• Chinese documentary alleges US broadcaster incites Tibetan self-immolations

    By Ed Flanagan, Producer, NBC News

    Published at 12:40 a.m. ET: BEIJING – A controversial new documentary released by Chinese state broadcaster, CCTV, is alleging that the American government’s official broadcaster, Voice of America, is encouraging Tibetans to set themselves on fire.

    The story comes as China braces itself for the 100th Tibetan self-immolation since 2009.

    The 25-minute documentary, roughly translated as, “Outside Tibetan Separatist Cliques and the Southern Gansu self-immolations,” ran on the CCTV show, “Focus Today” and showed a Tibetan man in a hospital bed who allegedly attempted to self-immolate.

    Seemingly prompted to explain why he had attempted to light himself on fire, the man says, “I did it after watching VOA, I saw the photographs of self-immolators being commemorated. They were treated like heroes.”

    The documentary coincides with a story printed earlier this week in the English language government newspaper, China Daily, which also suggested that the American government broadcaster was influencing Tibetans’ decision to set themselves alight.

    Citing the example of one 18-year old Tibetan named Sangdegye, who attempted to self-immolate last December, the China Daily noted that he “adored the self-immolators VOA reported on,” citing them as “heroes.” 

    In addition to accusing VOA of inciting Tibetans to self-immolate, the CCTV piece also sensationally accuses the company of employing secret codes to send messages to people inside Tibet.

    VOA Director David Ensor categorically denies the accusations.

    In a press release issued by Voice of America on Wednesday after the Chinese stories came out, Ensor called the documentary’s accusations “totally false” and called the self-immolations a sign of distress in Tibet. 

    “We do report these tragic stories,” Ensor said from VOA’s headquarters in Washington D.C., “We do not encourage these self-immolations. That is wrong.”

    Regarding allegations that the American broadcaster was transmitting secret coded messages to Tibetans, Ensor said, “That is one of the more amazing parts of the CCTV report.  That suggestion is totally absurd.”

    Calls by NBC News to the VOA office in Beijing were referred back to their U.S. headquarters. VOA is asking that CCTV and the China Daily both retract their reports. 

    Voice of America has been broadcasting internationally since 1942 and serves as the American government’s official means of communicating with foreign populations.  Generating approximately 1,500 hours of content each week in 43 languages, the network has sometimes run afoul of foreign governments.

    Simmering tensions in Tibet
    Over the years, Tibet has become an increasingly sensitive topic for China’s ruling Communist Party. Dramatic protests by hundreds of Tibetan monks in 2008 in the provincial capital, Lhasa, and ethnic Tibetan areas around China forced Beijing to crackdown on what they call “separatist activities” incited by a “Dalai Lama clique.”

    Since then, a heavy military presence has installed itself in Tibetan towns and temples and foreign travel to the restive region has been curtailed. Foreign journalists have been unable to travel to Tibet except by invitation by the Foreign Ministry.

    A mass migration of ethnic Han Chinese to Tibetan areas for economic opportunities has many Tibet-watchers accusing China of eroding Tibetan culture and placing their economic benefits over those of poorer ethnic Tibetans.

    Visits to Tibetan regions outside of Tibet – forbidden now without permission from the government – by foreign media have shown similar rising tensions among ethnic Tibetans.

    The phenomenon of Tibetans self-immolating has been extensively covered by foreign press here in China, but is largely ignored by domestic media. A high-profile court case last week though made big news in local press as a Tibetan monk and his nephew were found guilty of “intentional suicide” and sentenced to a suspended death sentence with two year reprieve and 10-years in prison respectively.

    The pair was accused of inciting eight Tibetans to self-immolate, three of whom later died.

  • Wall-to-wall coverage of superstorm Sandy provokes controversy in China

    Slideshow: Sandy slams into East Coast

    Superstorm Sandy made landfall Monday evening on a destructive and deadly path across the Northeast.

    Launch slideshow

    By Ed Flanagan, NBC News

    BEIJING – As Hurricane Sandy barreled down on the Eastern Seaboard this week, a nation's eyes were glued to the extensive media coverage of the storm.

    We're talking about China, of course.

    Yes, the major American networks gave viewers non-stop updates of the storm's movements and the damage left in its wake, but Chinese state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV) was also in the game.

