Bloggers and China

As the world marches towards a unified, integrated society, connected by the World Wide Web, in some parts of the world, paradoxically, the Internet provides the only opportunity to express one’s individual identity.  In the United States, the expression of self is a common, everyday occurrence.  The widespread popularity of the World Wide Web allowed many to share their ideas and thoughts with the world through their own personal web pages.  Eventually, these web pages were streamlined and a series of easy to maintain templates was made available for all.  Thus blogging was born.  In America, this new industry presented itself as merely another avenue for advertisement and commercial trendsetting.  In a place like China, however, weblogs (blogs) presented a previously unheard of degree of freedom and autonomy.  Unlike radio waves, the printed word, or television broadcasts, it is not easy to track weblogs.  Also unlike traditional media, it is not capital or labor intensive to start.  Many websites offer hosting services for free in exchange for advertisements on your blog.  The ability to discuss political, social, cultural, military, or other sensitive issues has now been exponentially increased.  Unlike previous attempts at dissent, if the government crushes a blog it crushes only one person, not an entire movement. 

Philip Pan’s superb case study of a blogger named Zhao Jing provides an excellent starting point for a discussion of blogging as it relates to traditional Chinese culture.  Zhao Jing, or “Anti,” his pen name, gained notoriety in China as an outspoken critic of the Chinese government.  Pan writes, “"Anti's Daily Thoughts on Politics and Journalism" tackled a variety of subjects, from public attitudes in Jordan toward the war in Iraq, to the growth of democracy in Taiwan, to the state of Chinese journalism. Zhao generally refrained from topics sure to upset the censors. But his political views were clear.” (1)  Anti’s blog had “15,000 visitors a day” and “thrived.”  However, when it came to the government’s attention that he was criticizing their discretion in choosing editorial for one of its newspapers, they quickly clamped down.  Despite gaining popularity (and infamy) his essay detailing the firing of editors of the Beijing News led to his blog’s ban.  The government then instructed Microsoft to delete his blog, and Microsoft quickly obliged.  The speaking out-oppression dialectic is one that is immediately and painfully familiar to China, but with blogs, there is an entirely different angle.  In Zhao’s case, as well as any other blogger, the liquidity of the structure means he can move from location to location, and so long as he is outside of China, he can continue to pass his views and opinions to the Chinese people without fear of imprisonment.  His political speech does not stop when the government clamps down, it merely moves.  This provides tremendous opportunity for dissent that cannot be easily quashed.

While not every blogger in China takes the bold stances of Zhao, the community is thriving.  Pan writes that “as many as 16 million people” are using blogs in China.  While all of these blogs are not political in nature, it sets a remarkable trend, one unheard of in Chinese history.  Individuals are capable of expressing themselves, rather than accepting a mass line.  This blogging trend goes against three of the fundamental hallmarks of Chinese society: Confucian orthodoxy, Maoist conformity, and previously subdued manifestations of political participation.

Political blogging goes against traditional Confucian orthodoxy for two reasons.  The first is causing dissent goes against the norms of society and diminishes harmony.  The second is that in a hierarchical society, to challenge the father figure is to violate the entire foundation of society.  To this end, Lucian Pye, author of an extensive work on Asian power relations, writes, “In China, the Confucian legacy upheld the ideal that authority could be, indeed should be, an end in itself” (2).  The Confucian tradition holds that people with power are virtuous people, and to challenge them is to challenge their morality.  Challenging a leader’s morality shakes the very basis for government and could be seen as promoting chaos.  An interesting contrast is the United States, where political criticism is aimed towards governing competence and infrequently involves morality.

Traditionally, preserving the harmony of Confucian societies does not involve public protest, but involves the preservation of hierarchical command structures.  Pye writes, “The Chinese version of ho emphasizes the differences in social roles and makes it clear that real harmony requires those who command should command and those who are to obey should obey.”  Pye expands this notion to project the traditional family structure as a model for political organization.  To Pye, the father figure in China is representative of the ruling Chinese government.  The father is not to be questioned, only obeyed.  While Pye extends this comparison far more than it could satisfactorily be proven, there is certainly truth to his suggestion that China operates under a patriarchy.  Although the ideas of Confucius no longer carry the same importance in China they once did, their long term effects are certainly visible.  In the aforementioned case study involving Zhao Jing, a very visible backlash from the media establishment chastised Zhao’s trouble making using language consistent with the harmony tradition.  Pan reports, “In December, a college senior in the eastern city of Yanghzou posted a tirade calling Zhao a "huge obstacle to the development of Chinese blogging culture,” moreover, Fang Xingdong, chairman of China’s first blogging service, Bokee, added, “"I understand his views, but I don't agree with his methods […] If you use blogging as a political tool, you could destroy the development of blogging in China.”  The message from both these sources is the same: stop causing trouble.  To challenge the decisions of the ruling group is to violate the harmony of society.  As Lucian Pye stated, society is broken into two distinct groups politically, those that rule and those that obey.  Harmony exists in the natural relationship between the two.  To violate that natural relationship is to go against Confucianism, something political blogging does.

