Ever the Quiet Burier of Ledes, Global Times published a news item Monday that surely qualifies for Hideous China Story of the Year (Relationships Edition)… although GT went for the more casual “Mom jailed for covert contraceptive.”

It’s a Turducken of a tale – one that gradually reveals more unpleasant layers with every sentence until, eventually, everybody loses. The action begins in 2015 with a young graduate, Zhang Yang, whose girlfriend, “Yanzi,” is pregnant. Unfortunately, Zhang’s mother Zhang Xiuqin does not approve of the match, and not only pressures Yanzi into getting an abortion – she does the procedure herself. Medical ethics are clearly not an issue for Nurse Zhang, though:

Zhang Xiuqin was handed six months and a 5,000-yuan ($743) fine…for implanting [a] diaphragm while performing an abortion on the woman, CCTV news reported.

Yanzi only discovered the device years later while seeking treatment because she had been unable to conceive since.

Zhang told authorities she inserted the contraceptive device to sabotage their relationship and prevent them from marrying.

Zhang said she had disapproved of their relationship because at the time her son was a college-educated and Yanzi was working as a waitress.

Things then take a deeply amoral twist for the worse:

Zhang began encouraging Yanzi and Zhang Yang to get back together after learning the former waitress had made a fortune.

For some reason, Yanzi didn’t fancy another invasive Ob-Gyn procedure at the hands of her meddling mother-in-law and went somewhere else to figure out why she couldn’t get pregnant again. The plot unraveled and the sociopathic Nurse Zhang ended up in jail (whether she is allowed to practice nursing again is another story, but am gonna guess probably… yes). Last, quick twist of the knife:

The couple eventually broke up.

The story is filed under GT’s “Odd” section, but is frankly so WTF-awful, it could form one of the plotlines in Party Members and still come off as a little extreme.

h/t Isabella Steger

There was a restaurant? (Pic via Thats)

A swathe of this street that included 3 Rock was demolished last week and, while some mourned, others cheered the ongoing erosion of what grassroots Beijing nightlife. There’s nothing wrong with whisky bars, brewpubs and cocktail lounges, unless you count homogeneity and banal exclusivity. But as Tolstoy said, all whisky bars are alike; each dive bar is divey in its own way.

Beijing is already deep down its path to progress, where no night out is not the same. The orders still go out to “sweep the streets,” yet there’s nowhere left to crack the whip. While cops used to roll up at roadhouse dens like Dos Kolegas, these days they’re reduced to raiding modest French bistros like Café de la Poste, or drug-testing patrons at family pub Great Leap on a Monday afternoon.

Meanwhile, among such sites never again to be witnessed at 3 Rock – a Scotsman being served at the bar with his pants around his ankles; half-naked arm wrestling; a drinking game involving a pint of “everything”; two rock chicks playing strip dice; and one of the foulest unisex bathrooms in Beijing.

Here’s some of 3 Rock’s best/worst graffiti to remember it by

This is almost Bukowski-esque

Makes ya think…

Yesterday, an editor at the venerable in-flight magazine of Trump Airlines published an article by one of its many, many, many useless contributors entitled ‘China Expert: I’m Drunk,’ in which the author has a chin-stroker of an evening with a China expert who admitted to having already sunk a bottle of claret and several jars.

The conversation indeed sounds like something one might overhear between Martin Jacques and a barstool around closing time at the Bull and Bear.

Other than being British, the writer of a recently “well-received book” and “not on Twitter,” the expert is unidentified but drunk, you say?

Sounds like he’s been drinking deep of the Cup of Tea.

This has the makings of a promising series: Maybe next week Forbes can huff paint with Dave Shambaugh and ask if he’s cracking up? Note: “Chinese conglomerate HNA Group is in talks to buy a controlling stake in the owner of the publisher of Forbes magazine”

Soon, this is how all China watching will be done

UPDATE 25/4 15.04 – A reader alerts: Forbes seems to have taken down the article without comment

Some disappointing news for this year’s Bookworm Literary Festival, which launched on Friday: headline act Roxane Gay, an American writer, critic and literary figure whose books include the bestselling Bad Feminist, has cancelled her much-anticipated visit, citing “personal reasons.”

Author Roxane Gay, whose books include Bad Feminist and the novel An Untamed State

Roxane was scheduled for a solo talk today, talking about gender activism and her recent novel, as well as a forum on March 15 addressing race, gender, identity, and cultural marginality. The latter, though, will proceed as planned (The Bookworm is refunding all ticket holders for the Sunday talk, and offering the same deal for anyone not wishing to attend Tuesday’s panel).

Last week, Roxane had tweeted concerns about how she might be received in China

Also, theoretically I am going to China in 6 days. I keep hearing horror stories of how fat people are treated there.

— roxane gay (@rgay) March 5, 2016

So I am in a constant state of panic and dread about the trip.

— roxane gay (@rgay) March 5, 2016

Although… being “plus size” in China is an aspiration to many.* Subjects that might be considered taboo or tricky elsewhere – education, salary, medical history, career prospects, home ownership, whether you’re interested in investing in a third cousin’s startup – are sometimes used as ice-breakers in the PRC.

“Hi, good to meet you – are you married? Why not? Did you attend Harvard? OK, see you later” is a conversation we’ve all had, or overheard, or had a few times (by the way, if you’re ever in a desperately awkward social situation: mention that you don’t “get why people have kids, ever,” suggest all property is really theft, or boast about the cartel of Japanese nationalists you befriended last week in a Mongolian nightclub. Problem. Solved).

Big picture, though – times are tough for women. Last year, five were detained by police for handing out leaflets discussing sexual harassment – they were only released after an international media backlash. Those same women have since been sharply warned to keep their mouths shut while Beijing hosted the annual political meeting this month. Meanwhile, officials celebrated last week’s International Women’s Day with an… ethnic fashion show. And just yesterday, before the Bookworm Literary Festival’s morning event called Women’s Rights Around the World, this happened to Beijing LGBT center executive director Ying Xin (a.k.a. Xiao Tie):

An empty seat for Xiao Tie, who was intercepted by cops on her way to her event this morn at The Bookworm #BLF2016 pic.twitter.com/g6WSf5MiHy

— The Bookworm (@BeijingBookworm) March 12, 2016

To be clear: not detained, just not allowed to participate in event Women's Rights Around the World with Bidisha, Clare Wright, Lijia Zhang

— The Bookworm (@BeijingBookworm) March 12, 2016

China already has many bad, bad feminists ­– just look at the All China Women’s Federation. So be well, Roxane: you’re probably needed here. You’ll certainly be missed.

