Watching Hillary Clinton’s Internet Freedom Speech in China

Eighteen hours after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave her much anticipated speech on Internet freedom in China, I sat among university students, professors and local newspaper correspondents in the Public Affairs Section of U.S. consulate in Shanghai. The crowd was assembled and joined by two others in Beijing and Guangzhou to discuss what impact the new policy will have on China.

Ten minutes after the scheduled start-time, there was no sign that the event was soon to begin, as panelists in Beijing were still not ready. Audience members were visibly bored and could be seen seeking out distractions. The two girls to my right exchanged gossip about their friend’s love life–their giggles occasionally disrupted by an SMS ringtone. The ringtone was coming from the male student at my left, whose fingers danced on his mobile phone keypad.

Beatrice Camp, Consul General in Shanghai, appeared to sense this awkwardness. She apologized for the delay and cracked a joke by saying that several panelists were lost inside the US embassy because the newly finished infrastructure was so huge and winding.

Five minutes later, the video finally started to roll. The speech lasted about 40 minutes during which Secretary Clinton reiterated the U.S.’s stance on freedom of information on the internet and unveiled a new State Department initiative to fight Internet censorship.

For most part, panelist in Shanghai ignored the screen on which the video was showed. They preferred to look at the printed version of the speech provided by the consulate. There were several moments when the audience in the video burst into laughter or gave applause; however, during these moments, there wasn’t any reaction from the panelists in the room.

During the panel discussion that followed the video, Ai Weiwei, an artist and social activist, was the first to speak. He argued that Secretary Clinton’s speech was a strong indication that the U.S. was stepping up its commitment to freedom of speech in China. His admiration for Secretary Clinton was obvious as he lamented the fact that Clinton had lost the Democratic nomination to Barack Obama.

Questions from Guangzhou were much more specific and technical. One panelist pressed U.S. diplomats for a more direct answer as to whether the US would fund other proxy softwares that help prevent Internet censorship. (The U.S. Congress had previously provided 2.5 million U.S. dollars for a VPN software called Freegate.) Responses from US officials were quite diplomatic, as they wouldn’t go into detail about the plan and instead reemphasized the talking points made in Security Clinton’s speech. The U.S., they repeated, is committed to promoting Internet freedom as a cornerstone of human rights.

As discussion went on, Chinese panelists continued to ask specific, potentially controversial questions about the U.S.’s stance on China’s Internet freedom. But, each time, U.S. officials disappointed them by dodging the real questions and reciting Clinton’s speech in lieu of an answer.

The exception to this pattern and also the most dramatic moment of the event came when Rao Jin, of anti-cnn.com, lashed out for two minutes against the U.S. government, alleging their own involvement in Internet spying. Anti-cnn.com is a nationalistic Chinese website dedicated to exposing false and biased Western news coverage of China. Jin, who is tremendously popular among young Chinese Internet users, is the country’s most vocal opponent of Western media imperialism. During his tirade, Jin claimed that there is an unholy alliance between Google and the CIA and that the U.S. National Security Agency is the largest employer of Internet spies. He concluded his speech by challenging the motives behind the U.S.’s new initiative.

Following Jin’s speech, U.S. officials clamored to respond. While wording varied, the officials’ responses were in accordance: they don’t comment on speculation, and the U.S. government would only engage in activities that promote Internet freedom and privacy.

The event lasted two hours, during which not a single question was really answered. The two girls beside me were relieved when the meeting came to an end. As they exited, one of the girls turned to her friend and asked: “Where should we go for dinner?”