In Praise of China’s “Just Mideast Position”

Chinese deputy foreign minister Zhai Jun (翟隽) will be in Syria on Friday and Saturday, according to  remarks by foreign ministry spokesman Liu Weimin (刘为民) on a press conference in Beijing on Thursday. The declared aim was to promote a solution to the Syrian crisis, to “try to make peace” and to “promote talks” (劝和促谈). On February 7, Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov had been in Damascus and urged Syrian President Bashar Assad to move ahead with reforms Tuesday as a way to resolve Syria’s crisis. Some three days earlier, Russia and China had vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution draft supported by all other 13 permanent and non-permanent members.

According to the BBC‘s Chinese website, Zhai Jun met with representatives from Syrian opposition in Beijing last week. The Syrians were in Beijing on invitation by the Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs (中国人民外交学会), met with Zhai Jun on February 7. Two days after the meeting, on a foreign ministry press conference a week ago, spokesman Liu said that

The “organization”^*) explained its position concerning the current Syrian situation, praised the just position China had long upheld in Middle East matters, expressed their desire to strengthen communication with the Chinese side, and their hope that China would play a greater role to promote a path out of the crisis for Syria as soon as possible.
(代表团介绍了“机构”对叙利亚当前局势的看法及主张，赞赏中国长期以来在中东地区事务中所持正义立场，表示愿与中方加强沟通，希中方发挥更大作用，共同推动叙利亚早日摆脱危机。)

A detailed schedule for Zhai’s visit was still being arranged today (Thursday), according to spokesman Liu.

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Note

^*) The term “organization” or “body” (机构) is part of the Chinese name for the organization (全国民主变革力量民族协调机构). It seems to refer to the National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change.

Update (Febr 16): the visiting delegation was indeed from the National Coordination Committee for Democratic Change, aka Syrian National Coordination Body for Democratic Change.

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Related

» Responsibility to Protect, Febr 11, 2012
» The Leaders’ Efforts, October 27, 2011
» Trusted Brothers, November 8, 2009

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Human Rights: Do Cases like Ge Xun’s “Backfire” on China?

One of the most frequently used buzzword about China is “face” – to “have” face, to “save” face, to “give” face, to “lose” face. But “face” doesn’t always matter, and it seems to me that there has been less talk about it in recent years anyway, even among foreigners.

I believe that cases like Ge Xun‘s do indeed backfire on China, but only in terms of image and soft power, and I don’t believe that this is where the CCP top-level’s priorities are. Chinese officials who still care about these effects, and semi-officials or academics from their vicinity who might have cared, too, remain silent (probably glad about the limited attention this latest case involving a foreign citizen of Chinese ancestry got after all), and probably, in the eyes of many, this has actually added to the CCP’s hard power: the CCP, in its dealings with foreigners, too, can do what it wants with impunity.

That the CCP invests heavily in its foreign propaganda – compared to Western trends, for example – is no real contradiction. Ample funding for CRI, CCTV-9, its international Mandarin services etc, as well as events like the current “China Cultural Year” in Germany, may not convince a foreign majority, but they will entertain a kind of early Christians, or rather early harmonists, who feel good with the semblance of normality and public life these outlets and activities are conveying. Besides, these activities don’t cost as much as other CCP projects, and the more globally-minded faction needs to be kept happy with a few budgets, too.

Many things that are said and done about China are based on wishful thinking. If the CCP can achieve its kind of stability at the current opportunity costs (as far as they can be assessed), they apparently believe it comes at a justifiable price. (If that will really spell stability at home in the end, or if it won’t, would be a different question, but they obviously believe it does.) Among foreign elites, anyway, the damage done by state security transgressions will be hardly noticeable, and on many [more “ordinary people”], it may actually have an intimidating effect.

The debate about Ge Xun is just another one that refuses to look at the CCP’s own resolutions, even though they are publicly available. The central committee’s Culture Document does include soft-power aspects, but only as one among many.

Quote from the document’s first chapter:

Ever since the day of its establishment, the Chinese Communist Party has been the faithful inheritor and advocate of the outstanding traditional Chinese culture, and the active  initiator and developer of China’s advanced culture.

