The cost of humour: Political satire on social media and censorship in China

Political satire under the Chinese Communist Party

As a communist party state, China has employed propaganda and censorship systems used in the Soviet Union. Mao Zedong shared with Stalin an intolerance of different views. During Mao’s era, the established practice of politically satirical poetry stagnated, leaving only a few satirical poems denouncing foreign enemies (Sun et al., 2014). However, the cartoon as political satire was widely used as an ideological weapon to defend the dictatorship of the proletariat and to denounce international and domestic enemies, amounting to a form of ‘Cultural Revolution art’ (Liu, 2015). Politically satirical artistic creativity reached a peak in the 1980s. It flourished in short stories, paintings, poems and plays. Although the publishing industry was still subject to state censorship, there was more tolerance for expression. Official human rights organizations made no note of punishment for satirists during this period (Freedman, 2009). After the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989, the Chinese government tightened control over political expression. However, as a result of both the economic reforms that made China part of the world economy and the development of communication technologies, new opportunities for political satire have emerged in China, as they have in many other authoritarian countries.

The Internet, satellite television and the cellphone have become efficient tools for widely spreading ‘whispered’ jokes beyond the censors’ reach, due to the lag between technology-enabled communication and the censors’ efforts. The emergence of social media has also provided an alternative to controlled mainstream media (Çoban, 2016). The slang term egao appeared, referring to the first stage of online satire in Chinese social media. The popularity of egao, which is similar to parody, is due to Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter. Egao demonstrates renegade and self-reflexive playfulness, deconstructs the serious and plays with authority (Gong and Yang, 2010). It also provides a form of alternative political discourse that combines entertainment, politics and culture. Political engagement goes beyond information-seeking, and social media enable users to interact (Meng, 2011).

Online political satire now takes forms beyond egao. Yang and Jiang (2015) categorize such satire into five types: duanzi (jokes), national sentencing-making, multimedia remix, performance art and news comments. They take online political satire to be not only a form of resistance but also an expression of culture with ritual functions. Unlike other online celebrities who first become famous through traditional media or other mass media, political satirists are known exclusively for their online works, and they share their work only on social media. Without the success of social media and mobile phones, these artists’ work would have difficulty reaching mass audiences – this is especially true for their articles and images, which, unlike political jokes, cannot be spread by word of mouth.

Many people create works of political satire online. However, only a few people create such works regularly. In a single-party state, sharing forbidden jokes and criticizing the government, political system and leaders incur considerable risks. That is why only a small number of people have been willing to stand out and be labelled as political satirists; many of these people have moved to commercial creative work in recent years. Those who remain try hard to avoid violating Chinese Communist Party (CCP) rules and face a contradiction: their creativity is constrained by self-censorship.

Political satire is more important in communist countries than in democratic societies. It is a predictor of politics (Davies, 2007). Just like in other communist countries, political satire in China is meaningful in everyday life. In China, the government’s blocking of works of online political satire showed instability and a decrease in confidence in the government. Political humour has become riskier since 2013; criticizing leaders can be dangerous. ‘Picking quarrels and provoking troubles’ (‘xunxinzishi’) is the charge satirists often encounter; it is a criminal charge that can incur up to 5 years in jail. Artist Dai Jianyong was sentenced to 5 years in prison for Photoshopping Xi to look like Hitler and posting the image on his Instagram, and a Chinese university student was detained for 10 days for downloading a picture showing Xi in Nazi uniform (Humwick, 2015).

The Chinese government imposes mainstream censorship policies on social media, and it is impossible for political satirists to avoid the ‘red line’ to lower political risk. The threat of censorship causes political satirists to self-censor, abandon their creations and reduce their output. The influence of those who continue to work is diminished because the government controls all Chinese social media platforms. However, political satire still has strong vitality thanks to collective action, such as the anonymous production, distribution and sharing of work on Chinese social media. The research questions of this study are as follows:

