China’s propaganda department of the Communist Party runs a new six-month campaign to educate journalists to censor themself, RSF condemns

Chinese journalists are to undergo six-month training courses that will teach them how to “eradicate false news, improve the feeling of social responsibility and reinforce journalistic ethics.”

“In short, to make journalists themselves actors in censorship,” Reporters Without Borders commented.

The initiative comes from the Propaganda department, directly linked to the Communist Party, and follows its announcement of 10 directives relating to the press in 2011.

Reporters Without Frontiers condemns this escalation in the control of information.

Fearful of revolution, China blocks news of Egypt protests including the word “Egypt”

CHINA’S powerful propaganda department is trying to block non-official news about the bloody riots shaking Egypt.

The Government has stopped the use of the country’s name across a popular Twitter-like blogging site and restricting the reporting of events there.

Authorities have blocked the Chinese characters for Egypt on Sina.com’s Weibo site, used by more than 50 million of China’s 400 million netizens.

The Egyptian news has been played down in the Chinese media, being relegated to the second page of the country’s major website and portals. Newspapers all carry the state-run Xinhua version of the story.

Member of banned China Democracy Party was beaten by police following his release from jail

A founding member of a banned opposition party who was released from jail on Monday at the end of an eight-year prison sentence has been beaten by police in Beijing, relatives and fellow activists said.

Political activist and writer He Depu was released from Beijing’s No. 2 Prison on Monday after completing the eight years and two months sentence handed down by a Beijing court on Nov. 4, 2002.

“They beat me up because I protested,” He said following his release.

“The national security police wanted to take me in their vehicle, and I got very angry and told them that I was a free man now,” He said from his Beijing home, where he is now under tight surveillance.

Don’t Shoot the Pianist? Lang Lang, the Vice President of the All China Youth Federation

By Jay Nordlinger, The National Review, Jan 29, 2011-

On Monday, I did a post on Lang Lang, and his performance at the White House — a performance that was, at least in part, a political and propaganda performance. The pianist played an anti-American propaganda song known throughout China. Hu Jintao and the other Communist bigs were visibly moved and delighted. All the “patriotic Chinese” were moved and delighted. (“Patriotic Chinese” is the Chinese Communist Party’s phrase for those loyal to it.)

In addition, I mentioned Lang Lang in a post yesterday.

For the past week or so, he has been on a PR campaign, proclaiming his innocence in the White House affair. “Gee, I had no idea that the song had any political or propaganda associations whatsoever. I just like the pretty lil’ tune.” As a result, I keep getting mail that says, “Lay off the sweet kid, would you? He just loves China, loves America, and loves music.”

Human Rights Day With “Chinese Characteristics” – Rights Defender Ni Yulan’s Story

This article was published in the South China Morning Post on December 22, 2010, under the title “Dark days and rights.” It was published in Chinese in Taiwan’s China Times on December 23, 2010. (繁体中文）Illustration from South China Morning Post.

by Jerome A. Cohen

On Human Rights Day this year, the day on which imprisoned writer Liu Xiaobo was honoured with the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, I was in Beijing, where the authorities’ angry clampdown on dissent had brought about an eerie hush among those aware of the occasion. Scores of activists had been placed under house arrest, deprived of internet and phone services, or “vacationed” out of town to ensure their silence.

Canada, China to play nice

Chinese President Hu Jintao’s official state visit to Washington, D.C., last week was intended to demonstrate that China is a positive force in international relations. However, Hu’s subtle public statements revealed that China remains firmly opposed to the cherished Western values of democracy and respect for human rights, putting it on a collision course with the Harper government.

The Chinese leader got an earful from President Barack Obama on human rights during their joint press conference.

The Associated Press begins daily transmissions of China’s state-run CCTV’s propaganda news feeds

It’s reported by The Broadcast Engineering that state-run China Central Television (CCTV)’s News Content became available Jan. 1 on a daily basis via Associated Press Television Networks’ satellite network, the Global Video Wire (GVW). GVW reaches 90 percent of the world’s national and international broadcasters.

International press freedom organization, the Reporters Without Border , said in its 2005 special report  “Xinhua: the world’s biggest propaganda agency” that,  although the Chinese Communist Party’s Xinhua agency “is more and more regularly cited as a credible source” by western medias,  “Xinhua remains the voice of the sole party”, “particularly during the SARS epidemic, Xinhua has for last few months been putting out news reports embarrassing to the government, but they are designed to fool the international community, since they are not published in Chinese.”

Chinese Scholars Aren’t Buying Lang Lang’s Explanations

While some in the U.S. media have been sympathetically reporting Lang Lang’s claims of ignorance, some Chinese scholars are holding him together with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) responsible for his performance at the White House state dinner for President Barack Obama and his guest Chairman Hu Jintao.

