MTV might not run it, but China's most heavily played music video this week stars Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao (
Soldiers cheer and grateful citizens weep in the clip as a shrill soprano extols communism's love for the common people.
"United with one heart, conquering adversity," read the words superimposed over the final image of a smiling Wen leading response efforts in Harbin.
The video -- produced virtually overnight and aired incessantly on state television -- illustrates how hard China's leaders are working to shore up their credibility in the face of a rising wave of manmade disasters ranging from environmental meltdowns to carnage in the workplace.
China's government has only lately begun accounting for the toll of fast economic growth in terms of deadly accidents and damage to the country's rivers, soil and air.
With a recent order to declassify disasters, officials are under even more pressure to respond effectively.
That's a major challenge for an authoritarian government not accustomed to airing its dirty laundry in public -- or answering to its citizens. While seeking to portray the Chinese Communist Party as responsible, the increased publicity risks giving the impression that such disasters are out of control.
"With more reporting on the disasters and accidents, Chinese are probably feeling that there are so many of them," said Dali Yang (
"Hence the need to extol how the system is doing well to deal with the problems," Yang added.
The Wen video accompanied the suspension of water to Harbin for five days after a factory explosion last month released 100 tonnes of cancer-causing chemicals into the Songhua River.
Officials were initially accused of hiding the threat, but the city soon thrust itself into an all-out effort to deliver emergency water supplies to the 3.8 million people without service and safeguard public health.
Just days later, a coal mine explosion in the same region killed at least 164 workers -- the latest in a string of mining catastrophes.
Such disasters feed into growing complaints from the public that China's economic growth is occurring at the expense of people's basic rights.
China has seen an unprecedented number of public protests this year, fueled by anger over government corruption and inaction in cases of illegal land seizures by developers or industrial pollution, among other issues. While many have been suppressed by force, leaders in Beijing have urged local officials to address such grievances with meaningful reforms.
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
SHIFT: Taiwan’s better-than-expected first-quarter GDP and signs of weakness in the US have driven global capital back to emerging markets, the central bank head said The central bank yesterday blamed market speculation for the steep rise in the local currency, and urged exporters and financial institutions to stay calm and stop panic sell-offs to avoid hurting their own profitability. The nation’s top monetary policymaker said that it would step in, if necessary, to maintain order and stability in the foreign exchange market. The remarks came as the NT dollar yesterday closed up NT$0.919 to NT$30.145 against the US dollar in Taipei trading, after rising as high as NT$29.59 in intraday trading. The local currency has surged 5.85 percent against the greenback over the past two sessions, central
RSS