By Kristýna Kociánová
Introduction
Digital Authoritarianism (and numerous sister terms, such as digital repression) as a term
has been used for a very long time and in various contexts, even in relation to China and its modern authoritarian policies. Digital Authoritarianism generally refers to the tendency of authoritarian states (as well as some backsliding democracies) to “surveil, repress, and manipulate domestic and foreign populations” (Polyakova & Meserole, 2019, p. 2). It is a very broad term encompassing many types of policies that can be easily divided into three separate categories, namely obstacles to access, limits on content and violations on rights (Freedom House, 2018).
While some scholars emphasize only focusing on countries deemed authoritarian, such as Russia or China, others, like Glasius, appeal to authors to center their attention to illiberal practices in democracies, in order to curb their spread and development (2018, p. 515-533).
As the spread of Digital Authoritarianism in China continues, there is a growing tendency of China to manipulate the image it projects abroad through the internet. Despite the smaller strength of China’s soft power, China does have a large arsenal of Digital Authoritarian tools it can use to spread its influence in the future, especially its Great Firewall, however, even more traditional ways such as basic government interference can be used along with the Digital Authoritarian tools China has available to make its effect greater.
For example, there has been a push of curating the public image of famous publicly-known people in the last few years. In 2021, a campaign to curb the appearance of more “feminine presenting” male celebrities, called the “Campaign Against Girlie Guns” (fan niangpao 反娘炮) (referred to as Campaign for simplicity from now on) was launched. All this falls under Xi Jinping himself’s more universal call for national rejuvenation. This call is hardly new, as a similar call was made by a leader dissimilar to Xi, Sun Yat-sen, during the Qing era. As the Campaign primarily targets the concept of masculinity, the notions like prosperity and strength (fuqiang 富强), advanced culture (wenming 文明) and beauty (meili 美麗) (The Center for Strategic Translation, 2022), fit perfectly under this wider call with many of its aspects.
Systematic studies on Digital Authoritarianism reveal a gap in scholarship on the convergence between Digital Authoritarianism and the attempts to control the image China is trying to project abroad. This essay attempts to rectify that and fill this small gap by trying to stress that those two concepts interject smoothly. After all, the need to continuously broaden the definition is also pointed out by the systematic review written by Roberts & Oosterom (2024), this essay just happens to take a more interdisciplinary approach by looking into Chinese Soft Power and its influence on other countries, by doing a small case study on one of the popular Chinese online dramas and a literature review.
The point of this essay is to argue that the regulation of celebrity image and gender presentation is not only a form of Digital Authoritarianism, but also a foreign policy signal. Through its dissemination of its aesthetics, China is attempting to influence foreign perceptions of itself abroad and assert its ideological model on the global stage.
Rethinking Digital Authoritarianism: Digital Authoritarianism in a Broader Sense
To fully dive into the topic of Digital Authoritarianism in China, we first need to talk about China’s propaganda in a broader sense. Propaganda in China through state media channels is called “external propaganda” or “external publicity” (duiwai xuanchuan 对外宣传), or, as Maria Repnikova mentions in her work, “international communication” (guoji chuanbo 国际传播) (2022, p. 21). China’s propaganda, according to Rawnsley (2015), has a tendency to not exactly manufacture a more negative image of its rivals, but tends to try to “correct” its own narrative, which makes it a little different from its Russian counterpart, for example.
In the 1990s, a large expansion of propaganda channels was started, however the biggest growth happened after 2013, when Xi Jinping 习近平 emphasized soft power and discourse power, in his Belt and Road Initiative (Repnikova 2022. p. 22). The effort to focus more on targeting other countries was made apparent when China changed the name of its Propaganda Department (Xuanchuanbu 宣传部) to Publicity Department, but only in the English translation. The Chinese term remained the same.
The role of media here is central - they are summoned to the Central Propaganda Department for briefings, where staff receive information on sensitive topics (Repnikova 2022, p.26).
Culture is key, according to Chinese experts, as they mostly consider themselves subscribers to the “cultural school” (wenhua pai 文化派), a school of thought that considers culture to be at the forefront of “soft power”. Culture is considered something that is all-encompassing, an invisible force, that should create a morally grounded and politically united Chinese polity (Repnikova 2022, p. 4–5). While there is a theoretical divide between the two schools - cultural and political - it is quite insignificant, since the cultural camp sees moral and political values as the core of soft power, and the political camp considers culture something to be mobilized. Both schools see those two issues as connected (Repnikova 2022, p. 6). There are certain studies by Chinese scholars that consider soft power as something akin to a shield against Western culture. Chinese people may feel that, for example, American culture can be causing regime changes in the world (Repnikova 2022, p. 8) and may want to avoid this happening in their country. This fits within the vision of the masculine image China is trying to project through its Digital Authoritarian policies. As American culture may be seen by authorities as detrimental to the Chinese one, there is a fear of being seen as weak (that may stem from the colonial past of China when it was seen as the “sick man of East Asia”, as Zheng, 2015, p. 347 mentions) which may be causing the implementation of the traditional masculine propaganda in China to counter the progressive stance of the West, similarly to the spiritual pollution campaigns of the 1980s. This may result in, namely, military dramas to be given preference in searches over “feminized” idols etc.
