Wing Ki Lee NETWORK UNAVAILABLE: PLATFORM, PERFORMATIVITY, AND EVERYDAY LIFE DECISION-MAKING PROCESSES IN CONTEMPORARY CHINESE NETWORK CULTURE ...
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Wing Ki Lee
NETWORK UNAVAILABLE:
PLATFORM,
PERFORMATIVITY, AND
EVERYDAY LIFE DECISION-
MAKING PROCESSES IN
CONTEMPORARY CHINESE
NETWORK CULTURE
Abstract
This paper problematizes assumptions of global all-pervading ‘available’ net-
work culture by examining ‘network unavailability’ phenomenon in contemporary
Chinese network culture through a post-colonial critique. The central argument
of ‘network unavailable’ in China is contextualized by the performativity of the
Great Firewall and the Golden Shield Project, Chinese media artist Fei Jun’s
net art project Interesting World (2019) in the Venice Biennale and network
happenings during the 2019 Anti-extradition Law Amendment Bill protests in
Hong Kong. Through these examples the author argues that network culture
in China is political and geopolitical and the discussion of networks should
go beyond mere structuralism and emphasize the everyday life, tactical, and
microscopic decision-making process.
APRJA Volume 9, Issue 1, 2020
ISSN 2245-7755
CC license: ‘Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike’.
Wing Ki Lee: NETWORK UNAVAILABLE
If modern colonialism has been initi- draws our attention to countries that are often
ated and shaped by the West, then the called ‘technologically backward’ in terms of
postcolonial enterprise is still operating technological development. The data also al-
within the limits of colonial history and lows us to depart from an Eurocentric focus,
has not yet gone beyond a parasitic to engage the major stakeholder of network
form of critique… Globalization without users, and expand the demographics of net-
deimperialization is simply a disguised work users to the ‘rest of the world’. What is
reproduction of imperialist conquest. the experience of the network for 854 million
(Chen, Asia as Method: Towards Internet users in China in comparison to what
Deimperialization 2) is commonly known through existing schol-
arly research in network culture? China is not
This paper seeks to unpack and problematize absent from academic literature recently in
assumptions of omnipresence and totality network culture and media studies (for exam-
of a global all-pervading ‘available’ network ple, Schneider 2018; Li 2019; Neves 2020),
culture by examining ‘network unavailability’ but a critical perspective on the nature of its
in contemporary Chinese network culture network culture will be helpful to contextual-
through a post-colonial critique. ize thinking, expectations, opposite forces,
The central research question of the and perhaps the future of network culture in
paper is straightforward, that is, to under- China, as well as elsewhere. In this essay, as
stand network culture in contemporary such, I take the unavailable network as the
China, that in itself may reconcile, concede, starting point of my enquiry.
and contradict the experience of global, In what follows, the notion of ‘network
often ‘Eurocentric,’ available ‘World Wide unavailable’ is informed by two conceptual
Web’ network culture. To begin with, one layers. The first, the macroscopic layer, refers
might ask why contemporary China in the to the network infrastructure and platform,
discussion of networks from a postcolonial in this case the Great Firewall (GFW) and
perspective? It is generally understood that the Golden Shield Project (GSP) of China.
the USA and Europe are leading countries The Great Firewall of China, being a gate-
in the development of information technology way and a self-contained network system,
and the discourse of network culture, and yet in itself is conceived as a parallel universe
China, interestingly, has the highest number to the Internet (Griffith 2019). This ‘wall’ is
of Internet users in the world, and there are constructed not only to block and isolate
other non-EuroAmerican countries that one itself from global information technology and
may overlook. In 2019, China had approxi- its circulation, but to remain operational as
mately 854 million Internet users reported by a network infrastructure within the cyber ter-
the Internet World Stats that is three times ritory of China; whereas the Golden Shield
that of the USA (293 million) and eleven times Project is the agent of the Great Firewall to
that of Germany (79 millions). The top ten execute tasks, mainly through censorship,
countries with the highest number of Internet blocking, and filtering of information from
users are China (1st), India (2nd), Indonesia and approved by the Chinese state govern-
(4th), Brazil (5th), Nigeria (6th), Russia (8th), ment and the Chinese Communist Party. In
Bangladesh (9th), and Mexico (10th).[1] a nutshell, both the GFW and GSP dem-
The statistics tellingly shift our attention to onstrate the unwillingness to partake in the
the discussion of network culture informed ‘EuroAmericentric’ thus ‘imperialistic’ Internet
by the user-demographic perspective and model for political-economical-technological
131APRJA Volume 9, Issue 1, 2020
reasons, and a withdrawal and resistance a model of information system and technol-
to global information circulation and global ogy, and to debunk some of the dominant
network culture. discourse in the discussion of network
Secondly, the microscopic layer, the culture in a global context. The discussion
notion of ‘network unavailable’ is addressed that I draw upon below aims to reveal how
by artistic practices and a politics of every- non-EuroAmerican network culture produces
day life that questions the taken-for-granted effects locally and on the global scale.
