Chinese legal blog Athens’ Lyceum (雅典学园) was established in December 2005 and their mission, according to the website, is to provide a free and unlimited platform for lovers of legal analysis and students as well as practitioners of the law.
The blog is similar to the closed-down Fatianxia, and can only be read after joining the site (which requests the submission of an application).
One article is a response to the recent incident in Cambridge, where a shoe was thrown at Premier Wen Jiabao. It appeared that the author, Chen Taihe (陈泰和), was in Britain at the time of the incident. His impressions of British political leaders, garnered from what appears to be mostly British television, jarred slightly with his understanding about the Chinese leadership. Here is a partial translation:
Thoughts after shoe was thrown at Wen Jiabao during Cambridge lecture
by Chen Taihe
Premier Wen gave a speech at Cambridge University, but there was shoe-throwing protest, which was immediately associated with the shoe-throwing attack made on George W. Bush by an Iraqi journalist. This kind of thing happens very frequently in Western countries, especially Britain and America. Brown is often mocked in Britain. I am currently in Britain, and talking with British friends. When we talk about Gordon Brown, these friends will make fun of him, and imitate his mumbling speech.
But, on the television screen Premier Wen seemed completely unable to understand what had happened. From his stunned expression, we can see that he was trying to hide his anger whilst acting calm. Chinese political leaders are not so used to this kind of awkward situation. This makes one think of other people in China, who all care about ‘face’. In Britain, the main brains of the government are the main targets for people’s derision. It’s a worldview of democracy.
When Gordon Brown talked about economic plans that the government would introduce to save Britain’s economy, the leader of the Conservative Party kept saying the opposite thing. Also, in parliament, all the members seemed to be booing Brown. Brown’s oratory skills also seemed to be worse than the leader of the Conservative Party, and when he is nervous he stutters, which seems to tickle the British people.
British TV has a “Parliament” channel, and everyday it shows debates in parliament. As soon as Brown talks, everyone begins to laugh: this kind of thing seems to happen a lot. The London Mayor [Boris Johnson] is even funnier, when he is in parliament, a female politician asks him a question.
This fellow persistently gives muddled answers, and when somebody asks him again, he answers before the other has finished. And he does not answer what the question asks. When the question requires a yes or no, he just blathers on. The other person protests and say that they want a yes or no, but he doesn’t even pay them any attention, and continues to blather on. And they show this all on TV, live.
People have been protesting throughout Premier Wen’s visit to London, especially pro-Tibetan independence demonstrators. Now he has also suffered a shoe-attack. It’s OK though, as according to reports the shoe-thrower was not very skilled and the shoe landed more than one meter away from the Premier.
After seeing the BBC’s report, Yahoo also reported on it, so I wanted to see if China will report on it. In the end Sohu, Sina, People’s Net all didn’t, but chose to report on macroscopic topics, for example: “Video: Wen Jiabao gives a talk at Cambridge University” and “Special Topic: Interview with the Financial Times” and “Wen Jiabao: Europe Visit Successful, China and Britain Declare Collaboration to Work Through the Financial Crisis.”
In actual fact, this kind of report shows the gap in the Chinese news, the Chinese leaders’ understanding, the Party and the government’s reactions with international [standards]. This kind of ‘choosing what to report’ is, as we see it, reporting only the positive side to the leaders, whilst not damaging their ‘face’. But in reality, from an international point of view, the news is skewed and unfair.
I remember when many leaders of different countries refused to shake hands with the then President George W. Bush at the G20 Summit in November 2008. On British TV they highlighted this and showed Bush as a loner: people would not shake his hand. We can see that in comparison China really has no need to choose what to broadcast and what not to.
Justin at Son of Shenzhen Zen’s blog wrote recently about his assignment at a state-run English newspaper start-up. They also covered the shoe-throwing (or didn’t):
Chinese media had finally reported － albeit cautiously － the shoe throwing and my trainees had brought in mixed results with their reports. A few had led with it as western media had done and others had submitted stories that barely mentioned it at all, burying it at the end with a brief mention.
Later I discussed the whole affair with seven of them, with one young woman in particular who was still puzzled about the differences. Her report had erred on the side of near-omission but she was truly eager to know “which system is better.” She said the Chinese government style was needed in order to stem any social unrest. I replied that things seemed to be leaning now towards adapting a more open approach and asked what harm had been done in reporting it. “There was no unrest. If anything Premiere Wen came out of it respectfully.”
“Is it necessary to report it though?” she asked.
“It was all over your Internet also,” I said. “People were angry. Chinese students at the talk in Cambridge had yelled ‘Shame on you’ at the protester. China would have looked silly not acknowleding that it happened. It’s no secret. No State secret.” She still looked slightly uncomfortable but agreed I had a point she hadn’t considered.
It appears that, at time of writing, both Xinhua and China Daily are at least now calling it a shoe-throwing incident, rather than reporting it as a “disruption” without specific mentioning of footwear.
