Back on April 6, on the icy streets of London, the Olympic torch relay mayhem commenced as anticipated. Xinhua, though, appeared unsure how to report the event, perhaps lacking concrete instructions from the Ministry of Publicity. Shortly after the torch limped onto Downing Street, the sports department released this grammatically handicapped story which ignored the presence of the pro-Tibet crowd and started like this:

The heavy snow in London exerted slim effect on people’s passion of seeing Beijing Olympic flame as large crowds lined along the street to greet the relay of torch on Sunday in the host city of 2012 Games.

Xinhua’s news department, however, released this report at about the same time, detailing the number of arrests made by the British police and expressing local people’s disappointment at the unruly scenes.

British police on Sunday arrested 25 persons attempting to disrupt the Olympic torch relay in London while many locals expressed indignation at the attempt and a Beijing Olympic official condemned it.

Coordination between departments has never been Xinhua’s strong point.

Its coverage of the following day’s debacle in Paris was much more sensible:

Spectators of the Beijing Olympic torch relay were greatly annoyed and angered by Tibetan separatists and their supporters attempting to disrupt the Monday event in Paris, the fifth leg of the flame’s global tour.

“We’ve come here only to watch the torch relay,” said a Paris student, who only gave his first name as Mark.

“What in the world does this have anything to do with us except for annoying us?” he added, pointing to Tibetan separatist demonstrators.

No explicit mention of soon-to-be wheelchair heroine Jin Jing being attacked by a lunatic though; the image of her repelling her assailant with a mixture of angelic dignity and sheer bloody determination seemed to be initially regarded as too embarrassing. This Xinhua report glossed over her bravery and even her identity, referring to the protestor who attacked Jin Jing as “another one (who) failed in his attempt to snatch the torch from a torchbearer”. (Presumably, the anonymous torchbearer was Jin Jing.)

A day later, a directive was issued by the Ministry of Publicity, according to the SCMP (behind paywall), calling on Chinese media to pull no punches in its coverage of the Olympic torch relay protests and emphasising the need for speed. The byline was given as “Staff Reporter” to protect the journalist and the sources:

Newspaper editors and television producers should produce reports more quickly. They should stick to the official line to better make China’s case to the world or, more importantly, domestic viewers, according to an internal circular issued yesterday by the powerful Central Publicity Department, the Communist Party’s propaganda arm.

A Beijing-based newspaper editor who saw the document said it referred to the ongoing Olympic torch relay as “our unprecedented, ferocious war against the biased western press”.

The ministry had clearly realised that the hesitation it had displayed - highlighted by official silence - following the Lhasa riots and the disruption of the torch-lighting ceremony in Athens had not looked good. The main aim of its propaganda had also shifted. The most pressing task was now to discredit the western media having already achieved, with a minimum of fuss, its priority of ”inciting patriotism and hatred of the Dalai clique” in light of the riots in Tibetan areas.

A couple of the SCMP interviewees said the directive allowed more freedom for the state media to improvise.

“We were told some contents of the old rule book could be thrown out of the window at this special time,” the (Beijing-based) editor said.

Later on in the article, a Shanghai-based newspaper editor said:

“In a nutshell, the entire media machine was asked to speed up its response, even though it could cause a potentially de facto decentralisation of censorship decisions.”

Any form of ”decentralisation” is rare for such sensitive times but then perhaps it demonstrates how little state media needed to be guided. The task was easy: they just had to report what they saw - the violent attempts at torch snatching didn’t need spin -, criticise the western media, which they had been doing already, and take a lead from popular opinion. By this time, the Chinese Internet was awash with indignation and rage at what had happened in Paris. Jin Jing had ascended to a virtual heaven and anger was being directed at the whole of France. It was time for the media to give the people what they wanted. And you don’t need the Ministry of Publicity to do that.

Xinhua latched onto Jin Jing and commentaries asked if it was a “human right to attacked a handicapped woman”. But as with any stoking of nationalistic sentiment, the target of the propaganda often became blurred. Under the influence of the anti-France furore on the Internet, lines slipped into Xinhua opinion pieces, which linked one protestor trying to wrench the torch from a disabled woman to the actions of the entire French government:

Chinese people are seriously disturbed and hurt by the chaotic scene in which an extremist tried to grab the torch from a weak disabled Chinese girl, named Jin Jing, in her arm wheels. Is this the civil French government’s behavior?

Inflammatory propaganda is never plain sailing. It is impossible to keep people’s ire centred on one target however much you try. When the media itself veers miles from the bullseye, the collective finger starts pointing all over the place. After the Lhasa riots, the Chinese audience was supposed to feel hatred towards the Dalai Lama clique. But many felt hatred towards the Tibetan people as well.

Whisked up by the media, ill-feeling bloomed - although it hardly needed assistance. Boycotts of French supermarkets gathered steam and the Chinese government prompted fresh anti-CNN diatribes by responding aggressively to antagonistic remarks by a certain CNN anchorman. Voices of reason - eg efforts by Grace Wang, an overseas student in the U.S., to mediate between pro-China and pro-Tibet groups - were treated with contempt.

People took to the streets, using branches of Carrefour as a platform for protest. The government became nervous, just as it did during the anti-Japan protests in 2005. Last Friday, Xinhua released a commentary only in Chinese appealing for a more “rational” approach from the people, an attitude the news agency itself finds difficult to grasp. The government was clearly concerned it was unable to control its netizens to the extent it would like.

