Governing society in contemporary china

governing
society in

CONTEMPORARY

CHINA

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governing
society in

CONTEMPORARY

CHINA

edited by

YANG Lijun
South China University of Technology, China

SHAN Wei
East Asian Institute, NUS, Singapore

World Scientific
NEW JERSEY

•

LONDON

•

SINGAPORE

•

BEIJING

•

SHANGHAI

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HONG KONG

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TAIPEI

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CHENNAI

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TOKYO

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Published by
World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
5 Toh Tuck Link, Singapore 596224
USA office: 27 Warren Street, Suite 401-402, Hackensack, NJ 07601
UK office: 57 Shelton Street, Covent Garden, London WC2H 9HE

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Yang, Lijun, 1963– editor. | Shan, Wei, editor.
Title: Governing society in contemporary China / edited by Lijun Yang, South China University of
Technology, China, Wei Shan, East Asian Institute, NUS, Singapore.

Description: Singapore : World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., [2016]
Identifiers: LCCN 2016013679 | ISBN 9789814618588
Subjects: LCSH: China--Politics and government. | Civil society--China. | Social control--China.
Classification: LCC JQ1516 .G68 2016 | DDC 320.951--dc23
LC record available at />
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Copyright © 2017 by World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd.
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form or by any means,
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Printed in Singapore

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Contents
Introduction
Part I

vii

The State and New Social Forces

1

Chapter 1

The Chinese Leadership and the Internet
LYE Liang Fook and YANG Yi

Chapter 2

Managing Social Media in China: A Fresh
Campaign Against Internet Celebrities
CHEN Gang

23

China’s Crackdowns on “Internet Rumours”
and “Illegal” Internet Publicity Activities
WU Mei

41

Non-Governmental Organisations and
Government in China: Enemies or Allies?
WONG Man Lai, Sonia

57

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Part II

The State and Social Reforms

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

3

73

Chinese Trade Unions: Development
and Dilemmas
QI Dongtao and HUANG Jingyang

75

China’s Hukou Reform: New Guidelines
and Implications
ZHAO Litao

91

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Chapter 7

Improving Local Governance
without Democratisation: Community-Building
in Shanghai
SHI Fayong

Chapter 8

Part III

China’s Initiatives in “Social Management”
SHAN Wei
The State and Institutional Changes

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

The Chinese People’s Political
Consultative Conference: Co-opting Social
and Political Forces in a One-Party State
YEW Chiew Ping

109
123

141

143

Cultural Institutional Reform and the
Changing Society in China
ZHONG Sheng

159

Religions and Chinese Socialism:
China’s Religious Policies Since the 1990s
LAI Hongyi

181

Index

199

About the Editors

203

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Introduction

C

hina’s rapid and sustainable economic growth in the past three
decades has brought the country great wealth and changed the
structures of its economy and society, and its people’s lifestyle
and their behavioural patterns. In terms of its economic structure,
China has transformed itself from the Maoist planned economy to an
increasingly market-oriented economy and from the domination of the
state sector to a mixed economy with the coexistence of different forms
of ownerships. In terms of social structure, the country has transformed
from a fixed society of rural-urban dualism to a mobile and pluralistic
one and from an equal society where everyone was equally poor to a
divided one where there exists increasingly large income inequality. The
benefits of the reform and open door policy have not been distributed
equally; some social groups and regions have benefited tremendously
while others have lost relatively. The polarisation of economic interests
has also led to pluralistic demands from different social groups. The
country has witnessed the rise of diverse social interests and social
groups which resort to all means to increase their political participation. This can be best exemplified by the expansion of religious groups,
the development of non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and the
rise of social protests. Changes have also occurred in politics too.
China’s economic development has not resulted in political democracy,
as many had expected when the country began its reform and open

