[Joint House and Senate Hearing, 112 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
CHINA'S CENSORSHIP OF THE INTERNET AND SOCIAL MEDIA: THE HUMAN TOLL AND
TRADE IMPACT
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
ONE HUNDRED TWELFTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
NOVEMBER 17, 2011
__________
Printed for the use of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China
Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.cecc.gov
----------
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Washington, DC 20402-0001
CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
LEGISLATIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS
House Senate
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey, SHERROD BROWN, Ohio, Cochairman
Chairman MAX BAUCUS, Montana
FRANK WOLF, Virginia CARL LEVIN, Michigan
DONALD A. MANZULLO, Illinois DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon
TIM WALZ, Minnesota SUSAN COLLINS, Maine
MARCY KAPTUR, Ohio JAMES RISCH, Idaho
MICHAEL HONDA, California
EXECUTIVE BRANCH COMMISSIONERS
SETH D. HARRIS, Department of Labor
MARIA OTERO, Department of State
FRANCISCO J. SANCHEZ, Department of Commerce
KURT M. CAMPBELL, Department of State
NISHA DESAI BISWAL, U.S. Agency for International Development
Paul B. Protic, Staff Director
Lawrence T. Liu, Deputy Staff Director
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Opening statement of Hon. Chris Smith, a U.S. Representative from
New Jersey; Chairman, Congressional-Executive Commission on
China.......................................................... 1
Brown, Hon. Sherrod, a U.S. Senator from Ohio; Cochairman,
Congressional-Executive Commission on China.................... 3
Walz, Hon. Tim, a U.S. Representative from Minnesota; Ranking
Member, Congressional-Executive Commission on China............ 5
Li, Alex, College Student and son of Li Yuanlong, who served two
years in prison for commenting on the Communist Party online... 6
Zhang, John, Christian political dissident who was imprisoned for
two years following the 1989 Tiananmen protests and who
currently assists families of Chinese political prisoners...... 7
Wu, Harry, Founder, Laogai Research Foundation and Laogai Museum. 10
Xiao, Qiang, Adjunct Professor, Graduate School of Journalism,
University of California-Berkeley, Founder and Editor-in-Chief,
China Digital Times............................................ 12
Kaplan, Gilbert B., Partner, King & Spalding; President, the
Committee to Support U.S. Trade Laws........................... 13
Black, Ed, President and CEO, Computer & Communications Industry
Association.................................................... 16
Appendix
Li, Alex......................................................... 32
Zhang, John...................................................... 34
Xiao, Qiang...................................................... 57
Kaplan, Gilbert B................................................ 60
Black, Ed........................................................ 67
Smith, Hon. Chris................................................ 71
Brown, Hon. Sherrod.............................................. 72
CHINA'S CENSORSHIP OF THE INTERNET AND SOCIAL MEDIA: THE HUMAN TOLL AND
TRADE IMPACT
----------
THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 2011
Congressional-Executive
Commission on China,
Washington, DC.
The hearing was convened, pursuant to notice, at 10:08
a.m., in room 2226, Rayburn House Office Building,
Representative Chris Smith, Chairman, presiding.
Also present: Senator Sherrod Brown; Representative Tim
Walz.
Also present: Harry Wu.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. CHRIS SMITH, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE
FROM NEW JERSEY; CHAIRMAN, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION
ON CHINA
Chairman Smith. The Commission will come to order.
I want to welcome all of our distinguished witnesses to
this very important hearing. We really appreciate the
attendance of all of our panelists and guests. It's a pleasure
to welcome everyone to this important hearing on ``China's
Censorship of the Internet and Social Media: The Human Toll and
Trade Impact.''
As recent events have shown, the issue of Internet
censorship has only grown in terms of importance and magnitude,
and I thank the Congressional-Executive Commission on China's
staff for organizing a hearing on this pressing issue and for
the tremendous scholarly work they have done not only in
presenting our annual report, which is filled with facts and
information that is actionable, but for the ongoing work that
they do to monitor the gross abuses of human rights in China.
As the Congressional-Executive Commission on China's report
demonstrates, China's leadership has grown more assertive in
its violation of rights, disregarding the very laws and
international standards that they claim to uphold while
tightening their grip on Chinese society.
As Chinese citizens have increasingly called for freedoms
and reforms, China has only strengthened its controls over the
many areas of society, particularly over the Internet. While
China has witnessed a boom in the popularity of social media
and Internet sites, China's citizens that access online sites
today remain under the watchful eye of the state. By some
accounts, China has imprisoned more Internet activists than any
other country in the world, and its Internet invariably ranks
among the most restrictive globally.
Chinese citizens are unable to voice a range of criticism
that Americans undoubtedly take for granted each and every day.
Chinese citizens that Tweet about local corruption may face the
threat of abuse or harassment. Citizens that express
dissatisfaction over tainted food supplies that injure
children, the most vulnerable population of our society, may
come to hear a knock at the door. And citizens that voice the
yearning desire for democracy and right to protections we value
so dearly may disappear into the official custody of the state,
where they face torture and incarceration.
For Chinese citizens, the line that can't be crossed is
unclear. While mentions of the 1989 Tiananmen protests are
surely prohibited, China's censorship remains at the whims of
governmental agencies that seek to limit any of what they
perceive to be destabilizing commentary. In China, the Internet
provides no transparency and citizens must weigh their choices
each time they click to send an email, or press a button, or
post personal views.
Who can forget Shi Tao, who for merely posting information
about what he's not allowed to do with regard to Tiananmen
Square, garnered a 10-year prison sentence when Yahoo! opened
up their personally identifiable information and gave it to the
Chinese secret police that led to his conviction. There are no
lists of banned words, as we know. There are no registers of
prohibited topics. It's all kept secret. In China, there is no
transparency and there are only consequences, and dire ones at
that.
Today we welcome two panels that will address China's
Internet censorship from two perspectives. The witnesses will
not only provide personal accounts of how China's censorship
affects individuals and families, but also detail how China's
actions hinder the rights of U.S. businesses that seek to
compete fairly in the People's Republic of China. These panels
will expose China's bold disregard for its own laws and its
international obligations, specifically in terms of its
controls on Internet activity and expression.
In the first panel today we will hear personal accounts of
the consequences Chinese citizens face in seeking to express
their fundamental right of expression. We will hear from a son
and a pastor that have seen firsthand the actions of an
unforgiving hand of China's Internet police. We will hear how
the simplest calls for freedom and reforms lead to the
separation of loved ones and the partition of families.
In the second panel we will hear how China's Internet
restrictions and controls not only hurts its citizens, but also
hurts countries seeking to better China through international
trade and cooperation. On a commercial level, China simply
lacks the kind of transparency and fairness that we expect in
global trading partners.
China has not only failed to comply with its WTO
commitments, it has exploited our expectations to create an
unlevel playing field, hurting the competitiveness of U.S.
businesses and workers alike. We recognize that the Internet
and social media can and should be used to provide people with
greater access to honest information and to open up commercial
opportunities for businesses operating in global markets.
We know that the promise of information technology cannot
be achieved when it is used by repressive governments to fine,
capture, convict, and so often torture ordinary citizens for
voicing concerns publicly. Information technology cannot be
advanced when it involves the systematic exclusion of
commercial competitors in rampant disregard for transparency
and intellectual property.
China is one of the most repressive and restrictive
countries when it comes to the control of the Internet and the
impact goes far beyond the commercial losses of U.S. companies
that want to participate in that market. There are serious
human rights implications. We have seen the damage inflicted
countless times through the arrest of bloggers and pro-
democracy activists who have used the Internet to communicate
with colleagues or disseminate views and then have been
arrested.
What makes this situation even worse is that sometimes it
is U.S. companies, and my colleagues will recall I held the
first of a series of hearings where we had Microsoft, Yahoo!,
Cisco, and Google before our committee. It was my Subcommittee
on Human Rights. They held up their hands and promised to tell
the whole truth and nothing but, and then said they couldn't
tell us what they were censoring and would not tell us how they
were being complicit.
Harry Wu was here, and obviously has been a leader in that.
He pointed out that Cisco has so enabled the secret police to
track down people using Police Net, and that the use of cyber
police is ubiquitous throughout all of China in order to
capture the best and the bravest and the smartest in China who
would bring that country to democracy, if only allowed to do
so.
So this hearing will focus on these very important issues.
We are joined by, obviously, our Cochairman, Senator Brown,
Sherrod Brown from Ohio, who will speak, and then Mr. Walz, who
is the Ranking Member, and then we will go to our witnesses.
(The prepared statement of Representative Smith appears in
the appendix.]
STATEMENT OF HON. SHERROD BROWN, A U.S. SENATOR FROM OHIO;
COCHAIRMAN, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION ON CHINA
Senator Brown. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you all for
being here. It is an honor to have you. Pastor Zhang, thank
you. And Alex Li, who goes to one of Ohio's great universities,
Bowling Green State University, located in a small town outside
Toledo. Alex got here at 4 o'clock this morning after riding a
bus all night. Thank you for your extraordinary effort to get
here. You can do that at your age and not pay a price like the
rest of us, riding all night. But thank you. You look great
today. Thanks.
Chairman Smith, thank you. Chris and I have worked together
when I was in the House in the 1990s and into the next decade
on China human rights issues. I am so appreciative of the work
that he's done. And Tim Walz, who has been a stalwart on this
Commission and on these issues, having lived in China many
years ago for a while and taught there for a couple of years.
Thanks for the work that you're doing.
The business of the Internet and social media is changing
the way the world works. Just take a look at all the smart
phones in this room. It has changed the way we live, the way we
do business, the way we act as a society. It's changed the
world. It's made people closer in many ways to their
governments. It's made these governments more accountable and
interactive. In the case of the Arab Spring, it's helped to
topple dictators.
The purpose of today's hearing is to shed light on the
darkness of China's repressive Internet and social media
censorship. It's a policy that takes a human toll, as Chairman
Smith said, undermining human rights freedoms and freedoms of
expression and speech. It's a policy that's unfair to U.S.
trade interests, especially for U.S. tech companies.
It's well documented that Chinese officials block access to
far too many Web sites, including this Commission's. Some sites
are blocked because they're considered politically sensitive,
others for reasons that we could only guess. China's Internet
control forces private companies, including U.S. companies, to
censor the Internet based on vague and arbitrary standards.
Many companies are forced to operate in an opaque world
that we know surprisingly little about. This policy benefits
Chinese domestic companies at the expense of companies like
Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, who are completely blocked in
China. Companies whose business models rely on openness and
transparency are forced to be an arm of the Chinese Government
or to turn their backs on 1.3 billion customers.
But it is not just Silicon Valley companies that are
blocked, it's also companies in my State, like GrafTech and
Edgetech that risk having their Web sites blocked or disrupted
as they try to sell their services and products to reach
Chinese consumers.
When a company goes public with complaints about these
restrictions, as Google did last year, they risk retaliation by
the Chinese Government for doing so. Google is a company that
made the unfortunate controversial--and some decision that many
of us weren't wild about--to work with the Chinese Government.
In the end, of course, it didn't work out so well for them.
In the absence of meaningful competition, copycat versions
of Twitter and Facebook flourish in China and raise hundreds of
millions of dollars, ironically, on our capital markets. For
instance, in May of this year, Renren, China's version of
Facebook, raised $743 million in an IPO listed on the New York
Stock Exchange. These Chinese companies are beholden to the
Chinese Government and Communist Party and censorship has
increased, yet they want access to our free and open society.
As arms of the Chinese Government, these moves should be
closely scrutinized. China now has over half a billion Internet
users, more of course than any country in the world. Most of
these Internet users are young, far more aware of Chinese and
world developments than their parents. Knowledge and openness
are threats to totalitarian regimes. We know that. The Chinese
Government knows that.
In our country, knowledge and openness are pillars of our
form of government. Take the case of outspoken dissident/artist
Ai Weiwei. His savvy social networking skills and unabashed
criticism of the government landed him an 81-day detention at a
secret location earlier this year. Now the government wants him
to pay $2.4 million in alleged unpaid taxes and penalties by
Tuesday. Thousands of supporters in China have sent him money
over the Internet.
Ai continues to defy government orders by using Twitter to
publicize his case. In recent years, the Commission has
documented a growing number of cases of political imprisonment
involving the Internet. Behind each case is a story and a
family. One of those cases is Li Yuanlong. Li is a journalist
who was imprisoned for two years for criticizing the Communist
Party online. That's why we're so grateful that Alex, his son,
is here to tell Li's story.
Last month, the U.S. Trade Representative filed a request
for information from the World Trade Organization on China's
Internet censorship. I applaud this move as a positive first
step. I look forward to learning what we can do to address this
pressing issue. Too much is at stake. The human toll becomes
insufferable. The economic threat undermines our innovation.
China plays by its own rules because we regrettably, in
this institution and in our government, let them. We cannot
simply wait out the inevitable power of the Internet to move
the hearts and minds of the Chinese people. We must do all we
can to shine a light where free expression, thought, and
commerce are too often kept in the dark.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Walz?
[The prepared statement of Senator Brown appears in the
appendix.]
STATEMENT OF HON. TIM WALZ, A U.S. REPRESENTATIVE FROM
MINNESOTA; RANKING MEMBER, CONGRESSIONAL-EXECUTIVE COMMISSION
ON CHINA
Representative Walz. Well, thank you Chairman Smith and
Senator Brown. It's an honor to be up here with two of the most
passionate and thoughtful members of Congress, and I appreciate
the long work that the two of you have done to bring about
human rights, to bring about a sense of fairness, and today is
another example of that.
I would also like to thank the witnesses for being here. It
is very humbling to be on this Commission because the witnesses
who sit in front of us are people that have paid heavy prices
for freedoms, not just in China but worldwide, to make us
understand those precious liberties we have. The folks in front
of us today are no exception.
To Alex and his father who paid a price for that, we all
benefit from that courage. We all benefit from keeping in mind
that human rights are above and supreme to the other issues at
hand. But I'm also very appreciative of the second panel here,
a group of experts to help us understand the impact of what's
happening with social media, and also understanding how it's
impacting markets. It is our responsibility, as Senator Brown
said, for this institution to uphold the human rights as well
as trade deals that were signed onto.
Our companies are being unfairly punished by the behaviors
of the Chinese Government and that is what this Commission was
set up for. That was the mandate that this Commission was
given, and I can tell you that my two colleagues sitting up
here take that very seriously. So I look forward to the
testimony today. Again, thanks to the witnesses. I always make
sure I say this here. I am always incredibly impressed with the
staff of this Commission. They are the most professional and
best prepared of any I've seen, and I thank them.
So, Mr. Chairman?
Chairman Smith. Mr. Walz, thank you very much. Thank you
for the expertise you bring to this Commission, especially
having lived there and having gotten to know the on-the-ground
situation in China. You are a great asset to our Commission, so
thank you.
We'll begin with our two witnesses on the first panel.
We'll begin with Alex Li, who is currently an undergraduate
student at Bowling Green State University in Bowling Green,
Ohio. In 2006, a Chinese court sentenced Li's father, Li
Yuanlong, to two years' imprisonment for posting comments
online about the Communist Party. Then we'll hear from Pastor
John Zhang, who is a rights advocate who was imprisoned for two
years following the 1989 Tiananmen Square protest. Pastor Zhang
currently assists families of political prisoners and serves as
a pastor at California Bay Area Church.
Mr. Li, if you could proceed.
STATEMENT OF ALEX LI, COLLEGE STUDENT AND SON OF LI YUANLONG,
WHO SERVED TWO YEARS IN PRISON FOR COMMENTING ON THE COMMUNIST
PARTY ONLINE
Mr. Li. Greetings. My name is Muzi Li. I'm from Bowling
Green State University. In 2005, my dad had published four
articles online and was arrested because he published four
articles online. At that time I was 17 years old. A few weeks
after my dad was arrested I was brought to a hotel and
questioned by the police from the Ministry of Public Security.
I was questioned without a parent with me. One of the questions
was, ``What did your father do with your email address at
[email protected]? '' Nothing. Nothing. But according
to the verdict, my dad published four articles through my email
address. That was wrong. Why? The police say my dad published
the articles through my email address. That's the case.
At that time my computer was operating a Windows XP system.
I would just use the Windows Live to watch more news and the
account number was totally [email protected]. It's not
an email address, it's an account number. The police tracked my
IP address and then the account number showed up. They thought
it was an email address, but it wasn't. So they thought my
father published those articles through the email address, but
my dad didn't.
So it was all the Golden Shield. The police cannot track my
IP address and they cannot find the account number. So
according to the verdict, my dad used my email address, but
that was wrong. So I think that proved that the police tracked
my IP address through some technology and they used the Golden
Shield to arrest those who have opposed political voices, and
that happened to my family.
At that time I was 17 years old, a teenager. I was choosing
a college. I needed my father, but he was taken away. So I
think this was totally a tragedy. Moreover, when my dad
committed these articles for a foreign Web site, and if
somebody wants to publish something on a foreign Web site, what
he needs to do is copy, paste, and post. An email address is
not necessary. However, even if my dad needed an email address,
he has his own. Why did he use mine? It's ridiculous. So the
police tracked my IP address through technology and my dad
suffered two years in prison. I also suffered two years without
my father with me. That's the story.
Chairman Smith. Mr. Li, thank you so very much.
Mr. Zhang? Pastor Zhang?
STATEMENT OF JOHN ZHANG, CHRISTIAN POLITICAL DISSIDENT
IMPRISONED FOR TWO YEARS FOLLOWING THE 1989 TIANANMEN PROTESTS
AND WHO CURRENTLY ASSISTS FAMILIES OF CHINESE POLITICAL
PRISONERS
Mr. Zhang. Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much for
holding this hearing. My name is John Zhang. I am currently a
pastor in the Bay Area of San Francisco.
