Blonde Ambition: How Xinhua Used A Foreign “Reporter” To Sex Up Its Propaganda

By Rfh

Xinhua host and moonlighter for the Daily Mail’s venerable China Bureau Nikki Aaron has been blissfully peddling the British tabloid yarns of her “China adventures” for the last few months. 

All well and good.
Here’s her latest, on dating, a subject she has visited before. 

The extremely confessional tone of the Mail piece begs the question: who is Nikki Aaron? 

On her website, she describes herself as “a versatile news anchor and TV presenter with global network experience… Nikki co-founded MetroStyle bilingual magazine in 2010.”
Here’s more, from an interview with – and apparently this actually exists – a publication called Nee Hao magazine: “I’ve been quite successful in the sense that I run my own magazine and work as TV presenter for a respected news agency, but I worked my ass off for 6 years… Xinhua is the state-owned News agency in China, and quite an honor to work for.”
In fact, Aaron has been giving regular interviews to the press back home about her “high-profile position” in Beijing. 

Here she is in the Derby Telegraph talking about fame on a visit to Hong Kong: “I was secretly hoping someone might point me out, considering my show is aired on the giant screens at Hong Kong airport, as well as on the subway trains there. But alas, nobody did!”
In Nee Hao again, discussing her work: “I’ve become a bit of a China expert over the past two years… I won an award for the best documentary last year, in which I travelled to Qinghai province (bordering Tibet), where I met and interviewed the family of the Dalai Lama, visited the birthplace of the Dalai Lama, and explored Tibetan Buddhism in China. It was quite a ground-breaking programme.”
Unhappily, readers, future employers and little children should be aware that, for a select few, working for an “honorable” news agency comes with a few strings. 

At least one of which includes peddling hardcore Chinese propaganda on “somewhat” sensitive issues:

In the above, released in March, Aaron’s professional-sounding voice and accent are used to lend considerable authority to a 15-minute Xinhua documentary on a channel called “China View,” entitled Life in Flames: The Story Behind Tibetan Self-Immolation. (The program might have baffled regular Xinhua viewers: up until that point, the broadcaster had completely ignored the 100 or so self-immolations which have occurred in Tibet over the last year or so.)
The documentary purports to take “a closer look at what’s really behind these extreme suicides.” 

Indeed, close your eyes and it could be the BBC, so perfectly has Aaron has captured the strange cadences and emphases of British news voiceovers. (In another, earlier piece of Mail gibberish, Aaron says she “landed” the Xinhua role as “a TV news anchor, reporting to a global audience of 2.5 billion” [it’s doubtful Xinhua TV pulls in 2.5 of anything].)
Despite the production value, Life in Flames is thinly sourced, controversial and perplexing, to say the least. It is a relatively recent move for Chinese media to use presentable Caucasian foreigners to add credibility to news reports – one which should probably be viewed with some skepticism (foreign journalists — such as Gady Epstein, who called Life in Flames ”remarkable propaganda” — are rarely even allowed in Tibet).
That said, it is not without precedent: at last year’s Two Sessions in November, Andrea Yu, a credentialed Australian reporter for something called the Global CAMG Media Group caused a minor sensation with her apparent ability to consistently get the attention of Chinese politicians at press conferences. 

In fact, Yu was a Party shill, planted by a company with a majority shareholding in Beijing, to ask pre-scripted softball questions. 

The ensuing controversy saw Yu being dragged through the grinder before ending up down an absolute wormhole of soft-power failure.
Sceptical of Aaron’s own “reporting,” we contacted Robbie Barnett, Adjunct Professor of Contemporary Tibetan Studies at the University of Colombia, to ask whether our conclusion was fair. 

His answer is reproduced with permission here:
"This piece is problematic as a piece of journalism, including in the smallest details. 

"The topic that it discusses concerns repeated and tragic loss of life in bitterly contested circumstances, and the ponderous approach displayed here seems a provocative choice for such an issue.
"An editorial decision has been made to support the Chinese government’s current position, and it cites only that view. 

"So this is more an advertisement than news, possibly a paid one. 

"There is no disclosure of this station’s affiliation or adherence, though it is evidently not an independent body, and its use of confessions by serving prisoners is not noted or explained. 

"Its allegations about US radio broadcasts are incorrect: according to my knowledge, they do not refer to immolators as martyrs. 

"The presenter completely mispronounces all the Tibetan names, suggesting a lack of basic research or of concern. 

