Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
By JAMES FALLOWS
so
SEPTEMBER 2011
THE ATLANTIC
parts of the state's internal-security apparatus, which now killers; in richer ones, heart disease and other consequences
of a sedentary, wealthy lifestyle. The rising prevalence of canhas a larger budget tban Cbina's regular military does.
Unlike in 1989, for most people in most of the country, cer, including in "cancer villages" near factories or mines in
life and business since tbe beginning of the Arab Spring China's still-poor countryside, was taken even by Cbinese
bave bummed along relatively normally. The main domestic commentators as anotber indication of tbe urgency of dealing witb the environmental consequences of the
concerns in China at the moment are rapid infla- ^ _ ^ _
country's nonstop growth. For modern Cbina,
tion, especially in food prices; a severe long-term MOREONUNE
tbougb, all of tbese are familiar concerns.
nationwide drougbt (broken by occasional severe James Fallows
and Damien Ma
A set of less familiar problems developed witb
localized flooding), which bas tbreatened farms forecast
China's
amazing speed early in the year. In mid-January,
in tbe country's normally wet soutbern provinces political weather:
Hu Jintao met Barack Obama in Wasbington, on
and brought Dust Bowl conditions to parts of the theatlantic.com/
wbat would be Hu's last official visit to tbe United
normally dry north; and widening scandals and chinesewinter.
[ H E A T L A N T I C . C O M
States. In a little more tban a year, Hu will finish
public fear about tainted food supplies. In May, a
report based on figures from the Cbinese Ministry of Healtb bis second five-year term as president and relinquisb the
showed tbat cancer bad become tbe country's leading cause job, presumably to anointee/Vice President Xi Jinping. Tbe
of death, wbich is an unusual and revealing distinction. In meetings in Wasbington were as constructive and positivepoorer countries, infectious diseases are usually the main toned as sucb events can be. Obama gave Hu tbe gala White
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Within two days, the street outside the Wangfujing McDonald's bad been almost entirely blocked by out-of-nowhere
"street repair" construction boardings. Tbe following Sunday,
when the next Jasmine marcb was supposed to take place,
almost no demonstrators appeared in Wangfujing. Instead
tbere were large numbers of foreign reporters and tourists,
and countless hundreds of security forces. Jasmine demonstrators in Sbangbai mustered a larger showing tbat day, but
that turned out to be a bigh-water mark. By late February,
tbe Jasmine "movement" was on its way to being decisively
shut down.
Y WIFE AND I were in China, mainly Beijing,
througb February and March, so we bad a
chance to see bow this movement tentatively
built itself and was tben quelled, at least for
a while. One of tbe realities bardest to convey about modern Cbina (and Atlantic readers know that I
certainly have tried over tbe years) is bow life tbere can be
simultaneously so wide-open and so tightly controlled. In
most of tbe country and for most people's pursuits, tbis Chinese Winter that followed an Arab Spring left life looking
normal. Tbe economy kept growing; farmers worried about
tbeir crops and students about their tests; engineers designed
new high-speed rail lines. I was in China mainly to report on
tbe country's big bigb-tecb ambitions, and there was absolutely notbing about my interviews or factory visits tbat was
not business as usual.
Yet for tbose in Cbina wbo defined tbeir business as involving politics of any sort, tbe pressure was intense. First,
in February, a large number of tbe country's bunian-rigbts
and public-interest lawyers (yes, tbey exist) were arrested
or detained, or were disappeared, in the style of Pinochet's
Chile. Once they were gone, people tbey migbt have represented and defendedwriters, professors, bloggers, activists
of many sortswere arrested or made to disappear too. Tbe
Nobel Committee expressed concern not just that the most
recent recipient of the Peace Prize, tbe civil-rights activist
Liu Xiaobo, was still imprisoned but tbat tbey bad not beard
anytbing from bim for montbs. "Signs of tightening control
have been visible for several years," Josbua Rosenzweig, a
buman-rigbts official in Hong Kong, wrote in Marcb. "But
the authorities are now employing a range of new, illegal
methods to silence tbeir critics ... Most terrifying of all is the
way in wbich enforced disappearance appears to have become almost routine."
Apart from Liu Xiaobo, the Chinese activist best known
around the world is tbe artist Ai Weiwei. Inside Cbina he
bad, among other causes, sougbt investigations into tbe lax
building standards that led to thousands of schoolcbildren's
deaths in tbe Sicbuan eartbquake of 2008. On April 3 of tbis
year, as be was about to board a plane in Beijing for Hong
Kong, be was detained too. Eventually be was cbarged witb
tax evasion, and remained in legal jeopardy even afrer his
release in June. "If tbe authorities can detain a figure of such
stature arbitrarily and bold him incommunicado as long as
tbey want witb no access to family or legal counsel, tben no
one in China is safe from tbe whims and anxieties of tbose in
power," Wei Jingsheng, who himself had served 15 years in
prison for political crimes before being released to the Unit- point on you prowled the Internet just as if you were logged
ed States in the 1990s, wrote in the Christian Science Monitor on from London or New York.
People who could afford VPNs, including most foreigners
after the arrest.
