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WIRED CHINA: WHO’S HAND IS ON THE SWITCH?

ROUNDTABLE

BEFORE THE

CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE

COMMISSION ON CHINA

ONE HUNDRED SEVENTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

APRIL 15, 2002

Printed for the use of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.cecc.gov

CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA

LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS

Senate House

MAX BAUCUS, Montana, Chairman

CARL LEVIN, Michigan

DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California

BYRON DORGAN, North Dakota

EVAN BAYH, Indiana

CHUCK HAGEL, Nebraska

BOB SMITH, New Hampshire

SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas

TIM HUTCHINSON, Arkansas

DOUG BEREUTER, Nebraska, Co-Chairman

JIM LEACH, Iowa

DAVID DREIER, California

FRANK WOLF, Virginia

JOE PITTS, Pennsylvania

SANDER LEVIN, Michigan

MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio

NANCY PELOSI, California

JIM DAVIS, Florida

EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS

PAULA DOBRIANSKY, Department of State

GRANT ALDONAS, Department of Commerce

D. CAMERON FINDLAY, Department of Labor

LORNE CRANER, Department of State

JAMES KELLY, Department of State

IRA WOLF, Staff Director

JOHN FOARDE, Deputy Staff Director

(II)

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

STATEMENTS

Opening statement of Ira Wolf, Staff Director, Congressional-Executive Commission on China .................................................................................................. 1

Kaufman, Edward E., member, Broadcasting Board of Directors ....................... 2

Hom, Sharon K., Acting Executive Director, Human Rights in China ............... 4

Mulvenon, James C., Deputy Director, Center for Asia-Pacific Policy, RAND ... 8

Hauser, Kathryn, Senior Vice President, Technology and Trade, Information

Technology Industry Council ............................................................................... 12

APPENDIX

PREPARED STATEMENTS

Kaufman, Edward E ................................................................................................ 34

Hom, Sharon K ........................................................................................................ 35

Mulvenon, James C ................................................................................................. 39

Hauser, Kathryn ...................................................................................................... 40

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD

Prepared statement of Bobson Wong, Executive Director, Digital Freedom

Network ................................................................................................................ 43

Prepared statement of David Cowhig .................................................................... 47

Center for Social Development, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, Frequency Questionnaire of the Survey on Internet Usage and Impact in

Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, and Changsha ................................ 51

(1)

WIRED CHINA: WHO’S HAND IS ON THE

SWITCH?

MONDAY, APRIL 15, 2002

CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE

COMMISSION ON CHINA,

Washington, DC.

The roundtable was convened pursuant to notice, at 2:45 p.m., in

room SD–215, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Mr. Ira Wolf (Staff

Director of the Commission) presiding.

Also present: John Foarde, Deputy Staff Director; Michael

Castellano, Office of Congressman Levin; Jennifer Goedke, Office of

Congresswoman Kaptur;Todd Rosenblum, Office of Senator Bach;

and Alison Pascale, Office of Senator Levin.

OPENING STATEMENT OF IRA WOLF, STAFF DIRECTOR,

CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA

Mr. WOLF. On behalf of Senator Baucus, the Chairman of the

Congressional-Executive Commission of China, and Congressman

Doug Bereuter, the Co-Chairman, I’d like to welcome all of you to

the fourth roundtable that we’ve held at the staff level on issues

before the Commission. Today we will be discussing the Internet

and free flow of information in China, critical issues related to the

mandate of the Commission which is to monitor human rights and

developments in the rule of law. I was going to go down a list of

the future hearings and roundtables, but I just refer everyone to

the Commission Web site, www.cecc.gov.

We have four participants today. First we have Ted Kaufman

who is a member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, Sharon

Hom who is from Human Rights in China, James Mulvenon from

RAND, and Kathryn Hauser from the Information Technology Industries Council. We will run this as we do all the roundtables. We

start from left to right, no ideological implications here, call it window to wall.

There are 10 minutes for each opening statement. The yellow

light in front of you goes on at minute 9, so please try to finish up,

although we are flexible on this. Once all four of you have finished,

the staff of the commissioners will ask you questions. We hope that

it is not so much a question and answer format as we will throw

out an idea and we’d like to have discussion among the panelists.

Ted, why don’t you begin.

2

STATEMENT OF EDWARD E. KAUFMAN, MEMBER,

BROADCASTING BOARD OF GOVERNORS

Mr. KAUFMAN. Thank you and thanks for having me here.

My name is Edward Kaufman, I am a member of the Broadcasting Board of Governors [BBG]. The BBG is a bipartisan group

of eight private citizens, plus the Secretary of State, who oversee

all U.S. Government, non-military, international broadcasting. This

consists of Voice of America [VOA], Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia [RFA], World Net Television and Radio and

Television Marti.

Our budget is approximately $526 million, we have 3,432 employees and we broadcast in 65 languages around the world. We

were created by the United States International Broadcasting Act

of 1994 as an independent part of the United States Information

Agency [USIA]. We became an independent Federal agency in 1999

when USIA was subsumed in the State Department.

The lack of free flow of information in China has strongly concerned the board since the BBG’s inception. The Chinese policy regarding the Internet is just an extension of the country’s policy toward any objective source of information about what is occurring

in China or the rest of the world. All levels of the Chinese Government are committed to controlling any information that might

reach the Chinese population.

The government controls from Beijing all radio, television, and

Internet dissemination of news throughout China. This is done in

what has become a media rich environment. There is the illusion

that there are many voices in China, but in reality there’s only one.

Wherever you travel there are many newspapers but only one

story. Many of the media outlets no longer receive subsidies from

the government and must compete for advertising revenue to ensure their financial viability. However, competition does not extend

to the news and analysis, which is closely monitored and controlled

by the government.

The Chinese Government has become skilled at giving visiting

Western policymakers and business representatives the impression

of a free press in China. CNN and BBC television are available at

most first-class hotels, and the International Herald Tribune and

the Asian edition of the Wall Street Journal are sold in hotel lobbies. However, none of these are available to most Chinese.

In an attempt to overcome China’s internal censorship and to

bring truth and objectivity to China, United States international

broadcasting provides comprehensive news and objective information to the people of China every day through radio, television,

Internet, and satellite broadcasts. These services are offered in

Mandarin, Cantonese, and Tibetan languages by VOA and RFA.

Radio Free Asia also has a Uyghur service.

It brings information to millions of eager listeners and viewers.

However, these channels are often systematically blocked either by

direct jamming or broadcast interference from local stations or

other government policies that frustrate free access. It was hoped

that China’s acceptance in the WTO [World Trade Organization]

would result in reduction of jamming. However, since the start of

the Chinese New Year the jamming has increased.

3

This is especially discouraging because the United States has

given unprecedented access to Chinese Government international

broadcasting. China Government television [CCTV] has wide dissemination in the United States, including California’s largest

cable network and Washington, DC cable. It will soon be on Time/

Warner’s cable systems, including New York City and Houston.

China’s international radio, CRI, broadcasts into the United States

without jamming, and is available on AM and FM radio stations

across the country.

The lack of reciprocity extends beyond broadcasting to newsgathering. The Chinese Government has allowed VOA only two reporters in China, both for the English service, and no RFA reporters. In addition, they have yet to approve the addition of two Mandarin-speaking reporters for Beijing and Shanghai. The Chinese

Government complains about their coverage, but will not allow native speaking reporters to serve in China.

At the same time, China’s CCTV and CRI have numerous bureaus and reporters in the United States. CCTV has offices in New

York and Washington, DC with two reporters each. CRI has two

reporters in their Washington, DC office, two in their New York office, and one in their Los Angeles office.

Because the Internet could provide a new means to transmit information, Beijing fears its threat to their information monopoly.

At the same time they recognize the Internet’s economic and educational importance. The government has instituted draconian regulations and conducts widespread electronic blocking of particular

Web sites, usually international news sources.

Once again, the government choreographs all this activity beautifully. When President George W. Bush visited Shanghai to attend

the meeting of Pacific Rim Nations in October 2001, the Chinese

Government stopped blocking a number of Internet news sites including those of ANN, the NBC, Reuters, and the Washington Post.

These blocks were reactivated immediately following President

Bush’s departure.

As a result of these governmental measures the Chinese people

are woefully short of objective information on the United States

and its people. Ironically they believe that they understand the

United States quite well from syndicated sitcoms, movies and

music videos. Over the long term this prevents the development of

a healthy China-United States relationship. In the short term, it is

a policy disaster.

The Chinese people’s responses to the May 1999 bombing of the

Chinese Embassy in Belgrade and the April 2001 captured spyplane incident are notable. The Chinese Government’s monopoly of

information media enabled it to orchestrate Chinese public reactions to both incidents. In May 1999, rock-throwing demonstrators

attacked the United States Embassy. In April 2001 Chinese domestic media presented a one-sided version of what happened to the

United States spy plane but deliberately toned down its rhetoric

and the demonstrations were minimal. Finding anyone in China

who has heard the United States version of either case is difficult.

Ultimately, in a time of crisis with China, the United States president has no way to communicate directly to the Chinese people.

4

The Chinese people are in the place of an old saying, ‘‘the trouble

with most folks isn’t so much their ignorance, as knowing so many

things that ain’t so.’’ One of our recent surveys found that 68 percent of the urban dwellers in China consider the United States to

be their nation’s No. 1 enemy.

The United States cannot afford to have 1.2 billion people, almost 18 percent of the world’s population so ill-informed.

What can we do about this?

First, President Bush, State Department officials, and Members

of Congress can demand reciprocity from the Chinese, and stop

jamming international broadcasts and allow more United States

journalists into China.

Second, United States Government pressure can be brought on

neighboring countries that are reluctant to allow VOA and RFA to

broadcast into China from their countries because of Chinese Government pressure.

More money can be allocated to the infrastructure required to get

our signal through. The United States needs refurbished shortwave facilities, access to additional satellites, and leasing of additional medium-wave facilities.

As today’s hearing shows, the Internet can be key. Regular use

is now at 5.8 percent in China and growing rapidly. Among bettereducated 21 percent use the Internet regularly. The Internet is the

perfect medium for the United States to communicate directly with

individual Chinese citizens. And the United States has to be singleminded in putting pressure on the Chinese to stop blocking our

Internet sites. In the meantime, we should spare no expense in

finding ways to penetrate the blocking.

The debate on the bill that established the Congressional-Executive Commission on China is full of rhetoric that free trade and

economic parity for China would lead to the free flow of ideas. If

anything, since the passage of that bill, the Chinese Government

has done even more to slow or stop the free flow of information in

China.

It is essential for healthy Chinese-United States relations that

all levels of the United States Government demand that China end

the censorship and the jamming and blocking and deliver on the

promise of free flow of information. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Kaufman appears in the appendix.]

Mr. WOLF. Thank you very much. Next is Sharon Hom.

STATEMENT OF SHARON K. HOM, ACTING EXECUTIVE

DIRECTOR, HUMAN RIGHTS IN CHINA

Ms. HOM. Thank you, Ira. I want to start by thanking Ira Wolf

and John Foarde for inviting Human Rights in China [HRIC] to

participate in this roundtable.

The inclusion of an international human rights and Chinese

NGO [non-governmental organization] perspective, together with

business, government, and national security perspectives, will

hopefully contribute to a productive and lively exchange and sharing of views.

Founded after the June 4 crackdown, HRIC is an international,

non-governmental organization dedicated to promoting a growing

5

rights consciousness among the Chinese people; supporting the development of civil society; empowering peaceful grassroots activism;

advocating effective implementation of China’s domestic laws and

practices in compliance with international human rights obligations; and acting as a catalyst for democratic social change.

The rapid development of the Internet in China presents significant opportunities and challenges for advancing these human

rights goals. We also recognize there are multiple stakeholder interests, including the Chinese Communist Party [CCP], competing

PRC [People’s Republic of China] ministries and various organs all

claiming a piece of what they view as lucrative regulatory territory,

domestic Chinese telecoms, foreign investors, media and foreign

telecom companies and domestic and international NGO’s.

Yet there is probably a point of convergence at this roundtable

on the importance of promoting freedom of expression and the free

flow of information. From the United States Government’s perspective, these are integral to the development of rule of law, democracy, and promotion of civil society initiatives. From the perspective of the private telecom sector, the uncensored flow of free information is at the normative core of free market and exchange values.

From our perspective, the free flows of information, uncensored

debate and discussion, and freedom of assembly, are critical for

promoting the accountability of government, exposing and addressing corruption, and promoting the emergence of a genuine democratic civil society. However, because political and legal controls

constrain the independence of civil society within China, the nurturing of an uncensored virtual civil society through the use of

Internet and wireless technology becomes an essential challenge.

In the past 7 years, the astonishing development of the Internet

can be seen in the laying of the backbone of thousands of kilometers of fiber optics—longer than the Great Wall—the exponential

growth in bandwidth, and now more than 33 million Internet

users. The number of people online in China has been rising rapidly in the past 3 years, surging to rates of 152 percent growth.

In terms of wireless technology, currently China has the largest

wireless market in the world, nearly 200 million users.

Yet, these numbers also reflect a serious digital divide. The demographics of these users raise concerns about breathless accounts

of the capacity for the Internet to allow China to leapfrog other

countries. Internet users and their geographic distribution are not

representative of China as a whole. The vast majority of Internet

users are young, male and college educated. However, I just want

to note, the arrest of Internet activists seems to be geographically

distributed throughout China in all the provinces. The Internet,

however is mainly diffused over the three big cities, Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. By the end of 2000, only 0.76 percent of the

Internet users are in rural areas where 80 percent of China’s population resides.

This digital divide reflects and contributes to the widening economic and social gap between rural and urban, and underscores

the failure of China’s economic modernization policy to ensure

equal access and treatment in political, economic, social and cultural life to the vast majority. Together with rising social dislocaVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:02 May 30, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00009 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 79770.TXT China1 PsN: China1
6

tions and growing violent unrest among the millions of unemployed

workers, these growing inequalities threaten to undermine the security, stability and fairness of China’s modernization and reform

efforts.

If the promise of the Internet reaches only the current demographics and growing middle class elite—then the Internet will not

be a real tool for democracy or building civil society in China. Inherent in visions of democracy and freedom are broad-based nondiscriminatory access and opportunities for participation. Whether

in cyberspace or otherwise, freedom of expression, an independent

press, and freedom of assembly are meaningless if they can only be

exercised by those connected, rich, educated, or powerful enough to

claim these rights.

It is also important to note that during this period of impressive

technological advances, the overall human rights situation in China

remained—and remains—serious and urgent. Ongoing human

rights abuses include the systematic and continued use of torture,

the arbitrary administrative detention system, and the ongoing impunity for the violent June 4, 1989 crackdown on unarmed civilians.

The post-September 11 global and domestic focus on anti-terrorism has also allowed China, in the name of security, to continue

its violent crackdown on peaceful Muslim and Tibetan advocates

for self-determination, political dissidents, labor and democracy activists, and on vulnerable groups, such as rural and migrant populations. At the end of 2001, China imprisoned more journalists

than any other country in the world.

And specifically relevant to our discussion today, China has

adopted a range of low- and high-tech strategies, including implementation of extensive regulations to censor and control Internet

content and access, a network of informers, and the construction of

an extensive and sophisticated surveillance system, with the assistance of the foreign telecommunications corporations, notably Canadian and including major United States companies. These strategies have also resulted in self-censorship on the part of commercial

Internet service providers and others.

Despite mounting government sophistication at proactive propaganda strategies to use the Internet to promote State interests, the

Internet is also a vehicle for human rights activism by mainland

and exile groups such as HRIC, the China Democracy Party, the

Falun Gong, and the Tibetan exile community. However, individuals within China that seek to deploy Internet strategies are met

with arrests and detention. There are at least 20 or more individuals who have been detained in the past year, that’s 2001, for alleged illegal on-line activity, that include printing out pro-democracy materials, distributing information on Falun Gong, publishing

articles of arrests of Internet activists, promoting political reforms

and calling for the reassessment of June 4, and posting information

about local human rights violations. These were all deemed to be

violating State security.

Increasingly restrictive Internet regulations make it clear that

freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, and right to petition

the government guaranteed in the Chinese Constitution are not

7

real freedoms at all when the regime views their exercise as a challenge to its monopoly on political power.

The legal, technological, and policy responses of the PRC Government to control and counter the potential political impact of the

Internet also raise important questions regarding conventional wisdom that the Internet will act as an inevitable force for democracy.

When Jiang Zemin and current leaders call for the informatization

of the economy, the military, and the government bureaucracy , it

is clear this does not include any perceived challenges to the monopoly of political and information power held by the Party.

As an example from the NGO trenches, perhaps an example of

what the RAND current report refers to using the Internet as a

force multiplier, I want to end by briefly describing HRIC’s Internet-related initiatives. Our work features a proactive role for mobilizing technology for human rights activism from the base of our

interactive Web site. At the end of last year, HRIC re-launched an

expanded database driven bilingual Web site that provides easy-tosearch functions, direct links to HRIC-sponsored projects such as

the June 4 Fill the Square, on-line issues of HRIC’s journal China

Rights Forum, daily human rights news updates, and an archive

of HRIC reports prepared for U.N. bodies and international conferences, and the design of a comprehensive data base on political

prisoners in China. HRIC also is currently working with a former

student leader of the 1989 Movement and now a professional Internet data base developer to construct a comprehensive, interactive,

and authoritative Web site focused on establishing reliable accounts and facts of the June 4 massacre and the subsequent persecutions. This Web site will include the diverse perspective of students, concerned citizens and the government and archival materials such as dazibao—the ‘‘Big Character Posters’’—pamphlets,

meeting records and decisions, photos, audio and videotapes, government announcements and internal documents—wenjian—reports, and interviews on newspapers, and TV and radio coverage.

Together, this Web site and the archive will make historical materials about this pivotal event in contemporary China available to

human rights activists, researchers, educators, journalists and the

evolving pro-democracy movement.

Looking ahead, we recommend the following areas for ongoing attention by the Commission.

