“The headline speaks to the Chinese people’s heart!”: Zhong Sheng on Diaoyu patrols, gets a Phoenix twist
Posted: October 10, 2012 Filed under: Comment threads, Diaoyu, People's Daily, PRC News Portals | Tags: China Fisheries Law Enforcement Command, China Maritime Surveillance, China-Philippines, China-Philippines relations, Chinese foreign policy, Chinese internet, Chinese internet companies, Chinese media, CMS, 环球时报, Diaoyu, Diaoyu Islands, 钟声, FLEC, Global Times, Huanqiu Shibao, iFeng, media sensationalism, People's Daily, phoenix, Phoenix New Media Group, PRC foreign policy, PRC media, Renmin Ribao, Senkaku, Senkaku Islands, sensationalism, Sino-Japanese relations, Zhong Sheng, 人民日报 2 Comments
‘China needs to stand its ground like this’ by “Zhong Sheng”, Renmin Ribao, October 8, 2012, p.3. Phoenix and Sina changed the headline to ‘People’s Daily: if the territory cannot even be protected, what significance does China’s rapid development have?’, misrepresenting the article as an attack on the policy status quo.
Monday’s “Zhong Sheng” article in the Renmin Ribao set out to tell the world that the People’s Republic’s fisheries and surveillance ships are going to continue their patrols around the Diaoyu Islands.
The basic point was simple (official English translation):
Not only will the ship fleet of the Chinese Fishery Administration continue to stand its ground, but the Chinese Marine Surveillance ships will also stand their ground.
Beginning October 1, Chinese government boats have entered the 12nm territorial zone twice (on October 2 and 3) and patrolled in the 12nm “contiguous zone” every day since then. Zhong Sheng offered an explanation of sorts for the timing:
China needs to stand its ground in this manner. Otherwise, China’s territorial sovereignty and legitimate right and interest could never be truly maintained, and Chinese people wouldn’t be able to celebrate the festive season securely and happily.
So the patrols recorded each day from October 1 to 7 were probably aimed in part at giving China’s holidaying families a sense that their government taking the requisite action to protect the homeland during National Day Golden Week. The Japanese media were of course crucial to the effectiveness of this.(†)
“Zhong Sheng” repeatedly claimed that the patrols were regularized and would not go away, but in so doing, effectively admitted that China had changed the status quo on the waters out there: “Japan is not accustomed to this . . . Japan must learn to adapt to these regular actions of China.” In fact, the writer(s) even went one step further in this direction, nominating the specific date for one significant change in PRC policy:
The Chinese Fishery Administration has normalized the fishery-protection patrol in the waters near the Diaoyu Islands and its subsidiary islands since as early as 2010.
“Hit’em”: APEC peacemaker Hu Jintao gets red carpet treatment from portal censors
Posted: September 7, 2012 Filed under: China-Vietnam, Comment threads, PRC News Portals | Tags: APEC, censorship, Chinese internet, Chinese internet censorship, Chinese internet companies, CNS, 胡锦涛, Hu Jintao, manipulation of public opinion, online nationalism, phoenix, QQ, Sina, Sino-Vietnamese relations, south china sea, Tencent, Truong Tan Sang, uses of public opinion, Vladimir Putin, Vladivostok, Weibo, 南海, 中越 1 Comment
Truong Tan Sang and Hu Jintao’s meeting at APEC 2012
Hu Jintao met with his Vietnamese counterpart yesterday at the APEC summit in Vladivostok, and made a rare official comment on the South China Sea disputes. From the China Daily’s report:
VLADIVOSTOK, Russia — Chinese President Hu Jintao said China and Vietnam should keep cool-headed and show restraint on the South China Sea issue.
. . .
Hu urged the two countries to adhere to bilateral negotiations and political solutions, and stay on the path of joint development.
Hu said the two sides should keep cool-headed and show restraint, and avoid taking any unilateral measure that would magnify, complicate or internationalize the dispute, in order not to let the South China Sea issue affect East Asian cooperation or regional stability.
These cool-headed, restrained, joint-developing, dispute-shelving remarks were all over the PRC official media yesterday (Friday September 7), from when i first heard it on China National Radio, to the CNS report and the Foreign Ministry’s website.
