Beijing Newspeak

The life of a conspiracy theorist must be a depressing one. When I read the story about the fabrication of the cardboard bun report, I felt ashamed to be standing at the peak of the slippery slope. Scepticism landed a jab to the ribs and I immediately doubted the truth of the police report that detailed the Beijing television’s journalist’s confession. After mulling it over, I frogmarched my opinion away from the dark side. I didn’t want to start doubting everything the Chinese government said. It seemed excessive to cover up one case of dodgy baozi in the whole of Beijing. A blatant lie would also open up the possibility of someone in the know leaking information that there had been a cover-up. Fake news reports are quite common - the local news desk in my department says it has to sift through numerous suspicious-looking stories every week. And Imagethief’s post also served as a sharp thwack to the conspiratorial cheek.

My confidence began to waver when one of the reporters said her 17-year-old son still refused to eat baozi because he was sure the government was lying. Now that’s respect for your mother’s line of work. Then my colleague pointed out that the explanation given in the Beijing television journalist’s confession - as reported by Xinhua - neglected to address the fact that in the video footage the police arrived on the scene to arrest the so-called cardboard baozi makers. Did the reporter trick the migrant workers into making the buns in order for them to be arrested? Or did he dress up his friends in police uniform? I can’t find an explanation for this in English - maybe I am missing something in Chinese. And then I read this at ESWN which also has all the right links. Now I feel like Indecisive Dave from the Fast Show.

Anyway, I only brought this up so I could be cynical about the statement the All-China Journalists’ Association (ACJA) released following news that the cardboard bun expose was a hoax. What is particularly amusing about this stream of righteousness is that the chairman of the ACJA is none other than Tian Congming, the president of Xinhua News Agency. The full Xinhua report on this statement is here but these are some of my favourite bits:

During the same interview, Li Cunhou, a member of the association’s secretariat, outlined the key reasons for the existence of fabricated news in China despite repeated disciplinary actions.

“The quality of journalism professionals varies across the country,” Li admitted. “Some reporters can produce news straight out of their imagination or by making several phone calls at home and surfing on the Internet.

Well I am sorry but how else would some Xinhua reporters based in the provincial bureaus around the country get enough news stories to fill their quota? It is common practice to surf local news websites, copy some titillating nugget and upload it to the central department. I have seen some of my colleagues rightly reject stories by regional journalists that are based on one comment from an Internet forum.

“Many of today’s journalists lack professional training and, with the fast development of the media industry, some institutions are lax in the way they recruit staff,” Li added.

Most of the new journalists - Xinhua only recruits university graduates in my department at least - are very talented individuals. But often they have had no news-writing experience before arriving on their first day, with most majoring in English (obviously a prerequisite for the job), and they find themselves writing news stories which need to be quoted by intenational media. The person who is in charge of giving journalism lectures is highly competent but unfortunately does not have enough time. Last year, the graduates had a two or three-week training course shortly after their arrival. The foreign polishers offered to give lectures on news writing but they would have been out of keeping with the emphasis on political and ideological education. Obviously I am only referring to my department but there is little reason to believe it is different anywhere else in the organisation.

However, “Some reporters just fabricated news under the guise of supervision,” Li said. “They did this either to seek petty profits for their institution or for themselves.”

I am not saying Xinhua reporters fabricate new stories. But many provincial reporters just copy local media and don’t quote the source. An extra story written in this way gains extra points for both individual and departmental quotas.

 ”The content of news is no different from historical fact,” Zhou cited Cai Yuanpei, one of China’s most influential scholars in the early 20th century, as saying, stressing the importance of the authenticity of news.

I think I’ll stop there.

Actually, no I won’t. Because I have just noticed a journalistic triumph for Xinhua News Agency. In a report released on Friday night, it carried a series of quotes accusing the government of lying. Government mouthpiece? Pah! Here are the opening paragraphs:

BEIJING, July 20 (Xinhua) — Relief, disbelief and confusion were evident on the streets of Beijing after the widely aired TV news report about dumpling makers using cardboard as an ingredient was exposed as a hoax.

Chen Huiqin, a retired middle school teacher from Shanghai, said the hoax was beyond belief.

“I guess government departments must be hoping to reduce the negative impact on the public by declaring the TV news report a hoax,” she said.

A cab driver, who asked to be identified only by his surname Liu, agreed, saying he could not believe the investigative TV news report aired by Beijing TV on July 8 was a fabrication.

“It’s not just me, most of my customers didn’t believe it was a hoax either,” said Liu. “But to avoid eating cardboard dumplings, I only eat meat dumplings at established restaurants.”

An Internet user from east China’s Zhejiang Province, wrote in a posting on Sina.com, “It cannot be a hoax, but calling it a fabricated report must be intended to serve the purpose of a harmonious society.”

A woman living in an apartment near Panjiayuan, southeastern Beijing, who gave her surname as Chen, said she was totally confused about the “cardboard dumplings” reports.

