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By Elizabeth M. Lynch, March 30, 2020

Guest Author, Sara L.M. Davis

By Sara L.M. Davis*
This post is co-published on Meg Davis Consulting

A few weeks ago – it feels like longer, given the COVID-19 crisis – I sat in a studio at the UN in Geneva with BBC journalist Imogen Foulkes, Sarah Brooks (ISHR) and Daniel Warner for a great chat about China at the United Nations. You can hear the conversation here .

Foulkes asked the panel: After years of marginalization, China is exercising growing influence at the UN, increasing its UN spending and heading five UN agencies. But what does China’s commitment to multilateralism mean in practice?

The panelists disagreed about some things, but we agreed overall that China still seems to be finding its way at the UN. In speaking with friends inside UN agencies and serving on governance boards, China’s presence at the UN appears hesitant; Chinese representatives are formal, careful with protocol, and reluctant to speak off the script without authorization from Beijing. This impedes their ability to cut deals, influence others and build relationships in the UN that are key to exercising power. Such hesitancy may link to China’s restrictive human rights climate at home.

In 2017, Chinese leader Xi Jinping gave a series of major speeches in defense of global governance, such as this one at the World Economic Forum. In line with his report to the 19^th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi pledged that China would show greater leadership in world affairs, and spoke of a shared destiny for humanity. Since then, Chinese directors have taken the helm at four UN agencies, and a Chinese delegation also chairs the Programme Coordinating Board of UNAIDS.

Current Chinese Ambassador to the UN, Zhang Jun

However, in my experience working in global health, in contrast to some other countries – such as India, France, the US or UK, for example – there are still relatively few Chinese technical experts working in the international organizations, academic institutes, private foundations and think-tanks that develop and advise on UN policy. China is rich in experts on development, social science, health, environment, law and economics. The fact that few of them staff technical roles at global health institutions means those policies rarely draw on research or policy experience from the world’s largest country.

Similarly, while NGOs play an important role in the UN – they share policy expertise and real-life experience, advocate for women and marginalized groups, and work together across national borders to promote accountability – there are very few Chinese NGOs engaged in UN policy discussions in Geneva. They are not to be seen organizing or speaking on side events, signing onto international coalitions, or speaking up in media discussions – and the one I participated in was an unfortunate case in point. Foulkes said she made an effort to recruit a Chinese panelist (I also suggested a couple of names), but everyone politely declined. Our podcast discussion would have been enriched by a Chinese perspective – we might not have agreed about everything, but it would have been a richer conversation.

The end result of these absences is that no one is sure what China’s agenda is at the UN, and everyone is walking on eggshells: UN agencies are afraid to say the wrong thing and risk angering a famously thin-skinned government; WHO has lavished praise on China’s COVID19 response, in part because it needs to win China’s cooperation in the global response. Similarly, Chinese representatives and academics are probably also afraid of getting into trouble at home, and are sticking closely to the approved script, or choosing to stay silent.

China Mission to Geneva

The reticence of China’s representatives in Geneva is likely a reflection of the chilling effect created at home by sweeping attacks on human rights groups, civil society groups, public interest lawyers, civil society leaders, other critics, and even family members of those critics under Xi Jingping’s regime. Fear of making a misstep may actually inhibit the kind of warm, informal personal relationships, off-the-cuff media remarks, deal-making, and intel-swapping over dinners, at bars and around the coffee urn that are usually – in normal days, when we can speak from closer than six feet apart – the currency in a political town like Geneva.

Weak and restricted civil society at home also deprives Chinese authorities of a crucial stream of intelligence and insight that would only advance their multilateral strategy. Civil society activists from many other prominent countries, including global North and global South, are actively engaged in UN advisory groups, civil society forums, coalitions and workshops in Geneva. As a result, these activists develop personal relationships with technical experts and managers of international organizations, as well as with diplomats from other countries, and get insights into how those agencies work in practice and what everyone’s agendas are. Activists then use that intel to inform and advise their own governments, pushing for policies while creating a feedback loop. But Chinese civil society leaders aren’t in those coalitions and advisory groups, for the most part, because they are not allowed to come to Geneva to speak critically about their own countries’ policies, and hobknob freely with their peers, the way an activist from Africa, Europe, Southeast Asia or Latin America might do. Chinese activists who speak up in Geneva, like Cao Shunli (who tried to come to Geneva for a human rights meeting, and later died in detention) face the risk of serious repercussions.

Activist Cao Shunli

In other words, human rights restrictions at home are undermining the multilateralism China has promoted as a national policy. Leadership at the UN is not just about having the title at the head of international organizations: leadership is also exercised through academics, NGOs, lawyers and others who are part of the UN community, who feel confident and free to express their opinions, and make experience- and evidence-based policy recommendations. Until China has a strong and free civil society, the country may have a difficult time fulfilling its ambitions of global leadership.

*Sara L.M. Davis (known as Meg) is an anthropologist and human rights advocate. She is Special Advisor on Strategy and Partnerships at the Graduate Institute’s Global Health Centre and teaches at the Geneva Centre for Education and Research in Humanitarian Action (CERAH).  A former China researcher for Human Rights Watch and founding Executive director of Asia Catalyst, Davis is fluent in Mandarin.  Her forthcoming book, The Uncounted: Politics of Data in Global Health, is set to be published in June 2020

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By Elizabeth M. Lynch, May 15, 2017

Chinese President Xi Jinping delivers opening remarks at the One Belt, One Road Summit on May 14, 2017 in Beijing (Photo courtesy of New York Times)

For those in the United States who woke up this morning not realizing that China just opened one of the largest trade summits in Asia, you are not alone.  For the American press has barely mentioned China’s “One Belt, One Road” policy, let alone this inaugural, two-day summit of the initiative, with over 1,500 participants and 28 heads of state in attendance.

