Since its rise to power, the Chinese Communist Party has largely been able to control the scope and intensity of public criticism and dissident activity. The state has been able to make use of a nationwide public security network to keep tabs on political dissidents, shut down dissident press, and disrupt dissident organizations before they have been able to make any lasting impression on the population. The stateâs control over print and broadcast media has given it the power to shape and guide public discourse while continually reinforcing its own legitimacy.
Intensive monitoring and surveillance of the countryâs physical space made possible the reasonably effective identification, isolation, and apprehension of anti-government social groupings. For example, a neighborhood committee representative (acting like a spy) overhears plans for a meeting and relays the details to the local Public Security Bureau. Cops then wait outside the meeting location at the appointed time, until all the conspirators are assembled, and then carry them all off to jail.
The ability of Chinaâs security system to monitor and control anti-government elements is being severely challenged, however, by the new realities of the Internet and cyberspace.
In cyberspace, physical location is not a significant barrier to interaction and social organization. With the aid of the Internet, organizational meetings can be distributed in both space and time. Meetings that once took place in a specific physical location can now be carried out within a shared electronic environment that knows no boundaries and that cannot be isolated or surrounded. Participants are scattered far and wide, stationary or mobile, and potentially anonymous. The sheer number of possible meetings between people rises in orders of magnitude, making effective physical surveillance and monitoring extremely difficult to sustain.
The Internet and cyberspace clearly render impotent traditional methods of social and political control on which the Chinese Communist Party has relied for decades and thus represent a threat to state security. They have attempted to maintain tight control over Internet use and content. The government top-tier Internet access providers implement firewalls that prevent Internet Service Provider (ISP) servers accessing websites that are prohibited by the central authorities ö a policy referred to as the ãGreat Firewall of Chinaä. In December 1997, Chinaâs Ministry for Public Security introduced new, sweeping legal regulations. These new rules were adopted to ensure ãthe smooth implementation of the countryâs modernization driveä. One of the regulations makes it illegal to disseminate ãharmful informationä over the Internet. The law also forbids the ãdefamation of government agenciesä ö a phrase observers say is often used when prosecuting and imprisoning dissidents ö or the ãsplitting of the nationä ö referring loosely to views that support regional separatism or an independent Taiwan.
On February 1,
1999, Richtalk, one of the most widely used Chinese language web bulletin
boards was shut down by government decree and has not been resumed. Richtalkâs
crime was that it had not attempted to censor the ãboldä discussions on the Tiananmen Square
Massacre
of June 1989.
The Chinese governmentâs use of such draconian measures to control Internet use demonstrates its awareness of the potential of cyberspace to expose its users to ãspiritual pollutionä. Yet it has not just allowed the Internet to grow, it has encouraged it. Last year, the government instructed the main telecommunications operator to halve data transmission fees and offer free installation of a domestic telephone line. Since 1998, it has initiated substantial upgrades to the ChinaNet backbone capacity, increased international bandwidth fourfold, opened several new government sponsored websites, and introduced a high profile government plan to develop standards for e-commerce. It even announced that 1999 was officially ãGovernment Online Yearä.
There are two main reasons for this seemingly contradictory effort by the Chinese government. First, it recognizes that the Internet is vital to the long-term health of the nationâs economy. Second, it has, like many other countries, learned that effectively controlling Internet content is virtually impossible, as nearly anything the government puts in place is too easily bypassed by users and ISPs. In fact, as early as 1996, Chinaâs leaders had reportedly met and concluded that full control of the Internet was impossible in any case.
Dr. Chengyu Xiong, a professor of communication at Beijingâs Tsinghua University and a top advisor to the Chinese government on the Internet, said the enormous range of traditional media that now flourish in China is a clear signal that the government will tolerate a similarly wide range of expression on the net. Whether or not this toleration was voluntary is not entirely clear.
Yet if the Chinese media has come a long way in recent years, there is still one form of expression Beijing will not tolerate in the slightest: a challenge to the Communist Party. Indeed, politics in any form as a subject for discussion in the Chinese media is still a deeply uncertain proposition.
In the case of the US-based Chinese dissident publication Da Can Kao, the government had tried to set up an online blockade to halt delivery, and had imposed harsh prison terms on anyone who helped distribute the e-zine ö even inadvertently ö inside China. Its efforts were mostly futile. Someone had to take the blame for this, even if only as a deterrent to others. Lin Hai, who had been convicted of selling 30,000 e-mail addresses to Da Can Kao, was chosen because he was the only individual the government could identify. But as world attention was drawn to the case, Lin Haiâs limited connection to the publication caused a predicament for the courts. Although the government viewed the distribution of this publication as a high crime, it was unable to identify any party in China with direct responsibility. As a result, Lin Hai was sentenced to two years for a crime that often carries the death penalty. This case was extremely frustrating for the Chinese security authorities. In 1999, publishers of Da Can Kao said that distribution of their magazine was continuing uninterrupted.
