Digital Panopticon? New Nationalism ——A Critical Analysis of the Internet’s Democratic Promise in China

Abstract The Internet, with its decentralized structure, cheap access and instant dissemination of information, is widely believed to ensure freedom of speech as well as the creation of a new public sphere. The study of the Internet in China, however, demonstrates that Chinese government has so far successfully constructed a “digital Panopticon” to counter and control the political impact of the Internet. The pervasiveness of nationalistic discourse in China’s cyberspace also shows that the Internet does not automatically contribute to rational argument and virtual democracy.

Digital Panopticon? New Nationalism ——A Critical Analysis of the Internet’s Democratic Promise in China

“Imagine if the Internet took hold in China. Imagine how freedom would spread.”(George W. Bush, Phoenix, Arizona, December 7, 1999)

“We know how much the Internet has changed America, and we are already an open society. Imagine how much it could change China. Now, there’s no question China has been trying to crack down on the Internet --- good luck. That’s sort of like trying to nail Jello to the wall.” (Bill Clinton, at Johns Hopkins University, March 8, 2000)

The widespread adoption the Internet has triggered off many utopian predictions about its potentials to contribute to various sociological phenomena. Foremost among them is that the Internet will bring about a new era of democracy by creating unprecedented opportunity for the freedom of speech and public discourse. For example, Nicolas Negroponte (1996), the founder of MIT's Media Lab, in his well-known Being Digital predicted four powerful qualities of the Internet age: “decentralizing”, “globalizing”, “harmonizing” and “empowering.” The Internet’s democratic potential in authoritarian regimes such as China is many politicians and pundits’ particular interest. They believe that the Internet will inevitably facilitates the free flow of information and the creation of a new public sphere in China, thus leading to the overthrow of the authoritarian regime and the realization of democracy.

Lincoln Dahlberg (2001a) identifies three prominent camps of visions about democracy in the cyberspace: first, the communitarian camp, which emphasizes the possibility of the Internet to promote shared values and communal spirit; second, the liberal individualist camp, which sees the Internet as facilitating the expression of the individual interests; third, the deliberative camp, which deems the Internet as an expansion of public sphere based on rational-critical discourse. In this paper, we will contradict these popular ideas by exploring to what degree the Chinese government can control the Internet and if a new public sphere is coming into being in China online from the three perspectives of cyber-democracy.

The Internet in China: A Digital Panopticon? The recent years have witnessed the continuous Internet boom in China since it first opened to the public in early 1996. According to the semiannual surveys by the official China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), the users of Internet in China have mushroomed from 0.62 million (CNNIC, 1997) to 68 million (CNNIC, 2003) in six years. Unlike some other authoritarian regimes, such as Cuba, the development of the Internet is strongly supported by the Chinese government, for it believes that economic growth of China will depend on the extent to which the country is integrated into the global information infrastructure. But at the same time, the regime realized that an unregulated network would undermine its authoritarian control over the country by facilitating the free flow of “subversive” information and by providing an extensive forum for discussion and collaboration. The paradox for the government, as Nina

Hachigian (2001) puts it, is to “prevent this commercial goldmine from becoming political quicksand”. To preserve the economic benefits of openness to the Internet, while at the same time guard against domestic or foreign groups to organize anti-regime activity, the Chinese government has employed a variety of technological, legislative and administrative strategies and has so far successfully countered the political impact of Internet.

Technological Surveillance One of the main measures the Chinese government applies to control the Internet is the monopoly of infrastructure. There are only four national networks, CHINANet, CSTNet, CERNet and CHINGBN that were permitted to have direct linkage with the global Internet at the beginning. Anyone who wants to visit the Internet must link to these four networks first. They serve as the first line of defense against outside information. Upon these connection lines, China imposes what the Wired magazine calls “the Great Firewall”, which blocks access to a number of selected websites with undeclared rationales. These sites include Western news sites, such as Cable News Network (CNN), the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC); Chinese dissident sites, such as Falungong, Tibet and Taiwan independence forces; websites of human rights and pro-democracy organizations, and other sites deemed “objectionable”. In September 2002, ahead of the CCP Congress, China even blocked access to the popular search engines Google and AltaVista because they could bring up links to “harmful” sites (BBC, September 2, 2002).

