Alongside promised features for Chinese users such as enhanced language support and integration with Baidu, Youku, Tudou and Sina Weibo, Apple's new iOS 6 has brought an unexpected solution to the thorny dispute over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands.
Rumours had circulated (via Bill Bishop) of a boycott on the iPhone 5 because the OS's new maps were said to attribute ownership of the islands to Japan. In fact, the islands are unlabelled, and outside China they can be located by searching for either "Diaoyu Islands" or "Senkaku Islands", or their hanzi/kanji equivalents. (Searches for Senkaku or other Japanese place names are blocked in China, according to Matthew Stinson). Apple went further, however, duplicating the islands so that China and Japan could each have a set:
[…] Before we start eating, he asks if he can hold my digital recorder. "I have a deep fondness for audio recorders," he tells me, as he examines my device with his fingertips. "I was given one in 2005 that I used to document accounts of the government's violent family planning practices. It survived countless confiscation raids on my house and I still have it today."
His casual, dispassionate reference to the work that got him into so much trouble is striking, as is the serenity and forgiveness he displays while describing horrific events and the people who subjected him to them.
It is significant that the numbers of protesters, by Chinese standards, are small. Crowds are in the hundreds, rarely over a thousand. By contrast the crowd at the pro-democracy demonstrations at Tiananmen in 1989 reached a million at its peak. There is no doubt which cause had the deeper appeal. Today, too, measured in numbers, the complaints of Chinese protesters are overwhelmingly not about uninhabited islands but about things closer to home—corruption, pollution, land annexation, special privilege, and abuse of power—and the usual adversaries today are not Japan but Chinese officials and the wealthy people associated with them. The Chinese police handle, on average, two hundred or more "mass incidents"—meaning demonstrations, riots, road-blockages, and the like—every day. This kind of protest is perennial but not well reported. The anti-Japan protests are highly unusual but assiduously reported.
From the regime's point of view, the reporting is the whole point. The purpose of instigating protests is to generate "mass opinion" to serve a political purpose. Let me offer an especially clear example from a different context. In March, 2008, in Lhasa, Tibet, young Tibetans went on a rampage against Chinese shop owners. Some people say that agents provocateurs were at work, some say not. But in either case, credible eyewitnesses on both sides reported that for several hours Chinese police stood by and did nothing. They watched the looting and burning of stores while reporters from state-owned media made video recordings. Only when the taping was over did the police step in, arresting hundreds. Then, during the ensuing seventy-two hours, Chinese television—nationwide—showed and re-showed the video footage, explaining that the Dalai Lama, a wolf in sheep's clothing, had been the instigator of the mayhem. Twenty days later, when young Tibetans ventured onto the streets of Lhasa and seemed ready to protest again, the police quelled them instantly. This time there was no need for videotapes.
What is it, today, that the people at the top in China want to achieve by stimulating and advertising anti-Japan sentiment? They do not say, of course, so the world must guess, but in broad outline the guessing isn't very hard. The people at the top, who are used to maintaining a smooth façade, have every reason right now to distract attention from the unexpectedly messy handover of power now taking place, the results of which are hugely important to them. Not only power but tremendous amounts of wealth are at stake. The outcome of the power struggle in Beijing could affect the whole nation, but the people at the top prefer that the whole nation be gazing in a different direction. The trial of Wang Lijun—the police chief of disgraced senior politician Bo Xilai who was closely involved in the Neil Heywood murder affair—has been unfolding this week concurrently with the anti-Japan flare-ups. It should and would be a sensation but isn't: if it were probed and reported properly, the case would reveal a great deal about corruption, special privilege, abuse of power, wealth inequality, and all those other issues that Chinese people often notice and protest about. The mysterious recent disappearance from public view of Xi Jinping, who is expected to replace Hu Jintao in the top post in government at the Chinese Communist Party's Eighteenth National Congress this fall, also raises large questions to which a citizen would want answers. How might one divert attention from these questions toward the fate of some barren islands? Nationalism! Hate Japan!
A report in the Economist echoes Link's concern that the protests risk going off-script to focus on discontent closer to home, and quotes a recent study which found that, indeed, "nationalism serves as a powerful instrument in impeding public demand for democratic change."
So, Chinese young people today ought to thank the Japanese government, for if it hadn't purchased the Diaoyu Islands, the Chinese government wouldn't have opened the net a little, allowing them to take to the streets last week. The demonstrators chanted monotonous and boring slogans, like telling the Japanese to get the hell out of the Diaoyu Islands; plainclothes cops intermingled with the marchers, keeping in nervous contact through their earpieces. Protesters even carried images of Mao, who died in 1976, though I wish he had died much earlier.
Many of the young marchers were terribly excited. For decades, TV shows about the Anti-Japanese War of 1931-1945 had distorted historical facts and turned the Japanese into a stupid, aggressive, cruel race of cockroaches that needed to be exterminated. Amusingly, the Chinese actors portraying those Japanese devils only spoke Chinese, bowing and scraping shamelessly, their every move no different from those of corrupt officials throughout China today.
Now, the Chinese government feels that it's not enough to smear the enemy through television alone, and the time has come to allow young people to demonstrate, a chance young people welcome because through their patriotic actions they can prove their worth in this world. Many of them are ordinarily very humble, drawing a low salary and struggling in expensive cities. They can't afford to buy homes, have a family, raise children, or take care of their parents, and no one pays any attention to them. But now, these trampled marionettes have finally made the leap to the center of the political stage, so they willingly allow their strings to be pulled.
An Al Jazeera Stream episode focused on the social media reaction to the protests and asks whether the protests really reflect common concerns of the majority of Chinese people:
The China news cycle has been dominated by anti-Japanprotests following the Japanese government's purchase of three Diaoyu Islands. This week, Drawing the News looks at netizencartoons tackling this and other timely issues, as well as some more timeless problems in China.
