ENDLESS ‘WAR’ WITHIN CHINESE SOCIETY

Pocket Crimes under China’s New Authoritarianism

 

The pocket crime trend underwent another dramatic shift under the leadership of President Xi Jinping since he took office in 2014. “Picking quarrels and provoking troubles” (寻事滋事, xunshizishi) has become the new representative of pocket crimes. While China’s official approach has always involved pocket crimes as a governance tool, there has been a significant shift in their use against targeted individuals between Deng Xiaoping’s administration (1978-1989) and today. In Xi's era, China has reverted to a stance reminiscent of the Mao era, viewing dissenters as enemies who must be eradicated, rather than simply perceiving them as troublemakers or rogues who merely disrupt social order. The latter, at least, leaves room for negotiation. In contrast, the legal interpretation of “picking quarrels and provoking troubles” encompasses any behavior deemed by those in power to be detrimental to political rule, whether it is a street brawl or a political protest.

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The white paper movement in Shanghai in 2022 serves as an example. This movement aims to commemorate the lives lost when people could not escape burning buildings due to strict epidemic controls in Urumqi, Xinjiang. Numerous people gathered on Urumqi Road in Shanghai to protest the government’s harsh lockdown policies. The movement originated in a Soviet political joke, well known in Chinese society, that subsequently emerged as a form of protest in recent political movements. In the joke, police arrested people with white paper in their hands, indicating that they knew their intentions to resist even if they said nothing.

 

In China, as an act of resistance, people take to the streets holding up white paper to protest the illegality of speaking out against the CCP. This protest tactic has been observed in various political movements, starting from the anti-extradition protests in Hong Kong in 2019-2020. The Chinese government fiercely repressed the white paper movement with many participants arrested and charged with picking quarrels and provoking troubles. These arrests led to their subsequent disappearance. Even lawyers were denied access to them (Made in China Editors 2023).

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"The ubiquity of policing and pervasive paranoia lead to a widespread conspiracy mentality, with everyone accusing one another in a veritable war of all against all."

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Furthermore, picking quarrels and provoking troubles is often just the beginning of repression. If the crackdown becomes extreme, political dissidents are likely to be identified as a national security threat, thereby facing even harsher penalties. Fang Ran, a doctoral student in sociology at the University of Hong Kong, was surveilled and detained by the National Security Bureau in 2021 for subverting China’s state power. He has since lost contact with the outside world (Lau & Lau 2021). Arbitrary prosecution allows the Chinese government to control political opposition and even prevent it from forming in the first place. Hence, the law becomes a weapon in its unjust war against citizens and society, supposedly to maintain national security.

 

The White Civil War in China

 

There is no sensationalism in concluding that we must speak of a permanent war in China. Recall the events of Hong Kong four years ago. In the summer of 2019, the local authority declared a war against the protesters almost as soon as the Anti-Extradition Law Amendment Bill Movement began. When the indignant protesters occupied the legislative council, a speaker of the Chinese government bluntly referred to them as a “mob” and even “terrorists.” According to the officer, China holds zero-tolerance towards separatism; hence, the only choice is a war that aims at complete destruction of the protestors who are now deemed as the most deplorable of China’s enemies.

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Without a doubt, pocket crimes are key weapons in this enduring war that the Chinese government is waging against its own citizens. A paradigm of politics is now materializing, wherein the politics itself is nothing but a permanent war. Such a permanent war can no longer be deemed a war in the classic sense of two enemy states opposing each other on the battlefield. Instead, it is a war waged by a state aspiring to totalitarian control over its perceived enemies within, aiming to identify and eradicate all potential risks that may threaten the status quo.

 

It should be emphasized that everyone is a potential enemy. To be an enemy is to be a subject of governance, just as this war of pacification is a technique of governance, both made possible with the reapplication of the pocket crime. This facilitates the CCP’s stringent surveillance measures that not only target specific groups for repression but also extends to monitoring and intimidating every corner of society. Pocket crimes thus construct a terrifying social atmosphere where anyone could potentially be convicted for any behavior that violates the will of the rulers. This atmosphere further strengthens the citizens’ psychological fear and submissiveness towards the regime. The ubiquity of policing and pervasive paranoia lead to a widespread conspiracy mentality, with everyone accusing one another in a veritable war of all against all.