Political And Security: Challenges And Strategies Of The Internet Age

Political safety is a problem related closely to the survival and development of acountry, therefore it attracts much attention of any country. The development ofInternet and its application in the political field, have an important effect on politicsand political safety of a country. Today China, who is in a transition period, faces acomplicated national and international environment. Since there are many factors thataffect the political safety of China, it is a very difficult task to defend political safety.The rapid development of Internet in China has brought good chances for theconstruction of socialist democracy; meanwhile it has presented severe challenge fornational political safety. Therefore, it has become a serious problem that cannot beevaded during the construction of socialist democracy of China to analyze thoroughlythe theory of political safety, to identify the political functions of the Internet and itsrelationship with political safety, to further provide suggestions on improving thegovernance of Internet political safety of China so as to respond to the challenge toChinese political safety laid forth by Internet effectively.Applying the theory and approaches of politics, this thesis discusses thedefinition, characteristics, nature, guarantee and influencing factors of political safetyand the detailed contents of political safety, and explores the relationship betweennetwork and political safety. Furthermore, so as to expand the field of political studyand stimulate the richness and development of relative theory, theoretically,the textprobes into the effects of the development and application of networks on politicalsafety, and discloses the nature and law of network political safety；strategically, thetext emphasizes the construction and innovation of theory, and offers the suggestionson solving the political problem.Based on the reality of Chinese political safety, for the purpose of maintainingthe political safety of China, our thesis analyzes the gain and loss in the governing ofpolitical safety at home and the lessons on dealing with network political problemsabroad. By doing so, we hope that we can offer our governments some new thoughtsand countermeasures on network political safety to drive the construction of Chinese socialist democracy and the development of politics.Political safety is defined as the condition or state of being safe for a country orregime, meaning it has the ability to eliminate the harm to its safety, is in a sate free ofthreat, and feels safely. Political safety includes sovereign and territory safety, regimesafety, political system safety, ideology safety and political stability safety. Politicalsafety has the following nature: class, historic, dynamic, relative and complex. Fromthe viewpoint of modern politics, political safety is the integration of politicaldevelopment and political stability. The three factors that safeguard and affectpolitical safety can be categorized as compelling force, interest and morality.Nowadays, factors that affect China political safety are mainly indirect factors,internal factors, non-conventional factors and non-antagonistic contradictions.As a modern information-communication vehicle, a network is characterized asglobality, openness, instantaneity, vitality and interaction. The major politicalfunctions of networks are highlighted in political empowerment, political mobilization,political participation and political struggles. The impact of Internet on political safetyis expressed in weakening the sovereignty of a country, endangering the safety ofregime, threatening the safety of ideology, harming the stability of national politics,hurting the safety of information and challenging the military safety of a country, andso on.A network is a good way to improve the willingness and initiative of the people'spolitical participation; to cover the shortage of the political participation system; towiden the channels for our government to understand the public opinion; to provide achannel for the social vulnerable groups to express their interests; to offer a place forpeople to drain off political stress; to construct a new way of political monitoring; andto advance the construction of socialized politics of China, perfect the party's rulingways,build a service-oriented government and protect and realize political safety。Ofcourse, network is also a challenge to China political safety. Western hostile forcesmake use of Internet to infiltrate the western ideology into China and enforcesubversive activities；overseas intelligence agencies and hackers take the advantage ofInternet to engage in stealing confidential files and destructive activities；Hostileforces at home and abroad and the cults undertake infiltrate, subversive and splittist activities on the net. What's more, such factors as network communication, networkopinion, network scandals, over-participation and irrational participation, informationgap and network association do have some effects on political safety.It is necessary for us to see the network political safety problem, to pay moreattention to the effect of network on political safety, so that we can defend thepolitical stability of China and get rid of network fear. A good way to safeguard thepolitical safety is to insist on the following principles:(1)seeking advantage andavoiding disadvantage principle;(2) Combination of guiding and blocking principle;(3) combination of on-line and off-line principle. Ways to deal with on-line andoff-line political safety problems include: to enhance the network security awareness,to build up network frontier awareness, to construct new political security conceptwhich fits well with the Internet era, to establish the Internet strategies of China; toimprove the management and guide of network opinion, to better the media literacy ofour leaders, to strengthen the steering ability of network opinion; to reinforce thenetwork moral education and ethics, to set up network ethics norms and standards, tointensify network culture, and to make network media's self-regulation play a majorrole. There are following tasks to be fulfilled: to perfect the laws and regulationsgoverning the network political safety, to make full use of the legislative techniques,and start timely the setting,amending and repealing of the laws; to quicken theconstruction of network information in order to narrow the information technologygap between China and the developed countries, and at the same time to developrelated network technology, to improve the ability to maintain political safety, toaccelerate the training of quality talents; to carry out international cooperation ofnetwork political safety, to participate in the drafting of international convention onthe Internet, to push forward the building of new international information order, toinstall the anti-terrorism system of international information. Some other effectivesteps we can take is to develop orderly network political participation, to propel theperfecting of the system of democratic election, and democratic decision–making,democratic management, democratic monitoring via Internet; to apply to thedevelopment of network democracy, to push forward the reform and innovation ofruling ways, to learn about the people and cluster their wisdom through Internet, to accelerate the transformation of government functions, to accept the networkmonitoring conscientiously, to look at the network public opinion in the right way,and to realize scientific decision by network. Furthermore, it is more important tosolve practical problems and eliminate the roots of the harming to political safety.Therefore, it is necessary to:(1) accelerate transformation of the mode of economicdevelopment, to establish correct achievement view in leading cadres;(2) to ensurefairness and justice, to increase anticorruption effort;(3) to expand the orderlypolitical participation of the civil, and to promote the construction of socialist citizensociety.