Antony Loewenstein

My following article appears in the Amnesty International Australia’s Uncensor campaign about human rights in China:

The nationalistic genie has escaped the Chinese bottle. Citizens across the world have reacted strongly to the perceived anti-Chinese political and media elite in the West. Protests have mushroomed throughout China against what demonstrators view as a slight against benevolent rule in Tibet. The government is clearly behind much of the reaction.

The internet, mobile phones and chat rooms have become the new meeting place for such activities. More than twenty million people have signed a petition against the French retailer Carrefour because of the failure of authorities in Paris to protect the Olympic torch. Conspiracy theories abound in the Chinese blogosphere about these events.

Student Zhu Xiaomeng made comments to the New York Times that reminded me of similar sentiments I heard in China last year. “Tibet is our country’s territory. You have no right to interfere in our interior affairs.” Microsoft’s China homepage has become a natural home for this kind of venting.

“Love Our China” is a familiar refrain of the protestors. The relationship between the West and China is inevitably being affected, with both sides seemingly incapable or unwilling to engage rationally with the other. Surely now is the time to reach out to Chinese people and try and explain why many Westerners are upset with Beijing’s role in Tibet.

I’ve even tried to contact a few Chinese friends in China to gauge their perspective, and many of them have oscillated between damning the violence on both sides and not fully understanding why pro-Tibetan activists in London, Paris and San Francisco were so vehemently critical of their regime. Evidence that now proves Chinese regime meddling in San Francisco’s pro-China protests reveals the level of paranoia in Beijing.

A recent study found that a majority of Australians wanted the Olympic sponsors to speak out strongly about China’s human rights record. This is unsurprising considering the fact that Amnesty International and Chinese human rights activists have found China falling short of the commitments it made when negotiating the 2008 Games. Arresting a leading Tibetan performer, writer and blogger only reinforces this belief. Equally problematic is a forthcoming museum in Beijing dedicated to the “official” version of Tibetan history.

One prominent, former Chinese diplomat turned spy novelist has argued that pro-China protests will only inflame racial tensions. I was more encouraged to see a recently released Beijing-based news researcher for the New York Times call this week for greater press freedom.

However, the ongoing controversy over China’s human rights record is not just about the Beijing Olympic Games. As the West wrestles with the notion of an “after-America” world, despotic regimes are increasingly turning to China for moral, military and diplomatic assistance. Recent evidence suggests that China is providing arms and troops to save Robert Mugabe’s embattled Zimbabwean dictatorship.

London’s Independent warned that after years of complaining about Washington’s support of barbaric regimes, it’s time to worry about the dawning of a new age:

“As for Mr Mugabe, he marked Zimbabwean Independence Day yesterday by complaining of neo-colonialism and how Britain wants to retake control of Zimbabwe. He and other African leaders should think more carefully. There is a danger of their countries becoming a victim of a re-colonisation. But the threat is not from the West. It comes from the East.”

While it’s never healthy to romanticise the Tibetan cause or the Dalai Lama and the history often paints a contradictory picture, one can hope that the Olympic Games provides international attention to an occupation that is largely forgotten in the Western media.

Google has been chosen as the world’s most powerful brand.

(Meanwhile, Microsoft’s Chinese arm has been happily drumming up nationalistic fervour.)

My following article appears in the Amnesty International Australia’s Uncensor campaign about human rights in China:

Human rights activists have dubbed the Beijing Games the “Genocide Olympics” over concerns of China’s involvement in the Darfur crisis. The situation there is worsening by the day. Human Rights First claims that China is arming the conflict.

The recent resignation of filmmaker Steven Spielberg as an artistic advisor to the event only heightened fears that China’s rapid push towards economic development has come at the cost of human lives around the world. Human rights group Reporters Without Borders says that, “the influence of China in African affairs has been very toxic for democracy”.

One Chinese blogger sarcastically praised the regime for successfully shielding its citizens from the realities of his country’s foreign policy. The Communist regime is desperate to keep politics and sport diametrically opposed. Human Rights Watch has publicly stated that this is impossible.

