Chаrter 08: Why it should be called Wang
Written by Julen Madariaga on January 11th, 2009When I started my article about the Chrter 08 last month I couldn’t help wondering if it was well worth the effort. Most of the English speaking blogs and media had been very quiet about this issue, and in China nobody seemed to know anything about it. Two weeks after the Charter’s publication, I thought perhaps that was all we were going to hear of it.
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.
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13
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Hi, I recommend you an artible on “Chrter 08″, from EastSouthWestNorth blog: “How Chrter 08 is being received” (URL: http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20090111_1.htm). Hope it is useful for you. Thanks…
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sweety Reply:
March 12th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
i can’t connect this website.try it yourself again~
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uln Reply:
March 12th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Hi sweety,
Thanks for comment. YOu are right, it is very strange, for the first time I see the ESWN site blocked. I assume you are writing from China, right?
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uln Reply:
March 12th, 2009 at 2:20 pm
Just checked again: that article is blocked by the Chinese Firewall, but you can still access the homepage of ESWN here:
http://www.zonaeuropa.com/weblog.htm
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13
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Oh, well, thanks, Howard. I had seen it already, actually the article is linked in mine, what I call ESWN is precisely EastSouthWestNort.
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17
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This is brilliant(I gave it 5 stars). I am writing an article about “Wang” myself(ha!). Your post sheds a completely different light on things and perhaps explains why I didn’t come upon Wang until I did. The thing that struck me at first was a sense of shame as a China watcher for having not caught on to this “major phenomenon” any earlier than I did: Jan. 14. After having spent much of the last three days delving into it in order that I might write about it for my blog, the first articles I read concerning it led me to believe that I was way in the back of the pack of the China blogosphere and that everybody else had already reached the finish line. Peking Duck had crossed, ESWN had crossed, and Granite Labs, et al. had all crossed. Only me, the Ant on The Farm, was forced to stare at all the asses in front of me. Further, I also was led to believe that “Wang” was a resounding success, and that everybody and his brother in China had already signed Wang, were about to sign Wang, or wanted to sign Wang immediately. Can you please keep us updated about how Wang is progressing? I know that those at ICPEN who are behind Wang are also now behind bars, or soon to be.
After reading your comment I have to completely revise my take on Wang. What I had written for my blog appears to be all wrong. Those who said, “Thousands of citizens of all backgrounds: peasants, workers, student netizens, lawyers and former party officials, have signed it… Thousands have been galvanized by it, and have added their names to the petition…etc. But I realize now that if the authorities were already questioning Wen Kenjian on 06 Dec. and Zhang Zuhua, Zhao Dagong,and Liu Xiaobo by 08 Dec., and all the other authors by no later than the 11th, then there is no way that Wang could be out dancing around the computer screens of China with everybody wanting to sign him. That isn’t the reason the Party spent 10 years and 100s of million of Dollars (800mn in the first four years alone according to quote on Wikipedia from CCTV)constructing Golden Shield. Please get back to me.
Pleased to learn that I’m such a big, slow dummy after all,
The Ant
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17
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Thanks for your comment. I just saw your blog, keep it up man, the first weeks are the most difficult because few people come and it feels like you are writing in the void. But you will se how fast it improves. Also, I suggest if you want to write about it before other bloggers, you follow the media closely and be quick to react
BTW, this is the first text I see which uses the term “Wang” and it sounds funny. I am not sure Hu and Wen will make friends with Wang. Rather not. Anyway, if the only weakness of Wang was its name, the problem could be solved, but I am afraid there are many more weaknesses and it will never get past the first phase. I will let you know on this blog if it does
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5
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书生之见，纸上谈兵
just for Chart 08!
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12
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Chrter 08 could called Mr. X
X is any surname. It starts popular ones, like Wang, Lee, Zhang.
It means everyone’s Charter.
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12
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Hey Uln, the NYT has an article about Grass-mud horse today, and they quoted you in the last paragraph (and a link to this article). What surprised me was, it looked like you were assumed to be a Chinese again…(or was I wrong?)
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12
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Haha, yes I saw it too. But the writer doesn’t really say I am Chinese, he just says I am a blogger in Shanghai, LOL!
It must be something with my writing style that has everyone thinking I am Chinese…
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12
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悲哀，明明是中国的事，还必须用英文写。
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12
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@bg -
我看得懂汉子，但是我书写能力不够好，用中文写这么长的文章太累！ 过一年再说吧，说不定我的书写能力会过关的！
Answer to your comment:
I don’t see what is so sad about this, please cheer up. Welcome to the open World, this is the XXI century and you are on the internet. “Chinese affairs” or “American affairs” are over, now is the time for “human affairs”.