availability and openness of what network A few more contextualizations on the
culture once promised. I draw case studies notion of ‘network’ in contemporary China
and experiences from contemporary artistic network culture are needed. Firstly, I would
practice in China and the everyday experi- like to stress that the discussion is not merely
ence, primarily the 2019 Anti-extradition Law framed by geographical or territorial defini-
Amendment Bill protests in Hong Kong, and tions but is more a ‘stack’ of interacting lay-
through these outline key characteristics of ers. Secondly, the discussion and definition
a ‘network unavailable’. These activities and of network here are not only descriptions of
practices, I argue, could be formulated as a the age-old belief of ‘guanxi’, which in socio-
provisional challenge, and/or resistance to logical terms is a personal social network and
network culture in China. All in all, network its associate power in the Chinese context.
culture in China is not merely a matter of ex- Rather, I see network culture in China as
clusion and protectionism, a distinction of the multifaceted in how the political-economical-
real and the counterfeit (or the performed), technological aspects contribute to shape
but a dialectical operation to allow us to it. Network culture in China is informed by
rethink the current state of global network ideas such as nationhood, cyber national-
culture through its decolonization. ism, economic protectionism, and political
Let me briefly define the scope and hegemony, and practiced through informa-
terms of postcolonial studies and decoloniz- tion and algorithmic-ideological control. It
ing technology before the discussion pro- is further complicated by the sociopolitical
ceeds. In “Digital Postcolonialism” (2015), relationship between China, Hong Kong,
Jandrić and Kuzmanić follow Edward Said’s Taiwan, (the Sinophone), and their relation-
(1993) argument and establish the concept ships with the rest of the world. I would argue
‘digital postcolonialism’ that “should start the notion of ‘network’ in China network
from… geographical thinking in the digital culture is a complicity that is established by
worlds… [and] consists of the dialectic be- disconnection, unavailability, and withdrawal.
tween an object and its representation, a It is imperative to discuss the configuration
territory and its map” (Jandrić and Kuzmanić and influence of China’s network culture and
38). The geopolitics of the digital has already practice and, through that, demonstrate how
been demonstrated in the aforementioned network unavailable, instead of the common-
Internet World Stats (2019) example. Along sensical ‘network available,’ provides a con-
this line of thinking, the conceptualization of text for discussion. This discussion gradually
the decolonizing technology, I argue, is to go extends to concepts and questions related
beyond the established geographical/binary to such things as protectionism, censorship,
oppositions of, for instance, the West/rest, transgression and resistance and through
the global North/global South, the techno- online/offline networks.
logical superior/inferior, and use the example In what ways should we understand
of China, which is often not considered as China and the network unavailable culture as
132Wing Ki Lee: NETWORK UNAVAILABLE
such? First of all, the GFW offers a geopoliti- To continue this line of thought, the
cal, infrastructural, and informational platform Great Firewall of China is hence constructed
to identify cyber protectionism in China and through how the Chinese government in-
in the global context. A network ‘gateway’ vents an information technology network that
that started operations in 1998, it is consid- is built against the notion of openness and
ered as an ‘alternative model’ or a ‘parallel liberation of information. The GFW withdraws
universe’ to that of the Internet. Thus meta- and blocks globally recognized information
phors used to describe the GFW of China is and services and in itself is a defense mech-
a ‘wall,’ a ‘shield,’ a ‘sword’ and a ‘war’ in anism, and through that, to construct a state
itself (Griffith, 2019). The aforementioned machine and algorithmic-ideological appa-
analogy by James Griffith (2019) outlines the ratus that allows censorship of information.