Fact, baby. Once you have come to understand this reality, you may address some of those – minor, aren’t they? – issues, but only in an appropriate fashion.

And that’s exactly what Beijing’s partners of choice are doing. The Bertelsmann Foundation (one of the Bertelsmann AG’s main shareholders) , the Körber Foundation (the foundation is the Körber AG’s sole shareholder), and the Robert-Bosch Foundation – all of them are saving Germany’s “face” in the “China Cultural Year 2012”, by funding a “dialog” series added to the culture-year event which is otherwise funded by the CCP.

This doesn’t look like an event that would reach the grassroots. It isn’t even top-down – it’s top-top.

To come full circle, regarding Ge Xun and similar cases: I believe that the state security’s next step will be to tackle foreigners with no roots in China whose activities – or simply tweets – they dislike, too.

Expect no great controversy in that case, either. Harald Jürgs, a German entrepreneur who was barred from leaving China in a business dispute in 2010 – on apparently rather questionable grounds – , never made it beyond the German embassy’s reception when he was seeking help there. He was, however, served with a list of solicitors.

Ge Xun: a Bunch of Flowers and an Email Address from the State Security

In a phone interview on Monday from his home in Fremont, Calif., Mr. Ge described how the agents, infuriated by his assertion that bloggers in the United States were volunteers and not government-sponsored agitators, demanded that he turn over his Twitter password. When he refused, two of them unleashed a torrent of kicks and punches that lasted 30 minutes, he said. “The more they beat me, the less I felt like cooperating,” he said.

[…]

A few hours later, en route to the airport, he said, he endured another brief beating after refusing to hand over his laptop for one final inspection. Once at the terminal, they returned his camera and recording device, although the contents had been erased. They also handed back the bouquet of flowers he had planned to give to Ms. Ding.

As Mr. Ge limped away in pain, he said, the lead interrogator, Wang Jie, reminded him that the entire episode was a “national secret.” The agent also scribbled down an e-mail address and told him to send a note the next time he came to town. (An e-mail sent to the address seeking comment was not answered on Monday.)

New York Times, Febr 13, 2012

–

Dissidents report that such treatment is commonplace for Chinese citizens. And while China has undertaken to follow international norms in dealing with foreigners, the police have begun to ignore those norms with impunity. That’s particularly so when it comes to foreign citizens of Chinese descent.

Wall Street Journal, Febr 14, 2012

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Related

» 21 Hours in Beijing, Seeing Red, Febr 8, 2012

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Deutsche Welle: “On the Road to Success with Farsi”

The following is a translation from German.

Main Link: http://www.dw.de/dw/article/0,,15661633,00.html

DW, February 3, 2012

Some 70 per cent of Iranians are less than 30 years old. For the future development of the country, they are crucial. Deutsche Welle gets through to them with multi-media choices in the Persian language (Farsi).

Interactive and mobile choices, and increasingly videos – reports as well as commentary – mark the www.dw.de/persian website. The Farsi department also counts increasingly on apps and social networks like Facebook and Twitter. Radio, particularly on shortwave, is hardly used among Deutsche Welle’s mostly young target audience in Iran. Therefore, in fall 2011, linear broadcast of the Persian radio program was terminated. For almost fifty years, they had been on the air from Germany.

The team around department director Jamsheed Faroughi works multi-medially and consists of about fourty members. Their coverage from and about Iran is mostly based on Persian-speaking correspondents. Add informants from all regions of the country, among them speakers of political groups, local journalists and bloggers, human-rights advocates and activists like Nobel-Peace-Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi.

The internet choice in Persian language is one of Deutsche Welle’s most successful ones. The website has been blocked in Iran several times, since 2009. However, users in the country are familiar with technical loop ways to load the pages anyway.

Deutsche Welle’s television program can only be received by satellite in Iran. Officially, however, satellite dishes are banned in Iran. Broadcast of DW programs over Hotbird 8 has been bugged repeatedly and selectively by the Iranian government. The signals were localized in Tehran’s immediate vicinity. Voice of America and BBC broadcasts were also affected.