* OK, mainly men. Many men. There’s definitely a tranche of Chinese fellows who’d argue Jabba the Hutt is a jovial wealth creator, simply a KTV-loving slug who makes his own rules. When Jabs is then cruelly betrayed by Princess Leia in Jedi, the lesson becomes ever-clear: Never the trust a woman you’ve kidnapped and sexually demeaned. Right?!? These men should be avoided at all costs, but can be swiftly identified by their pompadour hairstyles, loose polo-and-slacks combo and insistence that you get blind-drunk with them at midday.

As some readers may be aware, new measures restricting foreign content online in China (or “Administrative Regulations for Online Publishing Services”) are dropping March 10 – today. Over at China Law Blog, Steve Dickinson has answers to most of the major players and questions, but we felt obliged to follow up with Steve on a couple of local matters – for, you know, local people.

BJC: How will the rules affect the “expat rags” – English-language listings magazines — usually published in legally grayish partnership with a Chinese firm that has a proper “kanhao” (publishing license)?

SD: Foreign ownership of a print publication (e.g., That’s Shanghai, That’s Beijing, Redstar, City Weekend, Time Out, etc.) is illegal. All these magazines are owned and published by Chinese nationals and are subject to the standard PRC censorship rules. That is why they are so boring.

I am not aware of any foreign-oriented magazines that are published by foreign nationals. If such magazines exist, they are illegal and the publisher is subject to serious criminal sanction. However, I don’t know a printer in China who would take the risk, so I doubt that any such magazines exist that have any serious circulation. [Ed’s note: I know a few do exist but with tiny circulations and usually in Tier-3 type cities]

BJC: What about foreign-hosted websites that mainly focus on China-based content… like Beijing Cream? 

SD: All such websites are illegal in China. However, China does not exercise extraterritorial jurisdiction. Instead, China has created the Great Firewall by which it selectively blocks the sites that it decides are objectionable, based on criteria no one really understands. All activities of such websites within China are illegal and participants in such activities (reporters) are subject to either being sanctioned, jailed, or deported. This happens for the foreign political websites that are written in the Chinese language. I have not heard of anyone getting sanctioned for writing for a general interest English-language foreign website. It does, however, remain a possibility. This vague threat of a visit from the government serves to chill the expression of opinion. It is cheap and effective and widely used in single-party Leninist dictatorships.

So there you have it. You’ll still be able to flick through City Weekend and Shanghaiist while waiting for feckless friends to arrive late… for the immediate future. But you never know. Thanks to Steve Dickinson of Harris Moure for the help. (Image via)

Ursula Gauthier exiting China from Beijing Capital International Airport (photo via Fred Dufour, @freddufour_afp)

Ursula Gauthier, erstwhile Beijing correspondent for the French newsweekly L’Obs, left China for good in the early hours of January 1. It was not, as they say, of her own volition.

When the clock struck midnight on 2015, Gauthier’s press visa expired and was not up for renewal. According to official organs, she had offended the Chinese people with her November 18 article written in the aftermath of the November 13 terrorist attacks on Paris. Gauthier’s refusal to publicly apologize for remarks concerning China’s attempts to link Paris with its own problems in Xinjiang was taken as the final straw.

But her departure merely concluded a weeks-long saga of intimidation and mudslinging directed from the highest reaches of China’s propaganda and foreign affairs departments (a typical example here). In a statement, the Foreign Correspondents Club of China (FCCC) summarized the campaign against Gauthier, in which her photograph and address were published on a military forum, and expressed its unqualified disgust: “Insinuating that Ms. Gauthier supports terrorism is a particularly egregious personal and professional affront with no basis in fact.”

Indeed, on the basis of this (to say the least) unbecoming treatment of an accredited journalist, foreign correspondents have presented a united front, whatever they might have thought – and privately grumbled about – the substance of Gauthier’s piece. So let us be as similarly bold, so there’s no confusion: China’s official response to Ursula Gauthier’s piece in L’Obs is puerile, petty, and idiotic.

It can’t be said enough: expelling journalists for their work is not only a bad look – puerile, petty, idiotic, one might say – but terrible policy. As this excellent China Law and Policy blog post explains, Beijing has used the typically broad strokes of its Foreign Media Regulations to libel Gauthier as “championing terrorism,” offering a pathetic veneer of legality to its shit fit, and signaling a re-hardening of attitudes toward any who dare approach the invisible red lines of China reportage (ethnic policy, finances of the leadership, etc). It’s interesting to wonder whether Gauthier’s visa would have been affected if her article came out in June – six months before she needed an extension – as China renews all press credentials at the end of the calendar year; certainly, the timing benefitted her critics. Still, if Gauthier’s expulsion was meant to be a warning, it’s not likely it’ll rattle journalists worth their salt: within days of the announcement came a New York Times report entitled “Xinjiang Seethes Under Chinese Crackdown.”

But nor is any journalist willing to ask serious questions of Gauthier’s reporting, for fear of validating the response. Unfortunately, this code of silence – though broken quite frankly in private – is not only sketchy ethics (“We always report fairly and objectively – unless it’s one of us”), it’s a gift to Chinese propagandists who prefer their critics to be a homogenous, hostile mass – “Western media” – than an independent and wholly diverse group of earnest scrutineers.

Gauthier’s article – her English translation can be found here, via China Digital Times – was fatally flawed in one way: she failed to differentiate between terrorism – defined as the violent targeting of innocent civilians for political purposes – and Terrorism™, the post-9/11 brand, which is an empty shell of counterproductive rhetoric.

