{"id":195886,"date":"2016-08-11T00:03:44","date_gmt":"2016-08-11T07:03:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/?p=195886"},"modified":"2016-08-26T16:03:35","modified_gmt":"2016-08-26T23:03:35","slug":"global-times-speak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/chinadigitaltimes.net\/2016\/08\/global-times-speak\/","title":{"rendered":"Who Does Global Times Speak For?"},"content":{"rendered":"
Last week, a spiky Global Times editorial blasted Australia as a \u201cpaper cat\u201d over its position on the South China Sea, bringing the perennial question of how seriously to take the nationalist state-owned tabloid<\/a> back to the fore. While its provocative editorials are often reported abroad as reflective of official positions, critics accuse it of empty attention-grabbing and argue that it is best treated with skepticism, if not ignored entirely<\/a>. In a profile of the newspaper and its outspoken editor Hu Xijin, Quartz\u2019s Zheping Huang presents Hu\u2019s own view on the matter<\/strong><\/a>:<\/p>\n China\u2019s most belligerent tabloid, the Global Times, is certainly a one-of-a-kind publication. The Chinese- and English-language news outlet is published by the ruling Chinese Communist Party\u2019s (CCP) paramount mouthpiece, the People\u2019s Daily, but it goes much further than China\u2019s typically stodgy state news. The Global Times is best known for its hawkish, insulting editorials\u2014aggressive attacks that get it noticed, and quoted, by foreign media around the world as the \u201cvoice\u201d of Beijing, even as the party\u2019s official statements are more circumspect.<\/p>\n That\u2019s not exactly a mistake, the paper\u2019s longtime editor says.<\/p>\n The Global Times often reflects what party officials are actually thinking, but can\u2019t come out and say, editor-in-chief Hu Xijin explained during a long interview with Quartz in his drab Beijing office in the People\u2019s Daily compound. As a former army officer and current party member, Hu said, he often hangs out with officials from the foreign ministry and the security department, and they share the same sentiments and values that his paper publishes. \u201cThey can\u2019t speak willfully, but I can,\u201d he said. [Source<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Hu expounded his claim that Global Times offers an unfiltered view of at least some officials\u2019 true thinking<\/strong><\/a> in a separate interview with Huang at Quartz:<\/p>\n Many foreign news outlets assume your editorials and op-eds can be interpreted as the Communist Party\u2019s official voice. Is that a misunderstanding?<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to give a simple answer to this question. I\u2019m appointed by the Communist Party, so it can influence me. My tone is in line with the Communist Party. I will never turn against the party. We live in the same system. We have many similar understandings, sentiments and values.<\/p>\n As a market-driven news outlet, we have more freedom of reportage. We can say all kinds of stuff, while party media or official media can\u2019t. The stuff we say is probably the same as some officials are thinking in many cases.<\/p>\n But it\u2019s like this: We say these words, and the officials probably think the same, but turning them into policies is another thing. Sometimes there\u2019s a big gap between an idea and a policy. Some ideas might never be turned into policies. Not to mention that I don\u2019t dare to say my ideas are always the same as that of officials. There are some officials who don\u2019t like me. For example the late ambassador Wu Jianmin, he openly criticized me. [Read more on Wu<\/a> and his run-ins with Hu<\/a> via CDT.]<\/p>\n [\u2026] Have government officials ever ordered the Global Times to write an editorial, or write one in a certain way?<\/strong><\/p>\n I can\u2019t say never. But rarely.<\/p>\n [\u2026] In April, an opinion poll on your website asked whether China should take over Taiwan by force \u201cin three to five years time.\u201d Media reports say that the Global Times was warned by the cyberspace watchdog for this?<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s true. These kinds of things happen quite often. It\u2019s nothing. I\u2019m still sitting here, right? A news outlet is a practical institution, not a theoretical one. I need to make some judgements. Sometimes they might conflict with a policy, and I\u2019ll be criticized. When they criticize us, we\u2019ll improve our work. It\u2019s not a big deal. It won\u2019t kill my enthusiasm. It\u2019s normal under the system. [Source<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n A Cyberspace Administration of China notice circulated to media editors on that occasion also criticized Global Times for coverage of the South China Sea, North Korea, Hong Kong, the release of the last Tiananmen prisoner, and Donald Trump<\/a>. It concluded:<\/p>\n The newspaper has one month to make focused corrections, standardize related management systems, further improve the process by which articles are drafted and reviewed, and conduct education for the entire editorial staff, in order to raise awareness of politics, national interests, the core, and keeping in line with the Party. All websites should take this as a warning and strengthen their respective management systems. If another problem occurs, it will be dealt with severely. [Source<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The newspaper has also been the target of leaked deletion orders<\/a> on more than one occasion<\/a>.