there is a 50-cent army which praises the Chinese government, some people suspect that those who disparage the Chinese government are really paid trolls for the Americans. For this reason, people who seem unduly critical of China and worshipful of the US are often accused of being “US-pennies”, or mei-fen (may-fun), as this must be how much the US government pays them for each post.
Of course, Chinese companies get into the act as well. Many Chinese companies secretly hire people to praise their company on Internet forums, and to run down their competitors. Such people are called a “water army”, or shui jun (shoo-eh joon).
Jail, Censorship, and the Great Firewall
The Chinese government has made it a national priority to control the Internet within China. It has made anonymous postings on the Internet illegal under Chinese law. In order to set up a blog, join a microblogging platform, open an Internet account, or even access the Internet at a net bar, one has to provide a verified ID, and this ID must correspond to one’s identity on the Internet so that one’s online activity can be easily tracked. Web sites, portals, apps, and services within China essentially have to lift up their skirts to the government in order to operate legally. The government insists on having their encryption keys, and access to private information about their users upon demand.
While many Western observers supposed that government control over Internet content would become looser over the years, the opposite has proven to be very much the case. The most recent laws governing Internet usage in China mandate stiff penalties, including jail time, for posting content critical of the government or government officials, for disclosing state secrets, and for rumormongering. These categories are all so broadly defined that pretty much any online discussion of the government, government officials, or government policy could be problematic.
While people do go to jail for Internet posts, this usually happens only to those who have a high-public profile, to those who have uncovered some official malfeasance that the government wishes to hide, or to those who are attempting to organize some kind of political activity. People seldom get hauled away merely for venting or blowing off steam.
More typically, the government does its best to censor the content on the Internet. As the Internet is too vast for the government to accomplish this directly, it puts the onus on the various online companies to police the content themselves. The government gives the companies an updated list of topics that should not be discussed on their forums, and confirms that the companies have the proper policies and mechanisms in place to comply with their censorship demands, and reliable party members overseeing the process. If companies do not comply, they are closed down until satisfactory compliance measures are taken.
Many Westerners falsely assume that the government wants to censor negative comment on its policies. This is not quite the case. Rather than merely censoring negative comment, the government typically sets aside general subject areas wherein any content apart from that which has been officially approved by the government is forbidden. It is not that people are not allowed to say something negative about these topics on the Internet—they aren’t allowed to say anything at all. And if they try to discuss off-limit topics, the government holds the web platform responsible for shutting the discussion down, deleting the content, banning or suspending offenders, and reporting offenders to the police, if need be.
While many Chinese do not appear to notice or mind government censorship, others display various degrees of irritation with it. Online commentators who stray into dangerous territory are often warned by friends, “Check your water meter”, or cha shui biao (cha-shoo-eh bie-ah-oh). This phrase apparently came from a popular TV drama, where police gained access to an apartment by claiming to work for building maintenance. The warning means that the police may be at their door.
One common online meme within China is “grass mud horse”, or caonima (tsah-oh nee-mah). The word refers to an alpaca. However, it is also a pun on an obscene phrase which describes how many Chinese feel about censorship. Along with “grass mud horse”, one is also to find “river crab”, or hexie (huh-shee-eh). This is a pun on the Chinese word for “harmonious”—it is used to mock the government’s censorship efforts, which are ostensibly done to promote a “harmonious society”. Of course, all discussion of censorship is automatically censored, so while the Chinese words for “grass mud horse” and “river crab” can often be found on the Chinese Internet, many people just post fanciful pictures of “grass mud horses”, alpacas, or river crabs as a form of protest.
All e-companies, including Western companies which wish to operate within China, must abide by Chinese Internet laws. Of course, the Chinese government has no control over the Internet beyond its borders. For this reason, from the very beginning of the Internet in China, the government has tried to block overseas content from entering the country, if that content is viewed as harmful to the state. The result is the Golden Shield Project, which is informally known as “the Great Firewall of China”—the fanghuo changcheng (fang-wha chang-chung).
The Great Firewall of China works in several basic ways. If, for example, you are using a search engine and you enter a query that contains any of a number of banned words, the browser page will automatically reset, effectively giving you a time out from using that search engine. This can also occur if you try to access some webpages with banned content, even though the other webpages on a website might still be available. However, in many cases, whole Internet domains and web services are blocked, and you cannot access any of the content they have, even if it is merely to look at cat pictures.
Oddly, it is not illegal to view these webpages or use these web services—no one in China has gone to jail yet for merely using Facebook or Twitter, for example. Nor it is illegal—yet—to try to circumvent the Great Firewall. Thus, from the beginning, people have been playing a cat-and-mouse game with the government as they sought ways around the Great Firewall. The government has responded by strengthening the Great Firewall and plugging up whatever holes it can find. However, this has up to now just proven to be a big nuisance for Internet users rather than an actual barrier.
Of course, the vast majority of Chinese people do not have a strong enough English ability to really manage the Internet in English, and do not have enough of a knowledge of the West or connection with Westerners to really get much benefit from jumping over the Great Firewall. It is true that they would gain access to Facebook, Twitter, and a whole host of other web services. However, there are plenty of good Chinese alternatives for them to choose from. For these reasons, few Chinese really think of the Great Firewall as much of an intrusion into their lives.
There are two things that by and large up until now the Chinese government seems to care little about stopping through censorship or the Great Firewall—pirating and pornography. It is true that every once and awhile some distributor of Internet porn or pirated material gets a little bit too big, and the government takes action. However, for the typical netizen, there seems to be no limitation to finding these things on the Internet within China.
Westerners in the Chinese Digital World
The digital world offers some unique challenges for Western e-companies wanting to operate within China. Western web platforms and services must abide by the same laws as their Chinese competitors. A handful of Western companies have reconciled with this and have at times offered products within China which comply with Chinese law, allowing the Chinese government access to their encryption keys and user data. Other Western companies, notably Yahoo and Google, have for the moment pulled out of the Chinese market altogether rather than comply with Chinese government demands.
China is a huge potential market, so all of the large e-companies would like to enter in. However, in the past Western e-companies have faced strong international repercussions whenever they attempted to comply with Chinese government demands, while at the same time making little headway in reaching Chinese customers. Given the risks, many Western e-companies appear to be taking a wait and see attitude toward