China wanting in on Terrorism’s™ endless war should not surprise anybody, because that “war” – for all its ceaseless costs and stupidity – is a stirring political success. Of course China’s ruthlessly savvy and shrewd politicians would like to be a recognized component of a globally legitimized campaign against Extremism. And naturally, when a journalist calls them out, they call her a hypocrite, kick her out of the country, and create a poll that asks, “Do you support expelling the China-based French journalist who championed terrorism,” then relish in the fact that 94% of respondents said yes. The War on Terror™ in the United States, by the way, has led to discrimination, censorship, lunacy, nationally televised bigotry, forfeited civil liberties, increased militarism, violence, and a real war that cost trillions and radicalized countless. But who cares, right? TERRORISM.™

In attacking China’s rhetoric on Terror™, Gauthier could have done herself a service by pointing out that this rhetoric is US-born and incredibly dumb. It’s not about using different yardsticks for China vs. “The West” – those yardsticks all suck. How is China’s War on Terror™ different than any other country’s? It’s not – it’s equally pathetic.

But Gauthier’s other, bigger mistake was the following passage, which – and many reporters, even those who vehemently support Gauthier’s cause, will admit this – veers too far from any factual basis to be considered good journalism:

But, bloody though it was, the Baicheng attack had nothing in common with the 13^th November attacks. In fact it was an explosion of local rage such as have blown up more and more often in this distant province whose inhabitants, turcophone and Muslim Uyghurs, face pitiless repression. Pushed to the limit, a small group of Uyghurs armed with cleavers set upon a coal mine and its Han Chinese workers, probably in revenge for an abuse, an injustice or an expropriation.

“Probably in revenge for an abuse, an injustice or an expropriation” is a sentence that will flunk you out of Journalism 101. (And how could these coal miners, among the most disenfranchised and vulnerable group of workers in China, possibly have it coming?) Even if this was a magazine column, where there’s room for occasional editorializing, the speculation probably outreaches the research. Ignoring this simply reinforces the “Us and Them” dynamic so beloved of state media’s criticism of the “Western media.”

And Gauthier’s kicker:

China is unlikely to win the sort of cooperation from the US and Europe that it garnered after September 11^th. Given the smothering control over Chinese society and territory that the authorities enjoy, it is equally unlikely that Islamic State jihadists will link up with infuriated Xinjiang residents. But so long as the Uyghurs’ situation continues to get worse, China’s magnificent mega-cities will be vulnerable to the risk of machete attacks.

Seen in light of the Baicheng attacks – in which scores of coal miners were knifed to death – the phrase “China’s magnificent mega-cities will be vulnerable to the risk of machete attacks” reads as tone-deaf, and dangerously close to the sentiment, Maybe they deserved it. (Gauthier doesn’t say those words, and maybe she would never try to imply it, but it’s a sentiment that some people hold, and that disembodied sentiment lurks in the context of what Gauthier did write.) For the record, there’s a way to say “repression can radicalize the marginalized” without sounding callous.

Should Gauthier have been expelled for publishing this? Absolutely not. Xinjiang is a place of swirling ethnic tension, where many Uyghurs have legitimate fears of “being labeled ‘a terrorist,’” as BJC columnist Beige Wind wrote last month. But the issue is with the label itself, and the War on Terror.™

China is not the first – and won’t be the last – country to politicize a tragedy. (They certainly could have picked a better time than post-Paris to point at their own terrorism problem, particularly a massacre they were more than happy to suppress at the time.) Then again, they didn’t come up with the original terms for the War on Terror™, and seem to have only the faintest understanding of what it entails. Blame them roundly for expelling Gauthier, yes. But let’s remember that they’re merely parroting a flawed rhetoric, one that a significant number of leaders probably don’t believe themselves, except for the political benefits that they deem theirs to share.

Sunday, December 13, 2015: The Den’s final night

Since 1997 in Beijing, it’s been possible to answer “Where can I get a really nasty Old Fashioned and a 900-gram burger at 5am?” “Who’s showing the goat-wrestling qualifiers?” and “What happened to my phone?” with the same words: The Den. Last weekend, all that changed. Seventeen years after President Jiang Zemin ordered the Chinese military to give up its illegally owned commercial enterprises, local units in Beijing have begun to reluctantly comply (further closures have already been announced). As of Monday,  the city’s only 24-hour all-in-one sports bar, restaurant, short-time hotel, crisis-counseling centre, divorced men’s networking club, Pattaya tribute venue and dipsomaniacal dog whistle is no more.*

The Den… shut?

“A continuing expansion of competition and a slowing economy may both be playing a role in the changing of Beijing’s bar scene,” reckoned the Beijinger when the news surfaced some weeks ago. Competition? Slowing economy? Changing bar scene – The Den? All that seemed grist to its mill. The Den was not only recession and puke-proof, it was the kind of place people went to because they were unemployed. One doubts its patrons gave much of a passing care about “scenes,” artisanal infusions or whatever pop-up concepts make the long, hard-seat journey from the West to Beijing. The craft beer revolution was something that just happened to other bars; The Den was popularizing gastro-enteritis long before the gastro pub humped its way into the local consciousness. To the world outside it may have been 2015, but over in the People’s Republic of Denezuela, it was perpetually 2007.

For a long time I didn’t get the appeal of the place, finding it always populated by aging sports enthusiasts whose faces had exploded. My mistake was timing: I was coming in at sane hours, like lunchtime or 11pm on a Thursday. You needed to hit The Den at a very exact sweet spot. Peak Den was between the clubs closing on a Thursday, Friday or Saturday and the rest of the world getting up and going about its respectable business: say, 4 am – 7 am. This was when the magic happened. There aren’t many bars in Beijing where it feels dangerous to get chummy with the regulars after a certain hour, but The Den firmly ranked as one. For all its friendly aggression, actual fights were rare, though the staff were regularly called upon to remind emotional patrons how to leave. Closing time: You don’t have to go home, but maybe you should, because it’s midday and you’re hitting on barstools and frightening children.

Here’s an Iranian man being helped to the door on a quiet Thursday afternoon

Tributes have been pouring in since the news broke, ranging from pithy (“Wut?”) to prosaic (“Fuck”). What was it about this place that inspired such poetry? What ensured its runner-up success in such categories of the Beijing Cream Bar and Club Awards as Bar Where a Lay is Most Likely Followed by Postcoital Triste, Probably Because You Paid for a Hooker (2^nd place, 2012) and Worst Place to Go if You’re Feeling Mildly Suicidal (2^nd place, 2012), before stealing the crown at 2013’s ceremony for Most Likely to Encounter a Cockeyed Sot Who Harbors Bad, Bad Intentions?