But One Belt, One Road is not something to be ignored. Although launched only four years ago, it reflects Beijing’s very real ambition to exert its economic influence – if not be the dominating economic force – in Asia, Eastern Europe and Africa.  It also reflects the historical legacy of China’s Silk Road – a trade route between Europe and China that emerged as early as the Qin Dynasty (221 – 206 B.C.) and flourished during the Tang Dynasty (618 – 907 A.D.).  It was the Silk Road that resulted in China becoming the economic and cosmopolitan superpower that it was during those time periods.  China’s current One Belt, One Road initiative seeks to replicate that route, creating a modern day trade route over land from Beijing to Europe.  But it also calls for creating a maritime trade route around South Asia to the east coast of Africa and the Middle East.

However, unlike the ancient Silk Road – where trade flowed in and out of China – with One Belt, One Road, China’s intention is predominately for trade to go out. As Peter Cai of the Lowry Institute argues in his report Understanding China’s Belt and Road Initiative, in many ways, China’s geostrategic interests – that it seeks to be the new global superpower over the United States, with control of key trade routes – are secondary to its domestic economic motivations for One Belt, One Road.

Lanzhou’s Airport, Terminal 2 (Photo courtesy of China.org.cn)

First, Cai highlights that the economic inequality between rich, east coast cities (think Shanghai, Guangdong, Xiamen) and China’s hinterland are at almost crisis levels.  But One Belt, One Road – with its reorientation on trade moving West – would focus on these land-locked, poorer cities and provinces like Gansu, Xinjiang, and even some of the less rich provinces of China’s northeast.  According to Cai, these areas are all competing to borrow money at low rates under the One Belt, One Road to build its infrastructure in anticipation of these new trade routes.  There is a reason why Lanzhou, in what feels like the middle of nowhere China, has one of the fanciest airports in the country.

Economic slowdown in China? (Photo courtesy of the Economist)

China’s second domestic economic motivation for One Belt, One Road is the fact that with economic slowdown recently, key industries such as steel, coal and construction, have excess capacity.  These are the same industries that took a lot of loans from the central government to get through the global financial crisis of 2008, loans that may not be re-payed if China’s economy stays where it is.  One Belt, One Road however, is a way to escape this conundrum.  But not just by selling steel or coal or cement abroad.  Instead, as Cai points out, China intends to actually move the production facilities to these other countries.  This would allow China to rid itself of a supply glut while providing less developed countries with manufacturing facilities that can help with their own economic development (although they will likely still be Chinese-owned).  In some ways, a win-win for China and these other One Belt, One Road countries.

China has already moved some factories abroad, such as this garment factory which was moved from China to Ethiopia where labor is cheaper. (Photo courtesy of Daily Mail/Getty Images)

And at the same time, by moving factories abroad, China will be able to refocus its economy from a low-end manufacturing country to one that can promote innovation and technological development.  With China as the key innovative country in the region, it can then use One Belt, One Road, to promote its new technologies – like the high-speed railways it is building in various African countries and Southeast Asian countries.  With all these countries being on the same railway system only deepens the trade partnership and economic integration with China.

While the United States turns inward and gets bogged down with needless political crises, One Belt, One Road is in many ways a genius strategy for China.  It gets itself out of its own economic straights, it ensures global integration in Asia, Eastern Europe and Africa with China at the center, and enables China to exert greater and greater global influence.

The Silk Road of the past – when camels roamed

But, while China has pledged $1 trillion to One Belt, One Road, much of that money has yet to be spent.  There is also the gamble of the Chinese government’s very deliberate and planned approach to developing this trade route: it does not enable Chinese companies themselves –companies who are best able to determine the risk in their industries and in the countries where China wants them to invest – to make their own decisions.  But as Elizabeth Economy, the Director for Asia Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) noted at a CFR event the other week, if fully realized, the One Belt, One Road initiative will fundamentally restructure the political landscape for over a third of the world.

But if all you do is read the U.S. press, that fact could just pass you by.

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By Elizabeth M. Lynch, March 14, 2017

In July 2015, the Chinese government detained close to 250 lawyers, paralegals and activist in a nationwide crackdown on China’s nascent civil rights movement.  The crackdown was unprecedented in its scope, with lawyers and activists simultaneously abducted from their homes and often in the dead of night.  It seemed to signal the nadir for China’s rights activists but, as China Human Rights Defenders‘ (“CHRD”) Annual Report reflects, it was far from rock bottom.  In 2016, the world witnessed the fallout from these arrests and a regime even more intent than ever on stamping out China’s civil rights movement.  But while that fallout continues domestically, internationally, China is seeking to play a more important role and reshape the current global order.  But the United States and western Europe – intent on pursuing more isolationist policies – ignores China’s domestic turmoil at its peril.

Map reflecting the national crackdown of Lawyers and support staff, July 2015 – October 2015 (courtesy of China Human Rights Lawyers Concern Group)

2016: Things Just Got More Serious – Rights Lawyers & Activists Charged with National Security Crimes

As CHRD’s 2016 Annual Report demonstrates, the Chinese government  views these civil rights activists’ work – even activities as seemingly innocuous as bringing a lawsuit to test China’s commitment to its own laws – as a threat to its power.  In 2016, these activists were not detained nor charged with the relatively minor crimes such as disturbing public order or unlawfully organizing a protest; instead, these arrested activist were charged with the more serious crimes that implicate national security issues and carry much heavier sentences.  Look at what happened two years prior.  In January 2014, Xu Zhiyong, an influential civil rights lawyer and activist, was convicted of  “gathering crowds to disturb public order” (Criminal Law (“CL”), Art. 296)and sentenced to a prison term that was considered extreme at the time: four years.  Fast forward to 2016 and  Zhou Shifeng, one of the alleged “ringleaders” of the lawyers detained in July 2015, was convicted of subversion of state power (CL, Art. 105) and sentenced to seven years in prison.

