SOUTHWEST CHINA -- THE SATELLITES ARE HIGH AND THE EMPEROR

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 CHENGDU 000030 SIPDIS SIPDIS STATE FOR EAP/CM AND EAP/PD E.O. 12958: DECL: 2/21/2018 TAGS: SOCI PHUM ECPS KIPR CH SUBJECT: SOUTHWEST CHINA -- THE SATELLITES ARE HIGH AND THE EMPEROR IS FAR AWAY REF: (A) 2007 BEIJING 7330 (B) 2007 CHENGDU 00267 CHENGDU 00000030 001.2 OF 004 CLASSIFIED BY: James Boughner, Consul General, U.S. Consulate General, Chengdu, China. REASON: 1.4 (d) ¶1. (C) Summary: Satellite television ties rural Chinese to urban culture and brings unjammed foreign broadcasts to a large audience throughout China. Simple satellite receiver dish packages selling for USD 50 bring central Chinese television to rural areas and the world to Chinese cities. To judge by the small dishes the Consulate has observed on apartments in Southwest China, the many online satellite pirates who market inexpensive descrambler receivers do a large business. Local governments sometimes jam home dishes in violation of Chinese regulations. Some Muslims in Gansu and southern Yunnan receive Arabic language TV broadcasts from the Middle East. End Summary. Satellite TV Brings the City to Rural China -------------- ¶2. (SBU) Greatly improved roads and job opportunities in the city, the internet, mobile phones, and now satellite television bring the city closer to rural China than ever before in its history. This is especially true in Southwest China, a region where transportation and communications have been historically difficult due to difficult and mountainous terrain. Some local governments subsidize village satellite TV/cable systems which replaced the networks of rural TV relay transmitters about a decade ago. Satellite dishes aren't just used for village cable TV but are increasingly seen outside individual homes in rural China. These dishes are aimed at specific PRC satellites such as Chinasat 6B which offers 45 channels of unscrambled provincial and central television and 90 radio channels including Tibetan for Qinghai Province and Mongolian for Inner Mongolia. Domestic satellites broadcasting on the 5 GHz C band and can be received with a dish of 90 centimeters throughout China although most of these dishes are 1.2 - 1.5 meters large. See http://www.lyngsat.com/china6b.html for details and a satellite coverage map. Other unscrambled channels from India and other countries, including VOA television, could be received by moving the dish, but most rural people do not have the language skills to understand or the expertise to make the necessary adjustments to receive foreign broadcasts. And the World to Urban China -------------- ¶3. (C) In Chengdu and many other southwest China cities, luxury apartment complexes often receive foreign television channels including CNN from rooftop dishes and pipe the signals onto cable systems along with regular Chinese cable TV channels. Getting foreign television was once reserved to higher ranking Communist Party and government officials. Now many better off urbanites in luxury complexes now also get foreign television including Hong Kong and Taiwan channels or put up their own dishes. Small 60 cm 12 GHz ku-band dishes are often seen on apartment balconies. Boring TV, Hidden Dish -------------- ¶4. (SBU) Some PRC websites advertise small dishes that can be placed almost invisibly within an apartment just inside a window, as pictured in a pirate television online forum at http://tinyurl.com/yuqkdy . While there are many unscrambled domestic channels on the 5 GHz C satellite broadcast band, some urban dwellers with access to cable television are aiming for scrambled Chinese Hong Kong and Taiwan including localized versions of HBO and ESPN with Chinese subtitles. While it is possible to pay licensing fees, a large proportion are likely taking advantage of inexpensive receiver/descramblers which the increasing amount of computer processing power built into digital satellite receivers has made possible. ¶5. (SBU) Satellite television is now becoming more widespread, but Chinese intellectuals have been fascinated with this window to the world for sometime. For example, in 2000, just before the Taiwan presidential elections, a well-known Chinese writer went to a friend's house in the suburbs of Beijing to watch Taiwan satellite TV coverage of the elections. Improvements in technology, especially with the switch from analog to digital CHENGDU 00000030 002.2 OF 004 video transmission have multiplied the numbers of channels available and made pictures clearer and receiving equipment much cheaper. Satellite Piracy as a Front in the IPR Wars -------------- ¶6. (SBU) Hotels, schools and some businesses can purchase dishes openly but sales to private individuals are often done with a veneer of secrecy. Police crack down sometimes - a company selling dishes openly was closed down in northwest Chengdu near Chengdu S&T University (Chengdu Ligong Daxue] in September 2007 People can easily find electronic markets and TV repair shops in Chengdu that supply dishes. Some will deliver the dishes in person or ship them through the mail. A motorcycle drawn cart carrying dishes (resembling shallow tubs more than satellite dishes but with four strategically placed holes) appeared during a December visit to a Chengdu wholesale electronics market. ¶7. (SBU) The "Fazhi Ribao" in August 2006 reported on a nationwide crackdown on illegal home satellite dishes, noting that these dishes violate the PRC State Council Order (1993) 129 "Satellite Receiving Station Equipment Management Regulations". These regulations forbid the private installation or use of satellite receiving dishes without the permission of the local broadcasting bureau and provincial level government. These regulations also forbid the production and sale of satellite equipment without authorization. ¶8. (SBU) Cell phone text message advertisements promoting home satellite dishes are common in Chengdu. Websites promoting both legal dishes and receivers and illegal descrambling codes for a very nominal extra charge are run in Chengdu and elsewhere. For example, the Shenyang Evening News in northeast China reported in August 2006 that 3000 homes in Shenyang bought systems from a Shenyang satellite pirate that provides satellite television decryption codes for six different satellites to customers who login for an annual fee of RMB 100 (USD 7) per year. The satellites carry many foreign programs including adult programming. The pirate buys legitimate plug in cards and