By Daryl Johnson,

School of English.

As the number of Chinese students attending foreign HE institutions continues to grow (89,540 in 2014-2015 up from 87,895 in 2013-2014, UKCISA), the same kinds of frustrations experienced by their lecturers and seminar leaders appear to have persisted. A relatively unanimous consensus amongst Western teachers of Chinese students is that these particular learners have specific kinds of classroom behaviours that pose challenges to their most commonly used teaching methods. Complaints amongst these teachers often centre around Chinese students being reticent and not actively participating in classroom discussions (“how do I get them to give their opinion?”), requiring too much guidance from their teachers (“how do I get them to become better independent learners?”) and not demonstrating an ability to think critically (“how can I help them to adopt a critical stance rather than repeating what was covered in lectures?”) The teachers in question are often adhering to pedagogical principles that do not gel with those understood and valued by their Chinese students, though certainly neither group is at fault. These pedagogical practices are considered culturally ingrained into Western educational discourse, and are seemingly inherently valuable. Therefore, restrictions on their use are considered detrimental in a number of ways. It seems worthwhile at this point to ask why there has been so little change amongst the attitudes of educators and administrators in British HE institutions. Is the insistence on the methods commonly adopted by the UK’s lecturers and administrators justified? Conversely, is this adherence genuinely detrimental to the education received by Chinese students?

Over the past three decades, there has been a proliferation of research investigating these teachers’ and learners’ experiences of British HE with the aim of generating awareness and offering suggestions to pedagogical practice. It is not a cynical position to suggest that this has had an economic motivation. For a comparison of the statistic cited above, the second largest group of non-EU international students studying in the UK came from India and totalled 18,320 for the 2014-2015 period (UKCISA). British education is a growing industry and Chinese students clearly represent a huge cash injection to institutions that are receiving less and less government subsidy. Despite this, some have argued that a change to teaching methods would be a symbolic pandering of sorts, and representative of a drop in teaching quality and standards that Chinese students are paying a premium to receive. However, I would assert that such a position is reflective of an ideology of superiority and a one-way transfer of specific skills that are considered useful and valuable. When we consider how there are explicit and implicit lessons taking place in all classrooms that are reinforced by participation in discursive practice, do Chinese students and their means of participation really have nothing to offer in an increasingly globalising world?

I would argue that these conflicts are the result of what occurs when we continue to think in such generalised terms: “Chinese students”, “Western teachers”, what it means to receive a “Western education”. Though once again, no single group is at fault and nor can one aspect of this situation be considered solely responsible. Perhaps we should being asking whether our classrooms should be spaces of regular if not constant change and negotiation? If the themes of globalisation and post-colonialism teach us anything, is it not the need to avoid acts of privileging and exclusion but to make space for all forms of thought and knowledge production?

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By Dr. Zhengxu Wang,

Contemporary Chinese Studies, University of Nottingham Ningbo China.

Chunwan, or the Spring Festival Gala, refers to the annual show staged by CCTV (Chinese Central Television) at Chinese New Year’s Eve. It has run since the early 1980s. Through the years its content, style, and much else have, of course, changed greatly, but the basic format remains. In recent years, it has also become a subject of mockery among some sections of the population, as they see some or all of its content too political charged.

One controversy was that of plant-in advertisements. Characters in a mini-drama (xiaoping), for example, may show the debit card of a certain bank. A cross-talk show might mention the name of an internet search engine. This tactic for TV to harvest a great amount of money went to such a disgusting degree that viewers complained heavily. After 2012, however, it appears that television studios were banned, apparently by the upper authorities, from planting advertisements into the show.

It appears the new leadership i.e. Xi Jinping the new leader of the party-state, disliked the practice and banned it. A change for the good, for sure – however, the show has become more political after Xi’s leadership settled in, but that is another matter.

This year’s show, I noticed, continued to exclude explicit references to any commercial entities or brands. But I also noted the show was trying to strike hard on two messages. The first is the urge for families and young couples to aim for two babies at home, echoing the state’s recent population planning policy change that allows two births for each couple. The other, which is less noted by observers, is that the show appeared to include a reference to the insurance industry.

If we believe the state indeed planted this message in the show purposely, we must provide the reasons to why the state wanted to do so. The answer can be easily found. The state indeed has many reasons to promote the (domestic) insurance business.

For one, throughout 2016, capital flight has plagued the economy. One form this flight took was that households around the country, especially in the rich eastern provinces, sent money overseas, including Hong Kong, to purchase insurance policies. This went so bad (from the state’s perspective), that toward the last quarter of the year, the state banned such transactions outright. This writer was to pay his annul premium of a policy obtained many years ago at an overseas location, but was stopped from doing so at the bank counter. Among other things, the state has to find ways to keep capital inside China. Hence the state effort to promote the domestic insurance business.

