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Home / Publications / 6 Junior Visiting Fellows' Conferences / Junior Visiting Fellow Conferences Vol. 36 / Transparency, Propaganda and Disinformation:"Managing" Anticorruption Information in China
Transparency, Propaganda and Disinformation:
"Managing" Anticorruption Information in China
Ling Li
In corruption studies, transparency is often discussed as a quality of public services or public administration, a quality that helps to reduce corruption. This is not what this article focuses on, however. Instead, the focus of this article is the quality of the access to information related to corruption and anticorruption in China and how that affects our understanding about corruption. In this article, such information includes both factual and propagandistic information, the two of which are very often intermeshed and lumped together for presentation. For this reason, it is even more important for us to be aware of this distinction in the discussion.
The rest of this article is organized as follows. The first part examines definitional and other general issues surrounding the concept of transparency. This is followed by an examination of the specific types of information that are used in China's anticorruption activities. The article then offers a brief introduction of the various anticorruption institutions in China. The next part looks at the mass media institutions and the censorship regime in China and is followed by an examination of the distribution of factual anticorruption information and the production of China's anticorruption propaganda and disinformation.
Conceptualization of transparency
In current studies, transparency is almost always associated with good governance and accountability.[2] However, few advocates of transparency have taken the trouble to provide a definition of this popular term. In this article, transparency is treated as the quality of the environment where information related to the delivery of public services is provided. More specifically, it involves the following conceptual issues.
Firstly, transparency concerns the access to information about actions that take place in a space which is, unless a certain privilege is granted, usually cordoned off from people who are not directly involved in carrying out those actions. Such access, in its fullest form, allows the information seekers to enter the space where actions take place. For example, in military actions, journalists may be allowed to "embed" in the task force that carries out a mission so that they can observe the actions as they take place. When it is impractical for the observers to be physically present in places where actions of interest take place or for the event organizer to accommodate a disproportionally large number of attendees in a limited space, direct access can also be granted to observers remotely, for example, by televising or webcasting the events. Such access to live events might be deemed the highest form of transparency.
Secondly, the degree of transparency shall be assessed by the quality of autonomy granted to the information seeker, i.e. their degree of freedom to choose the focus of their attention. Therefore, the direct entrance type of access mentioned above such as physical access to live events offers the highest autonomy to the information seeker, unless these live events are staged. Access to written, audio and/or video records of past events is less transparent because they reduce the autonomy of information seekers by confining the range of their focus of attention only to the archival materials provided. It also gives the information provider the opportunity to omit unfavorable information or even, in extreme cases, to doctor information. This record-only type of access generally indicates a lower degree of transparency compared with access to live events. Total absence of access equates to complete opacity.
Thirdly, the degree of transparency should also be assessed by the tangible and intangible obstacles that one must overcome in order to obtain the information. Tangible obstacles include, for example, limiting the number of seats in the public gallery of a court room, setting up a pay wall for online information and releasing the information only upon approval of a formal request. Intangible obstacles refer to the amount of mental effort or costs entailed in seeking the information, for example, presenting the information with unexplained jargon and in complex sentence structures, which effectively renders the information incomprehensible to non-expert readers, even when physical access to the information is not barred.
Fourthly, questions can be raised as to the limit of transparency. Just the same as the fact that transparency does not always make the strongest social skill for an individual person, it might be counterproductive in some circumstances for public institutions to conduct their business in a completely transparent manner. For example, in the context of an anticorruption investigation, especially when covert actions are involved, it might be self-defeating if all investigative information is immediately made available to the public since it could inform the suspect who might then destroy evidence or abscond before being arrested. Therefore, it is not uncommon that investigative information is withheld from the public while the investigation is ongoing and only published partially at a later stage.
In short, transparency is more about the how than the what. Specifically, transparency concerns whether certain actions are taken by public institutions so that any interested parties can observe the operation of these institutions as their actions take place in real time or examine them based on well documented records. Transparency, therefore, as a value, is different from other values that are essential for good governance, such as equality, efficiency and fairness, which are defined and can be assessed only by looking into what exactly the actions are. Not only is transparency a different value, it is also a prerequisite to the realization of other values, including those mentioned above, since without access to information about the actions concerned, it is impossible to evaluate other qualities of these actions. Having laid out the theoretical foundation, in the next section of this article, I will discuss the meaning of transparency in the context of anticorruption activities in the People's Republic of China (hereafter China).
Types of anticorruption information
As mentioned above, transparency is a precondition for the actualization and assessment of other values which are fundamental for public services. It is also the first step to establishing credibility of public policies. Credibility means, according to the Oxford Dictionary, "the quality of being trusted and believed in", which, in colloquial terms, means that one's words match his or her deeds. A policy or decision is credible when its targeted groups believe that the authority will carry out what it sets out to carry out. It is important for policy-makers to establish such credibility of their policies because when a policy is seen to be credible, that in turn will generate voluntary compliance and hence reduce the cost of enforcement.
Nothing is more important than keeping the decision-making process transparent for the establishment of credibility of a public policy. This is because if the process of decision-making is kept opaque, speculation and conspiracy theories will grow, which can cultivate distrust and cynicism towards the integrity of the public institutions. For example, when anticorruption activities are conducted in secrecy, people may speculate about possible ulterior motives of the anticorruption institutions and withdraw their cooperation or support for their activities. More specifically, transparency in anticorruption activities concerns access to the following types of information:
Anticorruption institutions should provide information regarding both the substantive and procedural rules governing their anticorruption activities. The substantive rules should include the standards that they apply to determine what kind of conduct is deemed to be "corrupt" and consequently subject to punishment. It should also provide information about the factors that will determine the severity of punishment. Procedural rules include the procedures and protocols that are followed by anticorruption institutions in the investigation, examination, prosecution and adjudication of any allegation of corrupt conduct. It will also boost the credibility of the anticorruption institutions if information regarding their organizational structures, personnel information and modus operandi are made available to the public.
Individual cases
In addition to general rules, it is equally important for anticorruption institutions to be transparent about their handling of individual cases in order to enhance the credibility of their anticorruption efforts. Barring circumstances involving covert investigative operations, information regarding the investigation, prosecution and adjudication of individual cases should be made available first to the suspects under investigation and their legal representatives in order to protect the individual rights of suspects and to prevent anticorruption institutions from abusing their power. If an investigation has led to a trial, trial records should be made available not only to the parties to the case but also to the public, detailing "what is being done, how and why actions take place, who is involved, and by what standards decisions are made".[3]
In this article, statistics refers to the collection, presentation, analysis and interpretation of masses of original data relating to corrupt conduct and alleged culprits. Such data includes corruption-related complaints, biographical information of the offenders, specifics of corrupt conduct as well as other circumstantial information such as the political, economic and cultural environment of the place where corruption is committed. Collecting and analyzing such data helps to identify patterns of corrupt conduct, its attributing factors, to assess the effectiveness of anticorruption policies and to assess and improve the performance of anticorruption institutions. Since this data is controlled by anticorruption institutions, it is in the public interest for these institutions to make such information available to the public.
Anticorruption institutions in China
In China, a number of institutions are responsible for carrying out anticorruption activities and hence "produce" and "possess" information directly related to anticorruption activities. The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) reviewed specialized anti-corruption institutions in various countries and identified three models: specialized anticorruption institutions in law enforcement, specialized institutions on preventive measures, policy development and co-ordination, and specialized institutions with all above functions.[4] The Chinese "model" is so complex that it defies such categorization. Firstly, unlike most other countries, China has a single-party or party-state political system, which means that the Chinese Communist Party (the "Party"), with its political monopoly, can extend its pervasive influence to all state institutions, including those that are responsible for anticorruption activities.[5] Therefore, the Party can monitor and interfere in decision making of state anticorruption institutions.[6] Secondly, the Party also creates its own institutions that are directly involved in anticorruption activities, especially regarding anticorruption policy-making and investigation. Thirdly, the Party also formulates anticorruption policies, which state anticorruption institutions are required to follow. In short, both Party and state institutions participate in anticorruption activities in China separately and jointly.
Party institutions
Firstly, a brief introduction to the institutional structure of the Party. At local levels, Party standing committees are factually the highest governing body of the Party in their respective regions. They are generalist institutions and responsible for monitoring and supervising the work of state institutions in all sectors by sending instructions to and/or approving decisions proposed by state institutions on all important public affairs within their geographic boundaries. Under a highly centralized structure, a local Party standing committee answers to the Party standing committee at the next superior administrative level, i.e. from the country, prefectural, provincial to the national/central level, in ascending order. At the national/central level, the highest governing body is further divided into two layers: Politburo and the Politburo Standing Committee.
As generalist institutions, each of these Party standing committees has an all-inclusive mandate, including to direct, oversee and supervise anticorruption work conducted by specialized anticorruption institutions either in the Party or the state. Specifically, such a mandate consists of the formulation of anticorruption policies and the supervision of their implementation, including investigating, examining and making decisions regarding individual corruption-related violations. However, as generalist institutions, these governing bodies only have limited amount of attention that can be extended to anticorruption activities and hence their role in this area is more selective. Routine anticorruption work is instead carried out by the specialized Party anticorruption institutions: the Chinese Communist Party central and local discipline and inspection commissions (the "CCDI" and "local CDIs").
