Beijing Newspeak

I think I should do my bit to enhance the often rocky polisher-state media bilateral relations and save Xinhua a tiny bit of face. I don’t know if anyone has seen this snippet from the Financial Times (reproduced below via msnbc) regarding Xinhua’s reporting of the Three Gorges story that has gobbled up column inches around the world.

Observant China-watchers were given a brief glimpse of a failure in the Chinese propaganda machine on Wednesday when government mouthpiece Xinhua News Agency accidentally ran two stories in Chinese at exactly the same time by the same reporters on the same topic.

The problem was that one article quoted senior officials warning of an impending environmental crisis caused by the Three Gorges dam, while the other article praised the smooth and steady progress of environmental protection efforts on and around the project. Xinhua sources told the Financial Times that the negative story was intended for translation into English and distribution overseas to show the world that officials take environmental issues seriously; the positive story was meant only for domestic consumption.

The usually vigilant Chinese censor must have been in celebration mode for the mid-autumn moon festival on Tuesday night.

To me, this implies that the “Three Gorges could lead to environmental catastrophe” story was not intended to be released in Chinese. There must have been a misunderstanding here. The whole point of the story being published was that it comes just a fortnight before the CPC congress and it was carried, as planned, in Chinese newspapers the next day. According to a Xinhua reporter, China Youth Daily wrote a commentary saying that only after admissions are made can things begin to improve (logic that could be applied to many issues in China reported by state media).

As it turns out, the negative story was written first but due to article length and time constraints the writers deliberately missed off the positive side of events focusing on government efforts to address the problem. They then wrote a separate story with the positive angle believing that, to have both, they were providing their readers with balance. (Bizarre, I know). The editors then released both stories at the same time. The English version combined both stories.

Just a quick update on the Beijing police’s docile efforts to harmonize Sanlitun’s streets (nothing like a good bit of “soft power”). Associated Press (via Yahoo News here) released the following report yesterday in which the police denied targeting black men:

BEIJING - Beijing authorities denied Thursday that a weekend raid on a bar district in which police allegedly beat the son of Grenada’s ambassador specifically targeted black men.

A police statement said the crackdown netted five illegal residents.

The raid early Saturday in the popular Sanlitun district stunned the city’s expatriate community because it was violent and appeared to target only black men. It prompted Grenada Ambassador Joslyn Whiteman to demand an explanation of the incident from the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

Whiteman’s son, 22-year-old Joslyn Paul Whiteman Jr., suffered a concussion while being detained during the raid. He was held for several hours, then released without charge.

An American who witnessed the raid said two to three dozen people were detained, all black, with police using varying degrees of force to restrain them, including beating some with rubber truncheons.

But police denied that blacks were the focus of the raid.

“The action was not targeted at any specific group of people,” said an official surnamed Zhao at the information office of the Beijing Public Security Bureau.

“The police action that night was aimed at rectifying social order,” said Zhao, who refused to give his full name.

A South China Morning Post reporter who witnessed and wrote about the incident reported Monday that police on the scene told him that it was an anti-drug operation.

Zhao said such social order actions do address crimes involving drugs but that none of the people detained that night was charged with drug crimes.

In a separate statement earlier Thursday, the Public Security Bureau said five of the detained people were charged with illegal residence. It gave no additional details.

A duty officer at China’s Foreign Ministry said the matter was being investigated. He declined to give his name in line with ministry policy.

 One of the few things the police did say to the South China Morning Post reporter outside the station last Friday was: “This is an anti-drug operation.” A resounding success all round then according to Mr Zhao at the PSB.

“Zhao said … that none of the people detained that night was charged with drug crimes”.

I’m half expecting my task for today will be to trawl through the Xinhua database editing caveats about potential environmental damage into all the Three Gorges stories released since Hu Jintao came to power. Sounds like one of Winston Smith’s more rewarding days at the Ministry of Truth.

After years of positive spinning, the central leadership has come as clean as the Yangtze River was about 100 years ago about the environmental consequences of the Three Gorges Dam, admitting that if ”no preventive measures are taken, the project could lead to catastrophe”. Here are the opening few pars of the Times story:

It was hailed as one of the engineering feats of the 20th century. Now the Three Gorges Dam across China’s mighty Yangtze River threatens to become an environmental catastrophe.

In an unprecedented admission of blame, Communist Party officials gave a stark warning yesterday of impending disaster in the vast area around the dam if preventive measures are not urgently introduced.

For more than a decade China has promoted the world’s biggest hydro-electric project as the best way to end centuries of floods along the basin of the Yangtze and to provide energy to fuel the country’s economic boom.

The Government ignored critics who claimed that the Three Gorges, first proposed nearly a century ago and immortalised in a poem by Mao Zedong, was an ecological disaster waiting to happen.

Now those same officials who oversaw construction of the £13 billion dam admit that surrounding areas are paying a heavy, and potentially calamitous, environmental cost. Hundreds of thousands of people may have to be moved. A total of 1.3 million have been displaced by the dam already.

A report issued by the Xinhua news agency, mouthpiece for the Government, said: “There exist many ecological and environmental problems concerning the Three Gorges Dam. If no preventive measures are taken, the project could lead to catastrophe.”

The leadership should be applauded for a retreat that would impress a Long Marcher although the clapping shouldn’t quite reach fervent levels given the political nature of the announcement and the information that has been relayed through state media about the dam in recent years. As the Times article points out:

The timing of yesterday’s warning is significant, coming just two weeks before the Communist Party holds a five-yearly congress at which it will cement policy and anoint a new generation of leaders. One political analyst said: “It is a way for President Hu Jintao to distance himself [from the Three Gorges project] further. He stayed away from the completion ceremonies a year ago and this underlines that his administration does not want to be associated with the Three Gorges.”

