I do not like the way it has been done, but it sure takes some guts for a CEO to defy the World order, whatever the company’s IPO said. My own site has been victim of censorship, and I was quick to blame Google when they helped censor initiatives like Charter 08,  so it is only fair that I praise them now. Search Engine Manipulation (SEM) is the worst kind of censorship, because it leads the user to believe that the information contained in search results is a fair sample of the World’s views. It was very difficult for Google to justify that behaviour, and it is good news that they stop being part of it. Bravo.

And yet, there are important reasons why Google has been putting up with the Chinese system for 4 years, and as far as I can see, all of those reasons are still there today. By leaving China on a whim, Google sends the message that all that work was just a big mistake. Worse still, by slamming the door on the way out, Google creates trouble for itself, for the Chinese netizens, and for the World internet community.

By any standard, Google’s statement last week is a disaster. It has all the sins that a company announcement can have, not only from the PR perspective, but also from plain common sense. It is insultingly self-righteous, it fails to provide a clear reason for the decision, and it does not offer evidence for any of the accusations. Worse still, it sends an ultimatum to the government of China, revealing a thirst of political power that is very disturbing in a corporation.

Brazen cartoon on China Daily (WSJ)

The primary colors in Google’s logo and its simple slogan “don’t be evil” suggest a world of fairy tales where Good and Evil are clearly defined, and one can live following the Google path, righteously pointing out to others that they are in the wrong. Life is unfortunately more complex, and only very simple people can believe that God is always on their side.

Intentions and Nature of Google

I liked yesterday’s article by Rebecca Mackinnon because it rejected the idiotic debate about the purity of motive of Google’s leaders. On the other hand, I found it a bit too optimistic regarding the role of Google and the World internet community today. 

Google is no more or less evil than most corporations. The difference is it has a developed a unique business model that requires large amounts of trust and goodwill, and it has done a great job of promoting it up to now. To the point that in the online community, it has managed to reverse the classic roles, turning the radical hacktivists into CEO-huggers.

But non-evilness is not what has taken Google so far. The secret of Google, its key asset is information. Google is cool because it is in the process of hoarding and classifying all the information of the World, and this allows it to earn money in a way that is not painful to the final user. Google today stands for great,  free inventions and open systems because its clever business model, impossible to replicate in other fields, allows it to earn money this way.

But Google today is still a very young company, and more vulnerable than most netizens imagine. It is extremely strong in brand and in goodwill, which is reflected in is market value. But this value is nothing more than a promise, and its actual revenues, extremely dependent on the Search engine business, are still far from the giants in the offline World.

Every internet company is always one click away from ruin, but this is especially true for a business based on search engine ad revenue. Facebook, Twitter, Windows, most information companies count on the network effect to force people to stay with them, Google just counts on a technological gap that is closing. For Google search, the competition is always at the reach of one finger, and until Google succeeds in establishing its network of cloud services, a large part of its value still relies on goodwill.

Google’s Mistake

As I said above, Google’s decision to stop collaborating with the censors is admirable, but to engage in brinkmanship with a country is a disastrous mistake. Google enters a new and risky game, with players far more powerful than itself, where it has more to lose than to win. If it doesn’t tone down its message very quickly, it risks being completely banned from China, which is a very different thing from just closing Google.cn.

First of all, this would mean that it abandons the activists that it supposedly cares about, and that Google.com, the only non-manipulated search engine popular in China, will most likely be blocked. Worse still, it means that Google of all companies, the one that is proposing to keep in storage all the data of our lives, admits to being defeated by the Chinese in the business of IP protection.

From the market perspective, it is even worse. The Chinese language might make up more than one third of the whole internet in this decade, and whatever Google’s share is today, disappearing from China will have immense consequences in the future online scene. Not only it increases the dangerous divide of the internets we already mentioned, but it effectively destroys any chance of Google becoming a truly universal company.

But for Google itself, there is one thing more dangerous than all that.

Non Evil vs Politics

The motto “don’t do evil” is negative, it suggests non alignment, passive resistance to the invaders, benevolence and pacifism. It would have been much better for Google to simply stop censoring some information, critical content like the Charter 08 and its imprisoned author, while trying to content the CCP by hiding boobs and ankles. They might have still been sent out of the country, but it would have been for a good cause, and the World would have been watching.

On the contrary, by openly challenging the government of China, the onus of proof lies now entirely on Google’s shoulders. And by letting itself be seen hand in hand with the US government, Google is taking sides in World politics. The neutral, non-aligned company that was meant to become the government of the internet suddenly becomes an American corporation. How will the non-American internet see this?

A company that speaks up against some evils will be expected to fight others as well, people will start asking Google to speak against certain American policies in the Middle East, or to leave the country if it is in disagreement with the Patriot Act.  The voice will turn that Google is at the service of the USA, and for a big part of the World, including many in the West, Google will forever be marked with the stink of politics.  It will still be a good company, certainly, like the CNN. But it will just not be the company anymore.

