The Internet, Social Media, and a Changing China 9780812292664

Table of contents :
Contents
Introduction: The Internet, Social Media, and a Changing China
Chapter 1: The Coevolution of the Internet, (Un)Civil Society, and Authoritarianism in China
Chapter 2: Connectivity, Engagement, and Witnessing on China’s Weibo
Chapter 3: New Media Empowerment and State-Society Relations in China
Chapter 4: The Privilege of Speech and New Media: Conceptualizing China’s Communications Law in the Internet Age
Chapter 5: Embedding Law into Politics in China’s Networked Public Sphere
Chapter 6: Microbloggers’ Battle for Legal Justice in China
Chapter 7: Public Opinion and Chinese Foreign Policy: New Media and Old Puzzles
Chapter 8: Social Media, Nationalist Protests, and China’s Japan Policy: The Diaoyu Islands Controversy, 2012–13
Chapter 9: Going Out and Texting Home: New Media and China’s Citizens Abroad
Chapter 10: Images of the DPRK in China’s New Media: How Foreign Policy Attitudes Are Connected to Domestic Ideologies in China
Notes
List of Contributors
Index
A
B
C
D
E
F
G
H
I
J
L
M
N
O
P
Q
R
S
T
U
V
W
X
Y
Z
Acknowledgments

Citation preview

The Internet, Social Media, and a Changing China

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THE INTERNET, SOCIAL MEDIA, AND A CHANGING CHINA Edited by

Jacques deLisle, Avery Goldstein, and Guobin Yang

U N I V E R S I T Y O F P E N N S Y LVA N I A P R E S S PHIL ADELPHIA

Copyright © 2016 University of Pennsylvania Press All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher. Published by University of Pennsylvania Press Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112 www.upenn.edu/pennpress Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The internet, social media, and a changing China / edited by Jacques DeLisle, Avery Goldstein, and Guobin Yang. pages

cm

Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8122-2351-4 1. LCSH: Social media—China. 2. Social media—Political aspects—China. 3. Internet—Social aspects—China. 4. Internet— Political aspects—China. I. DeLisle, Jacques. II. Goldstein, Avery. Yan Guobin. 740.Z9 I56744

2016

302.23'10951—dc23

2015038857

CON TEN T S

Introduction: The Internet, Social Media, and a Changing China

1

Jacques deLisle, Avery Goldstein, and Guobin Yang

Chapter 1: The Coevolution of the Internet, (Un)Civil Society, and Authoritarianism in China

28

Min Jiang

Chapter 2: Connectivity, Engagement, and Witnessing on China’s Weibo

49

Marina Svensson

Chapter 3: New Media Empowerment and State-Society Relations in China

71

Zengzhi Shi and Guobin Yang

Chapter 4: The Privilege of Speech and New Media: Conceptualizing China’s Communications Law in the Internet Age

86

Rogier Creemers

Chapter 5: Embedding Law into Politics in China’s Networked Public Sphere

106

Ya-Wen Lei and Daniel Xiaodan Zhou

Chapter 6: Microbloggers’ Battle for Legal Justice in China

129

Anne S. Y. Cheung

Chapter 7: Public Opinion and Chinese Foreign Policy: New Media and Old Puzzles Dalei Jie

150

vi

Contents

Chapter 8: Social Media, Nationalist Protests, and China’s Japan Policy: The Diaoyu Islands Controversy, 2012–13

161

Peter Gries, Derek Steiger, and Wang Tao

Chapter 9: Going Out and Texting Home: New Media and China’s Citizens Abroad

180

James Reilly

Chapter 10: Images of the DPRK in China’s New Media: How Foreign Policy Attitudes Are Connected to Domestic Ideologies in China

200

Chuanjie Zhang

Notes List of Contributors Index Acknowledgments

223 275 281 285

INTRODUC TION

The Internet, Social Media, and a Changing China Jacques deLisle, Avery Goldstein, and Guobin Yang

New media—the Internet and especially social media—have become pervasive and transformative forces in contemporary China. Their reach is vast: nearly half of China’s 1.3 billion citizens use the Internet.1 Tens of millions are active users of Sina Weibo, China’s principal Twitter-like service, and tens of millions more have weibo accounts.2 Although much attention to these media has focused on their importance as a way for ordinary citizens to express and share opinions and information, new media also have changed the way the Chinese authorities communicate with the people they rule. China’s partystate now invests heavily in speaking to Chinese citizens through the Internet and social media, as well as controlling the speech that occurs in that space. New media have altered the fabric of China’s civil society, legal affairs, politics, and foreign relations. Policy debates and public discourse regularly occur through—and sometimes focus on—the Internet and social media to an extent unimaginable a decade or two ago. Almost no area of public concern remains beyond the reach of discussion in cyberspace. This rise of new media reflects technological, economic, and political change in China. Use of the Internet initially grew with the advent of Internet cafés, as well as home and office-based computers. With the widespread adoption of smartphones, access expanded sharply. SMS (simple texting) and MMS (multimedia messages) were followed by weibo (microblogging similar to Twitter), and more recently the mobile text and voice messaging service weixin (known in English as WeChat).

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The economic changes that have profoundly altered China during the reform era that began in 1978 underlie the story of the ascent of new media. Rising individual wealth, education, and urbanization have generated much— but not all—of the demand for the Internet and social media. Like other societies, China has developed a “digital divide” that partly tracks broader social and economic inequality, which has increased sharply in China over the course of the reform era.3 The growth of the Internet and social media is also a result of the commercialization of media in China through policies that have required formerly state-subsidized and closely state-controlled media to compete in the marketplace and that have allowed the emergence of new, more independent media. Partly in a quest for audiences and, in turn, revenue, these increasingly diverse outlets have moved heavily onto the web and into social media where they distribute some of their most controversial and audience-engaging content, albeit sometimes only briefly until the authorities require its removal. Political change is part of the story as well. The rise of the Internet and social media reflects the partial liberalization of China’s political climate. Over the last few decades, Chinese citizens have enjoyed much more freedom to express opinions on a wide range of issues, including political ones, and to do so in relatively public ways. The criticism of officials (below the very top leadership) and policies (outside certain controversial areas) that has been tolerated and become commonplace among China’s “netizens” is the virtual face of a broader social and political phenomenon. Internet and social media-based expression of citizens’ discontent and exposure of unlawful or outrageous acts by cadres, enterprises, or others are allowed in part because they can serve the regime’s interest. On one hand, they provide a “steam valve” for citizen anger and bring potentially stabilitythreatening problems to the attention of the authorities who can then respond with ameliorative or repressive measures. On the other hand, new media give China’s rulers novel channels to shape public opinion by directly using such media by mobilizing, and sometimes paying, others to express proregime views (the so-called wumaodang or “fift y-cent party”), or by relying on spontaneous expressions of orthodox sentiments by some members of China’s diverse online communities. The Internet and social media also provide a ready means for the authorities to monitor public opinion and, at times, to discover and target dissidents and those who might form more organized opposition to the party-state and its policies.

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Concerns about the Internet’s and social media’s potential to facilitate efforts to erode the regime’s authority, to provide a platform for organizing dissent, or to foment “disorder” explain the ruling party’s evident wariness and ambivalence. Along with the authorities’ limited liberalization of the environment for new media and their use of it have come new efforts at control. The vastness, complexity, and changeability of the online world in China have posed challenges for China’s rulers as they have struggled to find effective means to pursue old goals—maintaining a monopoly on organized politics, limiting dissent, and censoring some ideas while privileging others—in a new context. As this brief sketch suggests and as the chapters in this volume explore in depth, the relationship between the Internet and social media, on one hand, and China’s society, politics, legal system, and even its foreign relations, on the other, has become diverse and dynamic. Across these many issues, when ordinary citizens and Chinese authorities engage in cyberspace, the pattern has become one of complex contestation. The contributions to this book show that the scope for critical expression, the level of civility, the social impact, and the policy consequences vary considerably across and within issue areas and over time. Simple dichotomies of “freedom versus control” or “promoting democracy versus strengthening authoritarianism” do not suffice as frameworks for understanding the role and impact of new media in today’s China. Even the more nuanced paradigm of “coevolution” of the Internet and civil society does not fully capture the diversity and conflict that now characterize China’s new media and their interaction with society, policy, and law. Dystopian views that the Internet is not changing China or is stabilizing authoritarian rule are also too simplistic and too pessimistic. The authors in this volume show how the Internet and social media have been having significant effects. Much of that impact comes from the grass roots, including from citizens who criticize the authorities, their actions and policies, and broader official narratives. Given the limited channels available to members of the Chinese public to express their opinions and influence their government, the relative significance of the Internet and new media is greater than in liberal-democratic polities. Internet postings, text messages, microblogs, and WeChat circles have become especially important means for citizens to weigh in on controversial legal cases, the regime’s handling of foreign policy, misbehavior by officials, and many other social and political questions. Far from providing a simple tool for reinforcing or sustaining authoritarian

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rule, the rapid and complex development of the Internet and social media often have put the regime back on its heels, requiring it to scramble to find ways to address these new challenges to its authority without incurring unacceptable collateral costs. At the same time, expectations that the Internet would quickly become an overwhelmingly positive and transformative force in China have proven to be equally misplaced. The studies in this book examine several aspects of this phenomenon. The still capable and determined Chinese party-state has adapted and developed new means of limiting and controlling speech in cyberspace, including mechanisms of participation, monitoring, regulating, censoring, and sanctioning. Citizens’ behavior in cyberspace has had its dark side as well, giving rise to its own “uncivil society.” Venomous attacks, rumormongering, false accusations, so-called human flesh searches, and similar phenomena on the Internet and in social media have contributed to real-world harms, including deaths. Although Chinese netizens have sometimes pressed courts to reach just outcomes and forgo corrupt ones, the Internet has at times instead facilitated mob justice that poses a populist threat to judicial independence and the development of the rule of law.4 Internet populism has affected China’s foreign relations as well. Strident popu lar nationalism expressed on the Internet and through social media sometimes dovetails with the regime’s foreign policy agenda and allows Chinese leaders to play a “two-level game,” pleading domestic constraints on their ability to make concessions abroad. Yet popular nationalism expressed and amplified in cyberspace—and sometimes coming from Chinese nationals and ethnic Chinese outside of China—often has been a problem for Beijing’s foreign policy. It has sometimes generated pressure to pursue approaches that are more unaccommodating than the leadership’s preferences or their assessments of China’s national interests would dictate. Although the Internet and social media are not the underlying cause of popu lar constraints on foreign policy decision makers, they have created new forums that give such constraints greater potency.

The Internet and Civil Society A central aspect of the information revolution in China has been the expansion of civil society and citizen engagement through the use of the Internet. In

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the early years of Internet diffusion, from the late 1990s to the early 2000s, the key dynamic was relatively simple and straightforward. On the one hand, the Internet and civil society had an interdependent relationship and shaped each other in a coevolutionary trajectory. The Internet contributed to the growth of a fledgling civil society by enhancing civic orga nizing and fostering public debate and communication, while civil society facilitated the diff usion of the Internet by providing the necessary social basis for communication and interaction. On the other hand, as online protests appeared, state authorities responded by introducing measures of Internet censorship. Overall, however, the practices of control and censorship at that time were crude and ad hoc, lacking the sophistication and comprehensiveness we see today. In the last decade, profound social, technological, and political developments in China and in the world have significantly changed the context in which civil society and the Internet interact in China. The spaces for online citizen engagement have expanded in many ways, but they have also contracted in other respects. To understand the ramifications of new information and communication technologies, we must analyze intricate, intertwined, and complex interactions involving multiple actors and institutions. Compared with ten years ago, the Internet is now a much more hotly contested arena with much higher stakes, in China as elsewhere around the world. Although a cyclical pattern of liberalization and relaxation may broadly characterize Chinese politics, the chapters in this book suggest a more complicated picture. Patterns in citizens’ online participation suggest that the familiar temporal cycle of Chinese politics may have given way to a layered spatial array of online activism and governance. In this new pattern, we find a more diverse set of actors from civil society inhabiting different parts of the online space with varying degrees of political legitimacy, while state authorities at central and regional levels and in different state bureaucracies target particular social issues or social actors according to their own priorities. This spatial pattern in China’s virtual realm parallels the boundary-spanning contention in China’s real-world politics described by Kevin O’Brien and Lianjiang Li.5 In China’s online spaces, this layered, spatial pattern is associated with complex contestation among multiple actors, from Party and government agencies to Internet firms, traditional media, citizens, “uncivil society,” global IT corporations, and international governmental and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). Civil society includes ordinary netizens, NGOs, and dissidents, most (but not all) of whom reside within China. Some dissidents

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remain outside the People’s Republic of China (PRC) while maintaining a presence on China’s domestic Internet platforms, such as Sina Weibo. And the civic voices on these platforms are not limited to Chinese, whether in China or abroad. Multinational corporations, foreign embassies, and global media institutions maintain an online presence as well. A well-known example is the U.S. Embassy’s Twitter feed (@BeijingAir) that publishes air-quality data for Beijing based on readings from a monitor installed atop the embassy. This information is posted to the embassy’s website; such air quality indexes are also posted by the U.S. consulates in Shanghai and Guangzhou. In 2012, when bloggers spread the word that the readings from the American Embassy revealed much poorer air quality than the official data published by Beijing’s municipal government, a heated debate occurred on Sina Weibo. What ensued was a do-it-yourself air-quality testing campaign that eventually led to greater transparency in China’s officially published air-quality data.6 In the area of Internet censorship, new actors and new practices have surfaced in recent years that may have long-term consequences for online civic expression in China. Public relations firms are one such new actor. When the scandal over melamine poisoning from contaminated milk products (especially baby formula) broke in 2008, the Sanlu Group—one of the principal producers of melamine-tainted products—reportedly approached China’s main Internet search engine, Baidu, with an offer of 3 million renminbi (RMB) for Baidu if it would censor negative information about Sanlu on its site.7 When this episode came to light, it alerted the public to a practice already common among China’s public relations firms. Clients, including business firms and government officials, often enlist public relations firms to pull strings or pay bribes to induce website editors to delete embarrassing or critical postings.8 Although the emergence of novel actors and practices on China’s Internet has been a significant development, ordinary citizens continue to play important roles as well, especially as online civic engagement has expanded in the past five years with microblogging taking center stage. Despite earlier clones of Twitter in China (such as Fanfou.com, which opened in May 2007 and was closed by the Chinese government two years later), it was not until Sina launched its weibo ser vice in August 2009 that microblogging began to catch on in China. Major commercial portal sites like Sohu, NetEase, and Tencent, and the official People.com.cn also launched microblogging services. However, the most popu lar and influential of these remains Sina Weibo, which registered 9 million users in its first year and by the end of December 2013 reported more than 100 million monthly active users.9

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On Sina Weibo, Chinese netizens actively participate in public discussion, organizing, and protest.10 Diverse actors with radically different agendas populate the weibo platform and compete for attention and loyalty by producing their own narratives. Government departments, business firms, media institutions, and regular citizens inside and outside China express their different views and aims, exercise different levels of influence, and have different experiences with China’s Internet-regulating authorities.11 Postings in some parts of the platform, written by people addressing especially sensitive issues, may be deleted even while most of the platform remains open for public communication.12 In particular, weibo celebrities (“Big Vs” who attract large numbers of followers) have become online public opinion leaders and now face tighter scrutiny and regulation. Although all the chapters in this volume engage issues of the Internet and civil society in China, three take this area as their special focus. In chapter 1, Min Jiang examines four types of activities in China’s digital world, namely: real-time activism, online political jamming, weibo celebrities, and the rise of an uncivil society online. Jiang defines online political jamming as the use of digital media and popular culture “to disseminate dissenting images and viewpoints, disrupt stultifying mainstream political discourses, and expose social injustices.” Jiang shows that like cultural jamming, online political jamming challenges the dominant political discourse by producing and distributing counter-hegemonic messages. Jiang also offers a critique of the incivility of some online practices. She uses the notion of an “uncivil society online” to characterize “the plentitude of disrespect between interlocutors and feeble existence of a public sphere (in the Habermasian sense),” pointing to the lack of mechanisms to channel online exchanges to build effective institutions. She argues that heterogeneous groups inhabit online space and the concept of “civil society” becomes increasingly inadequate to capture its complex dynamics. Consequently, “the implicit assumption of a liberal subject demanding social justice, media freedom, and political reforms online” is incomplete and therefore potentially inadequate. Related to her analysis of uncivil society is her critique of new measures of surveillance and censorship taken by the state to control the Internet in response to rising online activism, a development also addressed by several other authors in this volume. In chapter 2, Marina Svensson covers multiple forms of civic action on Sina Weibo. She discusses the integration of weibo with off-line activism, such as charitable work. She highlights the proliferation of images of resistance,

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grievance, and suffering on Sina Weibo. Svennson’s central argument about civil society and the Internet in China is similar to the argument of selfredemption in chapter  3, though Svennson engages a different theoretical literature. Responding to the debate about slacktivism and clicktivism in the study of digital activism, Svensson argues that although civic action on weibo may seem to resemble forms of clicktivism—that is, political participation through the clicking of a computer mouse—it ultimately differs from clicktivism because the social context of political participation is different in China. She writes: “The fact that civil society is relatively weak in China, and that many people are wary of or skeptical about formal organizations, including some NGOs (Government Organized Nongovernmental Organizations), makes issue-based civic engagement and individual ad hoc activities on social media quite attractive.” By “individual ad hoc activities on social media,” she refers to the numerous personalized expressions and actions in Chinese online spaces. Svensson sees these forms of action as meaningful political activism— and not mere clicktivism—in the Chinese context. She finds similarities between them and the kind of connective action studied by communication scholars Lance Bennett and Alexandra Segerberg, in which digital networks are used to link together personalized expressions, thereby facilitating collective action.13 Svensson’s analysis of the variety of action appearing on Sina Weibo shows that it is a useful platform for fluid and personal engagement even without requiring sustained activity or membership. She further shows that virtual activism often extends off-line as civic associations and NGOs come to rely on social media to sustain their real-world efforts. In chapter 3, Zengzhi Shi and Guobin Yang theorize about the development of public communication enabled by social media. They argue that the era of public communication through the Internet and social media has opened a new chapter in state-society relations in China. Specifically, they claim that social media have enabled multiple forms of empowerment. Of particular interest is individual empowerment, which is conceived as a form of self-redemption. Here, self-redemption means the moral responsibility of individual citizens to take action and produce social change. The availability of new digital media not only makes it possible for citizens to take action but also makes it morally compelling to do so, because citizens now have less of an excuse not to act: “Faced with a changing society, especially in today’s new media empowerment which has made it possible for people to liberate themselves, the question for everyone is, ‘What should we do?’ ” Understood

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in the context of China’s history, in which citizens were accustomed to being passive recipients and followers of government policies, this notion of selfredemption takes on political significance. Shi and Yang draw illustrations from examples of civic uses of websites and the Sina Weibo microblogging platform. These include Shi’s own experience as a founder of the “Peace China” Charity Fund for Public Communication, which promotes the use of digital media for civic engagement among journalists, NGOs, and citizens.

Law and the Internet The complex and fraught relationships among new media, public opinion, and law in the Internet age in China reflect new developments that have emerged against the backdrop of long-standing patterns. The idea that heterodox speech is politically dangerous and needs to be checked by exercises of state power, including law, is one with deep roots in China. So, too, is the idea that political authorities should use their control—including control exercised through law—over media and the producers of cultural and intellectual content to advance the state’s agenda, including goals of inculcating the people with regime-supporting values. These tropes date not just to the early days of the Chinese Communist Party but even to the era of dynastic rule. As several of the chapters in this volume indicate, they have persisted into the Internet age.14 As with other aspects of life in contemporary China, however, the most relevant context is the one that has emerged since the death of Mao Zedong. The founding moment of the reform era—the Third Plenum of the Eleventh Central Committee held in December 1978—announced a project of legal reconstruction to repair the damage to law and the legal system wrought under Mao and to move China toward rule by law and, perhaps, the rule of law. From that time forward, Chinese authorities have used media—including, in recent years, the Internet and social media—to propagate knowledge about the many laws and regulations that the state has adopted and to urge citizens to follow the law and use legal institutions in lawful and orderly ways. Lawfocused publications, such as Legal System Daily (Fazhi Ribao), were established early in the reform era, and mainstream print and electronic media began to devote unprecedented attention to legal issues and legal cases. Campaigns to popu larize legal knowledge through official media became

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commonplace. Among the more striking examples from the 1990s were a flood of traditional format publications, media reports, and even television game shows that focused on knowledge about the Hong Kong Basic Law (which has served as a mini-constitution since the territory’s return to Chinese rule in 1997) and the law of the World Trade Organization (which China joined in late 2001 after a fifteen-year quest for membership). At the same time, unofficial expressions of unorthodox views about law emerged rapidly as well, sometimes causing alarm within the regime. Wei Jingsheng and other Democracy Wall activists in 1978–79 articulated visions of law as regime-constraining and human rights-based and denounced the Deng Xiaoping leadership’s crabbed notions of legality. They disseminated these views through self-published journals, leaflets, and speeches.15 A decade later, some of the participants in the Tiananmen Democracy Movement included legal principles and reforms among their calls for change.16 They issued demands to implement fully the promises of democracy and free speech that they saw enshrined in the PRC’s highest law, the national constitution, and they condemned as lawless the decision to implement martial law and, later, the violent methods used to end the movement. To spread their views on legal issues (as well as news of the movement more generally) they, too, relied on established and emerging media. For a time, state and state-controlled media offered sympathetic coverage. A dense foreign media presence—boosted by Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev’s visit to Beijing—meant that the students’ demands and actions and the regime’s responses reached a global audience and, in turn, seeped back into China, evading censorship efforts and jamming of foreign broadcasts that targeted Chinese audiences. When the crackdown came, supporters of the movement outside the PRC launched a “fax saves lives” campaign, using a then relatively new technology for rapid communication. In the aftermaths of both Democracy Wall and the Tiananmen Democracy Movement, the authorities also turned to the media to explain, justify, and defend the legal dimensions of their responses.17 Extensive state media coverage of the trials of Wei Jingsheng and the Tiananmen dissidents argued elaborately that the defendants’ actions were illegal under preexisting laws, that they were tried according to proper procedures, and that they were being punished for crimes of endangering the public and the state (of the sort that any legal system would punish), not for their dissident political beliefs or “thought crimes.” Traditional media followed much the same script in the context of the criminal trial of the Gang of Four and members of the Lin Biao

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“clique” at the beginning of the 1980s for, respectively, acts against the Party, state, and people during the Cultural Revolution, and an attempted coup against Mao.18 As newer communications technologies emerged and spread in China, a broadly similar dynamic unfolded. For example, when the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) crisis struck in 2003, citizens loosed a storm of SMS messages that undercut the initial official story that the disease was under control and that the state’s regulatory response had been effective. Rattled authorities first responded with legal measures—ostensibly an interpretation of existing laws—that threatened severe sanctions against those who spread false rumors about infectious diseases. Shortly thereafter, a new draft law on responding to public health and other emergencies produced a contentious debate about the conflict between a proposed provision punishing the spreading of potentially disruptive information and the public’s “right to know.”19 The advent of widespread and, increasingly, mobile access to the Internet and the rise of social media have continued and amplified past patterns and trends in the legal dimension of the interaction among media, politics, and society. The Internet and social media have become far-reaching, largescale, and complex means for Chinese citizens to engage legal issues and have prompted reactions from the regime that have ranged from participation to suppression. The Internet and social media have provided potent mechanisms for critics of existing laws and legal institutions to articulate and disseminate agendas for legal reform, including systemic change. Agendas for constitutional reform, including those associated with Liu Xiaobo and Charter ’08 or Xu Zhiyong and the gongmeng/Open Constitution initiative and New Citizen Movement, achieved much of their public exposure and social reach through online media. The closing statement Xu drafted for his criminal trial was considered sufficiently volatile and intriguing to China’s netizens that Baidu quickly blocked searches for it.20 Like numerous other advocates for changes promoting liberal values, the rule of law, and the protection of human rights in China, the prominent blogger Liu Junning has relied heavily on the Internet and social media to reach large audiences.21 Some among China’s diverse and shifting community of rights protection lawyers (weiquan lushi) have depended on Internet platforms and social media—and their stature as cyberspace celebrities—to spread their views. Th is has been especially true for those, such as Gao Zhisheng or Chen

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Guangcheng, who moved from representing individual clients to launching jeremiads against what they see as a legal and political system in need of fundamental change.22 Those with more moderate agendas for legal change have relied heavily on the same forums. For example, Yirenping—a civil society organization that began by focusing on discrimination against people with Hepatitis B and expanded to address many other types of discrimination in employment and other contexts—developed from an online forum for those living with the disease into a hybrid online–off-line organization that uses the Internet to pursue a commingled strategy of individual lawsuits, impact litigation, legislative reform, and social activism.23 Ilham Tohti, a Uighur economist who advocated for more robust autonomy for Xinjiang Uighurs within China, became well known primarily through the website he co-founded, Uyghur Online, and he was convicted on charges of separatism largely on the basis of his webposts on the now-blocked site. Chinese netizens also have used Internet platforms to address and press for outcomes in particular cases of alleged illegal action—often with implications for larger legal and political issues. In recent years, there have been numerous Internet fi restorms focusing on legal cases or on situations that bloggers and posters claimed demanded a legal response. A few examples from the last several years suggest the scope and variety. Wu Ping and Yang Wu, the owners of the famous Chongqing “nailhouse,” played to the media— old and new, foreign and domestic. They invoked the then newly adopted constitutional and statutory provisions on property rights and aired complaints about the inadequate compensation offered by the state for their home and business, which perched precariously atop a spire of land within a vast construction site from which neighboring buildings had been cleared. Deng Yujiao’s case stirred an online audience and mobilized public pressure against her prosecution for having killed a local official who sexually assaulted her. Tang Hui faced reeducation through labor (a form of incarceration without judicial process) for her temerity in challenging the refusal by local officials to prosecute their associates who had trafficked Tang’s young daughter into prostitution. Her case spawned an outpouring of social media criticism of the abusiveness of local officials and the system of reeducation through labor. Yang Jia’s killing of police officers both triggered an intense online debate about the Chinese judicial system’s shortcomings in dealing with mentally ill defendants and also elicited a disturbing level of online public sympathy for Yang from citizens fed up with police misbehavior.

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Teenage web-poster Yang Hui drew widespread support from netizens after he was detained in 2013 under newly adopted “anti-rumormongering” Internet regulations for posting a complaint about the suspicious failure of the local police to investigate a murder at a karaoke club. Yang’s treatment prompted outrage among bloggers and led to the suspension of the local police chief. Li Zhuang, a criminal defense lawyer, faced prosecution for daring to perform his professional role in representing a target of Chongqing Party chief Bo Xilai’s “anti-Mafia” crackdown. Li’s detention prompted sustained and largely Internet-based criticism from leading public legal intellectuals such as He Weifang that, in turn, sped Bo’s ouster from power and criminal prosecution.24 And the melamine-tainted milk poisoning cases, the collapse of badly built school houses and apartments (dubbed “tofu construction”) in the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake, and the derailing of a high-speed rail train all prompted widespread netizen outrage over perceived cover-ups, condemnation of regulatory failure, and demands for punishment of those responsible for mass harms. Such online legal activism—ranging from a “retail” focus on celebrated individual legal cases to a more “wholesale” critique of institutional and systemic legal problems—was made possible, in part, by the conjunction of two factors: the relatively great opportunities for speech that had developed in the hard-to-control and fast-changing world of the web and social media, and the legitimacy that many years of “pro-legality” official rhetoric and policy had conferred on public discourse concerning legal issues. Wittingly or not, the regime may have bound itself to the mast with its long-running insistence that it was committed to ruling by law, building a “socialist rule of law state,” and subjecting exercises of state power (at least below the top levels) to greater legal regulation. Th is seems to have helped create widespread “rights consciousness” (or at least “rules consciousness”) among an increasingly wired public that sees itself as especially empowered to weigh in on legal issues and shortcomings in the legal system.25 As chapters by Rogier Creemers and others in this book make clear, Party and state authorities have not been passive onlookers in the face of these developments. Party and state institutions have used the Internet and social media as increasingly vital tools in their long-running efforts to disseminate knowledge about or “popularize” law (pufa). Online and social media complaints and criticisms have become important means for the regime to monitor opinions about law, legal issues, and legal institutions. Postings and tweets can expose lawless behavior at local levels that central authorities want to

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correct. When complaints about more systemic legal issues or illegal activity emerge in online forums, the authorities can respond to them while they are still relatively fragmentary, isolated, or inchoate and thus often well short of social unrest or organized movements. Posting draft laws and regulations on the web has become an important means for the regime to receive public opinion, and to do so without opening the door to institutionalized democratic input and popu lar accountability. Online draft laws and regulations often receive tens of thousands of comments. Such comments are so numerous and diverse and the rules governing drafters’ responses so flexible that legislators and regulators garner much information while retaining discretion to incorporate or ignore online input. Courts now routinely post case decisions online. This provides an important means by which citizens learn about legal rules and rights, increases transparency, and, in turn, can bolster courts’ legitimacy. It also provides a mechanism for horizontal communication among courts that can foster consistency in adjudication, selfconfidence in the judiciary, and, perhaps, the authority of courts. Faced with the contentious online debates over legal issues, official and orthodox sources have entered the fray, countering regime-criticizing or regime-challenging content with their own counternarratives. These threads often condemn dissidents’ and protesters’ behavior and advocacy as illegal and as threatening the economic, social, and political order that is portrayed as the right, and need, of all citizens. They point to possible malign foreign conspiracies that seek to spread Western-style legal ideas and norms, undermine the Party’s rule, and threaten the national interest. They press a broadly pro-“law and order” message to cultivate support for harsh legal measures. China’s rulers also have engaged in legal innovation, devising new regulatory techniques to address novel challenges from cyberspace. 26 For example, microbloggers with large followings—so-called Big Vs—have faced special requirements and scrutiny and in many cases succumbed to the resulting chilling effects on their postings. Moves to require weibo account holders to register with their real names have sought, with limited impact, to curtail anonymous postings. New rules have authorized punishment of those who post damaging rumors that are retransmitted by more than five hundred users or seen by more than five thousand viewers—outcomes that are beyond the control of the original author.27 The authorities also have sought to shift some of the daunting burden of monitoring and enforcing to Internet ser vice providers and industry associations—in effect semiprivatizing regulation and enlisting nonstate actors in regulation. Civil law

Introduction

15

mechanisms—such as suits by victims (including officials) of false or exaggerated allegations or exposure of personal information—have begun to emerge as a legal means to limit some types of content on the Internet.28 New laws also have imposed liability on Internet ser vice providers when users post prohibited material and required ISPs to retain information about users and to cooperate with public security organs—in effect conscripting ISPs as implementers and enforcers of the state’s legal proscriptions.29 Vague Internetrelated provisions in China’s 2015 National Security Law exacerbated concerns among foreign technology companies that believed they would be required to install “trapdoors” that, among other things, could allow Chinese authorities to monitor users. And a draft Cybersecurity Law, disclosed in July 2015, pointed to the possibility of clearer and stricter obligations of ISPs to support and assist government investigations; to monitor actively for “illegal” content, and to enforce the hitherto weakly implemented “real name” registration requirements. These novel measures coexist with adaptations of traditional lawemploying techniques used by the authorities against disfavored speech and related action, including blocking and removal of websites and postings, suspension or cancellation of social media accounts, and criminal prosecution or administrative sanctions for behavior that would have been punished in the pre-Internet world as well but that now occurs partly online.30 China has insisted to the outside world that it has the legitimate authority to impose a wide range of restrictive measures, consistent with the Beijing-backed (and Russia-supported) international legal theory of national “Internet sovereignty.” These relatively clear patterns and trends from the recent past coexist with significant uncertainties in the relationship between law and new media in contemporary China. First, online engagement, particularly concerning individual court cases, has an ambivalent relationship to legality or “rule of law” values.31 As several contributors to this volume emphasize, public intellectuals and ordinary citizens can use new media to press the authorities, including courts, to achieve just and lawful outcomes and to change legally questionable and widely despised rules. But Internet and social media users can also create great pressure on courts to follow public sentiment to decide cases in ways that may differ from the legally proper result—for example, unjust convictions or unwarranted acquittals in criminal cases. Adding to the complexity, party organs sometimes push courts to respond to popular demands that are at odds with the law, and online legal expert commentators

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sometimes receive undisclosed payments from litigants whose positions they endorse. More subtly, outpourings of online opinion may lead to legally correct or defensible outcomes that are reached for reasons having little to do with law—much as occurs when bribery, political influence, or local protectionism produce results consistent with the law. Reaching the legally “right” result for the “wrong” reasons has, at best, complicated implications for legality. Second, as the online controversies over legal cases and issues examined by Anne Cheung, Ya-Wen Lei, and Daniel Xiaodan Zhou in this volume partly illustrate, it is far from clear that such controversies are ultimately or primarily about law or legal issues. Often and for many participants, they surely are. But in especially heated cases and for a significant portion of netizens, the discourse is more broadly political. Discussions of court cases and legal institutions can and do become vehicles for addressing bigger questions of political reform and governmental failure. Law and legal questions may provide almost accidental foci or—because of the legitimacy official rhetoric and policy have given to law—relatively “safe” spaces in which to initiate conversations and criticisms that otherwise would be too controversial. Th ird, the latest waves of technological change—the rise of weixin and the corresponding relative decline of weibo—have raised concerns that online discussions will retreat into narrower spheres, undercutting the platform weibo had provided for legal public intellectuals, rights protection lawyers, and legal reform advocates to reach wide audiences. But, for such purposes, weixin may prove to be more a complement than a substitute, providing a space in which clusters of would-be law reformers and critics of legal failure can interact and formulate views with some modest hope of escaping monitoring and censoring before “going public” with their views and attracting attention on weibo or in other online forums. Three chapters in this book take up aspects of the relationships among law, the Internet and social media, and politics in China. In chapter  4, Rogier Creemers analyzes how the Chinese regime’s approach to the legal regulation of speech has evolved in the Internet age. Creemers argues that when traditional media were still dominant, Chinese laws and regulations denied constitutionally promised “free speech” through methods with deep roots in Chinese Communist and broader Chinese history, specifically by licensing and censoring media. Creemers sketches regime efforts at content control through privileging favored speech and controlling channels for dissemination of ideas that date to the Qing dynasty, and that continued under

Introduction

17

Mao and into the reform era. As media underwent decentralization and commercialization in the early reform era and, later, as Internet use expanded, smartphones came into widespread use and new forms of online activity, including social media, boomed, legal and regulatory methods evolved. Old-style means for controlling traditional media were extended to the Internet. These were soon joined by new regulatory tools. First came required licensing of new types of users (mostly by established institutions wielding new regulations), self-regulation by industry associations (which sought to address the regulatory challenges posed by rapid proliferation of content providers generating problematic content), and expansion of criminal liability for online activities (some of which addressed distinctively online behavior such as national-security-undermining hacking and others that concerned traditional offenses—such as commercial fraud, defamation, and political activism—now occurring online). Next came reforms to key regulatory institutions (including the state bureaucracy overseeing new media, the organ i zational structures for self-regulation in Internet companies, and new organs to analyze Internet content for policy makers), and new rules that primarily targeted individual users. Creemers describes recent developments that have sought to chill and restrict expression in cyberspace. He concludes that these developments reflect broader problems of limits to political reform—an area that the Xi administration so far seems unwilling to address. In chapter 5, Ya-Wen Lei and Daniel Xiaodan Zhou provide quantitative and qualitative content analyses of discussions in the official media and by commentators in a major online forum of the famous “South China tiger” fraud scandal—which arose when local officials touted faked photographs of an endangered species in the wild as evidence of government success and a basis for seeking additional resources. Also drawing on the Asian Barometer Survey of Chinese citizens’ perceptions of regime legality and trust, Lei and Zhou find a wide gap between official and online conceptions of law. In the official account, law is a technical means to seek and disclose the truth, to prosecute and punish illegal behavior (in the South China tiger case by a greedy individual and lax local officials), and to prevent recurrences. In contrast, the online public’s conception of law envisions law in more political terms and as something that should be a vehicle for protecting citizens’ rights and human rights and for pursuing such “moral” ends as freedom, fairness, and justice. The online public that participated in the debates about the South

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China tiger incident drew comparisons to law in the United States and Taiwan and linked the discrete scandal to much larger questions of the government’s systematic mendacity, corruption, secrecy, illegality, and denial of media freedom and court autonomy. At times, the online critique expanded to broader condemnation of the party-state’s monopoly of political power and a resulting sham “rule of law with Chinese characteristics.” For Lei and Zhou, the online public’s evident distrust of the regime— including the central authorities as well as frequently criticized local officials—and the online public’s belief in the regime’s lack of legality portend trouble for the regime’s long-running reform era strategy of relying on “law” or “the rule of law” as a basis for legitimacy. Lei and Zhou emphasize the significance of this threat to the regime’s strategy, given the extent to which China’s authoritarian rulers have turned to law as an instrument to rule the country, ameliorate political conflict, and promote economic development, and the extent to which the regime’s emphasis on law has created the space in which online Chinese citizens have been able to develop their regime-criticizing counternarratives. In chapter 6, Anne S. Y. Cheung examines microbloggers’—and, more generally, online public opinion’s—impact on courts’ handling of controversial legal cases in China. Focusing on cases that have generated especially large-scale discussion on the Internet, Cheung argues that online commenters have moved beyond traditional Party-led “public opinion supervision,” which enlists the public to help the Party discover official misconduct and discern public opinion. They have moved instead to more autonomous and judicial outcome-affecting “public opinion monitoring” that is often more critical of party-state misbehavior, not only in individual cases but also in the broader patterns the cases exemplify. The online public opinion Cheung examines often targets the judiciary. The courts accordingly have become arenas for conflict among social forces and conflicting opinions about what justice requires in individual cases—all expressed on the Internet. This has led to tensions among the courts’ claims to legitimacy (which depend partly on their success in carving out a space for courts to follow the law and adjudicate cases somewhat independently, and partly on courts’ being seen as “doing justice”), the Party’s goals in supervising the courts, and the online public’s views about appropriate outcomes in high-profi le cases. Much online commentary uses the language of law and rights to attack apparent injustice, especially toward victims of misbehavior by officials. Yet the outcomes of cases—including the five case

Introduction

19

studies Cheung examines in depth—often appear to be mixed or compromise verdicts. This perhaps reflects the online public’s significant but still limited effect on decision making by courts that also remain under Party supervision. In the cases she examines, Cheung finds that online public opinion generally favors justice (as understood by the online public) and criticizes lawlessness (especially official lawlessness). Yet to the extent that court decisions in cases that become the focus of web discussions represent a resolution among the vectors of online public pressure, traditional Party influence, and the courts’ quest for autonomy, the implications for achieving legally correct or substantively just outcomes, for supporting rule of law values, and even for judicial power are ambiguous.

The Internet and Foreign Relations Although much of the attention paid to the growing importance of new media in China has been directed at domestic affairs, scholars have also begun to take note of its effects on China’s international relations. The end of the insular policies embraced during most of the Maoist era opened China to a flow of information about international affairs and China’s role in the world that had previously been limited and controlled by official news outlets— print, radio, and television. As China became more internationally engaged during the 1980s, increased coverage of global affairs appeared in the old official media but also in less strictly controlled new outlets that flourished as the news market followed the general trend toward commercialization and competition.32 This trend toward more, and more diverse, sources of information about China’s international relations was briefly interrupted in the wake of the crackdown on the 1989 Tiananmen Democracy Movement. But it resumed during the 1990s and accelerated with the advent of the Internet. To an even greater extent than during the 1980s, the Internet gave rise to exchanges of information and opinion within China about the country’s foreign policy and world affairs. New ser vices such as microblogging and nearly ubiquitous access with the spread of mobile phones greatly increased the ability for Chinese netizens to spread information about and share their views on international affairs in the opening years of the twenty-fi rst century. These changes prompted analysts to wonder whether increasingly salient public opinion expressed through new media was becoming a significant

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influence on foreign policy decision makers in Beijing—either by providing leaders in the authoritarian regime with one of the few ways they could discern the views of the Chinese people, or by generating unprecedented popular pressure on China’s rulers.33 Much of the opinion expressed on China’s Internet forums and bulletin boards came from those who urged leaders to stand up more vigorously for the country’s interests.34 Among the hot-button issues triggering such demands and sometimes leading to partly Internetmobilized public protests were China’s policies toward Taiwan, the United States, and Japan. Although the significance of new media and public opinion for China’s international relations remains difficult to assess, some effects are clear. First, the proliferation of media outlets within China, advancing technology, and the country’s integration with the international community over the past thirty-five years ended the era in which most information about China’s international relations was limited to the Party elite privy to confidential documents. On such issues, the Chinese people are better informed than at any time since the founding of the PRC in 1949. To be sure, the CCP still tries to manage the circulation of information. But because the regime’s political fortunes rest on a modernization program that requires embracing modern information technologies and cross-border exchanges, effective control over the flow of information has become increasingly problematic. Second, and related, the Chinese people are now not only better informed about world events but are also able to follow debates about them online and in traditional media, such as national and provincial television. Public intellectuals, including university-based academics, think tank scholars, serving and retired government officials and military officers (including some still serving and others who are retired), frequently appear on broadcasts to discuss, debate, and sometimes sharply disagree about important foreign policy matters (such as China’s relationship with the United States, Japan, or North Korea), even if their differences typically fall within a fairly narrow range.35 These programs trigger further exchanges online and in social media, often integrated with the broadcasts themselves. In short, although the regime can still set boundaries on acceptable policy debates, the proliferation of even constrained discussions about vital issues of international security and foreign policy contrasts starkly with the situation that prevailed in previous decades when public discussions of such topics usually remained off-limits to all but the most senior Party and military officials.

Introduction

21

Third, media not only provide the Chinese public with more information about world events; they also do so more promptly. This contrasts with earlier periods when the regime could determine when and how it shared information with the Chinese people about foreign policy matters. Control over the dissemination of information had allowed the Party to frame events in ways that fit with the policy response it preferred. With the rise and spread of new media, and especially social media, the initiative is no longer reliably controlled by the regime. Instead, international incidents often trigger quick reactions among China’s netizens that the regime must then decide how to manage. Fourth, the regime has increased the sophistication of its attempts to limit the extent to which new media lead to unwanted public pressure on foreign policy making and the threat a new media-empowered citizenry might pose to the leading role that the regime reserves to itself on such consequential matters. In addition to relying on the “Great Firewall” of ever more advanced blocking technologies to filter out heterodox views, the CCP seeks to shape the terms of public debate and opinion about foreign policy through a proactive approach that mobilizes officials and sponsors supporters to post messages online that back approved policy positions and sometimes warn ardent critics about the dangerous consequences they may be courting.36 Increasingly, management of online activities that target foreign policy includes decisions about whether to permit discussion and debate on the Internet and social media to spill over into street protests. Jessica Weiss’s research has highlighted the difficult decisions the regime faces when it must choose whether to indulge or to repress the nationalist impulse that can inflame online debate and spark demonstrations.37 Either choice is a risky one. If it represses calls for public protest, the CCP risks the charge that it is insufficiently concerned about affronts to China’s interests. But if it permits protests to unfold, the CCP risks unleashing a sequence of events that can damage bilateral relations with the country (often Japan or the United States) targeted by wrathful Chinese nationalists. Permitting demonstrations also entails a danger that demonstrators, once in the streets, will redirect their fury against China’s rulers for shortcomings other than their handling of an international incident that initially motivated their anger. Weiss argues that China’s leaders can try to exploit these risky choices to send credible, because costly, signals to other states about the likelihood that China will compromise in its international disputes. But she also finds the new media weapon in China’s foreign policy arsenal to be a double-edged sword: it is effective

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because of the risks new media creates for the regime by more closely linking foreign policy and domestic political considerations. Fift h, when Beijing does permit, or even engineers, a growing chorus of nationalist demands for a tough response to a perceived foreign policy challenge, and especially when it allows street demonstrations, new media can complicate international disputes and make them more difficult to resolve through compromise. Because strident public opinion can shift the focus from the specific matter at hand to more general doubts about Beijing’s willingness to defend China’s honor and interests, new media can serve as an amplifier of conflict in China’s foreign relations. Sixth, aside from its role in shaping the circulation of information and opinion, new media have themselves at times become a foreign policy issue for China’s leaders. To some extent, today’s disagreements have merely shifted the focus from the treatment of traditional print and broadcast media to newer electronic forms. Disputes with foreign governments and news corporations about the access to be granted to their journalists working in China (numbers of credentials, terms of visas, domestic travel restrictions) predate the age of the Internet. Conflicts over the access Chinese audiences would have to foreign media content are also not new. But disputes increasingly have focused on cyberspace—on decisions of the Chinese government to block the websites of particular foreign news outlets or to block searches that would lead to such content. These moves often have been in retaliation for foreign media’s coverage of topics that the CCP sees as too sensitive for public consumption or as reflecting an unacceptably hostile stance toward the Chinese regime. The targeted content has been varied but it has especially included coverage of dissident groups or individuals, controversial political events in recent Chinese history, the private lives and fortunes of high-ranking officials, and accounts of controversial issues in external relations or relations with Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Macau that diverge too far from official views.38 New media also have become the focus of international economic disputes for China. New media present lucrative opportunities for providing highly popu lar ser vices to Chinese consumers that Beijing is leery of ceding to foreign business interests. The CCP’s steps to curb the operations of Google, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter serve not only to head off potential new challenges to the Party’s political orthodoxy and control but also as an industrial policy that seeks to give a competitive advantage to the Chinese alternatives to these foreign new media ser vices: Baidu, Renren, Youku, weibo, and weixin. New media thus have become another point of contention between China and

Introduction

23

other states whose businesses complain that they are being denied equitable treatment and a fair regulatory environment.39 Seventh, China’s leadership is determined to ensure that new media do not aggravate what it sees as a growing array of threats to China’s cybersecurity. Developments in the early years of the Xi Jinping administration have made clear the regime’s concerns about this issue. The landmark sixty-point decision issued at the Third Plenum of the Eighteenth Central Committee in 2013 highlighted the creation of a National Security Commission tasked with addressing links between foreign and domestic security threats. In February 2014, the CCP followed this up with the announcement that it was creating an Internet Security and Informatization Leading Small Group to deal with cybersecurity.40 A new National Security Law adopted in July 2015 declared cyberspace to be an important national security interest, alongside traditional territorial security. The concerns that motivated such moves include issues related to foreign affairs and new media: fears of destabilizing contagion effects from the socialmedia-facilitated “color revolutions” that challenged or toppled authoritarian regimes elsewhere and whose experiences are spread by new media within China. The CCP’s concerns are also motivated by the regime’s reaction to the unnerving pattern of unrest in the minority regions along China’s international frontiers, especially a well-publicized rash of violent attacks by Chinese Uighurs since 2009. The CCP claims that this growing unrest and the recent violence have both been exacerbated by new media that allegedly facilitate communications among extremist conspirators within China and between them and backers abroad. In short, the regime has made cybersecurity, with a focus on controlling new media, a priority in its efforts to nip in the bud domestic and transnational challenges to stability.41 As scholars have begun to study the connections among new media, public opinion, and China’s foreign policy, they confront conceptual and empirical challenges. Four chapters in this volume address these issues. In chapter 7, Dalei Jie puts the problem in broader perspective and notes continuing disagreements about such questions even among scholars in the more mature field of American foreign policy studies. Although he acknowledges the general if not very enlightening consensus that public opinion matters for foreign policy, questions about when, how, and how much it matters have not been resolved. In the case of China’s foreign policy, a lack of transparency has long hampered research, compounding ubiquitous problems of establishing causes and effects. Yet, as Jie notes, the Chinese public’s openly expressed

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and increasingly visible nationalist views— often voiced or mobilized online—since the last decades of the twentieth century have been drawing the attention of analysts who seek to understand how, or perhaps whether, such developments are having a significant effect on China’s foreign policy. And while Jie probes the role of the media as a nexus between manifestations of nationalist public opinion and the regime’s decision makers, he questions the presumed greater significance of newer media as opposed to traditional outlets. In the end, Jie emphasizes the need to determine more precisely the circumstances under which media, old or new, reflect or engender genuine expressions of public opinion on international affairs and the circumstances under which the media is instead simply a vehicle for the regime to manage and manipulate publicly expressed opinions to support its own foreign policy agenda. The remaining chapters focus on specific issues in foreign relations where there has been significant and possibly influential expression of public opinion on the Internet and in social media. In chapter 8, Peter Gries, Derek Steiger, and Wang Tao analyze the effects of Chinese nationalism expressed through new media in shaping Beijing’s policies toward the dispute with Japan over a string of islands in the East China Sea (known in China as the Diaoyu and in Japan as the Senkaku Islands). Gries and his coauthors focus on the upsurge in public anger and protest that followed the announcement that Japan’s government would purchase the privately owned islands—a step widely viewed in China as nationalization intended to assert Japanese sovereignty, but that Japan characterized as a step to prevent a more dangerously provocative purchase by assertive Japanese nationalists. Their chapter employs quantitative methods and qualitative description to assess the nationalist demands aired on social media in China and echoed in sometimes violent anti-Japanese demonstrations beginning in September 2012. The authors argue that these expressions of public opinion strongly affected Beijing’s toughening policy on the dispute with Japan. They assert that because the CCP’s legitimacy increasingly depends on its nationalist credentials, the regime is reluctant to repress patriotic protests by using the portfolio of coercive tools it often employs to censor expressions of public opinion or to prevent the Chinese people from acting on other grievances. Gries and his coauthors add that the regime’s pandering to anti-Japanese sentiment expressed among netizens and the wider public led Beijing to adopt a more dangerously confrontational foreign policy with unpredictable consequences.

Introduction

25

In chapter 9, James Reilly explores a foreign policy issue that has quickly emerged as a major Chinese concern—the well-being and interest of Chinese nationals abroad and, to some extent, members of overseas Chinese ethnic communities. The latter group dates to the Chinese diaspora that grew in size and significance starting in the nineteenth century, a PRC policy adjustment decades ago greatly reduced China’s commitment to protect them or claim a right to intervene on their behalf in their countries of citizenship. The former group is a much newer phenomenon, mainly a consequence of Beijing’s decision to encourage Chinese businesses to “go out” (zou chuqu) early in the twenty-first century. As China’s rapidly growing economy became a source, and not just a recipient, of foreign investment, Chinese businesspeople and employees joined the already large contingents of students and scholars who took advantage of opportunities afforded by the “opening to the outside” initiated under Deng Xiaoping in 1979. As the number of Chinese citizens outside the PRC has swelled, their vulnerability to natural disasters, criminal activity, and political mistreatment has presented Beijing with a new foreign policy challenge. How should China respond when Chinese abroad are under threat? Reilly examines the ways new media have shaped the answers to this question. Reilly describes how new media in China bring such problems to the attention of the Chinese people and have enabled attentive Chinese netizens to pressure their government to better protect their countrymen and countrywomen overseas. Reilly also recounts how, in the face of netizens’ criticism that official responses have been insufficient, the regime has begun to use new media proactively to communicate its efforts to ensure the safety and interests of Chinese abroad. Although finding these changes significant, Reilly also points to clear variation in the leadership’s responsiveness to these pressures, depending on the categories of Chinese who are at risk abroad. He argues that Beijing’s approach suggests yet another type of “digital divide,” with the sectors of Chinese society that are privileged at home also being more likely to benefit from the regime’s attentiveness to their online demands for protection overseas. Finally, in chapter 10, Chuanjie Zhang takes up some of the analytical challenges that Jie’s chapter raises. After looking to the Western literature about public opinion and foreign policy—especially generalizations about ideological consistency of domestic and foreign policy views, Zhang undertakes a close examination of opinions about policy toward North Korea (the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea) expressed on social media in China. He combines qualitative and quantitative methods to analyze a series of

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major events involving North Korea that have triggered reactions from China’s netizens. Zhang examines patterns of posted messages about these events after 2009, a period during which tension over Korean peninsula issues was frequent and China’s microblogs (weibo) had become the predominant social media outlet through which China’s netizens expressed their views. Although Zhang offers some tentative conclusions, he acknowledges the problems of data limitation, the difficulty of gauging the relative importance of different new media, and uncertainty about the representativeness of selected samples of opinions at a time when new media continue to evolve and diversify even as they coexist with their traditional print and broadcast counterparts. Zhang, then, shares Jie’s concerns about questions of methodology and research design that need to be answered before accepting what may seem to be plausible claims about presumed connections among public opinion, media, and China’s foreign policy.

Dynamism and Complexity: Ongoing Change, New Challenges, and Regime Responses Overall, the regime’s reaction to the challenges it faces in the changing landscape of the Internet and social media in China has been multifaceted and varying. As the chapters in this book illustrate, broad cycles of fang (relative relaxation) and shou (reassertions of control) do not adequately capture the pattern.42 Dynamism in technology has yielded a more complex, constantly changing picture. During the very brief period since many of the events analyzed in this book occurred, for example, social media in China have moved from dominance by the Twitter-like weibo toward greater use of weixin. This shake-up in the social media landscape could have significant but as yet unclear implications for the character and consequences of what occurs in China’s online world. This uncertainty is compounded by the political climate in which new media operate. During its first years in office the fift h-generation leadership headed by Xi Jinping has signaled a tougher line on many types of cyberactivities. At the beginning of 2015, the regime took steps to make the Great Firewall of China less porous. To the growing consternation of businesspeople, researchers, artists, resident foreigners, and ordinary Chinese Internet users, China has more fully blocked Gmail and other Google ser vices and repeatedly attempted to disable the virtual private networks (VPNs)

Introduction

27

that many in China used to evade the onerous restrictions on Internet access that laws and policies officially impose.43 The 2015 National Security Law mandates measures to strengthen security and control over the Internet and information systems. The nearly simultaneous draft Cybersecurity Law reflects the same agenda and appears to be an effort to consolidate, and strengthen, the currently fragmented legal rules and policy authority to control and limit the Internet.44 Chinese officials have called on domestic website managers to “spread positive energy” (meaning regime-favored messages) and warned foreign fi rms operating in Chinese cyberspace that they must abide by China’s laws. In the increasingly fraught international debates about Internet governance, China under Xi has strengthened its support for “Internet sovereignty,” “better governance,” and an Internet “governed by all”—code words for international norms that would recognize each state’s right to impose tight controls on the Internet at home and that reject the dominance of global Internet rule making by U.S. and Western entities that have favored liberal principles.45 The depth, durability, and implications of this apparent political shift are not yet clear, in part because some signs point in a different direction. The opening years of the Xi era have brought reaffirmation of China’s pursuit of an “innovation economy,” pledges of greater transparency in governance, commitments to root out corruption, and promises to subject political power to tighter legal controls—goals that are more difficult to achieve if tight constraints are imposed on the Internet and social media. Faced with ongoing changes in technology and citizens’ use of the Internet and social media, China’s rulers will continue to encounter challenges in determining how they will tolerate, use, and control new media and the diverse users of new media. And they will have to do so from what is likely to be an enduringly ambivalent perspective toward three major policy concerns that have gone increasingly online and that are the foci of this book: civil society, the roles of law, and the nationalist turn in Chinese foreign policy.46

CHAPTER 1

The Coevolution of the Internet, (Un)Civil Society, and Authoritarianism in China Min Jiang

This chapter extends Guobin Yang’s 2003 seminal article on the coevolution of the Internet and civil society in China.1 It argues the Internet has facilitated, on the one hand, the coevolution of Chinese civic spaces and authoritarian control, and, on the other, the coevolution of civic activities and uncivil interactions. The Internet has not only helped amplify civic discourses and group formations; it has also augmented the influence of uncivil exchanges online, leading to a greater degree of fragmentation and cynicism of public opinion. Although social media platforms such as the Twitter-like Sina Weibo can serve as a critical space for expressing and channeling public opinion, they are unlikely to be the ultimate game changer. In charting the new terrain of China’s online civic spaces, the chapter focuses on four aspects: (1) real-time activism; (2) online political jamming; (3) weibo celebrities; and (4) the rise of an “uncivil society” online. I explore conditions and instances of “real-time” activism; the use of cultural jamming and “serious parody” for political activism; the role of weibo celebrities in fostering plurality and fragmentation; and the uncivil ideological discourse exchanges that have led to public brawls in the street and popular rejection of “public intellectuals.” In contrast, to curb the political consequences of new forms of mediated activism, the control regime has implemented a variety of new measures besides fi ltering and employment of pro-government commentators to forestall or pacify collective actions, including real name registration policy and anti-rumor campaigns.

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The chapter argues positive development of online public spaces in China relies as much on institutional politics to effectively channel public opinion as it does on identity politics and progressive changes in subjectivity through everyday life interactions. While the Internet mediates such negotiations and is increasingly indispensable to the parties involved, it does not determine their outcomes. The contextualized use of the Internet and new media, shaped by the social, cultural, and political protocols surrounding such technologies, ultimately does.

Context The massive diff usion of the Internet and the rise of China as a world power are two prominent stories of our time. In 1994, China connected to the World Wide Web. By mid-1998, Chinese Internet users reached 1 million. Today, China is the second largest economy in the world and home to 632 million Internet users, 275 million microbloggers, 527 million Internet mobile phone users, and such Internet giants as Alibaba, Baidu, Tencent, and Sina.2 The rapid development of the Chinese Internet is grounded in the transformation of China itself from a third-world country to a manufacturing and industrial powerhouse after the Chinese Communist Party traded Mao for markets and gradually opened its closed doors to the outside world in the late 1970s. The Chinese government’s embracing of the Internet presents a paradox and has attracted heated public debate over the political consequences of the widespread adoption of the Internet in an authoritarian society. President Reagan famously remarked: “The Goliath of totalitarianism will be brought down by the David of the microchip.”3 Yet defying such prevailing technoutopian predictions that the Internet sides with freedom and undermines autocratic rulers, Beijing has so far managed to weave and guard an expanding filtered web. Besides employing various means of censorship,4 more important, the regime has built and promoted state legitimacy through economy, nationalism, ideology, culture, and governance to ensure the compliance, if not allegiance, of its population.5 This is not to say that Chinese authorities do not fear the diff usion of the Internet in China or its political implications. In fact, Party mouthpiece and People’s Daily Online’s editor in chief once remarked: “What would it look like if everybody went into politics? . . . China has more than 100 million Internet users. If they were all free to speak their minds, we would have a very

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serious situation.” 6 With more than 600 million of the Chinese population online now, control of political discourse is by no means a cakewalk. As Guobin Yang demonstrated in his nuanced account of digital activism in China, the Chinese state’s regulation of the Internet has consistently run against an impressive degree of grassroots challenges fueled by public discontent during China’s tumultuous economic, social, and cultural transformations.7 The evolution of the Internet in China in the last two decades has witnessed the simultaneous growth of authoritarianism and grassroots activism fueled by contention and participation. Dubbed often by popular press as a “cat-and-mouse” game, the coevolution of digital activism and authoritarianism does not pronounce immediate winners or losers. However, it has become increasingly clear that the Internet is not necessarily an insurmountable threat to capable illiberal regimes. So far the Chinese government has managed to promote the Internet as a means for socioeconomic development while successfully minimizing its political impact. Overall, despite limited political freedoms, people’s freedoms in other realms have expanded with improved living standards and opportunities. China’s online activism is thus embedded in a much larger media ecology and social process, where the political impact of the Internet is mediated through a complex mix of social, economic, political, and institutional circumstances.8 Unlike the dictators toppled during the Arab Spring—Ben Ali failed to control the communication networks in Tunisia, where protestors used the Internet effectively to orga nize civil disobedience; Mubarak unplugged the Internet in Egypt and drove protestors to the street—Chinese authorities have walked a fine line balancing Internet growth and its attendant political consequences. Its “networked authoritarianism” or “authoritarian deliberation” resorts less to brute force but allows for a considerable degree of give-and-take between the state and emergent civil forces.9 Moreover, China’s expanding economy, the state’s anticorruption promises, its emphasis on governance, and its appeal to Chinese nationalism and civilization have fostered an implicit state-society pact, a grand bargain of sorts, that the political status quo—a one-party system monopolized by a small group of elites with the assurance of reasonable performance, social stability, and continued economic growth— shall remain unchallenged. In the realm of new media, such an arrangement has translated into a form of “informational authoritarianism” that combines capitalism, authoritarianism, and Confucianism to institute state regulation, as well as widespread self-censorship among Internet ser vice/ content providers and users.10

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While much of the previous literature tends to focus on grassroots empowerment,11 or disempowerment,12 this chapter argues for a dialectic coevolution of the state and an emerging Chinese civil society mediated via the Internet. The grassroots empowerment narrative focuses on the Internet’s decentralized structure, low cost, greater access to information/ideas, communication speed, user interactivity, connectivity across space, online dissent, organization, and mobilization. On the other hand, the disempowerment thesis emphasizes state control of Internet infrastructure, prohibition of politically sensitive content, regulation of ICP/ISP, state surveillance of netizens, and rampant self-censorship, as well as commercialization, entertainment, slacktivism, and distraction away from critical social issues and real changes. Does the widespread adoption of social media in China alter the balance of power between the state and the emerging civil society? In what ways does it contribute to citizen empowerment? How have authorities adjusted to contain public opinion? Taking the perspective of a coevolution of the Internet, (un)civil society, and authoritarianism in China, in what follows, I discuss the most recent development of the Chinese Internet and new media, particularly the rise and fall of Sina Weibo (China’s Twitter) since August 2009.

Online Activism and (Un)Civil Society As many Chinese are now connected via mobile social networks, digital activism has acquired new characteristics. I highlight in the following: (1) realtime activism, (2) online political jamming, (3) weibo celebrities, and (4) the rise of an uncivil society online.

Real-Time Activism

The arrival of mobile microblogging and photo sharing makes possible the instantaneous broadcast of an unfolding event over the Internet and social networks. With deeper integration of the mobile web into people’s everyday life, a new genre of media activism—real-time activism—has emerged as Chinese netizens start to document and amplify anything they find provocative, scandalous, and intriguing in real time. Some accidentally become national

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or international news and even lead to policy change as they tap into widespread public sentiment and deep-seated social problems. Speaking at a public lecture at Peking University in June 2010, propaganda official Li Baozhu proudly announced: “With a wave of my hand, tens of millions of posts about the Deng Yujiao incident were all deleted.”13 The comment, accompanied by live pictures, was quickly circulated on Chinese microblogging before being taken down by commercial portals soon afterward. One of the most prominent cases of real-time activism concerns the Wenzhou train collision. On July 23, 2011, two high-speed trains crashed into each other at 8:34 p.m. near Wenzhou, a coastal city in southeast China, causing four cars to fall out of a sixty-foot-tall viaduct and resulting in forty deaths. Four minutes after the accident, a Sina Weibo user posted the first tweet about the accident. Nine minutes later, a desperate plea for help was posted on Sina Weibo, retweeted more than one hundred thousand times (later censored): “A cry for help! Train D301 has been derailed not far from Wenzhou station. Children are crying up and down the carriage. No staff member has come out! Hurry up and save us!” Two hours afterward, the first tweet about rescue relief was sent from the scene and government appeal for blood donations was put on Sina Weibo. Later, a user’s tweets from the blood donation clinic were reposted more than one hundred thousand times.14 At a time of crisis when official media are absent or barred from reporting, social media users become de facto reporters on the scene, giving accounts in real time. Weibo is often chosen in China to break such news not only because of its speed or convenience but also because of its connectedness and publicness. Deeply embedded in users’ social relationships and everyday life and used by many professional reporters, weibo was highly conducive to the spread of critical news and information before stricter regulations were imposed by authorities later to rein in public opinion and spread “positive energy.”15 A week after the accident, more than 10 million comments about the crash had been posted on Sina Weibo, nearly all of them angry, questioning authorities’ rescue efforts, the hasty burial of evidence, and the truth behind the accident.16 Few social media users are activists, yet often by accident their firsthand accounts, when widely circulated, form the basis of truth and public discourse. Within twenty-four hours after the accident, video clips of authorities burying a train carriage spread like wildfire online.17 People believed they were “burying the truth.” After official media announced the end of rescue efforts merely eight hours after the crash, the survival of “miracle girl,” two-

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year-old Yiyi, whose parents died in the crash, further fueled online fury.18 In response to reporters’ charge that the Ministry of Railways was trying to thwart investigation, the ministry spokesman haplessly commented: “Whether or not you believe it, I believe it,” which immediately took flight as an Internet meme. Even official media turned up the heat on the ministry. State television CCTV anchor Qiu Qiming veered from his script and asked on air: “Can we drink a glass of milk that is safe? Can we stay in an apartment that will not fall apart? Can we travel roads in our cities that will not collapse?”19 The hastily constructed railways under Minister “Great Leap Liu,” as an official report later revealed, were plagued with safety hazards due to inferior engineering, poor management, and systemic corruption. The minister was sacked for embezzling millions of dollars from public projects. Consequently, the world’s largest and fastest railway, Harmony Express, one of China’s proudest modern achievements, has come to represent recklessness and fraud.20 In this case, real-time activism, in the form of civic journalism and public criticism, played a crucial role in helping uncover the truth by keeping the pressure on the government. Media of all kinds—old and new, grassroots and official—participated in exposing the iconic failure of government performance that in large measure violated the grand bargain of modern Chinese politics that allows the Party to “reign unchallenged as long as it is reasonably competent.”21 However, weibo’s connectedness and publicness, as the chapter will later explain, have come under increasing state scrutiny as the government propaganda apparatus begins to pressure commercial operators to fi lter around the clock and silence influential users online.

Online Political Jamming

Not only can activism in the social media age occur in real time; its style has also taken a more playful turn to evade censors and reach larger publics. Online political jamming—the use of digital media and popular culture to disseminate dissenting images and viewpoints, disrupt stultifying mainstream political discourses, and expose social injustices—borrows from “cultural jamming” practices that target and subvert mainstream corporate culture and ideologies.22 Like cultural jams, online political jamming challenges dominant political discourses by producing and distributing counterhegemonic messages via new media: logos are reconfigured, images Photoshopped, popular films clips remixed, and pop culture references appropriated

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and distributed via digital networks.23 Not only are such practices rooted in parody as a powerful tool of political resistance worldwide throughout human history, to which China is not an exception; they have acquired new genres, features, and potency in Chinese cyberspace, creating an alternative carnivalesque world of freedom and laughter where the rich and powerful are ridiculed and subverted.24 Similar to its Western counterparts, online political jamming in China has spread acerbic critique of contemporary Chinese politics cloaked in frisky artistic forms and helped energize acts of social and political activism. For instance, Chen Guangcheng, a famous Chinese human rights activist and self-taught blind lawyer, is internationally recognized for organizing a landmark class-action lawsuit against authorities’ abuses in familyplanning practices in Linyi, Shandong. After serving four years in prison, he was released in 2010 and was under house arrest until his remarkable escape to the U.S. embassy in Beijing in April 2012. To protest against the brutal treatment of Chen, his supporters made stickers, the size of a booklet cover, featuring a stylized graphic of Chen’s face with his signature sunglasses (see figure 1.1), modeled after the logo of KFC, a well-known U.S. fast-food chain in China. “Pearl Her,” a Chen supporter, reportedly had four thousand of these stickers produced and asked fellow supporters to put them on their cars. A Google Maps page was also set up for a “FREE CGC Car Sticker Club” where supporters who had put the sticker on their cars could register their approximate locations. She remarked: “dissidents have traditionally been quite confrontational with the government. . . . But we should learn how to express ourselves and protest in an orderly way, to use art and entertainment more freely. It is like Occupy Wall Street.”25 Another FREE CGC’s participatory act is the Dark Glasses Portrait campaign (see figure 1.2). To support Chen, an anonymous Chinese artist, “Crazy Cab,” began to solicit and curate digital photos of netizens wearing the blind activist’s signature sunglasses in 2012. Viewed in isolation, each photo did not trip censors. When aggregated, however, these photos evolved into a powerful and continuous picture wall, reminding people of the hoodiewearing campaign for Trayvon Martin in the United States and the hijab “Be a Man” photo drive showing solidarity for the Iranian Green Movement.26 As an act of guerrilla activism, the campaign was designed to avoid censorship, as authorities cannot possibly round up everyone wearing sunglasses.27 Such acts of “serious parody” are examples of Chinese activists’ appropriation of cultural jam techniques for digital political activism.28 Cultural

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Figure 1.1. Source (original source unknown): http:// newnation.sg/tag/obama -fried-chicken/ (New Nation, a Singapore-based online publication, has granted the author permission to reuse the image for this chapter).

Figure 1.2. Source (screenshot): http://ichenguangcheng.blogspot.com/. Site creator has chosen to remain anonymous.

or political jamming, Cammerts explains, draws inspirations from art movements of Dadaism, Surrealism, Fluxus, and Situationism.29 It borrows from Dadaism the idea of assigning different meanings to objects, exemplified in the art work of Marcel Duchamp, who famously dubbed a urinal art and named it Fountain. Likewise, the “FREE CGC” sticker recoded the ready-made KFC logo with disruptive meanings. In addition, cultural jamming adopts the optical illusion practice of Surrealism, cleverly designed to confuse the viewer. The “FREE CGC” sticker clearly baffled the Chinese police, who did not notice them. “And if they ask what Free CGC means, we say it is free KFC,” says an activist.30 Moreover, political jamming follows Fluxus’s principle of integrating social action in the flux of everyday life, blending art and social

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critique into a form of counter-artistic movement. In the “FREE CGC” case, not only did activists produce and distribute stickers online; more important, participants integrated activism into both material (for example, a car) and immaterial (for example, performing) aspects of their daily life. Lastly, political jamming is détournement, or rerouting, in the Situationist sense. By hijacking the original artwork, détournement, like the “FREE CGC” sticker, situates new political messages in existing consumerist culture and public spaces, both online and offline. This new type of “art as political act” in the Chinese activism scene owes a debt to famed Chinese artist-activist Ai Weiwei. A student of Duchamp, Ai views art not as something detached from society or transcending socalled ordinary people but part of everyday life and experiences. “If artists betray the social conscience and the basic principles of being human, where does art stand then?” Ai asks.31 A provocateur who dares to pose nude to condemn the Party and give the middle finger to iconic buildings around the world, including the Tiananmen and the White House, Ai also led notable efforts that combined art and digital activism. Between 2008 and 2009, he investigated student casualties due to the collapse of “tofu-dreg” (shoddy) school buildings in the aftermath of the Sichuan earthquake. A list of 5,385 names was collected, for which he was severely beaten. To mourn the dead and shame authorities who refused to release students’ names, the list was printed on white paper, each name read aloud and recorded by strangers who volunteered to participate in digital art making.32 In both cases, social media facilitated the diff usion of political jamming to larger publics and helped coordinate large-scale performances in a participatory manner. However, the impact of political jamming is not impossible to control if the state resorts to more forceful means to suppress activists and diff use poorly coordinated actions.

Weibo Celebrities

Besides real-time activism and political jamming, the role of weibo celebrities in China’s emerging civil society is worth noting. By introducing distinct identities, information, and worldviews, weibo celebrities tend to foster plurality and fragmentation simultaneously. Here, weibo celebrities refers to users on Chinese microblogging platforms with large numbers of followers. Known as “Big Vs,” their accounts are usually verified, designated with a V.