With regards to social organization, Lucian Pye writes, “The ideal that civil authority should operate like paternalistic power has caused the Chinese to feel that authority should have no precise limits…”  Since authorities have no checks on their authority, those that question the decisions of the rulers are imposing their own judgment upon the ruler.  In effect, they are trying to limit the power of the ruling party.  In the Confucian tradition, the moral leader paradigm is violated by those that question his rule.  According to the writings of Confucian thinkers, to hem in a moral leader through strict delegation of responsibilities to individual political bodies and institutions is to degrade his ability to rule.  An example of the freedom Chinese rulers experience can be found through the censorship committed on Hu Jintao’s behalf.  Article thirty-five of the PRC’s constitution reads, “Citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration.” (3) Yet, as a New York Times article states,

Under China's current leader, Hu Jintao, the government has waged an energetic campaign against freedom of expression, prohibiting the promotion of public intellectuals by the news media; imposing restrictions on Web sites; pressing search engine companies, like Google, to bar delicate topics, particularly those dealing with democracy and human rights; and heavily censoring bulletin board discussions at universities and elsewhere. (4)

This demonstrates that Confucian ideology continues to have an impact in China because Hu Jintao has to flagrantly violate China’s own constitution to exert his power. 

Blogging also demonstrates an important break from decades of Maoist conformity.  While ostensibly the period under Mao was a high point in political participation, the mass movements included so many participants for fear of retribution.  Tony Saich, author of an extensive survey of modern Chinese governance, writes, “The need for participation received strong emphasis in the thought of Mao Zedong.  For Mao, it was not sufficient to accept passively a policy – one must be seen to support it actively.” (5)  Essentially, Mao forced everyone to channel their political energies into the support of his party line.  Anyone who had different view points from Mao had to worry about retaliation, “However, this does not mean that Mao was willing to accept the existence of different, competing groups in Chinese society… he rejected a plurality of views in favour of conformity… although he was later to attack the party, he was still unwilling to accept a plurality of views among the masses who were expected to display loyalty towards him.” (5)  The Cultural Revolution was the first time the Chinese populace had access to information and political freedoms, but these were quickly revoked.  In their place returned the same oppressive systems that generated “cynicism and apathy” (5) from the Chinese people. 

In the past three years, the rapid development of bloggers has led to a remarkable increase in unique self-expression.  No longer are the people tied supporting the line of the Communist party.  For example, while the mainstream media enthusiastically supported the five mascots for the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, the blogging community spoke out, “They were lavishly praised in the press -- and widely ridiculed in blogs that seemed to accurately express public sentiment toward them […] ‘'It's not difficult to create a mascot that's silly and ugly,' wrote one blogger. 'The difficulty is in creating five mascots, each sillier and uglier than the one before it’. (4) The mainstream media remains dominated by the central government, but the freedom of expression possible by blogging reveals the true sentiment of the people.  Opposed to the vision of Mao Zedong, where a central institution provides the range of socially and politically acceptable ideas, blogging allows the individual citizen to express his or her own opinion.  The individualism of this trend represents a complete departure from decades of central government policy.  Whereas before Mao used the masses to check the bureaucracy, now the masses are able to speak on their own terms and go against the edicts of the central ruler.  Xiao Qiang, director of the University of California at Berkley’s China Internet Project, states, “'The content [of blogs] is often political, but not directly political, in the sense that you are not advocating anything, but at the same time you are undermining the ideological basis of power” (4).  As was mentioned many times in class, ideology formed the foundation of the legitimacy of rule.  Mao especially used ideology, particularly in his mass movements, to exercise his will.  This new trend could overthrow the entire foundation for the rule of the Communist Party.  By undermining the ideological grounds for their rule, one arrives at a baffling conclusion: a Communist Party is heavily censoring a nation yearning for free speech, democracy, and human rights and yet remains in power.  It stands to reason that continued action by bloggers will trigger a cultural domino effect, leading to the dissolving of Maoist notions of ideological legitimacy and insisting on new pragmatic criteria to define the rule of the new political power.

