No worries for Beijing’s suppression

By Robert T. McLean

On March 8, Western investors and the Chinese government came together at the United Nations headquarters in New York to unveil a product that derives its name from the Swahili phrase "no worries." The new product, an internet search engine named Accoona, however, causes ample reason for concern as it represents the first time the Chinese government will have partial ownership of a search engine that not only operates inside China but is primarily for use outside of China.

When the Internet first became accessible inside China in the 1990’s, the hope was – and still remains to a degree – that the expansion of Internet activity would cause the information monopoly of the Chinese Communist Party to crack and the regime subsequently would be forced to accept a more liberal exchange of ideas. This clearly has not transpired, and instead the Chinese, with the complicity of such well-known companies as Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo eager for a slice of the Chinese market, have been able to create a so-called "Great Firewall of China" to suppress the availability of outside objective information and monitor internal dissent.

In fact, technology and training from companies based in the United States and Europe allow the Chinese regime to monitor and censure internal Internet activity with particular emphasis on protecting the "security, honor and interests of the motherland." For this task, an estimated thirty to forty thousand Chinese are now employed by the government to control Internet activity.

The Chinese government’s success in stamping out material it deems offensive has damaged efforts to promote democracy and individual rights in China. But even more worrisome is that the China Daily Information Company’s partnership with Accoona could provide a new avenue for Chinese government propaganda and a convenient cover for its activities throughout all the World Wide Web, not just that portion surrounded by its "Great Firewall".

The stated benefit of Accoona is that its, "Artificial Intelligence technology enhances your search in many ways." So the Center for Security Policy team gave it a try searching for news on the controversial subject of China’s oil exploration in Africa to see how "enhanced" its results really are.

First as a control we searched Google News using the keywords China, Oil, Africa. The top three Google results were:

1) An opinion piece from the often radical Namibian New Era titled "The Chinese are in Africa- This time to Stay!" that blasts the West’s morality and ethics through the its use of the World Bank-IMF, and welcomes the new Chinese "merchants" to Africa with open arms.

2) An article from the Indo-Asian News Service that concludes, "Western nations when giving aid to developing countries, often take into account the recipient’s human rights and governance credentials. China’s policy on Africa makes clear that it has no interest in mixing politics with business."

3) An article from the Taipei Times entitled "China doing deals in African trouble spots, no questions asked" which includes much of the same information as the Indo-Asian News service piece but includes Zimbabwe’s Mugabe complaints that Western countries have put Zimbabwe under "illegal" sanctions to punish him for the land reform program and his urging of businessmen to "look east" to Asian markets, especially China.

Overall the Goggle articles seemed to present a fairly balance overview China’s activities in Africa.

The using the same keywords on Accoona News yielded much different results for its top three articles:

1) A Xinhua News Agency (China’s official government press agency) release on the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) signing a contract for oil blocks in Equatorial Guinea. There were no real details and it was a standard press release.

2) A Reuters South Africa article entitled "China attaches no strings to African Aid, Xinhua says" that reports the Chinese government’s statement that it is motivated by nothing more than goodwill towards Africans, though the West might say otherwise. And that, "China has never attached any political conditions to its aid in Africa." The article ends with a Chinese Professor stating, "Western nations have been extracting oil from Africa for years without building any refineries there. This provides a sharp contrast with China."

3) Another Reuters South Africa article entitled, "Taiwan, oil focus as China minister visits Africa" which details the Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing scheduled travel to six African nations, including ones that provide China with oil and gas and have switched allegiance from self-ruled Taiwan to China.

Overall the Accoona articles mainly repeated Chinese government statements released by its official news sources and presented China as a humanitarian minded country that is doing a growing amount of business with Africa to the benefit of all parties involved. If nothing else, the Acoona results definitely would "enhance" the reader’s opinion of Chinese policies and actions.

While it is not know if our search results are typical or if the Chinese government has any input into algorithms controlling the search results on Accoona, the possibility that Beijing could shape international perception on a variety of issues by manipulating search engine results throughout the World Wide Web is something to consider.

Thus for those who may still hope that the Internet will provide a catalyst for transparency and change in the People’s Republic of China, the case of Accoona displays that the Chinese regime may be poised to have greater influence on the Internet than the Internet will have on the regime.