RConversation

Clinton speaks on Internet freedom

The cartoonist-blogger "Guaiguai" posted this photoshopped picture to express his feelings about Secretary Clinton's Internet freedom speech. He titled it: "Hillary leads the people."

It appears that quite a lot of people in China watched the live video stream. The links to the text, video, and an ad-hoc Chinese translation - published through Google Docs, no less - are also circulating widely.

Beijing is 12 hours ahead of Washignton and people are just getting up over there. Once more people have had time to read, watch and react, it will be interesting indeed to see what they have to say - and to what extent people's reactions get censored on Chinese domestic blog-hosting platforms, Baidu, etc.

On Twitter, blogger Lianyue offered his prediction for how the Chinese Foreign Ministry will respond: "1. The Chinese Internet is the freest of all. 2. Opinions not in agreement with #1 have violated Chinese national conditions and do not respect Chinese law, so we have the right to shut them down."

As for other reaction around the web, there is a statement from the Global Network Initiative - to which Clinton gave a shout-out.

Index on Censorship has a good quick round-up of reactions from Internet experts. In a thoughtful blog post my friend and Global Voices co-founder Ethan Zuckerman concluded:

it’s encouraging to see Clinton and the State Department unambiguously on the right side of these issues. It’s hard to know whether there’s any concrete implications to these words today beyond a worthy set of aspirations. Here’s hoping the next step is a conversation about how we would move from the right intentions to real-world outcomes, not just on censorship, but on the provocative idea of the “freedom to connect” and the vision of a “new nervous system for the planet.”

David Weinberger, one of my other all-time favorite Internet gurus, posted his initial reaction:

It’s thrilling that a Secretary of State would claim “freedom to connect” as a basic human right. That’s a very bit [I think he meant "big"-RM] stake in the ground. Likewise, it’s sort of amazing that the State Department is funding the development of tools to help users circumvent government restrictions on access. On the negative side, it’s distressing (but not surprising) that the Secretary of State should be come against anonymity so we can track down copyright infringers. Of course, in response to a question she said that we have to strike a balance so that the anonymity of dissenters is protected even as the anonymity of file sharers is betrayed. I just don’t know how you do that.

I too thought Clinton's speech was a very welcome - even exciting - commitment by the Obama administration to advance and protect a single, free and open Internet. But like David I agree the most difficult part going forward won't be supporting circumvention tools for dissidents in obviously un-free nations. As I've been saying in numerous articles, blog posts, interviews, and panels over the past week, I think the toughest work will be in coordinating U.S. domestic and foreign policies so that you don't have some policies advancing Internet freedom while other policies - especially on copyright, child protection, crime, and terror - end up sending a very different kind of message about American priorities. It's easy to criticize Iran and China for censorship but much trickier to work with Italy, France, and a wide range of other U.S. allies and close trade partners to ensure that policies and laws surrounding Internet regulation and governance don't end up being counterproductive, despite being well-intentioned in the short term.

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Live Blog and Live Chat: Media as Global Diplomat

This is the live blog for Media as Global Diplomat, an event starting at 9am EST in Washington, D.C., organized by the U.S. Institute of Peace. Click here for the live webcast and to participate in a live chat. Be sure to log in if you want to identify yourself. We will be feeding comments from the chat into the discussion. You can also participate via Twitter if you use the hashtag #usip.

Media as Global Diplomat? Join a live webcast & chat on Tuesday

President Obama says he intends to listen to others as he formulates U.S. foreign policy. I've proposed that as part of his China policy,  the Obama administration should use the Internet to engage in conversation with the Chinese people, not just its leaders and elites.  What do you think? How should the Obama administration engage with the world in the Internet age? How should public diplomacy be upgraded?  How can the U.S. government stop lecturing and start having a conversation?

An event on Tuesday morning in Washington D.C. (Tuesday evening Asia time) called Media as Global Diplomat, organized by the U.S. Institute of Peace, will explore "how the United States can best use media to reinvigorate its public diplomacy strategy and international influence in order to strengthen efforts to build a more peaceful world."

