Beijing Newspeak

To be a Politburo member is often to be as helpless as a naive Xinhua foreign editor trying to persuade his superiors that quotation marks around “Taiwan independence” just look a bit petty.

The central leadership must have collectively spluttered on their shark’s fin soup at the sight of a 800-metre concrete and marble dragon reclining nonchalantly on a mountain ridge in Henan province. And they must have been pounding their skulls with the red hardback edition of the Chinese constitution on hearing that the dragon’s total length will be 21 kilometres, its total cost could be up to four billion yuan and it is all being done in celebration of 60 years of Communist rule in 2009.

Obviously this story has been lapped up by the international media which has used headlines like: “China to build 13-mile dragon to fire up tourism”. It implies a Chinese government tourism think-tank has huddled together and come up with a triumphant plan to make Henan a hotspot for the world’s travellers. In fact, the whole harebrained scheme, similar to the painting a mountain green incident (which prompted the inevitable headline, “Why did China paint the mountain green?”), is being propounded by an egocentric maniac with an incredibly poor taste in giant concrete and marble animal garden features who wants to be remembered as the man who made the Great Wall look like a picket fence.

Li Xiong, president of the Zulong company behind the dragon, says it will cost more than £260 million and he hopes Chinese people all over the world will contribute.

“The finished dragon is to wear 5.6 million scales of jade or gold-coated bronze. People can pay to carve words on the scales, and inside the body there will be trains and clubs. It will be a place for cultural activities and relaxation,” he said.

“I am not afraid of attacks. Our ancestors built the Great Wall, and now I am building the Great Dragon. I will succeed.”

It is another example of the chaos that reigns far away from Beijing’s influence. Not even the local authorities know what is going on. Apparently, the project was halted for not going through the correct planning procedures back in 2003. Xinhua has reported that the dragon is already under threat as it appears to constitute a serious breach of environmental regulations.  The local environmental department has only just managed to get out of the dark:

The Zhengzhou environmental protection administration said they had learned of the project through media reports.

And someone is of course lying:

A Henan newspaper quoted an official with Xinzheng City as saying the dragon is a business project and has nothing to do with the government. Zulong Company vice president, Li Xiong, told the media that the dragon project had support from the government.

Meanwhile, China looks like a crazy place to the rest of the world and the politburo has to find an excuse not to attend a 60th People’s Republic of China birthday party in Henan.

I do wonder what the central government really thinks about incidents like this. Is it similar to working for Xinhua? Do China’s leaders fill the corridors of the Great Hall of the People with exasperated wails even though they know that very few people are listening? Do they have as much chance of berating the man behind the Great Dragon as I have of any form of acknowledgement of my existence from the director of my department? Do they bang on about China’s international image as much as I do when I see a story from the diplomatic desk? Or do they giggle about it (did you see the thing’s head - it’s enormous hee hee!) over morning tea?

I had plenty of time last week to pour over the news agency wires and marvel at the latest confusion over the six-party talks. Despite Xinhua’s diplomatic desk being a few metres up the corridor, I rely firmly on Reuters and AP for the breaking news for obvious reasons. Substitute pretty much any country you like for Romania in this article and it is nearly always applicable. I have long suspected the overuse of the cut and paste function in the diplomatic section.

Not that I’m being given much of Xinhua’s convoluted spiel, translated word for word from Foreign Ministry statements, at the moment. This may have something to do with me completely losing the plot last week, launching a tirade of foul abuse at the unfortunate soul who had concocted the latest piece of unintelligble nonsense and tossing the wretched hard copy on the floor. I was told my anger was “unnecessary” and I would have to agree entirely. On a selfish note, I felt much better. Especially when I had more time to appreciate the KCNA’s latest poetry, which is still a couple of notches of below Xinhua in terms of logic but a darn sight more pleasurable to read.

However, I have to say the reporting of the breakdown of the six-party talks on the foreign wires grated somewhat. There appeared to be a total lack of analysis. I appreciate a news agency is required to be as objective as possible but international newspeak always requires interpretation. I was particularly suprised at AP’s effort - and therefore half the world’s press - which allowed the U.S. negotiator to lay the blame for the collapse of the negotiations firmly at the door of North Korea.

