Beijing Newspeak

What a difference an ounce of media dissension makes. A fortnight ago, news came of the proposed demolition of Dongsi Ba Tiao, a hutong north east of the Forbidden City and supposedly situated in one of Beijing’s 25 protected areas. The Chinese media was quick to rip into the decision with the Beijing News leading the charge and the China Daily backing it up in English.

Here is an extract (in translation) from an editorial by the Beijing News, carried by China Daily and People’s Daily:

Now a resident has applied for an administrative review, asking to cancel the relocation permit. She said that the residents can renovate the buildings themselves without damaging the original state of the houses and there is no need to sell the houses to land developers.

Previously another resident said that the area of cultural and historical significance should not be demolished randomly, and “Once the government promises not to demolish the area, all residents will renovate their houses to the best condition.”

For a rather long time, the nation’s city renovations have followed a government-and-developer mode. But these residents’ words inspire us to question why renovation of the old city proper should only be conducted by land developers and why renovations just mean demolishing old buildings and constructing new ones.

Residents of the old city proper love their old homes. If they are capable and willing to do so, why not give them the right to renovate?

The traditional government-and-developer mode of renovation has actually left too many regrets by demolishing ancient siheyuan and hutong, sometimes replacing them with coarse replicas.

This post from Jeremiah at Jottings from the Granite Studio sums up the Dongsi Ba Tiao situation and references an excellent article on the subject from the Christian Science Monitor.

On Sunday, the fruits of the Beijing News’ labours were translated into English by Xinhua.

The controversial demolition of houses at Dongsi Batiao, an ancient alley of courtyard homes in downtown Beijing has been suspended, an official with Dongcheng District government has confirmed.

Suspending demolition, however, doesn’t mean the redevelopment project has been terminated, the official said.

The official said the demolition office will continue negotiating with local residents over the amount of compensation they will receive.

By Saturday, only the No. 9 courtyard in the hutong or alley had been bulldozed and fewer than 10 of the 80 families in the neighborhood had moved.

It is almost certain the demolition will go ahead at some point in the future. However, media pressure has at least secured residents a better deal in terms of compensation. Many of them are welcoming the chance to move to a new apartment with modern amenities but they are going to need more than 8,000 yuan per square metre (the initial offer) in compensation to avoid having to resettle in Inner Mongolia as one resident reportedly said.

Compare the fate of residents in Dongsi Ba Tiao to those who have been relocated from Qianmen. I spent a fair bit of time following the redevelopment of Qianmen a few months ago and every street corner conversation would bring to light another story of deception and often brutality. Stories that are impossible to verify but which are spat out by the narrator to knowing nods and shakes of heads from residents who remain in the area. Stories like this have been told for the last year and a half, when the eviction notices were first pasted on hutong walls.

The one about the old man who refused to leave his house. Dragged out of bed and beaten to death by thugs employed by the local demolition office. Another about a group of old men and women shivering in their underwear in the back of a truck as a bulldozer flattened their living rooms. One more about people hired by the demolition office tapping relentlessly on people’s windows in the middle of night so they could not sleep and would agree to move out.

I met a woman whose neighbours had been deceived into signing a contract of no worth. They had been shown a group of houses nearby and told that they could move the following week. They were delighted. They packed up their things and cut off their electricity. On the eve of their departure they were told the apartments were reserved for government officials. Sorry. They would be shown to their new homes outside the fifth ring road.

The difference with Qianmen is that there was a reporting blackout on the relocation of its residents due to its status as a ”prestige project” for the Olympics. This is a conversation my colleague and friend had with the director of the news centre under the Chongwen District Publicity Department.

“The media are not allowed to report on the specifics of the demolition of Qianmen or the future plans for the area. Because it is a pilot project and because it is so important, Liu Qi (Beijing’s top official) said that a press conference would only be called when the project was finished.”

“When will the project will be finished?”

“There is no timetable yet.”

“I just wanted to get an idea of what the area would look like.”

“You will have to ask the communications department of the city planning committee.”

“But I spoke to him and he said I should speak to you.”