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In January 2015, all top ten Sina Weibo celebrities had more than 40 million fans. Among them, “Weibo King,” actor Chen Kun, had more than 73 million. “Weibo Queen,” Yao Chen, had 72 million. While many of these celebrities are entertainers, others, such as Kai-fu Lee, ex-CEO of Google China, also have more than 50 million followers.33 Copying its celebrity-driven business approach from blogging to microblogging, Sina Corporation has actively cultivated its “stars” and a celebrity culture from sports, entertainment, and media to real estate, science, and technology to drive online discussion, traffic, and ultimately profit. Although Sina Weibo’s user base has witnessed a significant loss to Tencent’s WeChat, a group-chat social media platform, Weibo remains as China’s “public forum,” central to the publicness of Chinese social media. Weibo celebrities, a new breed of opinion leaders in the social media age, hold considerable sway in China’s public opinion space. Compared with the 80-million-member Chinese Communist Party, weibo celebrities’ fans are formidable both in numbers and loyalty. As many official media are not held in high esteem in China, weibo celebrities with their expertise, charisma, and authority are an important source of alternative news, information, and opinions to millions. Although opinion leaders and public opinion formation are certainly not new in China,34 or elsewhere,35 weibo has arguably altered in no small measure Chinese microbloggers’ access to news and information, their relation to one another and social elites, public opinion formation, and even online activism mechanisms. The public campaign against child trafficking “Take a Photo, Save a Child” is one such example. It was started in 2011 on Sina Weibo by Professor Yu Jianrong, a weibo celebrity known for his support for social justice issues. Soon, a microblog site was launched for people to post photos of child beggars in the hope to reunite parents with their kidnapped children. More than 175,000 people joined the effort and posted more than twentyfive hundred photographs. Supported by ultra-weibo celebrities like Yao Chen and Kai-fu Lee and sanctioned by the state, the campaign garnered a great deal of attention. It also made weibo celebrities out of grassroots advocates such as Deng Fei, a journalist from Phoenix Weekly, and Charles Xue, a Chinese American angel investor. Although only a few children were successfully identified and reunited with their families as a result of this campaign, the charitable effort raised widespread social awareness and solicited long-term commitment from Jet Li’s One Foundation and legislative support.36

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Weibo celebrities’ contribution to such charity causes and similar episodes of civic activism have benefited from weibo’s functionalities and sociality and weibo celebrities’ influence. Although these celebrities’ political impact is under the constant surveillance of commercial operators and authorities, their posts often blur the boundaries between self-media and public media, private lives and public issues. In his exuberantly optimistic book, Weibo Changes Everything, Kai-fu Lee compares weibo users with ten thousand fans with magazine owners, those with one hundred thousand fans to regional newspaper publishers, and those with 1 million or even 10 million followers to having the influence of national papers and national TV stations. Celebrity posts are no longer self-talk but public talk.37 Often critical of social ills, top weibo celebrities, such as real estate tycoons Ren Zhiqiang and Pan Shiyi, IT elite CEO Kai-fu Lee, and economists Mao Yushi and Lang Xianping, exert considerable influence. These public figures use weibo not only as a PR tool to cultivate their personal image but also as a means to express their views and influence the public. Moreover, the separation between private lives and public issues has become increasingly artificial and fluid for weibo celebrities. For instance, research finds that between October and November 2011, one-fift h of “Weibo Queen” Yao Chen’s posts concerned public issues rather than topics about entertainment or herself.38 Her revelation of her distant relatives’ experience of forced demolition put the social issue at the front and center of her followers’ minds. Another weibo celebrity’s, Luo Yonghao’s, public smashing of Siemens’s faulty refrigerators and CCTV anchor Zhang Quanling’s post about erroneous ads on Baidu also put these companies in the public spotlight, channeling personal frustrations and driving public discourse. 39

The Uncivil Society Online

However, like previous web technological changes, weibo’s impact on China’s emergent civil society and activism is highly mixed. Not all weibo celebrities are civil in their discourse or online behavior. Besides individuals and groups conducive to the expansion of open discussion and growth of an emergent civil society, more radical and extreme personalities and groups have thrived as well. The coexistence of groups of diametrically opposed ideologies has led to considerable slanging matches, online verbal abuse, and even public brawls in the street. In addition, “50 cents,” or paid pro-

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government online commentators reportedly reaching 2 million,40 have flooded weibo and other popu lar online spaces, breeding substantial confusion and discursive frictions.41 As a result, public discourses and opinions formed in such online spaces are not necessarily coherent or always productive, and they have grown more fragmentary, polarized, theatrical, and cynical over time, culminating in the phenomenal popu lar rejection of “public intellectuals.” For instance, Kong Qingdong, a professor of Chinese at Peking University and a descendant of Confucius, is a highly controversial weibo celebrity. On January 24, 2012, during an interview on Chinese news site v1.cn, he openly cursed Hong Kong residents as dogs of the British Empire: “As far as I know, many Hong Kong people don’t regard themselves as Chinese. Those kinds of people are used to being the dogs of British colonialists—they are dogs, not humans.”42 Refusing to apologize for it, he defended his remarks as “free speech.”43 On the Chinese Internet, Kong, Zhang Hongliang, Sima Nan, and Wu Fatian are popularly referred to as the “New Four Arch Evils” in China.44 Appealing to populism, nationalism, Maoism, and even the Cultural Revolution, these Far Left figures known for their ultra-nationalistic, antiWest, anticapitalist stance amassed a considerable following online for their defense of “the people” against “the elite.” 45 Social media not only amplified the voices of such extremists and fueled fragmentation and polarization but, perhaps more important, helped dismantle the “public intellectual” in China. In a most theatrical fashion in 2012, the high-profi le weibo debate between Han Han and Fang Zhouzi and the physical brawl started on weibo between Wu Fatian and Zhou Yan enveloped Chinese netizens in deep cynicism. “Public intellectual,” defined in contemporary China by influential metropolitan paper Southern Daily’s supplement Southern People Weekly as “knowledgeable, progressive and critical individuals who actively engage in public affairs,” has become a label to be shunned like a plague by online celebrities.46 Before the arrival of weibo, Han Han was already a literary star and public figure. His blogs were read by tens of millions and in Time magazine’s 2010 “Time 100” poll, Han Han, at twenty-seven, came in second.47 For many, especially Chinese youth, Han Han is the ultimate nonconformist: a high school literary competition winner and dropout, a popu lar blogger, a best-selling author, a singer, and most recently a professional racecar driver. An outspoken critic against China’s establishment with snarky wit, Han Han is the unofficial rebel voice of his generation.48 Fang Zhouzi’s flame war with Han

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Han started in mid-January 2012. Following Han Han’s three controversial political posts on revolution, democracy, and freedom, blogger Mai Tian accused Han Han of being the front man of a team of ghostwriters and promoters. After Mai Tian withdrew his accusation as a result of counterevidence, Fang picked up the crusade and engaged Han Han in a war of words over the authenticity of Han’s work.49 Fang Zhouzi is known in China as a fraud buster, having brought down most prominently Tang Jun, former president of MSN China, for lying about his PhD degree. Their wrangle, broadcast live from Sina Weibo, polarized not only China’s literary, media, and intellectual circles, who split into a “Han camp” and a “Fang camp”; it most tragically alienated millions of weibo users disappointed by the malicious language and behavior of the so-called public intellectuals online. Both camps used the same derogatory labels—“50 Cents” and “residual toxin of the Cultural Revolution”—to condemn each other. Although their debate fizzled because of lack of evidence offered by either side, the spectacle they created in China’s public life cast deep skepticism on both public figures and Chinese intellectuals in general. 50 However, the most dramatic uncivil dispute is the physical fight between Wu Fatian and Zhou Yan, started and arranged over weibo and known as “Weibo Brawl.” Wu Danhong, or “Wu Fatian” online, was an assistant professor at Beijing University of Political Science and Law whose staunch defense of the Party had earned him the “Advanced 50 Cents” badge.51 On July 3, 2012, Wu posted a tweet on Sina Weibo supporting the construction of a questionable metal refi nery plant in Shifang, Sichuan Province, that had sparked local protests and been halted. His remarks infuriated Zhou Yan, a Sichuan TV reporter empathetic to the protest. An exchange of insults quickly escalated to a fight appointment at Beijing Chaoyang Park on July 6, 2012, that drew onlookers online and offline. Videos of the encounter circulated widely afterward, including footage of Ai Weiwei trying to attack Wu, a transgression some said they were willing to forgive because it was Wu Fatian.52 Yet the public was not so forgiving of the ways “public intellectuals,” especially the well-educated democracy-loving liberals, behaved at the scene. The transition from verbal abuse to physical attack on Wu Fatian shocked and disappointed many sympathetic to liberal views in China, prompting some to remark that the brawl smeared the image of liberals and in effect made more room for those opposing liberal and democratic views in China.53 Following these high-profile incidents, “public intellectual” has turned into a widely accepted pejorative in China. Not only is the hooliganization

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of public intellectuals a tragic turn of China’s emerging civil society, it also casts serious doubt on the conducive role that the Internet is thought to have played in the development of China’s emergent civil society. Instead, through social media, paid commentators, and self-seeking personalities, abrasive exchanges between ideological factions have propelled the Chinese online space to be more fragmentary, polarized, theatrical, and cynical over time.

Control Regime in Action To respond to new forms of digital activism and curb the political consequences of social media, China’s control regime has implemented various new measures besides fi ltering and hiring pro-state commentators to forestall collective actions. Two are highlighted here: (1) real name registration policy and (2) anti-rumor campaigns.

Real Name Registration Policy

The rapid growth of the weibo user base from nil to 278 million in three years worried authorities.54 During its ascendance, Chinese weibo has witnessed many explosive exposures of corrupt officials, government unaccountability, and social injustices, thriving as the cyber epicenter of China’s sociopolitical lives. Weibo’s affordances and deep integration into China’s public life are regulatory nightmares. To curtail public rage on weibo, Beijing Municipal Provisions for Microblog Development and Management (Microblog Provisions hereafter) was promulgated on December 16, 2011, targeting more than a dozen microblog ser vice providers headquartered in Beijing, especially Sina Weibo.55 Such provisions required weibo operators to implement real name registration by March 16, 2012. Ostensibly promoted by the state to tame online rumors and safeguard a healthy online environment, the policy is seen as an official tactic to curb public discourse, targeting each microblogger. 56 Specifically, users are expected to register their IDs with weibo as mandated by the state. Following the principle “front stage voluntary, backstage real name,” microbloggers can use pseudo user names, but they are asked to register their real identities backstage with weibo operators, linked to their national ID cards, mobile phone numbers, or other identifications. Weibo businesses maintain their

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servers do not retain user ID information, but users’ national ID card information will be compared against public security’s database to verify user identity. Unregistered users can view microblogs but cannot post or pass along any.57 By March 2012, Sina reportedly had verified 60 percent of its users.58 In December 2012, the policy was passed as law in the National People’s Congress.59 The State Council expected major portal websites to verify user identity by June 2014, although, to date it is not clear how many users have registered with their real identities.60 Specifically, Article 8 of the Microblog Provisions requires microblogging ser vice providers (MSPs) to “build a comprehensive system of content evaluation and monitor the production, reproduction, publication, and distribution of microblog information.” 61 Article 9 stipulates: “Any orga nization or individual . . . must register with real name. The use of fake or stolen ID cards, business registration information, or organization code is forbidden. Websites that offer microblog ser vice should ensure the truthfulness of user registration information.” Additionally, Article 5 effectively legalizes censorship by commercial intermediaries. In December 2012, the real name registration policy was endorsed by the National People’s Congress Decision on Strengthening Internet Information Protection, which requires all ISPs to collect users’ real names when providing Internet connection, analog phones, mobile phones, or information publishing.62 These top-down mandates triggered a heated debate among weibo operators and users. Tencent CEO, Ma Huateng, publicly opposed the policy, arguing that it poses a great threat to user privacy and security and places an unreasonable burden on ISPs. Ma’s sentiments were echoed by Chen Tong, Sina’s editor in chief, who argued back in 2005 that the indiscriminate adoption of real name policy was unlikely to deter slander or other illegal activities.63 However, unable to resist state pressures, Sina, for instance, reportedly hired more than a thousand people to manually monitor and delete weibo posts around the clock besides using computational fi ltering and encouraging weibo users to flag abusive users.64 Regulators brushed aside public concerns for privacy and rights to expression, stressing instead reducing “pornography, rumors, slander, fake identities that threaten network security and social stability.” 65 Downplaying the policy’s chilling effects, China Central Television (CCTV) deleted its own news on the bankruptcy of South Korea’s real name registration policy.66 State media also actively promoted stories that gave citizens the false impression

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that such a policy was prevalent elsewhere in the world. Li Yizhong, the former minister of industry and information, publicly stated: “Internet real name registration, according to our research, is adopted by most countries.”67 While “real name” sites like Facebook are popular around the world, they are not mandated by the state or connected to users’ national IDs. Li’s comments were flatly rejected by some. One user remarked: “There are many such ‘mosts.’ Most countries have competitive elections. Most countries’ officials publish their property records. Most countries’ highways are free. Most countries don’t limit the mobility of their residents through Hukou system. Most countries have press freedom.”68 Authorities’ impulse to control information flow and public opinion through the real name registration policy is not new, but the speed and extent to which the policy has been pushed through without strong public opposition is alarming.

Anti-Rumor Campaigns

The rollout of real name registration policy may be considered part of Chinese authorities’ much larger campaign to regulate speech online. Besides encouraging weibo users to self-censor through legislation, the latest antirumor campaign also employs judicial decisions and extralegal tactics to achieve the state’s regulatory goals, targeting in particular weibo celebrities, or “Big Vs.” In September 2013, China’s highest court handed down a judicial decision, announcing stiff penalties for posting rumors that get shared five hundred times or seen five thousand times.69 A convicted offense could carry a three-year jail sentence, a ruling deemed by many as setting a dangerous precedent for free speech despite reported cases of fabricated rumors for money and influence. The fi rst person to run afoul of the law was an outspoken sixteen-year-old, Yang Hui, who questioned the local police investigation of a suicide case in Gansu Province. The police’s evidence, he argued, was highly inadequate. His accusation quickly went viral. But it turns out Yang’s “rumor” was right. The police’s case eventually collapsed, and the local police chief was suspended. Yang was released. China Daily, however, calls the incident “an accident.”70 In a fundamentally flawed legal system, “rumor” is often used as a means of social protest and proves to have an unusual degree of truth and accuracy in China.71 Instead of increasing government transparency

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and responsiveness, the state’s demonization of “rumor” produces a chilling effect on the public’s ability to know, to question, and to act. The most prominent cases of state rumor campaigns were orchestrated via official Chinese media. One targeted a vocal Chinese American weibo celebrity and investor Charles Xue and another New Express reporter Chen Yongzhou. Known as “Xue Manzi” on the Chinese Internet, Xue became famous for championing several charity causes, including the 2011 campaign against child trafficking and his initiative to ask netizens to pitch projects over weibo for which he provided angel investment. By the time he was arrested for prostitution solicitation on August 23, 2013, he had more than 12 million weibo followers. It was widely speculated that Xue’s criticism of social and police issues prompted the detention. In early August, Xue was among a group of “Big Vs” invited to meet with the head of the State Internet Information Office (SIIO), who urged the group to be more constructive in their online postings. It seems officials did not deem his performance adequate. Paraded on state television CCTV, Xue appeared rueful in jail clothes and confessed his wrongdoing. Even Hu Xijin, editor in chief of Party paper Global Times, commented on Sina Weibo (later removed): “Using sexual scandal, tax evasion and so on to take down political foes is a hidden rule common among governments worldwide.”72 By making an example of Xue, the state shamed a few “Big Vs” and intimidated others. Equally gripping is the Chen Yongzhou incident. Chen was detained in Guangzhou by Changsha police on October 18, 2013, for allegedly defaming Changsha-based, state-owned Zoomlion Heavy Industry Science & Technology, China’s second-largest heavy equipment maker. On October 23 and 24, New Express printed extra-large-font headlines calling for Chen’s release, a move seen as an unprecedented call for press freedom. On October 26, Chen appeared in a nine-minute national TV broadcast confessing to fi ling stories in exchange for payment from an outside company. The story exploded on Chinese social media with many expressing sympathy for Chen and disapproving of police and CCTV’s abuse of power. Although journalism fraud and bribing is a real issue, people noted the following: Changsha police arrived in Guangzhou in Zoomlion’s car; the state-owned company is well connected with local and national authorities; Chen is known for diligent fact-checking and journalist ethics; the CCTV story did not name the third party bribing Chen but obtained and aired Chen’s confessions prior to court trial.73 The truth may never be known, but the “killing the monkey to scare

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the chicken” tactic is unlikely to be effective in eradicating rumors or people’s challenges to authorities in China in the long run.

Reflections on the (Un)Civil Society The chapter argues that in the social media era, the coevolution of the Internet, civil society, and authoritarianism has produced a mixed impact on China’s sociopolitical lives. A few new trends of China’s Internet and online activism are surveyed in the chapter, including real-time activism, online political jamming, weibo celebrities, and the rise of an uncivil online society. The state’s containment of public opinion on Chinese social media via legal and extralegal means, such as the real name registration policy and antirumor campaigns, are also discussed. In addition, the amplification of both civil and uncivil tendencies on the Chinese Internet has engendered a greater degree of fragmentation, polarization, and cynicism among Chinese netizens for which previous literature on Chinese online civic spaces has not adequately accounted. “Uncivil society” is highlighted here to draw attention to the difficulty of creating and sustaining civil society, particularly in the Chinese context. Previously, three schools of thought dominated the understanding of civil society: civil society as associational life; civil society as the good society resulting from free association; and civil society as the public sphere where citizens engage in discussions over public issues and arrive at consensus.74 These three related views of civil society point to the necessity to build voluntary associations based on tolerance and cooperation, effective institutions that produce good government, and the capacity to deliberate democratically. Implicit in these dominant views of civil society are positive assumptions about human nature, consensus formation, and institution building, views that have been critiqued by many for being incapable of recognizing the “agonistic pluralism” world in which we live.75 By removing power considerations and basing deliberation purely on rationality and morality, Habermas’s construction of the public sphere and civil society, though desirable, is seen as far too idealistic, detached from reality.76 Applying the concept of civil society to China encounters additional challenges. While Mouffe’s departure from “public sphere” and introduction of “agonistic pluralism” recognize social conflicts with productive potentials,

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this agonism still rests on an “adhesion to the ethico-political principles of democracy” that is feeble if not absent in China.77 With limited protection for individual rights and arbitrary practice of the rule of law, Chinese politics is dominated by struggles between elite factions at the very top;78 conflicts between different social, economic, and ideological strata; and multiple confrontations between the state and the citizenry.79 Ultimately, authoritarian order and opaque operations of power pose fundamental threats to China’s emerging civil society.80 “Uncivil society online” is used here to capture the extreme incivility of online exchanges between individuals and groups over public issues, which not only fail to produce solutions to problems but also accentuate group identities and widen the ideological chasms between them. Th is notion underscores the following: (1) the plentitude of disrespect between interlocutors, (2) schisms between groups in ideology and values, and (3) inadequate mechanisms to channel online exchanges to build effective civic institutions. One may reasonably argue that “uncivil society” is not a Chinaspecific phenomenon. The crisis in democracy experienced in many Western societies today—systemic corruption, widespread political apathy, and failed governance—is also accompanied by an “uncivil” turn in civic life; however, China’s “uncivil society” is embedded in its own unique historical, economic, and sociopolitical contexts.81 Further, a conceptualization of civil society as purely oppositional to the state is limiting. On the one hand, it tends to equate “civil society” with “political society,” and, on the other, it downplays the heterogeneous groups inhabiting the “civil society” space and becomes increasingly inadequate to capture the complex dynamics on the ground.82 As a much larger and diverse Chinese population, rather than a small group of liberal elites, has come to adopt the Internet, the implicit assumption of a liberal subject demanding social justice, media freedom, and political reforms online may be limited. A rising cacophony nowadays stems not only from contentions between the state and grassroots oppositions but also between various factions of “civil society” groups, including politically conservative, chauvinist, nationalistic, and apathetic subjects and businesses.83 While civil society is commonly associated with the third space, distinct from the private sphere, government, and business as a groundswell for activism against authorities, in reality the variety of individuals and groups making up “civil society” and the interactions between them are often far too complex to be reduced to a linear formula of “civil society = public

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sphere = NGOs = empowerment.”84 On the darker side, civil society can include the Mafia and terrorists.85 In less extreme forms, members of civil society can include political opportunists, nationalist ideologues, and reactionaries. Moreover, civil society’s conceptual independence from the state and commercial interest often fails to translate straightforwardly in practice. Far from it, civil society groups such as human rights organizations in authoritarian countries and anticapitalist associations are often the targets of state and corporate co-optation.86 Conversely, ideologue factions and trade associations too can seek to influence political and fi nancial authorities. The problematization of “civil society” thus invites a more critical and nuanced reading and analysis of China’s emergent civil society and its engagement with the Internet and social media. Previously, for instance, Le and Yang noted that the various strains of China’s online sociopolitical discourses can be grouped into five major ideological orientations: Far Left, moderate left, neutral, moderate right, Far Right.87 Netizens’ attitudes toward a unified Chinese nation, Chinese government’s policies, traditional Chinese culture, and Western political/economic systems often guide their choices of online groups, discourses, and interactions with others online. A 2013 mainland China national online survey conducted by Ma and Zhang reveals that among Chinese netizens, “rightists” (those who favor rule of law, protection of personal rights and freedoms, and market economy) constitute 38.7 percent; “leftists” (those who strongly support nationalism and oppose Western political and economic systems) make up only 6.2 percent; while the majority are centrists at 55.1 percent. Zhang’s national survey published in 2012, however, finds leftists constitute 38.1 percent of Chinese citizens, rightists 8 percent, and centrists 51.5 percent.88 Due to the surveys’ inherent research limitations (for example, the representativeness of survey participants), the opposing statistics they offered failed to produce conclusive evidence of the ideological makeup of Chinese citizens. However, it seems the identification of such ideological groupings and their potential consensus could be a productive route to understanding the changing Chinese civic spaces besides various forms of social stratification along class, gender, race, generational, and rural-urban fault lines.

Conclusion Although social media platforms such as Sina Weibo provide technological affordances for instantaneous communication and endless possibilities of

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group formation, their capacity for civic empowerment is mediated through many factors, including grassroots demands and organization, state intervention, and Internet ser vice providers’ policies and practices, as well as the civic groups’ interactions with one another. Social media can serve as a critical space for expressing and channeling public opinion in China, but they are unlikely to be the ultimate game changer. The ability of the Internet to transform social and political realities increasingly needs to sufficiently account for the effect of divergent cyber subjectivities and a wider range of social, economic, and political factors beyond merely considering the Internet’s technological impact on the state or the grass roots in general. Such a transition would require a more sophisticated framework to dissect the heterogeneous components that make up China’s online civic spaces today without losing sight of the power the authoritarian state can assert over the society or the power of individuals to expand their spheres of influences. It also means to take into account both civil and uncivil elements of China’s emergent civil society and their appropriation of new media for identity formation and collective mobilization. Previous work has examined in-depth Internet use by diverse civic groups: dissidents, working class, nationalists, activists, environmentalists, urban youth, and young migrant women.89 Each of the subgroups carries distinct yet mixed attitudes toward and demands for the state, the market, and other social strata. Together, they often render the emergent Chinese civil society “praetorian,” swirling in extensive and sometimes very intensive political participation without being channeled effectively through formal institutions.90 Positive development of public spaces and power relations in China relies as much on institutional politics to effectively channel public opinion as it does on identity politics and progressive changes in subjectivity through everyday life interactions. While the Internet mediates such negotiations and is increasingly indispensable to the parties involved, it does not determine their outcomes. The contextualized use of the Internet and new media, shaped by the social, cultural, and political protocols surrounding such technologies, ultimately does.

CHAPTER 2

Connectivity, Engagement, and Witnessing on China’s Weibo Marina Svensson

This chapter addresses and problematizes connectivity and civic engagement on social media in the context of China. It explores the potential of social media, focusing on the microblogging ser vice Sina Weibo, for civic engagement, and analyzes the different forms such engagement can take. The chapter engages with the growing literature and debate on the role of social media for civic and political engagement and social mobilization.1 The more optimistic observers believe that new information and communication technologies (ICTs), including social media, open up for more horizontal and participatory forms of civic engagement, lower the threshold for activism, and empower people to challenge the communicative power of entrenched political institutions and traditional media. The skeptics, on the other hand, find limited connectivity and strong fragmentation, rather than a real public sphere, on social media. They also draw attention to the continuing existence of digital divides and the dominance of privileged actors on social media. Many in addition dismiss civic engagement in the form of clicking, sharing, and liking on Twitter and Facebook as “clicktivism” or “slacktivism,” and argue that they do not bring about any real and effective social and political changes. In the context of China, there have been similar heated debates between techno-optimists, who argue that the Internet opens up for critical voices that challenge the party-state, and more critical scholars who focus on the partystate’s ability to adapt to the new information society and/or draw attention

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to the big digital divides that prevent many people from benefiting from ICTs (see introduction to the volume). This chapter focuses on the following questions: Do social media enable, or prescribe, new forms of connectivity, engagement and activism? What kinds of limitations exist in an authoritarian society such as China? Is social-media-facilitated civic engagement a safety valve and outlet for “feel-good” activism or clicktivism that deflects from more radical political activism? The chapter begins with an attempt to define and analyze connectivity and civic engagement on social media, while outlining different arguments and recent works on the topic. It pays particular attention to why and how images have become a ubiquitous presence on social media, and the significance of images for civic engagement, connectivity, and social mobilization. The chapter next briefly addresses recent developments in civil society and civic engagement in China and the role of the Internet in this respect. The main argument of the chapter is that the emergence of new forms of civic engagement has been facilitated by social media platforms such as weibo, although not determined by the technology, and that users have appropriated weibo as a tool to develop new ways to connect and engage on social issues. Chinese citizens become aware of and engaged in social problems thanks to the circulation of information on weibo, and they are also able to share their views and concerns with others. Many in addition use smartphones and other digital devices to upload, share, and comment on images depicting social and political issues and injustices, which has made weibo into a platform for spectatorship, performativity, witnessing, and sousveillance. The posting and browsing on social media, including sharing, reposting, clicking, and liking, is important on the cognitive level as it serves to highlight gaps between official policies and media reports and the reality as experienced by citizens themselves. One should therefore not be too quick to describe or denounce these kinds of activities as slacktivism/clicktivism, or see them as necessarily bad in the context of China. Furthermore, one also needs to be aware that the line between online and off-line engagement and activities often is quite blurred.

Connectivity and Civic Engagement on Social Media: Theoretical Debates and Empirical Findings Several studies have found that young people in Westerns democracies are no longer as interested in traditional political institutions and activities such

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as voting or becoming a member of political parties, unions, and established organizations as older generations were.2 Their engagement is more related to specific issues and causes, such as concerns about the environment, social justice, gender equality, and human rights. Rather than becoming involved in party politics, young people are more likely to express themselves in more ad hoc and networked ways through the different ICTs they have already incorporated into their daily lives, to participate in various civic activities such as boycotts and demonstrations, and to sign petitions and volunteer. However, because of historical differences, different political cultures, and more or less open traditional institutions, there also exist big differences among Western democracies as to youth participation in party politics, forms of civic engagement, and use of social media. Many scholars see strong connections between the emergence of more issue-based politics and personalized forms of civic engagement and the rise and use of the Internet and social media. Young people belong to a generation that has been socialized into connecting, sharing, and expressing themselves online. Their social and political identities and sense of community is constructed and expressed through individual lifestyle choices and connectivity with others on social media platforms such as Facebook. Although there exist big differences between Western democracies and China, I would argue that the emergence of more diversified forms for civic engagement in China in part is also facilitated by the development and use of Internet and social media, at the same times as it reveals people’s exclusion and alienation from traditional politics and institutions in an authoritarian one-party state. There exist different defi nitions and understandings of civic engagement, and whereas some scholars would include political participation and mobilization such as voting, membership in political parties, and attending political campaigns and protests, I focus on civic actions and engagement on social issues outside traditional political institutions and channels. I thus define civic engagement as consisting of a range of increasingly diverse ways of expressing concern on social issues. This includes personal engagement with peer networks on social media, that is, clicking, liking, and sharing views and offering support. It also includes involvement in civic activities both online and off-line, ranging from online petitions to participation in loose networks and communities to joining social and issue-based campaigns to donating money to volunteering and working for NGOs. Many of these forms of civic engagement make use of creative expressions, including art, performances, and the making and sharing of images and memes, and many are quite ad

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hoc in nature and do not require sustained commitment or membership in any organization. There, however, exist widely different views among scholars and observers on the potential of social media for connectivity, civic engagement, social change, and political mobilization. To simplify somewhat, techno-optimists see new ICTs, in particular Web 2.0 and social media, as “liberation technologies” that empower marginalized groups of people and social movements to challenge entrenched political institutions.3 They believe that social media open up more horizontal and participatory forms of civic engagement and communication that can bypass traditional political institutions and media. Many also argue that social media play a central role for new social movements, often referring to the case of the Middle East in 2011 and to the Occupy Wall Street movement the same year. Other scholars paint a more negative picture of social media for civic engagement. They find limited connectivity and strong fragmentation rather than a real public sphere and a continuing existence of digital divides and dominance of privileged actors on social media, and they are concerned about the commercialization of the Internet.4 These critical scholars also worry that engagement on social media may not lead to sustained commitment and real social and political changes because it is too fragmented and issue based. Some critics describe engagement on social media as clicktivism or slacktivism because people’s engagement is limited to clicking, sharing, and liking on Twitter and Facebook. Evgeny Morozov is one of the strongest critics of techno-optimism and clicktivism.5 He sees the signing of online petitions, donating of money, and voicing support through clicking, sharing, and liking as illusionary quick fi xes and easyto-do activities that do not involve any sustained efforts or off-line activities. They make people feel good about themselves but prevent in-depth analysis of more complex social and political problems and political orga nizing. Morozov also criticizes digital movements for focusing too much on mobilization for demonstrations and not on more protracted and hard struggles and institutionalized work. Several scholars have criticized the sweeping and negative picture of clicktivism/slacktivism as a lazy, lighthearted, low-cost, and low-risk, maybe even selfish, form of commitment that builds on the false belief that posting, liking, and sharing will change the world.6 They have instead tried to provide a deeper analysis of how social media enable new forms of civic engagement that are meaningful for those involved. I agree that it is important to provide a more empirically grounded analysis that acknowledges that click-

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tivism includes a range of different activities with different content and outcomes. Clicktivism, as some of these scholars have argued, is often an ad hoc and reflexive act that does not aim to further any ideological or political cause. This being said, it may do so as it can be part of a more complex repertoire or the beginning of more sustained activism. It is also important to realize the sociopolitical context of clicktivism, if one should still use the term, as it might be the best one can do in an authoritarian society since it at least raises awareness on hidden or suppressed issues. In a recent study of how social media gave rise to new forms of connectivity and social mobilization, Bennett and Segerberg identify three major categories of action.7 The first category, organizationally brokered collective action, is centered around more established organizations and traditional modes of participation where digital media function as a tool facilitating communication and work but do not fundamentally change the way they work. The second category, organizationally enabled connective action, consists of loose networks of organizations that cosponsor and enable different actions, but where followers/supporters take part in a personalized way. In the third category, crowd-enabled connective action, the digital media platforms take center stage and serve as an organizational hub that brings individuals and their different networks together, where individuals are engaged around different issues in a very personalized way. Although Bennett and Segerberg’s study focuses on large-scale protests, such as the Occupy Wall Street Movement in the United States, their findings and categories are of interest when studying other forms of civic engagement online and when pondering developments in non-Western societies. It is also worth remembering that most social and political campaigns and movements today combine and make use of both online and off-line activities, and that there is no clear-cut line between online and off-line engagement and activism.

Images and Social Media: Spectatorship, Witnessing, and Sousveillance A striking feature of today’s networked society is the ubiquitous presence of images in everyday life and politics.8 The emergence of digital photography and fi lm has made the production, storage, and circulation of images and films a much easier, widespread, and equal practice. For many people in China, a smartphone is the first and only camera they possess. The development and

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affordability of digital devices such as smartphones and digital video cameras has fundamentally changed how, where, and why people take photos and film. Many people today document their daily lives in photos and share them with friends on social media sites and other platforms, including Facebook, Flickr, and Instagram—and weibo and WeChat in the case of China. The sharing of images is a natural part of communication and thus a central aspect of connectivity on social media. Whereas in the past images for public circulation were mostly produced by professional photographers, photojournalists, media organizations, and NGOs, the digital revolution has opened up possibilities for ordinary citizens to reveal and bear witness to cases of injustices and human rights violations, as well as document the social and political protests they are taking part in. The digital revolution has thus empowered more people to make and circulate images online and on social media that challenge and expose entrenched power holders and traditional media. Our knowledge, emotional responses, and civic engagement are highly influenced by what we can see and know. On weibo, Chinese citizens are exposed to images of kneeling petitioners, trafficked children, and villagers who try to defend their land, images of suffering and injustices that they might not see in the official media and that make them aware of social ills that once were hidden. Activists and NGOs in different parts of the world have long made use of images because of their affective power and educative possibilities, and with the advent of the Internet and social media they can also more easily use and circulate these images.9 They thus use images to make social inequalities visible, bear witness to human rights violations, and push for social and political change. Powerful images can help create solidarity and support for disadvantaged and suffering others, and they also make social and political struggles visible. Chinese NGOs and activists, as discussed further in the following, have also increasingly come to use images as a way to create awareness and promote civic engagement. Some activists and NGOs are not only carefully using images to make injustices visible; they are also actively summoning “witnessing publics” to create and circulate visual testimonies of injustices. The role of the visual in recent social movements and political struggles is noteworthy and has also received more scholarly attention.10 Taking photos and making videos, and sharing and uploading them on the Internet, has become an indispensable part of today’s protest repertoires. The image of citizens holding up their mobile phones and taking pictures of protests has

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become a common sight. We have, for example, in recent years seen many images of Chinese citizens holding up their smartphones and taking photos or fi lming while being involved in environmental protests in Dalian, Kunming, and Ningbo. Many social movements in different parts of the world have been spurred by events that were captured on camera, and these images have served to strengthen and further the movement and cause (examples include the live broadcast of the killing of Neda Agha Soltan, a young Iranian student who died on the streets of Tehran in 2009, and the photos of the dead body of Khaled Mohamed Saeed that helped spur protests in Egypt in 2011). The emergence of new modes of civic engagement on social media is connected to the widespread use of smartphones that enables easy and realtime updates in both textual and visual form on the Internet and social media. Andén-Papadopoulos therefore talks about “citizen camera-witnessing” when discussing how political activists use their mobile phones to produce public testimonies of atrocities and abuses.11 Witnessing is part of what it means to be an activist and participant in social protests today. Using smartphones to document protests and also point the camera against officials, very often the police, who in their turn take pictures of or film protesters, have become a widely recognized gesture of defiance. Th is is a common theme in many of Ai Weiwei’s documentary fi lms, and many Chinese citizens and lawyers have also uploaded similar images and videos on weibo. This kind of inverse surveillance, or sousveillance, is an important aspect of witnessing in the age of smartphones and social media. It shows how power relations have partly shifted as a result of people’s access to new technologies. However, there are also critical voices who argue that the proliferation of images of suffering and atrocities give rise to compassion fatigue and apathy, and thus undermine our abilities to feel, connect, and act.12 Images can create a distance and prevent connectivity and civic engagement. Chouliaraki distinguishes between images that play on people’s sense of guilt and give rise to pity, charity, and goodwill, and images that provoke outrage and calls for more radical social and political changes.13 Only the latter would thus serve to promote change, whereas the former might actually prevent structural change and encourage more individual solutions. In this context it is also important to be aware of continuing inequalities in the production and circulation of images of suffering and injustices, as it is often the affluent middle classes that consume images of suffering others. They are also more likely to react to images that give rise to goodwill and charity rather than work for

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real social changes that would challenge their privileged positions. However, regardless of what we think of the ubiquitous use of images today, we need to be aware that both civic engagement and social mobilization are more visual than in the past, and that spectatorship, witnessing, and sousveillance constitute a central aspect of connectivity and civic engagement on social media.

Civic Engagement and Civil Society Developments in China The space and scope for civil society in China is shaped by an authoritarian state that needs nonstate actors to provide much needed welfare ser vices but also worry about the potential of NGOs for undermining state power. Civil society organizations are tightly controlled and need to negotiate with state organizations, and this forces them to carefully consider what kinds of activities they engage in.14 Nonetheless, there has been a dramatic growth in civil society organizations in China, and the Internet has played an important role in this development.15 The “negotiated” and “contingent” nature of civil society, and the difficulties for formal organizations, has also encouraged the creation of nonregistered groups, informal communities, and networks that have a presence both online and off-line. Many Chinese citizens exhibit low levels of trust and interest in official organizations, including the Red Cross after the Guo Meimei scandal, and are also less than enthusiastic about top-down fundraising activities orga nized by the Party.16 The earthquake in 2008 unleashed a new sense of more independent and informal civic-ness among Chinese citizens, many of whom raised donations and orga nized aid to the victims that bypassed established channels and institutions.17 Much of this work took place through informal networks and contacts among friends, colleagues, and neighbors, where the Internet, including the use of Tencent (QQ) instant messaging groups, played an important role for coordination and mobilization (on activities in relation to the earthquake, see also Shi and Yang, chapter 3 in this volume). New ideals and visions of civic engagement have developed as a result of ideological shifts and socioeconomic changes in Chinese society. This is reflected in the emergence of new ideals and values among certain groups such as youth, the growing middle class, and professional groups such as lawyers and journalists. Young people are more individualistic and they socialize in different ways as a result of growing up in a more affluent society and being the

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only child in their families. Many are digital natives, and this experience shapes the way they connect and socialize with friends and strangers.18 Like their peers in the West, they seek self-fulfi llment through making lifestyle choices and addressing specific issues and causes of interest to them, rather than becoming involved in traditional organizations.19 Many are, however, also attracted by and become involved in new NGOs such as environmental organizations, organizations that work to help migrant workers’ children, and so on. The growing middle class for its part tries to find ways to express and safeguard its interests without opposing the party-state, which has led individuals to become involved in homeowners associations and participate in NIMBY protests. They have also developed a sense of civic duty to give back to society and to donate to different charities. Members of the new generation of rich entrepreneurs have therefore set up their own charities and donations, as have new Internet and media companies. Successful businesspeople and celebrities have also become active in different social causes on weibo and are involved in some of the new weibo-based charities discussed below, and some have become influential opinion leaders. Chinese citizens’ experiences abroad and exposure to transnational movements, such as the women’s movement and the gay movement, have exposed them to new types of civic engagement, and they sometimes consciously borrow their style and format. Young Chinese women and China’s gay and lesbian activists have started to use art, film, and street performances when advocating gender and sexual equality, while making use of social media to spread information about their activities. Despite huge differences when it comes to political institutions, the role of civil society, and the possibilities for civic engagement, we thus see something of the same shifts in types of civic engagement in the Chinese society as we observe in many Western democracies. Chinese citizens are increasingly attracted to more personalized and interest-based ways of networking and forms of civic engagement. This engagement is often fluid and ad hoc in nature, and it centers on specific issues and causes such as the environment, child welfare, and gender equality. But should we really describe this kind of engagement as clicktivism, and, if so, do we need to worry about it in the case of China? Do special circumstances such as China’s weak civil society even encourage different types of clicktivism, or make some forms of connective actions as discussed by Bennett and Segerberg more attractive? Most scholars have focused on more radical forms of protest and dissent on weibo, and there is, as yet, not much focus on the more diverse forms of civic

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engagement that I have outlined above, or on how new types of charities and networks have emerged that use weibo to engage citizens on social issues.20 While I focus on civic engagement in its more positive and civil sense, it needs to be pointed out that there exist a lot of less civil activities on weibo, as discussed by Min Jiang in chapter 1 of this volume, and that censorship and control, as outlined by Rogier Creemers in chapter 4, set clear limits on what can be discussed and which kind of civic engagement is possible. Furthermore, the middle class and other privileged users, including opinion leaders and celebrities, dominate much of the social debates and civic engagement on weibo.21

Connectivity and Civic Engagement on Sina Weibo: Forms and Limitations What kind of civic engagement do we then find on weibo? Different individuals, networks, and organizations use weibo to address a range of issues, including social ills and environmental issues, and they often combine online and off-line actions. The type of engagement and the results depend on different factors, including the form and focus of the actions, and whether the topic is politically sensitive or instead has official backing and endorsement. The digital skills and the social and cultural capital of initiators and supporters are also crucial. It is interesting to note the growing importance of celebrities and so-called opinion leaders of different stripes. New modes of solidarity and engagement are based on lifestyle choices and emotions, and are thus part of the general more individualized consumerist orientation of the Chinese society. In some ways this trend mirrors the role of celebrities in what Chouliaraki has described as “mediated humanitarianism” in the Western context. She argues that humanitarian work and solidarity today is a form of consumerist lifestyle choice, and she detects a trend to express solidarity and support through tweeting, clicking to donate, liking certain sites/ organizations/celebrities, and linking to their pages. The new forms of charity actions, such as giving three yuan to rural children so that they can have a decent and nutritious lunch, or carry ing one kilo of books when traveling to donate to rural schools, and expressing compassion and solidarity with disadvantaged groups on one’s weibo account may be more to the liking of an urban middle class who are wary of earlier top-down enforced donations and expressions of solidarity. This kind of civic engagement predominantly

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involves young students and middle-class urban residents, whereas marginalized users are not so involved and have difficulties even making themselves heard on weibo. It is often others who speak on their behalf, and thus they are deprived of agency and voice. Nonetheless, migrant workers and labor NGOs also try to make use of the platform to orga nize and communicate their needs and interests.22 My aim in the following is to provide a tentative typology of different forms of civic engagement on weibo and discuss their features, implications, and limitations. Who are the actors and initiators? Which topics and aims do they have? What kind of repertoire do they use? Do they only exist online, or do they include or lead to off-line actions? To what extent are more established organizations, or networks of organizations, involved, and have new forms of networks and organizations emerged?

Clicktivism with Chinese Characteristics or a New Form of Civic Engagement?

It is relevant to ask whether a lot of the activities and engagement we see on weibo is merely a form of slacktivism or clicktivism. Although not discussing China specifically, Morozov has been rather skeptical of the value of clicktivism in authoritarian societies. He warns of the negative consequences and illusionary feeling of community that comes from the relative ease and little investment digital activism require. “The danger that ‘slacktivism’ poses in the context of authoritarian states is that it may give young people living there the wrong impression that another kind of politics—digital in nature but leading to real-world political change and the one underpinned entirely by virtual campaigns, online petitions, funny Photoshopped political cartoons, and angry tweets—is not only feasible but actually preferable to the ineffective, boring, risky, and, in most cases, outdated kind of politics practiced by the conventional oppositional movements in their countries.”23 This kind of warning has a relevance to China, where we have seen a growth of netizens producing and circulating jokes, political cartoons, Photoshopped images, and funny videos online as a form of playful and ironic resistance (compare Min Jiang, chapter 1 in this volume). This trend has become even stronger with the advent of weibo as it has enabled many more people to produce and circulate such images. Citizens not wanting to take part in protests or not daring to write something critical can still show support or voice their

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views by just reposting other postings, clicking, and maybe even adding a comment without facing serious repercussions. The value of this kind of clicktivism and ironic resistance is that it enables people to share sentiments and concerns that before were hidden from the public view or only shared among trusted friends. However, the limitations of clicktivism, and the big gap between making critical posts, re-tweeting, commenting, and liking online and taking this engagement and protest off-line is perhaps best illustrated with the Southern Weekend incident in early 2013. An especially heavy-handed case of censorship led many of the paper’s journalists to protest on weibo, where they received vocal support by other journalists, opinion leaders, and ordinary citizens. A few citizens ventured to the paper’s headquarters to protest. One of them held up a sign reading, “Yesterday I was online, today I’m at the scene.” He then posted a photo of this on his weibo. But the protesters who went off-line were quite few, and protests soon faded away without having led to any changes of the censorship system. Some of the protesters later were arrested. As with the failed Jasmine revolution in early 2011, where some activists called for off-line protests after being inspired by events in North Africa and the Middle East, there is a gap between expressing criticism and solidarity online and taking one’s discontent to the streets. The authorities are also more likely to crack down on off-line protests and demonstrations than online expressions of discontent and critique.24 Weibo has also encouraged and given rise to a whole range of campaigns and charities that likewise could be described as a form of clicktivism as they often take the form of reposting, clicking, or donating money. They thus offer the possibility of a more personalized form of feel-good activism that does not require sustained participation, critical social analysis, or off-line engagements. But maybe this form of clicktivism is better understood and conceptualized as the kind of personalized connective actions discussed by Bennett and Segerberg.

Incorporating Digital Media in Already Existing Organizations: Facilitating Communication and Real-Time Reporting

Many NGOs early on had a presence on the Internet, but for other smaller groups and networks, social media offer easier possibilities to make use of

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ICTs at low cost and reach a larger public. Social media are thus changing the way many NGOs communicate, share information, network, and mobilize.25 They have also strengthened their visibility and ability to get their messages out and provide alternative views that challenge official views disseminated in the traditional media. Chinese NGOs use social media to raise awareness on pressing social issues, such as gender inequality, discrimination, poverty, labor issues, and environmental problems. Microblogging has the additional advantage of opening up possibilities for interactive conversations with different individuals and organizations, including volunteers and members (although QQ seems more used for internal communication), other NGOs, the general public, the media, and official institutions. Contacts and information become easier, faster, and cheaper, which is important for resource-poor NGOs. Weibo has enabled NGOs to do live broadcasting of their events and to include volunteers and ordinary citizens in their work. The worsening air quality in Beijing and other cities has led many NGOs and new networks to start monitoring pollution levels and encouraging volunteers to help in this work.26 This information has then been published on weibo, and these calls for transparency have pushed the government to provide more reliable information. But even though many NGOs have set up weibo accounts, most have quite few followers. One of the environmental organizations with the largest number of followers among environmental NGOs is Green Peace China with forty thousand followers (as of October 2013). Even a well-known and long-established domestic organization such as Friends of Nature has only 33,311 followers on Sina Weibo. Labor NGOs have even fewer followers and have for political reasons sometimes been more hesitant and slow to use weibo.27 Some labor NGOs began to use it in 2012 to spread news and mobilize when they were facing increasing restrictions and harassments, and one labor orga nization got its start thanks to weibo (discussed in the following).

Crowd-Sourcing: Engagement without Membership

Weibo has proved to be a useful platform to initiate certain types of activities that build on a fluid and personal engagement without requiring sustained activity or membership. Nonetheless, they often include some off-line

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activism even though the information sharing takes place online. In 2011 two activities to help trafficked children were initiated on weibo (see also Shi and Yang, chapter 3, and Min Jiang, chapter 1, this volume). Those starting the activities/calls had a strong social standing and cultural capital and many followers on weibo that helped spread the information and ensured a good impact. One was the journalist Deng Fei (with 4.2 million followers on weibo), who started a campaign to help families whose children had been kidnapped and sold through sharing information and photos of the missing children on his weibo. The same year sociologist Yu Jianrong (1.5 million followers) also initiated a campaign on weibo when he made a post and attached a photo of child beggars that elicited a lot of support among his followers. This led to the campaign to “take a photograph to rescue child beggars,” where citizens were asked to document child beggars and upload photos.28 Different individuals, civil society organizations, and the media took an interest, and volunteers began to take photos that were uploaded on a special weibo account. The campaign grew, and by October 2013 had 218,112 followers. These campaigns got a lot of general support and attention in the media because of their emotional topics and the credibility and fame of the two initiators. Yu’s campaign, however, differed from that of Deng Fei by his calls to “witnessing publics” to take photos of begging children and upload them to weibo. Yu clearly saw this as an act of civic participation, although the act of photograph taking also was criticized by some people for violating privacy and exposing innocent people. Those engaging in the campaigns by reposting the posts might have felt good about themselves and engaged in an easy clicktivism, but the campaigns did raise awareness on the issue and spurred further discussions and demands for off-line actions by calling upon the police to take the matter seriously and make investigations. Another example of crowd-sourcing is a campaign by Deng Fei in 2013 to document and raise awareness on water pollution. Deng posted a call on his weibo account asking his followers: “How is the river in your hometown? While you’re at home for the holidays, take a photo of the river or stream in your hometown and upload it to weibo for us to see.” Th is led to a strong response with people submitting many photos of polluted rivers, and it led eventually to the establishment of a new NGO, China Water Safety Foundation. The organization has attracted environmental experts, legal scholars, and other activists, and it is supported by the Internet company NetEase/

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Wangyi. However, if people’s environmental consciousness stops at just taking photos, the campaign might have a very limited impact.

Networked-Based Off-Line Activities: Personalized Charity

Many forms of civic engagement that build on acts of connecting and sharing online also involve off-line activities. One example is the 1kg project— “take a kilo more on your back”—that encourages people to make a difference by taking books and school materials to rural children and then share that experience in blogs.29 The organization seems quite popular with the young urban middle class as it encourages individualized action that does not require membership or long-term commitments. It is an interesting example of a networked form of civic engagement that combines online connectivity with individual off-line activities.

Weibo-Based Charities: A New Form of Civic Engagement

Many new forms of charity activities and fund-raising campaigns have appeared on social media sites during the past two years. Internet companies such as Sina and Tencent have set up special sites where both individuals, such as verified users, and organizations can make calls for donations on special causes and initiate charities.30 The most prominent weibo-based charity is Free Lunches, set up by the journalist Deng Fei in 2011.31 The campaign initially built on and was organized around Deng’s personal network of some five hundred journalists and many media organizations.32 These journalists had over the years built up a strong network on QQ and in 2009 also begun to use weibo. The campaign rapidly spread to include people from different walks of life, as well as several celebrities and opinion leaders, who either pledged money or became active in different parts of China in organizing the distribution of food to schools. The organization has also solicited support from Internet companies that are developing into important actors in Chinese philanthropy, and as a final sign of success the state council stepped in with official funds. While Deng Fei himself has 4.2 million followers, the orga nization’s official weibo only has 86,269 followers, still making it probably one of the

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NGOs with the biggest number of followers on weibo. The organization, and Deng Fei personally, has gotten favorable and extensive publicity in both Party and commercial media and TV.33 Although the organization today also makes use of many other platforms, Deng Fei is a strong believer in the power of weibo, and he has argued that “through weibo we can solve China’s problems one by one.”34 He has also started several other projects that make good use of both social media and traditional media to reach out to young people, successful businesspeople, and local officials. Deng Fei’s way of campaigning shows how weibo can be used for connective action and then lead to off-line orga nization and more sustained work. People can also choose their level of activity, ranging from clicking and forwarding posts, to donations and volunteer work. In some ways these campaigns fit into Bennett and Segerberg’s third category of crowd-enabled connective action. They started as a form of loose networking around friends and concerned citizens, or as open call and crowd-sourcing, but interestingly they then developed into formal organizations while continuing to rely on social media. They, however, bridge and connect different organizations, loose networks, and individuals in a more personalized way. The personality and social capital of Deng Fei, and the topics that he has chosen to focus on, trafficked children, improving children’s health through providing better food, and water pollution, topics that are acceptable to the government, explain the success of the charity projects. Deng Fei has also received praise for being a responsible “opinion leader” by Zhu Huaxin, the director of the People’s Daily Net Public Opinion Centre, who has described him as somebody who has developed from a critical investigative journalist to a more constructive actor engaged in charity projects. 35

Witnessing and Grievance Sharing: Images and Civic Engagement on Weibo New technologies have strengthened the possibilities for Chinese citizens to use images and film to document social issues and criticize power abuses and violations, and they have given rise to the production and circulation of many new forms of visual images in the form of memes, spoofing, and cultural jamming (see Min Jiang, chapter 1 in this volume). My focus here is mainly photography, and to a limited extent short videos and fi lm, circulated on weibo. Chinese citizens today document both their everyday lives and social

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struggles and circulate these images and videos on domestic online videosharing sites such as Tudou and Youku as well as post them on blogs and weibo. Weibo is strongly visual in character, more so than Twitter, and it has become a platform for spectatorship and witnessing. The fact that images and films are not as easy to censor as texts has further spurred their use for critical comments and open defiance.36 Images and videos on weibo have different content, aesthetics, aims, and targets, and they are made and/or uploaded and circulated by diverse groups of people, including ordinary citizens, activists, media professionals, and NGOs. Many images depict suffering, social ills, and injustices and are taken and circulated in order to evoke and communicate empathy and solidarity. NGOs and charities post images to elicit support and engagement, whereas victims and their relatives use images in their calls for help. Activists and victims of injustices see witnessing and documenting as an act of civic engagement. Their images provide alternatives to those circulated in the official media, and they are often used to criticize official policies and mobilize supporters. Different images, however, elicit different kinds of emotions and reactions among viewers, and they also raise many questions as to how solidarity, suffering, and witnessing are visualized, represented, understood, shared, and acted upon in Chinese society, which will be briefly explored below.

Images of Resistance: Irony and Support

Many images are made and uploaded on the Internet as deliberate acts of resistance, and to this end they often use humor and irony (see Min Jiang, chapter 1 of this volume). The artist Ai Weiwei is well known for his many ironic images and memes that have gone viral on the Internet.37 Citizens also use images to show support and critique, and one very simple form of clicktivism is to change one’s profile on weibo. When Ai Weiwei was detained in April 2011 many supporters replaced their own photos with that of Ai on their profile pages, whereas those supporting blind lawyer Chen Guangcheng uploaded photos of themselves wearing black glasses or a T-shirt with his photo (on the case of Chen, see also Min Jiang, chapter 1 of this volume). A video that was smuggled out of Chen’s home was also circulated on weibo, and some supporters made videos where they spoke out in support of him. On the occasion of his birthday, some supporters gathered with birthday cakes and

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banners reading: “Rights Defenders from China celebrate Chen Guangcheng’s birthday” and then uploaded these photos to their weibo accounts. Others were even more daring and posed outside a local government office wearing T-shirts bearing Chen Guangcheng’s photo. Although many of these messages and photos are rapidly deleted from weibo, new postings and photos can quickly be uploaded. Even when people are not posting their own photos, they can easily repost such images as a rather low-key and low-cost form of resistance and a show of defiance. Although this may be regarded as a form of clicktivism, it makes more people aware of these issues and emboldens them to state their views and show support. This humorous and visual resistance also creates a sense of community, strengthens new and old ties, and builds new networks that can be activated for other purposes and joint causes.

Images of Suffering: Guilt, Empathy, and Indignation

Images of suffering others are often used in NGO work, such as those of starving children on the African continent, but they have also given rise to charges of sensationalism and exploitation. Many images published and circulated by NGOs evoke empathy and benevolent and more positive emotions that aim to encourage people to make donations. Images of children are a particularly useful motive as they play on people’s protective and parental instincts, address less controversial issues, and offer quite unproblematic solutions (individual donations rather than a distribution of wealth). Images of happy and grateful children playing or at school are thus often used when addressing issues related to children’s welfare. The most frequently used photo by Free Lunches, for example, is that of a young girl feeding her little brother. The organization also circulates images of donors/volunteers with the beneficiaries of their work. These images have the additional bonus that they show what satisfaction and feelings of goodwill donors get from their civic engagement and charity work. Many donors and volunteers take and share such photos as a testimony of their own engagement. But there is also an active circulation of harrowing images of suffering on weibo, including of sick and handicapped children, workers suffering accidents and work-related diseases, and victims of torture and violent protests. Many of these images and stories are not found in traditional media and thus

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reveal hidden truths and tragedies. Desperate Chinese families with sick or handicapped children in need of expensive health care have taken to posting photos of their children’s sick bodies on weibo. These photos work on the viewer in different ways, including compassion, guilt, sadness, and shame. They reveal the desperation of parents with no welfare provision or economic means to get medical help, reflecting the stark inequalities in society, and they also show that very strong images are needed in order to get any attention at all in the current image-saturated environment. It is difficult to know how often such appeals meet with any success, although it probably depends on whether the story is picked up by influential weibo users, celebrities, opinion leaders, or media organizations.38 Whereas such images and calls draw attention to and may help individuals, they do not address the deep structural problems and inequalities in society. The Love Save Pneumoconiosis Foundation, an orga nization that was started in 2011 by the journalist Wang Keqin on weibo, has actively used photos and videos of migrant workers suffering from the work-related lung disease pneumoconiosis in order to draw attention to their plight. Some migrant workers use weibo to circulate information and their own images. The photos and videos show the workers’ weak and emancipated bodies; reveal the seriousness of the illness; and provoke empathy, support, indignation, and action. The organization both seeks financial and medical support for the individual workers as well as demands institutional changes, such as stricter enforcement of safety regulations.

Images of Injustice: Revealing Inequalities and Calling for Justice

Other types of images on weibo include victims of demolitions crying in front of houses to be demolished; petitioners kneeling in front of government buildings; and peasants holding up banderols calling for justice and protesting corrupt officials, polluting factories, or real estate companies. These images reveal injustices and demand social and institutional changes. Many have become quite well known and almost iconic as they often have a rather standardized format and aesthetics that are easily recognized. Yu Jianrong, a scholar with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, has since late 2010 become an avid user of weibo, where he has discussed the plight of petitioners, a long-standing concern of his.39 He has also turned to

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visual materials, including photos, film, and paintings, to illustrate the plight of petitioners and thus tried to give the very act and experience of petitioning a face. His images are rather generic and similar in composition, and they often depict the petitioners with a white headband with the character for injustice (yuan), or holding letters and court documents as evidence of their struggle for justice. Although these images, like those in the previous category, give rise to pity and empathy, they are more radical in that they also highlight structural problems and inequalities in society. In his writings Yu also demands more than just charity and goodwill, but also institutional and legal change.

Images of Witnessing: Crowd-Sourcing and Witnessing Publics

Many campaigners and organizations use crowd-sourcing and summon witnessing publics to engage in the civic act of taking photos and bearing witness to social problems. For example, they have called on concerned citizens to document such diverse topics as trafficked children and polluted rivers. These images are then uploaded on weibo or special web pages to create awareness among both the general public and officials. This work is not only about collecting information. It is also an encouragement to citizens to become more engaged than just clicking and liking, rather become engaged and responsible civic witnesses.

Image Wars: Surveillance and Sousveillance

There is a very real concern among many observers that digital technologies can lead to a strengthening of the powers of control and surveillance in both authoritarian and democratic societies. New technologies enable the Chinese police to document and track protesters and activists through CCTV cameras and mobile phone tracking devices. But citizens can also use similar technologies to engage in acts of sousveillance that reveal and document police abuse and other abuse of power. Images on weibo of police and citizens confronting one another during protests equipped with cameras are one example, and images of corrupt officials wearing expensive watches are another. Sousveillance is thus a new form of civic engagement that has become easier because of the proliferation of smartphones and social media. This new civic

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sousveillance put some pressure on Chinese officials and may push officials toward more transparency and accountability.

Conclusion The fact that civil society is relatively weak in China and that many people are wary of or skeptical about formal organizations, including some NGOs, makes issue-based civic engagement and individual ad hoc activities on social media quite attractive. These new possibilities for civic engagement may encourage new groups of people to become engaged with civic and social issues. One could thus argue that in an authoritarian country such as China where many forms of off-line organization are difficult, tightly controlled, and risky, social media open up new avenues for connective action and civic engagement. It lowers the threshold for people to engage in online discussions, campaigns, and mobilization, as well as helps them learn new tactics that could prove useful in other and future contexts. But, on the other hand, such engagement could also provide a safe haven of “feel-good” activism and clicktivism that serves to legitimize the government and prevent more critical social analysis and political engagement. It is no coincidence that children’s welfare, food safety, and environmental issues have received a lot of attention, and that NIMBY movements have appeared in bigger cities and more affluent regions. Digital divides and the middle-class background of many weibo users also influence the topics addressed as they do not engage in issues that challenge their privileged position. The experience of more critical individuals, networks, and organizations, including Xu Zhiyong of Gongmeng, who in 2014 was sentenced to four years’ imprisonment, and the arrests in 2014 of Guo Yushan of the Transition Institute and many rights defense lawyers, also shows the limits of civic engagement and what happens when people challenge the official policy and make more political demands. For all its limitations, weibo has nonetheless provided more people with a platform to express themselves, connect, and bear witness about social problems than was previously the case. It has served to break the silence and enabled people to find a voice and share views and concerns that before were hidden from the public view or only shared among trusted friends. Witnessing and the sharing of images on weibo reveal a very different social reality from that found in the traditional media. These images give rise to a whole range of emotions, such as empathy, solidarity, and indignation,

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and therefore also spur civic engagement. In addition, many people have become engaged in off-line activities or joined new charities. However, it should be remembered that civic engagement in the absence of participation in decision-making bodies and political rights remains a weak form of empowerment, and that censorship often steers civic engagement into less controversial issues. The attack on Big Vs in 2013 has turned many people away from weibo and into the more private networking site WeChat. But networks and communities that first emerged and later were expanded on weibo can now in some cases be sustained and deepened on WeChat. Some individuals and many organizations and charities have now opened public accounts on WeChat, and, although they are also heavily monitored, it has enabled them to promote their views and work. The content and forms for civic engagement continue to develop in Chinese society as people explore, negotiate, and adapt to new technologies and try to deal with censorship and repression.

CHAPTER 3

New Media Empowerment and State-Society Relations in China Zengzhi Shi and Guobin Yang

Chinese Internet users were the first to break news of the Wenchuan earthquake in May of 2008. Shortly thereafter, China Central Television (CCTV) began working with local television stations to produce live broadcasts of the earthquake relief work occurring on-site. This was the first time CCTV had taken such an initiative. During this period, new and old media interacted to bring about connections and communication between multiple subjects. In some cases, new and old media actively cooperated in the earthquake relief work. In a sense, this marked a new stage of China’s public communication era. Th is has significant implications for the transformation of China’s state and society relations. In the wake of the Wenchuan earthquake, evidence of social autonomy appeared in the form of civic awareness and citizen participation in the relief efforts.1 While the government led the disaster relief, a large number of volunteers, NGOs, and media took part as well. Citizens and organizations influential in the development of the welfare industry emphasized voluntary and independent social participation while supporting cooperation with government authorities. The Red Cross Society of China (RCSC) was the first national orga nization to fund grassroots NGO projects in China. Shortly after the Wenchuan earthquake, RCSC allocated 20 million RMB to fund NGO-directed post-disaster reconstruction projects. The NGOs that accepted RCSC grants were required to make a pledge to work with local government departments in completing the projects.

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Since 2008, the other significant driver of change in state and society relations has been the thriving development of weibo, WeChat, and other social media platforms. Launched on August 28, 2009, Sina Weibo registered nine million users in its fi rst year and by December 2012 had 500 million registered accounts.2 WeChat was launched on January 21, 2011, and has close to 500 million users. On August 19, 2013, a company jointly set up by China Telecom and NetEase launched the mobile application, “Yixin.” Three days later, the Yixin team announced that its user base had reached 5 million. As the speed of social media development increases, social relations are being profoundly shaped. Th is chapter argues that the development of new media in China has led to the empowerment of citizens and civic associations and the transformation of state and society relations. We want to begin by clarifying why we still use the term new media when in current communication research at least, the concept has been subject to much scrutiny and all but abandoned in favor of such terms as digital media. The main critique is that new media are always relative, because today’s new media will be old in the future and there are always times when old media were new.3 Our main reason for sticking to the term new media is that it still predominates in Chinese popular and academic discourse. This may be due to purely linguistic reasons, because the Chinese for new media, xin meiti, is more concise and sounds more forceful than the Chinese for digital media, which reads as shuma meiti. Besides, the language of new media makes more intuitive sense to common folks and laypersons who may not know exactly what digital media means. In current studies, many analysts highlight how the Internet is controlled in China. Others contend that citizen participation in online expression may in fact sustain rather than challenge the authoritarian state. Important as they are, these studies rarely take into account the actual experience of empowerment of Chinese citizens, an experience that can often be encouraging and inspiring despite disappointments and frustrations. The first author had firsthand understandings of these experiences through her own long-term involvement in China’s civil society sector. From 2008 to 2012, as the acting director of the Center for the Study of Civil Society at Peking University, she was engaged in both research and efforts to promote public communication and to connect academia with the community of NGO practitioners and media professionals. She has continued to be deeply engaged in civil society activities since she founded the Center for Public Communication and Social Development (PCSD) at Peking University at the end of 2012. One of the

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projects PCSD has been doing very successfully, for example, is to offer training to NGO activists on capacity building and civic empowerment through public communication. This chapter draws on some of these experiences. The second section of the chapter consists of several case studies that we use to illustrate our argument.

The Concept of Public Communication When the first author took part in Wenchuan earthquake relief work in 2008, she observed that the media played an important role in arousing civic awareness in the public space, increasing enthusiasm in civilian participation and public works, and diversifying the channels for civilian participation. New civil society organizations emerged in the middle of these relief efforts. The notion of public communication was developed on the basis of this experience.4 By public communication, we mean a pattern of thinking and behavior that should be used by any orga nization when dealing with and resolving crisis. Th is new conceptualization of public communication assumes that civilian awareness has already seeped into daily life, while still emphasizing the importance of organizational rationalization for public communication. New media have deeply changed people’s daily lives. Communication and power relationships are gradually reorienting themselves toward daily lives. This is evidenced by the fact that political and cultural engagements are being increasingly motivated by “people’s needs.” State-society relations have become increasingly decentralized. In this way, public communication not only highlights the importance of organizational rationalization but also centers on people. People empowered by technology enter the field with a positive attitude and emphasize individual introspection, reflection, selfdetermination, action, and autonomy as the means through which to achieve social development. They pay close attention to the process of contestations among multiple actors and to the deconstruction and reconstruction of legitimacy in daily lives. Civilian participation in public life is heavily dependent on both criticism and constructive negotiations and dialogue. This means that public communication is a process that centers on an issue and emphasizes participation by multiple subjects in public works. It entails dialogue. In public communication, effective cooperation mechanisms are built up and the compromise reached revolves around public interests. In light

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of this, public communication that is rooted in daily life provides a foundation for the moral practice of the theoretical innovation of state-society relations.

Imagined Micro Community In the age of new media, political and cultural involvements are being increasingly motivated by people’s needs. People empowered by technology work for social change and emphasize individual introspection, reflection, and autonomy, as well as cooperation. Public communication through new media facilitates broad-based civic participation. The extensive use of weibo, WeChat, and other new media technologies has led to the rise of an “imagined micro community.” By this we mean two things. First, this imagined community is an online community built on microblogging platforms such as Sina Weibo. A main feature of these microblogging platforms is that the speed of communication is fast and interactions are instantaneous. When a news story is posted on weibo, for example, it may spread rapidly, linking together people in different geographical locations. Second, this imagined community is micro, not only because the communication on weibo, like Twitter, consists of short messages, but also because empowerment through weibo happens in small ways. That is why many Chinese commentators talk about the micropower of microblogs. Thus despite recent crackdowns and political tightening,5 social issues of interest to the general public are still reflected on Sina Weibo.6 In these spaces, people conduct dialogues and negotiations, some watching from the sidelines while others take a more active role. The term imagined community was introduced by Benedict Anderson in his book on nationalism.7 Nationalism generally emphasizes sovereign rights and domains. Anderson describes the rise of imagined, national communities by outlining the role played by nationalistic feelings, cultural roots, and print media. He places particular emphasis on the function of language in the process of building a national community. Clifford Geertz’s 1981 book, Negara: The Theatre State in Nineteenth-Century Bali, also describes how a country is imagined.8 Its core argument is that, through ceremony, the “nation” is performed and displayed at the interstices of imagination and reality. Th is strengthens the audience’s image of nationalism and affi rms the existence of the nation. Although Anderson and Geertz have different conceptualizations of the processes through which nations are imagined, they

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both emphasize the social status and power of the subject constructing an imagined community. Constructing an imagined micro community is no less complicated. Weibo users are both producers and consumers of weibo content. The social relations constructed by weibo and WeChat are related to the netizens’ own knowledge, personal relationships, personalities, emotions, abilities, and other aspects that in turn form the micro worlds in which netizens are both the subjects and the center. The rise of a micro imagined community is associated with new forms of empowerment. New media empowerment is manifest in communication, expression, and action. It gives people the ability to obtain information, enabling them to make their own judgments rather than depending on those of others. Second, discussions and debates are formed in contexts in which heterogeneous information can be obtained. The right and struggle to express oneself in symbolic landscapes will empower those actors with the requisite abilities for achieving goals. Third, expression itself is an action. The actions emphasized here are those that combine both expression and concrete actions. New media provide an environment in which citizens can question power and dominant ideologies. Such examination and questioning have the effect of awakening critical self-awareness. New media empowerment is not simply a political concept but also a concept tied to economics, consumption, and culture. In the past, social movements in China primarily manifested themselves through mass incidents. The multiple and diverse new social movements today revolve increasingly around multiple causes, such as environmental protection, gender equality, food safety, corruption, and so forth. How do we understand the citizenship of weibo users in imagined micro communities? Th is is a much-debated question in academic circles. In his Citizenship and Social Class,9 T. H. Marshall classified citizenship as a combination of membership and rights, where citizenship includes civil rights, political rights, and social rights. The key elements of a citizen are made up of necessary rights, which include personal liberty, freedom of speech, freedom of thought and religion, the right to own property and effectively establish covenants, and civil justice. From a political point of view, a citizen is a member of or a voter within a political entity who has the right to take part in exercising political power. From a social point of view, citizens hold a set of rights, including the right to enjoy a certain degree of economic benefits and safety, the right to fully enjoy social heritage, the right to live a civilized life that meets current social standards, and so forth.

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According to Marshall, although these three types of rights overlap, they developed within different historical periods and had their roots in specific institutions. Citizenship rights primarily developed during the eighteenth century and were safeguarded by the legal courts. Political rights can be linked to the nineteenth century and the development of the parliament and local councils. Social rights mostly have their origins in the twentieth century and the establishment of educational institutions and public social ser vice systems. Institutions designed to safeguard civic rights undoubtedly cleared up the relationship between citizenship and the state. However, in practice there is a huge chasm between institutions and people. We thus need to reexamine citizenship in reference to both the state and society. Engin Isin of the Open University, UK, defined citizenship as follows: “As a matter of fact citizenship does not refer to membership, even though it has been construed as political or state membership. . . . It is also not a combination of rights.” In Isin’s view, “The substance of citizenship exists in relationships and elsewhere. It is a mode of struggle and must be further defined from this angle.”10 Isin thus posits that citizenship, as well as the boundaries of identity recognition, are constantly changing. These transformations can be provoked by changes to the physical spaces in which people are situated or by changes in emotions, values, religions, thoughts, and so forth. The liquidity of identity recognition has triggered the blurring of power boundaries and has extended the time and space of rights, but it has also brought about a change in people’s psychology and feelings of insecurity. Further, it has given rise to questions of “Who am I?” and has increased the demand for self-identification. This leads to the relationship between institutional arrangements and citizens’ moral practices teetering between control and anti-control. While tense relationships arise between rights and obligations, differentiation and equality, exclusion and inclusion, theory and practice, space and time, and so forth, there is also an intriguing tension between determining and not determining intersubjectivity. This tension and the source of power in China’s state and society relations are both related to the inter-powers game.