This might have answered the question of why. But I am yet to work out an answer to the question of how. It is well-known that the Party’s central propaganda department reviews the show many times before it goes out live, to ensure the show is politically correct – called censorship. But existent evidence fails to show how the state/party plans to implements ideological/policy lines of the show, not that I am aware of anyway.

Through what process is the decision made regarding what messages are to be planted in the show? Which state/party agency is tasked to communicate such a decision to the show planners, and to do that at which junction of the planning/staging process? Despite my knowledge of how the state/political system works, I still want an answer to these questions. A possible subject for my next blog.

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By Professors Yutao Sun and Cong Cao

China’s innovative capacity has been on the rise and China’s innovation system is still state-led. However, when we talk about “China’s innovation” in a knowledge-based and globalized economy, we have to first figure out what “China” and “innovation” mean. Specifically, we need to call into question things such as whether China owns the innovation achieved in its geographical territory and in what sense China is innovative. With these in mind, we may see a different picture of China’s innovation.

First, indeed, China has an ambitious high-tech development strategy, but high-tech development does not automatically bring about innovation. In recent decades, the Chinese government has launched high-tech development plan every five years, and issued from time to time some national strategies, such as Made in China 2025 and Mass Entrepreneurship and Mass Innovation.

Started from scratch, China has become the world’s largest exporter of high-tech products. However, such a fact does not necessarily reflect China’s indigenous innovation capability in high technology. In fact, foreign-invested enterprises (FIEs), including wholly-owned foreign enterprises and joint ventures, have dominated the exports of China’s high-tech products, although their share decreased to 72.1 percent in 2013 from 79.3 percent in 2002. The share of high-tech exports from state-owned enterprises (SOEs) also sharply dropped to 5.6 percent in 2013, while the share of other enterprises, particularly private enterprises, increased to 22.2 percent from 5.7 percent in 2002, indicating the gradual but rapid coming of age of the private sector in China’s high-tech industries.

Second, China’s ICT sector is probably the most innovative, having the smallest gap with global leaders. The issue is that Chinese firms do not necessarily own core competencies. In addition to state monopolies of China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom in telecomm services, there are also leading firms such as Baidu, Tencent, Alibaba (BAT), Huawei, and Xiaomi. The draft of the Foreign Investment Law, proposed by the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) in January 2015, categorized entities established in China but ‘‘controlled’’ by foreign investors as FIEs. Accordingly, neither BAT nor Xiaomi are Chinese firms, on top of that Baidu copies Google, Alibaba is China’s version of Amazon while Tencent combines features of Facebook and WhatsApp.

When we talk about China’s innovation, Huawei is an indispensable case. However, Huawei is not typical. Yes, it is not an SOE, not a joint venture; yes, it is highly R&D-intensified; and yes, it has been developing indigenous technologies and an international market. But the company has mainly pursued customer-oriented innovation.

For example, China’s smartphone market leaders such as OPPO, Vivo, Xiaomi, Lenovo, and ZTE, among others, depend on non-Chinese suppliers for key technologies. Enter Huawei, an outlier with its semiconductor subsidiary, HiSilicon, providing chips used in its smartphones. However, the global market is still dominated by the U.S. through Apple and the Qualcomm/Android model with Apple taking away some 90 percent of the global smartphone profit.

Lastly, there are different types of innovation. Some argue that we are in an exciting innovative era, as new technologies, new business models, and startups are emerging constantly; others consider that we are in a poor innovation era with no revolutionary breakthroughs. This can be applied to the discussion of innovation in China.

In its 2015 report, “The China Effect on Global Innovation,” McKinsey, the consultancy, proposes four archetypes of innovation: customer-focused innovation, efficiency-driven innovation, engineering-based innovation, and science-based innovation.

China has a small share of the global market in the industries where innovation requires original inventions or engineering breakthroughs, such as branded pharmaceuticals and automobiles. This reflects China’s innovative gaps with the West. China is flourishing in industries where innovation is about meeting unmet consumer needs or driving efficiencies in manufacturing such as appliances and solar panels. China’s massive consumer market and unmatched manufacturing ecosystem give the country unique advantages in these sectors.

However, customer-focused and efficiency-driven innovation as exploitative activities are easier to achieve than the explorative innovation based on engineering and science. Transformation from exploitative to explorative innovation represents a process of technological catching-up. But, this will not be a smooth and short process. It is in this sense that a discussion of China as a leader of innovation is probably a bit premature.