“Ha ha, they know the news can’t be released, they are just kicking the ball back to me.”

“The foreign media has been critical of the project. Do you not think it would be beneficial to release some information?”

“I totally agree with you. If I was the boss. I would tell you something but our work is governed by the municipal level and the mayor has told all departments to hold the news. I was born in Beijing. People like old Beijing. My name, Wei Hua, means “guard China” as in guard China’s traditional culture. I feel disappointed but I can’t say anymore. I am not allowed to.”

An absence of media coverage has deprived some Qianmen residents of their basic rights. Those that needed to be hurriedly relocated to make way for the new roads that now link Tiananmen with the Temple of Heaven were not given the option of negotiation and many received 8,000 yuan per square metre. Some claim they received nothing at all. Other residents who lived in areas which did not need to be razed immediately were more fortunate, managing to hold firm to secure 15,000 yuan, sometimes 20,000 yuan, per square metre.

The media restrictions have also resulted in absolutely no public debate over the future appearance of Qianmen. Due to the media uproar, the Dongsi Ba Tiao case may be different, as the CS Monitor reports, although the property developer sounds less than convincing.

The property developer had announced that it plans to build a European-style residential and commercial complex on the site. That would violate laws that limit construction in controlled “buffer zones” near preservation areas.

In an interview this week, Bai Hua, vice president of the Zhong Bao Jia Ye development company, said his firm’s design had changed. It now includes nine replica courtyard houses along the lane, backed by two six-story buildings containing apartments and offices “in Chinese traditional style … colors and materials,” he claimed.

Those plans appear to be within the law, conservation experts say. But Mr. Bai was unable to provide architects’ drawings or an artist’s impression of the scheme, saying his company “is still adjusting the design.”

Back to Qianmen. China Daily has issued editorials in the past criticising the destruction of old Beijing so it must have been galling for many staff members to read this story in their own newspaper about the future plans for Qianmen which were announced a few weeks ago.

Trolley buses are to return to Beijing after an absence of more than 50 years when they become the only vehicles allowed on a new-look Qianmen Street later this year.

A major project to renovate and revitalise the area along the famous street, which is situated close to Tian’anmen Square, began on Wednesday.

Once the work is completed, visitors will be able to tour the area for free on the trolley buses, whose reintroduction will help recreate images of Qianmen Street in its heyday at the end of Qing Dynasty (1644-1911).

Niu Qingshan, head of the Chongwen District, said the project, which was inspired by file photos of the street taken in 1957, will turn the area into a “pedestrian mall” by restoring the area’s traditional old-world architecture and style.

“Preserving the historic appearance and improving living conditions for residents are the main aims of the renovation project,” Niu said.

Qianmen Street has been a commercial centre for centuries, boasting a wide range of shops selling everything from traditional medicines to fine silks, as well as tea houses and snack bars like Duyichu, which is famous for its shaomai (stuffed steamed buns).

Li Xiao-guang, Party sectary of Chongwen District, said the scheme will involve the widening of the original narrow road and the restoration of the old shops to their former glory.

Restoration on the “Yueshengzhai” shop, which has been selling pickled beef and mutton for more than 230 years, is nearly complete, Li said.

“More than 80 traditional shops will be renovated on their original sites according to old photos,” Li said, “We will spare no effort to restore the grandeur to Qianmen Street.”

As well as restoring the street’s shops, its landmark structures, including the Zhengyangmen Bridge, Guannghe “Zha Building” and Wupai Building will also be renovated. And as a finishing touch, the 845-m-long street will be paved with green and white marble.

Once completed, Qianmen Street will become Beijing’s second pedestrian-only thoroughfare after Wangfujing in the city’s downtown shopping district.

Wang Shijie, an expert on ancient architecture, said: “Once renovated it is hoped Qianmen Street, with its combination of Eastern and Western cultural styles, will become a hot spot for tourists from both home and abroad.”

In addition to the structural improvements, the electricity, gas and water supply networks are to be upgraded, and a new underground car park with 1,500 spaces will be built.

