media - "I was wrong, wrong, wrong"

Andrea points at the refreshing statement of Chris Richard, chief editor of the New Internationalist, who already made a special issue about China in September, but was only found now online. Seldom journalists are prepared to admit they had to adjust their ideas about China so dramatically when they came here.
"I thought I would find here a closed and restrictive society whose people – fearing punishment or scrutiny from the Chinese authorities – would be reticent to speak. I imagined an embryonic civil society movement in which any NGO that wanted to advocate against Chinese Communist Party policies would be crushed before it could even begin. And I thought that China’s long march towards capitalism was relatively recent, and that the excesses of globalization would be some years from irretrievably infecting the welfare of its people. In some ways, I was right. But in so many ways, I was wrong, wrong, wrong!"
More at T-Salon and the New Internationalist.

media - No magazine but only a Playboy club

AP had the story well ahead of the press conferen: Playboy wants to open a club in Shanghai, not start a magazine as I assumed some time ago. So after Hooters, its now Playboy who think China does need clubs the American granddad's would go to. Playboy wants to take up seven floors, but I wonder whether the size matters.
I just saw in the Shanghai subway the cartoons telling people how to prevent Aids and HIV; they were pretty candid, I must say, and probably would be banned in a prudish country like the US, where even the sight of a tit causes a national uproar. It might take some intelligent work to make these clubs really into a success in China.

internet - Three versions of the Linyi Airport incident




ESWN gives three different editions of the incident that has ignated the internet in China. A very useful way to deal with the wide range of rumors that go around on the internet, although none of the stories really increases my sympathy for Mr Wang Tingjiang, the NPC-delegate who got entangled in a brawl earlier this week.
"They beat the guy up," said in the quoted report of Nanfang.net Wang Tingjiang said that there was not not a dozen, but only 'six or seven' people. "The beating was not that severe."
Wang said that he did not instruct his subordinates to barge in, and his companion did not call them either. When some deplaning passengers saw his chauffeur and others waiting outside, they told them that Wang was being detained in the airplane. That was when those people barged into the airport. [end quote]
Beating up a security guard in this way is still not done, I think, even when you are drunk and upset at the way how Shangdong Airline treats you. But it is a good way to treat this kind of rumors, by analyzing what really happened.

censorship - The banned words at MSN

Making fun of censorship is a worldwide game and the launch of the new weblog service by MSN triggered off quite some funny reactions. Also MSN tries to ban some words, but finds it - as censors all over the world - very hard to be consistent. Boing Boings summerizes: "The conclusion? A mixed bag of results that manages to do what most attempts to automate censorship do -- make fools of the censors." (Pointer by Dan Gillmor).

The igniting power of the internet – the WTO column

(Soon also at Chinabiz)

Who reads mainly traditional foreign news sources on China might have heard over de past week about a halfhearted attempt of China’s internet censors to block the English-language service of Google News. The story was greatly blown out of proportions since everybody who wanted could easy watch those pages, unlike two years ago when a blockade of major Google services cause a major disruption of the internet.
What is more troublesome it that because of the one-side focus of most western media on backlashes by China’s old forces, the worlds misses the lightening changes taking place in this country because of that same internet. That other side of the story deserves some attention.

When you are familiar with the Niu Niu story and the brawl of NPC-delegate Wang Tingjiang at the Weifang airport in Shandong province, you do not have to read on. But I’m afraid for too many readers it will be news indeed, because foreign media get their stories mostly from the censored state media, much less from the internet.
The stories are not big in comparison with the 166 dead miners in Shaanxi province, who died because of neglect of the management and local authorities. But they illustrate a trend of how China is changing.
Niu Niu, the nick name of a daughter of a vice party secretary in Shenzhen, made a movie about studying overseas, something only the elite can afford to do. The result was not that great according to reviews, but departments of the Shenzhen municipality advised their school to visit the movie, costing a 20 Renminbi per person. Parents protested on the internet, because they could not afford such a study abroad and even thought the price for the ticket was outrageous. Mainly through bulletin boards, opposition rose against the move, her father has to apologize and it sparked off a China-wide discussion on misuse of power.
NPC-delegate and private business man Wang Tingjiang caused a brawl at the Weifang airport earlier in the week as he and his delegation left the plane. The reason is still unclear, but they attacked airport police, ground staff and stormed the secure area of the airport building. Local censors tried to suppress the story, but it raised a storm on the internet and the ongoing story will get a long tail for NPC-delegate Wang.
They are only two fairly recent examples. In dozens of cases issues have been picked up by internet users and their actions made a difference.

