A lot of journos and media organisations have been talking about how the Chinese government has banned access to the websites of the Falun Gong, the Tibetan Independence Movement, Amnesty and Reporters without Borders. However, I am yet to see anybody write about the crappy access to Facebook. Facebook has been experiencing problems ever since it released a Chinese version of the website, including the ability to have Chinese user names. I think some people have attributed the access problems to technical difficulties that have arisen due to the changeover to the URL of the Chinese version, but I think that is wishful thinking. If there ever has been a website that fits the Chinese government’s description of danger, then Facebook is it. This is a website that encourages people who have similar interests and beliefs to form groups, which is usually an extremely difficult thing to do in China, especially if the group hasn’t been formed under the auspices of the government.
A big brouhaha was made over Wen Jiabao’s popularity following the Wenchuan earthquake. But nobody really looked at the flipside of the coin, Wen Jiabao may have quite an online following, but so does the Dalai Lama, and possibly any other anti-Chinese government personality. Following the formation of Facebook’s Chinese version, who is to say that someone won’t form a Chinese language group that promotes a democracy activist within China (if it hasn’t occurred already)? Suddenly, people will have online access to that figure and he or she will be able to gain a following. Even a group supporting a Communist Party figure could be problematic – imagine if there was a group that supported Li Keqiang to be the next President of China and it gained a huge following. It would make Xi Jinping seem like an unpopular choice as the President elect. Already people have suggested that Hu Jintao’s recent online chat session was spurred by the fact that Wen’s antics in Wenchuan had made him seem like a people’s hero and put Hu in the shade.
Although the Chinese version of BBC and a host of other sites are currently available in China, most people here expecting them to be cut off again once the Olympics finish. In regards to Facebook, I think we can expect the off again, on again access to the social networking site to continue and probably worsen.
I have just read a very interesting article about an attempt to parachute soldiers into Mao County, one of the areas stricken by the Sichuan earthquake. Ever since it became clear that the roads to the epicentre were blocked, the government and military have been suggesting that they will parachute troops into the inaccessible areas. Unfortunately, it seems that the attempt described in this article was a failure. According to the article, a total of 15 paratroops jumped from the aircraft, but reported back to command that the ground conditions are complex and are not suitable for the parachuting operation. The original plan was to airdrop 100 paratroopers into the area, but after receiving the initial report from the 15 paratroopers, command cancelled the operation. The article also mentions that the weather conditions changed and that the remaining 85 paratroopers had a different style of parachute from the first 15 paratroopers, which was not suitable to the weather conditions.
The article goes on to say that the 15 paratroopers have successfully made contact with the officials of Mao County. According to the article, the 15 parachuting heroes are in excellent physical and mental condition and are actively fighting on the frontline of disaster relief. The article then summons us to remember the names of these heroes and goes on to name the 15 paratroopers.
The last paragraph makes me worried. Firstly, Chinese soldiers are usually referred to as heroes after they die. Secondly, it seems unusual to name the soldiers when they are carrying out an operation. If the 15 paratroopers were able to land successfully despite the complex terrain, why couldn’t the remaining 85 paratroopers? My personal feeling is that the first 15 paratroopers were either seriously injured or killed, and this caused the operation to be aborted. The Chinese media cannot openly say that an operation was a failure, but the mentioning of the paratroopers’ names is probably a form of condolence to their relatives, who already know that they are dead. Of course, this is all speculation – according to the article, the paratroopers are fine, but the information between the lines does not bode well for them.
The other day when I was perusing the Netease online bulletin boards, I came across the following pictures which were under a discussion with this introduction:
I saw a man and a woman passionately kiss at Wangfujing’s snack food street. The man was a laowai (colloquial term for foreigner) and judging from her appearance, the woman seemed to be a Chinese-made MM. The man and woman filmed themselves kissing, with the woman looking into the lens and letting out a happy smile. I personally don’t like this kind of method – it is a public place after all.
