Defending Rights in Contemporary China by Jonathan Benney

Author:Jonathan Benney [Benney, Jonathan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Ethnic Studies, Social Science, Political Science, General
ISBN: 9780415694308
Google: Hsr-9P6oC4oC
Goodreads: 13716308
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2012-06-25T00:00:00+00:00

The ‘defensive’ function of the websites aims to protect against government persecution. The implicit process of negotiation between the state and individuals which I have described in this section often involves the state ‘pulling in’ (shou) or containing individuals and groups when previously unspecified borders relating to the ideas they promote are crossed (Kelly 2006: 203–204). The defensive approach, then, consists mostly of strategies which frame the website in such a way as to pre-empt criticism. One strategy is to gather as many members as possible, in order to create the largest possible support network. The bulletin board systems (BBSes) attached to practically all the major rights defence websites are an attempt to facilitate this.11 But in websites like Zhao Ming’s which are relatively localised in focus, it can be difficult to gather members in any meaningful amount: apart from the relatively small size of Wafangdian, there were already a number of popular BBSes for the region, so it was quite difficult for Zhao Ming’s BBS to attract members. Nonetheless, the website was sufficiently distinctive to have hundreds of regular readers at its most popular and several thousand individual posts.

In theory, as I mentioned in my 2007 article, the discussion that takes place on such bulletin board systems forms part of the ‘offensive’ process of information-gathering and negotiation which facilitates the outcomes of rights defence (Benney 2007: 441). In practice, however, the BBSes are often not so much set up to facilitate discussion as they are to promote the operators of the site and to frame them as loyal servants of the central government. The aim is to create a ‘legitimising ideology’ (Zhou 2005: 784) which can protect the site from criticism.

Zhao Ming’s former BBS is a case in point. It appropriated many of the symbols of the central government for its own use. Where banner ads would have normally appeared on the site, zhaoming.net used graphics of Mao, animated in the style of post-Revolutionary public art. These unashamedly garish flashing images contained doctrinaire slogans such as ‘Enhance reform and opening up, and strengthen Marxism-Leninism!’. The most popular section on the BBS was, in an appropriation of Chinese Communist civic space, a virtual Mao Zedong Mausoleum. The users of the site adopted names like Zhonghua (‘China’) and ‘The Great East’ (Benney 2007: 442).

I have previously argued that Zhao Ming’s BBS can be read as a ‘virtual nation’ (Benney 2007: 443). Its different sections, such as its Mao Zedong Mausoleum, and its debating section titled ‘Let a hundred schools of thought contend’, appropriate various aspects of the traditional culture of the Chinese Communist Party:

its cultural structures, its terminology, its monuments, its borders, and, as in the sharing of the virtual mausoleum, its god-like heroes and leaders. As any BBS does, it tracks its members and their interactions, forcing them to go through security checks before its borders can be breached; it assigns them identities while allowing them the freedom to choose (for example) their names; it creates a sense of community

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