9 China and Global Internet Governance
A Tiger by the Tail
Milton L. Mueller
As of June 2010 the Chinese government claimed the country ’ s number of “ netizens, ”
or Internet users, had increased to 430 million.
1 That very large number is only 32
percent of China ’ s total population.
2 Already one of the biggest presences on the
Internet, and with a long way to go yet, China and the Internet enjoy a complex and
seemingly paradoxical relationship. Many Westerners have trouble making sense of
the way China ’ s socialist market economy (SME) combines heavy restrictions with
vibrant growth, and globalized networking with an insistence on territorial sovereignty. Western observers have long abandoned the notion that the Internet was
inherently uncontrollable and that its use would automatically overthrow dictatorships. They are now replacing that simplistic notion with an equally coarse inversion:
the image of China as the constructor of an impregnable “ Great Firewall, ” a place of
omnipotent surveillance, a population susceptible to well-organized propaganda campaigns, and a source of pervasive and insidious cyber attacks and cyber espionage. It
is a new Internet version of the Cold War.
The Internet in the People ’ s Republic of China (PRC) strains and challenges the
capacity of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to maintain control. And the fact
that China needs to be linked to the external world, through the Internet as well as
through trade, provides a double challenge. The international environment of Internet
governance is freer, is private-sector based, and is more capitalistic than China ’ s rulers
would prefer. And, it is subject to U.S. hegemony. If one combines an analysis of the
global politics of Internet governance with an understanding of the long-term status
of China ’ s reform process, one can understand better which factors facilitate and
which place constraints on the party ’ s ability to regulate the Internet. One can even,
perhaps, understand how the further development of digital communications might
contribute to a transformation of Chinese society.
This chapter outlines a general framework for understanding Internet politics and
locating China within it. It then analyzes China ’ s attempt to move against the grain
of the current Internet governance regime, promoting sovereignty and intergovernmental institutions in opposition to the new, transnational, and private-sector-based
A Tiger by the Tail
Milton L. Mueller
As of June 2010 the Chinese government claimed the country ’ s number of “ netizens, ”
or Internet users, had increased to 430 million.
1 That very large number is only 32
percent of China ’ s total population.
2 Already one of the biggest presences on the
Internet, and with a long way to go yet, China and the Internet enjoy a complex and
seemingly paradoxical relationship. Many Westerners have trouble making sense of
the way China ’ s socialist market economy (SME) combines heavy restrictions with
vibrant growth, and globalized networking with an insistence on territorial sovereignty. Western observers have long abandoned the notion that the Internet was
inherently uncontrollable and that its use would automatically overthrow dictatorships. They are now replacing that simplistic notion with an equally coarse inversion:
the image of China as the constructor of an impregnable “ Great Firewall, ” a place of
omnipotent surveillance, a population susceptible to well-organized propaganda campaigns, and a source of pervasive and insidious cyber attacks and cyber espionage. It
is a new Internet version of the Cold War.
The Internet in the People ’ s Republic of China (PRC) strains and challenges the
capacity of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to maintain control. And the fact
that China needs to be linked to the external world, through the Internet as well as
through trade, provides a double challenge. The international environment of Internet
governance is freer, is private-sector based, and is more capitalistic than China ’ s rulers
would prefer. And, it is subject to U.S. hegemony. If one combines an analysis of the
global politics of Internet governance with an understanding of the long-term status
of China ’ s reform process, one can understand better which factors facilitate and
which place constraints on the party ’ s ability to regulate the Internet. One can even,
perhaps, understand how the further development of digital communications might
contribute to a transformation of Chinese society.
This chapter outlines a general framework for understanding Internet politics and
locating China within it. It then analyzes China ’ s attempt to move against the grain
of the current Internet governance regime, promoting sovereignty and intergovernmental institutions in opposition to the new, transnational, and private-sector-based