"The role of the presenter in fronting this and the choice to use a stentorian speaking style can be judged by viewers for themselves".
With foreign media now battling unprecedented restrictions on their work in China (Bloomberg, Paul Mooney incident, etc.) and citizen “Big V” journalists ruthlessly monitored, why is a British journalist fronting hardline CCP propaganda for, in her words, “a respected news agency [that’s] quite an honor to work for”? Given that Aaron is, in her own words, a “China expert,” is she so naïve as to think that her Xinhua work counts as actual, real journalism – and if so, what does such credulousness say about her reporting abilities? 

Or does she stand by the video, in which case she has some serious questions to answer.
(Counterpoint: for a more sympathetic take on this dilemma, see Eric Fish’s remarks about Andrea Yu, which are still very relevant here.)
Those, like Aaron and Yu, who pursue payment, easy government relations and Mail clicks in exchange for values and professional integrity should ask where it leads in the end. 

First Xinhua, now the Daily Mail. 

Where next – the Pyongyang Bugle?

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China Central TV: champion of the people with a blurred picture

Financial Times

©AFP/AP

The China Central Television (CCTV) complex (main photo) and Chinese journalist Chen Yongzhou, confessing on state television (inset)

At the end of October, a young journalist in handcuffs, green prison jacket and a freshly shaved head appeared on China Central Television, the state-owned national broadcaster, and confessed to taking bribes in exchange for writing negative articles about a large Chinese company.

Just days earlier, the newspaper that employed Chen Yongzhou, 27, had published front-page banner headlines calling for his release, while human rights groups had mobilised to defend him. But after his admission on national television, the issue quickly died away.

Mr Chen’s is the latest in a series of televised public pre-trial confessions that have aired on the CCTV in recent months and have included British and US citizens being paraded before the camera to admit their crimes.

The performances, reminiscent of an earlier age in which political “struggle sessions” and show trials were the norm, have raised concerns inside China about the damage that they cause to the government’s stated goal of improving the rule of law.

But they have also raised an important question about the role of the state broadcaster and the balance it must strike between being a global media organisation, a commercial moneymaking venture and a political mouthpiece for the ruling Communist party.

The question is increasingly important to multinationals such as Apple, KFC, Volkswagen, Starbucks and Samsung, which have all been targeted in the past year by the broadcaster and accused of varying degrees of malfeasance or unfair practices in the Chinese market.

For major global companies, understanding why they have been singled out and on whose orders is crucial to avoiding one of the most dangerous pitfalls that can befall their businesses in the country.

In a recent book entitled Two Billion Eyes: The Story of China Central Television, author Ying Zhu says: “CCTV is full of serious-minded creators who regularly experience bouts of self-doubt, philosophical ambivalence and in some cases clinical depression.”

She also describes: “certain common themes, about ideals distorted or altogether thwarted by commercial and political pressure”.

Founded in 1958 as the country’s first TV station, CCTV did not convert to colour or extend its programming beyond a couple of hours in the evenings until the late 1970s.

Xinwen Lianbo: China’s Top Gun of news

Nowhere is the tension at CCTV between idealism, politics and commercial imperatives more obvious than at 7pm every night on its “Xinwen Lianbo” main news programme, which all regional television stations in China are required to broadcast.

A popular Chinese joke says that if anyone were to rely on this show for their information about the world they would come away with the following impressions:

After the first 10 minutes, which invariably features the activities of senior Communist cadres, they would believe that China’s leaders were all very busy.

The next 10 minutes of the half-hour broadcast would convince them that everyone in China was happy and prosperous, while the final segment would lead them to understand that everybody outside China was living in an abyss of suffering and extreme misery.

The format has barely changed in three decades, and the broadcast remains one of the most important ways for the Chinese government to issue decrees and political messages to the nation.

But in the age of social media, the show has borne the brunt of popular cynicism and ridicule over state control of information.

Ordinary netizens are quick to jump on mistakes or inconsistencies, such as when the show focuses heavily on negative events in western countries but ignores similar stories at home.

In 2011, a report about a new Chinese fighter jet showed the aircraft blowing another one up with a missile but ordinary viewers soon worked out that the footage in the news story was in fact taken from the 1986 Hollywood movie Top Gun and the featured fighter jet was American.

As late as 1978, fewer than 10m Chinese people had access to a TV, but today CCTV boasts more than 1bn potential viewers for its 45 channels that broadcast mostly soap operas, historical dramas and variety shows.

