At first glance, a Nobel prize winning author, a bottle of green tea and Beijing’s Tsinghua University have little in common, but in recent weeks they have been dubbed by China’s nationalist netizens as the “three new evils” in the fight to defend the country’s valor in cyberspace.
Last month, a patriotic blogger called Wu Wanzheng filed a lawsuit against China’s only Nobel prize-winning author, Mo Yan (莫言), accusing him of discrediting the Communist army and glorifying Japanese soldiers in his fictional works set during the Japanese invasion of China.
Wu, who posts online under the pseudonym “Truth-Telling Mao Xinghuo,” is seeking 1.5 billion yuan (US$208.4 million) in damages from Mo — one yuan per Chinese citizen — as well as an apology from Mo and the removal of the offending books from circulation.
Photo: Reuters
His lawsuit has not yet been accepted by any court.
Mo was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2012. Although there are elements in his books that would probably not be published in today’s more restrictive cultural environment, he is by no means a dissident, experts say.
He is widely celebrated in China and is a vice-chair of the Chinese Communist Party-backed China Writers Association.
In attacking such a venerated figure, Wu “wants to sound more Catholic than the pope,” said Dali Yang (楊大利), a professor of political science at the University of Chicago.
While some people have accused Wu of trying to boost his own social media clout, the fact that such a campaign is tolerated by China’s censors reflects the rising levels of online nationalism, which in the past few years have reached dizzying heights of fervor.
Elsewhere on Sina Weibo, people have been posting videos of themselves pouring water out of bottles of Nongfu Spring, China’s biggest bottled water company. The company’s crime? Using a design on its green tea drink that allegedly looks like a Japanese wooden pagoda.
Another offending beverage, a brown rice tea, features on its packaging fish that allegedly look like Japanese koinobori, flags in the shape of carps.
The furor over Nongfu — whose founder, Zhong Shanshan (鍾睒睒), is China’s richest man — was sparked by the death last month of one of Zhong’s business rivals, Zong Qinghou (宗慶后), who was revered by nationalists.
It soon spiraled into an all-out attack on Nongfu, with social media users criticizing the drinks’ packaging, as well as that the company has US investors and that Zhong’s son is a US citizen.
“I’m patriotic, but you sell this Japanese stuff, I despise you,” one Nongfu-hater said outside a convenience store, in a video posted on Sina Weibo.
Some shops have reportedly stopped stocking Nongfu products and the company’s share price dropped by nearly 6 percent in the first week of this month, although it has recovered slightly since.
“Traffickers in online nationalism have a vast audience from people who are pretty frustrated in terms of jobs, living standards and so on,” Yang said.
Analysts say online vitriol has been particularly intense since China’s “zero COVID” policy kept tens of millions of people cooped up at home for the better part of three years, only to emerge into an economy battered by poor job prospects and weak demand.
Average hiring salaries in Chinese cities last year fell for three straight quarters. That has sparked resentment of elites in some quarters, with a recent target being Tsinghua, China’s top university. Although it is generally regarded with admiration, recently some online have questioned why, unlike some 600 other Chinese institutions, it has not been sanctioned by the US.
“You take so much money from the state, but you can’t even get on the sanction list of the ugly country, shouldn’t the people scold you?” one Sina Weibo user wrote.
Eric Liu (劉力朋), a former content moderator for Sina Weibo, said that while online witch-hunts are nothing new, “recently it has reached a level that surprised people.”
However, it “hasn’t met any kind of obstacle of challenge” from the authorities, said Liu, who is now an editor for China Digital Times.
There is also “no sign that it’s going to stop anytime soon,” Liu added.
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