Media in China

2008-09-13T22:59:00.001+08:00

2004-02-12T04:21:00.000+08:00

Moving to a new url

I'm moving my new weblog "China Herald" to a new host at www.chinaherald.net, that is - unlike the blogspot host - also available in China. Still finding out the right settings: I'm also trying to prove that a one-person enterprise by a journalist is possible today. I think it is, but it is not easy. Please have some patience.

2004-01-25T07:30:00.000+08:00

Consolidation: this blog is moving ahead

I'm running at this stage about four blog-like operations and that is a bit too much, I discovered, so I'm going to consolidate my China-blogs into one new one: chinaherald.blogspot.com

Do expect there also contributions about the changing media landscape in China: it is fascinating enough, but the variaty is subjects will be larger. Hope to see you there too.
Posting here will basically stop from now.

2004-01-25T01:51:00.000+08:00

Hits from China

Another indication: I suddenly discovered a few hits to this site from China, notably from Beijing and Liaoning. Not many, but it seems possible to see this site directly from China now.
First messages from Shanghai suggest that nothing has changed there and people still have to use proxies to read this.

2004-01-25T01:30:00.000+08:00

The blogspot rumor investigated

Despite the ongoing holidays (here in the US we now also have weekend) some more details from China are coming in, thanks to some active bloggers over there, especially Peking Duck and Brainsmurf.
The stories differ very much, also per region. That would not be so strange, since provincial and local authorities would have a large say in what is being blocked, it is never a unilateral decisions by a big brother in Beijing.
A few interesting speculations pop up. First a cooperation between Google and the mainland authorities is being suggested as it seems that the Google caches are partially blocked, allowing users to access most of them without proxy, but some not. That would most likely need help from Google.
The unexpected lift of the ban is also linked to the emergence of RSS and syndication services that would easy circumvent the internet filters, unless China wants to block whole new systems again. Interesting enough to keep on following actively.

2004-01-24T12:05:00.000+08:00

Blogger.com unblocked?

Rumors from China suggest that both the Google cache and the domains of weblogs produced by Google's www.blogger.com (those with 'blogspot' in their url) have been unblocked.
Conflicting rumors are coming in. I have test some domainnames at the checker of Harvard University that has done research into the matter, but those results were inconclusive.
Would be interesting, since it would end the blockade on about two million domain names.
The move would also be rather strange, since it is holiday in China. Only one thing the censor in China would always take very serious and that is the holiday. Any blocking or unblocking in this period would be rather uncommon.

2004-01-24T00:58:00.000+08:00

Twenty million cars in 2020

Car demand will hit 20 million in 2020 I read today in news dispatches that quote the Chinese newswire Xinhua. China is a country of poets, you can see from the headline only, and as all poets they can use their phantasy, reality is only disturbing for a poet. Five words using three times the figure 20!
Unfortunately, many outside China will take this figure serious. There is no ground for that. This kind of predictions has a upward margin of at least 50 percent: please take it for what it is: a poem.

2004-01-23T01:09:00.000+08:00

Missing Shanghai

Perhaps the first time while traveling the world I really feel I'm missing Shanghai. It might be the story of Wang Jianshuo, telling about the festivities in China. I have not been missing the New Year's show of CCTV, but did the good food, the relentless firecrackers and the war-like smell of the upcoming Year of the Ape.
Fortunately some progress in Michigan too. Yesterday's column triggers off some reactions, despite the holidays, Renee is now getting her fourth interview for an internship/job done and I keep on generating enthusiasm with the projects I'm running.
Sorry I cannot be more specific here, but those days will come.

2004-01-21T04:59:00.000+08:00

Internet democracy – the WTO column

(Upcoming in Chinabiz)

Ann Arbor. MI – “Not much freedom over there in China, isn’t it?”, says the student at the other side of the table.
I’m having a coffee on a sunny January afternoon in the two-century old cafeteria at the Michigan Union, the student building of the University of Michigan. The combination of China and the internet proves to be an ideal pick-up line in American intellectual circles.

“What about your freedom?” I’m in a bit of a provocative mood. “In the end you have in the US the right to vote between two presidential candidates you almost equally dislike, and you can only pick the least bad one. No wonder hardly anybody bothers to vote.”
I’m on safe grounds today, I estimate. Howard Dean, the Democratic candidate for the US presidency who generated much of his popular support through the internet and caused a political revolution in the US got last night his first setback in tiny Iowa as the establishment of the Democratic Party proved they were not yet beaten by the internet and the people. Dean is the only candidate with a decent anti-war record and obvious not all Iowa internet users support this anti-war candidate.

Do not get me wrong: I believe the internet is going to cause a revolution that will have a profound effect on how we live, work and sleep. But for one reason or the other here in the US and copy cats elsewhere in the world have the tendency of linking this exciting revolution to democracy. Here I back off.
Even the bust of the economic internet bubble has not effectively killed this the early illusion that the internet will bring down authoritarian governments and improve the working of democracy in general. The car has not done this and although the airplane did cause a logistical revolution, but did not bring more democracy. Why should the internet? The internet is a tool, even a very useful tool, but the way it is being used depends on the users, not on the tool itself.

So what we see here is a sympathetic illusion mixed up with a large portion of cultural misunderstandings between China and the outside world. Yes, in China the government tries to control the internet, even though that in itself might be practical impossible. The internet is designed to circumvent any blockades, so it can even survive in during a nuclear war.
Internet users in China expect the government to play a role in society, and consequently adjust their behavior. That does not ask for much great technology. Just like in the masterpieces written by Kafka we are more the prisoners of our own fears and not of what the government does.
It might not offer much console to the few internet dissidents that have been rounded up, but the internet has effectively enlarged greatly the access to information, the public discourse and indirectly contributed to the economic prosperity of China. It might not help them to know that with the struggle against terrorism as an excuse the US government is also arresting and deporting foreign journalists that have not applied for proper visas, but that is really a different story.

Democracy is unfortunately not a url you can put under your favorites.

Fons Tuinstra

.
PS: A happy Year of the Ape! At least I guess we are not talking about a gorilla here? 

2004-01-19T00:30:00.000+08:00

American style sitcom cause official concern

Do you want to help us in writing a sitcom for Chinese TV. A month ago I got this request from some good friends in Shanghai and I was not enthusiastic right away. They wanted something with foreigners and Chinese being friends in a big Chinese city.
Of course the financial proposal was not yet that interesting, actually there was no money yet, but when we would get started we all would become very rich, very fast. Mostly that would not deter me very much, probably one of the reasons why I never became very rich, very fast.
What worried me more was the question whether a real good sitcom would pass the conservative standards of the Chinese media. On the streets of Shanghai you get all the famous American productions and that is the market you would have to compete with. Too rigid Chinese standards would force an officially approved sitcom to be boring and moralistic in a Chinese way - all sitcoms would be moralistic, but try to avoid death by boredom.
The American sitcom "Friends", supposed to be aired by CCTV this year has now raised the ire of officials at CCTV. "I had thought (the show) focused on friendship, but after a careful preview I found each episode had something to do with sex," Qin Mingxin of China Central Television’s entertainment unit said in an article on the Web site of the Communist Party’s People’s Daily, according to AP.
Welcome in the real world. Since everybody who might be interested has seen the sitcom already on illegal DVD's, making one yourself does not make any sense. For the time being I'm not going to write any sitcom, even when it could make me filthy rich.

2004-01-16T05:06:00.000+08:00

Modest growth ad income for newspapers

Mainland newspapers saw their income from ads go up by 6.8 percent nationwide, reports The Standard from Hong Kong. Total income over 2003 was 20 billion Renminbi (USD 2.4 billion).
The papers suggests surprise that the income went up despite the SARS that hit China last year. But it is under the growth of the national GDP and since income from newspapers was anyway substandard, you might have expected a might higher growth when things would go well.
So, things do not go well.

2004-01-14T01:58:00.000+08:00

"Not SARS but bribes brought journalist trouble"

Says the China Daily today in an interesting rebuttal of a AFP-story. AFP had written that staff and management of a paper in Guangdong got into trouble, because they has disclosed information on SARS.
Not true, says the China Daily now, they are under investigation because they have been bribed.
It would not be the first time in China (or elsewhere) that people got into trouble for other reasons than the official reason. But the line of the official arguments is still interesting and might be an implicit encouragement to give authorities hell - depending of course on how things develop now.

2004-01-14T00:54:00.000+08:00

The China-craze

Have been out of touch with developments over de past weeks, but fortunately my people at Chinabiz keep up a critical watch at China's economic developments. Today a story about the car industry where things seem more gloomy than foreign corporations hope (even a nice quote by their Chinese partner/competitor).
In the Sunday Column Bill Fischer of IMD also tries to put things into perspective.

2004-01-03T00:03:00.000+08:00

A disruptive technology (2) - the WTO column

(Now in Chinabiz)

1/1/2004

Columbia, SC - I should start the new year with best wishes, of course, but let's also add a warning.

The internet craze is changing the world beyond recognition I wrote two weeks ago, although it might take a couple of years before its shock has crossed the Pacific Ocean from the US and reaches China's east-coast.

