Beijing Newspeak

Today marks the start of my Christmas holiday and I am flying back to the UK in a few hours. It is also the beginning of my one-month countdown to leaving Xinhua after two years of enough polishing to make Mr Muscle blush. Life in Beijing without suckling on the teet of the propaganda department will be strange at first but ultimately liberating I think (my wallet disagrees with that statement). I plan to try my hand at freelancing full-time and see what crops up.

I’ll save the tearful reminiscence for now but working at Xinhua has been a lot of fun, incredibly frustrating at times but always fascinating. This blog has certainly sustained my interest in the job - and indeed placed it at risk on a few occasions. I suppose Beijing Newspeak will now lose its competitive advantage but I see no reason not to carry it on. I’m hoping to persuade a friend of mine to produce more regular translations from Chinese media, similar to the one about Burma that caused a stir in October, and of course I still have my cameras cunningly dotted around a certain news agency. That was a joke, Mr President, no need to revoke my visa …

I return home with low expectations of gifts that await me. Surely nothing will be able to compete with the gem already given to me by one of my finest polishing comrades: a calendar of the PLA’s military totty in full uniform. “Qingxizhonghua” as its says on the cover. Literally meaning, “Your affection is attached to the country” so probably “Love The Country!” I particularly like Nero-esque Miss October, who is fiddling (yes, playing a violin) in front of a fighter jet while Taiwan is presumably burning. I believe it was purchased from the Military Museum here in Beijing if anyone’s interested. As my comrade said, “When the Chinese are allowed to do proper porn, it’s going to be pretty scary stuff.” On that note, have a propaganda-filled Christmas and a Happy New Year!

What must the webmaster of the National Bureau of Corruption Prevention’s red-hot new website be thinking? It should have been the least demanding job in the world, as quiet as that of a lift attendant in a bungalow. We’ve seen it all before. Government departments laud the launch of their hotlines and websites to encourage public participation in fighting evil, or at least to create an impression of greater transparency. But the hotlines freeze over and the websites receive less clicks than Free Pond Books.com (the latest spam blog to get its grubby electronic mitts on one of my posts). Not so, the NBCP’s cyber venture. As most of the world media has reported, the website crashed after a few hours due to the volume of visitors seizing the opportunity to rant about corruption in the official ranks. A pretty good indication of the scale of the problem.

Some media sources have reported that the website was set up to encourage members of the public to report cases of corruption. Not strictly true given the NBCP is not responsible for investigating individual grievances. The bureau’s function, according to Xinhua, is “to collect and analyze information from the banking, land use, medicine and telecommunications sectors, among others, and to share it with prosecuting organs, courts and the police”. Indeed, the bureau was quick to pass the buck, as reported by Xinhua.

By 4 p.m. on Wednesday, netizens had left 22 pages of messages on the website’s guestbook. Many were anxious to report specific cases of official corruption but were immediately directed to other websites, such as that of the Ministry of Supervision, by the webmaster.

I can almost hear a flustered webmaster squealing at the screen (something along the lines of): “What are you people doing? It’s not some kind of free-for-all! It’s only supposed to be an advert for China’s anti-corruption fight. Your comments are about as welcome as a hog roast at a Jewish vegans’ convention.”

I enjoyed editing Xinhua’s story on this. If the original copy had developed the ability to fly, it would have circled above the Collins dictionary that is currently raising my computer monitor to a height that might just prevent me from morphing into Quasimodo in the near future, dived into the great book four-fifths of the way down and parked up next to the word “staid”. In fact, it was such an unabashed attempt to tone the incident down I had to resort to Google Translate in order to present an example of a comment left on the website, knowing that if I asked for one it would pack less of a punch than a glass of Um Bongo. Truly shameful when you consider the reliability of Google’s translation tool, as Danwei entertainingly discussed recently. In my defence, I chose a short comment that barely needed any polishing:

“The corruption problem in China is a fatal illness, establishing more institutions can not solve the problem,” one comment read.

In other words, the NBCP is a waste of time.

I also added an entire paragraph of my own “incisive analysis” to provide a bit of context and a link paragraph to a recap of some the most infamous corruption cases of our times, forgetting where I was working.

The enthusiasm that greeted the launch of the website reflects the growing frustration felt by the general public towards corruption at government level, which has been accentuated by several high-profile corruption cases in the last five years.

