Online Society in China

Creating, celebrating, and instrumentalising the online carnival

David Kurt Herold, Peter Marolt, David Kurt Herold, Peter Marolt

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9780415838221
• eBook ISBN: 9781136808852
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Ethnic Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

This book discusses the rich and varied culture of China's online society, and its impact on offline China. It argues that the internet in China is a separate 'space' in which individuals and institutions emerge and interact. While offline and online spaces are connected and influence each other, the Chinese internet is more than merely a technological or media extension of offline Chinese society. Instead of following existing studies by locating online China in offline society, the contributors in this book discuss the carnival of the Chinese internet on its own terms.

Examining the complex relationship between government officials and the people using the Internet in China, this book demonstrates that culture is highly influential in how technology is used. Discussing a wide range of different activities, the contributors examine what Chinese people actually do on the internet, and how their actions can be interpreted within the online society they are creating.

Part I

Creating the carnival

Netizens and the state

1 Cultural convulsions

Examining the Chineseness of
cyber China

Rodney Wai-chi Chu and Chung-tai Cheng

Introduction

This chapter wants to argue for a better capture of the dynamics of cyber China, and for an acknowledgment of her cultural-historical roots. In discussions of cyber China, two discourses have been dominant, the first being the ‘liberation discourse’, which associates technological advancement with the development of civil society. The second, the ‘control discourse’, discusses how successful the Communist party state has been in taking advantage of its economic success to protect its vested interest. In this chapter, though, we maintain that a fair understanding of the development of cyber China requires an appreciation of her unique historical, political and cultural contexts. China has been ‘riding a double juggernaut’ (the introduction of modern capitalism and of cyberization at almost the same time), but the modernization of the country has been accompanied by a new ‘rule by morality’, and China’s culture and her worldview are shaping interpersonal relationships and people’s understanding of civil society – which should be taken into account in an analysis of cyber China.

After a brief look at the current state of analysis of the development of cyber China, we discuss a series of studies on the meaning of modernization, technology and civil society from a Chinese perspective. The section outlines how the historical-cultural logic of Chinese society affects the governance of China’s rulers as well as the behavioural patterns of the people in cyber China, thus challenging Western assumptions about cyber practices in China. By using the cases of the Green Dam Youth Escort Online Filtering Software (hereafter referred to as ‘Green Dam’) affair and the subsequent ‘2009 Declaration of the Anonymous Netizens’ (hereafter referred to as ‘The Declaration’), we want to argue that it is misleading to see these events as an illustration of emerging civic power in China, as this ignores the contradictory views expressed about both cases in Chinese cyberspace. Instead of presenting clear-cut divisions between people for or against the Green Dam or The Declaration, we want to emphasize the cultural threads underlying online responses, with the goal of a clearer articulation of what is happening in Chinese cyberspace. We hope that this chapter will contribute to an understanding of the uniqueness of cyber China, grown out of her history and culture.

The current state of analysis

The history of ICTs in China is very short, but her ICT market has expanded at a phenomenal rate. According to the 24th Statistical Report issued by the China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC) on July 16, 2009, 338 million people were accessing the Internet, allowing China formally to overtake the United States as the country with the largest numbers of Internet users (CNNIC, 2009). Less than one year later, Xinhua News Agency, citing data from the State Council Information Office, stated that the number of Internet users had reached 400 million, indicating an 18% increase (Agence France Presse, 2010). Based on these figures, increasing numbers of scholars believe that ever more Chinese people are taking advantage of the Internet to express and discuss their own views on social matters, which in turn contributes to the Internet becoming a public sphere which will enhance and promote democracy in China (Buchstein, 1997; Dittmer & Liu, 2006; Froomkin, 2003; Wu, 2007; Yang, 2009b; Zheng, 2008). Phrases such as ‘online activism’ (Yang, 2009a), ‘cyber rights’ (Godwin, 2003), or ‘liberation discourse’ (Damm, 2009: 83–85) are employed in a liberal democratic sense, thus associating technological advancement in China with the emergence and development of a civil society. The argument made is that the Chinese government, in its pursuit of economic and social progress, is forced to accept a compromise of its control over the Internet, otherwise China’s economic reforms and its Opening-Up policy would be obstructed and fail (Harwit & Clark, 2001).

