In fairness, much of the paper’s content is fine. Critics tend not to notice balanced and factual reporting, but it’s there. And occasionally something genuinely intriguing comes along, like the recent map of Hong Kong showing suicide rates by neighbourhood, which gets my cut-out-and-keep award. The SCMP is trapped like much Hong Kong media, wanting to do good journalism but required to appease the owner’s pathological need to shoe-shine Chinese officials who probably pay little notice anyway. Laughably clunky globs of pro-Communist tripe and an aversion to anything but mild and meek views are a price that, in today’s environment, has to be paid. It could be worse.

If you doubt that, take a trip over to the Standard. With little or nothing in the way of opinion pieces, and local reporting lifted from Sing Tao, the paper is far more obviously a tycoon’s plaything.With little or nothing in the way of opinion pieces, and local reporting lifted from Sing Tao, the paper is far more obviously a tycoon’s plaything. You are entering a parallel universe…

A universe where the presence on the Mainland stock market of 700 companies apparently overvalued by a factor of maybe seven prompts the phrase ‘of course’. And where bad news for landlords is a matter of genuine sorrow and distress…

The landlord who goes without income for six months before halving the rent to HK$400,000 is the Standard’s equivalent of children starving to death in Africa. (Today is unusual in that there is no glowing coverage of suckers snapping up the developers’ latest batch of overpriced apartments – talking up the property market is a core part of the paper’s mission, along with blatant fawning over tycoons and their offspring.) Meanwhile…

Rita Fan, pro-Beijing figure and self-appointed expert on What the Politburo Really Thinks, will not seek re-election to the National People’s Congress. Re-what? NPC deputies are appointed. A small group of loyalists pretend to vote for them in a contest in which the number of candidates equals the number of seats (honest). Not in Standard-land, where for good measure anti-locust protestors (a threat to landlords’ revenues) get the venom-treatment such bastard scum deserve, and an uptick in consumer spending predicted by, um, a credit-card company is due to the horrors of the Occupy movement(don’t ask).

As in any self-respecting parallel universe, the bizarre is considered normal…

A packaging company listed on the dubious GEM exchange is to be used as a front by a mysterious Mainland consortium offering secret funding to acquire Hong Kong’s disastrous ATV (sounds like they all deserve each other). This is Standard-land; as with the 700 firms with triple-digit P/E ratios – of course.

The post Hong Kong’s Increasingly Pro-China English-language Newspapers appeared first on The Nanfang.

A groundbreaking documentary about China’s debilitating smog problem has struck a chord in the country, having already been viewed 100 million times since its release last week. The video, a TED-style talk done by former CCTV presenter Chai Jing called “China’s Haze: Under the Dome”, looks at the causes of China’s pollution problem and insinuates the government could be doing more to improve China’s air quality.

The self-funded piece has mostly drawn praise from people in China, with even the newly anointed environment minister giving the 104-minute piece the thumbs up.The self-funded piece has mostly drawn praise from people in China, with even the newly anointed environment minister giving the 104-minute piece the thumbs up. But several critics have emerged, questioning Chai’s decision to use her daughter’s story as a backdrop to the documentary. Chai’s daughter has a tumor in her lung, leading many to question if Chai brought a fair-and-balanced perspective to the issue.

Professor Wu Jing from Peking University accused Chai’s documentary of trying to appease public sentiment for commercial gains. Others doubted if the solution proposed by Chai, which is to replace coal with gas and new energy, is actually possible given China’s rich coal resources and the constraints of technology.

One teacher at the Central Academy of Drama even went so far as to criticise China’s entire middle class, arguably the most vocal group about the smog problem, for being hypocritical. On one hand, he said the middle class in Beijing is always concerned about the problem and blames neighbouring Hebei province for smog, but on the other hand, they indulge in high-energy consuming lifestyles, oblivious of their own impact on smog.

Despite the criticism, however, most Internet users sided with Chai and commended her for putting the issue on the table and giving the public a chance to understand the problem, and hopefully inspire some actions to improve it.

One Weibo user (光远看经济) defended Chai, writing, “As expected, many experts shook their heads and voiced their criticism, saying Chai Jing’s investigation is not professional and has many technical errors. If you are professional, why don’t you do something about it? If you are professional, why up until now, do you still not know what causes smog? If you are professional, what did you do to solve the smog problem? I think the only thing that’s professional about the so-called experts is they always jump out and accuse others for being unprofessional when they have done something professional indeed.”