AFP, and subsequently the Daily Telegraph, duly wrote:

“The enthusiasm that greeted the launch of the website reflects the growing frustration felt by the general public towards corruption at government level,” reported the state news agency, Xinhua.

Aha, I knew I would be the authoritative voice of Xinhua one day! I feel it was a fair conclusion though and it wasn’t questioned by the releaser. Obviously this kind of paragraph is reported in the foreign media as carrying some official weight, maybe even as a way for the central government to convey its assessment of the situation. I suppose that’s what happens when the agency tries to balance the conflicting roles of government mouthpiece and news organisation. Where I should be criticized though, is the failure to include the fact that a few people commenting on the NBCP website actually praised its establishment, a point made by AFP. Sometimes, it is easy to go slightly too far the other way.

All that aside, I remain jealous of one of my polishing comrades who once wrote a Xinhua commentary on China’s one-child policy, complete with suggestions on how to ensure the rich do not abuse the law with their loose change. He felt he had to come up with something as the original opinion piece was missing a vital ingredient: opinion. So for one glorious day, he had the joy of being the Ministry of Publicity’s mouthpiece whether they agreed with his ideas or not.

Over the weekend, a Beijing-based freelancer kindly bestowed upon me the secrets of how to succeed in the fickle, coldly commercial world that is journalistic self-employment. When in China, write about pandas, dragons and kung fu monks. I assumed it was an embittered joke but he did repeat it four times. Inspirational stuff, but while I still cling on to a scrap of idealism, I’m toying with the idea of taking a trip down to Poyang Lake in Jiangxi next month. China’s largest freshwater lake is fast approaching pond status thanks to a prolonged drought, with its surface area now down to 50 square kilometres from 3,000 square kilometres during the summer flood season. Its title should really be accompanied by a caveat: China’s largest freshwater lake - in July. The international media - specialist water publications aside - has mostly ignored Xinhua’s rumblings on the subject which might suggest I’m going to end up with unsellable copy. Should be interesting anyway.

One of the most frustrating aspects of being positioned in the polisher ranks - and therefore at the end of the editorial chain (barring the censors of politically sensitive content) - is the distance we are from the source of a story like the Poyang Lake yarn. It normally starts with a statistic provided by a provincial government department to an unquestioning local reporter (in a completely different department to mine and therefore not technically obliged to cooperate) that makes your eyes want to wrench themselves free of their sockets. In this case, it was the fact China’s largest lake is now 1.67 percent of its normal size during the summer - 50 square kilometres down from 3,000. For some much-needed perspective on this figure, it is essential to know that the surface area of Poyang Lake fluctuates spectacularly from summer to winter as discussed in this Science Daily article from 2005. However, the Science Daily report talks of a winter surface area of 1,000 square kilometres and Tan Guoliang, director of the Jiangxi hydrological bureau, told Xinhua that the area of the lake last winter was 300 to 500 square kilometres. In other words, it was up to ten times larger than the current figure.

Questions flood the mind. What does the dried-up lake actually look like? How is this affecting people around the lake? What are the long-term effects? What about the species that live in the lake? Instead of answers you reach the infamous seven-letter word that rounds off every Xinhua story. Enditem. A quick recap and the reaction to the statistic was encapsulated in a single paragraph all along:

The lake’s low water level has caused drinking water shortages for residents near the lake and affected industrial production. Local authorities are “taking all kinds of measures” to deal with the situation.

Several days of persistence later and the final product is acceptable. We have the long-term effects:

NANCHANG, Dec. 14 (Xinhua) — More than 100,000 residents are suffering drinking water shortages around the Poyang Lake, China’s largest freshwater lake, as drought strikes - and an expert has warned that the condition may blight the area for a further 10 winters, a direct result of climate change.

How local residents have been affected:

“My house used to be by the side of the lake. Now I have to go over a dozen kilometers away to get to the lake water. We have been used to the seasonal variations of the lake, but we have never been badly short of drinking water supply before,” said Yu Wenchang, a villager living in the northeastern part of the lake.

Some 1,000 villagers in Yu’s village of Xiayangzui in Changdu County of Jiangxi now live on water from four wells.

“A total of 52 of the 56 wells in the village have dried up, as the lake water retreats. Only four have water. Senior citizens told us that they had never seen the lake reduced so drastically in winter,” Yu said.