competitiveness, if not counterfeit nature, of For example, search engines in China filter
the GFW of China. As an ‘alternative’ web anti-government and anti-CCP information in
model, China has its own search engine the name of proper governance, civil or cyber
(Baidu instead of Google), social media and protectionism, and cyber nationalism. Such a
messaging apps (Weibo and Wechat instead defense mechanism through censorship ex-
of Facebook and WhatsApp), its own e- tends to social control. According to research
commerce mobile platform (Alipay), its own by Repnikova and Fang (2018), netizens in
Uber (Didi) and many more. These ‘com- China ‘co-produce’ political persuasion that
mon’ websites and apps, such as Google, favours the communist regime in the online
Facebook, Uber, and WhatsApp and more sphere through official state online media,
recently Wikipedia (since April 2020) are also expansion of government Weibo and WeChat
blocked in China. accounts, and through grassroots patriotic
The parallel/alternative universe anal- bloggers in the name of civilizing information
ogy is evident by how a Chinese version of management and as ‘authoritarian par-
global networks is created, operated, and ticipatory digital persuasion 2.0’ (Repnikova
functioned similar to an earlier Eurocentric and Fang, 2018). The incorporation, or
model of information and ideology. It shows precisely the détournement, of the state and
that no matter how much a Chinese version authoritarian propaganda model and through
wants to depart from the World Wide Web, it grassroots expression and disinformation
inevitably sprung from there. At the beginning has its strong presence in the platform poli-
of this essay, I cited a passage from Taiwanese tics of China. The practice of disinformation
cultural studies scholar Chen Kuan-Hsing in in contemporary China will further illustrate
Asia as Method: Towards Deimperialization. how network, platform, and censorship be-
In this passage, Chen argues that the ‘post- come an algorithmic-ideological apparatus.
colonial enterprise’ is always undermined by Fake news in China is either prohibited
colonial history without critical examination, or censored by the Golden Shield Project
which could can also relate be situated in the (also known as the National Public Security
discussion of network culture studies (Chen Work Informational Project) or even created
2). The ‘alternative’ Internet in China requires by the Project itself. The Internet meme of
close and critical examination of why and Chinese leader Xi Jinping and Winnie the
how such network operativity is drawn on the Pooh which is banned in China without doubt
very idea of disconnection from the global illustrates this idea. The WeChatSCOPE
network, despite being heavily influenced by (https://wechatscope.jmsc.hku.hk), an online
it. database and research project developed by
133APRJA Volume 9, Issue 1, 2020
the Journalism and Media Studies Centre ‘autonomous’ network model, that operates
at the University of Hong Kong, monitors and counteracts. I am not praising the GFW,
selected WeChat public accounts and nor am I advocating manipulation of disinfor-
detects ‘removed’ contents.[2] A scholarly mation and state censorship of information
database that allows citizen and researchers on a global scale. Rather, a different, if not
to search and visualize censored content in an alternative and decolonized, information
China, the WeChatSCOPE project, however, technology model should be recognized. A
does experience ‘error’ and ‘failed to start’ previous non-Chinese model and its devel-
messages from time to time. Is it a technical opment before the Internet, for instance the
faulty or is it being blocked? The concept of French Minitel terminal project (1980-2012),
‘fake news’ in China further elaborates and which has largely been unacknowledged
contests how the West considers ‘fake news’. in the discussion of network culture. The
In China refers to ‘fake news’ points to news Minitel project not only provides a critical
and disinformation that is neither approved example to supplement the history and
by nor favorable to the Chinese government. knowledge of a nationalized and ‘pre-history’
Interestingly, fake news that is favorable to information technological platform, but also
the CCP could be widely circulated, as state demonstrates how nationalism instructs and
propaganda. Recently, how the Chinese influences a network model (Mailland and
government re-routes COVID-19 news is a Driscoll 2017). The Great Firewall of China
vivid example. The prohibition of politically is not the only national network in the global
sensitive content and economic protection- arena, other totalitarian regimes have their
ism addresses the political economy of own, for instance, North Korea operates the
network culture in China. Network availability Kwangmyong network, a national intranet and
is a political-economical decision and ex- a browser, Naenara (http://naenara.com.kp)
pression. I argue that the network culture of that can be accessed outside North Korea.
