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ISSN: 1030-4312 (Print) 1469-3666 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/ccon20
The management of China's blogosphere boke(blog)
Kay Hearn
To cite this article: Kay Hearn (2009) The management of China's blogosphere boke (blog),Continuum, 23:6, 887-901
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10304310903294770
Published online: 09 Dec 2009.
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The management of China’s blogosphere boke (blog)
Kay Hearn*
School of Communications and Art, Edith Cowan University, Perth, Australia
When you open the window, some flies may come in.( ) Deng Xiaoping on the Open Door Policy.
Blogs or weblogs are online journals that are regularly updated, and cover thousands oftopics. In a way blogs represent the free speech philosophy of the early days of theInternet in that they allow users to distribute opinion on an enormous variety of topics,and in some countries relatively uncensored opinion, though potentially they can bemonitored everywhere. The blogosphere creates a new space in which public discoursecan be expanded and viewed. Indeed, my research for this paper relied heavily on anexcellent blog called EastSouthNorthWest, where a variety of articles from China’smedia are translated and posted, with some comment and analysis. During the Burmaprotests in September 2007 blogs were one of the few sources of information about theunrest not directly controlled by the Junta. Reporters without Borders claim on theirwebsite that ‘Bloggers are often the only real journalists in countries where themainstream media is censored or under pressure’ (‘Handbook for bloggers and cyber-dissidents’). However, in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) the emergence of blogsand the development of the Internet in general have been used to reinforce the centralauthority of the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
Authoritarian regimes are often cast by the Western media as under threat from the
Internet and more recently blogs have been hailed as the final nail in the coffin of the CCP,
though so far this has not happened. This paper will look at the regulations and the
promotion of self-censorship to manage China’s blogosphere. The strategies used to
maintain the blogosphere are the same as those employed to manage the flow of
information and the circulation of ideas on the Internet, and that is through the
development of content, regulation and the code and architecture itself as means of
filtering and censoring information. Laurence Lessig (2006) argues that ‘code is law’.
By this Lessig means that the code used to build the architecture of the Internet is used to
regulate behaviour. A simple example of this is the use of passwords to access email
accounts and log onto networks. In the case of China, increasingly, censorship and self-
censorship are built into the Internet itself. This paper also looks at the way in which
centre–margin relations have been played out in relation to the development and
management of blogs and how the strategies of content development, legislation and code
are used to maintain the CCP’s influence over the management of temporal and spatial
relationships.
ISSN 1030-4312 print/ISSN 1469-3666 online
q 2009 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/10304310903294770
http://www.informaworld.com
*Email: kayhearn@iprimus.com
Continuum: Journal of Media & Cultural Studies
Vol. 23, No. 6, December 2009, 887–901
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The theoretical framework used here for thinking about centre–margin relationships is
medium theory and in particular the work of Harold Innis. Innis (1951, 1952, 1972) was
interested in the interaction between temporal and spatial relationships and the way in
which these were maintained via different modes of communication. The use of this
theoretical framework allows for an analysis of the negotiation of centre–margin
relationships that are played out to some extent via the media and avoids the deterministic
view – namely that the Internet will deliver democracy to China – that has permeated the
debate on the impact of the technology by politicians and pundits. The development of the
Internet has impacted on the relationship between Beijing and the provinces. The policy
implementation environment in the PRC is subject to the negotiation of centre–margin
relationships. David S. Goodman (Goodman and Segal 1994, 13) points out that ‘The
centre lays down the broad outline of a policy, with the provinces adopting specific local
measures for implementation.’ This has given rise to a political culture that is increasingly
marked by regionalism. The development of the Internet has to some extent challenged
this emergence of regionalism and has reinforced the position of the central government in
Beijing as the centre. The Internet has served to some extent as a window on the activities
of provincial governments at the margins and blogs have played a role in this. In addition,
the Internet is increasingly viewed as a window on public opinion and blogs form part of
this view. The opening of this window on public opinion has allowed the articulation and
visualization of other groups and interests that occupy marginal spaces in relation to the
government and the CCP at the centre. However, it should be noted that most of the views
expressed on the Chinese Internet are there because the regime has allowed it. For
example, during the unrest in Tibet in 2008 and the unrest in Xinjiang in 2009 any views
that supported Tibetans or Uyghurs were quickly deleted.
The state of the blogosphere
At the end of 2006, Xinhua reported that there were 20.8 million bloggers in China and of
those, 3.15 million were said to be ‘active authors’ (‘China has 20.8 million bloggers’
2007). The July 2007 China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC) report said
that of ‘the 137 million Internet users across China 19.1% of those had blogs’. The most
popular are those written by celebrities (‘Chinese bloggers to reach 100 million in 2007’
2006). Most are based on individuals and very few are based on news. At the end of 2007,
CNNIC released the findings of a survey on bloggers, which estimated 72.82 million.
In January 2009 CNNIC (2009) claimed that there were 167 million bloggers in China.
