If Germany’s Northern German Radio (Norddeutscher Rundfunk, NDR) has it right in its December 2022 schedule, the traditional program of greetings from the shore to the Seven Seas (minus the Pacific, it seems) will be on air on Christmas Eve from 18:03 to 21:00 UTC. That would be in line with last year’s broadcasting time, which was also just three instead of the traditional four hours.
Hello World, this is Leer calling
– »»»»» Beginning of Update, Nov 30, 2022
Times and frequencies
Target Areas
Schedule Nov 26
(now invalid)
Schedule Nov 30
(most recently)
Atlantic (North)
6145 kHz
Atlantic (South)
9830 kHz
13725 kHz
Atlantic (Northwest)
—
15770 kHz
Atlantic (Northeast)
—
6030 kHz
Atlantic / Indian Ocean
9590 kHz
11650 kHz
Indian Ocean
—
9740 kHz
Indian Ocean (West)
9740 kHz
Indian Ocean (East)
9675 kHz
Europe
6155 kHz
6080 kHz
This leaves us with some guesswork, but tradition and target areas seem to suggest that the Atlantics will be served from Nauen (Germany) or from Issoudun (France). and 6155 kHz look like Moosbrunn (Austria), especially as the Austrian Broadcasting Service (Österreichischer Rundfunk Service, ORS) seem to target all of Europe (360°) from there with their daily morning and midday broadcasts in German.
But to be honest, I’m really wildly guessing. Hopefully, NDR will follow up with some more details about transmitter sites, soon.
Still update, Nov 30, 2022
I’m not sure how the NDR schedule had arrived at the previous schedule (Nov 26) – those weren’t last year’s Christmas frequencies either. But moving up the spectrum makes sense, as maximum usable frequencies have been rising for a while, and are likely to do so until about 2025.
What will be missing this year (it appears) is the religious service – the only part of the traditional shortwave broadcasts that actually used to be live on the air. That would follow at 22:00 UTC, but only on VHF, digital, or streamed.
Sin was born in Pongchon County, now North Korea, on January 17, 1941, also according to the a/m online sources. He is described as a prolific librettist of “Juche music”, and probably best known for the text to the “Song of General Kim Jong-il”.
The country’s official news agency KCNA, in a newslet on Wednesday, referred to him as
a talented soldier writer loved by the people under the care of the Party. He held firm the writing pen of the revolution for years and created lots of noted lyric lines and poems of high ideological and artistic value. They included immortal revolutionary hymn “Song of General Kim Jong Il” reflecting the demand of the times and the desire of the people, which made great contributions to the development of Juche-oriented literature and art. [No permalink.]
Xinhua Beijing April 30 — A meeting to mark the 100th anniversary of the May-Fourth movement was solemnly held in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee, State Chairman, and Central Military Commission Chairman Xi Jinping gave an important speech at the meeting, emphasizing that for the past 100 years, the May-Fourth movement has been a continuous struggle of one youthful Chinese generation after another, marching forward under triumphant songs, creating 100 years of a youthful China, and a youthful nation, by their youthful selves. The main theme of the new era’s Chinese generation’s movement, its youthful movement’s direction, its youthful mission, is to uphold the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party, to be together with the people, to achieve the goal of the struggle for the “Two Centenaries” and the dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
Li Keqiang, Li Zhanshu, Wang Yang, Wang Huning, Zhao Leji, Han Zheng and Wang Qishan attended the meeting.
李克强、栗战书、汪洋、王沪宁、赵乐际、韩正、王岐山出席大会。
In the Great Hall of the People’s great hall, the atmosphere was solemn and enthusiastic. Above the podium, red banners were hanging with the inscription “commemorating the May-Fourth Movement’s 100th anniversary”, and behind at the center, there was a red banner saying “1919 – 2019”, and ten red flags in rows at both sides. In a distance, from the second floor, there was the slogan “Closely united around the Party’s Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, make full use of the great May-Fourth spirit, uphold the correct direction of the new era’s Chinese youth movement, and do your utmost to achieve the dream of the Chinese nation’s great rejuvenation, the magnificient and youthful chapter!”
On this year’s 100th anniversary of the May-Fourth Movement, [Taiwan’s] Mainland Affairs Council Chairman Chen Ming-tong has pointed out that strangulation of thought and freedom of speech control of young “listening to the party, going with the party”, an imbalance and twists between political reform and economic development, turning their backs to the May-Fourth spirit, all of mainland China ransacked and did away with the figures of “Mr Sai and Mr De”. Only with the practice of democracy on both sides of the Taiwan Strait could there be communication among equals, peaceful coexistence and a resolution of differences.