Method

I interviewed the 10 best-known online political satirists in China, including cartoonists, writers and a vlogger. I used a theoretical sampling approach to find key participants able to provide rich information (Deacon et al., 2007). Since participants’ life stories and personal experiences – including strategies for dealing with the censors – are crucial for this study, I conducted narrative interviews for more depth. As Chase (2008) points out, the narrative interview elicits not only descriptions of what happened but also the expression of points of view and feelings. A successful narrative interview depends on the relationship between the interviewer and the participants (Lindlof and Taylor, 2011). Because I personally know some of the interviewees and am an active blogger myself, I was able to gain the participants’ trust. Two of the interviews were conducted over Skype voice call, six through Wechat instant talk, one through Wechat messages and one through Skype messages; voice interviews were 1 hour on average and text interviews 1.5 hours. For this study, social cues, such as body language, are not important, and voice and text interviewing enabled me to reach people in different countries and cities. Seven of the participants live in different cities in China and three live outside China. Two interviewees insisted on using instant messaging, and one requested anonymity. Although the text interviews were longer, allowing me to ask all my questions, I found the voice interviews richer in description. One of the interviewees typed slowly, which may have caused him to leave out details.

All interviews were recorded and transcribed. To protect their privacy, I identify the eight interviewees exclusively by code. The transcripts of the interviews were analysed through grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss, 1967). I first used open, unrestricted coding to build and name the categories to be used in analysing the data (Strauss, 1987). I then reshaped the categories to forge connections between them, going on to conduct dimensional analysis to tease out the variations (Spiggle, 1994).

In qualitative studies, sample sizes vary depending on several factors, including whether the researcher finds that new data continue to provide new themes (Lindlof and Taylor, 2011). Due to the political risks, there are few active and famous political satirists in China. The 10 study participants represent the small population of satirists and are the current key players in this field. A significant increase in the sample size would not yield significant new themes. Certain potential participants based in other countries were more willing to both publicly criticize censorship and reveal their identities. After evaluating the possible consequences, I agreed not to hide the identities of the two I chose, one vlogger and one cartoonist.

Although the political vlog is a common form of social media outside of China, it is a new form of online humour within China. The nature and structure of a vlog are not unique, compared with other forms of online political satire. That said, the interaction that a vlog enables is more like face-to-face interaction than anonymous communication. Regardless of whether the satirists are anonymous, their social media accounts and websites are all monitored by government censors. The non-anonymous people, however, are at much greater risk since the authorities know who they are. Christoph Rehage, the vlogger I interviewed, is a German native who is fluent in Mandarin. He speaks ironically as ‘Deguoziganwu’, or ‘German Volunteer Fifty-Cent Army’, which means an online German volunteer who supports the Chinese government and defends the party state online. In China, online commenters who are paid by the government are called the ‘Fifty-Cent Army’. Others who do it without pay have acquired the name ‘Volunteer Fifty-Cent Army’ (Han, 2015). Rehage states,

This name is one kind of satire. Those fifty-cent armies believe I am one of them, so they stopped to attack me. For others, humor is a much better way to communicate with them. If you talk in a serious way, like my old posts, they felt you were trying to teach them and they don’t buy it.

He was popular for his short daily videos on Weibo, and Chinese official media discussed his online popularity. He had more than 800,000 followers on Weibo when his account was deleted in 2015. I had the opportunity to view all his videos before his account was terminated. These videos no longer exist on the Chinese Internet, but they can be found on YouTube (which is blocked in China).

Wang Liming, whose pen name is ‘Biantailajiao’ (Rebel Pepper), is a cartoonist. In 2014, he decided to seek asylum in Japan and is currently a researcher in a Japanese university. He began posting his work online in 2006, becoming popular after he released serious cartoons criticizing nationalism, especially the nationwide anti-Japanese demonstration of 2012. His microblog has more than 800,000 followers. In July 2015, his social media accounts – including his online shop, on which he depended for his living – were deleted. Some of his cartoons still appear in the search results of the Chinese search engine Baidu. I reviewed 157 pieces of his work – provided by the author through email – before his accounts were deleted on 28 July 2014.

