Book Review: Popular Protest in China

Kevin J. O’Brien (ed.), Popular Protest in China. Harvard Contemporary China Series. Cambridge, MA & London: Harvard University Press, 2008, x þ 277pp., £18.95 p/b.

In July 2009, the offices of the Uyghur Human Rights Project were overwhelmed by calls from the international media after a protest in Urumchi spiralled into an outbreak of unrest unseen in China since 1989. The events of 5 July brought sharply into focus the need to reexamine protest in authoritarian states, and although the publication of this book preceded the events in Urumchi, Popular Protest in China provides a perceptive analysis of civil society claims and state responses in illiberal contexts.

The volume is a collection of ten essays originally presented at a one-day conference held at Berkeley in 2006. The stated aim is to test, in an authoritarian context, the utility of familiar concepts in the study of contentious politics. It asks if concepts such as framing, political opportunity and mobilisation, travel from democratic to authoritarian political systems. With the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as its backdrop, the book explores this subject with detailed theoretical discussions and extensive fieldwork.

Popular Protest in China covers many of the contemporary seams of contention in China. The internet, the xınfang petitioning system, house churches, the Falun Gong spiritual movement and the environment are all examined, and questions specific to China are raised. For instance, the book speculates on the ability of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to withstand protest without facing serious threats to its power, as well as the effect of economic recession on the growth of discontent. This second question to some extent dates the book as the Chinese government has so far maintained general social stability despite large job losses in the manufacturing sector.

Framing is discussed at length in the highly theoretical essay, ‘Mass Frames and Worker Protest’ by William Hurst, but Feng Chen lucidly illustrates in his piece ‘Worker Leaders and Framing Factory-Based Resistance’ how the classification of collective action frames in China does not necessarily explain how Chinese workers act upon them. In an environment where a paucity of frames for collective action exists, many Chinese workers revert to Maoera rhetoric and tactics to initiate contention. Nonetheless, no mention is made of the fact that the Chinese state on occasion too resorts to expressing itself in the language of a bygone socialism.

There is more to be learned in the chapters dealing with mobilisation. Teresa Wright’s analysis of the 1989 Beijing, and 1990 Taiwan student movements highlights the importance of social networks for recruitment, a necessity in the high-risk and suspicious environment of protest politics in authoritarian regimes. However, O’Brien and Carsten Vala contend, at least in the context of Protestant house churches, that while social networks are important in recruitment, by tapping into common identities of Chinese people, Protestant house churches have seen remarkable growth among non-networked individuals. It is this lively debate between scholars that gives the book a certain robustness.

Rightful space is devoted to the effectiveness of the internet in China to serve as a tool of mobilisation and as a source of information independent of state control. As Guobin Yang astutely points out the internet represents a significant challenge to Chinese authorities, and the pains which the government takes to exert control over cyberspace suggests the perceived power of the medium. This is only too clearly exemplified in the region-wide shut down of the internet after the unrest in Urumchi in July 2009. In this case, the internet was a major contributing factor to mobilisation of Uyghur protestors and remains a potential source for images and accounts of the events on 5 July. What is missing from the book is a discussion of other communications technology, such as text messaging, to mobilise discontent.

Political opportunity is examined through the lens of local–central government relations and the conversion of existing state mechanisms. Yongshun Cai explains how in China the ineffective petitioning apparatus manifests in protests that exploit weak points in the dynamics of local–central authority. In this case, local officials attempt to keep political contention from the interest of the centre for fear of censure, and the centre is happiest when local issues are resolved quickly as protracted conflict reflects badly on the legitimacy of the CCP. Protestors are therefore presented with an opportunity to place pressure on local officials. However, it is in cases where protest cross-pollinates between separate groups and coalitions start to form that the centre takes most notice. One of the key factors to CCP longevity is how it has been able to isolate and divide sectors of Chinese society and any coalition building is perceived as a threat. A key point is missed nevertheless, in that local officials with long tenure begin to symbolise government policy and prove difficult to remove.

Perhaps the greatest shortcoming of the book is the lack of fieldwork conducted on ethnic discontent in China, which arguably presents one of the biggest headaches to CCP officials as it garners a great deal of media attention. Also noticeably absent is discussion of Charter 08, a significant call from cross-sections of Chinese society for freedom of expression and free elections that occurred before publication. Even so, this book does an admirable job of fitting the square peg of political contention studies concepts to the round hole of an authoritarian system, and nicely opens the field for future scholars.

One of the most astute points made in the book and one that should keep CCP officials awake at night is that although popular protest in China is currently framed within the confines of general support for the Party, due to heavy censorship there is a gap between this public framing and private thought. Once an opposition movement itself, the CCP should be keenly aware of this gap.

Book Review appeared in Europe-Asia Studies.

The Uyghur voice: 2009-10, and beyond

Chinese security forces used deadly force on 5 July 2009 against Uyghur protestors in the city of Urumchi, capital of Xinjiang region in China’s far west. This is the conclusion of two separate reports, released in the days leading to the anniversary of the unrest in the “Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region” (known by Uyghurs as “East Turkestan”):

• Can Anyone Hear Us? Voices from the 2009 Unrest in Urumchi (Uyghur Human Rights Project, 1 July 2010)
• "Justice, justice": The July 2009 Protests in Xinjiang, China (Amnesty International, 2 July 2010)

The reports, published by the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) and Amnesty International, contain testimonies of Uyghurs whose description of what happened in Urumchi that day contrasts starkly with the Chinese government’s version of events. In the light of this new evidence, both organisations call for an independent and international investigation into the Urumchi violence as a way to ease regional and communal tensions.

