Faizullin Marat, group 642.

The campaign against Internet-censorshipin China

Introduction.

In this essay I will investigate the problem of violations of the principles of freedom of speech in China and international community’svigorous actions against the Chinese government's activities in the area of censorship.Since the Internet is one of the major sourcesof information for the majority of Chinese citizens (the Chinese Internet market is the second largest in the world after the American one and accounts for 110 million users, which is about 10 per cent of the population), the problem of Internet censorship will considered as the key one.

Description of the status quo and the problem I want to analyze.

Basically, the Chinese government started to censor internet right after the internet appeared. However, before 2003 the very fact of censorship hadn’t received wide publicity. Only after The Google company entered the Chinese internet market, international community obtained the reliable information about the fact that Chinese government filtrated information available for the users and controlled completely the private cyber space.

A brief description of how the Internet-censorship functions in China:

•all computers used in China are equipped with an information filtration system, with the symbolic name "The Great Chinese informational Wall".It is served by over 30.000 people;

•there are two government agencies responsible for controlling the Internet in China - the Office of the State Council for Controlling Information and the Office for Coordination of News.There are also hired bloggers who write articles describing positively the government’s policies;

•the information related to opposition movements, human rights issues, a number of philosophical and religious currents, the independence of Tibet and Taiwan is prohibited.The access to the internet-sites of The BBC, Wikipedia is restricted;

•all Western companies are obliged to meet the requirements of the Chinese authorities to limit access to certain information.Among them are: Yahoo!, Microsoft and Google;

•as an alternative to western blogs and social networks, the Chinese people are offered the local equivalents (Sina.com, QQ.com), and a possibility to send messages on the web-site of the Communist Party.

International Campaign against the Chinese government’s policies in the area of the freedom of speech on the Internet.

In fact, the international communityhas joined efforts to combat Internet censorship system in China.It is not the formal campaign, but a number of actions of different political actors during the last decade proves the fact that the international community does not only oppose to censorship in China, but also actively fights against it.And with the growing importance of the Internet for people, the steps of some interest groups are becoming more active.

Groups interested in resolving the issue

The problem of Internet-censorship makes disadvantaged those groups of people, who consume the information, who sells it, stores it and shares it. That is why we can divide people, interested in lifting the Internet-censorship, into three separate groups:

1.Rank-and-file Chinese users

Chinese users are deprived of the possibility to express freely their opinion in the Internet. Another important problem is the lack of substantial protection of personal data, because the Chinese government has free access to all information about the users.

There are some illustrative facts. The Chinese office of Yahoo provided to the Chinese authorities with the information about the users, which resulted in that hundreds of people were subjects to judicial investigation. For instance, a Chinese journalist Shi Tao was sued for articles of oppositional character and was imprisoned fora ten years term.After the death of Pope John Paul II's social networks in China were filled with tens of thousands of messages about the event and the various citizens' reflections about religion, but during the night it all just disappeared.The representative of the Chinese portal Sohu.com said it hadbeen done in order to "make people not versed in religion and denominations not to publish groundless declarations".

2.International internet-business.

There is no doubt that while on one side of scale consumers of services, on the other are their producers - business.While the Chinese Internet service providers are state-owned companies, the Western companies operating in the Chinese market suffer.Firstly, they must fundamentally change their own rules of trade in the market, because the Chinese government obliges them to make self-censorship.It is obvious that no company would wish to contradict the principles on which it is build on and that ensure it a high credibility ratings in the world.However, the companies such as Yahoo!, Microsoft, Google and some others had to make concessions to the Chinese Government, which was detrimental for their stocks, credibility ratings, the overall number of clients etc. There is another problem.Since the supreme censor is the Chinese government, is not easy for Western Internet companies to stay in the Chinese market even if they comply with the requirements of self-censorship.The evidence of which is statistics.

In 2003, the share of the Yahoo! in the market of internet-search companies in China was around 45%.After the censorship rules got more strict, an access to several Western sites was restricted andfilters on non-Chinese search engines were installed, the share of the U.S. search engine began to fall steadily, as a result it is now 15%.I.e.actually, the Chinese legislationon Internet censorship has allowed the authorities to freely introduce protectionist measures for their own Internet companies, while violating the principles of free trade, adopted by China afterjoining the WTO.