The comments to this post were mixed, with some people saying that the sight of couples kissing at Wangfujing is quite normal, while others wrote negative comments directed at the woman, seemingly because she was with a laowai. Setting aside the obvious racist undertones and prudish nature of the post, I am interested in the definition of the term MM. It is my understanding that MM is an abbreviation of the Chinese word mei mei, with the first mei being the character for beautiful and the second mei being the character for eyebrow. As a compound, the two characters mean beautiful woman. As a type of internet jargon, it seems that MM is quite liberally used when it comes to describing women. Judging from the photos below, the woman pictured is definitely not an MM. This is not the first time that I have noticed that nearly every woman whose photo is posted on Chinese online bulletin boards is described as an MM. It somewhat reminds me of my time in Nanjing, when nearly everyone in my workplace answered to the nickname shuai ge (handsome bloke) or mei nu (beautiful woman).
I was certainly not surprised when I learnt that Jingwei, a host of CCTV 6’s nightly movie report, was being criticised because the outline of her nipple was shown on national television. I have maintained a healthy dose of loathing for Jingwei and her co-host Miaomiao for a long time, mostly because of the lightweight content that their show offers. The show pretty much provides blanket positive reviews for any blockbuster Chinese film, and the two hosts never fail to suck up to the big names. Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Zhang Ziyi and Gong Li are all readily adored. I will never forgive the show for not preparing me for the wreckage that was Chen Kaige’s Wu Ji – Jingwei and Miaomiao’s constant praise failed to mention that it was the worst movie of all time.
There is a fair chance that Jingwei has been sacked for her misdemeanour. After finding out the news on ESWN, I tuned into the show last night and tonight, finding that Miaomiao is now the solo host. The demise of her co-host must be very satisfying for Miaomiao as there always seemed to be an enormous amount of bitchy friction between the two. Perhaps, Miaomiao can now afford to eat and stop looking like a ghost.
As a shallow man, I can admit that one of the few pleasures the movie report gave me was having a perv on Jingwei’s giant knockers. I have always been rather curious about the story behind these knockers – judging by the slenderness of Jingwei’s legs, she is skinny like her co-host. I wonder whether some plastic surgery may have come into play. Being well aware of Jingwei’s assets, I am bewildered about why she decided not to wear a bra before going on air. In a report by Wen Wei Po, the producer of the movie report Zhang Wei gave a rather strange explanation of the incident. Zhang says that it wasn’t really Jingwei’s nipple, but rather it was an optical illusion caused by studio lights and the wiring beneath the shirt. Nevertheless, it sure looks like a nipple to me, and I think Jingwei’s absence from the last two shows confirms it.
A screen shot of the nipple incident. Jingwei is on the left and her co-host Miaomiao is on the right.
There’s something very silly about the constant complaints about Western media bias and US domination of public opinion. Sure, I think that the Western media was very quick to use the words ‘bloody crackdown’ when writing about the problems in Tibet, while it was equally quick to compare it with Tiananmen in 1989. However, all this whinging through Youtube and the China Daily about Western media bias seems like absolute rubbish.
For one, China is doing a great job perpetuating the domination of the Western media. Two of its most popular newspapers, the Global Times and Information Reference, derive most of their content from foreign media reports. How can you complain about Western media bias when it is one of your main sources of information? I think Chinese journalists spend most of their time hiding behind the words of the Western media, e.g. so and so said this about the PLA and this US professor said that China has many economic problems. The problem with the Chinese media is that hardly anybody voices their own personal opinion about anything, so the whole world relies on foreign reports.
Take the US shooting down an out-of-control satellite for example. The Chinese media compared the world’s reaction with the furore that followed the Chinese anti-satellite test. I think the Global Times described the muted reaction to the US shoot-down as a demonstration of US power over world public opinion. This is such a ridiculous thing to say – the US Defence Department held a press conference and let the world’s media decide whether the US government was telling the truth. On the other hand, the Chinese anti-satellite was conducted in secret and was not reported in the Chinese media for at least a week. How can the Chinese media compete with Western media domination when it isn’t allowed to report on the most important happenings in China?
If the Western media dominates world opinion, then it is because the Chinese media isn’t allowed to innovate and create articles from firsthand sources. I am sure an independent investigative report into the Tibetan riots by a Chinese journalist would quickly be translated and published throughout the world, thus giving the Chinese media a chance to provide a unique Chinese view. However, such investigative reports do not exist and the world’s media must rely on a motley crew of journos who are being guided through Tibet by the government. If Chinese people really want to break the domination of the Western media, then they need to interview and investigate, writing the detailed stories that everyone wants to hear about China.
