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Platform, Performativity, and Everyday Life Decision- Making Processes in Contemporary Chinese Network Culture

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Platform, Performativity, and Everyday Life Decision- Making Processes in Contemporary Chinese Network Culture 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 frst, 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 (Griffth 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 fltering 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 131 APRJA 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 defni- 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 defnition 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 briefy defne 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 confguration territory and its map” (Jandrić and Kuzmanić and infuence 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/offine 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 132 Wing 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,’
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