What was the Definitive Den experience?

The people

Sure, there was the half-price pizza, the five-hour Happy Hour, the football, the fact that it was open. But for many, it was about the people: you’d get the full gamut, and gamut is definitely the word we need here. Tourists would wash up here at 4 am and not believe their luck. Surly Eastern European dancers and Gongti shift workers, Aeroflot crews on layover, aging expats who could remember visiting the Goose & Duck Ranch; Chinese students visiting in the mistaken belief that this was a suitable venue to bring someone you hadn’t slept with yet; visiting scholars; Tier-88 entrepreneurs pressing business cards into the hands of elderly Australian men; borderline schizophrenics; saturnine Germans that arrived at 3 am to watch Munich Bayern battle for the third-place playoffs of the Hofmeister Cup (who drank four pints and spoke to no one); expat sporting societies almost as old as The Den; the entire cast of Auf Wiedersehen, Pet ; angry Russians who’d been exiled from the Russian exile community… all were Denizens.

Denders

Because The Den never closed, it invited the most ridiculous benders: Benders seemingly without end, benders that would leave your taste buds numbed for a week. 24 hours in The Den? Child’s play.

A Russian man expresses his love of The Den

Hookers

Probably the most overplayed aspect of Den life. Sure, in the wee hours, there was usually someone happy to meet your glassy-eyed gaze and steadily hold it; the odd brass; the occasional strumpet or two. But The Den wasn’t exactly the Red Mansion. More a last-chance saloon for Nigerian baby mamas on their way to a sweet retirement gig jacking-off pensioners.

The ‘Denu’

A multipage, pleather-bound tome with a nice heft to it, covering a wide array of, uh, “cuisines,” The Den’s food was part of the venue’s core appeal: No nonsense. Solid. Unpretentious. If you’re down with The Den’s food, then you’re all right with me – you’re OK.

This beef tenderloin, priced at a gentle 68 yuan, was Tao’s last Den meal and supposed to come with mash but they’d run out. He didn’t mind

Unlike most restaurants, The Den’s picture menu was unafraid to dramatically lower customers’ expectations with blurred, two-megapixel shots of congealing sauces atop lonely cuts of meat, captioned with unpunctuated, unadorned prose describing the various ingredients. If a menu could be said to have a “voice,” then The Den was Samuel Beckett reading aloud government warnings from a carton of Mongolian filterless cigarettes. Thus, the actual quality of the grub was a consistent surprise. Hits included the pizza, steak, sausages and mash, and, of course, “Eggs Norway,” the classy European breakfast choice for any true international Denizen. On the other hand, the “Lamb donner pitta roll” [sic] was a diplomatic incident waiting to happen. For my final repast on Sunday, I spun the wheel and chose the Corned-Beef Hash with Sweet Peas for the first time. Like a chef on condemned-man’s-last-meal duty, The Den produced something thoroughly digestible that I would, like the venue, never revisit again.

What are your thoughts, Beijing? Be a true Denizen and have no shame while sharing your best (and worst) Den moments. (Feel free to email.) Whatever your story, it’s not gonna beat this:

*The Den will be back, don’t you worry. But for now, if you see a fifty-year-old bleary-eyed British man tottering about and banging on the locked doors of Gung-Ho Pizza at 4 am, give him a hug.

The Oriental Star ferry “disaster management” model, in which the goon squad manages to seize control of the information spigot early on and develops the subsequent narrative, is not the “new normal” in China that some may have feared.

Not that censorship is relaxing at all, or that the guidance of public opinion isn’t a priority after Tianjin’s chemical-explosion disaster (114 dead and counting, at least 70 missing and over 700 casualties). If anything, the censors are the only ones appearing to keep their heads in this whole sorry mess.

The Internet regulator seems to be the only functioning government agency at the moment. https://t.co/mH1BuGFdpD

— Li Yuan (@LiYuan6) August 16, 2015

But it seems the Yangtze disaster containment was probably more of an outlier than a precedent – the ferry’s sinking was rapid, going over in just a few minutes in poor weather conditions on a wide river, deep in the Chinese interior, miles from any major city. There were no pictures or videos of the incident. The few key witnesses, including the surviving crew, were nobbled immediately. (So far as I know, nothing’s even been heard from the captain since his detention, except brief statements via official channels.)

Their success managing the Oriental Star crisis was probably a magical time for propaganda officials – well done handling that dangerous mob of grieving relatives, Comrade Zhang, that was deputy secretary material! But busy as the censors and crowd control were, geographical and logistical restrictions did much of their work for them. It’s hard to report on a story that’s halfway up a muddy provincial river, in which the “crime scene” is underwater and the rural population is motivated toward helping the authorities, rather than media.

The police helped out a little, roughing up relatives who spoke to journalists and generally protecting and serving the government. But I suspect many might agree that heading to Jiangli, the nearest town where the mop-up operation was centered, didn’t really help anyone get to the bottom of the story. If anything, it provided a convenient locus for authorities to contain. (When the Economic Observer, a Chinese newspaper, went to the ferry company’s Chongqing offices and caught them shredding documents – red flag alert! – police summoned the reporter and deleted the report.)

The #TianjinBlast, on the other hand, is a nightmare for censors. Binhai New Area, where the detonations occurred, may not be “Tianjin” in the downtown sense that most people would recognize. It’s an 800-square-mile port, storage facility and giant development zone touted, among its many facets, as a petrochemical-processing hub, home to numerous multinational companies by day and poor migrants/shift workers by night. The latter took the brunt of the initial blast, which was quite some distance from the actual city but clearly not far away enough, by legal zoning standards, from residential buildings within 2,000 km of ground zero. But Tianjin is a high-speed 30-minute hop away from Beijing, where many journalists are based and able to get there – and back – within the day.

