This requires the citizenry, “selectively” having at least bare, minimal human freedoms and liberties. Tiananmen Square taught the Communist leadership that total authoritarian control over the populace will wear over time and reach a breaking point, and even more rapidly so as the populace gains greater personal wealth and easier access to information. Adding to and greatly compounding this challenge since Tiananmen Square then is the birth and proliferation of the Internet and cell phones, probably the biggest threats and most difficult information sources the communist system has ever had to face and defend itself against. In fact, the Chinese government, with its insatiable appetite to control the populace, has instituted countless surveillance and barrier technologies, even on the Internet.
Perhaps the most noteworthy is “Golden Shield” (aka the Great Firewall). As noted in a Nov 2007 Wired Magazine article, this is a $700 million system that routes all 162 million Chinese users’ internet activity through a centralized bank of censoring computers. Interestingly noted too in the article, the hardware from Golden Shield is supplied by Cisco and other U.S. companies.
Analyst’s note and proposed debate questions: Is the sale of this technology for this purpose (to censor Democracy) really then a U.S. national security issue? Should CFIUS be re-engineered to scrutinize this type of derivative and/or indirect national security situation?
The article goes further, effectively stating Golden Shield then censors specific information and certain website access. For example, a search in Google.cn for terms like “Tiananmen Square massacre” and “Democracy”, yields zero results. And why, one might ask, doesn’t the government just use technology to shut down the Internet. The reason is purely an economic one, being the government’s need of this communication technology to support the economy and its growth via online government, corporate and consumer business. Thus the tug-of-war struggle between censorship and access.
As for cell phones, their proliferation is extraordinary, with an astonishing estimated usage now of more than 500 million. Infoplease.com reported the number at 437 million in 2006, with an exploding growth rate. The feature most often utilized to distribute information being text messaging. In fact there is some direct linkage with the internet, as internet “blockade breaking software” links, which don’t get through Golden Shield, are passed via text messaging. Indeed a constant cat and mouse game.
Then on social order in general, the Chinese have cleverly leveraged the new ideology of Commulism, in a phased in/out geographic human rights approach or simply what the Analyst will coin a “rights distancing” approach, with the level or degree of allowed human rights more or less directly proportional to geographic distance from economic hotbeds. In the major cities and strategic economic zones (e.g. Hong Kong at the extreme then Shanghai and economic zones like Guangdong, etc.), phased-in hardcore capitalism and extensive human rights/freedoms necessary to fuel it are relatively speaking to the rest of the country, encouraged.
Meanwhile, as the geographical or perhaps better stated, the “economic distance” increases from these economic strongholds, so too proportionately does the phase out of human rights, evidence an increasingly more traditional, rigid and harsh communistic style socio-political and enforcement environment.
Analyst Note: Even in the strongest and most liberal of the economic centers, Hong Kong, limits endure, noting for example the delaying tactics to true free elections, continue to be exercised. The recent decision by Beijing to delay free elections in Hong King from the expected 2012 date to 2017 is a de facto statement they won’t happen – at all. While ten years may not seem like much to wait in terms of securing true democracy, it is a really a lifetime. The world will be a very different place in ten years and the expectations now for 2017 will accordingly likely never happen, as the government garners ten more years to enforce their power/economic stranglehold both internationally and domestically (Hong Kong as the case here).
Just enough basic (minimal) freedoms judiciously parceled out to preclude another mass uprising ala Tiananmen Square. This is not to say from a human rights perspective, by any measure, this is at all even remotely acceptable. In fact it remains completely unacceptable, as the government behavior remains quite harsh. Most certainly, China should continue to be aggressively challenged by the free world to create a truly free and democratic society with full human rights afforded its citizenry. For all the government fanfare about a new China, it indeed remains very far from that desired end state.
As recently as Nov. 4, 2007, the Radio Free China website (and that’s all it appears to be, basically a blog, not a radio station) references an article from by Jeremy Reynalds, Correspondent for ASSIST News Service (ANS), who leads his article with “As the 2008 Beijing Olympics approaches, Chinese Christians are facing increased levels of persecution as authorities seek to keep dissidents away from international media……..”.
There is also a massive urbanization effort underway to populate the 13 or more new super cities being built. This may over time help in improving the aggregate human rights situation per the economic zone/distance rights issuance theme noted above as more and more people begin to enjoy the additional human rights benefits of economic “zonal capitalism”. However, this urbanization trend may too be leading to China’s next real revolution. As Joshus Kurlantzick notes in his January 2008 Portfolio magazine article, “The past decade has seen waves of demonstrations shaking China but the land protests have the potential to be most transformative in part because of the demographics of these new age revolutionaries. Not peasants but urban professionals with resources, access to internet, and knowledge how government works. Land rights in cities may be the first really transforming demonstrations.”
Then there is of course a non-geographic group, which includes many influential opposition leaders of a Nelson Mandela like stature and caliber, e,g. Gao Zhisheng, who are not even afforded those minimal rights given their upsetting populace influence vis-à-vis pursuing broad democratic reforms. Interestingly, it was reported on Oct. 2, 2007 in ChinaDigitalTimes.net, that this Nobel Peace Prize nominee having been taken into custody for not complying with government warnings to cease his negative commentary on the Chinese government.
D) TECHNOLOGICAL PROWESS:
Lesson - To compete globally with the U.S., particularly in the military arena, technology competitiveness is an absolute must.
The Chinese closely monitor all U.S. and WEAST media sources, where pertinent and relevant sought information flows quite freely. They are keenly aware of U.S. technology prowess, evidence exhaustive media coverage of the hi-tech Gulf Wars I and 2. Wikipedia, under “Gulf War”, reports “The People's Republic of China (whose army used military equipment similar to the Iraqi army) was surprised at the performance of American technology on the battlefield. The swiftness of the coalition victory resulted in an overall change in Chinese military thinking and began a movement to technologically modernize the People's Liberation Army”.
As did the U.S., the Chinese learned that the adversary with the largest number of troops is no longer the deciding factor in traditional warfare. Instead, the new winning war paradigm is all about technology, evidence at the start of Gulf War 1, Iraq having the fourth largest army in the world and being crushed by technology, not greater opposing troop numbers.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
