OPENING STATEMENT BY CHAIRMAN WILLIAM A. REINSCH
U.S.-China Economic & Security Review Commission
Hearing on U.S.–China Commission Hearing on China’s State control Mechanisms and Methods
April 14, 2005
385 Russell Senate Office Building
Welcome back to the second half of the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission’s hearing on China’s State control Mechanisms and Methods. Today we have been discussing the Chinese government’s restriction of freedom of expression, and civil and political liberties and the mechanisms Beijing uses to improve and enforce its restrictions.
We now will continue today’s hearing with an in-depth examination of the state of the Chinese media and Internet, followed by a discussion of the trajectory of Chinese nationalism and its implications for U.S.-China relations. We will conclude with a panel on socio-economic unrest and state control mechanisms.
The first presenter of the next panel will be Dr. James Mulvenon, Deputy Director of the Defense Group Inc. and author of several publications including You’ve Got Dissent! Chinese Dissident use of the Internet and Beijing’s Counter-Strategies. Xiao Qiang, Director of the China Internet Program at UC Berkeley, will join Dr. Mulvenon in discussing China’s internet control regime. Ken Berman, Manager of the anti-censorship program at the Broadcasting Board of Governers will speak about a U.S. government program to assist Chinese internet users to circumvent the internet controls of their government. This is a program that the Commission strongly supported after its last hearing on this topic, and we want to learn how successful the program has been. The panel will conclude with Frank Smyth representing the Committee to Protect Journalists. Mr. Smyth will relate the conditions in China for journalists and others in the news media.
The following panel, addressing Chinese nationalism and its implications for US-China relations, will include Dr. Edward Friedman, professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madision and Dr. Yu Maochun, associate professor of East Asia at the U.S. Naval Academy. Among other topics, these gentlemen will examine how China’s control of information shapes the Chinese peoples perception of the United States.
Our final panel will address socio-economic unrest and state control mechanisms. Dr. Murray Scot Tanner, Senior Political Scientist at the RAND Corporation, will discuss his extensive work on the Chinese public security bureau’s attempts to prevent and break up protests, sit-ins, and other forms of social discontent. Ms. He Qinglian and Mr. Li Qiang will discuss the Chinese government’s efforts to quash dissent in the form of intellectual criticism and independent labor movements, respectively.
This testimony will inform the Commission’s work on this important aspect of our mandate and will be passed on to the Congress in the form of our annual report which will be released later this year. Now without further delay, Professor Mulvenon.