The word on the street

At approximately 5 pm on this day a year ago, Uyghurs assembled peacefully in People’s Square in Urumchi to express their dismay at the government’s inaction over the killings of Uyghur workers at a toy-factory in Shaoguan, Guangdong province. The protesters also demanded that the Chinese state protect them from increasing discrimination and violence in their homeland; some of them, as they approached the square, held aloft the flag of the People’s Republic of China.

The Chinese government has never acknowledged the underlying tensions that led to a peaceful gathering by Uyghurs in Urumchi on 5 July 2009, nor indeed that this demonstration was indeed non-violent. Its version of the incident is that Uyghurs took to the streets in an outbreak of “beating, smashing, looting, and burning” that left 197 people dead. The Chinese government spreads the blame widely: at various times (and sometimes in a single finger-pointing exercise) it accuses Uyghur forces abroad, mobsters, plotters, internal “separatists” and “terrorists” for fomenting the trouble.

Uyghur exile groups have readily acknowledged that Uyghurs too were involved in violence that occurred late on 5 July. These groups have also unequivocally condemned it. However, the claims made by Uyghur observers - that the Chinese state deployed live bullets against demonstrators, and that Chinese security forces exacerbated tension at People’s Square that led to the violence later on - have not received sufficient attention.

It soon became apparent to me, as a member of the UHRP team that prepared the report on the Urumchi unrest, that the interviews with Uyghur eyewitnesses revealed a consistent account of deadly live fire and brutal policing. A representative testimony states:

“Only traffic cops came at first [to People’s Square], then more and more riot police, more and more gear and weapons. There were special police and the people’s armed police. Dozens of police started to drag and hit people. There was yelling and chanting, even from windows, and traffic stopped. Buses were evacuated. More riot police came. The riot police started the riot.”

An eyewitnesses interviewed by Amnesty International describes similar experiences:

“We left People’s Square and walked towards Nanmen. A woman in her 40s or 50s talked about inequality and discrimination, that Chinese young people have opportunities that we don’t have. Then some twenty military vehicles arrived. The security forces carried automatic rifles and started to push the demonstrators. The woman walked towards them. A policeman shot her. She died. It was shocking, and I was very frightened.”

A very important aspect of these two reports is that the Uyghur voice has at long last begun to escape the tight information-control the Chinese government has imposed on Xinjiang. In the aftermath of the Urumchi events, Beijing launched an unprecedented lockdown on internet, phone and SMS communications that was to last for ten months; this included the detentions of Uyghur journalists and bloggers. The effect has been both to reinforce the official version of events and actively silence the Uyghur one (see Kerry Brown, “Xinjiang: China’s security high-alert”, 14 July 2009).

A distant power

The restrictions on Uyghur freedom of speech have intensified since the events of 5 July 2009. The state’s top-down intervention in Uyghur affairs, which refuses genuine consultation with or meaningful participation by members of the Uyghur “national minority”, entrenches the deep sense of grievance against the Chinese state over a range of issues: employment policy, social discrimination, the elimination of Uyghur as a language of instruction, and the demolition of Uyghur homes (see "Kashgar's old city: the politics of demolition", 3 April 2009).

But now that the accounts of Uyghur eyewitnesses of the turbulence in Urumchi have emerged to offer a clearer picture of what happened, it is time for the international community to take Uyghur voices more seriously. The testimonies of Uyghurs about the violations of human rights they have endured must not be treated as a political tool in the debate about the region’s status; rather, they should be seen through the lens of international law and domestic legal obligations that oppose state-sanctioned violence against citizens (see Yitzhak Shichor, "The Uyghurs and China: lost and found nation", 6 July 2009).

In this regard, concerned governments and multilateral organisations have an obligation to pressure the Chinese government into inviting an international, impartial inquiry into the Urumchi events (see Rebiya Kadeer, "Xinjiang one year on: the world 'could do more'", Asia News, 2 July 2010). The Chinese government may remain in control of the destinies of its citizens; but the global community can seek to draw the Chinese government closer to international human-rights standards, thus ensuring that faraway Beijing at last listens to the Uyghur people whose voices it now stifles.

Article also available here.

Can Anyone Hear Us? Voices From The 2009 Unrest In Urumchi

A new report by the Uyghur Human Rights Project (UHRP) examines the unrest that took place in July and September 2009 in Urumchi, the regional capital of East Turkestan (also known as the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region or XUAR) through the accounts of Uyghur eyewitnesses. Can Anyone Hear Us? Voices From The 2009 Unrest In Urumchi also investigates the economic, social and political factors that set the context for the unrest, as well as the information lockdown that followed. The report was launched at the National Endowment for Democracy on July 1, 2010. Video of event is available here and here. Event details can be viewed at this link. Initiatives for China, Reporters Without Borders, Democracy Digest and Radio Free Asia all reported on the launch.