Villagers have channeled water from a nearby pond to the dry wells, and they are preparing to dig deeper for water.

Many villagers have abandoned the use of boats since they can walk across the marsh of the exposed lake bed.

The gloomy prediction:

Jiang Tong, an expert with the Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology under the Chinese Academy of Sciences said that the Poyang Lake’s winter drought is likely to continue for the next 10years.

“Both the stream flows into the river and the Yangtze River water to replenish the lake will be insufficient in dry seasons in the future, because of climate change and the exploitation of water resources,” said Jiang, who is a specialist in seasonal water responses to climate and land changes in Poyang Lake Basin.

But satisfaction remains elusive, probably as a result of witnessing the depressing absence of urgency in the reporting of the story and the lack of interest from the world media. Of course, startling embodiments of climate change are cropping up all over the world. I just happen to think the Poyang Lake case is particularly noteworthy. Xinhua reported at the beginning of the month that the water level of the lake is near its lowest in history. By the end of the dry season, it will surely set a new record. So what happens to the lake in ten years’ time when the Yangtze, its main benefactor, continues to be affected by drought and certain large-scale dam projects? Has the local government issued regulations on the industrial use of water from Poyang? China Dialogue has reported on the plight of the lake’s finless porpoises, which look like going the way of the Yangtze River dolphins (the 99.999-percent extinct baiji). Will their future be further endangered by the lake shrinkage? And what about the 50 million carp fry that were poured into the lake this summer to replenish fish stocks? It’s a bit like giving someone a free house with retractable walls that close in each day until there is less space than in a cell used for solitary confinement.

The news trickling out of Jiangxi coincides with reports that one million people are suffering the effects of drought in Guangxi as a result of the region’s worst drought since 1951. And then there was this devastating report (via the Globe and Mail) from Reuters at the end of last week which began:

BEIJING — China will have exploited all available water supplies to the limit by 2030, the government has warned, ordering officials to prepare for worse to come as global warming and economic expansion drain lakes and rivers.

As well, a state newspaper warned on Friday that drought next year could hit crops and stoke already heady inflation.

China’s surface and underground water supplies are under strain from feverish economic growth and a population passing 1.3 billion. And scarcity will worsen with global warming, the central government warned in a directive.

“In recent years economic and social development has led to increasing water demand, and with the impact of global warming, drought and water scarcity are increasingly grave”, said a directive issued by the office of the State Council, or cabinet, late on Thursday.

“Taking into full account water-saving, by 2030 our country’s water use will reach or approach the total volume of exploitable water resources, and the drought-fighting situation will be increasingly serious.”

The document on the government Web site (www.gov.cn) urges officials to make emergency plans for coping with drought and promises more spending on water-saving technology and artificial rain-making. Local governments must also develop policies to aid and compensate drought-hit farmers.

We can only make guesses about the appearance of Poyang Lake in 2030. Perhaps, as climatic extremes continue, China will end up with a lake fit to burst following severe summer flooding and a mere puddle during the winter months.

… making very few grammatical changes to thought-provoking articles about “reincarnated soul boys”. As part of my duty to spread the word, the State Council’s latest opus is displayed in full below since I feel it has not received the due attention it deserves.

Entitled “The Religious Ritual and Historical Convention of Living Buddha Reincarnation” and bylined “Yi Duo”, it marks a different approach to recent tirades against the Dalai Lama. Here, we see an essay confirming that the Chinese government has always been responsible for approving the “Living Buddha” since Kublai Kahn came along in the 13th century, without making any reference to its explicity public enemy, the 14th Dalai Lama. Different tactic, same result: propaganda that demonstrates the subtlety of an illuminous elephant in a game of Laser Quest.

BEIJING, Dec. 18 (Xinhua) — The reincarnation of the Living Buddha is a succession system, which distinguishes Tibetan Buddhism from other religions or other forms of Buddhism.

Based on ancient Tibetan beliefs in the nature of the soul and the unique incarnation theory of Buddhism, it was established to solve the problem of leadership succession in various Tibetan Buddhist sects and monasteries.

The term “Living Buddha” emerged in the Yuan Dynasty (1271-1368). It was called sprul-sku in Tibetan, which was the abbreviation of sprul-pavi-sku, meaning “magical change” or “incarnation”.