“Patriotic zeal must enter onto a rational track and must be transformed into concrete actions to do one’s own work well,” said the commentary widely distributed in the Chinese media.

“Thirty years of reform and opening up have created a China miracle … But we must be crystal clear that for China that has endured so much, the future road will not be all smooth-going.”

“What happened in France showed that some French did lack true understanding of China, including the Tibet issue,” said Prof. Zhou Xing, with the College of Art and Communication of Beijing Normal University.

“But I think what we should do is to improve foreigners’ understanding about China. We had better not turn extreme,” he said.

When China is ever most connected with the world, it will have to deal with conflicts, said Zhang Xingxing, deputy director of the Institute of Contemporary China Studies. “Whether or not it handles them well affects the country’s future development.”

“Those disrupting the torch relay in Paris did not stand for the whole French people,” he said, suggesting that, as the Olympic host, Chinese first show their friendliness to win those holding bias against the country.

Their sage advice is enough to make Xinhua and the Ministry of Publicity turn the colour of the Chinese flag.

But the people weren’t yet done and protests for the weekend had been arranged. Thousands turned out at Carrefour stores in Wuhan and Hefei. Minor protests occurred near the French embassy in Beijing including one outside the French school in Sanlitun - one of the more unpleasant chants was reportedly: “Kill foreigners”.

This New York Times report said the government was doing little to temper the protests:

In a sign that the government was still allowing anti-foreign sentiment to spill over into rare street demonstrations, thousands of people rallied on Sunday in front of Carrefour markets in six cities, including two, Harbin and Jinan, where there had not been protests earlier.

And:

In recent days, the government has called on citizens to temper their fury at the West, but it has not acted to halt public demonstrations, which have been stoked by newspaper editorials, Internet postings and text messages sent to millions of cellphones.

This LA Times report (via Observer) took a different line, focusing on how the government was censoring the Internet to dim the people’s passions.

Chinese censors have quietly warned cyber-police and internet businesses to delete all information related to protests against Western policies, nations or companies that have proliferated in the wake of demonstrations surrounding the global Olympic torch relay and high-level calls to boycott the opening ceremony of the summer games in Beijing.

A notice issued last week by China’s ‘Internet Inspection Sector’ instructs recipients to reset the keywords used to block access to certain websites, relay the instructions through all internet distribution channels and then delete the notice in a timely manner. ‘Such information has shown a tendency to spread and, if not checked in time, could even lead to events getting out of control as they did with the 9 April incident against Japan,’ says the censors’ notice.

When the calls to boycott Carrefour were mounting at the beginning of last week, a friend of mine noticed that all the comments relating to the issue on leading Internet portal sohu.com had been deleted. It would appear the censors started early.

Policing of the protests also depends on geography of course. Olympic host Beijing is out of bounds as the LA Times points out:

A planned event to give away patriotic T-shirts near Beijing’s Qinghua University reportedly was halted by police.

One point that the NY Times story ignored was that the authorities were hardly in a position to call off protests outside Carrefour involving thousands of angry people even if they had wanted to. It’s a delicate balance: appeal for calm without showing signs of weakness that might irritate the masses. As a Chinese professor at a British university told me recently: “The Chinese government is tied to the nationalism of its own people”, a state of mind it has done so much to foster. It’s another major reason why China won’t tone down its rhetoric to curry international favour.

It is also difficult to restore public order when the government is not ready to make sacrifices. Its insistence on demanding an apology from CNN for Jack Cafferty’s comments is likely to have far more weight in people’s minds than any urgings for more measured acts of patriotism.

The protests will continue for a while but probably die down fairly quickly. Xinhua is reporting them as “demonstrations against Tibet independence” when really they are aimed at western media and ”the West”, particularly France of course, for their sympathies towards Tibet. It has been careful to quote the more reasonable beefs:

“Today’s activity is simply an awareness-raising activity, aimed at finding a way out for the patriotic emotions of our students,” said Wu Sheng, Xi’an resident and one of the organizers.

“We do not support a boycott of French companies because the economy is globalizing. We choose Carrefour front doors because we draw more attention there,” Wu said.

Some factions of the government can’t be over the moon to see such public dissent, albeit lauding the motherland, all over the country as the Olympic nears. Back to the LA Times and a quote from Li Datong:

‘These young people get very emotional,’ said Li Datong, former editor of the Freezing Point, an influential newspaper supplement. But ‘it’s unthinkable for the government to let demonstrations happen before the Olympics’.

Still, it can’t be too concerned. These protests do not even come close to the violent anti-Japan shenanigans that occurred three years ago and hardly constitute a threat to domestic stability. Anyway, it’s nearly time for a new episode.

We pick up the story on May 18, 1989:

General Secretary Zhao Ziyang, Premier Li Peng and other two members of the standing committee of the political bureau of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee, went to two local hospitals early this morning to visit students who have been on hunger strike and receiving medical treatment.

They wished the students an early recovery.

Reaffirming the patriotic spirit of the students, the Party leaders said that the students’ enthusiasm for democracy and legality, opposing corruption and promoting reform was “highly commendable”. The Party Central Committee attaches great importance to and will earnestly study their reasonable demands in a bid to improve the Party and government work.

Zhao said the Party, the government and the students have common goals and they have no fundamental conflicting interests. He urged the students not to resort to hunger strike, saying there are many ways to exchange views and solve problems.