I realize that a chronicle of such cases becomes tedious, and many in the Chinese elite, could view Internet censorespecially with unfamiliar names. But every day, new names ship as a problem for the country but not personally for them.
appearedon foreign news sites, not in the Chinese press- And most people assumed that this loophole would always
along with other illustrations of a society politically closing stay openhow could universities or corporations do busiup and cracking down. Conferences with international at- ness otherwise? Even the man known in China as the father
tendees were canceled at the last minute. So too, with one of the Great Firewall, a computer scientist (and university
day's notice, was a prestigious annual debate tournament, president!) named Fang Binxing, made waves in February by
among teams from 16 leading Chinese universities. The topic, telling a leading Chinese newspaper that he kept six VPNs
a reconsideration of the ideals set out for China a century running on his computers at home.
ago in the revolution that overthrew the last Qing emperor, in
That report was soon pulled from tbe paper's Web site
1911, was deemed too sensitive. Foreign journalists were one and at about that same time, serious disruption of VPN activby one called in "for tea," code for a cautionary talk with se- ity began. For a while I thought something was wrong with
curity officials. Usually the officials warned that the journal- my computer. I'd try to get my e-mail, or to go to a foreign
ists would be expelled if they violated "rules"some newly news siteand after a few minutes of waiting, I would realize
imposed, some long on the books but not
that the connection was simply not ever goenforcedrequiring advance official permising to get through. Part of the Great Firewall's
sion before interviewing Chinese citizens.
power is that you don't see a message saying
One day
"access denied." Things just... don't work, and
Churchmeetings were disrupted. Members boulevards in
you can't be sure why. But officials from VPN
of "sensitive" ethnic groupsTibetans, MusBeijing were
companies said they were being targeted, in
lim Uighurs, Inner Mongolians, all of whose
a way they'd never experienced before. "The
home districts had been scenes of ongoing lined with
Klingon Empire scored a couple of solid hits
protestcame in for special scrutiny. One women with red
on the USS Enterprise," the CEO of one of the
day in March, major boulevards in Beijing armhands, w^ho
leading VPNs, Witopia, wrote to his customsuddenly were lined with older women,
sat
on
stools
at
ers in March (along with discreet tips on new
bundled up in overcoats and with red armports and connections to try).
bands identifying them as public-safety pa- 20-yard intervals
trols, who sat on stools at 20-yard intervals and kept w^atch
The VPN disruption seemed worst on
and kept watch for disruption. They bad no
weekends and was sometimes an absolute
for disruptions.
practical effect except as reminders that tbe
blackout for hours on end. My own theory,
authorities were on guard and in control.
which no one I interviewed could disprove,
was that this was a proof of concept for the
During the earliest stages of the Arab
Spring, the mainstream Chinese media virtually ignored its security agenciesa demonstration that they could cut off
existence. Then, as the drama in Egypt became un-ignorable, channels to the outside world immediately, if the need arose.
coverage in China emphasized the dangerous chaos and ex- But even when the system was turned back on, the Intercesses. Then the theme became: whether or not such upheav- net in much of China was hobbled. If you have spent time in
al made sense for anyone else, it was the wrong way for China South Korea, Japan, or Singapore, you know that broadband
and would jeopardize the country's hard-won gains. Global systems there make the typical U.S. "high-speed" connection
Times, a nationalist paper, said of Western protests about seem pokey. But China's Internet controls can seem like a reAi Weiwei's arrest: "The West's behavior aims at disrupting turn to the days of 1,200-baud dial-up access. After each Web
the attention of Chinese society and attempts to modify the click, it could take five, 10, 30 seconds for a page to appear.
"Anyone bullish about China should come and try to use tbe
value system of the Chinese people."
In a way, the most surprising and thoroughgoing change in internet here," an American graduate student named Matt
Chinese daily life was in access to the Internet. As I wrote in Schiavenza wrote in a frustrated tweet this year. (Twitter, like
these pages three years ago ("The Connection Has Been Re- Facebook and Blogger and many Google services, is unusable
set," March 2008), the genius of China's Internet censorship in China without a VPN.) Or, as tbe head of a foreign tech
has been its flexible repression. The filtering system known company wrote to me in an e-mail early this year, "Ultimately,
officially as Golden Shield and unofficially as the Great Fire- if they want to take the country's internet connections 'Third
wall madefindingunauthorized material just difficult enough World,' none of us can prevent that."
that the great majority of Chinese citizens wouldn't bother.
After the Japanese earthquake in March, Bill Powell, a
Meanwhile, enough loopholes and pressure valves remained writer for Time who had gone to Fukushima from his base
open that people who really cared about escaping its confines in Shanghai, told me about a site, AllThingsNuclear.org,
always could. A very significant loophole took the form of the whose information he considered most reliable and up-togovernment's blind eye toward VPNs"Virtual Private Net- date. When Powell returned to China, he found that this site
works," which gave anyone willing to spend a dollar or two a too was blocked by the Great Firewall. "What are they afraid
week safe passage through the Great Firewall. You signed up of?" he wrote in a Web posting. "Or is the answer simply that
for a VPN service, you made your connection, and from that these days, they are afraid of EVERYTHING?"
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are they
afraid of?" one
journalist wrote.
"Or is the answer
simply that these
days, they are
afraid of
EVERYTHING?"
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