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Media, the Olympics and the Search for the “Real China”*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 March 2009

Kevin Latham
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Abstract

The Beijing Olympics were about more than just sporting competition. They were about China and its role on the international stage. The Games were explicitly recognized for their role showcasing China's economic, technological, cultural, social and environmental achievements to the rest of the world. The Beijing Games were therefore inevitably going to lead to a process of contestation between competing representations, understandings and identifications of China, and a common motif of this process became the designation of what is or is not the “real China.” This article focuses on the notion of the “real China” and the debates and contestations surrounding it in Chinese and foreign media over the months running up to and during the Olympics. It will identify what these debates and contending claims about the “real China” may reveal for a broader understanding of the role of media in the country and our need to rethink our approaches to both.

Type
Special Section on the Beijing 2008 Olympics
Information
The China Quarterly , Volume 197 , March 2009 , pp. 25 - 43
Copyright
Copyright © The China Quarterly 2009

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References

1 Polumbaum, Judith, “Capturing the flame: aspirations and representations of Beijing's 2008 Olympics,” in Lee, C.C. (ed.), Chinese Media, Global Contexts (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003), p. 72Google Scholar.

2 Ibid. p. 68; official website of the Beijing Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games at http://en.beijing2008.cn/bocog/concepts/index.shtml, accessed 20 June 2007.

3 Official website of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games at http://en.beijing2008.cn/ceremonies/headlines/n214584113.shtml, accessed 22 October 2008; also reported by Xinhua/China Daily at http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/olympics/2008-08/24/content_6966841.htm, accessed 22 October 2008.

4 The most common term used to refer to the “real China” in this context is zhenshi Zhongguo. It can be translated differently in different contexts to give other connotations, such as the “true China” with connotations of authenticity. In some instances this could be important, but in general these alternatives only beg the same set of questions about accuracy of representation, the relation between representation and reality and the assessment of truthfulness as “real China.” In this article I use the latter term throughout.

5 Haojun, Tan, “Zhongguowang: Beijing Aoyun, rang shijie liaojie zhenshi de Zhongguo” (“China Net: the Beijing Olympics, let the world understand the real China”), Renminwang (People's Daily Website), 21 August 2008Google Scholar, at http://2008.people.com.cn/GB/128225/128446/7699393.html, accessed 28 October 2008.

6 See e.g. Richard Spencer, “Beijing Olympics: faking scandal over girl who ‘sang’ in opening ceremony,” 12 August 2008, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/olympics/2545387/Beijing-Olympics-Faking-scandal-over-girl-who-sang-in-opening-ceremony.html, accessed 28 October 2008; Garvin, Glenn, “Olympic fakery makes plain China's contempt for reality,” The Miami Herald, 17 August 2008Google Scholar, at http://www.miamiherald.com/news/issues//story/643942.html, accessed 28 October 2008; Sportsmail Reporter, “Viewers conned by fake footage of opening ceremony at the Beijing Olympic Games,” Mail Online, 12 August 2008, at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/olympics/article-1043857/Viewers-conned-fake-footage-opening-ceremony-Beijing-Olympic-Games.html, accessed 28 October 2008; Branigan, Tania, “Olympics: child singer revealed as fake,” The Guardian online, 12 August 2008Google Scholar, at http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2008/aug/12/olympics2008.china1, accessed 28 October 2008.

7 See e.g. Price, Monroe E. and Dayan, Daniel et al. , Owning the Olympics: Narratives of the New China (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Close, Paul, Askew, David and Xin, Xu, The Beijing Olympiad: the Political Economy of a Sporting Mega-event (Abingdon: Routledge, 2006)Google Scholar; Brownell, Susan, Beijing's Games: What the Olympics Mean to China (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008)Google Scholar; Jarvie, Grant, Hwang, Dong-Jhy and Brennan, Mel, Sport, Revolution and the Beijing Olympics (Oxford: Berg, 2005)Google Scholar.

