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The Internet in China 113Usually one can access the Net at a cybercafé without showing an ID card; andit is common practice for people to use “Get Online Cards (shangwangka)”that provide dial-up connections without asking for any personal information.30 Although the censorship regime tries to block, filter, and track, mostdetermined users in China can access outlawed information via encryptedmessages, FTP, and, most recently, peer-to-peer technologies (Chase et al.,forthcoming).Moreover, China cannot extend its censorship overseas to disrupt humanrights networks in the US, Falun Gong websites in Europe, multilingual listservsabout Tibet and Taiwan, or Western “hacktivist” groups whose membersoppose Beijing’s Internet strategies. The globally networked nature of suchoppositional forces frustrates all national authorities trying to control theInternet. This is particularly so for the Chinese censors for they are unlikely towin public sympathy in liberal democracies where the anti-censorshipnetworks are usually concentrated.In sum, there are three discernible characteristics of China’s Internetcensorship system that deserve attention. First, regulatory measures are oftenpost-hoc reactions to unpredictable conditions. The surge of content regulationin 2000 was driven by the official perception of threats arising from the 1999anti-NATO demonstrations, in part organized by online forums, whichfollowed the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. It also resultedfrom the global dot-com fever that lured China’s traditional media monopolies,which hoped to raise the entry barrier to the ICP market.Second, although the censorship regime began as a hierarchy in the late1990s (Qiu, 1999: 14–15), its internal redundancy has been increasing alonglegislative, administrative, and technological dimensions since 2000. Thisgives rise to a network of censors which includes multiple state agencies andcommercial entities with relatively independent political and economicgoals. 31 There is no single central control point, as evidenced in the unblockingof nytimes.com following the newspaper’s interview with former presidentJiang Zemin, when he praised The New York Times without knowing that itswebsite was banned in China (Gittings, 2001; Wong, 2002b). The lack of atraditional censorship hierarchy was also shown in the blocking of Google inthe fall of 2002. This fiasco reportedly involved multiple censorship agenciesand China’s domestic search-engine companies, which hoped to increase theirmarket share by blocking Google.com (BBS News World Edition, 2002;Wong, 2002a). But the network of censors is not a flat assemblage of looselinks either. It is enabled by new technologies to carry on the missions of variousinstitutions: from the security/secrecy ministries to the CCP propagandadivisions at national and local levels, operating with compartmentalized interestsin a way that differs from a traditional media control bureaucracy.Finally, China’s network of censors has entered into a covert alliance with

114 Jack Linchuan Qiuthe global IT industry (Zhao and Schiller, 2001), which enhances the capacityof the authoritarian state and necessitates a rethinking of the political role ofthe developmental state, and of economic globalization, in authoritarian countries.Many foreign IT firms, large and small, have provided material supportfor China’s control efforts: Microsoft, CISCO, IBM, Sun, Nortel, and others inEurope and elsewhere (Qiu, 1999; Walton, 2001; Cheung, 2003). ACNielsen/Net Ratings won China’s first license to track consumer browsingbehaviors, which many worry could be used against dissident activities(Cheung, 2003: 85). The dilemma is that, in China’s increasingly globalizedInternet politics, economics also matters. While promising to help China fightonline piracy or learn to do standard American web-based consumer research,profit-seeking multinationals may also assist the regime of political control.Thus Internet censorship in China is not a purely political issue. It must beconsidered within the larger context of global capitalism.THE FORMATION OF CULTURAL IDENTITIESState agencies, IT firms, and activist groups interact to establish, transform,and control the fundamental parameters of China’s cyberspace.Simultaneously, Chinese netizens are constructing their online identities in apeculiar Internet culture that bears both Chinese and universal characteristics.To a great extent, the forging of identities among Internet users is a processshaped by the uneven geographical distribution of the technology, the relativehomogeneity of user demographics, the censorship regime, and the flourishingof consumerism fostered by the party-state and multinational corporations.Predictably, mainstream Chinese users care more about subjects that can bediscussed and celebrated, generating instant gratification for mass consumptionthan the grand narratives of modernity: rationality, liberalism, or “socialistdemocracy.” Two trends are essential to this process of collectiveidentification: (1) the rise of consumerism throughout society and (2) thepersistence of online nationalism with increasing affinity to state agendas.Both processes of cultural identification have been used by the state apparatussince the beginning of Deng Xiaoping’s reform and opening-up period and arelikely to remain central to the transformation of China. When the two bodiesof discourse enter the virtual landscape, via keystrokes and mouse clicks, inimages, sound bites, MP3s, and interactive Flash animations, they evolve intomultiple inconsistent yet interrelated texts, infinite instances of representation,and a new media culture of the ephemeral.First, the versatility of consumerism in subsuming other cultural elementsis a familiar worldwide phenomenon. What is special about China is the astonishingspeed at which such a massive society exchanged the Maoist puritan

114 Jack Linchuan Qiuthe global IT industry (Zhao and Schiller, 2001), which enhances the capacityof the authoritarian state and necessitates a rethinking of the political role ofthe developmental state, and of economic globalization, in authoritarian countries.Many foreign IT firms, lar<strong>ge</strong> and small, have provided material supportfor China’s control efforts: Microsoft, CISCO, IBM, Sun, Nortel, and others inEurope and elsewhere (Qiu, 1999; Walton, 2001; Cheung, 2003). ACNielsen/Net Ratings won China’s first license to track consumer browsingbehaviors, which many worry could be used against dissident activities(Cheung, 2003: 85). The dilemma is that, in China’s increasingly globalizedInternet politics, economics also matters. While promising to help China fightonline piracy or learn to do standard American web-based consumer research,profit-seeking multinationals may also assist the regime of political control.Thus Internet censorship in China is not a purely political issue. It must beconsidered within the lar<strong>ge</strong>r context of global capitalism.THE FORMATION OF CULTURAL IDENTITIESState a<strong>ge</strong>ncies, IT firms, and activist groups interact to establish, transform,and control the fundamental parameters of China’s cyberspace.Simultaneously, Chinese netizens are constructing their online identities in apeculiar Internet culture that bears both Chinese and universal characteristics.To a great extent, the forging of identities among Internet users is a processshaped by the uneven <strong>ge</strong>ographical distribution of the technology, the relativehomo<strong>ge</strong>neity of user demographics, the censorship regime, and the flourishingof consumerism fostered by the party-state and multinational corporations.Predictably, mainstream Chinese users care more about subjects that can bediscussed and celebrated, <strong>ge</strong>nerating instant gratification for mass consumptionthan the grand narratives of modernity: rationality, liberalism, or “socialistdemocracy.” Two trends are essential to this process of collectiveidentification: (1) the rise of consumerism throughout society and (2) thepersistence of online nationalism with increasing affinity to state a<strong>ge</strong>ndas.Both processes of cultural identification have been used by the state apparatussince the beginning of Deng Xiaoping’s reform and opening-up period and arelikely to remain central to the transformation of China. When the two bodiesof discourse enter the virtual landscape, via keystrokes and mouse clicks, inima<strong>ge</strong>s, sound bites, MP3s, and interactive Flash animations, they evolve intomultiple inconsistent yet interrelated texts, infinite instances of representation,and a new media culture of the ephemeral.First, the versatility of consumerism in subsuming other cultural elementsis a familiar worldwide phenomenon. What is special about China is the astonishingspeed at which such a massive society exchan<strong>ge</strong>d the Maoist puritan

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