Slashdot Mirror
China Views Internet As "Controllable"
Radcliffe_V writes "According to a leaked cable via Wikileaks, the Chinese government views the internet as very controllable, despite western views otherwise. The New York Times article also sheds light on how involved the Chinese government is in cyber attacks against US assets and companies such as Google."
Communist states view everything as being controllable.
vos nescitis quicquam, nec cogitatis quia expedit nobis ut unus moriatur homo pro populo et non tota gens pereat.
WHICH nation has an elected politician calling for the assasination of a foreign national? Which nation is stopping its own citizens from reading websites? Which nation is putting presure on private companies to follow its agenda without any laws being written? Which nation is performing a massive denial of service attack to censor the net from information it finds undesirable?
Sorry, but if the Chinese think the internet is controllable, it is because the US is showing them how to.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
china trying to control the net, bad. But USA attempting to take wikileaks offline, business as usual...
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
Bullshit. If the U.S. goes down, it will take China's manufacturing markets with it. China needs the U.S. more than the U.S. needs them. Millions of Chinese out of work will make the illegitimate rulers of China hide from the pitchforks that will be coming for them.
Leaving aside the absurdity of meaningfully controlling the internet (a sentiment obviously shared by the Chinese informants, likely younger, New Guard leaders), they may have a point in trying to control the dissemination of information in China.
Personally, I believe information should be free, and fully support WikiLeaks. However, having been to China on numerous occasions, and having had opportunities to talk to some of those hundreds of millions of peasant that still litter the countryside... censorship can be a good thing in a society in which ignorance is widespread. I do think China goes too far, and censors many things that should not be censored, to the detriment of both its and society's interests.
But it also can prevent Fox-news style media from manipulating the masses (that role stays in the hands of the government). We in the West can do a better job of handling freedom of information. Many in China, however, are not yet ready. The urban centers could probably handle it. But I don't trust the peasants in the Chinese boonies any more than I trust rednecks and hillbillies in the United States. The Politburo leader who googled himself and found critical articles: some of those are legitimate criticisms, other are "Obama isn't America" style crap. The average Chinese peasant doesn't know the difference; given how the Chinese government often behaves, even conspiracy theories are all too believable.
The Chinese central government has improved a lot; based on my friends who have connections in Zhongnanhai, the central government basically hopes to keep the lid on things as it (really fucking slowly) tries to clean up its act (which is basically impossible, since the local and provincial governments very much like being corrupt). But until then, keeping local yahoos from rioting based on false information may take precedence over total freedom of information for China. Hopefully this will slowly change. But until then, keeping the masses ignorant may contribute more to social stability and prosperity than openness of information would. Democratizing too soon might result in Soviet-style collapse: democracy did not work out well for Russia in the early 90s, just as I doubt it would work out well for China now.
So why was it kept confidential in the first place? I think the US government and Google would only gain if they made it public.
Because a culture of secrecy breeds power and the ability to act with impunity. Careerist elements within any government prefer secrecy because it allows them to forego the often tedious act of being accountable for even the smallest decision. It's often justified as a Good Thing because the actors can circumvent bureaucratic red tape and work more efficiently. Ultimately, however, the end game is the same: A small elite minority within the permanent establishment begin to take privilege and influence for granted, and act independently of government policy.
This is not something unique to the US diplomatic corps. It happens in all organisations. And it is explicitly what freedom of information laws and regulations are designed to counteract. Absent this capability, it's left to whistleblowers and wikileaks to serve in this role.
Viewed in this light, we have to conclude that the attacks on wikileaks are primarily driven not by the state, but by certain of its constituents who might lose the leverage that a culture of secrecy has given them. That's why the counter-attack on wikileaks has been composed mostly of deft cuts at the the service's underpinnings rather than overt state action. A quiet word here and there, and anyone hosting material even related to wikileaks goes offline. A whisper in the ear of an ambitious (or susceptible) Swedish prosecutor and a nuisance case becomes an international manhunt.
Secrecy and a scarcity of information are crucial to the continuation of the cronyism about which so many slashdotters complain. It astounds me how many of these same people who rail at the unhealthy, shadowy bonds between corporations, lobbyists and the government are now scandalised that an organisation like wikileaks is struggling to diminish the power of these linkages.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
Before this degenerates into another self hating, "America is just as bad" thread lets take a step back. China is at war with the United States as they outlined in the document "Unrestricted Warfare" (http://cryptome.org/cuw01.htm). Lets not forget that fact. The Chinese Politburo wants to destroy Western values, such as representative democracy and freedom of the press. The US is not a perfect example. But it is far and away a better example than China.
The way the Chinese leaderships sees it, there are two options. Option 1: Western ideals spread to China and one party rule comes to an end. Option 2: Chinese authoritarianism spreads to the West and the party lives on. This is a fight to the death of one system against another. If we don't hold our system up as a shining example of how things "should be", while trying to make it better, then there is but one alternative. An untenable one.
To the posters who will lambaste me, I ask only one thing: When you point out the flaws in Western governance please include a proposed solution. Mindless complaining should not be confused with intelligence.
I'm not missing it. I didn't claim there was no need for secrets, I'm saying that people within the power structures upon which secrecy is predicated inevitably abuse this secrecy in order to empower themselves and their cliques.
The problem, in short, is not binary. It's 'all secrets or none'. Even wikileaks recognises this in their willingness to expunge certain details from the leaked cables.
Regarding fears about negative impacts of the leaks themselves to US diplomacy, I'll let Secretary of Defense Robert Gates make the case:
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.