Xinhua Daily Telegraph
January 18, 2008

Today's Xinhua Daily Telegraph leads with an editorial counseling municipal leaders to "deal with hot issues soberly and carefully."

What hot issues? The short piece, which was republished in a number of newspapers today, does not say specifically. It's even more circumspect than the "reason and order" editorial that appeared in the Jiefang Daily on the 15th—that piece at least had the courtesy to name the particular municipality to which it was referring.

In this article, Shen Haixiong, general editor of Xinhua's Shanghai branch, starts off by quoting "a leader's words" without revealing the individual's name, and then goes on to discuss how officials should deal with disputes between the public and the government. The reader is left to guess that this must be a response to the demonstration in downtown Shanghai last week during which thousands of Shanghainese expressed their dissatisfaction with the way a maglev construction project was being handled. And the "leader" must be Yu Zhengsheng, party secretary of Shanghai.

This editorial is actually the first time the domestic media has mentioned Yu Zhengsheng's words, which were reported earlier by the overseas Chinese media. According to those reports, Yu urged the city to "handle things soberly, move deliberately, and use force cautiously"; Shen leaves off the last of the three instructions, but includes an additional quote from Yu that had not been previously reported: "As long as specific problems remain unresolved and a large segment of the public remains unconvinced, do not rush to action." The article paints a picture of local leaders dismayed at the reaction their beneficial public works projects receive from an ignorant public, but Shen advises them not to fly into a rage at the first sign of opposition. Instead, they should determine whether the objections have merit or if they are merely trouble-making, and then respond accordingly. For its part, the public should be disabused of the notion that large-scale protests are an appropriate response to large-scale dissatisfaction.

At the center of today's awkward layout is a photo showing happy migrant workers getting on the train to return home after the Hangzhou government helped them obtain back-pay.

Other headlines:

• Housing prices in 70 major Chinese cities last month were an average of 10.5% higher than the at same time the previous year;
• The Guangdong Superior Court ordered the Guangzhou Intermediate Court to conduct a new trial in the Xu Ting ATM robbery case;
• According to CNNIC, China's online population has reached 210 million netizens. Later this year, China is expected to have more Internet users than the US.