Rebecca MacKinnon, Half Moon Bay, 2008
I had a chance to chat briefly with Rebecca MacKinnon (bio, Twitter) during her vacation in the Bay Area. As we enter what Fareed Zakaria has called the Post-American World, I believe there is an “insight arbitrage” opportunity for people who acknowledge the increasing influence of China and other non-Western countries on all global issues and factor that into our sense of where things might go. Rebecca is one of these people. As co-founder of Global Voices Online, Open Society Fellow, and founding member of Global Network Initiative, Rebecca is focusing on the issue of the internet’s uncertain future because of the control interests of non-Western, non-democratic governments.
We discussed various topics. I didn’t establish what was bloggable vs. not-bloggable about our conversation so I’ll stick closely to what she has already written on her blog.
The uncertain future of the Internet
The prevailing Western view of the Internet is that it is a force for greater freedom of speech, greater freedom of assembly, and while wreaking creative destruction on the business model of mainstream media, is a force for freedom of press as well via new forms of citizen journalism.
This view, however, carries our own embedded assumptions based on the current Western conceptualization of the Internet. The Internet sprouted this way because of the underlying social and political “soil” of Western democracies. Rebecca cautions us against technological determinism that assumes that the Internet will evolve the same way as other societies under different political systems get pulled into the Internet age. Her book will take lessons from China and the world to make an important point that we cannot take the future of the Internet for granted. Here are some thoughts on internet freedom and control she shared on her blog about her research which will eventually turn into a book:
A new form of highly networked authoritarianism is emerging in China. Call it “Cybertarianism.” It’s not uniquely Chinese, but understanding how the Internet is mediating the relationship between state and society in China can help us understand what’s happening around the world.
Signs of cybertarianism can be found in many countries. A number of democracies have creeping “cybertarian” tendencies, too. This is not a doomsday book, however. There are plenty of things that people around the world can do in the Internet age to expand genuine free expression and accountable government. But first we need to wake up and recognize what’s happening. 21st Century authoritarianism is not your father’s or grandfather’s authoritarianism. It can’t be addressed or understood in the same way.
Compared to classic authoritarianism, cybertarianism permits – or shall we say bows to the Internet’s inevitable consequences and accepts – a great deal of give-and-take between government and citizens. Cybertarianism is much more deliberative and participatory than the authoritarianism of the last century. While one party or set of ruling elites remains in control, the Internet enables a broad range of public discourse on matters of common concern. The result is that the average person with Internet or mobile access has much greater sense of freedom – and even potential to influence government policies – than could ever have been possible in a pre-Internet authoritarian regime.
At the same time, in the cybertarian state as in the classic authoritarian state, there is no real protection of the individual’s right to freedom of expression. People still go to jail when the powers that be decide they are too much of a threat – and there’s nothing anybody can do about it. It’s not possible to organize an opposition party. There are no genuinely democratic mechanisms for citizens to elect a representative government. The courts are not independent of the ruling party.
I personally don’t like the term “cybertarianism” and have been racking my brain for an alternative to suggest to her. Nevertheless, the post-Western internet could be very different than what we see today, and not necessarily a positive force for international cohesion. There are many ways in which “cybertarian” islands of the internet reinforce the power of ruling elites in all countries. I look forward to following her research this next year.
Dark days for China’s liberals
The general trend in China has been toward increased personal freedoms so long as the power of the Party and the state is not challenged. In her recent post, Dark Days for China’s Liberals, she says that the recent imprisonment of Xu Zhiyong is a troubling sign that China is not living up to its own self-proclaimed goal of developing a increasingly consistent and predictable system of rule-of-law (vs. inconsistent bureaucratic fiat). Public-interest legal advocate Xu Zhiyong is by no stretch of the imagination a dissident and in fact is a elected member of Beijing’s People’s Congress. Here’s Rebecca’s post:
More than a week ago, Xu Zhiyong, the second man from the right in the picture above, was taken by police from his home. Police have not formally charged him with any crime, but his family learned from officials at the university where he teaches that he’s being held for tax evasion. Xu is an elected member of the Beijing People’s Congress and a civil rights lawyer who co-founded the Gongmeng legal aid organization. Xu has given defended and advised petitioners fighting official land-grabs in the provinces; he worked to expose the illegal “black jails” where some petitioners have been held. Gongmeng lawyers defended parents of children sickened by melamine-tainted milk powder last year, and worked on sensitive death penalty cases. Gongmeng was shut down by authorities in mid-July because they said the organization’s Open Constitution Initiative had failed to pay taxes. Xu was detained along with another Gongmeng staffer, Zhuang Lu, the day before he was scheduled to attend a hearing on the matter. Nobody believes this matter is really about taxes: while it’s possible that Gongmeng’s books weren’t in perfect order, pure tax infractions are generally not handled this way. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time that tax technicalities were used as a cover to nab people for legal activities that powerful people find threatening.
