So, Google has finally had enough of the hostile business environment in China and has decided to leave. Actually, Google gave the CCP an ultimatum (one that the CCP would never accept) which is to allow Google to operate uncensored in China or they will leave. This is such an explosive move by Google that it has impacted China-US relations by prompting the current US administration to publicly comment on the situation, and (predictably) causing a furious response from the Chinese government.
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu claims that “The Chinese Internet is open,” in a statement posted on the Foreign Ministry’s Web site.
Now I have first-hand experience of “The Chinese Internet” and it is in no sense “open.” First and foremost, some of the Internet’s most popular and informative sites are blocked by a firewall that the CCP has put in place for it’s citizens. This includes YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. While I was living in China Wikipedia was blocked for more than a year (it was later removed, and the blocks seem to come and go with the weather). I remember YouTube being blocked shortly before the 17th National Congress, and then around the time of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, and being blocked permanently after the most recent unrest in Tibet (the 50th anniversary of Chinese occupation). While I was in China I think Facebook was still unblocked, and I’m not sure exactly when the block on Twitter came into effect.
Now maybe when Ma Zhaoxu said “The Chinese Internet is open” he meant, the Internet in China. Well, the Internet in China is not blocked by any national firewall of course, so maybe this is how Ma mentally justifies his bald-faced lie. However, in order to even get a website setup within China (behind the firewall) you have to go through a government approval process which mostly involves determining if the web-site will be in any way politicly hazardous to the CCP. On any Chinese website you can see on the bottom there is a number and this is the number you get from the government once your website is approved. For example, Tianya, a popular Chinese BBS has this on the bottom of their site:
ICP证 琼B2-20060032号
This “ICP” number is used to identify and control all web sites within China. However, the CCP’s internal Internet controls go even further. Websites like Tianya mentioned above are required by the government to censor all of the postings made by users on the site. This usually involves a ham-fisted approach where entire threads of conversation on politically sensitive topics get deleted. Moreover, repeat offenders can be tracked down by China’s army of “cyber-police” and prosecuted by the government for illegal speech. In fact the government even requires all internet café patrons to supply a valid national ID to use their public terminals.
The Chinese Internet is not open. It is in fact very extensively controlled. The only people who can circumvent these controls have to be tech-savvy enough to understand how to setup an SSH tunnel or VPN (and they have to be fortunate enough to have a remote box to do that with). So, for the vast majority of the Chinese population large swaths of the Internet simply do not exist.
But how do Chinese feel about this? Do they all feel disenfranchised or do they actually support their government’s policy on information control. Of course there are a lot of Chinese that are quite angry and frustrated with government censorship but you might be surprised to find that quite a few Chinese citizens actually support the policy. Here are a few of the arguments those in support of censorship make:
1) China has a very large population of uneducated farmers. If these people were to be exposed to an unfiltered stream of information it would destabilize China.
The two most important implications being that a) this large population of uneducated people are naive and easily influenced, and b) by exposing them to the information critical of their government they are likely to rise up in physical revolt. While there is indeed a large population of poorly educated people in China I wouldn’t go so far as to say they are naive or easily influenced and I definitely don’t see people rioting in the streets because of an article they read on The New York Times. However, the free and open trade of information online would certainly help this population hold the government more accountable for its actions (and to get a better “education” as well). Even if there were some particular piece of news or information (such as a YouTube video of a misbehaving party leader) that did cause a riot, that event would quickly be brought under control the same way China has done in Tibet and Xin Jiang when riots broke out there. I find it very hard to imagine that open access to information would ultimately lead to the disintegration of China.
2) Foreign web sites (particularly news organizations) are hostile towards China and are essentially anti-Chinese.
This is related to the first argument and even more paranoid but it’s still something you will hear a lot. Also, by anti-Chinese they mean anything that is critical of China in any way. The people who make this argument are not even open to constructive criticism and really all criticism is seen as malice on the part of the critic. Of course this is a very immature point of view and one that is fostered by living in a country where the government has zero-tolerance for criticism. This creates a positive (as in reinforcement) feedback loop, where government criticism is censored, so people are never exposed to such criticism and are highly offended by it when it does occur, further solidifying the public acceptance of such censorship. However, there is another, more fundamental cultural reason behind why people in China are so easily offended at criticism of their government while I will get into later.
3) China has a more conservative society than most Western countries and the government simply wants to censor offending sexual content such as pornography.
While they do also censor pornography, it mostly serves as a casus belli for the censorship program as a whole. I could also get into how the premise of this argument is essentially false as well but I’ll save that for another time.
Again, not every Chinese feels this way. There are many who disagree with the government’s policy on censorship. In fact I would say there are many people who will support the governments policy on censorship only when asked by a foreigner. I would like to talk about this point a little but because it will help you understand why many Chinese try to awkwardly defend their government in spite of the difficulty in doing so. In Chinese culture, the government is almost like an extension of your family. Like your grandparents (and anyone familiar with Chinese culture will understand how important the grandparents are). While individuals in China may disagree with government policy they would never dare to publicly say so since it would be akin to publicly slandering your grandparents. Also, you wouldn’t expect someone to come along and criticize your grandparents and you would probably take offence to such animosity. This familial relationship with the government is something that a lot of Western people can’t get their head around. To us, the government is often viewed very suspiciously and not as an institution that is always looking out for our best interest. It harkens back to the days of Confucius, who saw the individual as fitting within a hierarchy that started with one’s family (at the bottom) and reached all the way to the government (on top).
So, should Google leave China? That’s entirely up to Google. If Google does actually leave because they don’t want to censor content then I can’t deny that I’ll be happy about it. It makes the Chinese people more aware of the negative impact censorship is having on their society and it puts egg on the face of the CCP.
Should the U.S. government get involved and start lecturing China on freedom of information and expression? No. While I agree with everything Hillary Clinton said about the issue, I also feel that she should not have made it a public statement (at least not specifically addressing China). It’s not going to do a god-damn thing but piss off the Chinese government and reinforce the idea a lot of Chinese people have that the U.S. is somehow anti-China. Let the Chinese learn from their own mistakes.
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@Square Head
Oh I see what you are saying. Actually it is technically a “positive” feedback loop not a negative feedback loop. The word “positive” here does not carry the sense of ‘good’ or ‘correct’ it means ‘reinforcing’.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_feedback_loop
and in particular:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Positive_feedback_loop#In_sociology
January 28, 2010 at 1:04 pm
Fortunately, Wikepedia has suceeded in escaping the censorship of Ciber-Army in China, I will read the wikipedia article….Cheers!
January 28, 2010 at 5:03 pm
The “Postive” in the article is using right? Here, I know you want to describle the Negative infulence of censorship.
January 28, 2010 at 12:44 am