Author: David Bandurski

Now Executive Director of the China Media Project, leading the project’s research and partnerships, David originally joined the project in Hong Kong in 2004. He is the author of Dragons in Diamond Village (Penguin), a book of reportage about urbanization and social activism in China, and co-editor of Investigative Journalism in China (HKU Press).

Cyber-Maoism and the micro struggle session

The rise of social media in China has brought a burst of communication in the country. In the midst of the recent Beijing floods, for example, tens of thousands of posts on platforms like Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo shared local eyewitness accounts, snapshots and video in real time.
But social media have of course also become a new platform for the playing out of longstanding ideological divisions in China.
In a post late last night, freelance writer Wang Pei (王佩) made a post to Sina Weibo about the erection of a statue of Mao Zedong (among other world figures) in the southern French city of Montpellier.


Just after 2am this morning, veteran China Youth Daily photojournalist He Yanguang (贺延光), a past CMP fellow, re-posted Wang Pei’s original post, and added:

Why don’t they just add Hitler, Mussolini, [Japanese military leader] Tojo Hideki, Stalin, Pol Pot, Nicolae Ceauşescu and Kim Il Sung together with him?
也连带着把希特勒、墨索里尼、东条英机、斯大林、波尔布特、齐奥塞斯库、金日成的雕像一起弄去吧?


He Yanguang’s association of Mao Zedong with this list of historical tyrants, murderers and war criminals — Tojo Hideki, it should be noted is buried at the Yasukuni Shrine, a constant source of Sino-Japanese friction — quickly drew fury from leftist defenders of Mao Zedong’s legacy as a liberator of the Chinese people.
The Weibo user “Internationale” (英特那雄纳尔), whose name is a reference to the official anthem of the Socialist International, fumed in response to He’s post:

It is clearly written in the Party Constitution that we must take “Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory and the ‘Three Represents'” as our personal guides to action. China Youth Daily was created by the founding fathers Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. @HeYangguang, a journalist at China Youth Daily, has clearly insulted our founding leader, Mao Zedong. He has classed Mao together with fascists and war criminals, and his motives are execrable. I strongly call for the removal of this unprincipled journalist He Yanguang! Everyone pass on this call!
中青报是毛泽东周恩来等开国元勋创立的,@贺延光 身为中青报的记者公然侮辱开国领袖毛泽东,把毛与法西斯战犯相提并论,其心可诛,强烈建议开除无良记者@贺延光 !呼吁大家转起!

Many Weibo users did pass on the call from “Internationale”, including a user called “Lao Jiu” who added to his re-post the tag for “Peaceful Beijing” (平安北京), the official Weibo of the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau.
Here we find, in the dawning age of social media in China, what we might call Maoist atavism. Social media are used as a contemporary, real-time tool to politically attack and shame one’s perceived ideological enemies — not at all unlike the so-called “struggle sessions” of the Mao era.
These are, we might say, “micro-struggle sessions”, or wei pidou (微批斗).
Here are some of the comments trailing behind the original post by “Internationale”:

1. Sina still hasn’t harmonized his [He Yanguang’s] post.
2. This bastard can be a journalist at China Youth Daily?
3. Just as you said, his parents were from landlord families.
4. He should have been fired long ago. This isn’t the first or second time he has opposed the Chinese Communist Party.
5. Who exactly is China Youth Daily speaking for? He Yanguang, this clown!
6. The [political] standpoint of the China Youth Daily has always been a problem.
7. China Youth Daily is an organ of the Chinese Communist Youth League of the CCP. [We] strongly call for the removal of He Yanguang, this performing buffoon.