The CCDI works under the Politburo and the Politburo Standing Committee. Under the CCDI, local CDIs are subject to the dual leadership of the CDI at the next higher level and the Party standing committee at the same level. According to the Party Charter, the current main focus of the CCDI and CDIs is to collect information from the public, to conduct pre-prosecution investigation of corrupt conduct of party members and to coordinate amongst various anti-corruption agencies.[7] Since the CDIs can only exercise jurisdiction over party-members, the People's Inspection Committee was established in 1949 at both the national and local levels to scrutinize disciplinary violation of civil servants, who were not Party members.[8] The committee was dismantled in 1959 and then restored in the carnation of the Ministry of Inspection (the "MOI") in 1986.[9] In 1993 the MOI was merged into the CCDI, the two of which share the same personnel and facilities but carry out activities under their respective offices.[10] In general, the CCDI and CDIs currently exercise preemptive power to determine, when the suspect is a ranked official, whether an investigation should be initiated and then whether a prosecution should be pursued.
State institutions
At present, state institutions responsible for anticorruption activities are the People's Procuratorates and People's Courts. The People's Procuratorates have the mandate to both investigate and prosecute corruption-related crimes. More specifically, a specialized branch of the procuratorates, the Anti-Embezzlement and Bribery Bureau (the "AEBB"), carries out routine investigations of corruption-related crimes. Evidently, the AEBB and the CDIs overlap in their corruption investigation jurisdiction. In practice, these two institutions often work collaboratively, although the CDIs generally outrank the procuratorates and enjoy higher authority. Depending on the rank of the suspect, when a lead is first acquired by the procuratorate, the procuratorate is required to inform and seek for instructions from the CDI or the Party Standing Committee at the same level if the lead implicates an official of a rank equal or higher than that of the procuratorate. On the other hand, the CDIs are generally understaffed and their personnel lack proper training, so they often borrow investigators from the procuratorates to conduct investigations on a case by case basis.
Other than the AEBB, the White-collar Crime Prevention Bureau (the "WCPB"), was also established as a department within the procuratorates. Its function mainly concerns prevention-oriented corruption-related research, consultation and training. Apart from the WCPB, the National Bureau of Corruption Prevention (the "NBCP"), established in 2007 under the directorship of the Minister of Inspection, is also responsible for the prevention of corruption.[11] There is no clear division of labour between the two institutions.[12]
New institutional development
In 2016, the Party launched a pilot program to create a new party-state joint institution in the name of National Supervision Commission (the "NSC").[13] Under this new institution, corruption-related investigative activities of both the CDIs and the procuratorates will be merged. At the time of writing, pilot programs are authorized in three locations, namely the Beijing municipality, Shannxi Province and Zhejiang Province. By the end of 2017, the program is expected to be extended nationwide.[14] Full implementation of this program will impact significantly upon the methods and approaches used in anticorruption investigations but little upon the regulatory regime of corruption-related information, which is the focus of the next section.
Mass media and information censorship regime
China has an expansive centrally controlled censorship regime that monitors and filters information before public circulation. Censoring institutions monitor and examine the contents of information carried by any forms of mass media outlets, including the print, broadcast and digital media. The most important censorship organ is the Central Propaganda Department of the Party (the "CPD"). The CPD is a functional division of the Central Party Committee that is specialized in censorship and propaganda. It, together with a number of state regulatory bodies, has the mandate not only to formulate and implement nationwide censorship and propaganda policies but also to issue direct instructions on what to report, what not to report and how to report specific public events to editorial teams of media institutions.[15] This superior-subordinate relationship between the Party propaganda departments and media institutions is safeguarded by the subjection of all mass media institutions to the supervision of the Party through a number of means, including ownership, licensing requirements, and legal measures.
The CPD and its branches conduct day-to-day censorship activities via two main approaches: ex-ante and ex-post supervision. The ex-ante supervision is conducted by the CPD censors who send specific instructions to editors on reporting policies regarding specific events as they unfold or by in-house censors stationed within media institutions who examine the news items before they are published or aired. Ex-post supervision is to apply sanctions to media institutions or individual editors and/or reporters for violations that have slipped through the net of ex-ante supervision.[16]
Since the rapid marketization of media institutions in the 1990s, the censorship regime has become more intricately layered. Large-sized media conglomerates were established which host both daily newspapers that are solely owned and directly run by the Party and market-oriented metropolitan newspapers or business magazines, which are allowed to have more relaxed editorial polices. While the former remains the mouthpiece of the Party, the latter are allowed to have a more autonomous editorial team, covering a wider spectrum of social and economic issues that are of interest to readers. Some of these magazines, enjoying a pocket of air of oxygen to report freely, became the incubators of investigative journalism, for instance the Southern Weekend, Caijing and Caixin magazines, which have pioneered in-depth reporting on corruption-related affairs.
Factual anticorruption information
In this article, the term "factual information" is used in contrast to "propagandistic information". Factual information refers to information concerning the facts of corruption and anticorruption conduct and practices, whilst propagandistic information intimates a more subjective characterization of such conduct and practices. A typical example of the former is the actual texts of corruption-related laws and regulations whilst a typical example of the latter is an editorial opinion on the political significance of the making of such laws and regulations. This is not to suggest that propagandistic information is necessarily false. In fact, propagandistic information is often weaved together with edited factual information and the distinction between the two is becoming more blurred. In China, most of the factual anticorruption information is released by anticorruption institutions themselves and distributed by official mass media.
China is no longer a state of lawless totalitarianism where people are punished without any reference to laws and regulatory rules. Since legal reforms started in the 1980s, significant improvement has been made, historically speaking, in terms of the timely release of legislative information. All corruption-related laws and by-laws are published simultaneously on the websites of all anticorruption institutions and announced in various news outlets. Access to corruption-related regulations was more restricted in the past. In recent years, more efforts have been made to increase transparency in Party affairs. The main area that has benefited from this transparency initiative concerns the publication and dissemination of Party rules and regulations, including those related to anticorruption activities. Such rules and regulations are usually first published on the website of the CCDI and simultaneously announced as news items by the official mass media.
Unlike the reporting of laws and regulations, reporting of the investigation of individual corruption scandals is heavily censored. Of all content disseminated in the mass media, news items related to corruption are the most censored. And journalistic reports implicating unlawful conduct of Party leaders are the most sensitive of all subjects. Although the degree of intensity of censorship may vary at different times and under different administrations, news media institutions are generally forbidden to conduct independent investigative reporting of corruption scandals regarding ranked public officials who are still in office. It means that only after an official investigation has been concluded and disciplinary action been taken by the Party can stories on the case be published. This in turn means that coverage of corruption scandals in the mass media always goes hand in hand with the coverage of anticorruption activities. This is because as a general editorial principle negative news is not to reported unless the issue concerned has been previously resolved internally.
Amongst various types of media, the official newspapers are the main conduit of corruption-related news, especially those newspapers or magazines run by the various anticorruption institutions. For example, the CCDI publishes the China Discipline and Inspection Newspaper中国纪检监察报, Discipline and Inspection magazine纪检监察杂志; the Supreme People's Procuratorate publishes the Procuratorate's Daily, Democracy and Rule by Law magazine and the Supreme People's Court the Legal Daily. Once an investigation of a corruption case is completed, anticorruption institutions may invite reporters from trusted newspapers or magazines, typically, the above affiliated media, to cover the story, granting them access to case files, investigators and/or the offender.
In addition to the official newspapers, a number of commercial newspapers and news magazines have become known for their more independent investigative reporting on business misdeeds and official corruption. Apart from Caijing and Caixin magazines mentioned above, News Weekly and Xinjingbao are also among the more well-known. Although these newspapers and magazines are also subject to heavy censorship, their editorial management enjoys more autonomy and their practice of journalism is more professional, compared with the official daily newspapers run directly by the Party. This means, on the other hand, that they do not normally enjoy the same privileged access to the information withheld by anticorruption institutions as official media institutions have. Nevertheless, they can produce insightful exposé pieces based on publicly available data, interviews with witnesses and expert analysis,[17] except that the space of their autonomy is quite precarious and can be taken away any time if and when they lose political backing from their patrons.