And Zhou is not the only one.  As CHRD portrays in a powerful chart in its Annual Report, in 2016, 16 rights activist were convicted of crimes relating to national security.  Compare this to only three in 2015.

Graphic courtesy of CHRD’s Annual Report

These more drastic charges of national security means that the police and prosecutors can all but abandon most due process rights enshrined in the amended Chinese Criminal Procedure Law.  As the CHRD Annual Report notes, a national security investigation allows the police to unilaterally hold a suspect under “residential surveillance in a designated location.”  With residential surveillance in a designated location, a location that is often unknown to the person’s family and lawyers, the police can legally hold a suspect for six months and, because the person is being investigated for a national security crime, the police can also lawfully deny access to an attorney.  (For a case analysis of the laws surrounding residential surveillance in a designated location, see Codifying Illegality? The Case of Jiang Tianyong).  Without access to a lawyer, contact with the outside world and likely subject to torture, CHRD’s 2016 Annual Report notes an uptick in a disturbing trend: televised forced “confessions” of rights activists before any trial.

2016: The Passage of Laws that Specifically Target Civil Society

China’s Foreign NGO Law is no lighthearted 1940s Hollywood movie.

But if these long prison sentences are not enough to squelch future rights activists, the Chinese government has adopted a series of laws to further restrict civil society.  China’s Foreign NGO Law, passed in 2016 and went into effect on January 1, 2017, is an attempt to cut civil rights activists from contact with international civil rights organizations, especially those that provide financial support.  In fact, as CHRD notes, in many of the recent prosecutions of  rights activists, accepting foreign funding has been used as evidence of the activists’ subversion of state power.  Foreign NGOs that the police believe engage in behavior that “endangers national security” are blacklisted.  Presumably any Chinese person who interacts with these blacklisted foreign NGOs will likely be suspected of national security violations.

Similarly, the Charity Law makes it near impossible for many Chinese civil rights organizations to raise money domestically if they are not officially registered with the Ministry of Civil Affairs.  Most likely those organic civil society groups that have been most effective but also have been viewed by the Chinese government – or more aptly the Chinese Communist Party – as a threat to its rule, will not receive permission to register with the Ministry of Civil Affairs.  As the stakes get higher, these organizations will likely cease to exist, eliminating an important channel that exposes societal discontent in an authoritarian regime.

(image courtesy of WCCF Tech)

But if those laws prove insufficient to completely eradicate any form of civil society not controlled by the government, in November 2016, the Chinese government passed its National Cyber Security Law which will provide for unprecedented surveillance of its citizens.  Under the Cyber Security Law, the government has the right to restrict the internet to protect national security and social public order (Art. 58).  Although implementation of the law has yet to be seen, presumably it can be used to shut down any online communication the Chinese government deems a security or public order threat. And as its recent prosecution on national security charges show, the Chinese government will likely view any efforts for civil rights activists to organize over social media to be a national security threat.

China’s Domestic Human Rights Conflicts With its Idea of “Economic Globalization”

President Xi at the 2017 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland (photo courtesy of Forbes)

While CHRD’s Annual Report reflects a deteriorating human rights situation, China’s star on the global stage has only risen, especially as the United States has elected an isolationist president.  China’s most recent zenith came on January 17, 2017, when President Xi Jinping was granted the honor of delivering opening remarks at the Davos World Economic Forum, the world’s orgy to capitalism and globalization.  In his speech, Xi  called on the world to maintain its longstanding policies of “economic globalization,” implicitly distinguishing this concept from the liberal world order that created it.

For sure, Xi’s speech, calling on continued free trade, a policy that allowed China to quickly develop as an economic power, was a success at Davos.  Especially as the United States and some parts of Europe retreat in their commitment to the world order they helped to put in place after World War II.  But what Xi misses in his exclusive focus on “economic globalization” is that it does not exist in a vacuum.  Economic globalization is only one aspect of the current liberal world order.  Liberal political systems,  liberal economics, more inter-connectedness among people of different countries cannot be eliminated from the post-World War II world order that brought the free trade Xi celebrates.  All of these elements together is what has brought peace to much of the Western World and East Asia for close to 65 years, a peace that has been essential to China’s economic rise.

Setting up the post World War II order at Yalta in 1945

But Xi’s assault on Chinese civil society undermines these other essential elements  of the world order.  With the Chinese government’s constant attack on civil rights activists, this aspect of Chinese society lose the ability to impact China’s policy.  Some of the issue Xi raised in his Davos speech – environmental protection and income inequality – are issues that the Chinese government was forced to confront because of pressure from its domestic civil society. But the Chinese government now seeks to cut off that important channel  of protest.

But perhaps most dangerous is the Chinese government’s current vilification of anything foreign and its intent to keep its people separate from the rest of the world.  The peace that much of the West and East Asia has experienced can be traced to the interconnectedness among people.  But the Foreign NGO Law and the Chinese government’s persecution of activist who are connected to foreign organizations destroys that vital connection.  The National Cyber Security Law only further exacerbates the internationally-isolated internet that already exists in China, keeping Chinese netizens separate from their compatriots in other countries.

