Chinese Media (and Society) in Transition: Party vs. Capitalists vs. People

Review by Q. Lisa Bu
University of Wisconsin-Madison

Communication in China: Political Economy, Power, and Conflict, by Yuezhi Zhao. Lanham, Boulder, New York, Toronto, and Plymouth, UK: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2008. ISBN 074251966X. 373pp.

Yuezhi Zhao’s Communication in China reminds me of my first visit to the Great Wall. When my group of two dozens American graduate students gathered at a main entrance, our guide asked us to choose between two paths: the one to the right is easier to climb but is crowded with tourists and offers less impressive view. The left one is longer and sharply steeper but the view is far more impressive. Young and energetic, we all chose the left path and started climbing without fully understanding what we were doing. Calling the path “steep” is a big understatement. The extra stretch of climbing seemed a mile long. Climbing those ancient stone steps along the mountain ridge was like crawling on slippery scales on the spine of a giant dragon as the beast is thrusting itself into the immense sky: one could easily slip and fall hundreds of feet. When we finally reached the top with shaking knees and dirt-covered hands, we were overwhelmed by the majesty and beauty of the view – the extra mile of climbing made a huge difference.

Studying China’s media system can also take two paths. The easier one is to study the system in isolation. The harder path requires one to climb an extra mile and examine the big picture of the system. Yuezhi Zhao took the harder path.

“In this book, I situate the Chinese communication system in the evolving state-society nexus in post-1989 China and analyze the dynamics of communication, the formation of class and other forms of power relations, and social contestation during a period of deepening market reforms.” (p. 5)

The book opens with the photo and story of a poor and disabled newsstand owner who has been waging a lonely battle against corrupt officials in Beijing’s newsstand licensing system, who try to take away her vending license. The story illustrates three issues addressed in the book: (1) the commercialization and transition of China’s media system, (2) the power struggle between social classes in the process and as a result of media commercialization, and (3) the dynamics among media, politics, and private capital in shaping the future of Chinese society.

Media Commercialization

Like socialism with “Chinese characteristics,” the Communist party’s media commercialization also carries distinctive Chinese characteristics. First, the party control of the media is decentralized but not reduced. The market reform has created a division of labor between media organizations and the party-state. Media organizations are independent financially and have control over the business side of their operation (e.g. advertising), but the party-state remains dominant over their editorial direction with a variety of savvy strategies. For example, every organization is made responsible for the “correct” direction of its media content. “Incorrect” content is taken down quietly or tolerated on obscure publications in order to limit its appeal and reach to the public. A government certification requirement makes China the only country in the world to formally license journalists.

Second, the media industry is commercialized but not privatized. Chinese media outlets remain affiliates of the party-state. Media commercialization has changed their business model but not ownership. Private media companies are prohibited to own broadcast channel or provide news, thus there is still no politically independent media in China. Foreign and domestic private businesses are confined to the periphery areas of the system such as capital investment, advertising, and product distribution. The content they are allowed to provide is largely limited to business, entertainment, and lifestyle categories.

Social Power Struggle

Three decades of media commercialization has created winners and losers among China’s social groups and classes. The mantra of Chinese media industry during the commercialization has been “news creates values,” with “values” referring to social and, more importantly, monetary values. The winners in the commercialization are affluent educated urban consumers who have helped the media industry create money values and enjoyed the media’s service tailored to their needs and tastes. The losers are poor rural and urban working-class populations who have little appeal to the media industry and advertisers, thus rarely see their interests and needs covered in the mainstream media.

Zhao used a 2003 and a 2005 case studies to illustrate the contrast. In each case, a young man from a rural family was mistreated by China’s legal system and this caused a public outcry and wide media coverage. However, because one man had made it to college and become a member of urban middle class while the other man had not and was a low-class migrant worker, the reactions from the public and media were very different. In the college graduate’s case, the public, made of largely urban residents and neoliberal intellectuals who have easy access to the media and Internet forums, identified with the victim and called for the protection of individual rights. The media used “professionalism” to defend their extensive coverage against the pressure from the government. In the migrant worker’s case, however, the public was split between those in favor of a shakeup of the unfair justice system and those in favor of the “rule of law” because, despite their sympathy towards the migrant worker, they feel more direct threat from “low quality” migrant workers than from the unfair justice system. The media was also split. A prominent newspaper that evoked “professionalism” to justify its extensive coverage of the college graduate victim now used the same term to call to limit the coverage of the migrant worker’s case – generalizing the plight of one individual to that of the whole class of migrant workers and advocating for justice system overhaul were “unprofessional” and against “judicial independence.”

Power, Money, and Knowledge Regime

If the above two case studies have expanded our view of China’s media system from the industry itself to its immediate social environment, the third case study, the “Lang Xianping Storm,” takes us to a even higher point to gain an unobstructed and complete view of Chinese media’s ecosystem.

Lang Xianping, a U.S.-trained world-class economist, burst into Chinese media’s scene in 2004 in the middle of the property rights reform, a key step of China’s transition to market economy. Aiming to privatize state-owned enterprises (SOE) to make them more efficient, the reform, in practice, was plagued by corruptions and “black-box deals” which resulted in massive layoffs and disappearance of public assets. SOE workers were outraged by the injustice of the practice and the failure of the party who is supposed to represent workers’ interests. Despite widespread outcries from workers, the media had provided little coverage of the issue until Lang’s star status finally pushed it into the spotlight. Providing outlets for heated debates, the media displayed an unusual sense of social responsibility but also diverging views: urban mainstream media usually supported Lang’s criticism of the practice, but business press often sided with neoliberals and defended private entrepreneurs many of whom were former SOE managers. The voices of Chinese workers, however, were still missing in mainstream media. In the midst of the debate, thousands of workers in the 3403 Factory in Sichuan waged strikes and media campaigns against unjust buyout of the factory and the police crackdown on them. But there was little media response or Internet mobilization on the workers’ behalf. In the end, Lang himself was silenced and removed from his popular talk show, after the business press, neoliberal intellectuals and political elites had joined forces to rein in public opinion.

This case study is a demonstration that “Chinese public” – the media, urban middle class, and intellectuals – are willing and able to rally around an individual victim but “not in a position to fight for the class interests of Chinese workers.” In the wider ecosystem of Chinese media, a “power, money and knowledge regime” known as “iron triangle alliance” is emerging. Talking like a communist to keep political legitimacy but acting like a capitalist to gain economic power, the party understands that it is full of self-contradictions thus vulnerable to power challenges from both the right and left sides of the society. In the party leadership’s calculation, the best coping strategy is not to draw public attention to those self-contradictions. When that fails and compromises had to be made, the less costly strategy is to side with neoliberals and sacrifice the interests of the working class quietly. Viewed in this context, China’s media system is a key battle ground where different social classes fight for voice, power, and future.

This book is packed with information and insights about the Chinese media system with a minor disappointment: lack of projection of the future of the system. With the whole society going through a historic transition, it may be too much to ask for such a projection. Before joining President Bush’s administration, Condoleezza Rice said in an interview in 1999 that “economic liberalization in China is ultimately going to lead to political liberalization. That’s an iron law.” That law hasn’t stood up to the reality yet. For anyone who is interested in finding why, this book also provides an eye-opening account.