos.”

[…] Mr. Zhu, who began his Web site in 2006, largely relies on whistle-blowers to funnel damning evidence to him. Through the years, he said, he has exposed 100 officials, bringing down more than a third of them. He has been threatened and beaten; more than once, he says, he has been offered huge sums of money to delete an incriminating post from his site, which is called People’s Supervision.

Zhu’s “characteristic bombast” may seem excessive, but is at least in part a matter of self-defense: by courting attention from traditional and social media, he hopes to deter attempts to silence him. That he credits Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption speeches, the Chinese Constitution and his own love of country with inspiring his activities may confer some measure of additional protection.

Nevertheless, his crusade has cost him. He has chosen to end his marriage, he says, rather than see his wife, a P.L.A. officer, suffer retaliation from his adversaries. “To be honest,” he told The Times’ Jonah Kessel, “I would like to tend to the big family in sacrifice of the small family.”

Kessel has also posted outtakes from their conversation on Vimeo, including an extended account of a recent police visit to Zhu’s Beijing home. Chongqing authorities appear determined to contain the sex tape scandal by acquiring Zhu’s remaining videos, but as in the recent New York Times hacking attacks, identifying sources seems to be their primary goal. From Tom Lasseter at McClatchy:

Powerful interests were searching for his sources, he explained over lunch last Friday [January 25th]. Police detained one contact in the southwestern city of Chongqing, where the scandal had erupted, Zhu said. They traced a second source to Henan province, hundreds of miles away, and had questioned that person at least twice.

Two days after that conversation, the police showed up at Zhu’s home in Beijing. They banged on his door Sunday night and demanded that he come with them. He refused but reported to a police station Monday morning, where he was held for more than seven hours. Police officers from Chongqing pressed him to hand over five sex recordings he hasn’t made public and to tell them the identities of his informants. They threatened that “if you don’t present evidence, you will be in violation of national law,” according to Zhu’s account.

The pressure on Zhu suggests that despite Communist Party rhetoric about an all out campaign against corruption, limits remain. The party’s leader, Xi Jinping, said shortly after being installed in November that failing to crack down on corruption would risk the downfall of the state. But while Beijing has dismissed some wayward officials and canceled extravagant banquets that stoked resentment among average Chinese, it so far seems set on keeping a tight grip to keep the process from spinning out of control.

Undaunted, Zhu has offered a cash reward to anyone who can verify the identity of a state-owned enterprise president allegedly caught on one of the videos. Meanwhile, the woman in the videos was formally charged with extortion last week, though she too has been hailed—perhaps less plausibly than in Zhu’s case—as an anti-corruption crusader. From Keith Zhai at the South China Morning Post:

“Zhao was officially arrested on December 31 for extortion,” Zhang said yesterday, adding that she had been “brainwashed” by a company she left in 2009 to secretly record herself having sex with officials to give the firm leverage. “After all, she was young and a victim herself.”

[…] Zhao has drawn support on social media, with internet users hailing her as a heroine for exposing corrupt officials.

Many have compared Zhao’s case with that of Deng Yujiao , a hotel waitress who in 2009 stabbed to death a local party official in Hubei and wounded another after they tried to force themselves on her.

Deng was charged with assault, rather than murder, but walked free on grounds of diminished responsibility after having received widespread support from the online community.

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Post tags: anti-corruption, Beijing, bloggers, Chongqing, citizen journalism, citizen journalist, constitution, corrupt officials, Deng Yujiao, extortion, journalistic ethics, lei zhengfu, migrant workers, muckraking, PLA, sex scandals, Xi Jinping, Zhu Ruifeng
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(Da Su Lao Zhang @大俗老张)
There isn’t much love this week for Shen Jilan, the National People’s Congress’s longest-serving delegate. Shen, who claims the key to her success is voting “yes” on every measure, was sharply criticized this week on the official Weibo account of the Shanxi Committee of the Communist Youth League of China. The post was deleted and an apology reiterated six times, but netizens hadn’t lost the scent. In Da Su Lao Zhang’s cartoon, Shen is as unpleasant as she is predictable. “Loyalty: If she visits once a month, she’s Auntie Flow; if she visits once a year, she’s Auntie Shen!”

(Lao Xiao @老肖漫画_rmd)“From Nanjing to Beijing, buying can’t beat selling. It’s like this in the political market, too.” An official’s cap, marked with a UPC code, is available for purchase. The market for government positions, literally the “buying and selling” of posts (买官卖官), is an ongoing problem.