Free Xin Bao a hit with Beijing’s subway commuters
This year I have noticed that there is a new king of newspapers among Beijing’s subway commuters. No longer are people reading Information Reference or Global Times. Instead, they are reading the Beijing Daily Messenger (Xin Bao), an old newspaper that has repositioned itself as the ‘subway’s only newspaper’. Xin Bao’s repositioning obviously trumps the crappy free magazines that have been and gone. I haven’t gotten my hands on a copy of Xin Bao yet, but I have glanced at its front-page and it seems to be free.
Xin Bao’s reemergence as a subway newspaper follows the wide-ranging adjustments in the Beijing print media industry that occurred after the cardboard baozi scandal. On 1 August 2007, Danwei reported that Xin Bao had suddenly changed into an entertainment-oriented newspaper. Obviously that wasn’t a popular move, so Xin Bao has moved to the subway to improve its popularity. I am not sure whether a newspaper can make money while be given away for free to subway commuters, but it certainly seems very popular at the moment, thus it is an attractive option for advertisers.
While checking for news about the Australian election last Sunday morning, I was saddened to find out that my favourite journalist Matt Price had passed away at the very young age of 46. I was very shocked because I didn’t even know that he was sick – I haven’t read The Australian for a while, mostly because its website has problems loading at work. According to reports, Price was only diagnosed with having brain tumours in September, which means that his death is terribly sudden and tragic. Since I am quite familiar with his articles, I feel like someone I know has died and his death emphasises to me that life is very fragile. I will certainly find understanding politics even more difficult now that I can no longer rely on Price’s great Sketch column. I will also miss his funny articles about the Fremantle Dockers.
The good thing about Chinese TV is that there is always something ridiculous to see. Last night, I was channel surfing and came across the program Drama Stars 007 (jù xîng 007). This program basically relies on the tried and trusted maxim of trash TV – freaks get people’s attention. A previous episode was about a ‘freakish’ woman who kept eating a lot and spewing up. I think the woman had a clear-cut case of bulimia, but the show still thought she was a freak of nature.
Last night’s show looked at the other end of the spectrum – the terribly obese. The fat people were members of the Fat Friends Cheerleading Squad, which ensured that the program was somehow related to the Olympics. To cheer the fat people up, in particular one very depressed man, the show enrolled the help of a rotund Beijing comedian.
This type of show always seems very pretentious. The host always pretends to ‘help’ a guest who has a problem, but they actually have the cold-blooded motive of exploiting the guest to attract viewers. It often seems that these shows never offer any real solutions and last night’s show was no exception. In the video below, the rotund comedian helps the Fat Friends Cheerleading Squad sing the song: I am fat, I am happy!
We all know that internet access in China has never been good. There are plenty of traps and potholes to navigate, as well as a heap of banned sites. But in the last couple of weeks, internet access has been at its worst. Hotmail has been practically inaccessible – I type in my user name and code but my inbox rarely loads. The Age’s website literally takes an age to load up and I couldn’t access The Australian’s website yesterday. Unlike the banned sites, e.g. blogs at Blogspot, Hotmail, The Age and The Australian do not come up with an error message. Instead, the loading icons on Firefox or IE never stop churning around.
This has definitely been a bad year for internet access in China. Photos on Flickr are inaccessible, in a move that coincided with protests in Xiamen over the building of a chemical-producing factory. Fortunately, this filter for Firefox can solve the problem of non-appearing photos. The Flickr photos ban seems to me as particularly dumb. Most of the China-related photos on Flickr are beautiful shots of tourist areas like Sanya, The Bund and Guilin. Now, most of these good images of China are inaccessible (without that filter) because someone apparently posted images of the protests in Xiamen. Talk about killing a fly with a sledgehammer.
And of course, Chinese internet access still has its traditional no go areas, as Richard Spencer found out this week. His blog had some accessibility problems after he wrote about the recent ban on the sale of organs that come from executed Chinese prisoners. I think it was the comments section that attracted the attention of the Chinese internet police – a follower of a certain spiritual group called for the destruction of the ruling party in China. Despite the government’s heavy-handed tactics, the propaganda arm of that certain spiritual group is on the move – we have received a phone call from them and messages are being printed on Chinese money.