    With already more than 150 employees in Washington, D.C., alone – about a third of them Chinese nationals – CCTV boasts the means to provide extensive coverage of major events outside of its home country.

    However, just because CCTV can offer wall-to-wall coverage of Sandy – already being called the costliest storm in U.S. history – doesn't mean its audience is prepared to watch.

    Certainly not at the cost of local stories that Chinese viewers want to hear about.

    Trending topic
    As the storm played out and CCTV provided near-continuous coverage, comments on China's popular Twitter-like service, Weibo, exploded – over 6 million at this point, making it easily the biggest trending topic on the site. Many were overwhelmingly negative and criticized CCTV's handling of superstorm Sandy.

    Their complaint: CCTV was so singularly focused on coverage of the American storm that the Chinese state broadcaster had stopped covering news in China, ironically transforming instead into what many here called mockingly "the conscience of the United States."

    Or as a popular online cartoonist who goes by the pen name "Murong Aoao" sardonically put it: "CCTV is an excellent American media company."

    Courtesy Murong Aoao

    Murong Aoao's cartoon about Chinese TV coverage of Sandy.

    In a cartoon that has been shared more than 50,000 times on Weibo, Murong paints what appears to be a CCTV reporter or government employee pointing to what is assumed is the United States while calling out, "Look! His house is on fire!" all while he himself is ablaze.

    Asked why he drew the cartoon, Murong simply told NBC News: "It wasn't a big deal, it was just a way to ridicule the coverage."

    The cartoon encapsulates the anger that has been laced through much of the online dialogue over CCTV's coverage.

    China considers end to unpopular one-child policy

    Much of the frustration conveyed in Murong's cartoon is rooted in the fact that CCTV's reporting on the storm and other American disasters in the past often superseded local stories here in China that netizens believe demand coverage. Most noticeably, a week-long protest in the eastern city of Ningbo over local government plans to build a controversial chemical plant there has been ignored.

    In the eastern Chinese city of Ningbo officials have halted the planned expansion of a chemical plant, following days of public protests. ITN's China Correspondent Angus Walker reports.

    State media was allegedly warned not to cover the story and when thousands flocked to the streets of Ningbo to peacefully protest the plant, only foreign media could be seen in the city reporting on the gatherings, sparking applause from grateful locals.

    "CCTV sends lots of correspondents to the U.S. to report on Sandy," complained one irate user. "Why don't they have time for Ningbo, but plenty for America?"

    "Because the leaders' relatives are in the U.S., they care!" went the chorus of replies to the poster.

    NYT report: China leader's family has amassed billions in assets since '98

    Indeed, this notion that CCTV's Sandy coverage was more for the benefit of Chinese government officials – many of whom are known to have their family members and financial assets in the U.S. – than everyday people was a persistent joke underlying many of the posts in recent days.

    Aerial footage reveals devastation from New York City to North Carolina's Outer Banks in the wake of superstorm Sandy.

    "CCTV is not to blame, there are so many leaders' children and relatives studying and working in New York and the East Coast," wrote one Weibo user. "If CCTV does not report on these huge hurricanes when they happen, how will the leaders who don't speak English find out what's going on with their loved ones?"

    The secret to a perfect smile? Chopsticks, Chinese officials are told

    Despite the biting cynicism, frustration and humor conveyed by Web users about CCTV's Sandy coverage, the overwhelming message on Weibo was concern and support for those who had suffered due to the storm.

    One day after Sandy slammed into the East Coast, NBC News' Lester Holt reports on the record-breaking hybrid storm system that swamped neighborhoods, paralyzed the nation's biggest city, and left millions of families from the Carolinas to Ohio without power.

    Messages from families and friends attempting to reconnect with loved ones in the affected areas and heartfelt posts of support for Americans coming out of the storm were continuing well into Wednesday.

    They reveal a friendly, empathetic connection between China and the United States that all too often is lost in the often daily rounds of political bashing from both sides of the Pacific.

    NBC News' Yanzhou Liu and Johanna Armstrong contributed to this report.

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  • China state television host calls to 'clean out foreign trash,' then apologizes (sorta)

    CCTV

    Yang Rui, host of CCTV-9's English-language talk show, Dialogue, is under fire for a microblog posting he made last week calling for the China to "Clean out foreign garbage."

