From forcing the rescue of hundreds of brick kiln slave laborers last year and seeing it through long after local bodies gave up to being analytical piranhas when dealt obvious official lies, and numerous examples in between, it seems some netizens have realized their comparative advantage over local government authorities and this hubris now brings us the China Netizen Party. These are its founding bylaws:

Bylaws and Founding Declaration of the China Netizen Party

Preface

1. Preface to the Nature and Objectives of the China Netizen Party
2. The Four Basic Principles of the China Netizen Party
3. The Three Major Tasks of the China Netizen Party
4. Member Registration, Establishment of Party Chapters, and Party Fees and Assets of the China Netizen Party
5. Daily Study and Work for Members of the China Netizen Party
6. Oath for Members of the China Netizen Party

2007 was a year of victory for Chinese netizens, as one-by-one they laid bare and denounced such incidents as the “South China Tiger” to “Ouyang's Crater” and other which deceived both the Chinese People and the world. This clearly illustrates that in the Internet Age, obscurantist policy no longer has its desired effect on The Netizen. The Chinese Netizens hereby rise up! We are determined to form the Chinese Netizen Party to serve not only as a symbol of the complete abandonment of fanaticism and blind assent, but also as a sign that China has entered the Internet Age and a revolutionary milestone in public opinion within Chinese society, that we have now risen.

1. Preface to the Nature and Objectives of the China Netizen Party:
1. The China Netizen Party both is and isn't a Party;
2. The China Netizen Party bears the characteristics of humanity only and a political party not at all;
3. The China Netizen Party is of unity and mutual love only and class struggle not at all;
4. The China Netizen Party is of lawful operations only and forced or sly profiteering not at all;
5. The China Netizen Party is of justice and conscience only and violence and deceit not at all;
6. The China Netizen Party swears to take all deceit, forgery and revisionism as its enemy;
7. The China Netizen Party swears hatred at all deletion of posts, censorship and other such forms of violence;
8. The China Netizen Party will hold The People's leaders to the key principle of The People of “where there's doubt, we'll investigate”.

2. The Four Basic Principles of the China Netizen Party:
1. Open;
2. Rational;
3. Non-violent;
4. Unified in action;

3. The Three Major Tasks of the China Netizen Party:
1. Expose all deceitful and hypocritical behavior, restore balance in the world;
2. Put down violence in all its forms, restore perfect harmony to society;
3. Call for an ideology of “all-citizen involvement, speak the truth in unison”, with the ultimate goal of restoring power to the people.

4. Member Registration, Establishment of Party Chapters, and Party Fees and Assets of the China Netizen Party
1. Regardless of nationality, race, gender or age, any netizen on earth who identifies with the objectives, basic principles and basic tasks of the Chinese Netizen Party may declare themselves members of the China Netizen Party, and all party members without exception are not to sign up or register in any fashion;
2. The China Netizen Party collects no party fees or assets.
　　
5. Daily Study and Work for Members of the China Netizen Party
1. Study, practice and speak out in the two main areas of China Netizen Party work, justice and conscience;
2. All members of the China Netizen Party must profoundly understand that righteousness and conscience alone can save China. And the ultimate establishment of an ideal society for all depends on our efforts today.
3. The objective of the China Netizen Party is to expose and denounce lies, with all internet communities, forums and websites in China as our battle positions. Networks are our weapons, netizens are our troops!
　　
6. Oath for Members of the China Netizen Party
　　Realization of the China Netizen Party's historical mission depends upon the joint efforts of all party members! Together through the good and bad, joined in times of trouble, let us firmly unite the majority of the people and fight for justice! And for conscience! Long live Justice! Long live Conscience! Long live The Chinese Netizen!
　　
China Netizen Party Central Committee
China Netizen Party Acting Chairman, Zhang Buwei
February 4, 2008

　　skype：zhangbuwei1989 gmail：zhangbuwei1989@gmail.com

China Netizen Party means of contact:
Skype: zhangbuwei1989
Gmail: zhangbuwei1989@gmail.com

The birth of the CNP was announced this month by Guo Quan, the former Nanjing University professor now preparing to sue both Yahoo! and Google after recently discovering he'd become victim of the online equivalent of being disappeared, with his name filtered out of search results on the two search engines’ Chinese sites. His chances of really being disappeared look higher now too after Guo wrote an open letter late last year calling for increased democracy and just last month started his own political party to that effect, the New People's Party, believed to be the reason he lost his teaching job.