Anne-Marie Brady (2016), also mentions the necessity of culture in modern China, and the pivot to it, along with the use of modern technologies and the focus on social cohesion over thought reform (p. 202). She also makes another point, showing the growing importance of various infotainment shows, under which idol shows fall, after the 90s (p. 141), which increased the need for governmental control over them. There have been attempts to reduce China’s overreliance on traditional Chinese culture and to focus more closely on contemporary culture (Zhao 2014).
The crackdown on specific, “undesirable” forms of expression in popular media could also be considered a form of manufactured consent. Herman & Chomsky (2008) would consider the “feminine”, “sissy” niangpao a common enemy (p. 62) whose oppression would be crucial to further undermine dissent in China. In short, image governance should be considered political governance.
China’s Crackdown on “Feminine-presenting” idols (2021)
The first time that the term niangpao appeared was in September 2021 in a government directive. The directive was published by the National Radio and Television Administration on September 2nd, 2021. This notice didn’t mention only the niangpao, but curbing niangpao was one of the goals besides issues like the need to improve the political stances of workers at the broadcast stations or the need for actors to be socially responsible. The niangpao directive was supposed to target young men who are mostly gender nonconforming, who have a more ambiguous gender presentation and are very popular online, often appearing on top places in searches.
It was the third point mentioned in the directive - the niangpao point mentions the need to “…strengthen cultural confidence and vigorously promote China's excellent traditional culture, revolutionary culture, and advanced socialist culture. Establish a correct aesthetic orientation for programs, strictly control the selection of actors and guests, performance style, clothing and makeup, etc., and resolutely put an end to abnormal aesthetics such as "sissy". …” (NRTA 2021).
That roughly corresponds with China’s attempts to correct its own narrative and even mentions concepts such as “prosperity and strength” and China’s traditional culture, which has been the focus of the government since Xi Jinping took office, as has been said above.
Only a few days after the directive was issued, many government-connected sources rushed to defend the new rules - for example the Beijing Evening News (Beijing Wanbao 北京晚报) published an article where it found examples from the past and from classic literature where niangpao and the lack of masculinity caused large issues, doubling down that “whenever sissy culture rises, there will be cultural problems” (Cai 2021). Using classical history and literature is a habit China has tried to rid itself of, however as we can see, it was not entirely successful.
In the same year, a China Economic Weekly article was released, coining the term “sissy capital” (niangpao ziben 娘炮资本). This article was warning against the expansion of capital and thus politicized the gender expression in China. As Wang and Bao (2023) stress in their article, “...the gender and sexuality also assume the significance of political economy and national security” (p. 343). Wang and Bao (2023) also mention another important point, that culture has become a type of battleground where things like power and gender intersect (p. 344). This is taking an interdisciplinary approach when we study Digital Authoritarianism in places like China is necessary.
To better understand how digital platforms curb cultural expression, we need to look at content moderation online a bit more closely. When we talk about digital platforms related to culture, we mean an entire spectrum of sites, from social media sites like Weibo, to video-sharing sites like Bilibili or online televisions like iQiyi. Places such as Weibo used to have relatively lenient censorship rules up until the mid-2010s. In May 2022, however, the National Radio and Television Administration published new guidelines according to which all series streaming online had to follow the same rules as the series on television and get licenced. This strengthened control of the government over what content was published online and, over time, caused online content to fall in line with the new rules on morality.
Censorship often happens through department notices, more often than through new laws, such as from the National Radio and Television Administration, along with trade associations. State directives are enforced in many different ways - it can be through content moderation and censorship (removing and suppressing content), preemptively censoring suspicious content, through algorithmic deprioritization (which happens to be important when studying cultural content which often relies on fanbases to spread information about the actors or other idols online), content production guidelines (that can mean anything from positive energy quotas to focusing on things like masculinity or patriotism, that is also crucial for the type of content this essay has in mind), reporting and surveillance, and lastly, idol management. There are many ways that Chinese censors can de-platform idols/actors or edit-out scenes that do not correspond to currently valid government directives.
This illustrates that China’s crackdown is better understood as a comprehensive system of digital value governance.
Exporting the Authoritarian Aesthetic
As was previously noted, China’s regulation of gendered aesthetics is not a mere tool for controlling its domestic population. It also happens to be a soft power projection tool that tries to push a vision of a China as a “bastion of moral order” and tries to normalize it globally. Thus, cultural governance becomes a part of its foreign policy strategy.
