Chinese Media, Global Contexts (Asia's Transformations)

Chinese Media, Global Contexts Virtually every major media, information, and telecommunications enterprise in the world is significantly tied to China. This volume provides the most expert, up-to-date, and multidisciplinary analyses on how the contemporary media function in what is rapidly becoming the world’s largest market. As the West, particularly the United States, tries to integrate China into the ‘civilized world’ through the extension of global capitalism, Chinese Media, Global Contexts examines how globalizing forces clash with Chinese nationalism to shape China’s media discourses and ideology. Conversely, this book also asks if the media provide a site and forum for contestation between different social classes and ideologies in China. Blending Chinese studies with media studies, this important new book, written by highly regarded experts, addresses • the major debates surrounding the ‘national’ and the ‘global’ in Chinese media; • how global media giants plan to move into the China market, and how China responds to such challenges; • how the media glorify two global events as national achievements: the accession to the World Trade Organization, and sponsorship of the 2008 Olympic Games; • how Chinese youth images of the United States reveal both a positive domestic life and a negative world hegemony; • the implications of new media for traditional media, the emergence of “civil society”, commercial culture, and ideological control, as well as problems facing the national informatization effort; • the conflicting ideologies that impinge on China’s media and journalists—communist ideology Confucianism, and professional values compatible with capitalist development; and • where pop culture sits within ‘Cultural China’. An important and controversial perspective in media and China studies, this book will be of great interest to students of politics, cultural studies, and sociology, as well as to journalists, policy makers, and consultants. Chin-Chuan Lee is Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota, He has published six other books in English, including most recently coauthoring Global Media Spectacle: News War Over Hong Kong, and editing Power, Money and Media: Communication Patterns and Bureaucratic Control in Cultural China. The founding president of the Chinese Communication Association, he has been a visiting professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the City University of Hong Kong, and the Academia Sinica. He has also authored or edited eight books in Chinese.

Asia’s Transformations Edited by Mark Selden Binghamton University and Cornell University, USA

The books in this series explore the political, social, economic and cultural consequences of Asia’s twentieth century transformations. The series emphasizes the tumultuous interplay of local, national, regional and global forces as Asia bids to become the hub of the world economy. While focusing on the contemporary, it also looks back to analyse the antecedents of Asia’s contested rise. This series comprises several strands: Asia’s Transformations aims to address the needs of students and teachers, and the titles will be published in hardback and paperback. Titles include: Debating Human Rights Critical Essays from the United States and Asia Edited by Peter Van Ness Hong Kong’s History State and Society under Colonial Rule Edited by Tak-Wing Ngo Japan’s Comfort Women Sexual Slavery and Prostitution during World War II and the US Occupation Yuki Tanaka Opium, Empire and the Global Political Economy Carl A Trocki Chinese Society Change, Conflict and Resistance Edited by Elizabeth J Perry and Mark Selden Mao’s Children in the New China Voices from the Red Guard Generation Yarong Jiang and David Ashley

Remaking the Chinese State Strategies, Society and Security Edited by Chien-min Chao and Bruce J Dickon Korean Society Civil Society, Democracy and the State Edited by Charles K Armstrong The Making of Modern Korea Adrian Buzo RoutledgeCurzon Studies in Asia’s Transformations is a forum for innovative new research intended for a high-level specialist readership, and the titles will be available in hardback only. Titles include: 1. The American Occupation of Japan and Okinawa * Literature and Memory Michael Molasky 2. Koreans in Japan Critical Voices from the Margin Edited by Sonia Ryang 3. Internationalizing the Pacific The United States, Japan and the Institute of Pacific Relations in War and Peace, 1919– 1945 Tomoko Akami 4. Imperialism in South East Asia ‘A Fleeting, Passing Phase’ Nicholas Tarling 5. Chinese Media, Global Contexts Edited by Chin-Chuan Lee * Now available in paperback Asia’s Global Cities is an interdisciplinary series, drawing on the latest thinking in urban studies, cultural geography, anthropology, sociology, history and Asian studies. Each book explores the interaction of the local with the global in the history, development and future of a significant city in Asia. The books are designed to appeal to the general reader seeking a textured portrait of a city as well as students and academics.

Bangkok Place, Practice and Representation Marc Askew Beijing in the Modern World David Strand and Madeline Yue Dong Singapore Carl Trocki Japan’s Cybercultures Edited by Mark McLelland and Nanette Gottlieb Shanghai Global City Jeff Wasserstorm Hong Kong Global City Stephen Chiu and Tai-Lok Lui Asia.com focuses on the ways in which new technology is changing society in the Asia Pacific.

Chinese Media, Global Contexts

Edited by Chin-Chuan Lee

LONDON AND NEW YORK

First published 2003 by RoutledgeCurzon 11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001 RoutledgeCurzon is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2005. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge's collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” © 2003 Chin-Chuan Lee for selection and editorial matter; individual chapters, the contributors All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Chinese media, global contexts/edited by Chin-Chuan Lee. (RoutledgeCurzon studies in Asia’s transformations) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Mass media-China. I. Li, Jinquan, 1946–II. Series. P92.C5 C516 2003 302.23'0951–dc21 200231738 ISBN 0-203-40229-4 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN 0-203-34541-X (Adobe e-Reader Format) ISBN 0-415-30334-6 (Print Edition)

In memory of Yu Chi-chung (1908–2002) whose support for the China Times Center for Media and Social Studies at the University of Minnesota has given birth to

Voices of China: The Interplay of Politics and Journalism (1990)

China’s Media, Media’s China (1994)

Power, Money, and Media: Communication Patterns and Bureaucratic Control in Cultural China (2000)

Chinese Media, Global Contexts (2003)

Contents

List of illustrations

xii

Notes on contributors

xiii

1 The global and the national of the Chinese media: discourses, market, technology, and ideology CHIN-CHUAN LEE 2 “Enter the World”: neo-liberal globalization, the dream for a strong nation, and Chinese press discourses on the WTO YUEZHI ZHAO 3 Capturing the flame: aspirations and representations of Beijing’s 2008 Olympics JUDY POLUMBAUM 4 Established pluralism: U.S. elite media discourse on China policy CHIN-CHUAN LEE 5 Chinese media and youth: attitudes toward nationalism and internationalism STANLEY ROSEN 6 Political drama and news narratives: presidential summits on Chinese and U.S. national television TSAN-KUO GHANG 7 Globalization and the Chinese media: technologies, content, commerce and the prospects for the public sphere BARRETT L.MCCORMICK AND QING LIU 8 Administrative boundaries and media marketization: a comparative analysis of the newspaper, TV and Internet markets in China JOSEPH MAN CHAN 9 West Lake wired: shaping Hangzhou’s information age KATHLEEN HARTFORD 10 How do the Chinese media reduce organizational incongruence? Bureaucratic capitalism in the name of Communism ZHOU HE 11 Localizing professionalism: discursive practices in China’s media reforms ZHONGDANG PAN AND YE LU 12 The future of Chinese cinema: some lessons from Hong Kong and Taiwan MICHAEL CURTIN

1

32

56

75 96

117

136

156

173 192

210 232

13 Marketing popular culture in China: Andy Lau as a pan-Chinese icon ANTHONY FUNG Index

252

265

Tables

1.1 Media conglomeration in China 1.2 Impact of the WTO on foreign investment in China’s media and telecommunications industries 1.3 Intellectual discourses about China’s accession to the WTO 2.1 Distribution of WTO-related stories in selected newspapers 2.2 News sources for three selected papers 4.1 Ideological packages of the New York Times editorials and columns (1990– 2000) 6.1 Presidential summits and news narratives on ABC and CCTV 8.1 Administrative boundaries and marketization in the newspaper, television and Internet markets 9.1 Just how wired? (1999) 11.1 Key components of four distinguishable journalistic discourses 11.2 Chinese terms related to “professionalism” 12.1 Taipei market share (by percentage) 12.2 Taipei ticket purchases (in millions)

10 12 20 23 41 81 130 168 179 213 221 239 240

Contributors Joseph Man Chan: Professor, School of Journalism and Communication, Chinese University of Hong Kong. Tsan-Kuo Chang: Professor, School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Michael Curtin: Professor, Department of Communication Arts, University of Wisconsin, Madison. Anthony Fung: Assistant Professor, School of Journalism and Communication, Chinese University of Hong Kong. Kathleen Hartford: Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Massachusetts, Boston. Zhou He: Associate Professor, Department of English and Communication, City University of Hong Kong. Chin-Chuan Lee: Professor, School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. Qing Liu: Editor, Century China, Institute of Chinese Culture, Chinese University of Hong Kong. Ye Lu: Professor, School of Journalism, Fudan University, Shanghai. Barrett L.McCormick: Professor, Department of Political Science, Marquette University, Milwaukee. Zhongdang Pan: Professor, Department of Communication Arts, University of Wisconsin, Madison. Judy Polumbaum: Associate Professor, School of Journalism and Mass Communication, University of Iowa, Iowa City. Stanley Rosen: Professor, Department of Political Science, University of Southern California, Los Angeles. Yuezhi Zhao: Assistant Professor, School of Communications, Simon Fraser University, Vancouver.

1 The global and the national of the Chinese media Discourses, market, technology, and ideology Chin-Chuan Lee

China and its media have been caught in the crosscurrents of nationalism and globalism in the post-Tiananmen and post-Cold War milieux. Having lost its way politically in Tiananmen Square, China has had to embrace capitalism in order to save socialism (particularly after 1992). Economic growth and nationalism have come to form the raison d’être of the regime’s legitimation, replacing the bankrupt Communist ideology that finds very few true believers in China today. On the other hand, the end of the Cold War has undermined the strategic alliance between China and the United States against the Soviet Union as a common enemy. The United States shifted its policy from containing China in the wake of the Tiananmen crackdown to engaging with it in the mid-1990s, culminating in the looming vision of “peaceful evolution” through global integration (see Chapter 4). At the same time, even as it is locked into antagonistic relations with the United States, China is embracing global capitalism and is seeking to elevate its international status in the new world order. Its eagerness to join the World Trade Organization (WTO) and to sponsor the Olympic Games symbolizes a national yearning to cross the threshold into the elite power club. There is nothing new in such a yearning, but it takes the new form of inclusion in the post-Cold War, neo-liberal world order. Nationalist and globalist sentiments represent a unity of contradictions, coexisting with and struggling against each other. This chapter aims to foreground and contextualize the ensuing chapters by outlining the major ambiguities and contradictions in the interplay of “the national” and “the global” of the Chinese media. 1 It addresses two central issues. First, how do such contradictions shape Chinese media’s ecology, discourses, market, and ideology? Second, how do the media, as a window to understanding China’s vast changes, show a process of contestation and coalition between conflicting forces in Chinese society striving for advantages, often in the guise of national interest? Interwoven with these two issues are the following six sections: 1 How have the Chinese media been profitably peddling anti-Americanism to cater to the market dynamics that brew populist nationalism? On the other side of the coin, how do they flaunt China’s national pride in front of the United States and the world at large? 2 Since economic reform has produced a sea change in the class structure, how have the media discourses heeded the plight of peasants and workers who will bear the brunt of pain from China’s accession to the WTO?

Chinese media, global contexts

2

3 Will China’s attempt at grooming state media conglomerates succeed in preempting competition from international capital? 4 How will the WTO impact on international capital in terms of its ability to encroach on China’s coveted media and telecommunications markets, which have so far largely been closed to foreign and private investors? 5 How do the media and journalists negotiate ideologically with the changing political and economic realities? What is the impact of the emerging technology on media structures and ideologies? 6 What is the landscape of the emerging media debates among competing intellectual camps (liberals, the old left, the new left, in addition to reformist Marxists) over China’s place in the global-national nexus?

1 National pride and global politics There is no Communism in China any more. All that remains is the Communist Party, a gigantic organization emptied of revolutionary idealism but retaining monopoly over tremendous coercive power and resources. The propagandaweary Chinese do not trust fraudulent Party rhetoric; they treat it with indifference, ridicule, or situational compliance to protect their self-interest. The only exception occurs when national sovereignty is at stake: the populace joins forces with the regime to achieve “patriotic nationalism.” By mixing state-inculcated nationalism with populist reactive nationalism, it blurs the boundaries between nation and state while exhibiting “a high propensity toward aggression” (Chang, 2001:182). Even many of China’s overseas “democratic” exiles can be rigidly nationalistic and authoritarian. The media have served as a meeting ground upon which these two forms of nationalism surge, fuse, and converge in portraying China as being encircled by an ocean of potential enemies who are out to destroy it, often mixing collective victimhood and historical memories in seemingly contradictory modes of xenophobia and narcissism. In the more open news environment of Guangzhou, for example, people live with a confluence of what Michel Foucault calls conflicting “regimes of truth,” but national sovereignty appears to glue official legitimation to popular sentiment (Latham, 2000). No wonder the media vehemently condemned the United States as a real or imagined enemy over a series of crises: the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade; the row over human rights, trade, and Taiwan; the alleged Chinese espionage on U.S. nuclear intelligence, and a U.S. spy plane crashing into a Chinese fighter plane. Set against (yet compatible with) these nationalist feelings is China’s genuine hunger for international status, with the media profusely hailing the 2008 Olympics and WTO membership (despite their huge domestic cost) as milestones of national importance. Peddling nationalism Focusing on “the other” serves to divert public attention away from “our” discontent. Nationalism renews and affirms the state-defined boundaries between “us” and “them,”

The global and the national of the Chinese media

3

repelling the perceived foreign intrusion and suppressing subnational (Taiwanese or Tibetan) or pan-ethnic (Pan-Turkish) identities. To the extent that populist and statist forms of nationalism band around national sovereignty, the populist voice from below may be so pumped up as to vilify the “weak” foreign policy of the top. In such cases, the authorities have tried to contain the popular contour within the official trajectory, fearful that an unrestrained spate of mass feelings might detour or even endanger the state’s other policy interests and, worse yet, could turn inwards against the regime itself. Mindful of historical precedents (for example, the well-known anti-Japanese student rallies of 1919 transplanted their fury at corrupt and incompetent Chinese warlords), Beijing has given a cold shoulder to periodic outbursts of media and mass protests from overseas Chinese communities against Japanese occupation of the disputed Diaoyu Islands. Taking to heart Mao’s admonition that a small fire may burn the prairie, Beijing is resolute in its determination to crush any rival mass organization such as Falun Gong. Little comfort can be taken in the Internet chat-rooms filled with vehement denunciation of Premier Zhu Rongji, who brokered the WTO deal, as a “traitor” too soft on the United States. Within the state apparatuses, foreign affairs and trade bureaucracies are less belligerent and more conciliatory toward the United States than the hardline propaganda and military establishments. 2 Anti-foreignism has historically been associated with perceived domestic weaknesses (Liao, 1984), and the current situation in China is potentially explosive with the prospect of mass (if also uncoordinated) protests against widespread unemployment and corruption. Examining a series of opinion surveys, Stanley Rosen (Chapter 5) surmises that urban Chinese youth have been drawn into the global culture, but they have also developed two disparate images of the United States: a highly negative view of American hegemonism abroad alongside a highly positive assessment of American values and lifestyles at home. This ambivalence toward America—widely shared around the world—stems in part from the paradoxical coexistence between the United States’ progressive domestic politics and its arrogant, go-it-alone, at times illiberal foreign policy (see Herman and Chomsky, 1988; Nye, 2002; Said, 1981). But why did China move from pro-Americanism in the 1980s to anti-Americanism in the 1990s? My interpretation is that both the end of the Cold War and the Tiananmen crackdown have put the two countries on a collision course, making China look like a major stumbling block to the U.S.-led world order, such that China’s human rights conditions have come to the forefront of U.S. political and media concerns (Chapter 4). Dai Jinhua (2001) of Peking University attributes this change of culture more to the outgrowth of a domestic agenda: that is, a China which had craved America’s romantic love in the 1980s transformed herelf into another China which resented the lost love with the United States in the 1990s. To stretch her metaphor a bit further, China was one of many potential targets for the United States to court, but China pursued America in the 1980s as if it were her only target, and that made rejection so much more painful. Thus, America the angel became America the demon. Both interpretations seem complementary rather than contradictory. The return of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty in 1997 was a fitting with broad market appeal. The event was presented as a supreme exhibition of national triumphalism, presumably marking the end of western imperialism in the glorious

Chinese media, global contexts

4

leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, and the beginning of China (i.e., a lost child returning to the warm embrace of the motherland) under moment and site for the media to produce the biggest nationalistic extravaganza national reunification with Taiwan under Deng Xiaoping’s ingenious “one country, two systems” policy. This reductive and essentialized narrative has lost sight of Mao’s crucial decision in maintaining the colonial status quo—for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) needed Hong Kong to circumvent western blockades during the Cold War—against the world trend of post-war decolonization. The glaring paradox between Beijing’s rhetoric of national independence and the reality of a rotten capitalist colony at the socialist door was reviled by Moscow in the early 1970s. Ultimately, China’s media narratives have neither acknowledged Britain’s amazing achievements in Hong Kong, nor answered the lingering doubts of Hong Kong and Taiwan about the “one country, two systems” policy (Lee et al., 2002). Zhou He (Chapter 10) shows that even the top official organs, including Xinhua News Agency and the People’s Daily, were testing the state limits to exploit nationalist sentiments over the downing of the U.S. spy plane for market advantages. But nationalistic oratory is delivered not solely by the Party apparatchik; more important, state-orchestrated nationalism has managed to drip into popular consciousness by drawing on dramatized external events. A more affluent China is a more self-centered and depoliticized China, yet also one more receptive to nationalist and anti-American discourses. Peddling populist nationalism being a safe and profitable enterprise, the market-driven media and tabloids are in the vanguard of manufacturing sensationalized and aggressive nationalist discourses. From the mid-1990s onward, such hysterical popular writings as China Can Say No and Behind U.S. Media Demonization of China became instant best-sellers and spawned many other imitations, all dangerously antiliberal and anti-democratic, arrogantly nationalistic and self-righteous, definitely antiWestern, and emotionally explosive without reasoned analysis (Huang and Lee, 2002). Each incidence of major confrontations, skirmishes, and crises with foreign powers (principally the United States and Taiwan) has iurnished the media with a fantastic opportunity to commodify and thus appropriate the surplus value of populist nationalism. Just imagine the kind of international diplomatic wrangling and military maneuvers that would have followed if the People’s Daily had carried a prominent front-page story on “Tensions over the Taiwan Strait” with a provocative photo of alleged landing operations by the People’s Liberation Army! This news treatment did not come from that chief Party organ, but from the Global Times in jury 1999, after President Lee Tenghui (Li Denghui) declared a “state-to-state relationship” between China and Taiwan. Designed as a profitmaking outfit of the People’s Daily group, the Global Times seems to presume that it is entitled to package news in an irresponsibly sensationalized and market-driven manner without regard for political consequences. As if to outwit it, the Science Times, a weekly published by the Chinese Academy of Science, was headlined, “PLA’s New Guided Missile Able to Directly Attack Li Denghui at his Desk!” National face: the Olympics and presidential summits The mood was somber and subdued, with a sense of relief rather than ecstasy (realizing

The global and the national of the Chinese media

5

that the hard work was just about to begin), when China concluded fifteen years of hard bargaining to become a member of the WTO. In sharp contrast, President Jiang Zemin presided over a televised gala on July 13, 2001 to announce the anxiously awaited news that China would host the 2008 Olympics. Although the WTO will profoundly transform China’s political economy while the Olympics ostensibly has much less to do with the life of ordinary people, both events have been touted as symbolizing China’s rise to the world stage. The Olympics afford China an opportunity to “go out,” and the West an opportunity to “bring China in.” China spent U.S.$25 million hiring an international public relations firm to spruce up its application package, and will spend upward of U.S.$25 billion on the preparations leading up to 2008—thus, the urban rich (particularly in Beijing this time) will gain in the name of national interest. The United States did not oppose China’s application as it had in 1993, allegedly in the interest of pushing Beijing toward further reform. (“If you let a rascal attend a gentlemen’s game,” a commentator sneered, “he will pick up some civilized etiquette.”) Sports, as a media event, is ceremonial politics that “expresses the yearning for togetherness, for fusion” (Dayan and Katz, 1992: viii). Within China, the mass-mediated Olympic Games will enhance the status of the authorities and integrate social groups, as all eyes are “fixed on the ceremonial center” (p. 15). This calendar journalism—planned in advance, with a festive atmosphere most likely to enthrall large audiences— commemorates a sense of awe and communal experience, while silencing different interpretations of the historical past and national status (van Ginneken, 1998). China hopes that this televised spectacular will draw world attention to the nation’s “progress” and its “rightful place,” thus turning an athletic competition into a national showcase. To that end, it will strive to produce an extraordinarily strong team at almost any cost. Warming up to the Olympics, when the Chinese national football team advanced to the final World Cup competition on October 7, 2001, it nudged away the United States’ war on Afghanistan as the top news story with all the hyperbole ranking it alongside the 2008 Olympics and the WTO entry as a third major national event. 3 As Judy Polumbaum shows in Chapter 3, the story of the 2008 Olympics—which includes the process leading up to the Games, the staging of the Games, and the aftermath—is a cauldron for all the elements of “globalization.” The Olympics provide a focal point for local, national and transnational exchanges of people, products, capital, images and information. Intensely focused through electronic technologies, these exchanges will be significant at the local (Beijing’s identity and import vis-à-vis other urban centers, mainly the rival center of Shanghai) to the national (China’s self-conception as well as its identity projected toward the rest of the world) to the transnational levels (China’s relationship and position in the constellation of global status and power). Polumbaum argues that Beijing will use the media to construct benevolent versions of the financial and technological requisites of the Games as accelerating modernization schemes, while masking growing inequities and stratification in Chinese society. In facing greater challenges to projecting its message worldwide, particularly to the centers of transnational power, China will endeavor to shape coverage through such forums as the opening and closing ceremonies as well as through technological and public relations apparatuses. Meanwhile, by granting Beijing the sponsorship, the International Olympic

Chinese media, global contexts

6

Committee can claim its magnanimity toward Asia and the developing nations, foster partnership between public and private interests with little practical risk, distance itself from recent corruption scandals, and renew Olympic mythologies of internationalism. Since the Los Angeles Games in 1984, the Olympics have become recognized as a business bonanza, and Beijing reiterates and magnifies this story. From the perspective of international business, the Games will foster conditions for China’s expanded participation in global trade, travel, labor migration and capital flows. This is a doubleedged sword for China, as this accentuated integration holds forth prospects for enhanced prosperity as a big player in global commerce along with admonitions to “behave” in the community of economic powers. The chilled U.S.-China ties gained temporary relief from two highly publicized presidential summits, which coincided with President Bill Clinton’s policy shift toward Beijing (Chapter 4). Presidential summits are ceremonial politics of sorts, strategically performed on television for the consumption of the main domestic and foreign audiences. They are staged pseudo-events of political significance: while the real negotiations take place outside the limelight, such ritualized dramas afford the media an opportunity to insert often official-cum-national perspective into the past and the future (van Ginneken, 1998:122). As Tsan-Kuo Chang (Chapter 6) demonstrates, ABC constructed Jiang’s visit to the United States “according to U.S. specifications and satisfaction,” seeing him overall as coming to get a democracy lesson. Likewise, Chinese Central Television (CCTV) viewed Clinton’s visit as affirming the bilateral relationship and the host country’s rising profile in the world. Despite their differences in the linguistics and semiology of news stories, both media outlets use the “media spectacle” of presidential summits to highlight their own “enduring values” (Gans, 1979) and national interest, as well as to negotiate their national identity with the global environment.

2 Entering the WTO: winners and losers Amartya Sen (2001), a Nobel Prize laureate in economics, says of globalization: “If it’s fair, it’s good.” He claims that anti-globalization voices are part of the general process of globalization “from which there is no escape and no great reason to seek escape.” But he believes that the doubters’ underlying concerns must be addressed. Globalization is obviously not global; it is highly uneven and selective. Some countries benefit; many do not. Pierre Bourdieu (2001) opposes what he calls “the imperialism of the universal”— that is, presenting a particular [read American] model of globalization as a force of universal necessity which profits the dominant. He argues that the dominant countries transform “relations of force into rules of the game with a universal appearance through the supposedly neutral interventions of the great international authorities,” thus weakening all regional and national economies (p. 6). Alice Amsden (2002) also refutes the claims of a level playing field in the WTO. She observes that a smattering of rich countries control the international organizations and world markets. These alleged globalizers put certain trade barriers in place, and impose a rigid one-size-fits-all principle that prevents the poorest countries from entering the world and prospering in it.

The global and the national of the Chinese media

7

China’s official enthusiasm for the WTO seems to have betrayed its deepseated concern for the fairness of that global body and the implications for her domestic economy. A World Bank study shows that two billion people (including much of Africa and the Muslim world) have become less rather than more globalized, while another three billion (including China, Argentina, Brazil, India, and the Philippines) are what the Economist (2002:66) calls “low-income globalizers.” To China, joining the WTO and sponsoring the Olympics go far beyond matters of economic cost and benefit; they are part and parcel of the identity politics over national face, pride, and dignity. During the course of negotiations, the media dutifully reproduced the official discourses that harped on a wondrous basket of the potential benefits, despite certain obstacles, to be gained from entering the WTO club. They portray China as a winner in globalization and on its way up, via the WTO, in the world’s pecking order (Garrett, 2001). They claim that WTO membership is a win-win deal, without making any apology about China’s turnaround toward embracing global capitalism or providing any explanation about its rupture with the socialist past. As Yuezhi Zhao (Chapter 2) skillfully shows, the Chinese state has suppressed anti-WTO voices, while mobilizing its mouthpieces to sing a chorus of praise for official policy. The veneer of calm and satisfaction nevertheless has failed to completely conceal the regime’s acute nervousness, as amply shown in Premier Zhu’s address to the National People’s Congress. 4 Now that China’s WTO membership is assured, the media have shifted to both challenges and opportunities ahead, yet again reassuring the nation that the gains will outweigh the losses. Even if China does get its fair share from the WTO, which domestic groups, sectors, or classes will benefit, and at whose expense? While casting China against the outside world in a highly reductive fashion, media discourses have mirrored and mediated in China’s internal uneven development that is oriented toward the rising consumer market to the exclusion of peasants and workers. They have constructed, in the case of WTO membership, the mirage of what Zhao (Chapter 2) characterizes as “a consumer paradise” for all people, when the new winners may well only be a coalition of urban middle classes, the service sector, and foreign-financed companies. China’s current developmental policy of “robbing the poor for the rich,” vis-à-vis the Maoist “robbing the rich for the poor,” has produced a sea of social and economic transformation in which “the drastic stratification of classes now became manifested as the stratification of consumers” (Dai, 2001:181). Market liberalization means that the state has retreated from its socialist responsibility to provide a safety net for jobs, education, and medical care to the needy, the poor, and the weak. The “invisible hand” only recognizes the faces of the fittest survivors. In what He Qinglian (1997) derides as a “semi-capitalist casino” in a “mafia economy,” the vanguard party has turned its back on its traditional supporters, urban workers and peasants, amidst the ascendancy of urban business and professional classes. The most important survey conducted to date by the official Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (Lu, 2002) has unequivocally established peasants and urban workers as sitting at the bottom of China’s new class structure. The beleaguered peasants, who comprise 70 per cent of the national population and 50 per cent of the labor force, have found their income in dramatic decline since 1997; but worse is yet to come, as official estimates

Chinese media, global contexts

8

predict further unemployment for almost 10 million peasants within seven years after China’s absorption into the WTO (Jia, undated). From 1996 to 2001, state-owned industrial concerns shed 35 million jobs and government-controlled collectives dropped another 16 million people; the WTO will force 30 million more workers out of jobs (Smith, 2001). Having displaced the coalition of intellectuals and students as the most disgruntled constituencies, peasants and workers have staged thousands of protests, wildcat strikes, and other disputes each year over everything from unpaid pensions to corruption to intolerable hazards (Eckholm, 2001). In the name of national interest, the media tend to present and represent China’s WTO membership as if it were a natural and inevitable order of things, thus suppressing and marginalizing substantial differences in local, sectoral, and class interests. This illustrates a classic Marxist theme that the dominant classes seek to generalize their particular class interest to the universal interest via the hegemonic media-ideological apparatuses. Therefore, the Workers’ Daily and the Peasants’ Daily have toed the Party line instead of defending the interests of their constituencies. Writers (Kelliher, 1993; Zhao, 2001) have criticized Chinese intellectuals and journalists as being elitist, skeptical about the political competence of ordinary people, and downright hostile to workers and peasants. Both the Party organ and the marketoriented press were strikingly similar in blaming and silencing the victims, while demanding workers and peasants retool their skills to meet the postWTO challenges instead of shedding useless tears. Chinese media also totally marginalized the anti-WTO protests in Seattle (Chapter 2)

3 Domestic conglomerates versus international capital? Media conglomerates have been globalized, helped undoubtedly by the metropolitan countries’ efforts to promote economic deregulation and the capi talism of technology in the post-Cold War era. Having been waiting to crack open the China market, they are eager to cash in on the WTO as a key to integrating China into the orbit of global capitalism, or to “dissolving” it into the “civilized world” (Chapter 4). Justified by the elusive benefits of synergy and consumer choice, these media empires comprise vertically and horizontally integrated layers of companies across the entire spectrum of media form—from film, radio, television, cable, sports, music, home video, publishing, magazines, to multimedia—while blurring the traditional lines between news and entertainment (Bagdikian, 2000; McChesney, 1999). The world’s largest U.S. media market is split three ways: the Big Three (AOL Time Warner, Disney, and Viacom) account for one-third; four nominally “foreign” conglomerates (Vivendi-Universal, Bertelsmann, News Corporation, and Sony) make up another 30 per cent, while all other U.S. companies combined make up 40 per cent (Tunstall, 1999:64). For them, news is but another industrial product no longer insulated from the full pressure of profit making; worse yet, as a profit stream, news is dwarfed by the entertainment branches of these corporations. Serious journalism has increasingly been McDonaldized and trivialized, whereas infotainment, gossip, and scandal have taken over to pander to the instant gratification of mass consumers (Gunther and Mughan, 2000). Furthermore, media

The global and the national of the Chinese media

9

moguls both compete and cooperate in an intertwined way: they set up cross ownership, produce revenue sharing and joint ventures, engage in coproduction and co-purchasing, and swap local outlets (Tunstall, 1999:64–66). Media globalization is a thinly veiled form of Americanization. The United States is the only genuinely global exporter across a range of media: Britain’s global media presence is narrowly confined to news, whereas the other larger western European countries (France, Germany, Italy, and Spain) have rather modest global media accomplishments (Tunstall, 1999:2). It was no accident that the Motion Picture Association of America formed a China Trade Relations Committee, recruiting top executives from these media giants to lobby Congress into approving the China trade bill. The recent telecommunications bubble may slow down—but is unlikely to deter—their inroads into the China market Ironically, while the media giants flexed their political muscle, with government backing, to unlock the Chinese market in the 1990s, they have paid decreasing, even negligible, attention to foreign news in general and Chinese news in particular. It is hard not to concur with McChesney (2000) when he decries, “Rich media, poor democracy” China has recently allowed the Hong Kong-based channel, China Entertainment Television (CETV), to provide Mandarin signals to cable channels in the Guangdong province. This acknowledges the fact that local cables have been carrying Hong Kong signals in spite of the official ban. In return, its parent company, AOL Time Warner, will distribute the English Channel of CCTV by cable to New York, Houston, and Los Angeles (Landler, 2001). CNN, another outfit of AOL Time Warner, is launching a production center in Hong Kong, with the Chinese market in mind. Disney is building a theme park in Hong Kong as a gateway to the Chinese market. Bertelsmann is expanding its readers’ club in Shanghai. Rupert Murdoch’s role in playing up to the desires of Chinese leaders—by censoring programs and canceling books to which Beijing objects— has been common knowledge. His Hong Kong-based Phoenix satellite channel (coowned by Chinese capital) covered China’s 44 million (16 per cent of all households) television households as of 1998 (Ji, 2001:16), attracting such big-name advertisers as Pepsi Cola and Motorola. In addition, China will allow a further thirty foreign channels to be transmitted into Guangdong, using the province as a trial for the nation. The transmission of all foreign signals will be encrypted and centralized on a single, Chinese-owned satellite. They will offer no sex, no violence—and no news (Landler, 2001). Mocking the hyped rhetoric praising multinationals as the messengers of democracy in China (see Chapter 4), global media companies will be as “politically correct” as many U.S. companies that have advocated reductions in labor costs and more restrictions on labor rights in China (Rosenberg, 2002). As Anthony Fung (Chapter 13) illustrates, global media companies such as BMG have been exceedingly adept in shaping a Hong Kong singer, Andy Lau, around China’s nationalist ideology and promoting him as a pan-Chinese icon, something which is, in itself, a symbol of the local-national-global encounter. They all speak the same language of nationalism-cum-capitalism, not democracy. China’s national response to global challenges has been to “attack poison with poison”—competing on transnational media giants’ terms by organizing state media

Chinese media, global contexts

10

conglomerates to stimulate “managed competition” (Table 1.1). The original impetus to approve the first press groups in the mid-1990s might have come from the practical necessity to manage the ramifications of the state’s decision to sever media subsidies. Eager to dislodge its financial responsibilities, the state used the core and affluent Party press as a sponge to absorb the unprofitable, chaotic, and disobedient “small papers” and magazines (Chen and Lee, 1998; Zhao, 2000). Having long poured Marxist scorn on western media conglomerates, Beijing suddenly rationalized that these state media the

Table 1.1 Media conglomeration in China the

Sector Conglomerates

Notes

Press

As of 1998, the No. 1 Guangzhou Daily Press Group had combined assets of U.S.$400 million, with annual revenue of U.S.$200 million (of which the Guangzhou Daily’s ads accounted for one half). The group owns 13 newspapers, 4 magazines, 1 publishing house, 1 web station—in addition to advertising, printing, newspaper circulation companies, chain supermarkets, hotels, restaurants, and clubs. (In 1999, 33 newspapers accounted for 80% of China’s U.S.$1.1 billion newspaper ad revenues.)

Guangzhou Daily Press Group (1996), Nanfang Daily Press Group (1998), Yangcheng Evening News Press Group (1998), Guangming Daily Press Group (1998), Economic Daily Press Group (1998), WenhuiXinmin Press Group (1998), Shengzhen Special Zone Daily Press Group (1999), Beijing Daily Press Group (1999), Liberation Daily Press Group (1999), Sichuan Daily Press Group (1999), Zhejiang Daily Press Group (1999), Dazhong Daily Press Group (1999), Liaoning Daily Press Group (1999), Shenyang Daily Press Group (1999), Harbin Daily Press Group (1999).

Radio, Hunan Radio, TV, and Film Group (2000), TV and Shanghai Radio, TV, and Film Group (2001), Film China Radio, Film and Television Group (2001).

China Radio, Film and Television Group consists of CCTV, China National Radio, China Radio International, and China Film Group Corp. Fixed assets: U.S.$24 billion. Revenues: U.S.$14 billion.

Internet CCTV Web (1996), People’s Daily Web (1997), Xinhua Web (1997), Dragon News Net (2000) East Net (2000), South Net (2000), Press News Net (Sichuan, 2000), Zhejiang Online (2000), Shun Net (Shandong, 2000), Sina, Sohu, and NetEase.

Dragon News Net: a shareholding company comprising 9 local news media in Beijing. East Net: based on a dozen news organizations in Shanghai. South Net: based on news organizations in Guangdong. Sina, Sohu, and NetEase: commercial.

foreign Goliaths. Worse, most media conglomerates are organized by administrative fiat. 5 Yu Guoming (2002:27) of the People’s University mocks the huge media size as “scale management” rather than “scale economy,” producing nothing but waste, inefficiency,

The global and the national of the Chinese media

11

duplication of efforts, and cost burden. The investment ventures by these conglomerates into non-media fields (such as supermarkets and real estate) are unfocused and unwise. The seemingly enormous CRFTG may be fraught with fights between competing bureaucracies. Little change of control occurs as the state reshuffles the holdings. conglomerates, if armed with sufficient economy of scale, would preempt post-WTO foreign challengers. Now China boasts of having twenty-six press groups, eight radio and television groups, six publishing groups, four circulation groups, and three motion picture groups (X. Yu, 2002). State policy is moving unmistakably toward further media consolidation. The China Radio, Film and Television Group (CRFTG) was hastily put together in 2001 by merging various state resources that run the gamut from film, radio, and cable television, to the Internet (with the planned installation of optical fibers nationwide). The extraordinary profit of the Chinese media has come largely by courtesy of state protection rather than free market competition. If size and economy of scale are prerequisites for China’s media conglomerates to meet the competition from international capital, the question is whether “you can stitch sampans into a submarine” (quoted in Li, 2002). The state has been reluctant to approve the proposed formation of an integrated newspaper circulation network. Even the Guangzhou Daily Press Group, the largest of its kind, is a small David against

4 “China, here I come!”: international media capital marching in? The sectors likely to bear the brunt of the post-WTO foreign competition, according to an informed analyst (Li, 2001), are telecommunications, finance, and insurance. State monopolies have reaped large profits from these capital and technology-intensive industries despite their low-quality service. In the 1990s, the telecommunications industry registered a profit margin of 33 per cent per year, compared to 24.6 per cent of the tertiary industries’ average. The next tier of the market to be affected will be advertising, motion pictures, publishing, tourism, and information services, all of which have great market potential but lower profit levels (8–19 per cent). The doors of mass media and television markets will remain tightly shut. Table 1.2 outlines the terms of concession China has made to open up the media and telecommunications markets as part of the conditions for the WTO entry. Formulating specific laws and regulations compliant with the WTO agreements will be highly contested. How China meets the challenge in the first five years will have a decisive influence on its long-term policy landscape. The Chinese authorities have to balance the goals of harnessing new media technology to economic growth with those of protecting their own ideological power. Policy makers seem to divide the media into the hardware and software components. Foreign investment in information infrastructures, service provision, and technological knowledge is viewed as compatible with the regime’s economic agendas. The seemingly “non-ideological” content is negotiable: Disney’s ESPN and Viacom’s MTV have made inroads into inland cable channels, while CCTV sports has made Michael Jordan the most admired American in China. The WTO will

Chinese media, global contexts

12

open the door for foreign capital to invest in media advertising and management. 6 But under no circumstances will the Party-state relinquish its editorial authority. News media and television, as the last propaganda strongholds of the Party-state, are to be sheltered from foreign competition. These monopolies are China’s last windfall enterprises in which advertising revenues grew 200 per cent in the 1990s (to U.S.$10 billion in 2001), averaging 35 per cent annually. Morgan Stanley estimates that it takes only eight years to make a profit on media investment—a quicker return than in medicine, power plants, banking, or buildings (Li, 2002). As foreign media giants are waiting to swoop in on China’s lucrative media and television market, the Party-state seems intent upon keeping a strong hold on it. CCTV will maintain its dominant position and prosper from an advertising gold mine in the 2008 Olympics. Yu Guoming (2002) predicts that China’s media advertising revenue has room to grow, but the soaring costs of interconglomerate competition will flatten its growth rate from 35 per cent to 10–15 per cent per year. The film industry will be a victim of stiff foreign competition. When China committed itself in 1995 to importing ten Hollywood blockbuster movies per year, the policy was generally greeted as a boon to creative artists and directors toward cultural liberalization. However, the arrival of Hollywood blockbusters has coincided with, if not directly

Table 1.2 Impact of the WTO on foreign investment in China’s media and telecommunications industries

Sector

Foreign Policy change investment

Publishing

Medium

Fashion/leisure publications will be allowed.

Advertising

Medium to high

Restrictions on advertisements will be lifted in 3–4 years, after which the U.S. may establish their solely invested branches.

Cable

Medium

Restrictions on foreign investment in the infrastructure (but not the content) are likelv to be eased.

Motion pictures

Medium to high

Imports of Hollywood blockbuster movies will be increased from 10 to 20 per year. (The figure will go up to 50 films per year by 2005, with both sides sharing the profits for 20 of them.) Foreign capital will be allowed to invest in building or renovating Chinese cinema houses and to own up to 49% of their shares in three years. Restrictions on distribution (transportation, retail and post-sale services) will be lifted in three years. Film, VCR, and VCD coproduction will be permitted.

Information technology

Medium to high

Tariffs for imported semiconductors, computers, computer equipment, telecommunication equipment, and other

The global and the national of the Chinese media

13

information technologies will be lowered from 13% to 0% before 2003. Telecommunications High services

From the day China enters WTO, foreign suppliers will be allowed to take up to 49% of the shares in telecoms service companies, and the percentage can rise to 50% in two years.

Internet

High

U.S. corporations will be allowed to invest in Internet companies (including the business of content supply). Content should be lawful. They are not to be linked to overseas websites or to carry their news information. Stock listings will be granted upon state approval.

Newsprint

Low

Import tariffs of timber and paper will be reduced from 12– 18% and 15–25% to 5–7.5% before 2003.

News media

Low

Not open to foreign ownership or operation under the WTO’s “preferential treatment to developing countries” clause.

Television

Medium

Investment in local TV, but not central (national) TV, may be allowed. Imported television news will continue to be available in tourist hotels and foreign quarters.

Sources: Sun (2001a), Li (2001), http://www5.chinesenewsnet.com (December 14, 2001), Zhou (2002).

caused, the rapid erosion of China’s once active film industry (Zhao and Schiller, 2001). Dai Jinhua (2002), a film historian, notes that the Chinese film industry has never been in a strong enough position to compete freely; it enjoyed periodic spates of prosperity in the 1930s and 1940s, thanks only to the weak presence of Hollywood which created breathing room. 7 After WTO entry, the Hollywood import quota will increase from ten to twenty and finally to fifty films per year. So will foreign capital be allowed to build and own China’s movie theaters. By Hollywood’s estimates, China’s box office will reach U.S.$1–5 billion five years after entry to the WTO, and grow at 15 per cent annually afterwards. 8 In fact, the number of film imports may be inconsequential, as most Chinese do not watch Hollywood productions in the theater, but on pirated VCDs and DVDs, and upon their release in the U.S. market. Pirating hurts the purse of U.S. film merchants in the short run, but Dai (2002) asserts that it may negatively shape the cultural taste of Chinese audiences for generations to come. China is, in the eyes of Zhao and Schiller (2001), already “dancing with the wolves.” Will Hollywood cause China’s film industry to decline? The Chinese director, Zhang Yimou, who is making a Fox-sponsored movie, apparently does not think so, to the consternation of many commentators. Based on intensive fieldwork, Michael Curtin (Chapter 12) draws a lesson from the collapse during the 1980s and the 1990s of Taiwan’s once flourishing film industry (which, as a major revenue source, also dragged down Hong Kong’s film industry) from the vantage point of global-scale capital and cultural markets. He blames Taiwan’s problems on hyperproduction of low-quality films

Chinese media, global contexts

14

in Hong Kong, a chaotic distribution situation in Taiwan, and an expanding array of exhibition options engendered by new technologies and changing trade relations, as well as local political circumstances. “Hollywood exploited opportunities,” Curtin maintains, “but it did not primarily control the conditions that created those opportunities.” To understand the future of China’s film industry, he calls for historically informed cultural geographies of media flow to analyze the interaction of global and local forces during a period of economic liberalization and dramatic technological change. The main battlefronts in China promise to be drawn around the Internet and telecommunications markets. While the media are controlled by the propaganda departments, telecommunications have primarily been managed by economic and finance bureaucracies. Lynch (2000) observes that China’s telecommunications development, visà-vis mass media, has exhibited pluralizing, marketing, and globalizing orientations in terms of its messages and sources. As a latecomer, China can leapfrog the outmoded technologies. The U.S. Department of Commerce puts China as the world’s second largest telecommunications market, likely to surpass the United States as the largest in the next few years. 9 From 1991 to 1999, according to DeWoskin (2001:630), China’s postal services registered a growth rate of 375 per cent (U.S.$2.4 billion in 1999), only to be made insignificant by telecommunications’ whopping 2,050 per cent (U.S.$37.6 billion in 1999) during the same period. In the 1990s the state actively encouraged foreign investment and technology transfer in telecommunications equipment design and manufacture (such as cellular infrastructure), yet retained its monopoly over the highly lucrative services (DeWoskin, 2001:632). Both telecommunications and the Internet markets seem braced for phenomenal growth, and foreign competitors will robustly contest the state’s dominance in providing technology and services. 10 Despite its market potential, China’s telecommunications infrastructure remains seriously underdeveloped. Teledensity remains very low; as of 2000, the Internet had penetrated merely 1.4 per cent of the nation’s households, with Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Qingdao accounting for half of the growth (DeWoskin, 2001). China has tried to strengthen the state-owned and other domestic entities through restructuring and controlled domestic competition. In anticipation of WTO entry, the state issued, in the year 2000 alone, a series of seven decrees on the Internet to reaffirm its own authority in approving Internet or BBS services, while warning that the Internet must not carry unlawful [read critical] information or have links with foreign websites. It is a conscious state policy to “colonize” this cyberspace by filling it up with a preponderance of government and enterprises websites. By the end of 1999, about 1,000 newspapers and 200 radio and TV networks had gone on line, but only the websites operated by central, provincial, and ministerial-level media are allowed to carry news information (Sun, 2001a). Most of the online newspapers do not differ much from their print versions; there is little public discourse under tight state stricture (He and Zhu, 2002). Major global media conglomerates have been trying to explore all sorts of joint ventures and business deals with local telecom firms, and the pace is only expected to accelerate (Zhou, 2002). Viewing the Internet information services as part of “valueadded telecommunications operations,” the state can, by law, grant operating permits only to companies with requisite funds and professional staff. Major portals are owned by

The global and the national of the Chinese media

15

politically well-placed entrepreneurs, who have rushed to pledge support for the state’s restrictive policy. There is still little clarity on how regulations will comply with the WTO agreements to provide for foreign investment, joint ventures, and stock listing in the telecommunications sector. Technological changes will continue to put pressure on China to change its regulatory policies, and the overall direction is moving toward liberalization and pricing reform issues (DeWoskin, 2001).

5 Discourses, technology, and ideology Although the Party-state is evidently determined to keep the media from foreign and private investors, Joseph Man Chan (Chapter 8) argues that administrative control of media outreach will be affected by technological development. Restrictions on press circulation crossing provincial (or subprovincial) borders are being challenged by regional and global over-the-air broadcasting, while the breathtaking development in the Internet and satellite will further undermine the authorities’ power to control the circulation of messages. The post-WTO challenges will be enormous. Kathleen Hartford’s case study of Hangzhou (Chapter 9) illuminates the promise and pitfalls of regional cities, vis-à-vis national centers and global competitors, in trying to catch up in the process of national informatization. As a latecomer far behind Shanghai, and having to compete with fellow regional cities, Hangzhou has made solemn but empty proclamations of an ambitious development plan, for which there is no central coordination and no funding commitments. It may turn out to be another futile bureaucratic exercise on paper. Hartford provides a revealing clue to the future of regional cities in China: they are likely to be integrated into national and global information networks. Media technologies are playing an increasingly crucial role in the negotiations between state and market, as well as between the national and the global, in view of China’s entry into the WTO. One of the overriding concerns of Chapter 7 by Barrett McCormick and Qing Liu has been to assess the likely impacts of technology and globalization on China’s media ideology and commercial culture. They argue that the Internet has created media spaces, that some of the imported content is potentially subversive to official ideology, and that the imported business culture may promote individual and enterprise autonomy. On this issue, a few remarks can be added, regarding how technologies and the globalizing forces negotiate with the existing political, economic, and social institutions. First, China is enthusiastic about promoting the commercial applications of new technologies, but is keen on controlling their negative political ramifications; the profithungry global media giants are unlikely to disobey these priorities. Given its conflicting priorities, the state policy will continue to be uncertain and ambiguous. Second, the diffusion and utilization of telecommunications in China will continue to mirror and bolster the socioeconomic divide. That new media technologies exhibit less centralized and more commercialized institutional frameworks than television (Lynch, 2000) suggests that their subversive, oppositional, and system-changing role should not be overstated, but the urban elite will benefit from easier technological access to commercial

Chinese media, global contexts

16

and academic information. Third, inasmuch as telecommunications has promoted the ascendancy of commercial culture in China, how will it work both with and against the authoritarian regime? Zhou (2001) notes the booming of the non-official and non-commercial “intellectual electronic press” (web zines, BBS forums, and digital archives for academic work) in China. This is the major site of ideological contestation among liberals, old leftists, and new leftists. In fact, by providing a forum for debating current affairs, promoting nationalism, discussing various imported social theories, and arguing for or against different factional positions, these websites may constitute what is, in China, closest to the semblance of a public sphere. New websites appear as soon as old sites are censored. Again, they primarily benefit the educated urban elite. In the absence of profit opportunities, international capital has played a marginal role in the intellectual websites. Nor has the state come up with a clear policy to regulate them. Assessing the impacts of new technologies and the globalizing forces on the ideology of Chinese journalists and the public necessitates often painstaking but rarely conclusive empirical studies. Theoretically, John B.Thompson (1995:193–198), who speaks of “globalized diffusion” and “localized appropriation” of media products, points to the complex interaction of the global political economy and cultural mediation of meaning in the media content. Taking a political economy approach to examine the forest view of dominant media production and distribution structures amidst the larger power relationships, without sensitivity to the trees of nuanced hermeneutic meanings by various interpretive communities, may lead to exaggerated claims of cultural imperialism. However, focusing microscopically on how local recipients bring their own meanings to bear on the imported media texts, with a blind eye to the macroscopic structures of global domination and dependency, may risk unduly dismissing such ideological implications. The central question is not whether there is cultural imperialism, but how it exerts what kind of hegemonic effects. This requires accounting empirically and historically for what John Tomlinson (1991:61) calls a subtle “interplay of mediations” by the media between “culture as lived experiences” and “culture as representations.” In China, notwithstanding the intermeshing of statist and populist nationalisms around national sovereignty, the media have been battling a confluence of ideological currents and molding a hybrid ideology ridden with conflicting identities, images, and subjectivities. In this sense, the media have been a site of ideological contestation and accommodation, derived from the ambiguities and contradictions between the revolutionary rhetoric of Communism and the practical discourses of marketization. This active process of everyday struggle is waged around what Raymond Williams (1977) calls the “dominant structure” of Communist ideology (party propaganda) in relation to the “residual structure” of Confucian ethos (intellectual ethics) and the “emerging structure” of imported media professionalism in tandem with the market logic. Borrowing insights from the French sociologist Michel de Certeau, Zhongdang Pan and Ye Lu (Chapter 11) innovatively postulate that Chinese journalists use various discursive resources in their everyday practices as “tactics” to evade, appropriate, and resist the controlling “strategies” imposed by those with power. In other words, journalists take whatever official rhetoric can offer to selectively justify what they wish

The global and the national of the Chinese media

17

to achieve. Examples include framing enterprising projects in terms of Party rhetoric, coopting the anachronistic propaganda line into market and professional logics, and shaping media discourse around the oscillating cycle of state control. The implications of this hypothesis are twofold. It first gives a vivid example of the Chinese proverb that journalists and the media engage in “overt compliance and covert evasion” (yangfeng yinwei). Moreover, they actively profit from the market with the legitimating power of the Party ideology. In the agency-structure negotiation, however, these tactics must be seen as situationally, inconsistently, contingently, and improvisation applied. They are of a different order of significance as well. They are to be viewed as part of the “weapons of the weak” (Scott, 1988), enabling “the subordinated groups to win small victories from larger, more powerful and ultimately determining system” (Turner, 1996:199). Any imaginative hit-and-run guerrilla wars or clever maneuvers can win small victories, 11 but the question is whether these tactics will be institutionalized or strong enough to form an alternative or oppositional ideology. To what extent can they be absorbed, weakened, or defeated by the dominant structure? Elsewhere, I (Lee, 2000b) have identified certain discursive strategies—such as juxtaposition of non-critical editorials and more critical freelance writings, editorial division of labor, and narrative forms—that Hong Kong media and journalists use defensively to legitimate what Gaye Tuchman (1978) calls the “strategic ritual of objectivity,” to fend off possible intrusion into their professional autonomy by a menacing new sovereign. It would be a grave mistake, however, to inflate agency power to the exclusion of structural control, for those small victories may be too temporary, diversionary, self-indulgent, and futile to alter, resist, or subvert the deeply entrenched domination. In the 1980s, reformist Chinese Marxists’ admirable attempts to reinterpret Marxism/Leninism/ Maoism in a more liberal light were aborted as soon as their patrons lost in the power struggle (Lee, 2000c). In the more secularizing decade of the 1990s. Latham (2000) maintains that the proliferation of contending ideologies within the hegemony shows the increasing fragility and fragmentation of official ideology. But the determining structure of domination still persists. The media swat small flies, rather than beat big tigers. Nor do they advocate grand political reform agendas as they did in the 1980s. In a different context, Todd Gitlin (1997) asserts populist culturalists and postmodernists who substitute illusive cultural politics for substantive mobilization of social movements with institutional weights and have offered nothing but a recipe for inaction while concealing their own political impotence. Zhou He (2000), in a pioneering work, opines that the Chinese media have been transformed from a brainwashing state apparatus to what he calls “Party publicity Inc.,” whose task it is to promote the positive image of the Party-state. In other words, the media are a capitalist body wearing a socialist face. Many Chinese journalists I know seem to accept this as an accurate characterization of what they do. In this volume, He (Chapter 10) extends this theme by developing the strategies with which media organizations seek to reduce ideological dissonance in the face of the clashing environment of globalizing forces vis-à-vis bureaucratic capitalism. He identifies five organizational strategies: (a) ideological repitching; (b) ideological separation; (c) dilution of incongruence; (d) contractual congruence; and (e) resorting to state protection. Like Pan and Lu, He brings the larger literature on media sociology to bear on the

Chinese media, global contexts

18

Chinese context, where the process of negotiation between the agency power of media organizations and journalists as well as the structural power of the marketized authoritarian media system should be constantly kept in focus. How will the environment of economic liberalization, market competition, and global penetration influence media ecology, discourses, and ideology? How do journalists collide or collude with media organizations in coping with the influx of antagonistic ideologies? The Gramscian perspective, by way of Williams (1977), will add a more dynamic dimension to the Foucauldian analysis of discourses by accounting for the active process of contestation between hegemony and counter-hegemony.

6 Whither China goes in the national-global nexus? The emerging intellectual and media discourses about the national and global structures reveal the intricate social alliance, relationships to the political authorities, and the boundaries of the permissible. In Table 1.3, I have tried to map out three major camps— the old left, liberals, and the new left—which constitute the ideological landscape. 12 Reformist Marxists of the 1980s will be noted. Though detached from the (nonexistent) social movements, these discourses point to certain policy terrains in China. The old left is the legacy of Maoist propagandists headed by Hu Qiaomu and Deng Liqun who battled and purged the faction of reformist Marxists in the 1980s but have lost power since the 1990s. This group attacks the WTO as a form of U.S. hegemonism and capitalist restoration in China, while attributing the malaise of Russia, Eastern and Central Europe, Brazil and Africa to the engines of western-dominated globalization (Garrett, 2001). Old leftists have periodically submitted lengthy letters (called wanyanshu, or ten-thousand-word letters) to President Jiang sharply questioning the Party’s deviation from the Maoist line. They also repudiate Jiang’s view that China has no alternative but to join the WTO or that China stands to gain much from participating in it The grievances they air on the websites are amply reminiscent of the proletarian ethos of the Cultural Revolution: equality (albeit the equality of poverty), national independence, and defiance against the west Concomitant with the WTO entry, Jiang announced on July 1, 2001 honoring the Party’s 80th anniversary that the Party would accept capitalists as its members, thus turning the former “exploiters” into a “cohesive force.” It did not take long for the old leftists to fire off accusations of Jiang as betraying Marxism and selling out on the vanguard party. An old left publication, Zhenli de zhuiqiu (Pursuing Truth), denounced, “The capitalist class is within the Communist Party”—the very charge with which Mao had publicly humiliated Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping during the Cultural Revolution. 13 Jiang lost no time in ordering it, along with Zhangtiu (Midstream), to be closed down. The titles of both banned outlets seem contemptuous of the current regime. If the richpoor chasm should continue to widen, the old left’s discredited rhetoric may gather currency as the voice of popular grievances. Liberal-pluralist ideas, having been severely denounced, were revived in the 1990s. Opposing authoritarian rule and favoring market freedom, Chinese liberals now turn out

The global and the national of the Chinese media

19

to be the state’s strange bedfellows in celebrating accession to the WTO. They regard globalization as “synonymous with democratization” (Liu, 1998:244): insofar as democracy is a universal value and a “magic weapon” (fabao) for avoiding wars, conflicts, and what Huntington (1993) refers to as “the clash of civilizations,” it is argued that globalization will bring China democracy and prosperity. To them, the Berlin Wall and former Soviet bloc crumbled under the liberalizing weight of globalizing forces. Resenting the U..S..elite media and official discourses (see Chapter 4), they believe that the WTO and globalization will introduce the rule of law to China, improve its government transparency, and broaden its economic reform. On the contrary, they reject nationalism as “paving the way morally and culturally for political dictatorship” (Liu, 1998:256). In rebuffing the charges of the old left and the new left, they claim that the real cause of rampant corruption in China is authoritarianism, not marketization or globalization (Liu, 1998; Xu, 2000; Zhu, 1998). Zhu Xueqin (1998) comments metaphorically that in China the “visible foot” (state power) has frequently trampled on the “invisible hand” (market), and that international capital plays a marginal role in China’s economy. Liu Junning (2000) argues that press freedom is predicated on economic freedom and private property. The liberal camp comprises a mixed bunch of old radicals who became disenchanted with Maoist extremism (such as Li Shenzhi) and reformist intellectuals who are enchanted with western democracy. As a group, liberals are curiously silent on the issues of fairness, power, and domination; nor do they have much to say about the plight of Chinese peasants and workers. To them, freedom takes precedence over equality, and equality of opportunity is more important than equality of outcome. Their blind faith in the democratic potential of globalization should at least be counterpoised with Singapore (Sim, 2001)—a globalized capitalist, undemocratic enclave that Chinese leaders admire—and Argentina, another glistening star-turned-basket case. They seem insensitive to the anti-democratic record of international industrial capital in China (Rosenberg, 2002). Brushing off the history of western imperialism and colonialism, Xu Youyu (2000) emphasizes that China’s success in the globalizing environment will “depend on human effort” (shi zai renwei)—a view that exaggerates the nation’s (agency) relative to globally imposed constraints (structure). The interlude of reformist Marxists was associated with the reform bureaucracy during the 1980s when many of their leading members held high positions in the Party-state propaganda and ideological apparatuses. Reflecting on the failure of the Cultural Revolution, they later came to advocate political and press reform through progressive reinterpretations of Marxism, Leninism, and Maoism. They endorsed the reform agendas of Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang vis-à-vis the Maoists (the precursors of today’s old left), only to be purged in 1989 as soon as their patrons lost power. Prominent examples included Su Shaozhi’s reformulation of socialist democracy, Wang Ruoshui’s exposition of Marxist alienation in China, Hu Jiwei’s highlighting the “people principle” (renminxin) of the Party press (see Lee, 2000c for further analysis and critique). Sun Xupei (2001b) envisioned an orchestral harmony consisting of the main melody of the Party-state media (p. xxv) and other notes from a non-profit-oriented civilian (minban) press (p. 37) to form “a new multilayered socialist press business” (p.

Chinese media, global contexts

20

Table 1.3 Intellectual discourses about China’s accession to the WTO

Old Left

Reformist Marxists

Ideological/ theoretical resources

Maoism

Liberal Liberal-pluralism renditions of Marxism/ Maoism

Post colo

Maoism

Faithful adherence to planned economy

Accepting its Rejecting the Maoist “liberal” side central planning and authoritarianism

Vag utop dem

Marketization Ambivalent to opposing

Generally accepting Deng’s market reform

Accepting free market

Ant

Ideal state

Reformed Party-state

A liberal democratic state

Stro dem

Impact of Opposing the dilution of Maoist economic ideology and the rise of capitalist reform on the ideology media

Conditional acceptance

Supporting increased “negative freedom” and a weakened Party-state

Opp capi cult

Nationalism

Supporting national sovereignty and self-reliance

Vague

Supporting rational nationalism, rejecting irrational nationalism

Sear styl dem capi

WTO

Opposing capitalist restoration

(Inapplicable, Generally supportive see notes)

Opp U.S

Examples of websites

http://www.maostudy.org http://redflagsh.myetang.com http://marxismminchina.top263.net http://www.zhl.org.cn All banned

None. The internet was before their time

Examples of writers

Deng Liqun, Yu Quanyu

Su Shaozhi, Li Shengzhi, Liu Junning, Wang Liu Xiaobo, Qin Hui, Xu Ruoshui, Hu Youyu, Zhu Xueqin Jiwei, Sun Xupei

Cui Wan Sha Xud

Notes

Out of power, disgruntled

Active in the Li was a former Marxist 1980s, but Liu Junning was fired purged or

Man over

Rigid, orthodox Party-state

Liberals

New

http://www.wtyzy.net http http://www.sinoliberal.com http://www.chinamz.org

The global and the national of the Chinese media

21

exiled

31). Either exiled or marginalized, they have been irrelevant to the debates boiling over the post-1992 rise of commercial culture and China’s embrace of global capitalism. Among the few active survivors, Sun (2001a) has moved closer to the liberal position. The new left emerged to offer a timely radical critique of various brutal and distorted consequences of the state-led market reforms that have become manifested in the 1990s. Attacking reformist Marxists of the 1980s and liberals of the 1990s as elitist, aristocratic, and conservative, the new left neither frames the primary problem of China in stateversus-the-people terms nor sees the repressive state as China’s first enemy. 14 Many of its members teach in overseas universities or assume cultural positions in China. Together they attack “the rising global capitalist domination with its attendant consumer culture [and] market fetishism as the enemy of grassroots-based democratic journalistic practice” (Lee, 2000a: 568). Gan Yang (2000:1) condemns liberals for conflating freedom with “privileges for the wealthy, the strong, and the capable” at the expense of the public. This view pits freedom irreconcilably against equality, when sound liberalism should represent a conscious and moderate accommodation between them. Contrary to liberals’ favoring a limited state to minimize its abuse of power (Liu, 1998), new leftists look for a strong “democratic state” to redistribute social wealth, especially in the wake of China’s WTO entry (S. Wang, 2001). Wang Hui (1998), editor of the influential journal, Dushu (Studies), and one of the most eloquent new left writers, attacks the irrationality of western modernity. In another lengthy analysis of China’s conditions Wang (2001) claims that the 1989 movement was not only a liberal student and intellectual protest for political freedom, press freedom and other constitutional rights, but was also a broad-front urban labor protest to demand social justice and equality. Having tried to establish the new left as a legitimate heir to the 1989 movement, he lashes out at neo-liberals as constituting an interest bloc that has pushed the state to implement the policy of “radical privatization” over the past two decades. This interest bloc, he adds, is further seeking to “reconfigure the Chinese society and market” by coalescing with transnational capital via the WTO and the state capital (p. 47). 15 Liberals have, in turn, berated the new left for its reluctance to criticize the authoritarian state. Typical of the new left’s position, Zhang Xudong (1998:135) calls for “the socialist commitment to the people as a whole, as well as the will to create a new kind of democracy, freedom, and equality that supercedes the bourgeois model.” He attempts to construct a discourse based on “a renewed utopian expectation” that “may create new possibilities for political participation and democracy within the residual socialist framework” (p. 130, emphasis added). This new model of socialist democracy is said to be more democratic than liberal or social democracy. Likewise, Cui Zhiyuan (1994) proposes reinvigorating China’s institutional innovation by remaking selective elements of Maoist experimentation dating back to the dreadful Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution. Is Maoism a fountainhead of authoritarianism or “a new kind of democracy”? It seems that the new left has divorced abstract symbolic values of the

Chinese media, global contexts

22

Maoist legacy from its practical and concrete lived experiences of terror, hunger, and bloodshed, and then proceeded to develop a radical/romantic imagining of symbolic politics devoid of practical significance. As Max Weber (1978) said in a famous essay, the ethos of politics is not only concerned with intentions, but should be responsible for the real consequences of actions. The road to hell could be paved with noble intentions. The devil often lies in the details: unless the new left spells out the modus operandi, its agendas remain no more than a preliminary outline for utopian imagining. In transposing western radical discourses to China, the new left seems to have committed what Alfred Whitehead calls the “fallacy of misplaced concreteness” (Ren, 2000:200). The extent to which global capital dominates the Chinese economy, the extent to which China will articulate itself further into global capitalism (with the WTO as a symbol and catalyst), and the extent to which the global will interact with the national (including the state and the dominant classes) are enormously complex issues that await critical assessment, not simply philosophical musing. Many new leftists seem to have “slanted the global national nexus to the global side to the serious neglect of the national side,” with the consequences of “betraying Mao’s formulation during his revolutionary years—to whose legacy it claims to be an heir—[in that] they seem more enthusiastic about anti-imperialism than about anti-authoritarianism” (Lee, 2001:91). Over several international incidents, they have allied perilously with the positions of statist nationalism. As a rare exception, Yuezhi Zhao (1998. see also Chapter 2 of this volume) is to be commended for taking on both “the party line” and “the bottom line.” With the old left having been sidelined and reformist Marxists made irrelevant, both liberals and new leftists have displayed fundamentalist tendencies to universalize western theories about what is the concrete, complex, contradictory; and historically specific reality in China. Chinese liberals have hewed their visions to Frederick von Hayek’s classical liberalism, not even sympathetic to its pragmatic (John Dewey) or socialdemocratic (Harold Laski) revisions (see, for example, Liu, 2000). New leftists’ antiimperial discourses have oddly annihilated liberal values in illiberal China (for example, regarding press freedom as bourgeois freedom), while banking their hope of popular emancipation on various western post-Marxist visions or the discredited Maoist utopia. To the extent that globalization is a paradoxically universalizing and localizing, homogenizing and heterogenizing, centering and decentering process (Featherstone, 1995; Tomlinson, 1999), liberals can be faulted for failing to appreciate the downside of potential market domination by global media conglomerates, while new leftists tend to dismiss the potential benefits of establishing internationally acceptable norms and enhancing the rule of law. Both sides are guilty of overstatement in an uncompromisingly reductive, hyperbolic, and black-and-white fashion. The new left does not acknowledge the “no bourgeoisie, no democracy” thesis (Moore, 1966), nor do liberals embrace the Chinese state as an agency of redistributive justice. What is needed is reconstruction of a new narrative that “finds one’s position and voice in the globalizing process” (Y.Wang, 2001:163), both in touch with the local yet transcending it, and combining enlightenment with indigenous grounding. This new narrative must acknowledge both the gains in the “negative freedom” (Lee, 2000a, c) and the unfolding agendas of equality (Zhao, 1998). It should accommodate “master narratives” developed in the global contexts and

The global and the national of the Chinese media

23

Table 2.1 Distribution of WTO-related stories in selected newspapers

Party organs

Items Target papers

Items Market- oriented papers

Item

Economic Daily

66 China Youth News

35 Beijing Youth News

89

People’s Daily

38 Workers’ Daily

22 China Business Times

86

Guangming Daily

36 China Farmers’ Daily

19 China Securities

56

China Women’s News

11 China Business*

28

Nanfang Weekend* Subtotal

130

87

TOTAL

13 272

499

Notes: *Both are weeklies.

“specific narratives” arising from regional, national, and local contexts (Lee, 2000c: 571). On that note, more serious work lies ahead. Coda This volume is a sequel to the generously received trilogy: Voices of China: The Interplay of Politics and Journalism (New York: Guilford, 1990); China’s Media, Media’s China (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1994); and Power, Money, and Media: Communication Patterns and Bureaucratic Control in Cultural China (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2000). In editing these four volumes, my aims have been both theoretical and empirical, to bridge media studies and Chinese studies, and to foster a lively dialogue between Chinese media studies and the larger intellectual concerns in the humanities and social sciences. This volume testifies to the intellectual vibrancy of the emerging field of Chinese media studies. Although it may still find itself on the margin—in that mainstream U.S. media studies have been too self-absorbing to deign a peripheral gaze at China or any other countries, 16 whereas Chinese studies have been treating the media as epiphenomenal—I am steadfast in my beliefs that scholarly centerperiphery is socially constructed, not inherent; what’s more, only people in a position of marginality will intersect various modes of knowledge and ideas (Lee, 2000a). I am also acutely aware of the implicit disciplinary tension between media studies and Chinese studies in terms of the emphasis placed on theoretical development vis-à-vis the takingstock nature of empirical interest. I would like to maintain that tension contrapuntally rather than artificially dissolve it. This volume has ranged widely across several disciplines. Not all the voices are harmonious. I have been deliberately open to conflicting and interdisciplinary perspectives—so the conversation may continue—on what I hope will be tightly coherent

Chinese media, global contexts

24

themes. We have covered the political, the economic, and the cultural, but our ultimate concern is the relationship between the media and democracy, both in Chinese and comparative contexts. To recap some of the major themes in this chapter and volume: • The democratic potential of foreign media and telecommunications investment may be a myth. China will comply with the WTO requirements in allowing transnational companies to invest in telecommunications infrastructure and media management. Despite the recent telecommunicatiosn bubble. Lots of investment activities will be expected. However, under no circumstances will the Party relinquish its media ownership and editorial control. Nor are global media conglomerates likely to contest state ideology. • China’s national response to potential global and multinational media competition by organizing domestic media groups is unlikely to succeed. • China’s media transmit nationalistic, anti-American, anti-western rhetoric and beyond. National is, in a sense, anti-global. On the other hand, they glorify global events such as WTO membership and the Olympics sponsor ship as monumental “national achievements” (Chapters 2–3). In this case, global is national, national is global. • Managing the China-U.S relationship, in which the media play a significant role in the manufacture of images, discourses, consent, and ideologies (Chapters 4–6), is of paramount importance. • The media reflect and reinforce major contradictions in China’s uneven development that favor urban intellectual, professional, and managerial classes at the expense of the Communist Party’s traditional supporters—peasants and urban workers (Chapter 2). Thus, “national” may suppress “local.” The trend will intensify with China’s further integration into global capitalism. The widened socioeconomic gaps—a major source of social instability—have engendered vigorous intellectual and media debates about the role of China in the national-global nexus. • New media technologies will pose vital but uncertain challenges to traditional modes of state control of the media (Chapters 7–9) and will have implications for the rise of commercial culture and the “public sphere.” but the exact nature and process of change will have to be continually assessed. • Chinese media and journalists are, ideologically speaking, in a state of flux (Chapters 10–11). They are in the midst of sorting out these contending ideologies— Communism, Confucianism, and the market logic of professionalism—in the context of vast transformation in the larger political economy. • Assessing the impact of global giants’ investment on Chinese media sectors will call for historically informed research taking account of the interaction between global and national factors (Chapter 12). • Marketing pop culture in China is predicated on avoidance of ideological clashes with the state; indeed, nationalistic packaging contributes to market success (Chapter 13). We have focused on the national, the regional, and the global, but are still missing the local and the interior of China. More substantial studies on what the Chinese media say and how people interpret what they say, by taking advantage of conceptual and methodological advances, are in order. Broadcasting, advertising, the Internet, and pop

The global and the national of the Chinese media

25

culture in China remain understudied. As a postscript, I have heard two interesting comments in a recently held international symposium on China and globalizadon: first, a participant notes with dismay that it is nowadays fashionable to focus on China’s dazzling trade and economy to the neglect of its mundane human rights conditions; second, diasporic Chinese scholars used to be more pessimistic but are now more optimistic than their non-Chinese colleagues about the future of China. The first comment is patently untrue of this volume. You can judge how true the second is. Notes 1 As always, I salute Huang Yu of the Hong Kong Baptist University. Had it not been for his constructive criticism and generous assistance in marshalling a mass of various Chinese publications, this chapter would have been a lot more inadequate. 2 BBS forums were full of discourses rooting for terrorist attacks on the United States, and also those condemning Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan. These discourses seemed to have been tacitly tolerated by propaganda officials over the objections of foreign and trade officials. 3 Headlined “The World Cup, Here We Come,” the market-oriented Beijing Youth Daily printed a huge photo of an ecstatic carnival at Tiananmen Squire attended by a crowd of half a million fans. The paper interpreted the victory as “affirming the aim of professionalization [of sports], meeting the long overdue expectations of our countrymen, and ranking with sponsoring the Olympics and entering the WTO as three major national events.” The Sports Express, an outlet of the Xinhua News Agency, published an editorial, in red, on the front page, proclaiming that October 7, 2001 would be “the day people will never forget.” A reporter from the Beijing Morning Daily [Beijing chenbao] exclaimed, “The national flag is so big!” as it was passed around in the stadium. Source: http://sports.sina.com.cn (October 8, 2001). 4 Commenting on the wrenching economic changes that may occur, Zhu emphasized in this address more than 100 times that we “need to,” “should”, and “must” improve the income of peasants and urban workers, but offered no policy solutions (New York Times, March 6, 2002, p. A5). Now the wealthiest 20 per cent of the population has nearly half of all the income in China (New York Times, May 15, 2002, p. A12). 5 The forced merger of the highly profitable Xinmin Evening News into the not-soprofitable Wenhui Daily News in Shanghai has not enhanced the combine’s competitiveness but rather demoralized the rank and file workers at Xinmin. My own field study reveals that under the roof of the Sichuan Daily Press Group are several newspaper outlets of a similar genre competing viciously for the same pool of readers. Even though this lack of product differentiation or audience segmentation defies every known marketing principle, the fact that a press conglomerate has more newspapers to its credit may make propaganda officials look more glamorous, at least on paper. The metro daily usually is the cash cow that finances the losing party organ, but it is seen as politically marginal in the scheme of the press conglomerate structure.

Chinese media, global contexts

26

6 The Hong Kong-based Tom.com, owned by Li Ka-shing, acquired 70 per cent of the Yangcheng Press Group Advertising Company in 2000. Eying the China market, Tom.com has been building a Chinese media empire through aggressive acquisition and integration of publications in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and mainland China (Zhou, 2002:152–156). 7 She argues that Hollywood almost destroyed the Japanese film industry in the 1950s and 1960s, and has claimed 95 per cent of the film market in unified Germany. She attributes the current revival of the Korean film industry to nationalist movement rather than to the mystique of the “free market.” 8 See http://www5.chinesenewsnet.com (December 14, 2001). 9 According to Office of Telecommunications Technologies in the U.S. Department of Commerce (http://infoserv2.ita.doc.gov/ot/mktctry), in 1999 the United States exported $547 million worth of advanced networking equipment to China, and imported $2,485 million worth of telecommunications commodity products (telephones and answering machines) from China. 2000

2003 (forecast)

$22 billion

$40 billion

Fixed line voice

$10 billion

$30 billion

Data

$8 billion

$17 billion

Subscribers

18 million

65 million

Household penetration

1.4%

5.5%

Telecommunication market Wireless

Internet

10 According to the NewYork Times (August 21, 2001, p. cl): 11 An anthology of selected editorials (Xiao, 1999) from two Communist organs (the Xinhua Daily and the Liberation Daily), demanding press freedom and democracy from the ruling Nationalists in the 1940s, was published and summarily banned. This publication presumably “attacks the red flag by hoisting the red flag.” In caricaturing the bad record of the Communists in power, the editor’s name, Xiao Shu (laughing at Sichuan), referred allegorically to the location (Sichuan) in which the Xinhua Daily was published by Zhou Enlai. Another example involves the Shenzhen Special Zone Daily. My informant reveals that the paper deliberately features President Jiang as front-page top headlines on more than 200 days a year, and air-transports 500 copies of the paper every morning to the Zhongnanhai compound, where top leaders reside, to enhance its visibility, even knowing fully that few will read it. 12 This debate garnered international media attention in a long but not too insightful article (Kahn, 2002). Besides, Wen Tiejun (2001) and others, unfazed by grand narratives but concentrating on doing fieldwork to search for practical solutions, may defy or refuse rigid categorization.

The global and the national of the Chinese media

27

13 The editor of this publication was Yu Quanyu, a hardliner who replaced the reformist Sun Xupei after the Tiananmen debacle as the director of the Institute of Journalism under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. 14 Presumably to avoid negative connotation associated with the left in the Chinese context, Wang Hui (2001) and others prefer to identify themselves with the “liberal left” and call their liberal opponents the “liberal right” or simply “conservatives.” 15 In this otherwise sophisticated treatise, Wang is somewhat unfair in indiscriminately attacking all liberals as straw men. In fact, political liberals have been under constant suppression (for example, Liu Junning was sacked, and He Qinlian escaped arrest by leaving China secretly), whereas economic libertarians (such as Lin Yifu and Zhang Shuguang) have been advising the government on market and management transformation toward a property-based civil society. 16 In the United States, international communication tends to be defined by default (or residually) as non-American communication. The United States is hence seen as an opposite, rather than a part, of the international system. Other purported “crosscultural studies” amount to replicating hypotheses and theories that emanate from the global center. This cultural hegemony is embedded in the implicit yet taken-forgranted assumption that on matters of media and communication, America has answers for the world. It is the work of what Bourdieu (2001) calls “the imperialism of the universal,” cemented by an unnecessarily narrow conception of the positivistic epistemology. References Amsden, Alice H. (2002), “Why are globalizes so provincial?,” New York Times , January 31, op-ed page. Bagdikian, Ben (2000), Media Monopoly (6th edition). Boston: Beacon. Bourdieu, Pierre (2001), “Uniting to better dominate,” Items and Issues , 2(3–4): 1–6. Chang, Maria Hsia (2001), Return of the Dragon: China’s Wounded Nationalism . Boulder, CO: Westview. Chen, Hualin, and Chin-Chuan Lee (1998), “Press finance and economic reform in China,” in Joseph Cheng (ed), China Review, 1997 . Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, pp. 577–609. Cui, Zhiyuan (1994), “Zhidu chuanxin yu di erci sixiang jiefang” [Institutional Innovation and the Second Thought Liberation], Twenty-First Century , 24:5–16. Dai, Jinhua (2001), “Beyond global spectacle and national image making,” Positions , 9 (1): 161–186. ——(2002), “Cong langlaile dao langqunlaile” [From “here comes a wolf” to “here comes a pack of wolves”], Nanfang Zhoumo [Southern Weekend], March 1. Internet edition. Dayan, Daniel and Elihu Katz (1992), Media Events . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. DeWoskin, Kenneth (2001), “The WTO and the telecommunications sector in China,” China Quarterly , 167:630–654.

Chinese media, global contexts

28

Eckholm, Eric (2001), “Workers’ rights suffering as China goes capitalist,” New York Times , August 22, pp. A1, A8. Economist (2002), “Is it at risk?,” February 2, pp. 65–68. Featherstone, Mike (1995), Undoing Culture . London: Sage. Gan, Yang (2000), “Ziyouzhuyi: guizude haishi pingminde?” [Liberalism: for aristocrats or for ordinary people?], in Li Shitao (ed), Zhishi fenzi lichang: ziyou zhuyi zhi zheng yu Zhongguo sixiangjie de fenhua [Intellectuals’ Positions: Controversies Over Liberalism and the Division in Chinese Intellectual Circle]. Changcun: Shidai Literature Press, pp. 1–12. Gans, Herbert J. (1979), Deciding What’s News . New York: Pantheon. Garrett, Banning (2001), “China faces debates, the contradictions of globalization,” Asian Survey , 41 (3): 409–427. Gitlin, Todd (1997), “The anti-political populism of cultural studies,” in Marjorie Ferguson and Peter Golding (eds), Cultural Studies in Question . London: Sage. Gunther, Richard and Anthony Mughan (eds) (2000), Democracy and the Media: A Comparative Perspective . New York: Cambridge University Press. He, Qinglian (1997), Zhongguo de xianjing [China’s Pitfalls]. Hong Kong: Mirror. He, Zhou (2000), “Chinese Communist Party press in a tug of war. a political economy analysis of the Shenzhen Special Zone Daily,” in Chin-Chuan Lee (ed.), Power, Money. and Media: Communication Patterns and Bureaucratic Control in Cultural China . Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, pp. 112–151. He, Zhou and Jian-hua Zhu (2002), “The ecology of online newspapers: the case of China,” Media, Culture and Society , 24:121–137. Herman, Edward S. and Noam Chomsky (1988), Manufacturing Consent . New York: Pantheon. Huang, Yu and Chin-Chuan Lee (2002), “Peddling party ideology for a profit: Chinese media and the rise of nationalism in the 1990s,” in Gary Rawnsley and Ming-yeh Rawnsley (eds), Chinese Political Communication . London: RoutledgeCurzon. Huntington, Samuel (1993), “The clash of civilizations,” Foreign Affairs , 71(3): 22–49. Ji, Ning (2001), Meijie xing dongxiang [New Trends in Media]. Shenyang: Shenyang Press. Jia Baohua (n.d), “WTO yu zhongguo nongye” [WTO and China’s agriculture], 5 pages. http://www.wtyzy.nto/jianbaohuarsyny.htm Kahn, Joseph (2002), “Some Chinese see the future, and it’s capitalist,” New York Times , May 4. Kelliher, Daniel (1993), “Keeping democracy safe from the masses: intellectuals and elitism in the Chinese protest movement,” Comparative Politics , 25(4): 379–396. Landler, Mark (2001), “AOL gains cable rights in China by omitting news, sex, and violence,” New York Times , October 29. Latham, Kevin (2000), “Nothing but the truth: news media, power and hegemony in South China,” China Quarterly , 163:633–654. Lee, Chin-Chuan (2000a), “Chinese communication: prisms, trajectories, and modes of understanding,” in Chin-Chuan Lee (ed.), Power, Money, and Media: Communication Patterns and Bureaucratic Control in Cultural China . Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, pp. 3–44.

The global and the national of the Chinese media

29

——(2000b), “The paradox of political economy: media structures, press freedom, and regime change in Hong Kong,” in Chin-Chuan Lee (ed.), Power, Money, and Media: Communication Patterns and Bureaucratic Control in Cultural China . Evanston, IL: North-western University Press, pp. 288–336. ——(2000c), “China’s journalism: the emancipatory potential of social theory,” Journalism Studies , 1(4): 559–576. ——(2001), “Rethinking political economy: implications for media and democracy in greater China,” Javnost—the Public , 8(4): 81–102. Lee, Chin-Chuan, Joseph Man Chan, Zhongdang Pan, and Clement Y.K. So (2002), Global Media Spectacle: News War over Hong Kong . Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Li, Jiangfan (2001), “Jiaru WTO dui disan chanye de chongji tuidong yu yingfu silu” [On the impact of joining the WTO and responses to it], in Wang Zhenzhong (ed.), Jingji quanqiuhua de zhengzhi jingjixue fenxi [A Political-Economic Analysis of Economic Globalization]. Beijing: Social Sciences Documentation Press, pp. 284–296. Li, Yongle (2002), “Rushihou zhongguo meiti de xing tiaozhan” [New challenges to the media after China’s accession to the WTO], February 25. http://www5.chinesenewsnet.com Liao, Kuang-sheng (1984), Antiforeignism and Modernization in China, 1960–1980 . Hong Kong: Chinese University Press. Liu, Junning (1998), Gonghe mingzhu xianzheng [Republic, Democracy, Constitutional Rule]. Shanghai: Sanlian. ——(2000), “Classical liberalism catches on in China” Journal of Democracy , 11(3): 48–57. Lu, Xueyi (ed.) (2002), Dangdai zhongguo shehui jiecleng yanjiu baogao [A Report on the Study of Social Classes in Contemporary China]. Beijing: Social Sciences Literature Press. Lynch, Daniel (2000), “The nature and consequences of China’s unique pattern of telecommunications development,” in Chin-Chuan Lee (ed.), Power, Money, and Media: Communication Patterns and Bureaucratic Control in Cultural China . Evanston, IL: North-western University Press, pp. 179–207. McChesney, Robert (1999), Rick Media, Poor Democracy . New York: New Press. Moore, Barrington (1966), Social Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy . Boston: Beacon. Nye, Joseph S. Jr (2002), The Paradox of American Power . New York: Oxford University Press. Ren, Jiantao (2000), “Jiedu xinzuopai” [Deconstructing the “new left”], in Li Shitao (ed.), Zhishi fenzi lichang: ziyou zhuyi zhi zheng yu zhongguo sixiangjie de fenhua [Intellectuals’ Positions: Controversies Over Liberalism and the Division in Chinese Intellectual Circles]. Changcun: Shidai Literature Press, pp. 191–214. Rosenberg, Tina (2002), “John Kamm’s third way,” New York Times Magazine , March 3, pp. 58–63, 81, 101–102. Said, Edward W. (1981), Covering Islam . New York: Pantheon. Scott, James (1988), Weapons of the Weak . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

Chinese media, global contexts

30

Sen, Amartya (2001), “If it’s fair, it’s good: 10 truths about globalization,” International Herald Tribune , July 14–15, op-ed page. Sim, Soek-Fang (2001), “Asian values, authoritarianism and capitalism in Singapore,” Javnost—the Public , 8(2): 67–88. Smith, Craig S. (2001), “Multinationals at the gate: China braces for impact of membership in WTO,” New York Times , October 18. Sun, Xupei (2001a), “Accession to the WTO and development of China’s digital media,” unpublished paper. ——(2001b), An Orchestra of Voices . Edited by Elizabeth C.Michel. Westport, GT: Praeger. Thompson, John B. (1995), The Media and Modernity . Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Tomlinson, John (1991), Cultural Imperialism . Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press. ——(1999), Globalization and Culture . Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Tuchman, Gaye (1978), Making News . New York: The Free Press. Tunstall, Jeremy (1999), The Anglo-American Media Connections . Oxford: Oxford University Press. Turner, Graeme (1996), British Cultural Studies . London: Routledge. van Ginneken, Jaap (1998), Understanding Global News . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Wang, Hui (1998), “The contemporary Chinese thought and the question of modernity,” Social Text , 16:9–44. ——(2001), “Xin ziyou zhuyi de lishi genyuan ji pipan” [The historical origin of “neoliberalism” and its critique], Taiwan: A Radical Quarterly in Social Research , 43:1– 65. Wang, Shaoguang (2001), “Kaifangxin, fenpeixing chongtu he shehui baozhang” [Openness, distributive conflict, and social insurance], Shijie [Horizons], 3:96–126. Wang, Yuechuan (2001), Zhongguo de jingxiang: jiushi niandai wenhua jianjiu [The Mirror of China: Cultural Studies in the 1990s]. Beijing: Zhongyang bianyi chubanshe. Weber, Max (1978), “Politics as a vocation,” in W.G.Runciman (ed.), Weber: Selections in Translation . Translated by Eric Matthews. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 212–225. Wen, Tiejun (2001), “Dang sannong zaoyu WTO, shinian shiyan de fansi yu rushihou de duice” [When small peasants meet the WTO: reflections on ten years of experiment and measures to cope with accession to the WTO], University Service Center for China Studies, Chinese University of Hong Kong, http://www.usc.cuhk.edu.hk/wkgb.asp Williams, Raymond (1977), Marxism and Literature . New York: Oxford University Press. Xiao, Shu (ed.) (1999), Lishi de xiansheng: ban shiji qian de zhuangye chengnuo [The Harbinger of History: the Solemn Promise of Half a Century Ago]. Shantou: Shantou University Press. Xu, Youyu (2000), “Ziyou zhuyi yu dangdai zhongguo” [Liberalism and contemporary China], in Ei Shitao (ed.), Zhishi fenzi lichang: ziyou zhuyi zhi zheng yu zhongguo

The global and the national of the Chinese media

31

sixiangjie de fenhua [Intellectuals’ Positions: Controversies Over Liberalism and the Division in Chinese Intellectual Circles]. Changcun: Shidai Literature Press, pp. 413– 430. Yu, Guoming (2002), “Zhongguo chuanmeiye de touzi qianjing” [The prospect of media investment in China], Ming Pao Monthly , April: 25–27. Yu, Xu (2002), “Rushi dui zhongguo chuanmei chongji youxian” [The WTO impact on China’s media will be limited], Ming Pao Monthly , April: 20–22. Zhang, Xudong (1998), “Nationalism, mass culture, and intellectual strategies in postTiananmen China,” Social Text , 16:109–140. Zhao, Yuezhi (1998), Media, Market., and Democracy in China: Between the Party Line and the Bottom Line . Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. ——(2000), “From commercialization to conglomeration: the transformation of the Chinese press within the orbit of the party state,” Journal of Communication , 50, 2:3– 26. ——(2001), “Media and elusive democracy in China,” Javnost—The Public , 8(2): 21– 44. Zhao, Yuezhi, and Dan Schiller (2001), “Dancing with wolves? China’s integration into digital capitalism,” Info , 3(2): 137–151. Zhou, Wei (ed.) (2002), Meiti qianyan baogao [Media Update]. Beijing: Guangming Daily Press. Zhou, Yongming (2001), “Expanded space, refined control: the intellectual electronic press in China,” Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, October 24. Zhu, Xueqin (1998), “1998, ziyou zhuyi de yanshuo” [Discourses on liberalism, 1998], Nanfang Zhoumo [Southern Weekend], December 25. Internet edition.