    By Ed Flanagan, NBC News

    BEIJING – Following recent high-profile examples of foreigners behaving badly in China, last week saw a spike of anti-foreigner sentiment that culminated in the announcement of a hundred day Beijing police crackdown on illegal immigration.

    Among the commentators who applauded the crackdown was Yang Rui, a television host on China’s state-run English-language TV network, CCTV-9. On his microblog on China’s Twitter-like service, Weibo, Yang posted a bile-laden diatribe on how China’s Public Security Bureau should deal with foreigners (Thanks to China Smack for the translation):

    "The Ministry of Public Security must clean out foreign garbage, arrest foreign thugs and protect ignorant/innocent girls, with Wudaokou (popular student area in Beijing) and Sanlitun (bar & restaurant district in Beijing] being the disaster areas [worst places]. Behead the snake heads [human traffickers], the unemployed Americans and Europeans who come to China to make money, trafficking in people, misleading the public and encouraging them to emigrate. Identify the foreign spies, who find a Chinese woman to cohabitate with, while their job is to collect intelligence, drawing maps and perfecting GPS [coordinates] for Japan, Korea, Europe, and America under the guise of being tourists. Drive out the foreign shrew, shut down Al Jazeera’s Beijing office, let those who demonize China shut their mouths!"

    The vitriol in Yang’s post is appalling but is made all the more worse by his day job. Yang co-hosts “Dialogue,” a current event news talk program in the vein of “Meet the Press” or the “Charlie Rose Show.” On his program, Yang invites foreign experts to discuss topical world and China-related news.

    That Yang holds such inflammatory opinions of foreigners is worrying, given that he’s the host of one of CCTV’s more venerable news programs charged with providing a forum for the civil exchange of ideas and opinions between China and the outside world.

    Ad hominem attacks on foreigners aside, particularly of concern are Yang’s charges that foreign spies have infiltrated China, at a time when Chinese suspicions of foreigners are already running high.

    Yang’s comments come after a series of high-profile incidents that have provoked extreme nationalist rhetoric in public debate: sovereignty in the South China Sea, American re-commitment to Asia and the recent kidnapping of Chinese fishing vessels by North Korea.

    Guests who have appeared on Yang’s show have contributed to the negative fall-out.

    The Atlantic’s James Fallows –who during his years in China occasionally appeared on the program– posted a piece on his blog about what it was like to appear on “Dialogue.”

    Similarly, Charlie Custer, founder of the tech blog China Geeks and a two-time guest on the show also expressed his outrage and even confronted Yang on Weibo about his post.

    Yang responded on Weibo by calling for the Public Security Bureau to investigate Custer and even threatened to sue him.

    One thing that is clear from the reaction registered by Fallows, Custer, and other foreign guests is that it’s about to get a little bit harder for Yang to find foreigners willing to appear on his show.

    Explanation or apology?

    NBC News attempted to call Yang; an email sent to him today went unanswered. But the embattled host penned a statement in today’s edition of the Global Times, apparently as a response to a Wall Street Journal story about the incident.

    CCTV

    CCTV-9 host, Yang Rui.

    In this statement, Yang claimed his comments were a reaction to last week’s news and a “wake-up call” for both Westerners and Chinese people. While he acknowledged that there was a “silent majority in the expat communities who obey and respect our culture and society,” by singling out the “foreign trash,” Yang argues he was “protecting the reputation of decent Westerners.”

    However, he stood by his comments on Al Jazeera and the “foreign shrew,” a reference to Al Jazeera correspondent, Melissa Chan, who earlier this month became the first foreign reporter to be expelled from China in more than a decade.

    Yang remains unapologetic about his characterization of Chan, only making the point that translations of his post had mislabeled her “b—ch” instead of “shrew.”

    China is currently investing millions of dollars into what have been branded as “soft power” initiatives, designed to improve the mainland’s global standing. They include the development of enterprises such as CCTV America, China’s new 24-hour cable news channel seen in the United States, which is meant to provide a more polished and China-centric interpretation of world news.   

    The success of such programming will rely significantly on China’s willingness to provide a measured and open look at itself. But that willingness looks threatened by rhetoric such as Yang's.

    Update:

    Popular purveyors of animated news media, Next Media Animation, have also looked at the Yang Rui issue:

     

    More world news from msnbc.com and NBC News:

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  • Celebrating China's New Years Gala Superfans

    Xinhua

    Popular actor and singer Jay Chou (R) and actress Lin Chiling perform during a rehearsal of the Spring Festival Gala Evening.

