- Zhu Ruifeng (朱瑞峰): Chongqing blogger who uploaded a sex video of official Lei Zhengfu.
- 2 million outside of the system (体制外200万): In a propaganda meeting earlier this month, Beijing Vice Mayor Lu Wei said “the entire city’s propaganda team includes 60,000 people in the system and over two million outside of the system.”
- two million outside of the system (体制外两百万)
- go warm (去温) “Warm” is also the surname of Wen Jiabao (温家宝)
- President Sly (刁总): The “sly” (刁) looks like the character for Xi Jinping’s surname (习).
- Chairman Sly (刁主席)
- The Jia family is not fake (贾不假): Immediately after last year’s mysterious Ferrari crash in Beijing, a rumor spread that the victim was the son of Politburo Standing Committee member Jia Qinglin. Netizens alluded to the incident by quoting from the classic novel Dream of the Red Chamber: “The ‘Chia’ family is not ‘chia,’ a myth; white jade form the Halls; gold compose their horses!” (贾不假，白玉为堂金做马) (translation by H. Bencraft Joly). The family name of the book’s hero, Jia Baoyu (贾 Jiǎ; Chia in Wade-Giles romanization) is homophonous with “fake” (假 jiǎ or chia). The crash victim turned out to be the son of Ling Jihua, one of Hu Jintao’s aides.
- white jade form the Halls; gold compose their horses (白玉为堂金做马)
- Mein Kampf (我的奋斗)
- Moon Moon Bird (月月鸟) : A “spelling” of 鹏 Péng, alluding to Li Peng. See the October 31 edition of Sensitive Words.

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 | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: censorship, filtered keywords, Internet censorship, Jia Qinglin, Li Peng, Ling Jihua, Lu Wei, Ministry of Truth, Sensitive Words Series, sina weibo, weibo, Wen Jiabao, Zhu Ruifeng
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We had Yeſterday another Holland Mail , which brings no conſiderable News, except that the Emperor of China, his Court, and a great Part of his Kingdom have embraced the Chriſtian Religion; but this is too extraordinary to be believed without farther Confirmation. Whatever I hear more certain, I’ll acqaint you with in my next.

TIME’s Austin Ramzy saw another contemporary parallel:

Chinese leadership rumors, circa 1694 – bit.ly/V597xx “too extraordinary to be believed without farther Confirmation”

— Austin Ramzy (@austinramzy) December 18, 2012

Talk of China’s leadership this year has frequently matched that description, with rumours frothing intensely around episodes such as the Bo Xilai affair and the fatal Ferrari crash involving Ling Jihua’s son. “Farther Confirmation” is often hard to obtain, more now because of official opacity and obstruction than distance. The Economist lamented this enduring difficulty in September, after Xi Jinping’s unexplained disappearance just weeks before his anticipated appointment as Party General Secretary:

With no hard facts, rumours flourish, even more so today with the rise of social media and a huge global China-watching profession. In the case of Mr Xi’s disappearance, explanations have ranged widely and wildly from a back injury to a heart attack to, most implausibly, an assassination attempt by means of a traffic accident, though the source of this last tale, Boxun, a Chinese-language website hosted in America, quickly deleted it.

All of this reminds China-watchers how little has changed in the four decades since Mr MacFarquhar admitted the tools of his trade were blunt and unreliable. They might recall one of their early manuals, “The Art of China-Watching”, an in-house article produced by the CIA in 1975, containing the best wisdom that American spymasters could offer. The author summed up years of exasperation in one subheading: “Does Logic Help?”

Since that forlorn cry, China has undergone a dramatic social and economic transformation. But its elite politics remains an intricate and frustrating puzzle to be tackled with crude techniques and unreliable sources. Genuine knowledge of the handful of men who rule the country, including whom they will choose to rule after them and what policies they will favour, is as rare as the Chinese unicorn. Even their health is a state secret.

See also Gady Epstein’s survey of The Economist’s 170 years of China reporting, which marked the launch of its Analects blog in February.