Twenty-two years ago in 1989, I was a student at the
Beijing Language Institute. I actively participated in the 1989
Patriotic Democratic Movement in Beijing. After the Tiananmen
Square incident, I organized a large memorial service to mourn
for the Beijing residents and university students who were
massacred at Tiananmen Square, and was arrested on June 15. I
was arrested and sent to Qincheng prison in Beijing for two
years.
In 2001, I was baptized as a Christian. Soon after, I
became a house church preacher in an underground house church.
Every Sunday I led dozens of Christians to hold Sunday worship
at hotels, restaurants, and at the houses of some Christian
followers. In 2004, on the eve of the 15th anniversary of June
4, I was arrested again. Why? Because I tried to organize an
evangelism and invited many dissidents by phone or via email to
attend our church's worship, but my phone was bugged and email
was hacked by policemen, so I was once again illegally detained
by the policemen and taken into custody for 10 days.
In 2006, I thanked God for bringing me to America, where I
attended theological seminary and got my master's degree after
three years' study.
Today, I just want to introduce a girl to everybody. This
is Chen Qiao. Her English name is Bridgett. Her father, Liu
Xianbin, is a famous Christian dissident in China. When she was
only two years old, her father was taken away from her life. So
her father disappeared from her life for nine years. When she
was 11 years old, her father appeared in her life, but he felt
like a stranger. She is 14 years old now. But she only lived
with her father only less than four years. In her adolescence,
she needed her father most. But unfortunately, her father was
sent to jail for 10 years. This is the third time he was sent
to jail.
So I think the American company Cisco has played a
disgraceful role in this sad story. According to the reports,
Cisco helped China's Ministry of Public Security construct the
``Golden Shield Project'' as well as provided equipment,
technology, and training. The ``Golden Shield Project'' is a
national surveillance network system that has a huge database
and a sophisticated tracking network system. Policemen can
track dissidents' IP addresses and then track, harass, and
arrest them. I saw this in four articles published on Cisco's
Chinese Web site, clearly showing the cooperative relationship
between Cisco and China's Ministry of Public Security. Without
a doubt, Cisco is responsible for the deterioration of Internet
freedom in China. I hope that the Commission will enter these
documents into the record.
Today, I just want to remind everyone that freedom of
speech is an inherent right given to man by God, which is an
inalienable right. The United States was established on the
values of Christianity. The United States should defend and
adhere to these universal human values and promote ``non-evil''
business practices. Each Member of Congress has the
responsibility to monitor American companies like Cisco while
trying to maximize the business interest in China. These
companies should not ignore the most basic morals and
principles of business ethics. In order to regulate the
business practices of companies that violate American law, they
should be subject to public criticism, condemnation, economic
penalties, and sanctions.
Thank you for your patience.
[The information appears in the appendix.]
[The prepared statement of Mr. Zhang appears in the
appendix.]
Chairman Smith. Pastor Zhang, thank you so much for your
testimony and for bearing witness to an extremely troubling
truth in China, the mistreatment of house pastors, the
mistreatment of all people of faith who are not registered and,
to a large extent, co-opted by the government.
I would note parenthetically that Frank Wolf and I, right
before the Olympic Games, traveled to China with the express
hope of meeting with a number of religious leaders, including
underground pastors. Every one of them, except one, was
arrested, denied, precluded the opportunity to meet with two
visiting Members of Congress.
Second, the one who did meet with us for dinner was
subsequently arrested and interrogated very severely. So I
thank you for bearing witness for fellow pastors and other men
and women of faith in China who suffer daily, and now with the
increased or the enhanced use of surveillance provided by the
Internet.
And Mr. Li, thank you as well for your testimony.
All of us thought we might ask a question or just make a
brief comment, and then we'll get to our second panel. If I
could, were you in Beijing Prison Number One, by the way,
Pastor? Which prison were you held in after Tiananmen Square?
Pastor Zhang. Qincheng prison in Beijing.
Chairman Smith. Okay. I would just note, right after
Tiananmen Square, Mr. Wolf and I got into Beijing Prison Number
One, where there were 40 activists, all with shaved heads. It
looked like a concentration camp, because it was. They were
making, as you know, Cochairman Brown, jelly shoes and socks
for export to the United States. Under our very ineffective MOU
[memorandum of understanding] with China, unless we have real-
time information about what's being made by those prisoners,
there's no actionable direction that the U.S. Government could
take.
We tell them--they, the Chinese--we have suspicions and
then they investigate. In this case Mr. Wolf and I walked out
with the living proof of what we had gotten ourselves, and I
was just wondering if you might have been at that prison
because it was horrible. Thin, gaunt men, working around the
clock, Reform Through Labor signs all over the place, and their
only crime was asking for democracy. So again, I want to thank
you and Mr. Li for presenting your very powerful testimony here
today.
Chairman Brown?
Senator Brown. Thank you. I appreciate the discussion of
Cisco and some of the comments from Cisco. I know Chairman
Smith, and I know Congressman Walz and I, all are troubled by
that and we take it seriously. The Commission is looking into
its role in the oppression that we see.
Alex, if I can ask you just a brief question. Tell me how
your family is doing. Might they suffer from your testimony
today? If you would, tell us a little bit about how your family
is doing.
Mr. Li. Do you mean now or----
Senator Brown. Today. Yes, now. Yes.
Mr. Li. I think it will because obviously American--the
police--last year I joined a June 4th celebration in San
Francisco and the police knew that, and they called my dad to
threaten him to warn me not to do anything bad. So I'm pretty
sure they know this, and called my dad to threaten.
Senator Brown. Please let us know. The Commission will
monitor any of this. Please let us know if there are any
repercussions from your testimony today with your family.
Mr. Li. Sure. Thank you.
Senator Brown. We want to be on your side and help to
protect them as much as we can, as much as you can, together.
So, thank you.
Mr. Wu, it's nice to see you again. Thank you for your
outspokenness and courage.
Representative Walz. Well, thank you both. Again, as I
said, it's always humbling to sit here and see the folks who
are on the front line of fighting for human rights.
Mr. Li, I'm just curious if you can help me. How did your
family connect to the Internet? Who is your Internet provider,
and how do you do that in China? Who did you pay to have access
to? And then your Gmail account you mentioned with your father,
how did that work?
Mr. Li. I think it's similar to America. The Internet
service was provided by the China Mobile Company.
Representative Walz. So you had an account. You can get on
the Internet. You had a Gmail account.
Mr. Li. Yes. And those Web sites my dad committed on--he
was--wanted to overthrow something called Freegate. So those
Web sites are blocked in China. That's why he got in trouble.
Representative Walz. Okay. Well, again, I thank you very
much. We've got a panel coming on next that's going to talk
about how some of this is done. We're deeply troubled by your
account, and I associate myself with Senator Brown's concern
for your family. So, thank you for the courage of coming today,
and thank you, Pastor Zhang.
Chairman Smith. Thank you both. Anything you'd like to add
before we go to panel two? We'll be inviting Harry Wu, without
objection, to join panel two, a man who has done extraordinary
work in exposing the exploitation of the Internet, and
especially has brought focus on Cisco. So Harry, if you would
just stay there for the second panel, we'd appreciate it.
But would either of you like to add anything before we go
to panel two, Mr. Li or Pastor Zhang?
[No response].
Chairman Smith. Then Harry, we'll go to you in panel two.
Mr. Wu. Shall I go?
Chairman Smith. Yes. Just stay put.
STATEMENT OF HARRY WU, FOUNDER, LAOGAI RESEARCH FOUNDATION AND
LAOGAI MUSEUM
Mr. Wu. I don't have any connection with any American
company that has business with China or the Chinese Government,
Chinese companies. I just focus on the Cisco case. There were a
number of contracts with China's Security and Public Security
Department since 2002 until 2007 or 2008.
China has a national program, the so-called ``Golden
Shield.'' Entirely, the whole cost is $5 to $6 billion. So far,
I understand that only a few provinces have signed a contract
with another American company. Most of them, they signed
contracts with Cisco. So we have some quotes here. This is from
Chinese information. They so appreciate this cooperation with
Cisco, and Cisco has a proposal to them not to only sell the
products, sell the equipment, but also to include training.
Last December, I was in Oslo. I wanted to participate in
the Nobel Peace Prize award for Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo.
As you know, Liu Xiaobo, since 2002 until 2009, sent 248
articles to our Web site ``Guancha,'' and we published his
book.
But unfortunately we saw the Nobel Peace Prize had a menu.
On one of the pages, John Chambers, the CEO of Cisco, was there
because the CEO supports the Nobel Peace Prize, the financial
support for the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to a Chinese
dissident. So this is one face to tell the people what Cisco is
doing. They sponsor the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to a Chinese
dissident, but the other face, they sign a contract--many
contracts--for Chinese security to set up the ``Golden Shield
Program,'' to arrest Chinese dissidents, including Alex's
father, Li Yuanlong and Chen Qiao's father, Liu Xianbin.
You have to know, Liu Xianbin, Chen Qiao's father, was
sentenced three times. The first time was two and a half years.
The second was 13 years. Recently, this year, he was sentenced
to another 10 years in a prison camp. Just because of what?
Because he wrote an article on a Web site. How come the Chinese
Internet can effectively control everything, control everyone?
I don't think that without Cisco support they could have
done it. But we heard Cisco's attorney testify twice in the
Senate, in the House and say, we have to follow Chinese law. We
sell the products to anyone. We don't care what they're doing.
But they never mentioned that when they sold the product to
Chinese security. They say, ``Well, if a car accident happens
in a city, the patrol car has to write a report to the
supervisor. So, the Internet helps.'' I say, okay, well, car
accident. But if there's a dissident that posts something
online, are the police going to report it or not? This is not a
security problem, this is a political issue. I want to know
that Cisco in China is now training the police.
Let me stop here. I sent a letter to John Chambers, the
CEO. I said, ``Remember recently IBM apologized to the Jewish
because they sold technology to Hitler's Germany 60 years ago.
Are you going to apologize later to Chinese dissidents? Because
Cisco in this business is entirely working with Chinese Public
Security.''
Thank you.
Chairman Smith. Thank you. And let the record note that it
was Harry Wu, at the first hearing that I held on Internet
exploitation in China, who brought forward the information on
Cisco. When we had the Cisco representative, after being sworn
in, tell us that they could not disclose what it is that they
were doing, and like Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft, said it was
a matter of Chinese law that there was all of this cloak of
secrecy.
It was Harry Wu who told us how they had enabled, through
Police Net, to give the secret police of China the same
capabilities that the FBI, Scotland Yard, and other world-class
enforcement agencies have, law enforcement agencies. But we,
the United States, and especially through corporations like
Cisco, had given them that capability and that capacity.
We will be inviting Cisco back to the witness table and we
will ask them hard questions about what it is that they're
doing. And as you pointed out so well, Mr. Wu, having spent
almost 20 years in the Laogai yourself, and having been
tortured beyond belief, without this kind--you know, propaganda
and secret police are the two mainstays of dictatorship.
The IBM--and there is a book called IBM and the Holocaust,
a heavily footnoted book that makes it very clear that the
Gestapo would not have been able to find so many of the Jewish
people who ended up at Auschwitz and Buchenwald and elsewhere
had it not been for IBM.
Now, fast forward to 2011. Now we have Cisco doing the same
kind of horrific enabling of a secret police to track down
these great pastors and family members who are behind these
lines, going online and then being captured by the secret
police because of corporations like Cisco. So, thank you, Mr.
Wu, for that. Thank you, Pastor.
Mr. Walz, anything you want to add?
[No response].
Mr. Wu. Thank you.
Chairman Smith. Thank you very much, gentlemen.
We'll now hear from Professor Xiao Qiang. Professor Xiao is
an Adjunct Professor at the Graduate School of Journalism at
the University of California at Berkeley, and a Visiting
Researcher at the Counter-Power Lab at the School of
Information at UC-Berkeley as well. Professor Xiao is also
Founder and Editor-in-Chief of China Digital Times, a bilingual
Chinese Web site covering China's social and political
transition.
We will then hear from Mr. Gil Kaplan, who is partner at
King & Spalding, where he focuses on international trade cases
and trade policy issues. Mr. Kaplan is also president of the
Committee to Support U.S. Trade Laws, an organization of
companies, trade associations, unions, and individuals
dedicated to preserving and enhancing the trade remedy laws
U.S. companies have access to which ensure international trade
is conducted on a fair basis.
Professor Xiao?
STATEMENT OF XIAO QIANG, ADJUNCT PROFESSOR, GRADUATE SCHOOL OF
JOURNALISM, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-BERKELEY; FOUNDER AND
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF, CHINA DIGITAL TIMES
Mr. Xiao. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Respectful
Representative Christopher Smith, I have been working with you
many years in terms of human rights, promoting human rights in
China, and I respect your consistent and tireless work.
I have written a statement to submit to the Commission for
the record.
Chairman Smith. Without objection it will be a part of the
record.
Mr. Xiao. So what I'm going to do in the next five minutes
will be to briefly summarize a few points to give a background
of the Chinese state censorship and the activities on the
Chinese Internet of political participation of Chinese netizens
and my own analysis and observation in order for us to
understand better why there is such censorship and control in
the Chinese cyberspace and the consequences to American
companies.
First of all, I am currently, in addition to documenting,
identifying, and indexing censorship in China, I am also
working with some leading computer scientists at UC-Berkeley to
test, evaluate, and incubate counter-censorship technologies
which can be applied to expand the free flow of information
around the world.
The first point I'm going to make on Internet censorship,
which is already well documented and publicized in many works,
including my own research, is to focus on a single case which
is the Chinese Twitter-like company, Sino-Weiboa. China blocked
Twitter and Facebook in 2009, but this particular company, who
is also raising money from the U.S. stock market, has expanded
its own microblogging service in China in the last two or three
years. Now it has over 250 million users.
According to their own report, this company has an
extensive and powerful censorship mechanism to back up their
operation. The company's executive has publicly stated that
monitoring the content is Sino-blog services' biggest headache
and it entails intensive communication between editors and
state managers, including emails, updating guidelines for
monitoring content that is sent every hour. This company has
hundreds of human hired individuals and departments just to
monitor the content and censoring them.
On these particular microblogging services, I have just
published the latest directive from the Chinese state censor.
Well, actually two of them. One is relating to the artist Ai
Weiwei, asking them to delete old information about him
borrowing money to return his tax action online. But the latest
directive from the state to this company is to prevent three
individuals, Chinese individuals, from opening an account on
this microblogging service.
These three are Chen Ping, a businessman who is a publisher
of a Hong Kong-based magazine called Sunshine Affairs, and the
second is called Chang Ping, a renowned Chinese journalist, and
third is Wen Yunchao, an editor of that publication. That
publication is banned in China and not allowed anywhere in
cyberspace, and their names are being prevented from opening
any microblogging services in China. These individuals,
actually, their personal safety, is in danger.
The next point I'm going to say is that despite this kind
of censorship, that the Chinese Internet netizens have been
increasing their criticism to the Chinese Government policies
and systems and questioning the government accountability and
increasing their ability to politically participate in Chinese
society.
Precisely because of that, the Chinese Government has
intensified its control to a more advanced technological and
sophisticated level. And here comes the American companies and
technologies, because controlling individuals is not enough.
What they are doing is preventing those technologies from
search and file sharing, access feeds for blogging,
microblogging. They want these Internet services totally under
their own control so they don't give foreign companies the same
level playing field, and they actually blocked hundreds of
thousands, if not more, Web sites and companies and web pages
from China, preventing such access for the Chinese netizens.
So it has had both censorship consequences and level trade
consequences. My own research group has documented a
significant portion of such censorship directives over the last
five years, and some are translated on our Web site, and those
search-banned key words, over 800 of them, in cyberspace.
So finally my point is, despite such censorship there is an
emerging generation of Chinese bloggers and netizens who are
pro-human rights, democracy, and freedom values, and actually
they are the leading voice on the Chinese Internet. It's the
hope of the Chinese Internet to facilitate such speaking voices
for a different future of China, but in order to achieve that
day, the U.S. Government should stand firmly behind the values
of the freedom of speech and freedom of information and do
everything we can from this country to mitigate those
consequences and violations of human rights and Internet
censorship, including this consequence to American companies.
Thank you.
Chairman Smith. Thank you so very much for your testimony.
Mr. Kaplan?
[The prepared statement of Mr. Xiao appears in the
appendix.]
STATEMENT OF GILBERT B. KAPLAN, PARTNER, KING & SPALDING;
PRESIDENT, THE COMMITTEE TO SUPPORT U.S. TRADE LAWS
Mr. Kaplan. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and members
of the Commission, for inviting me to testify here today. I'd
like to just say briefly that I, too, am humbled, as some of
you mentioned, to be speaking here with people who have risked
their lives, their health, and their families on this issue
which we look at perhaps more as a legal and commercial issue,
but I understand the deep danger people are in related to this.
Through my work with the First Amendment Coalition, we've
been working to achieve a breakthrough on China's Internet
restrictions since 2007. I feel that we are finally making some
progress, in part from our work and also in part from the work
of this commission and other voices on Capitol Hill and the
U.S. Trade Representative [USTR].
There is a relationship between commerce and the trade
problems we face and American values and our ability to promote
American values around the world, and one of those, of course,
is free speech.
China's censorship of the Internet and its restrictions on
the free flow of information have a very significant impact on
U.S. economic and trade interests. These measures have been
ongoing for years and have had an overwhelmingly adverse effect
on market share for U.S. companies in China, perhaps to the
extent that such market share will never be recovered.
China's blocking and filtering measures and the fog of
uncertainty surrounding what China's censors will or will not
permit violate numerous of China's international obligations,
including provisions of the WTO General Agreement on Trade and
Services, the GATS.
Although there is public information identifying several
large companies that have been blocked or restricted by the
Great Firewall, including YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Vimeo,
Google, and The Huffington Post, to name a few, there are many
other companies that have been blocked from access in China
that I am not able to identify by name specifically because
these companies fear retaliation. These companies come from
various sectors, including energy, labor mediation, tourism,
education, web hosting, and advertising, among others.
