China has destroyed China in Panda Advocacy online

Visitors descended on the National Park in Washington on Friday to protest the release of two pandas on loan from China. Fans posted photos and videos to social media, just like the zoo under the hashtag #DCPANDAS.

But in China, the government has sent a message to Panda fans to watch what they say online. Some online leaders have been arrested or questioned about what authorities have called “rumors” and a “radical fan culture.”

The police targeted people who volunteered for animal husbandry or criticized overseas exchanges like the one that brought Pandas to Washington. But the media also issued warnings about larger fandoms. The event comes on the path of Xi Jinping in the Internet fan culture.

China has millions of Panda fans, many of whom have contributed to the breeding of animals in a country that has been hurt by aggressive strategies and led to a bear not being separated from its mother. For years, the authorities tolerated his activism and criticism, which targeted Chinese and foreign fertilizers.

No more. Last month, police in Sichuan province said they had arrested 12 people for beating panda experts, inciting violence and spreading misinformation about pandas, including two of which were rightly housed at the National Zoo.

Authorities have accused Panda Panda of harassing Chinese farm workers and growing wealthy from direct donations. The police said that they did not know the “group of gangs” focused on the accusation of domestic animals “in the three provinces, according to the media.

In a proposal to crack down on Internet culture, Mr. Xi launched a war on Internet censorship, comparing the group to “evil spirits.” The authorities arrested sports fans for breeding Chinese athletes, found people who brought airport greetings, and K-pop fans K-pop accounts.

A spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Washington did not respond to questions sent Wednesday morning.

The crackdown shows how vulnerable China is, even though the subject is Pandas.

“These ‘civilian’ patriots have sometimes encouraged or tolerated the government,” said Xiao Qiang, an internet freedom researcher at the University of California, Berkeley. “But when a new narrative has a new need,” he added, “Panda fans can be punished and arrested.”

Online keepers maintain playful social media pages, where users communicate around their favorite animals. These communities have exploded during the pandemic, as a person who jumped into the house turned to the house in a herd of animals. One panda, Huany, has more than 880,000 followers on the Weibo platform. A panda famous for his escape attempt, Meng Lan, made about 380 trips.

Panda fans even change the politics. Their activism helped improve the national government office to improve standards for panda parks and ban people from paying.

When the Beijing government put steel plates on the windows of the Meng Lan building last year to prevent escapes, activists flooded the government and social media. The zoo removed the plaque and announced it would renovate the space.

This has been aided by frequent nationalistic spoofs, such as the campaign for the return of a giant panda from the Memphis Zoo in 2023.

The national zoo has been a frequent target. The Zoo’s request to eliminate the Pandas Bao Li and Qing Bao marked 38,000 comments to the US government, some of which were written in Chinese. Many critics have cited the Zoo’s history of using artificial breeding techniques.

“Pandas are a symbol for China,” Mr Xiao said. Activism is “a combination of campaigns and advocacy of a particular kind” that can help “promote a political narrative,” he said.

But the government’s cautious dance with Panda fans is over. Last month’s arrests followed the detention of four people who set up a panda specialist at a breeding center in western China, calling him a traitor.

In December, the Xinhua news agency warned fans not to “let go of the unique passion in the field of panda conservation,” calling on them to “build a good environment for research on pandas.” the science of science, righteousness and peace.

Sichuan accused the surprised demographic group, the middle class, of spending a lot of time on the Internet.

The police said that a woman spread more than 60 rumors and rumors in which giant pandas were found since August 20, 2023. names of people full of authority.

Although few panda fans have made reasonable requests, said Sarah Cheng, a Chinese volunteer in Singapore with the group Panda Voices, which founded the international campaign for Panda Welfare.

“They want Pandas to live better,” he said. “They want them to have the proper bamboo and bamboo to eat.” But most of them, he said, “he was imprisoned or deported.”