Snowden Press Review – VoA Chinese: a Super-Charged Stink Bomb / “Global Times”: no Face-Losing Outcome for China

Several hundred Hong Kongers held demonstrations during the weekend, demanding that Edward Snowden should not be extradited, and that the SAR government should protect him, Xinhua reports. (The South China Morning Post, SCMP, reported on Saturday that members of the League of Social Democrats marched from the HSBC headquarters to the U.S. consulate on Friday, and Xinhua’s report may refer to this demonstration.) According to opinion polls quoted by Xinhua (via SCMP), half of Hong Kongers opposed the idea of repatriating (遣返) Snowden, and only 17.6 percent supported the idea. A Ming Pao editorial of June 16 is quoted as calling on America to account to Hong Kong.

The Ming Pao article is behind a paywall, but the teaser refers to Snowden’s interview where he had said that the University of Hong Kong, officials, business people and even students had been targeted. Given that Hong Kong was not considered an enemy of the United States, and that it was no base area for sheltering terrorist elements, the SAR government had good reasons to lodge a protest with the American government and to make solemn representations. The American government must account to Hong Kong’s relevant parties, concerning the intrusions into Hong Kong computers.

Xinhua quotes the Voice of America (VoA) as saying that Snwoden had exploded a super-charged stink bomb (爆炸力超强的臭气弹), tainting Western companies, governments and officials with with a foul smell that would be hard to remove.

The main damage, the actual VoA online article (published on Friday) says, is political – so far, the NSA director, president Barack Obama, and congressional supporters of the existing laws and regulatons from both political parties hadn’t found a convincing response to the critics.

According to Xinhua, sympathy for Snowdon in the American media is declining rapidly – he was being criticized there for harming the national interest, and for having no professional integrity (批评其危害国家利益、没有职业道德的声音激增).

It’s a different story in Hong Kong, writes Xinhua, quoting “a page-spanning” SCMP headline  on Sunday, saying that according to opinion polls, Hong Kongers don’t want to hand Snowden over to America (民调显示，香港人不愿把斯诺登交给美方). 49.9 percent of those polled opposed or strongly opposed the idea. The survey had also found that 33 percent of the polled found that Snowden was a hero. This seems to be an accurate rendition of the actual SCMP article.

Xinhua’s press review is much longer than these excerpts, but at least in its first paragraphs, there seems to be no twist in its account.

The English-language “Global Times”, owned by the China-Daily Group, writes that extraditing Snowden would be a face-losing outcome for both the Hong Kong SAR government and the Chinese Central government. It would also be a disappointment for expectations around the world. The image of Hong Kong would be forever tarnished.

Deutsche Welle Labor Disputes

The case of Zhu Hong (祝红), one of the four journalists who lost her contract with the foreign broadcaster’s Chinese department in 2010/2011, will be heard at Germany’s Federal Labor Court in Erfurt, on Thursday morning (June 20).

The case of her colleague Wang Fengbo (王凤波) is expected to be heard in December this year, also at the Federal Labor Court.

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Related

» When your Employer suspects…, Feb 18, 2012
» Chronological link collection, Feb 3, 2012

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Snowden Case Press Review: Paranoia and Repression

China’s domestic radio network quotes from a foreign-minstry press conference of today. (The radio network, Central People’s Broadcasting System, is also known as “China National Radio”, CNR).

Central People’s Broadcasting System (CPBS), June 14 — According to the Foreign Minstry of the People’s Republic of China (FMPRC) website, FMPRC spokesperson Hua Chunying said on a press conference that China is one of the countries suffering most from cyber attacks, and that China firmly opposes all forms of hacking attacks. It was hoped that the relevant parties would take practical measures, strengthen mutual trust and cooperation between all parties, and jointly protect peace and security in cyberspace.

中广网6月14日消息 据外交部网站消息，外交部发言人华春莹今日在记者会上表示，中国是遭受网络攻击最严重的国家之一，中方坚决反对一切形式的黑客攻击。希望有关方面采取切实行动，增进各方互信与合作，共同维护网络空间的和平与安全。

Question: According to media reports, America has, for many years, invaded Chinese networks all along, but accused China of conducting cyber-attacks against America. How does China plan to react?

有记者问：据媒体报道，美方多年来一直入侵中国网络却指责中国对美进行网络攻击。中方打算如何应对？

The indirect rendition of Hua Chunying‘s answer contains the same wording as the CPBS report’s first paragraph, plus three more sentences.