As it is today, the Chinese government is not particularly interested in seeing Google leave, so it will not push things further. If Google.cn manages to be sent out quietly and not make too big a mess of it, the situation may still end up favourably for them…

Please, Google, do not lend your name to a new American crusade. The offline World has had enough of imported freedom and democracy bombs, we don’t need the same on the internet. Democracy, like love,  has to come from the inside, it is achieved with patience and daily work, like you have been doing these four years. Stay at your post, keep working for China and for all of us, don’t let the internet be divided. And the online World will be yours.

Chinese ultra-blogger Han Han is starting a magazine. He announced it previously on his blog, and his last post is already giving the details to send in article drafts and job applications. I learned this last night from my friend 2Ting, who was eagerly preparing her CV and intro letter. The literati of the post-80s are very excited, it appears.

Han’s magazine, which still doesn’t have a name to avoid imitations, is presented in this blog post. A very Chinese and a very Han Han announcement, interesting for several reasons. But before I speak of it let me give some background on Han Han. I’ve been planning to write about him for ages, and never found the time until today.

The man

Han Han is 2Ting’s idol. He is also the idol of thousands of others post-80s Chinese, and he has become – in spite of himself-  a symbol of this often caricatured generation. His bio is interesting: while attending middle school he won a first prize in a famous literary contest, then he dropped out of high school and started writing  popular novels and driving race cars. By now he has become one of the best selling authors in China, and, if I got my stats right, the most read personal blogger in the World.

Han Han’ s appeal to the Chinese youth is based on his character and his life as much as on his incisive writing style. For modern day Chinese students, stifled by a cut-throat education system and the high expectations of their parents, there is no room for the big ideals. It is not Communism or Democracy that worries them, but rather the daily struggle to improve their grades. And  the fairness of a system that should allow them in the future to find a job according to their efforts.

In this world, dropping out of school has to be the ultimate rebellion. Han Han fought the system and Han Han won.  And not only he won, but he took to denouncing the gaps in the establishment, directly challenging the older generations that hold the power today. Add to this that – I am informed- Mr. Han is “hot”, and you got the bearings to start to understand the Han Han phenomenon.

The blog

Like a sort of Robin Hood of the Sinosphere, Han Han writes about injustice. He complains and makes fun of things that are wrong, by people who have power (political or other) in the older generations. Like his readers, he is not interested in the big words, you do not see “Charter” or “democracy” on his blog. You see a mayor in Chengdu who spent too much for a luxury “earthquake relief” car, or a rant against some older writer who sold his soul (some of his feuds with artists and critics are legendary).

By my own estimate, Han Han’s blog must be the most read personal blog in the World. The numbers are baffling. Each of his posts has hits in the hundreds of thousands, and comments are counted in the thousands. According to the stats on sina.com.cn, he is long past the 200 million hits. Impressive, even if we discount the part driven by returning low-value commentators. Typically, the 100 first comments on a post are whining about not being the first (the “sofa!”). Then it quickly degenerates into a series of ecstatic “chichis” and “jiayous”, which is the way Chinese express their cheering approval.

The lack of explicit political involvement is what makes many foreign readers ignore Han Han and turn to other -smaller- bloggers who write in tune with their expectations. This probably also explains why Han Han has managed to get away with so much, while being censored so little. The Censors have barely touched his blog, only once in a while blocking the occasional post.  Like the thousands of tolerated protests organised in the countryside, most of the times he is just writing  against a case of local injustice, and he rarely crosses the line of attacking Beijing.

But westerners and officials alike might be underestimating Han Han’s influence. His fans  belong to defined and very concentrated sectors of the population, including one that has been identified as potentially conflictive in times of crisis: the young graduates from university that are unable to find a job. Looking further down the line, the post 80-s will start entering their 30s next year, and gradually they will gain some power and cease to be ciphers. Han Han is in a strategic position.

It has been said that his writing lacks a message, or that he is just a student fad, perhaps because he doesn’t fit our mould of a”chinese intellectual”.  But he never was meant to be an intellectual. He is a man of action, who hops from high school to the race cars and on the way home plots his next witty line. He is the kind of man that makes change happen, rather than theorising it. The following extract of his magazine announcement can give a taste of what I mean.

The magazine

This is the bold announcement posted on the 1st May, approximatively translated and abridged by Uln:

The magazine I edit is calling for manuscripts. Any kind of documents, including novels, short stories, news, essays, commentary, etc. For this magazine, I have decided to give the highest salaries in the field. 2000RMB/ 1000 characters for original cover stories. 1000RMB for other original stories, etc. These prices are around 10 to 40 times higher than average of the industry.

The magazine will also have a section for the points of view we completely oppose. The magazine considers the author is mentally disabled. These will include articles against humanity, against common sense, against justice and freedom. We will publish these articles and remunerate them  250*RMB/1000 characters. And this is also a high standard, for 250s don’t fall from heaven, and there is also a cost for the 250s to be born.

