Lingua Sinica Newsletter, 18 Apr
News, analysis, and commentary on Chinese-language media from the PRC and beyond.
Welcome back to Lingua Sinica.
It’s been a while since Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen spun the country’s effective handling of Covid-19 into a new slogan for the international press: “island of resilience.” For those of us who have called Taiwan home for the past few years — through the pandemic, daily sorties by the PRC military, and the dramatic visit of then-US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who repeated the phrase — the words had started to lose their power.
But after the powerful, 7.2-magnitude earthquake that struck earlier this month, it’s suddenly easy to see again why Taiwan deserves the monicker. Our last newsletter went out just a day after the tremor, and since then it’s been spectacular seeing how quickly the country has been recovering. Few other places in the world could get back on track after such a rattling — or turn the adorable misadventures of a search dog (see “On a Lighter Note” below) into one of the biggest stories to emerge from a natural disaster.
Since the last newsletter, we’ve also had the honor of publishing two fantastic pieces in translation: On Lingua Sinica, we had “Finding Hope in the Fissures,” an exploration of how Hong Kong publishers and booksellers are searching for resilience in a fragmenting and repressive environment; and on the China Media Project, we had a deep-dive into the “zero-dollar shopping” viral trend that has been dominating Chinese-language social media for years, “Who is Seeing the Real America?”
The former was also the first in a series we’re doing on the publishing industry in the Chinese-speaking world. Look out for more in the near future!
Ryan Ho Kilpatrick
CMP Managing Editor
IN THE NEWS
Mr. Ma Goes to Beijing
It was, without question, the biggest story of the day — if you read the People’s Daily, that is.
Former Taiwan president Ma Ying-jeou was in the Chinese capital last week to meet Xi Jinping for a historic second rendezvous. Nearly a decade since their first tête-à-tête in Singapore, when Ma was still in office, many scoured over the meeting’s details for a sign of where the already-fraught cross-strait relationship could be heading next.
The meeting dominated the front page of the CCP mouthpiece (that’s what the paper is called officially, by the way). Highlighted in eye-catching red text, below a snapshot of the pair’s 16-second handshake, were the eight main takeaways according to Beijing. Most are boilerplate: the people of Taiwan and the PRC share the “same blood” and they must unite to fight foreign forces and realize the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, and so on. Demonstrating that brevity is never an issue for state media, the main text of the article then repeats all of these eight points word-for-word to drive the message home.
More important than any of these, however, might be the simple fact of the meeting itself. It shows that, despite all signs to the contrary, Beijing hasn’t entirely given up on the dream of “peaceful unification” with Taiwan. In between its questionable, blood-and-soil history lessons, the article offers some words of reassurance: “There is no grudge that cannot be resolved, no issue that cannot be discussed, and no force that can separate us,” it reads.
The Medium is the Message
Yet, it also demonstrates how impossible that dream is as long as PRC authorities refuse to engage with Taiwan as it is and insist on dealing through back channels where compliant partners are happy to cede control of the message to Beijing.
In choosing who they wanted to deliver this message, Beijing may also have seriously overestimated Ma Ying-jeou’s symbolic importance in today’s Taiwan. As Lev Nachman, a political scientist at Taiwan’s National Chengchi University (國立政治大學) put it, “Ma Ying-Jeou meeting Xi Jinping is a big deal to people who still think Ma Ying-Jeou is a big deal.”
Consider, too, the question of who got to report on this made-for-media event. The only Taiwanese outlets allowed to report live from the Great Hall of the People were ones seen as supportive of the KMT and friendly to China. And they seem to have gotten what they want out of these outlets: images of Ma shaking Xi’s hand emblazoned across the front pages of the country’s pan-blue (KMT-friendly) media. Echoing the language of the first Ma-Xi summit, the Merit Times (人間福報), a paper founded by the recently departed pro-China Buddhist monk Hsing Yun (星雲), proclaimed that “the handshake of the century has appeared again!”
Handshake of Death
Across the political divide in the green, or pro-DPP media landscape, though, they have a different term for the “handshake of the century”: the “handshake of death” (死亡之握). Anything that Ma’s palms touch, according to this political legend, soon meets with an unfortunate end — be it death, injury, natural disaster, divorce, or bankruptcy. Pan-green news network SETN (三立新聞) has, helpfully, compiled a list of the handshake’s victims that numbers in the hundreds.
Some have blamed Ma for the KMT’s historic defeat in January’s national elections — just days before the vote, he gave an interview to German broadcaster DW in which he said that Taiwan has no choice but to “trust Xi” on cross-strait relations. Many speculated that Ma had given his own party the “handshake of death.” KMT presidential candidate Hou Yu-ih sought to distance himself from party elder Ma but the damage was done — in a first since Taiwan’s democratization, he led the party to its third consecutive defeat in the presidential race.
