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2011 Chinese Jasmine Rallies

Inspired by Tunisia's Jasmine Revolution, Chinese netizens called in February 2011 for peaceful Sunday 2pm "strolls." The state responded with overwhelming force: preemptive detention of 100+ activists, a total internet blockade of the word "jasmine," thousands of police at rally sites, and beatings of foreign journalists. The movement was crushed within a month — the largest preemptive crackdown since 1989.

Time

February 20 – March 20, 2011 (every Sunday at 2pm)

Place

Beijing's Wangfujing, Shanghai's People's Square and 13 (later claimed 100+) cities; solidarity rallies in Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and New York

Decision-makers

Hu Jintao (ordered tighter internet control at the January 23 Politburo meeting); Zhou Yongkang (head of the stability-maintenance apparatus); Ministry of Public Security

Background: the Arab Spring

On December 17, 2010, Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire to protest the confiscation of his cart, igniting the Arab Spring. On January 14, 2011, Tunisia's President Ben Ali — in power 23 years — fled to Saudi Arabia; on February 11, Egypt's Mubarak fell after 18 days of protest. Both "Jasmine Revolutions" were internet-mobilized, bottom-up overthrows of long-ruling strongmen.

China looked stable on the surface: 2010 GDP overtook Japan's, and post-Olympics nationalism still lingered. But underlying tensions were acute — inequality, corruption, forced demolitions, tainted milk — while political reform had frozen since 1989. The internet became the only outlet: Sina Weibo exploded in 2010, and "watching changes China" (围观改变中国) became a catchphrase.

CCP leaders were deeply alarmed by Tunisia and Egypt. As early as January 23, 2011 — two days before Egypt's revolution began — Hu Jintao demanded "strengthened monitoring and management of the domestic internet" at a Politburo meeting. On February 19, he repeated the call to "manage the virtual society of the internet" at a Central Party School seminar. These two speeches set the tone for the month-long crackdown to come.

Who decided

The Hu Jintao–Zhou Yongkang leadership decided the crackdown — with Politburo Standing Committee member and security czar Zhou Yongkang running the stability-maintenance machine. No public record of the internal Politburo decision exists — stated plainly.

• Hu Jintao's February 19 "social management" speech: on the very day the anonymous Jasmine call appeared, Hu addressed the Special Seminar on Social Management and Its Innovation for Principal Leaders at Provincial and Ministerial Level at the Central Party School. He demanded that the leadership "raise its social-management capacity" and guarantee social stability, and insisted that online opinion be brought within the framework of "opinion guidance." PEN International and the New York Review of Books both read the speech as a stability-maintenance mobilization order aimed at the internet's "virtual society."
• Zhou Yongkang's February 20 follow-up: the next day, Zhou — the Politburo Standing Committee member in charge of public security — told Party leaders at every level to "improve social management capabilities" and defend the Party's hold on power; he was reported as saying disputes and contradictions must be "resolved at the budding stage" — on the very day of the first rally.
• Zhou's May 1 Qiushi article: demanded a "social management system" that would monitor citizens' "happiness," encourage cooperation with the authorities and shape "stable" public decision-making — and held up the police handling of mass incidents in recent years as proof of the value of the nationwide "prevention-and-control system."
• The weiwen machine: "stability maintenance" was Zhou's 2007–2012 agenda across the entire security apparatus; the March 2011 budget had internal security spending exceed the official military budget for the first time.
• The 2012 transition: the 18th Party Congress loomed (October 2012); the regime was at maximum sensitivity.
• HRW's judgment: Nicholas Bequelin — Ai Weiwei's arrest "must have been approved by someone at the very top," as he had been considered "untouchable."

Detailed timeline

February 17: the anonymous call. The anonymous Twitter account @mimitree0 ("Secret Tree Hole") called on Chinese citizens to emulate Tunisia with a "stroll" at 2pm on Sunday, February 20, in city centers. The rules: "Just walk to the designated spot, watch from afar, follow silently, go with the flow" — no slogans, no identification needed, lowering the bar for participation.