(*NOTE:  For some reason, the number 250 in Chinese means “stupid”)

That is already a promising declaration of intentions. Fighting injustice with irony, that is very much the style of Han Han. In a country like China this kind of writing can go a long way. Until, of course, one of the 250s is powerful enough to take away their publishing licence.

The texts will only be paid 15 days after publication, to give enough time to the readers to find any plagiarism. If this is the case, a note will be published in the cover and compensation of 1000RMB/character given to the original writer, and 500RMB/character to the one who finds it. The magazine will not admit original authors that plagiarize themselves under a different name to claim both payments.

The salaries for the staff editors will be of 6500RMB/month, which will increase if we manage to keep the business afloat.

Some people advised me against this kind announcement, but  I didn’t listen to them. When I asked some guys in other publications what was their monthly budget for writers, they said it was negligible. I am fed up of the situation in this country and I want to help improve it. I am a well known writer and a champion driver and with my income I can hardly buy a flat in Shanghai. In other countries these professions are more respected and you earn enough to buy Ferraris, etc.  I want to ensure in my magazine that writers receive the proper compensation for their work.

Remarkable announcement, and, as I said, very hanhan. Also very Chinese, showing the money straight from the first paragraph. The likes of Han Han are not ashamed of  what  they are, and I can’t see a better way of getting his hordes of fans feverishly updating their CVs. I wonder how he is going to deal with the avalanche of manuscripts.

A funny paragraph is the one about plagiarism. It is a recurrent theme in Han Han’s posts, as he has been himself a major victim. The whole system of low wages for creative jobs is partly due to traditionally low awareness of intellectual property. To understand the extent of the problem, just consider that Han Han’s novels are plagiarized before they are even written: some crook commissions a writer to put together a novel with the bits of information that leak about Han’s next work, and in a week it is on the tricycle market.  In these conditions, original books in libraries rarely sell for more than 15RMB (2$). Any increase would get the tricycles flocking to your doorstep.

But finally, one might ask, what is the magazine about? In the world of Han Han, the particular theme doesn’t seem to matter so much. As we saw above, humanity, freedom, justice and common sense are the principles that will guide it. Principles without capital letters, because there are none in Chinese. Perhaps the following phrase, which sounds better in the original, can give some more hints:

We don’t have a standpoint, we just discern right and wrong. Too many people around us have standpoints, they don’t discern right and wrong.

So be it.

This article is dedicated to my friend Ting.  I really wish you can make it into the Han magazine

I will take the chance before I pack up to write my little roundup of the Rat year, as today is also exactly the 3 month Anniversary of CHINAYOUREN. I want to write what these 3 months have meant for this blogger.  We are on holidays and the time is to relax, so I’ll do it in easy bullet points:

• Hailing from the primitive highlands of Western Europe, Uln is a very recent blogger, with an experience of 3 months writing blogs, and just 6 months reading or even knowing what a blog is.

• In these 3 Rat months I have discovered that blogging is not just weird psychotherapy. It is also a way to speak of ideas too brainy to be allowed in the pub, and actually get people listening. More suprisingly for me, you actually make friends.

• One of my main discoveries is that China bloggers are cool. Even the big ones that I thought inaccessible and Holy. All of them answer my emails and sometimes even share readers by linking to this my humble site. For the moment I haven’t encountered a single exception, thanks to all.

• Speaking of Links: I have to give special thanks to those that helped me get some readers: First, to China Law BLog and Global Voices, who linked me from my very first post. Then the Wall Street Journal blog, for bringing me record readership by linking me 3 times in a single week. And, third but not least, the Fool’s Mountain, who not only inspire me with their ever lively discussion, but also let me publish 2 articles and shamelessly promote my blog on their site.

• To be completely fair, I have to mention that Google are good to me, and in spite of my pointing my finger at them, I continue getting amazing results in their search engine. For SEO reasons that I’ll never understand I am Number One on strings such as Update President Obama. And what is fair is fair: I owe the same credit to the Chinese authorities who, in spite of my finger-pointing and irreverent writing, have yet to censor my content in any way.

• The most important of all: I seriously enjoy blogging. It is amazing that 200 people from the most diverse origins come into my website in a single day. I even enjoy it more when someone leaves a comment, so please make my day and leave yours below.

• Finally, my Bloggy Resolutions for the 牛 Year:  Write shorter posts, write better English and speak better Chinese, enjoy China online and offline.

So let’s go one more time say with me: Happy 牛 Year to all !

Is it only me, or the first half was more intense than the second? The former was full of the brave ideals we wanted to hear; the latter, more martial and patriotic, containing the obvious honesty, courage and loyalty, together with the reference to race.

