It is an effort to cope with the declining reputation of the party and the distrust of the people toward party officials.

This is a real dilemma for the leadership. There is the possibility for this to get mixed up with broader social grievances, so they have to tread carefully.

The China threat issue is a perfect button to push to avoid people looking at his domestic record. Things could get complicated with this kind of game.

It was quite hard to walk through there. You say, 'Wow! How could they do this?' Many things are twisted facts.

Their rationale is, once you let go, all this reporting will go in one direction, [which] they say is politically irresponsible. So, therefore, they want to stop this. They say there's no end to this: if you start reporting like this, social stability might be at stake.