China slams U.S. "information hegemony"

http://www.thestandard.com/news/2010/01/22/china-slams-clintons-call-internet-freedom

by ilamont • 17 years ago

28 22 17 years ago

thestandard.com

1010011010• 17 years ago

"China's constitution protects the right of citizens to free speech"

Yeah... I'm sure it does.

sparky• 17 years ago

Apparently true: http://www.usconstitution.net/china.html#Article35 Also, Article 41:

Citizens of the People's Republic of China have the right to criticize and make suggestions regarding any state organ or functionary. Citizens have the right to make to relevant state organs complaints or charges against, or exposures of, any state organ or functionary for violation of the law or dereliction of duty, but fabrication or distortion of facts for purposes of libel or false incrimination is prohibited.

The state organ concerned must deal with complaints, charges or exposures made by citizens in a responsible manner after ascertaining the facts. No one may suppress such complaints, charges and exposures or retaliate against the citizens making them.

It appears that the constitution states that people have these rights, but unfortunately it is the people who constitute the government of the time who protect (or disregard) rights, not a document. Actions speak louder than words.

adrih2• 17 years ago

The idea that the constitution shouldn't be too highly regarded even seems like a legitimate point to make in trials:

The charges stemmed from the CCP’s interpretation of Guo’s actions as subversive to its rule. His defense was not to dispute the evidence, but to argue that the published materials were not subversive, and that the constitution covers freedom of speech anyway. The prosecution asserted that the interests of the Party-State take priority.

http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/27316/

est2• 17 years ago

lol, no one gives a shit to constitution law in China. Countless official rules, regulations or 'TongZhi' violates constitution law directly.

est2• 17 years ago

The most ironic thing is if you copy paste the PRC Constitution law on any blog, forum even webmail in China, you'll fail to submit because the system will prompt you there's 'illegal keyword' in the content.

pic: http://i.imgur.com/XrGlR.jpg

hh• 17 years ago

Most people are forgetting that the communist party is above the constitution. It's very weird but that is the way it works in China, Vietnam, and other communist countries. You can have free speech all you want but if you are violating certain contradictory decree then you go to jail. period.

jhancock• 17 years ago

The China response, which is part of this article in The Standard, is a rewrite of what was published by the China Daily here: http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-01/22/content_936488...

The China Daily does not tell you too much more, but at least its closer to and identifies the source of China's response.

grandalf6• 17 years ago

Does anyone seriously think that a determined information-seeker in China can't find out whatever information he/she wants? Google's old approach of showing which results are censored was highly empowering for such truth seekers because it showed exactly what their government didn't want them to read.

It's important to take the recent anti-China news in proper context:

1) China has long been a huge buyer of US treasury bills, in order to keep its currency low relative to the dollar. This helps make China's export industry more competitive but harms the Chinese in general. Some Americans dislike this because they think this makes the US vulnerable to China. Other simply dislike competing against extra cheap Chinese manufactured products. This unites two strange bedfellows against China.

2) Obama moved to start a trade war with China by imposing a tariff on tires... this was simply a political handout to the US tire industry... an industry he must have owed something to.

3) Google's move to pull out of China, aside from harming average Chinese people, was a silly, knee-jerk response, and Google will probably be punished by shareholders if it proceeds.

4) Hillary's recent remarks were intended simply to rile up the Chinese government. Does anyone really think that the way to persuade someone else to your line of thinking is to publicly insult them? Hillary knows this, but ramping up some petty friction with China serves her political ambitions.

For those who are wondering, China is a very difficult country to keep stable. After economic reforms, coastal cities have become rich very quickly, leaving inland areas extremely poor, etc. Most of what China does that Americans find offensive is intended to preserve social stability. In that sense it's highly conservative. One can imagine a small public library in the US refusing to install a computer long after the internet age began... out of some slightly misguided notion that it will help stave off social changes the librarian considers unsavory.