Censorship strengthened after the reorganization of governmental regulatory bodies

For rebels and dissenters, political satire is both a communication strategy and a way to show disobedience; it is also a means of using humour to escape a repressive reality (Hart, 2007). Of course, to prevent different forms of resistance, most authoritarian governments prefer to suppress political satire (Freedman, 2009). Their fear is justified. In open societies like the United States, political satire can increase political awareness and involvement among people who are cynical about politics (Rottinghaus et al., 2008). In a highly censored society, there is a precondition for political satire to be a tool for political participation and protest: the society must have a pre-existing collective identity (Hart, 2007). If that condition is met, political satire can cultivate participation culture and civic consciousness through sharing, commenting on and discussing sensitive issues that the authorities or the cultural tradition regard as taboo (Lim, 2013).

The development of Internet and cellphone technology in the late 1990s posed a challenge for the regulators. It took time for censorship mechanisms to catch up to the new media, which created a temporary and ever-closing space for the flourishing of political satire and the rise of political satirists. The first wave of online political satire emerged with online bulletin board services (BBS) during the late 1990s and early 2000s. Satirists were journalists, editors and IT engineers who were able to access the Internet, a rare ability at that time. They shared their works within a small circle until they moved to blog platforms and, later, to microblogs such as Weibo, at which point their readership soared and they became popular online. The second wave came with social media, such as microblogs. Users shared content that interested them, even content from anonymous sources. Punsters became popular online, especially those who wrote about politics and current affairs. With their increasing numbers of followers, satirists had to contend with online censorship. Before 2012, the repression was moderate. As seven interviewees pointed out, they felt they could express themselves freely:

When Weibo started to be popular, there was less censorship imposed. That was the ‘public intellectual’ age. People talked a lot about politics on Weibo at the beginning. So I was fearless at that time. (001)

I only had around 3,000 followers on Weibo. However, in the early stage of Weibo, the cartoonists formed our own groups and shared our works. And because the users were interested in political issues, my works could be retweeted over hundreds of others. (003)

In May 2012, however, the government changed the way the Internet was regulated. The State Council concentrated power, going from eight departments to a single, newly established department, the State Internet Information Office (Xinhua, 2011). After that, the space for online political satirists was restrained:

I think it was 2012, I was working at an Internet company managing Weibo accounts. Sometimes I would get the order from the government regulators, requesting us to prohibit someone’s handle from posting anything for one week or requesting us to permanently delete the account. (006)

The government is not able to monitor all online content, so Internet companies in China are responsible for illegal content on their websites. The government publicly warned Weibo about inefficient censorship. To avoid being shut down by the government, these companies have hired censors to manually filter negative posts (Wong, 2015). Besides causing posts containing forbidden content to be deleted and accounts to be suspended or closed, the government uses personal intimidation of individuals who are influential online – public intellectuals, opinion leaders, lawyers, activists and political satirists. Most of the interviewees had the experience of being contacted by the National Security Police. The lightest treatment by the police is for them to drink tea with those they seek to intimidate, initiating unofficial and casual conversation in plain clothes and in public. People might be summoned by the police, detained and – in the worst scenario – made to disappear:

The year before last year [2014], I was summoned. I still remember what they wrote on the subpoena: suspected of incitement to overthrow state power. After I arrived at the police office, I was questioned. They asked very simple questions, such as did you write these articles? Why did you write this? Did anyone pay you to write these articles? Etc. Very simple questions. Of course I admitted all. I first hesitated for a while … should I deny having done it? Then I decided to admit it because they knew it was you …. I was prepared to be jailed. After I walked out of the police office, I realized that ideology controls things, as I expected, because it is important to the top level of the Communist Party, so the operational level must be more tight. It was not a relatively important department before, but now it has been raised to a higher level. So they will work harder, because they still have the space to move up. So it will be more and more tough in the future. (003)

Another effective way to make people more obedient is to use external pressure, called ‘lianzuo’, or ‘collective punishment’. The National Security Police contacts employers to request that they punish or fire employees; they also contact work partners and investors and make them fear the future of the company. For people who are freelance or self-employed, the police talk to family members. For people living overseas, besides blocking their content, the police conducts smear campaigns and government-sponsored trolling. When I conducted my interview with one of the interviewees, he was very cautious, agreeing only to use text chat through Skype, because he was worried about online security. He has been targeted twice online. The first attack was just organized flaming; the second involved setting up a personal website under his name and posting all the pictures he posted online alongside a large amount of pornography:

Researcher: Are you worried about your reputation or personal safety?