It appears thousands of Chinese people agree. This post has been liked 103,000 times and shared 23,745 times by last night (March 1).

You can watch Chai Jing’s documentary here.

The post Groundbreaking Smog Documentary Divides Chinese Audiences appeared first on The Nanfang.

China’s Central Television airs scenes of Deng Xiaoping smoking in his autobiographic TV series called Deng Xiaoping at Historical Crossroads

China’s push to crack down on smoking is reaching into the country’s entertainment industry. The government is set to ban characters in movies and TV shows from taking drags on cigarettes, according to a new draft regulation on cigarette control introduced by the State Council on November 24.

According to the document, the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) will be responsible for “supervising and managing” content on shows that involve smoking.

A broadcaster can be fined from RMB 5,000 to RMB 30,000 if the media censor finds a movie or television show that broadcasts scenes containing cigarette smoking. Shows that contain heavy smoking scenes could even be suspended and taken off the air, according to the report.

In addition to smoking scenes on big screens, the restrictions also extend to public spaces, cigarette commercials and vending machines. If the regulation is passed, China would ban cigarette commercials, smoking in indoor public spaces, and prohibit public servants from smoking in public.

Chinese actor in the movie Let the Bullet Fly

But whether the regulation translates into tangible results is still a big question mark. One Weibo user called LL宇H wrote, “All the scenes showing Grandpa Mao (Mao Zedong) and Mister Deng (Deng Xiaoping) smoking will be scrubbed off the screen? What does this mean for their personal characters?” Another questioned if the regulation is only scratching the surface rather than dealing with the real problem. 泡泡匠 commented, “If you really have the guts, why not just ban people from growing tobacco? This is really self-deceiving…” Given the millions earned in taxes from tobacco sales, this seems unlikely. User 小凝和轩宝 wrote, “There won’t be any tobacco trade if there is no demand! They can close down these giant tobacco companies first.”

Photos: CCTV, Net Ease 

The post Smoking Ban Means Chinese TV and Movie Stars Must Butt Out appeared first on The Nanfang.

China doesn’t have an established rating system for film and television shows, so the country’s media regulator, SARFT (State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television), has absolute authority to axe any show it deems “inappropriate” for Chinese audiences.

Under a new rule introduced by the regulator, awkwardly titled the “Notice on SARFT’s Regulation to Tighten Control on Internet Video and Audio Content”, scenes and plots related to marital affairs, love triangles, one night stands and gratuitous violence, will be edited or deleted, Jiangsu Net reported. The rule states that content charged with sexual innuendo, wife-swinging, sexual abuse, incest and prostitution will all require editing. The rule goes on to explain that “content with too much physical contact needs to be cut or deleted.”

The new rule is expected to target online video streaming websites, such as Sohu.com, where a number of foreign television shows are streamed online. Even the relatively benign comedy show Big Bang Theory was targeted by the Chinese media censor.

Weibo user, 我bu是皮皮猪 questioned what would happen if the rule was enforced, commenting, “None of the Chinese classic novels-turned shows would make the cut, nor would any foreign blockbusters. The only content left is state-produced shows. Redness will cover all of China.”

Another user, N那些记忆, asked, “if you’ve got balls, why not delete all of the Party official adulterers we’ve been reading about?” Many corrupt officials recently purged from the Communist Party were sacked on the grounds of adultery. According to an official from China’s anti-graft body, adultery charges apply to officials who have at least three mistresses, China Daily reported.

Another user, 鱼二三四, attacked SARFT’s logic: “If traffic jams can disappear just by deleting the term ‘traffic jam’ from the dictionary, then I would gladly do so.”

Photos: Showtime

The post No More One Night Stands or Sexual Innuendo on Chinese TV appeared first on The Nanfang.

The Big “Banned” Theory

After yanking four popular American TV series – The Big Bang Theory, The Good Wife, NCIS and The Practice – from China’s video-streaming websites in April, the country is now set to put even tighter controls on foreign TV shows available on the Internet, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing people familiar with the new policy.

The new policy would allow Chinese media regulators to limit the number of foreign TV shows to no more than 30 percent of content on China’s video-streaming websites such as Sohu, Youku, Tudou and Iqiyi. It did not say whether the 30 percent cap referred to the number of TV shows or TV episodes.

China’s media regulator, the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television, said that foreign TV shows currently account for more than 50 percent of TV content on Youkou and Tudou alone.

