Abstract
External pressures have little impact on domestic politics, yet the landscape for free speech is changing.
Several years ago, China specialist Perry Link wrote an incisive and beautifully-written article on freedom of speech in China. He described Chinese censorship as ‘a giant anaconda coiled in an overhead chandelier’ – a reference to the climate of fear that was generated by the deliberate absence of explicit rules on what can or cannot be said. Because of this fear, people often erred on the side of caution in case they fell foul of the authorities.
Link wrote that back in 2002, and things have changed since then. While writers, academics and the media still mostly practise self-censorship (apart from a few lone wolves), the explosion of online social media has given anyone with an internet connection the chance to express themselves. Furthermore, the rise of a large middle class has given people confidence in numbers and a swelling sense of both individual rights and privilege, so that they have felt able to ignore the anaconda to some extent. And on the whole, Chinese internet users feel largely free to say what they want.
Professor of Chinese Politics at the University of Sydney Kerry Brown notes that the massive uptake of social media has shaken up the space for free expression in China. ‘The main change now is that China has grown much scrappier because of the immense profusion of social media’, Brown told Index. ‘So there are now very lively debates on social media sites like Weibo or Weixin, and a sort of constant battle between censors and different groups and communities … this has created a much more dynamic context.’
2011’s democracy movements worried Beijing
The government puts the onus on internet companies, including Weibo host Sina and Weixin owner Tencent, to make sure their platforms are not being used to spread information or opinions that threaten the government. These companies regularly scurry to delete risky content themselves and loose-lipped users may find their posts removed or even their accounts deleted.
ABOVE: Protesters support Southern Weekly in its battle over censorship, Guangzhou, January 2013. The banner reads ‘democratic China’
Credit: Bobby Yip/Reuters
A 2012 report co-authored by Harvard Professor Gary King published some surprising findings. It suggested that online censorship isn’t as simple as snipping out everything that might subvert government power. In fact, it’s much more interesting.
‘Contrary to previous understandings, posts with negative, even vitriolic, criticism of the state, its leaders, and its policies are not more likely to be censored,’ the abstract states. Instead, it continues, censorship efforts are aimed at ‘curtailing collective action by silencing comments that represent, reinforce, or spur social mobilisation, regardless of content. Censorship is oriented toward attempting to forestall collective activities that are occurring now or may occur in the future – and, as such, seem to clearly expose government intent.’
In more extreme cases, anyone with a substantial following, and without enough protection inside the government, such as outspoken artist Ai Weiwei, may be silenced by intimidation or even jailed – Ai was detained without charge in summer 2012.
Outside forces have little effect on China’s domestic politics – to understand this, you only need to look at how the London Book Fair was commandeered in 2012, where there was a notable absence of independent voices and only government-approved writers were represented, or at the ways in which international filmmakers are re-sculpting their plots to please the Middle Kingdom. Indeed, in some ways, China is now ominously exporting its silencing techniques overseas.
But 2011’s democracy movements in northern African and the Middle East worried those in charge. ‘The Arab Spring certainly spooked the leadership in Beijing and caused them to clamp down, and their mindset has become more defensive,’ says Brown. ‘Like other political elites, they act often as though they are bewildered by the rate of change in the social media space in China. On the whole, however, they have had no choice but to adapt.’
But it’s not just social media that is helping to loosen the limits on free expression in China. Commercial interests are also driving change.
‘There is also deeper marketisation of media generally, and the state media in particular, which is now under pressure to at least make money,’ says Brown. ‘Commercialisation and the ways in which it sometimes impedes censorship have therefore become new stories in China, with corruption stories becoming a way for magazines like Caijing and Caixin to sell copies.’
In addition to commercial interests, reputation and journalistic principles are in part driving some newspapers to push the envelope of free speech in China. In January 2013, a row broke out between the outspoken newspaper Southern Weekly and a propaganda official because of the way in which the official had changed the paper’s edgy New Year’s message. This led to street protests to support free speech, a situation unthinkable a decade ago. While the paper came to an agreement with local officials and is still censored, it has effectively shaken the anaconda on its perch high above.