withdrawal, exclusion, and blocking in China These are networks of political economy,
reinforces layers of ‘network unavailability’ in economic protectionism, and cyber national-
everyday life: assuming the network itself is ism: networks that are not made to make
a utopia of the free circulation of information, information available to all, but to serve the
however network culture in China is operated cause of national interest. Cyber nationalism
through withdrawal, blocking, and exclusion operates on a language level; for instance, it
of information under the state’s control and is not easily accessible to browse and search
censorship. However, practice of alternative information from Japan or Russia if one does
browsing and access to the Internet beyond not know Japanese or Russian. The univer-
the Great Firewall does exist, for example sality of computational language (considered
the infamous Fanqiang (to literally “go over to be English) needs to be questioned in the
the wall”), despite being an illegal activity in discussion of network culture. Both the Great
China. The practice of Fanqiang could be Firewall of China and the Kwangmyong net-
seen as a tactic of resistance that further work are rather extreme illustrations of cyber
problematizes nationalism and network cul- nationalism, yet they are also rather powerful
ture in China. examples from the decolonization of technol-
On a global scale, as a closed national ogy perspective.
network system itself and operated in par- However, we should not reduce our
allel to the Internet, the Great Firewall of understanding of Chinese network culture
China demonstrates a decentralized and as being merely a closed network system
134Wing Ki Lee: NETWORK UNAVAILABLE
according to the notion of nation-state and is pervasive in contemporary China. There
geographical/informational territories. As is an estimated that over 200 million surveil-
Benjamin Bratton points out regarding the lance cameras have been installed in China
Sino-Google conflicts in the essay “The to aid in ‘policing’ the Social Credit system.
Black Stack” (2014), China is also involved The curatorial title Ruizhi (intelligence) may
in the global network infrastructure, for also describe China’s ambition to develop ar-
example in the platform of the cloud as a tificial intelligence, and technology in the arts
stack (Bratton, 2014). Recently Chinese 5G and everyday life, as well as the formation,
network equipment provider Huawei’s pro- building and social-engineering of a smart
posal to build mobile network infrastructure city. This artwork is a snapshot of the image
is being repudiated and replaced in the UK, surveillance economy in China.
Canada, and many other countries. This is Fei Jun’s work as an example of an
for political-economic reasons rather than image surveillance environment, can be
being solely a network-technological deci- explained as two conceptual layers: through
sion. The cloud, the layer, the user, and the identification and through experiencing the
network infrastructure are no longer defined system. A camera captures visitors who
by geographical sovereignty and the nation- approach the lens media projections in real-
state. The globality of network culture is evi- time. The artificial intelligence programme
dent when we look at the operational aspect identified a handful of prescribed identities
and the black box politics of such. And yet, of the visitors, in rather limited keywords
the Great Firewall, Kwangmyong, the deep and categories (Fig. 1). I was identified as a
web, the dark web, all these microcosms ‘dancing-master’ because of my body move-
outlines and questions the assumption, ment, even though I am not good at dancing.
integration, and interconnectedness of one Two other ‘dancing masters’ were also identi-
widely available network. The utopic vision fied. Identification is also performed through
of interconnectedness of a network should a colour-coding system: an old man, a tourist,
be called into question, as the commonly a Floridian, a couple as ‘kin,’ a shoulder bag
known available network is only the tip of an and an evening bag. These categories could
(network) iceberg. be understood precisely as context-specific
After this discussion of macrocosm keywords, with biennale visitors inevitably
and the infrastructure, we now return to the falling into some of the categories based
argument of ‘network unavailable’ to layers on prediction, rather than identification.