Yutao Sun is a professor with the Faculty of Management and Economics, Dalian University of Technology and Cong Cao is a professor with the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Nottingham Ningbo China.

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By Dr. Zhengxu Wang,

Contemporary Chinese Studies, University of Nottingham Ningbo China.

On Friday (23 December 2016), Beijing’s Procuratorate of the Fengtai District announced that, after a thorough investigation, it came to the conclusion that police officers involved in the death of a man in May would not be charged.

The decision was a perplexing one, as it stated that the evidence was sufficient for the policemen to be found guilty of dereliction of duty as well as abuse of power. But it went on to say that the crimes were too light to warrant a formal charge.

Lei Yang’s death occurred in May when he was caught by five policemen in the Changping district of Beijing, as he was allegedly leaving a prostitution business. The incident invoked public outcry as he appeared to suffer brutal injuries and the evidence that he was using prostitution services were dubious.

In the months since, the internet and social media spaces have been full of discussions and demands for fair and just treatment of the case. The long-waited decision from the Fengtai Procuratorate, unsurprisingly, fell short of the public’s expectation.

Soon after the decision was announced, Lei’s family released their statement that they would not accept the outcome and would go on to appeal. Activist lawyers have come out to support the family.

A group of alumni from Lei’s alma mater has organized a petition campaign, directed to the State President, calling for judicial justice in this case in the spirit of building a country based on the rule of law (which is also the ruling party’s stated project).

The family as a last resort, if its appeal fails to reverse the Fengtai Procuratorate’s ruling, will have all of its five members filing a case against the involved policemen.

But when the case goes to the court, it will clearly be an uphill battle given how the state has treated the case so far. That is also to say, even if the Procuratorate eventually decides to charge the policemen and put the case to the court, the court may well rule against it.

Furthermore, the Fengtai Procuratorate’s decision should not be taken as an independent act. The decision must have been part of a coordinated plan regarding how to manage the case made by the party-state’s leadership authorities.

It appears those in leadership roles within the party-state have failed to appreciate how angry the public is about this case.

Police brutality is common, in almost all countries. In China there has been some improvement in recent years. Yet the death of Lei Yang shows how far the country still needs to go for people to be free from fear of state power.

Deeply concerned with its repression capacity, the state is committed to supporting the security apparatus. Low-level police forces need to feel they enjoy such kind of support. It is with this rationale that in a case like this, the state needs to ensure it is on the side of the police.

But this case appears to reveal how bad the state is in reading public sentiment. Had it rightly judged the degree of public anger and the intensity of the public’s expectation of a fair and just outcome, it would have taken a more nuanced approach.

Legal experts have suggested that alternative ways to manage the case do exist, so that both the public feel justice is made and the police feels the support of the state.

The failure for the state to take that approach, therefore, points to a worrying institutional deficiency – those making important decisions at the top of the system can mismanage, not because of ill-intention but because of information failure.

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School of Contemporary China Studies Assistant Professor David O’Brien looks ahead to what the Year of the Rooster might hold for China.

There is a well-known supposed Chinese blessing that is in fact a curse – ‘may you live in interesting times’. Whether it will turn out to be a blessing or a curse it is certainly the case that 2016 was an interesting year.

While China has escaped much of the turmoil of 2016 it is certainly not immune to the strange winds that are blowing across the globe and 2017 promises to be a particularly significant year.

In October top party officials will gather in the Great Hall of the People for the once-in-five-years National Congress of the Communist Party of China. Party Secretary and President Xi Jinping will have been in power at that stage for five years – traditionally the half-way point for a Chinese leader. The congress is certain to see significant change at the top of the party as many of the current leadership have now reached the mandatory retirement age of 68 and will be replaced by a younger generation. Of the current seven members of the Politburo Standing Committee – China’s top decision-making body – only President Xi and Premier Li Keqiang are likely to remain.

These changes will be very closely watched for likely clues to the direction of Xi’s administration over the coming years and indeed his successor. At previous Congresses it began to emerge who the anointed successor was when the youngest member of the Standing Committee was announced – this was the case with Xi in 2007.

Of course it is far from certain that Xi will step down in 2022, there is no law saying he must, only the precedent of previous leaders Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao. In the past when leaders have officially stepped down they remain very influential. Xi Jinping is arguably the most powerful leader in China since Deng Xiaoping and possibly Mao so this Congress will be watched even more closely than usual for signs of his future intentions.

