Beijing Newspeak

I could never get into the X-Files. I found the lack of continuity between episodes incredibly frustrating. Maybe it was the desperate-to-be-romantic in me - the series arrived at that difficult early to mid teenage phase. Just as the sexual tension between Mulder and Scully threatened to bubble to the surface, the episode would end and when the next one was beamed in a week later, it was like the lingering stare had never happened. (End of over elaborate analogy).

Xinhua is rather like the X-Files. Not in the paranormal sense. Ahem. Xinhua, and indeed other state media, often release stand-alone episodes in which there is no recognition of the fact a particular topic has previously been touched upon. An example is the rural healthcare issue. After Xinhua released a couple of stories about how people on low wages in the countryside were finding it impossible to afford hospital fees, even driving people to suicide, we still received reports proclaiming the virtues of the rural healthcare system with absolutely no caveat in sight.

So it was with unsurprised annoyance that I saw a story being released earlier in the week lauding the birth of 84 tiger cubs at the Harbin Siberian tiger artificial breeding base/park/farm. The report was an advert for the success of the park’s breeding program. I have covered this topic before, highlighting a piece of good journalism by the Xinhua journalist in the Harbin bureau, which revealed that the primary concern of Liu Dan, one of the park’s top brass, was the abolition of the ban on the sale of tiger parts rather than coming up with ways in which tigers bred in captivity can be released into the wild. He has complained in the past about over population and the need to exercise birth control because the park is becoming too crowded. Clearly, he felt it was best not to mention this aspect this time around - maybe it will come later in the year in an another statement of complaint.

These two stories were written by the same writer, who told me a few months ago that she believed the Hengdaohezi Feline Breeding Center (to quote the Harbin park’s full name) should technically be referred to as a farm. Oh well, at least duplicating a press release is another notch on her monthly quota.

Only a day later, another X-Files moment. China Daily had this story, quoting the State Forestry Administration, which began:

China will not promise to maintain a 14-year ban on the trade of bones from captive-bred tigers for traditional medicine, a senior official said yesterday.

“The ban is in place,” said Wang Wei, deputy director of the department of wildlife conservation of the State Forestry Administration in an exclusive interview with China Daily. “But the issue is open for review.”

He added that the administration will make a decision after conducting comprehensive studies on whether the lifting of the ban would reduce poaching and help conservation of tigers in the wild globally.

“The ban won’t be there forever, given the strong voices from tiger farmers, experts and society,” Wang said.

This story had no mention of the China Daily report from May 31 - by the same writer - which, quoting the State Forestry Administration, had begun:

Forestry authorities have pledged to maintain the 14-year-old ban on trade in all tiger derivatives despite intense lobbying from commercial groups to lift the ban.

Liu Xiongying, spokesman for the State Forestry Administration (SFA), said the government remains committed to the policy, introduced in 1993 to wipe out the market for traditional medicines made from tigers.

“China will strengthen the crackdown on illegal trade of tiger parts and forge cooperation with other countries to protect tiger habitats,” Liu told China Daily.

I can imagine it now. Harbin park witnesses the birth of 84 cubs. What the hell are we going to do with them?! Liu Dan phones up the park’s well connected investors who are fed up of losing money. They call the State Forestry Administration, who appeases them with a ”never say never” statement to the press. And the whole saga starts again.

Calls from within China to lift the ban on the trade of tiger parts have been widely publicised over the last month. I didn’t get a chance to mention Xinhua’s recent story on the issue before going on holiday so I might as well do it now.

The article featured a revealing interview with Liu Dan, chief engineer of the Harbin tiger park. The park is known in the Xinhua database as “the world’s largest Siberian tiger breeding base” and over the past few years there have been several stories detailing the efforts of Liu Dan and his colleagues to reintroduce tigers into the wild. But this latest interview exposes the Harbin park as a fraud.

I was actually under the false impression that the park was funded by the local government but it is a private venture and therefore primarily a business. In the Xinhua report, Liu says the legalisation of the trade of tiger parts is his “dream”. It is obvious that money has always been the preoccupation of the park. In fact, the opinion of the writer of this story is that “park” is far too generous a term - it is a farm just like this one in Guilin.

I visited the park in January and it was a truly depressing experience. A convoy of jeeps trundling through a series of caged enclosures each containing far too many tigers per square metre. I’m no expert but it looked as if there was no effort whatsoever to prepare these animals for the wild. The South China Morning Post reported in 2005 that an agreement had been reached among animal parks and zoos to stop feeding live prey to animals in front of visitors. The menu in the Harbin park says 1,000 yuan for a live cow. And in December last year, a Xinhua report quoted Liu as saying ”some tigers had become friends”. Hardly preparation for the Siberian wilderness.

In hindsight, the proposal by Liu to lift the ban was inevitable. For the last couple of years, he has complained of overpopulation even though the park has just been meeting targets set in 2002. And he is spending two million yuan a year to keep more than 100 dead tigers in freezers. Meanwhile, the park is no closer to being able to release an artifically-bred Siberian tiger into the wild for the first time. This next bit is very cynical: back in November last year the park manager said that the tigers were being kept hungry for one day a week to “arouse their wild instincts” - what a great way to save a few bob!

Statistics prove that the ban on tiger trade imposed by the Chinese government in 1993 has been a success. Yet, Liu ignores them. Apparently the park’s investors are flexing their sizeable ”guanxi” but surely the international outcry would be too great for the government to rescind the ban. Having said that, it would be a lot cheaper than having to bail out  5,000 captive-bred tigers. It seems the only solution is for the government to provide enough funding to ensure the focus of the Harbin park is on reintroducing tigers into the wild rather than keeping the freezers running.