When I saw Xu in Beijing earlier this year, he told me he said that Gongmeng was operating well within the bounds of Chinese law, dedicated to the improvement and hence longevity of the current regime. Nothing they were doing, he insisted, challenged Communist Party rule in any way. He claimed to be confident that Gongmeng would not have serious political trouble for this reason. Enough mainstream establishment people in Beijing seemed to agree with this view that he was even featured on the cover of the Chinese version of Esquire Magazine this month. (See picture on left.) Magazines like that – always concerned about potential trouble with the publishing authorities – generally won’t touch people whose reputations their editors believe might endanger their publishing license. Sharon Hom of Human Rights in China warns: “By suppressing Xu Zhiyong, who is a moderate voice for social change and has dedicated his career to helping forge a society with genuine rule of law, the authorities are running the risk of radicalizing the forces for reform and change in China.”
Xu Zhiyong’s detention was also covered at length by China Geeks, AP, China Esquire blog, TIME’s China Blog, CDT, Asia Sentinel, The Peking Duck, and Evan Osnos.
A more resilient platform for US-China relations
On a more encouraging note, we also talked briefly about US-China relations and the opportunities for improvement on the US side. This is a particular area of interest to me as I would like to see how I can personally help contribute to deeper mutual understanding between the two countries.
Blogger and consultant Aimee Barnes recently wrote a post entitled On US-China Relations: Our Next Generation Ambassadors which outlined both a diagnosis on what’s wrong with our approach and a prescription for change. I’ll share Aimee’s diagnosis first:
I have been wearily following this week’s coverage on US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue which has proven to be, as some expected, a typical showcase of pomp and circumstance that provided no measurable steps towards collective action. From a more personal perspective and after straddling the realms of business, government and NGOs, I have also concluded that our true US-China diplomats do not reside in charitable institutions or D.C./Beijing houses or the Ivory Tower, but in the trenches of industry. It is also apparent to me that current systems of US-China diplomacy are in desperate need of a brave and highly innovative overhaul- one that reflects the realities of globalization while rejecting outdated notions of the “West vs. the Rest.” I will wage that, without a highly proactive and flexible group of next-generation global leaders, the East-West relationship will find itself at a dangerous impasse within the next twenty-five years due mainly because of a pervasive inflexibility.
The previous model of state-to-state–and elite-to-elite–diplomatic engagement may be necessary but not sufficient for providing a foundation for mutual understanding and deeply-rooted relationships that is sorely needed for handling the potential US-China conflicts of the future. Aimee’s prescription is a 5-point plan, which includes:
- Including youth leaders and business influencers into the dialogue now hosted by academic and governmental elites
- More support for business leaders in both countries to build bilateral relationships
- More study of Mandarin among US kids and adults
- Deeper understanding of China’s history and government among Western media
- New “equal access” research institutions/think tanks that include more Chinese-born specialists
This post reminded me of some of Rebecca’s thoughts on how US diplomatic engagement might take a play out of the Obama social media playbook. From Rebecca’s exceptional Letter to President Obama published in Huffington Post (and that I gushed over when it first came out), here is her context setting:
China is obviously not a democracy. Even so, if you really want to take U.S.-China relations to a new strategic level that rises above the day-to-day issues, you need to find new ways to engage the Chinese people themselves — not just their government.
