Hu Yaobang remembered. (Jiao Yantian via China Media Project)

As of April 16, the following search terms are blocked on Sina Weibo (not including the “search for user” function).

24th Anniversary of Hu Yaobang’s Death: Former Chinese Communist Party chief died suddenly on April 15, 1989, two years after he was removed from office and purged for supporting student protesters. Public mourning for Hu in 1989 morphed into pro-democracy protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square and in other cities. Hu was rehabilitated in 2005, but the remembrances which appeared in mainland media yesterday are unusual. South China Morning Post reports that this signals to some Xi Jinping’s seriousness about reform, though it could have as much to do with Hu’s alliance with Xi Zhongxun, Xi’s father.
• Yaobang (耀邦)
• Secretary-General Hu (胡总书记)
• 24th anniversary (24周年)
• Hu Zhao (胡赵): Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang. Zhao succeeded Hu as Party chief, but was also purged for his support of the Tiananmen protests. Zhao spent the last 15 years of his life under house arrest.
• reformist (改革派)

Other:
• Saintly Slaves (圣奴隶): The title of an April 10 blog post [zh] by the popular blogger Li Chengpeng in which he lambasts “fifty cents” for sycophantically defending China whenever Li makes a criticism of domestic issues such as food safety or violent chengguan. A translated excerpt:

…Our conversation goes like this: I say gas is too expensive, you say it’s it’s worse in Sweden. I say they don’t collect highway tolls in Sweden, you say they do in Japan. I say wages are high in Japan, you say they aren’t in Russia. I say Russia has universal health care, you say India doesn’t. I say India doesn’t have forced demolitions, you say bombs go off in Iraq. I say Iraq has freedom, you say North Korea is far more miserable. I say North Korea has cheap rental housing, you say they still live in caves in Afghanistan. I say Afghans have the vote. You say, “Open your trap again, and I’ll crush you to death!”

…你该是看过这个神帖：我说油费太高，你说瑞典更高。我说瑞典公路不收费，你说日本收费。我说日本工资高，你说俄国也不高。我说俄国全民医保，你说印度没医保。我说印度没强拆，你说伊拉克还挨炸。我说伊拉克有自由，你说朝鲜更惨。我说朝鲜有廉租房，你说阿富汗还住山洞。我说阿富汗人有选票，你说你再说我碾死你！

• New York Times+baby (纽约时报+宝宝): David Barboza of the New York Times has won a Pulitzer Prize for his exposé on former premier Wen Jiabao’s family wealth. “Baby” (宝宝 bǎobao) is a sarcastic nickname for Wen which plays on his first name (家宝 Jiābǎo).

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: censorship, hu yaobang, Internet censorship, Li Chengpeng, Ministry of Truth, Sensitive Words Series, weibo, Zhao Ziyang
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Li has become a hero for Chinese liberals and a hate figure for leftists for his transformation from sports journalist to social critic and writer. His recipe for success has been taking the thrill and punditry he learned in sports coverage to the dry arena of China’s political debate.

“I am a patriot, and I love this country, but I have to remind myself not to become a nationalist,” he said at the talk. “Football has international rules and no national characteristics, like wearing special shoes. It’s not that Chinese players wear fake shoes.”

“I have discovered that China’s football and China’s current society are similar,” he said. “A game’s result, everyone knows it already. Who is going to appear in the next season, we already know. Who is the enemy, we know that, too.”

Li started his activism after joining rescue efforts after the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008. He was among those who fiercely criticised the shoddy construction of school buildings that is alleged to have caused the deaths of thousands of children.

Li was violently attacked during a book tour in January, when his presence became a lightning rod for tensions between leftists and liberals. Read more by and about Li via CDT.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 2008 Sichuan earthquake, corruption, Li Chengpeng, soccer
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[...]These tragedies have nothing to do with the system, there are evil people in the world, that’s all. Sooner or later, you’re bound to come into contact with the evil of humanity. My grandfather told me, before he passed, that not all people you see walking along the streets are human: some are demons wearing human clothes.

[...]I truly don’t think it has anything to do with the system. Although China has always had this or that problem with protecting women and children, this is the result of the level of development in the economy and society. I have also done some research and found that in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, a woman who was only 20 years old put her newborn infant in the refrigerator, where the baby died. The autopsy showed that the poor child was still alive when she was put in the fridge.

[...]It’s clear that such cruel murders of infants occur in China and abroad. They just do not believe in hell. The act of killing a baby is not related to the system or education. The “human evil” of the individual is the source of violent acts.[...]

© josh rudolph for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: children, crime, Li Chengpeng, murder, online public opinion, Yueyue
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Seasoned at playing the provocateur, Mr Li moved from reporting on sport to writing essays on politics and society soon after the Sichuan earthquake of 2008, which killed more than 80,000 people. His writing on the struggles of common people after the disaster brought his work to a whole new audience of internet-savvy young Chinese. He went on to publish a novel in 2011, “Li Kele Protests Demolitions”. Mr Li’s “Li Kele” was an immediate hit; the descriptions of ordinary people who united together to fight faceless forces and venality propelled the writer into the arms of a more organized new audience: China’s advocates for social reform.

Later that year Mr Li announced that he would be running for public office in Chengdu as an independent. Although his election campaign was never allowed to get under way (candidates for office are carefully screened by the Communist Party and eventually Mr Li failed his background check), he gained a new degree of credibility. Here, it seemed, was a man who would back up his words with actions.

At the book launch in Chengdu, an elderly man named Liu Shahe sat behind Mr Li. Mr Liu is one of the signatories of Charter 08, the document demanding a list political reforms that Liu Xiaobo, the Nobel laureate, was jailed for drafting. Mr Li tweeted Mr Liu’s words to him—“You man of words, just keep writing”—and said the encouragement from the older man had reduced him to tears.