It's unclear to me whether they really just want to explore how to use digital media to get the world to like the U.S. better - or whether they're truly open to a paradigm shift: moving from broadcast "messaging" mode to conversation mode, in which the U.S. would be listening and learning as much as informing others.

Join me to find out. Watch the live webcast and join a live chat here. I will be live-blogging the event here on this blog. Sign up via the box on the left to receive a reminder before the event begins. Global Voices Executive Director Ivan Sigal will be online to moderate and follow the live chat, bringing your views and questions from the live chatroom into the event. That way, we hope the conversation can be expanded beyond the room to include everybody watching and reacting remotely.

Naturally, if you have views in advance that they'd like to express, please post them in the comments section of this post.

Looking at the program, my initial reaction is that the only panelists who might be considered "new media" people are Google's Andrew McLaughlin and Mika Salmi of MTV's Digital Networks. And they work for huge Internet and media companies. No citizen media or grassroots voices are speaking on the panels at all.  Lots of "old media" and/or establishment foreign policy elites. Will there really be any new ideas coming from this crowd? Hard to know. Maybe you can help thorough your remote participation?

Below is the full program and schedule, taken from here.

Challenge
We are in a disruptive period in media, the result of an explosion in digital distribution, social networking, and user generated content. And with disruption comes opportunity. This summit, moderated by Ted Koppel and entitled Media as Global Diplomat, is a forum to ask key public and private sector leaders how the United States can best use media to reinvigorate its public diplomacy strategy and international influence in order to strengthen efforts to build a more peaceful world.

Agenda [All times EST]

(9:00 a.m.) Welcome and Framing the Day
Sheldon Himelfarb, Associate Vice President, Center of Innovation for Media, Conflict, and Peacebuilding, U.S. Institute of Peace

Hosts Remarks
Ambassador Richard Solomon, President, U.S. Institute of Peace
Sally Jo Fifer, President and Chief Executive Officer, Independent Television Service

Media & Public Diplomacy: The Challenge at Hand
Ted Koppel will address the dramatically changing global media landscape and its implications for public diplomacy and peacebuilding.
 
(9:30 a.m.) Public Diplomacy 2.0: Rethinking Official Media
In this new era of digital distribution, social networking, and user generated content, what is the role of government-funded media in bolstering America’s global influence and ability to manage conflict? This panel will discuss where traditional strategies for media-based public diplomacy are effective and where they need to change.

Panelists:

• Kathy Bushkin Calvin - Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, The United Nations Foundation; Former President, AOL Time Warner Foundation
• Ambassador Edward Djerejian- Founding Director of the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy
• Abderrahim Foukara- Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief, Al Jazeera International
• Ambassador James Glassman - Former Under Secretary of State Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, U.S. Department of State
• Andrew McLaughlin - Director of Global Public Policy and Government Affairs, Google
• James Zogby - Founder and President, Arab American Institute

(11:15 a.m.) The Global Media Marketplace
What is the responsibility of free market commercial media to serve the greater public good in the global media age? This panel will consider the role of “unintended” stereotypes in shaping the image of the US abroad and the perils of uninformed citizens at home due to declining news coverage of international events.

Panelists:

• Edward Borgerding - Chief Executive Officer, Abu Dhabi Media Company
• Carol Giacomo -  Editorial Board Member, The New York Times
• Mika Salmi -  President of Global Digital Media of MTV Networks
• Smita Singh - Director, Global Development Program, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation
• Sydney Suissa - Executive Vice President of Content, National Geographic Channels International

(12:30 p.m.) Lunch

(1:15 p.m.) Special Screening: Waltz With Bashir
Ari Folman's animated documentary on the horrors of the 1982 Lebanon War. Academy Award nominee and winner of 2009 Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film. Waltz With Bashir is part of the ITVS International initiative and will be introduced by introduced by Calvin Sims, Program Officer, Media Arts & Culture, Ford Foundation.