Some, however, argue that the Internet will not bring revolutionary change to China, as the central government has implemented the most powerful, sophisticated, and far-reaching filtering system on the Chinese Internet to curtail the circulation of information that could threaten the stability of the country (Chase & Mulvenon, 2002). This seems to be supported by China’s growing unwillingness to compromise on her opinions, based on her rapid economic growth, which, in the view of the Chinese government (and the Chinese people), proves that China is strong enough to guarantee a ‘controlled change’, or to allow a ‘controlled discourse’ (Damm, 2009: 86–87), both online and offline. A good illustration of these beliefs is the high-profile contest between Google and Chinese authorities during the first half of 2010 about Google’s obligation to censor search results on its Chinese website. Google announced its intention to quit China at the beginning of the year, and since March 2010 has redirected users of its search engine to its (uncensored) Hong Kong site as a show of its determination not to submit to Chinese censorship demands. By the end of June 2010, though, Google had resubmitted an application for the renewal of its license to provide online content in China (Efrati & Batson, 2010), implying its willingness to obey Chinese laws. Google’s u-turn surely embarrassed its supporters (Ai, 2010) but, comparing US debts with the huge (and affluent) Chinese market, Western multi-nationals queuing up for their share of that market know better than anyone that China is holding all the trumps these days (Garten, 2010).

Additionally, it is argued that the degree of censorship in cyber China is not new at all. Zhao points out that China’s military-led techno-nationalism has had a profound impact on her ‘digital revolution’ from the beginning of and throughout the post-Mao era (Zhao, 2007: 96). The development of ICTs is seen as instrumental in the state’s modernization of its military and surveillance capabilities, and against this backdrop the paradoxical nature of China’s digital revolution becomes more easily understandable: on the one hand, ICTs have been widely promoted, if unevenly diffused, among the population; on the other hand, state control over content of and access to ICTs has always been a focus of the Chinese state (ibid.: 92). To some extent this echoes the portrayal of Chinese media reforms as having gone through stop-go cycles since the 1980s (Chan & Qiu, 2002: 33–34), based on the pattern of reform and retrenchment rooted in the fear of the Chinese Communist Party leadership that freedom in related areas (from conventional press freedom to freedom of expression online) will pose a threat to its political power. Such an interpretation provides an internal logic to the series of state acts starting with the ‘anti-spiritual pollution campaign’ from October 1983 to February 1984 and the ‘anti-liberalization campaign’ from January to May 1987, as they can be interpreted as attempts by the conservative wing of the Chinese Communist Party to open the economy but not the polity (see Zhao, 2009: 183–96).

In a recent attempt to escape this political sociology perspective of the Internet, Chu (forthcoming) tries to introduce a wider perspective into the study of cyber China by arguing that China has been ‘riding a double juggernaut’. Put simply, China’s reform era has coincided with a period of rapid technological innovations globally, and has therefore experienced socio-cultural and techno-economic upheavals of such a magnitude that all Chinese people throughout China have been affected by them. Providing a strong sense of coincidence, both developments began in the early 1990s. In 1992, Deng Xiaoping went on his famous southern tour of China, travelling to Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Shanghai between mid January and late February, which has generally been regarded as his way of reasserting control over China’s economic policy after the crackdowns in June 1989. The tour was instrumental in deepening the Chinese reforms of the telecommunications sector, while during the same time period the global cyber era began, with the historic move towards a World Wide Web. Around the world, the pace of development of the Internet and of Web culture has been staggering. The World Wide Web first became publicly available in 1991, followed by the introduction in 1993 of the Mosaic Web browser, which evolved into the Netscape Navigator during the following year. In 1997 a new form of web environment – the blog – emerged and allowed private individuals to express themselves on the Internet, which has since become ubiquitous. In the context of this chapter, we merely want to point out that, in an unintended convergence of circumstances, China – because of her determination to join the rest of the world – stumbled into revolutionary changes to the social experience of ‘the West’, and had to cope with industrialization and cyberization at the same time.

There is nothing in the history of Western countries that compares to China’s experience as such, as their development progressed in a more linear fashion. One very good example of this difference is the introduction of the telephone, which can serve as a benchmark of the process of industrialization. In the West, there was a gradual process of development from the use of fixed telephones to mobile phones, and sociological enquiry also moved from studying the implications on human lives of fixed telephones to the study of mobile phones. In China, however, the mobile phone is often the first phone experienced by a person, as there was limited state investment in landlines across the country before the 1990s, resulting in private phone lines being too costly and time-consuming to connect. As a result the ‘fixed phone experience’ is not the ‘normal experience in the modern era’ for many Chinese people (He, 1997: 68–78; Yan & Pitt, 2002: 13–19; Yu & Tng, 2003: 187).