What these examples show it that not only Iraqi prisons have a problem in keeping their scandals under wraps. Local authorities in the past routinely banned stories on scandals to keep them out of sight of the larger public and, more importantly, out of sight of the central government in Beijing. They cannot get away with it anymore, and it will be more common that they will have to take responsibility for their actions. Also the central government increasingly uses the information to tighten its grip on local governments.
This increased transparency will not only affect local governments, since barriers for communication come down everywhere. Publishing becomes affordable for everybody also companies will have to watch their steps more closely. Employees of different subsidiaries can now talk to each other, and they will. Promises done in one place, will be known in others.
Rumors, true or false, will spread with lightening speed over China, and increasingly also over the rest of the world. Globalization means increasingly also empowerment of the exploding virtual community of now almost 111 million Chinese internet users.
Transparency has been officially high on the agenda of visiting political dignitaries when they meet their counterparts in Beijing. But that officially wanted transparency will come at a price, and all participants will have to take those changes into account.

Fons Tuinstra

PS: The Washington Post comes with a less optimistic story from Harbin. Surprisingly enough they are able to write a story about censorship and media in China, while only talking to their colleagues of the traditional mainstream publications and not mention the internet.

internet - NPC-delegate Wang causes a fight

The internet in China exploded yesterday as users learned about a brawl caused by NPC-delegate and private business man Wang Tingjiang while leaving a plane at the airport of Weifang in Shandong province.

For still unclear reasons Wang and a party of a dozen attacked airport police, ground staff and stormed the secure area of the airport. Some of the passengers feared they witnessed a terrorist attack, according to some of the witnesses.

Sina.com.cn brought it as one of the first, but then had to withdraw it from its frontpage; it gave the blogosphere enough time to pick it up and circulate the story. One person is said to be wounded. It is a minor story compared to the scandal surrounding the 166 dead miners in Shaanxi, but a good example of how the internet is changing China.

media - Two faces of China



Danwei found this truly amazing poster of the American Recording Industry in the Landsberger collection. I'm quite sure it is not going to work, since most American youngsters would rather image having the model on the cover of my book holding their shoulder than the Cold-War like picture of Chinese repression. Interesting way of framing the struggle against illegal downloads.

media - Google News reports its own 'blockade'


What is a double sensation for a journalist in China is to see whether Google News will report on what some see as a blockade of its site by the Chinese censors. It does, only on page two as the celebration of World Aids day and imposed US duties on shrimps were more important.
But otherwise were all the twenty news reports (including the BBC) easily accessable.
Last night I developed a new theory on what is happening, as I was waiting for a set of early morning phone calls.
The strange thing is that only a few of the IP-addresses of Google News are being blocked, suggesting it might perhaps not be the Google service itself that is the target, but the traffic it generates. The internet filters have caused a damaging slowdown on the internet traffic in general and perhaps by closed some of the generators of potentially sensitive traffic that bottleneck is temporarily 'solved'.
It would explain why I can get so easy access to a few other sites, like my blogging-interface. Just a theory.

law - Death penalty under review

The BBC tells (via China Digital News) that a major change in the system of death penalties might occur in China. With many thousands of executions each year, China tops all the bad-boys' lists of human rights organizations, just after the United States, for its record number of death penalties.
In the reviewed law, all capital punishments could be reviewed by the Supreme Court. That would likely be a step to a stiff reduction of the death penalty. Experts are already for some years quite openly challenging the dealth penalty in China, especially on such a large scale.

economy - Microsoft loses its China contract again

It sounded like a much needed breakthrough when US-software producer Microsoft closed a multi-million deal with the Beijing Municipality, but the deal disappeared quickly under domestic resistance, media reported widely.
It came not as a surprise. China seems not in the business to pay companies like Microsoft anything, where it has or competitors like Linux or domestic companies. Dow Jones reports now that new rules will also officially limit the purchase of foreign software.

blogging - Sex and terminal diseases

Two kind of entries do very well on weblogs, those on sex and those on diseases. Best are of course terminal diseases, but such a weblog is not really sustainable without losing some of your credibility.
I did one really boring entry on the need for regulations of adult toys months ago, it is still one of my biggest hits. It just shows what the internet is about.
Jeff is now doing a good try with this treatment of sleep apnea, he is undergoing in Bangkok. He will keep us updated, also when he is back in Shanghai again. He already explained the gory details in de private chat. It is gruesome. As usual, his entry is long and very well documented: maybe I should try that too. :-)

new media - Lost in the jargon?

