Top Officials Say Propaganda in 2009 To Focus on Economy and Stability

In early January 2009, top Chinese Communist Party officials outlined a propaganda agenda for the year that focuses on safeguarding economic development and social stability. Li Changchun, a member of the Party's Politburo Standing Committee, and Liu Yunshan, Director of the Party's Central Propaganda Department (CPD), a department responsible for censorship of China's media, outlined the agenda during the National Propaganda Directors' meeting in Beijing on January 4-5, according to a January 5 Xinhua article.

• Saying there had been "new, complex changes in the domestic and international situation," Li named safeguarding "economic development" and "social stability" as two of the four most important tasks for the year. Li told officials to improve their guidance of public opinion. They should provide "a favorable public opinion environment for maintaining the calm, steady, and relatively fast development of the economy and society," "vigorously promote social stability," and "maintain the favorable situation of unity, harmony, and stability," Li said. He also said that officials should "vigorously highlight that the Communist Party is good, socialism is good" and promote the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China.
• Liu announced a "concrete agenda for propaganda, ideological, and cultural work in 2009" that included "integrating a heightened sense of crisis with shoring up confidence" and "integrating insistence on positive propaganda with defusing public emotion." He also said that officials should "seize the critical links" to promote propaganda overseas and through the press, and literature and art publications.

Li and Liu's statements regarding the direction of the Party's propaganda agenda are in line with concerns expressed recently by other Chinese officials over increasing "social unrest" in 2009, amid the country's economic downturn and the run-up to several significant anniversaries. Propaganda officials had already received instructions to put a positive spin on China's economy. In November 2008, Liu Yunshan called on them to prioritize "economic propaganda work," with "positive propaganda" as their guiding principle.

Propaganda officials, led by the CPD, monitor and censor domestic news to ensure consistency with the Party's political agenda. Li and Liu's statements may indicate the targets for censorship this year. Over the last several months, officials have targeted a number of news organizations for economic reports perceived to be "negative."

• The Hong Kong-based Information Centre for Human Rights and Democracy reported that authorities in Shanxi province suspended two journalists and two editors for producing a television episode on the potential bankruptcy of a Linfen textile mill and the uncertain future of the mill's 6,300 workers, according to a January 6 Associated Press/Kyodo article (via Breitbart.com) and a January 6 Radio Free Asia article. The episode, which was to air on the program "Concern" [Guanzhu] in December 2008, was never broadcast after Linfen officials reviewing the episode canceled the program for "serious political error." The clips reportedly showed workers protesting at the Linfen government building.
• In September 2008, the Inner Mongolia Press and Publication Bureau ordered the three-month suspension of the China Business Post after it published a report in July critical of the Agricultural Bank of China, which at the time was preparing for a stock offering.
• In September 2008, propaganda officials ordered major financial Web sites to remove "negative" reports regarding China's stock markets, according to a September 10 South China Morning Post article (subscription required).

The Party's propaganda agenda does not mean that China's state-controlled media will entirely avoid stories relating to the economic downturn. China's media, for example, have reported on the government's acknowledgement of rising unemployment and slowing economic growth (see, e.g., a February 2, 2009, Caijing article, on a government official's estimates that 20 million migrant workers are unemployed, and a January 22, 2009, China Daily article, on the decrease in GDP growth in the fourth quarter of 2008). Such stories are not necessarily inconsistent with the Party's agenda. Commentators have noted that the Internet has forced government officials to respond more quickly and openly to news developments in order to maintain control of the agenda, according to a November 18, 2008, Bloomberg report (reprinted in International Herald Tribune).

For more information on how the Chinese government and Party censor China's media, see Section II - Freedom of Expression, in the Congressional-Executive Commission on China 2008 Annual Report.