This contrast in the symbolism of Ma’s gesture is a microcosm of deeper divides Beijing seems unwilling or unable to accept. For while Ma and Xi might have starred in every pro-KMT paper, they barely made a cameo in media representing the viewpoints of most Taiwanese voters.
Readers of the green-leaning Liberty Times (自由時報), for instance, were spared any mention of the meeting on A1. The news did appear on the front page of Taiwan’s English-language paper of record the Taipei Times, which is also published by the Liberty Times Group, but only below the fold, the picture of Ma and Xi’s “handshake of the century” just a fraction of the size of President-Elect Lai Ching-te (賴清德) clasping hands with his future premier. For Taiwanese readers, the bigger story of the day was Lai assembling his future cabinet as President.
Back Doors that Lead Nowhere
All this is also a stark contrast to the last time Ma and Xi met. In 2015, it was the first time acting leaders of the PRC and the ROC had met since 1945. At the time, images of the encounter were plastered across the front pages of every Taiwanese daily, as well as Chinese-language papers the world over. At the very least, it was a historic moment. At most, it was the start of a new era in cross-strait relations.
Beyond the contrasts between 2015 and 2024, though, there are also some similarities. In 2015, Tsai Ing-wen — then leader of the opposition — had a few choice words for Ma. “For the people of Taiwan,” she wrote on Facebook, “the ‘historical record’ left by the Ma-Xi meeting in front of the international community is President Ma's complacent, self-satisfied handshake. Completely absent, from the beginning to the end, is Taiwan's democracy — much less the existence of the Republic of China.”
If this moment was indeed the start of a new era, it was one that barely lasted two months. In January 2016, Tsai won the presidency, and since then Beijing has refused Taipei’s invitations to dialogue, hoping instead to help the KMT back to power through a mix of economic coercion, back-channel diplomacy, and information manipulation. But none of those has produced the desired outcome, with the DPP winning another term in office this year. If China is sincere about being able to talk anything through with Taiwan, they’ll eventually have to talk to the Taiwan of reality, not fantasy.
Tsa’s words in 2015, about Ma’s complacency and the lack of any acknowledgment from Beijing of Taiwanese democracy or its sovereign nationhood, could just as easily be written about last week’s summit. Tsai wouldn’t be the one to write it though — this time around, she didn’t even think Ma’s antics were worth commenting on at all.
NOT IN THE NEWS
What Radiation Leak at the Russian Border?
How scared should China’s people be of radioactive contamination seeping across the borders? According to the official media, it seems to depend on whether we’re talking about Japanese radiation or Russian radiation.
Last year, Japan's release of treated wastewater from the damaged Fukushima nuclear plant precipitated a state-backed disinformation campaign by Beijing that flew in the face of scientific consensus and fired up anti-Japanese sentiment. Yet a leak at a plant in a Russian border town earlier this month, just 30 kilometers from northeastern Heilongjiang province, made no ripples at all. Even as Reuters reported that the town of Khabarovsk had declared a state of emergency on April 5, only two small PRC news sources covered the story. Major outlets waited until the danger had passed days later before reassuring the public that all was well.
The notable exception was Top News (顶端新闻), an online platform under the state-run Henan Daily Newspaper Group. In an article on April 9, the outlet reached out to Khabarovsk locals for information given that the “potential cross-border impact has caused concerns among some [Chinese] residents.” The piece was shared by Hong Kong-based Phoenix Media (凤凰网), only to delete their version of the piece days later. Reporting from CCTV, Xinhua and other smaller outlets only came after the evening of April 9, once authorities in Russia and China confirmed that radiation levels were no threat to the public and the state of emergency was lifted.
All’s well that ends well, in this case — but the incident has raised a troubling question. “What if something more severe happens in Russia next time and there is no reporting on it and locals are unaware?” asked WeChat user Where the Swordsman Writes (剑客写字的地方) in a now-deleted post that also noted how much more coverage and exposure a story about fish imported from Japan was receiving at around the same time.
QUOTE/UNQUOTE
Her Majesty the PRC?
With Hong Kong’s national security law in effect for nearly a full four years, and the new Article 23 security law taking effect last month, what are the implications for internet freedoms in the city?
In a recent research paper, Tin Pak, an IPI Cybersecurity Fellow at the University of Washington’s Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies, reviewed the extent of government internet censorship and digital surveillance in Hong Kong since 2020. We caught up with Tin to discuss the intersection of cybersecurity and law — and how it has been colored by the city’s colonial past.
