VZCZCXRO2427
RR RUEHCN RUEHGH
DE RUEHGH #0501/01 3220653
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 170653Z NOV 08
FM AMCONSUL SHANGHAI
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 7338
INFO RUEHGZ/AMCONSUL GUANGZHOU 1511
RUEHIN/AIT TAIPEI 1333
RHEHAAA/NSC WASHINGTON DC
RUEHBJ/AMEMBASSY BEIJING 2283
RUEHGH/AMCONSUL SHANGHAI 7939
RUCPDOC/USDOC WASHDC 0231
RUEHCN/AMCONSUL CHENGDU 1540
RUEHSH/AMCONSUL SHENYANG 1532
RUEHHK/AMCONSUL HONG KONG 1702

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 SHANGHAI 000501 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR EAP/PD, EAP/CM, INR/B 
POSTS FOR PAS AND POL 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KPAO OIIP PREL CH
SUBJECT: EAST CHINA AUDIENCES FASCINATED AND SURPRISED BY THE U.S. 
ELECTION 
 
REF: Beijing 4193 
 
SENSITIVE BUT UNCLASSIFIED 
 
¶1. Summary: U.S. election programming over the last 14 months in 
the Shanghai district proved, in the words of one Chinese 
student, "a great showcase for democracy."  However, media 
coverage, while extensive, was sometimes limited by Chinese 
Government restrictions.  End Summary. 
 
 
 
¶2. While the U.S. Presidential Candidates were busy 
crisscrossing the nation in search of votes, consulate staff in 
Shanghai were similarly busy traversing the consular district 
explaining the U.S. election process to Chinese.  The consulate 
started elections programming early in 2007 and kept up the pace 
throughout the fall of 2008 employing the full range of outreach 
tools, including speaker programs, digital videoconferences, 
consulate speakers, the consulate website, Public Affairs 
Section (PAS) programs, Information Resource Center (IRC) 
materials and even our biweekly film series to spread a deeper 
understanding of how the American people, through a democratic 
process, chooses the nation's leaders.  In addition to frequent 
university presentations by USG speakers such as the Consul 
General, Deputy Principal Officer, and the PAO, audiences in 
East China were able to interact with a variety of private 
citizens courtesy of the U.S. Speaker and Digital Video 
Conference Programs, ranging from the political cartoonist Daryl 
Cagle to former Democratic National Committee Chair Dan Fowler 
to Grover Norquist of Citizens for Tax Reform. PAS estimates 
that more than 3,000 Chinese attended one or another of these 
programs, not/not including the large, live Election Watch party 
the consulate held on Election Day. Election materials provided 
by our IRC's distribution at every program and a special 
"Elections" section of the website that was updated daily 
ensured that additional materials were also made available to 
our audiences. Nanjing - site of a Virtual Presence Post - 
received special attention as an important second-tier city with 
numerous visits and a special, live Nanjing Election Watch 
program jointly organized by PAS Shanghai, the Johns Hopkins 
Center at Nanjing University, and the consulate's new Nanjing 
Virtual Principal Officer.  Consulate officers also made 
election-focused speaking presentations in Hangzhou and Hefei, 
the two other provincial capitals in the Shanghai consular 
district. 
 
 
 
¶3.  Comment.  Chinese reaction to these programs--and to the 
election itself--ranged from repetitions of government 
propaganda to the sophisticated and the surprising and often 
offered insights into how the Chinese public perceives American 
society.  Several Chinese attendees stated that "Americans will 
vote for Obama because they prefer young people to old people." 
One student in Nanjing noted that, "America talks about equality 
but Hillary's failure shows that women are still not equal in 
America."  Sometimes their questions revealed more about China 
than the U.S. as another student in Nanjing did when she asked 
University of Kansas political science professor Burdett Loomis 
whether Americans " ... vote as they want to or as their 
political parties tell them to?"  In a country where home-town 
ties are surpassed only by familial ties, it was fascinating to 
one Shanghai-area reporter who was in Chicago covering the 
elections to discover that Obama's neighbors would carefully 
consider Obama's policies and not just vote for him because they 
lived on the same street. Our Election Watch event in Shanghai - 
attended by over 300 people -  proved to have made a 
particularly strong impression on a number of Chinese observers. 
A student there commented that, it was "a great showcase for 
democracy." Seconds after CNN International called the election 
for Sen. Obama, one veteran America watcher at a Chinese 
university commented to the PAO that "his victory proves the 
greatness of your country and its ability to change itself and 
move forward even in the face of great challenges," while 
another said that the result was "a milestone for race 
relations." One excited naturalized AmCit commented proudly upon 
arrival at the event that he had "exercised [his] inalienable 
right to vote!" 
 
 
 
SHANGHAI 00000501  002 OF 002 
 
 
 
¶4.  [SBU] Though there was consistent, factual coverage of the 
U.S. elections in the Chinese media, the central government 
still exercised limits on elections reporting in East China. For 
instance, only a select group of sanctioned, national-level 
media such as Xinhua and China Central TV were permitted to 
leave China to report from the U.S. on the elections.  Several 
savvy Shanghai media organizations found ways around these 
prohibitions, however, such as one major Shanghai-based media 
group that set up interviews unrelated to the elections with 
city officials in Chicago in late October to obtain official 
permission to travel, and then simply "added on" election 
coverage to their trip once on U.S. soil.  Government reaction 
to the consulate's large Election Day event at the Hilton 
likewise showed the government's desire to limit coverage on 
this topic.  While a half dozen Chinese media organizations came 
to cover the event, several were later told by municipal 
propaganda officials that this was a "foreign affairs" issue and 
that they had not obtained the proper permission to cover it. 
Shanghai TV was able to broadcast some of its coverage from the 
U.S. but had to cut back substantially from its original 
coverage plans after word came down from Beijing that media 
should not "sensationalize" the U.S. Presidential election. 
 
 
 
¶5. Comment. Audiences at our election programs were 
overwhelmingly enthusiastic and interested in the U.S. 
presidential election. Issues related to race, gender and age 
made up a significant percentage of attendees' comments and 
questions, with many noting with surprise and approval that an 
African-American could be elected as the next U.S. president. 
Informal polling at a running series of PAS Shanghai programs - 
our "candy caucus" using blue "DEM" M&M candies and red "GOP" 
candies was a consistent crowd favorite and sure-fire way to 
encourage everyone to vote - also indicated that our Chinese 
audiences favored Obama to McCain, increasing from a slight lead 
at the time of the party conventions to typically by a ratio of 
five to one or more as Election Day neared.  While some cited 
Obama's policies, many seemed drawn to what they cited as his 
youth, eloquence and intelligence. Interestingly, one young, 
rising America expert at Fudan University noted approvingly that 
"Obama seemed like the older man" after watching him fend off 
Sen. McCain's attacks during one of the PAS-organized programs 
to watch the debates live at the consulate.  Contrary to 
expectations, he observed that McCain's aggressiveness was 
making him appear to Chinese audiences as the rasher, "younger" 
candidate.  In the end, it was the process itself that made 
perhaps the strongest impression. As one teacher noted somewhat 
wistfully at the conclusion of U.S. Speaker program, it is 
"unfortunate that we cannot elect a [Communist] Party 
secretary-general in China." 
CAMP