Access to the Internet: A comparison of the policies of the USA and China toward Internet access

This report examines the differing policies toward access to the internet in the USA and China. In an age where greater and greater levels of communication are becoming the norm, there are still certain regimes who regard the internet as a potentially threatening resource for those who would seek to challenge current institutions or who would wish to organise against the government. This report examines the two different nations and how their internet access is governed. To a large extent it is concluded that the manner in which internet access is controlled in the respective nations is relative to the two very different political systems that operate within them. As a result the Chinese system is heavily regulated and centrally controlled, whereas the USA system is much less regulated and responds more to the judiciary and to legal grounds for censorship rather than the preservation of the state.
The internet has changed the way people live in quite dramatic ways. It has opened up new channels for political dissent and has offered the opportunity for communication on a scale that was previously never thought possible. There are many cases worldwide where the internet has been used to unite people and to aid their struggles. The concept of new social movements and the ability of movements such as the Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico to survive and prosper are due in large part to their ability to reach a wide audience as a result of the internet. Without this access to the internet it would most likely have been the case that the Zapatista movement would have wiped out by the Mexican army. However, as a result of their ability to garner support from across the globe they were able to shine a light on events in Chiapas and gain international support for what they were doing. As a result of this they undermined the Mexican state and won their battle (at least for now). Control over this medium is therefore a key issue which can have very significant outcomes on politics.
To start the report with an examination of the Chinese internet regulations. China has made the news in recent months for its heavy handed approach to internet censorship. With violence erupting in Xinjiang province the Chinese government took the decision to heavily censor all Chinese internet traffic. As a result of this it blocked all web based email systems and blocked all traffic coming in and out of China, as well as blocking all social networking and weblog based websites such as Facebook and Myspace. The governments aim when carrying this out was to effectively create a black zone within Xinjiang province so that it could respond to the violence in any way it saw fit, without risking response from the UN and international community.
The Chinese governments control of the internet in China has resulted in the construction of departments and institutions which possess so much technology and control over the environment that many have suggested that China has the most advanced internet control in the world with as many as 30 000 internet police currently employed (Watts 2005). The Global Internet Freedom Consortium goes on to agree with this statement, stating that ‘The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is by far the biggest offender when it comes to Internet censorship — the apparatus of Internet repression is considered more extensive and more advanced than in any other country in the world.’ (GIFC 2008). Therefore the Chinese government example clearly represents the most significant control over the internet anywhere in the world.
It can largely be said that the Chinese policy is largely based on a fear of the political consequences to the administration of a free and open internet. As already mentioned above with the example of the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, access to the internet, and the resultant ability to communicate widely with the international community, can have dramatic effects on the outcomes of a particular event. It would have a serious effect on the administration of China if the citizens were able to communicate with the outside world. Amnesty International have pointed out the extent to which this challenge to freedoms has gone, stating that there are a considerable amount of people who are currently in prison as a result of what they call ‘cyber dissidence’ (Watts 2005).
The system of internet regulation and control in the USA however is very different to that in China. It is not as controlled as the Chinese system and in addition the amount of control and the ways in which this is carried out vary quite considerably, largely as a result of the contrasting political and judicial systems of the two countries. In the USA there is no internet content which is banned outright apart from that which is deemed to have broken US law, for example, websites such as Napster which broke USA copyright law for distributing media without copyright were censored and shut down. In such instances where websites are clearly in contravention of law then they are by and large immediately shut down. Another example might be websites which are found to be showing movies which are also copyrighted. However, it is important in such cases that these websites are actually in the US. Although this is outside the remit of this report.
The most significant censorship that occurs within the USA is generally considered to take place within specific institutions. For example in schools or in colleges, internet content will often be heavily censored to suit the requirements of that particular organisation. There has been a significant push within much of the education sector of America to grant ‘internet safety’ schemes. Such schemes are now often a prerequisite of funding for internet access within schools and are intended largely to protect children at school rather than to control what they do. The major thrust of such policies is to limit access to more adult content.
The USA and China have two very different systems of internet regulation. In China it appears that there is a widespread insecurity within the government that a free and open internet will give licence to political dissidence and result in severe challenges to the government. Much in the same way that perestroika and glasnost resulted in the rise of nationalism and challenges to the CPSU in late Soviet Russia, the Chinese government appears to believe that if it were to liberalise the media then there would be various serious challenges that could potentially spell the end of the political structures of China as they currently are. It was often argued in many previous cases that the best policy to take was one which liberalised the dissidence and allowed it into the mainstream, rather than forcing it underground, however, the Chinese system appears to be intent on driving such dissent so far underground that it can no longer exist (the extent to which this possible remains to be seen). As a result of this idea, and the fear of a Soviet style collapse, the Chinese have invested heavily in censorship of the internet, employ thousands of internet police, and have sent thousands of people to prison.
On the other hand the USA system of internet regulations and control is very different, focusing on those websites which break specific laws within the USA and not on the will of the administration. It is true that there have been reported cases in the USA of censorship occurring where it should strictly not do and where there is not a specific legal background to this. For example, the Treasury department is known to have a blacklist of websites which contained several websites relating to Cuba. However, when this was exposed and it was realised that there was no official case for it to occur, this was changed.
In many ways the amount of regulation and censorship that occurs within the USA is heavily limited by the founding principles of the nation. To censor the internet heavily would be to challenge the concepts of freedom, liberty and, to an extent, justice. That is not to say that various departments such as the FBI and the CIA would not censor material if they could but simply that it would be a much more complicated procedure in the USA than it evidently is in China.
It is interesting to note how the level of internet regulation and control in the two countries reflects moderately clearly the political and social values of the two nations. The first is a relatively stable democracy which promotes the rule of law and the precedence and importance of the rule of law over the executive. The second is a state which is still largely run in the same manner as it has been since Chairman Mao and the Cultural Revolution. It desires nothing but complete control over the entire running of every aspect of the nation. Therefore, control over the internet is just another extension of this desire to control every aspect of state living. In many ways it could be said to be the single biggest danger to the Chinese administration in that it allows not only communication between and within specific groups but also access to foreign news media websites such as the British Broadcasting Corporation which will often run reports on events within China itself. Coverage of these could (probably would) contradict the official lines of the state media sources and would therefore be a cause of potential unrest within China, something which the Chinese are keen to avoid.
In conclusion therefore we can say that the availability of internet access in the USA and China is very different. In the USA internet access is readily available and is relatively liberal. The extent of control that the USA government will exert on the internet is limited largely to copyright law, in cases such as free downloading of music and/or films, and also the regulation of content as seen by children. There is no state wide censorship programme and that censorship which does occur (apart from that which is in contravention of US law) occurs largely at the discretion of specific institutions through the use of network control software. In China on the other hand there is extensive control over the internet, indeed the most extensive control over the internet in the world by a government which seems increasingly unsure and protective of its own position. This is a policy which has brought widespread condemnation from many critics throughout the world and is a policy which is potentially going to bring China into conflict with many organisations in the near future.
The differences between the internet regulation in the two countries can largely be said to be a reflection of the differing political systems that are present in the two countries. In the USA the control over the internet is relatively liberal as a result of the philosophies which form the backbone of the ‘free’ nation. Whereas in China there is a strong authoritarian government which rules in a very autocratic fashion and therefore takes as much control over the internet as it possibly can.
In conclusion, internet access in China is heavily controlled, subject to no clear laws and is regulated in a particularly arbitrary fashion. Internet access in the USA on the other hand is freely available, being censored only in the case of a particular legal case, protection of children, or where a particular institution or organisation deems it necessary.