China’s media morphosis
Sunnie Wong

Walking the streets of Beijing, a Westerner, glancing at the many newspapers being read by Chinese, might think that China’s media is vastly underdeveloped.
In fact, the media industry has been moving forward in leaps and bounds, and those newspapers are more a reflection of China’s social welfare for idle saunterers than true indication of its media.
After successive years of continuously high growth, the total pre-tax profit of the media industry has exceeded that of the tobacco industry, making it China’s fourth largest business. Advertising revenue has increased in volume 20 times in 10 years, topping the 100 billion yuan mark in 2003, with average annual growth of 35 percent.
With its short history, rapidly changing landscape and China-specific regulations, the contemporary media industry here can be elusive to foreign understanding. But with a little help from this media cheat sheet, you may find investment opportunities closer than a click of your remote control (or iPod).
Chipping away at CCTV
“In the Chinese TV industry, there are only two real areas of competition: entertainment programs and soap operas,” said Li Ruigang, President of Shanghai Media Group (SMG). “The latter is simple-you just have to pay for them. Self-produced entertainment programs are the true source of competition.”
That means CCTV, the national television network, has much greater competitive strength than local channels, which are constrained in terms of program production by a lack of resources.
A 20-city survey carried out in the first half of this year revealed that the top 20 programs in terms of viewer ratings are all sports-related, and none are produced locally (excep for in Shanghai). The reason for this phenomenon is simple: The broadcasting rights for most top sporting events are in the hands of CCTV.
But new entertainment programs are beginning to change everything, especially for Changsha-based Hunan TV, which has become a domestic media success story.
Hunan TV was the first TV broadcaster in China fully dedicated to entertainment programs. Two reality shows, the Olympic-related I’m a Champion and role-playing Metamorphosis, were launched by Hunan TV in the second half of this year, following the Super Girls singing contest, the hottest talent show in the country over the past two years.
The success of Hunan TV’s Joy Camp, a program with popular stars playing entertaining games, also inspired many TV stations to follow suit with similar productions of their own.
Liu Shabai, Vice President of Hunan TV and Broadcast Intermediary Co. Ltd. (TBI), believes that the reason Hunan TV has excelled in its market segment is because it grasps a simple but key point: Viewers watch TV for entertainment.
Hunan TV’s self-positioning is in line with this fundamental philosophy.
Hunan TV has in recent years gained both in reputation and profit from its viewer-oriented and interactive concepts. According to the Blue Book of China’s Culture released by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, over the past year, Hunan TV has pocketed at least 18 million yuan in advertising revenue and 30 million yuan from SMS-voting as a direct result of the Super Girls frenzy. In fact, the show was so trendy that one Hong Kong-listed company’s stock rallied after it claimed to shoot a soap opera called Super Girl.
But Hunan TV’s dominance of the entertainment niche has been shaken. The competition talent show My Hero, launched by SMG in 2006, turned out to be just as popular as Super Girls. The runner-up winner in the My Hero competition, Song Xiaobo, has a speaking and hearing disability, which sparked a nationwide wave of learning sign language and proved the clout of the new show with viewers.
Meanwhile, other shows aimed at challenging Super Girls are in the works.
Which is new media?
TBI’s Liu recently attended a forum where the organizer arranged for him to sit with representatives from a selection of traditional media organizations.
Liu said he was unhappy with this arrangement and challenged the organizer, “Why did you consider me as a traditional media representative?” He argued that television business in China actually began in the 1980s and, given its short history, should not be regarded as a kind of old media.
Mobile phones, he added, are considered to be among new media due to their SMS capability but they need television as a revenue-generating platform. Digital TV, soon to be launched by TBI, is the newest format in the arena of new media.
Digital TV, in fact, has developed exceptionally quickly in recent years, thanks to significant government encouragement. Qingdao in Shandong Province, Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province and Shanghai have offered digital TV programs to local viewers. TBI began preparing digital TV programs a year ago even though the household-oriented distribution of set-top boxes, necessary accessories for digital TV, has still not begun.
Media bosses are fully aware of the promising prospects offered by digital TV.
Given the 2 million existing registered cable TV subscribers in Hunan Province, it is estimated that, of these subscribers, 20 percent will quickly transfer to digital TV. TBI is expecting to sign up 400,000 users upon the digital TV launch. Supposing that the annual revenue from a digital TV viewer in Hunan was 2,000 yuan, then TBI would receive 800 million yuan per year.
Considering this, it’s no small wonder that stocks related to digital TV operators and new media continue to surge.
In addition to digital TV, mobile phone TV and IPTV are new additions to the new media family. SMG has embraced all of these forms. According to SMG President Li, mobile phone TV is a particularly hot concept. There are 20 million existing mobile phone users in Shanghai. If 10 percent of them embrace mobile phone TV, each paying 1 yuan per day, then SMG stands to receive 2 million yuan in additional revenue per day.
That’s 730 million yuan extra for SMG each year. In addition, media groups are broadening their scope. SMG, for instance, has established talent management agency subsidiaries. Such innovations are unprecedented in the Chinese TV industry. As TBI’s Liu put it, “Continual innovation will ensure a prosperous future for us all”.