Finally, blogging represents a startling reversal against the traditional Chinese methods of political participation.  China has never known democracy in the Western sense of the word.  China was ruled by an emperor for thousands of years and then a nationalist autocracy, followed by a Communist authoritarian regime.  Therefore, the traditional avenues of political participation that develop in Western liberal democracies are nowhere to be found.  In the West, ideas such as freedom of press and speech, assembly and petitions, public campaigning and, most importantly, voting behavior developed and become unassailable institutions.  In China, none of these behaviors are present.  In their stead, more subdued forms of political participation have developed.  Instead of the combative and confrontational interest groups that developed in the West, China saw the expansion of its own state-created organizations.  Groups were able to lobby things that did not particularly shake up the political order.  Tony Saich mentions feminist groups as an example, “Having received the green light, the [Chinese Women’s] Federation seized the opportunity and began to campaign against male domination.  This has led, in concrete terms, to the promulgation of local new laws against discrimination and to the opening of legal counseling offices for women.”  Lobbying for the rights of women does nothing to challenge the authority of the central government.  Since nearly all members of any important position in the central government are nominated by the Politburo, it is difficult to fathom anyone fearing they may lose their job to a woman.  This process of political channeling is the same employed by Mao during his rule.  Distracting the people with issues not directly pertinent towards the governance of the nation prevents them from causing larger problems.

However, the degree of expression allowed in blogging circumvents these institutional controls.  While previous attempts by the authoritarian government to enact gleichschaltung (the bringing into line) were successful because of their ability to limit their subjects’ free time, blogging allows people to participate politically at any time, day or night, as long as they have access to a computer.  According to a China Daily survey of white collar workers, “52 percent respondents had already set up their own blogs. Another 28 percent said they were planning to start one.” (6)  A total of eighty percent of these educated, middle class workers either have a blog or plan to get one.  Among the general population, a London Times article estimates “13.3 million blogs.” (7)  Even members of the establishment are blogging, at the most recent session of the National People’s Congress, the China Daily News reports, “It is not only deputies and delegates blogging at the conference. Journalists and other common citizens are participating, with the latter group more active than one can imagine. They follow events and submit their opinions and proposals online.” (8)  In an unprecedented step in Chinese politics, common citizens are lobbying their representatives in real time.  This degree of political activity is unthinkable before the introduction of the blogging concept to China.  Certainly, despite the best efforts of the censors, increases in activity along these lines will create an uncontrollable force in Chinese society, where the average citizen believes his opinion to be important, despite the traditions of Mao and Confucius saying otherwise.

In conclusion, blogging in China has touched off an unprecedented movement.  Whereas traditional methods of participation are still silenced and controlled by the central government, the freedom of the internet is allowing the individual Chinese citizen to express his opinion, even about politics.  Maoist conformity and Chinese Confucian belief in solidarity and the division of political order into rulers and followers block them at every move.  Literally, they block them by preventing access to the web pages the bloggers run.  However, with the explosion of its popularity and uncontrollable dissemination of information, sea change is imminent in China.

Works Cited

1. Pan, Philip P.  “Bloggers Who Pursue Change Confront Fear And Mistrust.”  The Washington Post.  21 Feburary 2006: A01.

2. Pye, Lucian.  Asian Power and Politics.  Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006.

3. “Constitution of the People’s Republic of China.”  Constiution of the People’s Republic of China.  4 December 1982.  People’s Daily Online.  12 March 2006.  < http://english.people.com.cn/constitution/constitution.html>

4. “A Party Girl Leads China's Online Revolution.”  The New York Times.  November 24, 2005: Section A; Column 2; Foreign Desk; Pg. 1

“Blogging gaining in popularity.”  The China Daily News.  4 March 2006.

5. Saich, Tony.  Governance and Politics of China.  London: Palmgrave Macmillan.  2001.

6. Huang, Qing.  “Blogs provide platform to air different opinions.”  The China Daily News.  9 March 2006.

7. “Let a thousand blogs bloom.”  The London Times.  February 16, 2006: Feautres; Pg. 20

8. Zhang, Xin.  “Freedom vs. Liberty.”  The China Daily News.  Dec 26, 2005.

--Anthony Marsh