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INFOWAR: Infowar seen by the Chinese
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ARS ELECTRONICA FESTIVAL 98
INFOWAR. information.macht.krieg
Linz, Austria, september 07 - 12
http://www.aec.at/infowar
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Perhaps it is worthwhile having a look at the concept of Infowar from
another viewpoint than the European/American.
I have just come back from Beijing where I have met several people doing
research in this field, militaries and others. And it seems that the
concept of Infowar in the beginning was not an American - there is one
chinese author, Shen Weiguang, who has been working on the concept of
infowar since the early 80ies. Out of his own experience - he has been
fighting a guerilla war at the southern border of China - he came to
formulate this concept and published his first article on "Infowar" as
early as 1985 in the leading military publication of the People's Republic
of China (Jeifangjun bao) - after spending years of looking for a
publisher (the ones who made it impossible for him to publish earlier was
the Chinese army). So he claims to be the first person on the world to
have formulated this concept.
Since the Gulf War the concept of infowar has been accepted by the Chinese
Military, too, and by now there are a lot of people publishing articles
and books (for internal and public use), so that for the Chinese
intellectuals the concept of Infowar is not an unknown thing.
The Chinese consider that the military part of a future infowar is not the
most relevant part; the Chinese think that the decisive factor and key to
victory lies in human policy decisions rather than in technology; genuine
advantage does not necessarily lie in leading technology but in leading
ideas. (Wishful thinking??) They are elaborating on the old concept of
People's warfare as formulated by Mao Zedong - the fact that information
technology is spreading quickly in China (at least in the big cities and
among university graduates) would enable much more people to take part in
Fighting "without even having to step out of the door". So those who take
part in information war are not soldiers alone, but anybody who
understands computers may become "a fighter on the network(s)". "Think
tanks composed of nongovernmental experts may take part in decisionmaking;
rapid mobilization will not just be directed to young people;
information-related industries and domains will be the first to be
mobilized and enter the war; traditional modes of operations will undergo
major changes; operational plans designed for information warfare will be
given priority in formulation and adoption; and so on and so forth.
Because other technologies are understood by people only after they are
married with information technology and because information technology is
becoming increasingly socialized, information warfare is not the business
of armed forces alone." (Wei Jincheng). Shen Weiguang affirms that large
troops will no longer be the military threat; sudden attack from the
network should be paid more attention, especially economic attack.
Cultural aggression and ecological aggression will become the main threat
of social safety.
As there have appeared a lot of articles in major newpapers, it seems that
the Chinese intellectuals are much more aware of this new kind of war
(which is not a thing to come, but which is around is already, as Wei
says) than their colleages in Europe and perhaps the States. Recently,
even one of the big Chinese students' leagues, the All China Students'
Center of science and technology, is turning the attention of students to
the infowar - to prepare them and make them fit.
If you consider the Chinese enthusiastic acceptance of all technology -
starting with cars, going to pagers and mobile phones (in Beijing just
about every yuppie - and there are a lot of them - has got one) to
computers and the Internet (the infrastructure has made extreme progress
in the last two years; internet cafes are nothing strange in big cities;
China has got a lot of academic networks linking most of the universities
and up to 2000 all of them; it is introducing an "own" Chinese speaking
Internet - ChinaInfo; the financial Information Service, the new
superministry of Information, the socalled "nine "Golden Projects", the
new Internet regulations which seem to have lifted restrictions about
previouly blocked Internet sites .... just to cite some items - and last
but not least - the old tradition of philosphy of war, not only Sunzi) it
will be quite interesting to observe in what direction the discussion in
China will move.
Ingrid Fischer-Schreiber
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Ingrid Fischer-Schreiber
Beethovenstrasse 11
A-4020 Linz
Austria
Tel/Fax ++43/732/613647
E-Mail: fischer@eunet.at
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