But the firewall software and devices do not allow the authority to recognize the identity of the offenders. Moreover, they can easily be penetrated through emails and foreign proxy servers. In response to this menace, the government decided to build a China-only intranet that is separated from the Internet. This technology “enables the authorities to trace all online activities of any targeted terminal located within the firewall, including surfing, chatting, downloading and email exchange” (Qiu, 1999/2000). The intranet technology is usually used for large corporations and organizations, but china wants to apply it to the entire nation. However, the strategy of a secure national intranet has been falling in recent years with the increased volume of Internet traffic in China. The liberalization of the Chinese telecommunication industry led to competing departments’ development of Internet capability on their own. The number of telecommunication players allowed to link their networks with those abroad has risen to over 10 in 2003 (CNNIC, 2003). But the Chinese government will never give up its control over the Internet. In November 2000, the Ministry of Public Security announced its “Golden Shield” project, a massive, ubiquitous architecture of surveillance. The ultimate aim of this project is to “build a nationwide digital surveillance network, linking national, regional and local security agencies with a panoptic web of surveillance” (Walton, 2001).

Regulation Apart from technological surveillance, the Chinese government also uses regulations to defend its Internet security strategy. China’s Internet regulation started in 1996 with the promulgation of “The Interim Regulations on International Interconnection of

Computer Information Networks in PRC” by the State Council (1996). This regulation was verified on May 20, 1997. According to the Regulation, all linkages with the Internet must go through the state authorized networks and no unit or individual is allowed to establish direct Internet connection (Article 6). License and registration are required for any unit to provide Internet access service or merely obtain access (Article 8). “Subversive” or “obscene” information is forbidden to be created, replicated, retrieved, or disseminated (Article 13). From then on, the three major administration entities in charge of China’s Internet, the Ministry of Information Industry, the Ministry of Public Security, and the Information Office of State Council, along with other divisions of government have promulgated a number of regulations covering nearly every aspect of the Internet to shape the market environment. Among them, three are directly related to online content and are widely believed to squelch the free flow of information and the freedom of speech. The 1997 Public Security Bureau regulation entitled “The Management of the Security Protection of International Computer Information Networking” places most of the responsibilities for monitoring, reporting, and preventing anti-regime use of the Internet on domestic Internet service and content providers (Chase & Mulvenon, 2002). Users are forbidden to create, replicate, retrieve, or transmit the following kinds of information: (1) Instigating to resist or disrupt the implementation of the Constitution, laws or administrative regulations. (2) Instigating to overthrow the regime or the socialist system. (3) Instigating to split the country or destroy national unification.

(4) Instigating to produce ethnic hatred or discrimination, or undermine nation unity. (5) Fabricating or distorting the truth, spreading rumors that disturb the order of society. (6) Promoting feudal superstitions, obscene material, gambling, violence, murder, terrorism or inciting others to commit crimes. (7) Openly insulting other people or fabricate facts to slander people. (8) Injuring the reputation of state organs. (9) Engaging in other activities against the Constitution, laws, or administrative regulations. On October 8, 2000, the Ministry of Information Industry issued “Regulations for the Administration of the Internet Bulletin Services”. This regulations mandated that operators of any types of Bulletin Board System (BBS) and chat room should register with the authority, obtain a license, enact measures and employ professional administers to control content. All Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are required to record the time of the users’ access to the Internet, the account number, the addresses and domain names of the websites and the telephone numbers they use to get access to the Internet (Article 15). Internet Content Providers (ICPs), meanwhile, are required to maintain logs of all information posted on their sites (Article 14). If the postings fall into any of those forbidden categories, they must delete them in time and report to the authorities. Both ISPs and ICPs must keep their records for 60 days and turn them over on demand. In addition to issuing rules concerning the BBS, the Information Office of State Council and the Ministry of Information Industry also promulgated “Interim Regulations for the

Administration of News Release on Websites” in November 2000. Special license is required to carry online news service. Only sites established by traditional media organs such as Xinhua News Agency, People’s Daily, and China Central TV are permitted to generate content of their own. Others are only allowed to republish articles from these media. Nor can they carry news from foreign media and websites without permission.