“You are still young and have a long way ahead for you to contribute your shares to the Chinese nation and our country,” Zhao told the students. “You must take good care of yourselves.”

The next day at dawn, accompanied by Li Peng, Zhao made his famous coded plea to the students to leave the square. Xinhua reported the following: (polishers do not seem to have been involved in these unless Xinhua actively employed people lacking the grammar gene during the 80s):

General Secretary Zhao Ziyang and Premier Li Peng arrived at the Tiananmen Square at 04:45 this morning to visit the hunger-striking students there.

Yesterday morning the hunger strikers moved into buses to seek shelter from the rain.

When the two leaders approached their buses, the students shouted: “Comrade Ziyang has come.” “Comrade Li Peng has come.” Many of them clapped their hands. Others stretched their arms through the widow (window) and shook hands with Zhao and Li.

Zhao entered one of the buses where he shook hands with the hunger strikers and said hello to them.

“We’ve come too late,” Zhao told the students. “You have good intentions. You want the country to become better. The problems you have raised will eventually be resolved. But things are complicated and there must be a process to resolve these problems.”

He added: “You’ve been on hunger strike for six or seven days. The whole of Beijing is discussing it. The Party and the government hope you will become calm and stop hunger strike immediately. The Party and government will not stop trhe dialogue with you when you put an end to hunger strike.”

Li urged the students to stop hunger strike and go back to campuses.

It was his last public appearance. The Economist wrote this opening paragraph shortly after Zhao’s death in 2005 about it:

AT DAWN on May 19th 1989, when the pro-democracy protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square were at their height and looking like a serious threat to Chinese Communist Party rule, the party’s leader, Zhao Ziyang, suddenly appeared among the protesting students. Addressing them tearfully through a megaphone, he said he had come “too late”. He did not say what he meant but, in the coded language of Chinese political rhetoric, his message was abundantly clear. He had come too late to save the demonstrators—and he wanted them to leave the square before it was too late for them. The next day, martial law was declared in Beijing. Fifteen days later, with the protesters still ignoring Mr Zhao’s warning, soldiers from the People’s Army opened fire on them, killing hundreds.

Six days later, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman assured the international press corps that Zhao was still the general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, a line similar to the dreaded vote of confidence that terrifies football managers. And then silence from Xinhua for three and a half weeks (due to orders from the propaganda department rather than the fact Xinhua reporters had staged a protest and a mini-strike in the compound of the news agency following the events of June 4). On June 16, NBC was treated to an interview with a State Council spokesman, which was reported by Xinhua a full day later. So much for the state news agency having all the government access. The spokesman refused to refer to Zhao by name.

“A certain individual in the top leadership erred in supporting riots,” Yuan Mu, spokesman of the State Council, told the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) of the United States yesterday.

In an exclusive interview, when NBC’s anchorman Tom Brokaw asked whether General Secretary Zhao Ziyang is out of his job and whether the Party has a new general secretary, Yuan said that the recent meeting between senior leader Deng Xiaoping and commanders of the martial law enforcement troops in Beijing “tells the entire world that the Chinese leadership is stable. It is true that a certain individual in the top leadership erred in supporting riots. The problem will be dealt with and made public soon.”

Asked whether Zhao Ziyang will be put to trial, Yuan Mu said that “the problem is one within the Party and will be dealt with in accordance with the Party constitution.”

A week later, Zhao was dismissed from his posts. A report delivered by Li Peng on behalf of the political bureau included the following:

At the critical juncture involving the destiny of the Party and the State, the communique noted, Zhao Ziyang made the mistake of supporting the turmoils and splitting the Party, and he had unshirkable responsibilities for the shaping-up of the turmoils. The nature and consequences of his mistakes are very serious, it added.

Although Zhao did something beneficial to the reform, the opening of China to the outside world and the economic work when he held leading posts in the Party and the government, he obviously erred in guide lines and practical work. Especially after taking charge of the work of the CPC Central Committee, he took a passive approach to the adherence to the four cardinal principles and opposition to bourgeois liberalization, and gravely neglected party building, cultural and ethical development and ideological and political work, causing serious losses to the cause of the Party, the communique said.

The following month, Zhao Ziyang was blamed for the increasing corruption among corruption officials:

The State Council spokesman Yuan Mu blamed Zhao Ziyang for increasing corruption on the part of Party and government officials.

Asked why, at a news briefing held here this morning, there was so much corruption in the Party and government, Yuan said it was hard to explain in a few minutes, but, he added, “our ex-general secretary should be held responsible for the worsening problem”.

I presume someone in Xinhua was trying to give the comments a ludicrous tinge but you never know. In August, a signed article appeared in the Guangming Daily under the headline “How did comrade Zhao Ziyang cripple the political and ideological work of the Party?” and was reported by Xinhua. Far better to convey stinging criticism through commentaries written by invisible propaganda bods rather than through the dulcet tones of senior officials.

 Zhao Ziyang’s errors in the field of political and ideological work are not accidental, they have a deep social and historical background, and Zhao himself has faulty ideological roots. Bascially this stems from his inability to stand the test of the reform and open-door policies. We should take further steps to expose and criticise comrade Zhao’s errors, so that the political and ideological work of the Party can be strengthened.