The online mass media soon followed suit, with all the five top news portals except Netease having the story in their #1 or #2 headline slots by 12.25pm, and keeping them near the top until late in the evening.
Not surprisingly, given that “Hu Jintao” is a sensitive search term on the PRC internet, the comment threads were heavily censored. Phoenix’s has 25,000+ participants but only 92 comments (representing a KimLove Incredibility Ratio well above 250:1), the latest of which was posted at exactly 20.00 last night:
Firmly endorse Chairman Hu’s long and broad vision, national defence needs fundamental strengthening, diplomatic solutions are the official policy, war is an action of last resort.
in reply to
Firmly endorse Chairman Hu’s proposition, uphold the unwavering Sino-Vietnamese friendship, even if Vietnam occupies even more Chinese territory we will still go on with the friendship, if worst comes to worst we’ll give them Hainan too, could they really still be unsatisfied with that? If so, how about Hong Kong, and Guangdong province?
Being the last comment the website’s editors have decided to allow through, this earnest defence of Hu has stayed in place at the top of the page — but only those who choose to click the “newest comments” tab will see it.
By default, it’s the top comments, not the latest comments, that appear on readers’ screens, and they have to scroll a long way down through those, to the 14th comment to be precise, before they find anything remotely complimentary about Chairman Hu’s remarks — and even that appears to be posted by a foreigner.
Over at Sina, where as of 4am Saturday it remains the #3 story on the front page, the involvement of the censors is even more blatant: 1700-odd “participants” and only eight comments. In fact, that means i can translate the entire “conversation”. Here it is as it appears for readers (ie. from latest to earliest):
First strike Japan, then Vietnam, and then the Philippines, don’t talk about it just do it [3 supports]
Patriotism and protecting the country rely on actual power. [56]
Vietnam, this ungrateful country, it doesn’t do reason, it needs to be beaten [160]
Vietnam cannot even feed itself. [117]
Vietnam, this ungrateful country, it doesn’t do reason, it needs to be hit [222]
Hit’em [129]
Patriotism has one word: hit [246]
[We] must clearly distinguish enemies from friends [446]
The pattern on the thread attached to the same story on Tencent’s news portal also appears to be the same as those on Phoenix and Sina: calls for war, sardonic criticism of Hu’s policy, and KIRs high enough to suggest most comments are being either deleted or hidden from view.
Given the importance of Chairmen Hu and Truong’s meeting, the high profile given to this story by all the PRC media, the fact that the story sat* prominently among the leading headlines on the portals, and the very obvious signs of rigging, it’s hard to see how the comments could represent anything other than exactly what the censors had decided the netizens should be seen to be saying.. The question in my mind is, who were the censors?
By default, of course, we must assume that the censors of news comment threads are always individual employees of PRC internet companies, in this case Sina and Phoenix. There’s presumably a management/command chain above them that leads up to some decision-making group within the company, though i have no idea of a.) how far above the “grass-roots” censors they are; b.) how far below the company’s top management they are; or c.) how they connect with the various relevant government bodies — e.g. MIIT, SCIO, Central & provincial Propaganda Depts.
It really seems a stretch to impute that the party or government would put out an instruction to major websites telling them to only allow comments calling for war with Vietnam on the day that the President calls for cooperation with Vietnam during a headline bilateral meeting at a major international forum.
Especially in CCP China, where the same president’s name cannot be searched on the country’s most vibrant social network.
Results for “Hu Jintao” not displayed due to relevant laws and regulations (02:17 September 8, 2o12)
—
* It continues to sit there even now at 4.50am the next day
Internet censors step in to protect Tang Jiaxuan?
Posted: September 2, 2012 Filed under: China-Japan, Comment threads, Diaoyu, PRC News Portals | Tags: Beijing, censorship, Chinese internet, Chinese internet censorship, Chinese internet companies, internet censorship, Japanese ambassador car, Japanese embassy Beijing, Netease, Netease news, phoenix, Phoenix News, PHoenix online, Sina News, Sohu News, Tang Jiaxuan, Tencent News, Uichiro Niwa, 唐家璇, 拦车拔旗 3 Comments
Former Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan speaking at a conference organised by CASS to mark the 40th anniversary of the normalisation of Sino-Japanese relations, August 28, 2012
Former Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan made a foray into the PRC media last week on the Diaoyu issue, and the censors on mainland China’s most visited news portals seem to have been actively shaping online comment threads on his remarks.