8 E.g. “Zhuanfang zai bali jihui yanjiang de liuxuesheng lixuan: xinhe zuguo yiqi tiaodong” (“Special interview with overseas student in Paris Li Xuan: heart beating together with the homeland”), Xinhua Online, 22 April 2008, at http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2008-04/23/content_8031923.htm, accessed 28 October 2008; He Zhenhua, “Renmin ribao: rang gengduo ren liaojie zhenshi de Zhongguo” (“People's Daily: let more people understand the real China”), 23 April 2008, at http://opinion.people.com.cn/GB/7152624.html, accessed 28 October 2008; Yuqing, Gu, “The complete text of overseas student Li Xuan's spirited speech” (“Liuxuesheng lixuan de jingcai jiangyan quanwen”), Yangcheng Evening News, 21 April 2008Google Scholar, at http://www.ycwb.com/news/2008-04/21/content_1869215.htm, accessed 29 October 2008.

9 “Special interview with Li Xuan.”

10 It is beyond the scope of this article to examine the details of what happened in Tibet and the various contested versions of events published in the Chinese and foreign media. For a useful eyewitness account from a Western journalist in Lhasa at the time see Miles, James, “Midnight ultimatum for Tibet showdown,” Times Online, 17 March 2008Google Scholar, at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article3564470.ece, accessed 29 October 2008, and Miles, James, “Lhasa under siege,” The Economist, 17 March 2008Google Scholar, at http://www.economist.com/daily/news/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10871821&top_story=1.

11 The English version of the anti-CNN website (www.anti-cnn.com) also has a forum section entitled “Real China.” The Chinese forums offer a rather more complex array of perspectives on the topic including: “Zhongguo kan shijie” (“China sees the world”), “Shijie kan Zhongguo” (“The world sees China”) and “Keaide Zhongguo” (“Loveable China”), http://www.anti-cnn.com/forum/cn/, accessed 24 October 2008.

12 E.g. Xinwen 1 + 1 (News 1 + 1), CCTV News Channel, 28 March 2008, used the anti-CNN website as a central point of reference in discussing the issue. Newspaper coverage included Zhejiang's Qianjiang wanbao (Qianjiang Evening News), 7 April 2008, p. C2; Xian wanbao (Xi'an Evening News), 28 March 2008, also available at http://www.xawb.com/gb/news/2008-03/28/content_1447448.htm, accessed 24 October 2008, and http://news.xinhuanet.com/newmedia/2008-03/27/content_7872793.htm.

13 Western media coverage was not as univocal as the Chinese stereotype would have it. Indeed, despite the errors and mistakes identified by anti-cnn.com and others, there was often a rigorous effort made by Western journalists to offer measured accounts of what went on in Lhasa. This included on occasions reports that supported key aspects of the official Chinese version of events, such as the ethnically motivated attacks on Han Chinese by rioting Tibetans (see e.g. James Miles, “Transcript: James Miles interview on Tibet,” at http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/03/20/tibet.miles.interview/, 20 March 2008, accessed 28 October 2008). I also heard from Chinese journalists that Chinese media, caught unawares by the events in Lhasa, had had to rely upon confiscated foreign media photos and film for some of their early accounts of events. This came from a reliable source but is clearly uncorroborated.

14 Anti-foreign media sentiment was often evident in general discussions during this period of my fieldwork, but also in focus group discussions among university students and school-leavers. In these discussions I encountered a range of opinions including those hostile to foreign bias. However, opinions rarely fell into black-and-white categories of simply pro- or anti-foreign media or critical/uncritical of Chinese media. Most informants revealed a critical attitude to all media regardless of its origin, and judged reports and information on a case-by-case basis. Some of those most critical of the Chinese media could also be critical of foreign media bias and even then there was a range of different kinds of critiques and dissatisfactions with both kinds of media. It is beyond the scope of this article to detail them here.

15 Yardley, Jim, “Chinese police clash With Tibet protesters,” New York Times, 15 March 2008Google Scholar, also available at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/15/world/asia/15tibet.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin, accessed 28 October 2008. Cf. also e.g. AFP “Seven killed in Tibetan protests: China,” published 15 March 2008 and also carried by Australia's ABC News at http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/03/15/2190418.htm, accessed 28 October 2008.