(2:45 p.m.) Independent Documentary and Participatory Media
In discussing the film, this panel will consider the potential of film and video to connect people around the world and transform conflict. How can this powerful content be deployed as part of a more effective US public diplomacy strategy?

Panelists:

• Tamara Gould - Vice President of Distribution, Independent Television Service
• Yvette Alberdingk Thijm - Executive Director, Witness

Dear President Obama: in talking to China, remember its people

(Cross-posted from the Huffington Post)

Dear President Obama,

Welcome to U.S.-China relations! You didn't even mention China in your inaugural address, but the Chinese censors still took it personally. Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's remarks in his confirmation hearing about currency manipulation have got everyone in a tizzy. We're off to a rollicking start!

People in China are watching closely -- and starting to debate -- whether your administration's pursuit of America's economic interests will help or hurt their own.

China is obviously not a democracy. Even so, if you really want to take U.S.-China relations to a new strategic level that rises above the day-to-day issues, you need to find new ways to engage the Chinese people themselves -- not just their government.

Normalization of U.S.-China relations in 1979, combined with economic reforms and opening, transformed the Chinese people's lives. Chinese of our generation understand this. But their children take their opportunities and comforts for granted. They don't necessarily see the U.S. as a symbol of hope or a target of aspirations the way their parents did.

It is this young generation born after 1980 who were most vocal on the Chinese Internet last year, lashing out against Western critics and Western media coverage of their government's crackdown in Tibet. In response to international pressure, the Chinese government negotiated with the Dalai Lama, but it didn't feel the need to concede anything meaningful. In maintaining a hard line, the Chinese leadership could feel doubly secure in the fact that, not only did they have the strength of the People's Liberation Army and the People's Armed Police on their side; China's majority Han-Chinese public had no sympathy for the idea of Tibetan autonomy.

Chinese leaders listen selectively to public opinion, and sometimes those opinions actually give them an extra excuse to tell the U.S. where to shove it. While Americans tend to think of the Internet as the medium that will inevitably free the Chinese people of authoritarian rule, Chinese leaders have -- for many years now -- been going there for proof that the public wants them to be tougher with the U.S. Back in 2001 a U.S. spyplane made an emergency landing on Hainan island after a collision with a Chinese fighter jet which crashed into the sea. If people in the Chinese Internet chatrooms had gotten their way, the U.S. crew would be in a Chinese jail today. In a recent interview with The Atlantic's James Fallows, the President of the China Investment Corporation Gao Xiqing pointed out that his P.R. department is inundated with public comments calling for him to sell U.S. dollar assets.

The point is that while these people are not citizens of a democracy, they are by no means an undifferentiated mass of brainwashed drones. Despite often crude censorship of the Internet and state-run media, despite manipulation, intimidation of dissidents and political astro-turfing of the blogosphere by paid commentators, there is no unity of thought in China today. Civic minded citizens manage to hold wide-ranging debates on the Chinese Internet, in living rooms, dormitories, office break rooms, and classrooms about many public issues. Reading the Chinese blogs I've found all kinds of views about you and your new administration. Many are inspired by your personal story and the idea of truly equal opportunity that you represent. Others hope that you will be more forthright and principled on human rights issues than the Bush administration was. Others are very concerned that you will be protectionist in order to help the American people in the short run, and that this will hurt the Chinese people economically. Others lament cynically that no matter what happens, the rich and powerful in both countries will be the relationship's main beneficiaries.

The Chinese government will have greater incentive to work with you on creative solutions to complex problems if your diplomats can do a better job of reassuring ordinary Chinese that you do actually care whether U.S.-China policy outcomes will benefit them -- not just China's commercial and political elites. Right now, frankly, they're not convinced. One-way monologues through the Voice of America and Radio Free Asia don't have much street cred with China's Internet generation, to be honest. It's time to upgrade your public diplomacy strategy for the 21st Century.