Captain America, time to go back in your box! (image courtesy of Marvel Comics)

As the United States and some of Western Europe recede from the liberal world order to deal with their own domestic political turmoil, there will be space for other countries to step into positions of greater leadership on the global stage.  China has demonstrated that it wants to.  But with its continued assault on civil society and its increased xenophobia, are we sure this is what we really want?

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China Human Rights Defenders’ 2016 Annual Report, entitled “They Target My Human Rights Work as a Crime,” can be found on their website here.

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By Elizabeth M. Lynch, November 24, 2011

Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski and Rebecca MacKinnon do not seem to have a lot in common: one is a young, blonde woman born in 1960s America and focused on internet freedom; the other is an older, grayed man born in pre-war Poland who might not really know what a blog is let alone a “microblog.”

But at last week’s China Town Hall event – sponsored by the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations (NCUSCR) and hosted by Fordham Law School – the general gist of each speaker’s message boiled down to the same point: don’t expect China to follow historical trends; this is a different time, a different place, a different beast and the U.S. needs to quickly recognize this reality.

Brzezinski on China: China is Not Nazi Germany

Brzezinski started the live webcast portion (watch the webcast here) with a very brief synopsis of his role in helping to normalize relations with China during the Carter administration.  The briefness of this interlude proved to be a pity and not just because the question and answer portion ended up being sort of lacking.

The history of U.S.-China relations after Nixon’s impeachment remains rather unknown to many.  In fact, I would venture to guess that few understand that Nixon’s 1972 visit to China did not normalize relations; normalization was left for another day, and as Brzezinski explained at the China Town Hall, President Ford didn’t believe that he had the mandate to transfer diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing.  As a result of what appeared to be the U.S.’ waffling, relations between the U.S. and China worsened.  However, President Carter’s election in 1976 provided for a new chance at dialogue and with the help of Brzezinski, the U.S. and China eventually normalized relations in 1979 (Prof. Jerome Cohen wrote an interesting essay on the role of Ted Kennedy in normalizing relations – see here).

For the remainder of the webcast – the Q &A portion – Brzezinski proved to be more of a sphinx, giving short,

Deng Xiaoping and Jimmy Carter - 1979

somewhat cryptic answers to most of the questions.  As a result, there was plenty of time for question.  Perhaps it was a result of the fact that on the same day as the Town Hall – November 16 – President Obama was in Australia announcing the establishment of the U.S. base in that country or perhaps it is what is on most people’s mind, but most of the questions of the night focused upon China’s military ambitions and the U.S.’ appropriate military role in Asia.

For Brzezinski, the U.S.’ current posture toward Beijing – one where China is viewed as a threat – is troubling.  According to Brzezinski the U.S. is “pre-judging” the relationship: the U.S. has already determined that China will be an aggressive power and we must develop and deepen our alliances with other countries.  But we don’t know if that is true – we don’t know that China is or will be a Nazi Germany; while our guard should be up, we should be open to maintaining a good relationship with China and not isolate it from the rest of Asia.

Brzezinski made an interesting point and supported his argument that China is not as much of threat as we think it is with evidence – China’s military is light years away from being able to compete with ours and China maintains an ambivalent relationship with both Russia and Iran.

But Brzezinski didn’t address some of the very real pressures on the Chinese government to increase its saber-rattling: the military still maintains an extremely powerful role in running the Chinese government and to a large extent, often runs itself; China has become more bellicose in terms of its ability to control portions of the South China Sea; and the lack of communication between the U.S. and Chinese militaries can allow for a small incident to rapidly escalate into a full-blown international one.

In response to one question about rising nationalism in China, Brzezinski pretty much brushed it off (although he did make the important point that the U.S. is guilty of it too vis-à-vis China).  While he recognized that it could be a legitimate concern, this nationalism has not been accompanied by anti-American sentiment.  This just seemed shocking to me. And, as someone who was in China soon after the U.S.’ accidental bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999, plain wrong.  Anti-American sentiment at that time was running high, enflamed by the Chinese media and communicated by many of the Chinese students I met on the Peking University campus that summer and early fall.  The anti-American sentiment quickly died down after the U.S. agreed to China’s accession to the W.T.O. in November 1999 but there have been other flare-ups since then.

While Brzezinski is right to state that our approach to China shouldn’t necessarily be guided by outdated models of Nazi Germany or even the Cold War, there are some aspects of China’s rise that precisely because they are different from what we have seen in the past, should cause us to be more on guard.

Rebecca MacKinnon – China’s Internet is Not Egypt’s Internet; It’s A Lot Worse

Sites That Don't Make it Through the Great Firewall

Certainly for Rebecca MacKinnon, the live local speaker at the Fordham Law School event, China’s increased nationalism is something on her mind, especially as it pertains to the internet.

It’s Not All About the Great Fire Wall

MacKinnon started her extremely enlightening talk on internet freedom in China by tearing down some American misconceptions.  For most Americans, there is this belief that the “Great Fire Wall” of China is what is preventing internet freedom in China.  It is this firewall that completely blocks out websites like Facebook, Twitter, and although not mentioned by MacKinnon herself, China Law & Policy, from being accessible in China.  U.S. policy toward internet freedom in China, and the money spent on such efforts, has largely – and mistakenly in MacKinnon’s view – been exclusively directed toward tearing down this firewall; finding ways for activists to circumvent the wall by accessing the internet through a non-China based virtual private network (VPN).