Last Wednesday (29/8) Tang spoke at a CASS-organised forum to mark the 40th anniversary of the normalisation of Sino-Japanese relations. Tang was Foreign Minister from 1998 to 2003 and a State Councilor from 2003 to 2008, and is now the Chairman of the Sino-Japanese Friendship Association.
According to the People’s Daily Online’s English-language report published two days later:
Tang pointed out that the root cause lies in that some forces in Japan do not want to see the smooth development of China-Japan relations, and they attempt to stir up opposition from the public through the issue of Diaoyu Islands and gain political capital. “If they succeeded, the issue of the Diaoyu Islands will be seriously out of control and lead to endless troubles in the future.”
Tang stressed that China always insists on the consistent and unwavering position and proposition. The Diaoyu Islands and the affiliated islands have been China’s territory since ancient times, which is irrefutable whether in history or in the legal principle. Any unilateral measures taken by Japan are illegal, invalid and in vain. They cannot change the fact that the sovereignty over the Diaoyu Islands belongs to China and shake the will of Chinese people to safeguard their sovereign rights.
This report continued in the above vein, with Tang quoted blaming Japan entirely for the incidents. It was a translation of a Chinese-language report, whose title translates as ‘Tang Jiaxuan talks Diaoyu: if Japan is determined to avoid the issue, it will back itself into a dead end‘. Interestingly, Google searches (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) indicates the story has probably not been republished on any of the biggest five mainland news sites, although Sina’s Hong Kong site has it here. It wasn’t that Tang was denied publicity for his interventions on the Diaoyu issue though — it was just that domestic audience was given a very different version of what he said.
“Do not let patriotism become a G-string for violence”: China Youth Daily
Posted: August 20, 2012 Filed under: Article summaries, China-Japan, Comment threads, Diaoyu, Mouthpieces, PRC News Portals, State media | Tags: anti-Japanese protest, China Youth Daily, Chinese internet news portals, Chinese media, Chinese nationalism, Chinese patriotism, Communist Youth League, Diaoyu, internet censorship, Netease, news portals, phoenix, Sina Leave a comment
China Youth Daily 中国青年报 front page, August 20, 2012
China Youth Daily, August 20, 2012, p.1
Cherish patriotic fervour, sternly punish violent smashing 呵护爱国热情 严惩打砸暴行
Cao Lin 曹林
—– SORRY FOR THE UNREADABLE UNDERLINING YESTERDAY, MOUSEOVER TRANSLATIONS ARE NOW IN EFFECT, THANKS ONCE AGAIN DANWEI.COM —-
[. . .] On the morning of the 19th of August, there were gatherings of different sizes in more than 10 cities including Beijing, Jinan, Qingdao, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hangzhou.
Xinhua journalists reported that in these cities the police were present at all the mass gatherings to maintain order, and the protest marches were on the whole peaceful. However, from numerous eyewitness descriptions, there were some places where extremely incautious and irrational behaviour occurred. Some people received some ulterior-motivated incitement, and smashed their compatriots’ Japanese cars. It was very unsightly.
{“Boycott Japanese goods” slogans are fine, displaying a clear mind, but smashing compatriots’ cars and ruining private property is “clearly stupid, seriously harming social order, the city’s image, and China’s image.”}
Several days ago a netizen somewhere in Sichuan sent a letter to local officials expressing their “concern about upcoming anti-Japanese rallies” in light of their deleterious effects last time. The local officials replied, thanking them for the message, and saying that their concern was not without reason. In expressing anti-Japanese patriotism, [the officials said], some people had rushed onto the streets, blocking the way for Chinese people, smashing Chinese people’s cars and shops and harming their own compatriots. The result was helpful to Japan, and this kind of stupid thing cannot happen again.
[. . .] These stupid acts are not aiguo but haiguo. They will never attract praise and can only make real patriots feel ashamed.
Kim Jong-il death: Phoenix exposes intense Chinese censorship…accidentally?