16 E.g. The Economist's James Miles said: “I was expecting all along that they were going to call me up and tell me to leave Lhasa immediately. I think what restrained them from doing that, one very important factor in this, was the thoughts of the Olympic Games that are going to be staged in Beijing in August.” In “Transcript: James Miles interview on Tibet.”

17 Wang Aiying, “Pinglun: rang shijie kandao zhenshi de zhongguo” (“Critique: let the world see the real China”), enorth.com.cn (beifangwang), at http://news.enorth.com.cn/system/2008/05/20/003294279.shtml, accessed 28 October 2008.

18 Only one reply to the question was broadcast, that from the US-educated representative from BOCOG who gave an innocuous reply avoiding the potentially interesting issues that could have been covered. She said it was important to show the real China but also to respect the sensibilities of others. Incidentally, when a recording of the programme was replayed to focus groups of university students in Beijing shortly after its broadcast, it was generally derided and not considered at all a serious programme because of its heavy propagandistic construction and presentation.

19 So many such stories were published or broadcast over this period by many different kinds of foreign media that it is impossible to give comprehensive references. Examples readily found online might include: James Reynolds' blog on the BBC website; Peter Simpson's reports from Beijing for the South China Morning Post; Sangay, Lobsang, “Tibetans in exile feeling their homeland's pain,” International Herald Tribune, 6 July 2008Google Scholar; Drew, Jill, “Before Games, China puts conflict on hold: as state urges citizens to keep quiet on grievances, anger turns to violence,” Washington Post, 8 July 2008Google Scholar.

20 “Meili dajiao kuayue gujin” (“Beautiful footprint cuts across past and present”), Jinghua shibao, 9 August 2008, p. 12.

21 Spencer, Richard, “Beijing Olympic 2008 opening ceremony giant firework footprints ‘faked’,” The Daily Telegraph, 10 August 2008Google Scholar, available at http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/othersports/olympics/2534499/Beijing-Olympic-2008-opening-ceremony-giant-firework-footprints-faked.html, accessed 29 October 2008.

22 Again reporting of the girls' singing story was so widespread in overseas English language media that it is not possible to give comprehensive references. For examples see n. 6.

23 Fan, Feng, Xiuping, Sun, Xinping, Wang, Peizhao, Huang, Zhongwen, Zhao, Shuangcheng, Ji, Gang, Cheng and Yonghong, Ma, “Zhenshi Zhongguo ling shijie qinqie” (“The real China brings the world closer”), Global Times, 13 August 2008, p. 1Google Scholar.

24 See www.china.com.cn. Haojun, Tan, “Zhongguowang: beijing aoyun, rang shijie liaojie zhenshi de zhongguo” (“China net: the Beijing Olympics, let the world understand the real China”), Renmin wang (People's Daily Website), 21 August 2008Google Scholar, at http://2008.people.com.cn/GB/128225/128446/7699393.html, accessed 28 October 2008.

25 Ibid.

26 Ibid.

27 Latham, Kevin, “Nothing but the truth: news media, power and hegemony in south China,” The China Quarterly, No. 163 (2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

28 Feng Fan et al., “The real China brings the world closer.”

29 Ibid.

30 “Peiluoxi: shijiede liangxin?” (“Pelosi: the world's conscience?”), first broadcast at 10 p.m., 1 April 2008 on the CCTV News Channel.

31 See e.g. Subler, Jason, “China condemns Pelosi comments on torch relay,” Reuters, 9 April 2008Google Scholar, online at http://www.reuters.com/article/reutersComService_2_MOLT/idUSPEK749620080409.

32 I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for pointing out that bu liaojie might also often be used as a euphemism to indicate that what is not “understood” is that certain things simply cannot be said openly in China: it is tacitly acknowledged to the commentator that they have grasped the “truth,” but they are reprimanded for not understanding that it should not be spoken in public. On how similar tacit understandings are crucial in contemporary Chinese journalism see also Latham, Kevin, “Media and the limits of cynicism in ‘post-socialist’ China,” in West, H. and Raman, P. (eds.), Enduring Socialism: Explorations of Revolution and Transformation, Restoration and Continuation. (Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2008)Google Scholar.