First, identifying and monitoring possible opportunities for intervention and engagement by the United States Government, the private sector, and NGO’s.

For example: In October 2002, Shanghai will host the ICANN

conference. The complexities and internal debates aside, how can

concerns about Chinese Internet censorship, free flow of information, and freedom of association and assembly, be constructively

and appropriately raised?

In the lead-up to the 2008 Olympics, we urge the Commission to

monitor several human rights concerns, including violations of

labor rights, the cleaning-up of areas of Beijing through detention

of undesirables, tighter control of the media to maintain a positive

domestic picture, shut-downs of media and Web sites, and the continued use of security and anti-terrorism measures to silence legitimate peaceful expression.

8

With respect to information and surveillance technology, the testing and implementation of security systems during site construction, including digital surveillance cameras, biometric authentication systems, should be carefully monitored to avoid leaving behind

the architecture for technological repression and control when the

games are finished.

We also end by respectfully noting that the roundtable themes

are interrelated and it may be useful for the Commission to consider at some future point, hearings or roundtables that examine

the interface between them, for example, the implementation of the

WTO and human rights, or in the context of the digital divide, Ethnic Minorities and the Internet. Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Hom appears in the appendix.]

Mr. WOLF. Thanks very much. James Mulvenon.

STATEMENT OF JAMES C. MULVENON, DEPUTY DIRECTOR,

CENTER FOR ASIA-PACIFIC POLICY, RAND

Mr. MULVENON. Good afternoon. Again I’d like to thank Ira Wolf

and John Foarde for inviting me to come today. My name is James

Mulvenon. I’m a China researcher at the RAND Corporation which

is a non-profit, federally funded research and development center,

that primarily does most of its work for the United States Government, half of which is on national security matters. In other words

I’m the representative of the defense industrial complex on this

panel.

RAND in particular has spent the last 5 years or so doing Chinese open source research on a variety of topics between the nexus

of the information revolution in China and United States national

security.

We’ve looked at a number of different issues. Export controls— which is now becoming an increasingly vibrant debate here in

Washington, particularly on information technologies—China’s national information security strategy; the nexus between the Chinese military and Chinese I.T. development, particularly as it effects China’s military modernization; the use and monitoring of the

Internet by the Chinese Ministry of public security and State security. And last what I’d like to talk about today which is dissident

use of the Internet and Beijing’s counter strategies. In the back of

the room we have a copy of RAND’s report by that title, and my

co-author, Michael Chase, is with me here today.

It is clear that all around the world from Saudi Arabia to Cuba

to Myanmar to the People’s Republic of China, dissidents are using

the Internet increasingly to organize and communicate with each

other, to access banned information, and draw support from a global network of activists and other NGO’s. At the same time, however, these governments are struggling to prevent these activists

from using the Internet to erode government controls over the flow

of information and promote political or social agendas that these

regimes find threatening. This has raised an interesting question,

the answer of which depends on whether you favor the optimistic

or pessimistic scenario. The optimistic scenario is that the Internet

is a liberalizing force that will bring greater freedom and openness

to these societies and therefore give greater opportunities to its citizens.

9

But there is a pessimistic scenario that we cannot overlook,

which is that these telecommunication and modernization programs favor those organizations within countries that have economies of scale. Having economies of scale these states can use this

technological modernization to further the ends of State coercion

and repression. And I think we see that balance in China in particular and I’d like to talk about some of the dynamics of that.

Clearly the arrival of the Internet in China has altered the dynamic between the Beijing regime and the dissident community

both within China and outside. For the State, political use of the

Internet further degrades the Chinese Communist Party’s ability to

control the flow of information that it deems politically sensitive or

subversive into China or within China. The Party however, also

has the additional benefit of being able to use Leninist methods to

crush potential organized opposition, and as a result, no organization with the capacity to challenge the Chinese Communist Party’s

monopoly on political power in our view, presently exists in China.

But, however I would point out that the Internet only provides

two-thirds of what I would regard as the necessary criteria for political change in China. Those criteria are the ability to coordinate

activity, the ability to motivate activity, and then the ability to actually achieve agency with that activity, to actually achieve coercion. If you think about it, the Internet allows activists all over the

world to communicate with one another and to coordinate with one

another and to provide motivation for one another. But when the

Ministry of Public Security kicks in the door of your apartment at

4 o’clock in the morning, that activist is alone. And to that extent

there is a limit on the power of the Internet to provide a mechanism for political change short of actual organization and mass activity.

I would point out that there are two different dynamics in terms

of dissident use of the Internet that we discuss in the report. Twoway communication on the one hand and one way communication

on the other. And they have very different results and motivations.

For dissident students and members of groups like Falun Gong, the

Internet, especially two-way communication like e-mail and bulletin boards in particular, permit the global dissemination of information for communication, coordination and organization with an

ease and rapidity that is unmatched in the history of the world.

And it also allows them to do this without attracting the attention

of the authorities. The perfect example of that is the 10 to 15 thousand Falun Gong practitioners that showed up uninvited outside

the central leadership compound in Beijing in April 1999.

However, the dissident community has also made extensive use

of what we deem one-way Internet communication, particularly

what’s known as e-mail spamming, which has been a particularly

successful form of this type of communication. It enables groups to

transmit uncensored information to an unprecedented number of

people within China and to provide those recipients with plausible

deniability. And how they do this is that they don’t solicit information via e-mail—you don’t have to sign up to be a subscriber to this.

They simply buy mass e-mail lists with millions of names on it and

they make sure to send those e-mails also to low-level and midlevel Ministry of Public Security officials. So anyone who receives

10

these e-mails honestly can say that they didn’t solicit them and

therefore they have plausible deniability about receiving the information. In its simplicity, it is actually quite brilliant. The PRC is

unable to stop these attempts because in many cases these groups

never use the same originating organization or unit IP address

more than once. And there is a trend, I think, toward more groups

and individuals becoming involved in activities of this type, which

some people have dubbed a form of Internet guerrilla warfare.

Unfortunately the Chinese Government also has recognized this

in their own internal writings and it is one of the reasons that

they’re so scared about it because the activity very much resembles

the way they organized themselves in the 1930s, into cells where

individuals not necessarily have organizational linkages to other

members of the organization. And thus we argue that small groups

of activists can therefore use the Internet—as Sharon has pointed

out—as a force multiplier to exercise influence disproportionate to

their size and financial resources. However, we would also point

out that enhanced communication does not always further the dissident cause. We’ve spent hundreds of hours in dissident chat

rooms and bulletin boards and other forums both inside the United

States and around the world, and what’s clear is that a significant

percentage of the communication on these bulletin boards shows us

that the Internet is also a new forum for discord and rivalry within

the dissident community; and that a significant percentage of these

communications are accusations and counter accusations that one

or other participant, at any given time in the forum, is an agent

of the Ministry of State Security. So there’s an awful lot of counterproductive, destructive, destabilizing discussion that’s going on

amid admittedly positive discussion.

In terms of counter strategies, the Beijing regime, I would argue,

has used a combination of what we call high- and low-tech methods. On the high-tech side, this includes blocking of Web sites and

e-mails, monitoring, filtering, denial, deception, disinformation, and

even in some cases—we document in the report—official hacking of

dissident and Falun Gong Web sites. In the past couple of years

you could use proxy servers if you were located in China with some

ease to get to nearly every site you could possibly want to visit on

the global Internet. But we would note that there have been some

technical trends in the last year or so that show that the Beijing

Government has become increasingly sophisticated at ending the

use of proxy servers. In addition, there are a number of other proposals on the table for various flawed ideas for using various types

of peer-to-peer networking to be able to enhance the flow of information, and we can talk about that more in the discussion.

The other half of Beijing’s strategies which we dub low-tech Leninist—and I would argue make up the bulk of their strategy and

also account for the majority of the success of their strategy—are

the traditional things that we associate with Leninism which was

described once as an organizational weapon. In other words, surveillance, informants, searches, confiscation of computer equipment, regulations and even physical shut down of large sections of

telecommunications infrastructure during crisis.

In this case we’ve often found in going back through examples of

arrests, that the Beijing authorities would cue on a particular disVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:02 May 30, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00014 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 79770.TXT China1 PsN: China1
11

sident through non-Internet means, through informants or other

methods, then cue on their communications. But in many cases

they would simply kick in the door at 4 o’clock in the morning and

these articles related again and again that the first thing they do

is they grab the hard drive. And often they reconstruct a case

against a person in terms of what they’ve done on the Internet,

through this type of physical confiscation rather than anything sophisticated or technology-related. What’s key, though, about this

strategy on the part of Beijing is that they understand that the

center of gravity is not necessarily the information itself. Like all

of us, people in China are absolutely drowning in information in

the 21st century. But they realize that the key center of gravity is

the organization of information and the use of information for political action and that’s where the focus of their coercion has been

thus far.

The strategy of the security apparatus, I would argue, strives

less to actually stamp out every case of the use of the Internet for

subversion but instead to create a regulatory and political climate

of self-censorship and self-deterrence. A perfect example of this are

the regulations about the running of Internet Service Providers

[ISP]—who are responsible for the actions of all of their subscribers—which is why the ISP’s are the ones who put the monitors

within the chat rooms to make sure that people aren’t criticizing

the Party, rather than the Ministry having to do it all by itself.

One Ministry of Public Security official was quoted as saying that,

people are used to being wary in the general sense that knowing

that you are under surveillance acts as a disincentive. The key to

controlling the Net in China is managing people and this is a process that begins the moment you purchase a modem, and one at

which the Ministry is very comfortable. And thus in a sense they

are in a partnership with Western and other companies in China

in that they are looking to make an environment in which people

seek profits, not politics.

Now, to conclude, I would argue that to this point, Beijing’s countermeasures—to the Internet—have been relatively successful. Far

more successful than most of the Internet champions would have

said 5 or 10 years ago about how the Internet was going to singlehandedly overturn the regime in Beijing. In fact I would offer a

surfing metaphor, to close, as the reason why. Which is to say that

everyone on the beach is fascinated that the amateur, who’s never

surfed before actually got up on this monstrous wave. Which reflects the feeling of many people, I think, of their surprise that the

Beijing Government has been successful thus far in being able to

shape the information environment in China. But the hope for the

future is that everyone on the beach also remains supremely confident that that amateur surfer is going to be crushed mercilessly

against the coral reef over the long term. And thus is our hope for

liberalization within China. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Mulvenon appears in the appendix.]

Mr. WOLF. Thanks very much. Kathryn Hauser.

12

STATEMENT OF KATHRYN HAUSER, SENIOR VICE PRESIDENT,

TECHNOLOGY AND TRADE, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY COUNCIL

Ms. HAUSER. Good afternoon, I’m Kathryn Hauser. I’m the Senior Vice President of the Information Technology Industry Council,

otherwise known as ITI. Thank you for inviting me to speak today

on behalf of the 30 member companies of my association. ITI members are the leading providers of information technology products

and services and span the entire I.T. industry, from infrastructure

to computer hardware, software, services, consumer electronics, ecommerce and Internet services.

Our companies operate globally and are heavily invested in ensuring open international trade, as over 60 percent of their revenues come from foreign sales. China is obviously a key market for

ITI members. Many of our companies have longstanding investments and operations there and others are relatively new to the

market. But all agree that China represents the most significant

growth market for I.T. products and services and we at ITI are actively working to improve our companies’ access to this market.

We are hopeful that China’s membership in the World Trade Organization will advance domestic economic reforms and expand

China’s openness to the rest of the world.

The focus of this roundtable on ‘‘Wired China, Who’s Hand is on

the Switch,’’ is timely. We’ve all observed as have other panelists,

the rapid expansion of the Internet in China as well as the steady

increase in Chinese domains and Web sites. The China Internet

Network Information Center estimates that there are 33.7 million

Chinese Internet users and many are predicting that China will

soon overtake Japan as the Asian country with the most Internet

users. Already, China is the world’s largest market for cell phones

with nearly 160 million users. As the technology evolves to allow

inexpensive Internet access from cell phones, China is likely to

have more Internet users than any other country.

All of us are questioning what this means for China, its people,

governments, businesses and consumers and for our countries

doing business there. As with any issue in China, the role of the

government is paramount. Through telecommunications policies beginning in the 1990s, the Chinese Government shaped the growth

and diffusion of the Internet and continues to support its expansion

today. At the same time the Chinese Government is attempting to

control use of the Internet by filtering or blocking access to certain

Web sites with objectionable content.

We in industry believe in the power of information technology to

generate higher productivity and economic growth, to increase the

flow of information, and to better the lives of those that can access

it. I want to speak for a moment about the Chinese Government’s

support for the development of the Internet.

Internet expansion in China is due, we believe, to direct support

by the Chinese Government and it continues to support and promote the use of information technology and the Internet to serve

its economic goals. Nearly a decade ago in the early 1990s, the Chinese Government began a process called informatization, which

was to drive industrial development. It initiated the so-called ‘‘golden projects’’ which established a new Internet protocol communicaVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:02 May 30, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00016 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 79770.TXT China1 PsN: China1
13

tions network linking government ministries and state-owned enterprises. The goal was to use information technology as a vehicle

to modernize the economy, centralize decisionmaking, create a

more transparent administrative process between and among government ministries, and establish e-government capabilities. The

Chinese Government also deployed broadband technologies, particularly in high-density urban areas, and put a plan in place to

rapidly build out the country’s telecom infrastructure. These actions paved the way for State Council support for the development

of the Internet in China.

In 1996, the State Council set up a Steering Committee on National Information Infrastructure to coordinate Internet policy, taking it out of the hands of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications and the Ministry of Electronic Industries. A further restructuring occurred 2 years later in 1998, with the consolidation of

functions into the Ministry of Information Industries, known as

MII. High-tech and telecom issues became the responsibility of Vice

Minister Wu and the MII Minister, with Premier Zhu Rongji, occasionally taking a role.

Last August, the State Informatization Leading Group was

formed to provide top-level coordination of intra-agency issues related to the I.T. and telecom sector. Under this leading group, the

State Council Informatization Office launched a major initiative to

broaden decisionmaking and communication links through e-government.

Chinese Government officials are eager to learn about the United

States experience with e-government. We at ITI have forged a link

between the State Council Informatization Office and USITO, the

United States Information Technology Organization, which is comprised of six United States I.T. associations and serves as our collective voice in China. Vice Minister He of the State Council

Informatization Office was in Washington last month and discussed e-government and e-commerce issues with ITI member companies. We will continue this dialog through USITO in Beijing.

The United States should welcome China’s e-government initiative. It has the potential to significantly increase transparency of

China’s governance for its own people. Some of our members believe it will also be the major driver of the growth of the use of the

Internet in China, as government information, decisions, and services remain important if not paramount in China. Finally, U.S.

companies, including ITI’s membership, are best positioned globally

to benefit from this growth.

We have already heard from other speakers about how, as the

Internet continues to expand in China, the government continues

its attempt to tighten controls on on-line expression. What kind of

content is the Chinese Government really trying to limit? Much of

their attention seems focused on the same issues that have troubled regulators in other countries—exploitative, sexually inappropriate, or criminal uses of the Web. Beyond that, Chinese officials

want to limit politically offensive or regime-threatening subjects.

Since 1995, when China first began permitting commercial Internet accounts, the authorities have issued at least 60 sets of regulations aimed at controlling Internet content. The regulations are

often vague and broadly worded, but nonetheless form an elaborate

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regulatory framework that serves as a statement of policy, justification for monitoring or surveillance, and a set of guidelines for what

constitutes illegal activity and a deterrent to Internet users.

When industry has pressed Chinese officials for details, regulators have a hard time or simply refuse to describe precisely what

sort of subjects fall into these categories. The very vagueness of

Chinese regulations concerning political or religious issues has a

chilling effect on all dialog relating to these topics.

We have already heard from other speakers about the recent survey conducted in China about Internet use. I would like to refer the

staff to that Web site which is www.worldInternetproject.org. It

talks about the use of the Internet in China and the ways in which

users of the Internet are trying to get around the blocking activities of the Chinese Government.

I think, to conclude, there is a strong role for the United States

industry in this debate. First, we must continue to work closely

with the Chinese Government to help China expand Internet access broadly throughout the country and to help them benefit from

the use of information technologies. Our USITO Office in Beijing

is well-positioned to advance this dialog and ITI member companies will actively participate and share their experience with ecommerce and e-government.

A key objective will be to develop a process whereby companies

that will be affected by proposed regulations will be permitted to

comment on them before they are implemented. In addition, we

hope to share information about how other governments are dealing with these problems, encourage Chinese participation in e-commerce occurring around the world, and support government-to-government exchanges on these issues.

We anticipate that this discourse will enable both industry and

government to work together to address the regulatory structure

and other key issues such as privacy and security.

Whether one considers the Internet primarily a method of mass

communication or a product of the telecommunications network,

the fact remains that the Chinese leadership continues to see the

development and promotion of the Internet as a vehicle for cultural, educational, and economic development in China. This does

not mean that the government will not try to control objectionable

content, just as many other countries are doing. But it is clear that

China is making more information available to more and more people. the United States I.T. industry needs to be part of this effort.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Ms. Hauser appears in the appendix.]

Mr. WOLF. Thanks, Kathryn, and thanks to all of you for getting

us off to a really good start this afternoon. I’ll start out if I may.

I’d like to talk a little about reciprocity with a question to you, Ted,

about what kind of discussions there have been in recent years between the United States Government and the Chinese Government

on the issue of reciprocity that you’ve raised. At least between the

radios, the government radios or TV, or in this case cable usage.

And then I’d like to get any comments from any others on how we

could use the concept of reciprocity more broadly in terms of trying

to help open up the Internet inside China.

15

Mr. KAUFMAN. Well, we’ve been talking about it with the Chinese

Government both directly and also through our Embassy for a long

time. We’ve been talking about jamming specifically and now blocking the Internet for a long time and we’ve documented with the

ITU the fact that China’s doing it. Many times the discussion won’t

go very far because they allege they are not jamming. So it really

hasn’t been a discussion. It has been one-sided complaining on our

part and not much discussion on theirs, because when it comes to

reciprocity they know, and none of us ever would suggest, that we

would curtail their ability to broadcast in the United States. That’s

not what we’re about, and they know that that’s not something

that we’d be willing to do. So the discussions are pretty one-sided.

