Beijing Newspeak

Following a request for a photograph
of my new PLA calendar, I give you
Miss January.

“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.

On Tuesday, a journalist friend of mine tried to fly from southern China to Shanghai. The whole process took 11 hours. My friend was told the People’s Liberation Army, those lovers of late notice, had imposed airspace controls over eastern China in order to carry out a military exercise (Note to editor: I didn’t learn this from Xinhua so the writing of that line does not constitute a sackable offence). The delays were substantial. Not that this information was released to the public. The airports - and of course Xinhua - were not allowed to divulge the reason for the controls by order of the Central Military Commission. Air travellers were instead fed a phrase sure to make them nod their heads in understanding, relax with an overpriced cup of Blue Mountain coffee and be happy for their plane to take as long it needed. “The controls have been imposed for unspecified reasons.”

The first Xinhua report, released on Tuesday evening, went like this:

Air controls imposed on Tuesday morning delayed at least ten flights at Baiyun airport in the southern city of Guangzhou and stranded about 1,600 passengers, sources with China Southern Airlines said.

The controls were imposed for unspecified reasons over eastern regions of China. Flights bound for Nanchang, Shanghai, Qingdao, Hangzhou, Nanjing and Dalian were postponed.

Flights started to resume from 3:30 p.m. on Tuesday.

The airline sent staff to provide water and food for passengers whose flights were delayed.

Airport sources said the controls might persist for days, and they advised passengers to adjust their travel plans and follow updated flight schedules.

I once again reverted to indignant polisher mode, demanding follow-ups for every day the controls were still in place. I realised the large majority of air travellers affected would be Chinese, and therefore unlikely to be regular readers of Xinhua’s English-language service, but the incident really bugged me for several reasons:

1) It reminded me of a similar occurrence at almost the same time last year. Shanghai’s Pudong international airport was closed on the orders of the PLA (China’s airspace is controlled by the military) but Xinhua didn’t even report the closure let alone the reason because the whole palaver was a “state secret”. By all accounts, the PLA had not given the airport authority any prior warning. Reuters reported a passenger flight and a cargo flight from Japan airlines had been forced to turn back to Japan. A textbook example to illustrate what can happen when the PLA is not answerable to the State. This latest incident again went some way to highlighting how much the PLA considers the people in its decision-making processes.

2) Xinhua seemed to have deemed the case closed despite the vague warning coming in the last paragraph that the airspace controls would last for days resulting in continued disruption. An awareness of an audience other than its own “leaders” has never been the agency’s strong point. In addition, the initial report only referred to delays in Guangzhou yet there were hundreds of flights affected all over eastern China. There was barely any coverage in the Chinese-language press and only a nib in Shanghai Daily.

3) I am British. Therefore I have an inbuilt mechanism to express fury at even the smallest delay to travel plans. Back in July 2003, chaos reigned at London’s Heathrow Airport due to staff strikes. Images of fuming holidaymakers dominated the television news for days. “Unspecified reasons” would have met with rebellion.

On Wednesay, after being told everything was back to normal in Guangzhou, I found myself saying to a colleague a line that was comical in hindsight but at the time so wretched. “I beg you, please, I beg you, please phone Shanghai airport. You can pretend to be a passenger if you want.”

So when the following update arrived in the evening, instead of it being a bog standard report which had three paragraphs of new information and little clarification (in reality this is exactly what it was), it took on the appearance of a Pullitzer Prize-winning investigative epic for which I felt compelled to lavish praise on the writer.

SHANGHAI, Nov. 21 (Xinhua) — About 7,000 passengers were affected as airspace controls continued in eastern China on Wednesday, this time primarily affecting Shanghai, according to sources with Shanghai Airlines.

By 4 p.m., 150 flights from the city’s two airports bound for Guangzhou, Xiamen, Shenzhen, Beijing and Dalian had been postponed.

The controls were imposed beginning on Tuesday over eastern China, for unspecified reasons.

Passengers whose flights were delayed are eligible for refunds. Those stranded in the Pudong and Hongqiao airports in Shanghai were provided with water and food.

The effect in Guangzhou, where 1,600 passengers were stranded at the Baiyun Airport on Tuesday, appeared less severe on Wednesday and confined to several flights to Shanghai.

It is unknown how long the controls will persist and airport sources advised passengers to adjust their travel plans and follow updated flight schedules.

