Direct News Dialogue Guest: Professor Sun Xingjie, Deputy Director of the Institute of International Relations (CTTI Think Tank) of Jilin University and Doctoral Supervisor
A placard reading "Release Assange" was filmed on June 17 in front of the Home Office building in London. Xinhua News Agency
With Home Secretary Patel signing an order on June 17 approving the extradition of WikiLeaks founder Assange to the United States, the U.S. government has filed 17 counts of espionage and 1 count of improper use of computers against him. According to lawyers, if Assange is extradited to the United States, he could face up to 175 years in prison. WikiLeaks said in its latest statement that the extradition was intended to allow Assange to disappear "in the darkest corners of the U.S. prison system" and "to prevent others from holding the government accountable."
Why did the United States "exterminate" Assange? What will happen to Assange? Assange is an Australian living in Britain, so why does the United States have no regard for the face of its allies to "long-arm jurisdiction" over him?
Assange is hated by the U.S. government because wikiLeaks, which he founded, has released countless classified information to the world. As a result, he was involved in more than a hundred lawsuits. In particular, the truth of the massacre of the US Government in the Iraq War was made public, and the image of the US Government was blown up to the point of being unbearable. He also opened Hillary's "mail door" and directly stopped Hillary outside the White House. Arguably, assange has offended countless powerful people in American society. Some people in the United States also accuse Assange of harming the national interests of the United States in the name of freedom.
Is Assange, who calls himself the "Night's Watch", a leaker or a "lone hero" who changed history? Behind the controversy, where is the contradiction of deep logic? In the context of today's Internet has become a "new battlefield" for international public opinion warfare, what changes and inspirations has Assange brought to the world?
Around these controversies and questions, Zhixin interviewed Professor Sun Xingjie, deputy director of the Institute of International Relations (CTTI think tank) of Jilin University and doctoral supervisor.
【Core Summary】
1. Why is Assange's fate tragic? What he offended was the "deep state power" of the United States.
2. The Truth of the Legal War of "Extradition": The "Hunt" Operation of the United States under the Logic of "Empire".
3) If Assange ends up in a U.S. courtroom, there will be "American democracy" on trial.
4, Snowden was a little luckier than Assange, and fled to Russia by mistake, escaping the "pursuit" of the United States in the camp of opposition to the United States.
5. "Hero" or "Criminal"? Why the controversy? Assange represents the confrontation between "freedom of information" and "state power."
6) "Absolute freedom" on the Internet is only a yearning, and there is an irreconcilable contradiction between it and the current legal order.
7) "My behavior is not to leak secrets, but to whistle." Assange and Snowden, like night watchmen, stepped forward in the darkness and issued a cry, indicating the coming of a new era.
8. More than a decade after the Assange incident, what has been triggered at a deeper level is the major changes in the entire political economy, including international relations. China's proposal of "great changes" is a precise judgment of this extremely historic change.
People held a demonstration in front of the Home Office building to protest the British government's extradition of Assange to the United States
【Interview Selection】
Assange offended the United States' "deep state power"
Wan Xia: Assange's extradition to the United States may become very imminent, why has the United States been chasing and beating Assange and killing him to the end?
Professor Sun Xingjie: First of all, the storm caused by Assange and his "WikiLeaks" has been going on for a long time. What does this extradition show that the attitude and practice of the US government towards Assange spans the terms of several presidents? This shows that Assange is not only touching the interests of a certain U.S. president or a certain U.S. administration. What he touched was the relatively solid political power within the United States, or the "deep national power" of the United States.
As you may know, Assange exposed a lot of military information and related figures in the Us war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Including Former U.S. Military Intelligence Analyst Manning, who leaked classified documents to WikiLeaks and was sentenced to 35 years in prison (after serving a seven-year sentence, Manning was pardoned and released from prison in 2017 and changed his name to Chelsea to start a new life).
In fact, Americans, especially American war interests, hate Assange very much. But the question is, the war is over, even if Assange has broken the news, why can't the United States let him go?
Probably the main reason is that war interest groups do not bring their interests to an end because of the end of these two wars. If Assange continues to declassify and expose other secrets later, it will be a very lasting threat to the US military-industrial group and war interest groups. That's the main reason why they have to chase after Assange.
In addition, I think it may have touched the intelligence interests of the United States. Because both Assange and Snowden revealed the detailed inside story of the surveillance actions of the CIA's intelligence surveillance system. In particular, Snowden's revelations made everyone very shocked and frightened. Exposing the intelligence inside story to the world is a very big threat to intelligence interest groups. Therefore, whether it is out of revenge or to eliminate the threat, for Assange, the US intelligence community will certainly respond with a very firm and aggressive attitude.
Assange represents the confrontation between "freedom of information" and "state power."
Wan Xia: If Assange is extradited to the United States, will he really "disappear" in American prisons? Or sit on the bottom of the prison?
Professor Sun Xingjie: Theoretically, within 14 days after Assange comes out, he must decide whether to appeal or not? Both his wife and his lawyer said they "will appeal to the end." That is to say, what is now manifested is a kind of "legal war", the purpose of which is to achieve a turnaround through legal means. Others appealed to the European Court of Human Rights. I also believe that many European politicians and lawyers are likely to lend a helping hand.
