Wen Jiabao takes a phantom train

JDM090623train.jpg

Premier Wen Jiabao recently conducted an inspection tour of a number of industrial installations in Hebei Province. On the 21st, the State Council released a lengthy report of his activities that formed the basis for news reports the following day.

The article’s final sentence reported that during Wen’s trip back to Beijing on the D18 EMU train, the premier spoke with ordinary passengers.

But as netizens discovered, there is no D18 train:

Wen Jiabao rides the nonexistent D18 train

by Ning Ming

On the afternoon of the 20th, Wen Jiabao took the D18 EMU train back to Beijing. During the trip, he personally interacted with the other riders, asking them specific questions about their lives and work.

Wen Jiabao was on an inspection tour of Hebei and returned from Tangshan to Beijing on the afternoon of the 20th by the so-called “D18 EMU train,” and “during the trip, he personally interacted with the other riders, asking them specific questions about their lives and work.” But the D18 EMU train is non-existent. If you search online timetables, you won’t find this train. Or perhaps that train only existed on that one day and was added by the Ministry of Railways specifically for Wen. But then the train’s passengers would probably have to have been workers in disguise.

There’s nothing wrong with Wen Jiabao, as the head of government, riding a special train arranged by the Ministry of Railways; didn’t Mao ride a special train all over the place back in the day? The issue is that the officials named the train D18 and then reported it in the mass media. To an unknowing audience, Wen was close to the people as he rode an ordinary passenger train, and “personally interacted with the other riders.” Through this simple word-game, a few more points were added to Wen’s image as someone who loves the people as his own children. Tsk, amazing. Truly amazing.

One detail here is that the train was given the route number D18. There are rules for naming train routes, and one general rule is that even numbers are given to trains going to Beijing, while those leaving Beijing are given odd numbers. D18 was named correctly, showing a bit of cleverness on the part of the propaganda department, or the painstaking effort of the Ministry of Railways. The Ministry evidently did its part in this instance of ass-kissing.

Update:

A few clarifications to my logic:

  1. At present, there are no EMU trains from Tangshan to Beijing.
  2. The Ministry of Railways can arrange special trains for national leaders. This is not the issue.
  3. What is suspicious is that in the official media reports, this train was given the name D18, which follows the normal naming rules for ordinary EMU trains, and Wen was said to have “personally interacted” with passengers.
  4. The attempt to profit from the situation can’t help but raise my doubts.

Update 2

  1. A netizen pointed out that Wen may not have been returning to Beijing from Tianjin, but may have departed from Qinghuangdao. Were that the case, he may have ridden D28. That would make the D18 mentioned in the reports a reporter error.
  2. If that assumption is correct, then it is my mistake, and I should apologize to all netizens and to the Ministry of Railways. However, I would have thought Xinhua would take greater care in its reports on the activities of national leaders.
  3. Thank you to the netizens who are more careful than Xinhua and myself.

As of this morning, no correction has been issued regarding the original report. However, a number of blog and forum posts discussing the D18 train have mysteriously disappeared.

Another netizen discovered an actual D18 train: for the New Year travel rush in 2008, an additional EMU train from Harbin to Beijing on January 2 and 3 was given the designation D18.

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