The following month, Jiang Zemin was much more friendly. He said Zhao was still “leading a quite comfortable life” (quite as in bloody marvellous rather than so-so, I think) and quipped: “Comrade Zhao Ziyang has a longer record in serving the Party, so I think he enjoys better life treatment than I do.” While admitting Zhao had done “something beneficial”, he said he “erred in implementing concrete policies”. He also noted, “The consistent policy of the Party Central Committee is that when a Party member commits mistakes, his life should not be affected,” Jiang noted.

In November, Xinhua reported comments from Li Peng’s interview with Die Welt more than two weeks after it was published because the text took a while to be released officially in China. Li said if Zhao “can correct his mistakes by actual deed, we will welcome it”.

Skip forward to April 4, 1990, and Li Peng says Zhao “is a free man now living in his home in Beijing”. Then leap ahead to October 10, 1992 with this statement from Xinhua:

The examination and investigation into the mistakes Zhao Ziyang made during the political turmoils in 1989 has been completed, and the conclusion on his mistakes made by the fourth plenary session of the 13th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China is maintained.

And that’s the last we hear of Zhao until January 16, 2005 when Xinhua turns out a three-line report:

Zhao Ziyang has lately suffered from an illness recurrence and his physical condition has stabilized after careful treatment, Xinhua learned Sunday afternoon.

Zhao is still receiving continued careful treatment at the moment.

A day later, four simple lines. No mention of the fact he used to be Premier. Just a comrade.

Comrade Zhao Ziyang died of illness in a Beijing hospital Monday. He was 85.

Comrade Zhao had long suffered from multiple diseases affecting his respiratory and cardiovascular systems, and had been hospitalized for medical treatment for several times. His conditions worsened recently, and he passed away Monday after failing to respond to all emergency treatment.

His death was not reported on Chinese television and according to Wikipedia ahem (it’s late at night and I’m tired), Chinese newspapers all carried the same 59-word obituary on the day after his death. Mourners posted praise on Internet forums which were deleted. The BBC reported:

Zhao’s daughter Wang Yannan said Zhao died “peacefully”, adding: “He is free at last.”

Zhao’s son Liang Fang told Reuters news agency that “national leaders” visited Zhao in hospital before his death.

It was “not convenient” to reveal their identities, Mr Liang said.

Speculation built over the likely nature of Zhao’s funeral. David Shambaugh, author of “The Making of a Premier: Zhao Ziyang’s Provincial Career”, delivered some suggestions via the International Herald Tribune, which never looked remotely realistic:

Since Zhao was a disgraced ex-leader, there is no good reason for the current leaders to convene a formal memorial, and they have every incentive to play down his passing. But if President Hu Jintao & Co. are politically savvy and serious about instituting real political reforms, this would be a good way to signal it. They have offered some indications in recent months that they are inclined to move ahead with limited political reforms in order to strengthen the one-party system. That is exactly what Zhao was trying to do in the late 1980s.

If Hu and Prime Minister Wen Jiabao (who was standing behind Zhao in his last public appearance in Tiananmen Square in 1989) seek to send such a signal, they can do so by drawing on Zhao’s reformist contributions and the fact that he remained a Communist Party member to his death.

The final act came on January 29. Zhao was cremated at the Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery in western Beijing. The highest-ranking official to attend was Jia Qinglin, fourth in line to the throne. The Xinhua report, which did not linger on details, said Zhao had made “contributions to the cause of the Party and the people”. The next line said, “In the political turbulence which took place in the later spring and early summer of 1989, Comrade Zhao committed serious mistakes.” Over and out.

Being a troublesome Westerner, I’ll end with the words of Zhao’s former secretary, as reported in the New York Times:

Mr. Zhao’s former secretary, Bao Tong, who spent seven years in prison and still lives under government surveillance, said the 16-year isolation of Mr. Zhao was a “showcase of shame” for the Chinese Communists, whose “attempts to conceal the truth about the past only serve to reveal their weaknesses and their shamelessness”…

…The party’s determination to restrict Mr. Zhao’s freedom when he was alive - and perhaps the minimal rites granted him after his death - are part of a “systematic effort to erase Zhao Ziyang’s name from history,” Mr. Bao said.

In hindsight (a quick flick through Google News), it was remarkable that I managed to come into contact with the important and welcome announcement that one of the most visually stunning parts of China will not be submerged in Yangtze river water. The story sneaked past all the major news agencies busily preparing their year-end ”Best Of” pieces and appeared to be broken by the Guardian on December 29. Subsequently, it was picked up by United Press International and that’s about it in terms of news outlets. It goes to show what happens when the Big Three (AP, Reuters and AFP) are not on hand to spoon feed. Fortunately, blogging provided valuable assistance in spreading the word (shameless support of the craft I know, but it’s true) with Go Kunming and Shanghaiist following up.

In fact, the South China Morning Post broke the story more than a week earlier on December 20. The Hong Kong newspaper does itself no favours in terms of reputation by shielding its online stories behind a paywall. As a result, its ability to pick up regular exclusives is often overlooked. The Chinese Publicity Department’s favourite Tibetan website Phayul.com quotes chunks of the SCMP report though, drawing attention to the Yunnan provinicial government’s gag on the local media about the Tiger Leaping Gorge affair:

“Muzzled in its reporting of the controversial project over the past two years, local media have been told not to report the scrapping of the dam proposal,” SCMP noted.

