People use computers at an Internet cafe in Kunming, southwest China's Yunnan province on March 13, 2007. Reuters
Wall Street Journal: China Pushes to Rewrite Rules of Global Internet
Officials aim to control online discourse and reduce U.S. influence.
SHANGHAI—As social media helped topple regimes in the Middle East and northern Africa, a senior colonel in the People’s Liberation Army publicly warned that an Internet dominated by the U.S. threatened to overthrow China’s Communist Party.
Ye Zheng and a Chinese researcher, writing in the state-run China Youth Daily, said the Internet represented a new form of global control, and the U.S. was a “shadow” present during some of those popular uprisings. Beijing had better pay attention.
Four years after they sounded that alarm, China is paying a lot of attention. Its government is pushing to rewrite the rules of the global Internet, aiming to draw the world’s largest group of Internet users away from an interconnected global commons and to increasingly run parts of the Internet on China’s terms.
WNU Editor: We have seen repeatedly in the past decade how the world wide web .... specifically social media .... can be used by opposition groups to promote their policies or organize protests even when they are restricted and/or banned by authoritarian governments. For the Chinese government .... who are always worried that opposition protests could get out of hand .... this is a troubling possibility that keeps security officials and their political bosses up all night. But the problem is that unless the Chinese government wants to pull the plug on the internet .... there is no way that they can control it. My prediction .... they will push these restrictions .... and they will succeed .... but within a day or two someone will find a way to go around it.
1 comment:
When I saw the headline, I first thought "why would China want to limit the internet?" After all to attempt to do so would limit the ability of the Chinese to get their message out. Given that the internet, at least in terms of political discourse has become an anti-American open sewer and is decidedly pro America's enemies including China.
As for "internet discourse" and "American influence" on the internet. This discourse and influence at least when it comes to politics, culture, and foreign policy is decidedly anti-American, pro-Chinese, and pro-Russian. It seems they would want to keep things as they are or perhaps rather than limit the internet they would wish to expand it so they can increase the scope of their message and further undermine America.
What gives here? Perhaps what they really want is not to "reduce" American influence on the internet but to "eliminate" it all together. After all they are dominating the discourse when it comes to political debate. As such, rewriting the rules of a game that one is currently winning handily seems a rather major step!!
The US may have been a "shadow" during some of the protests the Chinese colonel is referring to. While the US lacks the ability to influence the outcome of these sorts of things, prudence would be to try and have a presences there so the US government can ascertain the situation in order to formulate the types of policies necessary to deal properly with these situations. As such, I'd expect the Chinese, the Russians, and other major powers to have a "shadow" with regards to these things as well.
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