“It was awful to watch the pictures — soaking cardboard in water with caustic soda, chefs chopping the soaked cardboard, the oven used for stewing the cardboard — but those pictures seemed so real,” said the middle-aged woman. “It doesn’t matter if it was a lie, I’m going to avoid all filled dumplings.”

I am on night shift this week. This can involve editing 25 stories in the space of six hours. The stories that arrive late in the evening are mostly ministry statements, accident reports and various “urgings” by vice premiers. Naturally, I can be a thoroughly inhospitable human being for seven consecutive days. Some nights I maraud the corridors debating the difference between “slavery” and “forced labour” in connection with the brick kiln (slavery) scandal. On others, I sympathise with my colleagues who have to knuckle down, cast talent aside and translate meaningless policy announcements into English. Sometimes, I just stop moaning and feeling sorry for myself, switch to auto-pilot and change the grammar as quickly as possible. Because when it boils down to it, that’s all I’m technically required to do. The rest is optional.

In this mood, I am rankled fairly easily by events or actions that make the whole process even more hapless. One reporter from the economics desk has started to ask me on a regular basis if it is worth translating certain Chinese stories from the domestic news desk into English. I am grateful for the consultation as it saves everyone a lot of time. I only wish I could get more excited about some of the topics but unfortunately 80.9 percent of them are rejected out of hand.

Bombarded by bumf as we are, even a snippet of information that sounds anything like news is a cause for a celebratory piece of dried pork. “What about this one - 80.9 percent of all products made in China for domestic consumption meet quality standards,” asks the journalist. Er … yep that tickles something. As long as your lead is 19.1 percent of all products made in China for domestic consumption do not meet quality standards.

No problem. The reporter writes a good story, I add in some background - something like “the latest embarrassment etc” -designed purely so the senior editor has something to remove and it is ready for release. Unfortunately, the released version went like this:

BEIJING, July 3 (Xinhua) — China’s quality watchdog said on Tuesday that a sample survey shows 80.9 percent of products made in China for domestic consumption were up to quality and safety standards in the first half of 2007.

    The survey covered 7,200 different products from 6,362 enterprises, with an emphasis on food, everyday commodities and farming machinery and fertilizers, the General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (GAQSIQ) said at a news conference on Tuesday.

    The administration found that 93.1 percent of products made by large enterprises are up to standards — the figure was 84.2 percent for medium-sized enterprises and 72.9 percent for small enterprises.

    The survey revealed that 19.1 percent of products made in China for domestic consumption are substandard in the first half of 2007,moving down from 21.6 percent from a year ago.

    Tinned and preserved fruit and dried fish registered the lowest quality scores with key problems being excessive amounts of microorganisms or additives, the administration said.

    The quality watchdog cracked 23,000 cases of fake and low-quality food from December 2006 to May 2007 and a total of 180food manufacturers were shut down for making substandard food or using inedible materials for food production.

    Meanwhile, “99 percent of food exported to the United States was up to safety standards over the past two years, which is a very high percentage,” said Li Yuanping, a senior official in charge of imported and exported food safety in the GAQSIQ, in June.

After a year and a half at Xinhua, I still find this kind of thing difficult to swallow. It’s like saying “shhhhhhhh … just change it around nice and quickly, no one will notice, it’ll be fine, hee hee.” Unfortunately for this mode of thinking, the foreign media isn’t full of stupid people. The real story was picked up - why wouldn’t it be given the current uproar over anything with a “Made in China” label on it?! - here, here, here etc. The New York Times lead:

SHANGHAI, July 4 — China said on Wednesday that nearly a fifth of the food and consumer products that it checked in a nationwide survey this year were found to be substandard or tainted, underscoring the risk faced by its own consumers even as the country’s exports come under greater scrutiny overseas.

The argument is a tired one: Xinhua serves the Party. Everyone knows the foreign media will report the story correctly but it should not come from the government throat itself. And product safety is improving. Last year, the percentage of substandard goods was closer to 22 percent.

However, the China Daily report which focused specifically on food safety was even more blinkered. The headline was “Food quality up to standard” and it extolled the improvement in the safety of fruit juice, of which one in five cartons is apparently substandard. It even went as far to say:

Figures showed 92 percent of dried food and nuts were also up to required standards. Inspectors did not find any excessive use of food additives, a problem once common in dried food.

Brazen to say the least when Xinhua says:

Tinned and preserved fruit and dried fish registered the lowest quality scores with key problems being excessive amounts of microorganisms or additives, the administration said.

The final paragraph of the Xinhua article is the real kick in the teeth for the Chinese people, which of course include the editors who prefer to play the food safety issue down. The reporter was glad to see it had been kept in the article as a reminder that 99 percent of food exported to the United States was up to standard while Chinese people have to make do with less lofty figures.

Oh dear, it’s happening again. A glimpse of the bad old days. The days when Chinese state media report statistics that are so patently misleading, all the progress made in the timely reporting of bird flu cases is shot to pieces and international suspicion is once again well and truly aroused.