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door policy. Its political structure remains intact and the rule of the
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) continues. However, compared to
the pre-reform era, changes to Chinese politics are visible, particularly
in terms of state-society relations.
Without doubt, the transition China is experiencing today is
unprecedented. This transition is taking place in the second largest
economy of the world and in the process of the world’s modernisation,
globalisation and IT revolution. Such a transition is important for not
only China itself, but also the entire world. Understanding this multifaceted and complicated transition has been a major intellectual challenge for the scholarly community.
Since its establishment in 1997, East Asian Institute (EAI) has made
great efforts in promoting both academic and policy-oriented research
on East Asian development, particularly the political, economic and
social development of contemporary China and China’s growing economic relations with the region and the world at large. This book
reflects our latest efforts in understanding changing state-society relations in China. In this book, we selected research papers which were
previously circulated internally. All the papers were updated by their
respective authors. The focus is on how the state has responded to
changing state-society relations. In selecting papers, we attempt to
cover as many topics as possible with a particular emphasis on changing
patterns of interactions between the Chinese state and society. We aim
to explore how changing state-society interactions have shaped and are

reshaping the features of contemporary China.

Changing State-Society Relations
During the era of Maoism, the power structure in China was highly
centralised. The central government controlled all possible resources.
Local governments, from the provincial level down to the township
level, were weak layers in this structure. Chinese society was completely dominated by the state through local governments and government-controlled organisations such as work units and grass-roots

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collectives and student organisations. There was no autonomous social
organisation. Society in a Western sense did not exist and social forces
did not have any resources to challenge state power.
Since the reform and open door policy, changes have occurred in
state-society relations. Three major structural changes are visible. One
is power decentralisation between the central and local governments,
especially after the tax reform of 1994. While this reform centralised

fiscal power, the local government has also gained more autonomous
power and responsibility as a separate entity of the administration.
The second change is power decentralisation from the state to society.
The economic reform has changed the social structure. In rural areas, the
household responsibility system replaced collective agriculture. In cities,
the market system replaced the planned economy. Collectives and work
units no longer serve as the source of identity and function as a community to provide public goods.1 At the same time, society starts to
become diverse, as a consequence of economic development. Previously
equally poor people are now divided into social groups of different
income levels. The coexistence of the middle class, the extremely rich
and the poor makes China a normal society. The urban-rural unitary
structure no longer existed. People now become mobile, floating
between rural and urban areas, and between China and foreign countries. In particular, internal migrant workers from rural to urban areas
now become a remarkable group in the 21st century China. Social
organisations such as NGOs and religion groups now have attempted
to appeal to different means to express their demands for freedom and
individual rights. The third change is the exponential rise of information and communication technologies (ICT) in China since the early
1990s. This change is important since the state is now no longer able
to monopolise information.
These three changes have inevitably restructured state-society relations
in China. The phenomenal economic growth has given birth to new
Tong Yanqi and Lei Shaohua, Social Protest in Contemporary China, 2003–2010,
London and New York, Routledge, 2014, pp. 22–23.

1

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social groups receptive to a plurality of ideas and norms. The spread of
the internet and process of marketisation allow them to better articulate
their interests and organise themselves than ever before. The myriad
social issues, popular discontent, religious and ethnic tensions have
forced the party-state to respond to social changes.
Despite radical social changes, the Chinese state continues to be
more capable than many other states in the developing world in managing society. Among many other strategies, we have identified three
main strategies that the Chinese state has responded to social changes.
First, the Chinese state has pro-actively searched for new control strategies over newly rising social forces. Second, it has also searched for new
modes of governance over existing social forces and organisations by
engaging social institutional reforms. Third, it has attempted to reform
its own institutions to accommodate social changes. In other words, we
include in this book three thematic clusters to examine three different
types of strategies that the Chinese government has responded to
society. In the following sections, we narrate these strategies by summarising the papers included in this book.

The State and New Social Forces

Our first thematic cluster looks at how the state has dealt with new
social forces. Since the reform and open-door policy, Chinese society
has experienced unprecedented transition and witnessed the emergence
of new social phenomenon and social forces. With the rise of new types
of social organisation and social phenomenon, the CCP has to formulate new management policies to respond to new challenges from
society given the incapacity of conventional social management policy
in responding to the new challenges. A good example is the government’s responses to online social activities.
According to the December 2015 CNNIC report, by December 2015,
China had 688 million internet users, with a total of 39.51 million
new ones. The internet penetration rate reached 50.3%, rising 2.4%
over the previous year. Mobile phone internet users hit 620 million.
Rural internet users accounted for 28.4% of the total in China, reaching

