In this post, I shall talk about a)what were the intentions of the chinese government behind the introduction of the internet in the country, b)What properties make the internet a dangerous artifact in a communist nation, and c)What measures have been taken by the Chinese Government in tackling the political issues that arise from the very prescence of the internet in the country.
Why China?
There are more internet users in China( around 400 million users ) than there are people living in the U.S.; and over 36 million people got wired onto the net, making it the largest and fastest growing network in the world. Besides, being a communist nation, the internet poses a threat to the very construct and ideology of the chinese government, making the internet an artifact with a very strong political influence.
What makes the internet an artifact with politics?
To understand this, let us compare the internet with previously existent media for communication. We have seen the speed with which rumours spread by word of mouth, but it does have constraints such as distance. The telephone/mobile services is constrained to speech and SMS, but they go a step further in terms of distance. If the cost incurred is considered, STD and ISD calls are expensive, and thus distance is also a constraint in these services. Man's next greatest media innovation is the television network, where distance is no bar and the information transfered has the extra dimension of visual content. It is mind-boggling how quickly information is transfered through the TV network. But setting up a TV channel is an expensive affair, thus reducing the no. of channels.
And then came along the internet. Add distance-coverage of the TV network, price of the telephone network and the ease with which a web-page( channel ) can be created, and we have got ourselves an uncontrolled chain reaction. It starts with the sheer amount of internet content available to anyone hooked onto the net, which comes as a direct consequence of the ease with which a webpage can be created. Now that there are so many 'channels', it is easy to stay anonymous. This leads to a phenomenon wherein large no. of people maintain their anonymity, thus giving themselves the right to express freely and spread any sort of content. Ideas manifest and spread like wildfire. This makes the internet, more or less, the most politically influential atrifact that has ever existed.
Politics of internet in China
Computer networking began in China with the intention of helping science and research. The first networks include the Institute of High energy Physics Network( IHEPNet ) and China Academic Network( CANet ).The Chinese first-people decided to use this platform to introduce the internet with the intention of boosting economic planning, elctronic commerce and improving science and research.
But they soon learned that the native Chinese could access webpages based abroad as easily as those within china, which led to the fear of the idea of 'Democracy' manifesting itself inside the country; a death blow to the communist regime. Even a small slip-up could cause this idea to spread across all over the chinese populace, creating organizations, cults and terrorist groups that would attempt to over the chinese premier and change the political structure of the nation-state. Thus, censorship became a topic of utmost importance in the country.
What measures were taken?
The Chinese government started their censorship, first by making the market of ISP's( Internet service providers ) a monopoly run by the government, thus ensuring that they framed and fully controlled the censorship and the respective policies. There exists a State council decree which requires ICPs( Internet Content Providers ) to provide, upon demand by authorities, all content that appear on their sites, and records of users who have visited them for upto 60 days prior to the request. There has been a crackdown on pornography, gambling and content put up by counter-revolutionary forces.
There have been many incidents where the government has arrested people for the content posted, and they have mostly been done so as to send out a warning to the public. Officers of Sohu.com were raided as users found links to pornography. Lin Hai, a software Engineer, was arrested for emailing to a pro-democracy newsletter based in the U.S. Huang Qi was arrested for posting content on the 1989 Tiananmen square incident, wherein over 100,000 people participated in a peaceful protest, which was eventually cracked down using the military. This website is based abroad and so it is always up-to-date with his trial. He can spend upto 10 years in prison.
But the most influential political problem that the government faced as a direct consequence of the internet was the "Falung Gong". This was initially a spiritual exercise group, much the same as 'The art of living', but in 1999 it quickly grew into a cult. The website responsible was created by their leader, who was previously exiled in 1995, and is based in the U.S. and is entirely in the chinese language. All the staged demonstrations were coordinated through the website.
Now here's a little exercise. Google Liu Xiaobo. Then, in a separate tab, go to the china daily website and search for the same name. Now compare the no. of hits in each page. The result would surprise you.
-- Amit M. Warrier
References:-
Shaping the Internet in China: Evolution of Political Control over Network
Infrastructure and Content
Eric Harwit; Duncan Clark
Asian Survey, Vol. 41, No. 3. (May - Jun., 2001), pp. 377-408.
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