Media Policy and Globalization - Blogs Unpad

TELECOMMUNICATIONS POLICY 77
public protest that has shaped the terms of domestic telecommunications
reform, but rather the nation’s enormous market power which in itself
acts as a means to discipline TNCs. Yuezhi Zhao has argued that the
Chinese state has played a unique role in both muting public protest
against the neoliberal reforms while at the same time implementing its
version of competition without privatization. In contrast to analysts who
see an inherent tension between China’s ‘capitalist practice and socialist
ideology’ (Singh 1999), Zhao argues that socialist ideology and capitalist
practice reinforce each other through the Chinese nation-state.
Reform in China began in the 1980s when the state ‘prioritised the development
of telecommunications networks in coastal areas to facilitate
transnational capital’s access to cheap labour in China’ (Zhao 2005: 66).
The state’s strategic prioritization and investment in telecommunications
saw rapid unprecedented expansion, with telecommunications transnationals
entering in joint venture operations with different state-operated
bodies to produce equipment and deliver services. China today has become
the second largest national telecommunications market with its
‘highly digitised fixed line and mobile phone networks’ that saw an increase
in access to telephony from a mere 2 million in 1979 to 200 million
by 2000 (Zhao and Schiller 2001: 141). At the same time, China is also
experiencing some of the most drastic disparities in terms of access, for
example, with teledensity rates between rural and urban centres growing
at an alarming pace. 12 The Chinese state’s role in regulating the terms of
reform is undergoing a period of transition as it has become one of the
most recent and noted members of the WTO. China agreed to allow foreign
investment in joint ventures (up to 25 per cent in 2002, 35 per cent in
2003, 49 per cent in 2005) and to eliminate all geographic restrictions by
the end of 2005 (Siochrú et al. 2002: 58). Zhao and Schiller (2001) have
argued that the different institutional actors within the Chinese state are
wary of the liberalization process, therefore proceeding with these pressures
from above in a cautious manner. Meanwhile, the legitimacy of the
Chinese state to implement policies that are associated with increasing
social and economic inequalities is likely to face its own internal tensions.
Reflecting similar trends in India and Brazil that are less known outside
of China, Zhao writes that:
The reform process has met with vibrant forms of social contestation
at the grassroots level. Localised protests by laid-off workers, impoverished
pensioners, overtaxed farmers and urban residents displaced
by real estate developments have become a permanent feature of the
Chinese scene, and the scope and frequency of these protests are intensifying.
(Zhao 2005: 78)