The Making of a Chinese Nationalist Internet User

On July 22, a group of teenage assailants attacked a student named Hou Jusen outside his high school in China’s eastern Shandong province, beating him with sticks and dousing him with pepper spray. The assault quickly went viral on microblogging platform Weibo after it was revealed that Hou was a self-styled “patriot” whose acerbic online nationalism had earned him digital enemies -- who had in turn uncovered Hou’s personal information and lain in wait for him at his school. Grassroots nationalism is a potent force in China today, and, fed by state media which often panders to such sentiment, it thrives in online spaces.

While Chinese authorities have even been known to recruit Internet users to post comments favorable to the government and ruling Communist Party, much of online nationalist sentiment is genuine, and those nationals can exchange vicious insults with more liberal, sometimes pro-Western users. A July 24 interview with Hou syndicated by state agency Xinhua reveals one teenage boy’s transition from casual Internet user to digital vigilante, who hopped from forum to forum and traded insults with other web users who strayed from the official party narrative.