Imagethief

Tag: China

  • How to turn one terrible scandal into two

    Note: This includes two posts originally published on back-to-back days.

    Part 1: How to turn one terrible scandal into two

    Imagethief loves watching companies hang themselves. Unless they are his clients, in which case he has fits watching them hang themselves because it means sleepless nights in the glow of the computer eating greasy dinners out of Styrofoam boxes.

    Fortunately for me, China Railway 12th Bureau Group Company is not one of my clients. For one thing, if they were, I’d advise them to change their name. I had to look at the original article twice to transcribe it. I’m sorry, but if you’re not a law firm you have no business having five nouns in your company name.

    More importantly, they have just committed one of the great PR sins: the busted coverup. From AP, via BusinessWeek:

    Police have detained 10 people in charge of building a new subway line for the 2008 Beijing Olympics after one of the project’s tunnels collapsed, trapping six workers, state media said Friday.

    ***

    Construction company China Railway 12th Bureau Group Co., was suspected of trying to cover up the accident and delaying rescue efforts that might have saved lives, Xinhua said.

    Police have detained 10 people including the project supervisor and the tunnel’s designers, Xinhua said. It did not give their names or say if they had been formally charged with any crime.

    Xinhua said the construction company sealed the site immediately after the accident, confiscated employees’ mobile phones and ordered people not to talk to police or media.

    The company did not report the accident to city authorities until eight hours after it occurred, it said, citing unidentified Beijing officials.

    You would think that after the great Songhua River disaster of ’05 people would have learned their lessons about this. But it’s hard to overcome those olde fashioned instincts, and probably even harder when you are working on a marquee project that is part of Beijing’s pre-Olympic rectification program.

    By definition, no one really knows how many successful coverups there are. However, I’d bet there really aren’t many. It all comes down to the old adage that two people can keep a secret if one them gets a lead tattoo. I am not sure any peer-reviewed scholarly work has been done in this area, but I am convinced that as the number of people involved in a coverup goes up, the risk of it being blown increases far more than in linear fashion. I betting that risk increases as at least the square of the number of people involved.

    So you can confiscate all the mobile phones you want, and you can order people not to talk, but sooner or later somebody will. And probably sooner. And even if they don’t, people –family members and friends for instance– tend to notice a lot of sudden deaths.

    Now China Railway 12th Bureau Group Co. (or CR12BGC as I like to think of it) has two crises on its hands: the possibly negligent deaths of twelve workers, plus a mass arrest of its executives and supervisors. Instead of looking negligent, they now look negligent, sleazy and criminal. Congratulations! It’s not easy to self-destruct that dramatically without being discovered trafficking in kiddie pr*n. Good luck explaining all this to the press.

    Unless the government bans all coverage of the situation. This is China, after all, and the rules remain a little different. I realize also that CR12BGC is probably not the most progressive company when it comes to communication. But despite the high level of government intervention, China now has a scrappy, modern media that loves a good scandal. The sooner Chinese companies learn how to deal with this, the better things will go for them.

    We PR people are widely unloved. There is some justification for this. As an industry we have a history of taking on unsavory clients and disagreeable jobs. But its also unfair in some ways. In crisis situations we spend a lot of time giving variations on the following straightforward advice to our clients:

    1. Don’t lie.
    2. Be mindful of your legal risk and prudent in communication, but don’t try to hide or distort the facts of what actually happened.
    3. Don’t lie. (Again.)

    Writ large or small, successful crisis communication is about clearly explaining your side of what happened and being publicly seen to take all practical steps to address the crisis and assist the people affected. You can’t bring back the dead, but you can take care of the living, understand what went wrong, visibly cooperate with authorities and demonstrate a commitment to learning from mistakes. It might not do anything about your legal liability, but it will help your reputation and generally costs less in the long run than the alternatives. And if you do get prosecuted, a constructive approach looks a lot better in court than an attempted cover up.

    Plus its hard to work a crisis when all your spokespeople are in jail.

    Gasp! It's the China Railway 12th Bureau Group Co.!
    Gasp! It’s the China Railway 12th Bureau Group Co.!

    Part 2: Beijing subway collapse: Whose crisis is it?

    Following up on yesterday’s post about the Beijing subway collapse, I saw an interesting article (subscription) by Mei Fong in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, Asia. (I try to get that right ever since one of their journalists explained to our staff in Beijing that it’s not the “Asian Wall Street Journal” any more, and that we had better get with the times.)

    Because of its galvanizing effect on everyone with a China agenda, the Beijing Olympics has been described within my industry as “issues rich”. This is PR code for “shitstorm waiting to happen”, and is the kind of thing that usually leaves PR men cackling to themselves and planning expensive purchases. (Or, at my pay grade, grocery shopping.)

    Among the many China issues that people get in a twist about is migrant laborers. There are by the government’s own estimates 115 million of them. For perspective, that’s less than 10% of the population of China, but more than 35% of the population of the United States. And I’m not sure the government is counting everyone.

    A lot of these migrant workers are currently in Beijing, slaving away on extremely high-profile, deadline-sensitive projects that are part of the city’s pre-Olympic renovation. People have noticed this. Mei writes:

    [Beijing’s] haste to meet its construction deadlines has resulted in round-the-clock work for the armies of often poorly paid, badly equipped migrant workers who build most of these projects. Some work shifts that can last as long as 24 hours.

    The relatively poor working conditions of migrant workers has come under greater media scrutiny in recent months, causing international labor groups — many already critical of China’s poor human-rights record — to put greater pressure on the International Olympic Committee to improve the situation.

    IOC spokeswoman Giselle Davies said in an email that “our understanding is that all efforts have been made both in terms of safety — specifically putting precaution first, and also in terms of transparent management.”

    Does the IOC really believe that? Even if it doesn’t, is there anything else it could say without admitting culpability and precipitating its own crisis? How about:

    “The IOC is aware of the widespread exploitation of Chinese migrant laborers, the mistreatment they commonly suffer and the appalling and unsafe conditions they endure. We sympathize completely. But we also believe that during the pomp of the opening ceremony, amidst the pageantry, grandeur and fireworks, no one will be thinking about a few bones in the foundations.”

    Maybe not. OK, what Ms. Davies says isn’t as bad as my idiot scenario above. Note the weasel words, though: “Our understanding is…” That phrase is the IOC’s absolution. It transfers responsibility onto BOCOG and the Chinese government. They told us everything is OK. But for credibility it depends upon you and me believing that the chain of honest communication and transparency from labor contractors to construction subcontractors to primary contractors to the municipal government and BOCOG is intact. Do you really believe that? Of the Chinese construction industry? And if you don’t, then should the IOC?

    I realize I am dissecting one partial statement out of context here. But that’s what the public will see, so that’s what will inform people’s opinions.

    As for BOCOG, it has duelling priorities:

    Priority 1) Have a glamorous and untarnished Olympic Games that mark China’s emergence on the International stage.

    Priority 2) Get the goddamn thing done in time and on budget.

    So which priority will win, and whose reputations will get trashed in the process?

    493 days, 6 hours, 51 minutes and 17 seconds to go as of this posting.

    Gasp! It's BOCOG and the IOC!
    Gasp! It’s BOCOG and the IOC!

  • A funny thing happened on the way to political re-education

    Imagethief was morbidly fascinated to find a Reuters article over the weekend that explains how the Chinese Propaganda Ministry has launched a point-based “demerit” system to try to encourage proper behavior from the print media:

    CHINA’S Communist Party propaganda department has launched a points-based penalty system to try to rein in the increasingly muck-raking print media, a Hong Kong newspaper reported today.

    Media outlets will be allocated a dozen points that the propaganda department and the government media regulator can deduct one, three, six or all 12 at a time, the newspaper quoted unnamed sources as saying.

    It was not clear how the severity of a perceived infringement would be judged, but penalties would range from warnings and dismissals to closure of the publication, it said.

    ***

    “The new system is a clear message that the top leadership wants a peaceful social environment ahead of the 17th Party Congress and next year’s Olympic games,” the newspaper quoted a senior state media executive as saying.

    The media point system was similar to China’s driver license point system whereby deducted for moving violations.

    And, in fact, similar to systems used for penalizing motorists all over the world. This begs the question, for the first offence can a media organization send its staff to the Propaganda Ministry’s comedy media school and have the points restored, like going to comedy traffic school for a first offense in the US? After all, the government here has a tradition of political re-education. Why not work a few laughs in along the way?

    Sure, right now you’re thinking to yourself, I don’t think the propaganda ministry is a humorous organization. But with a little work it could be. For instance, a favorite disciplinary tool here is the “self-criticism”. Anyone who pays attention to comedy knows that self-criticism is at the heart of much comedy. It’s Woody Allen’s entire oeuvre, after all. Could it be that hard to work comedy into other aspects of media discipline? I don’t think so.

    Join me now as we look in on the Ministry’s comedy re-education school. An unnamed media organization has been slapped with three demerit points for unauthorized portrayal of a pig during the Chinese New Year Festivities, in contravention of recently announced regulations:

    Cadre: Good evening, comrades. I am Mr. Wei and I will be conducting your political re-education today.

    Editors and journalists: Good evening comrade Wei.