But who looks back at 2003 and the way China is changing because of this new technology already sees sigh early signs of that earthquake, tension is building up, the sky is becoming black.

The SARS-crisis developed the way it did because of that new technology. Efforts to cover up had no chance when millions of SMS-messages started to sing around and alerted not only people in Guangdong, but also in the rest of the world of the local cover-up. Big scale disasters - of disasters that are perceived as big - can be disclosed by this new technology. They can also be blown out of proportion.

Most of the attention goes to the good side of that development. The excitement of being in touch with the rest of the world 24 hours per day really is a big kick. But just like a gun, the internet is basically a tool and you should make sure you're not looking into the wrong side of the barrel.

About 400 Japanese business men and their hosts in Zhuhai who found themselves at the wrong side of that internet gun earlier this year when they got entangled into a fierce brawl when internet users discovered they had been entertained by 500 local women.

The wave of patriotism that hit the internet weeks after the incident caused a diplomatic incident with Japan, forced the local authorities into action and meant lengthy prison sentences for some of the organizers who mainly did what they would do every day when Chinese and foreign visitors would ask for their services.

Because of the sentiments on the internet the incident developed into an ugly display of patriotism, a lynch party like we would see them centuries ago in the US, where reason was replaced by what I found was a wave of unfounded and ugly sentiments.

When decisions, and even lengthy prison sentences, are based on this kind of internet-driven mob culture, the internet is going into the wrong direction, I think. It will be very hard to push that into a more constructive direction.

Fortunately, other internet driven changes offered a much more balanced approach. For example, when the Guangdong-based reporter Mu Zimei started to write about her sexual experiences in her weblog that cause a much wider variety of reactions.The traditional Chinese media - not always a lighting rod of wisdom in sexual affairs - proved rather open-minded and used the upheaval to start a much more balanced discussion. Ms Mu still lost her job, but I believed she has changed them into much greener pastures compared to the incarcerated manager of the Zhuhai hotel.

We, the more humble citizens, cannot do much more than prepare ourselves for the earthquake that will change our lives drastically. Keep an eye on the emergency exit, hold on to something solid when the earth starts to move. The headlines in 2004 will focus on how China will fight the inflation, attracts more foreign investments and deals with its unprecedented economic growth. But be prepared to the big technological bang that will be more unsettling than a bit of economic growth.

Fons Tuinstra

2003-12-24T10:51:00.000+08:00

The BBC on North Korea

The question whether local journalists could replace foreign correspondents. At least at one place that would be very hard, although foreign correspondents did not get many chances: North Korea.
The BBC has a bureautiful radio-documentary. Listeren here to part one. Really very nice (still listening, though).

2003-12-19T09:38:00.000+08:00

And what does the public say?

Interesting, the Shanghai Daily went out and asked the public what they thought about the harsh sentences in the Zhuhai sex case. As a technique that is still rather new for Chinese media.
Less interesting was what the people in the street had to say: they approved of the sentences. "As the orgy involved such a large number of people and Japanese citizens as well, life sentences are acceptable in this case," said Huang Youtu, a teacher at East China University of Politics and Law.
The answers were still very politically correct. In this case, the severe punishments may be an attempt to ease the anger of Chinese people, said Chen Haoran, a criminal law professor at Fudan University in the article. Chen is probably right, but that is not what the court should be used for.

2003-12-19T00:39:00.000+08:00

A disruptive technology - the WTO column

Tomorrow at Chinabiz

Ann Arbor – My apologies to those who are fed up with all the internet stories after the commercial bubble has let them down over the past few years. While investment bankers have certainly overhyped this new technology, it is time to look around again and see what the internet is really going to do to our lives. It is that time of the year to look ahead, isn’t it?
My viewpoint has been slightly blurred by my current presence in the US, but the changes caused by the internet here in this part of the world are really breathtaking. China is not yet ready for similar changes, but as connectivity – now over 80 million internet users! - increases and applications become more easy to use, similar changes will take place with only a few years delay.

I’m sitting now in the student lounge of Michigan Business School and around me I hear the familiar sounds of ICQ and other communication tools people use to chat continuously with their friends. Apart from the time they sleep, students are online 24 hours per day, even during classes and meetings, so they can google their professors. People no longer their local newspapers as a tool to see what movies they can go to, they use it to see film reviews and they order tickets online, as almost anything else apart from groceries. They use Yahoo!
The music industry is forced on its knees by teenagers downloading music for free from the internet. Some of them are now put on trial for doing this by the music industry, a last act of desperation of a class of managers out of touch with the reality of the internet.
Howard Dean, at this stage the most promising presidential candidate in the Democratic Party, has amazed everybody by mobilizing his followers through the internet, and beating all the other candidates in terms of getting support and funding from the average Americans, not from big companies. Even when he loses next year from George Busch, even when he does not become the candidate of the Democratic Party, his name will be connected with an internet revolution that has changed politics in the US.

The position of universities is under threat as online providers of education and information conquer their positions. The former president of the University of Michigan James Duderstadt describes the internet as a “disruptive technology”, and for sure it is. In less than five years higher education will look differently from how we know it. Differences between students, teachers and staff blur, degrees lose their value. Duderstadt is now helping to develop a global university, where being on campus is not longer necessary and new institutions will provide the ‘life-long’ education needed to keep up with changing times. We have to otherwise we will not survive, Duderstad insists.

De US media are regularly corrected and set straight by webloggers from Bagdad – local people who have their own website and often know better what is going on than the legion of foreign reporters dropped on their streets. The media are not only losing their classifieds, they also have to compete with other news providers. Commercials at the main TV stations target pensioners looking for insurances or medicine, the young people turn away from traditional TV stations.
With each new internet connection in the US, jobs flow to India and China, unstoppable. Every industry in the US is struggling to reinvent itself in this competitive world, and nobody really knows where that struggle will end.

It will take a few years, before the disruptive effects will rattle China in a similar way. Perhaps we should be careful when investment bankers and venture capitalists pass by again, promising millions of US dollars for basically unsustainable operations, like they did in the past. Maybe it does make sense to look at revenue models, something that was considered to be a blasphemy during the first internet craze.
But otherwise, all signals point in the direction of yet another, more unsettling internet craze that will shock the world.

Fons Tuinstra

And I added my comments in living in China, at the entry about Mu Zimei, that disruptive blog from Chinese soil.

2003-12-18T10:31:00.000+08:00

Internet justice

Justice has been done, at least the court has spoken in the case of the Zhuhai sex scandal where hundreds of Japanese were entertained by prostitutes, report all Chinese media. Two defendants actually got life sentences and others also lenghty penalties.
It was a modern lynch party, where the internet users rallied as patriots and demanded 'justice'. If it would not be for this public outcry, probably nothing would have happened, and that would have better too.
Interesting in the story in de Shanghai Daily is that China also wants to arrest three Japanese through Interpol. Wonder whether this fits the international standards for crime too.

2003-12-12T06:10:00.000+08:00

Two million bicycles more - The WTO column

(tomorrow at Chinabiz)

Ann Arbor, MI – Governing a potential world-class city like Shanghai is not easy, I realize when I see the news from my city reaching me here in the mainstream US media. While premier Wen Jiabao went around and won the hearts of many Americans during his trip to his second-largest trade partner, Shanghai did its best to become the laughing stock of the world.

Two announcements made a huge impression. First the announcement of Shanghai mayor Han Zheng that the official tally for the number of Shanghainese – including three million migrants – is now over 20 million.
That is about two million more bicycles more, was my first thought.
Also at the Shanghai police force they must have been rethinking their traffic policies now also the official number of bicycles must have been revised in line with the increase populace. Super traffic copper Chen Yuangao announced this week in the Shanghai Daily that bicycles will be banned from most of Shanghai’s major roads, since they hinder traffic too much. “Bicycles put great pressure on the city's troubled traffic situation," Chen was quoted all over the world.

Now some people might think that bicycles are also traffic, even cheap and more environmental friendly than cars, but who watches the traffic police in Shanghai knows that this is a wrong thought. Traffic regulations are only there for cars, police men (I did not see any traffic police women yet) give their directions to cars, fine them.
Bicycles are not considered to be traffic, I learned from my own experiences, although their official number must now have increased from nine to eleven million and they are the preferred mean of transportation in Shanghai.

Is there a way to stop people making a fool of themselves and their whole city in front of a worldwide audience? Probably not, as some countries even have a problem of controlling their head of state. Here in the US a senior aid to US President Bush noted in the New York Times – cowardly anonymously – that his boss really looks uncomfortable when the word ‘globalization’ is being mentioned during discussions.
Fortunately, Chinese media do allow themselves more leeway when they are confronted with lower-ranking officials that act out of line with even basic logic. Although only in the last paragraphs, the Shanghai Daily notes high level opposition against the new plans, among bicyclists and even the powerful Shanghai Economic Commission.

Officials should feel free to say whether they think it their genuine feeling about issues that relate to their competence. And media should put that into perspective, even if it is tough for those officials.