Voice of Germany - we are enthused! (IRIB Tehran QSL, 1986)

Target Groups

Iran’s population is very young – some 70 per cent of the people are under 30 years old. For the political, economic and social development of the country, future multipliers are crucial. They are also those who, in the medium term, will determine public opinion formation. They are therefore our most important target audience. They are not only young, but also better educated, and partly have good English language skills. They mostly live in metropolises and bigger cities. Cosmopolitism, interest for the Western lifestyle, and rejection of fundamentalist tendencies within Islam are their characteristics. Internet and mobile phones go without saying, modern ways of communication such as blogs and texting are part of their everyday life.

Main Topics

Comprehensive, objective information from Iran and the entire region are at the center of our Farsi programs. In addition to current political news they include topics from science, technology, the environment, culture, lifestyle and sports.

There is great interest in Germany among the target groups in Iran. Above all, general information about our country and life and work in Germany are in high demand.

Iran as a Media Market

Intense competition and strong state censorship mark the Iranian media market. On the Reporters without Borders ranking, the country is on position 175, among 178 countries. All television and radio stations are controlled by the state [in the state’s hand – in staatlicher Hand]. Commercial newspapers are also closely regulated; during the past years, many renowned papers have been closed down.
Technical metropolitan development is far advanced. Practically every household has television and radio, plus internet access. Television is the main medium for current information. Nationwide, some twelve million Iranians out of 70 million have internet access, according to offical statistics, and the trend is rising. One way to access the internet are internet cafes, between 1,500 and 3,000 in Tehran alone. Particularly active users are multipliers: more than twenty per cent are online on a daily basis. Internet and above all the Iranian blogosphere play a significant role in the dissemination of uncensored information. According to estimates, there are between 50,000 and 100,000 bloggers in the country – frequently journalists and authors, who are affected by state censorship on the established media, and who therefore switch to the internet.

The government, too, tries to use the internet for propaganda. At the same time, it relies on restrictive measures. Internet providers are bound to use content filters which block undesired content and pages. Digit rates for private households have been limited to make use of audio-visual content more difficult. Currently, the government plans to build the internet into a “national intranet”. Censorship doesn’t only affect political content. Generally, programs and media choices in contradiction to the government’s concept of culture are banned. These regulations have recently been tightened.

Satellite dishes remain officially banned. On and off, the government cracks down on them, as many people evade the ban. More than 30 television channels in Farsi are courting the Iranian public from abroad.
There is a lack of reliable information about current affairs. Better-educated Iranians in particular feel a strong need for objective accounts from abroad.

Besides choices from publicly-financed foreign broadcasters, numerous non-public television and radio stations broadcast into Iran. Most of them are operated by exiled Iranians from the U.S. and from Europe. Their political and economic interests are hard to look through.

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Related

» The Persian Paradox, FOARP, January 27, 2012
» DW targets “Opinion Leaders”, May 20, 2011

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Ge Xun’s Interrogation

I’m not in a position to verify the following story and its details, but I have had several online exchanges with C. A. Yeung from Under the Jacaranda, by comment and interview. As far as I can see, she isn’t inclined to draw exaggerated or rash conclusions.

Beijing state security reportedly arrested and assaulted U.S. citizen Ge Xun (葛洵), one of C. A. Yeung’s friends on Twitter. According to Mrs. Yeung’s post, her name was mentioned twice during his interrogation, and his interrogators stated that Under the Jacaranda is under surveillance.

Ge Xun was illegally detained when he attempted to visit his friend, Professor Ding Zilin, one of the Tiananmen Mothers. He was taken to an unknown location, where he was interrogated for more than 20 hours. During such time, Ge was not allowed to contact the US Consulate in spite of his repeated requests. No warrant or relevant document had been presented to him to explain why he was under detention. Ge was beaten up twice: once in order to force him to surrender his Twitter and Gmail passwords; the second time in order to snatch his laptop computer. While he was interrogated, Ge was asked detailed questions about the identities of human rights activists, including each individual volunteer whose name appears at the Free Chen Guangcheng editorial list. […]

Both Under the Jacaranda and Seeing Red in China have posted details from Ge’s account of his detention (apparently on January 31), and his forced departure from China.

