Global Times (环球时报) Sentences the Grass Mud Horse to Decapitation

One of my favorite newspapers in China is the Global Times. This delightful rag is actually an arm of the People's Daily but it consciously targets the country's more nationalistic market. Especially in China's early modern history, nationalist revolts and uprisings have been an ever-lingering threat to the incumbent regime. The Qing dynasty, throughout its tumultuous four-hundred year reign, was periodically subject to different forms of developed and proto-nationalism.

When the dynasty was first established, the imperial government spent several decades in an effort to consolidate control over Ming strongholds in the south. Ming loyalists, who were ultimately pushed back to Taiwan before finally being subdued, attempted to mobilize support for their cause by characterizing the Manchus as uncivilized, non-Chinese barbarians bent on usurping China's cultural legacy.

When the Qing were defeated in the 1842 Opium Wars at the hands of the British, they were subjected to an "Unequal Treaty System" that forcefully opened up many parts of China to foreign commerce, missionary activity, and of course narcotics. This traumatic experience eventually saw the rise of the Taiping who blended elements of Protestant doctrine with Confucian and Buddhist teachings. The Taiping, under the leadership of Hong Xiuquan, launched their bid to establish a "Heavenly Kingdom of Peace" (太平天国) by tapping into a potent wellspring of Anti-Manchu sentiment. Their highly disciplined army rampaged throughout most of southern China, routing Qing forces and even capturing the city of Nanjing which subsequently became the Taiping capital in 1853.

Although the Qing were finally able to eventually crush the "long-haired" rebels, it wasn't long before another surge of nationalist feeling would force their hand in the "Boxer Uprising." Whereas previous expressions of proto-nationalism were generally directed at the Manchu government, this time the target was foreigners, particularly Christian missionaries and their western backers in the Shandong region (Joseph Esherick's "The Boxer Uprising" is without a doubt my favorite book on the subject, highly recommended). The Empress Dowager Cixi, tried to ride this nationalist wave but was quickly overpowered by an international force which occupied Beijing and subsequently torched the Summer Palace (as well as making off with those Zodiac Bronze heads that have been in the news recently).

By then, the Qing were on their last legs though it would take one more nationalist-inspired mass movement to finally bring them down. Sun Yat-sen and the May 4th movement drew from a fundamental desire to make China strong once more and restore her once-unquestionable centrality and glory. Self-strengthening was the order of the day and Chinese intellectuals throughout much of the early twentieth-century occupied themselves with questions of national salvation and rejuvenation. Once the Qing were overthrown in a fit of patriotism, it wouldn't be long before the CCP itself used the same tactic to throw the GMD out and establish a "New China." The CCP drew on its Anti-Japanese legacy during World War II and was quick to label the Nationalists as collaborators and traitors to China. Thus, the CCP knows a thing or two about the role of nationalism in Chinese political history and just how unpredictable it can be.

This brings us back to Global Times and its role as a Party mechanism to monitor, control and guide public opinion in a constructive and non-threatening manner. If you look at the online survey which is updated regularly with new poll questions you can get a sense for what the leadership, or at least the propaganda authorities, thinks is important. Most straw poll questions deal with current affairs. For example, this week's question is "Do you think China is a victim of Internet Spying?" (你认为中国是网络间谍受害者吗？) This question is clearly a response to the team of Canadian researchers who alleged this week that an enormous internet spy ring affecting more than 100 countries originated largely in China. Other times the questions pertain to China's role in global affairs, its relative status vis-a-vis other countries like India and Russia, etc. Clearly these poll questions are not designed with rigorous social science methods in mind, rather their purpose is to offer an outlet for nationalist sentiment as well as a means for the government to gauge what opinion is at any given moment. I spend a good deal of time pouring over these surveys and will be compiling a rough statistical snapshot of their content in the next few days.

Now that we are somewhat familiar with Global Times let me bring us back to the title subject: the Grass Mud Horse. In 2008 there emerged from the Chinese internets a series of "ten mythical Chinese creatures" (中国十大神兽） each of which has a name that is homophonous with various vulgar expressions. By far the most popular seems to be the "Grass Mud Horse" (草泥马). The alternative meaning in Chinese involves sexual acts and a certain family relation. I cannot attest to the expression's initial popularity or prevalence in Chinese discourse, though I did hear a driver yell it to someone last week. At any rate, the expression is steadily becoming a stable aspect of China's blogosphere and has taken on even greater political significance for two reasons. First, the expression seems to be a form of passive resistance, a kind of raspberry to the Chinese Nanny state that tries to patrol and preserve the moral character of the internet. Second, the Chinese government has recently launched a general campaign against filth on the internet (details can be found at www.danwei.org), in particular pornography, violence, and video which "distorts Chinese culture, Chinese history, and historical facts."

In today's Global Times it would appear that the Grass Muddy Horse too has been issued a socialist fatwa by the powers that be. In an opinion piece entitled "The Grass Mud Horse Should be Immediately Decapitated" (“草泥马”应该斩立决）, an anonymous author (perhaps the editorial board) catalogues why these expressions should receive swift and immediate punishment. Not only are these expressions not worthy of the Confucian gentleman, they will also hurt advertisers' bottom line, including the workers employed by those companies. This is obviously unacceptable and leads the author to conclude, "The ten mythical creature names are all curse words, they simply are amoral, confuse good with evil, fail to distinguish beauty from ugliness, and make people feel nauseous and revolting. We should immediately decapitate them."

Obviously, Global Times thinks we should take action. But how? By building a harmonious society of course! "在我看来，创建和谐文明网络环境，彻底刹住互联网低俗之风，必须建立一套长效监督机制" Establishing an effective supervising mechanism will not be easy, however. It requires concerted measures which will integrate technology, the law, the market, campuses and other areas of strength. In other words, they probably don't have a clue. While we may take solace in the fact that "grasping the spirit of building a civilized, comprehensive societal consciousness of responsibility" will lead to the preservation of both internet and business interests. Ultimately, the best line of defense for Global Times is to raise "Netizens' self-discipline consciousness." My sense is that such a approach will only be met with a cynical, yet quiet, "草泥马”.