Diversion of public criticism and the politics of blame avoidance in China

Abstract

This article looks at how the Chinese government utilizes information control strategies to avoid taking responsibility for social problems. The authors argue that Beijing diverts public criticism by placing more responsibility for social problems on private enterprises, thereby benefiting itself and the public sector in the blame game. This approach differs from the tactics addressed in the existing literature, such as inciting nationalism to deflect criticism, diverting public attention to unrelated matters, or placing the blame on local-level governments. Through a comparative study of the criticisms on Weibo, censored posts accessible via Weiboscope, and opinions expressed on Twitter during the 2016 Wei Zexi Incident, this article demonstrates that the process of attributing blame to the private sector took some time to develop, but it was nonetheless successful in diverting public criticism away from state actors. The skewed attribution of responsibility to private enterprises served to reduce public criticism of the government and the public sector.