In 2007 the website 163.com, and its search engine youdao.com, looked at data from
millions of blog entries and concluded that the most popular topics on blogs in the first half
of the year was Mother’s day, followed by the television program Super Boys. Other topics
in the top 10 list included April Fool’s Day, the Qing Ming Festival, the Dragon Boat
Festival and Father’s Day (‘Hottest Topics in Chinese Blogs 2007’ 2007). CNNIC’s 2007
report said that ‘In terms of major content the blogs covered, 47% of the blogs are written
about the inner monologues or record of emotions of the writers. Next are the narration of
daily life, personal interests and hobbies. Most of the blogs are for the writers to record
their own life status and conduct self demonstration, with the blogs having a more and
more obvious tendency of self-media attributes’ (CNNIC 2007). Though these figures are
not accurate, because bloggers come and go, it still gives a rough idea of the magnitude of
the Chinese blogosphere.
The attempts to manage blogs are the same as with other areas of the Internet, that is
through legislation the management of the code used in the creation of the architecture of
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the Internet and the development of content in order to promote self-censorship through
these mechanisms. The difference with blogs and other forms of content is that there has
been less direct investment in blogs by the government to develop content, as is the case in
the news and games sector of the internet. Instead, blogs have also been used as a forum for
public feedback.
Promotion tinged with fear
Blogging has not been embraced by the government in the same way that other sectors of
the Internet have been. The use of blogs by party members to promote CCP-sanctioned
views has been encouraged, but there has not been a high level of investment in blogs, nor
has there has been a high level of official content development by the CCP. This lies in
stark contrast to other sectors of the Internet such as news and the gaming sector where
there has been a high level of investment of government sponsorship. It is difficult to find
information at this stage that might shed some light on the number of CCP member blogs
as there are no official figures on this. Blogs are seen as another avenue in which
government and party officials can communicate with citizens, however the CCP prefers
the use of websites to promote government policy. There were reports on the use of blogs
by delegates and journalists at the National People’s Congress in March 2006, and even
the suggestion that Premier Wen Jiabao should set up a blog (Qing 2006, n.p.). There are
also reports of government-sponsored Internet commentators whose job it is to promote
the government’s views in blogs.
According to the China Daily ‘in Suqian, a mid-sized city in East China’s Jiangsu
Province, 81 middle and high-ranking officials in the municipal government have opened
blogs on the government website (http://blog.suqian.gov.cn/)’ (Wang 2007, n.p.). The
China Daily said the highest-ranking official to write a blog is Zhao Qizheng, former
director of the State Council Information Office, who at the time of writing was the
President of the Journalism School of Renmin University in Beijing. In August 2007 he
launched his blog ‘Zhao Qizheng and his books’ where he has uploaded several chapters of
his latest work ‘In the One World – 101’ (sic) Tips on How to Communicate with
Foreigners’ (Wang 2007, n.p.).
The reports in the government press on blogs and stories that are linked to blogs are
often used to promote a party line or policy such as the story ‘Govt bloggers followers only
a clique away’ in the China Daily in August 2007. The story outlines some of the uses to
which government officials have put their blogs and promotes these blogs as a way for
officials to get in touch with the public, a forum for public feedback. This practice is
viewed as a form of democracy by the CCP. The article quotes Xie Chuntao, professor at
the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in Beijing as
saying that ‘it is a good thing that officials opened blogs and strengthen their
communication with the ordinary citizens’ (Wang 2007, n.p.). The China Daily article
featured contrasting stories of public feedback on official blogs, one that sees feedback in a
traditional form – a form in which citizens publicly pledge subordination. In another the
blog was used to promote an issue and gather feedback. At the same time the report
finished with the idea that blogs should be secondary to the use of websites as a means of
getting in touch with the people.
Within the report was a story on the pledges of subordination that occurred in response
to the blog of Jiangsu Communist Party secretary Zhang Xinshi, who was said to have
written on a variety of topics including climate change and education. The report said that
‘Zhang hopes that those who are in charge at the different government organs can also
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have blogs so that they can express their ideas, attract people’s discussions and build an
efficient channel of communication between officials and ordinary citizens’ (Wang 2007,
n.p.). Most of the blogs that I have looked at have a feature for readers to post comments.
The example of feedback that the article gave on the pledge of subordination involved a
posting by Zhang on ‘civilized behaviour’. This posting prompted the local Suqian Daily
to run a column about the topic, and this was followed up by more than 100,000 pupils and
high school students distributing pamphlets on civilized behaviour in the streets (n.p.). The
China Daily lamented that ‘almost each of Zhang’s online articles was read more than 400
times, but there have been few posted responses from the public. When a comment was
made, it often turned out to be a pledge of a subordinate to implement the Party secretary’s
ideas, not public feedback’ (n.p.).
In contrast to public participation based on subordination was a story that featured
more meaningful feedback. This was feedback generated by the blog of Liao Xinbo,
deputy director of the provincial health bureau of South China’s Guangdong Province. The
report said that Liao’s is the most popular blog run by an official (Wang 2007, n.p.). Liao
launched his blog in April 2007 and it is the sixth most popular blog in Guangdong
Province (n.p.). The story hailed Liao’s blog, and the way in which he has used it to bolster
and garner public opinion is hailed as an example of democracy in action. The China Daily
report says ‘Liao’s blog, with its inspiring discussions, provides a prime example of a form
of ‘direct democracy’ (n.p.).