The broadcaster now earns billions of dollars a year in advertising revenue and its direct funding from the state accounts for a relatively minor part of its annual budget.

But it remains a vice-ministerial level government department and is always led by a senior Communist party official who has worked his way up through the party propaganda system.

The boss of the network, Hu Zhanfan, raised eyebrows in 2011, not long before he took the job, when he declared that the “first and foremost social responsibility [of journalists] is to serve well as a mouthpiece tool; this is the most core content of the Marxist view of journalism and it is the most fundamental of principles”.

According to current and former CCTV employees, the constant and pervasive censorship and political orders make it easy for individuals to become jaded.

So when they are presented with the opportunity to make money through unethical or, in some cases outright illegal deals, the temptation is heightened by their sense of disillusionment.

“The corruption inside CCTV is extremely serious,” says Hu Yong, an associate professor at the School of Journalism and Communication at Peking University and a former CCTV employee. “For example, [CCTV employees] will blackmail interviewees by threatening to expose them publicly or they will become public advocates for their interview subjects in exchange for economic benefits.”

Shi Feike, a senior journalist who once had close ties with CCTV, has a more nuanced view.

“The corruption inside CCTV is not necessarily more serious than in any other monopolistic state-owned enterprise in China,” he says. “There are some highly professional and ethical staff working at CCTV and the situation varies depending on the department, the channel and the individual programme.”

CCTV said: “CCTV has strict requirements regarding its employees’ professional ethics, and employs comprehensive disciplinary measures to restrict their activities.

In the wake of serious food and product safety scandals, CCTV has taken on the role of self-appointed public watchdog, with a focus on the transgressions of multinationals operating in China.

In recent weeks, the broadcaster has targeted smartphone maker Samsung for allegedly unfair after-sales policies, while earlier this year it directed similar charges against Apple that prompted the company to apologise to Chinese consumers.

Other companies such as KFC, McDonald's, Volkswagen, and Walmart have all been targeted by similar reports that appear to concentrate less on large Chinese companies, in particular state-owned monopolies that are often derided by consumers for their substandard products and services.

“The reasons for this bias towards reporting [negatively] on foreign companies are complicated; sometimes it is political as in the case of Google, often it is rent-seeking [trying to force large companies to buy advertising or pay bribes] and sometimes it is just the path of least resistance,” says Mr Shi.

“They cannot touch state enterprises because they will be censored so it is much safer to beat up on foreign companies. It will get on air without any trouble [from the censors] and it will gain support from nationalists.”

The negative campaigns do not always have the desired effect.

In late October, CCTV aired a seven-minute segment lambasting Starbucks for overcharging Chinese consumers for its coffee.

With more than 1,000 outlets across China and plans for the country to become its second-largest market after the US by next year, Starbucks wants to avoid a fight with the propaganda apparatus at all costs.

But on this occasion the reports were mostly greeted with derision rather than outrage from the wider public.

“Coffee is not a necessity for life, the price is determined by the market and it is up to Starbucks to charge what it wants,” said one user of China’s Twitter-like Weibo service whose message went viral. “If CCTV really cares about high prices why can’t they pay attention to prices that are actually related to people’s livelihoods?”

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Reporting on China 40 years ago: restrictions, frustrations and reading between the lines

By Paul Raffaele
ABC correspondent Paul Raffaele (5th from the right) during Gough Whitlam's visit to China. 

In early October 1973 I flew to Hong Kong on my way to setting up the first ABC bureau in Peking -- the Chinese capital city now known as Beijing.
China was still embroiled in the Cultural Revolution, a violent countrywide rebellion inspired by the then-demigod Mao Tse-tung, where many thousands died and millions were imprisoned.
China had virtually closed itself off from the world for a decade. 

No tourists were allowed and only a handful of foreign journalists were permitted to be based in Peking, compared to more than 1,000 today.
I was excited to be the first Australian journalist ever to be based in Mao's China and at the same time nervous at the prospect of being cut off in Peking from the familiar outside world.
Today, China welcomes thousands of tourists and business people daily, but on that autumn day in 1973 only six of us had permits to enter China, the Middle Kingdom. 

The other five were diplomats.

The confusion of arrival creates bureaucratic panic
At Lowu station I walked past a British soldier cradling a sub-machine gun and began the 100-step journey across a covered bridge separating China from Hong Kong. 

I felt like a character in a John le Carré novel.
At the other end I could see a Chinese soldier gripping an AK-47 in front of a giant red and gold wall painting emblazoned with a revolutionary saying: "We have friends all over the world". 

