【09.11.05每日电讯】Killed by the kindness of a Chinese propaganda department

和解团结

【媒体】Daily Telegraph
【作者】Peter Foster
【日期】2009年11月05日
【原文链接】http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/peterfoster/100015836/killed-by-the-kindness-of-a-chinese-propaganda-department/
【关键字】宣传部 南水北调 河南


A Chinese peasant in Henan who is being moved to make way for the water diversion project


[size=1.4em]I’ve often wondered why it is that no-one ever picks up the phone when you call a media information office in one of China’s provincial governments, and this week I found out why.
[size=1.4em]For the last couple of days we’ve been talking to some of the 330,000 villagers in Henan Province who will be moved to make way for the North-South water diversion project which, when completed in 2014, will carry water more than 800 miles from southern China to Beijing.

[size=1.4em]As you’d expect, many of the farmers aren’t overjoyed at being moved off some of the most fertile land in China where they have lived for generations to keep Beijing and other northern cities in China from drying up.

[size=1.4em]This being a ‘sensitive’ topic for the local authorities, it wasn’t long before we were picked up by officials from the local Xichuan County propaganda department who, ever so politely, enquired what we were up to.

[size=1.4em]It was all very friendly, but typical of the difficulties of working in China despite the new reporting regulations which allow anyone to be interviewed or photographed so long as they give consent.

[size=1.4em]The propaganda man, alerted to our presence by a snitch unknown, knew the rules and implemented them to the letter.

[size=1.4em]We were, he said, ‘free’ to interview the villagers all we wanted. But having been very chatty a few minutes previously, they all seemed to have become deaf mutes in his presence.

[size=1.4em]So we decided to cut our losses and accept his ‘invitation’ back to party HQ to meet the boss and listen to the government’s side of the story – a meeting which we’d tried, in vain, to arrange from Beijing on the telephone.

[size=1.4em]When we reached the head office of the Xichuan Information Department it became clear why we hadn’t had much luck on the phone. More of a cubby-hole than an office, it comprised two desks, an almost empty bookshelf, and a whiteboard charting the number of stories the office’s enterprising reporters had managed to publish in the local press.

[size=1.4em]As I cast my eye around I counted no fewer than seven staple-guns and there, stacked on the floor strewn with sunflower seeds someone had obviously eaten for lunch, six unopened cases of ‘bai jiu’ – the fiery white spirit beloved of Chinese officialdom.

[size=1.4em]The atmosphere was convivial, even before the booze, and it wasn’t long before we were informed that the boss was taking us all out to dinner so we could talk over the difficulties of moving so many people from their homes.

[size=1.4em]Armed with three bottles of ‘bai jiu’ in gleaming silver and gold boxes we set off for a local eatery where a small banquet was served including very good ‘suan cai niurou’ (sour cabbage with beef), a ‘specialite de la region’, and a Wuchang fish (Chairman Mao’s favourite) which, our hosts informed us, came from the Danjiangkou Reservoir.

[size=1.4em](This is the same water body which is being expanded to meet the needs of the North-South water project and where that fish’s brothers and sisters, uncles and aunties will soon be swimming over the bulldozed houses of the peasants we’d been talking to earlier in the day.)

[size=1.4em]I’m sorry to confess that we didn’t extract too much information out the officials to whom we fearlessly put the gripes of the villagers – leaking roofs in the new houses, broken promises on land distribution, allegations of embezzled funds – beyond some routine denials that the villagers were being moved according to ‘scientific principles’ and in a ‘timely, smooth and orderly manner.’

[size=1.4em]Long before Mao’s fish had arrived, the Xichuan County Propaganda Department strategy for dealing with the media became clear – shock and awe hospitality with the clear intention of inflicting ‘bai jiu’-induced amnesia.

[size=1.4em]Round and round the table went the officials, one after the other, to salute their ‘honoured guest’ – your hapless correspondent – with double shots of the liquor (52pc by volume) which rasps the throat and brings tears to the eyes.

[size=1.4em]There was no escape, no way to plead or excuse oneself – it was a case of drink or risk hurting the feelings of the Chinese people. Before long I was floating, defenceless on a great, fluffy cloud of bai jiu ‘harmony’

[size=1.4em]From what I can remember, it was an hilarious evening during which my adolescent Chinese-language skills took on miraculous new fluency as we played ‘guess your ages’, before discussing our respective wives, mistresses (not me!) and last, the fate of our two great nations.

[size=1.4em]Everyone agreed that a deep bond of trust had been established between us, we understood how difficult moving recalcitrant peasants could be, while they understood that we just wanted to hear both sides of a story. Sino-British relations have never felt warmer inside.

[size=1.4em]Outside on the steps of the restaurant it was cold, however, a chilliness increased a degree or two by our polite refusal to accept a ‘guide’ for the next day’s reporting.

[size=1.4em]Then our local driver arrived and, with an almost comic furtiveness, the propaganda chief motioned furiously to one of his minions to get the man’s telephone number.

[size=1.4em]We departed with swimming heads and sinking hearts at the thought of another day’s reporting that would be killed by the kindnesses of the propaganda department.

[size=1.4em]“What will you have to tell them when they call?” I asked the driver who was taking a back route home to avoid being followed, “Nothing,” he replied, “I gave them a wrong number.” A tip was never so well-earned.

[size=0.9em][size=1.4em]Tags: china, Henan, propaganda
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