Self-Censorship All of the aforementioned regulations promote a kind of self-censorship among domestic Internet companies and users, which has become the primary way of the content control of China’s Internet. The companies are engaged in the censorship because they are aware that if they post or allow users to post objectionable materials, they will face fines, suspension or license revocation, which will greatly affect their profit making. Therefore, most sites hosting BBS and chat rooms employ full-time or volunteer monitors, known as “big mamas” (Tsui, 2001) to delete subversive and obscure information and comments, or run filtering software to block such content. At the same time, the users are prompted to rule their own activities. For example, Sohu.com, one of the most popular portals in China, reminds its BBS and chat room users to abide by the “Regulations for the Administration of the Internet Bulletin Services” in a conspicuous place, stating if the users break the rules seriously, Sohu will cancel their accounts and report their information to the government and Public Security Bureau. In March 26, 2002, more than 100 Chinese Internet industry executives signed a self-discipline pledge aiming at promoting “the healthy and orderly development” of the Internet in China through “the protection of intellectual property, network security and

the elimination of deleterious information from the Internet” (People.com.cn, March 27, 2002). According to the pledge, the signatories agreed “not to produce, publish or disseminate harmful information that endanger state security and social stability, contravene laws and regulations, and spread superstition and obscenity.” They also pledged to scrutinize the information published online and reject access to detrimental sites in order to remove their “negative influence” on China’s Internet users. The signature of American Internet company Yahoo on this pact was regarded as “a retrograde step for freedom of expression in China” (The Wire, December 2002). According to the newest statistics, at least 1000 companies and units had signed this pact by 2003.

Real-World Punishment Like many other regulatory efforts in China, not all these regulations can be completely carried out. For example, it is reported that only about half of the 200,000 Internet cafés throughout China are officially registered (The Wire, December 2002). In most Internet cafés, records are not always strictly kept and anyone can just pay to log on the Internet anonymously. This situation deeply concerns the authorities. Following a fire at an Internet café of Beijing in June, 2002, which killed 25 people, 2,400 Internet cafés in the city were closed for so-called “safety” reasons. The owners have to reregister to obtain a license. They are also obliged to install filter software and record the users information to avoid being shut down or fined heavily. It was reported recently that a nationwide surveillance and administration system of Internet cafés is under construction in China (Beijing Morning, October 26, 2003).

There are also thousands of “Internet Police” surfing online in China everyday. According to the People’s Daily (People.com.cn, 2000), China’s first Internet police force was set up in eastern Anhui province and twenty other provinces were creating similar forces to “maintain order” on the Internet. The Internet police constantly search all kinds of webpages, especially those of the forums. Once finding “subversive” or obscene information from domestic sites, they will warn the operators of the sites to check and delete it. If this does not work, they will inform the local Public Security Bureau or block the site directly (Renminbao.com, 2002). As a result, a growing number of “cyber-dissidents”, including democracy promoters, human-rights activists, Falungong practitioners, and other dissidents have been detained or arrested for online activities. The first person imprisoned in China for “subversive” use of the Internet was Lin Hai, a computer software engineer from Shanghai. He was charged with subversion and was sentenced to two years in prison on January 20, 1999, for providing a total of 30,000 e-mail addresses to VIP Reference, an overseas electronic dissident newsletter. Lin’s case was also described as “the world's first prosecution of an Internet user for political reasons” (Wired, 1998). Huang Qi, a computer engineer who set up China’s first domestic human rights website, was arrested in June 2000, shortly after an essay calling for the prosecution of those responsible for the Tiananmen Square suppression was posted to his website. Huang was sentenced to five years in prison for “subverting government activities” and “incitement to overthrow the government” in May 2003 (Burns, 2003). More recently, Liu Di, a college student from Beijing was arrested in November

2002 for criticizing undemocratic practices of the party and government online, including the arrest of Huang Qi. She has been held without charge for a year. One reason for this is that the courts lacked enough evidence to prosecute the 23-year-old student (CNN, November 10, 2003). According to the New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists, 17 intellectuals have been imprisoned in China for creating or distributing “harmful” information online (CNN, November 10, 2003). Also at least 11 Falungong practitioners were arrested between 1999 and 2001 for disseminating forbidden materials via the Internet (Qiu, 2001).