Ge was forced to reveal personal data during the interrogation. The state security’s scope of interests seems to be much wider than you might expect – and if state expenditure for “internal security” exceeds the Chinese defense budget, the apparat probably needs to care about a lot of things to keep itself busy.

Another topic during the interrogation was Ge’s website about Chen Guangcheng (陈光诚), a dissident who has lived under house arrest since he was released from prison in 2010.

The state security knows how to spread fear – but apparently, it is also a tool of very fearful rulers.

In a talk about Chen Guangcheng in 2010, Jerome Cohen asked:

What is power? The Chinese government would like to have soft power, as well as hard power. The world recognizes China’s growing military might, its tremendous economic development and influence, but China wants to be known for the quality of its civilization. That’s why they resurrected Confucius and engaged in a lot of cultural exchange and things, and that’s all good. But real soft power comes from people recognizing that you run a civilized government, and that you treat your own people better than he’s being treated.

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Ge’s account is no fun to read – but Seeing Red‘s  translation, part two, of Ge’s story ends with a surreal circumstance which may make you laugh when reading it. But  it’s no parody.

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Related

» Obama, Xi to meet on Valentine’s Day, BBC, January 24, 2012
» Shaun Rein: “Shame on CNN”, FOARP, December 21, 2011

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17th Central Committee’s “Culture Document” – 11: Go Global, and no Porn!

« Previous leg of this translation: part 10, Linking the Cultural Industries to the National Economy

The following is a translation of the fifth chapter of the CCP Central Committee’s “cultural document”. For more background concerning the document, see that previous post.

Main Link: http://gb.cri.cn/27824/2011/10/26/2625s3413678_3.htm

7) Deepen Reform and Opening Further, Accelerate and Establish Systems which are Conducive to the Prosperous Development of Culture

七、进一步深化改革开放，加快构建有利于文化繁荣发展的体制机制

Culture guides the mood of our times, and is the area most in need of innovation. We must firmly grasp the correct direction, accelerate the promotion of cultural mechanisms, built sound leadership by party committees, administrative management, industrial self-regulation, social supervision, enterprises, institutions and units (danwei) which operate in accordance with the law, based on cultural management systems and vigorous cultural production systems, bring positive market factors in to play in the process of cultural resource allocation, make culture get past [old] patterns, and add strong dynamic force to prosperous cultural development.

文化引领时代风气之先，是最需要创新的领域。必须牢牢把握正确方向，加快推进文化体制改革，建立健全党委领导、政府管理、行业自律、社会监督、企事业单位依法运营的文化管理体制和富有活力的文化产品生产经营机制，发挥市场在文化资源配置中的积极作用，创新文化走出去模式，为文化繁荣发展提供强大动力。

a) Deepen reform of state-owned cultural units. By focusing on establishing a system of modern enterprise, accelerate and promote the reform of operational cultural units, and foster mainframes in conformity with the market. Specify the cultural units’ characters and functions scientifically, distinguish between them, classify them, take a progressive approach, open them gradually, promote normal state-owned cultural ensembles and troupes, press products which are not about current affairs or politics, [ownership transformation of news websites (?) – 新闻网站转企改制], expand the fruits of publication, distribution, and the film industry’s reform, accelerate their transformation into companies and public limited companies, perfect corporate governance structures in line with modern enterprise system requirements, and reflecting the cultural enterprises’ characteristic assets and operations and management organization. Innovate the investment and financial systems, support state-owned cultural companies’ as they face the capital markets, and support them in attracting social capital, and in carrying out joint-stock transformation. Keep the attributes of public benefit in mind, strengthen the service functions, increase vital development, comprehensively promote cultural units’ human resources and income allocation, social insurance systems’ reform, clear service specifications and the strengthening of performance evaluation in mind. Innovate public cultural service facilities’ operational mechanisms, attract personalities who represent society, professionals, and apply grassroots participation and management. Promote the progressive perfection of party publications’, radio, and television management and operational mechanisms. Promote the application of entrepreneurial management at the units, such as normal current-affairs publishing houses, non-profit publishing houses, ensembles and troupes who represent national characteristics and the country’s artistic level, enhance exposure to the markets, and the ability to serve the masses.