(The Daily Mail-Beijing Review Articles Exchange Item)


Fuelling nuclear arms race
Saifullah Khan

India signed a nuclear deal with the US on 19 July 2005 in Washington. The deal will allow the US to sell civilian nuclear technology to India. Such sales are prohibited under US law as India has not signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) and is producing nuclear weapons banned by the pact and other agreements. Nevertheless an exception has been made for India and the deal has been ratified by the Congress.
Under the agreement, India will classify 14 of its 22 nuclear facilities as being for civilian use, and thus open to inspection. The remaining 8 facilities will remain outside the agreement allowing them to produce plutonium and uranium solely for nuclear weapons. India currently has the capacity to build 6 to 10 nuclear weapons per year. With this deal it will be able to produce up to 50 nuclear weapons annually. The deal initially received strong opposition in the US Congress and around the globe as it ignores India’s nuclear weapons programme.
The agreement also undermines the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The US is making hue and cry to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. At the same time it is helping India in boosting her production of nuclear weapons which speaks of double standards. This US stance has not been accepted by many aspiring nuclear powers. They have taken note of this inconsistency and may behave accordingly. The deal also provides an incentive to Non-nuclear states to withdraw from the NPT. Commenting on the deal, IAEA Director General Mohamed El-Baradei said, “To continue to have the ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’ is absolutely unsustainable. Either we continue to rely on nuclear weapons, and face the reality that in the next 10-20 years, 20 or 30 countries will have nuclear weapons, or each country must cease its nuclear program and destroy existing nuclear arsenals.”
The US-India deal has made the NPT almost irrelevant. India’s close relationship with Iran’s military and assistance provided by India to Iran in achieving a breakthrough in the nuclear field has also been a matter of concern and was debated in the US Congress in April 2006. In July 2006, the U.S. administration imposed sanctions on two Indian entities for missile-related transactions with Iran. These were in addition to at least eight non-proliferation sanctions the US had filed against at least seven Indian companies or persons, including two sanctions in December 2005. In a statement, Congressman Ed Markey, the Democrat from Massachusetts, alleged that the sanctioning of the two firms indicated that India was unable to fully police ‘bad actors’ in its jurisdiction from helping Iran. Despite US annoyance on close Indo-Iran relations, she is bending backwards in assisting India to make more nuclear weapons, overlooking the dangerous consequences in the long term.
In the present scenario, countries like Iran and North Korea consider it their right to harness nuclear technology and have refused to accept discrimination in this regard. North Korea has already declared that it possesses the technology to make nuclear weapons. On the other hand, the US is undermining International agreements and treaties and the ones that exist are subservient to US policies. The UN has literally lost its authority and the US now decides which country is ‘responsible’ and which is ‘irresponsible’, deserving or not deserving access to nuclear technology. The US considers India as a responsible state having right to receive nuclear assistance for purposes of nuclear energy and also to beef up her nuclear arsenal. It is well known that India’s nuclear bombs have come through proliferation of nuclear technology from the Canadian supplied Cirus reactor, and the proliferation continues.
The US-India nuclear deal has another negative impact in that it has intensified the nuclear arms race between India and Pakistan; both being neighbours and rivals through history. Speaking on the subject on 26 July 2006, Congressman Kucinich said: “Mr. Chairman, as Congressman Markey just said, as this proposal now stands, there is nothing stopping India from using more and more of its domestic uranium for weapons program. India will now be able to produce dozens more nuclear weapons per year under the US–India deal, which would surely lead to an arms race with neighboring rival Pakistan and would be harmful to world security.”
The congressman was right as Indian pursuits in expanding her nuclear arsenal have further intensified the arms race with Pakistan. The Institute of Science and International Security (ISIS) reported in an article on 24 July 2006 that Pakistan was building a huge nuclear reactor at Khushab that would be able to produce plutonium for 40-50 weapons a year. Responding to the news, Pakistan’s ambassador to the US said in an interview for the Washington Times in June 2006 that the ISIS figures were exaggerated but the new reactor would definitely enhance production of nuclear weapons. Pakistan’s nuclear programme received impetus from the explosion of the so called ‘peaceful nuclear device’ by India in 1974. India carried out nuclear tests in May 1998 and Pakistan was constrained to follow suit. Now with the US-India nuclear deal in place, Pakistan has no option but to take additional measures to ensure a credible deterrence if not match weapon to weapon. The arms race between the two neighbours would continue unless India makes a policy shift, not to intimidate Pakistan and cease multiplying her nuclear arsenal.