In an address to a roundtable session for a”May Fourth 100th Anniversary: Mainland China’s Democracy Development Review” he said that “all-embracing freedom of thought”, as advocated as a school management guideline by then Beida University president had advocated “all-embracing freedom of thought” as a university management guideline by then Beida University president Cai Yuanpei, while these days, the Chinese Communist Party determined the May Fourth Movement as a history of the Communist Party’s struggle. Diverse and independent campuses, the spirit of freedom and openness, freedom of thought and speech had been strangled by the Communist Party, controlling the wave of the young people “listening to the party, going with the party”.
The following is a translation of a report on an inspection tour by Chinese party and state leader Xi Jinping, broadcast on January 18 and 19, on CCTV and CPBS. There were extensive takes of Xi speaking himself, which were turned into more reader-friendly lines in CCTV’s report script (as translated here). Errors in translation likely. Links within blockquotes added during translation. Sub-headlines also added during translation.
Anchor: The General Secretary of the CCP, State Chairman, and Central Military Commission Chairman Xi Jinping has conducted an inspection of Jingjinji, chaired a Jingjinji symposium, and given an important speech. He emphasized that the understanding of and the work on Jingjinji joint development needed to be done from a high degree of comprehensive and long-term consideration, to strengthen awareness, activity and creativity in the administration of joint development, to maintain historical patience and strategic determination, to move steadily and with courage to assume responsibility, to innovate, work well, and to promote Jingjinji joint development’s progress with growing vigor.
Member of the politburo’s standing committee and deputy chief state councillor Han Zheng accompanied the inspection of Xiong’an New Area in Hebei and Beijing, and attended the symposium.
中共中央政治局常委、国务院副总理韩正陪同考察河北雄安新区和北京市并出席座谈会。
Service-shaped Government, Braving the Weather
Reporter: North China’s depth of winter, cold wind and dripping water turning into ice. From January 16 to January 18, Xi Jinping made a thorough tour of Hebei Xiong’an New Area, Tianjin, and Beijing, to learn about the situation of Jingjinji’s joint development on the ground. He was accompanied by Hebei party secretary Wang Dongfeng and Hebei governor Xu Qin, CCP politburo member and Tianjin party secretary Li Hongzhong and Tianjin mayor Zhang Guoqing, and CCP politburo member and Beijing party secretary Cai Qi and Beijing mayor Chen Jining respectively [depending on the area visited].
In the morning of January 16, Xi Jinping first came to Hebei Xiong’an New Area’s planning exhibition center, carefully listened to explanations of New Area’s master plan, political system and construction situation, and watched the exhibition of the results of the city design launch and the big projects and main projects that are about to be launched. He emphasized that to build Xiong’an New Area is a millenium project. New Area must first be built as a plan and a building concept, embodying far-sightedness and leadership. The concept of new development needs to be comprehensively implemented, the requirements of high-quality development be maintained, and the new era’s high-quality development’s mark be created with great efforts. Xi Jinping was tele-linked to the Xiong’an railway station construction site by a big screen, and waved greetings to the construction workers. Xi Jinping praised their trailbreaking work and told them to work scientifically, pay attention to safety, to safeguard quality, to keep to deadlines, and he sent them his cordial greetings and best wishes.
Government staff, faithfully listening – click photo for CCTV video
Investment welcome, provided …
Soon after, Xi Jinping walked to the government service center to look at the service window, to understand the deepening of government institutions reform and the creation of service-shaped government work. Xi Jinping fully affirmed Xiong’an government service center’s carrying out of the “one-seal approval” combined-service method. He pointed out that modern information technology was needed to raise the levels of government services’ connected use of information, improve government services informatization, intelligentification, accuracy, and facilitation, so as to allow the masses to run fewer errands. In the government services central building, Xi Jinping cordially conversed with some of the enterprise representatives present there. He emphasized that the construction of Xiong’an New Area required the participation of a great number of companies. No matter if they were state-owned or private companies, no matter if they were local or Beijing companies, no matter if they were Chinese or foreign-invested companies, we welcome them all as long as they fit into the New Region’s development plan. We hope that many companies will grab this extremely rare historic opportunity and make new splendid achievements.
The following paragraph is about the ecology, describing Xi’s visit to a forestation program in Daqinghe. In this context, too, the report emphasizes the importance of “scientific methods” and informatizational tools.
Reporter: […] [Xi Jinping] attentively enquired about the work and income situations of villagers working for the creation and protection of forests, repeatedly urging the active participation of local farmers, to let the farmers benefit from creating and protecting forests.