The fact that these large, well-established companies and
other fast-growing U.S. firms, so successful in every other
major market in the world, are reluctant to come forward with
specific information that would form the basis of a WTO
complaint against the Chinese Government is powerful testament
to: (1) the importance of the Chinese Internet market, the
largest in the world, to these firms' continuing success; and
(2) the risk of retaliation these firms face if they are seen
as lending direct support to a trade complaint against China.
Moreover, companies not yet in existence but for which China
could represent a significant business opportunity do not even
have a voice in this matter, and perhaps never will.
The First Amendment Coalition was able to persuade the
Office of the U.S. Trade Representative to take the critical
step of requesting detailed information from China on its
Internet restrictions under Article 3-4 of the GATS, which
mandates transparency in a member's application of measures
affecting services.
GATS Article 3-4 reads as follows: ``Each member shall
promptly respond to all requests by any other member for
specific information on any of its measures for general
application or international agreements within the meaning of
Paragraph 1.''
We feel the U.S. request to China under GATS's Article 3-4
is highly significant not only because it is the first time any
WTO member has utilized that provision of the GATS agreement,
but also because it is the first time that the U.S. Government,
or any government, has made a formal submission through the WTO
to China to address Internet censorship.
Some of the information requested from China by the USTR
included the following: With respect to China's rules governing
Web site blocking, who is responsible for determining when a
Web site should be blocked? What are the criteria for blocking
access? Where are the guidelines published? Who does the actual
blocking? How can a service supplier know if their Web site has
been blocked? Are decisions to block appealable?
Is the process used to prevent access the same or different
for foreign and domestic content? With respect to the
prevention of ``illegal information,'' how is illegal
information defined? Is a written government order required for
a private corporation or relevant authority to block the
transmission of illegal information?
We hope, and to some degree expect, that the government of
China will answer these questions fully and promptly,
fulfilling its obligations under the WTO.
Let me just close by making two points. I think it would be
very useful for this Commission to undertake, directly or
perhaps through an economic consulting firm, an economic
analysis of the overall harm caused to U.S. companies by the
Chinese blockage and censorship of the Internet. There isn't
really hard economic data on that that's available, but it is a
study which could be done. But, of course, someone has to
commission it and pay for it. I think that would be a very
valuable exercise.
I have talked to economic firms and there is a methodology
that could be used. It would be billions of dollars of losses,
but I think having that number out there would be very helpful.
Second, in a recent newspaper article a representative of
ACT, the Association for Competitive Technology, noted that
many of its member companies with joint ventures with firms in
China have found their web links back to the United States have
been removed or the U.S. firm's Web site has been blocked. He
noted, ``It's always difficult for technology companies to draw
lines in the sand and say this and no further when they are
beholden to shareholders.'' He said, ``That's why we need the
USTR and the administration to step up to the table.''
I concur with this general point. I think we do need
government involvement in this and government has to take the
lead. Individual companies will not be able to do this without
government leadership.
Thank you.
Chairman Smith. Mr. Kaplan, thank you so very much for your
testimony and for laying all of that out for us, and for the
work you've done to help get the USTR to take that very
important action.
Let me now introduce Mr. Edward Black, who has served as
president and CEO of the Computer & Communications Industry
Association, a nonprofit membership organization that
represents technology companies, including Google, Yahoo!,
Ebay, Facebook, and Microsoft. A consistent supporter of
Internet freedom, Mr. Black serves on and has previously served
as chairman of the State Department's Advisory Committee on
International Communications and Information.
Mr. Black, you may proceed.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Kaplan appears in the
appendix.]
STATEMENT OF EDWARD BLACK, PRESIDENT AND CEO, COMPUTER &
COMMUNICATIONS INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION (CCIA)
Mr. Black. Thank you, Chairman Smith, Chairman Brown, and
Ranking Member Walz and members of the Commission. I appreciate
the opportunity to testify before the Commission to discuss
China's censorship of the Internet.
CCIA has promoted openness, competition, and free trade for
nearly 40 years and we commend the Commission for examining how
restrictions on the free flow of information online pose not
only significant human rights concerns, but economic concerns
as well.
I know that freedom of expression has mainly been viewed
through the lens of human rights. We admire the courage and
sacrifice of activists such as Mr. Li's father and Pastor
Zhang, who seek freedom for their people and the openness of a
free society.
I firmly believe that the United States must continue its
full-throated support of freedom of expression worldwide. We
support the State Department's effort to aggressively promote
Internet freedom and I caution our government against taking
any actions such as misguided intellectual property enforcement
bills before Congress that might hamstring these efforts
abroad.
In addition to harming human rights, restricting the free
flow of information online has serious economic repercussions.
American companies whose main purpose is to facilitate
communications and information exchange are some of the biggest
and fastest-growing companies. Google and Facebook just to
mention a few, have estimated market value of $174 and $83
billion respectively. They're both more highly valued than
Goldman Sachs. Our industry is an important part of the
American economy.
Since China gets full access to U.S. markets in sectors
where it has a comparative advantage, it is disconcerting that
the U.S. Government has not done more to ensure that our
Internet industry gets the same access in China, a market with
more Internet users than the entire U.S. population.
However, we are very encouraged by the USTR's recent formal
inquiry into the specifics of Chinese censorship. As Gil
mentioned, we also had been pushing USTR in this direction for
a long time. Using mechanisms available under the WTO, USTR has
put China in a position where it needs to divulge specific
details about its notoriously vague censorship policy or face
repercussions.
The first step of dealing with Chinese restrictions is to
bring them into the light of day. Focusing on the impact that
such restrictions have on trade provides U.S. negotiators
tangible sticks and carrots that are not available in the human
rights area. While the WTO allows exceptions to its rules for
matters of public morals and national security, it also
requires all restrictions be transparent, provide due process,
be minimally restrictive, and apply equally to foreign and
domestic entities.
As of today, China complies with none of these
requirements. Compelling China to justify every blockage may
dampen its enthusiasm to impose such measures. We would hope
China would have to scale back and better document its
censorship practices.
The Chinese Government censors, blocks, and discriminates
against foreign-based Web services and content, as discussed
more extensively in our written testimony. This directly and
indirectly advantages domestic Chinese firms. It has repeatedly
blocked sites and services, including Facebook, Flickr, Google,
Twitter, and others, singling out U.S. companies for
censorship, even when Chinese-owned services carry the same
banned content. This double standard strongly suggests that the
motivation for censorship is often protectionism rather than
morals.
In the past, China has even manipulated the Great Firewall
to redirect users entering the URL of U.S. search engines to
Baidu. In addition, content filtering by China degrades the
quality of service delivered by foreign providers who must
compete against unfiltered domestic firms.
Chinese Internet censorship is part of a continuing pattern
of using trade and regulatory policies that either restrict
access to Chinese markets or force foreign companies to
acquiesce to Chinese Government demands as a price of access.
This Commission's most recent annual report correctly
identified a troubling aspect of China's censorship regime,
where China uses vague standards of liability and places the
burden of enforcing those standards on service providers.
Pending IP enforcement legislation before this Congress
unfortunately shares the same disturbing similarities with
China's approach to Internet control, as pointed out by the
Commission.
The bills create vague standards for liability and ask
private companies and Internet intermediaries to police and
censor their users. When coupled with blanket immunity
provisions for actions taken while attempting to comply with
the legislation, this bill would tolerate and encourage over-
broad filtering and will remove legal, as well as illegal,
content.
If the United States legitimizes censorship and prior
restraints on speech for infringement and enforces it through a
draconian system of DNS filtering, this will allow China and
others to point to our own actions to justify theirs and make
the job of our diplomats very much more difficult.
As a letter from over 100 law professors, including Larry
Tribe, recently pointed out, the proposed Protect-IP
legislation represents a retreat from the United States' strong
support of freedom of expression and the free exchange of ideas
on the Internet. We must take care not to undermine our own
foreign policy and trade goals by setting bad precedents.
Finally, in conclusion, China's censorship perverts what
should be a tool for freedom and empowerment, the Internet,
into a tool for authoritarian control. Addressing Chinese
censorship as a trade barrier is a legitimate, multilateral,
and potentially effective approach that needs to be pursued by
our government at the highest levels. It may seem a little bit
like going after Al Capone for tax evasion, but that's what we
need to do.
Finally, I'd just remind the Commission that I would hope
that as the U.S. Government takes action and focuses on this
problem, we also keep in mind we want to make sure we do no
harm.
Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Black appears in the
appendix.]
Chairman Smith. Thank you very much. I want the record to
know that Chairman Brown was called back to the Senate, so he
conveys his thanks for your testimony and has told me he has
read it and will have some questions that he'll pose for the
record.
[The questions appear in the appendix.]
Chairman Smith. Mr. Walz, I would yield the mike.
Representative Walz. Well, I thank the Chairman. I, myself,
am going to be called away, so the Chairman's compassion and
tolerance of me is also appreciated.
So, thank you all for being here. I guess the first
question I'm going to ask, maybe each of you--Professor Xiao,
this might be to you. I've said this before and I watched it,
that everyone said, and I watched with Deng Xiaoping's opening,
once the Chinese get television that will change everything.
Once the Chinese get land lines that will change everything.
Once the Chinese get wireless cell phones that will change
everything. We've had this belief that technology would be that
overriding social change agent. Is it overly optimistic to
believe that this new social media is going to finally be the
silver bullet that is unstoppable in terms of their ability to
censor?
Mr. Xiao. I don't think anything is a silver bullet.
Managing a country is a complicated and huge task, and building
democracy and human rights in that society, it's going to be a
long, historical process. But technology--and here we're
talking about Internet and social media--has some--I'm not a
technology deterministic person, but it has an architectural
advantages that can--like TV, which is broadcasting an image,
the Internet participated and has a networked topology that
makes every node have very easy access to post something and
information flow much easier.
It's much more difficult for an authoritarian regime to
control information, that is true. It's also making the
possibility, which never happened before the Internet, for the
individuals that can collaborate and coordinate their actions
simultaneously or in some kind of self-organized fashion, which
any authoritarian regime in China fears the most, is the self-
organization of the people.
So these things are actually rapidly happening in the
Chinese Internet, in Chinese society, and my research reveals
such a pattern, both from language to actual online actions.
You mentioned the artist Ai Weiwei, who is right now under the
penalty of a $2.4 million tax. It's really political
persecution, clearly.
The Chinese censor issued a clear directive to all Internet
companies to delete any information regarding the fact that he
is using the Internet to collect such loans. Regardless of the
censorship and all the effort and all the mechanisms, there are
over 30,000 Chinese individuals, with their real names, sending
in their little donations. Actually, it's so-called lending
money to him as a statement of standing by him, not of the
regime. Without Internet, the 30,000 people would not be able
to do that. Despite the fact that censorship is, by and large,
effective and pervasive.
The Chinese Government is losing their ground to control
how much information, particularly their ideology to supporting
the regime legitimacy, that they need to be constantly facing
contests from the Chinese netizens. So that's actually good
news. Despite that, I don't expect this will automatically open
the entire society because it has so many other factors to it,
but it is positive.
Representative Walz. No, that is helpful. I think for me,
one of the concerns I have is I would anticipate, as you said,
that that ability to participate both ways, the ability to
self-organize, the things that we're seeing both here and
around the world, from Arab Spring to events in the United
States. The fear I have is, though, this accelerates further
the desire to clamp on it harder will be very tempting.
Mr. Xiao. It is true.
Representative Walz. And I think we'll see an acceleration
in human rights abuses very quickly. So I think now is our time
to continue to push before we reach that critical point when
they realize they've lost control.
Mr. Xiao. I agree with you.
Representative Walz. I appreciate that.
I thank both you gentlemen. I appreciate the work you've
done. I think that you're approaching this the right way. Mr.
Black, I think your suggestion to us is very good to the
American public. It's not that they don't care, but I'm a high
school teacher so I always look at what motivates people. It's
Maslow's hierarchy here. If we're trying to talk about self-
actualization on human rights, we're losing them. If you go to
the bottom and talk about the money you'll get them, not
because they're greedy, but because it impacts them.
Just for an example, is this true? Would this be true in
China? I just pulled up Professor Wu's book here, ``The Bitter
Winds,'' his memoir, on my Kindle, on my Ipad from Kindle
Store, and I want to buy it from Amazon. Could I do that in
China? Could I pull up his book in China and buy it? A
legitimate business, an American business, a legitimate person
who owns that. We couldn't buy this, Mr. Wu?
Mr. Wu. My simple answer is no. I don't know about
individual books, but many, many books have been blocked.
Mr. Black. Your point is well taken.
Representative Walz. Amazon is losing money today.
Mr. Black. There are a lot of things in the United States
that would be blocked for a variety of reasons, commercial
activity and products galore are basically not allowed.
Representative Walz. If you're a free market capitalist
here, this has to really appall you, doesn't it?
Mr. Black. Absolutely.
Representative Walz. Here's an entrepreneur that did this,
put this on there. He and the company, Amazon, who are
benefiting from it, the content, would be stopped from doing
that.
Mr. Black. There are studies that indicate that Internet
commerce over the past year has basically amounted to $2
trillion worth of activity. A substantial amount of that was
not in China. You could imagine how much--when a Web site is
blocked, all the advertisers, all the products that might flow
through that lose that channel. So the impact is not on the Web
site itself only, it is on a wide range of players that
interact with that in a variety of ways.
Representative Walz. There's a ripple effect on jobs here.
Today there's going to be a worker not needed to box this book,
there's going to be a worker not needed to load it on a UPS or
FedEx truck to send it to this person who would liked to have
ordered it and couldn't.
Mr. Kaplan. That's correct. Even more problematic, Amazon
does function in China but it has had to do a joint venture
with a Chinese company and have servers set up within China. So
one of the macro effects of the whole censorship is many U.S.
companies have had to move to China, can't use their facilities
in the United States, and this has a very pervasive effect on
U.S. economic prosperity.
Representative Walz. That's a powerful point.
I'm sorry I'm going to have to leave, Mr. Chairman, but I
look forward to hearing the rest of this. I do want to convey
how much I thank you on this, and I certainly think you are
hitting on a powerful tool here that can have multiple
benefits, both from human rights and economic fairness. So, I
thank you for that.
Chairman Smith. Thank you.
Representative Walz. Mr. Chairman, thank you for letting me
go.
Chairman Smith. Thank you, Mr. Walz. I want to thank our
very distinguished witnesses for your insights and counsel.
Just a couple of questions. Professor Xiao, has the
capacity to censor and survey within China been developed
primarily by U.S. IT companies and U.S. corporations, or
Western corporations? If that is the case, is it still the
case--or was the case--today or has the technology of the
Chinese, Baidu and the others in the government, collaboration
with them, caught up and now they've taken it over? They
basically can do it on their own without----
Mr. Xiao. At the beginning, early stage of the Internet
development, it's clearly the case that those technologies are
almost directly imported from the United States. In the last 10
years, however, China has sort of emphasized to develop such
technology capacity by its own companies or own trusted
engineers. However, those Chinese Government-trusted domestic
companies, many of them have close relationships with U.S.
companies. There is a technology transfer clearly happening in
sort of a second or third tier to the Chinese censorship
apparatus.
Chairman Smith. Let me ask, Mr. Kaplan, Mr. Black, has
there been any effort made by the Department of Defense,
Commerce, and all of the relevant agencies of the U.S.
Government to ensure that this technology is not conveyed to
the Chinese secret police and the military? Obviously the dual
use for the military cannot be underscored enough. Command and
control is essential to an effective operating military
machine.
When you give it to police who routinely torture people who
go on the Net and try to promote fundamental democratic values,
it seems to me we should be inhibiting the sale and transfer of
that capability. Has that happened at all during either the
Bush administration, the Clinton administration before it, or
now the Obama administration?
Mr. Black. Yes. Basically it's an export control issue
which goes back for decades to the Soviet Union, et cetera. The
rules have kind of evolved, but historically were to
differentiate between those things where getting the product
had a tremendous difference, and whether or not there was
foreign availability, either domestic or from a third party,
third country.
Generally, although there are certain things that are
clearly so obnoxious and repulsive that they remain on what we
call foreign policy controls and banned, to a large extent I
think there was a broad spectrum of agreement that when
something is widely available in an indigenous way as well,
that it is just futile to really have those controls.
Again, carving out some really horrendous things, but one
of the great examples we went through was with semiconductors.
Semiconductors clearly were important to the creation in the
East bloc of sophisticated computers for weapons control, but
they were also used for transistor radio and everything else.
So they were so widely available from so many sources, so we
just can't control it, so we focused on the things we can
really make a difference with. That's pretty much a prevailing
U.S. law. So there's not a real effort because they don't think
it would have an impact.
The question, do you judge it by, will it make a difference
at the end of the day? The second standard is, even if it will
make a difference, is it so abhorrent that you don't want to be
connected to it? Those two standards coexist and apply in
different ways.
Chairman Smith. Well, with respect, as far as you can tell,
was there any instance where the government said that's not
going to be sent over to the PRC because we know it has
consequences for the dissidents and the religious believers who
go online and are seeking to----
Mr. Black. In the software world, I'm not sure. There's
clearly a more physical product category. There are those, a
number of things in that category, but I'm not sure I'm aware
of any in the software.
Mr. Kaplan. Frankly, I'm not sure. But I would like to make
a related point. The irony about all this in terms of China, is
we've allowed the entire manufacturing base, as it relates to
the Internet, to be put in China. Knowing the products that you
need to run the Internet aren't really made in the United
States anymore, or are made to a very limited degree, it always
was the deal that, sort of at the higher end, more intellectual
capital would stay in the United States and we'd sell that to
China. That's like what we're trying to sell over the Internet.