If you look back at some of the Xinhua reports from the last two years the overall picture portrayed is more comic than a Marvel title. On May 19, 2006, this story was released with the confident headline, “Negative effects of Three Gorges project on environment under control: undertaker” and the tag of “China Exclusive” no less. (I have no idea why there were asking an undertaker for an opinion - perhaps they already realised the project was dead and buried. Sorry).

A few months later, in November of the same year, a report headlined “Water quality remains sound at Three Gorges Dam area” which opened:

Little water pollution has been detected at the Three Gorges Dam area since the water level of the gigantic dam reached the 156-meter mark on Friday, the latest monitoring reports show.

The dam area has maintained a sound ecological environment and water in the dam area is still potable, according to Hubei provincial government office in charge of water-pollution control in the Three Gorges Reservoir.

Leap forward to April, 2007 and this more realistic report was released, which conveyed a very different view through the first annual health report on the Yangtze River. The Three Gorges assessment was presented as a sideshow.

The report also assessed the Three Gorges Dam project, showing its huge reservoir is seriously polluted by pesticides, fertilizers and sewage from passenger boats.

China allocated 4 billion yuan (513 million U.S. dollars) in 2002 to offset the impact of the dam on the ecology, the local environment and the local people, said Prof. Weng Lida, former head of the Yangtze River Water Resources Commission, adding that more cash is coming.

“We have to take into consideration the proper settlement of the people who have been displaced, environmental protection, heavy silting and the prevention of geological disasters,” said Weng who cautioned that “faster is not always better.”

The water level in the Three Gorges reservoir reached a landmark 156 meters last October, but some provinces want the level to go higher so more electricity can be produced, Weng said.

“Higher water levels will worsen pollution and silting. We have to seek more sustained development,” he said.

It should be noted that Professor Weng Lida has always been the one advocating caution regarding the Three Gorges project. He was quoted by the Wall Street Journal at the end of August this year, warning of the problems facing the eco-system around the dam. Unfortunately subscription renders this story unlinkable but it has been summarised on this environmental website.

“We thought of all the possible issues,” environmental scientist Weng Lida, secretary general of the Yangtze River Forum, a coalition of the Chinese government and nongovernmental organizations, told the Wall Street Journal. “But the problems are all more serious than we expected.”

Amusingly, Xinhua tried to release a story a week later talking about the rosy situation on the banks of the reservoir - the reservoir where 36 km of shoreline has collapsed. I rejected it pending an ounce of balance and a reaction to the Wall Street Journal article. I regret that decision now as the story would have been nicely juxtaposed with yesterday’s announcement. In fact, the reaction to that Wall Street Journal article was reported yesterday by Xinhua, for which the agency journalist (naturally the only reporter at the Three Gorges forum earlier this week) deserves praise for getting some good quotes outside of the statement released with central government approval.

Commenting on the newspaper report, Wang said he thought most of the statements were said out of a concern for the Three Gorges Project, but some of the phrasing did reflect ulterior motives.

But he also admitted, “The problems mentioned in the Wall Street Journal should merit adequate attention from all of us.”

“Ulterior motives” aside, that is high praise indeed from a Chinese government official for a damning (excuse pun) report by foreign media.

So now that officials, scientists and the ubiquitous experts have been blinded by a great big flashing green light to pour forth tales of environmental woe, maybe we can expect progressively more shocking statistics such as this one from Xinhua:

Frequent geological disasters have threatened the lives of residents around the reservoir area, said Huang Xuebin, head of the Headquarters for Prevention and Control of Geological Disasters in the Three Gorges Reservoir.

At the forum he described landslides around the reservoir that had produced waves as high as 50 meters, which crashed into the adjacent shoreline, causing even more damage.

I am finding the “50 meter” line difficult to believe given some tsunamis don’t even get that high but maybe it is true. It certainly sounds like Huang Xuebin has been waiting to get that off his chest for a long time.

I’m nearly at the end of this post and I seem to have wasted the opportunity to give the Chinese government due credit. This is what everyone wanted - an open discussion on how to tackle the huge environmental concerns that have arisen from the construction of the dam - and it emphatically supports the leadership’s pledge to place environmental concerns over economic development ahead of the CPC congress. Of course many people will say it should have happened sooner and the treatment of environmental activist and journalist Dai Qing, whose book Yangtze! Yangtze! earned her 10 months in a maximum security prison and the threat of the death sentence (according to the Independent), should not be forgotten.

I’m an unavoidable day late with this post but I think there are a few things to add regarding the drug raid in Beijing’s main bar district Sanlitun on Friday night, particularly as the Reuters report (via the Guardian) only touches upon the story:

BEIJING, Sept 24 (Reuters) - Chinese paramilitary police swept through a busy bar district in Beijing, detaining about 20 African nationals suspected of selling drugs, witnesses said.

The raid at midnight on Friday in fashionable Sanlitun, also home to many embassies, came as police tighten security ahead of a Communist Party meeting in mid-October and next year’s Olympic Games.

“The paramilitary police sealed off the street at both ends, then moved in,” said a witness surnamed Wang.

“Some Africans entered the vans peacefully but others tried to flee and the police used force,” added Wang, who works on the street frequented by young foreigners.

Other witnesses said the troops targeted anyone on the street with dark skin.

The Ministry of Public Security and the Beijing police both declined immediate comment. Chinese police rarely get involved with foreigners if they can help it, owing mainly to poor foreign language skills.

