The sad truth about China's online nationalist anger is that it can be manipulated and sincere at the same time
a Chinese fashion blogger, “Stylist Zoe”, invited her 7.4m followers to take an online poll, asking whether they would wear freshly cooked shrimp as earrings. A mere 1,300 voted. Two days later, however, Zoe hit the jackpot. Over a million netizens responded to her poll, posted on Weibo, the country’s largest microblog platform, asking what followers think of foreign brands that “insult China”. Her timing was impeccable.
To outsiders, these alleged offences may seem footling. But luxury brands—whose largest single market is often China—offered grovelling apologies. Expressions of contrition from foreign designers ands were paraded across social-media sites, joined by resignation letters from Chinese celebrities, noisily quitting as envoys for errant brands and stressing their love for the motherland.
A closer look at those online nationalists is more troubling. It is true that government propagandists have worked hard to whip up this latest storm. Communist Party social-media accounts have gleefully asserted that foreign firms must work harder to uphold China’s sacred territorial unity, or feel the “cold, cold” wrath of 1.4bn patriotic consumers.
Some unhappy patriots hold plum jobs at the foreign companies under attack. Chaguan spoke this week to a Chinese staffer employed by one of the firms accused of insulting China. The staffer described Chinese colleagues debating their firm’s actions on WeChat, a social media app ubiquitous in China, adding that Western colleagues “either didn’t dare or didn’t want to talk about it with Chinese staff”. The firm did not set out to offend China, the employee believes.
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