Qianmen Street was known as a prosperous commercial strip as early as the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368), but its peak was in the early years of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911), when it was home to a host of popular theaters and teahouses.

The redevelopment of the ancient street is part of Beijing’s efforts to refurbish its old city areas ahead of the 2008 Olympic Games.

Not a balanced word. But credit to China Daily - it couldn’t resist a cloaked dig at the Qianmen project in their editorial entitled “Save our hutong” which lamented the fate of Dongsi Ba Tiao.

Of course developers can build replicas. They are quite addicted to that.

The city government has just inaugurated an expensive project to renovate the historical Qianmen area. The idea is to recreate the architectural look of the late Qing Dynasty (1611-1911) and early Republican years (1911-1949).

But it will be a shame if the genuine heritage is destroyed.

Unfortunately for Qianmen, it is too late.

Oh dear, it’s happening again. A glimpse of the bad old days. The days when Chinese state media report statistics that are so patently misleading, all the progress made in the timely reporting of bird flu cases is shot to pieces and international suspicion is once again well and truly aroused.

Embarrassing figure number one: 300. This is the number of pigs Xinhua reported on May 10 to have died from blue ear disease in southern China. At the time, AP quoted Hong Kong media as saying 1,300 pigs had been infected. Even this figure was put in the shade by a highly informative Reuters report on May 18, which claimed one million pigs had been wiped out over the last year in various parts of China.

The only place the Chinese government has publicly acknowledged the latest outbreak is Yunfu in western Guangdong province, a 5-1/2-hour train and road trip from Hong Kong.

Officials say some 300 swine died in and around the collection of villages that make up the township of Silao, which is part of Yunfu.

However, a drive through the countryside lends credence to the belief that the official number of swine deaths is low.

Before the outbreak, many farmers, perhaps most, kept a pig or two on family plots, locals said. Many, like Zhu, kept litters that numbered in the dozens.

Not a single pig was seen in more than two hours in the area talking to farmers and feed sellers.

Still not a word from Xinhua. The previous day, China’s agriculture ministry had called on local authorities to do more to curb the spread of the disease.

We face a severe situation in prevention as it is the peak outbreak season of the highly contagious blue ear disease,” agriculture minister Sun Zhengcai said in a speech.

“If the disease was not properly controlled, the pig breeding industry, income of farmers and stability of the pork market would be badly hurt,” Sun told a national conference.

But Xinhua missed the statement. I have banged on all week about the need to write something on the issue, preferably a report of the latest situation in Guangdong by the bureau based in the province. Otherwise, silence just shouts “cover-up!” As far as I know there has been no official instruction banning the reporting of blue ear disease from Guangdong. It seems the bureau there is just refusing to report anything. Nothing new to write, it says. Is it being gagged by the local government or is it just being incredibly lazy? I have no idea.

So, while the one million figure (the number for the whole year) - in fact I feel I need to put it into numbers for extra effect: 1,000,000 - is freely banded around the international press, Xinhua last reported 300. And then comes a direct consequence of the epidemic - the price of pork “flies to a new high” according to a report by the China Daily. It was a woeful piece of journalism. Apparently the price of pork had risen “due to a decrease in the number of pigs” but there was not one mention of blue ear disease in the story. Instead the blame was placed on the rise in corn price and this hilarious reason:

He (Zhang Zhiqiang from the Jinan pricing administration) said the demand for vegetables normally increases in summer, and people also have the choice of beef, mutton, chicken and fish, which are in abundant supply.

The article also noted “a supermarket salesman in Beijing said fewer people are buying pork this week”. So is that because it is too expensive or is it down to a mysterious pig disease that Beijingers have heard about but know nothing about?

Finally, on Wednesday evening, Xinhua releases a story. The news point was buried but this is it:

Along with temperature hikes, blue ear disease, also known as Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS), broke out among pigs in south China’s Guangdong Province and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, causing many deaths and a large amount of pigs to be culled, according to the National Development and Reform Commission. Officials from the Ministry of Agriculture, which is in charge of agricultural production and animal husbandry, declined to make any comment on the issue.

