Everyone from feminists to nationalists is a potential target.
Bullet point
Bullet point
Bullet point
This article is available in German for the first time - it was first published on August 8, 2021 by the magazine "Foreign Policy".
When the UK, European Union, Canada and the US announced sanctions against Chinese officials for China's treatment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang in March, Chinese internet users called for a boycott of H&M, Nike, Adidas, Burberry and a few other Western fashion brands. In April, an old friend of mine, an engineer living in Jiangsu Province, posted in his WeChat Moment - a public part of the ubiquitous social media platform and messaging service - his frustration that people were still selling products from bought these brands. He got support from some like-minded people and they later formed a WeChat group, drafted a few boycott leaflets, and planned tohand them out in front of a large department store on Labor Day.
In May, he updated his WeChat moment to announce that he had received a polite phone call from a local police officer warning him that gatherings in public places were illegal and could be viewed as "starting an argument and provoking trouble" - a criminal charge often used to arrest activists.
He told me through private messages that he was both shocked and scared and that he felt that his patriotic behavior was being misinterpreted.
The Chinese state often supports and even promotes nationalist rhetoric - but if not approved, patriots run the risk of falling into an ever-growing censorship system, with legions of new online whistleblowers reporting.
In 2019, for example, a group on Douban, a popular discussion forum similar to Reddit, called for a boycott of the NBA in China after Daryl Morey, the then general manager of the Houston Rockets basketball team, posted a picture that read “Fight for freedom . Stand with Hong Kong ”tweeted. One thread on the forum said that before the Los Angeles Lakers-Brooklyn Nets game at Shanghai's Mercedes-Benz Arena in October, people “donated money to buy banners on Taobao and planned to do so Handing out banners to the crowd in the arena to boycott the NBA, but the police summoned the people who wanted to go to the arena ”.
Not only emerging nationalists are the ones to suffer. In the past two years, China's censorship system has become increasingly strict in both professional and private life. In January, the National Press and Publications Authority enacted and implemented new regulations that require Chinese journalists to review their social media posts as part of the annual review process for admission to journalism. In February, the China Performing Arts Association issued new guidelines that include: mandate that artists “support the line, principles and policies of the party”. Netizens would spontaneously check if celebrities shared patriotic posts on Weibo (China's version of Twitter),those of state-affiliated organizations such as
China Daily
.
Many comments that were largely harmless a decade ago are risky today.
Liu Yun, academic and deputy secretary of the Hunan Metropolitan Vocational College Party Committee, said publicly on Weibo: "In the past, criticism was only directed at public intellectuals, now the fire is finally spreading to everyone." Wang, one Senior editor who works for a state media company in China and asked to use a pseudonym agrees.
She told me that many articles that she believed did not contain sensitive political issues were ultimately withdrawn by the government, and she said that journalism had become increasingly difficult.
A reporter who works for a major online media company in China and preferred to remain anonymous told me that she went to Chengdu in May to hear the death of a student at Chengdu No. 49 Middle School. She was present when people gathered at the school gate to express their condolences on the student's death and was featured in a photo that was widely circulated. Netizens referred to them and others in this photo as "hostile foreign forces" - a Communist Party term used to blame problems on imaginary outside saboteurs - those who did not share this view were silenced made.
While professionals and patriots can encounter problems, marginalized groups such as women, members of the LGBTQ community, and people with disabilities are even more at risk.
On March 31 of this year, feminist Xiao Meili's Weibo account was blocked by parent company Sina.
Before her account was blocked, she was abused and harassed by internet users and referred to as a "Hong Kong separatist" for supporting the 2014 umbrella revolution.
Dozens of feminist accounts have been silenced.
Liang Xiaowen, a lawyer and feminist who organizes events online and offline, was one of those whose account was suspended. She told me that amid the spate of threats and abuse she received, some threatened to find out where their parents lived and to carry out the internet violence. Others threatened to report them to the Ministry of State Security. She never had a chance to appeal or provide additional evidence when her account was suspended, and Sina's CEO publicly stated that she posted "illegal and harmful information" while the bloggers who cursed her got away scot-free. "There are fewer and fewer social issues that can be discussed today," says Liang,“Patriotism has become the only issue that people can stand behind. They feel empowered when they use their patriotism to incite against others. "
The censorship machinery also acts against LGBTQ groups.
