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More on Cisco in China

I have recently been in communication with Ethan Gutmann, author of Losing the New China: A Story of American Commerce, Desire and Betrayal. A chapter in his book deals with Cisco's business in China and the extent to which they actively supply Chinese law enforcement with censorship and surveillance technology. Cisco has responded to Gutmann's allegations (excerpted in the continuation section of this post below) by saying that he "doesn't have a shred of evidence" to support his claims.  In response, Gutmann is offering up

this Cisco brochure from the China Information Infrastucture Expo 2002, Dec. 3-6, 2002. The first two pages of the brochure show a Cisco exhibition booth full of products clearly aimed for use by police and other public security forces.  It is pictured here (and blows up to full size when you click on it, WARNING: IT'S A VERY BIG FILE) - both in the original Chinese and in English translation.

Gutmann describes what you see here as: "the first two pages of a much larger brochure that I picked up at the Cisco display at the Shanghai Gold Shield trade show. The image depicts the actual Cisco booth where I had my extended conversation with the Cisco rep, Mr. Zhou Li. I’ve included the Chinese original and a translated version provided by Harry Wu. Harry and I will share everything with anyone who is working on a serious investigation. Cisco may continue to lie about China. But we might stop them from peddling this vile technology here."  (An assortment of similar material has been published in the Chinese version of his book, coming out in Taiwan and some Chinese-language U.S. bookstores this summer.)

In his book Gutmann describes a conversation with a Cisco salesman whose sales pitch included how Cisco's products help police conduct internet surveillance: "the Cisco salesman confirmed that the Chinese police could even remotely check if the suspect had built or contributed to a website in the last three months, access the suspect’s surfing history, and read his email."

I have not seen the original brochures at this point, just the photos. But they are significant because the original brochures and other evidence have been submitted in a shareholder resolution against Cisco filed on May 31, 2005 by Boston Common Asset Management, LLC.  [CORRECTION ADDED ON JULY 7, 2005. STATEMENT FROM BOSTON COMMON: "Brochures and documents pertaining to Cisco Systems that are owned by Mr. Ethan Gutmann and referenced in his book were not included in the shareholder resolution filed by Boston Common Asset Management with Cisco on May 27, 2005. Mr. Gutmann's documents were not transmitted with the resolution filing in any form and Boston Common Asset Management has not presented these documents to Cisco to date."  APOLOGIES TO BOSTON COMMON FOR THE ERROR.]

In a recent speech Gutmann explains why this matters.

The real problem is that the next Tiananmen - in whatever incarnation - is much more likely to fail if Chinese citizens have to fight not only the PLA, but Cisco and Motorola, Microsoft and Intel. And this time, Americans will bear a special responsibility for that failure.

And I predict that the excuses that we hear from Cisco and Microsoft today (“Microsoft abides by the laws and regulations of each country in which it operates…" - as if the Chinese constitution forbid the word “democracy”) will be remembered as a shameful moment in U.S. corporate history.

So it’s up to us, activists, journalists, watchdogs, Congress, anyone who’s involved with China, to put pressure on American corporations; shareholder proposals; divestment from university contracts. Make a copy of this brochure and send letters, faxes, emails demanding an explanation. Tell them if the Chinese Communist Party wants to use our technology, it must pay the democracy tax. 

After my recent posts on corporate responsibility, including Cisco, Gutman emailed me with the brochures, an excerpt of his book, and the following note:

Questions for Chinese bloggers

I have some questions for Chinese and China-based bloggers out there... assuming that a number of you are still reading this through proxy servers. Please forgive my rusty Chinese... I'm much better at reading than writing, I'm afraid.