Normalization of U.S.-China relations in 1979, combined with economic reforms and opening, transformed the Chinese people’s lives. Chinese of our generation understand this. But their children take their opportunities and comforts for granted. They don’t necessarily see the U.S. as a symbol of hope or a target of aspirations the way their parents did.
It is this young generation born after 1980 who were most vocal on the Chinese Internet last year, lashing out against Western critics and Western media coverage of their government’s crackdown in Tibet. In response to international pressure, the Chinese government negotiated with the Dalai Lama, but it didn’t feel the need to concede anything meaningful. In maintaining a hard line, the Chinese leadership could feel doubly secure in the fact that, not only did they have the strength of the People’s Liberation Army and the People’s Armed Police on their side; China’s majority Han-Chinese public had no sympathy for the idea of Tibetan autonomy.
Chinese leaders listen selectively to public opinion, and sometimes those opinions actually give them an extra excuse to tell the U.S. where to shove it. While Americans tend to think of the Internet as the medium that will inevitably free the Chinese people of authoritarian rule, Chinese leaders have — for many years now — been going there for proof that the public wants them to be tougher with the U.S.
And here is Rebecca’s prescription for how to engage using social media:
Just as you have used new technology to engage with the American electorate, your China policy can be greatly strengthened if you conduct a real conversation with the Chinese people. Listen as much as you talk; provide a much-needed platform for open discussion. The U.S. embassy in Beijing should build a Chinese-language website modeled after change.gov, focused not just on U.S.-China relations, but on the range of concerns and interests – from environment, to food safety, to factory safety standards, to education and real estate law — shared by ordinary Chinese and Americans. Some linguistically talented State Department employees should start blogging in Chinese. Open up the comments sections, see how the Chinese blogosphere responds, then respond to them in turn. Translate some of the Chinese conversation into English for Americans to read and react, then translate it back. Sure there will be censorship problems on the Chinese side, but if enough Chinese find the conversation important and relevant to their lives, the censors ultimately won’t be able to stop it. Nor should they want to if they’re wise – because the resulting conversation would help both governments build a more stable and rational relationship that would truly benefit the people of both countries.
I look forward to more discussions on this topic. I agree with Aimee and Rebecca that a more resilient model is needed for US-China relations and that this model needs many-to-many relationships between people on both sides, and in a wide variety of fields. Not sure what I’ll do about this but I know it goes beyond writing blog posts about the subject!
Photo Credit: Elliott Ng, UpTake, under CC-BY-NC-SA
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Rebecca MacKinnon (RConversation) posted her inaugural HuffingtonPost article today. Its an exceptional, concise piece of writing that understands the situation...
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Kaiser Kuo speaks at TEDxHonolulu about the crisis in US-China relationships on a person-to-person level, exacerbated by large-scale and unmediated contact over the internet.
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Insights into microblogging’s (i.e. Twitter) current role and future potential in China’s internet amongst Chinese netizens. How will it affect businesses, advertising, and marketing in China?
Rebecca MacKinnon’s Letter to President Obama 
Rednecks, Red Guards & Trolls: Kaiser Kuo on US-China Online 
Microblogging: Its Future In China & In Flattening The World 
I heartily agree with the sentiment that relations between the countries cannot be strictly or even primarily seen as the domain of elites. I also agree that the internet is not inevitably a force for good, including most certainly in my native country, the U.S.
I believe it is warranted to go even further in this skepticism and not believe that participation in debate, on the internet or otherwise, in the West or otherwise, is an inherently good thing nor that it inevitably leads to greater understanding within or between peoples, if the nature of participation (in thought or execution) is based on hostility.
I see this as another blind-spot of our Western mentality in seeing technology and participation in unqualified terms, similar to how we imagine that public education can result in outstanding members of society without any direct or indirect instruction in morality (including awareness of, though not indoctrination in, the role of all of the major religions in promoting such morality across many communities). This is an extremely naive yet prevalent view in the West.
The violence in our schools and society, the increasing harshness of our political discourse, and so on (which is not to place this discussion vis-a-vis China) is simply batted away. Interestingly, these defects are often seized upon by external forces who wish to avoid their own self-introspection, yet if these legitimate criticisms are addressed by us in the West at all, they are merely faced down with bluster, returned with accusations of hypocrisy, or are at best lamented with a shake of the head, rather than taken as a chance for self-improvement and deeper (and humbler) examination of our needs and defects as individuals and as a society.