Chinese-born pianist Lang Lang responded to critics in an interview with NPR on January 24. He said he knew nothing about the background of “My Motherland,” the Chinese propaganda song he played at the end of the state dinner. It is the theme song for “Battle on Shangganling Mountain,” a 1956 anti-American movie about the Korean War. He said he had performed the piece many times simply because he likes the melody.

Chinese Journalist Chang Ping Who Defied the Censors and Wrote About Corruption Is Fired

SHANGHAI — A prominent newspaper columnist who challenged government censors by writing about corruption and political reform was dismissed Thursday by the Southern Daily Group, publisher of some of the country’s best-known newspapers.

The columnist, Chang Ping, said he was forced out because his bosses were “under pressure” from government propaganda authorities.

The executive editor, Zhuang Shenzhi, said that the publisher had decided not to extend Mr. Chang’s contract.

China’s tycoon hands out cash in a controversial trip in five times wealthier Taiwan

HSINCHU, Taiwan — China’s most famous philanthropist began distributing cash in Taiwan on Thursday, the first day of a controversial trip that has sparked criticism and protests from anti-China groups.

Chen Guangbiao, who made his fortune recycling construction materials, handed Tw$7 million ($241,000) to charity groups in Hsinchu county in the island’s north, amid accusations he was promoting reunification with China.

“I don’t know anything about propaganda for Chinese reunification. I only know about charity and environmental work. I just want to do good,” 42-year-old Chen told AFP.

China PM’s meet with petitioners a carefully orchestrated political show, Human Rights Watch says

By Susan Stumme (AFP), Jan. 26, 2011-

BEIJING — Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has met citizens in Beijing petitioning for redress over unpaid wages, home demolitions and land grabs, state media said Wednesday — the first such meeting in six decades.

Wen’s visit to the State Bureau for Letters and Calls — where petitioners go to file complaints with authorities — highlighted the mounting anger felt by many Chinese living in a one-party state that enforces its will by diktat.

It was the first such trip by a premier since communist China was founded in 1949, the reports said, and it received widespread coverage in print and broadcast media.

But amid rising levels of public protest across China, Wen’s conversations with unhappy citizens were slammed by Human Rights Watch as a political show.

Chinese Rights Activists Talk About the Regime’s Fake Immolation Incident on Tiananmen Square 10 Years Ago

On January 23, 2001, news of five people setting themselves on fire at China’s iconic Tiananmen Square gripped the country. Within hours, state-run media reported that those involved were followers of Falun Gong. The incident drew world-wide attention. The Chinese regime quickly used it to justify the nationwide campaign they had launched in 1999 to, quote, “eradicate” the spiritual group. To date, there are nearly 3,500 documented cases of Falun Gong practitioners confirmed to have died in the Chinese regime’s persecution.

Although the incident turned into a propaganda tool for the Chinese regime, it was later proven to be a staged event—used to rile up the public against Falun Gong.

Censors delete Chinese cartoon that takes swipes at public scandals

The creator says it is a fairy tale. But there is nothing cuddly about the bunnies in a new Chinese animation to mark next week’s lunar new year and the arrival of the year of the rabbit.

Combining gruesome, South Park-style violence with swipes at several public scandals – from tainted baby milk to forced demolitions – it culminates with the rabbits overrunning and savaging to death the tigers who have bullied them.

Many interpreted that imagery as downtrodden citizens rising up against the powerful. There was little surprise when censors deleted the cartoon from websites.

China: The First Mature Fascist State

For nearly ten years, I have been arguing that China may well be the first example of a mature fascism in power.  The highest praise imaginable has been bestowed on this theory, by the People’s Republic itself.  When I published an updated version of my theory (first published in the Wall Street Journal in  2002 and reprised in different form in NRO thereafter) in the Far East Economic Review in May, 2008, the entire issue was banned in China.

On the occasion of  Mr. Hu’s visit to Washington, it seems appropriate to revisit this theme, which seems to me to have been abundantly confirmed by events.

May 2008

Beijing Embraces Classical Fascism
by Michael Ledeen

Human Rights Watch’s World Report 2011: China

Imprisoned dissident Liu Xiaobo’s selection as the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize winner in October was a defining moment for China’s human rights movement. It also focused global attention on the extent of human rights violations in China, and on its unreformed, authoritarian political system as it emerges as a world power.

The Chinese government tried to censor news about the prize domestically, immediately placing Liu’s wife Liu Xia under house arrest and clamping down on rights activists and Liu’s supporters. It then attempted to portray the prize as part of a conspiracy by Western countries, insisting that Chinese citizens do not value civil and political freedoms.

