Mouthpiece of the CPC and Ai Weiwei's Dumbass

Source Article in Chinese: 中国的戏剧:权力的谵妄与《傻伯夷》.
By He Qinglian on May 24, 2013.

Of late two dramas about China made their debut one after another. The protagonists of the first drama featured People's Daily, PLA Daily and Red Flag Manuscript (a progeny and an outpost of Qiu Shi, an organ publication of the Central Committee of the CPC). These Party media outlets ran in succession three articles that used flowery language to present the proposition of the “divine right of the Party”.

And the other drama centered on Ai Weiwei's “Dumbass”, a postmodern rock music video that used swearwords and vulgar language to express the producer's extreme contempt for the regime and his anger toward the various parties that suggested dissidents to give up the fight and reach a reconciliation with the regime.

The split and confrontation between the ruling clique and the masses in China can thus be seen.

Could Xi Jinping become another Mao Zedong?

Source article in Chinese:  以毛式铁腕捍卫权贵资本主义——习近平的执政蓝图(一)
By He Qinglian on May 14, 2013.


It's been over a half year since Xi Jinping began his reign. The ruling blueprint he has is very clear: he sees as his political mission acting as a “guardian of the Red Regime”. Facing the facts, even the most tenacious dreamers found it hard to continue their argument that Xi Jinping would engage in the so-called “great cause of political democratization reform”. 

“Document no. 9”.


Recently, a “Briefing on the current state of ideological sphere”, issued by the General Office of the CPC Central Committee, is being circulated on the internet. Since the file number of that document is “GO-2013-9”, it is known as “document no. 9” for short. Allegedly the document has already been distributed to the county and regiment levels; in Chongqing, Jilin and other provinces and cities there are reports about studying of “document no.9”.

What would happen to NGOs after the Ya’an Earthquake?

Source article in Chinese: 雅安救灾后非官方NGO的命运


By He Qinglian on May 3, 2013.
 

There are two things about the Ya’an earthquake in 2013 that are worth taking note of: 1) the credibility of the Red Cross Society of China (China Red Cross, CRC) (which is actually the credibility of the Chinese government) and 2) the exceptional disaster relief work of NGOs, as opposed to the Government-operated NGOs (GONGOs).

As people commended the operational capacity of these NGOs, few seemed to have thought about what would possibly happen to these organizations after the disaster.

Elegy on the loss of Chinese government credibility

Source Article in Chinese: 2008-2013:中国政府公信力之殇
By He Qinglian on April 25, 2013.

There is a time span of only five years between the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008 and the Ya'an earthquake this year, but the difference in the government's ability to mobilize the people and the popular support they enjoyed between these two quakes made people feel as though generations have passed.

One of the most conspicuous problems is the rapid degradation of the political credibility of the Chinese government. Despite round-the-clock effort from Internet surveillance personnel to delete posts and suspend users, various voices of doubts continuously emerged from the cracks of Weibo, China's equivalent to twitter.