In a visit to the offices of Farmers Daily, last week China's Agriculture Minister instructed the news media outlet to shape public opinion in order to promote the Chinese communist party's rural revitalization policies. His instructions reveal the game plan for China's use of journalism to manipulate public opinion and render its news outlets irrelevant to everyone except party officials.
Agriculture Minister Han Jun instructed Farmers Daily staff to publicize the Party Central Committee's rural policies and to explain and preach (宣讲) General Secretary Xi Jinping's important discourses on rural issues. The paper must deepen its comprehensive and strict governance by the party and integrate political consciousness into all speaking and writing. Han reminded the staff that "it is necessary to carefully guide public opinion" on rural issues.
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| China's Minister of Agriculture inspects Farmers Daily's use of new media to issue communist party propaganda. Source: MARA Press Office. |
Rural officials are Farmers Daily's main readers. Han pointed out that it is especially important that party cadres in the rural system need an accurate understanding and grasp of the party's "historic achievements." Han explained that cadres need to know the specific requirements, bottom lines and "red lines" of rural policy so they can implement and spread the policies.
Reporting should manipulate events to "tell the story of rural revitalization in the new era," Han told Farmers Daily staff. In other words, they should show that the party's rural policies are succeeding. When investigating "hot events" they should do a good job in refuting "rumors." "Correct orientation and content are king," Han said.
Han told the journalists they should stay in touch with farmers by talking with them and eating with them so they don't become too distant from their interests. They should give farmers a voice and be aware of public concerns.
Today's Farmers Daily web site is entirely filled with propaganda as instructed by the minister. It features a banner on Xi Jinping's important discourse on rural work, another on studying Xi Jinping's thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, and 4 more Xi articles. The news feed includes Xi's "big food concept" of diversifying food sources, China on the brink of becoming an "agricultural power", Xi's inspection of Lanzhou City, a beautiful woman teaching children to make mooncakes, the bumper corn harvest in a county of Henan Province, rural industry in Xinjiang, the achievements of building 10 billion mu of high-standard fields, etc. The Statistics Bureau says the fall harvest is normal, pig farms are returning to profitability, and a good oilseed harvest is expected in Hebei Province.
An example of an article directed at local officials is "Why we need to establish a coordinated compensation mechanism between grain producing areas and grain consuming areas." No one else would be interested in reading this turgid article that quotes a central communist party decision and recites grain output and land statistics to explain why rich provinces need to pay poor provinces. The article's purpose is to prod officials in grain-consuming provinces to support the program. Another article warns local officials not to use public funds for banqueting during this week's moon festival by detailing 3 cases of officials in Yunnan Province who were arrested for "illegal eating and drinking."
Typhoons in eastern China appear to be actual news of interest to farmers, but the article on this topic is buried in the web page and focuses on video conferences held by government departments and their deployment of personnel to prevent floods.
Even articles that appear to reveal scandals are carefully manipulated to show the communist party as problem solver while evil lawbreakers and corrupt local officials--usually in small obscure cities--are always the villains.
Last month "Egg World" released a report about antibiotic-laced eggs sold in Linhai City of Zhejiang Province that had residues of 4 antibiotics that were 40 times the allowable amount. Testing by market supervision authorities in Linhai in September 2023 discovered the "problem eggs," and authorities traced them back to a chicken farming cooperative in Liaoning Province who had supplied a dealer in Linhai. The eggs were accompanied by a fake testing report that declared them free of antibiotics. The agriculture ministry declared that testing did not comply with their standards. By July 11 people had been prosecuted, including egg farmers and dealers, according to the report.
The report on eggs did not mention that China's agriculture ministry has been trying to cut back on excessive antibiotic use in poultry and livestock for at least 7 years and banned use of antibiotics in feed 4 years ago. Nor did the report wonder if the Liaoning farms who sold eggs to Linhai--the two places are over 2000 km apart--might have supplied many other locations. Nor did they question whether other farms might also be abusing antibiotics. Indeed, the real purpose of the article may have been to "kill the chicken to scare the monkey" to send a message to local officials, farmers and egg dealers; the government has noticed that the bans on antibiotics are widely violated, local officials had better crack down on it, and there will be punishments for violators.
A July 2 report by The Beijing News (Xinjing Bao, run by the Beijing communist party's propaganda department), caused a stir when it reported that a tanker truck hauled petrochemicals across the country, then filled them with vegetable oil to haul back to their origin without cleaning the truck. The reporter claimed to have followed a tanker truck across the country from Xi'an to Hebei Province and back again. It was said that the practice hauling food-grade oil in chemical trucks without cleaning was an "open secret" in the industry.
In August another party-controlled media outlet, China Central TV, published an "investigation" of the dirty cooking oil trucks apparently meant to tamp down the latest food safety scandal. CCTV mostly regurgitated the same material that was in the original report and blamed cost-cutting drivers and lack of cleaning facilities. The communist party itself was not blamed. CCTV blamed inept municipal officials and "extremely bad illegal behavior" by truck and warehouse owners. The government was presented as a hero by reporting that it arrested and prosecuted 5 people found responsible, listing laws and regulations violated, promising to require trucks be dedicated to transporting vegetable oil and stepping up enforcement of regulations. While the original report said the practice of contaminated vegetable oil trucks was an "open secret", the August report pronounced that no other cases of dirty trucks were found.
The absence of news media reports on a problem does not mean it has gone away. There were many news media reports of farmers feeding restaurant waste to pigs until 2020 when it was blamed for spreading African swine fever and consequently banned. Since 2020 there have been no news media reports of swill feeding. Does that mean the problem has been wiped out by the ban? Probably not. Indeed, it may be encouraged: a commentary in Economic Daily last week reported new efforts to promote use of table scraps to feed livestock as a strategy for reducing use of soybean meal in feed. This year news media have been reporting on China's exports of "gutter oil" to the United States for use as biofuel. Gutter oil is usually obtained by cooking down restaurant waste, the process that produces swill used for feeding pigs.
Now that most foreign journalists have been kicked out of China, the communist party media are the only ones left to "tell China's story." And that may be by design. We are returning to the Mao era when we knew nothing of China except what the communist party wants us to know. During the 1960s journalists and diplomats used to watch China from Hong Kong, try to interpret newspapers and interview refugees, but now even Hong Kong is not available.
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