Fons Tuinstra

2003-12-10T07:00:00.000+08:00

XFN buys US newswire

An interesting move by the Xinhua Financial Newswire (XFN) that has bought a US financial information provider Market News. Now the Hong Kong based newswire has a foothole in Wall Street, writes Reuters.
In August we held a meeting of the Shanghai Foreign Correspondents' Club (see earlier entries) where we had XFN managing director Graham Earnshaw as a speaker. China would not limit itself to the market for teddy bears and washing machines, but would also enter the services, was one of the predictions earlier this year.
They move fast. The story says that Xinhua holds 20 percent of XFN. I thought it was more in August, but still a minority share.
"Market News Chief Executive Mike Connor said his company was excited about the Xinhua link and that all 70 staffers will remain working under the Market News banner, which will now be expanded to include coverage of Asian markets," the article says.
The purchase coincides nicely with the visit of China's prime minister Wen Jiabao to the US, giving perhaps a bit more than a symbolic signal about future developments.

2003-12-08T21:11:00.000+08:00

Different opinions

One of the interesting things in China is how one and the same event can trigger off rather different assessments. President and CPC party-secretary Hu Jintao recently called upon cadres in the Chinese media to "meet the requirements of the new situation", wrote state newswire Xinhua. "Hu called for ideological emancipation, seeking truth from facts, and keeping pace with the changes of the times, in the field of media work. The Party's leadership for the sector must be firmly adhered to, he stressed."
But non-Chinese newswires like AFP have a different take on that meeting. "Chinese President Hu Jintao has stressed the importance of Communist Party control over public opinion and urged propaganda officials to make promoting the country's ideology overseas a "strategic task", AFP said. "During the meeting, Hu urged that patriotism, nationalism and socialism should be promoted along with the policies of the ruling party in an effort to maintain the "cohesiveness" of the nation."
Well, good to see that not all ideological differences have been wiped away under the regime of globalization.

2003-12-07T06:15:00.000+08:00

China stories - the WTO column

(today in Chinabiz)

6/12/2003

Cambridge, MA - Mention China and Shanghai here at Harvard University and you can be sure you will get an attentive audience. China and Shanghai - much more than Beijing - almost seem magic words, now the world is trying to revive national economies, with the exception of China where the government is trying to slow down its economic growth.

The amazing thing is how little information crosses the oceans, despite the internet and all the modern tools to exchange information. A Finish colleague who had been stationed in both Shanghai and Beijing initially visited all the seminars, lectures and meetings he could identify by famous Harvard scholars. Until he discovered that he got very little new information. "They were all repeating the same stories I have been writing over the past few years," he said.

He now decided to write a book himself. "I have become a bit less modest in the past few months," he acknowledged.

People in the US ask me too often how they can get a job in Shanghai; not whether they can get one.

For a large and media-rich country like the USA they get information about China through very few sources, I discovered while talking to people. AP - say the American Xinhua - and the New York Times dominate the spectrum; nobody even mentioned the Washington Post. The New York Times published recently an article about China's most famous weblogger Muzimei, who described her multiple sexual encounters in her weblog or 'blog' in jargon and that dominates many discussions.

The blog has developed into the latest new media cult in the US. Thanks to Muzimei China is catching up rather fast and is getting international fame too. At a meeting of Harvard bloggers a few days ago, of course broadcasted directly onto the internet, I gave an overview of the latest developments of the internet in China, but did not have to tell about our exploring reporter from Guangdong.

Harvard blogging supremo David Winer had already met the lady at a dinner party at Berkeley journalism school, but had not made it into her blog, he said regretful.

The problem of Shanghai's success story has a downturn, I read in the Chinese media. Now the city has officially 20 million inhabitants, a rise with over three million in only a few years time, because jobseekers from all over China and the rest of the world flock to Shanghai to cash in on this economic miracle. Here at Harvard and other famous US universities many Chinese are working hard to earn themselves a grade that would allow them only a few years ago a better future in their home town.

They might face a hard time, now all the competitors they can imagine have the same idea: go to Shanghai. Apart from reducing economic growth, China should perhaps also discourage jobseekers to go to Shanghai. Official tours to encourage Chinese to return to China seem outdated: the pool of well-educated and often too cheap white collar workers is already putting too much strain on those returnees.

Fons Tuinstra

PS: Cover by a snow storm today, preventing me from useful activities like sight seeing. In stead I have been clearing the roads from snow for the first time in my life.

2003-12-06T07:58:00.000+08:00

Internet users force Toyota into retreat

Another anti-Japanese flame has ignated first China's internet users and has now boiled over into the regular media. Two adds by Japanese car producer Toyota angered the internet users, who called for a boycot of Japanese goods and "most included language that can't be reprinted here", the Shanghai Daily reports.
Even the journalist of the papers initially did not see too much wrong in the adds, who "look harmless enough at first glance, but have hurted Chinese pride at second glance. In one adds a Toyota pulls a car that looks like a Chinese military car.
The adds have been pulled and Toyota has offered its apologies to the Chinese.

2003-12-04T04:19:00.000+08:00

English language

I predicted it already some months ago: English language supplements are becoming the next big thing in Chinese media. The Shanghai Daily now confirms that trend. What they want to do is still unclear.
"Foreigners won't buy a Chinese newspaper to read its English page," said Huang Hu, a journalism professor at Fudan University in the Shanghai Daily. "Clearly those English pages have a positioning problem."

2003-12-01T20:49:00.000+08:00

Berkman Center issues new internet report

The Berkman Center of Harvard University has issued an updated report on the internet blockades, writes The Inquirer today.
About 200,000 sites are blocked in one way or another, the report says the article.
I know the testing is done in a rather serious way, although I feel that the criteria ("from at least one point in China on at least one occasion") are rather rigid. As a user of the internet in China I felt the blockades did not mean that much and could be circumvented rather easily.
Interesting point of discussion when I meet Ben Edelman of the Berkman Center on Wednesday.

2003-12-01T18:10:00.000+08:00

Shutting down print publications

China will start to shut down over 600 print publications as a further step in reforming the media business, the Shanghai Daily reports. Officially forced subscriptions are banned by the central government, but the effect on the print business seems rather limited. Even the number of over 600 publications is rather modest for Chinese standards.

2003-11-30T18:57:00.000+08:00

Missing China Telecom - the WTO column
(today at Chinabiz)

29/11/2003

Amsterdam - One of the more annoying emails I got this week on China was a press release of "Human Rights in China' in New York that criticized a recent survey published this month on the internet in China by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and partly funded by the American Markle Foundation, (where you can also get the excellent report).

The CASS - report documents an increased freedom, perceived by the users of the internet to criticize government decisions, as one of its conclusions. Interesting was also the opinion of both users and anon-users of the internet that they see the Chinese domestic media as more reliable than their foreign counterparts.

According to HR in China those questions cannot be asked in a country like China, even more, you cannot conduct any opinion poll in a country where the government is molding the opinion of its citizens. Two questions came to my mind right aaway.

Who should we ask then about what is going on? Should we ask "Human Rights in China"? President Hu Jintao? And another equally fundamental question: is the US administration not molding the opinions of their citizens in a similar way, with a similar level of success? It is still interesting to find out those opinions.

What strikes me is how fast internet has become part of daily life in China and how easy we can get addicted to being in touch with all the information in the world. I'm now sitting in the Amsterdam equivalent of a Starbucks and I cannot get online: such a nuisance. I have been traveling through Silicon Valley, looking for a way to hook onto the internet, like a traveler in the desert looking for water: it was sometimes damned hard.

I never thought I would ever say this, but I'm missing the services of China Telecom, who gives nationwide access to the internet by dialing only one number 16300, and you only pay telephone access cost.

What is really an interesting story to follow abroad is the upheaval caused by Muzimei, the Guangdong reporter who documented her sexual adventures with men on a highly successful weblog, causing a breakdown of the servers who could not handle the gigantic traffic. Muzimei was dismissed by her employer, but I guess her own little project did get out of hand in a more positive way.

While the stories do not seem to provide material for the Nobel Prize for Literature, it is for sure a sign that things are changing - for the better if you ask me. People allow themselves the freedom to do in their private lives what they want, without the fear of being put into a re-education camp. That would have been ten years standard procedure. Now even the official media use the incident as a good way to discuss the values of this society, maybe in a slightly moralizing way, but giving the persons involved to make their own choices.

Non-users of the internet say they do not want to go online, since they see no reason to do so. Muzimei at least has given some of them a damned good reason to get online and also use other, perhaps slightly more useful information on the internet.

Fons Tuinstra

(And China has released three internet entrepreurs from prison, media report)

2003-11-28T15:35:00.000+08:00

The unsuccessful ban of Muzimei's tales

It came not as a surprise. The successful weblog of Guangdong author Li Li, pen name Muzimei, has appeared as a booknon their sexually explicit weblog and has been banned, writes the Shanghai Daily today.
In a standard procedure a still-unknown government agency has banned the book for equally unknown reasons - at least they have not informed the public. Just like previous popular but banned books, it does not make a big difference for the audience. Some online bookshops have stopped the sales, but the book is still widely available in the stores.
Illegal copies have also appeared and that is the major bad news for the author: she will miss much of the copyright and will have to rely on income from a translation.

