Protest and dissent in the People's Republic of China
Encyclopedia
In spite of restrictions on freedom of association and of speech, a wide variety of protests and dissident movements have proliferated in the People’s Republic of China, particularly in the decades since the death of Mao Zedong
. Among the most notable of these were the 1959 Tibetan uprising
against Communist Party rule, the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, which was put down with military force, and the April 25, 1999 demonstration by 10,000 Falun Gong
adherents at Zhongnanhai
. Protesters and dissidents in China espouse a wide variety of grievances, including but not limited to corruption, forced evictions, unpaid wages, human rights abuses, environmental degradation, ethnic protests, petitioning for religious freedom and civil liberties, protests against one-party rule, as well as nationalist protests against foreign countries.
The number of annual protests has grown steadily since the early 1990s, from approximately 8700 “mass group incidents” in 1993 to over 87,000 in 2005. In 2006, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
estimated the number of annual mass incidents to exceed 90,000, and other observers have put the number as high as 180,000.
Despite the increase in protests, some scholars have argued that they may not pose an existential threat to Communist Party rule because they lack “connective tissue;” the preponderance of protests in China are aimed at local-level officials, and only a select few dissident movements seek systemic change.
asserts that "citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession, and of demonstration." In practice, however, the practice of these rights is tightly proscribed, generally under the auspices of maintaining "social stability." While guaranteeing freedoms, the constitution also declares it to be the duty of Chinese citizens to "fight against those forces and elements [...] that are hostile to China's socialist system and try to undermine it." Poorly defined anti-subversion laws, such as article 105 of the criminal code, may be used to criminally prosecute individuals seeking to exercise the rights of assembly, free speech, or demonstration. Other citizens engaged in various forms of protest may face administrative punishment, such as sentencing to forced labor terms.
, demonstrations on Tiananmen Square, signing support for dissident manifestos such as Charter 08
, boycotts, marches, and occasionally violent rioting.
The majority of protests in China concern local grievances, such as the corruption of county- or township-level government or Communist Party officials, exploitation by employers, excessive taxation, and so on. Protests targeting specific, local greivances, and where citizens propose actionable remedies, are more likely to succeed than alternative forms of protests.
As the rights consciousness of the Chinese populace has grown since the 1980s and 1990s, a growing number of citizens have adopted semi-institutionalized forms of protest known as “rightful resistance
,” whereby they make use of the court system, petitioning
channels, or of central government decrees and policies to bring grievances against local authorities. Such protests are occasionally successful, but are often frustrated if authorities determine that it is not in the party’s interest to heed protesters’ demands.
The failure of semi-institutionalized means of protest can eventually lead citizens to adopt more overt and public forms of resistance, such as sit-ins, picketing, coordinated hunger strikes, or marches. When petitioning to local authorities fails, many citizens take their grievances to the capital in Beijing, occasionally staging demonstrations in Tiananmen Square.
In islolated instances, disaffected citizens have turned to rioting, bombings of government buildings and related targets, or suicide as a form of protest.
In the case of pro-nationalist protests, citizens have engaged in boycotts against foreign goods or companies, officially sanctioned marches, and occasionally targeted foreign embassies for violence.
Technology has become an increasingly important part of the arsenal of Chinese protesters and dissidents. Some protests occur almost entirely in the realm of online activism and engagement, taking the form of citizens signing online petitions, issuing statements online rejecting the Communist Party, of signing support for dissident manifestos like Charter 08
. Cyber-vigilantes make use of the internet to publicize and publicly shame government officials and others who are perceived as corrupt, have committed human rights abuses, or have otherwise offended collective values. SMS text messages have also been used to organize and coordinate protests.
channels. The People's Republic of China
preserved the institution, establishing petitioning and appeals offices at local, provincial, and national levels. The petitioning bureaus are charged with receiving appeals and complaints from citizens and assisting them in resolving their grievances. In most instances, individuals begin the petitioning process at the local level, and escalate to the provincial or national level when they are unable to find redress.
The number of petitioners in China—and in particular, those who travel to the capital of Beijing
to seek out the central appeals office—has risen precipitously since the early 1990s. Some of the common complaints brought through petitioning channels relate to land requisitions and forced home demolitions, environmental damage, official corruption, excessive or predatory taxation, and human rights abuses. Although the petitioning system is a viable means for some citizens to find resolutions, the system as a whole is strained and largely ineffective. Many petitioners, rather than finding justice, land in "black jails
" or other detention facilities for attempting to protest abuses.
began advocating for democracy and greater political freedoms as a “Fifth Modernization
.” The Democracy Wall
, as it was called, was tolerated for a time, but was shut down in 1979 when authorities deemed that its criticisms against single-Party rule and current Party leadership had gone too far.