    Cadre: You know, it’s great to see you all here today. I hear you got sent up for showing an advertisement with a pig in it during New Year. Honestly, muslims, who can figger ‘em out? You know they don’t eat pork? They don’t eat pork! How crazy is that? Say, that reminds me of a joke. A man was walking by a village when he saw a pig with a wooden leg. Not quite sure of what he was seeing, he went up to the house and knocked on the door. A peasant answered the door and the man said, “I was walking by and saw a pig with a wooden leg and I just had to find out why!”

    “Well” the farmer answered,”that is a really special pig. Our house was on fire and that pig dragged my whole family out and saved our lives.”

    “But why the wooden leg?” asked the man.

    “Well,” the farmer replied,”a pig that special you wouldn’t eat all at once!”

    Uproarious laughter.

    Cadre: Yeah, the great thing about Hanification of the west is that you’ll finally be able to get a decent pork bun in Kashgar.

    Chuckles.

    Cadre: So how do you think the ministry found out about your pig advertisement?

    Editor: They read our newspaper?

    Cadre: Nah, somebody squealed! (Rimshot)

    Laughter.

    Cadre: Honestly, it’s not really your fault. The party believes that religion is the opiate of the masses. It just makes people crazy. (Twiddles index finger at temple.) Say, that reminds me of another joke. A Hindu, a rabbi and a capitalist are driving through thenongcun when their car breaks down. Fortunately they find a farmhouse nearby. The peasant tells them that he has only space for two more people to sleep inside the house. They are welcome to it, but one of them will have to sleep in the shed outside.

    Well, after much discussion, the Hindu volunteers to go to the shed. A few moments later there’s a knock on the house door. It’s the Hindu. He explains that there is a cow in the shed, and cows are sacred to Hindus and he can’t possibly sleep in the barn with a sacred cow.

    Annoyed, the rabbi volunteers to go sleep in the shed. A few moments later, a knock on the door. The rabbi explains that there’s a pig in the shed and that he, being orthodox, can’t spend the night in the shed with a pig.

    So the capitalist says that he will go to the shed. A few minutes later there’s a knock on the door. It’s the cow and the pig!

    Hearty laughter.

    Cadre: But, crazy or not, the big Hu says we have to promote a harmonious society, right? So what do you think will happen if you publish another pig advertisement?

    Journalist: We’ll lose another three demerit points?

    Cadre: No, you’ll all be dragged out to the quarry and shot in the back of the head.

    Stunned silence.

    Cadre: Hey, just kidding.

    Nervous laughter.

    Cadre: You guys should have seen the looks on your faces. But seriously, folks, you’re a wonderful audience. Give yourselves a big hand.

    Yes, it would be a laff riot.

  • Apartmental, a part mental

    As regular readers will know, Imagethief has been on cross-assignment to his company’s Shanghai office in recent weeks. The company is, meanwhile, attempting to persuade me to consider semi-permanent reassignment to Shanghai. I have not yet made a decision about this (and if my landlord in Beijing is reading this, we’ll talk).

    In general, I really like the company I work for. They’ve taken good care of me, provided training, put up with my idiosyncrasies, and were patient with me while I spent my early months wrapping my head around the cataclysmic, nationwide fun-house that is the Chinese media. Because of that I was willing to listen to when they suggested that relocation to Shanghai might be good for my professional development.

    They say that whichever Chinese city you come to first is the one you build an attachment to. I suppose this argument might break down if your first port of call was Linfen. But I came to Beijing by choice, and I’ve certainly become affectionate for the city. Beijing, for all its impersonal ministries and immense boulevards, has an intimacy and a grungy, eccentric streak that really appeals to me. In a little under three years, I’ve really come to think of Beijing as home.

    It doesn’t hurt that I’ve been surrounded by old Beijing-hands who are naturally contemptuous of Shanghai (Schwankert, I’m talking about you), or that I’ve been writing about the city’s eccentricities for That’s Beijing semi-regularly. So I came to Shanghai with the casual, Shanghai? Pfeh! disdain of the confirmed Beijinger.

    Imagine my surprise at discovering that Shanghai is really not bad at all. It has a very different feel than Beijing, for sure. As David Wolf said to me over lunch Friday, in explaining the difference, “Beijing was created to be an imperial capital. It has always been a Chinese city. Shanghai was created to be a treaty port, and foreigners have always been a part of its identity.” He also advised me to make regular trips back to Beijing for sanity checks. Fair enough. But I’ve quite enjoyed the time I’ve been spending in Shanghai, and the city has its own personality and charm, if that is the word to use. My office and apartment are both in a very pleasant part of town, which does help.

    Speaking of my apartment, however, I have some complaints.

    The company provided the apartment for me to use during my cross-assignment. A previous expatriate employee of ours had lived in it for about four months and had then left China. The week before my Christmas break I had quick look in the apartment to see if it was habitable. It was, depending upon your point of view, a relatively high-end local apartment, or a relatively low-end international apartment. Perhaps the latter, given that it had international cable TV channels. It had plenty of room for me and occasional visits from Mrs. Imagethief. My conclusion was that it was generally fine, although I would have to bring some bedding from Singapore. I told our Shanghai office manager she didn’t need to have an ahyi work it over before my return. That was an inexcusable, rookie error. What can I say? It was night, I was rushed. My due diligence was not superb.

    I returned from my Christmas vacation in the US on Saturday, January 6th. On the 7th I flew to Shanghai and went straight to the apartment. There, alone with a suitcase in the dark of a Shanghai winter evening, jetlagged into irascibility, the flimsiness of my earlier appraisal became clear. As did the bachelor existence of the previous occupant. I had not bothered to open the refrigerator during my brief, pre-Christmas visit. Monumental mistake. The entire contents consisted of two rotting, three-week old pieces of meat and a box of Ferrero Rocher candies now infused with the smell of decaying flesh. The rest of the food supply was two things of instant noodles and a huge pile of little sugar sachets stolen from every restaurant and bar in the French Concession.

    Three years ago when I first moved to China and did my Wordlink Education language program, they put me up in a very similar two-bedroom apartment. It was fine, but made no provision for the fact that some people might like to cook and eat at home. The total kitchen implements consisted of a frying pan, a chopper, a cutting board, two bowls, two Chinese soup spoons (the boat-shaped ceramic ones that are hard to use for sugaring coffee) and some chopsticks. I had to go down to the CRC supermarket in Wudaokou’s Huaqing Jiayuan apartments and buy a saucepan, fork, knife, round-bottomed pan, plastic colander and a plate. (And I only got this far after several tragic days of trying to eat salad with chopsticks. Oil-slicked cherry tomatoes are a bitch to eat with chopsticks, no matter how dexterous you are.)

    Buying forks and can-openers when you’re in the heady rush of fresh-arrival and wide-eyed, goldang, lookit that! culture-shock is fine. It’s all part of the adventure. And I was surrounded by threadbare college students, so living like one was a blast of juvenile nostalgia. I went through a somewhat more substantial stocking of my own apartment in Beijing some months later, culminating in the shipping of my accumulated household worth of stuff from Singapore when my move to China become final.

    You forget when you’ve lived in a house or apartment for a while just how much stuff accumulates. Some of it is junk, but some of it is really useful. The great thing about my apartment in Beijing is that it has everything I need (and plenty that I don’t): Dishes, utensils, tools, cables, connectors, bric-a-brac, Q-Tips, spare Kleenex, nail clippers, scissors, scotch tape, shoe polish, laundry detergent, a sewing kit, and so on off into infinity. The apartment in Shanghai had a wok, four bowls, four plates, Chinese spoons, chopsticks, a chopper and cutting boards. It also had, inexplicably, an upright piano. I don’t play piano.

    Barring the piano, this was so close to the contents of my Wudaokou apartment that for a moment I thought I had slipped back in time.

    And here is where I get cranky. I am now thirty-nine and a (semi) respected China business professional. I have lived here for three years. My wife and pets are here. I have a network. I can get around in Chinese. I did not want to have to relive my starving student days by buying a fucking can opener. I believe that if you are trying to woo someone into uprooting themselves from city A and shipping their wife, worldly possessions and fuzzy kitty cats to city B, you need to do everything possible to make that person think city B is paradise on earth. Three months in a luxurious service apartment refreshingly free of carrion and stocked to the gills with conveniences seems like a good place to start. Once they sign on the dotted line you can always pull a bait-and-switch. But remember, it’s bait first then switch.

    I also had to come to grips with the legendary consequences of the south-of-the -Yangtze government heating edict. This is one of those remnants of central planning that make China fascinating at an academic level and a pain in the ass at a practical one. My apartment in Beijing seals like a spaceship (although, like a spaceship, you can also run out of air and die if you don’t ventilate it from time to time). I don’t even need to turn the marvelous central-heat on. The apartment stores solar energy.

    My temporary Shanghai apartment, however, leaks like a straw hat and is apparently heated by a small man from Guangxi who rubs sticks together somewhere in the duct-work above the ceilings. At least that’s what it sounds like. He needs to rub the sticks together for four or five hours before they generate enough heat so that my breath doesn’t fog in the living room. I needed to sort out the arcane timing system which is based on oracle bones and bedsprings. Apparently I am supposed to set the timer to turn the heat on about one hour after I leave the house in the morning. That will ensure that the apartment is damply tepid about the time I get home, rather than arctic. I think the answer is a vastly larger television that would generate supplemental heat, but for some reason the company isn’t buying my arguments.