003: I never care about reputation. I worry for my personal safety and my family’s. Even overseas, I still have uncertainty. Look at those kidnapped Hong Kong booksellers. It proved that even if you are outside China, it is still not safe.

All these methods have a chilling effect. Having spent years on Chinese social media, these satirists fully understand the consequences of talking about politics in a way that violates the ‘red line’ around forbidden topics. Self-censorship is the only way to protect themselves and lower the risk:

I am more cautious than before. I try to avoid politics, change my habits. My partners, their biggest concern is me talking about politics online. (001)

I want my articles to stay up longer. So I try to express myself implicitly, not talk straight. I try to avoid sensitive words. When I was writing a blog many years ago, I just wanted to talk about everything. And then, a lot of things happened and I am pretty cynical about everything now. So I don’t write much anymore. (005)

Under censorship, there is no ‘red line’

Those who want to express themselves online, make their works available online and share with their followers without causing trouble must determine where the ‘red line’ is – what the government does not want people to read and see.

After spending almost 5 years on Chinese social media, Christoph Rehage believed he knew the rules of the censors’ game. For example, as he states, ‘if you start to talk about June 4th, Tibet, you know you will be (virtually) dead’. He was wrong, however, to think he understood all the rules. Although he never crossed the red line that he himself defined in his works, his account was deleted in July 2015 and his more than 800,000 followers vanished without explanation. He did not get any warning before his account was closed and he did not know the reason. He was told by the Internet company that it was the government’s decision and that there was nothing the company could do. The offending Weibo post concerned two figures: Lei Feng, a Chinese Liberation Army soldier portrayed as a hero of the CCP and the subject of a propaganda campaign started in 1963 (during Mao’s era), and Mulan, a legendary ancient female warrior and cultural heroine of China. Rehage stood up for a Chinese comedian who had apologized to the public for parodying Mulan on the stage. In the wake of critical comments directed at the comedian, he wrote: ‘I read the comments written by those cute people, they are funny. How about Lei Feng and Mulan have a baby?’ (Posted on Weibo at 09:30 on 19 July 2015 and since deleted. Screen captured by the author.)

Rehage admits this was a tasteless joke, but he does not think it had the power to influence public opinion:

They came at me with all they had. In an attempt to undermine my credibility and mobilize some of the more chauvinist tendencies among Chinese netizens, they claimed that I was in fact not a German but a Turk who had been brought by dissidents in order to break away parts of the Chinese motherland. I got flooded with hate mail. The editor of the paper where I had my column told me he was very sorry but they had to stop working with me. The next day, everything I had written for them was gone. And then the candles appeared. One by one, people would post emotions of burning candles in my comment section. In the Chinese internet, a burning candle is something that you post when there has been a tragedy and you want to show your compassion …. I didn’t die at first. I was just muted, meaning I could still post things, but almost nobody was able to see them … A few days later, I could not log into my account anymore, and any trace of me on Weibo was gone. It was as if I had never existed. (Rehage)

Rehage’s videos, which are all about current affairs, touch on more sensitive topics than did the post that caused him trouble. For example, in one episode of his series of videos, ‘Democracy vs. Dictatorship’, he talks about the advantages and disadvantages of democracy and dictatorship, claiming that China is a significantly authoritarian country. In another episode, ‘Banned Cartoons’, he indirectly criticizes the online censorship in China. These videos did not cause Rehage trouble. After being banned by the Chinese government, he said he still did not know which line he had crossed.

On 10 August 2013, during its inaugural Internet conference, the State Internet Information Office introduced a set of guidelines for Internet users called the ‘Seven Bottom Lines’. These guidelines detail a ‘bottom line’ for each of seven domains: the laws and regulations, the socialist system, the national interest, the legitimate interest of citizens, public order, morality and the authenticity of information. Based on these seven bottom lines, Sina (which owns Weibo) closed 103,673 accounts within 2 months of the conference (Li, 2013). No specific details of this initiative are available. The political satirists participating in the study tried to sum up their experience as they attempted to lower the risks they were taking. For example,