2 “Enter the World” Neo-liberal globalization, the dream for a strong nation, and Chinese press discourses on the WTO Yuezhi Zhao Increasingly, any attempt at isolation or separation will mean only a more brutal kind of domination by the global system, a reduction to powerlessness and poverty. (Hardt and Negri, 2000:284) Membership to the World Trade Organization (WTO) and sponsorship of the 2008 Olympics were two major ongoing stories in the Chinese media in the 1990s and 2001. As the twin milestones in China’s integration with global capitalism, both events have profound implications for China and a rapidly transforming global order. Fundamental political economic interests—from those of transnational corporations to China’s ruling elite, and those of affluent urban consumers to impoverished farmers in interior China— are at sake. Press discourses on these events thus serve as useful case studies on the political and social orientations of the Chinese press. If the propaganda state is indeed crumbling (Lynch, 1999), what social forces have gained influence in its place? Who is speaking out in the press, and who is not? Now that this press is more diverse in structure (Chen and Lee, 1998; Wu, 2000; Zhao, 1998, 2000a), how is this diversity manifested at the discursive level? Now that it has abandoned a dying state socialist ideology (Z. He, 2000), what new ideological orientations does it embrace? This chapter addresses these questions by studying Chinese press discourses on the WTO. 1 It must be stated from the outset that this is not simply a study of press control or openness in the abstract sense, but one of control and openness in the context of social domination and contestation between concrete social interests over the fundamental directions of Chinese society. The research setup A brief background sketch is due. China, under the Nationalist regime that was soon to lose a civil war to the Communists in the mainland, became a signatory nation of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) in 1948. In 1950, the Nationalist regime withdrew from GATT following its exodus to Taiwan. The People’s Republic of China, founded in 1949 by the Communists and committed to the socialist ideology and a planned economy, condemned GATT as a “capi talist club” and operated outside it for

Enter the world

33

more than three decades. As the Chinese economy was rapidly being integrated into the global capitalist orbit under the open-door policy, becoming a card-carrying member of the world trade club assumed top priority for the Chinese state. In addition to a whole series of perceived economic benefits, such as unconditional most-favored-nation treatment from the United States, access to multilateral dispute settlement procedures, increased foreign investment and export opportunities, the reformed Chinese state perceived the GATT/WTO membership in the context of the Chinese nation’s historical humiliations and as restoration to its “rightful place” in the international system, consistent with “what it regards as its newfound international standing” (Harris, 1997, 137). From July 1986, when China officially submitted its application to reclaim its status as a GATT signatory nation, to the WTO’s approval of the same on November 10, 2001 in Doha, was a fifteen-year process. As GATT was replaced by the WTO in 1995, the Chinese press replaced “ruguang,” where “ru” means “enter” and “guang,” a component Chinese character for “tariffs,” also connotes a “juncture” or even a “trap,” with “rushi,” literally, “enter the world,” with all its second-coming and globalist connotations. While the last few milestones in China’s long march to the WTO were overshadowed by the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States, the story took many dramatic twists and turns, including Zhu Rongji’s controversial WTO offer to the United States in April 1999, the U.S. bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in May 1999 which led to a surge of and-American sentiments in China, and the suspension of the U.S.-China WTO negotiations for several months. The climax, however, was no doubt the signing of the U.S.-China WTO accession agreement on November 15, 1999—as the United States, being the global superpower, has de facto veto power on China’s WTO membership. Consequently, I focus my analysis on the one-month period, from November 11, 1999, the date the U.S. trade delegation arrived in Beijing for the last round of the U.S.-China bilateral WTO negotiations, to December 10, 1999. My aim is to provide a detailed snapshot of a key slice of an arguably highly fluid discourse over a fifteen-year span. 2 This is an eventful month in the history of the WTO. China reached a historic pact with the United States to join the organization in the middle of the month. This significantly boosted the organization’s legitimacy, and consolidated its neo-liberal globalization agenda. By the end of the month, however, massive anti-WTO protests had broken out in Seattle at the WTO’s crucial ministerial meeting. Although these protests were not directly related to China’s membership, they provided a test case for the Chinese press’s openness to alternative perspectives on the WTO. This study examines press coverage from eleven Chinese newspapers—three papers in the core Party-state organ sector (the Peoples’ Daily, the Guangming Daily, and the Economic Daily), four from the “target paper” sector, i.e. papers aimed at specific social groups (the China Youth News, the Workers’ Daily, the China Farmers’ Daily, and the China Women’s News), as well as five “market-oriented” newspapers (the Beijing Youth News, the China Business Times, China Securities, China Business, and Nanfang Weekend). 3 A total of 499 news reports, background pieces, and editorial commentaries were collected, coded, and analyzed for various discursive dimensions such as manifest and latent content, thematic orientations, use of sources, placement, units of analysis, and rhetorical strategies. 4 Particular attention was paid to commonalities and differences

Chinese media, global contexts

34

between the papers. More than a dozen interviews with editors and media scholars, conducted in Beijing in December 2000, provided contextual data for the textual analysis. Table 2.1 shows the overall distribution of the items. The agreement: signed, celebrated, but who knows the content? The basic story line about the U.S.-China WTO deal contains three parts: ongoing negotiations from November 11 to 15, 1999; reports about the November 15 deal, including the signing ceremony, a joint U.S.-China press release, and Jiang Zemin’s meeting with the U.S. trade delegation; backgrounds, commentaries, reactions, and impact analyses. All the papers carried the official news release verbatim, and there is complete uniformity in news about Jiang’s meeting with the U.S. trade delegation. The only variation is the length of the story. While the People’s Daily printed the longest version, China Farmers’ Daily carried a simple stand-alone headline: “President Jiang Zemin met U.S. Government Delegation Coming to Beijing to Participate on China-U.S. WTO Negotiations.” All newspapers hailed the deal as a “win-win” situation for both China and the United States, and something China had deserved for a long time. The official organs and target papers, which tend not to carry much news about such negotiations, devoted considerable front-page space to the story on November 16, although the China Farmers’ Daily, again, was more subdued. Market-oriented papers hyped up the negotiations and the signing of the agreement. When there was nothing to write about the negotiations, the journalistic gaze turned on the spectacle of journalists waiting for news. Every detail related to the negotiating process, from U.S. chief negotiator Charlene Barshefsky’s silk scarves to how one reporter took off her highheeled shoes to run for the signing ceremony are depicted with great vividness. As shown in Table 2.1, they produced significantly more stories than both the official organs and the target papers. The China Business Times devoted its first four pages to the deal on November 16, with a total of thirty-three items—close to the People’s Daily’s entire WTO coverage during the month. It was the Beijing Youth News, however, that created the most dramatic effects and generated the most excitement with its banner headlines and huge photos in its “WTO special feature” on November 16. Its sensational banner headlines from page 1 to page 4 read: “Signed! China-U.S. ‘Enter the World’ Negotiations,” “Signed, This Is a Win-Win Result,” “Signed, This Is a Historical Choice,” “Signed! This Is the Last Minute Run.” The paper also stood out with its unofficial touch to a highly official event: its front-page featured a photo of a party of a foreign business owner and his Chinese staff, cheering the happy news (xixun) at a TGI Friday outlet in Beijing. If the aim of the Chinese leadership is to sell the deal to the masses, this paper is indisputably the star salesperson. But what does the agreement contain? The most crucial component of the story, the content of the trade deal, was hard to find in the entire coverage. The deal, invested with so much energy, meaning, and emotion, is an empty sign. Although its provisions, involving major Chinese concessions in tariffs reduction and market opening in key economic sectors, ranging from agriculture to telecommunications, financial services, and audiovisual products, will affect every Chinese for a long time to come, the Chinese state

Enter the world

35

not only negotiated it without any pretence of public consultation, but also failed to disclose its content. The official and target papers contained no information about the content whatsoever. Nor did the Beijing Youth News, with all its hype about the deal. Nanfang Weekend, by far the boldest, made the Chinese state’s failure to release the content of the deal an issue in its November 19 front-page story. It issued the following appeal: “All Chinese enterprises must have a sense of urgency and this is high time for ‘total mobilization for competitiveness’! But how to carry out this without information and without understanding the situation?” Rather than foreground the content of the deal, however, the paper buried the content as disclosed by the U.S. trade delegation in an English press release in an article on page 21, which recorded the proceedings of the U.S. delegation’s news conference in Beijing, and a short insert on page 23. China Securities hid the same U.S. press release at the bottom right corner of page 8 of its November 17 issue, while the China Business Times buried a 234-word item based on the same press release on a page 2 corner the same day. Neo-liberal globalization as China’s destiny? The WTO and the rule of the market The press’s failure in its crucial informational role. i.e. the overall suppression of substantive information about the WTO deal, in the context of details about scarves and high-heels, goes hand in hand with its active role in rallying moralistic support for the deal 5 and serving as a collective agitator and mobilizer, in the Leninist sense, to get China ready for the post-WTO shakeup. The Party line about the economic impact of the WTO, embodied in the press coverage, was unambiguous: there are opportunities and challenges; but there are more opportunities than challenges. Or, to put it in another press cliché: there are advantages and disadvantages; but there are more advantages than disadvantages. Not a single article challenges the official definition of the deal as a “winwin” one. Not one paper comments on the specific merits of the deal. Emphasis is put on elaborating the official line of a winning deal and reconciling it with current Chinese economic realities. Most impact analyses present a long list of economic benefits, supported by international authorities and the logic of comparative advantage. The most important hard evidence about the economic benefits of China’s WTO entry, a 3 per cent annual GDP increase, for example, was attributed to various “international economic authorities.” While there are acknowledgements that certain economic sectors may suffer in the short term, the general interest, invoked in abstract terms such as “the national interest,” “the interest of the Chinese people,” “China”s fundamental interest,” or “the long-term interest of the Chinese people,” or expressed in economic indicators such as GDP increases, is the dominant frame of reference. The exception proves the rule here. China Securities carried a whole-page excerpt of a detailed State Council Development Research Center impact study “Joining the WTO Will Generate Tremendous Efficiency Benefits,” claimed the front-page headline. Buried in the statistics on an inside page, however, is the point that “rural residents are the apparent losers,” and that while the income of urban residents will increase by 4.6 per cent, that of rural residents will drop by 2.1 per cent. Imagine the shocking effect of a headline that reads: “‘Enter the World’

Chinese media, global contexts

36

Will Increase Urban-Rural Disparity,” or alternatively, “‘Enter the World’ Benefits the Urban Population, Rural Residents Are Apparent Losers.” The WTO deal expresses specific interests, which are presented as being in the general interest. These hypothetical headlines are unimaginable not because of their lack of validity. The particular form of ideological hegemony in the Chinese press renders them unutterable. 6 In addition to bold assertions about the benefits of the WTO, refutation is a common mode of speech, reflecting some hesitation and a sense of uncertainty about economic prospects after WTO entry. One often-mentioned point is that not a single country’s economy has collapsed because of WTO membership. Headlines are illustrative: “Joining the WTO: China’s Auto Industry Won’t Lose”; “The Insurance Sector Isn’t Afraid of ‘Enter the World’,” “The Audiovisual Sector Isn’t Afraid of the Challenges of ‘Enter the World’,” and “Seeking Protection Is Undoubtedly Suicidal.” Other articles set out to mobilize the nation for the neo-liberal jungle of global competition. Enterprises that have succeeded in the market are featured as models; those in sectors to be opened up express determination to win. Motivational speech, typified in headlines, serves this purpose: “Chinese Auto Enterprises: We Have Confidence,” “Shanghai Auto: Enterprises Must Overcome Themselves;” and “Must Cry out Our Strongest Voice.” But WTO entry is not just a business story. Nor is “Enter the world” a mere acronym. The Chinese press means it literally: to join the WTO is to rejoin the world, to become a member of the international community, to become part of civilized society. Without this, as the Cold War rhetoric put it, which the Chinese press seems to have internalized, China is an outcast and in the uncivilized state of darkness. WTO membership is not just about China’s right to participate in the making of global trade rules. It concerns China’s place, China’s face, China’s inspirations, and China’s identity in the world. As the Workers’ Daily (November 24, p. 2) put it, WTO membership is about the realization of the “grand objective of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” that is, the dream of a strong and powerful nation (qiang guomeng). The WTO is the Holy Grail. After a thirteen-year endeavor, China has crossed the highest “door step” and removed the biggest obstacle. There are more “passes” before China finally enters the flowerdecorated gate, as the People’s Daily demonstrates in a metaphorical graphic, but once China is in, it will be redeemed as a nation and see the light of day. Not surprisingly, a November 19 Nanfang Weekend headline reads: “‘Enter the World’ Heralds in a Bright Sunny Day.” Underlying this discourse is the de-politicization, naturalization, and normalization of the WTO, and in broad terms, the acceptance of the logic of neo-liberal globalization. This is also manifested both in background material about the WTO and accounts about China’s history with GATT/the WTO. First, there is very little concrete historical or political economic analysis about the GATT/WTO regimes and their embedded Cold War and post-Cold War global economic order. The background pieces typically describe the WTO in technical terms and portray it as a benign, ruling-bidding, transparent, effective, and fair international organization. No longer a “rich men’s club,” it is a “protective umbrella” for its member nations and a mechanism by which developing countries can protect their own interests. The People’s Daily, for example, describes the WTO as an organization that “promotes economic and trade development so as to raise living standards, ensure adequate employment, and secure the growth of real income and

Enter the world

37

effective demands.” Moreover, the WTO “makes rational use of global resources in accordance with the objective of sustainable development” (November 16, p. 2). Second, there has been a systemic erasure of half a century of Chinese history, including the Communist revolution and the ideology and practices of state socialism, the Cold War, and the political and ideological reasons for China’s absence from GATT/the WTO, in the construction of China’s relationship with GATT/the WTO. The People’s Daily’s chronology glosses over historical discontinuity and begins in this way: “Initially, China was a signatory nation of GATT. After the establishment of the New China, our country gained observer’s status in GATT in November 1984.” Other accounts, such as the identical ones provided by the Economic Daily (November 16, p. 4) and the China Business Tones (November 15, p. 1), do not even mention that there was a regime change in 1949. Moreover, the period from 1950, when “China withdrew from GATT,” to September 1982, when “China applied for observer’s status in GATT,” was simply an unaccounted-for black hole. There were never ideological differences between China and the global capitalistic economic order and there was never a Chinese attempt at pursuing alternative paths of national development. Hence, as another Nanfang Weekend headline puts it: “Enter the World, No Other Choice” (November 26, p. 14). Or, “[o]utside the WTO means out of fashion, out of mainstream, out of the door, out of the Way! [dao]” (China Youth News, November 18, p. 2). The erasure of post-1949 global and domestic politics accomplishes a crucial ideological conflation. Since the WTO embodies the norm and stands for civilized global community, and since the WTO is about the promotion of the market, the rule of the market, the survival of the fittest, will be the norm for China. Fragments of a “developing country” frame, which emphasizes the issue of unequal global economic power relations, are only occasionally visible in statements about how China is a developing country and how its participation in the WTO will allow it to “speak more effectively for a fair and just global economic order” (People’s Daily, November 25, p. 7). The overwhelming theme, however, is about subjecting China to the rules of the global market, and by implication, its ideology of social Darwinist neo-liberalism. Not surprisingly, the People’s Daily’s commentary on this topic is entitled: “‘Enter the World’: The Impetus and the Threats of the Survival of the Fittest” (November 22, p. 10). The emphasis is on China’s need to import the established rules of the market through the WTO, or, to cite Nanfang Weekend’s always suggestive and strategic headlines: “The WTO wants to help China to reform” (December 6, p. 6). This is not an abstract discourse. There are specific agendas. One key agenda, expressed most clearly in market-oriented papers, is to increase the power of the private sector and to further diminish the state sector. The China Business Tmes, in particular, explicitly championed this view and celebrated WTO entry as a boost to the domestic private sector and an opportunity to push for “domestic openness,” i.e., openness of key economic sectors to the private sector. Its star reporter Hu Shuli, for example, deployed a whole army of international economists to advance her argument on behalf of private Chinese capital. One of her foreign expert sources, a U.S. economist, was cited as saying: “China must have the determination to nurture non-state economy, reform state-owned economy right now, or it will be incompatible with the demands and steps of the WTO

Chinese media, global contexts

38

entry” (November 29, p. 2). The People’s Daily’s commentator seems to agree: the most important impact of the WTO entry is on state enterprise reform, as external competitive pressures have become “extraordinarily valuable” to break the stalemate in reforming this sector (November 22, p. 10). Beyond this agreement on the blessings of the market for China, including the supposedly transparent game played by Western businesses which presumably will help China eradicate corruption, however, there are profound differences within the WTO-supporting discourse. Party and state organs, under the tight control of the ruling political elite, restrict their WTO impact discourse to the economy and a vague notion of state enterprise “reform.” Market-oriented newspapers, more expressive of the interests of the business elite and the aspirations of liberal intellectuals, are implicitly addressing the political implications of WTO membership. To these papers, joining the WTO not only means importing market rules, but also importing “systems” (zhidu), a code word for the supremacy of private property rights and liberal democratic institutions. The Beijing Youth News, for example, wrote, “Openness makes China accept the market economic system and politically get on the track of democracy and rule by law. We have followed the international trend” (November 27, p. 10). A more radical liberal agenda vested in the WTO entry, not expressed in the open press, is the dismantling of state-owned economic sectors, perceived as the economic base of an autocratic political system (He, 2000a: 91). Globalization is not just imposed from the outside. Domestic elites use external forces to achieve specific domestic policy agendas, but their wish to do so and their freedom to promote their agendas are conditioned by both external forces and internal political contestations. Press discourses are part and parcel of these contestations. Redeeming the “God”: “ordinary folk” as stock owners and affluent urban consumers While refraining from advocating wholesale privatization and liberal democracy, marketoriented papers move beyond a discourse on national rejuvenation through market economics by relating the WTO to everyday life. The Beijing Youth News, for instance, established a hotline to answer citizen queries on the WTO. While official organs invoke abstract concepts such as the “fundamental” interests of the “Chinese people” without any elaboration, market-oriented papers, and to a lesser extent, target papers, speak the language of “ordinary folk” (laobaixin), “we” or “country folk” (guoren) in their impact analysis. But who are “we”? For the China Business Times, “we” as “China’s ordinary folk” include: (a) investors who “no longer have to feel squeezed under the tiny bank window and see the faces of bank tellers ‘not of a high quality’.” “By the time [of China’s WTO entry], families with money will attract a whole army of bank staff who will fight with each other to help you deposit your money and design your investment portfolio”; (b) individuals who can afford private life and property insurances; and (c) stock owners, or “stocktizens” (gumin) (November 19, p. 3). The Beijing Youth News describes the following consumer paradise in response to a reader’s question about the benefits of WTO entry for “ordinary folk”:

Enter the world

39

With the lowering of tariffs and the entry of foreign goods, prices will drop dramatically. Ordinary Chinese can deposit Reminbi in foreign banks freely and buy foreign currencies freely. They can freely buy insurances in foreign-owned firms and receive insurance payments in foreign currencies. They can also receive medical services from foreign-invested hospitals and get better medical treatments. Foreign agricultural products such as wheat, beef, oranges will enter the ordinary family at lower prices. The prices of high-end consumer services such as telecommunications and cars will be greatly reduced. (November 18, p. 4) In another article on the same day, the paper posed the same question to two economists, who envisioned the same post-WTO consumer paradise from every possible viewpoint. One of the experts concluded: “China’s ordinary folk will truly enjoy the rights of consumers as ‘the God’ in domestic and international competition…it can be said that ‘enter the world’ is a messiah for China’s ordinary folks, the God.” The paper revisits the same paradise once more as part of a November 19 article. This time, it is captured in a neat five-point format. And apparently, after repeating it for its readers three times, the paper expects its vision to become their common sense. Consequently, it administers a quiz about the content and the benefits of the WTO in the article. Readers who are not yet fully convinced, or need extra reinforcement, can turn to the authoritative voice of economist Hu Angang: “The biggest winners of ‘enter the world’ are the 1.25 billion consumers. Their welfare will be maximized.” The smoothness with which Hu generalizes from his own consumer priorities to the 1.25 billion Chinese is stunning: “I just returned from the U.S. It cost 39 cents to phone from U.S. to China, and only 9 cents to Hong Kong. With the WTO, this phenomenon will disappear” (November 19, p. 10). The China Women’s News, not normally known for being a champion of “stocktizens” and affluent consumers (Zhao, 2000a), joins the market-oriented papers in cheering new opportunities for professionals and “stocktizens” and celebrating the arrival of the consumer paradise. All its impact analysis articles, with populist headlines such as “The Chinese: Life After ‘Enter the World’” and “What Practical Benefits Will ‘Enter the World’ Bring to the Ordinary Folk?,” are recycled from papers such as the China Business Times and the Beijing Youth News. It is unlikely that this highly uniform consumer paradise is envisioned at the Party’s propaganda department headquarters and distributed to the press. Nevertheless, it is unambiguously and widely promoted as the common sense vision, especially by marketoriented papers. This consumerist orientation is also visible in the official organs. Thus, the People’s Daily states, “without doubt, the ultimate beneficiary is the consumer…they will get higher quality and cheaper products and services” (November 25, p. 7). The Guangming Daily claims, “The WTO is beneficial to the role of consumer as the genuine ‘God’.” The only partial exception is Nanfang Weekend. Here the discursive object is more multidimensional. In its major article on the agreement (November 19, p. 1), the paper brings in the “ordinary folk” both as consumers who may enjoy more, better, and cheaper foreign goods, and as workers who may lose their jobs in domestic enterprises that may fail in international competition. Instead of speaking of “the consumer” in the

Chinese media, global contexts

40

abstract, the paper concretizes this discursive trope and indicates that the benefits of the WTO deal are most relevant to “those Chinese who want to buy a car, get online, and open up foreign currency bank accounts” (November 29, p. 1). In the case of agricultural products, the paper noted that ‘consumers’ of high quality foreign fruits and meats are “primarily the high-income strata and big restaurants” and only this small group will feel the “increase in benefits.” Voices in China: who is speaking in the Chinese press? If “stocktizens” and affluent urban consumers are the privileged discursive objects, who is speaking in the press? Table 2.2 describes the distribution of sources in three selected papers. This table is highly revealing. Foreign officials and the spokespeople for transnational corporations account for 43.2 per cent of the Beijing Youth News sources, and 30.6 per cent of the China Business sources, and most significantly. 87.5 per cent of all the sources in the People’s Daily, a paper that is supposed to be the mouthpiece of both the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese people. The Beijing Touth News and China Business, at the same time, rely heavily on Chinese business leaders and experts (47.2 per cent and 67.4 per cent respectively). The voice of Chinese officials, by contrast, does not figure prominently in the above table. Let us examine each of these sources in some detail. The voice of political power and the political power of silence Given that the story is about a bilateral treaty with major international implications, officials—both Chinese and foreign—are predictably the primary definers (Hall et al., 1978:57–60) in the news. Foreign officials, from the heads of foreign states to top officials of major international organizations, uniformly celebrated the deal. Chinese official sources, however, were limited primarily to stories on the signing of the trade deal. Moreover, the comments of Chinese officials, similar to foreign officials, remain general—no more than Jiang Zemin’s remarks about a “win-win” deal, Zhu Rongji’s earlier call for a long overdue end to the negotiations, and brief comments about the significance of the deal made by Shi Guangsheng, China’s chief negotiator, at the signing ceremony. The most powerful expression of the Chinese leadership, in this case, is actually its silence —it simply did not disclose the content of the agreement. This silence effectively discourages other government officials, especially the heads of various economic departments who do not have first hand knowledge and whose economic sectors are impacted, from commenting on the deal. The expert voice While the top leadership assumes a primary defining role in the meaning of the WTO, and domestic business leaders are solicited to discuss the impact of WTO entry on their specific enterprises and business sectors, a whole army of experts, primarily pro-market

Enter the world

41

Table 2.2 News sources for three selected papers

People’s daily

Type of sources

Beijing youth news

China business

Chinese officials

11

(11.5%)

7

(5.6%)

1

(2%)

Foreign officials

48

(50%)

43

(34.4%)

5

(10.2%)

TNC spokespeople

36

(37.5%)

11

(8.8%)

10

(20.4%)

Chinese business leaders

0

(0%)

33

(26.4%)

21

(42.9%)

Chinese experts

1

(1%)

26

(20.8%)

12

(24.5%)

Others

0

(0%)

5

(4%)

0

(0%)

Total

96

(100%)

125

(100%)

49

(100%)

economists in elite universities and research institutions, have joined journalists to act as chief interpreters and secondary definers of the issue, inflecting and translating the official line for newspaper readers. In contrast to business leaders, who are framed as authorities on their particular sectors, these experts speak not only with authority but also “above” special interests, that is, in the interest of the nation as a whole. As the above data indicates, the two marketoriented papers make extensive use of expert sources. This is a significant new development in Chinese journalism. Expert sources did not play an important part in traditional Party journalism. The typical protagonists were state officials at various levels (who pronounced and explained policies) and the masses (who cheered and carried out the policies at the grassroots). With the rise of the urban professional elite and the state’s increasing reliance on their expertise to carry out its modernization through global integration projects, the expert has assumed a prominent discursive position in the Chinese press. Although a large strata of this elite have developed into “interest groups tied to the ruling politico-economic elite” (He, 2000b: 76), they speak a universalizing and rationalizing language, which lends legitimacy to the state and its policies. For market-oriented media outlets, expert sources add credibility, authority, even a touch of independence. As the intellectual agents of Chinese capitalism in general and the high priests of the WTO in particular, a small group of elite economists offers positive spins on the WTO— from widely circulated articles that list up to ten “great benefits” of WTO membership, to soundbite quality quotes about the redemption of the Chinese consumer as the God. However, it is important to note that although the Chinese press has imported the Western press’s practice of relying on expert opinion, the journalistic convention of “balance”—that is, citing experts who hold opposing views on an issue, is rarely practiced. Moreover, journalists are highly deferential to expert sources and see themselves as simple conduits of expert opinions. The popular format, single source feature interview, in particular, provides an advantageous forum for the experts. The narrow range of expert sources and their uncontested perspectives mean that, sometimes,

Chinese media, global contexts

42

it is hard to tell where quasi-state neo-liberal propaganda ends and where “independent” expert discourse begins. The quasi-state nature of the expert discourse is well illustrated in the China Business Times’ November 16 coverage. The paper’s champion expert source is Professor Xue Rongjiu of the Foreign Economics and Trade University. The opening article of its impact page was devoted exclusively to Xue’s perspective: Professor Xue highly praises the agreement reached by the U.S. and China and believes that this symbolizes that China’s reform and openness has entered a new historical stage. He further believes that government departments, businesses, and individuals, no matter who they are, should all accept this agreement with a positive attitude…Professor Xue pointed out that the agreement proves that China’s central government is a responsible one. Specific government departments at various levels must be on the same tune as the central government, which is to say that they must act in accordance with China’s rights and obligations as stipulated in the agreement…local governments must transform their functions, government and businesses must be separated, government must learn to serve businesses under the modern enterprise system and must not violate WTO rules. In a December 2, page 2 feature interview, Professor Xue was given another chance to reiterate his “standing above” position: stopping debate on the advantages and disadvantages of the agreement. The agreement was reached by Party and state leaders after careful consideration from the perspective of the Chinese economy as a whole. Any discussion of positive and negative impacts on specific economic sectors is not only unnecessary, but also “causes unwanted internal controversy and dissent.” Xue instructs people to stop using the term “national industries,” because it violates the WTO’s spirit of national treatment for all industries, regardless of their ownership status. The economist, in short, was accorded a discursive authority that matches that of the Party state. He polices discursive limits and sets the terms of debate. Transnational corporation speech Alongside the rise of pro-market economists as important definers of press discourse on the WTO, another prominent group has come to the foreground, the foreign and ethnic Chinese representatives of transnational corporations. Like the economists, these people not only appear as sources in articles, but also as exclusive speaking subjects in feature articles or special interviews, including page-long features. The U.S.-China WTO deal was a boon for transnational corporations. They turned this occasion into a public relations gold mine, calling up their favorite Chinese journalists to express their views and inundating Chinese newspapers with press releases. The Chinese press not only faithfully printed these releases, but also devoted their own resources to interviewing the CEOs of transnational corporations or their China representatives. In so doing, Chinese newspapers have become their loyal propagandists. “I am very, very happy. I am very excited, no matter from my personal perspective or from the corporation’s perspective.” Statements like this, made by the chief Beijing representative of a U.S. insurance

Enter the world

43

corporation in a November 16 China Business Times article, radiated from the entire coverage. Given its predisposition as a propaganda organ, it is perhaps not surprising that the People’s Daily printed more pieces of transnational corporate propaganda and cited more representatives of transnational corporations as its sources. After all, this involves a simple switch of the masters the paper serves—from propaganda generated by domestic government departments, which are largely absent as sources on this issue, to propaganda generated by transnational corporations. The Economic Daily and the Guangming Daily also carried many publicity pieces by transnational corporations. In fact, stories based on news releases of transnational corporations, interviews with their executives, special features, together with articles on the responses of the U.S. business community in general, in which statements of U.S. corporations from Morgan-Stanley to Boeing and Metropolitan Insurance are cited, made up more than 20 per cent of all the Economic Daily articles, surpassing stories on responses by foreign states and noncorporate international organizations. Chinese workers and farmers? They may not count even in statistical surveys In contrast, there is not a single article about the impact of the WTO entry on Chinese workers in the official organs and market-oriented papers. Nor do Chinese farmers make much appearance as discursive objects. Neither a single Chinese worker nor a single Chinese farmer was interviewed in the entire coverage. The supposed masters of the country were simply not in the house as speaking subjects. They do not even assume the vox pop role in the news. In addition to the above-mentioned Nanfang Weekend article’s passing reference that some “ordinary folks” are concerned about the possibility of losing jobs, a thirteen-yearold Beijing girl seems to be the lonely voice in bringing the laid off workers into the discourse, and raising a social issue that journalists and economists seem to have ignored. She is clearly a privileged girl. She studies at a private boarding school, watches TV news with classmates, phones the Beijing Youth News’ WTO hotline for help with her essay assignment, and emails her paper to a reporter. She dreams of a future in which she can buy a fancy imported car at a low price after her university graduation, and wonders whether it will still be necessary to have passports and visas for foreign travels, which she loves. But she also expresses a concern: “I am also very concerned, however. There are so many laid-off workers around. With more advanced equipment and more technological innovations, won’t it be the case that it will be more difficult to find jobs?” (The Beijing Youth News, 11/24, p. 3). The paper did not take up this question. 7 Nor is there a single major article devoted to the impact of the WTO on farmers, in either the official or the market-oriented newspapers. Although one Nanfang Weekend article, published in conjunction with two articles on other economic sectors, deals with the agriculture sector, the livelihood of Chinese farmers is only one of several issues discussed in the piece. The impact pages of the China Business Times’ November 16 coverage clearly show the weight of agriculture and the Chinese peasantry in its symbolic

Chinese media, global contexts

44

universe. A whole page was devoted to the stock markets, as “among the more than one billion Chinese, the tens of millions of ‘stocktizens’ are most concerned about the WTO.” Agriculture occupies a tiny right-hand bottom corner (2×2.5 inches) of yet another fullpage impact coverage. In contrast to elaborate reporter-generated stories about stock markets and the jubilant reactions of transnational corporations, this tiny piece about agriculture is the only Xinhua copy in the entire coverage. Moreover, this is deemed a marginal and decorative subject so a photo alone will do. Underneath the caption, “Agriculture: Must Also Use the Brain” is a tiny photo of a whole mountain of oranges, with a stone-faced peasant squatting idly nearby. The caption under the photo tells how farmers produced high quantity but low quality oranges that could not sell in the market even at a very low price. The reason, the caption continues, is because farmers, in a metaphor that has often been used by the Chinese elite to describe the massive reproduction of “low quality” population by the Chinese peasantry, do not practice “population control” with their orange trees, leading to high productivity but low quality. “After ‘enter the world’, our country’s agriculture will face more fierce competition. Farmer brothers should also think about strategies.” The organ of China’s rising business class instructed thus, with a not-so-subtle snub. And what about the China Farmers’ Daily and the Workers’ Daily, two papers published in the name of these groups? In addition to the official position about the desirability, necessity, and inevitability of joining the WTO, the China Farmers’ Daily’s discursive focus is on the agriculture sector as such, not on the welfare of farmers. Government officials and agricultural experts tried to put a positive spin on the impact of WTO entry on Chinese agriculture while acknowledging the challenges ahead. The voices of domestic and foreign agro-businesses were given considerable space, including an article by the China representative of a U.S. seed company, entitled “A Good Beginning for a Fair Competition” (November 20, p. 7). Not a single piece deals with the impact of the WTO deal on China’s farmers, either as a social group or as individuals. Nor does the Workers’ Daily assume any consistent discursive position as the voice of Chinese workers. It relies on Xinhua not only for news, but also for interpretation of China’s rationale for joining the WTO, the “national interest” discourse being the overarching hegemonic frame. The paper even introduces a special column to “clarify thoughts” and dispel any doubts about China’s eagerness to join the WTO. Other articles, often by local stringers, focus on industry analysis and are typically written from a business perspective. Unlike the China Farmers’ Daily, the Workers’ Daily did carry articles on the impact of WTO entry on individuals. These articles, however, do not take workers as their exclusive focus of discourse—indeed, the paper speaks to both “stocktizens” and workers—a sign of the hegemonic position of the former in Chinese press. Page 2 of its November 21 issue is illustrative. The leading article addresses “stocktizens” and the impact of WTO entry on them—“Enter the World Making Stocktizens Busy,” says the headline, while the conclusion hopes that “China’s stock folks invest rationally and gain satisfactory returns.” At the bottom corner, in the only article by a staff reporter in the paper’s entire coverage, it addresses the WTO entry’s implications for “the country’s tens of millions of workers.” This two-part article (the second part was published on November 27, p. 1) was the only piece in the entire sample

Enter the world

45

that explicitly speaks to workers, both as consumers and workers. It therefore deserves some close analysis. As consumers, Chinese workers would enter the same paradise envisioned by marketoriented papers. In fact, the article quickly reproduces the market-oriented papers’ language of China’s “ordinary folk” as affluent consumers: family car ownership no longer a dream for the ordinary wage earner, more citizens with Internet access, digital audio and video equipment and family theatres, expensive cosmetics and brand name clothing. Imported fruits and foods would also become accessible to “the national population.” Expressing a taken-for-granted discourse about the desirability of anything foreign, the article goes on: “travelling easily in foreign countries, depositing money in the foreign-owned banks, buying foreign insurances, retaining foreign lawyers and foreign accountants, China’s ordinary folks will enjoy more services provided by foreigners.” Still, what does a post-WTO world mean for workers? As with marketoriented papers, an impressive list of authorities is called upon to address the issue. Who are these authoritative voices? What do they have to say to the workers? The same business leaders and experts frequently cited by market-oriented papers, exhorting the virtues of market competition and instructing workers to have a “sober understanding of the increasingly intensive and ruthless nature of competition,” to acquire “a sense of urgency, a sense of crisis,” to learn job interview skills and subject themselves to endless efforts at self-improvement. One economist warns: “If you can only drive a screw, your chance of being unemployed will definitely increase in future society. Tears are of no use. Market does not believe in tears, only in abilities.” “No small number of sociologists” chirped in: the competitive consciousness of workers needs to be strengthened, rural migrant workers in the urban areas must improve their “qualities,” and “in future society, a psychology of dependence on government and businesses needs to be changed.” If the post-WTO world is a consumer’s paradise, for workers it is a jungle in which only the fittest will survive. Remake yourself as a self-initiated and self-improving neo-liberal individual. Entertain no illusions about the state, not to mention trade unions. Not a single official trade union representative, nor a labor department official, was interviewed. The rights of workers are non-issues. Underlying the ostensible discursive focus on the worker is the neo-liberal agenda of “total mobilization for competitiveness” and the discursive disciplining of workers. Since the workers and farmers are the majority, perhaps their views and concerns may register in opinion polls, which have become an increasingly popular source for news media? Not necessarily. Most of the polls do not even bother to include rural residents, still the majority of the Chinese population. They are mostly conducted among the population in major urban centers. Within the urban areas, polls typically draw their samples from permanent urban residents, thus automatically excluding the tens of millions of “floating” population. Further, many of these polls use the telephone as a means of interview. Urban telephone penetration rates were on average 38 per cent in 2000, and no mention was made about the validity of the telephone survey methodology in this context. The polls published by the newspapers predictably show overwhelming support for the WTO deal. “Nearly 99 per cent of the Masses (minzhong) Support ‘Enter the World’,” reported the China Women’s News (November 24, p. 7), the result of a

Chinese media, global contexts

46

“quick telephone survey” of 1,156 valid samples by the Social Survey Institute of China. “Entering the WTO: The Will of the Chinese Public,” the China Business Times (November 29, p. 6) claimed in a survey report provided by a commercial polling company The report speaks in the name of “the vast Chinese ordinary folk” at the beginning. By the second paragraph, where it provides the actual survey data, it uses the term “urban residents” (shimin). The China Youth News’ survey department published the results of a number of surveys under the headline: “WTO in the Eyes of the National Population [guoren] Before and After the Sino-U.S. Agreement” (November 27, p. 3). Who constitutes the “national population”? The answer: urban residents in major cities, especially Beijing and Shanghai, entrepreneurs, Beijing residents with post-secondary education, and finally, Beijing University economics professor Xiao Zhouji, who presented five “benefits” of the WTO entry at a meeting about these surveys. Coming to terms with anti-WTO protests in Seattle Notwithstanding the apparent absence of dissenting voices on the WTO deal inside China, the press discourse is constructed with implicit references to them. WTO expert Xue Rongju noted in a November 11 China Business Times frontpage story that many countries suddenly realized the urgency of letting China into the WTO because “these countries have noted that some people inside China now have different views,” and that they were concerned that continuing to keep China outside the WTO could push the country to turn back on reforms. The paper acknowledged in another article, on the same page, that the view that joining the WTO is more negative than positive for some industrial sectors has considerable influence among the public. Sheng Hong, another frequently quoted economist, also indirectly acknowledged in a China Youth News article that there are “forces and tendencies that promote and generate conflict and hatred” between the United States and China (November 17, p. 2). The prevalence of the refuting mode of speech and prominent headlines such as Nanfang Weekend’s “Opening Up: We Have No Intention to Look Back” (November 19, p. 1) and the China Business Time’s “Reform Is Irreversible” (November 16, p. 2) are also indicative of domestic controversy on the issue. This opposition existed at both the elite and popular levels. State bureaucrats, representing some industrial sectors, worried about the increased pressures of global competition. Old revolutionaries denounced the leadership’s readiness to accept capitalist globalization as an act of betrayal. Popular opinion viewed the leadership as being “too soft” on the United States. “New left” intellectuals exposed globalization as a mask for U.S. domination. Premier Zhu Rongji, widely perceived as being responsible for making the initial WTO offer to the U.S. in April 1999, was seen as a “traitor” (maiguozei) who sold out the country. There were also expressions of doubt among the top leadership following the embassy bombing episode in April 1999. Jiang Zemin said at a meeting that China had waited thirteen years to join GATT/the WTO and it could wait for another thirteen years. Other top officials emphasized the principle of not entering the WTO at any cost, and expressed the intention to solicit broader consultation on the issue (Fewsmith, 1999). These views, just like liberal hopes that link the WTO membership with liberal democracy, were expressed in internal speeches,

Enter the world

47

limited circulation domestic publications, the Hong Kong press, and on the Internet. What of international dissent to the WTO, expressed so openly on the streets of Seattle? Overall, the Chinese press paid little attention to the Seattle protests. The word “protests,” not to mention “anti-WTO protests,” is nowhere to be seen in newspaper headlines. A few papers, especially the Beijing Youth News, paid some attention to the protests, but marginalized them and made them irrelevant to China in a number of ways. First, they highlighted the official meeting and downplayed the protests. The Economic Dailys December 2 treatment is a case in point. Its lead story on the international page, entitled “WTO Seattle Meeting Opened,” made no mention of any the protests or their disruption of the meeting. Then, in a separate short story (shorter than a nearby story about how a developer and a construction company in Romania were fined for a poor renovation job), under the headline “Seattle under a Night Curfew,” the paper reported that there was a conflict between the police and protesters and that protesters blocked the paths leading to the WTO meeting, thus delaying the opening of the meeting for five and a half hours. Second, they framed the protests as a law and order issue. The following headlines are illustrative: “Seattle Enters a State of Emergency,” “Seattle Police Set ‘No Demonstration Zone’,” “Protests against the WTO Difficult to Control.” A related frame focuses on the disruptive side of the protests from the perspective of official conference organizers and participants. Third, they trivialized and denigrated the protesters, while ignoring their messages. There are descriptions of the exotic costumes, and the comical and, especially, violent behavior of the protesters. The language is often derogatory and belittling. There is virtually no mention of the protesters’ slogans, signs, and their messages. Although the Beijing Youth News did acknowledge in one story that protesters were accusing the WTO of “only meeting the needs of large multinational corporations” (December 3, p. 4), it quickly quoted the WTO’s Director General Michael Moore as saying that the protesters, by opposing the WTO, are against the world’s poor and developing countries (finally, a piece of evidence showing that the Chinese press does have a sense of balance). Fourth, they treated the protests as being driven by “special” interests and the developed countries. There is no opposition to the WTO by global civil society organizations, or participation in the protests from developing countries. Moreover, although the “mass protest activities are aimed at the WTO on the surface, they were driven by domestic American politics,” especially the “professional politicians” at the AFL-CIO (Nanfang Weekend, December 10, p. 3). Finally, a couple of newspapers even used their coverage of the protests to scorn Western-style “freedom and democracy.” Citing Shi Guangsheng, the Beijing Youth News wrote: “we will never allow the so-called freedom and democracy of some people to interfere with those of other people…some people’s ‘democracy and freedom’ makes it impossible for ministers to get out of door, and for an international meeting to carry on. We really cannot appreciate this kind of ‘democracy and freedom’” (December 5, p. 1). In the end, this paper is only interested in importing economic liberalism and the rules of the market, not liberal democratic rights. Nevertheless, the Seattle protests forced the Chinese press to partially revisit the benign picture they had painted of the WTO and provided an opportunity for the indirect expression of a more critical view about neo-liberal globalization. The “developing

Chinese media, global contexts

48

country” frame became more visible and there were concerns about the negative impact of neo-liberal globalization, divisions between developed and developing countries, and the issue of justice in the current global economic order. The People’s Daily summarized the Seattle debacle as an issue of global justice, acknowledging that there are conflicting interests between developed and developing countries and that developing countries have been treated unfairly under the current global trade regime. It reidentified the moral principle of “helping the weak and supporting the poor” as being important to the survival of human society, arguing that the new round of WTO negotiations must benefit developing countries (December 3, p. 6). In another article, the paper noted that although on the surface each country has an equal say in the WTO, in reality, major economic powers dominate. It also noted the dark side of globalization, especially the division between the rich and poor, both between and within countries, including the United States. It even cited the U.S. labor’s view that globalization benefits big corporations and harms the interests of workers. Nanfang Weekend also acknowledged that the interests of developed countries drove the WTO’s agenda. “Not surprisingly, the break-up of the negotiations was seen by developing countries as a victory…this shows how ill the WTO is” (December 10, p. 3). This is in sharp contrast to the press image of the WTO in the context of the U.S.-China WTO deal earlier on. Nevertheless, international criticisms of the WTO did not provide any opportunity for second thoughts about China’s rush to join it. Pro-globalization and pro-WTO arguments continued during the Seattle meeting. Newspapers carried a wide range of material supporting corporate-driven globalization and the benefits of WTO membership for China. The Beijing Youth News printed a frontpage article entitled “Globalization Irresistible” on December 2. Defining globalization as “essentially meaning the realization of capital’s imperative to circulate freely in the world and to generate the fastest and greatest profits regardless of geography, kinship, sovereignty, technologies, and ideologies,” the article acknowledges the negative side of globalization and potential social conflicts resulting from it, but accepts it as having “a larger rationality” than arguments in defense of “regional and special interests.” Conclusion: neo-liberal hegemony in the Chinese press? The signing of the U.S.-China WTO agreement was a moment of triumph for neo-liberal forces, both inside and outside China. Chinese press discourses expressed, in a nutshell, the dominant side of an elite debate about China’s future and its place in the world. Although the Seattle protests led to some critical reflections about the WTO and the downside of global capitalism, the neo-liberal logic of market supremacy and globalization provided the underlying dominant ideological framework for celebrating China’s WTO membership. As Michael Buraway puts it, as the “global ideology” par excellence neo-liberalism is not simply “a mystification of reality,” but has powerful roots in economic and political life, and connects to “the real interests of specific groups” (2000:342). Buraway goes on to comment in the context of post-communist Hungary: “post socialist ruling classes have lost one ideology and need another. Neoliberalism with its focus on the market panacea suits their purposes well, silently

Enter the world

49

reproducing their domination while denying responsibility for economic failures and injustice” (p. 342). This observation is relevant to China as well, despite the official rhetoric of “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” As China scholars Perry Link, Richard Madsen and Paul Pickowicz have noted, with belief in anything like an authentic Marxism having long since collapsed, a social Darwinist neoliberalism, dressed in a pseudo-Marxist guise, “is the closest thing to an official ideology there is in China today” and many Chinese people, “especially the successful urbanites who have learnt to ‘fly’ in the new globalized economy, truly believe it” (Link et al, 2002:7). Though marketoriented papers may have hyped their coverage of the WTO deal for commercial appeal, their reporters, their transnational corporate sources and expert commentators, and their new class of vox populi—the foreign managers and Chinese employees gathered at the TGI Friday outlet, stock owners, and urban professionals and affluent consumers—are the beneficiaries of neo-liberal globalization and they sincerely believe in the blessings of China’s WTO membership. In addition to the neo-liberal agenda of expanding the private sector, and further dismantling the state sector, the idea of a “genuine” market governed by transparent rules has considerable appeal in the context of China’s corrupt business environment. Dissenting views on the WTO, and by implication, neo-liberal globalization, expressed even in a faraway place, were marginalized. Mainstream Chinese press discourse was already embedded in the dominant global order even before China’s official WTO entry—from transnational corporate propaganda to the marketoriented papers’ reliance on the U.S. side for the very content of the U.S.-China WTO deal itself. As the press discourse indicates, and interview data confirms, Chinese Partystate authorities failed to disclose the content of the WTO deal, and set strict limits on any negative comments about it, not to mention any linkage between economic liberalism and political liberalism. But if the Chinese Party-state sets the tone, it is the Chinese press, especially its market-oriented sector, that actively orchestrates the discourse through authoritative international sources, expert analysis, citizen hotlines, quizzes, and statistical surveys. While the statist discourse of building a wealthy and strong China through global integration plays a definitive role, the transnational corporatist discourse, the expert discourse of economists from elite institutions, and the consumerist discourse of “the ordinary folk” dominate the Chinese press. These discourses feed into each other to form the hegemonic voice of the reformed Chinese press on globalization. Under the guise of a universalizing language and a “larger rationality,” elite interest is presented as the general interest, while “the ordinary folk” the press claims to speak on behalf of, turn out to be stock-owners, professionals, and privileged urban consumers. The dream for a powerful nation concretizes into a consumerist paradise for the urban middle class. If the parade of workers and farmers in traditional Party propaganda was hollow and manipulative, the current press discourse’s virtual elimination of these majority social groups as discursive objects, not to mention speaking subjects, is shocking and highly hegemonic. 8 While the current discourse is more diverse and less manipulative, it is important to recognize its new mobilizing and disciplinary role and the new relations of power it serves to establish and legitimize. In fact, in contrast to traditional propaganda, the reformed hegemonic press discourse

Chinese media, global contexts

50

is marked by its internal diversity and selective inclusions and omissions, or more appropriately, a certain division of ideological labor across the three main press sectors. The official organs stick to the Party and transnational corporatist propaganda line— what’s good for GM is good for China now—while continuing to invoke the hollow rhetoric of the “fundamental interests” of the “Chinese people.” The market-oriented papers, with the partial exception of Nanfang Weekend, 9 foreground the interests of the business and professional strata, and construct a consumerist paradise for the well-off urban population. They go beyond traditional Party organs in several important ways. Instead of completely censoring the content of the deal, they balance their informational and disciplinary imperatives by burying information provided by the U.S. side on the inside pages. Instead of simply ignoring the Seattle protests, these papers, especially the Beijing Youth News, took a more proactive approach by marginalizing them. In this regard, reformist papers such as the Beijing Youth News, which has been at the forefront of recent journalistic innovations (Zhao, 1998; Rosen, 2000), are following the practices of mainstream North American media in their hegemonic containment of dissent. Their hegemonic strategies parallel those employed by the North American media in framing dissent (Gitlin, 1980; Hackett, 1991; Hackett and Zhao, 1994). These framing strategies of selective emphasis are the new tricks of the trade that will enable them to consolidate their hegemonic role in the reformed Chinese press system. The target papers, by contrast, are almost completely dominated. The imbalance in symbolic power here is glaring. While papers such as the China Business Times arid the Beijing Youth News have all the resources at their disposal to champion the interests of their respective readerships by representing them as the general interest, the target papers are ill-equipped both symbolically and financially to champion the social groups in their names’ sake. The Workers’ Daily’s, only reporter-generated piece delivered a lesson in neo-liberal market discipline to Chinese workers. While the China Farmer’s Dailys’ subdued treatment is a reflection of its management’s understanding that Chinese farmers were losers in the WTO deal, Chinese farmers were not the paper’s readership base and the paper pursues domestic and transnational agribusinesses as its main source for advertisements (interview with a senior editor, December 17, 2000). The China Women’s News was completely dependent on market-oriented papers for impact analysis, and did not offer anything from a woman’s perspective. In short, these papers are subordinate to the hegemonic framework constructed by the official organs and market-oriented papers. Lastly, it is important to note that the naked logic of social Darwinist neoliberalism is wrapped in a nationalistic discourse in the Chinese press. This is necessarily a contradictory discourse: to subject China to the rules of the global market through the WTO is to redeem the Chinese nation. While this discourse implicitly invokes a glorious past of the Chinese nation, it has to suppress the historical articulation of nationalism with anti-imperialism and anti-capitalism in China’s immediate past. The erasure of the Communist revolution and the prereform economic policies in the historical narrative, the normalization of the WTO, and the suppression of domestic politics over the WTO deal testify to the active role of the Chinese press in constructing the reformist Chinese nationalism of building a strong and powerful China through global integration. Thus, the reformed Chinese state not only reclaims a rightful place in the WTO, but also like other

Enter the world

51

postcolonial nation-states that are already WTO members, secures for the Chinese nation “a place in the global order of capital” (Chatterjee, 1986:168). In the end, then, the fact that there is an agreement is what matters, regardless of the content. All that is left for the Chinese press to do is to celebrate this as a national achievement and mobilize the population to participate in global competition. Moreover, if the ordinary people were excluded from deliberations on the WTO deal (and many may never be able to partake in the consumption of California oranges and Texas steaks in the post-WTO world), they were, however, mobilized to participate in the bidding for the Olympics, and are ensured the opportunity to consume this global spectacle through the media. While WTO membership may threaten to sharpen class divisions and intensify social tensions with the displacement of more farmers and workers, the Olympics promises to unite the Chinese nation on the television screen. The WTO membership and the Olympics are two sides of the same story about China’s integration with global capitalism. Nevertheless, the Chinese project of neo-liberal globalization rests on fragile political and ideological grounds and this study does not provide an adequate basis for any sweeping generalizations about a neo-liberal hegemony in the Chinese press, although anecdotal evidence suggests that the patterns of ideological exclusion in its coverage of globalization in general and China’s WTO membership in particular have remained quite consistent over the past few years. 10 Given the conflicting agendas of the pro-WTO political, business, and inteDectual elite, post-WTO Chinese state behavior is not preordained. To the horror of some liberal intellectuals, leftist criticisms are threatening to gain adherents among the workers and farmers disenfranchised by the rush to join global capitalism, as the Party leadership increasingly colludes with transnational and domestic business interests and “is moving to reposition itself as a de facto right-wing dictatorship” (Gilley, 2001:18; see also Wang, 2001). Indeed, the leadership was so afraid of critiques of “capitalist restoration” that it forced the closure of the two marginal Marxist theoretical journals in summer 2001. At the practical level, the lack of elite consensus on the specific terms of WTO entry may brew bureaucratic conflicts. State enterprise heads and local government officials, for example, have complained that they have been kept in the dark about WTO rules and China’s concessions (Chan, 2001). Certainly, China’s underclasses do not reject globalization per se and it would be a mistake to assume that the majority oppose WTO entry Globalism, expressed in a perverted but, nonetheless, real way in the “enter the world” discourse, articulates with the Utopian Chinese discourse on “datong” or “the great commons of the universe,” even if socialist internationalism no longer holds any sway in the popular imagination. Nevertheless, some disenfranchised groups have rediscovered a radical class discourse, while many have resorted to moral economy claims in localized struggles for economic survival and social justices (Perry, 1999). Still others have embraced the Falun Gong doctrines. Nor do the ruling elites, not to mention the Han Chinese alone, have a monopoly on nationalistic discourses. In short, China’s forces of assimilation into the world market system face formidable challenges both from below and from within. Overt press censorship remains a critical mechanism of control, as these forces struggle to contain both ideological conflicts from within and social unrests from below while forging ahead by fashioning delicate social compromises on an ad hoc basis (Zhao, 2001;

Chinese media, global contexts

52

Zhao and Schiller, 2001). “Enter the world” will not be the end of ideological and social contestations. Those excluded from the formal political process and channels of public communication will speak out in their own ways, with or without the mainstream press. They may not register their voices in a place like Seattle, but they will not be isolated from, and unaffected by, struggles against globalization from above elsewhere, now that they, too, have “entered the world.” Notes 1 In addition to invaluable comments provided by Chin-Chuan Lee and participants at the China Times Centre conference at the University of Minnesota, I am indebted to Dan Schiller and Soek-Fang Sim for their insights and suggestions on an earlier draft of this chapter. 2 A broader and more longitudinal set of data from the People’s Daily website, consisting of more than 460 WTO-related stories from November 16, 1999 to March 16, 2001, was collected. A preliminary analysis shows no significant difference between this set of data and the one-month data. 3 Strictly speaking, the Beijing Youth News (the official organ of the Beijing Communist Youth League) and the China Business Times (the official organ of All China Entrepreneurs and Commerce) are also “target papers.” The difference, of course, is that these two papers, in contrast to other target papers, are commercially successful and targeting social groups that are gaining in economic and social power—the economic elite and the young urban middle class respectively. Similarly, China Securities and Nanfang Weekend are both subsidiaries of traditional Party organs—the former is a subsidiary of the Xinhua News Agency, the latter of the Nanfang Daily, the Guangdong provincial Party organ. China Business, a commercially successful Beijing weekly, is the closest paper to the “quasiindependent,” “unofficial” category. Nominally affiliated with a research institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, it is one of the country’s few de facto private newspapers (the initial investment for the newspaper came from its founding publisher and editors). Given that Nanfang Weekend, published in Guangzhou, is widely recognized as a national paper, this list is national and Beijing-centric. The scope of the project forced me to leave out the issue of regional variation, which is significant (Chang et al., 1993). 4 This analysis encompasses both quantitative and qualitative dimensions. The coding process provides a sense of the general pattern of the coverage to guide the qualitative analysis, as elaborated and practiced by scholars such as Hall (1975), Gitlin (1980), Van Dijk (1988), and Hackett and Zhao (1994, 1998). 5 Sim made a similar observation about the working of political discourse in Singapore. She argues that the deprivation of substantive information compels citizens to take a moralistic stance on issues (2002:118). 6 This form of hegemony is quite different from that of the liberal press in the West. Thus, while the Financial Times can run an article about the WTO’s Doha deal under the headline: “Protestors/Activists Call Deal ‘Disaster for Poor

Enter the world

53

People’” (November 15, 2001, p. 6), alongside its main piece elaborating the terms of the agreement, the Chinese press’s refusal to acknowledge conflicting social interests renders such a coverage impossible. 7 Earlier on, the paper had painted a rosy picture for the professional job market, with particularly good job prospects for psychiatrists, as an increasingly competitive lifestyle means more mental illnesses (November 21, p. 14). While there will be a decrease in employment opportunities for ordinary employees, in post-WTO China, “an annual salary of $400,000 U.S. is no longer a dream” for Chinese managers (November 21, p. 9). 8 This is not to say that these groups have disappeared altogether from the Chinese press. They have been rediscovered by socially conscious journalists as individualized victims of bureaucratic or capitalistic abuses in a new brand of watchdog journalism (Zhao, 2000b; Xu, 2000), as self-remade entrepreneurs, and more often, as dangerous and criminalized elements in crime stories in street tabloids (Zhao, 2002). Neo-liberal hegemony on a core political economic issue such as the WTO deal does not preclude exposure of corruption cases and critical coverage on social issues. It is one thing to break local official censorship on a rural school explosion. It is quite another to highlight China’s WTO concessions or write a headline such as “WTO Entry Increases Rural and Urban Gap.” Such a pattern is to a degree consistent with the performance of Western media: while there is more openness on issues such as abortion, the perspective is narrower on issues involving the core interests of the corporate elite (Hackett and Zhao, 1998). 9 Nanfang Weekends concern with the losers of the reforms and the issue of social justice was dealt a severe blow in an early 2001 major Party clampdown. See Zhao (forthcoming). 10 The Guardian, for example, reported in early 2002 that Chinese critics of globalization and WTO entry “get litde coverage in the official media, and are not asked to express their views in the columns of newspapers that hail the ‘courage’ and ‘foresight’ of a ‘great nation’ that has decided to ‘join the powerful torrent of world economic evolution’.” (Bobin, 2002, 9). References Bobin, Frederic (2002), “China’s anti-globalisation voices struggle to be heard,” The Guardian , January 2, p. 9. Burawoy, Michael (2000), “Grounding globalization,” in Michael Burawoy et al. (eds). Global Ethnography: Forces, Connections, and Imaginations in a Postmodern World . Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, pp. 337–350. Chan, Vivien Pik-Kwan (2001), “WTO: Chinese economist’s fear favored West, may threaten sovereignty,” South China Morning Post , November 13. Internet edition. Chang, Tsan-Kuo, Chen, Chin-Hsien and Zhang, Guo-Qiang (1993), “Rethinking the mass propaganda model: evidence from the Chinese regional press,” Gazette , 51(3): 173–195. Chatterjee, Partha (1986) Nationalist Thought and the Colonial World: a Derivative

Chinese media, global contexts

54

Discourse? London: Zed Books. Chen, Huailin and Lee, Chin-Chuan (1998), “Press finance and economic reform in China,” in Joseph Cheng (ed), China Review 1997 . Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong Press, pp. 577–609. Fewsmith, Joseph (1999), “China and the WTO: the politics behind the agreement,” NBR Analysis , 10(5). http://www.nbr.org/publications/analysis/vo10no5/index.html Gilley, Bruce (2001), “Jiang’s turn tempts fate,” Far Eastern Economic Review , August 30, pp. 18–30. Gitlin, Todd (1980), The Whole World is Watching . Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Hackett, Robert A. (1991), News and Dissent: The Press and the Politics of Peace in Canada . Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Hackett, Robert A. and Zhao, Yuezhi (1994), “Challenging a master narrative: peace protests and opinion/editorial discourse in the U.S. press during the Gulf War,” Discourse and Society , 5(4): 509–541. ——(1998), Sustaining Democracy? Journalists and the Politics of Objectivity . Toronto: Garamond Press. Hall, Stuart (1975), “Introduction,” in Anthony C.H.Smith (ed), Paper Voices: the Popular Press and Social Change, 1935–1965 . London: Ghatto and Windus, pp. 11– 24. Hall, Stuart, Critcher, Ghas, Jefferson, Tony, Clarke, John and Roberts, Brian (1978), Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the State, and Law and Order . London: Macmillan. Hardt, Michael and Negri, Antonio (2000), Empire . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Harris, Stuart (1997), “China’s role in the WTO and APEC,” in David S.G.Goodman and Gerald Segal (eds), China Rising: Nationalism and Interdependence . London and New York: Routledge, pp. 134–155. He, Qinglian (2000a), Dangqian Zhongguo shehui jiegou yanban de zhongti fenxi, Dangdai Zhongguo yanjiu [Modern China Studies], 3:68–93. ——(2000b), “China’s listing social structure,” New Left Review , 5:69–99. He, Zhou (2000), “Working with a dying ideology: dissonance and its reduction in Chinese journalism,” Journalism Studies , 1(4): 599–616. Link, Perry, Madsen, Richard P. and Pickowicz, Paul G. (2002), “Introduction,” in Perry Link, Richard P. Madsen and Paul G. Pickowicz (eds), Popular China: Unofficial Culture in a Globalising Society . New York: Rowman and Littlefield, pp. 1–8. Lynch, Daniel C. (1999), After the Propaganda State: Media, Politics, and “Thought Work” in Reformed China . Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Perry, Elizabeth J. (1999), “Crime, corruption, and contention,” in Merle Goldman and Roderick MacFarquhar (eds), The Paradox of China’s Post-Mao Reforms . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, pp. 308–329. Rosen, Stanley (2000), “Seeking appropriate behavior under a socialist market economy: an analysis of the Beijing Youth Daily,” in Chin-Chuan Lee (ed.), Power, Money, and Media: Communication Patterns and Bureaucratic Control in Cultural China . Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, pp. 45–67.

Enter the world

55

Sim, Soek-Fang (2002), “Asian values, Asian democracy: the legitimization of authority and de-legitimization of dissent in everyday popular discourse in Singapore in the late 1990s,” Ph.D. dissertation, Goldsmiths College, University of London. Van Dijk, Teun A. (1988), News as Discourse . Hillsdale, NJ: L.Erlbaum Associates. Wang, Sirui (2001), “Shixi jinri Zhongguo zuopai guangpu,” Dangdai Zhongguo yanjiu [Modern China Studies], 2:23–38. Wu, Guoguang (2000), “One head, many mouths: diversifying press structures in reform China,” in Chin-Chuan Lee (ed.), Power, Money, and Media: Communication Patterns and Bureaucratic Control in Cultural China . Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, pp. 45–67. Xu, Hua (2000), “Morality discourse in the marketplace: narratives in the Chinese television news magazine Oriental Horizon” Journalism Studies , 1(4): 637–647. Zhao, Yuezhi (1998), Media, Market, and Democracy in China: Between the Party Line and the Bottom Line . Urbana, IL and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. ——(2000a), “From commercialization to conglomeration: the transformation of the Chinese press within the orbit of the party state,” Journal of Communication , 50(2), 3–26. ——(2000b), “Watchdogs on party leashes? Contexts and implications of investigative journalism in post-Deng China,” Journalism Studies , 1(2): 577–597. ——(2001), “Media and elusive democracy in China,” Javnost—The Public [Journal of the European Institute for Communication and Culture], 8(2): 21–44. ——(2002), “The rich, the laid-off, and the criminal in tabloid tales: read all about it!,” in Perry Link, Richard P.Madsen and Paul G.Pickowicz (eds), Popular China: Unofficial Culture in a Globalizing Society . New York: Rowman and Littlefield, pp. 111–135. ——(forthcoming), “Underdogs, lapdogs, and watchdogs: journalists and the post-1989 Chinese public sphere,” in Gu Xin and Merle Goldman (eds), Chinese Intellectuals Between the State and the Market . New York: Routledge. Zhao, Yuezhi and Schiller, Dan (2001), “Dances with wolves? China’s integration with digital capitalism,” Info , 3(2): 137–151.

3 Capturing the flame Aspirations and representations of Beijing’s 2008 Olympics Judy Polumbaum The observation that the Olympic Games are about much more than sport is a truism, yet one well worth reviewing as we anticipate the display scheduled for Beijing in the summer of 2008. As Hargreaves explains (1992), the Olympics represent a potent cultural resource with real implications for international relations and the domestic interests of nation-states. As the modern Games and their reach have grown ever bigger and grander, and also steadily more inclusive in terms of world regions, new nations, gender, race, and ethnicity; endeavors to make best use of Olympic resources also have grown more complex and contentious. The 2008 experience will surely be the most engrossing installment in the complex history of Chinese involvement in the Olympics (Kolatch, 1972:166–201). In recent decades, that history has entailed the seating of the People’s Republic of China in 1971, tensions and compromises over Taiwan’s membership, and Chinese athletic headway in a range of sports, paralleling the PRC’s growing prominence on the world stage. Beijing came tantalizingly close to landing the 2000 Olympics, losing to Sydney by just two votes in the fourth round of International Olympic Committee (IOC) balloting (Brownell, 1995:312–324). Having skipped the competition for 2004, which was awarded to Athens, Beijing became one of five candidate cities, narrowed from an initial field of eight applicants, under consideration for 2008, and was selected to host those Games at an IOC meeting in Moscow in July 2001. 1 What the Beijing Olympics turn out to be about will both resemble and depart from general and specific meanings of Games of the past. Every instance of the Olympics, summer or winter, is a crucible not only of emotional dedication, bio-mechanical excellence, and athletic attainment, but also of cultural assertion, political proclamation, economic maneuvering, and, of course, mediated spectacle. As such, each Olympics both reaffirms its own typicality and provides a new set of cultural manifestations illuminating specifics of its context. In general terms, every successive Olympics further illustrates what we believe we know about the “mega-event” (Roche, 2000) and “media event” (Dayan and Katz, 1992), becoming the latest extreme case of ideological bombast, commercial conniving, and television extravaganza, all in the guise of a purportedly idyllic and ostensibly shared global story. At the same time, in specific terms, each Olympics is uniquely revealing about host cultures, participant nations, media producers, immediate and dispersed audiences, transnational agents, and the character of human

Capturing the flame

57

action and exchange particular to the locale and the times. The stakes of the modern Olympics have always been emphatically ideological; even today, when the Games proffer overwhelming economic payoffs, athletics and business alike are enveloped in broader strategic purposes. More than a century of modern Olympic history supplies a string of examples of the staging of the world’s premier sporting event to accomplish non-sporting ends. 2 The Games may serve in part to obliterate a past shame or wrong, mask a current problem, revive or repair a moribund enterprise, enhance or elaborate a mission or identity, celebrate or commemorate an icon or myth. And they invariably provide opportunities for the pursuit of nationalistic interests, from specific foreign policy objectives to the general quest for prestige (Hargreaves, 1992). Meanwhile, each Olympics makes contributions to cumulative themes. The 1932 Los Angeles Games, which extended the event’s symbolic and ritual aspects and also supplied an astonishing parade of new records, laid the basis for our expectations of elaborate ceremonialism and transcendent achievement (Mandell, 1984:215–217). The 1936 Berlin Games, designed as a National Socialist Party showcase, presented a prototype for state-sponsored political programming (ibid., 244–246). Los Angeles in 1984 and Atlanta in 1996 brought the tenuous balance between benevolent entrepreneurship and crass commercialism to the fore. The theme of inclusiveness has advanced steadily since World War II, with growing participation of developing countries, women, indigenous peoples, and other previously marginalized groups illuminated by concerted efforts by Olympic organizers to draw attention to this trend. This essay is largely concerned with symbolic dimensions of the preparations for the Beijing Olympics, mindful of the significant material results that symbolic victories can produce. The prelude began more than a decade ago, with Beijing’s unsuccessful campaign to land the 2000 Summer Games. The culmination will not occur until 2008, when the ceremonies and competitions come to Beijing. Yet contending stories about the central meanings of the Beijing Games, produced largely through mass media accounts domestically and internationally, already are vying for preferred status with various audiences. The extent to which these different versions take hold in the popular imagination before as well as during the staging of the Games will help determine how the Games figure in China’s nation-building strategy, the International Olympic Committee’s selfperpetuation, and the global designs of transnational business. The stories that prevail also will shape how 2008 is remembered and historically defined. The following discussion considers stories that emerged from three perspectives in the period leading up to Beijing’s selection as host city: the perspective of the institutional interests of the international Olympic movement, evidenced in International Olympic Committee (IOC) activities and statements; the lens of U.S. geopolitical preoccupations, as reflected in news accounts and commentaries from the U.S. prestige press; and the vantage point of Chinese domestic interests, as expressed via mass media and official pronouncements. This chapter does not purport to be a definitive study of narrative constructions; rather, it highlights examples of contrasting portrayals to illuminate struggles over meanings that are likely to deepen as the buildup to the 2008 Games proceeds. These stories are evolving in a context of transnational maneuvering by global

Chinese media, global contexts

58

business interests, including the heavily invested mass media industry, as corporations draw on lessons of past Games to position for the future. The IOC stake: reconstituting legitimacy In his posthumously published meditation on sport, games, and play in American culture, A.Bartiett Giamatti, a Renaissance scholar whose true métier was the celebration of baseball, called sports “self-contained systems of convention” (1989:55). By this, he meant that sports are socially agreed-upon, internally consistent, coherent constructions—products neither of nature nor of chance, but rather of human design, their existence and continuation sustained by human assent. Crucial to the legitimacy of any given sport or sports event are the rules of the game, the assumption being that adherence to uniform conditions and norms of play will ensure that the most skillful or meritorious wins. “When the rules designed to sustain the convention that lawful skill (or skill lawfully applied) can win the day, that the game is a meritocracy, are weak or not enforced, then the quest for a covert edge will always threaten to shatter the whole enterprise” (Giamatti 1989:61). The modern Olympics may be understood as an especially complex instance of this principle of convention. At the most obvious level, the Olympics revolves around athletic contests, with each sport, every event, and all participants presumably bound by commonly understood rules. These range from technical specifications for venues and equipment to the regulations of particular sports to proscriptions on performanceenhancing drugs. In the ideological sphere, nations, organizations, and individuals involved in the Games collaborate to uphold internally coherent, if largely mythological, constructs of internationalism, good sportsmanship, and fair play. Indeed, the entire process of staging the Olympics—from cities’ vying for the opportunity to host them to construction of infrastructure and facilities, handling of promotions and sponsorships, issues of media rights and arrangements for coverage, consequences for the urban landscape and the lives of the locals, and, finally, the actual event and its aftermath—entails complicated negotiations of boundaries. Subtle infringements of rules for the process as they are understood globally, nationally, and/or locally may go unnoticed or excused, but an accumulation of transgressions or particularly egregious violations may have far-reaching implications. From time to time, the Olympic Movement has faced precisely the sorts of problems that, to repeat Giamatti’s words, “threaten to shatter the whole enterprise.” In recent decades, a variety of disruptions, controversies, and scandals, from political protest (Mexico City, 1968), boycotts (Moscow, 1980; Los Angeles, 1984) and terrorist violence (Munich, 1972; Atlanta, 1996) to charges of hypercommercialism (Atlanta, 1996) and concerns over illicit drug use (be it institutionalized, as in the sports system of the former East Germany, or programs of doping within a sport or team, or individual cases), have challenged the web of conventional understandings upon which this global institution depends. Episodes marring appearances of fairness and fraternity, although cumulatively corrosive, sometimes may be managed with fairly immediate damage control, as occurred with the 2002 Salt Lake City judging controversy that resulted in double sets of gold

Capturing the flame

59

medals being awarded for pairs figure skating. Larger threats require ambitious, longerterm strategies to preserve, protect, adapt, and, if necessary, even reconstitute the enterprise. Through the first half of the twentieth century, the lOC’s essential mode of conservation was exclusion, leading to the common observation that in the past, the organization was very much a white, male, Western European club whose membership, programs, and athletic participation mirrored that composition. The second half of the twentieth century brought necessary, if often grudging and belated, inclusion—seen, for instance, in admission to membership of countries emerging from colonialism, socialist states, and new states of the post-socialist era; and in recognition and accommodation of women, ethnic minorities, the disabled, and other previously neglected constituencies in celebrations, competitions, and ancillary sporting events, and, very slowly, in IOC leadership. At the start of the twenty-first century, preservation of the Olympics as a sacrosanct mission and occasion appears to hinge on convincing participants and observers alike of the “cleanliness” and transparency of the institution. The latest major threat to the Olympic Movement’s legitimacy has been the scandal surrounding the host city selection process. Revelations of systematic and extravagant efforts by Salt Lake City’s bid committee to court IOC votes for the 2002 Winter Games, first reported by local television in November 1998, eventually led to investigations by Salt Lake, Atlanta, and Sydney officials as well as by the U.S. Congress and the IOC itself (Lenskyj, 2000; US. Congress, 2000; IOC, 1999). The various inquiries converged in their findings that the bidding process had been riddled with hypocrisy and corruption ever since the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, the Games which had set a model for commercial viability. Standard practice had come to include relentless courting of IOC members by would-be host cities—notably Salt Lake City, but also Atlanta—with dispensation of trips, gifts, medical care, and other forms of largesse and bribery. The investigations confirmed what had long been alleged by critics (Simpson and Jennings, 1992; Jennings, 1996) but, with a few exceptions (e.g., Johnson and Verschoth, 1986), were largely ignored by mainstream media and the IOC. Suddenly, the sordid story was the story. Atlanta and Sydney were found to have overstepped bounds in much the same ways as Salt Lake, the general argument being that bid cities were merely doing what everyone did. As William P.Payne, co-chair of the Atlanta Olympic Committee, testified during Congressional hearings in 1999: The IOC culture…existed within a closed system that had been historically insulated from many external oversight mechanisms. It was, in effect, a world unto its own with no apparent accountability. Each IOC member had a totally independent, totally subjective voting power and a secret ballot system. Lobbying the votes of these members throughout the 2½ years of our efforts was intensely competitive and largely uncontrolled among the bidding cities, with no limits on overall spending, no disclosure requirements, and little public scrutiny (U.S. Congress, 2000)

Chinese media, global contexts

60

The bid scandals prompted perhaps the most dramatic reforms in Olympic history. The response included, first, sanctions for individual offenders; second, adoption of new organizational and procedural structures and safeguards; and third, unprecedented disclosure of information about IOC business. The IOC drastically overhauled host city selection procedures. Simultaneously, it mounted an emphatic and very public campaign emphasizing ethics and transparency and signaling a fresh start for the Olympic cause. The impending changing of the guard of IOC leadership—Belgian physician and former Olympic athlete James Rogge succeeded Spain’s Juan Antonio Samaranch at the same July 2001 meeting that selected Beijing for 2008—lent additional credibility to the reforms. As an immediate result of the lOC’s inquiry, ten members resigned or were expelled; ten others were warned; an interim process for selecting the 2006 Winter Games site was put in place, prohibiting gifts and visits; and a permanent Ethics Commission was set up and an ethics code drafted, limiting interactions of IOC members and bid committees as well as the exchange of gifts and hospitality. In addition, a Reform Commission was formed to propose permanent changes, creating a new framework for the 2008 bid. The selection process now entails an extensive two-stage application process, requirements for voluminous documentation, public release of evaluation reports, and bans on junkets and lobbying visits, whether by individual IOC members to bid cities or by bid city representatives to IOC members. 3 In the best of circumstances, the selection of an Olympics host city must accommodate issues ranging from geography to sports prominence. Although IOC rules have no explicit requirement regarding regional equity, the Olympic rhetoric of internationalism would seem to make this a tacit consideration. Thus, China likely benefited from the fact that Asian cities have hosted the Summer Games only twice: Tokyo in 1964 and Seoul in 1988. China’s emergence in international sports arenas is another factor, although again, not germane to any explicit requirements for hosting the Games. China won twenty-eight gold medals at Sydney, a dozen more than at Atlanta, in events ranging from shooting to table tennis, gymnastics, and diving. And Chinese athletes, notably in soccer and basketball, both men’s and women’s, are beginning to enter the international labor market for sports talent. But selection of the 2008 host city, requiring majority endorsement of 123 individuals from eighty-one countries comprising IOC membership at the time, was freighted with extra significance, for it constituted the initial test of the new procedures. To assure the IOC that the Games would succeed in the eyes of the world, Beijing first of all had to meet a panoply of technical, financial, and other material requirements. The city also had to convey its ability to fulfill less tangible needs of the IOC. In this period specifically, to restore and maintain legitimacy, the IOC must continue to distance itself from scandal, demonstrate its sincerity about reform, and foster impressions of broad mass support, cultural sensitivity, political conciliation, and inclusion. The IOC also needs to promote viable responses to concerns about financing and commercialization. The choice of Beijing for 2008 makes China an integral component in the Olympic establishment’s endeavor to rebuild its image, and the Chinese host must serve this gamut of purposes. Beijing’s capacity to accommodate IOC objectives from a technical perspective

Capturing the flame

61

emerges clearly in documentation of the bid process. In fact, close scrutiny of IOC reports should have eliminated many of the doubts about Beijing’s chances that lingered in U.S. media accounts up to the eve of the decision. Beijing’s ability to address technical requisites was reflected in the preliminary assessment brought to the IOC executive board (IOC, 2000), which then selected five finalists from the eight original candidate cities, and its suitability was reaffirmed in a second report by a panel of reviewers. 4 The first-stage evaluation set a generally positive tone on all main dimensions examined: government and public support, general infrastructure, sports infrastructure, Olympic Village capacity, environmental conditions and impact, accommodations, transport, security, experience with past sporting events, finances, and general concept. Beijing was especially commended in areas of government efforts, public opinion, and accommodations for athletes and guests; and although the report rated Beijing behind Paris, Toronto, and Osaka on transport, telecommunications, and other aspects of infrastructure, it expressed satisfaction with the pace of development toward meeting needs for 2008. Beijing clearly had a strong case upon entry into the second stage. Under the new procedures, in this second stage, an IOC Evaluation Commission reviewed additional materials and visited the five finalist cities in early 2001, then produced a report (IOC, 2001) pronouncing Paris, Toronto, and Beijing all to be outstanding candidates. Regarding Beijing’s bid, the Commission concluded that “a Beijing Games would leave a unique legacy to China and to sport” and that “Beijing could organize an excellent Games.” Paris and Toronto were deemed “excellent” candidates as well. Why, then, did Beijing ultimately, and quite easily, win the IOC vote? The argument here is that, beyond the Chinese city’s capacity to host an extravaganza of international proportions in the fairly short run, Beijing promised to accommodate longer-term needs of the Olympics establishment more adequately than its Western European or Canadian rivals. The choice of Beijing seems particularly apt in light of concerns that are barely implied, if that, in the formal criteria, related to the lOC’s own image-rebuilding agenda. Geo-political sensitivities certainly were a factor; yet the IOC selection went beyond extending largesse to Asia, and beyond recognizing China’s rich culture, growing athletic prominence, or modernizing ambitions. The perceived authority of China’s government along with the evident depth and breadth of public enthusiasm for hosting the Games undoubtedly were reassuring to IOC members. Beijing’s selection also made macro-economic sense as an answer to the lOC’s search for an equilibrium between public and private financing. German scholar Holder Preuss, in his detailed analysis of the economics of the Olympic Games (2000), observes that models of Olympic financing have moved gradually from reliance on public sources to much greater private sector involvement. However, as he points out, the IOC has become uncomfortable with excessive reliance on private enterprise, which reached its peak in what some called Atlanta’s “Coca-Cola Olympics” of 1996. Preuss concludes that mixed public-private configurations have been the most successful in both practical and symbolic terms, and suggests the IOC also prefers this model. He also suggests (2000:34) that the mixed model is of most benefit to host cities themselves, since “private organizers invest little and concentrate on the staging of the Games whereas public organizers deliberately carry out urban development

Chinese media, global contexts

62

apart from staging the Games.” A Beijing Olympics resting on a financing mix of public allotments and private-sector interests looks especially good at this time (Chen and Wang, 2001). Under the new procedures for site selection, the IOC requires contractual guarantees from bid cities, and Beijing’s were impressive. Before the July 2001 vote, Beijing already had allocated U.S.$18 billion toward fifty major construction projects to upgrade transport, improve environmental protection, and otherwise meet conditions necessary to host the Games. The bid committee itself was headed by Beijing’s mayor, Liu Qi, and included other high officials in city government, the State Sport Administration, and the Chinese Athletic Association. The infrastructure improvements already underway and the close involvement of officials suggested the municipality and central government could be expected to deliver on further public investment. On the other hand, a Beijing Olympics is appealing for its presumed ability to attract substantial domestic, foreign, and multinational business support in sponsorship, licensing, supply, and other arrangements. The mixed model was evident in the financing of the bid expense itself, amounting to some U.S.$20 million, of which U.S.$8 million came from the government and the rest from private sponsorships and donations. Olympic gymnast Li Ning’s sports apparel company was a major domestic sponsor of the bid; and multinational endorsers even before Beijing’s selection was secure included General Motors and Xerox. Longtime Olympics sponsors such as Coca-Cola, Kodak, and McDonalds also are signed on for the 2008 Games. In short, in the macro-economic realm, Beijing holds out hope for an IOC in search of a financing structure that is both fiscally effective and symbolically acceptable. More broadly, for an international institution such as the IOC, whose survival rests on interlocked ideological and material concerns, Beijing offers a unique set of advantages. U.S. narratives: human rights and bilateralism The suggestion that relaxation of concerns about human rights paved the way for Beijing’s selection as host for the 2008 Summer Games—that worldwide disapproval of the Chinese military crackdown on student demonstrators in the spring of 1989 had faded sufficiently for Beijing to earn IOC confidence—is certainly inadequate as an explanation. If human rights were indeed decisive, how to explain that just four years after the crackdown, Beijing had almost landed the 2000 Games? Nevertheless, in U.S. media constructions of Chinese Olympic ambitions, the inescapable backdrop to Beijing’s bid for 2008 was its slim loss to Sydney for 2000; and the inescapable backdrop to that prior effort was the Tiananmen Square debacle. U.S. news accounts focused on the international condemnation of the suppression of demonstrators, the bloodletting of June 3–4, 1989, and continued surveillance, harassment, and persecution of political dissidents as a central factor in the vote on the 2000 site (Pollock et al., 1997). U.S. media also conveyed Chinese perceptions that the United States had unduly emphasized the site selection process under the “pretext” of human rights concerns. A New York Times report on the nationalistic flavor of Chinese coverage and commentary on the 1996 Atlanta Games captured a prevalent sense of

Capturing the flame

63

suspicion over America’s role in the Olympics at virtually all points, right down to judging (Faison, 1996). A later assessment of Chinese youth’s attitudes toward the United States said of the 2008 bid: “If China does not win, America will be blamed” (Smith, 2001). The true weight of human rights considerations in the 2000 vote is impossible to gauge—but the impression that it dominated the IOC agenda above all else is surely mistaken. Even before the new procedures were adopted, a would-be host city had to satisfy IOC investigators and members regarding a panoply of ostensibly “non-political” technical considerations, along with financial, environmental, social, and other factors that often have obvious political dimensions, and the fact that a large proportion of IOC members deemed Beijing to have passed the threshold often seems to be overlooked. One of the more experienced U.S. reporters on the China beat noted almost as an aside that the Tiananmen crackdown was not the only element in the IOC decision, writing, “When it comes to facilities, logistics and sheer aesthetics, Beijing had trouble matching Sydney’s bid” (Mann, 1993). And even this observation is grossly misleading, since Beijing actually was ahead of Sydney in the first three rounds of balloting. The mediated shadow of 1989 proved long, however, so when Beijing once again sought to host the Olympics, Tiananmen and, more generally, human rights remained central to U.S. news stories and commentaries in two respects. First, human rights surfaced as the touchstone for an implicitly moral judgment on whether Beijing deserved to host the Olympics. Second, the issue became critical to the pragmatic assessment of whether Beijing would actually succeed. This is not to say the issue was entirely a chimera: even as Chinese officials continued to complain about the Western focus on human rights abuses—as when Beijing Mayor Liu Qi, president of the city’s bid committee, reiterated: “We are firmly opposed to any attempts to foil Beijing’s bid on the excuse of human rights” (Xinhua, 2001)—China continued to supply ammunition for critics. The most obvious example was the ongoing campaign to suppress the Falun Gong movement, whose spiritual and health claims the government deemed a smokescreen for subversion. And the suggestion that human rights and the Olympics site selection decision are connected certainly has its own logic—a logic paradoxically endorsed by Chinese authorities when they detain troublesome people who have called for the making of that connection. Western reports readily pointed out, for instance, that when a seventeen-member IOC inspection team visited Beijing in February, in the first scheduled review of the five finalist cities, police warned relatives of jailed dissidents to stay away from the inspectors. What is noteworthy, however, is the training of the lens on one issue, largely to the exclusion of others. U.S. accounts framed Beijing’s bid as an attempt to prevail over global criticism of China’s human rights record even when IOC officials were scrutinizing a much larger range of considerations, especially under the new extended review procedures. Yet the link between human rights and Olympic prospects remained the single most prominent theme in U.S. media accounts about Beijing’s bid. Columnists readily offered analogies with Nazi Germany and the Berlin Olympics. One experienced Olympics reporter wrote:

Chinese media, global contexts

64

How can the IOC give the Games to a nation that continually renounces so much of what the Olympics are supposed to represent? Because nothing is beneath the IOC, which once allowed the Summer Games to be hosted by Adolf Hitler, who was able to display his own special take on human rights to the rest of the world. (Brennan, 2001) Another wrote: “Does it make sense to confer the prestige and favorable publicity of the Olympics on a regime that routinely strangles freedom of speech and religion and imprisons millions of its citizens in slave labor camps?” (Jacoby, 2001). The suggestion that awarding the Olympics to Beijing could be good for human rights in China also arose in U.S. accounts. The Chinese reformer credited with leaking official documentation of the Tiananmen crackdown (Zhang, 2001a), writing under the same pseudonym in a New York Times op-ed piece, argued that this step would strengthen the hand of reformers “by committing China more firmly to an open door and providing a focal point for further struggles for the rule of law and human rights” (Zhang, 2001b). News articles following the journalistic convention of “balance” framed the issue as an either/or question: “Will awarding the Games to Beijing strengthen the forces of liberalism and accelerate political reform? Or will it simply legitimize the regime’s bad behavior and feed its nationalistic fervor?” (Larmer, 2001). Another singular aspect of U.S. reporting on Beijing’s bid was the implication that U.S. public sentiment and/or official pressure could be decisive within the IOC. This notion came to the fore during the bilateral dispute arising from the collision of a U.S. spy plane with a Chinese plane, which resulted in the death of the Chinese pilot, in April 2001. Although careful reporters acknowledged that the incident might be irrelevant to a sports event quite a few years off, and that the IOC in any case would not base its decision on a bilateral matter (Longman, 2001), the very focus on U.S. umbrage toward China made U.S. influence in site selection a significant theme. U.S. leverage in the Olympics is unquestionably significant in some respects. Certainly, the U.S. economic role is enormous, with payments for U.S. broadcast rights and sponsorships by U.S.-based multinational corporations critical elements in the finances of the IOC as well as the conduct of the Games. Proportionately, however, the importance of the U.S. contribution has been shrinking. Whereas U.S. broadcasting accounted for 80 per cent of the lOC’s total of U.S.$287 million from TV rights revenues for the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, for instance, U.S. payments will constitute only about half of IOC TV rights revenue for the 2008 Games, expected to approach U.S.$2 billion (IOC website). Still, the U.S. share dwarfs all others; indeed, potential for economic leverage as a more realistic mode of pressure than politics came up at the U.S. Congressional hearings on the site selection scandal. The U.S. also looms large in what are supposed to be the central focus of the Games—the sports themselves. U.S. Olympic athletes win more medals than athletes of any other country (the U.S. medal count totalled ninety-seven at the 2000 Sydney Games, Russia was second with eighty-eight, and China third with fifty-nine). This, too, may be a function of economic resources. A recent study finds the most accurate predictor of Olympic medal harvest to be a nation’s gross domestic product (Bernard and Busse, 2000).

