BEIJING — Early last month, the state-run Chinese Central Television prominently featured a report on the sex industry in the southern city of Dongguan, China’s capital of sin. CCTV reporters brought hidden cameras into hotels, saunas and massage parlors to capture vivid scenes of parading prostitutes, negotiations for sexual services and erotic dancers.
The CCTV report did not break news. Most Chinese already knew of the city’s reputation. But the day after the broadcast, we learned its true meaning: It was a coordinated prelude to a government crackdown on the sex trade. Throughout the next several days authorities in cities across the country shuttered sex establishments and arrested sex workers.
The CCTV report unleashed a strong response online, where critics attacked the network for its selective reporting, for exploiting women, and for its loyalty to the government. One quote that best captured the mood went viral: “People who sell their souls have always looked down on people who sell their bodies.”
The public cries were so deafening that CCTV felt it had to react. In an unusual admission, CCTV said in an online editorial that the public “discontent had resulted from a loss of trust” in the network.
I couldn’t have put it better myself. The fact is that many people who once had a seemingly unbreakable faith in CCTV no longer trust it. We’re finished with government propaganda.
For more than 60 years, propaganda has been one of Beijing’s most important tools in sustaining Communist Party rule. In addition to lavishly praising the government and the party, propaganda has been deployed to impart moral instruction. Last November, for example, there was a flurry of reports informing us of the prurient evils of television shows and movies. We were implored to resist the vulgar content.
I used to think CCTV was the most authoritative news organization in the world. Like most people in China prior to 1997 — the year, to my memory, that online bulletin board services arrived — I had no sources of information other than CCTV and a handful of state-owned newspapers. I trusted CCTV unconditionally.
When CCTV praised the superiority of socialism, I felt blessed to live in a socialist paradise. When it lambasted the depraved corruption of capitalism, I felt profound sympathy for the suffering people of Europe and America.
I vividly recall the shrill voice of the announcer commenting on the scrawny youth standing in front of a column of tanks in Tiananmen Square on June 5, 1989: “If our tanks press forward,” he asked, “would that pathetic low life really be able to halt their progress?” I was 15 at the time. “That’s right!” I thought. “The soldiers were being truly merciful.”
For many years, I knew nothing about the BBC, CNN or The New York Times. Even when these media outlets were mentioned, I used to believe they were anti-Chinese and controlled by hostile forces in the West. Many people in China still think that way.
The Internet changed everything.
Despite the restrictions on the Internet in China, information from the outside world trickles in. The early days of online bulletin board services gave way to the widespread use of blogs and social networking platforms like Weibo. More and more people have been able to participate in public discussions and access information untainted by the Chinese propaganda machine.
My faith in CCTV began to falter in 1999, when I started to read accounts online that contradicted the CCTV versions of the 1958-1962 Great Famine, in which millions died. CCTV claimed that China was afflicted during that time by years of natural disasters. It described the events in Tiananmen Square in 1989 as “a counter-revolutionary riot.”
Now, I see the network’s failures every day. CCTV did not utter a word when Chen Guangcheng, the blind human rights lawyer, was illegally held under house arrest. It said nothing about the unusual circumstances of the dissident Li Wangyang’s death. CCTV still says nothing about the real reasons more than 100 Tibetans have died in self-immolations in recent years. And every year, when thousands of protests against injustices in every part of China occur, CCTV is silent.
Most recently, the day after an airliner en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing mysteriously disappeared, a CCTV news presenter started the program with a report on the National People’s Congress. While the nation was desperate for news about the 153 Chinese people onboard the plane, CCTV chose to focus on a conclave of rubber-stamp voting sessions.
Now that our eyes have been opened, Chinese people are not shying from expressing their discontent.
More and more, the Chinese are questioning the government line. They mock the tone and style of the propaganda and resist the moral preaching. It’s fair to say that in the Internet age, the Chinese government’s propaganda machine is facing a crisis.
For example, all over the net you can find posts lampooning People’s Daily for following party orders in 1958 and reporting record harvests while people were starving in a manmade famine. Yet the paper has never made a retraction or issued an apology — and netizens are not going to let them forget.
Even the government itself is no longer immune to mockery. The Ministry of Propaganda is now popularly called the Ministry of Truth, in homage to George Orwell’s “1984.”
Of course, CCTV and the other state-run media are not crumbling. They have massive financial resources and remain hugely influential.
There is no way to stop the party’s information control. But the party can no longer control my skepticism.
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