The extent of China's web filtering is often dismissed in the West as not such a big deal because people can use proxies to get around the blockages. People seem to have different opinions about how widespread the knowledge of proxies actually is in China. I'm not there right now. If you're in China right now or have been spending a lot of time there recently I'd like to know what you think about the following questions:
在国外经常有人说，因为有代理，中国有很多网站上不了没有太大关：真想看这些网站的人总有办法。不同的人对这个问题有不同的看法, 所以我想问中国的 blogger 几个问题:

• Of the people in China who use the internet regularly, what percentage do you think know how to use proxies? Of the people you know, what percentage know how to use proxies? 在中国经常上网的人当中，你估计百分之多少知道怎么用代理？亲自身边的人当中，你估计百分之多少会用代理？

• Out of that group of people, what percentage do you think frequently use proxies to access blocked sites? 会用代理的人当中， 你估计有百分之多少经常用代理上被封的网站？

• In other words, among the proxy-savvy Chinese internet users, to what extent does it matter if things are blocked or not? How much does filtering impact these people's information experience on the internet?  换句话问：在会用代理的中国网民当中，一些网站被封不封有多大的关系？中国政 府封一堆网站对中国 网民的“网上经验” 有多大的影响？

• More generally, amongst all internet users in China at large, how do you think internet blocking and filtering impacts what Chinese internet users do and do not know about their own country and about the world at large?  总的来说，在中国国内访问不了很多网站的情况之下，你觉得这个情况怎么影响 到中国网民对自己的国家和国外的理解？

I'd love to know your views. If you want to answer this on your own blog, please post the link in the comments section here if the trackback doesn't show up automatically. I would especially love to know what the Chinese bloggers think about this question. 麻烦blogger们在自己的 blog 上,或者在下面的“comments” 里面发表自己的意见!

(Also cross-posting this at Global Voices.)

More Chinese blog blockage

I received an email from a Chinese blogger today, reporting that the following international blog-hosting services are blocked:

http://egoweblog.com
http://www.blogspirit.com/
http://www.blogeasy.com/
http://www.blogzor.com/
http://www.mazeme.com/
http://www.yesblogger.com/
http://www.tblog.com/

Typepad confirms: all its blogs blocked in China

Typepad's Anil Dash now confirms that all Typepad blogs (...typepad.com as well as ...blogs.com) are defintely blocked in China. He emphasizes this is something that has been done to Typepad, not by Typepad:

Until access is restored, the only recommendations we can make for workarounds is to use any web proxies which are available for routing requests to TypePad through another site. In addition, third-party services for processing syndication feeds aren't currently being blocked, so if you're using another service to enhance your TypePad-published XML feed, it's likely the feed will still be available to audiences in China.

To be clear, the availability of TypePad-powered sites in China isn't something we have control over, but we do hope that full access is restored quickly, as it was last year.

UPDATE: Anil has clarified in the comments section of this post that some typepad.com blogs appear to be accessible in some places, while all blogs.com ones seem to be blocked.

Wozy, writing in Chinese at CNblog, recounts a recent email exchange he had with somebody at Typepad who wrote the following:

“We are aware of this problem and are looking at things we can do to help. However, since these blocks are put into place by the Chinese government, we honestly do not have very much control over the situation.

Right now, the best suggestion we have is to try accessing your blog through either unipeak.com or proxify.com. We will continue to work on this issue, so thank you for letting us know you're experiencing this problem.”

This is a more explicit response than the official Typepad blogpost, which doesn't actually name the Chinese government or recommend specific proxy services.

Wozy writes that since Typepad is a fee-paying service, and since his main readership can no longer access his blog, he had no choice but to move his blog. He describes how he decided after much comparison-shopping to go with the free hosting service weblogs.us.  He also points his readers to the RSS and feedburner feeds of his blogs, which (for now anyway) circumvent the Chinese censors.

UPDATE (6/29, 3pm EDT): CNblog reports Weblogs.us is now blocked too.

I have yet to decide whether and when I'll move this blog to a new host. I have good friends who invest in or work for Typepad's Six Apart.  As a non-technical person, I love the service's features and user-friendliness. So I feel really torn.

Meanwhile, people in China who can't or don't want to use proxy servers can subscribe to the content through their RSS readers (XML feed here) [CORRECTION: rss and Atom feeds are also blocked if not run through a 3rd party service], or click here to read it through Feedburner.