2003-11-25T14:48:00.000+08:00

HRChina attacks internet survey

In a rather aggressive press release Human Rights in China has attacked the newly released report in the internet in China for not address the crackdown on the internet. (Their website www.hrchina.org is unfortunately no longer available). HRCHina disagrees with conclusions like that internet users agree that the "Internet provides more opportunities to express political views and criticize government policies".
It argues that in a society like China you cannot ask people for their opinion, since it has been shaped by the government itself.
Who could we ask then for an opinion, I wonder? I found it an excellent report and - considering the situation in China - very frank academics, even more in their interviews than in the report.
Perhaps HRChina fears it might become obsolete when the internet and openness really get hold of China.

2003-11-24T16:00:00.000+08:00

Mixed reports about Georgia

Here in Europe all newspaper open with the "Revolution of Roses" in Georgia where angry protesters have sent their president Shevardnadze peacefully home after he committed fraud during recent elections.
The China Daily gives a fair account, although less prominent as the European newspapers. In the Shanghai Daily (at least the online edition) nothing is mentioned.

2003-11-24T14:34:00.000+08:00

Muzimei lost her job and got an upgrade

A very typical way of dealing with a feature like Muzimei, according to a dispatch from the Shanghai Daily, here copied by the China Daily. The writer of the famous sexblog lost her job, but got an upgrade of the server as her hosting service, as on average 6,000 new readers join her blog.

2003-11-22T01:54:00.000+08:00

"Media control loosens because of internet"

Research by Chinese scholars, funded by the Markle foundation shows that the internet has ended the control of the Chinese government over the media, writes AP.
"You cannot control Internet. That is my basic theory," said Guo, who recently completed a survey on Internet use in 12 smaller Chinese cities. "People can receive all sorts of information. The filters cannot scan a graphic."
Interesting detail from the research: nearly 90 percent of the interviewees (internet users and non-users alike) think some degree of management or control of the internet is necessary (page 6/7). That figure has gone _up_ compared to a similar survey two years ago.
What should be controlled? 1. Pornography; 2. Violence; 3. Spam; 4. Online advertissement. ONly a small part (12.9%) think political content should be controlled.

2003-11-20T10:01:00.000+08:00

Muzimei - more indepth

Not so much time to look at the media in China, but our Muzimei is getting better coverage, also that to Andrea from Living in China. With here some additional information.
The Guangdong reporter who blogged about her sexual experiences in pictures and a translation. Here a translation of one of her stories, "No doggy style".

2003-11-17T04:47:00.000+08:00

Muzimei causes mayhem at blogchina.com

I missed the story here in the US, but fortunately Wang Jianshuo keeps me updated about the blog where a girl reported on her sexual experiences. I reported about the blog in my column at Chinabiz.
Not unexpected, the site of Muzimei broke down under the interest, including her host blogchina.com (although the latter one seems to be running again), while Muzimei seems to be back also with a slightly different url, as long as it lasts.

2003-11-14T10:08:00.000+08:00

Sex sells

Also scientists have discovered this golden rule in journalism. The official newswire Xinhua reports about a top-10 of sex-related stories in Chinese media. Fortunately, they have not selected according to the upheaval their caused, the mouthpiece of the Chinese government writes, but they are ranked according to their "social and cultural values", without elaborating.

2003-11-05T17:26:00.000+08:00

Foreign magazines

No time to read myself, but maybe the CD today is interesting.

2003-11-04T22:27:00.000+08:00

Traveling

So fewer updates these weeks. An extremely fast connection here in Tokyo, but not so much to write about China.

2003-10-31T16:22:00.000+08:00

SMS annoyance

One of the worst communication trends in China is the Short Message System (MSM). I still remember the panic when the first one hit my mobile and I actually had to figure out how to type with a key board that is not meant for typing. There is only one reason for SMS: just talking to somebody is slightly more expensive, although I would have saved me a lot of useless pressing of buttons. A very typical exchange of 'information' by SMS.

Message: They are coming!
I: Who? What? Where? When? Why?
Answer: Don't you know?
I: Why would I otherwise ask?
Answer: So you really do not know?
(I do not answer anymore)

China should ban this useless way of communicating and can claim serious health to your damage. Today I have overrun at least two people who stopped in the middle of the street, because they suddenly had to send off a message, ignoring what was happening in the rest of the world. I think they got only slight hurted, even ignored their injuries and kept on pressing the buttons. And I'm not even a car.

2003-10-30T14:31:00.000+08:00

Chinese girls blog ahead – the WTO column

(This week at Chinabiz)

In the coming months I will travel around the world investigating the changing nature of newsgathering. One of the questions I had to solve beforehand was how to keep updated about the developments in China. Because developments are going in such an unbelievable pace, getting information from China is very important.
One of the very new features in China (in the US they are already around for a few years) are the so-called weblogs or blogs and – watch my words – they are becoming a new trend in China very fast.
Blogs are websites with almost daily new entries in a reversed chronological order and offer many links to related information. They are often rather personal and opinionated and can focus on one person’s life or on an issue. Chinabiz is one example, although it was already blogging before it became popular. Some of those blogs will become famous, just like some became in the US, although most will be forgotten.
In China the government reacted in a classic way: it tried to ban blogs. Since the beginning of this year blogs hosted by blogger.com – a company bought by Google inc. – have been blocked. Blogger.com hosts about 1.5 million of the estimated 3 million blogs on the internet. The others have no problem and this year even the first China-hosted blogs emerged at for example www.blogcn.com.
In a new initiative www.livinginchina.com tries to act as a kind of portal for English-language blogs on China and that portal-idea is a very clever, since it is very hard to identify good information on so many blogs.
What Chinese and foreign blogs have in common is that most are very boring and are only interesting for the authors and their closest friends. The big difference is that while foreign blogs are dominated by a combination of male nerds and professionals – including journalists – Chinese blogs are mostly neatly designed websites, done by good-looking young women. Unfortunately, also most good-looking young Chinese women tend to have lives that are as boring as those of their nerdy counterparts.
In China they only emerged this year and a few are really encouraging. In one blog of a Shanghai girl review the sex she has with many men. Fortunate for the guys most reviews are anonymous. That is of course a classic way to score hits on your site.
Some blogs are giving really useful information. My favorite is www.wangjianshuo.com by the Microsoft engineer Wang Jiangshuo who really hit it on the head with his entry on the traffic in Shanghai. He explains the myriad of traffic regulations that – for example – ban new drivers from certain places. “The traffic sign forbidding the new car drivers are placed at the entrance of the elevated highways. I bet when drivers see the plate, it is already too late to change the lane to the other one leading to the surface road,” he writes. Wang got recently his first ticket, reason for his in-depth analysis. “At many intersections, left turn is forbidden. At the intersection between Cao Bao Road and Long Wu Road, for example, there is even a rule that cars can only turn left or right at the intersection, but cannot go straight forward. Many car drivers get the tickets at this place - I think not many people, especially for new drivers, can understand this strange rule. Thank God that that there are not many "right turn" forbidden roads yet. :-)
I will keep on getting my information from Shanghai.

Fons Tuinstra

(blogging at foreigncorrespondent.blogspot.com)

2003-10-29T16:47:00.001+08:00

Shanghai FCC hosts mixer with Chinese colleagues
on 14 November 2003, 7-10 pm

"We cover the same events and attend the same press conferences, but how often do we as foreign journalists have a chance to mingle with our Chinese colleagues?," asks the SFCC itself. "The FCC is legally prohibited from allowing Chinese journalists as members, but nothing stops us from hanging out with them. In the interests of promoting friendship between Shanghai's foreign and local journalist communities, we are holding the first FCC Mixer with Chinese Journalists on Friday, 14 November from 7-10pm at ArtSea Gallery by Suzhou Creek. Free alcohol, other beverages, and snacks will be served."

2003-10-27T12:43:00.000+08:00

IHT-site still forgotten by the censor

Can somebody give the internet censor in China a call? The website of the International Herald Tribune remains blocked and can only be seen by a proxy. Since all the victims of last week are working without a problem (Google, Hotmail) they simply have forgotten this useful site. That happens of course when the logic for blocking sites is lacking, then it is very hard to decide to unblock them.

2003-10-25T16:55:00.000+08:00

Wereldnet

Bijna vergeten: maandag op Wereldnet.

2003-10-25T16:24:00.000+08:00

International Herald Tribune

On the internet almost everything seems to be available again, apart from the International Herald Tribune. It looks like the censor has basically forgotten to unblock the site. :-)

2003-10-24T23:26:00.000+08:00

Satellite broadcast blocked

Again censorship, but now from the sending side and for commercial reasons. I was this evening visiting a foreign couple who only a month ago acquired their illegal satellite dish to watch mainly foreign stations, just like hundreds of thousands do in Shanghai and possibly millions in China.
Technically it is illegal and of course they do not pay any fees for receiving over 50 channels. The government once a year collects a truck full of those dishes to show how serious the ban is, but otherwise there would be not problem. Only this evening there was for the third time no TV because the sending satellite had changed it settings to stop illegal reception.
It takes a day or so and then their company comes with a new chip and everything is working again, but it is a nuisance. My friends would not mind to pay the legal fees, but they cannot because the operation is illegal anyway. Interesting dilemma, especially since this seems to hit millions in China. Their company was very busy and unable to help them this time right away.