The internet has allowed Chinese citizens the opportunity to challenge some of the strict doctrines in the daily media. China’s state-run news agency, Xinhua, was recently forced to run a rare apology after doctoring an image of Tibetan wildlife grazing near a high-speed train. Web users spotted the deception and caused a massive online campaign against the use of Photoshop. It was just one example of the relatively new Chinese public phenomenon of activism, albeit of the non-political kind.

The international community is increasingly concerned over the role of Western multinationals in China’s web filtering. The European Union is currently discussing the imposition of trade barriers for firms that conduct business in nations that restrict free speech. A number of Chinese dissidents, based in the United States, have announced they will sue Yahoo!. The men claim that the internet company removed their names from search returns without legally valid reasons and they risk arrest if they return to the homeland.

Bad publicity is clearly a worry for Yahoo! The company’s Chief Executive, Jerry Yang, has written to the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and asked the Bush administration to lobby the Chinese regime to release dissidents imprisoned after the collusion of his company. The firm spent US$1.6 million in 2007 pressuring the American government in relation to the foreign jurisdiction over US companies.

The Chinese regime fears an avalanche of negative publicity in the coming months. The recent explosion of Tibetan protests both inside Tibet and China itself – with a growing number of young Tibetans rejecting the Dalai Lama’s “Middle Way” towards China – led to a predictable Chinese media onslaught against the uprising. Numerous websites were blocked, including YouTube, and Yahoo! and Microsoft (briefly) appeared to assist the regime in searching for “suspects” in the demonstrations. The vast majority of Chinese bloggers supported the crackdown but an international poll found many global citizens were critical of Chinese policies towards Tibet.

Tightening the limits of free speech online is the officially favoured method of social control. It is bound to fail, not least because users have developed their own language to circumvent the filtering. But the regime is determined, nonetheless. Witness this recent announcement:

“News from the Ministry of Public Security is that 13 Chinese ministries have been taking a joint action since last month to regulate online order, with the emphasis being given to the cleaning out of such content as candid snapshots, nude pictures and “unhealthy” adult literature.”

“During the campaign, the Chinese ministries will focus on cracking down on four kinds of illegal behaviour, including spreading abundant erotic information to make profit by taking advantage of Internet and mobile phones; launching bawdry websites in a foreign country to spread unhealthy content to and develop members in China; organizing obscene online performances or prostitution-related activities; and committing such crimes as online fraud, theft, gambling and sale of forbidden goods.”

“In addition, the ministries will clean out vulgar content such as candid snapshots, nude and adult literature from websites and shut down blogs that help transmit erotic graphics and text. They will ask search engine service providers to take measures to block unhealthy content within the given deadlines and completely eliminate those erotic websites.”

Australia’s former Human Rights Commissioner, Dr Sev Ozdowski OAM, told a conference in Taiwan in late February that China had pledged to improve its human rights record but there was no evidence to support this idea. In fact, the opposite was occurring. He listed the various ways in which citizens were denied basic civil and political liberties – including the refusal to hold open and free elections and the lack of freedom of speech – and put forward a number of demands that Beijing could adopt. These included:

• The cessation of hostilities against Falun Gong practitioners.
• The withdrawal of economic and political aid to the Sudanese government.
• The granting of amnesty to all political prisoners.
• A moratorium on the death penalty in 2008.

Although the regime has recognised the importance of citizens engaging with officials – netizens were allowed to post questions and advice for Premier Wen Jinbao in early 2008 – these developments are minimal. The success of China’s internet repression is due to a savvy combination of societal pressure and self-censorship. Hundreds of thousands of people have already been employed to manage “security” during the Games. Curiously, the BBC English website became available in late March after years of censorship.

Rumours are currently circulating that engineers with some of China’s biggest technology companies have been tasked to unblock internet access during the August Games, allowing foreigners an unfiltered experience at some internet cafes and conference centres and through access jacks in hotels. The coming period will reveal the lengths to which the Chinese authorities will go to hide its crackdown on dissidents, journalists, human rights activists and the poor. The initial signs are not encouraging.