Liao, or as he calls himself Doctor Brother Bozi, writes on health issues and has
promoted the idea of contracts for doctors. He reminds readers that doctors are meant to
‘serve the people’. The China Daily report said that ‘Liao also argued in his blog that
health services were not a commodity that should be “bought” by patients, a key point that
health providers need to serve the public, instead of trying to rake in money’ (Wang 2007,
n.p.). The posting that kicked off this rather staged debate occurred when Liao ‘posted an
article by an anonymous doctor which blamed China’s apparent failure on medical reform
over the last 30 years on the lack of fair pay for doctors’ (n.p.).
Liao sought feedback on his blog. He said ‘I have never studied laws and cannot give
any comments. I wish my friends who are interested to give their ideas’ (n.p.). People who
agreed with Liao urged him to lobby his allies at the Provincial People’s Congress – the
legislative body – to draft a law especially for medical contracts. There was even a
drafting, by a netizen, for a medical contract law posted on the blog. The China Daily said
that ‘whether or not the fact the netizens’ law proposals were right or wrong, their
interaction with this sort of blogging demonstrates how ordinary people can debate the
merits of such proposals’ (n.p.).
The final part of the article seems to advocate the use of official websites as a platform
for the dissemination of information and public feedback, and features comment from Mao
Shoulong, a political scientist from Renmin University. In 2006 Mao said in a commentary
in the People’s Daily that ‘by further exploring the communication possibilities of blogs,
officials may better win the citizens’ trust if there is successful communication between
the two sides’ (Wang 2007, n.p.). The quote was reprinted in the China Daily in August
2007 in an article extolling the virtues of blogs. The report went on to quote Mao Shoulong
as saying
actually, if we want the government to get nearer to the ordinary citizens, we can make moreefforts on improving our democratic system instead of using the highly personalized blogs.At the current stage, we can improve the government websites that widely exist, and makethem work better in publicizing policies and communicating with netizens. This is a moreconstructive choice. (n.p.)
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What the article reveals in a limited way is the debate about the role that blogs should play
in the government’s overall e-governance construction of the Internet, and gives a glimpse
of what the CCP notion of democracy could and should look like. The article is also
illustrative of the centre–margin relationship on the development of policy in this area as
they are played out in the media. The leadership of the CCP is the centre of these
relationships, and local and provincial party members are placed in the margins. In these
examples it is possible to view via the reporting of the examples and the sources of the
articles an interaction between the centre and the margins. Activity in the margins has
often been used for experimentation of policy initiatives and the Liao case may serve as an
example of the role official blogs may have in serving future government policy formation
and dissemination.1
Regulations
The main feature of the regulations that relate to blogging is the promotion of self-
censorship. Thus ultimate responsibility for what is posted lies with blog service providers
(BSPs). Bloggers are subject to the existing laws governing the Internet, as well as being
subject to attempts to further tighten management through the introduction of a ‘code of
conduct for bloggers’. The code and the pledge are vague in detail; for example, item 5
says ‘blog service should obey Chinese laws and regulations, protect the legal rights of
blog users and the public’ (MacKinnon 2007a, n.p.). Item 10 says that ‘if a blogger doesn’t
adhere to the terms, the service provider has a right to delete any illegal or bad
information, or terminate the blogger’s service’ (n.p.). Making BSPs responsible for what
is posted is the simplest way to block undesirable content.
In August 2007 the ‘self-discipline code for blog services’ was drawn up by the
Internet Society of China (ISC) (‘China’s main blog service providers subscribe to self-
discipline code’ 2007). The code had input from bloggers, blog providers and lawyers, and
encouraged the use of real-name registration. When the pledge was originally announced
there was a call for the compulsory registration of real names of users, but this was met
with fierce opposition. The People’s Daily online said that ‘real-name registration is only
to be “encouraged” instead of being made compulsory, originally the intention of the
government until it met with fierce opposition. Blog service providers are required to
ensure security and confidentiality of information that bloggers prefer to keep secret,
according to the code’ (‘China’s main blog service providers subscribe to self-discipline
code’ 2007). Ten major blog providers have signed the code, including MSN China,
Yahoo! China, Sina, Sohu and cn.MSN.com, Tianya and the People’s Daily. Huang
Chengqing, secretary general of the ISC said ‘conditions are not yet mature for
implementing real-name registration as we lack reliable technology for privacy protection
and identity verification’ (‘China’s main blog service providers subscribe to self-discipline
code’ 2007).
All of this suggests that there appeared to be some level of debate over real-name
registration of bloggers. The level of debate, the open reporting of the debate and what
appears to be a win for bloggers with the watered-down registration program is suggestive
of the emergence of a wider level of public discourse and a relaxing of political authority,
rather than the emergence of blogs themselves. What the government has allowed in the
way of debate has been incorporated and absorbed into the existing management strategies
for public opinion.