    By Ed Flanagan, NBC News

    BEIJING – China returned to work this week after another Chinese New Year highlighted by the traditional talking points: the scarcity of train tickets, the constant cacophony of fireworks and gossip over one of the country’s most watched shows, the CCTV Spring Festival Gala.

    The Gala, an annual television event since the eighties, is a show heavy on singing, acrobatic performances, magic and cross-talk – the popular form of pun-heavy comedic dialogue akin to Albert & Costello.

    Molded in the image of variety shows once popular in America, the Gala has become a modern institution here in China not unlike “Dick Clark's New Year's Rockin' Eve” or the annual showing of movies like “It’s a Wonderful Life” and “A Christmas Story” during the holiday season.

    Though it is still one of the biggest annual draws, bringing in over 700 million viewers every year, the Gala’s numbers have steadily declined in recent years due to a perceived over-commercialization of the show and a staleness of content that has started to wear on an increasingly sophisticated Chinese television audience.

    It is a familiar problem that has manifested itself in other state produced content. The People’s Daily, China’s most read daily newspaper with a circulation of three to four million readers has over the years years garnered a reputation of being drab and chock full of lackluster propaganda. That dullness was captured last year when popular China blog, Danwei.org, demonstrated how the state-run paper had notoriously used the exact same layout for its National People’s Congress coverage from 2004-2009.

    Courtesy of Danwei.org

    The front page coverage of the annual National People's Congress from state-run newspaper, The People's Daily, looks eerily familiar from year to year.

    Top: 2004, 2005, 2006; Bottom: 2007, 2008, 2009

    Similarly, despite attempts in recent years to freshen up the look and feel of the show, CCTV’s “7PM Network News Hour,” has also slowly bled viewers over the years due to complaints about the unchanging format of the show and its content.

    Sina

    Laughing Brother at the 2011 CCTV Spring Festival Gala

    Despite numbers that would make any news network in the world blush – an estimated 135 million viewers a night – the show is often caustically described as consisting of three segments: 1) See how hard our leaders work for us; 2) See how prosperous our country is; and 3) See how terrible the rest of the world has it.

    Given the way these two institutions of Chinese propaganda have been treated, it’s no small surprise the size and pointed earnestness of the Gala has made it a popular target for lampooners and cynics who have grown tired of the forced cheer and watered-down entertainment that is demanded by state censors and the need to appeal to such a mass audience.

    Sina

    Laughing Brother at the 2004 CCTV Spring Festival Gala

    As with any other production of similar scale and cost, the Gala has become a lightning rod for accusations of plagiarism and a favorite for rooting out production mistakes inevitable with live television. Perhaps most famous of these in recent times have been the flubbed lines from the “Black Three Minutes,” when during the 2007 gala, five hosts flubbed their lines, leading to some embarrassed "dead air" on live television, uproarious audience laughter and an alleged furious backstage fight between the famous hosts.

    This year’s favorite though, has been ten years in the making. There has long been debate about just who makes up the audience at these highly orchestrated affairs. Prominent businessmen, government workers and celebrities are expected of course, but many have speculated that the studio audience is also heavily stacked with what the Chinese call, longtao, or “Utility Men.”

    Sina

    Laughing Brother at the 2001 CCTV Spring Festival Gala

    Their role? As paid audience members -- to laugh, applaud and cheer at all the right moments.

    The presence of longtao at the Gala has long been suspected and some have even been picked out by eagle-eyed Gala watchers. However, one netizen has picked out the king of them all: the man Chinese are fondly calling online, “Laughing Brother.”

    In an amazing show of netizen sleuthing, someone at the popular Chinese web-portal, Sina, found video-proof of a longtao who has been at every gala over the last decade. In each shot, he can be seen smiling broadly or applauding enthusiastically, doing his part to ensure success and glory for the show.

    The posting has been enthusiastically received online in China, spurred on in no small part by the obvious jovial nature of “Laughing Brother” and the very apparent need for his special services in the first place.  

    While this incident can be interpreted as another egg on CCTV’s collective face, it also is simply another manifestation of the savvy and sophistication Chinese netizens have shown in bringing a sense of humor and a degree of accountability to Chinese popular society.

    Or it could just be another compelling reason for China’s propaganda machine to lighten up.