then plugs them into a computer that then transfers the codes to any customer who logs in. ¶9. (SBU) The Chengdu website Southwest Satellite Television ( http://www.cdtvro.com),although its top page is flanked by the cyber police cartoon characters Mr. Jing and Ms. Cha, not only introduces technical information but a wide range of equipment for decrypting encrypted satellite television. Many websites that offer for sale inexpensive satellite equipment, especially small dishes for the 12 GHz Ku band boast of the many foreign channels their customers can receive, but do not mention that many of those channels are scrambled. No problem though, since when customers buy the receiver is already set up to receive the scrambled channels. One of the most heavily promoted satellites on Chinese satellite TV marketing websites is Asiasat 3S carries many scrambled Star TV channels destined for Hong Kong viewers. Asiasat3S also offers carries unscrambled channels from VOA television, Hong Kong, India and Pakistan as well as clear digital audio transmissions of VOA and Radio Free Asia broadcasts. VOA Chinese language call-in shows attract callers from both sides of the Taiwan straits. Asiasat 2S offers a strong signal and many channels in Arabic from the Middle East. See for example, http://www.lyngsat.com/asiasat3s.html and http://www.lyngsat.com/asia2.html for details on what Chinese programs Chinese viewers can get from those two satellites. . A Satellite Pirate Compares Pirate and Legitimate Pricing -------------- -------------- ¶10. (C) Satellite TV entrepreneurs are not hard to find but don't like to meet people in their office. With a cell phone call, a meeting at a small "satellite office" with nearly no inventory to be lost in a raid, is easily arranged. A Chengdu CHENGDU 00000030 003.2 OF 004 satellite dish and receiver seller met Congenoff in a small office on the third floor of an electronics market hive of small shops. Inside the office HBO, a scrambled broadcast was running on a small satellite TV. The businessman said that a satellite dish and receiver capable of receiving scrambled television channels sells for RMB 600 (USD $95). When asked what it would cost the legal way, the businessman said the receiver costs RMB 8000 (USD 1150) with an additional RMB 6000 to be paid each year for receiving scrambled satellite broadcasts. Hubei Local Government Illegally Jams Home Dishes -------------- --- ¶11. (SBU) Apparently regretting the loss of viewers to distant stations, some local governments illegally jam satellite receivers. An October 2007 issue of China Radio (Zhongguo Wuxiandian) by three engineers at the Yichang, Hubei Province radio monitoring station discusses their investigation of satellite TV interference in the Three Gorges area. In April 2007, the Three Gorges Development Co. informed the monitoring station that company employees and 3000 other nearby households were complaining about terrible television reception on the local cable system. The engineers found a strong jamming signal which they traced back to the Letianxi Township Broadcasting Bureau. The Bureau admitted to transmitting jamming signals on the 4 GHz satellite TV frequencies to stop people from using home TV dishes in violation of regulations. The engineers condemned the Broadcasting Bureau for violating national regulations and disturbing local people and brought the case to the attention of higher level leaders. MII Responds with Urgent Notice Reaffirming No Jamming Policy -------------- -------------- ¶12. (SBU) In September 2007, the PRC Ministry of Information Industry issued its ministerial notice (2007) 459 "Urgent Notice Forbidding the Design, Manufacture and Use of Television Jamming Equipment" (see http://tinyurl.com/ypkhp3 for Chinese text) which "condemns a small number of units, which out of their own selfish interest, have recently been jamming TV broadcasts, making it impossible for them to get Central Chinese Television, and so disturbing the populace as to damage local harmony and social stability." Religious and Ethnic Minorities Tune in to Satellite TV -------------- -------------- ¶13. (C) Chinese satellite TV broadcasts including Mongolian from Inner Mongolia TV, Tibetan from Qinghai Province TV and TAR TV and four channels of Uighur language TV from the Xinjiang Uighur AR make it possible for widely dispersed minority people to receive TV in their own languages. TAR TV's Tibetan language channel TAR 2, has some local programming along with many Chinese movies dubbed into Tibetan. US diplomats traveling in Qinghai Province (Ref A) and in southern Yunnan Province (Ref B) have noticed many satellite dishes used to receive TV broadcasts from the Middle East including some at Islamic schools. Tibetan Monks Enjoy Indian TV -------------- ¶14. (C) In the Tibetan Autonomous Region and other ethnic Tibetan areas of China, technically skilled monks set up satellite TV systems with inconspicuous dishes for their brethren. Not only do the monks get news broadcasts otherwise denied them, they also enjoy foreign entertainment. In some monasteries, Indian dance programs have become so popular that it has become a fad to move their heads back and forth as Indian dancers do and to shake their head to mean "yes" as in India. The monks may also be watching the several Buddhist satellite channels from Taiwan as well. ¶15. (C) The October 2007 VOA television interview with the Dalai Lama in Tibetan was received at some monasteries in CHENGDU 00000030 004.2 OF 004 Tibetan areas of China. VOA and RFA have audio feeds on TV broadcast satellites that are not jammed and for practical reasons (satellite dishes pointed up at a dish strongly reject ground signal coming from the side) would be difficult to jam effectively over a radius greater than a few miles. Comment -------------- ¶16. (C) Satellite news leaks through China's information firewall along with the foreign satellite entertainment programming that the bored viewers of Chinese central television are turning to. One Chengdu businessman commented that getting Taiwan television wouldn't likely change people's attitudes because what Taiwan television broadcasts show are mostly entertainment programs and not the documentary programs that would give people on the mainland an understanding to of Taiwan's impressive democracy. As a provider of alternative unfiltered news satellite TV may prove to be quite influential. ¶17. (U) This cable was coordinated with Embassy Beijing and Consulate General Chengdu. BOUGHNER