But the Great Fire Wall of China is only one layer in the Chinese government’s web of online censorship.  What are more damaging to internet freedom are the vast layers of censorship that occur on the Chinese side of the Great Fire Wall.

Internet Companies Do the Government’s Censoring

Because of the Great Fire Wall, social networking, blogging and microblogging is dominated exclusively by Chinese companies.  Like in America, Chinese citizens can post their thoughts to the internet and communicate with other citizens.  But unlike in America, anything that gets too political will be taken down by the hosting company.  Through various cyber laws and regulations it is these internet companies – like Baidu and Alibaba – that carry out the government’s censorship of the internet.

If these companies don’t follow the weekly guidance on what content must be taken down, their licenses to run an

Not Just the Police Watching You....

internet company could be revoked, putting them out of business.  Thus, under Chinese law, the government outsources its censorship: it issues directives but the internet companies are the ones that are liable if specific content makes it through.

Those companies who do their job well don’t just stay in business, but are rewarded for their vigilant censorship.  Every year, the Chinese government awards those internet companies who did the best job censoring a “Self Discipline Award.”  And the government is not being ironic.

Because censorship does take time and because the guidance on what content must be removed is an ever moving target, some things do make it past the censors.  MacKinnon provided a recent example: the July 2011 Wenzhou train collision.  Immediately after the crash, the government issued a statement saying that a train in Wenzhou was struck by lightning.  However, with smart phones, many bystanders quickly posted pictures of a train on its side, people obviously injured by something other than lightening, quickly debunking the government’s initial response.  That use of the internet but the general public resulted in the government being held accountable and having to report the truth.

But for MacKinnon, these types of opportunities are largely reserved for natural disasters or sudden accidents – things that happen so suddenly that the government hasn’t issued an order to the internet companies about whether such content should be removed.

What’s Not Censored?  Nationalism and the 50 Cent Party

MacKinnon also made an interesting point about the inequities of censorship in China.  It would be one thing if all political speech was censored in China, but it is not.  Instead, only that speech that could potentially harm the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is censored; speech glorifying the CCP is provided free reign.

In fact, pro-Chinese government and pro-CCP speech is often ghost-written by the 50 Cent Party, government-hired internet commentators who get paid to post positive content about the Chinese government and the CCP.  So while the government is able to stamp out anti-CCP thoughts, it is also able to bolster its own image on the internet.

Make No Mistake, China is Not Egypt

For those who think that the Arab Spring is coming to a city in China sometime soon, MacKinnon’s message was clear: oh hell no.  With such tight controls over the internet, there is no way that a dinner party, let alone a revolution, could be organized through social media like it partially was in Tunisia and Egypt.  In the Middle East, there is enough space on the internet to meet like minded people and organize events.  In China, that space does not exist as the government maintains a tight grip on speech.

MacKinnon offered one example of the danger in organizing events through the internet or related to free speech on the internet.  In 2005, a group of Chinese bloggers organized a national conference in China about blogging – sort of like a NetRoots Nation here in the United States.  It gives a chance for bloggers who have communicated virtually to meet each other and provides an opportunity to learn to become a better blogger.

The conference was held again in 2006 and started to become an annual event.  Many bloggers began to wonder, is the internet a “special political zone” in the way that Shenzhen was a “special economic zone” in the 1980s?  The answer turned out to be no.  The last conference was held in 2009; in 2010, authorities went to the leaders of the conference and instructed them not to hold another conference.

Will The Chinese Internet Ever Be Free?

For MacKinnon change rests almost exclusively in the hands of the CEOs of China’s internet companies.  Right now, they have a good deal.  They have an exclusive monopoly on the internet.  Weibo, the Chinese microblogging site, doesn’t have to worry about competition from Twitter, and Renren, the major social networking site, doesn’t have to ever think about losing costumers to Facebook.  In exchange for such exclusivity, what’s a little censorship between friends?

But MacKinnon wonders if there will come a point where censorship becomes economically too costly for these companies.  If it does, then there could be a change.  What would cause that change?  That seems unclear.  In 2009, because of rioting in the predominately Muslim autonomous region of Xinjiang, the Chinese government took the drastic step of completely shutting down the internet in Xinjiang.  That shutdown didn’t last for a few days or a week.  That shutdown lasted for almost a year.  This wasn’t just an inconvenience; it harmed the local and regional economy.  But even this type of drastic action still hasn’t changed any of the internet companies’ approaches to censorship.  But perhaps if more of these outages happen or happen in a more populous location, Chinese internet companies might start wondering if aligning themselves with the Chinese government is really worth it.

As of right now, MacKinnon believes that the Chinese government has found a way to maintain its “Networked Authoritarianism.”   Chinese leaders at all levels use the internet to get their message out and there are efforts to have broadband reach all areas of China; this is not a government necessarily afraid of the internet; on some level, it has established the structure in place that allows it to use it to its advantages without any of the danger of dissent.  On some level, the Chinese government makes a mockery of the generally accepted idea that the internet is perhaps one of the most democratizing tools every created.

Instead, the Chinese government provides a model for other countries on how authoritarianism can in fact survive the internet.  The stories of Tunisia and Egypt do not hold true for China.

But as MacKinnon closed out her talk, just when you think you know what will happen in China, something surprises you.

Those interested in learning more about internet freedom should check out MacKinnon’s amazing blog RConversation or pick up her forthcoming book – Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle For Internet Freedom – when it hits stores at the end of January 2012.

