Red Flag Manuscript, a publication of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, published a commentary by Zhou Hong, the director of the European division of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. Based on U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s February 15, 2011, speech on Internet Freedom given at George Washington University, Zhou concludes that the U.S. is shifting its foreign affairs strategy by launching “a war without borders in cyberspace.” As a result, China faces new challenges in its foreign affairs.
The article states “Hillary was using war declaring language when she announced the State Department’s decision. She calls for having the countries that suppress Internet freedom pay economically and face the same threats of political unrest that Egypt and Tunisia faced.” “Hillary openly named China, Cuba, Iran, Burma, Syria, and Vietnam as countries that ‘censor content, do not allow their citizens to access the global Internet, and arrest bloggers who criticize the government.” “Hillary believes this is a major change in U.S. foreign policy. She said this is a critical choice made by the U.S. government in a critical moment.”
“Hillary’s above statement, along with her Internet freedom speech in 2009, indeed tells of a new U.S. foreign policy strategy: As the status of U.S. hard power is significantly declining, it is increasingly using soft power in a skillful way to serve its foreign affairs.”
The article points out that China also faces new social challenges in foreign relations as a result of the Internet war the U.S. has launched. “There is no doubt that our foreign affairs will also face a transition from traditional foreign dealings to social foreign affairs, which include a variety of channels, with the Internet as the key component.” “How we can use the Internet and other social channels to tell a convincing ‘Chinese Story’ to our people and to the international community has become a pressing task."
Source: Red Flag Manuscript, April 27, 2011
http://www.qstheory.cn/hqwg/2011/201108/201104/t20110427_78514.htm