Fittingly, one of the few places mention of the CNP can now be found within China is in the midst [zh] of discussions of the offline rescue missions organized spontaneously by netizens this past week for those trapped by the snow, where readers can be seen networking quickly, constantly updating and redirecting efforts accordingly, cooperating with police who alone weren't able to keep up.

Guo, a historian known for his work on the Nanjing Massacre as well as a harsh anti-Japanese stance in general, while with those credentials alone is fit to represent a large portion of China's 200,000,000 netizen population, it was probably a smarter move to stick with his political party and name ‘Zhang Buwei’ as the China Netizen Party's acting chairman. Guo, it should be mentioned, has done scandal-busting work of his own. Zhang himself has not yet written publicly about the CNP, but was willing to answer a few text-based questions:

Q Does the China Netizen Party have a website or blog?

A No

Q When can we see one?

A There is no plan for one at present. We'll mainly be keeping contact through e-mail and Skype. Most of our activity will be on mainland forums.

Q Not even a microblog, like Fanfou or Twitter? This was a key topic at last year's Chinese Blogger Conference.

A Not sure about that.

Q It's not safe to go establishing parties in China; how likely is it that this will prove dangerous for you, Guo Quan and other members?

A The CCP might take Guo or me down at any time. We're already well-prepared that we might go to jail. Pressure on members of the China Netizen Party will be slightly less, because the bylaws of the China Netizen Party don't define us a proper political party.

Q How do you plan to confirm membership, or how are members supposed to identify themselves as supporters or members? Badges for their blogs, for example. There's little information on the China Netizen Party to be found online in China right now.

A Like I just said, the Party isn't a proper political party, so members don't need to always need to identify themselves publicly. That's one; second is that all work is divided internally among party members, and when they receive their respective work assignments, they just go and carry out that work on the bbs forums, so they don't need to disclose their identities.

Q Will your party carry on the kind of blogging work Hu Jia was doing? And, what is your thought on the kind of work Hu Jia did?

A The nature of of the work of my current party, the New People's Party, is identical to the work Hu Jia did. I have nothing but admiration for him and his work.

Q I just read a piece on Boxun from an An Jun, who wrote that s/he rejects the China Netizen Party because it itself “rejects class struggle”; how space for growth do you think there is in China for the kind of “one-man human rights organization” work that Hu Jia was doing?

A There's an extremely large space, because there are so many fields in which rights need to be defended; like laid-off workers, peasants who've lost their land, etc. At the same time, upholding rights is something countrywide, with regional elements. This is why there exists absolutely no cases of there being too many people or groups taking part in the rights movement's (and other democratic movements’) work. Precisely on the contrary, in the face of the CCP at present, the more these kinds of people and groups, the better. We could even advocate for human wave tactics and drown the CCP in a flood of our spit, it's completely possible.

Q According to my standing, in his academic career Guo Quan frequently took an anti-Japan stance, do you think this will affect mainland urban (ie. most) netizens’ decision to get involved in the China Netizen Party?

A The main aim of the China Netizen Party is to expose and denounce the untrue, and any opposition to anti-Japanese sentiment is irrelevant; our party members haven't raised this this kind of question as they joined up.

Q And the last questions, what is the China Netizen Party's stance on net neutrality and Creative Commons?

A The China Netizen Party strongly applauds and supports internet neutrality and Creative Commons, both key tenets and goals of the China Netizen Party.

Q With no blog or website at present, where should those interested go for the latest information in the future?

A The party will circulate announcements through various media.

Released along with the party's bylaws is a letter from Guo:

Guo Quan: Upon the establishment of the China Netizen Party, a word on the Chinese netizens’ internet revolution

Today (Feb. 4, 2008), Acting Chairman of the China New People's Party, Changsha Chapter, Mr. Zhang Buwei received instructions from the Chinese New People's Party Central Committee to form the China Netizen Party, serve as its first acting Chairman, and take the lead in directing the work of the China Netizen Party's internet revolution. Mr. Zhang is 31 years old, and during his student days sought to advance the process of democratization in China, fighting in recent years for the democratic cause and in raising awareness of civil rights. Last year he suffered persecution from the CCP leading to asset losses already of 50,000 RMB.