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By Elizabeth M. Lynch, September 27, 2011

Last week, Seton Hall University School of Law featured an interesting and timely panel discussion on the role of China in UN peace operations.  As China rises, what role does it envision in such operations?  With its new global capacity has China moved away from a policy of non-intervention?  China’s reaction to the humanitarian intervention in Libya is indeed instructive.  Below, Zachary Kelman and Desiree Sedehi, two third-year law students at Seton Hall, report on last week’s fascinating discussion.

Steven Hill on a New Beijing Consensus in UN Peace Operations

By Zachary Kelman and Desiree Sedehi*

Steven Hill on China's role in UN peace operations

Steven Hill, Visiting Professor from 2010-2011 at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center in Nanjing, China, visited Seton Hall Law School on September 22, 2011, and spoke in a personal capacity about the research he conducted there on the subject of Chinese participation in UN peace operations. At an event hosted by Professor Margaret K. Lewis, a Public Intellectuals Program Fellow with the National Committee on US-China Relations, and Professor Kristen E. Boon, Director of Seton Hall Law’s International Programs, he posed the following questions: How has China’s approach to international relations changed since assuming its role on the UN Security Council in the 1970s? And is China’s approach to the humanitarian intervention in Libya the harbinger of a new “Beijing Consensus”?

In his presentation, Mr. Hill discussed the evolution of China’s approach to foreign relations, from the “Molotov cocktail-throwing revolutionaries” of the early 70s to the top contributor to peacekeeping missions among the five permanent members of the Security Council. According to Mr. Hill, this movement signals a shift from “non-intervention” to “tolerance, maybe even some enthusiasm and engagement.”

Mr. Hill recounted for his audience how, from when the People’s Republic of China regained China’s seat in the UN in 1971 until the 1990s, China had been largely detached from UN peacemaking activities.

Mr. Hill noted that China’s “traditional approach” to UN peacekeeping privileges stressed the importance of non-intervention. While China’s position has evolved considerably as it applies to UN peace operations, shades of it can be seen, for example, in Ambassador Li Baodong’s 2011 statement that the international community should “respect the sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity” of Libya.

Hill further noted, importantly, that in spite of this rhetorical deference to sovereignty, China abstained from voting on UNSCR 1973—an abstention which was instrumental in authorizing the largely European-led intervention in Libya. China’s rhetoric led many commentators to believe that it would vote against the resolution. However, China’s ultimate abstention has been seen by many to symbolize its larger shift from a non-aligned power to a global power that has a substantial stake in the international community.

According to Mr. Hill, that China felt it necessary to evacuate 36,000 workers from Libya due to this humanitarian crisis featured prominently in its decision on how to vote on the Libya resolutions. Moreover, China’s growing stake in the international community means increased interest in avoiding catastrophic scenarios, and hence likely a more active China on the global scene.

That being said, Mr. Hill cautioned against unbridled optimism with respect to China’s “new role.”  He noted that China made every effort to defer to traditional notions of national—and then regional—self-determination. This position was evidenced by China’s acknowledgment of Arab League and African Union positions.  In addition, China reserved abstention as a “special circumstance” and was careful not to set precedent. This cautiousness, said Mr. Hill, exemplifies China’s broader attitude toward UN peacekeeping—the possible emerging “Beijing Consensus”—to promote a limited “blue helmet” approach within the general understanding of military procedure, but to avoid “nation building” and other more interventionist forms of intervention. Whether this approach will change to a more progressive humanitarian attitude, as held by some of China’s Western counterparts on the Security Council, remains to be seen.

After Mr. Hill’s presentation, both Professors Lewis and Boon offered commentary to the audience. Professor Lewis,

Steven Hill & Margaret Lewis discuss the Beijing Consensus at Seton Hall Law School

who recently appeared before the Congressional-Executive Commission on China in a roundtable discussion on the “Current Conditions for Human Rights Defenders and Lawyers in China, and Implications for U.S. Policy,” raised China’s need for global stability for the safety of its investments as an impetus for its increased role in UN peace operations. Professor Lewis further emphasized that China’s increased participation in UN peacekeeping efforts may be improving its reputation in the eyes of the international community. Such positive reputational benefits could encourage China’s future involvement.

Professor Boon, who has written extensively on the UN and the Security Council, suggested it might be wise for the US to rethink its skepticism towards international institutions, given the growing influence of China.  The United Kingdom took the approach in the 20^th century of placing greater emphasis on international institutions. As its national power waned relative to the rising US, it has maintained a far more powerful seat in global affairs than it would have if it had not actively engaged in international institutions. The US has an opportunity to solidify its interests in the current international legal and political order, which could serve it well in the future. Professor Boon also highlighted the importance of the new Draft Articles on the Responsibility of International Organizations, and suggested that these could affect the willingness of permanent Security Council members to engage in new endeavors as much as a new “Beijing Consensus.”

Following their commentary, both Professors Lewis and Boon invited the audience to ask questions and provide comments. Professor Michael Ambrosio of Seton Hall Law School asked Mr. Hill to comment on the success and efficiency of China’s participation in UN peacekeeping, and to rate China’s involvement. Mr. Hill responded that he would rate China’s increased participation quite high, and noted that China has provided crucial assistance in terms of medical and engineering troops, police units, and military observers to UN missions around the world. Mr. Hill emphasized the dire need for police units and explained that China’s assistance in this capacity was especially successful because it was so necessary.

* The authors are both third-year Juris Doctor students at Seton Hall University School of Law. Mr. Kelman is also a Deborah T. Poritz Fellow and Ms. Sedehi is the former president of Seton Hall’s International Law Society.

