As Trade Fight Looms, China Turns Censors on Its Own Policies

NY Times ^ | June 26, 2018 | Raymond Zhong and Li Yuan

[Zhang Fei]

SHANGHAI — China’s government, which tirelessly suppresses critical voices, unwanted ideologies and subversive memes, has turned its censors against an unlikely target: its own economic policies.

As Washington and Beijing spar over trade, news outlets here have been ordered not to mention Made in China 2025, an industrial master plan that aims to turn the country into a high-tech superpower, according to two people at Chinese news organizations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the censorship authorities’ secretive workings.

The Trump administration has repeatedly singled out the campaign to show that Beijing is using unfair means to acquire cutting-edge American technology. Despite months of talks, the two countries remain at an impasse.

The White House is moving ahead with tariffs on China, and Beijing has refused to back down, raising the specter of a full-blown trade war between the world’s two biggest economies. Over all, the Trump administration has threatened penalties on as much as $450 billion worth of Chinese goods, nearly equivalent to the total value of goods imported into the United States from China last year.

All the scrutiny may be making China’s leaders nervous.

In an apparent attempt to avoid drawing more attention to the Made in China 2025 campaign, news media have been told simply not to mention it. It is not clear how broadly the orders were issued across Chinese media outlets. The instructions were reported earlier by Reuters.

News organizations in China have little choice but to comply with such directives, which can include both targeted orders to remove specific articles as well as guidance, often delivered over the phone, about the tone and content of coverage. Articles critical of the government are deleted outright, even at influential outlets such as Caixin Media. Censors regularly take down images and posts from

[cba123]

China is not reacting well, to Donald Trump.

In my opinion they have approached this completely backwards. But then again, that may be the way they are now.

China should have, in my opinion, more or less folded. My feeling is they have had a free ride for a long time. But that time came to an end when Donald Trump was elected. The election signified to me, that China would be placed in a situation where they would end up backing down.

But that is not (at all) what they are doing. They are ramping up the rhetoric against Washington.

I think this is the make or break point in relations, between our two countries.

China should have backed down. They did not. Now I believe Trump should proceed with very significant action, against “global” manufacturing.

Bring it home to America.

Time to stop building up China.

Completely. Turn off the hose, to the country. Return businesses to America.

All of them.

[neverevergiveup]

Interesting. Recently I was looking at clothing in a store, trying to determine where the items I was interested in were made. I couldn’t find a label stating the place of manufacture, and when I asked the salesperson they said the items were “imported”. They were made in China. Apparently people have been trying to avoid buying goods from China, so they make it difficult to identify where these goods are made.

[eekitsagreek]

I used to work in retail clothing. We had some made in China, but most were made in Bangladesh, India, Cambodia and Indonesia.