Privacy, Face, and Social Respectability in a Digital China

The China Journal

10, 2017). A second prediction of the concluding chapter, that China's reforms favoring transparency and participation have cultivated a citizenry better suited to democratic processes of governance, remains apt. The new institutions discussed in the book emerged within a rapidly transforming society characterized by the spread of new ideas among young people. As I completed this review, a group of Chinese youth invigorated by Marxist teachings tried to publicize grievances of migrant workers, using the internet to amplify news of rights abuses against workers, paralleling several cases in this book. Their organization and protest exemplified a modern civil society, informed about happenings across the country and using communication technology to disseminate their political views. Yet China's security services responded by sweeping up these young Marxists in a crackdown. Many of China's citizens appear ready for a greater say in governing their country, but it remains unclear whether their leaders are ready to listen.

SAGE Open, 2020

China, like the United States, has no defined concept of privacy in its Constitution and Chinese citizens have to work out how to negotiate their presence online, just as others elsewhere do. Online privacy in China has not received strong legislative protection compared with the U.S. and European countries as privacy has never written as an individual right in China’s Constitution, nor in the Civil Law. Chinese privacy perceptions and everyday privacy practices in social media have not been fully examined. This article presents an original, ethnographic study of how 26 Chinese youth, men and women, and 25 older rural women from Changsha, south-central China are negotiating what counts as privacy online in their everyday practices. It finds out that youth group in Changsha has a stronger understanding of the technical level of deployment of the social media technologies, enacting both positive and protective self-presentation instantiated by “human flesh search,” “public online priv...

Privacy is often a subjective value, taking on meaning from specific social, historical, and cultural contexts. Western privacy scholars have so far generally limited academic study to focus on Western ideals of privacy. However, privacy – or some notion of it – can be found in almost every culture and every nation, including the growing economic powerhouse that is the People’s Republic of China. Focusing on China as a case study of non-Western privacy norms is important today, given the rapid rise of the Chinese economy and its corresponding impact on worldwide cultural norms and law. Simply put, it is naïve to believe that privacy law will develop in the near future without the influence of China. First, though China does not have a developed body of privacy law, any privacy laws China chooses to implement now and in the future will certainly affect business and organizations seeking to invest in and engage with Chinese consumers. With the size and economic impact of the Chinese c...

As the world becomes interconnected and easily accessible with the advancement of technology, more and more companies now have the ability and interests to tap into foreign markets. Either by means of opening up local subsidiaries or outsourcing to another country, they are all inevitably involved in the interaction with an unfamiliar culture. One of the challenges that confronts them is the increasing diversity of the workforce and similarly complex prospective customers with disparate cultural backgrounds. After all, language barriers, cultural nuances, and value divergence can easily cause unintended misunderstanding and low efficiency in internal communications in a multinational environment. It leads to conflict among employees and profit loss in organizational productivity. Therefore, in international organizations, cross-cultural communication, also known as intercultural and trans-cultural communication, serves as a lubricant, which mitigates frictions, resolves conflicts, and improves overall work efficiency; likewise, it serves as coagulant, integrating the collective wisdom and strength, enhancing the collaboration of team work, and uniting multiple cultures together between race and ethnicity, which leads to a desirable virtuous circle of synergy effect. In the paper, I will identify three aspects of culture that constitute people’s understanding between each other in professional settings, namely, language and non-verbal codes; cultural values and beliefs; and cultural stereotypes and preconceptions. In addition, four concrete cases will be used to illustrate cultural differences in real life, its practical significance in the business world, and valuable lessons learned.

First Monday, 2022

All over the world states and companies have intensified their collection of personal information. Under conditions of rapid digitalization and light regulation in China, government and company data collection has also expanded rapidly. This pronounced exposure of citizens' personal information has the potential to provoke substantial privacy concerns among the public. So far, however, little is known about distinctions individuals make between privacy concerns vis-à-vis government and the private sector. Privacy concerns in China are not yet broadly researched. Drawing on an original online survey from 2019 (N = 1,500), this study explores the magnitudes as well as the structural and ideological roots of concerns about government and company data collection in China. It finds that concerns about data collection by government are low, albeit elevated among individuals who are ideologically not aligned with the state. By contrast, concerns over data collection by companies are both extensive and consensual across most socio-structural and ideological differences. The integration of state and commercial personal information does not multiply concerns, suggesting that the Chinese state is perceived as a safety device for, rather than a threat to, citizens' personal information.

China Review International, 2020

Deliberately framing this book as "a Western cultural analysis," Willis aims at turning the strange into familiar. China not only excites Willis, but also puzzles him: "You are always a foreigner, taken as a foreigner" (p. vii). As an anthropologist who grew up in post-reform China and had my destiny and identity profoundly shaped by the ruthless Gaokao regime, Willis' cultural commentary inspires me to turn the familiar into strange; it also opens up or reframes interesting questions for China specialists to grapple with, to debate, and to answer.

Routledge Studies in Surveillances, 2023

Digital surveillance is a daily and all-encompassing reality of life in China. This book explores how Chinese citizens make sense of digital surveillance and live with it. It investigates their imaginaries about surveillance and privacy from within the Chinese socio-political system. Based on in-depth qualitative research interviews, detailed diary notes, and extensive documentation, Ariane Ollier-Malaterre attempts to ‘de-Westernise’ the internet and surveillance literature. She shows how the research participants weave a cohesive system of anguishing narratives on China’s moral shortcomings and redeeming narratives on the government and technology as civilising forces. Although many participants cast digital surveillance as indispensable in China, their misgivings, objections, and the mental tactics they employ to dissociate themselves from surveillance convey the mental and emotional weight associated with such surveillance exposure. The book is intended for academics and students in internet, surveillance, and Chinese studies, and those working on China in disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, social psychology, psychology, communication, computer sciences, contemporary history, and political sciences. The lay public interested in the implications of technology in daily life or in contemporary China will find it accessible as it synthesises the work of sinologists and offers many interview excerpts. https://www.routledge.com/9781032517704 eBook: 978-1-003-40387-6

This is an informal but revealing account of changing Chinese social perceptions. The trajectory of Chinese life has been in a ferment of change for many years now. This is not just a matter of super fast trains and mobile phones. The social sophistication of individuals has transformed, and continues to do so. I first worked in China from 1998. The 1999 vignette of social aspirations outlined below seemed worth preserving. Already, half a generation later in 2015, it comes across as rather quaint, and at the time I found the events quite funny (not least my own ineptitude). Regardless, to understand where a culture is going, it helps greatly to remember where it has come from. If we can have a good laugh while learning some social history, that is healthy too.

The previous decade saw widespread discussions about the role of the Internet in reshaping power relations in Chinese society. New media—it was widely believed—would give voice to the poor and downtrodden, allow citizens to better supervise government activity, and foster lively cultural exchanges. Workers would also benefit from this, as the Internet provided them with the tools needed to bring their grievances into the spotlight and enhance their ability to connect with their peers to establish new forms of solidarity. A decade later, what is left of that cyber-utopian discourse? This issue of Made in China offers a series of essays that attempt to answer this question against the backdrop of the latest developments in Chinese politics and society.

2013