China has come down hard on domestic social media platforms this week, disabling comment functions on major platforms like Sina Weibo and QQ Weibo for a period of 72 hours ending tomorrow, April 3, at 8am.
While comment functions seemed to have been disabled without explanation by Sina, users of the Weibo service at QQ were greeted with the following message notifying them of the ban.

Users and Friends:
Recently, rumors and other illegal and harmful information spread through microblogs have had a negative social impact, and harmful information has been relatively predominant in comment sections, requiring concentrated cleansing. For this purpose, this site has decided to temporarily suspend the comment function on microblogs from 8am March 31 to 8am April 3. We express our apologies for any inconvenience.
Tencent
March 31, 2012

The Tencent announcement suggests this was a decision undertaken by the service itself, but this is undoubtedly an action taken by the central leadership through the agency of the State Internet Information Office (国家互联网信息办公室).
The catalyzing incident seems to have been rumors on and after March 20 of a coup attempt in Beijing, but the campaign against “rumors”, which has intensified since August 2011, in fact signals a broader tightening of China’s stance on social media.
We won’t repeat our past arguments here about the bogus nature of the anti-rumor campaign, and its feigned interest in truth and accuracy when in fact the underlying principal is the political control of information. Here are seven different CMP pieces dealing with “rumors”, press control policies and social media since August last year:
1. “China tackles the messy world of microblogs” — August 11, 2011
2. “Busting the bias of the rumor busters” — August 12, 2011
3. “Control, the soil that nurtures rumor” — August 15, 2011
4. “Big oops leaves state media red-faced” — August 16, 2011
5.”Why do rumors explode in China?” — September 27, 2011
6. “Rumor Fever” (International Herald Tribune) — December 12, 2011
7. “In China, the bats of rumor take wing” — March 22, 2012
In particular, we encourage readers to revisit “Control, the soil that nurtures rumor“, written by CMP fellow and Peking University professor Hu Yong, one of China’s leading experts on social media.
Adding grist to the conversation, we include this translation of an editorial run yesterday by the official Xinhua News Agency:

“[We] Must Firmly Say ‘No’ to Rumor Spreaders”
April 1, 2012
Xinhua News Agency
Relevant [government] departments have released the results of an investigation into recent online rumors and have detained 6 suspects according to the law for fabricating rumors, and carried out education and censure on others who broadcast related rumors online. The response online has been positive, with web users saying “those who fabricate or spread rumors are detestable, and they should be punished.” There has also been debate. Some have said that “those who fabricate rumors should be punished, but those who spread rumors should be dealt with leniently.” Immediately some people shot back, “It’s true that the fabricators of rumors are detestable, but those who spread rumors are just as disreputable.”
I support the latter view.
Spreading rumors is about following along. . . The fabricators of rumors are the source, those who follow along in spreading rumors boost them, making rumors spread far and wide.
One characteristic of those who follow rumors is that they enjoy idle reports, and they take things too literally. The smallest thing, a few isolated words or phrases, are amplified and built up layer after layer by the rumor transmitters, until in the end they become major events, just like the saying that “the smallest deviation can result in the widest divergence” (失之毫厘，谬之千里).
According to online media, the rumor of “gunshots fired in Beijing” that spread around this time originated with the dialogue written by a certain writer for a television program: “The sound of gunfire, and tomorrow it will be major news.” This was posted to his own microblog. And this empty sentence was subjected to the limitless guesswork of well-meaning people who made up their own versions until it became, “Gunshots fired in Beijing, something major has happened.”
It so happens there is a precedent. A few months back, media revealed that relevant [government] departments had investigated a number of classic cases of online rumors: a certain military affairs website editor saw a post with a couplet that read, “An iron bird in the radiance of the setting sun, a puff of blue smoke,” and cobbled together the random remarks of web users to suggest the explosive news that, “The air force has lost an airplane.” This information was then widely spread about by some overseas media which enjoy the “heady taste” of rumors, having an extreme negative impact.
This rumor and the rumors of gunshots in Beijing are so much alike in how they were concocted! So to a large extent, those who pass along rumors are also rumor fabricators.
. . .
Rumor fabricators and rumor spreaders have one thing in common, and that is a weak concept of the law. In the public opinion space of the internet everyone has the right to post speech online, but everyone must take responsibility for what they say. Whether it means fabricating rumors or spreading rumors, “finding amusement” in this important matter of social safety and stability is not only an expression of irresponsibility toward oneself and one’s society, it is extremely damaging.
In other countries of the world too such behavior will not be tolerated. Not long ago some media reported that two British youth planned a trip to the United States, and before they went one posted on the American microblog site Twitter that he would “blow Los Angeles to the ground” and would “dig up Marilyn Monroe.” [NOTE: the British would-be tourist, Leigh Van Bryan, actually wrote: ““Free this week for a quick gossip/prep before I go and destroy America?” Bryan wrote to Twitter user @MelissaxWalton. “3 weeks today, we’re totally in LA p—ing people off on Hollywood Blvd and diggin’ Marilyn Monroe up!”].
As a result the two were detained by American authorities at the Los Angeles International Airport. While the two insisted it was all just a joke, they were still detained for 17 hours and send back to their home country the next day. Should the masses of web users not find this incident enlightening?
To sum up, following along in passing on rumors is undesirable. Fabricating rumors is illegal, and passing rumors on is just as illegal.