With all the obstacles considered, the investigative reporting by Caijing and later Caixin magazines in many ways is remarkable. Both magazines have published numerous exclusive stories on corruption scandals over the years. For example, when the CCDI announced its decision to detain Zhou Yongkang (a former Politburo Standing Committee member, so far the Party leader of the highest ranking who was disgraced for corruption-related charges) for investigation, Caixin magazine published an exclusive profile of the family of Zhou Yongkang on the very day that the decision was announced.[18]
It was believed that Caixin enjoys privileged access to anticorruption information because of the good personal relationship between its editor-in-chief Hu Shuli and the head of the CCDI, Wang Qishan as well as the PRC president Xi Jinping.[19] For example, in its most recent exclusive story on Xi Xiaoming, a former vice-president of the Supreme People's Court convicted for corruption, Caixin was able to obtain the court judgement of the case that seems not made available to other media outlets and certainly not the public. Nevertheless, even with such privileged connection with anticorruption institutions, the extent of information that a reporter from Caixin can obtain and report is still limited for a number of reasons. To start with, corruption trials are dominated by the prosecution and the defence is restricted in their freedom to conduct independent investigations and to contest the evidence presented by the prosecution. Secondly, the court judgment does not provide sufficient reasoning to explain how facts are established, characterized and how laws are applied on a level that can be deemed as adequate in other legal systems under the principle of the rule of law. Lastly, court judgement reveals little information regarding the process through which a decision is reached. Most of the process information is included in a separate court dossier 副卷, which is classified and unavailable even to the parties of a litigation.[20]
Therefore, the process of anticorruption decision making is by and large kept opaque, especially regarding the investigative phase taken place in the CDIs. Currently, the CDIs only announce summary information of its disciplinary actions, such as the date when an investigation is launched or when a disciplinary sanction is applied. Internal reports that are used as the basis of the disciplinary decisions, such as the investigative report, the case-examination report and the final recommendation report, are never disclosed. The often-used subterfuge for conducting its business in such secrecy is that the CDIs are not state institutions and their activities only concern internal affairs of the Party. This argument is deeply problematic considering the scope and the magnitude of the Party's involvement in the decision making of all state affairs in the country.
Transparency improves, with great limitations, after a case has been transferred by the CDIs to the state legal institutions for prosecution and trial. At this stage, the accused would enjoy the right to counsel and more information related to the charges will be disclosed to the defense. However, when a corruption case goes to trial, the court room is generally cordoned off from the public and mass media. Hence, it was unprecedented when the Jinan Intermediate Court decided to live broadcast the trial of Bo Xilai, a former Politburo member accused of corruption. The transcripts of the trial were "tweeted" out to the public live, albeit with a few minutes of delay, through Weibo, a Chinese Twitter-like social media platform. During the week of Bo's trial, millions of Weibo users were glued to their computer monitors or mobile phones to receive updates of the court proceedings. Later when the court convicted Bo, a full-length court decision was also disseminated to the public. At that time, many thought that the "Weibo-cast" of Bo Xilai's case would mark the beginning of an era of judicial transparency. Many are left disappointed.
Since the new administration took office in late 2012, an anticorruption campaign of an unprecedented scale and scope was launched. More corruption investigations were conducted in the last five years than the previous forty years combined. At the same time, courts launched a "Sunshine Justice" initiative, which consists of a series of measures to increase the transparency and accessibility of judicial services, including making more court decisions available to the public. However, information concerning corruption-related court activities has become more opaque instead of more transparent. First, after the trial of Bo Xilai, no trials of ranked public officials have been made open to the public in any shape or form. Live streaming of court activities has been made possible for certain types of cases but never for cases of corruption. Instead, only snippets of video clips or still images taken from the trial will be released through official media, just enough to show the confession of guilt of the accused and the rendering of conviction. The trial of Bo Xilai became the first and the last (semi)-open trial on corruption that an observer can only hope to have. Second, contrary to what the "Sunshine Justice" initiative suggests, judicial activities concerning high-ranking public officials become a blind spot that is exempted from relevant transparency measures and are kept in the shadow despite the high level of public interest involved in these cases. Based on a search at the national court judgements database (http://wenshu.court.gov.cn), no court decision of the 65 court trials of corrupt public officials at and above the deputy ministerial rank taken place after 2012[21] has been made available to the public at the time of writing. Third, after 2012, courts have tightened the regulation of lawyers' activities in and out of courts, barring them from disclosing information of court activities on sensitive cases to the public. This measure has effectively cut off the last remaining however ad hoc non-official access to anticorruption information, which was tolerated before the new regulation. Therefore, the transparency of judicial activities regarding individual corruption cases, especially those involving high ranking officials, has clearly reduced compared with the situation before 2012.
As mentioned earlier, statistics regarding anticorruption activities can help identify patterns of corrupt conduct, its attributing factors, to assess the effectiveness of anticorruption policies and to evaluate and improve the performance of anticorruption institutions. In China, anticorruption institutions are best positioned to conduct such statistical compilation and analysis since they collect and hold the original data. It is also reasonable to believe that these institutions have the technical capacity to perform these tasks.[22] Currently, statistics on anticorruption activities are released mostly by the CCDI and the Supreme People's Procuratorates. Even though the scope of such information is disproportionate to the richness of the raw data that these institutions can collect, considerable improvement has been made. For a long time, what we could find in the press release was only the simple aggregation of the cases that had been opened and closed in the previous year and the general historical trend. Since 2012, the CCDI has been releasing notices of anticorruption decisions of individual cases in a much more regular and timely fashion, which has provided a pool of meta-data that can be used by commercial media and researchers for further statistical analysis.[23]
Anticorruption propaganda and disinformation
In contrast to the reticence of anticorruption institutions regarding the disclosure of factual information on anticorruption activities, the propagation of information that is collected and compiled for propagandistic purposes is proactive and its methods have become more refined and sophisticated. In this case, propaganda is defined as "a systematic form of purposeful persuasion that attempts to influence the emotions, attitudes, opinions, and actions of specified target audiences for ideological, political or commercial purposes through the controlled transmission of one-sided messages (which may or may not be factual) via mass and direct media channels."[24]
Propagandistic anticorruption information is different from factual anticorruption information in two main aspects. Firstly, anticorruption propaganda is used to influence its readers and audience whilst factual presentation of anticorruption information is to inform. Secondly, propagandistic information is not grounded on facts. Instead, a large portion of its contents consists of a repetition of doctrinal information, personal opinions and expressions of self-reflecting thoughts. Therefore, the costs and efforts required to produce such information is much cheaper compared with the costs of production of news items grounded in fact-finding. Consequently, propagandistic information is produced in much greater volume and disseminated with greater intensity in comparison to factual information.
Corruption-related propagandistic information can be divided into two categories. The first is information compiled by the official anticorruption institutions. Such information includes coverage of anticorruption activities, journalistic-style reports on corruption scandals, anticorruption editorials and other supportive information such as repentant statements provided by corruption offenders. Most of this category of information is created by professional reporters or writers. The second category is comprised of the large volume of fragmented and brief online commentary remarks in support of the official anticorruption policies or decision. Such information is mostly created and disseminated by propagandistic workers recruited by the Party propaganda department and its branches as well as the Communist Youth League, who are nicknamed as "little pink (小粉红)" or "fifty cents party (五毛党)",.[25] Among the two categories of propaganda, the role of the first is primary and will be the focus of the analysis below.
The logic of the propagandistic anticorruption narrative
The main function of corruption-related propaganda is to establish in the mind of its readers a specific narrative of corruption, in other words, why corruption happens, how it happens and what role the Party plays in corruption-related activities. Such narratives are used to isolate the exposed corrupt conduct from the rest of Party affairs and subsequently insulate the Party from the misdeeds of its corrupt members. Typically, these narratives emphasize the ill temperament or moral flaws of the corrupt official, in particular, distancing oneself from the masses, being blinded by the power of public offices, and betrayal of the trust of the Party and the people. For example, in a report tracing the corrupt career of Liu Tie'nan, a senior official at the powerful National Committee of Reform and Development, Liu's conviction was described as "self-sought shame (咎由自取)" and Liu's corrupt conduct was ascribed, through the words of an interviewee, as the inevitable result of his ill disposition, to his growing arrogance and dictatorial behavior.[26]
Anticorruption narratives also emphasize the role of certain external factors that compel officials to commit corruption. Such influence comes mainly from two sources: greedy family members of the corrupt official and scheming bribers. For example, the corrupt conduct of Xi Xiaoming, former vice-president of the Supreme People's Court, is explained as the result of his bad parenting, which, according to the report, had led him to fall victim to the greediness of his son, who was found to have served as the intermediary of most of the corrupt transactions of which Xi was accused.[27] Similarly, former deputy Chairman of the National People's Conference of Political Consultancy and governor of Jiangxi, Su Rong also attributed his crime to bad parenting in his own repentant statement.[28] Apart from family members, bribers are also blamed for the corrupt conduct of officials. For example, in explaining pervasive corruption in Shanxi Province, an anticorruption investigator used the phrase "encircled and ensnared (围猎)" to describe the environment in which officials conducted their business and were "compelled" to take bribes from business-owners. [29] Such narratives highlight the instrumentality of the bribers whose deception is, apparently, so difficult for officials to discern until such corrupt engagement is caught and punished by anticorruption institutions.[30] Furthermore, as far as the narratives go, the vulnerability of these corrupt officials towards greed and temptation is characterized as the outcome of their abandonment of communist ideology, their failure to follow Party instructions and to adhere to Party disciplines. By deserting the communist cause and leadership, as explained in these narratives, these officials strayed from the flock and subsequently fell victim to self-inflicted wrongs, becoming susceptible to the corrupting (external) elements.