“The problem has been that the North Koreans said they must have this BDA matter finalized before they move forward on the other issues and that sort of sequential approach slowed us down,” Christopher Hill, the chief American envoy, told reporters.

This was then quickly followed by a quote from some guy from a Washington think-tank to ram home the downright stubbornness of those naughty Kim Jong Ilians.

Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank, said the stalemate could have been predicted as Pyongyang was following its usual tactic of committing, then pulling back.

“This is what they do and no one should be surprised,” Eberstadt said in a telephone interview. “It’s absolutely business as usual. They don’t play until you pay. Then they will return to discussions to find out what they can get at the next round.”

I rarely stick up for North Korea (how pleasurable it is to be released from the Xinhua shackles and be able to ignore that most ludicrous of abbreviations, DPRK) but hang on a minute. North Korea made it quite clear the talks could continue once the 25 million U.S. dollars had been transferred to the Bank of China from Banco Delta Asia in Macao. Ah, behold the 13th paragraph, when the true situation begins to emerge:

Russian envoy Alexander Losyukov, who also left for home Thursday, was quoted by ITAR-Tass news agency as saying “the whole problem came from the American side.”

He said the United States failed to assure the Chinese side that the Bank of China could receive the funds without fear of U.S. sanctions or discrimination by the banking community and the U.S. government.

What blatant contempt for the basic news-writing principle of the inverted pyramid! That shining gem of a rule that taught budding writers, within the first ten minutes of journalism school, to put rescuer, cat and tree all in the lead paragraph. This is the reason for the breakdown of the talks but, it seems, Russian words do not carry much weight.

The Reuters report chose to elevate the Japanese chief negotiator’s comments to prominence.

“It is deplorable that North Korea did not show a positive stance and stuck to its position to the bitter end that it would not take part in talks unless the funds were returned,” Japanese chief negotiator Kenichiro Sasae said.

This is before they chose to reveal the crux of the issue - China’s seeming inability to persuade the Bank of China (BOC) to accept 25 U.S. million dollars of dirty money from a bank that has been crippled by U.S. financial sanctions. Apparently, it is frightened the money - which after all is a piddly sum for the BOC - will damage its credit rating. Can’t imagine why.

Chinese chief envoy Wu Dawei said the problem hinged on convincing the Bank of China to accept the transfer.

“Whether or not the Bank of China can fulfil this responsibility, we need to consult with them,” Wu told a news conference. “This is a matter that cannot be decided by the government.”

A Bank of China spokesman, asked about reports it was blocking the transfer, said it had not been asked to conduct the transaction and stressed that the bank was obliged to abide by anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism laws.

Now, I am confused. Forgive me for being sceptical but BOC, as a state-owned bank, should dam well do what the Chinese government tells it to do. Except it hasn’t been told anything. The matter can not be decided by the government you say? Well that claim is shot to pieces by the BOC spokesman saying the bank has not been asked to transfer the money. If it was asked, would it be in a position to say, “actually boss, no can do”?

The clear problem here is a disagreement between the U.S. and China - North Korea is merely waiting for them to sort it out. China is reluctant to harbour the money on the mainland and the U.S. has failed to assure it that there will be no problems for the BOC. Sorry if this is so incredibly obvious but my point is this: the news reports from both AP and Reuters fail to provide the international press with the proper story. Which means the phrase “bloody North Koreans” will be uttered by the majority of the world’s newspaper readers.

More galling is a brief look at the minutes to the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman’s press briefing (always a barrel of laughs by the look of the transcripts), where all the right questions were asked, including:

Q: I asked the Bank of China of how to resolve the transfer issue today and was told that the Foreign Ministry will have the answers. Has the Chinese Foreign Ministry discussed the issue with the Bank of China?

A: If the Foreign Ministry has the answer, this issue has already been resolved. Now this issue is still under discussion.

