Guancha

Guancha.cn (Chinese: 观察者网; lit. 'Observer Net') is a news site based in Shanghai, China.[1][2] It was founded by Eric X. Li, a Chinese venture capitalist and political scientist.[3] Guancha has been categorized in an Amsterdam University Press study as a privately owned internet platform outside of state-controlled media.[4] It has been described as a nationalist website,[5] with Agence France-Presse calling it ultranationalist.[6]

For other uses, see Guancha (disambiguation).
Guancha.cn
观察者网
Type of site
Available inChinese
HeadquartersShanghai
Country of originChina
Owner
  • Shanghai Guanchazhe Information Technology Co., Ltd.
  • Shanghai Chunqiu Development Strategy Research Institute
Founder(s)Eric X. Li
EditorJin Zhongwei
Key peopleZhang Weiwei, Zhang Wenmu
URLwww.guancha.cn
CommercialYes
RegistrationOptional
Launched2012 (2012)
Current statusActive

About

Guancha.cn mainly publishes online news content in Chinese. Its homepage format consists of a headline news, followed by a "left column" consisting of op-eds, a "central column" consisting of news, and a "right column", consisting of user generated content. Its content is mainly focused on international news and affairs, with an additional focus on economic issues. The website's reader demographics is "predominantly young people".[7]

Guancha also publishes content in other formats, such as video. Guancha's official account has 7.46 million fans on the video sharing website Bilibili, frequented mainly by young people, as of September 2023.[8] It also has a number of other affiliated video accounts, some associated with individual content producers.

The website's motto is stated as "Chinese heart, global perspective; understand the world from here; independent and responsible".[9]

The website describes itself as a "online news and comments aggregator".[9] According to the Cyberspace Administration of China, in 2018, Guancha's registration allows it to "provide online news re-publication services", which means it is legally not allowed to hire editorial journalists or publish original stories.[10]

Doublethink Labs describes Guancha's content as "a locus of China's 'new nationalist' movement predicated on anti-Western sentiment and conviction in the superiority of China's current model of government".[11]

History

Guancha.cn was founded in 2012. Before its founding, an online platform known as "Social observer" had been founded by Shanghai Chunqiu Development Strategy Research Institute in 2010; this was described by Doublethink Labs as "Guancha's genesis".[11]

A key event during Guancha's formative period was its coverage of Zhang Weiwei's 2011 debate with Francis Fukuyama, where Zhang Weiwei promoted the "Chinese model" and questioned Western democracy. Zhang Weiwei is also a co-founder of Guancha.[7]

Guancha was originally launched as Social Observer's online arm, but the two became officially disaffiliated in 2014.

In 2013, a number of techno-nationalists calling themselves the "Industrial Party" joined the site and have influenced it.[12]

In 2020, the website has spoken out against Donald Trump's suspension from Twitter.[13] Donald Trump was described as a "key driver of clicks for Guancha".[7]

In 2021, the website criticized Intel's ban of using components from Xinjiang.[14]

References
  1. "China wants an even more dominant state monopoly on the media". Quartz. 2021-10-11. Retrieved 2022-11-01.
  2. Langley, William; McMorrow, Ryan (2021-12-23). "Intel apologises for banning use of components from Xinjiang". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 2021-12-23. Retrieved 2021-12-23.
  3. "Eric Li – World Policy Conference". World Policy Conference. Retrieved 2023-03-23.
  4. Lu, Yingdan; Pan, Jennifer (2022-02-01). "The Pervasive Presence of Chinese Government Content on Douyin Trending Videos". Computational Communication Research. Stanford University: Amsterdam University Press. 4 (1). doi:10.5117/CCR2022.2.002.LU. ISSN 2665-9085.
  5. "When China wants to be feared". The Economist. October 2, 2021. ISSN 0013-0613. Retrieved 2023-10-11. Guancha, a nationalist website, created a hashtag mocking the White House statement, inspiring social-media posts that have been read over 300m times.
  6. "Communist Party emerges from shadows during Hong Kong crackdown". France 24. AFP News. 2021-07-10. Retrieved 2022-11-01. In an interview published Wednesday by ultra-nationalist mainland media outlet Guancha.cn...
  7. "这次，观察者网的年轻人被狠狠观察了一回_澎湃号·媒体_澎湃新闻". The Paper (in Chinese). Retrieved 2023-09-25.
  8. "观察者网的个人空间-观察者网个人主页-哔哩哔哩视频". space.bilibili.com. Retrieved 2023-09-25.
  9. "-观察者网-全球视野 中国关怀". www.guancha.cn. Retrieved 2023-09-25.
  10. "最新版《互联网新闻信息稿源单位名单》" (PDF). Cyberspace Administration of China (in Chinese).
  11. Lab, Doublethink (2021-05-01). "Tracing control and influence at Guancha news". Doublethink Lab. Retrieved 2023-09-25.
  12. Lu, Nanfeng; Wu, Jing (2018). "历史转折中的宏大叙事:"工业党"网络思潮的政治分析" [Grand Narrative at History's Turning Point: A Political Analysis of the Internet Ideology of China's "Industrial Party"]. 东方学刊 [Dongfang Journal] (in Simplified Chinese) (1): 49–60. ISSN 2096-5966. Retrieved 13 May 2022.
  13. Yuan, Li (2021-01-15). "As Trump Clashes With Big Tech, China's Censored Internet Takes His Side". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-12-23.
  14. "Intel faces backlash in China over stance on Xinjiang". Protocol.com. 2021-12-22. Archived from the original on 2022-11-27. Retrieved 2023-03-23.
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