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Beijing Cabbie Recalls a Special Fare: China’s Leader
Tale of China’s Leader in a Taxicab Is Retracted
(35 minutes later)
HONG KONG - It took a Beijing taxi driver, Guo Lixin, a while to realize that the chatty passenger with a fleshy face was more than the average fare. Cabs in China’s capital are notoriously hard to flag down, but chauffeur-borne senior officials rarely need a ride, and even less does the country’s top leader.
HONG KONG - Cabs in China’s capital are notoriously hard to flag down, but chauffeur-borne senior officials rarely need a ride, and on Thursday uproar erupted over a report, later retracted, that the country’s top leader had taken a clandestine ride to mix with ordinary people.
On Thursday, though, Mr. Guo catapulted to momentary celebrity when a Hong Kong newspaper described his encounter last month with the Chinese Communist Party chief Xi Jinping, who took a $4.40 ride from an inner-city neighborhood known for its bars to a hotel on the west side of town.
A Hong Kong newspaper that often publishes stories favorable to the Chinese government, Ta Kung Pao, reported that the Chinese Communist Party chief Xi Jinping took a $4.40 ride from an inner-city Beijing neighborhood known for its bars to a hotel on the west side of town, bringing momentary celebrity to his reported cabbie, Guo Lixin, and plaudits for Mr. Xi.
The cabbie did not recognize Mr. Xi when he climbed in with a colleague on the night of March 1, he told Ta Kung Pao, a Chinese-language Hong Kong newspaper that often reports favorably on the mainland government. That came later, while idling at a red light.
China’s official Xinhua news agency first confirmed the story through its feed on the country’s Twitter-like “Weibo” service, citing city transport authorities and the Hong Kong newspaper. But later a Xinhua bulletin said the report was false, and Ta Kung Pao removed the report and a special web page about what appeared to be a propaganda coup. The story was reported by several media outlets, including The New York Times.
“I turned to take a close look,” Mr. Guo told the paper. “This passenger was wearing a black jacket and had a large face, he looked very familiar.”
“Checking has established that this was a false report, and we feel deeply distressed and extremely regretful about this,” the paper said in a statement on its website. “Such a major case of false news should absolutely never have happened.”
“Wow, now I saw who it was,” he recounted “I asked, ‘When you take a cab has anyone ever said you look like a certain man? Anyone ever said you look like General Secretary Xi?’ He listened and laughed and said, ‘You’re the first taxi driver to recognize me’.”
Initially, some citizens had praised Mr. Xi’s apparent taxi trip as a welcome break from the security that isolates him and other party leaders from the public. It was quickly featured on many Chinese news Web sites citing the Ta Kung Pao report. But the retraction brought lambasting of both the Hong Kong newspaper and Xinhua.
Mr. Guo was “a little overwhelmed” to realize that the top leader, usually swaddled in security, was sitting next to him. “For at least three minutes, sweat poured from my head,” he said.
“Real one moment, and bogus the next,” the Chinese write Cao Junshu wrote on his Weibo page. “Are you the authority for publishing real news, or fake news?”
Along the five-mile journey, Mr. Xi asked about the problems that he has vowed to take on since taking the top party post in November. His ‘'incognito trip'’ appeared to be part of his campaign to win over citizens disenchanted by acrid pollution, a stubborn wealth gap, official corruption and a political master-class that seems to many citizens as aloof as pharaohs. It was quickly featured on many Chinese news Web sites citing the Ta Kung Pao report and confirmed by Xinhua, the state news agency.
The report had appeared to be one of a succession of down-to-earth gestures Mr. Xi has made since November when he succeed Hu Jintao as party leader. Mr. Xi took over from Mr. Hu as president in March. Mr. Xi has demanded an end to banquets on the government bill, and told officials to stop having the police close off roads when they travel.
Like one of the ancient Chinese emperors reputed to sneak out to meet ordinary people, Mr. Xi asked the cabbie what he thought of the government. According to the report, Mr. Guo loyally blamed problems on erring local officials, rather than the party leadership.
The Ta Kung Pao newspaper initially thought enough of Mr. Xi’s ride to put up a special site, showing a map of the journey and pictures of Mr. Guo’s modest brick and concrete home in the rural northeast outskirts of Beijing. But the site was later removed. Calls to the company operating the cab reportedly driven by Mr. Guo were not answered during the day.
“I said that Beijing had had many days of haze this year and that air pollution is extremely serious these days, and this has triggered social panic and ordinary people are complaining,” Mr. Guo said.
“I spoke my mind and said, ‘Now the party’s policies are all good, and the ordinary people support them,” he recalled. “But sometimes some policies don’t reach down the grassroots, they get distorted and aren’t implemented, and ordinary people have their complaints.’ The general secretary said, ‘Thank you for your faith in the party’.”
Since succeeding Hu Jintao as top party leader in November, Mr. Xi has made a succession of down-to-earth gestures setting him apart from Mr. Hu, a stiffly austere politician who flinched from spontaneity. Mr. Xi succeeded Mr. Hu as president in March. Mr. Xi has demanded an end to banquets on the government bill, and told officials to stop having the police close off roads when they travel.
The Ta Kung Pao newspaper thought enough of Mr. Xi’s ride to put up a special site, showing a map of his journey and pictures of Mr. Guo’s modest brick and concrete home in the rural northeast outskirts of Beijing. The report did not say whether the party authorized the report, or why it appeared now. Many popular Chinese Internet news websites featured the newspaper’s report of Mr. Xi’s trip.
Mr. Xi’s political theater in his first months in power appears designed to raise expectations of economic and social change, while assuring the powerful that one-party power will remain inviolable, said Minxin Pei, a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College in California who specializes in Chinese politics.
“On the one hand, he wants to give people some hope that he is going to be different,” Mr. Pei said. “On the other hand, he does not want to alarm those people who put him there.”
“These are good PR moves, but they do not go anywhere near the heart of the problems, which is this immense control of economic resources and unbelievable privileges,” he said. “The real test is yet to come, and Mr. Xi does not have a lot of time.”
Beijing’s cabbies are a honking, ranting microcosm of the frustrations facing Mr. Xi. The city’s 66,000 taxis take 1.9 million rides every day on average, according to the municipal transport bureau, but residents complain that cabs are difficult to hail down. Taxi drivers complain about stagnant incomes with no holidays, constantly jammed roads, bullying police and government-protected operating companies that take a big slice of their fares.
“I work 12 hours a day and make 4,000 yuan a month” – equal to about $650 – said Wang Yue, a Beijing cab driver from the same area as Mr. Guo. “That is worse than working in a factory, because at least you are close to home when you work in a factory.”
In February, Mr. Xi promised to fix conditions for Beijing taxi drivers, and this week the city government proposed policies that it said will raise their incomes and make it easier to find a ride.
In February, Mr. Xi promised to fix conditions for Beijing taxi drivers, and this week the city government proposed policies that it said will raise their incomes and make it easier to find a ride.
Mr. Guo made sure to ask the Chinese leader for a memento of their ride. Mr. Xi left him with a tip worth 50 cents and slip of paper inscribed with the words, “Wishing you smooth sailing.”
Even before the report was taken down, some were skeptical, both online and on Beijing’s streets.
“I don’t believe you,” said Wang Yue, a cabbie. “President Xi out by himself? Without all his bodyguards? Was the taxi followed by vans full of security guards? There is no way President Xi was taking taxis with only another person.”
