China: the War is going on

The excellent Reuters article posted below raises an interesting question, what is a rumor?
The authors say: “China's crackdown on online ‘rumor-mongering’, widely seen as a tool to halt criticism of the ruling Communist Party, has chilled political discourse, with high-profile bloggers saying they have reined in sensitive posts for fear of detention”.
When read with a commentary of The Beijing Daily, entitled ‘Do Not Leave Space for Universal Values’, it makes it more frightening
On September 2, 2013, Beijing Daily advocated ‘ideological education’.
The article was later reprinted by many major State media.
The Beijing Daily argued that “if China does not engage in ideological struggle, it could disintegrate and perish, in the same manner as the former Soviet Union and the Eastern Block.”
For the past 2 decades, this has been the main fear of the leadership in Zhongnanhai.
The Beijing Daily goes very far by saying: “Especially for those people who preach the so-called ‘universal values,’ ‘constitutional democracy’, ‘freedom,’ and other fallacies, we cannot give any space or assistance at any time to those malicious attacks on the Party's leadership and the socialist system, to speeches that distort the history of the Party and the country, and to information that spreads rumors. We must take action to control what must be controlled, and punish those who violate the law.”
In other words, the Party is always right. It has never committed any crime, whether it is during the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, the Tiananmen events or today when censures and suppresses its own people, particularly in 'minorities' areas such Tibet and Xinjiang.
The Beijing Daily admits that “today, the Internet has become the main battlefield for ideological struggle.”
Unfortunately, the Party sees a foreign hand everywhere (read the United States), even when the Chinese people try to express their concerns and aspirations, through the only means they have at their disposal, the Internet.
The article asserts: “The Western anti-China forces seek to advance this ‘biggest variable’ to ‘topple China.’ Whether we can hold up and win in the battlefield directly relates to the security of our ideology and the ruling Party's power.”
The Party leadership is so nervous to lose its grip on ‘the People’ that they consider the ongoing battle as a War for survival of the Party: “We do not see gunfire in this ideological struggle, but all the same - it is a matter of life and death. … Dare to fight and dare to show the sword. That is the choice we must make now!”
The leadership sees it like this.

Strengthen Faith in Marxism and Communism 
A week later (on September 9), The People’s Daily published an article on ‘the importance of propaganda and ideological work in China’.
According to the Party’s main mouthpiece: “The Key Is to Strengthen Most Party Cadres’ Faith in Marxism and Communism”
Luo Shugang, the Deputy Minister of the Propaganda Department of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee, elaborates on Party Secretary Xi Jinping’s speech at the National Propaganda and Ideological Work Conference (on August 9).
Here are the five recommendations of Mr. Luo:

1) The key is to strengthen most Party cadres’ faith in Marxism and Communism; strengthen the entire Party, the nation, and the People of different ethnic groups’ faith in socialism with Chinese characteristics.
2) Resolutely obey the CCP Central Committee led by General Secretary Xi Jinping, and resolutely safeguard the authority of the CCP Central Committee.
3) Always adhere to principle of the Party's control of media. The Chinese Communist Party has the absolute leadership position over all media and communication channels at all different levels.
4) Punish those who spread ‘rumors’ and ‘harmful information’ on the Internet.
5) Guide people to look more at the bright side. Announce the full scope of authoritative information in a timely manner so as to suppress negative information and wrong views. Constantly reinforce the people’s trust and confidence.

Several questions remain, first how long can this work?
How long can the aspirations of the people for more freedom be suppressed? How long can the Party retain ‘absolute leadership position over all media’ in an economically freer society?
Last question: why are the Party’s leaders sending their kids for education in the United States?
The only thing which can be said is that the situation is not healthy.
I thought that China was aspiring to be a ‘normal’ great power?
Stalinist policies won’t help.