Spoof site China Daily Show also addressed the issue last month in a piece shared by a number China-based foreign correspondents on Twitter:

BEIJING (China Daily Show) – The chief correspondent for a top US newspaper has admitted that he has pretty much no idea what is currently going on in China.

“Nope – I’ve got nothing, to be honest with you. Not a goddamn clue,” said 44-year-old Peter Whitman, a veteran of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars who was previously a correspondent in Syria and Egypt. “And neither does anyone else. Your next guess is probably just as good as mine.”

[…] Observing somewhat bitterly that even the most well-researched bit of Pekingology might as well be pulled out of his own behind, Whitman pointed out that most of the sources available to well-placed journalists regarding the Party’s inner dynamics are likely to be in some way flawed, compromised or subject to bias.

[…] “I mean, I probably shouldn’t be telling you this but it’s all pointless, in a way. I don’t know why I bother sometimes,” Whitman shrugged. “I really don’t [….]”

While secrecy is particularly dense around China’s leaders, it extends much further afield. This has posed particular problems for coverage of self-immolations in Tibetan areas, where restrictions on foreign journalists obstruct independent verification of reports leaked by activist networks. In an interview with Global Times last week, Barbara Demick of The Los Angeles Times suggested that this kind of opacity has backfired in the past:

As a Western reporter in China, Demick finds ordinary people are happy to talk to her. By contrast, the government can be unnecessarily elusive at times, she said, noting as a journalist she has to find ways to persevere to carry out her watchdog role.

“Tibetan rioters really did a lot of bad things,” Demick said, referring to the 2008 incident in Lhasa, capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region. “But when the riots started, we weren’t allowed to go to Tibet, and [the government] wasn’t giving us any information,” she said. “At the beginning, much of the information [reported by the Western media] came from Tibetan exile groups in Dharamsala.”

Demick based her stories on the incident on conversations she had with a colleague in Tibet, although this was hindered when communications were cut. She also visited an ethnic Tibetan township in Qinghai Province to seek deeper perspective.

“If [the government] had let the story be told, it would have been more critical of the rioters,” she said.

As for the Account Of The Publick Transactions in Christendom, the rumour in queſtion presumably had roots in the successes of Jesuit missionaries established as scientific and military advisors in the court of the Kangxi Emperor. Their efforts led to the 1692 Edict of Tolerance, which for almost thirty years allowed the preaching and practice of Catholicism in China. From S. Neill’s A History of Christian Missions, quoted at Fordham University’s Internet Modern History Sourcebook:

“The Europeans are very quiet; they do not excite any disturbances in the provinces, they do no harm to anyone, they commit no crimes, and their doctrine has nothing in common with that of the false sects in the empire, nor has it any tendency to excite sedition … We decide therefore that all temples dedicated to the Lord of heaven, in whatever place they may be found, ought to be preserved, and that it may be permitted to all who wish to worship this God to enter these temples, offer him incense, and perform the ceremonies practised according to ancient custom by the Christians. Therefore let no one henceforth offer them any opposition.”

The Emperor later changed his mind after a papal decree ordered Chinese Christians to abandon “pagan” ancestor worship and Confucian rituals. The IMHS’s editor, Paul Halsall, describes this as the loss of “a very good opportunity to convert a significant part of the Chinese elite to Catholicism.” From the Emperor’s 1721 decree:

“Reading this proclamation, I have concluded that the Westerners are petty indeed. It is impossible to reason with them because they do not understand larger issues as we understand them in China. There is not a single Westerner versed in Chinese works, and their remarks are often incredible and ridiculous. To judge from this proclamation, their religion is no different from other small, bigoted sects of Buddhism or Taoism. I have never seen a document which contains so much nonsense. From now on, Westerners should not be allowed to preach in China, to avoid further trouble.”

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Bo Xilai, Christianity, journalism, journalists conditions, Kangxi, leadership, Lhasa riots, Ling Jihua, news gathering, news media, rumors, Tibet, Xi Jinping
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Wreckage of the Ferrari crash which killed Ling Gu.

