[governance] RE: China Global Times editorial on Google issue

Sun Jan 24 11:29:35 EST 2010

Ian, 
I don't think Chinese state propaganda rationalizing its censorship is "worth reading," and it is "interesting" only in the sense that a forensic analysis of a crime can be "interesting." Know thy enemy, sure.  But that wasn't your perspective. By placing western media and its advocacy of open markets and opposition to censorship in the same category as a one-party political monopoly's use of harsh repression, including jailings and murder, to retain its power and suppress social diversity, I think you commit an intellectual and political error of the highest order. Either that or you are completely naive, as people who live in sheltered countries with guaranteed democratic rights often tend to be. Sure, large corporations can become dominant and commit abuses. In the grand scheme of things market dominance of a Google pales in comparison to the type of systematic repression of a one party state. Don't let yourself be diverted from that by siren songs about how these dictators are saving us all from the depredations of capitalism. Oldest trick in the authoritarian book.  
The tiresome, 80s-vintage leftist argument that the entire western world was brainwashed by private commercial media during the UNESCO-NWICO debates leaves me shaking my head. Here the similarities between WSIS and NWICO come to the fore. Of course private media has an economic interest in free expression and free trade in info services. But that economic interest also can and often does correspond with a general public interest in competition, freedom and diversity in information services markets. The journalists of that time (the late 70s early 80s) were emphatically devoted to traditional liberal principles of free expression, and what they heard coming from the third world governments at that time was perceived, correctly, as a threat to those values. 
I have read everything there is to read about NWICO including the MacBride Report. The report itself was a diplomatically worded statement carefully designed to try and find a consensus point on an acrimonious issue. If you don't think NWICO was about sovereignty vs. globalization of information flows perhaps you should do some more reading, including publications written by MacBride report advocates themselves and the UNESCO intellectuals involved. You might check into Hamelink (1979) who defined a new international information order as: “an international exchange of information in which states, which develop their cultural systems in an
autonomous way and with complete sovereign control of resources, fully and effectively participate as independent members of the international community.” In this formulation the relevant unit of analysis, and holder of communication rights, are states. you might look Schiller's work aptly titled sovereignty and international communication, or the deliberations and pronouncements of the states at the time.
As I explain in this paper, http://dcc.syr.edu/ford/mim/CRIS-case-9-12-05.pdf which links the NWICO history to WSIS, the basic fallacy here is the conflation of individual rights with collective rights (typically those usurped or claimed by states). This confusion allows states to repress expression and squash diversity in the name of a larger "community" which is inevitably equated with a centralized state and not allowed to speak for itself or reach its own conclusions. 

________________________________________
From: Ian Peter [ian.peter at ianpeter.com]
Sent: Friday, January 22, 2010 5:59 PM
To: governance at lists.cpsr.org; Milton L Mueller
Subject: Re: [governance] RE: China Global Times editorial on Google issue

Hi Milton,

I only said it was interesting and worth reading.

But you have raised the ghost of the new world information order (circa
1983) so let me say that, to my reading and involvement, NWICO was about
imbalanced commercial domination of radio and television across the world,
not about dictators concepts of sovereignty. Re-read Macbride Report itself
(Many Voices One World), not the US commercial media coverage and
interpretations of the time, and I think you will find that it is just
possible, then and now, for dominant commercial media to influence peoples
thinking and distort the truth. (Or state dominated media for that matter).

Very surprised you were taken by the old trick of believing NWICO was about
dictatorships and sovereignty. But then, you do live in a country whose mass
information flows at the time, driven by commercial radio and tv licencees,
were more concerned with protection of their own interests than in
propagation of either truth or balanced debate.

Which of course is why the free flow of information on the Internet is
important. That offers the promise of breaking down media ownership
distortions, particularly with a younger generation who don't watch tv or
listen to radio. So I think we agree that free flow of information on the
internet is vitally important - where we might have different emphases is
when we start to examine whether dominant commercial interests (or
governmental for that matter) start to distort this flow and what governance
and policy mechanisms might be suitable on a global level to make sure the
Internet stays open.

Here, I am not happy with unilateral government actions such as those of
China. But nor am I happy with the concept of an unregulated commercial
media anarchy with no checks and balances.