We did make a formal request to the Chinese Government that

they expand the number of reporters we have in China. This has

been turned down. Right now we have in our English service, two

reporters in Beijing. We wanted to open up a Shanghai office and

have a Beijing office with two reporters that were Mandarin speakers. The irony is that when you talk to them, one of their complaints is that there isn’t enough coverage of what goes on in

China, but at the same time they don’t want to have more reporters who are Mandarin speakers in the country. So it has really

been more of a one-sided discussion. I think this Commission can

play a major role in changing that. The Chinese Government is embarrassed about the unfairness of it. In fact, when I first started

talking to the government they would say things like ‘‘How would

you feel if we were broadcasting in your country?’’ Well now they’re

broadcasting in our country big time. The response I always give

is ‘‘how would you feel if you invite someone to your house but they

would not invite you to their house?’’ Without some indication that

this is on the agenda of the U.S. Government through the Congress

or through the Executive Branch, this is not going to go anywhere.

Recently we have talked to the Embassy and the Embassy is in the

process of once more going back to them and talking about the

whole area of reciprocity. I think it is a good issue to talk about

with the Chinese. But I think it has to be done by people other

than us.

Mr. WOLF. This has not been very high up on the agenda of the

executive branch?

Mr. KAUFMAN. Yes, I think there’s been a concern, but you’ve

been doing this for a while now, you know that there’s so many

issues with China. When do you get to broadcasting? When do you

get to free flow of information? That’s why the passing of PNTR

[permanent normal trade relations] was a wonderful opportunity.

Clearly PNTR was based on Kathryn’s comment which is if we

have the free exchange economically, we will have free exchange of

ideas. And I went to China after passage of PNTR thinking that

we’re going to do this, we’re really going to start talking about this.

However, it has been very discouraging. I talked to some folks at

Voice of America last week and they said, in fact, the jamming

since the Chinese New Year has increased, and Radio Free Asia

says the same thing. The Chinese Government seems to feel that

now that they’ve gotten PNTR, and they’re in WTO that they can

stop any progress on free flow of information. The final thing I’ll

say is it goes back to what happened when President Bush went

16

there in 2001. They removed all the Internet blocks while he was

there and replaced them as soon as he was gone. It is a public relations thing. There’s got to be some meat behind our efforts. There

has to be some real concern in the Congress and the Executive

Branch for anything to happen.

Mr. WOLF. Any other thoughts on the use of reciprocity?

Ms. HOM. Not on reciprocity—but I would like to comment on

Ted’s PNTR comments. I think one obstacle that comes right up is

that trade liberalization, the WTO, and China’s being willingness

to be part of the international economic regime, does not necessarily translate into willingness to pursue political reforms because China has very clearly bifurcated economic and political reforms. So I think that’s the policy wall you hit. But in the context

of WTO, WTO membership reflects signing onto general principles

and an objective, independent dispute settlement mechanism that

is not a national mechanism, but an international one. These principles arguably support movement toward a rule-based system.

Mr. WOLF. Thanks. Let me next go to John Foarde.

Mr. FOARDE. First of all, thank you all for fascinating and profound statements that will really help us grapple with these issues

and I’ve got a zillion questions but we have colleagues here that

will also want to ask. So let me address one to Jim. In an exchange

on an Internet discussion group last Fall someone suggested to me

that for a Chinese Internet user to bypass blocked sites was ‘‘technically trivial’’. But your comments suggest that maybe not so

much now as in the past and the Chinese Government may be increasing its sophistication to prevent the use of proxy servers.

Could you comment on that and also on the use of peer-to-peer

methods to bypass blocks?

Mr. MULVENON. I would say 2 years ago it was quite trivial to

go around the blocks. In many cases you would go into an Internet

cafe ́ in China and the Netscape or Explorer browser would be preconfigured with the proxy server to go around it. And the top three

bookmarks were lists of proxy servers that you could use to go

around and all you had to do was figure out how to program the

proxy.

The Chinese Government is pretty slow on the uptake on many

of these things but they finish well. In the sense that they’ve pursued a variety of technical means over the last year, which have

allowed them to track proxy server use and much more quickly add

those proxy servers to the routing lists to ban them on the routing

tables. In a way it becomes a communication problem because the

problem with any sort of peer-to-peer or proxy blocking scheme, is

you have to be able to communicate to large numbers of people in

a very short amount of time, how to get around it or what proxy

server to use. Unfortunately, the government is on the same communication channel. And thus you have what in my mind are fundamentally, systematic system flaws, like the idea of Triangle Boy.

Where, if you are in China currently, you have to send an e-mail

to the Triangle Boy people to get the current list of where the Triangle Boy servers are. Well there’s nothing that has stopped the

Ministry of Public Security, from simply sending the same e-mail

to Safeweb to get the list and to add those proxy servers or those

Triangle Boy servers to the blocked routing tables.

17

So communicating to people within China, in a secure way, about

how to get around this stuff without also communicating the keys

to that, to the Chinese Government is a fundamental design problem. And I haven’t seen anything yet in a technical realm that

solves it.

Mr. WOLF. Thanks. Jennifer Goedke with Congresswoman Kaptur.

Ms. GOEDKE. I’d also like to thank each of you for testifying

today. My first question would be—when we were considering passing PNTR, we had companies begging us to support this legislation

because they thought, great, now we can get into China and everything is going to change. Now that PNTR has passed and more foreign-owned businesses are able to get into China, how can they

support some of the reform for the Internet; whether it is through

human rights or whether its access, is there anything that some of

these companies can do?

Mr. KAUFMAN. There isn’t much interest in doing that. In fact,

some of the people that are providing the very technology that

we’re talking about here, to allow the Chinese to block the Internet, are these companies that got in because of PNTR. It seems

that what we have is the worst of all worlds, and that is, we’ve got

American corporations in there helping them block the Internet

sites and then talking about legitimate objections that the Chinese

Government has to politically sensitive material. So I see very little

being done by American corporations to do anything but exacerbate

the problem.

Ms. HOM. I would basically agree with that assessment—but at

risk of sounding somewhat naive—I would like to point out one recent development—a U.N. initiative—The Global Compact, although the NGO community views it quite skeptically at this stage.

China hosted a Global Compact meeting in December 2001 attended by large telecom and other companies, including Cisco,

Microsoft, and Nokia. As of January 2002, at least 25 foreign companies with a substantial business or investment presence in China

have formally indicated their participation in the Global Compact.

Basically, the Global Compact is premised on a ‘‘learning model,’’

to involve various actors—governments, companies, labor, civil society, and the U.N.—to promote good practices by corporations in

three areas: Human rights, labor rights, and the environment. The

standards for developing and promoting advocacy approaches are

measures by internationally recognized documents and standards

set forth in human rights, ILO, and the RIO documents.

So one way that these companies—I think that market power is

on the side of security—market power is just on the side of this $80

billion dollar industry. But privacy and the protection of human

rights is not going to generate a lot of profits. But it will ultimately

affect the bottom line by affecting the stability of the investment

climate.

But on the business side, market power is on the side of security

concerns that are generating an industry of billions of dollars. Privacy concerns and the protection of human rights are not going to

generate a profit that outweighs these market incentives. However,

the human rights situation will ultimately affect the bottom line by

affecting the stability and viability of the investment climate. So

18

human rights should be of concern to the private sector. I think

some of the key companies joining the Global Compact understand

this.

I think one area for the Commission members to pay attention

to would be the monitoring of the implementation of the Global

Compact. The Global Compact Web site is: www.globalcompact.org.

It would be good to pay attention to the overlap of companies that

are Global Compact participants, Olympics 2008 sponsors, and I.T.

companies represented on the Industry Council. I don’t think any

of the Olympics corporate sponsors would want their names associated with human rights violations and keeping somewhat of a

clean public face would be important to these companies. The Commission can also help to ensure that NGO civil actors are at the

table. For example, at the Beijing meeting held in December 2001,

no independent NGOs were invited.

Ms. HAUSER. I would just add to that by saying: One of the challenges of doing business in China is the need to constantly meet

with Chinese Government officials. And what many of our member

companies are finding out is they have to broaden and deepen the

range of government officials with whom they talk. So that we’re

no longer talking just to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs but we’re

getting into very deep discussions within MII or other Ministries

depending on the issue. And I mention that because the Chinese

Government really wants to implement the WTO, at least that’s

what they say. But to get them to understand why we need transparency, why global companies need to be at the table participating

in the formulation of regulations, is critical. It is not going to be

acceptable for the Chinese to hand pick those companies that they

want to get input from and then dismiss everyone else and say that

they have consulted. That’s one of the key points that I wanted to

stress in my remarks and I think it is going to be very slow going,

but it is the incremental process of speaking to the Chinese Government at all levels where we’re really going to begin to see some

change.

Mr. WOLF. Do you want to add something, James?

Mr. MULVENON. Obviously, the Chinese regulatory environment

is very hostile in the sense that they are constantly moving the

goal posts to allow experiments to go forward just to identify the

negative outcomes and then revise the regulations.

The one thing United States companies can do to help the situation over the long term is to export more and more advanced technology not to Chinese producers. But let me just give you one example. We are talking about drowning people in volume, much as

we are drowned every day with our cell phones, PDA’s, e-mail,

Internet, everything else. A Sysco gigabit router of which there are

hundreds in China transmits a gigabit of information every second.

The possibility that the Chinese Ministry of Public Security can filter that rate of data transfer becomes increasingly improbable. No

matter what the level of sophistication of their filtering technologies. So in a sense, the more United States companies and

other Western companies get in China and modernize that infrastructure, the more increasingly difficult it becomes for a relatively

atavistic bureaucracy to really keep up. And if you look at Moore’s

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Law and other technological curves, it becomes increasingly difficult.

Mr. WOLF. Thanks. I must say the Chairman, Senator Baucus,

throughout the PNTR debate and going back probably to the beginning of the annual MFN [Most-Favored Nation] extension debate,

has always been skeptical about trying to get business to do something that is not clearly in its interest. This discussion, in answer

to Jennifer’s question, was something I hope we can follow up on.

How can there be human rights activities, human rights reinforcing activities, done by business that’s also in business’s own interests. Otherwise we continue down a road that has been proven

fruitless for the last decade.

Todd Rosenblum, with Senator Bayh.

Mr. ROSENBLUM. I want to touch on what I thought was disappointing testimony in terms of the assessment you are giving in

a few areas.

One is in the area of the Chinese Government’s ability to control

Internet usage versus those trying to work around the government

controls. What I’m hearing today is that in fact, at the moment at

least, the government has the upper hand. James, you mentioned

that in 5 years the government would not at all be able to play a

controlling role on Internet usage.

The second area I think I heard some disappointing comments on

was in China’s initial implementation of PNTR and its WTO commitments in terms of how it has not at all led to a change by the

Chinese of openness for industry and allowance for open communication. Looking to the future, knowing what the assessments

were 5 years ago, where are the trend lines going? James, you

mentioned a minute ago sending faster routers to China is helpful

but I imagine the government purchases those same routers and its

own filtering speed can increase. Given that the political walls cannot stay so high if China truly wants to compete globally in an economic sense, how does this correlate to the Internet question.

Mr. MULVENON. Well I would just say that from the beginning

you have to understand I think that we’re not looking at revolution

anymore. Tiananmen has certainly soured a lot people on the revolutionary model of political change. And so when I think about how

the Internet is actually going to change the situation in China—

whether telecom modernization or e-commerce—is it will facilitate

the creation of a large body of people who are reasonably affluent,

what we might even call under the Chinese definition of a middle

class, who like their counterparts in South Korea and Taiwan over

a 30-year period began asking themselves the question: Why can’t

I enjoy the same autonomy in my personal political sphere that I

enjoy in my personal economic sphere?

We’ve already begun seeing many of those trends. The government in my mind doesn’t control the Internet. The government has

shaped the regulatory and political and coercive environment in

China in a way that many people simply self-censor and self-deter

themselves. If the Chinese Government strategy from the beginning was to control the Internet, I think it would have failed miserably. But in fact it came up with a much more realistic strategy

that was much more tuned to Western business strategy and Western government strategy for dealing with China.

20

All of those things aside, there are some inevitable forces here.

And the inevitable force in my mind is the increasing affluence of

the society that will be the engine. And to the extent to which they

can use the Internet and the elements of the telecom revolution, to

be able to facilitate that, over the long term it will cause people to

ask that very uncomfortable question that the Communist Party

doesn’t want them to ask. Which is, is single party rule the way

to continue economic prosperity in China? And for a lot of people

it will simply be incongruent with their understanding that competition and variety is what’s driving the market dynamism in the

economy, but yet the government there’s only one-stop shopping.

Mr. KAUFMAN. I couldn’t agree more with what Sharon said. If

you look at it in the long term, you can’t have economic freedom

and not have political freedom. But as you know Keynes said ‘‘in

the long run we’ll all be dead.’’ In the meantime, there are some

very bad things developing in terms of the Chinese public’s opinions about America. You talk to Chinese about America and the

Belgrade Embassy and you talk to Chinese about the spy plane and

they have distorted views of what happened. They’re getting a very

distorted view about America. The point is many really do believe

the TV sitcoms and music videos are America. So in the interim

we may say yes, you know 20 or 30 years from now it will all work

out. But, if 4 or 5 years from now we have a real problem over

something, and we expect that the Chinese people are going to be

sympathetic to our situation, understand our situation, anything

about our situation, we’re making a mistake. I think the Chinese

Government is making a mistake. It is not in their interest to block

out Voice of America and not have the Chinese people know more

about America, what Americans are about, and how Americans

view things. I think it is good to know each other in all cases, and

it is not happening. And in fact I think WTO and PNTR has—if

you ask for trends—has stopped this flow. They’ve just decided

they don’t have to do it. They are extremely, extremely, extremely

good at making it look like a media-rich society. Everybody has access to TV, 83 newspapers in Shanghai, competition over the economy, everybody thinks it is all going along fine. But when you get

to the bottom line and you do some surveys about what the Chinese people think, it should curl your hair if your hair isn’t already

curled. [Laughter.]

And it is not getting any better. It is not in the United States

or Chinese Government’s interest. The only way things will change

is if this Commission, if Members of Congress, and if President

Bush say, ‘‘This is not acceptable.’’ Not because of any other reason

but from the United States and Chinese standpoint it is just not

good to have 1.2 billion people have an incredibly distorted view of

the United States. We talk about the Muslim world, why do they

hate us? If we’re not careful we’re going to end up in the same

place with the Chinese.

Mr. WOLF. Thanks, Ted. Alison Pascale is with Senator Levin.

Ms. PASCALE. Hi, thank you for your testimony. It is a very interesting subject. I wanted to ask about whether we could use the

WTO in any way, to try to break down this wall that the PRC has

put up between economic freedoms and political and informational

freedom. And I guess my first thought was maybe it would have

21

to come from businesses saying that they are being shut out. And

it sounds from your comments like that may not happen. Although

the comments that you just made maybe could lead us to think

that it might be in our government’s interest to insist on fairness

and reciprocity in terms of what is accessible to the Chinese public

in terms of their shaping their views and all of that. So I’d welcome

your comments on whether we can use the WTO dispute settlement

in any way and who would initiate that.

Ms. HAUSER. I’d just like to offer that in addition to the WTO

dispute settlement route, there’s another factor affecting change:

The increasing strength of the local Chinese industry. The Chinese

Government has supported its I.T. industry over the years, and

they now have three, four, five major world-class I.T. companies.

Great Wall is one of them; Legend is another. These companies will

soon be exporting to other countries in Asia. We have to anticipate

that the United States I.T. industry will encounter a competitive

threat from these local Chinese companies, but this may actually

advance some of the market reforms in China. Because once Chinese firms start exporting themselves, they’re not going to want to

put up with non-transparency in other countries. They’re not going

to want to put up with tariff barriers or non-tariff measures. We

are already seeing some export of high technology products from

China to the Asian region, and as this continues, we will see

change come.

Ms. PASCALE. Do you mean they’ll complain to their government

that they’re being shut out of Asian markets that they are trying

to do business with?

Ms. HAUSER. They could quite well. They’re going to have to comply with international standards for the I.T. industry. It is kind of

a technical point but it is important. Right now the Chinese develop their own Chinese national standards for a wide variety of

products. They do that to the exclusion of international product

standards—safety certification and so forth. Once they start exporting, in order to build a market in other Asian countries, they’re

going to have to build their products to that international standard.

Those international standards require openness, transparency and

adoption of technical specifications that make products saleable

around the world, or connectable. They are not quite there yet.

Ms. HOM. On the WTO, I think that China’s entry will test the

commitment of the WTO members to certain principles, such as liberalization. After China’s entry, and especially in the next 3 to 5

years in light of member implementation schedules, I think there

will be some interesting fallout when China’s exports increase exponentially onto the market. The second point I want to make is

that it is useful to be more specific when we are talking about the

WTO and its potential usefulness in promoting human rights, civil

society, or democratic concerns. Even recognizing that there are

still debates on the human rights and trade—dis—connections, it

is useful to distinguish between reference to the WTO as reference

to the agreements themselves, the WTO member states—and the

different points of intervention or leverage—the WTO Secretariat—

primarily viewed by developing countries as a U.S. and E.U. dominated body—or the dispute settlement mechanisms. In addition, it

22

might be helpful to focus on specific sectors, including telecommunications, financial services, and insurance.

Another important trend at the WTO, in response to strong pressures from the international NGO community, is the increasing

space for NGO voices, although very small at the moment. So when

we think about WTO related issues, we should keep in mind that

it is not a static organization or process, especially in terms of China’s implementation.of the regulatory structure in place. NGOs,

governments, and business can use this opportunity to contribute

to the development of a trade regime that incorporates human

rights concerns. NGOs can continue to show that we can play a

proactive, positive, and productive role in this process.

