Masculinity with Chinese characteristics

BBC-podcast on suurin edes koko koko. Kulta Katriina, eläköön Suomalainen kahvi kulttuuri. Hoippu tarjaukset rostasta. Istointyyn nyt ulkokäyttöön -50 prosenttia. Orvokia on pelin eljä ysi ysi ja kotikun toivon välineet -30 prosenttia. Katson lisää tarjauksia kuvastasta rusta piste kong. Rusta niin paljon niin vähällä. Mä oon jääkin järjestelmä. Tämä on jääkin järjestelmä. Katson lisää tarjaukset järjestelmä. Partiv-kari's job is to listen to Chinese officials, sometimes for hours. You always hear quite a number of proposals, and some of them you don't give too much importance to. But about six months later, there was a notice from China's education ministry, and it seemed to approve his proposal. That's when Kerry thought there might be more to it. He said that there should be a recruitment for retired athletes and people with sporting backgrounds, and he said that they should vigorously develop, particular sports like football, with a view to cultivating students' masculinity. China's not the only country where those in power have sounded the alarm about how boys are raised and how men are expected to behave. In today's global jigsaw, we look at China's particular concerns about masculinity and why this matters, not only inside the country, especially for women, but also for the world. I'm Krasitwig, and this is the Global Jigsaw, an original podcast from BBC Monitoring, zooming in on political security and social shifts around the world through the lens of its media. Our team listens to, watches, and analyzes media narratives in 100 languages. Radio Tehran. We must go now. We need to take care of the country. The Western countries are not the international community. That era has finished. I don't know if you've got any information on this. I mean, if you've got any thoughts on that. In this episode, as well as Kerry Allen, you'll hear Tom Lam, who's also from BBC Monitoring and souping Singh from the BBC's Chinese service. Tommy's Chinese and analyzes politics and the history of ideas in China for his work. He also noticed a spike in official concern about masculinity. At the same time, a pop phenomenon took off. There has been an explosion of South Korean pop culture in recent years in China. And then K-pop are usually associated with boy bands, with kind of feminine outlook and makeup and extravagant outfit and styles. So this K-pop culture has been a concern of the Chinese government. There are also some discussions about how Chinese young generation is going to influence by these kind of feminine boys. The Chinese Communist Party has always had an interest in shaping the culture. Has anything changed under Xi Jinping? We see even a strict control. For example, in 2019, the broadcasting authority banned some very popular palace drama series. One of the very famous ones is called "Story of Yanxi Palace". It portrayed power struggle, conspiracy, astocratic lifestyle in an imperial palace. And they feel like it's not healthy, it's not promoting correct. Socialist call values. We have seen a lot of state media commentaries criticizing CCP culture, saying that boys are too feminine and not strong and mature. They talk about CCP culture. They don't have a good opinion of it because weak men can hardly put up a fight against foreign enemies. As a past student of Chinese language and culture, I'm curious about the language used to express ideas. The phrase that crops up in these commentaries is Liangpiao Wenhua, a direct translation is pretty culture, or as Tom translates it, "CC" or "Ethiminate Culture". And the government did act on its concerns. Tom saw some swift moves as well as discussion on the social media platform "Sinowable". For example, in September 2021, there's anti-CC campaign when broadcasting authority issue and eight point notice to kind of purge the pop industry to put an end to abnormal aesthetics, quote, quote, "such as CCP culture". Many K-pop fan groups on Weibo were actually banned around the same time. The regional horn on TV, which is very popular among young generation because they always invite young pretty boys and girls, you know, idols on the shows. The TV station actually had an internal notice to the participant, to suggest them not to bite their lips, making silly faces and twist their hips, and other very popular show on Weibo TV happy cam was suddenly pulled out in 2021. After the notice, it was often criticized for promoting CCP culture and unhealthy fan culture. "Zhen Tai, Qin, Jiuhui, Wang Bocchang, Liu Hengran, Zhang Junlin, Cheng Xiao, Ma Boqing." Let's go back to the language and the phrase the Communist Party uses to describe what we are calling masculinity. They call Yang Gang Zhichi in Chinese, Yang, which means Yang in the Yin Yang concept. Yang could mean masculinity, but it could also mean the sun, strange brine, open, positive, active, as compared to Yin, which could mean feminine, but also the moon, dark shadow, hidden, even negative and sinister. And Gang actually means strength or hard. The English word "masculine," he doesn't necessarily translate perfectly to the Chinese messages and the conversation where it is describing. Tom dug out some of the messages on