of the experience at the microscopic level. The ‘identification’ was constantly mutat-
Firstly, I am going to focus on an artistic ing and ever shifting. A moment afterwards
practice from China to start the discussion. more categories were identified: a guard, a
At the China Pavilion, Venice Biennale 2019, Japanese, an instigator, a gal, a grandfather,
media artist Fei Jun’s interactive installa- a saunterer, and a clutch bag.
tion Interesting World (2019) exhibits the Questions arise. Is Interesting World
performativity of the network culture of China a functional and activated face recognition
that could only be achieved by an offline system? Is it a live recording for image
system. Interesting World is a set of media data mining? What was the database of
projections operated by a presumably offline the prescribed identity and categories?
and ‘faux’ face-recognition technology. The Are we, the visitors, being watched, data-
installation brings visitors to a simulated im- mined, analysed, and archived? (Was there
age surveillance environment mimicking that a consent form available to sign and agree
135APRJA Volume 9, Issue 1, 2020
Figure 1: Fei Jun’s Interesting World at the China artistic practice. Rather, Interesting World
Pavilion, Venice Biennale 2019.
performs network culture in China as a mat-
ter of image surveillance, body and gestural
to before participating in this work?)[3] Or is it identification, and social monitoring and en-
just an offline façade to demonstrate China’s gineering that are of national interest and
world power in imaging technology, artificial identity: therefore, it makes perfect sense
intelligence, and state’s surveillance in a major to exhibit this work in a national pavilion in
world visual arts exposition? Unlike the state a major contemporary art world exposition.
surveillance system in China or any in other The work is a performance of cyber national-
geopolitical configuration, visitors stand in front ism and the political economy of technology
of and experience the two sides of image tech- in China rather than facilitating and execut-
nology: the capturing, by a surveillance cam- ing performativity of net art. The unavailable
era and the analytics, through the visualization network demonstrated here describes tech-
(such as color-coding, keywords, categories, nological backwardness merely through dis-
and identities). The experience is produced by playing rather than executing. Technological
a choreographed and performative act of arti- backwardness, intriguingly, could be consid-
ficial intelligence to demonstrate China’s place ered as a postcolonial tactic. Disconnecting
in world power relations; and at the back end the network so as to perform and operate
of the work, perhaps, there is no database, no similarly to a network are tactical tools to
network, or network unavailable. contextualize this work in the discussion of
Fei Jun’s Interesting World at the Venice network culture and contemporary arts in
Biennale 2019 provides a critical narrative to China. It is a statement of ‘intelligence’ and
examine the performativity aspect of net art. ambition, even though it may not be working
Net art resides, substantiates, and exhibits on at all.
or through the network. A presumably offline This essay will summarize the notion
network may not give permission to constitute of unavailable network as it pertains to the
how a network is created and responded in an political aspect of everyday life in Chinese
136Wing Ki Lee: NETWORK UNAVAILABLE
network culture. Let’s take Hong Kong 2019 when no public network is available. Elderly
protest and the flow of information involved memes involving pro-democratic messages
as an example. Protester’s communication to the Hong Kong’s government and Chinese
and grassroots propaganda of the Hong Communist Party is sent through airdrop (via
Kong 2019 protest relies heavily on network Bluetooth) that iPhone users can choose
technology. We see, read, and produce to accept (or decline) in the public domain.
pro-democratic persuasive statements, be Intriguingly, however, Android users seems to
they textual, visual or temporal, on social be excluded from such an alternative network
media. However, censorship of information model. Notwithstanding, the elderly meme
by authoritarian government does occur as establishes the process of decentralization
responses to the rise of digital activism. The of disseminating images and information. An
censorship tactics here does not only refer to alternative ‘propagandist network’ is created
the filtering and banning of online information because of the fear of unavailable network
but an assumption to shut down the Internet (Fig. 2).
