Eyes Only: How China’s Party Leaders Get Their Information
Martin K. Dimitrov
In China, as in all communist regimes, there exist two types of media: one is publicly available and the other is restricted and accessible only to regime insiders who possess the proper clearances. This second type of media, known as neibu 内部 or for ‘internal circulation’, has received less attention from scholars. The puzzle as to whether a Mao-era institution like internal-circulation media has survived into the twenty-first century stems from a theoretical uncertainty about the role of internal publications in an age when so much information is accessible to regime insiders via the Internet and social media. This article provides a theoretical argument about the function of neibu publications in China. It then argues that these media have retained their original functions and are still of central importance as conduits for transmitting sensitive information to Party leaders in the digital age.
What are neibu publications?
In contract to the publicly accessible media, neibu publications are restricted to individuals holding the appropriate rank within the Chinese party-state. The classifications of these media range from neibu 内部 (internal circulation) to mimi 秘密 (confidential), jimi 机密 (secret), and even juemi 绝密(top-secret). Here, neibu is used as a synonym for internal publications at all levels of classification. The general principle is that those materials are available to regime insiders, with the circle of recipients becoming progressively smaller as we move up the ladder of confidentiality. For example, Neibu cankao 内部参考 (Internal Reference) was issued as a secret 机密 serial originally limited to Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee members and provincial CPC Standing Committee members. Top-secret materials have an even narrower distribution list, generally being aimed at CPC Politburo members and provincial Party secretaries.
In terms of type, neibu publications are mirror images of the kinds of media that circulate publicly. They include books on technical matters like policing or military affairs; detailed government reports, yearbooks, and almanacs; documentaries on politically sensitive issues; academic research reports; and, finally, periodic bulletins containing news and analysis on both domestic and international politics. The same individuals write for both neibu and the publicly accessible media, with final decision about which of the two publication streams is the more appropriate outlet resting with the editors at Xinhua, the major news outlets (which all have neibu publications), the major publishing houses, and so on. The range of these sources is truly extensive.
Internal media under Mao
Scholars of Maoist China have an extraordinary resource that allows them to trace systematically the content of internal media: the secret-level classified serial Neibu cankao, which is available at the Universities Service Centre at the Chinese University in Hong Kong in its entirety for the 1949–1964 period. Analysis and detailed coding of the 3,612 issues published between September 1949 and December 1964 reveals that this serial meant for the top leadership contained a rich array of negative news.[1] Readers were apprised of alarming phenomena such as episodes of famine, shortages of goods, and incidences of bureaucratic corruption, theft, and waste as well as ethnic and religious minority unrest. In addition, Neibu cankao tracked various anti-regime and enemy activities, such as the creation of counterrevolutionary organisations or the infiltration of different parts of China by foreign spies. Most frequent were reports on hostile reactions, opinions, and views concerning the Party and its policies, including occasional dispatches on superstitious rumours. This coverage stood in sharp contrast to that in the officially accessible media, such as People’s Daily, which focused on the Party’s achievements and praise.
Other classified publications have survived from the Maoist period include the initially classified Reference News (Cankao xiaoxi 参考消息), which began as neibu but radically expanded its circle of recipients in 1957 and by the late 1970s had become a newspaper that was readily available both on a subscription basis and through newspaper kiosks.[2] There are also individual issues of serials, bulletins, and government documents at all levels of classification, as well as Xinhua almanacs that discuss internal reference publications. Cumulatively, these sources, which can be accessed at various archives in Hong Kong and in the West allow us to claim that internal media persisted during the darkest chapters of China’s political history such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, despite arguments put forward by orthodox supporters of the Cultural Revolution that they should cease publication. The reason for their survival is that top leaders found them valuable. As Vice-Premier Chen Yi 陈毅 opined in 1966, the neibu Reference Materials (Cankao ziliao 参考资料) is ‘our daily bread’ and ‘we cannot work without it’.[3] For their part, Mao and Zhou Enlai insisted on reading Reference Materials and Important News of the Day (Meiri yaowen 每日要闻) right before going to bed.[4]
Internal reference materials under Xi
Multiple sources point to the continued importance of neibu publications in the present age. Anecdotally, Chinese academics say that the internal reports they write can lead to bigger bonuses and faster promotions than publications in openly circulating academic journals.[5] Internal reference books and government publications persist, especially in the highly sensitive areas of public security and ethnic affairs.[6] There is also evidence of the screening of classified documentaries on the Soviet collapse to Party cadres.[7] Most importantly, internal reference news bulletins continue to be published. Relevant evidence is provided by the 2014 Jiujiang 九江prefecture Propaganda Department surprise data leak, which revealed the persistence of both central-level and grassroots classified bulletins into the Xi Jinping era. One example from the central level is the Xinhua weekly Public Opinion Observation (party and government edition) 舆情观察(党政版), which contains reports on official Weibo 微博; on social media posts by famous personalities; on the top news items; most frequent keyword searches; most viewed photos, cartoons, and videos; as well as analytical reports on Internet public opinion.[8] The content of this bulletin suggests that this is the primary way in which the leadership understands the Chinese Internet and social media.