. The non-violent gathering soon morphed into a movement advocating greater transparency, reform, and eventually, democracy. In the early morning of June 4, 1989, the People’s Liberation Army was mobilized to disperse the crowds, killing hundreds or thousands of protesters in the vicinity of Tiananmen Square, and effectively silencing the country’s nascent democracy movement for decades.
on dissidents, journalists, rights lawyers, artists, and others who had agitated for democratic reform.
, Uyghur
, and Mongolian
populations, in particular, have long-standing cultural and territorial grievances, and to varying degrees reject the rule of the Chinese Communist Party in their respective homelands. Perceived suppression of minority cultures and rights, societal discrimination, or economic imbalances sometimes lead to ethnic protests or rioting.
, 1989, and 2008
. Tibetan protester’s main grievances include pervasive human rights abuses and a lack of religious freedom and cultural protection. Tibetan protesters often make demands for greater political autonomy, independence, and the right to practice their religion free of interference. Several protests in Tibet have been suppressed with force, sometimes ending with the imprisonment of activists and the killing of civilians.
have engaged in protest and uprisings—sometimes violent—against Communist Party rule. The ethnic Uyghur people
, in particular, identify most strongly with their Central Asia
n kin, rather than with Han Chinese rule. Many have advocated for an independent East Turkistan, and greater political and religious freedoms. Ethnic tensions have risen in recent decades as a growing Han Chinese population in the region has threatened to dilute the Uighur culture. In 2009, ethnic riots broke out in the capital of Ürümqi. Ethnic Hui people in the region also experience tensions with the Han population.
have sought greater autonomy, if not outright independence from China. The province is home to ethnic tensions between Han and Mongolians, which have sometimes resulted in protests. In 2011, a mongolian herdsman was attempting to obstruct a Chinese mining company from entering his pastureland in Xilinhot. A Han Chinese truck driver ran over and killed the man, sparking multiple protests.
-based practise of meditation with a moral philosophy based on Buddhist traditions. It was popularized in China in the 1990s, and by 1999, it was estimated to have tens of millions of adherents.
Some among the Communist Party’s leadership were wary of the group’s popularity, independence from the state, and spiritual philosophy, and from 1996 to 1999, the practise faced varying degrees of harassment from Communist Party authorities and Public Security Bureaus and criticism in the state-run media. Falun Gong practitioners responded to media criticism by picketing local government or media offices, and were often successful in gaining retractions. One such demonstration in April 1999 was broken up by security forces in Tianjin
, and several dozen Falun Gong adherents were beaten and arrested. In response, on April 25 Falun Gong mobilised the largest demonstration in China since 1989, gathering silently outside the Zhongnanhai central government compound to request official recognition and an end to the escalating harassment against them. Falun Gong representatives met with Premier Zhu Rongji
, and reached an agreement. President Jiang Zemin
reportedly criticized Zhu for being “too soft,” however, and ordered that Falun Gong be defeated. On 20 July 1999, the Communist Party leadership initiated a campaign to eradicate the group through a combination of propaganda, imprisonment, torture, and other coercive methods.
In the first two years of the crackdown, Falun Gong practitioners in China responded by petitioning local, provincial, and national appeals offices. Efforts at petitioning were often met with imprisonment, leading the group to shift tactics by staging daily, non-violent demonstrations on Tiananmen Square
. These demonstrations, which typically involved practitioners holding banners or staging meditation sit-ins, were broken up, often violently, by security agents. By late 2001, Falun Gong largely abandoned protests on Tiananmen Square, but continued a quiet resistance against the suppression campaign. Although the group claims to have no political orientation or ambitions, it has since 2004 actively advocated for an end to Communist Party rule.
Blogging and microblogging platforms such as Weibo regularly contains such views, though these platforms are also subject to censorship and offending comments may be deleted by administrators.
A number of prominent Chinese dissidents, scholars, and rights defenders, and artists maintain blogs to which they post essays and criticisms of the Communist Party. One innovative use of the internet as a medium for protest was a video created by artist Ai Wei Wei, in which different Chinese citizens were filmed reading the names of victims from the 2008 Sichuan earthquake
, who died due to poor school construction.