<\/p>\n Hu\u2019s lengthy conversation at Quartz also touched on Hu\u2019s presence at the 1989 Tiananmen protests, and the subsequent experiences in the disintegrating U.S.S.R. and the former Yugoslavia which he says convinced him of the need for strong Party rule to maintain stability in China. Hu also discusses the relationship between the interests of Party and people; the struggle to \u201cadhere to press freedom and the party\u2019s leadership at the same time\u201d; his feelings on the looming U.S. election and Sino-U.S. relations; his hopes for greater diversity of opinion and the eventual fall of the Great Firewall; and his surprising suggestion that \u201cin general the West\u2019s criticism of China, including the pressures put on China\u2019s human rights [development], is constructive. In the long run, the West\u2019s criticism will promote the development of China\u2019s human rights. [\u2026 But w]e can never let the West set the agenda, <\/a>roadmap and timetable for China\u2019s human rights development. Otherwise, human rights will become the West\u2019s political leverage over China.\u201d<\/p>\n In a third piece, Huang focuses on Global Times\u2019 foreign staff<\/strong><\/a>, who work in the English edition\u2019s separate office in the \u201ciconic\u201d People\u2019s Daily building<\/a>. This article includes an explanation for the paper\u2019s sometimes surprising forays into sensitive subject areas. In 2014, for example, it reported on \u201cskyrocketing\u201d usage of VPNs to circumvent Chinese internet controls<\/a>. Many such articles are quickly deleted, but that one survives to this day.<\/p>\n There are currently around twenty foreign editors working with the Global Times who are referred to as \u201cforeign experts,\u201d a clich\u00e9d nickname for any foreigner working with Chinese state media. They do everything from assigning stories to reporting to copy editing\u2014as long as the coverage is not about politics.<\/p>\n [\u2026] Foreigners work for Chinese state media, including the Global Times, for all kinds of reasons. Some just want to stay in China with a well paid job that isn\u2019t being an English teacher, Mitchell said, while others are \u201cidealists\u201d who think they will \u201cconvert the publication to a western point of view.\u201d And others are in it for the novelty value. \u201cI once helped the Communist Party with the propaganda machine\u2014it\u2019s funnier than anything,\u201d one former foreign editor, who asked not to be named, said. He said he didn\u2019t feel embarrassed working with the Global Times, but some did leave because they were sick of serving the party.<\/p>\n [\u2026] In 2013 after departing the tabloid, Mitchell wrote a blog post titled \u201cIt\u2019s not a sin to work for Global Times\u201d to counter an opinion from a Hong Kong reporter. \u201cThe opinion page continues to suck dead rats and draws the most negative attention,\u201d he wrote, \u201cbut if one sifts through the news pages there are still some gems.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe main point of Global Times was just Hu\u2019s opinion pieces and the other opinion pieces written by left-wing political commentators,\u201d the former foreign editor, who wished not to be named said. \u201cAll of the other content on the newspaper were simply there to provide more pages.\u201d But because of that, more provocative reporters are enabled to cover sensitive topics including gay rights, labor protests, and ethnic minority groups, he said. [Source<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last week, a spiky Global Times editorial blasted Australia as a \u201cpaper cat\u201d over its position on the South China Sea, bringing the perennial question of how seriously to take the nationalist state-owned tabloid back to the fore. While its provocative editorials are often reported abroad as reflective of official positions, critics accuse it of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":962,"featured_media":143450,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[116,14744,14745,14746,100,5],"tags":[53,16818,6821,14620,1023,3750,1960,15404],"class_list":["post-195886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world","category-level-2-article","category-level-3-article","category-level-4-article","category-politics","category-society","tag-censorship","tag-cyberspace-administration-of-china","tag-global-times","tag-hu-xijin","tag-journalism","tag-media-control","tag-newspapers","tag-state-media","et-has-post-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"yoast_head":"\n