Now Executive Director of the China Media Project, leading the project’s research and partnerships, David originally joined the project in Hong Kong in 2004. He is the author of Dragons in Diamond Village (Penguin), a book of reportage about urbanization and social activism in China, and co-editor of Investigative Journalism in China (HKU Press).
As China marked its annual Journalists’ Day over the weekend, proclaiming the importance of “correct news ideals,” even jaded New Yorkers stopped in their tracks and took notice. How could they not? The message beamed over 7th Avenue on Times Square, dominating one of the world’s most visible jumbotrons. According to a Chinese-language press release posted by the marketing department at PR Newswire, “many New Yorkers stopped to watch and take photographs.”
Of course, this is all pure fantasy.
An image provided by PR Newswire shows a special greeting for China Journalists’ Day displayed over New York City’s Times Square on November 8, 2015.
The jumbotron message was no more than a propaganda fizzle at the centre of a media-saturated universe China’s leaders seem chronically incapable of understanding. Unable to read Chinese, most Times Square onlookers would not have known this had anything to do with China. The logos of state-run Chinese media, arrayed across the bottom of the screen, would have been equally obscure.
But the fantasy nevertheless reveals a great deal of truth about how the Chinese Communist Party continues to understand the role of journalists and the media today. Fifteen years after Journalists’ Day was created in 2000 as one of three professional holidays in China, the country’s leaders still refuse the media’s right to exist as a true profession, rather than as a proxy of Party-state power.
Here is how the release — framed as a congratulatory message from PR Newswire to China’s “news workers” but quite reflective of the Party’s “mainstream” view — describes China and its press.
As the world’s largest economy, China has one of the world’s most developed media industries, and in terms of the number of media and news workers it far surpasses the other countries of the world. In recent years, along with the rapid development of Chinese media and the Internet, a great number of quality and influential news reports have emerged domestically [in China], attracting the attention of global media. This has not only objectively and impartially revealed to the world China’s openness and vitality, but at the same time has promoted the advancement of Chinese brands around the world. These achievements have been made by dint of the efforts of all Chinese journalists of this generation.
The message here is that China’s media must serve a larger narrative of the country’s success under the leadership of the CCP. Moreover, it is the success of this narrative — in “attracting the attention of global media,” for example — that decides whether news coverage is “objective” or “impartial.” To be objective is to see the big picture of China’s success without being distracted by those niggling facts that might darken or discolour the portrait.
Ideology chief Liu Yunshan, formerly head of the Central Propaganda Department, shakes hands with representatives from major state-run media in Beijing on November 8, 2015.
For China’s leaders, a professional press is a submissive press. As former Xinhua News Agency chief Li Congjun (李从军) wrote two years ago: “We must effectively strengthen our sense of political responsibility . . . upholding fully the principle of the Party-nature [of media], adhering to the principle that the politicians run the newspapers, magazines, broadcast stations and websites.”
This was the point that Liu Yunshan (刘云山), a member of the CCP’s powerful politburo and chief of ideology, reiterated yesterday when he met with media representatives during a journalism awards ceremony held in Beijing to mark Journalists’ Day. Journalists, Liu said, must build support for the recently released 13th Five-Year Plan, and “properly tell the new story of China.”
Liu Yunshan stressed, as he did on numerous occasions as China’s propaganda chief (here, here and here), that journalists must “abide by professional ethics, and uphold social responsibility.” But the professional imperatives are, as ever, circumscribed by political imperatives, by the journalist’s duty to the Party and to its social, economic and political agendas.
He emphasised that [those on] the news frontline must deeply study, publicise and implement the spirit of the Party’s Fifth Plenum, concentrate on the “13th Five-Year Plan” . . . . stirring up positive energy (激发正能量), in order to provide public opinion support and a favourable public opinion environment for the full realisation of a moderately prosperous society.
Liu left the more rigid control language to his successor as propaganda chief, Liu Qibao (刘奇葆), who was also present to tell those gathered that they must “express their social responsibility through the positive channeling of public opinion.” This involved:
Enhancing their sense of [public opinion] channeling, upholding correct guidance of public opinion, and raising their ability to channel [public opinion], consolidating and expanding positive and healthy mainstream opinion.
Consider that one of the award-winning pieces of journalism from the event over which Liu Yunshan presided this weekend was this fawning series of reports from Xinhua News Agency, “Raising Even Higher the Great Banner of Reform and Opening Up,” which marked the 110th anniversary of Deng Xiaoping’s birth and further shored up the reform credentials of President Xi Jinping. Click into the multimedia piece and it begins with soaring music and images of Deng and Xi against a rich, chocolaty background that resolves at the top into the ceiling of the Great Hall of the People.
If this is the standard for professional journalism, where do journalists go from here? How much higher can they raise the banner?
In a string of cases in recent months, Chinese authorities have made the case for stronger press controls, citing poor ethics in the journalism profession. But it is the hypocrisy of pro-Party ethics in a highly commercialised media environment that is the root cause of poor — and by all accounts, worsening — ethics in Chinese media.
While the Party leadership upholds falsehood, in the form of “guidance” and propaganda, as the ultimate professional standard, media operate under a competing market imperative that says they must attract audiences and deliver them to advertisers. Between the mechanisms of power and profit, there are no truly mediating professional standards or organisations.
The message: we can all profit from falsehood.
Reporters, editors or publishers who envision themselves as professionals working in the public interest are out on their own. And if they try to form a professional community or act in concert over professional ideals, they run extreme political risks.
The only communities allowed for the media in China are about “discipline” rather than professionalism. Take, for example, the latest “convention” made by Chinese media, reported back in September by China.org.cn, one of the media featured in the Times Square ad. Directed by the China Alliance of Radio, Film and Television (CARFT) — formerly the combined but acronym-challenged General Administration of Press, Publications, Radio, Film and Television (GAPPRFT) — media organisations signed “a self-discipline pact promising to uphold journalistic ethics.”