Li has answered questions about the silent signing in Chengdu on Sina Weibo, explaining why he opted to go through with the event, and why a book published through official channels had encountered such opposition. Introducing his partial translation at China Media Project, David Bandurski commented that the disruptions have only made Li’s voice louder.

In Guangzhou, the final leg of Li’s tour, the signing was cancelled at the last minute because the building where it was being hosted was closed for fire safety inspections.

Li Chengpeng apologized to his readers for the Guangzhou cancellation with a tongue-in-cheek post to his Sina Weibo account playing on the title of his book [Everybody in the World Knows]: “Once again I apologize to everyone: Because fire safety inspections are happening at the Tianya Building, outsiders cannot go in, and therefore my book signing for readers is cancelled. I’m accepting this fact, because this place is really in need of a fire safety inspection. Everybody in the world knows, fire safety is really important.”

For all of its hitches and hijinks, Li Chengpeng’s book tour illustrates the limitations of control in the era of social media. Li’s “silent” signing in Chengdu was anything but silent — it was broadcast loudly across the internet. Every leg of his tour became the subject of fevered discussion online, pitting the values of speech and openness against controls that appeared foolish and anachronistic.

See more about and by Li Chengpeng via CDT.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 2008 Sichuan earthquake, books, Charter 08, Chengdu, corruption, David Bandurski, Guangzhou, Li Chengpeng, Liu Xiaobo, local elections, sina weibo, soccer, social media
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Li wore a black face mask in silent protest at his Chengdu book signing.

On January 11, popular writer and critic Li Chengpeng reported on Weibo that he had received orders not to speak at his book signing in Chengdu the next day. Li was also prohibited from asking questions of the audience. Even special guests, among them prominent writers who have clashed with the authorities before, were forbidden from speaking:

@lichengpeng: Someone sent me strict orders from the higher-ups in the middle of the night: At my Chengdu book signing on the 12th, readers are forbidden to ask me questions; I am forbidden from speaking or making opening remarks. I can’t even say “Happy New Year” or “thank you.” I am forbidden from introducing Liu Shahe, Ran Yunfei, and all other special guests; I cannot ask them questions, and they cannot say a word, not even “Happy New Year.” They can only sit in the corner… This deeply violates my understanding of respect. They are insane. Thinking…

@李承鹏：深夜有人匆忙传达上峰死命令：12日成都签售，不准读者向我提问、不准我说话，不准我致开场白，连“新年好，谢谢你们”也不准说，不准介绍流沙 河、冉云飞及所有嘉宾名字，不准向他们提问，也不准他们说话，连“新年好”也不准说。他们只能坐在角落…我深觉这这违背了我对尊严的理解。他们疯了。思考中…

His new book, The Whole World Knows, is a collection of essays on contemporary Chinese society. It tackles sensitive issues like the “tofu dregs” schools which collapsed in the 2008 Sichuan earthquake and the disastrous corner-cutting laid bare by the Wenzhou high-speed rail crash.

Li later reposted a weibo from a reader at the book signing:

@lichengpeng: RT: @alexandermoo: At the scene where these notices were given, I’ve heard the voices of Li Yawei, Ran Yunfei, and many others. I can verify that two Xinhua Bookstore staff are present as well… Right now I’m still on the phone with bookstore comrades. My thoughts: this shows the utmost disrespect to the readers, some of whom rushed all the way from Shanghai just for this event. They don’t want to look at a bunch of taciturn prostheses. The latest news: the authorities have notified the speakers that they may not utter a single word.

@李承鹏：回复@拉斯文_本德:接到通知的现场，有李亚伟冉云飞等数人听到，两位新华书店也可证明…现在仍与书店同志电话中。我认为：这完全无视读者的尊严，有读者专门从上海赶来。他们不想看到一群觉沉默的假肢。最新消息：上级通知，绝不许说一句话。

Weibo fans rallied to Li’s side:

@joylovingheart: If they don’t let them speak, they might as well tape their mouths shut.

@爱乐的心: 不让说话，那就用胶布把嘴贴起来签售

@ziyueqingye: They get sent to the firing squad for saying “Happy New Year”? This expands my understanding of limiting freedom of speech.

@owlmoon豆丁兔：说新年好会被枪毙吗？我对限制言论自由的理解又高一层了

@youyi009: What are they [the authorities] afraid of? What exactly is it that they dread?

@幽壹：它们怕什么？究竟在惧怕什么？

@xieliang7: If they can’t speak, can they tweet? They can communicate via Weibo at the book signing.

@谢良7：不说话可以发微博吗 现场用微博交流

@Billsaid: Looks like Li Big Eyes should change his name to Li Don’t Speak. That’s sure to catch on.

@Billsaid：看来李大眼得改名叫李莫言了，这个笔名一定火。

@MountainUncle: I urge the higher-ups to offer free packing tape!

@山宅大叔：强烈要求上峰免费提供封口胶~！！

@ligelongClingclang: What the higher-ups mean is that the interests of the individual can’t influence the interests of the party-state. We must be united with absolute sincerity.

@李哥隆咚锵：上峰的意思是个人的利益不能影响党国的利益，要精诚团结

@nky888nky: Only after repeated prohibition is one unstoppable. They wish to cover you up, but instead you is all the more obvious. This is all free advertising. The voiceless is even more victorious in making his voice heard.

@可人如昱：屡禁才能不止，欲盖反而弥彰，这一切都是免费的广告。无声更胜有声。

@Wchengbo: The dynasty has changed, but the way of thought is unchangeable.

@W成波：朝代换了，思维换不了

Read more about the book signing kerfuffle from CDT and Global Voices.

Via CDT Chinese.

© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: censorship, Chengdu, freedom of speech, Li Chengpeng, Netizen Voices, sina weibo, weibo
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“I would hardly be here to buy Li’s book if not for what happened to him on Sunday,” one young man said. “I just came here to show my support for Li, a liberal-minded critic.”

