Main | April 22, 2007 - April 28, 2007 »
In a case touching on the question of journalist identity in China and recalling the recent Lan Chengzhang story, a local Zhejiang court overturned a prior verdict in the "news extortion" case of Meng Huaihu (孟怀虎), former Zhejiang bureau chief for China Commercial Times, who was accused of extorting money from companies using the threat of negative news reports.
The story is believed to be the most detailed account ever written about one of the world's most interesting and – through her marriage - most powerful women.
After receiving the story several weeks ago, editor Judith Whelan this week decided not to publish – although Crikey is unaware whether Fairfax senior executives or board members were consulted in making the decision. But given its enormous sensitivity, not to mention the fact that News Limited is currently a 7.5% shareholder in Fairfax, it seems almost impossible to believe that the most senior figures at Fairfax were not consulted in the decision to kill the story.
Could it be that bloggers will now fill the gap and provide some of the investigative journalism that is missing from the equation? Unlikely, say leading Chinese journalists. Despite greater freedom that has been promised to foreign journalists during the period leading up to the Beijing Olympics in 2008, Chinese journalists are operating under rules that could get stricter rather than looser. In an interview earlier this year with RFA, Li Datong, former editor-in-chief of a groundbreaking investigative magazine that belonged to the China Youth Daily, expressed doubt that the Olympics would bring any positive change. Li himself was fired last year after publishing a number of sensitive articles, and his magazine supplement, Freezing Point, was shut down.
I believe that more than one English-language website has cited this story and so how could the mainstream media (especially the television stations that are following this story) not be aware of it? How could the many continuously updated newspaper websites not be aware of it? But they did not cite this story. Why? It is for the reasons that I listed in my response to the netizen. But most of the Chinese-language websites cited the story and they even omitted name the source in those citations. This gives the readers the impression that they obtained the information themselves. It is understandable that the Chinese-language websites want to report on a case involving "shooting"+"Chinese." But precisely because the rumored shooter was Chinese, they should have considered the misleading effects from an inaccurate source.
Late last month, a husband-wife migrant laborer couple from China’s poverty-stricken Henan province working in Beijing killed themselves, leaving two teenage children to fend for themselves. Last week, Beijing-based Sohu blogger Li Yuanyuan took her camera and went to the younger child’s school to see how the community has reacted. In less than a week, the post has already received over 1,200 comments and been viewed over 48,000 times.
That's a possible secondary reason for limited coverage of Monday's killings. I have no idea if it was part of the decision-making process or not. But there is a very clear need for a serious rethink of policy. If the killer had been Chinese, China's censorship of the story would have turned a crime committed by one disturbed individual into an international story about China. The propaganda bosses would have produced the very thing they were trying to avoid. Do they understand this at all?
Biganzi: I noticed in your SMS you advertised the Christian stations?
Zhang: Yes. Especially the Chinese language channel from Taiwan. A lot of people here are really want looking for it, but they don't know how to get it. It's called hao xiaoxi. Good TV (好消息衛星電視台). It's from Taiwan.
B: Would you say the Christian channels are your biggest selling point?
Z: Maybe not the biggest. Phoenix might be the biggest. But demand for the Christian channels is pretty big.
B: I've noticed that even when all the other channels are jammed, the Christian channels are fine. Why is that?
Z: That's because they don't add encryption their signal. So there's no code to descramble
B: Why? Because they want to spread the gospel?
Z: I suppose so. They hope that everyone can watch.
Children speak like Hong Kong movie gangsters. A brave new world for modern Chinese? Or the end of civil discourse? Educator and columnist Wu Fei looks back at the language of the Cultural Revolution for clues to the effects of this new slang.
Chen Chunfang, one of the hospital administrators, summed up the purpose succinctly. “The Olympics are coming, and everyone wants to show their best,” she said.
Beijing, of course, is a sophisticated city that is the cultural and political capital of China. Nor it is alone is being accused of public boorishness; some people have even accused, say, New Yorkers of occasional displays of foul language and unflattering public behavior.
Still, some Communist Party officials have publicly fretted that Beijing may not measure up. One delegate at the country’s annual political meetings in March recommended heavy fines and a public education campaign to curb spitting, cutting ahead in line, smoking and foul language.
Wahaha’s shareholder structure is extremely complicated, according to this newspapers investigation, there are only over 100 companies that have the three letter name “Wa Ha Ha”. According to Zong Qinghou, among them are: the post-restructuring Hangzhou Wahaha Group Co, 39 subsidiary JV companies with Danone, and there are even more employee (management) stock held “NJVEs”
These NJVE’s began to grow in strength after the 2000 reorganization, Danone’s President for Asia Fan Yimou stated: “Especially in the last 18 months” the NJVEs have had explosive growth. Until present, the total sum of these companies has reached 61 with total assets reaching 5.6 billion yuan, and in 2006 only, total profits reached 1.04 Billion Yuan.
The NJVE’s made Danone furious and they put forward the demand of buying 51% of shareholders rights for a price of 4 Billion yuan.
Dingzihu (钉子户) is a Chinese word that means a household or person who refuses to vacate their home to make way for real estate development. Virtual China translates the word as 'nail house' because "they stick out like nails in an otherwise modernized environment".
Wang is not afraid to poke fun at sacred cows or to curse China's excitable young Internet users. His acerbic style and sense of humor have made him your correspondent's favorite Chinese blogger. In person, he does not disappoint.
We discussed Beijing culture — or the lack of of it — swearing, idiots on the Internet, Northeastern Chinese jokes about sex, blogging, and the meretricious behavior of Sina.com. This ten minute program was cut from 40 minutes of tape. If you understand Chinese, you can listen to the whole interview as an audio podcast on this post.
On the eve of Chinese New Year in 1961, our father gave us one line from a couplet and asked us to make up the second line. His line was 'The big stomach gets a meal.' My elder brother responded with 'The bottom of the wok is empty.' It didn't really make a couplet but it became a family saying nonetheless. None of us has forgotten it.
The second half of 1960 was the worst of all. I'd just started my fifth year of primary school and all we ever had for breakfast was watery rice porridge. Sometimes we didn't even have that. For lunch I'd buy a bowl of pulpy noodles at the neighborhood mess hall. Thinking about it now I realize that the mess hall was a remnant of the Great Leap Forward. You couldn't really call them noodles because there were hardly any there; it was just slop with a few bits of vegetable floating in it, and those were mostly rotten or the outer leaves that you'd normally throw away. How could you produce a big bowl without them?
Foreign journalists are almost never permitted into Tibet except on once-a-year trips organized and monitored by the Foreign Ministry. I requested formal approval to come from a high-level Foreign Ministry official, and was referred to his counterpart in Lhasa, the Tibetan capital. No answer. So I came in as a tourist on the train. State security sniffed our little group out immediately.
Since arriving in Tibet, one travel agency has blocked our attempts to go anywhere except an innocuous trip to see some glaciers. A well dressed man, Mr. Chen Yong, who claims to be the agency's manager but has the bearing of a state security official, has offered me lengthy lectures on how I should not talk to any Tibetans because of my status as a "tourist." After ordering our forcible return over the weekend, the agency said we could finally go to Everest on Tuesday. On Monday evening, the agency informed us that our trip was called off. They have retained the traveling papers of one companion, making him temporarily stateless.
We've been warned again to stay in our hotel rooms.