New Media Empowerment In recent years, China has witnessed the rise of weibo, WeChat, and other new media technology. The expression and action space created by Weibo

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means that as a burgeoning method for communicating information, especially with the strong support of mobile network infrastructure, weibo rapidly enters people’s daily lives, changes and remolds social relations and social order and has a significant impact on society’s transformation. However, up until now no one has clarified the internal core and driving force behind the changes and remolding of social relations and the social order. In 2011, while working with other scholars to analyze village e-commerce, the first author saw directly the impact of technology empowerment on China’s rural regions and began to explore the relationship between citizens and social structures from the perspective of new media empowerment. New media empowerment can be understood in two ways: first, as a social media orientation that dissects the current social structure and social relations and that is in the process of changing the power structure of society. Second, new media empowerment can be seen as media socialization that is in the process of reconstructing social relations and social structures. The most important characteristic of new media technology is its continued innovation and integration of interactive functions. In some sense, it is a type of time extension, capable of exceeding our daily imagination and creating miracles in people’s daily lives in a new time and space. New media empowerment raises the following questions: Whose power is this? To whom does this power apply? From where does new media empowerment derive its power? There are three categories of new media empowerment, namely, selfempowerment, community empowerment, and organizational empowerment. With regard to individuals and organizations, new media empowerment can be broadly defined as the extent to which an individual or organization can increase its autonomy and independence. Self-empowerment is a process that leads from less power to more power. Self-empowerment derives from awareness and improvement of self-consciousness and self-ability. It requires people to continue learning, perceiving, and experiencing and to resist submissive knowledge, namely, consciousness of one’s own loneliness and fear. Civic media can be understood as part of a new type of media ecosystem in which media are created not by professionals but by regular citizens. Community empowerment is constructed in a virtual Internet space that is comparatively distant both from society’s original power structure and from the foundation produced by society integration and social capital. Much spatial imagination and rejuvenation has been launched as a result of community empowerment. In addition, the foundation for organizational empowerment

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has been formed. Organizational empowerment includes e-government, e-commerce, e-philanthropy, and e-civil society. Although e-government, e-commerce, and e-philanthropy primarily draw from society’s existing organizational structures and power, the boundaries of these organizations are blurry. These boundaries consequently become a field of struggle for organizational empowerment. New media empowerment is reflected primarily in information, expression, and action. First, it gives us the authority to obtain information such as through access to social media and interactions with other Internet users. Second, discussions and debates are formed in contexts in which plural information can be obtained. Public expression has become a possibility. Third, expression itself is an action. The actions emphasized here are those that combine both the expression of actions and concrete actions. Ordinary people are able to obtain power through the ability to discover and resolve issues. New media empowerment provides a space for everyone with a sense of freedom of movement and of thought, a tone of constant vigilance, and a vision of guarding society. It is an environment in which thoughts can roam freely and individuals can question power and dominant ideologies. Communication on weibo and WeChat reminds us that we still have the ability to think, rethink, and reflect. Such examination and questioning awakens self-awareness. In the context of new media empowerment, the mutual interlocking of subjects requires power to be exercised in broad daylight and with a degree of transparency, openness, responsibility, and credibility. Only in this way can one obtain the support of members of society and fulfi ll the promise of governance. In addition, new media empowerment has made unprecedented forms of social action possible and has fostered the creation of novel methods of social mobilization and governance. Public Internet spaces have remolded people’s perspectives and generated new forms of critical awareness. Social actors are not hesitant to use language to change this world. Journalist Deng Fei, for example, has taken advantage of new media to kick-start various initiatives aimed at promoting social support and civic charity, such as the “Free Lunch” program and the “Critical Illness Insurance Program.” There are multiple layers to the role new media plays in fostering social movements and collective action. First, new media provide a platform for advocating and mobilizing society in support of various forms of charity, philanthropy, and activism. Second, new media function as both a theoretical and an operational tool, a space for both critical thinking and action. Third,

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new media induce changes in laws and public policies by fostering public debate. Specifically, they can activate social capital, redeploy social resources, and create momentum for public communication, all of which are crucial for the implementation of ideas. There exists an active and passive relationship in new media empowerment. Technological empowerment gives those individuals, communities, and organizations seeking change a space in which to kick-start and develop their initiative. This simultaneously results in those communities who do not wish to change having no alternative but to change.

Empowerment Tools We might think of new media as tools of empowerment. An empowerment tool can be a form of technology, a device, a tactic, a medium, or some type of knowledge. Empowerment tools possess the following characteristics: first, the availability of diverse communication channels, including communication channels; second, the ability to propagate knowledge; third, communication feedback mechanisms, which have iterative effects on content production and reproduction; fourth, the technical capability to inject user experience and other forms of knowledge directly into production and reproduction mechanisms. A core feature of new media is the speed of communication. Speed provides communicators and content with unlimited possibilities for propagation. Feedback has become a driving force of communication. Recommunication occurs as content is amended and repropagated by its receivers, transforming them into producers. An empowerment tool can be used to commercial ends by giving consumers a role in production to achieve profits. Consumers and producers enter into a social relationship, forming a social supply chain around personal interest and values. Business profits are just one link in this chain. Some groups and people have yet to recognize the importance of empowerment tools. They seek to transform the political system, rely on a mechanical model of initiating change. Netizens, on the other hand, possess self-empowerment tools. Many netizens are motivated by public interest and social issues. They seek to craft community empowerment tools through public discussions and debates and to use these tools to make changes in public policies. Empowerment tools provide a source of new ideas for social change. People use words, sounds, and images to connect and relate with one another

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(see Svensson, chapter 2 in this volume on the importance of images on weibo). Novel thoughts and ideas will become a type of resource. Online opinion leaders appear in this process. Their experiences and opinions then affect other people’s knowledge as well as the production of symbols.11 Tools do not automatically empower people. It is often a matter of people creatively appropriating existing tools for self-empowerment. Although social media and microblogging platforms are the most influential and most popu lar technologies of communication today, twenty or fi fteen years ago, when electronic bulletin board systems (BBS) were the main form of new media technologies, citizens embraced them for public expression just as enthusiastically.

Self-Redemption In the context of new media empowerment, research into state and society relations indicates that experience is extremely important. Conflict and struggles regarding the process of citizenship are still primary motivators for public discussions and debates. As we show in the case studies later in this chapter, these discussions and debates provide a context for establishing personal space and achieving self-empowerment. New media empowerment has made it possible for people to liberate themselves. Faced with a changing society, the question has become, “What should we do?” Nothing will be achieved by solely relying on praying and waiting. We should take action. An individual life is but a moment in time. A life that waits to pursue goals has no future. Redemption is achieved through our actions. Since the end of 2012, public accounts on WeChat have mushroomed, causing a new wave in social media. This has further transformed the production and communication mechanisms of traditional media content and stirred up the communications ecosystem. The fi rst half of 2013 was an important moment in Chinese media as television ratings and advertising revenues fell sharply while citizen media, sometimes called we-media based on Dan Gillmore’s 2004 book We the Media, grew, expanded, and developed. Faced with this media transformation, people working within traditional media began to set up their own we-media for practical ends. Currently, members of the traditional media community who have set up we-media primarily fall into three categories. The first category encompasses

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those who are adept at using empowerment tools, such as Ming Chen of Filter Film (Lvjingfeilin), Luping Yue of 1001zen, Baoyin Cao of CAOTV, and Zhibiao Song of Old News Review (Jiuwenpinglun). Artists are the most sensitive to media methods, and in a certain sense, Luping Yue, whose background is in traditional Chinese painting, is dedicated to the media environment. In fact, Luping Yue was the first to propose the concept of empowerment tools. In comparison, many others who work within traditional media still have a limited understanding of this concept. The individuals within the group to which Luping Yue belongs have a passion for we-media, as if we-media tapped into their penchant for constant action and change. Once they started, they never stopped. Although their approaches to we-media are different, their efforts to communicate content are similar. The second category of people generally consists of exceptional media journalists who still deeply value the production of content. They make many sacrifices and work slowly based on the belief that this will result in the best work. They are intensely dedicated to the journalistic ethic of objectivity and have strong opinions about news reporting and professionalism. They approach writing with a high degree of confidence and meticulously investigate and refi ne their work. They appear to be lonely even in an environment of lively public opinions. Among them, there are those who are already aware that the transformation of the media industry cannot be reversed, but they show themselves as heroic resisters. The third category includes those in media who are in the process of transforming. Although they identify with the development trends of we-media and have in fact begun operating we-media, they are still in internal conversation with themselves regarding the pros and cons of a full adaptation. There is still much room for improvement in terms of their use of communication channels and empowerment tools. In the past, people in traditional media hoped to achieve their ideals and ambitions through media. Many have now abandoned traditional media in favor of Internet organizations and other forms of new media.

Using the Internet for Relief Efforts After the Wenchuan Earthquake An earthquake of magnitude 8.0 on the Richter scale hit Wenchuan in Sichuan Province at 2:28 p.m., May 12, 2008. This was one of the deadliest quakes in China since the great Tangshan earthquake in 1976. The Chinese government

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provided open, timely, and extensive coverage of the earthquake and the rescue efforts. About half an hour after the quake, the news channels of CCTV began to provide live, around-the-clock coverage of the earthquake and the rescue efforts. From May 12 to May 24, CCTV’s news channel alone aired 260.5 hours of live coverage, averaging 21.7 hours daily.12 Internet coverage was also open, timely, and made extensive use of audio and visual formats such as digital images and videos. CCTV.com, for example, published 15,100 news items, 6,700 images, and 6,529 video stories from May 12 to May 23, averaging 21.7 hours daily.13 In addition to extensive coverage in its special earthquake section, sina.com.cn provided around-theclock rolling news feeds. Citizens responded to the disaster just as quickly as the government. Many individuals made donations or traveled to Chengdu to join relief work immediately after the quake. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) around the nation were mobilized on the same day as the earthquake. A remarkable synergy between the state and the society appeared. Media openness was essential for citizen participation. The Internet proved to be a particularly important channel of information and communication. According to a national survey of 523 respondents conducted by Tsinghua University on June 1, 2008, the Internet was the most important channel of information during the earthquake, followed closely by television.14 On the day of the earthquake, Tianya.cn, a popular online community, launched an online fund-raising project in partnership with four other major websites and Jet Li’s One Foundation. By noon, May 15, 2008, the project had raised RMB 24 million (US$3.5 million) for disaster relief. The day after the earthquake, several environmental and educational NGOs in Beijing initiated a “Green Ribbon” campaign. Their members and volunteers fanned out in the streets in fund-raising and blood drives. On the same day, fift yseven NGOs issued a joint statement calling for concerted disaster relief efforts among all NGOs. Also on May 13, fift y-one other civic groups jointly established an office in Chengdu to coordinate NGO relief activities. Much of the civic mobilization was done through websites, mailing lists, blogs, and online communities. For example, ngocn.org, a major information hub for Chinese NGOs, set up a special bulletin board for the NGO relief office in Chengdu to post announcements and relief-related information. The remarkable level of public participation in communication and mobilization was partly due to relaxed political control during a national crisis.

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It was also the outcome of more than a decade of civil society development in China since the mid-1990s.15

Microblogging to Counter Human Trafficking The “counter-human-trafficking through weibo” (weibo daguai, WBDG) movement originated from the successful rescuing in 2011 of an abducted child with the help of the well-known journalist Deng Fei.16 Th is case increased public awareness of the issue of human trafficking and the possibility of using weibo to fi nd leads about lost children. Subsequently, Yu Jianrong, an influential public intellectual active on weibo, started a “Take a Photo, Save a Child” campaign on weibo.17 He posted messages on weibo calling on people to use photography as a way of rescuing child beggars in the street. Other influential weibo users such as Xue Manzi, Li Kaifu, and Yao Chen joined in.18 Thus began the counter-human-trafficking campaign on weibo. It gained velocity as numerous netizens and volunteers responded to Yu Jianrong’s appeal. To a certain degree, WBDG was coordinated with the official campaign to crack down on human trafficking. A national counter-human-trafficking campaign was already under way with the sponsorship of the Ministry of Public Security and the Ministry of Justice.19 A key reason why WBDG was an instant success lies in the government’s responsiveness and supportive policies. Thus soon after the movement started, a senior official in the Ministry of Public Security who had been following the campaign enforced measures to show government support. Many local police departments began to tweet and retweet information about human trafficking. The Ministry of Public Security coordinated a nationwide counter-human-trafficking network of local public security bureaus and cracked down on criminal gangs. More than eight thousand children were rescued in 2011 alone.20 An important condition for the success of this case was the rapid growth of weibo and the presence of Internet opinion leaders with large followings on weibo. The year 2010 was probably the golden age of Sina Weibo, when it witnessed exponential growth and came to dominate the microblogging market in China. From March to June 2010, the number of monthly visits to Sina Weibo increased from 71.64 million to 211.95 million. By the end of 2010, just one year after its launching, Sina Weibo already had 60 million users who posted an average of 25 million messages daily.21

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This period of fast growth coincided with the appearance of large numbers of celebrities and public intellectuals on weibo, who quickly built enormous followings with their active online discussions. Among these were Deng Fei, Yu Jianrong, and Xue Manzi (Charles Xue), who all played important roles in the online counter-human-trafficking campaign. The use of online photography was a distinct feature of this case. Yu Jianrong’s call for netizens to “take a photo, save a child” had an instant appeal, partly because taking and uploading photographs were already everyday practices on social media. Combining an everyday practice with a civic cause added appeal to Yu’s call. Netizens quickly showed their support by taking photographs of child beggars in the streets and posting them online for others to help identify the children. They also forwarded posts on human trafficking issues to raise public awareness, such as stories from parents of missing children.22

Charity and New Media Empowerment Our last two cases concern charity. Both show that the development of civil society in China is not dominated by any one party, but is made possible by the efforts of many people and institutions. The first case is the Warmfund project. Warmfund.org is a nonprofit organization set up by a group of business people in the fields of investment, IT, public relations, consultancy, and so forth. They hope to use this as a platform to promote online charity in China. Users can freely register to set up a warm fund. Whenever a registered user make a purchase through Warmfund’s online partners (such as taobao.com and dangdang.com), he or she can designate a beneficiary (such as children from poor families or schools in earthquake areas), and anywhere from 1 percent to 5 percent of the price of the purchase will be used for a designated charity project. The Warmfund website thus combines consumption with charity and helps to promote the cause of charity. The website makes good use of the interactive functions of social media. It has an online forum (bbs.warmfund.org) and a group account on the popular SNS site douban.com, as well as an online newsletter. These are used to provide up-to-date information to donors about their charity projects. In reality, many people may be interested in participating in charity projects but may lack the resources to do it. Many grassroots organizations lack resources. The use of social media helps reduce costs for these resource-poor grassroots

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organizations without hurting their capacities to publicize their projects and increase their social influence, credibility, and legitimacy. The second case is about the development of the China Peace Foundation (anping jijin), which is a project of the Center for Public Communication and Social Development at Peking University. The foundation was set up in November 2013 as a secondary organization under the China Foundation for Poverty Alleviation. China Peace Foundation is dedicated to promoting public charity and public communication in China. The foundation provides training to journalists and nonprofit charity organizations, conducts research, and promotes social media communication for the cause of charity. It has also set up a journalism award after the model of the Pulitzer Prize to promote journalism and public communication. Although still young, the story of China Peace Foundation contains several lessons for understanding civil society and public communication in China. One lesson is the importance of forming a community of people with shared values in different professional fields. The supporters of China Peace Foundation include journalists, scholars, business entrepreneurs, internet companies, artists, lawyers, and so forth. For example, Mr. He Xuefeng, who played an instrumental role in the launching of the foundation, is an influential journalist in the liberal-oriented newspaper Southern Metropolis. It is through communication that such a community is built. Once the community is in shape, it generates social capital, which becomes a crucial resource for action. Another lesson is the importance of trust, unity, and understanding in the process of taking action, as well as the importance of professionalization. Finally, this story shows the possibility of both self-empowerment and organizational empowerment in an age of social media revolution and social change. It shows that bottom-up efforts and top-down initiatives may be combined to produce social change in China. Of course, many scholars and practitioners encounter obstacles in their work and may have a sense of powerlessness. But empowerment rather than powerlessness is the central message of this chapter. We hope this chapter has shown that new media provides much-needed tools for empowerment under these circumstances.

CHAPTER 4

The Privilege of Speech and New Media: Conceptualizing China’s Communications Law in the Internet Age Rogier Creemers

Even though Article 35 of the Chinese Constitution theoretically guarantees the freedom of speech, it is well known that in practice, speech in China can be very costly. Few legal norms protect expression against state intervention. Rather, the majority of rules governing expression permit specific actors to engage in specific activities within a specific scope, on a conditional basis. Speech, therefore, is not a right but a privilege; it is not an entitlement granted on the basis of equality before the law but a power granted on the basis of particularity. For traditional media, this structure was buttressed by modes of regulation that fragmented communication flows in an environment where technological and logistic thresholds to mass distribution of content were high. By imposing strict licensing requirements on every segment of the communication value chain and strong requirements on professional participation in the media sector, as well as by supplementing state authority with Party discipline, a mostly harmonious public discourse environment was created. This chapter explores the conceptual architecture of this notion of privileged speech, and analyzes how the changes brought by the Internet have led to a search for regulatory and technical ways to ensure its continued existence. It is no longer sufficient to merely monitor a relatively small and manageable number of easily identifiable producers of public information. Instead, hundreds of millions of individual citizens have gained easy access to communication tools that allow them to publish information and orga nize in ways

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that had been nearly impossible earlier. This has fueled a wave of new legislation, regulation, and institutional change at different levels and across different sectors, aimed at imposing new means of control and maintain the privileged speech model. First, this chapter briefly sketches the development of speech privileges in twentieth-century China. Second, it describes the evolution of the regulatory structure for the Internet in two phases. In the first phase, in the early 2000s, online content regulation was largely an extension of the censorship and control regime for traditional media. Yet as information technologies and business models evolved and matured, the traditional model no longer sufficed to maintain control. Third, it discusses the relationship between the reassertion of state control of the Internet and broader questions of political reform after the ascension of Xi Jinping.

Privileged Speech and Traditional Media Free speech has never been an explicit and consistently implemented element of Chinese law. While printing and theater thrived, there are numerous incidences of censorship and severe punishment of authors who challenged the legitimacy of the ruling dynasty,1 or contravened Confucian orthodoxy.2 Still, the small imperial bureaucracy was unable to centralize governance over printing, resulting in fluid and ad hoc forms of governing the circulation of information. Mass media arrived in the nineteenth century, in the form of privately owned newspapers in the treaty ports. As time went by, modernizing voices turned to these new media to challenge the regime and propose alternative paths for modernization.3 In response, the dynasty sometimes revoked postal distribution privileges or confiscated printing equipment.4 After the abortive Hundred Days Reform of 1898, all private newspapers were prohibited.5 Even so, the success of newspapers had demonstrated the necessity for better political communication, and the court started supporting official newspapers. A few years later, legal provisions were introduced for the print and newspaper industries,6 which aimed to balance the potential for commercial and political utility with the limitation of dissonant voices. Even so, a draft constitutional outline provided for freedom of speech within the scope of the law.7 After the fall of the empire, the hasty process to draft a new constitution for the fledgling republic resulted in a quite liberal document, which explicitly stated that the people had the freedom of speech, writing, and publishing,

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and narrowly circumscribed the potential legal limitations.8 Idealistic as it was, this new arrangement rapidly broke apart and came under the control of local military strongmen. Even though free speech had become one of the central appeals of modernizing intellectuals,9 the Guomindang party (GMD) had recognized that political objectives could not be achieved without discipline. Its modernization foresaw three stages: military revolution, political tutelage, and only then constitutional government.10 After the GMD took national power in 1927, it built a Leninist party-state with censorship boards and licensing obligations for fi lms, radio, publications, and newspapers,11 presaging the current PRC censorship system. Control of the domestic media landscape was combined with increasing efforts to expunge foreign voices, through import restrictions and technical means. Echoing the later Great Firewall, the GMD jammed the signal of radio stations broadcasting from the foreign concessions in Shanghai. While the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the GMD had formed a united front in an effort to unify China, the GMD turned on the Communists after the capture of Shanghai. Asserting that the Guomindang was a reactionary regime that suppressed the scientific truth of Marxism, the CCP proclaimed it would safeguard the right to free speech. The 1931 constitution for the Soviet base areas stipulated that workers, peasants, and toiling masses enjoyed the freedom to speak, publish, and assemble, and that material support to fulfill these freedoms would be provided.12 In practice, even these selective aspirations were rarely implemented. Starting in 1942, Mao led a rectification and thought reform campaign, tightening Party discipline and eliminating contenders to power.13 Folk arts were enlisted to provide educational examples of Socialist life to the predominantly rural population, while newspapers became tools for propaganda, mobilization, and political organization.14 Discipline was facilitated by the scarcity of publishing equipment and books, allowing for close control over printed information. However, another communication channel had emerged: the large character poster or dazibao. These posters made it possible for political ideas to be circulated outside of the official scope of Party media, to signal problems or provide a channel for self-expression where no others were available.15 Dazibao reflected a quandary between assumptions in CCP ideology and the complexity of social reality. The Party held that political wisdom and insight is found among the masses, while making no accommodation for differences in interests or preferences. Th is tension was moderated by the doctrine of contradictions, which Mao first mooted in 1937,16 proposing that

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historical development is driven by the synthesis of opposing social forces. The doctrine was further refi ned in a 1957 speech,17 which identified two kinds of contradictions: antagonistic contradictions that could not be resolved and contradictions among the people, which include the contradictions between different groups of the people, as well as between the people and government. In Mao’s view, the former category of contradictions required the elimination of those social forces inimical to the socialist project, while the latter category could be resolved through democratic centralism, the deliberation of a single correct Party line on the basis of open discussion. How open that discussion could be was highly dependent on the political mood of the moment. In 1955, a campaign was launched against a writer, Hu Feng, who had protested against Maoist literary policy. However, Mao’s 1957 speech seemed to open up more space, by explicitly sanctioning intellectual criticism against the Party. In particular, Mao indicated that, in order to resolve contradictions of the people, it was necessary to “let a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools contend” (baihuaqifang baijazhengming). This meant that criticism would be allowed, as long as it was beneficial to the CCP project. The response against the newfound openness did not, however, confirm this self-confidence, as countless articles and dazibao denounced Party rule. Whether Mao initially was sincere in his criticism or set out to deliberately entrap his opponents remains a matter of debate. In any case, a revised version of his speech was published that reversed his previous position.18 The subsequent anti-rightist campaign cracked down against outspoken voices, and the power of dazibao was harnessed by a new political concept: the Four Great Freedoms (sida), which were the freedoms to speak out, air views, hold debates, and write dazibao. In reality, however, these freedoms were used mostly to mobilize the masses and denounce political opponents, not to publish contrarian or critical opinions. The use of dazibao peaked during the Cultural Revolution. In the resolution announcing the Cultural Revolution, the politburo stated: “We must fully use the forms of large-character posters and great debates, and engage in full airing of views, so that the masses elaborate correct viewpoints, criticize mistaken opinions and expose all cow ghosts and snake spirits. Only in this way can the broad masses raise their consciousness through struggle, grow their ability, differentiate right and wrong, and clearly distinguish enemies and ourselves.”19 The subsequent surge of pro-Mao dazibao would continue until his death in 1976. In 1975, the Four Great Freedoms were entered into the new constitution. Critical dazibao were sometimes written but could lead

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to dire consequences. A well-known example was “On Socialist Democracy and the Legal System,” a twenty-thousand-word article posted in Guangzhou in 1974. It was cowritten by three young men under the pen name Li Yizhe and called for a socialist legal system, democracy, and human rights. They were imprisoned.20 Dazibao again played an important role in the post-Mao transition. In Beijing, the Democracy Wall movement led thousands to post dazibao. At fi rst, these attacked the Cultural Revolution and the Gang of Four. Deng Xiaoping, who would emerge from this struggle as the CCP’s paramount leader, seemed to condone this movement at first.21 However, after the leadership of the Party and Deng’s position were called into question, he cracked down. Critical writers were arrested, Beijing instituted regulations prohibiting bill posting in nondesignated spaces, 22 the new criminal law imposed prison sentences on those who used dazibao for defamatory purposes,23 and, in 1980, dazibao were removed from the constitution.24 The pragmatic Deng Xiaoping would no longer condone spontaneous public or intellectual participation in government affairs, in order to prevent the self-destruction of the Cultural Revolution and the free-for-all of the Hundred Flowers Movement. Yet the early 1980s saw a relatively open political atmosphere, leading to the proliferation of a wide range of semiofficial publications, often enabled by the introduction of marketization into the media landscape.25 A wave of protests in 1986 heralded a hardening of political lines and led to the ouster of liberal Party General Secretary Hu Yaobang. Party conservatives blamed the protests on ideological laxity and initiated the Anti-Bourgeois Liberalization Campaign. As part of this, all print businesses had to reapply for licenses,26 and a centralized administrative department for the print sector was established. Even before these directives were implemented, however, the media were caught up in the protests of 1989. As splits between the top leadership became increasingly visible, media guidance weakened and a number of newspapers sided with the protesters’ demands. After the violent crackdown, the Party blamed the unrest, among other things, on the loss of its dominant voice, peaceful evolution efforts by foreign hostile powers, particularly the United States, and a reactionary Chinese diaspora.27 Nearly immediately, the Central Committee started a comprehensive restructuring of media regulation. Successive measures implemented strict licensing requirements for all segments of the media production and distribution chain.28 The result was a regulatory structure that imposed duties and obligations on the basis of strict

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categorization. For example, the press sector was rigidly divided in par ticular categories of newspapers and journals, each with their own permitted scope of distribution, each being obliged to operate solely within the content scope as determined at the time of their registration, and to control content.29 Mass newspapers, with large potential audiences, faced stronger censorship requirements than academic journals did. Regional newspapers could not report on matters outside their own regions without higher-level approval, or be distributed outside their own administrative areas. Furthermore, the leadership maintained control over personnel appointments and qualifications. The chief task of this system was to ensure dominance of the official voice and the prevention of organized resistance. The intentional fragmentation of the media landscape was intended to forestall the emergence of dissent across geographical, industrial, or social boundaries. It was maintained through control over the expensive equipment needed to produce and disseminate content, and incentive structures designed to ensure that media personnel toed the politically acceptable line. Certainly, the reform era brought profound change to the circumstances for public discourse. Ideological and moral constraints relaxed, the range of available content expanded and the heavy hand of politics was removed from large swathes of the economy, science and technology. However, this was no paradigm shift: the core aspects of Party control over doctrine, the teleological nature of political discourse, the monopoly over philosophical and moral truth, and the power of final arbitration remained the same.

Maintaining Privilege on the Internet China’s Internet governance structure has developed in tandem with technological, social, and commercial developments. The development of this structure can be roughly divided into two stages. During the first stage, the Internet was mainly considered as an alternative traditional publication platform. Consequently, the existing regulatory model for written and audiovisual media was expanded to include the Internet with relatively few modifications. Institutionally, this meant traditional media regulators broadened their portfolio to include online media. As most Internet enterprises were private, rather than state-owned, supplementary forms of control were developed as well, notably self-discipline through sector organizations. During this phase, regulation predominantly focused on the role and obligations of

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Internet ser vice providers (ISPs) and Internet content providers (ICPs), as well as commercial surfing venues such as Internet cafés.

Phase 1: The Internet as a New Publishing Platform

Trials with international data communications networks started in the late 1980s. Over the next decade, Chinese institutions, mainly academic research centers, connected to a number of international networks. The first regulatory documents mostly focused either on technical standards or systems security. By the end of the 1990s, however, technology and the user base had developed to the point where the transmission of audiovisual content had become possible, and information services such as forums and BBSs had become popu lar. The State Administration of Radio Film and Television (SARFT) was the first department to impose content-related rules on online activities: in October 1999, it promulgated regulations that obliged audiovisual media providers to obtain licenses. These licenses were restricted to Chinese companies or individuals, and content was limited to programs produced or broadcast by Chinese radio and television channels.30 The next years saw the development of a regulatory structure that rested predominantly on three major pillars: management by government departments through administrative licensing and punishment, self-discipline through industrial associations, and the development of specific aspects of criminal law to deal with particular forms of online crime.

Licensing

A few months after the first document, SARFT issued detailed rules on which companies could distribute online audiovisual media.31 Licenses would be valid three years, with the added obligation of passing an annual inspection. SARFT also compiled a catalogue of specific programs that could be disseminated online. In September 2000, the state council published comprehensive regulations that governed all categories of online information ser vices. Commercial online ser vices had to obtain licenses, and noncommercial services were required to register with government authorities. The regulations also required specific licenses for activities including news and publishing, and providers offering such ser vices were required to maintain records both

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of information supplied and user access.32 Subsequent rules on online news distribution appointed the State Council Information Office (SCIO) in charge of online news management. Only existing central and provincial-level news organizations were permitted to apply for an online news license, while other websites could only reprint information generated by these organizations. Even then, they had to obtain a license, and the necessary personnel to respond to government departments’ instructions in real time. By 2004, the plethora of licensing for different activities under different ministries had created a regulatory Gordian knot. In response, the Central Committee and the Ministry of the Information Industry (MII) respectively published secret documents, the “Opinions Concerning Further Strengthening Internet Management Work” and corresponding implementation regulations.33 While these documents are still unavailable to the public, their content can be derived from subsequent administrative regulations. Internet businesses were divided into five categories: Internet-controlling departments (MII and its provincial subordinates); preliminary examination and approval departments (departments such as SARFT that had specific licensing powers); content management departments (again including departments such as SARFT, but also the SCIO); public interest Internet access ser vice providers (noncommercial access providers requiring top-level Internet access for military, scientific, or technological purposes); and company registration departments (central and provincial administrations of industry and commerce).34 Licensing obligations were not only imposed on websites, but also on Internet access venues. As computers remained unaffordable to many Chinese citizens, Internet cafés became popular. This popularity also brought concerns about their moral influence on the young, particularly with regard to obscenity and video gaming, as well as the fact that they might allow for anonymity. Consequently, licenses for Internet cafés were introduced in 2001.35 Licensing criteria grew stricter subsequently: Internet cafés were required to register customers’ identities and valid ID documents, and install specialized management software onto their computers.36 Furthermore, access to certain professional positions was made subject to professional qualification requirements.37

Self-Regulation and Industrial Associations

The Internet presented regulators with a problem of coordination: online activity would involve many different actors from the party-state constellation,

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as well as burgeoning private players. The solution was the establishment of a sector organization, providing additional means of management through self-regulation. 38 The Internet Society of China (ISC) was founded in May 2001, with a mandate to unite enterprises, academic groups, and publicservice organizations in the Internet sector; coordinate communication between the sector and the government; raise Internet technology levels; guide users in using the Internet in a healthy manner; participate in international exchange and the research of international standards; and support the role of the Internet in China’s social and economic development, as well as the construction of a socialist spiritual society. 39 The regulatory power of the ISC is manifested through self-regulatory conventions. While few regulatory documents explicitly refer to these conventions, they have become a de facto soft requirement to pass annual examination, as membership to and implementation of such conventions are considered satisfactory operating practices by licensing authorities. The first important ISC document provided broad norms for self-regulation and professional ethics for the entire Internet sector. It included matters such as fair competitive practices and the protection of consumers’ rights and personal data protection, but also the dissemination of harmful information that might threaten social stability.40 This convention was supplemented by more detailed documents aimed at specific sectors. In December 2003, the ISC issued a self-discipline convention for online news ser vices, in which online news websites committed to safeguard the interest of the country and the entire sector, “hold high the banner of patriotism . . . forcefully carry forward the excellent cultural traditions of the Chinese nation and Socialist morality, and become an important battlefield for the dissemination of advanced culture.” 41 Respective conventions prohibiting obscene content on general websites and search engines came into force in 2004.42 The latter obliged search engines to report websites with offending content. Another convention, concerning online copyright, was published in 2005.43 As blog ser vices became increasingly popu lar, self-disciplinary measures were imposed on ser vice providers as well. They were required to provide sufficient blog management personnel and to contractually oblige users to abide by state laws and regulations, and to use the network in a civilized manner. They were prohibited from disseminating unlawful or harmful information or disseminating rumors.44 Apart from the formal self-disciplinary conventions, online media have published statements of intent ad hoc. In August 2006, for example, repre-

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sentatives of leading Internet companies gathered in Zunyi, a town famous for a decisive leadership conference during the Long March in the 1930s. In this city, where Mao Zedong took over command of the Red Army, the online media pledged to carry forward the spirit of the Long March, correctly guide public opinion, run the Internet in a civilized manner, and serve social harmony, modernization, and development.45 This declaration came in the wake of an ongoing “civilized Internet” campaign that cracked down on vulgar and pornographic information.46 The combination of licensing obligations and self-discipline commitments created a regulatory structure that embodies the increasingly intricate envelope for permitted speech. Par ticular forms of communication are permitted, and even encouraged, as made clear by stock phrases in high-level Internet-related documents, which frame par ticu lar measures in terms of their contribution to economic development, social stability, and the creation of a healthy and thriving Internet industry. Internet operators are thus permitted to deploy online activities and derive income, but only after careful vetting and continuous inspections. Failure to comply may result in the withdrawal of operational permission, and in the case of professional individuals, a prohibition to continue working in the sector, incentivizing selfcensorship. This seems sufficient to manage most Internet ser vices, most of the time. Still, criminal liability has expanded for online activities, including both political acts and dissemination of information, such as obscenity and child pornography, that is criminalized in jurisdictions worldwide.

Online Crime

While many speech-related offences, such as subversion, were already part of the criminal law before the advent of the Internet, explicit criminal liability for Internet-related activities was introduced in 2000, when the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee issued a resolution on Internet safety. This decision expanded criminal liability to (1) activities related to network security, such as national-security-related computer hacking, the creation of computer viruses, and impeding the function of computer networks; (2) political activities such as spreading rumors, inciting subversion or opposition to the regime, inciting ethnic hatred, and—in the wake of the Falun Gong crackdown—the organization of heretic sects; (3) commercial activities such as selling counterfeit or inferior goods, damaging business

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reputations, copyright infringement, and spreading information to disrupt financial markets; and (4) personal-rights-related activities such as defamation, interception of personal communications, and blackmail. Furthermore, the decision ordered public security organs to punish other acts not yet covered by the criminal law under administrative public order management regulations.47 Successive Judicial Interpretations by the Supreme People’s Court (SPC) regulated the implementation of these opinions and related criminal law provisions. In 2004, the SPC introduced quantitative thresholds for the online dissemination of obscene audiovisual products, as well as the use of chat rooms, forums, and instant messaging software to publicize such materials.48 A revision of this interpretation in 2010 expanded criminal liability to operators providing technical support, advertising, and payment ser vices.49 In 2011, in tandem with the revision of the copyright law to better fit the needs of the Internet, the SPC published specific procedural standards for the criminal prosecution of online copyright infringement and piracy.50

Phase 2: Institutional Change and a Focus on Individual Users

As the 2000s progressed, the publications management paradigm became less appropriate for China’s burgeoning Internet. The Internet user base expanded greatly and shifted in demographic terms. The number of Internet users grew from 60 million in 2002 to nearly 600 million in 2013. While the absolute majority of Internet users in 2002 belonged to the well-educated, urban middle class, the proportion of rural Internet users has risen to about 28 percent in 2013, while more than two-thirds of users had no tertiary education.51 In terms of income, more than a third of Internet users in 2013 earned less than 1,000 yuan per month or were unemployed. Technological developments and the advent of inexpensive smartphones have enabled users to generate more information and broadened access: mobile devices are now the most used means to go online. These often contain cameras, enabling the rapid publication of images or videos, in addition to text. Mobile terminals have also rapidly replaced newspapers and television as the main channel through which news is received. Consequently, the Internet has torn down the barriers fragmenting traditional media, permitting the production and dissemination of content, and patterns of communication and orga nization, in a manner unprecedented in recent Chinese history.

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Perhaps most important, social media eroded the previous monopoly that the party-state enjoyed over the dissemination of facts, among other means through the rapid dissemination of photographs and videos. Sordid revelations of corruption, privilege, and nepotism fostered cynicism and disenchantment, as well as a sense that China was in a deep moral crisis. Stories about tainted food, air pollution, and shoddy infrastructure led to questions about the quality of China’s development, which sharply contrast with the glittering Potemkin pictures that continue to litter the official narrative. In the run-up to the Eighteenth Party Congress, the Bo Xilai scandal and the publication of details about the private assets of top leaders’ relatives eradicated any remaining illusions that the Party elite was united, honest, and clean. The response was a renewed focus on ideological rectitude, as evidenced by a 2011 decision on cultural policy, which announced stricter control over all realms of media and the reassertion of the Party’s dominant voice in the public sphere.52 Not all new media-related concerns were directly connected with issues of high politics. Social media, for instance, enabled Chinese citizens to publish nasty things about not only the government but also about one another. A “black PR” industry arose, which charged money for removing negative information about companies or products or for disparaging competitors. The Internet industry itself was no stranger to questionable competitive practices. In one case, products by Qihoo and Tencent were mutually incompatible and even disabled one another’s functioning.53 Yet political and nonpolitical concerns are often intertwined. The black PR industry is not only retained by commercial enterprises, but also by corrupt officials wishing to avoid Beijing’s spotlight.54 The “human flesh search engine” (renrou sousuo), where Internet users search for and publish information on perceived wrongdoers, has targeted corrupt officials and their privileged relatives, but also cheating spouses.55 These concerns have expanded the focus of new media management from websites and ser vice providers to include individual users. However, the development of tort doctrines concerning online defamation, privacy, or fair trading has been obscured in political discourse by the drive to penalize rumors, maintain harmony and stability in the online sphere, and prevent the loss of the Party’s dominant ideological position. After all the efforts to exclude the masses from the public sphere, the Internet built a virtual new wall for dazibao. Th is fact was not lost on some Party media, who connected the perceived chaos on the Internet with the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution.56

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Lastly, the institutional structure for Internet governance proved inadequate. The problem of overlapping mandates raised administrative burdens on Internet enterprises and reduced governance efficiency. The lack of coordination and overt strife between bureaucratic departments inhibited efficient law enforcement. The speed of online communication meant that information offices required more staff and faster response procedures. Consequently, the outsourcing of regulatory burdens to online operators themselves deepened. In short, the continuing growth and complexity of Internet activities heralded a second phase of governance, which in broad terms encompassed institutional reforms and an increasing attention to the acts of individual users.

Institutional Change

Major institutional changes and innovations occurred both within the partystate structure and Internet enterprises. A first important measure was the establishment of a coordinating group for information security within the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) in 2010.57 Its membership is not known, but membership lists of similar groups at the local level list deputy heads of propaganda, secrecy preservation, economy and trade, education, science and technology, public security, finance, information industry, culture, telecommunications, and radio and television management departments. More publicly, a specialized body, the State Internet Information Office, was established within the SCIO in May 2011. Gradually gaining more powers, it was put in charge of drafting an ongoing revision to the Internet Information Service Management Regulations, its director Lu Wei has been a vocal proponent of stricter Internet management, and it has played an active role in the launch of the 2013 social media crackdown.58 In 2014, it was separated from the SCIO, its English name was changed into the Cyberspace Administration of China, and it was put in charge of overall management of online content. Furthermore, in response to media convergence trends, the decision was made to merge the two main regulators, SARFT and GAPP. The combination of both portfolios was presented as enabling the abolition of a number of overlapping examination and approval procedures, and more effective control over converged media.59 Still, overlaps remain with licensing procedures administered by the Ministry of Culture. Institution building also took place in Internet companies. Sina introduced community self-regulation in its Weibo Community Committees.

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These committees adjudicate in certain cases where weibo posts are flagged as inappropriate. Committees are divided into two categories: normal committees and expert committees. Under provisional rules currently in force, all adult verified active weibo users can apply to join the normal committee, which decides on cases of insults and personal attacks, breach of privacy, impersonating others, content plagiarism, and harassment. The expert committee consists of media scholars and media professionals, and it deals with false information.60 Committees decide on the permissibility of reported content through simple majority voting and parties concerned are allowed to plead their case. Jurisdiction is automatic: all weibo account holders are contractually obliged to accept community committee decisions.61 Punishments for infractions include provisional cessation of posting privileges, deduction of social credit points, and, in severe cases, closure of the user’s account. In December 2013, it was reported that this system had dealt with more than 330,000 cases in total.62 Lastly, new institutions did not only arise to manage information flows, but also to analyze them for policy makers. A particular frontrunner was People.com.cn, the online arm of the People’s Daily, which established a department to monitor public opinion in 2008.63 Th is department publishes a journal, Online Public Opinion, and started publishing reports on public opinion on the Sina and Tencent microblog platforms in 2012. It also provides reports to government departments and state-owned enterprises. An Internet public-opinion-monitoring industry is arising in its wake, which is being increasingly patronized by smaller local government departments.64

Rules Targeting Media Users

The weibo community system is only one example of how Internet users became the focus of regulation. Particular attention was paid to the emergence online opinion leaders, bloggers, and other public intellectuals who were outside the traditional forms of Party governance. In November 2011, the Beijing municipal authorities imposed a mandatory real-name registration system for microblog users. In December 2012, an NPC decision on strengthening data protection rules contained a provision requiring real-name registration for website access ser vices, for online platforms publishing information to the public, for obtaining a fixed or mobile telephone number, and for other means of going online.65 Identity verification formalities were promulgated for

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telephone and telecommunications ser vices in July 2013.66 By then, the majority of Internet-connected devices were mobile. Individual liability for spreading harmful information did not remain confined to administrative regulation. In September 2013, the SPC and Supreme People’s Procuratorate published a judicial interpretation that specified conviction thresholds for the publication of defaming and incorrect information.67 If a piece of defaming information was either viewed five thousand times or reposted five hundred times, criminal liability would apply. Criminal prosecution would also be possible if it resulted in self-harm or suicide by the victim. Furthermore, the interpretation stipulated that consequences such as mass incidents, upset of social order, damage to the national interest or image, or “vile social influences” would trigger a clause empowering procuratorial authorities to initiate cases themselves. Lastly, the interpretation targeted the black PR industry, imposing a minimum prison sentence of five years for offering commercial online information removal ser vices.68 The first arrest under these new rules occurred a week later: a sixteen-year-old boy in Gansu, who had accused the local police of improper conduct.69

Implementation and Enforcement

The content of rules is only one element of a complex process of implementation and enforcement, which is largely dominated by the administration. Courts have a small role to play, except where criminal cases are concerned.70 Unsurprisingly, this results in selective enforcement and bureaucratic issues, where a power to license that is not counterbalanced by general principles of entitlement becomes a commodified currency. One well-known case was Internet gaming, where the Ministry of Culture and GAPP fought a protracted turf war over licensing privileges. As a result, China’s most popu lar online game, World of Warcraft, was shut down for five months.71 Another characteristic of the administrative management model is the use of enforcement campaigns. These top-down campaigns allow for the mobilization of political resources, better coordination between different administrative bodies, and, where necessary, the support of enforcement bodies outside of the Internet management system, such as the police. The flip side of this stress on campaigns is that enforcement may be laxer in periods between them and that campaigns may draw attention away from tasks that are

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not prioritized. Even though they are partly conceived as an educational tool to disseminate knowledge about specific areas of law, the arbitrariness of the campaigns may in fact erode trust in and respect for the broader legal system. Numerous campaigns have been initiated since the advent of mass Internet. Campaigns against obscene information took place in 2004, 2007, and 2010.72 The sale of prohibited products, such as arms, explosives, and narcotics, as well as fake and shoddy goods, came under scrutiny in 2008 and 2011.73 Internet cafés were particularly high-priority targets. In 2002, a clean-up campaign followed after a disastrous fire in an unlicensed venue in Beijing, where twenty-four died, and Internet cafés became consistent targets for campaigns nearly every year since. The restructuring of website registration and management procedures initiated by the aforementioned Central Committee and MII secret documents also started out as an enforcement campaign. Enforcement issues notwithstanding, the party-state has been successful in its main objective: the prevention of organized political opposition that might threaten its rule. It has done so, among other things, by condoning certain forms of political expression that can serve as an expression valve and a superficial expansion of the sphere for public expression, while disallowing overt calls to action.74 This does not mean, however, that the party-state is omnipotent. There have been a number of well-publicized instances where stricter control measures backfired. In May 2009, MIIT ordered the mandatory installation of content control soft ware, Green Dam Youth Escort, on all computers sold in China. It rapidly transpired that this program contained potentially harmful flaws, only functioned on certain operating systems, and was vulnerable to malware. Also, a U.S. soft ware company, Solid Oak, fi led a copyright infringement case in California against the Chinese government and the developer of Green Dam, alleging that the program contained code from its CyberSitter program.75 The initiative was silently withdrawn a few months later. Equally, the real-name registration requirements have been honored more in the breach than in the observance. Strict implementation would be costly for companies involved. Also, advertising revenues depend on audience size, but research suggests that a considerable number of accounts are “zombies.” Consequently, real-name registration would automatically reduce company income.76 At the same time, government departments do not seem to have the inclination to force the matter, although new regulations increasingly incentivize the presence of real-name systems. In defamation cases, for instance, courts can now demand that social media platforms provide defendants’ identities. In a certain sense, large Internet

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enterprises and government departments find themselves in an uneasy coexistence. The shutdown of large popu lar ser vices nationwide might alienate crucial constituencies that the Party needs, while companies themselves remain aware of the necessity to maintain working relationships with government.

Recent Developments, Implications, and Conclusions The recent shift in the focus of Internet governance took place in an increasingly tense political climate, which has not abated under the Xi leadership. In the first days of 2013, the website of the intellectual magazine Yanhuang Chunqiu was temporarily closed, after it had called for the full implementation of China’s constitution in its new year’s message. Alleged tampering with its constitutionalist New Year’s message by provincial censorship authorities triggered protest at the well-known critical Southern Weekend. These turned out to be some of the opening shots of a political thrust for rectification inside the Party and the imposition of discipline among the population. In April 2013, the Central Committee sent a secret document, soon nicknamed Document No. 9, to all major governmental departments. This document identified seven problematic ideological tendencies: (1) Western constitutional democracy that undermined socialism with Chinese characteristics; (2) “universal values” that weakened the Party’s theoretical foundations; (3) the promotion of civil society to weaken the Party’s support base; (4) the promotion of neoliberalism; (5) using Western ideas about journalism to challenge Party discipline in the media; (6) historical nihilism in order to undermine China’s recent history; and (7) questioning socialism with Chinese characteristics.77 As an indication for the growing importance of the Internet, the Beijing municipal propaganda chief, Lu Wei, became the first full-time director of the SIIO. Lu had already targeted the so-called Big Vs on Sina Weibo. These are businesspeople, music or television stars, academics, and other prominent individuals who amassed large numbers of followers. Some of them held foreign passports, while few held an official or party-state position. Lu organized dinners with a number of them in February and May of 2013,78 but the atmosphere turned less convivial when he organized an event on the social responsibility of online celebrities. In his opening speech, Lu raised “six

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hopes” (liudian xiwang) for the behavior of opinion leaders, that they should (1) bear greater social responsibility, because they influence many people; (2) safeguard the national interest, bring together positive energy, and encourage netizens to contribute to the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation; (3) disseminate advanced socialist culture and carry forward the virtues of the Chinese nation; (4) lead in abiding by legal and moral norms, and become pioneers in legality and morality; (5) contribute to the building of sincerity in society; and (6) lead in safeguarding the lawful rights and interests of individual citizens. Furthermore, he laid down “seven baselines” (qitiao dixian): the baselines of laws and regulations, the socialist system, the national interest, citizens’ rights and interests, public order, morality, and the truthfulness of information.79 Two weeks later, two high-profi le black PR operators were arrested. The crackdown made headlines abroad when Xue Manzi, a Chinese American investor and Big V, was arrested on prosecution charges and publicly pilloried on CCTV.80 Together with the judicial interpretation referred to earlier, this crackdown brought a chill to the microblog environment. In the official Party media, these arrests elicited a triumphant tone. Zhu Huaxin, the director of the People’s Daily Public Opinion Monitoring and Survey Department, stated that Chinese netizens “should not have the wrong impression about national conditions and the system, and mistakenly believe that China’s microblogs are England’s Hyde Park.”81 Zhu also found that public intellectual Big Vs withdrew from weibo in large numbers and were replaced by voices more closely associated with government. The populist tabloid Global Times put it more simply by stating that “the era of online dazibao is ending.”82 The well-known public intellectual and law professor He Weifang poignantly closed his microblog account by posting a classical painting of a poet who retired from government ser vice in protest against corruption.83 In the wake of the social media crackdown, the microblog landscape changed greatly. Wary of the openness of the microblog medium, many users have migrated to WeChat, which is primarily designed to facilitate communication among small private groups. It is impossible in the WeChat environment to amass the number of followers and re-create the speed of communication of microblogs, meaning that it is much less of a political risk than weibo was. It also means that the extent to which individuals’ networks can expand through social media is limited.84 This setup echoes the tactics of intentional fragmentation of the public sphere that the party-state employed

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in traditional media, while it continues to permit surveillance and data gathering on public opinion. These evolutions took place against the background of rapid political change at the top level. Xi announced a drive for further comprehensive reform at the Third Plenum in November 2013.85 In February 2014, a new Central Committee-level leading group for informatization and cybersecurity was established, chaired by Xi personally. Th is leading group will, among other things, formulate a comprehensive national cyberstrategy, which will focus mostly on cybersecurity broadly defined. At least rhetorically, the leadership’s greatest concern is that hostile forces might unseat it. Recent articles in the central Party press have repeatedly warned about the dangers of historical nihilism, corruption, and failure to reform.86 The specter of the Soviet Union has been held up as a horrifying example of what could happen if control over ideology and the media were lost.87 It is a matter for debate to what extent these fears are founded. Such rhetorical vehemence is perhaps equally well understood as a device for political mobilization and the creation of a sense of crisis that enables the new leadership to impose discipline. Certainly, the Party has been astoundingly successful in preventing the emergence of organized opposition against its rule. In the short run, a considerably larger danger would be the emergence of an insider splitting the Party, which might go some way to explaining the response to the Bo Xilai affair. Which lessons can then be derived from this study of China’s Internet governance paradigm for the longer term? First, reform in the media sector remains intimately wedded to broader questions of political change, and, on this topic, the CCP has nailed its colors to the mast. While it recognizes that opinions, interests, and preferences have become greatly complex, the CCP’s political DNA has been built on the monist assumption of the single correct method to progress along a historically predetermined path toward a utopian future. Interestingly, a timetable has been proposed: by the one hundredth anniversary of the Party, a moderately prosperous society must be completed, and by the one hundredth anniversary of the establishment of the People’s Republic, China’s rejuvenation must be complete. However, this can only happen if China’s population remains disciplined, and, therefore, it will remain necessary to ensure that unwanted information is not given a public platform. Consequently, a paradigm shift toward a presumption of free speech seems highly unlikely. Second, regulation will continue to prioritize state interests, at the expense of protection for individual rights. In the media sphere, there is little room

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for consistently applied legal norms that would reduce the flexibility and discretion the government requires. The consequences of this are clear: a number of the problems that the leadership has identified cause real harm to individual citizens far beyond the scope of politics. Better tort, contract, and fair trading rules, as well as their enforcement, are needed. But the Chinese legal system has been designed to enable authoritarian rule and mobilization for collective goals. As a consequence, private disputes are often restated as matters of political import, requiring a solution that is primarily political, not legal. Th ird, this governance paradigm will continue to generate perverse incentives distorting China’s information order. In general, there is a tension between inconvenient facts and the larger politically correct gospel of socialism with Chinese characteristics, which could be termed doubletruth: events that conflict with political desirability are obfuscated, hidden, or lied about. This tension is exacerbated at the local level, where individual officials have strong incentives to prevent information about their activities from reaching national prominence. In a sense, this is a reflection of the dilemma that has followed the CCP since its Yan’an days: how to combine rigorous political discipline with finding explicit popular support for its continued rule. At any time where it relaxed barriers to speech, the CCP was confronted with a torrent of unrest and dissatisfaction, which ended in strict crackdowns. It is a matter for further research to which extent technology influences these dynamics. For instance, the ubiquity of mobile phone cameras means that it has become more difficult to cover up or conceal facts. However, similar questions have been asked about successive generations of communications technology, from the typewriter to cable television. The CCP has been very adept at mastering these challenges, and it may well be able to control the Internet in a way that is at least satisfactory in its own terms.

CHAPTER 5

Embedding Law into Politics in China’s Networked Public Sphere Ya-Wen Lei and Daniel Xiaodan Zhou

Although the notion of the rule of law is often connected to liberal democracy in public and academic discourse, many authoritarian states, including the Chinese party-state, embrace the rule of law as well. As the legal scholar Brian Tamanaha states, authoritarian states’ adoption of a thin formulation of the rule of law is beneficial for capitalist development, while still being compatible with the authoritarian regime. As such, when an authoritarian state espouses a thin notion of the rule of law, the strategy can strengthen the authoritarian state’s legitimacy and domination.1 Indeed, law has become a critical instrument for the Chinese state to rule the country. The Chinese state initiated legal reform in 1979 in order to reap the benefits from China’s integration into the global economy. The principle of “ruling the country in accordance with the law (yifazhiguo)” was endorsed by the Fifteenth Party Congress in 1997 and added to the constitution in 1999. The strategy of Chinese rulers has been to enhance state legitimacy and governmental capacity by associating the regime with the notion of rule of law, while still stopping short of liberal democracy.2 This is called a legalistic legitimation strategy.3 The Chinese state has demanded that the media disseminate law and legal knowledge to the populace as part of the state’s propaganda. The state-controlled media promote stories of citizens’ positive experiences in the legal system and avoid exposing any failings of the system.4 Consequently, the Chinese public has increasingly come to adopt legal ideology and to regard and use law as a tool to facilitate their participation

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in the market economy. There is a general consensus among scholars that China’s legalistic legitimation strategy has worked effectively. This strategy serves not only to facilitate economic development but also to buffer political confrontation. Research suggests that Chinese people without direct personal experience with the law generally have positive views of the legal system.5 Even when local governments and courts fail to deliver what law promises, Chinese people tend to blame local rather than central government. As sociologist Ching Kwan Lee explains, because local governments are in charge of legal enforcement, people believe that it is local governments that should be blamed when questions of law arise.6 In short, problems with the legal system do not tarnish the central government or the regime’s overall legitimacy. Furthermore, the state’s legalistic legitimation strategy has bolstered approval of state power. Stressing the distinctiveness of Chinese culture versus Western democratic culture and the resilience of Chinese imperial culture specifically, Elizabeth Perry argues that Chinese people have rule consciousness instead of rights consciousness. Chinese people see law as their rulers’ language. Even when Chinese people invoke the language of law and rights to demand things from the state, they confirm rather than contest the state’s political power. And thanks to their cultural heritage, Chinese people tend to care more about socioeconomic rather than political and civil rights.7 In essence, the Chinese government has successfully used law to enhance its own legitimacy and the regime’s resilience.8 Studies of the Internet in China, however, complicate this portrayal of the Chinese state’s legalistic legitimation strategy and its success. Problems related to justice, rights, corruption, and abuse of power by government officials have routinely triggered public contention and online activism in China’s networked public sphere.9 What connects these issues is the failure of law to protect citizens and punish wrongdoers. Research on the relationship between public opinion and Chinese courts also indicates that the Chinese public has become increasingly critical of China’s legal system. The rising tide of public opinion is deemed by scholars to constitute “a populist threat” that pressures the Chinese courts to satisfy “populist demands.”10 Problems related to China’s legal system are given particular critical attention and discussion in China’s networked public sphere. This expanding public sphere and the increasing importance of public opinion in Chinese politics provide a compelling context in which to reconsider the efficacy of the Chinese state’s legalistic legitimation strategy, especially the extent to which law buffers political confrontation. Unfortunately, little effort has been made to study how

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the online public engages with law in the emerging networked public sphere and what the political consequences are when the online public is skeptical about China’s legal system. Our study aims to address this lacuna. This chapter reveals neglected aspects of the Chinese state’s legalistic legitimation strategy by examining how Chinese people engage with law and relate it to politics in China’s networked public sphere. In order to analyze this phenomenon, we first conducted a content analysis of the 2007–8 South China tiger scandal—a scandal that attracted national-level attention and aroused much discussion online. We decided to study this scandal given its relation to court decisions and problematic local government officials. The case allowed us to examine the ways in which netizens engage with law and the extent to which netizens relate problems about law to China’s political system.11 We qualitatively and quantitatively analyzed official news reports and texts produced by participants in a major online forum. To enhance the generalizability of our study, we also analyzed a nationally representative data set—the 2008 Asian Barometer Survey. We specifically focused on the relationship between Internet use, perception of the government’s legality, and trust in the government. Integrating our findings based on content analysis of the South China tiger scandal and statistical analysis, we argue that the Chinese state’s legalistic legitimation strategy can backfire with the expansion of China’s networked public sphere, as the online public’s interaction with law and with one another in the public sphere enables citizens not only to uncover problems in China’s legal system, but also to connect these problems to the political regime more generally. In the rest of the chapter, we first outline our data analysis strategy. We discuss how we analyzed the South China tiger scandal by describing our primary data sources and our methods of conducting qualitative content analysis and computer-assisted co-occurrence analysis. Then, we describe how we analyzed the 2008 Asian Barometer Survey. Next, we present the results of our empirical analysis. In the last section, we discuss the implications and limitation of our findings.

Data Analysis Strategy Content Analysis of the South China Tiger Scandal

We first conducted a content analysis of official and grassroots discourses regarding the South China tiger scandal. The South China tiger is a critically

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endangered subspecies of tiger whose continued existence in the wild is in question. Zhou Zhenglong, a ranger, made and circulated fake photos of a South China tiger that he claimed to have seen living in the forest. The Shaanxi Forestry Bureau held a press conference in October 2007, releasing Zhou’s photos to the press. Although the authenticity of the photos was questioned by many netizens, Zhou was backed up by certain officials in the Shaanxi local government, who viewed evidence of a living South China tiger as a political achievement and a source of financial funding. The pressure and scrutiny of online public opinion eventually revealed the photos to be fake, turning this minor event into a lightning rod for heated discussion. In 2008, Zhou received a two-year sentence for fraud, and many local government officials were dismissed from office. We collected two forms of data to study the South China tiger scandal. The first is news written by the People’s Daily and Xinhua News Agency from October 2007 to 2010. We selected the People’s Daily and Xinhua News Agency because their news reports represent and reflect the stance of the central government. They are also the most important and widely distributed official news sources. As the central party-state’s official newspaper, the People’s Daily serves as the mouthpiece of dominant official discourse. Affiliated with the state council, the Xinhua News Agency is China’s official press agency. The second form of data is online text produced by participants in the Tianya Forum from October 2007 to 2010. We extracted textual data from web pages of the Tianya Forum. We selected the Tianya Forum because it is the most popular, influential, and relatively diverse online discussion forum in China. Online forums are critical sites for public discussion and public opinion formation in China, especially before the rise of weibo (that is, microblogs) in 2010. By the end of 2010, China had 457 million Internet users, or 34.3 percent of the population. Among these users, 77.2 percent read news online and 32.4 percent visited online discussion forums. At that time, only 13.8 percent of the country’s Internet users used weibo.12 Established in 1999, Tianya already had more than 32 million registered users in 2010.13 The forum has become famous for vibrant political discussion. In 2009, Tianya was identified by the government as one of the major forums where grassroots public opinion emerges.14 Compared with other popular online forums, such as KDnet (kaidi shequ) and the Strong Nation Forum (qiangguo luntan), participants in Tianya are more diverse in terms of their political orientation.15 Since it is difficult to collect precise demographic data about Tianya users, we rely on the estimates of the Tianya Forum itself, which collects

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Table 5.1. Keywords for Text Selection Events

Keywords

The South China tiger scandal

(Huanan hu) or (Zhou Zhenglong) or (laohu)

self-reported demographic information from users for the purpose of marketing. In 2009, the estimated average age of users in Tianya was twenty-eight years old. About 75 percent of the users were twenty-three to thirty-five years old. Most users lived in economically prosperous areas. The estimated average monthly income was about 3,000 RMB, and around 60 percent of users had a bachelor’s degree.16 The average Tianya user was more highly educated than the average Internet user in 2009, as only 12.4 percent of Internet users had a bachelor’s degree.17 We then selected news reports and discussion threads related to the South China tiger scandal for analysis. We first used keywords listed in Table 5.1 for the preliminary selection. Then, we read each news report and the first post in a discussion thread to decide whether the news report or discussion thread was relevant to the tiger scandal. If the tiger scandal was the main theme of an article or an initial post in a discussion thread, that article or thread was included in the data set. Accordingly, we generated two text corpuses or sets of texts used for content analysis: (1) People’s Daily and Xinhua News AgencySouth corpus, and (2) Tianya corpus. We examined textual data in two ways to fully leverage the richness and quantity of our data. We first analyzed the entire official discourse corpus (thirty-seven articles) and a 20  percent random sample of the Tianya corpuses data in-depth. The 20  percent random sample comprises thirtythree threads (including 984 posts). To code the data, we analyzed how the narratives of the scandal were constructed in the two discursive spaces. Specifically, we examined how problems were defined, how causes of the problems were identified, what solutions were proposed, and whether and how law was related to the problems, causes, and solutions. In addition to qualitative content analysis, we applied computer-assisted co-occurrence analysis to the two text corpuses without sampling. We conceptualized semantic meaning of a term as its co-occurrence relations with other terms in the same context. For instance, suppose the term democracy co-occurs frequently with human rights, election, and freedom, as in the liberal tradition; its meaning would thus be quite different from the Maoist

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definition of democracy, which co-occurs frequently with class, people, and so on. We fi rst used Institute of Computing Technology, Chinese Lexical Analysis System (ICTCLAS) to process word segmentation.18 As the Chinese language is written without spaces between words, a natural language process that segments a string of words into meaningful units is needed to understand the text. Next, we used a synonym table to combine synonymous terms. After the word segmentation process, we analyzed the co-occurrence of terms. Following convention in content analysis, we considered two terms as co-occurring when they were within fift y-words distance of one another. Finally, we identified the terms that co-occurred with the term “law ( falu)” in the two text corpuses in turn. It should be noted that we removed terms other than nouns to keep our analysis parsimonious.

Statistical Analysis of the 2008 Asian Barometer Survey In addition to content analysis of the South China tiger scandal, we also analyzed a nationally representative data set—the 2008 Asian Barometer Survey. The 2008 Asian Barometer Survey contains several questions that allow us to examine the relationship between Internet use, perception of the government’s legality, and trust in the government and political regime. We first analyzed the relationship between Internet use and perception of the government’s legality—specifically, whether the government at different levels could be corrupt, whether the central government always abides by law, and whether government officials withhold information. We then examined the extent to which perception of the government’s legality correlates with trust in the central government, local government, courts, and the political regime.

Analyzing the Relationship between Law and Politics in the South China Tiger Scandal In this section, we present our empirical analysis of the South China tiger scandal. We first present the qualitative analysis results. We describe how the People’s Daily and the Xinhua News Agency constructed the narrative about these scandals and their implications for legality. Then, we present how the public in the Tianya Forum engaged with this official discourse and collectively constructed its own narrative of events and their relation to legality.

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Finally, we report the results of our computer assisted co-occurrence analysis, comparing the two different conceptions of law that are captured in the data.

Official Discourse about Problems and Law

In official discourse, the South China tiger scandal was primarily about harm to the Chinese government’s image and, second, about the difficulty for citizens to obtain truth in China. According to analysis of official discourse, the cause of the tiger scandal was twofold. The scandal was first triggered by a greedy individual, Zhou Zhenglong, who forged photos of the South China tiger and deceived Shaanxi local government officials in order to obtain monetary rewards from the Shaanxi Forestry Bureau. The negative consequences of Zhou’s criminal behavior were amplified by the local governments’ lack of discipline and their failure to comply with administrative regulations. The Shaanxi local government officials were too excited by the possible survival of the South China tiger. As a result, they rashly announced the discovery of the South China tiger without rigorously investigating the authenticity of the photos and going through the required regulatory process. The local government officials also failed to respond to public opinion that called for investigation in a timely manner. Their negligence ultimately exacerbated public criticism, severely damaging the Chinese government’s credibility and citizens’ rights to be informed. It was the intervention and supervision of the central government, especially the State Forestry Administration, that finally pushed the local governments to investigate further, discover the truth, and accept public criticism. The official reaction to the tiger scandal was very legal-centric. Legal procedures were used to uncover truth, impose punishment, and ostensibly prevent any future scandal. In June 2008, after nine months of investigation, the Shaanxi provincial government announced that the photos taken by Zhou were fake and arrested him for criminal investigation. The investigation did not fi nd that Zhou had any accomplice. The Xunyang People’s Court in Shaanxi sentenced Zhou to two and half years for fraud and illegal possession of firearms. The intermediate court later suspended the sentence for three years. The decisions of the courts detailed Zhou’s motivation and criminal behavior. In addition to the criminal procedure, the governments also initiated an administrative investigation that resulted in thirteen gov-

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ernment officials in the Shaanxi local governments being disciplined for violation of administrative regulations. Some of the officials were even removed from their posts. In sum, the criminal and administrative processes ended the tiger scandal in accordance with the law and brought truth to the public.

Discourse About Problems and Law in the Networked Public Sphere

As in official discourse, discussion in the Tianya Forum pointed out that the tiger scandal manifested a serious problem—lack of truth in China. And yet this problem was seen as more pervasive by participants in Tianya than it was in official discourse. Many incidents, such as the Sanlu milk scandal in 2008, the “tofu-dregs schoolhouses” in the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008, and the Shanxi mudslide incident in 2008, were brought into the discussion of the tiger scandal. Participants used these cases to make a general statement about the scarcity of truth in China and its consequences for citizens’ rights, health, and lives. The public in Tianya contended that numerous serious problems in China cannot be addressed properly given this difficulty of getting to the truth. Considering this lack of truth to be a ubiquitous problem, participants in the Tianya Forum identified the causes of the tiger scandal as extending beyond Zhou Zhenlong’s individual illegal behavior and local governments’ negligence to comply with administrative regulations. Instead, the public cited many cases to contend that government officials at various levels often and intentionally cover up truth, distort information, and hinder efforts to seek truth in order to pursue their own political and economic interests. Examples cited included the government’s blocking of information during the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003; the government’s effort to avoid public criticism in 2007 by concealing plans to build a xylene (PX) plant in Xiamen; and the efforts of local government officials in Jiangsu to make residents respond to public opinion surveys according to the “official correct answers” in 2009. These cross-temporal and cross-local instances were marshaled as evidence that the Chinese state maliciously obstructs the discovery of truth. Interpreting the tiger scandal in light of such cases, the public in Tianya blamed the government as a whole for contributing to the scarcity of truth in China. Participants believed that the Shaanxi local governments actively

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hid truth from public scrutiny and that Zhou Zhenglong was only a puppet of local government officials. Despite official discourse that attempted to limit blame to the local government by praising the central government for its supervision of the former, Tianya participants included the central government in their criticisms. For example, one participant commented: “The Shaanxi provincial government keeps deceiving people. The central government continues to be indifferent about the issue. Chinese people have always been treated as idiots by the governments.”19 Another participant stated: “Local governments? Local officials? If the upper beam is not straight, the lower ones will go aslant.”20 In short, participants rejected the central government’s efforts to promote a bifurcated view of government. As the discussion expanded beyond the tiger scandal to the government’s role in hiding and distorting the truth, participants in Tianya also discussed institutional conditions related to the production of truth, particularly media autonomy, freedom of speech, and judicial independence. These topics did not appear in official discourse even when said discourse addressed citizens’ rights to be informed. For many participants in Tianya, the government’s promise to protect citizens’ rights to be informed is seen as empty, given the government’s own unwillingness to loosen its grip on media, freedom of speech, and law. The Tianya public pointed out the irony that media and law in China, ironically, function as obstacles to truth as opposed to guarantors of it. Many participants expressed cynicism as a result. “All news organizations in China serve the interests of their own governments. When a government agency needs to have certain kinds of news, its news organization will produce whatever it needs,” one participant said.21 Some participants also discussed how law was used to suppress whistleblowers in China. Implicit comparisons with institutions in Taiwan and United States were made by some participants to argue that the Chinese government’s control over media and law deviates from the norm. As the government’s control of media and law became a critical issue in the online discussion, participants began to incorporate arguments linking the scarcity of truth to China’s political regime. The public in Tianya pointed out that the rule of the CCP has been sustained through violence and restrictions on freedom of speech, and they concluded that the government would not forsake such control. As long as China’s political regime remains in place, Tianya participants reasoned, the truth will remain elusive. As one participant stated, “We do not have judicial independence, education autonomy or freedom of press—the most fundamental conditions to resolve problems

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The tiger scandal

Difficulty to obtain truth

The government’s control over media and law

Problematic political regime: Government’s monopoly over political power

Figure 5.1. How the public in Tianya conceptualized problems related to the tiger scandal.

about truth. Now everything is controlled by the Party, which in its essence is based on authoritarianism and deception.”22 At times, the conversation extended beyond the relationship between truth and political regime to include general arguments about the political regime itself. Some participants compared China with other countries in order to criticize the notions of “socialism with Chinese characteristics” and “socialist democracy with Chinese characteristics.” For example, one participant said: “China is just a feudalist society in the clothing of Marxism-Leninism. Sweden and Switzerland are closer to the ideal of socialism. And yet, the government insists ‘on crossing the river while feeling the rocks’ and does not bother to learn from great experiences elsewhere.”23 Some participants also compared China’s political regime with that of the United States in order to mock the notion of socialist democracy with Chinese characteristics. In short, the online public framed the tiger scandal as symptomatic of much broader trends and traced its causes to the political regime itself. We summarize these processes in figure 5.1. Now we move to discourse related to law in Tianya. Discussion of law was actually intertwined with other aspects of the scandal. We focus here on analyzing how participants in Tianya framed and understood law when it came up in their discussions. The ways in which Tianya participants understood law were related to the ways in which they understood the nature of

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the problem at hand. At first, the discussion about law focused on specific court decisions in the tiger scandal, but the discussion soon expanded to include the very nature of the legal system in China and its relations to the authoritarian political regime. Although official discourse framed judicial process as a way to uncover truth and punish individuals who manipulate or hide the truth, the trials and the court decisions in the tiger scandal were strongly criticized by the Tianya public, even described as “laughable” and “shameless.” Participants argued that the police unduly detained Zhou and restricted his freedom in order to extract a confession. There was also much concern over whether Zhou’s behavior actually constituted fraud as determined by the police and courts. Given that Zhou was, then, a poorly educated peasant in his fifties, the public did not believe that he possessed the ability to use computer software to forge photos that tricked even experts. And yet Zhou was the only person in the tiger scandal who was sentenced by the courts. The investigation did not fi nd any government officials criminally liable. The participants in Tianya thus believed that Zhou was only a scapegoat for corrupt local government officials who hid “backstage,” while attempting to gain economic and/or political interests by announcing the possible survival of the South China tiger. Members of the public also noted that, although the government claimed the trial in the Xunyang People’s Court was “open,” the court prohibited many journalists and lawyers from attending the hearing, without providing any justification. The public’s sense of cynicism and contempt for the trials and the courts can be seen in the following statements: The trial of Zhou Zhenglong tore the last piece of cloth that covers the dirty politicized judicial system because no one on the earth, including the judges themselves, would believe the court decisions.24 I know the trial is just a public performance. But my dear government, can you try to be a neutral audience? Everything is determined by power and money. . . . I do not want to see this kind of ridiculous judgment. Why does not the court make decisions independently? I hope we can have judicial independence. This is a trial conducted by legal illiterates against an illiterate person.25 In sum, many participants in Tianya considered the judicial process in the tiger scandal to be simply another ruse to obstruct truth, rather than deliver justice.

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Tianya participants further situated the trials and court decisions in the tiger scandal in relation to other court decisions, arguing that courts and law tend to be the government’s instruments and that this instrumentality renders law illegitimate. Yang Jia’s case was often mentioned in the discussion. Yang Jia was sentenced to death in 2008 for killing six policemen and injuring another four. The public in Tianya contended that the trials of Yang Jia and Zhou Zhenglong were similar in two ways. First, the two cases are both directly related to the interest of government actors—the Shanghai Department of Police in Yang’s case and the Shaanxi local governments in Zhou’s case. Furthermore, in both cases, the police, prosecutors, and courts failed to appropriately address critical procedural concerns, such as requests to investigate more evidence and issues related to attorney appointment. Many Tianya participants suspected that this failure was due to efforts to protect the interests of government actors. The following comment illustrates how the public connected the cases of Yang and Zhou: Zhou’s case is similar to Yang Jia’s case in that the trials of both cases are illegitimate. . . . Why do we speak for Zhou Zhenglong or Yang Jia, given that Zhou is really annoying and Yang killed six policemen? This is because we think law should be fair and just. The consideration of procedural justice requires us to pay attention to impartiality . . . Zhou did deceive Chinese people, but so did the Xunyang People’s Court. . . . Now, Zhou sacrificed himself for the Party. . . . Perhaps we should join the Party to avoid being sacrificed?26 Online discussants argued that government actors intentionally disregard procedural concerns to pursue their own benefits at the expense of citizen rights and justice. This instrumentality not only obscures the truth but ultimately contaminates the legitimacy of court decisions and law in China. As a result, many Tianya participants perceive the legal system in China as actually counterproductive to the notions of fairness, justice, and human dignity. Discussions in Tianya also considered the very meaning of rule of law and what distinguishes the “rule of law with Chinese characteristics.” Although there was no explicit discussion of what rule of law is, there was much discussion of what rule of law is not. Participants suggested that when the government is not under the law but above it, or when law does not aim to protect citizens’ rights or respect fairness and justice, the rule of law does not exist. Because the Chinese government uses law as its own instrument and inhibits

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judicial autonomy, Tianya participants argued that “rule of law with Chinese characteristics” is, in fact, incompatible with the rule of law. As one participant stated: “Law and judicial system? So what? The party is ultimately the boss of law and courts.”27 The term Chinese characteristics was often used and emphasized by the public as a negative qualifier to ridicule the legal and political institutions in China. Finally, online discussion also touched on the relationship between law and political regime, specifically, whether rule of law is possible under China’s political regime. Some participants mentioned that as long as the authoritarian regime remains, the government will continue to hold itself above the law. For instance, one participant said, “It is meaningless to have too much expectation on law and judicial system because everything is controlled by the party under the authoritarian rule.”28 Many participants pointed out the impotency of law when democracy is not in place. How the public in Tianya connected concrete cases, the abstract idea of rule of law, and political regime is illustrated in the following comment: The events in this year totally woke me up. My brain was partly washed in the past. I saw the failure of rule of law from the trials of Yang Jia and Zhou Zhenglong. Now I have a clearer understanding of the legal system and the regime in China. I understand the nature of the regime from the ways in which the government dealt with the Sanlu milk scandal. Perhaps the regime did represent Chinese people in the past, but it does not care about Chinese people anymore. . . . The regime represents the government, capitalists, and other privileged people.29 In light of this relationship between rule of law and political regime, some participants declared that the regime has to be fundamentally reformed in order to realize citizens’ rights. We summarize how the Tianya public constructed legality in figure 5.2.

