Qiushi Lambasts Critical Posts Online

Hammering the message home that online message criticizing the government is A Bad Thing, the Communist Party's own journal has come out with some gems.  "Seeking Truth", a magazine, and highly effective cure for insomnia has said that online rumours are no better than the "big character posters" that were put up during The Cultural Revolution, often attacking an establishment or individual as being "bourgeois" or "counter-revolutionary".

“There are some who make use of the open freedom of cyberspace to engage in wanton defamation, attacking the party and the government.  The Internet is full of all kinds of negative news and critical voices saying the government only does bad things and everything it says is wrong.”

Yes, the Chinese government is coming up against that most insidious of terrorist insurgent - a person who goes online and whines about the government fouling things up.  Descending into rhetoric usually reserved from the North Korean News Agency, the communist rag went on to say

“In truth, the work of the Chinese government has received wide praise all over the world, even public opinion in Western countries can't deny that,” Qiushi said. “This is a great truth, and overly criticising the government violates that truth.”

So the yardstick of achievement is measured by how much Western countries acknowledge that you've done good things.  What's missing is any kind of understanding that it's not what you do, but how you do it.

By the standard of simply "achieving great things", then Hitler's Nazi government achieved wonderful, amazing things by having 100% employment in the country.  Everyone was hard at work making guns so that Germany could invade and slaughter people in other countries, and there's the whole Holocaust PR fail, but apart from the that, the economic was powering ahead and plenty of people had enough to eat.

Charles Xue, a microblogger on Weibo with over 12 million followers appeared on TV in handcuffs, telling the good masses how "freedom of speech cannot override the law".  Going after criticism online is going hinder the government rather than help it.  Driving liberal voices online deeper underground, widening the gulf between the people at the government can only foment more violent outbursts of rebellion, not whip the people into line as it's supposed to.

Charles Xue: Arrested for Prostitution, Confesses to Spreading Rumors Online

Charles Xue, the venture capitalist arrested earlier this month for prostitution, has appeared on Chinese TV confessing to the heinous crime of spreading rumors online.  While it hasn't been made especially clear why he's confessed to something that he never was arrested for, the state broadcaster is typically making an example of the unfortunate Xue, who is also known as Xue Manzi.

Commanding an online following of nearly 12 million on Weibo, Xue said that "My irresponsibility in spreading information online was a vent of negative mood, and was a neglect of the social mainstream," adding that "freedom of speech cannot override the law.".  Of course, when freedom of speech is technically written into the law, as it is in the Chinese constitution, it's become increasingly clear as the Big V crackdown continues unabated that there's no such thing in practice.

Under new legislation, if a rumor, say something like "Xi Jin Ping smokes the big one" gets viewed 5000 times, or reposted 500 times a potential maximum sentence of three years in jail can be bestowed upon the guilty party.  There's no word yet on what the punishment would be for anything, with, say 499 retweets, or 4999 visits.

Confessions made by arrested perps are a useful tool in reinforcing the idea that the Chinese police know what the hell they're doing.  The recent parading on TV of detained foreign businessmen confessing to what Chinese businessmen get away with before they've had their coffee in the morning is a relatively new development.  Along with the new laws regarding online behavior, legal experts have said that the confessions broadcast live to the nation make a mockery of the already pisspoor Chinese legal system.

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Pan Shiyi Very Very Nervously Backs Beijing's Big V Crackdown.

The high profile arrests of Charles Xue, Wang Gongquan and Dong Shiru seem to be having the desired effect on promient "Big V" microbloggers in the Chinese blogosphere.

After lobbying the government to release more accurate data about the terrible air quality in the capital, real estate tycoon Pan Shiyi is getting a bit nervous that he might be next.  What better course of action than to publicly back the crackdown?  Going on the PR offense, an TV spot was duely booked.  Interviewed on CCTV about the new rules, whereby a sentence of three years in the clink can be handed down to anyone who posts a rumour that is reposted 5000 times, Pan seemed to suddenly have developed a stutter. 

Not usually camera shy, as this promo video for Johnnie Walker shows, Pan seemed a little unsure of how to answer the reporters questions - the pressure of a firing squad loading their guns off camera possibly contributing.  Mocking messages were posted on the very platform that he spoke out about, but a couple of messages of sympathy were left for him - it's difficult to remain composed if you're being interviewed by a police officer on camera.

A Fly in the Oinment: Charles Xue Arrest

State media has been making a big thing of the arrest of Xue Manzi, known in the US as Charles Xue.  Arrested earlier this week on suspicion of soliciting prostitutes, it's till not clear what charges, if any he will face.  Coincidentally, Xue was quite a promienent voice on Weibo, with over 12 million followers, he frequently comments on social issues, and posts frequently about reform in China.  Making an example of him is obviously one of the governments top priorities when it comes to silencing dissenting voices online.

Not receiving quite the same amount of media attention is Cui Ya Dong, the High Court judge in Shanghai who has been accused by no less than 70 police officers of graft during his tenure as provincial chief in Chongqing.  By strange coincidence a video surface online of four Shanghai judges visiting a nightclub in Shanghai and leaving with a group of prostitutes.

In a letter signed with the thumbprints of 70 police officers, Cui was accused, amongst other thing of taking nearly 20RMB million in kickbacks and appropriating a huge amount of alcohol, totalling to around six tons.  Cui would later sell the liquor, bought with public funds, in Anhui.  As of the time of writing he is yet to be detained, but all references to him have been scrubbed from China search engines and social networks.

Also not in the news is the detention of Chinese reporter Liu Hu, who was arrested after posting message on Weibo accusing deputy director of the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, Ma Zheng Qi of dereliction, during time in...Chongqing.  Liu posted evidence that expose other corrupt officials in the city, but these posts were quickly deleted.

Since authorities aren't obligated to investigate accusation of corruption made by members of the public, nothing is done, unless someone has firsthand evidence somewhere.  For now it seems that while there is some effort to crackdown on graft in China, political motives are more often behind the trials and detentions that any kind of moral fibre.

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