Over the year of 2007, Chinese netizens succeeded outstandingly as they acted to seek out and speak the truth, winning widespread respect and esteem from the Chinese people.

Guo's letter goes on to list three examples, the first being when in June city leaders in Wuxi, Jiangsu, whose main water supply is algae-infested Tai Lake, held a press conference demonstrating the tap water to be drinkable, two claims that Guo says were put to rest by one netizen who did some simple fact-checking and discovered that the “real” water the city leaders were photographed drinking came out from the restaurant faucet filtered first by a German water purification system. The second example is Chang'e, who went up, disappeared, reappeared, and only sent back one photograph, which, as with Guo's third and most relevant example, the ‘South China Tiger’, netizens quickly proved had been manipulated, despite several very public official protestations to the contrary. In the Tiger case, in case you missed it, the lies went much further and dominated online discussion for months. The general conclusion it seemed was that all official public statements are now up for the most scientific of scrutiny and that no similar future lies will go unpunished, adding at the same time to an already-weakened sense of faith in the government.

I won't list all the other examples here, but I believe that 2008 stands to be a year of brilliant exploits for the China Netizen Party. China has no real news, it only has propaganda; China's “news” bears no truth, it contains only lies. Now is the time for the China Netizen Party to unleash its master plan.

I think that in 2008, aside from exposing and denouncing lies, there are many other things the China Netizen Party could also do.

The China Netizen Party could actively investigate the truth behind incidents the CCP wishes not to disclose, the collapsed bridge in Fenghuang, Hunan, for example, where not only were there no basic body counts in the news, but also no basic information about the incident; from the architect's name to the construction company's name, the essential news readers wanted most urgently to know did not appear.
[…]
With incidents like this, what the China Netizen Party ought to do is to go and actively investigate the numbers of dead, their names, their ages, their genders, and release the truth of the incident, letting the Chinese people see what they can't in the CCP news.

As the new year of 2008 began, the south of China was buried under heavy ice and snow, but how many people froze to death? How many starved to death? Where did they die? What were their names? Where they men or women? What did they once do for a living? Recently there's been news from Guangzhou that one of the stranded travelers was trampled to death. Well, what was his name? The China Netizen Party ought to stay closely united, so labor can be divided, to unleash the advantage of a people's battle, to restore truth to history, and allow for every common person in this nation to at least leave behind their own names and deeds.

Let not goodness be buried over, and leave evil with nowhere left to hide.

Let every upright Chinese person shout out across the world, and let all those who hope for a strong, democratic China see the bloody battle the Chinese people are fighting in their desire for and pursuit of democracy.

2008, which has already begun, will be a year of internet warfare.

This year, the internet will be our weapon, and the the netizens our troops!

Finally, it is my heartfelt wish that our great nation will see democracy realized soon, allowing our people to live happily and our democratic country to grow strong!

With the CNP communicating over private networks and routine net censorship presumably taking care of the rest, there's been almost no discussion online on mainland websites of this new party; overseas anti-CCP website Boxun featured one short piece from writer An Jun:

An Jun / To the grassroots netizen party:
1. You write that you don't want class struggle. That's great! I recommend that you eliminate class struggle!
2. You write that you will bear only the characteristics of humans and none that of a political party, that's great! I recommend anti-party-ness and anti-brutality alike!
3. You didn't write on whether you will establish unions and associations for youth and women. Please don't pull a one-party power-snatch and turn yourselves into the Dictator Party!
4. You didn't write on whether or not you intend to turn the country's news media into your own mouthpieces. I recommend the abolition of “Party-privatized state media”! Cancel outright all party mouthpieces!
5. Logically speaking, if you won't have class struggle, then won't be seeing everyone out there. See all groups with views different than yours as hostile forces then! Does that mean you'll have humans as your enemies though?

What I've written here is just a few words because I think you've written is weird and silly. Don't ever think that I'm on your side!

Fragments of related commentary could be found on the snow disaster thread on Tianya where the bylaws were first posted:

-Mainland netizens, stand up! Form the China Netizen Party with determination!

-Grassroots activities that get politicized end up getting aborted
What I'm saying doesn't sound very nice
Hehe

-It may not sound nice, but it's realistic….

-The hope and conscience of China is on the internet.