Just last week, on the eve of Journalists’ Day, CARFT announced the creation of a new committee to enforce the guidelines laid out in the September “convention.” This news was reported by China.org.cn under the headline: “New committee to uphold media ethics.”
Article 1: In order to fulfil socialist core values, pursue professional ideals, strengthen the building of professional morals, [promote] compliance with the Constitution, laws and regulations, and advocate a healthy industry climate, mass organisations in news, publishing, radio, film and television jointly formulate and sign the following convention. Article 2: Those participating in the [professions of] news, publishing, radio, film and television shall carry out the following course of professional self-discipline: Clause 1: Preserving the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and the national interest, not publishing or spreading any language that damages the image of the Party or the nation.
And there you have it. Clause 1 makes it clear from the outset, yet again, that professionalism equals political obedience.
Happy Journalists’ Day!
The following post from “Beijing Yangbo” (北京杨博) was deleted from Weibo sometime before 10:10 am today, October 23, 2015. The post shares an image of the front page of The Beijing News, a leading Chinese commercial newspaper. The main headline on the page reads: “Irresponsible Discussion of Major Policies May Lead to Expulsions.” The article refers to a newly updated set of regulations governing to conduct of Chinese Communist Party officials in China, adding the stipulation that officials must not engage in “irresponsible discussion” of policies. The revised rules have sparked further concern of tighter control on dissenting views under the leadership under President Xi Jinping.
The post from “Beijing Yangbo, live for about 50 minutes before being removed, likens the new restrictions on Party officials to the madness of the Cultural Revolution. [Explore more deleted posts by using the Weiboscope, created by the Journalism and Media Studies Centre.]
The post accompanying the image reads:
The wind of the Cultural Revolution is quietly rising; the voice of one man clearly rules.
When finally unveiled sometime later this year, China’s Cyber-security Law could mark the beginning of a new and aggressive phase of information control in the country — one in which the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) is empowered by law to conduct widespread suppression and surveillance of networks and users under a broad mandate to preserve “Internet sovereignty” as a core function of national security.
The new law would provide a legal framework for the overarching project of media and information control in the digital age, furthering a crucial shift toward centralisation of cyberspace controls under the CAC and the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Leading Group for Cyberspace Affairs, formally established in March 2014 with President Xi Jinping as chairman.
As the leading group and CAC were formed last year, state media suggested this was a prime example of President Xi’s push to “deepen reform and strengthen top-level design,” and indeed we can understand this as a fundamental re-engineering of press controls in China to accommodate the reality that there are now close to 700 million Chinese on the Internet, of which more than three quarters have mobile access.
In an important internal speech to propaganda ministers on August 19, 2013 — later called simply, the “August 19 speech” — Xi Jinping re-iterated a core press control principle in place since it was first introduced by Mao Zedong in 1957, that the “politicians [must] run the newspapers,” or zhengzhijia banbao (政治家办报).
We must uphold the Party’s control of the media, adhering to the [principle] that politicians run the newspapers, periodicals, broadcasters and news websites. The various broadcast channels at all levels must adhere to the leadership of the Party.
In the same speech, Xi Jinping said, in terms eerily redolent of the Cultural Revolution, that China was in the midst of a “public opinion struggle.” The country, he suggested, faced an imminent threat from competing “non-mainstream” (non-Party) ideologies.
Riffing on this talk of “struggle,” the Chinese-language Global Times, sister to the People’s Daily, issued its own clarion call:
Only if we recognise the seriousness of the public opinion struggle can we make it a true priority. The public opinion struggle is a fight for hearts of the people . . . .
As old-fashioned as this language may sound, Xi Jinping is clearly aware that the “struggle” for public opinion, so core to maintaining the Party’s political control, is shifting away from traditional media and almost equally outmoded “news websites.” In the age of the mobile Internet and the Internet of Things, the Chinese Communist Party must seek a fundamental innovation of controls.
The days of “politicians running the newspapers” are past. Politicians must now run cyberspace.
We should understand the Cyber-security Law as part of a series of legal and institutional changes designed to consolidate the Chinese Communist Party’s control of ideology and public opinion in a networked world.
These changes also mean, of course, that those propaganda ministers President Xi spurred to action with his “August 19” speech two years ago will be increasingly sidelined as the business of information control, and its attendant power, transitions to the Central Leading Group and its enforcement arm, the CAC. The Central Propaganda Department, in other words, may be gradually dissolved or marginalised under a new control infrastructure with immense authority over the social, cultural, political and economic fabric of Chinese cyberspace.
The central strategic role of cyberspace for the CCP demands that take a much more active role in the global governance of the Internet, which is why we have seen a sharp rise in interest since 2010 in the notion of “Internet sovereignty,” or “cyber-sovereignty.”
Occurrences of the term “Internet sovereignty” in the Chinese media since 2010. Source: WiseNews Database, for all mainland Chinese news sources.
In an article published on the Huffington Post in December 2014, the head of the Cyberspace Administration of China, Lu Wei (鲁炜), laid out the fundamentals of China’s position on global Internet governance. While the United States, said Lu, advocated a “multi-stakeholder” approach to Internet governance, meaning that “all Internet participants [are] on an equal footing making the rules,” China proposed instead a “multilateral” approach that meant “the state making the rules based on the idea of the sovereignty of the nation-state representing its citizens.”
(What, if anything, can we read into the fact that Lu Wei’s Huffington Post article has received just 49 Facebook likes and 69 Twitter shares over a period of nine months?)
By re-defining cyberspace in this manner, China’s leaders seek to legitimise domestic political controls on the Internet — and their possible global implications — on the grounds of national security and sovereignty. Or, as EastWest Institute fellow Franz-Stefan Gady put it, the push for Internet sovereignty is an attempt to “gain de jure international support for China’s de facto Internet censorship policies.”
China’s own theorists on the issue often push the point that robust international guarantees of cyber-security are essential if any nation is to be secure. Wrote Lu Wei: “No country can achieve absolute security without the overall security of international cyberspace.”
