Exploring China’s “Maritime Consciousness”, public opinion and nationalism
Posted: March 1, 2015 Filed under: Academic debates, Diaoyu, Global Times, PRC News Portals, South China Sea, State media, TV, Weibo | Tags: Chinese nationalism, Chinese public opinion, 环球时报, Diaoyu, Diaoyu Island, Diaoyu Islands, 舆论调查, 钓鱼岛, 西沙, 黄岩岛, Global Times, nationalism, online nationalism, online opinion, opinion polling, opinion surveys, Perth USAsia Centre, public opinion, south china sea, survey research, 南沙, 南海, 民意调查, 中国舆论, 中国民意 9 Comments
Somehow i’ve omitted to mention the report released in November on my first survey of Chinese public opinion on the country’s maritime disputes: Exploring China’s ‘Maritime Consciousness’: public opinion on the South and East China Sea disputes.
If you’re reading this blog you would probably have come across the report already. But since it’s based on on 1,413 conversations on the South China Sea and Diaoyu disputes, it probably does warrant a mention on this blog.
I’m doing a presentation and panel discussion on the report today (Monday, March 2) at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, which Canberra-based readers may be interested in. I think the RSVP date has passed, but it’s probably a case of the more the merrier so if you’re keen i suggest clicking the link and getting in contact with ASPI.
Also based on the survey, a recent piece published on the University of Nottingham’s excellent China Policy Institute blog, as part of a special issue on nationalism in Asia. My contribution to that below:
~
Nationalism and Chinese public opinion
China Policy Institute Blog, February 3, 2015
By Andrew Chubb
Few terms in public political discourse are as contested, contradictory and downright slippery as nationalism. Deployed to describe an enormous variety of social movements, ideologies, popular attitudes, mass sentiments, elite policy agendas and even consumption patterns, use of the word carries with it a risk of stringing together superficially related phenomena with very different causes under the same label. The recently released results of a survey on the South and East China Sea disputes offer further reason for caution when approaching Chinese public opinion through the lens of nationalism.
China-Vietnam clash in the Paracels: history still rhyming in the Internet era?
Posted: May 7, 2014 Filed under: Academic debates, China-Vietnam, Global Times, PRC News Portals, South China Sea, Xinhua | Tags: Chinese foreign policy, Chinese internet censorship, Chinese internet news portals, Chinese media, Chinese nationalism, CNOOC, HYSY-981, internet censorship, Netease, oil and gas, online opinion, paracel islands, Sina weibo, Sino-Vietnamese incidents, Sino-Vietnamese relations, south china sea, Weibo, 海洋石油-981, 中越撞船 11 Comments
Vietnamese diplomats are saying Chinese and Vietnamese ships collided today in the disputed Paracel Islands, where China has stationed the massive oil and gas drilling platform HYSY-981. The incident may be in some ways unprecedented as the first time China has attempted to drill for hydrocarbons in a disputed area of the South China Sea. But it also resonates with the past in some surprising ways, from the PRC’s initiation of the incident, to Vietnam’s response, and even the information environment facing the two sides.
A whiff of race-traitorhood: Sohu readers eviscerate a Global Times editorial
Posted: June 28, 2012 Filed under: Global Times, Ministry of Foreign Affairs | Tags: audience costs, CCP leadership transition, China Energy Fund Committee, Chinese internet, Chinese media, Chinese nationalism, 环球时报, Dai Xu, 胡锡进, 龙韬, Global Times, guochi, Hu Xijin, Huanqiu Shibao, Long Tao, national humiliation, nationalism, online opinion, Sohu, south china sea, 国耻, 戴旭 4 Comments
Hu Xijin, editor-in-chief of the Huanqiu Shibao (Global Times), on the front cover of Renwu Zhoukan (Personalities Weekly)
The PRC’s internet users frequently serve us with reminders of just how much scepticism we should have regarding the purported market imperatives of the Huanqiu Shibao (Global Times), published by the People’s Daily.