    I can’t imagine why not.

  • I’m sorry, the government has killed your story

    Colleagues from American and European offices often ask Imagethief how PR in China is different from PR in the west. Usually I give a two-part answer. First I tell them that were they to step into our offices in China they would see many things that they would instantly recognize as garden variety PR. We write press releases, organize events, craft angles and pitch stories to competitive publications and journalists, develop communication strategies and train executives in how to handle the media, among other things. But then I tell them about what’s different, usually sticking to the highlights. In the best diplomatic, spin-doctorese I tell them that the Chinese media’s “ethical framework is not entirely developed”. By which I mean that it is, in many ways, a corrupt swamp. (This is something of a theme in the foreign media recently, having been covered by the Washington Post,New York Times and AP with the Lan Chengzhang case as catalyst.)

    The other difference is that the government has explicit power over the media agenda. Most of the time, self-censorship is the rule. However the propaganda ministry –中宣部– also sends out guidance on sensitive issues to major media. Editors who want to keep their jobs are expected to toe the line. Occasionally an acute issue will motivate a directive to halt coverage of a topic, as when media were directed to layoff the Foxconn-Apple scandalof last year. (Recently this has led to proscribed topics sloshing over into journalists’ and editors’ blogs, but that’s a topic for ESWN.)

    We were reminded of the realities of government management of the media agenda recently, shortly after arranging an interview between one of our MNC clients and a Chinese business magazine. The magazine in question had requested the interview, with an eye on exploring our client’s business and investments in China. The discussion was vigorous but reasonably balanced and we were expecting a decent article as a result, with publication planned prior to Chinese New Year.

    About two weeks after the interview, one of the editors involved called us and said the story would be “delayed”. Apparently the magazine had just received guidance from the Propaganda Ministry to be more “sensitive” in publishing stories that involved foreign investment, particularly around certain industries or well-known Chinese brands. We had not, at first blush, considered the story we were developing to be particularly risky or sensitive. But the journalists and editors at the magazine were, as you would expect, taking the ministerial guidance extremely seriously. So we had to wait, and so did our client.

    But clients who make busy senior (foreign) executives available expect explanations about these kinds of things. “Hey, dude, it’s China,” doesn’t really cut it, so we did a little poking around. The back-story is illustrative of one of the challenges of the PR biz in China.

    Anyone who follows current affairs in China will know that these are delicate times for discussing the topic of foreign investment. Questions are being raised about the quality of foreign investment and the intent behind it. Early last November the 11th Five Year Plan was published. It put a great deal of emphasis on the quality of foreign investment. In this English Xinhua article about the plan, the money graf –as far as we were concerned– is the very last one:

    In response to the rising concern over foreign acquisitions of leading Chinese firms in critical sectors, the document says China will speed up legislation and step up the supervision of sensitive acquisitions and takeovers to ensure critical industries and enterprises remain under Chinese control.

    Shortly thereafter, it seems the initial guidance to treat reporting around this topic sensitively was passed on to at least some Chinese media. The publication we were dealing with was government-linked, and had little wiggle-room as far as interpreting this directive to be “sensitive”. Unfortunately, apparently, they had somehow missed the memo and in their previous issue published an article that had raised eyebrows upstairs. This had resulted in a ministerial reminder to toe the line, which descended, Rumsfeldian snowflake fashion, into the in-boxes of the editors of the magazine we were working with the day before they called to tell us that they had to postpone.

    My initial response when the Chinese media-relations guru on my team told me that the magazine had to postpone the story because of a government directive was to assume they were giving me a polite brush-off. Similar, perhaps, to what you might get if a Western editor didn’t like the story a journalist had put together on your client, and the journalist in question wanted to tell you something more polite than, “The editor thinks your interview was crap on a stick.”

    “Are they yanking our chain?” was the first question I asked her. Some of our other Chinese team members, including one of our government relations people, had the same first reaction, so it wasn’t just foreigner-itis. But after some research and phone calls turned up the story above I changed my opinion. At the very least, if it was an excuse, it was a damn well substantiated one with abundant face-saving for everyone. In which case, my face duly saved, I could sleep well at night.

    The net result, however, is that our story went on the back burner, where it remains until the publication feels that it can once again broach the topic of foreign investment in certain industries, or hell freezes over (whichever comes first). And now I have one more piece of due-diligence to do when identifying Chinese media to work with in future.

    Such is one of the many things that make PR in China such a rush.

  • Olympics mean a softer touch for foreign correspondents, maybe

    Ed Cody of the Washington Post’s Beijing bureau has written an interesting story on a new decree from the Chinese government that will grant foreign correspondents in China significantly more freedom in the months before and after the games. The article is interesting for a few reasons. First, it suggests that the government might be working out a relatively more sophisticated approach to media management for the games; second it provides a window into some of the media management tactics they are preparing for; and third it explains how the current control regime has been more obnoxious than effective. Cody writes:

    A decree from Premier Wen Jiabao’s government said foreign reporters, whether assigned here permanently or visiting for the Olympics, will be allowed to roam most of the country freely and report without interference by local police or propaganda officials from Jan. 1, 2007, until Oct. 17, 2008. The Games are in August 2008.

    As explained by Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao, the new rules departed clearly — if temporarily — from long-standing orders. They also marked a significant watershed for China, where information has long been treated as government property to be manipulated and controlled by propaganda officials.

    ***

    If followed by authorities across the country, [the decree would] for more than 21 months eliminate some major barriers to accurate reporting about China: regulations that legally oblige foreign correspondents to work through local propaganda officials when gathering news. Those restrictions, when followed, have limited frank conversation with Chinese people and emphasized the official version of news.

    I find this interesting because it suggests that the Chinese authorities are thinking a step beyond their normal control-oriented approach to information management. I don’t think much of how the Chinese government manages information. (I’m sure that statement does not come as a profound shock to regular readers of this site.) All governments want to control information and public perception, and all try to devise systems for doing so that reflect the realities of society, technology and the media environment. I think the Chinese government still drags along too much baggage from before China’s opening and subsequent economic boom, and the attendant explosion in the media and public access to information and communication tools. The CCP model still favors brute control of information over effective communication, and it shows in both domestic and international situations where better communication might be helpful.

    This is not just about the Internet. I am not a utopian when it comes to the power of the Internet to free people’s minds. If all Internet censorship in China was lifted tomorrow there would not be any significant change in China. (For some interesting analysis of related topics, see Ann Condi’s recent guest post in Danwei and Howard French’s comparison of the English and Chinese language versions Wikipedia, although the latter has also been fisked by Dave at Peking Duck.) But while the “un-story” approach works OK when there is a relatively small number of centralized media and limited options for personal communication, it works much less well in an era of blogging, instant-messaging, SMS and extensive international contact. At best China’s government would abandon the information control approach in favor of something more progressive. At the very least it needs to be supplemented by more effective communication. I do think the Chinese government is working on this, but they have a ways to go.

    I don’t for a moment believe the decree means that the government has abandoned its traditional approach to information management. It still hasn’t had anything meaningful to say about yesterday’s massive service interruption at Shanghai Pudong International Airport, for instance. But giving foreign correspondents more leeway in the run-up to the Olympics would accomplish two things. First, it’s a PR move in and of itself. “See? We’re improving!” But there is a second, deeper side to the move as well, and it has to do with what kind of incident would make the Olympics a PR failure for the Chinese government. And make no mistake: the Olympic Games are the most important external PR endeavor the modern Chinese government has ever embarked upon.

    Of course others know this. Because its a global event that attracts the eyes and ears of the world, the Olympic Games –especially the more popular summer games– are a convenient platform for people who have an issue they want to publicize. That’s why the US and Russia used boycotts of each others’ Olympics in 1980 and ’84 to make political points, why the 1976 Olympics were targeted by terrorists, and why any Olympic city is on guard against attempts to hijack the games for other agendas.

    China is, as we in the biz say, “issues rich”. And the Beijing Olympics will be the most “issues rich” (i.e. problematic) games since Los Angeles in 1984 (the Soviet boycott). No matter how you slice it, Seoul, Barcelona, Atlanta, Sydney and Athens just don’t compare. (When the Olympics were held in Barcelona, not all that long ago, Deng Xiaoping had just made the “southern tour” that marked China’s post-Tian’anmen reopening.) Aboriginal rights are great and all, but my China issues list is longer than the list of people Koko wanted to execute in The Mikado. Where do you want to start? FLG? Tibet? Uighur rights? Pollution? Censorship? Jailed journalists? Corruption? Rural poverty and migration? Activists are already sharpening their press releases and polishing their signs.

    But that’s expected. There will always be some kind of scandal. Atlanta even had a bombing. The games can survive a scandal, a protest, or even a bomb. What they can’t survive is a bad police reaction to such an event. Let’s put it this way: If a bunch of people assemble in Tian’anmen Square with pro-FLG banners, it’ll be annoying for the Chinese government, but not a disaster for the games. Even if a sweet-faced teenage girl douses herself in gasoline and sets herself on fire it will be tragic and sad, but not necessarily a catastrophe for the games. It is the government’s own actions during the games that will speak loudest, especially overreaction. If the Chinese cops bust up the demonstration, roust the TV crews and photographers and impound tapes and films it will then become a disaster, not least because every person in the vicinity with a modern mobile phone, Chinese or foreign, will have pictures and probably video anyway. (And if you want to start another revolution in China,  the best way to do it would be to try confiscating people’s mobile phones.) A harsh reaction means the story stops being about the protestors or even the originating issue and starts being about the what a bunch of thugs the Chinese government is and why did we give them the Olympics again? That’s a discussion the government will find hard to control once it gains momentum.