For more thoughts on the draft Cyber-security Law, its political reasoning, and its possible implications for Chinese citizens and others, I highly recommend this piece by Mo Zhixu.
Continuing our series of coverage and translations on the issue of “Internet sovereignty,” I also provide the following piece published in the Legal Daily on September 28, recapping China’s views on cyberspace and global Internet governance in light of Xi Jinping’s recent visit to the United States.
The article — which characterises China and the United States as “cyber powers,” another iteration of the state-based conception of Internet governance — talks about how China has in recent years participated “more actively and comprehensively in the global experience of cyberspace governance.” And it argues that the end result of China’s efforts will be “an entirely new pattern . . . . in terms of the international governance system for global cyberspace.”
Enjoy.
China Actively Pushes Building of New System of International Governance of Cyberspace Legal Daily, September 28, 2015
Deepening international cooperation, respecting Internet sovereignty, preserving cyber-security, and mutually building a peaceful, secure, open and cooperative online space, and building a multi-faceted, democratic and transparent international Internet governance system.
Aside from hosting the World Internet Conference to actively construct an international platform for dialogue, and other beneficial moves, China has also begun to directly participate in key decision-making on important issues in the international governance of cyberspace. As China participates more actively and comprehensively in the global experience of cyberspace governance, an entirely new pattern will arise in terms of the international governance system for global cyberspace.
China’s confidence in promoting changes to the global governance structure for cyberspace must ultimately rely on support from technology, standards, infrastructure, [network] access equipment, critical applications and core capacity.
On September 25, President Xi Jinping held a joint press conference in Washington with U.S. President Barack Obama. Xi Jinping pointed out that China and the United States, as two major cyber powers (网络大国), must strengthen dialogue and cooperation, and that friction and opposition are not viable choices.
China and the United States have reached an important agreement on working together to combat cyber crimes, agreeing to strengthen joint investigations and information sharing. The governments on both sides agreed not to engage in or knowingly support the online theft of intellectual property . . . .
This is not the first time China’s government has made its voice heard on the issue of international cooperation over cyberspace.
In a written address to the first World Internet Conference, held in November 2012, Xi Jinping pointed out that various nations, on the basis of mutual respect, must deepen international cooperation, respecting [the principle of] Internet sovereignty, protection cyber-security, and mutually working to build a peaceful, secure, open and cooperative online space, and a multi-faceted, democratic and transparent international Internet governance system.
Experts in China and the United States have given great attention to the relevant speeches by Xi Jinping [on this issue].
James Andrew Lewis, director of the Strategic Technologies Program at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, wrote in a recent blog post that negotiations between China and the United States over cyber-security are “a welcome development.”
Yu Xiaoqiu (俞晓秋), a researcher at the China Center for Overseas Social and Philosophical Theories at the Central Compilation and Translation Bureau (CCTB), has said that while various countries in the world are divided on questions of cyber-security, there are mutual interests at stake and there is also real and potential space for cooperation: “If China and the United States maintain an attitude of mutual respect, pay attention to one another’s concerns, if they do not engage in confrontation over cyber-security or remain divided over management and control (管控分歧, [choosing rather] to advance cooperation, only then can overall relations between the two countries develop steadily and peacefully.” Developing Countries Are Still Kept on the Margins
The “2014 China Internet Cyber-security Report” issued by the National Computer Network Emergency Response Coordination Centre (CNCERT/CC) states that in 2014 the number of phishing websites threatening out country’s domestic websites totalled 99,409, affecting 6,844 IP addresses. . . . These numbers indicate that cyber-security is a problem the international community faces together, and we must strengthen international cooperation to deal with the issue.
“Internet governance and the security of global cyberspace have already become major agendas of a global nature, and of constant concern to the international community,” says Yu Xiaoqiu. “They are a pressing task staring the countries of the world directly in the face.”
Since the American [surveillance program] “Prism” was revealed, calls have grown louder in the international community for the establishment of relevant principles, for the strengthening of international cooperation on cyber-security, and the regulation of conduct in cyberspace.
Brazil and Germany have called on the United Nations to expand the scope of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to include protections for [online] privacy. The two countries jointly submitted a draft resolution on “privacy in the digital age,” and this was passed during a session of the United Nations General Assembly on December 19, 2013.
India has expressed its willingness to share cyber-security technology with Brazil, in order to assist Brazil in dealing with surveillance conducted by the United States and its allies.
On these issues, at the first World Internet Conference, Zhao Zeliang (赵泽良), director of the Cybersecurity Coordination Bureau at the Cyberspace Administration of China, suggested four principles for international cooperation over cyber-security: [maintaining] an open Internet as the foundation (立足于开放互联); adhering to rule of law in Internet management (坚持依法治网); mutual trust and respect (相互尊重信任); strengthening dialogue and conversation (加强对话交流).
. . . .
In fact, the international governance of cyberspace can hearken back to the World Summit on the Information Society held in Tunis in 2003.
At this summit, the international community held its first intense discussion over the question of whether and how the Internet should be governed. The outcome of those discussions was the creation by the UN secretary-general of the Working Group on Internet Governance.
According to Shen Yi (沈逸), an associate professor at Fudan University who specialises in the research of international politics, cyber-security and Internet governance, a report submitted by the [UN’s] Working Group on Internet Governance in 2005 gave a succinct evaluation of the Internet governance situation at the time. It pointed out, for example, that there were no effective mechanisms in place to protect the security and stability of the Internet, and that there were no effective mechanisms in place to resolve multinational crimes and other issues.
“As the governance of the online space had progressed, the basic situation now in terms of the international governance system for the online space is an unbalance state of affairs in which the United States holds the dominant position,” says Shen Yi. He explains further that the developed nations of North America and Europe, with the United States as the chief representative, hold a core position in global Internet governance together with companies and organisations that are in their grasp — and the developing nations of Asia, Africa and Latin America are kept on the margins of global Internet governance.