The outbreak can be seen as an immediate cause of a short supply in the regions, which need to buy pigs from northern provinces, according to Xu Lianzhong, a senior economist with the price supversion center under the National Development and Reform Commission.

“This sent a strong signal for distributors to jack up prices,” said Xu.

Still no figure, but now the Ministry of Agriculture is refusing to comment. Xinhua 300, Reuters 1,000,000. NB I’m finding the updates provided by Pig Progress - “Your portal on global pig production” - on this subject to be concise and informative.

Embarrassing figure number two: 50. This is the number of tubes of toothpaste contaminated with the chemical diethylene glycol that, according to Xinhua, have been taken off the shelves in Panama. I can just imagine a customer fom Panama phoning up China and saying 50 tubes por favor. Hardly worth the phone call. Luckily, China Daily had the right figures, quoting Dominican Republic government officials and the New York Times. 10,000 tubes in the Dominican Republic and 6,000 in Panama. Reuters later reported 200,000. Xinhua is sticking with 50 because their reporter in Panama hasn’t bothered to submit a report on the incident for a whole week. It doesn’t believe New York Times is a credible enough source to quote. It seems it doesn’t believe the Dominican Republic government can be trusted either. Xinhua 50, Rest of the World Thousands.

Incidentally, it doesn’t really matter if the toothpaste is contaminated according to Danyang Household Chemical Company, one of the Chinese exporters under investigation, which was quoted by Reuters:

‘Toothpaste is not something you’d swallow, but spit out, and so it’s totally different from something you would eat,’ one company manager, who declined to be identified, said by telephone from the eastern province of Jiangsu.

Ah, that’s all right then. Contaminate away!

Reuters released a story on Thursday about a mobile phone text message that is doing the rounds in China which claims bananas on Hainan might contain similar viruses to SARS. Almost certainly rubbish but it is hardly surprising dodgy and out-of-date statistics spark bizarre rumour.

These are the first three paragraphs of a Reuters story published last week under the headline, “Beijing vows cleaner, stable city for Olympics”:

BEIJING (Reuters) - China’s capital faces a host of problems preparing for the 2008 Olympic Games, but its top official pledged on Thursday the city would be stable, cleaner and more civilized.

“From beginning to end, stability must be our number one political task,” Beijing’s Communist Party boss, Liu Qi, who outranks the mayor, told more than 730 delegates at the opening of the city’s party congress, held once every five years.

The party, which has monopolized power since the 1949 revolution, is obsessed with stability and has no qualms about crushing open challenges to its rule or silencing dissent.

Good to see, from the third paragraph, that it’s not only Xinhua that makes full use of the ‘cut and paste from the database’ procedure. But, more importantly, is this sentence (presumably an attempt at context) really necessary? Particularly as this report was classified as a “sports” story. This kind of reporting is surely tickling the limits set out by Reuters’ editorial policy:

We are committed to reporting the facts and in all situations avoid the use of emotive terms. The only exception is when we are quoting someone directly or in indirect speech. We aim to report objectively actions, identity and background and pay particular attention to all our coverage in extremely sensitive regions.

Inexplicable delays in the reporting of news are part of the course in China and are often justified as necessary ways to avoid public panic. The initial response to the SARS epidemic is a famous example of why this reasoning is just unacceptable. Yet it continues to happen and the central government is seen backing local authorities who have sat on an important piece of news for two weeks.

Over the weekend, on May 12 to be exact, I received a story about a two-year-old who had died from an outbreak of hand-foot-mouth disease in a city in Shandong. The girl actually died on April 29. The details were typically vague:

The spokesman also said that there had been “some cases” of the disease since the beginning of the year, without providing specific figures.

I added in a couple of lines which read something like, ”The spokesman did not explain why the girl’s death was not reported for two weeks”. It was removed by the senior editor. I also pointed out that the girl’s death occurred just before the May national holiday - government officials aren’t big fans of bad news at holiday time especially if it means they have to cancel plans. This point also casts doubt over the reliability of the claim:

After the girl had died, the city’s health bureau carried out epidemiology research across the city, quarantining those infected by the disease and informing kindergartens and schools.

