Rebecca MacKinnon weighs in on Nicholas Kristof’s NYT piece on how blogs may bring down the Chinese communist Party - respectfully and forcefully arguing that the opposite may be true:

The point is, democracy isn’t the only thing that can sprout and grow on the internet. So can intolerance, xenophobia and belligerence.

And those qualities – which are permitted and even encouraged by the government to fester in Chinese cyberspace – may help the Chinese Communist Party stay in power. Last fall I wrote a long rant in response to cyber-utopians (whose ranks Kristof appears to have joined) and connectivity idealists like Thomas Barnett (of The Pentagon’s New Map fame) in which I warned:

Don’t assume that the expansion of freedom of speech in Chinese cyberspace will necessarily strengthen international peace and brotherly love between China and other countries - the opposite is also possible.

Recent anti-Japanese protests certainly make that clear. The fact that Chinese cyberspace was cheering right after the 9/11 attacks (as Kristof himself reported) is another stark example.

Don’t expect the Chinese blogosphere to bring down the Chinese Communist Party any time soon.