Capturing the flame

65

At the same time, the United States has no special prestige nor direct influence within the IOC, which remains a largely self-perpetuating body that is slow to change. Since the French aristocrat Pierre de Coubertin founded the modern Olympic Games in 1896, Western Europeans have retained considerable status and power in the Olympic establishment. That was the case even under the post-World War II presidency of American Avery Brundage. The recent IOC President Samaranch, whose tenure spanned the last two decades of the twentieth century, represented something of a bridge between old and new eras. He may be best remembered for overseeing the tremendous growth in Olympic broadcast revenues and commercial sponsorships. But he also consolidated and maintained his power during a period of rapid expansion of Olympic participation and broadening of IOC representation to encompass new interests and regions of the world. The IOC selects most of its own members, who until the latest reforms had lifelong terms. Only recently was a contingent of athlete representatives added. Numerous countries that are much smaller than the United States in terms of geography and/or population have as many or even more members than the United States. Collectively, Western Europe commands considerable clout, while representation from countries of Asia, Africa, and the former Soviet bloc has grown to more than tokenism. Indeed, if selection of the Olympics host city may be construed partly as an international popularity contest, U.S. protestations about Chinese human rights violations or bilateral disputes provoking Chinese sensitivities over sovereignty might even have helped Beijing’s case—a possibility that was noticeably absent from U.S. reporting and commentary surrounding the selection of the 2008 site. 5 In sum, U.S. media emphasis on human rights and the bilateral relationship overshadowed attention to Beijing’s actual campaign to land the 2008 Olympics. To the extent that bid committee activities were considered newsworthy, U.S. coverage typically highlighted obvious foibles and flaws, usually mockingly. Reports on preparations for the inspection team that visited in 2001 pointed to applications of fresh paint, displays of fake flowers in wintertime, and greendyed chemicals sprayed on the grass. English classes for service workers produced snide glimpses of taxi drivers practicing fractured English, while the announcement of plans to clean up public toilets inevitably gave rise to potty jokes. The city came across as over-eager, not very competent, and prone to Poternpkin Village tendencies. The ostensibly highbrow New Yorker sneered with a bit more panache, but it, too, relied on condescension and low blows (Hessler, 2001). The ethnocentrism of U.S. media coverage of international issues is a wellestablished finding in mass communication research (Gans, 1979) and media criticism (Rosenblum, 1979, 1993). U.S. constructions of Beijing’s 2008 Olympics bid in the prestige press conformed to the pattern, placing the focus on U.S. policy interests which from other perspectives looked less decisive and even peripheral. China’s human rights record is likely to remain a central emphasis of U.S. reporting in the next phases of concentrated media attention on the Beijing Olympics, i.e., during the immediate prelude to the Games and during the Games themselves, reflecting the persistent high profile of human rights in U.S.-China relations. Whether the predilection for superficial skewering will continue to be a feature of U.S. coverage remains to be seen.

Chinese media, global contexts

66

Chinese narratives: entitlement and destiny China, meanwhile, has constructed its own momentum toward 2008, ranging from earnest to outsized. In some ways, the campaign is so obvious as to be uninteresting. Beijing’s claims on Olympic entitlement provide poor material for further study of the sort of experimentation, diversity, subtlety, contradiction, and dissonance in contemporary Chinese media that scholars of international communication have come to expect (e.g., Chu, 1994; Lee, 1994, 1990, 2000; Zhao, 1998). Indeed, an old-fashioned “transmission model” of propaganda works quite well for analyzing coverage of China’s Olympic prospects and preparations, so resoundingly do Chinese media reiterate authoritative positions as conveyed through government pronouncements, the 2008 Olympics website, and other official forums. Chinese Olympics organizers have framed their mission as one of both altruistic internationalism and benevolent nation-building. Beijing’s stated reasons for hosting the Games, found on the official website and in bid and organizing committees’ promotional literature, include a desire to promote “the Olympic spirit” with its dedication to peace, friendship, and civilization; the desire to “show the world” China’s economic, cultural, social, and political achievements; and the desire for an opportunity to further spur China’s reform and development. Considerable attention is devoted to the notion of a “Green Olympics,” with touting of projects to improve air and water quality and expand green space, tree-planting, and recycling. The municipality’s self-professed qualifications for hosting the Olympics include “economic strength,” “social stability,” sports achievements, experience in hosting large sporting competitions, and existing or planned infrastructure and facilities. The unequivocal endorsement of China’s central government as well as “enthusiastic support” from the public that proved pivotal in winning IOC confidence continue to be highlighted. All these rationales have been mirrored in Chinese media in recurring themes such as devotion to Olympic ideals, the Games’ contributions to the interests of modernization; commitment to environmental improvements; and notions of civic participation and popular support. In the months leading up to the July 2001 selection vote, the Beijing bid committee website stated: “It is the aspiration of both Beijing residents and the Chinese people to share the Olympic spirit, take part in Olympic affairs and host the Olympic Games.” The site included an electronic bulletin board perpetually filled with expressions of Olympian enthusiasm, including poems and exhortations, from correspondents identifying themselves as students, peasants, soldiers, and workers. The sorts of coordinated endeavors of government agencies, educational institutions, media organizations, businesses, and other entities that had been employed in the campaign for the 2000 Games (Chen, 1998) were even more extensive and elaborate this second time around. China’s press and broadcast media regularly trumpeted support for the bid from large and undifferentiated masses of citizens, occasionally supported by figures from clearly unscientific surveys, sometimes solidified with seemingly more rigorous public opinion polls. Government and sports officials cast the bid in terms of an entire nation’s longstanding aspirations and dreams. At the same time, coverage often highlighted

Capturing the flame

67

individual expressions of support from Chinese and overseas-Chinese celebrities, from the Catholic bishop of Beijing to the Hong Kong action movie star Jackie Chan; or from influential foreigners associated with the Olympics, including Samaranch himself. The bid committee enlisted internationally acclaimed film director Zhang Yimou to produce video vignettes about Beijing, signaling that even a perceived cultural critic subscribed to this cause. Beijing’s cultural traditions and monuments have figured in coverage of both the bid and the aftermath, with everything from the Forbidden City to the Great Wall seen not simply as a backdrop, but as potential venues for Olympics activities. The torch relay might wend its way along the Silk Road. This may be a municipal project, but it is a national mission, constantly regenerating the idea that China deserves the Games, and that the Games are China’s destiny. The Olympics vision may be that increasing rarity in China, a broadly popular idea in a society that is increasingly differentiated and stratified. Media authorities and journalists readily closed ranks around an upbeat story that could please both political leaders and media consumers, bridging politics and the marketplace with minimal contortion. And the presumption that media audiences shared in a uniform national yearning for greater recognition and respect on a world stage, a sense of destiny and entitlement that landing the Olympic Games would help satisfy, found empirical confirmation in public opinion polls. As Schaffer and Smith found in the case of Sydney (2000b:215), an Olympics in Beijing provides a good vehicle for accomplishing “cultural work” in the everyday life of the nation. The 2008 Olympics mission comes across as largely ideological, but the purported benefits of hosting the Games include important material claims. Chinese planners have figured, for instance, that the Beijing Games will require an outlay of U.S.$1.609 billion and take in an income of U.S.$1.625 billion, thus coming out ahead with a profit of U.S.$16 million. Preuss (2000), who has scrutinized profit and loss on the Games in depth, finds that breaking even and even achieving a surplus are not unrealistic goals for a host city. By his calculations, even Munich’s 1972 Games, which reported a U.S.$.544 million deficit, and the 1976 Olympics, which left Montreal with a U.S.$1.23 billion deficit, could be considered profitable when the costs of enduring infrastructure investment are removed. Furthermore, Preuss says, IOC financing sources and strategies developed in recent decades help ensure financial success, with the IOC offering host cities approximately 40 per cent of their required budget. And he predicts that increasingly efficient mechanisms for planning and staging the Games will put hosting opportunities within reach of more developing countries. Beijing’s hopes for the Games go well beyond aims of short-term profit and image enhancement, however. The longer-term objectives appear to include justification for extensive infrastructure improvements, attraction of new investment, and development of the urban economy. The Games, in Preuss’ words, “have turned into an instrument to concentrate all the power of a city on a single goal.” China’s long experience with campaigns in the past certainly facilitates mobilization of public energies for this purpose. If, broadly speaking, China’s populace is both wary and weary of campaignstyle endeavors, this particular endeavor may be an exception to the general situation of “campaign fatigue” in Chinese society that has persisted since the end of the Cultural

Chinese media, global contexts

68

Revolution. Whether economic predictions and promises for the modern Olympic Games are realistic remains controversial. Economist Philip Porter, in a study of Atlanta’s economic indicators for the summer of 1996, found no notable difference in economic activity from a typical year. In a displacement effect that others have also noticed, he concluded that the Olympics push as many people out of town as they bring in (deMause, 2000). But Australia’s tourism agency has quantified a range of economic benefits accruing from the Sydney Olympics of 2000, including increased tourism and trade surrounding the Games and associated promotions, greater exposure for the country as both tourist and investment destination in the future, and the creation of new business opportunities (Australian Tourist Commission, 2001). Preuss (2000:245) finds the mobilization of resources for the Olympic Games significantly improved urban infrastructure for Barcelona in 1992 and Seoul in 1988. This highlights the long-term benefits of the Games for developing countries and regions in particular—a Beijing, in other words, can get more bang for the buck from hosting an Olympics than a Paris or a Toronto, in large part because it has more to accomplish. The intersection of national, international and transnational agendas Selection of an Olympic host city always has a symbolic meaning for that city and country and the world—a meaning that will come to be distilled in the opening and closing ceremonies and will permeate the enveloping ideological emphasis of those particular Games. Of course, international media as well as different constituencies and audiences around the world construct their own meanings for the Games (Puijk, 1996; Rivenburgh et al., 1995). Yet the host has a certain advantage in shaping Olympic thematics (Larson and Park, 1993). This advantage puts its stamp on a given game for posterity. Thus, the Sydney Olympics focused on messages of independence from British colonial ties, redress for past injustices to indigenous peoples, and ecological sensitivity (Schaffer and Smith, 2000a:7). Atlanta resonated with accomplishments by and for women, albeit with the emphasis on taking sportswomen seriously accompanied by the mass marketing of female athleticism (Lopiano, 2000; Heywood, 2000). Seoul made its case as an emergent political and economic power; Barcelona symbolized Spain’s post-Franco rehabilitation as well as the cultural self-confidence of the Catalan region. Each Winter Olympics likewise has suggested overarching stories for its place and time. Most recently, in Salt Lake City, figure skating became a venue for resurgent great-power rivalry; newer events such as short-track speed skating and snowboarding showcased U.S. assertiveness and youth culture; and the capital of Mormonism proved its modernity and “normality.” We can anticipate that the Beijing Olympics will proclaim meta-narratives of progress and vigor. Yet as with every modern Games, these also will be a site of negotiations, accommodations, and conflicts. Some of these dynamics will build on existing tensions within the host country. The very fact that the central government backed Beijing for the Olympics, as opposed to Shanghai, is both manifestation of the dominance of a political center over a commercial one and impetus for further rivalry in the quest to become

Capturing the flame

69

China’s premier “global” city. Other latent divisions exist in the tensions between China’s developing coastal areas and lagging hinterland, in the contrasts between moribund state industries and the burgeoning private sector as well as between smokestack industries and new technologies, and in movements for autonomy among minority nationalities, particularly in Tibet and Xinjiang. For the Chinese state, the buildup to the 2008 Olympics in part will be a race to maintain cohesion against the threat of such fractures. The Olympics also provides an arena for contention among countries. The ideological utility of the Olympics in international relations is an inherent aspect of the Games, since an individual can only compete as a member of a nation (Mandell, 1984:253). It is the posturing of nation-states against each other to which sports scholar Alan Tomlinson (2000:170) refers when he describes the Olympics as primarDy a creation of political and economic “ideologues and entrepreneurs.” The power of the Games, he suggests, lies in their ability “to transmit cultural, political, and economic meanings and values” across boundaries. The staging of the Olympics becomes a nationalistic enterprise; the competitions themselves become demonstrations of cultural aggression and chauvinism. Given the worldwide participation, media saturation, and vast broadcast audiences attendant upon the Olympics, and most especially the Summer Games, they arguably constitute the premier forum in which nations negotiate images of themselves and each other. This role is heightened by intrinsic attributes of sport itself, including physical and emotional qualities that speak across cultures. This meaning-making capacity interacts with more tangible impacts on local, national, and international levels. The blatant competition among nations via sports is enveloped in subtler cultural and ideological contention; paradoxically, however, the highly-charged international rivalry takes place in a context of intensified collaborative transnational exchange. As Schaffer and Smith note (2000b:217), a winning Olympics bid transforms the host city into “the nexus of a massive media information network and flow of capital.” Today the Olympics are easy to identify as a “global” event of symbolic combat and communion. But the Olympic Games also serve the processes of “globalization” in a pragmatic sense. Given the extreme attraction of the Chinese market to multinational business, especially in the wake of China’s admission to the World Trade Organization, the Beijing Olympics might be the best demonstration yet of such a proposition. The idea that globalization is primarily a phenomenon of communication and culture is appealing to tourists, journalists, and scholars alike. This approach seems to fit the familiar apparitions Americans encounter abroad: The appearance of McDonald’s restaurants, the discovery of rap music, or enthusiasm for Hollywood films outside the United States suggest themselves as prima facie evidence of rampant globalization. From this perspective, China seems saturated with global culture. However, if globalization is defined more specifically as the accentuation of transnational flows of capital, labor, and information, the conclusions may be much more modest In fact, by most material measures, China is very weakly integrated into the global system (Kearney, 2001, 2002). The Beijing Olympics promises to accelerate the growth of financial transactions, travel and tourism, technological infrastructure, and other networks and processes through which globalization actually occurs, bringing qualitative as well as quantitative

Chinese media, global contexts

70

transformations in China’s position in the world economy. The ultimate question to be asked about an Olympics host is, perhaps, what’s the payoff, and for whom? The choice of Beijing for 2008 simultaneously serves agendas at various levels. Domestically, it offers Chinese citizens new purchase on a sense of national greatness and collective destiny. For the guardians of the international Olympic establishment, Beijing provides an opportunity to demonstrate magnanimity toward Asia and the developing countries, and to advance partnership between public and private interests with little practical risk. And the Games will foster conditions for China’s expanded participation in global trade, travel, labor migration, and capital flows, which is certainly desired by potential beneficiaries of the global economy both within and outside China. It is a serious story whose strands will continue to evolve and intertwine in accounts yet to be written, as well as accounts not written, about the Beijing Olympics of 2008. Notes 1 The host selection procedure entails dropping the city with the least votes on each round of balloting until one city receives an absolute majority. IOC members from cities in the running must abstain. In the voting for 2000, with six candidate cities, and ninety-eight IOC members at the time, Beijing was actually ahead in the initial ballots: in the first round, Sydney received 30 votes, Beijing 32, Manchester 11, Berlin 9 and Istanbul 7; in the second round, Sydney 30, Beijing 37, Manchester 13, Berlin 9; in the third round, Sydney 37, Beijing 40, Manchester 11. The vote on the fourth ballot was 45–43 for Sydney over Beijing. Atlanta had claimed the 1996 Games by a considerably larger margin, winning over Manchester by a vote of 51– 35 on the fifth ballot. Contrast also voting for the 2004 site, when Athens consistently got the top vote tally, finally winning over Rome 66–41 in the fifth round (there were actually only four full rounds, as round two was a runoff between Cape Town and Buenos Aires, which had tied for last place in the first round). In the selection for 2008, Beijing won a plurality on the first ballot and the necessary majority on the second: In the first round, Beijing received 44 votes, Toronto 20, Istanbul 17, Paris 15, and Osaka 6, and second-round votes were Beijing 56, Toronto 22, Paris 18, Istanbul 9. 2 To give some examples, the very first modern Olympics in 1896 featured barely veiled nationalistic pretensions on the part of the Greeks. The Paris Games of 1900 gave expression to a sense of national entitlement and the desire to project modernity; the 1904 Olympics, held in conjunction with the St. Louis international exposition, promoted eugenics and racial superiority; the 1908 London Olympics, part of a Franco-British exposition, signaled rapprochement of two traditional enemies in the face of rising German power; Stockholm in 1912 helped establish the Games as a modern, respectable, standardized and rationalized endeavor, while also asserting Sweden’s role in world affairs. The Antwerp Games in 1920 were recompense for Belgian suffering in World War I, much as the London Games of 1948 recognized Britain’s suffering in World War II; the 1964 Tokyo Olympics

Capturing the flame

71

represented Japan’s post-war reintegration into the world community as a nonthreatening but powerful and modern country; Barcelona’s 1992 Games, in addition to asserting regional status, helped Spain distance itself from its fascist past. 3 The housecleaning and erection of safeguards against future scandals may have served a less obvious purpose as well—that of consolidating the Olympic hierarchy. Lenskyj (2000:58–60) surmises that cities vying to host the Games were responding to the growing influence of poor and developing nations, and that exposure of bid city blandishments aimed at representatives from such countries gave traditional power-holders an excuse to bring these unruly elements back into line. Indeed, most of the IOC members forced out or reprimanded as a result of the inquiry were from Africa, Asia, or South America. Andrew Young, former mayor of Atlanta and a critical lobbyist for the 1996 Games, made a similar analysis in the 1999 Congressional hearings, when he observed (U.S. Congress, 2000): “What you had was for the first time all of these decisions were influenced mostly by the poor nations, and it meant that poor nations had a say, and the little European blueblooded elite couldn’t dominate the system anymore. And so while the system was corrupt, it was, in fact, democratic.” 4 The first-stage report concluded that just four candidate cities—Beijing, Osaka, Paris and Toronto—should go forward with bids. The IOC Executive Committee added Istanbul, while judging Cairo, Havana, Kuala Lumpur, and Seville not viable at the time. 5 A clear signal of waning U.S. moral authority in international forums was the United States’ inability to win enough votes to retain a seat on the United Nations Human Rights Commission in 2001—a considerable shock to a country that helped found the Commission in 1945 and had remained on it ever since. Even many Western allies have been distressed with, among other things, U.S. failure to ratify a number of international agreements (including the Convention on the Rights of the Child and the international treaty to ban landmines), lack of U.S. support for international tribunals, and U.S. Congressional resistance to paying UN dues. The Bush administration’s retreat from the Kyoto accord on global warming and revival of plans for a missile shield defense system also intensified dissatisfaction with U.S. foreign policy. References Australian Tourist Commission (2001), Olympic Games tourism strategy summary. Bernard, Andrew B. and Meghan R. Busse (2000), “Who wins the Olympic Games: Economic development and medal totals,” working paper of the National Bureau of Economic Research, Cambridge, MA. Brennan, Christine (2001), “Olympics don’t belong in Beijing,” USA Today , 19 April, p. 3-C. Brownell, Susan (1995), Training the Body for China: Sports in the Moral Order of the People’s Republic . Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Chen, Weixian and Forest Wang (2001), “The mother of all bids,” China International

Chinese media, global contexts

72

Business , 163 (June): 16–23. Chen, Yanru (1998), “Setting a nation in action: the media and China’s bid for year 2000 Olympics,” in D.Ray Heisey and Wenxiang Gong (eds), Communication and Culture: China and the World Entering the 21st Century . Amsterdam: Rodopi, pp. 289–310. Chu, Leonard L. (1994). “Continuity and change in China’s media reform,” Journal of Communication , 44:4–21. Dayan, Daniel and Elihu Katz (1992), Media Events: The Live Broadcasting of History . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. deMause, Neil (2000). “Preening, pride, and a pyrrhic prize,” SportsJones . http://www.sportsjones.com Faison, Seth (1996), “The view from China: A red, white and blue conspiracy,” The New York Times , August 4. Gans, Herbert J. (1979), Deciding What’s News: A Study of CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News, Newsweek, and Time . New York: Vintage. Giamatti, A. Bartlett (1989), Take Time for Paradise: Americans and their Games . New York: Simon & Schuster. Hargreaves, John (1992), “Olympism and nationalism: some preliminary considerations,” in Muriel Ladrón de Guevara i Bardaji, Olympic Games, Media and Cultural Exchanges: The Experience of the Last Four Summer Olympic Games . Barcelona: Olympic Studies Centre, pp. 143–152. Hessler, Peter (2001), “Letter from Beijing: great sprint forward,” The New Yorker , May 7, pp. 38–44. Heywood, Leslie (2000), “The girls of summer: social contexts for the ‘year of the woman’ at the ‘96 Olympics,” in Kay Schaffer and Sidonie Smith (eds), The Olympics at the Millennium: Power, Politics, and the Games . New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, pp. 99–116. International Olympic Committee (1999), “Report of the IOC ad hoc commission to investigate the conduct of certain IOC members and to consider possible changes in the procedures for the allocation of the games of the Olympiad and Olympic Winter Games.” Lausanne: 24 Jan. ——(2000), “Report by the IOC Candidature Acceptance Working Group to the Executive board of the International Olympic Committee.” Lausanne: 18 Aug. ——(2001), “Report of the IOC Evaluation Commission for the Games of the XXXIX Olympiad in 2008,” Lausanne, 3 April. Jacob, Jeff (2001), “Olympics 2008: say no to Beijing,” Boston Globe , May 7, p. A-l 1. Jennings, Andrew (1996), The New Lords of the Rings . New York: Simon & Schuster. Johnson, William Oscar and Anita Verschoth (1986), “Olympic Circus Maximus Barcelona (surprise) and Albertville, France, won the 1992 Olympic sweepstakes at the International Olympic Committee’s Lausanne meeting,” Sports Illustrated , vol. 65 no. 18, Oct27, 1986, pp. 39–43. Kearney, A.T. (2001), “Measuring globalization,” Foreign Policy , 122 (January/February): 56–64. ——(2002), “Globalization’s last hurrah?,” Foreign Policy , 128 (January/February): 38– 51.

Capturing the flame

73

Kolatch, Jonathan (1972), Sports, Politics and Ideology in China . Middle Village, NY: Jonathan David Publishers . Larmer, Brook (2001), “Beijing’s Olympic moment,” Newsweek , February 26, p. 45. Larson, James F. and Heung-Soo Park (1993), Global Television and the Politics of the Seoul Olympics . Boulder, CO: Westview. Lee, Chin-Chuan (ed.) (1990), Voices of China: The Interplay of Politics and Journalism . New York: Guilford. ——(ed.) (1994), China’s Media, Media’s China . Boulder, CO: Westview. ——(ed.) (2000), Power, Money, and Media: Communication Patterns and Bureaucratic Control in Cultural China . Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Lenskyj, Helen Jefferson (2000), Inside the Olympic Industry: Power, Politics, and Activism . Albany: State University of New York Press. Longman, Jere (2001), “Standoff unlikely to affect Beijing’s Olympic bid,” New York Times , April 11, p.C-15. Lopiano, Donna A. (2000), “Women’s sports: coming of age in the third millennium,” in Kay Schaffer and Sidonie Smith (eds), The Olympics at the Millennium: Power, Politics, and the Games . New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, pp. 117–127. Mandell, Richard D. (1984), Sport: A Cultural History . New York: Columbia University Press. Mann, Jim (1993), “Stigma of crackdown haunted Beijing’s bid,” Los Angeles Times , September 24, p. A-6. Pollock, John C., Beverly Kreuer and Eric Ouano (1997), “City characteristics and coverage of China’s bid to host the Olympics,” Newspaper Research Journal , 18(3): 31–49. Preuss, Holder (2000), Economics of the Olympic Games: Hosting the Games 1972– 2000 . Petersham, New South Wales: Walla Walla Press. Puijk, Roel (ed.) (1996), Global Spotlights on Lillehammer: How the World Viewed Norway During the 1994 Winter Olympics . Luton: University of Luton Press. Rivenburgh, Nancy K., Miguel de Moragas Spa and James F.Larson (1995), Television in the Olympics . London: John Libbey. Roche, Maurice (2000), Mega-Events and Modernity: Olympics and Expositions in the Growth of Global Culture . London: Routledge. Rosenblum, Mort (1979), Coups and Earthquakes: Reporting the World to America . New York: Harper & Row. ——(1993), Who Stole the News? Why We Can’t Keep Up With What Happens in the World and What We Can Do About It . New York: John Wiley. Schaffer, Kay and Sidonie Smith (2000a), “Introduction: the Games at the millennium,” in Kay Schaffer and Sidonie Smith (eds), The Olympics at the Millennium: Power, Politics, and the Games . New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, pp. 1–16. ——(2000b), “The Olympics of the everyday,” in Kay Schaffer and Sidonie Smith (eds), The Olympics at the Millennium: Power., Politics, and the Games . New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, pp. 213–223. Simpson, Vyv and Andrew Jennings (1992), The Lords of the Rings: Power, Money, and Drugs in the Modern Olympics . Toronto: Stoddart.

Chinese media, global contexts

74

Smith, Craig S. (2001), “Chinese youths’ darkening view of U.S.,” The New York Times , April 22, p. 8. Tomlinson, Alan (2000), “Carrying the torch for whom? Symbolic power and Olympic ceremony,” in Kay Schaffer and Sidonie Smith (eds), The Olympics at the Millennium: Power, Politics, and the Games . New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, pp. 167–181. U.S. Congress (2000), “The Olympics site selection process,” hearings before the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the Committee on Commerce, House of Representatives, 106th Congress, October 14 and December 15, 1999. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Xinhua News Agency (2001) ‘True Beijing to be shown to IOC inspectors,” 18 February. Zhang, Liang (2001a), The Tiananmen Papers: The, Chinese Leaders’ Decision to Use Force Against Their Own People—In Their Own Words . New York: Public Affairs. ——(2001b), “The Olympics can help reform,” The New York Times , March 30, p. A23. Zhao, Yuezhi (1998), Media, Market and Democracy in China: Between the Party Line and the Bottom Line . Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.

4 Established pluralism U.S. elite media discourse on China policy Chin-Chuan Lee Winning the Cold War has given the United States renewed self-confidence: “bound to lead,” as Joseph S.Nye (1990) tellingly describes it. It also signified the dissolution of strategic alliance against the Soviet Union between the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the United States. China has stepped in to be perceived as a hurdle to reconstructing the neo-liberal world order (Burchill, 1996), which the United States has adorned with “its redolent self-congratulation, its unconcealed triumphalism, and its grave proclamations of responsibility” (Said, 1993: xvii). Alongside public outrage in the United States over the Tiananmen suppression and its aftermath, Beijing was suspicious of Washington’s embarking on a policy of peaceful evolution aimed at China (Harding, 1992:11). The growth of China’s economic and military power, mixed with statist nationalism, has not earned Beijing the international recognition it covets, but has instead aroused regional if not world concern. A series of alarmingly virulent academic and journalistic discourses appeared in the United States, ranging from Fukuyama’s (1992) “end of history,” Huntington’s (1993) “clash of civilizations” to Bernstein and Munro’s (1997) bellicose theme of “coming conflict with China,” which coincided and clashed violently with strident, hysterical anti-American writings in China about China Can Say No and Behind the Demonization of China (see Huang and Lee, 2002; Chang, 2001). Mutual recrimination foregrounded the media discourses of the 1990s. In this chapter, I shall present a discourse analysis of the New York Times’s opinion landscape, both its editorials and columns, from 1990 to 2000 (for a total of eleven years) to illuminate what I shall call the “established pluralism” of its narratives about U.S.-China relations. 1 Managing democracy and capitalism The foreign policy of the United States has always been marked by an extraordinary hybridity of idealism, moralism, pragmatism, and imperial impulse dating back to the ideology of “manifest destiny.” Harboring no territorial ambition abroad but seeking political, economic, and cultural influence, the United States thinks of itself as “exceptional” rather than imperial, colonial, or hegemonic. During the Cold War, the hierarchy of its foreign policy aims included anti Communism and the diffusion of capitalist democracy in the name of modernization, with democracy subordinated to the overarching anti-Communist objectives, such that Washington frequently found itself supporting right-wing dictatorships while also championing democracy as a secondary

Chinese media, global contexts

76

agenda within its sphere of influence (Lee, 2001:10). As a self-avowed guardian of democracy and Western civilization, the United States perceives itself as “a righter of wrongs around the world, in pursuit of tyranny, in defense of freedom no matter the place or cost” (Said, 1993:5). The United States was at the forefront of the East-West conflicts, battling fiercely against the Communists, but was hostile to the South-North confrontations in which a majority of poor countries held Washington responsible for the unequal distribution of economic and information resources in the world. A nation has to construct “them” to anchor “us.” Progressive voices at home can turn indifferent, intolerant or belligerent when it comes to foreign countries. The U.S. media habitually made what Herman and Chomsky (1988) called “worthy victims” out of Communist abusers to highlight the superiority of capitalist democracy, while playing down human rights atrocities committed by U.S. allies. Media representation of China has always paralleled the fragile U.S.-China relationship; the oscillating cycles of romanticism and of cynicism reflect not only what is going on in China, but also what is going on in the United States, and what is going on between the two countries (Lee, 1990,. President Reagan returned from China in the mid-1980s declaring that the Chinese were good Communists and the Soviets were bad Communists. Washington maintained a double standard, refraining from criticizing China for the same human rights abuses for which it attacked the Soviet Union (Harding. 1992:201). Womack (1990:239) observed that Americans complacently viewed the change in China in the 1980s as a victory for capitalism and a loss for Communism, and then equally complacently interpreted the Tiananmen crackdown as “validating our own totalitarian stereotype of Communism.” In the post-Cold War and post-Tiananmen 1990s, much of the U.S. media discourse focused negatively on China’s human rights. The twin pillars of the United States have always been democracy and capitalism. They have often marched forward hand in hand, but have sometimes not aligned neatly together. The business of America being business, the post-Cold War milieu has ushered in a neo-liberal global regime, with momentum to push for a single global market through deregulation, free trade, and the spread of new communication technologies. The formation of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) have come to define trade as politics. The goal to capture a large share of the rapidly growing China market may not fully harmonize with the United States’ political and religious impulses to change the Middle Kingdom or Communist China (Spence. 1969; Barnet and Fairbank, 1985). At the center of policy and media disputes was the question of how to manage the essential tension between capitalism (trade) and democracy (human rights) in Washington’s quest to disseminate capitalist democracy to China. Elite discourses converged on the general goals yet diverged on the specific methods. In the 1990s both Presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton sharply divided the nation’s elite on this issue, but they were also tested by a coalition of Congress, human rights groups, and the elite media. The president commands authority and media spotlight second-to-none in foreign policy areas. Given the presumption of hierarchy and legitimacy, the president can mobilize bipartisan support for national interest, and “rallying around the flag” is particularly potent in wartime. Chang’s (1990) important study on the elite press

Established pluralism

77

coverage of U.S. policy toward China reveals that the President, his closest advisers, and key cabinet members (in that order) dominate the news, with Congress coming a weak second. To the extent that elite consensus is unified, the media tend to reproduce its hegemonic assumptions, either endorsing the policy or demonizing the enemy. Zaller and Chiu (1996) characterize the U.S. media as “the government’s little helper” in their coverage of foreign policy crises. If elite consensus should collapse, as in regard to U.S.China relations, the issue enters into what Hallin (1986) calls the “sphere of legitimated controversy,” obliging the media to report the institutional conflict and even emboldening them to challenge the policy framework. This makes the power structure a “prime definer” of reality and the media a “secondary definer.” By no means, however, are the media ad hoc players brought into the process of policy debates only for the sake of opinion management. Persistent negative media coverage of elite dissent, internal discord, policy failures, or scandals may impose considerable constraints on the administration’s ability to pursue certain initiatives. Clinton was not the first president to complain about not getting enough credit from the New York Times and other “knee-jerk liberal media” (Tifft and Jones, 1999:60). Patterson (2000) laments that the media are quick to launch vicious attacks on politicians and to frame an event as a power game, with the consequence that political leaders may lose the public confidence required for effective governance. National leaders tend to time their policy to the media climate. Each administration regularly launches “strategic communications campaigns” complete with a gamut of public relations apparatuses and news spinners to mobilize support from their constituencies (Bennett, 1994). When the media criticize the White House occupant, however, they do not question the fundamental assumptions and institutions of Americanism. Established pluralism Of the elite media in the United States, the New York Times has acquired a mythical status second to none in prestige and influence. As a “prestige paper” (Pool, 1952), and called “the fifth estate,” it functions as “something akin to a house organ for the political elite” (Sigal, 1973:47). With its unrivaled strength in international reporting (Hess, 1996), the New York Times even sets a common frame of reference for the State Department, Congress, and embassies (Cohen, 1963). Revered by media organizations in the country and around the world, it is a major elite actor, it provides a site and forum for elite discourse, and it produces policy and intellectual discourse for elite consumption. As a “newspaper of record,” its responsibility, claimed James Reston, is to the historians of fifty years from now (Merrill, 1968). Even leaders of social movements groups have to take its ability to certify reality seriously (Gitlin, 1980). Also mindful of its enormous influence, Chomsky (1990:13) has derided the New York Times as an “official press” that manufactures “necessary illusions” of pluralism while in fact it marks off the ideological boundary for the state-corporate complex: “Thus far, no further.” Schudson (1995:4–6) berates this totalistic view as dismissing the relative autonomy of the liberal media and putting the New York Times perilously close to Pravda or, for that matter, the People’s Daily.

Chinese media, global contexts

78

My selection of the New York Times for study is based on the assumption that informed publics are most likely to adopt elite cues in the news to structure their thinking about world events and, further, influence mass opinion (Zaller, 1992). I shall use “established pluralism” to characterize its discourse about U.S.-China relations, but the generality is far broader. For example, U.S. elite media discourse interpreted China’s absorption of Hong Kong as America’s new “guardian” responsibility to defend liberty and democracy against Communist abuse, while invoking the “Trojan horse” metaphor to conclude that the capitalist enclave would subvert China from within (Lee et al., 2001, 2002). While the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post took a tougher stance toward China than the New York Times, the range of their “ideological packages” was remarkably similar. Television network news was ideologically most blatant. The first characteristic of “established pluralism” states that elite media discourse in the United States consists of a plurality of viewpoints within a narrow range of the established order or the official circle, thus producing an orchestra of “diversity within unity” in support of the hegemonic voice. This perspective rejects the orthodox, romanticized, unachievable “watch dog” myth as failing to recognize the bounded nature of a free press within the larger political and economic contexts. It also takes exception to Chomsky’s (1990) “lap-dog” media, for the idea of outright media submission to the power structure does not sufficiently acknowledge the contestation between centrally legitimated institutions. This contestation legitimates the “mediation” role of the media— both passively “reflecting” the legitimated controversy and actively “intervening in” the definition of situation. Metaphorically, my perspective is in accord with the “guard-dog” media hypothesis, in which Donohue et al. (1995) contend that the media “perform as a sentry not for the community as a whole, but for groups having sufficient power and influence to create and control their security systems.” Bennett (1990) and Cook (1998) also maintain that the media “index” the range and dynamics (intensity, time, and duration) of discourse in Washington officialdom as a central tool for domestic political operation. Seeing the power structure as primary and the media agency as secondary, this line of thought holds that the media pay deference but do not give outright submission to the authority structure. In the current example, the New York Times explicitly ruled out China as a “routine case” because of the significance of US.-China relations and the magnitude of China’s bad behavior. The elite discord made media contestation over China policy unusually vigorous and rancorous, giving editorialists and columnists considerable latitude in admitting the voices of prominent legitimated critics ranging from selected members of the Congress, leaders of human rights and church groups, to several Chinese dissidents. But the proposed policy alternatives—containment, engagement, and global integration— resembled an intramural debate in the corridor of power. The “American people” are often rhetorically appropriated, but what is out of the elite’s mind is out of the media’s sight. Alternative or oppositional voices perceived to be a threat to the system are routinely neglected or marginalized into the “sphere of deviance” (Hallin, 1986). Given America’s political culture, the New York Time’s sphere of legitimated controversy is largely confined within the mainstream center, excluding radical and unpopular views such as those of Chomsky.

Established pluralism

79

The second characteristic of “established pluralism” states that the elite media have a strong tendency to “domesticate” foreign realities in an effort to construct what Said (1993) calls “Orientalist discourses.” 2 Deeply rooted in American middle-class liberalism and the enduring values of responsible capitalism and altruistic democracy, these discourses fuse with the ethnocentric belief that “nothing is fundamentally wrong with American democracy even if reforms are needed” (Gans, 1979:42). Foreign countries are judged by the extent to which they live up to or imitate American practices and values. The media treat foreign news as variations on domestic themes “relevant to Americans or American interests” and with “interpretations that apply American themes” (Gans, 1979:37). Similarly, Amanda Bennett (1990) illustrates how the “myth structure” informs American journalists’ image of China. The world news is “the politics of loud and whispering voices,” and its “selective articulation” is based on the interpretive frameworks and definitions generated by the center, not the periphery (van Ginneken, 1998). News reports about China constitute both those originating from China and those from Washington, but editorials and columns of the New York Times focus exclusively on official “Beltway consensus”: what should we do about China? Much less concern is given to what is happening in China. News born out of Washington’s partisan politics may provoke all-consuming passion to produce its own life cycle. While writers occasionally cite news stories filed from the field, they lose little time in pegging such stories to Washington’s sweeping agendas. Once the news is domesticated, the media are energized to write world-news scripts from Washington beats (Bennett, 1994:28). They proceed to construct discourses from flexible positional superiority, much as Said’s (1978:109) portrayal of the West as “the spectator, the judge and jury” of China’s behavior. They seem to know China better than China herself, but it is a Communist China selectively seen from Washington’s perspectives. Complex issues are often essentialized to clichéd, reductive, and stereotypical generalizations, in which “we” are pitted against “them” and “they” may or may not be worth “our” redemption. Seldom presented is a hybrid, heterogeneous, extraordinarily differentiated, and unmonolithk picture of China, the United States, or their relations. China exists, to some, as “an occasion for the tyrannical observer” (Said, 1993:310). The task of orientalizing China was made easier by Beijing’s continuing repression. Other issues or supporting actors (Taiwan, Hong Kong, Tibet, Russia, Cuba, or India) were subsumed by the grand narratives of U.S.-China relations. Third, “established pluralism” is routinized in the institutionalized structure and practice of elite media organizations to achieve what Tuchman (1978) calls a “strategic ritual of objectivity” or what Page (1996) calls “constructed deliberation.” Despite its vast national and global influence, the New York Times is much more reticent about how it makes judgments than its French or German peers (Pool, 1952:83). Structurally, Page (1996) observes that the editorial position of the New York Times ends up exactly in the center, only to be flanked in a balanced and symmetrical fashion by columnists who align with a more conservative or liberal position. Speaking in a somewhat coordinated fashion, it advances its policy views while conveying “an impression of diverse participation and vigorous debate” (Page, 1996:20). Editorials are an outcome of editorial conference; during the study period we identified fifteen columnists, each with a varying

Chinese media, global contexts

80

duration of tenure. 3 This elite group is extraordinarily articulate, publicminded, close to high power, professionally committed yet strongly opinionated—and ultimately hewed to the unquestioned role of the United States in the world. It is highly skewed in terms of gender and ethnicity: four females, one black, more than half Jewish; no Asian or Chinese Americans write about China affairs. What should we do about China? To distill the frames of the New York Tmes’s narratives, I take a constructionist approach to framing analysis (Gamson, 1988; Gamson and Modigliani, 1987, 1989) that deconstructs and reconstructs the editorials and column articles into elemental frames. These frames serve as an organizing scheme with which writers provide coherence to their commentaries and through which some critical issues can be discussed. Gitlin (1980:7) writes, “[M]edia frames, largely unspoken and unacknowledged, organize the world both for journalists who report it and, in some important degree, for us who rely on their reports.” I first deconstruct the editorials and column articles into what Gamson and Lasch (1983) call a “signature matrix,” a device that lists the key frames and links them to salient signifying devices. I then reconstruct their major theses into genotypical categories—or what Gamson calls “ideological packages”—replete with metaphors, exemplars, catch phrases, depictions, and appeals to principle. This discourse analysis involves iterative, comparative, and reflective readings of 464 articles (including 205 editorials and 259 column articles) published from 1990 to 2000, all retrieved from Lexus-Nexus according to the New York Times Index. This pool averages eighteen editorials per year. 4 The New York Times typically runs two to three editorials a day, all unsigned, each between 400 and 600 words. A column runs approximately 650–700 words. Almost all fifteen columnists wrote something about China during the conflict ridden decade, but mostly using it as an example of dictatorship for ridicule, illustration, or contrast. Only four columnists proffered their insights on U.S.-China relations on a sustained basis: with the editorials holding the center of gravity, A.M.Rosenthal (132 articles) and William Safire (54) held the rightist ground while Thomas Friedman (54) and Anthony Lewis (19) stood mildly on the left. Table 4.1 sums up the three ideological packages that have emerged from the discourse analysis: containment (conservative), engagement (centrist), and global integration (liberal). All situated in the dominant visions of national interest, they represent various ways of managing China as well as managing the essential tension between democracy and capitalism in relation to China. These “insiders” breathe and exhale the air of Washington politics, sharing similar horizons of vision, styles of thinking, and assumptions about reality. Their ideologically aligned frames coincided with Clinton’s policy contour: the conservative columns echoed his early hawkish position (1992–94); the centrist editorials supported his main-course policy (1994–97 and thereafter); while the liberal columns championed his post-1997 globalist thinking. In hindsight, the perceived failure of containment (as Clinton acknowledged) led to the pursuit of engagement, and the perceived weakness of engagement led to the shifting of course to “global integration.” Beneath the liberal veneer of this change was an intense battle in

Established pluralism

81

which the business interest triumphed over human rights advocates. Despite their overlapping logic, what set “global integration” off from “engagement” was that the United States, instead of taking on China directly, would seek to dissolve China into the “civilized world.” Years after Clinton had moved far away from containment, the conservative frame was further congealed to his earlier position, thus provoking the feelings of anger and betrayal. Insofar as these three frames were largely associated with the administration’s policy history, the globalist thinking may have appropriated the “engagement” frame but it never silenced the “containment” voices, which have coexisted as a counterpoint to the new policy orthodoxy. Professional courtesy forbade open attacks on collegial writers in the same paper, but a seething sense of ideological contestation between unnamed co-debaters was in the air. Containment Containment inherited the Manichean Cold War ideology that George Kennen first developed in the 1950s to encircle the Communist bloc. The only way to reform Communist China, Rosenthal declared in 1990, was “to end it.” Fukuyama (1992), Huntington (1993), and Bernstein and Munro (1997) echo this assumption of a hostile and invariant Communist regime. Abhorring Bush’s refusal to punish China with trade sanctions despite evidence of further repression there, Rosenthal accused him of dumping the democracy movement in China and turning his back on the cause of freedom. Beijing allegedly had “silenced” Bush, who was a friend of China’s leaders rather than its political prisoners. He opposed Bush’s subsidizing “wardens of the gulag” with mostfavored nation (MFN) trade status, and from late 1992 onwards urged consumer boycotts on Chinese shirts and goods to little avail. Presidential candidate Clinton attacked Bush for “coddling the butchers of Beijing.” Table 4.1 Ideological packages of the New York Times editorials and columns (1990– 2000)

Ideological Containment packages

Engagement

Global integration

Frame

Use trade privileges to punish Attach modest and China for its poor human achievable human rights rights record. conditions to trade.

Bring China into international organizations (especially the WTO) to enhance American trade and Chinese human rights.

Metaphors

Tiananmen massacre. “Kowtow to Butchers of Beijing.” Communist China, authoritarian Singapore,

“Globalution.” The Golden Arch Theory of Conflict Prevention. “Diplomacy to

Tiananmen crackdown. “Draw China in, don’t shut China out.” “Don’t punish the wrong China.”

Chinese media, global contexts

82

democratic Taiwan. Gestapo prison, Soviet gulag. Cuba. Exemplars

gardening.” Taiwan, Hong Kong, Iran.

New China lobby. “The China Carrots and sticks. Stand Draw red lines, build Connection.” up to Beijing’s bullying bridges. without wrecking a longterm relationship.

Catchphrases Appeasing the wardens of the gulag. “Prisoner of Beijing.” “Don’t coddle tyrants, just surrender.” Trade human rights for the mirage of the China trade. “Sups with the Devil.” Engagement with Communist politburo. “The only way to reform Communism is to end it.” “My Wei.”

“Coddling Beijing, constructively.” “China, without illusions.” Washington’s policy on automatic pilot toward engaging with China.

American leverage: Chinese crave Big Macs, Macintosh, Microsoft, and Mickey Mouse. From Mao to Merrill Lynch without stopping at Madison. Ayatollah Deng.

Depictions

Arrest of prominent dissidents. Persecution of Christians and Tibetans. Clinton’s campaign contributions from China. China as a nuclear thief and proliferator.

Prominent dissidents. Presidential visits. Congressional interference. Greed of U.S. business. Target exports from China’s state-owned industries. Western economic sanctions.

Chinese economy will head for Thailand II. People will privatize the Communist Party. MFN is a wrong club. Dissidents. Train China’s lawyers and judges in the U.S.

Principles

Human rights

Targeted sanctions

Peaceful evolution, rule of law

Writers

Rosenthal (n=132), Safire (n=54)

Editorials (1990–97, n=154)

Friedman (n=54), Lewis (n=19), editorials (1997–2000, n=61)

In late 1993, Rosenthal praised Clinton for tying MFN status to China’s “significant progress” toward human rights, only to denounce him months later for severing that linkage. The May 27, 1994 column, “Don’t coddle tyrants, just surrender,” berated Clinton’s turnaround (worse than Clinton’s famous antiBush campaign diatribe); four days later, Rosenthal claimed that China had taken Clinton as a new “prisoner” and his administration would “dance happily on the strings.” Thereafter, Rosenthal labeled Clinton as a “prisoner of Beijing.” Later, he relentlessly lashed out at America’s Chinatrade lobby, said to “sup eagerly with the Devil” and make Clinton trade human rights for “the mirage of the China trade” at any moral, political, and even security cost. This cost included sale of American nuclear technology to China, “a critical danger to world security.” In 1997 he discovered a “connecting line” between Chinese dictators and their

Established pluralism

83

sale of nuclear technology to Pakistan, Iraq, and Iran: they all wanted to “weaken America.” As a staunch defender of Israel, he was furious about the Jewish state’s sale of advanced military weapons to China, for it not only proved that “all Jews are not smart,” but also dimmed Israel as “a lantern of democracy” and enabled China to shoot down U.S. or Taiwanese planes. America was now a “hostage” to China, and Clinton’s “strategic partner” was China’s Communist politburo, not its people. “We need no longer worry about America’s credibility,” he concluded in 1999, “we have none.” Rosenthal’s favorite description of Bush’s and Clinton’s China policy was “appeasement,” a word that showed up three or four times in many columns. Close competitors included “butchers of Beijing,” “kowtowing to Beijing,” “tyrants,” “Communist dictators,” and “prisoner of Beijing.” He compared China more than a dozen times to Hitler’s Germany, the Imperial Japan, Stalin’s Soviet Union, Saddamite Iraq, and Ayatollah Iran, while drawing a parallel between Beijing’s bid to host the 2000 Olympic Games and the Nazi’s 1938 Olympic Games. He admired Chinese dissidents, especially Wei Jingsheng and Harry Wu (to the latter he dedicated a column); the Dalai Lama; and Representative Nancy Pelosi and Senator George Mitchell, who tried unsuccessfully to override Clinton’s policy in Congress. Rosenthal published the phone numbers, fax numbers, and websites of the pro-human rights individuals and groups. He criticized Clinton’s hypocrisy in imposing an embargo on Cuba and condemning Cuba’s human rights abuse at the United Nations, only to let China off the hook. Feeling betrayed, he devoted thirteen articles from 1997 until his retirement in 1999 to exposing the persecution of Tibetans and Chinese Christians. He chided former President Carter’s portrayal of booming Christian churches in China as “a classic example of propagandist technique.” He must have retired with a broken heart. The other conservative columnist, Safire, was among those who wrote appreciatively in the mid-1980s about China’s “rejection of Marxism” and “embrace of capitalism” (Harding, 1992:170). A former speechwriter to President Nixon, he confessed not to have been in the vanguard of criticizing Bush’s China policy in the hope that political freedom would follow capitalism in China. Seeing no change in China, however, in 1992 Safire began to attack Bush for “kowtowing.” In late 1993, he declared that Asians would look to the United States to “induce Beijing to let its new economic freedom spill over into political rights.” If he had previously favored China’s embrace of capitalism over the Soviet’s putting glasnost before perestroika, he claimed in 1995 that Russia was in better political shape than China. Safire embraced the Chinese dissident Wei Jingsheng, calling for suspension of MFN status to punish China for rejailing him, and promoting him as a Nobel Prize candidate. Possessively titling one of his columns, “My Wei,” Safire compared Wei to Nelson Mandela, Andre Sakharov, and Anatoly Shcharansky, whose heroic memories would endure against the fading names of Jiang Zemin, Clinton, and Brezhnev. He reiterated in 1995 that American democracy could be good for the “un-Communist dissolvers” breaking up post-Deng China into separate regions. Frustrated with a lack of progress in China’s political freedom, Safire later predicted that India would draw ahead of China as a superpower in the next century. Safire censured Singapore’s “dictatorial capitalism,” which China admired, and praised Taiwan’s democratic election and its “dread virus of

Chinese media, global contexts

84

freedom.” In late 1999, he berated Israel’s sale to China of advanced aerial reconnaissance and radar installation worth U.S.$1 billion: “If the freedom of an island with 22 million souls [Taiwan] is of no concern to Israel, the world will care even less about 6 million Jews getting pushed into the sea.” He again assailed Israel for endangering strategic alliance with the United States, and blamed China’s escalated military threats against Taiwan on Clinton’s failed policy. From 1997 to 2000, Safire pursued Clinton with a vengeance for his alleged involvement in China’s illicit campaign contribution and its suspected theft of U.S. nuclear secrets. Nearly half (43 per cent) of his fifty-four articles written during the decade—including all but one of the fifteen China articles in 1997, all of the six in 1998, and four more in 1999—aimed to nail Clinton down on these two issues. Safire’s charges of the “Asian connection”—calibrated into the “China connection” in 1998—started with the family of James Riady (a Hong Kong banker who allegedly “placed” a fundraiser in the Clinton camp and who contributed to Clinton’s campaign) and extended to Chinese leaders’ corrupt capitalist offspring. Then a snowball-like scenario began to be built in at least five articles (1997–98), painting China, “agents of Beijing,” and the “new China lobby” as having penetrated into Clinton’s White House through spy networks, campaign contribution, and various other fronts. He blasted Attorney General Janet Reno’s “stonewalling” and head-in-the-sand refusal to appoint a special prosecutor. In 1999, despite National Security Adviser Sandy Berger’s denial of quid pro quo, Safire escalated his charge that China’s influence-buying went hand in hand with its espionage on U.S. nuclear secrets. Four articles (wrongly) linked Wenho Lee, a Chinese-American scientist, to Beijing’s “grand design” to acquire advanced U.S. technology. (The court acquitted Lee.) Safire never relented from his belief that Clinton’s flip-flop from “butchers of Beijing” to “strategic partners” had followed China’s influence purchasing. Engagement The centrist editorials advocate a policy of constructive engagement with China, based implicitly on a philosophy of “pragmatic moderation” seeking to balance American values of human rights with its business and strategic interests. This frame echoed President Clinton’s policy shift in 1994 from “estrangement” to “engagement” (as he said, “I want to draw China in, not to shut China out”) as a “strategic partner” in a “multifaceted” relationship. This implied shrewd application of “carrots and sticks” even though the New York Times periodically wavered on what constituted “carrots” and “sticks.” The spirit of American pragmatism is typified by these headlines: “Chastise China; Don’t Isolate It” (May 13, 1991); “Don’t slam the door on China” (September 30, 1991); “China: Beyond All or Nothing” (September 29, 1992); “Coddling China, Constructively” (November 18, 1993); “Don’t Fudge on China” (May 22, 1994); “China, Without illusions” (July 14, 1999). While criticizing Bush’s appeasement, the paper warned from the start: “Don’t punish the wrong China!” From 1990 to 1992, it repeatedly called for the protection of China’s reform-minded intellectuals, export regions, and the capitalistic private sector. It supported China’s MFN status, conditional on Beijing’s improvement in several key

Established pluralism

85

areas. Instead of favoring a broad-scale abrogation of the MFN, the New York Times stressed that the sanctions must be “specific,” “targeted,” “modest,” and “selected.” While castigating Bush for seeking too little from Beijing, it blamed Congress for seeking too much. A 1993 editorial further argued that the MFN renewal should be linked to human rights conditions only and with “some flexibility of interpretation,” while arms proliferation and trade grievances should be addressed through other channels. In late 1993, the paper commended Clinton for attaching “reasonable and achievable” human rights conditions to the MFN, but from 1994 to 1997 criticized his unconditional MFN extension as “caving in” to business interests, creating “policy paralysis,” and furthering China’s repression. It asked Clinton, in a cool-headed MBA-style calculation, to impose “selective sanctions that send the strongest political message at the lowest economic cost.” In late 1994, it advocated a bipartisan agreement on how to “stand up to today’s Chinese bullying [arrest of dissidents] without wrecking a valuable long-term relationship.” China’s sale of sensitive nuclear technology to Pakistan necessitated “coordinated economic penalties” among American allies and business competitors, lest they exploit China’s market at the United States’ expense. In moments of despair, the New York Times threatened to withdraw its support for the MFN, but justifications would soon be found for restraint. Dissatisfaction with Clinton’s policy was a recurring theme. The only time Clinton won praise for pursuing human rights issues with “sufficient vigor” was during his visit to Beijing in the summer of 1998. Prior to his trip, the New York Times had urged Clinton in three editorials to emulate Reagan, whose visit to the Soviet Union in 1988 included meeting with prominent dissidents and talking directly to Soviet audiences about democracy. It commended Clinton for forthright language on Tibet and individual freedom in a live and uncensored give-and-take with President Jiang on television. It also acknowledged that Jiang, having emerged from the shadow of Deng, was “more assertive and liberal.” But this optimism proved short-lived. In 1999, the paper ran four editorials denouncing the United States’ hollow reaction to the “Chinese tyrant’s answer to public resentment”—harsh treatment of democrats, dissidents, and the Falun Gong. Another editorial accused Clinton’s policy of “running on automatic pilot oriented toward the predetermined goal of engagement with China.” It “went awry,” in need of a more exacting approach. Clinton’s sale of missile guidance technology to China and his role in Chinese campaign contributions were seriously questioned (with six editorials in 1998 alone). In 1999, twelve editorials wrote about a stream of reports from congressional investigations pointing to China’s espionage on military technology in the security-lax American nuclear research labs. With the Republican-controlled Congress eager to embarrass Clinton’s China policy, partisan politics threatened to move from the sideline to overtake the center stage through magnified media glasses. This saga fits into what Nimmo and Combs (1990) identify as the elements of a good story: fishy and suspenseful plot lines, played by a cast of prominent actors (the Cox committee, the court, Clinton officials), usual suspects (China and Wenho Lee), and key victims (U.S. nuclear secrets), all supported by unspoken assumptions about the unruly Chinese. The case took a tortured and acrimonious contour involving charges of racial profiling, and finally subsided for

Chinese media, global contexts

86

want of evidence. Taken to task for inflaming Lee’s case, the New York Times published two editorials in 2000 acknowledging its over-reliance on government sources. Pragmatic moderation loomed large in the editorial positions on Taiwan. The New York Times had been sympathetic to Taiwan’s yearnings against China’s control, stating in the 1992 editorials that Taiwan and China were now “effectively separate countries” and that Clinton should take note of Taiwan’s political evolution “without needlessly provoking Beijing.” A 1994 editorial questioned why Washington abided by the “one-China fiction.” Facing China’s missile scare against Taiwan in 1995 and 1996, at least five editorials praised the administration for holding a “firm but not reckless” ground. Taiwan was “too big to be treated as a mere pawn in relations between Washington and Beijing,” and in view of its democratic transition there was “an increasingly strong case to be made for eventual Taiwanese independence…but for now the cost of pressing that case would exceed any potential gain.” With Beijing’s reaction becoming all the more strident, it suddenly turned around to scold Taiwan in 1997 for playing “an outsized role in the management of American foreign policy.” From 1997 to 2000, the paper decided that Washington should discourage both China’s military adventurism and Taiwan’s diplomatic adventurism. When a pro-independence candidate became Taiwan’s president in 2000, to the ire of Beijing, the paper urged Washington to play a “calming role” in adhering to the one-China principle and insisting on peaceful reunification. Globalization Even if the hawkish voices persisted, the prevailing view among America’s opinion makers seems to have revolved around bringing China into the WTO and other international bodies, in the hope of subjecting it to international norms and the rule of law. From March 6, 1997 onwards, the New York Times has argued for the very position it once criticized: permanently awarding China normal trading status without attaching human rights conditions. From 1997 to 2000, the editorials enumerated a litany of thirteen overlapping reasons, at various levels of abstraction, asserting that China’s WTO membership would: 1 advance the West as a catalyst for reform in China; 2 give leverage to reformist Chinese officials; 3 move power away from China’s government bureaucrats to impersonal markets; 4 ease tension between the United States and China by turning trade disputes to “an impartial international jury”; 5 help Chinese leaders establish legal predictability, international standards and the rule of law; 6 unite the American human rights and business communities; 7 have a broader reach than supporting individual dissidents; 8 propel Chinese economic institutions toward market discipline; 9 open up China’s markets to the sale of American goods; 10 bring more information through the diffusion of foreign goods, technology, and telecommunications to the Chinese people;

Established pluralism

87

11 allow more scrutiny of China’s intellectual piracy as well as its treatment of workers and the environment; 12 help broaden relations with the Chinese people and open China to democracy, the rule of law and respect for human rights; and 13 aid the United States in advancing the global cause of liberty and shaping international commercial forces to the advantage of American workers and Chinese democrats. This tall order of benefits resembles what old modernization enthusiasts used to characterize the developmental package: a “seamless web” (Higgins, 1977) and “all good things go together” (Packenham, 1973:20). The WTO, now writ large as the symbol of globalization, is idealized (as was “economic growth” in the 1960s) as a key to triggering political democracy, a comprehensive web replacing the “patchwork quilts” of containment and conditional engagement. Curiously, the editorials did not invoke “globalization” to organize this overarching discourse. It took Friedman (1999) to define globalization as “the world integration of finance, markets, nation states, and technologies with a free market competition on a scale never before experienced.” This economistic expansion of the Cold War modernization theory showed little regard for the complex, contradictory political and cultural implications of globalization in the post-Cold War era (see Robertson, 1992; Featherstone, 1995; Tomlinson, 1999). Both Friedman and the editorialists treated globalization as an inevitable and invincible process, ruling out the questions of globalization “on what and whose terms” or at what cost (such as social dislocation and sectoral unemployment). A cacophony of anti-globalization voices consisting of anti-hegemonists (such as Schiller, 1992:1–43), environmentalists, and labor—not to mention the protests in the streets of Seattle (Washington), Davos (Switzerland), Melbourne (Australia), Prague (Czechoslovakia), and Genoa (Italy)—were largely marginalized. Also unacknowledged were criticisms of the WTO for its lack of democratic accountability and its weakening of national sovereignty. Now seeing global capitalism instead of trade sanctions as the best instrument of promoting human rights in China, the New York Times quarrels with Clinton’s policy waned. Friedman (1999) is a high priest of globalization. He brought that gospel to China in the fifty-four articles he wrote from 1995 (when he become a columnists to 2000, and later to the African continent as a savior of its hunger and malaise. But his approach tends to be anecdotal, truncated, lacking in theoretical rigor and cogency. In one of his most explicit attempts to relate globalization to China, he observed (March 17, 1998): Ideologically, the Chinese Communist Party is dead. The party is still in control, but without any message. No one is beyond the frontier of globalization anymore. The same pressures on advanced economies—to downsize and streamline government, to seek out foreign investors, to plug into global markets and to become more competitive and more diversified—are squeezing Chinese villages as well. Listen to the campaign speeches for village chief here [in China] and tell me they don’t sound as if they’re running for the mayor of Toledo, Ohio. All politics isn’t local. All politics is global. Having blunted the contextual differences between the Chinese village and Toledo,

Chinese media, global contexts

88

Friedman coined “globalution” to mean the revolution of globalization. Instead of revolution from below (too explosive) or revolution from above (which won’t happen), the “closet globalutionary” Premier Zhu was said to seek revolution from beyond (globalization) over the objections of his hardline opponents. China could prevent itself from slipping into a Russian-style kleptocracy through global integration. Friedman saw China’s joining the WTO as a “giveaway to the U.S. economy”—Sprint, AOL, and AT&T would be able to buy into companies there and contribute to China’s being “more wired” into the world. The United States had leverage with the Chinese who “crave Big Macs, Macintosh, Microsoft, and Mickey Mouse.” Globalization could increase the costs for bad behavior and hold Chinese nationalism in check: “They could burn U.S. flags, but not US. dollars.” Criticizing the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO)’s “head-in-the-sand protectionism,” he challenged the Democratic Party to articulate a new progressivism that addresses the worries of working Americans about globalization without resorting to trade barriers. Labor’s concern was as quickly picked up as it was brushed off. Globalization is expected to be a harbinger of the rule-of-law system in China. “Draw red lines for China wherever necessary,” he said, “build bridges wherever possible.” He urged Clinton to adopt George Schultz’s approach of “diplomacy to gardening”: holding regular meetings to resolve disputes over human rights and strategic issues with China. In 1996, he began to promulgate the rule of law as being even more important for China than an election. A year later, he rejected MFN as the “wrong club” to use, for it hurt U.S. interests as much as China, and human rights debate should not get reduced to MFN or no MFN. A 1998 article graphically depicted China as having “gone from Mao to Milken [a convicted U.S. financier], without ever stopping at Madison.” Another more charitable version had China going “from Mao to Merrill Lynch.” Without the rule of law, he warned that China might be “heading for Thailand II,” even 100 times more ugly than Malaysia, the two victims of the Asian financial meltdown caused by crony capitalism. It was his belief that the Chinese authorities might refuse to free dissidents but could not completely oppose promoting the rule of law. Premier Zhu could not accomplish his economic reform without opening China to “a more consensus-based, pluralistic, popularly supported system of governance.” Reminiscent of an old Orientalist adage: “You are what you are because of us” (Said, 1993:35), Friedman deplored that China did not have British colonial rule (as did India and Hong Kong) or American neocolonialism (as did Japan and South Korea) that left behind “an elite and a bureaucracy steeped in liberal constitutionalism.” He urged that Congress grant tax breaks to U.S. companies that promote rule-of-law practices in China, and also match a U.S.$50 million fund (which he hoped the business community would set up) for bringing Chinese law students, judges, lawyers, even prosecutors, to the United States. Far from being the ambassadors of democratic values, however, many U.S. companies with Chinese factories producing goods for American consumers are said to have “engaged in a race to the bottom” of human rights standards (Rosenberg, 2002:61). They advocate reductions in labor costs and more, not less, restrictions on labor rights. Friedman proposed what he called “the golden arches of conflict prevention,” asserting reductively that countries with McDonald’s don’t wage wars against one another. He

Established pluralism

89

glorified the McDonaldization of global culture as a mark of progress and interconnectedness, to the disregard of many of its scathing critics (such as Alfino et al., 1998). As China’s hostility toward Taiwan heightened in 2000, he wrote three articles stating that as they had been woven as Siamese twins into the global economy, China could not shoot Taiwan without shooting itself, nor could Taiwan pull away from China without pulling its own economy down. Bringing China into the WTO would restrain its military adventure against Taiwan and foster changes to make China one day “more like Taiwan.” In Russia, the Communist Party failed to privatize Russian society, but the Chinese people will “privatize the Communist Party.” In a rare mention of the negative consequences of globalization, he acknowledged that the main threat to the Chinese regime would not be a resurgence of the coalition of democracy students and intellectuals who led the Tiananmen movement, but the workers and farmers who would be laid off after China’s entry into the WTO. Friedman was fond of invoking fabled metaphors and binary allegories to make paired contrasts with vivid literary impact. He said in 1996 that the Russian economy (the more democratic tortoise) was on the verge of taking off, but China’s economic development (the more authoritarian hare) could face problems unless the rule of law was adopted. Hong Kong’s return to China was “not just a slice of the West being given back to the East,” but also “a slice of the future being given back to the past.” Several articles described Taiwan as the future “with the winds of history at its back” and the Chinese Communist regime as the past “with the winds of history in its face.” For all its faults, China stood well against Iran: Iran needed “Ayatollah Deng” to develop its economy and ease its repression. While praising China for having crossed the “tomorrow” of the “international dateline” to embrace globalization, he blamed much of the Middle East for being stuck on “yesterday,” warring over who owns which olive trees or the “archaic” questions of identity, culture, religion, and politics. Often hailed as a reasoned liberal voice, Anthony Lewis wrote nineteen articles on China during the decade. Without proposing any grand idea, he consistently showed compassion for Chinese dissidents and supported the rule of law in China. Many of his articles were profiles of major dissidents; four in particular portrayed Wei Jingsheng as the “equivalent of Nelson Mandela and Anatoly Shcharansky in moral courage and suffering” and as a “light in the darkness” who “challenged the most powerful tyranny on earth.” In the early 1990s Lewis criticized Bush for refusing to “hold China’s tyrants to account” and doing nothing for “victims of tyranny.” Later he condemned most Western governments for changing the subject on Chinese brutality, and described Clinton’s “strategic dialogue” with China as being “mocked by growing repression.” Lewis twice took issue with Lee Kuan Yew’s authoritarian notion of “Asian values.” In 1998, he began to endorse initiatives for cooperation between China and the United States for the training of lawyers and judges. He also abandoned his position on trade sanctions in the hope of bringing China into “the mainstream of international life.” Conclusion Washington has been seeking to change China according to America’s image. The three

Chinese media, global contexts

90

“ideological packages” of elite media discourse—containment, engagement, and global integration—constitute strategic variations on the long-term theme of “peaceful evolution.” 5 As a contemporary political and moral expression of the “Manifest Destiny,” John Foster Dulles, Elsenhower’s secretary of state, initiated the ideological theme of “peaceful evolution,” that is, seeking change from within the Communist bloc. Although the current three frames argue for full, partial, or no trade sanctions against China’s human rights abuse, none of them favors a return to the pre-1979 stance of isolating China. Internal to the elite media discourse is a subtle but no less coy ideological contestation among various writers. 6 This discourse ultimately stays within—not outside or beyond—the established parameters or the official circle, never taking seriously the dissenting literature that exists alongside the authorized public sphere. Media pluralism within this context means supporting the U.S. interest yet aligning for or against the administration’s policy. Some writers attacked the presidents— but not Americanism—repetitively and numbingly. (The imaged “smoking gun” between China’s influence buying and Clinton’s “appeasement” was never evidentially established.) Such relentless criticisms did seem to have put the Bush and Clinton administrations on the defensive and contributed to their perceived ineffectiveness. “Established pluralism” may have neutralized conflicting opinions. Yet Clinton was noted for his genius in harnessing elite media discourse and polls to identify his policy center and he eventually won a strong approval from the New York Times for his China policy during his last years in office. The underlying philosophy of this discourse has been the Cold War modernization theory and its post-Cold War reincarnation, a truncated version of the globalization theory. The former postulated that economic development would bring about compatible changes and improvements in other areas, and would eventually trigger political democracy (Diamond, 1992; Berger, 1986; Higgins. 1977; Packenham, 1973; Lerner, 1958). Proponents of containment wanted to punish China because its economic growth had bred “dictatorial capitalism,” not democracy; the frustrated writers hypothesized that Russia or India would pull ahead of China politically or economically. Advocates of engagement wanted to negotiate with China for terms more acceptable to the United States. The differences between the “engagement” and “global integration” packages are threefold. First, the former is a vague concept, and the latter is a policy. Second, engagement involves a calculation of carrots and sticks to balance different U.S. interests, whereas global integration hands out more carrots and few sticks (making no mention of trade sanctions) to integrate U.S. interests. Third, the globalists aim to take the bilateral engagement to the further step of subverting Communism from within and from without by coopting China into a neo-liberal global framework of capitalist democracy. In sum, if containment and engagement were conceptualized as a zero-sum game, the global framework was presented as a win-win solution—for nation-states, not for different classes within them—albeit with the United States, of course, controlling its rules of the game. These packages, with internal continuities and discontinuities, coexist and struggle in the landscape of “established pluralism.” Lurking behind the U.S. elite media discourse were volcanic outbursts from China, culminating in forms of “statist nationalism” expressing resentment, wounded pride, and

Established pluralism

91

fear of “peaceful evolution” (Huang and Lee, 2002; Chang, 2001). China has been wary of Washington’s scheme of “peaceful evolution” through “infiltration, corruption, and subversion” since the late 1950s when Mao inveighed against Khrushchev’s “Soviet revisionism” as accommodating the U.S. imperialist (Bo, 1991/93:1138–46). The insecure regime, in the post-Tiananmen and post-Communist era, launched anti-peaceful evolution campaigns. In Beijing’s eyes, the United States has alternated hard containment with soft engagement to achieve the aim of “peaceful evolution.” Pro-American sentiment of the 1980s gave way to anti-Americanism in the 1990s. Since the late 1990s, however, China appears to have come to believe that global multilateral mechanisms may keep the United States from acting unilaterally rather than be stalking horses for American interests (Shambaugh and Litwak, 2001). Beijing now perceives joining the WTO as being conducive to enhancing its international status, sustaining its economic growth through foreign investment, and hence consolidating its legitimacy. China’s eagerness to embrace the dream of global capitalism and its attendant policy to admit capitalists into the Communist Party—while mobilizing nationalism against peaceful evolution—coincides in part with Washington’s agenda. President Jiang has run into domestic dissension from the Chinese old left, the new left, and the sectors likely to bear the brunt of painful change. He ordered closed two fringe old-left publications that had criticized him for betraying Communism. For its part, the new Bush administration tried to redefine China as a “strategic competitor” rather than a “strategic partner,” but the war on terrorism has muted policy controversy over U.S.-China relations. It is expected that elite media and policy discourse will continue to revolve around the core values of capitalist democracy, marked by neo-liberalism and market globalization to achieve “peaceful evolution.” Acknowledgements ‘Established Pluralism: US Media Discourse about China Policy’ by Chin-Chaun Lee (2002) Journalism Studies, Vol. 3 (3) pp. 383–397 by kind permission of Taylor & Francis Limited, London Notes 1 Thanks are due to Yu Huang, Tsan-Kuo Chang, and Zhou He who commented intelligently on the drafts, and also to Yong Zhang and Yunxian Ding who collected the editorials and column articles. I am grateful to Professor William A.Garrison who has been a source of inspiration and encouragement. 2 Said’s (1978) analysis of the post-colonial nations in the Middle East was later extended to the entire Third World in which the United States has replaced Britain and France as the dominant hegemon (Said, 1993). This critique is particularly relevant as China is being integrated into the capitalist world system. 3 They include James Reston (now retired), Tom Wicker (retired), Leslie Gelb (resigned), Russell Baker (retired), Anthony Lewis (active), Flora Lewis (retired),

Chinese media, global contexts

92

AM. Rosenthal (retired in 1999), William Safire (active), Thomas Friedman (active, beginning in 1995), Anna Quindlen (resigned), Maureen Dowd (active), Bob Herbert (active), Gail Collins (active), Frank Rich (active), and Paul Krugman (active). Manyclimbed to their professional pinnacle through the reporter ranks; some were top news executives (Reston, Rosenthal); a few were recruited from government (Safire) or academia (Krugman, concurrently a Princeton professor of economics). Still others left this coveted post to pursue different life choices (Quindlen) or to head even more influential think tanks or political bodies (Gelb). 4 In 1990, there were thirteen editorials; in 1991, thirteen; in 1992, twenty-four; in 1993, thirteen; in 1994, fourteen; in 1995, twenty-one; in 1996, fifteen; in 1997, nineteen; in 1998, twenty-three; in 1999, thirty; and in 2000, sixteen. 5 Professor Gamson sensitizes me to an alternative reading that may reveal two, rather than three, media frames: “Incorrigible Regime” and “Evolving Regime.” The former is concerned with how best to isolate China and minimize its influence until it is replaced by a more reform-minded alternative. The latter is concerned with how to best woo China so that it will evolve as a participating member of the international community and observer of basic human rights. Policy differences exist within this frame over what the terms of engagement should be. I preserve the three frames for they seem more sensitive to how the New York Times organizationally routinizes its editorial discourse. 6 Presumably in rebutting (unnamed) Friedman, Rosenthal said in 1999 for example that China’s membership in the WTO would “forcefully wipe out any effort to use the only human rights tools we have in China.” References Alfino, Mark, John S.Caputo, and Robin Wynard (eds) (1998), McDonaldization Revisited: Critical Essays on Consumer Culture . Westport, CT: Praeger. Barnet, S.W. and John K.Fairbank (eds) (1985), Christianity in China: Early Protestant Missionary . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bennett, Amanda (1990), “American reporters in China: romantics and cynics,” in ChinChuan Lee (ed.), Voices of China: The Interplay of Politics and Journalism . New York: Guilford, pp. 263–276. Bennett, W.Lance (1990), “Toward a theory of press-state relations in the United States,” Journal of Communication , 40:103–125. ——(1994), “The news about foreign policy,” in W.Lance Bennett and David L.Paletz (eds), Taken by Storm . Chicago: University of Chicago Press, pp. 12–42. Berger, Peter (1986), The Capitalist Development . New York: Basic Books. Bernstein, Richard and Ross H.Munro (1997), The Coming Conflict with China . New York: Knopf. Bo, Yibo (1991, 1993), Ruogan zhongda juece yu shijian de huigu [Recollections of Certain Major Decisions and Events]. Beijing: Central Party Academy Press. Burchill, Scott (1996), “Liberal internationalism,” in Scott Burchill and Andrew Linklater (eds), Theories of International Relations . New York: St. Martin’s Press, pp. 28–66.

Established pluralism

93

Chang, Maria Hsia (2001), Return of the Dragon: China’s Wounded Nationalism . Boulder, CO: Westview. Chang, Tsan-Kuo (1990), “Reporting U.S.-China policy, 1950–1984: presumptions of legitimacy and hierarchy,” in Chin-Chuan Lee (ed.), Voices of China: The Interplay of Politics and Journalism . New York: Guilford, pp. 180–201. Chomsky, Noam (1990), Necessary Illusions . Boston: South End Press. Cohen, Bernard (1963), The Press and Foreign Policy . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Cook, Timothy E. (1998), Governing with the News: The News Media as a Political Institution . Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Diamond, Larry (1992), “Economic development and democracy reconsidered,” American Behavioral Scientist , 35(4/5): 450–499. Donohue, Philip, Phillip J.Tichenor, and Clarice Olien (1995), ‘A guard dog perspective on the role of the media,” Journal of Communication , 45(2): 115–132. Featherstone, Mike (1995), Undoing Culture . London: Sage. Friedman, Thomas L. (1999), The Lexus and the Olive Tree . New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Fukuyama, Francis (1992), The End of History and the Last Man . New York: The Free Press. Gamson, William A. (1988), “A constructionist approach to mass media and public opinion,” Symbolic Interactionism , 11:161–174. Gamson, William A. and Kathryn E.Lasch (1983), “The political culture of social welfare policy,” in Shimon E.Spiro and Yuchtman-Yaar Ephraim (eds), Evaluating the Welfare State: Social and Political Perspectives . New York: Academic Press, pp. 397–415. Gamson, William A. and Andre Modigliani (1987), “The changing culture of affirmative action,” in Richard G.Braungart and Margaret M.Braungart (eds), Research in Political Sociology , Volume 3. Greenwich, CN:JAI Press, pp. 137–177. ——(1989), “Media discourse and public opinion on nuclear power: a constructionist approach,” American Journal of Sociology , 95:1–37. Gans, Herbert J. (1979), Deciding What’s News . New York: Pantheon. Gitlin, Todd (1980), The Whole World is Watching . Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Hallin, Daniel (1986), The “Uncensored” War . New York: Oxford University Press. Harding, Harry (1992), A Fragile Relationship: the United States and China since 1972 . Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. Herman, Edward and Noam Chomsky (1988), Manufacturing Consent . New York: Pantheon. Hess, Stephen (1996), International News and Foreign Correspondents . Washington, DC: Brookings Institution. Higgins, B. (1977), “Economic development and cultural change: seamless web or patchwork quilt?” Economic Development and Cultural Change , 25 (supplement): 99– 122. Huang, Yu and Chin-Chuan Lee (2002), “Peddling ideology at a profit: the media and the rise of Chinese nationalism in the 1990s,” in Gary Rawnsley and Ming-yeh Rawnsley

Chinese media, global contexts

94

(eds), Chinese Political Communication . London: Curzon. Huntington, Samuel (1993), “The clash of civilizations,” Foreign Affairs , 71(3): 22–49. Lee, Chin-Chuan (1990), “Mass media: of China, about China,” in Chin-Chuan Lee (ed.), Voices of China: The Interplay of Politics and Journalism . New York: Guilford, pp. 3–32. ——(2001), “Beyond orientalist discourses: media and democracy in Asia,” Javnost—the Public , 8(2): 7–20. Lee, Chin-Chuan, Zhongdang Pan, Joseph Man Chan, and Clement Ya Ko So (2001), “Through the eyes of U.S. media: banging the democracy drum in Hong Kong,” Journal of Communication, 52(2): 345–365. Lee, Chin-Chuan, Joseph Man Chan, Zhongdong Pan, and Clement Ya Ko So (2002), Global Media Spectacle: News War Over Hong Kong. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Lerner, Daniel (1958), The Passing of Traditional Society . New York: The Free Press. Merrill, John C. (1968), The Elite Press . New York: Pitman. Nimmo, D. and J.E. Combs (1990), Mediated Political Realities , New York: Longman. Nye, Joseph S. (1990), Bound to Lead: The Changing Nature of American Power . New York: Basic Books. Packenham, R. (1973), Liberal America and the Third World . Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. Page, Benjamin I. (1996), Who Deliberates? Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Patterson, Thomas E. (2000), “The United States: news in a free-market society,” in Richard Gunther and Anthony Mughan (eds), Democracy and the Media: A Comparative Perspective . New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 241–265. Pool, Ithiel de sola (1952), Prestige Papers . Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press. Robertson, Roland (1992), Globalization . Newbury Park, CA: Sage. Rosenberg, Tina (2002), ‘John Kamm’s third way,” New York Times Magazine , March 3, pp. 58–63, 81, 101–102. Said, Edward W. (1978), Orientalism . New York: Random House. ——(1993), Culture and Imperialism . New York: Knopf. Schiller, Herbert (1992), Mass Communication and American Empire (2nd edition). Boulder, CO: Westview. Schudson, Michael (1995), The Power of News . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Shambaugh, David and Robert S.Litwak (2001), “Common interests in a hazardous world,” New York Times , October 17, p. A31. Sigal, Leon V. (1973), Reporters and Officials: The Organization and Politics of Newsmaking . Lexington, MA: D.C. Heath. Spence, Jonathan (1969), To Change China: Western Advisers in China, 1620–1960 . Boston: Little, Brown. Tifft, Susan E. and Alex S.Jones (1999), “Scion of the Times” New Yorker , July 26, pp. 52–67. Tomlinson,John (1999), Globalization and Culture . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Established pluralism

95

Tuchman, Gaye (1978), Making News . New York: The Free Press. van Ginneken, Jaap (1998), Understanding Global News . London: Sage. Womack, Brantly (1990), “The dilemma of centricity and internationalism,” in ChinChuan Lee (ed.), Voices of China: The Interplay of Politics and Journalism . New York: Guilford, pp. 229–242. Zaller, John R. (1992), The Nature and Origins of Mass Opinion . New York: Cambridge University Press. Zaller, John and Dennis Chiu (1996), “Government’s little helper: US press coverage of foreign policy crises, 1945–1991,” Political Communication , 13:385–405.

