【英语中国】中国网络“严打”难以奏效

Mao Zedong once wrote that “the Communist party must control the guns”. Now, it seems, it must control the internet as well. Of course, this is not exactly new. For years China’s authorities have played a cat-and-mouse game with internet users, taking down controversial posts and intimidating persistent “offenders”. The Great Firewall of China is so bulky it, too, can doubtless be seen from space.

But in recent weeks China’s security apparatus has intensified the crackdown. It has launched a full-blown offensive against microblog celebrities, cracking down on what it has termed malicious rumour-mongering. Through official publications, the government has described online criticism of the party as “defamation” and issued a legal interpretation allowing people to be prosecuted for “spreading online rumours” if their posts have been viewed by more than 5,000 internet users or forwarded more than 500 times. The message seems clear: if you’re going to post something controversial, you’d better make sure no one reads it.

In the past weeks, hundreds of bloggers have been rounded up. The attack has been especially focused on the so-called “Big Vs”, the internet celebrities, some with millions of followers, who have exclusive “verified” accounts on Weibo, China’s equivalent of Twitter. Last weekend Charles Xue, an outspoken blogger with 12m followers, was paraded on state television praising the crackdown. In August Mr Xue, a Chinese-born US investor who writes under the pen name Xue Manzi, was arrested for allegedly hiring prostitutes. The official Chinese media highlighted his online exploits as much as his alleged bedroom antics, suggesting the former was the graver offence. “The internet Big V ‘Xue Manzi’ has toppled from the sacred altar,” carped state-run news agency Xinhua. “This has sounded a warning bell to all Big Vs.”

The campaign has sent a chill through the internet. For weeks, bloggers have been warning fellow users about the need to watch their words. Pan Shiyi, a billionaire who founded property developer Soho China and who has 16m Weibo followers, has publicly supported the crackdown. The unexpected stance from someone considered an internet pioneer suggests the intimidation campaign is working.

This assault on the internet poses several questions, the most pressing of which are why now, and will it work? In answer to why now, the most rational explanation is that the party is scared the internet has got out of hand. Its previous efforts to control online content aside, Chinese cyber space has become a riotous Wild West of discussion, mockery, information-sharing and whistleblowing. Seemingly small campaigns have gone national, such as the case last year when Zhan Haite, daughter of migrant workers in Shanghai, protested against her disqualification from school entrance exams on the grounds that she did not have a hukou residency permit. Such was the support for her plight that several provinces changed their rules to address the issue.

In other cases, officials have been brought low for wearing expensive watches (perceived as evidence of corruption), while local issues from land disputes to environmental hazards have been given a national platform. The internet has been important in the gradual formation of a civil society that does not always see the interests of Chinese people and those of the Communist party as one and the same thing.

Naturally, there is a lot of bile on the internet, too. That has given authorities the pretext to claim that they are targeting malicious elements. The effort, however, appears to be part of a much broader campaign led by Xi Jinping, the new party leader now fast losing his reputation as a closet liberal. In a document said to be closely linked with Mr Xi, opponents of one-party rule are criticised for using the internet to “stir up trouble” by disclosing officials’ assets and exposing corruption. Among Mr Xi’s “seven perils” – western-influenced ideas to be stamped out – are those of media independence, civil society and criticism of the party’s past. All three are facilitated by the internet.

Will the clampdown work? There are reasons to think not. First, the explosion of the internet may have been as useful to the party as it has been to its opponents. Online forums have acted as a release valve for social discontent and as a barometer of public opinion. That has helped foster the illusion – and to some extent the reality – of popular empowerment. To shut that off completely could risk a dangerous build-up of social pressure.

Second, clamping down on freedom of expression runs counter to the so-far timid efforts to loosen the reins of the state in other areas, such as banking and finance. Many Chinese officials, possibly including Mr Xi himself, believe that the state-led model as currently configured has run its course. They argue that market discipline, for example in the setting of interest rates or the lending of money, must slowly augment state-directed capitalism if China’s economy is not to stall.

That poses a big problem. It is not impossible to envisage a clampdown on internet freedom coupled with a withdrawal of the state in certain limited areas. The Communist party has managed to square such contradictions before. But the two do pull in opposite directions. Ultimately, they may prove irreconcilable.