Still, I won’t be turning to Xinhua’s coverage just yet.

Ah, do you remember those days when, as children, we would gather together pockets full of posies, skip along country lanes and yodel traditional rhymes in celebration of International Children’s Songs Day on March 21? Funny that, neither do I.

But when I received a story on the eve of March 20 previewing the event, I didn’t really think much of verifying the historical details of such a prestigious day. They have international days for anything now anyway (I’ll be munching All Bran on April 12). I set about changing the story from a dry, humourless showcase for Chinese “literary experts” to slag off pop music to: ”Chinese literature buffs lambast pop culture in time for Children’s Songs Day”. I think my main beef was the lack of any quotes from the kids of today. I don’t like R&B either but I’m not going to campaign for its extinction. On close inspection, it should be obvious a pesky foreign editor has been chucking his own opinions into this story, if only because it proved light relief from nonsensical diplomatic stories on the six-party talks.

Fan also seems to have little time for creativity, criticizing today’s younger generation for “mocking some pop songs and ancient poems to create rhyming spoofs”.

I felt like a standard bearer for the younger generations of China. Keep on downloading ridiculous pop songs from the Internet while we mock those stuffy academics. Hao ting!

The next day, I googled International Children’s Songs Day on the Internet. It only came up on the English language websites of Chinese media. But, according to my Xinhua story, it was:

“… established in 1976 in an international poetry conference in Belgium and approved by the UNESCO (United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization) in 1999.”

A quick inspection of the list of international days on the Unesco website. Nowhere to be seen. It wasn’t even next to “International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination” or “World Poetry Day”, which both fall on March 21. Surely Xinhua hasn’t written a story about a day that doesn’t exist..

 I can’t read Chinese but apparently news on the International Children’s Songs Day was all over the Beijing newspapers and Chinese news sites. Nobody could explain what had happened. Where had this god foresaken celebration of mindless melodies originated from? And what about stories on “International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination” and “World Poetry Day”? These bona fide celebrations had been snubbed. One colleague speculated that someone had made a translation mistake somewhere along the line. She referred to an event reported by Xinhua two years ago called “World Toilet Mountain” instead of the “World Toilet Summit”. Images of stockpiles of lavatories on desert islands ..

Was there something wrong with World Poetry Day? Are all Chinese poets so subversive in their art, the event can not be discussed? And what is it about the Chinese media that loves to celebrate international days the rest of the world has barely heard of? World Sleep Day on March 20 anyone (although I did see a story from Greece about this event)? This post has raised more questions than answers. It reflects a tortured wretch of a sub-editor babbling in a corner of a office on the seventh floor.

Incidentally, after the “international” children’s songs day had been exposed as a sham, I received a story at 10.30 pm on March 21 which began:

Chinese adults are striving to create more songs fit to children and do all efforts to encourage the country’s next generations to sing their own songs, a government official told Xinhua on Wednesday, the World Children’s Songs Day.

No way. Rejected. Binned. “Not polished”, as we say. Roll on World Press Freedom Day on May 3.

Only joking - I have yet to receive suggestions on how to “improve” my blog. I have been amazed at the speed in which news of this blog’s existence has spread across the (China-related) blog kingdom. That is largely due to the friendly folk who can be found on the blogroll to your left. And cheers for the comments - and indeed emails - much appreciated.

I have no idea where this blog is heading but I just want to clarify one point. This blog is not a Xinhua News Agency dirt-disher. I won’t be going through TCM’s rubbish bin or following him to the nearest dumpling bar to find out his favourite filling. I would like to try to go some way in dispelling the myth that Xinhua only (there is real emphasis on that word - more than can be conveyed through italics) reports exactly what the Chinese government wants it to. For every senior editor who is terrified of truthful, analytical stories, there is a Xinhua journalist capable of writing an excellent critique - in their second language - of an aspect of Chinese society. Take this article about the Chinese health sector for example - although the writer was asked to add more positives towards the end of the story because its release coincided with the October National Holiday and people don’t like reading bad news when they are on holiday. Apparently.