Conceptions of Law in Official Discourse and the Networked Public Sphere

Our analysis finds that the term law was central in both discursive spaces. In the People’s Daily and Xinhua News Agency text corpus, the term law was ranked number 62 out of 769 terms (percentile rank: 91.94 percent) in terms

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Court decisions in the tiger scandal

Judicial system as the government’s instrument

Rule of law with Chinese characteristics (i.e., the absence of the rule of law) as the result of political regime

Figure 5.2. How the public in Tianya conceptualized law in the tiger scandal.

of frequency. In the Tianya corpus, the term law was ranked even higher— number 28 out of 1408 terms (percentile rank: 98.01 percent). However, although law was salient in both China’s official and grassroots discourses, our co-occurrence analysis found that the ways in which legality was constructed in the two discursive spaces varied greatly. Below, we compare how the term law was connected to other terms in the two spaces based on co-occurrence analysis. We first describe the characteristics of the conception of law in official discourse based on the top sixty-seven terms that co-occurred most frequently with the term law.30 The notion of law in official discourse correlated strongly with concepts related to government, truth, court decision, punishment, Chinese people, and public opinion. Terms related to government (#1: zhengfu), government agencies (#3: bumen; #26: jiguan), and government officials (#43: guanyuan) frequently co-occurred with the notion of law. Terms related to truth, particularly, truth (#6: zhenxiang), fact (#28: shishi), and investigation (#27: diaocha), were also strongly associated with the notion of law. In addition, the terms court decisions (#12: panjue) and trials (#36: shenpan) were connected to the notion of law, even though more abstract terms like court and judiciary did not appear in the top sixty-seven terms. Furthermore, the notion of law in official discourse was often linked to terms related to punishment, such as harsh punishment (#21: yancheng) and sentence (#6: wuqi tuxing; #48: youqi tuxing). Finally, the notion of law was related to

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Chinese people and public opinion, such as the public (#15: gongzhong), public opinion (#19: yulun), and citizen (#34: gongmin). The co-occurrence analysis thus suggests that, in official discourse, law was framed as a technical institution that helps the government to search for truth, punish illegal behavior, and respond to public opinion and Chinese people. In comparison, the top one hundred terms associated most frequently with law in Tianya show that the notion of law among Tianya participants was constructed much more broadly and characterized by its association with rights, normative values, Chinese people, a wide range of institutions, space, and problems. Similar to our analysis in the Sanlu scandal, although the term rights (quanli) did not appear as a top term in official discourse, it was ranked number nine in the top 100 terms in Tianya. The term human rights (renqun) also occurred in the top one hundred terms (#95). As such, law was framed as an institution that should not only facilitate governance, but also protect citizens and their rights. Whereas the notion of law was not significantly connected to normative principles in official discourse, it was associated by the public in Tianya with normative values, particularly freedom (#6: ziyou), fairness (#32: gongzheng), justice (#47: zhengyi), and freedom of speech (#63: yanlun ziyou). This suggests that, for the public, law was expected to have a certain moral quality. In addition, law was related to citizens (#6: gongmin), people (#21: baixing; #26: renmin; #61: qunzhong), netizens (#59: wangmin), and victims (#83: shouhaizhe). The notion of law was connected to terms related to various aspects of a wide range of institutions, such as government (#4: zhengfu), judiciary (#10: sifa), court (#14: fayuan), democracy (#11: minzhu), institution (#13: zhidu), responsibility (#14: zeren), procedure (#16: chengxu), family planning (#17: jihua shengyu), policy (#28: zhengce), law enforcement (#30: zhifa), publicity (#39: gongkai), legislation (#43: lifa), media (#60: meiti), the Internet (wangluo), and legal system (#65: fazhi). The notion of law also correlated to problems, particularly corruption (#54: tanwu) and mistake (#87: cuowu). Finally, law was connected to terms related to space, particularly Taiwan (#19: Taiwan), mainland China (#34: dalu), and the United States (#85: Meiguo). This suggests the Tianya public appraised the legal system and law in China in relation to their counterparts elsewhere. We summarize the characteristics of the conception of law in official discourse and in the Tianya Forum in tables 5.2 and 5.3, respectively. Last, we consider the most important similarity and difference between the conceptions of law in the two discursive spaces based on difference in percentile ranking. This particular analysis is not restricted to the most fre-

Table 5.2. Co-Occurrence of the Term Law with Other Terms in Official Discourse Category

Term

Government

government (#1: ), government agencies (#3: ; #26: 关), Forestry Bureau (#22: 厅), government officials (#43: 员).

Truth

truth (#6:

Court decisions

court decisions (#12:

Punishment

), harsh punishment life imprisonment (#6: (#21: 严 ), punishment (#44: 罚), limited term of imprisonment (#48: ).

Chinese people and public opinion

), public opinion (#19: 舆论), the public (#15: public (#20: ), and citizen (#34: ).

), fact (#28:

), investigation (#27: 调 ).

), trials (#36: 审 ).

Table 5.3. Co-Occurrence of the Term Law with Other Terms in the Tianya Forum Category

Term

Rights

rights (#9: quanli), human rights (#95: renquan).

Normative values

freedom (#6: ziyou), fairness (#32: gongzheng), justice (#47: zhengyi), freedom of speech (#63: yanlun ziyou).

Chinese people

citizens (#6: gongmin), people (#21: baixing; #26: renmin; #61: qunzhong), netizens (#59: wangmin), victims (#83: shouhaizhe).

Institutions

government (#4: zhengfu), judiciary (#10: sifa), court (#14: fayuan), democracy (#11: minzhu), institution (#13: zhidu), responsibility (#14: zeren), procedure (#16: chengxu), family planning (#17: jihua shengyu), policy (#28: zhengce), law enforcement (#30: zhifa), publicity (#39: gongkai), legislation (#43: lifa), media (#60: meiti), the Internet (wangluo), legal system (#65: fazhi).

Places

Taiwan (#19), mainland China (#34), the United States (#85).

Problems

corruption (#54: tanwu), mistake (#87: cuowu).

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quent terms, but rather, takes into account every term that co-occurred with law in the two text corpuses. We compare the percentile rankings of each term in both discursive spaces. Our analysis finds that the most salient similarity between the conceptions of law in the two spaces is that the notion of law was highly correlated with society (shehui) and government (zhengfu). The most salient difference between the official and grassroots conceptions of law is how the notion of law was related to citizens’ rights, the moral quality of law, institutions, responsibility, and space. Specifically, terms related to rights, the moral quality of law (particularly freedom and fairness), certain institutions (particularly democracy, judiciary, court, and procedure), responsibility, and space (specifically Taiwan and mainland China) were closely associated with the concept of law in Tianya, but hardly connected to the notion of law in official discourse.

Internet Use, Perception of the Government’s Legality, and Trust in Political Institutions In addition to content analysis, we also examined the 2008 Asian Barometer Survey to examine the relationship between Internet use, perception of government legality, and trust in political institutions. We present basic descriptive statistics in table 5.4. We first examined the relationship between main source of political information and perception of the government’s legality. From our content analysis of the tiger scandal, we find that the online public tends to think government officials are involved in illegal practices, particularly corruption, violation of law, and withholding information. Analyzing the 2008 Asian Barometer Survey, we do find respondents whose main source of political information is the Internet are more likely to think that government officials withhold information, that the central government does not always follow the law, and that local government could be corrupt (table 5.5). As such, Internet use clearly correlates with perception of the government’s legality. In contrast, respondents who rely on television as their main source of political information are less likely to think that the central government does not always abide by law and that government officials at both local and central levels could be corrupt. In short, people’s main source of political information appears to affect to some extent their perception of the government’s legality, controlling for gender, age, education level, subjective class, and interests in politics.

Table 5.4. Descriptive Statistics of the 2008 Asian Barometer Survey Variable

Definition

Mean

Min

Max

SD

Female

1 = female

0.49

0

1

0.50

Age

Respondent’s age in years

47.66

18

99

16.07

Education level Below primary Primary Secondary Tertiary No answer

1 = below primary 1 = primary 1 = secondary 1 = tertiary 1 = no answer

0.23 0.20 0.47 0.04 0.06

0 0 0 0 0

1 1 1 1 1

Local government could be corrupt

0 = not very corrupt 1 = others

0.69

0

1

0.46

Central government could be corrupt

0 = not very corrupt 1 = others

0.66

0

1

0.47

Government officials withhold information

1 = government officials withhold important information at least occasionally 0 = others

0.40

0

1

0.49

Central government does not always abide by law

0 = central government officials abide by the law most of the time 1 = others

0.33

0

1

0.47

Trust in the central government

1 = quite a lot of trust or a great deal of trust 0 = others

0.88

0

1

0.33

Trust in local governments

1 = quite a lot of trust or a great deal of trust 0 = others

0.55

0

1

0.50

Trust in courts

1 = quite a lot of trust or a great deal of trust 0 = others

0.70

0

1

0.46

Our form of government is the best for us

1 = agree 0 = others

0.74

0

1

0.44

0.07 0.21 0.89 0.12

0 0 0 0

1 1 1 1

0.25 0.41 0.32 0.32

Main source of political information Internet 1 = Internet Newspaper 1 = newspaper Television 1 = television Radio 1 = radio

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Table 5.5. Logistic Regression Analysis of Perception of the Government’s Legality (1)

(3)

(4)

Government officials withhold information

(2) National government does not always abide by law

Local government could be corrupt

Central government could be corrupt

0.458** (0.165)

0.457** (0.173)

0.492** (0.179)

0.141 (0.163)

Newspaper

0.345*** (0.101)

0.00352 (0.112)

0.0355 (0.104)

−0.197† (0.102)

Television

0.378** (0.142)

−0.645*** (0.124)

−0.444** (0.149)

−0.532*** (0.146)

Radio

0.148 (0.119)

−0.305* (0.132)

−0.209† (0.120)

−0.182 (0.115)

5,075

5,075

5,075

5,075

Main source of political information Internet

n

1. Standard errors in parentheses. * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001. 2. Control variables include gender, age, education level, frequency of following political news, subjective class, perceived impact of politics on daily life, and media use. Source: 2008 Asian Barometer Survey (n = 5,075).

Then, we analyzed the 2008 Asian Barometer Survey to examine the relationships between perceptions of the government’s legality and trust in political institutions because our content analysis found that netizens often connect problems related to law—particularly the government’s instrumental and selective use of law—to China’s political system. Applying logistic regression, we find that perception of the government’s corruption, violation of law, and withholding information have constant negative impacts on trust in all kinds of institutions (table 5.6). Specifically, when a respondent believes that local or central governments could be corrupt, withhold information, or violate law, he or she is less likely to trust the central government, local government, and courts. A respondent is also less likely to believe the current form of the government is the best for the Chinese people. The effect of Internet use on trust in political institutions is mainly mediated by percep-

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Table 5.6. Logistic Regression of Trust in Institutions (1)

(2)

(3)

Trust in the central government

Trust in local governments

Trust in courts

(4) Our form of government is the best for us

Local government could be corrupt

−0.439* (0.196)

−0.663*** (0.0972)

−0.465*** (0.112)

−0.413** (0.137)

Central government could be corrupt

−0.962*** (0.185)

0.222* (0.0929)

−0.396*** (0.105)

−0.586*** (0.128)

Government officials withhold information

−0.312* (0.128)

−0.491*** (0.0787)

−0.551*** (0.0861)

0.445*** (0.103)

National government does not always abide by law

−0.929*** (0.120)

−0.714*** (0.0821)

−0.645*** (0.0860)

−0.950*** (0.0937)

1. Standard errors in parentheses. * p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001. 2. Control variables include gender, age, education level, subjective class, frequency of following political news, and perceived impact of politics on daily life. Source: 2008 Asian Barometer Survey (n = 5,075).

tion of the government’s legality. It should be noted that although literature suggests that problematic practices of local governments and courts do not tarnish the central government’s legitimacy, our statistical analysis finds that Internet use is positively related to the perception that the government officials are involved in illegal practices. Such perception decreases trust in the central government and the current form of the government (table  5.6).31 Furthermore, as we show in table 5.7, distrust in local government and courts are associated with less trust in the central government.

Conclusion Our evidence consistently shows that, although the government attempts to frame law in a very practical, technical, and apolitical way, the online public connects law—particularly problematic aspects of law—to China’s political system. In the tiger scandal, official discourse pointed to law as the ultimate solution to public outrage. However, the online public aggregated various

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Table 5.7. Relationships Between Distrust in Local Government and Courts and Trust in the Central Government Trust in the central government 2008 Not much trust in local government

−1.194*** (0.232)

Not much trust in courts

−2.349*** (0.220)

n

5,075

1. Standard errors in parentheses.* p < 0.05, ** p < 0.01, *** p < 0.001. 2. Control variables include gender, age, education, and subjective class. Source: 2008 Asian Barometer Survey (n = 5,0975).

scandals to point out that China’s legal system is itself generative of problems, such as the lack of truth in China. Furthermore, court decisions in the tiger scandal not only failed to appease the online public but generated broader criticism of China’s legal system, the government’s instrumental use of law, and China’s political regime. Our analysis of survey data reveals a similar story. Respondents whose primary source of political information is the Internet are more likely to question the legality of the government at both central and local levels. This skepticism undermines trust in central government, the local government, the court system, and the current political regime. Furthermore, distrust in the local government and courts raises distrust in the central government. The politicization of law in China’s networked public sphere is also manifested by the enormous difference between the official and grassroots conceptions of law. Our content analysis of the tiger scandal shows that, in official discourse, law was framed as a technical institution that helps the government to search for truth, punish illegal behavior, and respond to public opinion and Chinese people. However, the online public’s conception of law was characterized by its emphasis on citizens’ rights, human rights, the moral quality of law (freedom of speech, freedom, fairness, justice, and so on), a wide range of institutions (such as democracy, court, procedure, media, and so on), and places outside China (Taiwan and the United States)— almost everything that a sophisticated jurisprudence scholar could think of about the conception of law. This grassroots conception of law reveals that

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the online public is not limited to the rule consciousness and view of law as the “rulers’ language” that existing scholarship would suggest. Rather, the online public believes that law must protect rights, including civil and political rights, and that the rule of law eventually rests on the support of many political institutions. As a whole, our analysis suggests that the networked public sphere is a critical venue for the online public to link law with politics and develop a more systematic way of thinking about the two. In fact, studies about how Chinese people engage with law often assume that the ways in which people understand law is largely constrained by their own experiences and local contexts. As a result, Chinese people are seen as only blaming local governments without thinking about how the central government and political regime contribute to the failure of law in China. In addition, Chinese people are assumed to think about law and rights from a Confucian perspective, which differs enormously from a Western perspective. These assumptions are challenged, however, in China’s networked public sphere. Our analysis of the tiger scandal shows that the online public in the Tianya Forum clearly situated the tiger scandal in tandem with other local cases in a national context. Our statistical analysis also finds that perception about the illegality of the local government and court system did extend to undermine trust in the central government and the regime more broadly. In addition, our analysis of the tiger scandal demonstrates that, when the online public thinks about law in China, they look to legal and political systems elsewhere, particularly Taiwan and the United States. The case of Taiwan is particularly important because it shows Chinese citizens’ awareness that the Confucian tradition can be combined with liberal democracy and a rule of law compatible with liberal democracy. In short, the networked public sphere allows people to engage with and understand law and politics in a more systematic ways. The online public’s political contention and engagement with law is consequential because rising public opinion in China has imposed pressure on the government. As research on Chinese courts points out, the surging tide of public opinion pressures the Chinese courts to satisfy “populist demands.”32 Our analysis of the tiger scandal supports this observation. We find that the term public opinion frequently co-occurs with the term law in official discourse. Th is suggests that public opinion is likely to influence the ways in which government agencies engage with the law. And yet, it is unclear whether and how the government can satisfy public demands if the government remains reluctant to address fundamental concerns about and problems in

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China’s legal system, particularly the government’s instrumental use of law, in order to sustain its own political monopoly. In summary, our content analysis of the South China tiger scandal and statistical analysis of survey data find that the online public connects law and China’s political context through their interaction with publicized cases like the tiger scandal and one another in China’s networked public sphere. Consequently, although the government attempts to highlight the law’s ability to address social problems and public concerns, the online public remains more critical of China’s rule of law and sees it as politicizing rather than pacifying public concerns. This politicization process undermines the efficacy of the Chinese state’s legalistic legitimation strategy. In closing, it is important to acknowledge that the findings of this research are still limited and, thus, invite further study. As we restricted our analysis to official discourse and discussion about the South China tiger scandal discussed in the Tianya Forum, the generalizability of our fi ndings can be restricted—though it is worth nothing that, elsewhere, we analyzed the Sanlu milk scandal in addition to the tiger scandal, and found almost identical findings.33 Furthermore, the content of the online discourse about law and politics may not represent the views of Internet users in general, as people who perceive China’s political and legal systems negatively could be more likely to participate by actively posting their views. We did try to address this problem by analyzing a nationally representative survey and found evidence consistent with our finding based on content analysis. But one could argue that this issue of whether there is a larger “silent majority” online is, in a sense, moot: the point is that it is those who actively voice their opinions online who influence the Chinese government and potentially mobilize their quieter counterparts. As such, studying online discourse has value in itself. Having said that, we still invite further research to examine more events and settings and assess the generalizability of our findings.

CHAPTER 6

Microbloggers’ Battle for Legal Justice in China Anne S. Y. Cheung

The relationship between courts and the media is not an easy one in many countries, and China is no exception. While trial by media is often frowned upon in the West,1 its close variation—known as “public opinion supervision”—has been embraced in China.2 The latter term was coined by the Chinese Communist Party (the Party) in the 1980s to describe the mobilization of citizen awareness and public opinion by the media to check deleterious forces within the state under the guidance and supervision of the Party.3 The objects of scrutiny by public opinion supervision have included the courts, with the media acting as a state agent between the authorities and the citizenry. By the dawn of the twenty-first century, Web 2.0 had changed this dynamic. Armed with the Internet, public opinion has become a powerful force. Free from Party supervision and seemingly holding the potential to provide genuine monitoring, this “public opinion monitoring” differs from public opinion supervision. It is an independent force arising from the citizenry and seeking to hold the government accountable, to prevent abuses of power, and to bring justice and fairness to society. The Internet has played an indispensable and prominent role in fostering this form of citizen monitoring. As Guobin Yang points out, the Internet in China is an arena of intense struggle, full of complex dynamics and participatory and contentious in nature.4 This struggle is also being played out in legal disputes, posing new challenges to the judiciary.

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Judges have become a target audience of public opinion. The courtroom is an arena for an evolving form of participatory justice that is gradually emerging in the virtual and real worlds. Public opinion, which has been burgeoning on the Internet, is creeping into courtrooms. China has more than 618 million netizens, nearly half of whom microblog. These netizens and microbloggers are keen to have their opinions on perceived injustices in society heard by the courts. Of the top twenty Internet events highlighted by the Office of Public Opinion Watch (OPOW) of People’s Daily Online annually since 2008, legal cases appear frequently.5 Legal conflicts have captured the public imagination, particularly when they conflict with netizens’ ideas of justice. Rather than wait for Party media to mobilize public opinion, netizens are joining forces online and off-line to turn social conflicts, grievances, and perceived cases of injustice into legal disputes in the hope that courts will punish the guilty and rescue the innocent. Netizens have ensured that these disputes come to the attention of the courts. They have prompted courts to retry cases and revise sentences. Public opinion monitoring also has pressured the judiciary to resolve social conflicts beyond the immediate legal disputes before the courts. For much of the public, justice is seemingly restored when officials are condemned and underdogs are vindicated. In this context, the Internet is being hailed as a forum for free speech. However, scholars have warned that when legal disputes and court cases are sensationalized, the ubiquitous tension between justice and the law is exacerbated in China’s authoritarian state, where judicial independence is weak.6 As these critics see it, public opinion monitoring and Internet trials are risky and, at best, achieve populist justice.7 Although these observations are valid, public opinion monitoring is essential at this juncture in China’s development when institutionalized judicial independence has yet to be attained. Given the problems that plague the judiciary, the public’s faith in official judicial discourse as a means to achieve justice is remarkable. The public’s desire to participate in the delivery of justice, and to engage with the legal and judicial systems, has fostered a framework that protects the fairness of trials to some extent. Arguments about justice and rights carry weight if they succeed in entering the judicial arena and securing state intervention. The voices of the public remind the “lawless” (be they violators, enforcers, or judges) to remain within the law. These voices call for the system to live up to its own rules. The challenge is for public opinion to constitute a form of monitoring untainted by the supervision of the authorities.

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This chapter assesses the relationship between law (the judicial arena) and new media (the realm of the Internet and netizens). It argues that the Internet has transformed public opinion supervision into public opinion monitoring. Netizens’ power lies not in their ability to gather information but in their capacity to interpret, to associate, and to transform the plight of their fellow citizens into a legal narrative. Although China still falls far short of attaining the rule of law, public opinion monitoring can promote greater adherence to law, with impact that far exceeds its effects on individual legal cases. Public opinion weighs in, and public pressure is brought to bear, only in cases that arouse widespread public outrage and only when public sentiment is sufficiently powerful to contest the prevailing forces in the political, legal, and judicial landscapes. In such situations, judges come under pressure to respond to public demands for fairness, to address public concerns about transparency, and to deliberate with extra care. In a society characterized by marked asymmetry in power between the strong and the weak and the rich and the poor, these types of influence from public opinion can be beneficial without unduly risking judicial, legal, and social injustice.8 This chapter first explains this study’s methodology, including the criteria for selecting cases and determining their significance. This chapter then examines the distinction between public opinion supervision and public opinion monitoring. Finally, the chapter explores how the dichotomy between supervision by the Party and monitoring by the masses plays out in the judiciary, on the Internet, and in real-life legal narratives. In this context, the chapter also examines five legal disputes to demonstrate the power and limits of public opinion in influencing adjudication.

Methodology This study analyzes sixteen legal stories from the one hundred “top twenty” Internet events in OPOW’s annual reports from 2008 to 2013, and undertakes an in-depth qualitative assessment of five legal stories for which the media conducted large-scale polling. The OPOW uses data from the country’s most popular discussion boards, blogs, and microblogs, including Tianya (Tianya ), Qiangguo (Qiangguo luntan), Bullog (Niubo wang), shequ), Kaidi ( and Sina Weibo (Microblog) (Xinliang weibo) to determine the events attracting the highest number of posts. The threshold for being a “significant

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Anne S. Y. Cheung Cases Listed in the Top 20 Issues on the Internet

9

8

Number of Cases

8 7 6 5

4

4 3

2

2

1

1

1

0

0 2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

Figure 6.1. Number of legal cases selected for OPOW Annual Reports, 2008–2013.

event” has risen rapidly from around 1,100 in 2008 to more than 30,000 in 2013, with each of the “top twenty events” generating more than 1,000,000 posts by 2012.9 This partly reflects the OPOW report’s expansion from mainly online bulletin board discussions to microblogging. In this study, a legal story is defined as one in which pressure from public opinion on the Internet (often in collaboration with traditional media) could or did result (often with acknowledgment by the courts or the authorities) in a legal case being heard, a verdict being overturned, a sentence being changed, or a retrial being ordered. Although small in number, these cases have had significant impact on society. They also illuminate the changing landscape in which law and public opinion intersect on the new platform of social media. And they help us to understand how public opinion can transform a grievance into a judicial case, affect sentencing decisions, and change a final verdict. Figure 6.1 shows the share of legal cases among top twenty Internet events from 2008 through 2013.10 Legal cases rose sharply in 2009 and then fell to zero by 2012, rebounding somewhat in 2013. The relatively small number of legal cases in most years likely reflects a “crowding out” effect of other types of events, not censorship of discussions of legal cases. Legal cases that make the OPOW reports’ top twenty lists are likely to have avoided China’s formidable censorship system for microblogs and other social networking sites.11 None of the legal cases in the OPOW “top twenty” reports was related to controversies involving politically sensitive

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keywords that prompt the most stringent censorship, and only one case (the Deng Yujiao story) involved a call for collective action (another factor associated with stricter censorship). The legal cases that become “top twenty” Internet events appear to be conflicts that are sufficiently controversial to capture the public’s imagination, generate large-scale public interest, and prompt the authorities to take action, but are not so controversial as to alarm the authorities to the point of silencing the discussion.

Public Opinion Supervision Versus Public Opinion Monitoring “Public opinion supervision” (yulun jiandu) is a fluid and malleable term.12 The authorities view it as a process of understanding the sentiments of the masses, an essential precondition to their fulfi lling their duty to address the masses’ concerns, and a response to the public’s desire to hold officials accountable (albeit under the Party’s leadership). Citizens tend to view such “supervision” as an entitlement to express opinions, with the aim of correcting societal wrongs and monitoring those in power. These two views have collided sharply in cyberspace.

Public Opinion Supervision Under Party Leadership Premier Zhao Ziyang urged the media to report on political and Party affairs to achieve “public opinion supervision” in his speech to the CCP Central Committee in 1987.13 Zhao omitted the conventional characterization of the press as the Party’s mouthpiece. Instead, he said that the press should exercise oversight over the work and conduct of public officials, inform the public of important events, and reflect the public debate on important issues.14 These principles were later echoed by Party General Secretary Jiang Zemin at several CCPCC meetings in the 1990s.15 Public opinion supervision was formally defined as external supervision that went hand in hand with the Party’s internal supervision under the Regulations of Internal Supervision of the Chinese Communist Party (Tentative).16 It refers to supervision by the masses that is exercised through the official media, and under the Party’s leadership.17 In its “supervision” role, the media

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should help resolve societal confl icts and maintain “social stability.”18 It should assist the state rather than add to its burden.19 Subsequent central policy decisions and local implementation measures have been in line with this official rhetoric.20 These principles of public opinion supervision extend to the Internet. In 2005, local governments reportedly recruited Internet commentators to redirect public opinion on the Internet toward the “right course,”21 counterbalancing critical views and explaining the government’s positions while purporting to be ordinary citizens, not government spokespeople. Official views of public opinion supervision thus continue to impose restraints on all types of media and to affirm the Party’s leading role in public discourse.

Public Opinion Monitoring by Citizens Despite the constraints on public opinion supervision, many among the state, the public, reporters, and academics view it as a positive force for making the public’s voice heard.22 Some equate public opinion supervision with media monitoring, with the media serving as an independent government watchdog.23 Indeed, investigative reporting has contributed significantly to exposing official corruption and social problems. Nonetheless, public opinion supervision is a concept fraught with contradictions and conflicting roles for the public, media, and state. Theoretically, the Party is subject to the scrutiny of both the public and the media, while the public and the media are simultaneously subject to the guidance of the Party. Chin-Chuan Lee describes China’s media as having shifted from being a Party mouthpiece to being a Party publicity corporation.24 Rather than brainwashing the people, the media has been assigned roles of resolving social conflict, promoting Party legitimacy, and checking corruption (if only at lower levels). Official and media interpretations of “public opinion” vary.25 In China as elsewhere, public opinion may be diverse, dispersed, loosely organized, and not widely heard. Daniel Lynch points out that public opinion is not “aggregates of individuals secretly holding to their thoughts, but instead [is] people recognizing a problem, producing conflicting ideas about what to do, considering those alternatives, and trying to resolve the matter by building consensus for a line of action.”26 This view of public opinion implies that “public opinion monitoring” can be a force to prevent and redress injustices in soci-

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ety. The media can reflect, channel, and mobilize inchoate public opinion into a coherent voice, turning social problems into salient public issues and affecting real-world outcomes. The media thus become the representative and trustee of the public, translating raw public opinion into a collective, supervisory role, generating an engaging and therefore potentially effective critique of state power, and offering a chance for public participation in decision making. The Internet has created new resources that facilitate the performance of these roles. However, this understanding of public opinion monitoring is very different from the Party’s concept of public opinion supervision. Roles for the media and Internet in monitoring the government by channeling public opinion to contest the boundaries set by the ruling regime are in tension with Party oversight and control. The tenor of such monitoring is adversarial. It entails a critical, liberating appeal to commonly held values.27 In legal cases, the media and the Internet can play a particularly powerful monitoring role. When the courts have failed to administer justice, media exposure in some cases has led to changes in judicial decisions. Benjamin Liebman characterizes the Chinese media as one of the most influential actors in the legal system over the past decade.28 Other scholars regard the media as a key actor in the battle for access to justice,29 even though media reports also can bias trials and undermine judicial independence. 30 Public opinion monitoring has become increasingly important in legal cases during the last decade and a half. Significant instances predate the first OPOW reports in 2008. They include the Sun Zhigang investigation,31 BMW case,32 and Liu Yong trial.33

Trial by Courts Versus Trial by Online Public Opinion The Judiciary

The judiciary in the Chinese system has been assigned a limited and ambiguous role. Official views reject the separation of powers and a system of checks and balances, but they accept “checks and supervision” of a socialist character under the Party.34 Although ruling the country according to the law is a Party principle, judicial independence is not an institutionalized practice and judges’ “fidelity to the law should . . . never override their loyalty to the principle of Party leadership.”35

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China’s judiciary resembles a state bureaucracy, and most judges are Party members.36 Since 1954, every president of the Supreme People’s Court has also been in charge of overseeing the Party’s judicial operations.37 The 2005 Civil Servant Law stipulates that judges are civil servants,38 and declares that judges have administrative as well as judicial duties, including obligations to obey and implement lawful directions from their seniors.39 The conventional image of Chinese judges is that they are “bureaucratic automatons” in a weak court system under one-party rule.40 However, the judiciary is not satisfied playing a purely subservient role. Hualing Fu argues that it is in the “institutional interest of the courts to assert judicial authority, to carve out their space and to protect it.” 41 Calling for a more nuanced understanding of judicial independence in China, Fu points out that the degree of independence the courts enjoy varies by context. The Party is more likely to intervene in criminal cases because criminals are considered to be enemies of the socialist state, threatening the social and political order that is safeguarded by the Party. Courts face uneven levels of “leadership” by several institutions that have formal authority over them, including Party and government organs at a court’s own level, the Party acting through the Political and Legal Committee, the local people’s congresses and the National People’s Congress, the local procuratorates and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate. Lower courts sometimes ask superior courts for their opinions as a shield against local party or state interference.42 Courts face additional challenges from a system that allows cases to be reopened even after parties have exhausted their rights of appeal.43 Serious corruption also undermines courts’ authority and capacity.44 Many of these problems with the Chinese judiciary are reflected in the cases that are the focus of this study. Of the sixteen legal stories most discussed by netizens, fourteen were criminal cases—a category prone to extrajudicial intervention. In five of the sixteen stories, netizens or parties eschewed calls for formal appeal or retrial and instead directly pressed the courts to address their grievances. As these stories show, despite the many problems besetting the judiciary, assertive netizens still seem to have high hopes that judicial intervention will deliver the justice they seek. The new media of the Internet era have brought into sharper focus conflicts among judicial legitimacy, the Party’s goals, and public expectations. As early as 1997, Xiao Yang, the president of the Supreme People’s Court, called upon courts to place themselves under the scrutiny of the media, an instruction that was in line with the principle of public opinion supervision under

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the Party’s leadership.45 In more recent years, such media scrutiny has expanded in the form of online public opinion monitoring that comes directly from the people. While the courts have been wary (if not openly hostile) toward media scrutiny, they appear eager to garner public support for their judgments.46 In 2008, Supreme People’s Court President Wang Shengjun specifically instructed the courts, in handing down decisions on capital punishment, to consider the feelings of society so as to achieve a “unified legal and social impact.”47 Wang also broadly encouraged the courts to “pursue the ‘mass line,’ to serve the needs of the people, to take public opinion into account and [to] seek to increase the level of public satisfaction with the work of the judiciary.” 48 Wang’s successor, Zhou Qiang, similarly stated that it is the duty of the courts to ensure that citizens feel that justice and fairness are delivered in every case—an outcome that, Zhou asserted, required that courts garner the support of the media and face public opinion supervision exercised through the media. With specific reference to the changing ecology of the media, Zhou further stressed that “in the era of WeMedia, the courts should not downplay the importance [of ] public opinion, yet must not allow the pressure of public opinion to distort their judgment.” 49 Under the pressure of such mandates or on courts’ own initiative, courts that are open to taking public sentiment into account can stimulate robust discussion of legal stories on the Internet.

Voices on the Internet

The Internet and netizens have become powerful factors in China. According to the China Internet Network Information Center (known as CNNIC) biannual reports, the number of Internet users has grown rapidly, climbing to 618 million, with a penetration rate of 45.8 percent, by the end of 2013. The number of microbloggers reached 280.78 million in 2013,50 meaning that nearly half of all Internet users microblog. Although microblogging has been described as a form of “fast food communication,” as one can write only 140 Chinese characters in one post, it is a powerful form of communication because of the ease of contributing.51 Microblogging has become an increasingly important tool for members of the public seeking to have their voices heard. In 2010, more than 46 percent of the country’s approximately 100 million microbloggers used Sina Weibo (microblog), rendering Sina the most popu lar and most powerful

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microblog player in China.52 In that same year, the number of microblog messages per month totaled 90 million, with a daily average of about 3 million and an average of forty messages sent every second.53 The numbers continued to rise dramatically in the next couple of years, with microblog users at Tencent reaching 507 million in the third quarter of 2012, quickly overtaken by the 537 million Sina users in the fi rst quarter of 2013.54 Indisputably, microblogging has become an indispensable part of life to many in China. The Party views the Internet, including microblogging, as a convenient social barometer for measuring public sentiment as expressed in opinions posted online. The Internet has been described by the authorities as a “magnetic field for public opinions,”55 and as a forum to “understand the public and to gather collective wisdom.”56 The authorities use microblogging not just to listen but also to speak, as do official media. The authorities use online media to offer their version of events, clarify “rumors,” and counterbalance perceived threatening speech from other sources.57 As of October 2013, there were 100,151 active government microblog accounts on Sina Microblog, of which 66,830 had been opened by government departments and Party organs, and 33,321 had been opened by verified government officials.58 This was a dramatic increase over 2010, when only forty-one government departments or organs had Sina Microblog accounts.59 As of August 2010, 466 mainstream media outlets in China had Sina Microblog ser vice accounts, including 118 newspapers, 243 magazines, 36 television stations, and 69 radio stations.60 By the end of 2012, the total number of microblogs opened by media outlets and individual media workers had reached 17,221 and 92,945, respectively.61 The foregoing figures confirm that microblogging is a “battlefield for the war of position” to disseminate information and ideas and to set agendas for social and political discussion.62 Netizens hope that the Internet will provide a platform for their voices to be heard and to promote social change. This public enthusiasm, however, also makes the authorities uneasy. The 2010 OPOW report acknowledged government censorship of the Internet and reiterated the need for traditional public opinion supervision.63 Internet service providers (ISP) have to tread a delicate line. Like traditional media, they have to please two masters: the authorities and users. Although the giant ISP Sina Corporation has close relations with the authorities, it lacks the traditional media’s ability to handpick editors and reporters. Sina and other ISPs have to use other means to ensure that the “right” form of information and content is circulated. Reports indicate that Sina operates its own

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censorship department with one thousand staff members monitoring its microblogs.64 Although Internet companies must comply with numerous regulations and censor objectionable speech, they must also give users enough latitude to post opinions if they are to attract and retain customers. The stories that become “top Internet events” are the survivors of a complex system of party-state-driven fi ltering and supervision, and counterbalancing by netizens’ market demands.

The Transformation of Legal Narratives One notable feature in this rising tide of online critical voices is advocacy of law and rights. As Elizabeth Perry observes, the steady increase in popular protests in China since 1989 has often been framed in the language of “legal rights,” suggesting a “rising rights consciousness” in China.65 Guobin Yang describes the rising oppositional voices in cyberspace as constituting online social and political activism, with a special focus on the rights of disadvantaged groups.66 In the sixteen legal stories that made the “top twenty” annual Internet events from 2008 to 2013, online dissenting voices used the rhetoric of rights and legal language. In pressing the concerns of the disadvantaged and ordinary citizens who feel helpless in the face of a corrupt, bureaucratic, and authoritarian regime, these netizens voiced a faith in the judiciary and the law, articulating views trusting that justice will be delivered if judges or higher officials are alerted to lawless and unjust behavior. Table 6.1 shows that five of the sixteen legal stories involve attempts by netizens or parties in the case to bring grievances to the courts, including by filing lawsuits. Fourteen of the cases are criminal cases.67 Three of the stories concern attempts to overturn sentences.68 In only two of the cases was the ultimate outcome fundamentally inconsistent with the majority public view (as reflected in surveys). In one of those cases, Party members and officials accused of forced prostitution of young girls were convicted of lesser offense.69 In the other, a hawker received a death sentence for killing two urban management officers, allegedly in self-defense after the victims badly beat the defendant.70 In some of the sixteen cases, the media or the courts conducted surveys of public opinion. An examination of the results provides further insight into the interactions between court decision-making and netizens’ efforts to bring

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Table 6.1. Classification of Cases According to Nature of Court Decisions and Public Opinion

Year

No. of cases successfully filed with the court

No. of cases in which the outcome was fully consistent with prevailing public opinion (PO)

No. of cases in which the outcome was partially consistent with PO

No. of cases in which the outcome was inconsistent with PO

2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013

1 3 1 0 0 0

1 1 0 1 0 3

0 3 0 0 0 0

0 1 0 0 0 1

grievances to the courts and point out perceived injustices in judicial proceedings. The following discussion considers five of these cases.

Deng Yujiao Self-Defense Against Rape Case (2009)

Deng Yujiao, a twenty-one-year-old hotel waitress, killed one government official and wounded another in an attempt to protect herself from rape in May 2009.71 The story was the top-ranked Internet discussion topic in 2009, attracting 25,133 posts.72 Although Deng called the police herself immediately after the incident, she was detained for “intentional killing.” By the time the Public Security Bureau determined that Deng had used “excessive force” to defend herself and decided to prosecute her, a heated debate on the Internet had already begun. Netizens traveled to Deng’s home county, Badong, in Hubei Province to support her. One catchy headline on the Internet was “Anyone Could Be Deng Yujiao.” 73 Her plight and the sense that she was victimized by both the government officials who attacked her and the criminal justice process struck a chord with many Internet commentators. China Central Television (CCTV) conducted an online survey asking whether Deng’s conduct constituted lawful self-defense.74 The survey is remarkable because of CCTV’s status as the Party’s main electronic media outlet. Respondents were asked whether (1) Deng’s actions constituted lawful

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self-defense and she should thus be found not guilty; (2) Deng had used excessive force to defend herself but should not be found guilty of intentional killing; or (3) it was difficult to tell, and there was still room for discussion. Among the survey’s 129,111 respondents, 93.41 percent chose the first option, 5.83 percent chose the second, and 0.75 percent chose the third.75 Amid the widespread Internet discussion and the CCTV survey, two lawyers decided to represent Deng pro bono,76 an interview with Deng and photos of her in the hospital were posted on the Internet,77 and academics joined the debate over the legal merits of Deng’s defense. The Badong County Court eventually found Deng guilty of using excessive force but exempted her from punishment, as she was found to be suffering from a mental disorder exacerbated by acute depression.78 The outcome of “guilty but free” was seen as a compromise in response to the public outcry for justice. It is widely believed that Deng would have faced a worse fate had it not been for the wave of public opinion expressed in the traditional media and on the Internet.79 Although the Supreme People’s Court’s annual report cited the Deng case as an exemplary decision that had achieved positive legal effects and social effects,80 the authorities kept a watchful eye on the development of public opinion concerning the case. The 2009 OPOW report described a microblogger nicknamed Butcher, who had played an important role in raising money to cover the lawyer’s fee for Deng Yujiao, as a potential threat to society. The OPOW report also stated that Butcher was successfully “fended off ” by an official investigator netizen named Border Citizen and persuaded not to intervene in another legal scandal concerning the forced prostitution of primary school students.81

The Hangzhou Drag Racing Case (2009)

The Hangzhou Drag Racing Case was ranked as the seventh hottest Internet story in 2009, attracting 7,495 posts.82 Hu Bin, son of a wealthy local businessman, struck a recent university graduate with his Mitsubishi sports car in central Hangzhou.83 The driver was detained by the police but not arrested. When the police reported the following day that Hu had been driving at seventy kilometers per hour, an outburst of anger on the Internet followed. Eyewitness reports suggesting that the victim had died on the spot after having been sent flying five meters into the air and landing twenty meters from the crash scene,84 and photos of Hu apparently smoking and laughing

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with his friends immediately after the accident, only fueled the online outrage.85 Facing mounting public pressure, the police issued another report two weeks later in which they admitted mistakes and revealed that Hu had been driving an illegally modified sports car at a speed between 84.1 and 101.2 kilometers per hour at the time of the accident. This incident resonated with many netizens and citizens, especially once it became known that the victim had been a recent university graduate from a poor farming family who had been studying and working hard for a better life. Many saw his death as a tragedy caused by the selfish younger generation of the new rich,86 and they were eager to bring Hu to justice. The subsequent debate in traditional and online media centered on what charge Hu should face. Qilu Television in Shandong Province asked the audience to vote via SMS messages on whether Hu should be charged with causing the death of another by use of a vehicle, which carried a maximum sentence of three years, or with endangering public safety, which carried a maximum sentence of life imprisonment. The vast majority (89 percent) of voters (16,091) favored the more serious charge.87 As in the Deng case, the Hangzhou Drag Racing Case was a partial victory for the outcome favored by public opinion. In July 2009, Hu was found guilty of causing the death of another by vehicle under Article 133 of the Criminal Code and sentenced to three years in prison. Neither Hu’s family nor the victim’s family was satisfied with the outcome.88 Some netizens even questioned whether the defendant who appeared before the court was the real Hu Bin.89 This skeptical reaction revealed a lack of public trust in the police, the procuratorate, and the courts. Nonetheless, without the public furor against Hu and in support of the victim, the police might well have failed to carry out a proper investigation, and Hu might well have escaped prosecution.

The Wang Shuai Defamation Case (2009)

In 2009, Wang Shuai, who was working in Shanghai, posted online stories about the plight of his own family and other farming families who had been forced off their farmland in Lingbao County in Henan Province without adequate compensation. Wang’s posts blamed the local government in Lingbao, which had taken the land to promote industrial development. Policemen from Lingbao traveled to Shanghai and detained Wang in a Shanghai police station for three days before escorting him back to Lingbao for five days of

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detention in the local police station. Wang was arrested and charged with defaming the local government. Wang’s story ranked sixteenth among OPOW’s twenty hottest Internet topics in 2009, attracting 5,004 posts.90 Netizens expressed shock at local policemen crossing provincial borders to snatch someone for an alleged case of criminal defamation against a local government. The fact that forced and undercompensated land requisition had become an increasingly common problem across the country also contributed to the heated discussions of Wang’s case online.91 Many who posted online identified with Wang, asking, “Who will be the next Wang Shuai?”92 People’s Daily Online, the official web portal of the main Party newspaper, carried extensive coverage of the story, interviewed Wang, and conducted a large-scale online survey. The survey asked netizens whether they believed that (1) the defamation charge was merely a pretext for the local government to suppress free speech; (2) Wang had used improper channels to complain and harmed the reputation of the government; (3) further investigation was necessary before conclusions could be drawn; or (4) other opinions. Of 20,533 respondents, 93.4 percent chose the first option.93 In the end, Wang was not prosecuted but received compensation of RMB 780 and an apology from the Lingbao government.94 The Internet and online public opinion were seen as a “mighty imperial sword” that had saved Wang from the barbaric acts of a local government.95

The Xi’an Car Accident/“Passionate Killing” Case (2011)

In October 2010 in Xi’an, Shaanxi Province, Yao Jiaxin struck with his car motorcyclist Zhang Miao. Fearing that Zhang would remember Yao’s license plate number and report him, Yao stabbed Zhang to death before fleeing the scene. Although Yao went to the police station three days later to confess,96 a sustained outpouring of public opinion demanded a severe sentence. Yao was tried, convicted, and executed in 2011. The Yao case was the seventhranked Internet story in OPOW’s 2011 report, attracting more than 4 million posts.97 Netizens viewed Yao’s case as a battle between the privileged and powerful, on the one hand, and the weak, on the other. Yao was a university music student whose father was a former senior military officer, while the victim was a farmer and the young mother of a two-year-old child. Netizens framed

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the battle as “Yao Jiaxin and the Law, Yao Jiaxin and China: Only One Can Live!”98 When some legal academics suggested that that Yao had killed Zhang “in the heat of passion” (and thus might deserve a lesser sentence), there was outrage in cyberspace.99 Among the surprising features of the case was the Xi’an Intermediate People’s Court’s distributing a survey to the five hundred people present at Yao’s trial. The survey asked for opinions on how Yao should be punished and suggestions for how the case should be conducted. Among the five hundred people surveyed, reportedly four hundred were university students and twenty-five were farmers.100 As the results of the survey were not publicly disclosed, it was unclear who the remaining seventy-five respondents were. Whatever the survey’s results and impact on the court may have been, Yao was convicted of murder and sentenced to death.101 The court did not accept his defense that he had killed in the heat of passion or had been provoked, and his death sentence was upheld on appeal.102 Collecting public opinion via a court survey during a trial was controversial, but the Xi’an Intermediate People’s Court defended its action as being consistent with a provincial policy, in place since 2008, that called for courts to be open, transparent, and in touch with public life, for judges’ behavior to be subject to public scrutiny,103 and for courts to seek the opinion of those present at trial in cases that have great social impact or that involve the public interest.104

The Li XX Case (2013)

In a 2013 case, a seventeen-year-old juvenile surnamed Li played a leading role in a gang rape perpetrated with four others. Although the defendant’s identity was not disclosed by the court and could not be reported in the media because of his age, netizens knew that “Li XX,” as he was called in court documents,105 was Li Tianyi, the son of two celebrity singers for the People’s Liberation Army.106 Li, along with three fellow minors and one adult, allegedly visited a bar in Beijing and invited a young woman who worked there to a hotel room, where they beat her and sexually assaulted her.107 The defense argued that Li had either been too drunk to commit the act of rape or had been outside the hotel room when the crime took place, and that the alleged victim was in fact a prostitute arranged by the bar.108 This defense pro-

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voked outrage among netizens. Information about Li’s past behavior added fuel to the fire. In 2011, Li had hit another car while driving his BMW. Instead of apologizing to the driver and passenger of the other car, Li and his teenage passenger had beaten and threatened them. Li had been sent to a labor camp for juvenile offenders. Li’s rape case was compelling to a public eager for accounts of the misdeeds of the spoiled offspring of “ugly officials and the ugly rich.”109 Li’s very public legal spectacle was the second-hottest Internet event in OPOW’s 2013 rankings and the most debated legal case on the Internet that year, attracting more than 15 million posts. The Internetbased public attention it garnered even surpassed Internet debate over the trial of Bo Xilai, the member of the top elite who was ousted amid charges of corruption, abuse of power, and complicity in his wife’s role in the murder of a foreign business partner.110 The case also received attention in the international media, including BBCNews, the New York Times, and the Süddeutsche Zeitung.111 The court sentenced Li to ten years in prison, and the verdict was upheld on appeal.112 Several opinion polls were conducted in connection with Li’s case. After Li was detained, but before he was prosecuted, the popular news portal Phoenix Web conducted a survey. Nearly three-quarters (74 percent) of the 542,200 respondents thought Li should be punished severely.113 Before the verdict, Sohu conducted a survey asking netizens for their views on the sentence: guilty but reduced sentence; guilty with less than ten years of imprisonment; guilty but noncriminal, administrative punishment only; not guilty; or settlement out of court between the parties.114 More than 50 percent of the 269,494 who responded opted for the first choice, in contrast to the court’s opting for the second. Although public opinion (at least that reflected in the surveys) was disappointed with the outcome, the public’s worst fears—that the Li family would use its power and influence to escape legal accountability—were not realized. Party authorities seem to have recognized the dangers of ignoring these public concerns. Before Li’s trial, the People’s Daily had expressed the view that the failure of prominent families to inculcate their children with the right values could “lead to antagonism among the people.”115 When the trial court issued its verdict, public opinion was largely accepting, presumably out of relief that Li was not acquitted. In responding to a survey conducted by Sina, more than 55 percent of the 78,938 respondents said they considered the verdict and sentence appropriate.116 Another Sina survey,

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conducted after the court of second instance affirmed the lower court’s verdict, found that more than 70 percent of the 42,598 respondents supported the result.117 The public pressure for conviction and a tough sentence was so strong that Li’s defense lawyer tried, unsuccessfully, to invoke these as grounds for reversal in the intermediate court.118 The Beijing Municipal High Court, however, viewed the public’s role differently, explicitly acknowledging the positive public response to the courts’ decisions, as evidenced in public opinion polls, in its annual work report for 2013.119 Here, the official judicial view invoked public approval and endorsement to confer legitimacy on a court ruling, with the judiciary proud to show that it had not only reached the “correct” legal decision but also reached a decision that was embraced by the public and that seemed to address broader social concerns effectively.

The Solicitation of Public Opinion These five legal stories captured the attention of the public, as well as the authorities, but the outcomes did not accord fully with public preferences as expressed on the Internet and in opinion surveys. Although culprits whom the public considered guilty were punished and victims whom the public saw as wrongfully accused were set free in all five cases, the outcomes fell between the views expressed by public sentiment and the outcomes sought by prosecutors or favored by the authorities or the powerful. Rape victim Deng was set free but found guilty of using excessive force in fatally warding off her attackers and effectively declared insane. Hu did not escape punishment for recklessly killing a university student but received what public opinion saw as an unduly light sentence of three years. The notorious and well-connected rapist Li was thrown in jail, but only for ten years. Wang was spared prosecution for libel over his online posts critical of the local government and received an apology and modest compensation, but even this seemingly full victory had its limits given that the officers involved in his detention faced only suspension. Yao’s death sentence and execution for stabbing to death the victim he had run into and injured conformed to apparent public opinion, but this likely required no departure from the prosecutors’ and perhaps the court’s own views of an appropriate outcome. All, or at least many, of these outcomes reflected the impact of public opinion, amplified and channeled by traditional media and the Internet.

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The traditional media still at least partly serves as “public opinion supervision” under the leadership of Party authorities. The Internet, including microblogging and surveys (some conducted online by traditional media organs), has allowed netizens to exercise more autonomous “public opinion monitoring.” Both mechanisms have targeted the judiciary and the handling of controversial cases. Courtrooms thus have become not only forums for adjudicating the legal issues immediately before them but also arenas where the authorities and netizens and the competing forces of public opinion supervision and public opinion monitoring do battle over the larger issues raised by particular legal cases.

Conclusion The more effective expression of public opinion through the Internet not only gives public opinion greater capacity to weigh in on, and affect outcomes in, adjudicated cases. Internet-based channels for public opinion also enhance citizen awareness of issues and mobilize public opinion to seek to check the state, address broader issues of social justice, and push for legislative or policy reforms. Netizens have pressed for the realization of their visions of justice in individual cases and in calling for changes in the legal and social order. But their campaigns for justice need the assistance of the law and the courts— the tools and institutions of state authority. If the courts consistently fail to respond to citizens seeking justice (and thereby abandon a tradition dating to imperial times), the risks of large-scale protests and other more systemchallenging actions will rise. Chinese courts have played and can play critical roles, not only in adjudicating cases and resolving conflicts but also in helping (if often only indirectly) to address broader social issues, soften opposition, and reduce discontent in society. To do this, courts must fulfi ll the common dictum that justice must not only be done but also be seen to be done. When the judiciary conducts public opinion surveys or makes references to them, or when it reaches decisions consistent with views of justice reflected in public opinion (primarily as expressed on line), it can give the public hope that more radical means of pursuing justice and change are not necessary. The courts can also thereby win greater legitimacy for their decisions, which can in turn help the judiciary overcome some of the significant institutional constraints that limit its ability to achieve justice (as defined by the laws or by public opinion).

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Despite the constraints imposed by official censorship and state monitoring, the Internet and microblogs—and the public opinion monitoring they make possible—are powerful forces in this regard. They make possible more direct citizen engagement with the authorities and give the judiciary and Party authorities stronger incentives to be attentive to public opinion and the online public’s monitoring power.

Table 6.2. Outcome of Cases Studied in Relation to Public Opinion Case was filed before the court/ successfully prosecuted

Year

Case

2013 2013 2013 2013 2011 2010 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2009 2008 2008

Teenager Li XX involved in gang rape Gong Aiai Sexual assault of schoolgirls by a headmaster Xia Junfeng Yao Jiaxin Li Gang Deng Yujiao Hide and seek Shanghai “Fishing” law enforcement case Hangzhou 70 km drag racing case Prostitution of primary school students Wang Shuai Xishui underage prostitution Luo Caixia Huanan tiger story Xu Ting ATM

1 1

Total

16

5

Outcome of the trial was fully consistent with public opinion (PO)

Outcome of the trial was partially consistent with PO

Outcome of the trial was inconsistent with PO

1 1 1 1 1 1 1

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 6

3

2

CHAPTER 7

Public Opinion and Chinese Foreign Policy: New Media and Old Puzzles Dalei Jie

The relationship between public opinion and foreign policy has long been a notoriously difficult question for international relations scholars to tackle. Challenges range from the most basic question of what constitutes public opinion, to more complicated ones such as how it can be measured, how the intervening effect of the media can be ascertained, and how the causal mechanism by which public opinion shapes foreign policy can be specified. Over the past few decades, research on the subject presents a range of divergent views and contradictory conclusions rather than convergence or consensus.1 Indeed, it seems that the only point of scholarly agreement is the simple, and hardly helpful, observation that public opinion somehow matters in foreign policy decision making. Most of the existing, and inconclusive, research on the topic has focused on the experience of democracies. Despite an abundance of evidence and a high level of transparency in decision making in such countries, it has remained difficult to identify the effects of public opinion on foreign policy. In the case of authoritarian regimes such as China, with a much more opaque decision-making process, limited access to official documents, acute sensitivity about conducting survey research to gauge public opinion,2 and a straitjacketed media, the research challenges are that much greater. For many years, China scholars ignored these research challenges because few believed that public opinion had much of a bearing on the decisions made by the coun-

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try’s autocrats who were not constrained by institutions holding them accountable to the public’s preferences.3 Over the past thirty-five years, however, major political, economic, and societal changes have raised new questions about the possibility that Chinese public opinion may be playing a significant role in foreign policy decision making. Perhaps most prominent among the changes is the rise of a strong current of Chinese nationalism.4 Indeed, openly expressed nationalistic sentiment runs so deep in China that it has become the focus of most of the debate about the effects of public opinion on foreign policy. Another relevant change has been the commercialization of China’s media. This process has not only undermined the government’s control over the flow of information, but has also put pressure on profit-driven media competing for the public’s interest and money to tilt toward sensational stories that appeal to a nationalistic readership.5 In addition, the rapid spread of the Internet and social media in China has created unprecedented possibilities for the public to have its voice heard and, at times, to orga nize collection action. Finally, China’s interaction with the outside world has dramatically widened and deepened. An increasing number of Chinese whose focus had previously been limited to events within the country’s borders are now paying greater attention to events abroad. Recognizing that global affairs affect their interests, they are now more strongly motivated to press China’s leaders to attend to their concerns.6 These developments, taken together, have contributed to a view among observers within and outside China that public opinion, especially nationalist opinion, once inconsequential for understanding China’s foreign policy, has now become important. The claim is that a new wave of Chinese nationalism, reflected in old and new media and sometimes reflected in street demonstrations, now puts considerable pressure on a Chinese government whose nationalist credentials are a key source of legitimacy. Many foreign observers see this as an unsettling development and view China’s foreign policy assertiveness in recent years as one troubling result of the shadow that nationalist public opinion casts over decision making in Beijing.7 Although it is certainly plausible that the connection between public opinion and foreign policy in China is stronger than ever, this is an unproven hypothesis. At a minimum, absent clear evidence and a compelling argument, it is a claim that should not be taken at face value or, worse still, overstated. As explained in the following, there are important analytical challenges to

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overcome before it can be demonstrated that public opinion is more than a marginal influence on Chinese foreign policy. Empirically, much of the seemingly supportive evidence is anecdotal or speculative. The remainder of this chapter is organized as follows. First, I briefly review the literature about public opinion and Chinese foreign policy. I then present the conceptual obstacles to figuring out the role of public opinion on Chinese foreign policy. Finally, I reexamine a familiar case often invoked as an example of the importance of public opinion—its alleged effect on the Chinese government’s position on Japan’s 2005 bid to become a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). Though obviously only a single case, this is a “hard test case” for my argument that questions the presumed importance of nationalistic public opinion. Relations with Japan is one of the issues widely seen as most likely to elicit strong nationalistic sentiments from the Chinese people and thus to be handled by the Chinese government with a keen eye toward public opinion.

Growing Importance of Public Opinion? It has become commonplace in the Western literature to claim that public opinion and nationalism not only constrains China’s foreign policy options but even drives key foreign policy decisions.8 Although they are not often made explicit, two distinct mechanisms can be identified through which public opinion exerts its influence. The first mechanism holds that if there is a big swing of public opinion as a result of events or incidents that are an aff ront to Chinese nationalist feelings, and this trigger is coupled with growing political activism and sensationalist media coverage, enormous pressure is generated that forces the Chinese government to accommodate the public’s demand for a strong Chinese response.9 In other words, foreign policy changes after public opinion is mobilized. The second mechanism posits that since nationalism is crucial to regime legitimacy, the Chinese government acts aggressively in anticipation of nationalist public opinion, especially when unhappiness about economic growth or other aspects of the quality of life in China undermines the purely material underpinnings of regime legitimacy. In other words, foreign policy changes before public opinion is mobilized. Through both mechanisms, it has been suggested, public opinion has a considerable impact not only by affecting rhetoric and tactics of Chinese foreign policy, but by affecting substantive and significant national security decisions.10

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Chinese writing about foreign policy also underscores the growing role played by public opinion in foreign policy decision making.11 This is, allegedly, a new development that has emerged along with the decentralization and pluralization of China’s domestic politics, the accelerating interaction with the outside world, and the rapid proliferation of new technologies that provide the public with greater access to information. The view among Chinese scholars is mirrored in the views of China’s officials in charge of foreign affairs who have explicitly acknowledged that public opinion weighs heavily on foreign policy decision making.12 But in contrast to much of the Western literature, which generally believes that the growing importance of public opinion is discomforting, the Chinese view is that there can be benefits from a greater role for public opinion, even if it can be a double-edged sword. One benefit is that strong public opinion can be used as a bargaining chip by China’s leaders in their international negotiations. They can claim that their flexibility is limited by domestic political considerations, much as leaders from democracies do when they invoke the constraints imposed on them by a watchful electorate, opposition politicians, or legislatures. Another potential benefit is that widespread outpourings of nationalist opinion can exert some direct pressure on foreign governments that encourages them to accommodate popularly supported Chinese interests. Yet some Chinese analysts recognize that in addition to these potential benefits, the force of nationalist public opinion can be costly if it hamstrings the government’s ability to engage in effective diplomacy or tarnishes China’s international image.13

Three Analytical Challenges Despite the prevalence of claims about the importance of public opinion for China’s foreign policy, numerous analytical challenges to evaluating the connection remain. The first challenge is simple but perhaps most vexing: How does one accurately assess China’s public opinion? Is fervent nationalism representative of the Chinese public? One recent survey reveals a different picture than the broadly nationalistic one commonly assumed by many analysts. Conducted in 2013 in five major Chinese cities, this survey of public opinion about the territorial disputes in the East and South China Seas showed that most respondents preferred compromise with other claimants. Moreover, territorial disputes—supposedly a hot-button issue for Chinese nationalists— ranked significantly behind domestic issues such as corruption, inequality,

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and food safety in terms of salience.14 Although one can question the methodology of the survey and its results are open to different interpretations, at a minimum it raises serious doubts about easy assumptions that strong nationalism reflects mainstream public opinion in China. It is also a misleading oversimplification to argue that the spread of Internet technology and widespread online discussion of international affairs are fomenting a rising tide of nationalistic sentiments and extreme viewpoints. The most important source of news about international affairs for most Chinese remains traditional media such as the China Central Television (CCTV), which is more easily and frequently regulated by the government than the new media sources are.15 Moreover, although there is plenty of online discussion of international affairs that is nationalistic, xenophobic, and irrational, China’s new media also provide more diverse sources information and a venue for debate about competing views, both of which can foster more cosmopolitan and moderate attitudes.16 Put otherwise, the effects of new media are variable; the circumstances under which new media augment the force of strident nationalism, rather than challenge it, remain to be determined. Some scholars, however, suggest that it does not matter much if the majority of Chinese are nationalists or moderates because the government is inevitably more responsive to extreme nationalistic views, even if these only represent a small minority. In this view, authoritarian leaders—unlike democratic leaders who must be attentive to the majority view to win elections— pay close attention to extreme views because their proponents are more willing to take protest to the street than what may be a moderate silent majority. Such extremists, in other words, pose the greatest risk to regime stability and must be accommodated.17 However compelling this argument may be, it has to be weighed against the argument that indulging nationalistic fervor can undermine other important concerns of the Chinese government that also bear on stability. Especially when nationalistic pressures have jeopardized the prospects for the prosperity that bolsters popular support for the regime, the Chinese government has acted to rein them in.18 A second, related challenge for analysts trying to identify the link between public opinion and Chinese foreign policy is determining the extent to which state-society relations have been changed by the commercialization of media and the spread of new information technologies. The decentralized and networked features of the Internet provide for easier access to information and more channels for individuals to communicate with one another and

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coordinate collective action. Many believe that as a consequence, the balance of power between state and society is shifting in favor of the latter and that a newly empowered society will have a much more prominent role in shaping governmental policies, in democracies and nondemocracies alike.19 However, a more complete and accurate characterization may be that new media and social media empower both state and society, and that in most cases the Internet has not yet tipped the erstwhile balance.20 With respect to the making of Chinese foreign policy, although the public is better equipped to obtain information and voice their views, the state has also become more artful in monitoring and guiding public opinion. During the age of new media, the Chinese government has employed a wide range of censorship instruments to mold public opinion, methods which can be seen as reflecting different forms of power.21 The first form is force, including the use of tools such as blocking and fi ltering technologies, as well as cruder measures such as pressuring and jailing alleged troublemakers. The second form is exchange, referring to the use of rewards and punishments to induce compliance. This may be most clearly reflected in the self-censorship by domestic and foreign Internet companies who want to continue their operations within China; they are required to abide by the regime’s relevant laws, regulations, and directives. The third form is persuasion. Instead of simply reacting to dissenting views when they are expressed, the government has also placed a great deal of emphasis on proactively guiding and channeling public opinion.22 In this respect, China’s public diplomacy includes not just the usual externally focused efforts to foster a positive image abroad but also an internal effort to educate the public about China’s international environment, external relations, and foreign policy designed to bring public opinion in line with China’s national interests as defined by the regime.23 One manifestation of this approach tailored to the new media environment is the regime’s use of a massive army of Internet commentators (the “fi ft ycent party”) who are paid to post pro-government messages and sway online public opinion.24 The pattern of censorship itself is also revealing. Contrary to conventional understandings of authoritarian regimes, Beijing actually tolerates wideranging online criticisms of the government, its leaders, and its policies. Strict censorship is reserved for dissent that has the potential to mobilize collective action.25 This approach means that visibility of dissenting voices on the Internet cannot be equated with their effectiveness. In many cases, their visibility alone is instead a measure of the extent to which the government

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believes it can permit the airing of these views because it believes they can be safely ignored. But what about the effect on foreign policy of the periodic, large-scale, nationalist protests that move the expressions of public opinion to the arena of collective action? These demonstrations, as Jessica Weiss has documented, reflect popular impulses at the grass roots of Chinese society, and are not simply a result of marching orders issued from Beijing. But, as she also explains, whether or not these protests are permitted to occur is at least partly determined by the regime. When Beijing believes that demonstrations will provide a useful signal of China’s resolve and bargaining leverage in international negotiations, nationalist protests are given the “green light.” When Beijing believes such demonstrations risk domestic instability or an adverse diplomatic reaction, the regime throws up the red stoplight, a costly effort that Beijing can then invoke as a signal to foreign governments that shows the price it is willing to pay to pursue cooperation.26 In other words, it is the government’s calculation about the costs and benefits of permitting nationalist demonstrations that is decisive. The regulation of online criticisms and sporadic nationalist protest according to calculations made in Beijing may be a sign of the continuing strength of the Chinese government rather than its helplessness in the face of nationalist pressure fostered by the advent of new media. A third analytical challenge is empirical. Much of the evidence used to support claims about the stronger effect of Chinese public opinion on foreign policy is anecdotal or speculative. This is understandable given the difficulty in gaining access to materials relating to high-level foreign policy deliberations in any country, and especially one with as little transparency as China. Although the lack of access to evidence is a problem beyond the control of academics, the use of the evidence that is available could be improved with greater attention to methodological design. At present, most of the cases scholars have chosen to study are overdetermined—both public opinion and government preferences point to similar predictions. As a result, it is not possible to sort out the relative causal weight of each. In other words, the fact that the government acts more or less in accordance with what the public demands is not necessarily evidence that public opinion has made a difference unless the preferences of the government and public clearly diverged in the first place. For example, the Chinese government’s unwillingness to back Japan’s bid for permanent membership on the UNSC in 2005 only provides evidence of the significance of Chinese public opinion if it can be established that Beijing had initially supported Tokyo’s aspiration. The

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next section illustrates the need to pay closer attention to the challenges of research design when searching for the connection between public opinion and Chinese foreign policy.

Public Opinion and China’s Stance on Japan’s 2005 UNSC Bid China’s stance on Japan’s UNSC bid has frequently been invoked as an example of the power of Chinese nationalism in shaping Beijing’s foreign policy. Against the backdrop of proposed comprehensive reform of the UN and Japan’s aggressive push for a permanent seat on the UNSC, it is claimed that massive online and street protests by the Chinese public put enormous pressure on Beijing, forcing it to change its originally ambiguous attitude to a much tougher and clearer position opposing Japan’s bid.27 However, a careful review of China’s evolving stance and consideration of additional factors suggest that the impact of nationalist protest is uncertain. First, neither online petitions nor street protests could have occurred or been sustained without acquiescence from the government. Anti-Japan protests began at the end of March 2005 and reached their peak in the middle of April. When they appeared to be on the brink of spinning out of control, the government effectively and quickly brought them to an end through a combination of public security measures and a propaganda campaign insisting that nationalism be expressed “calmly, rationally, legally, and orderly.”28 In short, the state maintained its control over society’s nationalist outbursts. Second, the Chinese government’s position on the UNSC reform and Japan’s bid actually demonstrated a high degree of consistency both before and after the online petitions and street protests gained momentum. Although some minor adjustment in wording and tone can be discerned, there was no policy “reversal.”29 The most authoritative document about China’s stance on UN reform is the official position paper released on June 7, 2005. According to the document, China favored more representation for developing countries in the UNSC but opposed setting a deadline for the reform in the absence of consensus.30 This position, however, predated the June 2005 paper. Indeed, it can be seen in a less structured and focused form as early as October 2004 in a statement by China’s ambassador to the UN.31 Thus the broad contours of China’s policy on the UNSC reform were set not only long before the appearance of the online petition in March  2005 but well

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before the appearance of detailed UN reform plans that set off Chinese nationalists’ anxieties about the prospect of Japan acquiring a permanent UNSC seat. 32 It is also worth noting that China has never officially taken an explicit position on Japan’s UNSC membership. The Chinese government’s formulations have consistently stuck to general principles and procedural matters rather than specific views about any particular country’s candidacy. Some have cited Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao’s remarks in India on April 12, 2005, as the defining moment of Chinese opposition to Japan’s bid. Yet, careful review of the content of Wen’s statement and the circumstances in which it was made casts doubt on this interpretation. The wording of Wen’s remarks was too vague to qualify as an outright objection.33 Moreover, Wen’s statement came immediately on the heels of the formal release of Japan’s new history textbooks, timing that suggest his criticisms may have been directed at this long-standing controversy rather than Japan’s UNSC membership. Finally, his remarks were made in response to a question posed by a U.S. journalist, rather than as part of prepared remarks, suggesting that in the absence of this prompt, the comments might not have been otherwise made at all. Third, although there was a subtle change of the wording and tone of China’s stance, the change tracked more closely with the dynamics of coalition building on reform at the UN than with the expressions of Chinese public opinion. The shift was most clearly reflected in the wording of China’s position on the critical issue of setting a timetable or forcing a vote even if a consensus on the UNSC reform were unattainable. On October 12, 2004, China had merely warned that forcing a vote at the General Assembly (GA) would result in “confrontation” and “division” among member states. On January 27, 2005, in response to the report of the UN expert panel, China maintained that “ramrodding insufficiently thought through proposals or setting artificial time limits” should be avoided. On April 6, 2005, during the discussion of UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s report at the GA, China indicated that it was not in favor of a deadline. On April 27, 2005, China stated that it opposed the timetable; the language was finally incorporated in China’s official policy detailed in the June position paper.34 This stance was previewed on June 1, 2005, two weeks after Germany, Japan, India, and Brazil (the four UNSC permanent member hopefuls and known as the G-4) circulated their reform proposal and hinted at a possible vote at the GA, when China indicated that it would “vote against” the proposal because of its divisive impact.35

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Thus China’s strongest tone appeared only at the end of April—after the Chinese government had already put an end to increasingly violent antiJapanese street protests.36 If appealing to nationalistic fervor in China had been the government’s major motivation, its strongest language opposing Japan’s permanent membership on the UNSC should have been used earlier— either during the street protests in China or immediately afterward. But if China’s stance was most importantly determined by the dynamics of the coalition building at the UN during the Security Council reform effort, its actual timing and sequence make sense. During the last quarter of 2004, when UN reform initially came to the forefront with a sense of urgency, it would have been diplomatically imprudent for China to take a strong stance, let alone to stake out a position on any one country’s candidacy. At the time, many of the specifics of the reform proposal were still up in the air and the G-4’s campaign seemed to have a good chance of succeeding. Holding an isolated position in opposition to the majority would neither serve China’s interests nor accord with China’s traditional, consensus-building approach to diplomacy at the UN.37 The general debate on UN reform in the GA held from April 6 to April 8 provided China’s leaders with an excellent opportunity to assess the support for various reform plans. The G-4 plan favored adding more permanent members to the UNSC and pressing for a vote. A plan proposed by the Uniting for Consensus group (UfC), whose major members were regional rivals of the G-4 such as Italy, Argentina, Pakistan, and South Korea, favored consensus building instead of a forced vote. As it turned out, the GA debate was quite divided, which was good news for status quo players and bad news for those such as the G-4 who sought quick reform. Perhaps more importantly, at the GA debate on April 7 the U.S. government shifted its position closer to that of China’s by emphasizing the need to build a broad consensus and avoid setting “artificial deadlines.”38 Meanwhile, the UfC group, in order to counterbalance the G-4’s aggressive campaign, convened a meeting on April 11 in New York, attracting a total of 120 countries, including China and the United States.39 With the prospect of the G-4’s collective bid undercut and the consensus-building approach gaining ground, on April 27 China for the first time indicated that it opposed a time limit or a forced vote. China followed up on June 1 after a closed-door meeting with the UfC, declaring that it would “vote against” the G-4 proposal if it were submitted to the GA. An official, comprehensive statement of China’s position was then detailed in the paper on UN reform that Beijing issued on June 7, 2005. In sum, the evolution of

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China’s stance on UNSC reform is readily explained by the shifting balance of power among coalitions at the UN, an oft-omitted consideration in the literature that instead narrowly focuses closely on the highly noisy and visible online petitions and anti-Japanese street protests within China.