2003-10-24T13:20:00.000+08:00

Censor changes preferences

Google is not problem anymore, but the filters have changed to other sites. The IHT is still a problem as is getting hotmail in. With a proxy you can see it, but that is still a bit of a nuisance.

2003-10-24T11:35:00.000+08:00

Japan, F1 and Google – The WTO column
(tomorrow at Chinabiz)

25 November 2003

Shanghai - What have 500 Japanese men fornicating in Zhuhai, the Formula One in Shanghai and Google in common? In the rest past they all had a run-in with the Chinese regulations and got a very different treatment. This is the kind of associations you start to make when the internet censor in his/her wisdom decides to turn up the heat for the internet users.

What I liked about the incident with the Japanese in Zhuhai was the exchange of arguments. I did not agree with much what was being said and especially the question whether the event was a legally or morally wrong act was in the end not solved. But the conflict was played in the open and the only one who does seem to have a real problem is the incarnated manager of the hotel. Even the official spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs got involved in this earthly matter.

How different was dealt with the revelation in the Shanghai Star a few months ago that tobacco adds would be very important to generate income from the Formula One race next year in Shanghai, but that unfortunately the Chinese law bans those adds at sporting events. From the story it was obvious that the management of the track thought they could get away with it, since it is a very prestigious event. Since it is a big event, they did not even think about making up an excuse for ignoring those rules.
Of course there is an easy way out. I for myself have never considered Formula One to be a sport to begin with. Reason enough to exclude it from regulations that focus on sport. But you cannot expect nowadays that even such an event gets away with flouting the regulations without even coming with a decent excuse for doing so and a bit of discussion.

More upsetting I found last week’s blockade of Google by the not-much heavily used internet filters. Suddenly my favorite search engine and a few other media sites were not available for about a day. Last year it happened for five weeks without explanation, so initially there was reason enough be wonder what was going on and how long it could last.
More important: what could have caused this sudden upsurge in internet blockades? What nasty secret had to be hidden? What major event was taking place without us knowing about it? I could not get a clue. That really was more annoying than the blockade itself.
Since I have not found the solution, I fear it must be a very pragmatic one. Last year this 100-million US dollar device was installed and proved to be mainly effective in causing economic damage. So, it had to be switched off very soon. But then, somebody has decided to spend this kind of money on a useless devise, so they must run it every now and then, just to prove they are still there.

When censorship would be part of an educational process: telling us what to watch or what not to watch, that would make sense. Now we even do not know what is illegal or not.

Fons Tuinstra

2003-10-23T22:52:00.000+08:00

CigarJazzWine

A nice setting at the 50th floor of the Bund Centre where a new jazz bar celebrated its opening. Really sensational with a bright view on the city by night, loads of jazz and wine, and loads of nice people.
Met many colleagues here and especially remarkable were the first Shanghai bloggers I met. My colleagues at Cbiz.cn has assured me that blogging was not done in China. Well, they were wrong.
Shirley Xu gave me a first introduction and would send the url of her blog to me. Included would be many other Chinese blogs, including the current sensation, a Shanghai girl that goes around having sex with men and their achievements on her blog. Fortunately for us guys, this is mostly done anonymously, apart from one famous singer, who also got the job done. Will inform your on new discoveries in this field.
For sure big scale blogging is going on at http://www.blogger.cn/
And even more at http://www.blogcn.com/

2003-10-23T14:44:00.000+08:00

Shanghai TV gets English channel

The Shanghai Media Group (that organizes all radio and tv station in town) is planning an all-day English language next year, writes the Shanghai Daily. English seems to be a key objective, not only with print, but with all media.
Still a bit skeptical: I know their English language service now and there is really not reason to watch it unless you are very bored.

2003-10-22T19:15:00.000+08:00

WSJ in the China Daily

Today the China Daily brought a reprint of an article on China by the Wall Street Journal. Indeed a milestone in Chinese standards.
For a long time it was forbidden to use any other sources than the official newswire Xinhua for foreign reports, although print publications started already years ago to flout that rule.
When the Shanghai Daily got permission to actually use foreign newswires, it took years before they actually started to attribute those articles to the foreign wires.
Now even the China Daily takes over full articles by this hard core capitalist US paper! Another sign of change.

2003-10-22T17:44:00.000+08:00

Inspection teams check compliance

Beijing has sent inspection teams to "20 provinces, regions and municipalities", writes the official newswire Xinhua today. They have to check whether the new rules that compulsory subscriptions are no longer allowed are really implementen.
The rules were seen as a major improvement, since it would mean a step closer to media that have to comply with the market. Many useless media would then go under.
But when Beijing starts sending inspection teams, it is mostly a sign that Beijing feels the provinces are not complying. That is nothing unusual in China, but might stall the reform process of the media.

2003-10-21T09:17:00.000+08:00

Google back

At least Google is back again; other sites still have problems.

2003-10-20T12:41:00.000+08:00

More trouble on the internet

Last week Shanghai Telecom (and I'm not sure whether other departments of China Telecom have done the same) has introduce anti-spam measures that makes sending out messages much harder, also for legitimate companies and organisations.
When you sent out more than 50 emails, you will find your messages blocked after the 50th. That curtails also many legitimate use, so I found it very hard I inform people on my new address by email.
One solution is using China Netcom, who does not use this kind of system, but switching companies might not be that easy.
Any effect on spam I do not see. My personal spamfilter signals that my daily harvest is now over 150, up 50 percent compared to a few weeks ago.

2003-10-20T11:53:00.000+08:00

Censor plays with Google again

The Chinese internet filters play around with the Google search engines again. It does not seem an all out blockade like last year, but information is only let in in very small amounts that makes surfing a nuisance.
How do I know? When I use other search engines (ICQ is a good one) that apply the Google-technology I get all the information I do not get through Google. It does not seem to make sense, but logic and censorship are seldom a very strong combination.

Not sure what is happening. Also the International Herald Tribune is not working, and the Yahoo news searches. Seems like there is a large nasty story out there, the censors do not want us to see. Anybody a clue? Even my proxies do not work.
What can it be? The negotiations on North Korea.

2003-10-18T23:33:00.000+08:00

No Great Wall

Damned! Now had China its first man in space, but he failed to see the Great Wall!

2003-10-15T23:11:00.000+08:00

Man in space

This evening I was at the studio of the German radio station ARD and my colleagues had to find for a commentary somebody who would felt threatened by the launch of the first Chinese man into space. We went over some obvious countries, but could not see how they would feel threatened.
"Maybe the taxpayer," I suggested as a way out. The project has mainly political value, scientifically it does not mean that much.
On my way back I had to reverse my opinion. The taxpayers enjoyed the patriotic feelings. They do not mind to pay the bill for this enterprise.

2003-10-15T10:55:00.000+08:00

Man in space

China's first manned spacecraft blasted off just two hours ago and it tops the coverage of almost all media.

2003-10-14T10:42:00.000+08:00

The Rupert splash

Just had an enthusiastic Rupert Hoogewerf on the line, who happily remembered he still owed me a 250 renminbi.
On Thursday he is going to make his annual splash with his rich list, and in addition three separate lists on people in real estate, IT and finance. I will be surprised to see who is on it, he told me. Will meet tomorrow, if time allows. Just now he was rushing between CCTV and Shanghai TV for TV shows.
What is remarkable is the high number of people on the list doing business overseas. Last year that was a very small minority, so this might be a interesting change.

2003-10-14T10:06:00.000+08:00

China fears fallout of space trip

The central TV CCTV has scrapped plans for a live broadcast of the launch of its first manned space shuttle, the South China Morning Post reports.
The political leadership fears the political consequences of a possible disaster, seen live on TV. Now CCTV will only broadcast some footage after it is clear things go well.
A curious attitude: what will they do when things go wrong? Deny there has even been an attempt? In this way the officials involved are able to create a PR-disaster even before anything has happened. It shows a profound lack of confidence, and that is not good.

2003-10-13T10:13:00.000+08:00

Hoogewerf is earlier

I just received word through the Shanghai Foreign Correspondents Club that Rupert's Rich List will already be out this Thursday.
"Led by a new number 1, there are 40 new faces in our 100, which today have an average of US $230 million. The IT and steel sectors have shown the biggest growth this year. There are a dozen entrepreneurs aged 36 or less with the youngest aged 22. The youngest business only started in 1999. A third have now got strong connections with overseas especially with the US," Hoogewerf writes in his email.
More news on Thursday.