January 20 will see the inauguration US President Donald Trump and China, like the world, waits to see what the extraordinary election result will actually mean. So far there are worrying signs for US-China relations. Trump’s unprecedented acceptance of a congratulatory telephone call from Taiwanese leader Tsai Ing-wen enraged the Chinese. He subsequently further enflamed the situation by appearing to call into question America’s support for the One China Policy. Adherence to this policy has been absolutely sacrosanct to the Chinese in their relations with other counties and for the incoming president to even tacitly question it will be deeply alarming for Beijing.

All through the campaign Trump talked tough on China over trade and the South Pacific. If he maintains this position we are likely to see real turbulence in the relationship. Or it may be that the pragmatic deal-maker that Trump likes to see himself as will win out. One indication that this might be the case is the nomination of Iowa Governor Terry Branstad as new American ambassador to China. Governor Branstad has a long-standing friendship with President Xi Jinping, a relationship which will be key in the coming months.

At this time of the year, especially in northern China the issue of pollution is never far from people’s lips or lungs. Progress is being made on tackling pollution in China but it is slow and the recent ‘air-pocalypse’ in Beijing when the air turned particularly noxious has reminded people of just how bad it can be here. President Xi has worked closely with President Obama to tackle climate change and seems to genuinely want to solve it. The fact that President-elect Trump has in the past said that global warming is a conspiracy invented by the Chinese to undermine America does not bode well.

Just how China may cope with the rising tide of populist nationalism in America and Europe, its roller-coaster economy, its soaring inequality and environmental degradation, and the myriad of other problems this country of 1.3 billion faces will focus all minds in the coming year of the rooster. In the Chinese zodiac this will be a Fire Rooster year which is associated with strength and vigour but also restlessness.

There is no evidence that ‘may you live in interesting times’ is actually a Chinese proverb. It is most likely an apocryphal invention of an English speaking wordsmith. There is however a Chinese proverb that states 宁为太平犬, 莫做乱离人 – ‘Better to be a dog in a peaceful time, than to be a human in a warring period’. A sentiment we perhaps can all agree with.

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A conversation between David H. Fleming (International Communications) & Simon Harrison (School of English).

The University of Nottingham Ningbo China.

A common interest among researchers in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences is discourse and communication. Because definitions of discourse and communication are domain-specific, interesting debates arise about the nature of the terms that define distinct fields. This blog illustrates such discussion by picking up a conversation between David Fleming from International Communication and Simon Harrison from School of English on the topic of ‘gestures’, and specifically, concerning whether or not the Chinese may be ‘losing their gestures’.

Fleming says that the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben wrote that ‘by the end of the nineteenth century, the Western bourgeoisie had definitely lost their gestures.’ Why? It was something to do with the arrival of new technologies, specifically new imaging machines such as cinema, which radically reconfigured social optics and embodied actions. One recalls here Marcel Mauss’s hospital bed observations that his French nurses had begun moving to and fro like Americans, because they had been watching so many Hollywood movies. The Western bourgeoisie also lost their gestures because they had allowed the merchant class to marry into their ranks. With this resulting in a seismic shift in their habitus, manners, and embodied movements. Or at least, the ones that were transmitted to their descendants. Could we not say, then, that equally at the beginning of the twenty-first century, the Chinese too are definitely losing their gestures? New technologies again play their role. And not just because the youth are so often fastened to their smartphones at every opportunity, although that surely is a part of it (as is what they see on their screens a la Mauss, no doubt). Malls too are technologies, Fleming argues. They demand a certain postural and gestural respect, a way of seeing, listening, and desiring. Anecdotally speaking, while walking his dogs he says he also mainly observes the young Chinese jogging, or doing LA style yoga poses in their Decathlon lycra. Not Piada, group dancing, or leisurely Tai Chi.

At this point in the conversation, Harrison points out how Fleming’s statements on ‘gestures’ refer to whole classes of differentiated bodily actions ranging from full body interactive routines to postures to interactions with objects and nonverbal tics. What about the spontaneous hand movements that accompany and are fully integrated to Chinese speech, could they also evidence a shift in habitus, manners, and embodied movements? Despite a stereotype that “Chinese people don’t gesture” (or at least they gesture less), such gestures seem integral to speaking in an array of interactive contexts. The following example may help to illustrate. Sat in the lobby of a 4-star hotel hired out to a decoration company, a young Chinese professional explains to her assigned architect the ‘style’ of the doorway she envisages for her apartment (“东南亚的那种感觉” Southeast Asia kind of feeling). The figure below shows how her gestures illustrate each proposition concerning the size and shape, positioning, and decoration. Her gesturing hands are continuously in motion as she (1) describes the dimensions of the material, (2 & 3) the layout of the beams, and (4) the draping decorative curtain.