February 19: Boxun publishes rally sites. The US-based Chinese dissident site Boxun published a long appeal listing rally points in 13 cities — McDonald's at Beijing's Wangfujing, the Peace Cinema at Shanghai's People's Square, Starbucks at Guangzhou's People's Park, Nanjing's Drum Tower Square — all the busiest commercial districts. The initiators called themselves "initiators of China's Jasmine Revolution" without revealing identities. That same day Boxun came under suspected China-origin DDoS attack, forcing it to redirect through Yahoo and set up a temporary blog.

Evening of February 19: preemptive detentions begin. On the eve of the first rally, police swept nationwide. The Information Center for Human Rights & Democracy estimated 100+ rights defenders seized by the 19th, including lawyers Jiang Tianyong (dragged into a police car, whereabouts unknown), Tang Jitian, Teng Biao and Ran Yunfei. The same day, Sina Weibo blocked searches for "jasmine," Baidu blocked "China Jasmine Revolution," China Mobile and Unicom filtered "jasmine" text messages, and Fetion's group-send function was disabled.

February 20 (Sunday), 2pm: the first rally. Hundreds to a thousand gathered outside McDonald's at Beijing's Wangfujing — a mix of genuine onlookers, hundreds of Chinese and foreign journalists, and thousands of uniformed and plainclothes police. Ming Pao reported plainclothes officers seizing people at least three times; one youth holding jasmine stalks was dragged away asking "Why can't I carry this?" US Ambassador Jon Huntsman was spotted at the scene, saying he was "just looking." Dozens gathered at Shanghai's People's Square; about five were taken to a police station. In Nanning — not among the original 13 cities — several hundred gathered at Chaoyang Square. Tianjin, Chengdu, Harbin, Shenyang, Ürümqi and Guangzhou rally points were blanketed with patrols, no crowds forming. In Hong Kong 20+ League of Social Democrats members threw jasmine paper planes at the Liaison Office; NTU students rallied at Taipei's Chiang Kai-shek Memorial; 20+ China Democracy Party members sang "Jasmine Flower" in New York's Times Square.

February 27 (Sunday): the second rally — journalists become targets. Organizers claimed "over 100 cities" joined. Wangfujing saw riot vehicles, police cars and water cannons — one truck "washed" the street before KFC for nearly an hour while police shouted at crowds to "keep walking, no stopping." Unlike February 20, police now targeted journalists: at least 16 foreign media workers were beaten, detained or had equipment seized. A Bloomberg correspondent was kicked and punched by at least five plainclothes men and needed medical treatment; BBC, DPA, VOA and others were taken away. Ambassador Huntsman and the EU delegation condemned the attacks. Shanghai's Peace Cinema closed for the day; the BBC said police took seven people.

March 6 (Sunday): the third rally. Plainclothes police filled the Wangfujing McDonald's; mobile signals were jammed. Police helicopters surveilled from above. Peking University barred students from leaving campus; universities ordered students "not to leave school." In Shanghai 10+ foreign journalists (mostly Japanese) were detained outside the Peace Cinema and held in a basement for nearly three hours. Sporadic detentions continued elsewhere. Beijing's municipal government held a press conference the same day declaring attempts to "stir up trouble in China" a "pipe dream."

March 13 and 20: the fourth and fifth rallies. Wangfujing policing became routine: street-washing trucks, motorcycle patrols, whistle-driven dispersals, ID checks at subway stations. After March 20, the weekly public calls faded and the movement effectively ended — exactly one month from February 20.

Suppression: preemptive stability maintenance

The Jasmine suppression deserves its own record because it pioneered a complete model of "preemptive stability maintenance" — deploying the full state apparatus to smother protest before it could scale. The model has been reused ever since.

Preemptive detention of dissidents. Amnesty International's March 23, 2011 report called it the "heaviest wave of arrests" since the 2009 Ürümqi riots. Over 100 activists were detained, surveilled or disappeared; 24 were criminally detained on charges like "subverting state power." Notably, many were "young netizens active only online, never before detained" — the target expanded from veteran dissidents to the "internet generation." Sichuan writer Ran Yunfei and activist Chen Wei (jailed a year after 1989, sentenced to five years in 1993 for "counterrevolution") were formally arrested for "inciting subversion."