Xinhua’s marketing publications display the glorious catchline: The World of Xinhua, Xinhua of the World. Well, for health reasons, I sometimes need to escape that often bizarre world so this blog will also talk about Beijing bumf and inanities.

In the meantime, here is a taste of Chinese media in New Zealand, as emailed to me by New Zealander Jonathan Dow with the line, “It’s no wonder I get weird questions about Beijing from folk back home.” I’m pretty sure the street in the photograph is not Chang’an Jie…

When a Chinese official - the head of China’s Press and Publication Administration in this case - makes some deliberately vague statement (this link is the Xinhua article word-for-word) about drafting new regulations on blogs and webcasts then I suppose it is someone’s duty to speculate wildly.

I found out after the Xinhua story had been released that the translation “webcast” was actually supposed to include video-sharing websites - such as YouTube. Which takes us back to the question of whether the Chinese censors will tackle that thorny issue of less than favourable videos being shown in Chinese cyberspace through YouTube. By the way it feels such a privilege to write the word censor - it is often deemed to have too many negative connotations by some of the more conservative of Xinhua’s editorial glitterati. Of course, Google is now the proud owner of YouTube so, if they encounter any blockage problems, it will be interesting to see if they roll over and ask the Chinese leadership to scratch its burgeoning belly or kick up a fuss. Anyway this particular issue was covered far more eloquently by Image Thief (Will Moss) back in November.

I do find it incredible YouTube has remained unviolated in China. Tiananmen Square protest clips aside, YouTube helped publicise a blatant government lie back in October when it featured several clips of the shooting incident along the Nanpa La Pass in Tibet.  The video, shot by a Romanian cameraman, showed a Chinese border guard picking off, from distance, two Tibetans trying to cross the Chinese border. The screen went black when it was shown on CNN news in China so the inquisitive just browsed the Internet. As today’s story, quoting the China Internet Survey Report 2007, said:

The report also said that YouTube-style websites were visited by about 76 million of the 137 million Chinese Internet users last year, bringing in 40 million yuan (about US$5 million).

Xinhua stories contain propaganda. Xinhua also produces informative and credible news stories (contrary to popular opinion). But instances of conveying cold-blooded lies are in the distinct minority. So I remember quite clearly being presented with a story translated from an Information Office (under the State Council) document reporting how Chinese border guards had been attacked by kids with stones and one man had died of altitude sickness - nearly two weeks after the event. I was told not to change it so I obliged by leaving in all the ridiculous grammatical mistakes, including the word “stowaway” to describe the refugees, while ranting at whoever would listen.

So there it was. An emphatic reminder that Xinhua was, first and foremost, the voice of the Party and its aspirations of being a leading international news agency shot to pieces. Inevitably, Xinhua was criticised as if it were the fabricator of the statement. In the meantime, many Xinhua journalists logged onto YouTube and watched helplessly. The senior editors were furious that Xinhua had to release the statement, particularly when, on the same day, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman had denied all knowledge of the incident. Xinhua’s protests were heard and swiftly ignored.

 Still, even if YouTube escapes China’s Internet patrol, some people will always just censor themselves. I told one Xinhua editor about the wonders of YouTube and how he could go and watch a certain video clip. He informed me that he didn’t need to watch it because it was probably fabricated. “They can do a lot of things with modern technology these days,” he explained. They certainly can - like publish Romanian cameramen’s footage on the Internet in China. Long live YouTube!

It was a great pleasure to trawl through 23 pages of China’s human rights retort for the US and witness the Chinese government’s growing awareness of the advantages of a free(r) press.

“Crime Takes Hold of New Orleans”, screamed one headline from USA Today, “Answer to AIDS Mystery Found Behind Bars”, revealed the Washington Post. The whole report is littered with the country’s disgraces as revealed by the US media and damning governmental department reports. Even China’s arch-enemies Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch were held up as purveyors of the truth. Behold the mightiness of the pen! Although I did meet an American on Chinese New Year’s Eve who insisted that, when back home in the US, he turned to Xinhua for all his international news, alleging rampant censorship by the US government.