叫什么就木头，中式的那种木头，就是这么小的那种 小方型的，就2个，这边用五根，这边用五根，然后又有帘子，然后就是度假风的那种，东南亚的那种感觉。

What’s it called, just wood, Chinese style sort of wood, (1) just about this small straight edge (cylindrical-like), only two of them, (2) over here there are 5 of them, (3) over here there are 5 of them, (4) then there is a curtain. So it’s a just a travel kind of style, Southeast Asia kind of feeling.

Through conventional modes of gestural representation identified by Mueller, the speaker’s hands embed forms in movement trajectories to communicate the dimensions, materials and textures of the door she desires, thereby combining with speech to convey her exotic imagery to the architect. Harrison argues there seems to be no ‘loss’ evident in this kind of spontaneous gesturing.

Perhaps ‘loss’ brings too much baggage with it that must be felt nostalgically nowadays, Fleming concedes. After all, new power relations and technics are productive as well as eliminative. There is nothing to mourn nor celebrate. In the cultural shift from horses to horsepower engines, for example, we definitely lose (in terms of quantity and familiarity) blacksmiths, riders and breeders, but we also gain mechanics, drivers and designers (and all the other necessary manifold professions and peoples). Things are always changing, and always have been, in the gnomic sense that change is the universal constant. Loss is always something that change engenders, and is just the flip side of gain. While the Chinese specific gestures of yester-millennia, or even yesteryear (as in Antonioni’s Chinese documentary[1]) have undoubtedly been lost, new ideas and movements (such as that of a “Balinese style” with which one could decorate a Chinese home) have also arrived. The Chinese have always been losing their gestures, and for as long as we still call them “Chinese,” on account of the fact that they always will gesture, they always will be.

Find out more about the researchers:

David H. Fleming is Assistant Professor in Film and Media at UNNC (http://www.nottingham.edu.cn/en/internationalcommunications/staffprofile/davidfleming.aspx)

Simon Harrison is Assistant Professor in Applied Linguistics at UNNC (http://www.nottingham.edu.cn/en/english/staff/simon-harrison.aspx)

Acknowledgements: 陈星超 (transcription)

Images of speaker © Simon Harrison, 2016. All Rights Reserved.

[1]Chung Kuo, Cina – A 1972 Italian documentary by the director Michelangelo Antonioni. Shot during China’s Cultural Revolution, the documentary focuses on the ordinary lives of Chinese people.

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By Dan WANG,

Ph.D Candidate, Hong Kong Baptist University.

Media convergence has been proposed and reinforced by the central government since 2014. So far, most newspaper organizations at all political levels have acted upon the call by equipping their newspaper with the standard set of Liangwei Yiduan (两微一端) (one official WeChat account, one weiblog official account and one news app). Two years later, on November 12^th 2016, a group of media related central government officials and newspaper chief editors from different parts of the country gathered in Suzhou at the Media Convergence and Development Conference to share their convergence experiences. Based on 32 reports from the conference, this entry will offer an analysis of the meaning of media convergence in China.

Media convergence is first and foremost a political strategy. The concept was raised to a national level “strategic plan” by President Xi Jinping in August 2014[1]. However, both Chinese media practitioners and scholars from the conference believe that the real engine that drove all media to take real actions upon the convergence call was premier Li Keqiang’s concept of the “internet plus” in the 2015 Government Report[2]. As “internet plus” was primarily considered as a development strategy for the e-commerce industry, this idea brought hopes to press group managers of economic profits. This year, the concept has appeared in all sorts of governmental reports and policies, including the newest 13^th five-year plan[3]. Therefore, many talks in this conference started by introducing media convergence as a project “guide by the central government, and enact by the local press groups” (Wang Jiasi; Huaibei Daily).

The conference revealed a big gap of understanding of media convergence from the top-down governmental voice and bottom-up media outlet managers.

For central government officials (eg. Ma Li, Head of the Development Foundation of National Cyber Information Office; Ding Zhiyong from SAPPRFT; and Wang Jiasi from the China Press Association) and central media representatives (eg. Ye Zengzeng from the People’s Daily), media convergence means occupying the online discursive battlefield. They recognized the importance of audience’s interests not because of the value of democracy, but because “the Party is always with people, no matter where they go” (Ma Li), and now most of them are online. Ding Zhiyong reiterated three speeches Xi gave in 2016, i.e. “2.19” talk on media’s mission of guiding public opinion (transformed from the party mouthpiece) in the digital age, “4.19” talk on cyber security and “11.7” talk on value of “four correctness” of being a journalist, which shows the centralization of one party control over media and media workers. The centralization is particularly observable from the talk Wang Jiasi conducted, which directly called for a “consciousness” of “yours is mine, mine is yours” new media value. He believed that the ultimate map of media convergence is to realize “media communism” in China, which is also his understanding of Xi’s proposal of “converging as one” in his talk in 2014.