[Frontpage photo: Chinese flee from the specter of “rumor fabrication” in this February 2012 cartoon published in the official Shanxi Daily newspaper.]

The following English-language post by Chinese historian Lei Yi (雷颐) was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime before 3:32am Hong Kong time today, April 2, 2012. Lei Yi currently has just over 92,000 followers, according to numbers from Sina Weibo. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre].

Mr. Heywood’s relationship with the family became especially close after he played a key role in organizing a place for Mr. Bo’s son, Guagua, at Harrow, an exclusive British private school that usually requires entrants to be on a waiting list from birth, and helping to …

Lei Yi’s post is an English excerpt from a Wall Street Journal report about the suspicious death in Chongqing in November last year of British national Neil Heywood, who was believed to be close to the family of Chongqing’s former top leader, Bo Xilai (薄熙来).
The deletion of this English-language post can be read as an indication that while Chinese-language information remains the chief priority for censors on social media, English-language content is also reviewed.

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.

The following post by Charles Mok (莫乃光), a Hong Kong internet entrepreneur and chairman of the Internet Society of Hong Kong, was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime before 10:35pm Hong Kong time yesterday, April 1, 2012. Charles Mok currently has just under 72,000 followers, according to numbers from Sina Weibo. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre].

I’m at the Central Government Liaison Office [in Hong Kong]. Things are really happening at the Central Government Liaison Office today.

Mok’s post refers to protests by thousands of people in Hong Kong yesterday objecting to what many see as Beijing’s interference in the recent selection of Hong Kong’s next chief executive. According to the Washington Post, Hong Kong police used pepper spray on some protesters as the tried to get through barricades outside the liaison office of China’s central government. Protestors shouted pro-democracy slogans.
The following is Charles Mok’s original Chinese-language post:

我在中聯辦。中聯辦今天熱鬧了.

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.

Offering further indication of the shift away from the politics of Bo Xilai, who was removed as the leader of Chongqing on March 15, a report in today’s Chongqing Daily offers what seems to be a mea culpa by the municipality’s head of propaganda, He Shizhong (何事忠).
According to the report in Chongqing Daily, the official “mouthpiece” of the municipality’s top leadership, He Shizhong told a gathering of propaganda leaders on March 26 that “the cultural and propaganda work of the whole city must firmly and resolutely maintain a high degree of uniformity with the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party.”
He Shizhong emphasized that Chongqing propaganda leaders needed to “realistically summarize and analyze propaganda and culture work over the past few years, in which there are a number of areas that require improvement.” Specifically, He said there was a need to “improve activities and methods, reducing as much as possible collective theatrical performances, firmly avoiding movement-style [propaganda] methods.”
Just over a year ago, as Bo Xilai’s campaign of “red songs” was in full swing in the city, He Shizhong defended the Chongqing’s policies on propaganda and culture.
In an interview with Chongqing Daily, He Shizhong sought to dispel fears that the “red China” theme was a celebration of China’s “leftist” past:

What does “China is red” mean? In its makeover, Chongqing Satellite TV upholds the principle of “I love Red China.” When we talk of “red” some people express opposition, saying that we are encouraging “leftist” sympathies, or even taking the old road of the Cultural Revolution. This is entirely wrong. The Chinese people have revered the color red since ancient times . . . The color red represents life, vitality, youth, ardor, brightness, vividness, strength, fullness of life force. In a limited sense, so-called “red culture” (红色文化) points to the way the Chinese Communist Party has, since the last century, led the Chinese masses through an explosive period of revolution and war, how it has built [China up], and about the spirit of the age that has emerged through opening and reform. China under the leadership of the CCP is a “red China.”

The following post by Lang Yaoyuan (郎遥远), the editor of World Chinese Business magazine, was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime before 1:31pm Hong Kong time on March 26, 2012. Lang Yaoyuan currently has just over 74,000 followers, according to numbers from Sina Weibo. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre].

Recently, 106-year-old linguist Zhou Youguang (周有光), the “father of pinyin Chinese” was interviewed by the BBC in Beijing and said with seriousness: “”China will have to release itself from communism. The future will be dark if it doesn’t.” He also pointed out that if mainland China cannot peacefully make the transition to freedom and democracy, there will be a violent revolution, and this is just a matter of time. “I have to speak the truth, and what can they do!”

The Weibo post refers to Michael Bristow’s March 22 article on Zhou Youguang, which can be found here. The final sentence in the Weibo post presumably refers to the section in Bristow’s article that reads as follows: “He is critical of the party that governs China – and old enough not to care who is listening to what he has to say. ‘What are they going to do, come and take me away?’ he said in an interview with the BBC in his sparsely furnished Beijing home.
The following image of Zhou Youguang was included with Lang Yaoyuan’s post:

This original Chinese post from Lang Yaoyuan follows:

日前，106岁的著名文字语言学家、中国“汉语拼音之父”周有光在北京住所接受英国广播电台（BBC）专访时，神情严肃地说道：“只要一天离不开共产主义，中国就无法摆脱黑暗”；他更指中国大陆若不能向自由民主和平过渡，将会有革命抗暴，那是迟早的事情。“我就要说真话，他们能把我怎么样！”

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.

The following post from Phoenix News Brief (鳳凰資訊快報) was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime before 10:05pm Hong Kong time yesterday, March 27, 2012. Phoenix News Brief currently has just under 35,000 followers, according to numbers from Sina Weibo. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre].

Concerning the suspicious death of in November last year of British national Neil Heywood in Chongqing, Britain’s Foreign Office has said that it was at the request of British nationals in Chongqing who had questions about the circumstances of Neil Heywood’s death that Britain asked China’s government to investigate. Asked yesterday about the death, foreign ministry spokesman Hong Lei (洪磊) said he wasn’t familiar with the case.

This original Chinese post from Phoenix News Brief follows:

英國外交部回應去年11月在重慶離奇死亡的英國人Neil Heywood之死事件時表示，是重慶當地英國人對Neil Heywood之死提出質疑後，英方才要求中國政府調查。外交部發言人洪磊昨日被問及死亡個案時稱，對案件並不知情。

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.

The following post from the official Sina Weibo of cartoonist Perverted Pepper (变态辣椒) was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime before 3:48pm Hong Kong time yesterday, March 26, 2012. Perverted Pepper currently has just under 102,000 followers, according to numbers from Sina Weibo. [More on deleted posts at the WeiboScope Search, by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre].

The post is a political cartoon in which a throng of ordinary Chinese waves goodbye to a large red ship called “Titanic.” At the helm of the hulking ship stands Chairman Mao, his hand outstretched, and other top Chinese Communist Party leaders. The obvious implication of the cartoon is that the great red ship of the CCP is doomed — and that the Chinese people are ready to send it off to its sinking doom.
The text in the air to the left of Mao is “Sailing the Seas Depends on the Helmsman” (大海航行靠舵手), the title of a Chinese Communist Party song that was listed No. 1 on a top-ten list of “revolutionary songs” in 1965, on the eve of the Cultural Revolution. [Listen to the song at Youtube].