Therefore, the explanation of why and how corruption takes place provided by official narratives associates corruption with the dispositional characteristics of individual offenders. They assign the cause of corruption to the corrupt officials themselves or external factors, such as bad influence from their family members and/or scheming bribers. At the same time, this explanation dissociates the parasitic conduct of corrupt officials from their host, the Party. As the narrator stated in a CCDI documentary series Always on the Road: "Implementation of rules eventually relies on the [individual] person [in office] … If everyone strictly complies with the regulations and the rules, then there will be no corruption".[31] This line of explanation is repeatedly addressed in the remorse statements (忏悔书) of officials convicted for corruption, in which they would claim full responsibility for the crime that they have committed and repent for the damage that they have caused to the Party and the people.[32] Occasionally systemic factors are also mentioned in the propagandistic narratives, for example, when collusive corruption is involved. However, such systemic factors that are now popularly termed as "political ecological environment 政治生态环境" must be presented as a localized issue, i.e. confined within the geographic/sectorial jurisdiction of the officials involved.[33] Once localized, even systemic factors can be isolated from the Party and keep the integrity of the latter intact.
As mentioned above, in anticorruption propaganda the report of corruption scandals always goes hand in hand with the coverage of anticorruption activities. The narratives applied in the reporting of corruption scandals not only dissociate the Party from the corrupt offenders but also portray the Party as a wise victim who is able to discern the betrayal of their trust by the corrupted official. Now enlightened, the Party turns itself from a victim to a crusader and becomes the only force that can be relied upon to right the wrong. Next, the propaganda narrative focuses on the salvation of the Party, who as the guardian of the interests of the people, is ready to take all actions necessary to fight corruption. Specifically, party-state propaganda will demonstrate anticorruption policy-makers' belief in the value of honesty of public offices and their recognition of the severity of the political and social harm of corruption to public interest. Any suspicion or speculation, if it exists, about ulterior motives behind the anticorruption polices will also be dispelled. Anticorruption propaganda also highlights the urgency of the problem of corruption, famously framed as an issue of the life and death, which justifies the relevant anticorruption policies, measures and practices.
The last strand of the anticorruption propagandistic narrative is to show the robustness of the implementation of anticorruption measures and the efficacy of enforcement by anticorruption institutions. All corruption cases that have been exposed are presented not only as evidence of the misdeeds of individual offenders but also as evidence of the achievement of the Party's anticorruption efforts. These cases exemplify the compelling force of anticorruption polices, the relentlessness of implementation efforts and the potency of the disciplinary capacity of the Party, all of which are proofs of the indispensability of the Party as the most reliable force to fight corruption.
Re-styling anticorruption propaganda
Since 2012, there has been a surge, in terms of volume and intensity, of dissemination of anticorruption propaganda. In early 2014, soon after President Xi Jinping took office, an important institutional change was made to promote the effectiveness of anticorruption propaganda. The CCDI, the most important anticorruption institution in China, set up its own propaganda department. This means that the CCDI is granted the power to disseminate anticorruption information directly to the public, presumably bypassing the censorship examination by the Central Propaganda Department, hence avoiding delay and stalling caused by intricate inter-departmental politics. At the same time, the Party appointed Xiao Pei to head the new CCDI Propaganda Department, an appointee who has had a long track record as an editor-in-chief at both Party and metropolitan newspapers, notably including the Beijing Youth Daily and Beijing Evening Newspaper.[34]
Thus empowered, the CCDI first launched an anticorruption propaganda campaign to "demystify" its anticorruption work,[35] announcing anticorruption policies, decisions, work procedures and regularly and timely updates on the progress of individual case investigations.[36] In September 2013 the CCDI and the MOS jointly opened their stand-alone website www.ccdi.gov.cn. On 1 January, 2015, the CCDI ushered the New Year with a brand-new template on their website, adopting a refreshing sans-serif style. At the same time, the CCDI hired more staff for its propaganda division to ensure that the website's homepage is updated on a daily basis.[37] Six months later, the website launched a platform for the public to report disciplinary violations online. A further six months later, the CCDI/MOS opened their official account on the popular social media platform Wechat and launched a mobile App.
This "demystification initiative" has significantly raised public awareness of the anticorruption activities of the Party. Since its launch the CCDI website has become the most important window to the anticorruption work conducted by the highest anticorruption institution in the country. Having the privilege to be the first to report on anticorruption investigations involving high-ranking public officials, the CCDI website attracted daily traffic of more than 1 million hits and ranked as the most visited official websites of any public institution in 2014.[38]
At present, the website has eight columns: Leaders' Activities, Party Disciplines and Regulations, Disciplinary Examination, Inspection Work, Open Information, Monitoring and Exposure, Online Interview, Online Exhibition. The website releases a considerable amount of anticorruption-related factual information. It collects, compiles and releases information regarding the latest anticorruption activities of the CCDI and all provincial CDIs. It outlines and provides the full text of important anticorruption regulations. Needless to say, the website is also a propaganda platform, hosting special editions where the profiles of model anticorruption agents are published and the confessions of convicted officials are displayed in multi-media forms.
Perhaps most important of all, the jewel in the crown of anticorruption propaganda work is a two-part documentary-series that the CCDI produced together with the national state television network CCTV in 2016. The first series Always on the Road addresses the question of how corruption takes place. The series covers eight slightly different themes in eight episodes. Each episode addresses one anticorruption policy issue, which is exemplified by specific case stories. The entire series covers more than 40 corruption cases, including those of "big tigers", that is the Party officials of and above the rank of deputy minister. The second series has three episodes, reporting on the internal investigations of corruption committed by anticorruption agents. It addresses the classic question of who monitors the monitors and underlines the political mission and ethical obligations of anticorruption institutions and their agents. Both series were broadcast at primetime on CCTV and are available for streaming on the CCDI website as well as other major commercial video-streaming websites.
In the past, anticorruption propagandistic multimedia materials were old fashioned, adopting a heavy-handed, outmoded propagandistic style that can be traced back to the early time of the PRC. The materials were monotonous and would overwhelm the audience with dry texts of anticorruption policies and propagandistic commentaries delivered by a high-pitched narrator. The interviews were noticeably staged and confessions were unconvincing.
The two latest CCDI documentary-series mark a major contrast to the above. They followed the Western style of "current affairs" broadcast journalism format with a greater sense of journalistic realism. Interviews with corruption offenders and anticorruption agents constitute the backbone of the series, in addition to footages of past and recent activities of Party leaders and interviews of incumbent Party leaders and experts. The series does not have a presenter. The interviewer's face and voice are also cut from the scenes. Therefore, from the audience' viewpoint, all stories are told by the corruption offenders themselves and anticorruption agents who are involved in the cases. The scenes are cut frequently between the shots of street views of the location where the crime took place, the prison where the offenders are kept and the office where the anticorruption agents are interviewed. In between the stories, current practices are related to past practices in the earlier period of the PRC and imperial China, punctuated with ancient anticorruption aphorisms. All these various fragments, including interviews, archival footages, figures and charts, are connected through the voice-over of mature baritone, who provides coherence to the story and elevates its moral significance with important editorial messages. Without conducting a well-designed survey, it is difficult to precisely evaluate the effect of this new-style propaganda on its viewers' perception of corruption and anticorruption activities, but there is no doubt that this new realistic reporting style blurs the line between factual and propagandistic information more than ever.
Disinformation is one of many propagandistic techniques that existed long before the arrival of the "post-truth" era where "fake news" can make a difference.[39] Disinformation works most effectively where access to the source of information is monopolized and strictly controlled by the government. In the context of anticorruption activities in China, disinformation may be used during smear campaigns which usually accompany the fall of corrupt high-ranking officials. Stories produced during such campaigns aim to demoralize and discredit officials, who are prohibited to voice their points of view and to challenge the official narratives themselves or through their attorneys or family members. Such monopolistic control of access to the source of information makes the public more receptive to disinformation produced and circulated by the government.
However, disinformation does not only take place in authoritarian regimes where information is heavily censored. Societies with free access to information are also vulnerable to disinformation. For example, overseas Chinese news outlets are flooded with unexamined accusations against public officials except that their targets are officials who are still in power. These outlets are often hosted by dissidents of the Chinese government, who establish their own broadcasting channels, empowered by the user-generated information-sharing platforms, most notably Youtube. These "self-media" outlets broadcast not only dissenting political opinions but also serve as platforms through which individuals can air news-worthy corruption allegations of Chinese government leaders who are still in power, which is a taboo topic in the media within China.
The story that has received the widest public exposure involved recent allegations made by Guo Wengui, a New York-based business tycoon, who accused several members of the Politburo of the Party of various offenses, including embezzlement, solicitation and taking of bribes. The allegations were broadcast in the form of interviews first through Youtube Channel of Mingjing TV and later Guo Wengui's own Youtube channel and Twitter account. The participation of such "independent" media outlets adds an additional dimension to the corruption-related information landscape. At the same time, in the absence of institutionalized journalistic ethics rules, these "independent" news outlets are easy platforms for disinformation as much as the authorized propaganda platforms. Consequently, despite that more information is produced, it is however mixed with disinformation that is difficult for average reader/audience to ascertain and hence does not necessarily bring us closer to truth.
In this article, I assessed the quality of transparency of anticorruption activities in China by examining the availability of anticorruption information in the public domain and the quality of the access to such information. Given the role of censorship and propaganda in information dissemination and media practices in China, I made an important distinction between factual information and propaganda and examined both.
In general, the volume of corruption-related information has drastically increased since 2012 thanks to the introduction of various social media platforms and the increased anticorruption efforts. There has been some steady improvement in the release of corruption-related laws and regulations as well as of the announcement of main procedural decisions during the disciplinary and/or judicial processes of individual corruption cases. However, the control over detailed information that may explain how and why a specific decision has been made was significantly tightened. More importantly, recipients of corruption-related information enjoy no autonomy in their choice of the information received because of the limit on the access to the source of information controlled by governmental authorities.
