國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
Chapter 4 Analysis of Effects on Democratization
How China views the effect of the internet development on its democratization, according to the layout of China’s internet development, can be discerned from measures on regulatory restriction and promotion of cultural domain. Nevertheless, in view of democratic perspective, present network democracy is still of a form of imperfect democracy. The so-called perfect democracy is the people can express their general ideas to influence the political direction and more importantly, people can get experience in democratic politics to question the ideas and opinions from the politicians or the social elites.29
The effect of internet democracy has not sufficiently been manifested. However, accompanied by the evolution of “network politics” and the overall promotion of electronic government, “internet democracy” will move on in a direction of solidification. The nature and scope of its effect will vary in various degrees. It is bound to play a substantial impact on the development of democratic politics in China.
This chapter focuses on impact of internet development on the China regime, induced issues due to the impact, and analysis of the possible impact of internet on democratization of China.
Section 1 Impact and Issue of Internet on China Regime
According to Liu Hua Yin (2005), internet was an emerging media; thus it could not be viewed by classification of traditional political theory but should be discussed in view of the information theory under the trend of globalization, illustrated by
29 Carey, J.W. (1995) “Abolishing the Old Spirit World”, Critical Studies in Mass Communication 12(1), p82-88
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
possible aspects that it brought to the world population, and then, after its development, understood for the influence on the Chinese communist regime. From the status quo of how people in China use the internet, the study analyzes issues such as influence on democratization of China and control to observe impact on the China’s regime and the change of issues.
I. Impact on China's Ruling Regime
A. Transition of National Sovereignty and Identity
In transition of national sovereignty, as globalization deepens, the Westphalia concept of sovereignty has gradually been declining30. However, at the moment of change, China still insists on protection of national sovereignty and is cautious for any part of transition in sovereignty, fearing that the weakening of sovereignty affects the legitimacy of the China’s regime. As now the Westphalia view of sovereignty declines, people pays attention to interdependent sovereignty, a sort of soft sovereignty complying with the trend of globalization and information digitalization.
That a nation can build the relation of interdependent sovereignty with other nations stands for its capability of dealing with the problems of transnational affairs.
Therefore, China, when facing the situation of the freedom of information flow on internet, should hold the view of interdependence. Western or global information entering China is not necessarily attempted for peaceful evolution. A more important task to be considered rather than anti-peaceful evolution of China is how to combine global culture with traditional Chinese culture so that China can exhibit newer and more widely accepted culture.
30 Jan Arts Scholte, “The Globalization of World Politics,” in Steve Smith and John Baylis, ed., The
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
When China has tried to operate by the ideology of patriotism and nationalism to consolidate people’s national identity, the irresistible trend of globalization has created a phenomenon in which global integration and differentiation are intertwined.
It is like one guzzles a bottle of coca cola while declaring the importance of carrying forward the traditional culture. In other words, with the influence of dual consciousness, China must face the transition of society that is more complex and diverse.
B. Transition of Social Consciousness and Social Relationship
It is aware that China has been using media as the mouthpiece of the party. The news are underscored as intrinsic to the principle of party spirit and are used for propaganda with united voice to create the view of unification and to form common understanding. However, such operation is difficult to effectively realize under worldwide popularity of internet.
In the transition of social consciousness, the tool that China always uses to control the society by ideology has failed because the approach that China formulates its ideology by media has lost complete effectiveness. In other words, the internet makes it loose for a nation to control society. Moreover, with virtual communities generated in the internet space, a nation is no longer the only identity to which people are devoted. Henceforth, the power of civil society has the opportunity to rise that helps increase the autonomy of society in Mainland China relatively and change the state of social model.
Take a case of example to show public power from internet groups. For example, the case of “BMW car accident in Harbin” in Heilongjiang province of China on October 16th 2003, the final result was caused great controversy between the public.
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
This news was also caused a great sensation after widely spread between the internet forums. The medias from Beijing and Guangzhou came to Harbin to conduct surveys and interviews, then the inside story and judicial corruption relevant to this case was large amount published.31
The requests to investigate the “BMW incident in Harbin” from the internet forums had formed a powerful momentum. A car accident happened in Harbin of Heilongjiang province, after two months, it had rapidly become a social hotspot which was widely concerned by public and China’s government. This case was about people expressed unsatisfied with government through the power of gathering internet groups so as to make China’s government attention to this case.
Figure 8: Harbin “BMW accident” on Bjnews.
Source: http://news.bjnews.com.cn/news/2011/1109/137997.shtml
In the transition of China’s regime and social relationship, social consciousness has changed due to the trend of globalization and information technology, so has the
31 People Daily: Harbin judiciary re-investigation “BMW accident”, By Li Hai-Yuan, Published
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
concept of national sovereignty has changed, and further subtly influenced the relationship between the nation and the society. China’s regime authorities begin to notice people’s speak from internet or media, as the “BMW incident in Harbin”
mentioned above. Although China has spent considerable human and material resources in internet control and has substantially attained the effect of threats, warnings, and restrictions, it is questionable whether the control will still be effective as internet development continues. Bound to the internet development, the transition of society will be deepened. Therefore, we can speculate that internet has virtually weakened the ruling authority of China and the society has generated a landscape of relative autonomy and diversity.
II. China’s Internet Development and Issues Arising from It
For free information flow as of today with global popularity of internet, it was more difficult to strengthen the force of ruling on China’s internet. Based on relevant research data that are transmitted borderless via internet, this study further analyzes issues that may arise due to the influence of internet development and the democratization of China.
A. Rapid Increase in the Desire for Network Democracy
According to the data of CNNIC on 19 July 2011, 65.5% of internet users in China frequently expressed their views online. Internet has become an important channel of web users in China for social participation. Blog have been one of the ways internet users express their views. As many as 317 millions of internet users in China own personal blogs or web spaces. The number of registered accounts increases 23 millions in half of a year. Internet users present comments through forums and news thread (to respond by posting articles). It is obviously full of contradictions and
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
risks that the type of network democracy, in which people shoot their opinions as if they utter randomly and noisily in one place, appears in a country that uses internet as national apparatus and stresses unity of caliber in uttering any word.
B. Contradiction between Information Flow and Control
The free flow of network information will always be contrary to China's information control and become a Gordian knot. On the contrary, the trust of online information by internet users increases. A survey showed that 84.3% of internet users replied that network is the most important channel for information; 48% of them trusted network more than television32. Nonetheless, internet actually contains a huge amount of false messages due to the property of anonymity and freedom of mobility.
Not only does the existence of security risks at the technical level, such as phishing, viruses, Trojans, and so on become a hurdle to the development of e-commerce, online payment, and other applications, but the long-term performance of China’s information control makes it even hard for network flow to enter the phase of credibility.