Teaching Comparative

People may be sleeping through "xiaozu"

Once again, indirect evidence may be the only evidence that's available about what's happening politically in China. This report from The Economist (June 17, 2006 issue) sees to suggest that there are still loud arguments going on behind the walls of Zhongnanhai and that there may still be Maoists in the Party.

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Is anyone listening?

Chinese propaganda just isn't what it used to be

"CHINA'S Communist leaders still fight their battles the old way. A wordy article by a pseudonymous author on the second page of the party's mouthpiece, the People's Daily, has just been used to deliver a message of defiance in the face of mounting public criticism of the country's economic reforms. The party's problem these days, though, is getting anyone to pay attention.

"The article in the June 5th edition, warning that “reform and opening up” was “the only road”, was dutifully reprinted by newspapers around the country. Party committees have, as is also traditional, been holding meetings to study it. In Shanghai this week, President Hu Jintao has repeated its call for “unwavering” commitment to reform. All this fuss suggests that the leadership is feeling under pressure. In the past couple of years, some university and think-tank academics have become increasingly vocal in their criticism of the negative consequences of economic reform, such as a widening gap between rich and poor, an increasingly dysfunctional health-care system and asset stripping by managers of state-owned firms.

"The appearance of the article, and a similar one early this month in a fortnightly party journal, suggests that strong pro-reform statements by Mr Hu and the prime minister, Wen Jiabao, in March have failed to quell the debate. So now the party's powerful Propaganda Department is lending its weight to the reformist camp...

"The Propaganda Department... wields great power over the country's media, culture and entertainment industries, deciding what can and cannot be reported, displayed, published, aired or performed.

"But it is not as fear-instilling as it used to be...

"Jiao Guobiao, who last year was dismissed from his post as a journalism lecturer at Peking University after issuing a lengthy diatribe against the Propaganda Department (comparing it to the Roman Catholic church in medieval Europe), sees a glimmer of hope that things might be changing. He has not (yet) been arrested..."

posted by Ken Wedding @ 7:24 PM