    I’m pretty sure the Chinese government and BOCOG know this, and if they don’t, their PR company –one of the major internationals and a competitor of my firm– is probably telling them (unless they’ve been told to keep their mitts off of strategy and are just grinding out press releases about the Fuwa). So telling authorities around the country to go easy on foreign correspondents is not only good PR now, but its a defensive move to guard against scandal escalation.

    There is however, a potential problem: provincial authorities have a flexible approach toward implementing central government decrees. Imagethief is willing to put real money down on the square that says, when push comes to shove, that provincial authorities will still detain and roust foreign correspondents that poke their noses into sensitive areas during the games, threats to call the Foreign Ministry notwithstanding. And hanging over this is the wide latitude for interpretation of what kind of reportage contravenes Chinese law. Also, the government probably knows that attempts to control the moves of something like ten thousand foreign correspondents will be like herding notepad and tape-recorder carrying cats. Indeed, Cody adds:

    In practice, foreign reporters in recent years frequently have managed to report on their own, speaking directly with Chinese people while using subterfuge and stealth to avoid getting caught by local police. Those who have been spotted, however, often have been detained, lectured and forced to write confessions that they broke the law. In many cases, their notes and camera equipment have been confiscated. At times, they have been shoved around by police.

    I believe the Washington Post has been on the receiving end of some of that shoving around, and I perhaps detect a bit of personal annoyance creeping through that paragraph. But maybe it’s just my conspiratorial nature. Since they don’t do much business coverage I don’t know any of the WaPo journalists personally, although I do like their China reporting.

    The  Chinese government is also, of course, making sure that the police are up to snuff on English and prepared with talking points (well, “dialogues” actually) in case they do run into any nosey foreign correspondents:

    A manual published by the Public Security Ministry and handed out to Beijing police, who are studying English in preparation for the Olympics, contained a dialogue making clear how ministry officials believe reporting should be approached. It described a hypothetical situation in which a policeman comes upon a foreign reporter inquiring about Falun Gong:

    “But Falun Gong has nothing to do with the games,” the policeman says.

    “What does that matter?” the reporter replies.

    “It’s beyond the permit.”

    “What permit?”

    “You’re a sports reporter. You should only cover the games.”

    “But I’m interested in Falun Gong.”

    “It’s beyond the limit of your coverage and illegal. As a foreign reporter in China, you should obey China law and do nothing against your status.”

    “Oh, I see. May I go now?”

    “No. Come with us.”

    Oh dear. Better work on that last part.

    A few hints for the Chinese authorities before the games. First, nothing is “beyond the permit”. Journalists are coming with their own agendas and they are going to write stories about anything and everything. When an emerging, baggage-laden country like China not only hosts the games, but intentionally makes them into a global coming-out party, every single issue in the country is automatically connected with the games. Like it or not. Covering the Olympics, which the Chinese government itself would probably admit are much more than a “sporting event”, is not just sports reporting. If the cops run in every journalist they find asking questions about topics the government finds uncomfortable, they’ll either build some new jails or have a fleet of 747s standing by to deport journalists who have their credentials revoked. I’d say start drafting the self-criticisms now and have them waiting in a stack ready to sign. That will save time.

    In the interest of making a contribution to the success of the games, Imagethief humbly suggests the following, improved approach to media management. It not only presents a better solution, it also more accurately reflects how an overworked foreign correspondent –especially one unused to working in China– might react to the situation:

    Cop: “But Falun Gong has nothing to do with the games.”

    Reporter:     “Everything has to do with the games, Sherlock. That’s how it works.”

    Cop: “It’s beyond the permit.”

    Reporter: “Permit? What kind of happy horseshit is that?”

    Cop: “I’m sorry, I don’t understand your snappy English vernacular. You’re a sports reporter. You should only cover the games.”

    Reporter: “Say, Kojak, why don’t call up the Foreign Ministry? Tell them I’m going to publish a story on how local cops are harassing accredited journalists doing their jobs.”

    Cop: “It’s beyond the limit of your coverage and illegal. As a foreign reporter in China, you should obey China law and do nothing against your status.”

    Reporter: “My status? My status is pissed off, buddy. I gotta deadline here.”

    Cop: “Look! Over there! It’s Zhang Ziyi! And she’s naked!

    Problem solved. The Foreign Ministry can send payment to me care of this website.

  • The elephant in the newsroom

    Imagethief was interested to read in yesterday’s People’s Daily Online a brief articlereporting on a conference to address the problems that China’s international news organizations face in reaching foreign audiences. The discussion focused on how China is portrayed by services such as Xinhua, , China Daily, CCTV9 and the English version ofPeople’s Daily, which are meant to reach out to foreign audiences:

    “The Chinese should develop more efficient ways of communicating with the outside world,” said Wu Jianmin, president of the Foreign Affairs Collegeand former Chinese Ambassador to France.

    “An acclaimed foreign expert on China once told me China’s distorted image would be the largest obstacle for its further development,” Wu said. “Sometimes, even when information is reported objectively, it can still send the wrong signals.”

    For example, some media focus too much on China’s GDP or exports growth, giving the foreign audience an impression that everything in China is rosy, but they forget the cost of the successes, for example harm to the environment, Wu said.

    ***

    Experts believe Chinese media are facing tough challenges in communicating with overseas audiences. “The most difficult thing is that the most talented professionals are gravitating towards higher-paid jobs,” said Ma Shengrong, vice president of Xinhua News Agency.

    “The voices of the Chinese media are still weak on the world stage due to various factors, including the difficulty of translating some Chinese values and phrases into English,” he added.

    I am inclined to agree with those “experts” cited in the second to last paragraph, above. However, while loss of talent and translation may be part of the problem, I think they fit into a much larger picture that is conspicuously ignored by the article.

    First, the general quality of China’s English language media is, by international standards, dismal. There are certainly talented people, both Chinese and foreign, working for China’s various international news services, but for various reasons the average level of quality in both print and broadcast is simply not up to international standards. This is true in the details, like copy editing in much of the English language print media and the foreign talent (in the broadcast sense) employed by CCTV 9, and in a broader sense, in the editing, story selection and frequent ham-fisting of the political slant.

    All of these issues, however, are descended from the larger problem, the elephant in the room studiously overlooked in the article above. China’s international news services are explicit state propaganda organs. It is pointless to discuss whether Chinese media organizations are following a balanced editorial line, especially on issues that impact the image of China abroad, when the editorial line is heavily influenced if not dictated by the state. Even the perception of that influence is damaging, and tends to drive foreigners away or make them wary.

    China isn’t unique in having state news organizations that fill a propaganda role. The United States maintains several state propaganda media agencies, and plenty of other nations do the same. And I would argue that there is a legitimate role for these kinds of organizations in the grand scheme of things. But China’s authoritarian government, with its reputation for micromanaging state public relations issues and zealous propaganda apparatus, will be seen by overseas audiences –correctly, I believe– as being much more deeply involved in the day-to-day operations of China’s international news services than the governments of liberal democracies are in most of their own. This is a problem for China, because I am sure that it wants CCTV9 to be seen as a peer of the BBC World Service or even the Voice of America more than as a peer of the North Korean KCNA. It certainly wants Xinhua to be seen as a credible global wire and financial information service, as we’ve all been recently reminded. But as long as its news organizations are seen as propaganda first and news second they’ll receive an immediate and steep credibility discount from foreign audiences.

    The propaganda link and the general stodginess and stuffiness of state media probably also play a role in the talent drain as well. When state media was the only show in town that wouldn’t have been a problem. But China has an increasingly lively commercial media that is competing with the state behemoths for talent, including some magazines and newspapers with very good reputations. They might be subject to tight state regulation, but that’s not the same thing as being state-run. Also, there is an increasing number of foreign media organizations (and PR agencies) in China that are also able to woo the best and brightest, especially if they have English or other foreign language skills.

    As for the ability to attract foreigners, I am acquainted with some smart and talented foreigners who have worked in Chinese state media. Many were fresh graduates or very young professionals for whom a year or two in Chinese state media was a reasonable way to work in China while moving toward a job in a foreign news organization or a grad school spot back home. Most of the older pros, however, had either grown an armor of cynicism or undergone a tortuous process of rationalization (or become embittered bloggers). And all foreigners working in Chinese state media, and especially the television presenters, had better reconcile themselves to being seen as complicit in China’s propaganda regimen, and to absorbing some of the bitter and often racially-tinged scorn that foreigners reserve for compatriots who are seen to have sold out their dignity or values to carry the Chinese government line. This scorn isn’t always fairly dispensed or justified, but it is there nonetheless.

    Glossing up the production values in both print and broadcast might help, but it won’t be a solution as long as the hand of the state is seen to loom over newsrooms. Singapore, which has tried to turn its Channel News Asia cable news station into a regional equivalent of CNN has experienced some of this. CNA is relatively slick, manned by native English speakers, and should be able offer unique insight into Asia. But as long as parent Mediacorp and CNA are perceived as subservient to the Singapore government’s agenda other governments will be suspicious of them and people –especially the educated, affluent international businesspeople who make advertisers’ mouths water– will reach first for CNN, the BBC or their local equivalent.