Also within her answer:

We will work with the relevant parties and continue a constructive dialog and cooperation about the issue of cyber security. We affirm the international principles laid down in the framework of the United Nations, and we have put forward specific proposals.

我们将与有关各方继续就网络安全问题开展建设性的对话与合作。我们主张在联合国框架内制定相关国际规则，并提出了具体倡议。

Hua Chunying sums her reply up with a specific remark about relations with America:

In the framework of strategic security dialog, China and America have workgroups concerning the internet, and China will, within this framework, conduct in-depth communicaton with America.

中美在战略安全对话框架下建有网络工作组，中方将在有关框架下就有关问题与美方进行深入沟通。

On Thursday, China Media Project (CMP) in Hong Kong published an overview of how Chinese coverage on the Snowden case had developed since June 10. The CMP post suggests that commercial media in China are allowed to cover the case, or that coverage by commercial media is tolerated.

CMP also points out that extensive use of foreign media as sources for their own coverage deviates from restrictions issued by Chinese authorities only in April this year.

Chinese propaganda has made efforts in the past to portray Chinese online censorship as “normal”, and as something that was practised in many other countries, too. In 2010, And in 2010, a report by CPBS’s channel Zhongguo zhi Sheng focused on Australian internet censorship. And in April 2011, Guangming Net informed its readers that in recent years, Japan has continuously strengthened supervision of the internet by means of legislation.

Edward Snowden‘s escape to Hong Kong is probably many times as good for Chinese propaganda to this end (“they do it, too”), than country reports like the two cited above. But the idea that American or Western criticism of Chinese censorship (or hacking attacks, for that matter) were hypocrisy has apparently become a wide-spread view among Chinese citizens long before. The turning point seems to date back some five years. Back then, CCP propaganda, rather than being defensive and bashfully silent about human rights violations or censorship, began to harness nationalism in a more systematic way, integrating parts of the blogosphere and nationalists. Censorship was, at times, actively advocated.

My impression is that many Chinese nationals simply became tired of questioning their own political system, or their culture. If propaganda served them with reasons to make themselves content, they leapt at them (Chinese growth and Western economic crisis being some of these reasons).

But a similar phenomenon appears to be going on in America. The way Snowden is frequently vilified in mainstream media, even by “liberal” columnists and commentariat, seems to suggest that even those who once hoped Obama would rid America of its “security” bureaucracy are resigned – and that they are willing to leap at any alleged inaccuracy in the coverage on Snowden’s NSA leaks.

The motors of progress are spluttering. Paranoia and repression have become acceptable replacements for progress – in Western countries, too.

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Related

» Banned from flying to UK, BBC, June 14, 2013
» Ai Weiwei on abuse of power, The Guardian, June 11, 2013

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CCTV’s Xinwen Lianbo: Edward Snowden coverage

Edward Snowden‘s statement that NSA spied on computers and networks in Hong Kong and mainland China is among the headlines mentioned at the beginning of CCTV‘s main daily newscast, Xinwen Lianbo, and gets an almost two-minutes’ slot towards the end of the program. CCTV quotes from a one-hour interview conducted by the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

Is this presenter surprised? Xinwen Lianbo co-anchor Li Ruiying.

The headlines’ ranking lists usually depend on how high in Chinese protocol people “making” the news are – starting with party and state chairman Xi Jinping, even if the actual weight of his event is rather small. That’s why news like Snowden’s descriptions of NSA activity wouldn’t appear further up in the program.

Snowden’s comments may be a sweet-sour surprise for Beijing – sweet for supporting China’s claim that China, too, is a victim of hacking activities (which has been Beijing’s reply to U.S. criticism of alleged Chinese hacking attacks in the past), and sour, as Snowden’s stay in Hong Kong may strain relations with Washington – a relationship which are meant to become a new type of relations between big powers.

One outcome would appear hardly conceivable to me, though: that Snowden would be extradited – unless a court in Hong Kong makes such a decision. I’m not sure if the central government has a say in this (given its role in Hong Kong when it comes to diplomacy and defense issues), or if this will be for the Hong Kong courts alone to decide.

But if the decision is a homework for Beijing, extraditing Snowden would be hard to sell to the Chinese audience.

The Essence of Big-Power Relations: the Chinese Definition in short

The BBC‘s monitoring service has a Chinese press review on the summit between U.S. president Barack Obama and Chinese party and state chairman Xi Jinping.