As of December 10, the following search terms are blocked on Sina Weibo (not including the “search for user” function):

Ling Jihua Rumors: Before the Party Congress, Hu Jintao was accused by party elders of helping Ling Jihua cover up the death of Ling’s son in a Ferrari crash this March. The scandal had a profound effect on this year’s leadership transition, according to the New York Times. Ling himself was demoted from director of the Central Committee General Office to head of the United Front Work Department.

- Ling Jihua (令计划): Retested. First noted as blocked by CDT on April 16, 2011, and again on November 16, 2011. See our Google spreadsheet of sensitive Sina Weibo search terms.
- LingJH (令JH)
- department head (部长): This could imply either Ling Jihua or Liu Qibao, the newly appointed head of the Central Propaganda Department. Liu went missing last week, only to resurface as mysteriously as he disappeared yesterday. An essay about his new position entitled “Border Province Governor Liu Qibao” was ordered suppressed by censors.
- Gu Liping (谷丽萍): Ling’s wife. Rumors that she was being subjected to shuanggui have been refuted by the authorities.
- Gu Yuanxu (谷源旭): Gu Liping’s younger brother.
- Zhou Benshun (周本顺): Secretary of the Central Politics and Law Commission. Zhou was implicated in the rumors surrounding the crash.
- Liu Qibao (刘奇葆)
- Central Committee Organization Department (中组部)
- power struggle (权斗): retested

Selling qiegao.

Xinjiang Nut Cake Fiasco: A dispute between a customer and a Uyghur peddler in Yueyang, Hunan over the sale of qiegao (Xinjiang nut cake) went viral on Weibo last week. Netizens were shocked by the damages incurred–qiegao ruined in the spat were valued at 160,000 RMB. Anti-Uyghur comments, particular portraying the ethnic group as violent and criminal, have since proliferated.

- Yueyang + qiegao (岳阳+切糕)
- Xinjiang + qiegao (新疆+切糕)
- qiegao + 160,000 (切糕+16万)

Other:

- satellite dish (卫星锅盖)

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

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), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: censorship, Gu Liping, Gu Yuanxu, Hunan, Internet censorship, Ling Jihua, Liu Qibao, Ministry of Truth, netizens, Sensitive Words Series, Shuanggui, sina weibo, Uyghurs, weibo, Xinjiang, Zhou Benshun
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China’s departing president, Hu Jintao, entered the summer in an apparently strong position after the disgrace of Bo Xilai, previously a rising member of a rival political network who was brought down when his wife was accused of murdering a British businessman. But Mr. Hu suffered a debilitating reversal of his own when party elders — led by his predecessor, Jiang Zemin — confronted him with allegations that Ling Jihua, his closest protégé and political fixer, had engineered the cover-up of his son’s death.

According to current and former officials, party elites, and others, the exposure helped tip the balance of difficult negotiations, hastening Mr. Hu’s decline; spurring the ascent of China’s new leader, Xi Jinping; and playing into the hands of Mr. Jiang, whose associates dominate the new seven-man leadership at the expense of candidates from Mr. Hu’s clique.

The case also shows how the profligate lifestyles of leaders’ relatives and friends can weigh heavily in backstage power tussles, especially as party skulduggery plays out under the intensifying glare of media.

Beyond the police and government officials reportedly enlisted by Ling Jihua to suppress details about his son’s death, The South China Morning Post also reported last month that the government had questioned the head of China’s biggest oil and gas producer about alleged hush payments made to the families of the two female passengers injured in the crash.

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: bribery, corruption, cover-up, Ferrari, Hu Jintao, Jiang Zemin, Ling Jihua
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They said the probe into China National Petroleum Corp (CNPC) chairman Jiang Jiemin focused on a large sum of money – several tens of millions of yuan – that was transferred from CNPC to the families of two women injured in the single-vehicle accident.

The episode raises doubts about corporate governance practices at CNPC, the giant state-owned energy company. Sources said the party’s top disciplinary officials were shocked by the ease with which such a large sum of money could be transferred out of a giant state firm without any accountability or proper documentation.

