By Yang Jianli
This month, many in the West are rightfully celebrating the 20th anniversary of the demise of the Berlin Wall. As President Obama prepares for his historic visit to China, he would do well to consider what the fall of the wall can teach us about our relations with the PRC. For me and many of my fellow Chinese citizens, and for policy makers in the West it is more than an historical crossroad. It is a blueprint for triumph of freedom and the human spirit.
East Germany constructed the Berlin Wall in 1961 to stop the exodus of people to the West. While the wall succeeded in imprisoning three million people for almost thirty years, it also became a visible symbol of the inherent absurdity of the communist system. What government can lay any claim to legitimacy, to a “workersʼ paradise,” if it must imprison its people as a condition for its survival?
Although few people in the West foresaw the fall of the wall and the collapse of the Soviet system, history tells us that walls are inevitably no match for the irresistible yearning of human beings for truth and freedom. Like water against solid rock, the human spirit will ultimately prevail to create canyons of freedom where mountains once stood.
The walls of the digital age are not physical but rather electronic ones. They are nonetheless just as insulting to the human spirit and symbolic of illegitimacy as any physical wall. The Berlin wall imprisoned three million Germans for almost a generation. What is now commonly known as the “Great Firewall of China” encircles the minds of more than one billion people.
By many credible accounts, the Chinese government employs tens of thousands of “cyber cops” and spends billions of dollars each year to control Internet traffic and to intimidate its citizens. This severely restricts people from accessing information and clears the space for an unopposed stream of self serving government-provided information. The Chinese governmentʼs preoccupation with the Internet is well grounded. Internet control is vital to preventing any organized resistance to its governance. In a recent speech, Chinese President, Hu Jintao, noted to his government officials that the “socialist state” will be at risk unless Chinaʼs firewall bureaucracy can “purify” the Internet.
As with the Berlin Wall, the Great Firewall will ultimately crumble against the tide of freedom. During the election protests in Iran earlier this year, the world witnessed how very affordable and accessible technology is empowering people to bypass government attempts to block the flow of information and to restrict communication between its citizens and with the outside world.
An ever-growing number of Chinese are obtaining this technology, enabling them to overcome even the most aggressive attempts of the Chinese government to block Internet freedom. Analysts estimate that as access to an unrestricted Internet reaches 50 million people in China, government control over the Internet will collapse. When this happens, a river of truth and freedom will flow through China and open the path for a peaceful transition to a democratic society.
Supporting a free and open Internet is the most cost effective and defensible activity that Western governments and NGOs can deploy to move the Chinese government away from its repressive policies.
JFK understood the reality and the symbolism of walls in 1963 when he boldly claimed “I am a Berliner.” In 1987, President Regan understood this as well when he challenged President Brezhnev to “Tear down this wall.”
Now, in 2009, as President Obama embarks on his historic visit to China, he has an equally historic opportunity to follow in the footsteps of JFK and Regan by unequivocally asking President Hu Jintao to tear down the great firewall that separates the government from its people, and the people from the truth.