Sarcastic post on handling of floods deleted from Weibo

The following post by Gong Xiaoyue (龚晓跃), a veteran Chinese journalist and former CMP fellow, was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime before 6:24am today, July 24, 2012. The post is a tongue-in-cheek criticism of the official handling of floods in Beijing and of the ruling Party’s handling of a number of crises of reportedly historic proportions. In the midst of serious flooding in Beijing last Friday, official state media in China said the floods were the worst in more the 60 years. This assertion was contested by journalists and experts on social media, who turned sharp criticism on the city’s lack of preparedness. Gong Xiaoyue currently has just over 143,000 followers, according to numbers from Sina Weibo. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre].

. . . Many thanks to this once-in-5,000-years government for allowing us to experience so many worst-in-a-century things in such a short period of time.

The original Chinese post follows:

紫薇同学还是那么凌厉。那谁说的?多谢这五千年一遇的政府,让我们在短暂的一生里居然经历了这么多的百年一遇。


NOTE: All posts to The Anti-Social List are listed as “permission denied” in the Sina Weibo API, which means they were deleted by Weibo managers, not by users themselves.

Post on upcoming high-speed rail crash anniversary deleted

The following post by Wang Wei (王巍), an executive at Mergers China, was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime before 3:54pm today, July 20, 2012. The post deals with the upcoming first anniversary of the July 23, 2011, high-speed rail crash in Wenzhou. A government report on the tragedy, promised within several months, has still not been released to this day. Wang Wei currently has just over 1.56 million followers, according to numbers from Sina Weibo. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre].

The anniversary of the July 23 [high-speed rail crash] approaches. My piece “Wang Si Tiao” (王四条) [about this issue] was shared around 50,000 times before dying. I demanded that the high-speed rail system be suspended pending an investigation, that legal proceedings replace administrative proceedings, assisting outside intermediary organizations in thoroughly investigating and auditing all high-speed rail tofu engineering projects, etcetera. This is a basic demand of civil society and the information age, but the result has been that it this [issue] has been dropped into a dark and bottomless pit. Can such a huge price in human lives be forgotten and harmonized? Can this be borne by a handful of people like [former railway minister] Liu Zhijun?


The original Chinese post follows:

723事件马上也周年了。我写的"王四条"瞬间转发了近五万次后阵亡。要求高铁立即停驶调查、用法律起诉代替行政处理、借助外部中介机构审计和清查所有高铁动车的豆腐渣工程等。这是公民社会和信息时代的起码要求,结果都掉进无底黑洞。这么大的生命代价会被遗忘被历史和谐吗?刘志军几个人就承担了?

NOTE: All posts to The Anti-Social List are listed as “permission denied” in the Sina Weibo API, which means they were deleted by Weibo managers, not by users themselves.

Old Weibo post pulled after new Syria decision

The following post by Chinese economist Hang Zhiguo (韩志国), was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime before 3:23pm today, July 20, 2012. The post, made way back on August 23, 2011, draws three fundamental lessons from the fall of “tyrannical regimes” in the Middle East and North Africa — the so-called “Arab Spring” of 2010-2011. It was presumably deleted in the midst of intensified discussion on Chinese social media following China’s United Nations Security Council veto of proposed sanctions against Syria. Hang Zhiguo currently has just under four million followers, according to numbers from Sina Weibo. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre].

[Three Warnings from the Collapse of Tyrannical Rule] 1. Do not over-estimate one’s own ability. When Saddam [Hussein] was in power, he received 100 percent of the vote in every election, but with the collapse [of his regime] he could only hide out in a rat hole. 2. Never trust in the loyalty of your dogs. The underlings of Saddam, Mubarak and Gaddafi were all trusted followers, but they all scattered before the tree even fell. 3. Do not underestimate the force of the people. It is difficult to maintain public opinion in the midst of intense repression, and the demands of the people cannot be deceived, disrespected or neglected!


The original Chinese post follows:

【 独裁统治崩盘的三大警示 】 1、不要高估自己的能量。萨达姆在位时,每次选举得票率都是100%,但一朝崩溃,只有钻老鼠洞的份。2、不要相信走狗的忠诚。萨达姆、穆巴拉克、卡扎菲的手下都是亲信,但树还没倒就猢狲已散。3、不要轻视民众的力量。高压手段难抵民心民意,民众的诉求不可欺不可辱不可怠!


