Originally published on the CGS blog on April 17, 2015.
Citizens’ voicing dissent through social media as well as the Communist Party’s efforts to quell speech it deems a threat to its rule is nothing new in China.
In the late 1970s, at a wall near Tiananmen Square in Beijing—which would become known as the Xidan Democracy Wall or simply Democracy Wall—people would voice their grievances and yearnings for change (See Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China).
It was used like a bulletin board where people posted banners, essays, poems, and other writings on various subjects, including but not limited to issues on economics and politics.
Deng Xiaoping even tolerated it for a while, as he didn’t want to become as rigid as Mao Zedong was and let innovative thinking and economic growth stagnate as it did during the Cultural Revolution (1965-1968). He also believed that people had the right to vent. But as the messages posted on the Wall became more and more anti-Party, especially after Wei Jingshing posted an essay calling for democracy as the Fifth Modernization,* Deng and the Party started clamping down. The postings were moved elsewhere, and people had to pay or get permission from their employer to post something on the wall.
To prevent the Communist Party from losing its monopoly on political power and to prevent the chaos that occurred during the Cultural Revolution, Deng set forth Four Cardinal Principles in March 1979 that established limits on speech and expression. These four principles called for Chinese citizens to uphold: 1) the socialist road; 2) the dictatorship of the proletariat (workers); 3) the Communist Party’s leadership; and 4) Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought.
It would be a decade before the violence against protesters at Tiananmen Square occurred, quashing the hopes that many people inside and outside of China had about the formation of a more liberal form of governance.
When Xi Jinping became President in 2013, many of China’s politically liberal citizens were hoping that he’d allow greater freedom of speech and expression, continuing in the vein of his late father, Xi Zhongxun. Instead, Xi began his tenure with crackdowns on speech and expression, not only in the University setting, but also over the internet.
With advances and diversification of websites and applications on the World Wide Web come advances in methods used to censor content. The Chinese Communist Party is able to crack down on, delete, or block access to internet content deemed subversive. Chinese authorities regularly block searches and access to websites with blacklisted keywords, and it’s often difficult to search for material from foreign governments and news sources.
Authorities also monitor social media websites such as Weibos (microblogs equivalent to Twitter) for subversive content. In the name of preventing the spread of false information, China has also required bloggers and other social media users to register on sites using their real names. The obvious purpose is to keep an iron grip on political speech.
China also has been shutting down Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) that have allowed Chinese people and expatriates from other countries living in China to get around most of the firewalls set up by authorities to block access to internet information the Party and Government don’t want people to see. People have also used these VPNs to access sites such as Facebook.
In the name of preserving national stability and to maintain its hold on power, the world can expect China’s Communist Party to adapt to changes in technology to suppress dissent for years to come. But at the same time, many people in China will still yearn for progressive change.
*For more information about the Four Modernizations, go to: http://w3.pku.edu.cn/academic/dxp/pdf/ljk.pdf