2003-10-13T09:52:00.000+08:00

Rich lists face heat

China will see an increase in so-called ‘Rich lists’ as the longest standing list of Rupert Hoogewerf will reappear on October 30 as a co-publication with the British Euromoney, while Forbes – his original host – is expected to come with its edition only weeks later when it wants to start publishing in Chinese. Other Chinese magazines are also expected to follow with such lists, although officially Chinese magazines are not allowed to publish such lists to avoid corruption.
The Ministry of Propaganda has increased the heat on Forbes by repeating an earlier ban on foreign magazines to be republished in Chinese, reports the Shanghai Daily. The anonymous official singles out Forbes, the Harvard Business Review and Newsweek by name, just as the ministry had done in earlier occasions. What can be allowed are fashion publication and science publications by official Chinese publishers that use part of the content of a foreign magazine, but none of the three has applied for permission.
Other magazines like the Fortune magazine – neither fashion nor science – appears in Chinese, but is officially printed in Hong Kong.
None of the magazines has yet been responding to the repeated threat to enforce the ban by the ministry.

2003-10-13T09:51:00.000+08:00

The historic launch

Media are getting into gear for China’s first manned flight into space, expected somewhere tomorrow. The flight, a preparation for a possible flight to the moon later this decade, appeals greatly to the patriotic feelings and the media are using the event to beat that drum.
Not for nothing it coincides with the ongoing meeting of the Politburo that is promising more transparency, but has not applied this promise yet to its own proceedings. One of the hot potatoes at the meeting, whether or not give private property more constitutional protection, has been kept carefully out of the media.

2003-10-11T22:59:00.000+08:00

English supplements

A remarkeble trend is starting to develop among Chinese printed media: they want supplements in English.
The newly founded daily in Shanghai, the Oriental Express, was the first one with quite a mature section in their Saturday issue. I have followed the discussion about the target group and the format of this segment from a distance. In two months time both would have turned around three or four times. Would they target the foreigners in the city, or the English language Chinese audience? And in the last case (I asked) why would they do it? I never got a decent answer on that question but I guess it adds the flavor of quality, a global approach to the daily.
More papers are discussing similar moves, says rumors in the market. The main problem at this stage (also for the journalists working there) is the Chinese payment: between 1 and 1.5 Renminbi (0.12-0.18 USD) per word. That does not guarantee much quality.

2003-10-09T14:14:00.000+08:00

More unwed sex

One of the golden rules in journalism is that when you are able to throw in some sex, people will read it. Chinese media have discovered this rule too, and without hesitation I will follow them.
Between 60 and 70 percent of the Chinese had sex before their got the license to marry. Up to a week ago a medical checkup was compulsory before marriage, so that was a great source of information for the health authorities.
The Xinhua report, quoting the China Family Planning Association, does not say with whom people are having sex, but both anecdotic evidence and the report suggest they mostly have premarital sex with the partner they are going to marry anyway.
Morale is loosening up on casual sex too, as one fifth to one third of the young people think that only they themselves decide about having sex and that the rest of the society has no business here.
That is still much lower than the number of people who do have sex before marriage.

2003-10-09T10:47:00.000+08:00

Unethical journalists

The scandal of last years Fanshi mining accident in Shanxi province, where local government officials tried to cover up the death of 39 miners has now well developed into a remarkable media scandal. It used to be standard procedure that journalists would not report about this kind of accidents. Chinese media were an extension of the government, mostly the local government, who was not only eager to avoid public interest, but even more eager to avoid the interest of the central government for their failures.
What I did not know was that journalist would earn high bribes for not telling the story: I always thought they would be too afraid to step out of line. But journalism and getting advertisements in is not separated in China.
“Among the 11 journalists, several worked concurrently for their papers' advertising and circulation departments. Business operations constituted the core of their work, while reporting activities were a sideline, or even were perceived as a tool for acquiring material gain,” writes the China Daily.
The propaganda paper continues: “For those who use a reporter's title as a passport to personal gain, it is impossible to stick to truth and objectivity, which ought to be the lifeblood of journalism.”
The problem is that this is not yet the standard, as even local Xinhua reporters, of the official state news wire, were blackmailed into shutting up.
This kind of article is a way to set a standard, fits into the propaganda task of the media, but wrongly suggests that it is already the standard for journalists.

2003-10-08T11:27:00.000+08:00

The Harvard scandal

State newswire Xinhua goes all out again in the scandal regarding the human genetic research projects by the Harvard Public Health School eight years ago. According to media reporta – initially by US media in 2002 – researchers including associate professor Xu Xiping did not stick to their promises for a medical checkup of their human guinea pigs and most certainly did no ask for their official consent to get involved in the research.
Xinhua reports now that Harvard president Lawrence Summers has concluded that an “inquiry revealed no substantive harm done in our study and that all procedural concerns raised have been fully addressed.
Inhabitants on Anhui province still claim that they suffer from damage caused by the research.
A serious matter of course, although it might also be cause by the fact a famous American institution is involved. Then the official media tend to be harsher in their verdict.

2003-10-06T10:46:00.000+08:00

Proxies

What strikes me as curious on my blogs is that an increasing number of hits is coming from China. Technically that should not be possible, since the domain names of 'blogspot' are unfortunately blocked by the internet censor. When I want to have a look at the site itself, I have to use a proxy and then an IP address in Ireland, Brazil or whatever shows up.

So, how come that also China-based IP addresses show up?

2003-10-06T09:45:00.000+08:00

Blogging in China

No, we do not do these things, was the reaction of one of my media-savvy friends told me when I asked him about blogging in China, apart from the English sites of very few foreigners and even fewer Chinese.
He was wrong, I learned from co-blogger Teasalon this morning. (See her entry on September 28). Our Chinese colleagues are busy in preparing their first e-zine on their efforts.

2003-10-01T15:42:00.000+08:00

Worker sets himself on fire

Xinhua reports today that a 49-year old laid-off worker from Hubei Province has set himself ablaze at Tiananmen Square this morning. Patrolling police put the fire out and the man only got minor injuries, the report says.
Why would the official news agency report about this incident and not about the arrest of petitioners from Shanghai who wanted to protest today also against their unfair evictions in Shanghai? I guess the divide between the rich cities and the poor country side is higher on the political agenda, than sorting out the political ties up between Shanghai official and real estate developers.

2003-09-30T15:34:00.000+08:00

Holiday

China observes a national holiday from 1 till 7 October (but things have started already). Although for colleagues who smell a juicy story holidays do not count.

2003-09-29T21:16:00.000+08:00

Japanese sex II

The orgy of 400 Japanese tourists and 500 consenting Chinese women keeps on hitting the headlines, and emotions keep on boiling.
Today, for example in the China Daily, more official comments after an unknown number of suspects have been arrested. In the official reactions the stress lies again on the – technically illegal – act of prostitution. The political sensitive anti-Japanese comment of yesterday that partly acknowledged that the sex part was not that important, have been revered.
"Foreign citizens must obey Chinese laws here in China," spokesman Kong of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said. I guess that if it would be that easy, also the Chinese would stick to the law.

2003-09-28T15:39:00.000+08:00

Japanese orgy triggers off outrage

Chinese internet users went on a virtual rampage after they discovered about a Japanese orgy in Zhuhai, Guangdong province, the state-press reveals. A two-day event involving 400 male Japanese and 500 Chinese women in a five-star hotel triggered off emotions, not because of what happened, but because of the date, from 16 to 18 September.
That was just before the 72nd anniversary of the Japanese occupation of China and that triggered off only days ago angry responses, as the news was disclosed.
At the time, nobody reported the incident to the police, but now the Zhuhai International Convention Centre has been closed for further investigation.

2003-09-27T12:14:00.000+08:00

Xinhua plays the Asia card

Often people send me an email on a bit of Chinese news they have picked up and wonder what it means. A colleague at a Dutch TV station with a question on a Chinese medical story: brains of office workers deteriorate faster because of lack of exercise, reported by the Dutch ANP. That seems like a classic story that has been invented to fill the room in media.
Another one reported a call by the vice-president Ma Shengrong of Xinhua on his Asian colleagues to get together in Asian alliances to fight off western dominance. That will be true but nonsense also: Xinhua is a state-owned propaganda machine that is important inside China, but seldom taken serious as a news source elsewhere. Not surprisingly this news came to me through Xinhua, and nobody else.

2003-09-25T21:48:00.000+08:00

FT censored in Beijing

At last a decent case of censorship in Beijing again. We do not get them too often. Four pages of the Financial Times have been taken out at the stands, reports the Indian newsagency PTI. It has been a long time since we heard about the paper censor being active.
I have tried to find out what the censor might find offensive about these pages, the first of a 3-part contribution to the Sino-Indian relations, but unfortunately their web site did not carry this article.
Mostly this kind of action is rather limited. Subscribers mostly get the full paper, while also the rest of the country doesn't feel the tough hand of the Beijing censor. Wonder why it is not online, even not on the paid section.