So we've moved all the hardware to China so they obviously
can build off that to control the Internet because all the
hardware is made there. We don't make it, but we were supposed
to be able to sell the higher end stuff, like Internet, R&D,
and other things like that to China, and now they're stopping
our Internet. So, the whole deal is, you know, our Internet
providers, our Internet--exciting opportunities like Facebook,
Twitter, and other organizations could be very profitable and
bring more prosperity here. So the whole deal is askew very
fundamentally.
Chairman Smith. Point well taken. And that continues to
this day?
Mr. Kaplan. It gets worse every day.
Chairman Smith. It gets worse.
Mr. Xiao. It's getting worse.
Chairman Smith. Doesn't that strike you as absurd that the
West--I mean, even the idea of foreign availability being a
loophole, I mean, Semens, a lot of companies, corporations that
have tremendous capabilities, but the Chinese wanted what
Google, what Cisco, what others could provide because it was at
least----
Mr. Xiao. Let me emphasize this point. The aspects of the
Internet innovation, particularly other users and moving the
content that will make them more easily accessible, more easy
to organize, more easy for users to use the nature of those
Internet innovations, but those Internet innovations directly
run against the Chinese Government interest to control
information from the top down. It's not those companies trying
to run against China, this is Internet innovation. The Chinese
companies try to do the same innovation, but they cannot do it
in China.
So it hurts the innovation in Chinese society as well.
Censorship hurts both countries. But also, because the Chinese
Government feels they cannot control such a new innovation,
therefore, especially the empowering users aspect of those
innovations, therefore, they block the foreign companies for
which they think they don't have direct control and they put
all kinds of demands and shackles on the domestic companies to
make the domestic Internet industries also handicapped in that
aspect.
Mr. Black. If I could add?
Chairman Smith. Yes, please.
Mr. Black. No doubt that China has developed tremendous
technological capability. That's absolutely true. The United
States is still a leader in Internet innovations in terms of
how to utilize in creative and imaginative ways the Internet
because we care about empowerment. Basically what the Internet
does in many ways is it empowers users. That empowerment allows
those users to feed back in a social network way to help be
part of the innovation process.
So the U.S. society, not just our companies, is really the
dynamic, creative component trying to relax from ever being
able to do that because they're not letting their people have
that empowerment. They fear the empowerment. So there's always
going to be some lag there, and frankly, our social networks
are--if you think in First Amendment terms, it's not just
freedom of speech, it's freedom of association. It is a
tremendously useful tool.
The fact that China so fears some of those companies having
a presence there because of the openness of our companies'
systems, therefore they create their parallels and their
alternatives and put much more, greater restrictions on it. So
they recognize the power of the Internet and they are trying to
use the benefits of it, and yet trying very hard to restrict
aspects of it which they feel they can't control.
Chairman Smith. In your view--all three of your views--my
sense is that China is becoming much more xenophobic than ever,
that the dictatorship believes that the restlessness,
especially the thought of a Jasmine Revolution in what they
were seeing in the Middle East, sent shivers down their spine,
especially when there was some crackling over the Internet
about freedom and democracy. Those things began to percolate
again. Not that they ever went away, but they were more
suppressed. I've held 34 hearings on human rights abuses in
China.
Several of those hearings have focused on the grossly
destabilizing consequences of the one-child-per-couple policy,
forced abortion, the missing girls. The State Department said
10 years ago, the State Department reports there may be as many
as 100 million missing girls in China--that was 10 years ago--
through sex-selection abortions and gendercide.
I work on trafficking, human trafficking all the time.
China is becoming a magnet beyond any other comparison for
trafficking women and girls. The woman who wrote the book, Bare
Branches recently testified and said that by 2020, 40 to 50
million men--so the number has one up in terms of estimation--
will not be able to find wives because they have been killed
systematically through the one-child-per-couple policy.
The point being, the government now looks at this growing
instability, more males than females by far, a growing
lawlessness. It seems there's a total direct relationship
between that and a tightening of just--the Wall Street Journal,
on November 6, said, ``Executives from China's top Internet
companies pledged to boost efforts to curb harmful content at a
unusual government meeting with web firms.'' It goes on to say
that ``Baidu, Alibaba, and Sina Corp have said that Internet
companies must strengthen their self-management, self-
restraint, and strict self-discipline.'' We all know what those
words mean. They're just tightening that iron fist.
I'm wondering, the instability is going to reach a tipping
point. I'm deeply worried about what that means for more
torture, as you are, I'm sure, more killings in the streets, as
we've seen. I mean, Tiananmen Square was the most visible, but
there have been others since, as we all know. That connection,
if you will----
Mr. Xiao. Let me share some of my research and observations
on this. One, is my research group has documented over 3,000
blocked URLs by the Great Firewall. This is far from the entire
number of them, but these are the Web sites submitted by
Chinese netizens. So, to some degree it's they are useful for
them directly, so you can see the pattern of where they are
blocking not only just politically-sensitive information, but
any sort of user-generated contents that a hosting service
feels they cannot control.
The second is that the directives, we have documented over
the last five years, as I said, a significant body, a
proportion of it. You can analyze a pattern of it. The
increasing xenophobia is correct by how many directives goes
after the so-called massive incidents, basically corrective
actions at the local level protests in China is increasing. So
the control of such information flow online has been increasing
in the last five years, clearly.
Also, you can look at the sensitive words that they ban or
block, a Sino-blog or a microblog service. They ban the search
because then the user cannot find all the related information.
They are afraid of such an information aggregation phenomenon
in the Chinese Internet. So we documented over 820 such words,
which is only a portion of it, but it's already clearly showing
what kind of fear that they have of the site. Again, there's a
pattern and there's a trend to increasing state instability.
Finally, regarding the family planning policy, I have a
clear example between the Internet and that, which is, as
you've probably heard, about a Chinese lawyer, Chen Guangcheng,
the blind man who helped villagers in his village and
neighborhood to defend their rights, including the one-child
policy and abusive practices and forced abortion, et cetera.
He's been sentenced and now he's been released. He served
his sentence already and he's supposedly free, but he's not
free at all. He lives in the village and is incommunicado.
Nobody can visit so no one knows what's happened to him. So on
the Chinese Internet, the netizens started this movement of,
just go to visit him.
Those villagers are being blocked, beaten, harassed, and
tortured and sent away from the village by the local
authorities. The central authority clearly knows what's going
on and those activities are also banned on the Chinese
Internet, but the Chinese netizens are privately organizing
anyway. So it's an ongoing case at this moment, linked between
the government's fear to some of the policies and challenges
and the ability of mobilization on the Internet.
Chairman Smith. Yes?
Mr. Black. If I could, I think your question basically is,
yes, we sense a greater assertiveness, boldness, unashamedness
about, and really defending their approach about how to censor
the Internet, not backing away at all. In fact, I think they
realize that there is a global contest going on, whether or not
an open model would prevail or a closed model, and they're
competing, I think, to get the rest of the world to adopt their
model, partly because I think they believe in it and partly
because it prevents them from becoming an outlier.
The more people they can persuade into being a censorship
type country, the more they can say, well, we're doing what
everybody does. I think that's a key part of what's driving
them. I think it's important to understand the newest tactic
that they're really using. It's not that new, but in many cases
it's not the government doing the censorship, it is imposing
liability on Internet intermediaries and thereby compelling
them, forcing them, encouraging them very strongly to be their
self-censors. That's the model.
I think the model that they're actually going to sell
around the world is not that the governments do it themselves,
because most governments don't have the technological
capability. It will be to create this model of imposed
liability, economic liability that would put people out of
business if they don't become effective censors.
Mr. Kaplan. Maybe I could just add, as the United States
loses more and more ground in the trade battles, I think with
China, China has become much more assertive and brazen in terms
of promoting its values within China, but within the rest of
the world, too. I'm sure you've looked at the situation in
Africa, Latin America, the relationship to the World Bank and
how they're competing with them in terms of loans. If we keep
losing economic power we're going to lose moral power over
values.
This relates to the question that Congressman Walz asked. I
think China is going to be very successful in controlling the
Internet. It will not open up Chinese society because they have
such a pervasive ability and such a pervasive desire to do it.
They will be able to do it. They can defeat the positive sides
of the Internet. There's been press in totalitarian societies
forever, but the press has not meant freedom of the press.
There's not going to be freedom of the Internet in China, I
don't think. But they are being successful in controlling the
Internet, essentially, unless this commission and other people
can do something about it.
Mr. Xiao. If I could add one more point, which is demanding
transparency, why it's important. Clearly it's important to
demand transparency in how they censor the Internet because the
business is imperative to have such a level playing field. It
also has very positive consequences for human rights, expanding
human rights in Chinese society, because the whole censorship
is about controlling people's minds.
The most effective censorship is not letting people know
what's being censored and what's being controlled. The more
what is being censored and what exists in the censorship itself
is known more clearly in detail by many people, the less
effective that censorship is and the more people will demand
more human rights and freedom of speech in Chinese society.
Chairman Smith. You know, Professor Xiao, last week members
of our Commission staff and myself sought the ability to go to
meet with Chen Guangcheng and his wife, Yuan, and were denied a
visa. We are repeating that request to the Chinese Embassy in
the hope that we would be able to. I believe it was his 40th
birthday on Saturday.
We wanted to be there with him and his wife and show
solidarity, and hopefully to let the Chinese know that we are
watching and the world is watching, because our great fear is
that they will beat him, and beat him to death, which they've
been doing since he was in prison and since he's been released.
So, thank you for bringing that up, because that's so very
important.
Let me ask about--and I only have two final questions to
this excellent panel. In 2006, I introduced the Global Online
Freedom Act. I am going to reintroduce it very shortly. The
idea, and we're working on text to see what might be the best
way of accomplishing what I know we all agree to, but obviously
means to that end are sometimes open to debate--always open to
debate.
But the idea would be to establish an Internet-restricting
country designation, because obviously China is not the only
country in the world where this is a problem. I just chaired a
hearing on Belarus yesterday, or two days ago. Belarus, with
President Lukashenko remains one of the worst dictatorships--is
the last dictatorship--to do it, and they use Internet
censoring, courtesy of the Chinese model, with great impunity
and obviously capture a lot of dissidents and democracy
activists.
So they would be surely designated an Internet-restricting
country and would require disclosure of what is being censored,
whether it be Microsoft, Google, or any of the others. It would
require that personally identifiable information be put out of
reach of the Chinese or any other Internet police.
To their credit, Yahoo! made a move when they went to
Vietnam to put that information out of reach, and it's in
another ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations] country,
I'm happy to say, because there was instance after instance
where Internet bloggers and the like were put into prison
simply for expressing concerns about the dictatorship in that
country. That's one approach.
The other approach, and I would appreciate your views on
this as well if you would, the Falun Gong practitioners and
some of their IT experts have developed a capability that I
have spent hours, and as I said, Frank Wolf and others, trying
to understand because it is above my pay grade in terms of
technological understanding, but they seem to have a means of
piercing the Great China firewall, and to do so almost at will,
if not at will.
We've asked the administration repeatedly to honor the
appropriations amount that was set aside by Mr. Wolf on the
Appropriations Committee to take this and run with it and to
fund it so that this firewall is not impenetrable, and they
have shown that, and it can also be used in other Internet-
restricting countries as well. So your take on the Falun Gong's
technology, GOFA [Global Online Freedom Act], those two things.
Mr. Xiao. Okay. Since my research lab has done a lot of
focus on this area, let me just say some general points. One,
is that the Great Firewall is far from watertight. It actually
has thousands of leaks all the time. They are doing a quite
incredible job in terms of preventing information from reaching
the scale of the masses, millions of certain information, but
also they have not been doing it in their full capacity because
I don't think they're better resources, but their sort of
policy decision about what time, it's not a time of crisis to
do such more intensive blocking at this moment, but it's
cranking up all the time.
There's probably four types of technology and practices
that are sort of leaking the otherwise blocked information into
the Chinese cyberspace. The one type of practice is mostly set
up by Chinese techies themselves using the U.S. servers or
servers outside of the Great Firewall and set up some
circumvention tunnels. So if you know a little bit of
technology, it's not hard to do it by yourself, to share it
with your friends.
Those activities are small enough that the Great Firewall
will never find out all of them. There's just too many of them.
Those practices have been shared, the knowledge is being
shared, and the total number doing that actually in Chinese
cyberspace is very significant, I would say a significant
portion of the entire sort of information flow that way.
The second significant portion of people doing that is by
VPN, the commercial tunneling technology, because the company
needs that, or many services need that. People just pay by the
service and then you can circumvent the Great Firewall, but you
have to pay the money for it. A lot of people for a variety of
needs, not only political needs, business and other things,
have to do that. The Great Firewall can block them, but because
they are afraid of consequences and collateral damage, they're
not doing so at this moment most of the time.
Third, are those circumvention tools, including the Falun
Gong group's introduced and managed tools. It has been, in a
variety of situations, very effective for the other users,
particularly that are user-friendly, when they are user-
friendly and simple to download or simple to use. They're not
limited to Falun Gong tools. There's other tools out there. But
they all have different strengths and weaknesses.
None of them can be absolutely blocked by the Great
Firewall at all, but there's a battle of cat-and-mouse going at
it all the time. So this side of the research and development
and deployment of circumvention tools does need to be supported
and expanded and helped by the information flow. So, all of
these activities are important.
Mr. Kaplan. The issues that were just discussed, certainly
that's my understanding also. There are means to get past the
firewall, but as soon as they become generally known I think
the Chinese will find ways to patch those holes and then other
means will be found. But it is not airtight, by any means.
There are people who have gotten through in any number of ways,
so I think that can be done.
But it's a cat-and-mouse game: You do one thing, they'll do
another; you do another, and it slows down the ability to get
information in China. I mean, if you talk to U.S. students or
U.S. citizens in China, most of them have given up trying to
use U.S. Web sites. It just takes so long and it's so
undependable. So you don't have to stop it entirely to make it
essentially not useful.
Mr. Xiao. Right. I'll give you an example. The Google Gmail
server, the Gchat, and the Chinese Government, since the
spring, has disconnected that connection to the Gchat every 10
minutes or every 15 minutes. So that type of thing is annoying
enough for a lot of people to stop using those services and
that's what they're doing. They don't completely cut it off,
but they'll create such a burden that it forces the users to
use other Chinese services.
Mr. Black. I might use a metaphor to make the same point
that has been made, which is, if you don't think of it as the
wall, think of it as a dam and the fertilizer for freedom and
it'll trickle out. They're never going to have a 100 percent
sure way that nothing has penetrated. But the trouble is, it's
really successfully blocking the valley below from being
fertilized with the full knowledge of the Internet and that's
sad.
Chairman Smith. Mr. Kaplan, if I could ask you, and all of
you if you want to answer, prior to China's ascension into the
WTO and PNTR, I held a series of hearings in my Subcommittee on
Human Rights about why we were so naive to think that China
would adhere to the rules and regulations prescribed by the
WTO, since they did not live up to virtually any of the human
rights commitments that they had made, including the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights.
As we all know, they have so deigned the International
Covenant for Civil and Political Rights, which they violate
with impunity. For at least a half a dozen years before any
Chinese official came to the United States, they would announce
that they were close to signing it to try to mitigate any kind
of criticism that official would receive here. Totally gamed
it. After a while, you say, how many times are we going to get
hit and say, oh, they didn't really mean it?
Now, you have brought out, Mr. Kaplan, in great detail, and
I join in what you helped to bring about and I thank you for
that, but under WTO the rules have been broken. At least, we
believe they are, and I think they are. What can the WTO--
where's the enforcement, because that's what always seems to be
lacking? A slap on the wrist. At what point is there a genuine,
durable penalty for violating, in this case, the trade laws?
Mr. Kaplan. Well, I think there are two answers to that
question. One, is I think there's an awful lot the United
States could be doing to impose consequences on China for the
violation of our trade rights. We could be self-initiating many
more cases, we could take some of the emergency powers that are
available to impose tariffs on products coming into the United
States.
We could start acting much more vigorously on currency.
We're doing, I would say, a very small percentage of what we
could do to pressure China to comply with their international
trade obligations, putting aside the WTO, and we ought to be
doing a lot more than we're doing in that regard.
I hope at some point we do turn up the heat, because I
think it will have consequences if our actions have direct
consequences on Chinese imports to the United States of major
high value items, I think we've got to start doing that.
As to the WTO, if they do not answer these questions that
USTR has asked fully and honestly we can start a WTO case. Now,
that's litigation, it takes a while. But the WTO has shown
itself willing to impose decisions on everybody, including the
Chinese, if they close their market unfairly. This is a market-
closing device they're using. If they don't comply, we can
retaliate.
We can put duties on their computers coming into the United
States. We can put duties on other products coming into the
United States. It might be appropriate to pinpoint Internet-
related technologies. We are able to do that. Usually when that
happens, foreign governments, even very big and strong ones, do
change their conduct.
Mr. Black. One thing I think is not fully understood is,
again, I think there's a great way to bring pressure on China
by focusing on the rest of the world as well. There are
difficulties in bringing China cases, but we should bring them.
I totally agree that's there. But there are other countries
doing similar things. It may be much easier to establish a
string of precedents against some countries without the
capability, frankly, to push back both politically,
diplomatically, and legally.
Setting a string of WTO precedents in this area might be
very helpful. Since, again, my focus is Internet freedom in
general, although China has to be a big part of that
discussion, I would step out of focus here and mention that
right now Russia is in the process of seeking WTO admission.
Because of the U.S. Jackson-Vanik legislation there is a unique
lever.
I am not aware of what confirmed enforceable commitments in
the area of Internet freedom are being requested of Russia, but
I would certainly think it would be within the framework of
anybody who cares about these issues to try to make that so,
and again that would then be a fantastic precedent to deal with
China.
Chairman Smith. Is there anything else any of you would
like to add before we close?
Mr. Black. If I could make one short----
Chairman Smith. Mr. Black?
Mr. Black [continuing].--sentence I didn't get to read. Our
Nation invented the Internet. We invented a First Amendment.
