Censorship in China: Will the Great Firewall Stand Forever?

Censorship in China has frequently been a topic of global media discussion, especially on October 11 when 23 party veterans, journalists, and academics criticized the government’s control on the media in an open letter. The impetus of this activism was the Central Propaganda Department’s online and offline censoring of Prime Minister Wen Jiabao himself. In an interview with Fareed Zakaria on September 23, Wen called for reform, saying “the people’s wishes for and needs for democracy and freedom are irresistible.” Though this event may have been the immediate cause, Chinese censorship both offline and online has been present since long before.

Since 1994, when Chinese leaders chose to open access to the internet, the Chinese Communist Party has felt increasingly threatened by the new tool, first struggling against commercial online journalism threatening the state’s news and information monopoly. Though the Party successfully minimized this potential challenge to its control, between 1999 and 2004, bulletin-board systems and blogs shaped alternative channels of communication became new threats that also had to be controlled. Started 2004, a general media crackdown has been in place as the government has tried to restrict SMS texting, blogging, microblogging, and other new ways to spread opinions. To achieve this restriction, the state has invested billions of dollars into technology and employees. The general Internet censorship of China has been dubbed “the great firewall.”

The idea of the Chinese government censoring and limiting websites available to the citizens is particularly troubling considering that China is the world’s largest internet population with about 420 million users, a number expected to increase rapidly. This fact makes Chinese censorship globally important as it promotes self-censorship outside of its boundaries. Just as the music industry censors musicians so that stores such as Wal-Mart will sell their records, it is possible that commercial websites will avoid expressing anything that the Chinese government might find objectionable to avoid being shut out of such a large and growing market.

The self-censorship issue may not be as pressing as it seems, because the Party’s control over the Internet is far from absolute. The Chinese people have found new ways to search for and express alternative ideas and in some cases mobilize public support. Citizen journalism, peer-to-peer networks, and information sharing have all worked to help increase liberty available to Chinese citizens. It is widely accepted that the Communist Party will be unable to maintain its information monopoly as long as the Internet is available to its citizens, which raises the question of whether the Chinese government will shut down the entire Internet infrastructure in their country rather than face the alternative.

That eventuality seems extremely unlikely because the usefulness and potential profitability of widespread Internet access to the country is huge compared to the dangers that the country would face by giving up their information monopoly. Even if people in China had unlimited internet access, the worst that would likely happen from the people being able to see and express unflattering facts and negative opinions regarding the Party would be increased protests and civil unrest, which China most likely would have little trouble dealing with. Other citizens may even become more passionately supportive of the Party as a reaction to hearing it insulted. It’s true that having to suppress more civil disobedience would cause China to be viewed negatively by the international community, but shutting down the Internet would certainly do the same thing. In fact, the cost of maintaining the great firewall and constantly trying to keep up with new ways around it may already be greater to China than dealing with the increased civil disobedience that an uncensored internet might bring about. If the leaders of China eventually come to the same belief, they may decide to reduce their efforts to censor the Internet or abandon them altogether. After all, there are already Chinese Party members such as Wen who believe that that the push for freedom is irresistible. If more Party leaders come to believe the same thing, they’ll probably stop resisting.