China's Internet: Let a Thousand Filters Bloom

An article I wrote last week for Yaleglobal Online has now been posted. China's Internet: Let a Thousand Filters Bloom distills some of the things I've been blogging about over the past couple of weeks. Here's the intro:

The internet has played a key role in China's opening up to the world. But, as Rebecca MacKinnon writes, the Chinese government has cracked down on online freedom of expression. Thanks to deals with multinational corporations, US technology has facilitated Beijing's campaign to restrict internet discussions on troublesome issues like democracy, human rights, and Taiwanese independence. "Granular" technologies developed by US information technology giants enable installation of a powerful mesh of filters to control information flow: State-of-the art routers automatically track individual internet users and even filter out sub-pages from larger sites. As a result, says MacKinnon, "the picture of the world as seen by most Chinese internet users is heavily skewed in the regime's favor." Western companies have felt increasing public pressure to take more responsibility for China's uses of their products, even spurring US legislation to support freedom on the internet. Despite the multinationals' claims of innocence – and ignorance – more and more critics, like MacKinnon, are calling for "consequences for companies found to be deliberately aiding censorship and political repression." – YaleGlobal

Stay tuned for more on Cisco.

Free Wordpress blog host blocked in China

Blogsome, the free Wordpress blog hosting service based in Ireland, is now blocked in China, according to Chinese blogger Maomy, writing on the Chinese group blog, CNBlog.

Maomy - who himself blogs on Blogsome - says the free open source service has become increasingly popular among Chinese bloggers, but that he hadn't expected it would be blocked so quickly. Despite the wishful thinking of some, he doesn't believe Blogsome's inaccessibility is likely to be an innocent "technical problem."

Other Chinese bloggers I've been communicating with tend to believe this is all part of a tightening-up in the run-up to the June 30th deadline for website registration.

Gamer boycott of Xbox?

Gamepolitics.com is calling for a boycott of Microsoft's Xbox 360 to protest Microsoft's collaboration with Chinese censorship.  Here's what their press release says:

On June 16th, GamePolitics.com called for gamers to boycott the upcoming Xbox 360 in protest of Microsoft's decision to support government repression of Internet users in the Republic of China. A polling feature recently added to the site indicates that readers are indeed heeding the call. As of 7:00 P.M. Sunday, over half of poll respondents indicated that they would either boycott the Xbox 360 or hadn't made up their minds yet.

Will Boycott Xbox 360 - 33%

Won't Boycott - 45%

Not Sure - 21%

 

Total Either Boycotting or Possibly Boycotting - 54%

GamePolitics Editor Dennis McCauley was both surprised and encouraged by the results of the polling.

 

"The poll shows that gamers are able to put games into their proper context with the world at large. Gamers these days are not only tech-savvy, but also politically aware. The fact that more than half might be willing to forego a hot new system like the Xbox 360 simply to make a political statement just blows me away."

The boycott can be discussed on their blog here.

UPDATE: Dennis at Gamepolitics.com has the following update as of Tuesday afternoon:

It's only fair to mention that the numbers have changed somewhat. The poll remains open, and as of Tuesday afternoon it looks like this: Will Boycott Xbox 360 - 26% Won't Boycott - 66% Not Sure - 7% That's with over 400 votes recorded. If the results finish this way, it will still mean that 1/3 of respondents plan to either boycott the Xbox 360 or will consider it, based on MS' stance in China. That's encouraging, as gamers are not normally given credit for political awareness.

Latest on Typepad blogs in China

Several people in different parts of China are now reporting that blogs hosted as http://"blogname".typepad.com  are now accessible from China, although blogs at http://"blogname".blogs.com (also part of the Typepad service) are still blocked. So unfortunately, this blog remains inaccessible without use of a proxy server in China.

Given that even if things get unblocked they could get reblocked at any time, I'm considering moving this blog onto my own server, where it will be accessible at www.RConversation.com - which currently mirrors to this blog anyway. Then if that gets blocked, I'll know it's personal...

Stay tuned.

Open Media 100

Congratulations to everybody on the first annual Always On/Technorati Open Media 100 list: "the power list of bloggers, social networkers, tool smiths, and investors leading the Open Media Revolution."

Lots of good friends and cyber-mentors on there... and naturally, a bunch of past and present Berkman Center fellows.
 