Patriotic Education: Individual Selves, Greater Self, Political and Professional Abilities
In the afternoon of January 17, Xi Jinping came to Nankai University in Tianjin for inspection and research. Nankai University was founded in 1919 and is a famous university with a glorious patriotic tradition. Xi Jinping toured the history exhibition, minutely finding out about Nankai University’s historic development, scientific construction, its talented workforce, research, innovation, etc. Xi Jinping pointed out that school is the place of laying down morality and cultivating people. Patriotism is the Chinese nation’s heart and mind, and to cultivate builders and successors of socialism, one needed to cultivate students’ love for their country first. University party organizations needed to take the fundamental function in university administration of party building and ideological political work. Xi Jinping had exchanges with some of the scholars’, experts’ and younger and middle-aged teachers’ representatives. He pointed out that expert teaching staff are a university’s core competitiveness force. Staff with political qualities and mastery and consummate professional abilities had to be built, and teaching staff with a high level of inner qualities for the fundamental work of university building to be educated, with a fast grasp from beginning to end. In the national chemistry critical laboratory, he emphasized the need for first-class university and first-class scientific construction, fundamental research, striving for original and self-reliant innovation with more results, bravely climbing towards the global peak of science and technology. He encouraged teachers and students to blend their concrete goals of learning struggles and the great goal of national rejuvenation together, to integrate their selves into the collective self, determined to make the historic contribution of our generation. Students who had come out of the laboratories and into the square all shouted “Good afternoon, Secretary General”, “Secretary General is working hard”, loudly shouted “Love China, revive China” in chorus, and intoned “I and my China”.*)
The following paragraph is about a residential community in Tianjin’s Heping District, with emphasis on services for military retirees, and the work of volunteers in residential communities. According to the report, the community visited by Xi was the birthplace of volunteering in China.
Real Economy
After touching on historic architecture in Tianjin (and its protection), Xi is extensively quoted on the significance of Tianjin Port and on shipping in general, plus some remarks about the real economy:
Reporter: […] Xi Jinping pointed out that the real economy is the foundation of a big country, and the economy must not move into emptiness. the real economy must not be unhanded, the strife be continued unremittingly, and the global peak be reliably reached.
After leaving Tianjin Port, Xi Jinping came to Tianjin Binhai Zhongguancun Technology Park. At the innovation coordination exhibition center, Xi Jinping attentively watched “Tianhe” supercomputer, Feiteng CPUs, Kylin operating systems, artificial-intelligence robots fitting electrical networks, unmanned vehicles with joint abilities controlling systems, and other products shown. Xi Jinping emphasized that self-reliant innovation is driving high-quality development, the urgent requirement of kinetic energy transformation and its important support. We must create conditions and an atmosphere that mobilize all kinds of enthusiasm for innovation, allow every person with innovative dreams to focus on innovation, and enable all innovative vigor to amply burst forth.
In the morning of January 18, Xi Jinping went to Beijing sub-center by car, and watched the “City Green Heart” forestation area along the way. At the Municipal Committee Office Building’s main building, Xi Jinping, through a designing model, learned in detail about the major sub-center project and construction. Xi Jinping emphasized that building Beijing City’s sub-center required to uphold [the principles of] planning in advance and quality first. Buildings and natural landscapes need to be blended into each other, production, life and ecological spaces be arranged scientifically, to shape work, places to live, leisure, traffic, education, medical services etc. as easily accessible organic combinations. There is a need to plan and implement well, to turn the blueprint into a real landscape, making Beijing City sub-center another beautiful business card of this ancient capital.
In the conference room of Beijing Municipal Committee Office Building’s main building, Xi Jinping presided over the Jingjinji Coordinated Development symposium. National Development and Reform Commission director He Lifeng, Beijing party secretary Cai Qi, Tianjin party secretary Li Hongzhong, Hebei Provincial party secretary Wang Dongfeng gave speeches, explaining the work on Jingjinji coordinated development, giving opinions and making suggestions.
Having listened to the speeches, Xi Jinping gave an important speech. He fully affirmed the outstanding results that have been achieved since the Jingjinji development’s strategic implementation. He emphasized that Jingjinji coordinated development is a systems project that can’t be done in a stroke. There was a need to do good long-term strategic preparation. During the past five years, the Jingjinji coordinated development had, overall, been through the stages of planning and reasoning, establishing the foundations, and the search for the breakthroughs. Currently, and during the next period, one would enter the key stage of rolling the stone uphill, climbing up the pits, assaulting fortified positions to overcome difficulties, with the need to exert even greater energy to carry the work forward.
