MCLC: 'unwavering public support'

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: kirk (denton.2 at osu.edu)
Subject: 'unwavering public support'
***********************************************************

Source: China Beat (4/17/12): http://www.thechinabeat.org/?p=4249

³Unwavering Public Support² Not Quite So Easy to Find These Days
By Duncan Hewitt

It was just like old times‹in many of China¹s major newspapers, a
prominently displayed half-page story headlined: ³Officials and citizens
all across the country express unwavering support for central party
leadership¹s decision.² It followed hot on the heels of the previous day¹s
People¹s Daily headline: ³Resolutely support the party¹s correct
decision,² which appeared on many front pages. In the wake of the stunning
news that Bo Xilai, one of China¹s most prominent politicians, had been
suspended from the ruling Politburo, and his wife arrested on suspicion of
being involved in the murder of British businessman Neil Heywood, the
Chinese Communist Party was in full damage limitation mode. And as so
often in a time of crisis, it reverted to tried and trusted methods‹in
this case wheeling out headlines and slogans straight out of the Mao-era
propaganda lexicon. Even the well-known liberal Guangzhou newspaper the
Southern Weekend had obviously been ordered to fill its front page with
them‹though it did manage to squeeze in a recent quote from Premier Wen
Jiabao calling for continuing reforms. And by the end of the week, state
media had begun pushing other default buttons, with an editorial in the
often nationalistic Global Timesnewspaper accusing the western media of
trying to use the affair to split the Communist Party.

But of course times have, in fact, changed. ³These headlines are like
something out of the Cultural Revolution,² said one very modern urban
intellectual, shaking his head in disbelief. And while newspaper editors
have apparently been summoned to meetings to ensure they follow the
correct line, the authorities have had to work hard policing the Internet
against critical comment in recent days. Even before the latest news
broke, they had already felt they had no option but to close down the
comment function on China¹s two biggest microblogging sites for several
days, claiming that this was to prevent the spread of rumors, following
online speculation about a possible coup attempt by people sympathetic to
Mr. Bo. Last week they again blocked the use of (and searches for) the
names of Bo Xilai, Neil Heywood, and Wang Lijun, Mr. Bo¹s former police
chief in the city he ran, Chongqing, whose flight to the US consulate in
nearby Chengdu in February was the first hint of the affair.

Yet many people have sought ways to get around the blockade, using
abbreviations and homonyms. And opinions are clearly less unified than the
official media would seek to have the nation believe. For all that
newspapers like the Global Times ran headlines suggesting that the
detention of a member of the party¹s inner circle, apparently in
connection with a murder investigation, was a stirring symbol of the
party¹s commitment to the rule of law
<http://www.globaltimes.cn/NEWS/tabid/99/ID/704284/Bos-case-shows-resilienc
e-of-rule-of-law.aspx>, cynics on the Internet were busy suggesting that
it was, in fact, a sign of just how rotten the upper echelons of the party
appear to have become. Others, even some who did not necessarily
sympathize with the campaigns to promote traditional socialist culture
which Mr. Bo ran in Chongqing‹which seemed to alarm some people in the
central leadership‹were suspicious, rightly or wrongly, that his ouster
should have come just as he was apparently getting close to an even more
powerful post in China¹s leadership transition later this year.

In a nation where the media has, despite ongoing official controls on the
most sensitive political issues, continued to diversify over recent years,
and where the Internet and in particular microblogs have revolutionized
the flow of information, it¹s now much harder to control public opinion.
In Shanghai, for example, where the city¹s former Communist Party
secretary Chen Liangyu was ousted in 2006, and later convicted on charges
of corruption relating to misuse of the city¹s pension funds, it¹s not
hard to find people who argue that Mr. Chen was in fact a good man who put
the city¹s population first, and claim that his dismissal had more to do
with political clashes with the central leadership than any unusual degree
of corruption. (And these contrarian attitudes relate to a case which
occurred several years before there were microblogs to send such views
shooting around cyberspace.)

Some people are undoubtedly glad to see the removal of Mr. Bo, whose
populist approach sat awkwardly with the cautious, consensual style of
China¹s top leadership over recent years. And many liberals in China
certainly welcomed Premier Wen Jiabao¹s warning, at his press conference
in March, that the country had to be on guard to prevent a return to the
days of the Cultural Revolution‹an apparent reference to Mr. Bo¹s
Maoist-inspired mass campaigns in Chongqing. It was one of the first times
in many years that a top leader had mentioned the Cultural Revolution,
serious debate about which still remains almost taboo in China.

Nevertheless, the government¹s heavy-handed, traditional-style management
of the media‹and Internet‹during this crisis has made some wonder just how
far the Communist Party has moved from its Mao-era traditions. Well-known
liberal scholar Liu Junning last week wrote a post (which was quickly
deleted, according to Hong Kong University¹s China Media Project
<http://cmp.hku.hk/2012/04/11/21259/>) warning that the greatest threat to
social stability was in fact autocratic rule‹an apparent reference to the
Party itself.

It¹s all added to the sense that, for all its talk of embracing ³public
scrutiny² via the Internet, the Party is struggling to keep up with the
pace of social change in China. It recently revived a campaign to promote
the example of Lei Feng, an early 1960s¹ soldier promoted by Chairman Mao
as a model of altruism‹and a throwback to the days when people in China
really did ³express unwavering support² for the decisions of the party
central committee.

But even in the same Shanghai newspapers that hailed public enthusiasm for
the government¹s handling of the latest events last week, there was a
reminder of just how much times have changed. Several papers reported how
twenty airline passengers, furious at having been delayed overnight at
Shanghai¹s Pudong International Airport when a flight was cancelled‹and at
receiving no compensation for their troubles‹burst past security guards
and blocked a runway near the plane they were eventually due to leave on,
forcing one international flight that had just landed to change its course
on the taxi way. The protesters were soon removed from the runway, but to
the anger of some local media
<http://www.globaltimes.cn/NEWS/tabid/99/ID/704926/Tarmac-trespassers-touch
-down-lightly.aspx>, the authorities were apparently initially unwilling
to take any further action against them (though after much media
criticism, they were later reported to have been given unspecified
³administrative punishment.²)

It¹s perhaps not surprising: with Chinese people increasingly aware of
their rights as consumers‹and, perhaps, as citizens too‹these days,
protests by passengers angry at shoddy treatment by state-run airlines
(many of which still seem to hanker for the unaccountable days of old)
have become commonplace, and the police are often very wary of intervening
for fear of provoking a violent reaction
<http://www.globaltimes.cn/NEWS/tabid/99/ID/704989/Blocking-airplanes-wrong
-form-of-social-justice.aspx>. (I saw such a case myself at Shanghai¹s
Hongqiao Airport a couple of weeks ago, when a passenger furious at the
cancellation of his flight due to fog leapt onto the counter of an airline
desk and began screaming at the top of his voice. Two young policemen
hovered nervously nearby, watching but taking no action.) These days, it
seems, achieving total unity of opinion among people who feel increasingly
empowered as individuals may not be quite as easy as it was in the days
when the People¹s Daily first wrote such headlines.

Duncan Hewitt is a former BBC China correspondent who now writes for
Newsweek and other publications from Shanghai, and is the author of
Getting Rich First‹Life in a Changing China
<http://www.amazon.com/China-Getting-Modern-Social-History/dp/B006CDF662/re
f=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1334671307&sr=8-1> (Vintage UK, 2008).