I was a bit surprised that the blog Zhongnanhai described the current protests in Myanmar as ‘predictably untouchable’ for the Chinese media. Yesterday’s Global Times had the story on page three and today’s edition gave the crisis the front page treatment. An article published today on Xinhuanet quoted the spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Jiang Yu and her calls for a resolution to the crisis. The articles all clearly state that the Buddhist monks are the main force behind the protests and Xinhuanet published the following photograph:
The photograph's caption on Xinhuanet clearly stated that monks and city residents were holding a protest march.
Meet Cao Cao – a foreigner who performs on Chinese TV
Last Sunday night, I was watching TV on Flat Bertha and came across a TV show called Mingren Tang, which has the curious English name of E-talking. I think the Chinese name literally translates as ‘Celebrity Hall’. Sunday’s show looked at English schools in China and had several guests, including Li Yang, the founder of Crazy English and Cao Cao, an American who performs on Chinese TV.
Being a foreigner myself, I was most interested to see what Cao Cao was up to. On the show, one of the Chinese guests suggested that ‘laowai’ are easily satisfied by their experiences in China. In the following video you can see how Cao Cao backed up the Chinese guest’s claims by spoofing foreigners who proudly say the names of the most simple Chinese dishes. I find it distasteful that Cao Cao is happy to pay out his fellow laowai (much to the amusement of the audience). The problem with sucking up to the Chinese (or sucking up to anybody for that matter) is that they probably respect you even less after you’ve finished brown nosing. In this clip, you can see that the host and one of the Chinese guests are quick to make fun of Cao Cao’s extravagant hand gestures. Despite his good Chinese, I still think the host, the Chinese guests and the audience still perceive him as a foreign idiot. Some of this is self-inflicted, but most of it is inevitable.
After arriving tonight, I quickly jumped onto the internet and checked up on the football scores. It looks like Collingwood beat West Coast in extra time – I kind of regret not watching the match. After the match finished, I went to Youtube to look for interesting videos that I can put on my Superwall at Facebook. I haven’t tried out the Youtube function on the Superwall, so I am interested to see what it is like and whether any of my ‘friends’ would be interested in watching the video. I searched for the word ‘Beijing’ and it came up with mostly links to Sexy Beijing and Danwei’s Hard Hat series. There was a few other links as well, probably some of them were political but I didn’t really notice. Anyway, I clicked on the next button to bring up the following page of links but Youtube blacked out and Firefox came up with the 'link has been reset’ message. I went back to the previous page and tried to search for the word ‘Chinese’ but Youtube blacked out again. I then went to a different page and tried to get back into Youtube, but it was impossible.
Five minutes later I could access Youtube again and I did a search for the word ‘China’. Up came a link for a video featuring a Japanese porn star called China. Isn’t porn meant to be banned in China? If so, how come this link wasn’t banned, but links associated with ‘Beijing’ and ‘Chinese’ were?
Because I am writing this post while surfing the net, I can now inform readers that Youtube has blacked out again – this time after I clicked for the next page of links associated with the word ‘China’. So basically you only get the chance to type in a banned word once before the internet nanny clamps down, even if the word is something as innocent as China, Chinese or Beijing.
I have decided to give writing a Chinese blog another go. It ain’t easy – my first attempt had the misfortune of being marooned on Blogger, which is behind the Great Chinese Firewall. I wanted to start a blog on blogtown.co.nz after seeing the decent blog that Chris Waugh puts out. However, I quickly received the rude message that Blogtown is only available to New Zealand residents – what a crock of shit! Those Kiwis are something else.
Of course, I also thought about starting a Chinese blog on the most popular Chinese blog sites – Sina, Sohu, etc but I was scared away by the ugly look of the blog templates and the stories of how such companies are helping the Chinese government to implement censorship. The most convenient option would have been starting up another blog on Blognow, but I seriously doubt this site’s ability to display Chinese characters.
I eventually came across Footyblogs.com when reading Every Day is like Sunday. Most of my neighbours are sites selling cures for herpes or spruiking internet dating, but Footyblogs.com can display Chinese characters and uses excellent Wordpress software. I haven’t figured out how to change the template, but my new Chinese blog Zhongguotong is simple and easy on the eyes. If the characters are too small, then adjust the font size on your internet browser. Unfortunately, there is a misspelling in the blog’s URL – it’s http://zhonguotong.footyblogs.com not http://zhongguotong.footyblogs.com.