5 Chinese media and youth Attitudes toward nationalism and internationalism Stanley Rosen On September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks against the United States shocked the world. In the aftermath of the suicide missions on New York and Washington, governments, media and the general public in virtually every country scrambled to understand what had happened and why the attacks had occurred. The response in China to these extraordinary events provides a good introduction to some of the main themes of this chapter, revealing a complex relationship between government, media and youth in a partially reformed system. We find a central Party-state still attempting to control and massage the flow of information, a decentralized media market in which entrepreneurial forces compete aggressively with the government and with each other, and a population, especially among the young and the restless, hungry for information. While it was not uncommon elsewhere—for example, in Taiwan—to preempt normal programming and substitute it with direct feeds from CNN International and the Fox News Channel, with a voice-over Chinese translation, Chinese Central Television (CCTV) was under strict orders, reportedly directly from the Politburo, to play down the attacks. Although some local stations were bolder in their reporting—for example, Chongqing Cable Television broke into regular programming to broadcast live CNN footage for about two hours after the attack—in the general absence of an aggressive “official” media, students and other youth descended on Internet cafes and sought out other sources of information. The Hong Kong-based Phoenix television channel, which broadcasts in Mandarin to nearly 42 million mainland households and is available in hotels with three stars and above, compounds where foreigners live, and homes with a satellite dish, broadcast live for thirty-six hours, dropping advertising and using material from news agencies and U.S. networks. Students, as they have done during other major events, pooled their money and booked hotel rooms to watch Phoenix’s live coverage (O’Neill, 2001). Within a week of the attacks, books and videos were widely available on the streets, offering detailed footage and accounts of the attacks and why they occurred (Chen, X., 2001; Editorial Group, 2001; VCD, 2001). Chinese Internet chat rooms and websites were flooded with discussions of the 9/11 events, as they were now called. In another example of the complexity of the media marketplace and government-media relations, even “unofficial” sources such as videos were often prepared or distributed by official agencies such as Xinhua, in an effort to compete. These unofficial accounts are of particular interest for my purpose because they were clearly produced not to promote the Party line, but to generate income (in the case of the books and videos) or present personal opinions (in the chat rooms). The books and videos were competing to give the

Chinese media and youth

97

people what they wanted, unlike the official Party press, which offered the public what it thought they should know. The Internet chat rooms revealed feelings ordinarily unavailable in “published” accounts. These “popular” sources offer a fascinating mixture of words and images, revealing not only the extent to which foreign media and culture has penetrated China, but also the extent to which “nationalism” has taken hold among Chinese youth. 1 In this context, Yongnian Zheng’s (2000) distinction between popular and official nationalism is useful. As Zheng notes, and as I have reported elsewhere, the government has supported patriotism as a source of political legitimacy, while popular nationalism has often taken a form critical of Chinese foreign policy. Thus, nationalism has very much become a double-edged sword, which the government has not always been eager to unsheathe (Zheng, 2000; Fewsmith and Rosen, 2001). The books rely heavily on summaries and translations of articles that have appeared in the foreign press, along with articles from Chinese and overseas websites, while the videos provide an odd amalgam of sensationalism, strict documentary reporting, and American popular culture. It is the videos (VCDs and DVDs) that provide the best example of this interaction between nationalist sentiments and international influences—the focus of this chapter— and how these two impulses are intertwined in the Chinese public’s understanding of the United States. It is helpful to examine Surprise Attack on America, one of the best-selling VCDs on September 11, as a representative example (VCD, 2001). Perhaps most striking, even disconcerting, to a Western viewer, are the frequent clips from Hollywood films and the use of soundtracks from popular films, interspersed with the documentary footage. Early on in this 100-minute video, after showing the destruction of Manhattan’s Twin Towers, the narrator suggests that such dramatic footage would be hard to find (nanyi kandao) in a Hollywood film. Nevertheless, Hollywood films are repeatedly used as reference points, presumably because it is assumed that the audience’s knowledge of America often comes from these films, and because such films are widely available on pirated VCDs and DVDs in China. Thus, to familiarize viewers with the location of the Towers and New York’s financial district more generally, there is a quick cut to Charlie Sheen sitting at his desk in a bustling office in Oliver Stone’s Wall Street, To dramatize the sheer magnitude of the damage to that section of Manhattan, scenes of Godzilla, in the 1998 Hollywood version, rampaging through the city follow the collapse of the Towers. President Bush then presides over a press conference, which merges into a bombing sequence from “Pearl Harbor.” Indeed, the Phoenk announcers repeatedly compared the events of September 11 to scenes in Pearl Harbor and Air Force One. The theme music from Jaws reappears periodically to accompany the narration. As one observer suggested, the announcers apparently felt that such references to Hollywood films were necessary to persuade the viewers that the events were in fact real. Paradoxically, to the average Chinese they also seemed to be only the most dramatically violent Hollywood movie to date (Hessler, 2001). The mixture of fantasy and reality was tangible, with one shop assistant at Xinhua Bookstore in Beijing telling a foreign reporter: “Before people were interested in the movies, but this is more compelling. What happened in New York could have happened in a movie, but this is real life. It’s better” (McElroy, 2001). The Surprise Attack documentary shows terrorist activity at various points in

Chinese media, global contexts

98

twentieth-century history, going back to the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of Serbia and the start of World War I, and in countries all over the world, but for more recent instances the emphasis is often on American policy as the cause of such terrorism. Thus, America’s international role as world policeman since World War II is noted, and there are scenes of Palestinians celebrating the attacks on America and of American flags being burned. Bin Laden’s motives are discussed, particularly his view that the U.S. has placed itself against the Islamic world. Foreign correspondents have reported that commentaries in some of these videos have been particularly strident. For example, the narrator in one asserts that “this is the America the whole world has wanted to see,” suggesting, as the injured try to escape from the burning buildings, that “we will never fear these people again, they have been shown to be soft-bellied paper tigers” (McElroy, 2001). The Internet chat rooms commonly offered equally, if not more, hostile sentiments, with the Chinese expression huogai (“serves you right”) a common refrain (Oster, 2001). The government was unsure how to react to these assertive nationalistic impulses, having promoted patriotic values as a source of legitimacy for over a decade. Good relations with the United States to further developmental goals, however, were also a high priority. Faced with this choice, the authorities censored the most extreme anti-American sentiments, shutting down the chat room of the People’s Daily newspaper. However, they felt compelled to reopen it a day later, after citizens posted criticisms of the Communist Party’s censorship on other websites (Oster, 2001). Regime ambivalence and the need to balance these two imperatives (nationalism and openness to the outside world) will be a major theme of this chapter. Of course, anti-American sentiments do not represent the whole picture, and there were also reports of sympathy for America’s tragedy and criticisms of the callous responses (Wall Street Journal, 2001). But this suggests another key theme of this chapter, that the image of the United States among Chinese youth is a complex one, balancing highly negative views of the evils of American “hegemonism” (baquan zhuyi) when operating outside its borders with highly positive assessments of American policies at home. The first image derives from international affairs, particularly Sino-American relations. The second image derives from American values and lifestyles. The “American dream” (meiguo meng) remains compelling for the younger generation of highly instrumental Chinese, whose primary goals often include studying in the United States and working for an American multinational corporation. In fact, as Chen Shengluo’s recent investigation of Chinese university student attitudes uncovered, these “two Americas” compete in the minds of Chinese youth, and also compete for coverage in China’s media (Chen, S., 2002). His findings will be discussed below. If the Chinese government has used the “official” media to promote patriotic values and idealism, the “popular” media, given far greater scope after 1992, has often encouraged secularization, instrumentalism, individualism, and internationalism. 2 The Chinese government has strictly controlled all reporting regarding the first image, affecting even the popular media. Information disseminated by television, radio, newspapers and magazines must rely on Xinhua reporting. Thus, as noted above and elaborated below, most Chinese youth regard the United States as hegemonic, reflecting

Chinese media and youth

99

the available information provided by virtually all media sources. However, there is far more freedom, in both official and popular sources, to report on and describe the United States with regard to social and cultural issues. This “second America” is much more popular with Chinese youth. Indeed, they often, although not always consciously, take developments in the United States as a criterion, or a mirror through which to view China. Having succeeded extremely well with regard to the first image, Chinese propaganda authorities, in their guidelines to the media, have been most concerned with altering this second image. They have frequently railed against overly favorable treatment of the cultural products from the United States, or of Western culture more generally, but they have been quite selective in their direct interference. Thus, in China today we find youth in pursuit of the “cool” and trendy, given appropriate cues by the new media (He, 2000; Wang, 2001). Chinese chroniclers of these changes have used the phrase “the new mankind” (xin renlei), adopted from the Japanese writer Taichi Sakaiya, to refer to “the unconventional, individualistic, and fashion conscious youth of the 1990s” (Wang, 2000). The dual image of the United States discussed above is a product of specific government policies enacted after 1989 in an effort to restore regime legitimacy in the aftermath of what is now widely known as “Tiananmen” or ‘June 4” (liusi). The new policies had several components, each of which was to have a crucial effect on the transformation of the Chinese media market and, in turn, on youth attitudes and behavior. One priority was to focus on raising the standard of living of the urban population, particularly those in the coastal cities who were best suited to take advantage of the regime’s new economic initiatives. Related to this was the decision to provide residents with a far more varied cultural life, albeit of a non-threatening nature. Thus, China witnessed an explosion of tabloid newspapers and sensationalistic magazines, which was further fueled by the elimination of state subsidies and the necessity for all cultural organizations to adjust to the new requirements of the market (Lee, 2000). Entertainment has been enhanced with the importation, since late 1994, of ten “blockbuster” movies per year, largely products of the Hollywood machine. The initiatives mentioned above reflected a strategic decision to de-emphasize politics and the increasingly discredited ideology of Marxist-Leninist-Maoist thought. At the same time it was necessary for the Party to offer something beyond material improvements and cultural diversity to justify its continuing authoritative place in Chinese society. To replace the politics of socialist virtue the regime has fostered the promotion of patriotism (read nationalism) and the inheritance of the great legacy of Chinese culture and Chinese history. In this new environment, the most heavily promoted and successful model heroes are likely to be ordinary citizens whose lives and skills are unexceptional, but who have demonstrated great courage and become martyred defending China from its putative enemies. The most prominent example thus far is Wang Wei, the 33-year-old air force pilot who died in a collision with an American spy plane in April 2001. Wang was lionized in the Chinese press not only as “a martyr of the revolution,” and “a heroic defender of the motherland,” but also won praise as a good husband, a good cook, a skillful tailor, an accomplished painter, and a fine singer and flower arranger, among other attributes (Ruan, 2001; Eckholm, 2001). In the pages below, I will investigate the effects on Chinese youth of the regime’s dual

Chinese media, global contexts

100

emphasis on opening China to the outside world while promoting patriotism. Anticipating my findings, I will argue that there have been at least three significant changes in youth attitudes and behavior over the last decade, that these changes have been a consequence of regime policies, and that these consequences are at best a mixed blessing for the regime. First, Chinese youth have been drawn into the global culture to a far greater extent than the regime had anticipated; in some areas the changes have been remarkably rapid. Second, the state has been successful in promoting patriotism among Chinese youth, and this patriotism has quite effectively supplanted the discredited system of political virtue that had been so important a part of the socialization process prior to the reform movement. This rise of what might reasonably accurately be called nationalism, however, is very much a double-edged sword, raising expectations regarding the future growth of Chinese wealth and international influence and thereby subjecting the regime to the kind of empirical tests of its comparative international success that had not existed before. At the same time, it has also placed potential constraints on the regime’s freedom to maneuver. For example, by late 2001 Jiang Zemin’s government was quite openly moving to consolidate China’s relationship with the United States (Pomfret, 2002). Chinese students, however, routinely viewed Jiang, rather dismissively, as “sweet on America” (qin mei) (Kristof, 2002c). Third, the decline in the importance of political virtue of a Maoist nature has not solved the familiar “crisis of faith” (xinyang weiji), but it has led to a much greater concern with one’s own self-interest. Indeed, one explanation offered for the seemingly callous attitude of some Chinese citizens after the September 11 terrorist attacks was that they felt the attacks would have no visible effect on their own livelihood, although some university students in Beijing wondered whether it would affect their applications to American graduate schools. The interplay of these factors—what I will call internationalism and nationalism— suggests perhaps the major conclusions of this chapter. Chinese youth display simultaneously highly contradictory values. They admire much of what they know of American society and culture, yet are highly nationalistic and suspicious of American motives and actions outside of the United States. While their behavior is strongly influenced by the penetration of global, particularly American, forces, they can mobilize rapidly in the face of a perceived threat to Chinese honor or sovereignty. During periods of perceived “crisis”—for example the American bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia in May 1999—the nationalistic component takes prominence, and dominates both official and unofficial media sources. During periods of relative calm, the more positive image of the United States, and American cultural products, receives extensive media attention. However, these value contradictions exist in a continuing tension, and both are present at all times. The problem for the regime, whose policies have created this dualism, is to maintain an acceptable balance that will not compromise either of the regime goals: building legitimacy and support for a strong China led by the Communist Party and integrating China within the global community. Unfortunately, signs of strain in balancing these tensions have already appeared.

Chinese media and youth

101

Internationalism One of the ironies one finds in studying Chinese youth in the twenty-first century is the seeming paradox that an increasing knowledge of and influence from the outside world has been accompanied by a rising tide of nationalism. In the 1980s Chinese students knew far less about international affairs and often accepted, quite naively, reports from Western media sources. In an era marked by student unrest and distrust of Chinese media reports—with major demonstrations in 1985, 1986 and of course 1989—students turned to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) and the Voice of America (VOA) for “unbiased” accounts. The more the regime sought to block information from outside, the more the students sought it out. Studies within China, contrasting the 1980s with the midto-late 1990s, have shown dramatic changes in knowledge of the outside world. One extensive survey conducted in May 1995, entitled “How Chinese People See the World,” depicted the earlier period as one in which the expression “foreign country” (waiguo) was as mysterious to ordinary Chinese as the moon (yueliang). By contrast, the more recent period was noteworthy for China’s extensive interaction with the global community (Horizon Research et al., 1997). 3 Indeed, the influence of the outside world on China is ubiquitous. China has been among the world’s leaders each year in attracting foreign investment. Some of the most popular books and magazines on newsstands are translations of Western authors or imitations of Western publications. Chinese rock music is directly modeled on its AngloAmerican counterpart. Almost all the dolls sold in Chinese department stores are Western, with blonde-haired and blue-eyed Barbies dominating the market for children’s dolls. Broadcasts of National Basketball Association games have created new “model heroes,” such as Michael Jordan. Indeed, Michael Jordan is so popular that a recent survey of 1,589 junior and senior high students conducted between July and October 1999 in five coastal cities found no one in the sports field—whether in China or abroad— remotely close to Michael (Horizon Research, 1999). After Chinese basketball star Wang Zhizhi was signed by the Dallas Mavericks of the NBA, it was extensively reported in the Chinese press. I noted at least thirteen articles on Wang’s activities in Dallas, most with pictures, from March 27 to April 28, 2001, in the Beijing Youth Daily alone. Internet use is expanding exponentially and, according to official statistics from 1998, over 80 per cent of the two million net surfers were 30 years old or younger. By the year 2000, the number of young “netizens” had reached 17 million. Political education workers were openly concerned about the threat posed by the combination of globalization, the Internet, and encroaching Western culture. Perhaps not surprisingly, the same survey of high school students that documented the popularity of Michael Jordan found Bill Gates topping the list of those rated as “most successful” (zui chenggong de ren). His triumph is particularly revealing when one considers the other choices. Following in descending order were Zhou Enlai, Hong Kong billionaire Li Kashing, a favorite teacher, the respondent’s father, and Deng Xiaoping. Jiang Zemin did not appear among the ten names reported. The case of TV and film star, Zhao Wei, provides a striking instance of how quickly

Chinese media, global contexts

102

Chinese recipients of adulation can become national pariahs, if they “insult” the nation. In 1999, after the broadcast of the television serial Huanzhu gege (Princess Huanzhu), there was a craze for the star, Zhao Wei, who played the character “Xiao Yan Zi.” Zhao received over 100,000 letters from her fans, and sociologists began to analyze the phenomenon of “idol worship” among the youth (Hao and Feng, 2000). Zhao’s success was worse than ephemeral, however. In a stark demonstration of the impact of popular nationalism, and a demonstration of the continuing public sensitivity to “national humiliation” (guo chi), Zhao was vilified in December 2001 after her picture appeared in a Chinese fashion magazine wearing a dress resembling the wartime Japanese flag. On January 6, 2002 she was physically attacked and had feces thrown at her during a live television performance. The fashion magazine was closed down and Zhao’s participation in the Chinese New Year television celebration was cancelled (Interviews, 2002; Kristof, 2002b). A check of postings as of late January at www.sina.com, one of China’s main chat rooms, turned up more than 20,000 postings on the Zhao Wei “case,” with most clearly agreeing that Zhao should be punished and praising the “feces thrower” for his correct patriotic behavior. Popular newspapers such as Jiefang ribao (the Liberation Daily), Yangcheng wanbao (the Yangcheng Evening News), and Beijing qingnian bao (the Beijing Youth Daily) took a very similar position in criticizing Zhao for wearing the dress, and the Japanese for their past actions in China. Nevertheless, they questioned the means of the attack, suggesting that “feces throwing” was not the best way to show patriotism (Interviews, 2002). If the remnant leftists have been displeased at the encroachments of international popular culture—a trend they have vilified as “cultural colonialism” (wenhua zhiminzhuyi)—they are not the only ones that have begun to question the less than benign impact of more blatantly “capitalistic phenomena” (Rosen, 1999). Adapting cultural critiques prominent in the West, some critics have begun warning about the dangers of a “McDonaldization of Chinese society,” a condition that leads in extreme cases to “dehumanization,” among other ills (Zhang, 1999). This has become part of a more general discussion, documented in surveys, of an increasing “secularization” (shisuhua) of Chinese youth since the late 1970s, in which material values have assumed paramount importance (Qian, 1999). Oddly enough, at least to Chinese critics, this secularization has been accompanied by a celebration of such Western religious holidays as Christmas and Easter, with the exchange of Christmas cards and Easter egg hunts becoming relatively common. The Chinese media have been warned by the Propaganda Department about promoting such “rampant Western superstition” (yang mixin liuxing) (Neibu tongxun, 2000b). The Department has also criticized the news reporting on some television channels for its excessive foreign content (Neibu tongxun, 2000a). As part of the effort to limit the “Westernization” of media, China’s Press and Publication Administration warned media owners that starting January 1, 2000 they were required to use direct translations of their magazines’ Chinese names as they appear on their publishing licenses. Chinese editions of such titles as Women’s Day, Cosmopolitan, and Esquire, published in joint ventures with local partners, were thus forbidden to use their English language names and logos (Advertising Age International, 2000). Such restrictions are part of the ebb and flow between state and society in an

Chinese media and youth

103

increasingly decentralized media market that has become consumer-oriented. While major newspapers are owned by Communist Party organs and subject to tight propaganda control, smaller “mass media” papers are often started as business ventures by local units, willing to take risks to increase their profits. Reports that are criticized as “irresponsible” by media watchdogs in Beijing quickly find their way onto Internet chat rooms (Rosenthal, 2001a). In this environment, Western media have been making steady inroads, although government policy has walked a fine line, offering small carrots, while always carrying a big stick. This is part of a dilemma the regime faces as it seeks to introduce market reforms while maintaining political control. China clearly needs Western input to develop its media industry, in both print and broadcast realms. Thus, while Chinese law prohibits foreign companies from owning media assets, this did not stop government agencies that owned publishing licenses from signing agreements with foreign publishers in the 1990s. As suggested above, the firms then launched Chinese editions, sometimes without government approval. The U.S.-based International Digital Group has a stake in twenty-two newspapers and magazines in China, including those concerned with the Internet. Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation owns 38.5 per cent of Phoenix Satellite Television Holdings, based in Hong Kong (Pomfret, 2001). Because almost all of China’s 217 cable channels are losing money, offering very little programming that can attract an audience, local authorities have been quite willing to accept foreign content, so long as it is not subversive (Economist, 2001). By late 2001, this gray business area was given more legal legitimacy when News Corporation and AOL Time Warner joined Phoenix by gaining permission to transmit limited programming to Guangdong province, in exchange for allowing the Chinese government’s English-language channel into American homes (Smith, 2001; Radio Free Asia, 2001). While foreign media companies expect this to be the beginning of increasing access to China’s enormous market, particularly now that China is a member of the WTO, Chinese officials have emphasized that broadcasts will be restricted to Guangdong (Fabrikant and Smith, 2001). Indeed, Party propaganda officials have taken a series of measures to try and control the burgeoning media market, in all its forms. For example, they continue to issue detailed instructions on how to cover and describe major issues, but with over 2,000 newspapers to monitor and new issues constantly arising, there remains considerable leeway in reporting. Protesting that young reporters are “too easily influenced by the bourgeois Western view of journalism,” the Propaganda Department has launched repeated campaigns to instill a “national duty” and a Marxist perspective (Rosenthal, 2001a). In addition to such largely ineffective exhortations to domestic journalists, the authorities have acted more forcefully to control the “new” media, particularly the Internet. China issued its first guidelines on Internet content in late 2000, requiring providers to monitor online chat rooms and bulletin boards and keep records of users’ viewing times, addresses and telephone numbers. In April 2001, a nationwide crackdown began, leading to the closure of 8,000 of the 56,800 Internet cafes that were inspected. Although the government has used electronic barriers to block access to “inappropriate” sites, off-limit sites continue to be available through overseas proxies, hiding the site’s true origin (South China Morning Post, 2001). Indeed, in a striking example of media

Chinese media, global contexts

104

decentralization, a leading Chinese specialist on the Internet, Guo Liang, used his column in the popular newspaper Southern Weekend to inform readers precisely how to use such proxy servers. By December 2001 the authorities were taking even stronger measures, both to control the Internet and to restrict access to foreign cable and satellite television broadcasts. Under new Ministry of Information Industry regulations, service providers were ordered to screen private email for political content and were to be held responsible for subversive postings on their websites. Providers were responsible for erasing all prohibited content, including online chat rooms and bulletin boards, with any “sensitive materials” to be turned over to authorities. Foreign software makers had to guarantee, in writing, that their products would not contain hidden programs that would allow spying or hacking into Chinese computers. The rules also required computers playing an important role in Chinese networks to use only domestic software (New York Times, 2002). The proposed restrictions on chat room and bulletin board content may be aimed, in part, at curbing some of the excessive “anti-foreign” messages that have been common, especially during crisis periods, and which have been widely reported in the foreign press (Kristof, 2002a). Among the long list of content to be banned is anything that hurts “China’s reputation.” At the same time, the government drafted new regulations to control viewing access to foreign cable and satellite television broadcasts. All universities, government institutions, hotels and residences were required to re-apply for the right to allow foreign television programming to be viewed on their premises. Among hotels, only those with four and five stars were even permitted to submit applications, and needed to prove that their clientele was at least 80 per cent foreign before receiving permission to allow viewing of cable and satellite television from overseas. The directive called for an 80 per cent reduction in the hours of foreign television programs available in Beijing via cable and satellite. Intellectuals were particularly upset with the new restrictions, since individual departments of academic institutions had to prove their research was closely related to the need to study foreign broadcasts before being given access. Ironically, as they were ordered to end satellite broadcasting, the universities were told that the restrictions were required under the WTO accession protocol (China News Digest, 2001). Perhaps the most obvious change in knowledge about the outside world has been in the area of popular culture. The film industry is a good example. Since the first “megaproduction” (dapian)—The Fugitive—opened on November 12, 1994, more than fifty major foreign films, mostly Hollywood products, have been shown theatrically in China. Although there has been a quota of only ten foreign films a year, these films have accounted for around 70 per cent of the Chinese box office. In addition, American films are widely available even in the smallest towns, on pirated VCDs and DVDs. The importance of American films to the Chinese market has posed a problem, not only with regard to the future of the Chinese film industry, but also to propaganda authorities, who are concerned about the “messages” imparted by these cultural products. This was starkly demonstrated after American movies were abruptly withdrawn from Chinese theaters in the wake of the May 1999 bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia by NATO forces. Reaction by the Chinese media to the bombing will be addressed below,

Chinese media and youth

105

under the heading of “nationalism,” but it is useful to note here that the banning of American movies caused the Chinese film market to suffer a severe depression. Audiences simply stayed away from theaters. Overall, the market declined by 50 per cent compared to 1998. It was only after the ban on American films was lifted in October 1999 that audiences began to return. Although it falls outside the scope of this chapter, it would be fascinating to examine in some detail the impact of American movies on the attitudes and behavior of Chinese citizens, particularly the upwardly mobile middle class youth in the urban areas, who are the primary consumers of Hollywood films. I noted one example earlier, in my discussion of the videos produced to explain the terrorist attacks to a Chinese audience. Another example is the rise of lawsuits, which have grown exponentially in recent years. A young Chinese woman, fired from her job at a trendy magazine, explained why she sued her former employer: “We’ve seen a lot of Hollywood movies—they feature weddings, funerals, and going to court. …So now we think it’s only natural to go to court a few times in your life” (Rosenthal, 2001b). Nationalism Since 1989 Chinese Communist Party (CCP) policy has indirectly acknowledged that heavy doses of obviously outdated political dogma have become counterproductive. The current strategy promotes patriotism while de-emphasizing politics. There is considerable evidence that overall this strategy has paid tangible dividends for the regime, but it has also created some potential problems. One positive effect—from the CCP’s point of view—is the increasing suspicion and distrust of the United States and the motivations for its “selfserving” China policy A number of surveys have documented the rise in such negative attitudes since 1993 when the American Congress passed a resolution urging the International Olympic Committee not to award China the Games in the year 2000 because of human rights violations. This was followed shortly after by an incident in which the American navy shadowed and eventually searched a Chinese ship suspected of carrying chemicals that could be used to manufacture weapons to Iran. When no such chemicals were found, the governmentcontrolled press—as they had after Beijing lost out to Sydney in the Olympic decision—took the lead in excoriating the United States for groundlessly violating Chinese sovereignty and attempting to police the world. The effect of these events is reflected in two surveys conducted in Beijing, one in 1988 and the other in 1996. Those who expressed a liking for the United States declined from 48 per cent to 23 per cent over this period, while those who dislike the United States increased from 14 per cent to 27 per cent (Zheng, 2000:96). It was in this political atmosphere that China Can Say No was published in 1996 (Fewsmith and Rosen, 2001). Written by five young authors, China Can Say No reflected a broadening of mass culture and the bubbling up of nationalist feeling. The book was striking not only because of its highly emotional tone, but also because the authors all claimed to have been strongly influenced by the United States, only to become disillusioned in the 1990s. In accounting for their new perspective, they cited American efforts to block China’s Olympic bid, the Yinhe ship incident (mentioned above),

Chinese media, global contexts

106

opposition to China’s GATT/WTO bid, the Taiwan issue (especially Lee Teng-hui’s visit to the United States), American support for Tibet, and alleged CIA activity in China (Song et al., 1996). They had come to realize, they said, that the United States was not the bastion of idealism that it claimed to be; “human rights” was merely a façade behind which the United States pursued its national interests. In fact, far from championing ideals in the world, the United States was an arrogant, narcissistic, hegemonic power that acted as a world policeman; now it was doing everything in its power to keep China from emerging as a powerful and wealthy country. China Can Say No found very little positive to say about the United States. If they looked favorably on any Western country it was France, particularly in cultural terms. It is striking how much of their broadside against American foreign policy and America’s intentions resonates closely with the views of Chinese youth today. One key difference, however, is the more balanced approach—the image of the “two Americas” mentioned in the introduction to this chapter—which one finds in interviews and the various surveys on youth attitudes and behavior, even after the May 1999 bombing of the Chinese Embassy \in Belgrade. In the extensive survey of almost 1,600 junior and senior high students conducted from July-October 1999 in five coastal cities noted earlier, Horizon Research found a wide variety of opinions about the United States. When they asked students to choose their most and least favorite countries—they could make up to three choices—the United States was given a favorable rating by 26.5 per cent of respondents, but a negative rating by 70.9 per cent of respondents. The overall score of -44.4 per cent put America clearly on the bottom. Only the -35.2 per cent Japan scored came close (Horizon Research, 1999:32). The reason for the mixed review became clear when the researchers engaged their respondents in discussion forums. When asked what they thought of the United States, the most common responses were: “hegemonist,” “advanced,” “policeman of the world,” and “basketball and the NBA.” Other common expressions were: “bombing of our Embassy in Yugoslavia,” “using human rights to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries,” “presidential sex scandals,” “campus violence,” “the ability of talented people to change jobs,” “Harvard University,” “highly developed science and technology,” “clean environment,” and “theater missile defense” (Horizon Research, 1999:31). One finds quite similar results in studies of university students. Chen Shengluo, a professor at an institute responsible for training future officials in Beijing, interviewed over 100 students at eight universities in Beijing, Luoyang and Fuzhou from April 2000 through July 2001. Although such surveys on youth attitudes and behavior are common in the Chinese media, it is far less common to find such an in-depth study by an established academic researcher. Based in large part on several hundred pages of interview notes, his study is worth examining in some detail (Chen, S., 2002). In undertaking the study, Chen was seeking to discover how the mood of the 1980s, when the West and America were “worshipped” (chong yang qinmei) had changed so drastically by the 1990s. His conclusion is that there are “two Americas” coexisting in the minds of Chinese students, an America that operates internationally and one that operates domestically, within the United States. The first America, familiar from chat rooms and official media accounts, is “hegemonist.” His interviewees reported virtually the same

Chinese media and youth

107

views as the high school students. Students were uniform, regardless of location, major, year in school, or any other attribute in citing “anti-hegemonism” as their motivating factor in responding to American foreign policy. America was the “world policeman,” “interfered in the internal affairs of other countries,” and “used military force against other countries for its own benefit and to promote its values.” The familiar litany of events, noted above, was cited, along with Taiwan policy, WTO obstacles, and an overriding American policy of seeking to “contain” China. The May 1999 bombing was the key event all interviewees cited, refusing to believe that a country with such advanced, sophisticated weapons could possibly have made such a “mistake.” What disturbed many was the lack of a plausible cover story; they felt that this showed additional contempt for China. While the interviewees suggested a variety of possible reasons why the United States would deliberately bomb the Embassy, all of them felt deeply ashamed at China’s weakness and inability to respond. Of particular interest was the role of the media in fostering such views. Chen notes the importance of a wide variety of information sources available to students, but concludes that most of their information came from radio, newspapers, and television. Because there is no television in their dormitories, domestic radio and newspapers were the most important sources. They seldom listened to foreign news sources, such as VOA, and when they did, they were skeptical of what they heard. Here again the May 1999 bombing played a role. Since they were convinced the attack was deliberate, and most Western news sources reported it as accidental, they questioned other international reporting as well. Although the extremist views propagated in Internet chat rooms have been widely publicized in the Western press, most interviewees said that they used the Internet either for games or to chat with friends, not as a source of information. They seldom went to read overseas reports on the web. The connection time was slow and it was a chore to read news in English. The second image of America was far more positive. The high level of development in the United States was attributed to its values and social system. The American educational system was also praised. Most students hoped to study there; indeed, they reported that their parents motivated them to study diligently by suggesting that such sacrifices might one day enable them to study in the United States. They were well aware of the relaxed study environment in the United States, with the emphasis on individual learning, and noted that this had helped produce Nobel Prize winners, some of whom were Chinese. They also noted that those who returned from the United States had the best job prospects. At the best universities, such as Beijing and Qinghua, it was widely acknowledged that “the best students go abroad, the second rank students go to Chinese graduate schools, and the rest look for work.” Again, the Chinese media played a role in shaping these views. On issues other than politics, the students felt that reporting on the United States was generally very positive. But there were other important sources of information as well. Word of mouth was crucial. Any non-governmental sources had enhanced credibility. Professors and young teachers who had returned from abroad suggested that being so chosen was a sign of one’s ability. The influence of American culture and products was also important. Students mentioned the NBA, Coca-Cola, athletic wear, fast food, Hollywood, and

Chinese media, global contexts

108

computers among their reasons for their fascination with the United States. The May 1999 embassy bombing No event has shaped Chinese youth attitudes toward the United States as much as the May 1999 bombing. Far more than the image of the lone young man in front of the Chinese tank in June 1989—an image that still strongly influences American attitudes toward China—the attack on the Belgrade Embassy is likely to remain the key image of American foreign policy intentions for young Chinese. An examination of the reaction within China—by the government, youth, and the media—is helpful in illuminating some of the key themes of this chapter. As noted above, Chinese youth have little interest in standard ideological appeals, but are susceptible to nationalistic appeals that endorse the rise of a rich and powerful China. At the same time, they have felt humiliated at the regime’s inability to respond to “provocations” from the United States, raising questions about their willingness to wait obediently for the authorities to raise China to the status of a world power. The May 1999 bombing revealed the inherent contradictions among prevailing youth values, and the contradictions that mark the Chinese regime’s policy toward the United States. In its reaction to the bombing, the CCP leadership was compelled to demonstrate that it was as patriotic as the students, that it would stand up for China against any perceived “aggression,” while also being very careful not to alienate the West. Thus, the government adopted the risky strategy of organizing and busing university students to the American Embassy in an effort to control the demonstrations. Although the last thing the government wants is nationalistic Chinese university students back on the streets, with a re-legitimization of public protest, they had little choice. As I will show below, media reporting reflected this dual strategy, expressing both outrage toward the U.S.-led NATO attack, and business-as-usual for Western companies in China. If the events of May 1999 compelled the leadership to remain ahead of the public opinion curve, they also revealed the inherent contradictions that mark youth values at the turn of the century. Two examples demonstrating the complex interplay between nationalism and internationalism—the themes of this chapter—should suffice. First, as is well known, the demonstrations by students and other youth were directed at the American Embassy, various consular offices and, at least initially, at the most visible symbols of American culture such as McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken. However, when students were asked whether the bombing would alter their plans to work for an American company or study in the United States, they most often replied that it would not, that the two issues were separate. Second, Titanic had been far and away the most popular movie ever marketed in China. Even Jiang Zemin recommended it to Chinese audiences (Rosen, 2002). After the bombing, however, some young people who had loved the film felt a bitter sense of betrayal. Some even suggested, in the manner of leftist cultural critiques, that the Americans had sent China the movie Titanic as part of a devious political strategy, to make gullible Chinese audiences think that the Americans are romantic, sentimental and peace-loving. In reality, however, these youths continued, as the bombing revealed, the movie was an attempt through cultural exchange to cover the real intention of the United States, which is to maintain its position as the world’s

Chinese media and youth

109

only superpower. These views are quite similar to reports in the Chinese media, which did its part in helping to shape and reinforce these sentiments. In “crisis” situations where Chinese sovereignty is threatened, the “two Americas” become conflated, with the media putting a negative spin, at least temporarily, on attributes that had often been reported positively at “normal” times. Thus, Chinese film magazines, for at least one month, joined in the assault by questioning the motives of American films (Zeng, 1999). Perhaps the most extensive and widely read series of articles on the May 1999 bombing appeared in Beijing Youth Daily. In their internal analysis of the performance of the media during this crisis, the News Bureau of the Central Propaganda Department singled out this series for particular praise (Neibu tongxun, 1999). The series ran from May 15 through May 20, taking the general theme of “reassessing” (chongxin renshi) the United States. Each article was divided into sections, with leading young intellectuals offering their views. Many of the contributors were critics of American “hegemonism” and American culture, familiar to Chinese readers from previous articles or books. Indeed, crisis situations afford greater access to the mainstream media by these critics. It is important to note, however, that the series was preceded by an article on May 12 reassuring readers that life had not changed for workers and staff of major American and European corporations in China. The article was at pains to note that the leaders at these corporations “understood” that the student protest activities were not directed at them or their companies, and that there had been no threats to life or property. Various Western executives were quoted, suggesting that the protests were “understandable,” that they would transmit the voices of the Chinese people back to the United States, and that they would not alter their investment plans as a result (Beijing Youth Daily, 1999a). A major theme in all the “reassessment” articles is American arrogance; another theme is American unilateralism; yet a third theme is the insidious nature of American culture. The first of this series, on May 15, dealt with human rights. In a similar manner to the videos produced after the September 11 terrorist attacks, Hollywood films are compared with real events. The preface to the article notes how the movie Saving Private Ryan touched so many people. It then asks why there is such a huge difference between human rights in actual warfare and Hollywood’s human rights. Are Chinese mothers not as important as American mothers? Are the human rights of Private Ryan merely an American dream Hollywood markets to the world? The article then goes on to ridicule the American Congress for passing laws and resolutions that put American law above international law. Various students are interviewed and explain how they have now lost their illusions about the United States. One notes how American culture has permeated the world and how Americans have “surreptitiously” turned some people into “captives of American ideology” (Beijing Youth Daily, 1999b). The next article was on freedom of the press. The message here was that “freedom of the press,” in its American manifestation, merely serves the policies and interests of the “hegemonists.” Since 80 per cent of the information issued worldwide is controlled by Western media, the contents of reports are evaluated by the standards of Western values. Moreover, seeking to keep China weak, the American mainstream media are used as an unremitting weapon to attack and “demonize” China. American international news

Chinese media, global contexts

110

reporting fully supports the war machine. An anchorman at MSNBC, in reporting the bombing of the Chinese Embassy, is reported to have said flippantly: “Oh, I was careless and bombed you.” “His next sentence might very well have been: ‘Good job!’” (Beijing Youth Daily, 1999c). It is important to note, of course, that Chinese readers have little independent access to Western news reporting, particularly television news, so the characterizations, and direct quotes, cannot be verified. They do, however, evoke the emotional responses intended. The article on May 17 dealt with “national strength” (guoli). Much of the discussion was on the increasing strength of China, in terms of economics and national defense. The message was the need to continue China’s rise by remaining cohesive and united, with the spirit of patriotism cited as the basic content of this cohesive force. Chinese patriots must work together to prevent the United States from creating a global system centered on a unipolar America (Beijing Youth Daily, 1999d). Following on this theme, the May 18 contribution discussed “globalization.” Again, there was an appeal to patriotism. Two different views of globalization were presented, the American “new world order” and the global integration strategy favored by China, representing the developing countries. China’s “unique” role as a rising major socialist power, different from all others in the future multipolar world-to-be, is emphasized. Given the pressure this will bring, readers are urged to maintain China’s economic independence and “use Chinese-made products in as many fields as possible.” Only a strong China, with a major voice in international affairs, can prevent a recurrence of the Belgrade bloodshed (Beijing Youth Daily, 1999e). On May 19 the series shifted to cultural issues directly, with an article on American “big films.” Hollywood films are compared to the “all-pervasive” McDonald’s, Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Coca-Cola, in their attempt to change fundamentally the tastes of the younger generation. Dismissing the idea that Hollywood is only interested in commercial profits, the article argues that the real motivation is political, to serve as a conscious supporter in helping America realize its cultural leadership. In acknowledging that action and gangster films do play up a dark side of American society, a film critic notes that the “evil forces” will always be crushed at the end. American films openly promote American values, while films about Asia, Africa and the former Soviet Union offer only negative stereotypes. Movies about China shown to Americans, such as Red Corner, reinforce the “demonization” message already prevalent in other American media. The graphics in these articles—always an arresting feature of Beijing Youth Daily—are particularly potent. In this case, there is a large picture of the Statue of Liberty, disfigured with a skeleton’s face and the word “KILLER” written in large English letters above it (Beijing Youth Daily, 1999f). The final “reassessment” article, on Western civilization, is of particular interest because it is directed specifically at young people, urging them to abandon their “romantic illusions” and prepare for an uncertain future. It warns that Western civilization has always embraced social Darwinism, that the weak are the prey of the strong. American culture is characterized by its emphasis on “enjoyment,” as in the commercials for Coca-Cola. But American happiness and enjoyment are gained at the expense of the rest of the world. Moreover, American and Western culture is seen as short-term, of no universality and doubtful continuity. As Fang Ning, a leading “new

Chinese media and youth

111

leftist” asks in the article, “Are we to imitate such culture?” (Beijing Youth Daily, 1999g). The newspaper also conducted a telephone survey of 800 Beijing residents on the bombing and reassessment issues. Although highly unscientific, the publication of the results of the survey gives a good picture of the message the regime was trying to propagate, particularly to the young. As might be expected, the reactions to the bombing range from shock to disbelief to fury, with no one believing it was unintentional. Many people say they would now revise their opinion of America, and the newspaper notes that it is only the latest in a series of armed aggressions against China from the West, going back to the Opium War. Beijing Youth Daily leaves no doubt that the proper message— based on the survey results—is that these events should be greeted by young people with “sober reflection,” and that the proper response is to “work and study harder than ever.” As to the issue of reassessment, 68 per cent believe the United States is “hypocritical,” 56 per cent choose “barbaric” and “insane,” 48 per cent use the term “out of its senses,” and 37 per cent think the United States “is like the Nazis.” The paper concludes that the bombing raised the rate of disfavor of the United States among Chinese citizens by at least 24 percentage points. If NATO were to satisfy all the requests of the Chinese government, it suggests, the disfavor rate might fall by 16 percentage points (Beijing Touth Daily, 1999h). Conclusion This chapter has sought to demonstrate that China in 2002 is a far different place for youth than it was in 1989, with the Chinese media playing a major role in the transformation. The regime set out to reconfigure the state-society relationship that had been torn asunder before and during what is now widely known as “Tiananmen.” In the process “socialism with Chinese characteristics” has expanded sufficiently to embrace cultural and economic forms from the West that were previously unacceptable to the CCP. There has been a shift from legitimacy based on ideological goals to legitimacy that must constantly be tested through performance criteria. While the former basis of legitimacy was essentially qualitative—even a disaster such as the Great Leap Forward could be justified, at least on theoretical grounds, if it raised political consciousness and promoted a “Communist spirit”—the new basis of legitimacy is essentially quantitative, and judgments can be rendered using commonly agreed upon measures. This is true for both individual (domestic) and collective (foreign policy) goals. The socialist revolution, at least on the current evidence, appears to be dormant, if not deceased. The success and authority of the CCP will be based more and more on its ability to create a rich and powerful China, able to assume what is widely perceived domestically as its rightful place among the world’s powers. There are obvious risks to this strategy, however. The effects of “globalization” have already reached into China, and the impact of international forces will undoubtedly increase now that China is a member of the WTO. The public reaction to the American bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade was a wakeup call to the regime that Chinese youth expect the Party-state to defend China’s national interests, at the same time that they expect China to remain open for (international) business, an essential requirement for raising the standard

Chinese media, global contexts

112

of living of an increasingly instrumental generation. In mollifying the students and urging them to return to their studies, the authorities argued that the government and the people must work in tandem to strengthen China sufficiently so that Americans will never again dare to humiliate China by attacking its sovereignty. This long-term strategy of creating a strong China, based on a cooperative relationship with the United States and the West, has inevitably restricted the regime in responding to “accidents” that have occurred since May 1999. The gap between popular nationalism and officially sanctioned patriotism is growing. The EP-3 spy plane incident of April 2001, in which an American surveillance plane collided with a Chinese fighter jet, found the government and the official media—including Beijing Youth Daily—taking a far softer line than the students. When the Chinese military discovered that Jiang Zemin’s presidential jet, purchased and outfitted in the United States, had been crammed with listening devices, the government took strenuous measures to ensure that the incident was not mentioned in the official media, seeking to limit the damage before the arrival of President George W. Bush in February 2002 (Rosenthal, 2002). Internet chat rooms, in discussing this case, have been far more critical of U.S. perfidy, as well as Chinese waste and corruption, despite the admonitions of chat room monitors on officially run websites to “maintain order and…not discuss the bugging incident.” Censors have quickly moved to delete unacceptable postings (Kuhn, 2002). Still, on those websites such as sina.com and netease, which allow readers to append comments to news stories, criticism of the United States was widespread. Given the potential danger of a future confrontation over Taiwan, the defense of Chinese sovereignty is likely to remain a key factor in the maintenance of legitimacy by the regime. Expectations have been raised that may be difficult to meet. Surveys have shown that Chinese youth fully expect China to play a far stronger role on the world stage in the first part of the twenty-first century (Fewsmith and Rosen, 2001). If the regime is unable to meet such high expectations, however, it may find, to use an old Chinese expression, that in playing the nationalism card it has “mounted a tiger and can’t easily dismount” (qihu nanxia). Notes 1 “Nationalism” is of course a controversial term and there is considerable debate within China and among Western scholars on its origins, definition and operationalization within the Chinese context. For example, some specialists argue that Chinese patriotism comprises an admixture of political nationalism, ethnic Han identity, and a culturalist pride that is observed in allusions to Chinese civilization as a point of self identity (Unger, 1996). Some argue that foreign provocations that patriotic Chinese attack do not in fact exist, and therefore the origin of Chinese “superpatriotism” must be found within China. Edward Friedman, for example, argues that these origins can be found in the late history of Chinese nationalism and the Mao-era failure to build a modern nation-state (Friedman, 2001). 2 It is not always easy to make a distinction between the “official” and the “popular.” Given the imperatives of the market, a successful “official” newspaper such as the

Chinese media and youth

113

Bijing Youth Daily must also appeal to popular tastes. Thus, the paper has been at the forefront in promoting the approved values, but also devotes a great deal of space to popular culture, both domestic and foreign. One Chinese informant suggested that all Chinese media are “official” media. He preferred to make a distinction on the basis of “center” and “non-center” media. 3 Surveys conducted in China form an important component of this chapter. I have discussed the reliability of Chinese surveys quite extensively elsewhere (Roseri and Chu, 1987; Rosen 1992), but a brief discussion of the surveys employed in this chapter is helpful. First, survey methodology has improved greatly in China since the early days of reform. There are now many sophisticated public and private survey agencies and many centers headed by returned students and scholars, using appropriate methods of data gathering and data analysis. However, because survey and public opinion research is now so widespread, there are also many surveys that are poorly done methodologically and/or done for specific political purposes. One can expect surveys openly published in the official press, intended to educate rather than merely inform, to have an implied political agenda. In a real sense, such surveys contain right and wrong answers. A recent example was the study allegedly carried out in Tibet that found that over 90 per cent of Tibetans thought that the Dalai Lama was a “splittist.” In addition to a number of methodological and political problems, it should be noted that most Chinese surveys tend to be snapshots, taken at a given time rather than as part of an ongoing survey project. There is little in the way of time-series data. Such problems, among others, are serious but not insurmountable. There are several ways to reduce the distortion factor. First, one can avoid surveys published in open and widely circulated sources and concentrate on journals intended for academic researchers, although it is also sometimes useful to examine highly flawed political surveys in order to ascertain the message the authorities want to disseminate. Second, one can seek surveys with national, provincial or municipal samples rather than localized surveys with small samples, although the size of the N is certainly no guarantee of proper sampling procedures. Surveys that provide detailed information on sampling techniques and that disaggregate the data by relevant sociological variables such as age, sex, education, and so forth are of course most preferable but quite rare. Third, one can examine the analyses of the data provided by the Chinese researchers themselves. Analyses that overtly use the results to make a political point are more suspect than those which report the data dispassionately and academically. Fourth, one can compare the results to what is known from other sources. Highly counterintuitive results should be examined with particular skepticism. Fifth, surveys that report results that challenge the official discourse are particularly intriguing, even if they are limited local studies and have methodological problems. The interesting political question then becomes the reason for their publication. The surveys used in this chapter have been carefully chosen, and reflect the discussion above.

Chinese media, global contexts

114

References Advertising Age International (2000), March 1, p. 19. Beijing Youth Daily (1999a), “Life and work go on normally for workers and staff of major American and European corporations in China,” May 12, p. 11. ——(1999b), “A renewed understanding of human rights,” May 15, p. 4. ——(1999c), “A renewed understanding of freedom of the press,” May 16, p. 4. ——(1999d), “A renewed understanding of national strength,” May 17, p. 3. ——(1999e), “A renewed understanding of globalization,” May 18, p. 3. ——(1999f), “A renewed understanding of American big films,” May 19, p. 3. ——(1999g), “A renewed understanding of Western civilization,” May 20, p. 3. ——(1999h), “The Chinese take another look at the United States,” May 19, p. 8. Chen, Shengluo (2002), “Liangge meiguo: zhongguo daxuesheng de meiguoguan” [Two Americas: the views of Chinese university students toward the United States], Qingnian yanjiu [Youth Studies], 6 (June): 18. Chen, Xi (ed.) (2001) Diguo e meng: jiu yiyi meiguo jingshi kongbu shijian jishi [The empire’s nightmare: report on the shattering “September 11” events in the USA]. Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chubanshe. China News Digest (2001), “Foreign TV restrictions infuriate academics,” December 28 (Internet, from South China Morning Post, December 22). Eckholm, Erik (2001), “A pilot is lost, and a communist titan is found,” New York Times , April 27, p. A4. Economist (2001), “Unscrambling the signals,” October 27. http://www.lexisnexis.com/universe Editorial Group (2001), 9/11 meiguo kongbu da baozha [September 11: The great terrorist attacks on America]. Beijing: Shishi chubanshe. Fabrikant, Geraldine and Smith, Craig S. (2001), “Western TV rights may be nearer for Chinese,” New York Times , September 5, pp. Cl, 4. Fewsmith, Joseph and Rosen, Stanley (2001), “The domestic context of Chinese foreign policy: does ‘public opinion’ matter?,” in D.M.Lampton (ed.), The Making of Chinese Foreign and Security Policy in the Era of Reform . Stanford: Stanford University Press, pp. 151–187. Friedman, Edward (2001), “Still building the nation: the causes and consequences of China’s patriotic fervor,” in Shiping Hua (ed.), Chinese Political Culture: 1989–2000 . Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. Hao, Yuzhang and Feng, Xiaotian (2000), “Qingshaonian de ouxiang chongbai” [Idol worship among the youth], Qingnian yanjiu [Youth Studies], 4 (April): 22–29. He, Wei (2000), Ku [Cool]. Jilin: Jilin sheying chubanshe. Hessier, Peter (2001), “Straight to video,” The New Yorker , October 15, pp. 83–87. Horizon Research (1999), “Xun cool yidai” [Looking for the cool generation]. Unpublished research report, December 15. Horizon Research, State Statistical Bureau, and Chinese Entrepreneurs Investigation System (eds) (1997), Guancha zhongguo [Observing China]. Beijing: Gongshang

Chinese media and youth

115

chubanshe, pp. 31–52. Interviews (2002), Interviews with students from China who have investigated Chinese websites, January 23–27. Knstof, Nicholas D. (2002a), “The chip on China’s shoulder,” New York Times , January 18, p.A25. ——(2002b), “The new China syndrome,” New York Times , January 22, p. A23. ——(2002c), “Our man in Beijing,” New York Times , January 25, p. A23. Kuhn, Anthony (2002), “China keeps lid on plane bugs,” Los Angeles Times , January 23, p. A4. Lee, Chin-chuan (ed) (2000), Power, Money, and Media: Communication Patterns and Bureaucratic Control in Cultural China . Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. McElroy, Damien (2001), “Beijing produces videos glorifying terrorist attacks on ‘arrogant’ U.S.,” London Telegraph , November 4. Internet edition. Neibu tongxun [Internal Newsletter] (1999), 13, pp. 2–6. ——(2000a), 13, p. 15. ——(2000b), 14, pp. 13–14. New York Times (2002), “China issues Internet controls,” January 18. O’Neill, Mark (2001), “Phoenix rises after poor state coverage of attacks,” South China Morning Post , October 2. Internet edition. Oster, Shai (2001), “Serves you right: China’s online chatrooms were so short on sympathy that even the authorities flinched,” Asiaweek , September 28, p. 31. Pomfret,John (2001), “China’s new media marketplace upsets old order,” Washington Post , June 5, p. A14. ——(2002), “China sees interests tied to U.S.,” Washington Post , February 2, p. A1. Qian, Jin (1999), “Dangdai zhongguo qingnian de shisuhua” [The secularization of contemporary Chinese youth], Qingnian yanjiu [Youth Studies], 9 (September): 12–16. Radio Free Asia (2001), “News Corp. gets TV broadcast rights in China,” December 19. Rosen, Stanley (1992), “Students and the state in China: the crisis in ideology and organization,” in Arthur Rosenbaum (ed.), State and Society in China: The Consequences of Reform . Boulder, CO: Wesrview. ——(1999), pp. 1–103. “The debate over cultural colonialism in China,” Chinese Sociology and Anthropology , 31(4). ——(2002), “The wolf at the door: Hollywood and the film market in China from 1994– 2000,” in Eric J.Heikkila and Rafael Pizarro (eds), Southern California in the World and the World in Southern California . Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group (forthcoming). Rosen, Stanley and Chu, David (1987), Survey Research in the People’s Republic of China . Washington, DC: United States Information Agency. Rosenthal, Elisabeth (2001a), “China struggles to ride herd on ever more errant media,” New York Times , March 17, p. A3. ——(2001b), “Chinese test new weapon from West: lawsuits,” New York Times , June 16, p. A3. ——(2002), “Espionage? By the U.S.? China prefers to stay quiet,” New York Times , January 23, p. A5.

Chinese media, global contexts

116

Ruan, Guoqin (2001), “Xiegei wang wei de qingshu” [A love letter written to Wang Wei], Beijing Youth Daily , April 28, pp. 1, 5. Smith, Craig S. (2001), “AOL wins some China TV rights,” New York Times , October 23. Internet edition. Song, Qiang, Zhang, Zangzang and Qiao, Bian (1996), Zhongguo keyi shuo bu [China can say no]. Beijing: Zhonghua gongshang lianhe chubanshe. South China Morning Post (2001), “China tightens controls over Internet cafes,” July 25, p. 7. Unger, Jonathan (ed.) (1996), Chinese Nationalism , Armonk, NY: M.E.Sharpe. VCD [Video compact disk] (2001), Xiji meiguo [Surprise attack on America]. Beijing: Thakral. Wall Street Journal (2001), “Terrorist attacks in U.S. spark unusual sympathy from China,” September 13. Internet edition. Wang, Bin (2001), “Dazhong wenhua dui qingshaonian yidai de yingxiang” [The influence of mass culture on the younger generation], Qingnian yanjiu [Youth Studies], 1 (January): 11–17. Wang, Rongqing (2000), “Zhongguo ‘xin renlei’ yu hulianwang” [China’s “new mankind” and the Internet], Zhongguo qingnian yanjiu [Research on Chinese Youth], 3 (March): 28–30. Zeng, Yabo (1999), “Jiekai haolaiwu de miansha” [Drawing aside Hollywood’s veil], Zhongguo dianying shichang [China Film Market], 7 (July): 10. Zhang, Dunfu (1999), “Nianqing yidai xiaofeizhe yu ‘maidonglaohua’ de shehui” [Consumers of the young generation and the “McDonaldization” of Society], Qingnian yanjiu [Youth Studies], 1 (January): 3–7. Zheng, Yongnian (2000), “Nationalism, globalism, and China’s international relations,” in Weixing Hu, Gerald Chan and Daojiong Zha (eds), China’s International Relations in the 21st Century: Dynamics of Paradigm Shifts . Lanham, MD: University Press of America, p. 104.

6 Political drama and news narratives Presidential summits on Chinese and U.S. national television Tsan-Kuo Chang A presidential summit is more than a face-to-face meeting between leaders holding the highest office in their respective countries. Although it has all the ingredients to be a media event, it is not exactly so because the festive nature is usually auxiliary, if not cosmetic, in such a context. The summit is not only a site of direct exchanges in an official setting, but also a form of symbolic communication that conveys a sense of great authority, power, and legitimacy of leaders in the diplomatic arena. It is a high-level political drama with profound national and international implications for the individual participants and the countries involved. The whole event is a serious negotiation and accommodation on complex and sensitive issues that are arranged by powerful policy makers across national borders. A presidential summit therefore carries an imprint of personal involvement, public expectation, and potential cross-national consequences. It is not simply a spectacle, but an event that demands media narration. A media event, as Dayan and Katz (1992) put it, can be characterized as the transmission of historical occasions of state in an interruptive, monopolistic, live, and remote mode. A presidential summit is certainly a state occasion that is interruptive and monopolistic, but not always live and remote. Its social functions are different in that it has substantial impact on national policy and the public perception of the president (MacKuen, 1983; Plischke, 1968). As part of political drama, a presidential summit “is expected to cast the president in a positive light, trigger a rally effect, and thus increase his standing with the public” (Simon and Ostrom, 1989:77; see also Ostrom and Simon, 1989). Although presidential “use of television and foreign travel may be useful,” alone or in tandem they are not “guaranteed to halt declines or replenish sizable losses of public support” (Simon and Ostrom, 1989:78). The significance of the presidential summit thus does not necessarily lie in what effects it may have on public opinion, but in how it may unfold and what it may mean symbolically (So, 1987) in the “communities of interpretation.” It is the definition of situations by the news media that helps set the parameters for public perception. For one thing, as Hallin and Mancini (1992) argue, news coverage of presidential summits creates an awareness of international integration or global community through the media’s role as “interrogators and interpreters” of the participants.

Chinese media, global contexts

118

Communities of interpretation and news narratives As communities of interpretation (Said, 1997) or a significant part of interpretive communities (Fish, 1980; Said, 1978), the news media constitute a major public venue through which a given society’s particular vision of reality is narrated and conveyed to its members as a form of social knowledge (Park, 1955). Narrative as an approach of intellectual inquiry (Van Dijk, 1988) has informed the analysis of news and its relationship with social and political realities at both the national and international levels (Durham, 1998; Entman, 1991; Fisher, 1985; Hart et al., 1991; Jensen, 1987; Kieran, 1997; Lucaites and Condit, 1985; Pan et al., 1999; Roeh and Cohen, 1992). The news as narrative is a storytelling mechanism with specific properties “that encourage those perceiving and thinking about events to develop particular understandings of them” (Entman, 1991:7). News narrative is orienting, communal, and ritualistic (Bird and Dardenne, 1988:70). As a way of seeing, knowing, and making sense of the world, it is generally made up of the plot, characters, genre, rhetorical device, function, journalistic practice, and ideological vision. A plot “is concerned with the selection, evaluation, and attribution of differential status to events” (Jacobs, 2000:10). Its structural coherence provides a common thread to foster a depth of “knowledge” or conceptual framework that is expected to transmit what is to be known or understood. The characters are social actors identified or portrayed in the news, through which views, ideas, and perspectives may be articulated either directly or indirectly. The selection of characters in the cast is both automatic and deliberate. It is automatic because leading characters make things happen and are hence essential to the plot. It is deliberate because other characters may hold strategic positions, depending on what utilitarian role they play. Between the characters and events of a narrative, a genre is needed to provide “a temporal and spatial link” in order to create some kind of experience (Jacobs, 2000:10). A genre is a conspicuous category of presentation and identification that sets it apart from all other genres. In the case of the presidential summit, the two underpinning concepts— “the presidential” and “the summit”—signify the unparalleled and compelling nature of the event itself that demands attention and narration. Events such as presidential summits may evoke speculation, but do not speak for themselves. A rhetorical device allows the object of narration to be conceived and presented in a particular way (Durham, 1998; Entman, 1991), and “gives us something to think about as well as something not to think about” (Hart, 1987). Narratives therefore are functional and come in many forms (Lucaites and Condit, 1985). The function can be either dialectical in truth seeking or normative in consensus building. In journalistic practices, it can be identified as inquisitive or persuasive, depending on whether journalists assume the role of an adversary or an advocate. Accordingly, there is an ideological dimension in news narratives (Durham, 1998; Jensen, 1987; cf. Kieran, 1997, for a dissenting view), varying between “open” and “closed” presentations. The former is more rhetorically balanced, current, and neutral, whereas the latter is the opposite (Roeh and Cohen, 1992). An open presentation leaves

Political drama and news narratives

119

room for potential competing interpretations; its antithesis attempts a closure that may favor a specific take on reality. A form of story telling, news narratives do not take place in a vacuum, nor are they inherently embedded in the events or issues themselves. Whether big or small, events or issues must be told in words or images or both to become news. In the process of narrating a story, journalists often position themselves strategically in the larger environment and practice their trade according to what is possible and permissible for them to do within the specific context (Tuchman, 1978). From the micro (e.g., journalistic idiosyncrasies) through the organizational (e.g., routines and social control in the newsroom) to the macro levels (e.g. social structure and political arrangement), a variety of factors tend to determine how journalists approach the reality, what they perceive in it, and why they present it as news in a particular way (e.g., Shoemaker and Reese, 1996). The end result constitutes a mode of knowing that allows the public to make sense of the world. In China or the United States, the circulation of social knowledge through the mass media permits the respective communities to function more effectively and efficiently. Given its dynamics and properties, the presidential summit provides an ideal site for a closer look at news as narratives that transform the real to the mediated. Presidential summits and television coverage President Jiang Zemin visited the United States in October 26–31, 1997. becoming the first Chinese leader to do so after the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. His “journey to the West” was designed to boost his status, power, and legitimacy as a world leader on the one hand (Wasserstrom, 2000) and to move China out of the post-Tiananmen backlash on the other hand. The visit itself and his Washington summit with President Bill Clinton were well received officially and widely publicized in the United States. Eight months later, Clinton returned the favor by visiting China between June 25 and July 4, 1998, becoming the first U.S. president to hold a summit in Beijing in more than a decade. Along with other news media, television in the two countries was there to capture the summits as they unfolded. Against the backdrop of news as narratives, the purpose of this study is to determine the form and content of the two presidential summits as they played out on the ABC World News Report and China Central Television’s Xinwen Lianbo (Network News). The main thrust is to unravel, through narrative analysis, how the news media in both countries might provide a certain picture of reality and what powerful social interests they might serve (Lee, 1990, 2000). Actual video broadcasts of primetime news programs from the two networks were taped and extensively scrutinized. To paraphrase Geertz (1973:5, emphasis added), to understand what something is, we should “look at what the practitioners of it do” What can be known about the news narratives on television is what its practitioners have made to be seen and thus knowable.

Chinese media, global contexts

120

Mr Jiang goes to Washington: the summit on ABC From the first day President Jiang arrived in the United States, ABC World News Report framed his trip as a “tough sell” in the context of Sino-American relations that “were strained over Taiwan, Chinese human rights and trade imbalance.” The 134-second piece was essentially written from the American point of view, looking at China as an unfair trade partner that was unresponsive to U.S. concerns. While the video showed no sign of confrontation, the audio suggested otherwise, explicitly setting up the plot of what was to come throughout Jiang’s visit. The rhetoric underscored that China was “under fire from Washington” and Jiang would face “a host of contentious issues from drug trafficking to human rights.” It conveyed a sense of hard times ahead for Jiang. In addition to the “tough sell” frame, ABC announced on the second day its intention to open the “China File” everyday during Jiang’s stay. With the two words etched in a template-like box on the screen, the “China File” clearly suggested a specific target for investigation. Citing The Economist—a respected British weekly and a media source that undoubtedly would lend significant weight to ABC’s inquiry—Peter Jennings posed a big question that set the parameters for ABC coverage of Sino-American relations: “Can the world’s most powerful economy, the U.S., and its fastest growing rival, namely China, get along better?” The inquisitive tone was to dissect the mood and style of the Chinese leader as well as the case he wanted “to make to the American people and the political establishment.” The rhetoric and the images were consistent with the assumption of a “tough sell” campaign projected onto Jiang’s mission. Without quoting any specific sources, ABC reported that Jiang wanted “respect” and “an acknowledgment” that China was “a growing power on the world scene” and deserved “to be taken seriously.” With a sense of authority, the story said that the Chinese president did not “want to be lectured about human rights” and that “China should be given its own pace, its own time to develop politically.” Whether such statements were Jiang’s views or simply the reporter’s own, they left little doubt that Jiang was seeking approval or recognition for China from the United States. The rhetoric had a clear political undertone, implying the difficulties and hostilities Jiang might face and the leverage the United States had in dealing with China. It laid the ground work for the supporting characters to appear in subsequent stories. When Jiang arrived in Washington, DC, ABC carried two stories in the middle of the lineup. The trade issue that was supposed “to be high on the US agenda” was almost abandoned. Over more than four minutes, both the images and the rhetoric turned up the heat, touching on a variety of sensitive issues that have troubled China around the world and in the United States. Any photo opportunities that Jiang had to portray his image as “sympathetic” and accessible to the American people were immediately countered with critical comments, condemnations or pictures of protests and demonstrations. The juxtaposition of scenes in various settings and characters with diverse interests and backgrounds presented conflicting or competing images and words that explicitly deviated from the implicit confrontation embedded in the earlier stories. In the “China File,” the stories were both hyped and potentially explosive. Jennings used the word “enormous” to describe the “US dependence on madein-China products”

Political drama and news narratives

121

in an apparent effort to underscore the magnitude of U.S.-China relations. But the gist of the stories had nothing to do with trade, concentrating instead on China’s internal behaviors and practices, especially its human rights policy and religious freedom, and how they were perceived by the Americans. As Jennings saw it, China had “a lot of enemies here.” Nevertheless, before the “enemies” showed up on ABC, Jiang and his entourage were treated to a symbolic photo opportunity, donning colonial-era hats “to show American people” that he was “a sympathetic figure.” The scene was reminiscent of Deng Xiaoping wearing a cowboy hat in 1979 when he visited the United States after the two countries formally established diplomatic relations. Such symbolism and its political usefulness in the Sino-American high politics obviously were not lost on Jiang, a protege of Deng. The cheerful impression was short-lived, however. ABC quickly pointed out that Jiang’s critics were not amused by his public relations gimmick. From officials to civilians, there was no shortage of detractors. In the ABC narration, Washington was “filled with constituencies lining up to take their shots” at Jiang and China. In one story, Representative Tom Lantos of the House International Operations Subcommittee condemned that “cynical photo opportunities” would “not suffice to cover up the shameful human rights record of the Chinese government.” A group of protesters shouting “China out of Tibet Now” soon appeared in full view. With the protesters in the background, under the headline “Protest,” the screen itemized four issues of contention: treatment of Tibet, religious freedom, trade policy, and political prisoners. Although short, the entire piece took China to task, forming a coherent body of knowledge and a corresponding mode of interpretation of Tibet. In the Tibetan story, the visual and the verbal clearly identified the villains and the victims. Jennings asserted that Jiang was “going to hear something about Tibet” everywhere he went in the United States. With China, Japan, Mongolia, Russia, and Tibet visibly marked in different colors and similar font type and size, a map indicated not only the geographical location of Tibet, but also its independence to China. An apparently preplanned story about Tibet emerged from the “China File,” providing a reality check on China’s internal practices as opposed to its external PR campaigns manifest in Jiang’s “charm offense.” This longest piece (2 minutes and 55 seconds) during Jiang’s visit, like many others to follow, attempted to be balanced in its presentation by adopting a point versus counterpoint format. The narrative affirmed the Chinese authority’s permission for “open worship in Tibet,” but pointed out the presence of security agents and the prohibition of “any show of support for Tibet’s holiest leader, the Dalai Lama,” including the display of his photograph. The most revealing narration came at the end: “In this ancient land, the Chinese almost certainly have underestimated one thing about these devoted people: the power of faith.” What was unspoken, but indisputably evident, was a conviction that China is doomed to fail in its attempt to coerce the Tibetan people. ABC News spent more than seven minutes in the top three stories on the day when the two leaders finally met at the White House. The significance, complexity and uncertainty of the summit could be easily recognized in questions Jennings put forward “for the whole country”: “Is the People’s Republic of China America’s next great enemy, a nation never to be trusted whose leader should never be welcomed to the White House as he was

Chinese media, global contexts

122

today? Or is China a nation that U.S. can do business with, everuencourage to show greater respect for human rights?” The story following his inquisition was provocative and antagonistic, with the American press and President Clinton jumping into the fray amid a series of demonstrations and denunciations concerning the triangular relationship among China, Taiwan, and the United States. The second longest story (2 minutes and 45 seconds) gave China’s nemesis Taiwan significant exposure through banners and slogans: “One Taiwan, One China,” “China Hands Off Taiwan,” “Taiwan is Sovereign,” “Do Not Sell Out Taiwan,” and “Taiwan independence.” China’s abuse of human rights was also hinted at in mock shackles that printed the name of Wang Dan, a student leader imprisoned after the 1989 Tiananmen Square movement, and in various Amnesty International posters. The ABC narrator said that demonstrators ran a “full menu of protests,” ranging from “China’s behavior on Taiwan,” “its record on human rights,” to “its suppression of independence of Tibet.” The characters varied from the far right—Gary Bauer of the Family Research Council—to Hollywood activism—actor Richard Gere. The context was captured in a banner: “Let Freedom Ring. Stop Human Rights Abuses in China and Tibet.” The rest of the story remained confrontational, if not aggressive, with the American press and Clinton taking turns to fire “their shots” at Jiang. At a news conference, Jiang was asked whether he regretted “that China used force to crush the Tiananmen Square democracy movement eight years ago.” He answered no, insisting that “the Chinese government had to take necessary measures according to law.” Clinton took issue with that, saying that “we have a very different view of the meaning of the events of Tiananmen Square.” Jiang fought back, arguing that “the concept of freedom is relative.” Clinton then “took one more shot at the Chinese government,” asserting that “we believe the policy of the government is on the wrong side of history.” Although brief, this verbal exchange between the two leaders was the epitome of the juxtaposition of conflicting views and images during Jiang’s stay. The narration said that Clinton tried to turn the news conference into “a democracy lesson for Jiang.” By implication, it was China that had much to learn and buy from the United States. Captioned “The Nation,” a story proclaimed that American-made nuclear power plants were what China wanted to buy and U.S. manufacturers “desperately” wanted to sell. There was an air of skepticism and distrust, however. President Clinton must certify to the Congress that China was “no longer secretly providing bomb making technology” to countries such as Iran and Pakistan. Over footage of Chinese missiles on parade at Tiananmen Square, the narration cited a CIA report calling China “the world’s most significant supplier of…weapons of mass destruction.” Senator Richard Shelby, chairman of the Select Intelligence Committee, argued that if history was any guide, China would not keep its words. As if to support Shelby’s remark, the visual cut to a Chinese military exercise, with a missile blasting off into the sky: Notwithstanding, the whole piece was carefully balanced with pros and cons. In the “China File,” the economic ties between the two countries were addressed, based on interviews in Kansas with farmers, a business owner, an official from an engineering firm, and a Chinese immigrant working for the state on the China trade. All those interviewed had positive responses to the business opportunities in China. The only trace

Political drama and news narratives

123

of a negative image of China was the “Red Chinese” reference and the predication that the Sino-American commerce was “tainted to some extent by China’s dismal record of human rights.” Nonetheless, the reporter immediately indicated that “no one we talked to… saw that as a disqualifying factor.” In no subtle way, this 144-second piece suggested a practical approach and an apparent gap between official knowledge and public understanding of China. Two more stories rounded up Jiang’s remaining itinerary in the United States, one on each day. The narratives contained skeptical statements regarding the success of his efforts to court American public opinion and an outright prescription of lessons to be learned by Jiang as well as unflattering comparisons of his behaviors, styles, and governance. Jennings summarized Jiang’s views on a variety of issues and countered them with clashing comments from American officials and ABC reporters’ own observations in an attempt to contrast whom Jiang was and how he behaved in China with what he said and the way he performed in the United States. After the summit meeting, Jennings noted in a l-minute-and-41-second story that the Chinese president probably had “not won many new friends here.” In fact, according to ABC, he had more critics. The film footage and rhetoric often counteracted what Jiang hoped to achieve through various symbolic settings, such as visits to monuments to American history (e.g., the Pearl Harbor memorial and the Liberty Bell). For example. Senator Tim Hutchinson of Arkansas advised Jiang that he needed to take the concept of liberty “back to China.” Furthermore, over file footage of the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown with a gun shot clearly heard in the background, the narrative argued that “it didn’t help Mr. Jiang’s image here when he said China was right to shoot demonstrators on Tiananmen Square.” Such predication leaves little doubt that Jiang failed to live up to expectations in the United States. The ABC reporter concluded that many of Jiang’s images had “not even been seen on Chinese TV” They were meant “for the American audience to win public opinion here. But it’s not entirely clear it’s working.” Although Jiang did not speak directly, ABC’s effort to give the Chinese side its “fair” share was discernible, albeit constricted and judgmental. The last story of Jiang’s U.S. trip came full circle to the “tough sell” skepticism on ABC. Arguing that Jiang had “gotten what he wanted, full state honors and new openings to the business community, without having to make any concessions,” Forrest Sawyer noticed “some subtle changes.” In the ABC account, these changes alternated between images of American and Chinese settings, including a “Save Tibet” protest and Jiang’s appearance in the People’s Great Hall assembly. The narration was assertive: Jiang might “not have scored many points this week with the American public, with his refusal to budge on human rights or his awkward visits to monuments of American democracy. But what he did do was in many ways unprecedented.” The unprecedented emerged through a series of comparisons between here and there. Over file footage, the two faces of Jiang were sketched this way: At home, Jiang tolerates no dissent, yet here he spent an hour and a half with his fierce critics in Congress. At home, Jiang almost never meets with the foreign press and insists that questions be submitted in advance. In Washington, he

Chinese media, global contexts

124

didn’t shy away from a press conference, White House style. And while at home, Jiang’s public appearances are formal and wooden, here at least he has made an effort to come across as friendly and accessible. What Jiang did in the United States, according to David Shambaugh of George Washington University, was something he had “never done before. He’s gambled in doing so.” As such, ABC saw a glimmer of hope in the transformation of Jiang and, for that matter, China. The story said that if Jiang was “willing to gamble on changes in style, maybe that will lead to changes in substance as the relationship develops.” Within eight months, President Clinton had the opportunity to see how far Jiang and China had turned around. It was time for Jiang to showcase the summit in his own terms and on his own turf. Mr Clinton goes to Beijing: the summit on CCTV President Clinton visited China from June 25 to July 4, 1998. Other than diplomatic protocols and routines, Clinton and the United States were reported on CCTV news within a specific plot and subject area. Categorically missing was the Clinton-Lewinsky affair. There was no reference or hint whatsoever about this sexual encounter on CCTV news during Clinton’s stay in China. Such an absence testified to the common acceptance among Chinese journalists of what was possible and permissible in the news media at the collective level, especially when Sino-American relations was involved. The unifying tenet appeared to be a deliberate effort to forge a coherent body of knowledge about Clinton’s visit to China and its implications for the world at large. In more than thirty stories, the plot and the careful use of characters as well as rhetoric were organized in a way to elicit a certain reading of the Beijing summit. From day one, Clinton’s visit was unequivocally touted on CCTV as an important step in the right direction that would improve Sino-American relations in all areas and benefit mutual interests, hence setting up the basic tone and preferred thematic focus for the journey to come. In an 88-second piece from its Washington, DC correspondents, CCTV reminded the viewers that Clinton’s reciprocal trip following President Jiang’s state visit to the United States in 1997 was receiving heavy coverage and comments from Chinese language newspapers and major dailies in the United States, such as the New York Times and the Washington Post. The story surveyed public responses from both U.S. officials and civilians as well as governmental and media reactions from around the world in a consistent articulation of the imminent Jiang-Clinton summit. On Clinton’s arrival in Xian, the thrust of the story showed Clinton’s tour of a village and his conference with six ordinary people. They sat neatly in a prearranged half circle facing the camera. None of the participants—a college student, an elementary school teacher, a doctor, and the head of a nursery home—was heard directly on CCTV news, however. It was at an elementary school in the village that Clinton gave his first public speech, with hundreds of students and teachers in the audience. Via the voice of a narrator, Clinton praised China and underscored that his trip was to strengthen the friendship between the two countries. In 100 seconds, both the visual and the verbal were completely positive regarding China’s past and its future. The story was followed

Political drama and news narratives

125

immediately by a report on U.S. investment in Shanghai, emphasizing the increasing role played by American companies in cross-national banking, high-tech, auto-manufacturing and insurance sectors. A 26-second promo for a special report on the “CCTV News Investigation,” titled “The Handshake of Great Nations,” summarized the focus of the story plot, proc laiming the visits by leaders of China and the United States as profound historical events. It was a prelude for an extravagant and extensive coverage of Clinton’s visit. On the day of the Jiang-Clinton summit, CCTV gave its viewers a heavy dose of SinoAmerican relations, devoting more than eighteen minutes in the top six stories to Clinton’s meetings with Jiang and Premier Zhu Rongji in various settings. In order to accommodate an extensive reading of names of high-ranking Chinese and American officials in the lead story, the camera kept moving from left to right and back, with officials from both sides standing at full attention. Apparently, the parade of Chinese governmental officials in public view was to accentuate their legitimacy and prominence. The film was followed by a still photo of Clinton, with a biography rolling up from the bottom of screen, describing in detail his birth, education, public services, and achievements as governor of Arkansas and his election to the U.S. presidency in 1992 and 1996. In more than six minutes, the plot was straightforward and the rhetoric purely factual and non-judgmental. The piece allowed viewers to know Clinton as a person and a politician, but left no room for imagination about his personal conduct or political misbehavior. Monica Lewinsky and her sexual escapade with Clinton simply did not exist. The second story got down to serious business and the nitty-gritty of Sino-American relations. Through the narrator’s voice, the story quickly zeroed in on a lengthy reading of Jiang’s remarks that touched on the importance of mutual understanding and cooperation, world peace and the non-proliferation of massive weapons of destruction, the problem of Taiwan, and non-interference with domestic affairs between China and the United States. Via a Chinese narration, Clinton reiterated the U.S. position on the Taiwan issues, U.S.-China strategic cooperation and American support of China’s WTO membership. Like the plot in many other stories, the leading characters could be seen, but the voices were not their own. CCTV viewers had no way of hearing what actually was said, not even the sound bites. The narrator controlled the flow of ideas. During the exchange, the narrator alternated between Jiang’s remarks and those of Clinton. In the nearly-7-minute recitation of statements, the camera took shots between the Chinese and American delegations, focusing on the two leaders from time to time. Because of limited angles, the images ended up repeating identical pictures of Jiang and Clinton while the recounting continued to unfold. This story clearly indicated that the presentation of text was primary but the visual secondary in Chinese foreign policy stories on CCTV In the case of the Jiang-Clinton summit, the visual served as a mechanism that helped extend the textual intended by the Chinese host to convey desirable messages to the viewers. What matters in the story telling is not necessarily the visual imperative, as is often pursued by American television networks, but rather the favored articulation of a precise point of view. This could only be accomplished via carefully constructed news narratives.

Chinese media, global contexts

126

For example, the Taiwan problem was mentioned three times in the story. Anyone who watched the summit report would have no difficulty hearing that Taiwan was an integral part of China and that the United States acknowledged the Chinese position. As a matter of fact, the Taiwan issue would become a key theme that popped up in Clinton’s talks on two consecutive days. Although Taiwan as a presumed third party to the Sino-American diplomatic dialogue was written into the script, it had no role of its own to play. It was effectively used in the plot to affirm China’s claim of sovereign jurisdiction over the island nation. The only time the two presidents spoke for themselves directly occurred in a 3-minute piece. Reading from a text, Jiang talked about the contribution of Sino-American cooperation to world peace, the agreement not to target nuclear weapons at each other and his hope that the two countries would fight against international terrorism and drug trafficking and to protect the environment. Loaded with specfic rhetoric, his remarks did not deviate from the main ideas he had laid out in the earlier meeting with Clinton. Jiang got the best part of this story, taking the lead and doing the most talking. According to the rhetoric, China stood tall and ready as an equal partner to the United States. For his part, Clinton spoke in his own voice and an American translator provided the Chinese version. Although his portion was much shorter, Clinton appeared to endorse Jiang’s position. Praising Jiang’s leadership, Clinton said that “a stable, open and prosperous China shouldering its responsibility for a safer world is good for the United States.” This statement was repeated in Chinese by the American translator. The piece ended with an anchorperson’s voice-over, indicating that Jiang and Clinton also answered questions at the press conference. An American reporter could be seen in the film asking questions, with the sound deleted. Clinton was last heard saying in the background that both countries had agreed not to target nuclear weapons against each other. For any casual viewer, this story did not differ much from all other stories during Clinton’s visit to China. It was bland and talked about familiar topics. For those who happened to watch the live broadcast of the Jiang-Clinton press conference on CCTV-1, there was much more than meets the eye in the edited version. The story never mentioned that Jiang and Clinton held an hour-long press conference that was broadcast live in its entirety all over China. In fact, the spontaneous news conference was not advertised in advance. How many Chinese viewers actually watched the lively press conference was difficult to determine. The New York Times (June 28, 1998) reported that more Chinese would have tuned into the press conference if only they had known. But it was apparently never meant to be known in the plot on CCTV, even after it had taken place. The Jiang-Clinton live press conference was the first ever on CCTV. By all accounts, it was indeed remarkable and unprecedented in the history of Chinese television. It covered a wide variety of sensitive topics, ranging from human rights, the thorny issue of Tibet to dissidents in China and the Chinese government’s crackdown on the 1989 Tiananmen Square student demonstration. Clinton specifically stated that the “tragic loss of life” was “wrong.” An American reporter pointedly questioned the detention of four dissidents in Xian and 2,000 other dissidents who were taken to jail before Clinton arrived in China. The questions and answers were intense. For nearly an hour, the conference was a site of struggle for definitions and interpretations of past events that had once marred Sino-

Political drama and news narratives

127

American relations. None of these sensitive subjects and other controversial issues, however, made it to the CCTV 7 p.m. primetime news. Although CCTV has become relatively open in recent years, the treatment of the news conference followed a well-known Chinese journalistic practice: the presentation of scripted events and preferred interpretations. This was exactly what happened to the remaining stories on the third day of Clinton’s visit. After some protocols and routine meetings, a brief story switched the location from China to the United States. The characters included in the segment did not speak directly, but were obviously brought in to provide additional rhetoric in the narratives. The Chinese effort to spin the story through not just “Us.” but “the Others” was undeniable. In a CCTV Washington correspondence on reactions from political and academic circles, the voice-over again touted the Beijing summit as mutually beneficial to both countries, and the positive response from the American public. The message was: it was not only the Chinese, but American officials and civilians alike, who applauded the presidential trip. On June 29, CCTV began a short story that showed Jiang bidding farewell to the Clinton entourage at the Zhongnanhai compound where the Chinese top leadership live and work. Major participants from both sides were introduced individually. The reading of names appeared to affirm the status and authority of the Chinese leadership more than their American counterparts. Two stories later, Clinton was shown talking to more than 600 students at Beijing University. The footage displayed a well packed auditorium with many students standing in the side aisles. With a voice-over, this story ran nearly three minutes and was the longest piece for the rest of Clinton’s schedule. After expressing admiration of China’s contribution to culture, religion, literature, and philosophy, Clinton indicated that the United States intended to develop a full relationship with China through direct communication and mutual cooperation. In questions and answers, Clinton was quoted as saying that the United States would adhere to the “Three Nos” policy toward Taiwan: no support for its independence, no support for the idea of “one China, one Taiwan” or “two Chinas” and no support for Taiwan in any world organization that requires statehood. Whether economic affairs or international relations, the linkage among characters, issues and the genre of “politics in command” was unequivocal. Three more stories completed the treatment of Clinton’s China visit in the domestic segment. All were essentially customary and protocol, portraying representatives from both countries signing agreements on economic, trade, nuclear technology, and health issues. The first story in the foreign news segment spent 75 seconds, an unusual amount of time in that portion of the CCTV newscast, describing what ordinary Americans thought of Clinton’s trip to China. A CCTV Washington correspondent interviewed four women and two men at what looked like a social gathering where many people could be seen in the background. None of the six respondents was heard in their own words. Through the narrator’s voice, the respondents noted that China was important and influential in world affairs and that Clinton’s trip had been a good decision. One said that because of different history, social system and cultural idiosyncrasies, it was natural for the United States and China to have disagreements, but there were more common similarities than differences. Relying on American reactions, this piece not only explicitly repeated the approving themes of previous stories, but also subtly defended Chinese

Chinese media, global contexts

128

approaches to unidentified internal issues that might not be well received on the American side. Clinton’s tour of Shanghai no longer commanded top attention and the two stories were relegated to the middle of the news lineup for about three minutes. The narration on CCTV, however, made the most of Clinton’s remarks to score political points. Via the narrator’s voice, Clinton said that a strong, open, and prosperous new China was emerging and that the two countries should improve relations through dialogue and cooperation to enhance mutual understanding. The U.S. “Three Nos” policy toward Taiwan was again stressed. In a talk with representatives from various professions, the voice-over restated Clinton’s call for a better relationship between China and the United States. It accentuated Clinton’s statement that the United States should be more positive in assisting China’s modernization by way of scientific and technological cooperation and transfer of environmental skills and techniques to China. As on the previous day, the foreign news segment included a piece about foreign reactions to Clinton’s China trip. These were subplots designed to extend the significance of the Beijing summit from the domestic to the international setting. With no visuals, the narrative said news media in Thailand, Britain, Australia, Finland, Cuba, and France highly praised the summit. As retold by CCTV, foreign news media believed that the two countries had made a giant step in Beijing toward a long-term strategic cooperation. In the eyes of foreign news media, CCTV said, Sino-American relations had a significant impact on world peace and stability. Quoting unidentified foreign sources, the narration said, “China is emerging. Without China, it is impossible for the world economy to be stable.” This 68-second report left little doubt about how China wanted to shape the perception and interpretation of U.S.-China relations. Two major anniversaries fell on July 1, 1998: the first anniversary of the handover of Hong Kong from Britain to China and the 77th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party in China. Three stories for about twelve minutes topped the CCTV news lineup. Clinton appeared in two stories in the middle of the domestic segment for nearly four minutes. Interviewed by two CCTV reporters in Shanghai, the narration said Clinton emphasized the mutual trust between the two great nations as instrumental to the stability and security of the Asia-Pacific region, and praised China’s development and common interests of Sino-American relations. The positive impressions of Chinese economic success were recited on CCTV in Clinton’s breakfast talk at the American Chamber of Commerce in Shanghai and in his tours of the Shanghai Stock Exchange and a housing project. Lasting over a minute, a story in the day’s foreign news section again cited enthusiastic responses from governments in Vietnam, Pakistan, and Japan and news media in the United States, Germany, Malaysia, Britain, and Russia. The story clearly put China at the center of world attention and the narration had an air of pride. The foreign reports simply reinforced the plot of the domestic story. The news about Jiang’s visit to Hong Kong dominated the CCTV lineup on July 2. One story about Clinton in Guilin, Guangxi, in which he talked about environmental policy protection and applauded efforts of China’s scientists and citizens in protecting the environment, was buried at the bottom of the domestic segment. This story was free of any political undertone and no foreign comments were offered. The total calculation and

Political drama and news narratives

129

symbolic treatment of Clinton’s visit were most visible when the U.S. delegation left Guilin for Hong Kong. Ostensibly, the major stories of the day had nothing to do with the United States. Any keen observer, however, would have little difficulty in detecting the astute connection between China’s meetings with close allies in the former Soviet camp and Clinton’s departure for Hong Kong on the same day. The top four stories on CCTV devoted more than eleven minutes to Jiang’s meetings with leaders from Russia and four other former Soviet republics. The five leaders talked about military cooperation and issued a communique pledging closer relations in a wide range of areas. These events were clearly pre-arranged and timed to occur on that day. The plot and the cast of different characters were apparently set up to articulate China’s even-handed strategy in foreign relations and to send a functional message toward the United States. Later in the newscast, for more than four minutes, three stories showed Clinton meeting with Hong Kong’s Chief Executive Tung Chi-hwa, giving a speech, and holding a press conference. Again, Clinton was never heard directly. Via narration, he praised the success of China’s “one country, two systems” policy—an unmistakable endorsement of Beijing’s social experiment with the marriage of capitalism and Communism. He also reiterated that a close Sino-American relationship brought hope to peace, stability, and prosperity in Asia and around the world. These pieces were loaded with upbeat messages and admiration of China as a great nation as well as the grand vision of Jiang and the Chinese leadership. His main theme was that U.S. policy was not to contain, but to cooperate with China in the hope of fostering a strong “strategic partnership.” In light of Jiang’s earlier meetings with leaders from neighboring countries in the same newscast, these stories therefore tacitly acknowledged China as a powerful player in world politics. Clinton’s visit officially ended the day when he left Hong Kong for the United States on July 4. Three short stories at the bottom of the domestic segment on CCTV wrapped up the complete coverage of Clinton’s sojourn on Chinese soil. Although routine, these clips put a final touch on a well polished theme of the past ten days, repeating again Clinton’s positive evaluations of the huge changes in China and his compliment of the governing ability of the Chinese leadership. Without identifying those interviewed for the story from Washington, a CCTV correspondent simply used the terms “they,” “many of them,” or “many ordinary Americans” to refer to the public comments on the success of Clinton’s trip and the trust, friendship, and understanding between the two countries and their influence on peace and stability of the world. The story concluded this way: many ordinary Americans indicated that as seen during Clinton’s visit, China and the Chinese people were nothing like what had been reported before in the U.S. news media. The last statement gave away how CCTV attempted to shape Clinton’s visit and what it might hope to achieve. The central plot, the arrangement of characters, and the narratives were packaged coherently to make China look good, to advance its international status, and to mold the worldview based on the Chinese specifications. Comparing the summits: from here to there Technically, both ABC and CCTV treated the respective summits in roughly the same manner. Before and after the summits, there were relatively few stories on any given day. They were also placed in later spots, signifying their lesser newsworthiness. The

Chinese media, global contexts

130

highlight of the presidential trips culminated on the summit meeting that gave the Chinese and American national TV networks ample opportunities and possibilities to construct and represent issues of concern and importance to the two countries. For the most part, ABC and CCTV followed similar journalistic routines and standard operating procedures in the use of images and scripts in their presentations of the summit-related stories. The nuance of narration, the tendency of reducing complex reality to manageable facts, and the persistence of viewing the world based on a particular point of reference lie in the qualitative aspect of the news. As a total package consisting of visual images, words, and actors, as well as other defining properties, the news narrative constitutes a useful epistemological starting point for unraveling the structure and patterns of story telling in the high drama of presidential politics at the international level. The main thrust of comparison between the two summits is to place the epicenter within the immediate national geopolitical landscape and to determine where and how the news media locate themselves as narrators in the international political drama. The interest here is in the narrative structure and framing techniques as manifest in the story telling when each of the two networks could position itself strategically as an insider relative to the other as an outsider. For the summits in Beijing and Washington, DC, the range of vision, the organizational logistic support, and institutional access to related information make the political drama closer to home more sensitive and responsive to domestic sentiments than overseas dispositions. Comparing the two summits in the networks’ own home territory should help answer how and why the reporting of political drama unfolded in a specific narrative in a particular context. While it might offer additional information, adding the comparison between coverage of Jiang in Washington, DC on CCTV and that of Clinton in Beijing on ABC would not necessarily change the picture or alter the general configurations. Table 6.1 summarizes the sharp contrast of news narratives between ABC and CCTV networks. Several conclusions can be drawn from the comparison. Table 6.1 Presidential summits and news narratives on ABC and CCTV

News narratives

ABC—Washington Summit (October 26–31 ,1997)

CCTV—Beijing Summit (June 25–July 4, 1998)

The plot

Juxtaposition of past and present events

Chronology of present events

Competing images

Consistent images

Characters

Leading actors, many supporting characters: Leading actors, few supporting Officials, protesters, activists, dissidents, characters: scholars, managers, consumers, and farmers Officials, foreign media, governments, and citizens

Genre

Chinese leaders and government as villains Abusers of human rights

Chinese leaders and government as heroes Defenders of national interests and world peace

Political drama and news narratives

131

Rhetorical device

Instructive /prescriptive: China problematic Lessons to be learned What China ought to be

Descriptive/demonstrative : China rising Status to be respected What China is

Function

Dialectical: Truth seeking

Normative: Consensus building

Journalistic practice

Adversary: Inquisitive

Advocate: Persuasive

Ideological vision

Open: Conflicting views

Closed: Single correct view

First, the Beijing summit on CCTV was not as open to historical deliberation as the Washington summit on ABC. To some extent, Chinese viewers were deprived of the full exposure or had only partial access to a wide range of events or issues. The general plot on ABC was to juxtapose past and present events in a contextual package that contained many competing images during Jiang’s visit to the United States. Although the Chinese views and responses to external challenges to China’s internal behaviors were acknowledged, ABC injected a sense of background knowledge in its narratives by placing the news against a backdrop of some sensitive issues that helped define SinoAmerican relations over the past decade, such as the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident, human rights, and the problem of Taiwan. A part of such narratives was dictated by the necessity of linking contemporary events (e.g., demonstrations and protests against Jiang) to the underlying issues that prompted their appearances as news. Still, ABC’s propensity to highlight the present China within the context of its past was unambiguous: it asked provocative questions, supplied competing images, and provided paternalistic answers. By comparison, CCTV was rather straightforward and business-like in its coverage of the Beijing summit. It made statements, avoided contradictions, and constructed consistent images. For the most part, there was no linkage to any historical events that had troubled either China or the United States or both. Notably absent, for example, was the White House scandal that threatened to topple the Clinton presidency. Unlike the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident, the Clinton affair was still unfolding and had stirred a worldwide sensation. Its exclusion from CCTV apparently was designed to make a statement that U.S. domestic matters had no place in Sino-American relations. The use of images and narratives on CCTV therefore fostered a consonant imprint of normal progress and forward looking in China. There was little clue to the collective understanding of the complex issues involved between the two countries. Couched in a specific framework, the presentation inevitably favored the central authority and institutions controlling the Chinese society and the news media. Second, the political dramas on both ABC and CCTV featured more or less a diverse cast of characters with different functions to fulfill. The two presidents naturally took the center stage and followed very much pre-arranged scripts in their dialogues. Beyond the leading actors, the supporting characters varied greatly between the Washington and Beijing summits. At the Washington summit, a number of American demonstrators, activists, scholars, business people, and farmers, as well as Chinese dissidents living in

Chinese media, global contexts

132

the United States, appeared on CCTV either to denounce Beijing for its record on human rights or to welcome Chinese trade opportunities. For every statement or act Jiang made in the United States, there was a ready counter-statement or counteract from U.S. officials and civilians alike. The Chinese leadership and government were often typecast as the villain because of China’s repression in Tibet and its unrepentant position on the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident. Whether explicit or implicit in the ABC narratives, China was often put on the hot spot, and was expected to be held accountable. At the Beijing summit, China also stood in the spotlight, but was surrounded by a more acquiescent cast. On CCTV, the Chinese leaders and government emerged as heroes and defenders of China’s national interests. The images appeared to be more than a narcissistic self-portrait by the lead actors. Other supporting characters were introduced to embrace China and to endorse the performance of Chinese leadership on the world stage. While not as variegated and engaged as those on ABC, these actors served as surrogates to demonstrate that it is not simply “We,” the Chinese, but “Others” too— foreign governments, media, and ordinary people—who share China’s worldview. On CCTV, there was no conflict between “us” and “them.” The Beijing summit was a manifestation of China at peace with itself and the rest of the world. Third, rhetorically, the two national television networks framed the Washington and Beijing summits from divergent points of view, through which China as an object of observation and explication turned out to be the focal point. It was constructed to be known with given properties, to be put in perspective within certain parameters and to become typified in some fashion. At the Washington summit, the framing device on ABC turned out to be instructive and prescriptive: China was problematic in its internal and external practices, behaved like a deviant case with therapeutic lessons to be learned, and had to follow the corrective path in order to join the community of nations. China was molded according to U.S. specifications and satisfaction. Because Jiang came to visit, Washington served as the point of reference for Beijing to act. On the contrary, at the Beijing summit, CCTV sketched China in a descriptive and demonstrative manner, positioning the country at the center of worldwide attention and steering clear of international petty politics. Staying within official boundaries, CCTV’s rhetorical device showcased what China was through its presentation of a rising nation participating in normal geopolitical relations, whose standing deserved to be respected in the family of nations. Indeed, the CCTV narratives concocted a Chinese national identity that deviated significantly from that on ABC several months earlier, where China appeared to be nothing but a nation in desperate need of fundamental repairs on many aspects, including its reputation as a civilized society. A sense of national pride or nationalism became the driving force behind CCTV’s projection of China as worthy of equal status among the world powers. With Clinton’s visit, the United States showed its respect to China and Beijing deserved to be recognized. Fourth, the news narratives on ABC and CCTV performed different functions in their respective contexts. As demonstrated by a sort of “question and answer” formula in its story telling, ABC at the Washington summit was both inquisitive and dialectical, underscoring an enduring practice of American journalism to leave no stone unturned in its pursuit of the “big story.” For U.S. journalists, the truth about the Tiananmen Square

Political drama and news narratives

133

incident has yet to be uncovered and its last chapter is yet to be written. The summit constituted a legitimate site to interrogate the authenticity of this story as retold by those who shaped or were shaped by the tragic event. It was an event full of historical contradictions and conflicts that remained ideologically open for interpretations. All other events could be readily exploited one way or another in the narratives as pathways to unravel the uncertain and shed light on the unknown. What ABC did in its narratives of the Washington summit became dislodged at the Beijing summit on CCTV. Truth, as it might be dialectically determined, gave way to a normative rationality aimed at building a consensus at home and abroad. The adversarial American journalists found themselves silenced in the CCTV narratives and were replaced by the Chinese advocates who sought to impose a single correct view of China’s turmoil in the extant past that had long been deemed closed for further exposition. The closure came about not through the state’s coming to terms with the complete disclosure and reflection of its profound implications, but through the suppression and expulsion of the event from public discourse in the news. The normalized narratives on CCTV with no mention whatsoever of China’s catastrophe in recent memory represented an intense antithesis to those of ABC, which refused to let history fade into oblivion. From Beijing to Washington or from here to there, the two networks constructed the presidential summits as high political dramas in Sino-American relations by means of a disparate narrative that put one summit at odds with the other. Events are subject to narration. Imposed by the relevant socio-political structure, the narratives determine what is to be seen and known at the summits. The event thus becomes knowable in the public domain. Without first-hand knowledge of the presidential summits they see on television, viewers in both China and the United States experience the events indirectly, through the prism of journalists’ interpretations. At most, the interpretations may lead to imagination, as in the case of ABC’s condensed narratives. At worst, they leave little room for negotiation, as shown on CCTV’s referential narratives. Either way, the summit creates an opportunity for the news to reproduce the political drama according to the journalistic logic prevalent in the larger geopolitical landscape. References Bird, S.Elizabeth and Dardenne, Robert W. (1988), “Myth, chronicle, and story: exploring the narrative qualities of news,” in James W.Carey (ed.), Media, Myths, and Narratives: Television and the Press . Newbury Park, CA: Sage, pp. 67–86. Chang, Tsan-Kuo, Wang,Jian, and Chen, Chih-Hsien (1994), “News as social knowledge in China: the changing worldview of Chinese national media,” Journal of Communication , 44:52–69. Dayan, Daniel and Katz, Elihu (1992), Media Events: The Live Broadcasting of History . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Durham, Frank D. (1998), “News frames as social narratives: TWA Flight 800,” Journal of Communication , 48:100–117. Entman, Robert M. (1991), “Framing U.S. coverage of international news: contrasts in

Chinese media, global contexts

134

narratives of the KAL and Iran Air incidents,” Journal of Communication , 41:6–27. Fish, Stanley E. (1980), Is there a Text in this Class? The Authority of Interpretive Communities . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Fisher, Walter R. (1985), “The narrative paradigm: in the beginning,” Journal of Communication , 35:74–89. Hallin, Daniel C. and Mancini, Paolo (1992), “The summit as media event: the Reagan/Gorbachev meetings on U.S., Italian, and Soviet television,” in Jay G.Blumler, Jack M.McLeod and Karl E.Rosengren (eds), Comparatively Speaking: Communication and Culture across Space and Time . Newbury Park, CA: Sage, pp. 121–139. Hart, Roderick P. (1987), The Sound of Leadership: Presidential Communication in the Modern Age . Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Hart, Roderick P., Smith-Howell, Deborah, and Llewellyn, John (1991), “The mindscape of the presidency: Time magazine, 1945–1985,” Journal of Communication , 41:6–25. Geertz, Clifford (1973), The Interpretation of Cultures . New York: Basic Books. Jacobs, Ronald N. (2000), Race, Media and the Crisis of Civil Society: From Watts to Rodney King . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Jensen, Klaus B. (1987), “News as ideology: economic statistics and political ritual in television network news,” Journal of Communication , 37:8–26. Kieran, Matthew (1997), “News reporting and the ideological presumption,” Journal of Communication , 47:79–96. Lee, Chin-Chuan (ed.) (1990), Voices of China: The Interplay of Politics and Journalism . New York: Guilford. ——(ed.) (2000), Power, Money, and Media: Communication Patterns and Bureaucratic Control in Cultural China . Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. Lucaites, John L. and Condit, Celeste M. (1985), “Re-constructing narrative theory: a functional perspective,” Journal of Communication , 35:90–108. MacKuen, Michael B. (1983), “Political drama, economic conditions, and the dynamics of presidential popularity,” American Journal of Political Science , 27:165–192. Ostrom, Charles W, Jr and Simon, Dennis M. (1989), “The man in the teflon suit? The environmental connection, political drama, and popular support in the Reagan presidency,” Public Opinion Quarterly , 53:353–387. Pan, Zhongdang, Lee, Chin-Chuan, Chan, Joseph Man, and So, Clement Y.K. (1999), “One event, three stories: media narrative of the handover of Hong Kong in cultural China,” Gazette , 61:99–112. Park, Robert E. (1955), Society: Collective Behavior, News and Opinion, Sociology and Modern Society . Glencoe, IL: Free Press. Plischke, Elmer (1968), “Elsenhower’s ‘correspondence diplomacy’ with the Kremlin— case study in summit diplomatics,” The Journal of Politics , 30:137–159. Roeh, Itzhak and Cohen, Akiba A. (1992), “One of the bloodiest days: a comparative analysis of open and closed television news,” Journal of Communication , 42:42–55. Said, Edward (1978), Orientalism . New York: Vintage Books. ——(1997), Covering Islam: How the Media and the Experts Determine How We See the Rest of the World . New York: Vintage Books.