In the 13th century, Tibet became an administrative district under the central government of the Yuan Dynasty. Emperor Kublai Khan (1215-1294) honored Phags-pa, head of the Sa-skya-pa Sect, by granting him the title “Buddha of the Western Paradise”. Thereafter, eminent Tibetan monks were referred to as “Living Buddhas.”

In the mid 13th century, Yuan Emperor Monge Khan (1209-1259) honored Karma-pag-shi, leader of the bKav-brgyud-pa Sect in Tibet, as “State Tutor” and bestowed upon him a gold-rimmed black hat and a gold seal of authority, which helped the bKav-brgyud-pa Sect become a powerful religious sect with great influence.

In 1283, Karma-pag-shi passed away. Monks of the bKav-brgyud-pa Sect were not allowed to take wives, nor have children. As a result, leaders of the bKav-brgyud-pa Sect could not pass over the religious power to his blood disciples. To prevent power succession from masters to apprentices, which could lead to the malpractice of each sect establishing its own school of thought and the decentralization of power, Karma-pag-shi decided, prior to his death, to adopt the principle of reincarnation in solving the problem of leadership transmission and continuation in his own sect.

His disciples followed his order and located a boy who was determined the reincarnated soul boy of Karma-pag-shi, marking the starting point of the Living Buddha reincarnation system in Tibetan Buddhism. Thereafter, various sects of Tibetan Buddhism reacted to the Living Buddha reincarnation system by creating nearly one thousand similar systems.

After several centuries of practice, a relatively complete set of standards and procedures in searching for and confirming the identity of the reincarnated soul boy had taken shape.

After the death of a Living Buddha, there are various fixed religious practices and procedures to be followed: making funeral arrangements; displaying his body for the purpose of worship; praying and chanting Sutras; praying for his early rebirth; diving and consulting oracles; observing sacred lakes; searching for reincarnated soul boys within the territory of China; checking them repeatedly; asking them to identify the objects left by their previous incarnation and further testing to confirm the soul boy; having him tonsured and welcoming him into the monastery; conferring upon him a religious title; allowing him to be officially enthroned and so on.

Throughout history, central governments of various dynasties paid great attention to the administration over the Living Buddha reincarnation. Living Buddhas usually belonged to the middle or upper class of monasteries and some of them were sect leaders. They played key roles in Tibet’s politics and religion and were important forces used by the central government in governing Tibet.

Emperor Kublai Khan of the Yuan Dynasty honored Phags-pa, head of the Sa-skya-pa Sect, as “Imperial Tutor” and authorized him to take charge of the nation’s Buddhist affairs. Considering the large number of religious sects in Tibet, the Ming Court (1368-1644) adopted the principle of “conferring honorific titles upon many leaders of religious sects and having them participate in the affairs of the Tibetan government based on historical convention”.

For example, the Ming Court conferred the honorific titles, such as the well-known “Three Great Princes of Dharma”, the Great Treasure Prince of Dharma, the Great Vehicle Prince of Dharma and the Great Mercy Prince of Dharma upon leaders of the bKav-brgyud-pa Sect, the Sa-skya-pa Sect and the dGe-lugs-pa Sect in Tibet.

After taking power, the central government of the Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) enforced its governance of Tibet by supporting the dGe-lugs-pa Sect.
During that period, the Qing Government greatly enhanced the governing of Tibetan Buddhist Living Buddhas as well as affairs related to their reincarnation, and made governance standardized and systemized.

In 1653, Emperor Shunzhi (1638-1661) granted the Fifth Dalai Lama the honorific title of “the Dalai Lama, Overseer of the Buddhist Faith on Earth under the Great Benevolent Self-subsisting Buddha of the Western Paradise” and bestowed upon him a gold album and a gold seal of authority.

In 1713, Emperor Kangxi (1654-1722) granted the Fifth Panchen with the honorific title “Panchen Erdeni” and also bestowed upon him a gold album and a gold seal of authority. Thereafter, the titles and positions of the Living Buddhas of the Dalai and the Panchen were officially established by the central government of the Qing Dynasty.

Relying on the support from the central government, Grand Living Buddha of the dGe-lugs-pa Sect possessed great political and religious power in Tibet. Therefore, the reincarnation of the Living Buddha became a bone of contention within the privileged class in Tibet, which led to rampant corruption.