At the grassroots level, Xinhua prepares bulletins on Internet public opinion that are generated through the Xinhua public opinion management system舆情管理系统, consisting of over 700 popular print media from mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau, as well as over 300 major websites and over 300 discussion forums. This system enables keyword searches that can be used to produce reports about public opinion expressed in different localities in China. For example, public opinion about Jiujiang prefecture in one week in October 2014 consisted of 159 items from the traditional print media; 908 items from the online media; and 509 items from discussion forums.[9] Once identified, these items can be scored in terms of their tone (positive, neutral, negative), with negative public opinion highlighted for additional attention. In general, over the last decade there has been a proliferation of internal reporting tailored for cadres at various levels of the political system.[10]
Do these reports matter? A cliché about communist regimes is that leaders ignore the intelligence they receive.[11] One feature of the Chinese internal reporting system allows us to test this assumption: leaders have the option to discount the information, to read it, or to read it and to issue instructions (pishi 批示). We have evidence that in 2005 central leading cadres中央领导issued instructions on 1,460 internal reference reports prepared by the Xinhua News Agency; by 2011, the number of reports prompting instructions by the top leadership had risen more than threefold to 4,557.[12] Since then, attention to these documents has grown further.[13] This rapid increase attests both to the value that leaders attach to internal reporting and to the frequency with which these reports inform policy decisions: according to the internal rules of the Chinese bureaucracy, a report that has received a pishi automatically acquires the status of a policy document.[14] In sum, internal journalistic reporting remains indispensable to decision makers in the age of social media. These reports allow leaders to react to online and offline public opinion crises quickly and to thus fulfil the paramount goal of Stability Maintenance 维稳.
Why neibu publications still matter
In the eyes of the party, the most important distinction between internal media and publicly available media is the function they serve. Internal periodicals have to contain factual information 信息, while publicly available outlets carry appropriate news 新闻, opinions, and most importantly, propaganda messaging.[15] Xi Jinping for example, called for the public media to ‘correctly guide public opinion’ 正确舆论导向 by ‘emphasising positive publicity’ 正面宣传为主.[16]
This distinction goes back many decades. During the Mao period, when the People’s Daily avoided reporting on sensitive topics like famine or popular criticism of the regime, Xinhua instructed journalists writing for internal publications to collect information on important events and provide objective, factual reporting not suitable for publicly accessible media. Specifically, this included the political attitudes expressed by ordinary people of different walks of life and their opinions about important domestic and international events. In addition, internal media contributors were expected to track people’s opinions about life and work problems and monitor their views about the leading party and government organs. Finally, internal media had to cover natural disasters and ‘counterrevolutionary’ activities. In sum, such publications were entrusted with a very broad mandate of reporting on negative developments, while the publicly available media carried propagandistic and politically vetted content.[17]
Academic studies of internal publications have focused on the Mao period.[18] Given the difficulty of accessing a substantial body of such publications, most research is based on relatively small samples. Nevertheless, it’s clear that under Mao, reporting on domestic news was an important focus of internal media, which covered a wide spectrum of issues from popular reactions to the death of Stalin to the circulation of rumours and the incidence of riots.[19] Internal bulletins served as a key source of information for the leadership during the Mao period and potentially up until the 1989 pro-democracy protest movement.[20]
In the post-1989 period, foreign scholarship has centred on investigative reporting in the publicly available print media, including commercialised media, and on citizen journalism in social media.[21] The implicit (and sometimes explicit) assumption is that internal journalistic reporting has either become extinct or has greatly receded in importance due to the rise of useful reporting in commercial media, where investigative journalism of the sort that reveals public attitudes and concerns helps make publications competitive.[22]
And yet, a leaked 2011 directive on writing internal reports for the party and the government reveals the distinct requirements for internal information that validate the persistence of internal publications into the digital age.[23] Because internal information reports are supposed to help leaders reach decisions, they need to be presented in an objective and clear writing style. By contrast, publicly available news and reports serve multiple functions: to entertain, propagandise, educate, and guide public opinion and so may use literary devices like metaphors and analogies. This document also specifies the kinds of information (regarding disasters, epidemics, and unexpected incidents), whose casual release to the public could have a negative impact on social stability; such information can appear in the public media with prior approval from the senior leader at the relevant level.[24]
One theory is that investigate journalism thrived precisely because the regime needed more information.[25] However, given that the regime has abundant sources of information that are not publicly disseminated, investigative reporting may better serve other regime goals such as appearing accountable.26
In July 2024 Beijing News 新京报 published a front-page report on tankers being consecutively used to transport coal-to-liquid fuels 煤制油 and edible oils 食用油 without being cleaned in between.[26] Widely hailed as ‘investigative journalism’,[27] the report acknowledges that this practice is a well-known ‘open secret’ 公开的秘密.[28] What was the purpose of this report? By the end of August 2024, two truck drivers had been arrested and three companies penalised. Most important were the draft regulations laid down in August 2024 by the National Food and Strategic Reserves Administration, which stipulated that containers used for transporting non-edible oils should not be used for cooking oils.[29] Thus, instead of investigative reporting, we most likely have a strategically placed report that aimed to portray the government as responsive and accountable to citizen concerns. Whenever the relevant neibu documents become available, we can check on when a report on unclean cooking oil first emerged in the internal media. This author’s strong suspicion is that this happened months and perhaps even years prior to the Beijing News publication.