The Global Times published an article last week that promised to be a ‘close look’ at the Peace Mission-2007 counter-terrorism exercise that took place in Russia between members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. Despite not providing any information about the actual exercise, journalist Ma Jian still took time to make fun of Chinese signs that have been posted around the army barracks at the Chebarkul military range. This is what he said:
Because Russians translated the Chinese (on the signs), people can make neither head nor tail of some of the translations. For example: The Chinese sign on the Russian troop transport truck says people (ren men). I guess that’s meant to mean ‘passengers’ (zai ren). Washroom (xi shu jian) is translated as ‘face washing basin’ (xi lian pen). Between each nation’s barracks area, there’s a sign in Russian and Chinese that reads ‘consolidate the combat friendship of the squad of brothers’ (gong gu xiong di ban zhan dou you yi).
Despite the wide internet coverage of Chinglish signs, I still reckon that foreigners are fairly tolerant of bad English by Chinese. Recently on a Southern China Airlines flight, I had to put up with terrible English announcements that I couldn’t understand a word of. And as anybody who has polished translations in China can attest to, correcting Chinglish grammar can be extremely hard-going. I am also sick of having my spoken Chinese devalued when Chinese often begin talking to me in mistake-ridden English. If The Global Times doesn’t have the guts to write anything interesting about Peace Mission-2007, then it shouldn’t resort to poking fun at Russianese that is designed to make it more convenient for Chinese soldiers. The world is tolerant of Chinglish, so Chinese should be tolerant of foreigners trying to speak and write in the Chinese language.
The same edition of The Global Times had another interesting report about Sino-Russian ties. It reported that 25 Chinese got into a fight in St. Petersburg, with three people being taken to hospital. Most of the fighters were illegal immigrants and nearly all of them didn’t speak Russian. The article went on to paint a grim picture of how Chinese criminal gangs in Russia are tainting the Chinese image.
I have noticed that the quality of podcasts offered by the Chinese site Antiwave has declined recently. For those interested in learning more about Antiwave, you can view Danwei’s interview with Fei Zhu and Ping Ke here. It may be that they are moving away from my preferred content of media-related podcasts and moving towards a more technologically-minded approach. Since the May holidays, they’ve introduced a series of podcasts that only go for one minute, which is far too short for my liking. And I have noticed that Ping Ke doesn’t seem to record any of his own podcasts anymore. My favourites were the ones where Ping Ke analysed things such as Virginia Tech shootings and the omission of pig pictures from the Spring Festival Gala. A lot of Fei Zhu’s work is commendable as well, e.g. his high-profile interviews with Eric Ellis and Samuel Freedman. However, it is Pingke’s voice and ideas that I really like to listen to. The podcasts featuring Jeremy Goldkorn and Keso seemed to be missing something.
Another site that seems to have lost its way is the blog of Ben Ross. After finishing his stint at a Fuzhou barbershop, Ben seems to be lacking direction. He wrote another couple of posts about different barbershops, but it seemed that he was attempting to recapture past glories. I actually enjoyed what Ben wrote about before his stint at the barbershop, which were basically casual observations about life in China. Ben also has an advantageous position because not many foreigners are writing while based in Fujian. Having a lull after the fertile patch of writing that emerged during his barbershop days is completely understandable and I am looking forward to more stuff from Ben soon. It also must be said that Ben has recently been working on a new website.
While on the subject of blogging and podcasting, Danwei posted a rather mysterious message today. Written entirely in Chinese, it appealed for interesting 10-minute videos to be forwarded to the site for the consumption of Danwei’s sizeable foreign readership. The message was tagged in the jobs available, so I assume that Danwei will be paying for the honour of publicising people’s digital videos. If this is the case, then why can’t they publish the message in English and encourage foreigners to film their own videos about China?