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195 million.2,3 The rapid development of the internet, which has
deeply changed social behaviour and cultural environments, has also

influenced the way the government responds to society. From the very
beginning, there have been high expectations of the information and
communication technologies, especially the internet, in China. Many
scholars and observers have hoped that the internet would facilitate
political change and transform China into not only an open society,
but also an open and democratic regime.4 These high expectations
were based on the rapidly developed digital civil society and activities
in the last decade. The internet has indeed created enormous space for
netziens, especially for public opinion groups and leaders, to express
themselves. For example, the website, Utopia, is a popular gathering
place for New Leftist. Popular blog writer Han Han is another example.
At his peak, his every single article had more than 100 million hits. The
internet is also a very useful tool for mobilising social protest. Both
anti-Japanese protests in several Chinese cities in 2005 and anti-CNN
protests inside and outside China in 2008 were illustrative of the great
power of online mobilisation. In these few cases, the Chinese state
showed its lack of experience in controlling online activities. The government’s social management policy was not fully able to meet the
challenges arising from internet development. It was a thriving period
for Chinese netizens. Nevertheless, after 2008, the Chinese government has issued new policies to control the internet. It started to use
the internet as a tool for social governance. After nearly 20 years of
rapid internet development in China, the internet has not only failed
to promote democratic development in the country, but also become
2

China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC), Statistical Report on Internet
Development in China: The 37th China internet development survey, January 2016,
available at < />P020160122444930951954.pdf> (accessed 22 February 2016) pp. 1–4.
3
CNNIC, Statistical Report on Internet Development in China: The 30th China internet
development survey, p. 36.

4
Zhang Xiaoling and Zheng Yongnian (eds.), China’s Information and Communications
Technology Revolution, London and New York: Routledge, 2009, pp. 1–15.

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an effective instrument of control for the Chinese state. On the other
hand, Chinese internet users have cleverly used newly developed
technology to break government control. In this sense, the internet is
also a powerful tool for the public to protect their own rights and
express their views. Therefore, the internet is an effective tool for not
only the state and society to expand their political space, but also both
to interact with each other.
In Chapter 1, Lye Liang Fook and Yang Yi examine how the government uses the internet as a tool to govern Chinese society, mobilise
social support and communicate with the public. As the authors mentioned, the internet has provided unprecedented opportunities for

Chinese leaders to better engage members of society. Chinese leaders
see the internet as a means to improve communication with and obtain
feedback from the public on the work of the Party and the government.
It is also a relatively more effective and direct way to reach out to the
people, particularly the tech-savvy generation, than traditional media
channels such as the print media and broadcasting stations. Chinese
leaders have further emphasised the role of mass supervision via the
internet. Netizens have now been ascribed a role, albeit within limits,
to help the Party and government identify and report on official malpractices and abuse of power to improve governance and strengthen the
Party and government’s legitimacy. According to the authors, in the
long-run, the internet may hasten the process of democratisation in
China by exposing users to alternative ideas and views. Yet, the democratising effect of the internet should not be exaggerated given the dominant role that the party plays in Chinese politics and its determination
to remain in control.
In Chapter 2, Chen Gang uses internet celebrities (big V) Charles
Xue and Wang Gongquan’s cases to examine how the government has
managed social media and controlled public opinions during Xi Jinping’s
“Ideological Purification Campaign” in 2013. Chen stressed that the
Chinese government, increasingly challenged by independent and populist voices on the internet and social media, has been tightening control
over cyberspace information flow through all means. The country had
been plagued by political scandals and online rumours since its leader-