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By Elizabeth M. Lynch, January 17, 2011

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton delivers the Richard Holbrooke Inaugural Lecture

The Obama Administration has a new China policy, or at the very least has gotten better at articulating it. In preparation for President Hu Jintao’s January 19 State visit, key officials in the Obama Administration outlined their goals for the U.S.-China relationship through a series of speeches last week. 

While Secretaries Tim Geithner and Gary Locke each focused on specifics (currency, market access, intellectual property), Secretary of State Hilary Clinton’s speech on Friday (click here for speech transcript) provided a new framework by which to view the U.S.-China relationship. Rest assured this isn’t the same soft China policy that accompanied President Obama on his visit to China in November 2009. 

In her speech, Clinton acknowledged the importance of the U.S.-China relationship to each country and the world at large. But while it values its relationship with China, the United States still has choices and the U.S. would “firmly and decisively” address its differences with China. Friday’s speech, which was also the inaugural Richard C. Holbrooke Annual Lecture, in honor of former State Department official and an important peace envoy (key player in the Dayton Peace Accords and envoy to Afghanistan), has already received criticism from China’s leadership.  

Clinton Announces a New Paradigm By Which to View China’s Rise

Perhaps the greatest obstacles in the relationship – at least for the U.S. – have been China’s currency manipulation and China’s protection of domestic industries at the expense of international trade rules and norms.  What the U.S. asks of China – to stop pegging its currency to the U.S. dollar and to open its markets to foreign competition in accordance with international standards – inevitably means that in the short-term, Chinese domestic companies will suffer.  By allowing its currency to float, Chinese exports will become more expensive, hurting the manufacturing backbone of its economy.  Opening its markets to more competition from foreign companies and products – particularly the government procurement market – could impair the development of many of China’s nascent industries. 

Needless to say, it has been difficult to find a convincing argument to make Chian’s leaders willing suffer short-term hurt. In the past, U.S. officials have repeatedly discussed how in the long-run these changes will eventually better promote China’s economic growth and power. But this appear disingenuous since in the short-term, it is the U.S. that will most greatly benefit from changes to Beijing’s current policies.  Additionally, telling Beijing what’s good for it in the long-run is sort of like parents telling their kids what is best. 

But Clinton’s speech took on a decidedly different approach and offers a more convincing, even slightly threatening argument.  Clinton did not bother with a “what is best for China” argument to try to convince the Chinese government; instead Clinton provided an entire new way by which to view China’s rise.  Clinton acknowledged the hard work of China’s people and the far-sightedness of its leaders in creating the world’s second largest economy in just over 30 years.  But Clinton also stressed the important role the United States played in China’s rise; without the United States, which guaranteed military security in Asia and equitable rules to govern the global economy, China’s current success would have been impossible.  

By tying China’s rise to the stability the United States provided in the region for the past 30 years, Clinton makes a much stronger argument as to why China’s leaders should make some changes on currency and market access – basically, these are the rules of the game that allowed you to succeed and now you think you can just change them? 

No rest for Robert Gates

The United States Will Remain a Pacific Power

But if logic isn’t enough to better protect U.S.’ interests, Clinton put China on warning that it is not the only fish in the sea.  Repudiating any notion of a G-2 relationship, Clinton gave a shout out to the other countries in the region, stating that the United States intends to remain a Pacific military power, strengthen its bonds with its allies in the region (e.g. Japan, South Korea, Philippines) and deepen its ties with developing Asian countries (e.g. India, Vietnam, Indonesia).

On some level, this should not come as a surprise to China.  This past summer, the United States involved itself in a long-running dispute between China and Vietnam over the control of a group of rock islands, stating that the U.S. has a national interest in mediating the dispute.  Additionally, recent bellicose developments on the Korean peninsula and China’s ambivalent response to the North’s unprovoked attack on South Korea, makes it apparent that the United States must maintain a strong military presence in the region.  China’s response shows that it is not yet ready to take on the responsibility of maintaining peace in the Pacific region since its loyalties to North Korea still dominate. 

Finally, Clinton noted that China’s non-transparent military build-up leaves one wondering what exactly are China’s intentions.  Military-to-military ties between the

China launches its Stealth fighter jet during Robert Gates visit to Beijing

 United States and China are at all-time low, mostly at the fault of China.  China’s military continues to shroud itself in secrecy and the recent visit of Secretary Robert Gates to China was a complete debacle.  While Gates visited with President Hu Jintao in Beijing, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) tested – in a very public way – its own stealth fighter jet.  Hu’s admission that he was unaware of the PLA’s planned test fight, is not particularly reassuring.  Not only does the PLA continue its secrative military build-up, but it’s even a secret to China’s own President, making one wonder, what power does Hu still have?  If history is a guide, whoever is in charge of the Chinese military is in charge of China.  If not Hu, then who?

Getting Serious About Human Rights

Clinton was surprisingly blunt when it came to China’s human rights record and didn’t just portray human rights as a peculiar aspect of the American culture (see President Obama’s talk to Shanghai students in November 2009 for this approach).  Instead, Clinton emphasized the universality of certain human rights and highlighted the fact that China is a signatory to many United Nations human rights treaties.  The United States is not interfering with China’s domestic politics; instead the United States is merely requesting that China fulfill its human rights obligations, obligations it voluntary agreed to. 

But Clinton went further and mentioned specific dissidents, including the recent Nobel Peace Prize winner, Liu Xiaobo who is currently languishing in a Chinese prison; rights defending attorney Chen Guangcheng who since his release from prison has been subject to repeat police harassment; and missing rights defending attorney Gao Zhisheng.   Clinton stressed that as long as people like these three continue to advocate peacefully within the confines of the law, China should not persecute them.  Clinton poetically commented that the empty seat for Liu Xiaobo at last month’s Nobel Peace Prize ceremony symbolizes China’s unrealized potential.  Clinton stressed that these human rights are necessary to China’s success; freedom of speech is essential to fostering free thought that leads to technological and scientific advancement and a vibrant civil society addresses social-economic problems that are currently one the regime’s biggest fears. 

