China’s crackdown on dissent

Shrouded in controversy, tennis star Peng Shuai’s #MeToo allegation proves once more that the Chinese state apparatus does not take kindly to being challenged.

The saga began when the 35-year-old athlete, once branded ‘China’s Princess,’ took to social media to pen a more than 1,600 word post accusing top Chinese government official former Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli of sexually assaulting her. In the post, which was almost immediately removed from the internet by Chinese authorities, the two-time Grand Slam doubles champion revealed that Gaoli, 75, invited her to his home to have dinner with him and his wife, after which she was pressured into having sexual relations with Zhang. “That afternoon I did not agree at first and was crying all the time,” wrote Shuai.

Following this revelation, Shuai suddenly disappeared from the public eye and her Weibo account, where she has half a million followers and where she first penned the post, was blocked while any mention of the sexual assault was removed from the website. For nearly three weeks, no one heard from Shuai, and the West began to notice, with Naomi Osaka in particular highlighting Shuai’s accusation against Gaoli and her subsequent disappearance. During this time Chinese authorities maintained that Shuai was safe and well, and eventually began tweeting images of the athlete, later sharing email exchanges with the Women Tennis Association (WTA), and the Olympic Committee, which are at best considered to be doctored and at worst coerced.

Of the email exchange, WTA Chairperson Steve Simon stated that, “Whether she was coerced into writing it [or] someone wrote it for her, we don’t know, but at this point I don’t think there’s any validity in it and we won’t be comfortable until we have a chance to speak with her.” Meanwhile, the video conversation with the Olympic Committee has become very controversial as the Committee refused to share the footage with CNN but held firm that Shuai was “doing fine” and appeared to be “relaxed.”

However unfortunate this incident may be, this is not out of the ordinary for the country. The Republic has routinely punished dissidents through the use of the government mandated Residential Surveillance at a Designated Location – a programme that facilitates forced disappearances. China might have come a long way from its agrarian past to becoming the largest industrial economy in the world, but some core principles of Mao’s China stay central to the regime to this very day. The idea of toeing the party line is given the greatest important and disobedience is met with severe punishment. Similarly, protecting the image of the Chinese state is seen as a fundamental function of the government.

This is because, at the core, the People’s Republic of China remains an authoritarian regime. According to Juan José Linz Storch de Gracia, an authoritarian regime has three key features. The first of these is the rejection of political plurality; the second is the use of central authority to preserve the status quo; and the third is the arbitration of law, blurred lines between institution and a lack of democratic voting. This type of regime can be autocratic with a single ruler holding all the power or, as in the case of China, oligarchic with a select few belonging to particular socio-economic status managing the nation.

Proof of this is abundant. In August of this year Zhao Wei, one of China’s most famous actresses, disappeared from the public eye without any explanation, while her films were removed from all video platforms and her name was scrubbed from the Chinese internet. It is widely reported that the starlet, who was last seen in her hometown in Eastern China, is under house arrest, and the reason for this is simply a show of force that no one is beyond the reach of the Chinese state.

Meanwhile, last year the billionaire owner of the e-commerce website Alibaba, Jack Ma, went missing for three months following a controversial speech where he called out the Chinese banking fraternity. This greatly angered the Chinese State and Ma quickly went missing and was not seen again until January of this year.

X-Men star Fan Bingbing also disappeared for four months in 2018, and it was later revealed that she was detained over alleged tax evasion, for which she apologised. Since then, she has only made public appearances to sing praises of the Chinese Communist Party.

However, the Repressive State Apparatus (RSA) does not stop at disappearances. Ai Weiwei, a contemporary artist who uses his work to criticise the Chinese regime was arrested in 2011 by Chinese police and spent years under surveillance and harassment. Weiwei later shared that he had been taken to a secret detention centre, while adding that “they said that if I did ever get released then my son, who was two, wouldn’t recognise me. That moment gave me a sense of how cruel authority can be to an individual.”

Similarly, at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, former real-estate mogul Ren Zhiqiang criticised President Xi Jinping’s handling of the pandemic and referred to the President as a ‘clown.’ Following this, he was made to disappear from public view and given an 18-year prison sentence. Even the most important figures in the oligarchy are not safe, as is evident from the disappearance of former Interpol President Meng Hongwei, who vanished while visiting China in 2018 mid-way through his four-year term. He was later charged with bribery and sentenced to 13 years in prison.

While these are the high profile occurrences that Western media has been able to document, the Chinese state uses such tactics abundantly and often to ensure that its citizens do not cross the government in any way. In China, it is not beyond the realm of possibility that you may be punished for something you might say in a private conversation, as the State has perfectly curated a Foucauldian Panopticon where you never know who may tell on you and which of your friends works for the state. Disappearances, plain clothes police officials routinely cracking down on dissidents in public spaces where international media is present, threatening the life of loved ones and keeping them trapped in the country, and imprisonment are increasingly common and especially well hidden across China.

Meanwhile, the Ideological State Apparatus (ISA) uses the internet and fake news to continue positive image building. Where the RSA is based on force and punishment, the ISA is more subtle in that it is used to shape narratives, such as the in case of Shuai’s doctored social media posts and her bogus call with the Olympic Committee. This is a common feature of the Chinese internet space in general where the State perfectly curates what its users see. According to a joint study by Gary King of Harvard University, Jennifer Pan of Stanford University, and Margaret Roberts of the University of California San Diego, China uses internet commentators who flood the Chinese internet with Pro-Communist Party propaganda. They adopt a positive news approach and stay away from debating critics or defending policies, thereby creating a massive influx of feel-good news that helps cover up some of China’s indiscretions. This allows the Regime to manipulate citizens without actually appearing to do so, as it allows for only so much room to criticise so that the suppression does not reach the boiling point of actual collective action and protest.

As nations achieve economic prowess and develop, it is widely believed that they simultaneously procure democracy, freedom of expression and law; however China proves that this is not always the case. In fact, it can be argued that the nation has gained its global standing specifically because it rejects democratic principles and uses both Ideological and Repressive State Apparatuses to keep its population productive and, most importantly, silent.

The writer is Sub-Editor, Bol News