In China's case, the danger is widespread, violent riots, etc. Do you think that would be a good thing? What should China's government do if that occurs, acquiesce? So far China's government has done a decent job of instituting more free market policies, at the expense of social freedoms. They've essentially modeled their approach a bit more after Singapore than after the US.

It's hubris to claim that every country should choose exactly the same mix of social and economic freedoms as the US. This situation should remind all of us of when George W. Bush took great pains to convince the world what a bad guy Saddam was, so that he could start a war.

joe_the_user2• 17 years ago

Let's look at some statements in your post: Does anyone seriously think that a determined information-seeker in China can't find out whatever information he/she wants?

Google's move to pull out of China, aside from harming average Chinese people.

So "determined information seekers" could the information the information that Google wasn't giving but by no longer providing government approved data, Google is harming average Chinese? I know you're teasing out two different groups in China but the argument seems remarkably stretched.

China has long been a huge buyer of US treasury bills, in order to keep its currency low relative to the dollar. This helps make China's export industry more competitive but harms the Chinese in general.

Given that this policy has allowed China to gain the second largest economy in the world over twenty-odd years, how has it harm average Chinese?

I would certainly say this policy is unsustainable and needs to be adjusted for that reason. But that's a somewhat different matter.

grandalf6• 17 years ago

On the first point: For the average Chinese person, simply having an awareness of government censorship is a good thing. Google is taking this away. The censorship isn't perfect... for example how many times do you think the full WikiPedia is brought into China on laptops every day? I'd guess dozens per day. Google is suffering the "Napster Problem", they are easily vulnerable to a centralized attack (in this case blocking IPs)... but before and after Napster people still got all the illicit mp3s they wanted.

On the second point, the economic argument would be: If China were not subsidizing its export industry, the dollars currently used to buy US Treasuries would have likely been spent on useful goods and services. Instead, it effectively sat idle and could not be used to invest in infrastructure, etc. You can point to the result and say it worked, but China has a natural competitive advantage in manufacturing, so it's hard to say how much benefit the policy caused; the harm is easier to imagine.

(China probably has some sensible reasons for promoting mercantilist policies, but it's inevitable that they lower prosperity over all and amount to a transfer from one group within china to another. This is the same sort of tradeoff we experience it the US with a wide variety of policies, notably agriculture policy).

TrevorJ2• 17 years ago

To your first point: When considering issues of liberty we must examine not what is possible but what is considered within the rights of the Chinese citizen. What I mean is, while it may be possible to get all sorts of censored information from within China, that can't be considered freedom when the risks are so great.

That would be like saying that because it is easy to buy a handgun illegal on the black market, it's fine for the government to make gun ownership illegal.

To your other points, you do have some great facts and observations. I certainly agree with the point about stability, however it might be worth temporary instability to achieve long term freedom and human rights.

grandalf6• 17 years ago

Strange that any post in which I make an argument that the reaction to China of late is overblown gets harshly modded down with no counter argument. Talk about censorship!

edit: this phenomenon isn't going to make me stop arguing against the neocon anti-china perspective, it will only make me more determined.

dandelany3• 17 years ago

This particular comment isn't being modded down for the content of your argument, it's being modded down because you're talking about yourself, and not the issue.

Also, being modded down is not even comparable to censorship.

grandalf6• 17 years ago

Ok so you fancy yourself some sort of HN rules referee? I gather that you disagree with my other posts, so why not write a rebuttal? That is generally the preferred way to handle such things on HN (unlike reddit).

heresy• 17 years ago

Just how much influence does the US government actually have over the Internet and regulation of it, these days? Not much, I would have thought.

But I think it's great that in theory, we could cut China off from the rest of the world, information wise, which is probably what their sour grapes intimates.

Fuck living in a world where China has any influence over what happens on the Internet in any way except inside their own borders.

I think they're just a bit sore their "asymmetrical warfare" has this weakness - any state of Total War will result in no Internet for them from which to launch attacks.

China slams U.S. "information hegemony"

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