Conclusion The connection between public opinion and Chinese foreign policy remains elusive. Though it is plausible that public opinion plays a more significant role today than in the past, the difficulty in obtaining reliable data and identifying precise causal mechanisms is not a justifiable reason to lower standards for evaluating theoretical claims or to be satisfied with their mere plausibility. The analytical challenges discussed above suggest some of the hurdles that need to be cleared to develop a more cogent understanding of recent changes in China’s foreign policy decision making and the role that public opinion may now play in it. My brief review of China’s policy toward Japan’s UNSC bid in 2005 reveals that even on an issue where public opinion was highly mobilized—with widely circulated online petitions and massive street protests in China—the evidence suggests that the effect of public opinion on Chinese foreign policy cannot be clearly established. On the one hand, doubts about the causal significance of Chinese public opinion, especially its stridently nationalistic manifestations, may be comforting inasmuch as many worry about the possibility that a rising China’s foreign policy could be hijacked and driven to reckless extremes by such nationalistic views. On the other hand, however, if the recently worrisome assertiveness in Chinese foreign policy is not the result of pandering to domestic pressure from nationalist public opinion but instead a result of the rational strategic calculations of the Chinese leadership,40 that might be even more disturbing. Making adjustments to a rationally calculated assertiveness requires not the relatively straightforward task of controlling public opinion but a much more daunting task—undertaking a fresh and fundamental recalculation of China’s strategic interests and the foreign policy that best advances them.

CHAPTER 8

Social Media, Nationalist Protests, and China’s Japan Policy: The Diaoyu Islands Controversy, 2012–13 Peter Gries, Derek Steiger, and Wang Tao

Without killing Japanese, I cannot relieve the hatred in my heart. —Sina Forum post from Chengdu, August 16, 2012

“

In Japan these people are called extreme right-wing fascists. In Germany they are called Nazis. In China they are called “patriots.” —Wangyi post from Fuzhou, September 21, 2012

The year 2012 witnessed a renewed flare-up of anti-Japanese sentiment in Mainland China. In April 2012, right-wing Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara proposed that Tokyo Prefecture purchase three of the five Senkaku/ Diaoyu Islands (Diaoyu Dao) from their private Japanese owner. Chinese nationalists were outraged. “I suggest everyone boycott Japanese goods,” one netizen wrote online at Sina.com. “Otherwise all the money we spend on Japanese goods will be used to buy bullets.”1 In mid-August, activists from Hong Kong landed on one of the islands and were promptly detained by the

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Japanese coast guard. Chinese nationalists responded by protesting not just online but outside the Japanese Embassy in Beijing, in Shenzhen, and in other major Chinese cities. In early September, the Japanese government purchased the three islands, apparently hoping to defuse the situation by taking it out of Ishihara and the right wing’s hands. Many Chinese interpreted the purchase, however, as an attempt to “nationalize” Japan’s claim to the islands. “Start fighting!” one netizen demanded online to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). “There are 1.3 billion people backing you.”2 On the weekend before September 18, the anniversary of the Mukden Incident that led to the Japa nese occupation of Manchuria in 1931, there were street protests in scores of cities across China. Demonstrators carried portraits of Mao Zedong and chanted slogans like, “Declare war!” Several Japa nese factories were forced to close amid widespread vandalism. On September 18, protesters hurled bottles at U.S. ambassador to China Gary Locke’s car and grabbed its American flag, blocking him from entering the U.S. Embassy. The Chinese government then took the unprecedented step of sending armed naval warships to the disputed Islands. In December, a PLA patrol plane flew over the area, and Japan scrambled jet fighters. In January 2013, Chinese and Japanese jets appear to have played chicken near the islands, and a Chinese frigate locked its weapons-targeting radar onto a Japanese helicopter and a destroyer. Did nationalist opinion in Chinese cyberspace influence the PRC’s military escalation? Or are China’s foreign policy decision-makers wise mandarins with the smarts to fully manage popu lar nationalism, perhaps even strategically manipulating it to improve their bargaining position with the Japanese? A lack of transparency in elite Chinese decision making puts definitive answers to these questions beyond our reach. Th is chapter argues, however, that the circumstantial evidence is compelling: nationalist opinion is a powerful bottom-up driver of China’s Japan policy. While political elites may sometimes seek to strategically manipulate domestic politics for foreign policy bargaining purposes, the weight of the evidence suggests that the opposite is more often true: Party elites, concerned above all about maintaining CCP legitimacy, are increasingly responsive to the demands of domestic nationalists. CCP elites, furthermore, only appear “smart” when the situations that they confront are relatively manageable. They have been lucky that events be-

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yond their control—such as the accidents of history that led to the Belgrade bombing and spy plane collision incidents of 1999 and 2001 with the United States—have not yet occurred in the context of Sino-Japanese relations. Should one or more Chinese die at the hands of the Japa nese navy or air force—accidentally or not—the pressure for escalation and war will likely be more than China’s leaders can manage. This chapter does not argue that the party-state plays no role in these anti-Japanese protests—only that the Chinese public increasingly plays an autonomous role. The Chinese party-state’s educational and propaganda systems are clearly a major distal cause of popular anti-Japanese nationalism. The “Patriotic Education” (aiguozhuyi jiaoyu) campaign that followed the Tiananmen Square Massacre inculcated a now widespread view of Japanese as “devils” (guizi).3 More recently, the CCP propaganda apparatus has even become involved in China’s online gaming industry, developing games about World War II that promote anti-Japanese sentiment among China’s youth.4 The CCP party-state was also a proximal cause of the popu lar antiJapanese discourse and demonstrations of 2012–13. For instance, some analysts believe that the September 2010 ramming of Japa nese Coast Guard vessels by Chinese fishing trawlers was actually contrived by the CCP to assert China’s right to patrol the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands.5 This 2010 incident likely prompted Ishihara’s decision to try to purchase some of the Islands, which ultimately sparked the 2012 protests in China. But we agree with scholars like Iain Johnston that, in light of the sensitivity of the September 18th anniversary of the Manchurian Incident, the Chinese party-state did not directly initiate the September 2012 popular anti-Japanese protests.6 Instead, this chapter provides evidence that the PLA’s military escalation at the end of 2012 followed popular nationalist protests against both Japan and the CCP party-state, suggesting—but not proving—that an autonomous public was one proximal cause of the Chinese government’s escalation of the dispute. We begin with a brief review of the recent literature on nationalism and Chinese foreign policy, followed by a concise historical overview of the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands controversy. Following a brief discussion of Internet sources, we then turn to (1) qualitative and (2) quantitative examinations of the chronology of state-society interactions during the 2012–13 Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands controversy. We find that flare ups of anti-Japanese (and antigovernment) sentiment, both online and on the streets of urban China, were followed by a clear toughening of the PRC’s Japan policy. This does not prove that the former caused the latter: correlation does not equal causation. But it

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does satisfy the most basic and necessary condition for demonstrating causality: that a cause precedes an effect. The chapter concludes with some thoughts on why nationalist opinion might influence Chinese policy makers when the CCP so easily disregards public opinion and crushes protests on so many other issues. We argue that because the CCP has staked its claim to legitimacy on its nationalist credentials for more than sixty-five years now, repressing popu lar nationalists is much more costly to the party-state’s legitimacy than crushing dissent on other issues. Regime legitimacy, in short, appears to be the key mediator accounting for the relationship between popular nationalism, on the one hand, and China’s Japan policy, on the other.

Nationalist Public Opinion and Chinese Foreign Policy Does public opinion shape foreign policy making? In the study of American foreign policy, Aaron Wildavsky’s “two presidencies” thesis was dominant up until the Vietnam War. It held that U.S. Congress largely deferred to the president on foreign—but not domestic—policy.7 With Vietnam, however, partisanship over foreign policy became more apparent. In a longitudinal analysis of survey data, Benjamin Page and Robert Shapiro found that changes in public opinion on international events regularly preceded changes in American foreign policies.8 A new thesis emerged to explain this finding. It held that since the United States is a democracy, and the elected officials who make foreign policy generally desire reelection, they are attuned to what the public wants. In a comprehensive review of this “electoral connection” argument, John Aldrich and several colleagues at Duke concluded, “The potential impact of foreign policy views on electoral outcomes is the critical mechanism linking public attitudes to elite behavior.”9 But does public opinion shape foreign policy making in non-democracies like China, where there is no “electoral connection”? James Reilly and Jessica Chen Weiss have recently taken up this question, reexamining antiJapanese sentiment in 2003–5 and anti-American sentiment surrounding the Belgrade embassy bombing of 1999 and the spy plane collision of 2001. Reilly’s 2012 Strong Society, Smart State examines the relationship between public opinion, mass mobilization, and the Chinese state in the context of China’s Japan policy. Reilly argues that the CCP has become an “adaptive authoritarian” regime, responding adeptly to public discontent, ra-

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tionally managing popu lar nationalists and then quickly returning to pragmatic Japan policies. Over the longer term, the state uses propaganda campaigns to reshape public attitudes in a manner consistent with its goals. Earlier scholars like Susan Shirk, Peter Gries, and Ed Friedman, Reilly claims, have been too pessimistic about the state’s ability to manage popular nationalism; the Chinese state is “smart.”10 Is the Chinese party-state really as skillful at blending responsiveness, repression, and persuasion as Reilly suggests? Is it “smart,” or was it just lucky that the events of a decade ago that Reilly chose to reexamine were relatively manageable? The viciousness and violence of the 2012 Diaoyu/Senkaku Island protests, and the PLA military escalations that followed them, appear to undermine Reilly’s claim that Sino-Japanese relations are “relatively stable,” and that “The likelihood of China going to war with Japan is no greater in 2011 that [sic] it was in 2000.”11 The volatile events of 2012–13 strongly suggest otherwise. In her 2013 “Authoritarian Signaling, Mass Audiences, and Nationalist Protest in China,” Jessica Chen Weiss makes a very different argument for international organization. Weiss chides earlier China scholars as diverse as Iain Johnston, Danie Stockmann, Peter Gries, Mike Oksenberg, Dan Lynch, Wu Xinbo, Zhao Suisheng, Tom Christensen, Robert Ross, and Wu Xu for suggesting that popular nationalism is an “unhelpful constraint” on Chinese foreign policy makers. Specifically, she claims that these scholars err in treating popular nationalism as “a constraint exogenous to the government’s own actions.”12 Weiss flips the causal arrow, claiming that it is international strategy that drives elite decisions about domestic politics. Weiss applies IR bargaining theory to China, claiming that Chinese leaders strategically manipulate popular nationalists to signal either resolve (for example, the Belgrade bombing, 1999) or a willingness to cooperate (for example, the Hainan spy plane incident, 2001) in their diplomacy towards the United States. When a major event occurs that mobilizes Chinese nationalists and creates the necessary conditions for mass protest, the CCP chooses to either “nip protests in the bud” by giving a “red light” to domestic nationalists, thus reducing domestic audience costs, or allow protests to develop, giving a “green light” to domestic nationalists, tying their own hands and communicating resolve to their diplomatic foes.13 Since the publication of James Fearon’s “Domestic Political Audiences and the Escalation of International Disputes” twenty years ago, a burgeoning rationalist IR literature on bargaining and “audience costs” has been lucrative

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for its practitioners.14 Jessica Weeks has extended the bargaining logic beyond democracies to posit “authoritarian audience costs.”15 Weiss builds on this line of bargaining scholarship, arguing that nationalist politics within China are driven by leadership decisions about what messages to signal to the external world. The application of rationalist bargaining theory to Sino-American relations today, however, suffers from many of the same empirical problems that it does in explaining international crises elsewhere. Jack Snyder has convincingly argued that bargaining theory is little more than “conjecture,” failing to survive a real world reality check. For instance, historical analysis reveals that leaders rarely issue “bridge-burning ultimatums” to increase audience costs and signal resolve. Instead, they usually seek the opposite: flexibility through ambiguity so that they are not forced into a corner from which they cannot retreat.16 In the case of Sino-American relations, Weiss claims that the CCP allows or forbids domestic protests primarily on the basis of international calculations. For instance, she asserts that the Chinese government permitted antiAmerican protests in 1999 to gain the “international benefits of signaling resolve.” Another possibility, of course, is that with the death of three Chinese and the visible anger of Chinese all around the world, the CCP elite may have realized that it would be too costly to its nationalist legitimacy to block the protests. They gave a “green light” to domestic nationalists not because of its “international benefits,” but because CCP regime legitimacy was at stake. “Second image reversed” approaches have the potential to add nuance to extant second image work, introducing greater dynamism to our thinking about elite decision making in the context of the two-level game that the CCP elite must play in the making of China’s Japan policy. To argue that elites are primarily driven by international bargaining considerations when making the “red light, green light” decision vis-à-vis domestic nationalists, however, assumes a degree of elite unity and skill that, like Reilly’s argument, may be overly optimistic about CCP control of popular nationalism.

The Diaoyu Islands Controversy: Historical Background The 2012–13 Diaoyu/Senkaku Island dispute provides a new and consequential case study to inductively explore the relationship between popular nationalism and Chinese foreign policy.

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The Diaoyu or Senkaku Islands are eight desolate rocks lying in the East China Sea between Taiwan and Okinawa, and they are claimed by China, Taiwan, and Japan. The sovereignty dispute is long and complex. Chinese claims (Mainland and Taiwan) are based on historical records dating back to the Ming dynasty (1368–1644), the 1943 Cairo Declaration stipulation that Japan return all Chinese territory it had annexed, and a “natural prolongation” of the continental shelf argument in international maritime law. Japan denies that the Islands were included in the 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki. Instead, for Japan they were terra nullius when they were annexed. Japan also advances a “median line” division of the continental shelf argument in international maritime law. The first major protests over the islands occurred in 1971, after a September 1970 incident in which the Japa nese navy evicted reporters raising Taipei’s flag on one of the islands. Large and vocal anti-Japanese protests were organized in Hong Kong and Taiwan and among Chinese in the United States. Normalization of relations between China and Japan in 1972, however, included an agreement between Beijing and Tokyo to shelve the dispute for future resolution. In 1996 David Chan from Hong Kong drowned while trying to land on one of the islands, prompting street demonstrations in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and the expression of anti-Japanese sentiment in print in Mainland China. Books like the fall 1996 China Can Still Say No (Zhongguo hai shi neng shuo bu) lamented that “China has been too warm and accommodating towards Japan.”17 2003, the “year of Internet nationalism,” was the first time that mainland Chinese nationalists undertook their own trip to the islands after organizing themselves online. They received a hero’s welcome upon their return to Xiamen.

Internet Sources Our qualitative and quantitative analyses utilize material gleamed from the Chinese Internet. Data from Chinese social media are obviously not representative of Chinese public opinion more broadly: Internet users tend to be younger, more urban, and more educated than the full Chinese population. However, because our interest is not in Chinese public opinion as a whole, but precisely in the younger and more educated politically attentive public most likely to participate in nationalist protests in urban China, we believe

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that social media offer a useful window into the dynamics of Chinese nationalist politics. This analysis explores tweets made on Sina Weibo (xinlang weibo), a popular microblogging ser vice in China that is comparable to Twitter, posts on Tianya Club (Tianya shequ), and comments on articles from three major online news outlets, Sina News (xinlang xinwen), Tencent News (tengxun xinwen), and Wangyi News (wangyi xinwen). We use multiple sources to increase variation and reduce sampling error. The comments on Sina News are relatively pro-CCP, while Sina Weibo is relatively liberal and enables us to examine comments on the topic outside the context of one specific news article. In terms of comments on news stories, Wangyi is traditionally very liberal and independent of the party-state. We assess public sentiments both quantitatively and qualitatively, coding Sina Weibo and comments made on Sina News articles, and utilizing translations from these sources to illustrate our arguments. Censorship could systematically distort the content of materials gathered from Chinese social media. We argue, however, that (1) the state is often not as thorough in deleting comments as some argue; (2) commenters are often very clever in how they phrase their comments to avoid deletion; and (3) the state’s will to censor comments varies from issue to issue. The CCP faces significant costs to its legitimacy if it chooses to stifle public discourse on nationalist issues like Sino-Japanese relations.

The 2012–13 Dispute: A Qualitative Analysis Prior to the fall of 2012, Beijing largely restricted its words and deeds on the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands dispute to reassertions of its sovereignty and nonmilitary actions. For instance, following a January 2012 Japanese government announcement that it would name a number of the uninhabited islands, the official Chinese People’s Daily merely reasserted China’s “ ‘fi rm and unwavering’ determination in safeguarding its sovereignty over the Diaoyu Islands.”18 CCP actions had long been restrained as well. The Chinese government had sent fishery and patrol boats around the Islands, but never armed the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) vessels.19 Even after a collision between Japanese Coast Guard and Chinese fishing boats resulted in the Chinese boat captain being detained in 2010, the Chinese government did not

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send military vessels to the area.20 Prior to the escalation of popu lar antiJapanese nationalism in 2012, it appears that China’s leaders had no desire to escalate the dispute with Japan. On April 17, 2012, Governor Ishihara announced that Tokyo would buy three of the Islands. “The purchase of these Islands will be Japanese buying Japanese land in order to protect it,” he claimed. “What would other countries have to complain about?”21 Beijing’s response was notably mild. “Any unilateral action taken by the Japanese side is illegal and invalid,” a People’s Daily article claimed. “Given the complex and sensitive nature of the issue . . . Japanese politicians at both the central and local levels . . . should exercise caution in their remarks and should not take any provocative moves.”22 Chinese netizens (wangmin), by contrast, were upset at both Japan and their government. As noted above, some urged a boycott of Japanese goods. Even at this early stage, however, netizens were already expressing frustration that their government had allowed this to happen in the first place. On April 19, a netizen from Kaifeng lamented on Tencent that “China is such a big country but pees itself in fear. China is really sad (pa de niao niao, zhen kebei a zhongguo).” Three days later, a Beijing netizen added, sarcastically, that he might as well “support Japan, as all China will do is [diplomatically] issue condemnation and protests (zhi hui qianze he kangyi).”23 Protests erupted in mid-August following the Japanese arrest of activists from Hong Kong on one of the islands. Chinese netizens began calling for large scale demonstrations against Japan, some even going so far as to criticize the CCP’s “weakness” over the situation.24 On August  15, a netizen from Guangdong wrote on Sina that “we knew several days in advance that some Chinese would land on the Islands and declare sovereignty. So why didn’t the state send surveillance ships to assist them? They are always so passive, it is too funny. Shameful! (tai gaoxiaole. Kechi!!)”25 The next day, a sarcastic netizen from Jinan declared on Wangyi that, “China will launch the strongest counterattack: verrrrrrrry severe [diplomatic] condemnation (qiang qiang qiang qiang qiang qiang qiang qianglie qianze).”26 Later the same day, large-scale and often violent street protests erupted in cities all across China.27 Following Japan’s perceived “nationalization” of the islands on September 5, Chinese leaders appear to have begun losing control of the domestic situation. A great deal of popular anger, sometimes sarcastic, was directed at the government. For instance, on September 7, a Shenyang netizen was blunt on Tencent: “the government (zhengfu) has let the people suffer a great

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humiliation to their national dignity. . . . The government seems to always sit on the sidelines or repress the people’s patriotic sentiments.”28 On September  11, renewed street demonstrations broke out across China.29 Japa nese property and Japa nese made products were damaged in Chengdu, Shenzhen, Suzhou, Qingdao, Beijing, and other major cities.30 Much Japanese manufacturing in China was suspended.31 Purchases of Japanese cars declined.32 Travel between the two countries decreased.33 The People’s Daily claimed that the Japanese economy slowed for months after the protests ended.34 A September 18 Tianya post explained the rationale (or rationalization?) of the violence of many Chinese netizens and protestors: Smash hard! Don’t let the so-called rational Japanese dogs and Han traitors (Rigou Hanjian) dare to purchase Japanese goods. Drive those Japanese goods out of China . . . To drive a Japanese car is to dig your own grave (zijue fenmu). . . . By smashing a Japanese car we can prevent 100 people from buying one. This is how we should calculate the costs and benefits. It is not simply Chinese smashing their own cars. In the short run we destroy our own wealth, but in the long run we cut off the enemy’s road to wealth (diren de cai lu) and begin our own path to development.35 This is a clear proclamation of a willingness to suffer for the sake of revenge. Many anti-Japanese protests were actually directed at the PRC party-state. For instance, a QQ message spread around Nanchang in Jiangxi Province called for a protest on September 16, 2012, against “the Japanese invaders.” The three thousand to four thousand protestors chose to gather, however, in front of the provincial government building (Jiangxi sheng zhengfu). Provincial Secretary Tan Xiaolin came out to speak to them, calling the demonstrators “patriots” and reassuring them that the Chinese government would protect Chinese sovereignty over the Diaoyu Islands. He was clearly responding to the protestor’s dissatisfaction with their government’s Japan policy. The demonstrators had chanted, “Never learn from Li Hongzhang again” (bu ke zai xue Li Hongzhang), a reference to the Manchu Qing dynasty official who is reviled for selling out China to the Japa nese in the 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki.36 Official Chinese statements on the Diaoyu Islands, notably, were targeted more at the Chinese people than toward Japan or international/Western opinion. The day after the Nanchang demonstration, the Jiangxi Daily (Jiangxi Ribao) featured a front page editorial entitled “Rational patriotism is

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more powerful” (lixing aiguo geng you liliang). It listed ad nauseam the measures that the Chinese government had already taken to safeguard Chinese sovereignty: With regard to the Japanese purchase of Diaoyu islands, the Chinese government has undertaken a series of steps to declare sovereignty and protect territorial integrity: from issuing solemn statements, to drawing baselines of the territorial sea around the Diaoyu and affi liated islands; from dispatching maritime surveillance ships for patrol and law-enforcement, to refuting Japan’s protest; from giving special declarations to foreign diplomats in China, to depositing the document of the base points and baselines of the territorial sea of the Diaoyu Islands with the Secretary-General of the United Nations. All of this manifests the clear position of the sacredness and inviolability of China’s sovereignty, and indicates our absolute determination to defend China’s territory.37 The Jiangxi Daily was not speaking to Japan; it was speaking directly to the Nanchang protestors of the day before, reassuring them that the government was responsive to their concerns, and seeking to persuade them that the government was handling the situation effectively. The Jiangxi Daily was not alone; the central government in Beijing was doing the same thing. “Civility and Reason Display China’s Strength” (wenming lixing zhanxian Zhongguo liliang), an opinion piece on the front page of the September 18, 2012, People’s Daily, similarly enumerates the government’s extensive countermeasures: Responding to Japan’s arbitrary move, the Chinese government, according to international laws and conventions, has undertaken countermeasures of different sorts in a just and confident way to declare its sovereignty and protect its territorial integrity: it has issued official statements, drawn the baselines of the territorial waters of the Diaoyu Islands and their affiliated islets, sent surveillance vessels to carry out patrols around the disputed islands, rejected Japan’s unreasonable protests, circulated special bulletins to embassies in China, submitted the baselines and related sea maps to the United Nations, and submitted the 200 sea miles outer limits of the continental shelf in the East China Sea to the Commission on the Limits of the Continental

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Shelf. . . . All these moves not only indicate the mature rationality of a great power, but also illustrate the [government’s] absolute and ruthless determination to defend its territory and sovereignty. The countermeasures greatly impair the Japanese goal of consolidating de facto occupation of the Diaoyu Islands, and have won the respect and recognition of international society.38 The People’s Daily is not speaking to “international society”; they are speaking to the Chinese people. Claiming that the Chinese government has “won the respect and recognition of international society” (yingdele guoji shehui de zunzhong yu rentong) is part of an attempt to reassure the Chinese people that their government is doing a good nationalist job of defending Chinese sovereignty and face before international audiences. Following this mid-September outpouring of anti-Japanese and antigovernment rage both online and off-line, the Chinese government sent PLAN warships to the Diaoyu/Senkaku area.39 The initial netizen response was largely positive. “Go fight! (daba)” declared a Nantong netizen on Tencent on September 19. “At least 90 percent of the people around me are prepared to donate and offer support once war is declared. This is the people’s heart (minxin) and will (minyi).” Also on Tencent that same day, a Shenyang netizen chipped in, “Good job navy! Your presence gives us strength . . . We support you (zhichi ni).” 40 There have been several military confrontations between fully armed Chinese and Japanese military personnel since then. As noted above, in December Chinese and Japanese fighters shadowed each other in the vicinity of the islands.41 In January 2013 a Chinese frigate locked its missile radar onto a Japanese ship near the islands.42 And in November 2013, the PRC announced an East China Sea Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) including the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands, prompting firm protests from both Japan and South Korea and the United States to fly two B-52 bombers over the contested area, which it considers to be international airspace.43

The 2012–13 Dispute: A Quantitative Analysis In addition to this qualitative analysis of popu lar and official discourse and behaviors, we also undertook a quantitative analysis, aggregating and

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coding the words and actions of both state and social actors over the eleven month period from April 2012 to February 2013.

Social Actors

We start with what social actors said and did, as manifest online in social media and offline in demonstrations on the streets of urban China. We began by creating a spreadsheet with 317 rows: one for each day from April 10, 2012, to February 20, 2013. To quantify online discourse, we examined Sina.com.cn, a popular website, and Sina Weibo, a popular Chinese microblogging site akin to Twitter that is used by more than 30 percent of all Chinese Internet users. From Sina .com.cn, we entered the number of news stories each day about the Diaoyu/ Senkaku islands in the second column (the first was the date), and the total number of comments to the stories in the third column. From Sina Weibo, we entered the total daily “tweets” that mentioned the Diaoyu Islands in the fourth column. To quantify popular protests, in the fift h and final column we entered the total number of street demonstrations in cities across China every day. We did not quantify the size of protests; only whether a protest in a particular city could be confirmed from multiple sources or not. The resulting data for all 317 days are visually displayed in Figure 8.1. The dotted line represents Sina.com.cn news stories about the dispute, the dashed line public comments on the news stories per 10,000, the double line the number of tweets on Sina Weibo per 10,000, and finally, the solid line the number of cities with confirmed street protests. The figure reveals a small peak of social media activity in August 2012, followed by a much larger peak in September, mostly before the surge in street protests. This pattern of a small peak of new media activity in August followed by a large peak in September is very closely replicated if one enters the Chinese ” (Diaoyu Islands) in either Baidu Index ( ) or characters “ Google Trends.44 Both websites graphically display the number of keyword searches over a selected period. This replication with keyword searches gives us confidence that our coding of Sina.com.cn and Sina Weibo successfully captured the quantity of social media activity on the Diaoyu Islands dispute over this eleven-month period.

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400 350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0 4/10

5/10

6/10

Sina news

7/10

8/10

9/10

News comments per 10,000

10/10

11/10

12/10

Tweets per 10,000

1/10

2/10 Protests

Figure 8.1. Social media activity and street protests, April 2012–February 2013. Note: Raw data are available from the authors on request.

400 350 300 250 200 150 100 50 9/1 9/2 9/3 9/4 9/5 9/6 9/7 9/8 9/9 9/10 9/11 9/12 9/13 9/14 9/15 9/16 9/17 9/18 9/19 9/20 9/21 9/22 9/23 9/24 9/25 9/26 9/27 9/28 9/29 9/30

0

Sina news

News comments per 10,000

Tweets per 10,000

Protests

Figure 8.2. Social media activity and street protests, September 2012.

Figure 8.2 zooms in more narrowly on our September 2012 data, displaying social media activity and street demonstrations over the peak month of the dispute. There were more than 2 million tweets per day for an eight-day period from September 11 to 18.This period of intense tweeting led up to two days of widespread protests, on September 16 and 18, when there were street protests in 85 and 180 Chinese cities, respectively.

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State Actors

We also quantified the words and deeds of CCP party-state actors toward Japan over the Diaoyu dispute. Using Ministry of Foreign Affairs (waijiao bu) and Ministry of National Defense (guofang bu) press releases, the PRC’s diplomatic and military words and deeds were coded separately. Coding was done on a 0–5 scale for each day, with 0 signifying no action and 5 meaning war. To deal with missing information, any misquotes in the press releases, or any other factors that might skew the data, we coded each day as an average of the information provided by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with that provided by the Ministry of National Defense. Detailed coding criteria are listed in the appendix. Figure 8.3 displays the data averaged by month. It clearly reveals that PRC diplomatic and military rhetoric and behaviors toward Japan toughened over the eleven-month period, with the most rapid escalation occurring in August and September of 2012. It also reveals that military escalation (September) slightly lagged behind diplomatic escalation (August), suggesting that CCP elites first sought to placate domestic nationalists with diplomatic measures before turning to military escalation.

4 3.5 3 2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 Apr

May

Jun

Jul

Aug

Sep

Diplomatic

Oct

Nov

Dec

Jan

Feb

Military

Figure 8.3. PRC diplomatic and military posture toward Japan, April 2012–February 2013. Note: Higher figures indicate a tougher posture. Detailed coding criteria are in the appendix.

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State and Social Actors

Finally, Figure  8.4 combines data from our social and state data sets within a single chart covering a two-and-a-half-month period in the summer and fall of 2012. It clearly reveals that China’s military toughening (the solid line) followed the rise in public indignation expressed in both social media (dotted line) and demonstrations on the streets of urban China (dashed line).

Conclusion: The Nationalist Politics of State Legitimation Both qualitative and quantitative evidence thus strongly suggest that nationalist opinion expressed online in social media and off-line in street demonstrations played a critical role in escalating the Chinese party-state’s response to the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands dispute. The step up from unarmed surveil6 5 4 3 2 1 0 6-Aug 13-Aug 20-Aug 27-Aug 3-Sep 10-Sep 17-Sep 24-Sep 1-Oct Tweets

Protests

8-Oct 15-Oct 22-Oct

Military

Figure 8.4. Microblogging, street protests, and hardening of PRC military policy toward Japan over the Diaoyu Islands, August–October 2012. Note: Tweets are per 3,819,734; street protests are per 38. To display all three lines in the same figure, microblogging and protests were each recoded on a 0–5 scale. This was done by taking the highest single week in volume of both protests and tweets, and dividing the other weeks by that number and then multiplying by 5. The peaks of protests and weibo activity are thus coded as 5, with other weeks falling below them.

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lance ships and fishermen to fully armed naval warships and the declaration of an ADIZ represents a substantial escalation of the conflict that did not occur until after popular nationalist protests—online and off-line. The case study presented in this chapter thus supports the broader argument that new media can act as an “amplifier of confl ict in China’s foreign relations,” as Jacques deLisle, Avery Goldstein, and Guobin Yang write in the introduction to this book.45 That a cause precedes an effect is a necessary but insufficient condition for demonstrating causality. Why might CCP foreign policy makers respond to public opinion? In this concluding section we suggest—but cannot prove here—that regime legitimacy may be the key mediator accounting for the association and sequencing between popular nationalism, on the one hand, and China’s Japan policy, on the other. Lacking the procedural legitimacy accorded to democratically elected governments and facing the collapse of communist ideology, the CCP is increasingly dependent on its nationalist credentials to rule. It therefore repeatedly claims to the Chinese people that it will make China rich and strong again and restore China’s respect within the international community.46 The Party’s nationalist claims, however, are increasingly falling on deaf ears. Few Chinese today appear satisfied with the decades-old CCP song and slogan that “without the Communist Party, there would be no New China” (meiyou Gongchandang jiu meiyou xin Zhongguo). Moreover, many popular nationalists are beginning to articulate their own nationalist counterclaims— often employing the regime’s own nationalist grammar—to argue that they have the right to participate in nationalist politics.47 The global financial crisis appears to have exacerbated the situation. The Chinese government may have become a victim of its own propaganda success: it has convinced many Chinese that China emerged from the crisis in a superior economic position vis-à-vis the West and Japan. Chinese popular nationalists, therefore, appear more inclined to demand deference from China’s neighbors and the West—and more willing to demand that their government get tough with the world.48 The prominence of Mao posters in the 2012 street demonstrations is noteworthy. Mao is clearly a symbol of nationalist pride: Mao is widely seen to have successfully led both the “War of Resistance against Japan” (kang Ri zhanzheng) and the “War to Resist America and Aid Korea” (kang Mei yuan Chao zhanzheng). The Mao posters were a manifestation of expressive politics, allowing protestors to identify themselves with a Chinese nationalist icon.

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Mao posters also served a second and more instrumental function: they reminded the party-state of the righteousness of the popular nationalist cause. Mao thus served as a “patron saint” of sorts for the demonstrators, increasing the odds that they would not be brutally repressed the way that Falun Gong and many other Chinese protestors are. The CCP is thus increasingly stuck between the rock of domestic nationalists and the hard place of international politics. The tough foreign policies that nationalist opinion increasingly demands can arouse fears among its neighbors about China’s rise, undermining the leadership’s stated foreign policy goal of “peaceful development” (heping fazhan). Nationalist opinion thus appears to constrain the ability of China’s elite to coolly pursue China’s national interest. Chinese nationalism today can no longer be described as a purely “state” or “official” top-down affair. Bottom-up popular pressures are increasingly threatening the Party’s nationalist legitimacy. As the Party loses its hegemony over Chinese nationalist discourse, the hyphen that holds the Chinese Party-nation together weakens, and Chinese foreign policy becomes increasingly hostage to the accidents of history that can arouse the ire of domestic nationalists. Let us hope that our luck holds, and that no Chinese dies soon at the hands of the Japanese—whether surrounding the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands or elsewhere. The peace and prosperity of twenty-first century East Asia depend on it.

Appendix Criteria for coding diplomatic discourse and military actions Diplomatic Discourse 0 = Missing data or no comment made 1 = Statement of China’s unquestionable sovereignty over the islands 2 = Reference to Japan as the guilty party in the dispute 3 = Warning of economic or military consequences including how Japan’s actions threaten bilateral or regional stability 4 = Threats of dire consequences if Japan does not acquiesce to China’s sovereignty and/or comments regarding China’s responsibility to use military force to protect its territory 5 = Declaration of war or use of military force in a hot conflict

Social Media, Nationalist Protests, and China’s Japan Policy

Military Action 0 = no known military presence around the islands or missing data 1 = Normal presence of merchant marine surveillance ships 2 = Increase in the number of surveillance ships in the area 3 = Introduction of armed, PLAN ships, People’s Liberation Army Air Force jets, or PLA troops to the islands 4 = Incidents of direct confrontation with Japanese forces around the islands 5 = Intentional military confrontation with Japanese forces in the disputed area

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CHAPTER 9

Going Out and Texting Home: New Media and China’s Citizens Abroad James Reilly

In May 1998, riots erupted against ethnic Chinese across Indonesia. Local Chinese businesses were looted and ethnic Chinese women were sexually assaulted. In Jakarta alone, human rights groups cited more than one hundred cases of rape and sexual assault. In response, the U.S. government ordered the evacuation of “dependents and nonessential personnel” from its embassy, organized evacuation flights for U.S. citizens, and accused Indonesia of “serious human rights abuses.”1 Taiwan threatened to withdraw its $13 billion investments in Indonesia and deny entry to all Indonesian workers, “based on the principles of protecting overseas Chinese and protecting human rights.”2 Instead of echoing these demands, Beijing responded by forbidding domestic reporting on the riots. Beijing University students, learning of the incidents from overseas media, defied university and security officials’ warnings by marching, several hundred strong, to the Indonesian embassy to denounce the violence and demand protection of ethnic Chinese Indonesians. Police quickly disbanded the protesters, with students later forced to make self-criticisms and issued black marks on their permanent records.3 Only after the protest did Chinese foreign minister Tang Jiaxuan fi nally appeal to the Indonesian government to ensure the protection of Chinese Indonesian communities.4 Eight years later, anti-Chinese riots in the Solomon Islands brought a very different response. Allegations that ethnic Chinese businesspeople had funded election fi xing in April 2006 sparked looting of ethnic Chinese busi-

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nesses. Up to 90 percent of all shops in Honiara’s Chinatown were burned down. This time Beijing moved rapidly. Despite the presence of several thousand Australian and New Zealand soldiers as part of the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands (RAMSI), Chinese officials quickly rented a plane and evacuated 312 ethnic Chinese in Beijing’s first international air evacuation of overseas Chinese. Chinese leaders then proudly defended their rapid response as an example of their new “people-centered” (yiren weiben) foreign policy.5 Beijing’s more proactive response in 2006 was indicative of a broad expansion in the Chinese government’s efforts to protect the safety and interests of Chinese citizens and even ethnic Chinese overseas. Th is chapter examines how both societal and state actors have deployed new media resources amidst this transformation. The proliferation of new media, including more competitive print and online news sources, microblogs, and social media, has facilitated information flows in, out, and across China. When facing threats to their personal safety or economic interests, Chinese citizens and companies overseas can send their concerns back home through online channels. Despite the constraints of media and Internet censorship, Chinese netizens are more aware of events overseas and better able to spread such information around China. As a result, even minor, unexpected events in distant corners of the globe can spur public emotion within China, spiraling into a public crisis that puts pressure on Chinese leaders to respond. While China’s vibrant online environment has fostered a better informed and more assertive set of social actors who can influence specific policy decisions, this does not mean that the party-state is necessarily weaker. Instead, Chinese leaders have responded to public pressure with a creative and proactive propaganda strategy.6 Images of Chinese citizens being whisked away to safety aboard Chinese planes or boats are used by the party-state to portray itself as a powerful and benevolent regime dedicated to protecting the populace and so worthy of popular support. Public pressure via social media is certainly not the only, or even primary, factor pushing the Chinese government to better protect its citizens overseas. Concern with China’s international reputation, bureaucratic drivers (such as the military’s interest in operations overseas), an enhanced capacity for extraction and protective actions, and, most important, the dramatic expansion in Chinese citizens and investment abroad have all contributed to this policy shift. However, focusing on social media’s role in mediating state-society

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interactions in this policy area highlights both how social forces can influence foreign policy, and the state’s strategic response to these pressures. The chapter begins by describing the challenges facing Chinese citizens overseas, the rise of China’s new media, and public debates within China over these challenges. The third section describes how Beijing has responded through domestic rhetoric, institutional innovation, and more proactive policy measures abroad. Four brief case studies then provide an in-depth look at the role of social media in mediating state-society interactions, followed by a consideration of several constraints facing Chinese policy makers going forward.

China Inc. Goes Abroad Prodded by the “Go Out” strategy, which began in 2001 to encourage Chinese companies to invest overseas, China’s global economic footprint has rapidly expanded. In 2012, more than 60 million Chinese citizens traveled abroad, a sixfold increase since 2000. Today, more than 5 million Chinese nationals work abroad, a figure rising at approximately 10 percent annually. State-owned enterprises alone reportedly employ more than three hundred thousand Chinese workers abroad.7 China’s outward foreign direct investment has also soared—reaching $90.2 billion in 2013.8 In 2013, China had the highest number of outbound tourists—97 million, a rise of 14 million over 2012—and the world’s highest level of tourist spending.9 China’s strategy of directing investment projects toward developing countries where established firms are unwilling to go often exposes its citizens to danger. Among the largest populations are in Angola, hosting an estimated 260,000 Chinese citizens, and Nigeria with sixty thousand.10 As China’s Global Times notes: “No other powers have the same number of nationals living in underdeveloped and turbulent regions as China . . . Ensuring their safety is a major challenge.”11 Indeed, reports of threats to Chinese citizens’ safety have increased in recent years, most likely a function of greater numbers traveling abroad and more frequent reporting. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs’s (MOFA’s) Centre for Consular Assistance and Protection now records some thirty thousand cases annually of Chinese citizens requiring support.12 Examining 483 of MOFA’s “Special Notices for Chinese Citizens Abroad” from 2008 through 2010, Wang Duanyong found: “at least 177 incidents involved de facto dam-

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age and/or threats to Chinese overseas citizens’ person and/or property, as well as to their legitimate rights and interests. At least 23 incidents resulted in the deaths of Chinese citizens.” Sub-Saharan Africa was the highest-risk region, and, along with Western Pacific and Oceania, it accounted for half of all special notices issued from 2008 to 2010. Nearly half involved Chinese workers; though Chinese-funded enterprises were also targeted for looting in twenty-four incidents.13 Chinese firms’ tendency to invest in unstable environments renders Chinese workers more likely to face large-scale unrest, such as in Libya, Nigeria, or Sudan. Chinese citizens also face dangers due to accidents and natural disasters common to all international travelers and residents, such as the 2011 earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster in Japan. Two sectors of Chinese workers overseas have been particularly vulnerable to attacks: mining and fishing. In January 2011, for instance, four Chinese oil workers were kidnapped in Caquetá, Colombia. In 2012, more than twenty Chinese workers were taken hostage in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula.14 The same year, twenty-nine Chinese workers were taken hostage in the oil-rich Sudanese border state of South Kordofan, the third such abduction since 2004 in Sudan.15 Several months later in Pakistan, suspected Taliban militants kidnapped Chinese engineers and then attacked another group of engineers in the restive southwestern province of Balochistan, home to abundant natural-gas resources.16 Deep-sea fishing has proven equally treacherous. By 2007, more than 40,000 Chinese citizens were engaged in deep-sea fishing overseas, with more than 150,000 sailors working abroad. According to China’s official statistics, from 1989 to 2010, in the South China Sea waters alone, there were 380 cases of Chinese fishermen being attacked, robbed, detailed, or killed by neighboring countries with more than 750 fishing vessels and 11,300 fishermen involved.17 One scholar warns that China’s “fishing wars” are likely to continue to intensify as Chinese fishermen continue to spread out around Asia.18 In some cases, Chinese fishermen find themselves caught up in international struggles over sovereignty claims, such as the eleven Chinese fishermen held by the Philippines in May 2014.19 In other incidents, Chinese sailors are hardly blameless. In October 2012, for instance, thirteen Chinese sailors were murdered after their two cargo ships—reportedly laden with 920,000 methamphetamine pills worth $6 million—sailed into Thai waters, prompting the Chinese military to send gunboats to patrol the area.20 MOFA itself has determined that about half of all consular protection cases dealt with annually were instigated by Chinese citizens’ own misconduct.21

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While the frequency and scale of incidents threatening Chinese citizens abroad has grown considerably, only some of these incidents attract Chinese government support. One factor that helps explain this variation is the role of new media.

Online Debates over Citizen Protection As the chapters in this volume by Min Jiang, Zhengzhi Shi, and Marina Svensson demonstrate, China’s new media are dominated by commercially minded print media distributed via profit-oriented news websites. With some 618 million regular Internet users or “netizens” by the end of 2013, “the influence of new media is now even greater than traditional media.”22 The impact of China’s commercial media has exploded through the spread of social media such as microblogs on weibo and short messages via weixin. As Jing Ming and Pan Zhiqi note, “The low bar of entry to weibo means that any individual with a cell phone can become a ‘citizen journalist’ and make use of its widespread transmission capacity to spread rumors and false information.”23 Ubiquitous cell phones have also spawned the “mobile phoneassisted popu lar protest,” explains Jun Liu. “The mobile phone-mediated counter-public sphere gives quick and irrepressible responses to politically sensitive topics, and expresses opinions that run counter to official announcements, including criticism of the government.”24 Indeed, China’s commercial media has provided a venue for growing dissatisfaction with the protection offered Chinese citizens overseas. “Today, the mission of the government is closely connected to individuals’ safety and happiness,” announced a January 2013 Global Times editorial. “A single incident involving a Chinese citizen outside China may touch the entire country . . . the proper care shown to Chinese nationals living abroad is required by a modern country.”25 Even the normally tame China Daily urged Chinese leaders to provide “timely protection” to its citizens abroad. “A country with a strong economic muscle should have the capacity to protect its citizens and interests, no matter where they are.”26 Following the April 2014 abduction of a Shanghai tourist in Malaysia, the Global Times declared, “It is high time for the proper protection of Chinese tourists overseas to be considered an extension of China’s crucial national interest.”27 Even Premier Li Keqiang’s 2014 pledge to expand consular support failed to impress the Twenty-First-Century Economic Herald. “This is the

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normal and expected protection that a country should provide to its citizens.” The editorial boldly concluded: “Too much emphasis is placed on promoting Chinese culture overseas, and not enough on protecting Chinese citizens.”28 Commercial media also provide a prominent forum for Chinese officials and public intellectuals to lend their institutional credibility while spurring policy debates. Mei Xinyu, a researcher with the Ministry of Commerce, wrote in China Business News: “A big country with increasing overseas interests has to protect its business with its sword. Unilaterally sticking to peace will only encourage further kidnapping.”29 Wang Yizhou, a Peking University vice dean, demands that the government’s proclaimed foreign policy for the people include better protection for Chinese citizens overseas.30 “We will not allow any repeat of such tragedies as the May 1998 riots in Indonesia, in which some 1,200 ethnic Chinese were killed,” insists Yue Gang, a former PLA colonel. He asks pointedly: “How can the ‘China Dream’ be realized when such incidents occur? The PLA should protect Chinese people overseas . . . and protect national and personal wealth overseas.” He calls for expanded PLA “participation in international peacekeeping operations to provide a safe environment for overseas Chinese workers . . . The economic interests China has in other countries are crucial to the sustainable development of the Chinese economy . . . this is an arduous and unshakable responsibility facing the Chinese military.”31 Jiang Lei, a professor at Nanjing Navy Command College, adds that Chinese leaders must dedicate greater resources to ensure the navy can adequately to defend China’s overseas economic interests.32 Anger at Chinese fishermen being taken hostage overseas has also sparked calls for creating a “blue water navy” to better protect Chinese fishermen.33 Experts have responded to attacks against Chinese oil and construction workers overseas by issuing controversial demands that China establish overseas facilities for Chinese military forces.34 Chen Xiangyang, a researcher at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (CICIR), argues that the 2011 evacuation of thirty-five thousand Chinese citizens from Libya shows that “China needs to speed up development and deployment of security forces overseas, seek innovative breakthroughs on the question of overseas military bases and institutionalize regular patrols and standbys at sensitive sea areas.”35 Stimulated by these policy debates and media reports, Chinese netizens frequently express their frustration with perceived official inaction. In 2007, even as Party censors limited discussions on the killing of nine Chinese oil workers in Ethiopia, some critical comments got through. “If you want to make

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money there, why wouldn’t you send your own troops to provide security?” one online contributor wrote. “It seems we should learn from the early colonial powers.”36 Following the abduction of twenty-nine Chinese nationals in Sudan in 2012, one weibo post noted: “If it was the United States or Russia, they would have airdropped in special commandos by now.” “What’s the use of sending in a working group—to send greetings?” read another post. “If you are really strong, send in troops.”37 Unlike China’s academic “history activists” dedicated to documenting Japanese wartime atrocities, activism around citizen safety still remains limited.38 However, Chinese academics are becoming more involved in advocacy through institutions such as the Center for Research on Protection into China’s Overseas Interests in Shanghai.39 Activist academics gain prominence through online and public forums, such as the 2013 public forum on citizen safety and China’s overseas interests hosted by the Wenhui newspaper.40 Similar to the “history activists,” Chinese lawyers are also getting more active in helping defend Chinese citizens’ rights overseas, including rights protection (weiquan) lawyers and even personal injury lawyers such as Mei Xiangrong, who promises to pursue overseas lawsuits and “only to get paid if you get paid.” 41 In sum, China’s new media environment has stimulated lively policy debates and focused public attention on citizen safety overseas. As media scholar Su Changhe explains: “Sometimes there is just a simple social incident overseas; however the [Chinese] media will grab hold of the incident, exaggerate it and portray it as a foreign policy issue that threatens serious, national-level interests. Once this happens, public opinion gets excited and the central government gets involved. Once the government mounts this tiger, it is very difficult to dismount (qihu nanxia).” 42

Enter the State Chinese leaders have responded to these trends with a combination of political rhetoric, institutional innovation, and foreign policy shifts. In 2004, President Hu Jintao stated that the Chinese government should “enhance the capacity to protect China’s overseas interests,” stressing that diplomacy should “enthusiastically serve our citizens and legal persons abroad.”43 This approach became embedded within the Hu administration’s pledge for a “peoplecentered” (yiren weiben) foreign policy. The November 2012 Eighteenth Party Congress work report declared the initiative a success, claiming that

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the Party had “staunchly protected China’s interests and the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese nationals and legal persons overseas.” 44 The Xi Jinping administration further raised the prominence of this issue, most notably in Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s March 2014 press conference following the second session of the Twelft h National People’s Congress. Wang declared that one of two top priorities of Chinese foreign policy would be to “vigorously pursue economic diplomacy,” including “to better protect and serve overseas Chinese, and provide stronger protection for China’s evergrowing legitimate rights and interests. It is the abiding purpose of China’s diplomacy to serve the people . . . there is no higher honor for Chinese diplomats. Every year close to 100 million Chinese travel abroad, and there are over 20,000 Chinese companies operating overseas. It is our bound duty to protect their legitimate rights and interests . . . We would like to shield wind and rain for every one of our compatriots who travel abroad with their dreams, and become the firm support they can count on.” 45 Premier Li Keqiang built on this theme by announcing a “people’s livelihood” (minsheng) approach to foreign policy during his May 2013 visit to Africa. In Angola, Li held the first ever Overseas Citizens’ Safety Discussion with local Chinese residents, during which he described protecting the rights and safety of Chinese companies and citizens abroad as a “top-level national task” and a “pressing responsibility” of the Chinese government. Li pledged to increase the funding and staffi ng for Chinese consulates worldwide and to establish a global consular emergency response center for Chinese citizens, promising: “Wherever our compatriots go, the government’s consular protection ser vices will be there.” 46 Li then continued on to Nigeria despite domestic instability, telling Xinhua reporters: “if we changed our itinerary, what would [Chinese residents in Nigeria] think? What about their safety?”47 While in Nigeria, Li demanded that the Nigerian government provide better protection for Chinese citizens, while reiterating: “protecting them is [ultimately] the responsibility of the Chinese government.” 48 Li also urged Chinese companies to respect Nigerian people, laws, culture, and practices to ensure that relations remain “win-win.” 49 Under these initiatives, Chinese diplomats have expanded their efforts to protect Chinese citizens. An important early marker was China’s first noncombatant evacuation operation from the Solomon Islands in 2000. Chinese diplomats negotiated directly with the local rebel leader for safe passage before dispatching a China Ocean Shipping Company ship and evacuating approximately 120 Chinese.50 Yet the inadequacy of China’s diplomatic capacity

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was laid bare in April 2007, when an attack on a Sinopec facility in Ethiopia left nine Chinese oil workers killed and led to seven Chinese workers being kidnapped by a rebel group.51 Local Chinese officials were reduced to relying on the mediation of the International Committee of the Red Cross to secure the hostages’ release.52 The very next month (May 2007), MOFA established a division of consular protection under the Department of Consular Affairs. It soon emerged as the ministry’s largest single department, with 140 staff members in Beijing and more than six hundred at China’s overseas consulates, and handling some thirty thousand cases of consular protection annually.53 Every Chinese national now receives a text message with basic security information upon arrival in a foreign country.54 MOFA has also established a voluntary registration system for Chinese residents overseas, and it provides extensive safety information on consular websites.55 All China’s embassies must designate a twenty-four-hour rotating duty officer for citizens’ safety concerns.56 Chinese diplomats are now expected to take responsibility for the safety and legal protection of Chinese citizens in the country. For instance, when 170 Chinese citizens were detained in Russia for immigration violations in April 2014, the Chinese ambassador promptly raised the case with his Russian counterparts.57 The same month, a Shanghai tourist was abducted from her hotel in Malaysia. The local consulate quickly established an emergency response team while issuing online statements reassuring the Chinese public.58 Whenever political instability hits a country, Chinese diplomats must now look to the safety of their citizens. In 2014, Chinese officials requested that the Ukrainian government ensure the safety of the eighteen thousand local Chinese citizens amid spreading violence.59 After Chinese citizens were attacked in Sudan in January 2012, China’s vice foreign minister Minister Xie Hangsheng summoned Sudan’s chargé d’affaires to express concern about the safety of the Chinese workers, while a Foreign Ministry team was rapidly dispatched from Beijing.60 In May 2014, Foreign Minister Wang Yi responded quickly to antiChinese violence by “demanding” that the Vietnamese government protect the security of all Chinese citizens and Chinese-owned property in Vietnam.61 The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) has also begun to take a more active role, as signaled in the April 2013 Defense White Paper’s new section on “Protecting Overseas Interests.” With the gradual integration of China’s economy into the world economic system, overseas interests have become an integral component of

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China’s national interests. Security issues are increasingly prominent, involving overseas energy and resources, strategic sea lines of communication, and Chinese nationals and legal persons overseas. Vessel protection at sea, evacuation of Chinese nationals overseas, and emergency rescue have become important ways and means for the PLA to safeguard national interests and fulfill China’s international obligations.62 When the Qingdao-based coal carrier Dexinhai and its crew, which included twenty-five PRC citizens, was taken by pirates off Somalia in October 2009, the Chinese Defense Ministry said it would take “whatever measures are necessary” to free Dexinhai and its crew, presumably including military action since the PLAN had forces in the Gulf of Aden at the time.63 Indeed, between 2006 and 2010, a total of six thousand Chinese citizens were evacuated from upheavals in Chad, Haiti, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Solomon Islands, Thailand, Timor-Leste, and Tonga. In 2011, China evacuated a staggering forty-eight thousand of its citizens from Egypt, Libya, and Japan.64 In most cases, Beijing still relies on chartering commercial aircraft to evacuate its citizens, such as from Thailand and Equatorial Guinea during civil unrest in 2008, Thailand and Kyrgyzstan in 2010, and Japan in 2011. Yet for the first time, in 2011, China deployed four of its own military transport planes and a guided-missile frigate to rescue thirty-five thousand Chinese from Libya, mostly oilfield workers, after the eruption of antigovernment protests and rebellion.65 The largest overseas evacuation since the founding of the PRC, this was the PLAN’s first noncombatant evacuation operation overseas and the PLA air force’s first operational deployment overseas.66 In May 2014, Chinese ships evacuated more than three thousand citizens following violent anti-Chinese riots in central Vietnam.67 The PLAN has also taken the lead in China’s antipiracy operations off the Gulf of Aden. As of December 2012, the PLAN had dispatched thirteen task groups escorting 4,984 ships through the Gulf, including 1,510 PRC ships, 940 Hong Kong ships, and 74 Taiwan ships.68 Even China’s policing operations are extending overseas. Following the October 5, 2011, murder of thirteen Chinese sailors on Chinese cargo vessels in the Mekong River, a People’s Armed Police border unit began joint riverine patrols with Thai, Lao, and Burmese counterparts in December 2011.69 Following a six-month manhunt, six members of a Burmese gang were captured at a port in Laos, extradited to China, tried, found guilty, and executed.70 In August 2012, thirty-seven accused Chinese gang members from Fujian Province were arrested in Angola and extradited to China in what state

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media proclaimed to be China’s “first operation against crimes targeting Chinese people in Africa.” The investigation and arrests, involving some four hundred Angolan and Chinese police officers, signaled Beijing’s determination to tackle criminality among Chinese migrants abroad.71

State-Society Interactions: Online and Overseas In all four case studies that follow, social and commercial media helped Chinese actors abroad gain greater public attention. Online discussions and media reports stimulated public debate, and added pressure on the Chinese government to respond. Yet in each instance, Chinese officials acted decisively to shape public and online debates, curtailing critical discourse while shaping propaganda messages designed to cool public anger and promote a positive image of the government’s response. The final case, Beijing’s response to the disappeared Malaysian Airlines plane, suggests that Chinese officials are becoming more proactive in shaping online discourse over incidents abroad.

Mining Ghana’s Gold

The 2013 anti-Chinese violence in Ghana shows how social media have expanded the scope of public participation and added pressure on Beijing to better protect Chinese citizens overseas. Until 2013, some fift y thousand Chinese migrants were involved in small-scale gold mining in Ghana, most of them from Shanglin County, within Guangxi Province’s Zhuang Autonomous Region. They pooled investment capital at home, purchased locally built mining equipment, and then traveled to Ghana in groups, leasing mining rights from local residents while paying “fees” to tribal leaders—even though foreigners are legally prohibited from operating small-scale gold mines in Ghana. By early 2013, local frustration with Chinese miners began to mount, along with robberies and violence. According to Su Zhenyu, secretary-general of the Chinese Mining Association in Ghana and a Shanglin resident himself, two Chinese miners were killed by robbers on April 16 and another on May 27.72 In response to a Guardian report documenting Chinese miners’ widespread excavating, use of toxic chemicals, and alleged human rights abuses, Ghana’s president John Dramani Mahama established a joint mili-

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tary, police, and immigration task force to bring “sanity” to the mining sector. The task force soon launched a series of raids on Chinese miners, arresting hundreds and threatening their deportation.73 By early June, anti-Chinese violence began to escalate. Local residents reportedly armed with guns and machetes attacked Chinese mining camps, robbing miners of their possessions and killing some who fought back.74 Su Zhenyu reported receiving at least fift y calls a day seeking help, stating: “According to the calls, at least five Chinese nationals have been shot dead in Kumasi, Obuasi and Dunkwa in the Ashanti region of Ghana.” Many Chinese mine workers went into hiding, he explained, and were seeking to return to China, but needed assistance to do so since “many Chinese have been robbed, beaten and even shot on the way to the airport.”75 After contacting the Chinese embassy, Su Zhenyu reported, “we just felt depressed. When we needed help and backup from our country, what our officials tried to do was to sacrifice us for diplomatic face. If we were illegal and mining in the wrong way in Ghana, we want our government to help us be legal and act right, not simply abandon us in trouble.”76 One Chinese miner told the New York Times that even as the crackdown intensified, “Our phone calls to the Chinese Embassy in Ghana always went unanswered.”77 Su later added, “We are eager for help and backup from the Chinese government to negotiate with Ghana, but the Chinese embassy in Ghana told us they don’t have enough staff. And we have no channel to reach the authorities in Beijing.”78 Social media proved more receptive. As the government crackdown and anti-Chinese violence intensified, Chinese residents in Ghana sent cell phone photos to their contacts in China via weixin. One set of images showed brutalized Chinese miners, one covered in purple welts from a beating, another dead from a gunshot to the face, and two more connected to IV bags hanging from trees.79 Netizens such as Lu Qi who received weixin images from friends in Ghana reposted them on their weibo accounts. These initial weixin posts quickly went viral via weibo, sparking popular outrage. “Poor China, being bullied all around the world,” wrote one netizen. “Even a country as small as Ghana dares to do something like this. Our Ministry of Foreign Affairs is capable of nothing except whining.” Another declared: “Our money given to Africa is wasted again. Whether a country is powerful or not depends on whether its people are bullied aboard. No country dares to slaughter Americans like this.” A third asked, “When will our government wake up and rescue our fellow countrymen from Ghana?” While some posts criticized the miners for causing the violence, the vast majority

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demanded that the Chinese government respond.80 By June 7, more than 1 million weibo comments had been posted on the issue.81 Protests began to spread from the Internet to the street. On June 6, 2013, hundreds of local residents demonstrated in front of the Shanglin County government, denouncing the “lack of action by the Chinese embassy in Ghana” and threatening to march to the provincial capital of Nanning.82 The Chinese government soon swung into action, sending a joint delegation of local Shanglin and Foreign Ministry officials to Ghana, where they met with local residents and Ghanaian officials. At the same time, embassy spokesperson Yue Jie emphasized: “We have cautioned all the Chinese people in Ghana to strictly abide by the related laws and regulations and never to be misled by the unauthorized information on the Internet.”83 The negotiations fell short and Ghana’s campaign continued. By the end of July, more than forty-five hundred Chinese citizens had been repatriated. Beijing began to exert further pressure. Ghanaian officials reported a tightening of visas for Ghanaians seeking to travel to China, and delays in issuing China’s $3 billion loan facility agreed to earlier in the year. “This is a matter for concern,” admitted Alhaji Inusah Fuseini, Ghana’s minister of lands and mines. “We didn’t think China would take it to this extent.”84 In response, Ghana finally released all Chinese citizens detained for illegal gold mining, helping to calm the dispute.85

A North Korean Nightmare

Chinese investors overseas who publicize their difficulties via social media are often counting on swells of online support to pressure the Chinese government or foreign governments—though such strategies are hardly fail-safe. One instance is the investment into a North Korean iron ore mine by a large private firm, Xiyang Group. In 2007, Xinyang’s CEO, Zhou Furen, exacted a North Korean agreement on a 75–25 split of their new joint venture—a ratio in excess of the DPRK’s 70 percent limit for foreign ownership—in exchange for investing $37.14 million, the largest investment by a Chinese private company in North Korea, while the DPRK partner promised land, mine exploration, and managerial rights for thirty years.86 After fi nally beginning operations in April 2011, on September 6 the DPRK partner abruptly requested modification of sixteen items on the contract—seeking new or higher payments for land, water, and raw materi-

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als. Zhou rejected the demand. “On the basis of these conditions, we couldn’t possibly make a profit. We’d just be handing money over to North Korea.”87 Negotiations stagnated until finally, on February 7, 2012, the DPRK government suspended the contract and canceled the joint venture’s corporate establishment, freezing all power, water, and communication supplies to the plant. On March 3, Xiyang’s remaining Chinese workers were deported.88 The Chinese embassy in Pyongyang hosted numerous negotiations to end the stalemate but to no avail. At the embassy’s suggestion, Xiyang group initially kept these negotiations secret from the public. Yet once Zhou learned that his factory had been reopened, and the North Korean partners were now selling the iron ore, he issued a public letter on the company’s website on August 3. The letter bemoaned his five-year involvement in the DPRK as a “nightmare.” The posting detailed the entire process of negotiations, supported by copies of original documents and photographs. Zhou denounced the “corrupt lifestyle” of his partners and other DPRK officials, claiming that Xiyang Group had been forced to pay some $800,000 to cover officials’ demands for luxury presents, food, liquor, and prostitutes during their frequent trips to China.89 Despite the initial media flurry following Zhou’s letter, no progress was made in extracting compensation from the DPRK. A month later, the company went public again. In a rare direct attack on the Chinese government, Xiyang’s vice CEO, Li Xisheng, responded to the Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM) officials’ encouragement of Chinese investment into North Korea by bluntly telling reporters: “This policy is a mistake.” Implying government favoritism of state-owned enterprises, Li explained: “We are hardly the only Chinese enterprise to be cheated in this way by North Korea; however the Chinese government does not actively protect the interests of our type of enterprise.”90 Seeking to regain the public momentum within China, the DPRK investment agency issued a rare public statement in response, declaring that Xiyang Group bears a “mortal responsibility” for the breakdown of cooperation.91 Despite these efforts, to date Xiyang has apparently failed to exact compensation.

Fishing for Trouble

While the Xiyang case highlights the limitations for investors trying to use social media to secure policy support, particularly when the investors

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themselves are hardly pure, tales of more innocent Chinese victims tend to be more effective in stimulating public and political support. For instance, on May 8, 2012, four Chinese fishing boats were in what they insist were Chinese waters when they were approached and boarded by a group of North Korean soldiers. Three of the ships were forced to dock at an undisclosed DPRK port.92 Over the next two weeks, the twenty-eight Chinese fishermen were held captive on their own boats under armed guard. They later told reporters that North Korean soldiers beat them—indeed, a number were hospitalized for injuries upon their return to China. All of their personal items were taken and the boats stripped clean.93 On May 9, the ships’ owner, Zhang Dechang, received a phone call from one of his captains explaining that the DPRK side was demanding 400,000 RMB per boat as a “fine” for illegal fishing, and informing him that the ships had already been stripped clean by the North Korean soldiers. Zhang was given a Dandong-area cell phone number to arrange the payment. After refusing to pay, Zhang instead contacted the local maritime and border security officials in Dalian, Dandong, and Shenyang. They assured him that they would “deal with” the issue; yet no progress resulted.94 After two more calls reducing the demands to 300,000 RMB, on May 15 Zhang received an ultimatum: if the money was not paid within two days, the sailors would be sent home and the boats “auctioned off.”95 The same day, the story was posted anonymously on weibo. It quickly went viral and was picked up by popular media. The next day, China’s MOFA spokesperson addressed the issue for the first time, reassuring reporters that this was a mere “fishery incident” that the Chinese government was investigating and discussing with the DPRK government, and that they expected an early resolution.96 The following day, Chinese media reported that the North Korean soldiers had threatened that if they did not receive immediate payment of the ransom, they would “dispose of ” (chulidiao) the sailors. When China’s Global Times called the North Korean embassy in Beijing on May 17 for a comment, a DPRK diplomat told them: “regarding this incident, we are still unclear. We just learned this information ourselves from the Chinese Internet.”97 The media reports sparked a wave of online anger. One netizen wrote: “It took 8 days after this incident before China’s MOFA’s spokesperson made his first public comment on this incident, and even then, he still spoke evasively. This is something we can’t understand.” Another declared: “China can’t always forgive North Koreans’ lawless behavior.” He denounced North Korea as a false “brother country,” which intruded on China’s territorial waters despite decades of massive economic assistance by China.98

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Following the public outcry, Chinese diplomats stepped up their pressure. On May 18, the Chinese embassy in Pyongyang announced that the ambassador had just met with DPRK officials to resolve the incident, “demanding” (yaoqiu) that the DPRK respect the “legal rights” of Chinese fishermen. Three days later, the three boats sailed safely back into the Dalian harbor.99 Both governments quickly turned to commercial media to calm Chinese netizens. On May 21, a North Korean spokesperson gave a rare interview to the Global Times in Pyongyang, insisting that North Korean officials had promptly dealt with the issue based “on the foundation of China-DPRK friendly relations,” rejecting foreign media claims of bilateral tension over this incident.100 The soft sell worked. The next day, the Global Times urged Chinese netizens to remain calm and be more “understanding” of “our friendly neighbors,” explaining: “As the largest Asian country China can adjust the intensity of its disputes with its neighbors to avoid a possible loss of control in its region.”101 Following this editorial, the story quickly disappeared from Chinese news websites, and it soon fell off the radar of most Chinese netizens. The incident reflects the two central arguments of this chapter: social media can influence specific policy decisions, and the Chinese government relies on a mixture of propaganda and censorship to shape subsequent public discourse. Subsequent events suggest that Beijing has learned the utility of adopting a more proactive policy approach augmented by positive propaganda messages. When sixteen Chinese fishermen were once again taken hostage by armed North Korean soldiers in May 2013, the Foreign Ministry this time quickly announced that its embassy had “promptly made representations” to the DPRK side, asking for an immediate release of the boat and fishermen and to ensure “the Chinese crew’s personal and property safety as well as their legitimate rights and interests.” The embassy also was careful to state publically that it had notified the shipowner of the results of its representations and had provided him with its direct contact information.102

“Lost Facts” in the Search for MH370

A similar preemptive policy and propaganda strategy was deployed amid the frantic search for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight, MH370. On March 8, 2014, MH370 disappeared along with 227 passengers and 12 crew members, including 154 Chinese citizens, while traveling from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The People’s Daily immediately began providing authoritative reports on the

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incident, including prominent coverage of Xi Jinping’s “demands” ( yaoqiu) of the Malaysian government, his mobilization of Chinese government agencies, and his announcement that Chinese officials were heading to Malaysia to “deal with” (chuli) the incident.103 Official media also publicized Premier Li Keqiang’s telephoned “demand” (duncu) on March 8 that Malaysian leaders do more to find the plane and provide clear information to China. One journalist explained, “As all Chinese citizens know, ‘duncu’ is extremely rude language, used from a superior to a subordinate to demand action. This shows the urgency Chinese leaders felt to address the issue.”104 Also on March 8, Foreign Minister Wang Yi addressed the issue in a national press conference, assuring the public that the government had “already proactively established an emergency response mechanism to fully understand the situation. As soon as we have any information, we will immediately share this with everyone.”105 Beijing quickly established a cross-government work team and dispatched it to Malaysia. The work team soon publicized their support for Chinese passengers’ families, including facilitating their travel to Malaysia, delivering their “demands” to Malaysian Airlines, and insisting that the airline provide families with daily briefings, Chinese-language interpretation, and personalized support ser vices.106 On March 12, Chinese diplomats publically presented their Malaysian counterparts with a list of demands on behalf of Chinese passengers’ families, even as the MOFA spokesperson in Beijing reminded reporters that Malaysia bears all responsibility for providing information and finding the plane.107 Beijing’s proactive publicity strategy centered on online resources. The work team held regular press conferences and released information through their dedicated weibo site.108 The government established a website dedicated to the incident, providing official reports, a timeline of events, and posting actions and official statements by Chinese officials.109 Xinhua established a similar website providing pro-government media coverage.110 One article, for instance, praised Chinese pilots for “heroically searching widely, not leaving any corner unexamined” despite the difficult oceanic conditions and quoted a Chinese pilot that “despite the limited information provided by the outside world, we cannot let this limit our search.”111 Despite the government’s propaganda push, weibo content remained highly contested. Passengers’ families established their own weibo site where they publicized their demands of the Chinese government. Commentators visiting the site compared President Putin’s strong defense of Russian citizens with China’s more anemic response. One wrote: “Ah, the Chinese gov-

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ernment. Even Malaysia is willing to ignore us. China is still so weak.” Another declared that China’s weak response “proves that the Chinese dream is just an empty dream—they just want us all asleep.” “Our government isn’t doing its job,” declared another post. “They can’t even find an airplane. They really have let the people down.” Commentators who defended the Chinese government were immediately attacked as “official weibo” commentators on behalf of the government. Criticizing the “empty talk” (konghua) of the Chinese government, one netizen stated, “other countries don’t care about Chinese people’s safety—that’s sad. But what’s ever worse, even our own government doesn’t seem to care.”112 China’s official media also came in for criticism online for “eating the bread that others have already chewed” by just reprinting Western media coverage instead of original reporting.113 One netizen wrote: “The only media really working on this incident are from the West. Their reports actually put pressure on the governments to do something in response, demonstrating that the media pressure really makes a difference. But our media can only issue vapid statements like ‘Malaysian Air, we’re waiting for you to return home.’ ”114 Stung by the criticism online, Chinese journalists in Malaysia struck back, defending their “frontline” reporting and criticizing “armchair generals” back in China who did not understand their difficulties and limitations. Tellingly, they noted that Chinese officials were often less than fully forthcoming.115 Examining the “lost facts” (shishi) during the crisis, one study described weibo as a “warm bed” for misinformation. One weibo image was actually of a previous U.S. airplane accident; an image of a Chinese journalist laughing while receiving news of the incident was actually from several years earlier. Yet both images were widely transmitted on weibo and elicited numerous commentaries. Because of online pressures, the report concludes, “even China’s official media, including Xinhua, rushed to report information on the incident via their websites without full confirmation or editorial guidance.” This led to “blind pursuit of the latest information” without careful factchecking.116

Conclusion These brief cases illustrate mechanisms by which social and commercial media help Chinese actors attract public attention and pressure Chinese

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officials to respond to their plight. The fishing incident and gold miners in Ghana suggest that compelling stories of innocent individuals facing threats to their personal safety are most likely to garner public attention and political support. The Xiyang case highlights limitations of social media when Chinese actors have acted dubiously or when only commercial costs are at stake. The MH370 instance points to a learning dynamic, evident in Beijing’s proactive policy and propaganda strategy. While the Chinese government has dramatically expanded its protective reach overseas, many Chinese workers and migrants still fail to attract Beijing’s protection or support. As small Chinese business owners in Port Moresby, Papua New Guinea, explained to Graeme Smith, the Chinese embassy offers little assistance in the face of violence: “Even when someone gets killed, they’re no use. They’ll just send out a notice telling you to take extra care, and not to go out.”117 In a survey of nearly two hundred Chinese traders across five countries in Southern Africa in 2011–12, 95 percent claimed they received no assistance from the local Chinese embassies or consulates. One trader from Guangdong province seethed: “Our embassy does nothing; it hurts me very much. How come the Vietnamese are more respected than the Chinese? Because their embassy is stronger. Our Chinese parents should understand our situation; our government should demand more of the ambassador.”118 Why will the Chinese government mobilize numerous military vessels to extract thirty-five thousand citizens from a civil war in Libya, yet fail to offer even minimal consular support to its most vulnerable citizens in Africa, the Pacific, and elsewhere? Part of the explanation may be that such individuals are unable to attract much support back home. Their woes of poverty, violence, and official neglect are familiar tales back home, and so they fail to incite the ire of China’s nationalist netizens. The pressure on Chinese leaders to help support and defend these citizens overseas thus remains limited. The “digital divide,” it appears, extends even to China’s citizens overseas. Subsequent research should further examine the conditions under which the Chinese government protects its citizens abroad and the role of public mobilization and media attention in such processes. Alternative explanations may include broader strategic, economic, or diplomatic interests, domestic lobbying, and bureaucratic interests. In sum, the proliferation of new media in China has bolstered public awareness of external events and increased pressure on Chinese leaders to protect their citizens overseas. Chinese policy makers have responded in stra-

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tegic fashion, expanding their support for some Chinese citizens trapped in dangerous situations overseas while proactively deploying social and commercial media in an effort to influence public discourse and popu lar perceptions. These dynamics demonstrate that state-society relations within China will continue to influence the practice and priorities of China’s foreign policy.