Schools are closed during the holiday. Unsurprisingly, the senior editor took it upon himself to tap the delete button once again.

I thought that would be the last I would hear of the incident. But it seems various Chinese media sources have been conducting some fruitful investigative work leading to the Shandong Health Bureau being forced to deny a cover-up of multiple infant deaths.

Newspaper and Internet reports from Shandong province have said that “many” children have died and hundreds of others have fallen ill from a mysterious disease that has swept through Linyi city since late April.

“The reports on the Internet are pure rumour, this illness is a viral infection of the intestines that commonly occurs in infants and children in the summer and autumn months,” the Shandong Health Bureau said on its website in a statement posted on Sunday.

The bureau was responding to an Internet report that said at least 26 children had died in Linyi between April 29 and May 11.

Of course, the local government’s decision to delay the reporting of the incident for fearing of panicking citizens had the opposite effect:

The Shanghai Morning Post blamed health officials for failing to inform the public of the disease leading to panic in the city.

Parents were refusing to allow their children out of doors and were avoiding eating beef or lamb believing the illness was linked to foot and mouth disease that affects livestock, the newspaper said.

The Linyi health bureau only began informing media of the “hand-foot-mouth disease” on Friday, after panic had spread to many households, it said.

It wasn’t so long ago that I was editing an article about the Chinese government’s “revolutionary” regulation regarding release of information by local governments and the dire need for transparency. This regulation has yet to take effect but the contempt with which local officials will treat it is already obvious.

According to the Yanzhao Metropolitan Daily, the latest outbreak resulted in the death of a three-year-old child on April 29, sparking rumours that many children had died.

“All levels of government must recognise that by creating a transparent government they can win the confidence of the people and dispel and reduce unstable social elements” the daily said in an editorial.

The paper also accused the Linyi government of failing to implement new regulations mandating that governments be more open with information.

According to the Shanghai Morning Post, local journalists in Linyi did not report on the outbreak, indicating that there was a possible gag order on the epidemic by local officials.

As this article points out, the same local health authorities were at the centre of the high-profile jailing of blind activist Chen Guangcheng last year, a gross injustice which featured a satisfying “polisher’s aside” in Xinhua’s reporting of the court sentence: ”The court document said that Chen, who is blind, stood in the middle of a road organzing a mob to disrupt traffic and damage property.” It would appear that the Linyi health officials accused of forced abortions and sterilisations were never reprimanded behind closed doors by the central government.

The outbreak comes after years of dissatisfaction with Linyi health authorities who have been accused of forcing abortions and sterilisations on thousands of women while implementing the “one-child” family planning policy.

In December last year, veteran blind activist Chen Guangcheng was sentenced to four years and three months in jail by a Linyi court after trying to bring such violations to light.

For nearly two years, Chen endured beatings and detention by people believed to have been hired by local officials as he sought to sue local health authorities and publicise the abuse.

Local courts refused to take up the case and instead convicted Chen of disrupting public order and jailed him.

Xinhua followed this barrage of negative reports with an offering which pathetically only included two new paragraphs:

An outbreak of hand-foot-mouth disease that killed a toddler in east China’s Shandong Province can be contained if effective measures are maintained, according to a Chinese epidemiologist.

Epidemiological investigations have identified an above average number of cases of the disease in Linyi city this spring, but they have occurred sporadically, said Wang Xianjun, chief of infectious diseases control with Shandong Provincial Center for Diseases Control.

I don’t pretend to have Mr Wang’s expertise but I thought the best way to deal with an epidemic was to introduce measures at the first sign of one breaking out. These paragraphs from a China Radio International report show the Ministry of Health’s eagerness to absolve itself from responsibility and the confidence it places in the Linyi health bureau:

The Ministry of Health said it has not received an reports of an epidemic from its subordinate in Shandong province.

Ministry Spokesman Mao Qun’an said the news released by authorized institutions is the most credible.

The Ministry of Health has declared the rumors that several children died from an unknown disease on May 11 untrue. It has asked the Shandong Province Public Health Department to refute the rumors.

