WHY isn鈥檛 China a democracy? Why is the People鈥檚 Republic still an
authoritarian state, despite its return to international politics after the
isolationism of the 1950s and 1960s, the collapse of Communism in Russia, and
pressure from the West for improved human rights?
While academics debate this puzzle, many China watchers believe the country鈥檚
ruling order faces a new threat in the shape of the Internet. They claim that in
a country where hundreds of millions are predicted to go online, the Net鈥檚
capacity for promoting free speech and political dissent will eventually bring
the ruling party to its knees. Could the virtual world succeed where the
physical world failed?
I鈥檓 not so sure. I suspect that China, along with other autocratic states
such as Libya, will survive the libertarian assault. In the short term, Beijing
is quite capable of resisting Net-based free speech with its rigorous control of
public information backed up鈥攃rucially鈥攂y harsh punishments for
offenders. It鈥檚 harder to say what will happen in the long term.
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China has wanted to become a fully wired society for more than a decade. The
country has already made breathtaking progress over the past 20 years: it has
more than 110 million landlines, and 20 million are being added every year. In
twenty years鈥� time, its telephone network will be the world鈥檚 second largest,
after the US. Its cable TV market has more than 65 million customers and this
figure grows by 10 million a year. Within a few years, China is expected to
become the world鈥檚 third largest computer market. And the number of Net users
quadrupled last year to nearly 9 million, with figures predicted to increase to
more than 15 million in the next 18 months.
What does this tell us? Among other things, I believe it tells us that China
is good at adopting technologies from the West without being influenced by its
politics. Champions of the Net as a force for democracy, however, believe that
when it comes to the Web, China will have to fall into line. They argue that the
Net is impervious to government control, and point to a number of recent
failures of regulation as evidence. First, there are the failed attempts by the
US and British governments to win access to the 鈥渒eys鈥� with which private users
encrypt information sent over the Net. Another example is the failure of the
Australian authorities to stop people accessing certain pornographic and other
kinds of material.
But China is different. Unlike Australia, Britain or the US, China is not a
democracy. This means that if it wants to have access to your encryption
passwords or if it wants to prevent you from accessing pornographic websites, no
one can stop it.
In Western countries, the Net helps people to organise political campaigns
quickly and effectively, because they already have the right to hold up
anti-government placards outside Downing Street or the White House. That right
doesn鈥檛 exist in China. If you tried, you鈥檇 be locked up. As you would if you
tried to promote dissent on the Net and were found out.
As more and more people in China log on, the government has shown that it
will arrest and detain anyone who breaks the rules on accessing or sending
banned material. And just so that everyone knows the punishment, offenders are
made a public example of. Last year, a Shanghai businessman was very publicly
thrown in prison for giving Chinese e-mail addresses to an American company.
Recently, new laws were introduced to strengthen the state鈥檚 control of
electronic information. These include bans on sending e-mails that contain
鈥渟tate secrets鈥�, and on discussing state secrets in chat rooms and on bulletin
boards. Remember that state secrets in China can mean anything from the most
apparently insignificant news item to military statistics.
Another law obliges foreign companies to disclose the type of software they
use for encrypting electronic messages. In addition, Chinese companies are
banned from buying products containing encryption software designed by foreign
companies, which could make life difficult for several Chinese service
providers if the government demands access to decryption keys.
None of this legislation should be surprising. It is little different from
current controls over publishing and broadcasting, which restrict information
that originates outside China and the flow of Chinese information overseas. When
I worked on a project to set up a national broadband network between 1995 and
1996, our Chinese partners made it clear that Cable & Wireless would have no
say in what was transmitted. Rupert Murdoch鈥檚 Asian TV project has been delayed
because of concerns over what it will transmit.
But those who believe the Net will eventually bring down the ruling party
assert that the authorities will be unable to trace people who e-mail banned
material to each other or download illegal Web pages. In a country where
hundreds of millions are poised to go online, they say, the sheer volume of
traffic will be impossible to police. And they argue that any reasonably
competent Net user will always know how to send and receive information without
betraying their real identity.
This may be true. But it鈥檚 not the point. China already has hundreds of
thousands鈥攊f not millions鈥攐f people who don鈥檛 like their government.
A minority of these risk their lives and those of their families by holding
illegal assemblies without the authorities finding out. It can be done. But if
word leaks out, the penalty can be as harsh as death. This is why most ordinary
Chinese are not prepared to break the law. And it is the reason why I doubt
whether most ordinary Chinese would want to break the law when it comes to
accessing banned sites on the Net. Like holding an illegal gathering, there will
always be ways to download a banned Web page without being found out. But is it
worth risking such a punishment?
I doubt whether ordinary Chinese will want to rock the boat. For the moment,
the status quo is good for everyone. The Net and the opening up of China鈥檚
markets to the West are helping ordinary people to escape from poverty. Business
people are making money. And the Communist Party gets to stay in power.