Why I don’t miss the premier’s annual press conference – Ian Johnson

 

Ian Johnson

In a surprise move, China canceled the annual press conference of the country’s premier. But long-term correspondent and author Ian Johnson explains in the VOA why he thinks the foreign correspondents stopped looking forward to the event.

VOA:

Starting in 1993, Chinese premiers have typically used the annual event as an opportunity to field wide-ranging questions from Chinese and foreign journalists. Throughout the 1990s and 2000s, when China was opening its economy to the rest of the world, it had actively sought to elucidate its politics and policies in a bid to attract foreign investment and boost trade.

Ian Johnson, a senior fellow for Chinese studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, who worked in China as a journalist from 1994 to 2001, said that foreign journalists at that time could use the press conferences to ask questions freely.

Later, “it went from being a potential source of information to becoming an empty exercise in propaganda,” he said. “By the end of the 2010s, it had become useless in terms of getting information. It’s just scripted.”

More in the VOA.

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Working as a journalist in China – Ian Johnson

 

Ian Johnson

China journalist, senior fellow at the Council of Foreign Relations, and Pulitzer prize winner Ian Johnson discusses his time as a foreign correspondent in China since 1994. He was expelled in 2020 but returned to finish his latest book, Sparks: China’s Underground Historians and their Battle for the Future, in 2023. At the Asia Society for the China Books Review Launch, he is interviewed by his former colleague Dave Barboza.

Ian Johnson is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers’ request form.

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The fake news in China’s media on the Russian invasion of Ukraine – Zhang Lijia

 

Zhang Lijia

Author Zhang Lijia is shocked by the fake news in China’s media on the Russian invasion of Ukraine, she reports while traveling in Northern Africa. “The first casualty of war is truth.” How true!”, she writes on her weblog.

Zhang Lijia:

“The first casualty of war is truth.” How true!

I’ve been following China’s coverage with fascination and disgust. Although China claims to be neutral on the matter and even offers itself as a peace maker, its media coverage has more or less been following the Russian line. To start with, instead of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, it is termed as ‘Russian and Ukraine conflict’. It hardly mentions the immense suffering of the civilians in Ukraine or its people’s incredible courageous resistance, which moved the people around the world.

When Russia made false claim that Pentagon has been financing biological weapons labs in Ukraine, China reported it as truth. How dangerous it is! Putin may use it as a false flag to use biological weapons. Here’s NYT’s report on the issue.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/10/us/politics/russia-ukraine-china-bioweapons.html

How ridiculous that China now blames the U.S and Nato for the invasion. See attached the screen shot of the Chinese article.

A professor Zhang Wenmu from Beihang University, a nationalistic academic, penned a piece “Why has Ukraine Nazi-ized”. There’s a lot of discussion on the topic on the internet. Again, it is ridiculous! The Ukraine president Zelensky is a Jew. Why would he want his country to Nazi-ized?

There’s been a lot of fake news. From a group on Wechat called Friends in London, someone posted a video clip about a week ago, showing Putin crying over the death of Russian soldiers and when their bodies were carried back to Russia, the ordinary people knelt down on the road side, to show their respect. Completely false! If Putin cares about his soldiers, he wouldn’t have sent them over to Ukraine. He is a narcissistic who is utterly indifferent to human sufferings.

Zhang Lijia’s weblog.

Zhang Lijia is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your (online) meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers’ request form.

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Why the West fails to get China – Shaun Rein

 

Shaun Rein

China veteran Shaun Rein explains why the West does so poorly in understanding China, and why China’s government is doing such a bad job in explaining China to the rest of the world, in an interview with Cyrus Janssen.

Shaun Rein is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your (online) meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers’ request form.

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How the media landscape will be changed by the US-China fight – Shirley Yu

 

Shirley Yu

Ironically, TikTok has become the ideal platform to spread American soft power, says business analyst Shirley Yu at Yahoo Finance. “The fundamental competition between the US and China is going to be technological competition,” which will have a big impact on the media landscape and the way in which we live, she says.

Yahoo Finance:

With the world’s second largest economy investing heavily in technology and innovative startups, China’s digital footprint is growing while the US seeks to dominate the digital landscape. This is leading to profound changes taking place within society as digital infrastructure plays a bigger role in our daily lives and people become more interconnected globally, and at high speed.