It is 3am in China. I will leave it to American experts to analyze more deeply, I just want to highlight this passage which stands out from the rest:

We reject as false the choice between our safety and our Ideals. Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the Rule of Law and the Rights of Man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations. Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake. And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born: know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more.

.

Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, nor does it entitle us to do as we please. Instead, they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.

“Rule of Law and Rights of Man”. Yes. And how to achieve them in the World? By the “justness of our cause, the force of our example”. That is exactly what we wished to hear. It has become true in the speech, and I sincerely hope it will become true in real life.

Many things can change in the World if our most powerful country -our 老大, or “eldest”, as many Chinese humbly refer to America- conducts itself according to these principles, abiding by those same laws that it proposed and signed, and creating new ones as its Ideals may require.

For, though the oath forgets to mention it, the responsibility of the highest political power on Earth is towards the whole of Humanity. And only a great man can be up to that position.

It looks like for the first time in many, many years, we have found our Man.

I have discovered a website containing the full original Chinese Charter (+ translations) that is still not blocked by the censors. It is also open to comments, apparently not manipulated:

https://knol.google.com/k/-/-/3jhi1zdzvxj3f/9

Thanks to heroic advocate of freedom of speech David Ferguson who, by introducing himself as an editor in a Chinese goverment news portal (china.org) and then pretending to be a detractor of the Charter, has obtained the insider information. And what is more, he has the guts to publicize this link right in the Opinion section of their website. Respect!

Re the link. It is a website at knol.google apparently set up by blogger Zuola. It is very surprising that it has escaped the censorship (Zuola’s blog itself is censored) and I can only think it is because:

1. It uses https connection and the quick “Charter patch” has somehow missed it, or else,
2. Advocate Ferguson has asked his bosses at the State Council to unblock it.

Please pass this link to anyone you know in China. Let’s get the document finally circulated, and send your thanks to the China Internet Information Center at china.org.cn

https://knol.google.com/k/-/-/3jhi1zdzvxj3f/9

Post unpunned?

It is hard to resist when you are writing a post and you see the chance to put in one of your puns, but lately I’ve been pretty good at it. It’s been more than a month, for example, that I don’t refer to the Leadership of the PRC with the sentence: “Who and when attended the conference?”.

I say this because I just noticed the opposite case in yesterday’s post: a good gag appeared unnoticed and now risks to seriously embarrass me, as it involves – again- a leader of the People’s Republic. If you remember, I was telling you about Wen Jiabao’s predictions getting a good kick in the family jewels. Only now I realize that Wen’s first name actually, literally, means: Family jewels. Man, I love this Premier more every day.

I don’t believe in self-censoring, so I won’t have it unpunned. For now.

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Meet the activist Uln Win

I don’t hide that I was pleased when my trackback indicator told me I had been linked by no less than the Telegraph – well, OK, from one of its blogs.  When I went to look at the article, I found this:

The Chinese blogger Uln Win has reprinted the core principles, together with some analysis, on her site.   [...]  Uln Win makes the point that while the charter originated within mainland China and its signatories are all from within the country, she remains concerned that the vast majority of people in the country remain wholly unaware of it…

Extraordinary! Not only I am a girl now, but I am also Chinese and I am called Uln Win. Let’s go by parts:

1- The change of sex: I kind of fancied I had a virile writing style, obviously I was wrong. I can’t blame him  on this one though, it is true that my profile is not clear in this respect.

2- The Chinese nationality: Funny. The first sentence in my profile famously is: “This blog is written by ULN, a foreigner happily living in Shanghai”.

3- The code name “Uln Win”: This has to get the top prize. I just can’t imagine where he got it from, there is not an instance on the internet of such a name. My guess is he wanted a powerful name for his female Chinese hero, and he added the “Win” as a sure winner! I can’t wait to read his next post, will Uln Win rescue Liu Xiaobo from the claws of the regime?

Well, this explains why my statistics give so many visits of less than one minute, that’s what I call skimming a blog. I suppose it is the excess of information we all bloggers suffer. To be fair, it looks like at least he read the post, which, I suppose, is what matters.

We will be looking at Google.cn, Google.com and Baidu.com, and we will try in each of them 3 different kind of search terms.

A- Chrter 08: In all its combinations, which are 08宪章 and 零八宪章
B- Political Terms: Tiananmen incidents (天安门六四事件), FLG.
C- Vulgar words: Sex. I will employ the “blog job” and the “chicken bar”.

It is understood that in all cases the search terms are in Simplified Chinese. The browser is Firefox 3.0.5. and the connection is a normal home DSL by China Telecom. The possible results are:

• Free Search – Results look consistent and realistic, like the ones obtained in the West.
• Reset Connection (RC) – This can only be seen in Mainland China. The result is an image like the one below and the search engine cannot open anymore for a while (I estimate 30 seconds). RC is not directly done by the Search Engine. Wikipedia internal search also gives RCs for B Terms.
• Forbidden Message (FM)  – This is the forbidden Message that, with slight variations, is the same as shown below. It says something in the lines of: “Some results are not displayed according to the local laws, regulations and policies”.
• Manipulated Results (MR)- This is the case where the results are obviously manipulated, for example in the search of 天安门六四事件 (Tiananmen incident) on Baidu, where all the results are official newspapers such as People’s Daily, etc. Sometimes it can also carry on top of the page a FM.