The debate about real-name registration is also evidence of centre–margin
negotiations of power, with the authorities’ demands for real-name registration at the
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centre and opposing bloggers at the margins. In this sense the creation of China’s
blogosphere is also the creation of a new space in which centre–margin relationships can
be viewed and played out. Despite the introduction of real-name registration there is still
the potential for those who are determined to remain anonymous to do so, provided they
have the technological skills; Bullitin Board System (BBS), however, are a much more
viable option for remaining unidentified (MacKinnon 2007b, n.p.).
A nail house in Chongqing and the birth of citizen journalism
The examination of centre–margin relationships highlights the tensions and the shifts that
occur as these relationships are played out. Centre–margin relationships are constantly
negotiated, and examining them reveals how things change over time. Centre–margin
relationships are constantly in a state of flux, and blogging has facilitated the emergence of
new margins to appear, but only because the government has allowed this. It is therefore
worth looking at the ways in which blogs have been used by marginal groups and how
centre–margin relationships are negotiated within the Chinese blogosphere.
There have been incidents that suggest that bloggers are able to challenge the
government in some ways. Ultimately, though, these challenges happen because the
government has allowed it, or more pointedly because it suits the government to allow it.
The case study presented here about a nail house in Chongqing and the reporting of
the story by bloggers was an incident that was to some extent stage managed by the
government. This particular story is one of the earliest examples of the emergence of the
use of blogs as a form of citizens’ journalism. The reporting of the incident spilled from
citizens’ blogs to the mainstream media. Blogging on the subject of the nail house and the
ensuing media coverage only occurred because the government allowed it, as the issue was
used to serve a broader political agenda.
A nail house ( ) is a privately owned home where the owner has refused to sell
out to property developers. Stories about nail houses spread across cyberspace in March
and April 2007. The most famous of these was in Chongqing in Sichuan Province where
the owners of a house refused to move and their home became an island in a 10 metre pit as
the development went on around them. The story of ‘The most awesome nail house in
Chongqing’ as it became known first broke on a blog and this sparked a wave of blog
coverage of this form of protest. This led to a number of citizens heading to the site of the
nail house and using mobile phones to capture images of its final demise, and they became
known as citizen reporters or journalists. Part of what sparked interest in the nail house
was the introduction of property laws that had been passed in mid-March 2007 during the
session of the National People’s Congress, laws that would not come into effect until
October of that year.
Images of the scene littered the Internet as the debate about the house and what should
be done became more intense. On the Tianya forum was a photo (see Figure 1) with the
following comment attached to it:
At the beginning of March, a photo called ‘the coolest nail house in history’ stirred up a lot ofdebate. Within the space of a few days, this photo was widely circulated and posted all overthe Internet, and a lot of media as well as the general populace were interested in the affair.This happened at the same time as the Property Law [was being discussed at the NPC], sopeople were even more curious about it. The final fate of ‘the coolest nail house in history’will be a famous monument to the progress of the Property Law. (Goldkorn 2007, n.p.)
The Danwei website said that ‘Tianya post has hundreds of comments representing many
different points of view about the Property Law, the evils of state- and privately-owned
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real estate development, and the rights of tenants’ (Goldkorn 2007, n.p.). The China Daily
said that ‘on China’s portal websites like Sina, 85 percent of those polled showed support
for the couple. China passed its landmark property law last month, highlighting the
protection of private property’ (‘“Nail house” in Chongqing demolished’ 2007).
On 28 March a young blogger from Hunan arrived in Chongqing to cover the story and
because of his efforts he became known as the first citizen reporter in China. Zhou
Shuguang ( ), who blogs under the name of Zuola, also became a story when he was
profiled in the Southern Metropolis Daily. John Kennedy has translated Zuola’s blog entry
on his initial report from ‘ground zero’, the site of the nail house. Zuola writes that:
As everyone knows, some reports of news like this which involves the government will surelynever be reported, and [online] stories will be deleted at the request of unknown ‘relevantdepartments’. There had been a Sina blog reporting 24 hours a day on the situation, but thatblog later disappeared. That’s why I realised this is a one-time chance, and so from far, faraway I came to Chongqing to conduct a thorough investigation, in an attempt to understand avariety of viewpoints . . . (Kennedy 2007b, n.p.)
The mainstream media picked up the incident after a local court ordered the house to be
demolished at midnight on 23 March. According to a post on EastSouthWestNorth, the
local and national media could not update the story as quickly as the bloggers (Chen 2007,
n.p.). There was live coverage on several forums and websites through blogs including
MOP, NetEase.com, KDnet, Tianya, MOP and Sina. Things heated up on the Internet and a
blogger who goes by the name of Naked Running Dog ( ) began broadcasting
directly through his mobile phone and sent video to an administrator at MOP (n.p.). On the
night of the demolition MOPHodpodge ran to live broadcast posts, and had received 7,000
or 8,000 comments (n.p.). Du Peiyuan, the leader of MOP Hodgepodge, said: ‘the
significance is about the future because this is where the trend is heading’ (n.p.) in
response to ‘the simultaneous appearance of so many large-scale live reports at the various
forums can be considered a milestone in the history of the development of the Internet in
China’ (n.p.).
