Influence in Everyday Politics

The Chinese political realm differs vastly from liberal democracies that people in the west are familiar with. The statement “in China today, the general public have no political influence” is complicated by a focus on everyday politics. Chinese citizens do participate in everyday politics, although not in the direct way found in democratic nations. The power of social media in China is allowing internet users to express dissatisfaction with the government, even in the face of censorship. The power of social media and its political influence is illustrated through the 2011 Wenzhou train collision case, which ignited outrage from online communities and led to the exposure of corruption amongst government officials.
Typically, when a person thinks about the western concept of political influence, voting in a democratic election comes to mind. For the average citizen, their vote represents their voice in politics. If a person is not satisfied with the government or want to voice their concerns, they are able to freely criticize the state or engage in peaceful protests. They may also participate in politics by joining a political party or even forming a new party. The western concept of political influence centers on free speech and acting directly to affect politics.
The concept of political influence by the general public in China is vastly different from western norms. The political system in China is not a liberal democracy, thus many foreigners believe that regular citizens have no influence in politics. Although the expression of political dissent in China is not a right of freedom like in democratic nations, the public can still influence everyday politics in subtle ways. The number of internet users in China has reached 618 million at the end of 2013 according to the China Internet Network Information Center (Peterson, 2014). To control the access of information over the internet to these users, the government blocks access to western social networking sites, such as Twitter and Facebook. However, Chinese copycats of these blocked social networking sites, such as Sina Weibo (the Chinese version of Twitter), has been allowed to thrive. The popularization of social media in China has allowed information to travel more swiftly and become harder for the government to control.
On July 23rd 2011, two high speed trains collided near Wenzhou, killing 40 people and injuring over 100 (Wines and LaFraniere, 2011). The government claimed the accident was due to lightning; however, the cause was later revealed to be a flaw in the signaling system. Soon after the crash, the government attempted to cover up the incident by burying the damaged train compartments. They also attempted to censor mentions of the train crash in the media by telling media outlets to frame the story as a heroic rescue effort, rather than take on an investigative tone to criticize the government’s actions. However, with Weibo, the microblogging site, news and photos of the crash spread rapidly across the internet minutes after the incident occurred. In fact, Weibo users posted information about the crash four hours before government sources did (Chang, 2013). To illustrate how quickly information across the web spreads, just minutes after the crash, passengers aboard the collided trains posted messages for help on Weibo, which were reposted over 100 000 times. And just a couple of hours later, local hospitals in Wenzhou filled up with blood donors who arrived in response to the calls for blood. Overall, 26 million messages were posted to Weibo about the Wenzhou train collision event (Wines and LaFraniere, 2011). People criticize the officials in charge of the railways and many were suspicious of the inadequate government explanations for the collision cause. The effect of the outraged messages posted by netizens (internet users) could be seen in the aftermath of the incident. The Wenzhou government originally ordered local lawyers not to accept cases from families of victims, but they retracted the order and apologized after Weibo messages exposed their actions (Chang, 2013). In the face of increasing public pressure, two prominent figures were forced to step down: Long Jing, chief of the Shanghai Railway Bureau, and Wang Feng, the deputy bureau chief who ordered the train wreckage to be buried on site (Chang, 2013). The Wenzhou collision brought to attention how powerful the internet can be as a tool to disseminate information and spread critical public opinions. The way in which Chinese citizens participated in everyday politics is not in tune with the norms of democratic nations, but in a more subtle, indirect way.
The “great firewall of China” censors information on the internet through blocking hundreds of thousands of foreign websites (Qiang, 2011). Sensitive posts by users are often blocked or deleted, but Chinese netizens still manage to find ways to express themselves. For example, since the government propagates censorship in the name of “constructing a harmonious society,” netizens began referring to internet censorship as “being harmonized” (Qiang, 2011). The words “to harmonize” (hexie) sounds phonetically like “river crab” in Chinese, and “crab” usually refers to a bully who use violence to establish power. Thus, the term “river crab” has been used satirically over Chinese internet to represent government censorship (Qiang, 2011). Clearly, some political expressions are surfacing from the Chinese blogosphere. However, there is dissent between opinions on whether the government is allowing the internet to be used as a “pressure valve” for the public to vent frustrations, so people would be less likely to react in real life, or whether the internet can actually act as a medium through which action can be mobilized (Kalathil, 2002).
