Ed’s note: On April 19, the US Department of State published its annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, which included a section on China. It was typical, mundane, and features nothing you don’t already know, including restriction of Uighur and Tibetan movement, harassment of journalists and dissidents, prison labor, discrimination, extrajudicial killings, etc. On... Read more »
Chengguan, those salt of the earth, are pushing back against negative public perceptions of their profession. One particular urban law enforcement officer in Changzhou, Jiangsu province, Jiang Yifan, created the above video recently to "clear up some misunderstandings," as Danwei's Barry van Wyk writes. A couple of things though:
On Friday, the above, titled "A Short, Three-Day War," was posted to Uriminzokkiri, depicting North Korean paratroopers and the shells of long-range weapons descending upon South Korea. Via Sina English:
"The crack stormtroopers will occupy Seoul and other cities and take 150,000 US citizens as hostages," the narrator said.
The General Administration of Press and Publication, or GAPP, and State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, or SARFT, are China’s two principal ministries of propaganda, tasked with tweaking, managing, and bowlderizing creative, edgy, realistic, and otherwise inspiring work into a mushy, digestible pap for mainstream consumption. It’s an unpleasant job, but someone has to... Read more »
I think, after putting Lei Feng on a telephone pole cross last year, there's not much more we can do to commemorate this year's Learn from Lei Feng Day, even if today marks the 50th year anniversary of this "annual ritual in memory of one of [China's] great sons, Lei Feng, a People's Liberation Army soldier known for his selfless help to others," according to Shanghai Daily. Ritual. Great sons. Selfless help... SIGH.
The idea of "national education" as school curriculum was nixed after widespread protests last year, but the National Education Parents' Concern Group recently discovered that some commonly used primary school textbooks are very biased and use overly affective expressions to teach students “how to build a better sense of belonging to the motherland.”
State Administration of Work Safety Vice Director Wang Dexue, possibly seeking a promotion, appeared to cry while inspecting a bridge collapse in Henan earlier this week, and let’s just say no one bought it. Netizens took to calling him “New Watch Brother,” a term that has since been censored on Sina Weibo. All this leads... Read more »
The North Korea propaganda website Uriminzokkiri recently published a video depicting a dream sequence in which New York City burns, burns, burns. Check out the 45-second mark in the above video, which comes with subtitles (toggle on/off from the bottom-right corner).
It's only a question of time...
All around the world, there will be massive explosions. It will be The Revenge.
Two amazing facts come out of John Kennedy’s post this morning on SCMP, and I’m not sure which should be presented first. We’ll just excerpt from the top: According to the Beijing News, a meeting of propaganda department heads was held yesterday to unveil the city’s latest plans to control online content, plans which place microblogs firmly at... Read more »
Liu Yunshan, who was introduced to this blog not long ago in relation to Xi Jinping’s displeasure with his handling of the Southern Weekly incident, recently completed a tour of Shaanxi province, and as the chief of China’s Central Propaganda Department, he made sure to bring along some of his propagandizing friends. Here’s the lead of... Read more »
Japan’s highly respected daily The Asahi Shimbun suggested in an article on Monday that Xi Jinping was unhappy with the way the “media control division” handled last week’s Southern Weekly ordeal. Specifically, Xi was unhappy with the way Liu Yunshan, chief of the propaganda department and a longtime Hu Jintao guy, forced newspapers around the... Read more »
China Digital Times, with its indispensable series on leaked directives from the “Ministry of Truth,” published this amazing leaked memo from China’s propaganda department yesterday: Central Propaganda Department: Urgent Notice Concerning the Southern Weekly New Year’s Message Publication Incident: Responsible Party committees and media at all levels must be clear on three points related to this matter:
The page editor at Southern Weekly, a Guangdong daily newspaper, left work two days ago thinking his section was set. The next day, he and everyone else discovered a pro-government introductory message in their paper, headlined “Pursuing dreams,” that no one had previously seen, according to SCMP.
On Tuesday night, the Global Times published an article damning Elton John for dedicating his performance to Ai Weiwei and encouraging Chinese people to boo future similar performers off the stage. On the same day, GT published “‘Top thinkers’ list a reflection of US values,” a scathing indictment of Foreign Policy’s list, which features, among others, Ai Weiwei.
The Party Congress is, mercifully, over. For those of us here in Beijing, it feels good, like a massive cold-water colon cleanse. Now with the brown-nosers out of the city, we can reflect.
Now that it’s over, I mourn the loss of the banners.
The propaganda rags had a few different roles to play during the Congress. 1) Don’t report bad news. 2) Make sure everyone loves the Congress. 3) Love our dear leaders. 4) Publish editorial rimjobs about the Party Congress. 5) Convince people that change will happen gradually, after they die. 6) Hate the US and their pussy-ass elections. 7) Bang on about the Party Congress, no matter how boring and un-news-like, until you kill yourself, go on, do it, just kill yourself. Do it. You pansy. Go on. You don’t have the balls, do you? Do it. DO IT!
I can't wait for Chinese people to overreact to this shitty movie full of Hollywood cliches about "freedom" and for everyone else to talk about it like it isn't a classic piece of Western propaganda.
What's that? The invaders in the movie are North Koreans, not Chinese? Every soldier I see better look skinny and malnourished then, because I've been to Pyongyang, and that military is far from invading anyone.
I wonder how many Americans who watch this will find the irony in a bunch of civilians fighting for their turf against an invading military.
Last Friday, the State Council Information Office of the People's Republic of China published a report called The Human Rights Record of the United States in 2011. It was in response to the US State Department's Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 2011, which featured information on about 200 countries, China included.
China's report, published on Xinhua, et al., was about 8,000 words. We read it so you don't have to -- and brought in TAR Nation to explain what it all means.
Foreign Policy, that award-winning online magazine devoted to “analyz[ing] the most significant international trends and events of our times, without regard to ideology or political bias,” just gave an evangelical pastor 1,200 words to promulgate his religious propaganda. “Like most Chinese, I was educated an atheist,” writes Bob Fu to begin his panegyric to God... Read more »
Via Vintage-Ads.livejournal.com Just as the Great Leap Forward was beginning to yield its first casualties — and on through the years when hundreds and then thousands and then millions died of starvation and disease — China continued to print propaganda posters like the above (more after the jump) to boost morale and do whatever it... Read more »