silence public opinion and pro-democratic www.lihkg.com, a web-based Bulletin
demand. For example, the messaging app Board System (BBS)/forum, which could
Telegram has been widely used by citizens be considered a Hong Kong version of
and protesters in Hong Kong to communicate, Reddit, is the platform of information dis-
and yet the app and certain pro-democratic semination amongst the protesters during
chat groups had also received massive cyber- the Anti-Extradition Bill Protest in Hong
attacks during the yearlong protest. Citizens Kong. However, for many occasions during
and protesters have also communicated via the 2019 protest many BBS platforms in
a peer-to-peer network to avoid state surveil- Hong Kong were bombarded with Distributed
lance from the government authority and an Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks that tem-
anticipated Internet shutdown. porarily terminated communication between
A particular type of Internet meme is the protesters for a short period of time until
created that is operated and circulated via the gateway and service could come back
peer-to-peer network and targeted to reach online (Fig. 3). The fear of an inaccessible
those who may spend their time mostly offline and unavailable network, that also implies
and who perhaps are apolitical. For example, and associates to fundamental Expression
the ‘elderly meme’, as the name suggests, of Freedom and democracy amongst
is a type of Internet meme that is popular Hong Kong’s citizen had been heightened.
amongst senior citizens in the Chinese Livestream videos by photojournalists and
context and originally may not be made and citizen photojournalists were broadcast via
meant for political persuasion. Its image- social media platforms, such as Facebook
stylistics, often involving the juxtaposition of and Instagram. However, the great number
Buddhist symbols, icons, and text, character- of reactions by viewers such as ‘like,’ ‘love,’
izes itself as an image apparatus that discon- or ‘angry,’ for the broadcasted video would
nects from the network and the discourse of experience a time lag because of information
social and digital activism.[4] During Hong overloading. Viewers’ reactions can be made
Kong’s Anti-Extradition Bill Protest in 2019, with just a click of the button, bandwidth was
the elderly meme becomes spreadable and often limited. The temporality of the network,
popular. This kind of meme also highlights real-time viewing, and reaction are complex
how the use of peer-to-peer network works in the sense that it is not a linear progres-
in the public sphere at a critical moment sion but are many micro-networks per se.
137APRJA Volume 9, Issue 1, 2020 Figure. 2: The Elderly Meme in Hong Kong, first generated and sent via Bluetooth then printed out and given post-digital existence. Figure 3: The visualization of DDoS attack by the Digital Attack Map on the 1st July 2019. 138
Wing Ki Lee: NETWORK UNAVAILABLE
Overloaded bandwidth was also not unusual Hong Kong protests of 2019 is the opposite
at the protest site. With a mass amount of way of thinking about networks; it is a tactical
data traffic by protesters constantly checking way of network forming that is based on deci-
chats, threads, maps, and video-streaming, sions made in-situ, and is often ephemeral.
the public Wi-Fi and the mobile data network The network would be dissolved once the
were so overloaded that it could not. What situation is resolved by certain decisions
Hong Kong protesters experienced during made, and another network may evolve
the yearlong protest are on the both edges as another situation arises. The reason to
of the Internet: networks that bring people introduce the water metaphor to conclude an
and pro-democratic demands together; net- essay on unavailable networks in China is
works that may disappoint us because they explained through: (1) networks are political
could not function as the way it promised. and geopolitical; (2) the advancement and
The aforementioned examples of network universality of an available network could be
behavior are linked to network unavailability a façade; and (3) the discussion of networks
as a way to control information. This not only should go beyond mere structuralism and
reveals the public fear of network unavail- emphasize the everyday life, tactical, and
ability, but also the fatigue and fragility of any microscopic decision-making process.
publicly available network. The aforementioned case studies,
What is the lesson learned from the the Great Firewall and the Golden Shield,
2019 protests in Hong Kong that is related Interesting World, and the network hap-
to network culture? It could be referred to penings in the Hong Kong 2019 protest,
the naming of the protest itself: the water illustrates certain phenomena of network
revolution. ‘Be water’ is a common saying unavailability such as provision, challenges,
amongst the protesters in Hong Kong. It and resistance to the network culture in the
originated from Bruce Lee’s catchphrase contemporary Chinese context. Will China
“Be Water, My Friend” from the 1960s and become an alternative ‘democratic’ network
1970s Hong Kong that describes the capac- model as opposed to the Eurocentric and
ity, volume, and strength of water in the dominating Internet? It is dangerous to as-
Chinese Kung Fu manner. In 2019 the say- sert democracy is happening in the network
ing stressed the importance of fluidity, which culture in China. In the essay, I illustrate,
is the exact opposite of the 2014 umbrella and hence problematize what has been un-
movement: solidity and occupying. Here, acknowledged in the discussion of network
the water political metaphor is extended to culture by using China as an example. The
describe the network. It aspires and advo- China model serves as model of dialectical
cates a formless and fluid network that is reasoning to critically rethink and reexamine
non-hierarchical by nature. Referencing the global network culture through a post-colonial
recent anti-totalitarian regime protest glob- and technological decolonization gaze.