In an effort to turn the tide by overcoming the drawbacks that arose from the soul boys being nominated from the same tribes, the Qing Court decided to directly control the search and confirmation of the reincarnated soul boy of the Grand Living Buddha to tighten its governing of Tibet and improve stability along the country’s southwestern borders.

In 1793, the Qing Court promulgated the 29-Article Ordinance for the More Efficient Governing of Tibet, establishing the rule of drawing lots from a gold urn. Article one of the Ordinance stipulates: in order to ensure that the Yellow Sect continues to flourish, the Grand Emperor bestowed upon it a gold urn and ivory slips for use in confirming the reincarnated soul boy of a deceased Living Buddha.

For this purpose, four major Buddhist Guardians will be summoned; the names of candidates, as well as their birth years, will be written on the ivory slips in three languages: Man, Han Chinese and Tibetan; the ivory slips will be placed in the gold urn and the learned Living Buddha will pray for seven days before various Hotogtu Living Buddhas and High commissioners stationed in Tibet by the Central Government officially confirm the reincarnated soul boy by drawing a lot from the gold urn in front of the statue of Sakyamuni in the Jokhang Monastery.

If there is only one candidate, his name should also be written on an ivory slip and put into the gold urn together with an empty ivory slip. If the empty ivory slip is drawn from the gold urn, then the boy should not be confirmed and the search for the reincarnated soul boy should continue.

The system of drawing lots from a gold urn ensured that the central government was in control of the search and identification of the reincarnated soul boys of the Living Buddhas of the Dalai and Panchen, further clarifying the subordinate relationship between the central government and Tibet.

The system not only helped maintain state sovereignty in Tibet but also helped avoid bribery and cheating in the reincarnation procedures. It showed a religious ideal that the deities’ decisions were just and sacred, and conformed to the Tibetan Buddhist doctrines and religious practices and thus won the hearts of all Tibetans.

The Eighth Dalai and the Seventh Panchen then wrote articles to express their support to the system and gratitude to the Emperor for his concern. The Eighth Dalai issued an official statement, in which he pointed out the importance and necessity of the lot-drawing method and said “in this aspect, those who still confirm reincarnation arbitrarily according to the old custom will be severely punished without mercy”.

From 1793 when the system of drawing lots from a golden urn was established up to the end of the Qing Dynasty, 91 reincarnated soul boys were confirmed for 39 Grand Living Buddha pedigrees by the Qing Court, of whom 76 were confirmed through drawing lots from a golden urn and 15 were approved by the central government to be excused from the lot-drawing method due to special reasons.

The central government of the Republic of China (1912-1949) continued the conventions and policies implemented by the Qing Court in the management of Grand Living Buddhas and the reincarnation affairs. The government issued the Regulation on the Management of Lama Monasteries and the Method for the Reincarnation of Lamas in 1935 and 1936 respectively.

It also promulgated methods for searching and confirming the reincarnated soul boys of the Dalai and Panchen and approved the reincarnated soul boys of the 13th Dalai and the Ninth Panchen.

Based on the policies of the previous central governments, especially the practice following the establishment of the system of drawing lots from a golden urn, there are five key points concerning the governing of the Living Buddha reincarnation system by the central government:

(1) The central government keeps under its control the affairs concerning the reincarnation of Grand Living Buddhas. Special commissioners sent by the central government to Tibet will help to implement it.

(2) The local government of Tibet will file a report to the central government for its approval. Then the reincarnated soul boy will be sought according to religious practices. Three boy candidates will be reported to the central government for approval after they were repeatedly examined.

(3) The central government will appoint special commissioners to preside over the lot-drawing ceremony and draw lots.

(4) The designated reincarnated soul boy will be reported to the central government for approval for him to be enthroned. The central government will dispatch officials to visit the soul boy and preside over the enthronement ceremony.

(5) The local government of Tibet will report to the central government for the approval of the reincarnated soul boy’s Sutra teachers’ names and the use of the seal owned by his previous incarnation.

The religious rituals concerning the reincarnation of Living Buddhas of Tibetan Buddhism and the historical conventions formed during the administration over the reincarnation of Living Buddhas exercised by central governments, especially the common rules followed by all Grand Living Buddha reincarnation systems, have become essential conditions in establishing the authority of the reincarnated Living Buddhas.