Several high-profile instances of human rights abuses have sparked online protests. The 2009 arrest of 21-year-old Deng Yujiao
, who killed a local government official in self-defense when he tried to sexual assault her, sparked outrage among Chinese netizens, resulting in some four million posts online. Charges against Deng were eventually dropped in response to the outcry.
Internet vigilantes dubbed "human flesh search engine
s" seek to exact justice against corrupt authorities or other individuals by posting personal information about the offenders, and inviting the public to use this information to humiliate and shame them.
In 2008, a pro-democracy manifesto authored by a group of intellectuals titled Charter 08
circulated online, eventually collecting approximately 10,000 signatures and earning one of its authors, Liu Xiaobo
, a Nobel Peace Prize. The Falun Gong
-affiliated Dajiyuan newspaper maintains a website that allows Chinese citizens to post anonymous, symbolic withdrawals from the Communist Party
, Communist Youth League, or Young Pioneers. The site claims tens of millions of people have posted such statements, though the number is not independently verified.
.
drives and seeking to reduce income inequality in rural areas.
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...
. Among the most notable of these were the 1959 Tibetan uprising
1959 Tibetan uprising
The 1959 Tibetan uprising, or 1959 Tibetan Rebellion began on 10 March 1959, when a revolt erupted in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, which had been under the effective control of the Communist Party of China since the Seventeen Point Agreement in 1951...
against Communist Party rule, the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, which was put down with military force, and the April 25, 1999 demonstration by 10,000 Falun Gong
Falun Gong
Falun Gong is a spiritual discipline first introduced in China in 1992 by its founder, Li Hongzhi, through public lectures. It combines the practice of meditation and slow-moving qigong exercises with the moral philosophy...
adherents at Zhongnanhai
Zhongnanhai
Zhongnanhai is an area in central Beijing, China adjacent to the Forbidden City which serves as the central headquarters for the Communist Party of China and the State Council of the People's Republic of China. The term Zhongnanhai is closely linked with the central government and senior Communist...
. Protesters and dissidents in China espouse a wide variety of grievances, including but not limited to corruption, forced evictions, unpaid wages, human rights abuses, environmental degradation, ethnic protests, petitioning for religious freedom and civil liberties, protests against one-party rule, as well as nationalist protests against foreign countries.
The number of annual protests has grown steadily since the early 1990s, from approximately 8700 “mass group incidents” in 1993 to over 87,000 in 2005. In 2006, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences , established in 1977, is the premier and highest academic research organization in the fields of philosophy and social sciences as well as a national center for comprehensive studies in the People's Republic of China. It was described by Foreign Policy...
estimated the number of annual mass incidents to exceed 90,000, and other observers have put the number as high as 180,000.
Despite the increase in protests, some scholars have argued that they may not pose an existential threat to Communist Party rule because they lack “connective tissue;” the preponderance of protests in China are aimed at local-level officials, and only a select few dissident movements seek systemic change.
Legal Framework
The Constitution of the People's Republic of ChinaConstitution of the People's Republic of China
The Constitution of the People's Republic of China is the highest law within the People's Republic of China. The current version was adopted by the 5th National People's Congress on December 4, 1982 with further revisions in 1988, 1993, 1999, and 2004. Three previous state constitutions—those of...
asserts that "citizens of the People's Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession, and of demonstration." In practice, however, the practice of these rights is tightly proscribed, generally under the auspices of maintaining "social stability." While guaranteeing freedoms, the constitution also declares it to be the duty of Chinese citizens to "fight against those forces and elements [...] that are hostile to China's socialist system and try to undermine it." Poorly defined anti-subversion laws, such as article 105 of the criminal code, may be used to criminally prosecute individuals seeking to exercise the rights of assembly, free speech, or demonstration. Other citizens engaged in various forms of protest may face administrative punishment, such as sentencing to forced labor terms.
Tactics
Chinese dissidents and protesters have employed numerous different tactics to express dissatisfaction with authorities, including petitioning of local governments or appeals offices, Weiquan lawyeringWeiquan movement
The Weiquan movement is a non-centralized group of lawyers, legal experts and intellectuals in the People's Republic of China who seek to protect and defend the civil rights of the citizenry through litigation and legal activism...