CHAP T ER 10

Images of the DPRK in China’s New Media: How Foreign Policy Attitudes Are Connected to Domestic Ideologies in China Chuanjie Zhang

In recent years, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has become an increasingly important issue for the Chinese government, as many events involving the DPRK have seemingly put China in an awkward policy position. On the one hand, the DPRK’s nuclear program has repeatedly compromised China’s global image and reputation as a peacefully rising power. On the other hand, China fears that the collapse of the DPRK regime could result in instability on the Korean Peninsula followed by a severe humanitarian crisis that may have transnational consequences, both of which are unacceptable to China. Among top policy makers and elite scholars in China, there are two main types of views regarding China’s DPRK policy. “Traditionalists” emphasize the strategic importance of the DPRK as a buffer between U.S. military forces and China and blame the United States for the deteriorating situation on the peninsula. “Strategists” are highly critical of the DPRK’s irresponsible behavior in its pursuit of nuclear weapons capability that could ultimately become a threat to China’s own security; they call for a major review of China’s policy so that Beijing will use more leverage to compel Pyongyang to change course.1 In the eyes of close observers, these contrasting views are reflected in an ongoing debate about whether China should continue to support the DPRK as a strategic asset or end its support for what has become a security liability.2

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Parallel to the debates among China’s elite, policy toward the DPRK has also become a more salient issue in public discussion. Th is has led to the emergence of a variety of public views toward the DPRK, each of which is associated with certain expectations about the right policy for China’s government to embrace. One recent study of public opinion has found that it also generally falls into two categories, one echoing the positions of the “traditionalists,” and the other more closely reflecting the positions of the “strategists.” The former is mainly composed of members of an older generation who have long been exposed to media reports about China-DPRK friendship, and who may have personal memories of China’s support for its ally in the Korean War. They still view the DPRK with much positive affect and expect the Chinese government to assist this longtime ally. In contrast, the younger generation in China has no memories of the Korean War and less exposure to earlier positive media reporting about the DPRK. They are disappointed, if not angered, by the DPRK’s recent behavior and demand that the Chinese government adopt a tougher policy that ensures the DPRK acts in accordance with China’s national interests.3 Simon Shen has also noted nuances in contemporary Chinese perceptions of the DPRK and concludes that compared with Beijing’s official discourse that highlights friendly ties between China and the DPRK, public views about the DPRK found on the Internet are generally much more critical. Shen indicates that even though Chinese nationalists and the liberals have different views toward the DPRK in substance, both groups urge Beijing to distance China from the DPRK.4 In this chapter, I analyze the variety of images of the DPRK in contemporary China’s public discourse by focusing on views that appear on weibo (or microblogs), a form of new media on the Internet that became very popular in China after 2009. I identify specific messages about the DPRK that weibo users wrote in response to selected international events involving the DPRK. These weibo messages represent a variety, if not the full range, of publicly expressed Chinese perceptions of the DPRK. I focus especially on whether the ideological left and the right in China diverge in their perceptions of the DPRK and examine the contents of their contrasting views. As explained below, I use the labels ideological left and right to distinguish two general political orientations that reflect different normative views about the role the government should play in domestic politics. This chapter makes two contributions to current debates about Chinese public opinion and the role of new media. First, it identifies connections

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between Chinese weibo users’ domestic political beliefs and their views on a key foreign policy matter—policy toward the DPRK—in the hope that the findings can be used to produce more general statements about this link. If so, it will provide a novel perspective on a possible source of change in China’s policy toward the DPRK. The chapter’s second contribution is the light it sheds on the larger matter of the role new media play in contemporary China’s political life. The significance of this role has been formally acknowledged by the Chinese Communist Party. In the Decision of the Th ird Plenum of the Eighteenth Central Committee of the Communist Party of China that was released in November 2013, the Party officially determined that it needed to upgrade its ability to manage public opinions on the Internet. President Xi Jinping’s explanation about the decision singled out weibo and weixin (a Chinese version of WeChat) as strong tools for the rapid dissemination of information and for social mobilization. President Xi emphasized the Party’s interest in providing more “opinion guidance” in such new media outlets. The chapter is organized as follows. First, I review the existing literature on the connections between domestic political attitudes and foreign policy beliefs. After that I define and briefly survey the current spectrum of ideologies in China’s domestic politics. Next I show that new media like weibo are a promising source for information about these different ideological positions and for their connection to particular images of the DPRK. Finally, I present the substantive contents of several images of the DPRK and discuss their connections to the different ideological camps.

Domestic Political Attitudes and Foreign Policy Attitudes Convergence or Divergence?

In the 1940s and 1950s, the Almond-Lippmann Consensus dominated the study of the American public’s foreign policy attitudes. Walter Lippmann argued that public attitudes on foreign policy issues are volatile and irrational. Gabriel Almond argued that international issues are remote from ordinary people’s lives; consequently, their foreign policy beliefs, unlike their domestic political beliefs, lack content and structure. This skepticism about the role of public opinion in foreign policy was reinforced by ideas presented in contemporary theories of international relations and studies of political attitudes.

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According to the theorist Hans Morgenthau, because irrational public opinion could be an impediment to coherent foreign policy, it was fitting that diplomacy be insulated from public discussion; diplomacy’s effectiveness required secrecy and maneuvering room for policy makers. Philip Converse’s analysis of the 1958 National Election Study added data that provided empirical evidence supporting the Almond-Lippmann Consensus—little consistency in the public’s foreign policy attitudes or between the public’s domestic attitudes and its foreign policy attitudes.5 Research findings after 1960, however, challenged the Almond-Lippmann Consensus. Studies of public opinion during and after the Vietnam War era indicated that public attitudes on both domestic and foreign policy issues were consistent, stable, and rational. These findings prompted a search for the factors that can best explain these domestic and foreign policy attitudes.

Ideology and Policy Attitudes

Scholars of foreign policy attitudes studies in the United States largely agree that the public’s belief structures in domestic politics and international politics differ significantly. While the conservative-liberal continuum is useful for explaining the public’s attitudes on a variety of domestic political issues, the range of foreign policy attitudes is more complicated and uncertain. Even though there are different defi nitions of political ideology, many public opinion scholars agree that in American politics placement along the liberal-conservative or left-right continuum is the primary explanatory variable of public attitudes on a broad range of domestic issues. For example, those on the left are more supportive of social welfare, government spending, civil rights, gun control, and abortion. Those on the right more strongly support private entrepreneurship, traditional social values, and severe punishment for crime and illegal immigration. On almost all domestic issues, one notices differences in the policy positions between the left and right. Self-identification with different political ideologies has been quite stable over the decades, and has been associated with socioeconomic variables that include age, race, gender, and income.6 Yet some scholars suggest that the factors shaping foreign policy attitudes differ significantly from those shaping domestic political attitudes. Stanley Feldman, for example, fi nds that the American public’s attitudes are built on core beliefs and values regarding laissez-faire economics,

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entrepreneurship, and equality of opportunity. However, such core beliefs and values play a lesser role in shaping foreign policy attitudes.7 Norman Nie and Kristi Andersen conclude that public attitudes on social welfare, government spending, and taxes are correlated with the liberal-conservative ideological split, but this correlation is nonex istent when one examines foreign policy attitudes.8 Other studies point to a variety of possible explanations for American foreign policy attitudes. Eugene Wittkopf ’s analysis of Chicago Council survey data consistently reflects two different variables that explain the American public’s foreign policy attitudes—placement along a cooperative internationalism dimension and a militant internationalism dimension. Mark Peffley and Jon Hurwitz propose a hierarchical model that provides a structure for foreign policy attitudes on a series of distinct issues. I find that aside from issue-specific general beliefs, affect toward a target country can predict foreign policy preferences.9 However intriguing these competing findings may be, there has been little research that has attempted to examine whether an ideological distinction between left and right might illuminate the pattern of public attitudes on foreign policy in China. One effort, Shen’s recent research on Chinese netizen opinions about the DPRK, looked at how the Chinese nationalists and the ideological right arrive at common policy recommendations despite their diverse views of the DPRK.10 But because Shen characterized people who are more prone to nationalism as “the new left,” he thereby conflated two fundamentally different dimensions of attitudes, nationalism and domestic political ideology. As will be shown in the following, some who are on the ideological right also hold nationalistic positions. Nationalism and political ideology identify two different dimensions of public attitudes. To avoid similar confusion, I need to more carefully specify what I mean by political ideology and related terms like left and right in the context of contemporary China. Before doing so, it is worth noting an obvious consideration in translating relevant research on foreign policy in the West to the Chinese case. In the study of public opinion in democracies, there are several theories modeling links between public opinion and foreign policy, including the “systems of dikes model,” the “echo chamber model,” and the “delegate model.” But attempts to extend such lines of research to authoritarian states such as China is open to challenges. Some simply assume either that public opinion in a nondemocracy lacks meaningful contents or that public opinion does not really matter much given the absence of the regime’s political accountability to the

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public. However, as Jessica Weiss has indicated, these broad assumptions are called into question by evidence that public opinion (of which opinions expressed on the Internet are a special subset) sometimes plays an important role in China’s foreign policy decision making.11

Political Ideologies in Contemporary China I use the broadest definition of political ideology, which is “a closely linked set of beliefs about the goal of politics and the most desirable political order that enables individuals to interpret political events and provides a guide to decision making.”12 China’s official ideology is a revised version of Marxism-Leninism, mixed with Mao Zedong’s thoughts and Deng Xiaoping’s vision for economic reforms and political control by the CCP. Since the reform era began in 1978, however, there has been a rapid increase in the diversity of political ideologies that circulate within China. One authoritative Chinese scholar lists eight main ideologies in modern-day Chinese politics: socialism with Chinese characteristics (the official ideology publicly endorsed by the Party), old left, new left, democratic socialism, liberalism, nationalism, populism, and new Confucianism.13 For the purpose of simplification, these different ideologies can be collapsed into two major camps, the left and the right. Like the United States, the left-right spectrum elegantly captures many in-group and between-group differences. Unlike the United States, the left in China is the more conservative and the right is the more liberal end of the spectrum, as the terms left and right have very different meanings in Chinese politics. Liberals, or Chinese on the right, borrow theories from Western economic liberalism and believe that government should protect individual rights and freedom, develop a competitive market economy and the rule of law, actively participate in globalization, and impose strict checks on government power.14 They attribute problems in China’s economic reforms to insufficient market competition and a lack of political reform. They embrace political democracy as a universally desirable value and regard the lack of democracy in China as the primary reasons for rampant government corruption and other social problems. Compared with the right, Chinese on the left are more conservative. But as a group, their principles and values are less coherent than those on China’s

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right. On China’s left, there is an “old left” who were once the country’s dominant ideological group and a “new left” who are in the majority today. Generally speaking, the new left sees equality and fairness as primary values. It is skeptical about capitalist market economics and globalization, and instead embraces a socialist commitment to egalitarianism.15 The new left is also skeptical of modernization and supports more government intervention in economic and social domains. One important symbolic position of the new left is its support for Mao Zedong’s initiation of the Cultural Revolution in 1966. They regard this campaign as Mao’s attempt to prevent the emergence of capitalism in China and ensure the country’s socialist future. The new left also calls for a return to traditional Chinese values and culture. The new left is like the old left in its endorsement of Mao Zedong’s ideas and policies and shares its critical view of privatization, market economics, and capitalism. Unlike the old left, however, the new left avoids using the discourse of Marxist-Leninism in advancing its arguments and instead uses the language of modern social sciences theories. With rapid economic growth and emergence of a raft of social problems, the right and new left have become increasingly polarized, especially after Bo Xilai, a symbolic leader of the new left, was arrested and sentenced.16 The debate between the two camps has intensified and been extended to almost all political issues. Central to the debate is the future of democratization and modernization in China. Neither side is satisfied with China’s current state of development. And both sides are concerned about widening social and economic inequality. However, they fundamentally disagree about the source of these problems. The new left blames excessive market reforms, while the right blames the incompleteness of these reforms as well as the absence of Western democracy, which the new left rejects.17 In recent years, Chinese scholars have undertaken empirical research to differentiate the right from the left. Mingshu Zhang, a senior research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, designed a questionnaire to survey the public. Zhang proposed one survey question that he believes effectively separates the right from the left: Does the interviewee thinks that the United States is better than China? Those who provide positive responses are coded as “right,” those who provide negative responses are coded as “left,” and those who are undecided are coded as “moderates.”18 Interviews showed that 38.1 percent of respondents were on the left , 8 percent on the right, and 43.8 percent were moderates. Although it may be reasonable to assume that positive feelings toward the United States would be correlated with

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domestic ideological positions, relying on a single indicator of political ideology risks serious measurement problems. Deyong Ma and Shuxian Zhang, therefore, measure left and right ideologies using multiple indicators including attitudes toward individual freedom, perceptions of Mao Zedong, and whether the economy should be dominated by the market or the state. The usefulness of the research design rests on discovering that the left and the right provide different substantive answers to the measurement questions and that within each camp there is a rough consensus on the answers to the questions. Applying their method to a study of China’s online community, or netizens, they find that 7 percent belong to the left, 42.7 percent are moderates, and 50.3 percent belong to the right.19 This distribution of different ideological groups more or less matches the broadly shared conventional wisdom about Internet opinion in China, adding confidence in, though not proving, the validity of the measures that Ma and Zhang have devised.

New Media and Political Attitude Expression In recent years, there has been increasing research in China on how the public views international affairs and how these attitudes may be related to the government’s foreign policy. This new research is partly a result of the accumulation of foreign policy survey data being collected in China. Even though surveys dedicated to sensitive political topics are still not allowed in China, some foreign policy questions have been embedded in larger socialeconomic surveys that ask about attitudes toward foreign countries and views on specific issues such as trade and climate change. More scholarly attention devoted to this topic also reflects the fact that China’s international economic role and military power are growing, prompting a keen interest in assessing public attitudes. Some scholars aim to study how public attitudes may be shaping China’s foreign policy. Most notably, there has been a lot of discussion about surging nationalism among the Chinese public, especially in light of recent anti-Japan demonstrations in 2005 and 2012. The wave of nationalist public opinion in China has also been mentioned as an important reason for China’s greater assertiveness in its foreign policy.20 While displaying the causal links between public opinion and foreign policy in China is difficult, the explosion of new social media in China provides a good opportunity to gather information on public attitudes

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about foreign affairs and to begin searching for patterns that need to be explained. First, it must be acknowledged that there is no consensus on the defi nition of new media. Almost all the new media over the past decade in China are Internet-based, including instant messaging (SMS), Internet bulletin board systems (BBS), social networking sites, blogging, weibo, and weixin. The prevalence of these different media at any given time has varied. As the list suggests, with rapid and accelerating growth, new media are repeatedly replaced by still newer media. Before 2009, research on new media communications focused mainly on blogging and Internet forums. When microblogging entered the market around 2009, many users switched to Sina Weibo, the most popular microblogging site in China. According to a special report of the Economist in April 2013, there were more than 500 million registered accounts on Sina Weibo.21 Even as researchers are shift ing their attention to weibo, another shift is under way with the rising popularity of weixin. Despite their different forms, these new media share several common characteristics relevant to the study of the expression of political attitudes. Compared with traditional media such as newspapers, magazines, and TV, new media are much more accessible to the general public. China enforces its strictest censorship system in traditional media, making it nearly impossible for ordinary people to use these media to express political opinions that are different from official positions. By contrast, messages on the Internet are subject to less thorough censorship. Moreover, there are various methods netizens can use to bypass much of the Internet censorship that does exist. Because the new media are less effectively controlled, they are a preferred venue for public expression, especially by those with liberal ideologies and antigovernment positions that would otherwise be quickly censored. New media, then, are characterized by a more vibrant culture of political cynicism and distrust of government. They have been an important outlet for public outrage about the government’s failure to meet expectations in dealing with problems such as corruption, unaffordable housing, insufficient health care, inadequate social security, and the unequal distribution of educational resources. Demands for more political reform and democratization, nonex istent on traditional media, can also be found in the new media, although to evade censorship these most controversial views are often veiled in creative language or metaphors. New media make it possible to spread information and mobilize people with unprecedented speed. Messages can reach many thousands of readers

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within seconds. So far, the most popular new media in China are weibo and weixin. Both set a ceiling of number of characters in each text message. For example, the ceiling for a Sina Weibo is 140 Chinese characters. This short length makes messages much easier to be read and transferred between users, which facilitates communication of breaking news, individual opinion expression, and group discussion. Less effectively controlled by the government, the new media have made people more willing to express their true beliefs but have also provided an efficient means for spreading political rumors. For these reasons, new media have drawn increasing attention from China’s government and resulted in calls by some top-level CCP members for devising more innovative means to effectively manage internet opinions and ensure the communication of mainstream attitudes.22 In a context where political survey data collection is rare, these new media provide an alternative source of data for studying the connections between foreign policy attitudes and political ideologies. In the next section, I look at influential opinion leaders in the new media, exploring the correlation between their images of the DPRK and their domestic political attitudes.

Quantitative Analysis of Weibo Images of the DPRK Responsiveness of Opinions on Weibo to Major Events Involving the DPRK

The focus of study is on Sina Weibo, the largest microblogging site run by a Chinese Internet gateway company. Microblogging became highly popular with China’s netizens at about the same time, March 2010, when a Republic of Korea navy ship Cheonan was sunk, allegedly by the DPRK. Since then, there have been six events involving the DPRK that drew major international attention. They are (1) the DPRK fi ring artillery shells onto Yeonpyeong Island, controlled by Republic of Korea, in November 2010; (2) the official announcement of Kim Jong-il’s death in December 2011; (3) an unsuccessful DPRK satellite launch in April 2012; (4) a successful DPRK satellite launch in December 2012; (5) an underground DPRK nuclear test in February 2013; and (6) the official announcement in December 2013 of the ousting and execution of Jang Song-taek, a top DPRK official and close relative of the regime’s new ruler, Kim Jong-un.

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140,000 120,000 100,000 80,000 60,000 40,000 20,000 0 Day 0 Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7 Day 8 Day 9 Day 10 Yeonpyeong Island shelling in November 2010 Kim Jong-il’s death in December 2011 Unsuccessful satellite launch in April 2012 Successful satellite launch in December 2012 Nuclear test in February 2013 Ousting and execution of Jang Song-taek in December 2013

Figure 10.1. Number of microblogging messages containing keyword DPRK, November 2010–December 2013.

I look at daily numbers of microblogging messages that contain the keyword Chaoxian (a Chinese term for DPRK) beginning from one day before each event to the tenth day after it occurred. I count only original microblog messages that are written by users or directly copied from elsewhere, excluding those that users simply forwarded. Figure 10.1 records the change in microblogging messages containing the keyword DPRK for the six major events from November 2010 to December 2013. This is a period with an enormous number of registered Chinese microbloggers. The evidence shows that all of these events initially triggered an upsurge of relevant microblogging activities. Afterward, there was sharp drop starting from the second day, with the one exception being the most recent

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case involving Jang Song-taek’s ouster and execution that took place in December 2013. In this case, microblogging activities reached their highest point on the fift h day after the DPRK announced the arrest when a second official announcement confirmed that Jang Song-taek had been executed. This triggered a round of even more heated microblogging activities on the fift h day after the initial announcement of Jang’s arrest. Among all six cases, the announced death of Kim Jong-il caused the greatest upsurge in microblogging, with the daily number of messages exceeding thirteen thousand even on the second day. In all cases, however, microblogging rates tended to return to their original levels about seven days after the triggering event. One potential problem with relying on a count of total messages is that the majority of these messages simply disseminate the news rather than expressing an opinion about it. In such messages, microbloggers reposted news coverage they saw elsewhere without adding their own comments. These microbloggers are doing little more than playing the role of informal news reporters, and, thus, the timeliness of the news might explain the one-day upsurge in messages that is followed by a quick drop-off. To better explore patterns of expressed attitudes, I look more closely at the activities of certified microbloggers during these six events. These individuals are a subset of users whose identities have been certified by Sina Weibo. They are dedicated microbloggers who regularly post comments about news events in order to draw more followers who share their views. The most successful of these certified users can become opinion leaders on the Internet; the platform provides them with an incentive to voice their opinions in a brief and succinct way that makes their viewpoints accessible among potential followers, who mark the messages “agree” or forward them to others. Figure 10.2 records the microblogging activities of certified users immediately after the six DPRK events. Unlike the evidence of a sharp and brief upsurge presented in Figure 10.1, the upsurge in microblogging by certified users dies out more gradually. One possible explanation for this distinctive pattern is that a larger proportion of such messages express attitudes rather than simply conveying news reports. For example, as with all weibo users, the announced death of Kim Jong-il drew the most microblogging attention. But among certified users, microblogging activity surged again on the fourth day. This was the day the DPRK government publicly released the will of the late Kim Jong-il. In it, the new leader, Kim Jong-un, was formally named to succeed his father as supreme

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18,000 16,000 14,000 12,000 10,000 8,000 6,000 4,000 2,000 0 Day 0 Day 1 Day 2 Day 3 Day 4 Day 5 Day 6 Day 7 Day 8 Day 9 Day 10 Yeonpyeong Island shelling in November 2010 Kim Jong-il’s death in December 2011 Unsuccessful satellite launch in April 2012 Successful satellite launch in December 2012 Nuclear test in February 2013 Ousting and execution of Jang Song-taek in December 2013

Figure 10.2. Number of microblogging messages by certified users, November 2010–December 2013.

leader of the DPRK. This announcement triggered a huge second wave of heated discussion on Sina Weibo among certified users who offered their comments about the importance of the leadership transition, a surge much greater than the small uptick that occurred among the larger community of microbloggers, many of whom simply relayed the news update without comment.

Ideologies of Weibo Users Who Are Most Active in Speaking About the DPRK In order to explore the association between images of the DPRK and the domestic ideological positions of prominent microbloggers, I once again refine

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the analysis and focus on the contents of their microblogging messages. Among all the certified microbloggers, there are both institutional and individual users. Institutional users have a blue V symbol marked on their account and individual users have a yellow V symbol. In assessing the content of messages, I limited my focus to the most recent event in the data set, the ouster and execution of Jang Song-taek. All original messages written by certified individual microbloggers during the two-week period from December 9 to December 22, 2013, that contained the keyword North Korea were thoroughly examined. There are a total of 202 microblogging messages written by 126 certified individual microbloggers. Twenty-eight microbloggers wrote two or more messages. Of the 202 messages, 122, or 61 percent, are directly related to the DPRK. I rank these 122 messages according to the number of follow-up comments left by other microbloggers and the number of times these messages are copied and forwarded by others. I then identify the top fifteen microbloggers whose messages clearly reflect specific attitudes toward the DPRK and are most influential. Table 10.1 presents the professional profiles of these fifteen microbloggers together with their images of the DPRK. All have jobs that place them in the middle class or above. In addition, all fifteen have negative images of the DPRK. Twelve out of fifteen explicitly categorize the DPRK regime as a cruel dictatorship. Three microbloggers point to the widespread poor economic conditions in the DPRK, and two, in a negative way, mention the DPRK’s manipulation of the big powers. With the sole exception of the individual listed eighth, the others’ images are clearly coupled with strong negative feelings toward DPRK. After identifying the fi fteen most active certified microbloggers, I reviewed all their messages written in 2013 and summarized their ideological positions using the multiple indicators proposed by Ma and Zhang.23 Ten have explicit liberal (right) positions. Four do not clearly lean toward either the right or left . Only one microblogger questions the ongoing economic reforms and leans slightly toward the left . There is clearly a very strong association between identifying with the ideological right and holding negative images of the DPRK. However, because there are no leftists ranked among the top fi fteen active microbloggers expressing views of the DPRK, this evidence does not allow me to conclude that the ideological left is necessarily associated with positive, or even less negative, views of the DPRK.

Table 10.1. DPRK Images Held by Top 15 Micro-bloggers Speaking Out on DPRK during the December 2013 Event Ranking

First letter of account

Profession

DPRK image

Political ideologies

1

W

Business manager

Negative image

2 3 4

K H K

Business manager Business manager Economist

Negative image Negative image Negative image

5

L

Journalist

Negative image

6

W

Head chef

Negative image

7

S

Chief editor

Negative image

8

X

Negative image

9

W

Negative image

Ideologically right. Believes in constitutional politics.

10 11

L Z

Business department chief Nonprofit, unknown position News commentator Author

Ideologically right. Anti-Mao Zedong and stresses individual rights. Uncertain. Points to many social problems. Ideologically right. Supports rule of law. Ideologically right. Anti-Mao Zedong and stresses individual rights. Ideologically right. More checks on power and more individual freedom. Uncertain. Government should do better on a number of social issues. Ideologically right. Confident that further reform will be solution. Uncertain. Concerned about inequality.

Negative image Negative image

12

D

Executive editor

Negative image

13 14

W F

Business PR chief Lawyer

Negative image Negative image

15

H

Lawyer

Negative image

Ideologically right. Blames government for corruption. Ideologically right. Negative image of Mao Zedong and political system. Uncertain. Concerned about corruption and inadequate social ser vices. Ideologically right. Blames government for corruption. Ideologically right. Supports constitutional politics and democratization. Leaning left. Believes that reform only benefits government.

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What Images of the DPRK Do Leftist and Rightist Microbloggers Hold? In order to assess the possible association between leftist ideology and less negative images of DPRK, and to compare this association with the relationship between rightist ideology and negative images of DPRK, I use a data set created by Chen and Qian that identifies ninety-six prominent microbloggers who hold strongly leftist or rightist ideology as determined by multiple indicators of their attitudes on a number of domestic political issues.24 Among the ninety-six prominent microbloggers examined, thirty-one are strong leftists and sixty-five are strong rightists. All the weibo messages originally written by these ninety-six prominent microbloggers that contained the keyword DPRK are searched on the Internet. The time frame for the collection of these messages is January 1, 2013, through December 31, 2013. Seventeen out of thirty-one leftist microbloggers posted 247 such messages, and thirty-four out of sixty-five rightist microbloggers posted 110 such messages. The number of messages containing the keyword DPRK is smaller than one might expect, probably for three reasons. First, these ninety-six strong ideologues were selected mainly because of their domestic political views. Not all of them are interested in following international issues. For example, of the sixty-five rightists, twenty-four (36.9 percent) never wrote anything related to the DPRK on their microblogs; of the thirty-one leftists, nine (29.0 percent) were silent on DPRK issues. Second, these identified weibo users occupy extreme positions on the ideological spectrum and are more likely to face tougher Internet censorship or, anticipating it, to more frequently engage in self-censorship. Indeed, during the period of data collection (July 7–July 15, 2014) the accounts of seven rightists (10.8 percent) and five left ists (16.1 percent) were nonfunctioning. All 357 messages involving the DPRK are coded to determine the nature of images that these micro-bloggers hold. Table 10.2 presents the results. Messages written by the ideological rightists overwhelmingly (74.5 percent) contain negative images of DPRK. In contrast, only 28 of 247 messages (11.3  percent) written by leftists contain negative images of DPRK, while 67 of 247 messages (27.1  percent) contain positive images of DPRK. A simple chi-square test shows significant differences in the DPRK images held by the leftists and rightists (P < 0.01). Therefore, the ideological left, to the extent that they have any view of DPRK, clearly have a more positive image than those on the right.

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Table 10.2. DPRK Images of Weibo Messages by Prominent Ideologues: January 1–December 31, 2013 Political ideologies

DPRK images

Positive Negative Uncertain

Total messages

Left

Right

67 28 152

2 82 26

247

110

1. Chi-Sq = 145.8, d.f. = 2, P-Value < 0.01.

Qualitative Analysis of Weibo Images of the DPRK Background of the China-DPRK Relationship

The China-DPRK relationship is unusually complicated. Although China pursues a foreign policy of nonalignment, many regard the DPRK as China’s ally. However, the Chinese government is very cautious about treating the DPRK as an ally and officially does not provide it with a clear security guarantee or nuclear umbrella. Since 1978 when China began to implement its program of reform and opening up to the outside world, both with the goal of improving the living standard of the Chinese people, China’s economy has been growing at an astonishing rate. Yet the DPRK has remained a closed country that continues to give top priority to developing its military. The two countries have, thus, increasingly followed divergent paths. In addition, ever since 1993 when Kim Il-sung announced that the DPRK would withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the nuclear issue has become a prominent issue on the international agenda complicating China-DPRK relations. For the past two decades, the DPRK’s nuclear ambition and military focus has, on several occasions, led East Asia to the brink of disaster. Moreover, its actions, though largely beyond Beijing’s control, have repeatedly harmed China’s international image. Both governments officially continue to claim that their bilateral relationship has a solid foundation built on history and friendship,25 but the Chi-

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nese public’s attitude toward the DPRK has been undergoing a significant change since the 1990s. Unlike in the 1950s and most of the 1960s, public perceptions of the DPRK are today more diverse. This shift has occurred at the same time as a shift within China from a society in which opinion was uniformly aligned with the dominant official view of the CCP-led government, to a society in which there is more diversity and polarization of ideological positions. Reviewing the microblog messages about the DPRK written by the most prominent representatives of distinct ideological positions, six different images of the DPRK can be identified. Each of these images carries some positive or negative affect along with an expectation about the policy the Chinese government should adopt. Some of these images are exclusive either to the left or to the right. Others are shared by both groups but are interpreted differently by each. As mentioned earlier, research on foreign policy opinions in the West has indicated that people may rely on different belief systems to inform their reaction to domestic and international political events.26 However, this does not seem to be true for the research presented here. Chinese microbloggers’ attitudes toward North Korea are aligned with their domestic political ideologies. The right tends to have far more negative images of the DPRK than the left does.

Image 1: The DPRK Is China’s Loyal Ally and the Relationship Is Strengthened by Shared Socialist and Marxist Ideologies

This image is exclusive to the left, and carries a very strong positive affect toward the DPRK, which is seen as the little brother of China that needs China’s full support.27 In this view, even though the bilateral relationship may have experienced ups and downs, it is qualitatively different from bilateral relationships with countries like the Philippines or Japan. Because of this distinction, any dispute or conflict between China and the DPRK should be treated as a quarrel within one family.28 This image has a clear, strong policy implication—demanding that China provide security guarantees to the DPRK. And the DPRK’s nuclear ambitions are deemed understandable because it is surrounded by enemies and because its only friend, China, is too soft to offer strong support.29

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Image 2: In Terms of Geopolitics, the DPRK Has Been Strategically Important to China for Centuries and Is More So Today

Like the first image, this one is exclusive to the left. It reflects an overall positive opinion of the DPRK. Those who hold this image frequently invoke a Chinese saying to describe the importance of the DPRK for China: “If the lips are gone, the teeth will be cold.” This view of the relationship is similar to the old tributary system in East Asia in which China stood at the center and Korea, along with other neighbors, were vassal states. The DPRK’s geographic location between China and Japan is also seen as a reason why it is especially important for the security of China’s northeast.30 Furthermore, it is argued that if the DPRK is weak or unstable, the United States is able to use the unsettled situation on the peninsula as a pretext for actions that serve its larger strategy of encirclement aimed at China.31 The DPRK’s nuclear weapons are seen as more of a threat to the United States than to China, and therefore should not worry Beijing so much.32 The policy implication of this image is similar to that of the first image—encouraging the Chinese government to support the DPRK and use American concern about the DPRK as leverage in China’s dealings with the United States.

Image 3: Three Generations of DPRK Rulers Have Been Smart or Cunning Enough to Manipulate Bigger Powers Including China, the United States, and Japan to Their Own Advantage

This image exists among both the left and the right in China and can imply either positive or negative affect toward the DPRK. According to one leftist, for example, as a small country the DPRK has long been fighting for its own survival under the strong leadership of the Kim family. They successfully developed their country’s nuclear weapons and delivery vehicles, freely entered or exited negotiations over the programs, and defied the big powers’ demands for denuclearization. This tenacity has won respect for the Kim family.33 Other leftists, however, believe that China should be very careful not to be dragged into unnecessary crises or conflicts by the DPRK, and argue that China needs to exert more pressure on the DPRK.34 For rightists, the DPRK presents a typical case of a small state manipulating big powers, or the tail wagging the dog. Neither the United States

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nor China has much control of the situation. 35 The regional power competition is seen as providing maneuvering room for DPRK, but the DPRK’s survival in the post- Cold War world is seen mainly as a consequence of sheer luck.36

Image 4: The DPRK Is a Poor and Isolated Country

This image is held by microbloggers on both the left and the right, with mixed affects. For those on the left, the source of economic hardship is the DPRK’s disadvantageous security situation that prevents it from diverting more resources to economic development.37 If its security environment improves, they expect that the DPRK would have strong incentives to initiate economic reforms as China did in the late 1970s and would have a good chance of improving its economy.38 For those on the right, the Kims are largely to blame for the military-first policy of the DPRK. Their grasp on power, however, need not last forever if the public becomes extremely dissatisfied and seeks to overthrow their rulers.39 These microbloggers point to the DPRK as a living example that shows why it was absolutely necessary for China to loosen political controls and build a market economy with its post1978 reforms.40

Image 5: The DPRK Is a Cruel Dictatorship That Commits Crimes Against Its Own People

Th is image carries a very strong negative affect and is widely shared by those on the right. Only two left ist microbloggers write messages containing this image of the DPRK. Messages reflecting this image are often accompanied by political satire and derogatory words about the DPRK government or its rulers. The Kim family is seen as living out its old feudal dreams and relying on primitive and cruel methods to maintain its political control.41 The Kims regularly have to wipe out their political enemies and must tightly control domestic information flow to fool the public.42 In this view, China should stop its foreign aid to the DPRK in order to hasten the collapse of the Kim family dictatorship and support for the Kim family is seen as shameful, causing serious damage to China’s own international image.43

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Image 6: The DPRK Is a Serious Security Threat to China

This image is strongly negative in nature and is widely held by the rightists though, as with image 5, a few leftists hold this view, too.44 Most on the right suggest that China fought the Korean War (1950–53) in vain. The blood of Chinese soldiers did not win respect or appreciation from the DPRK.45 Instead, the DPRK’s ongoing irresponsible behavior has been an enduring burden hampering China’s rise and its global image. Therefore, China should immediately terminate its support for the DPRK and end its alliance with the regime.46 Some suggest that China consider the option of militarily intervening in and taking over the DPRK.47 Most microbloggers with this image of DPRK are extremely concerned about the DPRK’s nuclear weapons and fear that they constitute a direct threat to China and undermine any chance for peace on the Korean Peninsula. The few leftists who hold this image strongly advise Chinese government to increase pressure on the DPRK regime to achieve denuclearization. In sum, the first two images are clearly associated with positive affect toward the DPRK and are exclusive to the left, while the last two images are associated with negative feelings and are widely held by the right. The third and fourth images are shared by microbloggers both from the left and the right, and involve mixed affects.

Conclusion The evidence presented here permits four conclusions, however tentative. First, microblogging activity in China is very responsive to major events involving the DPRK. Second, those microbloggers who are the most active commentators about the DPRK tend to have negative images of the DPRK. Third, among microbloggers whose ideology was identified, rightists overwhelmingly hold negative images of DPRK, while most leftists hold much less negative images. Fourth, these differing images are linked with distinct policy recommendations for the Chinese government. Although my findings suggest a possible correlation between domestic political attitudes in China and foreign policy attitudes toward the DPRK, these findings can only be considered tentative. To conclusively establish a systematic correlation, more research is needed, especially research that looks at possible variation across different new media platforms, only one of which

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is captured by looking at microblogs. Other work that suggests that strongly nationalist public opinion among China’s hundreds of millions of netizens have more often been expressed on Internet forums, rather than microblogs, should alert researchers to the possibility that the views aired in different new media may be distinctive. Moreover, as research moves ahead, it will face new challenges. Even as the research for this chapter was being conducted, a newer form of social media, weixin, gained momentum, with many users now moving from weibo to weixin as the platform for expressing their views. But because access to weixin accounts is controlled by their owners, the method of open data analysis used here seems less feasible. Finally, researchers must keep in mind that netizens, especially those actively expressing opinions on foreign policy issues, may not be representative of the Chinese public as a whole. As ever, the validity of findings in public opinion studies depends on the quality of research design. Without knowing which Chinese are willing to voice their true opinions on the Internet, doubts must remain about the validity of research findings and their usefulness for understanding the significance of public opinion for China’s foreign policy.

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NOTES

Introduction. The Internet, Social Media, and a Changing China 1. World Bank data on Internet use indicate 45.2 percent of Chinese were Internet users in 2013, http://data.worldbank .org /indicator/IT.NET.USER .P2. 2. Sina Weibo claims 500 million users, but the vast majority—on the most skeptical estimates up to 90 percent—of accounts are “zombie” accounts or otherwise not actively used. “Sina Weibo Boasts 500 Million Users,” China Daily, December 21, 2013; Patrick Boehler, “Almost All Weibo Messages Are Generated by Just 5 Per Cent of Users,” South China Morning Post, April 8, 2104 (reporting on study by Fu King-wa of the University of Hong Kong); “Sina Says Weibo Daily Active Users up 4 Pct to 61.4 Million,” Reuters, February 24, 2014. 3. Governance Project, Stanford University, “Documenting China’s Digital Divide” (2012), http://governanceproject.stanford.edu/research/documenting _chinas _digital _divide/; Michelle W. L. Fong, “Digital Divide Between Urban and Rural Regions in China,” Electronic Journal on Information Systems in Developing Countries 36, no. 6 (2009): 1–12. 4. See Benjamin L. Liebman, “A Populist Threat to China’s Courts?,” in Chinese Justice: Civil Dispute Resolution in Contemporary China, ed. Margaret Y. K. Woo and Mary E. Gallagher (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011), 269–313. 5. Kevin O’Brien and Lianjiang Li, Rightful Resistance in Rural China (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2006). 6. Austin Ramsey, “Conflict in the Air: U.S. Vows to Keep Reporting on Pollution in China,” Time, June 6, 2012. 7. Baidu allegedly rejected the offer. See Shai Oster and Loretta Chao, “China Arrests 2 in Milk Scandal as Number of Sick Infants Rises,” Wall Street Journal, September 16, 2008. 8. “The Business Behind the Illegal Deleting of Internet Postings,” China Youth Daily, December 24, 2012. 9. “Sina Weibo: ‘China’s Twitter’ to List in the U.S.,” BBCNews, March 14, 2014.

224

Notes to Pages 7–11

10. See Yanqi Tong and Shaohua Lei, “War of Position and Microblogging,” Journal of Contemporary China 22, no. 80 (2013): 292–311. 11. Commentators have observed a decline of activity since the national crackdown on Internet rumors in the summer of 2013. See Guobin Yang, “The Return of Ideology and the Future of Internet Policy in China,” Critical Studies in Media Communication 31, no. 2 (2014): 109–13. 12. King Wa Fu, Chung-Hong Chan, and Michael Chau, “Assessing Censorship on Microblogs in China: Discriminatory Keyword Analysis and the Real-Name Registration Policy,” IEEE Internet Computing 17, no. 3 (2013): 42–50. 13. W. Lance Bennett and Alexandra Segerberg, The Logic of Connective Action: Digital Media and the Personalization of Contentious Politics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013). 14. William P. Alford, To Steal a Book Is an Elegant Offense: Intellectual Property Law in Chinese Civilization (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1995), chap. 2; Timothy Cheek, “The Fading of Wild Lilies: Wang Shiwei and Mao Zedong’s Yan’an Talks in the First CCP Rectification Movement,” Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs 11 (1984): 25–48; Tom Fisher, “The Play’s the Thing: Wu Han and Hai Rui Revisited,” Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs 7 (1982): 1–35; Gregor Benton and Alan Hunter, eds., Wild Lily, Prairie Fire: China’s Road to Democracy from Yan’an to Tiananmen (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1995). See also Rogier Creemers’s chapter 4 in this volume. 15. See generally James D. Seymour, ed., The Fifth Modernization: China’s Human Rights Movement, 1978–1979 (Stanfordville, N.Y.: Human Rights Publishing Group, 1980); Graham Young, “One Step Forward,” Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs 4 (1980): 185–91; Ellen R. Eliasoph and Susan Grueneberg, “Law on Display,” China Quarterly 88 (1980): 669–85. 16. See generally Craig Calhoun, Neither Gods nor Emperors: Students and the Struggle for Democracy in China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994); Han Minzhu, Cries for Democracy: Writings and Speeches from the 1989 Chinese Democracy Movement (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1990). Demonstrators’ demands that the regime implement the constitution and the rule of law are detailed in Liang Zhang, Andrew J. Nathan, and Perry Link, The Tiananmen Papers (Cambridge: Public Affairs Press, 2001), especially chaps. 1–6. 17. Carlos Wing-hung Lo, China’s Legal Awakening: Legal Theory and Criminal Justice in Deng’s Era (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 1995); Robin Munro, “Rough Justice in Beijing,” UCLA Pacific Basin Law Journal 10, no. 1 (1991): 77–135; Mark Findlay, “Show Trials in China: After Tiananmen Square,” Journal of Law and Society 16, no. 3 (1989): 352–59; see also Zhang, Nathan, and Link, The Tiananmen Papers, especially chaps. 6–9 (discussing claims of the legality of martial law and other measures). 18. Yong Zhou, A Great Trial in Chinese History: The Trial of the Lin Biao and Jiang Qing Counter-Revolutionary Cliques (Beijing: New World Press, 1981); David Bonavia, Verdict in Peking: The Trial of the Gang of Four (London: Burnett, 1984).

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19. See, generally, Jacques deLisle, “SARS and the Pathologies of Globalization in Greater China,” Orbis 47, no. 4 (2003): 587; Jacques deLisle, “Exceptional Powers in an Exceptional State: Emergency Powers Law in China,” in Emergency Powers in Asia, ed. Victor V. Ramraj and Arum K. Th iruvengadam (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 342. 20. Xu Zhiyong, “For Freedom, Justice and Love—My Closing Statement to the Court,” January 22, 2014, http://chinachange.org /2014/01/23/for-freedom-justice-and -love-my-closing-statement-to-the-court /; “Baidu Censors Results for Xu Zhiyong’s Closing Statement to the Court,” January 27, 2104, http:// blog.feichangdao.com/2014 /01/ baidu-censors-results-for-xu-zhiyongs.html. 21. See, for example, Liu Junning, “The Ancient Roots of Chinese Liberalism,” Wall Street Journal, July 6, 2100; Oiwan Lam, “China: Sohu .com Removed Online Public Opinion Leaders’ Blog Accounts,” Global Voices Advocacy, July  15, 2010, http:// advocacy.globalvoicesonline.org /2010/07/15/china-sohu-com-removed-online-public -opinion-leaders-blog-accounts/. 22. Eva Pils, “Asking the Tiger for His Skin: Rights Activism in China,” Fordham International Law Journal 30 (2007): 1209–87. On the radicalization of weiquan lawyers, see Fu Hualing and Richard Cullen, “Climbing the Weiquan Ladder: A Radicalizing Process for Rights-Protection Lawyers,” China Quarterly 205 (2011): 40–59; see also Xiaoping Chen, “The Difficult Road for Rights Advocacy: An Unpredictable Future for the Development of the Rule of Law in China,” Journal of Transnational Law and Contemporary Problems 16 (2006): 222–51. 23. Hualing Fu, “Embedded Sociolegal Activism: The Case of Yirenping,” in Rethinking Law and Development: The Chinese Experience, ed. Guanghua Yu (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013), chap.  9; Timothy Webster, “Ambivalence and Activism: Employment Discrimination in China, Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law 44 (2011): 643, 679–90. 24. See He Weifang, “An Open Letter to Legal Professionals in Chongqing,” in In the Name of Justice: Striving for the Rule of Law in China (Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 2012), 1–8 (translation of blogpost from April 12, 2011). 25. Kevin J. O’Brien, “Rightful Resistance,” World Politics 49, no. 1 (1996): 34; Elizabeth J. Perry, “A New Rights Consciousness?,” Journal of Democracy 20, no. 3 (2009): 19; Lianjiang Li, “Rights Consciousness and Rules Consciousness in Contemporary China,” China Journal 64 (2010): 47–68. 26. For a concise, critical overview of such methods, see Rebecca MacKinnon, “China’s Internet Censorship and Controls: The Context of Google’s Approach to China,” Human Rights in China, July 26, 2010, http://www.hrichina.org /en/content/3248. 27. “Big Vs and Bottom Lines,” Economist, August 31, 2013; Chris Buckley, “Crackdown on Bloggers Is Mounted by China,” New York Times, September 10, 2013; Jonathan Kaiman, “China Cracks Down on Social Media with Th reat of Jail for ‘Online Rumours,’ ” Guardian, September 10, 2103; Human Rights Watch, “China: Draconian Legal Interpretation Threatens Online Freedom,” September 13, 2013, http://www.hrw.org /news/2013/09/13/china-draconian-legal-interpretation-threatens -online -freedom;

226

Notes to Pages 15–20

Supreme People’s Court and Supreme People’s Procuracy, “Interpretation Concerning Several Issues Regarding the Law in Cases of Using Information Networks to Commit Defamation and Other Related Crimes,” 21 (September 2013), n.p. 28. Anne S. Y. Cheung, “A Study of Cyber-Violence and Internet Ser vice Providers’ Liability: Lessons from China,” Pacific Rim Law and Policy Journal 18 (2009): 323; Benjamin  L. Liebman, “Changing Media, Changing Courts,” in Changing Media, Changing China, ed. Susan L. Shirk (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), chap. 7. 29. See, for example, Tort Liability Law of the People’s Republic of China (2011), art. 36; State Council of the People’s Republic of China, Measures for Managing Internet Information Ser vices (2000); Ministry of Public Security, Provisions on Technical Measures for Protecting Internet Security (2005). 30. For an overview and analysis of such developments earlier in the Internet era, see Richard Cullen and D. W. Choy, “China’s Media: The Impact of the Internet,” San Diego International Law Journal 6 (2005): 323–39. For an overview of more recent restrictions and their human rights implications, see Randall Peerenboom, “Assessing Human Rights in China: Why the Double Standard?,” Cornell International Law Journal 38, no. 71 (2005): 104–11. 31. On the question of the effects of public opinion generally on judicial independence and competence and rule of law values, see Ji Weidong, “The Judicial Reform in China: The Status Quo and Future Directions,” Indiana Journal of Global Legal Studies 20 (2013): 185–220, esp. 199–200, 206–17. 32. See Susan L. Shirk, China: The Fragile Superpower (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), chap. 4. 33. See Joseph Fewsmith and Stanley Rosen, “The Domestic Context of Chinese Foreign Policy: Does ‘Public Opinion’ Matter?,” in The Making of Chinese Foreign and Security Policy in the Era of Reform, 1978–2000, ed. David M. Lampton (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2001), 151–87; Susan V. Lawrence, “China’s Foreign Policy: Challenges and Players,” Testimony before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission Hearing on Perspectives on Chinese Foreign Policy, Congressional Research Ser vice, April 13, 2011; Jianwei Wang and Xiaojie Wang, “Media and Chinese Foreign Policy,” Journal of Contemporary China 23, no. 86 (2014): 216–35; cf. Yawei Liu and Justine Zheng Ren, “An Emerging Consensus on the U.S. Threat: The United States According to PLA Officers,” Journal of Contemporary China 23, no. 86 (2014): 255–74. 34. For examples of the way this complicates China’s foreign policy behavior, see Dennis C. Blair and David V. Bonfi li, “The April 2001 Ep-3 Incident: The U.S. Point of View,” in Managing Sino-American Crises: Case Studies and Analysis, ed. Michael D. Swaine, Zhang Tuosheng, and Danielle F. S. Cohen (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2006), 384; Zhang Tuosheng, “The Sino-American Aircraft Collision: Lessons for Crisis Management,” in ibid., 401; Shirk, China; Avery Goldstein, “Parsing China’s Rise: International Circumstances and National Attributes,” in China’s Ascent: Power, Security, and the Future of International Politics, ed. Robert S. Ross and Zhu Feng (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2008), 77–81;

Notes to Pages 20–27

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Michael D. Swaine and M. Taylor Fravel, “China’s Assertive Behavior, Part Two: The Maritime Periphery,” China Leadership Monitor 35 (Summer 2011): 1–34; Zhang Tuosheng, “Zhongguo Guoji Junshi Anquan Weiji Xingwei Yanjiu [A Study of China’s International Military-Security Crisis Behavior],” Shijie Jingji yu Zhengzhi 4 (2011): 116; Oriana Skylar Mastro, “Signaling and Military Provocation in Chinese National Security Strategy: A Closer Look at the Impeccable Incident,” Journal of Strategic Studies 34, no. 2 (2011): 219–44. 35. Among the most vocal are a number of hawkish military officers, some retired. See Didi Kirsten Tatlow, “Hawkish Chinese General Joins Social Media Fray,” New York Times, February 25, 2013; Andrew Chubb, “Propaganda, Not Policy: Explaining the PLA’s ‘Hawkish Faction’ (Part One),” China Brief 13, no. 15 (2013): n.p.; Andrew Chubb, “Propaganda as Policy? Explaining the PLA’s ‘Hawkish Faction’ (Part Two),” China Brief 13, no. 16 (2013): n.p.; Caitlin Dewey, “Hawkish Chinese General Goes a Little Overboard on Social Media,” Washington Post, February 26, 2013. 36. See also Yun Sun, “Chinese Public Opinion: Shaping China’s Foreign Policy, or Shaped by It?,” Brookings, December 13, 2011. 37. Jessica Chen Weiss, “Authoritarian Signaling, Mass Audiences, and Nationalist Protest in China,” International Organization 67, no. 41 (2013): 1–35; Jessica Chen Weiss, Powerful Patriots: Nationalist Protest in China’s Foreign Relations (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014). 38. Miguel Heft and David Barboza, “Google Shuts China Site in Dispute over Censorship,” New York Times, March 22, 2010; Fareed Zakaria, “What’s Really at Stake in Google vs. China,” CNN Opinion, January 21, 2010. 39. Daniel H. Rosen and Thilo Hanemann, “New Realities in the U.S.-China Investment Relationship,” U.S. Chamber of Commerce: Rhodium Group, April 2014, https://www.uschamber.com/sites/default/fi les/documents/fi les/RHG _ New%20Realities _ 29April2014.pdf. 40. “Xi Jinping: Ba Woguo Cong Wangluo Daguo Jianshe Chengwei Wangluo Qiangguo [Xi Jinping: Let’s Build Our Big Internet Country into a Strong Internet Country],” Xinhuanet, February 27, 2014; “Central Leading Group for Internet Security and Informatization Established,” China Copyright and Media, March 1, 2014, http://chinacopyrightandmedia .wordpress .com /2014 /03/01/central-leading-group -for-internet-security-and-informatization-established/. 41. Edward Wong, “Chinese Official Urges Russia and Central Asian Allies to Control Internet,” New York Times, April 18, 2014. 42. On fang and shou cycles in Chinese politics, see Richard Baum, Burying Mao: Chinese Politics in the Age of Deng Xiaoping (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994). 43. Andrew Jacobs, “China Further Tightens Grip on the Internet,” New York Times, January 29, 2015. 44. National Security Law, art. 25 (2015) (unofficial version published by China Daily), http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/hqcj/zgjj/2015- 07- 01/content _13912103.html; “China Passes New National Security Law Extending Control over Internet,” Agence

228

Notes to Pages 27–29

France Presse, July 1, 2015, http://www.theguardian.com /world /2015/jul /01/china -national-security-law-internet-regulation-cyberspace-xi-jinping; Bethany AllenEbrahimian, “The ‘Chilling Effect’ of China’s New Cybersecurity Regime,” Foreign Policy, July 10, 2015, http://foreignpolicy.com/2015/07/10/china-new-cybersecurity-law -internet-security/. 45. See “Better Internet Governance,” China Daily, April 30, 2014; “China Holds First World Internet Conference, Urges Better Governance,” Xinhuanet, November 20, 2014; Shannon Tiezzi, “The Internet with Chinese Characteristics,” Diplomat, November 20, 2014. 46. The persisting ambivalence in the Xi leadership’s attitude toward law was evident at the Fourth Plenum of the Eighteenth Central Committee in October 2014. The communiqué from the meeting that had been touted in advance as the “rule of law” plenum included many promises to strengthen the rule of law but also placed especially strong, repeated emphasis on “Party leadership” over law and legal institutions.

Chapter 1. The Coevolution of the Internet, (Un)Civil Society, and Authoritarianism in China 1. Guobin Yang, “The Co-Evolution of the Internet and Civil Society in China,” Asian Survey 43, no. 3 (2003): 405–22. 2. Commonly, weibo is used to denote the phenomenon of microblogging in China; Weibo (capitalized) is often used as an abbreviation for Sina Weibo, the most influential microblog platform in China. Sina Weibo changed its domain name in April 2011 to weibo.com. One should be cautioned against the likely inflation of user population reported by either Sina or Tencent. Fu and Chau’s study, based on random sample of thirty thousand Sina Weibo accounts between January 18 and 23, fi nds 57 percent of accounts were inactive or “zombie” accounts; see King-Wa Fu and Michael Chau, “Reality Check for the Chinese Microblog Space: A Random Sample Approach,” PLoS ONE 8, no. 3 (2013): n.p., http://is.gd/Ok1Qh2. The thirty-fourth Chinese national Internet survey report puts China’s microblogger population at 275 million; see China Internet Network Information Center, The 34th Statistical Survey Report on Internet Development in China, 2014, http://is.gd/3r8rwi (in Chinese); Min Jiang, “Internet Companies in China: Dancing Between the Party Line and the Bottom Line,” Asie Visions 47 (2012): n.p., http://is.gd/De0Z8S. 3. Kalathil Shanthi and Taylor Boas, Open Networks, Closed Regimes: The Impact of the Internet on Authoritarian Rule (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2003), 1. 4. Ron Deibert, John Palfrey, Rafal Rohozinski, and Jonathan Zittrain, Access Contested (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2010). 5. Min Jiang, “Authoritarian Informationalism: China’s Approach to Internet Sovereignty,” SAIS Review of International Affairs 30, no. 2 (2010): 71–89.

Notes to Pages 30–34

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6. Quoted in Kalathil and Boas, Open Networks, Closed Regimes, 1. 7. Guobin Yang, The Power of the Internet in China: Citizen Activism Online (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009). 8. Philip Agre, “Real-Time Politics: The Internet and the Political Process,” Information Society 18 (2002): 311–31. 9. Rebecca MacKinnon, Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom (New York: Basic, 2012); Min Jiang, “Authoritarian Deliberation on Chinese Internet,” Electronic Journal of Communication 20, nos. 3–4 (2010): n.p., http://is.gd /S3jINP. 10. Jiang, “Authoritarian Informationalism.” 11. Yong Hu, Rising Cacophony: Individual Expression and Public Debate in the Internet Age (Guangxi Province, China: Guangxi Normal University Press, 2008, in Chinese); Yang, The Power of the Internet in China. 12. Deibert et al., Access Contested; Evgeny Morozov, The Net Delusion: The Dark Side of Internet Freedom (Philadelphia, Pa.: Public Affairs, 2011). 13. “Li Baozhu: Deleting Internet Posts with a Wave of His Hand,” China Digital Times, June 22, 2010, http://is.gd/ bfxkar. 14. Anthony Ellwood-Russell, “Wenzhou Train Crash One Year Memorial,” Danwei .com, July 29, 2012, http://www.danwei.com /wenzhou-train-crash-one-year -memorial/. 15. Xinhua News Agency, “Sina Faces Suspension over Lack of Censorship,” Shanghai Daily, April 11, 2015, http://is.gd/Lrm44C. 16. Charles Custer, “The Wenzhou Crash and the Future of Weibo,” TechAsia, August 1, 2011, http://is.gd /B4RvfE. 17. ChinaSMACK, “Wenzhou High-Speed Train Crash Aftermath: 5 Most Viewed Videos, July 25, 2011, http://is.gd/Ym3kDd. 18. Ellwood-Russell, “Wenzhou Train Crash One Year Memorial.” 19. Evan Osnos, “Boss Rail,” New Yorker, October 22, 2011. 20. Ibid. 21. Ibid. 22. Kalle Lasn, Culture Jam: The Uncooling of America (New York: Eagle Brook, 1999). 23. Bart Cammaerts, “Jamming the Political: Beyond Counter-Hegemonic Practices,” Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies 21, no. 1 (2007): 71–90; Lance Bennett and Taso Lagos, “Logo Logic: The Ups and Downs of Branded Political Communication,” American Academy of Political and Social Sciences 611 (2007): 193–207. 24. Mikhail Bakhtin, Rabelais and His World, trans. Helene Iswolsky (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984); Yang, The Power of the Internet in China; David Herold and Peter Marolt, Online Society in China: Creating, Celebrating, and Instrumentalising the Online Carnival (New York: Routledge, 2011). 25. Malcolm Moore, “Blocked by Police, Chinese Campaigners Get Creative,” Telegraph, March 2, 2012. 26. “Free Chen Guangcheng,” KnowYourMeme, 2012, http://is.gd/kUoRMl.

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Notes to Pages 34–39

27. Arthur Bright, “Seeking Chen Guangcheng’s Freedom in China via ‘Internet Meme,’ ” Christian Science Monitor, May 9, 2012. 28. Guy Debord and Gil Wolman, “Mode d’emploi du détournement,” Les Lèvres Nues 8 (1956); trans. as “A User’s Guide to Détournement,” in Ken Knabb, ed. and trans., Situationist International Anthology, rev. ed. (Berkeley, Calif.: Bureau of Public Secrets, 2007), 14–20. 29. Cammaerts, “Jamming the Political.” 30. Moore, “Blocked by Police, Chinese Campaigners Get Creative.” 31. Han Ulrich Obrist, Ai Weiwei Speaks (New York: Penguin, 2011). 32. Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry, produced and directed by Alison Klayman (United States: Expressions United Media, MUSE Film and TV, Never Sorry, 2012). 33. See http://data.weibo.com/top/hot. 34. Wenfang Tang, Public Opinion and Political Change in China (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2005). 35. Jürgen Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1989); Elihu Katz and Paul Lazarsfeld, Personal Influence (New York: Free Press, 1957); Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion (New York: Greenbook, 1922). 36. Jessica Beaton, “Online Effort to Save China’s Kidnapped Children Is Flawed,” CNN.com, February 14, 2011. 37. Kai-Fu Lee, Weibo gaibian yiqie [Weibo Changes Everything] (Shanghai: Shanghai University of Finance & Economics Press, 2011 [in Chinese]). 38. Shudie Chao, “An Examination of Weibo Celebrity’s Influence: A Case of Yao Chen’s Weibo,” Youth Journalist (May 2012): 72–73 (in Chinese). 39. Jie Deng and Kun Wu, “The Counter-Force of Public Opinion Amplifier: An Analysis of Weibo’s Role,” Journal of Southwest Petroleum University (Social Sciences Edition) 15, no. 3 (2013): 93–98 (in Chinese). 40. Benjamin Carlson, “Party Trolls: Meet China’s Answer to the Internet,” Global Post, 2013, http://is.gd/Zj3NLA. 41. Mike Elgan, “How China’s ‘50 Cent Army’ Could Wreck Web 2.0,” Datamation, 2009, http://is.gd/LV40FY. 42. Laurie Burkitt, “ Chinese Professor: Hong Kong Residents Are Dogs and Thieves,” Wall Street Journal, January 24, 2012. 43. “Full of Raving in His Interview with Apple Daily, Rascal Kong Qingdong Blames Media Instead,” Apple Daily, January 23, 2012, http://is.gd /EIx9Vn (in Chinese). 44. “The New Four Arch Evils: Zhang Hongliang, Kong Qingdong, Sima Nan and Wu Fatian. Tianya, December 1, 2011, http://is.gd/qbP4FC. 45. David Bandurski, “China’s Most Horrid People of 2012?” China Media Project, November 17, 2012, http://cmp.hku.hk /2012/11/27/29441/. 46. “Public Intellectuals Who Influence China,” Sohu.com, 2004, http:// business .sohu.com/s2004/zhishifenzi50.shtml.

Notes to Pages 39–42

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47. Roland Song, “Who Is the Writer ‘Han Han’?” EastSouthWestNorth, 2012, http://is.gd/pzLzaC. 48. Han Han, This Generation: Dispatches from China’s Most Popular Literary Star (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2012). 49. Joel Martinsen, “Han Han the Novelist vs. Fang Zhouzi the Fraud-Buster,” 2012, http://is.gd/2DLnEY. 50. Yong Hu, “Godwin’s Law with Chinese Characteristics: Why Are Online Debates Always About the Cultural Revolution?” China File, May 31, 2012, http://is.gd /1Me7d2. 51. Adam Minter, “China’s 50- Cent Feud Leads to a Rumble,” Bloomberg News, July 12, 2012. 52. Song, “Who Is the Writer ‘Han Han’?” 53. Ibid. 54. China Internet Network Information Center, The 33rd Statistical Survey Report on Internet Development in China, 2013, http://is.gd/Aq8iMX (in Chinese). 55. Xinhua Net, “Some Beijing Municipal Provisions on Microblog Development and Management,” Xinhua Net, December 16, 2011, http://is.gd/UWeeGV (in Chinese). 56. Yong Hu, “Rumor as Social Protest,” Communication and Society 9 (2009): 67–94 (in Chinese). 57. Xinhua Net, “Spokesperson Takes Reporters’ Questions Regarding Beijing Municipal Provisions on Microblog Development and Management,” Xinhua Net, December 16, 2012, http://is.gd/eAlZUh (in Chinese). 58. Reuters, “Weibo, China’s Twitter, Estimates 60 Percent of Users Verified by Deadline,” Huffington Post (reposted), May 12, 2012. 59. “National People’s Congress Decision on Strengthening Internet Information Protection,” The State Council of the People’s Republic of China, December 28, 2012, http://is.gd/JLWHfH (in Chinese). 60. State Council of PRC, State Council’s notice regarding implementing “State Council Structure Reform and Function Change Plan”: State Council Decree No 22 (2013), 2013, http://is.gd/fdWGZf (in Chinese). 61. Xinhua Net, “Some Beijing Municipal Provisions on Microblog Development and Management,” Xinhua Net, December 16, 2011, http://is.gd/UWeeGV (in Chinese). 62. “National People’s Congress Decision on Strengthening Internet Information Protection,” The State Council of the People’s Republic of China. 63. QQ, “Real Identity Debate,” Tencent Technology, 2005, http://is.gd/q3WdOp (in Chinese). 64. Fu, Chan, and Chau, “Reality Check for the Chinese Microblog Space.” 65. “Comment on Article ‘Ex-Minister of Industrial and Information: Most Countries Adopt Real Name Registration Policy,’ ” China.com, 2012, http://is.gd/knWtzx (in Chinese). 66. “Commentary: Why Did CCTV Delete Its Own News?” NTD Chinese News, December 31, 2011, http://is.gd/lMOq5S (in Chinese).

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Notes to Pages 43–47

67. Netease, “Ex-Minister of Industrial and Information: Most Countries Adopt Real Name Registration Policy,” Netease, March 9, 2012, http://is.gd/LKuF6X (in Chinese). 68. “Comment on Article ‘Ex-Minister of Industrial and Information.’ ” 69. Chris Buckley, “Crackdown on Bloggers Is Mounted by China,” New York Times, September 10, 2013. 70. Anthony Kuhn, “New Chinese Law Cracks Down on ‘Rumor Mongers,’ ” NPR, September 26, 2013, http://is.gd/Pv0Ohr. 71. Hu, “Rumor as Social Protest.” 72. Buckley, “Crackdown on Bloggers Is Mounted by China.” 73. David Hearst, “From Chen Yongzhou to Weibo, China Struggles to Keep a Lid on Stories,” Guardian, November 2, 2013. 74. Michael Edwards, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Civil Society (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). 75. See, for example, Chantal Mouffe, “Deliberative Democracy or Agonistic Pluralism?” Social Research 66, no. 3 (1999): 745–58. 76. Habermas, The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere. For Asian experiences of consensus and dissensus, see also Taru Salmenkari, “Consensus and Dissensus in the Public Sphere: How East Asian Associations Use Publicity,” Studia Orientalia Electronica 2 (2014): 16–36. 77. Mouffe, “Deliberative Democracy or Agonistic Pluralism?,” 755. 78. Cheng Li, ed., China’s Changing Political Landscape: Prospects for Democracy (Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 2008); C. Li, Xi Jinping’s Inner Circles: Friends from Xi’s Formative Years (Washington, D.C.: Brookings, 2008). 79. Yuan Le and Boxu Yang, “Chinese Netizens’ Ideological and Political Factions,” 21st Century 4 (2009): 22–34 (in Chinese); also Yongnian Zheng, Technological Empowerment: The Internet, State, and Society in China (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2007). 80. Karla Simon, Civil Society in China: A Legal Framework from Ancient Times to the “New Reform Era” (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013). 81. Cass Sunstein, Republic.com (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2002). 82. Simon, Civil Society in China, xxxii. 83. Hu, “Rumor as Social Protest”; James Damm, “The Internet and the Fragmentation of Chinese Society,” Critical Asian Studies 39, no. 2 (2007): 273–94; Cara Wallis, “New Media Practices in China: Youth Patterns, Process, and Politics,” International Journal of Communication 5 (2011): 406–26; Xu Wu, Chinese Cyber Nationalism: Evolution, Characteristics, and Implication (Lanham, Md.: Lexington, 2007). 84. Edwards, The Oxford Handbook of Civil Society. 85. David Lynch, After the Propaganda State: Media, Politics, and “Thought Work” in Reformed China (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1999); Célestin Monga, Uncivil Society: A Theory of Sociopolitical Change, Policy Research Working Paper 4942 (Washington, D.C.: World Bank, 2009). 86. Simon, Civil Society in China. 87. Le and Yang, “Chinese Netizens’ Ideological and Political Factions.”

Notes to Pages 47–52

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88. Deyong Ma and Shuxia Zhang, “ ‘The Left’ and ‘the Right’ among Chinese Netizens,’ ” The Twenty-First Century Review, no. 142, (April 2014), 86–103 (in Chinese); Shuming Zhang, What Democracy Do the Chinese Want? Chinese “Politicians” (in Chinese) (Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press, 2012). 89. Michael Chase and James Mulvenon, You’ve Got Dissent! Chinese Dissident Use of the Internet and Beijing’s Counter-Strategies (Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 2002); Jack Qiu, Working-Class Network Society: Communication Technology and the Information Have-Less in Urban China (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 2009); Wu, Chinese Cyber Nationalism; Yang, The Power of the Internet in China; Fengshu Liu, Urban Youth in China: Modernity, the Internet and the Self (New York: Routledge, 2010); Cara Wallis, Technomobility in China: Young Migrant Women and Mobile Phones (New York: New York University Press, 2013). 90. Lynch, After the Propaganda State.

Chapter 2. Connectivity, Engagement, and Witnessing on China’s Weibo 1. For critical works on social media and connectivity, see José Van Dijck, The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013); Dhiraj Murthy, Twitter: Social Communication in the Twitter Age (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2012); Christian Fuchs, Social Media: A Critical Introduction (London: Sage, 2014); W. Lance Bennett and Alexandra Segerberg, The Logic of Connective Action: Digital Media and Personalization of Contentious Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013); and Peter Dahlgren, The Political Web: Media Participation and Alternative Democracy (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013). 2. For some recent works on young people’s civic and political engagement in Western democracies, see W. Lance Bennett, Chris Wells, and Deen Freelon, “Communicating Civic Engagement: Contrasting Models of Citizenship in the Youth Web Sphere,” Journal of Communication 61 (2011): 835–56; James Sloam, “New Voice, Less Equal: The Civic and Political Engagement of Young People in the United States and Europe,” Comparative Political Studies 47, no. 5 (2014): 663–88; and James Sloan “The Outraged Young: Young Europeans, Civic Engagement and the New Media in a Time of Crisis,” Information, Communication & Society 17, no. 2 (2014): 217–23. 3. See, for example, Larry Diamond, “Liberation Technology,” Journal of Democracy 21, no. 3 (July 2010): 69–83. 4. See, for example, Fuchs, Social Media. 5. Evgeny Morozov, The Net Delusion: How Not to Liberate the World (London: Allen Lane, 2011); Evgeny Morozov, To Save Everything, Click Here: Technology, Solutionism and the Urge to Fix Problems that Don’t Exist (London: Allen Lane, 2013). 6. See, for example, Bennett and Segerberg, The Logic of Connective Action; David Karpf, “Online Political Mobilization from the Advocacy Group’s Perspective:

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Notes to Pages 53–57

Looking Beyond Clicktivism,” Policy and Internet 2, no. 4 (2010): 7–41; Max Halupka, “Clicktivism: A Systematic Heuristic,” Policy and Internet 6, no. 2 (2014): 115–32;  M.  M. Skoric, “What Is Slack About Slacktivism?” in Methodological and Conceptual Issues in Cyber Activism Research. Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore (2012): 77–92, http://www.ari.nus.edu.sg /docs/downloads/inter -asia-roundtable/interasiaroundtable-2012 .pdf#page = 83; Ethan Zuckerman, “New Media, New Civics?,” Policy and Internet 6, no. 2 (2014): 151–68. 7. Bennett and Segerberg, The Logic of Connective Action. 8. See, for example, Martin Hand, Ubiquitous Photography (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2012); Sam Hinton and Larissa Hjorth, Social Media (London: Sage, 2013). 9. See, for example, Michelle Bogre, Photography as Activism: Images for Social Change (Waltham, Mass.: Focal Press, 2012); Sam Gregory, “Transnational Storytelling: Human Rights, WITNESS and Video Advocacy,” American Anthropologist 108, no. 1 (2006): 195–204; and Sharon Sliwinski, Human Rights in Camera (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011). 10. For a recent volume, see Nicole Doerr, Alice Mattoni, and Simon Teune, Advances in the Visual Analysis of Social Movements (Bingley, UK: Emerald, 2013). 11. Kari Andén-Papadopoulos, “Citizen Camera-Witnessing: Embodied Political Dissent in the Age of ‘Mediated Mass Self-Communication,’ ” New Media & Society 16, no. 5 (August 2014): 753–69. 12. One of the most critical is Susan Sontag, Regarding the Pain of Others (London: Penguin, 2003). 13. Lilie Chouliaraki, The Ironic Spectator: Solidarity in the Age of PostHumanitarianism (Cambridge: Polity, 2013). 14. On the negotiations and contingent symbiosis of civil society and the state, see Anthony Spires, “Contingent Symbiosis and Civil Society in an Authoritarian State: Understanding the Survival of China’s Grassroots NGOs,” American Journal of Sociology 117, no. 1 (July 2011): 1–45. 15. See, for example, Guobin Yang, The Power of the Internet in China: Citizen Activism Online (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009). 16. See, for example, William Wan, “Chinese Avoid Government Charities in Favor of Online Giving,” Washington Post, August 22, 2012. 17. On new forms of civic engagements during the Sichuan earthquake and the role of the Internet, see Jessica Teets, “Post-Earthquake Relief and Reconstruction Efforts: The Emergence of Civil Society in China?,” China Quarterly 198 (2009): 330–47; Jieying Wang, “Beyond Information: The Sociocultural Role of the Internet in the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake,” Journal of Comparative Asian Development 9, no. 2 (2010): 2432–92. 18. For a recent dissertation that discusses the topic of youth and socialization and engagement on social media, see Tricia Wang, “Talking to Strangers: Chinese Youth and Social Media” (PhD thesis, University of California, Davis, San Diego, 2013), http:// triciawang.com/storage/Dissertation _Tricia _Wang _ 021014.pdf.