The Xinhua review linked by the BBC review actually goes somewhat further than the BBC’s account of it: the summit had designed (or drafted) a roadmap for a new era of Sino-American relations (为新时期中美关系的发展规划了蓝图). That said, two sentences further down, the Xinhua review kind of counterbalances this with a much more vague notion that a consensus between the two leaders on making joint efforts to build a new type of relations between big powers, to show mutual respect, and to cooperate in a mutually beneficial way, thus benefitting the people of their two countries and the people of the world. China and America, facing rapid economic globalization and the objective requirements of countries being in the same boat, should be able to take a road different from the history of great powers – a new road without clashes and antagonism. The Xinhua review the notion that China is the biggest developing country, and America is the biggest developed country. Facts had shown that cooperaton was mutually beneficial. Even if the political systems and development patterns were different, countries could set a good example of  peaceful coexistence and harmonious relations. All the same,

it cannot be denied that differences in terms of societal system, development stage, history, culture and tradition do exist between China and America, which make the relationship between the two countries exceptionally complex. This is exactly why chairman Xi Jinping says that the establishment of a a new type of relations between big powers is unprecedented and for generations to come [this should be the correct translation if 后起来者 is meant - I'm not sure about the actually used term 后启来者].

不可否认，中美之间存在社会制度、发展阶段、历史文化传统等差异和政治经济上的纠纷，使得两国关系具有前所未有的复杂性。正因如此，才如习近平主席所说，中美建设新型大国关系“前无古人、后启来者”。

The talk about unprecedented (tasks) preceded the summit – Chinese ambassador Cui Tiankai was quoted with quite the same wording ahead of the summit.

The People’s Daily editorials or commentaries linked by the BBC can’t be loaded at the moment. However, there seem to bee different opinions among People’s Daily’s editorialists – one suggesting that this was the beginning of a new era, and one (in the overseas edition) suggesting that building a normal relationship among major powers wouldn’t be easy, and one without distrust would be impossible (unless the U.S. changed their ways, that is).

Chinese coverage – before and after the summit – seems to suggest that the summit was a stage in a Chinese initiative to win America over to a constructive role in building a more harmonious world. Obviously, this would mean that a “failed” summit would be a loss of face for Xi Jinping – although there would have been ways to sell this to the Chinese public reasonably successfully, as a failure of the usual American suspects.

What seems to support the perception of the summit as the result of Chinese efforts is that the Chinese side came with a “vision” – Obama came with issues, such as cyber attacks. Chinese core interests (such as Taiwan or the South China Sea) don’t feature prominently. But there would be no American-Chinese summit without such issues – that they aren’t in the headlines for the sake of “atmosphere” does not mean that they were absent in the talks. But at least to the public, they were communicated rather low-key on this occasion.

Hong Kong’s Phoenix/Ifeng television and media company quotes the Beijing News (新京报) as saying that Xi addressed the Senkaku Islands (Diaoyutai) and the South China Sea issues as well as the “Taiwan issue”, cyber security and the Korean nuclear issue. There are excerpts from a press conference (or briefing, 吹风会), too, held by former Chinese foreign minister (until March this year) and current secretary of the Foreign Affairs Leading Small Group of the Communist Party of China Yang Jiechi (Yang apparently made his statements the Hyatt Hotel, where the Chinese side stayed during the summit):