Chinese social media, discussing Yang Gang Zhichi. We voiced them up. Here's a taste. The cultivation of masculinity is to nourish the spirit of courage and fairlessness in students through a strong body. Both men and women can develop masculinity. Why can't boys be sissy? Why can't they have a soft side? As an ordinary person, you can of course have your own way of being a human being. But as a public figure, how do you consider the consequences? Aside from those pretend sissy's in the entertainment industry, aren't most boys in real life quite normal? But bluntly it's alarmist talk. Tell me more about where you found these comments. Most of them came from Zhihu, which is a Q&A format forum similar to Korra. It's generally less censored and way more, and we can find some more in-depth discussion from time to time and some relatively more liberal views. And there was also another revealing intervention by the powerful broadcasting authority. In July 2022, the deputy director of the broadcasting authorities actually said that TV shows should not use or imitate foreign style. Is that what at the bottom of this? The fact that these are not native Chinese influences but imported from abroad? That's what they say. The state media actually blame Japanese and South Korean pop culture for feminizing Chinese male and the state-run nationalist tabloid, Global Times even claimed that it was a CIA conspiracy and was part of the US plot to weaken Japan after the war. COVID-19 forced a reshuffle of priorities. But while state-owned people but while state narratives focused on the pandemic response, discussions on social media about men and women continued. And that was partly because, as we've seen in other countries, Some attempts to contain COVID had a knock-on effect for women. That's a subject close to Kerry's heart. There has been a rise in domestic violence, for example, so there have been talk about whether men need to change. There have also been discussions about the role of women in the family unit. Do women stay home and look after the family? What does it mean to be a man and a woman? But at the same time as the state has been trying to encourage men to be more masculine, women are being pushed into more traditional roles. Also, there have been proposals very much geared towards trying to get women to have more children. A lot has been said in recent years about China's demographic crisis and its need for a bigger workforce. That is why China abandoned its long-standing one-child policy. At the same time, the rhetoric around women and equality used by Xi Jinping continues to be on the face of it pretty impressive. The protection of women's rights and interests must become a commitment at the national level. As we pursue post-COVID recovery, we need to create new opportunities for women to participate in decision-making and the national, economic, cultural and social governance. We need to eliminate prejudice, discrimination and violence against women and make gender equality a social norm and moral imperative observed by all. Xi said this are the United Nations in 2020, but here comes the reality check. During the National Congress, when Xi Jinping was elected for a historic term, he more or less removed women from key roles, so he used to, in the Politburo, have one woman. And Sunchuan Lan, she retired, and now there isn't a single woman in Xi Jinping's inner circle. And what have you observed about how women feel about their place in society today? Well, largely women feel that they are only in subservient roles. They're not able to rise through the ranks. They often talk about how they feel there's job discrimination if they've not had a baby. Women feel they have to lie on job certificates and say that they have a family in order to be appointed. So once women are married, for example, in January 2021, there was the introduction of a call-off period if they want to get divorced. And that spark concerns among women about increases of domestic violence, human trafficking, violence against women. The state wants to keep couples married and get couples married. It's just that many women have said within those units they could potentially be more at risk. There are also concerns among women that the state reinforces the subservient role of women, not only via state media and news articles, but also in entertainment media. (Speaking in Chinese) So early in the pandemic, there was huge criticism of what was meant to be China's first drama in a COVID-19 era. And a lot of women during that time were on the front line. There were doctors, there were nurses, and they played a key role. But within this drama, called Heroes in Harm's Way, women took offence with what they saw as women only really being in supportive roles, looking up to male doctors, not really leading the show. (Music) The story of Chinese feminism and its struggle goes back a long way. Here, with some more context, is Su Ping Xing of the BBC's Chinese service. Mao Zedong famously said, "Women hold up half the sky, Funyunangdin Pambientian. And many women's rights were enshrined in the first constitution of the People's Republic in 1954. In the late 1980s, reforms allowed women to participate more