[…] Meanwhile, dozens of protesters, most in their 40s or 50s and some wearing Mao Zedong badges, gathered outside the building.

One of the protesters said he was outraged by some of Li’s recent comments, such as labelling those who took to the streets in anti-Japanese demonstrations in Shenzhen “brain damaged”.

“Li is a typical traitor who does nothing more than distort history and mislead the public, particularly the young,” he said.

Also at the South China Morning Post, Laura Zhou had previously described Sunday’s altercation, over which Li is reportedly considering legal action.

Li Chengpeng, a former journalist, was punched in the head during an afternoon signing of his new book for readers at the Zhongguancun Bookstore in Haidian district, and another man was filmed throwing a packaged kitchen knife at Li.

The man who punched Li claimed to have a strong aversion to the content of Li’s new book, The Whole World Knows. The assailant was taken away by Beijing police, according to a post on the public security bureau’s microblog that night.

The new book is a collection of essays that include sensitive topics such as the shoddy quality of school buildings that collapsed and killed thousands of students during the 2008 Sichuan earthquake and the alleged cover-up of the 2011 Wenzhou train crash.

The knife incident, in which a man waited in line to present Li with the threatening “gift”, and then threw it at him when it was apparently rejected, was caught on video (via SCMP’s John Kennedy):

Click here to view the embedded video.

In contrast with the action in Beijing and Shenzhen, Li’s signing in Chengdu on Saturday was markedly subdued. Li had been ordered not to address the audience and wore a mask over his mouth in protest. Global Voices Online translated a weibo post Li sent before the event, together with a selection of other users’ reactions:

Someone just delivered a strict order: at my book signing event, I’m not allowed to talk; the readers are not allowed to ask me any questions; I can’t even introduce myself or say “ Happy New Year, Thank you”. I’m not even allowed to introduce the names of other guests at my event; they are not allowed to talk or answer any questions. They can only sit in the corner. I deeply feel it’s against my understanding of dignity. They are crazy.

王金明小伙[zh]: It’s the most depressing signing event I’ve ever experienced. There were many people on the spot but no sound. The policemen were guarding each corner. Li wore a mask and signed his book with the wrong date. His guests only appeared very shortly before being asked to step down. There were tears on Li’s face.

I suddenly discovered that the Communist Party has made creating a buzz into an art. Li Chengpeng’s book signing was just a small ordinary event, but after the Communist Party’s handling of it, it became a work of performance art that has spread throughout the world.

Bruce Humes and Sascha Matuszak blogged their accounts of the Shenzhen and Chengdu signings, respectively.

Scuffles between leftists and liberals also broke out outside the offices of the Southern Weekly newspaper, during protests over censorship of its New Year greeting. Li was particularly outspoken about the Southern Weekly affair. From an interview at Japan’s Asahi Shimbun:

To me, this feels as if the insult toward freedom of speech has been lifted up a level. I cannot stand it, and I believe many other people feel the same.

China’s Constitution recognizes freedom of speech. The new party leadership advocates the rule of law. It should therefore sponsor freedom of speech–but doesn’t. The reality is different.

[…] I’ve felt pressure. I’ve been braced to see my blog shut down. Yet, we are not challenging the government. We just want China to become a better country.

The fact that many people have raised their voice this time has great significance. This is the first step on a long road toward achieving freedom of speech.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 2008 Sichuan earthquake, anti-Japan demonstrations 2012, Beijing, books, Chengdu, freedom of speech, leftists, Li Chengpeng, Mao Zedong, rule of law, Shenzhen, Southern Weekly, southern weekly protest 2013, train crash, wenzhou, writers
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The exact terms of the deal were not released, but it appears that the journalists agreed to refrain from airing their grievances in public about Tuo Zhen, the propaganda chief for Guangdong province accused of the heavy-handed censorship that sparked the standoff. The staff had planned to publish details of more than 1,034 stories they said were censored or deleted in 2012, according to a journalist who asked not to be quoted by name.

Southern Weekly staff members were instructed not to speak to reporters for foreign media about the protest.

When the paper was finally issued Thursday morning, it was reportedly distributed at newsstands in Beijing and Shanghai before its hometown of Guangzhou. Some issues of the paper were missing sections. From South China Morning Post:

The newspaper, which is published on Thursdays, was not available in at least six newsstands in Guangzhou, which normally carry the paper. The paper appeared as normal in Beijing, carrying a cover story on the aftermath of a fire in an orphanage in central Henan province.

Thursday’s edition led with a two-page investigation into a fire at an orphanage in central China’s Henan province, in photo via Sina Weibo.

“It’s not coming today,” said one newspaper seller in a kiosk near the Southern Weekly’s headquarters in Guangzhou.

[...] In Shanghai, two sections of the paper were missing − one focused on a new regulation on land reclamation and the other on “the dramatic changes” in reform.

The front page carried a story about children killed in an orphanage fire, and did not contain any news about the dispute. The paper republished a People’s Daily editorial but added its own commentary. From Reuters:

In a show of continued resistance, the Southern Weekly republished a Monday editorial from the Communist Party mouthpiece the People’s Daily, that said “the party’s methods of controlling the media must move with the times”.

In its interpretation of the People’s Daily editorial, the Southern Weekly said the remaining reforms that need to be done are as difficult as “gnawing at bones”.

“They need the protection and support of a moderate, rational and constructive media,” the Southern Weekly said.

On his South China Morning Post blog, John Kennedy reports that not all planned content made it into this week’s edition:

However, Zuo Zhijian, director of features at Southern Media Group’s 21st Century Herald’s Shanghai office, revealed on his Sina Weibo microblog last night that censors killed an editorial commemorating the 30th anniversary of Southern Weekly’s founding that was meant to run in the issue scheduled to hit stands today.

According to one microblogger, today’s issue of Southern Weekly is two 4-page sections shorter than usual, absent its current affairs and commentary sections.