They have also become the faith of Buddhist followers. The system and the implementation of it fully demonstrate national sovereignty and the authority of the central governments. It not only helped to improve national unification and solidarity and maintain social stability in Tibet, but also helped to boost the healthy development of the Tibetan Buddhism and consolidate its position in Tibetan society.

Last week, two Chinese students were locked up for a minimum of 18 and a half years for the kidnapping and murder of a fellow Chinese student in Auckland last year. A third student was cleared of murder but was jailed for a minimum of three and a half years for his role in the kidnapping of 19-year-old Wan Biao.

According to the AFP report, Judge John Priestley said:

“All three of you have participated in a chilling crime. It was calculated, callous and cruel … The three of you lived in an unreal world of cyberspace and sloth.”

His appraisal was based on these gory details:

After luring Wan to an Auckland hotel, the three contacted his mother in China demanding a ransom of four million yuan (540,000 US dollars).

But they strangled and knifed him the same night. After a failed attempt to saw his head off, Wan’s body was stuffed into a suitcase and thrown into the harbour.

The suitcase was found floating the next day, and the kidnappers rang Wan’s mother again, the court was told.

“Your son offended us, he deserved to have this result,” they told her.

As the AP report tells us, the judge was in little doubt as to the motivation of the crimes committed by Cui Xiangxin, Li Zheng and Wang Yuxi:

“Your greed for money led you to hatch this plan,” he told the court.

With these comments in mind, it was intriguing to see China Daily’s report (proxy link because I can’t seem to access the story on the website at the moment) on the sentencing. The first seven paragraphs covered the court proceedings but omitted the judge’s four Cs - chilling, callous, calculated and cruel - and also the reference to greed. The remainder, which was in fact the majority of the article, went down, in my opinion, a curious and inappropriate route:

Some Chinese students and educators believe the “shocking” case raises concern over the situations Chinese students studying abroad have to confront.

“I am shocked. I feel pity for the convicts’ parents because they must have made a great effort to send their sons overseas for studies. They must have felt proud doing so but now they must be desperate,” said Zhang Yongguang, who went to study in Britain when he was 18 and has lived there for six years.

Peking University’s professor of sociology Xia Xueluan said some Chinese students who go abroad face psychological pressure in the beginning and need help from teachers and peers to overcome it.

“Some students have big difficulties with language, which may add to their anxiety and even lead to abnormal behavior,” Xia said.

Chinese employers favor professionals who have studied abroad and have a understanding of different cultures. This prompts many Chinese families to try and send their children abroad for studies. Ministry of Education data show the number of self-financed Chinese students studying abroad has risen 10 times from 1998 to 121,000 last year.

According to Beijing Normal University professor Hong Chengwen, parents should think twice before deciding to send their children abroad.

Wan was a ‘nice guy’

Wan Biao, the 19-year-old student who was kidnapped and murdered in New Zealand, was from the affluent city of Yiwu in Zhejiang Province. Yiwu is called “China’s capital of small commodities”.

Wan was a student of an Auckland language school when three fellow Chinese kidnapped him in April last year, and two of them strangulated him to death.

Wan’s family is well-off, according to Zhejiang media reports. His father is in the construction business, and the family owns a four-story house.

“Wan Biao was a thin, tall man and I think he was a nice guy,” a local newspaper quoted a neighbor as having said. “He always used to smile at me when we met on the stairs.”

An official with the foreign affairs office of Yiwu local government said more and more local families are sending their children overseas for studies.

There is no denying many Chinese students must find it hard to adapt to new lives at universities overseas. Indeed, a report in the New Zealand Herald from April this year says:

Chinese students face a large gap between their expectations of New Zealand (and) the reality, research has found.

Many felt lonely and isolated and found it hard to make New Zealand friends.

“They want to drive cars and be free and are not prepared adequately for the different lifestyle here and the culture shock,” Waikato University researcher Elsie Ho said today.

“Together with freedom comes responsibility and they are unable to handle that.”

They had problems that came with living on their own in a flat, far from their pampered lives in China, she said.

Language and cultural problems made it very difficult to adapt.

Emotional support was not always forthcoming from China as students were reluctant to reveal problems they faced.

