2013.09.08 中国互联网大打压的背后是什么？

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中国互联网大打压的背后是什么？
最近一连串的逮捕行动让人想起中国历史上一个更早、更黑暗的时期。

作者：ChinaFile

2013年9月18日



华裔美国风险投资家薛蛮子（Charles Xue）出席了在北京举行的2013年中国互联网大会的会议。(路透社)
上周末，美籍华人千万富翁投资者、中国最受欢迎的微博之一的意见领袖薛蛮子戴着手铐出现在中国中央电视台播出的一次采访中。薛蛮子只是被中国共产党的新网络逮捕的最引人注目的博主，该网络威胁要以诽谤罪指控任何微博文章被超过5000名读者浏览的网民。一些观察家说，薛的自我批评是对微博进行广泛镇压的结果，这种镇压采用了文化大革命以来前所未有的政治手段和策略。

肖强。

这场针对中国社会中 "民主 "声音的运动将被标记为1989年天安门大屠杀以来最严厉的一次，我预测我们现在看到的只是一个开始。这也是习近平的政治地位和未来方向最明显的表现--回到毛泽东式的群众运动方式来控制和动员社会，以牢牢抓住共产党的权力。


这一代中国领导人，无论是习近平还是薄熙来，都来自一个过去--毛泽东和他们自己父辈的共产主义革命，这给了他们继承权力的 "合法性"。即使作为毛泽东文化大革命的受害者，毛泽东也是他们统治中国社会唯一可以借鉴的榜样。 在这个意义上，习近平和薄熙来是同根同源的政治遗产。

薄熙来在重庆的所作所为是他创造 "中国模式 "的实验方式。尽管薄熙来在权力斗争中失败了，但习近平的政治灵感似乎与薄熙来没有什么不同。今天的中国已不再是1960年代或70年代的中国，但如果习近平在政治上采取这种毛泽东式的做法，很难想象在未来五到十年内会有来自高层的民主开放。

民主报告
John Garnaut:

看着习近平用共产党历史上最公开的审判将薄熙来拉下马，同时借用毛泽东时代的剧本，公开忏悔、自我批评、动员和恐吓来 "整顿 "党，并对互联网的战略高地进行控制，真的让人叹息。

习近平的捍卫者，就像之前的薄熙来一样，说党已经变得如此僵化，其合法性受到如此大的打击，这是一个绝望的时代，需要采取绝望的措施。与此同时，民间社会领袖也对中国的政治暴力和镇压循环似乎没有尽头感到失望。这似乎不是管理一个有抱负的超级大国的可持续方式。这肯定会是一个颠簸的旅程。

杰里米-戈德科恩

看着美籍华裔商人Charles Xue在全国范围内的电视和互联网上以十分钟的 "新闻 "包装和神圣的社论的形式缓慢、稳定地被羞辱，这确实很可怕。

中国中央电视台（CCTV）通过播放对潘石屹的采访加剧了紧张气氛，潘石屹是一名房地产开发商，也是因围绕空气污染开展社会活动而闻名的 "大V "微博用户。在采访中，潘石屹结结巴巴地重复着政府的说法，即网上的谣言对社会有害。 然后是以莫须有的罪名拘留商人和现在被拘留的律师许志永的支持者王功权。总而言之，这是一种恶劣的威胁气氛。

与此同时，民间社会领导人对中国的政治暴力和镇压循环似乎没有尽头感到失望，这是正确的。这似乎不是管理一个有抱负的超级大国的可持续方式。
但是，虽然这些恐吓策略对一些在微博上找到家的广告公司高管和房地产亿万富翁来说可能是新鲜事，但其他人早已接触到信息控制的残酷一面。对于许多记者、作家和活动家来说，被安全部队逮捕和羞辱的想法太熟悉了。薛的待遇比2011年发生在艾未未身上的事情更糟糕，而那是在习近平上台之前很久的事情。艾未未被指控而被关押了81天。自艾未未获释以来，当局没有做任何事情来证明他们对他的经济犯罪指控是无中生有的。艾的拘留条件似乎比薛蛮子的拘留条件要差很多。 当前运动的目的和描述运动的语言也不是新的。去年，在总结2011年7月23日温州火车事故后政府在互联网上的行动时，我这样写道：