Lingua Sinica: Could you explain in a nutshell for our readers what you found in your recent study of internet censorship in Hong Kong, and what its implications are for political freedoms there?
Tin Pak: The national security law (NSL) is a broad-reaching legislation enacted by the PRC, criminalizing a range of “national security threats” including secession and subversion. Under the NSL, new enforcement agencies have been created directly controlled by the PRC and immune to independent judicial review by local Hong Kong authorities.
These NSL authorities have blocked access to multiple websites promoting conflicting narratives with the PRC by forcing network providers to remove content on their platforms. Moreover, aspects of China’s digital firewall are encroaching into the city’s networks with Tencent, a China-based media company, now operating Safari’s safe-browsing feature in Hong Kong as of 2022. Additionally, with the overhauling of Hong Kong’s legislature in 2021, domestic laws have expanded the scope of the NSL. For instance, the 2022 SIM card registration law mandated the provision of personal information to service providers facilitating the monitoring of digital activities by NSL authorities.
Under this growing surveillance state, news agencies, political organizations, and individuals are more readily self-censoring with the heavy hand of government persecution hanging over them.
LS: You mention in your paper how long-dormant colonial-era laws in Hong Kong have been used to strengthen NSL enforcement against political dissidents. Could you explain that?
TP: The true power of the NSL is fully realized through its convergence and joint implementation with Hong Kong’s domestic laws. For instance, the former Sedition Law listed in the Criminal Ordinance installed under British rule was co-opted by NSL agencies to arrest political dissidents. This law criminalized bringing “into hatred or contempt or to excite disaffection against the person of Her Majesty.” The law applied to any such action against the current Hong Kong government since the Interpretation and General Clauses Ordinance stipulates that the PRC’s Central People’s Government replaces any reference to “Her Majesty” or similar expressions in Hong Kong’s legal code.
Thus, any seditious acts against the PRC in Hong Kong were a criminal offense despite sedition not being listed as an offense in the NSL. The High Court solidified the precedent of co-opting colonial-era laws by ruling that the NSL should seek “convergence, compatibility, and complementarity” with domestic laws. The Sedition Law has been repealed and replaced with a similar offense in the 2024 Safeguarding National Security Ordinance.
LS: Your paper addresses the impact of the 2020 national security law on internet freedoms in Hong Kong. Do you have a read on how the more recent Safeguarding National Security Ordinance passed by the Legislative Council under Article 23 might affect the city?
TP: The Safeguarding National Security Ordinance has set a new precedent for integrating national-oriented laws into the domestic legal code of Hong Kong, which has for the most part been free from PRC interference since the handover in 1997. Additionally, the new ordinance has criminalized offenses that are not covered by the NSL, such as insurrection, external interference, and sabotage. Actions with “Seditious Intentions” were also criminalized, replacing the colonial-era Sedition Law mentioned previously.
Actions with “Seditious Intentions” include verbally stating or publishing materials suggesting an intent to commit sedition — encompassing a wide range of online posts and publications. The ordinance also elaborates on the definition of foreign collusion previously left vague by the NSL. Included in the bill’s definition of collaborating with external elements that can be considered collusion are “international organizations,” and organizations “in an external place that pursues political ends.” These definitions apply to a broad array of groups and individuals. It remains to be seen how wide the government casts its net when enforcing this clause.
TRACKING CONTROL
Getting Intelligent with Propaganda
It has been 10 years since the launch and meteoric failure of Google Glass, the wearable “smart glasses” that promised to seamlessly integrate the information world and the humdrum reality. By 2015, the product had been pulled from the market for many reasons — including concerns over privacy, safety, and price. But Google Glass is now being copycatted — and promoted as state-of-the-art — by one of China’s top state-run AI development labs to augment propaganda reports in real-time.
Ignore My Imposing Headgear, Mr. Delegate
During the annual session of the National People’s Congress (NPC) last month, “People's Daily Creative Brain” (人民日报创作大脑), the signature AI initiative of the Chinese Communist Party’s flagship People’s Daily newspaper, unveiled its new “AI+” holographic recording glasses (全息采录眼镜). An enthusiastic report from People’s Daily New Media (人民日报新媒体) showed reporter An Bowen (安博文) traipsing around Beijing’s Great Hall of the People and looking a bit ridiculous sporting an unwieldy pair of dark AI glasses that made the Google Glass of 2014 look like the coolest future tech.