Naxalism: A militant or ideological movement
Amjed Jaaved

India may blame Pakistan for the freedom movement (‘insurgency’ or ‘militancy’) in occupied Kashmir. But, who shall she blame for the Naxalite insurgency in Andhra Pradesh, Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Uttaranchal and other Indian states?
Indian government has, at long last, realised that ‘Naxalites’ influence has been growing, by leaps and bounds, all over the country as out of the total of 12,476 police stations, Naxal violence was reported from 509 police stations in 11 states last year. It is widely felt that Naxalites is no more a law and order problem, but poses a threat to internal security as is evident from the declaration of a ‘Compact Revolutionary Zone’ of ‘Red Corridor’ from Nepal to Tamil Nadu - accounting for almost a third of the country’s total area’ (The Statesman August 28, 2006).
The Indian government’s ‘multi-pronged approach’ had no effect on rising Naxalite influence. The ‘approach’ included providing financial assistance to affected states under the Police Modernisation and Security Related Expenditure Schemes, ensuring deployment of adequate Central paramilitary forces, posting additional Reserve battalions have been sanctioned for Naxalite-hit states, recruiting maximum persons from the Naxal-influenced areas, equipping forces with mine-protected, need-based air support , allocating about Rs 100 crore for development under Bodoland Territorial Council, so on.
The Naxalite movement is a movement against economic deprivation and brutality of the state or central government’s law enforcing agencies. The Naxalite ideology has great appeal for marginalised strata (particularly dalit and adivasis) of India’s caste-ridden society.
The Naxalites aim, as contained in their Central Committee’s resolution (1980) is: ‘Homogenous contiguous forested area around Bastar Division (since divided into Bastar, Dantewada and Kanker Districts of Chhatisgarh) and adjoining areas of Adilabad, Karimnagar, Khammam, East Godavari Districts of Andhra Pradesh, Chandrapur and Garchehiroli district of Maharastra, Balaghat districts of Madhya Pradesh, Malkagiri and Koraput districts of Orissa would comprise the area of Dandakarnaya which would be liberated and used as base for spreading peoples democratic revolution’.
Villagers find Naxalite offer of Rs five lac per policeman more attractive than the government’s head money for Naxalites (“Reward scheme sends forces into huddle”, Indian Express August 25, 2005).
The term “Naxalite” is rooted in Naxalbari village (West Bengal) where Kanhu Sanyal presented the concept of “forcible protest against the social order relating to holding of property and sharing of social benefits”. To him the purpose of the protest was “organizing peasants to bring about land reform through radical means including violence”.
Charu Mazumdar is given credit for making the Naxalite movement (“left wing extremism”) a practical reality. He started the movement as a “revolutionary opposition” in 1965. The world came to know of the movement in 1967 when the Beijing Radio reported “peasants’ armed struggle” at Naxalbari (Silliguri division of West Bengal). In July 1972, the police arrested Charu Mazumdar. They later tortured him to death on the night of July 27-28. The Naxalites want to carve out an independent zone extending from Nepal through Bihar and then to Dandakarnaya region extending upto Tamil Nadu to give them access to the Bay of Bengal as well as the Indian Ocean’. Several pro-Naxalite revolutionary bodies (People’s War, the Maoist Communist Centre and the Communist Party of Nepal) merged their differences (October 15, 2004) to achieve their sea-access aim.