But the fact that the staff were able to secure enough of their demands to be willing to publish this week is seen by some as a victory, albeit a limited one. China Media Project’s David Bandurski tells AFP:

The agreement is a “small victory” in a long-running struggle between journalists and censors in China, said David Bandurski, a Chinese media researcher at Hong Kong University.

“It’s a victory in the most concrete terms, it’s a turn back to a normalcy of censorship that journalists have become accustomed to,” he said, adding that the high-profile stand-off could persuade officials not to further tighten controls.

But not everyone was satisfied. Editors told Al Jazeera that, despite publication, there was still lingering resentment among staff:

Still fuming, some editors and reporters tried late on Wednesday to insert a carefully-worded commentary praising the newspaper as a tribune of reform, but were rebuffed by management, an editor said.

The editor, who asked not to be named because he had been repeatedly warned not to talk to foreign media, described the mood among editorial staff as indignant.

He predicted that some staff would resign, either voluntarily out of anger or forced out by management.

“There’s complete disappointment,” the editor said.

A small number of protesters continued to gather outside the newspaper offices to make broader calls for press freedom and human rights, as well as Maoists there to oppose them. Other citizens who rely on the paper to have their stories heard also gathered. Mark MacKinnon of the Globe and Mail was tweeting from the scene:

Scene outside Southern Weekend is wild. Petitioners arriving from all over, saying paper is only outlet for their stories. #chinadiaries

— Mark MacKinnon/马凯 (@markmackinnon) January 10, 2013

Pro-democracy demonstrators, Maoists in shouting match outside Southern Weekend: twitpic.com/btxxvu

— Mark MacKinnon/马凯 (@markmackinnon) January 10, 2013

Protesters outside Southern Weekend dragged away by plainclothes police: twitpic.com/btxy2e

— Mark MacKinnon/马凯 (@markmackinnon) January 10, 2013

Some protesters in Guangdong and elsewhere reported being detained or questioned. A video of protesters being dragged away by police was posted by @JoFloto.

Several Chinese journalists expressed concern that the deal reached for Southern Weekend would not positively impact conditions at other media and may in fact lead to tighter control. Zhang Hong, deputy editor in chief of the Economic Observer, writes in the South China Morning Post:

One result of the strike is that the Guangdong propaganda ministry clearly has the upper hand as its actions are in line with party policy and will get support from the party hardliners. Any hope for direct intervention from the central government seems unrealistic.

Thus, the government will strive to achieve a swift resolution both online and offline by issuing clear warnings to those who disobey. In fact, it has already done so.

This crisis rings alarm bells for journalists and liberal intellectuals. The new government might kick-start economic reforms in certain areas, to ensure continued growth. But swift political reforms are not on the top leaders’ agenda, as they are still calculating resistance from conservative blocs. The Southern Weekly row could even be cited by conservatives as an argument against looser media control. This could be viewed as a frustrating setback for reformers.

In an interview with Asahi Shimbun, popular blogger and journalist Li Chengpeng says:

We don’t need high-rise buildings, the status of the world’s second-largest economy, or an aircraft carrier. What China needs now is a newspaper that tells the truth.

That is because the right to tell the truth represents human dignity. Major powers that command respect worldwide possess newspapers that speak the truth.

Our authorities have long exerted control on speech, but this time they altered an article and made a newspaper tell lies.

To me, this feels as if the insult toward freedom of speech has been lifted up a level. I cannot stand it, and I believe many other people feel the same.

The original protests by Southern Weekly journalists were directed at Guangdong Provincial Propaganda Chief Tuo Zhen. Tuo has been widely criticized for tightening controls over Southern Weekly, which had found space to operate with some independence within the censorship regime before he took office. Reuters reports:

While the system of government oversight had already been well established, including an internal censor to vet stories, current and former staffers said the levers of control tightened substantially with Tuo’s arrival last May.

Xiao Shu, a former columnist at the Southern Weekly, said Tuo treated the paper not as an asset for pursuing the truth but “as a burden, or a negative thing, to trample on as much as he liked”.

[...] While many Southern Weekly staff have declined to speak on the record, a picture has nevertheless emerged of Tuo pushing too far, just as China’s new leadership under party chief Xi Jinping tries to project a more reformist image.

“I think pressure on media has been accruing for so long,” said Li Datong, a former journalist sacked for challenging censorship. “It’s no wonder that a relatively small thing caused an explosion. Journalists have a lot of anger built up.”

Read also about recent events at Beijing News, a sister publication of Southern Weekly, which has suffered significant collateral damage as a result of this controversy.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2013. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Li Chengpeng, Li Datong, press freedom, Southern Weekly, southern weekly protest 2013
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On Tuesday, the paper’s editorial committee was to hold a fourth round of negotiations with its top management, which is part of the provincial propaganda office, according to a Southern Weekly editor. The editor spoke on condition of anonymity because of an internal directive not to talk to the foreign media.

Propaganda officials want the newspaper to publish — as per normal — on Thursday but editors are negotiating over whether to do so, and the terms under which they would be willing, for example, if they could include a letter to readers explaining the incident, the editor said.

The committee is also pushing a larger appeal to abolish censorship of the newspaper’s content prior to publication, the editor said. The suggestion is that Communist Party leaders could provide direction but not interfere with reporting and editing, and should refrain from taking issue with content until after publication, the editor said.

Meanwhile, protests continued outside Southern Weekly’s headquarters, with the newspaper’s supporters facing off against a small Maoist counter-protest. From James Pomfret at Reuters:

The scuffles broke out after supporters of the paper, published on Thursdays, jeered and skirmished with a small band of leftists holding posters of Chairman Mao Zedong and signs denouncing the Southern Weekly as “a traitor newspaper” for defying the party.

“These people (leftists) are paid agitators of the government, twisting the truth with propaganda. We had to do something about it,” said pro-press freedom protester Cheng Qiubo.

