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Google detonates the China corporate communications script

Posted Tuesday, January 12, 2010 9:31 PM by will
Imagethief stumbled blearily to his computer this morning expecting a relaxed scan of the news but found the Chinese Twittersphere ablaze with the news of Google's bombshell blog post , which went up in the middle of the night early this morning our time. Read More...
76 Comments

Obama, the Great Wall and Nixon's Ghost

Posted Sunday, November 22, 2009 2:40 AM by will
With everyone else on the planet weighing in on Obama's visit to China last week, I didn't want to miss the party. I wrote a brief article for the website of the magazine Foreign Policy comparing Chinese and American press coverage of the visit. The title Read More...
3 Comments

Riots in Xinjiang and the price of omission

Posted Tuesday, July 07, 2009 1:27 AM by will
To have one ethnic minority erupt in angry rioting looks like misfortune. To have two erupt in angry rioting suggests that a rethink of the overall approach might be a good idea. Urumqi has been in chaos for the last 72 hours, and reports suggest that Read More...
44 Comments

Hubei cigarette purchasing plan extinguished

Posted Thursday, May 07, 2009 4:54 AM by will
It turns out that the plan to have local officials prop up the cigarette market in Hubei has gone up up in smoke. Seems the people were fuming. From China Daily : The order made headlines in major newspapers around the world after being made public, triggering Read More...
2 Comments

Hubei is a party province, and we don't mean politically

Posted Monday, May 04, 2009 7:00 AM by will
We have to hand it to the Gong'an county government in Hubei, which has hit upon a novel approach to expanding the tax base in these straitened times: Order local officials to smoke more cigarettes : Officials in a county in central China have been told Read More...
17 Comments

Further to the whole Jackie Chan thing

Posted Sunday, May 03, 2009 1:56 AM by will
After posting my thoughts about Jackie's controversial pronouncements at Bo'ao a couple of weeks ago, I received an e-mail from Nick Mackie, the journalist who actually asked the question that kicked off the whole episode. As Nick points out, the question Read More...
5 Comments

Of course you can distribute financial news in China, but about your journalists...

Posted Sunday, May 03, 2009 1:41 AM by will
One of the longest running soap operas involving foreign businesses in China is that of the foreign financial information service providers, Reuters, Bloomberg, Dow Jones, and such. These companies have been involved in an on-and-off regulatory battle Read More...
1 Comments

Q: So you've just been accused of being the source of swine flu...

Posted Sunday, May 03, 2009 1:26 AM by will
...how do you reply? A: Well, if you're a Chinese government spokesperson you probably rarely pass up an opportunity to bury your positive points under much more quotable anger. James Fallows notes the predictably pyrotechnic response from Chinese government Read More...
7 Comments

ESWN: Reforming Network News

Posted Tuesday, April 28, 2009 6:29 AM by will
ESWN translates a good essay on proposed reforms of CCTV's "Network News", the nightly news broadcast that is something of a televised version of the People's Daily : A protocol driven recitation of government messages. Since inception, the "Network News" Read More...
0 Comments

Oh, Jackie

Posted Tuesday, April 21, 2009 7:32 AM by will
Imagethief sends his deepest sympathies to the organizers of the Bo'ao Forum for Asia, who's main contribution to the public discourse this year is a fierce debate on the meaning of what Jackie Chan said during a panel discussion he participated in. Personally, Read More...
19 Comments

On the Internet, nobody knows you're a cadre...

Posted Sunday, March 01, 2009 6:08 AM by will
It's well worth your time to go and read the two articles that David Bandurski has written for the indispensible China Media Project on Yunnan deputy propaganda chief Wu Hao. In the first post , Bandurski gets under the hood of Wu's "citizens' investigation" Read More...
4 Comments

Lies, damned lies and rigged polls

Posted Tuesday, February 17, 2009 5:33 AM by will
From ESWN , the story of how opinion polls on local prosperity were rigged by the Jiangsu government: A few days ago, there was a random telephone survey of residents in the Qidong, Haimen, Tongzhou and other districts of Nantong city in Jiangsu province. Read More...
2 Comments

Improved talking points for Chinese media's Obama-edits

Posted Thursday, January 22, 2009 6:05 AM by will
Imagethief was interested to see that someone at the regular Foreign Ministry press conference actually bothered to ask FM spokeswoman Jiang Yu about Chinese media censorship of Obama's inaugural remarks about fighting communism (a question apparently Read More...
6 Comments

Symbolism of the new presidential uber-limo

Posted Wednesday, January 21, 2009 9:46 PM by will
Everything politicians do in public sends a message, and is part of the great of the, galumphing ballet of political communication. And that, in turn, is an important part of how a nation communicates about itself. There was, no doubt, much good transmitted Read More...
13 Comments