September 29, 2014
Riot police disperse demonstrators with tear gas during a protest near central government offices in Hong Kong on Sept. 28
Photograph by Lam Yik Fei/Bloomberg
The massive democracy protests in Hong Kong—and violent police crackdown early on Monday morning, including use of tear-gas canisters and batons—are testing not only the resolve of tens of thousands of student demonstrators, but also the effectiveness of Beijing’s sprawling censorship apparatus. As China’s Communist Party is discovering, in the wake of a major event or protest, not even the Great Firewall can fully stop information from flowing.
Sometime late on Sunday night, Instagram was blocked in mainland China, presumably to stop images from the tear gas-filled streets of downtown Hong Kong from being shared on the popular social network. Facebook (FB) and Twitter (TWTR) remain blocked in the mainland, as are the websites of the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Bloomberg Businessweek, and several other foreign media companies. Sina Weibo (WB), the Twitter-like social network, is increasingly censored. Tencent’s Weixin (“WeChat”) social network is also now monitored; on Monday, friends sharing information through private small groups on Weixin noticed comments about the Hong Kong protests were mysteriously deleted.
Meanwhile, China’s state-controlled media were ordered not to file stories on the Hong Kong protests, other than limited and carefully worded wire reports from the Xinhua News Agency. A directive issued on Sunday by China’s Propaganda Ministry (and obtained by the Hong Kong-U.S. watchdog website China Digital Times) read: “All websites must immediately clear away information about Hong Kong students violently assaulting the government and about ‘Occupy Central.’ … Strictly manage interactive channels, and resolutely delete harmful information.”
And yet, in spite of the best efforts of the Chinese government to block information about unrest in Hong Kong from reaching the mainland, many people interviewed on Monday morning in Beijing and other Chinese cities knew about the demonstrations. But the level of detail to which they had access varied widely, as did opinions about the virtue of the protests and what might happen next. Most said they initially heard the news through social media, reading posts before censors deleted them.
Within mainland China, some said they were cheering on Hong Kong’s democracy activists and wished their Chinese peers had the same courage to fight for “freedom.” Others wondered whether public demonstrations were futile and darkly recalled the brutal 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown. Still others said the yawning antagonism between mainlanders and Hong Kongers, fueled by quarrels over the influx of mainland tourists and capital into the islands in recent years, meant they felt limited sympathy for Hong Kong’s struggles.
While admiring the Hong Kong protesters—“I think they want freedom very strongly”—Sun Yu, a personal trainer at a Beijing gym, said he couldn’t imagine a similar wave of protests for free elections happening anytime soon in Beijing. “Maybe 50 years later, or maybe 100 years later.”
One journalist at a state-run newspaper in a southern Chinese city said she was not allowed to report on the Hong Kong protests, yet was avidly discussing events with her peers. “We are talking about what is real freedom,” and whether they would join in similar demonstrations, even in the face of baton-wielding cops. “A friend of mine said he is so proud of them [the protesters]. … Another friend says the chaos in Hong Kong makes him treasure what we have today,” meaning apparent safety and stability. She said they were all reminded, darkly, of the 1989 crackdown, which, despite being erased from Chinese history books, most knew a bit about: “My father and uncles told me [about it].”
