Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
07BEIJING1238
2007-02-26 11:12:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Beijing
Cable title:  

CHINA'S BLOGS: NATIONALISM, SEX AND ONLINE

Tags:  PGOV PHUM KCUL SOCI CH 
pdf how-to read a cable
VZCZCXRO7498
OO RUEHCN RUEHGH RUEHVC
DE RUEHBJ #1238/01 0571112
ZNY CCCCC ZZH
O 261112Z FEB 07
FM AMEMBASSY BEIJING
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 5004
INFO RUEHOO/CHINA POSTS COLLECTIVE
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BEIJING 001238 

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/26/2032
TAGS: PGOV PHUM KCUL SOCI CH
SUBJECT: CHINA'S BLOGS: NATIONALISM, SEX AND ONLINE
VIGILANTES

REF: A. 05 BEIJING 15837

B. 05 BEIJING 17896

C. 06 BEIJING 2682

Classified By: Political Section Internal Unit Chief Susan A. Thornton.
Reasons 1.4 (b/d).

Summary
-------

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 BEIJING 001238

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/26/2032
TAGS: PGOV PHUM KCUL SOCI CH
SUBJECT: CHINA'S BLOGS: NATIONALISM, SEX AND ONLINE
VIGILANTES

REF: A. 05 BEIJING 15837

B. 05 BEIJING 17896

C. 06 BEIJING 2682

Classified By: Political Section Internal Unit Chief Susan A. Thornton.
Reasons 1.4 (b/d).

Summary
--------------


1. (C) The blossoming world of blogs, ranging from
patriotic to religious to racy, is captivating China's
surging population of Internet users, with some
unexpected results.

-- A blog petition launched by a popular television
anchor calling for the Forbidden City Palace Museum to
boot Starbucks from its premises in January has
incited intense debate in media, academic and policy
circles.

-- A famous sexologist's blog post on wife-swapping
touched off an online skirmish with a Christian
blogger.

-- A woman who crushed a kitten on video was exposed
by bloggers and forced to publicly apologize.


Beyond these notable cases, the proliferation of blogs
trumpeting patriotic causes poses a conundrum for the
authorities, who want to foster national pride but
also fear the emergence of online mass movements that
could harm social stability or threaten Party rule.
Despite extensive official efforts aimed at
controlling Internet content, no consensus has emerged
about who should be responsible for keeping blogs
within the bounds of what the Government deems
appropriate. In this context, although traditional
redlines apply, blogs offer the broadest space of any
media for airing (sometimes sensitive) views, contacts
told us. As such, blogs are bolstering one of the
biggest social changes of the last generation: The
unprecedented ability of Chinese people to communicate
with one another. End Summary.

China Blogs by the Numbers
--------------


2. (C) More than 20 million Chinese have launched
their own web logs on the Internet as of the end of
2006, official statistics indicate. Year-end figures
also show that the country has more than 137 million
netizens (although the true number is almost certainly
higher),a rise of 23.4 percent over the previous
year, according to the state-run China Internet
Network Information Center. In the blogosphere, the

vast majority of sites are personal journals meant for
consumption by a small circle of friends and
relatives, said Zhao Mu (protect),the head of
Internet portal Sohu.com's blog hosting service. He
added that Sohu.com, home to approximately 5 million
personal sites, is among the three most popular
portals in China, with Sina.com and BlogChina also
hosting millions of blogs.

Forbidden Starbucks: Thanks a Latte (But No Thanks)
-------------- --------------


3. (C) Blogging in China made international headlines
in January when popular China Central Television
anchor Rui Chenggang used his personal site to call on
the Forbidden City Palace Museum to evict its
Starbucks outlet. The message struck a chord among
netizens, attracting half a million supporters to sign
an online petition. In addition, dozens of domestic
newspapers ran articles about the petition. The
museum responded by promising to review the situation
and make a decision about Starbucks' presence by June,
the official Xinhua news service reported. (Note: As
of February 26, the cafe is still there.) In
statements to the media, Rui, who has traveled
repeatedly to the United States and spent one year at
Yale University on a fellowship, has denied any intent
to fan nationalist fervor. Instead, his online
activism was meant to inspire others to safeguard
China's historical elics, Rui has told the press. In
a recent conversation with Emboff, Rui commented that
he enjoys Starbucks himself but does not feel it
should be located in a national heritage site,
equating it to putting "a foreign cafe in the White