Shirley Yu, a Harvard-educated political economist and expert in strategic and economic affairs said this week that “the fundamental competition between the US and China is going to be technological competition,” which will have a big impact on the media landscape and the way in which we live.
The global media figure, former CGTN news anchor and founder of Business Talk Show Hey China! said that despite China’s economic growth and recent successes including TikTok, it had yet to make its mark culturally around the world in the same way that the US has done so.
“China does not, or has not produced very many strong public voices on the global stage who can communicate effectively in policy, in media, or even in politics, in a sophisticated way, with the rest of the world,” said Yu.
Despite the success of Bytedance’s TikTok, the Hey China! talk show host admitted that it is a crucial moment for the world to give a voice to the change-makers, thought leaders and Gen Z doers, who can tell their untold paradigm changing stories about China to the world, and bring inclusion to the media.

“China has not been able to develop a generation of global media icons, nothing near what the US has accomplished in this regard,” Yu reflected.
However, when asked about the potential banning of TikTok in the U.S., Yu noted that, “If you watch TikTok, TikTok has become ironically the perfect platform to spread American soft power, through the songs, dances and culture. American youth have successfully used a Chinese platform to spread American soft power all over the world.”

But as the technological competition heats up between the two world powers, companies like TikTok and Huawei have been caught up in the geopolitical confrontations, facing boycotts and bans in various countries. However, the technological shift toward 5G and China’s large investments in areas including IoT, AI, smart cities and digital tech means that the rest of the world including the US will be eager to match that effort – changing how we communicate and connect over the long-term.

More at Yahoo Finance.

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Why I did not become a China-whiner – Kaiser Kuo

 

Kaiser Kuo

In a wide-ranging interview with the South China Morning Post, China veteran Kaiser Kuo explains why – unlike many others – he did not become a China-whiner, also not after he returned in 2016 to the US. He is now a leading voice on the relations between China and the US, without taking sides for either country.

Kaiser Kuo:

My wife and I returned to the States in 2016. We were very happy in Beijing. It was simply so our kids could get an American education. But it’s been sheer agony to watch helplessly as

the US-China relationship sours.

I actually feel ripped apart, and not out of attraction to both sides but out of profound disappointment with both countries. Dialogue is still possible, and understanding one another’s perspectives is more urgent than ever. So as dark as things are, I’m still fighting the good fight, and platforms like SupChina and Sinica are more important than ever.

The full interview at the South China Morning Post.

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In-dept reporting is hurt in China - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

A large number of foreign journalists, mostly Americans, got kicked out of China earlier this year, including long-term veteran Ian Johnson. In-depth journalism is now hurt, he tells the Deutsche Welle, as most media organizations have only one or two correspondents in China, who cannot do more than scratch the surface.

Deutsche Welle:

The biggest thing is there will be a lot less in-depth reporting on China. Now, there is a lot of spin, and a lot of people tweeting things and coming up with ways of analyzing things related to China. 

However, now there is less "boots-on-the-ground" investigative reporting that involves going out and actually talking to people. 

Without that, we lack facts in dealing with China. We end up with just more people who are commenting on China from New York, Washington, London, Berlin and elsewhere. 

Most media organizations only have one or two correspondents in China, and they are mostly driven by news editors. There is so much news, and correspondents often just end up spending all their time doing news. 

You need to have those extra reporters who you can send off to do investigations, and I think those are exactly the people who are leaving China. In other words, China used a very measured way to target American journalists. While the US expelled dozens of Chinese journalists, China achieved a lot more with its expulsion of American journalists. 

It will obviously be more challenging. We will need more Chinese language skills and people who can read Chinese really well. I think we will need more Chinese sources and look at different media as well as academic journals. It will require even more trustful engagement with Chinese sources than in the past. 

Journalists will become a little bit like sociologists, who just have quantitative methods but not qualitative methods. You can use data but you are not going to be able to do that many on-the-ground interviews.

More at the Deutsche Welle. Ian Johnson is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your (online) meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

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A TV show for middle-aged makes feminist waves - Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia

A Hunan reality TV show Sisters who make waves triggers off a heated debate in China on whether the TV show adds to the feminist debate or not. Author Zhang Lijia collects the arguments pro and con, and in the end concluded that the commercial show is making quite some feminist waves, she writes in the South China Morning Post. 

Zhang Lijia:

It is quite a show, I have to admit, eye-catching and lavishly made. Genre-bending, it presents not only the singing competitions but also the whole process of the performers getting ready, socialising, joking and laughing with each other, interspersed with interviews throughout.

Sadly, despite its “girl power” trappings, the show is not about empowerment but about cheap thrills. Obsessed with beauty, it overemphasises the appearance of the contestants, their shapely bodies, smooth skin, youthful looks and fabulous costumes...

