The Chinese Internet is a place of political effervescence. While censorship is active, filtering content and blocking foreign sites, the Web nevertheless proves to be an effective tool for collective action in matters of public interest. To the point that popular vindictiveness sometimes takes precedence over the judiciary.
With the opening up of the media market and their proliferation, the Chinese have never been as well informed since 1949, even if the Chinese Communist Party has not given up regulating the flow of information. Despite the scale of the control mechanisms, the results are necessarily mitigated by the importance, for the regime, of its modernization program, which relies heavily on scientific and technical expertise, the use of new information technologies and cross-border exchanges. The debates broadcast on national and provincial television channels, which frequently invite researchers, members of think tanks, civil servants and officers to intervene on issues such as foreign policy, social policy, the education system, do not go beyond the perimeter of what is acceptable to the regime. The proliferation of publicly broadcast discussions, even if forced, on fundamental political questions, has put an end to closed-door debates and encouraged online discussions.
One of the great contributions of the book edited by Jacques deLisle and his colleagues is to try to render the complexity, diversity and dynamism of the relationship between the Internet and Chinese society, government, the legal system and even diplomacy. It sets aside the simplistic dichotomies opposing freedom and control, promotion of democracy and reinforcement of authoritarianism that obstruct any detailed understanding of the role and impact of new media in China. The book describes the economic, social and political consequences of the Internet in China, the scale of which was still unsuspected ten years ago.
The scope, complexity, and variability of the virtual world present significant challenges for China’s leaders, who are struggling to pursue, in a new context, the same goals of maintaining their monopoly on organized politics, restricting opposition, and censoring some ideas in favor of others. (p. 3)
Understanding Chinese Censorship
The book allows us to understand what can happen on the Internet despite censorship occurring at three levels and which we must return to: the blocking of foreign sites, which prevents fluid communication between China and the outside world, but does not affect the expression of Chinese Internet users, since there are equivalents to the blocked foreign social networks and more than half of Chinese people are active there; the blocking of keywords, which prevents the posting of a text containing censored words or expressions and which leads to circumvention strategies using homophones, wordplay, etc.; the censorship carried out ex post by censors who read and delete what they consider unacceptable. This is mainly a manual practice, carried out within 24 hours of publication by a decentralized army of censors. The 50 Cent Party was recently estimated at 2 million members (wumao dang) who crisscross the web and 448 million per year the number of comments they post to guide online discussions (King, Pan, Roberts, 2017). This ex post censorship aims to reduce the likelihood of collective action. It affects on average 13% of texts published on social networks. The blocking of pornographic content, criticism of censors and content posted en masse during cases that could potentially lead to forms of collective action is systematic even when the text commenting on the event is favorable to the government. The free discussion and expression of frustrations and criticism online have a major advantage for the leaders of authoritarian countries: it is a safety valve. They give a feeling of freedom to citizens, a more modern and less paranoid image of the regime, and reinforce its stability by alerting leaders to problems that they must urgently address. The book contributes to these studies on censorship by describing its process of increasing sophistication as well as what is nevertheless permitted to be expressed on the web.
Incivility and knee-jerk reactions on the Chinese web
Given the limited channels available to Chinese citizens to express their opinions and exert influence on their government, it can be said that posting an article online, sending text messages, frequenting social networks and participating in WeChat groups is even more important in China than in democracies. This sometimes allows Internet users to influence court decisions, China’s foreign policy or the demotion or even conviction of officials for misconduct. The authors show us that these new technological possibilities allow the regime to pull itself together and respond to the new challenges posed by the successive reforms and transformations of Chinese society. However, the book is far from presenting an angelic vision of the situation. It also sheds light on the extent of the phenomenon of incivility that unfolds in the phenomenon of mob justice found in nominal attacks, rumors, slander, manhunts (renrou sousuo), with more or less cruel consequences. Min Jiang attributes the lack of respect displayed by Internet users to the limitations of public space (in the Habermasian sense of the term) and the lack of spaces for discussion and institution building in China.
The social context in which political participation takes place is particular, so much so that authors such as Marina Svennson, Zengzhi Shi and Guobin Yang argue that it would be wrong to criticize the “clicktivism” of Chinese Internet users. Indeed, the weakness of civil society and the skeptical attitude of the majority of Chinese people towards formal organizations and NGO (GONGO) tend to focus civic engagement around specific causes and reactions expressed in the heat of the moment and on a case-by-case basis on social networks. The book’s fascinating exploration of the relationship between law and new media illustrates this well. Since 1978, the Party has used the media to make certain laws public and educate the population about the law, while exercising strong control over publications. The Internet and social networks offer particularly powerful tools for citizens wishing to engage in legal struggles. The regime’s response ranges from reactivity to suppression, and sometimes combines them. During the crisis of the SARS in 2003 for example, the SMS The public’s exchanges undermined the reassuring official discourse. While the first official reaction was to threaten the rumour-mongers with heavy penalties, the health minister and the mayor of Beijing were dismissed and a public health bill was drafted.
Internet, empowerment and public pressure
Zengzhi Shi (founder of Peace China Charity Fund for Public Communication) and Guobin Yang show how social media has contributed to many forms ofempowerment (power to act), especially theempowerment personnel. They enable citizens, or even force them, to respond to their moral responsibility to act and produce social transformation (self-redemption). Citizens thus use online platforms to make public and resolve cases. They denounce actions that they consider illegal and scandalous, which has greatly contributed to developing an awareness of the law and their rights (rights consciousness). Wu Ping and Yang Wu’s nail house in Chongqing, Deng Yujiao’s self-defense in killing an official who tried to rape her, Tang Hui’s accusing local officials of protecting traffickers who forced her sister into prostitution, Yang Jia’s murder of Shanghai police officers, teenager Yang Hui, the first person to be convicted under new laws against rumors spread on Weibo in 2013, the accident of TGV The Wenzhou earthquake, the defective construction of schools that collapsed following the Wenchuan earthquake, and health scandals such as contaminated powdered milk are famous examples. These cases have provoked massive reactions and have been subject to censorship. They have nevertheless been able to break out and be fueled by numerous comments, even mobilizations, online, which can be explained by the strategy adopted by the regime to use the Internet as a tool for informing and monitoring local cadres and as a barometer of public opinion and frustrations that must be addressed before they lead to organized movements. Intellectuals and citizens use the Internet to put pressure on the authorities, including the courts, to guarantee fairer and more legal trials and to modify dubious and widely despised rules. But, as several chapters of the book show, this pressure also serves to force the courts to follow public opinion and to deviate from verdicts that are nevertheless in accordance with the law.
Four chapters of the book finally make an important contribution to understanding the role played by the Internet in foreign affairs. China’s growing engagement on the international scene, the opening and diversification of sources of information, the creation of platforms for expressing opinions on international affairs and China’s foreign policy, the democratization of access to mobile phones, have contributed to the emergence of sometimes lively debates, the impact of which on political decisions regarding relations with Japan, Taiwan and the United States, among others, has been measured by several studies. The book thus highlights a worrying judicial and diplomatic populism, made possible by the Internet and social networks. The editors of the book have therefore chosen not to focus only on the importance of social networks on the expression and sharing of information and opinions of ordinary citizens. As Zheng Yongnian explicitly did in Technological Empowermentthey show and document how new media have transformed the way Chinese authorities interact with citizens, while seeking to control their speech.