As we can see from the South China Morning Post article below, the key point is the wild nature of the police operation in which anyone who was black was targeted.

Dozens of black tourists and expatriates, including the son of the Grenadian ambassador, were arrested and some badly beaten during an apparently indiscriminate anti-drug operation by Beijing police.

About 30 men, mostly African or Caribbean, were detained as dozens of baton-wielding security guards and uniformed police swept through Beijing’s nightlife district, Sanlitun. Students, tourists and the ambassador’s son Joslyn Whiteman Jnr were among those wrestled to the ground, handcuffed and hauled to a nearby police station.

At least three people, including Mr Whiteman, were beaten with rubber truncheons despite few signs that they were resisting arrest.

Grenadian ambassador Joslyn Whiteman said he was furious at the way his son was treated. The 22-year-old spent a night in hospital with a concussion.

“Obviously I’m very angry,” the ambassador said. “My son was arrested and beaten for no reason whatsoever. I will be taking this up with the authorities and looking into the matter.”

Witnesses said the round-up appeared to be aimed squarely at black men. Those who tried to photograph the incident were made to delete the images from their mobile phones and cameras.

“It was pretty brutal,” Beijing-based magazine editor Alex Reid said.

“I saw a man being beaten by six guys in camouflage. He was covered in blood. The police seemed to be targeting anyone who was black.”

Thabo Lieket, a 24-year-old student from Lesotho, was among those arrested and later released without charge. He thought the police assumed he was dealing in drugs because he was black, he said.

“They were rounding up all the black people; it was pretty frightening,” he said. “I was walking with some friends past one of the bars when I was grabbed by some of the guys in camouflage. They dragged us all to the police station, where we were put in the same cell.”

When asked about the incident, a police officer at the Sanlitun station said: “This is an anti-drug operation.”

I have no doubt the SCMP report can be taken as read as I consider the author of the article - housemate, friend of ten years and a member of my journalism class - to be a very reliable source. He was present at the scene of the chaos on Friday night, having a beer outside the Saddle bar opposite Tongli Studios. I feel it is worth detailing exactly what happened, away from the constraints of a limited word count and the news story format.

At about 1am, a group of five or six men in camouflage uniform charged past the Saddle towards Poachers’ Inn. Their average age was around 18 and 19 - some looked as young as 16, others maybe 25 - and their scruffy appearance, straggly hair and gangly limbs made them look decidedly amateurish. They do not seem to deserve the title “paramilitary police” given to them by the Reuters’ witness. A few Saddle patrons, including the SCMP reporter, followed them and saw three black men kneeling in the street surrounded by a group of about seven camouflaged men and three in Beijing police uniform. One man was handcuffed and was being beaten by foot-long batons, while he shouted his protestations; the other two were being threatened with blows. The policemen, much older than the camouflaged mob, were making sure onlookers stayed back. One was holding a gun but not pointing it with purpose. At no stage did the SCMP reporter see any resistance that warranted this kind of treatment but he didn’t see if the men had tried to resist arrest in the first place.

The three men were hauled up and taken to the police station around the corner. Many people were taking pictures and video footage. The SCMP reporter followed the police but his friend had to stay behind for a moment as the police deleted the pictures she had taken with her digital camera. She was allowed to keep two photos of blood on the pavement. Many others were forced to delete the images they had taken. By the way, someone has video footage (haven’t seen it myself) of this incident so I hope it will be online shortly.

The SCMP reporter stood with several other foreigners outside the police station. There was a feeling of indignation, disgust and the sense that they should at least make their presence felt so the police would know they were being observed. It should be said at this point the incident still appeared to be the arrest of three black men on the suspicion of dealing drugs. The picture changed over the next hour, however, as snatch squads of five to six young men in camouflage kept running out of the station and returning with more arrests, all black men. It was becoming clear that the teams were being sent out to the bars and told to bring back anyone who was black. By 2am, 20 to 30 men had been arrested, ranging from a tourist and a student (quoted in SCMP article) to possible drug dealers and the son of the Grenadian ambassador. One man was led in with his shoulder covered in blood.

The police began to release people without charge at about 2.15am. Those with valid passports and visas were allowed to go - the student from Lesotho was lucky enough to remember his passport number. Outside the station, the SCMP reporter spoke to a white Canadian guy. He had been drinking with a fellow student, who was black, in a bar until his drinking buddy was snatched from under his eyes and dragged outside into the street. The reporter spoke to two black men who had been arrested in separate incidents. Their Chinese friends had warned them that police appeared to be rounding up anyone who was black and carting them off. Worried, they left the bar and were grabbed by the camouflaged mob, rather than men in police uniform. It is no wonder some innocent people were caught trying to run away.

The SCMP reporter and two of his friends then entered the police station and propped up the counter. One of his friends was nagging the police, firing questions at them. They answered two questions and volunteered a justification in the course of an hour. “What are you doing?” “This is an anti-drug operation.” “Why are you beating the people?” “Because they tried to run away.” This was followed by, “You’re an American. The police in America beat people too.” According to the SCMP reporter, most of the staff in the police station looked bemused at the foreigners’ bemusement.

The Grenadian ambassador Joslyn Whiteman, and his wife, arrived at about 2.30am, angry and distressed but grateful to the foreigners that they had stayed around the police station. He even had the good humour to comment that he was the only “white man” in the building. After giving the police a description of his son to a policewoman who spoke some English, he was told his son had been released. They found him later and took him to hospital where he stayed overnight due to truncheon-induced concussion.

