MCLC: Ferrari crash

[Denton, Kirk]

MCLC LIST
From: Costas Kouremenos (enaskitis at gmail.com)
Subject: Ferrari crash
***********************************************************

Source: NYT/IHT (3/20/12):
http://rendezvous.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/20/a-deadly-ferrari-crash-in-be
ijing-leads-to-more-political-intrigue

A Ferrari Crash in Beijing Leads to More Political Intrigue
By Mark McDonald 

HONG KONG ‹ The real March Madness, at least in Asia, has been the
precipitous fall of Bo Xilai, one of China¹s most flamboyant (and now
disgraced) Communist Party bosses. The story has read like a John le Carré
rewrite of Raymond Chandler, with the forced singing of ³red anthems² from
the Maoist era, rumors of cloak-and-dagger corruption, the Eliot Ness of
China staging a late-night attempt to defect to the United States, his
subsequent detention by State Security agents (under what is creepily
being called ³vacation-style treatment²) and an unprecedented public
smackdown of Mr. Bo by Prime Minister Wen Jiabao.

Now, it would seem, the Chinese are getting back to their everyday
concerns, paying attention to events more mundane and less cataclysmic.
For example, the splendid daily report on Internet activity compiled at
Baidu Beat <http://beat.baidu.com/?p=4859> found the most-searched-for
item on Monday was the fate of Fabrice Muamba, the soccer player who
collapsed with a heart attack during a game in London on Saturday.

Other top searches on the day: a story about ³Vibrato Grandma,² who sang
mournfully for her dead husband on ³China¹s Got Talent²; a piece on an
American woman, Lizzie Velasquez, who suffers from a wasting disease; and
the stranding of four sperm whales on a beach in Jiangsu Province.

But politics is never far off, even in something as ordinary as a traffic
accident. Here¹s the No. 9 story, as reported by Baidu Beat: ³At around 4
a.m. Sunday morning, a Ferrari crashed into a bridge in Beijing, killing
one passenger and severely injuring the other two. The cause of the crash
is unknown."

Bloggers, microbloggers and tweeters quickly seized on the story, lighting
up the Sinosphere with photos, rants and rumors. The intrigue grew when
the Beijing police refused to comment about the accident.

By Tuesday morning, a story
<http://www.globaltimes.cn/NEWS/tabid/99/ID/701074/Ferrari-crash-informatio
n-hushed-up.aspx> in the English-language version of the Communist Party
newspaper Global Times said that ³almost all online information" about the
crash had been deleted overnight, ³triggering suspicions as to the
identity of the deceased driver."

The paper said the popular Sina Weibo service ³deleted all microblog posts
which mentioned the accident, and blocked online searches of the word
ŒFerrari.¹ The Global Times also found that news reports about the crash
were deleted from many Web portals."

Traffic accidents involving luxury cars have their own particular lore in
China, especially in Beijing, where many politicians, party princelings
and their children drive (or are driven in) high-end sedans and S.U.V.¹s.
(Mr. Bo¹s son Guagua, for example, is said to drive a red Ferrari.)

There is special contempt ‹ and some envy, of course ‹ for black Audi
A6¹s, Ferarris and Bentleys. Expensive cars serve as symbols of the
so-called Great Divide, the widening wealth gap between China¹s 1
percenters and everybody else.

A recent poll by Renmin University showed that only 5.3 percent of
respondents believe the rich come by their wealth legally. The survey was
cited in a story 
<http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90776/90882/7382070.html> in the
People¹s Daily newspaper about a 24-year-old unemployed man who smashed
the windows of two Mercedes-Benzes.

³Why can some people drive such good cars,² the man said in court, ³and I
have to wander on the streets?²

It was a tragic car accident in October 2010 that gave rise to a notorious
addition to China¹s sociopolitical vocabulary ‹ the phrase, ³My father is
Li Gang!¹¹ My colleague in the Beijing bureau, Michael Wines, reported
<http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/18/world/asia/18li.html?scp=1&sq=Wines%20Li
%20Gang&st=cse> about that accident, when a Volkswagen smashed into a
college student, a poor farm girl, who later died.

Michael wrote: ³The 22-year-old driver, who was intoxicated, tried to
speed away. Security guards intercepted him, but he was undeterred. He
warned them, ŒMy father is Li Gang!¹ ²

Li Qiming, the driver, was the son of Li Gang, a deputy police chief, and
propaganda officials quickly threw a cloak of silence over the media, as
Michael wrote, ³to ensure that the story never gained traction.²

Quite the opposite happened, however, and the phrase ³My father is Li
Gang² has become a notorious and bitter catchphrase for shirking
responsibility.

The author and journalist James Fallows, in his blog
<http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/03/an-astounding-art
icle-in-global-times/254762/> for The Atlantic, called the Global Times
story of a possible cover-up of the Ferrari crash ³amazing² and
³astounding² because it was being published by a state-run media outlet.

³In short,² Mr. Fallows writes, ³every exposed raw nerve created by the
gaping economic and power inequalities of today¹s China was touched by
this episode.²

The Anti-Social List at the China Media Project, a media criticism site,
suggested <http://cmp.hku.hk/2012/03/20/20565/>, however, that the story
was ³not astounding² because English versions of state-run media in China
are typically intended ³for foreign consumption, and work by an entirely
different set of standards.²