It also raises questions about the oversight capability of government regulators including the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, led by Wang Yong. At a group discussion at the party’s 18th congress last week among delegates from central government-administered companies and agencies, Jiang sat next to Wang in the front row.

Sources said Jiang had been trying to help Ling [Jihua], then head of the powerful General Office of the party’s Central Committee, pay compensation to the families of the other victims and prevent details of the car crash from leaking out to the public.

The crash occurred in March and attracted a considerable amount of attention in Chinese social media, though an official report from the Global Times did not mention the name of the driver. Key details did not emerge until September, when Ling Jihua was removed from his post atop the General Office of the Communist Party’s Central Committee. The Wall Street Journal reported on the government’s response to the crash last month, calling out the quiet way in which officials suppressed information about the incident and spared Ling Jihua public embarrassment over his son’s lifestyle and his family’s wealth.

The involvement of CNPC and any payments made to the victims’ families, however, is new information. Sources also told the South China Morning Post that the investigation into Jiang may partly explain his disappearance from public view from late July onwards, which CNPC downplayed in a September statement. From The Financial Times:

Mao Zefeng, a PetroChina spokesman, told the Financial Times that Mr Jiang “presides over PetroChina and CNPC as usual”.

Xinhua, the state-run news agency, said Mr Jiang was ill, having been admitted to hospital in July, and was being treated.

However, citing CNPC, the agency added that he did not suffer from “cancer or any other serious illness”.

The Daily Mail also published several photos from the crash scene which had appeared on Chinese social media.

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: bribery, CCP, China National Petroleum Corp, corruption, Jiang Jiemin, Ling Jihua, social media
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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.

Clockwise from top right: Zhao Ziyang, Hu Yaobang, Ye Jianying and Deng Xiaoping.

These directives, issued between November 1-3, are related to China’s upcoming leadership transition at the 18th Party Congress on Thursday.

State Council Information Office: All media must without exception not report or comment on the appearance of photos of Hu [Yaobang] and Zhao [Ziyang] on the 18th Party Congress news center. (November 2, 2012)

国新办：对网传十八大新闻中心出现胡、赵照片一事，各媒体一律不报道和评论。

On November 1, a photo from the 12th Party Congress in 1982 appeared on the 18th Congress website picturing (clockwise from top right) Zhao Ziyang, Hu Yaobang, Ye Jianying and Deng Xiaoping [zh]. Hu’s death in April 1989 lead to the nationwide protests which were brutally suppressed on June 4. Zhao, who succeeded Hu as Party Secretary General in 1987, was purged for his support of the protesters. He died in 2005, ending 15 years of house arrest. The 1982 photo was removed from the site by November 4.

The Hong Kong paper Ming Pao published the “before” and “after” photos:

Mingpao: photo of Zhao Ziyang and Hu Yaobang exhibited in 18大’ News Centre has been replaced with a voting one. twitter.com/huanglisha/sta…

— 莎莎/Huang Lisha (@huanglisha) November 5, 2012

Central Propaganda Department: Without exception, do not produce interviews, reports or commentary on security work for the 18th Party Congress. (November 1, 2012)

中宣部：对十八大安保工作，一律不自行采访、报道和评论。

State Council Information Office: Strictly adhere to Xinhua copy in reporting the matter of Su Zhanshu holding the post of secretary of the Central Committee Working Committee [concurrently with the post of director of the General Office of the Communist Party]. Do not use or link to any other sources. (November 2, 2012)

国新办：有关粟战书兼任中直工委书记一事，严格按新华社通稿刊播，不采用任何其他来源的消息，不链接。

Su replaced Ling Jihua as director of the General Office in September, while Ling was demoted to head of the United Front Work Department. The power shift seems linked to the death of Ling’s son in a scandalous Ferrari crash in March.