In my over-committed multi-tasking fog, I didn't realize until just now that there is also a 50-person honorable mention list, and somehow I wound up on it. Thanks so much to the people out there who nominated me. I'm in some pretty amazing company.

David Sifry explains the nomination process. Not surprisingly, there has been a fair amount of controversy in the blogosphere surrounding this list, as Stowe Boyd explains. Lots of people question the point of the list and the process through which it was compiled. All blog discussion about it can be found via Technorati here and here. 
 

More on China: What I said and what I didn't say

In the comments and trackback on my last post, a number of people keep concluding that I am calling for a boycott of China or a boycott of Cisco or a boycott of U.S. companies investing in China.

I said no such things - not anywhere in that post nor anywhere on this blog.

Clearly there are some misunderstandings. People are pigeon-holing me and jumping to conclusions. So let's clarify some things:

1. I am not calling for a boycott of China or of Cisco or any other companies. I am calling for closer scrutiny of exactly what is being sold directly to whom, and to what extent U.S. companies  knowingly sell technologies to Chinese state-controlled entities who are obviously going to use the equipment or software for censorship and surveillance purposes.  I want to know if these companies are providing service or customization which would make it clear that they know exactly how those technologies are going to be used - despite public claims of innocence and clean hands. 

I agree, China is better off - and the future of democracy in China is better off - thanks to the existence of Cisco routers in China. But to me, there is an important difference between selling routers to China and providing software services to China in general - with the understanding that one can't control how the technology ultimately gets used - and the sale of technology directly to Chinese government entities whose intentions are rather obvious. Way back in 2001, according to this report here by the International Centre for Human Rights and Democratic Development, Cisco was courting the Chinese Public Security bureau for business. Author Ethan Gutmann has reported similar things. As have Amnesty International and the Open Net Initiative. Cisco denies any direct involvement or knowledge in how its products were going to be used. Nobody can 100% confirm anything. But are we just going to take Cisco's word for it and leave it at that? Seems like the MSM is, and so are our government leaders, but I'm frankly not convinced. I do not believe the questions should be dropped simply because lots of people find these questions really annoying and inconvenient - or because the answers are likely to fall into murky grey areas that can't easily be defined as "good" or "evil."

2. I am in favor of free trade, I support capitalism, and I think trading with China is a good thing. Believe me, anybody who knows me at all well can tell you I'm neither a socialist nor a protectionist. After living in China for nine years straight I saw first-hand how jobs created by foreign trade and investment have vastly improved the lives of urban Chinese, helped create a nascent middle class, and helped millions of Chinese gain much greater control over their lives because they're no longer economically dependent on the government.  I don't advocate boycotting made-in-China goods just because they're made in China. However if I learn that a particular company is sourcing goods from Chinese prison labor, or from factories where workers rights are clearly abused, I'll definitely avoid buying their products. Likewise, I consider the deliberate sale of technology goods and services to the Chinese Public Security Bureau to be an unacceptable business practice, and we should ask our corporations to stop doing business with documented human rights abusers.

3. I don't think legislation or political lobbying is completely useless. We have a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. It's not perfect, a lot of people violate it, but it keeps U.S. companies from engaging in the kind of blatant wholesale bribery that helps prop up nasty regimes. It is a statement of our values as Americans. It is much better that it exists than that it doesn't. We have an Arms Export Control act too. We have a long-held and established tradition as Americans that certain types of commerce are not in our national interest and are contrary to American values. Suppression of free speech is contrary to our values. The Global Internet Freedom Act, which has been introduced in committee but still un-passed by Congress, states that these are indeed our values. But it fails to set out basic standards for how our corporations ought to help protect these values. I think it should.

Why does this matter? Our President says that America stands for freedom and democracy, and that we are prepared to sacrifice the lives of our men and women to uphold these values around the globe. Yet at the same time, our corporations aren't asked to forego a penny of potential profit for the sake of these values. They dishonor our men and women in uniform and our hard-working diplomats trying to represent us under difficult and often dangerous circumstances. No wonder so many people around the world think Americans are hypocrites.