All valid points and an issue that deserves discussion. But surely not here, not in a report about a ”chilling” crime and not as a veiled justification for the violent actions of three disturbed Chinese students. I’m sure language difficulties do create anxiety, resulting in sometimes “abnormal behaviour”. Most newcomers to China find themselves, at least once, responding to a communication breakdown that arises from failing to pay a bill, extend a visa or buy a carrot, by berating anyone within a one-mile radius. But there is a long way to travel down the road of mental torment before you end up trying to saw someone’s head off. This report from the Australian Associated Press (via The Age) also said:

The judge accepted the three were isolated from their families, with little social support or parental supervision.

But there were many Chinese students in a similar situation in New Zealand who were leading enriching lives.

The China Daily story mentioned that Wan’s family was well-off but didn’t appear to have access to the following information given in the AAP story:

The victim impact report indicated the devastation of Wan’s mother and father at their son’s death.

They had since suffered health problems for which they would need continuing medication, while all the work they had put into their son’s future was rendered meaningless.

They were continuing to go through “infinite pain and sadness”, something that would follow them for the rest of their lives.

The main reason why China Daily would never have had access to that information was the failure of Xinhua’s one-man bureau in New Zealand to report the sentencing at all. In fact, the last story Xinhua produced on the case came in June, 2006. Clearly, the Xinhua journalist in NZ had more pressing priorities to address, judged by the latest offering to limp out of Wellington, which begins:

WELLINGTON, Dec. 11 (Xinhua) — The New Zealand track cycling team returned home Tuesday from the UCI World Cup in Beijing, extremely impressed by the indoor track venue ahead of the Olympics next year.

They won a pursuit team silver in Beijing, having a satisfactory round of results with the men’s team pursuit going close to upsetting the world champion English team in the pursuit final.

The team manager Craig Adair said the venue was very impressive. He said facilities are fantastic, and the locals have looked after the team well.

I might as well just state the obvious to act as a concluding paragraph … things would have been a lot different if Wan Biao’s murderers had not been Chinese.

“It’s because the foreign media is so biased.” A well-worn defence, put forward by many a state media journalist, to justify resolutely one-sided reporting, deletions of chunks of critical speeches delivered by visiting dignitaries and even the censoring of its own government officials when they suffer unexpected honesty attacks. I agree with elements of their arguments but, for the most part, they are taken to extremes. When Peter Mandelson indulged in a full-blooded attack on Vice Premier Wu Yi over Chinese-made goods at the end of last month, Xinhua adopted the debating tactic used to great effect by stubborn toddlers. Namely, it put its hands over its ears and shouted, “La la la la la can’t hear you” so it could report nothing he said. Some journalists defended the act by saying the foreign media had hardly published anything the “Iron Lady” had said. The problem was that she didn’t actually say very much, as the Daily Telegraph reports:

Wu Yi, China’s vice-premier, when asked about Mr Mandelson’s comments, merely replied: “I am extremely dissatisfied.”

They also make the mistake of grouping “foreign media” into a single entity. I’m not sure who they were reading but Richard Spencer chucked in a retort from another Chinese government official for good measure to make up for Wu Yi’s lack of elaboration.

Wei Chuanzhong, deputy head of China’s product regulator, the Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (Aqsiq), said Mr Mandelson was being unfair and inappropriate.

He accused Mr Mandelson of backing efforts to use safety regulations as a form of trade protectionism.

“No single country or company can ensure 100pc of their products meet quality standards,” he said. “Mandelson, as the trade commissioner, should criticize trade protectionism instead of defending it.”

And Bloomberg led with Wu Yi’s reaction.

Nov. 26 (Bloomberg) — China’s top trade official, Vice Premier Wu Yi, said she’s “extremely unhappy” about European Union Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson’s speech in Beijing today on product safety.

Wu spoke to reporters at a food-safety conference where Mandelson expressed concern at Chinese counterfeiting and unsafe exports. She didn’t elaborate. The spat extended through the day, with Mandelson later defending the speech.

I could go into glorious detail about the Peter Mandelson in Beijing saga (which included a visit to Xinhua News Agency) but I think I’d better keep schtum. There are some action snaps of the occasion though right here. Affixing a speech bubble to the last image on the list is all too easy (feel free to join in by the way) but if I was suddenly thrust into a Have I Got News For You caption competition kind of situation, I’d go for something like: “Look, you reduced my opinion to the size of my little pinkie!”