(一)深化国有文化单位改革。以建立现代企业制度为重点，加快推进经营性文化单位改革，培育合格市场主体。科学界定文化单位性质和功能，区别对待、分类指导，循序渐进、逐步推开，推进一般国有文艺院团、非时政类报刊社、新闻网站转企改制，拓展出版、发行、影视企业改革成果，加快公司制股份制改造，完善法人治理结构，形成符合现代企业制度要求、体现文化企业特点的资产组织形式和经营管理模式。创新投融资体制，支持国有文化企业面向资本市场融资，支持其吸引社会资本进行股份制改造。着眼于突出公益属性、强化服务功能、增强发展活力，全面推进文化事业单位人事、收入分配、社会保障制度改革，明确服务规范，加强绩效评估考核。创新公共文化服务设施运行机制，吸纳有代表性的社会人士、专业人士、基层群众参与管理。推动党报党刊、电台电视台进一步完善管理和运行机制。推动一般时政类报刊社、公益性出版社、代表民族特色和国家水准的文艺院团等事业单位实行企业化管理，增强面向市场、面向群众提供服务能力。

b) A sound, modern culture market system. To promote cultural products and key elements floating reasonably all over the country, an orderly, modern market system for unified and open competition must be built. The focus must be on the development of books and other publications, digital audio and video products, performing arts and entertainment, television series, cartoons, animation, and [computer] games, and similar markets, for the further perfection of a comprehensive international Chinese platform on fairs and exhibitions, etc. Develop chain operation, commodity circulation and distribution, e-commerce and other modern organizations and forms, accelerate the building of large-scale distribution enterprises and logistical bases for cultural products, build distributional networks for cultural products that understand urban and rural needs, with the big cities as the centers, with small- and medium-sized cities complementing them. Accelerate the development of property rights [or ownership rights], copyright, and key markets like those for technology and information, carefully manage major exchange [markets] for cultural property rights, norms, and transactions of cultural assets and artistic works. Strengthen the trade’s organizational building, and build sound intermediary structures.

(二)健全现代文化市场体系。促进文化产品和要素在全国范围内合理流动，必须构建统一开放竞争有序的现代文化市场体系。要重点发展图书报刊、电子音像制品、演出娱乐、影视剧、动漫游戏等产品市场，进一步完善中国国际文化产业博览交易会等综合交易平台。发展连锁经营、物流配送、电子商务等现代流通组织和流通形式，加快建设大型文化流通企业和文化产品物流基地，构建以大城市为中心、中小城市相配套、贯通城乡的文化产品流通网络。加快培育产权、版权、技术、信息等要素市场，办好重点文化产权交易所，规范文化资产和艺术品交易。加强行业组织建设，健全中介机构。

c) Innovate the cultural management system. Deepen reform of administrative and management systems, accelerate the transformation of government functions, strengthen the functions of policy adjustment, market supervision, social management, and public service, promote the separation of politics and enterprise, separation of politics and business, and provide a reasonable order to the relationship between government and cultural enterprises and units, through control and adjustment. Perfect personnel management, operational management, asset management and lead it into the direction of a combined management system of state-owned cultural assets [or – not sure about the correct translation here – a state-owned management system]. Build a sound and comprehensive administrative and law-enforcement structure for the culture market, and promote a sub-provincial and sub-city administration and responsibility mainstay. Accelerate cultural legislation, define and perfect the laws and regulations concerning the protection of public cultural services, the rejuvenation of the cultural industries, cultural market management, and increase the legal level of cultural construction. Adhere to the management and organizational system, implement principles of who is responsible, and who is in charge, strictly apply policies of cultural capital, cultural enterprise, access and non-access to the cultural product markets, comprehensively apply legal, administrative, economic and technological means to increase management efficiency. Deepen the implementation of “Brush pornography away, and crack down on illegal publications”, perfect cultural market management, firmly remove decadent cultural garbage which poisons the peoples’ minds, conscientiously build a market order which ensures national cultural safety.