China crackdown on online rumors seen as ploy to nail critics
Reuters
By Megha Rajagopalan and Adam Rose
BEIJING (Reuters) - China's crackdown on online "rumor-mongering", widely seen as a tool to halt criticism of the ruling Communist Party, has chilled political discourse, with high-profile bloggers saying they have reined in sensitive posts for fear of detention.
Lawyers and activists called the crackdown a significant, if crude, expansion of powers to police the Internet and a blow to those who rely on microblogs to disseminate information that is often not monitored as strictly as traditional media.
"I am really scared now that any whistleblowing might lead to an arrest," said Zhou Ze, a rights lawyer with more than 165,000 followers on the Twitter-like microblog Sina Weibo. "We all have to talk less, and more carefully."
It is common for politically sensitive posts to be taken down by censors and for users to be blocked, but recent detentions have sparked fears of harsher punishments.
At the heart of the issue is a judicial interpretation by China's top court that says bloggers can be prosecuted for posting rumours seen by more than 5,000 people, or forwarded more than 500 times.
"If rumours can lead to detention or arrest, everyone will fear for themselves and become particularly scared about criticizing officials, which we are seeing less of on the Internet," Zhou said.
An estimate of data provided to Reuters by Weiboreach, a social media data analysis firm, shows that in a random sample of 4,500 highly influential users known as "Big Vs", those with a self-reported occupation in government or academia had a much higher rate of deletion in August than those in entertainment.
The data does not differentiate between posts that users had deleted themselves and those that were deleted by authorities.
MOVING TARGET
Analysts said the judicial interpretation specifically targeted the hundreds of Big Vs - "v" for verified - who send opinions, news and information to thousands or even millions of followers. Many are entrepreneurs, celebrities or academics.
Weibo users known for political and social commentary have been detained in recent weeks, enforcing fears that rumor-mongering is not the target of the law.
Wang Gongquan, an outspoken venture capitalist, was taken away by police on Friday on charges of disturbing public order after he helped lead a campaign for the release of another activist.
Well-known whistleblower Wu Dong, more commonly recognized by his online handle "Boss Hua", was taken into police custody in Beijing, the official Liberation Daily reported on its verified Weibo feed.
He said via Weibo on Wednesday that he had been released. His phone was off and he could not be reached for comment.
Wu, a watch lover, is one of many Weibo users who post about official corruption. He drew attention last year when he posted photos of expensive watches worn by government officials last year, helping to bring down one high-flying official.
Chinese-American venture capitalist Charles Xue was detained on charges of prostitution and appeared on state TV in handcuffs on Sunday to apologize, saying his status as a Big V had gone to his head.
"Freedom of speech cannot override the law," said Xue, who was known for outspoken comments on political and social issues online.
Spreading rumours is common on Weibo, and there is little protection against defamation.
"It's important that those who spread slander are held legally responsible," said Peng Jian, a lawyer with more than 100,000 followers on Weibo. "But if it's not implemented properly, it could suppress freedom of expression."
OPINIONS "SHOULDN'T BE SUPPRESSED"
The problem, lawyers say, is that the interpretation takes a broad view of what constitutes a rumor.
"The goal is pretty obvious, and it's certainly not to suppress so-called rumours. In some sense that's just an excuse," said rights lawyer Mo Shaoping. "Most of the things people post on the Internet are just opinions and views. Those things shouldn't be suppressed."
Mo said he had stopped using Weibo two years ago under pressure from officials.
Legal experts said that the court's interpretation amounted to a broadening of authority to police the Internet, as if Weibo were a physical public space.
"It's a significant expansion because it criminalizes postings that were not criminalized before, and not only rumours and libelous comments," said Nicholas Bequelin, of New York-based Human Rights Watch.
Tong Zhiwei, a professor at East China University of Political Science and Law who has about 95,000 Weibo followers, said he had seen a rise in the number of his posts that had been censored in recent weeks.
"It's not so much the judicial interpretation per se that is affecting my comments," said Tong, who frequently comments on social issues from a legal perspective. "It's the atmosphere it has created."
Criticizing one-party rule was in effect forbidden already, Bequelin added.
"Nine tenths of the Internet population would be in prison if you were to apply this very strictly," Bequelin said. "But that is the root of China's regulation of freedom of expression."
The latest crackdown was also significant because it targeted Internet users who didn't see themselves as dissidents, said Sarah Cook of Freedom House, a U.S.-based group promoting political freedom and human rights.
"Now you're having a criminal judicial interpretation and then actual arrests of people who don't see themselves as political," Cook said. "The group of people being targeted is much wider."
(Additional reporting by Li Hui, Beijing Newsroom and Reuters TV; Editing by Nick Macfie)

Seven Don’t Speaks: Twenty Four Years Later

My article appeared in the Edit Page of The Pioneer under the title Things are changing. Better be cool, Mr Xi.