Google.com
A -Free Search.   (But click some individual results gives RC).
B- Reset Connection
C- Manipulated Results.

Google.cn
A- Forbidden Message and (sometimes *) Manipulated Results
B- Reset Connection.
C- Forbidden Message. When used “” gives Manipulated Results.

Baidu.com
A- Manipulated Results. When used “” gives Forbidden Message.
B- FM and Manipulated results.
C-FM and Manipulated Results.

Conclusions

1- The results are somewhat erratic and it is difficult to see a pattern: it all looks like a series of patches on top of each other rather than a systematic implementation. Also, things change in time, as in *, where the Manipulated Result I saw Sunday cannot be seen anymore.

2- Baidu has a different system from Google: it has no Reset Connections. This is very advantageous for Baidu and I understand it is unfair competition, as a RC is one of the worst experiences while surfing.

3- This might be due to Google’s own preference server location: the involvement of the Search Engines in the RC is unclear no direct involvement (even Wikipedia has RCs!) whereas Manipulated Results obviously requires their action, and can more easily attract attention from Advocacy Groups. Of course, in the case of sexual terms (C), this is not a problem as the Manipulated Results can just be called “Safe Search”.

4- The Chrter 08 has different treatment than other political terms, but it might just be because it was banned urgently and suddenly, so it is only a quick fix added to existing structure. It does not provoke RC in any case. It looks like they have decided to leave it alone on Google.com to avoid attention from Western advocacy groups, but in exchange Google has had to give up Google.cn and apply the infamous “porn block” to it which is active censorship by SE. Why the FM and not RC? Who knows, I am guessing perhaps RC is more complicated to implement.

5- In any case, and however negative, I understand it is always better to show FM than Manipulated Results, because the former is openly admitting censorship, whereas the latter is a lie and a distortion of reality. Forbidden Message does increase transparency, yet does not justify involvement in political censorship. From this perspective, Google is closer to the truth than Baidu. Baidu seems indeed a more active participant in the government’s information control schemes, and Chinese users of Baidu are clearly the most exposed to Search Engine brainwash.

UPDATE: Following corrections by international expert Nart Villeneuve below: I have introduced a few changes of my own (in blue). In any case, this post is just a very basic review of the SE Censorship system from the perspective of a normal user. If you really want to understand how the GFW works, you should read proper research papers like this one, or this one.

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IMAGES:

1- FORBIDDEN MESSAGE (FM)

2- RESET CONNECTION (RC)

NOTE: If someone is interested in this or has some more information to share please put it in comments. Unfortunately my time is very limited so I only ran 2 or 3 terms for each of the classes A, B and C above. There might be things I overlooked and I would be grateful if you can point them out.

Two of them have to do with the growth projections for 2009. Yawn. We’ve been seeing new projections and discussions thereof almost every week, and after the holidays break it looks like here it is all over again. It is mostly fruitless, because there’s not enough new information between one projection and the next, and so most of the times the changes reflect the mood of the expert more than anything else.

It was however interesting to read this PD article Sunday where one CPC “renowned economist” worried that “China is likely to lose 3.9 million jobs in 2009″ if GDP growth slows to 8 percent. Well, he need not worry anymore, according to other top CPC officials quoted here the very next day, “China Risks Missing 8% Growth Target”, which will be “extremely arduous” to achieve. They are starting to change their tune, again.

And this brings us to a more interesting subject which, although it is as difficult to predict, at least it is more telling than the empty statistical artifice of GDP. I am speaking of Unemployment.

There has been two contradicting articles over the weekend, by Wang Tao from UBS and by Victor Shih. They hold different positions as to what will be the unemployment figures in 2009 and what will be their social impact. In any case, it is worth noting that both of them, with their 15 Million (Tao) and 35-50 Million (Victor) figures, are way above any calculation by the “renowned economist” of the People’s Daily, who gives 1 Million for every % of GDP lost.

Needless to say, I am with the relatively pessimistic predictions of Victor on this issue. Partly because I deeply distrust socio-economic projections issued by banks (you can hardly blame me on that). But mostly because the arguments that Victor puts forward are more solid than Tao’s. Based on his deeper knowledge of Chinese politics,  Victor goes on to analyze the possible consequences of his prediction in a worse-case scenario.

