Trying to Stir Up a Popular Protest in China, From a Bedroom in Manhattan
From a pair of computer screens in a lime green bedroom in Upper Manhattan, a 27-year-old man from China is working to bring about a popular uprising. Two months after calls shot across the Web for a Tunisian- and Egyptian-style “Jasmine Revolution” in China, he is among the few online dissidents still trying to promote a popular protest movement inside the country. The effort has failed to provoke any major street demonstrations, but it has led to a fierce crackdown by the authorities.
Yet despite the widespread arrests of activists, including the well-known artist Ai Weiwei, many of those who began the grass-roots push for change remain active. They guard their anonymity closely, especially inside China, where they communicate using Gmail and Skype and broadcast messages to supporters beyond the country’s so-called Great Firewall of censorship. “Our group is expanding,” said the uptown blogger, who studied the classics and graduated in New York. He asked to be called Gaius Gracchus, in honor of the ancient Roman reformer, but also uses the pseudonym Hua Ge, or “Flower Brother,” online.
He spoke confidently of the power of his group of 25 young Internet-savvy activists inside and outside of China — in Paris, Seoul, Hong Kong, Australia and Taiwan — to influence China’s top leaders. With a partner in China, he was among the first to publish the times and places for protesters to gather, and he remains one of the strongest voices calling for a revolution modeled on those in the Middle East, online activists said. “The Jasmine Revolution is like a flag,” he said. “It’s out there to be taken up by whoever wants it.”