When I was in China, my works were under one hundred percent self-censorship. It was subtle to balance. Generally speaking, if you draw something about current affairs, it would be relatively safe; if you criticize a specific official involved in a scandal, it would be relatively safe; if you ridicule the entire government or the Communist Party, you might be ‘harmonized’ (banned); if you draw Chinese communist leaders, the posts would be deleted for sure, unless you praise them; if your cartoons related to street activities or some sensitive issues, such as the National People’s Congress (NPC) and the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), you would be one hundred percent sure to be invited to drink tea (interrogated by the police). I surmised all this after my over two hundred end accounts were deleted and I experienced several episodes of drinking tea and exchanged experiences with other people who were regularly being invited to drink tea. (Wang)

Wang was wrong too. It was not his cartoons that crossed the ‘red line’, but his online speech. The message delivered by his cartoons was more sensitive and incisive. One of his most circulated works online was about Pan Dongzi, a famous character from Sparkling Red Star, a patriotic movie made during the Cultural Revolution. In Wang’s work, Pan, who belongs to the Red Army of the CCP, educates two figures from existing cartoons: Tom, from ‘Tom and Jerry’, and Pleasant Goat, from the popular Chinese television series. ‘Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf’. These two cartoon series were both banned under a state media campaign to eliminate vulgar and violent storylines. The decision sparked controversy, and Wang’s cartoon echoed the criticism online, mocking the CCP for having double standards and being hypocritical: officially educating children through patriotic but violent movies, while banning commercial products for their violence.

On 16 October 2013, Wang was summoned by the police – not because of his cartoons, but because of one of his Weibo posts, about the flood in Yuyao, a small city in Zhejiang province. In his post, he claimed that a baby died for lack of food. The government of Zhejiang complained that the post spread rumours. After 24 hours in the police station, Wang was finally released. The police warned him that as an influential figure on social media, he should be more socially responsible. Wong found the experience sobering: ‘When I was sitting on the interrogation chair, I was so scared, although I was not locked to the chair. I had many nightmares after that’.

In July 2013, Wang opened an online shop to sell Japanese products; it became the main source of income for his family. He had more than 350,000 followers and his Weibo account became an efficient channel for promotion. To protect his business – by avoiding having his social media accounts deleted – he stopped creating cartoons relating to current affairs. Nonetheless, in February 2014, his Weibo account was deleted without notice. With the help of friends, he managed to re-open the account in April, changing the name from ‘Rebel Pepper’ to ‘Pepper’s Uncle’ to keep a low profile. He started to post his travel notes instead of cartoons. When his social media accounts and online shop were terminated on 28 July and 8 August 2014, he was surprised:

This time was odd. I could tell which cartoon caused trouble when my accounts were deleted before, but this time, I have no clue. I had stopped drawing sensitive cartoons for a long time to protect my online business. (Wang)

Following the disappearance of his accounts, on 18 August, at least 17 official websites published an article titled ‘Catch a View of Rebel Pepper: A Traitor Who Has Fawned on the Japanese’ (Zhang, 2014). It was first published on ‘Qiangguoluntan’, a BBS on the website of the state media, People’s Daily; it was reposted by other media the same day. Wang was accused of crossing the seven bottom lines. The smear campaign seems to have been well prepared, since the accounts had been deleted 20 days prior. Moreover, the posts had been gone for a while and yet the writer of the article had intentionally kept them or had been able to access the database of deleted content.

Despite the ‘Seven Bottom Lines’ policy, there is no specific official definition or description of the ‘red line’. The necessity and difficulty of understanding where that line lies were a common theme among the interviewees:

I want to find the critical point, so I can write something that will spread widely yet not be deleted or blocked. Then I can turn my fame to profit. I tried, it was impossible. I self-censored, I didn’t mention any forbidden issues, but useless. Those articles were blocked. I don’t think we can think what censors think. (003)

The ‘red line’ is not unique to China – it exists in many places. For example, in Singapore, although Twitter is not censored and blocked by the government, it is under heavy surveillance by the government and corporations. Even anonymous Twitter handles are careful not to touch the red line, which might cause legal prosecution (Sreekumar and Vadrevu, 2013). The key to online success for political satirists is controversial content. Their ability to shape public discourse and mobilize people to participate in the discussion depends on their sharp comments on hot issues (Lim and Golan, 2011). It is difficult for content providers to create a relationship with an audience because there are so many choices on the Internet (McCosker, 2015). Political satirists in China have built their own image and brand through consistency and courage. However, under tight censorship, most of the interviewees believe that the only way to avoid the red line is to keep away from politics, which means avoiding identification as a political satirist, either by readers or regulators:

001: There were three labels on me: creative, humor, and politics. And now I deleted politics, but I still have creative and humor. It is still consistent.

