The Pudong New Area People’s Court ruled this week that an article published by the defendant PCPop.com was an unfair assessment of a product made by Shanghai New Century Robot Co, and in doing so had damaged the tech company’s public reputation.

On July 4, 2014, PCPop published an article called “Walking revolution! Reviews of seven self-balancing electric hoverboards” that contained reviews of several similar automated personal transportation devices. Besides Shanghai New Century Robot, the review included products from companies like Ninebot, Segway, Chic, Inmotion, Robstep, and Eswing.

The PCPop review described the Shanghai New Century Robot product as only being capable of up to 15 kilometers of continuous travel on optimal road conditions. After that, PCPop wrote, “New Century products have a remaining electric charge of 0%.”

In court, Shanghai New Century Robot contested the PCPop review by submitting a test report from the bureau of state quality supervision, inspection and quarantine that said the vehicle can travel 27 kilometers after recharging. In response, the PCPop countered that the article explicitly states that products used for the evaluation were not all brand-new, and that road conditions used for testing the products were not always optimal.

Shanghai New Century Robot marketing material

The part of the PCPop article that Shanghai New Century found most damaging was at the end, where under a headine called “Be Careful Buying” was this passage:

If the only thing you like about this product is its exterior design, then you shouldn’t get it. It’s not worth using as a transportation alternative to short-distance walking, but more suitable as outdoor fitness entertainment, thereby making its use more safe for consumers.

In his ruling, Xu said the article had overstepped the boundaries of being an evaluation of different products because it is a recommendation, and so therefore “lacks legitimacy”. Xu said the PCPop article has had a “psychological impact” upon consumers, and as a result has increased the negative effect on Shanghai New Century’s products.

Shanghai New Century Robot marketing material

Because PCPop was subjective in its evaluation of Shanghai New Century Robot’s product, Xu ruled that PCPop was instrumental in defaming the reputation of the plaintiff.

The PCPop article has yet not been deleted from its website, and can be seen here.

Meanwhile, for those people not familiar with Shanghai New Century Robot products, here’s a commerical featuring the Jason Mraz hit song I’m Yours (seen below):

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London-based political consultancy firm Portland Communications released a ranking of 30 countries that compares their soft power resources through six different categories: government, culture, education, global engagement, enterprise and digital. As part of the study, over 7,000 people in 20 countries were polled throughout the world.

Despite its good intentions, China ranked last, with the report saying much of the success China has been able to achieve has been undone by its policies on censorship, restrictions of personal rights and freedoms, and its foreign policy.

It’s not for lack of trying, though. China has set up thousands of Confucius Institutes, established the Xinhua news agency throughout the world, and held international events like the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the 2010 Shanghai World Expo. For China, the price of soft power is not cheap. According to Chinese foreign policy expert David Shambaugh, China spends around $10 billion annually on “external propaganda”.China spends around $10 billion annually on “external propaganda”. And when including economic policies and investments like the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank or the “Belt and Road” initiative, this sum jumps to $1.41 trillion.

So with all the money being spent, why is China still so sorely lacking in soft power?

Shambaugh describes the inability of China to launch an international charm offensive: “While China’s economic prowess impresses much of the world, its repressive political system and mercantilist business practices tarnish its reputation.”

Portland Communications said China’s political system “has not kept pace with the nation’s economic dynamism”, to which public polls show a lack of trust in China to “do the right thing in global affairs”. These opinions are reflected in China ranking last in the “government” and “digital” categories.

And yet, China looks to improve its soft power in other ways. In a New Year’s speech last year, President Xi Jinping said China “needs to build its capacity in international communication, construct a communication system, better use new media and increase the creativity, appeal and credibility of China’s publicity” in order to strengthen its soft power.

A 2010 People’s Daily Online op-ed also looked at soft power, saying that it can be achieved by “preventing giant foreign media agencies from monopolizing the right of voice, enabling foreign people to hear the voice of China and popularizing actual and outstanding Chinese culture”.

That sounds like it will cost a lot of money. However, as pointed out by Portland Communications, one country is making huge advances in soft power this year, and they’re not spending a dime to achieve it. India wasn’t on the Soft Power 30 yet, but was praised by Portland Communications for its advancements in soft power that were mostly due to its new leader, Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Modi was lauded for his use of digital tools as he has launched several initiatives on social media. In fact, Modi’s Facebook page is cited as having the most engagement out of any world leader.