NOTE: All posts to The Anti-Social List are listed as “permission denied” in the Sina Weibo API, which means they were deleted by Weibo managers, not by users themselves.

Tribute to Oriental Morning Post deleted from Weibo

The following post by CMP Director Qian Gang (钱钢), was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime before 10:34pm yesterday, July 17, 2012. The post shares a number of important reports done in the past by Shanghai’s Oriental Morning Post, which is now facing disciplinary action over a report in May 2012. Qian Gang currently has more than 1.19 million followers, according to numbers from Sina Weibo. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre].

Let’s re-warm these old pages, and pay our respects to the Oriental Morning Post!


The original Chinese post follows:

重温这些版面,向东方早报表示敬意!


NOTE: All posts to The Anti-Social List are listed as “permission denied” in the Sina Weibo API, which means they were deleted by Weibo managers, not by users themselves.

China's media and "death by uncertain causes"

In the second disciplinary action this week against a major Chinese commercial newspaper, the publisher of Shanghai’s Oriental Morning Post has been dismissed, and one of its deputy editors has been suspended. This news follows the re-shuffling on Monday of New Express editor-in-chief Lu Fumin (陆扶民).
In the most general sense, the two actions — though not in any way related or coordinated — can be read as stemming from an all-round tightening of press controls in China ahead of the crucial 18th Party Congress later this year. That simple reading, however, tells us very little about the specific mechanisms that are at work in these cases.
So what is really going on? The bottom line, we don’t know. As the Hong Kong paper The Sun summed the cases up in an editorial this morning:

Inside the mainland propaganda system, there is a way to die that can be called “death by uncertain causes”. This is when the propaganda department settles a score once autumn has passed [as they saying goes]. If the bosses of a paper are not regularly and dutifully talking [the Party’s] politics, they will be pulled down mysteriously. The New Express and Oriental Morning Post are both examples of this.

Right now, the reasons being given for these “deaths by uncertain causes” are themselves mysterious to media insiders.
In the case of the New Express, the report tipped as the trouble-causer is this one about the pasts of a number of high-level Chinese leaders that ran in the July 9 edition of the official Jinan Daily. But the report, which the New Express ran in full the following day, is still readily available online, and the Jinan Daily version is still up too.
So what’s the problem here? The signs certainly suggest there was no overarching discipline violation. If central authorities see nothing to hide, why are local authorities being so fidgety over this?
In the case of the Oriental Morning Post, the problem report is apparently an interview with Chinese economist Sheng Hong (盛洪) run back on May 15, called “Private Enterprises Have the Right to Enter All Markets”. In the interview, Sheng argues that China must put an end to the preferential treatment of state-owned enterprises. But that’s hardly sensational stuff, and here in any case is the interview, surviving quite comfortably on the Oriental Morning Post website.


[ABOVE: The report supposed to have been the problem leading to disciplinary action at Shanghai’s Oriental Morning Post is alive and well on the paper’s website. What gives?]
Just to give readers a taste of the Oriental Morning Post interview in question, here are some of the more critical bits:

China has reached a point where public power must be checked, where public power cannot be allowed to be held ransom by vested interests, which cannot be allowed to wield monopoly power, the power to control massive amounts of limited resources.
One aspect is the [need to] protest small and medium-sized enterprises, allowing them produce and operate more efficiently. Another aspect is that if the resources state-owned enterprises control without cost are exchanged at cost under a market system, this will release greater efficiencies. Only in this way can the country move forward, and wealth be more plentiful.
The Goal of State-Owned Enterprises Should Be Public Benefit
The trend of reforms is to remove the monopoly rights of state-owned enterprises, the end the preferential treatment of state-owned enterprises — for example, it not acceptable that they hold national land for free and pay not rent. Aside from this, we must cancel the right of state-owned enterprises to obtain preferential loans.
. . . The State Owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the State Council should supervise state-owned enterprises on behalf of the people, but it has not taken on this responsibility. In fact, it has represented SOEs in bargaining with the people.
The government is the government of all companies in society, not just the government of the state-owned enterprises. Therefore, the trend of reform is to cancel the monopoly power of the state-owned enterprises, and cancel out preferential treatment of the state-owned enterprises. . .

