{"id":39641,"date":"2018-06-01T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-05-31T20:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=39641"},"modified":"2018-05-31T17:06:06","modified_gmt":"2018-05-31T07:06:06","slug":"walking-the-walk-on-values-with-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/walking-the-walk-on-values-with-china\/","title":{"rendered":"Walking the walk on values with China"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/figure>\n

In the three months\u2019 worth of data I collected from the top\u00a010 foreign embassies in China\u2014measured by follower numbers for my just-released report Weibo diplomacy and censorship in China<\/em><\/a>\u2014the Australian embassy\u2019s account was censored just three times.<\/p>\n

The first of those instances occurred on 15\u00a0November 2017 when the embassy sent out a post highlighting Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull\u2019s meeting with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang<\/a> at the ASEAN Regional Forum in Manila.<\/p>\n

The second<\/a> and third<\/a> instances came on 21\u00a0December 2017 when the embassy sent out excerpts of a speech by Australian Ambassador to China Jan Adams at the Australia\u2013China 45th Anniversary Lunch at Beijing\u2019s Diaoyutai Guest House.<\/p>\n

In all three instances, the comments sections under the posts were disabled and\u2014although it\u2019s harder to prove with 100%\u00a0certainty\u2014it\u2019s likely the posts were \u2018shadow-banned\u2019, meaning that even if they were shared by users, they wouldn\u2019t have been visible in other people\u2019s feeds.<\/p>\n

The reason for the censorship? Not because the embassy was saying anything particularly sensitive\u2014if anything the posts were written in the kind of diplomatese that\u2019s carefully calibrated not to offend. No, the most likely reason is that the posts dared to mention China\u2019s top leaders at all.<\/p>\n

Such is the sensitivity of Beijing\u2019s censors that any mention of the PRC\u2019s elite politicians is completely verboten. In fact, as researcher Jason Q. Ng noted in his 2012 book, Blocked on Weibo<\/em><\/a>, protection from criticism on Weibo seems to be a perk of rising through the ranks of the Chinese Communist Party.<\/p>\n

The most sensitive red lines are the three Ts<\/a>\u2014Taiwan, Tiananmen and Tibet. For some countries, deliberately crossing those particular red lines is something they occasionally do as a way of protesting the illiberal direction the PRC is taking, especially under Xi\u00a0Jinping.<\/p>\n

In early May\u00a02018, the US\u00a0embassy in China issued a provocative slap down<\/a> of Beijing\u2019s attempts to impose its preferred terms of reference for Taiwan, Hong Kong and Macau as \u2018Chinese territories\u2019 on US\u00a0airlines.<\/p>\n

The post, most likely penned<\/a> by White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, memorably called the attempt \u2018Orwellian nonsense\u2019 and even went so far as to refer to \u2018China\u2019s internal Internet repression\u2019 as \u2018world-famous\u2019.<\/p>\n

Even though the comments section under the post was heavily manicured to remove liberal voices and replace them with CCP\u2011approved sentiment, the post was never deleted. Any attempt to leave further comments on the post today result in an error message claiming that the comment has been accepted but is delayed due to a so\u2011called \u2018server synchronisation\u2019 issue. Orwellian nonsense indeed.<\/p>\n

On 3\u00a0June 2014, a day before the 25th\u00a0anniversary of the massacre at Tiananmen Square, the Canadian embassy posted a photo<\/a> of then Ambassador Guy Saint-Jacques posing with his wife at the site, noting that the couple were reminded of the \u2018once more cordial and relaxed atmosphere there\u2019. The low comments-to-shares ratio on the provocative post would suggest that some form of censorship was exercised, with comments either being deleted or not allowed at all.<\/p>\n

And just last week, on 23\u00a0May 2018, the Canadian embassy sent out a subtle message of protest about the conviction of Tibetan filmmaker, Tashi Wangchuk, who was jailed for daring to speak to the <\/a>New York Times<\/em><\/a> about his concerns about the erosion of Tibetan culture and language.<\/p>\n

That Weibo post<\/a> managed to avoid the attention of the censors by using an image of the filmmaker accompanied by a link to the Chinese constitution and a quote from Article 4: \u2018All nationalities have the freedom to use and develop their own spoken and written languages and to preserve or reform their own folkways and customs.\u2019 It did, however, differ from a Tweet<\/a> issued by the Canadian embassy on the same day that included a statement calling for the immediate and unconditional release of the filmmaker.<\/p>\n

In another case, the embassy sent out a Weibo post on World Press Freedom Day that the Globe and Mail<\/em> notes \u2018did not include language used elsewhere on the need for an independent judiciary to safeguard media freedoms\u2019. The apparent self-censorship has prompted debate in Canada this week as the country\u2019s ambassadors gather in Ottawa for a t\u00eate-\u00e0-t\u00eate.<\/p>\n

Former ambassador and Tiananmen selfie-taker Guy Saint-Jacques had a reminder for diplomats in the Globe and Mail<\/em> on Tuesday arguing that \u2018You always have to test the limits<\/a>.\u2019 On Thursday, David Mulroney, another former Canadian ambassador, warned of the dangers of going too far. \u2018You want to be heard, not shut down<\/a>,\u2019 he told the Globe and Mail<\/em>, adding: \u2018Weibo is best if you are seen to be engaging people in a respectful conversation.\u2019<\/p>\n

Yet while the\u00a0US and Canada are testing the boundaries on sensitive topics\u2014including Taiwan, Tiananmen and Tibet\u2014Australia seems determined to avoid rocking the boat. A search of FreeWeibo.com<\/a>, a website, which monitors content censored from Weibo, shows that the Australian embassy has never had a single Weibo post deleted by the censors during the entire seven years the embassy has used its account.<\/p>\n

In response to my policy brief this week, a DFAT spokesperson pointed out that \u2018All foreign embassies operate within China\u2019s legal framework<\/a>.\u2019 But Chinese law doesn\u2019t officially preclude the discussion of any topic\u2014not even the three Ts. In fact, China\u2019s constitution states<\/a> that \u2018Citizens of the People\u2019s Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration.\u2019<\/p>\n

There are other options. The South Koreans, also in Beijing\u2019s naughty corner, have been in a defensive crouch on Weibo. Their embassy hadn\u2019t posted anything at all during four whole weeks in the three-month period I examined. The Japanese, on the other hand, have taken another tack altogether, avoiding sensitive topics and using the platform as a way to aggressively market Japanese products.<\/p>\n

But as long as the Australian government claims to be \u2018a determined advocate of liberal institutions, universal values and human rights\u2019, as it did in its recent 2017 Foreign Policy White Paper<\/a>, there should be some evidence that we\u2019re prepared not only to talk the talk but also to walk the walk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the three months\u2019 worth of data I collected from the top\u00a010 foreign embassies in China\u2014measured by follower numbers for my just-released report Weibo diplomacy and censorship in China\u2014the Australian embassy\u2019s account was censored just …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":714,"featured_media":39643,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[52],"class_list":["post-39641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-china"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWalking the walk on values with China | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/walking-the-walk-on-values-with-china\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" 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