As Chinese society accelerates its entry into the Internet age, the impact of the Internet on the development of China’s democratic politics has become a realistic issue that cannot be avoided. Whether we can seize the opportunities for development and take positive and effective measures to deal with its negative impact has both practical value and far-reaching significance, and is also an important aspect of building a harmonious socialist society.
It must be recognized that the real reason why the Internet has a huge impact is its widespread use. Its basic characteristics include interactivity, openness, virtuality, no time and space restrictions, equality, multimedia integration, digitization, globalization, etc. The society’s recognition of the Internet and people’s widespread use are the source of its power and influence. The influence is two-way. The Internet has a huge impact on China’s social politics, economy, culture, social life, etc., and in turn, the political, economic, cultural and other forces of Chinese society also act on the Internet, affecting the development of the Internet in Chinese society.
( 1 ) While the Internet is advancing China’s democratic political process, it is also posing a challenge to national political and social stability.
Historian Huang Renyu believes that the main reason for the many changes of dynasties in Chinese history lies in the structural problems of Chinese society, that is, the lack of effective communication channels between the upper and lower levels of the country, the favorable policies cannot be implemented by the people, and the people’s livelihood is difficult for the upper level to know. As history develops to this day, there is already an effective communication channel between the government and the people, that is, the Internet. Through the communication of information from the bottom up and from the top down, the Internet connects the government decision-making level with the public. Ordinary citizens have obtained the most extensive right to information and can directly express their opinions on government decisions and social events. The government’s decision-making intentions are also discussed and chosen by the public through the Internet, and the people’s sentiments and opinions can be better understood by the government’s top leaders, providing strong support and guarantee for the government to practice the concept of governing for the people and putting people first.
Political participation is an important indicator for measuring political modernization and the degree of democracy. The West has always been ahead in the use of Internet technology. First, while promoting information release, it is also used for commercial purposes; second, the Internet is used extensively for political services, such as the United States and some European countries using it for elections. While the Chinese government is relatively lagging behind in the use of the Internet, netizens are very enthusiastic about using it to participate in the construction of national democracy and the legal system. After some hot events occurred, netizens have conducted heated discussions, forming a strong atmosphere of public opinion, providing an important platform and channel for the government to understand public opinion and wishes in a timely manner and take measures that meet the people’s voice, thereby promoting the resolution of problems and social progress.
The Internet is a double-edged sword. While promoting the process of political democratization, the Internet also poses a challenge to the Party and the government’s governing capacity, governing methods, governing legitimacy, and socialist values, guiding ideology, and system. In particular, Western hostile forces and opponents of the socialist system at home and abroad use the Internet platform to maliciously create incidents out of thin air and attack the Party and the government; some use some individual incidents to attack the socialist system, and this attack is very inflammatory and deceptive. For example, hostile forces and the “Falun Gong” cult organization and extreme religious organizations use the Internet as an important tool for infiltration, incitement, and sabotage, using servers and websites located abroad, BBS electronic bulletin boards, email group sending, news comments, and other methods to directly attack the Party’s leadership and the leaders of the Party and the country; some use the name of public opinion supervision to deny the Party’s leadership and attack my country’s basic political and economic system. In terms of social stability, the Internet has given humans an unprecedented space of freedom, making it more likely to become a hotbed of pan-liberalism and anarchism, especially by taking advantage of various hot issues and emergencies to incite social discontent, and even instigate terrorist activities and undermine social stability.
( 2 ) The Internet has accelerated the development of e-government in China and has also impacted the current management system.
The construction of e-government has become the focus of attention of governments around the world, and it is regarded as one of the important factors to enhance the comprehensive competitiveness of a country or region. At present, there are two main modes of e-government in my country: one is the government website; the other is online office. The public can log in to the official website to learn about policies and regulations in a timely manner, and the online office business provides a series of service functions such as online approval and tax payment, which greatly improves the government’s ability to handle public affairs, improves the operating efficiency and service level of government agencies, reduces management costs, and transforms the government management model into a service-oriented one. At present, the country is vigorously promoting the construction of e-government. The National Informatization Leading Group proposes to use 3-5 years to initially establish a government system informatization framework with “three networks and one database” as the basic framework (i.e., the internal office network of government agencies, the office business resource network of central and local governments and departments, the government public information network, and the information database jointly built and shared by the government system). The next step in the development of e-government will make government management open and interactive. The openness of e-government will also greatly reduce the breeding of corruption, effectively plug management loopholes, and further strengthen the relationship between the government and the public; and more public participation will help the government promote the democratic and scientific process of decision-making under the principles of openness, fairness and transparency.
On the one hand, the development of the Internet has expanded people’s right to know, strengthened communication between each other, and placed the work of the government under the supervision of the people. But on the other hand, it has put forward new challenges and requirements for the current social structure and ruling system. The Party Central Committee clearly recognizes the opportunities and challenges that the development of the Internet brings to all aspects of our society. The decision on strengthening the Party’s ruling capacity building adopted at an important party meeting clearly stated: attach great importance to the impact of new media such as the Internet on public opinion, accelerate the establishment of a management system that combines laws and regulations, administrative supervision, industry self-discipline, and technical support, strengthen the construction of the Internet propaganda team, and form a strong positive public opinion on the Internet. As Naisbitt said in “Megatrends”: “Network organizations can provide something that the bureaucracy can never provide – horizontal connections.” That is to say, the network always extends horizontally, rather than developing vertically. This structural characteristic of the Internet itself will greatly affect and change the structure of the real society and political system, and make the two influence each other and gradually converge, resulting in the gradual flattening of the social structure, and also eroding the vertical power structure of the centralized system, and promoting the further decentralization of real politics: decentralization from the central government to local governments, decentralization from the government to non-governmental organizations, and decentralization from high-level to low-level. In the Internet age, multinational corporations and non-governmental organizations are competing fiercely with countries for the leading position in the international community. Not only international organizations, but even individuals have the potential to challenge national authority.
In short, we must fully realize the impact of the Internet on the development of our society. As mentioned above , the challenges and impacts of the Internet are multifaceted . Whether we can seize the opportunities for development and deal with its negative impact is also an important aspect of building a socialist harmonious society. This global challenge of scientific and technological achievements is multifaceted and multi-layered . In particular, how the Party can grasp the direction of public opinion and correctly guide social public opinion in the new historical period is a realistic challenge. If we continue to use traditional ideas and methods to manage the media , we will not be able to adapt to the challenges brought to us by the Internet without major changes in the system and mechanism .
Їн Чжан,
Група 549mi