EastSouthWestNorth said that in
Du Peiyan’s view, the ‘most awesome nail house’ was able to give birth to ‘citizenjournalism’ because it contained several major factors: the ‘Property Rights Law’ itself
Figure 1. The ‘nail house’, Chongqing.
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(which was brought out during the recently concluded National People’s Congress); thecoincidence between this ‘most awesome nail house in history’ and the ‘Property RightsLaw’; and the highly symbolic deadline (March 23 midnight) for the forced demolition alldrew heavy attention within the same period of time. (Chen 2007, n.p.)
On 29 March the China Youth Daily ran an editorial criticizing the nail house and the
bloggers who supported them (see Figure 2). The editorial, written by Lu Gaofeng
( ) (‘China Youth Daily editorial calls for greater professionalism in Chongqing
“nail house” reports’ 2007), said ‘some media have used (or abused) coverage of the “nail
house” in Chongqing to manufacture public sympathy for the “weak” in the pursuit of
bigger audiences’. In the editorial, Lu argues that while officials must face media scrutiny
‘pure-heartedly’, the media need to hold up their bargain, namely to ‘preserve impartiality
and cool-headedness, not gallery, not misleading the public’, and that ‘rational analysis’
has been insufficient in coverage of the ‘nail house’ story (‘China Youth Daily editorial
calls for greater professionalism in Chongqing “nail house” reports’ 2007).
A settlement was finally reached between the owner and the developer and the house
was demolished on 2 April, when the owners were given an apartment of a similar size.
The China Daily said that ‘experts believe that the outcry reflects a growing dissatisfaction
among common people about the way sites are commandeered and buildings demolished’
(‘“Nail house” in Chongqing demolished’ 2007).
The incident itself and the coverage of the story on blogs and BBSs illustrate a level of
debate about issues that government seems comfortable with. Dan Southerland of China
Brief said at the time that ‘the lenient treatment of Wu Ping may have helped the
government to make a propaganda point, namely that the government respects private
property, at least in certain cases. Yet, the ‘nail house’ case may also reveal that
downtrodden individuals in China are becoming more willing to challenge the system
Figure 2. Screen capture from China Youth Daily.
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through unconventional means (Southerland 2007, n.p.). However, the incident reveals
once again the ability to censor and delete postings that are deemed inappropriate and
means that the government is still able to silence debate if it has the will to do so.
On 24 March the Information Office of the State Council released a notice that said
there was to be ‘no more reporting and commenting on the “nail house” event. All news
related to this event must be pushed to the backend. All special feature pages are deleted.
All comments function on this news are closed’ (‘Chinese government forbids media
reporting of the “nailhouse” story’ 2007). Some Internet portals such as Sina, Sohu,
Netease and QQ had deleted all their special reports 15 minutes after the notice went out.
Blogs were not completely exempt. There are some reports that some blogs had been
deleted, though those established on Sina on 22 March had remained. The blog had
attracted 156,393 visitors, and 16,534 comments had been posted, though by 24 March the
comments page was locked and the comments could not be read (‘Chinese Government
Forbids Media Reporting of The “Nailhouse” Story’ 2007).
Zuola’s success in his coverage of the nail house made him something of a celebrity in
the Chinese blogosphere and fans urged him to cover other stories. Zuola is not without his
detractors and has been criticized for taking money to finance his travels to cover other
stories. He had also changed blog hosts to one outside of China because his Chinese blog
host was subject to censorship. In March he went to Xiamen and reported on an anti-
chemical-plant demonstration and in July he covered a pro-democracy rally in Hong
Kong.
In November 2007, at the Chinese Blogger Conference, Zuola announced his intention
to bring an end to his blogging and return to selling vegetables. His retirement was short
lived when a story about the plight of ant farmers in Shenyang in Liaoning Province hit the
headlines in November. The ant farmers took to the streets in protest when the Yilishen
Tainxi Group, makers of traditional herbal medicines, went bankrupt and failed to pay
dividends to thousands of people who had lost their life savings after investing in the
company or buying ant farming kits to produce ants for herbal medicines and aphrodisiacs.
The story of the ant farmers followed a familiar pattern. The story was broken and was
everywhere in the media and on the Internet; it was then deemed politically sensitive and
was heavily censored and the story then disappeared from the media. The state-owned
media subsequently released the official version, claiming that the riots or the protests
were caused by a few malcontents. In the ant farm scandal the state media laid the blame
for the protests on the company chairman, Wang Fengyou. Xinhua said that ‘thousands of
ant farmers had gathered at the company offices to demand their money, but Wang
allegedly paid 46 employees 1.03 million yuan (139,000 U.S. dollars) and company
executives 160,000 yuan and 30,000 U.S. dollars to organize protests outside government
buildings instead’ (‘Company chairman arrested for instigating social unrest’ 2007).