Digital Panopticon The concept of panopticon provides a useful model to understand how Chinese government uses the aforementioned strategies to exert its control of the country (Tsui,2001). According to Bentham (1791, cited in Lyon, 1994), the panopticon is a circular building with a tower at the center from which it is possible to see each cell in which a prisoner is incarcerated. Unsure of when the authority might be watching, the prisoners would always strive to conform to the rules. Therefore, the major effect of the panopticon is “to induce in the inmate a state of conscious and permanent visibility that assures the automatic functioning of power” (Foucault, 1979:201). For Foucault, the panopticon represents the way in which discipline and punishment work in modern society. It perfects the operation of power by increasing the number of people who can be controlled and decreasing the number needed to operate it.

The information from the Internet is multi-checked in China: at the gateway of networks, at the websites responsible for delivering the content, and the receivers themselves. In addition, the Internet companies and users are under the watch of Internet police and the all-encompassing surveillance technology all the time. All of these make the Chinese “intranet” a digital Panopticon constructed as follows:

Diagram 1: The Digital Panopticon in China

The regime uses the panopticon’s mechanism of permanent visibility to exert its control over the Internet. Although various real-life means of punishment, such as the invalidation of ISP’s license and the criminal charges against offenders were announced, the actual utilization of such measures is infrequent. They mainly function as potential deterrence. However, the sporadic punishment examples from time to time to remind the companies and users of the fact that they are being monitored. As a result, the news portals have to employ self-censorship, try to publish politically safe content and focus on entertainment and sports most of the time. At the individual level, the fate of dissidents

like Lin Hai and Huang Qi undoubtedly serve as a warning message to others who might use the Internet to challenge the government. As a western correspondent in Beijing puts it: “You don't have to arrest too many people before everyone gets the message. The government here is very good at intimidation” (Neumann, 2001). In a word, the Chinese government has so far successfully used the structure of digital panoptican to consolidate the existing power relations. The Internet, contrary to popular belief, can be controlled and even be used as a means for control. As Foucault, in Discipline and Punish (1979, p.290), stated: Just as the ability to read and write and freely communicate gives power to citizens that protects them from the powers of the state, the ability to surveil, to invade the citizen s’ privacy, gives the state the power to confuse, coerce and control citizens. Uneducated populations cannot rule themselves, but tyrannies can control even educated populations, given sophisticated means of surveillance.

The Internet’s promise to facilitate the free flow of information in China seems obscured, so is its potential as a public sphere conceptualized by Habermas.

New Public Sphere or New Nationalism? The booming of the Internet seems to provide a new chance for the renaissance of the public sphere. The optimists believe that the decentralized communication framework and low cost will make the Internet a universal medium that everyone could get access to. The entry barriers of public sphere are overcome for the first time. Furthermore, the anonymity of the Internet has eliminated all social cues leading to hierarchy (Cui, 2001). As a result, people could participate in discussion equally without any pressure.

Nevertheless, We will argue that a Habermasian public sphere cannot be applied to cyberspace, especially in a totalitarian country like China. Taking part in online discussion involves not only the cost of PCs and fees of getting online, but also literacy, which exclude those who are poorly educated or ill-paid, causing what called a “digital divide”. The distinction between public and private, a crucial requirement of the public sphere, is further blurred in cyberspace. The casual identity in the Internet causes the absence of responsibility and the rampancy of irrational curses and assaults (Poster, 1995). Rational-critical discourse can hardly predominate over in online discussions. Moreover, various inequalities in the course of face-to-face communication are also transplanted into the Internet (Herring, 1993). Many countries nowadays, more or less like the situation we described above in China, are taking all kinds of measures such as information surveillance and content censorship to reinforce their control over the Internet, which continues to threaten free speech and public interaction online. Besides, the commercialization trend of the Internet appears more and more obvious. The Internet is following a consumerism model, aiming mainly at selling products and service. Even some democracy-oriented sites are gradually being controlled by corporate ventures “promoting an individualized consumer-oriented politics” (Dahlberg, 2001b).