2003-09-24T11:04:00.000+08:00

The asset discussion

One of the more sensitive discussions is on the state assets. As China changes from a planned economy into a market economy selling off those assets is a hot issue, especially as it gives room to for example managers to earn a fortune illegally.
Management buy outs have been banned, reports the Hong Kong edition of the China Daily today, and gives a nice overview of the opinions among experts in the field.
A sign of the changing role of the media in “The last land grab”

2003-09-23T16:09:00.000+08:00

Copy and paste the Chinese media

At www.c-biz.org we have started recently to use more often Chinese media. Until not so long ago those media were hardly worth to monitor, but more and more especially financial reporters are doing their job much better. After the relaunch of our site we will even have a special section with news from the Chinese media
Others are doing it also, I discovered today. The Financial Times has copied and pasted actually two articles from Chinese media and brings it as their own news: the opening up of the media distribution market and an article on new regulations for the stock exchanges.
They still copy and paste it in Beijing, but when things develop further, they might as well do it from a sweatshop in London.

2003-09-22T11:20:00.000+08:00

Another five years to go

"Five years from now, China's publishing market will be totally open to the world, with no limits on capital or proportion of funds," said Liu Binjie, deputy director of the General Administration of Press and Publication, writes the China Daily on Monday. This government department, directly under the Communist Party, is in charge of the domestic media in China.

China’s media have been cheering up the first – rather minor – opening of the publishing world for the outside media. The first private company got permission to distribute magazines.
That is still very far away from a full opening of the media market and the enthusiasm of the Chinese media seems to be government-directed. Five years is an eternity in China and to far away to really think about the consequences. That is one of the fun things of the five-year plans that are still in place. A good reason to throw a party and still no need to worry about the results.

2003-09-21T21:52:00.000+08:00

Internet censor backs off a bit

You remember still that last year the Chinese Internet police decided to install new censorfilters on the internet and in an act of wisdom they decided to block the whole of Google. It took then only a few days to get alternative routes into place and after five or six week the whole Google-blockade was called off.
There was only one exception and that was the "cache" section on their resultpages, where you could get images that have been catched by the Google robots. That allowed me in the time before the new filters to get very easy blocked websites through this Google serves.
Thas has been kept close up to, well maybe today. I clicked by accident on the cache-button and it worked again.
Next should be blogspot of course.

Hmm, the filters are not totally helpless. I was looking up some information about a banned book in China and the cache did not show up. But alternative websites did give enough information, so I wonder what this filter is doing.

2003-09-21T12:26:00.000+08:00

The life of women

Traditions in China are loosing out, is the big message of an article in the People’s Daily that is interesting, although by mixing up all kind of marginally related sociological research, it gives not really a very clear message.
A majority of the professional high-income women in Beijing remain single it says. They do give a breakdown of the reasons way (Do not need the men anymore because they are economically independent), but important other questions are not answered.
Are they happy? I note that also in Shanghai many woman remain unmarried (with is different from single – I just realize) but still feel they are missing something substantial.

Another quoted research says that 80 percent of the women in Chengdu attach great importance to their sexual life. Again, annoying little details are lacking: what does this all mean. The subject is discussed, that is true, but in a way that seem rather remote from real life. Wonder whether the sociologists have asked more questions.

2003-09-19T10:02:00.000+08:00

Forbes in Shanghai

Interesting dilemma's show up when a famous magazine hosts a prestigious conference. What are other media going to do? Traditionally they would ignore the competition. In the foreign media I saw an interview with Mr. Forbes himself done by Reuters. Otherwise coverage has been rather meager.
But the Chinese media went all out in their adoration for this symbol of American capitalism. The China Daily especially admired the entrance fees, a whoppy USD 5,000 per person and many high level sponsors. It cheers about Forbes entering the Chinese market, easily forgetting that only a few months ago the Ministry of Propaganda forbade the same magazine access to the market.
In the Shanghai Daily a very easy connection was made with the expected upsurge in foreign investments, as if Shanghai has to complain about that.

2003-09-18T09:39:00.000+08:00

Only booming industries allowed

One of China's less flourishing industries is that of aviation. Not surprisingly, on a global scale only two large companies can keep up the struggle and the notion of a domestic aviation industry is unthinkable.
But even the unthinkable shows up in the Chinese media today, for example when they report that the aviation industry really takes off. Since they are mainly making very small airplanes, the sale of 30 of them might be a nice start, but should not yet be the opening of your paper.

2003-09-17T09:24:00.000+08:00

The top-jobs

In this fast-changing industry none of the participants has a clue what to do. The government, the media, the journalists and their audiences find it very hard to decide what is for example news.
Biggest State firms to offer top jobs, the China Daily reports on efforts of six large state-owned enterprises to recruit top managers. Big deal, you would say in a world where headhunters run the show and recruiting of top managers is a daily business for all large companies.
In China it is news, but still looks funny as a headline.

2003-09-15T11:40:00.000+08:00

Blogspot really blocked?

Yesterday I got a friendly mail from Edward Hugh who is running his own blog on China. We have interlinked our blogs and he wanted to get some more information.
I tried to revisit his website and suddenly discovered that the usual way of circumventing the internet blockade of the Chinese censor on the "blogspot" domain names by using a proxy does not work anymore.
Technically they can do that, since they have bought rather expensive western technology to block incoming information, but in most cases they simply do not bother. That would be really nasty when I would have to swap to a non-Google-owned domain name.

2003-09-15T09:23:00.000+08:00

The Currency issue

Chinese media keep on reporting on the US pressure on China to revaluate its currency to 'save' American jobs in manufacturing. While international support is fading away, the issue might come up dat the G7 meeting coming weekend. Chinese media follow the issue closely.
The China Daily today quotes Robert Mundell, 1999 winner of the Nobel prize for economics, who encourages China to stick to its policies. The Columbia professor spoke this weekend in Beijing.
The Shanghai Daily reports about the European defection from the US camp.

2003-09-12T19:50:00.000+08:00

The bag-hype

I have just moved from my middle class neigborhood to the working classes in the suburbs of Pudong, as a preperation for much tavel: it is much cheaper here and I do not need a comfortable apartment when I'm gone for much of the time.
Could not follow the media very well because of my busy schedule, but was confronted today with an interesting side effect of my work as a journalist. Since we foreign journalists do not get paid for attending press conferences and other meetings, like the Chinese journalists, we often end up with a bunch of presents.
Unfortunately, these presents come in waves, so some years I got stuffed with pens - mostly the better ones - and other years with watches. Pens get used and the batteries of watches give up, so you throw them away. What I discovered during my move were the remains of a bag-hype. About twenty of the were still lying around, while I thougth I had given most of them to bagless friends. But no. I have one laptop and twenty bags to carry him. Today I tried to give bags away: Shanghai must be full of bags, since none of my friends wanted them.

2003-09-09T22:16:00.000+08:00

Sport marketing

PepsiCo Inc, Philips, Motorola, Fuji and Virgin Atlantic are the names of a few companies in a sad story on sport marketing in China by Business Week. Very few foreign companies seem to have found a good deal in sponsoring clubs and getting the airtime they hoped for. CCTV's monopoly on nationwide broadcasts is only one of many problems, next to the supporters. "
When their teams lose, they stay home, so they don't make a lasting connection with the players -- and their sponsors. For example, Shanghai's Shenhua SVA SMEG soccer club this year sold just 6,000 season tickets, a fifth of the seats in its stadium, says team General Manager Lou Shifang. That's largely because the team placed 12th in a 15-team division in 2002."

2003-09-09T22:00:00.000+08:00

Wife swapping - on China and sex

While some subjects are still off limits, Chinese media are getting more daring in those that are on their agenda, like sex. The China Daily had the most amazing story of this week when it reported today about the habit of wife swapping - with the consent of all adults.
It reports a case, involving both investigative journalism and the police, with even a certain understanding. "The police were also astonished. They did not find anyone who was deceived into the swing club. As a matter of fact, all members were college educated and held enviable jobs," the reporter writes.
The story then goes on with the legal dilemma: when everybody agrees, what is the offense? The reporter suggest that Chinese belong to the most loyal partners in a marriage with 70 percent only having one partner in the whole life, but that seems a rather conspicious statistic. Most saw swapping partners mainly as a way to "spice up" their family life, it goes on.
The story does not reveal if the investigative reporter came alone. The police probably came with a whole bunch after which the reporter decided to write a story about the event he was involved in.

2003-09-09T13:56:00.000+08:00

SARS - the comeback

SARS has obviously reoccurred in Singapore, but the Chinese media seem to have decided they are not going to miss anything. Today the China Daily reported about the Singapore case, as did the Shanghai Daily.
Today my elevator smelled like disinfectants are used in public places again: the whole building smells again like a hospital.

2003-09-07T09:14:00.000+08:00

Zhou Zhengyi hits headlines

Yet another day where a sensitive issue hits the Chinese papers: the arrest of Shanghai real-estate tycoon Zhou Zhengyi. Friday he has been formally arrested, while he was already in detention.
The 11th richest man in China, according to Forbes last year, had been entangled in suspect loans from the Bank of China in Hong Kong. He was perceived to be close to the Shanghai ruling class and the actions against him fitted into a classic conspiracy-story where current president Hu Jintao used this case to undermine Jiang Zemin's power base.
Anyway, for months the Chinese media were told not to report about the case anymore, and only last Friday Shanghai TV was te first to report about his formal arrest.
The charges, also reported by the Shanghai Daily, are relatively light, suggesting that the case might lose its importance soon.

