// posted by Greg // 04.07.2008 at 2:52 pm //

China:Westernization here we come?

I’m no fan of the Olympics. Relay races, Javelin, the High Jump and Skeet shooting are no fun to watch and guzzle beer to, unless of course you are playing them yourself on the 2600. But this years Olympic games in Beijing are creating an interesting political environment in one of the most repressive regimes in the world. Recent evidence for this comes from a Reuters report which claims that pressure from the International Olympic Committee (IOC) has convinced Chinese authorities to lift the ban on the English version of Wikipedia. This move buttresses two important issues involving the political arena and the web which I have already discussed in brief. Primarily the possibility that the web is an inherently western device and secondly that open communications and markets leads to automatically to democracy. Let me elaborate….

First, it is important to understand that the political justification for trading with China is agglutinated to one very important assumption. It is assumed that economic development and free markets will ultimately lead to political freedoms and democracy. Thus, trading with china will develop china, a developed china will be an intellectually and economically diverse china with a rising middle class, and a strong middle class will press vigorously for a more open society¹ US trade with China is ultimately intended to create an internally grown democratic regime.

How is that I can justify the web as a “ inherently western device”? At least in this context the IOC is pressing to create a vacuity in the great firewall of China, with the presumption that greater web access will place critical attention on China’s closed political society. By creating an opening in the great firewall, the hope is to achieve a freer flow of information to an already swelling Chinese middle class, and to a pro-democracy international community. In this context, the western principles of an open society, a free press, and a free political processes, not to mention democracy itself are all hoped to be achieved or at least actuated simply with improved web access.

Do not construe this observation to be a critic of liberal democratic principles, it is not. I am offering a small piece of evidence which suggests that the web, and web access has the effect of importing western principles to non-western cultures. In this case it is hoped/assumed that web access will add to or be the tipping point which ignites a a burgeoning Chinese middle class who will hopefully create a US/Europe friendly democratic regime.

If we accept this to be the case, how can we consider the web to be neutral with regard to political believes and culture. As a fan of political liberty, a free press, a free flow of information etc… I find this biased side effect to be a good thing. But the question is not a normative one, the question I am asking is, Is the internet culturally neutral? My belief is that it is not, and I have provided laconic evidence to support my position.

1This is classic modernization theory (MT). For a further reading see Walt Rostow 1962 The Stages of Economic Growth: A Non-Communist Manifesto. For criticizem of MT see dependency theory (Andre Gundar Frank Capitalism and Underdevelopment in Latin America. 1967,)and world systems theroy (Imanual Wallerstien, The Modern World System 1976)

// Tagged democracy, Featured