HONG KONG -
A couple of rare dissenting websites that indirectly
criticized the attitudes, policies and cronies of
China's military strongman, Jiang Zemin, were shut down
early this month. But, voila, thanks to the
apparent intervention of his rival, moderate reformist
President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, they are
back in business. For how long, no one knows, as the
plot thickens on the eve of the Chinese Communist
Party's (CCP's) crucial meeting and battleground in the
middle of this month.
The sharp divergence
within the CCP central caucus about crucial political
dogma will be discussed at the fourth plenary session of
the 16th CCP National Congress from September 16-19. It
will be the closed-door battlefield between the forces
of Hu (who also is general secretary of the CCP) and
Jiang, the former state president who holds the powerful
post of chairman of the party's Central Military
Commission. Jiang, in effect, is the commander in chief,
and he and his Shanghai Clique are considered to be
rigid and conservative, with no qualms about quashing
dissent and no qualms about using force to return Taiwan
to the benevolent embrace of the motherland.
Some say the battle is close; others say there
is no contest: Jiang is already the winner because of
his many allies and those who benefit from his policies.
A stark choice, and criticism on Internet
websites and web logs are part of the arsenal, first
encouraged by President Hu to criticize Jiang's
policies, then shut down presumably on orders by Jiang;
now they are back up and running, thanks to Hu's ally,
Wen, sources have told Asia Times Online in Hong Kong.
The on-again-off-again-on-again status of two
young whistle-blowing, muck and corruption-raking
websites signals an exceptionally sensitive period. In a
country that doesn't tolerate much dissent, the two were
flourishing for a couple of months, thanks to hidden but
clearly official encouragement. Then they were blocked
on September 2, for reasons not publicized, but clear to
anyone who reads the Chinese political tea leaves.
The following is about their censorship; details
of their resurrection are not yet known.
The two
highly critical websites that have been censored are China Petition Network, and Supervision By Public Opinion of
China. The former, which describes itself as a
"public sentiment early-warning mechanism" based on the
requirements of the top CCP top echelon, has softened
its manner of revealing corruption by changing from
directly exposing and detailing wrongdoing to reporting
to the authorities. The latter, Supervision by Public
Opinion of China, which already had been shut down and
then reopened three times, is the first medium to expose
corruption and other apparent criminal offenses of Li
Xin, the former deputy mayor of Jining city in Shandong
province. He is considered part of the Shanghai Clique
presided over by Jiang, who hails from that region.
Muckraking websites need powerful
backers Analysts say that critical websites must
have powerful, official backers in order to exist in
China, given Jiang's history of stifling online
complaints throughout his decade-long tenure as national
president from 1993 to 2002. For instance, citizens
Huang Qi and his wife set up a website in 1999 to help
locate people missing since the Tiananmen massacre on
June 4, 1989, when soldiers opened fire on peaceful
pro-democracy demonstrators, most of them students.
Later, some visitors to the site posted harsh messages
denouncing official corruption and supporting the June 4
pro-democracy student movement that was declared by
Beijing to be a counterrevolutionary rebellion and riot.
On June 3, 2000, the website owner was arrested,
convicted of sedition 11 months later and sentenced to
five years' imprisonment. That was the Internet in China
under Jiang, who still retains power as the commander in
chief and some say the nation's de facto regent.
Since taking over from Jiang, reformist Hu and
his ally Wen have taken a more conciliatory and
humanitarian stance. As the disagreement between Hu and
Jiang is rumored to be growing wider, some suspect that
Hu is behind the online democratic force pushing for his
political ideals: more democracy, justice and
discipline. If true, he may have learned this
masterstroke from Deng Xiaoping, who had supported Hu
and elevated him to political heights.