Mr. WOLF. Mike Castellano with Congressman Levin.

Mr. CASTELLANO. First off thank you very much for your interesting testimony and the useful back and forth here. A couple of

you mentioned that we’re perhaps in the worst of all worlds in

terms of the impact of the role that United States business is having in China. I wonder if you could elaborate on that just in terms

of how the United States businesses community in China is contributing to making the worst of all worlds.

Mr. KAUFMAN. I just think they’re doing what they do. Which is

they’re going to the Chinese Government and someone has said

here they have to face all of these different regulations. None of the

media companies are going in there and saying we’re going to really be tough about what we’re broadcasting in here. They are saying

if you do not want us to broadcast this, we will not broadcast this.

I don’t see any indication that they’re going to play tough with the

Chinese Government because you can’t play tough with the Chinese Government. They’ve got the whole game.

And the second thing—I agree with James—technology can help.

But it can also hurt if technology to set up filters is sold to the Chinese for Internet filtering. The press is full of information of corporations helping the Chinese set up the same kind of filters that

they’ve set up in the United States to filter out pornography. They

just take those same techniques to distort the free flow of information.

The final thing I’d say is the WTO was something that was debated in this country—and there was a great deal of discussion

about how economic freedom was going to lead to political freedom.

I think the world is beginning to deliver on the economic freedom

and I believe the Chinese are committed to delivering on the economic piece. I think they are really dedicated to trying to make

WTO work economically. But politically, it is like a dark hole.

There is no end and it is not in any corporation’s interest to get

sideways to the Chinese about these political issues when they’ve

got bigger fish to fry in the economic issues.

Mr. CASTELLANO. Right. I wonder though, do you think it is possible to sort of separate out what we might call legitimate business

activities versus—I don’t want to use the word illegitimate—but

the maybe more troubling activities in terms of the assistance to

the Chinese Government of enabling censorship, enabling filtering

that we’d view as a violation of First Amendment rights, or as a

violation of international human rights?

23

Mr. KAUFMAN. Sure you could do it—the same way we don’t sell

strategic weapon systems. Things that we think are strategically

sensitive we don’t allow American corporations to sell those things

to other countries. Clearly, is it in the realm of possibilities? Yes.

Could you say that you’re required to help with these kinds of

things? Yes. I don’t recommend it. But I think there is some way

you could go down. I think if the United States Government decides that they are going to make this a higher priority than they

have in the past, considering the plethora of priorities every time

we sit down with the Chinese, then I think the Chinese will come

along. But they are only going to do it to the extent that they believe the United States Government is really serious and has it as

a priority. As I said in my statement, they are very good. You talk

to American businessmen that go over there, they say hey, what

are you talking about China? I go to my hotel room I’ve got CNN,

I go down to the lobby there’s the Asian Wall Street Journal,

what’s the problem? They are very, very good at what they do. And

they give the people that go over there not just business people but

also policymakers, the impression that there is free flow of information.

However, they’ve got it all under control.

Mr. CASTELLANO. I need to give the ITI a chance to respond to

my previous question about your views on the idea of trying to distinguish between legitimate activity and more troubling activity by

the United States business community in China.

Ms. HAUSER. Well I think we’d be making a real mistake if we

were to go down the slippery slope of trying to restrict the information technologies that American firms can sell in China. I think it

would be very short sighted. We’ve had this long debate in this

country about export controls and controlling technologies that we

can sell overseas. When you look how quickly technology is evolving, yesterday’s supercomputer is today’s laptop. And it is just getting more and more that way. So trying to specify technology is

crazy in my view.

I think it is also important to look at the experience of American

companies when they’ve invested in China. Once a major American

corporation, makes its investment decision to set up business in

China, whether manufacturing or setting up sales organizations, it

treats its Chinese employees as corporate employees of that company. Companies don’t make a distinction between how they treat

a Chinese employee and how they treat an employee elsewhere, say

Denmark. They are all employees of the same corporation. So the

same rules for salaries and bonuses and 401K’s and all of the other

corporate benefits apply, allowing only for differences in local wage

levels and culture. And we’ve seen in a number of ITI member companies a very positive experience by the employees in China. All of

a sudden they work for an American company or a multinational

and they have regular, high-wage salaries. That means better

wages, better housing, better schooling for their children, etc. It is

the whole experience that we’ve all had in this country. And the

same thing goes with the way that corporations adhere to environmental rules. It really is a positive story. The difficulty is in something Sharon mentioned earlier is in small pockets in China.

24

I think the biggest trend problem that we have facing us is the

digital divide issue—the fact that economic development is so uneven throughout that huge country. And that means that the greatest inhibitor to the increased use of the Internet is not government

regulation or control or censorship, it is the cost. Can people afford

computers? Can they afford to go cyber cafe ́s? Can they afford to

get on the Net? And unless we work with the Chinese to help

broaden out economic development across the country, the chances

of more political difficulties and difficulties for our companies doing

business on the East Coast zone there are going to be greater. It

is a huge economic issue and political.

Mr. WOLF. Thanks, Kathryn. James even though the red light is

on I see you want to add something.

Mr. MULVENON. No, no, it is just an ADD disorder that I’m not

taking medicine for. I would just push back a little bit on some of

the characterizations that have been made about the Chinese

media environment, the Chinese publishing environment and the

relationship between American companies and the Chinese Government in terms of regulatory apparatus.

I’d be the first to say that American and Western companies are

operating in an extremely uneven regulatory environment. The

Chinese Government can move the goal posts in many cases. In

many cases the Chinese Ministry of Information Industry, which is

the main regulator of the I.T. industry is also the parent of some

of the most important economic players in the I.T. industry. A lot

of these Chinese companies that Kathryn was talking about like

Huawei and Datang and Julong and Zhongxing. These

powerhouses which are all becoming globally competitive are all

very closely affiliated with the Chinese military, with the Chinese

Ministry of Information Industry. These are powerful companies

and it is difficult to compete against these companies particularly

in an environment like China where there are language barriers

and everything else.

Nonetheless, there are some success stories of American companies and groups of American companies pushing back seemingly

against insurmountable odds, to change the environment in ways

that are very positive. One that I would point to is that there was

an episode a few years ago that RAND has written a report about

the formation of a set of encryption regulations in China. And once

you peeled that a little bit, you found out that this so-called State

Encryption Management Commission was in fact controlled by the

Ministry of State Security, which is the foreign and counterintelligence service in China.

There were a variety of motivations for them to set up this Commission. They wanted to control all encryption products in China

including 56-bit encryption in Web browsers all the way down to

that level. On the one hand, these people were very concerned

about the proliferation of encryption. They also wanted to get in on

the front end of what was going to be a very lucrative e-commerce

market. Now when you control the regulatory apparatus, you get

to decide whose products are certified first. This is a very powerful

position in China. But the American Chamber of Commerce and

the United States-China Business Council and the good people at

USITO got together long before the Commerce Department got out

25

of their easy chair and mobilized a very aggressive campaign

against this. Going all the way to the highest levels of the Chinese

Government and got the regulations modified so that it didn’t include Web browsers and other sorts of low level encryption enabled

software. But in fact only involved the very high end e-commerce

related applications.

So there’s a perfect example of where the Chinese Government

for a variety of commercial and political and security reasons, tried

to corral and regulate an important section of the information technology realm. And by banding together, American companies were

able to push back in a very successful way.

We should view WTO the same way. The Chinese view WTO as

the opening bargaining position. Long Yongtu has said in public on

many occasions that he’s going to put a hundred dispute resolution

people in Geneva. My response to him is that will be sufficient for

your claims against us, you better put another 200 in for our

claims against you. It is going to be a very, very acrimonious negotiation like all negotiations are with the Chinese Government. But

those are forums where we can really have a lot of progress. And

I agree completely with Sharon. The international flavor of that

and the fact that those mechanisms are multilateral plays to our

advantage. And we are going to be able to exploit those mechanisms to have some pretty interesting fights with the Chinese.

Mr. WOLF. Thanks. Let’s start another set of questions if you

don’t mind. Many Chinese companies use the Internet as a fundamental tool of business. Whether it is marketing, research, developing their own global supply chains, they need an unfettered

Internet. Is there any sign that the Chinese Government activities

to monitor and control are having an impact on the commercial

sides ability to use the Internet? In other words are they able to

bifurcate the economic use of the Internet from the political and informational use of the Internet?

Mr. MULVENON. I would just say that it is difficult for a lot of

companies to make money on these types of things right now in

China. So we have to sort of distinguish what we mean by economic benefit. The dot com implosion affected the Chinese as much

as anybody, although it hasn’t been written as widely about as others.

To a certain extent I would argue that they rely more on this

self-deterrence model, which is to say you have a lot of effective

portal activity, for instance, in China. Some are economically lucrative and as long as those Internet service providers and those portals have the so-called ‘‘big mamas’’ sitting in these chat rooms

kicking off people who criticize the Communist Party and Jiang

Zemin and others—and even that’s not as successful as they would

like—there’s a tremendous amount of economic activity as well as

flow of ideas and discussion going on in China that goes on unfettered.

I spend a lot of time on the Internet in China looking at these

discussions and it is pretty clear to me that there are large sections

of people’s daily lives that have simply been abandoned by the Chinese Communist Party in a tacit compact with the population.

There is bifurcation between political control and economic prosperity. And I think we miss the point if we focus on the fact that

26

they continue to crack down on investigative journalists and other

people who are trying to push the envelope.

But look at the other side of the debate. Here’s this fireworks explosion at this children’s school in Southern China and the Chinese

Government came out with their typical response which is they

weren’t making fireworks there and shut down their local investigative journalists who are looking at it. But there was such a national outcry via other investigative journalists from newspapers,

from television, and from the Internet, that the Premier of China

had to go on television and apologize for lying to the Chinese people about what happened in that school. And that’s not just the

Internet, that was the entire media environment that made the

Chinese Government lose face and have to reverse itself in public

on television. These kinds of things didn’t happen 5 years ago, 10

years ago, 15 years ago, 25 years ago. And it is because of this liberalization of the media provided that you don’t criticize the Party

and Jiang Zemin.

Mr. WOLF. John.

Mr. FOARDE. Ted, let’s pick up the whole question of jamming for

a minute, which I’m interested in. Partially because I was involved

in complaining to the Chinese Government about jamming of VOA

in mid-1989, just weeks after Tiananmen. VOA is telling you that

jamming is redoubled since the first——

Mr. KAUFMAN. It has increased.

Mr. FOARDE [continuing]. Of the, since the Lunar New Year. Has

it been uniform across the whole country or just in some parts of

it. In other words can I hear VOA if I’m out in the wilds of Gon

Zhu, or not in Shanghai or what’s the situation?

Mr. KAUFMAN. It varies. Essentially, Mandarin is strongly

jammed but you can hear it in lots of parts of the country. Cantonese is strongly jammed. Tibetan is strongly jammed. You can

hear it outside Lhasa. Radio Free Asia, even more strongly

jammed. It doesn’t mean you can’t pick it up, but going back to the

same thing mentioned earlier about the proxy sites. If you listen

5 nights and it is jammed, are you going to turn up the 6th night?

One thing that’s kind of insidious about this is, I’ve talked to students at a number of universities, and they think it is our not caring enough to broadcast properly. The government says they don’t

jam. So when people have bad interference or they don’t have a

good signal, they attribute it to our lack of interest in communicating with them. The government uses different ways to jam.

They can jam by broadcasting on the same channel. The big thing

now is music that they broadcast over the same stations that we’re

using. But we’re willing to take on the battle with them in terms

of jamming and trying to get around jamming. We went through

the same thing with the Soviet Union. The problem here is that

there is the illusion of a media-rich environment.

I’ve heard about the fireworks factory and I know about the fireworks factory, but there’s stuff that goes on everyday in China.

And when you talk to people, I talk to the head of a bunch of newspapers and he said that their news and analysis comes from Beijing. They can have ads, they can compete, they can go after advertisers. They can do all these things, so if you look at it, it looks like

a pretty healthy environment economically. It is always healthy

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economically. But politically, they’ve been very, very talented at

separating the two out. Like the group that went and obtained the

change in the encryption law. I don’t have any doubt that if four

or five American corporations who are major players in China

went, because of an economic concern, to the Chinese Government

and expressed their concern, they would get some reaction.

But no one is going to go to the Chinese Government about a

human rights violation and no one is going to go to China about

the lack of information about America. And every time I hear that

over there, it is just like here. Small business people in chat rooms,

people listening to radio. It isn’t like here. Here, when you turn on

your television set, you don’t know what you’re going to get. Over

there, if you want to find out what the government thinks just turn

on your television set wherever it is in China. Now, is it 100 percent? No. Is it better than it used to be? Yes. And will it eventually

be solved by economic growth and the Internet? I totally agree with

it. But in the interim there are some years in here where it could

be very dangerous for the United States to have this many people

feeling they know what America is, it is even worse. It is not so

much what you know, it is what you don’t know.

And so that’s why we will continue to fight on the jamming, we

will continue to fight on blocking the Internet and getting around

blocking the Internet and working to do all those sorts of things.

But it would sure make life a lot easier if the United States Government said that it was partly their responsibility. We’re not

going to get it somewhere else. Unless the United States Government steps in and says, jamming is not good idea, Internet blocking

is not a good idea, lack of reciprocity is not a good idea. I don’t see

things changing. Ultimately will it all work out? Probably.

Mr. FOARDE. Anybody else want to comment?

Ms. HOM. I want to pick up on Ted’s comment about the diversity

of voices but really in fact only one story is presented. I agree that

there is a warped perspective by a majority of Chinese about the

United States and Americans. But I also think there is a dangerously limited and inaccurate Chinese view about their recent

Chinese history, especially since the crackdown in 1989.

There are a number of sensitive issues within China that need

healthy debate and discussion, which need more than one story

told. These include June 4 and its aftermath, religious freedom,

Tibet, Xinjiang, and Taiwan, issues where the only permissible

view and the dominant view is the official story.

Mr. KAUFMAN. I just want to say one thing. I’ve been talking

about Voice Of America and I think that’s really important, but I

could not agree with Sharon more. It is just an easier argument to

make about America. But if you think they don’t like Voice of

America, they hate Radio Free Asia. They hate the fact that someone is over there telling what is actually going on in some of these

communities.

It is like what happened with the fireworks factory, except every

day there are demonstrations, there are concerns, there are labor

violations and that’s what Radio Free Asia reports. They really go

after Radio Free Asia in terms of jamming which is some indication

of what they think about it. I couldn’t agree with Sharon more. The

Chinese people don’t know about China. They don’t know what’s

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going on in China. And I believe in freedom of the press. I believe

that what they are doing is creating a time bomb so that when the

people do find out, there’s going to be a massive explosion. I happen to think it is in China’s interest to have Radio Free Asia and

Voice of America in there. But the Chinese Government surely does

not agree.

Mr. WOLF. Mike.

Mr. CASTELLANO. I’d like to go back to the idea of there being

some synergy besides just in theory between WTO obligations and

the advancement of freedom of communication in China. And I’m

just trying to think and I guess this is just more sort of a comment—I am just trying to think of ways in which concrete WTO obligations which might dovetail nicely. And one example I’m thinking of is the across-the-board provisions of services. We’ve got a

pending WTO round of negotiations and to the extent that we can

come up with commitments by China which might make it a lot

more difficult for them to do some of the things that they are doing.

It would be a situation where the business community would be on

board with something that also is helping human rights and could

be a sort of a virtuous partnership.

Ms. HAUSER. I think one of the key problems that China is going

to face in this next round of WTO negotiations is to meet their

international obligations while ensuring a high level of domestic

economic growth. And we can question what percentage of economic growth they’ve had in recent years, but the stability of the

current Chinese Government really depends on them growing that

economy. And the political issues we can keep separated as long as

there is the perception if not the reality of high economic growth.

So I think the Chinese are going into the round—the key thing on

their mind is how to keep the economy growing while going

through all of these very difficult changes.

Ms. HOM. I want to add to that—I think the stability of the current regime is based upon maintaining economic growth and providing economic prosperity. However, in the sectors that are seriously adversely impacted by WTO accession, e.g., the agricultural

and subsidized heavy industry sectors, we are already seeing massive unemployment in the hundreds of millions. The official Chinese response to these dislocations appears to say, let’s bite the

bullet, these are the losers that we have to write off for WTO entry.

But the reality of hundreds of millions of unemployed, angry, hopeless workers and peasants storming government offices, or organizing huge protests that can and have turned violent—this undermines overall stability and economic modernization. Operating on

a very short event horizon, the official view is really short-sighted

if it does not take into account the need to put the human suffering

and social costs back into the immediate and long-term picture.

Mr. MULVENON. We also have to realize one thing about the Chinese Government. It took a long time but we were able to convince

Zhu Rongji and a number of his key allies in the State Economic

Trade Commission that joining WTO was good for them to use as

a weapon against their recalcitrant opponents in the bureaucracy.

To the extent to which we have built alliances with Chinese Government officials in using WTO to change China, it is by pointing

out the self interests that the two sides had, in breaking up people

29

in the sort of backward-looking, backward-thinking, sort of atavistic, Li Peng camp that wanted to slow everything down and make

sure that China didn’t move forward fast.

And we’ve been able to make a lot of alliances on key issues: Intellectual property rights has been an area where we haven’t had

as much success as we would have liked. But there have been other

areas like these encryption regulations that we can point to where

WTO, the United States Government, and United States businesses actually were able to change the way things were done in

China for the better, by pointing out the self-interests of certain

progressive people in the Chinese bureaucracy.

Mr. WOLF. I know that surveys in China are very suspect. But

there was a recent survey by the Chinese Academy of Social

Sciences that said, of the people surveyed, 25 percent of the time

that they spent on the Internet was on sites outside of China. It

was 9 percent on non-Chinese language sites, and 16 percent on

Chinese language sites outside of the PRC. It didn’t analyze what

those sites were. The statistics for teenagers in another survey was

that 15 percent of their time was spent on non-Chinese language

sites outside of China and 25 percent on Chinese language sites

outside of China, that is 40 percent on non-PRC sites. Does that

have implications?