We're the global standard-bearer for both economic and
political freedom. It's critical that we continue as a country
to lead in holding Chinese and other governments accountable.
Part of that is, we also do have to remember, you must lead by
example as well as by word. Thank you.
Chairman Smith. If I could ask--I should have ended on
that, but would any of you like to make a comment on Cisco and
their enabling of the Police Net and other means by which they
enable the secret police?
Mr. Xiao. I'm sorry. I actually would rather echo what was
just said about, America invented the Internet and the First
Amendment. I grew up in China, but became a U.S. citizen five
years ago. When I swore into this country's citizenship, I was
deeply, profoundly moved by the diversity of the people to
unite in the same house on fundamental human rights and
dignity. But I am always Chinese in a sense of cultural
heritage, and for my work am deeply connected with the people
in China. Particularly, I became an activist since the 1989
Tiananmen massacre.
I actually know for a fact that when the Internet was
introduced to China in the middle 1990s, many of the
enthusiastic people, entrepreneurs, and technologists and the
Internet industry with the hope that they are the Tiananmen
generation. Our dream of China's democracy has been crushed by
tanks in 1989, but they're the same people that have hope that
this time technology will be on our side and we will change
China.
There are so many Internet entrepreneurs and the business
people and content providers that I know that share that dream.
Even though they are working under the censorship, and some of
them are working inside of the system, but that dream never
died. So the freedom of the Internet is not only an American
dream, but it's also a new Chinese dream that has not been
flourishing. I still continue working toward that.
Mr. Kaplan. I think that was a very moving statement. I
would just add, I really think the United States has to be
prepared to take action in terms of real economic consequences.
I think if we did do that more frequently it would make an
enormous difference and I hope we will be more willing to do
that in the future.
Chairman Smith. Thank you so very much for your testimony,
for your leadership, and those very uplifting and encouraging
notes, but also challenging notes.
The hearing is adjourned.
Mr. Li. I have one last comment.
Chairman Smith. Okay. We'll reopen for a moment to hear Mr.
Li.
Mr. Li. This is pretty short. I am sitting here today
because I have the hope that more people will come over in the
future, so I wish those companies have some confessions on
those who suffered and those victims here.
Chairman Smith. I would agree. We had a hearing with Shi
Tao's mother a few years back, and Jerry Yang sat right behind
where Shi Tao was. At the time there was an ongoing lawsuit
against Yahoo!. Frankly, Jerry Yang seemed to have been truly
moved by the plight of Shi Tao in particular, and his mother's
agony as she talked about her son still to this day in prison,
but obviously then having gotten a 10-year sentence.
I asked him if he would settle that lawsuit and help the
individuals who were--the families, as we all know, get
impoverished while a loved one goes off to the laogai, and
Harry Wu has been working very closely with them and others to
make sure that the families are helped. So there is a
conscience, I think, in corporate America. I think it needs to
be prodded sometimes. I do believe that Google thought at first
that they were opening China rather than contributing to its
further closure.
But as Professor Xiao pointed out, almost like judo, no
matter how hard the secret police hits you can still throw them
if you have the skill and the technological acumen. But there
is that sense that an apology or tangible help, and to realize
that you can't enable a dictatorship. I would conclude my
comments, that I believe dictatorships need two things to
survive: The control of the message, the propaganda message,
and secret police.
In Cisco, they're getting both, especially the secret
police enabling, but I think many--I mean, Google actually
supports the Global Online Freedom Act. At first, they were
vigorously opposed to it. Again, no legislation is panacea or a
silver bullet ever, but it may be a useful tool if we can get
it enacted. So, thank you for that very important note.
Mr. Black, did you want to--you leaned forward like you
wanted to join in.
Mr. Black. I wanted to add, when you mentioned Falun Gong,
the kind of circumvention tools that it uses are in fact one of
the things that makes us concerned about this intellectual
property protection legislation, SOPA [Stop Online Piracy Act].
Those kind of tools would probably be made illegal. So again,
lead by example is a big issue. I guess I'd also maybe use this
occasion to mention that we have just begun and have created a
new foundation to ensure Internet freedom for an innovative
future. It's the Foundation for Innovation and Internet
Freedom. We believe that there needs to be another voice that
can work globally for this, again, focusing on innovation, the
economic component, as well as Internet freedom itself. So
we're in this fight for a long time.
Chairman Smith. Thank you. And thank you all for your
testimony.
The hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:51 a.m. the hearing was concluded.]
A P P E N D I X
=======================================================================
Prepared Statements
----------
Prepared Statement of Alex Li
november 17, 2011
My name is Muzi Li (or Alex). I am from Bijie City, Guizhou
Province, China. My father is Yuanlong Li, a man who was sent to jail
for two years for publishing four articles online. I came to the United
States on December 28, 2009 and became an undergraduate student at
Bowling Green State University. I am majoring in Economics and minoring
in Philosophy. Due to my fear of the Chinese Government's Ministry of
State Security, I applied for political asylum in the United States in
December 2010. I was approved on March 8, 2011.
My family bought a computer when I was in middle school. My father
didn't know how to use a computer, so I taught him. He learned some
basic skills, such as how to use the Internet. However, my father and I
found that we could Google some websites, but we could not visit them
because those websites' opinions differed from the Chinese
government's. At the beginning of 2005, I got Freegate from a friend.
Freegate is proxy software; through Freegate, I could cross the
firewall to visit foreign websites with different ideas. Later on, my
father published his articles overseas through Freegate's software.
Unfortunately, those four articles became my family's nightmare.
The nightmare lasted for two years and five days. On the morning of
September 9, 2009, my stepmother called me and told me not to come home
until that afternoon. In the afternoon, I went back home and saw that
the computer was missing and my house had been searched. My stepmother
was weeping. Then I found out my father was arrested that day at his
working place by the agents from the Ministry of State Security without
any notice. Meanwhile, another group of agents visited my stepmother at
her work place. They drove her home and rummaged through my home in
front of her. She told me not to go home in the morning because she did
not want me to be scared.
Later the agents found out that I taught my father how to operate
the computer; they decided to interrogate me. I was 17 in 2005, not yet
an adult. They took me to a hotel to interrogate me without my parents'
permission; they did not allow my mother or my stepmother to stay with
me during the interrogation. During the interrogation, the agents tried
to prove that I was an accomplice of my father. They asked me some
questions such as, ``How much do you know about your father's articles?
'' ``Did you help your father write the articles? '' They told me that
my father had already told them what he did. They wanted me to tell
them what I knew. If our stories matched, my father would be safe, and
nothing would happen to him. In that case, I told them that I taught my
father how to use the computer, and how I got the Freegate software.
The agents lied; they threw my father to the jail then.
A few weeks later, the agents came to my home. They asked me a
confusing question: ``How did your father publish those articles? Did
he use your email address? '' I explained that everyone knows to
publish an article on a forum website, instead of using email, all you
need to do is copy and paste. Besides, my father had a Yahoo! email
account, so he didn't even know my Hotmail password. How could he have
used my email address to publish articles on a forum? Thus, I told the
police officers it was impossible for him to have used my email
address. The reason why the agents could see my
[email protected] email address was because I used it to
register for our family's Windows software. So, when the agents found
my IP address, they found the email address for the operating system,
and assumed it was what my father used to post the articles.
Nevertheless, the agents heard what they wanted, and ignored the
rest. They ignored my answer about the email address. They also adopted
my words during the first interrogation as part of their evidence.
The reasoning behind the sentencing was that my father published
four articles, which were viewed 1,532 times and received responses
from over 25 people. The court stated my father was guilty of
``inciting subversion of state power and overthrowing the socialist
system.'' First of all, my father posted his articles on foreign-
operated websites. Without a proxy, people in China could not visit
them. In 2005, few people knew of and made use of proxy software.
Secondly, I could not imagine a nation with 1.4 billion people would be
overthrown by an article with 1,532 views and responses from 25 people.
So, I believe the agents were just using this as an excuse to persecute
my father.
Moreover, I suspect China's judicial system. While my father was
detained, the Ministry of Police and State Security, the Court and the
Procurator spoke with one voice; they all thought my father sinned by
publishing four articles. They threatened me saying that if I talked of
my father's case to overseas media, the penalty for my father would be
even more serious.
This is the disparaging situation and terrifying government that I
faced while in China. Finally, my father advised me to leave the
country. He sacrificed by selling his house to pay my tuition in the
United States. He repaid the house mortgage with the help of the Yahoo!
Foundation, and then he sold it. In the United States, I took part in
some activities like the memorial event for Tiananmen Square. The
agents in China knew exactly when and where I was and what I did at
these activities.
I do not believe the agents could get this detailed information
without collaborating with an information technology company of the
likes of Cisco Systems, who has built China's Golden Shield from the
ground up.
This is my testimony.
______
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
______
Prepared Statement of Xiao Qiang
november 17, 2011
From ``Grass-Mud Horse'' to ``Citizen'': A New Generation Emerges
through China's Social Media Space
Respectful Chairman, Representative Christopher Smith, Chairman,
Cochairman Senator Sherrod Brown, and Distinguished Commission members,
My name is Xiao Qiang. I am the Founder and Chief Editor of
bilingual China news website: China Digital Times, and the Principal
Investigator of the Counter-Power Lab, at School of Information of UC
Berkeley. My research focuses on identifying, documenting and indexing
censorship in Chinese cyberspace and generating an online aggregator of
censored, blocked and marginalized content. As part of this work, I
closely follow the political conversations of Chinese netizens and
interpret their coded discourse and terminology.
It is a privilege to speak in front of this important commission
alongside my distinguished fellow panelists. My talk today will focus
on the intensified and increasingly sophisticated Chinese state control
and censorship of the Internet; the growing resistance to such
censorship; the expanding online discourse; and the capacity of the
Internet to advance free speech, political participation, and social
change in China.
1. government censorship
Since the mid-1990s, numbers of Internet users have grown
exponentially and by late 2011, there are an estimated 450 million
Internet users in China (perhaps tens of millions more if one counts
the people who access the web through cell phones). While most of these
people use the Web for entertainment, social networking, and commerce,
the numbers of netizens engaged in political criticism are steadily
growing and are now estimated to be between 10 and 50 million.
The government has employed a multilayered strategy to control and
monitor online content and activities since the introduction of the
Internet in China in 1987. Authorities at various levels use a complex
web of regulations, surveillance, imprisonment, propaganda, and the
blockade of hundreds of thousands of international websites at the
national-gateway level (``the Great Firewall of China'').
The government's primary strategy for shaping content is to hold
Internet service providers (ISPs) and access providers responsible for
the behavior of their customers; thus business operators have little
choice but proactively to censor the content on their sites.
Business owners must use a combination of their own judgment and
direct instructions from propaganda officials to determine what content
to ban. In an anonymous interview with me, a senior manager at one of
China's largest Internet portals acknowledged receiving instructions
from either State Council Information Office or other provincial-level
propaganda officials at least three times a day. Additionally, both the
government and numerous websites employ people to read and censor
content manually.
Sina Weibo is China's largest Twitter-like microblogging service
with 250 million users, according to their own report in late 2011. It
is also one of the most tightly controlled spaces on the Chinese
Internet and is an example of how control works on various levels.
According to one of the company's top executives, ``Sina has a very
powerful content censorship and infrastructure backup,'' which includes
the ability to automatically monitor its users 24 hours a day while
also utilizing hundreds of human monitors.
The same executive noted that monitoring content is Sina's
``biggest headache,'' and entails intensive communication between
editors and censors including emails updating the guidelines for
monitoring content that are sent every hour. Editors are obligated to
report on any ``malicious'' content, and repercussions for users can
include private or public warnings, deletion of content or cancellation
of user IDs. Users are rewarded for reporting malicious or pornographic
content by clicking a button on the site's homepage. Individual
keywords are also filtered on Sina Weibo search; my research group has
uncovered over 820 filtered search terms, including ``Cultural
Revolution,'' ``press freedom'' and ``propaganda department.''
2. netizens' coded resistance
The results of government censorship efforts are mixed at best. The
government's pervasive and intrusive censorship system has generated
equally massive resentment among Chinese netizens. As a result, new
forms of social resistance and demands for greater freedom of
information and expression are often expressed in coded language and
implicit metaphors, which allow them to avoid outright censorship. The
Internet has became a quasi-public space where the CCP's dominance is
being constantly exposed, ridiculed, and criticized, often in the form
of political satire, jokes, videos, songs, popular poetry, jingles,
fiction, Sci-Fi, code words, mockery, and euphemisms.
In early 2009, a creature named the ``Grass Mud Horse'' appeared in
an online video that became an immediate Internet sensation. Within
weeks, the Grass Mud Horse--or cao ni ma, the homophone of a profane
Chinese expression--became the de facto mascot of Chinese netizens
fighting for free expression. It inspired poetry, videos, and clothing
lines. As one blogger explained, the Grass Mud Horse represented
information and ideas that could not be expressed in mainstream
discourse.
The Grass Mud Horse was particularly suited to the contested space
of the Chinese Internet. The government's pervasive and intrusive
censorship has stirred resentment among Chinese netizens, sparking new
forms of social resistance and demands for greater freedom of
information and expression, often conveyed via coded language and
metaphors adopted to avoid the most obvious forms of censorship. As a
result, the Internet has became a quasi-public space where the CCP's
dominance is being exposed, ridiculed, and criticized, often by means
of satire, jokes, songs, poems, and code words.
Such coded communication, once whispered in private, is not new to
China. Now, however, it is publicly communicated rather than murmured
behind the backs of the authorities. For example, since censorship is
carried out under the official slogan of ``constructing a harmonious
society,'' netizens have begun to refer to the censoring of Internet
content as ``being harmonized.'' Furthermore, the word ``to harmonize''
in Chinese (hexie) is a homonym of the word for ``river crab.'' In folk
language, crab also refers to a bully who exerts power through
violence. Thus the image of a crab has become a new satirical,
politically charged icon for netizens who are fed up with government
censorship and who now call themselves the River Crab Society. Photos
of a malicious crab travel through the blogosphere as a silent protest
under the virtual noses of the cyber-police. Even on the most
vigorously self-censored Chinese search engine, Baidu.com, a search of
the phrase ``River Crab Society'' will yield more than 5.8 million
results.
In recent years, Chinese netizens have shown they possess boundless
creativity and ingenuity in finding such ways to express themselves
despite stifling government restrictions on online speech. This
``resistance discourse'' steadily undermines the values and ideology
that reproduce compliance with the Chinese Communist Party's
authoritarian regime, and, as such, force an opening for free
expression and civil society in China. At China Digital Times, we have
created an online ``Grass-Mud Horse Lexicon,'' or a translated glossary
of more than 200 such terms created and spread by netizens in China.
Without understanding this coded but widespread (thanks to the
Internet) ``Grass-Mud Horse Discourse'' through the lens of censorship
and resistance, one cannot fully understand the contradictions in
Chinese society today, and the potential and the possibilities for
tomorrow.
3. online mobilization
Through online social networks and virtual communities, the Chinese
Internet has become a substantial communications platform for
aggregating information and coordinating collective action especially
through the use of shared language, experiences and images.
For example, this information aggregation process can happen when a
local issue resonates with a broader audience and spreads beyond the
limited jurisdiction of local officials, sometimes even making it into
the national media. When corruption or environmental damage, for
example, are exposed, local authorities implicated in the scandal often
crack down on news websites hosted within their respective
jurisdictions. But when such news finds its way to a website based
outside the relevant local jurisdiction, the officials of that
jurisdiction will have no means of directly suppressing it. This gap in
control between local authorities as well as between local and central
authorities opens a space for netizens to transmit information.
Influential bloggers may also mobilize their fellow netizens by
acting as spokespersons for certain issue positions, or by giving
personal authentication to messages that resonate with the people, or
by articulating what others could not say in the face of political
censorship. Bestselling author, race-car driver, and blogger Han Han is
one such figure. Han is an outspoken critic of government censorship,
and his blog posts are often deleted by censors. Nevertheless, his main
blog received more than 300-million hits between 2006 and 2009. In
April 2010, Time magazine listed Han Han as a candidate for the hundred
``most globally influential people.'' Han Han subsequently wrote a blog
post asking the Chinese government ``to treat art, literature, and the
news media better, not to impose too many restrictions and censorship,
and not to use the power of the government or the name of the state to
block or slander any artist or journalist.'' This post generated some
25,000 comments from his readers and was viewed by more than 1.2
million people. The article has also been widely reposted online; in
May 2010, a Google search found more than 45,000 links reposting all or
part of the essay. Despite official efforts to use the Great Firewall
to block Chinese netizens from voting for Han Han on Time's website, he
came in second in the final tally, showing the mobilizational power of
his writing.
4. role of social media technologies and american companies
It is not just Han Han's words that are so influential, but the
social media technologies - search, file-sharing, RSS, blogging,
microblogging, image and video-sharing, social networking, etc - that
allow them to spread freely, despite government censorship.
On November 2, 2011, the State Council of Information Office issued
directives to all national and local websites: ``Thoroughly delete all
information and commentaries about Ai Weiwei's ``borrowing money to pay
tax'' event.'' This refers to the penalty of a $2.4 million back tax
bill levied on dissident artist Ai Weiwei, who spent three months in
jail this spring. Through the Internet, Ai called for loans from
supporters around the world to pay the bill. Searching on Sina Weibo,
one will found over a dozen words and phrases relating to ``Ai Weiwei''
have been recently blocked, and many such posts were soon deleted;
however Ai Weiwei's call for loans has been reposted by devoted
readers, and circulated through emails, instant chats, closed forums
and private messages among users on a variety of social networking
services. Ten days after the censor's decisive directive, days, about
30,000 people had sent in a combined total of 8.7 million yuan ($1.37
million) to pay Ai Weiwei's penalty, despite the state censor's full
efforts to suppress his words from spreading.