Renowned feminist Zhang Leilei told me that although the show does not qualify as feminist, it does promote the diversity of women and places a spotlight on the talents and capacities of women over 30.

I tend to agree with her: it is a good thing that the show is being screened. Due to restrictions by the authorities, feminist discourse lags behind the rest of the world. This show does not make big waves in this regard, but even a few ripples are better than nothing.

More at the South China Morning Post.

Zhang Lijia is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your (online) meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

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How US-China relations are heading for disaster - Kaiser Kuo

Kaiser Kuo

China veteran Kaiser Kuo discusses the future of relations between China and the US, as disaster is luring, while cooperation is needed more than ever considering the problems of the coronavirus and climate change. On racism in the US, at the Oxford Political Review.

Kaiser Kuo is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need him at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form. 

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Media misperceptions on China - Kaiser Kuo

Kaiser Kuo during the interview

Media play a key role in portraying China, and not always in the best way, says media and China expert Kaiser Kuo, former Baidu communication director, in a (lengthy) interview for the U.S. China Perception Monitor at the Carter Center. "Our lack of historical perspective also tends to make us impatient. It’s easy to see how someone without a knowledge of history can look at China and see a very modern and developed state," says Kaiser Kuo.

The U.S. China Perception Monitor:

My primary interest has always been in addressing the perception gaps that Americans or other English-speaking people have toward China, and right now I’ll only speak about those, though I think it’s important that perception gaps going the other way also be addressed. 

Part of the U.S. perception gap has to do with media coverage of China. Most Americans know what they think they know about contemporary China through watching, reading, and listening to news reports. And while I happen to think that, especially given the conditions for reporting in China, our media on balance does an excellent job of reporting, there are nonetheless structural realities about the way that news is created and consumed that end up contributing to misperceptions. 

When I read the New York Times or watch an hour of network or cable news, even though there are many, many stories on any given day that might make me think the country is going down in flames – more chaos in the White House, the president’s latest inchoate Twitter rantings, another unarmed black man gunned down by police, another prominent man exposed for sexual misconduct –  there are also the rest of the stories in the paper about really banal and quotidian things, as well as plenty of feel-good news: trend stories, food stories, scientific breakthroughs, your basic human interest fare. And more importantly, I also have the lived experience of the U.S., and I know that despite all the negative pieces I’ve just read in the paper, I don’t expect that when I open my window I’ll hear the din of street battles and smell burning tires. 

Unfortunately, when I read that same newspaper or take in that newscast, the few stories I’m likely to encounter about China will focus on the unusual – and often, that means they’ll focus on the negative. This isn’t because there’s some plot among media elites to make China look bad. It’s fundamentally structural to the news business. Reporters write about the planes that crash, not the ones that land safely. They write about the bridges that collapse, and not about the ones that don’t. And so it’s only natural that they’d write about the repression of ethnic minorities, or elite conflict, or official malfeasance, or environmental catastrophe, or mass protest. The problem is that for an American reading these, without those other banal or even pleasant stories to offer a fuller picture, and without that lived experience of China, many readers – I daresay most – will come away with a picture of China that is disproportionately negative. 

Reporting by American media outlets is, to the very best of my knowledge, quite accurate. There really is an atrocity underway in Xinjiang, where efforts to assimilate Uyghurs include extralegal detentions with no due process, where fundamental features of the Uyghur culture itself are under assault, and where sophisticated technologies are being used to monitor and track people in ways that clearly violate any reasonable norms of privacy. There really is horrific environmental degradation in many parts of China. There really is extensive censorship of all media, including the internet. The reporting on all of this – and much more – has been accurate. But accurate isn’t the same thing as realistic. It’s not, one might argue, the media’s responsibility to paint this more complete realistic picture. So I’m afraid this just isn’t something that can easily be fixed. All any of us can hope to do is to try and present more of the complete picture. 

There’s another set of issues that contribute significantly to gaps in perceptions of China when viewed from the U.S., and these have mostly to do with the relationship Americans today have with history. We tend to see history as basically teleological – that it has a goal or an endpoint, that it moves in a particular direction. It’s really baked into our language, and it’s hard to transcend. We don’t recognize how contingent history actually is. This has been especially pronounced, I think, since the end of the Cold War and the collapse of Soviet Communism. Having seen off two great ideological enemies, fascism and communism, we were more convinced than ever of being on the right side of history – and less apt to interrogate the assumptions undergirding our teleological view of history, less apt to recognize the contingency of it all. So we now stand on one side of what is a fundamentally historical chasm, looking across at China, and wondering why it can’t just cross over to where we are. We don’t bother to look down into that chasm and reflect on the tortuous path that got us to this side: all the narrow escapes, lucky throws of the dice, and all the blood and bodies along that path. 