On one hand, it seems strange the local government is so reluctant to play up the fact it has mulled over the deeply unpopular dam proposal, taken the local people’s concerns into consideration and decided for the good of mankind to ditch the idea. They wouldn’t even have to admit that the tourist revenue generated by the Tiger Leaping Gorge was a major factor in their decision. It is a sharp turnaround in intention. When I visited the gorge last April, the owner of Sean’s Guesthouse, located along the hiking trail, had already resigned himself to the project definitely going ahead and suggested the high population of bulldozers in the area was because of preliminary work on the dam - and not the huge quarry nearby.

However, given the local media have been prevented from discussing the project in recent years, it would be strange if the issue just popped up again in print. Also, any hint that the government has given into public opposition could be seized upon by the people living at the next proposed site. Phayul quotes SCMP as saying:

The new location, which had yet to be chosen from three options available, is expected to displace some 20,000 people; SCMP reported sources as saying.

As far as cold, hard figures go, 20,000 people beats the 100,000 set to be relocated by the Tiger Leaping Gorge dam. I wonder if all these 100,000 people actually know they are staying in the area. I remember some friends learning that a decision to replace their house with a new runway at Stansted Airport (recognised as London’s third airport - although a world away from London - for the benefit of non-UK readers) had been overturned through the Herts and Essex Observer. Yunnan residents, on this occasion, do not have such a luxurious form of communication.

Returning to Xinhua after a two-week break always brings the stagnancy of the office atmosphere back to the foreground. I’m relieved to be leaving although I cringed when I explained why I was abandoning a well-paid job to the taxi driver (he established my salary early on, which I halved out of embarrassment) who picked up me from my night shift yesterday. “I need a change,” I said. The guy drives taxis from 10am to 2am every day seven days a week and only sees his wife in bed between 2.30 am and 7.30am, when she gets up to go to work. That’s better than never seeing your wife in bed at all, but still.

Two stories grabbed my attention at Xinhua in recent days, the rest just drifted onto my screen and off to the releasers’ desk without me noticing I had edited them. The world’s media has naturally been spewing out Top Ten Moments of 2007 and thankfully Xinhuanet.com (Chinese version) was no exception. The popular news portal, as I think it is described, gave the country’s netizens the chance to vote for their favourite domestic news story of the year. Naturally, the Party Congress came in first.

BEIJING, Jan. 4 (Xinhua) — The successful staging of the 17th National Congress of Communist Party of China has been selected by the country’s netizens as the top domestic news in 2007, Xinhuanet.com said on Friday.

About 800,000 Internet users voted for news items on 38 major news websites across the country, including People.com.cn, China.com.cn, cctv.com and Xinhuanet.com.

“China succeeds in its first moon-probing mission” came second and “China’s National Congress passes Property Law” was the third, according to Xinhuanet.com, which posted the top ten news events on its website on Friday.

The major news events were selected by Internet users from a pool of 20 items, an executive with Xinhuanet.com told Xinhua. The executive declined to provide information on detailed voting results.

The top three international news stories were: “World oil price close to 100 U.S. dollars a barrel”, “U.S. sub-prime mortgage market crisis shakes global financial market” and “National theme years fuel momentum for Sino-Russian cooperation.”

Clearly the most important piece of information came in the fourth paragraph, which wasn’t included in the Chinese version. A “panel of experts”, chose their top 20 for netizens to get stuck into, removing any references to cardboard dumplings, fake tigers and the slave trade. What the story doesn’t mention is that voters were required to pick 15 out of the 20 provided for them. The 15 most popular choices were then rearranged according to the “panel’s” preference. Maybe Will Hutton was right to hyperbolise the Congress’ importance last October. Or maybe he wasn’t.

The other story of interest goes a long way in reflecting the comprehensive - and often insensitive - nature of China’s tourism drive in Tibet.

LHASA, Jan. 5 (Xinhua) — Tibetan authorities are beginning restoration work on former residences and office buildings of some of the first Communist Party members to be sent to Tibet in the early 1950s, which have been turned into “revolutionary” tourist attractions.

“The government has worked out a list of the revolutionary sites which need restoring and the second list is soon to be submitted,” said an official with the Tibetan Regional CPC Committee.

Money will be spent on sprucing up buildings used by the PLA as they “liberated” Tibet in 1951 and the site used for the first branch of the Communist Party in a Tibetan village in 1959. I feel the following line from a local official will be hard for the majority of Tibetans to swallow:

“By visiting the buildings, people can experience the hard times that their forefathers had to pull through and the sacrifices they made so that we can be inspired to treasure the peace and prosperity we have today.”

I remarked to the translator of this article that Tibetans would absolutely love that paragraph. Recognising that a foreigner was making a typically snide Tibet-related remark, she quickly snapped back, “Well it’s not for the native people and the majority of people in Tibet are Chinese, Han Chinese.” According to the census in 2000, 92.8 percent of the population of the Tibet Autonomous Region were Tibetan. It’s always worrying when some journalists have so little knowledge about a place they write about on an almost daily basis.

And so it played out on Friday with news that Peking University had removed public notice boards at the centre of the campus to the annoyance of many students. The boards were mainly used to advertise apartments for rent or for job hunting so the act of demolition came as a great inconvenience, especially as the students were apparently not told of the removal. The trouble with this piece of news is that it was a local issue at best - certainly front-page student rag material - but hardly worthy of international attention. What’s that? The boards have a political history, you say? Oh dear.

