Chinese Blogger Chosen As Head of Investigation

Lew Perin writes "China hasn't developed much of a reputation for government transparency. And in Yunnan province, the case of a guy who died in police custody was starting to look like a cover up. But then the provincial government startled everyone by choosing a prominent local blogger to head the official investigation into the death. 'The unorthodox move to make popular bloggers heads of an investigation committee is a tacit admission by the Yunnan government of the power of the internet — especially blogs — in shaping Chinese public opinion. It also belies the widespread suspicion of the official version of Li's death.'"

Comments

Skids greased?

[palegray.net]

I wonder how much they're paying this prominent local blogger. There might be other methods of persuasion involved, too... forgive me for my automatic suspicion of any "investigation" the Chinese government conducts.

Re:Skids greased?

[mea37]

I don't trust them either, but I also know that I'm in no position to know one way or the other. Everything I "know" about the Chinese government, I heard from someone else.

I read an interview with some journalist -- I can't remember who at the moment, but it's not important -- in which he described the difference between skepticism and cynicism as the difference between "I don't know; I'm going to find out" vs. "I already know; I don't need to find out".

Of course, most Americans (including myself, I assume including you) aren't in a position to "find out". We can watch and wait, but even in the end we'll get information filtered through many hands we can choose to trust or not trust. If the blogger finds evidence that supports the story was being covered up, will we trust the people who say it proves the idea worked or those who say the blogger had an axe to grind? If he finds no evidence, will we trust those who say there was nothing to find, or those who say it proves the whole thing was a stunt? And that's if we ever see any follow-up to this story at all...

So I want to take a skeptical view when any government makes a move like this. It feels like it could be a pubilcity stunt. But I also know that barring a major change in my career and lifestyle, I cannot know for sure who is, or isn't, making an honest effort.

(Note that my above comment is not limited to the Chinese government. There's a definite propaganda spin that can be read from "embedded reporters", too.)

Absent the ability to independently verify, I guess the difference between a cynic and a skeptic is intent. So here's my question for everyone who claims standing to presume the intentions of the Chinese government: If presented with evidence that this was legit, would you hear it or would you dismiss it out of hand?

Re:Skids greased?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm interested enough in China to have learned Mandarin and visited several times.

My impression is that central govt is genuinely trying to implement reforms, particularly in the legal system. I don't think they are interested in human rights but they understand the importance of uncorrupt institutions to prosperity.

However, these reforms are usually stymied by the local corruption they are trying to root out. China is a big place.

This effort with the blogger may well be genuine. It may well come to nothing.

My 2 cents.

Re:Skids greased?

[Ash Vince]

Do you speak and write fluent Chinese?

No? In which case one part of the internet will always be China's Internet while the English bit is everyones. This is because everyone speaks English as a second language.

We cannot moan about being excluded from certain discussions simply because most of the people directly affected by the discussion choose to have the discussion in their first language rather than ours.

Re:Skids greased?

[Daemonax]

Having also spent some time in China I completely agree with you. From what I've seen coming out from the central government they are really trying to improve things, but the local government branches are very corrupt. My favourite examples are the illegal brothels that just pay off police and others. You can often seen a police office situated right next to a brothel in some areas. Now this doesn't mean that I'm against prostition, I just think it's a simple example of the corruption there.

Re:Skids greased?

[jandersen]

I don't think they are interested in human rights but they understand the importance of uncorrupt institutions to prosperity.

I think you are probably wrong there. For one thing, Communism is, despite what we've all been told over and over, about the rights of common people; go and look it up if you care. They are not the same set of rights that people in the US subscribe to, but "The Universal Declaration of Human Rights" was, after all, something drawn up by the UN just after WWII - ie by the US, UK and France, mostly, and consequently it reflects values that are very Eurocentric and very Capitalistic.

Another thing is that people far too often assume that politicians in general are completely void of any sort of idealism and higher principles, which I think is manifestly untrue - even in America. Wasn't the problem with the Bush administration that they were too idealistic - that their belief in their ideology overruled their grasp of reality? A pragmatic leader would never have thrown the country into a war in Iraq or given gigantic tax cuts to the richest in the belief that this would somehow be good for everybody, in spite of what common sense and a hundred years of experience tells us.

In fact, I think politicians in general are more likely to be idealists than the average person. It's just that in the US, their ideology is very often some twisted version of fundamentalist Christianity or Ultra-Capitalism, whereas in China they are more likely to base their ideals on Communism - which is, when you think about it, a version of Humanism. To me, what makes the big difference is whether you believe your ideals are more important than people's lives and reality in general; and as far as I can see, the current Chinese leaders believe more in reality than in ideals. Which is good.

Re:Kid's game

[A. B3ttik]

What, the next time they'll say a guy died from playing patty-cake in prison?

Obviously you've never been forced to play "Patty-cake" in a prison.