Total internet blockade of "jasmine." From February 19, "jasmine" became a network-wide sensitive word: Weibo searches returned nothing, texts were filtered, Google searches for "Wangfujing" or "jasmine" triggered connection resets. Ironically, Hu Jintao had sung the folk song "Jasmine Flower" with Kenyans during a 2006 visit, aired on CCTV — after the rallies began, those clips were deleted from CCTV and Xinhua. Even a folk song became taboo.

Universities "confine" students. Multiple universities ordered students "not to leave campus" on rally days; Jiangsu's education department and Guangdong universities issued similar notices. Students were "talked to" by teachers; campus internet was monitored with "leaders inspecting dorms." Students complained it amounted to "house arrest."

Beating and detaining foreign journalists. After February 27, police systematically targeted journalists at Wangfujing. From March 2, Beijing police required foreign reporters to obtain special permits to cover "certain public places" including Wangfujing. German Foreign Minister Westerwelle issued a statement on March 6 expressing concern over detained German journalists. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu refused to apologize on March 1, saying journalists had "no reason" to congest "a busy commercial district where nothing happened"; Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi claimed on March 7 that "there is no such thing as police beating foreign journalists."

Official narrative. Global Times editorials on February 25–26 accused the West of trying to "mess up" a rising power; Beijing Daily on March 5 called the rallies a "self-staged farce" by "a handful of performers"; People's Daily overseas edition headlined on March 10: "China Is Not the Middle East," declaring plots to import the turmoil "doomed to fail." The official label: the "Jasmine farce."

Who executed

Execution chain: the Center (Hu set the tone, Zhou supervised) → the Ministry of Public Security / local police (site control, arrests) → state security ("tea invitations," secret detention) → the internet-censorship apparatus (deleting posts, blocking words, cutting connections).

• Site control: on every rally Sunday — February 20, February 27, March 6 and after — hundreds of police, uniformed and plainclothes, occupied the designated spots in 12–13 cities, from the McDonald's on Beijing's Wangfujing to the Peace Cinema on Shanghai's People's Square. At Wangfujing, a young man who set jasmine blossoms on a flower bed was surrounded by officers and released only under the gaze of the journalists crowded around him.
• Preemptive detentions: within hours of the call, democrats, rights lawyers and Charter 08 signers across the country were detained, interrogated or "invited to tea."
• Foreign journalists beaten: the Committee to Protect Journalists recorded the campaign as the most serious harassment of foreign journalists since the 2008 Olympics, including beatings and threats.
• Online censorship: the words "Jasmine Revolution" were blocked on Weibo and search engines; mobile users could not send group text messages; VPN connections were cut; the Boxun site was knocked offline by hackers; jasmine growers in the Beijing area were forbidden to sell jasmine; and the video of Hu Jintao singing "Jasmine Flower" was taken down.
• Extralegal means: Freedom House noted that in 2011 the authorities turned to extralegal methods — kidnapping and enforced disappearance. Detainees reported beatings, sleep deprivation and forced medication, and release was conditioned on restricting their public speech, above all on social media.

Scale & Methodology

Who opposed

1. The anonymous initiators: a group based mostly overseas, calling itself the "initiators and organizers of China's Jasmine Revolution," issued the first call on February 19 via the dissident-run Boxun blog and Twitter, naming 12–13 cities for gatherings every Sunday. Sustained action, they argued, would show the Chinese government that the people expected accountability and transparency. The tactics were deliberately minimal: "stroll, watch, even pretend to pass by." The slogans were not minimal at all: "We want food, we want work, we want housing"; "We want fairness, we want justice"; "Start political reform, end one-party rule"; "Lift the press ban, free press"; "Long live freedom, long live democracy." On March 2 the initiators announced a three-stage strategy: first, the "strolls"; second, holding jasmine flowers and playing the song "Jasmine Flower" on mobile phones; third, openly criticizing the government. What actually appeared at the sites was mostly police, journalists and onlookers — many of the young people watching said they had no idea what the "Jasmine Revolution" was supposed to be.