I remember wondering if it was a welcome or a warning, or both.
The morning was hushed as I reached the end of the bridge. 

There were few people about.
It was Shenzhen, a quiet fishing village with just a few hundred inhabitants and a single two-storey building housing the immigration and customs departments.
Now, it is home to several million people, and a role model in China's astonishing expansion into a world-beating industrial powerhouse.
After a three-hour train ride through rural China followed by a flight, I arrived at Peking airport. 

No one was there to meet me.
My earlier cables to the foreign media section of the foreign ministry seemed to have been overlooked. 

I stood beneath a giant portrait of Mao while a caretaker arranged for a taxi to come and get me.
The taxi took me to the Hsin Chiao Hotel in the middle of the city, originally built to house Soviet advisers who had long gone. 

The reception desk was empty but the taxi driver roused the manager from his bed.
Bewildered and increasingly frantic, he explained that all visitors to China were tabulated, tagged and sorted into their respective slots with welcoming officials at the airport, taxis and hotels allotted to greet them on arrival.
Manifestly, that had not occurred in my case.
An hour's voluble telephone conversations and a succession of shadowy bureaucrats produced official recognition that I truly existed and so I was finally given a key to a room in the almost deserted hotel.
It gave me entrance to a small room which for the next eight months was to be both home and office for me and my wife, who arrived a few weeks later.

Official handler warns: 'The masses might stone you'
The following morning I presented myself to Ma Yuchen, who was to be both the delight and blight of my life for the next 18 months.
A brilliant, dedicated man, Ma was in charge of the section that handled the few resident foreign correspondents. 

There were no Americans and I was the only foreign broadcaster -- which meant no BBC.
Ma was all smiles that first day and on every day that my despatches were "positive" on the subject of the new China. 

But when I transgressed the official truth he instantly changed to a scolding headmaster bent on correcting the errors of his latest pupil.
I remember a conversation with Ma during the row that erupted when the ABC showed Antonioni's documentary film of life in China. 

The Chinese government hated it and put pressure on the ABC not to show it.
Soon after it was broadcast, I asked for permission to travel in the countryside.
Ma looked at me as much in sorrow as in anger and remarked: "Mr Raffaele, how can I give you permission for such a journey when I can't guarantee your safety from the masses? They know the Australian Broadcasting Commission has shown the Antonioni film against out express wishes. If they catch you, they might even go as far as to stone you."
Ma went on to become China's ambassador to Great Britain and then China's eminence grise in Hong Kong following the 1997 takeover. 

I enjoyed our verbal jousting immensely.

Whitlam's visit inspires well-rehearsed rapture
One of the most memorable events took place a few weeks after I set up the bureau in Peking.
To the strains of a Chinese military band playing Click Go The Shears, Gough Whitlam, the first Australian prime minister ever to visit China, emerged from his jet to a rapturous welcome by thousands of colourfully dressed Chinese.
Hordes of girls in traditional costumes screamed rehearsed phrases of greeting, competing with a score of bands and innumerable fluttering red and gold banners.
From the airport the parade of big black limousines passed down the broad Chang An avenue, past the Forbidden City, cheered on by the many thousands of Chinese shouting eternal greetings to their Australian friends.
Such was the expertise of the Chinese propaganda machine that our reports, unhindered by any of the usual technical and bureaucratic delays I would later experience, dwelt fulsomely on the great and eternal spirit of friendship between China and Australia.
Few of us would ever know that the same effusively choreographed welcome would be turned on the following week, with an appropriate musical accompaniment, for an African dictator whose amusements included feeding his enemies to his pet crocodiles.
On that first day of the visit, at the welcoming banquet in the Great Hall of the People, Whitlam and all of us were introduced to the charismatic premier Chou.
We later raised glasses of mao tai in a toast to Chairman Mao, who was one of the greatest monsters in history, directly responsible for the deaths of more than 40 million Chinese.
Then, we listened in amazed delight as the band of the People's Liberation Army band played a stentorian version of On The Road To Gundagai.

Paul Raffaele in Peking, 1973: He was forbidden from talking to Chinese people in the street and visiting local homes.

The correspondent's lot: deciphering official communications
For most of the time I spent as the ABC’s man in China there was more frustration than glamour.
Movement around the country and coverage of day-to-day events were heavily restricted.
We were not allowed to leave the confines of the Peking boundaries without official permission and that was very rarely ever given.
We were denied access to key sources of information such as the leadership, bureaucracy and local journalists. 