Ian Peter

> From: Milton L Mueller <mueller at syr.edu>
> Reply-To: <governance at lists.cpsr.org>, Milton L Mueller <mueller at syr.edu>
> Date: Fri, 22 Jan 2010 17:01:17 -0500
> To: "'governance at lists.cpsr.org'" <governance at lists.cpsr.org>, Ian Peter
> <ian.peter at ianpeter.com>
> Subject: [governance] RE: China Global Times editionial on Google issue
>
>
> Ian,
> Very surprised you were taken in by this old trick. Unbelievable.
> This is a reproduction of the old "New world information order" debates in
> which dictators sought refuge in concepts of "sovereignty" over communication
> and "unbalanced flows" of information in order to shield themselves and their
> regimes from criticism and to control dialogue about themselves.
>
> OK, when these were small African nations (which nevertheless often had really
> bad dictators, like Mobutu or Amin) maybe this idea of unbalanced information
> generation capabilities was a little bit plausible. But when we are talking
> about China, where the language differs and the size of the market is now
> larger than any country in the world except the US, this kind of complaint is
> just the most obvious state-sponsored rationalizations for censorship and a
> pathetic attempt to use nationalism and the fear of a foreign enemy to paper
> over repression.
>
> The idea that China (or virtually any other country that engages in systematic
> censorship) is doing it to prortect themselves from domineering foreigners is
> ridiculous. It is immediately refuted by the fact that the most important
> forms of censorship and surveillance are directed at internal sources of
> dissent. I guess you haven't been in China for a while, but the fifty-cent
> army is not concerned with the pronouncements of Hilary Clinton in English -
> they monitor and respond to Chinese people speaking to themselves. The Falun
> Gong is likewise not exactly a foreign force in China, nor are the Tibetans.
>
> The claim that 81% of Chinese are supporting the Chinese government against
> Google is another one of these manufactured polls produiced by whom? The
> Chinese Ministry of Culture and Propaganda.
>
> Milton Mueller
> Professor, Syracuse University School of Information Studies
> XS4All Professor, Delft University of Technology
> ------------------------------
> Internet Governance Project:
> http://internetgovernance.org
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Ian Peter [mailto:ian.peter at ianpeter.com]
>> Sent: Friday, January 22, 2010 4:16 PM
>> To: governance at lists.cpsr.org
>> Subject: [governance] China Global Times editionial on Google issue
>>
>> This is interesting and worth reading. Similar to arguments
>> about free trade
>> and protectionism.
>>
>> The real stake in "free flow of information"
>>
>> Source: Global Times [04:55 January 22 2010]Comments
>> With her seemingly impassioned speech Thursday, US Secretary of State
>> Hillary Clinton may be said to have raised the stakes in
>> Washington's clash
>> with Beijing over Internet freedom.
>>
>> "We stand for a single Internet where all of humanity has
>> equal access to
>> knowledge and ideas." Clinton's words may sound perfectly
>> right to some in
>> the West, but would be regarded as a new threat by people in
>> other parts of
>> the world.
>>
>> The US campaign for uncensored and free flow of information on an
>> unrestricted Internet is a disguised attempt to impose its
>> values on other
>> cultures in the name of democracy.
>>
>> The hard fact that Clinton has failed to highlight in her
>> speech is that
>> bulk of the information flowing from the US and other Western
>> countries is
>> loaded with aggressive rhetoric against those countries that
>> do not follow
>> their lead.
>>
>> In contrast, in the global information order, countries that are
>> disadvantaged could not produce the massive flow of
>> information required,
>> and could never rival the Western countries in terms of
>> information control
>> and dissemination.
>>
>> Keeping that in mind, it must be realized that when it comes
>> to information
>> content, quantity, direction and flow, there is absolutely no
>> equality and
>> fairness.
>>
>> The online freedom of unrestricted access is, thus, only
>> one-way traffic,
>> contrary to the spirit of democracy and calculated to
>> strengthen a monopoly.
>>
>> Countries disadvantaged by the unequal and undemocratic
>> information flow
>> have to protect their national interest, and take steps
>> toward this. This is
>> essential for their political stability as well as normal conduct of
>> economic and social life.
>>
>> These facts about the difficulties of developing nations,
>> though understood
>> by politicians like Clinton, are not communicated to the
>> people of Western
>> countries. Instead, those politicians publicize and pursue
>> their claims
>> purely from a Western standpoint.
>>
>> This practice is morally unworthy and has been resisted by
>> intellectuals in
>> developing countries.
>>
>> Take Google's threat to pull out of China for example. It has stirred
>> widespread debate among the public in China. The recent poll
>> conducted by
>> huanqiu.com shows a growing number of people voicing opposition to an
>> unregulated or uncensored Google in China. As many as 81
>> percent of those
>> polled are opposed to Chinese government accepting Google's demands.
>>
>> It is not because the people of China do not want free flow
>> of information
>> or unlimited access to Internet, as in the West. It is just
>> because they
>> recognize the situation that their country is forced to face.
>>
>> Unlike advanced Western countries, Chinese society is still
>> vulnerable to
>> the effect of multifarious information flowing in, especially
>> when it is for
>> creating disorder.
>>
>> Western countries have long indoctrinated non-Western nations
>> on the issue
>> of freedom of speech. It is an aggressive political and
>> diplomatic strategy,
>> rather than a desire for moral values, that has led them to do so.
>>
>> The free flow of information is an universal value treasured
>> in all nations,
>> including China, but the US government's ideological imposition is
>> unacceptable and, for that reason, will not be allowed to succeed.
>>
>> China's real stake in the "free flow of information" is evident in its
>> refusal to be victimized by information imperialism.
>>
>>
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