Researcher: Are you going to add more labels?

001: No, currently I have creative and humor. I think these two are enough for starting a new business.

Censorship and flourishing political satire: The power of collective action

The Chinese government has a system to block foreign websites and enable domestic surveillance; it was called the Great Firewall until the late 1990s and renamed the Golden Shield in 1998. It still took a few years, however, for it to adapt to social media, which provided the public a window of time in which to enjoy a relatively free environment. The government has now achieved a sophisticated way of monitoring social media, which, on one hand, provides space for public debate and, on the other hand, stops any potential attempt to shape political change (E.H., 2013). Since 2016, the government has strengthened its control of Internet content, diminishing its power as an alternative to mainstream media, and political satirists have not been spared (Vanderklippe, 2016). Having reviewed the history of political satire in China, Freedman believes it impossible for a political satirist to make a living in a communist party state (2009). This study’s findings are consistent with his conclusion. Under censorship, it is difficult for satirists to generate a stable readership. Even if they can, influential readers, especially voices that are not content with the government, are labelled ‘sensitive users’ and placed under special supervision. From a commercial perspective, there are too many uncertainties and risks because the satirists might be on the government blacklist and be removed from all social media platforms in China. Satirists who start their own businesses often try to reassure the government:

I feel that the government is more interested in your personal political stand. What is your goal? Are you enthusiastic about politics or making money? I think I am just a businessman who wants to make money in their eyes. (001)

To avoid threats to the regime, the CCP is always on the alert for growth in the influence of political satire. During Jiang Zeming and Hu Jingtao’s era, although the leaders showed greater tolerance of political satire, censorship remained an effective form of control. Media outlets and major foreign websites, such as YouTube and Google, were blocked. The government used ‘forbidden words’ to filter unwelcome information online. Dissenters were detained or harassed when they undertook offline activities; ‘drinking tea’ with public security staff – a euphemism for being informally questioned – was common for people who posted forbidden content online, even on Twitter, which was blocked in China. Unlike during the regime of Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, however, power was not concentrated in one core leader; decisions were made collectively under the centralized power (Freedman, 2009). With limited freedom of speech and the development of social media, for the last 10 years, people in China have empowered themselves through online discussions, becoming braver and less cynical. Creating works of political satire as a form of direct expression is far more than a popular and relatively safe way to criticize the government and mock the leaders. For example, Jiang Zeming, the former president, was given the nickname ‘toad’ (‘hasi’ in Chinese) by Chinese netizens to ridicule his high-waisted trousers, black rectangular glasses and sometimes boorish behaviour. With political memes and jokes, an ironic ‘toad worship culture’ formed online (Qin, 2015). Studies show that the Chinese government allows criticism of the state, its policies and even its leaders on social media, but silences posts that might trigger or mobilize collective action (King et al., 2013). Posting negative comments about Xi Jinping, the current president of China, though, has become dangerous.

Technology, however, also brings individuals opportunity. It has expanded the forms of political satire, from animation, which combines visuals and audio, to user-generated political memes. The interaction between users of social media offers new political life for political prose (Rahimi, 2015). Retweeting, leaving comments and sharing through other platforms are parts of the political process (Baumgartner, 2007):

I don’t think there is any room for a professional political satirist in China. However, if you use political satire as part of your material for creating your work, I believe it still impossible. (008)

Political satirists in China have amassed followers who are willing to comment and to share their own work, even if they are blocked on the Chinese Internet. Overseas and exiled satirists entice a Chinese audience to use proxy servers to access their blocked websites. Christoph Rehage’s YouTube channel has more than 20,000 subscribers. Those from mainland China use VPN to access his videos and leave comments:

