2011 Chinese pro-democracy protests

Initial call The anonymous call for a 'Jasmine revolution' in China's major cities was made online by an overseas group calling themselves "The Initiators and Organizers of the Chinese Jasmine Revolution". The group, whose majority of members were based outside of China, made their calls on the Boxun blog, run by overseas dissidents, and then on Twitter. The initial call for protest began on 19 February 2011 when 12 to 13 cities were suggested. The Boxun.com appeal called for protests to take place each weekend, arguing that "sustained action will show the Chinese government that its people expect accountability and transparency that doesn't exist under the current one-party system." For 6 March, protesters were urged to "either gather near fast-food restaurants, take a stroll, or eat at the restaurants, ... [and order] set meal No3 at the McDonald's and the KFC". ==February 2011==

20 February The Associated Press reported that only "a handful of people" were known to have been actively involved in organizing the staging rallies in 13 cities. One demonstrator condemned the government as "a tyranny that suppresses the citizens." The United States Ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman, Jr., was seen at the protest rendezvous point. Huntsman exchanged a few words with people in Chinese and then his entourage departed the site immediately. Huntsman had previously stood outside a court in Beijing to protest the conviction of an American sentenced on espionage charges, as well as posting a message on Weibo about Internet freedom. US Embassy spokesman Richard Buangan said that Huntsman happened to be passing by a nearby McDonald's and were unaware of the protest. He later condemned the Chinese government for its crackdown on the protests. 27 February After the police responded to the protests on 20 February, the organizers urged the participants not to shout slogans anymore, but simply to stroll silently at the respective protest sites. The call to use "strolling" tactics for the 27 February gatherings was made on the Boxun.com website on 22 February. The Wall Street Journal stated, "while several Chinese people were seen having altercations with the police, there were no signs of actual protests." Beijing Several foreign journalists were physically beaten by the police, with many others physically pushed by the police, their cameras confiscated and footage deleted. The Foreign Correspondents' Club of China denounced the attack on Engle, and called for journalists' physical safety to be guaranteed by the authorities. CNN reporter Eunice Yoon reported that a policeman in Wangfujing knocked a camera out of her colleague Jo Ling Kent's hand and six police officers physically forced them into a bank, where they were detained for half an hour. Yoon remarked after the incident that "there had been no protests for us to cover", and that the incident "show[ed] how incredibly terrified and paranoid the Chinese authorities are". CBS News producer Connie Young was also forcefully carried off by plainclothes police officers and detained after she filmed VOA bureau chief, Stephanie Ho, being wrestled to the ground by plainclothes police officers. Ho was filming when she was quickly attacked and detained by uniformed and plainclothes police officers. ATV journalists and a TVB cameraman were also reportedly briefly detained. ATV News reported that their footage at the rally site was deleted by officers. Chinese security forces also visited a few Western journalists in their apartments with nighttime visits asking to behave "cooperatively." Otherwise, they warned, the authorities would refuse to extend their work permits at the end of the year. Shanghai In Shanghai on 27 February, protestors prevented police from arresting an elderly man, when they "reacted instantly and angrily, emitting a guttural roar and surging forward almost as one", according to the South China Morning Post. Protestors included elderly people and youths documenting the protest with cameras and phones. Some of the core participants appeared to be "deliberately obstructing police efforts to keep the crowd flowing". Other protestors spoke to foreign journalists and joked to each other about police difficulties in stopping "demonstrations that were not actually happening". ==March 2011==

6 March Beijing was under tight security due to a session of the National People's Congress, and some 180,000 police and 560,000 security volunteers were already on patrol. There was a heavy police presence on Sunday in parts of Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen to which protests had been called. In Beijing, journalists saw no obvious sign of protesters. There were yet more reports of foreign journalists being detained in Shanghai, leading to sharp objections from the Foreign Ministries of Germany and Australia. Members of the League of Social Democrats tried to place a branch of jasmine in front of the Central Government Offices in Hong Kong. 13 March According to Deutsche Presse-Agentur, there were several hundred police in the Wangfujing and Xidan districts in Beijing, including uniformed police with dogs, paramilitary police, plainclothes police, special forces units and security guards. More than 40 police were present at the Peace Cinema in Shanghai. ==Government reaction==

Arrests charged with inciting subversion of state power About 35 leading Chinese activists have been arrested or detained by authorities Tiananmen Square protest student leader, Ding Mao, Chengdu-based activist and legal advisor Li Shuangde, who was sentenced to four months in prison on charges of credit card fraud, is considered the first to have been sentenced on "jasmine" related charges. Since the 19 February protest announcement, more than a hundred people have been summoned or questioned by police, and up to 200 people are subject to reinforced supervision or house arrest. The highest-profile arrest is Ai Weiwei, who was taken into police custody on 3 April in Beijing. Amid Boxun's online campaign, Ai had posted on his Twitter account on 24 February: "I didn't care about jasmine at first, but people who are scared by jasmine sent out information about how harmful jasmine is often, which makes me realize that jasmine is what scares them the most. What a jasmine!" Ai's studio was raided by police, who took away computer equipment; a number of his entourage were also arrested by police. Analysts and other activists said Ai had been widely thought to be untouchable, but Nicholas Bequelin from Human Rights Watch suggested that his arrest, calculated to send the message that no-one would be immune, must have had the approval of someone in the top leadership. The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs said on 7 April that Ai was under investigation for 'economic crimes'. Censorship China Mobile and China Unicom blocked the word "jasmine". Searches for "jasmine" were also blocked on China's largest microblog, Sina Weibo, and status updates with the word on Chinese social networking site Renren were met with an error message and a warning to refrain from postings with "political, sensitive ... or other inappropriate content." When PRC censors attempted to limit news of the Arab Spring by disabling internet searches for Chinese words such as "Egypt," "Tunisia," and "jasmine", protest organizers urged bloggers and activists to call planned protests lianghui instead, a widely used expression in the official news originally pointing to the two conferences "Fourth Session of the Eleventh National People's Congress" and "Fourth Session of the Eleventh CPPCC" happening in March in Beijing. If the government were to censor this dissenters' circumlocution, it would effectively block internet news about the governmental NPC and CPPCC meetings. Following calls for a "Jasmine Revolution" on Twitter, Chinese users of Twitter began to notice a number of new accounts, sometimes using the names or images of Chinese democracy activists. Tweets by the new accounts took a hostile position to calls for demonstrations. In late March, Google stated that intermittent problems with Gmail in the PRC constitute "a government blockage carefully designed to look like the problem is with Gmail". PC Mag attributed the blockage to the calls for a "Jasmine Revolution" in the PRC. Other security measures More than 20 Chinese cities stepped up security measures, with armed forces ordered to stand by in case of emergency. CPC General Secretary and President Hu Jintao delivered a speech in the Central Party School on 19 February instructing senior management to better manage social problems and internet incitement. Chinese artist Ai Weiwei said that there were tight controls on university students to prevent students from participating in protests. He alleged that teachers had received "a certain note ordering them to do their duty, otherwise they will be in trouble, or their school will be in trouble." Jasmine flower ban On 10 May 2011, The New York Times reported that Beijing police had banned the sale of jasmine flowers at various flower markets, causing wholesale prices to collapse. Some vendors stated that Beijing police wanted written assurances that no jasmine flowers would be sold in their stalls. The Guangxi Jasmine Development and Investment Company, organizers of the China International Jasmine Cultural Festival, said that officials canceled the 2011 summer festival. ==Reactions==

Domestic High-level Chinese government official Zhao Qizheng said on 23 February that the probability of China having a "Jasmine Revolution" is "preposterous and unrealistic". Premier Wen Jiabao participated in a web chat on 27 February that France 24 described as an "apparent bid to defuse" the call for weekly gatherings. It added that with the web chat, "state media blanketed the nation over the internet, television and radio on Sunday morning with two hours of remarks by Wen Jiabao". Wu Bangguo's five "No's" Addressing the meeting of the National People's Congress, its chairman Wu Bangguo dismissed any notion of political reform, saying that Western-style democracy would have dire consequences and that any loosening of the Party's hold on power could undermine stability and risk domestic strife, and he also advocated the five "no's" – no multi-party election; no diversified guiding principles, no separation of powers, no federal system, and no privatization. Wu, who belongs to the conservative faction of the leadership, said: "We have made a solemn declaration that we will not employ a system of multiple parties holding office in rotation; diversify our guiding thought; separate executive, legislative and judicial powers; use a bicameral or federal system; or carry out privatisation." Analysts said the warnings were aimed at consolidating the party's power, in reaction to calls for liberal democracy in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya. The Wall Street Journal said that the online protest appeal could cause concern among Chinese Communist Party leaders, as other uprisings against authoritarian governments elsewhere could impact China. CNN journalist Eunice Yoon and her news crew headed out to Wangfujing to cover the "response to anonymous calls on the Internet to stage protests and begin a Tunisia-style "Jasmine Revolution" in China", Taiwan protests On 24 February, whilst visiting Kaohsiung to discuss economic ties between the People's Republic of China and Taiwan (ROC), Chen Yunlin, Chairman of mainland China's Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits, was mobbed by about 200 protesters at Kaohsiung Harbor. Some protesters threw chrysanthemum flowers at him (as Jasmine flowers were not in season), while others tried to deliver plastic jasmine flowers and juice to him. Earlier, at Kaohsiung Station, Chen had already encountered two groups of demonstrators, one supporting Taiwanese independence and another Chinese unification. According to police, the groups both numbered about 50 people. ==See also==