Noting that, even if the government has the capacity (as he calculated here) to subsidize the unemployed families for an extended period,

the current wave of layoffs affects a young and vibrant cohort most capable of carrying violent collective action against the state. Without any systematic triggers, we at least will see a spike in localized riots which necessitate the mobilization of People’s Armed Police (PAP) units all over China. The central government would also be compelled to (and they are doing so already) roll out generous unemployment benefits for migrant workers and college graduates (to the tune of 300-400 billion RMB). If a systematic trigger occurs and instability spreads to a sizable city, we will see the large scale mobilization of both PAP and army units and possibly substantial bloodshed. In most scenarios, the CCP regime would still survive a large scale, cross regional rebellion. However, “overall investor confidence” will be lost.

What is the “systematic trigger” which I refer to? I don’t know exactly what it would be. However, if we look back in history, it can be a wide range of events, including the death of a popular leader, a serious natural disaster, the spread of a deathly infectious disease, a small student demonstration turned violent, religious groups…

This idea of the “trigger” (I called it the “Spark” on my previous post) is right on. It is exactly the element that is missing and the one that will make all the difference: when we have social tension to get the people in action, and intellectuals to draft the road map, the mix is an unstable equilibrium waiting to get in contact with a spark. Of course, Victor doesn’t know what exactly this spark would be, and neither do I because its own nature makes it unpredictable. But I would add to his hypothesis one of my own:

The emergence of a massive wave of protest on the internet that extends to all the forums and BBS simultaneously, with new sites being created faster than the government can block the old, which could create a cascade effect that would force the government to commit its worst mistake: close down the internet altogether. This would add to the protesters millions of online game addicts released from their cybercafes, constituting a serious army of instability.

Check out today’s post by Imagethief on the subject, showing with 2 nice graphs that we have an unprecedented situation in China. Also,  yesterday Jeremiah of the Granite Studio did an interesting comparison of the present situation and the one in 1919 during the May 4th movement. In those times, there was a clear “trigger”: the humiliating treatment of China by the Western powers in the Treaty of Versailles after the First World War, including the unforgivable transfer of territories to Japan.

One last note for the optimists: this weekend I learnt of a reputable economics professor living in Shanghai who recently bought 3 months advance of canned food to store in case the situation gets rapidly unmanageable. In a city like Shanghai, if the logistic networks are disrupted we can run out of food in a matter of days. I am still not quite there myself, but I must admit that, since I heard this, the idea hasn’t quite left my head and I tend to go more generous on every visit to Lawson’s.

UPDATE: Oops, I completely missed this one. All Roads has been doing the same comparison and drawing his own conclusions. You can see it here.

I am pleased to see after all that the Chrter 08, in spite of the weaknesses I noted, is indeed slowly “flying into 2009″. From the English language blogs, it has since got more attention, with featured posts by Xujun Eberlein, Peking Duck, FM, and now also ESWN. Most importantly, in the Chinese speaking circles it is slowly gaining momentum, as is proven by the fact that the government is getting nervous and has closed down the whole site bullog.

ESWN and the CSM have written about this rather optimistically in my opinion. CSM quotes :

Zhang says more than 300,000 websites now link to the charter, and it’s being discussed on blogs, QQ groups, and other chat rooms. “It’s impossible to block information in society now,” he says.

I am afraid this statement has yet to be proved. Like ESWN’s Roland Soong notes, this number 300,000 is taken from the number of Google.com results. It is a relatively large number and it indicates that the subject has become popular in the Chinese internet forums.  But little more than that. Of these results, only 1/3 come from mainland China, and 100,000 is attained easily by many of the hot topics coming up regularly on Chinese BBS (see ChinaSMACK).

The fact is that Chrter 08 is still an unknown movement in mainland China. Out of 5 local friends I asked, all with university degrees and fluent English, even today only one of them had heard the term (but knew no details). As for the majority of Chinese who live out of the cities and don’t use the internet, there is no way they can have heard about it. I don’t know who is the “peasant” that CSM mentions as a signer, but until I get  some tangible evidence otherwise, I maintain that China doesn’t know about the Charter.

This is a very important point because, of the difficult path that Chrter 08 will need to run to achieve its goals, the first unavoidable condition is to become known to the public by beating the censors at their own game. As I said in my previous posts, the government has done an impressive job of silencing Chrter 08, but it is a sign of hope to see it little by little creeping back into the mainstream.

As I see it, the 3 phases and 3 main difficulties that the Charter will have to face to grow into a real mass movement are, in this order:

1-To be Known vs.  internet censorship and lack of freedom of speech

2-To be Trusted vs. weaknesses that make it easy to manipulate against

3-To be Loved vs.   lack of a spark, a leader, a name: the material of which Change is made

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Charter Step 1 and the Internet Underworld

We will leave point 3 for a post in the future, supposing we ever get there. For the moment we are still stuck in phase 1, and it is far from clear that the Charter will make it past this point. We know  that the Chinese government  has developed a very sophisticated system to control information on the internet. But how does it work? What are its strengths and weaknesses to oppose the Charter? Following ESWN, I have conducted some research on Google and found the curious results below.