State Council Information Office: All media are forbidden from reporting on, commenting on or publishing Hu Deping‘s online article “Reform Cannot be Wasted.” (November 2, 2012)

国新办：对网上胡德平文章《改革不能废》，各媒体及网站不报不评不转。

Hu Deping, the son of Hu Yaobang, is reported to have recently met with Xi Jinping to discuss political and economic reforms.

© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 18th party congress, censorship, Deng Xiaoping, Directives from the Ministry of Truth, Hu Deping, hu yaobang, Internet censorship, Ling Jihua, media censorship, Ministry of Truth, propaganda, Su Zhanshu, Ye Jianying, Zhao Ziyang
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The Chinese Communist Party is broadly divided between informal “elitist” and “populist” coalitions, according to China expert and Brookings Institution analyst Cheng Li. Other analysts conceive of the split in different terms, such as between liberal-minded reformist and conservative hard-liner camps.

[...] Hu’s heir apparent, Xi, is a princeling, whereas Wen’s likely successor, Li Keqiang, represents the tuanpai.

[...] Their factional inclinations are reflected in their policy priorities, says Li of the Brookings Institution. Xi is focused on the private sector, market liberation in foreign investment, and Shanghai’s role as a financial and shipping center. In contrast, Li Keqiang emphasizes affordable housing, basic health care and clean energy.

This equilibrium extends within the upper echelons of the leadership, which is about evenly split between the elitists and populists, according to Li. Most analysts concur that the era of charismatic, paramount leaders ended after Deng Xiaoping, replaced by relatively colorless technocrats who governed through collective leadership.

John Garnaut at the Sydney Morning Herald offers more details about the effects of the political jockeying for the 18th Party Congress personnel lineup:

Earlier, President Hu Jintao’s key powerbroker, Ling Jihua, was removed as head of the party’s General Office after being implicated in a cover-up of his son’s death in a high-speed Ferrari accident.

[...] ”It is a state of extreme chaos,” said political watcher Li Weidong. ”There is no absolute authority, otherwise two sides won’t bite each other like this.”

[...] Mr Hu appears to have won crucial appointments in the People’s Liberation Army, particularly the new Chief of the General Staff, Fang Fenghui, as first reported by the Age last Tuesday.

This would suggest Mr Hu is gaining strength in the military while losing it at party central.

See more on the 18th Party Congress via CDT.

© Mengyu Dong for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 18th party congress, CCP 5th generation, factions, Hu Jintao, Jiang Zemin, leadership transition, Ling Jihua, princelings, Youth League faction
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The difference in how the party handled the Bo and Ling matters speaks volumes about the challenge it faces as it tries to conclude its most destabilizing political crisis in decades ahead of a sweeping leadership change beginning at the 18th Party Congress, which starts Nov. 8.

The leadership has tried to portray Mr. Bo—now accused of offenses including bribe-taking, sexual impropriety and abuse of power in a murder investigation of his wife—as an anomaly. Broader-than-expected allegations announced last month appeared designed to restore the party’s damaged credibility in the eyes of a public grown increasingly angry over the issues of official abuse that Mr. Bo embodies. Mr. Bo has disappeared from public view and is believed to be in detention pending his trial.

But the Ferrari crash and its aftermath encapsulate some of the same issues, such as children of the elite enjoying expensive luxuries—demonstrating how limited the party’s taste is for policing its own upper ranks except when politically expedient.

The contrasting fates of Mr. Bo and Ling Jihua also reflect feuding and deal-making behind the scenes as outgoing leaders and former ones have tried to elevate protégés to conserve their interests and political influence.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 18th party congress, Bo Xilai, corruption, Ling Jihua
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The personnel changes may be part of political jockeying ahead of the party’s 18th Congress, where China’s leaders will pick a new generation to rule the world’s most-populous nation for the next decade. The appointments mean that Ling may not secure a spot on the party’s Politburo at the congress, said Joseph Fewsmith, director of the Center for the Study of Asia at Boston University.

“I think it was a swap, a Hu ally for a Hu ally, but not an equal swap,” Fewsmith, who focuses on China’s elite politics, said in an e-mail. “Ling was a very viable candidate for the Politburo, Li is not.”

