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,

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

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

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.

After following China for most of my adult life and intently analyzing its development these past three years, I find many China events to be rather staid affairs; it’s usually obvious where the conversation will go and most speakers hedge their bets on China’s future, committing to neither its success nor its failure.  But not Susan Shirk.  Last night, at an Asia Society event to promote her new book, Changing Media, Changing China, Susan Shirk was able to educate, entertain, and at times stun the audience on one of the least understood aspects of Chinese society: the media’s role in changing domestic politics in China.  But one would expect nothing less of a woman who dared to wear a fabulous red suit to the affair.

Shirk, who edits Changing Media, Changing China was joined by one of the contributors to the book, Prof. Benjamin Liebman of Columbia Law School, as well as sociologist Yang Guobin of Barnard College whose recent scholarship focuses on online activism in China.  Shirk began the night’s discussion by putting the role of the media into a historical context.  Comparing access to information in today’s China to the China of the 1980s, Shirk highlighted the fact that Chinese people today have much more access to information; during the 1980s the Chinese leadership had the monopoly on such access, but today, with a commercialized press and and the internet, there is a narrowing of this gap in access to information, putting the people’s access on par with their leaders’.  Shirk noted that it is this new style of media – with newspapers competing with each other for a story that sells papers and blogs spreading stories like wild-fire across China – that improves the Chinese government’s responsiveness to its people.  Although the central government is still ambivalent about the role of the media, it recognizes the media’s “watchdog” potential – through local newspapers, blogs and internet chat rooms, the central government is able to monitor and police the bad behavior of local officials.

Liebman on the other hand, offered a more cautionary view of the media, at least with respect to its role in the legal system.  When a case is picked up by the media – be it by blogs or newspapers – judges are under pressure, usually directly from Party officials, to decide the case in ways that will cool public passion, even if it means deciding the case irrespective of legal precepts.  Liebman went on to note that media coverage of a case only serves to reinforce the Party-State’s oversight of the courts; to guarantee a harmonious society, officials will demand that judges look to social stability as their primary goal, not the actual law.  But Liebman went on to note, it is not a one-sided game.  As the media has become more active in legal cases, the courts have fought back by liberally applying defamation laws.  Liebman noted that not only are plaintiffs overwhelmingly the victors in defamation cases in China (making media the losers), but in the past few years, Liebman has also noticed a surge in the number of criminal defamation cases.  Likely initiated by local officials after bad press coverage from the local media, the courts are caught in between this power struggle, making the establishment of a rule of law a more difficult task.

Yang had a more positive view.  Focusing on the internet and microblogging in China (microblogging is  a longer form of texting, allowing for conversations to develop), Yang has been amazed and impressed by the persistence of online activism in China.  While the Chinese government still maintains strategic control of the internet, Yang noted that there is only so much it can control.  People in China are communicating constantly over the internet, making it difficult for the government to monitor all conversations.  While many conversations are social, some eventually veer to the political, and the government is unaware to stop them.  Yang also noted that the number of online protests in the past year or so has increased substantially.  But Yang noted that the internet is still controlled; the government will erase postings and flood certain message boards with government-sanctioned comments.  Corporations have begun to steal a page from the government’s playbook.  Corporations also hire people to write positive reviews of their products, or negative ones of their competitors’.  Known as “water armies,” these hired guns make it more difficult to trust online information.  Similarly, the government’s control of chatrooms makes it difficult to use the internet in China as a barometer of public opinion.

Unfortunately each speaker was only given six to seven minutes to speak on such a huge topic.  The last hour of the program was dedicated to audience questions.  While the panel discussion offered a fascinating and thought-provoking analysis of arguably the most influential factor in China today, the audience’s questions veered off topic, with one woman – a self-proclaimed netizen – asking what the U.S. government can learn from the Chinese government’s promotion of the internet.  Fortunately Shirk felt no need to entertain the question, cutting it short with a resolute “nothing.”  Few of the questions were as nuanced as the initial discussion; Google’s “moral stance in China” was repeatedly referred to (making me realize that the Asia Society-set is not reading China Law & Policy’s Google analysis) and the ability of the internet to bring down the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

In regards to the question of CCP downfall, Shirk offered a refreshingly frank answer: even without censorship or the propaganda department, Shirk believes the CCP would still be able to maintain its power.  For Shirk, the fact that the CCP can: (1) point to huge improvements in the people’s living standards, (2) perpetuate the belief amongst most Chinese that without the CCP, China would descend into chaos, and (3) highlight the fact that China is now an important international power, would likely mean that many CCP candidates could easily win elections if China ever had any.  Even if China was to have an economic setback, Shirk still believes that it could maintain the sincere support of the Chinese people.  Shirk suspects that censorship is allowed to continue not because the Chinese government as a whole wants to suppress freedom of information; likely many government officials realize that by having a way to gauge public anger and a means to respond to it, their legitimacy could ultimately be bolstered.  Instead, Shirk speculated that it could be the powerful Propaganda Department that doesn’t want to budge from its culture of censorship, perhaps causing a split in the upper echelons of the Chinese leadership.

Asia Society’s “China’s New Media Landscape” only scratched the surface of the role of the media in China.  The discussion left one wondering – who wags the dog here.  While I’m usually the quintessential free-rider at these events, for this one, I was so intrigued by the discussion that I did buy the book. 

Changing Media, Changing China, edited by Susan Shirk (Oxford University Press, December 14, 2010), 288 pages.