According to the report, the glasses work as an “intelligent editing assistant" (智能采编助手), supporting real-time facial recognition, AI voice interaction, real-time live stream initiation and other functions. During a purportedly spontaneous interview with an NPC delegate who is immediately identified by the AI+ glasses as Qian Haijun (钱海军), the manager of a state-owned utility in Zhejiang. As Qian speaks, the AI+ glasses identify a buzzword he mentions, “Lights for Households” (千户万灯), the name of a program he initiated 14 years ago to provide electricity to poor households in the county-level city of Cixi.
Qian’s program is not exactly news. But according to the report, the People’s Daily AI+ glasses can offer instant context and relay video directly to editing teams back at the office who can edit and share it.
Now, if only tech could learn on its own how to ask tough questions.
ON A LIGHTER NOTE
The Dog Ate My Microphone
In Taiwan’s highly partisan political environment, any viral moment can be vested with symbolic significance — and the political lines are rarely fuzzy. But in a rare moment last week, the lines were at least, well, furry.
On April 9, as rescue teams continued to search through the rubble in Taiwan’s Hualien County in the aftermath of the 7.3 magnitude earthquake that struck the area one week earlier, an eight-year-old labrador retriever named Roger became the hero of the moment after locating the body of a missing woman.
A police school dropout, Roger was originally trained as a drug-detection dog, but was moved to the rescue division of the Kaohsiung Fire Department. He was one of four search and rescue dogs deployed in Hualien's Taroko National Park, where landslides trapped tourists and motorists.
Taking a Bite Out of Pro-China Media
As Roger was basking in his newfound celebrity, he was approached by a throng of Taiwanese television reporters who thrust their microphones in his direction. Generally friendly by nature, the pooch responded by locking his jaws around the microphones of CTi News (中天新聞台) and CTV (中視) — both channels known in Taiwan for their relatively pro-China stance and close affiliation with the Kuomintang (KMT), the rival of the more Taiwan-centric and socially progressive Democratic Progressive Party (DPP).
Roger’s antics quickly went viral, interpreted as canine corroboration of the animus many in the DDP-led Pan-Green Coalition feel for those on the opposite side. The clip gathered more than 92 thousand views on Facebook, and more than 122 thousand views on the CTiTV News YouTube channel. It even inspired fan art, like this colored pencil drawing from She Chi (拾柒).
REDLINES
Fingertip Formalism
After years of pushing the potential efficiencies of mobile technology for local grassroots governance, China’s leadership is trying to reign it in.
Last month, as Xi Jinping addressed a group of party cadres in the sunshine outside a remote village service center in Hunan province, stressing the importance of poverty alleviation work, one village official rejoiced that they now had fewer government group chats to monitor on the social media platform WeChat — which meant, at long last, that they had time to go out into the real world and meet with struggling residents.
For a ruling party that has actively pushed mobile technology as an efficient solution, the local cadre’s remarks point to an unexpected peril for local governance: mobile phones can be a total time suck.
The inefficiencies that have come with technologies meant to streamline governance are sufficiently serious that they have now become a top priority for the leadership, with the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) issuing a related policy back in December, and top-billing in today’s official People’s Daily newspaper, right under the masthead, for the problem of “fingertip formalism” (指尖上的形式主义).
Get the full lowdown on this latest CCP campaign on the CMP website.
STORYTELLERS
Telling Whose Story Well?
A word of warning to all foreigners “telling China’s story well”: be careful not to tell your own country’s story well — at least, not in China.
This recently happened to Navina Heyden, a German influencer based in Shandong with 80,000 followers on both X and Weibo. On April 9, she published an article on Weibo discussing the legalization of marijuana in her home country. She explained the policy aimed at reducing use by eradicating the black market, that countries without China’s historical sensitivities around drug use may think about the issue differently, and that, in her opinion, alcohol was more damaging to one’s health.
Heyden was subsequently attacked by netizens who accused her of “promoting drugs” in China, with some urging for a police investigation. She later said in a statement that she had carefully looked over the post with “journalists, editors, and police” before publishing, implying that they hadn’t foreseen this degree of blowback.
It must leave a bitter taste in Heyden’s mouth. Since at least 2021, she has frequently expressed opinions that align with the Chinese Communist Party — for example, denying Taiwan’s right to self-determination and defending human rights abuses in Xinjiang.
For more on this curious case, check out “The Flip Side of Influence” on the CMP website.
TECHNICALLY JOURNALISM
Crackdown in the Uncanny Valley
Recent advances in generative AI have created opportunities and challenges for newsrooms around the world. Optimism about its applications with time-intensive tasks such as interview transcription and fact-checking, freeing up capacity for more creative work, has been tempered by fears of another cull in an already ailing industry.