In February 2010, according to a Wiki-leaked cable written by Jon Huntsman, a Huanqiu Shibao editor told a political officer from the US embassy that their newspaper was “market-driven” and therefore had to “reflect public opinion in order to make money”.
The same day, a Beijing University academic told embassy staff that “the Global Times’ more ‘hawkish’ editorial slant [is] ‘consistent with the demands of the readers and normal for a market-driven newspaper.’ ”
This view seems to be shared by some liberal Chinese intellectuals, such as Michael Anti, who has been quoted as saying “its position is to make money — nationalism is Global Times’ positioning in the market”.
Susan Shirk, a highly influential US analyst of PRC foreign policy, even claims that Chinese officials somehow see the Huanqiu Shibao as representative of popular opinion, and that they read it to understand the population’s views on hot-button issues. At least, that is what Shirk’s sources in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs tell her, and she raises no questions as to this information’s veracity.
Other analysts, however, like those interviewed in this excellent Asia Sentinel article, suggest at least four different domestic and international purposes that Huanqiu may serve — none of them involving monetary profit:
Scarborough Shoal on Sina Weibo: deleted posts and mildly misleading graphs
Posted: June 1, 2012 Filed under: China-Philippines, PLA & PLAN, TV, Weibo | Tags: censorship, Chinese internet censorship, hku weiboscope, Huangyan, internet censorship, Kong Qingdong, Li Shuangjiang, microblogging, microblogs, nationalism, online opinion, Panatag, public opinion, scarborough reef, scarborough shoal, Scarborough Shoal 黄岩岛, Sima Nan, Sina weibo, statistics, weiboscope, Wu Fatian, 司马南, 吴法天, 孔庆东, 李双江 2 Comments
Image attached to Wang Wei‘s 王巍 satirical weibo on the Scarborough Shoal standoff
On Friday, May 11, noticing the disconnection between the outrageous outrage raging in the media and the lack of action in the streets, a media consultant called Shenzhen’s Old Cui 深圳老崔 made some enquiries with a friend in the police, which he then reported back to his 60,000-odd followers on Sina Weibo.
His post read as follows:
I just talked with a PSB pal, and asked him why the government wouldn’t approve a demonstration by the people against the Philippines government. He said, you’re tapped in the head, as soon as you have anything resembling a demonstration the slogans will change to “down with corrupt officials”, and who’s going to clean that up — the sergeant?
This weibo was reposted more than 11,000 times in the 13 hours before it was deleted. But although 11,000 reposts was impressive, Old Cui’s effort wasn’t quite as viral as another weibo that linked to footage of CCTV host He Jia’s now-famous slip-up a few days earlier, in which she stated twice that the Philippines was part of China’s historic territory. The latter was reposted more than 15,000 times in the same period of time, despite the fact that its originator had less than 1,000 followers.
Two hilarious takes on the standoff summed the smart, worldly and urbane spirit of Sina Weibo’s opinion leaders. On May 10, a day when the #1 Sina Weibo topic was Dragon TV 东方卫视 journalist Zhang Fan’s 张帆 superhuman, gonzo-patriotic mission to “re-plant” the PRC flag on Scarborough Shoal’s rock, weibo superstar Zuoyeben 作业本 described the motley crew China would be sending over to kick the Philippines out for good:
Word is, our country is organising a crack force to go and liberate Huangyan, an ever-victorious force of tigers and wolves. Advance party: Weibo Navy [commenters paid by PR companies]. Assault team: China’s city management forces [城管, famed for brutality and unreasonableness]. Canine division: one Kong, one Wu and one Sima [referring to rabid nationalists Kong Qingdong, Wu Fatian and Sima Nan]. Party branch: the Fifty-Cent Party. Bomb disposal: Chinese forceful eviction teams. Medic: none. Logistical supply team: none. Oh, and the flagship that will take this army there: Fang Zhouzi [方舟子 “Son-of-a-boat” Fang, known for quixotic attempts at debunking].