Xi Jinping made six demands concerning the promotion of Jingjinji joint development. The first is to grab the oxen by the nose and to keep at it, actively, dependably and orderly easing Beijing’s non-capital functions. Greater attention must be paid to methodology, strict control of increments and mitigating reserves be joint together, internal functional reorganization and externally-directed mitigation shifts be carried out bidirectionally, dependably and orderly promoting implementation. The market system’s role must be developed, marketization and rule by law be adopted, purposeful guiding policies be defined, to take shape as a joint force with Xiong’an New Area and Beijing city sub-center. Based on Beijing’s “four centers” functions, the capitals’s functions must continuously be optimized. Secondly, historical patience and strategic determination and high-quality, high-standards promotion of Xiong’an New Area’s planning and construction must be maintained. Design and results must be fully absorbed into controlled and detailed planning, the solemn and restrained character of planning be maintained, and laws and regulations be used to guarantee a roadmap that is carried out all the way. A number of distinguishing projects that mitigate Beijing’s capital functions must be undertaken, and construction of a number of major traffic and communications, water conservancy, public service and other major underlying supporting facilities must be started, to let members of society of all walks of life and the common people in the new areas see the changes. Ranks of cadres with political mastery, professional mastery, that work hard and a groundbreaking and innovative spirit must be formed, the formation of party style and honest politics be strengthened, and a good environment with clean winds and a positive atmosphere be built. Thirdly, by turning Beijing’s city-level offices relocations into an opportunity, plans and construction of Beijing’s city sub-center must be promoted at high quality. All kinds of situations that may be encountered during the relocation process must be given sufficient consideration, and political measures that are purposeful and operable must be researched and launched, to settle the worries of cadres and staff. Major basic infrastructure construction that allocates education, medical services, cultural and other public service functions must be accelerated, to improve the sub-center’s carrying capacity and attractiveness. The “Old-City reorganization” in Beijing’s city center must be promoted, spatial planning and economic structuring of Beijing be optimized, and Beijing’s administrative efficiency and role for the central authorities’ government affairs and services be upgraded. Fourthly, there is a need for propulsion towards reform and innovation, an original driving role to be played in high-quality development. High-end innovative resources need to be gathered and used, major scientific and technological projects’ cooperation actively be launched, and the main sources for our country’s self-reliant innovation and original innovation be created. Market integration based on the promotion of key factors like passenger transportation, logistics, flows of information etc. is necessary. Administrative barriers and institutional obstacles that restrain joint development must be eliminated, and systemic guarantees for the promotion of joint and high-quality development be built. Fifthly, the concept of green water and green hills being mountains of gold and silver must be adhered to, and the joint establishment, protection and management of ecological environments be strengthened. Supply of clean energy must be increased, energy consumption structures be adjusted, the ecological construction of the Jingjinji region unremittingly pursued, the formation of the energy-saving and environment-protective spacial structure, industrial structures, production methods and ways of life be accelerated. Sixthly, maintaining [the principles of] the people at the center and promoting the jointly built and jointly shared basic public services. Efforts need to be made to solve the hot problems that common people are concerned about, and that touch upon their vital interests, optimizing the arrangements of education and health resources. Adherence to work in Hebei’s poor areas to lift them out of poverty must be promoted by ever intensifying degrees, bringing into play Beijing’s and Tianjin’s suitable supporting mechanisms, to guarantee that in 2020, impoverished counties in Jingjinji will be completely cleared. Priority for employment must be upheld, and the story of the common peoples’ employment be well written.
Han Zheng said that Secretary General Xi Jinping’s important strategic thinking concerning the joint Jingjinji development needed to be thoroughly studied and understood, that this “oxen” of Beijing’s non-capital functions be firmly grasped, held, and solved, to promote new breakthroughs and results of Jingjinji’s joint development. Policies, robust mechanisms needed to be perfected, and the endogenous propulsion of Beijing’s non-capital functions’ resolution be strengthened. High quality and high standards needed to be maintained, and Beijing’s “two wings” be well planned. Infrastructure construction across regions such as rapid transit needed to be done well, and favorable conditions for the mitigation of Beijing’s non-capital functions be created. The people-centered development ideology must be maintained, basic public services be made uniform, and the people’s masses’ sense of achievement continuously be strengthened.
After the meeting, Xi Jinping rode an elevator to the first floor hall, where Beijing Municipal Party Committee and municipal government employees gave the Secretary General warm applause. Xi Jinping frequently waved to everyone and passionately said, you are, by practical activity, implementing the party’s central committee’s important strategic decisions, and have made contributions to Jingjinji’s joint development. […]
Building Beijing sub-center is a great milestone in the history of Beijing’s city construction, and a major opportunity for Beijing’s development in the new era. Let’s work together to manage this big thing well. Let’s hope that in the new atmosphere of the new office building area, even greater achievements will be made in all projects! As he left, Xi Jingping shook hands with everyone, under long-lasting and ceaseless applause.
