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Thursday 24 September 2009
How the Net changed the lives of millions
“If authorities fail to respond to netizens’ demands, the internet will definitely increase conflict between officials and the public rather than promote communication,” he said. “This is becoming a huge challenge for authorities and censors.”
In June, Hubei hotel waitress Deng Yujiao was arrested on murder charges for stabbing an official to death as he was molesting her.
The case was first reported by local media - briefly and ambiguously - raising suspicion and interest nationally. Journalists began asking questions and reporting in internet chat rooms and personal blogs.
If the case had occurred 10 years ago, Deng would almost certainly have been jailed, and possibly sentenced to death. But this time tens of thousands of internet users turned her case into a national cause celebre. Officials eventually bowed to public pressure and allowed Deng’s release, despite attempts by censors to stop Web discussion and ban reporting of the case in the mainstream media.
The internet changed Deng’s fate and is now important in the daily lives of millions of mainlanders. Twenty-two years after the first e-mail was sent from China, the nation has the world’s largest internet community - 341 million users, up 33.6 per cent year on year.
The huge increase in Web users has made Alibaba.com the world’s leading e-commerce portal. Mainland online business-to-business transactions reached 2.16 trillion yuan (HK$2.45 trillion) in the second quarter this year, research by Gongchang.com shows. More than 96 million people shop online and Alipay, modelled after PayPal, is their most popular third-party online payment system.
But arguably, the Net has made its greatest contribution to the political landscape.
The Communist Party, through its stranglehold on the flow of information, has maintained strict control on all aspects of life. In the absence of an independent press, or “fourth estate”, the internet alone offers ordinary people a place to express views and see dissent. Crucially, the internet is helping to break the party’s grip on the political life of the nation.
In the past few years, mass protests and campaigns have regularly been organised on the internet, forcing authorities to heed public outrage. It is now common for internet users to blow the whistle on official misconduct, in major chat rooms. Last year more than 10,000 people in Xiamen responded to an internet call and marched against the construction of a factory that would have posed a public health risk.
Wen Yunchao, a respected Guangzhou-based blogger known for advocating liberal ideas, said mainland internet users were different from the “commentariat” that constituted the “blogosphere” (community of bloggers) in most countries. “Chinese netizens are no longer satisfied with expressing their views,” Wen said. “They want to put them into practice to change the state of affairs.”
A watershed moment came in 2003, when mainstream media were banned from reporting on Sars and the case of Sun Zhigang, a graduate beaten to death in a prison hospital where he ended up after being arrested for failing to carry an identification card. At the time, many people turned to blogs, chat rooms and bulletin boards for information and to discuss the issues. The advent of micro-blogging services in the last year has added another important new channel for expression.
But the Web is a double-edged sword. Mainland authorities have built the world’s most sophisticated internet censorship system, which blocks software, controls search engines, packs web forums with volunteers who try to sway opinions, and often sees Web dissenters arrested and jailed.
The government also sees that the internet can be used to its advantage. President Hu Jintao took part in his first online chat last year and encouraged the nation’s officials to embrace the internet.
The Web also allows the central government to monitor local governments by giving it access to independently expressed opinions about their performance.
Zhu Huaxin, head of the online People’s Daily public sentiment monitoring office, wrote recently that regional authorities must listen to the grievances of internet users if they are to handle a rising chorus of protest, rather than just silence it.
“If authorities fail to respond to netizens’ demands, the internet will definitely increase conflict between officials and the public rather than promote communication,” he said. “This is becoming a huge challenge for authorities and censors.”
2 comments:
How the Net changed the lives of millions
Fiona Tam
23 September 2009
In June, Hubei hotel waitress Deng Yujiao was arrested on murder charges for stabbing an official to death as he was molesting her.
The case was first reported by local media - briefly and ambiguously - raising suspicion and interest nationally. Journalists began asking questions and reporting in internet chat rooms and personal blogs.
If the case had occurred 10 years ago, Deng would almost certainly have been jailed, and possibly sentenced to death. But this time tens of thousands of internet users turned her case into a national cause celebre. Officials eventually bowed to public pressure and allowed Deng’s release, despite attempts by censors to stop Web discussion and ban reporting of the case in the mainstream media.
The internet changed Deng’s fate and is now important in the daily lives of millions of mainlanders. Twenty-two years after the first e-mail was sent from China, the nation has the world’s largest internet community - 341 million users, up 33.6 per cent year on year.
The huge increase in Web users has made Alibaba.com the world’s leading e-commerce portal. Mainland online business-to-business transactions reached 2.16 trillion yuan (HK$2.45 trillion) in the second quarter this year, research by Gongchang.com shows. More than 96 million people shop online and Alipay, modelled after PayPal, is their most popular third-party online payment system.
But arguably, the Net has made its greatest contribution to the political landscape.
The Communist Party, through its stranglehold on the flow of information, has maintained strict control on all aspects of life. In the absence of an independent press, or “fourth estate”, the internet alone offers ordinary people a place to express views and see dissent. Crucially, the internet is helping to break the party’s grip on the political life of the nation.
In the past few years, mass protests and campaigns have regularly been organised on the internet, forcing authorities to heed public outrage. It is now common for internet users to blow the whistle on official misconduct, in major chat rooms. Last year more than 10,000 people in Xiamen responded to an internet call and marched against the construction of a factory that would have posed a public health risk.
Wen Yunchao, a respected Guangzhou-based blogger known for advocating liberal ideas, said mainland internet users were different from the “commentariat” that constituted the “blogosphere” (community of bloggers) in most countries. “Chinese netizens are no longer satisfied with expressing their views,” Wen said. “They want to put them into practice to change the state of affairs.”
A watershed moment came in 2003, when mainstream media were banned from reporting on Sars and the case of Sun Zhigang, a graduate beaten to death in a prison hospital where he ended up after being arrested for failing to carry an identification card. At the time, many people turned to blogs, chat rooms and bulletin boards for information and to discuss the issues. The advent of micro-blogging services in the last year has added another important new channel for expression.
But the Web is a double-edged sword. Mainland authorities have built the world’s most sophisticated internet censorship system, which blocks software, controls search engines, packs web forums with volunteers who try to sway opinions, and often sees Web dissenters arrested and jailed.
The government also sees that the internet can be used to its advantage. President Hu Jintao took part in his first online chat last year and encouraged the nation’s officials to embrace the internet.
The Web also allows the central government to monitor local governments by giving it access to independently expressed opinions about their performance.
Zhu Huaxin, head of the online People’s Daily public sentiment monitoring office, wrote recently that regional authorities must listen to the grievances of internet users if they are to handle a rising chorus of protest, rather than just silence it.
“If authorities fail to respond to netizens’ demands, the internet will definitely increase conflict between officials and the public rather than promote communication,” he said. “This is becoming a huge challenge for authorities and censors.”
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