Richard Spencer appears on Beijing Television Station
Today I saw foreign correspondent and blogger Richard Spencer on the Beijing TV show Dianshi Xianfeng Bang. The show seems to be an introduction to the television hosts of Beijing Television Station. Richard interviewed the host of a show called Tianxia Shoucang, which investigates whether family antiques are fake. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find any footage of Richard, but I have found a blog post about it. Here is the translation of a note by Lu Ming, a ‘journalist’ from Dianshi Xianfeng Bang:
Daily Telegraph is the newspaper with the greatest circulation in Britain, so they would definitely use a very professional journalist. When filming two Daily Telegraph journalists conducting interviews at BTV’s Tianxia Shoucang, I was a bit selfish because I wanted to see how journalists from a world renowned media organisation conducted interviews. I also hoped to learn something from them. However, during the process of filming the interview, they didn’t seem to have any special work method or skill. If they did, then it would be patience, attention to detail and conscientiousness. They patiently faced every interviewee, conscientiously listened and attentively observed every detail.
I was over the moon when my posts were recommended by ESWN last month. Visits to my blog skyrocketed upwards, especially when Roland (the owner of ESWN) recommended my post about the sexual fantasy of Chinese youths. Of course, anything with sex in the title is going to be a winner. Roland also recommended a couple of other articles – frying up a mess and Military Weekly goes tabloid. I have begun to wonder what kind of criteria Roland applies when recommending articles to netizens.
Roland does have his stock supply of favourites. Joel Martinsen from Danwei, Positive Solutions, Newspeak and the Mutant Palm are all regularly recommended. I basically believe that Roland wants his website to provide a bridge to Chinese culture. His website does very well in filling up the cavernous gaps that are left by the mainstream media in their reporting of China. From Roland’s translations and recommended readings, we can learn about his stance on China. He reports a lot on protests and murders that take place in China, things that are obviously not widely documented by the mainland media. In some ways, he actually portrays China in a more realistic way. A lot of foreigners feel that Beijing is much safer than other international cities. This is probably true to some extent, but it is accentuated by the lack of information about crimes that take place here. For example, the shooting of three people in downtown Melbourne was front page news in Australia last month. If three people were knifed in downtown Beijing, then it probably wouldn’t be front page news in the Chinese-language newspapers and it definitely wouldn’t be front page news in the English ones. This lack of media coverage gives people a false impression of Beijing and China.
I remember reading an article about Danwei founder Jeremy Goldkorn. He said that the difference between ESWN and Danwei was that ESWN was more political. With translations and recommended readings, it isn’t always easy to tell what Roland’s political stance is. To figure it out, you need to read between the lines. He seems to like recommending stories that are about democracy. He recently recommended a lot of articles about Hong Kong’s handover to China. This was obviously because it was the 10th anniversary on July 1 and also because Roland is from Hong Kong. With his interest in democracy, Roland probably regrets that Hong Kong is now in the hands of a ‘communist dictatorship’ (I recently overheard a Hong Kong man describe the Chinese government as such). His constant translations of various protests against the government would probably be viewed by the Chinese government as being anti-harmonious. Judging from these observations, I think Roland is probably a pro-democracy and anti-communist dictatorship kind of guy.
I am also a pro-democracy and anti-communist dictatorship kind of guy. I reckon anybody should be able to write anything and have it published on their blog or even in a newspaper. I reckon that the Chinese government should allow the establishment of independent trade unions. The problem is that those trade unions will probably quickly morph into an independent political party and threaten the Communist Party’s grip on power. It would probably end up being the Chinese Labour Party versus the Chinese Communist Party, which would be kind of strange because they’re both meant to be on the left. The Communist Party of course is more like a party on the far right that continually backs big business over the little people. The Communist Party should probably change its name to the Liberal National Party and it would all make more sense.
Despite the above sentiments, I do have some reservations about talking up democracy in China. It is probably because I am a bit on the conservative side and lack firm political views. It is also because I don’t want to sound like one of those judgemental foreigners who come to China and do nothing but criticise everything and everyone. It is a bit hard not to sound like a hypocrite. A criticism about corruption in the Chinese government sounds a bit funny when you take a sneak peek at the UN and the EU. Those Western institutions both have tons of elite bastards gorging themselves on taxes handed over by the little people. And it’s not like nepotism only happens in China – I am guessing that Paul Wolfowitz wasn’t the only high-ranking official in elite circles giving jobs to his girlfriend.