In simple
terms, the Hu camp stands for major economic reform,
cooling the economy and disciplining the CCP, making it
accountable, its actions transparent and subject to a
system of checks and balances so that the party is no
longer above the law. The Jiang camp, while accepting
the need to rationalize the economy, has resisted some
efforts to cool the economy - since the economic
well-being of vested interest business allies would be
jeopardized. More important, the Jiang camp or Shanghai
Clique resists greater democracy in the ranks and
hierarchy of the CCP, opposing checks and balances and
the concept of disciplining even senior party leaders.
In the 1970s, Hua Guofeng, CCP chairman, premier
and commander-in-chief, adhered literally to the
nation's founder, Mao Zedong. "We will resolutely uphold
whatever policy decisions Chairman Mao made, and
unswervingly follow whatever instructions Chairman Mao
gave," Hua insisted. But Deng Xiaoping, who later led
the country into market-oriented economic reform and
opening-up, stuck to the belief that practice or
pragmatism was the key criterion of truth. "Seek truth
from facts," Deng said. "Practice is the only standard
to test truth." In 1979, Deng encouraged popular
democratic outpourings of dissent and dissatisfaction to
good use and successfully toppled Hua from the supreme
leadership. He unleashed the democratic forces that put
big character posters up on Beijing's Democracy Wall,
criticizing the old guard. When they started criticizing
Deng and his allies, however, and spoke of modern
"emperors", Deng called it off, and had the wall
scrubbed clean. That was the end of what was called
"Beijing Spring" - a manipulation of popular sentiment
to discredit rivals. It served its purpose.
Nationwide email boxes for
informers? Fast forward to the two democratic
websites. They were and still are believed to be backed
by anonymous powerful authorities in the upper echelons
of the CCP. An article posted on the China Petition
Network even proposed to set up an e-mail box for
informers in every town, county, and city under the
leadership of the central government.
Xie
Huaqiang, a strategic management advisor to the China
Petition Network, was cited by China Newsweek, a journal
sponsored by the state-owned China News Agency, as
saying that the website was considering cooperating with
the mainstream media, government organs, the National
People's Congress and the Chinese People's Consultative
Conference. If it lacked staunch support from some of
China's powerful leaders, its exposes and critical
content would represent a "mission impossible". Also it
is beyond comprehension that the officially sanctioned
China Newsweek would put together an exclusive report on
the maverick website.
Who had ordered the
closure of the two sites remains a whodunit, but who
benefited is clear - Jiang Zemin. Some political
analysts point to Li Changchun, member of the CCP
Central Politburo Standing Committee and chief of
ideology and propaganda work. But it is also possible
that the sites voluntarily took a break and paused
during the sensitive period, perhaps to cool public
resentment. The closure or voluntary pause would have
been sanctioned by higher authorities.
In any
case, the two crusading, anti-corruption, pro-democracy
websites have won massive support and applause from the
China's Internet users. "The China Petition Network has
brought hope back to the sight of more than 95% of the
Chinese people," said one comment online. But that
commentator also points out that many whistle-blowers
are still suffering devastating mental and physical
persecution and that the press is generally subject to
its own self-censorship, easily silenced with carrots
and sticks.
The website, Supervision by Public
Opinion of China, however, was unlocked again and
available in August. Ever since its disclosures about
the allegedly corrupt deputy mayor of Jining city on
June 10, the website had been shut down several times,
and the third closure in particular lasted more than 13
days. From that stifling of free speech, "the tremendous
difficulty in exposing and fighting corruption in China
is plain to see," says the website's Fourth Inauguration
Oration.
As if to pacify the conservatives
headed by the phantom regent Jiang, the oration goes to
say, "Our website fully abides by the essence of the
'Three Represents' [identified with Jiang and outlining
party duties to the people] and the 16th CCP National
Congress. We won the unswerving support from the CCP
leadership and the masses in disclosing the corruption
and malfeasance of the Jining's deputy mayor. It shows
that the party has the courage to see the facts, the
determination to crack corruption, and the intrepid
determination to keep pace with the times. Although we
are menaced and threatened by the corrupt, we have firm
faith in the overwhelming justice and continue as we
always do to challenge corruption."
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2004 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please
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