The boards served as the hub of student discontent during the Tiananmen democracy protests, displaying poetry and slogans denouncing the government. This of course was the main reason why this story was worth writing. Time to take the highly entertaining self-censorship game to a new level.

We came up with this lead paragraph:

Peking University officials have sparked controversy by removing public notice boards from the center of the university campus that were formerly used by students to express their political, cultural and academic opinions.

Personally, I thought this was fair enough. Clearly, after nearly two years at Xinhua, I am still drowning in naiviety. The published version:

Peking University officials have sparked controversy by removing public notice boards from the center of the university campus that were formerly used by students to get various informations and express opinions.

And that’s the risk you take. Push the political limits and the lead paragraph ends up being clumsy and grammatically incorrect. I had gone easy later on in the story and my wishy-washy paragraph remained intact:

In the 1980s and 1990s, students published their poems, essays and other thoughts on a wide range of social issues on the notice boards and reading the posters at Sanjiaodi became part of daily life.

Overall, given the restraints were tighter than King Kong’s (even they snapped eventually I suppose), the Xinhua effort was as good as can be expected and included this attribution to the Nanfang Daily:

A Southern Metropolis Daily report said the university had demolished the boards in order to earn good marks in the upcoming inspection by the Ministry of Education later this month.

I should mention the headline though, for which I take full responsibility. I came up with the rather embarrassing: “Peking University prompts debate by removing notice boards with political history”. In hindsight, I should have a cone stuck on my head and be hoisted up the flagpole on Tiananmen Square at sunrise. The amended version was the amusingly awkward: “Peking University prompts debate by removing notice boards for trim campus”.

The next day Xu Zhiyong, president of Peking University, made an announcement, reported by Xinhua and picked up by Associated Press.

President Xu Zhiyong was quoted by the official Xinhua News Agency on Saturday as saying the recent demolition of “Sanjiaodi,” a triangular plaza in the center of the campus featuring the boards, was needed to maintain order.

“No university in the world has a place in such disorder,” Xu was quoted as saying, adding that the boards had been used for advertising space by exam cheats and companies selling shoddy products.

He has a point of course. Ministry of Education inspectors do not like mess. I saw a photograph of the area under debate and around the triangular lawn, leaning against the fence, were rows of fluorescent advertisement boards. They were indeed creating a major eyesore. I’m not sure why these weren’t just removed, leaving the permanent boards intact.

I have had only one pathetic triumph regarding the insertion of “1989″ into Xinhua copy. In September last year, Chinese film director Lou Ye was banned from making films for five years for submitting his film Summer Palace to the Cannes Film Festival without government approval. The film featured scenes from the Tiananmen 1989 demonstrations. Xinhua’s policy appears to involve referring to anything untoward that happened in 1989 as occurring in the 1990s. After some pesky polishing:

“Summer Palace”, the only Asian film in the main competition of this year’s Cannes Film Festival, features a young Chinese couple’s erotic and complex relationship against a backdrop of civil unrest in Beijing in 1989.

I did this not out of mischief but because it was fact. But, yes, a Xinhua polisher does lead a petty life. And is immune to editorial fines.

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.

The end of July to August, for example, is intern month. There must be at least ten in Dui Wai Bu at the moment and during the day, I’m sure they add up to more than a third of the writing workforce. It reminds me of a work experience placement I once did at the travel desk of the Independent newspaper. At one point, there were three of us lost-looking work experience pups working with a permament team of five. Given the newspaper’s financial woes, they were happy to rely on free labour, we were happy to slap it on our CVs. I enjoy working with the interns at Xinhua. Free from quota pressures, some are receptive to using that old journalistic tool, the telephone. Last year, one outstanding student from Shanghai’s top university wrote about 30 stories in two weeks, a third of which were picked up by foreign news agencies. Actually, her performance served to embarrass several of her senior colleagues and showed what could be done. However, she was an exception. Many interns at Xinhua have never written a news story before but are asked to write about important topics designed for the consumption of the international media. Not surprisingly, it is an impossible task. They are supposed to receive guidance from the more senior members of the department they refer to as “teacher”. But these journalists are asked to help three or four interns at one time and have their own quota to worry about.

In September, the interns will depart, leaving us with the realisation that the new graduate employees who joined the department in July as soon as their final exams were over need a lot of training to write stories in English. Around next year’s Spring Festival, the 2006 intake, who spent six months in Dui Wai Bu learning to write English news stories last year before being posted to provincial bureaus, will return to the Beijing headquarters. They will have hardly written any stories in English for ten months and will need a few months to get back up to standard. In March, the 2007 intake will be posted to local bureaus just as they reach a decent level of news-writing for ten months of English-language deprivation. In July, the new graduates will arrive just before the Olympics. During the Olympics, Xinhua will be a sea of interns …

Within this wheel of inefficiency comes sporadic incidents in which mistakes are repeated at an almost comic level. Their occurrence highlights the fact that, for all the obvious improvement in Xinhua’s English-language service over the last 10 or 15 years, the line of progress has now plateaued and shows little sign of tilting permanently upwards in the near future.