This is what China's leaders most fear: the power of truth-telling
among the Chinese population, which directly challenges their
privilege, ideological control, and the legitimacy of the regime. The
Chinese government has learned that it can't merely target Internet
users, but must focus on information technologies, access to the
network, and the companies that provide these tools.
That's where American Internet companies enter the story. Because
American Internet companies are not under the control of the government
and therefore cannot be trusted to abide by the government's rules,
they are most often prevented from entering the market on a level
playing field, or simply blocked by the Great Firewall. Several top
global websites, including Google, YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook, as
well as thousands of other websites, are no longer easily accessible.
China's intrusive government policies effectively mark the beginning of
a cyberworld divided into the internet and the ``Chinternet'', with the
Great Firewall marking the boundary.
5. emergent new political identity
The Chinese government has the determination, resources and
technology to make the Internet work in support of its ruling status
quo. However, its dominance is constantly being contested by netizens'
online civil disobedience and public demands for rights. The result of
such interplay of censorship and digital resistance is an emerging
pattern of public opinion and citizen participation that represents a
shift of power in Chinese society. The Internet allows citizens to
comment on certain (albeit limited) topics, and create their own shared
discourse which is outside the bounds of government censorship and
propaganda. In addition, an entire generation of online public agenda
setters has emerged to become influential opinion leaders. I have
observed a remarkable phenomenon that many of the most influential
online opinion leaders appear to hold in common values supporting
democracy, human rights and freedom of expression. These netizens, with
their growing numbers, expanding social networks, political resilience,
and increasing influence, seem to be evolving from ``voices under
domination'' to ``universal values advocates.'' This new, emerging
generation of ``Internet citizens'' is becoming one of the most dynamic
forces in setting the media agenda and fostering civil engagement on
public issues in China, despite the government's control efforts. This
new generation--embodying alternative (liberal, democratic) political
values and connected through the Internet--will certainly change
China's future course.
6. recommendations to the us government
Increasing funding to projects which aim to expand the free flow of
information on the Internet, such as (1) projects which monitor
Internet censorship, identify and archive censored content and make
such contents re-accessible for netizens (2) development and deployment
of counter-censorship technologies in support of online civil society,
human rights and journalism communities in China and other countries
with a censored Internet.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
______
Prepared Statement of Gilbert B. Kaplan
november 17, 2011
Introduction
China's censorship of the Internet and its restrictions on the free
flow of information have a very significant impact on U.S. economic and
trade interests. China continues to impose debilitating burdens on
foreign Internet service providers through its censorship regime, its
blocking of foreign websites, and its ``Great Firewall''
infrastructure, which inhibit or prevent all together U.S. companies'
ability to do business in China, and their ability to compete with
Chinese domestic companies. China's Internet service providers have
capitalized on this discriminatory treatment of U.S. companies and have
consequently experienced great success. Earlier this year, for example,
RenRen (known as ``China's Facebook'') filed for a U.S. public
offering, symbolizing its success to date and its plans for
expansion.\1\ Meanwhile, Facebook is blocked in China. These measures
have been ongoing for years, and have had an overwhelming adverse
impact on market share for U.S. companies--perhaps to the extent that
such market share can never be recovered.
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\1\ http://money.cnn.com/2011/04/18/technology/renren--IPO/
?section=money--latest
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China's blocking and filtering measures, and the fog of uncertainty
surrounding what China's censors will and will not permit, violate
numerous of China's international obligations, including provisions of
the WTO General Agreement on Trade and Services (``GATS'') and China's
WTO Protocol of Accession.
The negative impact of these violations on America's premier
Internet companies is profound. There are several corporate victims of
China's exclusionary practices. Although there is public information
identifying several large companies that have been blocked or
restricted by the Great Firewall, including YouTube, Facebook, Twitter,
Vimeo, Google, and the Huffington Post, to name a few, there are many
other companies that have been blocked from access in China that I am
not able to identify by name specifically because these companies fear
retaliation. These companies come from various sectors, including
energy, labor mediation, tourism, education, web hosting, and
advertising, among others. The fact that these large, well-established
companies and other fast-growing U.S. firms, so successful in every
other major market in the world, are reluctant to come forward with
specific information that would form the basis of a WTO complaint
against the Chinese government is powerful testament to (1) the
importance of the Chinese Internet market--the largest in the world--to
these firms' continued success, and (2) the risk of retaliation that
these firms face if they are seen as lending direct support to a trade
complaint against China. Moreover, companies not yet in existence, but
for which China could represent a significant business opportunity, do
not even have a voice in the matter and perhaps never will.
I represent the First Amendment Coalition, an award-winning, non-
profit public interest organization dedicated to advancing free speech
for individuals and companies just like those denied access to China's
Internet market. I have been working with them to address the issue of
China's Internet restrictiveness since 2007. The issues regarding
internet censorship and internet blockage are trade issues cognizable
under the WTO, as well as freedom of speech issues. They are a harmful
trade barrier to U.S. business which must be ended.
The First Amendment Coalition was able to persuade the Office of
the U.S. Trade Representative (``USTR'') to take the critical step of
requesting detailed information from China on its internet restrictions
under Article III:4 of GATS, which mandates transparency in a Member's
application of measures affecting services. GATS Article III:4 reads as
follows.
Each Member shall publish promptly and, except in emergency
situations, at the latest by the time of their entry into
force, all relevant measures of general application which
pertain to or affect the operation of this Agreement.
USTR's request to China follows a three year effort by the First
Amendment Coalition to get the U.S. government to take a tough stance
to address China internet restrictions in violation of international
trade rules, free speech, and human rights. The U.S. request to China
under GATS Article III:4 is highly significant not only because it is
the very first time any WTO Member has utilized that provision of the
GATS agreement, but also because it is the first time that the U.S.
government, or any country, has made a formal submission through the
WTO to China to address internet censorship.
Contrary to GATS Article III:4, China's measures with respect to
Internet services have not been published promptly, and in fact, the
blocking and filtering measures have not been published at all.\2\ In
this regard, we have been unable to document written directives or
specific governmental instructions concerning China's measures
constituting the ``Great Firewall,'' but this in effect lends support
to the argument that China is not transparent in its practices related
to controlling and censoring Internet content. Indeed, China has
published few, if any, regulations related to Internet services. The
Chinese government recently issued an official decision, currently
available only in Chinese, which appears not to contain ``any new
concrete policies but it does set the stage for future moves to rein in
parts of the Internet at the possible expense of the commercial
Internet companies.'' \3\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ A panel has previously interpreted the term ``publish'' in the
WTO Agreements as more than ``making publicly available.'' In Chile-
Price Band System and Safeguard Measures Relating to Certain
Agricultural Products, the panel held that the requirements to publish
a report in the Agreement on Safeguards meant ``to make generally
available through an appropriate medium.'' Appellate Body Report,
Chile-Price Band System and Safeguard Measures Relating to Certain
Agricultural Products, WT/DS207/AB/R (adopted 23 October 2002), para.
7.128. Further, ``[t]he obligation is of an absolute character and due
diligence obliges WTO members to publish more, rather than less,
because of the terms `relevant' and `affecting' invite a wide
reading.'' Mitsuo Matsushita, Thomas J. Schoenbaum, & Petros C.
Mavroidis, The World Trade Organization, Law, Practice, and Policy
(2003).
\3\ See ``6th Plenum Report Suggests China Will Strengthen Internet
Management,'' Digicha Internet and Digital Media in China, October 26,
2011, citing from the ``Central Committee Decision Concerning the Major
Issue of Deepening Cultural System Reforms, Promoting the Great
Development and Prosperity of Socialist Culture'' from the 6th Plenum
of the 17th Communist Party Congress (currently available only in
Chinese), available at http://digicha.com/index.php/2011/10/6th-plenum-
report-suggests-china-will-strengthen-internet-management/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The historic action taken by USTR is also a significant and
important step because, in addition to promoting transparency and free
speech, it may result in China providing information in response to
U.S. questions that will assist small and medium-sized U.S. businesses
in entering the Chinese market, which they currently are unable to do
given the lack of certain vital information involving use of the
Internet. As USTR indicated in its press release,
[a]n Internet website that can be accessed in China is
increasingly a critical element for service suppliers aiming to
reach Chinese consumers, and a number of U.S. businesses,
especially small- and medium-sized enterprises, have expressed
concerns regarding the adverse business impacts from periodic
disruptions to the availability of their websites in China.
Small and medium-sized U.S. businesses are particularly
disadvantaged by China's Great Firewall because, unlike bigger U.S.
companies, they do not have the resources to physically set up shop in
China so they are simply excluded from the Chinese market.
Some of the information requested from China by USTR included the
following:
With respect to China's rules governing website
blocking: Who is responsible for determining when a website
should be blocked? What are the criteria for blocking access?
Where are the guidelines published? Who does the actual
blocking? How can a service supplier know if their website has
been blocked? Are decisions to block appealable? Is the process
used to prevent access the same or different for foreign and
domestic content?
With respect to the State Internet Information Office
(``SIIO'') established by the State Council: What are the
responsibilities and authorities of SIIO? Will SIIO handle
licenses, approval processes, and questions on filtering and
other laws?
With respect to inadvertent blocking where one site
is blocked when it shares an IP address with a website China
has deemed harmful: How does it occur? Can it be avoided? Will
Chinese authorities notify the owner of the web hosting service
so that it may ensure other sites are not inadvertently
blocked? How can companies resolve inadvertent blocking?
With respect to the broad nature of the eleven
categories of content which Internet service providers may not
disseminate: \4\ Are there any criteria to determine when
content falls within the eleven categories? Are government
requests to filer specific terms communicated directly to
Internet information service providers? Are the same terms
subject to filtering made available to Internet information
service providers inside and outside of China?
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ According to measures issued by China's State Council, Internet
services providers may not disseminate information with content that:
(1) opposes the fundamental principles determined in the Constitution;
(2) compromises state security, divulges state secrets, subverts state
power or damages national unity; (3) harms the dignity or interests of
the state; (4) incites ethnic hatred or racial discrimination or
damages inter-ethnic unity; (5) sabotages state religious policy or
propagates heretical teachings or feudal superstitions; (6)
disseminates rumors, disturbs social order or disrupts social
stability; (7) propagates obscenity, pornography, gambling, violence,
murder or fear or incites the commission of crimes; (8) insults or
slanders a third party or infringes upon the lawful rights and
interests of a third party; (9) disturbs the public order by
instigating illegal gatherings, associations, parades, demonstrations,
or assemblies; (10) organizes activities in the name of illegal civil
organizations; contains other content prohibited by the laws and
administrative regulations, or by the state.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
With respect to the prevention of ``illegal
information'' as that term is used in the White Paper on the
Internet in China: How is illegal information defined? Is a
written government order required for a private corporation or
relevant authority to block the transmission of illegal
information? What types of technical measures are service
suppliers expected to use to prevent transmission of the
illegal information? Are the technical measures to block
illegal information applied automatically to domestic and
foreign traffic? If not, how are they applied? Does Internet
content from outside of China go through a separate monitoring
process for illegal information than Internet content created
inside of China? If so, how do they differ?
We hope and expect that the Government of China will answer these
questions fully and promptly, fulfilling its obligations under the WTO
to maintain an open internet and not discriminate against U.S.
business.
The remainder of this submission will review in greater detail the
Internet restrictions in China, the adverse trade impact caused by
those restrictions, and how those restrictions would appear to violate
China's international trade obligations.
i. china's internet restrictions
U.S. and foreign Internet companies have faced a long history of
discriminatory treatment in China, to their disadvantage and to the
advantage of their Chinese competitors. China has for many years
maintained a policy, popularly known as the ``Great Firewall,'' under
which it has exerted strict control over the use of the limited system
of fiber optic cables that connects networks in China to the outside
world. As we understand it, China has installed certain hardware, known
as ``tappers'' or ``network sniffers,'' at each entry point so that
when a user in China attempts to access a good or service located on a
server outside of China, the tappers create mirror copies of the data
packets that flow back and forth between the two servers, and the
mirror copies are delivered to a set of computers that automatically
review the data packets. The computers can be, and often are, pre-
progammed to block a particular domain name server (``DNS''), Internet
Protocol (``IP'') address, or Universal Resource Locator (``URL'')
address.\5\
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\5\ See e.g., ``12VPN and Other VPN Services DNS Poisoned by Great
Firewall in China,'' June 27, 2011, available at http://
www.bestvpnservice.com/blog/12vpn-now-dns-poisoned-in-china-by-great-
firewall; ``Google+ Now DNS Blocked in China,'' July 5, 2011, available
at http://www.isidorsfugue.com/2011/07/google-now-dns-blocked-in-
china.html; ``China Strengthens Great Firewall, While, Chinese Bypass
It,'' March 3, 2011, available at http://www.bestvpnservice.com/blog/
china-strengthens-great-firewall-while-chinese-bypass-it; ``Ahead of
Party Anniversary, China Poisons the Internet,'' July 1, 2011,
available at http://uncut.indexoncensorship.org/2011/07/ahead-of-party-
anniversary-china-poisons-the-internet/.
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The government of China (``GOC'') also employs tens of thousands of
individuals whose sole mission is to search the Internet for
objectionable content. Their work often results in the blocking of
additional DNS, IP, and URL addresses.\6\
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\6\ See ``You've Got Mail,'' Time Magazine, October 16, 2011,
available at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/
0,9171,2096818,00.html
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Following USTR's Article III:4 request, China defended its Internet
censorship as an effort to ``safeguard the public.'' \7\ Although the
ruling Communist Party claims its monitoring and blocking is to promote
``constructive'' websites, stop the spread of ``harmful information,''
and develop what it calls a healthy internet culture, it is unclear
what content is subject to blocking and often the blocked content has
nothing resembling ``harmful information.'' \8\ Additionally, the
blocking appears motivated by other competitive or political agendas.
For example, access to the Android Marketplace was blocked within China
just after Google announced it would help the Dalai Lama to visit South
Africa virtually.\9\
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\7\ ``Beijing leaps to defense of `Great Firewall of China,'''
Reuters, October 20, 2011, available at http://www.reuters.com/article/
2011/10/20/us-china-internet-idUSTRE79J1PU20111020.
\8\ See ``6th Plenum Report Suggests China Will Strengthen Internet
Management,'' Digicha Internet and Digital Media in China, October 26,
2011, citing from the ``Central Committee Decision Concerning the Major
Issue of Deepening Cultural System Reforms, Promoting the Great
Development and Prosperity of Socialist Culture'' from the 6th Plenum
of the 17th Communist Party Congress (currently available only in
Chinese), available at http://digicha.com/index.php/2011/10/6th-plenum-
report-suggests-china-will-strengthen-internet-management/.
\9\ ``Android Marketplace blocked by Great Firewall of China,'' The
Register, October 10, 2011, available at http://www.theregister.co.uk/
2011/10/10/china--android--blocking/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ii. harm caused by china's restrictions
Chinese internet restrictions have disadvantaged American
businesses, to the benefit of Chinese businesses. According to news
reports, Facebook and Twitter, for example, have been blocked in China.
In their absence, copycat websites based in China (with censored
content) have been able to flourish. It seems unlikely that Facebook
and Twitter will be able to regain the market share lost to their
Chinese competitors even if they were unblocked at some point in the
future. Chinese users have already developed a preference for certain
social media sites, and it is doubtful that they would have an
incentive to switch services.\10\ The loss of a huge potential market
for these companies indicates the extent of the harm caused by the
Chinese actions. In addition to the direct loss of access to Chinese
consumers by these companies comes the loss from all of the advertisers
that would ordinarily be offering their services on the Internet pages
of these social media service providers.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\10\ See, e.g., Lin Shujuan, Flutter over New Twitter, China Daily
(Oct. 22, 2009) http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/cndy/2009-10/22/content--
8829406.htm (discussing the rise in popularity of Sina Weibo, a
microblogging website with monitored content, since Twitter became
inaccessible in China); Glen Loveland, When Will China Unblock Facebook
and Twitter? (Sep. 28, 2009) http://www.examiner.com/x-/x-15615-Asia-
Headlines-Examinery2009m9d28-When-will-China-unblock-Facebook-and-
Twitter (``Every Chinese user who can't use the site is that much more
likely to turn to China's domestic copycat, YouKu''); China's Twitter
Clones, Read Write Web (Mar. 5, 2010) http://www.readwriteweb.com/
archives/china--twitter--clones.php (quoting Chinese technology writer
Kaiser Kuo: ``Although there would be an uptake in the number of users
on Twitter, if it was ever to be made available again, Weibo and others
will have gained too much momentum by then'').
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The number of Internet users in China has exceeded 500 million,
growing at double digit rates since 2008, roughly twice the size of the
U.S. market, which grew only 2.5 to 4.5 percent in the same timeframe.
China is now the largest market for Internet users \11\ and U.S.
businesses are effectively being blocked from or only given highly
restricted access to that market. U.S. companies excluded from the
Chinese market are not just large tech companies but small and medium
businesses including ``travel sites, engineering firms and consulting
firms, which have found their sites blocked and have complained to the
trade office.'' \12\ A 2011 report by the McKinsey Global Institute
estimates that there is a ten percent increase in productivity for
small and medium businesses from internet usage.\13\ This productivity
growth is denied U.S. companies that are blocked from providing their
services in China.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\11\ ``U.S., China Clash Over Internet Great Wall,'' China-U.S.
Trade Law, October 31, 2011, available at http://
www.chinaustradelawblog.com/2011/10/articles/trade-disputes/wto/us-
china-clash-over-internet-great-wall-acaaeaecea/.
\12\ ``China tangles with Internet access,'' Politico, citing USTR
official, October 30, 2011, available at http://www.politico.com/news/
stories/1011/67190.html.