Two more updates came over the next two days. The airports were reluctant to give out information so many of the quotes came from the airlines. Eventually the Civil Aviation Administration of China told Xinhua the airspace controls would end at midnight on Saturday.

Amusingly, the delays coincided with the implementation of new airspace regulations that came into effect on Thursday which opened up more of China’s airspace to civilian aircraft. They are expected to double the number of aircraft flying in China’s skies and reduce delays for travellers.

Reuters implicitly linked the airspace controls with the Kitty Hawk PR disaster in which China blocked the U.S. Navy aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk from a Thanksgiving visit to Hong Kong only to change its mind when it was too late.

Beijing’s move coincided with “airspace controls” introduced on Wednesday which the Xinhua news agency said affected the air travel plans of 7,000 people in south and east China.

The controls had been ordered for “unspecified reasons”.

(Note: the airspace controls were actually introduced on Tuesday). The only link I can think of is that the PLA denied Kitty Hawk access to Hong Kong because it was busy with its military exercise and didn’t want a US aircraft carrier in the vicinity. But then that’s the kind of wild speculation that gives blogs a bad reputation.

This article by the LA Times put forth a few theories on why Kitty Hawk was denied access to Hong Kong.

Pundits near and far sought to explain what appeared to be behind the Chinese government’s blunt yet hazy message.

Theories included anger over President Bush’s recent meeting with the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Chinese-held Tibet; displeasure over an announced $940-million U.S. upgrade to Taiwan’s Patriot II antimissile shield; a desire to send a message before an imminent Hong Kong election; and pique over a U.S. report that criticized Chinese espionage activities.

Whatever the reasons, this paragraph from the LA Times sums up the problems that arise from last-minute decisions such as those involving Kitty Hawk and the airspace controls (and the closure of Shanghai airport last year and the destruction of that satellite earlier this year …)

This is not the only time recently that China has made a military move without apparently considering its public relations implications. In January, the Foreign Ministry was caught flat-footed when the People’s Liberation Army destroyed an aging satellite, spewing debris in space and sparking questions about the PLA’s intentions, why there was no warning and even whether China’s senior leadership had been fully informed in advance.

A PR department is not coming to the PLA any time soon.

SIGNIFICANT UPDATE: Thanks to a link provided by Jim in the comments section, it would appear it’s one-nil to wild speculation. Xiao Qiang at China Digital Times has translated an article from Hong Kong’s Ming Pao newspaper which starts like this:

According to sources in China, in recent days the East and South China Sea fleets of the People’s Liberation Army [PLA] have carried out a large-scale “campaign-level [zhanyi ji] naval exercise”; the two big fleets staged a joint combat exercise in the Pacific east of Taiwan; the recent aviation controls in east and south China, which are related to this major exercise, will end tomorrow. Further reports claim that the PLA fleet on exercise had a “chance encounter” with the USS Kitty Hawk battle group which was heading for Hong Kong.

According to foreign news agencies, US Pacific Commander Keating said yesterday that he was “perplexed and concerned” that the Chinese side had refused Kitty Hawk entry to Hong Kong, holding that this was “absolutely not positive.” Keating also confirmed that this was the second time in one week that US ships had been refused entry to Hong Kong; three or four days prior to the Kitty Hawk incident, two US minesweepers requested to anchor in Hong Kong to refuel, having been affected by bad weather in the South China Sea, but this was refused by the Chinese Government. Kitty Hawk has now returned to its base in Japan, and the officers and men were forced to spend Thanksgiving at sea on 22 November.

According to websites in the interior, the joint exercise of the East and South China Sea fleets was conducted east of Taiwan and north of the Philippine archipelago, and its objective was to envelop and make a pincer attack on Taiwan from the sea.

Umm, “a chance encounter”. I think the advance of military technology ruled out the likelihood of one of those quite a long time ago. If this is all true, then the US must have had a pretty good idea why Kitty Hawk’s Thanksgiving Party was cancelled all along. And most importantly Chinese air travellers have their answer …

A couple of weeks ago, the Foreign Affairs department requested my company at the Military Museum for a private viewing of the exhibition “Our Troops March Towards The Sun” to mark the 80th anniversary of the PLA. Memories of a disastrous weekend spent in Langfang, a new development zone in Hebei, courtesy of Beijing’s Foreign Expert Department were still fresh. A group of us had been invited to attend the Northeast Asia & Bohai-Rim International Business Festival for which the official reason was the chance for foreigners to experience sustainable urban development first hand. The real reason was a “face job” - look foreign enough to give off the impression that the festival - a confusing collection of automobile and printing press products - was international. It wouldn’t have been so enjoyable if it hadn’t be so tedious.