While the provision of factual information remains limited, propagandistic anticorruption information is produced in abundance and circulated to the public with much greater intensity and growing sophistication. In the past five years, great efforts have been made by the Party to improve the popularity of anticorruption propaganda and to increase the diversity of anticorruption propagandistic contents. The purpose of anticorruption propaganda remains the same, which is to localize problems of corruption by characterizing corruption offenders as trust-breaching and venal opportunists who have deserted the cause of the Party and fallen prey to beguiling bribers. Thus, the Party is able to portray itself both as a victim of the crimes of corruption and as a crusader against corruption, while striving to have its moral image repaired and integrity restored.
AEBB Anti-Embezzlement and Bribery Bureau
CCDI Central Commission of Discipline and Inspection
CCP Chinese Communist Party
CPD Central Propaganda Department
MOI Ministry of Inspection
NBCP National Bureau of Corruption Prevention
NSC National Supervision Commission
WCPB White-collar Crime Prevention Bureau
Brady, Anne-Marie. "Guiding Hand: The Role of the Ccp Central Propaganda Department in the Current Era." Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture 3, no. 1 (2006): 58-77.
CCDI, Propaganda Office. A Brief Course of the Institutional Development of Discipline Inspection Commissions. Beijing: China Fang Zheng Press, 2002.
Dionisie, Dan, Francesco Checchi. "Corruption and Anticorruption Agencies in Eastern Europe and the Cis: A Practitioners' Experience." UNDP Bratislava Regional Centre, 2008.
Herman, Edward S., Noam Chomsky. Manufacturing Consent – the Political Economy of the Mass Mdia: Vintage, 1994.
Holland, Max. "The Propagation and Power of Communist Security Services Dezinformatsiya." International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence 19, no. 1 (2006): 1-31.
Johnston, Michael. "Good Governance: Rule of Law, Transparency, and Accountability." New York: United Nations Public Administration Network (2006).
Li, Ling. "The Chinese Communist Party and People's Courts – Judicial Dependence in China." The American Journal of Comparative Law 64, no. 1 (2016): 37-74.
———. "The "Production" of Corruption in China's Courts – the Politics of Judicial Decision-Making and Its Consequences in a One-Party State." Law & Social Inquiry 37, no. 4 (2012): 848-77.
———. ""Rule of Law" in a Party-State – a Conceptual Interpretive Framework of the Constitutional Reality of China." Asian Journal of Law and Society 2, no. 1 (2015): 93-113.
OECD. "Specialised Anti-Corruption Institutions – Review of Models." Anticorruption Division, OECD, 2006.
Shambaugh, David. "China's Propaganda System: Institutions, Processes and Efficacy." The China Journal, no. 57 (2007): 25-58.
Wang, Haitao王海涛 "Why Is the Propaganda Work of the CCDI so Brilliant 中纪委的宣传工作怎么这么牛."
Wang, Shu王姝. "Charting Public Opinion on the Most Discussed Topics in 2014 中纪委官网登"2014网络舆情热点首爆媒体排行榜"." 新京报网.
Weiss, Friedl, Silke Steiner. "Transparency as an Element of Good Governance in the Practice of the Eu and the Wto: Overview and Comparison." Fordham International Law Journal, no. 5 (2007): 1545-86.
Wu, Yuliang吴玉良. "Background, History and Main Functions of the CCDI Organizational Department and Propaganda Department 中央纪委组织部、宣传部的组建背景、历史沿革和主要职能." CCDI Press Release (2015).
[1] The author would like to express her gratitude to the Institute of Human Sciences (IWM) in Vienna, where she spent seven months between September 2017 to March 2018 as a visiting fellow. The fellowship provided the author with the necessary research facilities but exerted no influence in the substance of this research. The author can be reached at liling6234@gmail.com.
[2] Friedl Weiss, Silke Steiner, "Transparency as an element of good governance in the practice of the EU and the WTO: Overview and Comparison," Fordham International Law Journal, no. 5 (2007). Michael Johnston, "Good Governance: Rule of Law, Transparency, and Accountability," New York: United Nations Public Administration Network (2006).
[4] Dan Dionisie, Francesco Checchi, "Corruption and Anticorruption Agencies in Eastern Europe and the CIS: a Practitioners' Experience," (UNDP Bratislava Regional Centre, 2008). pp.7-15. OECD, "Specialised Anti-corruption Institutions – Review of models," (Anticorruption Division, OECD, 2006). pp.5-8.
[5] For more detailed explanation on the party-state structure, see Ling Li, ""Rule of law" in a Party-state – A conceptual interpretive framework of the constitutional reality of China," Asian Journal of Law and Society 2, no. 1 (2015).
[6] For example, to see how the Party can influence judicial decision making in courts, see ———, "The Chinese Communist Party and People's Courts – Judicial Dependence in China," The American Journal of Comparative Law 64, no. 1 (2016).
[7] CCP Charter (2002). Ch.8.
[8] Propaganda Office CCDI, A brief course of the institutional development of Discipline Inspection Commissions (Beijing: China Fang Zheng Press, 2002).p.4.
[9] Ibid. p.5.
[10] Ibid. p.6.
[11] Official website of the Bureau. http://politics.people.com.cn/GB/8198/114315/114316/6763150.html
[12] Annual Report of the Supreme People's Procuratorate of 2003. Information available at http://news.qq.com/a/20090310/001269.htm
[13] See http://news.sohu.com/20161110/n472770223.shtml
[14] See http://news.sina.com.cn/o/2017-01-09/doc-ifxzkfuk2920322.shtml
[15] For an archival record of such instructions, see www.chinaditigaltime.com under the column of the "Ministry of Truth".
[16] For more details, see Anne-Marie Brady, "Guiding Hand: The Role of the CCP Central Propaganda Department in the Current Era," Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture 3, no. 1 (2006). and David Shambaugh, "China's Propaganda System: Institutions, Processes and Efficacy," The China Journal, no. 57 (2007).
[17] The exposé on Wen Jiabao's family members published by the New York Times is one good example.
[18] See http://china.caixin.com/2014-07-29/100710329.html
[19] See http://www.wenxuecity.com/news/2015/04/01/4151073.html, http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/13/10/5/n3979684.htm
[20] Ling Li, "The "Production" of Corruption in China's Courts – The politics of judicial decision-making and its consequences in a one-party state," Law & Social Inquiry 37, no. 4 (2012).
[21] Based on the data provided in the report at http://news.sina.com.cn/c/sz/2015-11-19/doc-ifxkwuwy6977243.shtml.
[22] See http://www.spp.gov.cn/zdgz/201701/t20170114_178549.shtml.
[23] For example, see the special column on corruption at http://news.sina.com.cn/z/zgfanfu2012/.
[24] Richard Alan Nelson, A chronology and glossary of propaganda in the United States, 1996, pp.232-233
[25] For further reading on this topic, see Rongbin Han (2015) Manufacturing consents in Cyberspace: China's Fifty Cents Army, Journal of Current Chinese Affairs, Vol. 44, no. 2, 105-134.
[26] Similar narratives can be found in the reports on the cases of Liu Tie'nan刘铁男, Deng Qilin邓麒麟, Tan Qiwei谭栖伟. See the documentaries series Zhong, J. (2016). Always on the Road 永远在路上 produced by the CCDI and CCTV in 2016.
[27] See http://china.caixin.com/2017-01-12/101042911.html.
[28]Zhong, J. (2016). Always on the Road 永远在路上, episode 4.
[29] Zhong, J. (2016). Always on the Road 永远在路上, episode 3 & 4.
[31] Zhong, J. (2016). Always on the Road 永远在路上, episode 8.
[32] This line of discourse was used by almost every convicted official who was interviewed in the documentary-series.
[34] Haitao王海涛 Wang, "Why is the Propaganda Work of the CCDI so Brilliant 中纪委的宣传工作怎么这么牛."
[35] Shu王姝 Wang, "Charting Public Opinion on the Most Discussed Topics in 2014 中纪委官网登"2014网络舆情热点首爆媒体排行榜"," 新京报网.
[36] Yuliang吴玉良 Wu, "Background, History and Main Functions of the CCDI Organizational Department and Propaganda Department 中央纪委组织部、宣传部的组建背景、历史沿革和主要职能," CCDI Press Release (2015).
[37] Wang, "Charting Public Opinion on the Most Discussed Topics in 2014 中纪委官网登"2014网络舆情热点首爆媒体排行榜"".
[39] Max Holland, "The Propagation and Power of Communist Security Services Dezinformatsiya," International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence 19, no. 1 (2006). Also see various examples presented in Edward S. Herman, Noam Chomsky, Manufacturing consent – The political economy of the mass mdia (Vintage, 1994).
IWM Junior Visiting Fellows' Conferences, Vol. XXXVI
© 2019 by the author
Readers may redistribute this article to other individuals for noncommercial use, provided that the text and this note remain intact. This article may not be reprinted or redistributed for commercial use without prior written permission from the author. If you have any questions about permissions, please contact the IWM.