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ship transition at the 18th Party Congress in 2012. Its intellectuals are
widely divided into the Left and Right groups. These two groups compete to gain online public support and urge the government to respond
to their political demands. A rapidly expanding social media such as
Twitter and microblog Weibo users and smart phone users have created
a space for the people to express their opinions and social discontent.
Under these circumstances, Xi Jinping counteracted by engaging in a
propaganda war. According to Chen, in a short period after March 2013
more than 60 Chinese social media activists have been detained or have
disappeared. The crackdown on social media activists has increased
social and political awareness of the young generation of the Chinese
who have become more politically active. This development may
increase the tension between government and online civil society.
The internet has created enormous opportunities for not only political and social groups to voice their demands, but also business activities. Regulating and managing online business activities is also for
social stability. In Chapter 3, Wu Mei deals with online business operation issues such as social media marketing and advertising, focusing on
the government’s crackdown on “illegal internet publicity activities”,
known as “wangluo tuishou” in Chinese, a colloquial term that refers to
a type of organised business operation which uses paid online posters
to disguise as various ordinary netizens to launch promotional and
marketing campaigns on the internet, particularly in internet forums
and social networking sites. Wu emphasised that the management of
online business activities on the part of the government is justifiable.
After three decades of rapid economic growth, Chinese society has
become more open and diverse; NGOs, non-profit organisations, voluntary organisations and private enterprises are increasingly involved in
public issues. This is also a completely new development during the last

three decades. Before the reform, the state did not allow any social
groups to exist. However during the Beijing Olympic Games and the
Sichuan earthquake in 2008, social groups showed their inestimable
power to the world. The year 2008 was thus called “the year of civil
society” in China. From the government’s perspective, the power of
social groups is a double edged sword. The government recognises the

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vast potential of social power but is equally concerned that the power
could be utilised to turn against it politically to eventually undermine
its political rule. In Chapter 4, Wong Man Lai, Sonia examines the
rapid growth of autonomous NGOs and how the government has
managed them. Indeed, the number of Chinese NGOs has increased
steadily over the years though the development in different sectors has

been uneven. As Wong mentioned, the major force driving NGO
development in China was the emergence of many serious social problems caused by the state’s gradual withdrawal of its extensive support
systems from society during its economic transition. NGOs are increasingly seen by the government as gap-fillers for addressing the increasingly serious social problems within the country. Wong focuses on the
NGO registration system and shows the government’s conflicting
attitudes towards NGOs. While the government wants NGOs to play
a more important role to help the government to provide public services and solve social problems such as environment issues, education
support for village children or low skilled worker and so on, it is also
aware of such organisations becoming a rival political power that may
eventually undermine its political rule. To limit NGOs’ autonomy the
government set up a decentralised control system by requiring each
NGO to find a government/party unit sponsor. Of course, as Wong
mentioned, this sponsor-required registration system itself has created
serious problems for the NGOs and also for the state.

The State and Social Reforms
Our second thematic cluster throws the spotlight on how the state has
engaged social institutional reforms to respond to social changes. The
reform and open door policy has affected society and the Chinese
state could not avoid responding to these social changes. Along with
modernisation and urbanisation, rural and agricultural economy has
been transformed into urban economy, while enormous numbers of
rural residents went to the city to become peasant-workers. The existing “Hukou” system has no capacity to manage this large floating
population; on the contrary, it became a conflict element between

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urban residents and people from outside of the cities. Changes happened to urban cities too. In the past most urban residents were
employed by state-owned enterprises and their social welfare, such as
health care and pension, were taken care of by the employers. In the
1990s, as the state sector underwent market reforms, many benefits for
state employees guaranteed under the previous planned economy were
abolished. After market reforms of the state sector, party-dominated
conventional social originations had lost their functions. This changing social landscape constitutes challenges to the existing system of
social control on the part of the state. How to control a multivariate
society is a big concern for the CCP.
In Chapter 5, Qi Dongtao and Huang Jingyang examine the relationship between the state and organised labour unions. Traditionally,
trade unions had been merely tools to help the government to control
labour movements. However this situation has changed in the reform
era because of the growth of an increasingly capitalistic economy.
According to Qi’s research, while union membership and union density
of most developed countries have generally declined since the 1980s,
the All China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) has risen in the
last decade with a membership of 212 million and 73.7% union density in 2008, including trade unions in foreign-funded enterprises.
To explain this phenomenon, Qi argued that though trade unions usually do not take the initiative to improve workers’ rights being a part of
the party-state hierarchy, they also face governmental pressure to help
workers to improve their working conditions through unionisation,
legislation and labour disputes resolution.

