Editor’s note for March 24, 2023
A note for Access newsletter readers from Jeremy Goldkorn.
Dear reader,
Two unedifying spectacles unfolded in the capitals of Russia and the U.S. this week:
On Wednesday, Xí Jìnpíng 习近平 departed Moscow after a three day visit during which he assured Vladimir Putin of his friendship, and China’s support for Russia. There was talk of Ukraine, but the real message was that Xi would offer moral and economic support to Putin no matter what Russia does in Ukraine, even if that support stopped short of weapons or military supplies. In exchange, China got cheap oil and gas for years to come. (Scroll down for plenty of links to our reporting on Xi’s trip.)
On Thursday, TikTok CEO Shou Chew (周受资 Zhōu Shòuzī) appeared before a hostile U.S. House Committee, and answered questions for more than five hours from a bipartisan group of fired-up lawmakers keen to show off their tough-on-China credentials.
Many of these officials clearly do not understand how the internet works, are clueless on China, and are baffled by the online behavior of people under the age of 30.
Chew’s marathon interrogation has made him an online hero in China, as we reported earlier today. But the session was also the epitome of everything that’s wrong with the U.S.-China relationship.
On the one hand, China has become the go-to bogeyman for American politicians with nothing else to say, and Washington’s only topic of a bipartisan consensus. That consensus is partly based on fears of looking weak, and ignorance about technology and about China, and it will probably lead to decisions that are profoundly unAmerican, if free markets and free speech are actually American values.
On the other hand, one of the reasons that Chew’s defense of TikTok was not effective is that TikTok is in fact controlled and owned by ByteDance, which is a Chinese company. And while it may be true, as Chew testified, that Beijing has not yet interfered with TikTok, the Communist Party has a track record dating back to the 1990s of demanding censorship and data from all internet companies that operate within its borders.
There is no reason to believe it would behave differently just because a Chinese company’s primary customers are overseas.
So here we are, in the early years of the third decade of the 21st century, a time of mendacious stupidity, ignorance, and bad faith on all sides.
Our Phrase of the Week is: Going all in on the economy (拼经济 pīn jīngjì), a new three-character slogan that hints at the challenges China’s economy faces in 2023.