It may seem strange for China to spend so much money on something just to get such little return. But the People’s Daily Online suggests, the reason why soft power is so expensive is because you have to pay for it:

China needs to take all kinds of measures to educate the world about China so they can love it.

Maybe the problem isn’t the amount being spent, but the message.

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No doubt one of the reasons the South China Morning Post all but ignored the Hong Kong Journalists Association’s report on press freedom in Hong Kong is that the paper’s own increasingly pro-Beijing bias came in for criticism. The report particularly mentioned the paper’s shift away from serious critical analysis in its op-ed pages. Other observers have noticed a similar pattern in editorials. The paper’s omission of the HKJA’s report and its downplaying of China’s roundup of lawyers show the same bias in actual news coverage – at which point a newspaper ceases to have any use to readers. (The business section, interestingly, remains relatively immune to this propagandizing trend.)

As the Asia Sentinel piece indicates, the smothering of the SCMP is most conspicuous in its China coverage. To media-watchers overseas it must seem strange for a publisher to take his paper’s key claim to international stature and deliberately trash it. But In Hong Kong it is unsurprising to see tycoons displaying loyalty to the Communist Party through ritual self-mutilation.in Hong Kong it is unsurprising to see tycoons displaying loyalty to the Communist Party through ritual self-mutilation.

The decline of the SCMP’s opinion pieces is a bit less depressing, as commentary is abundant elsewhere. Indeed, it can be amusing to monitor these columns to see how heavy-handed and shameless editors must be in delivering ideological correctness. Some of this content is so demented that it must be self-parody – like this thing about the immense joys of watching dragon-boat races and imagining all the extra tourists they could attract. Mostly, though, the op-ed page seems to be carefully calibrated to achieve an ideal balance between insipidness and shoe-shining.

Thus there should always be a ‘hard-hitting’ piece on how something must be done about something everyone knows to be evil, like climate change or the ivory trade. Preferably, it should involve BRICS because they’re emerging and so highlight the decline of the West. Today’s is about exploitation of surrogate mothers in India, which should be regulated (root causes like poverty being unsolvable). Occasionally something vaguely entertaining slips through, like today’s sociology PhD mini-thesis on how ‘third culture kids’ is just a euphemism for ‘expat brats’ and (due to sociology PhD requirements) evil Western colonialism is to blame. If we wanted to be ultra-sensitive about bias, we could point out that both these items reflect badly on benighted, non-Chinese peoples.

In their attempts to seem incisive while remaining politically correct, columns can also be inadvertently funny. The SCMP’s political editor today poses an intriguing question: why do Hong Kong’s pro-Beijing political groups lack independence of thought? Obviously, the question answers itself – as a front for the Communist Party, the DAB is required to lack independence of thought. (Duh.) The writer contrasts the loyalists’ zombie-ness and obedience to dictators with the pro-democrats’ amateurish but ultimately moral, decent and publicly popular devotion to freedom (though not using these exact words). He concludes that it comes down to differences in political talent.

Then there’s the daily glorification of the motherland, preferably by an adoring barbarian. Tom Plate – mentioned here before – blasts Western media for their callous lack of empathy to China as the country endures its stock-market crash.

What has struck me about Western reporting on this subject, if anything, is actually the lack of gloating. But Plate finds it overwhelming and offensive. In true wumao fashion, he devotes much of the article to how the West is ‘just as bad’, having endured many financial crises itself – which is true but irrelevant. His real error here is to portray Western criticism of China’s policymaking as heartlessness towards the Chinese people. This is pure mendacity. I haven’t read a single word mocking the grannies and cab-drivers who lost savings in Beijing’s bubble-making accident/scam. No more than anyone mocks the lawyers who have been arrested, or the Tibetan monk who just died in prison, or any other victims of the Communist Party. The ‘lack of empathy’ is towards a Leninist dictatorship that has shown itself not only to be cruel but incompetent. It is a boot-licking article truly worthy of the SCMP’s op-ed page these days.

On a brighter note – a pat on the head to Hong Kong Democratic Party. With little more to be said on political reform right now, they got off their backsides, found something wrong and made a fuss. Specifically, they discovered lead in the water at a public housing estate. The story has everything from an uncaring government, to a shady-sounding Mainland construction company linked with the husband of a pro-Beijing lawmaker, and for good measure, Legionnaires’ disease. See how easy it is to have officials and their supporters on the run!

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