The China Thread

[Jacob]

An opportunity for the new leaders of China to show what direction they are taking the country as journalists at China Southern Weekly calling out media censorship: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-20929826

Meanwhile, reforms are announced to the labour camp system: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/china/2013-01/07/c_132086216.htm

Basically, in China if you have a problem with your local officials, you can attempt to petition the central government for redress. However, if there are too many petitioners for a particular region or official, it will make the local people in power look back. As a result, there's a whole system of semi-official law enforcement dedicated to harassing, bribing and otherwise dissuading people from following through on their petitions. One of the common tools is sending the petitioners off to these reeducation camps. So... if these reforms take place, that's a step in the right direction (assuming they're not replaced with something worse, of course).

[Admiral Yi]

From the Economist:

During the Cultural Revolution, the Red Guards pushed to change the meaning of traffic lights.  They wanted red to mean go, green to mean stop. 

This was brought up in an article about a new law making it illegal for drivers to enter an intersection after the light turns yellow.   

[Camerus]

Making Chinese obey existing traffic lights would probably be the first step.

[CountDeMoney]

From today's NYT:

Op-Ed Contributor
Dim Hopes for a Free Press in China
By XIAO SHU
Published: January 14, 2013

GUANGZHOU, China

A STANDOFF between one of China's biggest newspapers, Southern Weekend, and the national government ended last week with compromises on both sides. Southern Weekend hit the newsstands as usual on Thursday, after protesting staff members backed down from a threatened strike. The authorities, for their part, made tacit concessions, ending pre-publication censorship by the Communist Party's propaganda arm in Guangdong Province and permitting greater editorial independence.

The episode drew worldwide attention to the problem of press freedom in China and threatened to escalate into broader protests across Chinese society. Over the past decade, standards of journalistic professionalism have risen in China, even though most news organizations are controlled, directly or indirectly, by the state. These news outlets do not challenge the basic legitimacy of Communist rule, but have raised their standards for evaluating news according to journalistic significance rather than party interests.

But in the last few years, amid rising social unrest, the government has intensified its efforts at "preserving stability." One consequence has been a dramatic increase in control of the media. As a senior commentator at Southern Weekend for six years, I experienced both the flourishing of journalistic professionalism and its decline. Although I sometimes sharply criticized the government, my standpoint was impartial and balanced rather than antagonistic, and I did my best to maintain a position of independent neutrality. Most of my colleagues at Southern Weekend took the same approach.

Even so, at the end of March 2011, I was forced to resign from Southern Weekend, without any warning or explanation. This was a time of heightened tensions, when the authorities worried that the democratic revolutions taking place in the Middle East and North Africa might spread to China, and cracked down on individuals seen as potentially encouraging unrest. The pressure on commentators like me followed a similar crackdown on investigative reporting, much of which had been devoted to exposing corruption and had threatened special interest groups that are influential in elite Chinese politics.

Investigative reporting and opinion commentary are the two hallmarks of Chinese journalism, and the party has moved to crack down on both. My departure from Southern Weekend came as the editors capitulated to government pressure and quickly constrained the space for open discourse. Former colleagues have told me that since my departure, Southern Weekly's journalists find themselves walking a tightrope with every sentence they write.

This state of affairs came to a climax last May, when Tuo Zhen became head of party propaganda in Guangdong, China's most populous province. He enforced his power to the extreme and without an iota of flexibility, and micromanaged every aspect of media operations. Major topics of news coverage had to be approved by him, as did important articles, especially opinion essays. He even ordered changes in punctuation.

He was in fact a tyrant who cracked down on the press as zealously as Wang Lijun, the former police chief in the city of Chongqing, had cracked down on criminals without due process. Under Mr. Tuo, the press in Guangdong retreated into its darkest period since the start of Deng Xiaoping's "reform and opening up" policies in the late 1970s. Southern Weekend, a symbol of news professionalism because of its relative independence, bore the brunt of Mr. Tuo's attacks.

The run-up to the 18th Communist Party Congress in November was accompanied by the most oppressive social atmosphere of the past decade. The flare-up at Southern Weekend, over an editorial that had called for greater respect for constitutional rights until it was changed by censors, was the culmination of rancor that had been building for a long time.

The crisis has subsided, but there is little room for future optimism, because the deep-seated question has not been resolved: Is there, in fact, room for professional journalism to survive and develop within the system? It is on this question that not only journalists but Chinese in every sector of society have expressed doubt and exasperation. The repression of journalistic professionalism is not merely a journalistic issue, but also signifies the government's assault on society in general, and has exceeded the limits of public tolerance.

The fate of journalistic independence in China will depend on whether the authorities implement or backtrack on their tacit concessions. Public vigilance is essential if progress is to occur.

Does the political system have the flexibility to tolerate the professionalism pursued by journalists, and the press freedom demanded by society at large? How much will the new party leadership make good on its commitment to governance reforms and adherence to the Constitution? The Southern Weekend episode does not provide a clear answer.

Any sign of progress is worth encouraging, but rather than shedding tears of gratitude for promises that may prove empty, the Chinese people need to keep their shoulders to the plow and continue their own efforts to create the society they wish to live in.