(三)创新文化管理体制。深化文化行政管理体制改革，加快政府职能转变，强化政策调节、市场监管、社会管理、公共服务职能，推动政企分开、政事分开，理顺政府和文化企事业单位关系。完善管人管事管资产管导向相结合的国有文化资产管理体制。健全文化市场综合行政执法机构，推动副省级以下城市完善综合文化行政责任主体。加快文化立法，制定和完善公共文化服务保障、文化产业振兴、文化市场管理等方面法律法规，提高文化建设法制化水平。坚持主管主办制度，落实谁主管谁负责和属地管理原则，严格执行文化资本、文化企业、文化产品市场准入和退出政策，综合运用法律、行政、经济、科技等手段提高管理效能。深入开展“扫黄打非”，完善文化市场管理，坚决扫除毒害人们心灵的腐朽文化垃圾，切实营造确保国家文化安全的市场秩序。

d) Perfect security system policies policy guarantee mechanisms. Ensure that growth in public financing of cultural construction exceeds normal growth in public finance revenues, increase the share of cultural expenses in public spending. Expand the range of public financing, perfect financial input methods, strengthen fund management, increase the efficiency of funding used, and ensure cultural service systems’ construction and operation. Implement and improve cultural economic policies, support societal organizations, organizations, donations to and start-ups of non-profit cultural activities, guide non-profit organizations to provide public cultural products and services. […] Establish a national cultural development fund, expand the scale of related cultural funds and special funds, increase the share of all kinds of lottery-generated means for the funding of non-profit undertakings. Continue the use of coherent policies on the reform of the cultural system, and support the transformation of state-owned cultural units for another five years.

(四)完善政策保障机制。保证公共财政对文化建设投入的增长幅度高于财政经常性收入增长幅度，提高文化支出占财政支出比例。扩大公共财政覆盖范围，完善投入方式，加强资金管理，提高资金使用效益，保障公共文化服务体系建设和运行。落实和完善文化经济政策，支持社会组织、机构、个人捐赠和兴办公益性文化事业，引导文化非营利机构提供公共文化产品和服务。加大财政、税收、金融、用地等方面对文化产业的政策扶持力度，鼓励文化企业和社会资本对接，对文化内容创意生产、非物质文化遗产项目经营实行税收优惠。设立国家文化发展基金，扩大有关文化基金和专项资金规模，提高各级彩票公益金用于文化事业比重。继续执行文化体制改革配套政策，对转企改制国有文化单位扶持政策执行期限再延长五年。

e) Promote the Chinese culture’s process of going global. Carry out foreign cultural exchange on multiple channels, in multiple forms, and on multiple levels, broaden participation in the global dialog of civilizations, promote learning from each other, strengthen the inspiration that comes from Chinese culture, and Chinese culture’s influence, for the joint safeguarding of cultural diversity. Innovate ways and means of propaganda abroad, strengthen [the right to speak ones opinion – or the right to dominate others through words: 增强国际话语权], react appropriately to foreign concerns, enhance the international community’s basic understanding of our country, its values, its path of development, understanding for and knowledge of its domestic and foreign policies, and let them discover the our country’s civilizational, democratic, open, and progressive image. Implement the project of our culture going global, improve and support the policies and implementation of cultural products and services going global, support major media organizations in setting up overseas branches, foster a number of external cultural enterprises and intermediary organizations which are globally competitive, improve dubbing, recommendation and introduction, advisory and similar support mechanisms, and gain access to international cultural markets. Strengthen Chinese overseas cultural centers and Confucius Institutes, encourage academia and artistic organization which reflect our country’s level to play a constructive role within relevant international organizations, and organize the translation of outstanding artistic works and cultural quality products. Build mechanisms for cultural exchange, combine governmental exchanges and non-governmental exchanges, bring into play the role of non-governmental cultural enterprise, cultural non-profit organizations in international cultural exchanges, and support overseas Chinese in actively launching sino-foreign cultural exchanges. Establish cultural exchange mechanisms for young foreigners, and establish an award for contributions to the international dissemination of Chinese culture.