    The competition, every other English language print and television news source in the world, will be tough. Many of those organizations have cultivated reputations over decades. Ultimately success will come down to building a solid track record of good programming, editing and talent. China’s international media can’t be run like an English version of domestic media, which is what happens now. Foreign viewers won’t endure a stream of turgid articles reciting awkwardly translated political slogans and concepts, or news spots showing the Chinese leadership’s daily activities in protocol order. Even the Chinese seem to be growing considerably less patient with that, judging from the increasingly zippy and salacious Chinese language media. In fact, if the Chinese really want their global programming to fly, they might consider a significantly lighter government touch, perhaps just laying down some ground rules. That might enable them to do something else helpful, and hire top-flight, experienced foreigners or returnee Chinese from developed media markets to program or help edit. After all, Al-Jazeera has gleefully raided the BBC in its quest for respectability.

    Such a move seems beyond the pale for the Chinese leadership and for the moment it probably is. The instinct to closely manage the media is probably too strong for the government to trust foreigners or even returnees to get too close to levers of power, although they’re welcome to copy edit and be talking heads. But as long they keep sailing the same path they have been, Xinhua the People’s Daily, China Daily and other English print media are doomed to be little more than attributions in foreign news reports and CCTV9 is destined to be a station of some use to locals practicing English, but shunned by most foreigners with access to anything better.

    Note: See also the Peking Duck, especially the comment thread, in which a very good point is made. There is no monolithic “foreign” market, or even a monolithic “English language” market. Reaching out to Americans will be different than reaching out to Australians, Singaporeans or English speaking Italians for that matter. But every international broadcaster deals with that by either segmenting its programming, having different channels or publications, or targeting a narrower segment that crosses nationalities such as businesspeople. For the purposes of reaching a global audience, even via other country’s media, one of the best resources the Chinese ought to have at their disposal is savvy, quotable press officers with local knowledge stationed at embassies around the world. However one gets the sense that those people aren’t always the most quotable individuals around.

  • Adventures in mucilage

    Every now and then, just when I think I’ve got this living in China thing totally handled, something spins out of control in a way that reminds me to maintain a little humility. On Friday that moment came when I went to bank to change a bunch of US dollars to Singapore dollars prior to wiring it back to my Singapore account. I took my service number and waited in a drone-like trance for it to come up at the one window that seemed to be actually turning over customers. Three windows were open, but two of them were stuck in all day perma-transactions. You know the ones. Your number is 8,902. The open window is now calling 8,887 and the granny at the counter to the left was served with number 14 –apparently earlier that month– and is still there hashing out the paperwork to wire 1000 RMB in plitchkas –or whatever the currency is– to Guineau Bissau where her grandson is studying muskrat husbandry. Someday, when her grandson is the muskrat king (麝鼠王 if you were wondering – I had to look it up) of all China, her investment will pay off handsomely.

    Muskrat husbandry in Guinea Bissau was sounding pretty good about the moment the teller gave me a quizzical look and said, “There are no US dollars in this account”. Yes, Imagethief had waited in line for half an hour with his wife’s passbook. At least she didn’t say, “You don’t look like Lee Yu Foong” (玉凤; it’s clearly a girl’s name) and put security on me with their sinister, candy-stripe electro-batons.

    But it got worse today when I went to the post office to mail my US tax return (late, I know, but I don’t owe so they don’t care) and some paperwork for my dive certification agency. At the counter where one buys postage, which is separate from the counter where one does everything else, I was told that I would have to insert my various envelopes into other envelopes that I would have to purchase. it seems that the Chinese postal service is intolerant of nonstandard envelopes, which is to say any non-Chinese envelope. No big deal; it was only 5 mao (six cents) for the envelopes, although it did leave me wondering as to the fate of two shockingly nonstandard envelopes I had mailed internationally the week before. We’ll find out, I guess.

    It turned out that neither Chinese envelope was big enough to accommodate the foreign envelope it was meant for. Both were close, but not quite there. I could have gone back to the counter and traded up to two larger envelopes, but at this point I was having second thoughts about sending my tax forms to Uncle Sam in a cryptically marked Chinese envelope. US tax envelopes use all manner of complex bar codes, stickers and machine-readable type to make sure they are routed to the clerk most likely to select you for auditing on the basis of some minor, personal quibble, like a wife with a Chinese name. Why interfere with that? So I decided to mail my tax forms from Singapore in two weeks. They’re already five months late, so two more weeks probably won’t make a big difference in the size of the stick that gets jammed up my ass. And Singapore’s postal service is both reliable and tolerant of registered mail using nonstandard envelopes.

    That left the larger envelope free for the dive paperwork. It just fit inside. I addressed the new envelope and took it up to the counter to send. As I was handing it to the clerk I noticed that I had forgot to seal it. And it was here that my entire errand unravelled.

    I should have just licked the envelope. Licked it and handed it to the clerk with a big, sweet grin. But, I thought, I don’t really want to lick this Chinese envelope, and I certainly don’t want to lick it and hand it back to this poor girl all damp with my drool and laowai tongue mites. Yes, I know this is a country where hocking a glistening, irridescent loogey is a crowd-pleasing national art form, but I’m American, dammit, and I keep my phlegm below the epiglottis except on the rarest of occasions.

    Seeing me looking for a moistened sponge or glue, the clerk directed me to a table by the wall. There was a grey washcloth in a dish, the sanitary status of which I daresay made my mouth look like the inside of a freshly used autoclave. Fortunately, the washcloth had dried out. There was also a little device for applying mucilage to envelopes. I swiped the flap of the envelope along one of the wheels of the mucilage machine and pressed it shut.

    Chinese mucilage does not stick. Not even a little. Whether this is because of deficient mucilage technology or in order to make it possible for the PSB to open envelopes without steaming them, I do not know. It’s tacky, but it doesn’t stick. I noticed a little slot in the machine that looked like it was for swiping the edge of a sealed envelope through. Perhaps, I thought, this heats the mucilage or applies even pressure, or magic postal pixie-dust, or whatever else is necessary to make the goddamn mucilage stick. So I swiped the envelope through it. Stupid, stupid, stupid. This applied another layer of mucilage to the outside of the envelope. I now had an unsealed envelope coated with tacky mucilage and fingers that looked like I had just crammed them up the nose of a three-year old.

    So I gave up. I figured I was only 5 mao down, and I simply wasn’t going to go through the whole process again. I’ll mail the works from Singapore.

    It is widely said that the Chinese think all Jews are smart. I may be the man who does more to undermine that remarkably durable impression than any other.

  • Foxconn shoots themselves, Apple in foot

    Note: This post consolidates three original posts on this topic that were published on consecutive days. It was also cross-posted on my CNET blog, published in 2006 and 2007.

    Part One: Foxconn shoots themselves, Apple in foot

    You may recall Foxconn, AKA Honhai Precision Manufacturing, as the company at the center of a recent PR crisis for Apple Computer, when a British newspaper published reports that they were mistreating the workforce responsible for assembling luscious (and expensive) iPods. In the last few days Apple, ever image conscious, got round to publishing their own report on the situation, and it has largely faded from the public consciousness.

    But Apple isn’t the only company that was left scrambling to protect its reputation in the wake of the scandal. Foxconn too felt hard-done by, and is taking steps to assert itself. Unfortunately, rather than take constructive steps to reassure the international companies who’s own brands are propped on Foxconn’s labor practices, Foxconn has instead decided to make an example of two Chinese journalists. This looks like a move that has the potential for mighty backlash.

    China’s English Language Shanghai Daily broke the story in the mainstream. Here it is reprinted by Xinhua:

    BEIJING, Aug. 29 (Xinhua) – A Chinese court has frozen the personal assets of a reporter and an editor at a Shanghai newspaper after Apple iPod manufacturer Foxconn sued the pair for 30 million yuan (US$3.77 million) for allegedly damaging its reputation over reports of substandard work conditions.

    Foxconn’s subsidiary in Shenzhen reportedly petitioned the city’s Intermediate People’s Court on July 10 to freeze the property of Wang You, a reporter for China Business News, and Weng Bao, an editor at the newspaper. The locked-up assets include apartments, a car and bank accounts.

    The company also filed a lawsuit against the journalists, seeking 20 million yuan from Wang and 10 million yuan from Weng. The case is the biggest of its kind on the Chinese mainland in terms of the size of the compensation claim.

    I am not the only one who sees Foxconn’s response as being perhaps a bit disproportionate. Sentiment seems to be gathering that the lawsuit is a blatant press intimidation tactic rather than a dispassionate seeking of legal redress. Two excellent English language China blogs have taken Foxconn to task. Non Violent Resistance writes, in a post scathingly titled “FoxConn is not dumb, but downright vicious“:

    Words in the Chinese press circles are, that FoxConn, therefore Hon Hai, had deliberately picked the two journalists from China Business News to sue in a painstaking plot to harrass and intimidate media outlets and journalists. After all, China Business News was not the only newspaper that doggedly followed the iPod sweatshop story. It seems that FoxConn, before launching the much criticized lawsuit, had also considered targeting 21st Century Economic Herald, another popular business newspaper who had similarly covered the story. But FoxConn’s lawyers, after much investigation, found out that the 21st Century reporters who were involved in reporting the story had solid, formal employment contracts with the paper — therefore, unlikely to be held as legitimate defendants in a court.