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12
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Good luck with all your efforts. Those of us who living in the West are watching and thinking of your efforts in favour of free speech. Long live Chinese democrats.
-Rob
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12
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“Wang” is a good idea. although - “Wang” (as Chrter 08) will be difficult to find on a search engine - due to all the (many, many) normal uses of the name. finding a word or term that is still too important to block, yet not often used by people, will be the first challenge.
you also need to be able to tell people in China that “Wang” (or whatever) = “Chrter 08″, and to read about it, *without* that message itself being blocked.
May I suggest creating many small .jpg files that contain a screen capture of the required text: “Wang” = “Carter 08″, or “Search for Wang for the Secret Democracy Information” Putting the information as an image file - which cannot be “read” by a search engine - can get it through to start the ball rolling…
I’d also call these images random titles, like “sunset” or “IMG006374″, and other common photograph titles
Good luck with this important work
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12
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I’ve created a very quick version of an above image for discussion. You can see it here:
http://img194.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=64780_holiday_122_533lo.jpg
(you can download the image - it’s on a free hosting site hence the other text)
if people could develop perhaps a better codeword (in script, of course!) it would be great.
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12
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Thanks all for the ideas, but I have to clarify a few points:
1- I am not a Chinese democrat. That is, because I am not Chinese. I am just an observer trying to analyze whether the Charter will be succesful or not, and why. I am not a hero and I don’t risk much doing this, except perhaps getting my blog censored in China.
2- Unfortunately, this post is a bit old. In the 2 months that have since passed, the charter is (as I predicted) almost forgotten. This is partly because the Charter had in itself some flaws which I analyzed in previous posts, here: http://chinayouren-free.com/2008/12/charter-08-and-political-change-in-china/
3- The only way an initiative like Chrter 08 can be succesful is with the support of the Chinese people. As foreigners in China, there is not much more that we can do, other than watch, inform, and help spread the info that was blocked by the firewall. Only the Chinese can decide what kind of Charter they want for themselves.
One more thing, I am not sure the message of my post has been well understood. It is not about the authors renaming it “Wang” or X, or whatever. It is about the Charter getting popular support, and the people naturally giving it names. Chinese netizens are very creative, as you have seen with the funny story of the Caonima.
But again, I believe foreigners should not force this. And even if we wanted to, we wouldn’t be able to force it. The Chinese internet is a whole universe of its own which has relatively few connections with the outside. Any initiative we might want to push in the way of stickers, banners, etc. will just barely scratch the surface of that universe, and remain ignored by the majority of Chinese netizens.
If change has to come it will come, in Charter 09, 10, or in any other form that the ingenious Chinese will devise. Stay tuned and I will continue informing of any event/
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13
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congratulations for the NYT link.
I hope your last comment sets things clear to avoid misunderstandigs.
si yu sun
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13
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yes, but also there is a larger concern here than ‘just’ the evolution of Chinese politics.
it’s an interesting debate because the problem is to how individuals can discuss and influence politics, all whilst under massive government internet censorship. the ideas mentioned here are valuable contributions to that debate IMO
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13
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Excellent idea! But I would suggest instead of Wang, the document should be named simply zhongguo (China) in Chinese characters. Humans will be able to tell from context what is meant, but blockers will have trouble with it. Wang is much easier for programs to block by context.
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@china es: OK, from this point of view I agree it is an interesting discussion.
@Mark - The idea of calling it 中国 is essentially the same as calling it Wang (王）. Both are words very often used in different contexts, and therefore impossible to block by automatic string search. Like the “Pepa” example above, it is only the tone and context of the phrase that gave it a meaning.
Of course, an essential condition for all this to work is that the expression gets popular. Then the netizens creativity will kick in to transform the word into a 1000 variants, and like the famous grass horse, it will make it into the mainstream before the Censors can say “Whang!”
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14
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Why is every one taking the name so seriously and missing the joke. Wang is hilarious.
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14
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Good stuff my man, world-wide recognition….be careful
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4
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Really impressed with your blog Design, and This post awesome. Can you provide more information on this?
Regards,
Jeniffer
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4
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I don�t normally comment on blogs but your post was a real call to action. Thank you for a great read, I will be sure to bookmark your site and check in now and again.
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1
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Very impressive blog.
I saw this video on china’s economy lately: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99HNFCn5RP8
(about the ‘Chinese real-estate bubble’).
It this real? Or anyware close?
The reason I’m asking is, if there are going to be a lot of people losing money, the government will be in pressure to make changes in policy. So ideas of this sort will become much more relevant. From what I understood, the claim against democracy in china is that it won’t work for the Chinese. That they are too large and too diverse (is this correct?)…
I was thinking about something more like a regional democracy, where regions are almost self-governed, while the army and external affairs remain governed by unelected state officials. That is something the Chinese government might agree to.
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