(五)推动中华文化走向世界。开展多渠道多形式多层次对外文化交流，广泛参与世界文明对话，促进文化相互借鉴，增强中华文化在世界上的感召力和影响力，共同维护文化多样性。创新对外宣传方式方法，增强国际话语权，妥善回应外部关切，增进国际社会对我国基本国情、价值观念、发展道路、内外政策的了解和认识，展现我国文明、民主、开放、进步的形象。实施文化走出去工程，完善支持文化产品和服务走出去政策措施，支持重点主流媒体在海外设立分支机构，培育一批具有国际竞争力的外向型文化企业和中介机构，完善译制、推介、咨询等方面扶持机制，开拓国际文化市场。加强海外中国文化中心和孔子学院建设，鼓励代表国家水平的各类学术团体、艺术机构在相应国际组织中发挥建设性作用，组织对外翻译优秀学术成果和文化精品。构建人文交流机制，把政府交流和民间交流结合起来，发挥非公有制文化企业、文化非营利机构在对外文化交流中的作用，支持海外侨胞积极开展中外人文交流。建立面向外国青年的文化交流机制，设立中华文化国际传播贡献奖和国际性文化奖项。

f) Actively absorb and learn from outstanding foreign cultural achievements. Adhere to the principles of self-dependance, self-regardness, to learning from every experience that helps to strengthen the building of our country’s socialist construction, from all positive achievements that can enrich our people’s cultural life, from everything that is conducive to our country’s cultural activities, and to its cultural management concepts and mechanisms. Strengthen our country’s intellectual fields, its talents, and its acquisition of technology. Attract foreign investment into fields and enterprises that are designed for this by rules and regulations, and guarantee the investors’ lawful rights and interests.Encourage cultural units to enter cooperation projects with powerful foreign cultural institutions, learn from advanced production technolgies, and from advanced management experience. Encourage foreign-invested enterprises to carry out cultural-technological research and development, and develop outsourcing. Develop international cooperation in the protection of intellectual property rights.

(六)积极吸收借鉴国外优秀文化成果。坚持以我为主、为我所用，学习借鉴一切有利于加强我国社会主义文化建设的有益经验、一切有利于丰富我国人民文化生活的积极成果、一切有利于发展我国文化事业和文化产业的经营管理理念和机制。加强文化领域智力、人才、技术引进工作。吸收外资进入法律法规许可的文化产业领域，保障投资者合法权益。鼓励文化单位同国外有实力的文化机构进行项目合作，学习先进制作技术和管理经验。鼓励外资企业在华进行文化科技研发，发展服务外包。开展知识产权保护国际合作。

To be continued.

An Update to my Blogging Rules…

According to people who should know, I’m a comparatively slow (and thorough) reader, and a comparatively fast writer, at least on the keyboard. I’m not that fast when it comes to pushing the publishing button, and usually, there’s at least one draft waiting to be finished. But some mysterious key combination may lead to “publishing” here. It has happened before.

Now, there’s the “stop” button on the browser. Just in time, I thought, as the post didn’t appear on my blog after all. However, its trackbacks arrived on my side menu – and it arrived on Echo Taiwan‘s feed reader.

Echo Taiwan feedreader

So, if the post arrived in any subscriber’s feed reader, too, and if this is what you got when clicking the link,

don’t be angry. In future, I’ll use an editor to write my drafts, and only use WordPress once I’ve finished the post.

Unless you can give me a clue which key combination leads to the unwanted publishing function, that is. I’m typing too fast to realize.

17th Central Committee’s “Culture Document” – 11: Go Global, and no Porn!

[This was posted on Sunday, but appears as a Saturday post. This mess, and that mess, are somehow linked to each other, mefeels – JR]