In Shen Yi’s view, when we look at the current situation, the governance of global cyberspace has a clear character of asymmetric interdependence (不对称相互依赖特征), in which all countries and actors are significantly dependent on the Internet. By means of technological, institutional, strategic and policy advantages, developed nations hold clear status and enjoy [a position of] lower sensitivity and relative strength. The reliance of developing nations on the Internet, meanwhile, is a classic situation of high sensitivity and high weakness. The developing countries that are the chief providers of data [in terms of Internet usage], have not obtained a matching degree of benefit, and in cyberspace they face marginalisation. China Progressively Takes The Stage of Global Governance
According to Wang Yukai (汪玉凯), and expert at the China Internet Security Conference and deputy director of the Committee of Experts on E-Government at the Chinese Academy of Governance, the United States has an absolute advantage in terms of network information technology. In recent years, however, America’s absolute advantage in cyberspace has met with constant challenges. “Many nations hope to break through American controls, and at least in the area of rules formulation they don’t want the United States having the final say, including on Internet governance and international cooperation,” Wang Yukai says.
On the eve of Xi Jinping’s visit to the United States, both China and the United States made statements concerning “cyber-security.” On September 9, Meng Jianzhu (孟建柱), Xi Jinping’s special envoy, a Politburo member and secretary of the Central Politics and Law Committee, led officials from [China’s] policy, security, legal and network communications branches on a visit to the United States, where he met with Secretary of State John Kerry. Analysts said this was a sign that Sino-U.S. negotiations had already reached a practical stage.
On September 11, Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei (洪磊) said: “The issue of cyber security shall become one area of cooperation rather than a source of friction between China and the US. Some people from the US should stop their unfounded accusations against the Chinese side and carry out dialogue and cooperation based on mutual respect and trust so as to jointly create a peaceful, secure, open and cooperative cyberspace.”
Undeniably, in recent years China has progressively taken the global stage in the area of cyberspace governance.
“Taking part in the transformation of the structure of global Internet governance, China must make its own voice heard in terms of the discourse and shaping of symbols (在话语和符号塑造方面),” says Shen Yi, [the Fudan University professor].
“Because since the revelation of the ‘Prism’ program, the United States’ pursuit of a strategy of cyber-hegemony (网络霸权) has come under criticism. We must seize the opportunity, starting from top-level design and advancing the construction of ‘a new order of global Internet space’ (全球网络空间新秩序).”
The following post by “Jiapin26″ (贾榀26), was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime before 18:00 on October 6, 2015. The post, which includes an image of Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, makes reference to the recent top news about Chinese Scientist Tu Youyou being a recipient of a Nobel Prize for medicine, following a literature prize last year for Chinese writer Mao Yan. The post contrasts the cold reception in China of news of Liu Xiaobo’s prize with the excitement that attended the honours given to Mo Yan and Tu Youyou. [Explore more deleted posts by using the Weiboscope, created by the Journalism & Media Studies Centre.]
The post from “Jiapin26” reads:
Last year when Mo Yan won the Nobel Prize for literature, the media and the people puffed a whole lot. This year, Tu Youyou has won a prize for medicine, and she too will be popular for a while. But do not forget, our Peace Prize laureate is still in jail!
The following post by “Teacher Li Jinping (黎津平老师), was deleted from Sina Weibo sometime before 11:25 AM today, October 5, 2015. The post plays on a supposed remark made by British Prime Minister David Cameron to the effect that the British government is supported by taxpayers. The post then suggests that in other countries — China being the obviously implied country — it works the other way around, and the government decides even how people eat. [Explore more deleted posts by using the Weiboscope, created by the Journalism & Media Studies Centre.]
Who keeps the other alive? British Prime Minister Cameron says that it is taxpayers who keep our government alive; but in certain countries it is our government that decides the most basic subsistence of the entire people.
Photo by John Blyberg available at Flickr.com under Creative Commons license.
In order to better understand how the Chinese Communist Party understands “Internet sovereignty” — or “cyber-sovereignty” — we can take a look at how its own strategists have discussed the notion.
Back in July, Ye Zheng (叶征), a member of the Strategic Advisory Committee of the People’s Liberation Army, published an article called, “Thoughts on Internet Sovereignty,” addressing three key points:
1. Internet sovereignty directly impacts national security and stability. 2. Internet sovereignty can easily be neglected and infringed upon. 3. China needs to constantly raise awareness about the protection of Internet sovereignty.
Ye Zheng’s article first appeared in China Information Security, a magazine published by the China Information Technology Security Evaluation Centre (ITSEC) — this being a body created in 1997, during the the infancy of the Internet in China, to “provide the nation with technical support in the area of information security.”
China Information Security was launched in January 2010, at the outset of a year that would prove a seminal one for Internet controls in China and the emerging notion of Internet sovereignty. It was the year of the above-mentioned white paper, and also the year of Google’s testy exit from China. China Information Security, a magazine dealing with the issue of network security and now “Internet sovereignty,” and with unspecified links to the PLA. China Information Security appears to be closely aligned with the Chinese military, and a large number of its contributing writers and editors are identified as members of the People’s Liberation Army. The magazine’s assistant publisher and editor of its Strategic Cyberspace Forum, for example, is Qin An (秦安), a PhD graduate of the PLA Information Engineering University (which does technical training for network security and has been linked to possible state-supporting hacking) and the author of the recent book Cyberspace Quantum Leap — the literal translation would be Breaking Through Internet Containment — which deals in depth with national security and the “Internet war.” (Qin’s first chapter deals primarily with the Wikileaks scandal and the threat posed to China by the “online war preparations” of the United States military. His second chapter is titled, “Without Internet Security There is No National Security.”)
One of the first points Ye Zheng makes in his recent China Information Security article is that “Internet sovereignty” represents China’s own refinement of the concept of national sovereignty, and that this is something of which China should be proud:
Lately, China has taken the lead in raising and supporting the use of the concept of “Internet sovereignty,” and this is not just an innovation in the notion of national sovereignty, but also a national mission, and it is gradually being accepted by more and more countries. Naturally, our field of vision should expand further on the question of how to understand and safeguard Internet sovereignty as the primary concern in the building of a strong cyber-nation . . .