Q:		What’s at the core of the new type of big-power relations between China and America? 中美新型大国关系的核心内涵是什么？努力方向是什么？
A:		Yang Jiechi said that the two leaders agree to making joint efforts to build big-power relations of a new type between China and America, with mutual respect and mutually beneficial cooperation. This is an important consensus reached by both sides, with their minds set on the international situation and the future development of Sino-American relations. This represents [the fact that] the two countries don’t take the road of history, with clashes and antagonism, but initiate a new model of big-power relatoins, a historic undertaking of  political wisdom. 杨洁篪说，两国元首同意，共同努力构建中美新型大国关系，相互尊重、合作共赢。这是双方着眼世情国情以及中美关系未来发展达成的重要共识，体现了中美两国不走历史上大国冲突老路、开创大国关系新模式的政治智慧和历史担当。 Yang Jiechi said that as chairman Xi pointed out, China and America are the world’s most influential countries, and should therefore set an example of how to handle big-power relations. President Obama said that America welcomes China as a great power that continues peaceful development, and that a peaceful, stable and prosperous China isn’t only beneficial for China, but also for America, and for the world. America hopes to maintain strong cooperational relations with China, in an equal partnership. 杨洁篪说，正如习主席指出的，中美都是对世界有重要影响的国家，理应在处理大国关系方面发挥示范作用。奥巴马总统表示，美国欢迎中国作为一个大国继续和平发展；一个和平、稳定、繁荣的中国，不仅对中国有利，对美国、对世界也有利。美国希望同中国保持强有力的合作关系，做平等的伙伴。 Yang Jiechi said that three lines by chairman Xi during the summit provided an incisive summary: 杨洁篪说，关于中美新型大国关系的内涵，习主席在会晤中用三句话作了精辟概括： 1. No clashes, no confrontation. Treat each other’s strategic intentions objectively and reasonably, maintain partnership, not rivalry, handle contradictions and differences by dialog and cooperation, and not by clashes and confrontation. 一是不冲突、不对抗。就是要客观理性看待彼此战略意图，坚持做伙伴、不做对手；通过对话合作、而非对抗冲突的方式，妥善处理矛盾和分歧。 2. Mutual respect. That’s to respect each other’s chosen societal system and development path, each other’s core interests and major concerns, to seek common ground while reserving differences, show tolerance and learn from each other, and make progress together. 二是相互尊重。就是要尊重各自选择的社会制度和发展道路，尊重彼此核心利益和重大关切，求同存异，包容互鉴，共同进步。 3. Mutually beneficial cooperation. That’s to abandon zero-sum concepts, take the other’s benefit into account while seeking your own benefit, advance common development while pursuing your own development, and keep deepening the beneficial integrational pattern. 三是合作共赢。就是要摒弃零和思维，在追求自身利益时兼顾对方利益，在寻求自身发展时促进共同发展，不断深化利益交融格局。 Yang Jiechi said that concerning the implementation of the spirit of the new type of big-power relations, chairman Xi had advanced a four-point proposal: 杨洁篪说，关于如何将新型大国关系的精神贯彻到中美关系的方方面面，习主席提出了四点建议： 1. To raise the level of dialog and mutual trust, multilateral forums such as the G-20 meetings and APEC and all the other more than ninety inter-governmental forums should be used skillfully. 一要提升对话互信新水平，把两国领导人在二十国集团、亚太经合组织等多边场合会晤的做法机制化，用好现有90多个政府间对话沟通机制。 2. New fields of cooperation should be initiated. America should take active measures to ease restrictions on high-tech exports to China, to promote the structures of trade and investment between the two countries into a more balanced direction of development. 二要开创务实合作新局面，美方应在放宽对华高技术产品出口限制等问题上采取积极步骤，推动两国贸易和投资结构朝着更加平衡的方向发展。 3. To establish a new methodology of interaction between big powers, the two sides should maintain close coordination and cooperation on issues like the situation on the Korean peninsula, Afghanistan and other international and regional hotspot issues, and strengthen cooperation in combating sea piracy, transnational crime, peacekeeping, disaster relief and prevention, cybersecurity, climate change, space security and other fields of cooperaton. 三要建立大国互动新模式，双方应在朝鲜半岛局势、阿富汗等国际和地区热点问题上保持密切协调和配合，加强在打击海盗、跨国犯罪、维和、减灾防灾、网络安全、气候变化、太空安全等领域合作。 4. Explore new ways of managing and controlling differences, and actively build a new military relationship that corresponds with the new type of big-power relations. President Obama responded positively and said that America attaches great importance to American-Chinese relations, and that America wants to build a new pattern of cooperation between countries on the foundation of mutual benefit and mutual respect, and to jointly respond to global challenges. 四要探索管控分歧新办法，积极构建与中美新型大国关系相适应的新型军事关系。奥巴马总统对此作出了积极反应，表示美方高度重视美中关系，愿在互利互尊基础上与中方构建国与国之间新的合作模式，并共同应对各种全球性挑战。 Yang Jiechi said that in short, China hopes that China and America will make joint efforts to firmly and unwervingly advance the building of a new type of big-power relations, along the lines designated by the two countries’ leaders. 杨洁篪说，总之，中方希望中美双方共同努力，沿着两国元首指明的方向，坚定不移地推进新型大国关系建设。

Radiodifusión Argentina al Exterior adds Chinese Programs

Radiodifusión Argentina al Exterior (RAE) added programs in Chinese to its broadcasts on shortwave, on May 13, Mondays through Fridays:

10:00 – 11:00 UTC (18:00 – 19:00 Beijing time) on 6,060 and 15,345 kHz and
04:00 – 05:00 UTC (12:00 – 13:00 Beijing time) on 11,710 kHz.

The programs at 10:00 UTC are live broadcasts, and those at 04:00 UTC are pre-recorded. The live broadcast’s target area is China / Far East; that of the recorded broadcast is the Americas.