Preferred citation: Li, Ling. 2019. Transparency, Propaganda and Disinformation: "Managing" Anticorruption Information in China. In: Political Order in Changing Societies, ed. K. Thomas, Vienna: IWM Junior Visiting Fellows' Conferences, Vol. 36.
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How cool was that?! Love your bird paintings. They fit right in with the rest of the wonderful things in the shop.
How cool! I know you were in heaven. Happy Birthday to that sweet Coco!


Poland is the perfect spa destination for anyone seeking superior spa treatments at resorts located in picturesque surroundings. If you were already planning on a holiday in Poland, the comparatively lower prices and great value for money mean that visiting a spa should definitely be on your to-do list.
Whether you'd prefer the long, sandy beaches of the Baltic Sea in the north of the country or the magnificent mountain trails in the south, these stunning landscapes and the fresh, clean air will delight your senses and refresh your body.
With a long tradition as a spa town, Kolobrzeg health resorts offer traditional spa treatments as well as state of the art luxury. Located on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea, Kolobrzeg is also a cultural hub, especially in the summer when many singers and musicians come to visit.
The coastal location lends itself to spa therapies using natural sea resources and ingredients. Hotels in Kolobrzeg are suitable for guests who would like to relax by the sea, reduce respiratory problems, alleviate joint and spine pains or simply pamper themselves with beauty treatments.
Close to the Czech border in the Jizera Mountains is Swierardow Zdroj, an area well-known for balneotherapy programmes, using radon. Such programmes are especially effective for inflammatory and respiratory diseases. As well as hiking and active weeks, you can also profit from the natural radon springs, marshes and mineral springs. The town has been a location for Poland's health resorts since the 17th century and even the spa house itself has a cultural heritage status with its beautiful timber frame.
Our health resorts in Poland offer almost every type of spa therapy you could wish for.
Above are just a few examples of popular treatment programmes, but select your personal preferences in the search bar at the top or contact our expert travel advisors for info on programmes for different illnesses.There are other sorts of therapy such as radon, fitness, slimming and osteoporosis weeks. There are so many options for spa hotels in Poland! Browse them all here.
Many of the spa hotels in Poland also offer specific health diets and nutrition plans. If you want to lose weight or maintain a healthy figure, whilst still enjoying delicious cuisine, a weight loss holiday in Poland on the coast of the Baltic Sea could be exactly what you need. Check out our weight loss holidays by the Baltic Sea here.


text:
d.Light Solar Starts New Outlet in Nairobi: Kenya
Posted on : Monday , 2nd November 2020
Sun Solutions provider d.light Solar has developed a new outlet in Nairobi, Kenya's capital, with the goal of growing customer response time during the coronavirus pandemic era. As per the firm, the 500-capacity centre will host its customer service team to boost customer experience and ensure business continuity amid the health crisis.
"It is extremely important for us and I believe to the largest extent the entire corporate world must readjust and readjust how we serve our clients in the wake of the challenge of having to adhere to the safety protocols," said d.light Solar Chief Operations Officer, Jacob Okoth,
The company says that its solar energy solutions have so far influenced the lives of at least 100 million people in the country, with the goal of accelerating the number in the next decade.
"The new call center will be the first of the many important changes for the company relating to its vision to transform one billion lives by 2030," said d.light Solar Head of Customer, Lilian Njoki.
Okoth has said although the firm has service centres across the country, the new one has been built and structured to respond to the reality of the coronavirus pandemic.
"With the new contact center, accommodating over 500 agents, the company will cater to the increasing number of customers which will be more accessible and will meet and exceed customer expectations by delivering great customer service." Okoth added.
Managing Director Alex Olum said that a new station that adheres to health protection measures would also improve service capabilities as well as a major increase in the implementation of solar energy solutions.
"Customers will no longer just walk in and out of offices, so the opportunity for them to be attended at first instance through the call centre to determine the best way to address their concerns reduces the risk of person to person contact," said Olum.
D.ligh Solar is one of the 18 renewable energy companies that earned around US$ 4.6 million in funding under the Kenya
OffGrid Solar Access Project (KOSAP) to provide standalone solar systems and clean cooking solutions to households in 14 counties, currently underserved by the national electricity grid.
Source : www.innzaf.com

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Recently, we have been reading comments from a few blog owners, who do not appreciate the latest version of the Post Editor, Some blog owners are so unhappy that they want Blogger to retain the old Post Editor, so they can avoid the changes indefinitely.
At first glance, this may seem like a reasonable idea - why not keep the old version indefinitely, to accommodate those who cannot move forward?. Unfortunately, that strategy is not really practical. As Blogger releases new features to Blogger, having two versions of Post Editor will require some features that have to be developed in two aliases, each alias being compatible with a different version of post editor.
Eventually, the next new version of post editor will be developed. Maintaining two old versions of post editor, or abruptly discontinuing the oldest version, would be an immediate necessity then. Neither strategy will really serve the folks who, right now, see the need to keep using the old version.
The answer here, folks, is that everybody needs to move forward, and start using the new version, sometime in the near future. As you move forward, you can help identify and report the problems found, so Blogger can fix the problems. To encourage reporting of problems, Blogger has developed an Issue Reporting Form, where you can report any issues found with the new (2010) Post Editor.
As you are able, move forward - and when you find a problem, or identify a feature that you don't like, report what you don't like. The sooner that you move forward, and report the problems that you discover, the sooner that your problems will be considered - and the more likely that your problems will be seriously considered ahead of the others who move forward later.
Help Blogger make the new post editor a good product. Move forward.
I must have missed something, I didn't know there WAS a new version!


Can I deduct health care related costs?
We all know health issues are no fun. At least the IRS steps up to give you a nice deduction on those outrageous health care costs… right? Right?!?
Well, the unfortunate answer is: kind of.
But not near as much as you are probably being led to believe.
First of all, lets talk about what can potentially be deducted with health care costs.
The basics of it are you can deduct any "qualified" medical costs paid for you or any of your dependents in a given year.
Essentially this comes down to medical related costs paid to doctors, dentists, surgeons, hospitals, chiropractors, etc.
It also could include lodging when you have to stay in hotels for medical procedures, travel costs and health insurance costs, assuming you don't have it taken out pre-tax through your job or business.
You can find a large list of approved medical expenses here.
Those medical expenses can add up quickly, especially if you have young kids, but at least you get a nice break on your taxes for them.
Now we have to talk about the restrictions of deducting these medical expenses.
In 2017, the standard deduction for a single taxpayer is $6,350.
For married taxpayers it's $12,700.
But the IRS also gives you the option to itemize your deductions if you can beat that standard deduction with certain expenses. Itemized deductions consists of many expenses, but the main ones are mortgage interest, property taxes, state taxes, charitable contributions and medical expenses.
So if you add up all of those expenses, plus a few others, and they are more than your standard deduction, the IRS allows you to take the higher itemized deduction, which includes the medical expenses.
For most people, they likely won't itemize unless they own a home or pay a very high amount of state taxes.
"Great" you may be saying to yourself.
You own a home and you live in California. Plenty of mortgage interest and state taxes mean you will definitely itemize and now you can deduct all those pesky medical costs, right?
Unfortunately there's one more restriction, and this is the big one. The IRS is going to reduce those medical expenses by ten percent of your adjusted gross income.
This means if you made $100,000 last year, the IRS is going to limit your medical Cost deduction by a whopping $10,000. So if you had $11,000 in medical costs, the IRS says go ahead and deduct $1,000.
The unfortunate truth here is that unless you have very low income or very, very high medical costs, the tax code provides you almost no relief for medical costs.
So when your doctors or hospitals try and tell you not to worry too much about their crazy high costs because you will be able to deduct them on taxes, take that advice with a giant grain of salt.
Next month, we will go over a few ways that being self-employed can offer you a few better options in deducting these medical costs.
Podcast Movement is one of our favorite events.
Not only do they bring together hundreds of individuals who all have one thing in common (a love for podcasting), but they also make sure those individuals learn a lot, have an experience to remember, and leave even more inspired than when they arrived.
Podcast Movement 2017 in Anaheim was no exception.
From the opening keynote by Dan Carlin, (which was led by our good friend Andrew Warner of Mixergy), to stage appearances by Pat Flynn, Amy Porterfield, Cliff Ravenscraft, our partner Mark Asquith, and many more, PM kept us busy.
It actually all started the day before Podcast Movement when we hosted an all day Workshop called From Idea to Launch and Beyond.
With a packed house (60 podcasters ready to dive into the details) and 5 workshop leaders to help us through eight hours of content, we left no stone unturned!
The Workshop was an absolute blast and we received rave reviews from those who attended.
A huge thank you to our Workshop leaders Alissa Daire Nelson, Jodi Flynn, Kara Lamerato, Vanessa Merten and Nick Loper!
We followed our all-day workshop up with our annual Podcasters' Paradise meet up, a pre-screening of a documentary we were a part of: The Messengers, and an after-party put on Podcast Websites at the local bowling alley!
And this was all before the event had even started!
Wednesday morning our focus turned to our sponsorship booth, where we were selling The Freedom and Mastery Journal. This year was extra fun because we were also doing a drawing for those who invested in a Journal with a first place prize of a 30-minute call with JLD!