Ye later refers to “Internet sovereignty” as “an innovative perspective on sovereignty” (创新性主权观). And we can also sense in this passage the interest (and reputed success) in advancing worldwide China’s unique conceptualisation of sovereignty in the digital age.
As China advances its own understanding of “Internet sovereignty,” this is contrasted with the disapproval of “certain Western nations,” most notably the United States, which has, says Ye Zheng, habitually “posited these [notions of Internet sovereignty] in opposition to “Internet freedom.” As a rhetorical device, Ye’s article employs the language of necessity to suggest that China’s own notion of sovereignty in cyberspace is now the only admissible one in light of very real changes internationally:
But lately the situation is changing, and “Internet sovereignty” is gradually being accepted internationally. Even Americans will admit in open forums that the question of sovereignty does pertain to the Internet, and will use this as a pretext for using force to safeguard the United States’ own cyber-security. This dramatic change illustrates that for “Internet sovereignty” to come into the view of society is not just a conceptual innovation, but even more is a necessity arising from objective developments.
The next rhetorical device is to appeal to the professedly ancient and unchangeable truths about sovereignty. “For thousands of years,” says Ye, “through the progress of human civilisation, we have sought to consolidate and improve our national systems, and the idea that national sovereignty could not be violated gradually a generally respected and unwavering code.” Sovereignty, Ye Zheng argues, is a “basic right” of the nation, “indivisible and inalienable.”
But the content of sovereignty, that does change, says Ye:
[From] the earliest stages in which it referred to territory, it extended to the seas, then to the skies, and thence to space. With the emergence of online space, this must be integrated into the general category. The division now is not whether or not the question of sovereignty applies to cyberspace, but rather how we define “Internet sovereignty,” and how to protect it.
As Ye turns to a discussion of the link between “Internet sovereignty” and national security and stability (国家安全稳定), the Chinese Communist Party’s own experience with domestic political unrest in 1989, which has defined its attitude toward media and information ever since, is conspicuous. His language emphasises threat and loss of control, and speaks of forces that must be restrained. As the world entered a new century, he says, the “information web infiltrated every corner of our lives like a maniacal giant.” The Internet, he says, is “a double-edged sword.”
[I]f a country loses its Internet sovereignty, the result is too dreadful to contemplate. It will result in the loss of control over the systems governing lifeline economic sectors such as national industry, transportation, finance and resources, and result in untold economic damage. It will result in the loss of control over the guidance of online public opinion, sparking serious unrest and upheaval in society, directly challenging state power. It will result in the loss of control over military information networks, leading to command failures in the case of war . . . resulting in a nation defeated and broken.
In discussing the need for greater consciousness of the need to “preserve Internet sovereignty,” Ye makes it clear that the two most seminal events in the development of the policy were the were in June 2010 of the government white paper, “The Internet in China,” and President Xi Jinping’s address in writing to the “Wuzhen Summit” in November 2014. He also mentions the case of Google in China — or exiting China, rather — as a textbook instance of refusing to budge on the fundamental issue of Internet sovereignty: “During the Google storm in 2010, when China’s government outright refused Google’s demands that it be allowed the freedom to step beyond the bounds of Chinese laws and regulations, this was a resolute defence of Internet sovereignty.”
In order to advance Internet sovereignty, says Ye, there must be greater effort to explain the idea both inside and outside China. Domestically:
[We must] promote discussion of cyber-security among the masses, making the masses understand that just as we must defend our national territory, our seas, our airspace and outer space, so must we defend the Internet sovereignty of our nation, preserving network order and national stability, and fighting a war in defence of the Internet sovereignty of the people as a whole in the information age.
And China must, says Ye, take its defence of Internet sovereignty on the road, ensuring it becomes the dominant lens through which to observe and understand the process of Internet governance worldwide:
Finally, [we] must continue with a clear banner to promote our vision of Internet sovereignty internationally. The emphasis on sovereignty is to be principally directed toward the outside, and by declaring Internet sovereignty overseas we may arrive at unity of context and be clearer about its meaning, so that the justice of Internet sovereignty is accepted by the world.
Formally introduced into the Chinese political lexicon in a June 2010 State Council Information Office white paper called “The Internet in China,” the term “Internet sovereignty,” or wangluo zhuquan (网络主权), encapsulates the Chinese Communist Party’s assertion that the traditional notion of national sovereignty is applicable to cyberspace, which proponents of “net neutrality” would argue must be kept borderless and free of government interference. Under the principle of “Internet sovereignty,” China reserves the right to control the flow of information on the Internet within its borders and across its borders, even if in ways that might infringe upon the information rights of individuals outside of China’s physical borders. The advancement of “Internet sovereignty” is often associated with what some have called the fragmentation, or balkanisation, of cyberspace.
Li Ka-shing has fled, but how can mainland businesspeople flee? Can they leave behind their factory equipment, their family, their thousands of workers? Actually, mobs are not so frightening. What is truly frightening is a mob government!
Two people go out to sea in a single boat, battered and tossed by the wind and waves. Despite the treacherous shoals beneath, they bicker about who bears responsibility for their mutual hardship. All at once, a violent storm rises. Waves tower overhead. If they cannot lower the sails quickly, their boat is sure to capsize. But survival demands the unified strength of both. Finally, in the face of common peril, they decide to work together. They lower the sails and pilot ahead, until at last they come to calmer shores.
Speaking at an industry forum in Seattle last week, China’s cyber-security chief, Lu Wei, shared the above parable drawing on ancient Chinese wisdom to explain how, in the face of “a cyberspace as vast as the sea,” the United States and China must work together toward a “shared destiny.” “We are in the same boat,” he said. And where the Internet is concerned, we have in our sights the same “shore of happiness.”
But do we indeed?