People’s Daily took a pioneer step by operationalizing the “converging as one” philosophy into a system of “central kitchen”. In this system, a database built by the central government will generate “raw materials”, which are open to be purchased in the market by all types of information organizations including local media outlets (See the hierarchy table below). Although all media organizations can contribute to the central database content, the gatekeeper has elevated from editors of one media outlet to someone possibly from the central government. This way of making news could tackle three major issues that have bothered the Chinese leadership with one array: 1) the information domination could help the government occupy the online (and offline) discursive platform; 2) no matter how fragmented the internet audience  are, there will be only one content database; 3) the central level media outlets could gain absolute privilege, because the internet breaks the territory boundaries, which renders local news, with relatively smaller social focus, less likely to be spread (as local news normally only related to certain audience).

(Ye, People’s Daily, 2016)

However, media convergence is interpreted quite differently from the local leveled media groups/organizations. From what have been presented and discussed during the conference, media convergence does not contain real meaning in terms of the production of journalism to most local press groups. It was not what media organizations wanted originally, but more like a digital reform pushed by the governmental policies and technological development. For the policy part, besides Xi-Li talks on media convergence and the internet plus, the central government has issued a series of plans, that come along with grants, to facilitate the speed and process of convergence. They include Suggestions on Facilitating Traditional Media and New Convergence by SAPPRFT and the Ministry of Finance in 2015[4], 2015 Working Plans on Supporting Mini E-commerce in Cultural Industry by the Ministry of Culture[5], the Outline of Boosting Big Data Development[6] by the State Council in 2015 and so on.

As for technology, according to a report released on this conference by the China Press Association, 96.5% of media organizations that they conducted research on are somehow “online”. However, the report also shows an unbalanced development of online platform in terms of content. The picture below demonstrates that, for all researched media organizations, those who have WeChat accounts attract followers ranging from a maximum of 96,461 to 33 at a minimum, the weblog ranges from 48,373,147 to 32, and the app from 20,905,266 to 0. These numbers tell more than just the numerical discrepancy. They also prove that (some) media outlets (still) do not want/understand the meaning of convergence, so that some of them fail to maintain and promote their digital platforms.

(China Press Association, 2016)

Media convergence makes “producing journalism no longer the main responsibility of media outlets, especially local media outlets.” The report released by China Press Association shows that, only 0.2% of the WeChat content of all researched media outlets were original. As general secretary of China Newspaper Cultural Industry Alliance proposed, all media outlet managers should to manage their newspapers by designing a suitable superstructure for selling the service instead of content. This is because, as he justified, media outlets are facing 5 dilemmas: 1) untouchable hope (i.e. the government has encouraged media organizations to converge to digital platform by telling them that there’s a prosperous future there, but most local media have not experienced it), 2) hardship for real transformation (i.e. it is impossible to realize freedom of expression from the online society, journalists are still dancing with fettlers), 3) danger of working as a public unit (Tizhi) (i.e. it is just like the sword of Damocles, you never know what will happen in the next minute), 4) hardship of party-corporation (i.e. hard to decide whether to play the edge ball or not), 5) fight over the central kitchen (i.e. hard to maintain guanxi with other media outlets under this idea). All these five dilemmas somehow forced media organizations to go for another path of survival, i.e. joining/monopolizing the local service industry.

[1]http://www.gapp.gov.cn/news/1656/223719.shtml

[2] http://lianghui.people.com.cn/2015npc/n/2015/0305/c394298-26642056.html

[3] http://www.china.com.cn/lianghui/news/2016-03/17/content_38053101_20.htm

[4]http://www.mof.gov.cn/mofhome/he/lanmudaohang/zhengcefagui/201504/t20150413_1215711.html

[5] http://www.gov.cn/zhengce/2016-02/02/content_5038407.htm

[6] http://www.gov.cn/zhengce/content/2015-09/05/content_10137.htm

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By Dr. Zhengxu Wang,

Contemporary Chinese Studies, University of Nottingham Ningbo China.

During the last two weeks, China’s social media has been dominated by the sex scandal of a star badminton player. Known as “probably the best badminton player ever”, the two-time Olympic men’s single champion, Lin Dan, was found in an extramarital affair with an actress.