China Expat has written a post that addresses the racial implications of this incident. I will focus on the shocking baseness of the policework and sheer ignorance of the authorities involved. It is unclear to whom the young men in camouflage were affiliated. From the description of their appearance, I find it hard to accept they belonged to either the police or the military. It sounds like some kind of security company made up of untrained youths hired by the Beijing police to do their dirty work. This ensures that no one has video or photographic evidence of a uniformed Beijing policeman dishing out a beating with a baton. But it also demonstrates the clumsiness in the way the police carried out the anti-drug operation. The overwhelming majority of drug dealers in Sanlitun are black Africans and the way in which they conduct business is blatant. The simple combination of surveillance and plain clothes could notch up an arrest a day at least. Instead, it appears the logic was: drug dealers are black so if we round up enough black people we will catch some drug dealers. If they show fear or resist then they are guilty.

Maybe the police prefer a public show of its strength to act as a deterrant and to demonstrate their unerring efforts to combat drugs in line with the Minister of Public Security’s call to clamp down … etc … ahead of the Party congress. Well in this case, it has forgotten its audience. Too many appalled foreigners, too many foreigners with links to the media. If their thinking is that the rough treatment will convince the drug dealers to go straight, then they are surely misguided. The incident had the appearance of being all for show and it has received negative coverage in the media. There won’t be any further drug raids in Sanlitun for a while so it appears it is now safe to peddle illegal substances on its streets. It does appear to be a very localised effort to make a few drug-related arrests. If the Beijing police have aspirations of ridding drug-dealing from the capital’s streets then it should adopt a more citywide approach. After all, it is well known that most of the drug dealers have relocated to another area of Beijing over the last year or so. When I first arrived in Beijing at the beginning of 2006, a stroll down the busy main road of Gongti Beilu would be to the soundtrack of “Hey, man” from African drug dealers. This just doesn’t seem to happen anymore.

As for the bar district of Sanlitun, I often find there is a tinge of aggression in the air, particularly outside Tongli Studios (the area where the police raid occurred). Probably no more than outside De Niro’s in Newmarket, H2O in Bishop’s Stortford, Jumping Jack’s in Harlow or any other of the small-town nightclubs in which I had the opportunity to meet many of the UK’s leading fools during my teenage years. But a tinge nonetheless, accentuated in my mind perhaps because Beijing is generally free from all the loutish (why do I feel so much older than my years when I use that word?) nonsense that goes on in Britain. It does seem that lashings of violence in Sanlitun, like the one written about on the Zhongnanhai blog here, are happening more frequently though.

Related links:

Africa Beat - http://jenbrea.typepad.com/africabeat/2007/09/africans-beaten.html#comments

Newsweek blog - http://blog.newsweek.com/blogs/ov/archive/2007/09/25/beijing-vice-a-brutal-bust-reveals-the-strong-arm-of-the-chinese-law.aspx

http://www.beijingnewspeak.com/2007/09/28/sanlitun-saga-update-anti-drug-operation-uncovers-no-drugs/

There’s nothing like a good old-fashioned open day to demonstrate Party transparency. On Thursday, the Communist Party’s internal disciplinary body, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, allowed foreign reporters a little peek around its offices for the first time.

The AP reporter wrote a fairly matter-of-fact story on the landmark stroll around the office compound, choosing to focus on a senior official’s comments that corruption among Party officials is falling. Xinhua seemed genuinely concerned as to whether the foreign reporters were having a good time, noting that Shiozawa Eiichi, a Kyodo News journalist, wanted to see things in more detail next time (presumptuous really given the next CPC congress after October isn’t for another five years) and that The Australian correspondent Rowan Callick thought more time should have been allocated to the Q&A session. The AFP reporter took a sardonic approach to convey how the commission puts the “open” in open day with this article cheekily headlined “Little sign of overwork in China’s anti-graft body”. Here’s an entertaining chunk:

Case workers greeted the visitors politely from behind spotless desks unburdened by the files and documents that would indicate corruption is a growing problem.

“We do not get all the cases at once. They come in steadily and we handle them quickly,” Liu Zhenbao, an official in charge of case reviews, cheerfully told reporters.

The body’s case-inspection department seemed nearly deserted. The explanation: staff are all out in the field investigating cases.

And officials repeatedly pleaded that “time is short, it is time to move on” when pressed with sensitive questions about the nexus of corruption and politics in China.

To be fair to the disciplinary commission, you don’t leave coffee-stained files piled high on your desk when you have visitors (and there has to be some sort of evidence that corruption is down). But the whistlestop nature of the press tour was evident.

“This is a reflection of our openness and the development of democracy in China,” Chi said, before reporters were hurried onto a waiting bus.

So corruption cases are down and no one is doing any work. I was wondering why the State Council felt the need to set up another anti-graft department, the National Bureau for Corruption Prevention, just over a week ago. The establishment of this agency and the subsequent appointment of Minister of Supervison Ma Wen as its head left everyone wondering, what does the Ministry of Supervision do then?

According to this China Daily report, the significance of the new bureau is clear.

The setting up of the National Bureau of Corruption Prevention (NBCP) signifies the opening of a new front that can “nip corruption in the bud”.

The paper doesn’t give a reason for the quotation marks but, to its credit, does go on to present a balanced and informative story by interviewing Tsinghua University professor Ren Jianming.

Tsinghua University professor Ren Jianming thinks it’s imperative that a “comparatively independent institution” will improve corruption prevention policies. “It will be much better (because) sometimes certain departments’ proposals are laced with vested interests.”