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.

It’s a risky proposition to make political forecasts in a totalitarian system. So many things are cloaked and uncertain, and exposure of the slightest hint can bring shock and surprise. It’s this uncertainty, of course, that encourages people to strain their necks and their ears, making endless guesses about what they can neither see nor hear. This is especially true when major things go down, as with the recent leadership change in Chongqing, which has prompted a thousand rumors.
Just over a month ago, a secret visit by “anti-crime hero” Wang Lijun to the US Consulate in Chengdu startled the whole world. For some, this seemed to herald the opening of the political drama in China [ahead of the 18th Party Congress]. In my view, though, what we’re in fact seeing is the curtain closing. This whole affair now means that the 18th Party Congress can go ahead without further drama.
Consensus, stability and unity. In China, these are ideas marshaled by the leadership to brainwash the people. They have become deeply engraved on people’s minds. As a result, any lack of consensus within the Party is perceived as a schism, and external resistance is read as a sign of upheaval.
Drama goes hand in hand with totalitarian politics. At critical moments, political drama can determine the course of events. If there hadn’t been the opportunity afforded by Wang Lijun’s “treason”, the leadership would have awaited or invented some other incident to galvanize the Party and put and end to internal destabilizing factors in the interest of peace and unity.
One Chinese internet user quipped that Wang Lijun is indeed the ultimate “anti-crime hero”. Why? Because through his surprise visit to the American consulate in Chengdu he assured in one fell swoop the destruction of China’s strongest criminal element, namely the Maoist faction that remains so enamored of the Cultural Revolution and has been bolstered by the so-called Chongqing model [championed by Bo Xilai].
It certainly seems true that this incident presents the central leadership with the perfect opportunity to eliminate political outliers and stabilize political power. Taking a longer view of things, however, it’s impossible to say with any certainty what impact these events will have.
Some are no doubt tempted to suggest this is a victory for the liberal faction of which Premier Wen Jiabao (温家宝) is the figurehead. It is a victory against the conservatives and vested interests, and a victory too for the so-called Guangdong model that represents reform and stands in stark contrast to the Chongqing model and its Cultural Revolution revivalism.
I’m not so sure.
While I don’t believe that Bo Xilai ever really took to heart the core ideas of the Cultural Revolution — how could he while his wife ran a large company, his son studied overseas, and Chongqing slurped up investment on his watch? — I do think the failure of his ploy for the political spotlight is a good thing. But how can we be so sure this is really a victory for reform?
The lessons of history caution us that, to quote an old saying, when the danger is past, the gods are forgotten. Reform and opening and the Guangdong model were a banner in the recent political struggle, but as the opponent fades the shine comes off of reform and the Guangdong model too.
At a press conference during the National People’s Congress this month, Guangdong Party Secretary Wang Yang (汪洋) rejected the idea that the Wukan incident — a village rights defense movement that ended in local elections — bore any new significance. Secretary Wang understands only too well that there is little need [politically] for the Guangdong model once political stability has been secured. There is even less need for democratic reforms, which would only bring new division and hasten the end of the Party’s dictatorship.
Premier Wen Jiabao has said repeatedly that “without reform we are at a dead end.” But who exactly is the “we” here? If, as the official People’s Daily has suggested, this “we” is the Party, then the so-called political reform agenda is really about “saving the Party” and not about real democratic reform.
Many people suppose that once the liberal faction has neutralized the Maoist left and gained a firm hold politically, Premier Wen Jiabao will be in a position to fulfill his political reform promises. The truth is that the impetus for political reform cannot possibly arise from calmness and tranquility. Without sufficient pressure, China’s leadership will not push for reform.
Ratcheting up pressure on Premier Wen Jiabao and affirming his calls for reform are one and the same thing. The role of proponents should be to position democratic reforms within the popular discourse, not to cheer court intrigue from the sidelines.
If this really is an opportunity for political reform, what we need now is concerted action, not passive anticipation amid the calm.
This is a translated and abridged version of an article posted to Deutsche Welle Chinese and to Chang Ping’s personal blog on March 25, 2012.