Just as you have used new technology to engage with the American electorate, your China policy can be greatly strengthened if you conduct a real conversation with the Chinese people. Listen as much as you talk; provide a much-needed platform for open discussion. The U.S. embassy in Beijing should build a Chinese-language website modeled after change.gov, focused not just on U.S.-China relations, but on the range of concerns and interests - from environment, to food safety, to factory safety standards, to education and real estate law -- shared by ordinary Chinese and Americans. Some linguistically talented State Department employees should start blogging in Chinese. Open up the comments sections, see how the Chinese blogosphere responds, then respond to them in turn. Translate some of the Chinese conversation into English for Americans to read and react, then translate it back. Sure there will be censorship problems on the Chinese side, but if enough Chinese find the conversation important and relevant to their lives, the censors ultimately won't be able to stop it. Nor should they want to if they're wise - because the resulting conversation would help both governments build a more stable and rational relationship that would truly benefit the people of both countries.

Thomas Friedman gets the middle finger in the Middle Kingdom

It's not every day that you get to sit and watch a senior Chinese diplomat rip Thomas Friedman "a new one" (as we say in American colloquial parlance) as all the Chinese members of the audience cheer him on. But on Friday morning in a panel discussion titled  "China's Soft Power" that's what happened.

The panel was about how China's rising economic power in the world has brought it growing geopolitical influence - but is its low-key diplomatic stance incongruous and inappropriate for a country with so much influence throughout Asia, the Middle East and Africa?

Friedman accused China of being a "free loader" in the post-cold war world, while the U.S. has shouldered the role of global "guardian." He said that China needs to pull its weight by doing things like joining the U.S. in calling for sanctions to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons. He said China needs to do more to stop genocide in Sudan. China's U.N. Undersecretary-General Sha Zukang cleverly avoided commenting directly on the Iran situation, but on Sudan he said: "There is the impression that China is there for oil only -  that is the biggest lie I’ve ever heard."

Friedman also argued that it's in China's interest to work more directly with the U.S. on geopolitical issues because if the U.S. fails, then China will have to pick up the pieces. "If there is too little American power China will be forced to respond to that," he said.

Sha rejected the whole idea of "soft power," calling it a "condescending approach" and "notion created by Western developed countries." When it comes to world leadership, he said the world's leaders should not be "self-proclaimed" - he said they should be elected. China, he said, would not self-proclaim itself a world leader, because China's policy is always to treat other countries as "equals."

It's interesting that China's diplomatic strategy is to score points with other countries who chafe at American superpowerdom by advocating geopolitical democracy. No wonder Chinese leaders see U.S. support for internal democracy in China as an effort to score points against them.

At one point  Li Ruogu, Chairman of the Export-Import Bank of China, took a jab at U.S. interventionism in Iraq. "When you want to force others to accept an idea, you are doomed to fail," he said. The net effect of U.S. intervention in Iraq has been less peace, he rightly pointed out. Many in the audience - Western and Chinese - were nodding their heads. [Thanks to Ross for the correction on Li's title.]

Moderator Clay Chandler of Fortune magazine kicked off the hour on a provocative note with a critique of Premier Wen Jiabao's speech on Thursday night. He said it had sounded to him like every other speech by a Chinese leader that he had ever heard, and asked the panelists why Chinese leaders don't give more inspiring, interesting, or original speeches. He suggested that Wen had missed an opportunity to connect on a more direct and human level with the global business community, international media, and media pundits such as Mr. Friedman.

Sha retorted that Chinese leadership speeches are policy statements, and that trying to make each one original and entertaining is too risky: "If China changed the policy every day, you can imagine how people would react!" Delighted laughter arose from the Chinese half of the audience.