The public WeChat accounts of LGBT associations at many universities in China were collectively blocked without warning on the evening of July 6th.
They have become "unnamed public accounts" - the equivalent of a 404 error message.
The public WeChat account Chiapas Dongfeng Radio argued in an article that "this purge is undoubtedly another [form of] open discrimination and persecution of sexual minorities in China."
Many of the comments below this article alleged that these public accounts are likely to be used by hostile "foreign forces".
Soon Chiapas Dongfeng Radio became one of the many "unnamed public accounts" that have disappeared.
Censorship has been an integral part of Chinese life for decades, but the extent of it has increased dramatically under the rule of Xi Jinping. Topics that were once considered acceptable have turned into risky content within months or years. Regarding LGBTQ issues,
for example
, the official Weibo account of the state newspaper
People's Daily
only
posted
three years ago in 2018: “There is more than one sexual orientation. Whether homosexual or bisexual, these orientations are normal and definitely not a disease. "
The increasing censorship is partly due to the fact that the censorship apparatus itself has to justify its existence. Official life in China is based on quotas - for the censors this means that a certain number of posts or a certain number of accounts have to be deleted. Since people are too scared of posting really threatening or government critical content, the censors have to label more harmless content as unacceptable in order to meet their own quotas.
But censorship is also driven from below. The persistent loss of freedom of expression makes some people fearful - but in turn drives others to take advantage of it. A group of aggressive and energetic nationalists are able to become opinion leaders on the internet by attacking people they consider to be insufficiently patriotic. Some of the nationalists have made successful careers in this way, including Weibo user Gu Yan Mu Chan, who was named "Ambassador for Promoting Civilization on the Internet" for Guangdong Province.
Rather than questioning the policies of the Chinese central government, people can come to terms with themselves more psychologically if they accept them as in harmony with China's unique conditions. Many people who once vigorously tried to use virtual private networks to break the "Great Fire Wall" now believe that building a firewall will protect the Chinese people from "hostile foreign forces"; H. foreign media, protects. As the human rights organization Human Rights Watch noted, an entire generation of people has become increasingly nationalistic as expression of opinion in China is increasingly tightly controlled and aggressively controlled.Imagine the witch hunt on the worst parts of Twitter - but with the support of a totalitarian state.
In June, for example, the Fuzhou Gezhi Middle School broadcaster played the music video for the song "On" by the popular K-pop band BTS. Some internet users filed complaints with the Fuzhou Education Authority, criticizing the pop band for a number of trivial reasons. So were z. For example, cited a member's politically unacceptable discussion of their shared "painful history" with the United States in connection with the Korean War, another member's failure to comply with traffic rules, and one member's violation of COVID-19 pandemic prevention regulations. On June 25th, the Fuzhou Education Bureau announced that it had asked Gezhi Middle School to investigate the incident and "make corrections immediately."
Super fans of celebrities or bands are also abusing the growing censorship system.
Online fan groups find comments that criticize their favorite celebrity and then report them en masse to the authorities.
Your reports contain formulations that are heard by the censors.
They argue that the critics "use extremely subjective judgments to trigger and incite oppositional emotions" and "impair the secure network environment and harm the Internet society".
A tactic that often works.
When China's communist party leader Mao Zedong initiated the Cultural Revolution in 1966, people turned to each other if they criticized Mao.
Children denounced their parents, wives turned against their husbands, and students criticized their teachers.
China isn't exactly heading back to those years of chaos, but the energy of the internet sounds disturbingly familiar.
In China today, there are still people who take enormous risks to fight for freedom and democracy.
Yet blackening and hurting one another is an opportunity for some to demonstrate their loyalty to the ruling party.
by Tracy Wen Liu
Tracy Wen Liu
is a writer, reporter, and translator.
This article was first published in English on August 8, 2021 in the magazine “ForeignPolicy.com” - as part of a cooperation, a translation is now also available to readers of the IPPEN.MEDIA portals. * Merkur.de is an offer from IPPEN.MEDIA.
+
Foreign Policy Logo
© ForeignPolicy.com
List of rubric lists: © ForeignPolicy.com