We were forbidden from talking to any Chinese in the street and visiting local homes.
But life had its pleasant and memorable moments. 

I often wandered through the Forbidden City, usually the only person in the huge complex and often the only person on the Great Wall when I went for a visit.
My wife and I often visited the tumbledown antique shops in the historical Liu-Lichang Lane, sometimes purchasing a rare scroll, more often admiring Ching dynasty bric-a-brac.
We tried to find out what was happening among the leadership, usually without success.
We read the People's Daily devotedly with its obscure references to historical events centuries ago which we knew to be hints of what was a titanic battle between premier Chou and Madame Mao for control of China after Mao died.
We attended the boring diplomatic functions where the more imaginative among us sprouted wild and improbable political rumours that were swiftly replaced by others.
We did the best we could, our stories necessarily based on educated guesswork and half-truths, compounded on Western political logic that was more often than not inappropriate.
My colleagues were top journalists, famed in their countries, such as John Burns of the Toronto Globe and Mail, Gerd Ruge of Die Welt, and the irrepressible Claire Hollingworth of the UK's Daily Telegraph.
Scoops at home were their bread and butter. 

Yet I don’t recall anyone ever filing a single scoop while I was based in Peking.
There were other chances for scoops.
I spent nine months convincing the North Korean ambassador to approve a visit to a country even more isolated than China.
When he agreed I became the first Australian journalist to enter North Korea, and I was also the only Western correspondent in the North Vietnamese capital when Saigon fell in 1975 and South Vietnam surrendered to the legions of Ho Chi Minh.
Though unforgettable, none were more memorable than that exhilarating week in Peking 40 years ago when the ABC bureau opened for business and Whitlam and his cohorts came to visit.

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China's military produces a bizarre, anti-American conspiracy film

This latest, leaked propaganda takes America-bashing to new heights.
By Benjamin Carlson

HONG KONG — Around election season, American politicians are often charged with "China bashing" if they invoke the People’s Republic as a rival threatening US interests. 

China is America's partner, critics retort. 

We should build trust between the countries, not suspicion.
That's all well and good. 

But, of course, suspicion goes both ways, and every so often something comes out of China that you'd have to call, well, "America bashing."
Case in point: a propaganda video leaked this week from China's National Defense University, the country’s equivalent of West Point. 

In the 90-minute film, circulated widely on the internet, America is portrayed as an insidious force that is deliberately infiltrating the Communist Party, NGOs, and Chinese society. 

The goal: to subvert the government from all sides.
Titled “The Silent Contest,” it was produced by General Liu Yazhou, political commissar of the military institution.
The video opens with footage of Congress and the White House, backed by ominous music that could have been lifted straight from Red Dawn. 

It begins with a lament for the end of the Soviet Union, and proceeds through recent history to show the supposedly evil motives behind America’s relations with China and other communist countries.
“American elites confidently believe that the best way to disorganize China is to work closely with it,” says one general quoted in the film.
Nefarious intent is imputed to the Fulbright Fellowship, the Ford Foundation, and the Carter Center. Dissidents and thinkers such as Nobel laureate Liu Xiabao and Peking University law professor He Weifang are painted as America’s pawns. 

The US and British consulates in Hong Kong are charged with helping to foment the massive political protests that activists organize every year on the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
Perhaps most worrying of all, China-US military exchanges are described as ways to “disorganize China” and “brainwash politicians.”
For years, the Pentagon has called for more interaction with Chinese generals as a way to build trust and open lines of communication that could prevent escalation in the event of a crisis. 

Just a few months ago, 10 Chinese colonels visited Hawaii and Washington, DC.

In October, Pentagon officials met their counterparts in Beijing.
Yet while the video is a sign of lingering Cold War-style thinking (something for which the Chinese media regularly criticize the US), it may also serve a simpler domestic purpose.
Some analysts think it’s partly an effort by hard-line factions to increase their influence ahead of the Third Party Plenum, a meeting scheduled to begin next Saturday, during which the Communist Party is expected to introduce reforms.
“The film intends to use Deng Xiaoping to warn party officials who want to make a breakthrough not to move casually, otherwise what happened to the Soviet Union is the outcome,” current affairs commentator Lin Zixu said to New Tang Dynasty Television.