I know that articles harping on about democracy get quite a run in ESWN’s recommended reading segment. I have the feeling that posts and articles like these aren’t really helpful as a bridge to Chinese society because they are too judgemental. It is the Chinese people that everyone needs to understand, not the government. Governments are the same everywhere – they collect taxes and spend a fair percentage of that money on themselves. Improvements are needed but let’s give China some space and not use the ‘D’ word too much. The US harped on about the lack of D in Iraq for years and look what has happened now: a country lies in ruin because the US government used the implementation of the D word as an excuse to invade another country. I wonder who should be judging who.
These two both know how to place one-sided reports in the Chinese media
My wife recently found a couple of interesting articles about Australian Prime Minister John Howard in a Chinese newspaper called the China Business Post (Caijing Shibao). This is the first time that I’ve heard of this newspaper, which is seemingly unconnected with the famous Chinese financial magazine Caijing. The two articles covered an entire page of the newspaper’s June 18 edition. The title of the main article gives you a good example of what to expect: How Australia’s golden bricks were refined – an analysis of the changes in the trade and geopolitical relationships between China and Australia. The article is written by somebody called Zhou Feng, who curiously hails from the Nanjing Army Command Academy. I am not sure why a military academic is writing about John Howard, but the article was a glowing review of the Prime Minister’s role in the relationship between China and Australia.
The other article is even more curious. It is written by somebody called Jin Ge, but unlike the first article, no mention is made of Jin’s danwei. The article is actually a sickening piece about John Howard’s embrace of multiculturalism and his chummy relationship with the Chinese community in Australia. I have translated the article because it is a good laugh and also because it introduces a version of John Howard that most Australians are unfamiliar with (probably because it doesn’t exist). As to the exact origins of the article, I think the third last paragraph gives a good indication when it mentions the formation of ‘The Australian Liberal Party’s Chinese Association.’ There are three reasons why I hate this article:
It is completely biased towards John Howard and the Liberal Party. The lack of moderation in this article makes me wonder whether it’s a ‘cash for column’ type of scenario.
Because it seems as though Howard is adhering to Chinese President Hu Jintao’s Socialist Concept of Honour and Disgrace. The article pathetically panders to its Chinese audience.
It portrays Howard as being a major contributor to Australian multiculturalism. This will be a surprise to almost anybody who knows anything about Australia.
I am not sure why the Liberal Party needs to extend its dirty claws into China, but I guess 400,000 Chinese Australians is a lot of votes. My translation of the article is below:
Howard’s courage and the joy of Chinese Australians By Jin Ge, Caijing Shibao, page A8, 18 June 2007
A Chinese media organisation in Australia recently playfully stated that throughout Prime Minister John Howard’s long political career, he has shown characteristics of kung-fu. Like the master in Chinese kung-fu movies, Howard only needs to concentrate his powers to become immovable.
Not only can this talent of Howard’s be seen from the way he finds the answers among the friendly relationships between China and other Asian countries, it can also be seen from the meeting he had with Chinese Australians earlier this month.
Howard met with local Chinese prior to making a speech at the Epping RSL (Returned and Services League) Community Club on June 7. Not only did he speak generously about the contribution that Chinese have made to Australian culture, but he also said that Chinese are a hardworking people who have made a great contribution to the relationship between Australia and China.
After the speech, Howard again met with more than 500 Chinese in the Club, reportedly staying for nearly two hours. This was the longest time that he has met with Chinese since becoming Prime Minister, revealing that Howard has identified the Chinese community as being a foundation for his upcoming election battle. This corresponds with Howard’s fourth election victory in 2004, when he singled out the Chinese community and thanked them for their support.
After taking time to come to fruition, the current situation of perfect harmony between Howard and Australia’s Chinese community is permeated with Howard’s courage.
When the 35-year-old Howard officially entered politics through his election to the House of Representatives in 1974, he didn’t have a welcoming attitude towards immigrants, including Chinese. He recently reminisced in the Weekend Australian about his opposition in 1988 of a further intake of Asian immigrants and the controversy that it sparked, saying that time has shown his previous view to be wrong. He stated that he still regrets that moment.
After 30 years in politics, Howard has formed the most tolerant critique of multiculturalism, thus public opinion believes this demonstrates his courage. This courage, whereby Howard acknowledges his mistakes and improves them, is not an unusual characteristic of his. Howard’s final weekly political column in 2005 carried out a comparison between honours and disgraces. Australia’s immediate rescue work following the Indonesian tsunami was seen as an honour, while ethnic clashes on Sydney’s beaches were seen as a loss of face and sickening.