Yu Jianrong (于建嵘), one of China’s most outspoken intellectuals, yesterday posted a ten-year plan for social and political development in China on his Tencent microblog account. The plan called for a three-year initial phase of concerted social and judicial reforms, including the abolishment of the petitioning and household registration systems, followed by a second phase of political reforms moving China toward constitutional democracy.
Yu’s plan gives readers a general idea of many of the concrete changes proposed in China by pro-reformers under the auspices of “political reform”.
A translation of the general outline for Yu Jianrong’s plan follows. The original text-as-image file posted to Tencent Weibo follows the translation:

Ten-Year Outline for Social and Political Development in China (October 2012 to September 2022)
Author: Yu Jianrong
First Phase (October 2012 to December 2015)
Achieving basic social equality and justice, with the adjustment of public welfare policies as the premise and the protection of people’s rights as the foundation.
1. Adjustment of public welfare policies
i. Clarifying rights to rural land, implementing the Property Law;
ii. Adjusting basic social welfare policies (社会福利政策), extending pensions, unemployment, health insurance and such to low-income members of society;
iii. Thoroughly reform the household registration system, instituting compulsory education (义务教育) and equality of higher-education testing across all regions without discrimination.
2. Build a judicial system of checks and balances, establishing legal authority
i. Detach the personnel, finances and property of inferior courts and intermediate courts from cities and counties, instituting a system of direct jurisdiction by the provinces;
ii. Institute a system of lifetime tenure for judges with strict [stipulations on] mobility;
iii. Institute a system of high salaries for judges, strictly following up on mishandled cases;
iv. Abolish politics and law committees below the provincial level;
v. Abolish the petitioning system, resolve long-standing cases through the judicial system;
vi. Abolish the re-education through labor system, ensuring the personal rights of citizens
3. Ensure freedom of speech and freedom of expression
i. Achieve openness of government affairs
ii. Make public the assets of officials and other information
iii. Strictly prohibit incrimination through speech (因言获罪)
4. Strengthen the building of social organizations, foster civil society development
i. Regulate community management organizations;
ii. Energetically develop social welfare organizations, using welfare to re-mold the humanistic spirit;
iii. Protect social and religious organizations
Second Phase (January 2016 to September 2022)
Promoting the transition of the country to constitutional democracy, with political reform as the premise and civil rights as the foundation.
1. Carry out reform of political power at the county level
i. Open up elections for county-level people’s congresses, instituting a system in which people’s congresses are not administrative or professionalized
ii. Reform the cross-regional system for county-level officials; [NOTE: This system, used in the Ming and Qing dynasties, means placing outsiders in local positions to prevent entrenched resistance to the center and promote the centralization of power.]
iii. Institute differential elections for county-level positions; [NOTE: This means that the number of candidates surpasses the number of posts available.]
iv. Transform township governments into branch organs.
2. Open up society
i. Establish a press law, open up the media;
ii. Establish a Political Parties Law, open up social and political organizations.

In March 2012, China’s dominance of the global supply of rare earths, critical to the manufacture of downstream products such as computers, came under intense scrutiny from the West, and US President Barack Obama announced that the US, Europe and Japan were bringing a case to the World Trade Organization contesting China’s export controls on rare earths. China countered allegations that it was using rare earths as a global bargaining chip by insisting that curbs on exports were really about environmental protection and public safety. In this cartoon, posted by artist Will Luo (罗杰) to his comic space at QQ.com and appearing in the March 16 edition of China Daily, a Chinese official sits, calmly perplexed, as a scowling two-headed Westerner wearing a pair of black top hats leans over the fence and screams: 1. “You should protect the environment more!” and 2. “You should develop and export more rare earths!” The Chinese official thinks to himself: “Now, which is the real one?”