, demonstrations on Tiananmen Square, signing support for dissident manifestos such as Charter 08
Charter 08
Charter 08 is a manifesto initially signed by over 350 Chinese intellectuals and human rights activists. It was published on 10 December 2008, the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopting name and style from the anti-Soviet Charter 77 issued by dissidents in...
, boycotts, marches, and occasionally violent rioting.
The majority of protests in China concern local grievances, such as the corruption of county- or township-level government or Communist Party officials, exploitation by employers, excessive taxation, and so on. Protests targeting specific, local greivances, and where citizens propose actionable remedies, are more likely to succeed than alternative forms of protests.
As the rights consciousness of the Chinese populace has grown since the 1980s and 1990s, a growing number of citizens have adopted semi-institutionalized forms of protest known as “rightful resistance
Rightful resistance
The concept of Rightful Resistance refers to a form of partially institutionalized popular contention against the state whereby aggrieved citizens seek to legitimize their causes by making use of state's own laws, policies or rhetoric in framing their protests...
,” whereby they make use of the court system, petitioning
Petitioning (China)
Petitioning is the administrative system for hearing complaints and grievances from individuals in the People's Republic of China.-Origins:...
channels, or of central government decrees and policies to bring grievances against local authorities. Such protests are occasionally successful, but are often frustrated if authorities determine that it is not in the party’s interest to heed protesters’ demands.
The failure of semi-institutionalized means of protest can eventually lead citizens to adopt more overt and public forms of resistance, such as sit-ins, picketing, coordinated hunger strikes, or marches. When petitioning to local authorities fails, many citizens take their grievances to the capital in Beijing, occasionally staging demonstrations in Tiananmen Square.
In islolated instances, disaffected citizens have turned to rioting, bombings of government buildings and related targets, or suicide as a form of protest.
In the case of pro-nationalist protests, citizens have engaged in boycotts against foreign goods or companies, officially sanctioned marches, and occasionally targeted foreign embassies for violence.
Technology has become an increasingly important part of the arsenal of Chinese protesters and dissidents. Some protests occur almost entirely in the realm of online activism and engagement, taking the form of citizens signing online petitions, issuing statements online rejecting the Communist Party, of signing support for dissident manifestos like Charter 08
Charter 08
Charter 08 is a manifesto initially signed by over 350 Chinese intellectuals and human rights activists. It was published on 10 December 2008, the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopting name and style from the anti-Soviet Charter 77 issued by dissidents in...
. Cyber-vigilantes make use of the internet to publicize and publicly shame government officials and others who are perceived as corrupt, have committed human rights abuses, or have otherwise offended collective values. SMS text messages have also been used to organize and coordinate protests.
Petitioning
Since imperial times, among the main avenues for citizens to voice grievances and seek redress from authorities was through petitioningPetitioning (China)
Petitioning is the administrative system for hearing complaints and grievances from individuals in the People's Republic of China.-Origins:...
channels. The People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
preserved the institution, establishing petitioning and appeals offices at local, provincial, and national levels. The petitioning bureaus are charged with receiving appeals and complaints from citizens and assisting them in resolving their grievances. In most instances, individuals begin the petitioning process at the local level, and escalate to the provincial or national level when they are unable to find redress.
The number of petitioners in China—and in particular, those who travel to the capital of Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
to seek out the central appeals office—has risen precipitously since the early 1990s. Some of the common complaints brought through petitioning channels relate to land requisitions and forced home demolitions, environmental damage, official corruption, excessive or predatory taxation, and human rights abuses. Although the petitioning system is a viable means for some citizens to find resolutions, the system as a whole is strained and largely ineffective. Many petitioners, rather than finding justice, land in "black jails
Black jails
Black jails are a network of extralegal detention centers established by Chinese security forces across the People's Republic of China in recent years. They are used mainly to detain, without trial, petitioners , who travel to seek redress for grievances unresolved at the local level...
" or other detention facilities for attempting to protest abuses.
Democracy Wall
In 1978, as Deng Xiaoping pursued a course of reform based on the theory of “four modernizations” in China’s economy, pro-democracy dissidents began posting writings, news and ideas on a wall in the Xicheng district in Beijing. Activist Wei JingshengWei Jingsheng
Wei Jingsheng is a Chinese activist known for his involvement in the Chinese democracy movement, most prominent for authoring the document Fifth Modernization on the "Democracy Wall" in Beijing in 1978. He is generally known for getting arrested and spending 15 years in prison due to the document...
began advocating for democracy and greater political freedoms as a “Fifth Modernization
Fifth Modernization
The Fifth Modernization originally began as a signed wall poster placed by Wei Jingsheng on December 5, 1978 on the Democracy Wall in Beijing.-Summary:...