Radio Argentina al Exterior (RAE) QSL card, 1980s.

This brings the number of Argentina’s foreign broadcaster’s program languages up to eight, in addition to Spanish, German, French, English, Italian, Portuguese, and Japanese.

Chinese ambassador Yin Hengmin (殷恒民) was quoted with a congratulatory message on RAE:

Dear listeners, I’m very pleased that the national broadcaster [i. e. RAE / Radio Nacional] has added a Chinese channel, and I express my warmest congratulations. We at the Chinese embassy will support the national broadcaster’s Chinese channel and assist the national broadcaster in getting establishing professional contacts with China Radio International. We also sincerely hope that the national broadcaster’s Chinese programs will get better and better!

各位听众 我非常高兴国家广播电台能够增加中文频道，我对中文频道的开播表示热烈的祝贺，我们中国大使馆将支持国家广播电台的中文频道，并帮助国家广播电台跟中国国际广播电台建立业务联系，并真诚的希望国家广播电台的中文节目越办越好！

» Soundtrack here.

According to China Daily on May 9, [g]rowing trade and investment ties between Beijing and Buenos Aires have resulted in more Chinese enterprises dipping their toes in the water in Argentina, and China has become Argentina’s third largest source of investment, following the United States and Spain, and its second largest trading partner. The two countries’ economies were complementary, China Daily wrote. During a visit by Chinese vice state chairman Li Yuanchao (李源潮), also in May this year, Argentine vice president and senate speaker Amado Boudou expressed appreciation for China’s support to Argentina’s claim for the sovereignty of the Malvinas Islands. Argentina would firmly uphold the One-China policy, explore practical cooperation with China in infrastructure, agriculture and other fields, and seek a comprehensive development of the bilateral strategic partnership.

Taipei DXer notes that

although reception of Argetina’s Chinese broadcasts on shortwave is not easy, but if you want to learn more about this distant South American country, you can now rather easily read on their website.

雖然不容易收到由阿根廷發送的中文短波廣播,但是如果想要瞭解這遙遠南美洲國家,現在可以透過他們的網站,有了中文網頁服務後,讓閱讀也變得較輕鬆了。

China Radio International (CRI) reportedly started a one-hour program (Monday through Saturday) in Chinese and Spanish in Argentina some three years earlier, on March 7, 2009. The program was or is aired on medium wave, as a cooperation between CRI and some Argentine entrepreneurs and broadcasting people, according to CRI.

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Related

» Entrevista, OrientarTV, May 14, 2013
» RAE’s Siempre Argentina, Jan 4, 2013
» Public Relations Challenges, Jan 9, 2011

Seasons: Gaokaos and Translator Tests

Saturday was gaokao day in China again, the nation-wide national higher education entrance examinations. More than nine million Chinese teenagers sat down and took a test that would determine much of their future lives.

But there’s an alternative, according to the Guardian – British qualification tests can be taken at Chinese schools, too. (Not sure if that’s true for all Chinese schools.)

It would seem however that this is mainly providing kids with rather wealthy backgrounds with an alternative to the usual procedure.

About two weeks earlier, exams on a smaller scale took place: the China Accreditation Test for Translators and Interpreters [全国翻译专业资格（水平）考试]. The accreditation test website also contains some information in English.

Not so xiandai anymore: JR’s dictionaries

That one was also conducted on a weekend, of course, on May 25 and 26. On all other days of the week, people have to study. In Beijing, the tests included spoken translation on Saturday, and written translation on Sunday Saturdays.

The test material is published by the Foreign Languages Press.H/t to this post by Huolong (who is somewhat critical of the material).

Unharmonious First Lady?

Michelle Obama‘s absence from the American-Chinese summit in California was a diplomatic misstep, Daniel W. Drezner, a professor of international politics at  the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, argued on Foreign Policy  (behind a registration wall, possibly). Her absence was an own-goal, Drezner believes, because this was one of the rather few occasions where she could really have  mattered in the world of politics. Too many Chinese might be disappointed that America’s first lady didn’t meet up with China’s first lady, Peng Liyuan.

Reportedly, Mrs Obama wanted to stay in Washington, to celebrate the birthday of one of her daughters.

Isaac Stone Fish disagreed with Drezner’s criticism. He referred to the songs Peng used to sing in full PLA gear, and especially this song, where she pretended to be Tibetan, lauding the PLA for “liberating” Tibet.

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Related

» Domestic Responsibilities, SMH, June 7, 2013
» The only Disharmony, May 27, 2013