Zuoyeben has more than 2.9 million followers, and the post appears to have been in circulation for eight days before finally being deleted on May 18.
Wang Wei 王巍, another weibo heavyweight with 1.4 million followers, has brazenly mocked non-combatant army officers with high military ranks, including Major-General Song Zuying 宋祖英 of the PLA’s song and dance troupe, and Major-General Li Shuangjiang 李双江, singer of red songs (and disgraced-by-association father of a violent young whippersnapper). Wang’s post was forwarded more than 9,000 times, but the censors have apparently decided to leave it in place, complete with the image at the top.
I’ve collected a few graphs from Sina Weibo on the topic of Scarborough Shoal. The first one, generated on May 18, illustrates the same pattern observed in relation to the five news portals that i generally concentrate on here (generally to the detriment of everything else) — a steep rise on May 9-10 as people started entertaining the possibility that China might actually take military action over Scarborough Shoal, a plateau over the weekend as inflammatory stories kept coming, followed by a gradual loss of interest when the crisis started showing signs of being alleviated.
This suggests once again that the “wave” that came ashore in different areas of China’s media — from the centrally-controlled mouthpieces to semi-commercialised provincial media and commercially-oriented/state-compromised online news providers — successfully penetrated the much more user-directed discourse on Weibo.
黄岩岛 topic on Sina Weibo, May 9-18 (taken May 18, 12:18am)
They’re slightly misleading, these graphs. To start with, the Y-axis doesn’t start at zero, meaning the trend lines are exaggerated somewhat, though it’s not grossly distorted — the shape is still pretty much accurate. The discussion didn’t cease when the graph hit the bottom — it just went down to, well, “3,283”…
3,283 what? Are the figures on these graphs actually referring to the overall number of weibo sent? The number forwarded? The number of comments? The number of searches? Or is it some kind of composite index involving some or all of the above?
If anyone happens to know the answer do please let me know in the comments.
This graph was taken about 18 hours after the one above:
黄岩岛 topic on Sina Weibo, May 9-18 (taken May 18, 6.56pm)
This time May 16 is shown as a spike and May 17 as a decline. The figures are completely different, the reason being that the points on the graph represent the figure (i’ll just refer to it as the “discussion factor”) for the 24 hours leading up to that point in time. The first graph was generated close to midnight, so it actually shows the trend in terms of calendar days. The second one was captured just before 7pm, so it shows 6pm-6pm cycles.
The first graph shows a “discussion factor” of about 3,000 for May 15, midnight to midnight, and the second shows the same figure as being above 12,500 between 18.00 on May 15 and 18.00 on May 16. So discussion on the topic of Scarborough Shoal was actually reignited on May 16, rather than May 17 as the first graph seems to suggest.
A third graph, with 7pm as the reference point, appears to further isolate the time of the spike in Huangyan discussion:
黄岩岛 topic on Sina Weibo, May 12-21 (taken May 21, 7.52pm)
This indicates the “discussion factor”, supposedly formed over 24 hours, rose from 12,500 or so at 6pm to more than 18,500 at 7pm. So did something happen between 6 and 7 o’clock on May 16? Well if it did, then Sina isn’t revealing what it was, because according to the “Advanced Search” function there were only 2,328 Huangyan-related results in total during that time, so my best guess would be that the graphs depict the numbers of keyword searches. Once again, please leave any suggestions in the comments.
In any case, they do provide an indication of the general level of interest towards the issue among weibo users. Even then, however, the varied scales of the graphs can result in them obscure trends rather than illustrating them. Like, for example, my final graph of the Huangyan Island 黄岩岛 topic, taken on May 28:
黄岩岛 topic on Sina Weibo, May 19-28 (taken May 28, 7.25pm)
Although it looks pretty much the same as the others three graphs, there’s a huge difference in the scale of this one. If this line were on any of the other graphs it would be scudding along the bottom. The graph obscures the most important trend in the period it purports to illustrate: the decline in enthusiasm and interest in the issue, with the weibo public leading the way.