.” The Democracy Wall
Democracy Wall
The Democracy Wall was a long brick wall on Xidan Street, Xicheng District, Beijing, which became the focus for democratic dissent. Beginning in December 1978, in line with the Communist Party of China's policy of "seeking truth from facts," activists in the Democracy movement—such as Xu...
, as it was called, was tolerated for a time, but was shut down in 1979 when authorities deemed that its criticisms against single-Party rule and current Party leadership had gone too far.
1989 Tiananmen Square Protests
In the Spring of 1989, hundreds of thousands of students, laborers and others gathered in Tiananmen Square to mourn the death of CCP General Secretary Hu YaobangHu Yaobang
Hu Yaobang was a leader of the People's Republic of China who served as both Chairman and Party General Secretary. Hu joined the Chinese Communist Party in the 1930s, and rose to prominence as a comrade of Deng Xiaoping...
. The non-violent gathering soon morphed into a movement advocating greater transparency, reform, and eventually, democracy. In the early morning of June 4, 1989, the People’s Liberation Army was mobilized to disperse the crowds, killing hundreds or thousands of protesters in the vicinity of Tiananmen Square, and effectively silencing the country’s nascent democracy movement for decades.
2011 pro-democracy protests
Inspired by “jasmine” protests in North Africa and the Middle East, in February 2011 Chinese dissidents began calling for pro-democracy demonstrations in multiple Chinese cities. Though organizers initially proposed that participants shout slogans, they later revised their plans to encourage citizens to stroll innocuously around particular locations at pre-determined times. In response, Chinese authorities launched a concerted crackdown2011 crackdown on dissidents in the People's Republic of China
The 2011 crackdown on dissidents in the People's Republic of China refers to the arrest of dozens of mainland Chinese rights lawyers, activists and grassroots agitators in a response to the 2011 Chinese pro-democracy protests...
on dissidents, journalists, rights lawyers, artists, and others who had agitated for democratic reform.
Ethnic Protests
China has 55 minority ethnic groups, several of which experience recurring tensions with the majority Han ethnic group, and/or the authorities of the People's Republic of China. The TibetanTibetan people
The Tibetan people are an ethnic group that is native to Tibet, which is mostly in the People's Republic of China. They number 5.4 million and are the 10th largest ethnic group in the country. Significant Tibetan minorities also live in India, Nepal, and Bhutan...
, Uyghur
Uyghur people
The Uyghur are a Turkic ethnic group living in Eastern and Central Asia. Today, Uyghurs live primarily in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the People's Republic of China...
, and Mongolian
Mongols
Mongols ) are a Central-East Asian ethnic group that lives mainly in the countries of Mongolia, China, and Russia. In China, ethnic Mongols can be found mainly in the central north region of China such as Inner Mongolia...
populations, in particular, have long-standing cultural and territorial grievances, and to varying degrees reject the rule of the Chinese Communist Party in their respective homelands. Perceived suppression of minority cultures and rights, societal discrimination, or economic imbalances sometimes lead to ethnic protests or rioting.
Tibet
Tibet has historically been the scene of several large-scale protests and uprisings against Communist Party rule, most notably in 19591959 Tibetan uprising
The 1959 Tibetan uprising, or 1959 Tibetan Rebellion began on 10 March 1959, when a revolt erupted in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, which had been under the effective control of the Communist Party of China since the Seventeen Point Agreement in 1951...
, 1989, and 2008
2008 Tibetan unrest
The 2008 Tibetan unrest, also known from its Chinese name as the 3•14 Riots, was a series of riots, protests, and demonstrations that started in Tibetan regional capital of Lhasa and spread to other Tibetan areas and a number of monasteries including outside the Tibet Autonomous Region...
. Tibetan protester’s main grievances include pervasive human rights abuses and a lack of religious freedom and cultural protection. Tibetan protesters often make demands for greater political autonomy, independence, and the right to practice their religion free of interference. Several protests in Tibet have been suppressed with force, sometimes ending with the imprisonment of activists and the killing of civilians.