in politics. Record numbers of women went to university, and feminism became more visible. In 2001, China amended its marriage law to make physical abuse grounds for divorce. But, in 2011, the Supreme Court ruled that property should go to the owner listed in the deeds, usually the man, rather than be split equally on divorce. (Music) After years of sex-selective abortions driven by the one child policy, China now has 30 million more men than women. This imbalance has been blamed for a surge in the trafficking of women as brides for rural men, from both outside and inside China. (Music) Under Xi Jinping, feminist activism and the state pushback against it have both increased. In 2015, activists who became known as the feminist five were arrested for planning to hand out stickers about sexual harassment on public transport. The MeToo movement arrived in 2018 when Law Xi Xi accused her former professor of sexual harassment. And in 2021, can a star Pung Shui disappeared for a while after accusing a former vice premier of sexual assault? As Kerry mentioned, there were reports that violence against women in the home and outside increased during the zero COVID lockdowns. The government hasn't released any official statistics on that, but some cases attracted international attention. In a city called Tangshan, a group of women were in a restaurant, and a man started to try and touch one of the women and she wasn't happy, and he got very aggressive very quickly, eventually kicking her in the head. And how do we know about the Tangshan attack? CCTV footage was posted anonymously, and it quickly went viral on platforms like Sina Weibo. (Music) (Music) (Music) There were thousands, tens of thousands of shares, huge angry response online, hundreds of thousands of social media users commenting, and they very much took criticism again with the state's narrative on what this was. How did state media report this? State media long-term have struggled to talk about gender-motivated attacks. With the Tangshan attacks, they just said it was an assault, and later on after the attack, they tried to blame it on gang violence. It still very much feels that male violence on women is not being properly addressed in Chinese media, and women have been on mass online, saying, "Men's behaviour has to change." Never any mention in this in state media. It's estimated that around a billion people in China have access to the internet. That's over 70% of the population. So the information space we're talking about is huge, and the state is always watching. At the time when I was looking at the Tangshan attacks, there were hashtags quickly going viral on Sina Weibo. These hashtags became muted. Suddenly you couldn't click the links, you couldn't see the scale of anger, and some media will take it upon themselves on these platforms to mute replies, because if they see there's a big enough discussion taking place, which could be perceived as being critical of the state, they don't want to be implicated in that. Last year, a war of words erupted on Weibo. We're talking abilian views, and more than 900,000 responses. Kerry watched it unfold. That was very big. So the Communist youth league put out a number of pictures of party members making huge achievements throughout the century, and none of these pictures showed women. This one newspaper, South China Morning Post, which is blocked in mainland China, captured some of the Weibo comments at the time. An example was, "How do you avoid using pictures of women heroes who made contributions to the country?" There was this phrase, "Junanai," which a lot of female social media users started using. In English, it means "straight man cancer," and they were saying that it was men being sexist, chauvinistic, in their reporting. And this was a problem that kept on appearing in Chinese media. The Communist League responded and said that feminism was a cancer. So what are the prospects for women and feminism in today's China? There's always a surge of comments on social media around the time of the two big government meetings every March, known as the two sessions. This year, we saw President Xi Jinping cement his new cabinet for the next five years, and it was very evident that this year it's made up entirely of men. And at the other session where delegates put forward proposals for policy changes, it was very telling that there was a continued focus on really encouraging women to have more children. Proposals, for example, to offer dating and marriage platforms online, also policies on broadening maternity leave benefits, releasing women from financial responsibilities if they use assisted reproductive technologies, and many benefits frames around getting mothers of one or two children to have more. And yet, on social media platforms, I keep seeing this same message, what if we don't want to have children, what if we don't want to be reduced to baby-making machines? To understand what could be driving Beijing's shifting attitudes to masculinity and feminism, he is Tom with a look back at history. We can see that from the historical narrative in Chinese education and also in the media, especially after the Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, they