New America Media had a
radio interview with
Peter Scheer today.
As discussed in my
Tuesday post, Scheer is trying to have the
US seek WTO sanctions aganist
China’s "great firewall." He prefaced his remarks, as he has many written statements, by saying that his real goal is free speech and the trade issue is only a legal excuse.
After listening to the interview, I was even more puzzled by this indirect approach. I guess it is parallel to convicting organized crime leaders of tax evasion because it is not possible to prove they deal in drugs. In that case, however, at least it is two similar things (criminal acts) that are being interchanged. For what Scheer wants, there really is not much in parallel between blocking selected internet sites and suppressing trade. On the contrary, it could easily be argued that giving open access to more international websites, especially those that are constantly bashing China, would cause more nationalist sentiment to emerge and really hinder trade, as products, companies and perhaps whole countries are boycotted by consumers.
I found it curious that Scheer, in his right mind, would mention there are more internet users in China than any other country and use this as his argument. This is an almost- true statement (as of December, 2007, it looks like the US is still first with about 212 Million users, while China is second with about 162 Million), but It is more interesting to compare this number to the 34 million Chinese users in 2001 when the WTO agreement was signed. That year the United States had 143 million.
So how has China managed to grow the number of internet users so rapidly? It is only because the Chinese government has made it a priority to build the infrastructure to support internet use. Since we are talking about the ability to get information, I can't help but wonder what Scheer's real motive is. Does he view such increase as a progress brought by China's joining the WTO? If so, does he want to take it back by kicking China out of the WTO?
As we say in China, 醉翁之意不在酒 - the drunkard’s point is not the wine. Who knows what he's really about? Perhaps he has too much money or time at hand, perhaps he is dreaming of replacing Mao as the greatest savior of the Chinese people.
A balanced argument about access to information can’t ignore historical progress, and this really makes Scheer’s case that much weaker. He stated in the radio interview that having, or threatening to have, WTO sanctions is the best path to increasing freedom of speech in China. But how can he claim to know the best, when his eyes are closed to the progress that has already been made?
Posts
22 comments:
or maybe it's a fashionable thing to do, and the US, with economy currently in a slump, is warming up to the protectionist measures.
Not one of your better posts, I think. Are you really arguing that by employing tens of thousands of internet police and blocking access to websites that discuss China's human rights situation, the Falungong, and the Tiananmen Square Incident - just to name a few - that the CCP is doing us all a favor by preventing a nationalist uprising? Poppycock! You are correct in reminding us all that China is not the same place that it was in 1978. Even so, one can make a compelling argument in support of the idea that media freedoms in China - particularly as they relate to the internet - have taken several steps backward during the last five years or so. The internet was arguably freer in 2000 than it is in 2008. It's all very well for the CCP to worry about the effects of pornography on the delicate minds of China's youth, but censoring politically sensitive material is the act of a thin-skinned, frightened regime. Moreover, consider the longterm effects of such policies and how they limit the development and expression of human capital. Sure, China is better. Congratulations. But it still has a long, long, long way to go. You would do better, I think, to focus more on the road ahead than on the road behind.
Nice to see you here again, Rocking. Certainly protectionism was playing big in the primary. We'll see if it comes back in the general election.
Anonymous - It looks like you missed the point of my post. It might help if you read it together with another one titled "Peter Scheer's case against China" a few posts down.
The point is that free speech and trade are two different issues and Scheer is unreasonable to use one to argue for the other. I was demonstrating his unreasonableness by using a similarly farfetched argument. In this sense both arguments are poppycock, but that is exactly my point.
Interesting that you see China's internet was freer in 2000 than it is now. Do you have data to back that? I visit China every year and my personal experience is that the internet excess seems to be getting easier each time.
I agree that China has a long way to go, however it needs to find its own path. Farfetched foreign pressure like Scheer's is not useful.