It is, I believe, due to the fact that we recognize these as faults, yet without an adequate system of thought to address them, that we often silently abandon their consideration, or dismiss them as less important than other more viscerally-debatable, external, and frankly less fixable issues.
At the risk of talking too much, I would like to humbly offer my own suggestions to furthering this very positive desire for dialogue–a dialogue which, while on occasion seeming to lead to perhaps more fire than light in forums as this, has I think in all sincerity, and deserving of the highest praise for its members attempts at balance, introspection, nuance, and justice, been already engaged in at various threads here (so thank you all for that!).
1) Consider discussion of the need for instruction in, and promotion of, the value of world citizenship around the whole world. How can we use the media and educational systems to get people to think of themselves as justice-minded world citizens–though who consider the welfare of national and even local policies and actions in light of global effect, and who transcend to avoid becoming tools or foils of the hostile and vested, and who, on the contrary, arise to defend both the interests of their own citizens without it coming at the expense of the fundamental rights of anyone else on the planet–whether those rights are of the civil or political kind, or the economic, social, and cultural kind? (there are two international human rights covenants which deal with both kinds, btw, as well as responsibilities corresponding to each right)
2) Along the lines of, and reinforcing #1, consider positive recognition of the role of the United Nations (and need for an increasing resolution of issues through it, or through reform of it). Has anyone here who believes in positive relations between peoples memorized the Preamble to their United Nations charter? Has anyone here read the full U.N. Charter or, perhaps even better for widespread consumption, the UDHR? If we as a people jump to the false (and frankly ridiculous) conclusion that the U.N. is merely controlled by the “other”, we risk our peoples calling on their governments to settle issues in “us and them” unilateral or aggressive bilateral terms, rather than rule and representation-based global terms, within institutions to which we ALL belong. This is not to ignore the vast need for restructuring of the U.N. (and reform which will not make it even more chaotic and toothless, but make it more representative of the world and its participatory powers and, based on this prerequisite, advancing to take on more responsibilities), but on the contrary, is to embrace it. We can get a lot farther, I believe, if we Westerners can speak to our Chinese friends, and you as Chinese can speak to your Western friends, as sharing concerns through OUR United Nations (whether by this we mean the present-day U.N. or by its eventual potential through our progressive identification with and support of it). The founders of the U.S. (and China as well) did not inherit a society, media, or educational system which was actively and universally promoting the concept of national identity (on the contrary they were fiercely and often counter-productively focused on state (or, for China, city-state) interests, just as nation-states are today); similarly, those of us working for a future representative and federated world government and society cannot expect that society will embrace such a world identity without active engagement and promotion of the concept at all levels. If your love of country does not inevitably come at the expense of your city, why should a genuine and active patriotism in favor of a sufficiently strengthened and more democratic world order and society?
3) As I already brought up in another thread, I firmly believe that we also need to look to future generations around the whole world, to ensure that they are provided at an early age with a common means of communication. How can we seriously address international relations without a universal and irrevocable establishment of a world auxiliary language which will allow easy access to communication between peoples, since a common language, while not a sufficient guarantee for positive relations, is undeniably a prerequisite. While the ideas mentioned in the article are most positive, such as advocating for Mandarin or English instruction, and translating the thought, we also need to look to the long-term solution–a global and official agreement to establish English, Esperanto, or some other language which can get agreement as the language to be taught at an early age in schools around the world. What happens if U.S. power sinks and powers are tempted to abandon or search for other means of communication, such as happened before with French? Will we face yet another battle for a different global language and languages, and the consequent toil, inefficiencies, and exacerbation of distrust of continuing to fail to have a common language?
4) Focus on soft power–and by that I do not mean any kind of partisan propaganda war. Rather, I mean the extremely under-appreciated power which comes from one people seeing another in human terms. I do not believe this is readily achieved through debate which focuses too much attention on controversial events in which inevitably “a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest”.