Sheng makes his point directly enough, but these ideas are not especially provocative, and they hardly seem enough on their own to merit the dismissal of publisher Lu Yan (陆炎) and the suspension of deputy editor Sun Jian (孙鉴).
These are interesting cases in which the really sensitive issues are not in the reports that supposedly occasioned the propaganda actions, but rather in the actions themselves. In other words, while the supposed problem content is still readily available, the authorities are working actively to contain news and discussion of the disciplinary actions.
As Lawyer Zhang Huan noted on Weibo yesterday, much of the discussion of the disciplinary actions against the paper’s in online chat rooms was already being blocked. Search “Lu Yan” + “Oriental Morning Post” on Baidu, for example, and you got a thread at KDnet that was already dead, yielding up a “Page Cannot Be Found” warning.


And as plenty of examples in the JMSC’s “Deleted Posts” archive at the University of Hong Kong show, discussion of the cases on Sina Weibo was also being routinely thwarted.
Here for example, is a deleted post sharing an image of a report on the Oriental Morning Post story by Hong Kong’s Apple Daily.

Perhaps more information on these two mysterious disciplinary actions against leading commercial newspapers will be available in due course. For the time being, the issue to watch closely is how both papers continue to cover the news in the coming weeks and months.
Ever since the 2008 milk scandal, the Oriental Morning Post in particular has distinguished itself with its strong reporting. The paper did some of the best coverage of last year’s high-speed rail collision, which will mark its one-year anniversary on July 23. And it was one of the few newspapers in the country to speak out last fall on the continued detention of blind activist Chen Guangcheng.

Top editor reshuffled at Guangzhou paper

CMP has confirmed today that the editor-in-chief of the New Express, a spin-off of Guangzhou’s Yangcheng Evening News, has been shuffled sideways in a move that effectively spells his removal as editor-in-chief of the popular newspaper.
The action against Lu Fumin (陆扶民), who has worked as a journalist for twenty years, apparently stems from a decision by the New Express to re-run a July 9 article from Jinan Daily, the official city-level Party newspaper in Jinan in Shandong province. That article, which explored the origins as “educated youth” (知青) of several current members of China’s politburo, including presumed president-in-waiting Xi Jinping, occupied a full page in the July 10 edition of the New Express.
The page in question, A23, is no longer available on the list of pages in the electronic version of the New Express.


[ABOVE: Lu Fumin will no longer serve as editor-in-chief of the New Express. He has been shoved sideways into a position of equal rank at its parent paper, Yangcheng Evening News.
But this incident appears also to have prompted what some media insiders are calling a complete overhaul of the New Express, focusing the paper more on entertainment coverage and less on hard news.
The Jinan Daily article on Xi Jinping and other politburo members, which ran on the last page (page 10) of the newspaper, was still available online as of 5pm today, July 17, 2012.

Other politburo members in the Jinan Daily article include: Li Keqiang (李克强), now vice-premier and assumed successor to Wen Jiabao as premier; Wang Qishan (王岐山), vice-premier and former mayor of Beijing; Li Yuanchao (李源潮), head of the Organization Department of the CCP and a rising political star; and Zhang Dejiang (张德江), vice-premier and former Party secretary of Guangdong province.

[ABOVE: This photograph published in the July 9 edition of Jinan Daily claims to show China’s presumed next president, Xi Jinping (middle, front row), heading off to college in the late 1970s.
Writing in the comment section trailing one online version of the Jinan Daily article on the popular Sohu.com website, one internet user puzzled: “What is the crime in the New Express passing this [article] along?”