Interestingly enough, the majority of references to newspaper articles in China’s report came around November/December time last year. You can imagine someone in the Information Office of the State Council devoting a few days at the end of the year to furious googling for shooting sprees, bank robberies and the like.

China’s need to issue their own report, something it has done for eight years now, reflects the weakness of the country in terms of pyschology. Why should the United States “lord it” over the world while failing to address in detail their own human rights abuses, China argues. Fair enough - but the tit-for-tat nature of the report is fairly cringe-worthy. Russia seems satisfied with slapping down the US in a sharp-tongued statement. China could learn from that. And it must have bugged China somewhat to hear Condoleezza Rice admit the US’s own shortcomings this year, reducing China’s ammunition. No mention was made of that by China but I suppose the press statements had been set in stone before the US released its report.

If they really feel the report has to be issued every year then they should consider some omissions to save some face. Here are some of the more obvious embarrassments:

In the United States, human rights violations committed by law enforcement and judicial departments are common.

Police abuses are very serious. A Human Rights Watch report issued on Dec. 4, 2006 said that since the Sept. 11 attacks, the U.S. Department of Justice has used the material witness warrant to imprison without charge at least 70 men.

Nothing short of brazen. I often have a problem with Xinhua crime reports as some journalists - more as a result of the confused nature of China’s judiciary system than lack of awareness - struggle to differentiate between detained, arrested and charged. “So he has been in custody for two months, have they charged him?” I often ask. ”No, he has just been detained.” “So when did they arrest him?” “No, he has just been detained.” Here’s another good line from the report: “Injustice of the judiciary is quite shocking.”

Another dark area for the Chinese government to step into:

Reports show a Pentagon research team monitors more than 5,000 jihadist web sites, focusing daily on the25 to 100 most hostile and active.

 Enough said. And:

 The U.S. government often produces fake news stories and passes them off as normal news to domestic and overseas audiences.

Please don’t embarrass my employers like that! Clearly there are more but I wouldn’t want to be seen as trying to inflict a series of petty blows.

The attention given to International Women’s Day in China today was nothing short of incredible. Xinhua love it. It is a great event for filling story quotas - just find any female reference and stick “ahead of Women’s Day on ..” somewhere near the opening line. I just can’t help but feel that the occasion, in some ways, plays up to stereotypes, particularly when most women I know back in Britain regard the concept as patronising. A sign of more equal rights, I suppose.

Female colleagues at the Great Hall of the People were visited by the Xinhua big boss - Tian Congming (TCM) - and were lavished with flowers, chocolates, shampoo and body lotion. Women all over Beijing were bombarded with text messages in the morning from clothing stores proclaiming unprecedented discounts of up to 70 percent off for one day only. Well, many women in the capital were given the afternoon off so what else were they going to do. Ahem. Unfortunately, Xinhua ladies missed out on that one. TCM returned to the main building to give a lecture in the afternoon in “celebration” of Women’s Day. The main point of the talk was to encourage women (and a few token men) to spend less time sitting in meeting rooms listening to people talking.

A couple of female colleagues said that for a developing country, China has some of the best women’s rights.  It seems that old Mao can take some credit for this with his “Women hold up half the sky” line - although his infamous biographers Jung Chang and Jon Halliday believe that he just wanted to boost the nation’s workforce. It was encouraging to see a report by China Daily carried in the People’s Daily about guaranteeing a much-needed minimum number of female NPC deputies for the elections next year.

The problem has not gone unnoticed by the NPC Standing Committee, too. In a draft resolution on the number and election of deputies to the 11th NPC to be discussed at the ongoing NPC session, it has asserted that the number of woman deputies should not be less than 22 percent. This is the first time that the NPC has drawn a bottom line for woman deputies in its election plan.

The figure is below the UN target of 30 percent for women in leadership positions and legislatures set back in 1990 but a start nevertheless.