Job done. The dissension is probably over. But when official tardiness affects another country and public criticism ensues, the Chinese authorities find they can’t just sweep the issue under the carpet. So when South Korea start kicking up a stink about China’s handling of the recent incident, in which a Chinese freighter collided with a Korean cargo ship, then there is a major problem.

The first thing I asked about this story was the obvious one: ”Why didn’t the Chinese ship stop to help a ship it could see was in distress?” The Xinhua journalist in charge of the story promised to ask the local bureau reporter the question but that was the last I heard of it. Until it was all over the news. This report from the Korea Times has the background.

China’s delayed reporting of a sunken South Korean freighter off the Chinese coast has angered Koreans, while the search for 16 missing crew members continued for a third consecutive day Monday.

The South Korean government, meanwhile, remained cautious over the accident to avoid stirring a diplomatic dispute with China.

The accident has sparked suspicions that the Chinese authorities, as well as the Chinese ship, belatedly informed their South Korean counterparts of the collision, to cover up the cause of the accident.

China gave official notification of the accident to the South Korean Embassy in Beijing at 12:50 a.m. Sunday, nearly 21 hours after the accident took place and some 14 hours after it first learned of the incident, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

The belated report also sparked speculation that the Chinese ship left the scene of the accident without trying to rescue the victims.

Now, China has relatives of the missing crew members on their doorstep and they are not as easy to ignore as their own citizens. As Reuters reports:

‘The families are distressed and mad at the Chinese officials for their late response to this incident,’ an official with Bookwang Shipping Co, based in Pusan, said, adding 21 relatives made the trip.

I can’t imagine I’ll be quoting the Shipping Times too many times in my life, but this is a good round-up of the Korean media reaction. Some Korean newspapers believe it is not the only the Chinese side that is at fault.

Questions too are being asked about the co-operation, or lack of it, between Chinese and South Korean authorities, with delays in reporting and, in the case of South Korea, a fax being sent that was not picked up for three hours.

“The Korean government was not prompt.” said the editorial in the JoongAng Daily, “The Korea Coast Guard sent a one page report via fax after six hours. Then, the fax was not noticed for another three hours.”

But the newspaper Donga Ilbo reports that the Korean Embasy is pointing the finger at Chinese authorities. Quoting an un-named Embassy officical: ” The Korean government was first informed of the accident by a Korean vessel company through the Korean maritime police, not by the Chinese government. And it was the Korean government who asked the Chinese government to confirm the accident. That is against international practice.”

It should not be overlooked that one sailor was from Indonesia and eight were from Myanmar, although incredibly there is no mention (none that I found myself anyway) of the story on the Myanmar state media homepage.

Two more incidents - one domestic (which means we shouldn’t be interfering of course) and one international - that make the new “freedom of information” regulation very hard to buy.

UPDATE: A diplomatic desk reporter, when pressed about an inadequate translation of a Foreign Ministry statement pledging to use “all its strength” to search for the missing sailors, said, “Well that’s all the information we received. And anyway the ship was registered in Saint Vincent, which means it was an accident between two foreign ships which happened to occur in China’s waters and China is doing all it can to save the sailors.”

There also seems to be some confusion over the nationalities of the missing crew members. Xinhua says eight from Korea, seven from Myanmar and one from Indonesia. The rest of the world says seven from Korea, eight from Myanmar and one from Indonesia. And no, the Foreign Ministry did not want to check their figures. Going on track records …

An email asking why I hadn’t written anything about Huang Ju arrived in my inbox the other day which gave me a kick up the arse (thank you, Justin) to dig up a couple of random theories just for the hell of it. To be honest, the issue has been amply covered by Positive Solutions and Richard Spencer and I am merely tossing in a couple of fag ends.