I stopped producing vlog for two weeks after my Weibo account was closed. I did nothing at all. Then I posted on YouTube and got Chinese comments quickly. I realized that there is no difference to talk to 5,000 people or 200,000 people. They deserve the same thing. (Rehage)

Sharing information without embracing the goal of persuasion is one way to counter propaganda and censorship. It demonstrates the responsibility of citizenship and, at the same time, helps foster citizenship (Penney, 2016). Using political satire to question the legitimacy of a regime is a kind of cyber-activism (Radsch and Khamis, 2013). To share political satire with others is also part of constructing one’s identity, politically, socially and culturally (Marzouki, 2015). Chinese netizens have started a race against the censors. They not only visit blocked websites but also retweet and leave comments; they become the ‘virtual porters’ who download or copy banned or blocked content and bring it into the Chinese Internet. Christoph Rehage’s videos were frequently reposted by netizens on Chinese social media, and the same thing is happening with the work of Wang Liming. Although his recent works directly mock the current Chinese leaders, they can, for the moment, still be found on the Chinese Internet. One common strategy for keeping ahead of the censors is screen capture. In the absence of sophisticated photo filters, screen captures remain difficult content to filter.

When people have more channels to engage in politics, political satire is largely replaced by those other forms of engagement. This shows that in an open society, political satire is an elementary level of political engagement; however, it is the only choice for people under authoritarian regimes. The more political satire there is in a society, the more repression the society has in real life (Lampland and Nadkarni, 2016). The Soviet Union was famous for its political jokes under heavy censorship. People took risks to create and whisper such jokes under Stalin’s gaze (Banc and Dundes, 1986). By resisting repression, the satirists practised telling more complex jokes, and the audience exercised their interpretation skills in everyday life. It is the same in China. The race between the censors and the satirists, who stand with their audiences, raises the level of intelligence and skill on both sides:

Jokes on Chinese internet, at the beginning, most of them were very vulgar, but now they are improved. Under the political pressure, things need to be made more appropriate, and this needs wisdom and intelligence. (005)

Everybody has a free mind. Every piece of cartoon can find a better artistic expression. Every time they deleted my work, it became the motivation for me to improve my skill and study more about cartooning. (004)

I named myself ‘volunteer government supporter’, which set a higher threshold for my audiences. People who don’t have the ability to think critically would not understand my point of view. I am criticizing, not complimenting the government. (Rehage)

Conclusion

Political satirists in China do not have many choices. It is impossible for them to continue creating works without self-censorship. They lose their followers; however, once they constrain their creative expression. Most of the interviewees have had the same experience: they were criticized by readers who had followed them for years. Those who try to use their creative work to make a profit face an inevitable contradiction: censorship will affect creative vitality. To make one’s work stand out in a sea of online content and create a relationship with the audience is a difficult task (McCosker, 2015). Controversial content attracts more viewers and comments (Lim and Golan, 2011). Creating a personal brand through creative political satire is certainly possible in principle. From a political economic perspective, it is also a profitable business. However, in China, individuals are not allowed to step into this area. As one interviewee noted,

if you want to avoid trouble, you should not be labeled as a political satirist. The government goes after specific persons instead of contents. If you systematically write or draw political satire, you will be a target of the government. (009)

Influential political satirists will gradually disappear from the public, but political satire will remain. Because of social media, it will continue to be a feature of everyday life in China. People will remember only the popular work itself, rather than the creators.

The popularity of the ‘Zhao family’ meme is a good example. The elite ‘Zhao family’ is supposed to represent the rulers in China, whereas ‘the non-Zhaos’ are the ruled. The meme is a form of deconstruction to express resistance to political repression. By referring to the ‘Zhao family’, people demonstrate the relationship between the rulers and the ruled, ‘them’ and ‘us’ (Wei, 2016). Starting in December 2015, it was everywhere on social media and became a household name. However, no one knows who started to use it. Another example is the ‘Armani boy’. A 15-year-old boy was invited by the local government to attend the annual People’s Congress conference as the youngest representative, and he submitted the following proposal: release students from examinations. He told reporters that his wish was that no test would decide the future of any young person. The media praised this youngest conference participant as a role model for political participation. Then his photo went viral online, and because a netizen spotted that the boy was wearing Armani, the hashtag ‘Armani boy’ was created (BBC, 2016). An anonymous picture circulated online: a group of kids holding the red flag of China, but with the logo of Armani; the subtitle is ‘the successor of communism’. This picture tells everything. People are unhappy about the relationship between political power and fortune. The netizens found this boy’s photos, which his parents posted on social media, and they could see that his outfits were all high-end and that he enjoyed horseback riding, had been on television and travelled widely. In this way, a 15-year-old boy became the symbol of a certain class in China, the ruling class. This class has power and money. To criticize the government or the Communist Party directly online is not safe, so people point their anger and dissatisfaction at this boy, indirectly expressing themselves. However, looking more deeply, this topic is about more than expressing anger. It raises doubts about the legitimacy of the ruling Communist Party. Who or what is the successor of communism?

