By The Diplomat
Chatham House fellow and Wall Street Journal blogger Yiyi Lu says some of the conventional wisdom on China just isn’t very wise.
Are you surprised Google has taken the stand it has over the censorship row with the Chinese government? What does this row say about the prospects for any easing of government control of the Internet?
I’ve got a different take on this from many other people. I’m surprised that Google has taken this stand because when it initially went to China the censorship system was already in place—it knew it had to face this situation and decided to go anyway. But now it’s saying that it doesn’t want to operate like this anymore. Generally speaking, this isn’t a very good strategy for any business entering China. Companies should do a careful study, weigh the pros and cons, anticipate problems and then make the decision.
Of course, as the situation in a country evolves, a company may reassess its position. But, generally speaking, it’s better to announce any new position after a final decision has been reached. In Google’s case, it announced its decision to stop censoring search results first, then indicated it was prepared to negotiate with the Chinese government to see if there might be a mutually acceptable solution. But in my view, it would have been better to try to negotiate first, and only announce any decision once it was clear negotiations couldn’t produce any agreement. Announcing a decision first was seen as an open challenge to the Chinese government, which diminished the chances of a negotiated solution.
I think the Chinese government for its part will certainly avoid any suggestion that it’s giving in to Google’s open challenge to its censorship rules. I think that perception is something that’s very important to them to avoid—not just in dealing with a company, but with any sort of open challenge. I think the Chinese government always feels that it can’t be seen to be weak, that if it’s challenged and is seen to back down, then that opens the floodgates and other people and organisations will immediately follow suit. So in general, they’ll work very hard to avoid the perception that they’ll give in under pressure.
That said, it’s not as if putting pressure on the Chinese government never works. For example, in the past, there have been confrontations with the United States over certain issues and the Chinese government seemed to have no choice but to back down. But it won’t admit it was because of external pressure. So, I think even if at some point in the future the government eases control of the Internet, it will carefully avoid the suggestion that it was because a company or individual or another country pressuring it.
Recent reports have suggested that China’s budget for domestic public security almost equals the country’s defence budget. What do you make of this level of expenditure, and what kinds of threat is the government currently focused on?
Clearly these figures show the authorities are worried about potential threats to stability, and that’s why you have this huge amount of spending on domestic security. One concern is ethnic tensions. There are vast areas—Tibet and the Uighur autonomous region for example—where there have been serious problems in the last couple of years and which will take a huge government effort to monitor, anticipate problems and try to deal with possible security threats.
Photo Credit: Uniphoto Press
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Josie nguyen
I like this article; well balanced and reasonable and more importantly, sounds believable. The media and the Internet have been great in fuelling our hunger for information, but NOT knowledge. In particular, the general media (the ones that care more about headlines and sound bites than substance) and the Internet in particular have, together and generally had the effect, as far as political discourses are concerned, of polarizing the world by making people dumber and by appealing to humanity’s negative emotions. Overall, the Internet has brought out the WORST in humans more than the good. The Internet makes it way too easy for people who are lazy and/or sloppy to think about issues to further narrow their viewpoints because thinking is hard work, to become more herd-like (either for or against issues, countries, people, etc, especially issues that can generate negative emotions such as “China is our enemy”, “China is arrogant”, etc., people get excited, a herd like type of excitement). For the thoughful type, the Internet is a God send, for the ideologues and the uninitiated masses, the Internet is a dangerous weapon of mass destruction of reason and reasonableness.
chinadepth
Nice to see a well-balanced take on things. I do think the top leadership is misunderstood by those who would portray them in stark black & white terms, and my feeling is there is a great distinction to be made between Beijing, which is grappling with truly enormous short- and long-term challenges and deserves our patience, and provincial and local government officials, the latter of whom often run their cities like personal businesses / fiefdoms. This perception of total corruption and complete incompetence at the top levels is probably outdated. (At least, it has to be, or we’re all in big trouble!)
C. Wong
All countries will do the same as China has done, in the case of Google. What is more important than a country’s own security and stability. It is not an exclusive right just for China. It started with the accusation of censorship, was it not? When it did not work, the issue of hacking and downloading was brought up. What is to follow now???
water
This was a well-written article. However, the writer ignored the “800 lbs. gorilla” in the room, namely, the attempt on part of the Chinese authorities to hack into Google’s servers and download its source code.
Yes, Google initially made noise about censorship but it was the attempt to steal Google’s intellectual property that escalated into the current situation.
Had the writer addressed this issue, it would have satisfied many readers.