Untitled - socium.ge

118 Jack Linchuan Qiunetworks in China. Despite their prominent role in creating both incentivesand constraints, China’s state agencies are usually reactors to unforeseen situationsin the continuously evolving online environment. So far they have beenfortunate. From the global space of flows to the emergence of a heavilycommercialized cyber-culture, an overwhelming number of endogenous andexogenous factors are working to their benefit. Factors include China’s marketpotential, the return of overseas Chinese, the popularity of nationalist andconsumerist discourse, and collaboration with multinational corporations.However, many of these conditions are dynamic and their vicissitudes arebeyond the control of any nation-state. This presents a risky situation given theflexible mode of production in late capitalism. Most important, the so-farfavorable conditions are often coupled with serious challenges: informationinequality, issues of piracy, conflicts of interests among major stakeholders, alow level of citizen participation, and the vulnerability of Beijing as excessivelydependent on high economic growth rates, which will draw the countryeven further into the whirlwinds of global capitalism.Finally, the promise of the Internet to bring more freedom to the MiddleKingdom remains because, concomitant with the technological boom, a fledgingcivil society is most decisively emerging in the online and off-line worldsof contemporary China. As political and economic constraints continue toproliferate, the sphere of unregulated communication keeps expanding inunexpected directions because, fundamentally, it is the information needs ofmillions of Chinese netizens that lead to creative modes of information attainment,media usage, and social formation.“Every burned book enlightens the world.” Rethinking this maxim fromRalph Waldo Emerson which captures a unique characteristic of informationnetworks, one would realize that the Internet boom pertains directly to thegeneral lack of information and entertainment in the PRC. If traditional mediain the country had more diverse programming, or if Beijing had not banned theprivate ownership of satellite TV dishes in 1994, ordinary members of Chinesesociety would not have been so tempted to go online (Chan, 1994). 35 This isnot a defense of the censorship regime but a reflection at a higher level ofgenerality upon the paradox of rapid Internet growth under authoritariancircumstances. The Internet is not a superimposed agent of change. It is aconduit through which the existing propensities of the Chinese society itselfare set free.NOTES1. The following discussions are informed by my research on China’s Internet since 1996,which involves document analysis, participant observation, personal interview, focus group,and survey methods. The author is indebted to Manuel Castells, Jonathon Aronson, Carolyn