News that the US Congress is going to hold hearings on corporate involvement in Chinese censorship has prompted some great essays from this side of the Pacific. Two of the best, as can be expected, are from Imagethief and ESWN. AP recommends reading each in full.

For starters, Will at Imagethief seems to have spent his entire weekend writing a thorough essay on what hearings could mean, and how they could be counterproductive.:

We westerners seem to be conflicted in how we feel about China. We have an idealistic conviction that the simple flow of our ideas and culture and the relentless march of technology will somehow precipitate change, yet we can’t resist an interventionist desire to actively impose our values. At the same time we mythologize China into something unknowable and impenetrable. The result is that no matter what we do we risk patronizing the Chinese Internet users we want to help, and driving them further away.

Imposing foreign activism on China has a pretty dismal record of failure. In a country where nationalist sentiment runs high and is easily provoked, it is liable to backfire. Imagine for a moment that American Internet firms are drummed out of China by legislation or activism. My guess is that Chinese youth would not swell with admiration for courageous, highly-principled foreign companies. Rather, they would likely seethe with nationalist contempt for companies that don’t "get" China and for foreign governments that are trying to dictate what is good for China. That won’t do wonders for dialogue. I can tell you who would be happy though: Bokee (who launched a devastatingly self-interested attack on MSN prior to Anti’s removal, as reported here by ESWN) and other Chinese blogging engines who would be pleased to see off foreign competition.

Not that they need to at the moment. Most Western Internet companies in China are not doing very well. In the grand scheme of forces affecting China, the inclination of American (as opposed to Chinese) Internet companies to toe the censorship line is so far down the list as to be nearly beneath concern. The free operation of China’s domestic mainstream media ranks substantially higher. Although the two issues are tangentially connected via the Shi Tao case, US Internet companies and American interventionism are probably not the key to freeing Chinese media.

Roland at ESWN also argues that legislation could be a mistake, a key passage is his translation of a post by Michael Anti (the blogger who was shut down by MSN):

As for what the US Congress Representatives want to legislate, this is totally the business of the American people.  I don’t feel that the freedom of speech of the Chinese people can be protected by the US Congress.  If the freedom of speech of the citizens of a great country has to be protected by the legislature of another country, this shows how distant the country is from the greatness that we longed for.  Opposing the shutting down of my blog and my defense of my freedom of speech should not be based upon relevant legislation by the US Congress.

To state it more clearly, we want legislation from China’s Congress.  We want the Chinese to defend the freedom of speech by the Chinese.  Maybe not today, but it will be possible tomorrow.  This is the only glory and dream for continuing to live on. …

Furthermore, at a time when globalization and politics are mixed up, I do not think that we can treat everything in black-and-white terms as being for or against the improvement of freedom and rights for the people of China.  On one hand, Microsoft shut down a blog to interfere with the freedom of speech in China.  On the other hand, MSN Spaces has truly improved the ability and will of the Chinese people to use blogs to speak out and MSN Messenger also affected the communication method over the Internet.  This is two sides of the practical consequences when capital pursues the market.  How the Americans judge this problem and mete out punishment is a problem for the Americans.  If they totally prevent any compromised company from entering the Chinese market, then the Chinese netizens will not be freer at least in the short term.  Besides, we must distinguish between the sellout by Yahoo and the compromise by Microsoft, because they are completely different matters.

Roland concludes: "it will be a net loss for freedom and democracy if MSN Spaces were to depart from China.  In fact, given the circumstances, the best thing is to allow MSN Spaces to grow as rapidly as possible in China.  For example, if they can get 50 million users, who is going to block them?"

It’s regrettable, but these are much better defenses of the actions of US corporates in China than the companies have  themselves offered.

That’s part of the reason AsiaPundit is welcoming hearings. AP hopes that they will force the companies involved to provide more information on their activities. Microsoft, Yahoo!, and other firms stonewall the press when asked for information on their China activities - they are less likely to do that to requests from Congress. AP’s hope is that the additional pressure would encourage those involved to adopt a code of conduct and to state - bluntly - what they consider acceptable or unacceptable.

That said, AP questions the desirability of legislation. Partly, that’s because AP swings libertarian and always questions the need for legislation. but on top of that Congress tends to go overboard on issues related to China. This was shown with the proposed 27.5 percent tariffs for alleged currency manipulation and the bipartisan intervention in the Unocal/CNOOC matter.

One of AP’s first reactions to news of the hearings - after thinking "good" - was to envision a McCarthy-esque spectacle. This is an issue that will almost certainly lead to overblown rhetoric and could lead to legislative overreach. Quite simply, there’s lots of room for both the left and right to engage in the populist bashing of both China and evil corporations. Plus, Congressmen would surely welcome a chance to paint themselves as defenders of free speech.

As for the RSF petition, again AP welcomes the fact that groups like RSF and CPJ see this as an issue - not only because of the awareness of the issue, but also because the organizations are considering issues affecting their unpaid brethren in the blogosphere.

That said, AsiaPundit is a bit ticked that the Paris-based RSF decided to focus on US corporates and ignore those from the Continent. While Cisco has faced scrutiny for its business in China many of its main competitors here are European. Whatever questions are put to Cisco could also be directed at Alcatel, Siemens, Ericsson and others.

Also see Danwei, Rebecca and Howard French.

UPDATE: Roland has adjusted his position:

The responses on the US Congressional Hearings seemed to be far too homogeneous around here: RConversation, ESWN, Imagethief, Danwei, AsiaPundit.  This is the whole problem about Group
Polarization on the Blogosphere
in which like-minded people in a group talk to each other in the same
way.  So it will do here to bring up a dissenting opinion: "I
absolutely support the action taken by American congresses and senates.
Those opposed to these such measure are dirty, unethical and ummoral
liberal who want to support the communist regime under the name of
mulitculturalism."  Take that!

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