Standing at the steps of the museum entrance, it was immediately apparent that our small party, made up of a Russian, an Iraqi - part of the team in Baghdad who ensured Xinhua News Agency was the first to break the news of the 2003 invasion of Iraq would you believe -, a Brazilian, a New Zealander and a Brit, was going to look out of place. Streaming up the red carpet were naval officers in white uniform, African generals in army fatigues and berets, whom I was desperately trying not to link unfairly with the Last King of Scotland, and what appeared to be the entire Pakistani armed forces. I later learned, thanks to a story with the headline “PLA show impresses foreigners” in China Daily, which I thought I had given up reading, that military attaches from more than 100 countries were present.

A corridor had been formed in the entrance hall by two rows of female Air Force officers with blue uniforms, dental-advert smiles and enough layers of cosmetics to make a Ryanair employee blush brighter than her or his blusher. I was assured they were genuine members of the Air Force despite the fact that every one of them could have opted for the Vogue career path.  I was directed to one of six leather-bound guestbooks which officers of varying ranks had graced with their autographs. Harmonious Society (pseudonym), Captain, Angola. I obliged with enthusiasm. Christopher O’Brien, polisher, Stansted Mountfichet. A place in PLA history.

Walking into the first section of the exhibition, my leaflet told me I was embarking on “Part One: Strategic Decisions, Brilliant Course”. Small huddles of potentially some of the best “Risk” teams in the world were being given tours. An Air (Force) Stewardess carried a provocative black cane to point at each exhibit. Her smile looked like it hurt. Her well-rehearsed explanations were translated by university students into words that were easy to stop listening to. “To establish a modernized army and to realize the transformation from the single infantry …” I decided to tag on the end of one group as I was attracted to a burly Zimbabwean general who possessed more medals than Carl Lewis and Mark Spitz combined. Unfortunately, his facial expression would barely twitch out of glum for the entire two-hour tour, not once opening up his chops to speak.

My first piece of shameless eavesdropping picked up a morsel of cynicism from a member of the Pakistani Air Force. Greeting a late arrival - an aimable looking Dutch naval officer well above six foot -, with a handshake he said, “Nine years down, only another 71 to go.” Shame on him. The officers were led along the wall of glass cases, their images being subjected to a merciless molestation by a fashion photographer. He was about 60, sported slicked back, thinning hair and wore a pink short-sleeved shirt, white linen trousers and sandals. He looked like a cross between a Beijing cabbie and a retired Peking Opera performer who hadn’t quite managed to remove all his make-up. He squealed when I strayed into his line of fire. Suddenly, the years had flown by and we were standing in front of a picture of Mao with a rifle. Behind the glass, underneath the picture, was a piece of cloth with a picture of what was supposed to be Chiang Kai-shek’s face. It was the target Mao had aimed at when he visited the firing range of a PLA regiment. In the bottom left hand corner, 30 centimetres away from the adam’s apple, was a bullet hole. A valiant effort.

Next up, a truly cringe-worthy moment in front of the Korean War section. The smiling stewardess gestured to a captured U.S. military crest and a list of debatable figures detailing how many people from each country had died during the conflict. The American naval officer present showed remarkable impassivity when the clumsy translation came lumbering out, “Here, the Chinese army annihilated hundreds of thousands of Americans”. Perhaps the U.S. officer didn’t hear, too busy trying to recall the Department of Defense’s figure of 54,246. It was the kind of classic case of forgetting your audience I see at Xinhua sometimes.

Part Two: Being Competent Militarily, Being the Steely Great Wall. To be honest, I didn’t notice … (sorry I just have to break off to pass on a text message from my polishing comrade currently toiling through the night shift: “Just got a great cover sheet headline: ‘Potato may help China’. Don’t want to open it and destroy the effect.”) … entering part two. I was distracted by a remote control tank that was pulling a few stunts much to the excitement of a giggling Nigerian army officer. I had previously polished a Xinhua story that promised visitors could experience manning a warship. Having to gather in front of a wide screen with 20 others as the front of a ship’s image rocked from left to right was a minor letdown but the novelty was there. The Chinese navyman hogged the controls and we headed towards a distant island, eventually blowing up a piece of rock at the third attempt. A British naval officer filled me with confidence as we walked back into the main room. “That made me feel a bit funny actually.” Nearby, a Pakistani officer was explaining to a Chinese camera crew, at length, why the satellite imagery tool the PLA had designed produced inadequate detail when the zoom function was used. I couldn’t pick up the translator’s response to the camera but it was over ten times quicker than the officer’s critique.