    Roland Soong, of EastSouthWestNorth, writes:

    If I can make this case very simple.  This is not a question of whether the First Financial Reporter was right or wrong in his reports.  Either way, FoxConn is entitled to file a civil libel suit against the newspaper, which employs that reporter and his editor.  But since when does a civil libel suit involve freezing the assets of the reporter and the editor, including their bank savings accounts, stock holdings, homes and automobiles, to the tune of 10 million RMB for the editor and 20 million RMB for the reproter?  As the reporter noted, this amount is many more times than that which he can ever expect to make in his lifetime.  By comparison, how would the western media react if a prominent American newscaster such as Katie Couric were sued by a large corporation and have all her personal assets frozen for the duration of the legal proceedings?  The Chinese media workers are of the opinion that if this case were allowed to go through, it will be the end of any coverage of the doings of large corporations.

    More good information from Roland here.

    I can see the thought forming in your head. Dude, it’s China. Press intimidation? So what else is new? But it isn’t quite that simple. Yes, the press in China doesn’t operate with the same freedom that is does in the west, especially when it comes to political reporting. But what the government can get away with in the name of social harmony and what a Taiwanese corporation –even a connected one– can get away with are not the same.

    So what might the PR implications be? Well, the story is now being picked up by various foreign media, including specialized voices such as China CSR, and wire services like AFX,AFP (here on the International Herald Tribune) and Reuters, whose headline suggests that, despite what Non Violent Resistance fears, the newspaper will vigorously defend its journalists. Reuters has actually bothered to get out and do some reportage, and their story includes a quote from one of the sued journalists and a quote lifted from a party-managed Chinese newspaper’s editorial, and written apparently without irony:

    “(The case) has sent a dangerous signal to society, and means legal procedures could be used to suppress freedom of speech,” said an editorial in the official China Youth Daily.

    How about that. If China Youth Daily is complaining that you’re infringing freedom of speech, you have a problem. But journalists –even at official news organizations– will look after their own. Superb China media blog Danwei thinks the story has all the right ingredients to keep titillating western editors (and I agree). The China blogosphere is also gathering heat. Yesterday mega-portal Sina, smelling a juicy story, set up a blog for the two journalists, and the posts are attracting lots of comments and lots of readers. The momentum may not last, but its got off to a good start. The net result is that Foxconn is committing one of the great PR sins by busily making itself look worse than the people it is angry at ever did. And there is no damage worse than self-inflicted damage, which suggests stupidity.
    So if you’re Apple what do you think of this? Remember, this incident is descended from an Apple-related story, and MacWorld UK has also picked up the lawsuit story, so it’s creeping close to Apple’s own brand. The whole thing has now gone beyond simple libel lawsuit and in just 48 hours has spiraled into something nasty with a real whiff of media intimidation about it. Reputation damaging questions are also being asked about Foxconn’s relationship with the Shenzhen government and courts. Chinese press isrubbishing the case. Well, if I’m Apple (or their PR guy), the last thing I need is for the contract manufacturer who just gave me a mighty PR headache to give me another mighty PR headache just ten days after I’ve put the last one to bed (Apple’s report was released August 17). Despite their own recent, poorly thought out lawsuits, media intimidation is not something that resonates well with Apple’s cerebral, trendy brand. If I was Apple I’d be gently suggesting that Foxconn back off if they want to keep my business.

    But, hey, that’s just me, and I’m a nice guy who likes reporters, even though I do bug them with pitch calls from time to time.

    Part two: What was Foxconn thinking?

    Originally published August 30, 2006.

    Every now and then, Roland [Soong, of EastSouthNorthWest] dangles a PR question in front of me and, like a shark rising predictably to the bait, I pretty much always go for it. In yesterday’s post [above] about Foxconn’s fit of PR self destruction, Roland asked in a comment:

    What is the matter with FoxConn? Why is this “no comment” thing? Keeping their fingers crossed and hoping that it will all go away? Can you guess what is going on?

    Well, I am happy to guess. But I’d like to remind all readers that this is nothing more than speculation, innuendo and hypothesis. Of course, that’s never stopped me before.

    From a PR point of view, there are a few things going on here: the original foreign and Chinese newspaper reports about Foxconn’s labor practices, the subsequent lawsuit filed against two Chinese journalists, and the current (entirely predictable) coverage explosion over the lawsuit and refusal of Foxconn to comment. This would be a complex situation for any company to manage from a PR point of view. But it’s going to be even harder for Foxconn. I am going to make a sweeping generalization here: Chinese companies (including Taiwanese ones – please keep your “one China” screeds to yourself) by and large don’t “get” PR. As an old China hand friend of mine said, “They don’t understand PR. They understand face.” Well, just like face can get you into a fistfight that never needed to happen, it can also get you into a PR disaster that never needed to happen. But I think the Foxconn situation runs deeper than simple face.

    Putting the problems of Chinese companies with PR somewhat more scientifically, many of them are just learning what PR is and how to use it. As a Taiwanese company and contract manufacturer, Foxconn evolved in a somewhat more developed media market than mainland companies. It has also been around for more than thirty years, although its internationalization in earnest started in 1993. But as a contract manufacturer –and not, say, a consumer brand– Foxconn may also think that it is insulated from certain kinds of PR problems. This may have been true once, but today, when the bloom is off the outsourcing and contract manufacturing rose, and MNCs are under increasing scrutiny for the behavior of their partners, this is not the case. That lesson should have been made painfully apparent in the original Apple scandal of a couple months ago.

    But there is another complexity operating here: this isn’t just a PR crisis (yes, its an official crisis now). It’s a legal PR crisis. And legal situations are always particularly difficult. With all due respect to my good friends at China Law Blog (who may wish to comment upon some of the legal aspects of this case), lawyers and PR people often rub along poorly. A sound legal approach and a sound PR approach to a given situation do not always agree. I am perhaps nursing a bit of resentment here. Put a CEO, a head of PR and a general counsel in a lifeboat together and maroon them at sea until they begin to starve and see who gets eaten first. Nine times out of ten the CEO and general counsel will eat the PR guy. The CEO’s calculation may be that he’ll need a lawyer to keep him out of jail for cannibalism. Personally, I think that’s misguided. After all, who’s going to do a better job of explaining cannibalism to the public and protecting his reputation?

    My personal issues aside, the upshot is that legal decisions are often considered to trump PR decisions, and are thus taken without regard for the PR consequences. This is especially true in companies with an unsophisticated approach to PR, but it can happen to anyone. In China we see this with things like IPR lawsuits by MNCs against local companies, which make perfect legal sense but can sometimes have PR consequences far more damaging than the actual infringement. But somehow legal problems are considered “real” while PR is considered, well, just PR. So it’s possible that even if someone within Foxconn explained to the management that suing journalists directly was a stupendously bad idea PR-wise, it’s possible that they were simply dismissed as a touchy-feely PR type without the spine to face up to hard-boiled business issues.

    To which that PR person, if he exists, should be saying who’s laughing now, dumbass? Of course, now this poor flack is busy trying to deal with the PR crisis upon which he will probably be judged, so he has no time to gloat. It’s a hard life in the spin doctors.

    So that brings us to the “‘no comment’ thing” mentioned by Roland. Regardless of whether PR people were consulted prior to the lawsuit or not, it’s pretty standard practice for companies to refuse to comment on pending or ongoing litigation. Doing so can often create further legal problems, anger judges, etc. Unfortunately, this can also evolve into a sort of programmed, knee jerk response that is automatically given even in situations where companies really ought to comment. Personally, I think this is a situation that increasingly merits comment. Furthermore, my advice to clients is that you always return a journalist’s phone call, even if it’s just to tell them that you can’t comment, and even if you expect to get roasted for that. It’s a basic courtesy and “could not comment” or even “refused to comment” generally looks better in print than “could not be reached for comment” or “did not return phone calls”, both of which make it sound like you’re hiding and amplify the appearance of guilt. Next to the image of you cowering in a smoke-filled crisis room while unanswered phones ring away, the blandest of holding statements can seem like pure gold. In this case, Foxconn is apparently not returning any calls, so, true or not, they look like they’re hiding. It also makes it hard to know if they’re playing the “don’t comment on litigation” card or if they’re just being obtuse. I’m betting on obtuse.

    Ultimately the question of motivation looms here. Is Foxconn motivated by a sincere desire to address a slight to its reputation by seeking legal redress? Or is it seeking to intimidate the Chinese press as a way of buying future insurance against bad coverage? If it is taking the first course it has committed some serious PR mistakes. It is almost always a bad idea for corporations (or governments) to sue individuals who were working on behalf of an organization, such as a newspaper. For examples, see Apple’s lawsuits against leakers and the RIAA lawsuits against file sharers, both of which were PR disasters even if they were legally sound. Suing an organization looks like seeking redress. Suing an individual looks like petty vindictiveness. David v. Goliath. It’s not that difficult an equation. (Mind you, I am speaking strictly from a PR point of view, not a legal one.) Foxconn has sued the journalists rather than their newspaper. Not only that, it has sued them for far more money than either of them is ever likely to possess, and has had their assets frozen. This not only looks petty and vindictive, it also looks sleazy since they have somehow managed to engineer a presumption of guilt and, without the benefit of a judgment, inflict considerable misery on…a journalist and an editor. And we all know how much Chinese journalists are paid. So if Foxconn was seeking to address a slight to its reputation, it has failed monumentally and is now doing even more damage to its reputation.