Ding Xuexiang, Liu He, Wang Yong, He Lifeng and Xu Kangdi accompanied parts of the inspection tour [depending on the area visited] and attended the symposium, and comrades in charge at related central departments and state organs, and provincial and municipal comrades in charge, took part in the symposium.
National Kaohsiung Center for the Arts, or Weiwuying (Military Camp) National Arts and Cultural Center, was inaugurated by President Tsai Ing-wen on Saturday. UDN TV posted a video in February 2015, with explanations given in English, while the building and the park were under construction.
The first three minutes in English – material provided by the Dutch architects – is followed by an interview in Chinese. From the 12th minute, there is some more of the English-language material.
A comedian’s life doesn’t have to be fun – Taiwan’s entertainer Hsieh Hsin-ta (謝新達), better known as Chu Ke-liang (豬哥亮), had seen tough times before successfully returning to the stage in his later years. According to a Taipei Times article in 2009, he had ruined his finances in the 1990s, incurring debts by gambling heavily. Hiding from his creditors, and a family feud, defined that decade.
This video is from the Chu Ke-liang’s Karaoke Show (or Cabaret Show) which was popular in the 1980s. The maître du show appears towards the end of the 6th minute.
The View from Taiwan quotes from a “Facebook” post:
On one end he was the affirmation of the KMT colonialist stereotype of Taiwanese as vulgar, low class, silly, impish and absurd. He was the validation of Waisheng class supremacy, not unlike the way African Americans have been depicted as caricatures to reinforce White supremacy in classic American film–the minstrel. Zhu Ge-liang was the caricature of Taiwaneseness to satisfy the desires of a Waisheng elite.
On the other end, Zhu was loved by Taiwanese audiences for creating Taiwanese space in media at a time when the Waisheng aesthetic was still (and is still) the predominant image. He was, in a way, a rejection of that Waisheng aesthetic.
[…]
Chu was born in Kaohsiung in 1946. He died after a long battle against cancer, aged 70. Reportedly, he may eventually be buried in Keelung.
There is noWeltinnenpolitikyet, but there are cross-civilizational trends.
The City of Red Songs
There would be no second chance. Gerhard Schröder, former chancellor of Germany, was in a hurry in June 2011, on the sidelines of a forum in southwestern China’s metropolis of Chongqing. He was therefore lacking the time to attend one of the red-song nights that were customary there. But he still pleased his interlocutors with a German proverb: Where people sing, you can settle down – wicked people sing no songs.
In full, the red-songs custom advocated by Chongqing’s party chief Bo Xilai was Singing revolutionary songs, Reading classic books, telling stories and spreading mottos. There would be nine more months of that before Bo Xilai was toppled by his CCP comrades.
A Hudongarticle explained the activity at the time. It was a mass concept, started in Chongqing in 2008, which was greeted with enthusiasm there, and elsewhere in China. The concept wasn’t outdated, because
if a country and a nation have no correct thought and advanced culture, it will lose its backbone. The current deep changes of the economic system, the structure of society, and the profound adjustment of interest patterns must be reflected in the ideological field. There is diversity in peoples’ minds, and although the mainstream is positive and healthy, while some peoples’ material life conditions have improved, spiritual life is somewhat empty. To change that condition, and to ensure a safe passing of the torch in the cause of the party and the country, the red flag must be righteously upheld, the ideology of Marxism must be consolidated in its guiding position within the ideological field, and the attractiveness and the cohesive power of socialist ideology must be strengthened.
一个国家和民族没有正确的思想、先进的文化，就会失掉主心骨。当前，经济体制深刻变革、社会结构深刻变动、利益格局深刻调整，必然反映到意识形态领域。人们的思想日趋多元多变多样，虽然主流积极健康向上，但一些人物质生活改善了，精神生活却有些空虚。为了彻底改变这种状况，保证党和国家的事业薪火相传，必须理直气壮地举红旗，不断巩固马克思主义在意识形态领域的指导地位，增强社会主义意识形态的吸引力和凝聚力。[Links within these lines omitted.]
According to the HuDong article, CCP politbureau member and Chongqing party secretaryBo Xilai (薄熙来) had deplored the phenomenon of young people who sang decadent songs (唱 .. 靡靡之音, chàng mímí zhī yīn), who were reading “fast-food” kinds of literature (读 .. 快餐文化, dú kuàicān wénhuà), told “low and vulgar stories” (讲 .. 低俗故事, jiǎng dīsú gùshì), and “spread pornographic or dull scripts/pieces” (传 .. 黄段子、灰段子, chuán huáng duànzi, huī duànzi).