All I remember from Part Three: Consolidating the Army’s Soul, Maintaining the Nature was a picture of Lei Feng. Part Four: To Build the Army with Diligence and Thrift, To Guarantee Adequate Logistical Support was beginning to test the resolve of the Dutch naval officer. The left side of his face was beginning to adopt a “Why are you telling me that?” kind of look. Even the stewardess’ smile was narrowing ever so slightly as she reeled off some stats. “This machine can make five thousand loaves of bread a day”.

Part Five: Independent Innovation, Leapfrog Development. The highlight was a Top Gun style video featuring missiles blasting off various warships and quickly out of shot. Fantastic stuff. The “peaceful rise” PR officers must have had a fit when they went to the premiere. Nearly finished but still time to admire the new “07-style” PLA uniforms up close. There was a touching moment when a Pakistani officer went up to the army jacket and fondled it enviously. It was probably Captain Shahid Baig of China Daily fame.

Captain Shahid Baig, of Pakistani air force, was interested in the PLA’s new uniforms. “I think the new uniforms are very fashionable, modern and special, very different from many other countries’.”

Part Six: To Keep the Aim firmly in Mind, To Build the Country and Part Seven: To Stand Facing The World, To Safeguard the Peace faded into insignificance with the arrival of a raucous bunch of African officers of varying nationalities. The commotion nudged up a notch when they spied a globe dotted with red lights, showing the extent of the PLA’s international influence. My French is rusty but, from what I could work out, a red light that was supposed to be flashing in the Democratic Republic of Congo had gone walkies over the border to the Republic of Congo. Much mockery of the former’s soldiers ensued until they were distracted by the possibility of a photo shoot with a whole brigade of air stewardesses. The ladies adopted suspiciously model-like poses and each soldier took it in turns to recreate the Charlie’s Angels advert.

All that was left to be done was to sign another guestbook, the farewell edition. The Dutch naval officer was asked to convey his feelings in writing. “I don’t think so,” he grinned affably as he strode into the night. The messages were right out of the diplomatic top drawer. “An absolute pleasure to see China’s outstanding development in the military field. Best of luck for the future.” I wrote something about the air stewardess’ nice smiles but was trumped by my colleague. “LOOK OUT TAIWAN!” he scrawled across the middle of the page. We left in a hurry, which was regrettable as I didn’t get to see the reaction of our foreign expert chaperone who was wondering what the immature sniggering was all about. The exhibition runs for another two weeks or so and is well worth a visit, particularly, as a friend pointed out, since it provides an opportunity to buy a genuine PLA 80th anniversary watch which could be worth a bob or two in the future.

And so, finally, it is here. The 80th birthday of China’s People’s Liberation Army. The celebrations started with an “Editor’s Note” on June 8 guaranteed to send the heart of a Xinhua polisher sinking to the bottom of the Mariana trench.

EDITOR’S NOTE: August 1, 2007, is the 80th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army. Xinhua English service begins releasing a series of special reports on the anniversary from June 8, 2007).

Since then, something like 35 PLA-anniversary-related stories have been released in English - others have been cast out cruelly into the wasteland. The number of Chinese stories is thought to exceed 200. Xinhua hasn’t been taking orders from the PLA to flood their wire services with military tales - the agency’s top bods believe the anniversary is a unique opportunity to report on the inner workings of the notoriously opaque army. In this sense, they are right. But, as is demonstrated day in, day out, quantity does not equate to quality.

The sheer volume of features filed from barracks all over China serves to give the impression that the PLA is becoming more transparent. Compared to years gone by, it is. Xinhua reporters have never been allowed this level of access before although some reporters had to follow some bizarre procedures to be allowed to interview soliders, none of which I will mention here as they have probably already been classified as state secrets. Unfortunately, many of the features that have crossed my path, many of which I have recommended to be killed, contain glaring trivialities. One report focused on members of the “Blue Army” attacking the “Red Army” in a military exercise, the Blue Army being the PLA’s mock enemy. Here is a teaser:

Major Luo Chuanquan said his 8-year-old son was initially very confused and depressed when he discovered that his father was an “enemy” of the PLA.

