BEIJING, Jan. 10 (Xinhua) — The Chinese mainland could see its first official bet placed on a horse race since the Communist Party came to power in 1949 as early as next year.

The central government has approved the establishment of regular horse racing in Wuhan, capital of central China’s Hubei Province, and is mulling over the introduction of gambling on the races in 2009.

The races would be held at the Orient Lucky City racecourse in Wuhan in September this year, according to a senior manager with the Orient Lucky Horse Group Cooperation, who did not want to be named.

The announcement is being seen as the beginning of gambling on horse racing on the Chinese mainland.

This story had to be approved by the people upstairs before its release although the big potatoes, as the chieftans are often called in the Xinhua newsroom, only saw the unedited version. When I received the story, it had been peppered with the phrase “horse racing lotteries”, seemingly to play down the implications of legalizing organized gambling on horse racing, which was outlawed in 1949. The writer was concerned about my insertion of the word “gambling” because of its negative connotations - officially the Communist Party still regards the practice as more depraved than the debauched hugging craze that threatened to suck all the morals out of Shanghai in 2006. Thankfully, it remained and I was surprised the headline, “China hints at legalization of gambling on horse racing” (which is perfectly true of course) was allowed to stay. Other releasers, the kind that spontaneously combust when they see the words ”censor” or “protest” regardless of context, would have butchered the story.

Wuhan’s Changjiang Times (I suppose the English name is actually Yangtze Times) reported that betting would accompany the beginning of racing in September. I’m not sure if the newspaper was wrong or the manager of the Orient Lucky Horse Group was being more cautious when speaking to Xinhua but it seems punt-hungry Chinese will have to wait until 2009.

The Changjiang Times newspaper in Wuhan reported that betting will be launched alongside horse racing in September.

However, the manager told Xinhua betting on the races would probably not be introduced on a trial basis until 2009.

“Initially about 250 horses from different jockey clubs around the country will participate in the races,” said the manager, “but betting can only be officially launched when the races draw at least 2,000 horses.”

“The proposal of betting on horse racing is being reviewed and discussed but there is no concrete information on when or whether it will begin,” a spokeswoman with the China Sports Lottery Administration Center (CSLC) surnamed Fang told Xinhua by telephone.

I was wondering how long it would take before the government could no longer justify placing morality above money. From super casinos in Macau to cockfights in Yunnan to a dice game inolving cumbersome wooden blocks, a different animal painted on each side, in farmers’ markets in Guizhou, the Chinese love a good gamble. Just ask those excitable grannies in the branch of China Minzu Securities opposite Xinhua’s west gate that bet on cards when the stock exchange is on its lunch break. The money being wafted under the government’s collective nose is huge, plus the theory that illegal gambling will be a thing of the past:

Qin Zunwen, an expert in the study of horse racing betting, said the business, once fully operational nationwide, could create three million jobs a year.

He told the Changjiang Times that annual lottery sales could reach a staggering 100 billion yuan (13.7 billion U.S. dollars), yielding 40 billion yuan in tax revenues,

“Offering a legal venue to bet on horse races could drive out illegal online gambling,” he added.

This article on Bloodhorse.com makes an important point:

It has been estimated that about 600 billion yuan (US$82.5 million) leaves the mainland each year for gambling in offshore casinos and racecourses.

The article goes on to provide reaction from the Hong Kong Jockey Club:

The Hong Kong Jockey Club was cautiously optimistic over the move last night, with chief executive Winfried Engelbrecht-Bresges describing it as “a positive development, if the report proves to be correct.”

He did say, however, that HKJC had given the Wuhan Jockey Club the rights to duplicate the HKJC’s book of rules to give the new racing industry a proper legal and policy framework. Engelbrecht-Bresges also said the Jockey Club would consider helping the WJC and the central government set up racing, if it were asked, provided the club was convinced there was a commitment to creating something of real quality and value.

Engelbrecht-Bresges said the Hong Kong Jockey Club had an internationally recognized brand name that had to be protected, and that any potential association with racing on the mainland would have to be on the basis that the project would be of “the highest standard.”

Interest among the public in Wuhan is already there:

A survey conducted by the Hubei Academy of Social Sciences revealed that 83.3 percent of the Wuhan residents believed the introduction of betting would have a positive social impact, and 51 percent of the respondents said they were “interested” or “very interested” in gambling on the races.

This news will no doubt come of great interest to Hong Kong businessman Chung Yun Pun, who funded the establishment of a racecourse in the suburbs of Beijing in 2002 at a cost of $100m, only for it to close down late in 2005. The government had shown no sign of lifting the ban on gambling and without bettting revenues, the racecourse could not survive. The Guardian reported that around 600 horses were culled. I have heard that a breeding program has continued quietly at the Beijing track so if the Wuhan trial is a success, horse racing in Beijing could be up and running again in a couple of years or so.

