Beijing Newspeak

Well thank Hu that’s all over with for another five years. I’m certainly not going to complain about the congress week though - the English-language polishing brigade of Dui Wai Bu, complete with new recruit, has been kicking back and basking in the glow of oppressive strip lighting for the last few days. In what was the quietest week of my Xinhua career/cameo, aptly coinciding with what is considered by the Party as the most important news event of the half-decade, I even had time to visit Nanjing and marvel at the way red neon Chinese characters shot down high-rise buildings at night to say, ”Wishing the Big 17th every success.”

Xinhua’s Party congress news was delivered to the world by journalists cooped up in the warren of tunnels built in the 1960s under the district of Qianmen (just south of the Great Hall of the People) which these days is open to tourists and billed as the Underground City. I can’t guarantee the truth of that statement but seeing as the journalists weren’t allowed to send text messages or make phone calls mentioning the congress, I would have thought being buried underground would have been the logical place to set up HQ.

The nature of Xinhua’s (seemingly) final congress story was fitting, sporting an emphatic last line:

BEIJING, Oct. 22 (Xinhua) — Hu Jintao, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, state president and chairman of the Central Military Commission, had a meeting with military delegates of the just-ended 17th Party Congress on Monday evening.

Guo Boxiong, Cao Gangchuan and Xu Caihou were present at the meeting, at Beijing’s Jingxi Hotel, along with other former and newly-elected senior military officials Yang Baibing, Zhang Wannian, Chi Haotian, Zhao Nanqi, Liang Guanglie, Chen Bingde, Li Jinai, Liao Xilong, Chang Wanquan, Qiao Qingchen, Jing Zhiyuan, WuShengli and Xu Qiliang.

Hu and the others were greeted with warm applause and they shook hands and had pictures taken with the Army delegates.

The military delegates represent the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and the Chinese People’s Armed Police (PAP).

According to law, the Chinese armed forces are definitely under the leadership of the CPC.

Dui Wai Bu journalists normally find themselves dancing in cages when writing stories in English but at least there is room for manoeuvre. However, in the last few months they have been confined to a collective strait jacket, required to stick to merely translating the Chinese-language stories that come from the domestic news department. The pre-congress restrictions unfortunately collided with the mass relocation to the newly renovated Xinhua tower which boasts a newsroom to rival any media organisation. This kind of news environment makes the absence of news all the more apparent.

Hopefully, we will start to see some decent stories again. It looks as if there will be a polishing team of five in place by the end of the month (as opposed to two throughout the summer) which means more time for on-the-job training. While, this is undoubtedly appreciated by the vast majority of Dui Wai Bu editors, it does mean they will be bombarded with, at times, unrealistic demands to improve stories.

A comparative glut of polishers should result in more opportunites to try and balance the stories. Although, I think I might find it difficult to rekindle my enthusiasm when stories like this one are released:

BEIJING, Oct. 22 (Xinhua) — Oscar Arias Sanchez, president of Costa Rica arrived here on Monday morning, kicking off an one-week state visit to China at the invitation of Chinese President Hu Jintao.

During Arias’s stay in Beijing, Hu will hold talks with him. Chinese top legislator Wu Bangguo and Premier Wen Jiabao will meet him respectively.

Besides the capital Beijing, Arias will also visit northwestern city of Xi’an and China’s commercial hub Shanghai.

This is the first time for Arias to visit China since he took office in 2006. He had visited China in 1968 and 2004 respectively.

China and Costa Rica posted 1.56 billion U.S. dollars of bilateral trade in the first seven months of this year, up 61.3 percent year-on-year. The Chinese side predicted that trade for the whole of 2007 will reach 3 billion U.S. dollars, up from 2.16 billion U.S. dollars reported last year.

Beautifully-timed, the first post-congress visit from a head of state is Oscar Arias, president of Costa Rica. The blue, white and red flag waved at the crowds on Tiananmen yesterday, four months after the Central American country switched its allegiance from Taiwan to China. I have given up asking why this basic fact is deliberately avoided in this kind of story.