Enabling the 'Great Firewall of China'
UNITED NATIONS — Does doing business in China mean having to kowtow before Beijing’s Marxist Mandarins? It seems so if we look at the business practices of major American internet technology providers who have dutifully prostrated their free speech principles before the altar of Mammon and Moolah. Yes, China’s a big market, and yes they are all doing it. But when you see mega companies aiding and abetting the censorship practices of the People’s Republic of China, you really understand how far we have come to selling the proverbial rope — in this case the silicon rope — which can bind and gag human rights inside what remains the world’s largest dictatorship.
But widespread charges that the big boys are “enthusiastically volunteering for China’s censorship brigade” by playing by Beijing’s strict political rule book has raised unprecedented bi-partisan Congressional rancor. And very rightly so. Though the internet giants pride themselves at the worldwide free flow of information — operating in Mainland China comes at the price of aiding and abetting the dour guardians of communist rule in a variety of ways which control or monitor political discussion and dissent. What of corporate ethics?
We are taking about American firms helping the Chinese security police monitor emails and users and censor actual phrases (eg. Taiwan independence, Tibet, Tiananmen) and block sites. Yahoo’s Chinese affiliate has been accused particularly of sharing emails with the security police which led to arrest of dissidents.
Hearings in the U.S. House subcommittee on international organizations saw Tom Lantos (D-CA) scathingly scold the major internet executives, “Your abhorrent activities in China are a disgrace. I simply do not understand how your corporate leadership sleeps at night.” Congressman Lantos, a Hungarian born longtime human rights advocate was joined by his Republican colleague Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) who slammed Beijing’s persecution of minorities in China.
Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ) called on internet companies to “Bring down the Great Firewall of China . . .”
Responding to criticism of its cooperation with Chinese communist authorities, Google’s Elliot Schrage, VP for global communications stated in a stunningly vapid piece of corporate mumbo-jumbo, “It’s not appropriate to say we’re proud of our decision.”
American internet providers are helping the PRC regime set up the great firewall of China. But here’s the setup — “Stung by accusations that they are collaborating with China repressive communist rulers, Yahoo and Microsoft want to be relieved of hard decisions on how to deal with Chinese internet censorship,” editorializes the Financial Times. The paper adds, “The idea is to pass the buck to U.S. legislators and officials . . . in calling for a new law to deal with censorship overseas.”
There’s a plethora of reasons such a rigid approach won’t work, first and foremost — because Beijing will bristle with nationalist rage with what will be painted as blatant “foreign interference.” Then the internet companies will counter that “we will be marginalized in the Mainland market and lose to other providers (from France, Brazil, South Korea) who will gleefully fill our place.” Moreover how can such an American statute be enforced dealing with not so much with blatant censorship but the equally nuanced controls and passive censorship the PRC is so accomplished at?
Reporters Without Borders, a French media watchdog group reports that press freedoms in the People’s Republic of China stand near the bottom of the global list — barely just above North Korea.
While Washington may take a stab at some sort of enforcement code be advised that the United Nations has been eagerly awaiting the opportunity to set up a global internet control arm which will deal with issues including media censorship. Indeed many of the diplomatic denizens framing such an accord will come from countries such as the People’s Republic of China and Russia, who have, should we say, some genuine expertise in these matters?
By its very nature, the internet promotes the free flow of information — and thus serves as an extraordinary force for change. Equally the internet can also be turned in to an neo-Orwellian tool as Government will instinctively try to control it, and manipulate it.
Change can be destabilizing, and the outcome in China remains far from certain.
John J. Metzler is a U.N. correspondent covering diplomatic and defense
issues. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com. |