BEIJING, Oct. 14 (Xinhua) — Journalists who cover the coming 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) will enjoy broader coverage scope and more considerate service during the five-yearly meeting, said congress spokesman Li Dongsheng Sunday afternoon.

Discussions of 34 delegations on the political report to be delivered by Hu Jintao on behalf of the 16th CPC Central Committee on Monday will be open to more than 1,900 domestic and overseas journalists at designated period of time, Li said at a press conference.

Li said journalists are welcomed to listen to the discussions, which used to be inaccessible to media, and will be fed with question and answer sessions, adding the move is part of the country’s efforts to offer overseas media broader information access during the Olympics.

Great news (tempered by the fact the information will be mere morsels requiring serious hamming up) for foreign journalists, bad news for Xinhua. Over the last few years, the government’s various ministries have set up regular press conferences open to the foreign media and many kindly provide the minutes of the briefings on their websites. Unfortunately, this goes a long way in negating the need for Xinhua’s English service. It seems that Xinhua copy will be used even less by the foreign media at this year’s five-yearly congress so it’s not looking good for 2012. But it doesn’t have to be all doom and gloom. Only a simple reform is needed to ensure Xinhua’s output does not just simply disappear into the ether.

Mr President, I would like to propose a full-time tabloid news department. Journalists will focus on the inane, comical and downright filthy goings-on from around the country. I guarantee the number of Xinhua stories picked up by international news websites will increase tenfold. The Reuters “Oddly Enough” section is a shoe-in. And please do not concern yourself with credibility issues - it can’t get much worse. Reporters unite to spread toilet humour!

I refer you to Xinhua’s recent scoop about Beijing car drivers being pissed off (I wanted to use this pun instead of “flushed with embarrassment” in the original headline but it didn’t fit Xinhua’s style) at the letters “WC” appearing on around 800 newly-issued licence plates. Here it is in its full glory:

SOME Beijing motorists are kicking up a fuss over license plate numbers that contain the letter combination “WC,” saying it gives them unpleasant images of the toilet, according to the Beijing Morning Post.

Eight hundred drivers applying for new license plates outside the capital’s fifth ring road will find themselves with “WC” on their cars.

The term became one of the best-known English expressions in China when it was used to identify public toilets.

“I will not make myself a laughing stock among my friends by adding such a weird abbreviation to my new car,” said a car owner surnamed Zhang.

However, a Beijing policeman in charge of issuing license plates in the city would not be moved. “We will not change our policy,” he said.

It is not the first time sensitive car drivers in China have raised their objections to license plate numbers.

In Xinyang City, central China’s Henan Province, “SB” has been removed from possible license plate combinations because it coincides with an abbreviation used on Internet forums for a strong term of abuse in Mandarin.

Traffic authorities in the south China city of Haikou removed the number four from the city’s number plates in August as it is considered unlucky by Chinese - it sounds like “death” when pronounced in Mandarin.

A simple formula. Take the story straight from the local Beijing newspapers - which probably came from one grumpy bloke phoning up the newspaper office in true local news journalism style -, log onto an Internet forum to get an extra quote and whack in a couple of background pars. Resist the urge to point out that seeing the word “POO” at the end of registration plates in Britain is perfectly normal. Reuters reproduces it and the story ends up being dispersed around the world, including Azerbaijan.

Mr President, if I could just remind you of some of Xinhua’s previous triumphs over the last year and a half. The one about China Southern Airlines trying to save fuel by encouraging people not to use the toilet mid-flight (if anyone has actually seen this put in practice, please let me know). The one about Olympic souvenirs being made out of panda poo. And anything to do with the world’s tallest man Bao Xishun. These stories will stay in the minds of newspaper readers all around the world and are set to define China in the early 21st Century.

The AP reporter wrote a fairly matter-of-fact story on the landmark stroll around the office compound, choosing to focus on a senior official’s comments that corruption among Party officials is falling. Xinhua seemed genuinely concerned as to whether the foreign reporters were having a good time, noting that Shiozawa Eiichi, a Kyodo News journalist, wanted to see things in more detail next time (presumptuous really given the next CPC congress after October isn’t for another five years) and that The Australian correspondent Rowan Callick thought more time should have been allocated to the Q&A session. The AFP reporter took a sardonic approach to convey how the commission puts the “open” in open day with this article cheekily headlined “Little sign of overwork in China’s anti-graft body”. Here’s an entertaining chunk:

Case workers greeted the visitors politely from behind spotless desks unburdened by the files and documents that would indicate corruption is a growing problem.

