Democracy, Whiskey, ... Hibiscus?

A recurring theme in my coverage of China has been its government's attempts to control the internet. In an earlier, related post, I quoted Strategy Page on the subject.

Police states, like China, have a serious problem with the Internet. They need it, for economic reasons. The Internet has become part of the worldwide economic infrastructure. But the Internet also allows unfettered exchange of information. For a police state, this is bad. A police state remains in power, in part, by controlling the media. China has a booming economy, and cannot afford to lock down, or keep out, the Internet, as has happened in police states with poor economies (North Korea, Cuba, Burma). So China is adding more software, and personnel, to police Chinese Internet users.

Today, an interesting story crops up that indicates a peculiar difficulty faced by the Chinese government: Its own attempts to enforce conservative sexual mores (See Note.) might be helping to undercut its own attempts at censorship.

Via Matt Drudge, I learned of recent attempts by the Chinese government to squelch a national craze over its latest internet-born star, a woman nicknamed "Sister Furong" ("furong" meaning "hibiscus").

She is seen as a pioneer pushing the boundaries of traditional media controls but in the process has become a target of government censors in the tightly controlled country.

Sister Furong started the craze by posting pictures of herself -- draped back-down over a stone ball, bent at the knees with her chest thrust out suggestively and in other poses -- on Internet bulletin boards of two top Beijing universities to which she had tried but failed to gain entrance.

The shots, and accompanying captions and passages she wrote proclaiming her own beauty and talent, became a campus sensation.

But when her cult status began to sweep the whole country, Beijing stepped in.

"They've cracked down on me," Sister Furong, a 28-year-old whose real name is Shi Hengxia, told Reuters.

In late July, authorities told the country's top blog host to move Furong-related content to low-profile parts of the site. Her pictures can still be found online, but links to them and chatrooms about her have disappeared from the front pages of major Web portals.

And after blanket coverage earlier this year, newspapers, magazines and television have recently given almost no time to Sister Furong, who originally came from a rural area of central Shaanxi province.

As Robert Tracinski frequently puts it when reporting on the limitations of our Islamofascist foes, "The enemy has problems of his own." If these tame (at least by American standards) shots are typical of what the Chinese government is trying to control, they have their work cut out for them!

I really don't see how the Chi-Comms are going to maintain such a tight lid on the internet at all, much less for any length of time. So they want to keep up with 120 million internet users looking for stuff like this? On top of stifling political dissent? The latter task will be hard enough without the distraction of the former. This attempt to enforce such puritannical mores (which is not the first I've reported -- scroll down) is good news for freedom in China: It promises to drain attention and resources from the despots if carried out, and to make the public want even more personal freedom if it isn't.

Here's hoping for a "Hibiscus Revolution!"

-- CAV

Note: On further reflection, I'm not completely sure that this is an example of China attempting to enforce sexual mores. It could simply be an attempt to prevent the internet from being viewed too easily as an acceptable alternative means of achieving stardom. But even if the latter is a better interpretation of what the Chi-Comms are hoping to accomplish, it would look like that particular genie is out of the bottle already.

What are the authorities trying to do here? Enforce traditional Chinese sexual morality? (If so, why the previous media coverage? This was also umm "cracked-down upon".) Put internet star wannabes in their place? Both? Something else entirely? I still lean towards my first explanation, but would like to hear anyone else's thoughts on this.

Updates

8-23-05: Added Note.