China 2020: How Western Business Can—and Should—Influence Social and Political Change in the Coming Decade

4. China 2.0

4 China 2.0 Illusion and Promise behind the “Great Firewall” “Are you ashamed?” Representative Tom Lantos bellowed at executives from some of America’s leading technology companies. This was a notable low point for these executives from Cisco, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Google during the February 2006 hearing before the United States House of Representatives International Relations Committee. In rapid sequence, a parade of legislators from both political parties took turns excoriating U.S.-based Internet companies for their business operations in China. It was, however, the questioning by Californian Congressman Lantos, a Holocaust survivor, that stung the most. “Yes or no?” Lantos demanded. “Are you proud of it or ashamed of it?” The Congressional hearing had been convened to investigate a state of affairs that outraged legislators and engendered considerable dismay among the American public: China seemingly had done the impossible—it censored the Internet, a feat former President Bill Clinton had likened to “nailing Jell-O to a wall.” What was even more galling to the Congressional committee was that the fingerprints of foreign companies—and 72 China 2020 American technology firms in particular—were all over a series of actions that ran counter to the bedrock principles of open and democratic societies. Cisco sold the networking equipment that security officials programmed to filter out undesirable websites and spy on the e-mail correspondence of political dissidents; Google, whose widely publicized corporate motto was “Don’t Be Evil,” had launched a Chinese search engine that filtered out websites using terms such as “democracy,” “Tiananmen Square,” and “Falun Gong”; Microsoft deleted the writings of Zhao Jing, a prodemocracy advocate whose blog appeared on the company’s computer server located on U.S. soil. Search engine and online content destination Yahoo was the most reprehensible of all in the eyes of many; Yahoo executives revealed to the Chinese government the identity of journalist Shi Tao. As a result, Shi Tao was sentenced to prison for ten years for using a Yahoo e-mail account he had believed was anonymous. The disappointment and dismay in the United States over Internet censorship in China continues to run deep for a number of reasons. First, China’s heightened profile with regard to censoring the Internet shattered a widespread naïveté about the deus ex machina power of Internet technology to transcend borders and reshape traditional power relations. Many China observers clung to the belief that the Internet would ineluctably empower new global “netizens” to flourish in the face of even the most repressive regimes. Clinton’s observation that censoring the Internet would be like nailing Jell-O to the wall reflected this belief. But it seems that nobody had considered the ease of actually controlling access to Internet content with a simple adjustment to a network switch here and tweaks to a search engine there. Suddenly, it became abundantly clear that governments were still in charge, and not only could control news and other information accessible over the Internet but also could pressure the companies providing that access into revealing heretofore private information—resulting in the identification, punishment, and silencing of those whose beliefs and communications did not conform with the state agenda. As much as Internet technology could empower and inform the public, it was now evident that the same technology could also be a tool in the hands of authoritarian regimes to prevent unfettered access, disseminate propaganda, manipulate public opinion, and control its citizenry. A deeper cause for concern was that China’s Internet censorship undermined the idea that economic reform was helping to push its political China 2.0 73 system toward greater openness, democracy, and respect for human rights. In 2000, when the United States Congress approved China’s accession to the World Trade Organization, a key premise was that economic liberalization and trade would have a positive impact on democracy and human rights. The Internet was the trump card for those favoring economic engagement ; surely, as Bill Clinton insisted, China’s rulers would have little chance of controlling the open and democratizing effect of the Internet. When it became clear, however, that the Chinese Communist Party could and would censor the Internet, it cast doubt on the putative connection between economic and political liberalization. Expanding business ties and introducing advanced information technology to China was supposed to bring greater freedom and democracy to Chinese citizens; but how was this going to happen...