This week
has seen an extraordinary surge in support for the artist and government
critic, Ai Weiwei, from people around China.
 |
| Tens of thousands of people have responded to Ai Weiwei's internet appeal for financial support |
By midday
on Friday, one of his staff members says, 7.57m yuan (£740,000; $1.19m) had
been donated to help the artist fight his tax demand from the government.
That is
over a million dollars raised in little more than a week.
Without a
doubt it is the appeals for help that have gone out over the internet that are
behind this.
They have
been posted by Ai Weiwei and others on China's microblogs.
More than
26,000 people have come forward.
Many of
them are convinced the tax demand is an attempt to silence Mr Ai and they want
to show their backing for him.
Famous for
helping design Beijing's Bird's Nest stadium for the Olympics, Ai Weiwei has
become of the most vocal critics of the ruling Communist Party.
Before his
arrest the internet was the tool that he used to spread his thoughts.
He would
spend hours avidly posting on Twitter or his Chinese microblogs.
 |
| Some of Ai Weiwei's supporters sent cash in envelopes, others used paper aeroplanes to launch it over a wall into his garden |
Since he
was held in secret detention earlier this year, then presented with his tax
demand, he has been confined to Beijing and is officially banned from giving
interviews.
But he has
returned to the internet and that is what has enabled Ai Weiwei to reach out to
those sympathetic to him.
The numbers
responding seem to have surprised even the artist himself.
China's
authorities have demanded that he pay 15.22 million yuan. To fight the claim he
has to put down half that sum as collateral.
Not long after
midday on Friday he had raised just about enough and announced that he would
challenge the demand.
Without his
internet fundraising it is almost certain he would never have had the cash to
be able to keep up his defiance.
'Healthy
internet culture'
A few
hundred miles away near Linyi city, another campaign of internet-powered
dissent is playing out.
The blind,
self-taught lawyer Chen Guangcheng will spend his birthday on Saturday still
confined to his home by local authorities.
The
building is floodlit, all communication with the outside world severed.
 |
| Chen Guangcheng's supporters are using social media to co-ordinate their campaign |
Chen
Guangcheng spent four years in jail, convicted of organising a group to disturb
traffic and damage property.
Most
believe he was really targeted for highlighting official abuses like a campaign
of forced abortions by local authorities.
Since his
release more than a year ago, he and his family have been kept under unofficial
house arrest, illegally, human rights groups say.
Chen
Guangcheng's supporters will almost certainly use the occasion of his birthday
to try, yet again, to visit him.
For weeks
now they have been turning up in small groups at his village.
It is an
unprecedented campaign by ordinary Chinese to reach someone the authorities
have placed under detention.
All those
attempting to get to him are intercepted by guards posted around the village -
and many have been beaten up - but still they keep trying.
Again it is
the internet and mobile phones they are using to co-ordinate and organise their
defiance.
Last
weekend, Communist Party officials called in senior executives from more than
three dozen internet, telecommunications and technology companies to discuss
controlling the flow of information on the internet.
They
included the bosses of the main microblog services.
It was
reported that they were urged to develop a "healthy internet
culture."
And on
Friday the General Administration of Press and Publications, the government
department which regulates the print media, published new rules that ban news
media from reporting any information on the internet unless it can be verified.
"Unverified
reports are on an upward trend, and to a certain extent that has undermined the
government's image, disrupted the information order, reduced the credibility of
the media and brought a strong social response," the agency said.
Those new
rules are designed to counter what officials say is the spread of
"rumours" that can harm social stability.
That, of
course, is a genuine concern for many governments.
But in two
different parts of China, the supporters of Ai Weiwei and Chen Guangcheng are
finding a new space on the internet to rally backers for their causes.
It is no
wonder that the issue of how to control China's hundreds of millions of
microblog users seems to be becoming more and more of a headache for the
Communist Party.
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