Our lack of historical perspective also tends to make us impatient. It’s easy to see how someone without a knowledge of history can look at China and see a very modern and developed state. Superficially, it could look that way. But lacking an appreciation for history, we don’t recognize how the impressive advances in China’s hardware – the gleaming infrastructure, the megacities, the high technology, all built in the span of this one generation – isn’t yet matched by the software. Those changes take time. In that regard, I think in all fairness China has already come a long way, but it’s the disconnect between the very modern facade and an interior political culture that, at least by our standards, isn’t commensurately modern that throws people.

More at the U.S. China Perception Monitor.

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Media in a repressive climate - Ian Johnson

Ian Johnson

Journalist Ian Johnson, author of The Souls of China: The Return of Religion After Mao, is working on his next book documenting how writers, thinkers, and artists are dealing with the new, more repressive policies in China. He visited citizen journalist Zhang Shihe near Xi'an for an extensive interview. First, he describes Zhang's position for the New York Review of Books.

Ian Johnson:

“Tiger Temple” (Laohu Miao) is the nom de guerre of Zhang Shihe, one of China’s best-known citizen journalists and makers of short video documentaries, many of them profiling ordinary people he met during extraordinarily long bike rides through China, or human rights activists who have been silenced but whose ideas on freedom and open society he has recorded for future generations. 

Now sixty-five years old, Zhang belongs to a generation of people like leader Xi Jinping who came of age during the Cultural Revolution. Also like Xi, Zhang was a child of the country’s Communist elite. His father had been a Public Security Bureau official in China’s Northwest, which was also the base of Xi’s father, Xi Zhongxun. Zhang’s father was a rung lower on the ladder, but still ended his career with the rank of vice-minister. 

And like the Xi family, the Zhangs suffered during the Cultural Revolution. Xi was sent off to a remote village to labor, while Zhang Shihe was a child laborer who helped build a treacherous mountain railway line. But the two reacted differently to their fates. When the turmoil ended in the late 1970s, Xi grasped every opportunity to make up for lost time and launch his political career. Zhang, however, used the freedoms of the new era to explore how China had gone off the rails. 

He did this by interviewing China’s downtrodden, becoming a pioneering “citizen journalist,” a breed of self-taught activists who used the newly emerging digital technologies to record interviews and post them online, thus bypassing—for about a decade starting in the early 2000s—traditional forms of censorship. 

After nearly twenty years in Beijing, Zhang was caught up in the hardening political climate and, in 2011, sent him back to his hometown of Xi’an. This is the most important metropolis in western China and also one of the country’s most famous ancient cities. I went there with the help of a Pulitzer Center travel grant late last year to find out how civil society was faring outside of the narrow confines of Beijing. 

The interview below is part of a bigger project I’ve been pursuing to look at how writers, thinkers, and artists are dealing with the new, more repressive policies in China. As I’ll explore in subsequent posts and an essay in the Review, I found in Xi’an a surprisingly thriving, if small, ecosystem of critical journalists and thinkers. 

Zhang lives in the eastern reaches of Xi’an, in a district called Ba River, which is one of the rivers that bounds the city. In ancient times, it was the place where travelers to the empire’s provinces took leave of friends, and was mentioned by so many great Chinese poets that it became synonymous with melancholy and loss. 

When I visited, I found another sort of tristesse: the drab uniformity of modern Chinese cities. The Ba still flows but the area is now a series of endless housing compounds of fifteen-story buildings divided by razor wire and faceless streets. One subway line serves the area, its stations made of corrugated iron that was being hammered by rain when I arrived.

The whole interview you can read at the New York Review of Books.

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The dubious quality of hotels in China - Shaun Rein

Shaun Rein

Videos of 5-star hotels in China showed unhygienic practices and went viral last week. But business analyst Shaun Rein, author of The War for China's Wallet: Profiting from the New World Order, did not see anything new here, apart from the Western media picking up the upheaval this time, he tells at the Bangkok Post.

The Bangkok Post:

State broadcaster CCTV aired video of uniformed inspectors at an unidentified hotel flashing their ID cards and holding a drinking glass up to the light to inspect it. 