Another reason Chinese leaders give boring speeches because they can. Giving interesting speeches - by the standards of Western speechmaking at any rate - has little upside and much potential downside: people might quote them out of context or misinterpret them, or the leader might mis-speak in an effort at extemporaneous rhetorical flourish, with various consequences that might be used against him in internal political power struggles. Also, rousing, inspirational speeches just don't fit with the Chinese style of political leadership.  In Chinese culture, if you're already powerful, you don't want to act like there is a need to win anybody over. If you act like you care what people think of your speeches, you're admitting weakness. You leave it to loyal henchmen like Sha to say provocative things on your behalf, but avoid stooping to verbal sparring yourself. It also runs directly against Chinese culture for a powerful person to admit to being powerful or talk about being powerful. It's what you do, not what you say that counts.

A couple years ago a Chinese academic who advises the Chinese government on foreign policy issues told me that the best way for China to build global power, good will, and international credibility over the long run is to mind its own business, avoid criticizing the U.S. whenever possible, sit back and let the U.S. destroy its own power and credibility by itself. This is a classic Art of War strategy. Whether or not that actually is the official strategy, it seems to be working. At any rate it's the kind of strategy that probably only works when you deny using it. If I was in the Chinese leadership, I would likely not find it in China's interest to follow Friedman's suggestions - which are quite similar to the Bush administration's.

Below is a Youtube video of the session. although Chandler's opening gambit about boring Chinese leaders' speeches was edited out, along with some other parts of the session. The order of various exchanges has been moved around, and there is no translation of the Chinese-language speakers. The video was apparently shot and put online by a Chinese organization, runsky.com. The World Economic forum video page does not acknowledge that this video or any of the other session videos are edited. UPDATE (9/14): The WEF has now taken down the mysterioiusly cut/remixed version and posted the full uncut version.

(Photos courtesy of the World Economic Forum.)

"North Korea zone" needs a home

North Korea's nuclear test may have been puny and perhaps laughably so . But it it still marks the failure of Washington's North Korea policy and is an embarrassment to China and South Korea, who have been propping up the North in hopes that Kim Jong-il might behave in exchange.

Beyond that I have nothing more to add to what everybody else is saying and reporting. A few people have asked me why I haven't been blogging more about all this. After all, back in early 2004 I started North Korea zone as an experiment to see how a blog can be used to foster informed discourse about a complicated international news story. In it's heyday, I think it was quite successful and was viewed by journalists, diplomats, and others who follow North Korea to be a useful resource. Later in 2004 I tried to find a "home" for NKzone: I inquired with several academic institutions and think tanks whether they'd be interested in "adopting" NKzone: designating a Korean-speaking, N.Korea-focused staff member, faculty member, graduate student or somebody whose job would include helping to run the site, recruiting and managing a group of contributors who could bring some unique perspectives on  North Korea from South Korea, China, Japan, the U.S., and elsewhere. Unfortunately I couldn't find any takers.

I moved on to concentrate on other projects, namely Global Voices Online and issues related to the Chinese Internet, free speech, and the future of journalism. There are a number of reasons I moved on. The biggest was that I needed to work on things that people were willing to compensate me for - I had no other paying job at that point. (The first year of my Berkman fellowship was un-funded until we got Global Voices going.) Another reason was that my new projects all involved issues on which I felt I could have an impact and make a unique contribution - when it came to N.Korea, I wasn't so sure. Plus the North Korea story basically didn't change for two years running, which got pretty depressing.

Thanks to several heroic volunteers in the U.S. and Seoul, NKzone.org has stayed alive... but it would have been nice to have more people involved, posting more regularly, with some Korean and Chinese perspectives in the mix. Maybe I should try my appeal again.

Does anybody out there know anybody who wants to devote the time to running North Korea zone properly as a clearing house for discourse on issues related to North Korea? Or does anybody out there have the funds to hire a smart North Korea specialist to blog about North Korea regularly and manage contributions from others? If so, please get in touch with me. Thanks.