At Hong Kong’s RTHK (香港電台), this threat has taken on a decidedly techno-authoritarian and dystopian turn. The public broadcaster, once regarded as one of the city’s most trusted voices, has been rolling out AI presenters to make up for what it acknowledges is a persistent “staff shortage” — starting with AI weather forecaster “Aida” and now spreading to its radio programming.
But how is it that this respected, publicly funded broadcaster that offers civil service-type contracts is struggling to find talent in an industry where secure jobs are increasingly hard to come by?
Reprogramming Local Media
Since Hong Kong’s 2019 protests and the ongoing crackdown that followed it, the government had been aggressively “revamping” RTHK, which was seen as too sympathetic to the pro-democracy movement and too critical of local authorities.
Critical or irreverent programs were axed, and some of its most dogged reporters sacked. It stopped relaying the BBC’s World Service and signed agreements with state-run outlets CRI and CCTV instead. Employees who weren’t directly caught up in the purge have also resigned in protest.
As more newsrooms experiment with AI-generated content, a realization is emerging that there’s still no replacing real, professional journalists. But for RTHK, now headed for the first time in its history by a career bureaucrat with no media background, the AI staffers filling up their decimated ranks will certainly prove a lot easier to control.
DID YOU KNOW?
Hong Kong’s Most Famous Weatherman is a Mysterious Midwesterner
He’s been on the air delivering forecasts to Hong Kong for close to half a century, but the city’s most iconic weatherman actually hails from Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Since 1980, Freddy, known simply as Mr. Weather (天氣先生 tin1 hei3 sin1 saang1) in Cantonese, has been a mainstay of the nightly news broadcasts by local TV station TVB (無綫電視). Depending on the next day’s forecast, viewers will see the animated midwesterner turn into ice, be blown away, get struck by lightning, or — perhaps most horrifyingly — melt into a puddle of Freddy-flesh. The animations, set to a backdrop of the ever-changing Hong Kong skyline, are a prelude to the full weather forecast delivered (for now) by a human meteorologist.
For viewers who grew up with Freddy’s forecasts, these may feel quintessentially Hong Kong. But while TVB prefers to keep Freddy’s origin story shrouded in mystery, other local media have reported that the station continues to pay a licensing fee to an undisclosed firm in Milwaukee. As local leaders continue to drum up fears about foreign agents active in the city, perhaps it’s best not to draw too much attention to Freddy’s American connection.
CMP IN THE HEADLINES
AI Anchors and ICCs
This week Germany’s ARD-Mediathek television program ran a special on China’s use of AI technology — including for digital anchors — that was inspired by CMP’s earlier reporting by Alex Colville in “What Does the Party Stand to Gain from AI?” as well as our work on the relatively new phenomenon of provincial-level “international communication centers” (国际传播中心), or ICCs.
The report, “China: Propaganda Using Artificial Intelligence,” was done by journalist Tamara Anthony, who visited Chongqing’s ICC, and featured context by CMP Director David Bandurski. Click here for the full report.
CMP SHOWCASE
A Window on Anti-Black Racism on Chinese Social Media
Have you heard of “zero-dollar shopping” (零元購)? It’s a viral video trend that depicts daylight robbery in the United States as a result of misguided liberal legislation that supposedly decriminalized theft nationwide. Search for the term in Chinese and you’ll get over 100 million results — but ask anyone about it in English and you’ll probably get a blank stare.
CMP is proud to present, in translation, this fascinating deep dive into “zero-dollar shopping” by Singapore-based Initium Media. It provides a fascinating case study of how state-sponsored disinformation spreads worldwide, hopping from one language and social context to another — and back again.
It’s also a window into the anti-Black racism that is rife on Chinese social media yet rarely crosses the language barrier. While PRC state media is happy to leverage the language of anti-racism and social injustice in its external propaganda, internally its messaging aligns with the “anti-woke” politics of the far right.
Get to the heart of this dizzying contradiction in “Who is Seeing the Real America?”
NEWSPEAK
A War Without End
Earlier this year, Xi Jinping said in a speech to the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) that his signature anti-corruption fight had won an "overwhelming victory" — yet he also admitted that the problem of CCP corruption "remains grim" and the battle to purify its ranks unending. How do we resolve these contradictory sentiments?
The answer, simply put, is that the protracted battle against corruption is not at all about corruption, but rather about the defense and consolidation of Xi’s power. And this secret is embedded in one of the key phrases to emerge from Xi’s speech and from the Third Plenary Session of the 20th CCDI — the confusingly named “Nine Withs” (九个以), which might also be called the “Nine Requirements.”
Read on with the latest CMP Dictionary entry on the “Nine Withs.”