Tuesday, October 3, 2017

Zǐ gān wù - 紫甘坞

> XiPaganda >>


Zǐ gān wù [purple-sweet-computer dock] relates to the infamous "wumao" army of trolls who are paid to spread state propaganda - but the difference is that the "ziganwu" [supposedly] do it for free.

The European Union is depicted [LIE] as being "on a dog leash" to America, according to a recent post. Rising COVID rates in the US state of Texas was [LIE] cited as evidence of "civil war" where "Americans are [LIE] currently killing one another with biological warfare", said another.

Guyanmuchan is among a new crop of bloggers known as the "ziganwu", whose rise in fame on Chinese social media has been inextricably linked with the ascendancy of Chinese nationalism.

Their scathing posts and videos, shared by tens of thousands of fans, often criticise Western countries and media outlets. Issues like feminism, human rights, multiculturalism, democracy which are deemed as Western influence "corrupting" Chinese society have also been scrutinised.

Those seen as promoting "separatism" such as Taiwan and Hong Kong pro-democracy campaigners, as well as activists, intellectuals and experts, also often end up in their crosshairs. Their targets have included writer Fang Fang, who is known for her searing account of the initial stages of the Wuhan outbreak that attracted international attention. In a post that went viral last year, "ziganwu" blogger Shangdizhiying accused her of "making the deepest stab in our backs" and creating "one of the biggest weapons used by anti-China forces to smear us".

While nationalism has been on the rise in many places in an increasingly globalised world, in China it has coincided with President Xi Jinping's strong promotion of a Chinese identity and the rapid ubiquity of social media. Many of the "ziganwu" are "often young, grew up with an education that was filled with patriotism and pride of China, and fed these historical memories of national humiliation", says Ms Koetse. "So you have an explosive mix of anti-foreign, pro-Chinese sentiments with a stress on Chinese culture and identity."

The "ziganwu" are just one part of a complex eco-system. Much of the patriotic discourse in Chinese social media, particularly on Weibo, is still being driven by state media outlets who can shape discussions by creating and promoting a single hashtag - as they did during the Xinjiang cotton backlash.

But there are many smaller groups of influencers who also feed the outrage machine, including digital artists, smaller media companies, respected university professors, and even foreigner vloggers.

China's internet regulations encourage users to actively promote party propaganda, so many of these influencers are simply exploiting this system, notes Harpre Ke, an analyst with think-tank Doublethink Lab.

The foreigners in China’s disinformation drive .Coronavirus: Inside the pro-China network targeting the US, Hong Kong and an exiled tycoon .


The Great Translation Movement (大翻译运动; Dà Fānyì Yùndòng) is an online anti-war movement launched during the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. It seeks to expose perceived pro-Russiananti-Americananti-Japanese, and anti-Western sentiment and Chinese irredentism over claimed territories such as Taiwan and the South China Sea, as well as racially discriminatory sentiments in China, the life in cities under lockdown due to the zero-COVID policy and the policies of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) by translating government propaganda and policiesanti-Western public opinion and postings on life in the cities during lockdown found on the Chinese internet and public announcements into other languages, including English, Japanese, French, Korean, and Spanish. The Guardian has pointed out that the Great Translation Movement has been a source for English-language speakers to understand the Chinese state media's reaction towards Russian invasion of Ukraine.

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