I agree, comparative independence is vital. So why are the head and deputy head of the bureau and the Ministry of Supervision the same people? It continues:

But experts doubt whether the 30-member bureau will live up to people’s expectations. Ren worries “whether the bureau will have enough talent and professionals to detect corruption at source in so many complicated fields”.

“It will become a beautiful but useless vase if it’s made up of all kinds of officials and staff who can only do some administrative things instead of the vital research work.” Hence Ren suggests the bureau introduce “outside brains” by inviting some professionals from certain fields to overcome the difficulty.

A few experts are also worried that the State-level bureau will prompt local governments to form similar organizations, resulting in over-swollen staff and more supervisory cost.

Though NBCP chief Ma Wen brushes aside such worries saying that at present local governments don’t have any intention to set up similar organizations, Li (Chengyan, Peking University professor) feels local governments would do so, but maybe under a different name.

“We expect to see all anti-corruption resources being gradually incorporated into one bureau, which will be more independent and effective,” Li says.

The bureau lacks independence so is destined, ultimately, to fail. This problem can of course be traced right down to the local level, where recent efforts to increase supervision in China’s villages were exposed as relatively worthless. Take this recent Xinhua story which features a district government official in Ningxia exalting a new “village supervisor” system. Apparently complaints are down by half since supervisors were introduced to the region’s villages in November 2006. Ask enough questions though and the fact that strips away the credibility of the system emerges:

However, it remains to be seen how effective the scheme, which has also been introduced to Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, Jiangxi, Hunan and Guangxi, will be in the long-term.

Eighty percent of the newly-appointed village supervisors in Ningxia are actually the deputy heads of the villages and receive no extra salary to perform the role of supervisor.

Again, insufficient independence. Any corruption that may be occurring at village level would surely involve the head and deputy head of the village. So if the dodgy deputy head is appointed to supervise his immediate superior they can carry on as normal. In fact, it’s no wonder the volume of complaints is down. Villagers petition the new “village supervisor” who can choose whether or not to pass the complaints, which might implicate him in shady dealing, higher up.

Gordon C Chang, author of “The Coming Collapse of China (it is coming, honest!)”, saw the establishment of the National Bureau of Corruption Prevention as an opportunity to denounce Communism in general in this article in Commentary Magazine. Some snippets:

Corruption has reached new levels in China because of the Communist Party’s insistence on political monopoly. Such rampant corruption nearly guarantees that problems will not be dealt with effectively.

and:

Beijing is now reduced to imposing death sentences on corrupt officials and announcing four-month campaigns to stop bad products. But we know that corruption makes all these efforts meaningless. And adding another sprawling bureaucracy won’t help. After all, the most corrupt organization in China—the Communist Party—cannot discipline itself.

The reactionary tone of this piece does make me cringe, particularly his Soviet Union angle and his quick rejection of the long-term value in China tightening its regulatory system. Still, I’ll certainly agree with this line: “another sprawling bureaucracy won’t help”.

“According to official estimates, there are believed to be 650,000 people living with HIV/AIDS in China.”

A line similar to the one above can be found in practically every story about HIV/AIDS in China, from Xinhua to Reuters, published in the last couple of years. The statistic is courtesy of the Chinese Ministry of Health, the World Health Organisation and UNAIDS, but it seems about time this oft-repeated figure is updated, or at least qualified in some way.

A friend of mine - and in fact one of my many nemeses on the high-flying 50-yuan-a-game Beijing poker circuit - Gabe Suk is the head of a non-profit organisation called Prevention Through Education. PTE works to bring HIV/AIDS education to Chinese classrooms, particularly those of middle school students in their final years of compulsory education. He also blogs a bit to spread the word and this is his recent post on news of a sharp increase in new HIV infections in China. It is well worth reading the whole post as it gives an idea of what PTE is trying to achieve.

It starts like this:

China has reported 18,543 new HIV infections in the first half of 2007, which is near the reported number from all of last year.  A figure that is certainly worrying and indicative of China’s growing epidemic …

And then moves on to provide a realistic estimate for the actual number of new HIV infections:

There is always a large discrepancy between the amount of reported cases and the amount of actual or estimated cases.  This stems from lack of surveillance as well as the fact that worldwide only around 10% of HIV positive people actually know they are positive.  If we take a conservative estimate for China and say that 20% of people who are HIV positive know their status we could estimate that 18,543 reported infections translates to 92,715 actual infections.

The overall situation of HIV/AIDS in China is provided in these two paragraphs that PTE quotes from Reuters:

The nation had 214,300 officially registered cases of HIV/AIDS by late July, Xinhua said, an increase of five percent over the figure for April.

The United Nations estimates the true number of the killer disease in the country to be around 650,000.

There’s that stat again. Back to PTE:

Ah the stats, everyone loves the stats.  I don’t really get it in China.  There is one constant number 650,000, that was adjusted from around 840,000 by the  WHO, but never changes despite around 100,000 new infections every year…  I think what we can learn from all the misleading stats and contradictions in information is that no one really knows for sure.  China is so massive that to constantly rely on such a solid statistic seems a little silly.

I’m inclined to agree although I do confess to harbouring a burning desire for stats (which is just as well as a Xinhua news polisher) especially when PTE’s earlier (conservative) calculation method is applied to the figure of 214,300 - the number of officially registered cases in China. If only 20 percent of Chinese people with HIV know they have the disease then the actual figure has the potential to be more than one million - 1,071,500 to be exact. Time for a recount I think.

Honesty is the best policy. Maybe not for Zheng Binghui. In fact Zheng, the director of the Chinese Research Academy of the Environmental Sciences’ Institute of Water Environment, is so honest he flags up a brutally frank form of dishonesty.