Millions of Chinese are craving for more freedom to express their problems and their aspirations. This could well be the beginning, even if small, of a sort of democratic process in the Communist nation.

Here is the link...

Is Mr. Xi cool?
No, according to a Beijing-based business magazine The Investor Journal, which was swiftly censured last week after publishing a full-page editorial asking the new leadership to start political reforms to ensure the future economic prosperity of the Middle Kingdom.
Without mentioning President Xi Jinping’s name, the editor-in-chief, Zhao Li daringly wrote: “When the debate [about constitutionalism] broke out and our new leader’s [Xi] verbal environment was confirmed — [we found that] he is far from cool.”
His argument is that the Chinese investors are unhappy with a society where the distribution of wealth is ‘stagnant and deformed’.
Zhao went a step further when he compared the ‘freedom’ experienced today on the Chinese microblogs Weibo and WeChat, to the Democracy Wall at the end of the 1970s or the situation in Beijing University campus in the early months of 1989.
But 24 years after the dramatic events of Tiananmen Square, freedom is relative in China. A recent study conducted by several US universities on ‘The Velocity of Censorship’ shows that the authors were able to detect deletions of posts within one minute of the event, “giving us a high-fidelity view of what is being deleted by the censors and when.”
While analyzing the deleted posts, they stumbled upon difficulties, for example neologisms or informal language used on Chinese social media; however their conclusion was that deletions occurred mainly in the first hour after a post has been submitted; some 30% of the total deletion events occur within 5-30 minutes, while nearly 90% of the deletions happen within the first 24 hours.
The deletions are faster when subjects combines current events and hot topics or sensitive issues such as the Party, the government, corruption or Tibet.
As Zhao Li pointed out, the hot discussion between Weibo and official media over ‘constitutionalism’ had an intensity close to, or perhaps even surpassing, the controversy caused by the World Economic Herald in the Spring of 1989. The pro-reform publication had then dared to praise the sacked Party General Secretary Hu Yaobang. Deng Xiaoping had accused Hu Yaobang, who had just passed away, of being soft on dissent. The Herald wanted Deng to retract his denunciation of Hu. Eventually, Shanghai’s Party secretary and future President Jiang Zemin was instrumental in the closure of the publication; Jiang would have said: “It’s not appropriate to publish these sensitive views in the current situation.”
Today why is Xi not cool?
Recently some 100 members of the Tiananmen Mothers Group published an open letter addressed to Xi ("Hope fades as despair draws near"); the mothers are disappointed by the President's public speeches and his reluctance to take political reforms head on. They point out that Xi had praised things that needed to be repudiated particularly the Cultural Revolution and June 4 (the Tiananmen massacre): “this has caused those individuals who originally harbored hopes in him in carrying out political reform to fall into sudden disappointment and despair. …What we see, precisely, are giant steps backwards towards Maoist orthodoxy.”
Professor Ding Zilin, the founder of the group said: "We thought Xi should have the backbone, like his father, to do something for China's political reform and democratic development, but now we've found he is just following what his predecessors Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao did."
Bao Tong, the former aide of reformist leader Zhao Ziyang (Bao was the senior most party official to be jailed after June 4), was an admirer Xi Zhongxun, President Xi's father. Bao thinks on the same lines as the Tiananmen Mothers, he told The South China Morning Post: “I hope Xi Zhongxun's son will do well, otherwise I shall be very disappointed”.