BEIJING 00001238 002 OF 003


House." Other contacts surmised that less noble goals
motivated Rui's campaign, suggesting that as a
celebrity, he is most interested in attracting
attention to himself. "It was a clever bit of
showmanship," said Zhao.

Seeds of Cyber-Nationalism
--------------


4. (C) Zhao added, however, that the anti-Starbucks
campaign underscores the power nationalist messages
can carry in today's China -- and the quickness and
efficiency with which blogs can disseminate them. In
fact, blog content that spurs extremist passions is
precisely the kind of material the Government would
like to control. Zhao recalled the anti-Japan rallies
in April 2005 (ref B),noting that planning for the
protests spread mainly via web sites, e-mails and cell
phone text messages. The Government is not
necessarily afraid of isolated cases of individuals
posting contrarian or sensitive material on their
blogs, Zhao said. Instead, the paramount concern that
a mass movement might emerge, born on blogs or through
another electronic medium, to reduce the Government's
maneuvering room on a sensitive issue or challenge
Party authority.


5. (C) Nationalistic blogs remain among the most
popular sites for China's netizens. The blog of
Beijing University literature professor Kong Qingdong,
who is widely known for his nationalistic views on
foreign policy issues, particularly Japan, is a
regular feature on China Daily's weekly lineup of
most-visited Chinese blogs. Blogger and China Youth
Daily editor Qiu Haiping launched a cyberstorm
recently when he urged Chinese netizens to view an on-
line video clip called "The Rape Of Nanking" and to be
sure to share it with their children.


6. (C) Yun Jie, a scholar at the Chinese Academy of
Social Sciences Institute of Political Science who
focuses on Internet issues, downplayed the notion that
blogs themselves are stoking nationalism in China.
Other important influences are at work, from how
history is taught in schools to China's new economic
clout. Blogs are, however, a fast, convenient and
unfiltered outlet for communicating strong views,
including about China's rising status on the world
stage, Yun maintained.

Who Should Implement Controls?
--------------


7. (C) Against this backdrop, blogs are China's most
open forum for freewheeling discourse. Internet
service providers, many of which have blog hosting
services, constitute the country's first private media
and sit in a gray zone of propaganda control (ref A).
For a Government that does not view a genuinely free
media, including the Internet, as conducive to social
stability, how to regulate blogs has become a central
question, our contacts said. Some say the State
Council Information Office or the Ministry of Culture
should take the lead. Others, including Yun of CASS,
contend that Internet portals themselves should be
answerable for content that crosses censors' red
lines. For now, it appears that the State Council
Information Office (SCIO) is nominally in charge, said
Zhao of Sohu, adding that Sohu's service allows
bloggers to post whatever they want. Zhao related
that the SCIO employs hundreds of censors who monitor
Sohu and other blog hosting services for inappropriate
content. When cybersleuths hit upon such topics, they
have the technical ability to block access or "erase"
a page. But sensitive content inevitably slips
through. "There are not enough people to check every
blog out there," said Yun of CASS.


8. (C) To help officials more easily discern who is
writing what, the Government is considering
instituting a rule requiring netizens to register
their blogs using real names, even if they sign their
entries with a pseudonym, the Xinhua News Service has
reported. Yun and other contacts told us such a rule
would be impossible to enforce for technical reasons.
Determined Internet users are generally able to find
ways to mask their identities online. Moreover, such
a measure misses the point, said He Jiangtao, the web-
savvy Beijing bureau chief of Citizen Magazine. He
stressed that the people who are willing to go public
with the most controversial views are usually


***********************
* Missing Section 003 *
***********************