3.Community of experts in various fields of activities.

It includes representatives of various professions whose activities are directly complicated by the system of censorship.In this group, among many others one can find two large subgroups.

Journalists’ community.Both Chinese journalists and representatives of this profession from other countries and international organizationsare in favor of the abolition of Internet censorship.In particular, the Chinese journalists have been prosecuted on numerous occasions for trying to investigate in the social networks one or another delicate issue.During the Summer Olympic games in Beijing in 2008, all foreign reporters were suddenly denied an access to a number of major international electronic media, as well as the opportunity to discussin Internet the events not related to the sports while the stay in China.The members of the International Press Institute, the organization Reporters without Bordersand members of some other organizations regularly make declarations criticizing harshly the Chinese government.

The academia. After a number of Western sources of information were closed and some search queries were blocked, the Chinese scientists were deprived of the access to the information they used in research.It has nothing to do with scientists working not in the military-industrial complex, but it makes suffer the scientists working in the institutions of higher education.

In order to get the full picture of what is happening it is also important to understand the point of view of the Chinese government in the public discourse

The Chinese Government has its own conception of the "correct" the Internet should look like and pays no attention to the statements made by the international community about the freedom and accessibility of information.The Web site of the Office of the State Council on the control of information says: "The Internet is useful for people, but it is also a source of sex, violence, medieval prejudices and other harmful information, which poisons the soul of a person". The Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperso Queen Gang declared that his government has the right to regulate access to the Internet."For many countries it is normal to control the Internet in accordance with the law, and to guide its development in a healthy and decent track", - said the Queen Ganges."China has borrowed this experience and has learned that from the U.S. and other countries.

The ultimate goal of this campaign is the abolition of China's system of Internet censorship.

The main targets - those on whom the actions of actors are aimed at - are the Chinese government and Western businesses operating in the market of Internet services in China.It results in the twofold situation: on the one hand, Western Internet companies are ardent supporters of the abolition of censorship and make some steps to achieve it, on the other hand, while censorship in China still exists, the business is forced to tolerate it and to filter information.And that is why the business itself is often the target of some opponents of censorship.In particular, the international human rights organization Amnesty International has regularly and harshly criticized the companies such as Yahoo!, Microsoft and Google, insisting on the adoption of measures aimed at eliminating restrictions on freedom of speech in China.

It is worth mentioning that while during the last decade the main target of the criticism has been the companies, the tendency is changing nowadays. Since the Chinese authorities area actively lobbying the interests of their own providers, the market shares of the Western companies are decreasing. In this case the Western companies can no more be considered “guilty” for the system of Internet censorship in China, because influences every time less and less on the market of Internet services in China. Thus, it is obvious that in the next several years the Chinese government will be the main target of criticism.

Goals of the campaign.

•creating a discussion platform for the discussion of censorship between the Chinese Government and the other governments, international human rights organizations, intergovernmental organizations;

•the development and application of economic sanctions by the international community against China.They could include, for example, raising fees and reducing import quotas for Chinese products;

•creating a consolidated policy of international Internet companies againstthe Chinese government.This implies the necessity for business not to make concessions to the Chinese government, and to follow the principles, a company follows in democratic countries;

•intensifying efforts of civil society and human rights organizations in China to counter the Chinese government.

Let us now consider the key actors of the campaign.

Actors can also be divided into three broad groups.Below, is the description of the groups of actors and their actions against the Chinese government.

1.International human rights organizations

One of the most ardent opponents of censorship in China has been the international organization Amnesty International.As one of the main goals of the organization is to advocate the freedom of expression, the problem of Internet censorship in China could not remain unnoticed. The organiztion has published several reports accusing the Chinese government of violating the rights of its citizens.The most important here is the report issued in 2006.It contains not only a criticism of China, but also much a criticism of Western business, that had accepted the rules of the game in China.Amnesty International calls on the Western Internet companies "to put pressure on the authorities in order to secure the release of all cyber-dissidents and journalists imprisoned for their peaceful and legitimate exercise of freedom of speech", to "elaborate a clear program in the area of the human rights, which would reflect thata company supports the Universal Declaration of Human Rights”.It is obvious that such calls, despite their importance to the public, have little significance for the morality ofthe business.But the mere fact of drawing attention to the problem is very important. Especially given the fact that after the reports of Amnesty International's rating of trust to companies fall, and thus the risk of their losing their profits in European and North American countries increases.

