The trend of social media constantly changes rapidly as people born in the 21st century live such a fast-paced life. The internet has become a primary source for many people to get information, though this process of information acquisition could be unintentional. The diction 'version' in the Chinese context specifically means the current dominant media focus that one will almost inevitably encounter as long as he/she goes web-surfing. In fact, the primacy effect states that people tend to only be able to focus on the first-ranked issue as one’s intellect can hardly be divided. Moreover, as the mainstream of public opinion on an issue is bound together with national sentiments, its influence easily becomes pervasive. Despite not knowing the whole story, or even just hearsay from a comment under a We-Media’s unsubstantiated article (often these kinds of articles have an eye-catching title), one can quickly participate in any discussion (more fiercely speaking, the debate might be the more accurate word) on the issue as they simply claim what they say is an action exemplifying their natural supportive and 'patriotic' nature towards their nation. It is, however, evidently a more complex thing than 'patriotic'—perhaps we should first ask ourselves: What is the definition of 'patriotic'?

This article will explore the recent mainstream focus on Chinese social media—The Nongfu Spring incidents. In short, some people ‘discover’ that there are several, doubtfully, Japanese elements in the products’ packaging. They listed that the Pi on ‘Tea Pi’ is similar to the Yasukuni Shrine(a Japanese historical building that was built to memorize the importance of Japanese figures contributing to Japanese war, including Class-a war criminals of World War II) and the red bottle cap symbolized the red circle on the Japanese flag, etc. Due to the Japanese invasion of China during WWII, anything related to Japanese historical and cultural elements has long been a sensitive topic on the Chinese internet and can easily arouse fury among the Chinese public. As stated in Gustave Le Bon’s famous book The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, he points out that individuals' behavior can be easily affected by the majority, and their views tend to be simplified and exaggerated. This prediction and prophecy of individual behavior is especially underscored when it comes to an issue that is endowed with broader meaning, which may be far beyond the initial thoughts of the subject of the issue. Whether the Nongfu Spring company initially intended to wickedly execute a 'cultural invasion' or not, it was incontrovertible that once the idea was spread out immediately, people who previously hadn’t thought in this way is ‘revealed’ the seemingly widely-recognized 'truth'—and alongside with the ‘revelation,’ others question you: Do you still support or turn against Nongfu Spring?

A superficial discussion of patriotism

Being patriotic is loving your country in dictionary definition. But this definition is vague as both words ‘love’ and ‘country’ conveys blurry meaning. In fact, decompose this three-word paraphrase apparently doesn’t do any good, so perhaps we should put the word specifically under a context of particular countries.

On the National Day 1996 of the People's Republic of China(PRC), People’s Daily clarified patriotism (in China at that time) as “love the socialist system and road chosen by all nationalities in China under the leadership of the Communist Party.” However, this statement starkly contrasts with Zhongshan Sun’s slogan in 1911, calling "Expel the Tartars, Restore China, Establish the Republic, and Equalize Land Rights."[i] The Tartars mainly refer to the Manchu, which was the main constituents of the Qing dynasty, and Sun at the time expect to overturn their rule and establish the Republic of China(ROC). The comprehensive inclusiveness exemplified by ‘all nationalities’ could be seen as the result of China’s neoteric and modern year’s development, and the main mission of the country has shifted from “revitalize the Chinese nation” to “prosper the Chinese nation”.

The law embedded in the Socialist Legal system is the key to the stability of the system, and it provides the fundamental rule for the system to operate. Therefore, it is logical that observing the law is a necessary condition of patriotism. The law, however, is constantly changing; for instance privatization of public laws is a general trend of the alter, and one should know this roughly in mind.[ii]

Apparently, we are defaulting obeyance of law in context where individual’s words and actions consist propagable negative externalities, thus something similar to run a red light when there is no car nearby doesn’t count. Spreading rumors, however, well fit in our range of discussions—— it conform to the standard of ‘propagable externalities’, so our focus should be on whether and to what is extent are the behaviors negative.

Rumor spreading

Bottle waters are products that have many substitutions; except for Nongfu Spring, there are BingLu, YiBao, WaHaHa, BaiSuiShan, and more. The range of choices for the consumer indicated the price-elastic nature of the products. If public opinion coincidently starts to criticize Nongfu Spring in a short period of time, then it becomes a factor that damages the potential profits of the brand. However, it is hard to convincingly prove that public opinion and the quantity sold by Nongfu Spring have direct relevance, and the Nongfu Spring company could prosecute the rumor-maker for any legal responsibility. In fact, legal workers have long pointed out that legal terms such as “egregious circumstances” should be as clear as possible and try to avoid[iii], but this suggestion seems difficult to execute.