Zhao Litao in Chapter 6 examines China’s “Hukou” reform in 2014.
China released the National New-Type Urbanisation Plan (2014–2020)
in March 2014 and another reform document titled The State Council
Opinion on “Hukou” Reform in July 2014. According to these two documents, the “Hukou” system, namely, the household registration system
which was adopted in 1958, was finally put on the national agenda for
reform. The old “Hukou” system made a clear distinction between rural
and urban residency. Before 2014, some provinces such as Shandong
had already modified Hukou registration to make it easier for migrant

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workers to settle down in cities within the same province. However,
these provincial systems differ across provinces. The new “Hukou” policy
reform set up a single national resident registration system for both
rural and urban residents. It is indeed a significant change. As the

author pointed out, the Xi Jinping-Li Keqiang leadership adopts a
tiered approach to “Hukou” conversion, ranging from full liberalisation
in towns and small cities to strict control in mega cities. With this
reform, China is likely to meet the 100 million target set for 2020 by
registering rural migrants who settle in nearby towns, county seats and
small cities as urban residents. Nevertheless, the author also pointed out
that the Xi-Li “Hukou” reform may change the distribution of urban
“Hukou” population in favour of towns and small cities. A big challenge
for China is in the integration of migrant workers in large cities.
After the collapse of the old urban community system, the Chinese
government has initiated extensive community building programmes in
cities since the 1990s. Shi Fayong, in Chapter 7, uses the Shanghai case
to examine the institutional reform of neighbourhood organisations
(shequ jianshe), including street offices and resident committees. The
authors found that the community building programmes are transforming the conventional neighbourhood organisations from under
only a social controlling system to a social controlling system and social
services providing system. The government also initiated the so-called
democratic reform in the neighbourhoods, requiring civil associations
to elect their leaders to enhance the legitimacy of the regime. The author
also observed that in the new system, local administrative institutions,
especially street offices and resident committees, for local governance is
gaining in importance.
In Chapter 8, Shan Wei examines the new China’s social management policy, namely, maintaining stability strategy (weiwen). Shan
explained that the social management policy is moving from suppression to prevention. Within this frame, the Chinese government has
been promoting four major policies, including instituting a multi-level
social control and service system, providing a government-guiding
labour-management negotiation mechanism, introducing a flexible
control system of social organisations and utilising advanced technology

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and internet opinion control. According to Shan’s observation, one of
the major differences between social management and conventional
stability maintenance is in the participation. Not only the government,
but also sectors of society can participate in managing society. These
new policies were promulgated as a result of the promotion of “small
government and big society” where the government withdraws from
many areas of public services, leaving the tasks to social organisations.

The State and Institutional Changes
Our final thematic cluster examines how the state has introduced
institutional changes to accommodate social changes. Despite the liberalisation of its economy and society, China has retained its authoritarian political system. Many people, especially in the West, believe
that Chinese leaders are in favour of economic and social reforms but
refuse to implement political reform. However, a close look at the
changes to China’s politic system reveals that the Chinese politic system
has undergone gradual changes in many aspects such as the CCP system, party and government relations, political participation and policy
making and cultural propaganda. All these institutional changes have

made the Chinese state more accommodating to social changes and
affecting state-society relations. Nevertheless, one cannot be too optimistic. Needless to say, central to these changes is the state’s concern for
political stability. The state has employed both hard and soft policies to
deal with social forces to achieve political stability. On the one hand,
the state has softened its institutions and policies to accommodate
social changes and social forces. It gives social forces more space for
political participation and has even actively co-opted social forces into
the regime. On the other hand, the state continues to be ruthless in
initiating coercive campaigns against these organisations and individuals which the state has perceived as “enemies of the state”, including the
Falun Gong and its followers, the Xinjiang independent forces, the
Tibet independent forces and any form of political opposition.
Without doubt, the highest priority continues to be the survival of the
regime.