Political drama and news narratives

135

Shoemaker, Pamela J. and Reese, Stephen D. (1996), Mediating the Message: Theories of Influences on Mass Media Content . New York: Longman. Simon, Dennis M. and Ostrom, Charles W.,Jr (1989), “The impact of televised speeches and foreign travel on presidential approval,” Public Opinion Quarterly , 53:58–82. Smelser, Neil J. (1976), Comparative Methods in the Social Sciences . Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. So, Clement Y.K. (1987), “The summit as war: how journalists use metaphors,” Journalism Quarterly , 64:623–626. Tuchman, Gaye (1978), Making News: A Study in the Construction of Reality . New York: The Free Press. Van Dijk, Teun A. (1988), News as Discourse . Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Wasserstrom, Jeffrey N. (2000), “Big bad China and the good Chinese: an American fairy tale,” in Timothy B.Weston and Lionel M.Jensen (eds), China Beyond the Headlines . Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, pp. 13–35.

7 Globalization and the Chinese media Technologies, content, commerce and the prospects for the public sphere Barrett L.McCormick and Qing Liu In this chapter we examine the increasing flow of media technologies, content, and business models across China’s boundaries and offer an assessment of how this may transform China’s public sphere. While China’s political authorities retain a heavy hand, globalization is increasing the volume and diversity of images and information available to Chinese audiences. This is an open-ended process that could reach quite different conclusions, but it is possible that it will facilitate the rise of a more open and reasonable public debate. The impact of globalization is indirect and contingent. Introducing new media technologies such as television and the Internet transforms the flow of information, partly because of the intrinsic characteristics of the technologies, but even more because they are embedded in new institutions reflecting the spirit of new times. The flow of media content across China’s borders is significant, but more because it offers Chinese audiences more resources for constructing arguments and identities than because of seductive “Western values” woven into imported media. The diffusion of media business models, particularly media firms dependent on advertising revenues, has given rise to a commercial culture that is often apolitical but which may nonetheless undermine the traditional relationship between political authorities and the public. In this chapter we will assess the impact of globalization on China’s public sphere. 1 We readily admit that discussing a Chinese public sphere is controversial. The “public sphere” is often linked to Jürgen Habermas’ (1989) study of “the transformation of the public sphere,” and inasmuch as he was writing about European societies, many scholars have questioned applying this concept to China. This criticism is not entirely convincing. First, “public sphere” can be minimally defined as the stock of ideas and information accessible to broad sectors of society. With this definition, all modern societies have some form of a public sphere (Kraus, 2000). Second, even if we use a more restrictive “public sphere” that incorporates ideals such as open and reasoned debate, any suggestion that these values are essential characteristics of Western societies (but not of Eastern societies) displays a naive and uncritical attitude toward “the West.” No society has ever attained Habermas’ ideal of “clear communication,” and his arguments have been subjected to many criticisms (Thompson, 1995:71–75) but that does not mean that the ideals are not worth considering or pursuing. We agree with Mayfair Yang (1999) that analyzing China in these terms may provide a

Globalization and the Chinese media

137

means of promoting values we find important. Does the increasing globalization of China’s media promote a more open and reasoned debate? We answer that it may. There are many reasons to be skeptical. Censorship and intimidation are still very significant. Chinese leaders have many resources for coopting and constraining new technologies. Multinational media firms have little commitment to public values. A public sphere based on consuming entertainment commodities is a poor foundation for political debate. But despite all this, the expanding range of images and information offered by increasing globalization in China’s media offers Chinese citizens new resources that at least have the potential to establish a more open and reasonable public sphere. Fireworks on the Internet We will begin with an example of how globalization has created a more open and reasonable public sphere. On March 16, 2001, Premier Zhu Rongji apologized to the National People’s Congress. He said, “The State Council has not performed its mission properly. I feel very sad and I carry a very heavy heart. 1 want to apologize.” Zhu was speaking of an explosion in a schoolhouse in Wanzai County in rural Jiangxi Province that killed at least forty people including seventeen children. Premier Zhu went on to note that the Hong Kong media did not agree with his prior statement of the facts, and while he did not expressly admit that he had given false information, his commitments to “learn lessons from the event” and to work to better implement safety regulations constituted at least a tacit admission that they were right and he was wrong (China Daily, 2001). This in itself was a remarkable change from President Jiang Zemin’s angry criticism of Hong Kong reporters a few months earlier (China Online, 2000). In most countries it is noteworthy when a high official apologizes to the parliament, but in China, it is so rare as to have raised speculation that Premier Zhu was on the way out. Zhu had gotten into trouble by attributing the explosion to a crazed individual who carried the explosives to the school, while other more persuasive reports held that the school had a contract with a local entrepreneur to employ children to assemble fireworks and had stored explosives in the school without due regard for safety. Local officials and the national media went to great lengths to make Zhu’s version of the story stick. The People’s Daily, for example, reported the name of the alleged perpetrator (who had died in the explosion), the discovery of a suicide note, that fellow villagers regarded him as a psychotic, and that residues of explosives had been found in his house (People’s Daily, 2001). Local authorities set up roadblocks to keep reporters away from the scene of the tragedy. One foreign reporter was arrested, briefly detained, and had photographs destroyed (Reporters Sans Frontières, 2001). The provincial Party secretary was subsequently replaced, possibly as a consequence of having been caught trying to dupe Premier Zhu (SINA.COM, 2001). But Zhu’s version of the story did not stick. Some reporters circumvented the roadblocks using telephones and at least one managed to reach the afflicted village. Sources closely associated with the Party center such as the People’s Daily and Xinhua had little to say before the local government’s explanation was issued, and then quickly

Chinese media, global contexts

138

reported that explanation as the truth. Some market-oriented evening papers, however, reported the other version of the story at first, and a few stuck with that version even after the official account had been published (Ni Kan, 2001). The Hong Kong media proved even more effective. For example, a reporter from the Hong Kong periodical, Asian Weekly, used a local accent to win the confidence of local residents and evade the local authorities. The resulting report told a tragic story of villagers pressed to accept dangerous work because of terrible poverty, a corrupt relationship between the village leadership and the owner of a fireworks factory, gross negligence in the storage and handling of explosives, and grieving parents who could not understand how it could be wrong to tell the truth about what happened to their children (Asian Weekly, 2001). The local authorities’ attempts to keep reporters out not only failed, but also became damning evidence of their indifferent response to the tragedy. Neither the Hong Kong media nor local papers, though, would have had much impact if not for the Internet. Internet distribution meant that accounts published in “local” papers that would otherwise have remained obscure had a much wider readership. For example, even after the incident was officially attributed to the criminal behavior of an as yet unidentified individual, even the People’s Daily’s, Internet service carried an account from the Yangtse Evening Post that continued to discuss the presence of fireworks in the school. Moreover, accounts published outside China were posted on BBS. The Asian Weekly report discussed above was posted on the Century China BBS within hours of having been released in Hong Kong. This report was given wider distribution by Tunnel, an anonymous email magazine that according to one commentator, reaches hundreds of thousands of Chinese readers (Hachigan, 2001). Such accounts also stimulated a great deal of discussion on various BBS. One cynical “netizen” cast doubt on the official media’s claim that a criminal or man in black had caused the tragedy: Comment on the Jiangxi Blast: An unidentified man in black caused the blast. A couple of days have passed since the tragedy was first reported, and the whole world was shocked by it (of course there were some Japanese people who displayed an air of arrogance and contempt while expressing their concern). How timely that a “man in black” emerged! Excellent, what a relief! Gone were the officials’ pressure, school leaders’ responsibility, and the local government’s numbness, and our embarrassment. So there was a real criminal, wasn’t there? This mystical “man in black” was so good that he made almost everyone feel comfortable but I can feel nothing but a sense of cold despair. How can we treat those 41 innocent kids who died in this incident like this? …Don’t we even have the courage to face the dead and seek the truth? …Where on earth will these manipulated reports lead us to? (Zhongguo guancha, 2001) Others were less restrained: “You [speaking of the officials involved] hurry up and die, hurry up and go die. Without you, the world would have less pain!!!!” (Zhongguo guancha, 2001). This incident suggests that imported technologies, the global flow of information, and

Globalization and the Chinese media

139

commercial media have the potential to create a more open and reasonable public sphere. While this incident does not confirm an inevitable trend, at least in this instance neither central nor local officials were able to control the dissemination of information. Many Chinese were able to participate in a relatively open discussion of the tragedy. The result was at least a partial apology representing at least a limited degree of accountability. This does not necessarily imply that the foundations of the Chinese state have been shaken or that the current regime is unstable, but it does suggest that various forms of globalization have the potential to offer Chinese a little more dignity. Globalization and technology Will imported media technologies force China’s authoritarian state to democratize? Some people have argued that by its very nature, Internet technology dooms authoritarian governments. The Chinese government, the argument goes, can either tolerate the Internet, in which case it will be undermined by the free flow of information, or it can ban or restrict its development, in which case the People’s Republic will remain technologically backward and become economically stagnant. Similar arguments have been made for the impact of television (Lull, 1991) and of satellite broadcasting (Murdoch, 1993). A good portion of these arguments can be derived from Daniel Lerner’s theory of modernization. In the 1950s, he argued that mass media give people otherwise isolated in tradition access to modern attitudes and identities, and are thus primary agents of modernization (Lerner, 1958). Much of the remainder stem from romantic interpretations of the impact of new technologies, especially of how the Internet would provide a peer-to-peer network that would liberate individuals from the hierarchies of previous technologies (Rheingold, 1993). There is some substance to these arguments. New media technologies introduced in post-Mao China have increased the volume and diversity of information and images available to Chinese. The first new media technology to gain a wide audience in China after the death of Mao was music recorded on cassettes, which facilitated the diffusion of Hong Kong and Taiwan popular music in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Television had an even more significant impact. Before the death of Mao, television had a tiny elite audience and was more of curiosity than a mass medium. During the 1980s economic reforms favoring light industry and resulting in relative prosperity led the percentage of Chinese families with a television to rise from 0.4 per cent in 1980 to 44 per cent in rural areas and 59 per cent in urban areas by 1990, and 92.4 per cent and 100.5 per cent, respectively, in 1997 (China Statistical Yearbook, 1999). Television became China’s most important medium. The success of television broadcasting facilitated the importing of more media technologies, including cable and satellite television, and movies recorded on VCD and, now, DVD disks. By 1999 China had 70 million cable subscribers and was adding 10 million a year (Rothman and Barker, 1999). China has also made enormous investments in telecommunications, over 800 billion yuan in the last five years alone, resulting in over 230 million people now having fixed-line or mobile phones (PRNewsAsia, 2001). These developments set the stage for the rapid growth of the Internet in China. According to statistics provided by the China Internet Network

Chinese media, global contexts

140

Information Center (CNNIC)—which may be an exaggeration—China had only 40,000 Internet users in 1996 but 26.5 million in July 2001 (China Internet Network Information Center, 2001). Each of these new technologies has had an impact on the social distribution of ideas and information and to some extent this is determined by the nature of the technology. The ease and low cost of duplicating VCDs and DVDs, for example, facilitates the flow of movies from Hollywood to Chinese homes. Internet technology facilitates the circulation of information such as the grieving parents’ version of what happened in the schoolhouse in Wanzai County. The impact of technology, however, is determined as much by the institutions and individuals that use and manipulate it as it is by its intrinsic characteristics. The different impact of similar technologies in different countries bears this out. Moveable type, for example, had a more dramatic impact in Europe than in China. Elizabeth Eisenstein calls printing “an agent of the Enlightenment,” pointing out that by lowering the cost of books and pamphlets, printing made more knowledge more accessible to more people, helped to standardize what different people knew, and promoted comparative scholarship (Eisenstein, 1979). In China, the introduction of printing helped to distribute knowledge, but there was no comparable “enlightenment” (Hucker, 1975:72, 268, 336; Brook, 1998:129–134). The difference is that in Europe, the Church’s hegemony over the storage and diffusion of information and ideas was based on control of the then dominant media—sermons from the pulpit and the copying and storage of parchment manuscripts. Moveable type, on the other hand, provided a technically superior medium that was exploited by commercial interests who were willing to profit from the spread of heresies. In China, a different configuration of institutions and interests used the same technology toward different ends. Because China’s new media technologies have been imported, foreign institutions and foreign interests have had an important role in establishing their uses. Jiang Zemin was right when he stated “The melding of the traditional economy and information technology will provide the engine for the development of the economy and society in the twenty-first century” and his call for the vigorous promotion of information technology is both politically astute and economically sound. Nevertheless, he is still the leader of a Third World country competing in an inequitable world economy (Kynge, 2000). Jiang’s enthusiasm makes it possible for firms such as China Telecom or Sohu to generate enormous amounts of capital by issuing securities in American financial markets, but these firms remain in the position of adapting foreign technologies and foreign business models to Chinese conditions (Yu, 2001). However, a few large firms dominate global media and telecommunications markets. For the foreseeable future there is little chance that Chinese firms or the Chinese government can set technological standards. Sometimes imported technologies come with features that do promote a more free and open debate. Encryption technologies, for example, are not an integral part of basic Internet protocols and, at least technically speaking, do not need to be incorporated into appliances such as mobile phones. Their adoption served a variety of interests in the countries that established the standards. Chinese leaders, in a bid to prevent Chinese citizens from enjoying similar standards of privacy, tried to impose regulations that

Globalization and the Chinese media

141

would have required registration of encryption schemes and restrictions on their use by January 31, 2000. Foreign firms, however, proved reluctant to expose their technologies to inspection by Chinese government agencies closely associated with potential competitors, and further worried that a wide range of products built to global standards would be illegal in China. Faced with a massive wave of criticism and consternation and the possibility that they would have to reinvent many wheels, the Chinese authorities prevaricated and the deadline passed without much impact. Within a couple of months a “clarification” was issued to reassure foreign investors and the changes were effectively rescinded (Pappas, 2000). On the other hand, Western firms are more committed to profits than civil liberties and have been willing to profit by providing technologies for limiting users’ access to information and facilitating surveillance of Internet users. Western media firms operating in China have not subscribed to anything like the Sullivan Principles that specified ethical standards for Western firms operating in Apartheid South Africa (Malinowski, 2001). Annual trade shows organized by the Ministry of Public Security and the Communist Party Central Committee’s Commission for the Comprehensive Management of Public Security have attracted large and increasing numbers of international participants including information technology firms such Motorola, Cisco Systems, and Sun Microsystems (Chen, 2000). Western firms have sold software that in the United States might be used by a corporation to limit employees’ access to pornographic or entertainment-oriented web sites, but which in China might be deployed to restrict the entire country’s access to a wide range of politically sensitive information. Chinese authorities may also have purchased software that will enable them to closely monitor the activities of individual Internet users (Walton, 2001). The struggle over how new technologies will be used continues inside China. The Chinese Communist Party and government have their own traditional resources for regulating the use of media technologies. The traditional techniques for regulating media have been transferred to new media. There are elaborate schemes restricting who can produce and distribute media content in all media, including new media such as television and the Internet. Regardless who produces them, television shows, like books and movies, require permits before they can be broadcast. Even privately owned Internet portals are limited to reposting news reports already published in approved mainland sources. Those who provide chat rooms and BBS are required to monitor postings and delete politically sensitive materials. Above all, the authorities work to maintain an atmosphere of surveillance and implicit and explicit threats where those who work in the media will censor themselves rather than risk incurring unwanted official attention and punitive sanctions. Chinese users have their own interests and considerable entrepreneurial skill in turning technologies to their own purposes. Sometimes user strategies are fairly simple. In China’s recorded movie markets, for example, the authorities’ central problem is that relatively few consumers buy movies that are produced in China and approved by propaganda authorities. Other times they are far more subtle. Internet users can use proxy servers—computers whose transmissions are not interdicted by the authorities’ filters—to obtain access to web pages that official filters block. According to one study, over a third

Chinese media, global contexts

142

of all Chinese Internet users have used proxy servers and over 10 per cent do so frequently (Guo and Bu, 2001). Alternatively, users who are not satisfied with available content can use the Internet more as a means of connecting to other like-minded individuals rather than as a source of media content. The sheer size of the Internet and the volume of data transmitted limit the authorities’ attempts to supervise and inspect email and chat room postings. As in the example of the chat room discussion of the explosion in Jiangxi, many Internet users do post critical messages that in theory could be traced. There have been some arrests, but this has not been an effective deterrent. On the contrary, Internet users may taunt the authorities, as in the case of one chat room posting which was highly critical of President Jiang Zemin. When the chat room monitor dutifully deleted the posting—monitors are usually allowed twenty-four hours to detect and delete controversial postings—the user shortly after reposted the same material, but with every instance of “Jiang Zemin” replaced with “Chiang Kai-shek,” which prompted another user to comment that this was an unfair slander of the latter. While it is tempting to focus on the competitive side of such negotiations, it is important to recognize that the elements of collaboration are at least as strong as the elements of competition. As noted above, Jiang Zemin has committed the Chinese government to promoting the Internet, and in so doing hopes not only to gain prestige, but also to generate another profitable industry. Users gain access to information and their attempts to stretch their advantages do not necessarily imply any fundamental opposition to the Chinese government. Western firms are pleased to have access to Chinese markets. Whether via collaboration or competition, however, the introduction of new technologies has transformed the Chinese public sphere in ways that make a more open and reasonable debate more likely. The critical issue is the changing configuration of institutions in post-Mao China. Successive new media technologies have enjoyed progressively less centralized, less politicized, and more commercially oriented institutional frameworks. The contrast between cinema and television provides a telling example. Leninist institutions long ago captured Chinese cinema. Since Lenin’s famous declaration that “The cinema is for us the most important of the arts,” and the nationalization of Russian cinema in 1919, Leninist leaders have paid close attention to cinema (Clark, 1987). For China this has meant that the film industry is burdened with a sclerotic bureaucracy and the requirement that all films be approved in Beijing before they can be distributed. Television, on the other hand, was not an important medium in China until the 1980s, at which time provincial governments and parties relatively easily won the right to issue licenses for national distribution and entrepreneurial officials succeeded in creating a more diverse and dynamic industry. In the case of recorded movies, which emerged even later, entrepreneurs captured almost the entire market, establishing production and distribution facilities that circumvent most forms of legal or public regulation. The Internet enjoys a more commercial environment than television, with the major portals belonging to entrepreneurs who are able to secure financing in overseas equity markets. We conclude that arguments such as “authoritarian governments cannot survive new information technologies” offer only limited understanding. New media technologies

Globalization and the Chinese media

143

actually do change the way information circulates in society. But the impact of new technologies is not determined by the technologies’ intrinsic characteristics. Rather, institutions and individuals contest the use and impact of technologies. In China’s particular circumstances, there are no simple dividing lines between state and society or public and private. High level state leaders, as noted above, do worry about political questions, but are also keen to see new technologies connect with dynamic markets. International firms can profit from selling users access to information and from selling government agencies tools for repression. Chinese firms may simultaneously rely on state-mandated monopolies and encourage users to cross boundaries. Citizens, as we will discuss at greater length below, are not necessarily politicized, let alone actively opposed to the political status quo. This leaves considerable room for uncertainty. But while we must conclude that the outcome of introducing new media technologies is not yet determined, we can conclude that the introduction of successive new media technologies in progressively more decentralized and commercial environments has offered users increasing latitude to seek their own ends. Globalization and media content Zhu Rongji’s partial apology was partly the result of media content moving across borders. Information about the tragic explosion traveled from China to Hong Kong, back to China, to the United States, and back to China again. This suggests going beyond studies of globalization that focus exclusive concern on the impact of media with American origins in countries such as China. While “cultural imperialism” is a legitimate concern, the result of the global flow of information has as much to do with what Chinese choose and how Chinese interpret as it does with what Hollywood transmits. “Cultural imperialism” is a legitimate concern. New media technologies and the increasing size and concentration of transnational media firms have exacerbated the lack of reciprocity in the global flow of ideas and information. The United States is a net exporter of ideas and information. China is only one of many countries where an increasing volume of American media has provoked a political response. To cite but one important example, The China that Can Say No, a book which had an important role in stimulating patriotism in contemporary China, begins with a criticism of imported American culture (Song et al., 1996). Chinese have voiced concerns ranging from the American patriotism found in movies such as Independence Day to the disruptive influence of American family values found in the TV series Growing Pains (Li, 1999). The concern is commercial as well as cultural, with Chinese cinema in particular losing market share to imported films (Rosen, 2001). WTO provisions that appear to facilitate competition in media markets have heightened commercial concerns. The impact of foreign media may be better understood by observing how foreign media are interpreted and understood by Chinese than by examining messages that outsiders intend to send. The director of Red Corner, for example, may well have intended to make a statement criticizing arbitrary and authoritarian police in China, but some Chinese, who are otherwise critical of the lack of human rights in China, have interpreted this film as an insulting distortion. Other messages that might seem to be

Chinese media, global contexts

144

subversive actually serve important “main melody” interests. Dan Lynch, for example, reports of children playing cops and robbers who—following what they have seen in American televisions shows—require the cops to inform the robbers of their rights before taking them into detention (Lynch, 1999). The television series Hunter has been similarly cited as a source of legal knowledge. But rather than being simply subversive, such references are readily put to use in the official campaigns for disseminating legal knowledge and strengthening socialist law. In China and everywhere else, “the West” is more a socially constructed concept than an autonomous voice. In his book, Orientalism (1978), Edward Said argues that Westerners have devised images of “the Orient” to define themselves at the cost of simplifying, distorting, and often de-humanizing the diverse peoples of “the East.” Chen Xiaomei’s Occidentalism (1995) makes similar arguments regarding Chinese uses of “the West.” Chinese often use “the West” in ways that “Westerners” find puzzling. For example, in the early 1980s, young Chinese drew an image of Western fashion from one of the first imported television shows to reach a wide audience, The Man from Atlantis, namely wearing sunglasses, which were then so closely identified with the main character in the series (Mike Harris) that Chinese called them “Mike glasses.” While wearing sunglasses was recognizably “Western,” wearing sunglasses with labels on the lenses, which was then almost required, was not. More to the point, in the “real” West, The Man from Atlantis was an unfashionable flop that failed after a single season, and not in any way a source of fashion. The constructed quality of concepts like “East” and “West” means that the boundary between the two can be redrawn to accommodate the needs of the day, which in turn means that which ideas are moving in which direction may also be a constructed concept. Few mainland Chinese draw the boundary between East and West so as to place Marxism on the same side of the line as Hollywood despite Marxism’s Western origins and Eurocentric understanding of history. In contrast to traditional Chinese Marxism, the 1988 television show, River Elegy, drew a contrast between a free, open, humane, “blue” West and a despotic, closed, inhuman, yellow East (Wang and Su, 1991). While creating such an appealing “other” served useful rhetorical purposes, any depiction of European history as essentially democratic ignores not only the Western origins of contemporary Marxism, but authoritarian political practices ranging from the Inquisition to the Nazis. “New leftism,” a presently popular Chinese intellectual current shifts the boundaries again, questioning the importance of ostensibly “Western” ideas from individual rights to meaningful democracy and criticizing “the West” for its past and present predatory policies. But “new left” discourse is largely inspired by the works of intellectuals living and trained in the West and is legitimated with extensive references to Western academic discourse. This contradictory stance suggests unstable boundaries that will be redrawn again. Arjun Appadurai (1990) suggests that globalization often results in hybrids that constitute new forms in and of themselves. Appadurai views globalization as complex flows of ideas and information in many different directions and between many different locations. This seems far more helpful than the simplified image of American culture being imposed on other countries. According to the imposition model, for example, it is

Globalization and the Chinese media

145

almost axiomatic that American movies that succeed with Chinese audiences remain American and to some degree Americanize their audiences, while Chinese movies that succeed with American audiences can only succeed because their directors have sold out, lost their Chinese essence, or are pandering to the ill-formed tastes of foreign audiences. Chinese directors whose movies succeed overseas often do face such accusations. It is far more reasonable to argue that the global success of directors such as James Cameron, Chen Kaige, and Zhang Yimou stems from their ability to work in hybrid forms that mix international and local elements. Chinese who cannot understand how Americans can like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon—a movie that fails to live up to contemporary standards of Hong Kong martial arts movies that many Chinese but few Americans have seen—closely resemble the Americans who could not understand how Chinese could enjoy The Man From Atlantis. Ideas that travel from one culture to another are often transformed in unpredictable ways. Commercial relationships are similarly complex. Is Hollywood’s success a consequence of stealing markets from Chinese-produced cinema? Perhaps. But as Stanley Rosen (2001) argues, there is also evidence to suggest Chinese audiences are so disenchanted with highly regulated Chinese cinema that they may not attend Chinese movies even when American movies are unavailable. Conversely, many in the Chinese cinema industry believe that profits generated from distributing American movies are the only viable means of funding future Chinese productions. The image of an imperial Hollywood forcing its culture on victim China is particularly inappropriate given that most American movies watched in China are, to Hollywood’s intense dismay, pirated with most of the revenues involved going to Chinese and very little being returned to Hollywood. This model of cultural exchange suggests that the globalization of media content is an open-ended and contingent process. Interpreting the impact requires restraint and caution. We cannot conclude that importing American media makes China like the United States. It might mean that Chinese judicial authorities cite American images of police and justice to promote reforms in China, but even so there may still be a huge difference between Chinese aspirations and American realities. Conversely, Chinese have produced, distributed, and consumed video disks with images of the airliners crashing into the World Trade Center towers on September 11 interspersed with Hollywood footage, that are intended as a satisfying spectacle of an arrogant people getting what they deserve (Hessler, 2001). Any conclusions that we might draw from the globalization of Chinese media need to be further tempered with an account of commercial interests. Multinational media firms are no less interested in profits than multinational telecommunications firms. Rupert Murdoch and his News Corporation offer an instructive example. In 1993 Murdoch famously claimed that totalitarian regimes were imperiled by modern telecommunications technology, but when he subsequently discovered that Chinese authorities could ban the dishes required to receive his satellite broadcasts, he and his son spent the remainder of the decade adjusting policies to please Beijing. Murdoch dropped the BBC from his Asian satellites, forced an editor who often criticized China to leave his prestigious British paper, The Times, and scuttled plans to publish a book by Chris Patten,

Chinese media, global contexts

146

the last British governor of Hong Kong (Murdoch, 1993; Auletta, 1995; Mirsky, 1998; Shawcross, 1999). Murdoch’s satellite TV service, Phoenix, which currently broadcasts to large portions of China, is generally sensitive to Beijing’s political concerns, and similar standards will no doubt be maintained on recently negotiated cable access. In sum, News Corporation and other multinational media firms are not a reliable foundation for an open and reasonable public sphere in China—or anywhere else. On the other hand, increasing the flow of information in and out of China may have benefits. Chinese audiences have gained access to a wider ranger of images and ideas. Stuart Hall’s understanding of the success of “popular journalism” in Britain is relevant: If the forms of provided commercial popular culture are not purely manipulative, then it is because, alongside the false appeals, the foreshortenings, the trivialisation and the shortcircuits, there are also elements of recognition and identification, something approaching a recreation of recognizable experiences and attitudes, to which people are responding. (Hall, 1981) The more images and information that audiences have to work with, the more resources they have to create their own identities. The more information that flows in and out of China, the more likely it is that Chinese audiences will find information like the critical information about the explosion in Jiangxi. The overwhelming majority of information that flows in and out of China is nowhere near as interesting or important, but if it had not been for that backdrop, it is very unlikely that this bit of information would have slipped through. This by no means guarantees that China will develop an ideal public sphere, but it at least suggests the possibility. Globalization and business models The final aspect of globalization that we will discuss in this chapter concerns the diffusion of media business models. Namely, Chinese media are increasingly dependent on revenues generated from advertising. In China, as elsewhere, this creates incentives to produce media that will attract audiences and often promotes the production and distribution of entertainment. In these circumstances, media content often becomes a commodity and audiences are cast as consumers. Critics in the United States and China have charged that commercial media provide little opportunity or incentive for audiences to participate in reasoned debate and thus reduce the chance that public authorities will face critical scrutiny. We will argue, however, that in China’s circumstances, commercialization, despite its problems, may constitute an improvement rather than a setback. There is no space here for a detailed discussion of the history of commercial media, but inasmuch as China’s current media business model is increasingly influenced by the American model, a brief discussion is required. In the last fifteen years of the nineteenth century, American publishers built large circulations for magazines such as Munsey’s

Globalization and the Chinese media

147

Weekly, McLures, and The Saturday Evening Post by publishing soft news and entertainment at low prices to consumers. The publishers generated large revenues based on advertising sold to firms that were just then beginning to “brand” their products (Ohmann, 1996). In the 1920s and 1930s a concerted campaign by a few American advertisers persuaded consumer products firms that they could profitably buy air time as well as space on printed pages, and a similar model spread to radio and eventually to television (Smulyan, 1994). In the 1980s and 1990s, as large media corporations bought previously independent newspapers and broadcasters, commercial considerations became even more important. Many countries around the world, including in Western Europe, kept public broadcasting as their dominant model through the 1980s. With the onslaught of Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and other neo-liberal leaders, the commercial model came to dominate both print and broadcast media throughout most of the world (Herman and McChesney, 1997). In China, the success of commercial media is surely one of the biggest stories of postMao China (Zha, 1995). Reforms started in the 1980s and accelerated during the 1990s. As noted above, media technologies introduced in post-Mao China such as television and the Internet quickly became the most commercial. But commercial forces have also had an increasingly important role in older media. The contrast between morning and evening papers serves as an excellent example. The morning papers, also known as “organ papers” (jiguan bao) because they are the official organs of territorial Party committees, have lost subscribers while other evening papers and weekend supplements have flourished. Organ papers are required to devote relatively more space to news of official politics such as leaders’ speeches and Party conferences. Evening papers are allowed to abridge this sort of news, which leaves more space for other types of news, which usually turns out to be soft news. Some papers have also introduced weekend editions which are also less stringently regulated. Organ papers have generally faced declining subscriptions and have had to make difficult economic choices. Many evening papers and some weekend papers have created a happy spiral in which successfully attracting large numbers of readers has increased revenues enabling the papers to add pages which attract still more readers and revenues. The contrast between commercial and Party media should not be overstated. Despite the apparent differences between the different types of papers, both may be owned by the same authorities. The successful weekend paper, Southern Weekend, for example, is published by the same organization that publishes Guangdong province’s organ paper, Southern Daily. Alternatively, while Shanghai’s evening paper, Xinmin Wanbao, is published by a different group than publishes Shanghai’s organ paper, Liberation Daily, both groups are owned by Shanghai municipal authorities. Second, even commercial media operate in highly regulated markets. Territorial authorities usually restrict access to their own markets, and private entrepreneurs have only limited opportunities. Third, while evening and weekend papers are not required to publish as much political news, they are still subject to strict ideological restrictions. The difference between commercial and Party media is illustrated in the story of Zhu Rongji’s partial apology. Namely, market-oriented newspapers broke the story before it was covered in the official press, the Party press published an authoritative version of

Chinese media, global contexts

148

events which brought most papers into line, but some commercial papers continued to supply contradictory information. Commercial incentives, in sum, may lead media into politically sensitive zones. Any inspection of the content of evening papers or the covers of magazines displayed in kiosks of urban China will find critical commentary to be a small part of commercial media. Evening papers carry reports about traffic and weather, celebrities and entertainment, fashion and cooking, careers and personal finance, and sports. Kiosks have racks of magazines dedicated to such topics. Crime magazines sometimes feature lurid covers promising stories about women in jail. Computer and stereo magazines tout the latest gear. Television guides and movie magazines are also big sellers. Magazines that report current affairs sometimes feature alarming headlines about foreign threats to China’s security. There is a considerable market for scandal, but scandals are far more likely to be presented in terms of an individual with moral problems than a systemic failure (Zhao, 2000). Colin Sparks has defined “tabloidization” as a shift from hard news (news about politics, economics, and society) to soft news (news about diversions such as sports, scandal, and celebrities) and a shift from concentrating on public life to concentrating on private life (Sparks, 2000). We would also add that “tabloidization” includes a shift in style from analysis toward the telling of stories, which often means presenting narratives of one individual’s or possibly a family’s or community’s trials rather than a broad explanation of a general problem. If we accept this definition, commercialization has promoted the “tabloidization” of Chinese media. Chinese and Western intellectuals have criticized commercialization in similar terms. In the mid-1990s, as the trend toward commercialization became more evident, there was a wave of concern about its implications. Zhou Lunyou, an avant-garde poet who spent time in prisons and work camps, wrote: The blows of commodities are more gentle, more direct than violence, More cruel too, pushing the spirit toward total collapse. (Yeh, 1996) More than thirty journals and newspapers, including prestigious ones such as Reading, Critics of Art and Literature, Xinhua Digest, China Social Science, Philosophical Research, People’s Daily, Wenhui Daily and Guangming Daily, used special issues or series to address controversial topics such as the “the lost spirit of humanism,” “intellectuals and business,” “marginalization of intellectuals,” “postmodern fever” and “cultural market and socialism.” Colin Sparks forcefully argues that tabloid journalism impedes meaningful public participation in politics: Any theory of democratic life…is bound to recognize that popular knowledge of, and familiarity with, at least the core issues of politics, is a necessary condition for its concrete realization. It is not simply that tabloids and tabloidization constitute a threat to an existing democracy; rather they make its practical functioning an impossibility because they are unable to provide the audience with the kinds of knowledge that are essential to the exercise of their

Globalization and the Chinese media

149

rights as citizens. (Sparks, 2000:29) While meaningful political participation does require at least some knowledge of politics, splicing together arguments from different cultures requires more care. In China’s circumstances, tabloid journalism may be less harmful than these criticisms indicate. The critical question is not so much how China’s present public sphere compares with an ideal-type as how it compares with China’s previous public spheres. We lack the space for more than a cursory consideration of the nature of China’s previous public spheres, but the critical point is that they have been intimately connected to China’s Leninist political institutions. Since the creation of the People’s Republic, “the people” have been energetically represented in official discourse, but political hierarchies have closely regulated the use of this term and many others (Schoenhals, 1992). “The people” have actively participated in the production of this discourse, but for most of the history of the People’s Republic, participation in political discourse was compulsory rather than voluntary. Intellectuals and others have been able to introduce some of their own concerns, but more often through strategies resembling James Scott’s “weapons of the weak” than through open critical debate (Scott, 1985). Considered in this light, the rise of commercial—even tabloid—journalism may represent a positive change. First, even if media are still largely owned by political authorities, commercialization of the media changes their incentive structures. Southern Weekend, for example, provides significant revenues for the Guangdong provincial authorities who in turn sought to protect the paper from conservative political authorities in Beijing. Political authorities still impose limits, as indicated by the forced resignations of Southern Weekend editors. But even if Southern Weekend is unable to continue reporting scandals and providing critical commentary, the economic incentives will remain and are likely to draw others into a proven market. To be sure, commercial incentives alone will not transform the Guangdong authorities into radical critics of the existing system. But when territorial governments set financial goals as well as political goals for the media they own and manage, they begin to transform the role of the media in the public sphere. Second, the rise of commercial media means that audiences have more choice. The financial success of commercial media has created both the incentives and the means to greatly increase the volume of media produced in China. Some genres have gone into decline, particularly those which have been unable to replace declining subsidies with revenues from paying customers. This can be a nearly inevitable result of the nature of the genre, as in the case of poetry and creative writing, or a result of ineffective or restrictive management, as in the case of cinema. But regardless of these losses, the volume and diversity of commercial media have increased enormously throughout the 1980s and 1990s. This has had the important consequence of decreasing the portion of the public sphere occupied by official public discourse. As opposed to in the past, when citizens were compelled to produce official public discourse, many citizens now not only avoid producing official public discourse, but also minimize their exposure to it. Of course,

Chinese media, global contexts

150

official media management still has a huge impact on commercial media. Coverage of many topics, such as the personal lives of leaders, ethnic relations, the plight of the unemployed, and corruption is either forbidden or subject to careful management. This has far reaching consequences. For example, in the absence of systematic coverage of human rights abuses in minority areas, sympathetic reports of the Dalai Lama, and candid interviews with Tibetans, there is a much stronger market for nationalist criticisms of foreign concern about human rights in Tibet as wanton interference in Chinese affairs. But even nationalism can become a double-edged sword when it is only indirectly managed. Finally, an increasing emphasis on matters of private life may provide a more openended means of representing “the people” in Chinese media than has previously been possible. As noted above, “the people” have long been an important part of Chinese political discourse, but the use of this term has been closely regulated by China’s closed political hierarchy. Inasmuch as the commercial—even tabloid—press attends to the concerns of everyday private life, it offers a very different and possibly more open representation of “the people.” Daniel Hallin (2000) makes a similar argument regarding the rise of tabloid media in democratizing Mexico. Under the aegis of the PRI, he writes, the media was highly politicized, but was deferential to leaders and the ruling party. While the tabloid journalism that emerged as media were privatized gives the appearance of “depoliticization,” Hallin argues that it may actually be more democratic. Tabloid journalists focus on stories of immediate interest to ordinary people, such as traffic accidents, crime, and scandals. Hallin concludes: “The fact that the experience of ordinary people is increasingly…the prime source of evidence and value in the news would seem to be an important symbol of a shift toward a democratic political culture” (Hallin, 2000). Deborah Davis’ conclusions about the rise of consumerism in general are true of media in particular: [R]apid commercialization…broke the monopolies that had previously cast urban consumers in the role of supplicants to the state…[R]eformers became increasingly indifferent to how citizens used their new commercial freedoms. And in this more lightly censored terrain, urban residents initiated networks of trust, reciprocity, and attachment that differed from the vertical relationship of obedience between subject-citizens and Party or government officials…the greater affluence and new consumerism of the 1990s have weakened the hegemonic sureties that defined urban life throughout the 1960s and 1970s. (Davis, 2000, 2–3) Conclusion This chapter began with an account of a somewhat hopeful outcome to a tragic event. Following the deaths of some children, a high level official offered an apology and promised that the government would in future work to enforce rules that would avoid future such tragedies. This apology was a welcome instance of government officials

Globalization and the Chinese media

151

accounting for their actions in the face of public criticism. Our subsequent analysis was meant to show that certain forms of globalization including the importation of new media technologies, the movement of media content across borders, and importing commercial business models for media organization helped to bring this about. We do not, however, intend to argue that this is the only possible outcome of the globalization of Chinese media. Our discussion of each of the three types of globalization suggests alternate possibilities. While new technologies have increased the options available to the public, the fact remains remains that the new technologies alone are not enough to guarantee an improving public sphere. Rather, outcomes are determined by complex negotiations and maneuvering involving the transnational firms that supply new technologies, various agencies of the Chinese Communist Party and government, and users with diverse interests and motivations. We find the conditions under which this process is occurring relatively hopeful, but nonetheless argue that it is too soon to predict the outcome. Similarly, the global movement of media content can have good and bad consequences. In the discussion of the Jiangxi explosion, the ability to import and export ideas and information gave Chinese increased opportunities to organize informed discussions of public affairs. In some cases citizens can put commodity culture imported from other countries to good use. Increasing the size and diversity of a culture’s stock of ideas and information is generally good. But many things can go wrong. The flow of foreign ideas can be construed as invasive and used as a justification for xenophobic policies that block reform and innovation. Transnational media firms cannot be relied on to foster public discussion of public affairs and may displace local media that do. Finally, the commercialization of Chinese media means that private issues occupy an increasing portion of China’s public sphere while the public discussion of public issues is in relative decline. This could be a first step toward reconstituting a more autonomous and diverse discussion of public affairs. The increasing emphasis on producing news and other media products that make ordinary people’s experiences a prime source of value is a welcome replacement to a public sphere denominated in terms imposed by elite bureaucrats. Even if most media is “tabloidized,” Southern Weekend and a few other periodicals and radio and television shows have demonstrated that there is a market for thoughtful and critical commentary on public affairs. In evaluating China’s new public sphere, it is important, as we have noted, to avoid construing China and “the West” as opposites. Thinking in terms of “the West” is an invitation to simplification and distortion. In particular, we should not measure the actually existing Chinese public sphere against an ideal-type of a society that does not exist anywhere. In most of Europe and North America, tabloids outsell informational newspapers. It is hardly a surprise that commercial media in China would also turn toward entertainment. But experience elsewhere indicates that this is not necessarily an insurmountable barrier to creating a public sphere that tolerates some measure of openness and where reasoned debate has some influence. It is also important, however, not to underestimate the degree to which censorship and coercion still govern Chinese media. There are many reasons censorship and coercion in Chinese media are under-reported. Censorship in China is less visible for being integrated

Chinese media, global contexts

152

into media management rather than being the responsibility of a separate police organization. Evidence of censorship is itself censored, and people who expose censorship are likely to be punished. There is less censorship in China now than during previous periods, and thus most Chinese experience the present period as relatively uncensored, despite being far from international standards for freedom of the press. It remains a fact that in China, books and periodicals cannot be published without stateissued licenses, publications that retrospectively seem too controversial can be pulled from bookstores and kiosks, editors who too often venture into sensitive zones are apt to be given other work, web pages that publish too many critical essays are closed, authors who publish controversial opinions can suffer professional sanctions, and once in a while people are arrested or deported for what they write. Moreover, the procedures used to adjudicate such matters are often so arbitrary and secretive that not even the principals receive a clear explanation of why state authority is invoked. These are formidable tools for limiting the range of information and ideas in the public sphere and often facilitate imposing arbitrary conclusions that serve the interests of the few. On the other hand, it is at least possible that globalization offers audiences enough new resources as to significantly tip the balance toward a more open and reasonable public sphere. Note 1 The authors wish to thank Chin-Chuan Lee for his invitation to be part of this project, Mayfair Yang and Judy Polumbaum for their insightful criticisms of earlier drafts of this chapter, and Leslie Spencer-Herrera and Michele Crymes for editorial assistance. References Appadurai, Arjun (1990), “Disjuncture and difference in the global cultural economy,” Public Culture , 2(2):1–24. Asian Weekly (2001), “Bushi fengzi, shi fengkuang xiao” [Not a madman, but a mad school], March 25. Internet edition, http://www.yzzk.com Auletta, Ken (1995), “The pirate,” The New Yorker , November 13, pp. 80–93. Brook, Timothy (1998), The Confusions of Pleasure: Commerce and Culture in Ming China . Berkeley: University of California Press. Chen, Judy M. (2000), “Willing partners to repression?,” Digital Freedom Network, November 27. http://www.dfn.org Chen, Xiaomei (1995), Occidentalism: A Theory of Counter Discourse in Post-Mao China . London: Oxford University Press. China Daily (2001), “Premier Zhu meets reporters,” March 16. Internet edition. http://www.chinadaily.com.cn China Internet Network Information Center (2001), “Zhongguo hulian wangluo fazhan zhuangkuang tongji baogao” [Statistical report on the development of the Chinese

Globalization and the Chinese media

153

Internet], July 31. http://www.cnnic.net.china China Online (2000), “Jiang clashes with Hong Kong media,” October 30. Internet edition. http://www.chinaonline.com/industry/media_entertainment/NewsArchive/Secure/2000/ China Statistical Yearbook, 1998 (1999), Beijing: China Statistical Publishing House. Clark, Paul (1987), Chinese Cinema: Culture and Politics since 1949 . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Davis, Deborah (2000), “Introduction: a revolution in consumption,” in Deborah Davis (ed.), The Consumer Revolution in Urban China . Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 1–22. Eisenstein, Elizabeth (1979), The Panting Press as an Agent of Change: Communications and Cultural Transformations in Early Modern Europe . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Guo, Liang and Wei Bu (2001), “The survey on Internet usage and impact,” CYCNet , May, 2001. http://www.chinace.org/ce/itre Habermas, Jürgen (1989), The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: an Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society . Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Hachigan, Nina (2000), “China and the Net: a love-hate relationship,” China Online , March 6. http://www.chinaonline.com Hall, Stuart (1981), “Notes on deconstructing the popular,” in G.Lipsitz (ed.), People’s History and Socialist Theory . London: Routledge, pp. 227–240. Hallin, Daniel C. (2000), “La nota roja,” in C.Sparks and J.Tulloch (eds), Tabloid Tales: Global Debates over Media Standards . New York: Routledge, pp. 267–284. Herman, Edward S. and Robert W.McChesney (1997), The Global Media: the New Missionaries of Corporate Capitalism . Washington: Cassell. Hessler, Peter (2001), “Straight to video; how the attacks are playing in the provinces,” The New Yorker , October 15, pp. 83–87. Hucker, Charles O. (1975), China’s Imperial Past: an Introduction to Chinese History and Culture . Stanford: Stanford University Press. Kraus, Richard (2000), “Public monuments and private pleasures in the parks of Nanjing: a tango in the ruins of the Ming emperor’s palace,” in D.Davis (ed.), The Consumer Revolution in Urban China . Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 287–311 Kynge, James (2000), “Jiang calls for promotion of IT” Financial Times , August 21. Lerner, Daniel (1958), The Passing of Traditional Society: Modernizing the Middle East . New York: The Free Press. Li, Yiming (1999), “Duli Ri” [Independence Day], Dazhong Dianying [Popular Cinema], 2. Translated in Chinese Sociology and Anthropology , 32(1): 84–90. Lull, James. (1991), China Turned On: Television., Reform, and Resistance . New York: Routledge. Lynch, Dan (1999), After the Propaganda State: Media, Politics and “'Thought Work” in Reformed China . Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Malinowski, Tom (2001), “China’s willing censors,” Washington Post , April 20, p. A25. Mirsky,Jonathan (1998), “‘Spiked’ and attacked by my editor: why I was forced to leave The Times” The Daily Telegraph , March 19, p. 20.

Chinese media, global contexts

154

Murdoch, Rupert (1993), “The consumer is in the saddle, driving the telecommunications industry,” The Times , September 2. Ni, Kan (2001), “Chuanmei shichanghua shi Zhongguo gonggong lingyu xingchengde xianzhuang—cong Fanglin xiaoxue baozha an kan Zhongguo chuanmei xiankuang” [Media marketization is a new phenomenon in China’s public sphere: the current situation in Chinese media from the perspective of the Fanglin Elementary School Explosion], Century China , March 28. http://www.csdn.net.cn/page/china/index.htm Ohmann, Richard (1996), Selling Culture: Magazines, Markets, and Class at the Turn of the Century . London: Verso. Pappas, Leslie (2000), “China’s Internet syndrome,” The Standard.com , February 14. http://www.thestandard.com People’s Daily (2001), “Truth About Jiangxi School Building Collapse Known,” People’s Daily Online , March 9. http://english.peopledaily.com.cn PRNewsAsia (2001), “China has 230 min fixed-line/mobile phone subscribers,” April 17. http://www.prnewsasia.com/china Reporters Sans Frontières (2001), “Protest letter,” October, http://www.rsf.fr/uk/homecpgene.html Rheingold, Howard (1993), The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier . Reading, MA: Addison-Wesiey. Rosen, Stanley (2001), “Same bed, different dreams: Hollywood and American film in the China shop,” paper presented to Association of Asian Studies. Rothman, Warren H. and Jonathan P.Barker (1999), “Cable Connections,” The China Business Review , 26(3): 20–25. Said, Edward (1978), Orientalism . New York: Vintage Books. Schoenhals, Michael (1992), Doing Things with Words in Chinese Politics . Berkeley: Institute of East Asian Studies. Scott, James (1988), Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance . New Haven, CT. Yale University Press. Shawcross, William (1999), “Murdoch’s new life,” Vanity Fair , 470:268–273, 318–324. Sina.com (2001) “Zhonggong zhongyuan jueding Meng Jiangxi ren Jiangxi shengwei shuji,” [CCP Center appoints Meng Jianzhu Jiangxi Provincial Secretary], April 4. http://www.sina.com.cn Smulyan, Susan (1994), Selling Radio: the Commercialization of American Broadcasting 1920–1934 . Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press. Song, Qiang, Zangzang Zhang, and Bian Qiao (1996), Zhongguo keyi shuo bu [The China That Can Say No]. Beijing: Zhonghua Gongshang Lianhe Chubanshe. Sparks, Colin (2000), “Introduction: the panic over tabloid news,” in Colin Sparks and John Tulloch (eds), Tabloid, Tales: Global Debates over Media Standards . New York: Routledge, pp. 1–40. Thompson, John (1995), The Media and Modernity: a Social Theory of the Media . Cambridge: Polity Press. Walton, Greg (2001), “China’s golden shield: corporations and the development of surveillance technology in the People’s Republic of China,” International Centre for

Globalization and the Chinese media

155

Human Rights and Democratic Development, September, http://www.ichrdd.ca Wang, Luxiang and Xiaokang Su (1991), Deathsong of the River: a Reader’s Guide to the Chinese TV Series Heshang. Ithaca, NY: Cornell East Asia Series. Yang, Mayfair (1999) “Introduction,” in M.Yang (ed.), Spaces of their Own: Women’s Public Sphere in Transnational China . Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 1–31. Yeh, Michelle (1996), “The ‘cult of poetry’ in contemporary China,” Journal of Asian Studies , 55(1): 51–80. Yu, Peter K. (2001), “Barriers to foreign investment in the Chinese Internet industry,” GigaLaw.com, March, http://www.gigalaw.com Zha, Jianying (1995), China Pop: How Soap Operas, Tabloids and Bestsellers are Transforming a Culture . New York: New Press. Zhao, Yuezhi (2000), “Watchdogs on party leashes? Contexts and implications of investigative journalism in post-Deng China,” Journalism Studies , 1(4): 557–597. Zhongguo guancha (2001), “Qianming dalu wangmin jiu Jiangxi baozha shijian qianze zhengfu” [Thousands of netizens condemn government over Jiangxi blast incident], Zhongguo guancha [China Survey], April, http://www.89–64.com

8 Administrative boundaries and media marketization A comparative analysis of the newspaper, TV and Internet markets in China Joseph Man Chan The economic market, when left to run on its own in a capitalist setting, tends to defy administrative boundaries and drive out local protectionism. This inherent tendency for capital to expand is tied to the profit motive and advantages of the economy of scale. The capitalist ideal is to have a market that allows the free flow of capital and opens to competition at all levels—local, regional, national, and even global. 1 This capitalist logic not only applies to the manufacturing and other economic sectors but also the media and cultural industry. Illustrative of this model is the United States where media investors are generally free to make investments across state and county boundaries. China, once a planned economy, started to introduce the market mechanism when it shifted gears to economic development from class struggle in the early 1980s. Marketization was given a strong boost after Deng Xiaoping elaborated on the importance of economic liberalization in socialist construction during his widely publicized tour to southern China in early 1992. By the logic of marketization, one should expect capital to be crossing administrative boundaries such as provincial and metropolitan borders in its pursuit of a larger market. Indeed, in the non-media sector, the Chinese authorities have well recognized the need for abolishing all forms of local protectionism in order to foster a national market. The state administration released rules in April 2001 to forbid the use of any means to interfere with the entry of goods and services to a local market. 2 The intention is to establish and to perfect a unified national market that allows orderly and fair competition. If mass media are simply a regular industry, we would have expected them to enjoy the same degree of free movement. But mass media command a sensitive location in the Chinese Communist system. They are regarded as an important part of the ideological apparatus that is indispensable for legitimating the Partystate, indoctrinating the public and coordinating campaigns. Since the days of Mao, it has been recognized that to harness the media is a prerequisite for starting a revolution and for maintaining a government. To him, controlling the pen and the gun are equally important. The downfall of Communism in Central and Eastern Europe has only reinforced the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s belief in the central role of press control in maintaining political control. The Chinese media, considered as the Party-state’s mouthpiece, are organized by

Administrative boundaries and media marketization

157

administrative boundaries. Parallel to the state’s administration is a control system run by the CCP. Well defined in its jurisdiction, the media of a given administrative status knows what to do, what not to do, and where its sphere of influence lies. The privileges and entitlements associated with each medium vary with its administrative status. Trespassing was rare because there was little incentive for one to do so prior to media marketizadon. Lubricating this administrative control system was the socialist spirit. All the media are regarded not as enterprises (qiye danwei) but political units (shiye danwei). As political units advancing the same socialist cause, the conflicts among them, if any, are those between sister organizations and are thus reconcilable. Media marketization is a relatively slow process, taking twists and turns that reflect the CCP’s disjunctive approach to development—maintaining ideological control on the one hand and embracing marketization on the other (Chan, 1993). Media marketization in China is first marked by the substitution of state subsidy by advertising as the revenue source for virtually all the media (He and Chen, 1998). The intensifying competition for audience has led to the growth of entertainment and infotainment, the diversification of information, the rise of consumption culture, the multiplication of media outlets (Wu, 2000), the expansion of non-Party media outlets at the expense of Party newspapers, and the formation of media conglomerations (Zhao, 2000). As the media become partially commercialized, economic principles and the market logic loom in importance in management decisions. Throughout the process of media marketization, the Party-state plays an important role in directing the development of media through administrative means such as policies, directives, and individual discretion. Each major reform is the result of the interaction between the market and the state. Most of the time, the market creates the need for innovations or non-routine practices (Pan, 2000) which, if popular enough, will put pressure on the regulators to make corresponding policy allowances. On other occasions, the regulators may take the lead in articulating the policy needs to cope with anticipated changes such as China’s ascension to the WTO. One conspicuous feature of media development in China is the persistence of administrative boundaries: the media, on the whole, are not encouraged or allowed to compete across provincial and metropolitan borders in spite of rapid marketization in other areas. This works against the inherent tendency of the market to expand. Why is this the case? To what extent, if ever, are the administrative boundaries eroded as the media market is formed in China? How is media marketization restrained by administrative boundaries? I shall examine these questions in view of the formation of the markets for newspapers, television, and the Internet. It is expected that the comparative analysis will shed light on how technological advancement and external market pressure may relate to the tension between market and state. In a discussion on the paradoxes of the political economy of the Chinese media, Lee (2000) has contrasted two diverging approaches, liberal-pluralism and radical-Marxism. While they differ in various respects, they share one simple assumption: a media market tends to expand as capital accumulates. With radical-Marxism, that has been used to account for why imperialism is inevitable. By the dictates of liberal-pluralism, no artificial restraint should be imposed on the market if it is to function effectively. Viewed

Chinese media, global contexts

158

from this perspective, there is an inherent tension between marketization and the administrative boundedness of the Chinese media. The tension can be understood in view of the political economy of China’s media, where politics and economics are intertwined, engaging in a “tug-of-war” (He, 2000). Market—state tension has served as a point of departure for many researchers on media transformation in reform China (e.g. Chan, 1993; Lee, 1994; Huang, 1994; He and Chen, 1998; Pan and Chan, 2000; Pan, 2000; Wu, 2000; Zhao, 2000). While some researchers tend to stress the liberalization effects of media marketization (e.g. Huang, 1994; Wu, 2000), others have begun to see greater compatibility between marketization and state control (e.g. Pan, 2000; Zhao, 2000). The task for the latter is to explain why market-state tension has not erupted beyond control. In this light, even investigative reporting that exposes the wrongdoing of corrupt officials is found to be functional in legitimating a bureaucracy that is losing its credibility among the public (Zhao, 2001). These problematics are cast against a larger global scene, with Chinese Communism remaining intact more than ten years after the CCP’s bloody crackdown on the 1989 pro-democracy movement and the collapse of Communism in Central and Eastern Europe. It appears that a more eminent task for researchers is to explain why China remains a relatively stable society in spite of all the strains and changes. This chapter represents a continued investigation of China’s media development along the market-state axis. As a point of departure, I think that the tension may reach a state of equilibrium when the Party-state can successfully accommodate the force of marketization. But this equilibrium may not last long as the market has an expansive inherent logic arid the force it generates is always destabilizing, especially when there are technological and external forces beyond the control of the Party-state. The state will have to make constant adjustment in order to keep the market forces under its control. Under these circumstances, the nation-state is expected to give in more to make way for marketization. The administrative containment of the newspaper market By their official political status, Chinese newspapers can be typified as Party organs or non-Party newspapers such as mass appeal papers and bureaucratic papers. Being a formal voice of the Party, the Party organ is more political and ideological in its editorial approach. In contrast, the non-Party papers, also owned and controlled by the Party-state, are supposed to serve the specialized interest of a subpopulation or the general interests of the public at large. Both types of newspapers carry with them an administrative status which is defined by the administrative level of their sponsoring units. In China, each newspaper is required to have a sponsoring unit (zhuban danwei) and a regulating unit (zkuguan danwei) (Wei, 1999). This ensures that all newspapers are danwei-based and no individuals can start publications on their own. Among other requirements, the sponsoring unit and the newspaper have to be agreeable in their functions and geographical scope of service (the nation, province, city, and county). The administrative status of the Chinese press is not merely a question of status, it carries with it important economic implications (Cao, 1999:152). It may affect its

Administrative boundaries and media marketization

159

privileges such as access to pulp, rates for distribution, frequency of technological updating, and tax rate. Our concern here is that a paper of a given administrative status is not allowed to enter another market of equal or higher administrative status. In other words, a provincial Party organ will not be allowed to enter another provincial market or the national market. The same prohibition applies to newspapers at the city level and lower levels. Even the newspaper conglomerates that have been formed in recent years are not allowed to publish newspapers outside their state-defined geographical areas (Zhao, 2000). The boundedness of the Chinese newspaper market remains in place even after more than fifteen years of media marketization. Why are the administrative boundaries so enduring? There is no question that as marketization deepens, there is a growing urge for the prospering newspapers to move into larger territories in their pursuit of profit. However, such expansion can be interpreted as trespassing on the Chinese administrative system. To enter a new provincial market requires the provision of information about that province which, by necessity, will amount to administrative “interference.” As of now, the provincial Party organs are supposed to serve the political needs of the provincial authorities. While venturing into someone else’s turf will not guarantee any economic gain, it is almost certain that it will invite hostile reactions from the affected authorities. All the journalists, sponsors, and regulators are, in the last analysis, cadres in an administrative system. The ultimate concern for most of them is to climb up the hierarchical structure. That explains why no provincial Party organ is known to have made any attempt to break into another provincial market. The same can be said of the newspaper Party organs at the city level in general. However, some city dailies have succeeded in extending their circulation beyond their home bases. The Guangzhou Daily, for one, radiates its influence from Guangzhou because people in the neighboring area are also interested in what is happening in the metropolitan center. It also includes a supplement to cater to the specific needs of the local community. An illustration of a somewhat different kind is provided by the Nanfang City Daily, a mass appeal newspaper launched in 1997 by the Nanfang Daily, Guangdong’s provincial Party organ. Its success in Guangzhou led the Nanfang City Daily to start a local version in Shenzhen, a lucrative consumer market. This represents the extension of a paper sponsored by a provincial Party organ to another city within the same province. Other metro dailies engaging in similar marketing tactics include Sichuan’s Huaxi City Daily, Fujian’s Straits City Daily, and Hubei’s Qutian City Daily. Obviously, the local authorities and the local Party organs are not pleased with these “intruders.” First, the local newspapers have to face up to the strong competition posed by the metro dailies which, as mass appeal newspapers, can have a more liberal editorial approach than the local Party organs. Second, the metro dailies are more willing to expose the local social problems because they are run by “absentee sponsors” who are less tied to the local authorities. This results in more aggressive reporting and commands a wider audience. Third, the metro newspapers are subsidiaries of the provincial Party organs whereas the local Party organs are only at the city level. The Party leaders of the local newspapers are subordinated to the provincial Party leaders who, in turn, are in direct control of the provincial Party organs.

Chinese media, global contexts

160

It is not difficult for one to imagine the tension that exists under this system. The recent outbreak of a row between the Nanfang City Daily and the local Partyorgans of Shenzhen only serves to reveal the underlying currents. Shortly after the Nanfang City Daily started publication in Shenzhen, it surpassed the retail circulations of the two local Party organs, the Shenzhen Special Zone Daily and the Shenzhen Commercial Daily, sponsored by the city Party committee arid the city government respectively. All went well until the Shenzhen Press Distribution Bureau, with the support of the two local newspapers, imposed a distribution blockade against the Nanfang City Daily in mid-May 2001. The Nanfang City Daily tried every means at its disposal to circumvent the blockade. Using strong words, it bombarded the Shenzhen parties for violating the “fairness principle of the market” and for instituting “local protectionism.” 3 The market logic appears to have captured the imagination of most commentators on the subject. At the same time, the Shenzhen Press Distribution Bureau claims that it has the right to prevent the entry of “non-Party organs” from outside the city. What constitutes an outsider? What constitutes a non-Party organ? The dynamics of the case have revealed how the Chinese newspaper market is still tied by administrative boundaries and how the market logic has prevailed in public discourse. 4 It would be an oversimplification if the limitations of administrative boundaries were overstressed so as to neglect the huge success of a few local dailies whose circulations have gone well beyond their metropolitan and provincial limits. The newspapers taking the lead in this direction are the evening dailies that had gained a national reputation before the Cultural Revolution. The Xinmin Evening Daily and the Yangchang Evening Daily, based in Guangzhou and Shanghai respectively, are the two most notable examples. Allowed to be distributed nationally, they have secured circulations that have far outshone other Party national dailies. A more recent success is the Beijing Youth Daily, which started as a relatively obscure local newspaper, yet has achieved regional and national reputation. The emerging pattern is quite clear: the administrative boundaries apply mainly to the Party press. The non-Party press is the first to break the administrative barrier and enter the markets at the same and higher levels, resulting in intensified national competition. This pattern is a reflection of the CCP’s policy of simultaneously maintaining tight political control and relaxing economic control in the area of media development. The question that begs an answer is why crossing the administrative boundaries is not considered to be political tres passing by these newspapers. The answer lies in their nonParty status. They owe their appeal to their emphasis on social issues and the provision of useful daily information and entertainment. As a rule, these newspapers are based in the more economically advanced areas, and the issues they cover may sometimes be interpreted as what lies in store for the developing areas. There is no compelling reason for authorities to raise issues with these newspapers for publishing matters that are nonpolitical in nature. It appears that these newspapers have become more willing than ever to break news on crimes or misdeeds of some local authorities. Such reports are bound to provoke political hostility from the officials concerned. However, the hostility so generated is often localized and isolated and there is no systematic pressure to confine these aggressive dailies within their administrative boundaries.

Administrative boundaries and media marketization

161

To sum up, with the administrative boundaries in place, China’s newspaper market is divided along provincial and municipal lines. The newspaper market force is the strongest in the provincial capitals where the city newspapers compete head-to-head with the provincial dailies. The hands of the provincial Party organs are tied to a greater extent because of their higher political status and obligation to cater to both the rural and the urban population. All these make the provincial Party organs less responsive to commercial concerns and less flexible in their editorial approaches. Consequently, the metropolitan dailies become the dominant players in the urban areas. As they expand into cities within the same province, they pose growing competition for the provincial Party papers. The way out for the provincial Party organs has been to publish metro papers to compete with the city newspapers. Based on the above analysis, we can conclude that the provincial borders are still effective in limiting the formation of the media market in China. What are being changed are the administrative borders between cities in a given province. Nationally, only a few local newspapers have circulations large enough for them to qualify as national dailies. A non-Party paper is in general less bounded by its administrative status than a Party organ. This corroborates the observation that there has been a decline in Party organs in the overall press structure, and a rise of municipal Party organs, mass appeal evening papers, and metro papers (Zhao, 2000). Satellite TV’s technological leap Like the newspapers, the television industry in China is also tied to the administration. The structure of China’s TV broadcasting consists of two interlocking systems: the administrative system of the state and the ideological-organization system of the Party (Pan and Chan, 2000). Both systems are centralized and penetrate down to every local administrative level. The structural integration of the television network is an extension of the state’s political and administrative penetration. For each TV station, the government bureaucracy at the corresponding level controls the personnel, finance, equipment acquisition and technological expansion. The party at the corresponding level exercises ideological control over its programming. Local stations at the provincial level or below are also submitted to policy controls of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) and requirements of CCTV. The administrative market is governed by rules and regulations which, among other things, stipulate that television stations at all levels have to dedicate a channel to the relay of CCTV-1 in full, including its advertisements (Wang, 2001). Cable networks are required to dedicate channels to carrying television at the national, provincial, and metropolitan levels. Whether they carry other provincial television channels is a matter of negotiation between the parties concerned. Again, political privileges and economic benefits vary with the administrative status of a television station. For instance, the government forbids local television stations from broad-casting international news footage obtained from sources other than Xinhua News Agency and CCTV. Neither does it allow the stations to apply Xinhua’s text to audiovisual images acquired through satellite television. It has long been China’s policy to allow authorities at four levels to

Chinese media, global contexts

162

establish television stations—the national, provincial, metropolitan, and county (Wang, 2001). Administrative units below the county level can only establish television relay stations. In this model, television stations themselves do not broadcast their signals over areas beyond their administrative turf. The only possibility for television stations to have their programs broadcast nationally or in other provinces and cities involves going through a central exchange process, which sometimes takes the form of barter trade (Chan, 1994). This works against the logic of a modern market and the wishes of the provincial stations whose preference is to sell the programs for profit. The administrative boundaries in the television market only started to dissolve with the advent of satellite television and cable television. In late 2000, television in China reached a penetration rate of 95 per cent. 5 Cable television in China began to flourish in the 1990s when delivery networks sprang up across the metropolitan areas in China. Among urban families, about 60 per cent are connected to cable networks in 2000. The 1999 cable penetration figures for some of the cities are: Guangzhou (95 per cent), Xiamen (90 per cent), Shanghai (86 per cent), Chengdu (83 per cent), Nanjing (81 per cent), Xian (81 per cent), Wuhan (76 per cent), Beijing (75 per cent), Chongqing (74 per cent), Kunming 69 per cent), Shenyang (59 per cent), and Shenzhen (53 per cent). 6 The cable network system is the foundation upon which satellite television can extend its influence beyond its administrative boundaries. In mid-2000, 59 per cent of all TVhouseholds in China can receive satellite television through cable TV networks. 7 Thirtyeight per cent of all TV-households access satellite television with the aid of reception dishes. Satellite television was first used in China as a means to overcome rugged terrain in places such as Guizhou and Yunnan (Huang and Green, 2000). Given the weak programming of television stations from these remote places, they never presented any real alternative choice for the national audience. According to a Guangdong Satellite TV operator, the uplinking of television signals from the more prosperous provinces is not as straightforward as it was for Guizhou and Yunan because of the potential threat it might pose for CCTV and other provincial stations. Using rugged terrain as an important reason, many more provincial stations eventually launched their satellite TV channels in the late 1990s. In 2001 there are about forty satellite TV services from all over the country, including Guangdong, Zhejiang, Hunan, Shandong, etc. Even Shanghai, a city built on flat land, has satellite TV services of its own. This speaks to the economic consideration behind satellite TV operations. In order to attract subscribers and to meet the surge in channel capacity, there is a temptation for cable operators to fill up their channels with the most attractive programs available. Cable television thus becomes a natural partner of provincial television in its attempt to evade administrative boundaries. Resistance to the carriage of television channels from other provinces is in general not political in nature, as they seldom cross boundaries and break news about the reception province on a regular basis. Instead, the resistance is often a result of economic consideration on the part of the local television stations that have found incoming channels threatening in terms of ratings. Technologically, satellite television can readily defy boundaries and borders. With a

Administrative boundaries and media marketization

163

satellite coverage that is much larger than China itself, it is impossible for satellite television to confine signals within television stations’ administrative boundaries. The most one can do is to ban the reception of satellite television through antennae and cable networks. The structural impact of satellite provincial television on the national TV market is realized only when it is allowed to be carried by cable networks which, as mentioned earlier, are spreading fast in China. The uplinking and downlinking of television signals have enabled the provincial stations, almost overnight, to cross administrative boundaries and to compete with stations at all levels, thereby cracking CCTV’s monopoly of national television. Theoretically, all the provincial television stations can make use of the best of their programs to mix with what can be obtained through television trade if they want to carve out a niche nationally. Again, it does not make political sense if one station tries to offend a neighboring province by breaking news about that province on a sustained basis. The safe policy is to provide alternative entertainment fare and to exploit the national market through the lowest common denominator approach. Such strategies have enabled some stations to make a national name for themselves since the launching of satellite television. A betterknown example is the satellite service from Hunan, a province that is economically less developed. Realizing that it could hardly compete with CCTV in national reporting, it started out by reinventing the program format it had learnt from Shanghai television and Taiwan television. With the phenomenal success of a program called Happiness at Home, Hunan Satellite TV in effect started a competitive chain reaction among television stations in the production of entertainment programs in 1999. 8 According to statistics released by the SARFT, thirty-three provincial television stations and forty-two city and district television stations joined the fever in the same year. Thanks to satellite transmission, the audience bases of the provincial stations of Guangdong, Zhejiang, and Shangdong have significantly expanded. How one satellite television service fares against others may change over time, but what is crucial is that satellite television has made the national television market accessible to provincial stations. In addition to the provincial stations, the semi-foreign Phoenix Satellite TV also plays a significant role in eroding CCTV’s monopoly over the national market. Based in Hong Kong, Phoenix Satellite TV was launched in 1996 as a joint-venture between Chinese interests and Rupert Murdoch’s STAR TV, with the former holding the major shares. Although Phoenix Satellite TV claims to be a regional television station aiming at the Greater China market, its primary target market is mainland China. Officially, Phoenix Satellite TV is allowed to be carried only by three-star hotels in China. However, its extensive connections in China have helped secure its carriage by a significant number of cable networks. As of September 1999, its Chinese channel could reach about 42 million households and about 147 million people or 13.1 per cent of the national TV audience. 9 The audience is concentrated mainly in urban centers such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Chengdu, consisting of about 90 million people and representing a penetration rate of about 20.2 per cent. A report by A.C.Nielson in mid-1999 revealed that the audience of Phoenix Satellite TV generally shows a better profile than the average television audience. What is most intriguing is that Phoenix Satellite TV not only includes entertainment

Chinese media, global contexts

164

but also news and current affairs about China and the world. Well aware of China’s sensitivity to news programs, Phoenix Satellite TV openly admits to self-censoring and seeking the help of Shenzhen TV in repackaging its information programs for the China market. But its censorship standards are more relaxed than those of CCTV. For instance, one could see Jiang Zemin bathing in Hawaiian waters, Taiwanese commentators debating with counterparts from the mainland on issues related to the future of Taiwan, and Chen Shuibian celebrating his being elected president of Taiwan. In spite of its relatively liberal approach, Phoenix Satellite TV remains patriotic, nationalistic, and proCCP, as evidenced by its joining the Chinese government’s chorus in condemning the United States for bombing its embassy and the Falun Gong for causing suicides among its practitioners. In places where Phoenix Satellite TV is available, it poses a viable alternative to CCTV It owes its success to greater autonomy in designing its programming policy. With hosts originally from Taiwan, it gives an impression of being a more liberal television channel based outside China. It carries programs about what is happening in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Unlike Chinese stations, it promotes individuals as star hosts. According to one audience survey report in 1998, Phoenix Satellite TV owes its appeal to its “diversity,” “liveliness,” “high entertaining value,” and “freshness.” 10 Most of Phoenix Satellite TV’s top managers originate from China and have extensive connections with Beijing authorities. They know where the ideological boundaries are. Their connections enable their reporters to gain good access to high-placed sources which were often denied to Hong Kong and foreign journalists. For instance, the station was readily granted interviews by Qian Qichen, the former Foreign Minister, Tang Jiaxuan, the current Foreign Minister, and Bo Xilai, the head of Shenyang province. Phoenix Satellite TV is more flexible in its approach to news. It provides live broadcasts whenever possible. Events such as the burial of Princess Diana, Jiang Zemin’s visit to the United States, and Clinton’s visit to China were broadcast live. While the inital success of Phoenix TV in China reflects what is possible by satellite technology and cross border broadcasting, the launching of provincial satellite television stations marks an important change in the relationship between CCTV and other local stations. It has become almost impossible for CCTV to draw on the program archives of provincial stations for free broadcasting. Competition is now at the heart of the game. Economic considerations form an integral part of all joint ventures. The emerging picture in the Chinese television market is that the provincial boundaries are being eroded by the connection between satellite television and cable networks. A network infrastructure for national television competition is established. This competition for national audience is again strongest at metropolitan centers where city-level stations have been competing headto-head with provincial stations. Although the national television market is still not a level playing field, the audience share of CCTV has been declining in recent years. This is the result of competition from satellite television, cable television, and terrestrial television at the provincial and municipal levels. In early 2001, CCTV has eight satellite television channels and there are thirty-two provincial satellite TV services. Ratings reports show that CCTV’s channels still dominate. 11 However, the ratings for the provincial satellite TV stations,

Administrative boundaries and media marketization

165

such as Guangdong, Hunan, Zhejiang and Shandong, are improving and posing a threat to CCTV, especially in urban areas. Household penetration rates for the leading provincial stations are: Zhejiang (53 per cent), Shandong (50 per cent), Sichuan (38 per cent), Shanghai (35 per cent), Guangdong (33 per cent), Hunan (29 per cent), Yunan (28 per cent), and Guizhou (26 per cent). Some studies have shown that there was nearly a 30 per cent drop in CCTV’s prime time advertisement sales in the year 2000 as compared with those in 1998 and 1999 (Huang and Green, 2000). While it is true that the national television market is now open to competition, the playing field is not level for everyone. CCTV by default and by design, remains the dominating force, especially in the area of news and current affairs production. It continues to enjoy unmatched privileges such as access to information at the national level and huge resources in terms of capital, equipment, and talent. It remains the hope of the central authorities in the anticipated competition with Western media. CCTV’s developmental strategies have indeed taken into consideration the competition posed by other satellite TV services. It took the lead in diversifying into various types of specialized programming, including the popular genres of sports and drama. As the program sources of the provincial satellite services are similar, it is rather difficult for them to differentiate themselves from their competitors, so they pose a smaller threat to CCTV. 12 An alternative strategy for provincial stations is to try to walk the political tightrope and compete with more critical current affairs programs. However, this may not last long as one political mistake can result in the termination of the whole project and the loss of political favor. In early 2001, Hunan Satellite TV produced a four-part report on economic privatization in China. The SAFRT called a halt after the third episode was found to be too politically sensitive. Subsequently the deputy head of the station was ordered to step down and the program was cancelled. All these show that CCTV is more equal than others and that walking the political tightrope is by no means easy. The borderless Internet market The Internet radically differs from regular mass media in its interactivity, huge channel capacity, networking potential, and capability for both massified and personalized communication. Of special relevance to this study is its potential to cross social and physical boundaries. In cyberspace, social categories such as race and gender have become less visible (Smith and Kollock, 1999). The decentralized mode of network structure has resulted in global interconnectedness. Boundaries such as national, provincial, and metropolitan borders can be more easily evaded. Having said this, it should be noted that traditional boundaries such as national borders and social categories can continue to reassert themselves in cyberspace through regulation and differential access (Chan and Bryce, 2001). The Internet does not operate in a social vacuum. However, it is relatively more fluid and malleable than traditional mass media such as newspapers and television. Afraid of lagging behind others in technological development, China has embraced the Internet as it once did science and technology in general. The number of Internet users grows in leaps and bounds, numbering more than 20 million in early 2001. The number

Chinese media, global contexts

166

of portals and webpages has skyrocketed as well, with more than 264,000 Chinese web sites registered. 13 In 2000, more than 200 newspapers went online and started releasing news (Liu, 2000). The traditional media operators were among the first to start these webpages, dotcoms, and portals. Out of China’s sixteen newspaper conglomerates, eleven have started a website of their own by early 2001, including the Guangzhou Daily, the Nanfang Daily, the Guangming Daily, Wenwei-Xinmin United, the Shenzhen Special Zone Daily, the Beijing Daily, the Zefiang Daily, the Shenyang Daily, the Henan Daily, the Shandong Daily and the Sichuan Daily. 14 Given the penetrating power of the Internet, it no longer makes sense for the regulator to define the role of each webpage by the administrative status of its host. This is complicated by the fact that the more aggressive portals are started by non-media and private operators who are not subject to any administrative classification. Indeed, China’s most visited websites by domain in early 2001 are mostly commercial operations, and some are foreign owned. In order of popularity, they are: sina.com.cn, sohu.com, 163.com, chinaren.com, yahoo.com, microsoft.com, etang.com, 163.net, 263.net, and china.com. 15 They show little respect for the administrative boundaries embodied in China’s traditional media system. The Guangzhou Daily’s GZdaily.com is positioned more like a regional website; Beijingnews.com, a joint venture of ten Beijing media organizations, assumes the air of a national news oudet. Right from the very start, many of them are national and even global in oudook. Theoretically, the Internet market is as big as the Chinese language allows. The immediacy and fluidity of the Internet have made it more tempting for webpages to compete by speed and to take a more callous approach to newsmaking. To break news and to reproduce news reported elsewhere have become part of websites’ instincts. Once apiece of news is discovered to be inaccurate, the websites find it easier to erase the report or update it. For a while, almost all Chinese websites could engage in news reporting. No webpage has a monopoly over information for long in cyberspace. That explains why webpages no longer wait for Xinhua News Agency’s official version of some issues and take the lead to make news. The Internet has broken the administrative boundaries and the traditional rules on the relay of foreign news. The first critical event was the bombing of the Chinese embassy. Instead of waiting for the word from Xinhua, people went to the commercial websites for news and information. An extraordinary event that signifies the power of the Internet in evading administrative status is the explosion that took the lives of tens of school children in Jiangxi province in early 2001. The webpages were not only the first to break the news, they went on to publish reports that served to undermine the version openly endorsed by Premier Zhu Rongzhi. This does not imply that local websites do not have to be held politically responsible for their delinquent behavior. It simply indicates that whoever is in the Internet game can join the websites of the national media in reporting and breaking news as long as they have the resources to do so. In an attempt to restore order, the central authorities finally decreed that only those who are licensed to report news are allowed to do so on the web, and the news reported has to have originated from news media websites at the metropolitan level or above. 16 While such rules have helped contain the potential explosion of Internet news, the unofficial versions of important

Administrative boundaries and media marketization

167

events continue to circulate in cyberspace. We can conclude that the administrative boundaries that come with traditional media have much less direct impact on the websites they have established. The argument that the Internet is a borderless medium should not be stressed so far as to neglect the inequality among the websites’ sponsoring media. The differences in resources, reputation, and economic and political privileges can in some cases be traced to their differences in administrative status. What needs to be emphasized here is that administrative boundaries dwindle in importance in cyberspace. Analogous to the role of Phoenix Satellite TV in broadcasting, websites outside China form part of China’s cyber sphere. While the more ingenious can access websites that are banned by the Chinese authorities through the use of proxy servers, other Internet users in China can still have quite a few foreign choices, ranging from the Singapore-based Lianhe.com to the Hong Kong-based SCMP.com, which provides prompt and occasionally critical information about China. Comparing the three markets Table 8.1 compares and contrasts the newspaper, television, and Internet markets in terms of the restraints caused by administrative boundaries. What is common to these three markets is a growing economic urge to go beyond the administrative boundaries to form larger markets. However, the magnitude of this force varies with the media type. It is strongest in the Internet market, followed by the television market, and lastly the newspaper market. The space for the formation of a national market also varies in that order. This is primarily a result of differences in the technological properties of each medium. That both the Internet and satellite TV markets can more readily evade administrative boundaries can be explained by their high penetration power and the fluidity of their products. In contrast, the provincial boundaries in the Party newspapers still run strong and hold back the newspaper market from expanding geographically. Market competition is thus confined primarily to the metropolitan areas within a given province. One prominent feature of the emerging media market in China is the rise of metropolitan centers. Internet users are concentrated in urban areas. Satellite television services and cable networks aim at the cities where the competition between dailies is also the keenest. The rising importance of metropolitan media is in step with the growing gap between the rich and the poor, the urban and the rural, the prospering coastal region and the backward interior of the West. The media market prospers first in places where there is advertising, an upscale audience, and operational autonomy. As cultural flow is allowed between the cities, it may give rise to a form of metropolitan domination—“the subordination of one place to an urban center as a result of unequal distribution of resources between the two places, be they economic, political, or cultural in nature” (Chan, 2000:248). This pattern of development is reminiscent of that in other capitalist economies, especially in developing countries. Resource gradients between two places do not necessarily result in a domination structure, as this is contingent upon the degree of free flow of goods, services, and information, as well as the physical, linguistic,

Chinese media, global contexts

168

Table 8.1 Administrative boundaries and marketization in the newspaper, television and Internet markets

Comparative dimensions

Newspaper market

Television market

Internet market

Administrative boundedness

Strongly tied to administrative statuses of newspapers: national, provincial, metropolitan, county

Strongly tied to administrative statuses of TV stations: national, provincial, metropolitan, county

Relatively weak ties: not tied directly to administrative statuses of websites

Impact of media marketization on administrative boundedness

• Metropolitan dailies expanding into other urban centers within the same province • National rise of a few metropolitan non-Party mass appeal newspapers • Strong administrative containment of provincial Party organs

• National rise of provincial TV • Satellite TV works with cable networks in cracking open the national TV market • Crossborder TV may also play a role in eroding the CCTV’s monopoly of the national market

• The Internet market is born nonsegregated—a national, regional, and global medium • Websites are jockeying for leading positions in the national market • Crossborder websites form part of the Chinese cyber world

Logic of explanation

• For party organs, crossing provincial boundaries runs the risk of causing political offense and bureaucratic friction • Non-political news is politically less sensitive and more marketizable

• Technological property of satellite TV in defying boundaries • Semi-foreign satellite TV based in Hong Kong has higher editorial autonomy

• Technological property of the Internet in evading boundaries • Being a new decentralized medium, the Internet allows greater room for experimentation

and cultural distance between the two places. In general, higher freedom and affinity will more readily result in one place dominating the other. As the influence of a metropolitan center fans out beyond provincial boundaries, it may eventually become a major node of a unified national media market that is being formed. This is analogous to the key positions that places such as New York and Los Angeles have assumed in the American national communications network. The capitalist market tends to carry the logic of supply and demand to its geographical limits, sweeping away local protectionism along the way. As practised in the United States, it has resulted in the formation of a multilayered market, with the national, regional, and local intertwined with one another. In addition, it has also resulted in the concentration of capital, vertical integration, mergers, oligopoly, and even monopoly as in the case of the newspaper industry. Whatever the situation, the American market at all

Administrative boundaries and media marketization

169

levels allows new players to come into the field. It is up to individual entrepreneurs to decide whether to enter the market or not. The most fundamental difference between such a system and China is that the American media are privately owned and allowed to invest anywhere within the country, whereas the Chinese media are state-owned and susceptible to restraints based on administrative status. The case of China illustrates that the state can contain the force of media marketization within its administrative boundaries. The media market in China can only go as far as administrative boundaries allow. To go beyond them, a policy deliberation is necessary. However, as evidenced by the case of satellite television and the Internet, marketization, when coupled with the advent of new technology, may generate too strong a force for the state to confine within the existing parameters. Here we can see that market formation in a socialist country is not necessarily by design. Serendipity in the form of technological advancement can play a critical role in evading the constraints of administrative boundaries. This is an echo to the stress on the importance of improvisation and nonroutine news practices as sources of media reforms in China (Pan, 2000). Grossborder market pressure, when present, makes it even more difficult for the state to withstand the pressure of marketization. This can be the result of a regionalizing force as in the case of Phoenix Satellite TV or a globalizing force as in the case of China’s ascension to the WTO. The above analysis leads us to this conclusion: there is no denial the state-market tension is fundamental to the understanding of media development in China. However, we have to include at least two other factors in the equation of change: the advent of new technology and the forces of regionalization and globalization from outside the national border. The current administrative division of the Chinese media market has its fair share of tensions. These tensions will be heightened as China moves further towards economic liberalization. Some researchers in China have begun to recognize the underdevelopment of the television market in China and how it may become a hindrance to television development in the long run. Lu acutely observes: Being a derivative of the government, television stations will survive as long as the government exists. In the short term, such administrative protection may be a blessing. But in the long run, especially from the perspective of media internationalization, it is a curse because it violates a general market principle and allows the unfit to survive. (Lu, 1999:151) Others have complained about the inherent inequity in the administrative system (Cao, 1999). Currently, newspapers of higher status are in a better position to run new publications in a region of lower administrative status. But the reverse is not allowed. To match the market logic, all newspapers should be allowed to start publications at all administrative levels and be given the same privileges. As marketization deepens, the strain on the administrative control of media will also apply to conglomeration which allows the acquisition of media outlets of varying administrative status. How to harmonize their status with that of the acquiring outlet is therefore an important question. Any conversion plan is potentially disruptive of the existing administrative system;

Chinese media, global contexts

170

maintaining the original status designation will cause administrative confusion. Conglomeration represents a concentration of capital that harbors an even stronger need to evade the administrative boundaries and move into larger markets. As China is further integrated with the world economically as a result of its entry into the WTO, the demand for the media to effectively deliver the largest possible audience to advertisers will intensify. Breaking up the administrative boundaries will help meet this growing demand. In addition, it will encourage the growth of absentee media sponsorship which, in the context of China, is conducive to aggressive news reporting. Acknowledgment I would like to thank the Hong Kong Research Grants Committee for it’s financial support for this project. Notes 1 The tendency for capital to expand should not be interpreted as a refutation of the need for media to carry local content. In fact, media without local content tend to lose audience. This observation applies to newspapers, television and even the Internet. For this chapter, I am referring to the expansion of the media market and capital most of the time. My concern is not about the need for boundary-crossing media to localize their content. 2 The State Department’s Rules Banning Local Protectionism in Media Activities, signed by Chinese Premier Zhu Rongzhi, were released on April 29, 2001. For a summary of these rules, see Tai Kung Pao (2001), “Local protectionism in market activities forbidden,” April 30, p. A2. (In Chinese.) 3 See Nanfang City Daily (May 11, 2001) for its 6-page report on the circulation blockade; also see Ming Pao’s one-page report on the incident the same day. 4 Finally Nanfang City Daily, under the pressure of the CCP’s Propaganda Department, openly apologized for bringing internal disputes into the open and casting a negative image on the Shenzhen Special Economic Zone. See Yazhou Zhoukan (2001), June 25, p. 21. 5 Tai Kung Pao (2000), “Ratings of satellite TV in China,” November 29, p. C02. (Retrieved through Wise news Online Services.) 6 Simon Cartledge (2001), “Variety adds spice to media fare,” South China Morning Post, April 20. 7 People’s Daily (2000), “Which satellite TV service is the most popular?,” November 24, p. 12. (In Chinese) 8 Liu Wang (2000), “Examining China’s fever in entertainment program,” Xinwen Zhanxian, August 25. (Retrieved through Wise news Online Services.) 9 Phoenix TV (2000), “Guide to advertising on Phoenix TV,” ratings produced by The National Statistical Bureau’s China Mainland Marketing Research Company. 10 Phoenix TV (1999), “A general ratings report for mainland China,” audience survey

Administrative boundaries and media marketization

171

conducted by China Mainland Marketing Research Company under the National Statistical Bureau in 1998. 11 Guangming Daily (2001), “TV ratings and pending competition,” February 7. (Retrieved through Wise news Online Service.) For a more detailed report, see China Mainland Marketing Research Company (2000), “The 2000 survey report on satellite TV audience in mainland China,” Beijing, October. (In Chinese.) 12 Interview with a Shanghai television regulator who prefers to remain anonymous. 13 Simon Cartledge (2001), “Variety adds spice to media fare,” South China Morning Post, April 20. The figures are from the China Network Information Center. 14 Internet Weekly (2001), “An overall picture of newspaper conglomerate websites in China,” March 8. (In Chinese.) (Retrieved through Wise news Online Services.) 15 Cartledge, Simon (2001), “Internet ushers in era of openness,” South China Morning Post, May 4. 16 For a full report of the Tentative Rules on the Management of Internet News released by the State Council’s Information Office, see people.com, November 7, 2000. References Cao, Peng (1999), Zhongguo baoye jituan fazhan yanjiu [A Study of Chinese Newspaper Conglomerates]. Beijing: Xinhua Press. Chan, Joseph (1993), “Commercialization without independence: trends and tensions of media development in China,” in J.Cheng and M.Brosseau (eds), China Review 1993 . Hong Kong: Chinese University Press. ——(1994), “Media internationalization in China: processes and tensions,” Journal of Communication , 44(3): 70–88. ——(2000), “When capitalist and socialist television clash: the impact of Hong Kong TV on Guangzhou residents,” in Chin-Chuan Lee (ed.), Power, Money, and Media: Communication Patterns and Bureaucratic Control in Cultural China . Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, pp. 245–270. Chan, Joseph and McIntyre, Bryce (2001), “Introduction,” in Joseph Chan and Bryce McIntyre (eds), In Search of Boundaries: Communication, Nation-States and Cultural Identities . Westport, CT: Ablex, pp. xiii-xxvi. He, Zhou (2000), “Chinese Communist Party press in a tug-of-war: a political-economy analysis of the Shenzhen Special Zone Daily” in Chin-Chuan Lee (ed.), Power, Money, and Media: Communication Patterns and Bureaucratic Control in Cultural China. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, pp. 112–151. He, Zhou and Chen, Hualin (1998), Zhongguo chuanmei xinlun [The Chinese Media: a New Perspective]. Hong Kong: The Pacific Century Press. Huang, Yu (1994), “Peaceful evolution: the case of television reform in post-Mao China,” Media, Culture and Society , 16:217–241. Huang, Yu, and Green, Andrew (2000), “From Mao to the millennium: 40 years of television in China (1958–98),” in D.French and M.Richards (eds), Television in Contemporary Asia . New Delhi: Sage, pp. 267–292.