The Australian also looks at the significance of the swap  and at the potential makeup of the incoming Politburo Standing Committee [PBSC]:

Only one other member of the PBSC, Li Keqiang – who is slated to replace Wen Jiabao as premier – will remain, with the seven other members retiring.

“The new guy has good relations with Hu Jintao and also has ties with the new incoming leader,” Bill Bishop, author of The Sinocism China Newsletter, told AFP. “He will be an extremely influential person in Beijing. The party general secretary needs someone like this who is competent and can be trusted. More importantly, this is really an indication that things are on track and that the next party congress is reasonably imminent.”

As the change in Ling Jihua’s position was announced, the South China Morning Post ran an exclusive report confirming rumors that Ling’s son, Ling Gu, had been the driver who was killed in a mysterious crash of a Ferrari in the middle of the night in Beijing in March. At the time of the crash, all news about it was blacked out, leading netizens to speculate over the identity of the driver. According to the SCMP report, Lin was killed, while his two female companions, one Uyghur and one Tibetan, were injured. From the New York Times blog:

The car was a black Ferrrari, and Ling Gu, the son, was said to be driving. Two young women with him in the car — “one naked, one semi-naked,” the story said — were seriously injured. The story said one woman was a Uighur, the other a Tibetan.

After the crash, The Morning Post said, citing an unnamed mainland official, “an elaborate scheme was painstakingly stitched together to hide the real identity of the tragic young man in the crash. The name that eventually appeared on the death certificate of the driver was a fake.”

“People will ask how Ling Gu could have afforded a 5 million yuan luxury sports car in the first place,” the paper said, judging the Ferrari to be worth $788,000. “And it will only confirm the public belief that the children of senior officials have rich and decadent lifestyles beyond the wildest dreams of the people.”

Immediately following the crash, a number of related terms were blocked from Sina Weibo search, including:

• Prince Ling (令公子): son of Ling Jihua
• Little Ling (小令): son of Ling Jihua
• high-speed + car sex (高速+车震)
• car crash + car sex (车祸+车震)

Read more about the upcoming Party Congress via CDT.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 18th party congress, CCP Leadership Transition, Ling Jihua, Politburo, Politburo Standing Committee
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Related to Tiananmen: See here and here.

Ferraris and Princes: Netizens have been trying to fill in the gaps surrounding a mysterious Ferrari crash on Beijing’s Fourth Ring Road March 18. A rumor has it that the victim was the son of Central Committee Secretariat Ling Jihua. There has been no official confirmation of the incident.

• Prince Ling (令公子): son of Ling Jihua
• Little Ling (小令): son of Ling Jihua
• high-speed + car sex (高速+车震)
• car crash + car sex (车祸+车震)
• Ferrari + car crash (法拉利+车祸): retested
• FALALI: retested
• North Fourth Ring [Road] + car crash (北四环+车祸): retested

Other:

• National Security Czar (国家安全沙皇): a.k.a. Zhou Yongkang

• Political Triangle (三角政治同盟): refers to the political circle of Zhou Yongkang, Ling Jihua and Bo Xilai.

Note: All Chinese-language words are tested using simplified characters. The same terms in traditional characters occasionally return different results. 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), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Bo Xilai, filtered keywords, Huang Qifan, Ling Jihua, Sensitive Words Series, sina weibo, Wang Lijun, weibo, xu ming, Zhou Yongkang
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Chinese President and Communist Party chief Hu Jintao has elevated a key aide to a sensitive position in a show of influence ahead of a major Communist Party congress next month.

In a one sentence report on Wednesday, the official Xinhua News Agency said Ling Jihua had been named head of the General Office of the party’s Central Committee, the main executive body in charge of running the party.

Ling, 50, replaces Wang Gang, who at 65 had reached the mandatory retirement age for officials not being promoted into the party’s uppermost ranks. [Full Text]

© Liu Yong for China Digital Times (CDT), 2007. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 17th Party Congress, CCP, Hu Jintao, Ling Jihua
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