Xinjiang
Ethnic minorities in XinjiangXinjiang
Xinjiang is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China. It is the largest Chinese administrative division and spans over 1.6 million km2...
have engaged in protest and uprisings—sometimes violent—against Communist Party rule. The ethnic Uyghur people
Uyghur people
The Uyghur are a Turkic ethnic group living in Eastern and Central Asia. Today, Uyghurs live primarily in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the People's Republic of China...
, in particular, identify most strongly with their Central Asia
Central Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
n kin, rather than with Han Chinese rule. Many have advocated for an independent East Turkistan, and greater political and religious freedoms. Ethnic tensions have risen in recent decades as a growing Han Chinese population in the region has threatened to dilute the Uighur culture. In 2009, ethnic riots broke out in the capital of Ürümqi. Ethnic Hui people in the region also experience tensions with the Han population.
Mongolia
Like Tibetan and Uighurs, some ethnic Mongolians residing in Inner MongoliaInner Mongolia
Inner Mongolia is an autonomous region of the People's Republic of China, located in the northern region of the country. Inner Mongolia shares an international border with the countries of Mongolia and the Russian Federation...
have sought greater autonomy, if not outright independence from China. The province is home to ethnic tensions between Han and Mongolians, which have sometimes resulted in protests. In 2011, a mongolian herdsman was attempting to obstruct a Chinese mining company from entering his pastureland in Xilinhot. A Han Chinese truck driver ran over and killed the man, sparking multiple protests.
Falun Gong
Among the most vocal and consistent opponents of the Communist Party rule in the last decade are practitioners of Falun Gong. Falun Gong is a qigongQigong
Qigong or chi kung is a practice of aligning breath, movement, and awareness for exercise, healing, and meditation...
-based practise of meditation with a moral philosophy based on Buddhist traditions. It was popularized in China in the 1990s, and by 1999, it was estimated to have tens of millions of adherents.
Some among the Communist Party’s leadership were wary of the group’s popularity, independence from the state, and spiritual philosophy, and from 1996 to 1999, the practise faced varying degrees of harassment from Communist Party authorities and Public Security Bureaus and criticism in the state-run media. Falun Gong practitioners responded to media criticism by picketing local government or media offices, and were often successful in gaining retractions. One such demonstration in April 1999 was broken up by security forces in Tianjin
Tianjin
' is a metropolis in northern China and one of the five national central cities of the People's Republic of China. It is governed as a direct-controlled municipality, one of four such designations, and is, thus, under direct administration of the central government...
, and several dozen Falun Gong adherents were beaten and arrested. In response, on April 25 Falun Gong mobilised the largest demonstration in China since 1989, gathering silently outside the Zhongnanhai central government compound to request official recognition and an end to the escalating harassment against them. Falun Gong representatives met with Premier Zhu Rongji
Zhu Rongji
Zhū Róngjī is a prominent Chinese politician who served as the Mayor and Party chief in Shanghai between 1987 and 1991, before serving as Vice-Premier and then the fifth Premier of the People's Republic of China from March 1998 to March 2003.A tough administrator, his time in office saw the...
, and reached an agreement. President Jiang Zemin
Jiang Zemin
Jiang Zemin is a former Chinese politician, who served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of China from 1989 to 2002, as President of the People's Republic of China from 1993 to 2003, and as Chairman of the Central Military Commission from 1989 to 2005...
reportedly criticized Zhu for being “too soft,” however, and ordered that Falun Gong be defeated. On 20 July 1999, the Communist Party leadership initiated a campaign to eradicate the group through a combination of propaganda, imprisonment, torture, and other coercive methods.
In the first two years of the crackdown, Falun Gong practitioners in China responded by petitioning local, provincial, and national appeals offices. Efforts at petitioning were often met with imprisonment, leading the group to shift tactics by staging daily, non-violent demonstrations on Tiananmen Square
Tiananmen Square
Tiananmen Square is a large city square in the center of Beijing, China, named after the Tiananmen Gate located to its North, separating it from the Forbidden City. Tiananmen Square is the third largest city square in the world...
. These demonstrations, which typically involved practitioners holding banners or staging meditation sit-ins, were broken up, often violently, by security agents. By late 2001, Falun Gong largely abandoned protests on Tiananmen Square, but continued a quiet resistance against the suppression campaign. Although the group claims to have no political orientation or ambitions, it has since 2004 actively advocated for an end to Communist Party rule.
