China Puts Propaganda Machine in High Gear to Undercut Media-Savvy Politician - New York Times

BEIJING â€" Intimidating and courting Chinese journalists, Bo Xilai, an ambitious Communist Party official, fueled his political career by ably shaping his public image and seizing the spotlight in a way no peer had as he governed a Chinese city. But with his purge from the party’s top ranks this month, Mr. Bo has suddenly found himself the target of the same media apparatus that he once so carefully manipulated, and that now vilifies him in the name of the party’s leaders.

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The suspension of Bo Xilai from the Politburo was broadcast on April 10 on state-run television.

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Mr. Bo at the opening ceremony of the National People's Congress in Beijing on March 5.

As it announced the purge, the party unleashed the full arsenal of its propaganda machine against Mr. Bo, pressing news organizations across the nation into an extraordinary campaign urging support for the party’s decision to oust Mr. Bo, editors and media executives say. It has arguably been the greatest mobilization to support a decision by the party since the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989.

The campaign began on April 10, when the state news agency, Xinhua, announced that Mr. Bo had been suspended from the powerful Politburo and that his wife, Gu Kailai, was under investigation in the murder of a British businessman in November. Interviews with editors and media executives offer a glimpse of how the secretive party propaganda machinery has worked at a time of intense political tension. This week, the campaign is entering a more subtle phase as some news organizations veer away, at the behest of top propaganda officials, from running editorials emphasizing party loyalty and start to parse the significance of Mr. Bo’s case.

For example, editors at Global Times, a popular newspaper that has Chinese and English editions, have been ordered to run commentaries or editorials that separate criticism of Mr. Bo from the welfare-oriented economic policies he championed in Chongqing, perhaps because party leaders want to take credit for similar policies in the future. The English edition is also supposed to criticize Western news coverage that has emphasized splits within the party, one person with knowledge of the order said.

Not in decades has such a widespread and finely tuned propaganda campaign been rolled out during the purge of an official. In the last two major purges, in 2006 and 1995, party leaders did not flood the media with nearly so much propaganda. And not since the bloodshed of 1989 have editorials insisting that officials and cadres reaffirm fealty to the party appeared with such frequency and vehemence.

Some analysts have said the purging of Mr. Bo presents the biggest challenge for the party since that period. The crisis was set off in February when Wang Lijun, a former police chief in Chongqing, fled to an American Consulate to present evidence of what he said was a murder plot involving Mr. Bo’s family.

“We haven’t seen this kind of direct meddling with the media across the board in a long, long time,” said David Bandurski, editor of the China Media Project at the University of Hong Kong. “You can really sense the anxiety and the uneasiness. They’re pushing so intently this message of unity and solidarity, and you know all is not well.”

Mr. Bo, a Communist aristocrat and former journalism student who campaigned for a top post ahead of a leadership transition this year, was a polarizing figure who quickly built a fervent base of support after arriving in Chongqing in 2007, in part by his canny use of the news media. Some of Mr. Bo’s most ardent supporters have been hard-line socialists and senior army officers, and one goal of the propaganda campaign, especially in the intense first week, appeared to be cowing or winning over Mr. Bo’s remaining allies.

“They know that there will still be different views and interpretations throughout society,” a senior executive at an official media organization said, “so you need to run a lot of articles and propaganda to unify people’s thinking.”

Starting April 11, unsigned editorials on the cases of Mr. Bo and Mr. Wang appeared, sometimes daily, in every major media outlet in China, from The People’s Liberation Army Daily, the military’s official organ, to Web portals where Chinese youth get their news. Most of the editorials originated in People’s Daily, the official party mouthpiece. Friday was the first day the paper had no editorial on Mr. Bo.

The editorials have refrained from explicit character attacks on Mr. Bo or Ms. Gu and have not taken aim at Mr. Bo’s policies in Chongqing. Instead, they have emphasized that he is being investigated for “serious disciplinary violations” and that the rule of law must prevail.

Edy Yin and Li Bibo contributed research.