Reports on the Global Voices website suggested that bloggers were scrambling to save
video of the protests (Kennedy 2007a, n.p.). Rebecca MacKinnon tested several blogs and
blogsites following the crackdown on the story, including Tianya, and Sohu, and found
that she was unable to post information on the protests, and the word Yilishen was being
blocked on search engines (MacKinnon 2007c, n.p.). Zuola went to report on an ant farm
protest in Shenyang where he was detained and said to have been beaten and made to make
detailed reports on all the people that he met since his arrival in the city. Later he was put
on a plane and sent back to Changsha at his own cost and was instructed not to go too far
(n.p.).2
Zuola went on to report on a number of incidents in 2008, including the unrest in Tibet,
the Sichuan earthquake and riots in Guizhuo following the death of a young girl. He was
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picked up by police in August 2008 and managed to ‘tweet’, via a mobile phone, about his
incarceration.3 Zuola announced his intention to blog on the Beijing Olympics in June
2008 and was prevented from going to the capital, but once the games were over he was
able to travel to Beijing and resume blogging. In November 2008 Zuola was prevented
from travelling to Berlin where he was to take part in the judging of the Duetshe Welle
International Weblog Awards. At the time Zuola was labelled a ‘potential threat to state
security’ (MacKinnon 2008, n.p.). It appears that Zuola’s activities are tolerated when they
serve the interests of the government, as was the case in the nail house case.
In another incident in January 2008 Wei Wenhua, the general manager of a
construction firm, was hailed a brave ‘citizen reporter’ and a martyr by bloggers after he
was beaten to death by officials for trying to use his mobile phone to film a protest over the
dumping of rubbish (Barboza 2008, n.p.). The mainstream media also covered the story
and an investigation was launched into Wei’s death. The incident was seized upon by
Beijing to promote the rule of law and to clarify the limits to officials’ (chengguan )
power. Following the incident a meeting of 100 officials from across the country gathered
in the capital to condemn the individuals involved and to declare that they had ‘trampled
the law and violated human rights’ (‘Para-police officials condemn beating death of man in
Hubei,’ 2008). The chengguan, short for Chinese City Management Administration and
Implementation of Law ( ), are quasi-law-enforcement officials with a
wide range of responsibilities that focus mainly on keeping illegal vendors and sellers of
pirated goods off the streets, deterring beggars and turning away distributors of
commercial leaflets. The chengguan are not popular and in 2006/2007 there were a number
of reports across the nation suggesting that many were using standover tactics in order to
force vendors into paying protection money. Radio Free Asia suggested that there have
been other incidents involving violence perpetrated by chengguan in Hunan and Sichuan
(‘China: Who are the chengguan?’). Beijing used the incident to reassert their authority
over the margins, in this case the chengguan and those directly responsible for them, local
governments. The delegation of chengguan officials in Beijing was a staged event and a
visualization of the negotiation of centre–margin relationships, and in this instance the
subordination of the margins to the centre.
Regulating code
The blocking and banning of words and websites is the most common way that code is used
to manage the content of the Internet and this is also the case with the blogosphere.
According to Global Voices, a number of blog hosts have been blocked over the years.
In June 2005 it was reported by Rebecca MacKinnon and Asiapundit that all Typepad blogs
were being blocked, including access to MacKinnon’s blog. In March 2007 Livejournal,
Xanga, Blogsome and Technocrati were also blocked (‘Access denied map: Mapping Web
2.0 censorship’ 2007). The examples above also illustrate the ease with which code is used
to delete and block what is deemed undesirable in the Chinese blogosphere.
Blog hosts play an important role in the government’s strategy to manage
informational flows as this is the easiest point in the architecture to filter for words that are
deemed dangerous. Blog hosts, like all content providers, are co-opted into censoring on
behalf of the government through regulation, as discussed above. Rebecca MacKinnon
calls this the outsourcing of censorship (MacKinnon 2007b, n.p.). There are lists of banned
words that are used to monitor and filter what is posted online, and these lists are
maintained by private companies. Tennecent QQ was among the BSPs to sign the code of
conduct. In 2004 an inventory of banned words was discovered by Chinese hackers who
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located the list in a document in the installation package of QQ instant messaging
software. QQ is owned by Tenecent and the instant messaging software is the most popular
in China, with millions of users each day. According to the China Digital Times (CDT) it is
more difficult to filter words at the server end because of the high volume of traffic. It is for
this reason that Tenecent put the filtering program into the installation package. When the
software is installed on a computer, a program file called COMToolKit.ddl is
automatically included, and this is the file that contains the list of words that can be
automatically blocked (Qiang 2004, n.p.).
