“Protest is Just a Click Away!” Responses to the 2003 Iraq War on a Bulletin Board System in China

Abstract

The Internet as an important cultural medium in the (re)production of geopolitical affairs has increasingly elicited close scrutiny by scholars working in popular geopolitics. However, recent exhortations have appealed for more expansive geographical imaginations to extend such research outside Anglo-American contexts. This paper focuses on one influential Mandarin bulletin board system (BBS) in China, the Qiangguo Luntan (QGLT), by critically analyzing the posted responses to a specific geopolitical event—the 2003 US-initiated war in Iraq. I argue that the lively discussions pertaining to post-9/11 global anxieties, (dis)order, and counterterror initiatives on QGLT demonstrate how interconnected Chinese communities are able to weave alternative viewpoints and shape antiwar consensus through the broad bandwidth of networked technology beyond the purview of territorially based governments. Furthermore, with China having a tightly controlled media industry whereby people's voices are seldom heard (or seen), these online debates also offer poignant reflections on the intermeshing issues of democracy, civic participation, and citizenship. Finally, it is with hope that this paper provides a crucial intervention into considering how the surplus capacity of information networks (such as the BBS) can be mobilized for nonviolent agendas to detract from the excessive terrors and endless violence that continue to mire contemporary geopolitics.