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China says will stamp out Dalai Lama's voice in Tibet

By Ben Blanchard

BEIJING -- China aims to stamp out the voice of exiled Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama in his restive and remote homeland by ensuring that his "propaganda" is not received by anyone on the internet, television or other means, a top official said.
China has tried, with varying degrees of success, to prevent Tibetans listening to or watching programmes broadcast from outside the country, or accessing any information about the Dalai Lama and the exiled government on the internet.
But many Tibetans are still able to access such news, either via illegal satellite televisions or by skirting Chinese internet restrictions. 

The Dalai Lama's picture and his teachings are also smuggled into Tibet, at great personal risk.
Writing in the ruling Communist Party's influential journal Qiushi, the latest issue of which was received by subscribers on Saturday, Tibet's party chief Chen Quanguo said that the government would ensure only its voice is heard.
"Strike hard against the reactionary propaganda of the splittists from entering Tibet," Chen wrote in the magazine, whose name means "seeking truth".
The government will achieve this by confiscating illegal satellite dishes, increasing monitoring of online content and making sure all telephone and internet users are registered using their real names, he added.
"Work hard to ensure that the voice and image of the party is heard and seen over the vast expanses (of Tibet) ... and that the voice and image of the enemy forces and the Dalai clique are neither seen nor heard," Chen wrote.
China calls the Nobel Peace Prize-winning Dalai Lama a "wolf in sheep's clothing" who seeks to use violent methods to establish an independent Tibet.
The Dalai Lama, who fled to India after a failed uprising in 1959, says he simply wants genuine autonomy for Tibet, and denies espousing violence.
Chen said the party would seek to expose the Dalai Lama's "hypocrisy and deception" and his "reactionary plots".
China has long defended its iron-fisted rule in Tibet, saying the region suffered from dire poverty, brutal exploitation and economic stagnation until 1950, when Communist troops "peacefully liberated" Tibet.
Tensions in China's Tibetan regions are at their highest in years after a spate of self-immolation protests by Tibetans, which have led to an intensified security crackdown.

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China's Ridiculous War on Starbucks Lattes

Runaway real estate prices. Skyrocketing healthcare expenses. Brazen land seizures. And China's state TV does an exposé on the cost of a cup of coffee?
BY RACHEL LU

There are worse things in the world than an overpriced latte. 

That's the message that thousands of Chinese web users are sending China Central Television (CCTV), a state-owned media behemoth that ran an Oct. 20 segment accusing the Seattle-based company of overcharging Chinese consumers.
CCTV reported that a tall latte costs $4.43 in a Starbucks in Beijing, $3.98 in London, $3.26 in Chicago, and $2.40 in Mumbai. 

The broadcaster grandiosely called the seven-minute segment "an investigation from CCTV correspondents stationed around the globe," though ascertaining the price of a Starbucks drink entails no investigation beyond a glance at the menu. 

The segment also featured a few of Starbucks' Beijing consumers complaining about the price. 

"How can I afford to live, if I drank a cup every day?" exclaimed one young woman.
The implication of the CCTV segment seems to be that foreign companies like Starbucks are fleecing Chinese consumers out of their hard-earned renminbi by charging more in China than they do elsewhere. 

But Chinese people already know Starbucks is expensive -- and now they are wondering aloud why CCTV has made pricey lattes an investigative focus, rather than the issues that matter to grassroots citizens.
On CCTV's official account on Sina Weibo, China's Twitter, the post on Starbucks' alleged profiteering practices had over 63,000 retweets and over 28,000 comments, most decrying CCTV's coverage as unfair and unnecessary. 

"If you buy the goods it means that you have the ability and will to pay the price, and you think that the price for Starbucks coffee is right," wrote one Weibo user from the wealthy city of Qingdao. 

"No one forced you to buy it. A poor guy like me would be very content with a cup of Nestle that costs $0.30!"
What really riled observers is that CCTV grossly underestimated Chinese people's ability to distinguish real injustice from the manufactured variety. 

Users complained that CCTV would be performing more of a service to Chinese by focusing on the issues affecting their daily lives: the high costs of necessities like housing, healthcare, gasoline, and telecommunications.
To Li Jinping, a verified Weibo user who claims to be an assistant professor at the People's Public Security University of China, an elite Chinese police academy, CCTV's episode fits into a larger pattern in which CCTV turns its ire on foreign firms -- like KFC, McDonald's, and Apple -- while downplaying larger problems. 

"Why doesn't CCTV question whether it's reasonable to delay when average people can begin to collect retirement benefits?" he wrote. 

"Why doesn't it report on whether it's illegal to force the demolition of people's homes everywhere and take their land? "
This doesn't mean Starbucks should take CCTV's criticism lightly. 

