The Tower Center Asian Studies group hosted an event yesterday titled “This is My Rock” in Carr Collins Hall to discuss the role of new media and its influence in the escalating skirmishes in the South China Sea involving China, Vietnam, and the Philippines.

Anny Wong, a Tower Research fellow and Ling Shiao, a SMU associate professor moderated the discussions, utilizing video footage to describe the rising tensions.

Their presentation pointed out that some conflicts are over rocks in the middle of the ocean, in addition to very small, uninhabited islands, fishing, oil, gas and mineral rights. Most altercations are involving China and the 10 member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, although other countries
have disputes.

New media encompasses YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, websites, blogs, text messaging, video games and more. In a world where more people have access to cell phones than toilets, the influence of new media is really limitless.

“There were over 300 million microblog-users by 2010. Despite state efforts to impose censorship, new social media has fundamentally changed the way people access, disseminate, and consume news in China,” Shiao said.

China seems to be at the heart of nearly every conflict. The Chinese not only have the largest land mass, territorial waters and population, but the greatest access to Internet and mobile phone usage of all the engaged parties as well.

When considering domestic issues, any kind of social media poses a threat against a state with a team of Internet police attempting to regulate and suppress any public discontent. This kind of regulation allows the central government to maintain its hold over its agencies or local governments, preventing an Arab Spring in China to occur.

“Any public expression on social media that is interpreted by the current regime as challenging its rule or its legitimacy will be resolutely and ruthlessly suppressed,” Shiao said.

Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are banned in China. However, there are youtube and twitter- like sites, such as Youku and Tudou according to Shiao, all of which are used to document the growing tensions in South China Seas.

“Social media has definitely been effective in pushing for a democratization of information-production and consumption,” Shiao said.

The Chinese government is trying (and quite successfully at this point) to moderate the Internet.

“The government tries to encourage it and harness it for its own political use,” Shiao said, doubting that we will see an uprising in China as we did in the Arab countries because of the strong censorship of the air waves. The Chinese government might even worry that its citizens are more inclined to be aggressive than they are.

The rules of communication, engagement and war are forever changed by a web that really is worldwide.