Mr. MULVENON. Nor should we view it that way. There is a global Chinese diaspora of information out there. And we’ve tracked a

lot of that traffic that goes to Chinese language sites outside the

country and it is to news sites in other places in Taiwan and Hong

Kong. And so I would argue that, whereas in the early days in the

Internet we had the potential for Chinese Web surfers, because

there was so little good quality content, to actually go to a lot of

foreign language sites to look for information or just to look

around.

From my discussions are with Chinese who spend a lot of time

on the Internet, you can spend almost all of your time within a

Chinese language Web world. That’s not to say that if we put together efforts that are in Chinese they might not go to them, but

there’s a Chinese world you can stay in.

The level of English language penetration isn’t as high as it

should be either. But there is a fundamental question here, which

is there seems to be this underlying assumption that if only they

went to English language materials that somehow they would

grasp onto this theoretical truth.

I had the misfortune of landing in China the day we dropped five

JDAMS on the Chinese Embassy in Yugoslavia. And of course all

my meetings with the military were canceled but I spent my 4 days

out in the protests. Sixteen hours a day engaging in Hegelian dialectic with the protesters asking them what they were upset about.

And what I found was very curious because I had gone over there

saying if you just go to Newyorktimes.com or Washingtonpost.com

or Le Monde or Deutche Welle or something, you’ll get an account

of what really happened.

And the response I got at all levels from students to teachers to

cadres to government officials to friends was, Western media and

VOA are tools of Western hegemonism and imperialism. And what

they’re saying is not truth. We’re more inclined to believe the govVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:02 May 30, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00033 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 79770.TXT China1 PsN: China1
30

ernment that has been lying to us about Tiananmen, about the

Great Leap Forward, about the Cultural Revolution. And I was baffled. I really was, because I kept saying but that government has

been lying to you for 30 years, and you know they’ve been lying to

you. They lied to your parents. And they’re going to continue to lie

to you and these are urban college kids, your most progressive end

of the spectrum in terms of their worldliness and cosmopolitanism.

And I said there’s this world of truth out there and they said ‘‘CNN

is a tool of the United States Government.’’ And so for me, what

it taught me was one thing which was that we can’t ignore the

function of nationalism. And no one would deny that the major

force in China right now replacing all these other ideologies that

are bankrupt, is nationalism, which is a filter that they use to process all outside content. And to simply assume that if we provide

it, that therefore it will be acknowledged as truth and what the

government says is a lie, is overly simplistic in my mind.

Mr. KAUFMAN. I don’t know where to start. First off they don’t

have access—all they know about Voice of America is through reputation because the broadcasts are being jammed. The students

you are talking to in the street, the vast majority of Chinese people

still don’t have access to the Internet, and when they do—they

have blocking of sites. They’re living in a world where what they

hear about outside sources like Deutche Welle and Voice of America and BBC is what the government tells them about Deutche

Welle and BBC and Voice of America.

There is the illusion because they can watch TV, they can listen

to radio, they can read the newspaper that somehow they’re getting

objective information but they’re not.

When I talked to thoughtful Chinese, when I was over there

after the Belgrade bombing, it was appalling. They thought there

was no genocide. I said, well, why do you think America is in

Kosovo? Why do you think they’re there? Is it because of the natural resources? Is it because they want to colonize the country? I

could find no one who would believe there was any genocide going

on in Kosovo before the American troops went in. All the media in

China said there was no genocide in China. Because of jamming

they couldn’t get it on Voice of America, they couldn’t get it on the

Internet. The couldn’t get it anywhere. So I say this is a situation

where they are not getting access to the outside and I think it is

beginning to tell. That’s why the kids are in the streets, and think

the way they do. These students can’t listen to Voice of America.

They tell me that they can’t pick up the reception, they don’t listen

to other sources and they don’t have access to the communication,

but they think they do. They think they’re living in a media-rich

environment.

Mr. MULVENON. The question I would have though, is if they

don’t believe the U.S. Government’s statements about the bombing

of the Embassy, if they believe that we are lying. If there is a secret CIA, Pentagon conspiracy that actually bombed it intentionally. We do have to ask ourselves a difficult question. Why

would they believe VOA’s account?

Mr. KAUFMAN. I’m just saying they’re not seeing any U.S. statements. There are no U.S. statements. I haven’t seen U.S. statements in the People’s Daily. I was over there during that period.

31

I didn’t see a U.S. statement on what happened in the People’s

Daily or anywhere. Nobody hears what the American President

says. There’s no access to that kind of information.

Ms. HOM. And Beijing took its time releasing information about

the apology.

Mr. KAUFMAN. The apology was not released.

Ms. HOM. I wanted to add to James’ point about nationalism because I think that’s an ideologically powerful way in which the Chinese Government shapes and manipulates the story. But it is not

just the government that plays the nationalism card. Last Fall,

during the Olympics bid, I noticed that there were huge banners

in Chinese displayed in various McDonald’s in Beijing. the banners

proclaimed: If China wins, we all win. This is part of the whole corporate positioning that McDonald’s is in fact a ‘‘Chinese’’ company.

In other words, if we look at transnational companies as vehicles

for opening up the cultural or other space, the real move, at least

in the food sector, is to adopt the nationalistic rhetoric that plays

well with the local Chinese customers, and to present these companies as ‘‘local’’ companies.

Mr. MULVENON. There was a particularly embarrassing incident

involving the general manager of the Microsoft Office in Beijing

who very shortly after the Belgrade bombing organized a rally in

which the Chinese workers in that office denounced the United

States Government for its bombing of the Embassy in Belgrade.

Now, Microsoft had the foresight to get rid of her after that rally.

But this is symptomatic maybe of the sort of clientitis that unfortunately in as difficult a regulatory and economic environment as

China is, it is an understandable instinct. To sort of say, Washington is a hell of a long way from here. And they’re not here to

protect us everyday when we are trying to do our business. But it

is insidious in that respect.

Mr. KAUFMAN. If the feeling is that Voice of America, Radio Free

Asia, BBC are some relic of the cold war, and we cannot affect behavior the feeling is wrong. While we were bombing Serbia, during

Kosovo, 26 percent of the people in Serbia were listening to Radio

Free Europe Radio Liberty and in the Kosovar camps over 80 percent were listening to Voice of America. The broadcast affected

what happened in the streets in Belgrade. This is not something

that’s a holdover from what we did in the cold war. This is an incredibly effective way to have people learn what’s going on. Not

just the American point of view, but what’s going on in their own

country. But I tell you, if we are not listened to, there is no way

we are going to have the impact in China. The idea that somehow

the United States Government position will just get through because there are television sets and so many people in China listen

to television and so many people listen to FM or so many people

listen to AM or so many people read the newspaper or use the

Internet or so many people have satellite dishes, is just not factually correct.

It is an illusion which has very broad appeal. It is a media-rich

environment, but not an idea-rich environment, and not an area

where the United States will be understood.

Mr. WOLF. John.

32

Mr. FOARDE. Just a comment that this has been an extremely

rich conversation and thank all of you for joining us this afternoon

and being so generous with your time.

Mr. WOLF. I do have one more question and this goes back to

what you were saying earlier James about the effectiveness of

spamming from the outside. Could you distinguish for a second between Chinese Government policies vis-a-vis access to Web sites

versus their activities or their practices vis-a-vis use of e-mail. Receiving e-mail, mass e-mail from overseas however the technology

is done in spamming, as well as use of e-mail within China. We all

give the example of the fireworks factory, but there are, as you

said, chat rooms and e-mail within the PRC with an enormous and

diverse discussion and debate going on. Could you distinguish between those two: E-mail per se and access to Web sites?

Mr. MULVENON. I would say that until about 6 months ago, email was a much better way of communicating. Because it was very

difficult to filter e-mail content. You can filter the headers, so that’s

why it is critical for people who run VIP Reference like Richard

Long and those people to change the ‘‘From’’ line every time they

send an e-mail because the Chinese would very assiduously mark

the originating address every time. But there’s billions of potential

IP addresses that you could forward things from.

I would point out that in the last 6 months the real challenge

is that American Internet service providers have begun cutting the

links to the Chinese Internet domain because China is now the

world’s largest source of all the annoyance spam that shows up in

our AOL inboxes and all of our other inboxes. It is being routed

through badly protected Chinese servers and Korean broadband

servers to the point where major ISP’s in the United States are no

longer permitting e-mail from Chinese domains to enter the United

States because they assume it is spam. And they are getting so

many complaints from their subscribers about China-origin spam.

So we are cutting off our nose to spite our face in a sense—all the

cliches you want.

ISP’s are deciding in the greater good to throw the baby out with

the bath water. And what it means is in many cases in the last

6 months, I’ve had e-mail from Chinese friends that just never arrived. And they came to DC and they said I e-mailed you about my

trip and I said well I never got it. And it turns out it was because

Qwest or somebody had deleted it before it got to me because they

thought it was going to be some rerouted porn spam from Estonia.

Mr. WOLF. Well, thanks. And thank the four of you very much.

I didn’t mention the specific roundtables that we were going to

have and I said to look at our Web site. On June 24 we are going

to have one on journalistic freedom in China and we will try to look

at that a little more broadly perhaps than we were going to.

We were going to focus on the print media. We will still do that,

but we will also try to spread out a bit. And, again, thanks to all

four of you, and thanks to all of you who stayed throughout this

very interesting session.

[Whereupon, at 4:22 p.m., the hearing was concluded.]

(33)

A P P E N D I X

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PREPARED STATEMENTS

PREPARED STATEMENT OF EDWARD E. KAUFMAN

APRIL 15, 2002

My name is Edward Kaufman and I am a member of the Broadcasting Board of

Governors (BBG). The BBG is a bipartisan group of eight private citizens plus the

Secretary of State, who oversee all U.S. Government non-military international

broadcasting. This consists of Voice of America (VOA), Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), Radio Free Asia (RFA), Worldnet Television, and Radio and Television Marti.

Our budget is approximately $526 million, we have 3432 employees, and we

broadcast in 65 languages around the world. We were created by the Broadcasting

Act of 1994 as an independent part of the United States Information Agency (USIA)

and became an independent Federal agency in 1999 when USIA was subsumed into

the State Department.

The lack of free flow of information in China has strongly concerned the Board

since the BBG’s inception. The Chinese policy regarding the internet is just the extension of their policy toward any objective source of information about what is occurring in China or the rest of the world. All levels of the Chinese Government are

committed to controlling any information that might reach the Chinese population.

The government controls, from Beijing, all radio television and internet dissemination of news throughout China. This is done in what has become a media rich

environment. There is the illusion that there are many voices in China, but in reality there is only one. Wherever you travel there are many newspapers, but only

one story. Many of these outlets no longer receive subsidies from the government,

and must compete for advertising revenue and financial viability. However, competition does not extend to the news and analysis which is closely monitored and controlled by the government.

The Chinese Government is especially good at giving visiting Western policymakers and business representatives the impression of a free press in China. CNN

and BBC are available at most first-class hotels, and the International Herald Tribune and the Asian edition of the Wall Street Journal are sold in the lobby. However,

none of these are available to the most Chinese.

In an attempt to overcome China’s internal censorship, and to bring truth and objectivity to China, U.S. international broadcasting provides comprehensive news and

objective information to the people of China every day through radio, television,

internet, and satellite broadcasts. These services offered in Mandarin, Cantonese,

and Tibetan languages by VOA and RFA bring news and information to millions of

eager listeners and viewers. However, these channels of communication are often

systematically blocked, either by direct jamming of broadcasts, interference from

local stations, or other governmental policies that frustrate free access. It was hoped

that China’s acceptance into WTO would result in a reduction of the jamming. However, since the start of the Chinese New Year, the jamming has increased.

This is especially discouraging because the United States has given unprecedented access to Chinese Government international broadcasting. China government

television, CCTV, has wide dissemination in the U.S. including California’s largest

cable network and Washington DC cable. It will soon be on Time/Warner’s cable systems including New York City and Houston. China’s international radio, CRI,

broadcasts into the U. S. without jamming, and is available on AM and FM radio

stations across the country.

The lack of reciprocity extends beyond broadcasting to news gathering. The Chinese Government has allowed VOA only two reporters in China, both English-only,

and no RFA reporters. In addition, they have recently turned down a request for

the addition of two Mandarin speaking reporters for Beijing and Shanghai. The Chinese Government complains about their coverage, but will not allow native speaking

reporters to serve in China.

At the same time China’s CCTV, and CRI have numerous bureaus and reporters

in the U.S. CCTV has offices in New York and Washington, DC with two reporters

each. CRI has two reporters in their Washington DC office, two in their New York

office and one in their Los Angeles office.

Because the internet could provide a new means to transmit information, Beijing

fears its threat to their information monopoly. At the same time they recognize the

Internet’s economic and educational importance. The government has instituted draconian regulations and conducts widespread electronic blocking of particular Web

35

sites, usually international news sources . Once again, the government choreographs

all this activity beautifully. When President George W. Bush visited Shanghai to attend the meeting of Pacific Rim nations in October 2001, the Chinese Government

stopped blocking a number of internet news sites including those of CNN, the BBC,

Reuters, and the Washington Post. The blocks were reactivated following Bush’s departure.

As a result of all these governmental measures, the Chinese people are woefully

short of objective information on the United States and its people. Ironically, they

believe that they understand the United States quite well from syndicated sitcoms,

movies, and music videos. Over the long-term this prevents development of a

healthy China-U.S. relationship. In the short term it is a policy disaster. The Chinese people’s responses to the May 1999 bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade and the April 2001 captured spy-plane incident are notable. The Chinese Government’s monopoly of information media enabled it to orchestrate Chinese public

reactions to both incidents. In May 1999, rock-throwing demonstrators attacked the

U.S. embassy. In April 2001, Chinese domestic media presented a one-sided version

of what happened to the U.S. spy plane, but deliberately toned down its rhetoric,

and the demonstrations were minimal. Finding anyone in China who has heard the

U.S. version in either case is difficult. Ultimately, in a time of crisis with China,

the U.S. president has no way to communicate directly to the Chinese people.

The Chinese people are in the place of the old saying, ‘‘the trouble with most folks

isn’t so much their ignorance as knowing so many things that ain’t so.’’ One of our

recent surveys found that 68 percent of the urban dwellers in China consider the

United States to be their nation’s No. 1 enemy.

The United States cannot afford to have 1.2 billion people, about 18 percent of

the world’s population so ill-informed.

What can we do about this?

President Bush, State Department officials, and Members of Congress can demand reciprocity from the Chinese. Stop jamming international broadcasts, and

allow more U.S. journalists into China.

U.S. Government pressure can be brought on neighboring countries who are reluctant to allow VOA and RFA to broadcast into China from their countries because

of Chinese Government pressure.

More money can be allocated to the infrastructure required to get our signal

through. The U.S. needs refurbished shortwave facilities, access to additional satellites, and leasing of additional medium wave facilities.

The internet can be key. Regular usage is now at 5.8 percent in China and growing rapidly. Among better-educated 21 percent use the Internet regularly. The Internet is the perfect medium for the U.S. to communicate directly with individual Chinese, and the U.S. has to be single-minded in putting pressure on the Chinese to

stop blocking U.S. internet sites. In the meantime we should spare no expense in

finding ways to penetrate the blocking.

The debate on the Bill which established the Congressional-Executive Commission

on China is full of rhetoric that free trade and economic parity for China would lead

to the free flow of ideas. If anything, since the passage of that bill the Chinese Government has done even more to slow or stop the free flow of information in China.

It is essential for a future of healthy China-U.S. relations that all levels of the

U.S. Government demand China end censorship, jamming and blocking and deliver

on the promise of a free flow of information.

PREPARED STATEMENT OF SHARON K. HOM

APRIL 15, 2002

INTRODUCTION

Thank you to Ira Wolf and John Foarde for inviting Human Rights in China

(‘‘HRIC’’) to participate in this Internet and Freedom of Expression round-table. The

inclusion of an international human rights and Chinese NGO perspective, together

with business, government, and national security perspectives, will hopefully contribute to a productive and lively exchange and sharing of views.

Founded after the June 4 crackdown, HRIC is an international non-governmental

organization dedicated to the promotion of universally recognized human rights and

the advancement of the institutional protections of these rights in China through

our education, advocacy, and activist- research programs. HRIC is dedicated to:

• promoting a growing rights consciousness among the Chinese people;

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• supporting the development of civil society and empowering peaceful grassroots

activism; • advocating effective implementation of China’s domestic laws and practices in

compliance with international human rights obligations; and • acting as a catalyst for democratic social change.

The rapid development of the Internet in China presents significant opportunities

and challenges for advancing these human rights goals. We also recognize there are

multiple stakeholders interests, including the Chinese Communist Party (‘‘CCP’’),

competing PRC ministries all claiming a piece of what they view as lucrative regulatory territory, domestic Chinese telecommunications companies, foreign investors,

media and telecommunications companies, and domestic and international NGO’s. Yet there is probably a point of convergence at this round-table discussion on the

importance of promoting freedom of expression and the free flow of information.

From the U.S. government’s perspective, these are integral to the development of

rule of law, democracy, and promotion of civil society initiatives. From the perspective of the private telecom sector, the uncensored flow of free information is at the

normative core of free market and exchange values.

From our perspective, the free flows of information, uncensored debate and discussion, and freedom of assembly, are critical for promoting the accountability of government, exposing and addressing corruption, and promoting the emergence of a

genuine democratic civil society in China. However, because political and legal controls constrain the independence of civil society within China, the nurturing of an

uncensored virtual civil society through the use of Internet and wireless technology

becomes an essential challenge.

HUMAN RIGHTS AND THE INTERNET IN CHINA

In the past 7 years, the astonishing development of the Internet can be seen in

the laying of the backbone of thousands of kilometers of fiber optics cables (longer

than the Great Wall) , the exponential growth in bandwidth, and now more than

33 million Internet users. The number of people online in China has been rising

rapidly in the past 3 years, surging to rates of 152 percent growth.