An executive at one of the Chinese video-steaming websites told the newspaper that the regulating agency has been collecting data about foreign TV shows from the websites for quite a while to study the new policy.

The motives behind the new regulation aren’t immediately clear, but executives at some of the websites told the Wall Street Journal that the cap would help cool the bidding for licensing foreign TV shows. Last year, licensing foreign and domestic shows cost the websites RMB 4.2 billion ($683 million), up from RMB 3.2 billion in 2012 and RMB 300 million in 2007, according to figures released by EntGroup.

Before the popular comedy sitcom The Big Bang Theory was pulled from Sohu TV, it was watched by 120 million viewers a month over 1.4 billion times, roughly around the country’s total population.

While China’s own state television CCTV was broadcasting Game of Thrones, a sexually graphic TV show, and even Walking Dead, filled with violent and bloody scenes survived the censorship, the choice to ban those four American TV shows in particular was baffling to a lot of viewers. 

The country’s media regulator vaguely explained that the four shows may have violated Clause 16 of the country’s online broadcasting rules, which “prohibits pornography, violence, and content that violates China’s constitution, endangers the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, provokes troubles in society, promotes illegal religion and triggers ethnic hatred,” the New Yorker wrote.

There were also rumors that the reason The Big Bang Theory was banned was because CCTV is looking to broadcast the show on Channel 8 after the translation work is done, Beijing News reported.

We don’t know which of your favourite foreign TV shows will be next in line to be axed, but one thing is clear: sooner or later, the country’s media regulator is going to get them.

Photos: The Blot Magazine; Qianjiang Evening News 

The post It’s Getting a Lot Harder to Stream Western TV Shows in China appeared first on The Nanfang.

Fox News host of The Five, Bob Beckel, has criticized the Chinese people as the greatest threat to US national security, reports CCTV News. But that isn’t the only thing that has people in China upset. He also made the following remark on the July 10 broadcast of the show:

“As usual, we bring them over here and teach a bunch of Chinamen – err, Chinese people – how to do computers and then they go back to China and hack into us.”

Beckel then made a threatening gesture at the camera.

Democratic state senator Ted Lieu made a statement on Saturday calling for Beckel’s resignation for making racist slurs. Lieu said:

We should all be alarmed by the racist, xenophobic comments by Fox News host Bob Beckel. His comments have no place in America, and this is at least the second time he has used racial slurs. He must resign immediately.

The CCTV report does not include the contention that Beckel had made a “racist slur”. The translation of “Chinamen” into Chinese in the report is not a pejorative. While unfamiliar, this translated term uses a colloquialism that is familiar to southern Chinese dialects.

However, the report does bring up that Beckel has shown anti-Chinese tendencies before in a previous comment when, after his eyes became swollen from swimming, he said “it made [him] look Oriental”.

The extent of the hurt feelings of the Chinese people can be seen in online comments:

方冰仔：
We had taught the foreignmen–er, sorry, foreigners–how to make gunpowder, and then they came back to use the guns they invented to invade us. (A popular comment with variations repeated several times)

扬名于世：
Isn’t this whomever “crying wolf”? Who is setting up an international monitoring system? Who is arguing the most forcefully? You know, yes you know. You know, you know, you know…

古月夏楠：
You should first give back the money you owe us before speaking.

黄欢_Hh：
Damned pervert America-man

任大欢：
What a bullshit comment

沐紫的那颗星：
I’m too angry. Is this [network] trying to provoke an argument?

张开翅膀飞2011：
Threat? Ha, haven’t done you in yet.

霸王龙____：
Gunpowder was invented by us!

姌七：
I suddenly have the urge to name off the four great inventions (of China)…

unique安吉拉：
Fire him immediately? What kind of host is this?

是天蝎不是蝴蝶：
You old bastard, did your mother teach you to speak that way?

灵魂二两半：
He’s just trying to self-promote himself. I hope that no one is going to acknowledge his words.

Here is a video of Beckel’s remarks from the Thursday broadcast. The quoted passage begins at 0:12:

The FOX host had also made previous remarks regarding the limiting Chinese foreign exchange students,

Photos: CCTV News

The post Fox News Host Refers To “Chinamen” In Highly-Criticized TV Rant appeared first on The Nanfang.

According to the ban, all Chinese news industry workers will be forced to sign contracts that forbid them from spreading information on social media networks.

Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) criticizes the ban for being vague on what constitutes a “state secret”. CHRD states:

“‘State secrets’ has long been an ill-defined concept under Chinese law… [that relies on]  a catch-all provision that allows authorities to arbitrarily and retroactively apply state secret laws.”

Hu Ping, editor of Beijing Spring, says that despite its outwards intentions as a formal attempt to organize state media, “the language isn’t specific enough.”

Hu goes on to say:

A lot of foreign news organizations publish classified official information and internal documents every day, and the Chinese government isn’t totally ignorant of where the leaks are coming from. But there’s very little they can do about it, because leaks get out because it’s in someone’s interest as part of some factional power struggle. They are always breaking their own rules.

China’s state secrets law covers data that ranges from industrial information to death penalty statistics. Any information can be designated a state secret retroactively.

Photo: BBC News

The post Rule Banning Chinese Reporters From Working With Foreign Press Criticized As Too Vague appeared first on The Nanfang.

Called “China’s biggest journalist“, Rui has become a celebrity that is seen and read all around China. His television shows on CCTV-2 are watched by some 300 million viewers nightly. Rui has had the distinction of having interviewed some 300 high-level political leaders.

The anchor was conspicuously absent from the July 11 broadcast of his “Economic Information Broadcast” television show, and rumors began to spread online about why he was absent. Police still haven’t indicated why they are investigating Rui.

Rui came to prominence on social media when he wrote a post about a Starbucks located in the Forbidden City in 2006. His screed against the coffee chain being in the Forbidden City led to it eventually being removed. Rui was named “Blogger of the Year” in 2007 as a result of his efforts.

Rui is also well known for his controversial remarks. At a 2009 press conference with US President Barack Obama, Rui volunteered himself when the US President was instead seeking a question from the Korean press. As Rui explained at the time, “Unfortunately, I hate to disappoint you, President Obama, I’m actually Chinese. But I think I get to represent the entire Asia, part of the family on this side of the world.”

Photos: Sina, china files

The post Controversial CCTV Host Rui Chenggang Taken Away By Police appeared first on The Nanfang.

Disaster in Wenzhou

There’s no doubt that people in China have more access to information than ever before, largely thanks to Internet services like Sina Weibo. Where once people in China may have been angry but disconnected, they are now increasingly able to band together for common causes and share their anger over issues such as government corruption, land expropriation, tainted food and more. The popular microblogging service most-recently lit up with angry comments during the Guo Meimei and Wenzhou train crash incidents. (If you’re unfamiliar with these two cases, you can read more about Guo Meimei here and Wenzhou here.)

Both cases were bad in and of themselves, but one could argue they were made worse by PR bumbling. This is not China of the 1970s (or even 1990s) where the government had a monopoly on news and information, which means more is expected of the people trotted out to publicly make the government’s case. The good news is it seems the government has received the message loud and clear. The Nanfang Metropolis News has published a story today (Chinese) on a lecture series offered to public relations spokespeople, using the Guo Meimei and Wenzhou train collision as case studies:

To help government bodies better communicate with their audiences, especially in an age where people can post their opinion relatively freely on social media platforms, the National News Publication Bureau recently organized the eighth national spokespersons training course in Beijing. According to Wang Xuming, former spokesperson for the national education bureau and one of the lecturers during the training, this kind of training isn’t available elsewhere in the world. Previous courses have focused on skills rather than values, but he regards this lecture as a way to help spokespeople establish their moral values.

Liu Pengfei, chief analyst of the press monitoring office of the People’s Daily website and another instructor during the training, suggested all spokespeople open Weibo accounts. Liu said his lesson would focus on how to respond on Weibo. “The Guo Meimei incident started from Weibo and developed all the way to a trust crisis of the Red Cross, and I have to say during the Wenzhou train wreck, the Zhejiang local government utilized its Weibo account to good effect.”

The participants are communication officers from the enterprise (SOEs) and government bodies, (Liu Jintao, the vice president of Shuanghui Group, whose company was involved in the recent poison scandal which started on Weibo, participated the training.) Liu said his lecture is welcomed by these people and they all regard social media communication as crucial.

China’s poor PR apparatus has long been a criticism of this blogger, so this is a good first step.

Thanks to MissXQ (Twitter, Weibo, blog) for the translation.

The post The light goes on: China to improve PR after Wenzhou, Guo Meimei fiascos appeared first on The Nanfang.