Artist: Murong Ao'ao
As his body is consumed by flames, a man in a sports jacket shouts, "Look, someone's house caught on fire!" Cartoonist Murong Gao'ao is making a dig at "a certain TV channel" which has played up the reaction to the incendiary YouTube film The Innocence of Muslims. Murong writes on his blog, "I watched a little TV on the subway last night. It was still focused with the utmost intensity on anti-American protests and riots in the Arab world. I really wanted to pat them on the shoulder and say, 'Yo, bro, we have that here, too.'"
Artist: Dashix
Dashix addresses the anti-Japan fever that has stricken many Chinese since Japan announced it would purchase the Diaoyu Islands. In "The Day in the Life of a Patriotic Loser," a man makes signs, attacks "foreign devils," smashes cars, steals Japanese goods, rubs one out (to Japanese porn, no less) and finally lands in jail. "Oppose violent patriotism and don't be brain-damaged," the friendly skeleton says at the end. "Love of country begins with loving your neighbor."
Artist: Peaceful House Pearl Shimao
The world is dancing to "Gangnam Style," Korean pop star Psy's whimsical music video. Psy taught Ellen Degeneres and Britney Spears his moves and has inspired reactions in Utah and remakes in Mongolia. Here, Shimao catches the Gangnam Style bug, dancing his way through New York, Paris and Tokyo. But what is Shanghai style? Our friend has been committed to a mental institution for "involvement in multiple activities," "running crazily all over the place" and being a pig.
Artist: B. Kuang
Is this a surgeon suturing a "wound" or a bandit shutting up his victim in the middle of the night? One netizen interprets this cartoon with his own caption:
You say foreign criticism is interference in our internal affairs; domestic criticism is malicious crowing; the criticism of public intellectuals is incitement to subversion*; the criticism of academics is poisoning people's minds; the criticism of the masses is just defining the state of the nation. In truth, you decided not to take any criticism at all.
* Incitement to subversion (shāndòng diānfù 煽动颠覆) is rendered euphemistically as "the woman of the cave summit" (shāndòng diān fù 山洞巅妇).
Posted on Weibo by @PlatoK (@柏拉图K), this anonymous cartoon shows old matches wilting before the newest stock. Above the stage, a lit match hangs where you would expect to see the hammer and sickle. It seems to allude to the 18th Party Congress, where the used-up will make way for the new leadership. But is the system destined to burn itself out in one bright flash?
Editor's Note: From the Censorship Vault features previously untranslated censorship instructions from the archives of the CDT series Directives from the Ministry of Truth (真理部指令). These instructions, issued to the media and/or Internet companies by various central (and sometimes local) government authorities, have been leaked and distributed online. CDT has collected the selections we translate here from a variety of sources and has checked them against official Chinese media reports to confirm their implementation.
A pro-Tibet protester tries to take the Olympic torch, Paris 2008. (Yang Zhen Dong)
This week's featured directive, issued in April 2008 by the Heilongjiang Province information portal, shows the power of "guidance" (引导) over protest in China. At that time, the Olympic torch relay was plagued at every stop by human rights groups and Tibet independence supporters. After a wheelchair-bound torchbearer was attacked in Paris, netizens called for a boycott of the French hypermarket Carrefour. "The biggest shareholder of Carrefour donated huge money to the Dalai Lama," fumed the netizen demanding the boycott, "and even the French president has announced boycott of the Beijing Olympics."
The directive below instructs provincial websites on how to direct online discussion of the boycott. Read the original Chinese here:
On-duty staff at the Internet propaganda office: Each website in every locality must adopt measures concerning netizens boycotting Carrefour and related propaganda management prompts to properly tamp down online discussion and prevent a loss of control from influencing domestic stability. Prepare your reports, guidance and management according to the following requirements:
(1) Give protection to the patriotic fervor of netizens who support the Olympics, who oppose "Tibet independence" and who denounce Western media's distorted reporting and insults to China. Direct the discussion at the Dalai clique's secessionist forces, as well as the vile material produced by CNN and a small number of other Western media.
(2) Comprehensively and nimbly guide netizen discussion of boycotting Carrefour and French products in a logical direction. Direct netizens' patriotic fervor such that you fulfill your duties and the Olympics are successfully launched. Each website in every locality must organize commentaries to carry out guidance, but they should be limited in number and not stray in focus. After a related article is posted, please send the link to the domestic affairs work inbox of the Internet Research Center.
(3) Websites will not report specific "boycott activities" in any locality, will not exaggerate "escalating boycott activities" and the like and will not report "opposition to the 'boycott'" or similar extreme speech or activities. Do not republish this type of reporting from traditional media; a lock-down on online publication of this type of material goes into effect from now until May 15.
(4) Comments and posts calling for seizing this opportunity to incite demonstrations, marches, assemblies, "group walks," "group shopping" and other group activity must be deleted without exception. Comments and posts which ceaselessly negate and criticize the patriotic fervor of netizens, echo or support foreign anti-Chinese forces, or which cause trouble, add oil to the fire, create conflict among netizens and oppose [the voices we are supporting] must be deleted without exception. All those in charge of information portals and the 13 city portal websites which have already been notified will execute these instructions. They will also conduct thorough searches of all Heilongjiang information portals and delete related information; they will together delete one post calling for boycotts and five related comments. (April 18, 2008)
Since directives are sometimes communicated orally to journalists and editors, who then leak them online, the wording published here may not be exact. The original publication date is noted after the directives; the date given may indicate when the directive was leaked, rather than when it was issued. CDT does its utmost to verify dates and wording, but also takes precautions to protect the source.
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