Hidden-camera videos of housekeeping staff behaving badly at Chinese luxury hotels surface on social media every six months or so, according to Shaun Rein, founder of China Market Research Group in Shanghai. Worker shortages and low pay make it hard for hotels to pressure employees to follow the rules, as they can just quit and find jobs elsewhere. “They don’t get very good workers and people don’t stay very long,” Rein said. “I shudder to think what the three-star hotels are like.”

More at the Bangkok Post.

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How China´s media became a winner, against all odds - Tom Doctoroff

Tom Doctoroff

China´s media and entertainment industry has long been watched with pity: boring, curtailed by the Communist Party and part of moribund state-owned molochs. But China veteran Tom Doctoroff discovered this observation needs urgent correction and he tells in the Huffington Post how the industry became a winner.

Tom Doctoroff:

Despite financial and cultural headwinds, however, several factors merit optimism.

First, the Mainland market is both gigantic. As Oriental DreamWorks’ James Fong puts it, “In China, niche is mass.” After decades of limited diversion options, the new middle class, now 300 million strong, is clamoring for choice. The Communist Party seems more open to foreign investment in entertainment companies than “strategic” sectors such as health care, education and financial services.

Shanghai Disney’s Magical Kingdom, now in the middle of a soft launch, is already drawing huge crowds. Under the watchful eye of municipal cadres, the park has been designed with Chinese characteristics. Main Street USA and Space Mountain are out. The Wandering Moon Teahouse and a vast central garden aimed at older visitors, are in. In partnership with Li RuiGang, the well-connected former CEO of the Shanghai Media Group, Oriental DreamWorks will open the Dream Center, a five million square foot entertainment complex, on Shanghai’s South Bund. Attractions will include a Broadway musical theater, a stadium for concerts and sporting events, a Lego Discovery Center, several art galleries and a next-generation Apple store.

Second, China’s mass market is apolitical, unbothered by censorship regulations. Most folks are eager to take a break from the stresses of modern life and like light-hearted fare. Big hits such as Goodbye, Mr. Loser, Tiny Times, Lost in Thailand and Pancake Man are irreverent comedies that depict a regular guy striking it rich or getting the girl.

Third, a dynamic, expressive online creative community has blossomed. It is only a matter of time before internet celebrities become creative forces, both on- and offline.

Chinese story telling skills are evolving quickly. Web series such as Go Princess Go, Surprise S1 and Year Hare Affair are hugely popular. Writer Chai JiDan’s Heroin, China’s first gay-themed internet series, was so popular during 2016 Chinese New Year that it was quickly banned by SARFT, the government arm responsible for enforcing film, television and content regulations.

Tang Jia Shan Shao is the king of web novel. (In 2014, he received royalties of more than RMB 50 million.) He harnesses the immediacy and speed of the online universe. Although he bases his novel on classical stories, he creates fresh characters, coins new words and provides continuous updates for fans addicted to his work. Mr. Tang is not alone. Digital platforms such as Douban - a quintessentially Chinese fusion of Amazon, IMDB and Facebook - allow artists of all stripes to congregate as a virtual community and attract a mass following.

Fourth, e-commerce presents opportunities to experiment with new monetization models. Online shopping is instant for consumers and cheap for companies. Content-hungry consumers do not drive to DVD stores to buy a Toy Story video game or the Frozen sound track. The ubiquity of mobile phones eliminates set up costs and lowers incremental cost per unit sold. Marketers also anticipate convergence of online and offline properties. IP-based content, easier to enforce online than offline, will drive offline merchandising, and vice versa.

China’s infatuation with digital transactions is difficult to overstate. In 2016, the country is projected to spend $911 billion dollars online, or almost 20% of total retail sales. The United States will spend only $384 billion. Meanwhile, per capita in China income is only 14% of America’s.

More in the Huffington Post.

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How to look at the Chen Yongzhou-story - China Weekly Hangout

Chen in captivity

The story of journalist Chen Yongzhou of the Guangdong-based New Express left many inside and outside China flabbergasted. First, his paper used its front page twice to plead for his release from police custody. He has been arrested for defaming the state-owned Zoomlion. Was here a brave journalist being punished for writing the truth?
Next Chen was parade by the police in front of TV camera's confessing he had been making up the stories on Zoomlion for money. His paper promptly published an apology. Still, at least two scenario's are possible. Still, he could be an innocent journalists being hit by a repressive evil empire. Or did he cook his stories for financial gain. Who know a bit about China's media knows that is also not an unlikely story.
At this stage, we cannot exclude any scenario, but it looks like a good stepping stone to discuss China's media at the +China Weekly Hangout.