Referring to The Chinese Dream, Xi Jinping’s pet project, Bo says that if Xi is not ready to implement China’s Constitution, his Dream will stay only a dream.
Twenty four years after the democracy movement was crushed by the tanks on the Square, Bao is still under house arrest in Beijing. For the few who manage to approach him, he remains outspoken. He told The Post: “The silencing of dissident voices had disastrous consequences. If you cover the mouths of a hundred people, there could still be hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of mouths still speaking. But if they silence 1.3 billion people, that's frightening."
Unfortunately, the Party sticks to its guns. Xinhua quoted Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei who accused the United States of ‘prejudice’ after the U.S. State Department stated last week that Beijing should ‘fully account for those killed, detained, or missing’ after the Square events.
Hong Lei said that Washington should immediately stop interfering in China's internal affairs “…the Party has already reached a ‘clear conclusion’ about the events of 1989”. It was a counter-revolutionary movement.
The Chinese masses may not agree with this assessment.
According to Xinhua, China had 564 million Internet users at the end of 2012; micro-blogging adepts surged to 309 million.
Sina-Weibo, the most active microblog site in China sent more than 100 million messages daily.
This makes the State nervous, very nervous. Already two years ago, Sina Corp’s Chief Executive Charles Chao had declared: "Because sometimes rumours can spread too quickly, Sina is now establishing more mechanisms to quash rumours through a variety of channels."
While the mechanisms are increasingly sophisticated, the number of users and their boldness increases fast.
A Party document recently issued by the General Office of the Central Committee, warned officials to combat ‘dangerous’ Western values.
As often for Party’s circulars, the document entitled ‘Concerning the Situation in the Ideological Sphere’ partially appeared on government websites, before disappearing.
An account saved before deletion said that Party cadres should “fully understand the dangers posed by views and theories advocated by the West [i.e. democracy]. …Strengthen management of the Internet, enhance guidance of opinion, purify the environment on the Internet, give no opportunities that lawless elements can seize on.”
Another Party posting explained: “The central leadership has made a thorough analysis of and shown a staunch stance toward seven serious problems in the ideological sphere that merit attention, giving a clearer understanding of the sharpness and complexity of struggle in the ideological sphere.”
The universities were also told about the ‘Seven Don’t Speak’: teachers should avoid discussing with their students universal values, freedom of speech, civil society, civil rights, the historical errors of the CCP, official bourgeoisie and judicial independence.
The West is an easy scapegoat, but the fact remains that hundreds of millions of Chinese are craving for more freedom to express their problems and their aspirations. Is it not the beginning of a sort of democratic process in China?
Today, Internet has another function: it forces the Government to take action against injustice. Hundreds of examples can be quoted: recently in Henan province, a black Honda knocked down a 10-year-old girl who was on her way home from school. The lady driver not only did not help the child, but insulted the mother telling her, "I am from an influential family." An angry crowd soon assembled and smashed the 26-year-old woman's car. A few minutes later photos and video footage of the scene were posted online. The police had no choice but to act.
In the blogosphere, it is called the ‘My dad is Li Gang syndrome’. In 2010, the drunken son of Party cadre (Li Gang) tried to tell the police ‘do you know that I am the son of Li Gang’. He had just crushed to death a student in a car crash.
Things are changing very fast in the Middle Kingdom. Better be cool, Mr Xi and accept that the people of China also long for freedom and justice.