毛泽东有句名言：“我们的原则是党指挥枪”。如今，似乎党也必须指挥互联网了。当然，这么做并不新鲜。多年来，中国官方一直在与网民玩猫捉老鼠的游戏：撤下有争议的帖子，恐吓那些持续不断的“闹事者”。中国的“长城防火墙”(Great Firewall of China)如此“雄伟”，以至于它毫无疑问也能从太空“看见”。

但最近几周中国安全机构加强了打击力度。他们发动了针对微博名人的全面批评，并大力打击所谓的恶意造谣行为。中国政府通过官方出版物将网络上对中共的批评称为“诽谤”，还公布了一项司法解释。根据该司法解释，人们发出的某些帖子如果被浏览5000次以上，或者被转发500次以上，发帖人就有可能因“传播网络谣言”受到指控。这个司法解释传递的信息十分明确：如果你要发布一些有争议的内容，你最好确保没人能读到它。

在过去几周，有数百名博主被捕。一些被称为“大V”的网络名人尤其成为打击行动的目标。所谓“大V”，是指在中国版Twitter——新浪微博(Weibo)——上拥有经过特别“认证”账户的网络名人，他们中部分人拥有数以百万计的“粉丝”。不久前，拥有1200万粉丝、直言不讳的博主薛必群(Charles Xue，网名“薛蛮子”)被拉到电视上亮相，称赞这轮打击行动。今年8月，这位出生在中国的美国华裔投资人因涉嫌嫖娼被捕。中国官方媒体在突出强调其据传拥有的性怪癖的同时，还强调了他对网络的利用，暗示这是更为严重的罪行。中国官方新闻机构新华社称：“网络大V‘薛蛮子’跌下神坛……向所有网络大V们敲响了法律的警钟。”

这场运动令整个互联网感到一阵恐惧。几周以来，博主们一直在警告网友注意自己的言辞。房地产开发公司Soho中国(Soho China)创始人、亿万富翁潘石屹在新浪微博上拥有1600万粉丝，他公开对此次打击行为表示了支持。一位人们眼中的互联网先锋人物出现这一始料未及的立场变化，表明这一带有恐吓性质的运动正在奏效。

这一互联网打击行动引发了几个问题。最亟需回答的问题是为什么是现在？它会不会奏效？对于为什么现在行动这个问题，最合理的解释是中共害怕失去对互联网的控制。尽管他们此前也曾努力控制网上内容，但中国的互联网已经变成一个不受约束的“狂野西部”，人们在这里进行各种讨论、嘲弄、信息共享以及透露各种秘密。一些看上去很小的纠纷都会变成轰动全国的大事，比如去年的占海特事件就是如此。占海特是上海一位外来务工人员的女儿，她抗议因没有上海户口而不具备在上海参加中高考资格的待遇。她的困境赢得了许多支持，几个省份都为此改变了相关规定以解决这个问题。

而在其他一些事件中，有官员由于佩戴昂贵的手表（这些手表被视为腐败的证据）而被拉下马来。另外，包括土地争端和环境危害在内的地方性问题如今都拥有了全国性言论平台。互联网对于公民社会的逐渐形成十分重要，而这种公民社会并不总是把中国人的利益和中共的利益视为完全等同的一件事。

互联网上自然而然地也会有许多愤怒情绪。这令当局找到了口实，声称这些人不怀好意。然而，当局对此做出的举动，从更大范围看似乎是由习近平领导的一场更宽泛的运动的一部分。这位中共新领导人正在迅速失去“隐秘的自由主义者”的名声。有一份文件据说与习近平有密切关系，文件中批评一党专政的反对者通过用互联网公开官员财产和揭发腐败行为“招惹是非”。习近平眼中的“七个危险”（需要压制的受西方影响的观念），包括媒体独立、公民社会以及对中共历史的批评。而互联网对这三者都有推动作用。

那么这种严打方式能够奏效么？有理由认为这么做不会奏效。首先，互联网的爆炸性发展可能对中共和它的反对者来说同样有用。网络论坛已扮演了社会不满减压阀和公共舆论晴雨表的角色。这有助于人们产生一种公众赋权的幻觉——这种幻觉某种程度上也是事实。一旦完全切断这种渠道，社会压力很可能会陡然增加，这是十分危险的。

其次，打击言论自由与中国到目前为止在其他领域放松管制的努力背道而驰，比如银行业和金融业。许多中国官员（可能也包括习近平自己）都认为，中国目前推行的国家主导模式已经走到了尽头。他们指出，要想让中国经济不陷入停滞，就必须慢慢用市场规律（比如在利率设定或资金借贷领域）补充国家主导的资本主义。

这带来一个巨大问题。不难想象，在大力打击互联网自由的同时，中国政府将在少数特定领域放松管制。中共过去曾协调处理过这类矛盾。但如今这两件事的走向完全相反，最终它们可能会被证明是无法协调的。

译者/何黎