    On the other hand, if Foxconn was seeking to intimidate journalists…it has also failed monumentally since the Chinese (and International press and, um, bloggers) are now going crazy.  Nice work guys. It’s Miller time.

    In addition to the China PR problem, Foxconn is also entering into extremely risky territory with regards to its foreign customers, like Apple. Anyone who has followed the recent problems of US Internet and technology companies in China knows that freedom of speech issues are weeping dynamite for foreign companies doing business in China. The last thing a company like Apple needs is a contract manufacturer being accused of media intimidation in China. Imagine:

    “Hey Apple! Your contract manufacturer was just accused of horsewhipping underage girls for sixteen hours a day and now they’re trying to intimidate Chinese journalists into silence on the issue. What’s your comment? How do you feel about the freedom of Chinese media to report on these kinds of issues?”

    Despite my advice above, I’m thinking Apple doesn’t return that phone call. Or if they do, they give a non-answer about how this is an issue for the Chinese courts to settle, Apple has taken great pains to blah blah blah noise noise noise. Apple, you will recall, has had its own problems with the media, and may not want to attract charges of hypocrisy. They will also, somewhat justifiably, want to get All The Facts first.

    But that’s tough for them, because this is their PR problem too and, as I wrote yesterday, if I’m Apple I’m on the phone to Foxconn right now telling them to drop the suit, save face by announcing that their point has been made and suck it up. Better yet, Apple should set a further example for MNCs using contract manufacturing in China and come out with a statement vigorously defending the right of the Chinese press to look into the practices of MNCs and contract manufacturers in China. Apple sells jack here and has essentially no market to lose in China, and can always shift its manufacturing to Vietnam or wherever, so why not retake some of the high ground it lost over the original scandal? What’s Foxconn going to do? They’re Apple’s vendor, and there are plenty of business-hungry contract manufacturers in line behind it.

    And this situation has begun to touch Apple. RSF is already on the case, with an open letter to Steve Jobs.

    But what if the journalists actually did libel Foxconn?

    Interesting question. But from a PR point of view (not a legal one, mind you) now irrelevant. The public opinion and reputational battles have already been lost. A legal victory would be Pyrrhic at best. Foxconn absolutely has a right to defend its reputation in the courts and to respond vigorously when libeled. But legal action in defense of reputation must be considered, planned and executed with an eye on further reputational consequences (this is where PR people and lawyers often diverge). And that is something that Foxconn did not do. Furthermore, Chinese journalists will, if anything, probably be motivated to scrutinize Foxconn even more closely from now on.

    So if I were Foxconn’s PR person what would I now advise them? Presumably after I got done berating them for not talking to me before they launched the lawsuit?

    Drop the lawsuit. It’s too late to salvage this one. Drop it, make a face saving announcement and let it go. And if you must pursue the lawsuit, admit that you were “overzealous”, have the court unfreeze the journalists assets and allow them to go on with their lives pending a judgment. And reduce the damages sought to something symbolic. Remember, this is PR advice, not legal advice. I have no idea how possible any of this would be in Chinese courts. But, at first glance, Foxconn’s relationship with the Shenzhen courts looks pretty cozy, so it shouldn’t be too hard.

    And, really, stop making life difficult for your customers. You don’t need a PR man to tell you that’s a crappy way to do business.

    Notes:

    • iSuppli analyst Adam Pick recently wrote a story hailing Foxconn’s success. Among the factors he noted, “making the most of the China advantage”. It scarcely needs be remarked that one can take “the China advantage” a bit too far if not careful.
    • I should note, by way of full disclosure, that I am not a litigation support expert. That’s a specialized PR field, like financial communications, best practiced by people with a good understanding of the legal environment in which they operate. So my observations are those of a PR generalist. Litigation support experts are welcome to comment.

    Updates:

    • Danwei with some more interesting background and opinions from Chinese media.
    • Sina’s tech news page (not the journalist blog) devoted to the situation, including a handy timeline graphic (Chinese).
    • One of my bosses, a very experienced Chinese PR professional, thinks that Foxconn will be forced to withdraw the litigation. He even thinks it is possible their chairman may have to apologise. We’ll see.
    • Roland’s excellent follow up on the PR war between Foxconn and the journalists includes translations of some of Weng Bao’s blogs (the sued editor). Roland also makes an excellent point that I should have, and which is key to how Foxconn needs to think about this PR battle. From a public communication point of view this PR war is assymetrical. Foxconn is an enormous, faceless corporation speaking in corporatese. The journalists are identifiable human beings able to muster emotion and personal sympathy and use press freedom (in an acceptable local context) as a rallying cry. That means that even if they are guilty, they have the upper hand in the PR battle. Foxconn needs to consider that in all of the their PR strategizing if they are to have hope of looking like anything other than relentless bullies. (Hint: get some real people front and center.) As I wrote above, whether or not libel was committed is now essentially irrelevant. Foxconn can win but still lose if they are not careful.
    • I hear that CCTV 2′s “Dialogue” program is planning a special segment on the affair.

    Part Three: All’s well that ends in retreat

    Originally published on August 31, 2006.

    According to ESWN Foxconn has reduced the damages requested to 1 yuan. Roland is citing a very brief Netease report, and I am not sure how authoritative it is. But if it is true, then it means that Foxconn has taken one of the possible paths I outlined yesterday: reduce the damages to a symbolic level but proceed with the lawsuit. Apple also interceded in the dispute, as I suggested they should. I’d like to claim credit for remote PR genius but, a) it’s not genius, it’s common sense; b) Foxconn and Apple are probably not reading this blog and c) we’ll see how things play out for Foxconn in the Chinese press over the next few days.

    Just as interesting as the Foxconn scandal itself is a sideline discussion that has broken out over the newsworthiness of the story with regard to western audiences. Roland was originally disappointed with slow uptake of the story by Western media. Do read his post above, which offers his point of view on this and lists many of the foreign news sources that eventually did carry the story. Then be sure (especially if you’re a China PR pro) to read this post from Richard Spencer, bureau chief of UK newspaper the Telegraph. Richard keeps one of the best journalist blogs in China and he explains very clearly what news value this story has and doesn’t have with regard to his (middle-England) readers. I should send this post to my clients when they ask why I don’t pitch their China business stories to general-interest Western media like the Telegraph, as opposed to specialist business media such as The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times and Business Week.

    I’m a technology PR man so I think in terms of brand and reputation with regards to technology companies. I wrote the story for my CNET Asia blog, but then I have a specific China technology mandate, no editing to speak of, and write for an Asian readership specifically interested in technology. More generally, I tend to judge a story this way: “If I was that company’s PR man, would I be worried?” For me this story had potential legs overseas for one reason: Apple. Apple is a hot brand that just navigated a China PR scandal involving Foxconn. With an Apple press story as the origination of the of the lawsuit this is potentially interesting to foreign audiences and thus a PR risk for them. If was Apple’s PR man, I would have been worried.

    I see that a lot of the overseas coverage was fairly narrow. Some of it is in journalist blogs (as in Barron’s and the San Francisco Chronicle) and much of it in specialist technology news (Slashdot, VNUNet, MacWorld) interested specifically in the Apple connection. I put “Apple” in my own CNET headline. Most of what might considered mainstream coverage with a broad impact is either from the wire services –which covered the story widely– or business media (The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times), many of which ran the wire coverage. That’s understandable; Foxconn is a large, listed company and a major supplier to many enormous, Western technology firms, so there are business implications.

    So it was a story outside of China, but a particular kind of story. It’s interesting what crosses borders and why. When I do internal training in foreign media relations for my company I spend some time on what different kinds of foreign media consider an interesting “China story”. It always raises some eyebrows among my local colleagues.

    A closing thought. I love my summer PR scandals. Last year: the Songhua River. This year Foxconn. Gotta love those crazy August days.

    Disclosure: I am not Apple’s PR man.

    Update: Xinhua has run a story on Foxconn’s claim reduction:

    Foxconn said it lowered the compensation claim so that the public could focus on the fact that “the untrue reports had damaged the reputation of our company,” and not just on the 30 million yuan compensation claim, Sina reported, citing company spokesman Edmund Ding.

    Damn straight. And the newspaper reports aren’t the only thing damaging Foxconn’s reputation now, and it’s a little late to refocus the public’s attention. Next they think they have been libeled, they can sue the newspaper. Then, if they win, the newspaper can discipline the reporters and it won’t be their problem. Hard lessons learned. Note that I have no opinion on whether the journalists did libel Foxconn or not. That’s something for an (ahem) impartial  court to work out.

  • The kid

    The kid had staked out a patch of sidewalk and was working the steady stream of locals and foreigners passing through. The limits of his territory were the entrance to a restaurant popular with foreigners and that of a convenience store ten meters further up. He wore a stained blue t-shirt and ragged sweatpants with a scuffed seat that sagged from his rear end. His feet were bare. He was perhaps ten years old. Hard living had thinned his face, and it was hard to tell. He could have been two years older and desperately malnourished, or two years younger and a bit precocious.