“An issue of social stability”: the CCP’s Scarborough Shoal media blitz, Part II (May 10)
Posted: May 15, 2012 Filed under: China-Philippines, Comment threads, Global Times, People's Daily, PRC News Portals, State media, TV | Tags: CCTV, China-Philippines, Chinese foreign policy, Chinese internet, Chinese media, 环球时报, 钟声, 解放军报, 黄岩岛, Global Times, Huangyan, internet censorship, Jiefangjun Bao, nationalism, online opinion, Panatag, PLA Daily, public opinion, scarborough reef, scarborough shoal, south china sea, Yin Zhuo, Zhong Sheng, 央视 3 Comments
Yin Zhuo 尹卓 and Song Xiaojun 宋小军 recommend “violence” towards the Philippines on CCTV’s Huanqiu Shixian program, March 9, 2012
Whatever doubts i might have had regarding the effectiveness of the CCP’s campaign to focus Chinese people’s attention on the Scarborough Shoal standoff, they had disappeared by Thursday (May 10), when several Chinese friends here in Perth, Australia — whose usual attitude towards the South China Sea disputes ranges from tolerance-of-my-babblings to complete lack of interest — actively contacted me to say they thought China was about to go to war with the Philippines.
Thursday was probably the day the multimedia swell on Scarborough Shoal peaked, but the mechanics giving rise to it were in motion the evening before.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei had already taken the encouragement of public outrage to a new level on his Wednesday afternoon press conference when he stated that the Philippines’ behaviour had “triggered strong reaction and concerns from the Chinese people at home and abroad”.
Then CCTV News’ 10.30pm Huanqiu Shixian (World View) current affairs program hosted “special commentators” Song Xiaojun (宋小军) and Yin Zhuo (尹卓), who recommended violent action (暴力行动) in response to the Philippines’ alleged renaming of Huangyan as Panatag Shoal and plans to remove all signs of China’s presence. Said Yin:
Now if they use force to remove our sovereignty markers, that is taking violent action, and we have the right to take equivalent action.
As far as i can tell, both of these serious-sounding provocations by the Philippines are non-stories. First, the Philippines has not renamed Scarborough Shoal — it still officially refers the feature as Bajo de Masinloc (and has certainly never called it Huangyan Island). Second, as the Sohu photo tour translated here a couple of weeks ago clearly shows, there are no sovereignty markers on Huangyan for the Philippines to remove.
Late on May 9 the Huanqiu Shibaoreleased a report on Philippines Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin’s May 9 comment that he he had interpreted remarks made by Hillary Clinton during the 2+2 meeting on April 30 as indicating the US would protect the Philippines from any attack in the South China Sea. After being reposted on the People’s Daily’s website (with Gazmin wrongly referred to as “Foreign Minister” 外长), this became a prominent headline on the front pages of all 5 news portals on May 10.
Contrary to at least one western analyst’s claim, among all the inflammatory coverage there was actually little in the way of official criticism of the US — hardly surprising given Defense Minister Liang Guanglie was on an official visit Washington. In fact, the official media gave plenty of play to the idea that America had refused the Philippines’ requests to step in, an approach that might well have been intended to make Chinese military action appear more feasible.
The Phoenix online video site was particularly enthused, leading with “China meets opportunity to retake Huangyan Island: will China and Philippines go to war?”.
Phoenix Online Video lead story, May 10, 2012: China meets opportunity to retake Huangyan Island, will the Philippines and China go to war?