[官方媒体发起了一场精心策划的运动，呼吁停止在博客圈和互联网上发布 "未经证实的谣言"。北京市委书记尖锐地访问了中国微博的主办方--新浪，他关于谣言控制的言论被广泛报道。就新浪而言，它向其所有的微博用户发送了信息，警告他们将暂停任何散布谣言和煽动麻烦的人的账户。作为协调运动的一部分，新华社发表了一篇文章，呼吁结束微博上的 "有毒谣言"，采用了色彩浓厚的政治语言，让人想起了文化大革命时期（1964-1978年）和1983年的 "反精神污染 "运动。

将薛的待遇与艾未未的待遇相比较，愤世嫉俗者几乎可以找到乐观的理由。毕竟，薛最初被逮捕的行为在中国的成文法中实际上被认为是犯罪：招妓和群交。警方并没有像对待艾未未那样，只是拘留了他，然后发现自己不得不编造一个罪名。但这样的解读当然是天真的。唯一清楚的是，虽然微博可能是新媒体，但当局将继续使用他们一直以来用来维持控制的老式暴徒手段。

国务院互联网办公室主任鲁炜在今天发表的一篇社论中是这样说的：

在互联网时代，媒体融合是不可避免的。如果我们（党）不能有效地占领新的舆论战场，其他人就会占领它，他们会挑战我们的统治地位和我们的话语权。我们必须增强战场意识，大力推进传统媒体和新兴媒体融合发展，提高传播能力、公信力和影响力，确保落实党管媒体原则。
如果互联网在一百年前就存在，弗拉基米尔-列宁也许会写下类似上述几句话的内容。对大V的反击并不新鲜，这只是当局久经考验的控制方法的最新例子。这不是薄熙来的剧本，也不是文革的回归。这只是例行公事而已。

倪文森

虽然我的新华社记者朋友试图说服我，最近薛的被捕并非当局所为，但中国互联网和外国媒体的压倒性观点指出，"系统性镇压 "旨在压制被认为是中国的政治异见人士。

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薛周日晚上看似坦率的承认使情节变得更加复杂，一些评论家指出与文化大革命期间的阶级斗争和公开羞辱有相似之处。"我不负责任地在网上传播信息是一种消极情绪的发泄，是对社会主流的忽视，"60岁的薛蛮子承认道。

也许中央电视台的导演们正试图为任何可能想追随薛脚步的人树立一个不寒而栗的榜样。过去类似的行动在中国总是奏效。上个月，薛的前实习生，一个刚从美国回来的22岁的大学毕业生，当我问她对薛的逮捕有什么看法时，她明显地警惕起来。她鬼鬼祟祟地看了看周围，用沙哑的声音回答说："我刚从国外回来，我不想对此事发表太多评论，因为我可能会被视为散布谣言。"

这就是当局应该真正关注的问题。几周前，中国互联网监管者鲁炜在英国的一个论坛上热情地倡导网络空间的 "自由和秩序"。但是，如果没有人愿意在网上发声，因为担心受到惩罚，而且大多数官方信息既不透明也不可靠，那么最有可能发生的是更多线下谣言的传播，进一步扰乱社会秩序。

针对 "网上谣言传播者 "的大规模行动也与政府回应公众意见的努力背道而驰。华盛顿邮报》8月报道，政府正试图 "以前所未有的规模 "了解民意，在全国各地建立了几个民意中心。但对互联网声音的镇压否定了这种努力。

没有人知道幕后是什么，也许连薛先生自己也不知道。当每个人都在对所发生的事情进行解释时，有一种不可能的解释被事件观察者引用了数万次。順我者昌，逆我者嫖娼（shun wǒ zhě chāng, nì wǒ zhě piáochāng）。如果我的新华社朋友真的相信薛先生的被捕是非政治性的，她会不会觉得这种解释也很讽刺？

这篇文章首先出现在ChinaFile，一个大西洋的合作伙伴网站。

ChinaFile是由亚洲协会美中关系中心出版的在线杂志。



What Is Behind China's Big Internet Crackdown?
The recent spate of arrests is reminiscent of an earlier, darker time in Chinese history.

