Bad News Archives - understand-culture

Repeatedly Defeated, Repeatedly Fighting

A well-known story tells of a report to the throne from the army of Zeng Guofan. It said: “Your servant’s army fought repeatedly and was repeatedly defeated” (屡战屡北). The words were turned around to read “repeatedly defeated, repeatedly fighting” (屡北屡战). The facts stayed the same, but they now read as persistence.

The story exists in several versions. Tradition credits the change to Zeng’s secretary, Ma Jiading. Other accounts say the report was by another commander, or that Zeng made the change himself. The article that records these versions gives no primary source.

The Vocabulary of Covering Up

粉饰太平 To paint over and present peace. To hide disorder and show a picture of peace and prosperity.

捂盖子 To hold the lid down. To hide a problem and keep the truth from coming out.

遮丑 To cover the ugly. To hide a shortcoming, a mistake or something shameful with words or actions.

瞒上不瞒下 To hide things from those above but not from those below. Also, to act together so that superiors do not find out.

The Tangshan Toll

The official figures for the Tangshan earthquake of 1976 were released three years later. On November 22, 1979, after approval by the authorities, Xinhua reported the figures from a national seismology conference in Dalian: more than 242,000 dead and more than 164,000 seriously injured.

A Party website later gave the official figure as 242,769 dead.

Huawei’s Winter

Ren Zhengfei, the founder of Huawei, wrote an essay called Huawei’s Winter. Sources differ on the year. One says 2001, another 2000. It opens with a question: “Have all employees of the company considered what we would do if, one day, sales fell, profits fell, and the company even went bankrupt?”

“For ten years I have thought about failure every day,” he wrote. “I ignore success. I feel no sense of glory or pride, only a sense of crisis.”

Three Kinds of Silence

In 2008, four researchers published a study in Acta Psychologica Sinica (心理学报) on the measurement of employee silence in the Chinese context. They surveyed 928 employees with a questionnaire of their own design. They found that employee silence takes three forms: acquiescent silence, indifferent silence and defensive silence.

Trust in the superior reduced all three. Trust in the organization reduced only the first two. It had no significant effect on defensive silence.

The Rebels Can Do Nothing

Zhao Gao told the Second Emperor of Qin that a young ruler should not settle matters with his ministers in open court. Any mistake would show his weakness to them. So the emperor stayed inside the palace and decided everything with Zhao Gao. “After that, the high ministers were rarely received.”

Zhao Gao said several times that “the rebels east of the pass can do nothing.” Then Xiang Yu captured the Qin general Wang Li, and most of the east rose against Qin. When the emperor sent word blaming him for the rebellion, Zhao Gao was afraid. (Records of the Grand Historian)

Launching Satellites

On June 8, 1958, People’s Daily reported that five mu of wheat at the Satellite Agricultural Cooperative in Suiping, Henan, had yielded an average of 2,105 jin per mu. Four days later, it reported a “second satellite” from the same cooperative, at more than 3,500 jin. Such record yields became known as fang weixing (放卫星), launching satellites. By late September, the highest rice figure, from Huanjiang in Guangxi, was 130,435 jin per mu.

In November 1958, a report to the Party Center put the year’s grain harvest at about 850 billion jin. The provinces had already cut the figures reported by prefectures and counties generally by ten to thirty percent. The report said that the overall estimate must not be shaken “because of a few cases of false and inflated reporting and some shortcomings and errors.”

Sanlu

In 2008, infant formula from the Sanlu Group was found to contain melamine. China’s Ministry of Health reported nearly 296,000 children with urinary problems, six of whom died.

According to the account in Chinese Wikipedia, Sanlu’s own tests had found melamine in 15 of 16 batches that summer. On August 1, chairwoman Tian Wenhua ordered the matter covered up. City officials blocked a public recall until after the Beijing Olympics. In January 2009, Tian was sentenced to life imprisonment.

The SARS Dismissals

On April 3, 2003, Health Minister Zhang Wenkang said that SARS was under control and that Beijing had only 12 cases and 3 deaths. On April 20, Beijing’s reported number of cases jumped from 37 to 339. Hours after that press conference, the Party Center and the State Council removed Zhang and the mayor of Beijing, Meng Xuenong, from their Party posts.

Meng resigned as mayor, taking responsibility for the failure (引咎辞职). Five years later, as governor of Shanxi, he resigned again after a tailings dam collapse in Xiangfen.