Fear is not always the beginning of wisdom. Can Chinese Communist Party rulers trust their trusted sources of domestic information?
The Chinese Communist Party thinks it has a separate flow of accurate information separate from the propaganda for the masses:
The reports are classified as state secrets, giving them an air of mystery in China. They are called “neican,” which is pronounced “NAY-tsahn” and means “internal reference.” ...
Newspapers, think tanks and universities across China each have their own classified reporting channel, sending intelligence up to local and provincial officials. They monitor air pollution in industrial Hebei province and guide the disposal of spoiled pickles in Hunan, a region famed for its cuisine. ...
The Communist Party calls internal reporting a secret weapon, acting as its “eyes and ears,” while propaganda acts as its “throat and tongue.”
Is it working?
But this internal system is struggling to give frank assessments as Chinese leader Xi Jinping consolidates his power, making it risky for anyone to directly question the party line even in confidential reports, a dozen Chinese academics, businesspeople and state journalists said in interviews with The Associated Press.
I've long read that lower level officials tell superiors what they want
to hear, making the shit roll uphill. The example I recall reading was about economic statistics. Individually, officials might inflate statistics a bit upward as the information goes up. They'd even think that their own fiction that helped them and/or concealed their corruption was insignificant because the others were reporting good information. But the practice was common.
Apparently the leadership is starting to realize that they've been the victims of lower level officials' misleading-if sometimes inadvertent if merely passing on bad information rather than creating it--throats and tongues.
The mountains are high and the emperor is far clueless.
The problem isn't just for the CCP, of course. Lack of information can--and has--harmed the rest of the world when the Covid-19 virus erupted in China:
In the early days of the virus outbreak in Wuhan, Xinhua’s Liao reported the arrest of eight “rumormongers” for spreading “false information.”
In fact, they were doctors warning each other about the emerging virus in online chats. Her story discouraged others from speaking up, leaving the central leadership blind to the virus’ spread.
I've been comforted to read that China's rulers know their military isn't as good as it appears. But what if the "neican" system means the CCP has no way to know how large the gap between reality and their reports is?
How can the CCP possibly use their genetically superior long-range planning abilities with bad information, eh?
And if the crisis is an international confrontation involving China, how can we possibly believe we can send those sacred, calibrated "signals" of restrained resolve that we think will cool off the crisis? What will our signal look like when it reaches the highest levels of the CCP?
The nuanced signal that our best and brightest craft might be twisted by the Chinese reporting system into a signal of retreat or a signal of intent to preemptively strike China. Delusion will be built on layers of delusions.
Can the CCP order the information flow to be honest? Can the lower level sources of information afford to admit they've been lying?
Have a super sparkly day.
NOTE: War updates continue here.