When one sees justice in another (especially someone who also does not go to the other extreme of abandoning legitimate concerns of their own “side”), one is far more likely to wish to identify and collaborate with that person across national, racial, or other boundaries. The zero-sum attitudes give way to more productive and sustainable models of intercommunication. Can we discuss things more frequently in terms of the benefit to all, trying to find the legitimate in the other side and embrace it rather than attack it, and in the process advance our own side’s interests as well as others’?
5) Along the lines of #4, engagement in more “feminine” means of communication. This is, I feel, a vastly under-appreciated method of peace-building. Examine how mothers typically solve disputes between family members, and I think you will find a good model for how many debates can be resolved or avoided. While “masculine” ideals, such as confronting vice head-on, have their place, and are even inadequate in some areas of international relations (such as a willingness to fight for collective security or forcefully confront belligerence or attitudes of belligerence against foreigners or minorities), this new age requires a greater degree of feminine means as well as ends–not only attempting to look through the eyes of others and their shared interests, but also speaking in a manner which is likely to lead someone (unless we are the ones needing leading–modest tone tends to open us to this as well) into a higher level of understanding, and allowing us to more correctly gauge their actual thinking and rationales.
“… while rejecting outdated notions of the “West vs. the Rest.””
I really don’t think such ‘notions’ are as deeply ingrained in the western psyche as “middle kingdom vs. everything that’s not” is hard-wired into the minds of Chinese. Add to that the natural distrust that China has for all ‘outsiders’ and we arrive here:
“I will wage that, without a highly proactive and flexible group of next-generation global leaders, the East-West relationship will find itself at a dangerous impasse…”
Two problems. First, China doesn’t produce ‘highly proactive and flexible’ leaders and, second, she has no interest in changing a combative nationalistic stance that is producing all of her desired outcomes. So I think the wager is safe.
And as for these:
“3. More study of Mandarin among US kids and adults”
That’s already happening everywhere, but doesn’t get past the issue of what Chinese educators are filling their students’ heads with about the ‘west’, which is the likely source of the ‘impasse’.
“4. Deeper understanding of China’s history and government among Western media”
Christ almighty! How many more ways are there of perpetuating the myth that ‘foreigners don’t understand China’? And I think a better place to start would be to address the selectively imaginative version of history (both domestic and global) peddled in the Chinese classroom.
“5. New “equal access” research institutions/think tanks that include more Chinese-born specialists”
Nice idea in principle. Problem is it has a kind of ‘joint venture’ feel to it, and just ask any non-Chinese participant in such a venture about how much reciprocity they get. If there’s a way to guarantee “equal access”, fine, otherwise, whatever niceties are spoken or documented, distrust will underlie the scheme.
Rebecca McK as an expert on US-China relations? Gimme a break.
She was a news reader, nothing more, at CNN. She chased some stories found by her assistants and did some reporting, which was just a repeat of second-hand reading. And she parlayed that gig into being an expert on journalism, and then the internet, and now on Chinese political trends–all for reasons pretty unclear, save name recognition.
Nice of her to offer an opinion, I suppose, but that’s all it is. I am surprised anyone takes it seriously.
The World indeed does need a common auxiliary language.
Your readers may be interested in the following video at http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_YHALnLV9XU Professor Piron was a translator with the United Nations in Geneva.
A glimpse of Esperanto can be seen at http://www.lernu.net
Normally I do not discuss topics like this; I find them too esoteric and academic in orientation. But in this case, I find a few things which need to be pointed out.
First of all, while I do not agree with all of Rebecca MacKinnon’s views, she is someone whose opinion I respect. Having lived and grown up in China, and attending Fangcaodi school, one of the first bilingual schools in Beijing, she is fluent in Chinese (written, spoken, conversational). Moreover, she was not just a newsreader on CNN, she was the CNN Tokyo bureau chief. When it comes to Asian current affairs, and her work with bloggers in different countries through Global Voices Online, she has a good feel for what is going on.
Where I disagree with her is on the overall sweep of authoritarianism in China. While there have been some disturbing setbacks in China recently, I see these as bumps on the road to a more open Chinese society. There is an old guard in China, which sees things in outdated terms and in some ways wishes it could turn the clock back. But that is like forcing toothpaste back into the tube. You can have small successes, but overall, the efforts will be futile.