[ABOVE: What’s the big deal? asks a user in the comment section on the Jinan Daily story at Sohu.com.
In a post to Sina Weibo at 5:05pm yesterday, Lu Fumin was circumspect about the nature of the changes at the New Express:

To have grown up alongside the New Express has been a great joy of my life. But in line with work requirements, from today on, this person will return to work at the political and cultural news desk (政文新闻部) of Yangcheng Evening News. My roots are at Yangcheng, and last year I asked to be “returned home”, so today I’ve finally gotten my wish. Thank you for all the concern from my colleagues.
能与新快报一起成长是我人生一大幸事。但根据工作需要,从今天起,本人重返羊城晚报政文新闻部工作。我的根在羊晚,去年就请求"回家",今天终于得偿所愿。感谢同学们的关心。

The obedient dogs of Party culture

In May 2012, People’s Daily Online, the online version of the Party’s official People’s Daily newspaper, reported that “100 poets, artists and calligraphers” from all over the country assembled in Hubei province to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Mao Zedong’s Yan’an speeches on arts and literature, which essentially set the stage for the arts as political tools of the Chinese Communist Party after it came to power in 1949. In this cartoon by artist Kuang Biao (邝彪), drawn for the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Yan’an speeches and shared on Sina Weibo and elsewhere on the internet, a stern-faced Party official in a black trench coat walks the mangy dog of Party-run culture. The dog’s head is a hand brandishing a pen.

Deleted post on China's "self-discrimination"

The following post by a Beijing-based accountant with 26,000 Weibo followers, was deleted from Sina Weibo on July 15, 2012. The post relates a conversation over lunch in which Chinese diners come to the conclusion that China in fact is the country that most discriminates against China — which is to say, against Chinese. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre].

When we were eating lunch, everyone was talking about which country discriminates most against China. From that point on the list filled up with [examples] of [how China itself is] the most discriminatory place in the world for Chinese: preventing Chinese from freely coming and going, limiting Chinese in purchasing homes, preventing Chinese from buying cars, limiting Chinese children in going freely to school, forcing Chinese to pay higher taxes, making Chinese pay higher prices for fuel, and higher prices for internet access, giving Chinese hogwash oil [to eat] and Mengniu milk powder [to drink], intruding on the rights of Chinese to have elections . . . After that, no one had anything else to say.

The original Chinese post follows:

中午吃饭,大家讨论哪个国家最排华?于是开始列举,全世界最排华的地方在哪里:限制华人自由出入、限制华人买房、限制华人买车、限制华人子女自由上学、强迫华人缴纳更高的税、限制华人购买更高价的油价、缴纳更贵的网费、给华人吃地沟油蒙牛奶粉,剥夺华人选举权……最后,所有人都不说话了(转发)


NOTE: All posts to The Anti-Social List are listed as “permission denied” in the Sina Weibo API, which means they were deleted by Weibo managers, not by users themselves.

China's malformed media sphere

From July 2 to July 3, the residents of the city of Shifang in China’s western Sichuan province staged protests to oppose a molybdenum-cooper project they feared would poison their community. The protests were marked by fierce conflict, and the government exercised strict controls over news reporting. Meanwhile, one side of the net was left open for social media — and chatter about Shifang was lively on platforms like Sina Weibo.
Websites and print media are tightly controlled
I have previously used the term “Control 2.0” to describe the way information and news controls have evolved in China over the past few years. Since President Hu Jintao articulated a new set of media policies in 2008, authorities at various levels in China have often used online official state media like People’s Daily Online and Xinhua Online to report sudden-breaking incidents at the earliest moment possible (第一时间). The idea is to seize the opportunity, and the power, to set the agenda.
This practice, which in Hu Jintao’s 2008 formulation is called “channeling public opinion,” or yindao yulun (引导舆论), has sometimes been informally called “grabbing the megaphone” (抢喇叭).
In the early stages of the Shifang incident, these two aforementioned websites jumped into action. On the afternoon of July 2, they related an open letter from the Shifang city government announcing that a so-called “mass incident”, or quntixing shijian (群体性事件), had occurred. Later in the evening they cited a notice from the Shifang government saying that local police had “used tear gas and stun grenades to disperse over-excited crowds.”
This was the earliest and most important official news on the story, and it was re-posted by scores of websites. But media were quickly muzzled by a ban from the Central Propaganda Department.