(Sinking Stone @漫画沉石)Last week, Xi Jinping vowed that the Party “must uphold the fighting of tigers and flies at the same time,” that corruption should be investigated among officials both high and low. This tiger, who has the mark of the “king” (王) on his forehead, thinks he can make off with a fortune. Distracted by the fly swatter, he doesn’t see what’s about to hit him. In a corruption crackdown, lower-level officials may find themselves out of work; but the big players, like Bo Xilai, have far more to lose.

“Striking the Tigers with the Flies” (Artist: Thomas Y.C. Wong @thomasycwong)Another take on Xi’s anti-corruption campaign: he may catch the fly, but is it worth it to face the tiger’s wrath? Top-level officials certainly don’t like when the foreign press exposes their graft. Will the Party really scrutinize its core?

(Dashix @大尸凶的漫画) If Xi is serious about fighting corruption, he has a long way to go. Zhao Hongxia, the woman who taped her sex session with Lei Zhengfu to blackmail him, slept with five other Chongqing officials, identifying herself with her real name and two other fake identities. (The stopwatch indicates Lei’s “stamina” in the video.) Read more about how she hit her target from the International Business Times [zh].

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Post tags: Chongqing, Drawing the News, lei zhengfu, official corruption, political cartoons, political humor, sex scandals, Shen Jilan, Xi Jinping, Zhao Hongxia
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Central Propaganda Department: The Chongqing municipal Party committee is conducting a thorough investigation of several cases in which officials breached discipline, and will soon issue a statement on the status of this investigation. If covering this story, all media are asked to report according to information issued by authoritative departments of the Chongqing government. Do not sensationalize or exaggerate the situation, and certainly do not produce one-sided reports based on individual sources. (January 31, 2013)

中宣部：重庆市委正对多名官员违纪问题进行深入调查，将及时发布调查处理情况，各媒体如作报道，请按重庆权威部门发布的信息刊播，不炒作渲染，不自行采访报道评论，更不得依据个别发布的信息片面报道。

Chinese journalists and bloggers often refer to these instructions as “Directives from the Ministry of Truth.” CDT has collected the selections we translate here from a variety of sources and has checked them against official Chinese media reports to confirm their implementation.

Since directives are sometimes communicated orally to journalists and editors, who then leak them online, the wording published here may not be exact. The original publication date 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.

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Post tags: censorship, Chongqing, Directives from the Ministry of Truth, Ministry of Truth, official corruption, propaganda
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“I also turned down their demand for the original version of those already exposed clips, for the safety of the person from Chongqing’s police bureau who fed me the information,” said Zhu, adding that he is not ready to publish the remaining evidence, as time is needed to authenticate them.

The negotiations came after Zhu claimed some local officials involved in the scandal haven’t yet been netted and accused local police of a coverup and destroying evidence.

[…] Si Weijiang, a Shanghai-based lawyer, told the Global Times there is no crime of withholding evidence, and that the process to compel Zhu to be a witness is not clear. The police have no right to forcibly request the evidence, he said.

The videos were recorded as part of an extortion racket targeting a number of Chongqing officials, 11 of whom have now been dismissed as a result. Former Chongqing Party chief Bo Xilai and his police chief Wang Lijun reportedly covered up an earlier investigation into the case. While Zhu says that his source is associated with the Chongqing police, the police now claim that he may have obtained the videos from a member of the gang itself.

The Washington Post’s Wang Juan highlighted Zhu’s use of social media for protection:

Zhu’s lawyer, Li, said he believed the policemen originally intended to detain Zhu when they tried to get into his house Sunday night but were forced to change their plan once Zhu’s online posts for help and calls to Chinese and foreign media drew widespread attention.

[…] Before leaving his home for the police station on Monday, Zhu posted a picture online of a signed legal document. The document named several people he was officially authorizing as his lawyers and representatives and said that any confession or change of lawyers after he is imprisoned would likely be made under duress. Mindful of several recent high-profile cases in which detainees have been cut off entirely from the outside world and with their lawyers switched out for government-friendly ones, Zhu said in the document that the lawyers he named are the only ones he wants, “even if I later write a letter in blood asking for a change of lawyers.”

