China’s current crackdown on Virtual Private Networks (VPN’s) – which allow uncensored use of the internet — may well prove to be a milestone in the country’s increasing restrictions on free expression. The move to shutdown VPNs comes soon after the publication of new rules which insist that technology companies operating in China grant unprecedented access to source code in their software and covert “back doors” which censors can use to inspect digital traffic at will.
The new cybersecurity measures effectively remove any expectations of privacy for local internet users and they undermine the quality of technology available to Chinese consumers. In December a report by the Mercator Institute for China Studies found that the “[Beijing’s] wish to regulate internet security as uniformly and comprehensively as possible conflicts with the security needs of individual internet users” and it warned that security flaws in “mandatory” software “can become systemic points of penetration for hackers and malware.” Not coincidentally, the new measures also create obstacles for foreign competitors in one of the world’s fastest growing technology markets. International companies – facing ethical pressure from customers and stockholders – are often unable or unwilling to comply with the new demands and thus forced to reconsider their future in China.
When, in the wake of the Tahrir Square protests, the Mubarak government tried similar restrictions on VPNs and the Internet, international investors panicked and Egypt’s stockmarket plummeted. The government quickly restored normal access. The fact that Beijing currently faces only a few scattered protests is a sign of how well it has succeeded in compartmentalising economic and political issues and divorcing its thriving state capitalism from its totalitarian approach to political freedoms. Although large numbers of local internet users resent the new rules, as do most foreign companies, the lack of democratic institutions which can hold the government accountable makes it extremely difficult for either group to press for change.
From a different perspective, the new measures also highlight the damage that revelations of international surveillance have done to the moral standing of Western governments, especially when it comes to mounting defences of privacy and freedom of expression. The US Chamber of Commerce, for example, is a prominent signatory to an open letter calling for “urgent discussion and dialogue” of Beijing’s new cybersecurity measures. But what can it can say to the obvious retort that Edward Snowden’s revelations have shown US intelligence agencies demanding, and in most cases receiving, similarly intrusive access to companies’ digital traffic and user information?
As the current standoff suggests, there is a growing need for international guidelines or regulations on how the right to privacy, and its related right of freedom of expression, should be protected in the new century. As countries seek to balance their security needs with democratic norms the issue is often simplified to favour national security over the needs of individuals.
While there is no easy fix for these competing interests, compromise is possible. In recent testimony to a US Congressional Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade, Rebecca MacKinnon, founder of the Global Voices Network and a leading authority on digital free expression, recommended that “any national level laws, regulations, or policies aimed at regulating or policing online activities should undergo a human rights risk assessment process to identify potential negative repercussions for freedom of expression, assembly and privacy.” MacKinnon advocated a similar measure for private companies’ “Terms of Service and other forms of private policing” and urged that “any new procedures developed by companies to eliminate terrorist activity from their platforms must be accompanied by engagement with key affected stakeholders and at-risk groups.”
China’s political freedoms should not be undervalued in the West. The current crackdown is a genuine threat to free speech in the country — speech which is already subject to many dubious regulations — but it will also embolden other authoritarian states if nothing is done to push back against the censorship. Unless the United Nations, or some other credible international institution, develops policies that protect Internet users from the intrusion of the many national security agencies proliferating around the world, similar crackdowns will occur with increasing frequency.
Sadly, Western governments have a poor record when it comes to promoting political freedoms that conflict with economic interests. The routine hypocrisy on this matter was vividly evident in the recent US and British tributes to the late Saudi king, the head of a notoriously repressive government. Embarrassing in themselves, the gushing descriptions of this so-called “reformer” were particularly awful when compared to the United States relative indifference, certainly at the level of formal representation, to solidarity marches for the murdered Charlie Hebdo cartoonists a week earlier. It is a continuing shame for many Western governments that concerns for freedom of expression in China are often treated with the same mix of high rhetoric and political pusillanimity.