CDT ran the story and carried a detailed description of the list. The story noted that
Recently, some Chinese hackers located this file and released it on the Internet. The censoredkey words list is commonly used not just for QQ, but also for all websites, BBS and textmessaging services. One Internet user did a rough breakdown of the list: About 15 percent ofthe words are sex related, the rest are all related to politics. About 20 percent of the words areFalungong related, including ‘ ’ (master) and ‘ ’ (disciple); about 15 percent arenames of current officials and their relatives; about 10 percent are words used in the liberalpolitical discourse such as ‘democracy’, ‘freedom’, and ‘dictatorship’; and about 5 percent arerelated to certain nationalistic issues, such as ‘ ’ (defend Diaoyu Island), ‘ ’(Sino-Russian Border), ‘ ’ (selling out the country) etc. About 15 percent of the forbiddenwords are related to anti-corruption, such as ‘ ’ (smuggling), ‘ ’ (public funds); etc.Other censored words include names of dissidents, writers, and intellectuals, and names ofcertain foreign publications. (Qiang 2004, n.p.)
Microsoft
It seems that as many stories appear suggesting that the Internet in China is becoming
freer, just as many stories appear about crackdowns and the extent to which the Chinese
authorities are trying to ‘control’ the flow of information. In January 2006 it emerged that
Microsoft had blocked Zhao Jing’s (Michael Anti) blog because he criticized the
government for firing editors at a progressive Beijing newspaper (Chen and Fowler 2006,
n.p.). The Wall Street Journal said at the time that ‘efforts to access the site from inside
and outside China trigger a notice that “the space is temporarily unavailable”’ (Chen and
Fowler 2006, n.p.).
Waggener Edstrom, from one of Microsoft’s public relations agencies, said that the
blog ‘has been blocked to help ensure the service complies with local laws in China’ (Kirk
2006, n.p.). This line was again reiterated by Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve
Ballmer when he said: ‘we have an obligation in all the countries where we do business to
abide by the laws and the government decrees in those countries’. Ballmer said: ‘We do
here, what we do in Europe; we also do in places like China. And anybody can choose not
to do business in any country. We all have that option’ (Kirk 2006, n.p.).
Several Internet companies, including Yahoo! and Google, have used the line of
observing local law to justify their decisions, and have received harsh criticism in the West
for doing so. Yahoo! handed over information to the government which led directly to the
arrest and 10-year imprisonment of Shi Tao, a journalist who was ‘convicted for divulging
state secrets to foreigners after passing along an e-mail that contained a warning from the
Chinese government urging its officials to watch out for dissident activity ahead of the
15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre’ (Kirk 2006, n.p.). Google has also
come in for criticism for running a censored version of its search engine which filters out
information that the government does not want its citizens to see.
Microsoft later changed its policy following a public backlash in the United States to
the blocking of blogs in China. A statement made by Microsoft Senior Vice President and
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general counsel Brad Smith said that ‘Microsoft will remove access to content only in the
country issuing the order. When blog content is blocked due to restrictions based on local
laws, the rest of the world will continue to have access’ (‘Microsoft revises policy on
shutting blogs after China backlash’ 2006). Compliance with local laws is often the
justification used by multinational companies when they are criticized for the blocking of
information or, as in the case of Yahoo!, for giving the names of people who post sensitive
information.
The reporting and blocking of Zhao Jing’s blog and the position and subsequent
backdown by Microsoft make visible the negotiation between centres and margins. In this
instance the CCP and the Beijing government acts as a centre of power and authority and
Zhao Jing acts at the margins. There is also a negotiation between Beijing as a centre and
Microsoft at the margins, as well as foreign affairs being played out as centre-margin
relationships between Beijing and Washington. The United States government also held
an inquiry into the behaviour of Microsoft and its dealings with the PRC. The inquiry into
Internet company behaviour in China is like a staged event to highlight opposition to
China’s position on freedom of speech and human rights.
The East–West relationship is further played by Western NGOs that seek to help
political activists in authoritarian countries such as China to circumvent the government’s
system of censorship. Reporters without Borders, for example, has published an online
handbook that offers information to bloggers who want to defend themselves from
recrimination and censors. The guide was partly funded by the French government and
gives people tips on how to set up and publicize a blog, and how to establish credibility.
(‘Blog censorship handbook released’ 2007). However, there is no doubting that the
government’s systems of censorship have been very effective at filtering out discussion of
what they do not want posted for a mass Internet audience. Xiao Qiang, the editor of the
US-based China Digital Times, has said that
censorship’s most direct impact on blogging is that there is a lack of ‘political bloggers’ in theChinese blogosphere. Pure politics is simply too dangerous. The small numbers ofcampaigning bloggers are not dissidents; they do not call for the overthrow of the CommunistParty. But they are at the forefront of debate on specific social issues. (‘China trembles at thepower of the blog’ 2007)
Isaac Mao also argues that explicit political activism is not possible. Mao says: ‘The
priority now is to help people help themselves constructively through technical means, not
political means. (Obvious reason: overt political activism is not feasible)’ (‘I still believe
some day I’ll change the world in my way’ 2007, n.p.). That is, to help individual citizens
find ways around Internet censorship in China and for people to educate themselves and to
learn to communicate freely.
Focusing on East–West conflict, as it is mediated in incidents involving the
circumvention of traditional informational flows, diverts attention from what is going on in
other sectors of China’s blogosphere. Examination of these points of resistance, conflict
and negotiation does, however, reveal the tensions that are inherent in spatial and temporal
relationships and the way in which information is managed in response to these things.