Anon, I am curious. How is the internet freer in 2000 than 2008? How can you even argue that's the case? I have seen no evidence of that, other than some western media saying that Chinese human rights situation worsened rather than improved from the time Olympics was granted to them. That statement is ridiculous, since just because China hasn't become as free as some western countries, doesn't mean that China hasn't improve its human rights situation.
By the way, where did you get the statistic that there are tens of thousands of internet police online? CCP blocks access to websites on the basis of keywords. They don't have tens of thousands of internet polices online worrying about what people might say.
Addam - like you, I'm curious about Anonymous' claim that China's internet access now is worse than 2000. I hope he will provide us evidence for that.
The suggestion that China's internet is less free now than in 2000 is not new. There is certainly room for debate on the issue, but the main points in favor of the argument center around China's use of increasingly sophisticated technology and tens of thousands of internet police to limit the spread of undesireable internet content. In the late 90s, China's censorship of the internet was hamfisted, entire sites (e.g. The New York Times, The Washington Post, BBC, etc.) were entirely off-limits. If you tried to visit one of these sites, the page simply would not load. These days, China's approach to internet censorship is less obvious, but arguably more effective at limiting certain forms of content.
For those of you who are interested in the subject of China's GFW (Great Fire Wall), there is a very good article by James Fallows of 'The Atlantic' at http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200803/chinese-firewall. You might also do a search for relevant articles at China Digital Times.
In any event, there is room for disagreement regarding the relative freedom of the internet internet. My opinion is that the Chinese authorities have figured out how to use new methods and technologies to prevent the spread of unwanted content while giving the IMPRESSION of greater freedom. If, for example, you are using the internet to search for information on the British Premier League on the BBC's website, then things must seem much freer now. The difference is that China is much better at selective censorship. In other words, there is no need for the Chinese authorities to block every web address beginning with 'www.BBC...' when they possess technologies that can simply block certain kinds of content.
Finally, the point I made in my first response to Xujun's post remains the same - this is not her best work. The idea that Chinese censorship might actually be helping to prevent a popular nationalist uprising against the West is a completely ludicrous conceit. Think about it. The consequences of the Chinese educational system's program of patriotic indoctrination are evident. As I said earlier, censorship is the act of an insecure and frightened regime.
Freedom of speech is necessary in societies (e.g. U.S., Britain, France, Germany, etc.) that are governed by their people. Without the free exchange of ideas, the people would be uninformed and incapable of casting informed votes. Just as important, freedom of speech also raises the quality of a people by making them more tolerant of dissenting views - i.e., views other than their own. China could use a bit more freedom of speech, I think.
Ma Bole
So far as I am aware China does manipulate its firewall to favor Chinese companies. Doesn't it then become a trade issue?
Wasn't youtube blocked while 'youku' got started? Etc. . . etc. . .
Ma Bole -
Thanks for the comments. And the Atlantic article is indeed interesting - thanks for the link as well.
However (and again), no one is disagreeing that "China could use a bit more freedom of speech." It can. The question here is what would help and what would not. A related question is whether China is making progress toward more freedom of speech. Do you really believe punishment will work better than encouraging progress? Do you really believe that this specific foreign pressure will help?
The claim made in the Atlantic article that foreign sites might be directed to Chinese company sites is indeed relevant to trade, and is not something I had heard Scheer mention. Curious, that he would not make the one legitimate point in his argument more forcefully. I am not sure if this is due to his lack of evidence, or something else. Perhaps you should give him some counsel. :-)
You are making too much of the particulars of Mr. Scheer's argument. He is a Harvard educated lawyer and executive director of the California First Amendment Coalition(www.cfac.org). As such, you are probably safe in assuming that freedom of speech - and not Chinese violations of its WTO agreements - are his primary concern. Since the Chinese authorities are unlikely to agree to hear his arguments in favor of improving freedom of speech in China, his decision to pursue alternative strategies seems absolutely reasonable. Your comparison to the U.S. Department of Justice's handling of Al Capone is a good one - i.e., sending Capone to prison on charges of tax evasion (as opposed to murder, money laundering or racketeering) was better than allowing him to remain free.