Chinese Pianist Lang Lang Plays Anti-Americanism Propaganda Tune at White House State Dinner

Lang Lang the pianist says he chose it. Chairman Hu Jintao recognized it as soon as he heard it. Patriotic Chinese Internet users were delighted as soon as they saw the videos online. Early morning TV viewers in China knew it would be played an hour or two beforehand. At the White House State dinner on Jan. 19, about six minutes into his set, Lang Lang began tapping out a famous anti-American propaganda melody from the Korean War: the theme song to the movie “Battle on Shangganling Mountain.”

The film depicts a group of “People’s Volunteer Army” soldiers who are first hemmed in at Shanganling (or Triangle Hill) and then, when reinforcements arrive, take up their rifles and counterattack the U.S. military “jackals.”

Praise in China for Lang Lang’s martial White House tune – from an anti-US war film

AFP, Jan 23, 2011-

BEIJING — Chinese web users are acclaiming pianist Lang Lang’s choice of tune for a White House state dinner given in honour of President Hu Jintao — a patriotic theme song from an anti-US war film.

The 28-year-old Chinese virtuoso, who divides his time between China and the United States, has given no indication that he was aware of the nationalistic tinge to his choice at last Wednesday’s dinner entertainment.

But web users in China hailed Lang Lang as a true patriot for playing “My Motherland”, the theme of a famous 1956 Chinese film called “Battle on Shangganling Mountain” set during the Korean War.

U.S. Congressman: China should be treated as a “gangster regime that murders their own people” -CNN Video

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) says China should be treated as a “gangster regime that murders their own people.”  Please take a look at following video from CNN:

http://parkerspitzer.blogs.cnn.com/2011/01/19/congressman-chinas-hu-a-gangster/

Despite Lovefest, U.S.-China Tensions Will Mount

By Massimo Calabresi, Time.com, jan 21, 2011-

The reason Presidents Barack Obama and Hu Jintao went to such great lengths during Wednesday’s White House lovefest to declare that the U.S. and China can get along in peace and prosperity for years to come is that neither man is convinced they will. In fact, the U.S. and China are entering a dangerous two-year period during which the pressures for confrontation are as likely to build as they are to abate.

It was partly in the hope of defusing already mounting pressures on both sides that Obama and Hu went to such lengths of civility. Major power centers on both sides want a more confrontational policy. The Chinese military, driven by nationalism and self-interest, has accelerated its push for a blue-water navy and expanded its claim to the South China Sea. State-run industries, and their protectionist backers in the State Council, have sought to tighten access to China’s manufacturing contracts. And the propaganda department of the Chinese Communist Party has heightened the rhetoric of confrontation.

A long time to wait for freedom- China

When President Obama on Wednesday expressed the hope that “30 years from now, we will have seen further evolution” in China’s respect for human rights, I thought about Geng He, who had come to visit me the day before.

Geng He, 43, is a soft-spoken woman who doesn’t know whether her husband, Gao Zhisheng, is dead or alive. She knows that over the past five years, he has been repeatedly tortured by Chinese security agents. She knows that he was last seen nine months ago, when some of those agents spirited him away. She’s pretty sure that he has not been charged with a crime, but the government will not say where he is.

Fear for the life of 2008 Sakharov Prize winner Hu Jia who is in prison in Beijing

Beijing (AsiaNews/Agencies) – Activist Hu Jia, detained since December 2007 for defending human rights, has been denied proper medical care and his life is in danger. Hu’s wife Zeng Jinyan has made a dramatic appeal to the international community after she met him in a Beijing City Prison on January14.

According to Zeng, Hu Jia appeared pale, sweaty, and complained of sharp pain on the left side of his abdomen; he was so ill that he was unable to spend all of the time allotted for the visit with his wife, and had to leave early.

On Ten Year Anniversary, Tiananmen Square Self-Immolation Continues to Be Deadly Frame-up

NEW YORK – Ten years ago this Sunday, a deadly piece of stagecraft unfolded on Tiananmen Square in Beijing. At the behest of the Communist Party, five people set themselves on fire with cameras rolling.

China’s state-run media immediately pronounced that the individuals were adherents of Falun Gong, claiming they had been driven to suicide by the spiritual practice. Two of the participants died in connection with the self-immolation. The event was used to turn public opinion against Falun Gong, and to justify the mass imprisonment and torture of its adherents.  

China’s President Gets His State Dinner, What Did Obama and America Get?

By Stephen Yates,  FoxNews, January 21, 2011 -

The sun has set on Chinese President Hu Jintao’s long sought-after state visit to the United States. President Hu moves on to Chicago before returning to China, but he appears to have successfully navigated the main event in Washington.

President Hu came to Washington with relatively limited objectives. He wanted symbolism of a full state visit to demonstrate to others in China that he was able to command no less diplomatic deference from the U.S. than his predecessor received. He also aimed to blunt or avoid criticism of China’s performance on human rights, economic, and national security affairs. Beyond this he sought to make no meaningful concession or take on any added responsibility.