Spatial relationships in this instance include those between Beijing at the centre and local
and provincial governments at the margins, and Beijing’s relations with the West.
By temporal relationships I mean competing versions of events. It is the charting of centre–
margin relationship within China through the exploration of what can and cannot be said.
It illustrates how the boundaries of debate are often in a state of flux and renegotiation.
Points of resistance are not always overtly political. The nail house in Chongqing and
the actions of the bloggers was provocative and obviously linked to the property law; it was
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not, however, overtly political in the sense that people were looking to overthrow the
government. It is these kinds of incidents and people’s uses of the Internet, blogs and
bulletin boards that reveal the limits to the strategies employed by the CCP for the
management of informational flows and the extent to which those boundaries are resisted.
Thus looking at these kinds of incidents is useful for the charting of centre–margin
relationships. These include those relationships that have traditionally existed such as
those between the CCP and Beijing at the centre and the provinces at the margins. Blogs
also create a new space in which other marginal groups may emerge and interact with the
CCP and Beijing at the centre. The ways in which these kinds of incidents are reported in
the Western press allow a visualization of the relationship between Beijing and the West.
There is evidence of social change and that on many levels China is moving towards a
more open society even though there are many subjects that are still taboo; blogs and the
Internet are facilitating that process of openness to some extent, though major BBS and
online forums may be more influential (‘Chinese bloggers, podcasters and webcasters’
2005). As Rebecca MacKinnon says: ‘if one combines the growing online space for
private civic discourse provided by blogs with a functionally effective system of
censorship and filtering, the result appears to be a recipe for gradual, slow evolution – not
democratic revolution’ (MacKinnon 2007b, n.p.).
MacKinnon also makes the important point that over-focusing on the points of conflict
misses many of the other things that are going on in China’s blogosphere:
outside observers of the Internet and politics in China would do well to focus on the impact of
blogs beyond the narrow scope of overt political protest and obvious political change. Most
Western media attention focuses on those instances where bloggers clash with government
censors or the web hosting companies who act as proxies for government censors. But to look
only at these instances of conflict is to miss a great deal of what is really happening, much
more quietly, under the surface. (MacKinnon 2007b, n.p.)
An example of MacKinnon’s point is when Western reporters were caught out by over-
focusing on censorship issues when two prominent Chinese bloggers staged a hoax that
made it appear that their blogs had been shut down, and the Western reporters assumed it
was the government, as did some Chinese people. The blogs called Massage Milk and
Massage Pig staged the shutdown in order to make fun of Western journalists. Wang
Xiaofeng, the author of Massage Milk, said:
‘I just wanted to make fun of Western journalists? [Content] doesn’t need to be serious on the
Internet. I don’t like it that Western media take a distorted view of China, though China does
have problems,’ Wang told Interfax in an emailed statement, ‘I thought that if I closed my
blog, it would stir their imagination and then they would begin blah blah. It really is as
expected. So let’s they have an April Fool’s day in advance.’ (MacKinnon 2007b, n.p.)
The story also reveals the assumptions made by the Western media in relation to the way in
which the Internet operates in China. Isaac Mao argues that blogs are establishing
networks of trusted information that circumvent traditional media informational flows. He
uses the example of the nail house in Chongqing and how people trusted Zuola the blogger
over traditional media. Mao says that ‘trusted networks are also very fast in spreading
information because people believe information coming from people they trust. (Unlike
government-controlled media which are generally not so trusted)’. Though there are
cracks in the Great Firewall it is still well maintained through legislation, the development
of content and through its architecture.
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Conclusion
The strategies used to manage the Chinese blogosphere are the same as other areas of the
Internet, that is through the development of content, legislation and the code used to
construct the architecture of the Internet. Content in this sense comes via blogs and this has
been hailed as the birth of citizens’ journalism; the Zuola case is interesting for a number
of reasons. Firstly, when he was allowed to report on incidents that were used by the CCP
to promote an issue of there interest. This was the case in relation to the nail house in
Sichuan. However, when he was reporting on stories that the CCP wanted to suppress he
was silenced. It is worth noting once again that Zuola’s coverage of the nail house incident
was used by the central government in Beijing to reinforce its central position over
provincial governments at the margins. Exploration of the management of the Chinese
blogosphere has also enabled me to look at centre–margin relations between the
government at the centre and bloggers at the margins.
Notes
1. For more detail on regional policy experimentation see Goodman and Segal (1994).2. For more detail on Zola’s arrest and her extensive testing of blog censorship following the scandal
see Rebecca Mackinnon’s blog post: http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/2007/12/nailhouse-blogg.html
3. Tweeting is the name given to posting on the microblogging site Twitter.
Notes on contributor
Megan Hicks is undertaking a postgraduate research project at Macquarie University based on herphotographs of pavement inscriptions in urban and rural NSW. Until recently Megan was theCommissioning Producer of permanent galleries at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, after spendinga number of years as the museum’s Curator of Health and Medicine.
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