Congrats to Andy Storch for winning first place!
Luckily we had Zach Hesterberg and Travis Chappell holding down the fort for us at the booth, because first thing Wednesday morning John was taking the stage with Pat Flynn and Amy Porterfield.
We won't get into too many details about the talks here because we dive deep in our Podcast Movement 2017 Recap post here!
Next up on stage: me!
In front of a standing room only audience I presented Audience Growth and Meaningful Monetization with Podcasting Systems.
While I was pretty nervous to present, the feedback I received was really amazing.
With a laser focus on providing the most amount of value possible the panel shared what they've learned post-launch about the importance of niching down and engaging with your audience to help your show grow.
And because each of these podcasters has monetized their show in very different ways, it was incredibly valuable to hear how they got to that stage.
Again, for all the details on our experience at Podcast Movement, be sure to check out our recap post here!
Immediately following our four days of fun and conferencing at Podcast Movement we jumped on a plane from LAX > Vancouver to visit our great friends Jill & Josh Stanton from Screw the Nine to Five.
But don't let that fool you… even though we had zero plans upon arrival, the next day we wasted no time diving right in to everything Vancouver has to offer.
If you've never been, we HIGHLY recommend it!
It started with a walk around Stanley Park, which lasted about three hours and was absolutely gorgeous.
We stopped off for lunch, had an awesome stroll back, and then enjoyed the patio and ocean breeze before heading to dinner.
The next day we enjoyed another epic walk – this time down to Sunset Beach Park for some coffee and frisbee, which ultimately resulted in a visit to Granville Island.
What?! If I were ever in proximity to a public market like that one – I'd be in trouble! With what seemed like hundreds of vendors with the yummiest and most unique things to sell, we spent a good amount of time walking around.
After the market we had an amazing lunch, then headed back towards Sunset Beach Park and walked on to Yaletown and into Gastown.
That evening we had the pleasure of bbq-ing with our friends Greg and Veronica from Thinkific (based in Vancouver) along with a few other friends from Jill & Josh's neighborhood.
I know I said we went into this with no plans, but it sounding like a pretty packed schedule, right?!
The next day we rented an 18′ boat and spent the day on the water – starting in Vancouver Harbor and then going over to Deep Cove where we stopped for lunch.
We couldn't have asked for a better day – the water was like glass and the weather was perfect.
Our last day was spent hiking – all the way to Garibaldi Lake. Now this hike is no joke. We drove about an hour and half to get to the start of it, then hiked 5.5 miles to get to one of the most incredible scenes ever.
An 11 mile roundtrip hike left us spent, but luckily we had just enough time to stop back at the Stanton's for a quick shower before our redeye back to Puerto Rico.
Not only did we have the time freedom to choose to do this after Podcast Movement, but we had the financial freedom to make it happen, too.
Hiking all weekend, and spending the day on the water on a Monday?
We stopped multiple times throughout this trip to really take in how incredibly lucky and grateful we are for the life we've created.
It's been well over a year in the making, but it's finally here!
After we launched The Freedom Journal on Kickstarter I thought it would be a crime to not share that experience with Fire Nation.
All the time, effort and energy that went into figuring out how that whole process was supposed to work had to be shared.
And so pretty much immediately after our campaign on Kickstarter wrapped, I published a post (or what some might consider, a book), to share our experience and the exact steps we took to crush it on Kickstarter.
While I was creating that post, I thought: what about an audio version?
There were so many amazing team members involved in this process, and I knew if I could get them on the line for even just 20 minutes each that I would have loads of priceless advice to share with Fire Nation.
But those audio files and my idea to create the audio version of that post continued to get pushed to the back burner. No excuses here: I simply wasn't making it a priority.
And so when Season 7 came up for Kate's Take, I thought about the themes and struggles I'd been hearing from a lot of our audience, and specifically, those who tuned in to Kate's Take.
A lot of the struggle was around taking an idea and turning that idea into something – something that could help generate revenue.
So I went back to our experience with The Freedom Journal, brought up those audio files, and I stretched myself really far to put together a season on Kate's Take like no other.
If you want to know How to go from Idea to Launch, then this Season is for you. It's a step-by-step guide to everything you need to consider, know and research in order to make it happen.
After our travels in August, John and I returned to Puerto Rico absolutely spent.
Podcast Movement was a lot of work. Not just while we were there running the workshop, speaking on stage, and running a sponsorship booth, but all the time leading up to it, too.
Not to mention the parties and meet ups and dozens upon dozens of conversations you're having throughout the day.
It's all amazing, but sometimes, I don't think we realize the toll it's taking on our bodies.
And even though we had a very relaxing trip to Vancouver immediately following Podcast Movement, it still took nearly four days to "recover" from our travels.
It got me thinking… our bodies – and our minds – are not made to ALWAYS be on. If that were the case, we wouldn't require sleep, or water, or food.
Our bodies and our minds are meant to rest, and in order to perform at our best consistently, we have to remember to give ourselves that time.
It's nice to think that we're superwo(man), but it's also okay to admit that we're not.


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Broadly speaking, administrative activities can be Broken down into two different types: operational and regulatory. Operational tasks are the ones that are essential to the smooth and successful running of a business, like managing incoming and outgoing payments or recruitment. Regulatory admin, and however, involves compulsory tasks demanded by the government – such as filing business tax returns. These tasks don't necessarily contribute to the achievement or otherwise of a business enterprise.
Prioritisation is crucial when it comes to Reducing your company's admin load. Identifying the most crucial activities, their deadlines and being conscious of any dependencies between them can help you get through your workload more efficiently. You will also have to comprehend how much time you or your employees have available to invest on admin so that you are able to allocate resource accordingly. The key to successful prioritization is being able to distinguish between tasks that are important and unimportant in addition to urgent and non-urgent activities. Important tasks are the ones which have a concrete effect on the success of your business enterprise, while urgent ones are those with a company – and – approaching – deadline, even with impacts if that deadline is missed.
The core principle behind outsourcing is simple. Have a task you don't desire, or do not have time to perform, and pay someone else to do it. It is a great way to offload some of your admin burdens and frequently to get the work completed by a professional better than if it was handled in-house. While it's seldom quite as simple or easy as this, outsourcing is nonetheless one of the greatest strategies to free up admin time so that it can be spent elsewhere. First, of identify what business functions that you want to outsource. Financial tasks, like bookkeeping and payroll, and IT are the regions possibly most commonly passed on to outside service providers but practically any area of your company, from HR to promotion, may be outsourced.
On the surface, taking advantage of digital Tools to streamline your workflow might seem to be an obvious way to lower your business's admin load. However over half of all UK SMEs still manage administrative tasks manually instead of using applications to alleviate the load on their employees. Of these companies, 59% cited concerns regarding the cost of execution as the primary reason for not digitizing admin. The understanding that admin software is expensive is not carried out by the information, yet. UK businesses spend just 3.5% of the complete admin cost on applications – maybe not a lot thinking about the possible resource and time savings it empowers.
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Needless to Say, there's also a wide Selection of Specialised admin applications that could take digitization to another level. Many center admin functions can be transformed and streamlined with the right tools, from HR suites to cloud bookkeeping program. More importantly, though, many of these software packages are able to share data with each other from the cloud, potentially removing several hours of tedious manual data entry and cross-checking.
This Sort of integration between admin Software opens up numerous possibilities. In the example of accounting applications, cloud solutions might tie together different functions and seamlessly automate many areas of your fiscal process. It is possible to sync your bookkeeping software with your payments option, so that customer payment immediately appears on your accounts instead of having to be input manually. You could even use the software to make and send invoices and handle and distribute VAT, substantially reducing the burden on you and your employees.
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AAR insurance is primarily a health insurance kenya company that started operation in 1984 as an air and road ambulance service and operated under the name Africa Air Rescue. The company's products were designed to meet the needs of travelers on safari, tourists and professionals working in remote places. After many years of successful operations AAR diversified its business holdings by opening health centers and offering medical insurance services.
The company currently provides outpatient healthcare services all over the East African region to both members of its insurance schemes, and to the public. It works with leading hospitals to offer outpatient services for clients and patients who may need admission or specialized care. AAR insurance works with a panel of hospitals and its members are not forced to use AAR healthcare facilities. These hospitals include the Aga Khan University Hospital, Mater, AAR HealthCare, Gertrude's and Medanta, among others.
Apart from Healthcare, AAR insurance also provides general insurance services such as personal accident cover, doctors indemnity cover, school insurance (covering school infrastructure, student insurance etc), among others.
The company intends to start operations in Somalia, Ethiopia, and South Sudan in response the demand for its services in these countries.
AAR Insurance has 11 branches. Here is the list of contacts of all AAR insurance branches.
AAR Insurance has a number of modes through which payments can be made for their various products. Below are the various modes of payment.
AAR insurance is an equal opportunity employer. The company is considered a great employer and is a place you can grow your career within the insurance industry. The company posts various openings in the dailies and on its website. Please visit the company's website to view all the job openings available at the company.


