New Chinese Law Cracks Down On 'Rumor Mongers'

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Chinese authorities go to great lengths to censor the Internet and control social media. A 16-year-old was recently arrested under a new law that bars "rumormongering" online. Here, customers use computers at an Internet cafe in Hefei, China, in 2012.

Jianan Yu/Reuters/Landov

Authorities in western China apparently wanted to make an example of 16-year-old Yang Hui.

He was the first person in China to be arrested under a new rule against "rumor mongers," defined as people who intentionally post a rumor that is reposted 500 times or more, or viewed 5,000 times or more.

But the government's case collapsed, the boy was released, and the local police chief was suspended after allegations that he bribed a local official (a coincidence, the China Daily reported).

Many governments have taken measures to censor or restrict the Internet and social media, a topic we've written about often at Parallels. The Chinese in particular go to great lengths. But some observers are now wondering whether the new Chinese rules can be effectively implemented or are just an invitation for officials to abuse their powers and curtail citizens' rights.

Yang Hui attends junior high school in Gansu province and lives with his grandfather. On Sept. 12, three days after the new rule was issued, a karaoke parlor employee was found dead on the street in Yang's hometown.

The dead man's family refused to give his body to the police for an autopsy. The police confiscated the corpse and ruled the employee had committed suicide by jumping off a building.

It's a scenario that has resurfaced in several news stories in recent years. Citizens do not trust the authorities, so they refuse to hand over corpses for fear that officials will destroy any evidence of foul play.

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Yang Hui questioned authorities' handling of the karaoke employee's death, saying that "the police knew long ago who the killer is."

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He posted pictures of street demonstrations and commented, "looks like people have to protest."

Arrested For Spreading Rumors

The police arrested Yang Hui on Sept. 17 on charges of "picking fights and stirring up trouble." The police also accused him of "spreading rumors," "inciting crowds to protest" and hampering the police investigation into the alleged suicide.

As criticism of Yang Hui's arrest spread online, the government retreated.

His criminal arrest was downgraded to administrative detention. He was then released without charge on Sept. 23. Officials in Yang Hui's hometown said nobody was available to comment.

Mao Shoulong, a public policy expert at People's University in Beijing, says the government's case was riddled with flaws. The rule criminalizing posts that are reposted 500 times applies only to defamatory content, not the charge of "picking fights and stirring up trouble" leveled at Yang. And even administrative detention, Mao adds, is inappropriate for minors.

Reached by phone, Yang Hui's father said that there is no evidence that his son's posts incited anyone to protest. He added that his son "likes to express his opinion about major news," a right which every citizen enjoys.

He said that his son "may never be able to escape from the shadow this ordeal has cast over him," and he reserves the right to sue the government for wronging his son.

He added that after his son's arrest, his school "held a big meeting and told the other students not to do what my son did — post irresponsible comments online."

In the end, though, he concluded, authorities simply "picked up a rock only to drop it on their own foot. They've bungled one thing after another."

Other Chinese, meanwhile, remain in jail for other forms of "rumormongering," and the central government's larger effort to tighten control over public opinion continues.

Further reading:

China Digital Times: Is 16-Year-Old 'Rumor' Poster's Release A Hollow Victory?

Financial Times: China Releases Teenager Accused Of Online Rumour-Mongering

Caixin Magazine: Rumors And The Power Of Deception

New York University Students Take Chinese 101 ... In China

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New York University in Shanghai is the first Sino-U.S. joint university. Here, a student speaks with an NYU staffer on Aug. 11.

Liu Xiaojing/Xinhua /Landov

First-year college student Stephanie Ulan is from Queens, N.Y., and she had her sights set on New York University, in the heart of Manhattan's Greenwich Village.

She got her wish — sort of.

At first, the school offered her a generous scholarship but told her and her father they'd still have to take out big loans.

"My father is 62 years old," says Ulan, who plans to major in international relations. "There was a big scene and he flipped out and he was, like, 'I can't do that.' "

“ A scholarship that's worth about $228,000. How can you turn that down?

- Ron Ulan, father of a first-year American student at NYU Shanghai

Then, NYU made her a better offer — but only if she attended NYU's new Shanghai campus, where she'd applied as an afterthought by clicking a box on an application. The deal: tuition, room, board and even reimbursement for her plane ticket to Shanghai.

"I was a little bit flabbergasted," says Ron Ulan, Stephanie's dad, who works as a computer programmer with the New York City Police Department.

Ron, who says he lives check to check, calculated the savings over four years.

"A scholarship that's worth about $228,000," he says. "How can you turn that down?"

And that's partly how Stephanie Ulan found herself among the students at NYU Shanghai this month, when classes opened at the first Chinese-American, joint-venture university.

The NYU branch campus aspires to educate a new generation of students who can speak English and Mandarin and navigate U.S. and Chinese culture.