I frequently saw and heard the line that “the US is maintaining a neutral stance” on Chinese TV and radio on May 9 and 10, and the PLA Daily stated that “even [the Philippines’] backers are not convinced” of its claims. (Here are some English-language examples from Xinhua and the China Daily.) On May 10 NetEase chose to include “America refuses to take sides on Huangyan Island issue” on its front page, just below the main headline linking to Gazmin’s comments, “Philippines: US guarantees Philippines will not suffer any attack in the South China Sea“.
While Liang’s visit and the need to downplay the Philippines’ international backing probably dictated that the US connection had to be largely limited to online media, the offline media nonetheless had plenty of material to work with. And judging by the apparent injunction to promote Huangyan-related reports, they needed it.
The May 10 China Youth Daily‘s front page headlines included “Four points about the Huangyan Island incident” and “Philippines incites population’s emotions, seriously harming bilateral relations”. The Beijing Morning News had “Overseas Filipinos to hold anti-Chinese rally on May 11” and “Hard to be optimistic on Huangyan Island incident: China claims to have made all preparations”.
China Youth Daily front page, May 10, 2012
Huangyan even made the front page of the apparently (i’ve never read it) entertainment-focused Beijing Star Daily (北京娱乐信报), which led with, “Philippine newspaper article says Huangyan Island indeed belongs to China”.
Many, possibly even a majority, of the regional papers had the issue on their front pages too, including the Southeastern Business Daily 东南商报, City Evening News 城市晚报, the Chutian Metropolitan News 楚天都市报, and the Chuncheng Evening News 春城晚报 (those examples were obtained just by glancing through the Bs and Cs on ABBao). Shandong’s Weifang Evening News (Shandong) had one of the more dramatic splashes. The yellow headline reads “Trampling over China’s bottom line, Philippines miscalculates”.
Weifang Evening News 《潍坊晚报》 (Shandong) front cover, May 10, 2012. Headline: “Trampling over China’s bottom line, Philippines miscalculates”
The People’s Daily had a page 3 commentary, synthesizing most of the recent official Chinese comments, talking up the Philippines’ provocations (including the apocryphal renaming and removal of sovereignty markers). But most importantly of all, the People’s Liberation Army Daily came to the party with a foreboding piece that called Scarborough Shoal “an issue of territorial integrity, national dignity and even social stability“. Social stability is of course official code for popular protest (or lack thereof), so the implication was that China could be forced to attack the Philippines because the Chinese people are so angry.
This article was publicised in the main headline clusters on the front pages of all the 5 news portals except NetEase (for some reason consistently the least sensationalistic over the past few weeks), and it became the most-read news story on Sina that day, as well as the most commented-on (rankings here). The top comments, predictably, called for military action. Phoenix’s thread, involved more participants (62,000+) but Sina‘s were slightly more interesting:
“If [China is] not a paper dragon, please retake all the claimed islands that the Philippines is occupying.” [495 supports]
“Not taking active hardline measures in response is just verbal kung-fu. Protest protest protest, territory needs protecting, protests cannot possibly address the root of the problem. What is a great power? One that can steadfastly uphold sovereignty and territory, protect its people’s life and property security, and not be subject to encroachments.” [399]
” ‘We resolutely oppose! We strongly protest!’ —- is this a dragon or an insect, we common people can tell at a glance, the Philippines understands quite clearly too. China’s current situation has gotten to the point where it is being bullied, we have been bullied for 100 years by Western imperialist powers, now even the running dogs of imperialism can come into our backyard and bark their heads off. At a time when we think we’re strong and powerful, can yelling out a few ‘opposes’ and ‘protests’, as we’ve done for the past 30 years, really scare away these wild mongrels? Chairman Mao once said, even the poorest man has a dog-whacking stick; now we’re not poor,our whacking sticks are thicker and more numerous, so i don’t understand why we’re covered in bruises and bite marks. Are the dogs just too fierce, or are we too cowardly?” [351]
The latter comment was deleted sometime between Friday and today. Why? Hard to say, given its only difference with the comments elsewhere was that it was more entertaining and better-written. Actually that could be one possible explanation.