The Qiangguo Forum: An Exception?

In China, optimistic predictions that the Internet can act as a public sphere through the discourse taking place in BBS, chat rooms prevail too. Particular attentions are paid to the Qiangguo (meaning “strong country” in English) Forum, a BBS hosted by the CCP’s highest propaganda organ, the People’s Daily. Min (2001) believes that the Qingguo Forum is where all kinds of information and opinions gather. It has broken through the monopoly of public opinion by the Chinese government and works as a compelling example of China’s democratic progress. Compared to traditional media in China, Qiangguo Forum does enjoy a greater degree of latitude. News from Hong Kong, Taiwan and western media are available there frequently. Even comments against the party and government can be posted to the forum. However, a deep examination of the operation mechanism of the forum demonstrates that it is not essentially different from other Chinese forums. All postings to the Qiangguo Forum are strictly censored by filter software as well as the webmasters. There is one or two webmasters stationed on the BBS whenever it is open. If a posting contains some sensitive words or phrases, such as “Tiananmen Square”, “June 4th”, “Falungong” or the names of political leaders, the software will stop it and transmit it to the webmasters. They read it and decide whether to let it appear on the BBS. The webmasters also check other postings that have passed through the filter software. If there are problems, they will delete them as soon as possible. The acceptable postings, as described by Jiang Yaping, the editor-in-chief of the site, are those that are “lawful”, “patriotic”, “consistent with the sites’ propaganda principles”, “healthy” and “polite” (Cited in Min, 1999).

Complaints about the unfair deletion of postings are common to the forum because standards vary from day to day and from webmaster to webmaster. The fates of certain kind of postings in the forum can act as winds of change of the government’s policy. Take the SARS crisis as an example. Before the Party decided to dismiss the delinquent Health Minister, Zhang Wenkang, and Beijing Mayor, Meng Xuenong, and announce the real amount of SARS suffers daily on April 20, 2003, most postings related to the topic are deleted in the Qiangguo Forum. After that, however, users can talk about SARS much more freely. The forum even opened up a special section named “Fighting against SARS” for the expression of various opinions. This kind of “openness” at the whim of the authorities can hardly be regarded as conductive to the authentic freedom of speech. If it were not hosted by the official People’s Daily, the forum would definitely be blocked. Therefore the Qiangguo Forum mainly works as a “window” and a “safe valve” currently. By “window”, it can indicate the subtle variation of the CCP’s policy. It also creates an illusion of democracy. By “safe valve”, it can help avoid social conflicts and stabilize social structure by giving vent to the hostile sentiments. This conclusion is based on the fact that the diverse opinions online are not reflected by the mainstream media and have little influence on the actual policy making. A one-month long content analysis (Tian, 2003) of the Qiangguo Forum also indicated that a large majority of the postings released everyday are empty ones without any substantial content. The participation of the users is also uneven, with a few active ones dominating the whole discussion. Moreover, humdrum chatting and irrational conflicts are flooded in the forum. Most of users never patiently listen to others’ points

but only reaffirm their own. All of these make the Qiangguo Forum far from an ideal public sphere.

The New Nationalism Instead of leading to a higher degree of the freedom of speech and public discourse or the demise of nationalism, the Internet facilitated an excessive sense of nationalism in China. Nationalism is a concept of identity that members of a particular government, nation, society or territory may collectively share. “Nationalists strive to create, or sustain, a nation based on various notions of political legitimacy.”(Encyclopedia, from Nationmaster.com). Negroponte (1996) once believed that the harmonizing effect of the Internet will allow people to understand each other across the nation, culture and history boundaries, thus dismissing the forces of nationalism. However, it is at least not the case in China. Research into Chinese forums has suggested that the dominant mode of political discussion is overwhelmingly nationalistic, such as the Sino-American, SinoJapanese relations, the Taiwan issue, etc. (Qiu, 1999/2000). This kind of nationalistic sentiment is augmented during political events and crises such as the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade by the United States in 1999, the U.S. surveillance plane incident in 2001 and the reactions to the September 11 tragedy. In these events, millions of heated comments and replies that are directed against the United States are found on diverse Chinese BBS. Nationalism is an important source of governmental legitimacy in China (Kalathil, 2002; McMahon, 2003). It has long been manipulated by the CCP to acquire support of