A similar policy against the Chinese government hasthe international human rights organization "Reporters without borders".In 2007 it published a report composed by one Chinese Internet expert.It was first to analyze in details a system of Internet censorship in China, to evaluate the financial and labor investments in its functioning.The figures presented in the report "China: Journey to the Center of Internet censorship" were very impressive - the annual cost of Internet censorship is 19 million euros, the number of people involved in the monitoring of Internet is more than 30,000, the annual amount of fines paid by the companiesthat violate the law is4 million euros.The report is of high importance, because this report was first to provide the international community with the detailed analysis of the situation, with consideration of the problem, those responsible for it, actions and consequences.Another important point - the report was compiled with the participation of the “Group of Defenders of Human Rights in China "- actually a clandestine human rights organization, that for the first time spoke openly against the Chinese government.This suggests that it is possible to intensify the efforts of civil society in China, and that the international community should make maximum efforts to do so, following the example of the organization "Reporters without borders".

2.States and international organizations.

Several States strongly oppose the censorship in China.The main adversaries of the Chinese government has been the United States and the Netherlands.The U.S. position is clear.On the one hand, the US have always positioned themselves as champions of the rights and freedoms of every person in every place of the world, on the other hand, from an economic point of view, the U.S. would not benefit China's position, which violates the rights of Internet companies (most of which are from the U.S.) infree trade."China puts PC vendors in a difficult position, imposing the obligation - with practically no public notice –to pre-install software. It will have broad implications for the tightening of censorship and violations of network security", - U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said.In terms of rights and freedoms of distinctly voiced U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.She compared the censorship in China, Vietnam, warning that without the protection of Internet freedoms, the world will share the "information curtain".

But the active position of the Netherlands in this matter is somewhat surprising.In 2009, the People's Party for Freedom and Democracy Netherlands proposed to the European Parliament to impose economic sanctions against countries with high levels of censorship.Particular attention was paid in this case to China.

Here we turn to the positions of supranational organizations such as the EU and the WTO.EU European Parliament unanimously supported the proposal of the Netherlands party, but id didn’t announce what specific sanctionswould be applied to China.The case was transferred to the European Commission for unifying the position and preparing the concrete proposals. But the European Commission's didn’t’ do much more than to criticize in public the censorship.In fact, all that it has done - is an attempt to appeal to the leadership of the World Trade Organization to take actions against China.On May 17, 2010 Vice-President of the European Commission Neelie Kroes said: "This is one of those issues that need to be addressed in the WTO, and I understand what is at stake here is very much ... I am doing my best to allow Europeanbusinesses to operate in a fair conditions in China - and vice versa."

It is important to note that the application of sanctions against China, in fact, is a last resort solution.It is therefore evident that the Europeans are in no hurry to their introduction.Still, China is a strategically important economic partner of most European countries and, importantly, the Chinese business is not responsible for the actions of their government.In these circumstances, the principal initiator and a source of pressure on the WTO on the Chinese question is, again, the United States.In particular, Washington initiated a meeting of U.S. Congress with representatives of major companies operating in China, to develop a united policy to deal with censorship.

3.International business operating in the field of Internet technologies.

Naturally, we include here three major international companies operating in China - Microsoft, Google and Yahoo.In a broad sense, their position can be seen is contradictory: on the one hand, companies are interested in profits, on the other - do not want to sacrifice their own principles.Under the terms of the Amnesty International can call them "prisoners of conscience".Consider the company's actions to counter censorship.

In 2008, Microsoft, Google and Yahoo, have signed an agreement called the "Initiative of global networks", which includes the protection of freedom of speech and the impossibility of government interference in the activities of the network.The agreement does not allow authorities to data about users in those cases when it comes to issues of freedom of speech."Private life - inalienable human right and a guarantee of human dignity" - said in a statement.Under its provisions, companies should resist demands to limit freedom of speech and right to privacy of users."We started this initiative, as we understand that by combining efforts, we can achieve much more than if each worked alone," - says Andrew Maklohlin, Google's director of global politics.