Typical day in the life of a blogger

[Gizzmonic]

The faded gold lettering on the door says "Philip Marlowe." My digs aren't in the greatest part of town, but that suits me just fine. I'm a blogger-one of the few honest ones out there. Work was a little slow-I was spending some time on important research-reading Slashdot. I was just about to hit the submit button on a post entitled "Frosty Piss!" when the dame shrugged her way through my door. If I'd have known what was going to happen next, I would have stuck to trolling.

She was tall for an Oriental, but not unappealing. She wore a black silk dress cut in traditional Chinese manner, studded with soft pink roses. Her eyes were black and silky as the dress. They didn't stay still. "Are you Marlowe?" she asked, scanning the room.

"Sure," I replied diffidently.

"Your blogging reputation proceeds you. The Chinese government has a job for you."

"Nuts to that. I don't work for commies."

"I could make it worth your while, Mr. Marlowe."

"If I sold out to every fancy-pants who walked through that door, would I be working in this place?"

"I understand your position, Marlowe, but listen. There's a 24-year-old kid who got beaten to death while in police custody. The police say it was from playing hide-and-seek. We need an official investigation, and you're the best investigational blogger we know."

"Sure it wasn't from 'ring around the rosie'?" I smirked nastily. She took a sharp breath.

"Listen, Marlowe, don't you want to help improve the situation? I know you've had certain...shall we say...run-ins with hyperactive authority figures in the past. Surely this could help your reputation."

"MY reputation?" I practically yelled. "Lady, I've been called a troll, a spammer, and an astroturfer more times than you can count on your abacus. I've been modded down, banned, accused of violating TOSs, but I'm still here. So don't think you can tell me about my reputation. I'll do it for $100/day plus expenses."

"Very good, Mr. Marlowe," she purred.

"Oh, and one more thing," I stood up and got my hat. "I'd better be on the official Chinese government blogroll by sundown, or you're gonna have to find yourself a new patsy."

Re:Credibility at last?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm still waiting to see a good argument that traditional journalists are still necessary, and cannot be completely replaced by enthusiastic amateur bloggers and a good aggregation service. I'm not saying such an argument does not exist, but I'm still waiting to see it.

Enthusiastic amateur bloggers can't afford to travel across the world. Most bloggers just take content that's created by traditional journalists and then provide analysis and aggregation. Without traditional journalists, there wouldn't be many bloggers. I respect what bloggers do, but let's face it, most of their work rides on the coattails of real journalists and other bloggers.

Old strategy

[mewsenews]

My father told me once that my Grandfather was a poor student and had discipline problems. One of his teachers noticed his rebellious attitude and successfully countered it by giving him additional responsibilities over his classmates.

I think it's a variation on the adage "if you can't beat'em, join'em". If you are in a position of power and someone is criticising the way things are being handled, invite them to help you handle them. They will be forced to put up or shut up, and if they criticise further they will be criticising themselves, which humans don't enjoy doing publicly.

China gave us Sun Tzu and the Art of War, they have an ancient civilization that was only opened with opium, black powder, and cannonballs. Their everyday politics are probably fascinating.

some background

[gzipped_tar]

In case you are interested, here's some background info based on my readings..

The victim who died in police custody, Li, is a criminal suspect waiting for his trial in custody (according to Chinese court procedure). His death, according to the police, was the result of a physical conflict between him and another suspect. It was believed that the two suspects quarrelled over a dispute after playing some kind of game to kill time (games are usually forbidden, but they did it when the policemen were not watching). The quarrel escalated to physical conflict and Li, who was substantially weaker than his adversary, succumbed to his blow.

Li's death raised serious concern among "the blogosphere". It was suspected that Li might be a victim of torture by the police. Rumor has it that torture is a common practice of the Chinese police, and this is an often-discussed topic here.

The investigate which took place Friday proved to be very difficult. According to Chinese law, most information from the custodians are classified (e.g. security video record). The investigation team also tried to interview Li's attacker, but they were refused because the only one allowed to exchange information with the pre-trial suspect is his attorney. The blogger (whose moniker is "end tip of the wind") was far from being a professional investigator. He apparently lacked a grasp of criminal law and court procedures, and wasted much time on the stuff he had no hope of obtaining from the beginning. (I guess he needed an "IANAL" tag from /.)

The problem with this affair is the timing. Everything happened in the short time window of pre-trial custody, the least transparent period of criminal prosecution. This gave arise to reasonable questions as well as wild guesses.

They should have sent a pro. This blogger was supposed to be part of a gesture of "transparency" but he's a noob. IMHO he only made the situation worse. Conspiracy? Maybe or maybe not.

Disclaimer: I'm a Chinese (teh horror!) and IANAL (of course).

Re:Autonomy

[gzipped_tar]

Yunnan is not an autonomous region. There does have quite a few autonomous prefectures/towns there, though.

Re:tacit?

[adamchou]

I'm sorry, but you clearly don't know the definition of tacit

See here for the correct definition: http://www.tfd.com/tacit

Definition 2 clearly states "Implied by or inferred from actions or statements". The action in this case is appointing the blogger the head of investigation

so the reality of the situation is, it might make people look dumb when you incorrectly use a word, but you're making people dumber by getting modded up for incorrectly using a word.