[ABOVE: An image shared through Chinese social media this month shows riot police gathering in the streets of Shifang.]
On the afternoon of July 3, the local government in Shifang suddenly announced that the molybdenum-copper project would be terminated. Xinhua Online and People’s Daily Online did not run this important bit of news — quite different from what we saw with the Dalian PX protests in August last year, when official media did report news of the suspension of that PX project. Instead, these official news sites simply relayed bits of information from the local government in Shifang.
What’s more, reports on Shifang from the previous few days were suddenly removed from the web. Commercial internet portals sat on their hands. The Shifang story could not be found in prominent sections of these sites, and no special aggregation pages were put together, as is often done for major news stories.
Newspapers, television and other traditional media were all silent. The official People’s Daily newspaper and China Central Television, central Party media that were relatively vocal over the high-speed rail collision in July 2011, the Dalian PX protests in August 2011 (reporting the suspension of the project, not the protests themselves) and the Wukan incident last fall, said not a word about Shifang.
Searching the WiseNews database of Chinese language newspapers, I found that on July 3, among hundreds of mainland papers, only Shanghai’s Oriental Morning Post and the Global Times, a spin-off of the People’s Daily, made any mention of the protests in Shifang.
On July 4, a small number of newspapers reported the termination of the molybdenum-copper project in Shifang, most in the securities section (the project concerned the fortunes of the listed company Sichuan Hongda Co. Ltd.). But no mention was made of the protests.
An editorial on the July 4 edition of China Youth Daily, a newspaper published by the Chinese Communist Youth League, alluded to the Shifang incident, but didn’t even mention the city by name. The editorial was called, “There Are Some Things You Cannot Pretend Not to See” (有些事,无法假装看不见):

. . . There are no words in the print media, no images on television. . . Sometimes the boisterous diversity and confusion of the Weibo entirely constitutes a different world of public opinion from those traditional media that pretend not to see in the face of objective truth. And here, sometimes, one can sense also two entirely different China’s.

Newspapers and news websites could not “take to the highway”, reporting directly on Shifang. But they did try taking the back roads. On July 3 and 4 a number of newspapers and more than 200 websites reported that the Shifang incident had pushed a sudden rise in the stock of a certain biotech company — because the Capsaicin manufactured by the company was used in the production of tear gas.
Weibo becomes the chief communication channel
In the midst of the Shifang incident, Chinese microblogs became a boisterous place. Unlike the case with the Wukan incident last year, in which “Wukan” became a sensitive keyword, the term “Shifang” was left alone. Posts about the Shifang incident were not entirely restricted, and search functions on the Sina Weibo platform were not shut down.


[ABOVE: An image shared through Chinese social media this month shows a protester in Shifang kneeling before a line of riot police.]
According to my own searches, between July 1 and July 4 (at around 8pm), there were around 5.25 million posts on Sina Weibo containing “Shifang”. Of these about 400,000 included images and close to 10,000 included video. The vast majority of these had to do directly with the Shifang protests. Searching the exact same period last year, I found that there were only 300 posts in total containing “Shifang” on Sina Weibo.
We can break the Shifang posts on Weibo into the following numbers:

ORIGINAL POSTS WITH IMAGES
July 2: 155
July 3: 11,674
July 4: 3,296
ORIGINAL POSTS WITH VIDEO
July 2: 8
July 3: 194
July 4: 92

