An anonymous online statement claiming to be from the organizers of a failed weekend attempt to spark a Chinese "Jasmine Revolution" has urged people to gather at designated sites every Sunday afternoon.
…"We invite every participant to stroll, watch or even just pretend to pass by. As long as you are present, the authoritarian government will be shaking with fear," Wednesday's statement said, urging people to turn out in 18 Chinese cities—:five more than were included in the first appeal Sunday.
So who’s responsible for this? It doesn’t look like anyone in China’s established dissident community, firstly because it would immediately provoke arrest and imprisonment on subversion charges and secondly because Chinese dissidents are usually very much in the habit of owning their own initiatives. Thirdly, Sunday’s fiasco saw the cops detain and harass dissidents, but as far as I know, no charges have been brought yet. And I think the cops would take any opportunity they could to bring charges that would lead to various pains in the backside getting hefty jail sentences.
There’s also the implicit claim that anyone who happens to be at the designated locations for whatever reason is really a demonstrator, which is an incitement for the cops to harass the passerby. That kind of “exposing the violence inherent in the system” provocation isn’t in the normal Chinese dissident playbook.
On the other hand, calling for a demonstration outside the Starbucks on a main shopping plaza in Guangzhou, for instance, does indicate a certain degree of local knowledge of China’s major cities. It points to people who were in China until fairly recently or who travel in and out of the country a lot.
The messages are being circulated on Boxun once more, the overseas Chinese website which is something of a clearing house for anti-regime news, views and propaganda. This points to some individual or group from the exiled dissident community. The question then becomes why they haven’t identified themselves. There are all sorts of fractious, mutually competitive groups out there who would like to take the credit for starting something within China.
It could, I suppose, be the Gongers, who have both a sustained enmity against Beijing and more or less consistent hostility to secular dissidents. If they could trigger a mass movement in China while using Beijing’s security forces to clear the field for them, then they’d consider that a result. On the other hand, there are no mentions at all of Gonger teachings or their specific grievances against Beijing. Normally they can’t keep off the subject.
In the absence of anyone claiming responsibility for an initiative you think they would be proud of, there’s room for all sorts of outré speculation - maybe someone wanting to short Sina Weibao stock, , or derail Renren’s flotation in New York. There’s nothing like an internet crackdown in China to get potential investors in the sector sucking their teeth. This is the sort of thing that would come naturally to China’s internet promotion companies. Or maybe Beijing’s doing it to flush out dissidence from the system ahead of the Two Meetings. Or perhaps it’s even some solitary bedroom geek. If he can’t start a revolution for lulz, he can get half the Beijing constabulary turning out on a cold Sunday in February.
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