In terms of wireless technology, currently China has the largest wireless market

in the world, nearly 200 million users. Estimates project wireless users in China

will total between 350 million and 500 million by 2005.

The digital divide

Yet, these numbers also reflect a serious digital divide. The demographics of these

users raise concerns about breathless accounts of the capacity for the Internet to

allow China to leapfrog other countries. Internet users and their geographic distribution are not representative of China on the whole. The vast majority of Internet

users are young ( 70 percent are between 18–35), male (92.8 percent in July, 1998,

now 69.56 percent), and have college education. The Internet is mainly diffused over

the three big cities, Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. By the end of 2000, only 0.76

percent of the Internet users are in rural areas where more than 80 percent of China’s population resides.

This digital divide reflects and contributes to the widening economic and social

gap between rural and urban areas, and underscores the failure of China’s economic

modernization policy to ensure equal access and treatment in political, economic, social, and cultural life to the vast majority, including rural inhabitants, ethnic minorities, and migrants. Together with rising social dislocations and growing violent

unrest among the millions of unemployed workers, these growing inequalities

threaten to undermine the security, stability and fairness of China’s modernization

and reform efforts.

If the promise of the Internet reaches only the current demographics of urban,

educated, male users, and the growing middle class elite, then the Internet will not

be a real tool for democracy or building civil society in China. Inherent in visions

of democracy and freedom are broad-based, non-discriminatory access and opportunities for participation. Whether in cyberspace or otherwise, freedom of expression,

an independent press, and freedom of assembly are meaningless if they can only be

exercised by those connected, rich, educated or powerful enough to claim these

rights.

General human rights situation

It is also important to note that during this period of impressive technological advances, the overall human rights situation in China remained (and remains) serious

and urgent. Ongoing human rights abuses include the systematic and continued use

of torture, the arbitrary administrative detention system (with more than 200,000

detained in about 300 Reform through Labor camps, more than 1.7 million detained

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1For a list of individuals detained, site shut-downs, and Chinese Net restrictions, see http:/

/dfn.org/focus/china/chinanetreport.htm

in Custody and Repatriation camps), and the ongoing impunity for the violent June

4, 1989 crackdown on unarmed civilians.

The post-September 11 global and domestic focus on anti-terrorism has also allowed China, in the name of security, to continue its violent crack down on peaceful

Muslim and Tibetan advocates for self-determination, political dissidents, labor and

democracy activists, and on vulnerable groups, such as rural and migrant populations. At the end of 2001, China imprisoned more journalists than any other country in the world, and stepped up domestic surveillance and censorship.

The reality of surveillance and control

And specifically relevant to our discussion today, China has adopted a range of

low and high tech strategies, including implementation of extensive regulations to

censor and control Internet content and access, a network of informers, and the construction of an extensive and sophisticated surveillance system, with the assistance

of foreign telecommunications corporations, such as the Canadian Nortel. These

strategies have also resulted in self-censorship on the part of commercial Internet

service providers and others.

Despite mounting government sophistication at proactive propaganda strategies to

use the Internet to promote State interests, the Internet is also a vehicle for human

rights activism by mainland and exile groups including Human Rights in China, the

China Democracy Party, the Falun Gong, and the Tibetan exile community. However, individuals within China that seek to deploy Internet strategies (including

through E-mail and wireless cellular technology), for logistical and mass organizing

purposes, or simply a university study group chat room, are met with arrests and

detention. There are at least 20 or more individuals who have been detained in 2001

for alleged ‘‘illegal’’ on-line activities, that include printing out pro-democracy materials, distributing information on Falun Gong, publishing articles critical of arrests

of Internet activists, promoting political and democratic reforms, calling for a reassessment of June 4 crack-down, and posting information about local human rights

violations.1

Increasingly restrictive Internet regulations make it clear that freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, and right to petition the government guaranteed in the

Chinese Constitution are not real freedoms at all when the regime views their exercise as a challenge to its monopoly on political power.

The legal, technological, and policy responses of the PRC government to control

and counter the potential political impact of the Internet also raise important questions regarding the conventional wisdom often reflected in the media, government,

and business communities that the Internet will act as an inevitable force for democracy and free expression. Within China, the Internet and information technology

more broadly, is a powerful arena where the free flow of information and freedom

of expression is competing with government surveillance, censorship, and control.

When Jiang Zemin and current leaders call for the informatization of the economy,

the military, and the government bureaucracy, it is clear this does not include any

perceived challenges to the monopoly of political power and information held by the

Party.

HRIC’S INTERNET INITIATIVES

As an example from the NGO trenches of what a recent RAND report describes

as use of the Internet as a ‘‘force multiplier,’’ I will briefly describe HRIC’s Internetrelated initiatives. Our work features a proactive role for mobilizing technology for

human rights activism from the base of our interactive website, www.hrichina.org.

At the end of last year, HRIC re-launched an expanded data-base driven, bilingual

website that provides easy-to-search function, direct links to HRIC-sponsored

projects such as the www.fillthesquare.org, on-line issues of HRIC’s journal China

Rights Forum, daily human rights news updates, and archive of HRIC’s reports prepared for U.N. bodies and international conferences. HRIC also cultivated relationships with Chinese Democracy advocates exploring Internet strategies, and designed

sophisticated data base platforms for initiatives such as a comprehensive data base

on political prisoners in China.

Historically, the Chinese government has controlled and manipulated public access to information on democratic movements in China. Although 13 years have

passed since June 4, the importance of the 1989 democracy movement and the violent government crackdown has not faded with time; it remains a key issue in the

political culture of China. This is evident in the impact the publication of The

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Tiananmen Papers had on both the government regime and the Chinese people earlier this year. Yet the Chinese government has continued to insist on the legitimacy

and necessity of the government’s decisions to call in armed PLA soldiers and tanks

of June 4th on unarmed citizens, and it has suppressed independent investigation

and documentation of the event. One of the key preconditions for future political

transformation in China is the thorough investigation and rehabilitation of the June

4th Massacre and the ending of impunity for those responsible.

HRIC is working with a former student leader of the 1989 Tiananmen Movement

and now a professional Internet data base developer, to construct a comprehensive,

interactive, and authoritative website focused on establishing reliable accounts and

facts of the June 4th Massacre and the subsequent persecutions of the Tiananmen

Movement participants. The website www.64memo.com will include the diverse perspectives of students, concerned citizens, and the government, and archival materials such as dazibao (Big Character Posters), pamphlets, meeting records and decisions, photos, audio and videotapes, government announcements and internal documents (wenjian), reports and interviews on newspapers, and TV and radio coverage.

The website will use advanced Internet data base technology to build a platform

that has functions such as whole text reading, full-text search, catalogue display,

catalogue search, linkage among related texts, annotation by the participants to the

texts, multimedia display of audio-visual materials, and back-end administration.

This platform has the potential to be further developed as an interactive archival

website for other human rights issues. A reference archive will also be established

to maintain historical materials in conjunction with the website. Together, the

website and archive will make historical materials about this pivotal event in contemporary China available to human rights activists, researchers, educators, journalists, and the evolving pro-democracy movement in China.

As an on-line archival web project, www.64memo.com is designed to serve as a

catalyst in establishing a forum for free communication and reliable information for

democratic dissidents and activists who are now spread across the globe. Finally,

it will provide a model for other democratic struggles on how to use new technologies more effectively to enhance cohesion, communication, and access to independent and reliable historical information in support of their movements.

LOOKING FORWARD

We recommend the following areas for ongoing attention by the Commission:

1. Identifying and monitoring possible opportunities for intervention and engagement by the U.S. Government, the private sector, and NGO’s For example:

—In October 2002, Shanghai will host the ICANN conference. The complexities and

internal debates aside, how can concerns about Chinese Internet censorship,

free flow of information, and freedom of association and assembly, be constructively and appropriately raised?

—In the lead-up to the 2008 Olympics, we urge the Commission to monitor several

human rights concerns, including violations of labor rights during the construction of the sites, the ‘‘cleaning-up’’ of areas of the Beijing through detention of

‘‘undesirables,’’ tighter control of the media to maintain a positive domestic picture, shut-downs of media and websites, and the continued use of security and

anti-terrorism measures to silence legitimate peaceful expression.

With respect to information and surveillance technology, the testing and implementation of security systems during site construction, including digital surveillance

cameras, and biometric authentication systems, should be carefully monitored to

avoid leaving behind the architecture for technological repression and control when

the games are finished.

2. We also urge the Commission to pay particular attention to the increasingly

restrictive Internet regulation and surveillance by Chinese authorities, especially as

these regulations interface with China’s WTO accession obligations, including the

Telecommunications protocols. China’s domestic regulatory, surveillance and censorship system must be measured against China’s international obligations—both its

economic and its human rights obligations. China’s legal system must be transparent, accountable, predictable, and fair.

3. We also respectfully note that the round-table themes are interrelated and it

may be useful for the Commission to consider at some future point, hearings or

round-tables that examine the direct interface and tensions between them, for example, the implementation of the WTO and human rights, or in the context of the

digital divide, Ethnic Minorities and the Internet.

Thank you.

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PREPARED STATEMENT OF JAMES C. MULVENON

APRIL 15, 2002

From Saudi Arabia, to Cuba, to Myanmar, to the People’s Republic of China, the

focus of this report, dissidents are using the Internet to organize and communicate

with each other, to access banned information, and to draw support from a global

network of activists and non-governmental organizations. At the same time, the governments of these countries are struggling to prevent these activists from using the

Internet to erode government controls over the flow of information and promote political or social agendas that these regimes find threatening. This gives rise to a series of questions about the political impact of the Internet in authoritarian societies:

Does the Internet provide dissidents with potent new tools that they can use to promote their causes, break through the barriers of censorship, and perhaps ultimately

undermine the power and authority of non-democratic regimes? Or on the contrary,

is it more likely that those authoritarian governments will use the Internet as another instrument to repress dissent, silence their critics, and strengthen their own

power?

This report addresses the use of the Internet by Chinese dissidents, Falun Gong

practitioners, Tibetan activists, and other groups and individuals in the PRC and

abroad who are regarded as subversive by the authorities in China. It also examines

the counter-strategies that Beijing has employed in its attempts to prevent or minimize the political impact of Chinese dissident use of the Internet.

The arrival of the Internet has altered the dynamic between the Beijing regime

and the dissident community. For the state, the political use of the Internet further

degrades the Chinese Communist Party’s ability to control the flow of information

it deems politically sensitive or subversive into China and within China. The Party,

however, can still use Leninist methods to crush potential organized opposition, and

as a result no organization with the capacity to challenge the CCP’s monopoly on

political power presently exists in China.

For dissidents, students, and members of groups like Falun Gong, the Internet,

especially two-way communication like e-mail and BBS, permits the global dissemination of information for communication, coordination, and organization with greater ease and rapidity than ever before. Moreover, it allows them to do so in some

instances without attracting the attention of the authorities, as exemplified by the

unexpected appearance of an estimated 10,000–15,000 members of Falun Gong outside Zhongnanhai, the Chinese central leadership compound, in April 1999.

For the dissident community, even the use of one-way Internet communication,

particularly e-mail ‘‘spamming,’’ enables them to transmit uncensored information

to an unprecedented number of people within China, and to provide recipients with

plausible deniability in that they can always claim that did not request the information. In part because of dissident countermeasures (such as the use of different originating e-mail addresses each time), the PRC is unable to stop these attempts to

‘‘break the information blockade.’’ There is a trend toward more groups and individuals becoming involved in activities of this type, which some have dubbed a form

of ‘‘Internet guerrilla warfare.’’

Small groups of activists, and even individuals, can use the Internet as a force

multiplier to exercise influence disproportionate to their limited manpower and financial resources. At the same time, however, enhanced communication does not always further the dissident cause. In some cases it serves as a potent new forum for

discord and rivalry between various dissident factions.

In terms of counter-strategies, the PRC regime has made limited use of high-tech

solutions, including blocking of web sites and e-mail, monitoring, filtering, denial,

deception, disinformation, and even hacking dissident and Falun Gong web sites.

Some non-governmental groups have also launched ‘‘vigilante hacks’’ against dissident web sites, which illustrates the difficulty of determining the level of official

government sponsorship for such attacks. Beijing’s approach, however, is predominantly ‘‘low-tech Leninist,’’ employing traditional measures such as surveillance, informants, searches, confiscation of computer equipment, regulations, and physical

shutdown of parts of the information infrastructure.

The regime understands implicitly that the center of gravity is not necessarily the

information itself, but the organization of information and the use of information

for political action. The strategy of the security apparatus is to create a climate that

promotes self-censorship and self-deterrence. This is exemplified by the comments

of a Public Security Bureau official: ‘‘People are used to being wary, and the general

sense that you are under surveillance acts as a disincentive. The key to controlling

the Net in China is in managing people, and this is a process that begins the moment you purchase a modem.’’

40

The government’s strategy is also aided by the current economic environment in

China, which encourages the commercialization of the Internet, not the

politicization of the Internet. As one Internet executive put it, for Chinese and foreign companies, ‘‘the point is to make profits, not political statements.’’ Beijing’s countermeasures have been relatively successful on the whole to date.

The current lack of credible challenges to the regime despite the introduction of

massive amounts of modern telecommunications infrastructure, however, does not

lead inexorably to the conclusion that the regime will continue to be immune from

the forces unleashed by the increasingly unfettered flow of information across its

borders. Indeed, while the regime has done a remarkable job thus far of finding effective counter-strategies to what it perceives as the potential negative effects of the

information revolution, the scale of China’s information technology modernization

would suggest that eventually time will be on the side of the regime’s opponents.

PREPARED STATEMENT OF KATHRYN HAUSER

APRIL 15, 2002

Good afternoon. I am Kathryn Hauser, Senior Vice President of the Information

Technology Industry Council (ITI). Thank you for inviting me to speak to you today

on behalf of the 30 member companies of my association. ITI’s members are the

leading providers of information technology products and services and span the entire industry: IT infrastructure, computer hardware, software, IT services, consumer

electronics, e-commerce and Internet services. Our companies operate globally and

are heavily invested in ensuring open international trade, as over 60 percent of

their total revenues come from foreign sales.

China is obviously a key market for ITI members. Many ITI companies have longstanding investments and operations there; others are relatively new to this market.

But all agree that China represents the most significant growth market for IT products and services, and ITI is actively working to improve our companies’ access to

this market. We are hopeful that China’s membership in the World Trade Organization will advance domestic economic reforms and expand China’s openness to the

rest of the world.

The focus of this Roundtable discussion, ‘‘Wired China: Whose Hand is on the

Switch?’’ is timely. We have all observed the rapid expansion of Internet access in

China, as well as the steady increase in Chinese domains and web sites. The China

Internet Network Information Center estimates that there are 33.7 million Chinese

Internet users, and many are predicting that China will soon overtake Japan as the

Asian country with the most Internet users. Already China is the world’s largest

market for cell phones, with nearly 160 million users. As technology evolves to allow

inexpensive Internet access from cell phones, China is likely to have more Internet

users than any other country.

All of us are questioning what this means for China, for its people, governments,

businesses and customers, and for our companies doing business there. As with any

issue in China, the role of the government is paramount. Through telecommunications policies beginning in the 1990’s, the Chinese Government shaped the growth

and diffusion of the Internet and continues to support its expansion today. At the

same time, the Chinese Government is attempting to control use of the Internet by

filtering or blocking access to certain websites with objectionable content. We in industry believe in the power of information technology to generate higher productivity and economic growth, to increase the flow of information, and to better the

lives of those who can access it.

I. CHINESE GOVERNMENT SUPPORT FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INTERNET

Internet expansion in China is due to direct support by the Chinese Government,

which continues to promote the use of information technology and the Internet to

serve its economic development goals. Nearly a decade ago, in the early 1990’s, the

Chinese Government began a process of ‘‘informatization’’ to ‘‘drive industrial development.’’ It initiated the so-called ‘‘Golden Projects’’ which established a new Internet protocol (IP) communications network linking government ministries and stateowned enterprises. The goal was to use information technology as a vehicle to modernize the economy, centralize decisionmaking, create a more transparent administrative process between and among government ministries, and establish e-government capabilities. The Chinese Government also deployed broadband technologies,

particularly in high-density urban areas, and put a plan in place to rapidly build

out the country’s telecommunications infrastructure. These actions paved the way

for State Council support for the development of the Internet in China.

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In 1996, the State Council set up a Steering Committee on National Information

Infrastructure to coordinate Internet policy, taking it out of the hands of the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications and the Ministry of Electronic Industries.

Further restructuring occurred in 1998, with the consolidation of functions into the

Ministry of Information Industries. High-tech and telecom issues became the responsibility of Vice Premier Wu Bangguo and MII Minister Wu Jichuan, with Premier Zhu Rongji occasionally taking a role.

Last August, the State Informatization Leading Group was formed to provide toplevel coordination of intra-agency issues related to the IT and telecom sector. Under

this leading Group, the State Council Informatization Office launched a major initiative to broaden decisionmaking and communication links through e-government.

Chinese Government officials are eager to learn about the U.S. experience with

e-government. We have forged a link between the State Council Informatization Office and USITO, the U.S. Information Technology Organization, which is comprised

of six U.S. IT associations and serves as our voice in China. Vice Minister Liu He

of the State Council Informatization Office was in Washington last month and discussed e-government and e-commerce issues with ITI member companies. We will

continue this dialog through USITO in Beijing.

The United States should welcome China’s e-government initiative. It has the potential to significantly increase transparency of China’s governance for its own people. Some of our members believe it will also be the major driver of the growth of

the use of the Internet in China, as government information, decisions and services

remain important if not paramount in China. Finally, U.S. companies, including

ITI’s membership, are best positioned globally to benefit from this growth.

As China moves forward with its informatization strategy, including establishing

rules and regulations, U.S. industry believes it has much to contribute to the formulation of these rules in terms of global and national practice. We hope and expect

that, consistent with China’s WTO obligations, we will have timely and effective opportunities to comment upon the development of regulations affecting our businesses in China and look forward to working with Chinese officials toward this end.