One word which I believe should be banned from use is the word “democracy”. It is a word which has been so abused it is, in my opinion, meaningless. When you look at the Patriot Act (I & II), the use of torture in detention centers in violation of the US constitution, the use of wiretaps and eavesdropping in the US on individuals, etc. I am surprised that Americans can still taught about democracy without showing any outward sign of embarrassment or shame. I believe that it is debatable whether the US is a democratic society, even though most Americans think that it is. So what is the point in comparing the US and China on these grounds? What insights will this reveal? I don’t think that anything meaningful is revealed.
Judging from Rebecca’s statements, I believe that her opinions about China harken back to a version of the US which existed up until the 80s, but no longer exists today. So let’s bury it, and strive to make more meaningful comparisons.
The fact is that all governments are introducing more controls on the Internet, not just China. The real discussion should be about how effective and meaningful government interactions, such as the SED are between China and the US.
If you look at different levels of interaction on the personal, corporate and government levels, the one thing we can notice is that personal and corporate interactions are becoming more important. Personal interactions are empowered through social media, and corporate interactions are empowered through banking, trade and investment. These are strong and irreversible trends.
The recent global economic crisis and the way it was handled by the US government raises a very interesting question: Which is more important: the US government representing the US taxpayer, or certain banking interests? I would say that certain banking interests won out, definitely not the US taxpayer.
This leaves the government level of interaction. If anything, I see governments as weakening, if only because of the rise of importance in personal and corporate influence. Sure, governments lash back and try to exert more influence as in certain actions in China today, but the overall trend is against them. In many areas, they are simply becoming irrelevant.
I believe that this is the main point Rebecca misses.
After reading Mr. Delinger’s blog, which is about “nobody knows China but me and here is a way to make millions of dollars off billions of customers”, I can not say that I am surprised that he finds MacKinnon’s views worthy of respect and admiration.
Nor does surprise me that, given MacKinnon’s work on the internet, Mr. Delinger disagrees, as he is one of the leading apologists for the Chinese government’s controls, giving it a free pass and pleading for understanding on the part of those affected.
Funny thing how so many unemployed business people trying to make money in China are “consultants”. If Mr. Delinger knows so much about China, why isn’t he working for a large corporation full-time? Perhaps because no one takes his views seriously either?
Fregus–
Is this the best you can do in terms of ad hominem attacks? At least do me the honor of spelling my name right.
As for the rest of your accusations, they are not worthy of a reply.
@Fregus,
I sense a common theme for your comments here: attacking people’s backgrounds and credentials rather than responding to the argument or the ideas.
First: “She was a news reader, nothing more, at CNN.”
Instead of engaging with MacKinnon’s ideas and opinions about US-China relations, you attack her journalism credentials.
Then: “all for reasons pretty unclear, save name recognition”
You impugn less-than-worthy motives. Is this based on any real interaction with the person or you just assume negative motives for everyone?
Then: “blog, which is about “nobody knows China but me and here is a way to make millions of dollars off billions of customers”
I’ve been following ChinaVortex for a while and you are misinterpreting the tone of the blog. The main message is NOT “nobody knows China but me” but more like “people often make terrible assumptions about the world with tragic consequences so lets all wake up and help each other face reality”
You attack Denlinger’s supposed closemindedness (“nobody knows China but me”) and his respect of others who hold an opposing opinion. Isn’t that a contradiction? Closeminded, yet respecting those who disagree?
Next: “so many unemployed business people trying to make money in China are “consultants”
Again, veiled personal attacks rather than trying to argue the point. And then suggesting that if you know “so much about China, why isn’t he working for a large corporation full-time?” I can answer that one. Because he’s successful enough that he doesn’t have to put up with the bullsh– of a large corporation.
I’m curious what people think about the subject of the post, otherwise, I wouldn’t have posted it.
@Brett Zamir, @stuart, and @Paul Denlinger,
Thanks for your substantive comments and reaction to the post. Not asking ANYONE to agree with MacKinnon’s points. Just asking people to consider them and share their own point of view.
@Fergus,
How about making an argument about the substance of the post rather than changing the subject by issuing personal attacks?