In sum, internal publications continue to deliver negative information to the leadership in the Xi era, apprising it of popular dissatisfaction.
[1] Martin K. Dimitrov, Dictatorship and Information: Authoritarian Regime Resilience in Communist Europe and China, New York: Oxford University Press, 2023, p. 132–135.
[2] Xinhua News Agency, Chronicle of Important Events at the Xinhua News Agency, 1950-1976,新华社大事记, 1950-1976, Beijing: Xinhua News Agency, 2002, p. 41; Xinhua News Agency, Cankao xiaoxi: Commemorative Booklet for the 55th Anniversary of Its Creation (1931-1986) and the 30th Anniversary of the Expansion of Its Circulation (1957-1987) 参考消息–创办五十五周年(1931-1986)扩大发行三十周年(1957-1987)纪念册, Hefei: Anhui Xinhua Yinshuachang, 1987.
[3] Xinhua News Agency, Chronicle of Important Events at the Xinhua News Agency, 1950-1976新华社大事记, 1950-1976, Beijing: Xinhua News Agency, 2002, p. 88.
[4] Ibid., p. 112.
[5] Author’s conversations with academics in China, 2023–2024.
[6] Third Department of the Ministry of Public Security, Compendium of PRC Household Registration Regulations, 1950–2014 中华人民共和国户口管理资料汇编, 1950–2014, Beijing: Zhongguo Renmin Gong’an Daxue Chubanshe, 2015; Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region Local Gazetteer Editing Committee, Xinjiang Gazetteer, 1986–2005, vol. 7: Politics 新疆通志 1986–2005, 第七卷:政治, Beijing: Fangzhi Chubanshe, 2022.
[7] Author’s conversations with academics in China, 2023–2024.
[8] Public Opinion Observation (party and government edition) 舆情观察(党政版), Nr. 16 (17 October 2014).
[9] Jiujiang Public Opinion Assessment Weekly 九江市舆情监测周报, Nr. 40 (6 October–10 October 2014).
[10] Tao Wu and Bixiao He, ‘Intelligence for Sale: The “Party-Public Sentiment, Inc.” and Stability Maintenance in China’, Problems of Post-Communism 67:2 (2020), 129–140.
[11] Frank Dikötter, Mao’s Great Famine: The History of China’s Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958-1962, New York: Walker & Co., 2010.
[12] Calculated from Xinhua News Agency, Xinhua Yearbook 2006 新华社年鉴2006, Beijing: Xinhua News Agency, 2007, p.198 and Xinhua News Agency, Xinhua Yearbook 2011新华社年鉴2011, Beijing: Xinhua News Agency, 2012, p. 259.
[13] Xinhua News Agency, Xinhua Yearbook 2016 新华社年鉴2016, Beijing: Xinhua News Agency, 2017.
[14] Wen-Hsuan Tsai, ‘A Unique Pattern of Policymaking in China’s Authoritarian System: The CCP’s Neican/Pishi Model’, Asian Survey 55:6 (November/December 2015), 1093-1115.
[15] Martin K. Dimitrov, ‘The Political Logic of Media Control in China’, Problems of Post-Communism 64: 3–4 (2017), 121–127.
[16] David Bandurski, ‘Under Xi, the Media has Turned from a ‘Mouthpiece of the Masses’ to the Party’s Parrot’, Hong Kong Free Press, 21 June 2016, online at https://www.hongkongfp.com/2016/06/21/under-xi-the-media-has-turned-from-a-mouthpiece-of-masses-to-the-partys-parrot/
[17] ‘Central Committee Regulation for Xinhua Journalists Writing Internal Reference Materials’ 中共中央关于新华社记者采写内部参考资料的规定, July 1953.