How much coverage would this story have received if the blast had occurred in, say, the province of Jilin, where 119 people died at a poultry factory that went up in 2013? There, residents of Dinhui City, heavily promoted as an economic opportunities zone much like Binhai (in this case, an agricultural manufacturing base used for commercial food processing), were awoken in the early hours by a series of massive blasts from the nearby plants, releasing toxic gas and chemicals into the surrounding area. Most of the dead were unskilled workers unable to escape the blaze because their factory doors were sealed. Like Tianjin, there was much handwringing in the aftermath about safety standards, reckless economic growth, ticking time bombs, “the worst fire in living memory,” etc., but that was pretty much it.

Already, the unfolding disaster in Tianjin has yielded much of the same, a rich basket of negligence, dodgy oversight, grim safety standards, environmental hazards and general indifference toward life. Thanks to the hyper-paranoid system, authorities are doing themselves further disservice by fighting another fire online, badly. Take the political cover-up of the company responsible, Ruihai International Logistics (RIL): rumors that ownership of RIL is connected to a senior relative (a former Politburo member? The ex-police chief?) are already rife. So while attempting to explain why its corporate records have suddenly vanished post-blast, officials have bravely tried to claim RIL’s website also got “blown up.” Consider that RIL has yet to even issue a statement on the tragedy caused by its warehousing. Or re-watch the CCTV flub in which a live presser was fumbled after officials were unable to answer a simple question; CCTV cuts right back to the studio, catching the host by surprise.

The fallout, including fears of chemical clouds making their way to Beijing, is growing uncomfortably close to the bigwigs. That’s half an hour away! They have a big, gung-ho military parade in three weeks and the last thing they need is this shit. The pressure to lock it down is growing intense, and comes with increasing political strictures – as the bureaucracy expands to contain the disaster zone, who is in charge and what’s permitted becomes opaque even to those within the system. Confusion and disarray take over, as officials try to cover themselves, different departments say different things, orders are delayed, reversed or rescinded, rumors fly, Twitter tries to make sense of it all and no one believes anything that the government says. 

They can’t be serious. https://t.co/E2NwwjosL3

— Fergus Ryan (@fryan) August 15, 2015

All but certain that evacuation is happening. Our school at the edge of the blast is closed until further notice. https://t.co/CYkD7Q33hD

— Matthew Stinson (@stinson) August 15, 2015

A #Tianjin govt spokesman said he’ll need to check who is in charge of the rescue operation of the deadly explosions. pic.twitter.com/8CQMMwYApV

— Li Yuan (@LiYuan6) August 16, 2015

Rather than the Oriental Star model, an old-fashioned clusterfuck with Chinese characteristics is playing out on social apps (here’s one take on absorbing the events over WeChat that Thursday), with some powerful local media doing their best to defy orders in the circumstances.

With alternative information widely available, the traditional propaganda, such as a decision to play up the “public service martyrs” storyline (it worked so damn well before, with those frogmen in the Yangtze), feels hasty, reflexive and off-key. Particularly, it won’t wash when the rescue workers look like lambs to the slaughter, many barely out of their teens, sent in without any proper protection or information to put out a raging chemical fire with water.

Chinese people may claim to “trust” their government in what they do or where the nation is heading, but that’s only because their objectives – economic growth and nationalist pride – roughly overlap for now. And, really, what’s the alternative in an authoritarian one-party state? But they certainly don’t believe, or place trust, in anything their government says, precisely because those same shared imperatives (nationalism, wealth accumulation) require all kinds of obfuscation, denial and logical gymnastics (“Everything is fine, we’re evacuating the area”).

For the bosses, yet another round of crackdowns and soul-searching – how did we fuck up the cover-up this time? – will almost certainly be in order. If the dust cloud heading toward Beijing has a silver lining of potassium cyanide, it’s this: Whatever serene sense of leadership you may have had about China’s grip on handling crises should be evaporating like a cloud of nitrate gas into the autumn air.

Residents gather next to burnt-out tanks in the aftermath of the crackdown (via CNN)

Last year was the 25th anniversary of the “June 4 Incident,” as it is officially known. State security went full bore over the ultra-sensitive date, harassing journalists and activists, detaining anyone who sneezed on the subject.

They succeeded in maintaining the collective amnesia in-house, earned their bonuses and overtime, but in doing so, trolled foreign media so hard that the blowback was intense. I don’t know how much coverage was originally intended, but several journalist friends indicated they’d been so royally pissed off with the constant intimidation, their editors were all but sounding the bugle on the topic. Coverage was wall to wall, with stories everywhere.

This year, of course, will be much quieter: 26 isn’t as catchy as 25. But Global Times hasn’t forgotten, and duly produces a bungled editorial on the subject, attacking – and casually libeling – a group of overseas students for writing an open letter, requesting transparency over the crackdown. Here’s the closing paragraph:

Chinese society has reached a consensus on not debating the 1989 incident. Students born in the 1980s and 1990s have become the new targets of overseas hostile forces. When China is moving forward, some are trying to drag up history in an attempt to tear apart society. It’s a meaningless attempt and is unlikely to be realized.

Frankly, the rest of the rant isn’t worth the click. Moreover, there is really little point to GT’s article (even less so than usual, that is). No mainstream outlet had even reported on the letter prior to the editorial. The first was the Guardian, which published its article shortly before midnight a day later, referencing GT in the third graf.

If Streisand Effect was the intention of the trolling, so be it. There aren’t any other logical reasons for flagging the date by turning the full glare of the Batshit Signal on this group of 11 Chinese students while accusing them, ad hominem, of being “brainwashed” by a “paranoid minority” in an “attempt to tear society apart.” (Just because they’re “paranoid,” GT, doesn’t mean the government isn’t out to get them.)

It’s telling how an authoritarian apparatus that has engineered a culture of amnesia and self-censorship is, itself, quite incapable of either. Like a sinner with a guilty conscience, GT can’t help running its own mouth. An annual hit-piece on Tiananmen has become almost as symbolic and ritualistic as the candlelit gathering in Hong Kong’s Victoria Park. Rather than memorializing the victims, though, it simply serves to shame the perpetrators.

UPDATE: The shambles continues with an order from the goon squad to “urgently delete the Global Times commentary.” So dignified.

If you’ve read a story about China in the last couple of years that seemed just too good to be true – that smelled, in fact, a lot more like horse manure – it probably came from the Augean stables of Central European News (CEN), a Vienna-based “news agency” whose bluff just got called in exhaustive length by BuzzFeed UK investigative reporters.

