No one is putting stock into what western media broadcasts. It's not a good look when Xi's handpicked senior leaders are having their power stripped one year into their role. It potentially signals that Xi's influence over the party weakening.
Chinese Internal Politics
- Thread starter FairAndUnbiased
- Start date
No. No system can do so, but you would imagine that such high profile characters would be under constant surveillance/protection (these roles are often one and the same..) from MSS.
So when the time came for someone to give a list to Xi of potential foreign ministry candidates, ideally the MSS should had thoroughly vetted each one of them. And when Xi, tentatively, before making it official, decided on him to become Foreign Minister, the MSS should had passed Qin from a second round of internal investigation to ensure that everything is good
The fact that Qin had an extra-marital affair with someone in the US, had a child, surrogate etc, and nobody in MSS found out from before, that's a complete and utter embarrassment for the secret services of a superpower. We are not talking about a low-level official here, this is the Foreign Minister, the face of China in the outside world.
The rumor and other leaks were spreading around China long before Western media hyped the incidents. Most forums or wechat groups were talking about these two topics for sometime especially after many not anti-China insiders didn't refute such claims.
Western media is irrelevant in this matter. Most mainland Chinese trust their own network more than both Western media and Chinese media. That's why social media and other platform were infiltrated by so much misinformation as it is the most effective way to instigate fake news and brainwash people.
To answer your question, Xi and a few top officials didn't show up for a few days or weeks. Rumors started flying, Western media reported and hyped the news. Xi showed up and rumor died down. Another example, three gorges collapse rumor showed up every year during the raining season and every time Western media picked it up and then died down after flooding season ended. See the pattern.
Such rumors were pretty effective for Western audience but not so effective for Chinese audience. The reason is that Westerners don't pay much attention after all the hype is over as it doesn't concern them and anti-China is ingrained in their thinking. However, such rumor could be counterintuitive for mainland Chinese such as three gorges. After crying wolf for three times, people just don't trust you anymore even if you are right occasionally.
Most mainland Chinese don't concern that much about arresting and indicting high profile government officials. Unlike the West, mainland Chinese are used to such high profile arrests. The process is first arresting for interrogation, then strip of official position and kick out being communist member, and lastly formal criminal investigation and indictment.
For interrogation and evidence gathering, the Chinese government would maintain silence and denial until enough evidence for next phase which usually takes a few weeks. For government officials, a formal announcement would always make. The problem is that for anyone who got charged, there probably a few more that just got interrogation for a few days without charges. Unless, a criminal charges were warranted, it might not be the government and public interest to make an announcement. So between a few days to a few weeks, this is a gray period that rumor would spread.
What is truly hurting Chinese government's credibility and authoritative is its inability to combat rumors about government's coverup and collaborate with criminals. Most often, a minor case of suicide and then rumor started flying and when evidence is presented to the contrary the perpetrators move to the next story. Fighting rumor is always a lost cause.
yes i agree with this line of thinking. you can have a mediocre guy in the position and still get the job done if the system works.
but there is an exception that is when you are in a dire situation and need competent people to accomplish something big...this was China in the 90s and early 2000s. they needed people to grow the economy, and for that reason CCP was willing to overlook some practices in its bureaucracy. corruption at the time was more or less used as an incentive to get the bureaucracy onboard with growth of capitalist economy. now that the economy has been "built", and requires less direct intervention, the CCP is turning around and dealing with those shady practices...looking at it that way it really is just the natural progression of things.
Qin Gang died?
D
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Just my opinion since the affair rumor seems a bit too lurid to be true, it's like something out of a bad cold war drama. I could be wrong but that's my view.
This is exactly the problem caused by the silence of the authority at the beginning. The public and media everywhere have watchful eyes on these public figures in spotlights. Not to mention there are leaks from within the authority. It's wishful thinking of the authority that disappearance of high rank officials wouldn't be picked by the public and enemy. The authority being tight-lipped and embargoing the domestic media only left the floor to rumors and enemy's media.
It's rather passive and reactive to just sit and wait for the enemy to rot. Even if China wants to take a defensive position in the PR war, it should defend proactively.
Credibility needs time to build up. If the authority and the state-run media are always missing from the battles, the public wouldn't all of sudden start trusting them as reliable and credible sources even after the enemy media have died of self-inflicted wounds. Guess who would fill the void then?
It's not conflicting with what I am suggesting. Simply stating the known fact that Qin and Li were off duty won't disclose anything regarding the ongoing investigation. The authority did not have to make the statement on day one. But the earlier it tells the public, the less chance for rumors to spawn and less chance for the enemy to stir up shit.
But I think it's a bad idea to use a media in HK or wherever out side of mainland as the conduit of leak. As I said in other posts, the authority must not give others the power of being the information source. The authority itself, or a state-run media, should be the authoritative source of information on the internal affairs of authority.
I feel it's sad for the Chinese public who have to resort to shitholes like SCMP or even media of enemy for information regarding Qin and Li.
Tons of senior officials have affairs. That happens up and down the party rank. It’s not unique to Qin Gang. That’s not the problem.
But having a child by surrogacy involving an American citizen?! Qin Gang thought this can be kept hidden? He was under constant surveillance by the U.S. intelligence community the moment he started his job in America.
But having a child by surrogacy involving an American citizen?! Qin Gang thought this can be kept hidden? He was under constant surveillance by the U.S. intelligence community the moment he started his job in America.
I suspect there are Chinese internal political reasons why Chinese state media can't report on internal politics openly. You don't want the leaders of 中宣部 to be too powerful and you don't want a repeat of the Chinese media landscape during the cultural revolution.
The trusted media at HK or TW should be a good compromise for now. It is sad that China shutdown DWnews though, all we have is twitter and western leaks now.