In fact, the U.S.-China Internet Industry Forum— which reportedly “[rankled] the Obama administration by veering off the script agreed to for Mr. Xi’s carefully stage-managed visit” — exposes deep and abiding differences between China and the United States over the integrity and future of the global Internet. Lu Wei’s promised shore of “cooperative cyberspace” is a distraction from the more pressing matter at hand: China’s effort to remake the sea of cyberspace itself, with the acquiescence of American tech firms.
China is by no means the only party pushing for the balkanisation of the global Internet, and mounting threats to “net neutrality” have been the subject of debate for years. But no nation has so energetically promoted, in word and deed, the vision of national “Internet sovereignty” without the most basic respect for information freedoms.
The concept of “Internet sovereignty” first entered the stage in China with the publication in June 2010 of a State Council Information Office white paper on “The Internet in China,” coming just months after Google’s rancorous exit from the country. (At the time, Columbia professor and net neutrality expert Tim Wu said the steps laid out in the white paper went “way beyond the rules of any major country.”)
Under Xi Jinping, who in 2014 became head of a new Central Leading Group for Cybersecurity and Informatization (with Lu Wei as chief of its General Office), “Internet sovereignty” has enjoyed a much stronger profile. The CLGCI held its first session in February 2014, and it is after this point that we see a rather dramatic rise in occurrence of the term “Internet sovereignty,” or wangluo zhuquan (网络主权), in China’s media.
Occurrences of the term “Internet sovereignty” in the Chinese media since 2010. Source: WiseNews Database, for all mainland Chinese news sources.
The dramatic peak in use of the term “Internet sovereignty” above, occurring during the fourth quarter of 2014, is what we might call the “Wuzhen peak,” corresponding to China’s first World Internet Conference, held in November 2014 in the Zhejiang water town of Wuzhen (and nicknamed the “Wuzhen Summit”). This event, which Chinese leaders said at the time they hoped to fashion as the “Davos of the East” (东方达沃斯), promises to become an annual international forum at which China can showcase the strength of its domestic Internet industry and publicise the government’s vision of an international (as opposed to global) Internet comprising internally “secure” national Internets.
In a prepared statement for the “Wuzhen Summit,” read out by vice-premier Ma Kai (马凯), Xi Jinping urged the creation of a “multifaceted, democratic and transparent governance system for the international Internet.” The leadership’s underlying political objectives became more explicit when the hosts of the conference tried to get attendees to sign on to a draft declaration on Internet governance by slipping it under their hotel room doors at 11PM on November 20, right at the tail end of the conference.
One portion of the draft declaration, which was later hastily withdrawn, read:
While enjoying rapid development, the Internet has posed new challenges to national sovereignty, security and development interests, which requires the international community to meet urgently and seriously expand consensus and strengthen cooperation.
We call on the international community to work together to build an international Internet governance system of multilateralism, democracy and transparency and a cyberspace of peace, security, openness and cooperation.
“Democracy” and “openness” sound wonderful, until you realise that in this instance China is talking not about the principles adhering the fabric of cyberspace, but rather about pulling rank in the system of international governance. A “democratic” system, in other words, would be one in which China’s domestic political controls on information are legitimised and respected as a matter of inviolable national sovereignty. And we must remember that in the borderless space of the Internet, such restrictions can and do have ramifications for all users anywhere.
Lu Wei, the cyber chief, expressed the leadership’s vision of Internet sovereignty more distinctly during a Chinese New Year banquet hosted in February this year by the Cyberspace Administration of China — and attended by many foreign dignitaries. “We live in a common online space,” Lu Wei told his guests. “This online space is made up of the internets of various countries, and each country has its own independent and autonomous interest in Internet sovereignty, Internet security and Internet development. Only through my own proper management of my own internet, [and] your proper management of your own internet . . . can the online space be truly safe, more orderly and more beautiful.”
Inside China, “sovereignty” has equalled repression. It was Lu Wei who piloted the broad campaign against the influential “Big V” (or “verified”) users of the Sina Weibo platform in 2013, followed by harsh penalties threatened against Internet users who propagated “irresponsible rumours.”
On July 1 this year, China’s legislature passed a new national security law stating explicitly that national sovereignty extended to the Internet. The law laid out rigid security requirements for networks across a range of “critical industries,” stoking fears that it could even put the commercial secrets of foreign companies operating in China at risk.
Are the United States and China indeed, as Lu Wei suggested last week, “two sharing a boat”?
Certainly, there are shared agendas — such as, for example, cyber espionage. But as for shared values on information freedoms and Internet governance, this is a much stickier issue. In fact, the U.S.-China Internet Industry Forum, of which the conference in Seattle last week was the eighth edition, has over the years served only to sharpen the gap, despite the Chinese Communist Party’s hope it might become a vehicle through which to reach greater consensus along lines it finds acceptable.
For their part, international media have been somewhat confused over the nature of the forum itself. Earlier this month, the Chinese-language service of Germany’s Deutsche Welle wrote that President Xi Jinping would attend a technology forum “sponsored by Beijing.” Over at Fortune.com, the forum was apparently all the doing of China’s president, who was “making the most of his time [in the United States] by organising a high-profile tech gathering.” The New York Times anonymously quoted “another person with knowledge of the matter” to report that the forum “is being co-hosted by Microsoft.”
It should be no secret at all that, yes, the forum is co-hosted by Microsoft, as it has been since first convened in 2007 as a joint initiative of software giant and the Internet Society of China (ISC), an ostensible industry association formed in 2001 to “promote development of Internet in China and make efforts to construct an advanced information society.”
It so happens that Microsoft China is also a member of the ISC, whose deputy directors (25 in all) are a list of who’s-who in China’s tech industry. They include Jack Ma (马云), the chairman of Alibaba Group, Pony Ma (马化腾), the founder of Tencent Inc., Ding Lei (丁磊), founder and CEO of Netease, and Wang Gaofei (王高飞), the CEO of Weibo Corporation. The current chairman of the ISC is Wu Hequan (邬贺铨), an engineer who said last year that China’s “cyberpower” was an essential part of Xi Jinping’s “China Dream,” and who was present in Seattle for Lu Wei’s address.