Before zooming into the issue of Nongfu Spring, it’s beneficial to first examine a few other examples of rumor-spreading and what effect did they have brought.

On 2010 24th of January, Shanxi province experienced an earthquake of 4.8 magnitude. Sarcastically, a fortnight ago, the officials held a series of earthquake drills, and some misunderstood it as there would soon be an earthquake(which came true!). To make the issue even worse, Chairman Zhang in the Shanxi Earthquake Bureau office had denied the rumors just a few days before the real thing happened. The dramatic effect of the verisimilitude prophecies even leads to a further round of new terror.

However, it is hard to quantify any negative consequences caused by the rumors in this case as the creation of ‘fear’ didn’t seem to lead to malign results. It wasn’t even morally reprehensible as one could attribute to so-called ‘six-sense’(i.e., their intuition of the future) and argue it was nothing to lose to believe it(what if it really came true?). Though in scientific thinking logic, it was absurd—— apparently, an earthquake can not be detected until a few minutes(sometimes even less than a minute) before it happens. However, as the old Chinese saying goes, which was deep-rooted in many Chinese citizens(especially the older generation), “rather believe it to be truth than not”, making them oversensitive in some circumstances.

An important characteristic that we can extract from this case is its harmless nature if we believe in it, and the rumors are event-contraposed rather than human(or company)-contraposed. A similar case was the Wuhan ‘foggy explosion’ rumor in 2012—— it also didn’t cause real harm.[iv]

Conspiracy Theories

The incident was actually just some ridiculous hypothesis from A to Z as such kind of ‘coincidence’ , if carefully observing the rounding, is easy to discover. The most direct example is there is a red point in the Chinese character ‘calcium’ in the brand WaHaHa, which was being compared during this incident(as many claimed the fact it is a domestic brand makes them support it). However, public records show that Nongfu Spring is also a Chinese brand with its headquarters in Guangdong province. Some people implied that the foundation of the Nongfu Spring company was a conspiracy—— foreign hostile forces manipulated it. One of their pieces of evidence is that the son of the Richest of Nongfu Spring is US nationality. The dual combination of ‘The Richest’ and ‘US’ seems to generate enough ground for the discommenders of the Nongfu Spring. “The flaw in the social stratification structure is the root of the social structure of wealth resentment; the malfunction of social regulatory mechanisms is the institutional root of the wealth resentment mentality”[v]. This was the conclusion of a 2007 study from the Journal of Hulunbeier College. This public form of hating the rich is, of course, not the first time—— the dekulakization in the USSR in the late 1920s and early 1930s was an example of organized thoughts of hating the rich guided by Stalin’s government.

Online public data from September 2023 showed that Nongfu Spring had a market share of 12.5%, ranking at the top in the market of Chinese drinking water.[vi] If you now search online about the market share of Nongfu Spring, the top lines seem to conformly tell us that the share has decreased, although official data isn’t present making the authenticity of the message skeptical. In terms of taxation, though, it seems natural to suggest that Nongfu Spring should submit the most amount of corporate income tax, which should contribute to the government spending. But(as the conspiracy theorist doubted), does this money really go to our government? Does it outflow? The Myth-Status policies in the US state that ‘the full history of the US postwar history was the conspiracy of the riches of the international.[vii] This theory seems to be a striking resemblance of the conspiracy theorist explanation of the Nongfu Spring issue.

  Reference

[i] Suisheng Zhao.(1998). A State-Led Nationalism: The Patriotic Education Campaign in Post-Tiananmen China. Elsevier Science Ltd

[ii] Jingwen Zhu.(2011). The Socialist Legal System with Chinese Characteristics: Its Structure, Features and Trends. Law School, Renmin University of China

[iii] Lu Zhang.(2016). 网络谣言法律规制探讨. 中共山东省委党校

[iv] Xiaoguo An, Tiance Dong. 谣言、传播媒介与集体行动. 现代传播 2013年第 9期

[v] Yaming He, Hui Zhu. “仇富’’之社会性根源分析

[vi] 农夫山泉（9633.HK） 包装水全面升级，茶饮料百花齐放，农夫领跑优势稳固

pdf.dfcfw.com/pdf/H3_AP202309041597473347_1.pdf

[vii] Hofstadter R.1956. The age of reform: from Bryan to F.D.R. New York