First, as Roland points out, if you search for Chrter 08 in Chinese, Google.cn is sending back this message:

“Some results are not displayed according to local laws, regulations and policies.”

This has made me think that indeed, when it comes to fighting censorship, the Charter has an insurmountable flaw: it is a document. Therefore, its title and content are fixed and it is extremely easy to locate by a bot. Worse even, in this era of internet search engines, nobody has still given the  Charter a better nickname than that easily searchable title 08宪章. Any internet conversation where the Charter comes up, even if the contents are not copied, is sure to attract the Censor’s eye.

It might sound ridiculous at this point, but I’m serious: The Chrter 08 should be named Wang.  Or Zhang or Liu, any other term that is not exclusively related to it and therefore cannot be banned. Two centuries ago, the first Spanish constitution of 1812 was nicknamed by the people “La Pepa”, a popular name for a girl that many intellectuals scorned at the time. Two years later, during the reign of autocrat Fernando VII, this name became extremely useful to dissidents to acclaim the Constitution without risk to their lifes, with the famous slogan “Viva la Pepa!!”

Do you still think this is not relevant? Well, follow me with the next google experiment. If you are in China, try to search Google.cn for sensitive political terms like: Falungong, Tiananmen 89 massacre, Liu Xiaobo, you name it. You might be surprised to find not the message above, but rather a reset connection, which only affects viewers from mainland China and which is easily bypassable with a proxy or VPN.  It looks like this:

So what is that first message that Roland Soong and myself have been obtaining? It is not the political censorship message, but another one with which many Chinese men are acquainted. It is the notice you get when you look for some well defined  terms, like those found in pornography. As an example, I suggest you try a search for the word  “口交”. I will not translate it directly here, but let’s just say it is not a blog job. Run the search, surprised? Try any other “vulgar” word and you will end up with Google’s  Chrter 08 message. This is the first and most basic level of defense in the Great Wall, the porn block !

Pretty annoying for the drafters, I guess. But above all, it is very negative for the transmission of Chrter 08, because by calling it this name, the supporters are giving themselves away directly to the  Censors. And this is before phase  2- direct manipulation- has even kicked in.

So we are back to the basics. Like I already said, this Charter is lacking the popular element, the leadership that succesful movements have had in the past, the brand and name and life that would make a whole people roar “Viva la Pepa!”, or the one that years ago inspired a man to dance with the tanks on Changan Avenue. As it stands, it is the cold work of the intellectuals, and nobody has felt the urge to call it Wang.

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Note on Censorship

Finally, one more thing I cannot leave unmentioned. It is not news for anyone that Google have a deal with the Chinese government to collaborate in the repression of the internet. What is news to me is that Google is so openly censoring the principles by which all decent democratic countries abide, including the most basic of Human Rights. Google should be careful, they are entering a dangerous area, one which can backfire in a not very far future.

One more final test for the shame of the censors: when you run the Charter o8 search on Google.cn and you get the message screen, go to the number 4 item on the list of results. I just did that tonight and I believe I found out the essence of Google’s repression algorithm: “Ban all except the People’s Daily”. Indeed, this is the only way I can imagine that a People’s Daily article comes up as the single result for the search 零八宪章. It is a random PD article that coincidentially contains separate instances of 宪章 and 零八.

What a shame, Google, what a shame. Watch your steps today, lest you might find tomorrow that the people does not forget.

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UPDATE: The results on Google change with time, and this last People’s daily result is not on page 4 anymore. In any case, the search for 零八宪章 on Google.cn gives results that have always one thing in common: they are all from websites controlled by the government, like china.com, cctv, etc.  No results from the thousands of forums and blogs that discussed the issue.

UPDATE2: See this post for a more clear explanation of how the internet censorship works in China and this one for the ways in which Google -and many other search engines- collaborate with the Chinese government. I have learned a lot in the year since I wrote this article, and I know now some of the info contained is not technically correct. I am not updating the text above anymore, so if you are interested in the technical part you should absolutely visit these two posts.

Today, second day using VPN I’ve had 2 surprises, one good and one bad:

• The good one was to discover that I could finally connect to the Time China Blog.

• The bad one was the first article I read in this excellent blog, containing the paragraph:

Today a prominent mainland blog site, bullog.cn, was blocked, which may also be connected to Chrter 08. A few of the liberal outlet’s bloggers wrote about the document, and at least four signed it. I spoke briefly with Bullog founder Luo Yonghao this afternoon. He said he wasn’t sure why the site was blocked, and wouldn’t speculate on a Chrter 08 connection. C.A. Yeung of the Under the Jacaranda Tree blog noted in December that Bullog had dropped two of its bloggers, apparently for writing about Chrter 08.

Which means that now I cannot connect anymore to the blogs of Anti and Lianyue, where I used to spend many a nerdy hour trying to decipher their mandarin.