Chinese media, global contexts

172

Lee, Chin-Chuan (1994), “Ambiguities and contradictions: issues in China’s changing political communication,” in Chin-Chuan Lee (ed.), China’s Media, Media’s China . Boulder, CO: Wesrview, pp. 3–22. ——(2000), “Chinese communication: prisms, trajectories, and modes of understanding,” in Chin-Chuan Lee (ed.), Power, Money, and Media: Communication Patterns and Bureaucratic Control in Cultural China . Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, pp. 3–44. Liu, Yong (2000), Meiti zhongguo [Media China]. Chengdu: Sichuan People’s Press. Lu, Di (1999), Zhongguo dianshi fanzhan zhanlue [Strategies for the Development of China’s TV Industry]. Beijing: Xinhua Press. Pan, Zhongdang (2000), “Improvising reform activities: the changing reality of journalistic practice in China,” in Chin-Chuan Lee (ed.), Power, Money, and Media: Communication Patterns and Bureaucratic Control in Cultural China . Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, pp. 68–111. Pan, Zhongdang, and Chan, Joseph (2000), “Building a market-based party organ: television and national integration in China,” in D.French and M.Richards (eds), Television in Contemporary Asia . New Delhi: Sage, pp. 233–266. Smith, Marc, and Kollock, Peter (1999), Communities in Cyberspace . London: Routledge. Wang, Jun (2001), “Chinese rules and law on broadcasting and television: a study and prospects,” paper presented at the Conference on Chinese Media Law, Hong Kong University. Wei, Yongzheng (1999), Xinmin chaunbofa ganyao [The Outline of Chinese Communication Laws]. Shanghai: Shanghai Academy of Social Science Press. Wu, Guoguang (2000), “One head, many mouths: diversifying press structures in reform China,” in Chin-Chuan Lee (ed.), Power, Money, and Media: Communication Patterns and Bureaucratic Control in Cultural China . Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, pp. 45–67. Zhao, Yuezhi (2000), “From commercialization to conglomeration: the transformation of the Chinese press within the orbit of the party state” Journal of Communication , 50 (2): 3–26. ——(2001), “Watchdogs on party leashes? Contexts and implications of investigative journalism in post-Deng era,” Journalism Studies , 1(4): 577–597.

9 West Lake wired Shaping Hangzhou’s information age Kathleen Hartford What good does it do a developing economy to try to leap into the information age? And how does that attempt transform the economy itself? By now a large body of literature— much of it largely hortatory—has explored the global information future’s implications for economic and political institutions in the world of the early twenty-first century (Ohmae, 2000; Dertouzos, 1997). With a very few notable exceptions (Castells, 2000; Estabrooks, 1995), most commentators on the rise of what Castells terms “informational capitalism” address themselves to an audience largely situated in the most advanced countries. Most, whether praising or damning the advent of the information age, concur on one point: proliferating communication and coordination through networks based on “information and communications technology” (ICT) accelerate globalization, erode boundaries, and pass initiative and power into the hands of the global corporation, undermining the capacity of national states to control the flow of information or capital. Odd, then, that China’s Communist Party-led state, which attempts to maintain control over political information flows, and still plays a leading role in strategic economic sectors, should so warmly embrace the information age. Or is it? Scholarly work on the political implications of China’s information infrastructure development remains largely in the arena of speculation (e.g. Lynch, 2000), with some notable exceptions (Zhao, 2000). On the economic side, while the country’s telecommunications industry has enjoyed significant scholarly attention, there is a lack of detailed studies of the applications of networked communications and their implications for economic institutions and for the political economy as a whole. The dearth is understandable: networked communications are a very recent introduction, and the results, whether economic or institutional, are as yet embryonic. And yet, sufficient evidence is materializing to allow inquiries into the utility of the new communications medium for economic development, and into the ways that it may be reshaping the institutions linked to the economy. This chapter represents an exploratory foray into such an inquiry, with a close study of one locality. Chinese development strategy since the mid-1980s has placed increasing emphasis on ICT, crystallizing from the early 1990s around the comprehensive concept of “informatization” (xinxihua) and its major vehicle, the Internet (Hu, 1994). The preoccupation with informatization began with a series of “Golden Projects” launched in 1993 (Fries, 2000). These projects kicked off the first phase in the informatization thrust: construction of infrastructure and basic large-scale networked applications for major economic institutions. The scale of these ventures was massive (Zhang, 1994). Since

Chinese media, global contexts

174

China had little telecom or information technology (IT) infrastructure or “soft” environment as foundations to build on, the scope and depth of infrastructure projects soon grew beyond the “Golden” ones. As the infrastructure and its applications grew, organizational change followed. In order to coordinate the converging technologies and investments for electronics and telecommunications, the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications (MPT) and the Ministry of Electronics Industry (MEI) were merged into a new, overarching Ministry of Information Industry (MII) in 1998. Other reorganizations affected the cable television industry and the management of media propaganda functions. Rapid technological change and enhanced communications capacities coupled with organizational upheavals and bureaucratic maneuverings for advantages have been hallmarks of China’s informationization process (Zhao, 2000; Lynch, 2000; Wang, 1998). The challenge remaining is enormous. Behind the enthusiastic reports of China’s burgeoning Internet growth, the boom in computer markets, and the prevalence of the latest in telecom gizmos lie some sobering facts. The rate of use of these technologies is low for the country as a whole, and highly skewed. Internet use and Internet resources, for example, are heavily concentrated in the high-tech heavens of Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangdong (CNNIC, 2001). Each of these three possessed strong advantages for hitching it’s wagon to a particular type of informatization star. Guangdong’s proximity to Hong Kong and its early special treatment in foreign trade and investment policies positioned it for success in becoming a major manufacturing base for high-tech products, first for foreign, and eventually also for domestic, foreign producers (Naughton, 1997). Beijing enjoyed the country’s best high-tech R&D base and a large early market: the central government. Thus it was ideally situated to benefit from the high-tech development zone policies of the late 1980s/early 1990s (Li, Xu’e, 1992; Baark, 1994; interviews Beijing 1995). Shanghai’s global linkages, investment resources, and connections within the central government from the early 1990s put it in an ideal position to make the most of China’s accelerated opening to the world economy by launching a local state-coordinated infrastructure drive (interviews Shanghai 1998). And, it should be noted, each of these started on its strategic path relatively early. Shanghai was the latecomer, with its Infoport project only getting underway in the mid-1990s. But what of China’s many smaller, less well-endowed, late-comer cities and regions? If the overall strategy is ultimately to work, it must work for them as well. They face some daunting challenges. First, in developing high-tech sectors, they must contend with competition (or domination) centered in the earlycontender regions, and they must also cope with foreign competition finding its way into the China market. Second, their traditional industries are often under stress, and may face even more stress with China’s entry into WTO, thus raising the stakes for developing successful new industries or “informatizing” the old ones into better competitive shape. Third, as Joseph Man Chan (Chapter 8) suggests, the technological and economic-institutional changes associated with informatization and marketization raise the possibility that local institutions such as telecom and media companies may be swallowed up by new conglomerates based in the leading metropolitan areas. Can such new contenders shape local strategies for informatization so as to improve

West lake wired

175

their own economic and social prospects? And, as they attempt to do so, how does informatization affect the local region’s economic and political coherence? This chapter uses Hangzhou as a case study to help illuminate answers to these questions. Hangzhou is a medium-sized city that is at once an ancient and ongoing magnet for tourists seeking West Lake’s scenic beauty, and the rapidly modernizing capital of Zhejiang Province. In Hangzhou, as in the more advantaged high-tech centers, the local government has embraced the developmental potential of informatization, particularly of networking and Internet expansion (Zhang, 2000, 16–17). Although it shares some of the advantages said to have given Beijing and Shanghai an edge—most notably strong foreign trade orientation and a relatively high proportion of population with good technical education—Hangzhou occupies an economic niche that puts it in competition with numerous other cities. Its most distinctive characteristics relate to the strong role of tourism in its local economy (probably matched only by Suzhou), and the presence of one of the country’s outstanding centers of science and technology education, Zhejiang University. But it shares with most other medium-sized and smaller cities in the Yangzi River Delta region the traditional reliance on light industry and the more recent strategic emphases on export orientation, rural industrialization, and foreign/joint venture investments. While it enjoys the new opportunities created by recent years’ upgrading of regional transport networks, including high-speed roadways and improved rail transport speeds, these improvements have visited similar cities and may intensify competitive threats (Yang, 2000; interview Hangzhou 2001). Hangzhou’s economy has depended heavily on light industry, especially textile and apparel manufacturing, a sector with diminishing potential for contributing much to local economic growth or to employment. Other traditional industries, like the machine tools and chemical industries, depend mostly upon small and medium enterprises that need comprehensive upgrading if they are to compete effectively. With China’s entry into the WTO, these industries are likely to find themselves under even greater stress. Like other cities and provinces, Hangzhou has responded to these challenges by taking advantage of suitable central state policies. And like many others, the municipality has escalated attempts to place informationization center stage in its strategy and future vision. Policy framework Hangzhou was the third city in China, after Beijing and Shanghai, to open connections to the Internet, in October 1995 (HZDX, 1999:41). But the city lagged behind Shanghai and Beijing in making the most of the information highway’s opportunities. Perhaps the city’s relatively weaker infrastructure partly explains the belated interest in informationization. Another part of the reason may be the dearth, until quite recently, of immediate market demand for hightech and information services. The city’s information economy has nevertheless made considerable strides. By the first half of 2000, according to a local government analyst, the “information” sector (including computer hardware, software, and services, telecommunications equipment and services, and network and information services) contributed 5.9 per cent of Hangzhou’s total GDP; this compares quite favorably to a 6.1 per cent share in Shanghai

Chinese media, global contexts

176

(Zhang, 2000:15). In terms of specific products, it is among the top in the nation (along with mobile phones, chip manufacturing, and a couple of other products). But with the exception of software and telecommunications equipment, Hangzhou’s information sector is still relatively weak. It still has to play catch-up with Shanghai and Beijing to meet its own ambitious developmental goals, for which information industry growth is crucial. Hangzhou created an Informatization Work Leading Group in 1996, but the city government’s efforts at informatization first hit their stride only in 1999. In August of that year, the Leading Group held its second conference. The conference identified goals that have set the trend for subsequent development, calling for the creation of an “international infoport with the networking of information resources as its principal part” (HZNJ, 2000:201). Another important element of a high-tech economy meanwhile had been aborning within the Hangzhou New and High Technology Development Zone and in the wider municipal area. By 1999. the total earnings in the development zone reached the equivalent of U.S$12 billion (Jiu, 2000:1). Graduates of Zhejiang University and other local universities started setting up software and other IT companies in the early 1990s. These relatively small firms were complemented by larger companies such as Eastcom and UTStarcom, which develop and manufacture telecommunications equipment. By 1999, dotcoms had started moving onto the scene as well, with the best publicized being the ambitious business-to-business (B2B) company, Alibaba.com, which chose Hangzhou as its China R&D center. Coupled with local telecom and Internet infrastructure development, such progress emboldened government planners for two moves to chart Hangzhou’s path to the informatized future. The first was the inception, at the beginning of 2000. of the “Number One Project,” a ten-year menu of goals for Hangzhou’s high-tech development. The project proposed creating a “Silicon Valley in Paradise” based on the Hangzhou Infoport and a “pharmaceuticals port.” Three Hangzhou development zones, including the hightech zone, were also key elements. As the government’s description of the project states, By 2010 Hangzhou should be Zhejiang’s high tech R&D center and the center for the exchange of results, a high tech commercialization (chanyehua) base area, a high tech products export base area, and one of the country’s high tech sector concentration zones. (“Yihao gongcheng Jianjie,” 2000) Although the project points to firms and not the government as the “main body,” it calls for the government to “nurture a group of sectors, key point firms and leading products… with Hangzhou special characteristics.” The software and communications equipment sectors and four companies in the “IT” sector (Eastcom, UTStarcom, West Lake Electronics Group, and Great Nature) are identified as leading candidates for such nurture. The project proposes a number of other goals, including getting some large-scale undertakings qualified as central-level technology projects. And it emphasizes the importance of creating a venture capital system (possibly with some local government investment), and encourages the proliferation of other local “zones” and science and technology (S&T) parks throughout the municipality.

West lake wired

177

The “Infoport” notion for Hangzhou invokes a distinctive strategic approach. Shanghai’s pioneering Infoport project self-consciously emphasized infrastructure building as the basis of local informatization, with the municipal government coordinating planning and investment in basic infrastructure and applications for networking and internetworking government, business, and society. Hangzhou’s leaders have chosen to travel a different route. After over a year of preparation, the city authorities in late December 2000 unveiled a tenyear informatization development plan (HZSW, 2000). Some of the planned projects bear considerable resemblance to those of Shanghai’s Infoport Project, particularly its infrastructure-creation and “backbone [applications platforms] projects.” 2 But unlike the Shanghai Infoport approach, Hangzhou’s plan, while announcing fifteen specific projects, assigned project responsibility in only part of the basic infrastructure creation: Hangzhou Cable Network was tapped to create the broadband transmission network. There was to be no centralized coordination; no government commitment to fund anything but the projects directly related to government functions. Rather, the government expected that firms, including many minban (people-managed) firms, would take on the projects using their own funds, including loans, in pursuit of profitable lines of business (interview Hangzhou 2001). Similar looseness characterizes the proposals that resulted in Hangzhou’s successful bid to become an “informatization city test point.” The national government announced the competition for this designation in late 1999; Hangzhou submitted its proposal in July 2000. It emphasized three points intended to distinguish Hangzhou from all other contenders: (1) the “Silicon Valley in Paradise” theme; (2) the municipality’s position as a tourism center and the role of informationization in tourism; and (3) an emphasis on “informationized communities” and “informationized households.” By September, Hangzhou had learned that it stood among the select group of five winners, along with Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Guangzhou. Significantly, the designation did not mean—nor had planners expected—that the Center would provide extra resources. Rather, as one official explained, Hangzhou’s success provided a psychological boost for pursuing the plans previously announced (interview Hangzhou 2001), although the designation would certainly not hurt in obtaining loans, perhaps even at preferential interest rates. Elements of the Hangzhou strategy are apparent, cumulatively, from these developments. First, the government saw itself as playing a largely behind-the-scenes role, although certainly a regulatory one. Second, the government viewed competition in the creation and operation of the communications pipes as beneficial, and took informal steps to foster competition and accelerate creation of capacity. Third, the government expected further development of R&D and manufacturing capacity, spearheaded by companies under a variety of ownership/management forms (JVE, minban, transformed SOEs, etc.). Fourth, it put heavy emphasis on developing the content part of informatization. Fifth, the creation of e-commerce and other online financial transactions capacity was considered essential. Sixth, and informing all the others, the city aimed to meld its new informationized elements with the factors that have traditionally made Hangzhou unique, in order to increase its attractiveness for the human and investment capital it sees as essential to rebuilding a successful regional economy.

Chinese media, global contexts

178

Infrastructure development The wiring of the Hangzhou region both precedes and goes well beyond today’s Internet. The expansion of local communications capacity has been deeply affected by the national-level bureaucratic maneuverings for advantages and market opportunities, and by related national government decisions. In principle, the infrastructure for networked communications could use the telephone or cable television networks. In China, additional possibilities were offered by communications networks owned by the national railway, the electrical power industry, and the military. Nationally, however, telecom interests associated with the old MPT gained the upper hand. National policies effectively put China Telecom in a heavily favored position as infrastructure builder and keeper of the pipes as networking and the Internet took off (Mueller and Tan, 1996; Lynch, 2000; Zhao, 2000). Local branches of the national, state-owned companies in telecoms and cable have been both buffeted and benefited by major national policy shifts and the bureaucratic competition preceding them. Hangzhou, like a small number of other Chinese cities, has enjoyed the occasional key dispensation from Beijing. Although the city has, like the rest of China, seen the continuation of a virtual monopoly over fixed-line telephone services by China Telecom, it has also secured the privileges of “experimenting” with approaches proscribed by national policies. While most of the country’s cable TV companies have long been forbidden to move into Internet services, that arena being reserved for China Telecom and its local branches, Hangzhou was allowed an early exception. More recently, Hangzhou’s cable network has also been given the nod for providing other “telecom services” (Xu, J., 2001). Development of both phone and cable communications in Hangzhou has provided a good foundation that can expand, digitize, and upgrade rapidly, while consumers and businesses alike have grown increasingly accustomed to using the latest in modern communica tions technologies. The interest in and use of the Internet grew rapidly from nearly zero—but it did not come out of nowhere (see Table 9.1 for a comparison with Shanghai and the United States). Three companies have, until very recently, been the principals in building Hangzhou’s modern telecommunications infrastructure and equipping it for the digital age. Two grew out of telephone services; the other, out of cable television. Changes in both these sectors in China as a whole since the early 1990s have been phenomenal, and the pace of change has, if anything, accelerated, with recent national-level decisions mandating the mergers of local broadcast and cable TV companies and the formation of an overarching national company; the approval of new telecom/broadband providers such as China Railcom; and the MII decision mandating a north—south bifurcation of China Telecom (Gharemani, 2001). Such changes naturally also affect the Hangzhou environment. But the future will grow out of what has already been achieved by three major builders of Hangzhou’s infrastructure.

West lake wired

179

Table 9.1 Just how wired? (1999)

Hangzhou

Shanghai

U.S.

Cable television penetration rate

67% (approx.)

62.4% (entire municipality)

67%

Fixed telephone penetration rate

27.5% (59.8% in Hangzhou city)

36.8% (79% of urban households)

Mobile phone penetration rate

10.3%

15.6%

29%

Household computer penetration rate

14%

13.6%

48%

Internet users as % of total population

<3%

3.8%

30%

94.2%

Sources: HZNJ (2000:173, 202); Zhang, S. (2000:16); SHTJNJ (2000:242, 306, 354); ZGJTNJ (2000:475); U.S. Bureau of Census (2001:705). Hangzhou cable television penetration rate calculated based on 1999 and 2000 subscriber numbers and 2000 penetration rate. Shanghai penetration rates calculated based on number of total households in entire municipality and in urban districts.

Telecom: Hangzhou Telecom and Zhejiang Mobile Hangzhou Telecom (HT), the local branch of China Telecom, rapidly modernized and expanded its network during the 1990s. The total telephone penetration rate in 1990 was less than 10 per cent; after massive investments and technical improvements, HT was able to report a penetration rate of over 40 per cent (not including mobile phones) by the end of 1998. The national project that connected the entire country through a high-speed fiber optic backbone upgraded the city’s links with the rest of the country. Digital data networks (for use mainly by large customers like banks) were also built during this period (HZDX, 1999:34–47). Widespread Internet access has been longer in coming to the paradise by West Lake. As recently as early 1998, HT’s total capacity for dial-up Internet access was only 7,500 users. But by that point, HT had begun actively recruiting new users, launching a “Get on the Net in ’98” program, providing demonstrations of its “data and multimedia” offerings, along with some free surfing for “big customers” in its demonstration hall (HZDX, 1999:45–48). HT also began diversifying its business in the late 1990s. It experimented with a “public computer network.” It developed several e-commerce applications in its segment of the Golden Card project (HZDX, 1999:46). By the end of the 1990s, it developed some higher bandwidth services, including ADSL. Despite these signs of dynamism, HT was, according to one government official, “too much a ‘state agency’” and too plodding in decision and action to be entrusted with the main responsibility for building the major local broadband infrastructure (interview

Chinese media, global contexts

180

Hangzhou2001). As in most other coastal cities, business and residential customers’ growing demands for telephone service far outstripped the pace of growth in China Telecom’s fixed phone networks, and mobile services quickly moved in to fill the gap. This is the arena in which China Telecom faced its first competitors. In early 2000, MII decided to split China Telecom, spinning off the mobile business into a separate China Mobile Company. Three years earlier, however, a Hangzhou local spinoff had formed: Zhejiang Mobile Communications Co., Ltd (ZMCC). 3 Its business has been concentrated largely in the Zhejiang standard mobile phone services market, where it has captured about 80 per cent of the provincial market. It has distinguished itself from its main competitor, Unicom, by offering “personalization” and more sophisticated mobile phone applications (short messaging, games, a mobile lottery, mobile banking, stock market). Large chunks of the financing for its mobile network have come from foreign companies such as Nokia and Motorola. But its plans go far beyond mere mobile phones. The company has invested heavily in the development of both fiberoptic and wireless broadband networks throughout the province. Its major purpose is to connect users to a telecom network capable of providing mobile Internet access, fax, multimedia, and other higher value services (interview Hangzhou 2001). ZMCC’s plans are definitely long-term. The fiberoptic network construction is well underway, and a 10–20Mbps wireless system was being tested in early 2001; but true broadband reception on wireless handheld devices probably won’t be possible until 2004 or 2005 (interview Hangzhou 2001). By that point, ZMCC will be able to connect just about everyone in Zhejiang from just about everywhere and via just about every device: mobile and fixed phones, laptop computers, PDAs. Other projects ZMCC now has in hand include a “mobile multimedia information network” project (allowing users to engage in mobile e-commerce or work from a “mobile office”), and a “mobile community” project (furnishing a “social services window” with mobile access, for example, for residency registrations) (Fang, 2001). Hangzhou Cable Network (HCN) 4

Hangzhou Cable Network was chosen for the honor of building the major broadband network infrastructure for the Hangzhou prefecture (the city and seven counties), and planned a rollout of broadband Internet access and other services by the end of 2001. HCN had one big advantage: its cable TV network already extended throughout the prefecture, and reached more households than did the phone company. HCATV merged four of the city’s district (diqu) cable TV stations into the city’s cable network in 1999. Its first major infrastructure expansion began in 1999, as part of the national parent CATV’s expansion plans: Hangzhou built its own cable TV broadcast ring in the city and sevencounty area. By late 2000 HCN’s penetration rate was around 96 per cent, with 1.5 million subscriber households (HZNJ, 2000:202; interview Hangzhou 2001; Shao, 2000). A second major upgrade and extension of the cable network started in 2000. This involved the further upgrade of transmission cables to a fiber/coaxial system, reputedly the fastest in China, as well as the construction of an “IP [Internet protocol] network and information applications platform” with nearly 5,000 km of fiber optic cable, twenty-two data exchanges, a multimedia system, and Internet connection. The new network

West lake wired

181

infrastructure was intended to serve a number of functions, including higher quality TV transmission, wide-area data networks, and a platform for networked services for government, education, medicine, and the financial sector. For household subscribers, HCN promised eventually to provide bandwidth rivaling the fastest in the United States. By the beginning of 2001, the city ring had been completed and HCN was moving out to construct the seven-county ring in the network. By April 2001 the cable TV network was being tested, while reports touted the pending benefits of a broadband multimedia and interactive network that could connect computers at speeds tens to hundreds of time faster, and far more cheaply, than the “dialup connection” (a nice euphemism for China Telecom’s services) (interview Hangzhou 2001; Yang, 2001). By mid-2001, HCN had turned into a joint venture with the local branch of China Netcom, a new broadband network company sponsored by some national leaders to inject high-level competition into major metropolitan broadband markets. The local hybrid was renamed “Hangzhou Netcom Infoport Corporation” (Liu, 2001). Netcom plays a leading role in the north-south bifurcation of China Telecom, in which Netcom will merge with the northern provinces’ part of the telecom giant—but with David supposedly swallowing Goliath (Zhao, W, 2001). Further shifts and reorganizations will undoubtedly continue to occur. The Internet and beyond Ultimately, Hangzhou has laid firm foundations for massive expansion of Internet use. For a city whose population has already demonstrated avid acceptance of the new communications medium (Zhang, 2000:16), once broadband access is widely and inexpensively available, user numbers and intensity of use are likely to continue to rise. The longer-term plans for informatization in Hangzhou extend well beyond what we now know as the Internet. MII’s next Five-Year Plan and local plans anticipate further technological convergence; the current slogan calls for sanwang heyi (integrating three networks [telecom, cable TV, and computer networks] into one). Hangzhou Netcom (originally Hangzhou Cable) and ZMCC are working on new applications intended to integrate communications over Internet protocol networks into all aspects of business and personal life, from ubiquitous access to stock transactions, to remote or automatic controls of home utilities and security systems. Content creation The germane question, of course, is what the use of the infrastructure portends for the local economy and patterns of information interchange. From the Chinese side, great hopes are pinned on the promise the new technologies of communications offer for greater economic efficiency and competitiveness. From the West, a number of analysts have suggested that the “message-source proliferation” permitted by the new communications media will erode authoritarian controls over the information and views available to and sought by the Chinese public (Crossette, 1999; Lynch, 2000). This chapter does not address the latter of these contentions directly; rather, the purpose here

Chinese media, global contexts

182

is to assess the implications of recent developments on the local content horizon that might help evaluate the utility of Internet-based communications for the patterns of marketization of the old state-based economic institutions and the state-controlled traditional media within the Hangzhou regional context. At the national level, the informatization leadership called for phases of content and applications creation nationwide, designating 1999 as the year for “getting government online” and 2000 for “getting enterprises online.” 2001 was earmarked as the year for “getting households online.” “Getting online,” however, could mean very different things. The informationizer’s modernization dream of getting online means integrating all work with networked information technology: creating and using complex databases and interactive applications to save time, cut costs, improve old products and create new ones, find new markets, speed up decision-making, beat competitors, and make money from all of the above. From the consumer or citizen viewpoint, it could mean turning to the network medium as the preferred method to transact business with the government, find appealing entertainment, keep up with the news, and find jobs, schools,…and dates. Getting government, business, and vast numbers of users online poses two challenges for the region using informatization as part of its economic strategy. The first, nearly a cliché by now (but no less true), is that networking information and interactions dissolves borders, or at least makes them penetrable on many more fronts. By networking itself and connecting to outside networks, the locality may be opening the floodgates to competitors for the pocketbooks or the brains of the local populace. This issue is all the more salient for Hangzhou, in that it is smaller and has far fewer resources than its near neighbor, Shanghai, and might as easily find its local economy “colonized” by such a domestic competitor region as by a host of de-localized foreign parties. The second challenge is the noise factor. Users’ sense of disorientation, frustration, and paralysis may also increase geometrically as the amount of information increases. Making the information manageable becomes one of the challenges of the information age; it is also one of its biggest business opportunities. Content creation in Hangzhou has moved fast. At the end of February 2001, Zhejiang Post and Telecommunications Bureau had approved licenses for forty-three “commercial” (jingyingxing) and another fifteen “non-commercial” Internet content providers (ICPs). Twenty-eight of the commercial and ten of the non-commercial sites are most likely the creations of entities based in the city of Hangzhou. 5 Additional sites created by Hangzhou companies may be registered with other, national or regional, agencies. 6 In the following paragraphs, I describe a small sample of the content that may provide clues about the way this region is handling the challenges and positioning itself for the hoped-for Silicon-Valley-in-Paradise success. Information services companies: China Chemnet Local companies in Hangzhou have built important commercial information resources. Hangzhou Telecom, in its previous incarnation, started the tradition by buying China’s first commercial information provider on the Internet, China Yellow Pages (www.chinapages.com), in early 1996 (HZDX, 1999:41). Hangzhou companies were also pioneers in developing sector-specific web sites that furnish market information,

West lake wired

183

technical news, and business networking opportunities for member firms. Hangzhou now hosts such sites for textiles (TexNet), for vegetables (VegNet: “click our website and you are shaking hands with the vegetable world”), and, most proudly touted of all, for chemicals (China ChemNet or CCN). CCN, which opened its site in late 1997, was set up by a classic combination in China’s high-tech sector: government agency (Zhejiang Chemical Industry Department), “people-managed” firm (Hangzhou Hi2000 InfoTech Co., Ltd), and traditional information provider (Shanghai Chemical Industry Journal). ChemNet is a business-tobusiness (B2B) operation that targets both purchasers and suppliers within the industry. For suppliers, it provides web site creation services, and includes supplier companies’ information in the CCN database for ease of location by potential buyers. For buyers, it highlights some “top companies” as good supply prospects, as well as listing the supplier companies’ “offers to sell.” For paying members, it dispatches those offers via email (CCN, n.d.). CCN has a strong claim to distinction. It built itself organically, consolidated its user base as it expanded, and the site, now China’s largest chemical industry site, actually makes money. For Zhejiang generally, the chemical industry was a good sector with which to begin online information services. The Jiangsu-Zhejiang region boasts about a third of China’s chemical manufacturing firms. They are generally small or medium in size, and most are rural enterprises and/or under private management. CCN began with one subsector of these firms: dyestuffs. After putting a critical mass of those companies online, CCN moved on to upstream suppliers and downstream users. Getting them online then attracted firms further upstream and downstream of the network. In late November 2000, CCN’s General Manager claimed 2,500 “member” firms, a database including over 10,000 firms, and 60,000 hits per day. CCN’s claims to preeminence in the industry seem credible; and its dynamism is apparent in its expansion into new sectors such as chemical machinery, and the provision of year-round online “sales exhibitions” (CCN, n.d.; Huagongwang, 2000). CCN’s profitability is based on membership and service charges for member firms; the company also collects advertising fees for market promotions. At startup, the provincial chemical industry agency’s database no doubt contributed invaluable intellectual capital. Moreover, one could surmise that its institutional sponsors proved especially persuasive in getting Zhejiang firms to sign up in the early days. But others had to be drawn by the perceived utility of the services. The industry-specific focus (“We are not something about everything; we are everything about chemicals”) makes an interesting contrast to the model of multisector B2B sites that has received far more foreign media attention. Hangzhou, as it happens, hosts the China operations of one of the most highly touted of such portals, Alibaba.com (interview Hangzhou 2001). So both operations could be said to be “located” in Hangzhou; both reach out to international markets. But Alibaba.com is headquartered in Hong Kong and bankrolled by international venture capital (Softbank), while China ChemNet’s roots are deep in the old regional and sectoral structures. Although the recent dotcom shakeout has not fundamentally discredited the Alibaba.com model, CCN may prove to be the more successful model over the long run because of its close ties with the origins of the information in which it trades.

Chinese media, global contexts

184

News media portalization: Hangzhou.net and ZjOnline.com Attracting everyday users to the Internet, and keeping them there, is the work of another type of commercial ICP, the portal. Portals aspire to become the regular port of entry for Internet users by providing convenient, user-friendly access to the information such users are expected to seek, through topically organized sets of links to major sites, on-site search engines or links to the most popular such search engines, free email, news feeds, weather information, and other services such as virtual communities in bulletin boards (BBS), online fora (luntan), and chat rooms (liaotian shi). They may also offer sites for special interests, or hobbies. Several entrants to the portal sweepstakes can be found in Hangzhou trying to wow the local audiences. Zhejiang Telecom created Zhejiang Info Supermarket; Sohu.com, for a while, tried a localized portal for Hangzhou. And like their gigantic national media counterparts, the Zhejiang and Hangzhou news media have also created their own portals in the hope of adapting themselves to information age functions and creating new revenue streams. 7 News media organizations enjoy one significant advantage in attracting users: surveys appear to indicate that well over half of current Internet users go online primarily for news (Yu, 2001). And national regulations have sternly insisted that only authorized news media organizations may furnish the news, although other sites may use feeds from the news media. For the central-level media such as Xinhua, CCTV, and the People’s Daily, the regulations have provided a welcome major revenue stream. But news media at all levels of the administrative hierarchy have gone online in large numbers—over 700 of them, by the end of 2000, so many that one source referred to the online sites as a “fourth medium” (Xu, B., 2001). Most of these must find new ways to make money from their web sites, a challenge that thus far only a few have managed to meet successfully (Zhang, H., 2001). The first commercial ICP license in Zhejiang was nabbed by the province’s flagship media enterprise, Zhejiang Daily Publishing Group, which set up Zhejiang Online. ZjOnline in spring 2001 8 was a cleanly professional site, loaded with news content and with a free database of news accessible via a well-functioning search engine. While the news content was given prominence, the home page also provided links under a “Guide to Zhejiang” and a section headed “Homestead” connecting to other sites within the province, to its “interactive communities,” and to “Consumers’ Heaven.” It provided free email and hosted a nice specialized site for photography enthusiasts. Users could also find convenient links to other Zhejiang media and to “cooperating sites,” consisting mostly of national media and some national portals, such as Sina.com. The news content was kept constantly updated, but a number of the links in the directory sections indicated future plans rather than current access. The Hangzhou Daily Publishing Group created a portal site as well, HangzhouNet (hznews.com.cn and hangzhou.com.cn), which opened in fall 2000. Like its provincial counterpart, it provided access to its several publications (the Hangzhou Daily, a youth publication, and a weekend edition, among others). Its site seemed aimed at attracting a somewhat less serious or possibly just a younger user. The front page frequently displayed photos of young ladies in tight or skimpy clothing, and icons on the front page

West lake wired

185

linked to resources such as: Health Channel, “Guys and Gals” (click on the large red heart and land yourself in a pink-tinged paradise with personals ads, fiction, and entertainment news), stock market news, “Travel in Hangzhou,” “English Every Day,” and specialized news under the rubric of “Serving You.” The site offered a community BBS, but only open to indirect submission via email to the boardmaster. Even HangzhouNet’s most youth-oriented and personal elements could offer a serious guiding hand. The “Guys and Gals” personals section, for example, required that anyone wanting to run a personal ad report in person and present proof of unmarried status. Preference in listings went to the college-educated and/or registered local residents. The ads themselves could reflect the new economic-modernization correctness, as this example suggests: If men can de divided into lovers and husbands, Mr. 230 is totally the latter type. …Spending his whole day…drawing structural designs, Mr. 230 seems to have felt that this career was inconvenient. Therefore he has decided to tackle graduate courses in economics at Zhejiang University…. On top of all this, he also passed the level 6 English proficiency test a long time ago and has been able to keep up with the foreign language ever since. Looks like once we join the WTO, Mr. 230 will be in high demand for his all-round talent. 9 (HangzhouNet, 2001) We should note that the news media, as Yuezhi Zhao (1998) points out, are under dual and often conflicting pressure from Party and market. An additional stress point is added by their migration to the online format. Few news media anywhere in the world have figured out how to make money on the online provision of news; the portal business adds more possibilities but also raises the financial stakes and the magnitude of risk. Most of the Chinese “news ICPs” appear to have been created as spin-off corporations initially wholly owned by their media parents. But the design and maintenance of a wide variety of new resources that can attract users is expensive in terms of both time and money, for the best designers and technicians are increasingly expensive, and are being lured away by more purely market firms. As an analysis published by ZjOnline points out, staying afloat, for most such ICPs, will probably require repeated infusions of venture capital. Over the long run, the dependence on venture capital—should it be forthcoming—may well challenge the traditional media company’s control: “the traditional media [parent company]…eventually may lose the absolute controlling shares position, or even the dominant shareholder position” (Sun, 2000). Of the sites sponsored by media lower in the hierarchy, most are unlikely to find large infusions of such venture capital. For them, in the absence a lucky gamble on valueadded content that could bring in large amounts of revenue, market threats to their existence may arise either from the national media giants being deliberately nurtured by Beijing, or from the lateral invasion of their “territory” by media units from other localities or regions that capture the attention of the previously captive local audience, precisely the type of erosion of administrative boundaries that Chan addresses in this volume.

Chinese media, global contexts

186

Implications We return to the questions posed at the beginning of this study of the Hangzhou road to informatization: can the regional late arrivals so shape their local strategy as to improve their economic and social prospects? And given the supposed boundary-eliminating effects of the new networks, how will Hangzhou’s integration into national and international information infrastructures affect its own coherence and vitality as a distinct and distinctive region? At this point, the answers to these questions must remain somewhat speculative. Much of Hangzhou’s own physical communications infrastructure is still being built; a substantial majority of the population have yet to make use of the more sophisticated technologies; and other regions are preparing to make their own entries as contenders. However, perspectives derived from the evolution of the information infrastructure in the United States, and from the literature on globalization, territorialization, and cluster economies, may help to point us in the right direction. The first perspective relates to the openness of entry and opportunity that we can expect within a more mature, informationized economy and society in China in general. Despite the popular American rhetoric of competition in the infrastructure (telecommunications) arena and of openness in the content arena, a structure of control and concentration is emerging. Consider the actual consequences of “convergence” in the aftermath of the passage of the U.S. Telecommunications Reform Bill of 1996. That bill, intended to remove regulatory barriers to convergence of industries that technological change had rendered possible and, it was argued, necessary for dynamic growth, was also bruited as a prelude to greater competition in the telecommunications industry. The competition unleashed, however, has resulted in a scramble for mergers that has not only built new regional and potentially national and even international giants in the telecom sector, but has also put control over pipes and major sources of content (news, entertainment, etc.) within the same few giant hands. 10 There is also reason to be skeptical about the open entry of new content providers. Scholars who have examined actual use patterns have found that most users resort to the online information sources that they consider most authoritative and reliable: established mainstream media and organizations that have migrated online, and that possess overwhelmingly superior resources for creating and maintaining content (e.g. Davis, 1999). The point for Hangzhou is that we can expect the more advantaged firms in China’s marketizing economy to seek to improve their own competitive positions by expanding into a combination of pipes-and-content industries to the extent permitted by effective law, and to lobby for the law to permit more of the same. Regulatory environments determined at the national level will certainly shape the structure of many opportunities, and the timing as well as the wording of changes can be crucial. Major actors’ awareness of the stakes is apparent from the intensity of recent battles over ministerial jurisdictions and market entry rights (SARFT vs. MII over ICPs, for example). If the central government relaxes it’s attempts to create designer competition through business licenses (specifying permissible technologies for specific telecom firms), and if local firms are permitted to seek their own competitive fortunes in other regional and national markets,

West lake wired

187

interesting things just might happen, for example, for Zhejiang Mobile. It is far more likely, however, that the national parent firms, with the advantage of friends in high places and large amounts of capital, will hold the upper hand, or that their chief competition will come from giant entrants from related sectors (computers, media) or— after China joins the WTO—from abroad. The perspectives on globalization and territorialization introduce another intriguing issue for Hangzhou. If the region becomes increasingly integrated into global information networks as its economy is increasingly informationized, will it cease to be a region in any but physical-geographic terms? Not necessarily, if it manages to capitalize upon its special qualities. As Cox (1997) observes, while globalization involves “the emergence of a world of enhanced locational substitutability,” “territorializing [forces], those social relations that result in enduring commitments to particular places,…can in turn be a source of competitive advantage and so serve to reinforce those commitments” (p. 5). In this respect, Hangzhou’s attempts to transform from a silk to a silicon valley may serve to strengthen it as a region facing the global economy. “Silk” (used here as a metaphor for Hangzhou’s traditional light-industrial products) can be produced by a number of other regions, and is highly substitutable in theory. But the embedded economies of certain types of light industrial products may indeed resist geographical substitutions, if the contributing elements that some analysts have pointed to as crucial for specialized economic clusters (Porter, 2000; Saxenian, 1994) are nurtured and reinforced by the local information economy’s development. ChemNet may in this respect be a harbinger of Hangzhou’s future competitive revival. Building the hoped-for “Silicon Valley in Paradise” is a longer shot. If the region can attract, train, and keep the requisite human capital, it is situated as few others are to create an environment that can sustain innovation. Obviously the role of ZheDa and other Hangzhou colleges and universities is pivotal here; but so is the potential relationship between the universities and research institutes, and companies in the area. 11 The situation may now be at an especially crucial juncture. ZheDa, for example, is engaged in rapid expansion in its traditional educational milieu as well as in distance education, which is definitely appropriate for accelerating the accumulation of some of the right kind of human resources for high-tech development. But if teaching demand overly claims the time of professors, and graduate students cannot be retained locally, some of the original Silicon Valley’s conditions will not have been matched. Shanghai, Shenzhen, and Beijing still offer vastly higher salaries for the technically qualified, and can drain off the critical mass (interview Hangzhou 2001). Many questions remain. With the new information infrastructures in place and the habits of communicating and seeking information through the new media building steadily, however, Hangzhou has at least created for itself the sine qua non for competing effectively and maintaining its initiative in the national and global market. Notes 1 Revision of this chapter has been immeasurably helped by the comments and suggestions of participants in the conference that led to this volume. I especially

Chinese media, global contexts

188

wish to thank Zhou He, Anthony Fung, and Chin-Chuan Lee for detailed comments. Merry White and Clark Reynolds have since given great help with specific suggestions and patient service as sounding boards. 2 Note that these were being proposed in Hangzhou in 2000, at a time when Shanghai was finishing them up. 3 ZMCC now is a wholly owned subsidiary of China Mobile (Hong Kong). See www.zmcc.com.cn 4 As is often the case in China, a separate company was set up to pursue this project. The parent companies for HCN are Hangzhou Information Network Company and Hangzhou Cable TV-Network Unified Company (Shao, 2000). As is also often the case, the exact lines of demarcation among these were not crystal clear. 5 My estimate includes companies whose names began with “Hangzhou” or “Zhejiang,” plus Eastcom Communications Corp., and some Zhejiang provincial agencies and research institutes. Formal governmental bodies do not register as ICPs. 6 Space limitations make it impossible to include the Appendix listing some of the more important of the ICP sites. That can be found, instead, on my web site, at http://www.china-wired.com/pubs/HZW/appendix.htm 7 Zhao (1998) is indispensable background reading on the general commercialization of the traditional media in China. 8 Given the frequent redesign of Internet sites, I have chosen to freeze the status quo at a particular point rather than continually revise these descriptions as this book moves through the publishing process. 9 Many thanks to Professor Weili Ye for help in translating this passage more accurately. 10 See the “Who Owns What?” section of the Columbia Journalism Review site at www.cjr.org 11 Saxenian (1994) points to the regional “cultures” that may result in vastly different patterns of innovation and regional economy even in regions that apparently enjoy very similar technical and economic requisites. References Baark, Erik (1994), “China’s new high technology development zones: the politics of commercializing technology,” Washington Journal of Modern China , 2(1): 83–102. Castclls, Manucl (2000), End of Millennium . “The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture,” series. Volume III. Second Edition. Oxford: Blackwell. CCN (China ChemNet) (n.d.), “About CCN.” http://www.chinachemnet.com/aboutccn.html (accessed April 29, 2001). CNNIC (2001), “Zhongguo hulianwangluo fazhan zhuangkuang tongji baogao” [Statistical report on China’s Internet development], July, http://www.cnnic.net.cndevelst/rep200107–1.shtml. Cox, Kevin R. (1997), “Introduction: globalization and its politics in question,” in K.R.Cox (ed.), Spaces of Globatization: Reasserting the Power of the Local . New

West lake wired

189

York: Guilford, pp. 1–18. Crossette, Barbara (1999), “The world: out of control; the Internet changes dictatorship’s rules,” New York Times Week in Review, August 1, p. 1. Davis, Robert (1999), The Web of Politics: the Internet’s Impact on the American Political System . New York: Oxford University Press. Dertouzos, Michael (1997), What Will Be: How the New World of Information Will Change Our Lives . New York: HarperCollins. Estabrooks, Maurice (1995), Electronic Technology., Corporate Strategy, and World Transformation . Westport, CT: Quorum Books. Fang, Yumin (2001), “‘Zhejiang yidong’ zhi li tisheng kehu manyidu” [Zhejiang Mobile exerts itself to raise customer satisfaction], Zhejiang ribao , January 22. http://www.zjdaily.com.cn Fries, Manuel (2000), China and Cyberspace: the Development of the Chinese National Information Infrastructure . Bochum, Germany: Bochum University Press. Ghahremani,Yasmin(2001), “China Netcom’s big connection.” Asiaweek , November 2, p. 37. HangzhouNet (2001), “Meng zhong de nühai neijian hong dayi gewai meili (230 xiansheng)” [The red coat on that girl in the dream is especially beautiful (Mr. 230)], August 4, Hao nan hao nü [Guys and gals]. http://www.hangzhou.com.cn. Hu, Qili (1994), “Shenhua gaige, kuoda kaifang, genghao de wei guomin jingji xinxihua fuwu” [Deepen reforms, expand openness, and even better serve national economic informationization], in Zhongguo dianzi gongye nianjian bianji weiyuanhui (ed.), Zhongguo dianzi gongye nianjian 1994 [China Electronics Industry Yearbook 1994]. Beijing: Dianzi gongye chubanshe. Huagongwang (2000), “Zhongguo Huagongwang heyi yingli?” [How does China ChemNet turn a profit?], Zhejiang ribao , November 21. http://www.zjdaily.com.cn HZDX (Hangzhoushi dianxinju) (ed.) (1999), Hangzhou dianxin nianjian 1999 [Hangzhou Telecom Yearbook 1999]. Beijing: People’s Post and Telecommunications Publishers. HZNJ (Hangzhou nianjian bianjibu) (ed.) (2000), Hangzhou nianjian (2000) [Hangzhou yearbook (2000)]. Beijing: Zhonghua shuju. HZSW (2000) “Zhonggong Hangzhou shiwei bangongting he Hangzhoushi renmin zhengfu bangongting. Hangzhoushi jingji he shehui xinxihua fazhan guihua gangyao” [Outline of development plan for Hangzhou municipality’s economic and social informationzation], December 29. http://www.hangzhou.gov.cn Interviews. Interviews conducted in Beijing (1995), Shanghai (1998), Boston (1999) and Hangzhou (2001) with personnel in government departments, telecom and software companies, research and educational units, and with informed local observers. Jiu, Baoxing (2000), “Jianli chuangye lianhe touzi xiezuowang cujin gaoxin jishu chanye fazhan” [Establish a collaborative network for unified investment for founding firms, to promote new and high technology industry development], Hangzhouyanjiu , 1:1–7. Li, Xu’e (1992), Zhongguo gaoxin jishu chanye kaifaqu yaolan [Viewing China’s High and New Technology Industry Development Zones]. Beijing: Zhongguo kexue jishu chubanshe and Siyuan chubanshe.

Chinese media, global contexts

190

Liu, Bing (2001), “‘e-hua’ de liliang” [The power of “e-ization”], China Computerworld Net Weekly , October 30. http://www2.ccw.com.cn Lynch, Daniel C. (2000), “The nature and consequences of China’s unique pattern of telecommunications development,” in Chin-Chuan Lee (ed.), Power, Money, and Media: Communication Patterns and Bureaucratic Control in Cultural China . Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, pp. 179–207. Mueller, Milton and Zixiang Tan (1996), China in the Information Age: Telecommunications and the Dilemmas of Reform . Westport, CT: Praeger. Naughton, Barry (1997), “Economic policy reform in the PRC and Taiwan,” in Barry Naughton (ed), The China Circle: Economics and Technology in the PRC, Taiwan, and Hong Kong . Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, pp. 81–110. Ohmae, Kenichi (2000), The Invisible Continent: Four Strategic Imperatives of the New Economy . New York: HarperCollins. Porter, Michael E. (2000) “Location, competition, and economic development: local clusters in a global economy,” Economic Development Quarterly , 14(1): 15–34. Saxenian, Anna (1994), Regional Advantage: Culture and Competition in Silicon Valley and Route 128 . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Shao, Zijiang (2000). “Hangzhou jianshe xinxigang you you xin jucuo [In constructing its infoport, Hangzhou also has a new method].” Zhejiang Online, September 18. http://www.zjonline.com.cn SHTJNJ (2000), Shanghai Municipal Statistics Bureau,ed. Shangai Tongji Nianjian 2000 [Shangai Statistical Yearbook 2000]. N.p.: China Statistics Press Sun, Jianhua (2000), “Xin ICP, xuanzhe zai fengxian zhong wumian” [News ICP, choose vigilance amidst risk], Zhejiang Online, ICP guanli section, 28 November. http://www.zjonline.com.cn/news/zhuanti/encyclic/matter/n06.htm U.S. Bureau of Cesus (2001), Statistical Abstract of the United States . Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office. Wang, Xiangdong (1998), Xinxihua: Zhongguo 21 shiji de xuanzhe [Informationization: China’s 21st century choice]. Beijing: Shehu kexue senxian chubanshe. Xu, Baocai (2001), “Shilun wangluo chuanbo zhong de luenli wenti yu duice,” China Journalism Review , December 10. http://www.cjr.com.cn Xu, Jianmin (2001), “Guangdianwang zengzhi mianlin chengben…” [Broadcast TV networks’ value-added facing costs…], China Computerworld Net Week , November 1. http://www2.ccw.com.cn Yang, Jianjun (2000), “Hangzhou chengshi fazhan tese yanjiu” [A study of the special characteristics of Hangzhou’s development], Zhejiang daxue bao (renwen shehui kexue ban), 30(1): 143–150. Yang, Jiying (2001), “Hangzhou xiandaihua xinxiwang jiang touru shiyunxing” [Hangzhou’s modernized information network will go into test run], finri zaobao [Online], April 19. http://www.zjonline.com.cn “Yihao gongcheng jianjie” [Brief introduction to the Number One Project] (2000), http://www.hangzhou.gov.cn/2_yhgc/yhgcjj/jj.htm . Yu, Yiyong (2001), “Guanyu wangluo xinwen de sikao” [Ponderings on networked news], China Journalism Review , November 30. http://www.cjr.com.cn

West lake wired

191

Zhang, Hao (2001), “Zhongguo xinwen wangzhan de sizhong yingli moshi” [Four profit models for China’s news web sites], China Journalism Review , November 12. http://www.cjr.com.cn ZGJTNJ (2000), Zhongguo jiaotong nianjian [China communications yearbook]. Beijing China Communications Yearbook Press . Zhang, Pingli (1994), “Unique development of wisdom—Account of development of China’s electronics industry” (FBIS-CHI-94–177, Trans.), Renmin ribao (overseas edition), August 5, p. 1. Zhang, Shunzheng (2000), “Hangzhou fazhan wangluo chanye yanjiu” [A study on Hangzhou’s development of a network sector], Hangzkou Yanjiu , 4:15–18. Zhao, Wenning (2001), “Zhongguo dianxin de fenchai miju” [The riddles of China Telecom’s breakup]. China Computerworld Net Week , November 5. http://www2.ccw.com.cn Zhao, Yuezhi (1998), Media, Market, and Democracy in China: Between the Party Line and the Bottom Line . Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. ——(2000), “Caught in the web: the public interest and the battle for control of China’s information superhighway,” Info , 2(1): 41–66.

10 How do the Chinese media reduce organizational incongruence? Bureaucratic capitalism in the name of Communism Zhou He China’s official accession to the World Trade Organization in December 2001 marked a turning point in the country’s decades-long search for acceptance into the international community, and a historic landmark in the accelerated globalization movement in the world. As one-fifth of the world’s population thrusts itself, with mixed feelings, into an international trade and economic regime that is governed by the rule of the jungle, driven mostly by multinational capital, and dominated by economic and political powers that operate largely under the principles of democratic liberalism, what it faces is not only an array of expected and unanticipated opportunities and challenges but also a fundamental question: Where does the “socialism with Chinese characteristics” go? Translated into operational terms of the country’s gigantic media industry, the question is: Where does the mouthpiece that serves a Communist party and a bureaucratic capitalist market go? Over the past twenty years, China has embarked on irreversible economic and structural reforms, which were devised and implemented by its leadership based on domestic political concerns and forced by the competition between the two grand ideologies—capitalism and Communism. With the collapse of Communism in the former Soviet Union and Eastern European countries, capitalist globalization, which used to stop at the doorsteps of the Communist world, has pushed its frontier to the borders of the few remaining Communist strongholds, forcing them to adapt to the changing environment and the rising expectations of their citizens who have seen, from a distance and with a blurring vision, the comparative advantages of capitalism. While the post-Communist states in Eastern and Central Europe are struggling to sort out their own systems which often oscillate between a somewhat democratic-liberal oriented establishment and a tendency back to a revised version of socialism, the Chinese Communist state, which has turned itself into a bureaucratic capitalist system, is endeavoring to work out how to fit into the global system and legitimize its mandate to rule derived from a Communist revolution that has lost its popular following. It is against this backdrop that this chapter examines the Chinese media’s dilemma of working with a dying dominant ideology and thriving market forces in a bureaucratic capitalist system from the perspective of organizational behavior. It suggests that the Communist media organizations, out of their dual missions—serving the Party and catering to the market—respond to the changing political and economic environment by turning themselves into Publicity Inc., pitching on the sentiment of patriotism that is

How do the Chinese media reduce organizational incongruence?

193

generic enough to accommodate rival ideologies, and taking a variety of survival strategies to reduce incongruence in organizational compliance. The changing ideological landscape It has been observed that the Chinese media have undergone subtle and significant changes over the past twenty years. A large body of recent literature has empirically documented the trajectory of a media system that is gradually transforming itself from a pure mouthpiece or “transmission belt” of the Party to an amalgamation of various identities, including a social knowledge producer (Chang et al., 1994), an enterprise in which workers have to improvise and negotiate their ways through confusion and uncertainty (Pan, 2000), a Party Publicity Inc. that engages in promoting the legitimacy of the ruling party while making a profit (He and Chen, 1998, 2000a), an industry bewildered by contradictions and ambiguities (Lee, 1994, 2000a), a “piper” who plays the tune for the Party but does not get paid (Chan, 1995), a “junk food” manufacturer that appeals to the low tastes of the lowest common denominator (Polumbaum, 1994), a fiddler juggling between the “Party line” and the bottom line (Zhao, 1998), and a “watchdog” on Party leashes (Zhao, 2000b). Most of the recent studies, apparendy intrigued by the commercial success of the media brought by economic reforms, have provided valuable insights into a media system that was shielded behind the “bamboo curtain.” As ideological transition and transformation accelerate and come to the forefront of politics and international relations in both China and other countries, however, there has been an endeavor to re-focus on and understand the role of ideology, a confusing and volatile social artifact, in the Chinese press. Lee (2000b, see also Chapter 1) examined liberal-pluralism, the reformist Marxists of the 1980s, and the radical-critical Chinese “new left” of the 1990s, three diverging ideological trends, in an examination of the Chinese media, seeing those social theories as maybe having the potential for a liberating and empowering effect on China’s authoritarian-bureaucratic journalistic practices. Zhang (2000) looked at the conceptual switch from the “masses” to the “audience” in Chinese media ideology, and found that the establishment of the meaning system under the concept of the “audience” has undermined the Maoist Party media system. I (He, 2000b) have explored the dilemma of Chinese journalists working with a dying ideology whose tenets have lost their following among the Chinese, in an effort to understand some unique phenomena in the Chinese media that cannot be adequately explained by economic analysis. These phenomena include, among others, the revolt of journalists during the Tiananmen Square movement, Chinese journalists’ long-standing quest for press freedom, and persistent public expression of deviant opinions and values by individual journalists. Based on the social-psychological concept of dissonance reduction, I propose five strategic modes in Chinese journalists’ reduction of cognitive dissonance that range from living with dissonance in the public discourse universe to radically reducing dissonance by aligning with an alternative ideology and expressing deviant ideas in a different public discourse universe.

Chinese media, global contexts

194

The demise of Communism Communism, as a grand ideology, has waned in most parts of the world and is virtually defunct in the last few strongholds, including its most populous host—China. After a careful examination of the Communist movement in Asia, Godement (1997) offers an acute observation of the status of Communism in China: The regime has undergone profound change, through a combination of voluntary reform and involuntary disintegration. If communism still officially rules in China, it is because it is already defunct as far as the economy and society are concerned. Its remains now only concern those involved with politics, particularly advocates of political democracy. What is more, the corpse is still moving, with China scoring considerable diplomatic successes: the explanation for this is that it benefits from the passivity of the Chinese, fearful of the chaos which a political changeover might bring and unfavorably impressed by the fate of the former Soviet Union. (Godement, 1997:251) What remains of Communist ideology in China is the discursive convention and the power structure deriving from the ideology, and even those two components are gradually dying (He, 2000b). Economic reforms have revised or shelved all the cardinal principles of Communism: class struggle, egalitarianism, proletarian dictatorship, and public ownership of property. As a result, economic activities are largely controlled and operated by the joint forces of bureaucrats and bureaucracy-connected capitalists in a game of trading power and money through capitalist or quasi-capitalist mechanisms, thus forming a unique type of bureaucratic capitalist system. This bureaucratic capitalism, hardly a novelty in world history, is especially prominent in the history of China, in both traditional and modern times (Meisner, 1996:300). Although it bears some resemblance to the system in the late Qing Dynasty and in the Guomindang era, this new version of bureaucratic capitalism is marked by, among other things, tight control over the economy by a well-organized political party that runs the entire state bureaucratic apparatus, a very close relationship between state bureaucrats and businesses, a large number of bureaucrats-turned-“entrepreneurs,” and ubiquitous wealth-grabbing “crown princes and princesses” (Meisner, 1996; He, 2000a). The departure from Communism for bureaucratic capitalism was most explicitly expressed in 2000 by General Secretary Jiang Zemin’s promulgation of “three representatives,” which claims that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is the “representative of the interest of the majority of the people,” the “representative of the most advanced productive force” and the “representative of the most advanced culture.” Despite the slogan’s empty rhetoric, vague definition, and obvious expediency, it clearly indicates that the Chinese Communist Party no longer sees itself as the representative of the proletariat, or, in the Chinese context, the workers and peasants. Furthermore, on July 1, 2001, Jiang delivered a speech at the celebration of the 80th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party, declaring that the Party would open its doors to entrepreneurs and

How do the Chinese media reduce organizational incongruence?

195

owners of private enterprises—the new bourgeois class that had been forbidden to join the Communist Party. Despite the demise of Communism as a belief system, the Party still claims to uphold Communism in the form of “socialism with Chinese characteristics.” It does so because its mandate to rule has derived from a Communist revolution, because the entire party has been used to a discourse of Communism and cannot find other comfortable alternatives, and because the organizational principles of Leninism help to hold the institutionalized Communist state apparatus together. Communism exists primarily as ritualized rhetoric that is vague, abstract, ambiguous, and convenient for pragmatic political manipulation. At the same time, the CCP has realized the unpopularity of Communist ideology and the ideology’s incongruence with what is practiced in China and the globalization movement in the world driven by democratic capitalism. It is trapped in a dilemma: giving up Communism completely would destroy its mandate to rule, but keeping it as it is would challenge and shackle what the Party is actually doing. The tacitly practiced bureaucratic capitalism cannot serve as an option to replace Communism as an official ideology because of its inherent and glaring injustice. Despite its long history in China, bureaucratic capitalism has never established its own moral justifications, and has been implemented only under the moral banner of other more high-sounding ideologies. In the late Qing Dynasty, it was practiced under Confucian feudalism; and in the Guomindang’s reign, it appealed to Sun Yat-sen’s “Three People’s Principles” (nationalism, democracy, and the people’s livelihood). After decades of utopian and hypocritical claims of social justice, equality and elimination of exploitation, the CCP cannot morally and ideologically justify a system that is associated with nepotism, special privileges for the few, institutionalized corruption, open abuse of power, overt stealing of public goods, and exploitation of the powerless. From Deng Xiaoping to Jiang Zemin, the CCP has tried either to pretend that there is not a problem in the ideological system or to package the non-socialist practices in ambiguously Communist terms. The rise of nationalism In this ideological vacuum and in the context of accelerated globalization, China has been flirting with nationalism as a possible substitute for Communism. Although not overtly advocated by the Chinese Communist Party, nationalism has been tacitly endorsed and gingerly manipulated by the Party for its own benefits (Lee, 2000b). Despite some theorists’ insistence that nationalism has existed only in modern times with a keen awareness of nation-state and that “China is really a civilization pretending to be a nation-state” (Pye, 1996:109), nationalism has its historical roots in Chinese culture. Smith (1971) contends that there is a premodern possibility of nationalism in what he calls “ethnocentric nationalism.” It is also said that China is an ancient nation that entered modern history with nationality and nationalism both present (Townsend, 1996:8). Nationalism, in its modern sense, emerged in China around the turn of the twentieth century and culminated in the 1911 nationalist revolution against the Qing Court, the May 4 movement for a new cultural and political identity of the nation, the anti-Japanese war, and finally the Communist revolution before and soon after the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. However, because of the loss of its value and

Chinese media, global contexts

196

usefulness to the Communist revolution and its incompatibility with the dominant Communist ideology, nationalism was subdued for several decades. Nationalism was resurrected only in the wake of international sanctions, led by the United States, against the Tiananmen crackdown in 1989, and it erupted in the early 1990s in numerous outbursts of “patriotism.” Although nationalism has appeared as a nationwide sentiment, different segments in Chinese society attach different meanings to it. The Communist Party has gingerly embraced “state nationalism” for its own advantage. It has done so because Communism and nationalism have been two “salvation” movements that have often clashed with one another; and when they reconcile, they have a “difficult dialogue” (Munck, 1986), or an “uneasy symbiosis” (Smith, 1979). The CCP is concerned about whether nationalism subverts Communism and how it can be used to serve its own needs and legitimacy. Serious Chinese intellectuals are, however, worried that the rising tide of nationalism may lead to the xenophobic frenzy of the Boxers Movement and to disasters wrought by such nationalist states as Germany, Italy, and Japan during World War II, or to aiding the power base of the ruling elite (see Li, 2000). To most citizens of China, nationalism is a combination of national pride, economic power, cultural supremacy, xenophobia, and even revenge. As the children of the Cultural Revolution and the reform era come into power and money, observes Barme (1996:207), they are “resentful of the real and imagined slights that their nation has suffered in the past, and their desire for strength and revenge is increasingly reflected in contemporary Chinese culture.” Barme (1996) noted the revengeful fantasy of screwing foreigners in the television series, “A Beijing Man in New York,” in which the main character makes love to a Caucasian prostitute, showers her with one-dollar bills, and demands that she say “I love you.” Despite nationalism’s strong resurrection and vociferous manifestation in China, it is not the only alternative ideology that has emerged to compete with the dying Communist ideology. The ideology of liberalism, though heavyhandedly suppressed by the Communist leadership, has been a noticeable part of Chinese soul-searching for a new ideology and identity. In fact, the debate on Westernization, a synonym of liberalism or liberal democracy in the Chinese context, preceded the debate on nationalism in China. Almost all outspoken and respected intellectuals in China expressed, to varying degrees, their desire for and even admiration of such liberal principles as democracy, human rights, freedom of expression, the rule of law, separation of the three branches of the state, professional autonomy, equality, and a free marketplace (He, 1996). Because of the tight control by the Party, a misty understanding of liberalism, and a shortage of officially accepted terms, the expression of liberal ideology was often conducted in Marxist or Chinese Communist terminology. Cutting across all those competing ideologies, surprisingly, is a nationwide patriotic consensus that acts as a crucial element in the coherence of the otherwise increasingly fragmented Chinese world (Barme, 1996). Like nationalism, patriotism is a very murky notion in China. To Communists, it is allegiance to the Party-state; to liberal intellectuals, it is loyalty to the historical territory, patria. the motherland; and to the ordinary people, it is simply a devotion to what they conceive as a racial, cultural, and/or economic community. Patriotism seems to have served a utilitarian function for all camps of

How do the Chinese media reduce organizational incongruence?

197

thought. Reduction of incongruence in the Chinese press Chinese media operate in this bureaucratic capitalist system with a Communist rhetorical façade amidst statist, rational, and radical nationalisms. As organizations, the media outlets face a more complex problem of incongruence than do individual journalists who, as citizens in a system of ideological contradictions, suffer from a cognitive dissonance in which they believe in one thing (normally a non-Communist ideology) but have to express another in the public discourse universe (He, 2000b). At the international level, they suffer from a glaring incongruence with what is practiced in the media industry in the major-league countries in the world. Domestically, they work under a system where they are given a contradictory dual mission (toeing the Party line and making a profit), where large portions of the workforce harbor ideological inclinations other than Communism, and where audience members demand more than the media are officially allowed to provide. When analyzing organizational behavior in China, Skinner and Winckler (1969) applied Etzioni’s model of organizational compliance, a model that sees a three-tiered relationship among societal goals, the application of power, and the character of the subordinates’ involvement. The model asserts that congruent types are more effective than incongruent types, that for different goals different power should be applied so as to reach the goals effectively, and that differing goals and power applied have an impact on the involvement of the subordinates, thus influencing the performance of the organization (Etzioni, 1961). “When goals, power and involvement are not congruent, the theory predicts that there will be a decline in performance, creating costs for superordinates and thus a tendency for change toward congruence” (Skinner and Winckler, 1969:411). To a great extent, this notion of incongruence in organizational behavior from a sociological perspective is a socialized version of cognitive dissonance in individuals from a social psychological perspective. Taking Etzioni’s model as a point of departure, this chapter examines incongruence in Chinese media organizations. It asserts that incongruence exists in all the three areas in Chinese media organizational behavior: goals, application of power, and involvement of members. Moreover, at the international level, there is incongruence in missions, business models, and operation fundamentals with the predominant mode of operation of the media. When looked at from a business perspective, the Chinese media in the reform era appear to fare very well. The number of newspapers in the country rose from 186 in 1978 to 2,038 in 1999, and the number of magazines grew from 930 in 1978 to 8,187 in 1999 (Chinainfobank, 1999). Riding on the skyrocketing advertising expenditures that reached RMB60 billion (U.S.$7.4 billion) in 2000, several Party/state newspapers have become windfall winners. For example, Yangcheng Evening News reaped an advertising revenue of RMB600 million (U.S.$74 million) in 1999, and the Shenzhan Special Zone Daily garnered RMB500 million (U.S.$62 million) in 2000 (interviews). Apparently, a significant effort has been made by the Chinese to reduce the internal

Chinese media, global contexts

198

and, on the verge of the country’s WTO accession, external incongruence. The most salient strategies exploited have been found to be: ideological re-pitching, ideological “separation,” dilution of incongruence, contractual congruence, and resorting to state protection in international competition. Ideological re-pitching As Party/state organs, Chinese media organizations are bestowed with an unmistakable political mission—serving as the Party/state’s voice to promote its interest, policies, and ideology. Despite two decades of economic reforms, this propagandist mission as prescribed by the Party/state has remained steadfast. However, for a variety of reasons, the most obvious of which is the budget burden, Chinese media organizations have been thrown out of the Party/state budget and forced to survive on the market. All the media organizations run by the Communist Party or by various state organizations (including such mouthpieces of the Communist Party Central Committee as the People’s Daily and Xinhua News Agency) have to be self-sufficient and earn their own bread (He, 2000a). As a result, a dual mission has been created—one that is often irreconcilable. In societies where the dominant ideology is well-established and accepted voluntarily by the majority of members (despite the hegemonic nature of it), making a profit and tacitly, or even overtly, propagating the official ideology through media products are not inherently contradictory and incompatible. In fact, a steadfast ideological stance may help to garner profits. The media in most Western countries and in fundamentalist Iran are good examples. In China, however, selling the officially endorsed and brandished Communist ideology or products packaged in Communist rhetoric is a doomed business practice because the market, full of customers who harbor a resentment for Communist ideology, believe in another ideology, or oscillate between competing ideologies, does not buy hard-sell products with a brand of Communist ideology. To make the goals even more entangled is the inclusion of “order” in the mission of the Chinese media. As Communist ideology has become an empty shell with only the power structure remaining as the “end” of the Chinese Communist project, order has been turned into a top priority of the Party/state. Repeatedly, the leadership has declared the profound importance of maintaining political stability, and spared no time ensuring that it is propagated by the media. Like the gigantic official salt industry in imperial China, the Chinese media industry is a typical bureaucratic capitalist enterprise in modern terms. It is run by Party/stateappointed bureaucrats to serve the bureaucracy’s interest, and is forced to do so because of the money it makes. Having to sell the official Communist ideology but knowing it will not appeal to customers with various ideological orientations, Chinese media organizations have taken a path of least resistance to the lowest common denominator— re-pitching its ideological tune to patriotism whenever possible. As discussed earlier, patriotism is the ideological sentiment that cuts across all the competing ideological inclinations and is accepted by almost all people in the country for various reasons. Therefore, from the perspective of business and organizational operation, patriotism is a good commodity, one that is both politically correct and commercially viable. By repitching on the patriotic tune, Chinese media organizations may expect to reduce

How do the Chinese media reduce organizational incongruence?

199

incongruence in goals through matching the ideological and economic missions and resolving the conflict within the ideological goal. Historically, the Chinese media have played a role in fueling patriotism. Such a role was strongly asserted in the Korean War, the Great Leap Forward movement, the border skirmishes with the Soviet Union, and the Sino-Vietnamese War. However, the role has been much highlighted in the post-Cold War era because of the lack of an excuse of ideological confrontation between Communism and capitalism. A good example is the Chinese media’s coverage of the clash between a Chinese jet fighter and a U.S. spy plane near Hainan on April 1, 2001. Although what actually happened remains a mystery because both parties claimed to have evidence that the other caused the accident, it is evident that it was an inevitable accident in a long cat-and-mouse game with numerous close calls between the pilots on both sides. The accident put the Chinese government in a dilemma because it had high stakes in the resolution of the conflict: the pending entry into the World Trade Organization, which was the result of thirteen years of hard negotiations; the bid for the 2008 Olympic Games, which China wished to host in order to show off its power, to boost its economy and international image, and to revenge its defeat in the bid for the 2000 Olympic Games; the possibility that the United States would sell advanced weaponry to Taiwan; and, most important, a deteriorating relationship with the United States, which was solicited as a strategic partner under the Clinton administration. If it offended the United States too much, all of these would be affected. On the other hand, it had to worry about domestic public opinion which had tilted toward a tougher stance in dealing with the United States since the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade by U.S.-led NATO forces. In the initial stage of the spy plane crisis, the Chinese government apparently wanted to solve the problem quietly with a graceful “face-saving” deal. However, the inexperienced and hawk-dominated Bush administration didn’t give the Chinese government any sign of such a deal, refusing even to say “sorry.” This led to a tougher position on the part of the Chinese government, who insisted on a formal apology. Expediently, the Chinese government started to let loose its citizens’ outburst of patriotism, allowing public denouncement of the United States and demonstrations in designated areas. Meanwhile, for fear that the show of patriotism might run out of hand, sabotage a delicate negotiation with the United States, and trigger undesired complications (such as a political movement), the Chinese government kept a fairly tight grip on the flexing of patriotic muscles throughout the crisis, loosening it only when it was deemed convenient and advantageous. For the Chinese media, however, this conflict presented a good opportunity to boost circulation through a politically correct and commercially profitable product. Despite the central leadership’s prudence and rather strict controls, the Chinese media apparently did the most it could. From April 1 to April 23, Xinhua filed 126 stories (including updates), the People’s Daily published 121 articles (with 82 of them from Xinhua), the Global Times (a popular affiliate of the People’s Daily) carried 26 stories (with only 3 from Xinhua), and Xinmin Evening News (a Shanghai-based popular tabloid) ran 66 stories (with 53 from Xinhua). Most of the stories, not surprisingly, simply relayed the information released by the Foreign Ministry or other top authorities. What was

Chinese media, global contexts

200

interesting, however, was the hunger for as many stories as possible from Xinhua or other officially synchronized sources, which are normally loathed and published very reluctantly. An even more interesting maneuver was the accommodation of grass-roots expression of patriotism through alternative and high-tech channels. Because most of the major newspapers in the country had their own web presence and interactive BBS forums, these were utilized for discussions which would not otherwise have made it to print. A good case in point was the “Qiang Guo Lun Tan” (Empowering the Country Forum) hosted by the People’s Daily, the country’s most influential and sometimes controversial online forum. From April 1 when the crash occurred to April 13, when the U.S. crew members were released, the forum hosted more than 13,000 “postings” and numerous responses (the forum restricted the number of postings to 1,000 per day). An examination of a sample of 1,300 postings (the first 100 of each day) with responses to them found that 819, or 63 per cent of the postings, were about the clash and the resultant Sino-American showdown. Of these, 79 per cent expressed strongly nationalistic/patriotic opinions, 15 per cent aired neutral opinions, and 7 per cent spoke against the type of nationalism expressed online. Although some censorship was exercised by the hosts, the range of diverse opinions that made it online was amazing. On the nationalistic side, the most radical suggested “torturing” or “executing” the American crew members, or declare war against the United States, while on the “cool-head” side, narrow nationalism was criticized and the United States was seen as a responsible world leader. A major theme of some radical nationalists was that the current Chinese government was too cowardly to stand against foreign aggression, just like the imperial court of the late Qing Dynasty. None of this speech would find its way onto the pages of the People’s Daily or any other Chinese newspaper. Apparently, a calculated risk was taken by the People’s Daily, and what it did was considered to be the best way to reduce incongruence in goals so as to profit both politically and commercially. Ideological separation Another strategy employed by the Chinese media to reduce incongruence in goals is to separate content loaded with Communist ideological values or rhetoric from other content and “segregate” it. This is what a chief-editor of an influential newspaper refers to as a “face” and “body” issue, where the “face” is the space, or time, devoted to Communist value-laden content, and the “body” is where the market-oriented stuff is. As the practice of separating opinion from facts in the Western media, this strategy is to separate overtly propagandist content from the rest and confine it to designated areas, mostly the front page or the “yao wen” (important news) sections where the publicity needs of the Partystate bosses can be unambiguously gratified. By segregating the content that lacks market appeal, Chinese media organizations expect to create a clear-cut dual content system, with the Party/state ideology-laden part catering to the needs of the political bureaucrats and the rest catering to the needs of customers who harbor all kinds of ideas. This strategy seems to work for most of the Partyrun national and provincial newspapers. For instance, the Nanfang Daily (a Guangzhou-based Party newspaper), the Shenzhen Special Zone Daily, and the Liberation Daily based in Shanghai have all boasted large circulations and huge profits that put them on the top-ten list in the country. All these

How do the Chinese media reduce organizational incongruence?