Elliott, thank you for your reply. It is very hard for an author to prevent a troll from dragging an intelligent conversation down, but I think you have done it well. One of the hardest things to do on the Internet is maintaining a certain level of intelligent discourse and quality conversation; that is why I am more active on Twitter now. In many ways, Twitter seems to filter out trolls with the follow/unfollow feature better. Its weakness is that the flow of conversation is much weaker, which does not allow for deep conversation most of the time.
I would just like to emphasize that my disagreements with Rebecca are small, and are perhaps more disagreements of emphasis than dramatic differences of opinion. Like myself, her background has spanned different cultures, which give her a unique and badly-needed point of view which is very different from people who have grown up only in one culture and country. People like this are often forced and compelled to oversimplify very complicated issues to make them palatable for their audience. This is especially true in the US, which has largely become a country which looks for simple black and white answers to immensely complicated issues, thinking wrongly that somehow these can be solved in five minutes.
Often, these individuals get attacked both from the US and Chinese sides. I used to get depressed by these attacks; now I think of them as badges of honor. If Rebecca is getting attacked from all sides, then she is saying something true and worth listening to.
As for myself, I consider it an honor that some Chinese who live in China, and know something about how the system works and have government ties follow what I say closely. Sometimes I can say what only they can think in their hearts. I’m sure that they would be very amused to hear that I’m an apologist for the Chinese government.
Elliott, keep up the good work.
Let’s see, Mr. Denlinger’s views and the purpose of his blog are held up for scrutiny and found wanting, and so he labels me a “troll”. But he is quick to engage in more self-advertising, and states that “sometimes I can say what only they can think in their hearts”? Ah, you are represent liberal views within the bureaucracy now–as opposed to having a blog in which, again, you tell business people how to succeed in China. But if you know so much, why would you need a blog to share your vaunted insights? Shouldn’t you keep such confidences to yourself? Or perhaps you lack such access or sources in the first place, but wish to generate clients by hinting you in fact do?
And his logic is extraordinary: “if Rebecca is getting attacked from all sides, then she is saying something true and worth listening to.” Really? Might it not be that she has little of value to say, and so therefore her remarks and views satisfy no one?
These comments are not personal attacks; they are aimed at the attitudes and actions of the individuals named. They said them, and so they are under scrutiny and comment here. Casting these questions about qualifications is not some sort of personal assault. When someone declaims about their expertise in areas where their credentials are suspect–be they a former CNN correspondent about the nature of US-China relations when their new-found focus is the internet and its control by the evil authorities, or Mr. Denlinger who goes on about how everyone else is wrong about the Chinese economy but him–they open themselves up for the same sort of ridicule they dispensed in the first place.
Fregus, I’ve been following your contributions for quite some time, and I have to say, you’ve finally left me confused as to who, exactly, you feel is qualified to comment on China-related issues. Bloggers aren’t journalists, so they can’t comment. Journalists aren’t experts, so they can’t comment either. But you’re the only one who’s used the word “expert” in this thread. Everyone else is presenting opinions and interpretations, which is how communication works in the real world.
I can understand if you don’t feel that you have the expert qualifications to tackle Rebecca MacKinnon’s arguments yourself, but surely there are credentialed individuals whose work you could cite.
As for the subject of the post, I’m struck by the parallels between the fate of unregistered NGOs in China and that of western companies that don’t follow the rules to the letter (as detailed in countless posts on China Law Blog): things may be peachy for a while, but eventually, the good times are likely to come to an end. That’s not to say there are comparable motives between the two situations, but just that the initial assumptions might be the same – we’ll take the risk because everyone does it, and they’ve permitted it so far. At least Western companies have the option of doing things by the book. It’s a shame that most NGOs don’t have that option yet.
I totally agree with you. I think Rebecca’s view is much nuanced with views of an average American where China is ruled by some ‘unruly children’ and the US as the beacon of freedom. Maybe she has more knowledge than an average American about China, but the ignorance is the same. An example is about her daily rant about the green dam software a few weeks back. Much of Rebecca’s view’s of how China is how backwarded and uncivilized it is when it is not. Americans like Rebecca MacKinnon have done a disservice to US-China relations by re-reinforcing notion that China can’t be trusted.