Chinese Internal Politics

I do certainly agree that Chinese government isn't that sophisticated at PR and often inept. Most of the shortcoming is more or less from CCTV and those old guards that prefer writing in script and reading from script.

However, I don't think the Chinese government has the intention to be transparent in regarding domestic affair especially regarding high ranking officials and their investigation. In such situation, it is purely domestic affair and has nothing to do with the rest of the world. A few years back, there were many high profile and even more high ranking Chinese officials that got indicted for wrong doings. At that time, most of MSM only reported them but didn't hype the situation.

Remember a few months ago, there were talk of Xi's disappearance. There were rumor of a coup and purge. These were front pages for all major Western media for a month but China just didn't make any comment. China can't dance to their tune as any response would create precedent.

In addition, you can't win against fake news or conspiracy theories. US at the moment is being destroyed by its own fake news and conspiracy theories as they can't no longer control the narrative as their two factions are at war. Fighting against rumor is always a losing battle.

SanWenYu said:

I am not even suggesting that the authority should have explained why these guys were off duty. All I said is for China to be a bit more tactful to not give the western media the upper hand and close a venue of lies from the start. That's far from "over-expectation for 'truth'".

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Really, who cares. How china deals with military issues is Chinas business alone. This isn’t some sort of drama series where we need to know every single detail and have it presented to the press. If this issue is delicate, then I guess we should accept it at face value and leave it alone. The USA is so geared towards attain a PR victory at all cost, they can make something from nothing like a ‘Chinese person went to a toilet, oh it’s an attack on sustainability, the shame’ meme which quite frankly given how gullible and stupid people in the west are, they will believe quite easily. I say give these idiots what they want, none of these PR stunts help the USA in any way except convince they typical fat American that he can fly when he simply cannot jump and then he breaks his legs while another more wiser person will be shaking his head. Now if the PR is about raising awareness and making people understand the situation around the world better, maybe the USA could be more of a threat but no, these PR stunts do nothing but bring out the worst in the USA and it shows in spades where even the Taiwanese/Japanese person in the nation could easily be the victim of a random shooting because his skin is yellow despite the fact the USA kinda needs them (like that TSMC plant is Arizona that is going nowhere fast because of issues like these when these people are supposed to be protected for what they are doing, not treated like dirt which I don’t really care about in all honesty because reasons). So there PR stunts instead do a good jump of f@cking things up, just like Biden

I think @SanWenYu raises some good points. Recall it was always NYT or more recently WSJ that always breaks the news first about Chinese internal politics, think Wen Jiabao scandal, Li Qiang as China's #2, end of Covid lockdowns, etc. China should go on the offensive and use a HK or maybe soon TW intermediary to leak such news. It's better for the rumor/news to framed by China than it is to be framed by the west.

KYli said:

I do certainly agree that Chinese government isn't that sophisticated at PR and often inept. Most of the shortcoming is more or less from CCTV and those old guards that prefer writing in script and reading from script.

However, I don't think the Chinese government has the intention to be transparent in regarding domestic affair especially regarding high ranking officials and their investigation. In such situation, it is purely domestic affair and has nothing to do with the rest of the world. A few years back, there were many high profile and even more high ranking Chinese officials that got indicted for wrong doings. At that time, most of MSM only reported them but didn't hype the situation.

Remember a few months ago, there were talk of Xi's disappearance. There were rumor of a coup and purge. These were front pages for all major Western media for a month but China just didn't make any comment. China can't dance to their tune as any response would create precedent.

In addition, you can't win against fake news or conspiracy theories. US at the moment is being destroyed by its own fake news and conspiracy theories as they can't no longer control the narrative as their two factions are at war. Fighting against rumor is always a losing battle.

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SanWenYu said:

I am not even suggesting that the authority should have explained why these guys were off duty. All I said is for China to be a bit more tactful to not give the western media the upper hand and close a venue of lies from the start. That's far from "over-expectation for 'truth'".

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Sometimes, it’s best to let those that disseminate falsehoods and speculations get caught in their own webs of deceit and dubiety. By simply allowing the western-media to spread their “news”, un-challenged, critical consumers, over-time, on their own, will come to recognize its incredibility and unreliability.