Posted: December 20, 2011 Filed under: China-Koreas, Comment threads, PRC News Portals | Tags: censorship, Chinese internet, fifty cent party, internet censorship, kim jong-il, north korea, phoenix, 凤凰网, 五毛, 五毛党 7 Comments
The Chinese media is currently flooded with reports emphasising the grief of the North Korean people at the death of their “dear leader”.
Comments are turned off on all the big five news websites except Phoenix and Sina, where the Chinese online news-reading community are purportedly also grief-stricken for the loss of North Korea’s great anti-American friend.
However, an apparent technical oversight on Phoenix seems to be revealing the staggering rate at which censors are deleting comments that don’t fit with whatever instructions Beijing has issued regarding how discussion should be “guided”.
On the Phoenix discussion of attached to its special coverage page “The death of Kim Jong-il”, the number of participants is listed at an incredible 15,652,462, and that figure is going up by around 150 every minute at the time of writing. It’s now up to 15,656,193. Yet this enormously popular discussion involving more than 15 million participants has somehow only produced 728 comments.
Normally on Phoenix News and other websites’ discussions the ratio of participants to posts ranges from about 20:1 to 80:1 (see previous posts on this site). On the death of Kim Jong-il story the number of “participants” is more than 20,000:1. This suggests that the censors are deleting almost every post that is submitted on the topic, but have forgotten to also fiddle the website’s automatic counting system that registers an extra “participant” every time someone submits or recommends a comment. I guess they’ve got a lot on their plate at this time, which probably also explains why the Sohu, NetEase and Tencent portals have simply switched their comments systems off.
On Sina’s topic discussion page “The death of Kim Jong-il”, pro-Kim comments are flowing in at a rate of about 1 per minute. Anti-Kim stories are nonexistent. I’m imagining perhaps a full-vetting process is in place at Sina whereby every comment is by default not published unless specifically approved. One would think the wumao (commenters paid by government agencies), to whatever extent that they exist, would be out in force given the attention that the central authorities in Beijing are giving to the story.
All this grieving and well-wishing is probably not just the work of wumao, though unsurprisingly many Chinese readers are drawing that conclusion. The Chairman Mao gravatar attached to one top comment on the Phoenix story “CCP center sends condolences over death of Kim Jong-il” reminds us that plenty of genuine communists do exist in China – it’s just that they’re not very well represented at the top of the Chinese Communist Party.
In fact on the same discussion the second-top comment in this discussion of 394 comments and 23,057 participants says:
The comments are so fake, even if i didn’t say so everyone would know. [2420 recommends]
This comment has actually moved up from third position to second since i’ve been writing this post, overtaking what’s now the third-most popular comment:
The Chinese people stand forever with the North Korean people. [2131 recommends]
The fourth-most popular is also remarkable for its mere presence:
If you’re not wishing Kim Jong-Il well the editors delete your post, what sort of principle is that? [1699]
The most likely explanation would be that Phoenix’s censors have decided to leave the two critical comments there in an attempt to disprove the very allegations that they are making, and possibly also give an air of diversity to a very austere discussion without violating the apparent instruction from Beijing that Kim Jong-il is not to be criticized on mainstream news discussions.
But couldn’t one also speculate that the Phoenix editors may, just maybe, have taken the liberty of allowing this couple of comments through to tell readers we’re on your side really? Could the continued existence of the very obvious but as yet un-revised figure of 15,656,193, wait, 15,660,394, be another subtle sign that the censors aren’t entirely supportive of the job they have to do?
“Their bottom line is Beijing’s 2nd Ring Road”: reactions to the Philippines Navy – Chinese fishing boat incident
Posted: October 20, 2011 Filed under: China-Philippines, Comment threads, Global Times, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, PRC News Portals | Tags: chengguan, China-Philippines relations, Chinese fishing boat, Chinese internet, collision, Filipino navy, Global Times, incident, Netease, netizens, online opinion, Philippines Navy, phoenix, Phoenix News, Reed Bank, south china sea 3 Comments
[Updated October 25 – see bottom of post].
From the Global Times this morning: Philippine warship rams Chinese fishing boat in South China Sea, Filipino Dept of Defense says apology already issued to China.
An incident has occurred between China and the Philippines in the South China Sea. On October 18, a Filipino gunboat rammed a large Chinese fishing boat that was towing 25 smaller boats near Liyue [Reed] Bank.
In fact, the Filipino boat didn’t ram the large Chinese fishing boat, but rather became entangled [en] in – read: deliberately cut – the ropes of the 25 small boats, and confiscated them. No one was hurt, but China is now demanding the unconditional return of the 25 boats.
The story had actually been reported yesterday evening by the GT and Phoenix on the basis of foreign agency reports, but at that point they were using the less sensational term “collide with” (pengzhuang 碰撞) rather than “ram” (zhuangji 撞击) in the headline.
A pattern seems to be emerging in the recent treatment of South China Sea-related stories. Phoenix News is again paying the most attention, currently running the incident in the #1 lead headline story position, with Netease and Sina also running it on their front pages, but much further down, among the hundreds of normal-sized links.
Netease certainly seems to be into the spirit of sensationalism, running with the juicy “Filipino patrol boat rams Chinese fishing boat” [zh] line. The story may well have been further up among the headlines earlier in the day, because it is on Netease that the biggest and most interesting discussion [zh] has taken place so far, with nearly 2000 comments and more than 65,000 participants – and the latter figure has shot up by about 15,000 in just the last hour.
This is good to see. The Philippines’ shameless-whore nature has come out – I’ll ram you on purpose, then play completely innocent. Accidental? This is a case of testing China’s bottom line – if you don’t retaliate this time, I’ll go further next time. Foreign Ministry, let’s see how you react this time, you couldn’t possibly just fart and let it go, could you? [11,020]
Do the Foreign Ministry and Ministry of Defense have anything to say? [7007]
Our Foreign Ministry is currently deciding whether to express regret, condemn or strongly condemn, based on the degree of fermentation of interest from netizens . . . no, that won’t do, just send China’s magical, brave and utterly incomparable chengguan over to discuss the matter with the Philippines . . . you know [6424]
Fuck, hurry up and denounce, I strongly demand that they be denounced to death, fuck [6205]
[ . . . ]
Actually we could make some “tiny” incidents happen, then issue “sincere” apologies, but we don’t have the guts [3075]
[ . . . ]
Calling ourselves a righteous country, being bullied everywhere, apologizing is just lip-service, compulsory, weak and cowardly Chinese nation, when will you step up? [4319]
Actually, the Philippines is now denying [en] that it even apologized:
“No apologies were necessary and none was given,” the Foreign Affairs chief [Alberto del Rosario] said in a statement.
After going through the top-rated comments in the above Netease discussion, I looked at the most recent comments as they flowed in at a rate of several per minute, and in came this sardonic exchange:
Commenter 1 (Heilongjiang): The deliberate ramming just one side of things – isn’t it more important that the Philippines Navy was violating China’s territorial waters?
Commenter 2 (Sichuan): No, their [Beijing leaders’] bottom line is Beijing’s Second Ring Road.
Oh dear. I actually feel sorry for Jiang Yu and the Foreign Ministry.
=========
UPDATE 25/10: Over the weekend NetEase managed to stir-fry the issue even further by translating a Filipino newspaper article taunting Chinese diplomacy for being a “toothless tiger” [zh], discussion of which prompted 4840 comments, with a staggering 275,000 participants weighing in. The top comments all expressed agreement with the Filipino article, along a spectrum from bitter to hearty (“The Filipino media has given voice to exactly what ordinary Chinese people are thinking”).
Although the story’s source is specified as Xinhuanet, the source link is to the page’s own URL, and I can find no trace of it on any other news sites, including Xinhua’s. This raises the question as to what hidden agendas NetEase might have for pushing the story where its competitors have not, but without in-depth research into the company’s ownership and control structure i’d be getting out of my depth there.
“A golden opportunity to use force”: mysterious China Energy Fund Committee attack-dog
Posted: September 29, 2011 Filed under: Comment threads, Global Times, PRC News Portals, State media, TV | Tags: CCTV, CEFC, China CEFC Energy Company, China Energy Fund, China Energy Fund Committee, 环球时报, 韬光养晦, 龙韬, Global Times, Long Tao, Mao Yushi, nationalism, Netease, phoenix, Six Secret Teachings, Sohu, south china sea, state-owned enterprises, taoguang yanghui, war, 中华能源基金委员会 11 Comments
UPDATE 6/10: Some interesting tidbits about Long Tao’s name 龙韬 here. Prof. June Dreyer points out that it refers to one of the Six Secret Teachings, which may make it a veiled call to cast aside officials who stand in the way of the suggested plan.
UPDATE 30/9: The Global Times has now posted an English version of Long Tao’s article. Possibly a response to the Japanese- Philippines “strategic partnership” and Japan’s further “wading” into the South China Sea dispute.
—
Tuesday’s Global Times carried an opinion piece titled ‘The present is a golden opportunity to use force in the South China Sea’. I thought the title would have just about said it all, and was therefore only going to offer some juicy excerpts, but as i read through it i found almost every sentence too good to leave out:
The internationalization of the South China Sea issue is perfectly clear, but it has not completely taken shape yet. The author believes now is a golden opportunity for China to coolly assess, grasp the opportunity, and take swift and definitive action.
At present every country is engaging in an arms race, procuring long-range maritime control weapons. Even Singapore, which is not part of the South China sea dispute, is preparing to introduce advanced stealth fighters. Australia and India’s military plans are in order to make world-class preparations, and Japan doesn’t want to be left behind either. America is energetically selling armaments with one hand and pouring petrol on the fire with the other, and at the same time is preparing to intervene militarily.
[. . .] One should not be afraid of small-scale wars, for they are a good way to release fighting potential. By fighting several small wars one can avoid a large war.
Speaking of war, we can look first at who should actually fear it. The South China Sea region has more than 1,000 oil and gas wells, but none of them belong to China. There are four airports in the Spratly Islands, but Mainland China does not have one. China has no other important economic installations. Leaving aside the issue of winning and losing, as soon as war commences the South China Sea will inevitably become a sea of fire. When those towering oil drilling platforms become flaming torches, who will be hurt the most? As soon as the fighting begins, all those Western oil and gas companies will inevitably withdraw, so who will lose the most? Read the rest of this entry »
China’s three cards: America, economics & Taiwan
Posted: July 5, 2011 Filed under: China-Vietnam, Comment threads, PRC News Portals, TV | Tags: fifty cent party, online opinion, phoenix, Sino-Vietnamese War, south china sea, Vietnam 5 Comments
Phoenix TV has brought together a highly interesting array of short video clips of South China Sea commentary from both their own satellite channel, and CCTV.
The “brief introduction reads”:
China has three strategic countermeasures [available to it]: the America card, the economics card, and the Taiwan card. ‘To capture the bandits, first go after the king’ (qin zei xian qin wang) – countering America is the most important. The economic card applies mainly to Vietnam and the Philippines. The Taiwan card could initiate cross-strait collaborative defence of the South China Sea.
The video line-up has received 23,930 ‘likes’, and 15,969 ‘dislikes’ (actually ‘tramples’), suggesting many viewers strongly disagree with the overall assessment presented in the videos, which plays down the urgency and strength of action required, with several commentators pointing out that China should try to ensure that its actions do not push neighbours like Vietnam into an alliance with the US (something which has to some extent happened already). The comments section provides some clue as to what so many viewers are objecting to:
wangdashan5658 (Hebei): [Quoting llciven (Suzhou)]: “Previous generations have told us, dignity must be fought for, merely talking is useless!!! [12 recommends]” – Looking at the domestic and overseas [situations], what dignity do we common Chinese people currently have? [0]
qq987645 (Yunnan): Don’t talk about cards this and cards that, other people are actually controlling [these islands]. [2]
wo7133998 (Liaoning Huludao): Why am I sensing the final years of the Qing Dynasty? [2]
ssssssssd (Anhui Chaohu): Nothing at all has happened in the South China Sea, only big-talking. It’s tragic. [2]
lbds (Shenzhen): It’s time to retake the South China Sea islands. [0]
Leader Li [Li Lingdao] (Guangzhou Panyu District): Truth comes from the barrel of a gun, let’s attack. Give the nation a bit of blood. [2]
Li Lü (Hebei Hedan): I miss the Great Mao very much. It was him who made the Chinese people feel proud and stand tall [yang mei tu qi, ang shou ting xiong] in the world’s orient. In those years we defeated America twice, taught India a lesson, and did not give up an inch of sovereign soil or territorial water – even for just one square kilometre, he dared to take back Zhenbao Island from the big-brother superpower the Soviet Union. [33]
Li Lü (Hebei Hedan): It now looks like the “shelve differences, develop jointly” approach was completely wrong. Who is going to take responsibility? [8]
Yi剑 (Jiangxi Shangrao): Corrupt officials running amok, unable to fight, let’s just give the South China Sea away. Others will say good things about us. [30]
Once again we see the CCP’s foreign-policy status quo, especially the “shelve differences” approach, under attack from the Maoist left, whose viewpoints attract strong agreement from readers. How many of these readers, or even the commenters themselves, are ‘fifty-centers’ is unclear (and even if they were it would be impossible to tell whose fifty-centers, since many agencies are known to deploy them), but we can clearly see that this kind of criticism is not being censored out by any central decree at this stage.
Perhaps more significant is that comments linking official corruption with weak foreign policy are also okay with the censors. The third comment, by wo7133998, and the last comment by Yi剑, have strong overtones of “waihuan neiluan” (“external aggression + internal chaos”), the most widely-accepted formula answering the original Chinese nationalist question: what happened to China’s greatness? Seeing China today as afflicted by waihuan neiluan appears to be a refutation of the Chinese Communist Party’s achievements, and a damning indictment of its present rule.
We have to remember though (and one of the talking heads on the Phoenix video reel actually points this out), internet opinion always tends to be more extreme than public opinion in general. As argued elsewhere, a ‘netizen’ (wangmin) is very different to a citizen.
In a side note, He Liangliang, the talking head who puts forward the ‘playing cards’ analogy in the most detail, also puts forward a theory that Vietnam’s internal problems – namely inflation, slow economic growth and corruption – mean that it might be trying to provoke conflict with China to divert the Vietnamese people’s attention. This exact line of reasoning often gets applied by outside analysts to explain China’s actions, and its possible motivations into the future.
Singapore urges China to make clear its South China Sea sovereignty claims
Posted: June 23, 2011 Filed under: China-ASEAN, Comment threads, PRC News Portals | Tags: fifty cent party, joint development, phoenix, public opinion, shelving problems, singapore, south china sea 3 CommentsSingapore urges China to make clear its South China Sea sovereignty claims
Phoenix Online/22-06-11
By Li Zongze (Global Times)
China’s biggest navy patrol boat, the “Sea Patrol 31” is currently visiting Singapore, which has drawn attention from that country’s media and internationally. Singapore’s foreign affairs department released a press statement emphasizing this was a routine visit, and also said China’s position on the South China Sea should be “clearer”, as its present “equivocality” was attracting “the intense concern of the international community”.
[. . .]
Please feel free to comment, correct translation, add explanation, or even translate more comments from the same forums >:) ey? ey?
“Hottest comments” from 23080 participants/535 comments as at 2:56 am BJ
Using China’s foreign policy language all around the world, it’s no wonder they don’t understand! Most of what weak, incapable people say is vacuous! Expand the cave! [Recommends: 5197]
Singapore is right, China should be like a great power that says what it has to say, whose position is clear, if others are encroaching on our territory and we don’t fight back that’s defeinitely just giving face to the encroachers. Wishy-washy words and actions will actually stimulate their appetites and give them a false perception that China is equivocal when it comes to its own territory, that is equivalent to to saying this here is not China’s 那就说明这里不是中国的. You can’t benefit from just compromising – even if China gave away all its land, America and other Western countries would still not compromise, let alone stop their encirclement and isolation of China. As for the talk of Russia supporting Vietnam, Russia should understand this principle: the direct result of China being unable to defeat America was that Russia became the latest target to be cleaned up. [2579]
Singapore is noble, and what they said is pertinent! Clearly demarcate the border activities – doing nothing but talk only makes people more demanding. Russia gave Black Blind/黑瞎子/Bolshoy Ussuriysky Island back to China, so what are Vietnam and the Philippines? Drive them out, don’t fire the first shot, show no mercy to those who resist with weapons, are none of those guided missiles loaded? Lock down all their bases, and whichever one attacks us will be wiped out! If the great power can’t even put these little countries in order, there’s something wrong with the world! 荒天下之大繆 [2165]
We Chinese are on one hand saying we have sovereignty over the South Sea, and on the other hand we’re saying shelve differences of opinion and develop together, negotiate and peacefully solve – this is contradictory. Since sovereignty is ours, why would we be jointly developing anything? Jointly developing our own territory encourages other countries to occupy and encroach. Can territorial sovereignty be just given to another country? [1674]
We miss Chairman Mao! [975]
~
This is called looking for trouble and ugliness. What is it that you want to do? Do you want to attack or make peace? If it’s attack why are you running from Singapore, if you want peace what are you doing crossing the South Sea, aren’t you picking fights on the basis of the present? 想打，你跑新加坡干什么，想和你干嘛要横穿南海，你这不是在现在的基础上找事 [824]
China, China, you just make people so worried. I really want to give you a kick. [763]
Singapore clearly explains how “shelve differences and jointly develop” just confuses the international community. History and reality both confirm that shelving differences and jointly developing will cause much dispute and controversy. We must have a complete discussion. Practice is the criterion of truth, and right now not a single neighbouring country recognizes this idea, it’s caused our territory to be encroached upon, so it’s time to completely clear up this problem. If you fear something will happen, something will inevitably happen! [750]
Translator’s comment
Could public opinion have had anything to do with that unclear stance? Possibly. If expectations about China’s military prowess really have progressed far ahead of its actual capability, “China” might be doing more there than the CCP central decision-makers ideally want to be doing. This may or may not be decisions to actively respond to public opinion, but they could also be non-actions such as allowing military zealots to dictate policy to appease an intra-party constituency, and/or mass opinion? Could the J-20 stealth fighter mystery also be an example of this? Have leftists within the Party been seriously considered as a force? The recent obsession with “red songs” and other red-era nostalgia suggests that the leftist brand’s popularity (or value) is on the rise. Most comment threads on the South China Sea that i’ve read have included (alongside the calls for action) prominent praise for, and often longing for, Chairman Mao. Perhaps those in charge of the Fifty-cent Party are under the control of leftists. With the mobilization of supportive public opinion, “rightists” in 1978 took over the Party. Leftists today might well believe they have the majority of the Chinese people behind them, and they know only too well how to mobilize support. Could we be witnessing an ideological battle in progress?
southseaconversations 讨论南海 
First Luo Yuan, now Liu Yuan: from one “public opinion incident” to another
Posted: March 19, 2013 | Author: Andrew Chubb | Filed under: China-Japan, Comment threads, Diaoyu, PLA & PLAN, PRC News Portals, Weibo, Xinhua | Tags: Chinese internet, Chinese internet news portals, Chinese public opinion, 罗援少将, Dai Xu, Diaoyu Islands, 钓鱼岛, General Liu Yuan, iFeng, Liu Yuan, Luo Yuan, Netease, online nationalism, phoenix, PHoenix online, PLA, public opinion, public opinion incident, Senkaku Islands, Sina, Sina weibo, Weibo, 刘源, 戴旭 | 9 CommentsLiu Yuan giving his March 14 interview
Luo Yuan
Over the past few weeks i’ve counted five instances of PLA General Liu Yuan publicly warning against military conflict with Japan over the Diaoyu Islands. If this puzzled the SCMP’s seasoned reporters, who described Liu as “hawkish” in a story quoting him saying, “The friendship between people in China and Japan is everlasting,” it was positively shocking for many of the Chinese internet’s e-nationalists. [1]
Actual serving General Liu Yuan is not to be confused with retired academic “Major-General” Luo Yuan (i’ll continue to put his rank in quotes to distinguish them), who was dumped from the CPPCC this month for being “too outspoken”.
That rationale was a bit ironic given he too has been oddly conciliatory on the Diaoyu issue of late. Not only did “Major-General” Luo categorically refute a Japanese media report that he had called for Tokyo to be bombed, he also seemed to deny he had ever suggested establishing a military presence on Diaoyu. And in one of his earliest Weibos, Luo raised a historical episode that seemed to imply that the US could secretly be trying to fool China into giving it a rationale for military intervention over Diaoyu:
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