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Yew Chiew Ping in Chapter 9 looks at China’s political reform
through the lens of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative
Conference (CPPCC). Under the provision of the Constitution of
China, the CPPCC is the principal institution through which China’s
eight non-communist or “democratic” parties cooperate with and
provide consultation to the ruling communist party, whose supremacy
is not to be challenged. The CPPCC has played different roles in different historical periods. Yew provided a historical aspect and examined
the changes that have happened to the CPPCC, its political functions
and its influence on state affairs as “multi-party cooperation”. As Yew
mentioned, before the reform and open-door policy, the CPPCC was
very much marginalised in the Chinese political system and did not
have any real political influence. However since the 1980s the CCP
leadership has started to give more space to the CPPCC to allow it to
cooperate with the CCP more closely. In 2005, the CCP leadership
released an important document on “Suggestions to Strengthen MultiParty Cooperation and the Building of the Political Consultative
System under the Leadership of the CCP”. Since then, the number of
proposals submitted by CPPCC delegates and the response rate to
proposals by the government have been increasing rapidly. However,
Yew cautions that despite the cooperation between the CPPCC and the
CCP, there has not been any real progress towards turning the CPPCC
into China’s upper house. No significant efforts have been taken to
adjust the existing functional groupings for better representation and
reflection of emerging social groups and recent developments.
Cultural institutions are integral parts of the governance system of
the CCP and have always played a very important role. In Chapter10,
Zhong Sheng examines the transition process of cultural institutional
reform. Zhong observed that before the 1980s, the provision of cultural
products was considered as only public welfare or political propaganda,
with no commercial value involved. Cultural production mainly took

place within public cultural institutions (PCI). After the reform and
open-door policy, the gradual introduction of market forces into PCI
has given governmental cultural organisations substantial institutional
ambiguity as their roles in providing public welfare and private products
overlap. Since the new century, the country has embarked on a cultural

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institutional reform to separate the commercial from the social welfare
function of CPI and to build a strong cultural industry. Zhong argues
that China has attempted to balance relations between the state and the
market through cultural institutional reform. Zhong also observed that
the reform has so far neglected a critical contributor to a vibrant creative sector—society—in its efforts to become a great cultural power
of the world.
Economic reform has resulted in many changes, not only in the
structural aspect of Chinese society but also in its ideological and attitudinal aspect. The Chinese government is no longer able to provide a
moral compass for society. The rise of materialism, individualism and

the perceptions of social inequality have provided religious groups with
the opportunity to emerge in Chinese society. In Chapter 11, Lai
Hongyi focuses on a very important issue in China—the religious
policy reform. Under Maoism, particularly during the Cultural
Revolution, religions did not have any space to exist. After the ban on
religion was lifted in 1979, the power of religions has spread like wildfire and religions associations sprouted across the country. The growth
of religion power is a new and big issue for Chinese leaders. In his
chapter, Lai identified three ways that the government has employed to
control religious groups. First, for cooperative religious groups, the
government encourages their development and provides financial
resources in some cases. Second, for religious groups with links to foreign countries, the government exercises tight control. Third, for religious groups which are perceived to pose threats to China such as those
related to Tibet, Xinjiang and the Falun Gong, the government also
exercises tight and ruthless control. Lai cautioned that how to respect
religious freedom while managing religious activities such as preventing
commercialisation and fighting against separatist religious groups is
one of the biggest challenges for Chinese leaders today.

Concluding Remarks
China is experiencing an unprecedented transition, with both the state
and society as parts of this transition and playing an important role in
leading the country towards an uncertain future. All the chapters in this
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book showed that the state’s responses to social changes have been
shaped by the interaction between the state and society. In this book,
we discussed three main strategies that the state has used to deal with
society. First, the state has established new institutions and policies to
interact with newly rising social forces. Second, the state has made
efforts to change its old institutions and policies to cope with a changing society and maintain social stability. Third, the state has actively
co-opted political and social forces, including religious groups, to
achieve the goal of political stability. The purpose of the co-optation
strategy is to prevent the rise of an alternative power centre which could
pose a threat to the CCP’s existing order.
One can foresee that the tension between the state and society will
continue in the future. On the one hand, with continuous economic
development and China’s changing international environment, society
will continuously empower itself or be empowered. On the other hand,
the state has continuously made efforts to cope with social changes.
It is likely that the state will continue to make use of the strategies our
authors have discussed in this book. The game between the state and
society is not necessarily a zero-sum one; instead, it is more likely a
game of mutual transformation. In their repeated interactions, both the
state and society will transform each other given the great dynamics of
changes in China. The resultant transformation will have profound
impact on not only China but also the world as a whole.