For Microsoft, the U.S.-China Internet Industry Forum has always been about the company’s engagement with China. As vice-president for Global Corporate Affairs, Pamela Passman, wrote of the forum in 2010, the two sides had “discovered a structure and rhythm for productive discussions on Internet policy.”
Inside China, the importance of the U.S.-China Internet Industry Forum is professed with much more clarity. It is accorded a level of bi-lateral significance that is not reciprocated — far from it — by the United States government.
The 21st Century Business Herald wrote recently that “the U.S.-China Internet Industry Forum was created . . . . with the goal of promoting dialogue and cooperation between the Internet industries of China and the United States.” In Chinese, the above language is indefinite — zhongmei liangguo (中美两国) — possibly suggesting the event is a more formal state-to-state arrangement. In an interview with the same paper, Wang Yukai (汪玉凯), deputy director of the E-Government Committee of China’s National Academy of Governance, said of the forum that “this institution is the most important mechanism for coordination of national information and its management.”
On the sidelines of the forum last week, Zhou Hongyi (周鸿祎), the CEO of Internet security firm Qihoo 360 Technology, told Guangzhou’s Southern Metropolis Daily that “the main purpose and aim of this forum was to serve as a platform for mutual understanding and communication between the governments and industries of China and the United States.” Here again, was the ambiguous zhongmei liangguo, possibly insinuating a state-to-state interaction.
But aside from the meeting’s reported “rankling” of the Obama administration ahead of Xi Jinping’s state visit, what can we say about how the U.S.-China Internet Industry Forum has been regarded by the United States?
Addressing the forum on December 10, 2009 — when the third edition was held in San Francisco — Under Secretary for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment Robert D. Hormats struck a positive note, praising China for its progress on the provision of internet services and stressing the importance of international cooperation. “I applaud China similarly for its commitment to foster its ever-expanding communications network,” he said
At the same time, Hormats stressed that information freedoms were key, not just for the United States but for the world:
“The right to freedom of expression and the importance of the free flow of information over the Internet were affirmed by all participating governments at both phases of the World Summit on the Information Society in 2003 and 2005, including the Tunis Commitment, and continue to form the foundation of U.S. Government efforts on Internet freedom around the world.”
By April 2013, when the forum was back in Beijing, the tone had soured considerably. At that session, Hormats chastened his hosts, affirming the importance of the “existing multi-stakeholder arrangement of Internet governance,” against which China’s leaders were by this time actively positing a more state-centred approach the under secretary referred to as “information nationalism.”
The openness and flexibility of these [international governance] institutions have allowed the Internet to adapt and grow into the world’s most compelling platform for information exchange . . . .
That is why the United States remains committed to strengthening this multi-stakeholder system.
We were concerned that the document [introduced at the WCIT in 2012] could have been used in future attempts to erode international multi-stakeholder Internet governance and with it to strengthen those who believe in various types of “information nationalism.”
This is one area where the United States and Chinese officials have significant differences. We believe a top-down, government-led approach to guiding the future of the Internet would be fundamentally flawed.
These “significant differences” persist today. Reporting on the forum last week, the Seattle Times noted that there was, despite “occasionally upbeat commentary,” “significant tension between U.S. and Chinese business and government interests.” The most fundamental tension concerns the question of governance — a “multi-stakeholder Internet governance” system versus a network of state-centred Internet sovereignties.
The Chinese Communist Party recognises — as Lu Wei said last week — that the Internet has “greatly pushed forward the progress of human society.” It dreams, as Wu Hequan said, of “cyberpower.” But the Party’s extreme mistrust of the forces a freer cyberspace might unleash on its political monopoly has become a central, defining animus now best manifested in the notion of Internet sovereignty.
It is no wonder, in this light, that “hostile forces,” the Party’s favoured epithet for unspecified threats to its leadership, is now used routinely to refer to perceived threats in cyberspace.
The Party understands that it must shape the future of the Internet if it is to maintain its rule, and so it is determined to remake cyberspace as a sovereign space. It believes the sheer size of China’s market — “a paradise for U.S. hi-tech companies,” according to Lu Wei — will empower it to accomplish this objective.
It is a dangerous bargain Lu Wei is offering for the treasures of China’s cyber shores. But have no illusions: In the realm of cyberspace, sharing a boat with China will mean acknowledging its claims of sovereignty over the sea itself.
The following is a translation of a piece from the Chinese-language service of France’s RFI about the long and painful saga Chinese journalist Liu Hu has faced since his detention in August 2013 for blowing the whistle on official corruption. The original interview was by RFI’s Shanghai correspondent, Cao Guoxing (曹国星).
On September 10, journalist Liu Hu (刘虎) received a document from the hand of a prosecutor from the Dongcheng District Procuratorate in Beijing: “Decision on Non-Prosecution.” As Liu Hu tells it, after reciting the contents of the Decision, the prosecutor said he hoped Liu Hu could continue making contributions to society through his professional work.
An incurable user of the internet, [Liu Hu] quickly posted a photo [of the Decision] to Sina Weibo, and shared it with his friends on WeChat. Words of congratulation came just as quickly from every direction imaginable.
By the time this news [of the Decision] came it had already been two years since Liu Hu was taken from his home in Chongqing on August 23, 2013, and held in Beijing. From his placement under formal criminal custody early morning on August 24, 2013, to his release on bail on August 3, 2014, Liu Hu had spent 346 days under police detention.
Some of Liu Hu’s colleagues have praised him, saying true gold fears not the fire. But the idea that one can spend a year behind bars simply for making a single post on Sina Weibo still rattles the nerves.
Liu Hu recalled to this reporter: “It was after 11AM on August 23, 2013, that someone knocked on my door and said there was a water leak and they wanted to have a look. I opened the door and 14 or 15 of them came in. Once they were in they restrained me and showed me a document for mandatory summons (强制传唤). I was led away in handcuffs and taken directly to the interrogation room of a relevant department in the Northern New District of Chongqing City.”
