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Journalism of Courage
On bus-stop billboards, newspaper front pages and television news broadcasts, in school classrooms, factory study groups and student counseling sessions, at forums and meetings all across China, the Communist Party propaganda apparatus has been spreading the word from President Hu Jintao: Do good and avoid evil.
Hu8217;s fatherly advice, in the form of eight do8217;s and don8217;ts, was issued two weeks ago as an antidote to the corruption and cynicism spreading across China, a result of the often raw capitalism that has emerged during 25 years of dramatic economic change. Although his aphorisms may sound simplistic to Western ears 8212; Work hard, don8217;t be lazy and Be honest, not profit-mongering 8212; Chinese analysts said they were a response to a deep-seated desire among people here for a moral compass to guide them through the unsettling transformation.
8216;8216;There is a feeling that things have been going wrong,8217;8217; said Kang Xiaoguang, a social sciences researcher at the Chinese Academy of Science. 8216;8216;So when I hear him say that, I say, 8216;Good. It should have been said a long time ago.8217; 8217;8217;
Many Chinese would agree. The Communist Party8217;s traditional values of egalitarianism and service to the poor have largely faded away, they complain, in favor of a get-rich ideology that blurs the distinction between officials and entrepreneurs. The strait-laced morals of Mao Zedong8217;s time, they note, have relaxed to the point that bribes are part of doing business and prostitution is practiced openly.
In addition, the party8217;s reputation for corrupt land seizures has contributed heavily to often violent peasant unrest, making the need to re-burnish the government8217;s legitimacy more urgent. Since taking over as party leader and President three years ago, Hu has been reaching for the right formula.
Under his orders, the party has been engaged in an 18-month retraining program to fire up its 70 million members. Hu has declared that the country must pursue 8216;8216;scientific development,8217;8217; taking environmental and social concerns into account as the economy grows. And he repeatedly has urged China8217;s 1.3 billion people to create a 8216;8216;harmonious society,8217;8217; in which competing interest groups, such as farmers and businessmen, settle differences without conflict.
8216;8216;It is a step-by-step program,8217;8217; Kang said. 8216;8216;I think he has a blueprint in his heart.8217;8217; Some party analysts have suggested Hu8217;s preaching is not enough, that the country should slow the pace of economic reforms and reemphasize the benefits that came with socialism, such as health care and guaranteed employment.
Hu and his premier, Wen Jiabao, have resisted the calls, which some analysts say have more to do with jockeying for position than genuine policy disagreements. But the two leaders have clearly indicated they believe headlong economic growth should be tempered by greater concern for the people left behind, particularly farmers.
Having risen through the ranks in the Communist Youth League, with its Boy Scout-like code, Hu, 63, seems to have turned naturally toward a campaign appealing for cleaner living as part of the answer to corruption and cynicism. In a speech last year to cadres training at the Central Party School, he suggested that the solution lies in renewing traditional Marxist thought, revisiting the best of Mao Zedong8217;s policies and reviving ancient Chinese culture, including Confucianism.
Of the three, Kang said, Hu looks to Chinese culture as the most likely to provide moral values. So when he sat down with a group of delegates to the National People8217;s Congress on March 4, Hu harked back to a long Chinese tradition that stipulates leaders are supposed to urge moral conduct on their followers.
8216;8216;Love the motherland, do not harm it,8217;8217; he said. 8216;8216;Be disciplined and law-abiding, not chaotic and lawless.8217;8217; In all, he recited eight such rules, which he called 8216;8216;the eight glories and the eight shames.8217;8217;
The official New China News Agency called them 8216;8216;a perfect amalgamation of traditional Chinese values and modern virtues.8217;8217; The People8217;s Political Consultative Conference, the other house in China8217;s bicameral legislature, passed a resolution saying, 8216;8216;Let it be a paragon and common practice of the times.8217;8217;
Despite the noise generated by party propaganda organs, some Chinese questioned whether Hu8217;s preaching would ever reach officials in the small towns and villages where disenchantment with the party is strongest. 8216;8216;It won8217;t even get to provincial capitals,8217;8217; said Kang, the social scientist.
Even in Beijing, a group of recent graduates from prestigious Peking University, all of whom work in government-connected jobs, said they had not heard of the eight aphorisms after more than a week of the campaign.
And in Inner Mongolia8217;s distant Tongliao City, Bai Lianhua, a 46-year-old homemaker, said in a telephone conversation that she had no idea what they were. 8216;8216;I guess it8217;s the same kind of thing as the harmonious society, right?8217;8217; she said. Edward Cody