In one study conducted to see how blogs influence newspaper reporting (Hassid, 2012), blogs were discovered to have influence on newspapers when it came to reporting on religion, rural issues, the arts, and natural and man-made disasters. Newspapers, on the other hand, led the coverage in energy issues, political issues, and corruption and illegal activities. In the case of the Wenzhou train crash, a man-made disaster, this effect could be seen, as news travelled rapidly through social media. According to Hassid (2012), when the central government felt in control of a story, it becomes more tolerant towards criticisms. When an event comes by surprise, the central government is much less tolerant towards criticisms, which leads to tightened censorship around political issues on the internet. In the Wenzhou case, the event caught the government by surprise and they attempted to stifle criticisms; however, by then the news of the crash had spread too wide to be controlled effectively.
Fifteen blog hosting services were tested in a study (MacKinnon, 2009) to see how much information is censored from blogs. The results found that some politically sensitive content can still survive in the blogosphere; for example, data showed that an item posted on Tibet independence was censored by 12 out of the 15 blog hosting services (MacKinnon, 2009). This indicates that companies employ different methods and strategies to censor content, and some sensitive content can still seep through. The government provides guidance to companies on which items to censor, which can change depending on current events. Thus, with the quick spread of information across social media, sometimes the central government do not have time to act before a piece of information goes viral, such as the Wenzhou incident.
Given the power of social media in modern day China, regular citizens each play a small role in everyday politics that becomes magnified when taken into consideration the large amount of internet users in China. Furthermore, many Chinese people do believe that the internet will allow them to form better understanding of politics. A CASS Internet study performed in 2005, which asked participants for their agreement with statements made about the internet, found that 62.8% of the respondents believed that “people will have better knowledge of politics”, 60.4% believed “higher officials will be more aware of the common people’s views”, 55.3% believed “government can better serve the people”, and 54.2% believed “people have more opportunities to criticize government policies” (MacKinnon, 2008). The overall response indicated that Chinese internet users were optimistic about opportunities the internet can bring, which is to slowly expand boundaries for criticism against the government.
The Wenzhou case demonstrated the power of social media and the quickness in which information can spread, which can often be faster than government responses. The various studies presented above indicate that sensitive political information is still capable of surviving the “great firewall”, and that most people surveyed are optimistic in using social media as a tool in everyday politics. Therefore, although the general belief in the west is that the general Chinese public lack political influence, influence still exists in a form that is more subtle and often indirect. With the climbing rate of new internet users every year in China, the power of social media should be treated carefully as an emerging player in shaping China’s modern political landscape.

List of References
Chang, X. (2013). China’s Weibo: Political and Social Implications. Education About Asia, 18 (2), 16-20.
Hassid, J. (2012). Safety Valve or Pressure Cooker? Blogs in Chinese Political Life. Journal of Communication, 62 (2), 212–230.
Kalathil, S. (2002). Chinese media and the information revolution. Harvard Asia Quarterly, 6 (1), 27-30.

MacKinnon, R. (2008). Flatter world and thicker walls? Blogs, censorship and civic discourse in China. Public Choice, 134(1), 31-46.

MacKinnon, R. (2009). China’s Censorship 2.0: How companies censor bloggers. First Monday, 14(2).
Peterson, A. (2014) China has almost twice as many users as the U.S. has people. The Washington Post, 31 January, online at: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/01/31/china-has-almost-twice-as-many-internet-users-as-the-u-s-has-people/ [12 June 2014]
Qiang, X. (2011). The Battle for the Chinese Internet. Journal of Democracy 22(2), 47-61.
Wines, M. and LaFraniere, S. (2011). In Baring Facts of Train Crash, Blogs Erode China Censorship. The New York Times, 28 July, online at: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/29/world/asia/29china.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1& [12 June 2014]