In March 2013, a CCTV investigative report claimed that Apple discriminated against Chinese consumers. The report invited a serious anti-CCTV backlash in social media as well; but nonetheless, two weeks later, Apple issued an unusual public apology. (So far, Starbucks has not apologized, instead arguing in an Oct. 21 statement that "each Starbucks market is unique and has different operating costs, so it would be inaccurate to draw conclusions about one market based on the prices in a different market.")
Starbucks is no stranger to controversy in China. 

In 2007, the nationalist CCTV anchor Rui Chenggang lashed out against Starbucks' longstanding outpost in Beijing's Forbidden City, the erstwhile home of Chinese emperors. 

Rui claimed that Starbucks' brand was "low-class" and its very presence there "obscene," representing an affront to Chinese civilization. 

In 2012, a Starbucks opening next to the historical Lingyin Buddhist Temple in Hanghzou invited another round of fierce discussion of "foreign invasion" and "crass commercialization" of cherished Chinese cultural symbols.
These attacks yielded mixed outcomes. 

The Forbidden City evicted Starbucks in 2007 under pressure from nationalists, with the company saying it "respectfully decided" to end its lease agreement. 

And while Starbucks emphasized its deep respect for Chinese culture in a September 2012 statement, the Lingyin shop appears to still be open, a testament to Starbucks' rapid expansion and increasing acceptance in China. 

According to its website, Starbucks now operates more than 1,000 stores in over 60 cities in China, compared to more than 700 stories in 2012, and predicts that China will become its second-largest market after the United States in 2014.

Despite Starbucks' increasingly large footprint in China, its prices simply do not enter the daily calculus of most people there. 

Ding Laifeng, who has worked in media and public relations, took to Weibo to sketch a widely shared picture of daily life: "I don't have to drink coffee, but I have to live in an apartment. Can't CCTV criticize local governments for selling land at a high price instead?"

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China has more internet "monitors" than soldiers

By Lily Kuo

China has two million people working as online monitors, according to a report last week by state news publication, Beijing News—a new estimate that reveals the breadth of the country’s massive online censorship and surveillance systems. 

The monitors, who scour online comments and compile reports for officials or private businesses, outnumber even China’s 1.5 million active military personnel.
There is now an entire industry and profession dedicated to controlling—or attempting to control—China’s fast-moving social media world, where comments quickly go viral among the country’s 500 million internet users. 

The People’s Daily, the official mouthpiece of the Chinese communist party is holding a four-day seminar this month where successful students can be certified as “public opinion analysts,” according to the Beijing Times report. 

Once certified, they’re eligible for jobs with China’s propaganda department, commercial companies, news websites or public relation firms.
Social media monitoring, a measure whose ostensible goal is social stability, has been turned into a “money-making machine for local governments [and] firms,” said Guobin Yang, a professor of sociology and communications at the University of Southern California, in comments on Twitter today. 

The People’s Daily charges up to 4,000 renminbi ($650) for four days of training to become an analyst, Yang noted.
And for businesses or officials who need more than just monitoring, “black public relations” firms offers services like wiping negative articles from the internet or blocking certain search terms. 

These cost at least 10,000 renminbi and and up to 1 million renminbi, respectively, according to a February report by Century Weekly.

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Two million 'internet opinion analysts' employed to monitor China's vast online population

Government employees trawl through blogs and social media to dissect and manipulate public opinion

By Patrick Boehler

A man works on his computer inside a coffee shop in downtown Shanghai.
Some two million people are employed by the Chinese government at all levels, as well as businesses, to monitor public opinion on Chinese social media, according to a report in Thursday’s Beijing News.
By trawling through blogs, microblog posts and social networks, these "Internet opinion analysts," most of them government employees, dissect public opinion on local issues and try to identify accusations of corruption and poor governance. 

They keep local leadership, from county to province, informed on a daily basis via text messages and written reports.
The Beijing-based newspaper took advantage of a seminar for these monitors, held in the capital in mid-October by the People’s Daily Online Public Opinion Monitoring Centre, a think tank-like unit of the Communist Party’s official mouthpiece, to meet these usually anonymous local government staffers known as “online public opinion analysts”.
Even though the industry has been around for at least six years, the Ministry of Human Resources only listed their duties earlier this month as an official profession certified by the ministry’s China Employment Training Technical Instruction Centre.
Since 2008, the People’s Daily’s think tank has advised local governments to quicken the pace of issuing public statements and reacting to online debate and viral political statements. 

