Beijing Newspeak

“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.