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Chapter 1
The Chinese Leadership and the Internet
LY E L i a n g F o o k a n d Y A N G Y i *

Rather than perceive the internet as a democratising tool, this chapter
argues that the Chinese leadership is instead actively using the internet as a
governing tool to enhance the Party’s legitimacy and ultimately maintain its
dominant hold on power. The chapter highlights some of the key initiatives
related to the internet undertaken by the Hu Jintao-Wen Jiabao leadership.
This may serve as a basis to compare with the current approach by the Xi
Jinping leadership that seems determined to pursue a more active and centrally directed policy to develop China into an internet powerhouse.

T

he internet age has opened up new avenues and created unprecedented opportunities for China’s leaders to engage members
of society. One instance involves a Chinese netizen on
28 December 2013 microblogging about Xi Jinping, China’s top-most
leader, queuing in line to buy steamed buns at a Beijing steamed bun

shop. The Chinese netizen was reportedly a diner at the same bun shop
that Xi visited. Not long after, the microblogs of Chinese official media
∗ LYE Liang Fook is Research Fellow at the East Asian Institute of the National
University of Singapore while YANG Yi was Research Assistant at the same institute.

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platforms such as the People’s Daily, Xinhua and CCTV carried footages
of Xi who appeared to have placed his order at the counter, paid for it
and carried his tray before sitting down to enjoy his meal with the other
patrons. The underlying message conveyed by the Chinese official
media platforms was a leader who was not only at ease with ordinary
folks but, more importantly, keeping his ears close to the ground and
constantly looking after the interest of the man in the street.
Xi’s immediate predecessors such as President Hu Jintao and Premier

Wen Jiabao had also recognised the importance of the internet and
attempted to capitalise on its reach. For instance, in February 2009,
Premier Wen Jiabao participated in his first online chat jointly hosted
by the websites of the Chinese government and the official Xinhua
News Agency. A few months earlier, in June 2008, General Secretary Hu
Jintao also fielded questions from Chinese netizens through the Strong
China Forum (ᕪഭ䇪උ), an online bulletin board of the People’s
Daily. Through their participation at these online forums, both the top
leaders in the Party and government gave their imprimatur to capitalise
on the internet’s potential.
It is no coincidence that Chinese leaders are looking to the internet
as a tool to extend their reach. The number of internet users in China
has grown at an exponential rate. Within a decade, the number of users
had expanded almost 300 times from a mere 2.1 million in 1998 to 618
million by end 2013. Among the group of new internet users in 2013,
the proportion of those who use hand phones to surf the net occupied
the top spot at 73.3%, compared to those who use personal computers
at 28.7% and those who use notebooks at 16.9%.1
This chapter focuses on the leadership of Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao
in terms of how they attempted to capitalise on the power of the
internet. The leadership had a number of motivations for this. First,
1

“CNNIC: 2014 nian di 33 ci zhongguo hulian wangluo fazhan zhuangkuang tongji
baogao” (CNNIC: The 33rd Statistical Report on China’s Internet Development and
Situation in 2014), CNNIC, 16 January 2014 (date posted), available at www.199it.com/archives/187745.html> (accessed 24 March 2014).

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5

the leadership realised the importance of staying relevant with the
times which included coming to grip with the opportunities and challenges posed by the internet. With the steady growth of internet users
and with a large proportion of new subscribers using mobile devices,
the leadership was keen to portray a forward-looking and dynamic
image to identify with a more technological savvy group of the population. The internet offered the leadership an additional platform,
apart from the traditional media such as the print media and broadcasting stations, to extend its reach to this group.
The internet also provided the leadership with a channel to improve
its communication with and obtain feedback from the public on the
work of the Party and the government. There are presently few effective
channels for the public to provide policy feedback to the leadership.
The internet offers a channel for the leaders to have relatively direct
access to the public, with less chance of their views being sifted beforehand by various bureaucratic interests. Having more direct access to the
public was in line with the leadership’s focus on improving the people’s
livelihood. In fact, the leadership had consistently stressed that its
authority originated from the people and therefore the leadership
should be responsive to their needs.
By being closer to the people, the Party and government can better

gauge public reactions to policies made and their implementation.
Further improvements or adjustments can then be made to address
existing gaps. Such a feedback mechanism further gives the people
some assurance that their views can be heard thereby reducing the possibility of pent-up frustrations. The mechanism was also intended to
improve the governance of the Party and government. Equally important, it would enable the authorities to nib any grievances in the bud
before they snowball into a bigger problem.
The leadership had further ascribed to the public a limited role in
using the internet to supervise the conduct of Party and government
officials. In the past, a number of cases involving ostentatious spending, abuse of public funds and corruption by Party and government
officials had appeared online by anonymous individuals. Reacting to