By ChinaFile
SEPTEMBER 18, 2013
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Chinese-American venture capitalist Charles Xue, widely known as Xue Manzi, attends a meeting at the 2013 China Internet Conference in Beijing. (Reuters)
Last weekend, Charles Xue Manzi, a Chinese American multi-millionaire investor and opinion leader on one of China’s most popular microblogs, appeared in handcuffs in an interview aired on China Central Television. Xue is just the most visible blogger to be snared by a new Chinese Communist Party dragnet that threatens to charge with defamation any netizen whose microblog post is viewed by more than 5,000 readers. Some observers say that Xue’s self-criticism is the result of a broader crackdown on microblogging that employs political maneuvering and tactics not seen since The Cultural Revolution.

Xiao Qiang:

This campaign against “pro-democracy” voices in Chinese society will be marked as the harshest since the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre, and I predict that what we are seeing now is just a beginning. It also is the clearest manifestation yet of Xi Jinping’s political standing and future direction—returning to Maoist mass movement methods to control and mobilize the society, in order to firmly grab the power of the Communist Party.


This generation of Chinese leaders, whether it’s Xi Jinping or Bo Xilai, all are coming from one past—Mao and their own fathers’ Communist revolution, which gave therm “legitimacy” to inherit power. Even as victims of Mao’s Cultural Revolution, Mao is the only role model they can draw from in order to rule Chinese society.  In this sense, Xi and Bo are from the same roots and same political heritage.

What Bo Xilai did in Chongqing was his way to experiment with creating a “Chinese model.” Despite Bo’s failure in the power struggle, Xi seems to have no different political inspiration than Bo. Today’s China is no longer the China of the 1960s or 70s, but if Xi is taking this Maoist approach politically, it is hard to imagine any democratic opening from the top in the next five to ten years.

The Democracy Report
John Garnaut:

Breathtaking, really, to watch Xi bring Bo down with the most open trial in Communist Party history while borrowing from his Mao-era playbook of public confessions, self-criticisms, mobilization and intimidation to “rectify” the Party and assert control over the strategic heights of the Internet.

Defenders of Xi, like Bo before him, say the Party has grown so sclerotic and its legitimacy so battered that these are desperate times, demanding desperate measures. Civil society leaders, meanwhile, are rightly dismayed that there seems to be no end to China’s cycles of political violence and repression. It doesn’t seem like a sustainable way to run an aspiring super power. It’s sure going to be a bumpy ride.

Jeremy Goldkorn:

It is truly horrible watching the slow, steady humiliation of the Chinese-American businessman Charles Xue play out on nationwide TV and the Internet in ten minute “news" packages and sanctimonious editorials.

China Central Televison (CCTV) added to the tension by playing an interview with Pan Shiyi, a real estate developer and “Big V” Weibo user famous for social activism around air pollution. In the interview, Pan stutters as he repeats the government line that online rumors are harmful to society.  And then there was the detention on trumped up charges of Wang Gongchuan, businessman and supporter of now detained lawyer Xu Zhiyong. All in all, a nasty atmosphere of menace.

Civil society leaders, meanwhile, are rightly dismayed that there seems to be no end to China’s cycles of political violence and repression. It doesn’t seem like a sustainable way to run an aspiring super power.
But while these tactics of intimidation might be new to some ad agency executive and real estate billionaires who have found a home on Weibo, others have long ago been exposed to the brutal side of information control. For many journalists, writers and activists, the idea of being arrested and humiliated by the security forces is all too familiar. Is the treatment of Charles Xue worse than what happened to Ai Weiwei in 2011, long before Xi Jinping's ascension? Ai was held for 81 days without being charged. The authorities have done nothing since Ai's release to prove that their economic crime charges against him were anything but trumped up. The conditions of Ai's detention appear to have been significantly worse than Charles Xue's. 