2. Ai Weiwei: the artist voiced support on Twitter on February 24: "I didn't care about jasmine at first, but the people who fear jasmine kept spreading word of how harmful jasmine is — and that made me realize jasmine is the thing they fear most. How very jasmine!" He then became the crackdown's highest-profile detainee. Seized at Beijing airport on April 3, his studio was raided and its computers and equipment carted off, and eight assistants and volunteers were taken away. On April 7 the Foreign Ministry said he was under investigation for "economic crimes." Missing for more than 80 days, he was released on bail on June 22; in November he was hit with an 8.7-million-yuan demand in what was widely read as a politically motivated tax case.

3. Named heavy sentences: Chen Wei (Sichuan, 42) — detained February 20 on charges of "subverting state power" and "inciting subversion," sentenced to 9 years in December; Chen Xi (Guizhou, 57) — punished for his online writings and for campaigning for independent candidates, sentenced to 10 years in December; Ran Yunfei and Ding Mao — formally arrested March 25–28 for "inciting subversion of state power"; Hua Chunhui — 18 months of re-education through labor.

4. International responses: British Foreign Secretary William Hague said on April 5 that he was deeply concerned by Ai Weiwei's detention and demanded that Beijing urgently clarify his situation and state of health. The Heritage Foundation reported on April 11 that the crackdown was the largest in more than a decade. Amnesty International issued urgent actions on April 11 and April 14 calling for the unconditional release of those detained, and noted in June that Ai Weiwei was only one of 130 people detained since February. The Committee to Protect Journalists listed China in 2011 as a case of deteriorating press freedom. Freedom House called the campaign one of the harshest crackdowns on dissent in years and documented its pronounced chilling effect.

The rallies themselves barely materialized as street protest — but the Party's reaction (Hu's February 19 speech, Zhou's "nip it in the bud," hundreds of police, 54+ arrests, Ai's 80-day disappearance, the word "jasmine" scrubbed from the entire internet) is itself the record of 2011's crackdown. Presented side by side: 54+ arrested (named) / 130 detained (Amnesty) / 100+ summoned, 200 under house arrest — no single figure adopted.

Impact

Established the "preemptive stability maintenance" model. The Jasmine crackdown's greatest legacy is a complete playbook: preemptive detention of key figures, network-wide keyword blocking, saturating rally sites with police, controlling university students, beating and expelling journalists, and post-hoc narrative control. Reused ever since — from Wukan to the White Paper movement, the script barely changes.

The word "jasmine" becoming sensitive is itself political speech. A flower's name, a folk song banned network-wide for fear of association — the absurdity exposes the regime's fear. Wang Dan commented: "A single internet rumor set the entire party-state machine in motion; the CCP's panic was exposed before the world." An anonymous call with no clear organizers put a regime commanding millions of armed police on war footing — the asymmetry is itself the sharpest political satire.

A new generation of netizen-activists was pushed forward. Amnesty noted the authorities were "not only detaining seasoned dissidents" but trying "to silence a whole new generation of online activists." The crackdown backfired for some: many "online-only" youths felt the state machine's direct crush for the first time, and some emerged as more committed dissidents.

The turning point when stability spending passed military spending. In 2011 China's domestic security budget (¥624.4 billion) exceeded defense (¥601.1 billion) for the first time. Not attributable to Jasmine alone, but the timing marks the strategic pivot placing "internal enemies" above "external" ones — the army faces outward, the PAP and police face inward, and "inward" now costs more than "outward."

Overseas solidarity endures. China Democracy Party members began weekly Times Square rallies in February 2011, reportedly continuing for years — the "bloom inside the wall, fragrance outside" model that became standard for overseas dissidents.

Videos

Apple Daily, Feb 21, 2011: citizens in 13 cities including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou answer the online call; a thousand gather at Wangfujing under heavy policing; jasmine-holders clash with police.

NTD, April 2011: after the Jasmine rallies, Sichuan dissidents Ran Yunfei and Chen Wei are formally arrested while authorities intensify "red propaganda education."

Related images (external links)

• 2011 Chinese pro-democracy protests image category — Wikimedia Commons (includes Wangfujing rally photos)
• English Wikipedia "2011 Chinese pro-democracy protests" — with Beijing first-rally photos