    It was a good patch to work. The two businesses and the luxury hotel across the street ensured steady, well-monied traffic. But it was a hard job nonetheless. Most people were completely indifferent to the kid, and those who weren’t tended to be hostile, either scolding him or batting him away. A chinese man smacked him in the head. One large westerner mocked him, cupping his hands in the same alms-receiving gesture as the kid and pretending to beg back.

    Through it all the kid stayed remarkably cheery. He was a natural showman, sassing the people who ran him off the steps and bursting into histrionics in front of marks. When he wasn’t actually working a mark he had a perpetually bright smile on his face. He had perfected a positive mental attitude; a mighty feat for a ten year-old Beijing beggar with poor prospects. He was not going to be one of the new China’s winners. He was going to be a loser. It was inevitable. He probably couldn’t see his future, but I could take a guess at it. Juvenile crime, perhaps, as he eased into more aggressive teenage years. Maybe addiction, another victim of the river of heroin coming over the Burmese border at Ruili or in from Central Asia. If he was lucky he might end up a migrant laborer, drifting from city to city in search of work. If he was unlucky he would end up in jail, or in a quarry with a bullet in the back of his head. Or perhaps he would just go on to a career as a begger, another one of the shabby, hopeless men who stalk intersections and tourist hangouts. But he kept smiling. He could have been subject of a motivational poster on perseverance, adorning a conference room somewhere.

    The kid was energetic and fidgety and had a hard time sitting still. That wasn’t entirely his own fault. Every time he settled on the steps of the restaurant or the store an attendant would be out within moments to shoo him away. A woman from the store tried to engage him. Earlier she had scolded the kid, but now she wanted to talk. Perhaps telling him that he should find something more productive to do with his time. He chatted with her for four or five minutes before she went inside. When she came out again, it was with a switch to run him off the steps again. He had given the wrong answer.

    The kid wasn’t alone. His minder was a fat woman in clean clothes who sat across the street on a low stone wall in front of the hotel. She had a second young boy with her as well, about the same age, but he was the favored child. His clothes were clean and he didn’t have to beg. Instead, he sat with the woman, holding two empty plastic bottles. Occasionally, he would come over and give the kid some trouble. For a while the woman sent the kid across the street to work the front of an expensive ice cream parlor, but perhaps traffic was bad because he was soon back working the stretch of sidewalk between the restaurant and the convenience store.

    And the kid had some luck. Three people, all women, gave him cash. A few yuan, which the kid counted carefully before stuffing into the pocket of his sweats. Part of the kid’s repertoire was pointing at his mouth and asking for food, and one woman gave him a wrapped piece of something that looked like a slice of cake. But the kid didn’t get to eat it. The better dressed boy was across the street in moments, demanding the cake. The kid handed it over, possibly along with a smart-ass remark because he ended up taking a swift kick. The better-dressed boy took the cake across the street to the fat woman. She clearly got all the cake. It seemed likely that she was going to get the money too.

    There was another beggar working the same strip of sidewalk as the kid. A middle-aged woman in the standard beggar’s outfit: blue cotton coat, white towel wrapped around her head, shoulder bag, stick and white enamel cup. She had perfected the beggar’s misery-ridden shuffle but once, as she crossed the street, an approaching taxi forced her to break character and she hustled energetically out of the way. The begging woman didn’t compete with the kid. She was a practitioner of the “persistence” approach, shadowing a mark for fifty or a hundred meters tugging at the sleeve and shaking the few coins in the enamel cup. She would return to the space of sidewalk between the restaurant and store for a minute, but often follow marks to the end of the block or cross the street to work people in front of the hotel. The kid would stay put and focus on his small patch.

    The begging woman and the fat woman seemed to be friends. Once, the fat woman and the well-dressed boy crossed the street and the three of them gathered under a poplar tree for a congenial chat. How’s business? Who’s giving it up tonight? Is the kid pulling his weight? A couple of promising looking groups walked by during the conversation and the begging woman gave a couple of desultory shakes of her enamel cup, but it was clearly coffee break and her heart wasn’t in it. Meanwhile the kid hovered at the edge of the conversation, restless, nervous, and pointedly not invited into the little circle.

    After a few minutes the conversation broke up. The fat woman and well dressed boy returned to their perch in front of the hotel. The begging woman shadowed another group of foreigners. And the kid went back to miming hunger and clasping his hands in front of the groups leaving the restaurant and going into and out of the convenience store. Somehow, he was still smiling.

  • The trouble with English teachers

    AP ran an interesting article (via Peking Duck and Paper Tiger) on the perils of being an English teacher in China. I found it a fascinating read both because it strengthened my own reservations about the seedy Chinese black market for English teachers, and because it made me think about some of my prejudices as an expatriate in China. The article is worth a read in its entirety. An excerpt:

    For decades, Chinese made their way to the West, often illegally, to end up doing dangerous, low-paying jobs in sweatshop conditions. Now some foreigners drawn by China’s growth and hunger for English lessons are landing in the schoolhouse version of the sweatshop.

    In one case, an American ended up dead. Darren Russell, 35, from Calabasas, Calif., died under mysterious circumstances days after a dispute caused him to quit his teaching job in the southern city of Guangzhou. “I’m so scared. I need to get out of here,” Russell said in a message left on his father’s cell phone hours before his death in what Chinese authorities said was a traffic accident.

    As China opens up to the world, public and private English-language schools are proliferating. While most treat their foreign teachers decently, and wages can run to $1,000 plus board, lodging and even airfare home, complaints about bad experiences in fly-by-night operations are on the rise. The British Embassy in Beijing warns on its Web site about breaches of contracts, unpaid wages and broken promises. The U.S. Embassy says complaints have increased eightfold since 2004 to two a week on average.

    Though foreign teachers in South Korea, Japan and other countries have run into similar problems, the number of allegations in China is much higher because “the rule of law is still not firmly in place,” said a U.S. Embassy official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

    “A number of substandard English language teaching mills have sprung up, seeking to maximize profits while minimizing services,” the U.S. House of Representatives International Relations Committee said in a recent report on Russell’s case. These institutes have become virtual “‘sweatshops’ where young, often naive Americans are held as virtual indentured servants.”

    Well, indentured servitude might be laying it on a bit thick. I’d wager your average young American in a crappy English teaching job in China has rather more options open to them than, say, the undocumented Guatemalan picking Strawberries in Aptos for hour after backbreaking hour. Still, I don’t doubt that you could end up in a situation that was scary at best and dangerous at worst. Indeed, the article discusses the death of one foreign English teacher in murky circumstances.

    I’ve always been a bit contemptuous of the English teaching scene in China. Not because there is anything wrong in teaching English; it is good and noble work and many smart people dedicate their lives to it. Rather, my contempt has arisen because of the distinct atmosphere of sleaze that surrounds the industry here in China. Now I know that many English teachers read this blog (and some of you do fine blogs of your own), so bear with me before you start leaving angry comments or deleting me from your RSS reader. After you’ve finished you can still delete me if you want. Or leave the flame.

    It has always seemed to me that teaching in English was the job of last resort for people who wanted to spend an extended period of time here. Obviously, there are organizations here willing to take advantage of that situation. While I know people who have taught English here for many years and enjoyed it, I also know some that have had bad experiences and came away feeling exploited and angry. Not surprisingly, the rate of exploitation seems to be higher for those who enter into situations willing to play fast and loose with things like employment documentation. Really, that ought to be a warning. Remember kids: if someone asks you to surrender your passport or tells you not to worry about the paperwork, be extremely suspicious.

    The funny thing is that when I tell Chinese people I work in China, many of them ask if I am an English teacher. After reading the article above it occurred to me that I often react to that question badly. “No,” I’ll huff. “I’m not an English teacher.” Subtext: I have a realjob, you clown. I had, without meaning to, constructed in my mind a pecking order of resident foreigners in China, which went something like this:

    • Grizzled China hands who know everybody and senior diplomats
    • Business professionals (including myself), journalists, NGO people etc.
    • English teachers
    • Underage foreign students getting drunk at Babyface or Kai

    Note that English teachers were not at the bottom of this heap, although it was a thin layer between them and the cellar. Of course, being a professional spin-doctor is liable to attract scorn in its own right, so I probably have no business putting on airs. It’s not like ahyi on the train asked me if I was a professional man-bitch at a state prison (that always flatters me) or an arms smuggler or some such. I was even in the dreaded foreign student category briefly, although I was thirty-six when I arrived and had a hard time keeping up with the teenagers. But my mild insult at being asked if I am an English teacher is rooted in my prejudice toward the industry here in China rather than toward the act of teaching English itself. That makes it different from the mild insult I’d feel at being asked if I was a drunk, underage foreign student (although in that situation I might also be secretly pleased by my apparently youthful looks).

    Of course many of the people in the top two spaces on my little list above started their China careers as English teachers. A few even started them as drunk, underage foreign students, although most of them are old enough so that international hotel bars were the only places they could drink when they were students. So this is my confession that I have been too hard on China’s English teachers (that this blog is, after all, the confessions of an American spin doctor in China), scorning you for no fault of your own even as you labor in intolerable circumstances for meager coppers. I hereby apologize.

    Now quit fooling around and go get a real job.