So, apparently, there were dirty songs, too. Maybe things weren’t as simple as Schröder had believed. At least one reader and forum commenter of China’s Huanqiu Shibao didn’t trust Schröder’s expertise and wrote:
The “Chongqing Model” was controversial, at least in the perceivable medial public of China. The party elite wasn’t entirely in love with Bo’s pretentious neo-Maoism. A vice president of Law School at China University of Political Science and Law was quoted by the English-language party mouthpiece “Global Times”:
There have been 104,000 “Red Song Concerts” in Chongqing, with 80 million participants. It cost 1,500 yuan ($231) per person for onsite renting and costume expenses, 210 million yuan in total. Adding in the offwork compensation and transportation the final cost is 270 billion [sic – probably means million – JR] yuan. Why don’t they use the money for health insurance?
Bo Xilai’s “Populism”, 2007 – 2012
At the grassroots, however, Bo’s leadership style appears to have worked (maybe it still does). The Chongqing Model wasn’t just about folklore, red or otherwise.
Wen Qiang was put to death following the rejection in May by China’s Supreme Court of an appeal of his conviction on charges including bribery, shielding criminal gangs, rape and inability to account for millions of dollars in cash and assets, according to Xinhua news agency. Xinhua didn’t say how Mr. Wen was executed.
Punching black crime and uprooting vice (拳打黑除恶) was the name of the campaign that cost Wen his life – according to the historical records as Bo would have it, he and his police chief Wang Lijun not only battled against gangs, but infiltrated cadres, too.
The now defunct website Chinageeks published an English translation of Zhang Wen, a former chief editor of the Xinhua magazine Globe:
Bo Xilai and the “northeast tiger” Wang Lijun entered Chongqing and started a war and began a “battling corruption and evil” movement that has gradually begun to spread nationwide and worldwide. This action is in line with the people’s wishes, and at the same time, also in line with what central authorities wish.
At first, the public opinion was very one-sided; no one could find any fault with Bo. The controversy and difference of opinions came with the case of Li Zhuang. Proponents of the democratic rule of law questioned and criticized the legality of Chongqing [court] proceedings, but Bo Xilai’s supporters hold that punishing lawyers who defend “bad people” is appropriate.
Bo Xilai’s wife Gu Kailai is a high-level lawyer who has been working for many years. The two have been together for many years and Bo himself was once the head of the Ministry of Commerce, and thus often negotiated international legal issues with foreign opponents. Because of this, Bo Xilai should have a solid conception and knowledge of the law.
But in the end, in the Li Zhuang case, the organs of justice in Chongqing left a bad impression that they might violate legal procedures. Precisely because of this, some people’s opinions on Bo Xilai changed dramatically. I myself once wrote an essay expressing pity that Bo Xilai hadn’t turned out to be the sort of high-quality modern politician [we had hoped].
Chongqing was a small pond for a big fish – Bo Xilai appeared to have hoped for a permanent seat in the CCP’s central politburo, but landed the job as party secretary of Chongqing instead. Chongqing wasn’t an insignificant city, but it was far from where central Chinese power was. Only an alernate politburo membership linked him to Beijing. From 2008, his Maoist song events raised nationwide attention, and even beyond China – Henry Kissinger apparently leapt at the chance Schröder had missed.
In 2011, Bo Xilai started his second campaign for a permanent seat at the CCP’s top table. While the Economistfound Bo’s style refreshing, it noted nervously that
The region’s party chief, Bo Xilai, is campaigning for a place on the Politburo Standing Committee in next year’s leadership shuffle. He looks likely to succeed. Like every other Chinese politician since 1949, he avoids stating his ambitions openly, but his courting of the media and his attempts to woo the public leave no one in any doubt. Mr Bo’s upfront style is a radical departure from the backroom politicking that has long been the hallmark of Communist rule and would seem like a refreshing change, were it not that some of his supporters see him as the Vladimir Putin of China. Mr Bo is a populist with an iron fist. He has waged the biggest crackdown on mafia-style gangs in his country in recent years. He has also been trying to foster a mini-cult of Mao, perhaps in an effort to appeal to those who are disillusioned with China’s cut-throat capitalism.
Bo didn’t appear to aim for the top job as secretary general, the Economist noted, as that position appeared to have been reserved for Xi Jinping. Indeed, Xi succeeded Hu Jintao as party secretary general in autumn 2012, and as state chairman in March 2013.
Bo Xilai’s plans didn’t work that smoothly. In November 2011, a British citizen, Neil Heywood, died in a hotel in Chongqing. Given that Chinese courts don’t work independently from the party, the circumstances of his death can’t be considered resolved. A Chinese court found Gu Kailai, Bo Xilai’s wife, guilty of killing Heywood, and after only one day in court, she got a suspended death sentence.