These ramblings were prompted by a particular piece of self-censorship last Friday. The State Council’s White Paper on food safety was given to Xinhua and embargoed until 3pm. As always, Reuters managed to obtain a copy and was able to release it at the same time. The headline of the first story I received forced me emit a nasal snort. “State Council: 85.1% food products qualified in first half”. Memories of a similar story released at the beginning of the month immediately came to mind, which I blogged about here. On that occasion I changed the angle of the story from 80 percent of products made in China for domestic consumption good to 20 percent bad. It was changed back at the whim of a releaser. So here it was again. Was there any point changing the angle only to see my words deleted once more? I suspected not but I thought I would ask anyway.

I approached the senior releaser who happens to be blessed with a lot of common sense. No problem, he said, change it however you like (a sign of progress in itself I suppose). The story was edited with gusto and it became “15% of food products in China fail quality checks”. It wasn’t written in gloating fashion I might add - hard facts were sufficient.

But the first two paragraphs of the released version went like this:

BEIJING, Aug. 17 (Xinhua) — A white paper issued on Friday by the Information Office of China’s State Council revealed that 85.1 percent of the country’s food products passed quality checks in the first half of the year.

The paper emphasized the proportion of Chinese food products that passed quality inspections had risen steadily in recent years, rising from 77.9 percent in 2006 to the current figure of 85.1 percent.

At the same time, Reuters released its version:

BEIJING (Reuters) - Nearly 15 percent of Chinese food products failed a recent quality check, the government said on Friday in a report that nonetheless sought to reassure rattled consumers that tainted products are disappearing from shelves.

Fuck it. The editor in question wasn’t aware of my previous conversation and thought it was better to put the story in a positive light. “Xinhua is the government mouthpiece,” she kindly informed me as if the involvement of the government in Xinhua’s work would be a revelation to me.

This incident demonstrates perfectly how censorship works in my department. There is no overall standard. Yes, the Publicity Department releases statements calling on Xinhua to “promote a good atmosphere” for the NPC congress in October. But, the English service has more freedom and doesn’t have to toe this line with every story. In the case of the White Paper it came down to the individual and her beliefs, which contradicted those of her superior. Another editor would have passed the original story through and all the other state English-language media would probably have followed with “15 percent bad”. I was interested to hear recently that someone had suggested to the releasers they should read this blog to be aware of a few censorship issues. I think this might have backfired. After all, no one wants to be preached to by a 26-year-old English bloke with a few years’ journalistic experience.

Oh well, I can’t say I didn’t chuckle. Does it really matter? Well, actually, from a state media credibility point of view, I believe it does. Particularly when my colleagues from the economics desk were also swearing at their computer screens when White Paper ”stories” began to trickle through from the Domestic News Desk. Unlike them I can take the easy way out and go on holiday - I am going back to the UK until the beginning of September. Consumer warning: there is only one polisher for 50 or 60 Xinhua stories each day in my absence. Donations welcome. 

Incidents like these make it easy to forget there are a large numbers of Xinhua reporters around the country who genuinely care about reporting breaking news, particularly when it comes to accidents and subsequent rescue operations, even if a good report will gain them no credit. A common conception is that Xinhua reporters are just spoon fed information that government officials want released. Often this is true of course, but there are numerous exceptions. Local government officials are now obliged by orders from on high to provide Xinhua reporters with all the information they desire when it comes to coal mine accidents. But they are still reticent about other accidents that happen in areas under their jurisdiction.

On Monday, a bus carrying between 20 and 30 passengers slipped off a car ferry into a river in Jiangxi province, as described in this Xinhua report. Local officials quickly cordoned off the area around the riverbank and refused to talk to the Xinhua reporters who had arrived at the scene. One reporter had phoned up the Publicity Department at around midday and a woman had given snippets of information over the phone. But, after that, she refused to play ball.

One of the reporters from the Jiangxi bureau had spent a month last year in my department so he was determined to establish as many facts as possible with the international media in mind. This isn’t always the case. Often, the local reporters who have never written for an overseas audience can not understand the need for so many questions when they produce a hole-riddled story. When they receive a call from one of my colleagues they know it is the English-language department immediately just because someone is asking them a question. So the reporter at the scene of the ferry disaster concealed his pen and notebook and snatched words whenever he could with the divers involved in the rescue operation and local villagers who had seen the bus drive onto the ferry, while trying to avoid looking, acting or sounding like a journalist. And to think I once said in my clueless days, one week after arriving at Xinhua, “What do you mean the government won’t speak to Xinhua, Xinhua is the government!”

The officials soon cleared the area of the relatives of those missing and took them all to a hotel, which made the swift identification of bodies pulled up from the river impossible. As a foreign sub-editor, I normally have a real feeling of detachment from incidents like these. If I want to find out more information I have to go through a reporter from the local news desk of my department who then passes on requests to the local bureau reporter by phone. In this case, however, it was easy to imagine families huddled together in a scruffy hotel not being told whether or not their children/husbands/wives had been found dead at the bottom of the river. The panicked meeting called by the local publicity department. The punches of calculator buttons to work out a compensation amount for families of the victims, a figure that will never be reported.

Secrecy over incidents like these is pointless. The fact a bus rolled off a ferry is hardly the local government’s fault. Unfortunately for the officials, it all comes down to statistics. They will probably be given black marks on their records because, according to the system, someone always has to take the blame, especially when it involves the death of around 20 people. When promotion opportunities arise, people with black marks are overlooked. One freak accident, multiple deaths. All it means to many officials is one black smudge.