In 2011, it called on officials to react within the “four golden hours” after an incident, such a train crash or a riot, to provide information and prevent allegations of cover-ups.
One such analyst the Beijing News interviewed heads the public opinion monitoring office of a county in Henan province. 

Every day, the man with the pseudonym Yuan Ming would search his county’s name on Google and Baidu, the Chinese equivalent of the international search engine. 

Special software bought by the county at a cost of three million yuan alerts his office to trending topics on social media, according to the report.
Local Communist Party propaganda departments have for years employed contractors, known as wumao at a reported rate of 0.5 yuan paid for every online post, so they can monitor public opinion and counterbalance negative voices with positive ones, as well as slander those critical of the local or central government officials.
The certification of “public opinion monitors” has led many people online to quip that wumao have been given proper and government jobs, coveted by many for their job security.
“Who pays their salaries?” one person asked. 

“They use taxpayers’ money to suppress taxpayers’ voices,” wrote another.

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5 ways the Chinese government will try to control the internet in the next year

By Paul Bischoff

China’s State Information Office director Lu Wei published an article in the People’s Daily yesterday on the importance of online public opinion work – what some might call propaganda and censorship. 

The report essentially outlined the short-term actions the party will take or continue to take in its effort to minimize “negative energy” online, otherwise known as any content that harms the Communist Party’s image.
You can read the full translation on the China Copyright and Media blog, but I’ve summarized the major points below.

1. No one can be anonymous
Expect more strict enforcement of real-name registration for individuals, which has already begun.
"We must strengthen the construction of an online sincerity and honesty system, and realistically move forward with microblog user real name information registration and authentication work.” 
I wish more people would do this on their own behalf, but I certainly don’t believe it should be government-mandated. 

But the CCP isn’t just making it impossible for individuals to be invisible online. 

Lu Wei also suggests more thorough registration of media outlets and websites to cover all the bases.
"Persist in implementing an administrative licensing system for online information services involving the public interest. [...] 

"We must strengthen website registration and filing, and management of access service, domain name, IP address, and other basic resources." 

2. Incentivize snitching and brown-nosing
"We must complete and perfect report award structures, giving rein to the positive function of the broad netizens in cleaning up the online environment".
Sell out your comrade and earn a promotion! 

When thousands of internet thought police aren’t enough to stop deprecatory Weibo posts from slipping through, Lu Wei suggests netizens police themselves. 

He wants to “promote those excellent cadres who combine ability and integrity, and have good overall accomplishments, to leading positions.”

3. Control loud voices
As we saw with outspoken Weibo user Charles Xue this week and many other celebrities before him, the government wants well-respected Chinese personalities to shut the hell up with all their talk of social inequality and other inconvenient things. 

To do this, Lu Wei says the government will work more on “online celebrity uniting and guidance work.” Those holding top positions at popular websites will also be pulled into the Party line:
"We must strengthen website employee training and implement post certification structures for focus posts". 

4. More propaganda
Lu Wei says the CCP wants a “positive” online environment, so as not to “ruin the social atmosphere and harm the youth’s physical and mental health.” 

But according to his suggestions, the Party is really only concerned with its own “positive” image, because a negative environment threatens its consolidation of power.
"Strengthen and improve online positive propaganda and public opinion guidance, vigorously disseminate online positive energy".
He says the CCP “must persist in correct public opinion guidance” and “realistically and substantially implement the principle and requirement that the Party manages the media.” 

Sarcastically, the party knows best.

5. Internationalize the technical foundations of the internet
This is more of a means to an end than a direct power grab and not explicitly stated by Lu Wei. 

To control what’s being said on the internet, the CCP needs more control over the internet itself. 

The web standards people who decide how the internet is structured are largely Western entities, like ICANN and W3C. 

China has slowly been luring those organizations inside its borders to have more of a say in those decisions. 

Recently, for example, ICANN approved two new Chinese language web domain endings.

”Clean and crisp cyberspace”?
The Communist Party is fighting an uphill battle to “purify” the internet. 

While I don’t believe its campaign for a positive online environment will work, the CCP’s ongoing fear tactics could certainly slow down the country’s progress towards a free internet. 

In Lu Wei’s own words:
"We must strictly attack acts of disseminating obscene and vulgar information, protect citizens’ personal information, firmly attack online rumours, punish law-breakers according to the law, and realistically standardize online information order, ensuring that our cyberspace becomes clean and crisp."

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