201

newspapers are well known for providing diverse and rich information on all politically insensitive issues while offering adequate “bulletin board” services to the political bureaucrats. Another type of “separation” is one in which media organizations stay as clear as possible from content ridden with Communist rhetoric and focus on market-oriented content. Because of central-planning and artificially created division of labor in the prereform years, a special type of government-run newspaper was set up or allowed to continue from its pre-1949 predecessors—the evening newspapers. The intention of this division was that such papers could help the Party’s heavy-duty cannons propagate Communist ideology in a more human-interest and readable fashion, thus having a gradual impact through “education” packaged in entertainment. In the reform era, these newspapers flourished because they were subject to a different set of rules and enjoyed a lot more flexibility and room in content and journalistic style. To ride on the bandwagon, a huge number of evening newspapers have been established—one in almost every major city in China. Although the propaganda mission bestowed on the Party newspapers is equally applied to them, they all try their best to stay clear of the ideological propaganda or publicity role in an effort to keep the heavy-duty propaganda to the “segregated” Party newspapers. A recent example is the fight of staff members of the Shanghai-based Xinmin Evening News against a merger with the Wenhui Daily, the Shanghai Party Committee’s mouthpiece. Worried about possible erroneous “guidance of public opinion,” the Shanghai CCP Propaganda Department made a decision to merge Xinmin with the Wenhui Daily. Staff members, from the chief-editor down to frontline reporters at Xinmin, all protested, arguing that the merger would kill Xinmin. What bothered them was the undeserved sharing of Xinmin’s profits accumulated over the years, lower ranks for the leaders because Wenhui was one grade higher on the Party hierarchy, and, most importantly, loss of the relative journalistic freedom they had enjoyed, which had been the source of the paper’s viability. However, under extremely heavy pressure from the Shanghai Party leadership, The Xinmin was merged with the Wenhui. Although the paper is still alive and doing well by riding on the momentum and readership it had previously built, morale of the staff members is low, as are their productivity and creativity. Dilution of incongruence On the other side of the coin, Party-run newspapers are not content with the separation of content within the same carrier. Even though that strategy may work for some organizations in a monopolistic market, it is only a partial solution to the problem of incongruence, and its effect is ostensibly ephemeral. This is particularly true when they have to compete with other less-controlled competitors, domestic and international. A recent case in Shenzhen illustrates this point. In a city of around 3 million people, there are two fiercely competing newspapers, the Shenzhen Special Zone Daily and the Shenzhen Commercial Daily. However, since 1997, a third newspaper has invaded the territory—the Nanfang Metro, founded by the Nanfang Daily. Because the Nanfang Metro is set up in such a fashion that it does not operate as a mouthpiece of the provincial Party leadership, it is more flexible in its coverage and style. Consequently, it has become the fourth most popular newspaper in Guangdong Province. As its circulation has grown,

Chinese media, global contexts

202

it has expanded into Shenzhen, beating both of the city’s official mouthpieces and propelling the city’s Newspaper/journal Distribution Department to order all the newsstands not to sell the Nanfang Metro and set a fine of U.S.$37 for violators (see also Chapter 8). The obvious advantage of non-Party publications in reducing the incongruence in goals has compelled Party newspapers to launch their affiliated metro newspapers in an effort to dilute the incongruence in the flagship newspapers that cannot be completely overcome. The diversity thus created helps with the overall portfolio, minimizes the risk of a single publication with a dual mission, and gives the paper more flexibility and competitive power. To further dilute the incongruence in goals, Party-run newspapers have begun to form conglomerations that merge smaller and usually non-Party publications. By 1999, there were fifteen newspaper conglomerates, including the Guangming Press Group, the Jingji Daily Press Group, the Wehhui and Xinmin Press Group, the Yangcheng Evening Press Group, the Guangzhou Daily Press Group, and the Shenzhen Special Zone Daily Press Group. While the formation of these media conglomerates was orchestrated and approved by the Party-state, partly to consolidate competitiveness in the face of possible international competition after China’s entry into the WTO, and partly to reinforce control over run-away small publications (Zhao, 2000a), it was also driven by the desire of Party-run newspapers to diversify their operations and dilute their goal incongruence. Long before state planners thought about the possibility of conglomerates, profitable and expanding Party-run newspapers such as the Guangzhou Daily and the Shenzhen Special Zone Daily had demanded horizontal as well as vertical mergers. The results of conglomeration remain to be seen because the conglomerates have not performed long enough, but one thing is clear: the metro versions of the Party-run newspapers have been doing well or even better than their flagships. Contractual congruence At the time when Skinner and Winckler (1969) studied organizational behavior in China, the application of normative power, often in the form of mass mobilization, was probably the most effective measure to distill a sense of Communism and convert non-believers, especially remnants of the old times. The effectiveness of normative power in achieving ideological goals was based on a national consensus that Communism was the most promising and the only right choice for China, and on the naivety of a largely illeducated, ill-informed, and secluded population. However, in the wake of the global collapse of Communism and amidst an ideological crisis, the dominance of the emptyshell Communist ideology cannot be effectively maintained through normative power. A recent example is the cynicism demonstrated in the “Three-Talks Campaign” (talk about politics, studies, and ethics), a mass campaign waged by the Communist Party to clean its own house. Two folklore versions of “Three-Talks” have spread across the nation and made conversation on almost any occasion. One was that “Zhu Rongji should talk about politics [because he cares only about economics],” “Li Peng should talk about studies [because he is stupid],” and “Jiang Zemin should talk about ethics [because he has brought his Shanghai gang to central power in a nepotistic manner].” As there was a

How do the Chinese media reduce organizational incongruence?

203

phase in the campaign in which Party/state officials would have to conduct criticism and selfcriticism of wrongdoing, a common practice in all previous ideological mobilization campaigns, the other version had it that “if you don’t talk about me, I won’t talk about you; if you talk about me, I will talk about you; if you talk about me again, then I will talk about you to death.” These popular satirical sayings are only a few examples of what the private discourse universe is carrying. In fact, as He (2000b) observed, the private and public discourse universes in China are so different that they look like two separate and contradictory spaces. In this situation, coercion—in such forms as imprisonment, exile, purge, and unemployment—has become the main means of safeguarding the supremacy of the Chinese version of Communist ideology. This is particularly true in the Chinese Communist Party media, which serve as the main carriers of official public discourse. Attesting to this are numerous reports of journalists being jailed, purged, and exiled in recent years. On the other hand, remunerative measures are used to reward those who score major points on Communist ideological propagation, for example by writing flamboyant stories about top leaders’ activities. An example is a story about Deng Xiaoping’s tour of Shenzhen in 1992, which flamboyantly praised the greatness of Deng and of Deng’s speech. The writer was soon promoted, and the manuscript of the story has since been displayed in the exhibition hall of the Shenzhen Special Zone Daily as a piece of its treasure. Of course, the piece served its historical role in spreading the message of further reforms initiated by Deng. However, the “sycophant journalism” it represents is a common practice in the Chinese bureaucratic capitalist system. The mismatched goals and the abusively applied coercive power naturally lead to dislocated loyalty, alienation and indifference. Where commitment should be, there is alienation; and where indifference should be, there is commitment. As previous studies (e.g. He, 2000a, 2000b; Pan, 2000) have shown, the majority of Chinese journalists do not adhere to Communist ideology today, and what they do believe is a mesh of vague, embryonic, and transient ideas. Years of marginalization and coercive compliance have alienated them from Communist ideology, and yet they have not formed solid bonds with alternative ideologies. As a result, most of them do not have any sincere commitment to Communist ideology no matter how hard their arms are twisted or how enticing the remunerative awards may be. Instead, their loyalty seems to be located where the material rewards are. Good examples can be found in the migration of journalists from Party news organizations to tabloid-type publications where material rewards are higher, and from Party/state news organizations to joint-venture or foreign-owned public relations operations where there is more money. To reduce incongruence in power and involvement, the most commonly adopted strategy in the Chinese media seems to be contractual congruence. As normative power has been proven to be ineffective for a workforce that is becoming increasingly diverse in its ideological beliefs and cynical about politics, remunerative power, coupled with coercive power as a constant threat in the background, has become a widely used means to ensure compliance. Starting with the Party-state media in Shanghai in the 1980s, a contract system in the recruitment and retention of journalists, especially those at the rank-and-file levels, has been adopted by the Chinese media as a norm. Journalists are

Chinese media, global contexts

204

hired on contracts and evaluated accordingly alongside permanent employees. Lifelong employment is no longer secured for many news recruits of the media. This system is particularly common with some major-league and profitable organizations, such as China Central Television and the Shenzhen Special Zone Daily. For all employees, contractual and permanent, a job-responsibility system has been institutionalized in most media organizations to control and reward perfor mance. Called the “Job Responsibility System,” or other variations, it monitors, evaluates, rewards or punishes journalists. And the rewards and penalties are almost always in remunerative terms—salary, bonus, benefits, and even entertainment fee. The way power is applied, together with the changed mission, has helped to develop among journalists a sense that they are “contractual publicity workers.” Some of them are indifferent, some are alienated, and few are committed to whatever ideology the organizations are promoting. But it does not matter very much as long as they perform the task-oriented duties, or in other words, as long as they adhere to “contractual congruence.” Resorting to state protection As an industry that used to have very little to do with head-on overseas competition, the Chinese media industry now faces inevitable competition from overseas media organizations on its home front following China’s accession into the WTO. Although it has been significantly transformed from its prototype of a pure propaganda machine and an enterprise relying solely on Party/state budgetary support, the Chinese media industry still differs immensely from its overseas counterparts, especially the “biggies” in the West—in missions, business models, news values, and quality of the workforce. Under the arrangements in the WTO, China has to open its media market to overseas operators. Whether the Chinese media can successfully compete with their overseas counterparts is an open question because such a competition has never been tested. Based on observations of the financial resources, the growing diversity in content, and the strength in providing culturally relevant and proximate products, an outsider would be inclined to think that the Chinese media may stand a fairly good chance, especially in all the nonnews product areas. However, never having been engaged in such a game, the Chinese media are extraordinarily bewildered and worried about the uncertain clashes and competition. To them, accession into the WTO brings a serious threat. Even a few years before China’s official accession into the WTO, Ding Guanggen, Minister of the CCP Propaganda Department, warned the Chinese media that their good days would be over when China joined the WTO. For decades, the Chinese media industry, like the ancient official salt industry in imperial China, has been shielded from outside competition by the state and has enjoyed a monopolistic position on the domestic market. Despite complaints from journalists about lack of freedom and imposed propaganda tasks, and the incongruence in numerous aspects bitterly felt by all media people alike, the bureaucratic capitalist nature of the industry actually ensures the financial prosperity of the industry. The strict licensing system that restricts anybody but Party/state organizations from entering the market, the hierarchical news access system that allows only a selected elite group to access official news sources, and the low taxes levied on media organizations which are treated as quasi-

How do the Chinese media reduce organizational incongruence?

205

governmental offices (shi ye dan wei) all serve to guarantee the monopolistic and profitable position of enterprises in this industry. As in the ancient official salt industry, getting a license to operate in the media industry is like getting a license to print money. The only question is how much to print in competition with other money printers in the same restricted industry. Moreover, top managers of the media industry, as bureaucrats in the state apparatus, are also policy makers responsible for the formation of regulations of the industry. They are concerned about the financial survival of the media enterprises as much as they are concerned about the “spiritual guidance” they provide. To prepare for the expected overseas competition upon China’s accession into the WTO, the Chinese media industry has done a great deal to reduce its incongruence with popular international practices. It has formed gigantic conglomerates (and has sometimes put pressure on the government) so that it can have adequate collective resources to square off against overseas giants. It has upgraded its facilities, equipment, and other hardware to such an extent that it dwarfs many of its overseas competitors. It has adopted sophisticated skills and techniques in the production of almost anything outside the area of sensitive political news. However, one thing remains unchanged and unchangeable in the near future: the role of mouthpiece of the ruling bureaucracy. That Achilles’ heel makes the industry extremely vulnerable to overseas competition. If foreign media are allowed to enter the Chinese market and disseminate factual information (especially information on domestic and international politics) that the Chinese media are not permitted to publish, then the Chinese media are very likely to lose out in the competition. Instead of reducing this incongruence actively, as they have done in the aforementioned areas, the Chinese media industry appears to utilize its bureaucratic status to set up a layer of protection and restrict the incoming overseas competitors in terms of content and geography. Two recent deals exemplify this strategy. China has approved deals with the News Corp. and AOL Time Warner in which their programming would be allowed to air to audiences in South China. In exchange, as requested by the Chinese National Broadcasting, Film and Television Department, these two media corporations should air the same amount of programming produced by Channel 9 of China Central Television to the U.S. market. The other deal was a plan to open Guangdong Province as a “Special Media Zone” to selected overseas media. China is planning to allow more than thirty overseas television operators to air their programming to Guangdong Province, but not to any other areas in China. It is not clear yet who these overseas media are, but insiders in the international satellite television business based in Hong Kong reveal that they are likely to be operators with a pro-China or moderate editorial stance, or operators that specialize in non-news programming, such as Phoenix Satellite TV (which confirmed that it had obtained a license to air its programming in Guangdong) and the Discovery channel. Restrictive measures like these may work as along as the bureaucratic capitalist system functions effectively. However, what they provide is a temporary shield, whose effect and span are uncertain. As the globalization movement accelerates its pace, as the consequences of China’s economic reforms carry over to other areas of the country’s social life, and, more immediately, as the grace period of the WTO passes, the Chinese

Chinese media, global contexts

206

media will eventually face a difficult choice: going back to their status as state-funded public media operations or changing their missions so as to compete fairly with overseas commercial media. Conclusion Building on previous research (e.g., He, 2000b) on the reduction of cognitive dissonance caused by conflicting social and personal ideologies among individual journalists, this study examines how Chinese media organizations reduce organizational incongruence in a society that, upon entering a historical stage of bureaucratic capitalism, is undergoing a serious soul-searching and an ideological and system transformation. Obviously, the same source that has caused problematic cognitive dissonance among journalists has also led to profound incongruence in organizational behavior. That source is the dying Communist ideology and ensuing complications in justifying its worth and maintaining the power structure derived from it, and the competition between rival ideologies for the population’s mind. As the ruling Communist Party desperately seeks an ideological system that will justify dictatorship in an obviously unfair bureaucratic system, the ideology of state nationalism has been flirted with, sometimes seriously and other times timidly. The patriotic sentiment of nationalism has been an effective glue to an otherwise fragmented nation and an emotion that could be cunningly manipulated to serve the state power, thus becoming a catch-all ideological artifact for most of the spiritual discourse in the country. Nevertheless, because of the inherent incompatibility between Communism and nationalism and, more importantly, because of the longevity of the Communist vocabulary that has been habitually used for two generations, a slightly retuned Communist discourse still remains a hegemonic, if only rhetorical, form in the public discourse universe, contaminating or transforming, rather unconsciously, the discourse of any other ideologies. Bestowed with the mission to serve as spokesman for the Communist Party and Communist ideology, which grants the regime its mandate, but forced to survive in a market where few customers would voluntarily buy the dying Communist ideology, Chinese media organizations face tremendous incongruence in their goals, application of power, involvement of members, and business operations on an international scale. They are ordered to embark on an almost impossible mission. Defending an undefendable spiritual artifact is difficult enough; making a living by so doing is even more difficult. Changes have to be introduced to eliminate or reduce the incongruence so that survival can be ensured. However, unlike individuals who enjoy a fair amount of flexibility in choosing dissonance reduction strategies, organizations have their hands tied, as complex systems that have their own culture, rules, logic, momentum, and impact. What individuals can do, such as abandoning the official public discourse universe and expressing their deviant ideas in another (often overseas) one, cannot easily be achieved by media organizations in the current Chinese political context. As a result, Chinese media organizations have to take a convoluted path to change, picking the safest strategies, such as re-pitching on patriotism, separating (rather than dumping) Communist ideological rhetoric from other content, diluting (rather than eliminating) incongruence

How do the Chinese media reduce organizational incongruence?

207

through subsidiaries and conglomeration, and resorting to remunerative power application (rather than normative power). At the international level, they have to resort to bureaucratic state protection, which is, in itself, a source of organizational incongruence in the domestic context. By so doing, Chinese media organizations have turned themselves into what this author calls in other contexts “Party-state Publicity Inc.,” who, while taking it as their main job to publicize the Partystate’s policies and interests, operate like business entities, subject to as much economic pressure as political influence. They need to attract the ideologically disenchanted audience by softening their publicity messages and providing a wide range of information to respond to market demands. And they increasingly depend on “hired” technocrats whose ideology, interest, and loyalty may differ from those inherently demanded by the Party-state media. What Chinese media organizations have implemented are mostly cosmetic and expedient solutions to the problem of incongruence. In the short-term, they seem to work fairly effectively in a market where the official media organizations hold monopolistic positions. These organizations have not only succeeded in surviving but have also reaped huge profits selling a product that contains an undesired part. Even on the ideological side, they have succeeded in functioning as a bulletin board reminding the population of power holders and official ideology—although they have obviously failed as spiritual evangelists and justifiers of power. In the long run, however, what has been achieved in the reduction and isolation of incongruence has actually prolonged and even intensified the incongruence. One possible outcome of this is that the incongruence will eventually be solved as the balance of the conflicting components is tilted so much toward the nonCommunist ones that there is absolutely no reason for the Communist component to exist. This, in the final analysis, is possible only when the political system is completely overhauled, and when pluralism is allowed. What Chinese organizations face today is not a unique dilemma but a historically repeated phenomenon that precludes or accompanies the transition from one ideological system to another. What is unique is that they have had to live with and defend for so long a political structure whose ideological substance has been defunct for some time. It remains a serious question of how protracted the period would be in which Chinese media organizations have to live with obviously preposterous incongruence. References Barme, Geremie (1996), “To screw foreigner is patriotic: China’s avant-garde nationalists,” in Unger, Jonathan (ed.), Chinese Nationalism . New York: East Gate, pp. 183–208. Chan, Joseph Man (1995), “Calling the tune without paying the piper: the reassertion of media controls in China,” in Lo, C.K., Pepper, S. and Tsui, K.Y. (eds), China Review 1995 . Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, pp. 5.1–5.16. Chang, Tsan-Kuo, Wang Jian and Chen, Chi-hsien. (1994), “News as social knowledge in China: the changing worldview of Chinese national media,” Journal of Communication , 44(3):52–69. Chinainfobank (1999), Statistics of books, magazines and newspapers in all areas in

Chinese media, global contexts

208

China 1999. http://www.chinainfobank.com Etzioni, Amitai (1961), A Comparative Analysis of Complex Organizations . New York: The Free Press. Godement, Francois (1997), The New Asian Renaissance: From Colonialism to the PostCold War . London: Routledge. He, Zhou (1996), Mass Media and Tiananmen Square . New York: NOVA Science Publishing Co. (2000a), “Chinese Communist Party press in a tug of war: a political economy analysis of the Shenzhen Special Zone Daily” in Lee, Chin-Chuan (ed.), Power, Money, and Media: Communication Patterns and Bureaucratic Control in Cultural China . Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, pp. 112–151. ——(2000b), “Working with a dying ideology: dissonance and its reduction in Chinese journalism,” Journalism Studies , 1(4):599–616. He, Zhou and Chen, Huailin (1998), Zhongguo chuanmei xinlun [The Chinese Media: a New Perspective]. Hong Kong: Pacific Century Press. Lee, Chin-Chuan (1994), “Ambiguities and contradictions: issues in china’s changing political communication,” in Lee, Chin-Chuan (ed.), China’s Media, Media’s China . Oxford: Westview, pp 3–22 ——(2000a), “Chinese communication: prisms, trajectories, and modes of understanding,” in Lee, Chin-Chuan (ed.), Power, Money, and Media: Communication Patterns and Bureaucratic Control in Cultural China . Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, pp. 3–42. ——(2000b), “China’s journalism: the emancipatory potential of social theory,” Journalism Studies , 1(4): 559–575. Li, Shitao (ed.) (2000), Ming zu zhuyiyu zhuan xing qi zhong guo de min yun [Nationalism and the Fate of China During its Transition: the Stance of Intellectuals]. Changchun, China: Time Arts Publishing House. Meisner, Maurice (1996), The Deng Xiaoping Era: an Inquiry into the Fate of Chinese Socialism 1978–1994 . New York: Hill and Wang. Munck, Ronaldo (1986), The Difficult Dialogue: Marxism and Nationalism . London: Zed Books. Pan, Zhongdang (2000), “Improvising reform activities: the changing reality of journalistic practice in China,” in Lee, Chin-Chuan (ed.), Power, Money, and Media: Communication Patterns and Bureaucratic Control in Cultural China . Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, pp. 68–111. Polumbaum, Judy (1994), “Between propaganda and junk-food journalism: Exploratory terrains in mainland Chinese news coverage,” paper presented at the annual conference of the Association of Education for Journalism and Mass Communication, August, Atlanta. Pye, Lucian (1996), “How China’s nationalism was shanghaied,” in Unger, Jonathan (ed.), Chinese Nationalism . New York: East Gate, pp. 86–112. Skinner, William G. and Winckler, Edwin A. (1969), “Compliance succession in rural Communist China: a cyclical theory,” in Etzioni, Amitai (ed.), A Sociological Reader on Complex Organizations . New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.

How do the Chinese media reduce organizational incongruence?

209

Smith, Anthony (1971), Theories of Nationalism . New York: Harper & Row. ——(1979), Nationalism in the Twentieth Century . Oxford: Martin Robertson. Townsend, James (1996), “Chinese nationalism,” in Unger, Jonathan (ed.), Chinese Nationalism . New York: East Gate, pp. 1–30. Zhang, Yong (2000), “From masses to audience: changing media ideologies and practices in reform China,” Journalism Studies , 1(4):617–635. Zhao, Yuezhi (1998), Media, Market, and Democracy in China: Between the Party Line and the Bottom Line . Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. ——(2000a), “From commercialization to conglomeration: the transformation of the Chinese press within the orbit of the Party State,” Journal of Communication , 50(2): 3–26. ——(2000b), “Watchdogs on Party leashes? Contexts and implications of investigative journalism in post-Deng China,” Journalism Studies , 1(2): 577–597.

11 Localizing professionalism Discursive practices in China’s media reforms Zhongdang Pan and Ye Lu More than a decade ago, Judy Polumbaum (1990a) examined how the reforms were allowing journalists in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to be “aspiring professionals.” Answering such a question is not easy partly because, as Polumbaum acknowledges, it is difficult to gauge the relevance of the Western model of media professionalism to China. More broadly, difficulties in answering such a question come from the treatment of journalism as a profession to begin with. As Hallin (2000:221) has noted, the notion of journalists as professionals is “vague and in many ways dubious.” First, journalism does not have all the defining attributes of a prototypical profession. Further, journalism may be, arguably, more intricately knitted in the political system and dominant ideology of a society than what is generally assumed of a prototypical profession in the sociological literature. Trying to fit it into the “traits” model (Leicht and Fennell, 2001:25–27) is not only too static but also presumes a single normative model for different societies. An alternative is to examine how journalists in different societies “accomplish” their profession (Dingwall, 1976)—that is, connecting their “ways of thinking” and “ways of operating” under specific conditions (de Certeau, 1984). In this chapter, instead of asking to what extent China’s journalists are becoming professionals, we ask: How do China’s journalists discuss their work and their roles in Chinese society? How do their ideas of journalistic work inform their practices? And, how do they put. these ideas into their practices? 1 Drawing on an ongoing field study, 2 we set out to explore how China’s journalists construct their collective self-images in the reforms. We shall demonstrate that the process involves China’s journalists employing diverse discursive resources to maneuver through the maze of the highly uncertain political economic terrains of the reforms. They do not fit their practices into either the universal model of professionalism or the “commandist” model of Party-press (Lee, 1994). Rather, they utilize and appropriate diverse and often conflicting ideas of journalism through their improvised and situated practices. Journalistic practices in imagining professional fame As a research framework, professionalism is more than a descriptive model. Asserting certain universal claims about professions in modern society, 3 the model renders a certain a priori quality to the defining attributes of profession. Applying this model, we

Localizing professionalism

211

might compare China’s journalists with those in different societies on some universal scales (see, for example, Weaver, 1998) and accept professionalism as an end product of a “natural history” for all societies (Abbott, 1988). We would posit a rise of professionalism with the rapid media commercialization in China. But we would also leave unexplored: (a) how such a rise might take place; and (b) what constitutes journalistic professionalism as the Communist authoritarian regime actively incorporates market-based media practices into its Party-press system (Zhao, 2000). We start with a different premise. That is, under different media systems, journalists, while performing the comparable tasks of gathering and disseminating news, are plugged into different political and economic systems, carrying with them different role prescriptions. Since 1949, China’s journalists have been propaganda cadres of the Communist Party-state (Cheek, 1997). While the reforms have loosened the Party-press model to allow some room for factual reporting (Cheek, 1989; Polumbaum, 1990b), the rapidly expanding market forces since 1992 have also been eroding journalistic ethics with journalists being allured more to the logic of the consumer market than that of professionalism. 4 The popular disdain of journalists profiteering from the market, as expressed in the widely circulated saying, “beware of fire, beware of burglars, and beware of reporters,” raises a serious question as to whether the reforms are combining the worst of both the authoritarian and free market systems (Zhao, 1998). Market forces have not led to a wholesale acceptance of Western professionalism among China’s journalists, but have complicated their work conditions with new possibilities (Pan, 2000a, b). We shall therefore examine the particulars of China’s journalists—their everyday practices and the historical contingencies of such practices. By taking this approach, we do not render professionalism as being inconsequential in China’s media reforms. Rather, we argue, this presumed universal model is localized when China’s journalists use it as one of their discursive resources in their everyday practices. This is essentially a process of articulation (Wuthnow, 1989)—bringing historical meanings to the terms that define professionalism and linking this idea system with historical conditions through situated social practices. To develop our arguments, we focus on how journalists imagine their professional fame—a discursive process of articulating what constitute “good journalists.” Such fame refers to the notoriety of journalists in their profession and/or to the general public for having met certain culturally shared standards of excellence in doing their work. To imagine such notoriety, journalists invoke specific exemplars of professional excellence, which are among the means journalists use to construct and communicate their visions of what they do and how their work is to be interpreted and evaluated. Thus our study is not on a few professional icons and heroes, nor is it on fame per se. Rather, following Michel de Certeau (1984), the French scholar, we focus on journalists’ everyday practices. De Certeau, in analyzing how power operates in everyday life, makes a distinction between what he calls “strategies” and “tactics.” Strategies refer to the calculus derived from the centrally imposed and enforced framework. They consists of actions taken by the actors or agencies that have their “proper” placement in the establishment. Tactics refer to improvised actions of the powerless who poach the

Chinese media, global contexts

212

established order and turn cracks in it into opportunities to act. Tactics are thus the “art of the weak” to resist, appropriate, and evade the established order. Through these terms, de Gerteau argues, we can understand how power Is played—both organized and evaded— by focusing on what social actors do in their everyday lives. He emphasizes the situatedness of everyday practices, social actors’ uses of a prevalent ideology as resources in devising their practices, and diverse forms of articulation of such practices with specific historical conditions. This approach, therefore, is designed to avoid what he calls a “twofold deception”—interpreting “observed facts” through a preconceived universal model, which turns social life into “observable facts” to begin with. Operating in this framework, we argue that journalists’ professional fame arises from what they do—both journalistic practices and the resulting products. Such practices are, in the words of Pierre Bourdieu (1990), “improvisatory performances.” First, China’s reforms did not start with an alternative model of the media or journalism. While the Party-state authority maintains a tight control of media, the introduction of advertising and reducing state subsidies to media brought “cracks” to the Party-press system. The market forces so unleashed both inspired and compelled journalists to seek innovative actions that would allow journalists to take advantage of the market without stepping out of the official ideological bounds. Without any general guide on how to do so, journalists have to take situated actions based on opportunistic calculations (Pan, 2000a). Second, journalistic practices and the resulting products express journalists’ interpretations of their action settings and their choices in such settings. When journalists carry out their work, they are compelled not only by the need to achieve a specific occupational objective (e.g. reporting a story) but also by their desire to express their ideas on who they are and what they do. Their practices and resulting products are therefore texts, interpreted and evaluated by other social actors implicated in news production, including fellow journalists, media regulators, and the general public. Journalistic fame is a system of signification that is woven and maintained collectively by various social actors in the same culture. Shared images of professional fame also enable (re)articulation of the ideas that bind the journalistic community, as in the case of the Pulitzer Prize in American journalism (Hohenberg, 1997). Such articulation, as Zelizer (1993s shows, becomes particularly intense at historical moments when critical events clash with certain fundamental ideas of journalistic work, causing discursive tensions. The media reforms in China have created a series of such moments (Cheek, 1989; Zhang, 2000). Today, the key discursive tension is the structural contradiction between the Party-press system and media commercialization (Lee, 1994). It has raised questions as to the identity of journalists, the nature of their work, their roles in society, the principles for their work, and criteria for evaluating and rewarding their work. Imagining journalistic fame is a discursive process of answering these questions. These are questions that China’s journalists have to deal with not in abstract terms but in terms of their everyday encounters and choices. They are posed and addressed in the terms and frames that are rooted in China’s historical conditions and in each micro situation of journalists’ everyday work. In the midst of uncertainties of the reforms, as Pan (2001a, b) shows, it is often strategic for China’s journalists to localize problems that

Localizing professionalism

213

Table 11.1 Key components of four distinguishable journalistic discourses

Key dimensions

Discourses Party-press

Confucian intellectual

Professionalism

Market economy

Journalists’ roles and missions

To be the Party’s propagandists, to educate the public and enlighten the public according to the Party line

To be the conscience of society and voice of the people, and to enlighten the public to recognize their and the nation’s interests

To be professionals in gathering and disseminating information and uncovering facts

To be media workers, to produce quality products for media consumers

Functions of the news media

Ideological education, promotion of the Party’s policies, and organization of actions to achieve the goals set by the Party

Enlightenment, Surveillance, national integration, dissemination, and national power interpretation and greatness

Information and entertainment services

Principles of journalistic practices

Loyalty to the Party, consistency with the Party lines, and observant of the Party’s disciplines

Speaking the truth, sticking to “facts,” and being open to new ideas

Objectivity, autonomy, rationality

Being well received by the public, in the form of ratings, circulations, and ad revenues

Source of legitimation

Party-press system

Confucian and May 4th traditions

Specialized knowledge of universal truth, exemplars from advanced Western nations

Market economy and exemplars from the West

Source: Partially adapted from Lee (2000).

they encounter. They avoid confronting the news-value judgment principles of the Partypress directly. Instead, they devise non-routine practices as situations permit and describe such practices carefully to contain them discursively as local occurrences or as special applications of the general Party-press principles under specific situations. By so doing, journalists increase their chances for immediate and tangible rewards associated with increased circulations or ratings, and reduce the risks of political crackdown and market penalties in losses of advertising revenues. When they invoke such terms as

Chinese media, global contexts

214

“professionalism” or “professionalization,” they impute the terms with meanings linked to their own specific concerns. Imagining journalistic fame is a highly situated process. In this process, while the Communist regime controls the formal institutions of defining and rewarding journalistic excellence and sets the parameters of and even the vocabulary on professional excellence, the broad social changes ignited by the reforms have made available alternative discursive resources. We can identify four journalistic discourses in China today. Table 11.1 summarizes them in terms of their conceptions of journalists’ roles in society, media functions, principles of journalistic work, and sources of legitimation. These are recognized components of journalistic professionalism in the scholarly literature (Beam, 1990; Johnstone et al., 1976; McLeod and Hawley, 1964; Weaver and Wilhoit, 1996). As Lee (2000) argues in his analysis of varying “press models” in modern China, these discourses are rooted in China’s history. 5 They were, in different ways, related to China’s drive toward a modern society in the first half of the twentieth century and the establishment of the Communist regime. Today, they are in variable condition. While the Party-press discourse continues to be articulated with the system of Party control of the media, the discourse of market economy has been gaining currency from rapid media commercialization. The other two, one indigenous and the other imported, are also being revived, further enriching and complicating the discursive milieu of journalistic practices. Any classification of this kind risks oversimplification. The table is only a device that displays in a summary the diverse discursive resources from which journalists draw ideas and signifiers in constructing shared meanings on journalism and journalistic work. But it has the drawback of isolating each discourse. In practice, as we shall show, they are interpenetrative, creating a scene of discursive construction, contestation, and appropriation in the reforms. Images of journalistic excellence at “hot moments” A starting point for our analysis is the diverse images of “good journalists” in contemporary China. Back in 1985, a few years before Polumbaum conducted her field research on China’s journalists, a book, The 10 Famous Reporters in Contemporary China was published (Lu, 1985). All of them held high positions in the official People’s Daily and Xinhua News Agency. Leading the list is Mu Qing, then the Director of Xinhua, a ministry-level position. The biographical account stresses Mu having written a series of exemplary feature articles over three decades expressing the Party line. Clearly, journalistic excellence meant demonstrating Party policies with journalistic skills. A major change of the reforms is the emergence of a wider discursive spectrum of journalistic fame. The market economy discourse brings forth “hot shots” (da wan’r) in the profession (Pan, 2000b: 270–271). They are known for their entrepreneurial uses of the political resources that came with official media to take advantage of the emerging market. These “hot shots” may not have been decorated with official awards, but they carry clear markers of success produced in and privileged by the market, including commercially and politically successful media products that are credited to them, material affluence that far exceeds their salaries, and access to political power and money. They

Localizing professionalism

215

demonstrate that outside of the official realm, there are other realistic alternatives to achieving professional fame. Between these two images, there are other variations of professional excellence. Often, these images mix elements of different discourses shown in Table 11.1. To illustrate how such discursive mixture takes place, we focus on two “hot moments’—occasions of intense discrsive activities that involve key social actors mobilizing rich cultural and historical resources to express their visions of the profession and the collective identities of journalists. These are moments rich in expressive value, thus they have great interpretive potential (Levi-Strauss, 1966). One such “hot moment” is the annual ritual of selecting official journalistic awards. Chief among the awards are the Fan Changjiang Journalism Award and the Zou Taofeng Journalism Award. The Fan Changjiang Award, instituted in 1991, is named after a wellknown reporter who achieved his professional notoriety in the mid-1930s. Serving first as a stringer and then as a special correspondent for a prestigious commercial newspaper, Da Gong Bao, Fan reported from the northwest of China on the activities of the Communist Red Army led by Mao. Later, Fan organized journalist associations and became a senior official in the Communist government. The Zou Taofeng Award is named after the editor of an influential magazine, Shenghuo Zhoukan (Life Weekly), who gained notoriety with the magazine in the 1930s. He is known today mainly for his activities in support of the Communist cause and for, at the end of his life, becoming a Party member. The Party’s Propaganda Ministry and the official AllChina Journalists Association (ACJA) administer these awards, rendering the historical figures the official icons of professional excellence. In the official discourse articulating what these awards represent, the term zhuanye (professional) is often used in conjunction with terms such as suzhi (quality), shaping (standards), and xunlian (training) to refer to journalistic skills and techniques. Selecting and decorating award recipients are rituals to enact such an official vision. Icons breathe life from people wearing them as badges of honor and plates of identity. In the official biographies, the recipients of these awards are fitted to the mould of these icons, thus they are living models of contemporary journalists. For example, Ai Feng, a reporter with the official People’s Daily, was a recipient of the 1991 Fan Changjiang Award for having written a series of feature stories on China’s economic achievements brought about by the Party’s reform policies. Li Demin, a senior editor from the People’s Daily, received the 1993 Zou Taofeng Award for having drafted the paper’s editorials, in particular the 1990 editorial articulating the Party’s call for political stability after the 1989 crackdown on the student uprisings. However, the historical fact that Fan achieved his journalistic fame before becoming a Communist is not forgotten. Rather, because of that, Fan as an icon is an “open text,” revered also in the “unofficial” discourses of journalistic excellence. How historical icons are constructed differently by the official and unofficial discourses can be seen at another “hot moment,” the ceremony inaugurating the official Reporter’s Day (jizhe jie) on November 8, 2000. At the official ceremony of this “journalists’ own holiday,” the chief Party propaganda official and the journalists chosen to speak at the occasion invoked these familiar historical icons to echo the theme of journalists honing their skills to serve

Chinese media, global contexts

216

the Party. The next day, the Nanfang Zhoumo (Southern Weekend), a nationally influential paper known for its liberal orientation, published a special issue for this special holiday. The editorial speaks of journalists’ missions in “recording history,” “moving history forward,” and “expressing the conscience of the society.” The remaining special issue was filled with a gallery of “glorious forerunners” of China’s journalism. Fan Changjiang tops the list. Retelling history is an important part of the discursive contestation in imagining journalistic excellence. In the officially sanctioned history, modern Chinese journalism was born at the time when intellectuals were disillusioned with the traditional path to serving the nation. Publishing in the press became the means for many of them to influence society with their ideas (Ning, 1990; Fang and Zhang, 1994). 6 Both the official and unofficial discourses of journalism stress this tradition of journalists as Confucian intellectuals with social missions. Reflecting the power of this discourse, the Southern Weekend special honored Huang Yuansheng for having given up his chance of becoming an intellectual-official to be “the first journalist in the modern sense” at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This unofficial “hall of fame” also features those who maintained their personal integrity and professional autonomy in their work. For example, Shao Piaoping, a reporter, a publisher of an independent daily, and an early journalism educator, is honored for the credo he had set for his newspaper, tiejian lashou (fulfilling intellectuals’ missions with sharp pens). Chu Anping, the editor of Guancha (Observation), an independent magazine published before the Communist revolution in 1949, 7 is also honored as a journalist who “had tried to realize his western ideal of journalism.” Zhang Jiluan, the Chief Editor of Da Gong Bao who had hired Fan Changjiang before Fan achieved his fame, although not on Southern Weekend’s, gallery, is also widely iconized. 8 His credo for Da Gong Bao, “not to be partisan, not to be bought, not to pursue selfinterests, not to be led blindly” (bu dang, bu mai, bu si, bu mang), is often recited by journalism educators and journalists but attacked by propaganda officials (Fang and Zhang, 1994). The ideas imputed to these icons—journalistic autonomy and editorial independence— bear partial similarities to journalistic professionalism. But such a posture is articulated as part of grander missions of intellectuals—to enlighten the public, to be the conscience of society, and to strive for national wealth and power (Schwartz, 1964; Zhao, 1997). This role of journalists as members of the intelligentsia descends more directly from the Confucian tradition than from the Western model of professionalism (Lee, 2000). The unofficial discourse also accredits today’s “famous journalists.” They are praised in journalists’ writings that are flourishing in the peripheries of the official ideological control, especially in books, magazine articles, and various media websites. They also circulate in the “oral culture” of the journalistic community. A recent unofficial anthology of China’s media reforms in the 1990s depicts a host of famous reporters in the emerging media market (Liu, 2000). These include, among others, Sun Yusheng, a Chinese Central Television (CCTV) producer who is credited for having created the most influential public affairs programs; Wang Changtian, the founder of a private TV production company that supplies Entertainment News to more than 200 cable TV

Localizing professionalism

217

stations; and Hu Shuli, a well-known columnist with the nationally circulated Zhonghua Gongshang Shibao (China Industry and Commerce Times). We interviewed Wang and Hu. They both carry clear signs of being typical “hot shots” in the profession. Their work has extended to the market, and has not been confined to creating journalistic products. Many of their activities involve management and negotiating deals. Thus, when asked to name his exemplars of professional achievement, Wang Changtian reached to the business side, telling us that he had read all the biographies of the global media moguls available in Chinese. He talked about how these moguls were inspiring him to take his particular path in creating and expanding his programming company—focusing on producing entertainment and sports programs that were in the periphery of ideological control. Hu, at the time of our interview, was the managing editor of a financial magazine that she had helped to create. She talked about her experiences in “using other people’s money” to publish her magazine, insisting that those who understand the market, especially the bureaucratically controlled but erratic financial market in China, can manage the media. Clearly; China’s journalists envision their profession and interpret what they do in their work by drawing from diverse discursive resources. All four discourses displayed in Table 11.1 contribute to how journalists imagine their professional fame, illustrated by how they interpret and relate to professional icons. Journalists’ uses of the terms “profession” or “professionals” are pragmatic and contextualized. They talk about technical excellence that is comparable to that of their Western counterparts and about how media should be managed to thrive in the market. Blended with these ideas is that of intellectuals’ commitment to social missions, as well as that of better covering the Party’s political and policy agenda. Such blending of diverse discursive elements is possible in a large part due to the emergence of a less rigidly patrolled social space supported by the market, where within limits, unofficial discourses thrive. Such blending is also necessitated by journalists’ needs to tame the tensions between Party authority control, market pressure, and the public’s pressure for the media to express their grievances. Cooptation and discipline The availability of diverse discursive resources enables ideological contestations in the imagining of journalistic fame. With the expansion of the market, the unofficial discourses are strengthening their contesting power. However, the state sets the broad framework and the corresponding institutional arrangement for imagining journalistic excellence. Controlling this discursive process, therefore, is also a route for the regime to keep journalists in line through cooptation and discipline—assimilating journalists into the Party-press system and instilling in them the self-identity of Party propagandists. Such strategies are clearly shown in the official talks on “nurturing our own famous journalists.” The adjective “our” carries multiple meanings. First, it refers to the Party and sets the Party-press system as the basis of legitimacy for any discourse on journalism. The notion of journalists as Party propagandists was laid down in the years of the armed struggle of the Communist revolution (Mao, 1980; Liu, 1980) and reiterated by Party chiefs during the reforms (Hu, 1985; Jiang, 1996). In Maoist discourse, journalists must

Chinese media, global contexts

218

report “facts” prescribed by the Party’s policies, and the Party’s press was “a donkey that Party rode” (Tong, 1994:167–177). Despite the reforms, many journalists today still echo the requirement by the Party chief, Jiang Zemin that their work should “bring fortune not trouble to the Party” (e.g. Sun, 1994). With the Confucian intellectual tradition as a backdrop (Lee, 2000), some genuinely believe that serving the Party in implementing the reforms is the way to fulfill their historical missions of bringing national revival. Second, “our” appeals to the nationalistic sentiment in quest of national strength (Schwartz, 1964). Such sentiment is deeply rooted in modern Chinese history marked by China’s humiliating defeats, and supplies momentum to continued radicalization of Chinese intellectuals in the twentieth century (Yu, 1993). China’s press was developed in tandem with this history, resulting in a stronger tradition of the press providing political commentaries and presenting intellectual debates (Ning, 1990). The Communist regime coopted this tradition by dressing its authoritarian control of the press in a discourse of national revival and used such a discourse in building the Communist press corps (Li, 1994; Tong, 1994). As the reform-prompted ferment on journalism brewed in the late 1970s (Polumbaum, 1990b), the regime also tamed it with an appeal to such a nationalistic sentiment and revived the talks on “nurturing our own” famous journalists. In 1991, the long-time propaganda chief, Hu Qiaomu (1999), talked to Xinhua officials on this issue by arguing that Xinhua should not lose the competition to foreign journalists in reporting domestic news. Before that, the late director of Xinhua (Guo, 1997) had talked to his staff about having more famous journalists as a necessity for Xinhua to become a true “global news agency” (Guo, 1997, 395). Third, “our” appeals to the sense of community among China’s journalists bound under the banner of Party journalism. The official awards and Reporter’s Day are among the means for this purpose. In 1993, the former Director of Xinhua and Director of the ACJA, Wu Lengxi (1993) said at the ceremony of the Fan Changjiang Award, that establishing such an award is to “unite” all 550,000 journalists as “a strong journalistic troop.” 9 Cooptation also involves institutional arrangement. For that, the ACJA plays a vital role. Its charter defines it as journalists’ “own” organization that serves as “a bridge and nexus” between the Party and journalists (ACJA, 1996). The official chronology also places Fan Changjiang as the first head of the ACJA. Since then the head of the People’s Daily or Xinhua News Agency has always headed the ACJA, making it an official arm of the regime. Among its functions, each year, the ACJA convenes a panel of officially approved experts to evaluate the works of the individuals nominated for national awards based on a set of official criteria. “Political correctness” is always the top criterion. In addition, the regime treats journalism as a revolving door between the profession and the Party-state bureaucracies, making the climb to the top of the political hierarchy a certificate of professional excellence. Fan Changjiang typifies this path so does Deng Tuo. 10 Before being purged during the Cultural Revolution, Deng served as the Chief Editor of the People’s Daily, the head of the ACJA, and a top Party official for the Beijing municipality. In the 1990s, the Chief Editor of the Guangming Daily, a nationally circulated official newspaper targeted at intellectuals, after a short stint, was promoted to be the deputy director of the Party’s propaganda department and the director of the State

Localizing professionalism

219

Administration of Radio, Television, and Film (SARTF). In Guangdong province, a junior official in the municipal propaganda department was appointed the Director of Guangzhou Daily. After turning that paper into the nation’s biggest advertising earner, he was promoted to be a senior official of Guangzhou’s municipal Party Committee. In Shanghai, a Deputy Secretary of the municipal Party Committee started his career as a journalist. Relying on his journalistic background, he maintains a tight control over Shanghai media and is referred to by the city’s journalists simply as “the Boss” (laoban). These means of cooptation are devices of power in that the regime uses them to certify the “right” path to professional excellence. With these means, the regime also makes itself the final arbiter of journalistic achievements, thus marginalizing the knowledgebased authority of the journalism profession, an institutional pillar of journalistic professionalism (Freidson, 2001:105–123). Such an institutional setup also instills the official version of self-identity so that journalists are turned into willing (although not necessarily voluntary) participants in the exercise of state power. In other words, the power of control is “secured through the constitution of subjectivity” (Fournier, 1999:293). Recognizing the regime’s coercive power and the institutional control, journalists see the need to develop self-discipline and the “right” vocabulary to talk about their work. To them, a critical measure of “professional maturity” is having developed an “intuitive” sense of the ideological boundaries (du) of journalistic work. Job autonomy, a state at work championed in professionalism, is achieved by being able to act “naturally” in accordance with the centrally enforced principles of seeing and speaking things. A veteran editor from the popular Beijing Youth Daily said in an interview with us that he had “earned” enough job autonomy because years of experience had fine-tuned his “professional intuition.” His superiors now had confidence in him judging reliably what topics he should not touch and what expressions were off limits. Such constitution of journalists’ professional subjectivity, in terms of how the dominant ideology operates, is remarkably similar to that observed in the United States (Breed, 1955; Gitlin, 1980). Different from their U.S. counterparts, however, China’s journalists often recognize the trap that, theoretically, ought to be transparent, i.e., being takenfor-granted common sense (Gitlin, 1980). As a result, their willingness to abide by the official ideological parameters is often a tactical choice or rhetorical cover. At China Central Television (CCTV), a recipient of the 1995 Fan Changjiang Award talked to us about many stories of poverty and official corruption that he could not include in his award-winning documentary series on the Three Gorge Dam project. But, he said with self-mocking, “I am a Party propagandist” (dang de xuanchuan ganbu). He referred to winning the prestigious Fan Changjiang Award as him being “coopted” (zhao-an). This is not atypical at CCTV In a behind-the-scenes account of CCTV’s flagship public affairs program, Focused Interviews (Deng et al., n.d.), the authors reveal that every reporter in the unit has had the experience of their story ideas being “spiked” by the official censors. However, quoting the former Director of CCTV, the authors claim, “journalists mature” in this process of rejection. One important area of disciplinary control is the articulation of ethical standards of journalistic work. This is an area where different discursive currents converge.

Chinese media, global contexts

220

Corruption in journalism is seen as seriously eroding journalists’ role as educators or as Party propagandists. It is also seen as violating the public’s trust in media institutions. Therefore, unethical practices receive uniform condemnation at least in public statements (Wu, 1995). The Party-state authority seized the issue of articulating and enforcing journalistic ethical codes and turned it into part of its efforts to formalize regulations over media in the aftermath of the student uprising in 1989 (Polumbaum, 1994). The State Press and Publication Administration (SPPA) instituted a system of registering and licensing journalists in the name of “purifying the journalist troops.” Each year, the Party’s propaganda department commands the ACJA, in conjunction with the SPPA and the SARTF, to convene a teleconference with the heads of the official media organizations to reiterate journalistic ethical codes. Articulating professional ethics thus is largely achieved through state actions and is an occasion for the regime to transform its political authority into a moral authority over the journalistic community. Resistance, escape and rejection A side effect of articulating professional ethics, however, is that the notion of “selfregulation” (zi lü) begins to gain some prevalence among journalists, although the term is mostly interpreted as journalists conducting themselves in accordance with the official ACJA ethical codes. No matter how limited, journalists begin to recognize their collective subjectivity not prescribed in state actions. Here lies the potential of ideological resistance, enabled by the availability of diverse discursive resources. Within the confines of the regime’s political control, the discursive field in China is crowded with talks in various forms on almost all aspects of journalism from different traditions, including the history and representative works of muck-raking journalism in the United States, Pulitzer Prize-winning works, biographies of global media tycoons, stories of famous liberal intellectuals from recent Chinese history, and stories of famous journalists and media celebrities in contemporary China. 11 The talk of professionalism arose in this kaleidoscopic field. In 1999, an academic paper published in an influential professional journal formally puts “professionalism” into China’s journalistic lexicon (Guo, 1999). The author makes pains to connect “the western notion of professionalism” to the Party’s call for media surveillance against corruption (yulun jiandu). Before this paper, certain ideas related to professionalism had existed in journalistic discourse. But as we show in Table 11.2, the vocabulary of “profession” or “professional” is limited almost exclusively to individual attributes, including one’s dedication to journal istic work, good training, excellence in the necessary skills and techniques, and integrity. The linguistic root of these phrases, zhuanye, denotes exclusively “area of specialty.” As a result, zhuanyehua in China’s journalistic discourse refers to becoming a specialist or gaining more in-depth training in one particular area. It is much narrower than “professionalization” as it is generally understood in the mainstream U.S. journalistic discourse. Against this backdrop, Guo’s 1999 paper represents a significant moment in China’s journalistic discourse in that it explicitly refers to zhuanyezhuyi, or “professionalism,” as a model of journalistic practices. In addition, in a language sanitized with the jargon of the Party-press discourse,

Localizing professionalism

221

Table 11.2 Chinese terms related to “professionalism”

Chinese terms

English counterparts

Uses in journalistic discourse

zhuanye

major, area of specialty

specialist versus generalist

zhuanye jingshen professional spirit dedication to one’s work and pursuit of the highest standards of performance zhuanye taidu

professional attitudes

similar to above

zhiye daode, or zhuanye lunli

professional ethics individual integrity upheld in one’s work, societal moral principles, and political correctness

zhuanye xunlian

professional training

acquisition of specialized and esoteric knowledge and skills

zhuanye suzhi

professional competence

competence resulting from specialized training and cumulative experiences and demonstrated in various tasks related to one’s job

zhuanye shuizhun professional standards

quality of work recognized by peers, standards accepted by the journalistic community as a whole

zhuanyehua

acquiring expertise and in-depth knowledge in one area, transformation from a “generalist” to a “specialist”

specialization

Guo’s paper links this model to institutional autonomy of the press in exposing official corruption. As a discursive moment, Guo’s paper illustrates how China’s media scholars and journalists, operating as “users” of the discursive resource of professionalism (de Certeau, 1984), construct their brand of professional ideology. The process is, of course, not orderly but contentious. Its main current is not in scattered scholarly writings but in journalistic practices that are built upon the assertions of journalists’ autonomy in making news-value judgments and their missions in speaking for the people and helping the Party to get rid of official corruption, elements of the Confucian intellectual and professionalism discourses. These practices are discursive in their own right in that they express journalists’ ideas that poach and at the same time erode the Party-press ideology, revealing what James Scott (1989) calls, “the arts of resistance.” One manifestation of such resistance is the compartmentalization of the official and journalistic news-value judgments. This includes Party organ papers launching new papers aimed at affluent city residents in order to gain advertising revenue or devoting more resources to inside pages of the heavily fortified Party organ papers to attract affluent white collar readers (Pan, 2000b). For example, at the Beijing Daily, a municipal Party organ paper in Beijing, journalists treat the first four sections as their “sacrifices” (xisheng) to meeting the “Party organ” requirements. They allocate more

Chinese media, global contexts

222

resources to the last section that is targeted at the affluent urban readers, calling it the paper’s “unique selling point” (mai dian). Another manifestation is to use exemplars from outside of the Party-press system and audience feedback to coopt propaganda into the logics of the market and professionalism. Journalists use exemplars from the West to define “professional standards.” At CCTV, a group of journalists created highly rated public affairs shows such as Dongfang Skikong (Oriental Horizon), Jiaodian Fangtan (Focused Interviews), and Xinwen Diaocha (News Probe). In both their internal discussions and interviews with us, these journalists invoked 60 Minutes as their model of quality TV public affairs programming (Xia and Wang, 1999; Bai, 2000). They also invoke Walter Cronkite and Mike Wallace as models of broadcasting journalists, referring to the ratings that they reportedly command, their onscreen performance showing their depth of knowledge and authority, as well as their access to the politically and economically powerful. This latter point is particularly appealing to China’s journalists because such access allows the performance of journalistic authority on the media. Discursive uses of such exemplars and audience feedback have a significant impact on the internal dynamic in newsrooms. A reporter often pitches a story idea to the editor in terms of audiences’ needs and preferences measured by ratings or circulations, which they dress up as the Party’s “mass line” requirements (Zhang, 2000). At CCTV, the News Probe editorial unit once even tried to tie the hands of the internal censor by presenting him with two different versions of a show at the last minute, one with very poor quality and the other much better produced yet near the margin of political acceptability. Their calculation was that the internal censor, a founding producer of the show, would recognize the significance of maintaining the show’s high ratings. Their calculation paid off. Mindful of ratings and the lack of time to produce a new version that would be both less risky politically and appealing to audiences, the censor grudgingly approved the version that the journalists wanted. Coopting the propaganda logic is done discreetly to avoid direct confrontation. For example, the CCTV journalists who produce the popular Focused Interviews and Focused Moments have devised an elaborate unwritten scheme to deal with the tension between the Party’s requirements and ratings. When the People’s Congress is in session, they focus more on positive reports, showing the success of the Party’s reform policies. They avoid sensitive stories from ethnic regions where such tensions are boiling or international stories that bear some parallel to domestic problems, such as student uprisings or military crackdowns of peaceful demonstrations. When the Party launches a political campaign, they dutifully produce shows to fulfill their political role but at the same time have their best people pursuing stories of greater news-value to be aired when better times return. Practicing such arts requires journalists to see through the arbitrariness of the Party’s ideological control. Such awareness could be a source of stress. Political controls frustrate journalists’ initiatives, dampen their devotion to their work, and erode their loyalty to their own organization. In the late 1990s, when the market expanded job mobility, many reporters found ways to either transfer to another news organization or get out of journalism altogether. A star TV anchor in Shanghai decided to exit the

Localizing professionalism

223

profession altogether. When asked why, he explained that China does not have “a suitable condition for famous reporters or anchors to grow.” A newspaper reporter in Shanghai gave up his fifteen-year career in journalism to work for a private dotcom company. Upon leaving his office, he placed a long poem on his desk, expressing his frustration at not being able to utilize his journalistic talent and hence his decision to resign in order to pursue a peaceful life. Other frustrated journalists devote more energy to a second career, using their journalistic resources to work for commercial corporations. These people can be said to be taking an escape route or making a passive form of rejection of the Party-press system as well as journalists’ identity as Party propagandists. There are others who take their social responsibilities as intellectual journalists very seriously. They choose a more constructive route to rejecting the Party-press system. They resign from their posts in official media organizations to try their hands in the market. We call this form of resistance “constructive rejection.” Some of these people have won corporate sponsors to start their own magazines, newspapers, or web sites. The editor of Xin Zhoukan (New Weekly) is an example. He has secured corporate backing to publish the magazine. In Beijing, a veteran journalist formerly affiliated with the official organ paper of the SPPA secured U.S.$6.2 million investment from a commercial corporation to start a newspaper, Jinghua Shibao (Beijing Times), aimed at affluent city residents. There are many others, such as Wang Changtian, who have established their own production companies. The beginning of venture capital pouring into media has generated so much excitement that it is now the hottest topic of discussion on professional publications and websites. Such excitement is also luring many journalists to stake their hopes in the market that may be pressed open further with China joining the WTO. 12 The most influential case of such constructive rejection involves the resignation of a famous CCTV producer and his partner in 1999. Before his resignation, this producer had won the reputation of wearing the mission of enlightening the public on his sleeve. He was the director of the highly controversial documentary series, River Eulogy, which was banned after the student uprising in 1989. After a brief period of officially imposed wandering, he started to produce News Probe, a weekly investigative reporting show on CCTV inspired by 60 Minutes. The show was approved by the Party authority as a showcase of Chinese media performing their surveillance function. Producing this show further sharpened his image as a journalist with a strong sense of social mission. Due to this reputation, his resignation sent a shock wave to many journalists as a reflection of deeper problems in CCTV and the Party-press system in general. They closely follow his moves to see whether he will be able to fulfill journalistic ideals and intellectuals’ missions in the market. The authorities clearly recognize these implications and are watching his company very closely. According to his closest aide, the authority is setting up all possible obstacles to thwart the company’s growth. Regardless of its forms, rejection indicates the conflict between reality and ideals held by journalists. Why and how journalists reject the Party-press model reveal their images of the profession, which are expressed in the exemplars of either Western or local origins that they follow or revere. The emerging market is functioning as a source of material support for their resistance; it is also a source of inspiration for them to envision

Chinese media, global contexts

224

professional excellence in alternative terms. But the conditions of their resistance are so confined and filled with contradictions, it is hard to see how they can practice professionalism as “the third logic” distinct from both the state control and the market (Freidson, 2001). Accomplishing the journalistic profession with discursive practices In this chapter, we treat journalists’ everyday practices and their talk of such practices as “social texts” embedded with images of professional excellence. These images form a system of signification on who journalists are, what they do, their social roles, the principles of their practices, and criteria used to evaluate them. Our analysis shows that the professional images constructed by China’s journalists are more complex than any abstract ideal-type prescribed in a general discourse. The relevance of professionalism as a model is in journalists’ uses of its discursive components when devising, carrying out, and interpreting their own practices. China’s journalists clearly impute into their everyday practices the ideas that news-value judgments cannot be subsumed by political judgments; that journalists report facts, uncover the truth, and record history; and that journalists adhere to a set of ethical codes of conduct in order to remain credible among the general public. All of these are among the canons of journalistic professionalism. However, the ways in which these ideas manifest in practices are strictly local. First, these ideas are mixed with those from other discourses available in reform China, including those of the Party-press, Confucian intellectuals, and the market economy. Second, these ideas manifest their relevance to journalistic work in journalists’ usage of them in micro action settings. Consequently, these ideas are revealed in, as de Certeau (1984) puts it, different “ways of operating.” As a result, professionalism as an ideology is truncated and fragmented in China’s journalism. It does not operate as an apolitical system in which media serve the whole society and the journalistic profession controls its work. The contradiction of the media as market-supported propaganda organs for the Communist regime inhibits the wholesale adoption of such a professional ideology. Under the political and economic conditions of the reforms, China’s journalists cannot and do not approach their work with fixed conceptual categories derived from a universal model. Nor are they, following de Certeau’s logic, positioned in the political and economic power center to impose or enforce any normative model for their actions. Rather, they have to make their best choices in specific situations. This involves limiting and particularizing their actions to specific circumstances, revealing the ingenious arts of the weak making use of the strong, or the arts of resistance (de Certeau, 1984; Scott, 1989). In essence, such arts involve deconstructing any ideational system that imposes universal validity claims on journalism, including the Party-press ideology, which they often circumvent and erode to accommodate conflicting demands (Pan, 2000a), as well as the ideology of professionalism, which they tap into for discursive resources to define quality work and to reconstitute the place of their practices in the Party-press system. Our analysis shows that China’s journalists have not embraced the prescriptions of professionalism automatically as market forces are being introduced into the media

Localizing professionalism

225

system. Rather, they are making their profession—expressing and realizing their visions of journalistic professionalism—with their everyday practices (Dingwall, 1976). Therefore, in our study, we approach what journalists do as discursive practices—social actions of constructing a discourse (Fairclough, 1992). China’s journalists are then viewed as social actors in the dynamics of producing and interpreting the “social texts” of China’s journalism. “Deconstructing” an ideational system is both a result of and means for China’s journalists to accomplish their profession. Such deconstruction is revealed in many ways. Journalists legitimize their exercise of professional judg merits with the media’s surveillance role, granted by the Party (Guo, 1999). They regard reporting facts and telling the truth as part of their intellectual missions of enlightening the public and realizing national strength, which in the reform era means to maintain political stability (Sun, 1994), to expose official corruptions, and to speak for the weak and vulnerable (Yuan and Liang, 2000). Professional control of journalistic work is to be achieved by mastering the art of “making the leaders happy and the public enjoy” (Sun, 1994). Objectivity means reporting facts from the vantage point of journalists being not only witnesses but also catalysts of the social changes led by the Communist Party (Editorial, 2000). While such deconstruction embeds the historicity of social practices (Dingwall, 1976), the specific forms described here indicate the complexity of the discursive field of China’s media reforms. As we showed in our analysis, China’s journalists find relevance in and make use of four different discourses. Being capable of localizing and appropriating these ideational systems is a unique challenge to China’s journalists, who must devise practices that are both feasible and legitimate in the highly uncertain political and economic conditions. To size up to the challenge, journalists must be “knowledgeable actors” (Giddens, 1984) and acquire the arts of resistance (Scott, 1989). Professionalism is one of these discursive resources that both enables and gets congealed in journalistic practices, revealing the process of mutual constitution between social structure and discourse (Fairclough, 1992:62–100; Wuthnow, 1989). Such mutual constitution involves both temporal continuity and horizontal extension. Temporally, the discursive practices of constructing journalistic excellence involve reviving historical icons and re-articulating their significance in contemporary contexts. From this dimension, we can see the deep roots of the intellectual-journalist tradition in journalists’ images of their professional self and their roles in society. While these images are not easily squared with the image of a rational and neutral role prescribed in professionalism, China’s journalists also cannot escape from the state’s actions of sponsoring and coercing upon them the historical icons of the Party-press journalism. To a large extent, the moral and nationalistic senses of intellectuals’ historical missions then become a focal point of convergence between two contentious visions of journalists, that imposed by the regime and that held by journalists, generating ambivalence toward the model of professionalism. Along the horizontal extension, journalists branch into diverse discursive sources to accomplish their profession. Feeling the pressure and opportunities from the market, they add understanding the market and being able to tame the market forces to the qualities of

Chinese media, global contexts

226

good journalists. They also borrow freely from the West, invoking professional icons of the West to find inspiration, to set criteria of technical excellence, to legitimize their initiations not prescribed by the Party-press model, and to refurbish the certain moral authority of Confucian intellectuals in the name of adhering to the “truth” and speaking for the people. Such uses of diverse discourses make journalistic practices both interpretable and constantly interpreted by the social actors implicated in news production. To researchers of China’s media reforms, such discursive usage also renders not professionalism but journalists’ practices a starting point to raise theoretical questions. Along these general praxes of discursive practices, state actions are involved; the scholarly community also plays a significant role. The Party-state sets the ideological parameters of journalistic discourse and the institutional framework for journalistic practices. Scholars help broaden the scope of journalistic discourse both temporally and horizontally. They also lend authority and legitimacy to various re-articulations of discursive units such as icons and key phrases. Both the political authorities and journalists actively court scholars and involve them in the construction of the images of professional excellence, a tendency clearly evidenced in successive waves of discursive ferments on journalism and media since the reforms. The historical trajectory of the triangular dynamic among the three groups of actors should be pursued in another paper. Here, we simply wish to emphasize that in the discursive process of imagining journalistic excellence, each plays an important role. This reflects Freidson’s (1994) point that “accomplishing” a profession involves all social actors who are implicated by the activities of the profession. Notes 1 We wish to thank Professors Chin-Chuan Lee and Michael Gurtin for their detailed comments on earlier versions. Michael Curtin directed us to Michel de Gerteau’s writings. 2 Fieldwork was conducted in Beijing (1996, 2000), Wuhan (1998), Shanghai (2000), and Guangzhou (2000) as part of a larger project on China’s media reforms. The same fieldwork procedure was used in these cities as used previously in Beijing (Pan 2000a, b). A list of open-ended questions was developed to guide the interviews. In each city, at least five media organizations, including the TV and radio stations, Party organ papers and major non-organ papers, were selected as cases. The exact number depended on the media density of the city. We conducted in-depth interviews with selected journalists in each city. Trained graduate students, who took up internship positions in media organizations for two to four months, were asked to keep diaries on their daily observations of the editorial operation; they also reviewed internal documents and interviewed journalists. The interviewing transcripts, diaries, field notes, and the archived documents constitute the primary empirical data. This project is supported by a grant to Pan from the Hong Kong University Grants Committee UGC) and a postdoctoral scholarship from the Chinese University of Hong Kong to Lu. To avoid clogging the text, we do not list

Localizing professionalism

227

the citations when materials from the field notes, diaries, or in-depth interviews are referred to in our analysis. 3 The following are the pertinent claims of professionalism as a sociological model: (1) specialized knowledge with a universal truth claim is an independent source of authority and power to which both the state and market must concede; (2) drawing from such a source of authority and power, the accredited members of a profession must be able to control their own work; (3) the legitimacy of such power and autonomy rendered to a profession must be renewed through the commitment of a profession to serve the society as a whole; (4) a profession sustains such legitimacy by providing quality work and maintaining the work ethics of service, rationality, and impartiality; and (5) the rise of professions is a natural historical product of the division of labor based on expert knowledge (see Abbott, 1988; Freidson, 2001; Larson, 1977). 4 While a developed market economy historically predicates the evolution of professionalism as a model of knowledge-based occupations, the two have different logics (Freidson, 2001). Professionalism is developed to shield the occupants of a profession from immediate and direct pressures of the market. The tension between the two can be clearly seen in the flourishing critiques of the market erosion into American journalism (Fuller, 1996; Janeway, 1999; McManus, 1994). 5 While Lee examines the models that characterize the systemic setups and prevalent modes of journalistic practices in different historical periods in modern China, our emphasis is on the discursive resources that contemporary Chinese journalists use to construct and to communicate their roles, their practices and social relationships. Our summary is extracted from our extensive reading of major writings on journalism in the 1990s, including: (a) major texts on journalistic work by journalism educators and veteran journalists; (b) articles in major trade periodicals such as Xinwen Zhanxian (Journalism Frontier), Zhongguo Jizhe (Chinese Journalists), Zhongguo Baokan Yuebao (Chinese Newspaper and Periodical Monthly), Xinwenjizhe (Journalists), Xinwen yu Chuanbo Yanjiu (Journalism and Mass Communication Research), and Guoji Xinwen (International Journalism); (c) official policy documents and speeches of Party officials in Zhongguo Xinwen Nianjian (China Journalism Yearbook), and Zhongguo Guangbodianshi Mianjian (China Broadcasting Yearbook); and (d) more recently, articles posed on various websites devoted to studies of journalism and media (e.g. http://www.mediachina.com, http://www.academic.mediachina.net, http://cjr.sina.com.cn, http://cdmedia.top263.net/, and http://www.zijin.net/). 6 For example, the person who started the first Chinese-language newspaper in Hong Kong, Wang Tao, gave up the “right path” of becoming a scholar official after having failed the civic examination (kejü). Liang Qichao, widely regarded as a key leader of the 1895–1898 reform movement in the last Chinese dynasty. 7 Chu was among the 500,000-plus intellectuals purged in 1957 for “anti-Party thoughts and expressions” and among the six who did not get their cases overturned in the political rehabilitation moves in 1979. Thus, honoring him in this way is a thinly veiled challenge to the political orthodox.

Chinese media, global contexts

228

8 Zhang does not appear in the Southern Weekend’s special. Here, we are summarizing our field observations and our readings of journalists’ writings. 9 The figure refers to all of those who have been certified by the SPPA with the official license (jizhe zheng). It includes reporters, editors, producers, TV or radio announcers and anchors, and so on. The concept of journalists signified by the official license is broader than that in the West. 10 In his well-sourced biography of Deng Tuo, Cheek (1997) illustrates how Deng’s career exemplifies the cultural heritage of intellectual officials and the tension between being an intellectual and being a Party propagandist. 11 See Note 5 for the materials that form the empirical basis of these characterizations. 12 Two influential websites devoted to journalism and media (MediaChina.net at http://academic.mediachina.net/ and China Journalism Review at http://www.cjr.com.cn/) contain many articles by media professionals and scholars on the development of China’s media industry, challenges posed by China entering the WTO. and issues related to media venture capital. These are also among the hottest topics in online discussion forums that the two sites offer. References Abbott, Andrew (1988), The System of Professions: An Essay on the Division of Expert Labor . Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ACJA (All-China Journalist Association) (1996), “The charter of the All-China Journalist Association.” http://www.acja.org.cn/jx/jx.htm (in Chinese). Bai, Yansong (2000), “Should take the third road,” in Li Dongsheng and Sun Yusheng (eds), Xinwen xianchang: xinwen beihou de xinwen, zhengzai fasheng de lishi [The First Site: News Behind News, Unfolding History]. Guangzhou: Nanfang Daily Press, pp. 319–324. Beam, Randal A. (1990), “Journalism professionalism as an organizational-level concept,” Journalism Monograph 121. Columbia, SC: Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. Bourdieu, Pierre (1990), The Logic of Practice . Cambridge: Polity Press. Breed, Warren (1955), “Social control in the newsroom: a functional analysis,” Social Forces , 33:326–355. Cheek, Timothy (1989), “Redefining propaganda: debates on the role of journalism,” Issues and Studies , 25(2): 47–74. (1997), Propaganda and Culture in Mao’s China: Deng Tuo and the Intelligentsia . Oxford: Clarendon Press, de Certeau, Michel (1984), The Practice of Everyday Life , trans. by Steven Rendall. Berkeley: University of California Press. Deng, Ke, Wang, Tongying et al. (n.d.), “Jiaodian Fangtan jizhe de kunnan” [The difficulties of the “Focused Interviews” reporters], All-China Journalists Association. http://www.media-China.com/xwnm/xwnm03.htm Dingwall, Robert (1976), “Accomplishing profession,” The Sociological Review , 24: 331–349.

Localizing professionalism

229

Editorial (2000), “Because we are journalists: on the first reporter’s day in China,” Nanfang Zhoumo [Southern Weekend], November 8. http://www.nanfangdaily.com.cn/zt/jz/ztjz.htm (in Chinese). Fairclough, Norman (1992), Discourse and Social Change . Cambridge: Polity Press. Fang, Hanqi and Zhang, Zhihua (1994), Zhongguo Xinwen Jianshi [A Brief History of Chinese Journalism], Beijing: Chinese People’s University Press. Fournier, Valeric (1999), “The appeal to ‘professionalism’ as a disciplinary mechanism,” The Sociological Review , 47: 280–307. Freidson, Eliot (1994). Professionalism Reborn: Theory, Prophecy, and Policy . Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ——(2001), Professionalism: the Third Logic . Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Giddens, Anthony (1984), The Construction of Society: Outline of the Theory of Structuration . Berkeley: University of California Press. Gitlin, Todd (1980), The Whole World is Watching . Berkeley: University of California Press. Guo, Chaoren (1997 [1984]), ‘Jianshe xinwenduiwu de guanjian” [The key to building a journalistic troop], in Houshe Lun [On the Throat and Tongue Theory], Beijing: Xinhua Press, pp. 393–409. Guo, Zhenzhi (1999), “Yulun jiandu yu xifang xinwengongzuozhe de zhuanye zhuyi” [Media surveillance and journalistic professionalism in the West], Guoji xinwenjie [International Journalism] , 5: 32–38. Hallin, Daniel C. (2000), “Commercialism and professionalism in the American news media,” in James Curran and Michael Gurevitch (eds), Mass Media and Society (3rd edition) (pp. 218–237). London: Edward Arnold. Hohenberg, John (1997), The Pulitzer Diaries: Inside America’s Greatest Prize . Syracuse, NY: Syracuse. Hu, Qiaomu (1999 [1991]), “Xinhuashe gongzuo de jige zhongyaowenti” [Some important issues in Xinhua’s work], in Hu Qiaomu lun xinwenyu chuban [Hu Qiaomu on Press and Publication]. Beijing: People’s Press, pp. 350–352. Hu, Yaobang (1985), “Lun dang de xinwen gongzuo” [On the Party’s journalism work], People’s Daily , April 14, p. 1. Janeway, Michael (1999), Republic of Denial: Press, Politics, and Public Life . New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Jiang, Zeming (1996), “Zai Jiefangjun Baoshe de jianghua” [An address at the Liberation Army Daily], Xinwen Zhanxian [Journalism Frontier], February, pp. 3–4. Johnstone, John W.C., Slawski, Edward J. and Bowman, William W. (1976), The News People: A Sociological Portrait of American Journalists and their Work . Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press. Larson, Magali Sarfatti (1977), The Rise of Professionalism: A Sociological Analysis . Berkeley: University of California Press. Lee, Chin-Chuan (1994), “Ambiguities and contradiction: issues in China’s changing political communication,” Gazette , 53:7–21. ——(2000), “In search of ‘audience’: press models in modern China,” paper presented at the international conference on Chinese Audiences across Time and Space, City

Chinese media, global contexts

230

University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, April 1–2. Leicht, Kevin T. and Fennell, Mary L. (2001), Professional Work: A Sociological Approach . London: Blackwell. Levi-Strauss, Claude (1966), The Savage Mind . Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Li, Liangrong (1994), “The historical fate of ‘objective reporting’,” in Chin-Chuan Lee (ed.), China’s Media, Media’s China . Boulder, CO: Westview, pp. 225–237. Liu, Shaoqi (1980 [1948]), “A talk to the North China Journalist Brigade,” in the Journalism Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (ed.), Zhongguo Gongchandang xinwen gongzuo wenjian huibian [A Collection of Documents on Propaganda Work of the Chinese Communist Party], Volume 3. Beijing: Xinhua Press, pp. 248–263. Liu, Yong (2000), Meijie Zhongguo [Media China]. Chengdu: Sichuan People’s Press. Lu, Yunfan (1985), Zhongguo dangdan 10 da jizhe [The 10 Leading Reporters in Contemporary China]. Hefei: Anhui People’s Press. McLeod, Jack M. and Hawley, Searle E., Jr (1964), “Professionalization among newsmen,” Journalism Quarterly , 41: 529–539. McManus, John (1994), Market-driven Journalism: Let the Citizens Beware? Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Mao, Zedong (1980 [1948]), “A talk to the editorial staff of the Jinsui Daily,” in the Journalism Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (ed.), Zhongguo Gongchengdang xinwen gongzuo wenjian huibian [A Collection of Documents on Propaganda Work of the Chinese Communist Party], Volume 3. Beijing: Xinhua Press, pp. 233–237. Ning, Shufan (1990), “Introduction,” in Xia Lingen (ed.), Jindai zhongguo mingjizhe [Famous Journalists in Modern China]. Fuzhou: Fujian People’s Press, pp. 1–18. Pan, Zhongdang (2000a), “Improvising reform activities: The changing reality of journalistic practice in China,” in Chin-Chuan Lee (ed.) Power, Money, and Media: Communication Patterns and Bureaucratic Control in Cultural China . Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, pp. 68–111. ——(2000b), “Spatial configuration in institutional change: a case of China’s journalism reforms,” Journalism , 1:253–281. Polumbaum, Judy (1990a), “China’s journalists as aspiring ‘professionals’,” in Rogers V.DesForges, Ning, Luo and Wu, Yen-bo (eds), China: the Crisis of 1989 , Volume 1. Buffalo, NY: Council on International Studies and Programs, State University of New York, pp. 183–197. ——(1990b), “The tribulations of China’s journalists after a decade of reform,” in ChinChuan Lee (ed.), Voices of China: the Interplay of Politics and Journalism . New York: Guilford, pp. 33–68. ——(1994), “Striving for predictability: the bureaucratization of media management in China,” in Chin-Chuan Lee (ed.), China’s Media, Media’s China . Boulder, CO: Westview, pp. 113–128. Schwartz, Benjamin I. (1964), In Search of Wealth and Power: Yan Fu and the West . New York: Harper. Scott, James C. (1989), Domination and the Arts of Resistance: Hidden Transcripts .

Localizing professionalism

231

New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. Sun, Yusheng (1994), “What could be thought of and could be done: reflections on ‘Oriental Time and Space’ and ‘Focused Interviewing’,” All China-Journalists Association, http://www.media-china.com/cmzy/xwpj/taofengxinwenjiang/tf07.htm (in Chinese). Tong, Bing (1994), Zhuti yu houshe [Main Body and Mouth Piece]. Zhengzhou: Henan People’s Press. Weaver, David H. (ed.) (1998), The Global Journalist: News People around the World . Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press. Weaver, David H. and Wilhoit, G. Cleveland (1996), The American Journalists in the 1990s . Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Wu, Haimin (1995), Jinyuan xinwen [Gold-basedJournalism]. Beijing: Huayi Press. Wu, Lengxi (1993), “A speech at the ceremony of the Third China Journalism Award and the First Tao Feng Journalism Award,” in Zhoongguo Xinwen nianjian 1994 [Chinese Journalism Yearbook 1994]. Beijing: Zhongguo nianjian she, pp. 361–367. Wuthnow, Robert (1989), Communities of Discourse: Ideology and Social Structure in the Reformation, the Enlightenment, and European Socialism . Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Xia, Jun and Wang, Jianping (eds) (1999), Muji lishi: Xinwen diaocha muhou de gushi [Eyewitness of History: Behind-the-scene Stories of the News Probe]. Beijing: Culture and Arts Press. Yu, Ying-shih (1993), “The radicalization of China in the 20th century,” Daedalus , 122: 125–150. Yuan, Zhengming and Liang, Jiangzeng (eds) (2000), Yong shishi shuohua [Speaking with Facts]. Shanghai: Shanghai People’s Press. Zelizer, Barbie (1993), “Journalists as interpretive communities,” Critical Studies in Mass Communication , 10:219–237. Zhang, Yong (2000), “From masses to audience: changing media ideologies and practices in reform China,” Journalism Studies , 1: 617–635. Zhao, Suisheng (1997), “Chinese intellectuals’ quest for national greatness and nationalistic writing in the 1990s,” The China Quarterly , 152: 725–745. Zhao, Yuezhi (1998), Media, Market, and Democracy in China: Between the Party Lines and the Bottom Line . Urban, IL: University of Illinois Press. ——(2000), “From commercialization to conglomeration: the transformation of the Chinese press within the orbit of the Party State,” Journal of Communication , 50: 3– 26.

12 The future of Chinese cinema Some lessons from Hong Kong and Taiwan Michael Curtin As China enters the World Trade Organization (WTO), speculation is rife among executives in the international film industry as to future prospects in the mainland market. How far and how quickly will the market open? Can Chinese filmmakers survive direct competition from Hollywood? Will Hong Kong products have the same status as Hollywood products or will they be granted wider access? One distribution executive for a major Hollywood studio believes that even though many Chinese leaders are worried about a cultural invasion from the West, other trade issues are more significant. He confidentially surmises: The market will open more quickly than most people think because culture seems like a big concession, but it’s so easy to give away. It’s not like steel or wheat or household appliances, where tens of thousands of jobs are at stake. [Chinese leaders] can buy time to improve the competitive position of other industries by giving way early on film import quotas. Yet the head of a major Hong Kong studio disagrees, pointing out that cultural imports are an especially treacherous terrain during the current period of marketization. A brash maneuver on film quotas could open the leadership to fierce criticism that could then be tied to other policy struggles within the Communist Party. Furthermore, he notes: A lot of the more thoughtful senior statesmen [who are supporters of the WTO] feel very strongly that one of the deficiencies of American culture is too much liberalization—sex, violence, the breakup of families. That’s one part of American life that they don’t want and they truly, truly believe that the American media machine is responsible for propagating this lifestyle. 1 Furthermore they worry that the PRC’s fledgling television industry and its moribund film industry would be no match for Hollywood product. And they can point to the recent experience of Hong Kong filmmakers as an example of what the future might hold. At the end of 1997 the flagging fortunes of the Hong Kong film industry took an especially sour turn, as record-breaking ticket sales for the theatrical release of Titanic dramatically eclipsed the box office receipts for all other Chinese films during the final months of the year. Watching their market share rapidly plummet, local filmmakers must have experienced a queasy sensation that their industry might slip out of sight as quickly

The future of Chinese cinema

233

as the ill-fated ocean liner that plunged to the bottom of the North Atlantic. Like the crew of the Titanic, industry personnel apparently glimpsed little to forewarn them of the dangers that lay ahead. Yet within a matter of months, all agreed that they were witnessing the worst downturn for Chinese cinema in three decades. As recently as 1994, Hong Kong producers released more than 200 films, making them the world’s third largest producer of feature films and the second largest exporter. In 1997, however, the industry output plunged to ninety releases and then sixty the following year before it began to bottom out. Golden Harvest, the largest studio in the territory announced record losses in film distribution and exhibition, and other companies reported similar reversals. Box office figures for Hong Kong showed that Chinese films declined from a 75 per cent share of annual ticket receipts during the 1980s and early 1990s to a share of roughly 50 per cent during the late 1990s. Put another way, in 1992, not a single Western film was listed in the annual ranking of the top ten grossing films in the territory. Over the past few years, however, U.S. fare has overtaken its local competitor. For the first time in decades, theatrical exhibition of Hollywood films is crowding out local product (Einhorn, 1998; Halligan, 1998; Toronto Star, 1998; Tong, 1998). Press reports are full of explanations as to why the industry is experiencing this titanic calamity. Piracy is one issue that generates widespread concern. Producer Mannfred Wong explains that in the spring of 1997, on the very day that the fourth episode of the Young and Dangerous series was premiering in a theatre on Nathan Road, he walked into a shop in the Mong Kok section of Hong Kong and picked up a pirated version on laser disc for little more than the price of a theater ticket (Wong, 1997). Wong’s experience was not unusual. One year later, Jackie Chan and other stars made impassioned pleas to Chief Executive Tung Chee-wah, who was attending the Hong Kong Film Awards, to take swift action against the rapidly escalating circulation of pirated videos (Chung, 1998). Ironically, piracy problems point to the continuing popularity of the industry’s output, yet some contend that many fans are now more willing to buy and rent video copies than to buy theater tickets. When it comes to theatrical exhibition, audiences are showing an increasing preference for lavish Hollywood productions. “Hong Kong has quality problems,” concludes one news account of the crisis. “Many movies have similar plots, with similar characters, similar stars, in similar locations. Some moviegoers have, understandably, had enough” (Toronto Star, 1998; see also Einhorn 1998, Ridding, 1998). One could of course counter that given the budget constraints of the diminutive local industry, the resourcefulness and creativity of Hong Kong directors is undisputed. 2 Nevertheless, many in the industry agree that quality problems exist and they complain that these problems cannot be addressed without bigger budgets and a transforma tion of the relations that govern the industry. Historically, creative personnel have been pinched by tight budgets and unfavorable distribution deals. They have also been subject to benign neglect by local government. Unable to afford expensive studio space or postproduction facilities, most films are shot on location. But the government only grudgingly facilitates such ventures and has done little, if anything, to help promote the overseas marketing of films, despite the fact that the territory was until recently second only to

Chinese media, global contexts

234

Hollywood in overseas film sales. Sensing the economic importance of the city’s media industries, Tung Cheewah, Hong Kong’s first Chinese Chief Executive, vowed to take steps to alleviate the plight of local filmmakers. In 1998, the Special Administrative Region (SAR) put motion pictures on its priority list of fourteen strategic industries and opened a Film Services Office. The government also released land (a precious commodity) to an industry consortium for the construction of a state-of-the-art studio and it helped to establish university programs that will train students in high-tech media effects (Ridding, 1998, Halligan, 1998). Tung wants Hong Kong filmmakers to have the tools to compete with Hollywood product in international markets. Jackie Chan does too. According to one account, Chan’s Hollywood sojourn in part revolves around his desire to learn techniques that he can bring back to his hometown because, he says, “Audiences are seeing the kind of quality that Hollywood can offer, so they aren’t watching Hong Kong movies anymore” (Einhorn, 1998). Chan, Tung, and many others are concerned not just about local audiences but about markets throughout Asia where Hong Kong films have traditionally derived much of their financing and revenue. Furthermore, they are concerned that, as the mainland China market opens further, Hong Kong media position themselves to compete with Hollywood movies. Thus, Hong Kong—the epicenter of the commercial Chinese filmmaking world— seems to be suffering from competitive pressures that result directly from transnational media flows. Not only does Hollywood appear to be usurping the traditional audiences of Hong Kong cinema but qualitative comparisons between the two seem to be degrading the perceived value of Chinese movies, making them little more than fodder for pirate video distributors. Such popular explanations of the demise of Hong Kong cinema coincide with many scholarly critiques that portray local and regional media as succumbing to the marketing power of global conglomerates. Arif Dirlik (1996:32–33) writes, for example, “The guiding vision of the contemporary transnational corporation is to homogenize the world under its guidance.” Likewise, numerous prominent scholars, such as Herbert I.Schiller (1989), Edward Said (1994), and Noam Chomsky and Edward Herman (1988) have described transnational media firms as so uniform in their operations and intentions that Schiller refers to them collectively as “Culture, Inc.” This image of corporate media culture dominating public life and pillaging local modes of expression is also employed by Edward Herman and Robert McChesney (1997) who contend that future prospects for local filmmakers are exceedingly dim. In their view, Jackie Chan, Johnnie To, and Raymond Chow might as well strike the set and call it a wrap, since the core conglomerates that control Hollywood have already made themselves impervious to competition. “In Hollywood,” Herman and McChesney (1997:148) observe, “no new studio has been successfully established in over 50 years. The market power of the established giants in these industries is formidable and essentially uncontested.” They furthermore argue that this market dominance is the product of an elaborate alliance between transnational corporations, the U.S. government, and supranational institutions, such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization. The collective aim of these organizations is to pry open national borders,

The future of Chinese cinema

235

transplant commercial institutional models, and integrate local markets into the global capitalist order. The triumph of Hollywood is in their view explicitly connected to this agenda and directly responsible for the continuing demise of national media industries. Yet the effects of this agenda extend beyond the economic domain, as these trends inevitably lead to profound changes in societies around the world by altering values, undermining progressive political forces, and eroding local cultures. “Not only will France, Japan, and Jamaica be Disneyfied,” according to Herman and McChesney (1997), but “the United States itself is undergoing more rapid Disneyfication.” Such assessments provide a breath-taking and apparently coherent analysis of the recent transformations of media systems around the world. Yet one’s familiarity with a local film industry like Hong Kong’s breeds a sense of uneasiness with such approaches. As Chin-Chuan Lee (1980:44) observed some twenty years ago, we must be cautious about exploring the question of cultural dominance “at a world-system level without concern for variances in political and social systems within and between recipient countries.” Although world-systems approaches direct our attention to important issues, they may also obscure our understanding of complex forces that may play a far greater role in the fortunes of local culture industries. As Lee (1980:53) comments, radical critics are often good at diagnosis, but bad at therapy. Why? Most simply, it is because their analyses rarely supply media practitioners and activists with the sorts of information that might nurture an ongoing war of position against Hollywood dominance. After reading Herman and McChesney one is left with the impression that the only politically viable option is to start a radical newspaper or a community radio station. Small tonic indeed for the reputed injuries inflicted by tremendously powerful media conglomerates. Interestingly, mainstream microeconomic studies follow a related line of analysis, exploring the factors that contribute to Hollywood’s global dominance, without close consideration for local market forces and conditions. Although these studies eschew the radical critique of the media imperialism school, they also focus the comparative advantages that Hollywood enjoys over local competitors due to the wealth and size of the U.S. domestic market and the transnational English-language market, which in turn enables larger production and promotion budgets (Hoskins et al., 1997; Hoskins and Mirus, 1988; Waterman, 1988; Wildman and Siwek 1988). Institutional analysis has furthermore shown how the star system, the studio system, and the global distribution system have given Hollywood key operational advantages that have been honed over time (Balio, 1985; Bordwell et al., 1985; Thompson, 1985; Neale and Smith, 1998). As for the exploration of local conditions, most research has focused on markets that are linguistically and/or culturally close to the United States. Studies of the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia have received prominent attention, as have the countries of the European Community (Pendakur, 1990; Moran, 1996). What have received less attention are locations that lie across cultural divides from Hollywood. For example, Joseph Straubhaar (1991, 1997) has noted that television programs that are traded across national boundaries within particular geo-cultural regions are often more popular than Hollywood product. Likewise, one might assume that local or regional film industries should enjoy certain advantages within their areas of cultural dominance. Why then have Chinese films fared so poorly of late? How has the interaction of global, regional, and

Chinese media, global contexts

236

local forces transformed the conditions of production and distribution? What might steps might be taken to reverse this decline? This essay offers a tightly focused analysis of the Hong Kong film industry, seeking to explore how and why Chinese films are having a difficult time competing with Hollywood cinema. 3 It furthermore shifts attention from the creative side of the business where all the big headlines are made to the dismal mechanics of film distribution where the actual money is made. As I will suggest later in the paper, good movies are still being made every year in Hong Kong and the fan base for Chinese stars has most likely grown rather than diminished. The creative side may need fewer repairs than the distribution infrastructure—a situation that has less to do with Hollywood dominance than it has to do with a failure to adapt to shifting market conditions. A second strategy of this analysis is to examine carefully the ways that industry personnel describe changes in the film business over the past fifteen years. Rather than relying primarily on market statistics or econometric models, it seems useful to explore practitioner discourse about the market and about the audiences they serve. Movie markets are, most crucially, discursive constructions. Unlike markets for rice, electricity, or automobiles—where demand is fairly stable and econometric modeling can usually anticipate shifting trends—film markets are generally volatile and very dependent on talk among industry players regarding the quality of product, the habitus of audiences, and the characterization of trends. Consequently, the information in this paper is principally derived from interviews with more than ninety film and television executives, based in Hong Kong, Taipei, and Singapore. Finally, this essay focuses its attention on Taiwan, the ninth largest national film market in the world and at one time the largest market for Hong Kong films. Ten years ago, proceeds from Taiwan provided 20–50 per cent of the financing for an average Hong Kong film, a share that was larger than that of any other single territory and often twice the amount of financing derived from the Hong Kong market itself. As Leung and Chan (1997) have shown, presales to overseas markets have always been a crucial component of the Hong Kong film industry and, as we shall see, the collapse of the Taiwan market played a key role in the recent misfortunes of Hong Kong studios. But just as importantly, changing conditions in Taiwan resonate with changes in other key markets and therefore have much to tell us about the future prospects of Chinese film as the mainland government relaxes quotas on imported movies. Moreover, Taiwan provides a good example of how global and local forces interact during a period of political and cultural liberalization, as well as dramatic technological change. As on the mainland, strict government censorship and import regulations limited cultural flows for close to forty years. Beginning in the late 1980s, liberalization rapidly undermined the nationalistic propaganda machinery of the state, engendering changes that ranged from party politics to the workplace to everyday life. Thus, the Taiwanese experience offers an instructive case study of the interaction among global, regional, arid local forces, and in turn, how they affect Chinese cinema.