Dozens of police officers had to intervene, though the protests were allowed to continue. Two technicians with a ladder tried to rig a surveillance camera to the branch of a tree outside the newspaper gates, but were swiftly surrounded and shouted down by angry crowds and forced to retreat.

The Economist’s James Miles observed (using the newspaper’s alternative English name):

Small group of leftists only persistent protesters outside Southern Weekend, Spectators wave 50 cents at them. twitter.com/jarmiles/statu…

— James Miles (@jarmiles) January 8, 2013

The Wall Street Journal’s Paul Mozur posted video of the heated confrontation, while others published dozens of photos on Facebook and other social media sites. Some showed Guy Fawkes masks inspired by the Alan Moore graphic novel V for Vendetta, via the 2005 Hollywood adaptation that aired last month on CCTV. From The New York Times’ Jonah Kessel:

Some freedom of speech advocates wearing v for vendetta masks. Said he saw the movie on CCTV recently and ordered the mask

— Jonah Kessel (@jonah_kessel) January 8, 2013

Tea Leaf Nation tracked online support for Southern Weekly:

[… T]hese include some of Chinese social media’s most high profile users from all walks of life. Celebrities such as actress Yao Chen (with 31 million followers) and actor Chen Kui (with 27 million followers) tweeted explicit messages of support on Sina Weibo, a microblog platform. Yao quoted the 1970 Nobel lecture of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the Russian author and dissident, along with a logo of Southern Weekend. Chen was more direct: “I am not that deep, and I don’t play word games; I support the friends at Southern Weekend.”

[…] Ren Zhiqiang (@任志强), one of the most outspoken businessmen in China with almost 13 million followers, tweeted on Sina Weibo, “Freedom of press and freedom of speech are rights given to the society and the people by the constitution; they are also symbols of human rights and freedom. Yet they have become pipe dreams without the rule of law, being seriously distorted and restricted. If truth is not allowed to be spoken, would truth disappear?”

Li Chengpeng and Han Han, China’s two most famous bloggers, both wrote articles in support of Southern Weekend. Li wrote, “We don’t need tall buildings, but we need a newspaper that speaks the truth. We don’t need the second highest GDP in the world, but we need a newspaper that speaks the truth. We don’t need a fleet of aircraft carriers, but we need a newspaper that speaks the truth.”

Han Han’s post was previously featured at CDT on Monday.

A Global Times editorial, ‘Southern Weekend’s ‘Letter to Readers’ Truly Makes One Ponder‘, on the other hand, reiterated a claim posted by Southern Weekly’s official Sina Weibo account: that provincial propaganda authorities in fact had nothing to do with the controversial edits. China Media Project’s David Bandurski had previously reported that newspaper staff felt this to be “completely at odds with the truth”, and that it was issued “without confirmation or authorization from members of the newspaper’s editorial committee.” The Times editorial went on to hit other points from a propaganda directive obtained by CDT: that “Party control of the media is an unwavering basic principle”, and that “external hostile forces are involved in the development of the situation”—including, it alleged, Chen Guangcheng. From translated highlights at Fei Chang Dao:

These people are making spirited demands, and while on the surface they are going after a specific person and event, its obvious to everyone watching that their target is the entire system that involves the media.

Whether these people like it or not, this is common sense: given the current state of China’s society and government, the kind of “free media” that these people yearn for in their hearts simply cannot exist. All of China’s media can develop only to the extent China does, and media reform must remain part-and-parcel of China’s overall reform, and the media absolutely will not become a “political special zone” of China.

[…] Even in the West, the mainstream media will not choose to openly oppose the government.

A version of the editorial also appeared on the English-language Global Times site.

The Diplomat’s David Cohen reported that, as instructed, the editorial was republished by major web portals including Sohu, Sina and Tencent. Each, however, added a disclaimer to the effect that republication did not equal endorsement. Further defiance was shown in screen grabs of headlines on sites’ front pages, arranged so that their first characters spelled out messages of support. According to Amy Li at South China Morning Post, the editorial also appeared in Guangzhou Information Times, Guangzhou’s New Express Daily, Beijing Youth Daily, Beijing Times, Hangzhou’s City Express, Shenzhen’s Daily Sunshine, Xi’an’s Sanqin Daily, Xi’an Evening News and China Business News.

David Bandurski saw the leaked directive as potentially ominous. From China Media Project:

If it is true, as Berkeley’s China Digital Times reports, that media have been issued a propaganda directive on the Southern Weekly incident that deflects blame from Guangdong propaganda officials toward foreign “hostile forces,” that is not an encouraging sign.

Readers should understand that the Southern Weekly crisis is not just a face-off between pro-reform voices and status-quo Party conservatives. In this case, it was propaganda officials in Guangdong — the spiritual heart of China’s reform and opening — who upset the status-quo by exercising censorship to such an intrusive extent that the situation became unacceptable to working journalists, most of whom had already made an uneasy peace with media controls.

The crisis at the Nanfang Media Group is not just about whether Xi Jinping is serious about the ostensible new openness and responsiveness attributed to him by sustained state propaganda. It is about whether China could be moving backward on the issue of media freedom, which would send worrying signals about the overall direction of the new leadership.

At The Wall Street Journal, Danwei’s Jeremy Goldkorn also discussed the situation in terms of prospects for media and internet freedom, saying that “I don’t believe there’s anybody in the senior leadership who’s committed to those ideals.”

An editorial in The Telegraph suggested that the new leadership’s response will be revealing, finding some encouragement in a People’s Daily editorial with a different tone to Global Times piece:

This is Mr Xi’s first serious test and early indications suggest that he is treading carefully. Demonstrations have been lightly policed and yesterday the People’s Daily, the party’s official outlet, said that propaganda officials should “follow the rhythm of the times” and help the authorities create a “pragmatic and open-minded image”. On the face of it, this heralds a welcome and more tolerant official approach to the media. Whether or not it amounts to anything of substance will become clear in the next few days.