“They began interrogating me after I was taken to the Public Security Bureau, asking me mostly about the complaint I had submitted about certain officials. They mentioned the names of Ma Zhengqi (马正其), Song Lin (宋林), Du Hangwei (杜航伟), Cui Yadong (崔亚东) and others. They asked why I had made the post on Weibo, and what was the source of my information. I responded truthfully, but they insisted I admit to my guilt and error. If I refused, they said, they would have to take me back [to Beijing].”
Liu Hu insisted there was no crime to which he could confess, and the interrogation carried on until deep into the night.
Early in the morning on August 24, 2013, a police official came from Beijing and announced that Liu Hu’s mandatory summons had officially become a criminal detention (刑事拘留). He replaced the local investigating officer and the interrogation continued.
Liu Hu was by this time exhausted, but the police official prodded him with a bottle of water and the questioning continued. At the time he was taken from his home, Liu Hu had been wearing only a short-sleeved casual shirt. The police official turned the temperature on the air-conditioning unit down to 21 degrees Celsius, and at one point Liu Hu dozed off to sleep for about an hour before the extreme cold woke him and the interrogation continued.
The next day, Liu Hu was taken by train to Beijing. For this purpose the police arranged for a sleeper car. The officer on the case took along his notebook computer and a portable printer, and for much of the journey Liu Hu was again subjected to interrogation.
Looking back, it seems the likely goal of the police was to obtain a confession in the case before Liu Hu had an opportunity to meet with his a lawyer. But things were not so smooth.
Once they reached Beijing, Liu Hu was sent off to the Beijing No. 1 Detention Centre, a city-level facility generally used for repeat offenders.
Liu Hu’s prison room was a so-called “Civilised Unit” (文明号) that police had arranged ahead of time. In the room were two prisoners . . . the police had entrusted to supervise Liu Hu.
The prison room was very crowded. At times there were 12 or 13 prisoners in the room, but at peak times there could be as many as 28. Everyone was to sleep on cots, but during crowded times some had to sleep on the floor.
Liu Hu recalls that although some of the prisoners with whom he shared a room were hardened criminals, including murderers, they were all quite respectful toward him. The two “monitors” (牢头) would always sleep in the best position, cots No. 1 and No. 2 closest to the door. Liu Hu was allowed to sleep on cot No. 3, and never once was he made to sleep on the floor. Nor was he ever beaten.
In order to exert greater pressure on Liu Hu to give up his sources, the broadcasts of the official “Nightly Newscast” on China Central Television typically arranged for his prison room were suspended for the first few months, and the usual copy of Beijing Daily was similarly prohibited.
These deprivations were a source of bitterness for his cellmates, who constantly gnashed their teeth and hoped he would be able to leave soon.
As Liu Hu remained in the detention centre, there were quite a number of solidarity actions on the outside. Many people traveled to Beijing hoping to be able to visit him, or deposited money into his prison account so he might be able to buy extra snacks. As was routine at the detention centre, Liu Hu would receive notice of these [visits and deposits].
Knowing that people, some of whom didn’t even know him, were depositing money on his behalf, further steeled Liu Hu’s resolve. But the authorities began to feel that he was under insufficient pressure — so they arbitrarily changed the rules, no longer permitting deposits from those who were not Liu’s relatives. When his lawyer, Zhou Ze (周泽), tried to deposit funds, even he was not allowed to do so.
The food in Beijing No. 1 Detention Centre was terrible. The standard was eight yuan a day, and so for meals every day there were only vegetables with no oil at all, served with rice or a single dumpling.
There were muslims in the Beijing facility too, but the management was neglectful in its preparation for halal meals, so every prisoner inside Beijing No. 1 Detention Centre was essentially halal-ed — deprived of any pork whatsoever. Only every 10 days or so would there be some potato and maybe a spot of beef or fish.
Liu Hu was released from jail after 346 days. His body weight had dropped from 160 pounds to just 126 pounds, a loss of almost 40 pounds. Liu Hu’s year in custody had consisted mostly of lengthy interrogations.
After entering Beijing No. 1 Detention Centre, he was subjected to a tight schedule of questioning sessions, numbering more than 70 in total, the longest lasting around 11 hours. Many of these were arranged for late at night, and only after repeated complaints had been lodged were arrangements made for daytime interrogations.
The Beijing police had brought along from Liu Hu’s Chongqing home all of his reporting notebooks spanning his more than ten-year journalism career. It is rumoured they assembled a special case team of around 100 members. The agents were dispatched all over the country, seeking out people Liu Hu had interviewed over the years — their chief question being whether or not these contacts had made any payments to Liu Hu. Their hope, clearly, was to achieve any sort of breakthrough that might establish Liu’s guilt.
The charges police eventually presented to prosecutors alleged that Liu Hu was guilty of the crimes of libel and blackmail, as well as “picking quarrels and causing trouble.”
Liu Hu recalls that the police on the case, “in order to chat with him, would brush up their knowledge of journalists, getting to know the industry, and would talk with me about the actor KK, the [deceased] journalist Mu Qing and other people like that, hoping I would follow their examples.”
The police officials said they hoped that Liu Hu would “do things that were meaningful for the people, but [stressed that] I should not have shared information the way I had.”
Liu Hu recalls that the police interrogators gave him strong assurances that if he admitted his guilt he would get a lighter sentence, probation or perhaps even walk free. But never once did he admit any guilt.
Each time he was questioned, and even when police barged into his home, the entire proceedings were captured on video. Judging from the situation [in recent months and years], it seems [to Liu Hu’s mind] that if he had admitted guilt, this would have been quickly edited into a news item and broadcast on China Central Television.
Of course, police told him this video material would be provided instead to “leaders” who after quick deliberation were sure to demand leniency.
Liu Hu recalls how police warned him that if he did not confess his guilt, his sentence would be harsh and he could expect to spend many years in jail — so that when he was finally released he would have nothing, and his family would all by that time have “departed.”
“It was at such times,” Liu Hu told this reporter, “that I would feel at my weakest and most helpless.”