State directives do not stay in China, but through enforcement on the platforms themselves, they spread globally to other countries. Chinese tech giants that we mentioned before, such as Bilibili or iQiyi, spread the dramas and other TV series through translation, or through
international partnerships. In 2023, a new law permitting co-productions of web series was passed (NRTA 2023), making the spreading of Chinese ideology through the internet to Greater China and further abroad even easier. But even before this directive takes hold, there are already many state-approved dramas that are internationally promoted, such as Ace Troops (Wangpai Budui 王 牌部队). The drama was selected for a small case study based on its popularity and its large promotion by the government. This drama takes place in a military setting, featuring many traditionally masculine actors and using minimal makeup on them, in order to fulfill the expectations of masculinity that now exist. Ace Troops is broadcast online, with hardcoded subtitles and available to watch worldwide.
An examination of the comment section of the drama on iQiyi suggest that most of the people watching seem to be Westerners who enjoyed the actors in other dramas they starred in - including some that ended up being targeted in the Campaign, such as The Untamed (Chen Qing Ling 陈青灵) - and almost none of the commenters seemed to be aware of the nefarious nature of the drama, some commenting on the censorship but only attributing it to the “sensitive nature of the topics observed” and not blaming the showrunners. Critical reactions were thus almost nonexistent, which suggests that the Chinese propaganda through Digital Authoritarianism might be working and the spread of their moral vision of what society is may be successful as well.
Similar judgement can be made when observing the reactions on the Taiwanese message board PTT - not many people realize the gravity of watching a Chinese military dramas and the few ones who do still watch it due to the presence of their favourite idol (sleepsnow 2021). There have been efforts by the Taiwanese government to ban streaming platforms from China (The Straits Times 2019), however those were criticized by free speech experts for being too similar to China. The efforts have never been realized, instead, the government opted for banning local sales for streaming services (The Business Times 2020).
Masculinity in Chinese dramas thus serves as a form of moral foreign policy that has the potential to be very effective. While seeking to inspire a surge of national pride at home, it also tries to signal an alternative to Western liberal values that are popular abroad - especially in regions where the alignment with China remains contested.
Some may argue that the aesthetic campaigns might simply reflect the longstanding traditionalism of China, instead of being driven by a desire for authoritarian control. While cultural traditions do influence social behaviour, in the cases selected for analysis, the Chinese state actively uses and mobilizes them to serve political ends. This transforms pure heritage to a tool of social control.
Authoritarian Aesthetic as Foreign Policy Signal: Implications for Digital Governance
China appears to be attempting to set a precedent that visual norms can be legitimate domains of state control, and thus moves past the traditional ways of censorship and propaganda. The entire goal of China’s control appears to be social legibility, meaning they are attempting to homogenize the aesthetic expression of people. This way, certain ways of dressing, styling or even entire sexual orientations can disappear from the digital space. As a consequence, the governance of media and the governance of identity become blurred. China’s model is gaining traction among authoritarian and semi-authoritarian regimes worldwide. While the “Digital Silk Road” - which provides different friendly countries with technology and know-how to implement similar models abroad (there are many ways through which China does this - such as promoting its cyber-governance model, providing strategic advice to governments regarding the implementation of similar repressive laws etc. [as Wahlberg Scott 2021, p. 38, mentions]) - has been around for many years, countries are now starting to use their technology in similar ways or simply considering doing so. For example, Russia can be seen adopting similar techniques to control civil society and is also cracking down on anyone not fitting its “traditional values”. Other countries may find this appealing as it works subtly and effectively.
As we can already see in some cases, the control over aesthetic is becoming a norm. Some Chinese platforms include a built in handsomeness filter, or a morality filter (removing content not deemed aesthetic enough, such as “poor”, “ugly” or disabled people), and creators are starting to self-censor online.
A question remains - how do fans push against those changes and rules? Or do they internalize them? There are reports of fans adopting various strategies to push back against the censorship. One of them is changing the visibility of posts and restricting them to friends only, or using homophones to avoid words on blocklists (Sun 2024). However we can only speculate if those methods will be enough in the future for beating censorship.
Conclusion
In this essay, we have attempted to explore how China uses Digital Authoritarian methods to target people who don’t fall into the regime’s desired behaviour pattern. The essay argued how China’s regulation of celebrity imagery is a strategic form of Digital Authoritarianism that is a foreign policy signal, not only a domestic control as many may think, and how it is important to talk more about the control over visual imagery.
Via managing pop culture aesthetics, China tries to project a carefully curated image of its national values - thus promoting its model on the international stage. This is very effective, especially in the rest of East Asia and Southeast Asian countries, where many avid fans of Chinese popular culture tend to not see the media they consume in a more objective way. Despite China trying to leave its traditional culture behind, it still uses it to promote old-fashioned ideals and the entire pattern of behaviour is actually consistent throughout history - however unlike Sun Yat-sen, the current leaders do have the means and the technology to see the reversion to conservative values through.
What remains to be seen is how will the rest of the world stand up against those policies - a good way would be to fund more research on aesthetic control, more media literacy programs, or fund independent cultural exports into authoritarian countries like China and also focus on fan initiatives. It is important to recognize them as cultural actors in their own way, not only passive consumers.
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Olga Solovyeva, PhD | Good tech & Digital safety strategist | London, UK
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