Nationalism vs. Democracy - China's Bloggers and the Western Media

Abstract

During the past few years, Western observers of China noticed the explosive growth of China’s Cyberspace, as the Chinese ‘blogosphere’ grew to over 60 Million active blogs in June 2008, with over 253 Million Chinese accessing the internet regularly. Initially, these netizens (internet + citizens) were seen as a grass­roots movement for democracy and hailed as an indicator of change in China. Bloggers were portrayed as an underground pro­democracy movement suffering under an oppressive Communist regime. This changed with the torch­rally for the Beijing Olympics, and the unrest in Tibet during 2008. Many Chinese were shocked by Western media reports on China, and started attacking them through direct postings on Western media sites, through counter­websites (e.g. anti­ cnn.com), and through intense discussions of Western news stories on Chinese websites. Throughout 2008, the majority of Chinese bloggers and netizens made great efforts to defend China’s honour against what they saw as betrayal and attacks by the Western media. The Western insistence on ‘opening up China’ or ‘promoting democracy’ in China through the Olympics backfired and Chinese bloggers increasingly saw democracy and the protection of Chinese interests as polar opposites. Far from promoting democracy in China, the 2008 Olympics and the way the Western media commented on China have damaged democracy’s reputation among many Chinese belonging to the upwardly mobile, emerging Middle Class in China who are actively networking in Chinese cyberspace. China’s netizens do not wish to be a grass­roots movement for democracy in China, but have instead begun seeing themselves as defenders of China’s international honour – against the unwarranted attacks of the democratic West.