I doubt very much that Mr. Scheer believes that he will win his case. But he may care less about winning than in bringing more attention to an issue that many people care about. In any case, this is how the process works - without people like Mr. Scheer, both inside and outside China, progress in China would come much more slowly.
It's a pity that more Chinese do not appreciate the efforts of such people. Too busy congratulating yourselves for the progress China has made to see how much further China has yet to go (行百里者半九十). Too busy defending China against western critics to listen to the merits of their criticism.
I look forward to the day when the Chinese are not so thin-skinned and afraid - when an ignorant buffoon like Jack Cafferty of CNN can say something stupid and China's foreign ministry won't feel the need to respond, or will respond by simply saying "Great men do not bear grudges against the petty man"(大人不記小人過) or "Ivory does not grow from the mouths of dogs"(狗嘴裏長不出象牙來).
Finally, China will never be admired as a great nation again until it has these things: freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, an independent judiciary, and some form of genuine representative democracy. Until that day arrives, China will be feared and hated much more than it is admired.
I, Ma Bole, submitted the previous comment.
Ma Bole -
I appreciate your righteous anger in a 恨铁不成钢 way - hating the iron for not being steel. I do think we have a lot more in common than you might have realized, but our disagreement lies in the view of the role of foreign influence. You seem to believe strongly that outside pressures have a significant impact, while I see the opposite. I happen to believe that substantive change comes from inside. And you are right that I do not have much appreciation for efforts such as that of Mr. Scheer's, which 成事不足，败事有余 - breaks more than it makes.
Lastly, I hope it is okay with you that we 求同存异- seek common ground while keeping our differences.
Where would China be without foreign influence? Nowhere, that's where. You are so invested in the narrative of China's victimization at the hands of foreigners that you can hardly imagine that China has benefitted from foreign influence far more than it has been hurt. In fact, no one knows how to hurt the Chinese better than other Chinese. (As the late Bo Yang once wrote, "Alone, one Chinese is a dragon. Together, three Chinese are worms.") Moreover, you reject the idea that political reform can be forced on China, but fail to recognize the sad irony of your rejection - that China's present AUTHORITARIAN system was, and is, forced on the people of China.
Where would China be without foreign science and technology? Where would China's "economic miracle" be without foreign investment or involvement in such foreign institutions as the WTO? Where would Chinese such as yourself be without the educations you've received in foreign universities? Where would the Chinese people be now had the Japanese not been defeated by foreigners in World War II? The list goes on...
In most ways, China has been the BENEFICIARY of foreign influence - not a victim.
On the other hand, foreigners are not responsible for human history's most destructive civil war - the Taiping Rebellion. Neither were foreigners responsible for the decades of disasterous policies punctuated by the Great Leap Forward and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. The monster, Mao "The Lord of Misrule" Zedong, was not a foreigner.
Mr. Scheer is just one man, and his contribution may not amount to much. It certainly won't when people like you, who should know better, dismiss his work as unwelcome interference. It is a shame that more Chinese do not applaud his efforts to bring attention to China's failures. Instead, you wave your flags and threaten boycotts and congratulate yourselves on China's ability to stand fast in the face of foreign criticism.
The cowardice that overseas Chinese demonstrate in failing to demand greater freedoms in China is profoundly disappointing. When will you blog on the subjects of Hu Jia and Chen Guangcheng? Who will be the next Chinese to find himself (or herself) in prison for expressing an opinion? And when that happens and foreigners begin to criticize, how many Chinese will wave their flags and shake their fists in defense of the government?
Ma Bole
Few points from the post and the discussion:
(a) The "great firewall" is easy enough to get over if you want. I live in China and use Firefox together with the humorously-titled "Gladder" (great ladder) plug-in which automatically routes requests for banned sites through random web proxies. I guess anyone who really wants to read banned foreign sites is already doing so.