Beware the Wolf

Where is the truth?
Last month, I wrote on this blog,Will Propaganda save China?
The situation seems to deteriorate day by the day.
In China today, ordinary people can never be certain of the veracity of what is reported in the media.
Is it the sign of a healthy society?
It is not only true for new generations of missiles, or defence related information, but also for more worldly stories.
Each and every piece of news is doubted by the 'masses'. 
A Chinese blog, The Anti-Social List wrote about: The Party who cried “Wolf!”
The blog mentions the following post by Chinese writer Zhang Yihe (章诒和) about the crippling climate of doubt and credibility created by the control of information in China. The posting was deleted from Sina Weibo soon after it was posted. According to Sina Weibo, Zhang Yihe has more than 275,000 followers,
Zhang had said:

A friend of mine wrote: Was Liu Xiang’s appearance at the Olympics all just a performance? Was Ye Shiwen on steroids or not? Was that really Gu Kailai in the courtroom? Was it really Zhou Kehua (周克华) who was beaten to death? And on and on. This makes one think of the ancient story of the boy who cried wolf, who was lying over and over so no one believed him, until he was eaten himself by the wolf. China’s propaganda machine has cranked out lies for 60 years. Now it has come to the point that anything they say is met with doubt.

Liu Xiang is the hurdler, former Olympic champion and China's idol who abandoned on the first  hurdle in the 110 m hurdle race in London. He apparently knew that he was injured, but was 'told' to participate. 
Ye Shiwen is the 16- year old swimmer and Olympic champion whose performance raised many eyebrows in London and elsewhere. 
Zhou Kehua is the serial killer who would have been killed by the Chinese police in a much publicized operation.
Gu Kailai is the wife of the former major of Chongqing was has recently been given a suspended death sentence for the murder of a British businessman.
The Walls Street Journal wrote: 'Body Double’ Blocked Online Amid Speculation About Gu Kailai.
The article says:

Sina Weibo, China’s most active microblogging service, and Baidu, its largest Internet search engine, have both blocked the term tishen (替身, literally “body replacement”) after a barrage of citizens began questioning whether the woman shown standing in the courtroom during one of the most sensational trials in recent Chinese history was really Ms. Gu. ...Chinese Internet users have passed around a composite photo contrasting the plump, puffy-cheeked Ms. Gu who appeared at the Hefei Intermediate People’s Court in China’s eastern Anhui province with an earlier image of her in which she appears as the poised, sharp-featured attorney referred to by some as China’s Jackie Kennedy.

The journalist rightly concluded: "By blocking searches online, of course, China’s censors could end up just feeding the conspiracy theories further."
Can we believe what Beijing says about the 'peaceful rise of China' and new delivery systems for its missiles. Probably not!
The most comical is that The Global Times believes that India should follow the Chinese model. A comment in the Party mouthpiece says: "India exodus result of unchecked websites". It argues: 

Ethnic clashes in the Indian state of Assam have prompted panic nationwide, causing hundreds of thousands of people to flee from the south of the country where they work. Wary of social networking sites' ability to spread rumors, New Delhi has asked websites including Facebook and Twitter to come up with IP addresses suspected of spreading rumors. ...The scene is familiar to Chinese. What happened in India can help us understand more objectively whether the Internet can foment social instability and how it does so. The exodus was a result of public panic that was easily ignited by rumors. It takes more than working with social networking websites to appease the agitated public and prevent this from happening again.

The Global Times adds: "China's situation is relatively good. It is hard to imagine rumors causing an exodus. The government's reaction and public's ability to discern false information are much better. But the mass of information flowing through the Internet still presents a challenge to governance. The Internet has become deeply integrated in Chinese society, but can still create a disturbance."
Will India emulate China? It would be disastrous.

China develops new generation missiles that can carry 10 nuclear warheads
PTI
Aug 25, 2012
WASHINGTON: China has developed a new generation of inter-continental and submarine launched missiles capable of carrying as many as 10 nuclear warheads, increasing its ability to reach US and to overwhelm missile defence systems.
The US military and intelligence officials say that China has developed the new long range Dongfeng-41 ICBM with mobile launching system making it harder to find and destroy the missile before it is launched, the New York Times said.
But the Global Times - a newspaper controlled by China's Communist Party - disputed Western media reports of Dongfeng-41 tests being carried out last month.
It admitted China was developing the capability to put multiple warheads on its inter-continental ballistic missiles.
The new generation Dongfeng-41 is estimated to have a strike distance of 12,000 to 14,000 kilometers and armed with single, 3, 6, or even 10 multiple independently targetable re-entry vehicle (MIRV) warheads.
The NYT, quoting a Congressional panel, said that US and other western powers might have underestimated the size of China's nuclear arsenal, suggesting that the new reports say that it currently had 55 to 65 ICBM.
The US experts also said that Beijing had separately tested submarine launched missiles in recent weeks, which it could use to outflank American missile defence systems.
The experts also said that China had developed the expertise to mount dummy warheads on some of its nuclear missiles and that these have heat and electromagnetic devices designed to trick defence missile system.
The NYT also said that China was preparing two submarines for deployment each with 12 missiles.
US experts said China's moves to modernise its missiles comes in the wake of it carrying out sea trials of its first aircraft carrier and flight test of its new stealth J-20 jet.
Th NYT said to counter the Chinese build up, US was considering placing additional high-tech radar systems to track Chinese ballistic missiles either in southern Japan or in south east Asia.