Original materials provided by people on the scene sketched out the general picture of what was happening in Shifang. The millions of reposts and comments on Sina Weibo from across the country were based on these materials. And many of the pictures and video on Weibo were picked up and used by Hong Kong and international media.
In fact, a decent portion of the image files shared on Sina Weibo were text shared in image form. Owing to limits in the character length of microblog posts — and of course also to restrictions on content on websites — many longer accounts or comments about Shifang were shared as images. These included essays on Shifang by well-known writers and commentators such as Han Han (韩寒), Li Chengpeng (李承鹏), Xiao Shu (笑蜀), Wuyuesanren (五岳散人) and the legal scholar Xiao Han (萧瀚).
Writers like Han Han and Li Chengpeng are well versed in the art of online communication, and they are also quite sensitive to popular moods. They often respond quickly to stories like Shifang with strong satirical writing that frames the issue and draws a wide readership.
On Shifang, Han Han had this to say in a piece called, “The Liberation of Shifang” (什邡的释放):

If the local government used tear gas on the people, this in fact is sufficient to reveal them for the tyrants they are.”

And in a piece called, “The Strange Mission: An Open Letter to the Shifang Government Leaders” (奇怪的使命——给什邡市各级领导的一封信), Li Chengpeng criticize the development approach of local leaders:

“This is about taking the interests of four to five-hundred thousand people and exchanging them for the interests of four or five. It’s about a task that takes 50 years into a five-year term of office.”

According to my numbers, as of 9:30pm on July 4, Han Han’s essay, which was posted on July 3, had been shared 298,173 times on Sina Weibo.
Another interesting aspect of the role of Weibo in the Shifang incident was the sudden popularity of two accounts in particular. The first, on Sina Weibo, was called “Vital Shifang” (活力什邡). The second, on Tencent’s Weibo platform, was called “Shifang Announcements” (什邡发布). These are both, according to verification by their respective platforms, official microblogs operated by the information office of the Shifang government (什邡市政府新闻办公室).
Each of these official Weibo account made around 20 posts through the duration of the Shifang incident. In fact, the People’s Daily Online report of July 2, which reported the stand-off between Shifang residents and police, cited information from “Vital Shifang”.
At around 9am on July 3, “Vital Shifang” posted a notice from local police sending out a warning to those who “are inciting, planning or otherwise organizing illegal gatherings, demonstrations, protests by means of the internet, mobile phone messages and others methods.”