A quick straw poll of interested colleagues resulted in a resounding victory for “Huang is alive” with the simple reasoning that the Chinese government would have made an announcement if he had died. Secrecy makes the world suspicious but the Chinese authorities always deal with what it regards as ill-founded rumour by simply ignoring it. This post by a Chinese political science professor is interesting though:

It turns out that the story on Huang Ju’s demise may be erroneous. The official press has not reported on it, which is unusual if he really did pass away. In addition, it carried the following piece on Minister of Supervision Li Zhilun’s passing. Note, the second paragraph states that Huang Ju expressed his condolences. My speculation is that perhaps Huang and Li stayed in the same hospital, and rumors got out that someone important passed away. People then just assumed that it was Huang Ju, but in fact it was Li, who is on the standing committee of the central discipline and inspection committee, the party’s anti-corruption watchdog. Huang is also a standing committee member (changwei), but of the much more powerful Politburo.

新华社北京５月９日电　中共中央纪律检查委员会副书记、监察部部长李至伦同志，于４月２８日在北京病逝，享年６５岁。李至伦同志的遗体９日在八宝山革命公墓火化。

　 　李至伦病重期间和逝世后，胡锦涛、江泽民、吴邦国、温家宝、贾庆林、曾庆红、黄菊、吴官正、李长春、罗干、王乐泉、王兆国、回良玉、刘淇、刘云山、吴 仪、张立昌、张德江、周永康、俞正声、贺国强、郭伯雄、曹刚川、曾培炎、王刚、李鹏、万里、乔石、朱镕基、李瑞环、宋平、刘华清、尉健行、李岚清、徐才 厚、何勇、成思危、热地、唐家璇、华建敏、陈至立、贾春旺、王忠禹、刘延东和韩光等分别以不同方式表示慰问和哀悼。

　　李至伦是辽宁锦州 人，１９６４年１月加入中国共产党，１９６７年９月后历任广东省保亭县（现海南省保亭县）县委办公室副主任、县委常委兼宣传部部长、县委副书记，共青团中 央团校组教处处长、副教育长、校党组书记、副校长兼共青团中央青运史研究室主任，中国青年报社社长、党组书记，监察部办公厅主任、副部长，中央纪委常委、 监察部副部长，中央纪委副书记、监察部副部长、部长等职。

　　李至伦是中共十三大、十五大、十六大代表，中共第十六届中央委员

But then again a friend at Xinhua came up with this. Huang Ju is in fact dead but while he continues to be investigated for alleged involvement in the Shanghai corruption scandal, the CPC hasn’t decided on the tone, or indeed content, of his obituary yet and just need a bit more time. So there you go, one (most probably two) is pure fiction and unfortunately I can’t claim credit for either piece of imagination.

There is not a lot more to add to the stories here and here. The Publicity Department controlled all the news on this story and spent a few hours “working out how to report” Mao’s flirtation with fire. To be fair they didn’t do a bad job. I was half-expecting them to talk in vague terms about an incident on Tiananmen Square which has now been resolved but they went some way to reporting the specifics. However, the Publicity Department’s involvement makes me sceptical of the perpetrator of the crime once being “treated in a mental disease hospital in Urumqi last year”.

Tiananmen Square is on my bike ride home and at 8 pm I expected everything to have returned to normal - maybe with just a glimpse of a “he won’t be doing that again” kind of look on Mao’s face. A few more police aside, no problems. Tourists were still happily snapping away in front of the Forbidden City. But cycle a bit closer and there it is! An ugly sooty blotch the size of my hand (I have fairly big hands, which is not intended as a boast) below his right lapel as if he had just slipped forward while twiddling a couple of ‘yangrou chuanr’ (lamb skewers for non-China residents). Obviously the picture was replaced overnight (people aren’t ready to see Mao’s picture being taken down just yet) and that was that. I just pity all those tourists who had journeyed to Beijing for the money shot - standing in front of an illuminated Forbidden City - who will be cursing the dirty smudge on the bottom left of their camera lens.

A post on EastSouthWestNorth about the reporting of the incident is worth a read. Some reporters’ attempts to link one man chucking a burning object at Mao’s mole to Chinese society reaching boiling point are nice and predictable. 

Calls from within China to lift the ban on the trade of tiger parts have been widely publicised over the last month. I didn’t get a chance to mention Xinhua’s recent story on the issue before going on holiday so I might as well do it now.