[18] Michael Schoenhals, ‘Elite Information in China’, Problems of Communism 34 (September-October 1985), 65–71; Jennifer Grant, ‘Internal Reporting by Investigative Journalists in China and Its Influence on Government Policy’, International Communication Gazette 41 (1988), 53–65; Huai Yan and Suisheng Zhao, ‘Notes on China’s Confidential Documents’, Journal of Contemporary China 2:4 (1993), 75–92.
[19] For a piece based on the systematic analysis of 30 reports published in Neibu cankao in March 1953, see Hua-yu Li, ‘Reactions of Chinese Citizen to the Death of Stalin: Internal Communist Party Reports’, Journal of Cold War Studies 11:2 (Spring 2009), 70–88. On rumours and superstitions in Neibu cankao, see S. A. Smith, ‘Talking Toads and Chinless Ghosts: The Politics of “Superstitious” Rumors in the People’s Republic of China, 1961-1965’, American Historical Review 111:2 (2006), 405-427. For an overview of sensitive issues covered in Neibu cankao, see Dimitrov 2017.
[20] Andrew J. Nathan, Chinese Democracy, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985, p. 152–157; Zhang Liang, Andrew J. Nathan, Perry Link, and Orville Schell, comps., The Tiananmen Papers, New York: Pacific Affairs, 2002; Daniel Leese, ‘The CCP Information Order in the Early People’s Republic of China: The Case of Xuanjiao Dongtai’, Modern China 49:2 (2023), 135–158.
[21] Zhou Yuezhi, ‘Watchdogs on Party Leashes? Contexts and Implications of Investigative Journalism in Post-Deng China’, Journalism Studies 1:4 (2000), 577–597; David Bandurski and Martin Hala, eds., Investigative Journalism in China: Eight Cases of Chinese Watchdog Journalism, Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2010; Jingrong Tong, Investigative Journalism in China: Journalism, Power, and Society, London: Continuum, 2011; Marina Svensson, Elin Saether, and Zhi’an Zhang, eds., Chinese Investigative Journalists’ Dreams: Autonomy, Agency, and Voice, Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2014; Jingrong Tong, Investigative Journalism, Environmental Problems, and Modernization in China, New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015; Haiyan Wang, The Transformation of Investigative Journalism in China: From Journalists to Activists, Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2016; Jonathan Hassid, China’s Unruly Journalists: How Committed Professionals Are Changing the People’s Republic, New York: Routledge, 2016; Maria Repnikova, Media Politics in China: Improvising Power Under Authoritarianism New York: Cambridge University Press, 2017; Rongbin Han, Contesting Cyberspace in China: Online Expression and Authoritarian Resilience, New York: Columbia University Press, 2018, esp. p. 77–100.
[22] Peter Lorentzen, ‘China’s Strategic Censorship’, American Journal of Political Science 58:2 (April 2014), 402–414; Daniela Stockmann, Media Commercialization and Authoritarian Rule in China, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013; Xin Xin, How the Market Is Changing China’s News: The Case of the Xinhua News Agency, Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2012; Susan L. Shirk, ed., Changing Media, Changing China, New York: Oxford University Press, 2011; and Yuezhi Zhao, Media, Market, and Democracy in China: Between the Party Line and the Bottom Line, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998. For an exception to this line of thinking, see Dimitrov, Dictatorship and Information.
[23] ‘Some Pointers on Writing Reports for Party and Government’ 党政信息写工作的几点体会, online at http://www.zk168.com/fanwen/fanwenxinde_274744
[24] Ibid.
[25] Lorentzen, ‘China’s Strategic Censorship’.
[26] Dimitrov 2017; Haiyan Wang, ‘A Dog That No Longer Barks: Role Performance of Investigative Journalism in China in the Digital Age’, Journalism Practice 18 (2024), 2240–2257.
[27] Han Futao (韩福涛), ‘An Investigation of Tanker Truck Transport Chaos in Unloading Coal Oil and Loading Edible Oil’ 罐车运输乱象调查卸完煤制油又装食用油, Beijing News, 2 July 2024, online at https://m.bjnews.com.cn/detail/1719878490168127.html
[28] ‘A Rare Exposé’, China Media Project, 10 July 2024, online at https://chinamediaproject.org/2024/07/10/rare-front-page-report/#:~:text=Reporters%2C%20for%20example%2C%20trailed%20one,of%20the%20tank%20in%20between.
[29] https://m.bjnews.com.cn/detail/1719878490168127.html
[30] ‘Chinese Cooking Oil Scandal Prompts New Safety Rule for Transporting Products’, South China Morning Post, 30 August 2024, online at https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3276586/chinese-cooking-oil-scandal-prompts-new-safety-rules-transporting-products