2003-09-06T09:13:00.000+08:00

Article 23

The day after Hong Kong Chief executive Tung Chee-hwa withdraws the so-called article 23 on national security - a law that brought on July half a million people on the streets in Hong Kong - it is interesting to see what the Chinese media do. Do they ignore the issue?
The Hong Kong media of course all open with the issue that has been so important. The Shanghai Daily does not mention the issue, but perhaps their website has not yet been updated. The People's Daily does, and quotes Tung saying "He said that concerning the detailed legislative provisions, there is still doubt and there are still questions remaining in the community." A rather subtle way of describing the protests.

The China Daily bring it more prominent and writes amongst others: "Legislative support for the bill unraveled following a public protest on July 1, and the bill was put on hold". The item includes a picture of Tung at yesterday's press conference. Interesting to see how far the Chinese language media go.

Shanghai Daily later has a very small piece from official newswire Xinhua.

2003-09-05T16:41:00.000+08:00

Chinese internet censor stops US news

The news about US president George Bush going around in his mid-west to rally financial support for his upcoming election campaign did get the attention of the Chinese internet censors. During these rallies Bush also spoke out against China and the way it is managing its currency, to gain support from the hard-hit region.
That means that AP-reports in local papers, like The Beacon Journal from Ohio, are censored in China, a very special honor! The same goes for dispatches in the Porterville Recorder and the Santa Maria Times. Somebody at the censorship department must be very bored.

2003-09-02T18:31:00.000+08:00

Xinhua

Ah, I have to quote Xinhua here, the official Chinese government newswire. They close an item on the democracy in small villages with this beautiful phrase: "Government sources said that by June of 2003, 95 percent of China's 680,000 villages had reached the standards of transparent and democratic village administration. Among them, more than 60 percent had adopted relatively standard mechanisms."

Now, isn't that convincing?

2003-09-02T18:21:00.000+08:00

Contradictions

Well, could I add this morning a positive note on the quality of the China Daily, today's story at Chinabiz does the opposite. Shell had complained in the Financial Times that is 18 billion USD pipeline project in China was in jeopardy because of the bureaucracy and disagreements. BP had already left the project in 2001 for the same reason.
Let me tell you that it takes quite a lot before a company like Shell turns to the media to complain about the Chinese government. You only do that when you are really desperate.
And this morning, writes Chinabiz, the official propaganda paper China Daily writes that everything is going smooth. How funny!

2003-09-02T12:34:00.000+08:00

China Daily reveals 'secrets'

In China there is a solid tradition of not telling the whole truth when that could be an embarrassment for the government or officials involved. But more and more Chinese media tell the truth now and then, although it makes life sometimes harder when you have to differentiate between official lies and informal truths.
Today the China Daily reports candidly about the upcoming changes in the media. And changes that have taken place already without explicit government approval. "The strongest contenders, such as Beijing Youth Daily and Southern Metropolis News, are run like businesses, and it is an open secret that some have private capital behind them," the propagandapaper reveals when it writes about the competition between the media.
The cities seem to be ready for the new situation, is the message. The real victims are going to be papers and magazines at the country-side. But closed down papers is still hard in China, says Liu Binjie, director of the General Administration of Press and Publication: "We need an exit strategy so that those with no readership, no social or financial returns can be terminated. Some papers even have no official operating license. How can you close down a medium that officially not even exists, Liu asks himself.
Almost none of the parties seem to have a clue what to do: the government, the media organizations, the journalists and the readership.

2003-09-01T17:05:00.000+08:00

New blog

The earlier mishap was caused by me, mixing up this blog with a new one I created on the issue of free trade and China that is becoming an issue in the political discussion in the US nowadays.
Quite a different focus than this one, so I won't bother with that.

2003-09-01T11:52:00.000+08:00

eeeek

Sorry, pressed a wrong button and messed up my lay-out. Will be back soon, I hope

2003-08-30T11:19:00.000+08:00

Subscribe Chinese Newspapers Please!

Zhang Jun - for more contact details
Tomorrow at Chinabiz - the Sunday Column

When Tom Rawski, Professor of Economics at Pittsburgh was challenging the inaccuracy of China's GDP statistics, he put his bet on the detailed information he was reading between the lines in the large number of officially published newspapers in China. He reads Chinese newspapers much more carefully than he does English papers we learn from his articles in the American Economic Review. He knows Chinese economy even much better than most Chinese economists because most of us read English papers when writing on Chinese economy.

Tom is certainly one of the American economists who can speak and read Chinese and who work extensively on Chinese economy. Nick Lardy is another one. Someone mentioned to me that Tom once said he would never challenged Nick's numbers about China. Where does Nick get his numbers from then? My impression is that he reads Chinese newspapers widely and carefully every week, if not every day. If you happen to read Nick's articles on Chinese economy, you may have noticed the references of his articles. Most references he cited come from Chinese newspapers directly, and he has good reasons to do so.

That is something most Chinese people didn't realize here in China. Every year I subscribed to about ten different Chinese newspapers. I like reading a great variety of Chinese newspapers because they contain much more and much detailed information than the official statistical yearbooks. For instance, if you are careful enough, you can keep track of the growing numbers of investment projects all over China; you can find statistics on all new buildings. Most Chinese readers would find that information boring to read and they complain because Chinese newspapers report not enough of what they consider to be 'news'. But these newspapers are valuable to those who work on China and invest in China.

I don't know how many newspapers there are in China, but they are too many. In the economics library here at Fudan University, there are perhaps over 50 economic and financial newspapers, and over 200 periodicals of economics and finance. And also most periodicals are newspaper-like, and are really informative in many different ways and they can serve different readerships. Each ministry has its own newspapers and periodicals, and each local government has its publications too. If you wanted to study Chinese car industry or gold market, you don't need to visit the National Bureau of Statistics, simply subscribe Chinese car or gold newspapers and the periodicals of car or gold industry.

Today most ordinary people in China pay for news from the private newspapers being sold illegally in railway stations or at long distance bus stations, but intellectuals would read between the lines in the official newspapers of great many kinds. The real value of Chinese newspapers depends much on who reads them.

Zhang Jun is the director at Center for Chinese Economic Studies at Fudan University.

2003-08-28T16:47:00.000+08:00

The Foreign Correspondent

The SFCC-discussion we had last week with XFN managing director Graham Earnshaw about the future of the media, and that of foreign correspondents, got today a nice addition with an article in the magazine Foreign Affairs.
They also signal the demise of traditional reporting under the influence of new technologies and - rather disappointing for such a leading magazine :-) - they fail to come up with a firm conclusion. It still can go either way, or we get a world divided in have and have-not's in terms of information, or we will have a bright future where everybody will share information with the rest of the world.
The most solid conclusion: the world is becoming a more difficult place to understand, especially now streams of information seek all kind of non-traditional ways, from in-house reporting by large companies, to bloggers.

2003-08-27T18:35:00.000+08:00

No media facts

Just now arrived the China - facts and figures 2003 in my mailbox, courtesy of the New Star Publishers. That was rather early since 2003 still has some months to go. Anyway: I still know the China of last century so any facts and figures are welcome, and I wanted to use the opportunity to bring you the latest official facts on the Chinese media.
There were none.
Perhaps there were problems in figures out whether media should fit into the category 'economy' or rather 'politics' or perhaps 'education'. Even a special category 'media' would have been welcome. Probably the number crunchers could not figure out the right numbers on the media on time.

2003-08-27T09:19:00.000+08:00

Blackout

What is happening to this country when we can actually read news in its papers? It might be partially due to my temporary self-imposed quarantine to finish writing my book, but this morning I had to read in the Shanghai Daily Pudong and its financial center Lujiazui have been hit by a major blackout.
China did have this tradition of hiding al major accidents, but this one in the center of new Shanghai obvious had to be reported.
Nothing compared to the American thing, only 200,000 people have been hit and most of its was over within 24 hours, but air traffic to Pudong Airport was disrupted.
I was yesterday evening in Pudong to see a new apartment, have been hanging around in Lujiazui: it all seemed normal. I might be getting out of touch.

2003-08-27T01:20:00.000+08:00

Media discussion

The discussion on last Thursday's SFCC meeting is still going on. The key message of Graham Earnshaw was not appreciated by the romantics among the journalists present, some calls today proved. Graham predicted the demise of the traditional media, and has made his own XFN targeting profits, a fast IPO and many happy wallets.
That was indeed a nasty message for those who hope that media and journalism are more than only a commodity to make money with. While I sympathise with that idea, will even be willing to fight for it, Graham's message should at least be a wake-up call for those who thing media have a higher value than only make money.

Found this thought-provoking, midly related piece by Katrina Heron as the editor-in-chief of Wired in 2001. Good piece, but gets really into it when she talks about Google, even when there was not yet a Google News!