“But now he understands and admires what I do,” said Luo, with a beam of pleasure.

Going back to the transparency issue, on Monday, this story was released about the prowess of “China’s third-generation main battle tank” - in fact it is among the most advanced in the world, according to an armoured regiment commander. We weren’t allowed to mention the actual “type” of the tank even though it appears to be common knowledge on the internet - www.sinodefence.com appears to be comprehensive.

Some of the more blatant pieces of propaganda have been enjoyable to deconstruct. One story arrived on Monday, two days before the big day, which told of a detachment of the local Armed Police in Gansu paying a rural Tibetan girl her primary school tuition fees so she wouldn’t have to drop out of school. It began with a tale of hardship before featuring a line from the journalist that signalled a change in tone to one of optimism and that suggested the Party needs to reinforce its atheistic teachings: “But heaven always leaves a door open …”. The main thing that troubled me about this article was the fact that in 2006 Premier Wen Jiabao had announced free compulsory education of nine years in the rural areas. So which was it? The school still charging fees or the local armed police exaggerating?

It turned out to be the latter and the writer, to his credit, immediately acknowledged the article’s flaws rather than arguing its relevance. He had gone to the local branch of the armed police in Lanzhou but the officers weren’t feeling particularly talkative. Instead, they bused in the Tibetan girl - a journey that took her three hours from her home in the middle of nowhere - and asked her to reel off how delighted she was. We finally established the armed police branch gave five girls in the area a total of 200 yuan a year each to help with buying books and clothes. Admirably charitable but hardly worthy of an international boast.

It has been fascinating to observe the whole PLA reporting operation. I sat in my office the other day watching a reporter photocopy reams of PLA-related material, assisted silently by an intern. I considered the huge amount of resources - manpower, money and time - that had gone into writing all these features. I thought about how much of the information would be read or used by other media. The scale of the pointlessness of the task was overwhelming. At best, snippets of features are chopped up and pasted into articles with no mention of Xinhua News Agency, such as in this blog post by Independent correspondent Cliff Coonan. The following paragraph contains the essence of three tedious Xinhua features:

To coincide with the anniversary, local media have been running stories offering an insight into the life of soldiers in the famously secretive army. They are still not allowed to use mobile phones or iPods in many cases, and they still often grow their own food on the grounds of the barracks. Soldiers have found that the introduction of limited internet access on the bases has allowed them to make their voices better heard.

Cliff’s post also included a paragraph from a four-page Xinhua story on how the PLA has developed over 80 years.

“We have no food and uniforms, but enemies will deliver them to us, we have no guns and cannons, but enemies will make them for us,” runs the stirring Song of the Guerilla, which was first written in 1938 and is still a popular marching song today.

Actually, when this feature was injected with an admission that China had received military assistance from the Soviet Union, it was a fairly good read. So if you only read one PLA feature from Xinhua …

The best thing to come out of the military reporting frenzy has been the opportunity for journalists in my department to spend two weeks  at a time staying at barracks in the back of beyond, even if it means, as one reporter had to do, feigning an allergy to alcohol to escape the merciless baijiu drinking competitions. Actually, an interview with the Chinese army’s drinking king would be a good one. One reporter stood with soldiers in Liaoning looking out over the North Korean border at the lights collectively going out early in the evening and the sight of workers going to the fields en masse in the morning. PLA soliders staring quizzically at their curious Communist neighbours. Could make a nice story.

Luckily, there is no danger in me forgetting Xinhua’s PLA coverage over the last few weeks. In fact, plans are afoot to compile all the English stories into a book. I assured the senior editor I wouldn’t be showing it off to my family or future employers. He suggested I tell them that the grammar is mine but not the actual content. Ummm … Although, without wishing to appear like I’m pinning a medal on my own lapel, I do deserve half the credit (the other half to the reporter) for an amusing story on military songs being downloaded to mobile phones despite the releaser slashing a couple of witty paragraphs without remorse.

BEIJING, July 31 (Xinhua) — In an effort to cash in on the 80th anniversary of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), China Unicom, the country’s second largest mobile phone operator, has launched its own military service.

Subscribers will be able to receive military news from the People’s Liberation Army newspaper and download military songs and movies at a cost of between eight and ten yuan a month, or two yuan for each clip or track.