Hu's Heckler: Online fallout

Thanks to Jeremy Goldkorn for pointing out that somebody has uploaded the CNN video of Chinese President Hu Jintao being heckled by a FLG practitioner during his speech at the White House on Thursday. Chinese censors may have blacked out the live TV signal and all CNN replays, but it's all over the internet. And Chinese chatrooms are re-posting and analyzing the photos from the Great White House Lawn Debacle. This one (via Imagethief) has a shot of Mrs. Hu, scowling next to a smiling Laura Bush.

Meanwhile Roland Soong over at ESWN digs up a rather fascinating revelation: according to photos on this website belonging to photographer Darrin Zammit Lupi, Dr. Wang Wenyi - Thursday's heckler who was accredited into the official press coverage pool via the FLG-run publication Epoch Times - also managed to break through the security detail and confronted former President Jiang Zemin when he was on a trip to Malta in 2001. I have e-mailed the photographer asking him to confirm the authenticity of this photo and describe what happened in detail. When he gets back to me I'll update this post. [NOTE: Photo taken down for copyright reasons. Click here to see it.]

UPDATE (4/24): Mr. Lupi responded to my email with the following account of what happened:

from what I recall, she'd been shadowing jiang for a couple of days, turning up at a few of the events the media were covering.... I believe she had press credentials of some sort, though not issued by Maltese for purpose of covering the visit.... still, whatever she had was good enough for some cops providing security, I suppose.

On the day in question, Jiang was doing an unscheduled walkabout around Malta's ancient former capital city, Mdina.... no one gave Wang a second look.  As Jiang descended some stairs from a terrace overlooking the bastions, she somehow slipped through the ring of plain clothes police officers around him, and said something....there was some shouting, and she was immediately pulled away by the security guards.  Jiang immediately instructed that she be brought back to him, and that's when the moments I'd photographed took place.... she very calmly accused him of killing and persecuting Falun Gong practicioners, to which Jiang angrily and animatedly, with wide hand gestures, replied that the Falun Gong were killing themselves.

Then he brushed her off and the police took her away again... she was held for a while at a local police station, then released without charge. She became something of a celebrity in the following days. Prior to her protest, the police had been keeping Falun Gong and other protestors well away from Jiang, making sure he wouldn;t even see or hear them.

Chinese netizens were already speculating that the White House or somebody in the U.S. government had allowed her into the press stand on purpose, given how long it took before she was led away. (Roland quotes more such speculation here.) Then there's the added issuse that even many Chinese who dislike their regime equally dislike FLG. For a taste of those sentiments check out Bingfeng here and here. I have a lot of Chinese friends who share similar views - people who also have a habit of saying very unflattering things in private about various Chinese leaders and government departments.

But what has really upset a lot of Chinese people was Bush's rude and very public yank on Hu's sleeve. See Imagethief's post about the reaction of his Chinese co-workers. Lead sentence: "They think Bush is a protocol-impaired dweeb."

The saddest thing about Thursday's White House Lawn Diplo-Debacle is that many Chinese who generally dislike the Chinese Communist Party have now turned against the U.S. government. Roland cites a Hong Kong newspaper poll with the following results:

Issue: The White House master of ceremony announced the playing of the national anthem of the Republic of China.
    - 33% said that the American goverment deliberate set this up to insult China
    - 21% said that the American government was of poor quality
    - 23% said that it was an unintentional mistake
    
Issue: When the female FLG member disrupted Hu Jintao's speech, she was allowed to go on for almost three minutes before the secret service agents removed her.
    - 79% said that the American government should apologize
    -   9% said that the American government should not apologize

Issue: How should China protest against what occurred?
    - 43% said China should demand an apology from the American government
    - 22% said China should lodge a diplomatic protest
    -   6% said China should cancel the recently signed purchase contracts

Issue: Do you think that the United States is a trustworthy partner?
    - 17% said USA is a trustworthy partner
    - 62% said USA is not a trustworthy partner

Youch. And this is from people in relatively Westernized Hong Kong.

For more news and blogger coverage from Reuters and Global Voices Online, click here: