Three trends on China’s internet in 2011
Looking back at China’s internet in 2011, there were three broad trends that deserve greater attention. The first trend was a general shift from emotionally-driven nationalist chatter as the defining tone of China’s internet toward a more basic attention to issues of public welfare. The second was the rise of what we can call the “social power of the internet” (网络社会力 ). And the third trend was a more pronounced deficit in understanding on the government’s part about the role it should play in a networked society. While it became readily apparent, that is, that we now have a networked civil society in China, it became clearer at the same time that we lack government administrators who are internet literate
Nationalism has been a defining issue on China’s internet since the very beginning. ... The nationalist trend online peaked in 2008 following March riots in Tibet that year, and in the midst of the international torch relay for the Beijing Olympics. ... Many people still sympathetically push for greater Chinese nationalism, calling for a stronger China. But ever since 2008 the trend has been for nationalistic agendas to take a back seat to agendas relating to the welfare of the people. As social tensions in China have grown more serious, Chinese have devoted more attention to social development issues that are more concretely relevant to their lives.
China is entering an era of “rights.” Farmers, workers and an newly-emerging middle class are all fighting for their civil rights. Since the 1990s, along with a number of “important turns and other reversals” (Sun Liping’s phrase), there has been a clear expansion of social conflict and opposition in China, both in terms of frequency and scale. Researchers have observed that perhaps one of the most apparent new characteristics of this [social unrest] is the use of sophisticated electronic technologies, which enable protesters to connect more readily and make it possible also to communicate with media and supporters in the international community.
The internet naturally generates knowledge and value from the end user and not from centralized gatekeepers — and the right to connectivity, use and dissemination are to a great degree built into the fabric of the internet. For this reason, the building of internet governance policies should proceed along the same lines, raising competition, encouraging innovation, permitting free expression, raising credibility, all with minimal government interference.
Unfortunately, internet governance in China at present goes entirely against these principles. If China’s internet is to continue to develop, internet users and the government will have to work together toward mutual interests, jointly formulating principles [for internet use and development].
http://cmp.hku.hk/2012/01/16/18013/
It's a really long article with a lot of insights (or at least informed opinions) into what is happening in China.