This includes regulations ranging from the structure of foreign enterprises offering

Internet services, to encryption to wireless standards, and much more.

II. RESTRICTIVE MEASURES CONCERNING THE INTERNET

As the Internet continues to expand in China, the government continues its efforts to attempt to tighten controls on on-line expression. What kinds of content is

the Chinese Government trying to limit? Much of their attention seems focused on

the same issues that have troubled regulators in other countries: exploitative, sexually inappropriate, or criminal uses of the web. Beyond that, Chinese officials want

to limit politically offensive or regime threatening subjects.

Since 1995, when China first began permitting commercial Internet accounts, the

authorities have issued at least 60 sets of regulations aimed at controlling Internet

content. The regulations are often vague and broadly worded, but nonetheless form

an elaborate regulatory framework that serves as a statement of policy, justification

for monitoring and surveillance, a set of guidelines for what constitutes ‘‘illegal’’ activity, and a deterrent to internet users.

Pressed for details, regulators have a hard time—or simply refuse—to describe

with precision what sorts of subjects fall into this category. The very vagueness of

Chinese regulations concerning political or religious issues has a chilling effect on

all dialog relating to these topics.

There is an irony in these restrictions, since the broader media in China—TV,

radio and an evolving print sector—are experimenting with anti-corruption and consumer-oriented stories on a host of topics.

A recent survey of Internet Use in China conducted by the Center for Social Development of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences suggests that the government’s actions may not be sufficient to stop the flow of information. The survey revealed that 10 percent of the users ‘‘frequently’’ use proxy servers and 25 percent

of users ‘‘occasionally’’ use proxy servers to get around websites blocked by the Chinese Government. The survey concluded that the main reason non-users are not online is cost (computer, access to Internet, etc.)—not fear of government control. Both

users and non-users said they have a positive attitude toward the Internet and believe it will make the world a better place. (See CASS Internet Survey 2000, directed by Prof. Guo Liang and Prof. Bu Wei, available through

(www.worldinternetproject.org.)

42

III. ROLE FOR U.S. INDUSTRY

A key objective will be to develop a process whereby companies that will be affected by proposed new regulations will be permitted to comment on them before

they are implemented. In addition, we hope to share information about how other

governments are dealing with some of these problems, encourage Chinese participation in e-commerce fora around the world, and support government-to-government

exchanges on these issues. We anticipate that this discourse will enable both industry and government to work together to address the regulatory structure and other

key issues, such as privacy and security.

CONCLUSION

Whether one considers the Internet primarily a method of mass communication

or a product of the telecommunications network, the fact remains that the Chinese

leadership continues to see the development and promotion of the Internet as a vehicle for cultural, educational and economic development in China. This does not

mean that the government will not try to control objectionable content, just as many

other countries are doing. But it is clear that China is making more information

available to more and more people. The U.S. IT industry needs to be part of this

effort.

Thank you.

43

SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD

PREPARED STATEMENT OF BOBSON WONG, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, DIGITAL FREEDOM

NETWORK

APRIL 15, 2002

Since January 2000, when the Chinese newspaper People’s Daily published new

Internet regulations from the State Secrecy Bureau, the Chinese government has

cracked down on Internet use that it considers dangerous, arresting several individuals, shutting down sites, and passing new laws that codify existing practice. The

Digital Freedom Network (DFN), a U.S.-based organization that promotes and develops the use of Internet technology for human rights activism, has been monitoring the use of the Internet in China. Below is a list of at least 25 individuals

in China currently detained for online activity (this list is online at http://dfn.org/

focus/china/netattack.htm). DFN also has a page containing the latest news related

to Net restrictions in China at http://dfn.org/focus/china/chinanetreport.htm.

Many of the individuals listed below were detained for months or even years before facing formal charges, usually subversion. Those who get a trial are always

found guilty and receive multi-year sentences. The detainees include Falun Gong believers who forwarded material about the movement and others who e-mailed prodemocracy publications to others or published articles online that criticized government officials. Some are not even dissidents. Huang Qi was detained 2 years ago

after several overseas dissidents posted material on a missing-persons Web site he

used to run about the June 4, 1989 pro-democracy demonstrations. He remains in

custody. Wang Jinbo reportedly went on a hunger strike in January 2002 because

prison guards would not allow his family to see him.

It is imperative that the United States and other nations act quickly to do everything it can to ensure their release. But even if these 25 individuals were to be

freed, there is no guarantee that others won’t be arrested and convicted on similar

charges. China uses a combination of tough legislation and modern technology to

restrict online information. Any online activity that the government considers

threatening is banned, including using the Internet to incite the overthrow of State

power, topple the socialist system, destroy national unity, promote ‘‘cults’’ (interpreted to mean groups such as the Falun Gong spiritual movement), or support the

independence of Taiwan.

To ensure that individuals such as Huang Qi are not imprisoned in China, we

should continue to promote technological tools that enable Chinese users to express

themselves freely in a reasonable manner. Supporting efforts such as the anonymous proxy service SafeWeb will certainly help. But we must also find a way to

reach out to China’s young people. Internet users in China today are young, urban,

well-educated—a reflection of how economic reforms since the Tiananmen Square

crackdown have improved the living standards of many Chinese. But as beneficiaries of official policy, they have little reason to distrust the government and are

incredibly suspicious of the United States. In the days after the September 11 terrorist attacks, Chinese bulletin boards were flooded with messages from Chinese

users criticizing U.S. arrogance and claiming that the U.S. got what it deserved for

‘‘meddling’’ in the affairs of other nations. These users will grow up to become the

future leaders of the world’s most populous nation. Reaching out to this generation

will require more than encryption software and other technical solutions. It will require that we buildup a relationship of mutual trust with China so that its next

generation of leaders will allow its citizens to live in a more open society.

CHINESE INDIVIDUALS CURRENTLY DETAINED FOR ONLINE POLITICAL OR RELIGIOUS

ACTIVITY

COMPILED BY THE DIGITAL FREEDOM NETWORK (APRIL 2002)

HTTP://DFN.ORG/FOCUS/CHINA/NETATTACK.HTM

1. Chi Shouzhu, a veteran Chinese activist, was detained on April 18, 2001

shortly after printing online pro-democracy material from a Web site using a friend’s

computer, according to the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights

and Democracy. The center said he was carrying the material when he was detained

at a train station in the northeastern city of Changchun. Chi was released in June

after serving a 10-year prison term for taking part in 1989 pro-democracy protests.

44

Leng Wanbao, a dissident living in the northeastern province of Jilin, was interrogated for more than 2 hours by police on April 18, 2001, according to the Parisbased Reporters sans frontie`res (Reporters without Borders). Police accused him of

publishing ‘‘subversive articles’’ on the Internet. Some of Leng’s writings were allegedly found on Chi Shouzhu, who was arrested a short time before. (See also ‘‘China

Cracks Down on Cyber-Dissent,’’ Associated Press, April 19, 2001; Reporters sans

frontie`res protest letter, April 20, 2001, http://www.rsf.fr/uk/html/asie/cplp01/

lp01/190401.html)

2. Dong Yanhong, a staff member at Tsinghua University, was sentenced on December 13, 2001 to 5 years in prison for spreading information on the banned Falun

Gong spiritual movement over the Internet, according to the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy. In addition to Dong, five others

were sentenced by the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court on December 13:

Liu Wenyu, a professor of electric power at Tsinghua University; Liu’s wife Yao Yue,

a microelectronics researcher at Tsinghua University; Wang Xin, an academic at

Tsinghua University; Tsinghua electronics professor Meng Jun; and Wang Xuefei,

graduate student at a Shanghai university. (‘‘6 Convicted in China Falun Gong

Case,’’ Associated Press, December 24, 2001, ‘‘China Jails Six for Falun Gong Web

Activity—Group,’’ Reuters, December 23, 2001.)

3. Guo Qinghai, a friend of dissident Qi Yanchen and also a freelance writer,

was arrested in September 2000 for ‘‘subverting State power.’’ Guo published articles on the Internet that discussed Qi’s case and frequently put on overseas online

bulletin boards essays promoting political reforms in China. On April 24, 2001, the

Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy reported that a court in

Cangzhou, in the northern province of Hebei, tried Guo on April 3 for subversion.

According to the center, the court did not inform Guo’s family of the hearing, the

group said. On April 26, 2001, he was sentenced to 4 years in prison. (See also

‘‘China Charges, Tries Internet Dissidents: Group,’’ Reuters, April 25, 2001.)

4. Hu Dalin was detained on May 18, 2001 by police in the southeastern city of

Shaoyang after he published articles online that were written by his father, retired

Beijing strategy scholar Lu Jiaping, according to the U.S.-based Chinese dissident

e-mail publication V.I.P. Reference. No formal charges have been filed against Hu,

but police told family members that he was arrested because of ‘‘subversive’’ activities online, according to the publication. Lu remains free in Beijing. (See also ‘‘Denial and Detentions,’’ Digital Freedom Network, May 24, 2001.)

5. Huang Qi, 36, an Internet entrepreneur from Chengdu who ran a site containing information about the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, was detained on

June 3, 2000 on the eve of the massacre’s eleventh anniversary. One of the items

on Huang’s Web site (http://6–4tianwang.com), which was originally a Web site

about missing persons, was a letter from the mother of a young student killed during the demonstrations. The letter accused police of beating her son to death. On

July 14, 2000, Huang’s wife Zeng Li was officially notified that her husband was

being charged with ‘‘subversion. ‘‘ Huang’s trial began on February 13, 2001. It was

suspended after Huang Qi collapsed in court on the afternoon of the trial’s first day.

On June 25, 2001, a relative of Huang’s was notified that his trial was rescheduled

for June 27. On June 26, the Chengdu Intermediate Court announced that the trial

was again postponed indefinitely. On August 14, Huang was tried secretly. No family members were allowed to attend. (See also ‘‘Trial of Chinese Website Creator to

Reopen This Week,’’ Agence France-Presse, June 26, 2001; ‘‘CHINA: Jailed Internet

publisher tried in secret,’’ Committee to Protect Journalists, August 16, 2001.)

6. Jiang Shihua, a high school computer teacher in Nanchong, was arrested on

August 16, 2000 after publishing articles online that criticized the Chinese government. Using the pen name Shumin, which means ‘‘common citizen,’’ Jiang started

writing and posting articles on August 11, 2000 from the Silicon Valley Internet

Cafe ́, which he owns. Jiang was immediately charged with ‘‘subverting the State

power. ‘‘ According to the Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy, a

court in Nanchong sentenced Jiang to 2 years in jail in December 2000. On May

18, 2001, the Higher People’s Court in the southwestern province of Sichuan upheld

his conviction. (See also ‘‘Web dissident sentenced to 2 years imprisonment,’’ Reporters sans frontie`res Action Alert, March 14, 2001, ‘‘Chinese Court Turns Down Internet Dissident’s Appeal: Rights Center,’’ Agence France-Presse, May 23, 2001.)

7. Jin Haike, a geological engineer, was one of four intellectuals detained in Beijing on March 13, 2001 and charged with subversion on April 20, 2001. Jin, along

with Consumer Daily reporter Xu Wei, software developer Yang Zili, and freelance

writer Zhang Honghai—had co-founded the ‘‘New Youth Study Group,’’ a discussion

group that discussed Chinese political reform, particularly in rural areas. The center

said that university students participated in the study group’s events and that

members posted material on a Web site and sent e-mails to each other. A fifth intelVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:02 May 30, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00048 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 79770.TXT China1 PsN: China1
45

lectual, Zhang Yanhua, was also detained with the four but was later released. Jin,

Xu, Yang, and Zhang were tried on September 28, 2001. (See also ‘‘China Said to

Charge Four of Subversion,’’ Associated Press, May 21, 2001; ‘‘China Charges Four

with Subversion: Rights Group,’’ Reuters, May 21, 2001; ‘‘Four Chinese intellectuals

tried for subversion,’’ Digital Freedom Network, September 28, 2001.)

8. Li Hongmin was arrested around June 10, 2001 and sent to a detention center

in his hometown of Shaoyang (Hunan Province). Sources for the U.S.-based dissident publication VIP Reference and the Hong Kong-based Information Center of

Human Rights and Democracy said that he was arrested after e-mailing copies of

the Chinese version of The Tiananmen Papers to friends. The Tiananmen Papers

are a collection of documents allegedly smuggled out of China that reveal the decisions of China’s top leaders before, during, and after the bloody June 4, 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations. (See also ‘‘Chinese Held for Distributing ’Tiananmen Papers’ on the Internet, Agence France-Presse, July 2, 2001; E-mail

with Richard Long, June 27, 2001.)

9. Liu Wenyu, a professor of electric power at Tsinghua University, was sentenced on December 13, 2001 to 3 years in prison for spreading information on the

banned Falun Gong spiritual movement over the Internet, according to the Hong

Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy. In addition to

Liu, five others were sentenced by the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court on

December 13: Liu’s wife Yao Yue, a microelectronics researcher at Tsinghua University; Tsinghua staff member Dong Yanhong; Wang Xin, an academic at Tsinghua

University; Tsinghua electronics professor Meng Jun; and Wang Xuefei, graduate

student at a Shanghai university. (‘‘6 Convicted in China Falun Gong Case,’’ Associated Press, December 24, 2001, ‘‘China Jails Six for Falun Gong Web Activity— Group,’’ Reuters, December 23, 2001.)

10. Liu Weifang was sentenced in northwestern China for posting articles on

Internet chatrooms that criticized the Communist Party, the Xinjiang Daily reported

on June 15, 2001. The paper said that the small business owner was convicted of

inciting subversion against State power. Liu had posted several articles in 1999 and

2000 that criticized both the Party and China’s top leaders. Although he used the

Internet name ‘‘Lgwf,’’ Chinese officials determined that he posted the articles. (See

also ‘‘Chinese Man Sentenced to Three Years in Prison for Cyber Writings,’’ Agence

France-Presse, June 18, 2001.)

11. Lu Xinhua was detained on March 11, 2001 in Wuhan, capital of central Chi- na’s Hubei province, according to the Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy. On April 20, 2001, he was formally charged with inciting to subvert State

power. The group said that Lu was the most active dissident on the Internet in

Wuhan. He often posted on overseas Web sites essays promoting democracy in

China and reports on human rights violations in Wuhan. On January 14, 2002, the

Wuhan Municipal Intermediate People’s Court convicted him and sentenced him to

4 years in prison. Lu was convicted for an article of his in which he attacked Chinese President Jiang Zemin. The article said that only a system of ‘‘mutual supervision’’ and a more stable system of laws would reduce corruption in China, according to Agence France-Presse. (See also ‘‘China Charges, Tries Internet Dissidents:

Group,’’ Reuters, April 25, 2001; ‘‘Two More Chinese Fall Afoul of Internet Laws:

Report,’’ Agence France-Presse, April 25, 2001; ‘‘Two Chinese political dissidents

jailed for airing views on Internet,’’ Agence France-Presse, January 14, 2002.)

12. Meng Jun, an electronics professor at Tsinghua University, was sentenced on

December 13, 2001 to 10 years in prison for spreading information on the banned

Falun Gong spiritual movement over the Internet, according to the Hong Kongbased Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy. In addition to Meng,

five others were sentenced by the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court on December 13: Yao Yue, a microelectronics researcher at Tsinghua University; Yao’s

husband Liu Wenyu, a professor of electric power at Tsinghua University; Wang

Xin, an academic at Tsinghua University; Tsinghua staff member Dong Yanhong;

and Wang Xin, graduate student at a Shanghai university. (‘‘6 Convicted in China

Falun Gong Case,’’ Associated Press, December 24, 2001, ‘‘China Jails Six for Falun

Gong Web Activity—Group,’’ Reuters, December 23, 2001.)

13. Qi Yanchen, sentenced to 4 years in prison on September 19, 2000, is the

first Chinese convicted of subversion for material he wrote that was published on

the Internet. The charges stem from articles that Qi wrote for the November 1998

and January 1999 issues of Open magazine in Hong Kong and published under the

pen name Ji Li. Qi was also officially charged for writing articles in the May 6, 1999

and May 17, 1999 articles of the U.S.-based Chinese dissident e-mail publication

Dacankao (V.I.P. Reference). Qi was arrested on September 2, 1999 in the northeastern Chinese city of Botou. According to V.I.P. Reference, who spoke to Qi’s wife

Mi Hongwu, Qi Yanchen’s right to appeal his conviction expired on September 29,

46

2000. Although Mi wanted to appeal the conviction, Qi’s lawyer decided not to help

him due to pressure from the National Security Bureau at Cangzhou.

14. Wang Jinbo, 29, was arrested on May 12, 2001 for ‘‘defaming’’ police on the

Internet, according to the Information Center on Human Rights and Democracy. He

was arrested in Junan town in eastern China’s Shandong province. When Wang’s father asked for more information about the charges against his son, police threatened to arrest him as well. On December 13, 2001, the Intermediate People’s Court

in Linyi, Shandong, found Wang guilty of subversion for publishing foreign news articles on the Internet and posting an online message that urged the government to

re-evaluate the 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrations at Tiananmen

Square. He began a hunger strike on January 9, 2002 because prison guards did

not allow his family to see him. (See also ‘‘Chinese dissident arrested for defaming

police online,’’ Agence France-Presse, May 12, 2001, ‘‘Outlawed party member

jailed,’’ Reuters, December 14, 2001, ‘‘Rights activist sentenced to 4 years in jail,’’ Deutsche Presse-Agentur, December 14, 2001; ‘‘CHINA: China jails dissident for

subversion—HK group,’’ Reuters, January 14, 2002.)

15. Wang Sen, a member of the banned China Democracy Party, was arrested

on April 30, 2001 for seeking to usurp power according to the Information Center

on Human Rights and Democracy. Wang had posted an allegation that the southwestern Chinese city of Dachuan’s medical center had sold tuberculosis medicine,

which was donated by the Red Cross, at inflated prices. He was arrested in

Dachuan, located in Sichuan province. (See also ‘‘Chinese dissident arrested for defaming police online,’’ Agence France-Presse, May 12, 2001.)