Xiao Shu is the pen name of Chen Min, who was an opinion writer at Southern Weekend until 2011. He is on the editorial board of the history journal Yanhuang Chunqiu and a fellow at the Transition Institute, which focuses on political reform in China. This essay was translated by Stacy Mosher from the Chinese.

[jimmy olsen]

The One Child Policy is here to stay.

http://behindthewall.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/16/16544706-china-one-child-policy-is-here-to-stay?lite

[Josquius]

Of course it is. Its a handy source of extra revenue that a corrupt government like China's would never pass up.

[Phillip V]

Former Softcore Porn Star is China's Hottest New Politician

http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2013/01/24/former-sex-film-star-is-chinas-hottest-new-politician/

[Monoriu]

I won't call CPPCC members "politicians"    That body is even more powerless than the People's Congress.  Those are just empty titles for people like movie stars, retired civil servants, local businessmen etc. 

[Phillip V]

Chinese Graduates Say No to Factory Jobs

"Many factories are desperate for workers, despite offering double-digit annual pay increases and improved benefits.

Wang Zengsong is desperate for a steady job. He has been unemployed for most of the three years since he graduated from a community college here after growing up on a rice farm. Mr. Wang, 25, has worked only several months at a time in low-paying jobs, once as a shopping mall guard, another time as a restaurant waiter and most recently as an office building security guard.

But he will not consider applying for a full-time factory job because Mr. Wang, as a college graduate, thinks that is beneath him. Instead, he searches every day for an office job, which would initially pay as little as a third of factory wages.

"I have never and will never consider a factory job — what's the point of sitting there hour after hour, doing repetitive work?" he asked.

Millions of recent college graduates in China like Mr. Wang are asking the same question. A result is an anomaly: Jobs go begging in factories while many educated young workers are unemployed or underemployed. A national survey of urban residents, released this winter by a Chinese university, showed that among people in their early 20s, those with a college degree were four times as likely to be unemployed as those with only an elementary school education."

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/25/business/as-graduates-rise-in-china-office-jobs-fail-to-keep-up.html

[Josquius]

Well that's just stupid.
Take what you can get till you get what you want.

"I have never and will never consider a factory job — what's the point of sitting there hour after hour, doing repetitive work?" he asked.

I've read Mono's stories and......

Former Softcore Porn Star is China's Hottest New Politician

http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2013/01/24/former-sex-film-star-is-chinas-hottest-new-politician/

I approve.

[CountDeMoney]

since he graduated from a community college here

"I have never and will never consider a factory job — what's the point of sitting there hour after hour, doing repetitive work?" he asked.

Even in China, a community college degree doesn't earn you the right to be snobby.

[Phillip V]

Lust will destroy you!

Chinese Officials Fired Over Sex Scandal

'China's state news media reported on Friday details of a sex extortion ring that brazenly operated "honey traps" in the southwest metropolis of Chongqing for several years. The widening scandal, which first emerged late last year, has led to the dismissals of at least 11 officials of the Communist Party, government or state-owned companies for having sex with women in the ring and then being blackmailed by the men who had set up the snares.'

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/26/world/asia/chinese-officials-fired-over-chongqing-sex-scandal.html

[Tonitrus]

Former Softcore Porn Star is China's Hottest New Politician

http://blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2013/01/24/former-sex-film-star-is-chinas-hottest-new-politician/

For Cal/CdM...

[Monoriu]

She doesn't even do full nude.  Only showed her breasts at most, I think.  She is actually an accomplished dancer, so her trademark move is to do the splits.  The newspapers like to make fun of the fact that her upper lips are abnormally thin.  She has a habit of using lipstick to cover that up. 

[Monoriu]

Chinese Graduates Say No to Factory Jobs

"Many factories are desperate for workers, despite offering double-digit annual pay increases and improved benefits.

Wang Zengsong is desperate for a steady job. He has been unemployed for most of the three years since he graduated from a community college here after growing up on a rice farm. Mr. Wang, 25, has worked only several months at a time in low-paying jobs, once as a shopping mall guard, another time as a restaurant waiter and most recently as an office building security guard.

But he will not consider applying for a full-time factory job because Mr. Wang, as a college graduate, thinks that is beneath him. Instead, he searches every day for an office job, which would initially pay as little as a third of factory wages.

"I have never and will never consider a factory job — what's the point of sitting there hour after hour, doing repetitive work?" he asked.

Millions of recent college graduates in China like Mr. Wang are asking the same question. A result is an anomaly: Jobs go begging in factories while many educated young workers are unemployed or underemployed. A national survey of urban residents, released this winter by a Chinese university, showed that among people in their early 20s, those with a college degree were four times as likely to be unemployed as those with only an elementary school education."

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/25/business/as-graduates-rise-in-china-office-jobs-fail-to-keep-up.html

It isn't just a matter of status.  It is much more comfortable to sit in an air-conditioned cubicle than to work the assembly lines.  Office work also offers a much better chance in promotion and future prospects.  Few factory workers become managers.  Once you start doing factory work there is no going back.