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Post tags: Beijing, Bo Xilai, Chongqing, Chongqing corruption, drinking tea, extortion, Global Times, journalistic ethics, lawyers, lei zhengfu, police, Si Weijiang, sina weibo, social media, Wang Lijun, Zhu Ruifeng
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Chongqing, a vibrant Yangtze River metropolis, has found itself at the centre of the income equality debate in recent years. Until his sudden fall last year, Bo Xilai, the city’s former boss and the one-time rising star of the Communist Party, called for a return to Mao Zedong-era socialist values and better distribution of the country’s growing wealth.

However, he was ousted following revelations of his wife’s involvement in the murder of a British businessman. Mr. Bo himself is expected to soon face trial on charges of corruption and abuse of power.

But Mr. Bo is remembered well by porters like Ms. Yang, who say life for Chongqing’s poor was better under his rule.

Yang Xingcheng, one of Chongqing’s legendary “bang-bang” porters who carry goods up and down the city’s hills on a bamboo pole slung over their shoulders, didn’t want to talk politics, but also said business today is “not as good as last year or a few years ago.”

See also photos from The Globe and Mail’s John Lehmann, who also joined MacKinnon on a journey to retrace the path of Mao Zedong’s Long March and explore the challenges facing today’s China. China made its Gini coefficient – which measures income inequality – public last week for the first time since 2000.

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Post tags: Bo Xilai, Chongqing, gini coefficient, income gap, wealth gap
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We’re hearing a lot about urbanization from China’s new leaders. What’s new about their approach?

The current crop of leaders, led by the incoming premier Li Keqiang, are much more enthusiastically pro-urban than their predecessors. They believe that developing large, prosperous cities will foster greater domestic demand, especially household consumption. Li has promised to speed up urbanization and reform China’s household registration system, which legally ties migrant workers to their rural home and bars them from receiving most urban benefits. To unleash the full economic potential of urbanization, he argues, China must turn rural migrants into genuine urban citizens.

You’ve visited a lot of Chinese cities. Any hidden gems?

Most Chinese cities are ugly, grey, utilitarian places which aim to shock and awe rather than inspire hearts and minds. But as long as there’s cold beer on offer, I quite enjoy horrible places, which was helpful for writing the book. I like all the big Yangtze River cities—Nanjing, Wuhan and, above all, Chongqing. And I am a fan of the relaxed vibe found in Yunnan’s cities. Kunming, Yunnan’s capital, is probably the nicest big city in China.

Miller also appeared on this week’s Sinica podcast with Jeremy Goldkorn and Kaiser Kuo. Their conversation includes an accessible introduction to the hukou system, the primarily financial obstacles to its reform, and the problems encountered by reform efforts to date. They also examine the case of Chongqing, where reforms such as the dipiao land credit system seem likely to escape being dragged down with fallen Party chief Bo Xilai, as well as land seizures, ghost cities, and the future of the countryside.

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Post tags: Chongqing, ghost town, hukou, Kunming, land rights, land seizures, Li Keqiang, Nanjing, rural migration, sustainable development, urbanization, wuhan, Yangtze River, Yunnan
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The following censorship instructions, issued to the media by central government authorities, have been leaked and distributed online.

Central Propaganda Department: All media are to cease reporting and commenting on the confiscation of the Guo Lanying Art School property. (December 27, 2012)

中宣部：对郭兰英艺术学校房产被查封及相关问题，各媒体不再报道评论。

Guo is a soprano known best for her rendition of patriotic songs, such as “My Motherland” (我的祖国). It seems that a falling-out with major shareholders has lead to the dismissal of the Art School’s long-time manager, Wu Ting’an, and closure of the school property. Guo is also embroiled in lawsuits which put her on the line for at least 20 million RMB [zh].

Central Propaganda Department: All media outlets and websites are to report the Ren Jianyu case in strict accord with the wire copy released by Xinhua and the Chongqing high court. Do not put the news on the front page or lure readers to the story. Do not alter headlines. Do not produce any other reports or commentary apart from the wire copy. Do not send reporters to Chongqing. (December 27, 2012)

中宣部：各媒体及网站关于任建宇案的报道严格按新华社通稿和重庆高院发布的通稿刊播，不上头版和导读，不改动标题，除通稿外不做其他报道和评论，不派记者去重庆。

Central Propaganda Department: Shenzhen will announce the results of its audit of the Universiade today. All media are kindly asked to report according to the Shenzhen Auditing Bureau announcement. Do not play up negative aspects, and do not connect this to recent cases of corruption in Shenzhen. (December 27, 2012)

中宣部：今天深圳公布大运会审计公告，请各媒体按深圳审计局的公告报道，不作负面炒作，不跟近期深圳腐败案联系。

The audit reveals that the Universiade, or World University Games, held in 2011 cost the city of Shenzhen 12.8 billion RMB (about US$2 bil). Former vice-mayor Liang Daoxing, who oversaw preparation for the games, is under investigation for graft.