On top of his numerous titles in leagues, tournaments, championships, and the Olympics, Lin Dan has never failed to produce headline stories through the years. He excelled as a player at a very young age, topping the world ranking table when he was barely 19. Entering the Athens Olympics (2004) as world No 1 and the most favoured, he stunned all by a defeat in the first round. The first Olympic gold had to wait for another four years, and he delivered a shattering victory over his long-time rival, the Malaysian superstar Lee Chung Wei at the Beijing event in 2008, the height of his career indeed. In between he managed to throw his racket trying to hit the opponent’s coach at a Korean tournament, having been beaten by the Korean player – the coach being a former Chinese national team player with an estranged relation with Lin’s own coach, the head coach of China’s national team Li Yongbo. After the Athens debacle he went into a period of purposelessness. He was reported to have engaged in a group fight against the national table tennis players, in which allegedly he was seriously beaten, almost resulting in fatal injuries.

From that low time he did re-emerge, and built himself up in various aspects as he moved to win the 2008 Olympics. Media savvy, he became an icon of the sport, and loved by big brands, sportswear, luxury goods, cooking oil, and everything else. What’s more, he appeared to be in a well cherished relationship with a sweet heart from his youth, the once women’s single world champion and Olympic silver medallist Xie Xinfang. His autobiography carries very intimate recollection and thoughts of her and the relationship, and its title, Toward the End of the World, was apparently a dedication to their relationship. They wedded in 2012 after Lin had achieved his second Olympic gold, and was known to be trying to have a baby. Everything seemed perfect, as his dominance in the sport continued albeit in a much less formidable way. Mid-year at Rio, he still reached the semi-finals, and appeared committed to make the next Olympics, in 2020, Tokyo. In November, Xie Xinfang gave birth to their first child.

It was at this juncture that his extramarital affair was exposed, and grabbed the attention of fans and the entertainment industry, with the involved being an actress. Reports emerged that this is not the only extramarital relationship he is having or has had, and one of the others involved a student, a player of her university team. He came out quickly on Weibo to apologize to his “family”, and on her part Xie came out on Weibo too, to forgive what she referred to as “this man that knows of responsibility”.

Gossiping and moral controversies, of course, continue in the media and social media. But to this long-time watcher of the game, Lin’s scandal represents the latest revelation of the failure of the National Badminton Team. This recent wave of its rise, having started around the late 1990s, arrived at its height at around 2008. It then went on to achieve the unachievable, winning all the five disciplines at the London Olympics in 2012. Yet since them it started to go downhill, falling into complete pieces at the Rio Olympics this year. At this time the problems amassed internally to the Team started to expose themselves, among them complicated romantic relationships among some of its top players. Disillusioned, players retired en mass, with the team losing half a dozen players in a short period of time, all world champions.

How the team got to this place will be the subject of another blog piece, but its head coach Li Yongbo, who has succeeded in making himself the emperor (or maybe dictator) of the sport has yet to stand out to claim responsibility. It might be that now his is a wrecked team. The once domineering Li is no longer able to contain any scandal that broke out of it, therefore the media can capitalize on them. But with the team in terrible shape and its players losing their focus and purpose, for a star player that has passed his prime, affairs might just become the haven in which he found meaning and excitement. What a pity.

The post Star Player’s Extramarital Affair yet Another Sign of the Failing Team appeared first on Contemporary Chinese Studies at UNNC.

By Emmanuelle Lazzara, PhD Candidate.

From the School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Nottingham UK.

“It’s not like I’m anti-China. I just think it’s ridiculous that we allow them to do what they’re doing to this country, with the manipulation of the currency, that you write about and understand, and all of the other things that they do.”

“We can’t continue to allow China to rape our country” — Trump at Ft. Wayne Indiana Rally, 2016.

Above are a few comments made about China by President-elect Donald Trump during the torrid and contentious 2016 US presidential elections. Donald Trump, during the Republican primaries and the presidential campaign has used very tough rhetoric speaking about China. He has accused China of stealing American manufacturing jobs, causing massive trade imbalances with the US, manipulating its currency, and perhaps most incredibly, was the accusation that human-caused climate change was in fact a conspiratorial Chinese hoax.

However, these rhetorical flushes regarding China follow a long tradition of ‘China-bashing’ when the US presidential elections arrive every four years. Andrew Nathan writes in detail for the American Review, that Sino-US relations would often crop up during the presidential debates. In the 1952 campaign, Eisenhower railed against the Democrats for losing China to the communists. In 1992, the theme of US jobs being lost to China arose. Two presidential terms later, trade surplus ‘mercantilism’ was a theme during the 2000 campaign, and China’s tag of being a currency manipulator began during the 2004 campaign.