its policy and redirect the public’s attentions. A case in point is the establishment of the Qiangguo Forum. Following the bombing of China’s embassy in Yugoslavia on May 8, 1999, the People’s Daily set up this special BBS as an outlet for nationalistic sentiments. It received over 40,000 postings in ten days, the majority of which were such nationalistic ones: “Chinese people should unite as one to fight against the aggression!” “Reason and warm blood are not conflicting now.” The postings in line with the government’s stance were highlighted as the netizens’ opinions on the homepage of the site, while those sporadic “objective” and “democratic” reports that raised doubt over the incident were vehemently ridiculed and contradicted by the users, or even deleted by the webmasters. The forum played an important role in legitimizing the government’s position that the bombing was deliberate. However, if the feverish nationalism began to challenge the government, for example, criticizing the Party leaders for failing to react more forcefully to the United States, it would be reined by the government. In the Belgrade bombing case, “the government quickly toned down the intensity and volume of anti-American comments allowed on the Qiangguo Forum when protests in the streets of Beijing threatened to “spiral out of control.” (Kalathil, 2002). The U.S. spy plane incident in 2001 and the September 11 terrorism attack on U.S. also witnessed an outpouring of nationalism sentiments in China. On both occasions, censors of forums deleted the most extreme antiAmerican postings for fear of endangering the foreign policy and the stability of the state. A new development of the nationalism online in China is that it begins to turn into real-life actions. On June 22, 2003, a group of mainland and Hong Kong activists sailed

to Diaoyudao (Senkaku), a disputed island between China and Japan to proclaim China’s sovereignty over it (China918.net, 2003). This action is organized mainly via the Internet, including publicizing, fund collecting and recruiting. In July 2003, a Chinese nationalistic site called “Patriot Union” mobilized a protest against the grant of the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway Project to Japanese company for “history” and “nation interest” reason. It collected more than 80,000 signatures in several days. Although the nationalist opinions expressed online may not necessarily represent the whole population, the Internet did magnify the nationalism. Using the model of culture shock, Tsui (2002) explained the rise and development of nationalism online in China as a result of “exposure to new information and ideas”. His argument makes some sense. The Internet, as a two-way communication medium, grants the Chinese people the opportunity to express their opinions via media for the first time. The monopoly of discourse by the traditional media was broken. However, the censorship of the government seeks to filter out diverse opinions in favor of the mainstream, “healthy” views only. Therefore the nationalistic effect is amplified. As McMahon (2003) argued, since the 1989 Tiananmen democracy movement, criticism of the government, no matter direct or indirect, is only permissible “under the auspices of nationalist discourse.” When nationalism is combined with dissatisfaction, it can create significant challenges to the government. That is why the regime tried carefully to manipulate the nationalistic sentiments during crises.

Conclusion In this paper, we have examined the Internet’s democratic potential in China from the liberal, deliberative and communal perspectives. Contrary to the prevailing rhetoric, the Internet has neither improved the freedom of speech nor promoted the public discourse in China. The Chinese government is very adept at utilizing the new technology to solidify its control over the country. The Internet, far from being a catalyst in producing rational discourse and mutual understanding, has become a platform for excessive nationalism in China. Therefore, it is important to realize that there is nothing inherently democratic about Internet. Pure technological possibility cannot guarantee the advent of an ideal situation. From a historical perspective, we can identify similar optimistic predictions surrounding radio and television in their early stages. Both of them promised exciting visions of the future of democracy. However, most of the expectations about the two media have not eventuated so far. The Internet on its own cannot bring in a new democratic age too. It is more likely that the Internet will adapt itself to the existing political culture instead of creating a new one.

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