My eagle-eyed polishing comrade spied an article in Monday’s South China Morning Post headlined “Government to spend billions to clean water”. Half-interested, he waded through the first 200 words - at least one trillion yuan will be spent by the central government to target the Huai, the Hai and the Liao rivers, and the Tai, Chao and Dianchi lakes - before diving into the juice:

Dr Zheng said nearly half of all urban drinking water sources failed to meet national standards in 1981, and, in 1998, the failure rate was more than 83 per cent, according to studies carried out by his institute.

Their latest survey suggests more than 450 drinking water sources in key national environmental protection cities could not meet the standards, a number six times higher than the official figure. But these results have not been made available to the mainland public.

“If we release these figures to the public, there will be total havoc … The figures we reported to the central government are classified,” he said.

“There is only one correct figure you and Xinhua can report, and that is the official figure.”

Now clearly it is common practice for the Chinese government to not so much massage statistics as give them a merciless pummelling for the people’s consumption but it is rare to see such a glaring admission of governmental deception. According to the SCMP, Zheng was delivering the report (which included the real figure) in English to a multinational audience at the annual meeting of the China Association for Science and Technology in Wuhan. I presume that when he says “you and Xinhua” he is talking to the SCMP reporter directly with naive confidence that his comments would not be reproduced in print.

How galling it must have been for the SCMP reporter to have his publication aranged on the same censorship shelf as Xinhua. And the question has to be asked of course. Did the SCMP writer want to lead with the government cover-up angle only for an editorial decision to force the comments to be buried in the middle of text rather than mocking Beijing in bold print at the top of the page? I know what line I would have gone with - out of duty to the mainland public who collectively have been treated as fools.

I’ll be looking out for the “official figures” at Xinhua with these stats in mind:

“For the river-type water sources, Hunan province and Anhui province had the lowest rate of meeting national standards, just 60.28 per cent and 46.7 per cent respectively; for lake and reservoir type water sources, the lowest rates were in Anhui province with 71.4 per cent and Jiangsu province with 30.7 per cent.”

Nearly half of the undergound water sources in Shanxi were not suitable for drinking, he said.

In terms of the mainalnd’s high-profile algal outbreaks this year, Dr Zheng said lake and reservoir type water resources were serious polluted and nutrient levels generally exceeded standards.

“Seventy-five per cent of the lakes show [excessive nutrient levels] to a different extent. The drinking water sources in the Three Gorges Reservoir tributaries are in danger.”

Dr Zheng said existing controls covering protected source water areas were ineffective.

“In Hubei province, investigations showed that unauthorised construction existed in 23 water source protection zones.

“In Ningxia , in a centralised drinking water source protection zone there are 73 enterprises with … annual ammonia emissions of 1,023 tonnes.”

Something tells me the Three Gorges fact might not resurface for a while so make a note of it for future dam debates.

This link takes you to a post a week old and has already been referenced by ESWN. But I just think this piece by Mutant Palm about the British media’s coverage of “China’s cyber army” is exactly what blogging is all about and I would happily band it about the next time someone complains that bloggers are a threat to the art of journalism. And a follow up to that post is here.

This post is balancing on the edge of the out-of-date shelf but I feel like I’m playing catch-up after two weeks at home (voluntarily) wrapped in China-resistant clingfilm. One story that did fox the sieve while I was away was Richard Spencer’s story in the Daily Telegraph headlined “China to withdraw backing for Mugabe”. 

Robert Mugabe is to lose vital support from one of his few remaining allies on the world stage, China.

One of the Zimbabwe president’s oldest diplomatic friends, China yesterday told Lord Malloch Brown, the Foreign Office minister, that it was dropping all assistance except humanitarian aid.

The move follows a decision by China, a permanent member of the United Nations security council, to work more closely with the international community in bringing pressure to bear on “rogue regimes”. It represents a major shift in its previous policy of refusing to attack the internal policies of long-standing allies.

“I was told that Chinese assistance to Zimbabwe was now limited to humanitarian assistance, which is enormously important,” Lord Malloch Brown said. “That puts it in the same position as Britain, which is the second biggest provider of humanitarian assistance to Zimbabwe.”

The Chinese embassy in Zimbabwe was first to deny a change in stance, a week after the Telegraph report was published, through a report released by Xinhua’s bureau in Harare.

The Chinese Embassy in Zimbabwe on Tuesday dismissed as false media reports claiming that China has withdrawn all assistance except humanitarian aid to Zimbabwe.

A spokesperson from the Chinese Embassy said contrary to the reports, Zimbabwe and China share a long history of friendship and have cooperation agreements in various fields which include agriculture, education, health, and science and technology.

“Recently, some media published reports claiming that China was dropping all assistance except humanitarian aid to Zimbabwe. The Embassy of China in Zimbabwe wishes to clarify that this is simply not the fact,” said the spokesperson.

Of course if the Chinese government really wished to reject Malloch Brown’s comments it would do so through the Foreign Ministry. But that would be against all known laws of diplomacy. I’m always wary about analysing the specific vocabulary used in Xinhua’s English language service because I know how inconsistent it can be. On this occasion, however, the report does emphasise the distinction between the Communist Party and the central government.

The spokesperson added that apart from assistance promised to Zimbabwe during the visit by Chinese Communist Party senior official, Jia Qinglin, in April, the two governments had also concluded negotiations for China to supply Zimbabwe with 4,000 tons of soybeans.