The density of the Chinese experience of modernity – learning to live with modern capitalism and rapid cyberization at the same time – while moving from a closed society (under totalitarian rule) to a more open one within a very short period of time, is reason enough to expect the Chinese experience to be unique. Added to this are China’s long and unbroken cultural heritage and traditions, which form the backdrop for China’s development, and that we turn to now in more detail.

The Chinese cultural realm

Borge Bakken (2000a) discussed the main problem of Chinese society in dealing with disorder on the path to modernization: China’s insistence on the maintenance of an ‘exemplary society’, which refers to an education- and discipline-oriented society in which ‘human quality’ and model behaviour are moulded and promoted. Bakken emphasized the influence of the cultural realm on the form of a social change. He contended that Chinese modernization seemed to follow deeply rooted patterns of controlled change aimed at taming and directing the path as well as the pace of the road to modernization. In the Chinese context, ‘human quality’ is regarded as a force for realizing a modern society of perfect order, or for the creation of a harmonious modernity, based on roots in and memories of the past (Bakken 2000a: 1). In this process, tradition and modernization are interlinked through a system of social controls in which ‘tradition’ is seen as serving transforming purposes and ‘modernization’ can mean stability and order (ibid.: 4–5). An apt metaphor for their relationship is to put brakes on a runaway engine, to control the path and pace of the juggernaut of modernity. Concepts such as ‘social engineering’ (shehui gongcheng), ‘moral construction’ (daode jianshe), or ‘two civilizations – material and spiritual’ (wuzhi wenming and jingshen wenming) that are frequently mentioned in official statements and that are popular among political and technocratic elites in China are never empty slogans (ibid.: 50–54), but reflect a striving for a ‘rule by morality’ in the course of the ride to capitalism. The aim is to produce ‘a rational social equilibrium’ (heli de shehui pingheng) – although it is another matter whether such a goal is achievable or not. However, such a moral rule, Bakken argues, is deeply embedded in Chinese culture, where the classical values of ‘self cultivation, family regulation, ordering of the state, and bringing tranquillity and order under heaven’ (xiu shen, qi jia, zhi guo, ping tian xia) are expressed in the Confucian classic Great Learning (Daxue), and form the founding principle for creating both an ideal individual personality and a perfect society (ibid.: 42).

This cultural framework can be traced, for example, in a study of elections or ‘voting’ in the Chinese context (Bakken, 2000b). The Chinese cultural background as outlined above represents a normative basis, with a focus on problems of governance and of democratization within the setting of sustaining social integration and community well-being. Though the meaning of community varies considerably from family, to clan, to nation, it represents the centre of Chinese society, which does not emphasize treating individuals on equal terms, but rather focuses on the relationships between people as the basic unit of society. The belief that good society will develop through the upholding of morality and strict standards based on objective norms rather than subjective decisions leads to a preference for evaluation (ping) rather than election (xuan). Consequently, Bakken argues, the Chinese are sceptical about elections and representative democracy in particular, and place immense importance on the evaluation of all aspects of everyday life in general (ibid.: 110–11).

Yu (1984) argues that, unlike Western thought with its emphasis on rationality, Chinese thought has a very this-worldly practical focus, while it is through articulation from within, what is known as ‘immanent transcendence’ (neizai chaoyue), that one may come to terms with one’s destiny, or the Mandate of Heaven (tian ming) (Yu, 1984: 23–25). This cultural orientation favours the development of ‘technical skills’ (jishu) rather than of ‘science’ (kexue), the former emphasizing practical wisdom, while the latter focuses on finding truth, which had significant consequences during China’s development from the mid 19th century onwards. Her turbulent modern history had brought about the burning desire among many to ‘save the nation’ (jiuguo), and many activists not only overlooked that there were different levels of westernization (e.g. technological, legal, etc.), but mista...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Contributors
• Introduction
• PART I Creating the carnival
• PART II Celebrating the carnival
• PART III Instrumentalizing the carnival
• Index