More seriously, though, one clue may be the general lack of “treasure the memory of Chairman Mao”-type comments in comment threads of late. They were absolutely dominant last year. If the portals have indeed received instructions to reduce Maoism in the public discourse on this issue, that would support Jeremy Goldkorn’s suggestion that the Scarborough Shoal media frenzy has been an attempt to shift public attention away from domestic politics and the Bo Xilai affair.
That explanation is quite compatible with the one repeatedly put forward here, namely that the leadership is promoting domestic expressions of outrage, including criticism of its own stance as weak, in order to improve its position at the international negotiating table……something about two birds, one stone……single arrow, pair of eagles……etc. The Chinese ruling party is good at that.
“Their bottom line is Beijing’s 2nd Ring Road”: reactions to the Philippines Navy – Chinese fishing boat incident
Posted: October 20, 2011 Filed under: China-Philippines, Comment threads, Global Times, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, PRC News Portals | Tags: chengguan, China-Philippines relations, Chinese fishing boat, Chinese internet, collision, Filipino navy, Global Times, incident, Netease, netizens, online opinion, Philippines Navy, phoenix, Phoenix News, Reed Bank, south china sea 3 Comments
[Updated October 25 – see bottom of post].
From the Global Times this morning: Philippine warship rams Chinese fishing boat in South China Sea, Filipino Dept of Defense says apology already issued to China.
An incident has occurred between China and the Philippines in the South China Sea. On October 18, a Filipino gunboat rammed a large Chinese fishing boat that was towing 25 smaller boats near Liyue [Reed] Bank.
In fact, the Filipino boat didn’t ram the large Chinese fishing boat, but rather became entangled [en] in – read: deliberately cut – the ropes of the 25 small boats, and confiscated them. No one was hurt, but China is now demanding the unconditional return of the 25 boats.
The story had actually been reported yesterday evening by the GT and Phoenix on the basis of foreign agency reports, but at that point they were using the less sensational term “collide with” (pengzhuang 碰撞) rather than “ram” (zhuangji 撞击) in the headline.
A pattern seems to be emerging in the recent treatment of South China Sea-related stories. Phoenix News is again paying the most attention, currently running the incident in the #1 lead headline story position, with Netease and Sina also running it on their front pages, but much further down, among the hundreds of normal-sized links.
Netease certainly seems to be into the spirit of sensationalism, running with the juicy “Filipino patrol boat rams Chinese fishing boat” [zh] line. The story may well have been further up among the headlines earlier in the day, because it is on Netease that the biggest and most interesting discussion [zh] has taken place so far, with nearly 2000 comments and more than 65,000 participants – and the latter figure has shot up by about 15,000 in just the last hour.
This is good to see. The Philippines’ shameless-whore nature has come out – I’ll ram you on purpose, then play completely innocent. Accidental? This is a case of testing China’s bottom line – if you don’t retaliate this time, I’ll go further next time. Foreign Ministry, let’s see how you react this time, you couldn’t possibly just fart and let it go, could you? [11,020]
Do the Foreign Ministry and Ministry of Defense have anything to say? [7007]
Our Foreign Ministry is currently deciding whether to express regret, condemn or strongly condemn, based on the degree of fermentation of interest from netizens . . . no, that won’t do, just send China’s magical, brave and utterly incomparable chengguan over to discuss the matter with the Philippines . . . you know [6424]
Fuck, hurry up and denounce, I strongly demand that they be denounced to death, fuck [6205]
[ . . . ]
Actually we could make some “tiny” incidents happen, then issue “sincere” apologies, but we don’t have the guts [3075]
[ . . . ]
Calling ourselves a righteous country, being bullied everywhere, apologizing is just lip-service, compulsory, weak and cowardly Chinese nation, when will you step up? [4319]
Actually, the Philippines is now denying [en] that it even apologized:
“No apologies were necessary and none was given,” the Foreign Affairs chief [Alberto del Rosario] said in a statement.