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19. For examples of civic engagement online among youth, see, for example, ZhiJin Zhong, “Civic Engagement Among Educated Chinese Youth: The Role of SNS (Social Networking Ser vices), Bonding and Bridging Social Capital,” Computers & Education 75 (2014): 263–73; Janice Hua Xu, “Communicating the Right to Know: Social Media in the Do-It-Yourself Air Quality Testing Campaign in Chinese Cities,” International Journal of Communication 8 (2014): 1374–93. 20. For work that focus on protests and more radical activism, see, among others, Biao Teng, “Rights Defence (weiquan), Microblogs (weibo), and the Surrounding Gaze (weiguan): The Rights Defence Movement Online and Offl ine,” China Perspectives 3 (2012): 29–41, Jingrong Tong and Landong Zuo, “Weibo Communication and Government Legitimacy in China: A Computer-Assisted Analysis of Weibo Messages on Two ‘Mass Incidents,’ ” Information, Communication & Society 17, no. 1 (2014): 66–85; Yanqi Tong and Shaohua Lei, “War of Position and Microblogging in China,” Journal of Contemporary China 22, no. 80 (2013): 292–311; Guobin Yang, “Internet Activism and the Party-State in China,” Dædalus 143, no. 2 (2014): 110–23. 21. For a discussion on digital divides and the dominant role of privileged users and opinion leaders on weibo, see Marina Svensson, “Voice, Power and Connectivity in China’s Microblogosphere: Digital Divides on SinaWeibo,” China Information 28, no. 2 (July 2014): 166–88. 22. Ibid. 23. Morozov, The Net Delusion, 201. 24. Gary King, Jennifer Pan, Margaret E. Roberts, “How Censorship in China Allows Government Criticism but Silences Collective Expression,” American Political Science Review, 107 (May 2, 2013): 1–18. 25. On NGOs and social media use, see, for example, Jing Wang, “NGO2.0 and Social Media Praxis: Activist as Researcher,” Chinese Journal of Communication 8, no. 1 (2015): 18–41. 26. See Xu, “Communicating the Right to Know.” 27. Svensson, “Voice, Power and Connectivity.” 28. See http://www.weibo.com/jiejiuqier. 29. See http://www.weibo.com/1kgorg and their website http://www.1kg.org/ and blog http://1kg.blogbus.com/. 30. See Wan, “Chinese Avoid Government Charities.” 31. For their official weibo account, see http://gov.weibo.com /profile .php?uid = freelunch& ref = page _ profi le. The website is found at http://www.mianfeiwucan .org /. 32. For an early promotional video that reveals the high profi le of media organizations in the campaign, see http://v.youku.com/v_ show/id _ XMjg2NDE4OTc2.html. 33. For a short fi lm on the project by documentary fi lm director Fan Lixin, see http://focusforwardfi lms.com/fi lms/45/operation-free-lunch. 34. For his own personal narration of the work and his view on social media in charity work, see this MaD talk, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1zxO8ZG6GI.

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35. Huaxin Zhu, “Daji yaoyan beijing xia de wangluo yulin xin geju (The New Structure of Online Public Opinion as Background to the Attack on Rumours),” Zhongguo gaige (China Reform) 10 (2013): n.p., http://news.sina.com.cn/m/2013-10 -12/162328415960.shtml. 36. However, images can and are also often subjected to censorship as ProPublica’s project in 2013 showed when they collected deleted images from weibo; see https:// projects .propublica .org /weibo/; and http://www.thewire.com /global /2013/06/ how -memes-became-best-weapon-against-chinese-internet-censorship/65877/. 37. The latest image from Ai Weiwei rapidly become viral on social media with people posing in the same way; see http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/jun /13/ai-weiwei-leg-gun-photo-instagram-protest-meme. 38. Wan, “Chinese Avoid Government Charities.” 39. On Yu Jianrong and his use of social media, see Eva Pils and Marina Svensson, “From Nonperson to Public Intellectual: The Life and Works of Yu Jianrong,” Contemporary Chinese Thought 45, no. 4 (2014): 3–17.

Chapter 3. New Media Empowerment and State-Society Relations in China We would like to thank Natalie Young for her wonderful work in editing this chapter. Any remaining errors are, of course, our own responsibility. 1. Shawn Shieh and Guosheng Deng, “An Emerging Civil Society: The Impact of the 2008 Sichuan Earthquake on Grass-Roots Associations in China,” China Journal 65 (2011): 181–94. 2. Josh Ong, “China’s Sina Weibo grew 73 percent in 2012, Passing 500 Million Registered Accounts,” Next Web, February  21, 2013, http://thenextweb.com /asia /2013/02 /21 /chinas - sina -weibo - grew-73 -in -2012 -passing -500 -million -registered -accounts/. 3. Carolyn Marvin, When Old Technologies Were New: Thinking About Electric Communication in the Late Nineteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990). 4. Zengzhi Shi, “Development of Chinese Civic Society and the Role of Media from a Public Communication Perspective— Case Study of Wenchuan Earthquake’s PostDisaster Relief and Reconstruction,” Peking University Journalism and Communication Review 4 (2009): 340–58. 5. See, for example, Guobin Yang, “The Return of Ideology and the Future of Internet Policy in China,” Critical Studies in Media Communication 31, no. 2 (2014): 109–13. 6. For example, see Jonathan Sullivan, “A Tale of Two Microblogs,” Media, Culture & Society 34, no. 6 (2012): 773–83; Yanqi Tong and Shaohua Lei, “War of Position and Microblogging,” Journal of Contemporary China 22, no. 80 (2013): 292–311; Thomas Poell, Jeroen de Kloet, and Guohua Zeng, “Will the Real Weibo Please Stand Up? Chinese Online Contention and Actor-Network Theory,” Chinese Journal of Communication (2013), DOI:10.1080/17544750.2013.816753.

Notes to Pages 74–87

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7. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, rev. ed. (London: Verso, 2013). 8. Clifford Geertz, Negara: The Theatre State in Nineteenth Century Bali (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1981). 9. T. H. Marshall, Citizenship and Social Class: And Other Essays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1950). 10. Zhonghua Guo, ed., Citizenship in a Changing Society: Dialogue with Giddens, Keane and others (Guangzhou, China: Guangdong People Press, 2011), 82. See also Engin F. Isin, Being Political: Genealogies of Citizenship (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002). 11. As a cautionary note, the nationwide crackdown on online opinion leaders in the summer of 2013 appears to have curtailed the influence of these online voices, at least for now. 12. See http://www.cctvpro.com.cn/hydt/20080526/6920.html. 13. See http://www.cctvpro.com.cn/hydt/20080526/6920.html. 14. See http://academic.mediachina.net/article.php?id=5726. 15. Guobin Yang, “A Civil Society Emerges from the Earthquake Rubble,” YaleGlobal Online Magazine, June 5, 2008. http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/content/civil-society -emerges-earthquake-rubble. 16. Kenneth Tan, “Weibo Reunites Father with Kidnapped Son Aft er Th ree Long Years,” Shanghaiist, February 9, 2011, http://shanghaiist.com/2011/02/09/weibo _reunites _father_ kidnapped _ son.php. 17. Human Rights in China, “Take a Photo, Save a Child,” December 19, 2012, http://www.hrichina.org /en/crf/article/6457#_ ft n2. 18. Ironically, Xue Manzi became one of the first targets of the crackdown on Internet opinion leaders in the summer of 2013. See David Barboza, “Chinese-American Commentator and Investor Is Arrested in Beijing,” New York Times, August 25, 2013. 19. State Council of China, “China National Plan of Action on Combatting Trafficking in Women and Children (2008–2012),” December 13, 2007, http://www .humantrafficking .org /uploads/publications/China _ National _ Plan _ of _ Action _ on _Combating _Trafficking _ in _Women _ and _Children _ December_ 2007.pdf. 20. “A Review of the Anti-Human Trafficking Efforts of Public Security Bureaus Across the Country,” http://www.mps.gov.cn/n16/n1237/n1342/n803715/3163217.html. 21. Tong and Lei, “War of Position and Microblogging,” 297. 22. As in many other cases of online activism, questions about the ethics of posting these children’s photos were raised and discussed on weibo.

Chapter 4. The Privilege of Speech and New Media 1. Jonathan Spence, Treason by the Book (London: Penguin, 2002). 2. One example of this is the censorship campaign that took place during the compilation of the Complete Library of the Four Treasuries (siku quanshu) in the eighteenth

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century. Timothy Brook, “Censorship in Eighteenth- Century China: A View from the Book Trade,” Canadian Journal of History 22 (1988): 177–96; Guy, R. Kent, The Emperor’s Four Treasuries: Scholars and the State in the Late Chi’en Lung Era (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987). 3. Natascha Vittinghoff, “Unity vs. Uniformity: Liang Qichao and the Invention of a ‘New Journalism’ for China,” Late Imperial China 23, no. 1 (2002): 91–143. 4. Lee-Hsia Hsu Ting, Government Control of the Press in Modern China, 1900–49 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1975). 5. Licheng Ma, Lishi de guaidian [A Historical Turning Point] (Hangzhou: Zhejiang People’s Publishing House, 2008). 6. Daqing yinshuawu zhuanlü [Great Qing Special Code for Printed Materials] (1906), http://chinacopyrightandmedia.wordpress.com/1906/07/01/great-qing-special -code-for-printed-materials/; Daqing baolü [Great Qing Newspaper Code] (1908), http://chinacopyrightandmedia .wordpress .com /1908 /03/14 /great- qing-newspaper -code/. 7. Qinding Xianfa Dagang [The Outline of the Constitution Compiled by Imperial Order], (August 27, 1908), http://chinacopyrightandmedia.wordpress.com/1908/08/27 /the-outline-of-the-constitution-compiled-by-imperial-order. 8. Zhonghua Minguo Linshi Yuefa [Provisional Constitution of the Republic of China] (1912), http://chinacopyrightandmedia.wordpress.com/1912/03/11/provisional -constitution-of-the-republic-of-china/. 9. Marina Svensson, Debating Human Rights in China: A Conceptual and Political History (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002); Frank Dikötter, The Age of Openness: China Before Mao (Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2008). 10. Jianguo Dagang [Fundamentals for National Reconstruction] (1924), http:// chinacopyrightandmedia .wordpress .com /1924 /04 /12 /fundamentals - of -national -reconstruction/. 11. Ting, 1975, Chaoguang Wang, Jiancha, kongzhi yu daoxiang—Shanghai shi dianying jiancha weiyuanhui yanjiu [Censorship, Control and Guidance—Researching the Shanghai Municipal Film Examination Committee], CASS Working Paper, 2006; Zhenzhi Guo, “A Chronicle of Private Radio in Shanghai,” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 30, no. 4 (1986): 379–92. 12. Zhonghua Suwei’ai Gongheguo Xianfa Dagang [Constitutional Outline of the Chinese Soviet Republic], http://chinacopyrightandmedia.wordpress.com/1931/11/07 /constitutional-outline-of-the-chinese-soviet-republic/. 13. Zedong Mao, “Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art” (1942). Reprinted online: https://www.marxists .org /reference/archive/mao/selected-works /volume-3/mswv3_ 08.htm. 14. See, among others, Zedong, Mao, “Dui Jinsui Ribao Bianji Renyuan de Tanhua” [Talk with the Editors of the Jinsui Daily], April 2, 1948, https://china copyrightandmedia .wordpress .com /1948/04 /02/talk-with-the-editors-of-the-jinsui -daily/.

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15. Sheng Hua, “Big Character Posters in China: A Historical Survey,” Journal of Chinese Law 4 (1990): 235–36. 16. Mao Zedong, Maodun lun [On Contradictions] (1937), Marxists.org, http:// www.marxists.org /reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_17.htm. 17. Mao Zedong, Guanyu zhenque chuli renmin neibu maodun de wenti [On Correctly Handling Contradictions Among the People] (1957), Marxists.org, http://www .marxists.org /reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-5/mswv5_ 58.htm. 18. Michael Schoenhals, “Original Contradictions—On the Unrevised Text of Mao Zedong’s ‘On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People,’ ” Australian Journal of Chinese Affairs 16 (1986): 99–112. 19. “Decision of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party Concerning the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution,” Peking Review 9, no. 33 (1966), 6–11. 20. Anita Chan, Stanley Rosen, and Jonathan Unger, eds. On Socialist Democracy and the Chinese Legal System: The Li Yizhe Debates (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1985). 21. Cited from Hua, “Big Character Posters,” 245. 22. Ibid., 248. 23. Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo xingfa [Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China] (1979), Article 145. 24. Guanyu xiugai “Zhonghua Renmin Gongheguo xianfa” disishiwu tiao de jueyi [Decision concerning Revising Article 45 of the “Constitution of the People’s Republic of China”] (1980), http://chinacopyrightandmedia.wordpress.com/1980/09/10/decision - concerning -revising - article - 45–of -the - constitution - of -the -peoples -republic - of -china/. 25. Perry Link, “The Limits of Cultural Reform in Deng Xiaoping’s China,” Modern China 13, no. 2 (1987): 115–76. 26. Guanyu baozhi qikan he chubanshe chongxin dengji zhuce de tongzhi [Notice Concerning Re-Registration of Newspapers, Periodicals and Publishers] (1987), http:// chinacopyrightandmedia .wordpress . com / 1987 / 05 / 09 / notice - concerning - re -registration-of-newspapers-periodicals-and-publishers/. 27. Deng Xiaoping, Zai jiejian shoudu jieyan buduijun yishang ganbu shi de jianghua [Speech When Receiving the Capital Martial Law Army Troop-Level or Higher Cadres] (1989), http://chinacopyrightandmedia .wordpress.com /1989/06/09/speech -when-receiving-the-capital-martial-law-army-troop-level-or-higher-cadres/; Guanyu jiaqiang xuanchuan sixiang gongzuo de tongzhi [Notice Concerning Strengthening Propaganda and Ideology Work] (1989), http://chinacopyrightandmedia.wordpress.com /1989/07/28/ccp -central-committee -notice -concerning-strengthening-propaganda -and-ideology-work /; Guanyu dizhi haiwai fandong xuanchuan he zhengzhi cantou de tongzhi [Notice Concerning Resisting Overseas Reactionary Propaganda and Political Infi ltration], http://chinacopyrightandmedia .wordpress.com /1989/08/25/notice -concerning-resisting-overseas-reactionary-propaganda-and-political-infi ltration/. 28. For an overview of these structures, see Rogier Creemers, “Audiovisual Media Piracy in China” (PhD Dissertation, Maastricht University, 2012).

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29. Chuban guanli tiaoli [Publishing Management Regulations] (1997), https://zh .wikisource.org /zh-hant/. 30. Guanyu jiaqiang tongguo xinxi wangluo xiang gonzhong chuanbo guangbo dianying dianshi lei jiemu guanli de tonggao [Announcement Concerning Strengthening Management over the Dissemination of Radio, Film and Television-Type Programs to the Public Through Information Networks] (1999), http://chinacopyrightandmedia .wordpress.com /1999/10/01/announcement-concerning-strengthening-management - over -the - dissemination - of -radio -film - and -television -type -programmes -to -the -public-through-information-networks/. 31. Xinxi wangluo chuanbo guangbo dianying dianshi lei jiemu jiandu guanli zanxing banfa [Provisional Information Network Dissemination of Radio, Film and TelevisionType Programme Supervision Management Rules] (2000), http://chinacopyrightandmedia .wordpress.com/2000/04/07/provisional-information-network-dissemination-of-radio -film-and-television-type-programme-supervision-management-rules/. 32. Hulianwang xinxi fuwu guanli banfa [Internet Information Service Management Rules] (2000), http://chinacopyrightandmedia .wordpress.com /2000/09/25/internet -information-service-management-rules/. 33. In Chinese: Guanyu jinyibu jiaqiang hulianwang guanli gongzuo de yijian and Guancheluoshi “Zhonggong Zhongyang Bangongshi guanyu jinyibu jiaqiang hulianwang guanli gongzuo de yijian. They are referred to in the Qinghai sheng renmin zhengfu bangongting zhuanfa shengtongxin guanliju guanyu jinyibu jiaqiang hulianwang guanli gongzuo shishi yijian de tongzhi [Qinghai Provincial People’s Government Office Notice Transmitting the Provincial Telecommunications Management Bureau Implementation Opinions concerning Further Strengthening Internet Management Work] (Qinghai Provincial People’s Government, 2005). 34. Hulianwangzhan guanli xietiao gongzuo fang’an [Coordinated Work Plan for Internet Site Management] (2006), http://chinacopyrightandmedia .wordpress.com /2006/02/17/coordinated-work-plan-for-internet-site-management/. 35. Hulianwang shangwang fuwu yingye changsuo guanli banfa [Internet Surfing Ser vice Business Venue Management Rules] (2001), http://chinacopyrightandmedia .wordpress .com /2001/04 /03/internet-surfing-service -business -venue -management -rules/. 36. Guanyu jinyibu shenhua wangba guanli gongzuo de tongzhi [Notice Concerning Further Deepening Internet Café Management Work] (2005), http:// chinacopyrightandmedia .wordpress .com /2005 /04 /12 /notice - concerning -further -deepening-internet-cafe-management-work /. 37. See, for example, Hulianwang wenhua guanli zanxing guiding [Provisional Internet Culture Management Regulations] (2011), http://chinacopyrightandmedia.wordpress .com/2011/02/17/provisional-internet-culture-management-regulations/, Article 7. 38. Jonathan Hassid, “Four Models of the Fourth Estate,” China Quarterly 208 (2011): 819.

Notes to Pages 94–96

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39. Zhongguo Hulianwang Xiehui zhangcheng [Articles of Association of the Internet Society of China] (2001), http://www.isc.org.cn/zxzx /xhdt / listinfo-1136.html. 40. Public Pledge of Self-Regulation and Professional Ethics for China’s Internet Industry, 2002, ISC, http://www.isc.org.cn/english/Specails/Self-regulation/listinfo-15321 .html. 41. Hulianwang xinwen xinxi fuwu zilü gongyue [Internet News Information Service Self-Discipline Convention], http://chinacopyrightandmedia.wordpress.com/2003 /12/01/internet-news-information-service-self-discipline-convention/. 42. Hulianwangzhan jinzhi chuanbo yinhui seqing deng buliang xinxi zilü guifan [Self-Discipline Norms for Internet Sites Prohibiting the Dissemination of Obscenity, Sex, and Other Such Harmful Information] (2004), http://chinacopyrightandmedia .wordpress.com /2004 /06/10/self-discipline-norms-for-internet-sites-prohibiting-the -dissemination-of-obscenity-sex-and-other-such-harmful-information/; Hulianwang sousuo yinqing fuwushang dizhi yinhui seqing deng weifa he buliang xinxi zilü guifan [Self-Discipline Norms for Internet Search Engine Ser vice Companies on Resisting Obscenity, Sex, and Other Such Unlawful and Harmful Information] (2004), http://www .isc.org.cn/hyzl/hyzl/listinfo-15605.html. 43. Zhongguo hulianwang wangluo banquan zilü gongyue [China Internet Network Copyright Self-Discipline Convention] (2005), http://chinacopyrightandmedia .wordpress . com / 2005 / 09 / 03 /china -internet - network - copyright - self - discipline -convention/. 44. Boke fuwu zilü gongyue [Self-Discipline Convention for Blog Ser vices] (2007), http://chinacopyrightandmedia .wordpress . com / 2007 / 08 / 21 /self - discipline -convention-for-blog-services/. 45. Beijing wangluo meiti Zunyi xuanyan [Beijing Network Media Zunyi Declaration] (2006), http://chinacopyrightandmedia .wordpress.com /2006/08/30/ beijing -network-media-zunyi-declaration/. 46. Wenming banwang changyishu [Letter of Proposal on Running the Internet in a Civilized Manner] (2006), http://chinacopyrightandmedia.wordpress.com/2006/04 /09/letter-of-proposal-on-running-the-web-in-a-civilized-manner%E2%80%A8/. 47. Guanyu weihu hulianwang anquan de jueding [Decision Concerning Safeguarding Internet Safety] (2000), http://chinacopyrightandmedia.wordpress.com/2000/12 / 28 / nationa l - people%E2%80%99s - congress - standing - committee - decision -concerning-safeguarding-internet-safety/. 48. Guanyu banli yong hulianwang yidong tonxun zhonduan shengxuntai zhizuo fuzhi chuban fanmai chuanbo yinhui dianzi xinxi xingshi anjian juti yingyong falü ruogan wenti de jieshi [Interpretation of Some Questions on Concretely Applicable Law in Handling Criminal Cases of Using the Internet or Mobile Communication Terminals and Voicemail Platforms to Produce, Reproduce, Publish, Peddle, or Disseminate Obscene Electronic Information] (2004), http://chinacopyrightandmedia.wordpress .com /2004 /09/09/interpretation-of-some-questions-on-concretely-applicable-law-in

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-handling-criminal-cases-of-using-the-internet-or-mobile-communication-terminals -and-voicemail-platforms-to-produce-reproduce-publish-2/. 49. Guanyu banli yong hulianwang yidong tonxun zhonduan shengxuntai zhizuo fuzhi chuban fanmai chuanbo yinhui dianzi xinxi xingshi anjian juti yingyong falü ruogan wenti de jieshi [Interpretation of Some Questions on Concretely Applicable Law in Handling Criminal Cases of Using the Internet or Mobile Communication Terminals and Voicemail Platforms to Produce, Reproduce, Publish, Peddle, or Disseminate Obscene Electronic Information] (2010), http://chinacopyrightandmedia .wordpress .com /2010/02/02/interpretation-of-some-questions-on-concretely-applicable-law-in - handling - criminal - cases - of - using - the - internet - or - mobile - communication -terminals-and-voicemail-platforms-to-produce-reproduce-publish/. 50. Guanyu banli qinfan zhishichanquan xingshi anjian shiyong falü ruogan wenti de yijian [Opinions Concerning Some Questions of Applicable Law in Criminal Intellectual Property Law Infringement Cases] (2011), http://chinacopyrightandmedia .wordpress .com /2011/01/11/opinions-concerning-some-questions-of-applicable-law -in-criminal-intellectual-property-law-infringement-cases/. 51. CNNIC, Statistical Report on Internet Development in China, July 2013, http:// www1.cnnic.cn/IDR /ReportDownloads/201310/P020131029430558704972.pdf, 15. 52. Guanyu shenhua wenhua tizhi gaige de jueding [Decision Concerning Deepening Cultural Structural Reform] (2011), http://chinacopyrightandmedia.wordpress.com / 2011 / 11 / 09 /central - committee - of - the - chinese - communist - party - decision -concerning-deepening-cultural-structural-reform/. 53. David Evans and Vanessa Yanhua Zhang, ‘The Qihoo v. Tencent Landmark Decision,” Competition Policy International (2012), https://www.competitionpolicy international.com/assets/Uploads/Asia4–9–2013–2 .pdf. 54. Neil Thomas, “China’s two greatest Internet rumor mongers and ‘black PR’ Philanderers Arrested,” Danwei (2013), http://www.danwei.com/chinas-two-greatest -internet-rumor-mongers-and-black-pr-philanderers-arrested/. 55. Evan Osnos, “Brother Wristwatch and Grandpa Wen: Chinese Kleptocracy,” New Yorker, October 25, 2012, http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/comment/2012 /10/uncle-house-brother-wristwatch-can-corruption-ruin-china .html. Th is human flesh search engine is not limited to Chinese individuals. See this example concerning the Australian journalist John Garnaut, “Renrou suosou Aodaliya ‘huangyan jizhe’ ” [Human Search Engine on Australian ‘Lying Journalist’ John Garnaut], Blog.163, 2009, http://maqiang992000.blog.163.com/ blog /static/54364991200941531441157. Paulina Hartono, “Car Accident Gate: My Dad Is Li Gang,” China Digital Times, October 29, 2010, http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2010/10/car-accident-gate-my-dad-is-li-gang /; and Rebecca Ong, “Online Vigilante Justice Chinese Style and Privacy in China,” Information & Communications Technology Law 21, no. 2 (2012): 127–45. 56. Chenchen Chen, “Regulation Needed in the Online Dazibao Period,” Global Times, June 18, 2009, http://www.globaltimes.cn /opinion /observer/2009–06/437773 .html.

Notes to Pages 98–99

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57. Guanyu gongye he xinxihuabu xinxi anquan xietiaosi jiagua guojia wangluo yu xinxi anquan xietiao xiaozu bangongshi baizi de pifu [Response Concerning Adding the Plaque of National Network and Information Security Small Coordination Group Office to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology Information Security Coordination Department] (2010), http://www.bjtec.org.cn /cenep/ kejian /wlyxxaq /chapter1/1_18.html. 58. Guowuyuan 2013 nian lifa gongzuo jihua [State Council 2013 Legislative Work Plan] (2013), http://vip.chinalawinfo.com/newlaw2002/slc/SLC.asp?gid=208738& tiao = 0&km=chl&subkm=2&db=chl. Wei Lu, Ba wangshang yulun gongzuo zuowei xuanchuan sixiang gongzuo de zhongzhongzhizhong [Make Online Public Opinion Work into the Heaviest of Heavies in Propaganda and Ideology Work] (2013), http://chinacopy rightandmedia .wordpress.com /2013/09/17/state-internet-information-office-director -lu-wei-outlines-stronger-focus-on-internet-governance/; Wei Lu, Wangju zheng nengliang gongjian Zhongguo meng [Concentrate Positive Online Energy, Jointly Build the Chinese Dream] (2013), http://chinacopyrightandmedia.wordpress.com/2013/10 /30/siio-director-outlines-eight-objectives-for-online-media/. Guanyu kaizhan “quanguo baijia wangzhan ji ‘Zhongguo pufa’ guanfang weibo falü zhishi jingsai huodong [Notice Concerning Launching Legal Knowledge Competitions on “One Hundred Websites Nationwide” and the “China Law Dissemination” Official Microblog] (2013), http:// www.moj.gov.cn/index /content/2014 -11/18/content _ 5849511.htm?node =7346. 59. Guoja xinwen chuban guangdian zongju zhuyao zhize neishe jiguo he renyuan bianzhi guiding [Provisions on the Main Duties, Internal Structuring, and Personnel Allocation of the General Administration of Press, Publications, Radio, Film, and Television] (2013), http://chinacopyrightandmedia.wordpress.com/2013/07/11/state-council -secretariat-notice - concerning-printing-and -issuing-the -provisions - on -the -main -duties -internal-structuring-and-personnel-allocation-of-the -state -administration -of-press-publications-ra/. 60. Xinlang Weibo shequ weiyuanhui zhidu [Sina Weibo Community Committee System (Trial)] (2012), http://chinacopyrightandmedia.wordpress.com/2012/05/08/sina -weibo-community-committee-system-trial/, Article 9. 61. Xinlang Weibo shequ gongyue (shixing) [Sina Weibo Community Pact (Trial)] (2012), http://chinacopyrightandmedia.wordpress.com/2012/05/08/sina-weibo -community-pact-trial/. 62. Lei Lei, “ ‘Weibo fating’: wangluo anjian, wangmin caijue” [“Weibo Courtrooms”: Online Cases Adjudicated by Netizens], Nanfang Zhoumo, December 5, 2013, http://www.infzm.com/content/96433. 63. This is named the People Online Public Opinion Survey and Monitoring Department (Renminwang yuqing jiance shi). 64. Simon Denyer, “In China, Communist Party Takes Unprecedented Step: It Is Listening,” Washington Post, August 2, 2013, http://www.washingtonpost.com/world /in-china-government-mines-public-opinion/2013/08/02/33358026–f2b5–11e2–ae43– b31dc363c3bf_ story.html.

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65. Guanyu jiaxiang wangluo xinxi baohu de jueding [Decision Concerning Strengthening Network Information Protection] (2012), http://chinacopyrightandmedia .wordpress.com/2012/12/28/national-peoples-congress-standing-committee-decision -concerning-strengthening-network-information-protection/. 66. Dianhua yonghu zhenshi shenfen xinxi dengji guiding [Telephone User Real Identity Information Registration Regulations] (2013), http://chinacopyrightandmedia .wordpress .com /2013/07/16 /telephone -user-real-identity-information-registration -regulations/. 67. Guanyu banli liyong xinxi wangluo shishi feibang deng xingshi anjian shiyong falü ruogan wenti de jieshi [Interpretation Concerning Some Questions of Applicable Law When Handling Uses of Information Networks to Commit Defamation and Other Such Criminal Cases], Supreme People’s Court, September 6, 2013, http:// chinacopyrightandmedia .wordpress .com /2013 /09 /06 /interpretation - concerning -some-questions-of-applicable-law-when-handling-uses-of-information-networks-to -commit-defamation-and-other-such-criminal-cases/. 68. Ibid., Article 7. 69. Pei An, “Chinese Teen Held Over Retweets Sparks ‘Save the Child’ Campaign,” RFA, 2013, http://www.rfa.org /english/news/china/retweet- 09202013105724.html. 70. For a general, if slightly dated, overview of enforcement issues in China, see Jianfu Chen, Yuwen Li, and Jan Michiel Otto, eds. The Implementation of Law in the People’s Republic of China (Leiden: Brill, 2002); for a specific analysis in law enforcement in the field of intellectual property, see Martin Dimitrov, Piracy and the State: The Politics of Intellectual Property Rights in China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). 71. Nicholas Groff man and Erik Leyssens, “New Online Game Regulations Aim to Tidy Up China’s Online Game Sector,” Mondaq, 2010, http://www.mondaq.com/x /104224 /Gaming / New + Online + Game +Regulations +Aim + to +Tidy +Up + Chinas +Online +Game +Sector. 72. Guanyu yifa kaizhan daji yinhui seqing wangzhan zhuanxiang xingfong youguan gongzuo de tongzhi [Notice Concerning Work Related to the Launch of a Special Campaign to Attack Obscene and Sexual Websites According to the Law] (2004), http:// old.chinacourt.org /public/detail.php?id=123776. Interestingly, this campaign started merely a month after the promulgation of the self-disciplinary document mentioned in note 67. Guanyu yifa daji wangluo yinhui seqing zhuanxiang xingdong gongzuo fang’an de tongzhi [Notice Concerning the Work Plan of the Special Campaign to Attack Obscene and Sexual Websites According to the Law] (2007), http://www.miit.gov .cn /n11293472/n11293877/n11301753/n11496139/11537549.html. Guanyu biaozhang daji hulianwang he shouji meiti chuanbo yinhui seqing xinxi zhanxiang xingdong yougong jiti yougong geren de jueding [Decision Concerning Rewarding Meritorious Collectives and Meritorious Individuals in the Special Campaign to Attack the Dissemination of Obscene and Sexual Information on the Internet and on Mobile Media] (2010), http://www.gapp.gov.cn/govpublic/91/81336.shtml.

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73. Guanyu zuohao wangluo goumai lingyu daji qinquan jiamao zhanxiang xingdong zongjie gongzuo de tongzhi [Notice Concerning Summary Work of the Special Campaign to Attack Infringement and Counterfeiting in the Area of Online Shopping] (2011), http://www.mofcom.gov.cn/article/h/redht/201107/20110707632461.shtml. 74. Gary King, Jennifer Pan, and Margaret Roberts, “How Censorship in China Allows Government Criticism but Silences Collective Expression,” American Political Science Review 107, no. 2 (2013): 1–18. 75. Kenneth Yang, “The Aborted Green Dam-Youth Escort Censor-Ware Project in China: A Case Study of Emerging Civic Participation in China’s Internet PolicyMaking Process,” Telematics and Informatics 28, no. 2 (2011): 101–11. 76. King-wa Fu and Michael Chau, “Reality Check for the Chinese Microblog Space: A Random Sampling Approach,” PLoS One 8, no. 3 (2013): n.p. 77. Guanyu dangqian yishixingtai lingyu qingkuang de tongbao [Communiqué on the Current State of the Ideological Sphere] (2013), http://chinacopyrightandmedia .wordpress .com /2013/04 /22 /communique - on-the - current-state - of-the -ideological -sphere-document-no-9/. 78. Josh Chin and Paul Mozur, “China Intensifies Social-Media Crackdown,” Wall Street Journal, September 19, 2013, http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142412 7887324807704579082940411106988. 79. “Lu Wei zai wangluo mingren shehui zeren luntan shang tichu liudian xiwang he qitiao dixian” [Lu Wei Puts Forward Six Hopes and Seven Baselines at the Forum on the Social Responsibility of Online Celebrities], SCIO, 2013, http://www.scio.gov.cn /xwbjs/zygy/lw/hd/Document/1343739/1343739.htm. 80. Te-Ping Chen, “CCTV Scrutinizes ‘Big V’ Target,” Wall Street Journal, September  28, 2013, http:// blogs.wsj.com/chinarealtime/2013/08/29/cctv-scrutinizes-big-v -target/. 81. Huaxin Zhu, “Daji yaoyan beijingxia de wangluo yulun xin geju” [The Online Public Opinion Structure Against the Background of the Attack on Rumors], People’s Daily, 2013, http://chinacopyrightandmedia.wordpress.com/2013/10/14/peoples-daily -official-on-anti-rumour-campaign-and-online-public-opinion-management/. 82. “Sheping: hulianwang ‘dazibao shidai’ zhengzai jieshu” [Editorial: Internet “Large Character Poster Era” Is Ending], Global Times, September 10, 2013, http:// opinion.huanqiu.com/editorial/2013–09/4339514.html. 83. Patrick Boehler and Laura Zhou, “Prominent Scholar He Weifang Says ‘Goodbye’ to Online Debate,” South China Morning Post, December 31, 2013, http://www .scmp.com /news/china-insider/article/1394040/prominent-scholar-he-weifang-says -goodbye-online-debate. 84. Paul Carsten and Adam Rose, “China’s Hot Messaging App WeChat May Be Good News for Censors,” Chicago Tribune, December 11, 2013. 85. Guanyu qianmian shenhua gaige ruoganzhongda wenti de jueding [Resolution Concerning Some Major Issues in Comprehensively Deepening Reform] (2013),

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https://chinacopyrightandmedia .wordpress .com /2013/11/15/ccp -central-committee -resolution-concerning-some-major-issues-in-comprehensively-deepening-reform/. 86. CCP Party History Research Institute, “Zhengque kandai gaige kaifang xianhou liangge lishi shiqi” [Correctly Deal with Both Historical Periods Before and After Reform and Opening Up], People’s Daily, 2013, https://chinacopyrightandmedia .wordpress.com /2013/12/26/correctly-deal-with-both-historical-periods-before-and -after-reform-and-opening-up/. Qiu Shi, “Geming lixiang gao yu tian” [Revolutionary Ideals Are Higher than Heaven], Qiushi, 2013, http://chinacopyrightandmedia .wordpress .com /2013/11/14 /revolutionary-ideals -are -higher-than-heaven-studying -comrade -xi-jinpings-important-elaboration-concerning-strengthening-ideals -and -convictions/. Qiu Shi, “Fangu Dang he renmin tuanjie fendou de gongtong sixiang jichu” [Consolidating the Common Ideological Basis for the United Struggle of the Party and the People], Qiushi, 2013, http://chinacopyrightandmedia .wordpress.com /2013 /10 /16 /seeking -truth - consolidating -the - common -ideological -basis -for -the -united-struggle-of-the-party-and-the-people/. 87. Zhu Jidong, “Xinwen xuanchuan zhanxian zai Sugong wangdang zhong de mishi ji jingshi” [A Warning from the Loss of the Press and Propaganda Front in the Perdition of the CPSU], Hongqi Wengao, 2013, http://chinacopyrightandmedia .wordpress.com/2013/09/27/a-warning-from-the-loss-of-press-and-propaganda-front -in-the-perdition-of-the-cpsu/.

Chapter 5. Embedding Law into Politics in China’s Networked Public Sphere 1. Brian Z. Tamanaha, On the Rule of Law: History, Politics, Theory (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 2–3, 111. 2. William Alford, “A Second Great Wall? China’s Post-Cultural Revolution Project of Legal Construction,” Cultural Dynamics 11, no. 2 (1999): 193–213. 3. Ching Kwan Lee, Against the Law: Labor Protests in China’s Rustbelt and Sunbelt (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), 10. 4. Daniela Stockmann and Mary E. Gallagher, “Remote Control: How the Media Sustains Authoritarian Rule in China,” Comparative Political Studies 43, no. 4 (2011): 436–46. 5. Mary Gallagher, “Mobilizing the Law in China: Informed Disenchantment and the Development of Legal Consciousness,” Law and Society Review 40, no. 4 (2007): 783–816. 6. Lee, Against the Law, 21. 7. Elizabeth Perry, “Chinese Conceptions of ‘Rights’: From Mencius to Mao—and Now,” Perspectives on Politics 6, no. 1 (2008): 37–50. 8. Andrew Nathan, “Chinas Changing of the Guard: Authoritarian Resilience,” Journal of Democracy 14, no. 1 (2003): 6–17. 9. Guobin Yang, “Internet Activism & the Party-State in China,” Daedalus 143, no. 2 (2014): 111; Yuezhi Zhao, Communication in China: Political Economy, Power, and Conflict (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2008), 245.

Notes to Pages 107–129

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10. Benjamin Liebman, “Watchdog or Demagogue? The Media in the Chinese Legal System,” Columbia Law Review 105, no. 1 (2005): 1–157. 11. Chinese people call Internet users “netizens” in China. When I use the term netizens, I simply refer to Internet users. 12. CNNIC, “Statistical Report on Internet Development in China,” http://www .cnnic.cn/hlwfzyj/hlwxzbg /201101/P020120709345289031187.pdf. 13. Phone interviews with employees at Tianya in July 2011. 14. CNNIC, “Statistical Report on Internet Development in China,” http://www .cnnic.cn/hlwfzyj/hlwxzbg /200912/P020120709345307778361.pdf. 15. Phone interviews with employees at Tianya in July 2011. 16. Phone interviews with employees at Tianya in July 2011. 17. CNNIC, “Statistical Report on Internet Development in China,” http://www .cnnic.net.cn/hlwfzyj/hlwxzbg /200907/P020120709345315706062.pdf. 18. ICTCLAS, http://www.ictclas.org /. 19. ID: kanliuying8, 2008/09/29. 20. ID: ⋩㕡⯭⢓, 2007/10/26. 21. ID: ⣑彡䘬湹ḹ, 2008/06/18. 22. ID: 37383940, 2009/02/24. 23. ID: 徟⣙Ļġ䘬⅄㮹, 2007/11/7. 24. ID: you jk, 2008/10/2. 25. ID: nelson1983, 2008/09/27. 26. ID: nelson1983, 2008/09/27. 27. ID: normanzhang, 2008/09/27. 28. ID: 37383940, 2009/02/24. 29. ID: 䨩⍍㯱㕷, 2008/09/30. 30. We excluded terms that co-occurred with the term law only once. As this text corpus was relatively small, we only identified sixty-seven nouns that co-occurred with law more than once. 31. Lee, Against the Law, 21. 32. Liebman, “Watchdog or Demagogue?” 33. We analyzed the Sanlu milk scandal in Ya-Wen Lei and Daniel Xiaodan Zhou, “Contesting Legality in Authoritarian Contexts: Food Safety, Rule of Law and China’s Networked Public Sphere” Law & Society Review 49 (forthcoming September 2015).

Chapter 6. Microbloggers’ Battle for Legal Justice in China 1. Geoff rey Robertson and Andrew Nicol, Media Law (London: Penguin, 2002), 345–48. 2. “Public opinion supervision” is different from trial by media in that it entails supervision by the authorities. Trial by media is condemned by the Chinese Communist

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Party. According to Articles 4, 5, and 6 of the Draft Code of Conduct and Disciplinary Rules for Lawyers (2014), inappropriate comments about cases posted online and attempts to use public opinion to influence outcomes of cases is unlawful. See Li Yunfang, “Controversies Aroused by the Amendment of Code by the Lawyer Association to Restrict Online Activities” [Lüxie Xiugui Yueshu Wangshang Xingwei Yin Zhengyi], Eastern Daily [Dongfang Zaobao], June 17, 2014, http://www.dfdaily.com / html /33/2014/6/17/1160274.shtml; “Lawyers Association Disciplinary Rules (Provisional) Comment Draft,” China Law Translate, June  17, 2014, http://chinalawtranslate.com /lawyers-association-disciplinary-rules-provisional-comment-draft /. 3. Zhao Ziyang, “Report Delivered at the 13th National Congress of the Communist Party of China” [Zai Zhongguo Gongchandang Di Shisan Ci Quanguo Daibai Dahui Shang De Baogao], October 25, 1987, http://cpc.people.com.cn/GB/64162/64168 /64566/65447/4526369.html. 4. Guobin Yang, The Power of the Internet in China: Citizen Activism Online (New York: Columbia University Press, 2013), 2. 5. Cases are selected by the Office of Public Opinion Watch of the People’s Daily Online, a website operated by the official organ of the CCP’s Central Committee. Results of the study have been published in the Annual Bluebook on Social Development edited by the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences since 2008. See Zhu Huaxin, Shan Xuegang, and Hu Jiangchun, “Report on Internet Public Opinion in 2008” [2008 Nian Zhongguo Hulianwang Yuqing Fenxi Baogao], January 13, 2009, http://www.china.com .cn/aboutchina/zhuanti/09zgshxs/content_17100922.htm. For online publication of the annual reports from 2008 to 2013, see “Research of the Office of Public Opinion Watch of the People’s Daily Online” [Renmin Wang Yuqing Jiance Shi Yanjiu Chengguo], People’s Daily Online, March 17, 2014, http://yuqing.people.com.cn/n/2014/0317/c209043 -24653903.html. 6. Benjamin L. Liebman, “The Media and the Courts: Towards Competitive Supervision?,” China Quarterly 208 (2011): 833; Kaiju Chen and Xinhong Zhang, “Trial by Media: Overcorrection of the Inadequacy of the Right to Free Speech in Contemporary China,” Critical Arts: South-North Cultural and Media Studies 25, no. 1 (2011): 46. 7. Ibid. Sida Liu, Lily Liang, and Terence C. Halliday, “The Trial of Li Zhuang: Chinese Lawyers’ Collective Action Against Popu lism,” Asian Journal of Law and Society 1, no. 1 (2014): 79–97. 8. Teng Biao and Stacy Mosher, “Rights Defence (Weiquan), Microblogs (Weibo), and the Surrounding Gaze (Weiguan): The Rights Defence Movement Online and Offl ine,” China Perspectives 3 (2012): 29. 9. The thresholds to be among the twenty most significant Internet events were 1,136 in 2008 and 1,100,830 in 2012. See Zhu et al., “Report on the Internet Public Opinion in 2008”; Zhu Huaxin, Shan Xuegang, and Hu Jiangchun, “Report on Internet Public Opinion in 2009” [2009 Nian Zhongguo Hulianwang Yuqing Fenxi Baogao], December  28, 2009, http://www.rzdonggang.gov.cn/ycportal/webpublish/ block .1291.view

Notes to Pages 132–133

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.detail.newsdetail?key =12203; “Report on Internet Public Opinion in 2010” [2010 Nian Zhongguo Hulianwang Yuqing Fenxi Baogao], January 16, 2011, http://www .people.com.cn/GB/209043/210110/13740882.html; “Report on Internet Public Opinion in 2011” [2011 Nian Zhongguo Hulianwang Yuqing Fenxi Baogao], December 23, 2011, http://yuqing.people.com.cn/GB/16698341.html; Liu Pengfei, Zhu Huaxin, and Shan Xuegang, “Report on Internet Public Opinion in 2012” [2012 Nian Zhongguo Hulianwang Yuqing Fenxi Baogoa], December 21, 2012, http://yuqing.people.com.cn/n /2012/1221/c210123-19974822 .html; Office of Public Opinion Watch of the People’s Daily Online (OPOW), “Report on Internet Public Opinion in 2013” [2013 Nian Zhongguo Hulianwang Yuqing Fenxi Baogao], March 18, 2014, http://yuqing.people.com.cn /n/2014/0318/c364391-24662668.html. 10. Table 6.2 lists the cases. 11. Gary King, Jennifer Pan, and Margaret E. Roberts, “How Censorship in China Allows Government Criticism but Silences Collective Expression,” American Political Science Review 107, no. 2 (2013): 326–43; David Bamman, Brendan O’Connor, and Noah Smith, “Censorship and Deletion Practices in Chinese Social Media,” First Monday 17, no. 3 (2012), http://firstmonday.org /ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/3943/3169. 12. See, for example, Li Ying, “China’s Public Opinion on Internet and Impartial Judgment” (paper presented at the Conference on China-U.S. Public Opinion and Law, Beijing, June 19–20, 2004). 13. Zhao Ziyang, “Report Delivered at the 13th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.” 14. See Judy Polumbaum, “The Tribulations of China’s Journalists After a Decade of Reform,” in Voices of China: The Interplay of Politics and Journalism, ed. Chin-Chuan Lee (New York: Guilford Press, 1990), 42. 15. Jiang Zemin, “Report Delivered at the 14th National Congress of the Communist Party of China” [Zai Zhongguo Gongchandang Di Shisi Ci Quanguo Daibiao Dahui Shang De Baogao], October 25, 1992, http://www.people.com.cn/GB/shizheng /252/5089/5106/20010430/456648.html; Jiang Zemin, “On Resolving Serious Questions Regarding Strengthening the Construction of Socialist Spirit and Culture” [Zhonggong Zhongyang Guanyu Jiaqiang Shehuizhuiyi Jingshen Wenming Jianshe Ruogan Zhongyao Wenti De Jueyi], October 10, 1996, http://www.people.com.cn/GB/shizheng /252 /5089/5106/20010430/456601.html; Jiang Zemin, “Report Delivered at the 15th National Congress of the Communist Party of China” [Zai Zhongguo Gongchandang Di Shiwu Ci Quangguo Daibiao Dahui Shang De Baogao], October 25, 1997, http://xibu.tjfsu.edu .cn/elearning /lk /15c.htm. 16. Regulations of Internal Supervision of the Communist Party of China (Tentative) [Zhongguo Gongchandang Dangei Jiandu Tiaoli (Shixing)] (promulgated by the Central Committee of CCP, 2003), http://news.xinhuanet.com/newscenter/2005-01/16 /content _ 2467829.htm. Section 5 states that internal supervision within the Party must go hand in hand with external supervision, including supervision by the media. Under Section 33, media supervision must be under the Party’s guidance to achieve

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Notes to Pages 133–135

optimal and ideal public opinion supervision. Section 34 requires the media to adhere to Party principles and media professional ethics, to direct public opinion on the right course, and to be aware of the social impact of public opinion supervision. 17. Study Handbook on the (Tentative) Regulations of Internal Supervision of the Chinese Communist Party [Zhongguo Gongchandang Dangei Jiandu Tiaoli (Shixing) Xuexi Duben] (Beijing: Central Party Literature Press, 2004), 75. Ren Tieying, “Treating Public Opinion Supervision Seriously and Correctly” [Renzhen Duidai He Zhengque Kaizhan Xinwen Yulun Jiandu], in Study Handbook on the (Tentative) Regulations of Internal Supervision of the Chinese Communist Party [Zhongguo Gongchandang Dangnei Jiandu Tiaoli (Shixing) Xuexi Duben] (Beijing: Central Party Literature Press, 2004), 268. 18. Ibid., 270–71, 278. 19. Ibid., 281. 20. See Notice on Strengthening and Improving Public Opinion Supervision [Guangdian Zongju Yinfa Guanyu Qieshi Jiaqiang He Gaijin Guangbo Dianshi Yulun Jiandu Gongzuo De Yaoqiu De Tongzhi] (issued by the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television [Guojia Guangbo Dianying Dianshi Zongju] on May 10, 2005), http://www.sarft.gov.cn/manage/publishfi le/35/2926.html. 21. Cao Junwu and Su Qian, “Directing the Implementation of Public Opinion Supervision” [Yindao Wangluo Yulun Shijian], Southern Weekend [Nanfang Zhoumo], May 19, 2005, A5. 22. For a general discussion of this phenomenon, see Zhao Yuezhi, “Watchdogs on Party Leashes? Contexts and Implications of Investigative Journalism in Post-Deng China,” Journalism Studies 1, no. 4 (2000): 594. 23. Ibid. 24. Chin-Chuan Lee, “Servants of the State or the Market? Media and Journalists in China,” in Media Occupations and Professions: A Reader, ed. J. Tunstall (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 246. 25. For a discussion of the ambiguity of the term, see Slavko Splichal, Public Opinion: Developments and Controversies in the Twentieth Century (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999), 1–52. 26. Daniel C. Lynch, After the Propaganda State: Media, Politics, and “Thought Work” in Reformed China (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1999), 24. 27. Ibid. 28. Benjamin L. Liebman, “Watchdog or Demagogue? The Media in the Chinese Legal System,” Columbia Law Review 105, no. 1 (2005): 105. 29. Neil Jeff rey Diamant, Stanley B. Lubman, and Kevin J. O’Brien, Engaging the Law in China: State, Society, and Possibilities for Justice (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2005), 10. 30. In one notorious case, a defendant who was sentenced to death by the court remarked bitterly that he was in fact sentenced and “executed” by the media. Zhang Jinzhu, a local public security official in Henan Province’s Zhengzhou City, knocked

Notes to Pages 135–136

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down a pedestrian while driving drunk in 1997. He dragged the victim with his car for about 1500 meters and hit another pedestrian. The first victim died, and the second suffered serious injury. As he had been portrayed in the media as an evil monster, Zhang argued unsuccessfully on appeal that the sentence was too heavy and reflected the media’s influence. See Yan Lieshan, “Who Killed Police Officer Zhang Jinzhu?” [Shui Sha Le Gong’an Zhang Jinzhu?], Southern Weekend [Nanfang Zhoumo], April 8, 2005, http://news.163.com/05/0408/20/1GRFCV300001120T.html. See also Benjamin L. Liebman, “Changing Media, Changing Courts,” in Changing Media, Changing China, ed. Susan L. Shirk (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), 150. 31. Sun Zhigang, a twenty-seven-year-old graphic designer who was detained for failing to present to police a temporary residence permit, was beaten to death March 17, 2003, in a Guangzhou detention center for illegal internal migrants. More than a month later, the outspoken Southern Metropolis Daily reported on Sun’s death. Discussion spread rapidly on the Internet, and the Beijing Youth Daily picked up the story. In response, the government set up an investigation team. As a result, Premier Wen Jiabao announced the abolition of the custody and repatriation system under which Sun had been detained. See Dingjian Cai, “The Development of Constitutionalism in the Transition of Chinese Society,” Columbia Journal of Asian Law 19 (2005): 11. 32. In late 2003, Su Xiuwen fatally struck a peasant in Harbin while driving a BMW. The trial court ruled it was an accident, not an intentional murder. Widespread media coverage questioned Su’s links to higher officials. Su was convicted and lost on appeal. Public opinion did not change the decision, but discussion on the Internet was so heated the Party banned reporting of the case and ordered websites to remove coverage and discussions. See Liu Jianqiang, “ ‘BMW Case’ Suspicions” [“Baoma An” Yiyun], Southern Weekend [Nanfang Zhoumo], January 8, 2004, A5. 33. On April 17, 2002, Liu Yong, a triad leader in Liaoning Province, was sentenced to death, reduced on appeal to life imprisonment. The media questioned whether this was a fair decision and hinted at personal connections between Liu and local officials. Amid intense criticism on the Internet and in print media, the Supreme People’s Court intervened in December 2003 and reinstated the death sentence. Liu was executed within hours. See Liebman, “The Media and the Courts,” 82–91. 34. Party General Secretary Hu Jintao introduced the term at the Seventeenth National Party Congress in 2007. See Hu Jintao, “Report Delivered at the 17th CCP National Congress of the Communist Party of China” [Zai Zhongguo Gongchandang Di Shiqi Ci Quangguo Daibiao Dahui Shang De Baogao], October 15, 2007, http:// cpc.people.com.cn/GB/104019/104099/6429414.html. 35. Albert H. Y. Chen, An Introduction to the Legal System of the People’s Republic of China, 4th ed. (Hong Kong: LexisNexis, 2011), 200. 36. Anne S. Y. Cheung, “Exercising Freedom of Speech Behind the Great Firewall: A Study of Judges’ and Lawyers’ Blogs in China,” Harvard International Law Journal Online 52 (2011): 259.

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Notes to Pages 136–137

37. Suli Zhu, “The Party and the Courts,” in Judicial Independence in China: Lessons for Global Rule of Law, ed. Randall Peerenboom (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 56. 38. Civil Servant Law of the People’s Republic of China, articles 2, 3 [Gongwuyuan Fa] (2005), www.lawinfochina.com (hereafter Civil Servant Law). 39. Ibid., art. 45. See Sheng Rouwei and Shi Guosheng, “The Newly Introduced Civil Servant Law with Fresh New Ideas” [Gongwuyuan Fa Xinxian “Chulu”, Xinyi Pumian], People’s Daily, April 25, 2005. 40. Rachel E. Stern, “On the Frontlines: Making Decisions in Chinese Civil Environmental Lawsuits,” Law & Policy 32, no. 1 (2010): 84. 41. Hualing Fu, “Putting China’s Judiciary into Perspective: Is It Independent, Competent, and Fair?,” in Beyond Common Knowledge: Empirical Approaches to the Rule of Law, ed. Erik Gilbert Jensen and Thomas C. Heller (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2003), 193, 205. 42. Ibid., 193–96, 203–5. 43. This is under the procedure for “adjudicative supervision.” Parties may petition for retrial to the courts, procuratorates or even other state or party organs or the people’s congresses. Chen, An Introduction to the Legal System of the People’s Republic of China, 210. 44. Fu considers the biggest problem of the judiciary is corruption (Fu, “Putting China’s Judiciary into Perspective,” 211). Other problems include quality of judges, unsatisfactory terms of service, insufficient funding, and difficulty of enforcing judgment. See Chen, An Introduction to the Legal System of the People’s Republic of China, 204–10. 45. See Zhao, “Watchdogs on Party Leashes?,” 581. 46. Liebman, “The Media and the Courts”; Benjamin Liebman and Tim Wu, “China’s Network Justice,” Chicago Journal of International Law 8 (2007): 257. 47. “The SPC’s President Wang Shenjun Says, Decision of Handing Down Capital Punishment ‘Should Be Based on the Feelings of Society and the People’ ” [Zuigao Fayuan Yuanzhang Wang Shengjun Cheng, Pan Bu Pan Sixing ‘Yao Yi Shehui He Remin Qunzhong De Ganjue Wei Yiju’], South Metropolitan [Nanfang Dushi Bao], April 11, 2008, A09. 48. Chen, An Introduction to the Legal System of the People’s Republic of China, 175. 49. Xing Shiwei, “Courts at Every Level Must Provide Judicial Protection to Public Opinion Supervision” [Geji Fayuan Wei Yulun Jiandu Tigong Sifa Baozhang], New Bejing Daily [Xin Jingbao], June 3, 2013 http://www.bjnews.com.cn/news/2013/06/03 /266758.html. 50. “33rd Statistical Report on Internet Development in China,” CNNIC, January 2014, http://www1.cnnic.cn/IDR /ReportDownloads/201404/U020140417607531610855 .pdf, 5. The number of microblog users was 309 million in 2012, an increase of 23.5 percent compared with the previous year. “32nd Statistical Report on Internet Development in China,” CNNIC, July 2013, http://www1.cnnic.cn /IDR /ReportDownloads /201310/P020131029430558704972 .pdf. Comparing the statistics for 2012 and 2013, there was a drop of microbloggers in 2013.

Notes to Pages 137–139

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51. Out of the microbloggers, 202 million, 65.6 percent, used their mobile phones to access microblogs (ibid.). See also Yanqi Tong and Shaohua Lei, “War of Position and Microblogging in China,” Journal of Contemporary China 22, no. 80 (2013): 294. 52. The data are from March to June 2010. Sina microbloggers were 46.12 percent of 103,070,000 total microbloggers. “White Paper on Year One of China’s Microblog Market” [Zhongguo Weibo Yuannian Shichang Baipishu], Sina, July 2010, http://wenku .baidu.com/view/a63536cea1c7aa00b52acb49.html, 7. 53. The data are from July 2010 (ibid., 9). 54. “Report on Weibo Development 2012–2013” [2012–2013 Nian Weibo Fazhan Yanjiu Baogao], Internet Lab & Zhejiang Media College Internet and Society Institute, June 2013, http://video.zj.com/cns/20122013weibo.pdf, 3. 55. Zhu et al., “Report on Internet Public Opinion 2010.” 56. Zhu et al., “Report on Internet Public Opinion 2008.” 57. The official stance is noticeable in Zhu et al., “Report on Internet Public Opinion 2010,” 14. 58. “Sina Government Microblog Report in 2013” [2013 Nian Xinlang Zhengfa Weibo Baogao], OPOW & Sina Corporation, December 2013, http://vdisk.weibo.com/s /A-q4TgwK7GnC, 2. 59. “White Paper on Year One of China’s Microblog Market,” 6. 60. Ibid., 6. No data on concrete number of different outlets in subsequent reports. 61. “Media Microblogging Report 2012” [2012 Nian Meiti Weibo Yanjiu Baogao], OPOW & Sina Corporation, January 2013, http://yuqing.people.com.cn/NMediaFile /2013/0122/MAIN201301220841000214265231916.pdf, 10. 62. Tong and Lei, “War of Position and Microblogging in China,” 298. 63. Zhu et al., “Report on Internet Public Opinion 2010.” 64. King-wa Fu, Chung-hong Chan, and Michael Chau, “Assessing Censorship on Microblogs in China: Discriminatory Keyword Analysis and the Real-Name Registration Policy,” IEEE Internet Computing 17, no. 3 (2013): 43. 65. Elizabeth J. Perry, “A New Rights Consciousness?,” Journal of Democracy 20, no. 3 (2009): 17. 66. Guobin Yang, “Online Activism,” Journal of Democracy 20, no. 3 (2009): 33. 67. Luo Caixia v. Wang Zhengrong [Luo Caixia Su Wang Zhengrong] (Xiqing District People’s Court of Tianjin Municipality, 2009, case settled on August 13, 2010), and Shanghai Fishing Enforcement case (Zhang Hui v. Minhang District Traffic Enforcement Group of Shanghai Municipality [Zhanghui Su Shanghaishi Minhangqu Chengshi Jiaotong Zhifa Dadui] (Minhang District People’s Court, November 19, 2009). 68. People’s Procuratorate of Guangzhou City v. Xu Ting [Guangzhoushi Remin Jianchayuan Su Xu Ting] (Intermediate People’s Court of Guangzhou City, March 31, 2008); and Forced Prostitution of Primary School Students (Wuhua District People’s Procuratorate of Kunming City v. Zhang Anfen and Liu Shi Hua [Kunmingshi Wuhuaqu Remin Jiaochanyuan Su Zhang Anfen He Liu Shihua] (Wuhua District People’s Court, December 18, 2009); People’s Procuratorate of Shenyang City v. Xia Junfeng [Shenyangshi

254

Notes to Pages 139–141

Remin Jianchayuan Su Xia Junfeng] (High People’s Court of Liaoning Province, April 24, 2013). 69. The accused were not prosecuted for rape, which can be a capital offense, but for the offense of “spending the night in a brothel with a young girl” [Piaosu Younü] and sentenced to fourteen years in imprisonment. “The Case of Spending the Night in a Brothel with a Young Girl in Xishui Was Re-Prosecuted, Suspects Charged with Crimes Other Than Rape” [Xishui Piaosu Younü An Zaici Tiqi Gongsu, Zuiming Reng Fei Qiangjian], Nanfang Weekend [Nanfang Zhoumo], May 18, 2009, http://www.infzm .com/content/28522; “Verdict Declared Regarding the Case of ‘Spending the Night in a Brothel with a Young Girl’ in Xishui, Guizhou, One Defendant Sentenced to Life Imprisonment and Two to Severe Punishment” [Guizhou Xishui Piaosu Younü An Xuanpan Yiren Wuqi Shuren Zhongxing], Xinhua Net, July 24, 2009, http://www.gz .xinhuanet.com/2008htm/xwzx /2009- 07/24/content _17192064.htm. 70. Verna Yu, “Execution of Hawker Xia Junfeng Sparks Anger and Grief Among Lawyers and Online Community,” South China Morning Post, September 27, 2013. 71. Wang Heyan, “Dust Settled in the Deng Yujiao Case” [Deng Yujiao An Chen’ai Luoding], Caijing Magazine [Caijing Zazhi] no. 13, June 22, 2009. Xuanyu Huang, “ReLegalization or De-Legalization? Netizens’ Participation in Criminal Justice Practices in China,” British Journal of Criminology 52, no. 4 (2012): 732; Liebman, “The Media and the Courts,” 836. 72. Zhu et al., “Report on Internet Public Opinion 2009.” 73. Huang, “Re-Legalization or De-Legalization?,” 732. 74. “Waitress Stabbed an Official to Death in Badong, Hubei” [Hubei Badong Nü Fuwuyuan Cisi Guanyuan], CCTV.com, June, 2009, http://news .cctv.com /special /badong/shouye/index.shtml. 75. “Polling Result” [Toupiao Jieguo], CCTV.com, June 18, 2009, http://news.cctv .com/vote/see11889.shtml. 76. Huang, “Re-Legalization or De-Legalization?,” 733. 77. Liebman, “The Media and the Courts,” 836. 78. Wang, “Dust Settled in the Deng Yujiao Case.” 79. Huang, “Re-Legalization or De-Legalization?,” 733; Chen and Zhang, “Trial by Media,” 50; Liebman, “The Media and the Courts,” 834. 80. Supreme People’s Court, “Annual Report on the Work of People’s Courts (2009)” [Renmin Fayuan Niandu Gongzuo Baogao (2009 Nian)], July  13, 2009, http://old .chinacourt.org /html/article/201007/13/417874.shtml. 81. Zhu et al., “Report on Internet Public Opinion 2009.” 82. Ibid. 83. “Hangzhou Car Racing Case: Hu Bin Was Sentenced to 3-Year Imprisonment, Parents of Both Parties Considered the Judgement Unfair” [Hangzhou Biaoche An Hu Bin Bei Pan 3 Nian, Shuangfang Jiazhang Jun Renwei Bu Gongping], Chinanews,

Notes to Pages 141–143

255

July 20, 2009, http://www.chinanews.com/gn/news/2009/07-20/1783113.shtml. Discussion also in Liebman, “The Media and the Courts,” 836. 84. “Netizens Question the ‘70 Kilometers Per Hour’ Car Speed Identified in Hangzhou’s Car Racing Case, Creating a New Term ‘Dishonest Horse’ ” [Wangyou Zhiyi Hangzhou Biaoche An 70 Ma Chesu, Faming Xin Mingci Qi Shi Ma], Information Times [Xinxi Shibao], July 27, 2009. 85. Kate Ray, “Hangzhou’s Drag-Race Driving ‘Rich Boy’ Arrested for Manslaughter,” Shanghaiist, May 18, 2009. 86. Shai Oster, “China’s Rich Youth Spark Bitter Divide,” Wall Street Journal, September 22, 2009. 87. Qilu TV, “Nearly 90% of the Public Supports Harsh Punishment of the Troublemaker in Hangzhou’s Car Racing Case” [Jin Jiucheng Minzhong Zhichi Yancheng Hangzhou Biaoche An Zhaoshizhe], Sina, May 18, 2009, http://news.sina .com.cn /s/p/2009-05-18/163217839144.shtml. 88. The victim’s father unsuccessfully asked the procuratorate to appeal. See “The Procuratorate of Hangzhou City Rejected the Application for Counterappeal Lodged by the Victim’s Family in the Drag Racing Case” [Hangzhou Jianfang Bohui Biaoche An Shouhaizhe Jiashu Kangsu Shenqing], Peking Times [Jinghua Shibao], July 31, 2009, http://epaper.jinghua.cn/html/2009- 07/31/content _448207.htm. 89. Oster, “China’s Rich Youth Spark Bitter Divide.” 90. Zhu et al., “Report on Internet Public Opinion 2009.” 91. Amnesty International, “Standing Their Ground: Thousands Face Violent Eviction in China,” October 12, 2012. 92. “People’s Daily Online Survey: Baoling Youth Who Denounced Malfeasance Online Was Detained for Eight Days, Alleged by the Authorities as Having Harmed the Leaders. How Do You Feel About It?” [Remin Wang Diaochao: Henan Lingbao Qingnian Fatie Jubao Bei Qiu Ba Ri, Guanfang Cheng Qi Shanghai Lingdao, Nin Zenyang Kan?], People’s Daily Online, April 15, 2009, http://politics.people.com.cn /GB/1025 /9132055.html. 93. Ibid. The survey result showed 0.9 percent opted for option 2, 2.4 percent for option 3, and 0.9 percent for option 4 (other opinions). 94. “Stat Compensation Awarded to Wang Shuai Who Had Been Imprisoned Because of Denouncing Malfeasances” [Wang Shuai Fatie Jubao Bei Qiu Huo Guojia Peichang], New Express [Xin Kuaibao], April 19, 2009. 95. This comment was made in “People’s Daily Online Survey.” “Mighty sword” literally means the “highest valuable sword,” a description for the sword given by the emperor to signify the highest form of protection, overriding any other order. 96. “Verdict Against Yao Jiaxin by the Intermediate People’s Court of Xi’an City” [Xi’an Shi Zhongji Remin Fayuan Dui Yao Jiaoxin De Panjueshu], Bright Sky [Qinglang De Tiankong] (personal blog of the attorney of the victim’s parents), April 23, 2011, http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_3e9f92340100r25v.html.

256

Notes to Pages 143–145

97. Zhu et al., “Report on Internet Public Opinion 2011,” 4. Discussion on Yao attracted 4,026,097 posts. 98. See Lu Qing, “Myth About the Murder by the Boy Who Plays Piano” [Gangqin Nanhai De Sharen Miti], Life Week [Sanlian Shenghuo Zhoukan], December 27, 2010, http://www.lifeweek .com.cn /2010/1227/30601.shtml; Zhu et al., “Report on Internet Public Opinion 2011,” 11. 99. See “The Soil of Yao Jiaxins” [“Yao Jiaxin Men” De Turang], FT Chinese, May 28, 2013, http://www.ftchinese.com/story/001037914?full=y. According to some scholars, Jiqing Sharen is a translation of “homicide committed in a heat of passion”; see “Homicide Committed in a Heat of Passion” [Jiqing Sharen], New Century Magazine [Xin Shiji Zhoukan], May 2, 2011, http://magazine.caixin.com/2011-05-01/100254495.html. 100. People’s Procuratorate of Xi’an City v. Yao Jiaxin (Intermediate People’s Court of Xi’an City, April 20, 2011), CLI.C.348825. On the survey in the trial, see “Who Has the Final Say on Yao Jiaxin’s Life and Death?” [Yao Jiaxin De Shengsi Shui Shuo Le Suan?], Beijing Evening Paper [Beijing Wanbao], April 13, 2011, 38. 101. “Verdict Against Yao Jiaxin by the Intermediate People’s Court of Xi’an City.” 102. “Verdict Pronounced of the First Instance Trial of Yao Jiaxin Being Suspect of Intentional Homicide” [Yao Jiaoxin Guyi Sharen An Yishen Xuanpan], Xinhua Net, May 22, 2011. 103. “How to Adjudicate the Yao Jiaoxin Case? Controversies Arose over Collection of ‘Public Opinion’ of Auditing Citizens by the Court” [Yao Jiaoxin An Zenme Pan? Fayuan Xiang Pangtingzhe Zheng “Minyi” Yin Zhengyi], China.com, April 15, 2011, http://www.china.com.cn/news/law/2011- 04/15/content _ 22367384.htm. 104. “Policy Guideline on Collecting the Opinions and Advice of Citizens Auditing in Trials Towards the Adjudication” [Shaanxi Sheng Gaoji Renmin Fayuan Guanyu Kaizhan Zhengxun Pangting Tingshen Gongmin Dui Anjian Caipan Yijian He Jianyi Gaige Gongzuo De Tongzhi] (issued by Shaanxi People’s High Court and effective on October 1, 2008), http://www.law-lib.com/law/law_view.asp?id= 412436. 105. Haidian District People’s Court of Beijing Municipality, “Press Release Concerning the Case of Rape Committed by Defendants Li XX and Other Four Persons” [Zai Beigoaren Li Moumou Deng Wu Ren Qiangjian An Xinwen Tongbao Hui Shang De Fayangao], September  26, 2013, http://bjhdfy.chinacourt.org/public/detail.php?id =2134. 106. “Li Tianyi: China’s Singers’ Son Rape Verdict Upheld,” BBC News, November 27, 2013. 107. Chris Buckley, “Rape Trial Casts Spotlight on Offspring of China’s Elite,” New York Times, August 28, 2013. 108. Zhou Qiongyuan, Zhang Wenyu, and Gu Yue, “The Public Hunt of Li XX Case” [Weilie Li Moumou An], Blog Weekly Magazine [Boke Tianxia], September 15, 2013, 46–47. 109. Buckley, “Rape Trial Casts Spotlight on Offspring of China’s Elite.”

Notes to Pages 145–146

257

110. OPOW, “Report on Internet Public Opinion in 2013.” The case attracted 15, 549,829 posts, compared with 8,357,145 for Bo’s case. 111. “Li Tianyi: China’s Singers’ Son Rape Verdict Upheld,” BBC News. Buckley, “Rape Trial Casts Spotlight on Offspring of China’s Elite,” New York Times. “Panorama: Sohn Von General Soll Frau Vergewaltigt Haben,” Süddeutsche Zeitung, August 29, 2013 http://newsticker.sueddeutsche.de/list/id/1487770. 112. Haidian District People’s Court of Beijing Municipality, “Press Release Concerning the Case of Rape Committed by Defendants Li XX and Other Four Persons.” “The Judgement of Final Instance Regarding the Case of Li XX and Other Four Persons Being Involved in Gang Rape Was Announced: The Appeal Was Rejected and the Judgement of First Instance Affi rmed” [Li Moumou Deng Wu Ren Qiangjian An Zhongshen Xuanpan: Bohui Shangsu Weichi Yuanpan], Xinhua Net, November 27, 2013. 113. “What Is Your Opinion Regarding Li Shuangjiang’s Son Being Suspected of Having Committed Gang Rape?” [Ni Zenm Kan Li Shuangjiang Zhi Zi Shexian Lunjian?], iFeng.com [Fenghuang Wang], February 22, 2013, http://survey.ifeng.com /ent /2778.html. 114. “What Will Be the Eventual Result of Li Tianyi’s Case According to Your View?” [Ni Renwei Li Tianyi An Zuizhong Jieguo Shi Zenyang De?], Sohu, July 20, 2013, http://news.survey.sohu.com/poll/result.php?poll _id=75818. 115. Wu Yan, “Fault of the Child, Sadness for Education” [Haizi Zhi Guo, Jiaoyu Zhi Shang], People’s Daily, February 25, 2013, http://edu.people.com.cn/n/2013/0225 /c1053-20584395.html. 116. Fift y-five percent of the 78,947 respondents supported the sentence, 13 percent considered the punishment too heavy, 20 percent hoped that the accused could learn from their mistakes, 6.9 percent considered the sentence as upholding women’s rights, and 4.2 percent did not care about the case. “Judgment of the Case of Gang Rape Committed by Li XX and Other Four Persons Has Been Announced. What’s Your Opinion?” [Li XX Deng 5 Ren Lunjian An Xuanpan, Ni Renwei?], Sina, September 26, 2013, http://survey.ent.sina.com.cn/result/83108.html. 117. “What Is Your Opinion Regarding the Result of Appeal Trial of Li XX’s Case?” [Ni Zenme Kan Li XX An Ershen Jieguo?], Sina, November 27, 2013, http://survey.ent .sina.com.cn/result/86058.html. 118. A defense lawyer in the Li Tianyi case purportedly posted online the alleged judgments of the court of first instance and second instance. Because the names of defendants and other information were deleted, it is hard to ascertain the authenticity of the posted judgments. See “Judgement of Second Instance of Li Tianyi Case” [Complete Scanned Version Provided by Lawyer Zhou Cuili [Li Tianyi An Ershen Panjueshu [Zhou Cuili Lüshi Saomiao Fenjie Wanzheng Ban], Wang Renguang’s Sina Blog, Jan. 28, 2014, http://blog.sina .com.cn/s/blog_6deb5f270101c6pk. html

258

Notes to Pages 146–151

119. Wang Wei, “The Municipality’s High Court Releases Its First White Paper Regarding the Trial of Juvenile Cases” [Shi Gaoyuan Shoufa Weichengnianren Anjian Zonghe Shenpan Baipishu], Legal Evening Post [Fazhi Wanbao], May 27, 2014, http:// www.fawan.com.cn/html/2014- 05/27/content _493385.htm.

Chapter 7. Public Opinion and Chinese Foreign Policy 1. For excellent reviews of the field, see Ole R. Holsti, “Public Opinion and Foreign Policy: Challenges to the Almond-Lippmann Consensus,” International Studies Quarterly 36, no. 4 (1992): 439–66; Ole R. Holsti, Public Opinion and American Foreign Policy (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004); Matthew A. Baum and Philip B. K. Potter, “The Relationships Between Mass Media, Public Opinion, and Foreign Policy: Toward a Theoretical Synthesis,” Annual Review of Political Science 11 (June 2008): 39–65. 2. On why authoritarian leaders are reluctant to allow public polling, see Timur Kuran, “Now out of Never: The Element of Surprise in the East European Revolution of 1989,” World Politics 44, no. 1 (1991): 7–48. 3. For example, the audience costs literature in general holds that audience costs are much smaller to the extent they exist at all in authoritarian regimes owing to the absence of “a politically significant domestic audience.” James Fearon, “Domestic Political Audiences and Escalation of International Disputes,” American Political Science Review 88, no. 3 (1994): 587. For an application of the concept to nondemocracies, see Jessica L. Weeks, “Autocratic Audience Costs: Regime Type and Signaling Resolve,” International Organization 62, no. 1 (2008): 35–64; for a powerful critique, see Jack Snyder and Erica Borghard, “The Costs of Empty Threats: A Penny, Not a Pound,” American Political Science Review 105, no. 3 (2011): 437–56. 4. Peter Hays Gries, China’s New Nationalism: Pride, Politics, and Diplomacy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004); Susan L. Shirk, China: Fragile Superpower (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), chap. 4. 5. Maryanne Kivlehan-Wise, and Catherine Welch, eds., China’s New Media Milieu: Commercialization, Continuity, and Reform (Alexandria, Va.: Center for Naval Analysis China Studies, 2010); Susan L. Shirk, ed., Changing Media, Changing China (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011); Daniela Stockmann, Media Commercialization and Authoritarian Rule in China (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2013). 6. Linda Jakobson and Dean Knox, “New Foreign Policy Actors in China,” SIPRI Policy Paper 26 (September 2010): 1–51. 7. However, it is worth noting that nationalism is not the only possible explanation for China’s foreign policy assertiveness. For an overview of China’s assertiveness, see Michael D. Swaine, “Perceptions of an Assertive China,” China Leadership Monitor 32 (Spring 2010): 1–19; for a critique of the “assertiveness” discourse, see Alastair Ian Johnston, “How New and Assertive Is China’s New Assertiveness?,” International Security 37, no. 4 (Spring 2013): 7–48.

Notes to Pages 152–153

259

8. Joseph Fewsmith and Stanley Rosen, “The Domestic Context of Chinese Foreign policy: Does ‘Public Opinion’ Matter?,” in The Making of Chinese Foreign and Security Policy in the Era of Reform, 1978–2000, ed. David M. Lampton (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2001), 151–90; Gries, China’s New Nationalism; Yufan Hao, and Lin Su, eds., China’s Foreign Policy Making: Societal Forces and Chinese American Policy (Burlington, Vt.: Ashgate, 2005); Shirk, Changing Media, Changing China; Jianwei Wang, and Xiaojie Wang, “Media and Chinese Foreign Policy,” Journal of Contemporary China 23, no. 86 (2013): 216–35; Minxin Pei, “Exploring Emerging Domestic Drivers of Chinese Foreign Policy,” The German Marshall Fund of the United States, Policy Brief, April 2014. 9. James Reilly, Strong Society, Smart State: The Rise of Public Opinion in China’s Japan Policy (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012); James Reilly, “A Wave to Worry About? Public Opinion, Foreign Policy and China’s Anti-Japan Protests,” Journal of Contemporary China 23, no. 86 (2013): 197–215. Peter Gries, Derek Steiger, and Wang Tao’s chapter 8 in this volume also falls into this category. 10. Robert  S. Ross, “China’s Naval Nationalism: Sources, Prospects, and the U.S. Response,” International Security 34, no. 2 (Fall 2009): 46–81; Robert S. Ross, “The Problem with the Pivot,” Foreign Affairs 91, no. 6 (2012): 70–82. 11. Wang Yizhou, “Gongmin Shehui yu Zhongguo Waijiao” [Civil Society and Chinese Diplomacy], Zhongguo Shehui Kexue [Social Sciences in China] 3 (2000): 28–38; Zhang Qingmin, “Shehui Bianqian Beijingxia de Zhongguo Waijiao Juece Pingxi” [An Analysis of Chinese Foreign Policy Decision Making Under the Background of Societal Change], Guoji Zhengzhi Yanjiu [International Studies Quarterly] 1 (2006): 45–56; Qi Jianhua, Yingxiang Zhongguo Waijiao Juece de Wuda Yinsu [Five Major Factors Influencing Chinese Foreign Policy Decision Making] (Beijing: Zhongyang Bianyi Chubanshe, 2010); Wang Cungang, “Dangjin Zhongguo de Waijiao Zhengce: Shui zai Zhiding? Shui zai Yingxiang?—Jiyu Guonei Xingweiti de Shijiao” [Contemporary Chinese Foreign Policy: Who Is Deciding? Who Is Influencing? From the Perspective of Domestic Actors], Waijiao Pinglun [Foreign Affairs Review] 2 (2012): 1–18; Wang Jun, Wangluo Minzu Zhuyi yu Zhongguo Waijiao [Cyber-Nationalism and Chinese Foreign Policy] (Beijing: Zhongguo Shehui Kexue Chubanshe, 2011). 12. Indeed, on different occasions three Chinese Foreign Ministers—Tang Jiaxuan, Li Zhaoxing, and Wang Yi—all indicated the importance of public opinion in foreign policy decision making. Tang Jiaxuan, “ ‘Renmin de Lijie he Zhichi Shi Gaohao Waijiao de Qiangda Houdun’— Caifang Waijiao Buzhang Tang Jiaxuan” [Understanding and Support of the People Is a Powerful Backing for Our Diplomacy], Shijie Zhishi [World Affairs] 9 (1999): 7–9; Li Zhaoxing, Shuobujin de Waijiao [Never-Failing Diplomacy] (Beijing: Zhongxin Chubanshe, 2014), 283–301; Wang Yi, “Toward a New Model of Major-Country Relations Between China and the United States,” Brookings Institution, September 20, 2013. 13. Zhang Qingmin, “Zhongguo Duiwai Guanxi de Guonei Guanli he Neiwai Tongchou—Guonei Yinsu he Zhongguo Duiwai Zhengce” [The Domestic Management

260

Notes to Pages 154–155

of China’s Foreign Relations and the Internal-External Coordination—Domestic Factors and China’s Foreign Policy], Shijie Jingji yu Zhengzhi [World Economics & Politics] 8 (2013): 117–38; Zhao Ruiqi and Yang Zijie, “Wangluo Yulun yu Zhongguo Waijiao de Hudong—Jiyu Dongya Wangluo Minzu Zhuyi Anli de Kaocha” [Interactions between Public Opinion on the Internet and China’s Foreign Relations— Case Studies of Cyber-Nationalism in East Asia], Nanjing Youdian Daxue Xuebao (Shehui Kexue Ban) [Journal of Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications (Social Science)] 15, no. 3 (2013): 25–30; “Minyi Zhuli Zhongguo Waijiao Chuji” [Public Opinion Helps Chinese Diplomacy Take Offensive], November 9, 2010, http://news.xinhuanet.com /herald/2010 -11/09/c _13597877.htm. 14. Peter Mattis, “China Not Full of Raging Nationalists,” National Interest, April 9, 2014. 15. Ibid. 16. For a few examples, see David Wertime, “Michelle Obama’s DNC Speech Goes Viral in China,” Atlantic, September 6, 2012, http://www.theatlantic.com/international /archive/2012/09/michelle-obamas-dnc-speech-goes-viral-in-china/262039/; “Chinese Netizens Moved by Tsai Ing-wen’s Concession Speech,” January 16, 2012, http://www .wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?id=20120116000054&cid=1101; David G. Brown, “China-Taiwan Relations: Post-Election Continuity,” Comparative Connections 14, no. 1 (2012): 81–88. 17. Shirk, China, 102–3. 18. Erica Strecker Downs and Phillip C. Saunders, “Legitimacy and the Limits of Nationalism: China and the Diaoyu Islands,” International Security 23, no. 3 (Winter 1988–99): 114–46. 19. For an overview of the debate of the Internet’s impact upon state-society relations, see Daniel W. Drezner, “Weighing the Scales: The Internet’s Effect on StateSociety Relations,” Brown Journal of World Affairs 14, no. 2 (Spring/Summer 2010): 31–44. 20. As Nye noted, the diff usion of power on the Internet is far cry from an equalization of power. Joseph S. Nye, The Future of Power (New York: Public Affairs, 2011), chap. 5. For two sophisticated treatments of the impact of the Internet on the Chinese society and state, see Yongnian Zheng, Technological Empowerment: The Internet, State, and Society in China (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2008); Guobin Yang, The Power of the Internet in China: Citizen Activism Online (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009). 21. For a discussion on this topic with slightly different terms, see Dennis H. Wrong, Power: Its Forms, Bases, and Uses (New York: Harper and Row, 1980). 22. As a manifestation of the increasing importance attached to guiding public opinion, see Ren Xianliang, Yulun Yindao Yishu: Lingdao Ganbu Ruhe Miandui Meiti [The Art of Guiding Public Opinion: How Leaders and Cadres Should Face the Media] (Beijing: Xinhua Press, 2010). The author was then the deputy head in charge of propaganda in Shanxi Province.

Notes to Pages 155–158

261

23. Yang Jiechi, “China’s Public Diplomacy,” Qiushi Journal 3, no. 3 (2011), http:// english.qstheory.cn/international/201109/t20110924 _112601.htm. 24. David Bandurski, “China’s Guerrilla War for the Web,” Far Eastern Economic Review, September 15, 2008; “An Inside Look at a 50 Cent Party Meeting,” China Digital Times, August 4, 2010, http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2010/08/an-inside-look-at-a-50 -cent-party-meeting /. 25. Gary King, Jennifer Pan, and Margaret E. Roberts, “How Censorship in China Allows Government Criticisms but Silences Collective Expression,” American Political Science Review 107, no. 2 (2013): 326–43. 26. Jessica Chen Weiss, Powerful Patriots: Nationalist Protest in China’s Foreign Relations (New York: Oxford University Press, 2014). 27. Peter Hays Gries, “Nationalism, Indignation, and China’s Japan Policy,” SAIS Review of International Affairs 25, no. 2 (Summer/Fall, 2005): 105–14; Reilly, Strong Society, Smart State, 148–54; Shirk, Changing Media, Changing China, 243; Zhang, “Zhongguo Duiwai Guanxi de Guonei Guanli he Neiwai Tongchou—Guonei Yinsu he Zhongguo Duiwai Zhengce” [The Domestic Management of China’s Foreign Relations and the Internal-External Coordination—Domestic Factors and China’s Foreign Policy], 117–38. 28. “Waijiao Buzhang Li Zhaoxing Zuo Zhongri Guanxi Xingshi Baogao” [Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing’s Speech on the Situation of Sino-Japanese Relationship], April 19, 2005, http://news.sina .com.cn/c/2005-04-19/21145694943s.shtml; “Zhongri Guanxi Xingshi Xuanjiangtuan zai Jin Sui Hu deng Chengshi Juxing Baogaohui” [Publicity Team on the Situation of Sino-Japanese Relations Gave Lectures in Tianjin, Shanghai, and Guangzhou], April 20, 2005; “Zhongri Guanxi Xingshi Xuanjiangtuan zai Chuan Zhe Jing deng Di Juxing Baogaohui” [Publicity Team on the Situation of Sino-Japanese Relations Gave Lectures in Sichuan, Zhejiang, and Beijing], April 24, 2005, http:// politics.people.com.cn/GB/1026/3344817.html; “Gonganbu jiu Jing Hu deng Di Fasheng Sheri Youxing Shiwei Huodong Biaotai” [The Ministry of Public Security on Japan-Related Demonstrations and Protest in Beijing, Shanghai and Other Places], April 21, 2005, http://news.sina.com.cn/c/2005-04-21/17385714946s.shtml. 29. For example, see Reilly, Strong Society, Smart State, 152–54. 30. “Position Paper of the People’s Republic of China on the United Nations Reforms,” June 7, 2005, http://www.china-un.org /eng /chinaandun/zzhgg /t199101.htm. 31. “Statement by Ambassador Zhang Yishan on Security Council Reform at the 59th Session of the General Assembly,” October 12, 2004, http://www.china-un.org/eng /chinaandun/zzhgg /t164266.htm. 32. For two reports on the UN reform, see the Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges, and Change, “A More Secure World: Our Shared Responsibility,” December 2, 2004, http://www.un.org/en/peacebuilding/pdf/historical/hlp_more _ secure _world.pdf; Kofi A. Annan, “In Larger Freedom: Towards Development, Security, and Human Rights for All,” March 21, 2005, http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view _doc.asp?symbol=A/59/2005.

262

Notes to Pages 158–160

33. In Wen’s words, “Only a country that respects history, takes responsibility for its past, and wins over the trust of the people of Asia and the world at large can take greater responsibility in the international community.” “Wen Jiabao Huijian Meiti Jizhe, Tan Fangyin Sanxiang Chengguo” [Wen Jiabao Met with the Press and Journalists, Discussing Th ree Achievements from His India Trip], April 12, 2005, http://news .xinhuanet.com/world/2005- 04/12/content _ 2820761.htm. 34. “Statement by Ambassador Zhang Yishan on Security Council Reform at the 59th Session of the General Assembly,” October 12, 2004; “Statement by Ambassador Wang Guangya on the Report of the High-Level Panel,” January 27, 2005, http://www .china-un.org/eng/chinaandun/zzhgg/t181639.htm; “Statement of Permanent Representative of China Ambassador Wang Guangya on the Report of the Secretary-General ‘In Larger Freedom: Towards Development, Security, and Human Rights for All’ at UNGA 59th Session,” April 6, 2005, http://www.china-un.org /eng /chinaandun/zzhgg /t190451.htm; “Statement by Ambassador Wang Guangya on Cluster IV (Strengthen the United Nations) of the Secretary-General’s Comprehensive Report at GA 59 Session,” April 27, 2005, http://www.china-un.org /eng /chinaandun/zzhgg /t193602 .htm; “Position Paper of the People’s Republic of China on the United Nations Reforms,” June 7, 2005. 35. “Wang Guangya: Ruo Siguo ‘Zengchang’ An Fuzhu Biaojue, Zhongguo jiang Toupiao Fandui” [Wang Guangya: If the G-4 Resolution Put to a Vote, China Will Vote Against It], June 2, 2005, http://www.chinanews.com/news/2005/2005-06-02/26/581634 .shtml. Some mischaracterized China’s position as a “veto”; see Wang and Wang, “Media and Chinese Foreign Policy,” 228. 36. Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing’s May 19 speech clearly indicated that by then the decision had already been made at the top to end the protest. 37. The record of China’s use of veto power is illustrative in this regard. China has almost never used its veto power alone, except twice on issues related to Taiwan. See “Security Council-Veto List,” http://www.un.org /depts/dhl /resguide/scact _veto_ en .shtml. For more on China’s UN diplomacy, see Joel Wuthnow, Chinese Diplomacy and the UN Security Council: Beyond the Veto (New York: Routledge, 2013). 38. Statement by Ambassador Shirin Tahir-Kheli, senior advisor to the secretary of state on UN reform, on the secretary-general’s report on UN reform, in the GA, April 7, 2005. 39. “Zheng Chuyu Gaige Jiedian shang de Lianheguo” [The UN Reform at a Critical Point], June 3, 2005, http:// lianghui.china .com.cn /news/txt /2005 - 06/03/content _ 5880120.htm. 40. The new Chinese leadership headed by Xi Jinping does attempt to increase the degree of centralization in foreign policy and national security decision making with an emphasis on “top-level designing” and “strategic planning.” See Yang Jiechi, “Xinxingshi xia de Zhongguo Waijiao Lilun he Shijian Chuangxin” [Innovations in China’s Diplomatic Theory and Practice Under New Conditions], Qiushi, August 16, 2013, http://www.qstheory.cn/zxdk /2013/201316/201308/t20130813_ 259197.htm. For a recent

Notes to Pages 161–167

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sign that China’s moves in the South China Sea were deliberate and calculated, see Andrew Browne, “Beijing Moves Boldly, Calculates Carefully,” Wall Street Journal, June 3, 2014.

Chapter 8. Social Media, Nationalist Protests, and China’s Japan Policy A version of this chapter will appear in the Journal of Contemporary China (2015). 1. See comment5.news.sina .com.cn/comment/skin/default.html?channel= gn& newsid=1–1–24349410&style=0. 2. See comment5.news.qq.com/comment.htm?site =news& id=32994362. 3. For example, Suisheng Zhao, “A State-Led Nationalism: The Patriotic Education Campaign in Post-Tiananmen China,” Communist and Post- Communist Studies 31, no. 3 (1998): 287–302. 4. Hongping Annie Nie, “Gaming, Nationalism, and Ideological Work in Contemporary China: Online Games Based on the War of Resistance Against Japan,” Journal of Contemporary China 22, no. 81 (2013): 499–517. 5. For example, Suisheng Zhao, “Shaping the Regional Context of China’s Rise: How the Obama Administration Brought Back Hedge in Its Engagement with China,” Journal of Contemporary China 21, no. 75 (2012): 374. On the role of fishing trawlers in Chinese sovereignty disputes, see Jens Kastner, “China’s Fishermen Charge Enemy Lines,” Asia Times, May 16, 2012. 6. Alistair Iain Johnston, “How New and Assertive Is China’s New Assertiveness?,” International Security 37, no. 4 (2013): 22. 7. Aaron Wildavsky, “The Two Presidencies,” Trans-Action 4, no. 2 (1966): 162–73. 8. Benjamin I. Page and Robert Y. Shapiro, “Effects of Public Opinion on Policy,” American Political Science Review 77, no. 1 (1983): 175–90. 9. John Aldrich, Christopher Gelpi, Peter Feaver, Jason Reifler, and Kristin Thompson Sharp, “Foreign Policy and the Electoral Connection,” Annual Review of Political Science 16, no. 3 (2006): 477–502. 10. James Reilly, Strong Society, Smart State: The Rise of Public Opinion in China’s Japan Policy (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012), 6–7. 11. Ibid., 7. 12. Jessica Chen Weiss, “Authoritarian Signaling, Mass Audiences, and Nationalist Protest in China,” International Organization 67, no. 1 (2013): 26–27. 13. Ibid. 14. James Fearon, “Domestic Political Audiences and the Escalation of International Disputes,” American Political Science Review 88, no. 3 (1994): 577–92. 15. Jessica  L. Weeks, “Autocratic Audience Costs: Regime Type and Signaling Resolve,” International Organization 62, no. 1 (2008): 35–64. 16. Jack Snyder and Erica D. Borghard, “The Cost of Empty Threats: A Penny, Not a Pound,” American Political Science Review 105(3) (2011): 437, 439.

264

Notes to Pages 167–172

17. Translated in Peter Gries, China’s New Nationalism: Pride, Politics, and Diplomacy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004), 123. 18. “China ‘Unwavering’ on Diaoyu Islands,” People’s Daily Online, January 17, 2012. 19. For example, “China’s Patrol Fleet Patrols Diaoyu Islands,” People’s Daily Online, March 16, 2012. 20. For example, Ian Johnson, “China and Japan Bristle over Disputed Chain of Islands,” New York Times, September 8, 2010; Justin McCurry, “Japan-China Row Escalates over Fishing Boat Collision,” Guardian, September 9, 2010. 21. Mure Dickie, “Tokyo Governor in Bid to Buy Disputed Islands,” Financial Times, April 17, 2012. 22. Wang Haiqing, “Commentary: Provocation by Japa nese official over Diaoyu Islands Detrimental to Ties with China,” People’s Daily Online, April 19, 2012. 23. Both from comment5.news.qq.com/comment.htm?site =news& id=31516104. 24. Peter Barefoot, “Japa nese Nationalists on Diaoyu Islands, Netizen Reactions,” China Smack, August 23, 2012. 25. See comment5.news.sina .com.cn/comment/skin/default.html?channel=gn& newsid=1–1–24974056&style=0. 26. See comment.news.163.com/news3_bbs/890F1DUO00014AED.html. 27. For example, Keith Bradsher, Martin Fackler and Andrew Jacobs, “Anti-Japan Protests Erupt in China over Disputed Islands,” New York Times, August 19, 2012; Barbara Demick, “Territorial Tensions Flare Between China and Japan,” Los Angeles Times, August 19, 2012. 28. See comment5.news.qq.com/comment.htm?site =news& id=32977893. 29. For example, “Chinese Take to the Streets in Protest,” People’s Daily Online, September 12, 2012. 30. For example, Sui-Lee Wee and Maxim Duncan, “Anti-Japan Protests Erupt in China over Islands Row,” Reuters, September 15, 2012. 31. For example, Norihiko Shirouzu, “Toyota, Nissan Trim China Output in Wake of Protests,” Reuters, September 25, 2012. 32. For example, John Zeng, “New Hurdle for Japan’s Carmakers,” People’s Daily Online, September 25, 2012. 33. “Airline Ser vices Hit as Sino-Japan Tensions Escalate,” Reuters, September 21, 2012. 34. Jin Baisong, “Diaoyu Row Lands Japan’s Economy in Hot Water,” People’s Daily Online, September 19, 2012. 35. See bbs.tianya.cn/post-free-2775428–1.shtml. 36. See fjtms.cn/thread-124389–1–1.html. 37. See jiangxi.jxnews.com.cn/system/2012/09/17/012109641.shtml. 38. “Civility and Reason Display China’s Strength” (wenming lixing zhanxian Zhongguo liliang), People’s Daily, September 18, 2012, 1. 39. For example, “Chinese Defense Ministry Confirms Naval Patrols Near Diaoyu Islands,” Xinhuanet, September 27, 2012.

Notes to Pages 172–182

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40. Both at comment5.news.qq.com/comment.htm?site =news& id=33086923. 41. For example, Kiyoshi Takenaka, “Japan Protests After Chinese Plane Flies over Disputed Isles,” Reuters, December 13, 2012. 42. For example, Linda Sieg and Kiyoshi Takenaka, “Japan Protests to China After Radar Pointed at Vessel,” Reuters, February 5, 2013; Martin Fackler, “Japan Says China Aimed Military Radar at Ship,” New York Times, February 5, 2013. 43. For example, “The A to Z on China’s Air Defense Identification Zone,” Wall Street Journal, November 27, 2013. 44. See Index.baidu.com and google.com/trends. 45. See the introduction to this volume. 46. See Peter Hays Gries, “Popu lar Nationalism and State Legitimation in China,” in State and Society in 21st Century China: Crisis, Contention, and Legitimation, ed. Peter Hays Gries and Stanley Rosen (New York: Routledge, 2004), 41–68. 47. On the grammar of state legitimation in China, see Vivienne Shue, “Legitimacy Crisis in China?,” in Chinese Politics: State, Society and the Market, ed. Peter Gries and Stanley Rosen (New York: Routledge, 2010), 41–68. 48. For example, Suisheng Zhao, “Foreign Policy Implications of Chinese Nationalism Revisited: The Strident Turn,” Journal of Contemporary China 22, no. 82 (2013): 535–53.

Chapter 9. Going Out and Texting Home 1. U.S. Department of State, “Indonesia Country Report on Human Rights Practices for 1998,” February 26, 1999, http://www.state.gov/www/global / human _ rights /1998 _ hrp_report/indonesi.html. 2. Jemma Purdey, Anti-Chinese Violence in Indonesia, 1996–1999 (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2006), 164. 3. Dingxin Zhao, “Problems of Nationalism in Contemporary China: StudentGovernment Conflicts During Nationalist Protests,” in Exploring Nationalisms of China: Themes and Conflicts, ed. C. X. George Wei and Xiaoyuan Liu (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 2002), 106–7. 4. Purdey, Anti-Chinese, 165. 5. Yang Jian, “China in the South Pacific: Hegemon on the Horizon?” Pacific Review 22, no. 2 (2009): 139–58. 6. This framework is developed in James Reilly, Strong Society, Smart State: The Rise of Public Opinion in China’s Japan Policy (New York: Columbia University Press, 2012). 7. Mathieu Duchâtel and Bates Gill, “Overseas Citizen Protection: A Growing Challenge for China,” SIPRI Newsletter, February 12, 2012. 8. See http://www.thebeijingaxis.com /tca /editions/the-china-analyst-apr-2014 /233–china-capital-inbound-outbound-fdi-overseas-resource-investment. 9. Yang Wanli, “At 97m and Growing, China Has Most Outbound Tourists,” China Daily, January 9, 2014.

266

Notes to Pages 182–185

10. “Li Keqiang: Tongbaomen zoudaonali, linshi baohu jiuyao gendaonali” [Li Keqiang: Compatriots, Wherever You Go, Our Consular Protection Will Go with You], Xinhua, May 9, 2014. 11. Cited in David Lague, “Analysis: China Security Blanket for Citizens Abroad Has Limits,” Reuters, February 3, 2012. 12. See the website of the Centre for Consular Assistance and Protection, http:// www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa _eng /wjb_ 663304/zzjg _ 663340/lss _ 665290/. 13. Wang Duanyong, “The Safety of Chinese Citizens Abroad: A Quantitative Interpretation of the ‘Special Notices for Chinese Citizens Abroad’ (2008–2010),” Journal of Current Chinese Affairs 42, no. 1 (2013): 172. 14. Jacob Zenn, “Chinese, Overseas and Insecure,” Asia Times, September 6, 2012. 15. Lague, “Analysis.” 16. Dan Levin, “China’s Africa Problem,” Daily Beast, February 2, 2012. 17. Zhang Hongzhou, “China’s Evolving Fishing Industry: Implications for Regional and Global Maritime Security,” RSIS Working Paper, August 16, 2012. 18. Zhang Junjie, “Averting China’s Fishing Wars,” Asia Society, http://asiasociety .org /policy/environment/water-and-food-security/averting-chinas-fishing-wars. 19. “Jingwai meiti: Feilubing zhunbei shunxun 12ming beikou zhongguo yumin” [Overseas Media: Philippines Prepares Trial for 11 Detailed Chinese Fishermen], Cankao Xiaoxi, May 11, 2014, http://research.shisu.edu.cn/s/15/main.htm. 20. Levin, “China’s Africa Problem.” 21. Wang, “The Safety,” 191. 22. Jing Ming and Pan Zhiqi, “You ‘mahang shilian shijian’ kan tufashijianzhong de shishi baodao” [Examining the Lost Facts in Reporting on Unexpected Incidents from the Case of the “Lost Malaysian Airliner Incident”], Xinwen aihouzhe [Media Enthusiast], April 2014, 6. 23. Ibid., 9. 24. Jun Liu, “Mobile Communication, Popu lar Protests and Citizenship in China,” Modern Asian Studies 47, no. 3 (2013): 995. 25. “China’s Overseas Workers Deserve Better Protection,” Global Times, January 31, 2012. 26. Cited in Sui-Lee Wei, “China Looks to Secure Release of Kidnapped Workers,” Mail & Guardian, February 2, 2012. 27. Ei Sun Oh, “Tourist Security Natural Extension of China’s National Interests,” Global Times, April 10, 2014. 28. “Jiji baohu haiwai gongmin shi waijiao zhanxing de biran fangxiang” [Actively Protecting Citizens Overseas Is the Necessary Direction of Our Foreign Policy Transformation] 21 Shiji jingji baodao [Twenty-First- Century Economic Herald], May 12, 2014, http://finance.eastmoney.com/news/1371,20140512383405996.html. 29. Cited in Levin, “China’s Africa Problem.” 30. Wang Yizhou, “Zhongguo waijiao bushiying xunsu kuzhan de waijiao liyi” [China’s Foreign Policy Has Not Adjusted to Its Rapidly Expanding Overseas In-

Notes to Pages 185–187

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terests], Hexun wang [Hexun Web], May 7, 2014, http://opinion.hexun.com/2014–05–07 /164553173.html. 31. Yue Gang, “Zhongguo junli yingzhaowei haiwai liyi” [China’s Military Strength Must Defend Its Overseas Interests], Xinlang Junshi [Sina Military Affairs], April 18, 2013, http://mil.sina.cn/?sa= t134d346972v76& pos =3& vt = 4. 32. Cited in Andrew S. Erickson and Austin M. Strange, “No Substitute for Experience: Chinese Antipiracy Operations in the Gulf of Aden,” China Maritime Studies 10 (2013): 45. 33. Gan Junxian, “China Should Set Up Marine Security Force to Protect Chinese Fishermen,” International Herald Leader, http://news.xinhuanet.com/herald/2010 - 03 /18/content _13192613.html. 34. Shen Dingli, “Don’t Shun the Idea of Setting up Overseas Military Bases,” January  28, 2010, http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/2010- 01/28/content _19324522.htm; Sun Li, “Naval Expert Yin Zhuo: Chinese Navy Can Explore Establishment of LongTerm Shore Supply Bases,” China National Radio, December 26, 2009, cited in “Looking After China’s Own: Pressure to Protect PRC Citizens Working Overseas Likely to Rise,” China Signpost 2 (August 17, 2010): 11. 35. Chen Xiangyang, “Seize the Opportunity to Build Up China’s Capacity to Protect Overseas Interests,” China-U.S. Focus, March 21, 2014, http://www.chinausfocus .com /peace-security/seize-the-opportunity-to -build-up -chinas-capacity-to -protect -overseas-interests/. 36. Edward Cody, “China’s Expansion Puts Workers in Harm’s Way,” Washington Post, April 26, 2007, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-. 37. Levin, “China’s Africa Problem.” 38. See James Reilly, “China’s History Activists and the War of Resistance to Japan: History in the Making,” Asian Survey 19, no. 2 (2004): 276–94. 39. See the center’s website: http://research.shisu .edu .cn /s/15/t /18/p/1/c/214/ list .htm. 40. “Baohu fazhang, haiwai liyi zhongguo xuanzhe ‘gongtong fazhan’ fangshi” [Protecting Development, Overseas Interests: China Chooses the “Common Development” Mode], Wenhuibao [Wenhui News], October 14, 2010, http://research.shisu.edu .cn/s/15/main.htm. 41. Mei Xiangrong, “Yaorang zhongguo de haiwai gongmin shixian quanqiu weihuquan” [We Must Enable Chinese Citizens Overseas to Realize Global Rights], Zhongguowang [China Net], April 22, 2014, http://research.shisu.edu.cn/s/15/main.htm. 42. Cited in “Protecting Development.” 43. Wang, “The Safety,” 168. 44. “Full Text of Hu Jintao’s Report at 18th Party Congress,” November 17, 2012, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/special/18cpcnc/2012–11/17/c _131981259.htm. 45. Wang Yi Press Conference, March 8, 2014, http://www.voltairenet.org /article 182652.html. 46. “Li Keqiang: Compatriots.”

268

Notes to Pages 187–189

47. Mu Bai, “Li Keqiang zongli minshen waijiaoguan” [Premier Li Keqiang on People’s Livelihood Approach to Foreign Policy], Xinjingbao [New Beijing News], May 11, 2014, http://news.xinhuanet.com /politics/2014–05/11/c _126484966.htm. Emphasis added. 48. “Actively Protecting.” 49. “Li Keqiang: Jiada haiwai qiye gongmin baohu” [Li Keqiang: Strengthen Protection of Overseas Enterprises and Citizens], Dagongbao [Dagong Net], May 10, 2014, http://news.takungpao.com/paper/q/2014/0510/2469456.html. 50. “Looking After China’s Own.” 51. “9 Chinese Workers Killed by Gunmen in Ethiopia’s Somali State,” Xinhua, April 24, 2007, http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007–04/24/content _6022126.htm. 52. “Rebels ‘Release’ Chinese Hostages,” People’s Daily, April 30, 2007. 53. “Looking After China’s Own.” 54. Duchâtel and Gill, “Overseas Citizen Protection.” 55. “Waijiaobu: Qiaomin dengji tixian zhengfu baohu qiaomin nengli he shuiping tigao” [Foreign Ministry: Registration of Overseas Residents Demonstrations the Government’s Increased Ability and Skill in Protecting Overseas Residents], Zhongguowang [China Net], November 25, 2013, http://news.china.com.cn/world/2013–11/25 /content _ 30701240.htm. 56. “Looking After China’s Own.” 57. “E’luosi zeng kouliu 170ming zhongguo gongmin” [170 Chinese Citizens Detained by Russia], Xinhua, May 14, 2014. 58. “Shanghai nuyouke zai mailaixiya jiudian bei 6chi bangfei lu” [Armed Kidnappers Abduct Shanghai Female Tourist from Malaysian Hotel], Huaxi dushiba [West China Metropolitan News], May 14, 2014, http://research.shisu.edu.cn/s/15/t/18/40/dd /info16605.htm. 59. “Zhongguo zhu aokelan shiguan libao 1.8wan zhongguoren anquan” [China’s Embassy in Ukraine Secures the Safety of 18,000 Chinese People], Global Times, May 14, 2014. 60. “China Workers Abroad Becoming Easy Prey,” Bloomberg News, February 1, 2012. 61. “Yuenan paihua baotu jian zhongguoren jiudashu” [Vietnam’s Anti- Chinese Thugs See Chinese People and Attack them], Sina Web, May 16, 2014, http://www .takefoto.cn/viewnews-76776.html. 62. “Guofang baipishu: Zhongguo wuzhangliliang de duoyuanhua yunyong” [National Defense White Paper: The Diversified Employment of China’s Armed Forces], April 16, 2013, http://www.mod.gov.cn/affair/2013–04/16/content _4442839.htm. 63. “Looking After China’s Own.” 64. Duchâtel and Gill, “Overseas Citizen Protection.” 65. “Looking After China’s Own.” 66. Andrew S. Erickson, “Statement Before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission,” Washington, D.C., June 6, 2013.

Notes to Pages 189–193

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67. “Chinese Boats Evacuate Citizens from Vietnam After Protests,” Bloomberg News, May 19, 2014. 68. “National Defense White Paper.” 69. Erickson, “Statement.” 70. Jonathan Manthrope, “China Struggles to Protect Its Army of Overseas Workers,” Vancouver Sun, March 4, 2013, C9. 71. Cheryl Mei-ting Schmitz, “Significant Others: Security and Suspicion in Chinese-Angolan Encounters,” Journal of Current Chinese Affairs 43, no. 1 (2014): 41–69. 72. He Huifeng, “Quest for Gold in African Mud,” South China Morning Post, June 6, 2013. 73. Afua Hirsch, “Ghana Deports Thousands in Crackdown on Illegal Chinese Goldminers,” Guardian, July 16, 2013. 74. Dan Levin, “Ghana’s Crackdown on Chinese Gold Miners Hits One Rural Area Hard,” New York Times, June 30, 2013. 75. He Huifeng, “Guangxi Protesters Demand Beijing Aid Gold Miners Caught in Ghana,” South China Morning Post, June 7, 2013. 76. He, “Quest.” 77. Adam Nossiter and Bree Feng, “Ghana Arrests Chinese in Gold Mines,” New York Times, June 6, 2013. 78. He, “Quest.” 79. Levin, “Ghana’s Crackdown.” 80. All quotes from http://offbeatchina .com /124–suspected-chinese-illegal-gold -miners-arrested-in-ghana-chinese-netizens-reactions-split. 81. Nossiter and Feng, “Ghana Arrests.” 82. Huifeng, “Guangxi Protesters.” 83. “124 Suspected Chinese Illegal Miners Arrested in Ghana,” China Daily, June 6, 2013. 84. Hirsch, “Ghana Deports.” 85. Terry McCulley, “China Loses Control of Its Foreign Policy,” Asia Times Online, January 24, 2014. 86. “Xiyang jituan 2.4yi touzi chaoxian” [Xiyang Group’s 240 Million RMB Investment in DPRK], 21 Shiji jingji baodao [Twenty-First-Century Economic News], August 25, 2012, http://money.163.com/12/0825/06/89NUQ3AJ00253B0H.html. 87. Preceding points from “Xiyang jituan zaichaoxian touzi de e’meng” [Xiyang Group’s Investment Nightmare in DPRK], August 3, 2012, http://blog.sina .com.cn/s /blog_916fb56901017b75.html. 88. “Xiyang Group’s 240 Million.” 89. “Xiyang Group’s Investment Nightmare.” 90. “Xiyang jituan cheng buying guli zhongguo qiye touzi chaoxian” [Xiyang Group Declares That There Should Not Be Encouragement of Chinese Companies to Invest in DPRK], Reuters, September 5, 2012.

270

Notes to Pages 193–196

91. “Chaobo xiyang jituan ‘2.4yi touzi beipian’ zhize cheng zhongfang huiyue” [DPRK Declares That the Responsibility for Xiyang Group’s “240 Million Investment Cheat” Is That the Chinese Side Broke Its Promise], Huanqui shibao [Global Times], September 6, 2012, http://finance.eastday.com/economic/m1/20120906/u1a6842677.html. 92. “Zhongguo chuanyuan zao chaoxian junren ouda xijie” [Chinese Seamen Face Beatings and Looting by DPRK Soldiers], Dongfang zaobao [Eastern Morning News] May  22, 2012, http://news.ifeng.com /world /special /chaoxianjiechi /content-3/detail _ 2012 _ 05/22/14708686 _ 0.shtml?_from _ralated. 93. Ibid. 94. Guo Yue, “Zhongfang tan yumin bei chaoxian kouliu” [China Discusses the Fishermen Held Captive by DPRK], Chongqing zaobao [Chongqing Morning News], May 16, 2012. 95. Zhang Sai, “Chaoxian kouliu 29ming zhongguo yumin yaoqiu zuichi jinri jiao shujin,” [North Korea Holds 29 Chinese Fishermen, Demands Payment No Later Than Today], Xinjing Bao [Beijing News], May 17, 2012, http://news.ifeng.com /mainland /detail _ 2012 _ 05/17/14587839_ 0.shtml. 96. “Chinese Seamen Face.” 97. “Chao jiechi zhongguo yumin ‘gongchi’ haishi ‘feichi’ ” [DPRK Hijacks Chinese Fishermen: Official Robbery or Bandit Robbery?], May 18, 2012, Zhongguo jingjiwang [China Economy Web], http://news.sohu.com/20120518/n343494191.shtml. 98. Comments at: http://stock.jrj.com.cn/hotstock /2012/05/17172213166714.shtml; http:// bbs1 . people . com . cn /postDetail . do ? view =2 & pageNo =1 & treeView = 0 & id =119171990&boardId=2; http://bbs1.people.com.cn/postDetail.do?view=2& pageNo =1 & treeView = 0& id=119124808&boardId=2. 99. “Chinese Seamen Face.” 100. “Chaofang huiying zhuakou zhongguo yumin shijian qiangdioa liangguo youhao” [North Korea Responds to the Hijacking Incident of Chinese Fishermen, Insists on the Bilateral Friendship], May 22, 2012, http://world .huanqiu .com /roll /2012–05 /2741832.html. 101. “Sheping: Zhongguo yinggai kuoda ‘mulin’ deliejie” [Editorial: China Should Expand Its Understanding of “Friendly Neighbor”], Huanqiu shibao, May 22, 2012, http://opinion.huanqiu.com/1152/2012–05/2741988.html. 102. Qiu Yongzheng and Yang Jinghao, “North Korea Still Holds 16 Fishermen,” Global Times, May  20, 2013, http://www. globaltimes .cn /content /782753 . shtml#.UZmLxuvO87A. 103. “Xi Jinping zhixian jipai woguo zhengfu teshi bu malaixiya chuli mahang keji shilian shijian” [Xi Jinping Urgently Directs the Government’s Special Representative to go to Malaysia to Deal with the Missing Malaysian Airliner Incident], Renmin ribao, March 26, 2014. 104. Feng Chuangzhi, “Mahang shijian: Zhongguo zhuliu meiti bangmang bu tianluan” [China’s Mainstream Media Helps in the Malaysian Airliner Incident by Not Adding to the Chaos], Zhongguo xinwen chubanbao, March 27, 2014.

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105. Wang Yi, “Miqie guanzhu malaixiya hangban shichu lianxi” [Wang Yi: Closely Paying Attention to the Malaysian Airliner That Has Lost Contact] Xinhua wang, March  8, 2014, http://news.xinhuanet.com/politics/2014- 03/08/c _133170153 .htm. 106. “Chinese Government Joint Work Team Briefs the Media on Relevant Work,” MOFA website, March 16, 2014, http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/mfa _eng /wjb_ 663304/zzjg _ 663340/lss _ 665290/xgxw_ 665292/t1138352.shtml. 107. Feng, “China’s Mainstream Media.” 108. See http://weibo.com/u/5065477686. 109. See http://www.gov.cn/zhuanti/mhslxzt.htm. 110. See http://www.xinhuanet.com/world/2014mahang /. 111. Bai Ruixue, “Xunzhao MH370, Zhongguohang hangli qiubuliu sijiao” [Searching for MH370, Chinese Ships Will Not Neglect One Corner], Xinhua Daily Report, March 26, 2015, 5. 112. All preceding posts from: http://weibo.com/u/5080250272. 113. Feng, “China’s Mainstream Media.” 114. Wang Junchao, “Mahang shijian baodao yu jiekun xinwenxue” [Reporting on the Malaysian Airlines Incident and Escaping Dangers of Media Studies], Guangming ribao, March 22, 2014, 7. 115. Xiao Xia, “Mahang shijianzhong de zhongguo meiti zhende buxingma?” [Was Chinese Media Reporting on the Malaysian Airlines Incident Really so Inadequate?] 21 Shoji jingji baodao, March 21, 2014. 116. Jing and Pan, “Examining.” 117. Graeme Smith, “Beijing’s Orphans? New Chinese Investors in Papua New Guinea,” Pacific Affairs 86, no. 2 (2013): 327–49. 118. Terence McNamee, “Africa in Their Own Words: A Study of Chinese Traders in South Africa, Lesotho, Botswana, Zambia and Angola,” Brenthurst Foundation Discussion Paper 3 (2012): 43.

Chapter 10. Images of the DPRK in China’s New Media Th is research is partially funded by a grant from the China Scholarship Council and a grant from Tsinghua University. I thank Avery Goldstein, Jessica Weiss, Yuhua Wang, James Reilly, Peter Gries, Min Jiang, Yusung Su, Deyong Ma, and Hao Chen for their valuable advice and suggestions. I specially thank Professor Hao Chen of Nankai University for agreeing to share with me his data compiled for an ongoing research project. My research assistants Yang Chen, Jian Li, Zhipeng Sun, Joyce Junyou Xie, Yanting Su, and Cristine Ziyi Ye have done some hard work. I appreciate valuable feedback I got from conferences hosted at University of Pennsylvania, Peking University, and Hong Kong Baptist University. Any errors are mine alone.

272

Notes to Pages 200–205

1. International Crisis Group, “Shades of Red: China’s Debate over North Korea,” November 2, 2009, 4–6, http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/asia/north-east-asia /north-korea/179-shades-of-red-chinas-debate-over-north-korea.aspx 2. Jia Liu and Jingjing Zhou, “Zhongguo Duichao Zhengce Yinggai Tiaochu Bao yu Qi de Siwei Moshi” [China’s DPRK Policy Needs to Go Beyond the Mentality of Either Protecting or Giving Up DPRK], April  12, 2014,http://www.zaobao.com/print /special/report/politic/korea/story20140412-331551. 3. International Crisis Group, “Shades of Red: China’s Debate over North Korea,” 6. 4. Simon Shen, “The Hidden Face of Comradeship: Popu lar Chinese Consensus on the DPRK and Its Implications for Beijing’s Policy,” Journal of Contemporary China 21, no. 75 (2012): 427–43. 5. Walter Lippmann, Public Opinion (New York: Macmillan, 1947); Hans  J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace (New York: Knopf, 1948); Philip E. Converse, “The Nature of Belief Systems in Mass Publics,” in Ideology and Discontent, ed. David E. Apter (New York: Free Press, 1964), 206–61. 6. Benjamin I. Page and Marshall M. Bouton, The Foreign Policy Disconnect: What Americans Want from Our Leaders but Don’t Get (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006); Benjamin I. Page and Robert Y. Shapiro, The Rational Public: Fifty Years of Trends in Americans’ Policy Preferences (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992). 7. Stanley Feldman, “Structure and Consistency in Public Opinion: The Role of Core Beliefs and Values,” American Journal of Political Science 32, no. 2 (1988): 416–40. 8. Norman Nie and Kristi Andersen, “Mass Belief Systems Revisited: Political Change and Attitude Structure,” Journal of Politics 36 (1974): 540–91. 9. Eugene R. Wittkopf, “Faces of Internationalism in a Transitional Environment,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 38, no. 3 (1994): 376–401; Mark  A. Peffley and Jon Hurwitz, “A Hierarchical Model of Attitude Constraint,” American Journal of Political Science 29, no. 4 (1985): 871–90; Chuanjie Zhang, “Affective  U.S. Image Predicts Chinese Citizens’ Attitudes Toward United States,” Chinese Journal of International Politics 3, no. 3 (2010): 293–323. 10. Shen, “The Hidden Face of Comradeship,” 434–40. 11. For consideration of audience costs in Chinese government’s dealing with antiJapan protests, see Jessica C. Weiss, “Authoritarian Signaling, Nationalist Protest, and Mass Audiences in China,” International Organization 67, no. 1 (2013): 1–35. See also Joseph Fewsmith and Stanley Rosen, “The Domestic Context of Chinese Foreign Policy: Does Public Opinion Matter?,” in The Making of Chinese Foreign and Security Policy in the Era of Reform, 1978–2000, ed. David M. Lampton (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 2006), 151–87. 12. Barbara A. Bardes and Robert W. Oldendick, Public Opinion: Mea suring the American Mind (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2012), 134. 13. Licheng Ma, Dangdai Zhongguo de Bazhong Shehui Sichao [Eight Social Thoughts in Contemporary China] (Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press, 2002).

Notes to Pages 205–218

273

14. Hui Qin, “Zhongguo Xiandai Ziyou Zhuyi de Lilun Shangque” [A Discussion on China’s Modern Liberalist Theory], Shehui Kexue Luntan [Social Sciences Forum] 3 (1999): 48–54. 15. Shaojie Liu, Dangdai Zhongguo Yishi Xingtai Bianqian [Evolution of Ideologies in Contemporary China] (Beijing: Central Compilation & Translation Press, 2012). 16. The former Party secretary of Chongqing Municipality, Bo Xilai, was sentenced on corruption charges in 2013. 17. Among those on the right, there is also a radical right that questions the legitimacy of the Communist Party, strongly criticizes traditional Chinese culture, and publicly praises Western, especially American, democracy. 18. Mingshu Zhang, Zhongguo Zhengzhiren 2012: Zhongguoren Xiang Yao Shenmeyang de Minzhu [Chinese Political Man 2012: What Kind of Democracy Do the Chinese Desire] (Beijing: Social Sciences Academic Press, 2013). 19. Deyong Ma and Shuxian Zhang, “Zhongguo Wangmin de Zuo yu You” [Left and Right of Chinese Netizens], Twenty-First Century, April 2014, 86–103. 20. For Chinese government’s response and persuasion strategy to public protests in policy making process, see James Reilly, Strong Society, Smart State: The Rise of Public Opinion in China’s Japan Policy (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011). 21. “China and the Internet, a Giant Cage,” Economist, April 6, 2013. 22. For the views of a senior CCP propaganda official, see Guoying Cai, “Zijue Zengqiang Yulun Douzheng Yishi” [Increasing the Awareness of Public Opinion Battles], Qiu Shi 23 (2013): 55–56. 23. Ma and Zhang, “Zhongguo Wangmin de Zuo yu You” [Left and Right of Chinese Netizens]. 24. Hao Chen and Weining Qian, “Jingji Jingying yu Wenhua Jingying de Qingxu Yingxiangli: Jiyu Weibo de Kaocha” [Influence of Emotions of Economic Elite and Cultural Elite: A Survey Based on Weibo], conference paper presented at the annual conference of Chinese Community of Political Science and International Studies (CCPSIS), Beijing, July 5–6, 2014. 25. This point has been stressed repeatedly by both leaders during Kim Jong-il’s visits to China in 2004, 2006, 2010, and 2011. 26. Alastair Ian Johnston disagrees with this regarding China. He believes that China’s rising middle class cling to liberal ideologies and may serve as a curb on China’s aggressiveness in foreign policy domain. See Alastair Ian Johnston, “Chinese Middle Class Attitudes Towards International Affairs: Nascent Liberalization?,” China Quarterly 179, no. 1 (2004): 603–28. 27. Weibo message ID L37, February 6, 2013. 28. Weibo message ID L24, May 20, 2013. 29. Weibo message ID L99, March 24, 2013. 30. Weibo message ID L124, October 8, 2013. 31. Weibo message ID L143, February 13, 2013. 32. Weibo message ID L204, February 14, 2013.

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Notes to Pages 218–220

33. Weibo message ID L66, February 13, 2013. 34. Weibo message ID L23, April 12, 2013. 35. Weibo message ID R14, February 16, 2013. 36. Weibo message ID R104, April 9, 2013. 37. Weibo message ID L193, April 25, 2013. 38. Weibo message ID L45, February 15, 2013. 39. Weibo message ID R2, March 12, 2013. 40. Weibo message ID R83, April 15, 2013. 41. Weibo message ID R34, March 7, 2013. 42. Weibo message ID R43, December 10, 2013. 43. Weibo message ID R68, February 12, 2013. 44. Weibo messages ID L10, April 7, 2013, and ID L133, February 24, 2013. 45. Weibo message ID R73, April 13, 2013. 46. Weibo message ID R92, March 25, 2013. 47. Weibo message ID R27, February 1, 2013.

CON TRIBU TOR S

Anne S. Y. Cheung is professor of law at the University of Hong Kong. Her research interests are freedom of expression, privacy, children’s rights (including cyberbullying and domestic violence), language rights, and law and society studies. She worked on the Open Net Initiative (Asia) Project to study online freedom of speech in the form of blogging in China, and conducted research projects on privacy law in Greater China with Privacy International (UK). She is coeditor of Privacy and Legal Issues in Cloud Computing (2015, with Rolf H. Weber), and the author of Self-Censorship and Freedom of the Press in Hong Kong (2002). Her articles have been published in the Harvard Journal of International Law (online), Computer Law and Security Review, International Data Privacy Law, and Journal of Media Law. Rogier Creemers is lecturer in the history and politics of China at Oxford University’s Department for Politics and International Relations and associate scholar at Oxford University’s Centre for Socio-Legal Studies and China Centre. His research primarily focuses on China’s Internet law and policy, particularly with reference to the interaction between technology, politics, and regulation. He is also interested in Chinese constitutional and legal theory. His work has appeared in The China Journal, European Intellectual Property Review, the Chinese Journal of Communications, as well as other journals and edited volumes. He also edits China Copyright and Media, an online resource database with translated Chinese legal, regulatory, and policy documents. Jacques deLisle is Stephen A. Cozen Professor of Law, professor of political science, deputy director of the Center for the Study of Contemporary China and codirector of the Center for Asian Law at the University of Pennsylvania, and director of the Asia Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. His scholarship addresses legal and legal-institutional reform in China, relationships among legal, economic, and political change in China, law’s

276

Contributors

roles in addressing crises in China, and China’s engagement with the international legal order. He is coeditor of China’s Challenges (2014, with Avery Goldstein), China under Hu Jintao (2005, with T. J. Cheng and Deborah Brown) and Political Changes in Taiwan under Ma Ying-jeou (2014, with Jean-Pierre Cabestan). His work has appeared in Orbis, American Journal of Comparative Law, and other journals of international affairs and law, and edited volumes. Avery Goldstein is David M. Knott Professor of Global Politics and International Relations, director of the Center for the Study of Contemporary China, and associate director of the Christopher H. Browne Center for International Politics at the University of Pennsylvania. Goldstein’s research focuses on international relations, security studies, and Chinese politics. His books include Rising to the Challenge: China’s Grand Strategy and International Security (2005), China’s Challenges (2014, coedited with Jacques deLisle), and The Nexus of Economics, Security, and International Relations in East Asia (2012, coedited with Edward  D. Mansfield). His articles have appeared in International Security, Foreign Affairs, International Organization, Journal of Strategic Studies, China Quarterly, Asian Survey, Comparative Politics, Orbis, Security Studies, and other journals. Peter Gries is Harold J. and Ruth Newman Chair and director of the Institute for U.S.-China Issues, and professor of International Studies at the University of Oklahoma. He is author of The Politics of American Foreign Policy: How Ideology Divides Liberals and Conservatives over Foreign Affairs (2014), China’s New Nationalism: Pride, Politics, and Diplomacy (2004), and dozens of academic journal articles and book chapters. He is also coeditor (with Stanley Rosen) of Chinese Politics (2010) and State and Society in 21st Century China (2004). Gries studies the political psychology of international affairs, with a focus on Chinese and American foreign policy. Min Jiang is associate professor of Communication at University of North Carolina Charlotte and an affi liate researcher at the Center for Global Communication Studies, University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses on Chinese Internet technologies, politics, and policies. Her work has appeared in Journal of Communication, New Media & Society, Social Science Computer Review, Policy & Internet, Electronic Journal of Communication, among others. She is the editor of two special journal issues on the Chinese Internet for

Contributors

277

International Journal of Communication and Policy & Internet and is writing a book tentatively titled China vs. Information. Prior to pursuing her doctor’s degree in the US, she had worked at China Central Television (CCTV) and Kill Bill I in China. Dalei Jie is assistant professor at the School of International Studies of Peking University. Jie’s research focuses on international security issues in general and cross-Taiwan Strait relations, U.S.-China relations, and East Asia international relations in particular. His articles have appeared in Asian Security, Journal of International Studies (in Chinese), and American Studies Quarterly (in Chinese). Ya-Wen Lei is junior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows. Her dissertation won the 2014 American Sociological Association Dissertation Award. Her primary research interests are in political sociology, law and society, economic sociology, political communication, and Chinese studies. She will begin her appointment as assistant professor in Harvard’s Department of Sociology in July 2016. James Reilly is senior lecturer in the Department of Government and International Relations at the University of Sydney. He is the author of Strong Society, Smart State: The Rise of Public Opinion in China’s Japan Policy (2012), and the coeditor of Australia and China at 40 (2012). His articles have appeared in Asian Survey, China Quarterly, China: An International Journal, Chinese Journal of International Politics, Japanese Journal of Political Science, Journal of Contemporary China, Modern Asian Studies, Survival, and Washington Quarterly. He served as the East Asia Representative of the American Friends Ser vice Committee (AFSC) in China from 2001–8. Zengzhi Shi is professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, Peking University, where she directs the Center for Public Communication and Social Development. As cofounder and chairperson of Peace China Fund, she launched the annual Peace China Public Communication Award in 2013. Her research areas include media sociology, media culture and the public sphere, and civil society. She is the author of New Media Empowerment and the Rise of the Internet of Meanings and editor of New Media Empowerment: The Co-evolution between State and Society in China.

278

Contributors

Derek Steiger is a PhD candidate in political science at the University of Oklahoma. His scholarship addresses international security, with a focus on the relationship between China’s domestic politics and its foreign policies. His dissertation explores the domestic drivers of China’s Japan policy during the 2012–13 Diaoyu/Senkaku Island dispute. Marina Svensson is professor of modern China studies, Centre for East and South-East Asian Studies at Lund University. Professor Svensson’s research focuses on human rights, legal issues, cultural heritage debates and practices, documentary film, and media and communication studies. Her publications include Debating Human Rights in China: A Conceptual and Political History (2002), and coedited books: The Chinese Human Rights Reader (coedited with Stephen Angle 2001), Gender Equality, Citizenship and Human Rights: Controversies and Challenges in China and the Nordic Countries (coedited with Pauline Stoltz, Sun Zhongxin, and Qi Wang, 2010), Making Law Work: Chinese Laws in Context (coedited with Mattias Burell, 2011), and Chinese Investigative Journalists’ Dreams: Agency, Autonomy, and Voice (coedited with Elin Sæther and Zhi’an Zhang, 2013). Wang Tao is a PhD student in the Department of Political Science at the University of Oklahoma. His research interests are at the intersection between political theory and comparative politics, with an area focus on China. Currently his research concentrates on Chinese nationalism, Confucianism and modernity, and state-ethnic group relations. Guobin Yang is associate professor of Communication and Sociology at the Annenberg School for Communication and the Department of Sociology, University of Pennsylvania. He is the author of The Power of the Internet in China: Citizen Activism Online (2009) and The Red Guard Generation and Political Activism in China (2016). He is the editor of China’s Contested Internet (2015) and coeditor (with Ching-Kwan Lee) of Re-Envisioning the Chinese Revolution: The Politics and Poetics of Collective Memories in Reform China (2007). He is also the coeditor (with Zhongdang Pan) of the new SAGE quarterly journal, Communication and the Public. Chuanjie Zhang is associate professor in the Department of International Relations and director of the doctoral program of Developing Country Studies at Tsinghua University. He is also Resident Scholar at the Carnegie-Tsinghua

Contributors

279

Center for Global Policy, where he leads a program focusing on the impact of Chinese public opinion on China’s foreign policy. His research interests include international relations theory, foreign policy attitudes analysis, and US-China relations. Daniel Xiaodan Zhou is principal consultant at Knowsun LLC and a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Michigan School of Information. Daniel Xiaodan Zhou received his PhD in computational politics, specialized in applying advanced computational techniques in the studies of social and political phenomena in the US and China. He is now a consultant and entrepreneur in the areas of machine learning and data science.

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INDEX

activism, 10, 12, 28, 53; “clicktivism,” 8, 49, 50, 52, 53, 57–60, 62, 66; online activism, 5, 13, 17, 30–38, 41, 45, 48, 59; real-time activism, 7, 28; real-world activism organized online, 50, 60–62, 69; “slacktivism,” 8, 31, 49, 50, 52, 53, 59. See also political reform movements in China Air Defense Indentification Zone (ADIZ), 172, 177 Ai Weiwei, 36, 40, 55, 65 Annan, Kofi, 158 Anderson, Benedict, 74 Anti-Bourgeois Liberalization Campaign, 90 anti-rumor campaigns, 43 Arab Spring, 30, 52, 55, 60 Asian Barometer Survey of 2008, 108, 111, 122–26 Baidu, 6, 11, 22, 29, 38, 173 Beijing University. See Peking University Belgrade Embassy bombing of 1999, 163–65, 172 “Big Vs.” See online celebrities Bo Xilai, 13, 97, 104, 145, 206 Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, 90, 93, 101, 102, 104, 133 Chengdu, 82, 170 Chen Guangcheng, 11–12, 34, 35, 65–66 Chen Yongzhou, 44 China Central Television (CCTV), 42, 71, 140, 141, 154; anchors’ criticism of national policy, 33, 38; censorship of, 44, 68; coverage of Wenchuan earthquake, 82 China Daily, 43, 184 China Internet Network Information Society (CNNIC), 137

Chinese Communist Party (CCP), 37, 56, 129, 133, 162–69, 175–78, 217; alliance with GMD, 88; control of information by, 9, 20–24, 89, 114, 115, 202, 209; court system, 130–49; opening to world markets, 29 Chongqing “nail house,” 12 civic associations, 8 civic engagement, 49–70 Civil Servant Law of 2005, 136 civil society, 5, 8, 27–31, 41, 45–48, 62, 69, 78; effect of new media on, 1, 3, 50, 56, 57; organizations of, 12; study of, 72. See also “coevolution”; “uncivil society” “clicktivism.” See activism “coevolution” (of the Internet and civil society), 3, 5, 28–48 “Critical Illness Insurance Program,” 78. See also Deng Fei. Cultural Revolution, 39, 40, 89, 90, 97. See also Mao Zedong; Tiananmen Dadaism, 35 Dazibao (large character poster), 88, 89, 90, 97, 103 Deng Fei, 62–64, 78 Deng Xiaoping, 25, 90, 206 Deng Yujiao, 12, 133, 140, 141 Diaoyu Islands. See East China Sea Islands “digital divide,” 2, 25, 198 dissidence, 5, 10, 57 doctrine of contradictions, 89 Document Number 9, 102 East China Sea Islands, 24, 153, 161–78 Electronic Bulletin Boards (BBS), 80, 92, 208 environmental concerns, 57, 62, 75; air- quality in urban China, 6

282

Index

Facebook, 22, 43, 49–52 Falun Gong, 95 Fang Zhouzi, 39–40 fi ft y-cent party, 2, 38, 40, 155 Flickr, 54 Four Great Freedoms, 89 free lunch program, 63, 66, 78. See also Deng Fei Gang of Four, 90 Gao Zhisheng, 11 Geertz, Clifford, 74 General Administration of Press and Publication (GAPP), 100 Ghana, 190–92, 198 Global Times (newspaper), 44, 103, 182, 184, 194, 195 Google, 26, 173; Google China, 37; support of Chen Guangcheng, 34 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 10. See also Soviet Union “Great Firewall,” 21, 26, 88 Green Peace China, 61 Guomindang Party (GMD), 88 Hainan spy plane incident of 2001, 163–65 Hangzhou Drag Racing Case of 2009, 141, 142 Han Han, 39–40 Harmony Express, 33 He Weifang, 103 Hong Kong, 39, 161, 167, 169: basic law of, 10; Chinese relations with, 22 Hukou system, 43 “ human flesh search engine,” 97 human trafficking, 12, 37, 62, 64, 83–84, 139 Hundred Days’ Reform of 1898, 87 Hu Yaobang, 90 “ imagined community” (“ imagined micro community,” “micro community”), 74–75, 80, 83 Indonesia, 180, 185 information and communication technologies (ICTs), 49–52 Instagram, 54 Internet cafés, 1, 92 Internet ser vice providers (ISPs), 92; regulation of, 15, 31, 42, 138

Internet Society of China (ISC), 94 “inverse surveillance.” See sousveillance Ishihara, Shintaro, 161, 162, 163, 169 Japan, 20, 24, 162, 189, 217; anti-Japanese sentiment in China, 160–63, 207; Japanese embassy in Beijing, 162; Japa nese membership in the United Nations Security Council, 150–60 Jiang Zemin, 133 law publications: Legal System Daily, 9 Lee, Kai-Fu, 37, 38 “legalistic legitimation strategy,” 106–8, 117, 125, 128 liberalism, 11, 27, 40, 46, 201, 203–5, 208, 213 liberalization, 2–5, 106 Li Keqiang, 184 Liu Junning, 11 Li XX (Li Tianyi) case of 2013, 144–46 Li Yizhe (pseudonym), 90 Li Zhuang, 13 Lu Wei, 98, 102 Malaysian Airlines (fl ight disappearance of 2014), 190, 195–98 Macau: China’s relations with, 22 Mao Zedong, 17, 19, 88, 89, 95, 162, 177–78, 205–7; Maoism, 39, 110; opposition to, 9; post-Mao era, 11, 29 Marshall, T. H., 75, 76 Mei Xinyu, 185. See also Ministry of Commerce melamine poisoning scandal. See Sanlu Group microblogging, 1–9, 19, 29, 36, 37, 83, 208–21; censorship of, 32, 41, 42, 103; human trafficking (prevention of), 83, 84; legal difficulties of microbloggers, 18, 129–49; mode of netizen expression, 26, 49, 61, 173, 176. See also Facebook; Twitter; weixin Microblog Provisions (Beijing Municipal Provisions for Microblog Development and Management), 41 microblogging ser vice providers (MSPs), 42, 138 Ming dynasty, 167 Ministry of Commerce, 185

Index Ministry of Culture, 100 Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA), 175, 182, 188, 192, 194, 195 Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), 98, 101 Ministry of Information Industry (MII), 93, 98, 101 Ministry of National Defense, 175 Ministry of Railways, 33 MMS. See text messaging Mukden Incident of 1931, 162 National People’s Congress (NPC), 95, 99, 136, 186, 187; Decision on Strengthening Internet Information Protection of 2012, 42, 99 National Security Commission, 23 National Security Law of 2015, 15, 23, 27 NetEase, 62, 72 “netizens,” 2–7, 11–13, 16, 19, 21, 24–26; and Diaoyu Islands controversy, 169–70; and legal disputes, 129–149; in online activism, 31, 34, 39, 44–47; participation via text messaging, 180–99; perspective on North Korea, 200–222; in state-society relations, 75, 79, 83, 84 “new media,” 71–85, 154, 200–222. NGO (nongovernmental organization), 5, 8, 47, 51, 54, 56–61, 64–66, 71–73, 82 NIMBY movements, 57, 69 North Korea (DPRK), 20, 25, 192–95, 200–222 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, 216 Occupy Wall Street, 34, 52, 53 Office of Public Opinion Watch (OPOW), 129–49 Okinawa, 167 online celebrities (“Big Vs”), 7, 11, 14, 31, 36–38, 43, 44, 70, 102, 103. See also Gao Zhisheng; Yao Chen; Lee, Kai-Fu “online political jamming,” 7, 28, 31, 33–34, 64 “Patriotic Education” campaign, 163 “Peace China” Charity Fund for Public Communication, 9 “peaceful development,” 178 Peking University, 32, 39, 40, 72, 85, 180, 185

283

People’s Daily (newspaper), 99, 103, 130, 143, 145, 168, 169, 171, 172; coverage of South China Tiger Scandal, 109, 111, 118 People’s Liberation Army (PLA), 144, 162, 165–66, 168–79, 188 political reform movements in China: Charter ’08, 11 (see also Liu Xiaobo); Democracy Wall activism, 10 (see also Wei Jingsheng); New Citizens’ movement, 11; Open Constitution Initiative, 11. See also Tiananmen procuracy: Supreme People’s Procuratorate, 100; Procuratorail authorities, 100 “public intellectual,” 39–41 “public opinion supervision,” 129–49 Putin, Vladimir, 197 Qing dynasty, 16, 170 Reagan, Ronald, 29 real name registration policies, 14–15, 28, 41–43, 45 Red Cross, 56, 71, 188 reform era, 17, 91, 106, 219; founding moment of (Th ird Plenum of the Eleventh Central Committee), 9, 202 Regional Assistance Mission to the Solomon Islands (RAMSI), 181 rights protection lawyers (weiquan lushi), 11 rule of law, 15, 18, 19, 46, 106, 127, 128, 214; development of, 4, 9; popu lar advocacy for, 11, 13; in South China Tiger scandal, 117–19 Russia, 197 Sanlu Group, 6, 13, 113, 118, 120, 128 SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), 11, 113 search engine, 6, 22; MSN China fraud, 40. See also Google; Baidu “self-redemption,” 8, 80–81 Senkaku Islands. See East China Sea Islands Shaanxi Forestry Bureau, 109, 112–14, 117 Sichuan earthquake of 2008, 36 “slacktivism.” See activism SMS. See text messaging Solomon Islands, 180–81, 187, 189 sousveillance, 50, 53, 55, 56, 68, 69

284

Index

South China Tiger scandal, 17–18, 108–19, 122–25, 128 South Korea, 177; real name registration policy of, 42 Soviet Union, 10 State Administration of Radio Film and Television (SARFT), 92, 93, 98 State Council Information Office, 93, 98 State Internet Information Office (SIIO), 44, 98, 102 Supreme People’s Court (SPC), 96, 100 Taiwan, 20, 22, 114, 120, 122, 126, 167, 180, 189 Tang Hui, 12 Tencent, 29, 37, 56, 63, 97, 99, 168–69; CEO of, 42 text messaging, 1, 11, 180–99, 208 Tiananmen, 10, 19, 26, 36, 163 Tianya, 131 Tianya Forum, 106–28 Tohti, Ilham, 12. See also Uighurs Twitter, 1, 22, 26, 49, 52, 65, 74; posts by U.S. Embassy in Beijing, 6 Uighurs, 12, 23 “uncivil society,” 4, 5, 7, 28, 31, 38, 45–49 United Nations, 171; G-4 Plan, 159; United Nations General Assembly, 158, 159; United Nations Security Council (UNSC), 152, 157–60 United States, 90, 120, 163–67, 172, 205; in Beijing, 6, 34, 162; Chinese policy toward, 20, 21, 165, 200; embassy in Indonesia, 180; laws of, 18, 114, 115, 126; participation in the United Nations, 159; White House, 36. See also Reagan, Ronald Vietnam War, 164, 203 virtual private networks (VPNs), 26 visas, 22 Wang Shuai Defamation Case of 2009, 142, 143 Wang Yi, 188. See also Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Wang Yizhou, 185. See also Peking University WeChat. See weixin Wei Jingsheng, 10. See also political reform movements in China weixin, 1, 3, 54, 103, 191, 202, 208, 221; competition with other social media platforms, 22, 26, 37, 54; public user accounts, 70; Wenchuan earthquake (citizen commentary on), 71–80 Wenchuan earthquake of 2008, 13, 56, 71, 73, 81, 113 Wenzhou train collision of 2011, 32 “witnessing publics,” 54, 62, 68 WTO (World Trade Organization): Chinese membership in, 10 Wu Fatian (Wu Danhong), 39–40. See also Peking University; fi ft y-cent party; “public intellectuals” Wumaodang. See fi ft y-cent party Xi’an Car Accident Case of 2011, 143–44 Xiao Yang, 136 Xi Jinping, 17, 23, 26, 87, 102, 104, 187, 196, 202 Xiyang group, 192, 193, 198 Xue, Charles, 37, 44, 84 Yang Jia, 12, 117, 118 Yao Chen, 37 Yao Jiaxin, 143, 144 Yirenping, 12. See also civil society Youku, 22. See also civil society YouTube, 22 Yue Gang, 185. See also PLA Yue, Luping, 81 Zhang Miao, 143, 144 Zhang Xiaolin, 170 Zhao Ziyang, 133 Zhou Zhenglong, 109–26. See also South China Tiger scandal Zhou Huaxin, 103 Zoomlion, 44

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

For their comments and suggestions on the chapters in this book, we thank Amy Gadsden, Sharon Hom, Marwan Kraidy, Ming Lei, Peifeng Liu, Rebecca Mackinnon, Dong Wang, Sixin Wang, Xixin Wang, Yuhua Wang, Jessica Chen Weiss, and Tianpan Zhang. We also thank Zengzhi Shi and the School of Journalism and Communication at Peking University for co-organizing a public session on some of the themes in this book and with the participation of several of the contributors. We are also grateful to the anonymous reviewer whose advice helped improve the manuscript, to Peter Agree and Amanda Ruffner at the University of Pennsylvania Press who facilitated the preparation of this volume, and to Emily deLisle for preparing the index. This project would not have been possible without the financial support of the Center for the Study of Contemporary China provided by the University of Pennsylvania’s provost as well as Penn’s School of Arts and Sciences, Law School, Annenberg School for Communication, and Wharton School. Encouragement and supplemental financial support for this project were provided by the office of Penn’s Vice Provost for Global Initiatives, Ezekiel Emanuel. Jamie Fisher provided logistical assistance. Finally, we are grateful to Dr.  Yuanyuan Zeng, the Associate Director of the Center for the Study of Contemporary China, whose distinctive combination of substantive expertise and administrative skills are vital to the success of the Center’s program of which this book is a part.