Alright well Lingling Wei said that Qin was fired for an affair so we definitely know now that he died of an illness.

I understand the line of criticism that the party should be more transparent but honestly I think the magnitude of the issue is easy to be misconstrued in the west when all you hear is nonstop criticism over it. There is no reason to believe that it has a material effect on China's diplomacy or on Xi's popular legitimacy at home, and the party has long since made the decision that the risks of greater information disclosure outweigh the benefits. What matters is that anticorruption is being enforced imo, so long as that continues to happen then the leadership's resistance to being more open about it is not that important.

KYli said:

I do certainly agree that Chinese government isn't that sophisticated at PR and often inept. Most of the shortcoming is more or less from CCTV and those old guards that prefer writing in script and reading from script.

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You are right about the shortcoming of the Chinese media, this is totally on the authority IMO. Even a timely scripted readout by the CCTV anchor would be sufficient as a better outcome. There must have been a press embargo from the government. Unfortunately in the age of Internet, such embargo could only tie up the hands of our own.

KYli said:

However, I don't think the Chinese government has the intention to be transparent in regarding domestic affair especially regarding high ranking officials and their investigation. In such situation, it is purely domestic affair and has nothing to do with the rest of the world.

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Correct. But what I care is to whom the Chinese public will go to next time.

The western media have scored twice on the missing of Qin and Li. Say it was NYT who was the first to report both stories. Now imagine this. Another high ranking front-row member of the central government had been missing from public for a few days. NYT started running a story speculating if the person in question had defected to the US. Would you believe it or call it bull? What would you think of the Chinese public's take on the story? What if that person were not able to resume his duty for a few weeks more?

KYli said:

A few years back, there were many high profile and even more high ranking Chinese officials that got indicted for wrong doings. At that time, most of MSM only reported them but didn't hype the situation.

Remember a few months ago, there were talk of Xi's disappearance. There were rumor of a coup and purge. These were front pages for all major Western media for a month but China just didn't make any comment. China can't dance to their tune as any response would create precedent.

In addition, you can't win against fake news or conspiracy theories. US at the moment is being destroyed by its own fake news and conspiracy theories as they can't no longer control the narrative as their two factions are at war. Fighting against rumor is always a losing battle.

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You don't fight fake news or conspiracy theories after they have shaped up. You reduce the chance for them to spawn. More importantly it's about how the Chinese authority should maintain its position as the authoritative source of information on issues that matter to the Chinese public.

SanWenYu said:

[...]

You don't fight fake news or conspiracy theories after they have shaped up. You reduce the chance for them to spawn. More importantly it's about how the Chinese authority should maintain its position as the authoritative source of information on issues that matter to the Chinese public.

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I forget the specific discipline or domain from which the term comes, but this is called inoculation!

In retrospection, when I was saying "were hoping for the best", I should have said "were hoping it was a yet another fake news made up by the western media".

I now think the issue is whether we value the power of being an authoritative source of information. PR war fights battles of information. If a government is tight-lipped on its own internal affairs, it concedes the power of information source to its enemy.

The public naturally want to rely their governments for information on issues matter to them. It's even more so in China as the Chinese government has billed itself as the "unlimited government". If the public cannot find the information from their own government, they will try to look up themselves somewhere else. That could be the enemy or the imagination. Neither of them would be good for the government in long run.

james smith esq said:

Sometimes, it’s best to let those that disseminate falsehoods and speculations get caught in their own webs of deceit and dubiety. By simply allowing the western-media to spread their “news”, un-challenged, critical consumers, over-time, on their own, will come to recognize its incredibility and unreliability.

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james smith esq said:

I forget the specific discipline or domain from which the term comes, but this is called inoculation!

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But the damage would have been done, like the side effects that body would suffer from vaccination. That can be reduced or even avoided if the source of infections are removed from the beginning.

SanWenYu said:

But the damage would have been done, like the side effects that body would suffer from vaccination. That can be reduced or even avoided if the source of infections are removed from the beginning.

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The term inoculation is used to describe the technique you described in the portion of your post that I quoted in my reply.