Online Protests
Chinese dissidents have increasingly embraced the internet as a means of expressing and organizing opposition to the government or Communist Party leadership, and technology tools have become a principle way for Chinese citizens to spread otherwise censored news and information. Although the internet in China is subject to severe censorship and surveillance, the relative anonymity and security it number that it offers has made it a preferred forum for expressing dissenting views and opinions.Blogging and microblogging platforms such as Weibo regularly contains such views, though these platforms are also subject to censorship and offending comments may be deleted by administrators.
A number of prominent Chinese dissidents, scholars, and rights defenders, and artists maintain blogs to which they post essays and criticisms of the Communist Party. One innovative use of the internet as a medium for protest was a video created by artist Ai Wei Wei, in which different Chinese citizens were filmed reading the names of victims from the 2008 Sichuan earthquake
2008 Sichuan earthquake
The 2008 Sichuan earthquake or the Great Sichuan Earthquake was a deadly earthquake that measured at 8.0 Msand 7.9 Mw occurred at 14:28:01 CST...
, who died due to poor school construction.
Several high-profile instances of human rights abuses have sparked online protests. The 2009 arrest of 21-year-old Deng Yujiao
Deng Yujiao incident
The Deng Yujiao incident occurred on 10 May 2009 at a hotel located in Badong County, Hubei province, in the People's Republic of China. Deng Yujiao, a 21-year-old female pedicure worker, tried to rebuff the advances of Deng Guida , director of the local township business promotions office, who...
, who killed a local government official in self-defense when he tried to sexual assault her, sparked outrage among Chinese netizens, resulting in some four million posts online. Charges against Deng were eventually dropped in response to the outcry.
Internet vigilantes dubbed "human flesh search engine
Human flesh search engine
Human Flesh Search is a primarily Chinese internet phenomenon of massive researching using Internet media such as blogs and forums. It has generally been stigmatized as being for the purpose of identifying and exposing individuals to public humiliation, usually out of Chinese nationalistic...
s" seek to exact justice against corrupt authorities or other individuals by posting personal information about the offenders, and inviting the public to use this information to humiliate and shame them.
In 2008, a pro-democracy manifesto authored by a group of intellectuals titled Charter 08
Charter 08
Charter 08 is a manifesto initially signed by over 350 Chinese intellectuals and human rights activists. It was published on 10 December 2008, the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopting name and style from the anti-Soviet Charter 77 issued by dissidents in...
circulated online, eventually collecting approximately 10,000 signatures and earning one of its authors, Liu Xiaobo
Liu Xiaobo
Liu Xiaobo is a Chinese literary critic, writer, professor, and human rights activist who called for political reforms and the end of communist single-party rule in China...
, a Nobel Peace Prize. The Falun Gong
Falun Gong
Falun Gong is a spiritual discipline first introduced in China in 1992 by its founder, Li Hongzhi, through public lectures. It combines the practice of meditation and slow-moving qigong exercises with the moral philosophy...
-affiliated Dajiyuan newspaper maintains a website that allows Chinese citizens to post anonymous, symbolic withdrawals from the Communist Party
Tuidang movement
The Tuidang movement is a Chinese dissident phenomenon that began in late 2004. The movement, whose name translates literally as “withdraw from the [Communist] party,” was catalyzed by the publication of the editorial series “Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party” in the U.S.-based...
, Communist Youth League, or Young Pioneers. The site claims tens of millions of people have posted such statements, though the number is not independently verified.
Nationalist protests
The 2005 anti-Japanese demonstrations showcased anti-Japanese sentimentAnti-Japanese sentiment
Anti-Japanese sentiment involves hatred, grievance, distrust, dehumanization, intimidation, fear, hostility, and/or general dislike of the Japanese people and Japanese diaspora as ethnic or national group, Japan, Japanese culture, and/or anything Japanese. Sometimes the terms Japanophobia and...
.
Official response
Chinese authorities have pursued a variety of strategies to quell protests. This includes the use of coercive measures of suppression, censorship, the imprisonment or "re-education through labor" of dissidents and activists, and the creation a vast domestic security security apparatus. Authorities have also attempted in some cases to address the causes of frustrations, such as by launching anti-corruptionCorruption in China
The People's Republic of China suffers from widespread corruption. For 2010, China was ranked 78 of 179 countries in Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index, ranking slightly above fellow BRIC nations India and Russia, but below Brazil and most developed countries...
drives and seeking to reduce income inequality in rural areas.