Beijing Newspeak

No effort was spared to ensure Xinhua’s journalistic performance scaled similar heights to China’s first lunar orbiter Chang’e-1 yesterday. At 11:20, the headline “THIS IS A TEST” popped up on the wire. Unfortunately someone missed a bit so ten minutes later, “FLASH: THIS IS A TEST” appeared. It was repeated four more times for good measure as it became clear editors had a lot less faith in the agency’s technology than China’s space bods had in theirs. Or maybe it was out of superstition - the special lunar news centre had been set up on the dreaded floor four.

At 14:52, Xinhua began its bombardment with a “China counting down …” story that was updated throughout the afternoon, punctuated by a few ”BACKGROUNDERS” and, oh there it goes again, “FLASH: THIS IS A TEST”. And again. And one more for luck. “THIS IS A TEST”.

Then, at 18:05, the moment arrived. A call from a Xinhua journalist at the landing site in Sichuan confirmed blast off. The mouse was clicked. The headline was filed. “FLASH: CHINA’S LUNAR PROBE CHANG’E-1 BLASTS OFF.” Cheers and applause on floor four. Successful launch of story onto international wire, foreign press defeated. And it was a full 15 minutes before a glaring grammatical mistake was made in the subsequent updates.

Critics of China’s space program argue the money could be better spent elsewhere. To illustrate their point, they hold up images like the one of a man from the Yi ethnic minority in rural Sichuan ploughing his field using medieval technology, while a Long March carrier rocket looms in the background. The Chinese government is aware this feeling exists which explains the headlines released by Xinhua in the minutes after the rocket launch:

“China’s lunar project only costs one billion yuan: chief”. “Senior lunar scientist says nation should have adventurous spirit”. And then at 19:20, to reaffirm the explicitly political nature of the event, the full text of Hu Jintao’s report to the 17th Party Congress was released.

However, it seems the government has little to worry about as, for the time being at least, the majority appear to be behind the lunar program.

On tianya.cn’s public forum one person wrote a list of 50 criticisms of Chang’e-1. Here are some of them:

1. What is great about Chang E No 1? Look, even India’s preparing to go to the moon, China’s skill level is simply not good enough.

2. Ordinary people can’t afford a house, see a doctor or read books, but the government wastes money building Chang’e.

3. The authoritarian Chang’e lifts off, the impoverished ordinary people’s tax is squandered.　　　　　　　　　　　
　　　　　　　
4. Taxpayers’ money is spent by the government on this face-saving project, only a dictator government could do this kind of thing.

These comments prompted a barrage of criticism from the overwhelming majority of forum users who praised the project. “You’re not mentally balanced,” one said. “Is there any country in the world that hasn’t got societal problems?” one more asked. Another said, “It’s typical of people like you to oppose anything that the Chinese Communist Party does.”

The views on the news.qq.com forum were more balanced with a roughly 50-50 spilt between those in favour of the project and those against.

One person implied that China’s pensioners were not getting as much money as they should due to the cost of Chang’e. “Is going to the moon really a must for every country? I don’t know, but anyway I’m not interested and what’s more I won’t feel proud (America went to the moon 40 years ago). If we must go to the moon then go, but first we must give the money to the ordinary people. This year the media have really hyped this event up and the result is pensioners from our business every month are only getting an extra 70 yuan. Does our country have no money?”

Another person on qq said, “This really is a waste of money and it doesn’t matter how many times you say it but this still is at base level and it’s only repeating what’s been done before. China’s cars, televisions, refridgerators, mobile phones and other kinds of goods all have to rely on assembly from different sources. When China can make goods that are as popular globally as Japan’s … then we should think about building a space program.”

One Xinhua journalist I spoke to supported the program, saying it was “good for China”. But when he realised that the future aim of the project was to put a man on the moon by 2020 he changed his tune. “Total waste of money. We can use machinery to explore the moon, we don’t need a man up there.”

Another journalist said she thought it was a positive thing but she wanted the government to give her specific reasons why the project will benefit China. This, I feel, is an important point. The nature of the Chinese media - and the Publicity Department of course - means the reporting of this issue has a heavily patriotic and didactic tone, with inadequate emphasis placed on the concrete, scientific benefits of the space program. They need less of this (via Xinhua):

A SENIOR scientist said the ongoing lunar probe program reflected the great adventurous spirit of humanity, and that the Chinese nation should have such a spirit.

China’s space exploration, like that of other countries, belongs to humanity, and such exploration is an obligation and responsibility China should take, according to Luan Enjie, chief commander of China’s lunar orbiter project.

And more of this (via Xinhua):

The possibility of mining the moon for its helium-3 is a major task of the lunar probe. This non-polluting and potent element with almost no radioactive by-products is considered by many scientists to be the perfect fusion energy source to replace oil and gas once the depth of the moon’s soil and the quantity and distribution of helium-3 are measured.

“We will explore the new energy prospects on the moon for mankind. After all, the Earth’s resources are not inexhaustible,” said Ouyang Ziyuan, chief scientist of the lunar program, adding there is about 15 tons of helium-3 on the Earth, while the volume of helium-3 on the Moon is estimated at one to five million tons.

“When obtaining nuclear power from helium-3 becomes a reality, the resource on the moon can be used to generate electricity for more than 10,000 years for the whole world,” Ouyang said.

As things stand, it is very difficult to argue the money should be spent elsewhere. The cost of launching the lunar orbiter is 1.4 billion yuan, which (I like this stat) is equivalent to the money spent on building two subway stations in Beijing. Compare that with the seven billion yuan of Chinese government funds misappropriated in 2006. And then there is the fact that Japan and India are forging ahead with their own space programs, the argument that the money could always appear to be better spent elsewhere in any country etc .. So when the costs of China’s space program start rising, maybe the government should, through the media, point out the practicalities to the people rather than just playing the pride card.

Related link: There is a nice video on Shanghaiist here featuring enthusiastic whoops from the pro-space camp.