What accounts for online satirical campaigns that survive censorship in China where the state has formidable power to censor and manipulate online communication? Through comparative case studies of three attempts to challenge the policies or malpractices of the Chinese state in 2009, this article explains how different satirical tactics can influence the outcomes of online activism. It argues that online satirical campaigns are most likely to survive when activists adopt the tactic of “parodic satire,” whereby activists mimic a specific practice of the state and skilfully transplant it to other contexts. Since the language used by the activists resembles that of the powerful, the tactic allows netizens to exaggerate the internal contradictions of the policies or practices concerned without creating an easily identifiable symbol of resistance in the process. This tactic not only increases the cost to the state of censoring critical messages, but also restrains activists from extending their criticisms of the original subject to other areas. As a result, it increases the chance for the activists to exert insistent pressure on the state.

During August and September 2012, Sino-Japanese conflict over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands escalated. Alongside street demonstrations in China, there was an outpouring of public sentiment on China's leading micro-blog, Sina Weibo (微波). Using human and computer-assisted content analysis, we exploit original Weibo data to measure how public sentiment in China fluctuated over the dispute, and ask two questions. First, how cohesive and volatile were online nationalist sentiments? Second, we measure government censorship of Weibo in order to ask which sentiments did authorities allow to be expressed, and when? We first find that many of the micro-bloggers' harshest invective was directed not at Japan but at their own government. Second, while censorship remained high across topics for most of the dispute, it plummeted on 18 August – the same day as bloggers' anger at Beijing peaked. These observations suggest three theoretical explanations: two are instrumental-strategic (“audience costs” and “safety valve”) and one is ideational (elite identification with protesters).