After going through the top-rated comments in the above Netease discussion, I looked at the most recent comments as they flowed in at a rate of several per minute, and in came this sardonic exchange:
Commenter 1 (Heilongjiang): The deliberate ramming just one side of things – isn’t it more important that the Philippines Navy was violating China’s territorial waters?
Commenter 2 (Sichuan): No, their [Beijing leaders’] bottom line is Beijing’s Second Ring Road.
Oh dear. I actually feel sorry for Jiang Yu and the Foreign Ministry.
=========
UPDATE 25/10: Over the weekend NetEase managed to stir-fry the issue even further by translating a Filipino newspaper article taunting Chinese diplomacy for being a “toothless tiger” [zh], discussion of which prompted 4840 comments, with a staggering 275,000 participants weighing in. The top comments all expressed agreement with the Filipino article, along a spectrum from bitter to hearty (“The Filipino media has given voice to exactly what ordinary Chinese people are thinking”).
Although the story’s source is specified as Xinhuanet, the source link is to the page’s own URL, and I can find no trace of it on any other news sites, including Xinhua’s. This raises the question as to what hidden agendas NetEase might have for pushing the story where its competitors have not, but without in-depth research into the company’s ownership and control structure i’d be getting out of my depth there.
China’s three cards: America, economics & Taiwan
Posted: July 5, 2011 Filed under: China-Vietnam, Comment threads, PRC News Portals, TV | Tags: fifty cent party, online opinion, phoenix, Sino-Vietnamese War, south china sea, Vietnam 5 Comments
Phoenix TV has brought together a highly interesting array of short video clips of South China Sea commentary from both their own satellite channel, and CCTV.
The “brief introduction reads”:
China has three strategic countermeasures [available to it]: the America card, the economics card, and the Taiwan card. ‘To capture the bandits, first go after the king’ (qin zei xian qin wang) – countering America is the most important. The economic card applies mainly to Vietnam and the Philippines. The Taiwan card could initiate cross-strait collaborative defence of the South China Sea.
The video line-up has received 23,930 ‘likes’, and 15,969 ‘dislikes’ (actually ‘tramples’), suggesting many viewers strongly disagree with the overall assessment presented in the videos, which plays down the urgency and strength of action required, with several commentators pointing out that China should try to ensure that its actions do not push neighbours like Vietnam into an alliance with the US (something which has to some extent happened already). The comments section provides some clue as to what so many viewers are objecting to:
wangdashan5658 (Hebei): [Quoting llciven (Suzhou)]: “Previous generations have told us, dignity must be fought for, merely talking is useless!!! [12 recommends]” – Looking at the domestic and overseas [situations], what dignity do we common Chinese people currently have? [0]
qq987645 (Yunnan): Don’t talk about cards this and cards that, other people are actually controlling [these islands]. [2]
wo7133998 (Liaoning Huludao): Why am I sensing the final years of the Qing Dynasty? [2]
ssssssssd (Anhui Chaohu): Nothing at all has happened in the South China Sea, only big-talking. It’s tragic. [2]
lbds (Shenzhen): It’s time to retake the South China Sea islands. [0]
Leader Li [Li Lingdao] (Guangzhou Panyu District): Truth comes from the barrel of a gun, let’s attack. Give the nation a bit of blood. [2]
Li Lü (Hebei Hedan): I miss the Great Mao very much. It was him who made the Chinese people feel proud and stand tall [yang mei tu qi, ang shou ting xiong] in the world’s orient. In those years we defeated America twice, taught India a lesson, and did not give up an inch of sovereign soil or territorial water – even for just one square kilometre, he dared to take back Zhenbao Island from the big-brother superpower the Soviet Union. [33]
Li Lü (Hebei Hedan): It now looks like the “shelve differences, develop jointly” approach was completely wrong. Who is going to take responsibility? [8]
Yi剑 (Jiangxi Shangrao): Corrupt officials running amok, unable to fight, let’s just give the South China Sea away. Others will say good things about us. [30]
Once again we see the CCP’s foreign-policy status quo, especially the “shelve differences” approach, under attack from the Maoist left, whose viewpoints attract strong agreement from readers. How many of these readers, or even the commenters themselves, are ‘fifty-centers’ is unclear (and even if they were it would be impossible to tell whose fifty-centers, since many agencies are known to deploy them), but we can clearly see that this kind of criticism is not being censored out by any central decree at this stage.