“During the visit by Jia Qinglin, Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, to Zimbabwe this April, China promised to help build two primary schools, one hospital and an Agriculture Technology Demonstration Center in Zimbabwe.

This point is made by a Harare-based journalist writing anonymously for the Institute of War and Peace Reporting:

The Chinese embassy in Harare issued a statement on September 4 denying any policy u-turn and citing ongoing projects as evidence of continued collaboration. However, analysts attributed this to “diplomatic double speak” and said the embassy statement referred to the policy of the Chinese Communist Party and not the government, which Malloch Brown was referring to.

At this point it would be useful to note that Hu Jintao did not visit Zimbabwe on a tour of southern Africa at the beginning of the year. In addition, one of my colleagues at Xinhua was most disappointed, while on a reporting trip to Africa before the China-Africa Cooperation Forum last November, to find that a planned interview between a delegation of Xinhua journalists and Mugabe was cancelled at the last minute.

An interesting article by South Africa’s Mail & Guardian (linked here via zwnews.com) on Monday quoted a British diplomatic source in Harare saying the reports of China scaling down aid were a “gross exaggeration”.

The picture clouds further with these comments:

Christopher Burke, a research fellow at Stellenbosch University’s Centre for Chinese Studies, doubted whether China had changed its policy toward Zimbabwe. He said none of the Chinese government officials he has been in contact with is aware of a change in the government’s policy toward Zimbabwe. Burke said much of the trade between China and Zimbabwe is conducted using barter and exchange, a form of commerce that requires a “high degree of goodwill”. “I do not expect we will see any significant changes in Beijing’s policy toward Harare,” Burke said.

For good measure the conflicting view is also put forward at length in the same article. An extract:

However, Garth le Pere, executive director at the Institute for Global Dialogue, said China has been scaling down its involvement in Zimbabwe. “That has been the trend since 2005,” he said.

And another:

“A range of factors has soured the bilateral relationship,” Le Pere said, pointing out that thousands of textile workers in Zimbabwe have lost their jobs because of cheap Chinese imports. He said the joint venture that established a cement manufacturing company in Gweru has suffered because of poor infrastructure, energy and transport problems. Le Pere said China’s involvement in Africa is propelled by its own economic interests, which are the basis of any political engagements. There is a growing realisation that the agreements that have been entered into have not borne fruit, largely because of the economic crisis, he said, describing the relationship as “unpredictable”. Although China has a policy of non-interference in sovereign states “it can’t turn a blind eye to what is going on”, Le Pere said. However, he argued, if the security council proposed sanctions against Zimbabwe, China would veto the move.

Well, whatever the true situation, Xinhua News Agency continues to skip happily hand in hand with Zimbabwean “local media”, according to this article published in the Zimbabwean government-run newspaper The Herald (linked via allAfrica.com) on August 25.

Xinhua provides its news service free of charge to many countries in Africa who can’t afford to pay the subscription fee. This results in some African media relying on Xinhua for its news coverage in the absence of a Reuters or AP package. In return, the Chinese government has more opportunity to spread its take on international affairs around the continent. (Note to African media actually paying for Xinhua’s service: don’t!) It is clear The Herald has learnt carefully from Xinhua’s news style, and indeed taken it to another level, judged by this opening paragraph:

XINHUA, a Chinese international news agency, has pledged to continue working with and supporting Zimbabwean media to correct the distortions peddled by the hostile Western media on the situation in the country.

Xinhua’s Harare bureau chief nicely demonstrated how much time Xinhua journalists spend in their agency compounds when posted abroad:

Speaking after handing over two computers to Herald Editor Pikirayi Deketeke and the Head of New Ziana Rangarirai Shoko, Xinhua Harare bureau chief correspondent Li Nuer said the agency would do its best to help the country overcome the challenges.

“We thought we should do something as we are good corporate partners.

“The most important factor is the bilateral relations enjoyed between our two countries.

“As media, when Zimbabwe is facing challenges, we do our best to promote the country, especially with the Western media distortions on the true picture in Zimbabwe,” Nuer said.

He said the agency, which has over 100 bureaus all over the world, would continue to assist Zimbabwe by disseminating information on the real situation in the country.

“We want to help you overcome your difficulties and we hope this will further strengthen our relationship,” he said.

“Disseminating”. Good choice of word that. Plenty of negative connotations. And two computers I hear you cry! Well, the gift may not be generous as it seems. The hub of Xinhua’s operations in Xuanwumen (where I work) has just moved to its newly renovated office tower and is overflowing with brand spanking new technology. There were a few rusty PC models lying around as a result.

More than a month has now passed since senior Korean diplomat Whang Joung-il died at Vista Clinic in Beijing. Yet the cause of his death has still not been officially confirmed by the Chinese authorities despite the issue being raised at the Ministry of Health press conference yesterday. In fact, the comments by new Health Minister Chen Zhu only served to ensure listeners were even more befuddled. This is the (unpolished) Xinhua report from yesterday:

BEIJING, Sept. 5 (Xinhua) — The death of a senior diplomat of Republic of Korea (ROK) in China was not caused by food-originated diseases, although he died after eating a tuna sandwich, Chinese Health Minister Chen Zhu said on Wednesday.

The death of Whang Joung-il was not caused by food related diseases, and “I was 100 percent sure” of that, Chen said at a press conference in response to a question raised by a Wall Street Journal reporter.

The Ministry of Health has organized authoritative experts to conduct medical test on Whang’s case to find out the cause of his death and the result had been handed out to the ROK side via diplomatic channels, Chen said, adding the ministry was looking forward to exchanging ideas with the ROK in order to further determine the cause.