Nor are the aims of the current campaign and the language used to describe it new. Last year, summarizing government actions on the Internet in 2011 after the July 23 Wenzhou train crash, I wrote this:

[A] carefully orchestrated campaign was launched in the official media calling for an end to the publication of “unsubstantiated rumors” in the blogosphere and on the Internet. The Party Secretary of Beijing pointedly visited Sina, the host-owner of China’s Weibo microblogs and his remarks on rumor control were widely reported. For its part, Sina sent messages to all of its Weibo users warning them that it would suspend the accounts of anyone guilty of spreading rumors and fomenting trouble. As part of the coordinated campaign, Xinhua New Agency released an article calling for an end to “poisonous rumors” on the Weibo blogs, employing highly colored political language that was reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution era (1964-1978) and the ‘anti-spiritual pollution’ campaign of 1983.

Comparing Xue's treatment to Ai Weiwei’s, a cynic could almost find grounds for optimism. After all, Xue was originally arrested for acts that are in fact considered criminal in China’s written laws: soliciting prostitutes and group sex. The police did not just detain him and then find themselves having to make up a charge like they did with Ai Weiwei. But such a reading would of course be naive. The only thing that is clear is that while Weibo might be new media, the authorities will continue using the same old thuggish techniques that they have always used to maintain control.

This is how Lu Wei, the director of the State Council’s Internet Office put it in an editorial published today:

In the Internet era, media convergence is inevitable. If we [the Party] do not effectively capture the new battlefield of public opinion, other people will occupy it, and they will challenge our dominance and our right to speak. We must strengthen our awareness of the battlefield, vigorously promote the integration of traditional and new media, enhance our communication ability, credibility and influence, and ensure that we implement the principle of Party control of media.
If the Internet had been around a hundred years ago, Vladimir Lenin would perhaps have written something like the lines above. The pushback against Big V’s is nothing new, it’s just the latest example of the authorities’ tried and tested methods of control. It’s not a page out of Bo Xilai’s playbook, nor a return to the  Cultural Revolution. It’s merely business as usual.

Vincent Ni:

While my Xinhua journalist friend tried to convince me that the recent arrest of the Charles Xue was not staged by the authorities, the overwhelming view of the Chinese internet and foreign media points to a “systematic crackdown” aimed at silencing perceived political dissidents in China.

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Xue’s seemingly candid admission on Sunday night thickened the plot, with some commentators noting similarities to the class struggle and public humiliation during the Cultural Revolution. "My irresponsibility in spreading information online was a vent of negative mood, and was a neglect of the social mainstream," Xue, 60, confessed.

Perhaps directors at CCTV are trying to set a chilling example for anyone who might want to follow in Xue’s footsteps. Similar actions in the past always have worked in China. Last month, Xue’s former intern, a 22-year-old college graduate who had recently returned from the U.S., was visibly wary when I asked what she thought about Xue’s arrest. She looked around furtively and in hushed tones replied, “I just came back from overseas, and I don’t want to comment too much on this because I might be regarded as spreading rumors.”

This is what the authorities should be really concerned about. A couple of weeks ago, Chinese internet regulator Lu Wei passionately advocated “liberty and order” in cyberspace on a forum in the U.K. But if no one is willing to speak out online for fear of being punished, and most official information is neither transparent nor reliable, what will most likely happen is the spread of more offline rumors that further disrupt social order.

The massive campaign against “online rumor spreaders” also goes against the government’s effort to respond to public opinion. The Washington Post reported in August that the government is trying to understand public opinion “on an unprecedented scale” several public opinion centers being built across the country. But the crackdown on internet voices negates that effort.

No one knows what’s behind the curtain, perhaps not even Mr. Xue himself. While everyone is making sense of what's going on, one impossible explanation has been cited tens of thousands of times by events-watchers: Those who submit to me shall be whores; those who resist me shall be johns (shun wǒ zhě chāng, nì wǒ zhě piáochāng). If my Xinhua friend genuinely believes Mr. Xue’s arrest was non-political, won't she find the interpretation ironic as well?

This post first appeared at ChinaFile, an Atlantic partner site.

ChinaFile is an online magazine published by Asia Society's Center on U.S.-China Relations.