Incidentally, there is a Chinese phrase which seems to have originated from Hong Kong films and televisions and is inspired by International Women’s Day. In a cunning use of the date of the occasion (san yue ba hao - 03-08), the phrase is: “Ni shi da san ba”. It means something like “You are a big gossiping woman”. Ah, the sterotypes.

I recently decided the job title of language polisher at Xinhua should be - without wishing to make myself sound too important - changed to National Face-Saving Officer. My disillusionment came amidst a sea of Spring Festival stories. All the reporters were required to write several news stories days in advance, which is never a particularly easy task given the nature of news. I have previously heard one editor comment that negativity should be cut down to a minimum during the national holidays as people are not interested in bad news during these joyous occasions (he seemed to forget the readership was not Chinese). The job became a task of damage limitation. Reject one, rewrite another, release one reluctantly. Then a feature comes along that shows genuine talent and quality. But due to the very nature of Xinhua, features are rarely used in full by anyone. I have a weekend off. In the absence of any foreign editors, a story about smelly taxis (featured in imagethief’s blog) is released with the grammatical nouse of a backward infant.

Some Beijing taxi drivers should take it seriously the smell inside their cabs, which may tarnish the city’s image in the 2008 Olympic Games, a political advisor has said.

Shi Xiangpeng, who came from Hong Kong to attend the annual session of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), said on the basis of his own experience that about one third of the taxis in Beijing were smelly.

“Sometimes I could smell unbearable stink once I got into the cab, but was afraid of being too rude to get off immediately. So I had to roll down the windows, regardless of how cold it was outside,” said Shi, a CPPCC member who visited Beijing frequently.

The story zips all round the world. Loss of face secured. So finally (I’m new to this blog writing malarkey but I guess I can get away with blatant journalistic malpractice) here comes the link to the headline. The parliamentary sessions are regarded as one of the most important two-week periods in the state media calendar even though nothing new ever comes to light. In fact they are so important, foreign editors aren’t allowed anywhere near Xinhua’s stories, just like during the China-Africa Forum, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Six-Party Talks… Urgent! First Lead. Second Lead …. Sixth Lead. All fly onto the wire without being inspected by a native eye. Why? Stories have to be released quicker than you can say harmonious society. Which shouldn’t be that hard given Xinhua receive Premier Wen’s report  in the morning before his address. Trouble is Reuters had already got hold of a copy from somewhere and released it hours before.

The worst thing about it is that there is a group of highly intelligent Xinhua reporters slaving away inside the Great Hall of People trying to make Mandarin newspeak remotely acceptable in their second language. They deserve to have their stories at least make grammatical sense. But the ”Two Sessions” are too important for that.

Three posts and two are about China’s Three Gorges - a subject which has already been subjected to publicity overkill. But, without wishing to sound like a god dam (no apologies for that particular pun) gorge geek, I couldn’t ignore this latest report from Xinhua about power generation plans.

Having reported that the water level of the reservoir was being lowered to bail out the thirsty lower reaches of the Yangtze River - the water level is at an all-time low -, the China Three Gorges Project Corporation has set a power generation target which relies on the significant raising of the water level in the reservoir.

 The Three Gorges power plant and the downstream Gezhouba power plant on China’s Yangtze River plan to generate 78.6 billion kilowatt-hours (kwh) of electricity in 2007, up 23 percent on the previous year.

The raised water level in the Three Gorges Reservoir and new generators that will come into operation this year will ensure fulfillment of the target, said Cao Guangjing, deputy general manager of China Three Gorges Project Corporation, which manages the two power plants.

I am annoyed I wasn’t in my Xinhua box of an office when this story was released. The article ignores the issues of drought and a reduction in the water level - due to a general lack of thought by this particular journalist rather than censorship.  It also allows Cao Guangjing to get away with being vague. He has set a target of 78.6 billion kwh of electricty in 2007 but has attributed that to the Three Gorges and another power plant. So now we may never know the specific Three Gorges target and if they are struggling to meet it. This could have been a deliberately vague target or just inept reporting from the Xinhua local bureau journalist. But the main question that arises is: Did they ever actually reduce the water level of the reservoir in response to water shortages?