The Obama Administration has a new policy on China – it’s tougher, more logical and stresses the importance of human rights.  The Chinese government has already responded.  President Hu Jintao, in an interview with the Washington Post, commented that the United States should not interfere with the internal affairs of China. 

Wednesday’s meeting between Presidents Hu and Obama should prove to be perhaps some of the most important conversations in the U.S.-China relationship since Kissinger secretly visited Beijing in 1971 in preparation for President Nixon’s visit.

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By Elizabeth M. Lynch, January 12, 2011

Orville Shcell (R), Asia Society's Oprah, Interviews Tom Friedman (L)

New York Times columnist Tom Friedman is not a China scholar and knows little of China; that was his mantra in response to questions about China’s development at Monday night’s “The U.S. and China: How Should Americans View the New Balance of Power?” sponsored by the Asia Society (watch full video here).  While statements admitting to an utter lack of knowledge on the subject matter are usually fatal to a key speaker’s effectiveness, for Friedman and the 90 minute event, at times it worked and gave one pause to think of the United State’s own future.

In an Oprah-like setting, Orville Schell, director of Asia Society’s Center on U.S.-China Relations and one of America’s preeminent China scholars, sat down with Friedman to muse about China’s rise vis-à-vis the United State’s current economic and political stagnation.  Friedman sees China’s rise as a result of its adoption of a “get-it-done” attitude, an attitude that the United States once had but seems to have lost.  For Friedman, it is this attitude that allows China to quickly build amazingly modern structures like the Tianjin Convention Center in just over eight months while the United States languishes with broken escalators in Penn Station for months at a time.  The fact that China has cheap, and sometimes unpaid, migrant labor and shoddy construction standards didn’t seem to register with Friedman, although Schell did raise the issue.

Throughout the evening, Friedman highlighted China’s achievements with scant regard to China’s drawbacks.  But at one point, Friedman acknowledged the one-sided nature of his analysis, arguing that it was necessary to examine China’s current success to see what it is we, the United States, need to improve.  Friedman’s hyperbolic analysis of China was at times irritating, but he did have a point.  China does appear to “get-things-done” – arguably it has not suffered the same economic setback as the U.S. and it is able to achieve certain goals, such as becoming a global power in green technology.

Yes, Freidman acknowledged, China does have an authoritarian regime that is easier to manage than a burly

Epitomizing the Get it Done Spirit - Rosie the Riveter

democracy; but as Friedman noted, what it is about China that we envy are the values it adopted that we once held.  It used to be the United States that could get things done, that could put a man on the moon, “not because they are easy but because they are hard.”  Friedman wondered –  where did that spirit go.  “We have nothing to learn from China” Friedman stated, we merely have to reclaim our traditional values.

While Friedman believed that the forces driving China today are the same forces that drove us to become a superpower many decades before, Schell had a more nuanced analysis of China’s rise.  In answering his own question as to where China’s energy to “get-things-done” comes from (which also elicited Friedman to open his laptop and take notes for his new book), Schell put China’s rise into its own historical context.

For Schell, China’s energy comes from its people’s own desire to be great.  In examining China’s modern history, Schell noted that China has been a failure – the 20^th Century began with the collapse of the dynasty system; Sun Yat-sen’s short rule brought no great success, Chiang Kai-shek’s republican period provided less, and Mao’s reign merely created a larger and poorer population.  It was not until Deng Xiaoping’s presidency (1978-1997) that China started to become successful and regain the greatness of antiquity.  For Schell, this desire to be great is an important motivating factor and allows the Chinese people to forgive its government for many of its shortcomings.  Although Schell did not mention it, China is not alone in its desire to be great; arguably the United States belief in itself as a “beacon the hill” has had an equally motivating quality.

But the discussion soon returned back to the United States and its recent stagnation in light of China’s rise.  How did the U.S. lose its path Schell wondered.  For Friedman it is largely emblematic of our polarized politics – polarization about all the wrong things.  Instead of focusing on our failed education system or our deteriorating infrastructure, politics focuses on rhetoric and is unable to create the policies that will guide the U.S. in a new world in this new century.

How can we get that back?  For America, the future has yet to be written according to Friedman, but there will need to be a catalytic event for America to regain its focus.  Our democracy was designed as such; with its checks and balances, its multiple voices, only through a catalytic event can the United States purposefully move forward.

Monday night’s talk was interesting not for its China analysis but for its scrutiny of America’s current status.  Friedman certainly paints China with a wide brush and it’s easy to critique Friedman’s arguments pertaining to China. But it’s important to be open to his message about America.  China has become a global leader in green technology; the U.S. still has members of Congress who do not believe in climate change.  A green technology bill that likely would have created jobs and put the United States at the front of an nascent industry was unable to pass the Senate.

Americans feel anxious about China’s rise, but it is not necessarily China’s fault. For Friedman, America still has the goods to succeed, it just needs to push aside the white noise of today’s politics and reclaim its values.  And that is why he writes about China.  Whether that can be done has yet to be seen.  But Friedman remains hopeful; frustrated but hopeful.

Tom Friedman’s co-authored book is now available in stores: That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World It Invented and How We Can Come Back, By Tom Friedman & Michael Mandelbaum (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, September 5, 2011), 400 pages.