\13\ Internet Matters: The Net's Sweeping Impact On Growth, Jobs,
and Prosperity, McKinsey Global Institute, May 2011, available at
http://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/publications/internet--matters/pdfs/MGI--
internet--matters--full--report.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
U.S. companies are subject to the strict controls that completely
disrupt their service, or at a minimum seriously delay the transmission
of information. Users of these websites, if they actually endure the
wait and do not move to a competitor service supplier,\14\ suffer from
a decrease in the quality of service, causing commercial harm to U.S.
companies.\15\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\14\ ``Android Marketplace blocked by Great Firewall of China,''
The Register, October 10, 2011, available at http://
www.theregister.co.uk/2011/10/10/china--android--blocking/.
\15\ See e.g., ``Can China's Economy Thrive with a Censored
Internet?'' Time, October 26, 2011, available at http://
curiouscapitalist.blogs.time.com/2011/10/26/can-china%E2%80%99s-
economy-thrive-with-a-censored-internet/.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
It would be very useful for this Commission to undertake, directly
or perhaps through an economic consulting firm, an economic analysis of
the overall harm caused to U.S. companies by the Chinese blockage and
censorship of the internet. I think that would be one useful follow-up
to this hearing.
iii. china's internet restrictions violate its international trade
obligations
The Chinese Government's actions appear to constitute various
violations of WTO agreements to which China is a party, particularly
the GATS Agreement. The Chinese actions in question, although often
based on unwritten policies and practices, would still constitute
``measures'' that can be challenged under the World Trade Organization
Dispute Settlement procedures. In this regard, the Appellate Body and
various WTO panels have confirmed that actionable ``measures'' subject
to WTO dispute settlement include not only written laws and
regulations, but other government actions as well.\16\ Panels have also
recognized the subtleties of government pressure on private companies
as ``measures'' that may be challenged at the WTO.\17\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\16\ See, e.g., Appellate Body Report, United States - Sunset
Review of Anti-Dumping Duties on Corrosion-Resistant Carbon Steel Flat
Products from Japan, WT/DS244/AB/R (adopted Jan. 9, 2004), paras. 81-85
(``In principle, any act or omission attributable to a WTO Member can
be a measure of that Member for purposes of dispute settlement
proceedings''.) (The Appellate Body also referred to its earlier
opinion in Guatemala-Cement I (AB), which stated that `` . . . a
`measure' may be any act of a Member, whether or not legally binding,
and it can include even non-binding administrative guidance by a
government.'').
\17\ Panel Report, Japan - Measures Affecting Consumer Photographic
Film and Paper, WT/DS44/R (adopted Apr. 22, 1998), para. 10.44.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In addition to USTR's current GATS Article III:4 request, there are
more aggressive steps that the United States could take to protect its
vital economic interests. While we believe that China currently is
preparing its official response to USTR's Article III:4 request, if
China fails to respond or fails to respond meaningfully, the United
States would then have a readily apparent basis to initiate formal
dispute settlement proceedings in the WTO. Paragraph 1 of GATS Article
XXIII says ``[i]f any Member should consider that any other Member
fails to carry out its obligations or specific commitments under this
Agreement, it may with a view to reaching a mutually satisfactory
resolution of the matter have recourse to the dispute settlement
understanding.''
In addition to a potential violation under GATS Article III on
transparency, there are other WTO obligations that China appears to
violate with its Internet restrictions, including other GATS
provisions, as is discussed below.
Initiation of a WTO dispute settlement proceeding against Chinese
Internet restrictions by the United States would signal to the U.S.
business community, to consumers around the world, and to China, that
the U.S. government will assert its rights under WTO agreements when
China fails to fulfill its WTO obligations, even in those areas that
may be of a more sensitive nature. Unfortunately, these sensitivities
give rise to a number of obstacles to U.S. initiation and prosecution
of a formal WTO dispute against China.
As noted, it is difficult to find companies willing to come forward
to support a potential case against China for fear of retaliation. Due
to this fear, specific facts needed by the U.S. government to support
many claims under the WTO are difficult to document. In addition, also
as noted, many of the Chinese laws, regulations, policies, and
practices regarding Internet services are not written down, although
they are enforced de facto.\18\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\18\ See US - Zeroing (EC) at paras. 192, 198.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
A. China's Internet Censorship Violates Other Provisions Of GATS
China made specific commitments regarding market access and
national treatment for services in various service sectors.\19\ China's
Internet policies would appear to violate many of these specific
commitments under the GATS, including in the areas of Data Processing
Services, Photographic Services, Telecommunication Services, Mobile
Voice and Data Services, Audiovisual Services, Tourism and Travel
Related Services, and Transport Services. By pursuing these policies,
China denies market access to U.S. companies and discriminates against
the services of U.S. companies in favor of Chinese companies.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\19\ These commitments appear in an addendum to the Working Party
Report on the Accession of China and are an integral part of the GATS.
Report of the Working Party on the Accession of China, Addendum,
Schedule CLII--The People's Republic of China, Part II--Schedule of
Specific Commitments on Services List, List of Article II MFN
Exemption, WT/MIN(01)/3/Add.2 (10 Nov 2001) (``Schedule of Specific
Commitments'').
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Although U.S. companies offer a wide range of services over the
Internet, four service sectors that would appear to suffer
disproportionately under Chinese policies are: (1) Advertising services
(the primary revenue source for U.S. suppliers of Internet-based
services, particularly those operating search engines, social
networking, and data/photo sharing, is through advertising and U.S.
services suppliers obtain revenue from the development and posting of
targeted advertisements on their webpages and facilitating access to
other websites by their users clicking on the advertisements); (2) Data
processing and tabulation services (relevant U.S. services suppliers
are providing consumers with the ability to access certain tools over
the Internet that enable them to make, edit, and share videos or
photos, or other data and that allow them to search for content on
other websites and the U.S. services supplier is necessarily processing
data for the consumer and providing a tool to access defined data bases
or the Internet generally); (3) On-line information and database
retrieval; and (4) Videos, including entertainment software and (CPC
83202), distribution services (``Video/entertainment distribution
services'').
There follows below a brief discussion of some of the specific GATS
claims that might be made against the Chinese measures in question and
some of the factors that would need to be considered in prosecuting
such claims.
1. National Treatment
China's restrictions on U.S. Internet companies appear to violate
the national treatment provision in Article XVII of the GATS, which
provides that ``each Member shall accord to services and service
suppliers of any other Member, in respect of all measures affecting the
supply of services, treatment no less favourable than that it accords
to its own like services and service suppliers.''
The Chinese measures at issue would seem to fall within one or more
of at least four services subsectors for which China has inscribed a
specific commitment, without limitation on national treatment, in its
WTO Services Schedule. As such, China's measures must comply with the
obligations in Article XVII for these subsectors.\20\ Current Chinese
treatment of U.S. Internet companies, including filtering and blocking
through the ``Great Firewall'' and mandated disabling of certain
service functions, modifies the conditions of competition in favor of
Chinese suppliers such as Baidu (considered the ``Google'' of China);
as such, these measures are inconsistent with Article XVII of the GATS.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\20\ In the case of potential market access violations in relation
to telecommunications services, the United States will need to address
potential Chinese arguments that the measures are non-discriminatory
and are based on China's right, under the footnote in its schedule, to
require that such services be channeled through approved gateways.
Moreover, in relation to national treatment for video/entertainment
distribution services, China has not scheduled any limitation in
relation to ``content review'' and thus discriminatory content review
would not be justified by any reservation or limitation.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
If China's measures were challenged in a WTO proceeding, a Panel
would first determine whether China's measures are indeed ``affecting''
the supply of these services. As noted by the Appellate Body in EC--
Bananas III:
[T]he term of ``affecting'' reflects the intent of the drafters
to give a broad reach to the GATS. The ordinary meaning of the
word ``affecting'' implies a measure that has ``an effect on'',
which indicates a broad scope of application. This
interpretation is further reinforced by the conclusions of
previous panels that the term ``affecting'' in the context of
Article III of the GATT is wider in scope than such terms as
``regulating'' or ``governing.'' \21\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\21\ Appellate Body Report, European Communities--Regime for the
Importation, Sale and Distribution of Bananas, WT/DS27/AB/R (adopted 25
September 1997), para. 220.
It is therefore not necessary for China's measures to be directly
regulating or governing the business of U.S. Internet service
providers, but merely that the measures have an effect on these
services, and their providers' ability to do business in China. China's
measures clearly have ``an effect on'' these services--indeed, a very
detrimental one.\22\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\22\ See ``Enabling Trade in the Era of Information Technologies:
Breaking Down Barriers to the Free Flow of Information,'' Google paper
released November 15, 2010, available at http://
static.googleusercontent.com/external--content/untrusted--dlcp/
www.google.com/en/us/googleblogs/pdfs/trade--free--flow--of--
information.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Second, the United States would need to demonstrate that China's
measures accord ``less favorable'' treatment to U.S. suppliers than to
China's domestic suppliers of ``like'' services. As set forth in GATS
Article XVII:3, the test for less favorable treatment is whether the
measure ``modifies the conditions of competition in favor of services
or service suppliers of'' China compared to like services or services
suppliers of the United States.\23\ Persuading a panel in this regard
would require the production of extensive data and specific information
demonstrating the competitive disadvantage suffered by U.S. companies
due to China's measures. A comparison of blockages of websites, upload
times for content of websites, and other significant impediments to
Internet service providers would likely reveal significant and swift
loss of market share by U.S. providers.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\23\ See, e.g., Panel Report, Canada - Certain Measures Affecting
the Automotive Industry, WT/DS139/R, WT/DS142/R (adopted 19 June 2000),
para. 10.80.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Market Access
Article XVI:2 of the GATS prohibits Members from maintaining or
adopting quantitative limitations on service operations or service
output. China's restrictions on certain U.S. Internet companies'
services constitutes a de facto quantitative limitation on such
services, therefore violating this provision.
3. Domestic Regulation
Under Article VI of the GATS, for services sectors in which
specific commitments have been undertaken, China must administer its
measures in a ``reasonable, objective and impartial manner'' and, for
all services sectors, must ensure that tribunals or procedures are
available for the prompt review and remedy of administrative decisions.
China's restrictions on U.S. Internet companies are subjective and non-
transparent, and there are no tribunals or procedures for the review of
these administrative decisions. The restrictions therefore violate
China's obligations under Articles VI:1 and VI:2(a) of the GATS.
China's ``Great Firewall'' filtering and blocking practices would
also seem to violate the GATS Annex on Telecommunications, which states
in paragraphs 4 and 5 that ``each Member shall ensure that relevant
information on conditions affecting access to and use of public
telecommunications transport networks and services is publicly
available'' and that ``(e)ach Member shall ensure that any service
supplier of any other Member is accorded access to and use of public
telecommunications transport networks and services on reasonable and
non-discriminatory terms and conditions.'' In addition, paragraph 5(c)
imposes an obligation on China to ensure that U.S. services suppliers
may use the public telecommunications transport networks and services
``for the movement of information within and across borders'' and ``for
access to information contained in data bases or otherwise stored in
machine-readable form'' in the United States or in the territory of
another WTO Member. China's filtering and blocking on Internet content
clearly restricts the availability of these telecommunications networks
in a discriminatory fashion.
Conclusion
We appreciate the Commission holding this hearing and inviting me
to testify. We also appreciate the efforts of USTR in submitting the
GATS III:4 questions. We urge the Commission to take into account our
views in its ongoing work on this issue. We also urge the Commission to
monitor China's responses to these questions as well as USTR's
continuing efforts on this very important issue. An open and accessible
internet in China is a prerequisite to U.S. success in the Chinese
market, and a goal that we must continue to fight for until it is
achieved.
______
Prepared Statement of Ed Black
november 17, 2011
Chairman Smith and Chairman Brown, I appreciate the opportunity to
again testify before the Commission to discuss China's censorship of
the Internet. I am President and CEO of the Computer & Communications
Industry Association (CCIA), an organization that has promoted
openness, competition, and free trade for over 35 years.
I commend the Commission for examining the prescient issue of how
restrictions on the free flow of information online pose not only
significant human rights concerns, but economic concerns as well. CCIA
has long been an advocate of openness online, as we ardently believe
that freedom and openness are not only at the heart of our industry's
rapid growth, but are also the core values underpinning our success as
a democracy.
I know that traditionally freedom of expression has rightly been
viewed through the lens of human rights, and I strongly support working
through the United Nations and NGOs to put pressure on recalcitrant
members of the international community who defy their commitments in
this arena. We deeply admire the courage and sacrifice of activists
such as Mr. Li's father and Pastor Zhang who seek freedom for their
people. As their prior testimony makes clear, the human toll of such
measures is enormous. A commitment to freedom, particularly the freedom
of expression, is the keystone of our nation and has premeditated our
foreign policy since America's incipiency. It is also what has driven
so many Tunisians, Egyptians and Syrians to sacrifice their lives in
recent months. I firmly believe that the United States must continue
its full-throated support of freedom of expression worldwide--both
online and offline. In fact, some of our biggest domestic and foreign
policy mistakes occurred when we have overlooked these principles in
the name of diplomatic or political expediency. In this vein, I support
our State Department's efforts to aggressively promote Internet freedom
online and I caution our government against taking any actions, such as
the misguided Intellectual Property enforcement bills before Congress
as we speak, that might hamstring these efforts abroad.
In addition to doing great injury to human rights, actions to
restrict the free flow of information online also have serious economic
repercussions. The Internet increasingly represents the shipping lane
of the 21st century. Others have likened it to a digital Silk Road,
ferrying electrons around the world and enabling trade in service
sectors that were not too long ago considered by economists to be
nontradable. It erases distance, eliminates delivery costs, and
connects the smallest businesses in the most remote places with a
worldwide market. Now a U.S. engineer, a German lawyer, a British
banker or an Indian accountant can ply their trade anywhere in the
world that has an Internet connection--and all without ever having to
get on a plane and pass through a customs checkpoint. In fact, a recent
McKinsey study found that the Internet accounted for 21 percent of GDP
growth of mature economies over the last five years.\1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ James Manyika and Charles Roxburgh, ``The great transformer:
the impact of the Internet on economic growth and prosperty,'' MCKINSEY
GLOBAL INSTITUTE, October 2011, http://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/
publications/great--transformer/pdfs/McKinsey--the--great--
transformer.pdf
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
i. the benefits of a trade approach
The Internet industry is one sector where the United States enjoys
a comparative advantage over the rest of the world. Despite the best
efforts of other nations, no other country has been able to duplicate
Silicon Valley. Besides the Internet being a major input of nearly all
traditional businesses, American companies whose main purpose is to
facilitate communication and make information more easily accessible
are some of our biggest and fastest growing companies. Google,
currently the 28th most valuable company in the world with a market
valuation of $174 billion, and Facebook, whose estimated market value
is $83 billion, are both more highly valued than Goldman Sachs.\2\ This
is big business for America, and these businesses also happen to be the
tools that empower people to communicate, assemble, and organize.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ Financial Times ``FT Global 500 2011'', http://www.ft.com/intl/
reports/ft-500-2011; Ari Levy, ``Facebook Valuation tops Amazon.com,
trailing only Google on the Web'', BLOOMBERG, http://www.bloomberg.com/
news/2011-01-28/facebook-s-82-9-billion-valuation-tops-amazon-com-
update1-.html
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Since China gets full access to United States markets in sectors
where it has a competitive advantage, such as low-cost manufacturing,
it is disconcerting that the United States Government has not done more
to ensure that America's Internet companies get the same liberalized
access to the Chinese market, a market which now has more Internet
users than the entire population of the United States--and the number
of Chinese Internet users is growing briskly.\3\ This is an important
market for our domestic Internet industry.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\3\ In 2010, China was reported to have 420 million Internet Users.
See Gao Qihui, ``China's Internet Population hits 420m'', CHINA DAILY,
July 15, 2010, http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2010-07/15/content--
10112957.htm
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
However, we are encouraged by the USTR's recent formal inquiry into
the specifics of Chinese censorship practices. By using mechanisms
available to it under the WTO, the USTR has put China in a position
where it must divulge specific details about its notoriously vague
censorship policies or face retaliation. As the first step of dealing
with Chinese restrictions is to bring them into the light of day, this
move is crucial. Although it is unlikely that enforcing trade
commitments can ``solve'' the China censorship problem as much as
freedom of expression advocates, myself included, would like, the route
certainly has its advantages and provides U.S. negotiators tangible
sticks and carrots that are not available in the human rights arena.
Prominent human rights organizations such as Human Rights Watch have
also recognized the potential benefits of pursuing a trade approach.\4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ Human Rights Watch, Race to the Bottom, August 2006, page 86.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Even though the WTO allows exceptions to its rules for matters of
public morals and national security, it also requires that all
regulations and restrictions be transparent, provide due process to
affected parties, be the least restrictive as possible and apply
equally to foreign and domestic players. As of today, China complies
with none of these requirements. Furthermore, the WTO has interpreted
the public morals and national security exemptions reasonably narrowly
in the past, so there is even some question as to the legitimacy of
much of Chinese filtering at its very core under international trade
law. Even if some filtering is found permissible under trade law,
forcing China ``to justify each and every blockage or filtering'' may
dampen its enthusiasm to impose such measures.\5\ At the very least, it
is likely that China would have to scale back, and better document, its
censorship practices.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ Tim Wu, ``The World Trade Law of Censorship and Filtering.''
CHICAGO JOURNAL OF INT'L LAW (2006-07).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
ii. chinese censorship
The Chinese government censors, blocks, and discriminates against
foreign-based web services and content, practices which directly or
indirectly advantage domestic firms. It has repeatedly blocked sites
and services, including Facebook, Flickr, Foursquare, Google and
Twitter. China blocked Foursquare, a social networking service, ahead
of June 4, 2010, in response to a number of users who had set their
location to Tiananmen Square as a way to honor the 1989 protests.\6\
Additionally, China has singled out U.S. companies for censorship even
when Chinese-owned services carry the same, banned content.\7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ Claudine Beaumont, ``Foursquare Blocked in China'', THE
TELEGRAPH, June 4, 2010.
\7\ Simon Elegant, ``Chinese Government Attacks Google Over
Internet Porn'', TIME, June 22, 2009.