Guangdong’s new Party chief Hu Chunhua will also be under scrutiny: the posting is, in part, a near-final test of his suitability for future national leadership.

For now, however, it remains unclear which way Beijing will move. From Jonah Kessel and Chris Buckley at The New York Times:

Both supporters and critics of Southern Weekend journalists have claimed that Mr. Xi would back their cause.

“I don’t believe that Xi is totally hypocritical when he talks about reform,” said Mr. Chen [Min, also known by the pen name Xiao Shu], who was forced out of the newspaper in 2011.

“The Southern Weekend journalists have said that they accept party control, but the question is what kind of control and how far should it go unchallenged,” Mr. Chen added.

Update (January 8, 11:20 am PST):

Reuters has reported that Guangdong Provincial Party chief Hu Chunhua has stepped into the fray and negotiated an agreement between propaganda officials and Southern Weekly:

Under Hu’s deal, the source said, newspaper workers would end their strike and return to work, the paper would print as normal this week, and most staff would not face punishment. “Guangdong’s Hu personally stepped in to resolve this,” the source said.

“He gets personal image points by showing that he has guts and the ability to resolve complex situations. In addition, the signal that he projects through this is one of relative openness, it’s a signal of a leader who is relatively steady.”

The standoff at the Southern Weekly, long seen as a beacon of independent and in-depth reporting in China’s highly controlled media landscape, has led to demands for the country’s new leadership to grant greater media freedoms.

[...]

It wasn’t possible to immediately corroborate Hu’s involvement in brokering the deal with editorial staff, who may be bound by an agreement not to speak out.

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Post tags: Chen Guangcheng, chen min, danwei, David Bandurski, Directives from the Ministry of Truth, Global Times, Guangdong, Guangdong Department of Propaganda, Han Han, Hu Chunhua, Jeremy Goldkorn, Li Chengpeng, Mao Zedong, maoism, media conditions, new left, people's daily, propaganda, propaganda department, protests, sina, sina weibo, sohu, Southern Media Group, Southern Weekly, southern weekly protest 2013, tencent, V for Vendetta, Xi Jinping, Xiao Shu
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Having lost the ability to speak the truth, we will tell many lies. What’s even more frightening is that in addition to lies we have invented a new kind of speech: ghost-talk. Lies are just meant to deceive others: our village produces 20,000 jin per acre. But ghost-talk is meant to hurt, to consume: all our country’s villages must produce 20,000 jin per acre. Anyone who doesn’t comply will be killed, no matter what their rank. When speaking the truth will cost you your life, no one is willing to speak the truth. When telling a lie was rewarded with promotions and wealth, this country became the Kingdom of Lies. This process continues uninterrupted to this very day, and it hasn’t yet reached completion. For example, our railways are the fastest in the world, then accidents happen, or “the Chinese people’s restoration is 62% complete,” and then we discover more than 62% of officials are corrupt….to give you another example, if you want to speak a little truth, there will be a group of people who come out of the woodwork and say, “What makes you qualified to say that so many people died during the Great Famine? Did someone in your family die? Did you see Lin Shao tortured with your own eyes? Were you there at that very moment? If you weren’t there, stop spreading rumors.” They seem to not believe that there is a such thing as records in this world, or documentaries, or people who have testified to these events. According to their logic, Jews could not have died in gas chambers at the hands of Nazis, because you didn’t see it with your own eyes. They can’t even prove they are their parents’ children, because they didn’t see it with their own eyes.

Li has written frequently about the concept of lies and truth-telling in China, notably in relation to natural and manmade disasters such as the collapse of a bridge in Harbin:

…The greatest truth in this place is that we know they are lying, and they know that we know they are lying, and we also know that they actually know that we know that they are lying…so we don’t care about the truth anymore, we just care about the way they put on their show of “truth,” and only the complete compilation of all of these performances is enough to count as the whole truth.

Read more by and about Li Chengpeng via CDT.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: accountability, famine, great leap forward, Li Chengpeng, truth
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I’ve also noticed a bunch of people clamoring for the truth. Actually, you don’t need to seek the truth, because we all know the truth. Last year, at a book fair in Hong Kong, I said that the greatest truth in this place is that we know they are lying, and they know that we know they are lying, and we also know that they actually know that we know that they are lying…so we don’t care about the truth anymore, we just care about the way they put on their show of “truth,” and only the complete compilation of all of these performances is enough to count as the whole truth. It was thunder for the train, or Guo Meimei’s bag, the smile of the Yan’an security official when those 36 people died in the traffic accident, or when the weight of a truck caused the collapse of the bridge, it’s the safe and healthy milk that Meng Niu sends out every day, and the several people who died in the Henan bridge collapse that journalists weren’t allowed to report on.

So you see, the “experts” have come out again. They’re so busy explaining disasters that it’s the only thing they do. Stupid technology wonks have also come out of the woodwork, saying that the science of mechanics proves that the only reason the bridge collapsed is that the driver stayed to one side. They should have just said, “Who told the driver to park on the right side, don’t they know that’s an incorrect political stance?” The audience would have laughed and cheered.

The truth I like the most is: Some people don’t have penises, but they always pretend to pee standing up.

This is why we should relax. In truth, I don’t expect leaders in Harbin to come out and apologize personally, or for a few corrupt officials to get nabbed. They nab corrupt officials every day, and bridges collapse every year, nothing new under the sun. With the passage of time, you will realize that the greatest gift this age has given us isn’t the truth, but all the time and hard work you’ve put into imagining how they will put on a show of “truth.” In this amazing process, they are responsible for lying, and the ordinary people transform these lies into allegories.