The BBC‘s China editor Carrie Gracietried to shed light on the circumstances of Bo Xilai’s rise and fall, and the role Heywood’s death played in the latter, but didn’t find too many interlocutors. Instead, she presented a Rocky Horror Picture Show of elite power struggles with Chinese characteristics. Bo Xilai as the avenger of the common man, a crashing, media-savvy scourge of organized crime, who addressed the public directly, without party media filtering. That hadn’t happened since Mao’s days – “think Donald Trump”.
With support from local police chief Wang Lijun, who fancied leading roles in martial-arts television, too, Bo had exercised a regime that labeled opponents as mafiosi and not only jailed them, but expropriated them too, in favor of Chongqing’s budgets.
It isn’t contested that Bo Xilai and Wang Lijun prosecuted the real or supposed gangsters’ advocates, too, with questionable means. Gracie quotes one of these advocates, Li Zhuang (see above, Zhang Wen’s criticism of Bo Xilai), as Li describes how he was arrested by Wang Lijun personally:
The scene was so over-the-top, loads of police cars surrounding the plane, riot police in helmets and camouflage, armed with submachine guns. I asked, “Why the big show? Is it Obama’s state visit or are you capturing Osama Bin Laden?”
We were surrounded by a huge scrum of reporters. He wanted to show his authority on camera. He was in a trench coat, hands in his pockets. He said: “Li Zhuang, we meet again.”
There were admirers of Bo and Wang, there were critics and enemies, and there were people who detested the two. But at the grassroots, the fans appeared to be numerous. According to Gracie, there are still many.
Making inconvenient lawyers disappear was no unique feature of Bo Xilai, however. The party leadership with Xi Jinping at the core has been proving for years that to them, the rule of law is a theroretical nicety they may or may not care about.
Gracie reduces the causes of conflict between the noisy polit-soloist Bo Xilai and the basically “collectivist” leadership in Beijing on a personal rivalry between princeling Bo and princeling Xi.
Certainly, top politicians’ egos can hardly be overestimated, and when they are Chinese, ostentatious modesty shouldn’t fool anyone.
But Xi alone wouldn’t have gotten Bo under control. Neither with the sudden Neil-Heywood scandal – that became known as the Wang-Lijun incident in China after the police chief fled into the next US consulate and being passed on to the central authorities from there (but only after having spilled the beans). Nor otherwise.
The question suggests itself if Bo Xilai’s career wasn’t finished in summer 2011 anyway, given wide-spread disapproval among the party elite, of his egotistic leadership style in Chongqing.
“Unity is strength” was one of the “red songs” Bo Xilai had them sing in Chongqing (above: October 8, 2009). But it wasn’t only the Xi faction that saw a lack of just that on Bo’s part. Bo was putting himself forward, and that had been a taboo during all the post-Mao years.
He didn’t denigrate his leading comrades – appearances like that of Donald Trump as a campaigner, cursing fellow members of his political class, would have been inconceivable. But putting himself into the limelight (and casting it away from others) amounted to the same thing, by Chinese standards. Besides, given his anti-corruption renown, sanctimonious as it may have been, could have threatened his “comrades”. A tribun within their ranks – that couldn’t work.
Xi Jinping and his predecessor Hu Jintao are said to be rivals. But within the Hu camp, Bo’s populism didn’t seem to resonate either. On the contrary: Wen Jiabao, chief state councillor (aka “prime minister”) during the Hu Jintao era, had been a tireless, even if unsuccessful, advocate of political reform, way beyond economics or technology.
At a press conference in March 2012, after the closing ceremony of the annual “parliament” plenary sessions, Wen warned that China wasn’t immune against another cultural revolution. That John Garnaut, an Australian correspondent in Beijing, got the opportunity to talk with Hu Dehua, one of Hu Yaobang’s sons, may also count as an indication that the comparatively liberal factions in the party leadership were at least as sick of Bo Xilai’s revolutionary operas, as were the Xi supporters.
Garnaut, two weeks after Wen’s press conference, in an indirect account of his conversation with Hu Dehua*):
Hu Dehua told his father how pessimistic he felt about his country’s future. Hu Yaobang agreed that the methods and ideologies of the 1987 anti-liberalization movement came straight from the Cultural Revolution. But he told his son to gain some historical perspective, and reminded him that Chinese people were not joining in the elite power games as they had 20 years before. He called the anti-liberalization campaign a “medium-sized cultural revolution” and warned that a small cultural revolution would no doubt follow, Hu Dehua told me. As society developed, Hu Yaobang told his son, the middle and little cultural revolutions would gradually fade from history’s stage.
From there, everything went fast. Still in March, Bo was dismissed as Chongqing’s party chief. He also lost his alternate membership in the politburo. In summer 2012, his wife Gu Kailai got her commuted death sentence, and in September 2013, Bo was sentenced to life in prison – based on the usual charges for unrigged politicians: corruption.