(b) As to the main argument in the post: I agree that Internet censorship has little to do with trade. I expect the courts will take a similar view. There is a legitimate question about whether trade sanctions would work. They would certainly hurt the US as well as China and China could hurt the US almost as much by stopping its funding of American debt. Even the very small shift away from the RMB-$ fixed exchange rate was a major cause of the recent US slow down. If China wanted to do, it could make it a lot worse (see below for more details).
However, I do not understand the surprise or the outrage that two unconnected issues might be tied together for political purposes. This happens all the time. Politics is the exercise of power. The objective of politics is to use your power to achieve your goals - whether or not the area where you have power is related to your goal. In congress, it is common to tie a controversial proposal to unrelated "must pass" legislation to force it through. Even in our personal lives we use this tactic. You want your daughter to do something. You either offer her something she wants for doing it, or threaten her with something she doesn't want for not doing it. The two things do not have to be related - do your homework or you cannot watch your favorite TV show. I am not even certain the world would be better if such practices were somehow eliminated. I am, however, certain that they will always happen.
(c) Anonymous "Where would China be without foreign influence?"
I agree with some of your points. Certainly most of China's suffering during the 20th century was self-inflicted. I also agree that China has benefited from international trade, foreign direct investment, foreign technology etc. However, they did not receive these benefits an the basis of charity - they received them because the foreigners gained something as well. Chinese goods are (or at least were) cheaper than those from elsewhere. China offered attractive returns on investment. In other words, there was an exchange and both sides got something they wanted.
As as a slight aside, it should be noted that FDI from the US to China is fifty times smaller than the capital flows from China into the US (mostly US treasuries). In 2007, US FDI into China $5.7 billion, but the increase in Chinese financial claims on US residents (that is purchases of US stocks and bonds by Chinese government or citizens) was $235 billion. This went some way to explain the capital account balance of $237 billion between US and China. Source: US Bureau of Economic Analysis
This is, essentially, the other side of the huge US-China trade deficit. If you want a metaphor, it is like GM lending Joe Smith money to buy a GM car. China lends money to the US to buy Chinese products. The recent economic problems in the US are at least partly caused by China deciding to lend less money to the US (i.e. relaxing their fixed exchange rate) and the resulting upward pressure on interest rates.
Maybe I went into a bit too much detail, but my point is this: the US-China economic relationship has offered benefits to both sides.
Ma Bole, thank you for commenting again. I think you have failed to
distinguish mutually beneficial cooperation from admonition or
even direct intervention. Still, we have largely worn out the topic of Mr. Scheer's activities, so it is probably best to leave each of us with our own views.
As for my future posts - thanks for the input, but I am not pursuing an agenda. If you truly advocate democracy, would you please let me decide what subjects I should be interested in on my own blog?
Paul, thanks for chirping in. I appreciate your thoughtful comments.
You all make very good points. I know it's "worn out", but let me make my points clearer.
1. no one denies free speech is important.
2. I do agree with Paul, it's more of a power play in politics. Now, the problem is mixing policies this way is:
2a. It muddles with true "altruistic intention" of helping China's free speech. As in power play, we all know what governs the US congress policy is ultimately what's good for the U.S. If the U.S. thinks protectionism isn't good for America, congress isn't going to approve it regardless of the internet censor issue, on the other side, if protectionism is in fashion, it may just use free speech as an excuse.
2b. It runs against the spirit of WTO. Not conditioning trade policy on politics is what free trade is about. Reverting that, is to revert back to the days when MFN is based on political winds.
2c. What if the threat isn't credible enough? And more importantly what if the policy doesn't achieve it intended goals?
Say the U.S. imposes on some tariff, and China then retaliate with tariff also without doing anything with censor issue. They can. Now because of the policy, people in both countries suffer while free speech isn't improved. Hasn't this happened many times before?
2d. the metaphor.
