Ideas@TheCentre

The Snowden scandal is a hollow victory for Beijing

Having fled to Hong Kong, US National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower, Edward Snowden, has vowed that the leaks about the NSA’s intrusive surveillance programs will keep flowing.

For the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the news is PR manna from heaven.

Beijing has become accustomed to being chided by Washington for censorship, political repression, and industrial espionage.

But now China is relishing the opportunity to stake a claim to the moral high ground. An editorial in the pro-government Global Times on Monday captured the mood: ‘Washington must be grinding its teeth because Snowden’s revelations have almost overturned the image of the US as the defender of a free Internet.’

Rather than cause for gloating, however, the Snowden scandal should chasten Beijing. The severe blowback against Washington at home and abroad just further underscores the gravitational pull of the liberal values Beijing fears most.

With the CCP maintaining an iron grip on the levers of power and muzzling ordinary citizens by covert means, the NSA furore only hands Beijing a hollow victory against its principal geo-strategic rival.

Indeed, the moral malaise at the heart of Washington’s intelligence apparatus seems mild when compared to Beijing’s use of surveillance to regularly crush political dissent and summarily derail the lives of those who question one-party rule.

Rather than a coup for Beijing, the Snowden scandal is therefore a warning to governments the world over.

When the state systematically intrudes on the privacy of citizens—even if it is in the name of protecting them, it steps beyond the legitimate sphere of government activity.

As Chinese dissident Ai Weiwei made plain in The Guardian: ‘Officials always think what they do is necessary, and firmly believe they do what is best for the state and the people. But the lesson that people should learn from history is the need to limit state power.’

Beijing may relish Washington’s loss of face, but the real significance of the Snowden scandal is more relevant to the CCP than stern-faced party officials care to admit: Whether in Washington or Beijing, the excessive use of state power is on the wrong side of history.

Benjamin Herscovitch is a Beijing-based Policy Analyst at The Centre for Independent Studies.