Bunnies hop the Great Firewall

CHINA:In spite of China's efforts to block subversive material on the internet, users are finding ingenious ways of getting around censorship, writes CLIFFORD COONAN

LITTLE RABBIT, Be Good starts off with a dream sequence that looks like an animated nursery rhyme. Cute bunnies play in a field and the soundtrack is a modified version of a children’s song. The Chinese Year of the Rabbit began on February 3rd last so, initially, the cutesy video looks like it was created to mark the advent of the lunar new year. In fact, Little Rabbit, Be Good is a daring revolutionary call to arms that was first spread via Chinese social networking sites, although it has since been blocked.

The internet has become a major platform for dissent in China and, while the government has made major efforts to block content it deems sensitive or harmful, web users are proving adept at getting around the system of controls known as the Great Firewall of China.

After the bucolic opening scenes, Little Rabbit, Be Good quickly turns violent, featuring some of the big themes of contemporary China, including the plight of petitioners, toxic milk that kills babies, official cover-ups and a fire in which many die, although the leaders, represented by tigers, escape.

In one scene, there is reference to the recent news story of a cadre’s son who allegedly ran over a young woman while drunk and tried to use his father’s high office to avoid responsibility. He told passers-by, “Sue me. My father is Li Gang.” He believed he was untouchable because his father was a high-ranking regional official.

Such was the online outcry that his arrogant statement proved his undoing. Li Qiming pleaded guilty to drunk driving and vehicular manslaughter, and his shaven headed picture went viral in China. The 23-year-old was sentenced to six years in jail.

The final scenes are of the rabbits rising up and attacking the leaders. “The Year of the Rabbit has come. Even rabbits bite when they’re pushed.”

The bunny story is a clever way to get around censorship. Search terms related to sensitive issues such as democracy, Tibetan independence or Xinjiang separatist movements are routinely blocked, and searches related to Egypt have recently joined this list. The net nannies also block social networking site Facebook, the video-sharing service YouTube and the Twitter microblogging site.

China has the world’s largest online population, with 457 million users. The internet has become a major forum for the exchange of ideas in China and the government, which keeps a tight grip on dissent in traditional media such as newspapers and TV, started to roll out the Great Firewall about six years ago.

Some 40,000 internet monitors are said to be employed to keep an eye on internet content, but they are fighting a difficult battle as many internet users can access blocked websites through proxy servers and virtual private networks.

While most people in China are indifferent to calls for democracy and human rights, internet censorship angers many. Fang Binxing, the man seen as the creator of the Great Firewall of China, was forced to take down his personal blog just a few days after launching it following a flurry of criticism by web users.

Fang, who is president of Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications, was attacked on his microblog on the sina.com site.

The government is keen to harvest the propaganda power of the internet. Beijing recently introduced the First Annual National Exhibition of Heartwarming Blogs and Online Posts. According to the “People’s Network,” it will be “a grand online holiday affair offered to people across the nation during celebrations for the Year of the Rabbit” using “rich and colourful online cultural productions to create a strong festive atmosphere.

“It will reflect the happy welcome that the vast population of internet users extends to the New Year, and the wonderful experience those users have celebrating this joyous holiday. It will also reflect the prosperity and peace of the nation and its people, and raise up delightful scenes of the nation’s jubilant celebration.”

At the same time, the Chinese internet bristles with satire. There are tales of caonima, or grass mud horses, who live happily in the desert, but their habitat has come under threat from river crabs. Many people blog about the grass mud horse and how successful it is in combating the river crab. This ecology tale is in fact a satire on internet censorship and freedom in China. And one reading of cao ni ma reads as a deeply offensive statement.

The word for river crabs, hexie in Mandarin Chinese, is a homonym for harmony, which is the central message of President Hu Jintao’s theory about a harmonious society, so “river crabs” are basically censors.

Caonima, meanwhile, is like a strong expression of anger. So the parable of the grass mud horse and the river crab is actually an expression of unhappiness with an ongoing campaign of internet censorship.

One of the canniest users of the grass mud horse iconography is the artist Ai Weiwei. To mark the Chinese New Year he introduced a set of door gods, an ancient Chinese tradition employing ink-brush and watercolour paintings of traditional door guardians. The grass mud horse appears, cunningly disguised as a llama.

In many ways, the most broadly popular revolutionary tool in Chinese cyberspace is the “human flesh search engine”. This is a form of online vigilantism that has transformed citizen power in China, and transcends the Great Firewall because it is truly local. It involves individuals pointing the finger online at cheating husbands or exam cheaters, but has been expanded to include corrupt officials and in some ways relates to the “My father is Li Gang” case.

One of the most famous cases of trial by “human flesh search engine” was in 2009 when a senior cadre was fired after photos and video clips, in which he appeared, drunkenly, to try to molest an 11-year-old girl, were seen widely online.

The government is ambivalent about the concept – while it is happy for scenes of corruption to be exposed, it does not like the idea of a system of justice operating outside the remit of the Chinese legal system.