Perhaps more significant is that comments linking official corruption with weak foreign policy are also okay with the censors. The third comment, by wo7133998, and the last comment by Yi剑, have strong overtones of “waihuan neiluan” (“external aggression + internal chaos”), the most widely-accepted formula answering the original Chinese nationalist question: what happened to China’s greatness? Seeing China today as afflicted by waihuan neiluan appears to be a refutation of the Chinese Communist Party’s achievements, and a damning indictment of its present rule.
We have to remember though (and one of the talking heads on the Phoenix video reel actually points this out), internet opinion always tends to be more extreme than public opinion in general. As argued elsewhere, a ‘netizen’ (wangmin) is very different to a citizen.
In a side note, He Liangliang, the talking head who puts forward the ‘playing cards’ analogy in the most detail, also puts forward a theory that Vietnam’s internal problems – namely inflation, slow economic growth and corruption – mean that it might be trying to provoke conflict with China to divert the Vietnamese people’s attention. This exact line of reasoning often gets applied by outside analysts to explain China’s actions, and its possible motivations into the future.
southseaconversations 讨论南海 
“Strongly demand to send one of the Politburo Standing Committee to Diaoyu”
Posted: August 17, 2012 | Author: Andrew Chubb | Filed under: China-Japan, Comment threads, Diaoyu, FLEC & Ministry of Agriculture, People's Daily, PLA & PLAN, PRC News Portals, State media, TV, Weibo | Tags: anti-Japanese protest, China-Japan, Chinese foreign policy, Chinese internet, Chinese internet companies, Chinese nationalism, Diaoyu activists, Diaoyu Islands, 钓鱼岛, FLEC, national humiliation, nationalist demonstrations, online opinion, Senkaku Islands, Sino-Japanese relations, 保钓 | 3 CommentsDiaoyu activists on board Qifeng-2 at Hong Kong
UPDATE FRI PM: the detainees are being released in two batches, with 7 sent by plane to Hong Kong and the other 7, including the captain and bosun, told to sail their boat back. The activist group says a second landing attempt “cannot be ruled out” (see Twitter for details and sources).
China and Japan are now engaged in their second nasty diplomatic confrontation in the past 2 years, over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands. There were anti-Japanese demonstrations in Beijing on Wednesday and Thursday, and the issue is dominating China’s entire newsmediascape. But it’s the Chinese government that is copping most of the wrath of online opinion.
On Sunday (August 12) a group of mostly middle-aged-and-older activists set out from Hong Kong on a rusty old tub called the Qifeng-2, to proclaim China’s sovereignty over the Diaoyu Islands by landing on one of them and raising the Chinese flag, or flags as it turned out.
Even at that early stage domestic Chinese internet opinion was focusing on the PRC government. The Huanqiu Shibao got the activists a great deal of online media attention by picking up their public request for a PLA Naval escort for the Qifeng-2 in the (inevitable) event that they were intercepted by Japanese Coastguard patrols.
Top comments on the portals were divided between expressions of support for the Hong Kong activists, and criticism of the government. Five out of the top ten comments on the 184,000-strong Tencent thread, ‘Activists from two sides [of the Straits] and three regions plan to proclaim Diaoyu sovereignty, Japan orders interception‘ directly challenged the government to match the activists’ patriotism: