Towards a More Proactive Method: Regulating Public Opinion on Chinese Microblogs under Xi’s New Leadership

ABSTRACT: Drawing upon policy analysis and textual analysis of official microblogs, this paper describes how Xi’s new leadership regulates public opinion and public emotion in Chinese microblogs. The paper argues that the advent of the Xi Jinping administration demonstrates much more aggressive ideological demands. On the one hand, the new leadership has increasingly ramped up its efforts on censoring information and repressing critical public opinion. On the other hand, however, it has paid more attention to proactively guiding public opinion on the Internet. New strategies, represented by cultivating self-discipline among Internet users, repressing the insubordinate and wooing obedient public opinion leaders, establishing cooperation between official microblogs, and eliminating emotional outpourings in the microblogsphere have been used in Xi’s new ideological campaign to repress Internet rumours and sanitise critical public discourse. KEYWORDS: Internet policy, Xi’s leadership, censorship, guiding public opinion and emotion, Chinese microblog.