The article featured a revealing interview with Liu Dan, chief engineer of the Harbin tiger park. The park is known in the Xinhua database as “the world’s largest Siberian tiger breeding base” and over the past few years there have been several stories detailing the efforts of Liu Dan and his colleagues to reintroduce tigers into the wild. But this latest interview exposes the Harbin park as a fraud.

I was actually under the false impression that the park was funded by the local government but it is a private venture and therefore primarily a business. In the Xinhua report, Liu says the legalisation of the trade of tiger parts is his “dream”. It is obvious that money has always been the preoccupation of the park. In fact, the opinion of the writer of this story is that “park” is far too generous a term - it is a farm just like this one in Guilin.

I visited the park in January and it was a truly depressing experience. A convoy of jeeps trundling through a series of caged enclosures each containing far too many tigers per square metre. I’m no expert but it looked as if there was no effort whatsoever to prepare these animals for the wild. The South China Morning Post reported in 2005 that an agreement had been reached among animal parks and zoos to stop feeding live prey to animals in front of visitors. The menu in the Harbin park says 1,000 yuan for a live cow. And in December last year, a Xinhua report quoted Liu as saying ”some tigers had become friends”. Hardly preparation for the Siberian wilderness.

In hindsight, the proposal by Liu to lift the ban was inevitable. For the last couple of years, he has complained of overpopulation even though the park has just been meeting targets set in 2002. And he is spending two million yuan a year to keep more than 100 dead tigers in freezers. Meanwhile, the park is no closer to being able to release an artifically-bred Siberian tiger into the wild for the first time. This next bit is very cynical: back in November last year the park manager said that the tigers were being kept hungry for one day a week to “arouse their wild instincts” - what a great way to save a few bob!

Statistics prove that the ban on tiger trade imposed by the Chinese government in 1993 has been a success. Yet, Liu ignores them. Apparently the park’s investors are flexing their sizeable ”guanxi” but surely the international outcry would be too great for the government to rescind the ban. Having said that, it would be a lot cheaper than having to bail out  5,000 captive-bred tigers. It seems the only solution is for the government to provide enough funding to ensure the focus of the Harbin park is on reintroducing tigers into the wild rather than keeping the freezers running.

I do not envy employees of “Beijing’s management department and civilization promotion office”. As this report shows, five inspection teams were sent out to patrol the capital over the May holiday to fine people spitting in the streets. But it seems it was not as simple as that.

As reported yesterday by Xinhua, spitting fines range from 20 yuan to 50 yuan. So what are the criteria for the maximum fine? Do the spit inspectors have a checklist? Maybe a full 50 is awarded to a hawk that flies off the decibel scale or is it based on texture, colour … A holiday has clearly caused my maturity to regress.

On an unrelated note (not sure how Charlie will feel about a link to his blog coming under a headline about spit) but I just wanted to direct anyone who hasn’t already read it to this post by Charlie at the China Daily about the workings of the state media. Great analogy - the kind that comes in a Eureka! moment while you listen to an I-pod and trawl through state media stories.

Just a quick mild irritation … I thought the International Express (the international edition of the Daily Express newspaper in Britain) was mainly confined to the expat villas of Magaluf. How wrong. A friend of mine from Shanghai managed to pick a copy up from the city’s Hongqiao airport and together we revelled in being intensely irritated about how far east it had travelled. After I read the first page, I even thought how nice it would be to be back nestling in the bosom of Xinhua (if commenter ’swb’ is still reading and sees this as an opportunity to launch his dummy across the room wailing “I told you so”, I can only wallow in despair).

IMMIGRANTS ‘ARE RUINING THE BRITISH WAY OF LIFE’, took up a third of the front page. Ok, it was quoting a report by “independent think-tank” Civitas, which was also carried by many other media sources, but the choice of photograph was just ridiculous. It pictured an owner of a tasty looking Polish Delicatessen posing proudly outside her shop with the caption “SIGN OF THE TIMES: There has been a massive increase in the number of Poles in Britain”. I’m sure she was delighted to see where that photo ended up.