The Chinese netizens from Diba, a message board run by Chinese Internet giant Baidu that has about as many members as the population of Taiwan, waged a “battle” last week, targeting what they believe to be Taiwan’s pro-independence media Web sites and their Facebook pages.
Plenty of commentators said that despite the barbs and profanities fiercely traded, a cross-strait exchange between young people has been achieved. What is worrying is that the superpower’s “little pink” generation, born after 1990, are materialistic and hedonistic in a way not unlike any other young people in capitalistic countries, but are at the same time extremely jingoistic.
“[When] Diba goes to battle, not even grass would be left grown” was the slogan trumpeted by the legion of Chinese trolls who ostensibly scaled China’s Great Firewall on Wednesday night last week to flood the Facebook pages of president-elect Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and several newspapers.
These young Chinese are Internet-savvy and creative and daring in their making of memes and snarks, and they are probably as tuned-in to Western fashion, Japanese culture and K-pop as young Taiwanese. As they were born in a period that has been witnessing China’s rapid growth in both military and consuming power and its rise to the top of the global rank as a superpower, China’s weakness for them lies in the past. They embrace the official propaganda of China’s greatness and recidivist nationalism more avidly than any others of their age.
Although knowing full well that their access to the online world is restricted and that the country is without democracy, they are defensive and unapologetic of the institution.
A post teaching Chinese users how to fight against expected attacks from the Taiwanese during the “battle” stressed that many foreign Web sites are blocked because they view China with a biased perspective and that China’s Internet industry could thereby be protected and thrive, and noted: “Democracy is not good for [China] when we have too many people, most of whom are ill-informed.”
Even those that one might expect to be better informed — those who are studying overseas or living abroad — chimed in with chauvinistic fervor.
The “harmonious” side to the “battle” might be that pictures of Chinese gourmet offerings and scenic landscapes, printed with a watermark reading “Special Diba anti-Taiwan independence seal,” were used as “peaceful” trolling materials.
However, there is no room for exchange on “Taiwanese independence” (abbreviated as “TD” in their campaign manual, as the phrase is probably blocked by the Great Firewall). Patriarchally referring to themselves as “father,” the Chinese netizens berated Taiwanese for forgetting where their ancestors came from and called for a “family union.” More belligerent posts said that they would “welcome Taiwan’s declaration of [de jure] independence so the island could then be brought down by force.”
“Keep the island, but not the people” was another often cited phrase.
The posters said they are against “TD” and the “green scum,” but showed an ignorance of Taiwan’s political topography, trolling Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Alex Tsai’s (蔡正元) Facebook page because they apparently thought he is Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chairperson and president-elect Tsai Ing-wen’s brother, as well as attacking former KMT lawmaker Chiu Yi’s (邱毅) page in the belief that he was the brother of former vice premier Chiou I-jen (邱義仁), another DPP member.
Another trolling campaign is rumored to be in the works. However, Taiwan-born, China-based Huang An (黃安), who long demonstrated his anti-TD stance online, but ended up being muted by Big Brother in Beijing after the Chou Tzu-yu (周子瑜) imbroglio, should serve as a lesson. As William Shakespeare so aptly warned, one can be hoisted by their own petard.
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