Antony Loewenstein is a Sydney-based journalist, blogger and author

Following allegations that Western web majors such as Yahoo and Microsoft were assisting the Chinese regime in finding Tibetans after the recent violence, Yahoo has denied the allegations:

“Contrary to media reports, Yahoo! Inc. is not displaying images on its web sites of individuals wanted by Chinese authorities in connection with the recent unrest in Tibet,” it said in a statement sent to AFP in Paris.

“We are looking into this matter with Alibaba Group, the company that controls China Yahoo!,” the company said.

YouTube is now also available again in China.

Major questions remain as to the rights and responsibilities of Western internet companies in a repressive regime such as China.

This is how Western internet multinationals, such as Yahoo and Microsoft, are helping the Chinese regime in their hunt for Tibetans:

Yahoo China pasted a “most wanted” poster across its homepage today in aid of the police’s witch-hunt for 24 Tibetans accused of taking part in the recent riots. MSN China made the same move, although it didn’t go as far as publishing the list on its homepage.

My latest column for New Matilda is about China’s crackdown on internal dissent and its fear of the internet:

Although China is also battling a seemingly unsurmountable pollution problem, the regime appears determined to ignore Western calls for greater openness. “Why can’t China accept that dissent and argument are part of being a normal country?” asks leading Hong-Kong based academic Rebecca MacKinnon. “Why behave in such an insecure manner that violates international human rights norms, damages China’s international image, and distracts media attention away from the Chinese people’s genuine achievements over the past 30 years?”

But outside pressure may be starting to have an effect. When Hollywood filmmaker Steven Spielberg recently announced his withdrawal as an artistic director for the August games, the Chinese regime responded with indignation. The director claimed that Beijing was doing too little to pressure the Sudanese Government over its behaviour in Darfur. But the New York Times now reports that, in fact, “China has begun shifting its position on Darfur, stepping outside its diplomatic comfort zone to quietly push Sudan to accept the world’s largest peacekeeping force.” Beijing is clearly listening and remains determined to avoid an embarrassing Games hijacked by human rights agendas.

This news was almost inevitable:

Jerry Yang, the chief executive of Yahoo, was finishing a regularly scheduled company board meeting Thursday night when his assistant interrupted him with an urgent phone call.

It was Steven A. Ballmer, the chief executive of Microsoft, and his message was curt. He did not call to negotiate. Microsoft would make public a hostile $44.6 billion offer for Yahoo early Friday morning in a bold move to counter Google’s online pre-eminence.

Mr. Yang, in shock, rushed back with the news to his directors, some of whom were getting ready to leave Yahoo’s headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif. The board meeting was no longer over; it would turn into a strategy session that stretched into the night.

The global dominance of Google is undoubtedly a concern. The ability to control mountains of information in its own hands should constantly raise alarm bells.

The idea, however, of the internet market getting smaller is also a worry. Market consolidation, in a clear attempt to unseat Google’s reign, would only lessen transparency and result in information being “owned” by less players. Early reports suggest that regulators are unlikely to block a Yahoo/Microsoft marriage.

A monopoly of information should always be resisted and it’s hard to see this development any other way.

UPDATE: Some analysts are arguing that competition would in fact increase, not decrease, with this merger.

Iranian blogger Kamangir investigates the Iranian blogosphere and discovers, despite the best efforts of Western multinationals such as Yahoo and Microsoft to restrict access to services, a thriving scene of web activity.

The debate over Chinese internet censorship is only beginning. The role of Western multinationals operating in a country that forces filtering is both a human rights issue and, according to this group, something more economic:

A California free speech group whose board of directors includes Google and Yahoo said on Monday it had asked U.S. trade officials to challenge China’s Internet restrictions as a violation of global trade rules.

The issue threatens to further strain U.S.-China trade relations if the U.S. Trade Representative’s office decides to take on the case. With China already the world’s second-largest Internet market with over 162 million Web users, the commercial stakes are huge.

“China’s censorship of the Internet, while fundamentally an issue of free speech and individual liberty, is also a significant barrier to U.S.-China commerce, and therefore, very much a trade issue,” Peter Scheer, executive director of the California First Amendment Coalition, said in a statement that came as top U.S. officials were in Beijing for economic talks.

“In infringing the rights of its 1.2 billion citizens, China is also infringing the rights of American companies to sell goods and services to consumers in China, via the Internet,” he said.