The future of Chinese cinema

237

The film market in Taiwan On the east side of Taipei, directly behind City Hall, is one of the largest real estate development projects in the history of Taiwan. In an area of about six city blocks, investors and city planners are putting together a project that rivals the core business districts of the world’s major urban centers. Everywhere, gleaming steel, glass, and marble structures dominate this landscape, populated by businesses that consider themselves integral components of global capitalism. At the very center of the project, immediately behind City Hall, is the China Trust Bank, owned and controlled by Koo Cheng-fu, the most powerful private banker in Taiwan and head of the Cross Straits Foundation, Taiwan’s representative in negotiations with Beijing. Next door is the Mitsukoshi Department Store, catering to the upscale shopping tastes of eastside residents and marking the continuing close ties between Japan and many elements of Taiwanese society. These were two of the first projects completed in the development zone and if these buildings signify important transnational links to Beijing and Tokyo, then the third major link was marked by the opening of the Warner Village theater complex across the street in February 1998. This seventeen-screen, state-of-the-art multiplex boasted the international record for ticket sales during its opening week. More than a theater complex, Warner Village features thirty shops, restaurants, and related entertainment activities. It is a joint venture of Warner Bros. Theatrical and Australia-based Village Roadshow, with major support from the Taipei government and local retail and real estate interests. During its first year of operation, Warner Village sold close to 3 million theater tickets, grabbing a 25 per cent market share in Taipei, which in turn represents an estimated 13 per cent of all movie ticket sales islandwide. Over the past two years, Warner Village has opened five more complexes, making their cinemas responsible for more than half of all ticket sales in Taiwan. At the same time, Texas-based Cinemark Theaters and UA Theaters have initiated their own multiplexing campaigns in Taiwan, opening theaters in Taoyuan and Kaosiung and announcing plans for further expansion. Why Taiwan? Theater executives point to the rising prosperity of the 22 million people in Taiwan, along with the expanding amount of leisure time. In 1999, the government initiated a reduction of the standard working week from six to five days. As a result, analysts expect not only an expansion of leisure activities but also the upgrading of existing entertainment facilities. Movie theaters are widely considered a prime candidate. In the early 1990s, most Taiwanese theaters were regarded as being in a state of serious disrepair. Seats were uncomfortable, ventilation was bad, and the special effects on the screen were often the product of poor projection rather than authorial intention. Taiwan was not alone in this regard. Theaters in Japan, Hong Kong, mainland China, and much of Asia suffered similar problems. And in some ways, Taiwan simply caught the multiplexing wave a bit later than other locations. 4 Singapore and Malaysia led the way, with Hong Kong close behind. Japan and Korea are now experiencing a similar transformation with Taiwan only a step behind. In some ways, it’s surprising that it took so long for this to happen in Taiwan, since it

Chinese media, global contexts

238

is one of the most prosperous film markets in Asia and one of the ten largest film markets in the world. Warner Bros, distribution divides Asia into two operating divisions. One division is Japan, which alone represents one of the top three markets worldwide for ticket sales. The other division, Warner’s Asia division, handles the rest of the region, from India to Korea. Within this domain, Taiwan is the company’s number one territory, taking in 60 per cent of all revenues for the regional division (interview with Eric Shih, 2000). It is also a very profitable market, with Warner Bros, garnering an estimated U.S.$13 million in 1999 alone. 5 Indeed, because distribution costs are generally low and theater revenue splits generally favor the major Hollywood studios, profits from theatrical distribution in Taiwan are among the highest in the world. In 1999, Buena Vista International named Taiwan its most profitable market worldwide (interview with Tom Wang, 2000). The major U.S. studios made an estimated U.S.$40 million dollars in profits from Taiwanese theatrical exhibition in 1999 and a similar amount from television and video sales. That’s approximately U.S.$80 million dollars, a figure which doesn’t include the profits of so-called independents such as Miramax or New Line. These figures are very significant since they represent the actual profitability of Hollywood product rather than gross box office figures that do not reflect the actual costs of production and distribution. For the major Hollywood studios, a market like Taiwan is very important, since profits are high and the growth potential is considered significant. Yet unlike the synergies suggested by the proximity of Warner Village to the China Trust Bank and the Mitsukoshi Department Store, the relationship between foreign and domestic film has become horribly skewed during the past decade and some argue that Hollywood’s success has come at the expense of Chinese filmmakers. Hollywood product now takes in an estimated 93–95 per cent of all box office revenues in Taiwan. By comparison, Chinese-language films, which only nine years ago enjoyed a 50 per cent market share, have seen their share shrivel to a mere 2.5 per cent of ticket sales (interview with Frank Chen, 2000). Taiwanese commercial film production, in decline since the early 1980s, is at a virtual standstill and, within the last five years, theatrical exhibition of Hong Kong films has nose-dived as well. The situation is so bad that in 1998 Golden Harvest closed its distribution office in Taipei and turned over its operations to an independent local distributor that displays little enthusiasm for marketing Chinese films. Media Asia, another top studio, still has an office in Taipei, but all other Hong Kong films are represented by independent local distributors. In 2000, during the Chinese New Year holiday—the most important release date of the year—not a single Hong Kong film had a successful theatrical run. Tokyo Raiders and Purple Storm both failed at the box office and AD 2000 was pulled from many theaters after only three or four days. This gloomy situation not only represents a loss of theatrical revenues but also the loss of an important source of financing for Chinese film production. Historically, Taiwan was one of the most important sources of presale financing for Hong Kong films, covering 30–50 per cent of production costs. It is hard to imagine the revival of Hong Kong film or Chinese film in general without the restoration of successful distribution operations in the Taiwan market. Too often, explanations for the current malaise of the Chinese film industries are attributed to problems such as video piracy and Hollywood dominance without understanding other fundamental forces that have seriously weakened the

The future of Chinese cinema

239

Table 12.1 Taipei market share (by percentage)

1992

2000

Chinese films

50

2.5

Hollywood films

50

93

Independent films

4.5

Note. Currently, reliable statistics are available only for the Taipei market. All film distributors in Taiwan presume that Taipei represents approximately half of all ticket sales for the island.

industry. The declining popularity of Chinese Films When speaking to distributors and exhibitors, one frequently hears that Chinese films simply can’t compete with Hollywood product. Quality is low and promotion is almost non-existent. The major studios of global conglomerates will spend more on advertising and publicity for each film that they release in the Taiwan market than Chinese producers will spend on an entire project. Hollywood films are simply too lavish, too well crafted, too spectacular compared to their local counterparts. When, under heavy pressure from the United States, the Taiwanese government lifted the quota on film imports in 1997, it opened the floodgates on foreign product, quickly overwhelming all competitors in the local market—or so the story goes. This seeming victory for the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) allowed virtually unlimited access to the Taiwan market, but, surprisingly, the decline of ticket sales for Chinese films was already well underway before the quota was lifted. In 1996, Chinese films took only 10 per cent of ticket sales in a market that was experiencing a significant downturn. Between 1992 and 1996, total ticket purchases in Taipei dropped from 16 million to 13.2 million, a decline of almost 20 per cent. But Chinese films took an even more precipitous fall, from 8 million to a mere 1.3 million tickets, an 84 per cent drop in movie admissions. Some audiences turned to Hollywood films, while many others simply found different sources of entertainment. Moreover, U.S. pressure to open the market during the mid-1990s has received far more attention than the fact that local theater owners—many of whom were also distributors of Hong Kong films—were themselves ardent advocates of lifting quotas on the importation of film prints from Hollywood. Why? Because they believed that audiences had lost their confidence in the quality of Chinese films. As one distributor put it, “Audiences would see a Hong Kong film and think, oh, bad luck. They’d see another one and say, maybe bad luck again. But then, after the third time, they decided they wouldn’t waste their money on Hong Kong films anymore” (interview with Wolf Chen, 2000). Sensing this change in audience preferences during the early 1990s, distributors and exhibitors of Chinese films now wanted to shift their product mix towards Hollywood product, but they couldn’t make the

Chinese media, global contexts

240

Table 12.2 Taipei ticket purchases (in millions)

Chinese films Total sales

1992

1996

% Change

8

1.3

-84

16

13.2

-20

transition unless more prints were available. As a result, they began to advocate that the government lift quotas on Hollywood film prints. Thus, it is ironic that some of the strongest supporters of quota liberalization were traditionally purveyors of Chinese movies. It is furthermore ironic that the distributors who specialized in Chinese films also contributed to the declining quality of their product. During the early 1990s—at a time when Hong Kong films were quite popular with audiences and exhibitors—they were even more popular with distributors because Taiwan was then experiencing a boom in video rental and cable TV. These new revenue streams brought in large sums of money and consequently, distributors competed among themselves for territorial film rights, bidding up their value to unprecedented heights. Those who held the rights to Hong Kong films had a ready list of eager customers. Video rental stores then a fledgling growth industry were desperate to acquire Chinese language movies in order to satisfy demand from their rapidly growing customer base. Similarly, cable television operators were anxious to secure licenses to drama programming that might compete with the offerings of Taiwanese terrestrial broadcasters and international satellite services. Consequently, distributors had strong incentives to acquire the rights to as much Chinese product as quickly as possible, and this was usually done through presale agreements with independent film producers in Hong Kong that were negotiated before the films began shooting. In most cases, a Taiwanese distributor would purchase all territorial rights for a fixed sum of money, usually without any minimum guarantees, revenue splits, or residuals. These agreements provided quick, easy financing for Hong Kong movie producers and much needed product for Taiwanese distributors. The future looked bright for all concerned, but the high demand for Hong Kong product sparked a cycle of hyperproduction, which in turn started to have a negative impact on filmmaking practices and the final quality of the movies themselves. For example, some filmmakers began to sign multi-picture output deals that committed them to producing feature tides at a rate that was considered frantic even by the already brisk standards of the industry. 6 Other independent producers cynically tailored stories, casting, and production elements to meet the expressed wishes of overseas distributors. And some production companies, especially those with links to organized crime, found an imaginative, if brazen, way to exploit this spiral of demand to its furthest extent. They would sign a presale agreement, take the money, and produce a quickie film that barely met the terms of the agreement, or perhaps produce no film at all. Despite the chaos engendered by this era of hyperproduction, film critics and industry practitioners seem to agree that Hong Kong nevertheless continued to produce ten to twenty A-list films each

The future of Chinese cinema

241

year (many of them released by Golden Harvest), but these films became a smaller percentage of the total output, making it difficult for audiences to wade through the video fodder that was clogging cinemas across East Asia. Audiences became discouraged with the theatre-going experience for other reasons as well. In the early 1990s, most Taiwanese cinemas were regarded as being in a state of serious disrepair. As a result, adult audiences sought other forms of entertainment and chose not to take their small children to movie theaters. Only teenagers, in search of social spaces they could claim as their own, still attended the cinema in large numbers. A study made by the Motion Picture Division of Taiwan’s Government Information Office showed that, by 1994, 67 per cent of theatergoers were under the age of 18 (interview with Frank Chen, 2000). Not only was the audience getting younger, but it was also migrating towards Hollywood films. Many industry observers contend that the overwhelming superiority of special effects in these films made them increasingly attractive to what market researchers in Taiwan now characterize as the “net generation,” referring to an audience with preferences for all things digital (interview with Tina Teng, 2000). Thus, teenagers are commonly portrayed as reveling in the cinematic effects that sophisticated digital technologies can now deliver. Yet there is another important feature of this generation that also deserves attention, for they are Taiwan’s first generation to be raised in an environment of informational plenitude. During the late 1980s, after four decades of tight government censorship, martial law in Taiwan was finally lifted, sparking a virtual explosion of activity in the publishing industry. The numbers of newspapers and magazines grew dramatically, as did the promotional possibilities for film distributors. Just as importantly, the entertainment press now provides detailed reporting on media personalities from near and far. As one distributor put it: I just watched an old Chinese film on TV the other day, a melodrama. It’s 25 years old and if I remember correctly, that film did very well at the box office because in the old days, people didn’t get many chances to see a Hollywood film and the entertainment news about Hollywood didn’t come across that fast. Of course we knew that Scan Connery was a big action star and Faye Dunaway was a glamorous actress, but it’s not like now when every detail of what happens in American entertainment gets across to our audience through newspapers, TY or the Internet. [Nowadays] whatever is on the cover of People magazine in the US will soon be on the cover of our magazines and entertainment newspapers. In the old days, when people actually had a choice, they often chose films they were familiar with, even if they weren’t as good. But now, Hollywood entertainment is almost as familiar as Chinese entertainment. (interview with Patrick Mao Huang, 2000) Consequendy, the psychic distance, the foreignness of Hollywood product, has been significandy eroded for the current generation of cinema-goers in Taiwan. Hollywood studio distributors in Taiwan see Hollywood star power and U.S. box office performance as the two most important promotional devices for distinguishing their films.

Chinese media, global contexts

242

Furthermore, they assume that Taiwanese audiences will know almost as much about a film as their American counterparts by the time they step up to the box office window. A similar thing could be said about Japanese films, which have also experienced a recent vogue in Taipei cinemas. Consequendy, Chinese film narratives and Chinese performers are not necessarily more familiar to the theater-going public. In such an environment, it’s little wonder that Chinese films began to suffer at the box office when compared to their Hollywood competition. The collapse of release windows All of the factors oudined above played an important part in the decline of Chinese cinema in the Taiwan market, but arguably the most significant contributor is one of the least frequently mentioned, perhaps because it seems mundane and legalistic: the steady erosion of release windows for theatrical films. This is the widely used practice of exercising price discrimination in the culture industries by drawing boundaries between specific audiences. It dates back to the Hollywood Studio system when films were rolled out in sequential fashion, privileging urban cinemas in downtown locations who would play a new feature release first before the film moved on to theaters in city neighborhoods, outlying towns, and ultimately overseas. Theaters that played the film first charged the highest prices and thus at each stage of the release, a potential ticket buyer had to balance his or her willingness pay a premium price at downtown theaters in core markets against her ability to wait patiently for less expensive tickets at a neighborhood cinema. This encouraged some movie-goers to pay higher prices but, just as importantly, it also made sure to exploit fully the value of a given feature film by marketing it to audiences with various budgets and personal priorities. Soon after television began, Hollywood studios adapted the logic of this system to the new media environment, guaranteeing theaters the first and second run of a film before releasing it to network television and then to off-network syndication. These patterns became more elaborate as videotape, cable, and now digital video entered the picture, creating a complex international latticework of release windows (Bordwell, et al.,1985Thompson, 1985; Hoskins, et al., 1997). Price discrimination is therefore situated at the very core of Hollywood’s strategy for profit maximization due to the widely shared assumption that audiences are more likely to go to the cinema if they know they won’t be able to rent a film for six months or see it on cable for nine months. Indeed, the global anti-piracy campaign waged by the MPAA is probably less concerned with eradicating piracy than it is with protecting the integrity of the system of release windows. And the economic value of this system to studios, investors, and distributors becomes only too apparent when considering the recent fate of Chinese films. In Taiwan, Hollywood distributors commonly wait three to six months before releasing feature films for video rental and retail sales. They wait another three to six months before they sell their products to cable TV and perhaps as much as two years before they sell rights to broadcast stations. When Hong Kong films started having trouble at the box office in Taiwan during the early 1990s, local distributors started pushing the product onto the video rental market within one or two weeks of theatrical release (interviews

The future of Chinese cinema

243

with Wolf Chen and Simon Huang, 2000). At that time, Taiwan was one of the most active video markets in the world, with a very high percentage of the population owning VCRs. This seemed like a new revenue stream that could help compensate for low quality films that performed badly at the box office. As ticket sales plunged and prices for territorial rights to Hong Kong films skyrocketed, local distributors sought to recoup their investment more quickly by moving up the video release window from several months to a matter of weeks. In part they were responding to the decline in theatrical revenues and in part to the growing demand in the video market, but they also were attempting to stave off competition from pirated video versions, which usually became available shortly after the theatrical premiere. Video rental stores, with their rapidly growing customer base, also felt pressure to get authorized product on the shelf as quickly as possible and, failing that, were often tempted to stock pirated copies. Moreover, retailers tried to convince distributors that price discrimination would not work for Chinese movies because adults, who dominated the rental market, were unlikely to be lured into theaters regardless of how long they might have to wait for a Hong Kong tide to migrate to video. According to this perspective, adult rental audiences and teenage theater audiences were so different in their consumer behaviors that a short release window simply would not matter. Release Windows in Taiwan for Feature Films Hollywood Distributors • 3–6 months to video retail/rental • 6–12 months to cable TV • 12–24 months to terrestrial TV Distributors of Chinese Films • 1–4 weeks to video and cable Problems emerged on yet another front as cable television grew increasingly popular in Taiwan and the number of channels mushroomed from only three terrestrial stations in the 1980s to over 100 licensed cable channels today By 1996, cable had reached 80 per cent of all TV homes and—perhaps ironically—Chinese movies were one of the most popular forms of programming during this period of fantastic growth. Although theatrical revenues were in decline, video and cable licensing provided some distributors with enough new income that they could now buy movie theaters and in some cases establish cable channels of their own (e.g. Long Shong and Scholar). In so doing, they created an uncomfortable conflict: in their video and cable businesses they were making substantial profits by marketing Chinese films, but in their very own theaters they were now clamoring for Hollywood product and reducing their support for new Chinese films. As they watched ticket sales of Chinese movies decline, their distribution and exhibition businesses shifted resources away from Hong Kong films, but at the same time their cable TV channels remained almost entirely devoted to these products. In a cable environment like Taiwan where the average viewer has access to eighty

Chinese media, global contexts

244

channels, competition is fierce and ratings are not very high. Nevertheless, Chinese films acquit themselves quite well. Their average ratings are slightly higher than Hollywood films (with the exception of blockbusters) and they turn in a solid performance in comparison to most other cable programming. Currently, Taiwan has five channels devoted exclusively to Chinese movies (Long Shong, Star, Sun, Dongsen, and Scholar) and demand for new product remains very high. Thus the pressure to move up the cable release window is intense and sometimes films appear on television only one week after their theatrical release (interview with Patrick Mao Huang, 2000). Not only does this short window put pressure on ticket sales, but it also puts pressure on video rentals. One study, made by Taiwan’s largest independent distributor, shows that Chinese films now represent only 3 or 4 per cent of the video rental market (interview with Wolf Chen, 2000). “Why buy or rent the video when you can see it on TV for free if you wait another week?” asks ERA vice-president Wolf Chen. He, like most other distributors, believes the system of release windows for Chinese films has literally collapsed. Most viewers see no reason to spend money on a theater ticket or video rental for a film that will play on TV within a month of its premiere. Thus, the competition with Hollywood films provides a partial explanation for declining box office revenues, but a more satisfactory explanation also points to the competition between theatrical, cable, and video distribution of Chinese films. Currently, the video rights for an average Hong Kong film bring U.S.$45–50,000. Cable TV sales bring in a comparable amount or, if one is able to sell the rights to a regional satellite service such as Star TV, the film can bring in around U.S.$ 100,000 (interview with Patrick Mao Huang, 2000). Yet the average Hong Kong film now generates virtually no revenue at the box office, deriving all of its income from video and cable rights, which altogether fetch somewhere between U.S.$90–150,000. With few exceptions, theatrical release is seen as nothing more than a promotional ploy. In order to sell a Hong Kong title to a video distributor or a cable channel, the film distributor must release it theatrically to satisfy certain minimum advertising and promotion standards. It is almost a game. Distributors place the films in theaters in order to signify the premium value of a product that is then marketed through discount outlets, such as cable or video. Forget the fact that nobody is in the theater. It is still a film—something more than a TV program—that can be rented cheaply or seen for free on cable TV Nevertheless, one of the most important bits of information to glean from the information above is the fact that Chinese films still have a substantial audience in Taiwan, even if that audience is not in the theaters. The demand for Chinese products remains strong and the creative abilities of Chinese culture workers are undisputed. Indeed, two distributors told me that their in-house research shows that audience awareness of Chinese music, TV, and film stars is remarkably high. For example, whenever a star such as Andy Lau, Gigi Leung, or Nicholas Tse shows up in Taipei, they are literally mobbed by fans and autograph seekers. Yet when Andy Lau makes an appearance at a film premiere, hundreds of fans will cluster around him outside the theater, but few will actually buy a ticket and go inside. In other words, the talent and the audience still have strong affinities for each other, but the infrastructure that lies between them has broken down. One can point to the ominous competitive power of Hollywood

The future of Chinese cinema

245

studios when analyzing the collapse of Chinese film in Taiwan, but just as importantly, we should take into account the many problems with distribution and promotion that will need to be addressed if the industry is to be restored to health. The future of the Taiwan market In the 1980s and early 1990s, Hong Kong studios could recoup one-third to one-half of a film’s production cost from the Taiwan market. Ten years later they recovered an average of 10 per cent of production costs—roughly U.S.$100,000—from distribution in Taiwan, most of it coming from cable and video sales. In order to trim distribution costs and maximize these modest returns, Golden Harvest closed its Taipei office in 1999 and the Wins studio works through a local independent distributor as well. But one major studio, Media Asia retains a presence in Taiwan, and that gamble paid off handsomely in 1999 when it scored a major success with Tempting Heart, a romance featuring two popular Hong Kong singing stars (Karen Mok and Gigi Leung) and a handsome young Taiwanese actor (Takeshi Kaneshiro) who is the heartthrob of young women throughout East Asia. Ticket sales in Taiwan alone brought in more than U.S.$6 million, placing it among the highest grossing films of the year. Many industry observers credit the movie’s success to shrewd casting, but some note that the real difference may have been the marketing strategy. Most independent distributors of Chinese films limit their promotion efforts to newspaper ads and perhaps a star booking on a local variety show during the week before a film is released. Media Asia’s campaign began months before Tempting Heart was released and featured product tie-ins, poster sales, and promotional appearances by the singers. By launching a concerted marketing effort, Media Asia turned the film premier into the culmination of a series of activities aimed at making the product into a special event that would draw audiences to the theater. Within the following year, two other Chinese films also scored major successes, Legend of the Sacred Stone (a Taiwanese puppet animation film based on a popular local folk art) and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (co-produced by Columbia Pictures, but featuring an all-star Chinese cast and crew from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and mainland China). Other encouraging signs for Chinese films have emerged recently as well. After years of vigilant effort by law enforcement officials, video piracy has dropped dramatically in Taiwan. With the pressure from video pirates decreasing and demand for cable TV rights remaining steady, the time seems ripe for Chinese filmmakers to recapture their share of theatrical revenues in the Taiwan market. Interestingly, one of the biggest cheerleaders for such a revival is Warner Village, the island’s leading multiplex theater operator. According to Steve Kappen (interview, 2000), general manager, his operation would benefit from the increasing popularity of Chinese films because it would strengthen his negotiating position with Hollywood distributors who currently have such a strong position in the market that they demand inordinately lucrative revenue splits from exhibitors. Competition from Chinese films would not only help trim the cost of Hollywood product, but it would also provide a hedge against those periods when the output of the major Los Angeles studios is less attractive to audiences. Thus, Chinese filmmakers could actually benefit from the new wave of multiplex theaters, since demand

Chinese media, global contexts

246

for their films should continue to rise, that is, if they can convince audiences that purchasing tickets to their movies will most likely have a positive outcome. Such quality concerns are also changing somewhat, since many of the independent Hong Kong producers with questionable credentials who jumped into the business during the boom years have since shut down their operations as a result of the current slump. As before, the industry continues to produce a core of quality films and, with the recent decline in production, these films are once again becoming a larger percentage of the total output. Yet despite these encouraging signs on the theatrical front, the collapse of release windows means that all but a few Chinese films end up being treated as little more than direct-to-cable TV productions. How then might Hong Kong filmmakers break this vicious spiral of decline? Contrary to the current strategies of Golden Harvest and Wins, the foregoing analysis suggests that the major studios should maintain their own distribution offices in core markets, such as Taiwan. This is especially important, since local independent distributors who buy the territorial rights to Hong Kong films show little enthusiasm for promoting the theatrical releases of these products. Usually such films receive an uneventful theatrical premier followed within weeks by a release to cable and video. As argued above, this undermines price discrimination, reducing the number of potential revenue streams, and thereby making Chinese films sold to the Taiwan market little more than video fodder. Consequently, studios that sell to independent distributors are unable to recoup significant profits that might accrue from a staged release to various markets, which in turn crimps financing for future productions. Although this seems like a rather straightforward solution, some Hong Kong studio executives observe that maintaining a distribution operation in Taipei is cosdy and it is better to focus their limited resources on improving the quality of their films (interviews with C.K. Phoon and To Kei-fung, 2000). They contend that even though Chinese movies such as Tempting Heart, Legend of the Sacred Stone, and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon filled theater seats during their extended theatrical runs, each received substantial and costly promotion. Nevertheless it might be possible for studios to control distribution costs in Taiwan by dividing their output into two categories—theatrical and direct-to-cable/video. This would allow limited resources to be focused on a small number of films each year. Some films could be marked for theatrical release during the initial production phase when casting and budgeting decisions are being made, while other, smaller projects that were originally slated for cable/video release, might also be elevated to theatrical status later in the production phase if the quality seemed particularly good or the film seemed especially suited to the Taiwan market. In other words, a studio could invest in extensive promotion of a small number of Alist theatrical films each year that are tied explicitly to their brand name, so as to distinguish these movies from direct-to-cable releases. At the same time, cable and video release dates for A-list films could be pushed back, so that the theatrical premier would be restored to the status of a special event that could only be experienced at the theater. Of course, this will require changing the current pattern of contractual arrangements with cable operators and video retailers who will no doubt complain that the films are not worth as much as the products they purchase with shorter release windows, but studio

The future of Chinese cinema

247

distributors could respond that the quality of the films and the extra promotion they receive would make them worth at least as much as films with short release windows. Furthermore, studios should have considerable leverage in these negotiations, since the cable channels and video outlets now have exceptionally high demand for new Chinese films. This is not to suggest that the transition will be easy or that changes in the distribution system alone can restore the luster of Chinese films among theatergoers. Rather this analysis contends that the best way to respond to Hollywood dominance is to address the specific conditions that enabled it, which in turn leads us to consider the implications of this study for future scholarship. Studying the local dynamics of global media The media imperialism approach rests on the implicit assumption that at some point the frustrated masses will rise up and cast off their shackles and, indeed, in Taiwan they have risen up, mostly out of their theater seats, as they walked out of bad Chinese movies. To the media imperialism school this phenomenon is a consequence of the well-oiled conspiracy mounted by global media conglomerates and their collaborators. Yet as we have observed, it is just as much a consequence of mismanagement on the part of the Chinese film industry. Hollywood has filled the vacuum, but Hollywood did not create the vacuum. Over the past decade, Taiwanese theater audiences have been favoring Hollywood films largely because the quality of Chinese movies and the distribution infrastructure that supported them have failed to keep up with changing social, economic, and cultural conditions in Taiwan. As mentioned at the outset of this chapter, Chin-Chuan Lee (1980) has observed that the media imperialism school of analysis is often good at diagnosis but bad at therapy. I would modify this assessment to say that it is perhaps good at metahistorical analysis, but bad at diagnosis of the historically specific circumstances of media industries outside the West and this in turn explains why the media imperialism approach is so bad at local therapy. It usually fails to acknowledge the local conditions that motivate media audiences, preferring instead to concentrate on the expansion of global conglomerates. Likewise, scholars who study international film from the perspective of microeconomics usually fail to consider local conditions as well. For them the Taiwanese situation represents rational market behavior that is almost inevitable. Indeed, what is happening in Taiwan can be understood by applying the same models that have been used elsewhere to explain Hollywood’s successes and the failures of more localized competitors. Relying mostly on quantitative analysis, such models refuse to venture into the terrain of historical analysis. Post-martial law societies appear no different in their models than democratic societies or theocratic regimes. The Chinese entertainment world exhibits few differences from its Canadian or Spanish counterparts. Moreover, the fundamental unit of analysis employed by microeconomic modeling is the nation-state, which duly records (accurately or not) statistics on film production, consumption, and trade. Yet accurate national statistics are often hard to come by 7 and nationally-based models usually fail to account for the complex global, regional, and local forces at work in the Taiwan market. Institutional analysis often provides more satisfying explanations,

Chinese media, global contexts

248

but too little work has been done on film industries outside the West Although this body of scholarship elucidates the development of Hollywood dominance in, for example, Europe and Australia, it has so far failed to explore the complex dynamics of film industries that lie across significant cultural divides. The foregoing analysis contends that the decline of Chinese film in Taiwan during the 1990s is a consequence of hyperproduction in Hong Kong, a chaotic distribution situation in Taiwan, and an expanding array of exhibition options engendered by new technologies and changing trade relations, as well as local political circumstances. Hollywood exploited opportunities, but it did not primarily control the conditions that created those opportunities. Nor have Hollywood entertainment products erased the cultural differences that make good Chinese films attractive to audiences in Taiwan. Not only do cultural differences persist, but they persist between and within Chinese societies as well. Wellington Fung (interview, 2000), the deputy managing director of Media Asia, points out that Tempting Heart had its most successful run in Taiwan largely because the Taiwanese director, Sylvia Chang, possesses a particularly deft sense of the style and pacing of romantic novels and films that have been produced previously in Taiwan. The persistence of such cultural differences at many levels suggests that Chinese media industries can succeed by acknowledging and cultivating differences that global media conglomerates cannot erase. Although the popularity of Hollywood products should continue to grow in Asia as trade is liberalized and political barriers are relaxed, scholarly researchers need to explore the specific limitations and opportunities engendered by this new era. Previous research approaches that primarily focus on global conglomerates, national cinemas, national quotas, and international trade will fail to account for the complex pattern of flows that shape the behaviors of media industries as well as audiences. Yet historically informed cultural geographies of media flow (Curtin, 2002) might help to account for the complex circumstances that have radically transformed East Asian cinemas over the past two decades. Notes 1 Both quotes were made in background interviews and therefore are not for direct attribution. Much of the information in this chapter is derived from in-depth interviews with more than ninety media executives in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore, A list of selected interview sources is provided at the end of the chapter and direct attributions contained within the essay can be found on this list. 2 The average Hong Kong film is budgeted at roughly U.S.$1 million, while the average Hollywood film is budgeted at U.S.$40 million. 3 The author wishes to thank the Taiwan National Endowment for Culture and the Arts, the Foundation for Scholarly Exchange, and the U.S. Fulbright Commission for research support on this project. Many thanks also to the Institute of Ethnology at Academia Sinica in Taipei and the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the Chinese University of Hong Kong for collegial and institutional support. 4 Warner Village looked at Taiwan as a possible multiplexing site as early as 1988.

The future of Chinese cinema

249

And local theater owners actually began to remodel their cinemas in the early 1990s by dividing existing theaters into smaller units. Shortly thereafter, United Artists opened a multiplex in Kaosiung and were soon followed by a Cinemark multiplex in Taoyuan and the Warner Village complex in Taipei. Over the next several years, multiplexes will come to dominate the movie business in Taiwan, and Warner Village alone plans to expand to ten multiplexes by the year 2004. The rapid expansion of multiplexes is only made possible by the lifting of quotas on the number of prints allowed in the country with each Hollywood film. 5 This profit estimate (and the ones that follow) are not Eric Shih’s but are instead based on documentation confidentially provided by one informant who is a top executive in the film distribution business. 6 Most Hong Kong films are produced in six to eight weeks. The average Hollywood film takes at least one year. 7 All distributors in Taiwan agree on this point. Selected interview sources [All interviews conducted Spring 2000.] David Chan, Chief Operating Officer, Golden Harvest Film Productions James Chang, Manager, Tempo International Mass Media Frank Chen, Director, Motion Picture Affairs, Taiwan Government Information Office Sabrina Chen, Marketing Manager, CMC Movie Corporation Wolf Chen, Vice President, ERA Film Distribution and Marketing Wellington Fung, Deputy Managing Director, Media Asia Distribution Patrick Mao Huang, Deputy Managing Director, New Action Entertainment Simon Huang, Marketing Manager, UIP, Taiwan Steve Kappen, General Manager, Village Roadshow, Taiwan Jeff Ko, Marketing Manager, Spring International G.K.Phoon, Managing Director, Golden Harvest Entertainment Eric Shih, General Manager, Warner Bros. Film Distribution, Taiwan Peter K.Tam, Executive Director, Astoria Films Limited Tina Teng, Senior Research Manager, AC Nielsen, Taiwan To Kei-fung, Chief Operational Officer, China Star Entertainment Ben Tsai, Manager, Hoover Theater Peter Tsi, Director, Monster Pictures Entertainment Co. Tom Wang, Marketing Manager, Buena Vista Entertainment and Columbia Tristar, Taiwan Johnny Yang, Manager, Long Shong Film Distribution References Balio, Tino (ed.) (1985), The American Film Industry . Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.

Chinese media, global contexts

250

Bordwell, David, Janet Staiger, and Kristin Thompson (1985). The Classical Hollywood Cinema . London: Routledge. Chomsky, Noam and Edward S.Herman (1988), Manufacturing Consent . New York: Pantheon. Chung, Winnie (1998), “Thanks to the pirates for waiting: Fruit Chan,” South China Morning Post , April 27, p. 3. Curtin, Michael (2002), “Media capitals: cultural geographies of global TV,” in Jan Olsson and Lynn Spigel (eds), The Persistence of Television: from Console to Computer . Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Dirlik, Arif (1996), “The global in the local,” in Rob Wilson and Wimal Dissanayake (eds), Global/local: Cultural Production and the Transnational Imaginary . Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 32–33 Einhorn, Bruce (1988), “What hit Hong Kong’s film industry?,” Business Week (international edition), May 4, p. 34. Halligan, Fionnuala (1998), “Nightmare on film street,” South China Morning Post , January 18, p.A4. Herman, Edward S. and Robert McChesney (1997), The Global Media: the New Missionaries of Corporate Capitalism . London: Cassell. Toronto Star (1998), “Hong Kong film industry tries to kick-start renewal,” February 23, p.F5. Hoskins, Colin and R.Minis (1988), “The reason for the U.S. dominance of the international trade in television programs,” Media, Culture and Society , 10:499–515. Hoskins, Colin, Stuart McFadyen and Adam Finn (1997), Global Television and Film: an Introduction to the Economics of the Business . New York: Oxford University Press. Lee, Chin-Chuan (1980), Media Imperialism Reconsidered: the Homogenizing of Television Culture . Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. Leung, Grace and Joseph Man Chan (1997), “The Hong Kong cinema and its overseas market: a historical review, 1950–1995,” in Law Kar (ed.), Fifty Years of Electric Shadows: Hong Kong Cinema Retrospective . Hong Kong: Urban Council. Moran, Albert (ed.) (1996), Film Policy: International, National, and Regional Perspectives . London: Routledge. Neale, Steve and Murray Smith (eds) (1998), Contemporary Hollywood Cinema . London: Routledge. Pendakur, Manjunath (1990), Canadian Dreams and American Control: the Political Economy of the Canadian Film Industry . Detroit: Wayne State University Press. Ridding, John (1998), “Wrong frame of mind: Hong Kong films have lost their appeal,” Financial Times , January 24, p. 7. Schiller, Herbert I. (1989), Culture, Inc.: the Corporate Takeover of Public Expression . New York: Oxford University Press. Said, Edward W. (1994), Culture and Imperialism . New York: Alfred A.Knopf. Straubhaar, Joseph (1991), “Beyond media imperialism: asymmetrical interdependence and cultural proximity,” Critical Studies in Mass Communication , 8: 1–11. ——(1997), “Distinguishing the global, regional, and national levels of world television,” in Annabelle Sreberny-Mohammadi, Dwayne Winseck, Jim McKenna and Oliver

The future of Chinese cinema

251

Boyd-Barrett (eds), Media in Global Context: a Reader . London: Arnold, pp. 284–298. Thompson, Kristen (1985), Exporting Entertainment: America in the World Film Market, 1907–34 . London: BFI. Tong, Amy (1998), “Hong Kong’s film industry losing luster,” Mhon Keizai Shmbun , April 13, p. 20. Waterman, David (1988), “World television trade: the economic effects of privatization and new technology,” Telecommunications Policy , June: 141–151. Wildman, Stephen and S. Siwek (1988), International Trade in Films and Television Programs . Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute. Wong, Mannfred (1997), “Operations of the Hong Kong Film Industry: 1990–1997,” panel discussion at the Hong Kong International Film Festival, April 10.

13 Marketing popular culture in China Andy Lau as a pan-Chinese icon Anthony Fung “Chinese” is a popular song of political import, first appearing in 1997 to coincide with the return of Hong Kong to Chinese rule. It sings about generations of Chinese, those with yellow faces and black eyes, who share rains and winds for 5,000 years and rivers and mountains of 8,000 miles, and who have the same dreams, heart, and blood to build a common future. The singer Andy Lau—or Lau Tak-wah (“moral Chinese,” as pronounced in Cantonese)—has evolved into an icon of Chineseness. His story illustrates how the entertainment industry in Hong Kong has managed to accommodate the politically oriented popular culture in China and, more generally, how the state colludes with the market in China. In the capitalist city of Hong Kong, culture agencies are intent on commodifying Andy Lau as a local and mass-appealing icon. Exporting Hong Kong popular culture into China requires a political spin, as all videos and music records have to pass the formal scrutiny of various bureaus under the State Council and authorized provincial distributors. This often means that a star and his production company have to package the product and persona in ways that are compatible with state ideology. This chapter analyzes the transformation of Lau from a local celebrity to a regional icon and eventually a pan-Chinese icon, a process that not only recreates him as a culturalcommercial symbol of translocality, but also establishes the prototype of a cultural product authoritatively certified by the state. 1 The political economy of pop culture Popular culture weaves events, imaginations, and inflections into a package simultaneously; music, for example, incorporates melody, rhythm, harmony, lyrics, and timbre. Each of these elements has a syntactical grammar of the art form, and is furthermore embedded in a semiotic meaning able to create a sense of community as well as to crystallize imaginary identities and sentimental adventures (McClary and Walser, 1990). Using Andy Lau as a case study, I shall highlight how these different components of pop music produce different meanings in different political, economic, and cultural contexts. Since popular culture is often thought to be merely entertaining, audiences do not feel they produce any meanings for themselves through engaging in various artistic, critical, and political contemplations in relation to the state and civic society (Modleski, 1986: ix). However, popular culture probably reveals ideological discourses about contemporary conditions more potently than other media forms. It tests political limits

Marketing popular culture in China

253

when it produces and reproduces the social relations of everyday life outside the formal political system. It is a strong commercial entity with cultural power and political significance (Storey, 1996). Tzeng (2000) interprets music in Taiwan as a social form that reflects, through lyrics, performance, and music style, the social movements and political changes during different historical blocs. Chu (1998) examines the range of music lyrics from the 1970s to the 1990s as revealing collective memories in the grassroots vis-à-vis the formal and official story told by the government about this changing city. These studies have conceived of popular culture as an outcome of collective imaginaries in the capitaliststate systems. They have not paid attention to the role of the state in contributing to the need, existence, and constraints of various capitalist activities, including those of producing these popular imaginaries (Giddens, 1979). There is a need to analyze how popular culture has positioned, constructed, and marketed itself vis-à-vis the cultural tolerance, how the economic base and interests finance the popular culture, and how its cultural representation relates to the shifting political economy of the state. The entry, popularity, and indigenization of popular culture has been considered under the umbrella of cultural imperialism-autonomy studies (e.g. Sinclair et al., 1996) and under the globalization-localization thesis (e.g. Wilson and Dissanayake, 1996). There is a need for developing a political-economy framework for analyzing popular culture in the form of border-crossing icons and geopolitical imaginaries. In Hong Kong, business interests take precedence over political concern in public discourses. Taking a laissez-faire economic policy, Hong Kong exhibits what Gastells (1998:246, 277) describes as the “formation of a state via multinational corporations.” The British colonial administration had instituted in this global city a recreational and cultural space, which was devoid of political involvement, through such economic means as providing direct funds, sponsorship, and performance opportunities (Fu, 1996; Cheng 1996). The government is the chief underwriter of the “high culture” activities, while the primarily market-based popular culture industry shuns political controversy. Even politics is commodified for profitable popular consumption. For example, comic books such as Old, Dumb Tung and Boom Head, satires about the Chief Executive and his Secretary for Security, have achieved high sales volumes. Under this milieu, local officials accuse their democratic critics of being “too political.” Culture industries operate in the environment of depoliticized capitalism. Marketing popular culture into China is a different story. Regardless of the product’s popularity, profit level, or international convention, all investors must find a stateauthorized audiovisual publisher to help submit a copy of their products to various departments of the State Council for approval. The tapes have to be edited in conformity with the state requirements—they must not be viewed as spiritually polluting or seeking to convert China—if the investors are to secure an import license. However, the seemingly benign products may acquire political significance. Gold (1995) found that popular culture from Hong Kong and Taiwan carves out a public sphere to negotiate with political domination. As the state tightly guards its door, many investors are often willing to concede to the state’s censorship standards in order to open up the door. (However, Teresa Teng from Taiwan and Alan Tarn from Hong Kong became popular icons in

Chinese media, global contexts

254

China in the 1970s and 1980s respectively, not through formal channels of import and distribution, but through pirated tapes and CDs.) To meet the censorship requirements and to bear high risk, foreign capitalists have to be sufficiendy flexible. Garnier (1987) notes that Multinational corporations are giving increasing autonomy and flexibility to local companies to make entertainment products that are tailored to the local tastes and conditions. Thus, culture capitalists can foreground Hong Kong as a subnational center to pave the way for the entry of the globally-financed yet locally-made imaginaries into China. Just as it takes time for a pupa to metamorphose into a fullfledged butterfly, Andy’s changing icon may not bring a quick revenue. Instead of seeking immediate profits, multinational companies reposition themselves through organizational restructuring and decentralization to dilute their international corporate images and emphasize their links to the local market, with a view to sustaining long-term, delayed profits (Porter, 1998:88–92). In this light, the case of Andy Lau proves intriguing. As the local production companies, New Melody and Teamwork, collaborated with global companies such as Music Impact Entertainment and BMG (Hong Kong), to promote Andy as a Hong Kong icon to the China market, we can see how these joint business ventures devised their marketing strategies to accommodate political implications. Selling Andy Lau Andy started out as an actor in Hong Kong’s television dramas. At the end of the 1980s, he won an award for a role in the movie Boat People, depicting Communist refugees from Vietnam who swarmed into Hong Kong under the most trying circumstances. Since then he has been pursuing a motion picture career, finishing his 100th movie in 2001. His early image was a mundane local hero crystallized around the modern imaginaries of a motorcycle rider dashing along the curving highways of Hong Kong. With his name Wah (sometimes Ah Wah or Wah Dee) repeatedly used in these films, Andy Lau was personified as an icon of local heroism. Acting as a triad member in As Tears Go By (1988), he is depicted as noble, upright, and self-sacrificing for the brotherhood. Throughout the film, he attempts to quit the gang, but cannot, and is eventually killed for trying to protect his “little brother” from being beaten by other triad members. In A Moment of Romance (1990), which juxtaposes triad heroism with romanticism, he tells a quixotic tale of falling in love with a rich lady who is his hostage. In this movie, Wah Dee finally sacrifices his future with the lady and even his own life when he chooses to substitute for his “little brother” in a dangerous mission to slaughter the villains who have threatened the triad to which he belonged. His secular and violent eye-for-eye killings are transformed into “sacred wars,” fights that are framed as just, fair, and courageous acts in the film. During this period, Lau’s image was double-edged: a positive, righteous, selfconfident, and heroic image blended with the mysterious, unruly, defiant, and wicked of triad society. It was precisely this fateful helplessness against an oppressive society that resonated with Hong Kong youth during the period of political transition. On the other hand, repeated attempts by Wah to quit the triad circle in these movies also reflected the

Marketing popular culture in China

255

indeterminacy of his position as a local actor who, rather than being a marginalized rebel against the establishment, always wishes to be part of the social system. This image of accepting the established order paved the way for his image transformation. Hero outside society In 1985, after his initial success as an actor, he started his career as a local singer in Hong Kong. His career as a singer was firmly established in 1990 when Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) chose three of his songs as among the top-ten songs of the year and, furthermore, the leading local television station TVB (Television Broadcast Limited) named him the best male singer in Hong Kong. The melodies of his songs were mostly composed by local writers, at a time when most Cantonese pop songs were indigenized adaptations of Western or Japanese melodies with added Chinese lyrics. Local born youngsters began to identify Andy Lau with his songs and movies. 2 In the mid-1990s, Andy’s popularity as a local hero reached a climax with his performance of “Deep Love Phrases,” which was the theme song of his movie Full Throttle, featuring a romantic love story of a motorist always clad in helmet and riding gear. Popular culture and its music were exclusively local-oriented in the early 1990s. This period was full of social youth problems ranging from delinquency, drug trafficking, school drop outs, and triad involvement, to political indifference and value crisis. Sze (2000) argues that all these “dangerous” and yet “heroic” elements, in reality and in cultural representations, reflected Hong Kong youth’s ways of managing their own problems and lives around the self-local and indigenous identity, while “forgetting” about the larger issues of the uncertain sovereignty transition, over which they had little control. The popular image of their hero was deeply cynical, dissatisfying, apolitical, and living outside the formal social and political boundaries. While the formal media had to cope with high politics and official discourses, popular culture was oriented toward apolitical localism. Ironically, mainland Chinese were attracted to Andy’s “foreign” and “Western” images. In 1995, Andy Lau’s movie Full Throttle grossed HK$30 million, ending his hyperlocal orientation. The movie, styled after various full-throttle motorcycle races, ended with Wah forsaking his motorcycle to reunite with his lover and lead a normal life. The same motorist image associated with the “Deep Love Phrases” melody was intertextualry inserted into many local television dramas. In the movie Needing You (2000), featuring Sammi Cheng and Andy Lau, the motorist was no longer involved with triad activities, but had become a legendary iconic person who wandered along Hong Kong highways to help lovers and couples on their journey. While local heroism was preserved as a piece of popular narrative, the record and entertainment industries proceeded on to the next stage. Beyond the local In the late 1990s mainland Chinese residents began to avidly consume Hong Kong productions, sometimes in defiance of official restrictions. They bought pirated CDs and VCDs of Hong Kong artists, and consumed the Hong Kong pop culture through their

Chinese media, global contexts

256

cable television channel (which illegally intercepted across-the-border signals for local broadcast in South China). To them, Hong Kong localism conveyed something “Western” and “foreign,” but it was precisely these fresh and unfamiliar popular imaginaries that gave them a taste of modernity (Fung and Ma, 2002). However, as sovereignty transfer in 1997 would mean the integration of Hong Kong into China, Hong Kong imageries might risk losing their “foreign” attraction to mainland residents. Having explored the business norms in China in the 1980s, international corporations became more active and opportunistic in the 1990s (Chow and Kelley, 1999:231). They had to devise new strategies to market Hong Kong pop culture before it was no longer “foreign.” They could expand the sales to other Asian countries to avoid overreliance on the China market (Luo, 1999:242–243; Ghoshal, 1998:345). Or they could focus on cultivating a working partnership with the Chinese authorities and cashing in on Hong Kong’s ethnic ties to market their products into China. The local thus became the national. Lau’s image was being transformed, sometimes appearing unstable and ambiguous in the making of his national orientation. To establish a larger-than-local (perhaps a panAsian) image, many of Andy’s songs were reproduced in multiple languages other than Cantonese and Mandarin (e.g. other Chinese dialects, English, Japanese, and Korean) and marketed experimentally throughout Asia. To increase his Asian exposure, in 1990 and 1991, he represented Hong Kong at the “Asian Music Scene” organized by the Mainichi Broadcasting System of Osaka, Japan. Since 1989, he has been actively performing concerts in the United States, Canada, Singapore, Malaysia, Korea, and Taiwan. His ascendancy from a local singer to an Asian star was marked by winning the Best Asian Singer Award, awarded by STAR Channel V. In 1994, Andy Lau became the first Asian superstar to endorse Pepsi Cola. He represented Hong Kong as the first Asian star to join the league of Western singing icons such as Michael Jackson to perform in Japan. But to target a national market, Andy Lau has to shed his triad hero image. In Tian Di (Heaven and Earth), shown in 1994, Lau is a commissioner who declares war on drugs in Shanghai, a national hero who puts his and his wife’s lives at risk to dig out the truth. In The Adventurer (1995), Andy is no longer a Hong Kong resident nicknamed Wah, but a Chinese-American FBI undercover agent gathering evidence to revenge the killing of his parents in Vietnam. These establishmentarian images connected him to the virtuous sphere of governance. Furthermore, in his search for a new cultural position in the national market, Lau came to personify a hero upholding national sovereignty. In A Moment of Romance III (1996), he plays a mainland Chinese reared in a prosperous family who risks his life as a pilot during World War II, combatting Japanese fighters. In Island of Greed (1997), he portrays the head of an understaffed police force who fearlessly exposes the illegal activities of politicians and triads in Taiwan; he thus becomes a hero who never gives up trying to improve the system. Far from being an isolated case, the Andy Lau phenomenon should be seen as part of the larger transformation in Hong Kong’s pop culture landscape, which went from portraying Chinese officials as corrupt in TVB’s 1994 popular soap opera, True Love, to depicting them as virtuous and corruption-free in the run up to 1997. The corporate strategy during this transitional period focused on producing an

Marketing popular culture in China

257

imaginary beyond the local, either by refraining the local as exemplary national politicalness or by internationalizing the local and regionalizing its Asian-ness to sustain and valorize Hong Kong’s cultural position. This strategy contained certain drawbacks. All these tactics of projecting Andy Lau’s commercial idolatry in a semi-political context were attempts to fit into the commercial milieu of Hong Kong, to appeal to the regional Asian market, and to appease Chinese ideology. Although they seemed commercially popular, subscribing to an ideological version of popular culture might be perceived as only a gimmick and might provoke unnecessary opposition in the long run. Island of Greed, a story about Taiwan’s official involvement with the triads, shocked both triads and officials when it was filmed in Taiwan. Effusive attempts to wrap Andy Lau around the national image could antagonize the local audience in Hong Kong. The selling of Asian-ness was elusive. Being directionless in its target and controversial in nature and in form, the strategy of nationalizing the local hero to accommodate the political transition might not be sustainable. For someone from Hong Kong to represent a Chinese national hero could only be viewed with suspicion by the eyes of regional and international viewers. Rejuvenating the local Hong Kong’s transfer of sovereignty cleared up the political mist, not only for the public but also for Andy Lau’s production team. Two distinct sets of approaches were developed under the “One Country, Two Systems” policy, making a conscious decision to separate what was national from what was local. The local approach remained apolitical and commercial, whereas the national approach aimed to break through the political boundaries. Market segmentation called for different promotional structures, imaginaries, and advertisements. Since 1996, Andy has been seen in PRC commercials for shampoo, motorcycles, drinks (San Miguel beer), and electronic products (Samsung). From 1998 to 2000, he also featured in commercials for Ericsson mobile phones, broadcast throughout Asia, as well as those for green tea and clothing (such as Bossini) for the Hong Kong and Taiwan markets. His fan club, Andy World Club, with its permanent offices located in Taiwan and Hong Kong, has recruited more than 4,000 members worldwide. The official website, andylau.com, is a subsidiary of Andy Lau’s Teamwork Production House; besides its bilingual version (English with traditional Chinese characters), it also developed a simplified Chinese character version for fans in China, Singapore, and Malaysia. The local approach tried to distance Andy Lau from the thick, complex, and hybridized Hong Kong character he depicted in the late 1990s. He returned to expressly local love stories such as Needing You (1999). These local films fed various local imaginations, instead of highlighting clashes between good and evil or representing Chinese cadres and local police anachronistically. In Needing you, Andy, renamed Wah Dee, was a stereotypical young bourgeois executive occupied with sex, love, and career. It grossed a box office of HK$30 million, a record in the sluggish economy. The rebirth of a local hero in successful Hong Kong capitalism matched squarely with the tastes of the local audience. Besides the local market, capitalists also aimed to penetrate the Chinese market with a

Chinese media, global contexts

258

translocal strategy capable of universalizing local stardom. The creation of a new Andy Lau as a Chinese free of citizenship and local identity may be unique in this regard. His Tang dress with long white or gray robes represented Chinese cultural identity and suppressed the highly capitalist bourgeois ideology embedded within him. Frequently appearing on STAR’s Phoenix channel as a Chinese star speaking fluent mandarin, he was so bold as to produce albums of pure mandarin songs (e.g. Sky Opened in 2001, Male Love in 2000). He even inserted a few mandarin songs (e.g. Summer Fiesta in 2001, Just for You EP in 2000, Love Is Ignorant in 1999, Human Love in 1998) into his Cantonese pop albums. The shifting contour of Andy Lau’s translocal image not only maintained a distance between the Hong Kong culture and national Chinese values, but also preserved an optimal connectedness to Hong Kong. The younger generation seemed receptive to having ethnic ties to China, even while feeling suspicious of Beijing’s political governance. A member of the Andy Lau fan club said, Someone said he is too hypocritical and obsequious, but I don’t think so. Indeed, a Chinese should be proud of being a Chinese. He acts what he should be doing. I don’t understand why some people say that he is flattering [the PRC]. He didn’t say “Jiang Zemin governs China well!” He only wears a long robe. For a Chinese wearing a long robe, it is no big deal. (interview, February 15, 2001) New Chinese: patriotism without trauma With his continual success in the local Hong Kong market, how did Andy Lau transform himself into an icon of the Chinese in ways that were commercially viable and politically acceptable to national ideology? Andy Lau was apt to claim his being an exemplary Chinese by singing his classic song Chinese, thus shifting the loci of attention from a political level to a cultural level, and such translocality was made possible by highlighting Andy’s cultural roots and ties to ethnic China. The CD Chinese, sculpted in an irregular shape featuring the territory of China—including Taiwan and Tibet—was marketed in Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Singapore in 1997. It was a cultural production that epitomized political messages of which the authorities took cognizance. Its shape denoted the national boundary and sovereignty. The lyrics defined what it was to be Chinese, and united the country by ethnicity and history while presenting the “Chinese” to the world. Practically, the lyrics represented Hong Kong Chinese as if they were devoid of local agony, pains, and history when the territory was reabsorbed into the motherland. Moreover, they told the younger generation of a brighter future China. “Chinese” now became the most popular lyric and melody to present China in a positive light after the Tiananmen massacre in 1989. “Chinese” replaced Hou Dejian’s “I am Chinese” a song sung in various anti-establishment movements (such as those commemorating the Tiananmen massacre on June 4) to arouse nationalistic sentiment against the regime. Members of the younger generation only know Andy Lau and are too young to know or to remember Hou. Without feeling the trauma of the June 4 incident, one interviewee said, “The performance of this song [“Chinese”] gives rise to a specific meaning…[it] expresses patriotism.” Andy’s version of Chinese is not thought of

Marketing popular culture in China

259

as hard propaganda by the authorities; it is a soft form of popular culture that appeals to people and the authorities alike. Andy Lau’s iconic modification is an intentional activity and a commercial success. “Chinese” as a consequence, was highly publicized in China. This communal song was performed on MTV and in live concerts, and particularly in celebrations over the handover of Hong Kong. The most striking was his performance on stage with the Great Wall and red flags in the background, surrounded by Chinese kids dressed all in red with Andy wearing a traditional long white robe. He gained approval from the Chinese government to film the MTV version of “Chinese” in the Great Wall. President Jiang Zemin praised his performance in the Hong Kong handover ceremony. Subsequently, he was invited by the Hong Kong Government to recompose this song with new lyrics to promote the Basic Law, a mini-constitution formulated by China for the governance of Hong Kong. An emerging cultural empire If his Chinese identity signified the triumphant entry of Andy Lau across China’s political boundary, how did his stardom produce economic profits? Andy Lau started organizing concerts in China in 1993, but it was not until after 1998 that his conceit tours reached almost all the major coastal and southern cities, and the state-owned television stations showered him with numerous music awards. In 1998, “Chinese” brought him the biggest honor in the fifth China Music Television Awards: this song, together with “Pearl of the Orient,” won the gold medal award from Chinese Central Television (CCTV). In 1999, the RTHK had to create an award for him as the “Most Popular Global Chinese Singer.” Even though his earnings are unknown, the number of concerts he gave and the awards he received were unprecedented. In 1999, in Hong Kong, he was given eight platinum discs by his record company as reward for the total sales of four albums (each disc representing the sale of 50,000 albums). In the same year, he received his first platinum disc for albums sold in China. These mainland sales, while dwarfed by the sales in Hong Kong, were significant in that they stood as official endorsement for his “return to the motherland.” In 1998, he was allowed to perform six mainland concerts; the next year he held ten more concerts in China (but only one concert in Hong Kong). Of these concerts, the Tibetan concert in 1999 was particularly notable. During that trip he sang “Love You a Million Years.” He managed to appropriate a superficial love song (which Hong Kong people loved) to convey a sense of patriotism and national pride in the controversial Tibetan setting. The MTV video showed him paying pilgrimage to Tibet as part of the motherland and mingling happily with the kids in Tibetan temples—subtly refuting the international charge of Chinese repression in Tibet. He was the first Hong Kong star ever to stage a concert in Tibet and express his love for China through his lyrics. This sort of translocal Chinese image had to be continually managed. In April 2001, in Hong Kong, the World Outstanding Chinese Foundation and the TVB conferred him with the title “Chinese Culture Ambassador.” The event was not only reported in the popular Apple Daily and Oriental Daily, but also commended by the pro-Communist Ta Kung Pao. And now Andy was able to market his image in greater China, bridging the political

Chinese media, global contexts

260

gap. He filmed a commercial in the scenic Yellow Mountain for a Taiwanese brand of green tea; the product sells in Taiwan and Hong Kong, but the theme song is well publicized in the mainland. This translocal strategy would not have been possible had it relied on local production companies alone. Aihwa Ong (1999:6) uses “flexible citizenship” to describe a specific individual strategy of capitalist accumulation and displacement that induces an individual to respond fluidly and opportunistically to changing political-economic conditions. Lau’s local production companies have been able to establish partnerships with pan-Chinese advertisers and corporations to accommodate the local, regional, and China markets. As the boundaries of various ethnoscapes, mediascapes, technoscapes, financescapes, and ideoscapes become more fluid (Appadurai, 1996), cultural production may increasingly collaborate with local, regional, and international businesses. Stardom and politics Lau’s stardom in the local and national realms is exemplary in terms of treading between the political and economic lines. Most inexperienced foreign companies, attempting to succeed in China, tend to succumb to the temptation of producing diverse cultural products in the hope that one of the products will become a hit, but they forget to make these products compatible with the ideologies of the Chinese authorities. Sometimes, artists themselves may underestimate the political consequences of not being “politically correct.” A Taiwan pop star, Chang Hui-mei, who sang at the inauguration party of President Chen Shuibian, was denied entry into China. Andy Lau himself is perhaps the best example of his company’s strategies in marketing the “correct Chineseness” via popular culture. Whereas other stars either used politics unwisely or simply avoided it, he used it carefully, made it public and explicit, and yet did not aggravate the authorities. The most prominent example of this was his personal investment in two highly controversial films about the politics of the Hong Kong transition, Made in Hong Kong and Fireworks, just prior to 1997. The former reflected the helplessness of the new generation with episodes of suicide, casual sex, broken families, and brutal killings under an uncertain future. The latter described a callous killing associated with a robbery. These seemingly non-political and blaming-thecriminal movies, to many viewers, paralleled the ground-swelling of sadness about the departure of the British from the colony and the ushering in of the brutal new sovereign, all of which was taking place without any say from people in Hong Kong. The director of the movies discovered the main actors for the movies, who portray a skateboard boy and a young workman on a construction site, having a gangster fight in a public playground. He said: “I might not know politics, but these films did tell the feelings of our generation.” He meant in these films to criticize the oppressive, uncaring, and absurd authority (interview, April 18, 2001). These two films—despite being non-political on the surface—are open to polysemic interpretations. They could be read as expressing the younger generation’s dissatisfaction with political disfranchisement and social instability caused by China’s takeover. But they were marketed as “local” crimes, “local” evils, and “local” politics. One of his fans remarked,

Marketing popular culture in China

261

Andy Lau is patriotic. His image as a Chinese is not “suddenly political.” He always wears long Chinese white robes. He indeed cares about Hong Kong’s politics and social affairs too. These movies are just examples. (Interview, February 15, 2001) This shows that Lau has succeeded in accommodating both the national and local markets. Involving himself in these local film productions about politics simply smoothes Lau’s image transformation: he cares about Hong Kong, and he is a Chinese patriot. The intermingling of these identities pleases the local audience and the Chinese authorities alike. Pop, politics, and economics in greater China I have attempted to reconstruct the trajectories of a local pop star’s career. Andy Lau demonstrates his ability to manage political risks by avoiding further incitement of social discontent and ideological conflict. Popular culture can conceal social malaises that have resulted from China’s uneven economic development, as Hennion (1990) argues: Pop songs open the doors to dream, lend a voice to what is left unmentioned by ordinary discourse. But pop is not only a dream machine: perhaps, like witchcraft in another age, it is the unofficial chronicle of its times, a history of desires existing in the margins of official history, which, except at rare moments of rupture, do not speak but act. In setting out a history of today, popular culture etches the contours of a history of tomorrow in that it “feels” a social atmosphere in its earliest, unformulated stages; pop music senses the current and projects a first image of it, long before the politicians have grasped its real nature or had the time to quell it, before words have been found to express it or to betray it. (Hennion, 1990:205) Given the subversive potential of popular culture, China, as a sovereign, has to reassert its controlling power over the terrain. China has been resistant, if not hostile, to foreign cultural capital, and there is a great deal of ambiguity in governing foreign investment in the cultural sphere. Popular culture in China has been detached from people’s living and lived experiences; the stars, products, images, languages, and cultures with which people were fascinated were foreignmade and irrelevant to local life. Chinese fans might hear a Cantonese song about people’s life on Queen’s Road in Hong Kong that they can barely understand. In a closed environment, over the past two decades, Chinese fans have been looking for popular icons and idols from offshore, often in places of cultural proximity— Hong Kong and Taiwan—perceived to have what Fung and Ma (2002) describe as “satellite modernity.” Urban residents were attracted to Western icons such as Michael Jordan, who were equally decontextualized from local cultures (He and Fung, 1999). While global corporations were eager to push their cultural products into the Chinese market, they did not know, at first, how to go about it. China still has enormous power to

Chinese media, global contexts

262

decide the content of the pop culture it wants for its people, but under the logic of global capitalism, this control cannot be total and China does not expect Andy Lau to be a propagandist, nor can it impose state ideology on his record companies. It has not taken long for global corporations such as BMG to learn from their local collaborators (such as Andy’s Teamwork) about what will work in Hong Kong and what the Chinese market can accept. They have learned to how to fine-tune Andy’s image for China. Companies such as Warner Music have signed contracts with Chinese singers and are keenly exploring the pop music market in China, especially in the post-WTO era. Andy Lau may offer them a model. Although Cantopop CDs are available in Singapore, the country bans the broadcast of Cantonese pop songs on radio and television. China allows the importation of “correct and acceptable Chinese singers” such as Andy Lau, but other singers, not officially endorsed, can only see their pirated CDs and VCDs in circulation, and receive no profit at all. I would characterize this as the Chinese policy of “market management of politics,” which is expected to continue even after China’s accession to the WTO. Notes 1 This study was supported by a grant from the Research Grant Council of Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (Project no. CUHK1056/99H). I was born into the Andy Lau generation, and was a fan. This chapter is, in a way, a personal narrative of my generation. 2 My field interviews reveal that even today when asked to recall Andy’s song “The Days We Got Through Together,” or the lyrics, “with you, with me; with love, life and death, and with meaning,” many people at once envision an image of the heroic Wah Dee riding a motorbike. References Appadurai, Arjun (1996), Modernity at Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization . Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Caporaso, James A. and Levine, David P. (1992), Theories of Political Economy . New York: Cambridge University Press. Castells, Manuel (1998), End of Millennium: the Information Age , Volume 3. Oxford: Blackwell. Cheng, Yew Ming (1996) “Culture and lifestyles,” in Nyam Mee-Kau and Li Si-ming (ed.), The Other Hong Kong Report 1996 . Hong Kong: Chinese University Press, pp. 469–484. Chow, Irene Hau Siu and Lane Kelley (1999), “Adaptive strategies of the large Hongs in an era of political changes,” in Lane Kelley and Yadong Luo (ed.), China 2000: Emerging Business Issues . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 217–234. Chu, Yiu Wai (1998), Xianggang liuxing geci yanjiu [Hong Kong Popular Lyrics Studies: from the mid-1970s to the mid-1990s]. Hong Kong: Joint Publishing.

Marketing popular culture in China

263

Frey, Bruno S. (1984), “Modelling politico-economic relationships,” in David Whynes (ed.), What is Political Economy? Eight Perspectives . Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 141– 161. Fung, Anthony and Eric Ma (2002, forthcoming), “Satellite modernity and four modes of televisual imagination in the disjunctive socio-mediascape of Guangzhou,” in Stephanie Hemelryk Donald, Michael Keane and Yin Hong (eds), Media Futures in China: Consumption, Context and Crisis . London: Curzon Press. Gamier, J.P. (1987) “L’espace mediatique ou 1’utopie localisée,” Espaces et sociétés, p. 50, cited from Morley and Robins. Ghoshal, Sumantra (1998), “Global strategy: an organizing framework,” in Susan SegalHorn (ed.), The Strategy Reader . Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 327–348. Giddens, Anthony (1979), Central Problems in Social Theory: Action, Structure and Contradiction in Social Analysis . Berkeley: University of California Press. Gold, Thomas B. (1995), “Go with your feelings: Hong Kong and Taiwan popular cultures in greater China,” in David Shambaugh (ed.), Creater China: The next Superpower? Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 255–273. He, Zhou and Anthony Fung (1999) “Idolization in South China,” paper presented in The Third International Symposium on Intercultural Studies, Shenzhen University, China, November 21–24. Hennion, Antonie (1990), “The production of success: an antimusicology of the pop song,” in Simon Firth and Andrew Good win (ed.), On Record: Rock, Pop, and the Written Word . London: Routledge, pp. 185–206. Luo, Yadong (1999), “The dominance of greater China multinationals’ investment in China: economic, cultural, and institutional perspectives,” in Lane Kelley and Yadong Luo (eds), China 2000: Emerging Business Issues . Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 235–250. McClary, Susan and Robert Walser (1990) “Start making sense! Musicology wrestles with rock,” in Simon Firth and Andrew Goodwin (eds), On Record: Rock, Pop, and the Written Word . London: Routledge, pp. 277–292. Modleski, Tania (ed.) (1986), Studies of Entertainment: Critical Approaches to Mass Culture . Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press. Ong, Aihwa (1999), Flexible Citizenship: the Cultural Logics of Transnationality . Durham, NC: Duke University Press. Porter, Michael (1998), “What is Strategy?,” in Susan Segal-Horn (ed.), The Strategy Reader . Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 73–99. Sinclair, John, Elizabeth Jacka and Stuart Cunningham (1996), New Patterns in Global Television: Peripheral Vision . Oxford: Oxford University Press. Storey, John (1996), Cultural Studies and the Study of Popular Culture: Theories and Method . Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press. Sze, Man Hung (2000) “Clinches and creativity: the show case of recent triad films in Hong Kong,” paper presented at the Third International Crossroads in Culture Studies Conference, Birmingham, UK, June 21–25. Tzeng, Huoy-Jia (2000), Cong liuxing gequ kan taiwan shehui [Watching Taiwan Society

Chinese media, global contexts

264

through Popular Songs]. Taipei: Laureate. Wilson, Rob and Wimal Dissanayake (1996), “Introduction: tracking the global/local,” in Global/Local: Cultural Production and the Transnational Imaginary . Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp. 1–18.

Index Abbott, Andrew 211, 227 Administrative boundary 156–7, 158–62, 166–7, 169 –70 Administrative control of media 156, 169; see also media technology All-China Journalists Association (ACJA) 214, 218, 227 America 97, 98, 99, 100, 104; American Embassy 108; anti-Americanism 98; see also United States American hegemonism 3, 97, 98, 105, 106, 109 Amnesty International 121 AOL Time Warner 8, 87, 102; see also Warner Brothers, Appadurai, Arjun 145, 260 Articulation 211, 212, 220; re-articulation 211, 226; see also ideology Art of the weak 211, 224 Art of resistance 221, 224 Barme, Geremie 196 Beijing Youth Daily 32, 33, 37–8, 39, 42, 46–7, 50– , 109–11, 112, 159 Beijing University 107, 127 Bertlesmann 8 Bin Laden, O. 97 Bourdieu, Pierre 6, 212, 228 British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) 101 Brundage, Avery 65 Bureaucratic capitalism 192, 193–4, 197 Bush, George 81, 82, 83, 85 Bush, George W. 97, 112 Cable television 161–2, 174, 246 Castells, Manuel 253 Central Propaganda Department 109 Chan, Joseph Man 192, 207 Chang, Tsang-kuo 76, 192, 208 Cheek, Timothy 211, 228 Chen Shui-bian 260 Chen, Xiaomei 144

Index

266

China Business 32, 33, 39 China Business Times 32, 33, 35–6, 37–8, 40–1, 42, 43 45, 49 –50 China Can Say No 3 , 75, 105, 143 China Central Television (CCTV) 8, 11, 96, 161–5, 167, 184, 203, 216, 219, 221, 222, 223, 259; compared with ABC, 130–3; coverage of Clinton’s visit, 123 –9 China Farmer’s Daily 32, 43, 50 China Mobile 179 China Netcom 180 China Radio, Film, and Television Group 9, 10 China Securities 32, 33, 34 China studies 23 China Telecom 140, 178, 179, 180; restructurings of 178, 179, 180 China Women’s News 32, 38, 45, 50 China Yellow Pages 183 China Youth News 32, 36 Chinese Entertainment Television (ETV) 8 Chinese journalism 40, 44, 46; see also Chinese press discourse, Chinese press Chinese press 31; and social strata 39–45, 48; control and censorship in 48–9, 51; coverage of opinion polls 44–5; ideological hegemony 35–6, 44, 48, 51; informational role of 2; internal diversity in 48–50; market-oriented papers 32–3, 37, 40, 49–38; official organs 32, 33, 37, 43, 49; target papers 32, 33, 38, 43–5, 49; see also Chinese journalism, Chinese press discourse Chinese press discourse on the WTO 31 –54 Chomsky, Noam 76, 77, 234 Chu, Anping 216 Contractual congruence 202 –4 CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) 106 Cinema 142, 145 Clinton, Bill 76, 80, 82, 85, 88, 90, 119, 122, 124–32; and Lewinsky affair 124, 131 CNN International 96 Coca-Cola 108, 110, 111 Coercive control 203 Cognitive dissonance 197, 206 Cold war 1, 75, 81 Communism, demise of 194 Confucian intellectuals 214, 224; see also intellectuals

Index

267

Constructed deliberation 79 Containment 80 –3 Cooptation 217, 218 Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon 145, 245 –6 Cui, Zhiyuan 21 Cultural imperialism 16, 143–5, 253; see also media imperialism Cultural Revolution 18, 20, 21 Dai, Jinhua 3, 13 Dalai Lama 83, 113, 121 Davis, Deborah 150 de Certeau, Michel 210, 211, 224, 228 Deng, Liqun 18 Deng, Tuo 219, 228 Deng Xiaoping 4, 18, 121, 156, 195, 203, 208 Dilution of organizational incongruence 201 –2 Discourse 213, 214, 217, 224, 225 Discourse analysis 79–80; see also ideological packages, news narratives, framing Discursive practices 210, 224, 225–6; process 210, 212; resources 217, 222 Disney 8, 12 Dulles, John Foster 89 E-commerce 177, 179; business-to-business (B2B) 182 –3 Economic Daily 32, 26–7, 42, 46 Encryption 9, 140 Eisenstein, Elizabeth 140 Engagement 84 –5 Environment 66 Established pluralism 77–9, 90; see also New York Times Ethnocentrism 65 Etzinoni, Amitai 196, 197, 208 Evening newspapers 147 Falun Gong 3, 63 Fan, Changjiang 215, 218 Fox News Channel 96 Framing 119, 132 Freidson, Eliot 219, 226, 227, 229 Friedman, Thomas 80, 82, 87, 88, 89 Fukuyama, Francis 75, 81

Index

268

Gamson, William A. 80 Gan, Yang 21 Gans, Herbert 79 Gitlin,Todd 17, 80 Globalization 5, 37, 47–8, 51, 69–70, 86–9, 110, 253; and business models 146–51; and media content 142–6; and media technologies 138–42; and rule of law, 86, 88; see also globalization theory, media technologies, World Trade Organization (WTO) Globalization theory 22, 86–7, 90; see also globalization Golden Harvest 233, 238, 245 Guangming Daily 32, 39, 42 Guangzhou Daily 10, 159, 166 Guo Liang 142 Habermas, Jürgen 136 Hall, Stuart 146 Hallin, Daniel 77, 150 Hangzhou 175–87; comparison with Beijing and Shanghai, 174–5, 178, 187; connected to Internet 174; government role in development of 175–7; high-tech strategy in 175–7, 187; Infoport 176; Internet access in 178–9; New and High Technology Development Zone 175 Hangzhou Telecom 178–9, 182 He, Zhou 192, 193, 196, 197, 202, 203, 206, 208 High tech 173, 182; development zones 173; foreign competition in 174; in Beijing 174; in Guangdong 174; Hong Kong 252–62; capitalism 258, 110, 121, 143, 144, 145; declining popularity of films 23–6; handover 3, 128, 254, 260; identity 255–6; impact on Chinese films 144, 238–41; youth 255 Hot moments 213 Hu, Angang 39 Hu, Jiwei 20 Hu, Qiaomu 18

Index

269

Hu, Yaobang21 Human rights 105, 106, 109; in China 52–63, 65, 119–21, 126, 131 Hungtinton, Samuel 18, 75, 80 Hyperproduction 240, 248 Ideology 210, 212, 219, 224; ideological control 223; ideological parameters 219; ideological resistance 220; see also professionalism Ideological packages 77, 80; see also discourse analysis Icon 211, 215, 226 Ideological re-pitching 197 –200 Informatization 173, 181, 186; in industry 173; infrastructure for 173; plans for 181; regional impact of 175; test points 176 Institutional analysis 235, 247 International Olympic Committee 105 Internationalism 100 –4 Intellectuals 213, 216, 217; journalists as 216; social mission of 216, 223, 224, 225 Intellectual electronic press 15 Internet 96, 103, 107, 173; access 179; as an agent of change 138; bulletin boards (BBS) 184–5; censorship of 140–1; chat rooms 96, 97, 102, 103, 107, 112; growth of 140; in contrast to cinema and television 142; market in China 165–7; technological convergence in 181, 186; use 174, 178, 183 –4 Internet content providers (ICPs): control over 141, 186; in Hangzhou 181–5; licenses for 182, 184 Internet services on 177; mergers with broadcast television 178, 180; networks 178; subscribers 178, 181

Index

270

Jiang, Zemin 18, 33, 40, 46, 85, 108, 112, 119–26, 140, 142, 194, 203, 209, 128–32, 258 Jordan, Michael 12, 101, 262 Journalistic autonomy 216 Journalistic awards 214 Journalistic discourse 212, 213, 220, 226 Journalistic fame 211, 212, 214 Kennen, George 81 Kentucky Fried Chicken 108, 110 Kraus, Richard 136 Lau, Andy 245, 252–62; see also pan-Chinese Lee, Chin-Chuan 17, 75, 77, 192, 195, 208, 210, 212, 213, 214, 216, 217 247 Lee, Kuan Yew 90 Lee, Tenghui (Li Denghui) 3, 4, 105 Lee, Wenho 84, 86 Lerner, Daniel 90, 139 Lewis, Anthony 80, 89 Li Ka-shing 89 Liberal democracy 37, 47 Liberals 20 Liberalism 196 Liu,Junning 18, 20 Local protectionism 156, 169 Lull, James 139 Lynch, Daniel 144 Manhattan’s Twin Towers 97 Manifest destiny 75, 90 Marketization 156, 169; media 157 158, 167, 169 Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Thought 99 Martial law 241, 248 McChesney, Robert 8, 147, 234 McDonald’s 69, 89, 108, 110 Media ‘center’ 112; ‘official’ 98, 100, 112 Media and power 76, 77, Media Asia 238, 245, 248 Media conglomerates, global 8, 140, 145; in China 9–10, 11, 13–4, 158, 165, 201 –2 Media coverage of presidential summits 129 –33 Media discourses, in China 18–23; see also U.S. elite media discourses on China policy Media event 4, 117 Media imperialism 234, 247;

Index

271

see also cultural imperialism Media technology 13–4; and ideology 15–7; see also administrative control of the media, globalization Meisner, Maurice 194, 208 Metropolitan domination 168 Microeconomics 234, 247 Ministry of Electronics Industry (MEI) 173 Ministry of Information Industry 103, 173, 178, 181, 186 Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications (MFT) 173, 178 Modernization theory 90; see also globalization theory Motion Picture Association of America 9, 239 Most favored nation (MFN) 80, 82, 83, 84, 88 MSNBC 110 Multiplex theater 237, 245 Murdoch, Rupert 9, 103, 139, 145, 163; see also STAR TV Nanfang City Daily 159 National Basketball Association (NBA) 100, 106, 107 NATO 111 Nationalism 1, 50, 96, 97, 99, 100, 112; defined 112; see also statist nationalism, populist nationalism Neoliberalism 31, 36, 48, 50 New left 50, 144 New York Times 144; on Taiwan 82, 83, 86, 89; see also containment, engagement, globalization, U.S. elite media discourses on China policy News media: online 14, 186 News narratives 186, 125 Newspaper market in China 125 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) 75 Nye, Joseph S. 75 Old left 18 Olympic Games 31, 50, 199; as national face 199; Beijing bid 56, 62; financing 62; host city selection 62; ideological dimension 62; medals 59, 65; Salt Lake City scandal 65; TV rights 64

Index

272

'One country, two systems' policy 129, 256 Ong, Aihwa 259 Opinion polls 259 Opium War 111 Organ papers 147 Organizational incongruence in Chinese press: contractual congruence 147; dilution 147; ideological re-pitching 147; ideological separation 147; reduction 147; resorting to state protection 147 Orientalist discourses 79, 88 Pan-Chinese 252, 259 Pan, Zhongdang 193, 203, 208, 211; 212, 214, 221, 224, 229 Party-press 212, 213, 224 Party-State Publicity Inc. 207 Patriotism 97, 99, 105, 110, 112, 196 Peaceful evolution 1, 90, 91 People's Daily 4, 7, 38, 39, 42, 46, 97, 197, 199, 200, 213, 214 Phoenix Satellite Television 9, 96, 102, 103, 146, 169; see also STAR TV, Murdoch Piracy 233, 245 Political economy 17, 259 Political legitimacy 97, 98, 100, 111 Polumbaum, Judy 193, 209, 210, 218, 220, 230 Popular culture 230 Populist nationalism 1, 2, 96, 102 Pragmatic moderation 102 Profession 210, 220, 222 Professionalism 210, 213, 219, 220, 221, 224, 225; as 'the third logic' 223; see also ideology, journalistic autonomy, journalistic ethics Professionalization 213, 221 Propaganda 66, 211, 215, 218, 222; Price discrimination 222, 246 Private discourse universe 203 Public sphere: definition 203; nature of in pre-reform China 203 Pulitzer Prize 212 Pye, Lucian 195, 209 Radio Television Hong Kong (RTHK) 254, 259 Recorded movies 139, 141, 142, 145 Reduction of Organizational incongruence 145 Release windows 145, 246

Index

273

Resorting to state protection 246 River Elegy 144 Rosen, Stanley 143 Rothenthal, A.M. 80, 82 Safire, William 80, 82, 83 Said, Edward W. 75, 79, 88, 144, 234; see also Orientalist discourses Samaranchjuan Antonio 60, 64 Satellite television 64 Schoenhals, Michael 64 Scott James 17, 149, 225, 231 Selective articulation 79 Shmzhen Special Zone Daily 159, 198, 200, 201, 203 Shenzheng Commercial Daily 159, 201 Skinner, William G. 197, 202, 209 'Silicon Valley in Paradise' 176, 182, 187 Smith, Anthony 195, 209 Southern Weekend 209, 33, 36, 39, 46, 49, 104, 147, 149, 151 Sparks, Colin 148 STAR TV 163, 256, 257; see also Phoenix satellite TV State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) 257, 165, 186, 219 State Press and Publication Administration (SPPA) 102, 219, 223 Statist nationalism 2, 91, 96, 102; see also populist nationalism Statue of Liberty 110 Su, Shaozhi 20 Sun, Xupei 20 Tabloidization 148, 149 Taiwan 96, 106, 112, 120, 122, 127, 131, 253; film market 253; the future of film market 253; see also New York Times, Telecommunications and Internet, China 253, 15, 173, 175; see also media technology, Internet Telephone: networks 178; penetration rate 178 Television: contrasted with cinema 142; introduced to China 142; see also satellite television Television Broadcasting Limited (TVB, Hong Kong) 254, 256, 259 Teng, Teresa 254 Thompson John B. 16, 136 Tiananmen crackdown 1, 62, 75, 89, 99, 111, 119, 126 Tibet 106, 113, 123, 126

Index

274

Tomlinson, John 16 Townsend, James 195, 209 Translocality 252, 258 Tuchman, Gaye 17 Tung Chi-hwa 128, 233 Uneven development, China 233 United States 96, 97, 98, 100, 105 107; bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade 100, 104, 106 111; Chinese media response 111; freedom of the press in 111; spy plane incident 64, 99, 112; Western civilization 112; see also America U.S. foreign policy 2; and media discourses 76 U.S. elite media discourse on China policy 76; see also containment, engagement, globalization Voice of America (VOA) 100, 107 Viacom 8, 12 Village Roadshow 237 Wang Dan 122 Wang, Hui 21 Wang, Ruoshui 20 Wanzai County, schoolhouse explosion in 20 Warner Brothers 20 Warner Village 20, 246 Washington Post 78, 124 Western values 136 Workers' Daily 7, 36, 50 Weber, Max 22 Wei, Jingsheng 82, 83, 89 Williams, Raymond 16, 18 World Trade Organization (WTO) 1, 2, 4, 69, 75, 86, 87, 88, 91, 103, 104, 106, 111, 125, 157, 169, 185, 232; and Hollywood in China 11, 13; anti-WTO 87; benefits to China, 86; Chinese dissenting views on 86; Chinese press discourse on 86; history of Chinese membership in 86, 35; impact on China's media and telecommunications 35; impact on traditional industries 174; Seattle protests against 174; winners and losers 174;

Index

275

see also media discourses, Chinese press discourse, New York Times Wuthnow, Robert 211, 225, 231 Xinhua News Agency 3, 96, 97, 98, 184, 197, 200, 213, 214 Xinmin Evening Daily 159, 200, 201 Xu,Youyu, 20 Yang, Mayfair 20 Yangcheng Evening Daily 20, 159, 198 Zelizer, Barbie 212, 231 Zha, Jianying 147 Zhao, Yuezhi 7, 22, 148, 193, 202, 209, 211, 231 Zhao, Ziyang 20 Zhang, Jiluan 20 Zhang, Yimou 13, 67 Zhang, Xudong 21 Zhejiang Mobile Communications Company 179, 181, 186 Zhejiang Telecom 183 Zhongguo guancha 138 Zhou,Enlai 138 Zou, Taofen 138 Zhu, Rongji 3, 7, 32, 40, 46, 88, 125, 143, 203 Zhu, Xueqin 20