[ABOVE: The official Shifang government Weibo “Vital Shifang” posts a notice on July 3 warning members of the public not to incite illegal gatherings and protests.]
Later that same day as the government relented, videos of a speech by Shifang’s Party secretary and a text-as-image file announcing the termination of the molybdenum-copper project were shared on both “Vital Shifang” and “Shifang Announcements.” On average these posts were shared around 10,000 times, and at the height some posts were shared as much as 40,000 times.
Official police Weibo should also be noted. A number of special police who took part in the “stability preservation actions” (维稳行动) to quell the protests posted details from the scene, even providing explanations and voicing anger.
This is something we have never seen before. Since 2009, social media have developed rapidly in China. Sina Weibo and Tencent Weibo have both said they already have more than 300,000 million registered users on their platforms. In the case of the Shifang incident, China’s news media as a whole were under overbearing pressure, and only social media could serve as a channel for sharing information.
Of course, Weibo cannot escape the reach of China’s censors. Most posts attacking the government were deleted from the platforms. One of my own posts decrying the senselessness of information controls was deleted after being shared just over 2,000 times.
Li Chengpeng arrived in Shifang on July 3, and his report, “A Case of the Lucifer Effect: A Little Investigation of Shifang” (一次路西法效应实验——什邡小调查), is one of just a few reports we have from the scene. The report, which documents police brutality in Shifang, was shared rapidly on Weibo. I posted an image version of the report that was re-posted 854 times within 50 minutes before being deleted. Other pieces to be completely killed on social media, like Li Chengpeng’s, were legal scholar Xiao Han’s “Open Letter to Police Who Used Violence in the Shifang Incident” (致什邡事件中施暴警察的一封公开信) and Wuyuesanren’s “Shifang: Dread, After Violence Fails” (什邡,对暴力失效的恐惧).
What tyranny fears most is professionalism
Some web users used the phrase “covering one’s ears while stealing a bell” (掩耳盗铃) — like the English “burying one’s head in the sand” — to describe information controls on the Shifang incident. The authorities strangled traditional media and mainstream news websites, but the flow of information was not entirely stopped thanks to Weibo.
There’s no denying that Weibo users of all stripes have pushed to open up new space for expression. But in the case of the Shifang incident, what we saw is best described as “license” (特许).
Some have suggested that this more “open” approach to social media was quite intentional. In the run-up to the 18th National Congress it is critical for the leadership to be on guard against popular animosity toward the government. On the other hand, they must ensure tensions have an outlet lest they erupt into more destabilizing conflict.
Others have read Shifang differently. They say that what we see in the case of Shifang are different political factions struggling behind the scenes, with different ideas about how incidents like this should be handled.
It’s hard to favor either reading without more evidence. But I believe what we have in this case is still a method of “kill and use” (打杀和利用). Compared to the high-speed rail collision and Dalian PX protests last summer, we are seeing a definite and serious retreat by mainstream media (including both Party and commercial media). Sure, controls on Weibo have relaxed this time around — as compared, for example, to the Wukan incident last year.
But on social media, the general tone is one of emotional unburdening — and facts and analysis are seriously wanting. What we are seeing in fact is an unhealthy form of communication emerging under a malformed system of controls.
The basic role of the media is to provide information and to present viewpoints. Professional journalism celebrates and pursues the idea that media, as instruments that serve the public (公器), must provide accurate information and offer diverse points of view. In this era of emerging social media, these values, far from being archaic, are more timely and valuable than ever.
In the case of numerous sudden-breaking events in China in recent years, we have seen seasoned professional journalists active on both traditional media and social media, working together across various platforms. The high-speed rail collision in Wenzhou last year was a good example of this. Harnessing the power of social media, experienced investigative reporters have become like tigers with wings. They have an entirely new means of investigation at their fingertips. And at the same time social media give them a new means to reach mass audiences.
But this is not what authorities in China have hoped for. And in the Shifang incident we can see the way traditional media and experienced professional journalists have been completely tied down. Journalists were prevented from going to the scene, which meant every vessel and vein of real reporting that might have fed both traditional and new media was closed off.
As the Shifang incident crested and fell, the public was treated to two days of information fast-food. They watched scenes of chaos and conflict. They listened to clamors of anger against the local government. They saw the government forced to back down in defeat. But through it all there was an utter dearth of real reporting, and a serious deficiency of cool-headed analysis.
What exactly was the cause of this incident? Exactly what kind of project was this “molybdenum-copper” project? Who was responsible for the original environmental impact assessment? Why was this conflict so fierce? Were the tactics used by police — this was apparently the first time stun grenades have been used in such an incident — illegal or not? Are there any lingering legal issues stemming from the government’s hasty announcement in the face of public resistance that a project already contracted will be stopped? If this potentially polluting project will not be located in Shifang, where then will it be located? How should we deal with these ever-more-frequent “Not in My Backyard” (NIMBY) environmental protests in China?
None of these issues have been explored. The public deserves serious reporting by professional media, but under the current system this is impossible.
News controls in China have long stood at odds with China’s constitution, but over the past decade, these controls have also taken on a strong flavor of political opportunism. This is a system that does not tolerate freedom of expression and has little tolerance for professional journalism. After all, only professional journalism can ensure the information is independent, responsible and based in fact, not manipulated by any power. Only professional journalism can challenge the scourges of corruption and misrule.