Paul's metaphor is a good one, but it's also based on authoritative relationships - mother and daughter.
Now more realistically, what you face is a daughter in puberty age who doesn't always listen to mom any more? tell her "clean up your room or else you won't have supper". well, she may as well not cleaning the room and skip the supper. worse yet, she may go eat with someone on streets who can dole out some bread. that leads us to 2c.
that's what sovereignty is about.
A better metaphor in this situation is thus: you tell your neighbor "stop yelling to your wife, that's not civil, or else I will block your light on the east yard". Well, you may get your wish if "light on east yard" is important enough to him. But you invite resentment also with this approach.
3. Ma made a lot of good points, but failing to address 2c 2d runs the risk of running into Bush doctrine towards Iraq, so to speak. We are helping Iraq building democracy, so the onus is on Iraqi people to make it work and they should only be thankful. Well, tell that to millions of people, thousands of children who lost lives during the war.
Or, in a smaller scale, tell that to ordinary people who will suffer because of lost jobs and higher prices if the proposed policy goes through and retaliatory policy follows.
4. The U.S. government is in the same pants with CCP government more than you think. I won't elaborate here.
looks like Paul did some work in economics. :) In game theory speak, it's much better to limit the game in a smaller scope if you don't possess the trumpet card, or the consequence is too sever to suffer, similar to the "limited war" idea.
That's why we have huge trade mechanism and institutions.
oh, and saying "where would China be without western technology" is as pointless as saying "where would west be without China", with paper, print, gun powder, etc, IMO.
Of course you have an agenda. Your decision to blog twice on the subject of Mr. Scheer's "interference" and not on the CCP's continued efforts to stifle freedom of speech is evidence of an agenda. What's more, it is a tired, passive, safe agenda.
Why not blog on the subject of the CCP's renewed efforts to increase censorship (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bda7cc42-4206-11dd-a5e8-0000779fd2ac.html?nclick_check=1) or its attempts to intimidate western academics from publishing work on sensitive topics (http://www.thenational.ae/article/20080621/FOREIGN/425026836/1002/NEWS) or recent EU criticism of China's internet censorship (http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/feedarticle/7598551)?
Why do you choose to blog about Mr. Scheer - a single individual who hasn't a Chinaman's chance of changing anything? Why ignore the larger issues? Why be a cliche? Why be like all of the other angry Chinese who shake their fists and wave their flags at the impertinence of western critics?
In the end, people like you are like Muslims who rage against the West for publishing cartoons of the prophet while ignoring the greater crimes that their governments perpetrate against them.
Where is Chinese courage? Your choice of subject is proof of one of two things: an agenda or cowardice.
Ma Bole
The link to the second article on the intimidation of western scholars is (http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2008/06/want-access-go-easy-on-china/)
Well said, Rocking. Your comparison of the US government and CCP is poignant. Maybe it is the engineer in me - I got a good laugh out of your number scheme. :-)
One last comment. Check out Rebecca Mackinnon's blog (http://rconversation.blogs.com/rconversation/). Her current post concerns China's GFW and "Net Nannies". As far as free speech and internet censorship issues are concerned, her's is the example you should aspire to. Read it and weep.
Ma Bole
And one more last comment. Blog on this:
Beijing blocked access within China to “In the Hepatitis B Camp,” a popular website and online forum for carriers of the virus and which was the world’s biggest such forum with over 300,000 members. China’s 120m carriers of the virus are widely discriminated against by companies, universities and some government departments, even though the virus cannot be spread through casual contact.
(http://chinadigitaltimes.net/2008/06/group-warns-china-on-website-shutdown/)
Ma Bole
Wow, Ma Bole, three angry posts in a row. I'm puzzled by how my little corner of free speech could have made you so furious. Are you sure you really want free speech? If so why are you so eager to turn my blog into Ma Bole's spokesman? Do you force everyone you encounter to say what you want to be said? That's not going to happen, you know. Welcome to America. Get used to free speech.
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