“We do not get all the cases at once. They come in steadily and we handle them quickly,” Liu Zhenbao, an official in charge of case reviews, cheerfully told reporters.

The body’s case-inspection department seemed nearly deserted. The explanation: staff are all out in the field investigating cases.

And officials repeatedly pleaded that “time is short, it is time to move on” when pressed with sensitive questions about the nexus of corruption and politics in China.

To be fair to the disciplinary commission, you don’t leave coffee-stained files piled high on your desk when you have visitors (and there has to be some sort of evidence that corruption is down). But the whistlestop nature of the press tour was evident.

“This is a reflection of our openness and the development of democracy in China,” Chi said, before reporters were hurried onto a waiting bus.

So corruption cases are down and no one is doing any work. I was wondering why the State Council felt the need to set up another anti-graft department, the National Bureau for Corruption Prevention, just over a week ago. The establishment of this agency and the subsequent appointment of Minister of Supervison Ma Wen as its head left everyone wondering, what does the Ministry of Supervision do then?

According to this China Daily report, the significance of the new bureau is clear.

The setting up of the National Bureau of Corruption Prevention (NBCP) signifies the opening of a new front that can “nip corruption in the bud”.

The paper doesn’t give a reason for the quotation marks but, to its credit, does go on to present a balanced and informative story by interviewing Tsinghua University professor Ren Jianming.

Tsinghua University professor Ren Jianming thinks it’s imperative that a “comparatively independent institution” will improve corruption prevention policies. “It will be much better (because) sometimes certain departments’ proposals are laced with vested interests.”

I agree, comparative independence is vital. So why are the head and deputy head of the bureau and the Ministry of Supervision the same people? It continues:

But experts doubt whether the 30-member bureau will live up to people’s expectations. Ren worries “whether the bureau will have enough talent and professionals to detect corruption at source in so many complicated fields”.

“It will become a beautiful but useless vase if it’s made up of all kinds of officials and staff who can only do some administrative things instead of the vital research work.” Hence Ren suggests the bureau introduce “outside brains” by inviting some professionals from certain fields to overcome the difficulty.

A few experts are also worried that the State-level bureau will prompt local governments to form similar organizations, resulting in over-swollen staff and more supervisory cost.

Though NBCP chief Ma Wen brushes aside such worries saying that at present local governments don’t have any intention to set up similar organizations, Li (Chengyan, Peking University professor) feels local governments would do so, but maybe under a different name.

“We expect to see all anti-corruption resources being gradually incorporated into one bureau, which will be more independent and effective,” Li says.

The bureau lacks independence so is destined, ultimately, to fail. This problem can of course be traced right down to the local level, where recent efforts to increase supervision in China’s villages were exposed as relatively worthless. Take this recent Xinhua story which features a district government official in Ningxia exalting a new “village supervisor” system. Apparently complaints are down by half since supervisors were introduced to the region’s villages in November 2006. Ask enough questions though and the fact that strips away the credibility of the system emerges:

However, it remains to be seen how effective the scheme, which has also been introduced to Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, Jiangxi, Hunan and Guangxi, will be in the long-term.

Eighty percent of the newly-appointed village supervisors in Ningxia are actually the deputy heads of the villages and receive no extra salary to perform the role of supervisor.

Again, insufficient independence. Any corruption that may be occurring at village level would surely involve the head and deputy head of the village. So if the dodgy deputy head is appointed to supervise his immediate superior they can carry on as normal. In fact, it’s no wonder the volume of complaints is down. Villagers petition the new “village supervisor” who can choose whether or not to pass the complaints, which might implicate him in shady dealing, higher up.

Gordon C Chang, author of “The Coming Collapse of China (it is coming, honest!)”, saw the establishment of the National Bureau of Corruption Prevention as an opportunity to denounce Communism in general in this article in Commentary Magazine. Some snippets:

Corruption has reached new levels in China because of the Communist Party’s insistence on political monopoly. Such rampant corruption nearly guarantees that problems will not be dealt with effectively.

and:

Beijing is now reduced to imposing death sentences on corrupt officials and announcing four-month campaigns to stop bad products. But we know that corruption makes all these efforts meaningless. And adding another sprawling bureaucracy won’t help. After all, the most corrupt organization in China—the Communist Party—cannot discipline itself.

The reactionary tone of this piece does make me cringe, particularly his Soviet Union angle and his quick rejection of the long-term value in China tightening its regulatory system. Still, I’ll certainly agree with this line: “another sprawling bureaucracy won’t help”.