Access all ontologies that are available in BMICC MedPortal: You can filter this list by category to display ontologies relevant for a certain domain. You can also filter ontologies that belong to a certain group. Subscribe to the BMICC MedPortal RSS feed to receive alerts for submissions of new ontologies, new versions of ontologies, new notes, and new projects. You can subscribe to feeds for a specific ontology at the individual ontology page. Add a new ontology to BMICC MedPortal using the Submit New Ontology link (you need to sign in to see this link).


As a tech writer, I'm often asked by people whether they should buy an iPhone 4 or wait for the inevitable iPhone 5. That's a hard question to answer when you don't know exactly what's coming, or when.
A couple of leaks -- one from Digitimes and one from China Times -- suggest that the iPhone 5 will have a 4-inch display, compared to 3.5 inches on the iPhone 4, but the phone itself might not get much bigger. Instead, Apple may reduce the bezel around the phone and dedicate more surface area to the screen.
Citing a source at Foxconn, which manufactures many Apple products, 9 to 5 Mac reports that the iPhone 5 may look like its predecessor, but will have an aluminum back, kind of like the original iPhone. Another report from Japanese blog Mac Otakara also suggests an aluminum case, along with a redesigned antenna to prevent another signal attenuation scandal.
Product codes hidden within iOS 4.3 suggest that Apple will bring its dual-core A5 processor, which debuted in the iPad 2, to the iPhone 5.
A fresh report from 9 to 5 Mac states that Apple is lending prototype devices to developers, containing the dual-core chip. Given that the original iPad and iPhone 4 use the same A4 processor, the next iPhone seems likely to follow in the iPad 2's footsteps.
Near-field communication in the iPhone 5 is the geek equivalent of the Ross-Rachael drama. Yes, the iPhone 5 will support mobile payments through NFC. Or it won't. Or it will. It's anybody's guess at this point.
iFixit's teardown of the Verizon iPhone 4 revealed a unique chip from Qualcomm that supports GSM and CDMA wireless networks, but lacks the SIM card slot and antenna necessary for overseas use. Verizon Chief Financial Officer Fran Shammo said in a recent earnings call said the next Verizon iPhone will be a global device, so perhaps Apple is making the necessary adjustments for a dual-mode iPhone 5.
For the last few years, Apple has launched a new iPhone over the summer, but the iPhone 5 could break tradition with a September launch, or maybe even next year. Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference, where the company has announced the iPhone in the past, may only be dedicated to software this time around.


Apple Pay with doxo may not take the pain out of bill paying. The two could make it easier.
Doxo, an online bill-paying service for more 2.5 million people announced today its users can now pay bills Apple Pay.
Most of its users pay bills with a mobile device using the company's app. More than half, according to a written statement, use an iOS device.
Free to use, doxo assists users by managing payment records through a single login, eliminating the need to visit different websites to make payments. The company does not store debit or credit card information and individual billers never see your personal information. Billers are quickly paid directly.
Apple Pay started in 2014 and is supported on iPhone, Apple Watch, iPad, and Mac. Transactions work with contactless payment terminals. More than 1 million credit cards were registered within the first three days, according to Apple, and as of December had 253 million users.
Each week, Apple Pay is adopted by another bank, business or country. Just last month, Apple Pay launched in the Czech Republic and Saudi Arabia, bringing the number of markets to 34.
During a Q3 earnings call, Apple CEO Tim Cook said the 1 billion transactions made that period was more than triple from the same time in 2017.


text:
I've been working on a presentation around the many lessons I've learned in business these past 13 years helming the Cat. One of my larger lessons is this:
Trust Your Heart.
I've taken many chances over my time learning to be a leader. Though one sticks out in my mind for a special reason. It was months after 9/11/01 and the country was still reeling. I was fortunate enough to count the Mural Arts Program of Philadelphia as a client. Their work has earned Philadelphia the title of Mural City, USA, and thousands of their murals dot the landscape here.
The mural that they dedicated on a sunny spring day was a huge American flag, and was the exact square footage in number of the souls we lost that fateful day in September. It was breathtaking.
My role was to help properly unveil such a monument to courage and fortitude. It was going to be a big press conference with dignitaries and speakers. Everyone was excited. Though something lingered in my heart. The statement kept persisting: We need someone to sing God Bless America. The day wouldn't seem complete otherwise.
I read that famed R&B crooner Lou Rawls ("You'll Never Find Another Love Like Mine" and many more hits) was in Philadelphia for a series of shows that lined up with our dedication date. After much research, I tracked down his agent. I believe he laughed at first, but after much persistence, he said that Lou would agree to do it for no fee. Mind-blowing! Though my elation turned into a headache when he stated that Mr. Rawls required a limousine for transportation.
The Mural Arts folks certainly didn't have the coin and I don't think I had the resources to rent a bicycle at the time! Well tough requests call for tough measures, so after some searching, I convinced a good friend to lend me his luxury sedan. I cleaned it out, put magazines, mints and water bottles in the back, and one bright morning pulled up to the Ritz-Carlton where none other than Lou Rawls waited for me.
Naturally, I dressed in all black, attempting to act as a chauffeur. But the agent recognized my voice and said "wait – you're the marketing guy!" I can still hear Lou's infamous deep voice and laughter all the way to the dedication.
He did have a question for me, though. "What would you like me to do today, son?" I answered that I'd love it if he could say a few words and then sing God Bless America.
Lou was incredulous. "Talking? Mr. Madden, I am a singer, and I'm going to sing." Obviously, the Grammy-winning singer trusted his own heart to do what he was born to do. So I changed my approach quickly and told him, "Mr. Rawls, it would be an honor to hear you sing."
What followed was like a dream. Before the speakers began, this beautiful flag was unveiled, and Lou Rawls himself stepped up to the microphone and delivered what was the most inspiring version of God Bless America I've ever heard. Everywhere I looked, people cried, and I even caught a tear in the singer's eye.
It's a day I'll never forget, and when we lost Lou Rawls a few years back, I thought about a man who was kind enough to agree to a crazy cat's request, who regaled me with stories while I drove him around town, and how he hugged me after our little journey and called me "My Buddy." I only wish I had a photo of us to memorialize such a day.
I'm glad I trusted my heart and think when leaders do this; it's what puts the magic in business.
Thank you, Lou Rawls.
– P. Madden, Top Cat
A New Logo for the Naturally Curious


text:
REUTERS | Neil Hall
To resign or not to resign: that is the question
The title may be adapted from Shakespeare's Hamlet, but it is a question often posed in adjudication. Should the adjudicator resign when he is invited to do so?
Most practitioners are familiar with the responding party inviting the adjudicator to resign, often citing jurisdictional reasons for the invitation, but what happens if it is the referring party that invites the adjudicator to resign? Should the outcome be any different to an invitation from the responding party?
I recently came across a situation where the referring party wanted to withdraw from an adjudication after the responding party had served its response. (The response alleged that the referring party owed it money and requested a declaration to that effect.) The adjudicator was invited to resign. The responding party was against the adjudicator resigning, no doubt because it wanted its declaration that the referring party owed it money. The adjudicator wanted to continue, since he believed he had been given jurisdiction to decide the parties' dispute, which included the issues raised by the responding party.
Can the referring party simply withdraw from the process?
Case law suggests that a referring party may chose to withdraw or discontinue with a referral to adjudication. In Midland Expressway, Jackson J said:
"In litigation, the right of a party to discontinue its claim or certain heads of claim is enshrined in and regulated by the Civil Procedure Rules. Adjudication, however, is a very different process from litigation. Every construction contract contains, either expressly or by statutory implication, a series of adjudication provisions which comply with the requirements of Part 2 of the [Construction Act 1996]. The 1996 Act says nothing about the entitlement of a party to withdraw or not to withdraw a claim which has been advanced in adjudication…
… I have come to the conclusion that it is impossible to read into either the 1996 Act or the [Scheme for Construction Contracts 1998] any restriction prohibiting a party from withdrawing a disputed claim which has been referred to adjudication."
Jackson J went on to say that it would be contrary to the statutory purpose to prohibit a referring party from withdrawing from an adjudication that it did not want to pursue, with bizarre consequences (not to mention, a waste of time and money).
If the referring party withdraws, what then?
If the referring party may withdraw from the process at any time, where does that leave the adjudicator and the responding party?
On the one hand, it is arguable that the adjudicator should press-on, reaching a decision about the dispute (including the responding party's declaration). After all, he has received the referral and the response and, at least under the Scheme, the referring party has no entitlement to serve a reply. If the adjudicator did continue, given that the referring party is hardly likely to comply with it, would that decision be enforceable?
On the other hand, the adjudicator should resign. (Under the Scheme he may resign at any time simply by giving the parties written notice (paragraph 9(1).) If he does resign, the referring party may be able to avoid any cost consequences (unlike in court litigation, where it would be penalised for discontinuing a claim).
But does the adjudicator have to do anything? Probably not. If the referring party has withdrawn from the process, surely that means the adjudication is at an end (this is what Midland Expressway tells us).
Who pays, if the referring party withdraws?
What happens to the costs of the discontinued adjudication will depend on the terms of the contract, the adjudicator's appointment and whether the adjudicator has the power to award legal costs. The adjudicator may be able to rely on Linnett v Halliwells LLP, but the responding party may have to pay its costs and that's it.
As ever with legal matters, there is no black and white, only various shades of grey, and the answer probably depends on the facts.
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