The effectiveness of the existing controls was further called into question December 1999 when the banned China Democratic Party used e-mail to coordinate the public establishment of branches around China, without the knowledge of the security agencies.
Previously, the Chinese governmentâs Internet firewall had prevented access to many foreign websites. Now it is possible to read uncensored reports from such news agencies as Reuters and CNN. Even sites offering overt access to pornography are getting through the governmentâs screens. The London-based Tibet Information Network server has been seen on some ISPs, even including reports alleging abuses by Chinese authorities in Tibet and chronicling international efforts to promote Tibetâs independence. The China News Digest, which has long been banned in China, is now reportedly accessible through an ISP in Shanghai.
Politically motivated users have sidestepped government controls by dialing into ISPs located in Hong Kong, Taiwan, or the US, or used simple hacking techniques (like connecting to proxy servers) to bypass the firewalls. Publishers seeking to disseminate controversial information on the mainland frequently change the location of sites, mirror them on accessible sites, or more commonly, mass e-mail from different e-mail addresses each time.
Dissidents find ways to smuggle their documents to the West and then have someone outside the country re-send them back into China in the form of mass e-mail. The address from which the mail is sent is usually outside the legal boundaries of the Chinese government or simply impossible to trace. And since these mass mailings go to nearly everyone with an e-mail address inside China, the government cannot single out or determine for whom exactly the mailing is intended.
Many users have relied on the fact that it is unlikely the state would ever actually check what they do on the web, assuming that there is safety in numbers. While the ISP logs of e-mail use and web movements are available for the state to inspect, the activity of millions of Internet users creates an enormous haystack for security agencies to sift through and uncover ãsuspiciousä needles. Widely available encryption tools such as Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) further complicate attempts at monitoring e-mail. With the Internet usage in China exploding ö a few thousand in 1995 to 2.1 million in Dec 1998 to 4 million in July 1999 ö the security agenciesâ efforts will be further stymied.
This year, in the wake of the inaugural speech by Taiwanâs new president, Chen Shui-Bian, web site bulletin boards were crowded with critiques and commentaries, many disagreeing with the Chinese governmentâs policy and conduct. Even the website of the Communist Partyâs flagship newspaper, the Peopleâs Daily, became a forum for criticizing Chinaâs leaders. Censors were quick to delete postings of the text of Chenâs speech. Numerous Internet users sent messages to the Peopleâs Daily billboard asking for it, only to be told by others that it had been posted many times but then removed. The government also blocked access to sites where it could be found.
Censors delete many controversial postings, but the rapid-fire technology of the Internet allows users to post comments faster than censors can sort through them. As a result, dissenting views are disseminated among millions of Chinese Internet users. Of course, the writers almost certainly do not use their real names for fear of retribution.
To make things worse for the Chinese government, the borderless nature of the Internet further opens the playing field for anti-government propaganda. In October 1998, two US-based hackers penetrated the server hosting the official Chinese Government Human RightsÊ site the day it was launched and replaced it with a page of denunciations of Chinaâs human rights record, links to Amnesty International and insults about the serversâ standard of security. In December 1998, in protest at the trial of Lin Hai, the same pair hacked into one of main Chinese backbone providers and disabled the firewalls on five servers.
ãThe Internet is a boon for those who want to create organizations, and who need private communications to do soä, says William Overholt, an Asian analyst with Nomura International in Hong Kong. ãItâs pretty good at creating secret societiesä. That worries the Chinese Communist Party, which was itself once an underground operation.
Indeed, 10000 or more followers of the Chinese exercise cult Falun Dafa appeared suddenly on April 25, 1999 at the gates of Zhongnanhai, the Beijing compound that houses the Communist Partyâs highest leaders. Falun Dafa had established a significant presence on the Internet, connecting millions of followers through an extensive and highly organized system of global websites, bulletin board services and e-mail. In China, the government responded by blocking access to Falun Dafa websites through the use of filters, and impeded e-mail traffic among followers, in some cases, shutting down servers altogether. Falun Dafa followers in the US also said that their e-mail to fellow members in China had largely gone unanswered. The government also made long documentary programs attacking the group, and staged press events at which thousands of Liâs books were pulped and thrown in dumpsters.
The Chinese governmentâs crackdown on Falun Dafa appears to have worked. Still, the Internet has shown its ability to surprise a government as never before. Although the governmentâs measures appear very ominous on paper, they have had only a minimal impact. The Falun Dafa cult may have been disbanded, the Richtalk forum may have been discontinued, and Lin Hai may have been incarcerated, but these are perhaps the limits to which the Chinese government can control the Internet in China. It can continue to target individual organizations or entities to instill fear among the Chinese people, but exchanges of opinion on political and social issues will almost certainly continue to flourish.