Culture and Politics in China's Internet

[ 164 ] asia policy Culture and Politics in China’s Internet Randy Kluver Political leaders, activists, and academics have all shared a common expectation regarding China’s relationship to the Internet. Given the explosive growth of the number of users, China’s innovative use of technology, and the tension between the “Internet wants to be free” technology and China’s highly controlled political and social sector, the scene is a set for a classic “battle royale” between state control and a newly empowered citizenry led by issue advocates and Internet campaigns. Guobin Yang’s highly interesting and informed look at this battle brings together a number of narratives, including the role of transnational activists, utopian realism, and the style of contention online. His focus, however, is primarily on the role of netizens and civic associations in using the Internet to launch campaigns for justice, to challenge the rules and authority of central and local governments, and to push for greater openness in Chinese society. Given the large interest in China’s relationship to the Internet, of course, there are a number of works that address this issue, including Michael Chase and James Mulvenon’s You’ve Got Dissent: Chinese Dissident Use of the Internet and Beijing’s Counter-Strategies, Christopher Hughes and Gudrun Wacker’s China and the Internet: Politics of the Digital Leap Forward, and Zixue Tai’s The Internet in China: Cyberspace and Civil Society.1 Yang’s contribution is to weave together strands of the argument that has been made piecemeal by a number of other authors and to take a more nuanced perspective regarding the promise of the Internet. Indeed, at a time when observers in the West have largely lowered their expectations for Internet-driven political change, there remains a certain confidence that the Internet will indeed transform China, much as earlier advocates argued that trade would lead to a more open society. As evidence for this, one need look no further than the blurb by Governor Howard Dean on the cover of Yang’s book: “The ultimate instrument of individual empowerment is remaking one of the most controlling societies on earth.” 1 Michael Chase and James Mulvenon, You’ve Got Dissent: Chinese Dissident Use of the Internet and Beijing’s Counter-Strategies (Santa Monica: RAND, 2002); Christopher R. Hughes and Gudrun Wacker, China and the Internet: Politics of the Digital Leap Forward (New York: Routledge, 2003); and Zixue Tai, The Internet in China: Cyberspace and Civil Society (New York: Routledge, 2006). randy kluver is Executive Director of the Institute for Pacific Asia and Research Professor in the Department of Communication at Texas A&M University. He can be reached at . [ 165 ] book review roundtable • the power of the internet in china The problem is that Governor Dean’s enthusiasm perhaps is more a projection of his own desires than a reflection of the reality of social life in China. Yang, for his part, acknowledges the role of the Internet in empowering individuals and activists but, to his credit, understands that there is much more ambiguity than is often acknowledged regarding the long-term social and political consequences of the Internet. What he does do is pull together multiple data points in such a way as to better articulate the capacity of new informationtechnologiesforacceleratingsocialandpoliticalchange.Thereare multiple narratives at play within Chinese cyberspace, including the use of the Internet by individuals to challenge governmental policies, to redress local or central governmental officials, and to build new forms of social alliances. But in addition to these positive trends, the Internet in China also has contributed to increased social bullying (such as through the “human flesh search engine” phenomenon), fraud, and disinformation. Yang very carefully sorts through these multiple narratives and attempts to locate the role of the Internet in a time of already rapid and extensive social and political change. This story, moreover, is difficult to tell: During the most rapid economic growth and social change in history, how does one isolate the role of one variable, even— or, rather, especially—when that variable is the Internet? China’s political and social makeover began long before 1994, when the Internet was introduced to China, and includes factors that seem far...