RSS-feeds and readers. Weblogs, interfaces, proxies and podcasting. Those are a few of the new household names in the new media we use all too easy without realizing that for newcomers this is a whole new language. I'm planning to set up a small course for those newcomers, of perhaps two, three hours, focusing on the tools and jargon of this new trade. The question is: would there be any interest in it? Please let me know.

media - More protests or just better media coverage?

The question has come up more than once in the slipstream of the surge of media reports on labor unrest in Guangdong. Is there really more unrest or is the coverage getting better? And then: is the government leaving more room for reporting or are the new media taking that room, forcing traditional media to follow?
The China Digital News quotes Lin Shusen, the Guangdong party secretary who blames reporters for overdoing it. "It's normal for people to go to the government to complain. That is a reflection of democracy. Hong Kong people are very fond of marches but we don't want to be like Hong Kong." (The original link is missing.)
Sacked editor Wang Guangze of the 21th Century Herald feels that repression has only become more subtle, he told the South China Morning Post. "Wang is convinced that his dismissal is related to his speech at Trinity College, in Hartford, Connecticut, this month," it says in a transcript at the China Study Group.
"I notified them about my trip there and they were talking about my promotion before I left for the US. It is impossible that they did not fire me because of the presentation," he said.
In his speech, Wang argued that despite tight controls by the authorities, the internet was reshaping the mainland's political landscape and civil society.

blogging - Andrea's roundup of the blogosphere

T-salon give a good summery and links of the recent discussions going on about the blogosphere in China.
"Topku from Guangzhou has once again reiterated his objection that China's blogsosphere is assessed based on its impact on political freedom and state censorship. He points to The Voice of Chinese Bloggers, where Chiu Yung, another Guangzhou blogger wrote that there are many things other than politics that Chinese bloggers want to express," writes Andrea.

internet - Google News blocked: should we care?

I did not notice it very fast, since I mostly work through a proxy, but I did another check this morning and indeed, Google News is officially blocked. Now, for China-watchers this is a interesting fact, since why would it be blocked?
But on a practical level: there are so many more interesting things going on, I only got an email from one person who just arrived in China and did not know how proxies worked. Should we bother, now this internet block has become such a symbolic feature?

media – Sloppy photoshopping


It used to be the prerogative of governments to erase or add people on picture depending on the changed political circumstances. But thanks to the new technology, everybody can do it, and even worse: they all do.
Danwei summarizes here the full history of this fake picture of Zhang Ziyi, that has even made is on official website because – they claim – it is not yet proven it is a fake. At least I have a decent excuse for reproducing this fake, by adding a moralistic comment.

media - Walking condom arrives in Shanghai

Danwei noted it earlier at Sanlitun, but today I bumbed into the Walking Condom in Xujiahui. It was the only exciting part of what was otherwise a classic line-up for an official show on AIDS-prevention. On a stage two anchor-people of Shanghai TV presented a show that will be broadcasted on December 12. The traditional line of officials, balloons, pigeons and cute little girls dancing on a stage.

Actually, so boring I even did not wait for the free handouts that seems to be part of this kind of events. I should have a watch next week, but if this is the way to convince people, Chinese media be losing their credibility even faster than US networks are doing. Hope I can find STV on my TV-set, have not watched it for ages.

What was interesting was that the messages was entirely focused on women. Obvious, the government seems to assume that women are easier to convince that they should force men to wear a condom than address the men directly.

book - The Chinese peasant study, banned, pirated and praised

"Never in my life have I ever seen so many people get down on their knees. Afterwards, I am still feeling bad. Especially for that old lady whose two sons died. She came over slowly with a cane to assist her, and then she burst in tears and knelt down before us. When we got her to rise, her face was covered with tears."
The opening sentence of a lengthy report on China's most solid report on the country side, in the Ming Pao Weekly, and translated by ESWN. Authors Chen Guidi and Chuntao received the prestigious Lettres Ulysse Award for their work.