<
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/06/china-russia-republican-party-relations/678271/>
"On June 4, 1989, the Polish Communist Party held partially free elections,
setting in motion a series of events that ultimately removed the Communists
from power. Not long afterward, street protests calling for free speech, due
process, accountability, and democracy brought about the end of the Communist
regimes in East Germany, Czechoslovakia, and Romania. Within a few years, the
Soviet Union itself would no longer exist.
Also on June 4, 1989, the Chinese Communist Party ordered the military to
remove thousands of students from Tiananmen Square. The students were calling
for free speech, due process, accountability, and democracy. Soldiers arrested
and killed demonstrators in Beijing and around the country. Later, they
systematically tracked down the leaders of the protest movement and forced them
to confess and recant. Some spent years in jail. Others managed to elude their
pursuers and flee the country forever.
In the aftermath of these events, the Chinese concluded that the physical
elimination of dissenters was insufficient. To prevent the democratic wave then
sweeping across Central Europe from reaching East Asia, the Chinese Communist
Party eventually set out to eliminate not just the people but the ideas that
had motivated the protests. In the years to come, this would require policing
what the Chinese people could see online.
Nobody believed that this would work. In 2000, President Bill Clinton told an
audience at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies that it
was impossible. “In the knowledge economy,” he said, “economic innovation and
political empowerment, whether anyone likes it or not, will inevitably go hand
in hand.” The transcript records the audience reactions:
“Now, there’s no question China has been trying to crack down on the
internet.” (Chuckles.) “Good luck!” (Laughter.) “That’s sort of like
trying to nail Jell-O to the wall.” (Laughter.)
While we were still rhapsodizing about the many ways in which the internet
could spread democracy, the Chinese were designing what’s become known as the
Great Firewall of China. That method of internet management—which is in effect
conversation management—contains many different elements, beginning with an
elaborate system of blocks and filters that prevent internet users from seeing
particular words and phrases. Among them, famously, are
Tiananmen,
1989,
and
June 4, but there are many more. In 2000, a directive called “Measures
for Managing Internet Information Services” prohibited an extraordinarily wide
range of content, including anything that “endangers national security,
divulges state secrets, subverts the government, undermines national
unification,” and “is detrimental to the honor and interests of the
state”—anything, in other words, that the authorities didn’t like.
The Chinese regime also combined online tracking methods with other tools of
repression, including security cameras, police inspections, and arrests. In
Xinjiang province, where China’s Uyghur Muslim population is concentrated, the
state has forced people to install “nanny apps” that can scan phones for
forbidden phrases and pick up unusual behavior: Anyone who downloads a virtual
private network, anyone who stays offline altogether, and anyone whose home
uses too much electricity (which could be evidence of a secret houseguest) can
arouse suspicion. Voice-recognition technology and even DNA swabs are used to
monitor where Uyghurs walk, drive, and shop. With every new breakthrough, with
every AI advance, China has gotten closer to its holy grail: a system that can
eliminate not just the words
democracy and
Tiananmen from the internet, but
the thinking that leads people to become democracy activists or attend public
protests in real life."
Via Shannon McElyea and Dewayne Hendricks on Dave Farber’s
Interesting People
list.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