As you see there is a more than possible connection with the Chrter 08. The repression of the Charter movement seems to be gaining momentum as the weeks pass, proving that the government is taking it as a serious menace.  This is sad in itself, but there is even worse.

First of all, I want to clarify one point, lest someone misunderstands Ramzy’s article. Normally when we say a site has been “blocked” in China, what happens is that the site continues operating but it is just not accessible from the mainland due to the censors’ Firewall. This is not the case now, the site has been completely closed down. VPNs, proxies or any other other gadget will not get it open for you anymore.

And this makes me think: How can the Chinese authorities be so disrespectful with their citizens? I mean, even supposing they were right to suppress the Charter. There are millions of Chinese that go into that website every day and run blogs, exchange comments, make friends, speak of anything else but politics. These officials think nothing of closing all the blogs down, and I wouldn’t be surprised if they didn’t even give bloggers the time to save their archives (mental note: backup daily, Nanny might show up tomorrow!)

This is not only a political problem. This is a basic problem of decency and respect for the citizenry. Let’s hope at least that, like Figaro said, repression will only make the Charter more prominent, and it will allow all the affected Chinese to open their eyes and see how their harmonious government really cares about them. And perhaps some day those same officials will have to regret this.

Nay, never laugh faster than China laughs.

So I’ve decided that I am old enough to surf alone. The time has come for the bird to leave the nest. Time for Emancipation. And that’s exactly what I’ve done tonight. I paid the fee at Witopia to get their personal VPN service, and farewell old Nanny!

I still can’t believe how smooth it goes, yes, it is almost like Democracy!  If the old Fathers of Enlightment could see me now, how proud they would feel to know I have liberated the Republic of my Garden. Debate, free opinion, bikinis, exchange of ideas, charters, the new riches of Chinayouren.

No human language is powerful enough to describe the taste of freedom. Perhaps, the only line that gets even close to the sensation is this one I learnt on a Chinese park sign.

a blaze of multifarious colors from which countless fairy stories and sayings are handed down, thus forming a quiet, deep and precipitous dreamland.

I leave it here for all to ponder.

CLARIFICATION: I just come back to this post and realize that the above might sound cryptic for readers not acquainted with the Chinese internets. The whole post is about me breaking the chains of censorship and rejoicing in the new found freedom. I guess I got a bit carried away.

I did this by means of purchasing the services of a company called Witopia, which for 40$ a year provides a coded connection that can’t be blocked. There are other, free ways to do it, such as proxies, but all time consuming and annoying.

FYI, the internet censorship in China, AKA the Nanny, Net Nanny or the Great Firewall of China (GFW), with the collaboration of many online companies big and small (Google, Baidu, etc.) blocks all the sites with suspected “counter-revolutionary” content. There’s been a lot written about this on different blogs, one of the most complete and best written accounts is this one by James Fallows.

That is how I found again this beautiful passage which I can’t resist copying here, although I know in these fast times some readers may find it somewhat old  (231 years to be exact).  It was written by a  watch-maker, inventor, playwright, musician, politician, publisher, spy, arms-dealer, and notorious activist of the American and French Revolutions:

They tell me that if in my writing I will mention neither the government, nor public worship, nor politics, nor morals, nor people in office, nor influential corporations, nor the Opera, nor the other theatres, nor anybody that belongs to anything, I may print everything freely, subject to the approval of two or three censors.

Figaro satirizes. And then goes on to say:

Foolish things in print are important only where their circulation is interfered with; without the freedom to criticize, no praise is flattering, and none but little men are afraid of little writings.

So beautiful and so up to date, every bit of it. A few bureaucrats in this country should read this, and realize that already 231 years ago their same little game was well known to the people. And that some day, in China too, the attitude of silencing, detaining, firewalling and suppressing the freedom of speech will be remembered as one of the “4 Shames” of the past.

Mind you, I know that quoting a comic writer, even if he is a classic of Literature and Revolution, is not exactly a solid scientific argument. But who speaks of science here? This is all about common sense, about opening your eyes and seeing what is obvious, and about concepts so simple that a child can understand. If I am not allowed to criticize you, all of my praise will be empty of value.

And this leads us to speak of the latest little wave of protest in the China blogs. Like it happens every now and then, all the main blogs are (rightly) complaining against the new Net Nanny ’09 campaign. The adult babysitting agency CIIIRC has published a list of websites who have been caught posting “vulgar” pictures of beautiful ladies. And warned them to “seriously clean up their unhealthy content”.

I don’t think there can be a better example of a petty departure getting large circulation thanks to the censors. And if I know my fellow men, Chinese or Western alike, I am ready to bet that the offending sites have noticed a dramatic increase in traffic today since the publication of that list, and that blogs like Danwei have done a great service to the community by putting all the links together on one single page for us to check. Bravo!

Note: Translation of “Marriage of Figaro” by Edward J. Lowell in the book “The Eve of the Revolution”. Some slight modifications from my part.