Embarrassing figure number one: 300. This is the number of pigs Xinhua reported on May 10 to have died from blue ear disease in southern China. At the time, AP quoted Hong Kong media as saying 1,300 pigs had been infected. Even this figure was put in the shade by a highly informative Reuters report on May 18, which claimed one million pigs had been wiped out over the last year in various parts of China.

The only place the Chinese government has publicly acknowledged the latest outbreak is Yunfu in western Guangdong province, a 5-1/2-hour train and road trip from Hong Kong.

Officials say some 300 swine died in and around the collection of villages that make up the township of Silao, which is part of Yunfu.

However, a drive through the countryside lends credence to the belief that the official number of swine deaths is low.

Before the outbreak, many farmers, perhaps most, kept a pig or two on family plots, locals said. Many, like Zhu, kept litters that numbered in the dozens.

Not a single pig was seen in more than two hours in the area talking to farmers and feed sellers.

Still not a word from Xinhua. The previous day, China’s agriculture ministry had called on local authorities to do more to curb the spread of the disease.

We face a severe situation in prevention as it is the peak outbreak season of the highly contagious blue ear disease,” agriculture minister Sun Zhengcai said in a speech.

“If the disease was not properly controlled, the pig breeding industry, income of farmers and stability of the pork market would be badly hurt,” Sun told a national conference.

But Xinhua missed the statement. I have banged on all week about the need to write something on the issue, preferably a report of the latest situation in Guangdong by the bureau based in the province. Otherwise, silence just shouts “cover-up!” As far as I know there has been no official instruction banning the reporting of blue ear disease from Guangdong. It seems the bureau there is just refusing to report anything. Nothing new to write, it says. Is it being gagged by the local government or is it just being incredibly lazy? I have no idea.

So, while the one million figure (the number for the whole year) - in fact I feel I need to put it into numbers for extra effect: 1,000,000 - is freely banded around the international press, Xinhua last reported 300. And then comes a direct consequence of the epidemic - the price of pork “flies to a new high” according to a report by the China Daily. It was a woeful piece of journalism. Apparently the price of pork had risen “due to a decrease in the number of pigs” but there was not one mention of blue ear disease in the story. Instead the blame was placed on the rise in corn price and this hilarious reason:

He (Zhang Zhiqiang from the Jinan pricing administration) said the demand for vegetables normally increases in summer, and people also have the choice of beef, mutton, chicken and fish, which are in abundant supply.

The article also noted “a supermarket salesman in Beijing said fewer people are buying pork this week”. So is that because it is too expensive or is it down to a mysterious pig disease that Beijingers have heard about but know nothing about?

Finally, on Wednesday evening, Xinhua releases a story. The news point was buried but this is it:

Along with temperature hikes, blue ear disease, also known as Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (PRRS), broke out among pigs in south China’s Guangdong Province and Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, causing many deaths and a large amount of pigs to be culled, according to the National Development and Reform Commission. Officials from the Ministry of Agriculture, which is in charge of agricultural production and animal husbandry, declined to make any comment on the issue.

The outbreak can be seen as an immediate cause of a short supply in the regions, which need to buy pigs from northern provinces, according to Xu Lianzhong, a senior economist with the price supversion center under the National Development and Reform Commission.

“This sent a strong signal for distributors to jack up prices,” said Xu.

Still no figure, but now the Ministry of Agriculture is refusing to comment. Xinhua 300, Reuters 1,000,000. NB I’m finding the updates provided by Pig Progress - “Your portal on global pig production” - on this subject to be concise and informative.

Embarrassing figure number two: 50. This is the number of tubes of toothpaste contaminated with the chemical diethylene glycol that, according to Xinhua, have been taken off the shelves in Panama. I can just imagine a customer fom Panama phoning up China and saying 50 tubes por favor. Hardly worth the phone call. Luckily, China Daily had the right figures, quoting Dominican Republic government officials and the New York Times. 10,000 tubes in the Dominican Republic and 6,000 in Panama. Reuters later reported 200,000. Xinhua is sticking with 50 because their reporter in Panama hasn’t bothered to submit a report on the incident for a whole week. It doesn’t believe New York Times is a credible enough source to quote. It seems it doesn’t believe the Dominican Republic government can be trusted either. Xinhua 50, Rest of the World Thousands.

Incidentally, it doesn’t really matter if the toothpaste is contaminated according to Danyang Household Chemical Company, one of the Chinese exporters under investigation, which was quoted by Reuters:

‘Toothpaste is not something you’d swallow, but spit out, and so it’s totally different from something you would eat,’ one company manager, who declined to be identified, said by telephone from the eastern province of Jiangsu.

Ah, that’s all right then. Contaminate away!

Reuters released a story on Thursday about a mobile phone text message that is doing the rounds in China which claims bananas on Hainan might contain similar viruses to SARS. Almost certainly rubbish but it is hardly surprising dodgy and out-of-date statistics spark bizarre rumour.