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such tip-offs, the relevant officials had been punished. By taking
action, China’s leaders had given tacit approval to the public’s use of

the internet to restrain the behaviour of errant local officials.
While tapping its potential, the Chinese leadership was determined
to maintain some form of control over the development of the internet.
In fact, it had played a proactive role in managing the growth of the
internet. In 2007, General Secretary Hu Jintao set the tone when he
called on government officials to “actively and creatively nurture a
healthy online culture” that meets public demand. In other words, he
expected officials at all levels to facilitate the development of the internet while improving the administration of web technologies, content
and network security.2
At times, China’s leaders have kept a tighter leash on internet content by taking action against what it regards as unhealthy content carried online. Minister Liu Yunshan, China’s top official in charge of
media and publicity, stated that internet pornography was “eroding
people’s mind and destroying the moral standard of society”.3 A onemonth long campaign was launched in January 2009 to clamp down
on websites that “spread pornography and threaten the morals of young
people”.4 This campaign has since been extended to cover contents
carried by cell phone websites, chat rooms and instant messenger
groups. An equally important reason for the tightening of internet
control had to do with the need to set the right atmosphere in the runup to a number of key anniversaries occurring in China in 2009.5
2

“President Hu Jintao Asks Officials to Better Cope with Internet”, Xinhuawang,
24 January 2007, available at < />content_5648674.htm> (accessed 29 March 2014).
3
“China Vows to Intensify Online Porn Crackdown after Shutting Down Thousands
of Sites”, Xinhuawang, 6 February 2009, available at < />english/2009-02/06/content_10776684.htm> (accessed 29 March 2014).
4
“Campaign Looks to Free Web from Porn”, China Daily, 6 January 2009.
5
Some of the key anniversaries in 2009 included the 50th Anniversary of the uprising
in Tibet against Chinese rule (in March), the 20th Anniversary of the Tiananmen

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In the near future, the Chinese leadership would want to continue
to use the internet to reinforce the image of a Party and government
that is doing their utmost for the people. By keeping its ears close to the
ground through the internet, China’s leaders can initiate better policies
and measures and in a timely manner. By responding or being seen as
responding to the aspirations and concerns of the people, the Party
seeks to enhance its legitimacy in their eyes. This is ultimately geared to
ensuring its dominant hold on power.
Yet, the increasing size of netizens is likely to generate more demands
for greater transparency and accountability on the part of the Party and
government and may even hasten the process of political reform in
China. How to simultaneously meet this growing aspiration and maintain the orderly development of the internet is a challenge which the
Party and the government have to grapple with.
More recently, on 27 February 2014, it was announced that Xi
Jinping, the current top-most leader in China, would head China’s

new central leading small group on internet security and informatisation (ѝഭ㖁㔌ᆹ‫઼ؑޘ‬᚟ॆ亶ሬሿ㓴). 6 This announcement
underscores an unprecedented determination by China’s top leadership
to pursue a more active and centrally directed policy to strengthen the
security of the internet as well as boost the development of China’s
internet information technology. In Xi’s words, internet security and
informatisation is a major strategic issue that concerns a country’s
security and development as well as the work and livelihood of the
broad masses. Xi further set the ambitious goal of making China an
internet powerhouse (㖁㔌ᕪഭ), in terms of not just the size of internet users (of which China is already one) but also the quality of the
incident (in June), the 60th Anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of
China (in October).
6
This announcement comes after the decision by the Political Bureau, China’s highest
decision-making body, for Xi Jinping to head the central leading small group on
comprehensively deepening reforms as well as for him to head the national security
commission.

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