Although their offices and staff are in Austria, CEN’s scope is worldwide, with stories from Russia, Argentina, India, Macedonia and the PRC, where it regularly elbows Xinhua aside to publish the least likely version of events.

According to numerous examples cited by BuzzFeed, CEN was the dealer first pushing the “walking cabbages to cure depression” hoax from 2013 (it was, as the Chinese sources originally noted, a long-running piece of performance art that happened to occur at a music festival), as well as the Mail’s story of a tapeworm infestation in Guangzhou caused by a sashimi binge (the accompanying images, according to Snopes, were actually lifted from X-rays published in the British Medical Journal depicting the “aftermath of a parasitic tapeworm infection caused by… undercooked pork”) and, of course, that ridiculous piece of click-bait about an attractive backpacker sofa-surfing through China looking for “temporary boyfriends.”

What appears to be the House Special at CEN is Bobbiting – tortuous tales of todgers lost, ideally accompanied by graphically pixelated photographs. If it has “(NSFW)” in the headline and no penis, CEN is all over it like Loretta on John Wayne: an aunt who castrated her nephew in Henan, “a 26-year-old Chinese man named Yang Hu who had allegedly chopped off his own penis due to frustration with his nonexistent love life,” or, most recently, a “man whose penis was chopped off twice in the span of a few hours.” And it helps that those pixels, sparing fragile readers the gorier details, also cover up any pesky watermarks.

The agency’s MO, as BuzzFeed describes, appears to be guileless – CEN accepts any viral social-media story it sells as de facto, no questions – and, of course, profitable (translate, sell, screw the hat-tip) but is actually disingenuous, often materializing eyewitnesses and juicy quotes for that added value. When CEN reports from China, helpful “police spokesmen,” hospital staff and garrulous bystanders are always on hand to offer the Austria-based press agency the straight dope.

Example: an underwear thief is taught a righteous lesson when his victim catches him, and forces him to parade on camera covered with his loot. Victim posts the pix on Weibo, the story appears on Xinhua and, sure enough, gets picked up by CEN – except their enterprising stringer manages to interview a neighbour and jimmies the following pearl from the cops: “We don’t condone vigilante activity but in this case it seems to have turned out OK.” Certainly it did for CEN, who also marketed another story involving a Shandong farmer whose goat birthed a two-headed kid, which came complete with “digitally enhanced” pictures. BuzzFeed says CEN also sourced this from an uncredited Xinhua. The farmer wouldn’t talk to the state agency for some reason but was happy to mouth off at length to a Croatian Times reporter, “despite the story taking place in a remote rural community a six-hour train ride from Beijing.” (The CT reporter forgoes any byline for this modest scoop.)

CEN is run by Michael Leidig, journalism’s answer to Grant Shapps, an Internet spiv who’s his own greatest online cheerleader. Like Shapps, Leidig has a “frequently updated” Wikipedia entry (sources include the Austria Times, owned by Leidig) and enthusiastically doctored edited by a user called Bylinebandit, who has the same handle as the Twitter account of one “Michael Leidig.” Its sole tweet asks a cromulent question:

But don’t ask this self-powered hamster wheel of bullshit: if you want to be certain of anything CEN reports, check it with Xinhua first.

The King of Bullsh*t News (Buzzfeed)

Only a week ago we were lamenting the dearth of female presence at a UN Women’s event in Beijing; now comes an event that celebrates a plus size of it.

The Miss Plus Size International pageant, to be held this Saturday at a luxury hotel in downtown Beijing, isn’t a contest one would immediately associate with China, but – fuck it, it’s happening, and there’s nothing we can do about it. As 36-year-old contestant Anne Homu told Time Out, “There’s a lot of big-sized Chinese and maybe they’ll get confidence if they see us.”

The current lineup features plus-size (US size 12, UK size 16) entrants from the UK, Angola, Gabon, Egypt, India, Portugal, Rwanda, Greece, Russia, Samoa, South Africa, Zimbabwe, and the US — and one from China, “Baby Tiger.” Ditching the swimsuits, the 16 contestants will compete over four rounds — Fashion Casual Wear, Fashion Trouser Wear, Evening Gown, and Talent — to win a top prize of RMB 6,000.

Although beauty contests are seen back home as hip and vital as Donald Trump’s shriveled organs, this one’s about empowerment in a non-judgmental environment and all that jazz. “Curves are in!” the organizers say: “Larger women are often rejected by other beauty pageants and this Pageant is here to change the perception of the world.”

If you have 300 kuai to hand, were only planning to spend it on cheap drinks, and would like to have your perceptions changed, what are you waiting for?

POSTSCRIPT: “Miss Plus Size Beijing is a brain child of Dr Samantha Sibanda a Zimbabwean currently based in Beijing.”

Download podcast | Size: 36.0 MB

Welcome to the reboot of The Creamcast! From the studio of Popup Chinese, RFH and I welcomed Andray Abrahamian, Executive Director at Choson Exchange, and Simon Cockerell, general manager of Koryo Tours, to talk about all things North Korea — spying, journalism (7:35 mark), coffee (21:43), reunification (27:30), and whether animals cry (this was really a predominant theme).

Obviously we also discussed The Interview (35:20) and the merits of Katy Perry.

Other topics included: the Daily Mail’s profile of Simon, beginning with this headline –

A love of killer high heels, dog ribs in gravy and why Bend It Like Beckham is a smash: Man who’s been to North Korea 140 times shares his unrivalled insight into ‘normal’ life in the world’s most secretive nation

– Andray’s insightful editorial in the Wall Street Journal, and a book recommendation, the forthcoming North Korea Confidential by Daniel Tudor and James Pearson.

A quick note: this episode wasn’t without its technical difficulties, and for that I offer my apologies. But we’ll try again this week, and promise to do better.

We offer our sincerest thanks to Popup Chinese for letting us use their studio, and Great Leap Brewing for their generous support.

Download Episode 15 of The Creamcast — THE REBOOT – here, or listen to it on iTunes.

|The Creamcast Archives|

Well, you run an open comments system, someone always has to come along and crap in the salad. We present to you: the Beijing Cream Troll, who was sober enough to post under multiple identities, but not to switch up his IP address:

Whoever this individual was, he’s expended more time and energy on this site in the last few weeks than Tao, me or any of our usual writers. Like an unpaid intern who’ll do anything just to be noticed, this guy went the distance – and more. He deserves Recognition. Respect. In language he’d understand, “Rogering.”

