Online dissent in China doesn't mean Xi is on his way out
Faced with rising youth unemployment, elite disaffection and a deteriorating administrative apparatus, it's tempting to believe the Chinese leader is on the way out. But this narrative, while seductive, fundamentally misreads the evolving architecture of digital authoritarianism in China.
What looks like volatility is often a carefully staged illusion. For those unfamiliar with China's digital ecology, a surge in online dissent might be taken as a sign of insecurity. But through the lens of internetwork society, this is precisely how power is maintained. Rather than crumbling, Xi Jinping's regime has grown more sophisticated — tightening its control through new instruments of emotional manipulation and algorithmic governance.
The internet is not a battlefield between free voices and censors, but a state-engineered matrix of intersubjectivity — a shared sense of what can be thought, felt and done. The CCP doesn't just control what is seen; it shapes how people feel about what they see and how they believe others feel, too. Kevin J. O'Brien's 1996 theory of 'rightful resistance' still resonates — but the CCP has built pathways to reroute it. The result is a feedback loop: Digital advocacy exists not to contest power, but to strengthen the state's claim to moral authority. By allowing selective grievances to surface, the party presents itself as receptive. But the moment grievances become systemic or principle-based, they are erased.
A striking example came on June 24 with the viral case of the 'Guangxi Girl.' A video posted on Douyin (Chinese TikTok) and widely reshared, showed a young woman from Guangxi province being abruptly seized and taken away in an ambulance. Her cries — 'I have hepatitis B!' — triggered a wave of online speculation that she was being forcibly hospitalized or worse. The comments discuss poverty, health and public distrust — all sensitive topics for the CCP.
In Xi's China, online discussion of cases like Guangxi Girl's is allowed — until the focus shifts from interest to rights. The existence of such online content shows not the fragility of Xi's rule, but its sophistication. The debate was allowed, even as official media labeled the story 'fake news' and proclaimed that the original poster of the video had been punished.
Viral protest in China is not a sign of regime collapse; it is part of a calculated cycle. Each act of censorship teaches not just what not to say, but what it means to remain safe, loyal and visible in the CCP's omnipresent gaze. We should resist projecting Western models of political turnover onto China's Leninist party-state. Xi hasn't just solidified his role; he has transformed the CCP's internal logic. Through ideological campaigns and loyalty purges, he's reshaped the CCP into a machine of 'centralized unity' — capable of absorbing dissent by converting it into reinforcement of the very power structure it critiques. This is not the brittle dictatorship of the past, but a resilient digital Leviathan, adaptable and emotionally literate.
It's part of a sophisticated choreography that allows temporary outbursts of grievance, only to reassert party control through a spectacle of rescue or reprimand. The CCP no longer simply silences dissent; it manages, choreographs and deploys performance, visibility and emotional modulation to reinforce its own legitimacy. What really unfolds is an internetwork society, a digitally mediated governance regime in which state and society are deliberately interwoven. Citizens are invited to participate, but only within scripts set by the party.
China's digital infrastructure has been weaponized not just to censor, but to shape how people feel about what they see. Through algorithmic modulation, emotional scripting and selective visibility, the party governs not only speech but intersubjectivity itself. The digital sphere in China scripts, simulates, and absorbs dissent, and its advocacy becomes a feedback loop, reinforcing the party's paternalistic frame rather than contesting its power.
Xi's consolidation of power extends far beyond his 2018 abolition of presidential term limits. His ongoing anti-corruption campaign neutralizes rivals while presenting the party as self-correcting. His shift from 'zero-COVID' to zero dissent integrated public health infrastructure into ideological control. Every international flash point — from Taiwan to the South China Sea — becomes a catalyst for nationalism and a reaffirmation of Xi's authority.
This is why it is misleading to view viral protests as proof of regime weakness. The 'Guanxi Girl' case and others like it do not signify cracks in the system. They show how deeply the CCP has embedded itself in the emotional logic of digital life. A key strategy in this matrix is the CCP's calculated distinction between public interest advocacy and public rights advocacy.
My research examines how the CCP strategically differentiates between interest-based advocacy under party guidance and rights-based advocacy. The former — in the form of local corruption exposes, environmental complaints or rural poverty stories — is permitted, even encouraged, when it reinforces the CCP's role as paternal protector. Rights-based advocacy is different. It is inherited as the traditional practice of 'remonstrance for Dao,' which empowers the public to call for justice, constitutionalism or structural reform. Citizens are allowed to speak, but emotional expression is only permitted when it reinforces the CCP's paternal image. Structural critique is punished.
This distinction defines the CCP's ideological survival strategy, which is central to how the CCP controls meaning in a digitally mediated society. By allowing selective public grievances to surface, the regime co-opts discontent. But by cracking down on those who invoke rights or systemic change, it prevents the emergence of an alternative intersubjective consensus.
The goal is not total censorship, but emotional channeling: to let the people feel angry, as long as they feel that the state feels their anger too. The CCP steers public interest-based advocacy under guidance that legitimizes the party's role as both the cause of grievances and their remedy. Central to this process is Xi's concept of a 'public opinion struggle,' which revives and intensifies Jiang Zemin-era media control, embedding the CCP's power as the programmer and switcher of public discourse.
The result is mass internalization of party ideology. Between 2008 and 2022, CCP membership swelled from 75.9 million to 96 million, according to the Council on Foreign Relations. Party identity has become embedded in social mobility, status and emotional allegiance. Xi's neologism-laden political doctrine isn't merely propaganda — it acts as code, programming discourse across platforms. Borrowing from Manuel Castells' network theory, Xi has become both the 'programmer' and 'switcher' of China's emotional and ideological infrastructure.
Yes, China faces a legitimacy crisis. State capacity is declining, birth rates are falling and trust is eroding. But these crises are absorbed through dynamic repression — an intentional balance of visibility and vulnerability, proximity and purge, spotlight and suppression. The viral discussion of the 'Guangxi Girl' is not evidence of political fragility but rather an extension of the CCP's evolving digital governance strategy. These moments of protest are tolerated, choreographed and ultimately absorbed into the party's emotional and ideological feedback loop.
The future of resistance lies in whether collective, political, structural rights-based advocacy can escape the scripted boundaries of interest-based appeals under CCP supervision. Until China's internetwork society is truly decolonized from state-directed norms of emotion and participation, viral dissent will remain a mirror that reflects party power — not a window to its downfall. China's digital public sphere is not disentangled from the party's ideological machinery and curatorial hand yet.
So no, Xi Jinping isn't on his way out or about to fall. His power will not dissipate; the CCP's grip will not loosen, it will continue to adapt and metastasize. Xi is firmly embedded at the core of a system that has redefined how authoritarianism operates in the information age — through a blend of surveillance, sentiment management and strategic solidarity. He is the architect of a digital regime that doesn't just govern people; it governs how they feel about being governed. And as long as that emotional terrain of the internetwork society remains programmed and colonized by state-directed norms, the revolution will remain captured.
Yujing Shentu is a writer and analyst with a background in policy analysis and economic strategy, focusing on digital politics, international political economy and U.S.-China strategic competition. © 2025,The Diplomat
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