On November 28, 1966, the central Cultural Revolution Leading Group held a Proletariat Cultural Revolution Congress for Literature and the Arts in Beijing. Leader Kang Sheng of the central Great Cultural Revolution Leading Group announced that the following Peking operas, “Taking Tiger Mountain by Strategy,” “The Red Lantern,” “Harbor,” “Sha Jia Bang,” “The Surprise Attack White Tiger Group,” and the ballets, “The White-Haired Girl,” “The Red Detachment of Women,” as well as the music of “Sha Jia Bang” were all “revolution model plays.”

The authorities showcased the “revolution model plays” from May 9 to Jun 15, 1967, in commemoration of the 25th anniversary of Mao Zedong’s speech during the “Yenan seminar on literature and arts.” The performance lasted 37 days with 330,000 audience members attending the 218 shows. Mao Zedong, Lin Biao, Zhou Enlai and the central Great Cultural Revolution group members also watched parts of the show. People’s Daily wrote, “The eight revolution model plays prominently propagandized the brilliance of Mao Zedong’s thoughts, and prominently eulogized the workers, peasants and soldiers. This joint performance is a major event in the revolution of the arts. It has greatly uplifted the proletariat spirit and greatly extinguished bourgeoisie power and prestige… It has established a glorious model for the proletariat revolution’s literary arts.”
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Recently the Ministry of Education office sent out a “Notice on Launching Peking Opera into Elementary and Middle School Classrooms,” requiring the teaching of Peking opera in the music curriculum. The Ministry of Education has revised the “Compulsory Education Music Curriculum Standards” to include the related Peking opera teaching materials, and has chosen 15 Peking operas for elementary and middle schools music classes. Surprisingly all of the “revolution model plays” except “White-Haired Girl” were included in the teaching materials. The selected pieces even include “Harbor,” which promotes class struggle and continuing revolution.

….

[2008]

To the provincial and municipal education departments of Beijing, Tianjin, Heilongjiang, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Hubei, Guangdong, Gansu (Education Committee):

In order to implement the party spirit proposed during the 17th party congress, inherit the Chinese nation’s outstanding culture, and construct the spiritual realms of the Chinese nation, our unit has decided to bring Peking opera into the nine years of compulsory education music curriculum. 15 Peking operas’ classical arias have been added to the revised “Compulsory Education Music Curriculum Standard” to be taught to the students during the 9 years of education. Editing the teaching materials and the production of CDs have already started.

From March 2008 to July 2009, we will experiment with teaching Peking opera to elementary and middle schools in Beijing, Tianjin, Heilongjiang, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Jiangxi, Hubei, Guangdong, and Gansu before gradually extending to the entire nation.

Each province (city) will select 20 schools (10 elementary schools and 10 middle schools) for the experiment. We suggest selecting schools in central city areas that have good foundations.

The education department for each site should treat the teaching of Peking operas as a priority. At the same time, each site should maximize the role of professionals in the training of teachers.
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Each site must have model guidance, establish school teaching and research systems, and encourage the general music teachers to enhance their grasp of Peking opera teaching and ability through various means.

In order to help the experimental site to train the teachers and raise the standards of Peking opera in elementary and middle schools, our unit will organize training for teachers in March 2008.

The educational administration departments of the test sites must earnestly summarize their experiences and solve the problems they encounter to help teach the whole nation.

In order to facilitate work in the test site, we ask that each test site earnestly fill in information on their schools (see Appendix 1) and submit it to our unit before February 29.

The Ministry of Education

February 2, 2008

cc: The People’s Education Publishing House and the National Peking Opera Theater

Endnotes:
[1] new century website, on February 27, 2008
http://2newcenturynet.blogspot.com/2008/02/blog-post_27.html
[2] Chinese Ministry of Education, on February 2, 2008
http://www.moe.edu.cn/edoas/website18/info1203386774849553.htm

A report from CNN on March 7, 2008 stated that several young hackers claimed that they had successfully invaded the government Internet network of several countries such as the U.S., Germany, the U.K., and France; in addition, they had obtained important information from a number of departments including the Pentagon. [1] According to this report, one of the hackers called Xiao Chen claimed his colleague received a cash reward from the Chinese government after succeeding in hacking into the Pentagon.

Three days later, Global Times, a media outlet under Xinhua News Agency, responded to the CNN report with an article titled “Chinese ‘Hackers’ Denounce U.S. Media: ‘Sheer Nonsense.’” [2] The following is a translation of the article.