But what do we really know about him?

1) He thinks the true measure of a chap is whether he buys his round. You can pour bile on other religions, lie about yourself and spew homophobia, but God help you if you don’t settle your bar tab – you’ve crossed a line, mister!

2) He’s on conversational terms with the Black Sun Bar management. Although its ownership has changed over the years, and the Black Sun is hardly anyone’s idea of a destination spot these days.

3) He also seems to think the Hidden Tree, which closed in 2005, is still a thing. So, someone whose Beijing heyday was a decade ago, perhaps.

4) He reckons Alexa is something people use:

5) It’s not just race hate – he’s embraced sexism and homophobia to make the full trifecta. Oh dammit, I missed one: he has a beef with the trans community, too.

6) We’re looking for a schoolboy wit who might reference “used tampons” or “smegma” when deep in his cups. See above.

7) Master of Sock Puppets: Whoever he is, this guy makes Johann Hari look like Sooty. Not only does he set up multiple accounts offering a chorus line of criticism and/or praise, he likes to fend off detractors by impersonating them to write – yes – vile abuse. (See below link.)

8) He’s a staunch defender of Shaun Rein and Chris Devonshire-Ellis.

9) He knows a surprising amount about Chris Devonshire-Ellis. And the bar/nightclub Maggie’s.

10) He’s a stern critic of the Peking Duck blog, China Law Blog, Ryan McLaughlin of Lost Laowai blog and pretty much anyone who’s ever written about Chris Devonshire-Ellis.

Who could it be?

The case bears strong similarities to a series of racially tinged assaults alleged to have recently occurred in several foreign-centric districts, including Sanlitun, Houhai and Wudaokou, in which foreign witnesses reported being attacked without provocation by local men carrying weapons and traveling in a vehicle. The incidents were widely reported on WeChat and discussed on local forums, such as Reddit, where many expressed concern about possible hate crimes.

Michael (left) takes an image of his injuries shortly after the attack

An Australian student, who asked to be referred to just by his first name, Michael – for fear of possible retaliation – was returning to his BLCU quarters at “around 2am” on 21 December with his Korean girlfriend, Christine, when he says the pair noticed a grey BMW parked ahead.

“We were about 200 meters away [from the university] when [the men inside] yelled out something… they came around in their car and stopped us at the gate,” Michael recalled. Aware of the rumors that a group of men were targeting foreigners with Chinese females, he confronted the gang in an attempt to defuse the situation, explaining: “My girlfriend’s Korean, not Chinese…”

Three men  then attacked him with bats and rods. “Once they started hitting me, I grabbed one of the bats and hit one of the Chinese guys back in the head” – an act he was to later regret –  “and then approached the other two guys… yelling at them to leave and they backed off. I smashed the bat in half,” explained the former rugby winger.

Before he could check the third man, Michael said, he got up and, as the trio approached again, both students decided to run for help but “As we almost got in the dorm, my girlfriend fell down,” and the men renewed their assault. Michael claimed he remembers little of what happened next but CCTV footage shows him being battered on the head, then disarming another of his metal rod.

Inside, a large amount of students (including “a lot of Russian guys”) assisted the pair while others called the police. “One of the attackers who I’d hit tried to come in… the Chinese had gone to their car again and tried to escape” but fortunately a quick-thinking Russian had removed the keys, according to witnesses. At this point, police arrived. A member of the gang accused the Russian of attacking them, and all four were detained.

One of the alleged assailants at the police station is said to have been a US citizen with Chinese parents (his face has been obscured as he has not been charged)

In a similar December incident, detailed over at the World of Chinese, a foreign student who requested anonymity told a reporter he was approached by a group of six or seven men in a “wagon” and carrying “metal sticks,” who questioned his companion’s ethnicity. “They started asking if my friend was Chinese,” he told the magazine. After being assaulted several times, the man handed over a small amount of money and made his escape.

The magazine spoke also to an eyewitness to “a separate incident in Wudaokou, who said that he saw ‘four Chinese holding bats chasing a black guy, shouting at him,’ along Zhanchunyuan West Road, at around 3 am the same morning.” The location of the latter incident is close (1-2km) to where the attack on Michael and his partner took place. Although extreme violence is rare, attacks on foreigners do occur in the nightspots of Beijing for a variety of reasons – examples from Sanlitun being not infrequent, and not necessarily involving Chinese.

Back at the police station, a bloodied Michael says he was threatened by one of the men (to wit: “I know where you guys live, I’m gonna come get you and stab you”) and endured racial slurs, and both he and his friends were accused of instigating the fight. The Russian was detained and later released the next day, while Michael received five stitches; his passport is now with police as the case continues.

“All three are now in jail,” said Michael. “However, if we can get more witnesses, they’ll serve a longer time in jail.” In legal terms, the men have been detained pending investigation. They can be held for up to 28 days without charge and should police decide to press charges, a case will be sent to the “procurator” for consideration. If the case is accepted, a trial will be set and the assailants can look forward to tackling China’s 99.1% conviction rate, instead of unarmed foreigners.

An image taken at the hospital shows Michael’s head wound, which required five stitches

Michael praised both university authorities and Wudaokou police, who he described as “helpful [and] good” but added that the embassy was “useless.” The investigation is ongoing and “slow.” One potential difficulty might be “the injury suffered to the other man, he was in hospital for a while and looks like he is permanently a bit deformed.” The man is alleged to be an American citizen, though both his parents are Chinese.

Readers who have any information about the case, know of any other incidents, or were themselves victims of one of a similar spate of attacks involving a grey BMW in the last two months are urged to contact Wudaokou police, or email us at the usual address (and we’ll pass your details on). Said Michael: “All I want is this not to happen again.”

You can follow the author of this piece @MrRFH on Twitter

John Ross (right), pictured in London

Last week, coverage of the embattled but peaceful pro-democracy rallies in Hong Kong earned the unsolicited though controversial criticism of one John Ross.