16. Wang Xin, an academic at Tsinghua University, was sentenced on December

13, 2001 to 9 years in prison for spreading information on the banned Falun Gong

spiritual movement over the Internet, according to the Hong Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy. In addition to Wang, five others were

sentenced by the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court on December 13: Yao

Yue, a microelectronics researcher at Tsinghua University; Yao’s husband Liu

Wenyu, a professor of electric power at Tsinghua University; Tsinghua staff member

Dong Yanhong; Tsinghua electronics professor Meng Jun; and Wang Xuefei, graduate student at a Shanghai university. (‘‘6 Convicted in China Falun Gong Case,’’ Associated Press, December 24, 2001, ‘‘China Jails Six for Falun Gong Web Activity—Group,’’ Reuters, December 23, 2001.)

17. Wang Xuefei, graduate student at a Shanghai university, was sentenced on

December 13, 2001 to 11 years in prison for spreading information on the banned

Falun Gong spiritual movement over the Internet, according to the Hong Kongbased Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy. In addition to Wang,

five others were sentenced by the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court on December 13: Yao Yue, a microelectronics researcher at Tsinghua University; Yao’s husband Liu Wenyu, a professor of electric power at Tsinghua University; Wang

Xin, an academic at Tsinghua University; Tsinghua staff member Dong Yanhong;

and Tsinghua electronics professor Meng Jun. (‘‘6 Convicted in China Falun Gong

Case,’’ Associated Press, December 24, 2001, ‘‘China Jails Six for Falun Gong Web

Activity—Group,’’ Reuters, December 23, 2001.)

18. Wang Zhenyong, a 30-year-old former assistant professor in psychology at

Southwestern Normal University, was arrested in China for e-mailing four articles

about the Falun Gong spiritual group to a colleague, according to the Chongqing

Daily seen by Agence France-Presse on June 2, 2001. He downloaded the articles

from an overseas Web site in December 2000 and forwarded the articles to a colleague, who then distributed the articles over the Internet. (See also ‘‘Academic Arrested in China for Spreading Falun Gong Views Via Internet,’’ Agence FrancePresse, June 2, 2001.)

19. Xu Wei, reporter for Consumer Daily, was one of four intellectuals detained

in Beijing on March 13, 2001 and later accused of unspecified charges. Jin had cofounded the ‘‘New Youth Study Group,’’ a discussion group that discussed Chinese

political reform, particularly in rural areas. Members posted material on a Web site

and sent e-mails to each other. Xu was tried on September 28, 2001. (See also

‘‘China Said to Charge Four of Subversion,’’ Associated Press, May 21, 2001; ‘‘China

Charges Four with Subversion: Rights Group,’’ Reuters, May 21, 2001; ‘‘Four Chinese intellectuals tried for subversion,’’ Digital Freedom Network, September 28,

2001.)

20. Yang Zili, a software developer known for his outspoken criticism of communism and a grass-roots activist at Beijing University, and his wife Lu Kun were

detained by security agents on March 13, 2001. Lu was released 2 days later, but

Yang remains in custody. Yang had co-founded the ‘‘New Youth Study Group,’’ a discussion group that discussed Chinese political reform, particularly in rural areas.

Members posted material on a Web site and sent e-mails to each other. Yang ran

47

the Web sites http://thought.home.sohu.com, http://yangzi.00books.com, and ‘‘Yang

Zi’s Garden of Ideas’’ (http://lib.126.com). Yang received a master’s degree in geophysics in 1998 at Beijing University. Yang was tried on September 28, 2001. (See

also ‘‘Dissident Web Writer Arrested in Beijing,’’ Free China Movement press release, March 24, 2001; ‘‘Some Supplementary Information About Yang Zili,’’ Lu Kun; ‘‘China Said to Charge Four of Subversion,’’ Associated Press, May 21, 2001; ‘‘China

Charges Four with Subversion: Rights Group,’’ Reuters, May 21, 2001; ‘‘Four Chinese intellectuals tried for subversion,’’ Digital Freedom Network, September 28,

2001.)

21. Yao Yue, a microelectronics researcher at Tsinghua University, was sentenced on December 13, 2001 to 12 years in prison for spreading information on the

banned Falun Gong spiritual movement over the Internet, according to the Hong

Kong-based Information Center for Human Rights and Democracy. In addition to

Yao, five others were sentenced by the Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court

on December 13: Yao’s husband Liu Wenyu, a professor of electric power at

Tsinghua University; Tsinghua staff member Dong Yanhong; Tsinghua electronics

professor Meng Jun; Tsinghua academic Wang Xin; and Wang Xuefei, graduate student at a Shanghai university. (‘‘6 Convicted in China Falun Gong Case,’’ Associated

Press, December 24, 2001, ‘‘China Jails Six for Falun Gong Web Activity—Group,’’ Reuters, December 23, 2001.)

22. Zhang Haitao, 30, creator of the only China-based Web site on the outlawed

Falun Gong, was charged with subversion on October 11, 2000 in Changchun, Jilin

Province. Zhang, a computer engineer in the Xu Ri Computer Company, is accused

of establishing a site promoting Falun Gong in May and of posting an online petition urging followers to protest the government ban on the group. Authorities shut

down his site on July 24, 2000; Zhang was detained on July 29. (‘‘News Update,’’ China Rights Forum (Winter 2000/1), http://www.hrichina.org/crf/english/

00winter/00W16—NewsUpdate.html)

23. Zhang Honghai, a freelance writer, was one of four intellectuals detained in

Beijing on March 13, 2001 and later accused of unspecified charges. Zhang had cofounded the ‘‘New Youth Study Group,’’ a discussion group that discussed Chinese

political reform, particularly in rural areas. Members posted material on a Web site

and sent e-mails to each other. Zhang was tried on September 28, 2001. (See also

‘‘China Said to Charge Four of Subversion,’’ Associated Press, May 21, 2001; ‘‘China

Charges Four with Subversion: Rights Group,’’ Reuters, May 21, 2001; ‘‘Four Chinese intellectuals tried for subversion,’’ Digital Freedom Network, September 28,

2001.)

24. Zhang Ji, a college student in Heilongjiang Province, was charged on November 8, 2000 with ‘‘disseminating reactionary documents via the Internet. ‘‘ Authorities say Zhang had e-mailed information to U.S.- and Canada-based Web sites of

the Falun Gong religious group. They say he also downloaded news about the group

and shared it with others in China. (‘‘News Update,’’ China Rights Forum (Winter

2000/1), http://www.hrichina.org/crf/english/00winter/00W16—NewsUpdate.html)

25. Zhu Ruixiang, a lawyer and former producer of the Shaoyang Radio Station,

was charged with subversion and sentenced to 3 years in prison on September 14,

2001 after he forwarded e-mail messages to 12 people inside China. The messages,

deemed ‘‘reactionary’’ by a court in Shaoyang in the southern province of Hunan,

contained copies of V.I.P. Reference (Dacankao), a daily e-mail publication based in

the U.S. consisting of articles and essays related to democracy in China. Zhu was

arrested on May 8, 2001, and Public Security Bureau officials confiscated his computer, according to the U.S.-based Free China Movement. (See also ‘‘China hands

3-year jail term for relaying e-mail,’’ Agence France-Presse, September 15, 2001;

‘‘Official verdict of judgment of Zhu Ruixiang,’’ Digital Freedom Network, September

25, 2001.)

PREPARED STATEMENT OF DAVID COWHIG, FORMERLY WITH THE U.S. EMBASSY IN

BEIJING

APRIL 15, 2002

WIRED CHINA: MANY HANDS ON MANY SWITCHES

I would like to share with you some thoughts about China and the Internet based

on my 5 years covering the Internet for the Environment, Science and Technology

Section of the U.S. Embassy in Beijing. These are my own observations and musings

about how Internet fits into the Chinese social and political system. My views expressed here do not reflect the views of the U.S. Government and are not a policy

prescription of any kind.

48

When asking the question ‘‘Whose Hand is on the Switch?’’ about the Internet in

China we need to bear in mind that there are many hands and many switches. Chinese provincial and local governments and indeed various parts of the central government have far greater coordination problems than we experience among the Federal, State and local governments in the United States. China might be thought of

as a decentralized de facto Federal State that lacks Federal institutions that facilitate central control and coordination such as the Federal court system and regional

offices of central government ministries. China is best understood not so much as

a Big Brother State but as a loose collection of thousands of provincial and local

Party and government little brothers. Many of the provincial little brothers have

only nominal allegiance to Big Brother in Beijing. Local officials want to control

media not just for Beijing’s purposes but also to prevent Beijing to know about their

own shortcomings. Many orders and regulations from the central government are

ignored from the outset or forgotten after only a few months.

One corollary of the China’s shortcomings in the rule of law area is that local governments are not conscientious in obeying orders from Beijing. The result has been

that the central government implements policies by national campaigns that are intense for a short time but then swiftly fade away. New regulations are issued not

as amendments to old ones but as de novo regulations—apparently a tacit admission

that the old ones have faded from memory. Government by political campaign as

a Chinese government style is gradually fading as more laws are written down, as

China’s leaders keep insisting that ‘‘officials really should be carrying out their duties according to the law’’ and as the public learns more about the text of laws and

about legal procedures. Improved public knowledge of the law is in some small part

one of the benefits of the Internet for China. Although the movement away from

government by campaign can be seen in that campaigns are much less disruptive

than they were in the past, being aware of the ‘‘government by campaign’’ phenomenon can help us better understand China and the Internet.

What does this mean for the Internet? New tough rules are issued each year but

are not systematically enforced. Where enforced, enforcement fades after a few

months. Last Spring visiting two dozen ‘‘net cafes’’ in Hunan, I was never asked to

produce any ID before using the computer nor was anyone else. Often regulations

requiring identification of users were posted prominently on the wall. Although web

bar management is supposed to check that clients are not surfing subversive

websites, in practice no one pays attention to which sites net cafe ́ clients are visiting. One could say that the rules were observed only in the sense that one could

observe them posted prominently on the wall. Most of the clientele were in their

twenties who paid about 3 RMB per hour (25 US cents) to use a computer for online

chat, games watching movies (pirate copies of movies were on the cafe ́ LAN) and

browsing websites. The Changsha, Hunan police estimated in Spring 2001 that

there were 1000 web cafes in the city. Web cafes in China have a very fuzzy definition that can include not only web cafes but also computer gaming parlors frequented by truant high school students and underground locales that show pornographic films on their computer local area networks. The Changsha police in their

spring 2001 crackdown told local newspapers that they were focusing on the pornographic web bars.

Chinese internet sites are supposed to conform to the same general guidelines as

the media. See the October 2000 State Council Internet Information Management

Regulations.

• Threatening national security, leaking State secrets, overthrowing the government, and harming national unity;

• Harming the reputation or interests of the state;

• Fanning ethnic hatred, discrimination on the basis of nationality, and harming

the unity of China’s nationalities;

• Harming the State religious policy, propagandizing for evil religions or feudal

superstition;

• Spreading false rumors, pornography, gambling, violence, murder, intimidation;

• Insulting or slandering someone, infringing on the legal rights of others;

• Other actions that are contrary to law or administrative regulations.

These regulations, like most Chinese regulations, are so broad that they can be

interpreted many different ways. Websites are expected not to originate news—

which web managers in turn interpret as meaning don’t originate news that is politically sensitive. Many Chinese websites carry news gathered from the 100-plus

Chinese newspapers that are online. Thus the news on the web, especially breaking

news, is not much better than found in the print press. Some websites, such as

Sina.com (http://www.sina.com.cn) allow readers to leave their own comments

about a news story. Sometimes these comments are much more interesting than the

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news stories themselves. If a newspaper somewhere in China does print a relatively

daring story, the story will often be picked up by websites throughout the country.

Bad news about corrupt local government in a province often appears in a local

paper in another province since the authorities in the other province just don’t care

so much about suppressing bad news from other provinces. This information can

then leak into the first province over the net. Indeed, local officials suppress information not just to prevent their own people from knowing about a problem but also

to prevent higher authorities at the provincial or national level to know that the

glowing reports they send upwards are not entirely correct.

One dramatic illustration of the power of the Internet in China came after local

officials in Jiangxi Province tried to suppress news of an explosion in an elementary

school fireworks factory that killed several dozen schoolchildren. Efforts by local officials to falsely claim that a mad bomber and not illegal fireworks assembly was involved was frustrated by a combination of Chinese journalists and the flow of information around China on the Internet.

Often local officials succeed in keeping information from reaching Beijing. At

other times Beijing knows but pretends not to know for to reveal that it knows but

can do nothing would amount to a confession of impotence. One example of how

news of a local disaster spreads on the Internet despite efforts by the local government to suppress is the report ‘‘Revealing the ‘Blood Wound’ of the Spread of HIV/

AIDS in Henan Province’’ spread around China on websites and e-mail about the

HIV/AIDS disaster in Henan Province. A translation of the report is available at

http://www.usembassy-china.org.cn/sandt/henan-hiv.htm

Sometimes after a big event in China or abroad, more information and commentary does leak into China over the Internet from dissident e-mail publications

such as VIP Reference (http://www.bignews.org/) as well as the Huaxia Digest

(from http://www.cnd.org), the VOA’s Chinese language e-mail news service. The

sending e-mail servers of the first two e-mail publications are blocked and so the

originating server often changed. VOA Chinese e-mail news is blocked and

unblocked depending mostly upon the ups and downs of U.S.—China relations but

also upon whether a politically sensitive domestic news event has occurred.

News from some foreign Chinese newspapers, including, interestingly enough,

some critical reports from the Singapore Morning News (Zaobao) regularly figure

prominently on Chinese news websites. The value added one sees on the web site

includes reports from provincial newspapers in faraway Chinese cities that one ordinarily wouldn’t see (out of town newspapers are not so easy to get hold of unless

you subscribe) and the ability to do searches and compare reports over time and

from many different sources. Just as with newspapers and magazines, for websites

commercial pressures tend to increase the diversity and freedom of information

since more attractive media is also of course more viable in a highly competitive environment.

A great variety of Chinese language books and periodicals are available online.

The cost of getting online continues to fall, especially in Internet cafes where the

use of a local area network brings connections costs down even lower than they are

at home. Online bookstores have appeared in China, although severe problems in

the areas of credit (few Chinese have credit cards); distribution and resolution of

consumer complaints still severely constrain the development of online services in

China. Many books, including some banned publications, are also available at minimal cost on CD–ROM as well as online. Although web content regulations apply to

online forums as much as anything else on the net, the sheer volume of messages

and it seems oftentimes the reluctance of monitors to cut short interesting conversations.

Although the 15 million users of the Chinese Internet are very few compared to

China’s 1.3 billion population, the Internet is increasingly arriving in every small

town. Together with the rapid expansion of the inter-provincial highway network,

the accelerated pace of countryside to city labor migration, the Internet is part of

some of the most significant phenomena of the last decade—the shrinking of the distance between urban and rural China and urban China’s penetration of rural life.

The Chinese Government’s ‘‘Government Online’’ project (http://www.gov.cn) has

put thousands of Chinese government offices online. Many Chinese laws and regulations are now available online for citizens to consult and act on—already an important progress from the days just a few years ago when ‘‘confidential regulations’’

made it very difficult for citizens to dispute officials on points of law.

Chinese language translations of free market philosophers such as Frederich

Hayek are available online on many web sites such as Issues and Ideology (http:/

/www.wtyzy.com). Just as discussions in deep or lengthy Chinese academic books

can be surprisingly open (perhaps the censors give up after the first 20 pages?), so

too are direct contradictions of China’s official political and economic ideology comVerDate 11-MAY-2000 11:02 May 30, 2002 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00053 Fmt 6601 Sfmt 6621 79770.TXT China1 PsN: China1
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mon on the more academic websites. Some of these articles criticize by analogy. An

example is an article reprinted from the January 2002 issue of ‘‘Yellow River’’, Li

Xianzhi’s meditation on the last 10 years of Lu Xun’s life considers Lu’s critique of

one party dictatorship. This article is on the Issues and Ideology website at http:/

/www.wtyzy.net/linxianzhilxunzhou.htm. The analysis fits the Communist people’s

democratic dictatorship perfectly but Lu Xun was talking about Chiang Kai-shek’s

Nationalist Party. Of course. For example, These websites regularly come under

pressure,some have closed, but many very interesting ones are still out there.

Forum monitors are required to delete ‘‘subversive’’ messages on China’s many open

discussion fora, including the sometimes very lively ‘‘Strong Country Forum’’ (http:/

/bbs.people.com.cn/ ) run by the tongue of the Communist Party of China—the People’s Daily.

The State of the web in China reflects the uncertain State of China itself. Most

Chinese, including most Communist Party members, want a more democratic and

more open society. China’s communist leaders fear that the development and modernization brings will help bring will shake their hold on power and lead to social

instability. A Chinese provincial vice Governor said a few years ago, ‘‘We are the

guardians of a dead religion but must hold on for the sake of social stability.’’ China’s Internet itself, much more an emblem of modernity and progress than in the

United States, will likely trace a wavering path alternating between greater opening

as China moves toward greater modernization and progress and tightening at times

when the Chinese leadership fears that new ideas and news that might tend to

weaken the Party’s control.

U.S. Embassy Beijing reports on the Internet in China are available at http://

www.usembassy-china.org.cn/sandt/sandtbakhp.html#Internet%20and%20Computers

Several translations and summaries of press clippings from Chinese news reports

about the Internet are available at http://www.usembassy-china.org.cn/sandt/

sandsrc.htm

A list of some of China’s more interesting online bookstores and discussion

websites can be found at ‘‘Beijing Bookworm’’ at http://www.usembassychina.org.cn/english/sandt/bjbkwrm.html

David Cowhig returned to the United States in July 2001 after 9 years in Okinawa, Taipei and Beijing. dcowhig@bigfoot.com

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