ally, the formless and shapeless network is Throughout the 2019 Hong Kong pro-
explained through street-smart, decentral- tests the Hong Kong government advocated
ized, guerilla tactics. The notion of network, the imposition of the Emergency Regulations
also, becomes a decision-making process Ordinance (ERO) that would exercise regula-
rather than a social engineering structure. tion and control of information on the Internet
A pre-empt network formation is often top- that would include regulating or banning the
down structure that facilitates managerialism Telegram messaging app and shutting down
and thus social control. What occurred in the pro-democratic web-based forums such as
139APRJA Volume 9, Issue 1, 2020
www.lihkg.com. The Emergency Regulations inevitably connected. The utopic globalism
Ordinance, if exercised in the future, could be of information (without borders) is in danger.
seen as the extension of and rerouting to the Globalization was a promise to humankind in
Great Firewall of China. The Ordinance itself the twentieth Century. Globalization without
is controversial and yet it hints at the end of deimperialization is hypocritical, as Chen
freedom of expression, speech, and the flow argues at the very beginning of the essay.
of Information. The fake news incidents also What we are facing in the twenty-first cen-
suggest China’s position in controlling and tury, however, is a dialectics of disguise and
manipulating public opinion and information reproduction. If China is the future, dare I ask,
in the global arena. All this suggests a new would the China model otherwise have the
China’s model of unavailable network that potential to influence post-globalized infor-
seems distant and yet it is happening. In the mation structure? Will ‘network unavailable’,
course of writing, while the Sino-American state authoritarianism, and protectionism be
relationship becomes more intense, the an inevitable network future?
Chinese government has already taken ac-
tion to introduce the National Security Law
in Hong Kong that will immensely reshape
Acknowledgement
the global dynamic of politics, economy, and
information structure and practice in Hong
Kong and beyond. I would like to thank the anonymous
In May 2020, following the Executive reviewer(s) and Sudipto Basu’s suggestion
Order on Preventing Online Censorship by for academic literature in postcolonial
the White House, social media tycoon Mark studies and network culture.
Zuckerberg was ‘worried’ that the Chinese
model would be influence and replicated by
‘other’ countries, and he urged the Western
countries to take the initiative and coopera-
tion on Internet regulation “globally”.[5] In the
Pan-Asia context, the ‘Remove China Apps’,
an mobile application that identifies and helps
removing apps of Chinese origin developed
by OneTouch AppLabs, an India-based
startup company, received more than one
million download when it was first launched
in May 2020. The developmental trajectories
of networks in the global arena is moving to-
wards making networks unavailable, and the
China example could be introduced as a rea-
soning for this, or the reason itself. The rival
over the control of networks and information
technology prevents, and also establishes,
the network unavailable phenomenon by
and large: of China and the West, the replica
and the original, the powerful and the other
powerful. Nationalism and netionalism are
140Wing Ki Lee: NETWORK UNAVAILABLE
Chen, Kuan-Hsing. Asia as Method:
Notes
Towards Deimperialization. Duke University
Press, 2010.
[1] “Top 20 Countries with the Highest
Number of Internet Users.” Internet World Griffith, James. The Great Firewall of China:
Stats, 2019. https://www.internetworldstats. How to Build and Control an Alternative
com/top20.htm/. Accessed 10 April 2020. Version of the Internet. Zed Books. 2019.
[2] “WeChatSCOPE: an insight to censor- Jandrić, Petar and Ana Kuzmanić. “Digital
ship in China.” Journalism and Media Post-colonialism.” In IADIS International
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