Chinese journalists and bloggers often refer to those instructions as “Directives from the Ministry of Truth.” CDT has collected the selections we translate here from a variety of sources and has checked them against official Chinese media reports to confirm their implementation.

Since directives are sometimes communicated orally to journalists and editors, who then leak them online, the wording published here may not be exact. The original publication date is noted after the directives; the date given may indicate when the directive was leaked, rather than when it was issued. CDT does its utmost to verify dates and wording, but also takes precautions to protect the source.

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Post tags: censorship, Chongqing, Directives from the Ministry of Truth, Guo Lanying, Internet censorship, media censorship, Ministry of Truth, propaganda, Ren Jianyu, Shenzhen
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Ren Jianyu after his release from a labor re-education camp. (Reuters)

Central Propaganda Department: In the near future, the media are to produce neither positive nor negative reporting on Chongqing except for Xinhua wire copy. (December 20, 2012)

中宣部：近期除新华社通稿外，各媒体不作关于重庆的正面或负面相关报道。

Central Propaganda Department: Ren Jianyu‘s court case will soon be heard in Chongqing. Except for low-key coverage using Xinhua wire copy, no media are to produce any other reports or commentary. Do not send reporters to Chongqing. (December 20, 2012)

中宣部：近日，任建宇案将在重庆开庭审理，除采用新华社通稿并低调处理外，各媒体不作其他任何报道评论，不派记者去重庆采访.

Chinese journalists and bloggers often refer to those instructions as “Directives from the Ministry of Truth.” CDT has collected the selections we translate here from a variety of sources and has checked them against official Chinese media reports to confirm their implementation.

Since directives are sometimes communicated orally to journalists and editors, who then leak them online, the wording published here may not be exact. The original publication date is noted after the directives; the date given may indicate when the directive was leaked, rather than when it was issued. CDT does its utmost to verify dates and wording, but also takes precautions to protect the source.

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Post tags: censorship, Chongqing, Directives from the Ministry of Truth, media censorship, Ministry of Truth, propaganda, Ren Jianyu
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Hu Chunhua has been appointed secretary of the Guangdong Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), replacing Wang Yang, the CPC Central Committee announced Tuesday.

Wang Jun will replace Hu as secretary of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Regional Committee of the CPC, according to the announcement.

Hu, born in April 1963, is currently a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee. Wang Yang is also a Political Bureau member.

Hu previously served as deputy secretary of the Tibet Autonomous Regional Committee of the CPC, first secretary of the Secretariat of the Communist Youth League of China Central Committee and governor of north China’s Hebei Province.

At the South China Morning Post, Mimi Lau described a range of views on Hu’s appointment and prospects:

Liu Kaiming, director of the Institute of Contemporary Observation, a labour rights NGO in Shenzhen, said Hu lacked the track record of outstanding political achievements necessary to impress Guangdong officials.

“After spending extensive time in remote inland areas, Hu might find it hard to fit in at first in Guangdong, especially when dealing with vested interests,” Liu said. “I’m not very sure about officials from remote regions because they often appear very conservative and arrogant, but Hu might be different because he’s young.”

[…] Dr Peng Peng, a researcher with the Guangzhou Academy of Social Sciences, said Hu would have to hunker down after arriving in Guangdong because it was unlike any other mainland region.

“The press here is outspoken and the public can often complain directly to leaders,” Peng said. “In order to do a good job in Guangdong, Hu needs to be even more open-minded than Wang Yang.

“Wang Yang laid a solid foundation. Hu is much younger than Wang. I’m guessing Hu is more likely to flow with the open atmosphere in Guangdong.”

But at The Diplomat, David Cohen sounded a cautious note on the prospects for bold reform:

A Guangdong posting will give “Little Hu” a chance to burnish his reformist credentials, like Wang Yang before him. If Xi follows through on his talk of reform, that may prove to be a valuable skill. Guangdong is China’s most liberal province and frequently given to experimentation — if Xi is looking for models for national reform the leader of Guangdong may get some chances to influence the direction of national policy with some inventive provincial initiatives, such as Wang Yang’s much-ballyhooed “Wukan model.”