What Howard saw as a disgrace was the powder keg that ignited when a group of Lebanese immigrants clashed with two lifesavers on the evening of December 11. A group of 5000 white youths congregated at Cronulla Beach in Sydney’s south, chanting racist slogans while pursuing and bashing Lebanese immigrants. Howard’s emotional end-of-year speech also demonstrated a politician’s courage when faced with reality. On 1 May 2007, he again stated that the entrance of new citizens into society is beneficial to all Australians.
It is undisputable that in some aspects, Howard’s courage has brought about joy for Chinese Australians. Prior to the 1950s, the White Australia Policy restricted yellow-skinned Asian immigrants, with only 0.23 per cent of Australia’s total population being Chinese. Following the initial dismantling of the White Australia Policy in March 1966, the Australian government announced a new immigration policy in 1974 that was not prejudiced against any ethnicity, skin colour or nationality. Chinese then began to immigrate to Australia in large numbers. Especially since Howard was elected as federal prime minister in March 1996, the total number of Chinese Australians has exceeded 400,000.
Following this trend, Chinese Australians are no longer purely making a living, but they have politically and economically entered the mainstream. When Huang Guoxin was elected as the mayor of Adelaide in April 2002, he became Australia’s first Chinese mayor and established a new milestone. On 4 April 2007, a new organisation called ‘The Australian Liberal Party’s Chinese Association’ was officially established at the Liberal Party’s Victorian Headquarters in Melbourne. This organisation is another breakthrough for Chinese in Australia’s mainstream political scene. Chinese Australians believe that entering the mainstream is a positive direction and involvement in politics is the best demonstration of this.
Howard’s attitude to Chinese Australians trying to enter the mainstream is clear. When he met with Chinese Australians on June 7, Howard was asked whether a person of Chinese or Vietnamese origin will become Prime Minister. Without hesitation, Howard replied: “It’s very probable, I can’t think of any reason why not.” Statistics reveal that an increasing number of Chinese are being counted among the list of Australia’s richest 200 people. Many Chinese immigrants have become millionaires and multi-millionaires, with some even becoming billionaires.
Chinese Australians are also willing to support Howard, thus providing him with a strong foundation and the facilities to create active and excellent diplomatic and economic relationships with Asia and China. Their support allows Howard to concentrate his powers on both domestic and international issues, while also building up his own strength.
A recent article in EuroBiz (a magazine published by the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China) has reported that CCTV will soon be airing an Olympic-themed reality TV show. The show will put contestants through a series of physical and psychological tests, with the most suitable candidate becoming the coxswain for China's Olympic rowing team. I am not very knowledgeable about China's rowing situation, but I would've thought that becoming an Olympic coxswain requires years of training. Incredibly the whole of China doesn't have a decent coxswain, but if it does, then China's real coxswains can feel miffed at being replaced by an amateur who has been rewarded for attracting the most funds for CCTV and China Mobile.
Today I discovered that the China Defence: Military Weekly has changed from being a ‘broadsheet’ into a tabloid. Of course the newspaper was already laden with nationalistic and colourful military articles, so it’s actually just changing out of its sheepskin. The PLA Daily (jiefang jun bao) describes the Military Weekly as follows:
'As a publication of the PLA Daily, the Military Weekly provides society with an authoritative weekly newspaper about the military. Since its establishment ten years ago, the Military Weekly has continued to provide international analysis and timely, accurate and authoritative introductions to the newest domestic and foreign military developments. The newspaper has also disseminated modern knowledge about military technology. It has been deeply welcomed by many readers and has garnered a relatively large level of influence.'
The first edition of the tabloid-style Military Weekly comes with a front page article that seems to compare Chinese with Jews and a full-page Maotai advertisement that congratulates Military Weekly on its change of format. The new format does look much better than the old one and it has a lot of popular articles such as Prince Harry’s possible deployment to Iraq. I bet you that its real readership is much better than its mother paper, the PLA Daily.
A screen shot of the nipple incident. Jingwei is on the left and her co-host Miaomiao is on the right. 
The photograph's caption on Xinhuanet clearly stated that monks and city residents were holding a protest march.
These two both know how to place one-sided reports in the Chinese media