“Inside an ordinary-looking residential complex in Zhoushan Island, which is south of Shanghai, several young men in their twenties were seated inside a nearly unfurnished apartment unit, fixing their eyes on the computer monitors while moving the mouse swiftly. Although they do not look harmful, they are the key members of hackers who have invaded into the most sensitive network in the world, including the Pentagon network.” [3] On March 7, CNN presented an exclusive report, claiming that CNN reporter Vause conducted a face-to-face interview with several young hackers. In its story highlights, the report stated, “the interview site is close to one of China’s navy bases” [4], as if making a special note for the “Chinese hacker threat.” 

A reporter from Global Times talked to one of the interviewees Xiao Chen (online name) over the phone on March 9. According to Xiao Chen, CNN’s report was “sheer nonsense;” he also pleaded to the reporter to help “clarify the situation.”

‘Chinese Hackers’ Admitted They Hacked into the Pentagon Network?

In the CNN report titled “Chinese Hackers: No Site Is Safe,” the main interviewees are a Chinese young man whose online name is Xiao Chen and his two colleagues. Vause described them in the following manner: “The three belong to what some Western experts say is a civilian cyber militia in China, launching attacks on government and private Web sites around the world.”

According to Vause, Xiao Chen and his friends do not want to reveal their true identities. “No Web site is one hundred percent safe. There are Web sites with high-level security, but there is always a weakness,” says Xiao Chen, the leader of this group. He claims two of his colleagues—not the ones with him in the room—hacked into the Pentagon and downloaded information, although he wouldn’t specify what was gleaned.” Vause also stated repeatedly, “CNN has no way to confirm if his claim is true.”
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Xiao Chen: ‘Obviously They Are Distorting the Story Purposely!’

With the clues revealed from the two-minute video provided by CNN, the reporter from Global Times located the lead hacker Xiao Chen. He is one of the founders of the website “Hacker World.”

“They are literally distorting the story. It’s all negative stuff, sheer nonsense!” That was the first response from Xiao Chen when he accepted a phone interview with our reporter. He pleaded to the reporter to be sure to help to “clarify the situation.”

According to Xiao Chen, the reporter from CNN had emailed to him back and forth over 20 times. The reporter claimed that he would come up with a positive report for his website and he would only need a 3-minute interview with Xiao Chen. However, the reporter came and stayed for two days. Xiao Chen revealed that during the interview, the CNN reporter asked directly, “Can you quickly show me the data you downloaded from the U.S. Department of Defense?” He also asked, “Isn’t it the Chinese government which gives you funds to attack sensitive overseas websites?”

“I said ‘no’ to all these sensitive questions,” Xiao Chen said. “Our website is simply a sharing platform for hackers. We never teach others to attack other websites; nor have we ourselves attacked any website, including that of the U.S. Department of Defense.”

“I did say not a single computer is safe,” Xiao Chen added, “however, it turned out to be no site is safe in the report. I stated that my colleagues and I established this website together, while the report had it as the government sponsored us. As a matter of fact, we have limited income from online advertisements. We are currently expecting to get funding from venture capital.”

The U.S. Has Played Up the Chinese Hacker Threat Several Times

In recent years, the American media and some U.S. officials have been attacking China with “China’s hackers are dangerous” being one of the main accusations. Especially in the last year, with the American media taking the lead, British and German media also constantly play up the propaganda that “hackers within China’s People’s Liberation Army are a threat to the world.” In the sensational description in Western media, not only the Department of Defense of the United States has been attacked by “Chinese hackers sponsored by the Chinese government,” some cross-national companies, and even some of the physical training associations in the U.K. have been the “target of attacks from China.”
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On March 4 this year, the U.S. Department of Defense submitted the 2008 annual report on “China’s Military Force” to the Congress. In this report, China is criticized for hacking into the government websites of other countries. In response to this, the spokesperson of China’s Department of Foreign Affairs Qin Gang replied that this claim is ungrounded. He also said the Chinese government and military would not hire civilian hackers to attack other countries’ government websites.

According to a report released by Symantec, an Internet security company in the U.S., the U.S. is home to hackers making chaos internationally. The number of attacks originated from the U.S. far exceeds other countries. The report also said, among all target countries of these hackers, China is the biggest victim.

Endnotes:
[1] CNN, March 7, 2008
http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/03/07/china.hackers/index.html
[2] Xinhua, March 10, 2008
http://news.xinhuanet.com/mil/2008-03/10/content_7754330.htm
[3] The original CNN English: “ZHOUSHAN, China (CNN)—They operate from a bare apartment on a Chinese island. They are intelligent 20-somethings who seem harmless. But they are hard-core hackers who claim to have gained access to the world’s most sensitive sites, including the Pentagon.”
[4] The original CNN English: “The hackers met with CNN on an island near a Chinese naval hub.”