Yu Peng, a senior official with China Unicom, was coy when asked if the service, which has been running for a week, had been in high demand.

“It is too early to say - we are promoting the channel and carrying out market research as well as uploading songs, pictures and movies,” he said.

“I believe it will be popular since we have so many military fans in China. We have more than 300,000 pictures of weapons and military figures in our database along with clips of hundreds of movies, such as Battle for Berlin, Normandy Invasion and Shang Ganling, a movie about the Korean War,” he said.

“I guess I will subscribe to the service when more cool stuff, like the newest jet fighters and nuclear submarines, are added in the channel,” said 28-year-old military nut Yang Yong.

“It’s not just about making money. By doing it, we are celebrating the PLA’s 80th anniversary,” Yu said, “and, in the process, providing more healthy content through mobile phones.”

Rock on, as they say. (If anyone is still interested, “Partying with the PLA - Part 2″ follows tomorrow with a report on an evening spent rubbing shoulders with African generals at the exhibition marking the anniversary. Oh, the perks that come with being classified as a “foreign expert”).

I saw a story - which I deftly passed to my neighbouring polisher - at work the other day which will explain to those living in Hong Kong why the People’s Liberation Army soldiers that travel around the Special Administrative Region (I’m getting more politically correct by the day) are so unswervingly (to quote a popular Foreign Ministry adverb) friendly and polite.

The article featured an interview with a driver of a PLA truck charged with ferrying supplies to the PLA’s Hong Kong garrison from Shenzhen, who was “overwhelmed by capitalist Hong Kong” with its “high-rises, dazzling advertising hoardings and crowds”. Good job the guy had been living in Shenzhen, famed for being at the vanguard of China’s embrace of capitalism, or he might have died from shock. Anyway, as Xinhua reports, surveys conducted by Hong Kong newspapers before the handover showed that only 30 percent of Hong Kong residents supported the PLA’s presence. And the PLA’s self-consciously stern image wasn’t helping.

Whenever the trucks pass, people on the streets would stop to watch, and some would wave to the soldiers on the truck. But to maintain the PLA’s serious image, the drivers are trained to sit ramrod straight and look straight ahead when driving, Li recalled.

“There was little interaction between the soldiers and the HK people, and that alienated the PLA from the Hong Kong people.”

Revolutionary action was needed.

Soon the company incorporated waving and smiling into their daily training.

Some adapted quicker than others.

To train himself how to smile, Ma Wei, an introverted soldier from the vehicle transportation company who seldom smiles, bought himself a pocket mirror. Whenever he had a minute, he would take out the mirror and exercise moving the corners of his mouth upward.

Before long, Ma found he was smiling when he passed the Hong Kong control points, when he saw Hong Kong people on mission, and soon he got into the habit of smiling at his colleagues whenever he saw them.

The results are there for all to see.

They have an excellent image and excellent manners, just like all the other soldiers stationed here,” said one Hong Kong resident. “If there’s a single vegetable leaf left on the ground after they have unloaded the food supplies, the soldiers pick it up and put it in the trash bin.”

Actually, inanity aside, it was interesting to read that the PLA truckers are not allowed to set foot on Hong Kong soil other than inside the confines of their Hong Kong barracks.

We are not allowed to get off the trucks when we are on mission,” Zheng said.

His relatives have asked him many times to bring back gifts from Hong Kong. Zheng has a hard time explaining that he is not allowed to go shopping in HK. “They couldn’t believe me when I told them,” he said.

Clearly, the sight of the PLA down Hong Kong high street would still be a bit too much. Ah, such a waste of their new six-billion yuan uniform range that debuted yesterday. A report by AP on the General’s new clothes resembled that of a disgruntled Premiership football fan who has had to fork out another 50 quid for the new season’s kit which features a subtle collar change and an extra washing instruction label:

The refit received a preview during weekend celebrations of the 10th anniversary of Hong Kong’s handover from British to Chinese rule. Troops marshaled for public events wore a dark green camouflage design, although it wasn’t clear what new features the uniforms possessed.

The Xinhua report explained why the AP reporter was disappointed with first impressions:

Working from the”97 Style”, designers refined the cut and the sizing of the uniforms to enhance the appearance of the wearers. The new casual uniform for spring and autumn fit more tightly because they have been taken in the chest, waist and bust. Female servicemen will find their shoe heels have grown by a centimeter from the previous four centimeters.

Maybe the PLA should put replicas on general sale to try and recoup some of that cash.