33 For critiques see e.g. Spence, Jonathan D., The Chan's Great Continent: China in Western Minds (New York: W. W. Norton, 1998)Google Scholar; Mackerras, Colin, Western Images of China (Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 1989)Google Scholar; Jesperson, T. Christopher, American Images of China, 1931–1949 (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996)Google Scholar. In relation to the external observer's position consider e.g. “Though framed by the particular experiences of specific groups, our chapters all point beyond themselves, offering windows into Chinese culture as a whole” (italics added) in Link, Perry, Madsen, Richard and Pickowicz, Paul G., Unofficial China: Popular Culture in the People's Republic (Boulder: Westview Press, 1989)Google Scholar, p. 6. Theatrical metaphors and accounts of Chinese theatre have also reinforced such positioning: see e.g. Zito, Angela, “Ritualizing Li: implications for studying power and gender,” Positions, Vol. 1, No. 2 (1993), pp. 321–48CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Kevin Latham, “Cantonese opera in Hong Kong: an anthropological investigation of cultural practices of appreciation and performance in the early 1990s,” unpublished PhD Thesis, University of London, 1995, pp. 7–44.

34 Consider e.g. Doolittle, Justus, The Social Life of the Chinese: A Daguerreotype of Daily Life in China (London: Sampson Low, Son and Marston, 1868)Google Scholar with the evocation of photographic realism through the “daguerreotype”; also e.g. Holcombe, Chester, The Real Chinaman (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1895)Google Scholar.

35 Farquhar, Judith B. and Hevia, James L., “Culture and postwar American historiography of China,” Positions, Vol. 1, No. 2 (1993), p. 488CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

36 Wang, for instance writes of the fifth-generation filmmakers: “Their film works came across as a compelling historical lesson for Western audiences, who, emerging out of decades of information blockage, finally got a few glimpses of real China” (Wang, Ban, “In search of real-life images in China: realism in the age of spectacle,” Journal of Contemporary China, Vol. 17, No. 56 (2008), pp. 497–512CrossRefGoogle Scholar). See also e.g. Chow, Rey, Primitive Passions: Visuality, Sexuality, Ethnography and Contemporary Chinese Cinema. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995)Google Scholar; Zhang, , Xudong, , Chinese Modernism in the Era of Reforms: Cultural Fever, Avant-garde Fiction and the New Chinese Cinema (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997)Google Scholar.

37 E.g. Ang, Ien, On Not Speaking Chinese: Living between Asia and the West (London: Routledge, 2001)Google ScholarPubMed; Chow, Rey (ed.), Modern Chinese Literary and Cultural Studies in the Age of Theory (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Chun, Allen, “Fuck Chineseness: on the ambiguities of ethnicity as culture as identity,” Boundary 2, Vol. 23, No. 2 (1996), pp. 111–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Xiaomei, Chen, Occidentalism: The Theory of Counter-discourse in Post-Mao China (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995)Google Scholar.

38 See e.g. Dickson, B.J. and Chao, C.M., “Introduction: remaking the Chinese state,” in Chao, C.M. and Dickson, B.J. (eds.), Remaking the Chinese State: Strategies, Society, and Security (London: Routledge, 2001)Google Scholar; Anagnost, Ann, National Past-times: Narrative, Representation and Power in Modern China (Durham, NC: Duke University Press 1997)Google Scholar; Arif Dirlik and Xudong Zhang (eds.), Special issue of Boundary 2: Postmodernism and China, Vol. 24, No. 3 (1997); Yan, Hairong, “Specialization of the rural: reinterpreting the labor mobility of rural young women in post-Mao China,” American Ethnologist, Vol. 30 No. 4 (2003), pp. 578–96Google Scholar; or Rofel, Lisa, Other Modernities: Gendered Yearnings in China after Socialism (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

39 Indeed, parallels between the assumptions underpinning both academic and other representations discussed above suggest that the critiques offered here of media representation may often apply equally to scholarly representations.

40 Quotation from Rorty, Richard, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (Oxford: Blackwell, 1980, p. 10)Google Scholar.

41 See e.g. Hemelryk, Donald S., Keane, M., and Liu, H. (eds.), Media in China: Consumption, Content and Crisis (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2002)Google Scholar; Latham, Kevin, Pop Culture China! Media, Arts and Lifestyle (California: ABC-Clio)Google Scholar; Latham, “Nothing but the truth.”