Although political satire is subject to ever-strict censorship and the future of satirists is gloomy, with collective action, such satire has great vitality. The power narrative emphasizes the tendency to create dominant symbols. It includes social structures and activities (Meyrowitz, 2008). The popularity of online political satire is one source of such dominant symbols. Political satire flourished in Stalin’s Soviet Union under heavy repression, and it can do the same today in China, if enough people are willing to carry on the race with the censors. In fact, even during Mao’s era, when targets of political satire were officially limited to foreign enemies and making fun of the leaders was unacceptable, there were whispered jokes about Mao’s personal life, most of them dirty jokes about his sex life (Nathan, 1994). Under Stalin and Mao, the risk came from informers, who reported private, overheard conversations to the government. Now the risk is greater, because of technology. The government has the technical capacity and financial resources to monitor individuals’ online activity:

In December 2014, a netizen used Google+ to let me know that he was interrogated by national security officials for four hours, because he retweeted one of my cartoons. In early 2015, a netizen in Guangxi was detained for five days for retweeting my work. This year, a netizen who was planning to visit Japan and meet me was warned by national security officers in advance. (Wang)

What is the negative side of political satire in a highly controlled society? The Chinese government, aware of the power of political satire, has tried to use it to create or manipulate public discourse. One interviewee commented on this process:

I think one of the risks of political satire is that it deconstructs the seriousness of political figures and political issues. On one hand, it represents resistance, on the other hand, it is self-dissimilation. It would make people cynical. For example, the case of ‘toad worship culture’ in China: at the beginning, it was a strategy to criticize the CCP leader and now it has become a kind of commemorating, more like a fan culture. You use a bad apple to compare with another rotten apple, and then you fall in love with the bad one. This is very dangerous. (007)

Some people claim that the new, ostensibly positive version of ‘toad worship culture’ is actually a subtle way to criticize current leader Xi Jinping by praising the former president (Qin, 2015). However, I am also cautious about this phenomenon. Where are those online videos and photos of Jiang coming from? Only state media are permitted to have such footage; why do the censors let this material circulate online? Jokes are a communication strategy. They are not necessarily against the regime; sometimes they act as a means for people to escape their depressing reality. Jokes are not always a tool for political participation; on the contrary, they enhance the existing social structure while maintaining the current state. Under what circumstances, then, can political jokes serve as forms of protest? There is no one answer. In democratic societies, political jokes are sometimes treated as threats to the government and repressed (as in 18th-century England), while in Nazi Germany they were allowed (Hart, 2007). Studies show that the effect of online political humour is mixed. On one hand, the negative frame enhances cynicism about politics and government among young people; on the other hand, such humour makes young people feel more engaged in the political process (Baumgartner, 2007).

The methods and tactics used by the Chinese authorities are not novel. They existed in the past and are used today in other authoritarian countries. What varies in different times and places is the capability of governments to execute their power and the willingness of people to use their power to resist. With its advanced technology and many resources, the current Chinese government is far better able to exercise power than other governments, including its own predecessors. Meanwhile, technology also enables people to demonstrate their power against the authorities. People can create online trends before being noticed and slow the work of the censors. Unless the government shuts down the Internet, there will always be a lag between posting and censorship – sometimes long, sometimes lasting just a second. The more the people who join the race, the more it costs the government to manipulate the flow of information. Countering censorship is a challenge for netizens; implementing censorship is a challenge for authorities.