Chen said he had read a report from a ROK media that quoted a leading ROK institution that Whang’s death was caused by excessive work and cardiologic diseases.

Whang, 52, a major diplomat at the ROK embassy in Beijing, suffered severe stomach pains and vomiting after eating a sandwich bought nearby on July 28. He was brought to the Beijing’s Vista Clinic the following morning and died two hours later.

“Minister Whang was an old friend of China. We feel grieved about his death, and I want to take the opportunity to express our condolences to Whang’s family and the ROK People,” Chen said.

He said Whang had made great contribution to the Sino-ROK relationship, and “any media reports that play up his death were a disrespect to him and not humanitarian”.

Back to the beginning of this mess. On July 29, Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo reported that Whang had died while being treated at a Beijing clinic. The Korean embassy believed his death was caused by either a sandwich he had eaten the previous evening or by an injection of Ringer’s solution he had received at the clinic. The Ministry of Health “seized the solution for investigation”, performed an autopsy on the body and promised to deliver the results to the Korean embassy as soon as possible.

Chosun Ilbo then went on the attack the same day with arguably premature speculation.

Whang’s sudden death reminded us in Beijing of the fact that we live under the threat of tainted food and bogus drugs in China. Right now there’s a controversy over whether Chinese vendors really sold steamed dumplings stuffed with chemical-laced cardboard masquerading as pork. There have also been reports of shipments of bogus human blood meant for transfusions. It’s a sad reminder that 600,000 Koreans working and living in China, including diplomats, corporate executives and students, are exposed to very real dangers posed by phony food and medicine.

Two weeks later the same newspaper produced a strangely brief two-par story which said the Chinese health authorities had unofficially confirmed that Whang had died from an injection of the antibiotic Rocephin which can be fatal when mixed with drugs containing calcium. However these results had not been conveyed to the Korean embassy. It also said the Chinese health ministry had promised to punish Vista Clinic, who denied it had done anything wrong and claimed Whang died from a heart attack.

Nine days later and Chosun Ilbo was back on the offensive with this biting editorial, which included:

When Korean officials raised the possibility of a misdiagnosis or wrong prescription to the Chinese official, he responded by asking why Whang chose to go to such a “low grade” hospital. His tone was as if Whang was to blame for his death for choosing the wrong hospital. But that hospital happens to be a prominent one in Beijing and is frequented by foreigners. Nor is it some cheap clinic either. It charges US$140 for an initial exam. If such a hospital is truly “low grade”, then perhaps Whang should have used a hospital catering to Beijing’s elite bureaucrats. Judging by Beijing’s nonchalance in dealing with this incident, one perforce feels that China has a long ways to go. It may appear to be on its way to becoming a global leader. But it seems there is no way that country will be able to assume such a responsible role as long as it behaves this way.

A day later Associated Press released this report (via The Boston Globe) which featured reaction from Whang’s family, who said the Korean embassy had been informed earlier in the month that Whang died of a heart attack.

The family is also pressing to see the autopsy findings, calling it an unusually long delay considering the case involved a high-level diplomat.

The family is “deeply concerned that his death will be erased,” Whang’s son, Tae-ho, said in a statement yesterday.

The AP report also featured a quote which demonstrated the unwillingness of the Korean government to criticize China openly.

“We’ve asked China to give us an outcome that is fair, objective, and acceptable,” a South Korean Foreign Ministry official said on the condition of anonymity, citing the issue’s sensitivity.

Another week passes and along comes an intriguing article from Asia Times, which comments on the diplomatic complications that seem to be at the heart of the snail-paced investigations. The lead par sets the tone:

The low-key, drawn-out inquiry into the death of a senior South Korean diplomat in China makes pundits wonder what’s really behind the actions - or inaction - of Seoul and Beijing in this highly sensitive yet very much under-reported case.

It mentions the expected dearth of reporting on the issue in the Chinese media:

The news was suppressed in China - understandably. Among the major dailies in Beijing, only the Beijing News ventured to write about it. But oddly enough, even though the incident had happened in Beijing, the Beijing News’ short piece was gleaned from the Xin Kuai Bao (Express News) - a newspaper in faraway Guangdong province near Hong Kong.

Reaction from unnamed “observers” follows, including the opinion of a South Korean scholar:

“Beijing must have offered some concessions to Seoul. My hunch is that it might be something on the six-party talks [over North Korea's nuclear program] or some economic deals. Otherwise, given the magnitude of the incident, the kind of low gesture by South Korea when its own senior diplomat had died is unthinkable as a sovereign country. Even a country which has less diplomatic muscle than South Korea would have lodged a stronger protest.”

And then the conclusion:

In a nutshell, what appeared to be a poor diplomatic maneuver from South Korea on the death of its envoy in China may actually have been a choreographed deal between the two countries meant to save China’s face, the argument goes.

All this highlights the inadequacy of Health Minister Chen Zhu’s response at yesterday’s conference. He refused to divulge the cause of Whang’s death, saying it had been provided to the Koreans “via diplomatic channels”. I would think Whang’s family might have something to say about that - both to the Chinese government and its own. Chen even started quoting speculation in the Korean media that the diplomat had died from “excessive work and cardiologic diseases” despite having full knowledge of the autopsy results. His closing comments, as detailed above, were made all the more galling by an article in today’s China Daily headlined “New health chief shines on debut” which told, awe-struck, of Chen’s ability to smile throughout the two-hour conference and the spontaneous reaction of all reporters present who rose to their feet at the end of the speeches in order to laden him with applause.

In the meantime, Vista Clinic is continuing to treat patients having not been required to explain itself.