42 See e.g. Latham, Kevin, “SMS, communication and citizenship in China's Information Society,” Journal of Critical Asian Studies, Vol. 39, No. 2 (2007)Google Scholar; Qiang, C.Z.W., China's Information Revolution: Managing the Economic and Social Transformation (Washington DC: The World Bank)Google Scholar; Hughes, Christopher and Wacker, Gudrun, China and the Internet: Politics of the Digital Leap Forward (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Hartford, Kathleen, “West Lake wired: shaping Hangzhou's information age,” in Lee, Chin-Chuan (ed.), Chinese Media, Global Contexts (London: RoutledgeCurzon 2003)Google Scholar; Tai, Z., The Internet in China: Cyberspace and Civil Society (London: Routledge, 2006)Google Scholar; Mengin, F. et al. (eds.), Cyber China: Reshaping National Identities in the Age of Information (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

43 It is beyond the scope of this article, and not necessary for its purposes, to investigate all the details of this story and to assess the truth or otherwise of rumours and speculation. However, to my knowledge many of the rumours have in the end remained unproven.

44 As in other similar cases, even if there were many sceptical voices, the range of opinions and comments was nevertheless very wide, including condemnations of the riots and sympathy for the police or local officials. Others condemned the criminalization of young people who became involved simply to protest against an apparent injustice done to their classmates. I do not find it useful to conceptualize such online interaction in terms of a public sphere or some ideal realm of free speech, as many other recent writers on the internet in China have done (see e.g. Barrett L. McCormick and Qing Liu, “Globalization and the Chinese media: technologies, content, commerce and the prospects for the public sphere,” in Chin-Chuan Lee, Chinese Media, Global Contexts; Tai, The Internet in China; Mengin et al., Cyber China; Wu, Xu, Chinese Cybernationalism: Evolution, Characteristics, and Implications (New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007)Google Scholar; and Hughes and Wacker, China and the Internet.) New media users were not fooled by government propaganda nor were their opinions represented by official Chinese versions of events. However, at the same time, online interactions take place in contexts where anonymous and unidentified pro-government representatives regularly participate in BBS discussions, where being seen to voice anti-patriotic feelings could lead to intimidation and where truth and the sincerity of postings are always a matter of subjective opinion.

45 Among internet users I spoke to about the case such reasons included (in no particular order): not liking arguments; feeling intimidated by other internet users; disinterest; disapproval of the rioting in Weng'an; and feeling that the internet needs to be firmly regulated.

46 Internet users commonly use characters with similar or the same pronunciation as banned words to evade filters. They may also invent or identify new words or phrases. Some deploy other innovative techniques such as writing in a traditional vertical format reading from right to left. In this way the adjacent characters read in the horizontal left to right format by the filters do not pick up on banned phrases and binomes.

47 See e.g. Cha, Ariana Eunjung and Drew, Jill, “New freedom, and peril, in online criticism of China,” Washington Post, 17 April 2008Google Scholar, available online at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/16/AR2008041603579.html, accessed 29 October 2008, or Yin, Sim Chi, “Furore over Olympics boycott: ugly side of online nationalism in China,” Straits Times, 26 April 2008Google Scholar, available online at http://app.mfa.gov.sg/pr/read_content.asp?View,9909, accessed 29 October 2008.

48 Cha and Drew, “New freedom, and peril, in online criticism of China.”

49 “Yexu, yige xuni shijie yu xianshi shijie hundun buqing de shidai zhengzai chongxin lailin, hulianwang zhenzheng zai gaibian women de shenghuo,” http://baike.baidu.com/view/860941.htm, accessed 29 October 2008.

50 See e.g. “Meili dajiao kuayue gujin” (“Beautiful footprint cuts across past and present”), Jinghua shibao, 9 August 2008, p. 12, citing the Olympics Opening Ceremony Visual Effects Working Group member Gao Xiaolong on the fireworks footprint.

51 Quotations from Laclau, Ernesto, “The impossibility of society,” in New Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time (London: Verso, 1990), p. 92Google Scholar.