To assess Bo Xilai’s political heritage objectively. The CCP may be beyond the era when beaten opponents were airbrushed from all photos and records. But the question about how publicly or privately-owned China’s economy should be might impose itself with any questions about Bo Xilai, and the now seven-member standing committee of the politburo can’t use such questions.
A political scientist of Beijing University, He Weifang (贺卫方), hinted at problems in assessing the Chongqing Model’s performance, from 2007 to 2012:
It is generally believed that the so-called “Chongqing Model” is mainly shaped by three aspects: “red culture” on the political level, “targeted actions against dark and evil forces in Chongqing“, and the reduction of the income gaps between the poor and the rich. The most criticized aspects are the former two, although there is support for the two of them in Chongqing and elsewhere. The third aspect isn’t that controversial. However, all data published concerning the efficiency of the measures taken to narrow the income gap are actually issued by the Chongqing authorities, and therefore lacking neutral assessment. Also, we can see that the whole process is strongly government-led, whose focus isn’t on creating a market logic of equal opportunities. If this approach will or will not lead to mistakes in financial policies, including the rural land policies‘ impartiality, is also questionable. And then there are concerns about life today being lead on future earnings, short-term inputs being made to curry favor with the public, which may come at high future costs.
If Bo Xilai was a populist, one of Donald Trump’s kind, or Putin’s, or Neil Farage’s, or whoever, one has to ask oneself how much influence he has maintained over Chinese politics to this day. After all, populists like Geert Wilders aren’t ineffective, merely because they can’t lay their hands on the imperial regalia.
When looking at European populism – that’s only a snapshot, of course -, one can get the impression that populists may not be elected, but they do leave marks on politics, from Merkel’s Willkommenskultur back to the traditional Christian Democrats’ policies, and Britain’s Brexit, implemented not by its original proponents, but by Theresa May, who had used to be a lukewarm supporter of Britain’s EU membership.
Populism is hardly ever the common peoples’ business, but that of the elites. The battles are fought within the political class, as observed by Hu Yaobang in the late 1980s. That is about as true in Europe. However, these battles within the superstructure may create or intensify certain trends in the public mood – and once policies have moved sufficiently into the “populist” direction, the support for these parties wanes, and the electorate turns back to the long-established parties. After all, Joe Blow doesn’t want to look like an extremist.
What could be beginning to show in China is a comparatively strong Maoist component in propaganda, as long as this doesn’t come at the cost of China’s privileged, and as long as this doesn’t require substantial reallocation of means or wealth to poor classes of population, or laggard regions. But whenever the name “Bo Xilai” should appear in any token event, the exorcists will be just around the corner.
But listen, toffee-nosed little startup: Okeechobee, Florida, has been on the world map for decades. WYFR, a religious shortwave broadcaster, operated transmitters there from the late 1970s to 2013, and relayed Radio Taiwan International (initially “Voice of Free China”) broadcasts to the Western hemisphere.
The easier way to get a QSL card confirming Okeechobee: write to Radio Taiwan International (Spanish service)
The WYFR transmission site was bought by WRMI, another broadcaster in Florida, in 2013, less than half a year after WYFR had ceased operation. WRMI’s broadcasting schedule looks like a who-is-who of European broadcasters who abandoned shortwave in recent years, and who now re-appear on WRMI. The schedule looks pretty complicated to me, but if you switch on your radio somewhere in northern-central Europe during the second half of the night, you are likely to hear some of them on 11580 kHz: Radio Ukraine International from 23:30 to 23:59 UTC, and then Radio Slovakia, for example.
Later in the night (or early morning), it will be Ralph Gordon Stair, a usually ill-tempered preacher. So to quite a degree, the transmission site has remained religious, because Stair buys tons of airtime, via satellite and shortwave – from WRMI not least.
Whichever way you look at it, Okeechobee is likely to remain on the world map. Until doomsday, anyway.
===============
–
The A-16 broadcasting season started on March 27 (and will end late in October). The following is a list of some of my listening logs during the past few weeks, in northern Germany. International Telecommunication Union letter codes used in the table underneath:
ALB – Albania; ARG – Argentina; AUS – Australia; D – Germany; KRE – North Korea; KOR – South Korea; NZL – New Zealand; PHL – Philippines; SVN – Slovakia Slovenia; USA – United States of America.
Languages (“L.”):
C – Chinese; E – English; F – French; G – German; K – Korean. The table underneath might appear messy unless you click the headline of this particular post – or it may remain invisible unless you click “continue reading”.
Justrecently's Weblog 
[…] particular hint into that direction, as it is being played along with by many other countries too, although in…