Ross, a British academic who describes himself as a “Senior Fellow at the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies, Renmin University,” took to Weibo (a Chinese Twitter) to accuse foreign media of being “too hypocritical.”

“In 150 years of British colonial rule in Hong Kong, they never permitted its people to elect their own governor, and the United States didn’t criticize the UK about it,” Ross wrote. In erecting this particularly withered straw man, of course, Ross utterly ignores the actual catalyst for these protests: the promises, originally brokered by the British, then later arguably broken by Beijing, for universal suffrage, as per the ‘One Country, Two Systems’ template agreed in 1984 between the UK and China.

Ross is obviously far too concerned with the hypocrisy of foreign governments to have any time for his own.

He proposes, for example, that the suffrage system now on the table in HK – three candidates, hand-picked by Beijing: Any color you like, so long as it’s red – is “much more democratic than the United Kingdom.” That’s presumably the same UK where calls for a referendum on Scottish independence were ruthlessly censored, its leaders crushed, journalists and activists imprisoned, and where the streets of Dundee and Glasgow are now lined with friendly, tear-gas wielding soldiers to preserve Scotland’s freedoms. To put things in perspective, in 2013 the Economic Intelligence Unit used actual data to rank countries by democracy, placing Hong Kong at 65 out of 165, with a score of 6.42, making it a “flawed democracy” (the UK is 16. China? 143).

Ross doesn’t – yet – enjoy the profitable pro-Party punditry platforms of his fellow foreign cheerleaders, such as Martin Jacques or meritocratist Daniel Bell, but nevertheless is intent on filling the mould of “foreign stooge of a Chinese dictator… manipulated by those who found him useful,” like US constitutional scholar Frank Goodnow before him.  Clearly he believes there’s still gold up in those hills.

So when the “former director of London’s Economic and Business Policy to ex-Mayor Ken Livingstone,” was approached this summer by Chinese tabloid the Global Times (GT) for a profile about foreign China Watchers, he was, no doubt, expecting a nice soap-job.

After all, GT is a state-owned affiliate of People’s Daily, and its Chinese edition (whose bug-eyed editorials the English edition faithfully reproduces) is particularly known for its “nationalist” bent.

Ross, meanwhile, is a loyal toady of the new world order. The Marxist economist is so committed to serving the people that, back in 2004, he gracefully accepted a massive salary of £110,000 – more than the then-Mayor of New York – as one of “Red” Ken Livingstone’s closest crony-advisors. (The post was not advertised, which might have struck even Tony Blair as rather non-egalitarian.)*

Ross and GT would seem natural bedfellows.

Unfortunately, the paper’s reporter went off (Ross’s) script to deliver an actual piece of journalism: a long article about various overseas admirers of the Communist Party – often known as “Panda Huggers” – such as Ross and Martin Jacques, and entitled “Our Friends in the West.”

The cached article as it originally appeared

Within hours of this going online – and being enthusiastically shared among Twitter’s China hands – Ross was on the line to complain. Demonstrating his commitment to Party values by attempting to get the young journalist in trouble, Ross demanded immediate expunging of negative comments about himself. “I am well used to expect such articles by people such as the Southern Media Group,” Ross fumed, “but it was a great surprise to see it in Global Times.”

The reasons for Ross’s rage became abundantly clear: “This article attacks and attempts to discredit me by the typical methods of suppression of information and selective quotation,” he wrote (our emphases). Ross then demanded that several lines be removed – aka “suppression of information” – to make way for pre-approved remarks, supplied by him, inserted in their stead… a.k.a. “selective quotation” (!)

The article originally noted that – in Ross’s own words – he had been criticized by “British right wing [sic] writer Nick Cohen”:

Original text containing criticism of Ross as first written in the Guardian

This passage was excised at an unknown date, after publication, to be replaced with a glowing passage that displays a complete volte face in both facts and tone:

The new passage now features praise from former BBC chairman Gavyn Davies

Of Cohen, all reference had vanished like a dissident in the night (apparently, “Cohen has no knowledge of economics,” as Ross fumed in his e-mail). Also missing:

The original contained a scathing reference to Ross’ tireless work in the state-media sector, now deleted

Not content with neutering these small jabs, the overweening Ross then had an entire 90-word paragraph inserted, in which he demonstrates that he has, at least, apparently as much grasp of modern Chinese history as Cohen purportedly has of economics:

According to Ross, who simply ignores the entire periods of 1949-1976 and 1989-1992,  individual entrepreneurship is now the standard of measurement for a state’s human-rights record

Meanwhile, the fawning comments about Ross from his boss at the Chongyang Institute – a state-backed “think tank” run by a former hack from the Chinese edition of People’s Daily, Wang Wen – were unsurprisingly left untouched. The article, once a spiky piece of journalism, had effectively become a standard fluff piece larded with dripping encomia to Ross – all under the byline of a “senior reporter” who was powerless to prevent it.

Although he was indeed interviewed for the article, Ross concluded his email of complaint by remarking that he was “astonished that Global Times should publish such an attack on myself… without giving [me] any chance to reply to these attacks.”

Well, now we do have Ross’s reply:  In the form of the professional harassment of a female journalist at a state-owned paper, a shrill demand for heavy-handed censorship, and the wholesale manipulation of someone else’s work to further his own agenda. The difference is, we’re not the slightest bit astonished.

p.s.

@akaDashan Please learn colloquial Chinese idioms that even the State Grid understands as no such weibo exists

— John Ross (@JohnRoss43) October 8, 2014

*While in position under Livingstone, Ross enjoyed 12 foreign jamborees in just three years, according to WorkersLiberty.org. But his finest hour came after Livingstone was defeated by Tory candidate Boris Johnson in the bitterly contested 2012 London mayoral elections.

Ross lost his incumbency – a hazard of democracy to the humble public servant-crony – but threatened Johnson with the use of “m’learned friends.” The justification? Before rejoining the ranks of the common man, Mayor Livingstone had slipped a new “unfair dismissal” rule in, which allowed political appointees the same redundancy rights as, well, chimney sweeps and nurses. Well – almost the same. Ross got a thoroughly socialist settlement, in the region of £200,000. Bottles of Karl Marx champagne all round!

You can follow the author on Twitter @MrRFH