Even a seemingly harmless site, like photo-sharing website
Flickr, has been blocked in China, while its identical clone
Bababian has grown steadily with foreign technology and no
foreign competition. Likewise, blog-hosting sites Blogger and
WordPress have long been blocked in China. Instead, Chinese
netizens use Tianya, the 13th-most popular site in China. Far
from being a sanitized land of boring blogs about daily
activities, Tianya also hosts China's largest Internet forum, a
vitriolic, sensationalized, and hate-filled arena that makes
Western gossip sites seem like the Economist.\8\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ Jordan Calinoff, ``Beijing's Foreign Internet Purge'', FOREIGN
POLICY, January 15, 2010, available online at .
This double standard strongly suggests that the motivation here is
protectionism rather than morals.
In addition, ``Google's decision to stop self-censoring its search
results in mainland China and reroute traffic through its site in Hong
Kong, where mainland China's censorship rules do not apply, has come at
a high cost. Its share of the Chinese search market revenue plunged to
19.6 percent in the last quarter of 2010 from 35.9 percent the year
before, according to Analysys International. Chief competitor Baidu has
benefited greatly from Google's fading position, increasing its share
of search market revenue to 75.5 percent from 58.8 percent during the
same period.'' \9\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\9\ John Boudreau, ``Google Struggles to Succeed in China Market'',
SAN JOSE MERCURY NEWS, April 24, 2011.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
China has also taken action against U.S.-based services in response
to specific activities of American firms or the U.S. Government itself.
For instance, in response to Congress awarding the Dalai Lama with the
Congressional Gold Medal in October 2007 and the opening of a YouTube
Taiwan domain, China manipulated its ``Great Firewall'' to redirect
users entering the URL for U.S. search engines to Baidu, the Chinese
search engine.\10\ This is the digital equivalent of diverting business
to a competitor in direct contradiction to the customer's intentions.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\10\ Maggie Shiels, ``China Criticised Over YouTube'', BBC, March
25, 2009, available online at .
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In addition to such direct censorship, CCIA Members report that
content filtering harms the quality of service that foreign firms are
able to deliver, indirectly advantaging domestic Chinese services.
For instance, China filters content and services at the
international gateway as transmissions enter the country and become
available to users. In filtering the services and content that enter
their networks, China ensures that the foreign services available to
users are degraded iterations of the service available to users in
other markets. As a result, foreign service and content providers must
compete with degraded products against non-filtered domestic products,
and as such are disadvantaged in comparison to the domestically based
competitors in those countries.
Internet censorship is part of a continuing pattern of the Chinese
government using trade and regulatory policies that seek to either
restrict access to Chinese markets or force foreign companies to
acquiesce to Chinese government demands as the price of access. China's
behavior signifies its belief that access to its markets is a coin that
enables them to buy their way out of playing by the global trading
system rules. From its ``Indigenous Innovation'' policies to its export
quotas for rare earth elements, China has consistently shown a
willingness to flaunt international trade rules until confronted by
multiple trading partners.
iii. domestic precedent
In this Commission's most recent annual report it correctly
identified a troubling aspect of China's censorship regime.
Chinese Internet regulations contain vague and broad
prohibitions on content that, for example, ``harms the honor or
interests of the nation,'' ``spreads rumors,'' or ``disrupts
national policies on religion.'' In China, the government
places the burden on Internet service and content providers to
monitor and remove content based on these vague standards and
to maintain records of such activity and report it to the
government.\11\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\11\ Congressional-Executive Commission on China Annual Report
2011, page 58.
Pending IP enforcement legislation before the House and Senate (S.
968 and H.R. 3261) share some disturbing similarities with China's
approach to centralized Internet control as pointed out by the
Commission. The bills create vague standards for liability and ask
private companies and Internet intermediaries to police and censor
their users. When coupled with blanket immunity provisions for actions
taken while attempting to comply with the legislation, this bill would
encourage overbroad filtering that will remove both legal and illegal
content.
Although the purported goal of fighting intellectual property
infringement is completely different from Chinese authoritarianism,
legitimizing censorship and prior restraints on speech and enforcing it
through a draconian system of DNS filtering allows China to point to
our own actions to justify theirs and makes the job of our diplomats
much harder. Even when attempting to achieve laudable ends, like
preventing intellectual property infringement, we should not require
our Internet service providers to monitor their customers'
communications and maintain Internet blacklists. As a letter from over
100 law professors recently pointed out, the proposed legislation goes
even further than China on some fronts.
The Act represents a retreat from the United States' strong
support of freedom of expression and the free exchange of
information and ideas on the Internet. At a time when many
foreign governments have dramatically stepped up their efforts
to censor Internet communications, the Act would incorporate--
for the first time--a principle more closely associated with
those repressive regimes: a right to insist on the removal of
content from the global Internet, regardless of where it may
have originated or be located, in service of the exigencies of
domestic law. China, for example, has (justly) been criticized
for blocking free access to the Internet with its Great
Firewall. But even China doesn't demand that search engines
outside China refuse to index or link to other Web sites
outside China. The Act does just that.\12\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\12\ ``Professors' Letter in Opposition to ``Preventing Real Online
Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act
of 2011,'' July 5, 2011. http://blogs.law.stanford.edu/newsfeed/files/
2011/07/PROTECT-IP-letter-final.pdf
We must take care not to undermine our own foreign policy and trade
goals by setting bad precedent in our domestic laws.
iv. multilateral approach
We highly appreciate the Commission's interest in the issue of
Chinese Internet censorship and its resolve to address it. CCIA has
long stated that this issue is beyond the scope of any one company or
industry to deal with and that it is imperative for U.S. companies to
have the support of the U.S. Government if they are to effectively
compete in foreign markets where their operations are being obstructed.
These companies' problems are exacerbated by the highly competitive
nature of Internet-based industries. The low barriers to entry and
extreme economies of scale characteristic to the Internet services
industry mean that companies must constantly fight off follow-on
competitors seeking to replicate their success. It is possible to
rapidly create (and China has indeed created) a domestic search engine,
social networking site or blogging platform. Because they can be easily
replaced by a domestic alternative, U.S. companies have little
bargaining power vis-`-vis countries such as China.
Of course, the situation in China bears little resemblance to a
competitive market in which companies legitimately compete on the
merits of their product. Indeed, Chinese censorship seems to have the
added objective of clearing the competitive deck of foreign competition
as the Chinese government actively promotes and protects its domestic
Internet companies at their expense.
Chinese search engine Baidu enjoys its dominant player position
while competitor Google struggles with Chinese government
regulatory bodies. Renren and Youku were able to grow fast
while the original Facebook and Youtube had been banned in
China. Thus, Chinese users didn't have options but simply chose
the Chinese versions of social network and video sharing
service when the world's largest services were blocked in their
country.\13\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\13\ Amanda Min Chung Han, ``Will Investing in Chinese Information
Technology Companies be Another Tulip Speculation?'', ASIA-PACIFIC
BUSINESS AND TECHNOLOGY REPORT, August 8, 2011, available online at
.
Renren ultimately availed itself upon U.S. capitals markets,
conducting a ``spectacular'' IPO on the New York Stock Exchange where
it benefited handsomely from its access to the Chinese market, while
its U.S. competitor was excluded.\14\ In such an environment, any
ceding of market share by U.S. companies plays right into Chinese
hands, leaving China with a much more malleable and compliant Internet
sector.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\14\ Clare Baldwin & Jennifer Saba, ``Renren's Big Day, a Prelude
to Facebook IPO'', Reuters, May 4, 2011, available online at .
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
We would also submit that the issue is beyond the scope of any
unilateral action by the United States. Instead it requires the
cooperation of other like-minded countries in multilateral fora. The
potential of combating Internet censorship as a trade barrier lies in
the fact that the rules-based international trade system is crucial to
continued Chinese growth. Characterizing censorship in the context of a
system whose rules China cannot afford to blatantly ignore is likely to
achieve a political response in a way that traditional human rights
approaches have not. Thus, CCIA strongly supports USTR's action last
month seeking detailed information regarding China's Internet
restrictions and their impact on U.S. trade. What success we have had
in attaining Chinese concessions on issues such as Green Dam or
Indigenous Innovation have come after coordinated efforts with other
trading partners such as the European Union and Japan. This underscores
the importance of utilizing an official multilateral forum like the
WTO, and the need to incorporate new 21st century issues such as the
free flow of information into the international trade system.
v. conclusion
China's Internet censorship is first and foremost a deplorable
practice that perverts what should be the greatest tool for
communication and freedom into a tool for an authoritarian regime's
control of information and of its citizens. However, the major economic
distortions of this practice also demand action under the international
trade system, one that China must at least be seen as respecting due to
its own dependence on trade. While from a human rights perspective, it
may seem akin to going after Al Capone for tax evasion, addressing
Chinese censorship as a trade barrier is a legitimate, multilateral and
potentially effective approach that needs to be pursued by our
government at the highest levels. As the nation that invented the
Internet, and as the global standard bearer in both economic and
political freedom, we must continue to lead in holding the Chinese
government accountable, and we must lead by example.
______
Opening Statement of Hon. Chris Smith, a U.S. Representative From New
Jersey; Chairman, Congressional-Executive Commission on China
november 17, 2011
The Commission will come to order. I want to welcome all of our
distinguished witnesses to this very important hearing. We really
appreciate the attendance of all of our panelists and guests. It's a
pleasure to welcome everyone to this important hearing on ``China's
Censorship of the Internet and Social Media: The Human Toll and Trade
Impacts.'' As recent events have shown, the issue of Internet
censorship has only grown in terms of importance and magnitude, and I
thank the Congressional-Executive Commission on China staff for
organizing a hearing on this pressing issue, and for the tremendous
scholarly work they have done not only in presenting our annual report,
which is filled with facts and information that is actionable, but for
the ongoing work that they do to monitor the gross abuses of human
rights in China.
As the Congressional-Executive Commission on China's 2011 annual
human rights report demonstrates, China's leadership has grown more
assertive in its violation of rights, disregarding the very laws and
international standards that they claim to uphold, while tightening
their grip on Chinese society. As Chinese citizens have increasingly
called for freedoms and reforms, China has only strengthened its
controls over many areas of society--particularly over the Internet.
While China has witnessed a boom in the popularity of social media
and Internet sites, Chinese citizens that access online sites today
remain under the watchful eye of the state. By some accounts, China has
imprisoned more Internet activists than any other country in the world,
and its Internet environment ranks among the most restrictive globally.
Chinese citizens are unable to voice a range of criticism that
Americans undoubtedly take for granted each day: Chinese citizens that
tweet about local corruption may face the threat of abuse or
harassment. Citizens that express dissatisfaction over tainted food
supplies that injure children--the most vulnerable population of our
society--may come to hear a knock at the door. And, citizens that voice
the human desire for democracy and rights protections we value so
dearly may disappear into the official custody of the state, where they
face torture and incarceration.
For Chinese citizens, the line that can't be crossed is unclear.
While mentions of the 1989 Tiananmen protests are surely prohibited,
China's censorship remains at the whimsy of governmental agencies that
seek to limit what they perceive to be any destabilizing commentary. In
China, the Internet provides no transparency--and citizens must weigh
their choices each time they click to send an email or press a button
or post personal views online. Who can forget Shi Tao, who for merely
posting information about what he is not allowed to do, with regard to
Tiananmen Square, garnered a 10-year prison sentence when Yahoo! opened
up their personally identifiable information and gave it to the Chinese
secret police that led to his conviction. There are no lists of banned
words. There are no registers of prohibited topics. In China, there is
no transparency. There are only consequences, and dire ones at that.
Today, we welcome two panels that will address China's Internet
censorship from two perspectives. The witnesses will not only provide
personal accounts of how China's censorship affects individuals and
families, but also detail how China's actions hinder the rights of U.S.
businesses that seek to compete fairly in China. These panels will
expose China's bold disregard for its own laws and its international
obligations, specifically in terms of its controls on Internet activity
and expression.
In the first panel today, we will hear personal accounts of the
consequences Chinese citizens face in seeking to express their
fundamental rights of expression. We will hear from a son and a pastor
that have seen firsthand the anxious and unforgiving hand of China's
Internet police. We will hear how the simplest calls for freedom and
reforms can lead to the separation of loved ones and partition of
families.
In the second panel, we will hear how China's Internet restrictions
and controls not only hurt its citizens, but also hurt countries
seeking to better China through international trade and cooperation. On
a commercial level, China similarly lacks the kind of transparency and
fairness that we expect in global trading partners. China has not only
failed to comply with its WTO commitments, it has exploited our
expectations to create an unlevel playing field, hurting the
competitiveness of U.S. businesses and workers alike.
We recognize that the Internet and social media can and should be
used to provide people with greater access to honest information and to
open up commercial opportunities for businesses operating in global
markets. We know that the promise of information technology can not be
achieved when it is used by repressive governments to find, capture,
convict, and so often torture ordinary citizens for voicing concerns
publicly. Information technology can not be advanced when it involves
the systemic exclusion of commercial competitors and rampant disregard
for transparency and intellectual property.
China is one of the most repressive and restrictive countries when
it comes to the control of the Internet and the impact goes far beyond
the commercial losses for U.S. companies that want to participate in
that market. There are serious human rights implications and we have
seen the damage inflicted countless times through the arrest of
bloggers and pro-democracy activists who have used the Internet to
communicate with colleagues or disseminate views and then have been
arrested. What makes this situation even worse is that sometimes it is
U.S. companies, and my colleagues will recall I held the first of a
series of hearings where we had Microsoft, Yahoo!, Cisco, and Google
before our committee--it was my subcommittee on human rights--held up
their hands and promised to tell the whole truth and nothing but, and
then said they couldn't tell us what they were censoring and would not
tell us how they were being complicit. Harry Wu, who is here, and has
been a leader on this issue, pointed out that Cisco has so enabled the
secret police to track down people using police net, and that the use
of cyber police, ubiquitous throughout all of China, in order to
capture the best, bravest, and smartest in China, who will bring that
country to democracy if only allowed to do so.
This hearing will focus on these very important issues. We are
joined by our Cochairman Sherrod Brown from Ohio who will speak and
then Mr. Walz who is a ranking member, and then we will go to our
witnesses.
______
Statement of Hon. Sherrod Brown, a U.S. Senator From Ohio; Cochairman,
Congressional-Executive Commission on China
november 17, 2011
The business of the Internet and social media is changing the way
the world works. Just take a look at all the smartphones in this room.
It has changed the way we live, the way we do business, and the way we
act as a society. It has changed the world. It has made people closer
to their governments and made those governments more accountable and
interactive, and in the case of the ``Arab Spring,'' it has helped
topple dictators.
The purpose of today's hearing is to shed light on the darkness of
China's repressive Internet and social media censorship. It is a policy
that takes a very human toll, undermining human rights reforms and
freedoms of expression and speech. And it is a policy that is unfair to
U.S. trade interests, especially for U.S. tech companies.
It's well-documented that Chinese officials block access to many
Web sites, including this Commission's. Some sites are blocked because
they are considered politically sensitive, and others for reasons that
we can only guess.
China's Internet control forces private companies--including U.S.
companies--to censor the Internet based on vague and arbitrary
standards. Many companies are forced to operate in an opaque world that
we know surprisingly little about.
This policy benefits Chinese domestic companies at the expense of
companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube who are completely
blocked in China. Companies whose business models rely on openness and
transparency--are forced to be an arm of the Chinese government or turn
their backs on 1.3 billion customers.
But it isn't just Silicon Valley companies that are blocked in
China. It's also Ohio companies like Graftech and Edgetech that risk
having their Web sites blocked or disrupted as they try to sell their
products and services to reach Chinese consumers. When U.S. companies
go public with complaints about these restrictions, as Google did last
year, they risk retaliation by the Chinese government for doing so.
Google is a company that made the unfortunate decision to work with the
Chinese government. In the end it did not work out well for them.
In the absence of meaningful competition, copycat versions of
Twitter and Facebook flourish in China and raise hundreds of millions
of dollars, ironically, on our capital markets. For instance, in May of
this year, Renren, China's version of ``Facebook,'' raised $743 million
in an IPO listed on the New York Stock Exchange. These Chinese
companies are beholden to the Chinese government and Communist Party
and censorship has increased--yet they want access to our free and open
society. As arms of the Chinese government, these moves should be
closely scrutinized.
China now has over half a billion Internet users, more than any
country in the world. Most of these Internet users are young, and far
more aware of Chinese and world developments than their parents.
Knowledge and openness are big threats to totalitarian regimes--we know
that and the Chinese government knows that. In our country knowledge
and openness are pillars of our form of government.
Take the case of outspoken dissident artist Ai Weiwei. His savvy
social networking skills and unabashed criticism of the government
landed him an 81-day detention at a secret location earlier this year.
Now the government wants him to pay $2.4 million in alleged unpaid
taxes and penalties--by Tuesday. Thousands of supporters in China have
sent him money over the Internet. And Ai continues to defy government
orders by using Twitter to publicize his case.
In recent years the Commission has documented a growing number of
cases of political imprisonment involving the Internet. Behind each
case is a story and a family.
One of those cases is Mr. Li Yuanlong. Li is a journalist who was
imprisoned for two years for criticizing the Communist Party online.
That's why we're so grateful that Li's son, Alex, a fellow Ohioan and a
student at Bowling Green State University, is here to tell Li's story.
Last month the U.S. Trade Representative filed a request for
information with the World Trade Organization on China's Internet
censorship. I applaud this move as a positive first step and look
forward to learning what we can do to address this pressing issue. Too
much is at stake--the human toll becomes insufferable, the economic
threat undermines American innovation.
China plays by its own rules because we regrettably, in this
institution and in our government, let them. We cannot simply wait out
the inevitable power of the Internet to move the hearts and minds of
the Chinese people. We must do all we can to shine the light where free
expression, thought, and commerce are too often kept in the dark.
Thank you.