Read more by and about Li Chengpeng, via CDT.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: accountability, corruption, Li Chengpeng, truth
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We live in an age when dust blocks the sky. Politics is dirty, the economy is dirty, and even culture smells like it’s rotten. Our heart is supposed to be clear like the water in the autumn and the unending sky, but if we place it in the dust for a long time, then it can’t help but getting dirty and frangible. When we mail fragile items at the post station, the staff there will stamp the image of a red glass on the package to show that what’s inside is fragile. I hope everyone stamps a red glass on their heart too. It will remind us that this is a heart that needs sympathy and a heart that needs clarity. It is precious, but it is also fragile. We should take care of it every day and keep it free of dust. It should be as clear as the water in autumn, and as clean as the sky.

The essay echoes a widespread angst about moral decay:

[…] If you could quantify empathy, it might sadden you to discover that residents of Mainland China rank very low. In the famous Wang Yue incident [CDT's link], a two-year-old girl died in the middle of the road, and 18 people walked by without helping. These 18 people represent a greater number, a very unkind number of people that will yell at beggars, ignore victims of distant disasters, and even lack empathy for their own relatives. If people are beaten, they’ll just stand around and watch. If people are complaining, they’ll just coldly mock them. […]

A somewhat more optimistic view of the Chinese moral character appeared in Li Chengpeng’s recent reaction to the Beijing floods. From chinaSMACK’s translation:

Chinese people’s characters are ordinarily suppressed by a certain power. When a nation is only keen on purchasing cars for officials instead of building up public transportation, when the Ministry of Railways only cares for major construction projects instead of doing a better job on public service, people have to have low characters simply for self-protection. But the humanity is there, like a luminous pearl, normally ordinary and unremarkable like a rock, but in the key moment shining brightly. Everybody knows——that old man in the water clearing the clogged drains and sewers, those sanitation workers who stood in front of the open sewer manholes [to prevent others from falling in], those men carrying bottled water and bread who rushed into the rainy night to search for trapped people, those city residents who normally would be paranoid by by a crossed line at this moment bravely publicizing their own addresses and cell phone numbers to provide food, shelter, and a hot bath ….

See more about and by Murong Xuecun via CDT.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: floods, Li Chengpeng, moral crisis, morality, Murong Xuecun, social decay
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The city suffered the worst rain in six decades over Saturday and Sunday and many people have questioned the official death toll.

Wang Hui, director of the Information Office of Beijing Municipal Government, told a news conference they understood the importance of information transparency following the 2003 SARS cover up.

She added that the death toll had not risen because some bodies are yet to be identified.

According to their official micro blog early Tuesday evening, 1.9 million are affected by the rain, 77,325 have been relocated, and the government has allocated a 100 million yuan disaster relief fund. But it made no mention of casualty figures.

China Daily reports from today keep the death toll at 37, but accounts from the ground have suggested that this number may be a serious underestimation. On Monday, The Wall Street Journal quoted locals expressing their disbelief:

“The death toll is definitely higher [than 37],” said a man surnamed Li who was found standing by the side of the road in Shuangma Zhuang village next to a white sedan, its shape twisted by the waters. Mr. Li, who declined to provide his given name, said he was called to Shuangma Zhuang to identify the body of his older brother, who had been discovered inside the car when police pulled it out of the water on Monday afternoon.

As Mr. Li pointed to where police had sawed through the metal to remove his brother’s body, a friend standing nearby also cast doubt on the official number. “The government says 37 died. It’s probably more like 370,” he said.[...]

A McClatchy article published yesterday has more on doubt surrounding official numbers, the government’s tendency to distort data in the aftermath of disaster, and explains how modern communications technology has changed the nature of public discontent in China:

It took just one glance at a jumble of cars mired in the brown waters covering the G4 expressway late on Monday afternoon to cast doubt on Chinese government estimates that only 37 had died in flash flooding over the weekend.

“They must hide this,” said one old man who was hustled away from a perch overlooking the scene by uniformed police yelling that photography in the area needed prior consent. With plainclothes security milling around the area, he and other onlookers didn’t give their names.

The man said that he’d already heard how many were killed in Fangshan, a district roughly 20 miles southwest of downtown Beijing, after heavy rains on Saturday night: “More than 300.”

Another point of frustration, easily seen in Weibo activity, involves Beijing’s infrastructure and emergency preparedness – how could a modern city, one that ”poured huge sums of money into the Olympics”, be so overwhelmed by and infrastructurally ill-equipped to deal with the recent storm? These types of questions were found not only in web chatter, but also in a Global Times op-ed released just after the storm. A more recent Global Times piece reports on angry reactions to a government sponsored relief fundraiser [zh] that many distrust or see as a means to distract from the municipal government’s inability to manage the flood:

Su Meng, 25, a resident of Chaoyang district, said that charity donations are not a solution to disaster relief efforts, and the government would be better off considering some of the factors that led to the disaster instead.

“It seems the government is using the fund to divert the public’s attention from questioning its responsibility about the destruction,” she said.

[...]“I don’t trust government-led charity drives because I’m not sure whether my donation will get to those who really need it,” she said.

Zhu Lijia, a professor at the Chinese Academy of Governance, said now is not the right time for Beijing government to launch the fund.

“Thirty-seven people died in the flood disaster. The first priority for the government is to hold someone accountable for the deaths,” said Zhu.

An article from CNN quotes residents of Beijing’s Fangshan district, the area hit hardest by the storm, on their outrage at officials’ poor planning and insufficient response to the flood:

“Our family of five lives off one income,” said the 46-year-old farmer Wednesday. “Nobody cares about us because there’s no official in this household.”

[...]One neighbor, Gao Liying, added that she feels even more shaken by the village officials’ response when she told them the flood has ruined almost all her worldly possessions.

“They actually said: ‘If your house didn’t collapse and nobody died, then you’re not a victim,’” she said, raising her voice. “I asked: are you still human?”

Villagers like Zhang and Gao blame local officials for their decision to cover a former waterway with concrete — thus turning it to a road and diminishing drainage capacity — and their failure to warn residents before the storm.

“It was more than a natural disaster,” Gao said. “The officials are responsible too.”

While the government continues to insist on the accuracy of their reporting and the methodical nature of their response, they also stress the “unprecedented” nature of the storm, a point that a Caixin English op-ed directly refutes:

This is not the first time Beijing has had an “unprecedented” rainstorm. On June 23, 2011, Beijing was also inundated. It was also a day as dark as night and traffic ground to a standstill. However, just one year later, the government is again using the term.

The city’s underground sewage system is directly responsible for the flooding. Within of Beijing, it seems that the Forbidden City still has the best drainage. For a system built during the Ming and Qing dynasties, with extra work done after 1949, it works effectively despite its 600-year age. No matter how heavy the rain, there is no flooding in the Forbidden City. I wonder if one should celebrate the wisdom of our ancestors or be ashamed of our own stupidity?

There was a wave of skepticism regarding the quality of Beijing’s drainage system in 2011. The Beijing Drainage Group admitted that only the drainage systems of the eastern and western sections of the city moat, Tiananmen Square and the Olympic Park are up for the challenge of once-in-a-decade rainfalls, while most other areas can fend off only the regular storms occurring every one to three years.

Li Chengpeng, a Chinese blogger known for his reflections on the disastrous Sichuan earthquake of 2008, posted his take on reactions to the flood, and what they say about civic awareness in China. While his blog was quickly deleted, chinaSmack has recorded and translated the post, along with a selection of comments.

Update: 07/26/2012 13:40 PST

State-owned media updated the official death toll today:

The death toll from Saturday rainstorms in Beijing rises to 77 as more bodies were retrieved, the Beijing government said Thursday.

— Xinhua News Agency (@XHNews) July 26, 2012

Also see Crazy Crab’s illustrated take on the disaster, and the rest of CDT’s coverage of the 2012 Beijing flood.

© josh rudolph for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: beijing flood 2012, disaster relief, floods, Li Chengpeng, natural disasters, rainfall
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The following directives were first posted on CDT Chinese on July 21, 2012:

Beijing Municipal Committee Department of Propaganda: For public opinion guidance (舆论引导) concerning yesterday’s rainstorms, all media outlets, including central news organizations, must emphasize the power of human compassion over the elements. All Youth League committees and branches must coordinate positive reports and information on the storm in their commentaries, forum posts, and reprints of articles. Public Weibo accounts, accounts of individual Youth League members and newly registered accounts must all complete report forms.

北京市委宣传部：关于昨日北京暴雨的舆论引导，要多报道暴雨无情人有情，包括中央媒体也要执行。各团委、团支部：对北京暴雨的正面报道和消息，组织好评论、跟帖、转发工作，已登记的公开微博用户及团员个人用户ID、新注册用户账号均需做好汇报表格。

Beijing Municipal News Office: Do not report on the collapse of the subway. (The floods caused the Jintai Road construction site on Line 6 to cave in [zh].)

北京市委新闻办：地铁塌方不能报道。

Beijing Municipal Office of Internet Propaganda Management: Remove Li Chengpeng’s essay “Totem”.

北京市互联网宣传管理办公室：李承鹏的《图腾》一文必须删除。

© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Beijing, beijing flood 2012, beijing subway, Directives from the Ministry of Truth, disaster relief, floods, infrastructure, Li Chengpeng, Ministry of Truth, natural disasters, public opinion guidance, rainfall, subway, weibo
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I was a typical patriot before 2008. I believed that “hostile foreign forces” were responsible for most of my peoples’ misfortunes. As a soccer commentator covering games between Japan and China, I wrote lines like, “Cut off the Japanese devils’ heads.” I saw Japanese soccer players as the descendants of the Japanese soldiers who brutally killed Chinese civilians in the 1937 massacre of Nanjing. I used to curse CNN for its anti-China commentaries. I was one of the protesters who stood in front of the U.S. consulate in Chengdu and raised my fist after the U.S. bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in 1999.

But my patriotism began to come into question as I stood in front of the ruins of Beichuan High School. It became clear that the “imperialists” did not steal the reinforced-steel bars from the concrete used to make our schools. Our school children were not killed by foreign devils. Instead, they were killed by the filthy hands of my own people.

I still believe that we should “build a New Great Wall with our flesh and blood” but now I also believe the Great Wall should protect our flesh and blood.

Li Chengpeng has become a popular blogger and has five million followers on Sina Weibo. He also ran for local election in Chengdu. Read more by and about Li via CDT, including an essay he wrote about his experience volunteering in the earthquake zone, “The True Story of the Miracle Survival of the Students and Teachers of Longhan Elementary School in Beichuan.” Read also more about the Sichuan earthquake of 2008.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 2008 Sichuan earthquake, Li Chengpeng, nationalism, patriotism
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The candidacy wave remains small, but is still a top discussion topic online.

More prominent participants in the movement such as media workers Li Chengpeng and Yao ‘Wuyue Sanren’ Bo have become less vocal about their individual campaigns (Yao recently quietly announced his resignation from the China Daily newspaper, ostensibly to work on his campaign) in recent weeks. One candidate who has moved more into the limelight has been Hangzhou-based post-80s advertising agency employee and locally-known commentator on the real estate market, Xu Yan. The focus on Xu seems driven largely by his civics lesson approach to campaign preparation.

In early July, Xu began weekly posting of videos [zh] online in which he discusses in detail issues that he plans to address, if elected, as well as educating on topics such as division of powers in the current system and the particular responsibilities which come with the role of district-level People’s Congress representative. As with most other independent candidates around China, Xu’s been busy on Weibo, organizing volunteers, constituent meet-ups and answering questions.

Read more about the independent candidacies via CDT.

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Post tags: independent candidacies, Li Chengpeng, online activism, social media
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