Yet, even with this history, the 2016 Presidential Elections have proven to be quite unique in terms of its unpredictability. The same can be said of future Sino-US relations. Perhaps the arena of greatest worry is the South China Sea. The United States, since the end of the Second World War has been a blue-water superpower and the Pacific is considered to be its own backyard. US fleets (from the US’s point of view) have patrolled this ocean and its sea lanes to maintain international maritime rules and norms, and to protect US interests. However, since Xi’s leadership, Chinese presence in the South China Sea has grown more assertive. Claims on islands and exclusive economic zones have now been bolstered by a bolder military presence. Before, US Navy warships would pass through these zones at the chagrin of the Chinese administration. But now that chagrin is accompanied with denouncements and Chinese ships shadowing their US counterparts.

US presence in the region is for now welcomed on the whole by US allies as it maintains the status quo. However, a recent exception is the Philippines. Despite winning its case against China regarding maritime entitlements, under a new leader, President Duerte has gambled that China is the power that should be cozied up to, not the US. This has led to the Philippines seeking warmer ties with China, and turning away from US security.

Coupled with this is the prediction made by some China-watchers that Trump may lead the US to uncouple itself from East Asian security commits. Trump has said on several occasions that US allies, such as Japan and South Korea, must pull their weight with regards to their security commitments with the US. If Trump does indeed undo the United States’ ‘Asian pivot’, China’s influence in the region will only increase.

However, on the other side of the equation, there have been reports that Trump will actually adopt a much tougher and aggressive stance towards China in the South China Sea. Rudy Guilani is now considered to be a frontrunner for the position of Secretary of State in the future Trump administration. It was reported that Guilani, speaking to business leaders in Washington with regards to China, that the Trump would intend to increase the US Navy to 350 ships:

“At 350, China can’t match us in the Pacific. At 247 ships, we can’t fight a two-ocean war; we gave up the Pacific. If you face them with a military that is modern, gigantic, overwhelming and unbelievably good at conventional and asymmetric warfare, they may challenge it, but I doubt it.”

Hence, just as this year’s presidential elections have proved to be difficult predict, the direction of Sino-Trump relations will also be hard to predict as well. Given that Trump lacks foreign policy experience, his learning curve will be incredibly steep.  The health of Sino-US relationship will therefore be heavily dependent on Trump’s advisors rather himself. However, President Xi will react to Trump, will also be extremely interesting.

The post Donald Trump and China appeared first on Contemporary Chinese Studies at UNNC.

By Tony Hong,

PhD Candidate from the School of Contemporary Chinese Studies, UNNC.

I had a strange request asked of me a few days ago while working in my office – “You need to watch this guy! He’s hilarious!” Expecting to see a short humorous video, I was instead treated to some guy attempting to make jokes while eating his lunch. This is my first and probably last encounter with the phenomenon of live-streaming (zhibo) in China. Needless, to say the guy wasn’t that funny and was also a distraction from my own daily digest of Youtube videos and Twitter posts. China’s own homegrown social media is being taken over by zhibo. Live-streaming seems to be the latest craze that has struck the young and tech savvy Chinese. There are literally hundreds of domestic apps such as Douyu, YY and Yingke that provide this service. According to CCTV, who quoted a recent survey:

‘30%-40% of the broadcasters are students, 77% of the viewership was from male users.’

The popularity of live-streaming has also made it into a money making enterprise . The most popular stars are watched by millions and they have effectively become internet celebrities. If you’re a fan and you want to express your appreciation, you can send them cute little virtual stickers for a price.

So how do you broadcast yourself and win millions of adoring fans? Well, apparently you just have to talk about your daily life, review products or movies, play video games for your fans or do an innumerable amount of other activities. This is what passes off as entertainment for Chinese millennials these days. However, it must be said that the most popular form of entertainment available on live-streaming platforms are young women flirting live and acting seductively for their fans.

One trend that was quickly noticed by the authorities were live streams of young women eating fruit in an inappropriate manner. To deal with inappropriate content, the Cyber Administration of China (CAC) issued guidelines on user content. As is normally done in China, this content management has been delegated to the companies that own the platforms. It is their responsibility to ensure that content meets certain guidelines. The BBC reports that the CAC has asked these platforms to:

‘”strengthen security evaluation of new products like live broadcast”. It also said the new requirements would apply to “bullet-screens” – where online user comments pop-up on top of live videos.’

Such measures by the CAC are done in order to protect social morality. Now, there is a full list of regulations concerning live-streaming, which is to be implemented from December 1st.

“Online live streaming has grown rapidly, but some streaming platforms have been found to disseminate pornography, violence, rumors and fraud, which run counter to socialist core values and adversely affect young people, a CAC official said” as quoted by the China daily.

The post Zhibo – The New Trend of Live-Streaming appeared first on Contemporary Chinese Studies at UNNC.