For Students, A Variety Of Perks

For first-year students like Ulan who are willing to take the plunge, there is an added benefit: huge tuition breaks.

Stephanie Ulan, an 18-year-old from Queens, N.Y., wanted to go to New York University in Manhattan. But after the school offered her free tuition at its Shanghai campus, she headed for China.

Frank Langfitt/NPR

Although money was a big factor in her decision, Ulan says she's glad she came to China, because she's stretching herself in ways she never would have back home. While her friends at American universities talk about partying every night, Ulan says she's often focused on more basic needs.

"I need to find someone who speaks Chinese, because I want to eat lunch today," says Ulan, 18, who adds that she's determined to learn the language.

Ulan wasn't the only U.S. student at the campus to get financial aid. Half a dozen others with whom NPR spoke said they got either huge discounts or free tuition.

Why is NYU Shanghai being so generous?

Ron Ulan thinks it's because the schools wants to attract quality students to a new program. Jeff Lehman, the vice chancellor of NYU Shanghai and the former president of Cornell, puts it a bit differently. He says the school was able to offer huge scholarships with the help of private donors, including Chinese interested in reforming the country's education system.

"We've benefited from tremendous philanthropic support," says Lehman, speaking from his office on the leafy campus of East China Normal University, NYU's joint-venture partner in Shanghai. "As we prove ourselves, I very much hope that kind of support will translate into the creation of a great endowment."

The inaugural class of 300 is nearly split between Chinese and international students, including 90 from the U.S. Every foreign student rooms with one from China.

The attraction for Chinese students is getting a Western education without leaving home or draining their parents' bank accounts. The Shanghai government pays roughly two-thirds of their $45,000 annual tuition bill.

Yang Xiran, who grew up in southwestern China's Sichuan province, says she came to NYU Shanghai to get away from the country's rote style of teaching and to engage with professors.

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The university is currently located on the leafy campus of East China Normal University. Next year, NYU Shanghai will move to a 15-story building in the city's financial district.

Frank Langfitt/NPR

"[At NYU] the teachers want you to be involved in the class more," she says. "They want you to ask, 'Why?' In my high school, the teacher just kept talking."

Cai Xingyang, from neighboring Jiangsu province, finds the classrooms at NYU Shanghai much freer than traditional Chinese ones.

In the first week, students discussed politically sensitive topics such as the 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising. When Cai tried to address the subject in a presentation in her Chinese high school, her teacher stopped her and told her to never bring it up again. Cai did get to make a presentation to her class, but she had to change the topic to something less controversial: food.

One thing Cai finds challenging is the language. All classes are taught in English.

"Sometimes, I just can't understand all the things my classmates and professors said and I do practice listening every day," says Cai, who estimated her comprehension at about 70 percent.

Some faculty back in New York worry that NYU — which also has a campus in Abu Dhabi — has expanded too quickly, straining resources. Rebecca Karl, a faculty senator and China scholar, says that as professors head overseas to staff other campuses, NYU New York suffers.

"In the senate committees I'm in, the complaints have been persistent about Abu Dhabi," she says, "particularly from such places as the Economics Department, which has had trouble finding people to teach the large intro courses here in New York because their professors are going abroad."

Lehman says Shanghai has minimal impact on New York. Of the 50 faculty this year, he says, only 15 are from the Manhattan campus and only three of them are in Shanghai for the entire year.

Shanghai, NYU Stand To Gain

Richard Vedder, who runs the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, a Washington think tank, says schools like NYU face some big challenges these days. He says with students balking at high tuition and endowment growth slow, schools like NYU are looking to other countries.

"I think there's a financial motive," he says. "They want to have a top, national reputation — and they do have a good reputation — but they don't have the resources or the historical prestige that the Harvards have."

So, Vedder says, schools like NYU have to look overseas "to expand [their] franchise and also to make some money."

What does Shanghai stand to gain from the partnership?

For one thing: prestige.

NYU is widely respected. Shanghai's Pudong district government is giving the school rent-free use of a 15-story building — estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars — in China's Wall Street, Lujiazui.

Yu Lizhong, chancellor of NYU Shanghai, says the school will help the image of Lujiazui, which, despite its towering architecture, has yet to become the hub city planners envisioned.

Yu, who also served as president of East China Normal University, says the partnership with NYU can help improve and reform China's oft-criticized educational system.

In fact, he says, it's already happening. When prospective students used to interview at East China Normal, they would sit and wait with nothing to eat or drink. After watching NYU's more gracious approach, Yu says East China Normal — known as ECNU — changed.

"Now, ECNU also prepares some tea, coffee, and some dessert for the student, to make them comfortable, to [feel] respected," Yu says.

That may sound small, but it's meaningful change. In China's hierarchical education system, a prospective student is seen as a supplicant, not a consumer.

Of course, NYU Shanghai has far bigger goals. They include building an undergraduate student body of 2,000 and developing a sustainable way to fund the fledgling school.