Anyway, all this serves as a verging-on-tenuous link to a story released by Xinhua last Friday night involving the PLA and the Qinghai-Tibet railway. I often wonder why, if ”western” news organisations - I’m not sure why biting criticism from sections of the Indian press for example is passed over - always play up the negative aspects of a China story, Xinhua then spoon feeds them material to make their jobs even easier. First rule of censorship in China: avoid a story that involves the Chinese military in Tibet unless it’s really necessary.

A passenger train carrying newly recruited soldiers left Xining, capital of Qinghai Province, on Friday, heading for Lhasa, capital of the Tibet Autonomous Region.

It is the first time the Qinghai-Tibet Railway is used for transporting troops, according to sources with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army.

In the past, all the troops entering or leaving Tibet had to be transported by air or road, but in the future the railway will become a main option for the armed forces to transport troops, the sources said.

The 1,956-km-long plateau railway was put into official operation on July 1 of last year. Now, it transports about 75 percent of goods between Tibet and other parts of the country.

It was picked up by AP and subsequently published on a number of the websites including the BBC. The foreign media had only one choice of angle of course, which was duly taken. The lead pars:

BEIJING (AP) — China’s high-speed, high-altitude railway to Tibet carried troops to the region for the first time, state media has reported, in a development likely to fuel concerns about the railway’s impact on the restive Himalayan area.

The brief Xinhua News Agency report late Friday did not say how many soldiers were aboard the train that left a provincial city Friday for the Tibetan capital of Lhasa. The report cited unnamed sources in the People’s Liberation Army as saying that the “railway will become a main option” for transporting troops to Tibet, replacing the air and road routes used since Chinese troops annexed Tibet 57 years ago.

The Times of India went further, linking the PLA train trip to the Chinese army’s demolition of Indian Army border posts and even the strengthening of ties between China and Japan.

The move comes immediately after Chinese troops were reported to have demolished Indian Army posts on its border with Arunachal Pradesh.

The official Xinhua news agency quoted an unnamed official of the People Liberation Army as saying that the “railway will become a main option” for transporting troops to Tibet, replacing the air and road routes used since 1950 when Chinese soldiers annexed Tibet.

The move also coincides with signs of strong improvement in China-Japan relations with a Chinese navy missile destroyer visiting Japan on a goodwill mission after several decades. The cold war with Japan made it difficult for Beijing to take an aggressive approach in its relations with other countries including India.

China has maintained a stony silence over suggestions that one of the purposes of the Tibet railway was to transport troops in larger numbers and at much reduced costs from mainland China to border regions in Tibet.

It also refrained from immediately using the railway for this purpose in order to avoid giving rise to a new controversy. The latest move confirms Beijing’s strategic purposes, sources said.

I very much doubt the announcement was made by the PLA in order to make a political point to India. A more simplistic approach goes like this: the PLA made the announcement because it shows another benefit of the Qinghai-Tibet railway; Xinhua released the story in Chinese because it is an easy quota-filler and the editor was fearful of ignoring a PLA press release; it was translated into English by one of my colleagues for the same reasons. A classic “soldiers take train” shock horror.

If I remember correctly, this time of the year is when new PLA recruits are stationed to their prospective barracks after passing their initial training. Early last December, I was travelling by train back to Beijing after spending a weekend in Pingyao. I staggered onto the platform early on a Monday morning and found myself in the middle of a mob of giggling, wide-eyed boys in camouflage subconsciously competing to assemble the world’s least intimidating army troop. It appears the transferral of new recruits to Lhasa was a similar exercise. And really, how else were the PLA soliders going to get to Tibet now the cheaper, more efficient option of rail travel exists. Maybe, it does encourage the PLA to station more troops in Tibet but I doubt the length of a few road journeys or the cost of a few flights would have prevented them from positioning as many troops as they would have liked there in recent years.

Oh well, if the PLA wants to be overtransparent then who I am I to argue. It just struck me as peculiar, given all the stories that never see the light of day, many of which involve the military, that this particular report was released.

Maybe I’m wrong, perhaps it has been done deliberately for reasons known to the PLA. After all, it has long been common practice to release bad/sensitive news on Friday nights in the hope it will slip by most media watchers. This is also something the propaganda ministry should address. The trouble is, this tactic is now so well known I imagine every Friday night at 11pm foreign news agency journalists lay out the welcome mat for juicy Xinhua offerings that are more sensitive than a FG follower calling for Taiwan independence with a Dalai Lama pendant hanging around his neck.