have been promoting a patriotic education that China has suffered what is called a "centre of humiliation", starting from the first opium war with Britain in 1839. The humiliation narrative argues that China needs to be strong to defend itself from foreign adversaries, and especially in Xi Jinping's rule, the narrative was lifted to a new level, to achieve a great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and also build a rich and powerful modern China. Before Beijing upped the ante, China's foreign messaging went through decades of evolution. Actually, anti-Western diplomatic rhetoric has had a long history in communist China. During the Mao Jue-dong era, when China was very close to the Soviet Union and involved in Korean war fighting against the US. However, after the Cultural Revolution after Mao-era, Dan Xiaoping adopted a relatively western foreign approach, which was described as "high your strength and by your time". And in Jiang Ji-min era, which was in the 90s, it was described as "keep quiet, we help you make big fortune". And in Hu Jingtao era, it was described as "China's peaceful rise", as China was getting more powerful economically. And we've now reached the era of wolf warrior diplomacy. Much has been said in Western media about Beijing adopting a far more confrontational and combative approach in recent years. The name wolf warrior comes from two very popular movies about the adventures of a Chinese special forces soldier fighting enemies abroad. The concept does sound quite stereotypically male. Can you see any connection at all between the wolf warrior diplomats and this more recent masculinity debate? Well, we see a lot of criticism of the so-called "CC culture" come from a very nationalist point of view that the nation could be in danger if men become what they call "too feminine" and "patchetism" and "nationalism". Are obvious also what motivates wolf warriors and these who praise them. So yes, I think they appear to have overlapping attitude, even though they might not be explicit or spell out. Could it simply be that the so-called wolf warrior approach is tied to Beijing's growing economic and geopolitical clout? I think China wants to have its own version of events represented in the global information space apart from the western or western dominated narrative and set of values. China is getting more powerful. They are looking for a more eco-footing with the US. So it's natural for them to become more assertive, a defending from the criticism on, for example, human right issues and also become more aggressive on the global information battlefield. And is this wolf warrior approach here to stay? Some says it's complicated. Interestingly, an old-spoken wolf warrior, former ministry's bookperson, Jiali Jian, was quietly removed from his post a few months ago. Some saw that as a sign that China might be dialing back its wolf warrior approach. It does appear to me that China is not presenting quite as aggressively at the moment. Partly I think because it was relatively isolated during the pandemic, both economically and diplomatically. We can see Beijing has been active diplomatically in securing a deal between the bitter rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia and in offering to mediate between Russia and Ukraine. It also continues to position itself as the alternative to the US as a global leader. But as a new foreign minister, Chinggang has indicated, China is not about to show what it calls weakness when it comes to what it regards as its core interests, such as Taiwan, Xinjiang and Hong Kong. And that's still deeply rooted in what feels like quite a macro mentality of adding tough and hitting back when facing foreign adversaries. Beijing's assertiveness on what Tom calls the global information battlefield clearly has many motivations and nuances and will remain one of BBC monitoring ski focuses for the foreseeable future. But does China's new focus on masculinity tell us anything about how we can expect Beijing to behave at home and internationally? Domestically, we have seen that there are a lot of concern over this promotion of a certain kind of masculinity, could lead to more school bullying and more suppression of women, sexual and gender minorities and simply just boys who are seen as just not men enough. It may also be harder to come out as gay or trans in China, the long term impact and subtle impact on Chinese society could be very significant. In terms of martial with warrior diplomacy, the longer that goes on, the more negatively China will be viewed by the world. As someone who monitors Chinese media, I can say that we can already see that happening. Thanks to Carrie Allen, Tom Lam and Su Ping-Sin, the producers are Lucy Bailey and Krista Shattery. The sound engineer is John Boland and our editor is Judy King. I'm in love to hear from you. If there's a story you'd like to hear in future episodes, you can get in touch. Our email address is the global jigsaw, all one word, at bbc.co.uk. That's it for now. If you can, subscribe or follow the global jigsaw so you never miss an edition. I'm Krassitwik, thanks for listening and do join us again next time. yeah [Music] [Music] [Music]