There have been a few cases of Xinhua local reporters having to use their initiative in recent weeks. When 25 people were killed in an explosion at a karaoke bar in Liaoning at the beginning of the month, one Xinhua reporter adopted four different guises to speak to local residents who were afraid of being seen talking to the press. At a recent conference on the potential lifting of the ban on tiger parts in Harbin, the local reporter pretended to be a volunteer to gain access and be free from handing in her notebook full of freshly scrawled quotes so it could be given the once-over by the State Forestry Administration.

But why are local officials so scared of Xinhua reporters? Surely they are just cuddly little things who only say nice things about the Chinese government. Actually it seems local government officials are genuinely terrified of them, much more so than local newspaper reporters. A significant proportion - I have no idea of the figure - of Xinhua stories are for internal eyes only, passed up to the central leadership. Somewhere in Beijing, there must be rows and rows of filing cabinets containing stories written for senior officials by Xinhua journalists. One day these will all be made public and maybe then we can observe the true state of investigative journalism in China. For now, they have some serious dust-gathering to do. There is probably a whole drawer devoted to the brick kiln slavery scandal already. The consequences of these reports for corrupt local Party cadres are much more damaging than a local newspaper article could ever be. Often Xinhua reporters play the “I’ll tell on you” card to encourage local officials to start opening up. It is surprisingly effective.

Song Pingshun, chairman of the Tianjin Municipal Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference in the northern port city of Tianjin, was found dead on Monday.

A police investigation showed that Song had committed suicide.

Relevant departments said that they had received reports accusing Song of corruption and an investigation is underway.

Clearly having had no intention of reporting this occurrence, I bet the Information Office was delighted to see Song’s colleague had been blabbing to Reuters to guarantee news of Song’s suicide was in the public domain. Reuters goaded them with the highly effective line “China’s state-run media has remained silent on the issue” and the terse statement is handed to Xinhua complete with the irritated signature of its author. Better than nothing I suppose.

For more than my fleeting comment on this story, Rob at Black and White Cat has many more details and he managed to quote the Xinhua story correctly (unlike me, who despite polishing the stuff, still couldn’t remember the three pars off the top of my head).

The Academy of the Great Wall of China has a problem. The “New Seven Wonders of the World” are about to be decided and the Great Wall is currently languishing outside the top seven in the public vote. The academy needs public panic. It needs 1.3 billion Chinese people across the nation to scream “Shit, the iconic symbol of our nation is going to be denied wonder status. Let’s vote!” China should be able to do this. There are enough people with access to the Internet in order to vote (144 million of them) and enough mobile phones to send votes by SMS. A dollop of urgency is all that is required. And a full-on media frenzy of course.

Step forward an editor with pride issues. I have no idea who is responsible for the following decision but all the Chinese stories on this issue that I have seen fail to mention that the Great Wall is not currently in the top seven. This is deliberate. Apparently, telling the Chinese people that their Great Wall is outside the top seven would be denigrating to the nation. It would be better off if the story says, “Guess what everybody, the Great Wall is in the top ten “Wonders of the World” and could be in the final seven! Wahoo!” This explains the following story on CCTV-9, which was taken directly from the Chinese version:

The stage has been set to hold a global vote to determine the New Seven Wonders of the World. The Great Wall has long been a famous symbol of China. And now, it’s in the running for this prestigious, worldwide honor. Public voting is now open for an array of ancient historic sites.

The Great Wall is considered by many as a symbol of China’s ancient civilization and its peoples’ ingenuity.

And now, this 2,600-year-old fortification is in the running to become one of the new Seven Wonders of the World. Many Chinese are expressing their confidence ahead of the competition. That’s because, they say greatness defines itself.

Xie Jiuzhong, spokesperson Badaling tourist district, said, “Last year I went to Italy and Greece and toured around the sites there. But it only impressed upon me why the Chinese are so proud of the Great Wall. No other cultural heritage sites can compare with the Great Wall in terms of length, magnitude and the man-power required to build it.”

The Great Wall’s magnificent features are attracting tourists from across the world. So far, the Badaling section alone has attracted over 130 million tourists. (Singing) For these visitors, this is the best way to express their excitement.

Erin Manning, choir member, said, “Well, it’s definitely true but it just, the words and everything and the pictures don’t capture it all, it’s just amazing, it’s really beautiful, just the landscape and everything.”

But the Great Wall of China is facing fierce competition from the other 20 UNESCO listed nominations. Among them the Eiffel Tower of France, the pyramids of Egypt, the Colosseum in Rome and the Taj Mahal in India.

Public voting is now underway online at www.new7wonders.com . The final results will be announced during a ceremony in Lisbon on July 7th this year.

What? “Greatness defines itself”? It’s a lovely line but where is the call to arms? The academy needs votes! The Great Wall needs YOU! Luckily, clear thinking in the English department prevailed (especially after I banged my head on my desk seven times, cackled manaically and swore like a trooper) and we released the right story which Reuters picked up. But what a hopeless task the Academy of the Great Wall faces. News of its last-minute campaign to rally voters was suppressed and now they have to rely on foreigners to step in. (Vote for the Great Wall on www.new7wonders.com - yes it stinks of gimmickry but at least it is an attempt to celebrate the world’s cultural heritage).

A final observation. This quote made me chuckle:

“China’s Great Wall missed an opportunity 2,000 years ago when the Greeks named the Seven Wonders of the World. It would be extremely regretful if it became an also-ran this time,” the academy said in a statement.

Damn those bloody ancient Greeks!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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