MCLC: Kong Qingdong vs. Nanfang Media

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: jaqueline and martin winter <dujuan99 at gmail.com>
Subject: Kong Qingdong vs. Nanfang Media
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Source: South China Morning Post (12/6/11):
http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/SCMP/menuitem.2af62ecb329d3d7733492d9253a0a
0a0/?vgnextoid=a35be33988e04310VgnVCM100000360a0a0aRCRD&ss=China&s=News

Don's vulgar remark sparks lively debate
Leftist's expletive, aimed at Nanfang Media reporter, puts spotlight on
liberal publisher
By Raymond Li

Fiery Peking University professor Kong Qingdong, a key leftist academic,
is no stranger to publicity.

He was back in the public spotlight last month after he claimed in a
microblog entry he had told Cao Linhua, a reporter for Southern People
Weekly magazine, to "f*** off" three times in a row because Cao
represented a "traitorous" media organisation, Nanfang Media Group.

"A minute ago, Southern People Weekly called me for an interview with a
nice attitude but sinister language," Kong, a professor of Chinese
language and literature, wrote.

Some in the media reacted with outrage, calling for Kong's dismissal,
while others interpreted his tantrum as the latest salvo in a struggle
between leftists and rightists.

Kong, who claims to be a 73rd-generation descendant of Confucius, has
refused to explain his remark.

But Cao, in a written account of their exchange, said Kong (pictured) had
later apologised in a text message, saying he did not have anything
personal against him as a reporter but had been hurt by the publication he
worked for.

Cao said Kong had told him to "f*** off" once, not three times, but "tried
to play it up" on his microblog.

In Kong's support, self-proclaimed patriots in Taiyuan, Shanxi, and
Shijiazhuang, Hebei, torched hundreds of copies of Nanfang Media's
Southern Weekend and Southern People Weekly. The publisher of newspaper
and magazines, based in Guangzhou, is among the most liberal and outspoken
media organisations on the mainland.

Southern Weekend editor-in-chief Huang Can said readers had the right to
self-expression, and it was up to them how they went about it.

"We will do the same through our reporting," he said, refusing to comment
directly on Kong's criticism.

Guo Songmin, another prominent leftist, said he agreed with Kong that
Nanfang Media wielded much more clout in forming public opinion than the
Communist Party Publicity Department, the mainland's top censor.

He said the problem with Nanfang Media was that its publications often
sided with Western countries in their reporting of international issues
because it subscribed to a simplistic, black-and-white view of things -
favouring the United States over China and saying that market economies
are good and planned economies bad.

Another problem with Nanfang Media and the liberal intellectuals it
represented, Guo said, was their constant demonisation of Mao Zedong, not
realising that many people, particularly the older generation, still
remembered Mao's substantial contribution to an independent, strong China.

Chen Yongmiao, a Beijing-based political analyst and rights activist who
describes himself as a diehard rightist, said he could not side with
Nanfang Media, because he objected to its glorification of reform and its
portrayal of former premier Zhu Rongji as a saviour.

He said Zhu's drastic push for state-sector reform in the late 1990s,
which led to millions of workers being laid off, was terribly flawed.

Chen said the real struggle was not between the left and right but between
those who had not benefited from the reform and the few who had.

"The vast majority, no matter whether they're on the right or the left,
first have to face up to exploitation from those elites with power and
money," he said.

"And Nanfang Media was largely chosen as a venue [for the struggle]."

Chen said Taiyuan and Shijiazhuang were both old industrial bastions with
large concentrations of laid-off workers who were not educated enough to
properly express themselves and so resorted to the rhetoric of Mao's era.

Tsinghua University sociologist Li Dun said media organisations should not
be expected to be too politically correct and Nanfang Media had done a
better job than most outlets under state control.

Li said the people burning its publications in Taiyuan and Shijiazhuang
were no doubt highly irrational, but many irreconcilable social tensions
lay behind that irrationality, including forced evictions, the seizure of
land and exploitation by vested interests in the name of economic
development.

"When the public is deprived of the chance of a sensible dialogue, it's
not shocking for even an educated person like Kong Qingdong to behave in
such a way," Li said