Join us at the online discussion on Thursday 7 November at 10pm Beijing time, 3pm CET (Europe) and 9am EST (US/Canada).
You can join us in the live online debate by registering at our event page. During the event you can ask live questions, or if you cannot make it, leave your questions or remarks here.

Update: And it is not only journalists who can get into trouble. Here the story of an investor/blogger who got into problems.

China Weekly Hangout
How successful can president Xi Jinping be in rooting out corruption, the China Weekly Hangout is going to ask on Thursday 31 October. How committed is the Xi/Li team to real change? You can read our announcement here, or register for the event here.
China's media scene is changing fast, for example by expanding into Africa. The China Weekly Hangout discussed on March 7 the advances different Chinese media groups make in Africa with veteran journalists +Eric Olander of the China Africa Project, and +Lara Farrar, previously working for both the China Daily and CNN. Moderation by +Fons Tuinstra, president of the China Speakers Bureau.

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Number fetishism: what do 2 million internet monitors in China actually mean?

Headquarters of the NSA at Fort Meade, Maryland. Español: Instalaciones generales de la NSA en Fort Meade, Maryland. Русский: Штаб-квартира АНБ, Форт-Мид, Мэриленд, США (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The number of two million civil servants monitoring China's internet has become a story of mythical proportions. The source of the number is dodgy, and the fact that it is such a nice round number suggests that whoever has been making it up, was rather looking for a nice story, than telling how it really works.
This kind of number fetishism is nothing new for media. For decades they are reporting about China's GDP figures, while the only certainty we have is that they are wrong.
In the case of the two million internet monitors the story is even worse: it actually suggests that those government officials are doing something bad. There is a vague link to censorship, while the original story seemed to be more positive: it helps the government (at many levels) to understand what the internet users want.
First, the number of two million is actually very small. I just monitored over the weekend a discussion on table tennis in China, and the estimation is that 25 million people are actively involved in this sport. So, actually, two million internet monitors is a pretty low number.
Second, the internet is an ideal tool, not only for governments, but also for companies, organizations and even individuals to monitor what is going on. You might remembers that some companies like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft make a living out of that outside China.
So, not only China, but more countries need to monitor the internet more closely. They can learn from it, and most countries, including China, do not put enough resources in monitoring the internet. Well, the USA with her NSA investments might be the exception, but I do think more and transparent monitoring is needed.

China Weekly Hangout

What can China learn from Singapore on sustainability. Join the +China Weekly Hangout where Shanghai-based sustainability expert +Richard Brubaker will share his recent experiences in Singapore. You can read our initial announcement here, or register for participation here. 

On January 24 the +China Weekly Hangout discussed with +Richard Brubaker of AllRoadsLeadtoChina and CEIBS on the rampant pollution in China. Is it getting worse, and what can be done? Moderator: +Fons Tuinstra of the China Speakers Bureau.

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• 'Two million' monitor web in China
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• Nice work if you can get it: China pays two million people to analyze opinions on popular social networks. Not censor-y at all.

British media do not treat China fairly - Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia

Zhang Lijia participated in a debate by the British Chamber of Commerce in Beijing on how British media portrait China and argued that they do not paint a fair picture but look of a negative angle or the quirky approach, not in giving a fair picture. On her weblog she recalls her experiences.

Zhang Lijia

I wouldn’t want go down history as the woman who sucked donkey’s penis with [British comedian] Paul Morton. I want to be a cultural bridge between China and the west. As a native Chinese who have an insight into the society, I’d like to help people outside to understand where China was coming from and what’s happening now and why. 

I don’t have a problem for the British media or western western media in general to run negative stories about china – many of my own stories are critical. What I don’t like to see is some of the western media criticize China, standing in a self-appointed high moral ground, especially when some of the accusations are not particular true, for example, the coverage on Lhasa’s unrest in March 2008. The reasons were so complicated. Still I doubt any government would tolerate the killing of innocent people. Now, Tibet issue is a complicated one. We have no time for that. 

Back to the point, yes, I don’t think the British media has been totally fair to China. The overwhelming negative stories are partly due to the nature of journalism – when it bleeds it leads, there may be also a factor that the British society feels uneasy about China and China’s rapid rise. That’s why we need more understanding and communications between the two countries and we need more occasions like this.

More on Zhang Lijia's weblog

Zhang Lijia is a speaker at the China Speakers Bureau. Do you need her at your meeting or conference? Do get in touch or fill in our speakers' request form.

More on Zhang Lijia and China's moral crisis at Storify.

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