This trend should also give us some pause before rooting for Wang or Hu as reformers — neither of their records shows particularly bold action before traveling to Guangdong, so to some extent Wang’s liberal policies in the southern province may simply reflect institutional momentum. In fact, besides his time in Tibet, Little Hu initiated a harsh crackdown at the first signs of protests in Inner Mongolia in the spring of 2011. Some felt Hu had overreacted but he did not shirk from his decision, recently telling the Financial Times, “When we deal with mass incidents, there is no question we will take compulsory measures . . . We will be tough when we need to be tough, and we will be soft when we need to be soft.”

Reuters’ Sui-Lee Wee outlined Hu’s earlier career:

In Inner Mongolia, Hu Chunhua, also known as “Little Hu”, has been referred to as a future president. While there, Hu Chunhua oversaw rapid economic growth and dealt successfully with protests last year by ethnic Mongols.

Hu Chunhua came to Inner Mongolia following a brief stint in Hebei, the arid province which surrounds Beijing, where he was rapidly moved after a scandal over tainted milk in which at least six children died and thousands became ill.

Hu Chunhua remains something of an enigma, even in China. He has given few clues about his deeper policy beliefs. One of the best known things about him is that he does not appear to dye his hair jet black like many politicians.

In meetings with the public, Hu Chunhua comes across as low key and self effacing, in line with an image of a loyal, humble Communist Party member. People who have met him describe him as relaxed, easy-going and spontaneous, unlike stiffer party leaders.

Hu and newly appointed Chongqing Party chief Sun Zhengcai were both elevated to the Politburo last month, and are likely to rise further to the Politburo Standing Committee in 2017 and the presidency and premiership in 2022. (See Cheng Li’s profiles of the two men at the Brookings Institution.) None of this can be taken for granted, however: neither of their predecessors, Wang Yang and Bo Xilai, has followed the trajectory widely anticipated even at the start of this year. The Associated Press’ Didi Tang focused on Wang Yang, Guangdong’s previous Party chief, whose next assignment has not yet been revealed:

Xinhua gave no indication of Wang’s next job, but China watchers said he is likely to be named a vice premier when China’s legislature meets in the spring.

Wang, 57, is seen as a politically liberal figure. He failed to win a seat on the party’s ruling seven-member Standing Committee when new leaders were installed last month but was named to the lower-ranking Politburo.

[…] Wang was seen at Xi’s side when the general secretary visited Guangdong in early December. Li Cheng, an expert on China’s elite politics at Washington-based think tank Brookings Institute, said the appearance of the two together was to show the solidarity of the party leadership, because Wang is not considered to be in Xi’s camp in China’s factional politics.

“It’s a symbol of unity,” Li said.

Hu’s replacement in Inner Mongolia, Wang Jun, has extensive experience related to the autonomous region’s heavy mining industry. Wang was appointed governor of coal-rich Shanxi province following an accident which claimed more than 270 lives at an iron mine in 2008, and had previously headed the national work safety agency. His acting replacement in Shanxi is Li Xiaopeng, son of former premier Li Peng. New Party chiefs for Zhejiang, Shaanxi and Jilin were also announced on Tuesday, with appointments for Fujian and Guangxi following the next day. The blizzard of new posts sent a “subtle message”, according to a Global Times editorial, which hailed the new provincial leaders as offering the public a fresh start.

The Party secretary is the very top leader in a province. The prominence of this position differs from Western systems and is the key to ensuring that the Party rules the country’s political system.

[…] The population and economic scale of many provinces exceed those of middle-sized countries. As China is undergoing rapid development and social conflicts, the difficulties in managing a province can be much greater than managing a global power.

[…] Party secretaries should make efforts to improve communication with the public. We are looking forward to those who are outspoken and can interact with the public.

A new political style has been showcased by the Party’s top leadership. These new provincial leaders are expected to emulate it in solving local problems.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Bo Xilai, Chongqing, Communist Youth League, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, hebei, Hu Chunhua, Hu Jintao, Inner Mongolia, jilin, Politburo, Politburo Standing Committee, Shaanxi, Shanxi, tainted food, Tibet, Wang Yang, Wukan, Xi Jinping, Zhejiang
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