The current "legal battle" actually reflects the confrontation between two different forces. Assange represents a force of "freedom of information" and is therefore essentially a confrontation between "freedom of information" and "state power."
As for whether "extradition" can be implemented, and how to try it after "extradition" to the United States, it is most likely another legal game.
The end result may be that the "Assange incident" will continue for a long time. Maybe ten years from now, our show will talk about Assange again. Not only did he change the course of history, he was also making his own history, as you just said.
Ruins of the city after the United States launched the Iraq War
The Truth of the Legal War of "Extradition": The "Hunt" Operation of the United States under the Logic of "Empire"
Wan Xia: In fact, the United States not only wants to seize Assange as a person, but also to create a "chilling effect" for the whole world: you dare to oppose the United States and expose the secrets of the United States. Then no matter where you are, the U.S. government will not let you go!
Assange is an Australian living in England, he is not American at all, but I find it difficult for the United States to put a foreigner to death. Even if Assange violates U.S. law, can the U.S. "long-arm jurisdiction" retaliate to this extent?
Professor Sun Xingjie: If you look at the years when the president of Panama was arrested by the US special forces and tried in the us local court, you can understand the extent to which the US is now acting hegemonically. In fact, I don't think these incidents and the "extradition of Assange incident" can even be said to be just "hegemony". "Hegemony" is under the premise of an international basic rule, but these events mentioned above have obviously gone beyond the scope of "hegemony", which is an "imperial act".
If we look at Britain, the United States plus Australia, or even the Five Eyes (an intelligence-sharing alliance of five English-speaking countries, including the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand), or the colonies of the "former British Empire" and their allies, you will find that if we understand it according to the imperial thinking, it is completely easy to understand. The United States was the "Roman Empire", and then the remaining Britain, Australia, and New Zealand were its "provinces".
So from the "Assange Incident", we can see that the United States is not equal to its allies. They speak of equality, but in reality they are a "subordinate relationship" or a "hierarchical relationship". That is to say, once the United States is identified as a "traitor" or a "rebel", then no matter where this person is, even in its very close allies, the U.S. government will arrest and punish this person.
This may seem a bit incredible, but in a way it is understandable and completely in line with "imperial logic".
The biggest difference between Snowden and Assange is that one ran and the other didn't run
Wan Xia, chief writer of the straight news: From this point of view, it may be understandable why the same is the same offense to the United States, but Snowden ran to Russia by mistake, was not extradited, and was able to take refuge in Russia.
Professor Sun Xingjie: Yes, Both Assange and Snowden are wanted by the United States and are considered to threaten the core national interests of the United States. Assange is Australian and Snowden is American, and the fates of the two of them are different, one is a fugitive, the other has been in prison.
Assange spent more than a decade in Britain, but in another place in prison, it is now possible to change to the United States to go to prison, and Snowden can still live in Russia, and the small life is OK. So the most fundamental difference is that one runs and one doesn't run away.
When Snowden ran to Russia, it can be said that he was already in the hostile camp of the United States. Although the relationship between the United States and Russia was not so bad at that time, it had already shown confrontation. Looking back at Russia's relations with the West, it can be observed that from 2017 and 2018, a greater degree of antagonism has emerged.
Assange traveled from Sweden to England, then to the Ecuadorian Embassy, where he was later arrested and imprisoned. On the surface, he is constantly fighting lawsuits, and it seems that the problem is still flexible. But in fact, Assange fell into the legal net of the West and the United States, which could see the mesh, but he could not run.
Popular Solidarity with Snowden Exposes US Government's "Prism Program"
After "extraditeing" Assange, it may be "American democracy" to stand in the dock.
Wan Xia: Once the British Supreme Court rejects Assange's appeal, it is possible that Assange will be transferred to the United States within 28 days. If Assange finally stands in the courtroom of the United States, at that moment, do you think the so-called "democratic freedoms" displayed by the West will also face trials around the world?
Professor Sun Xingjie: There are now good media comments that if the United States tries Assange after his extradition, it will actually be the darkest day of "press freedom" and "democracy". Personally, I believe that for the United States and the West, this incident is not only a trial of the so-called "democratic freedom" values, but also a trial of the "constitutionality" and constitution of the United States.
Did Snowden and Assange challenge only the issues of "freedom of speech" and "freedom of the press"? I don't think so, or not only that, but one of the fundamental issues involved is the core of the state order.
If you look at Assange's experience in the past ten years, you can find that Assange is a very sad character. Why is that? If he follows the western concept of so-called "democratic values", he should have no problem doing so. But he touches on the core of the pillar of American state power, what is the core of this pillar? It's violence. The power structure of military intelligence interest groups within the United States and the concept of "democratic values" flaunted by the United States are contrary to each other.
In addition, the United States has always said that it is a so-called "liberal democracy", but in fact, throughout the history of the United States, it is not difficult to find out, what is the core of the national system and power in the United States? At its core, it is still defending what Weber (a German sociologist) called the "machine of violence." Although under this premise, the Constitution embodies some "democratic" ideas, etc., when it involves fundamental interests, it is not the case.
So from the point of view of Assange, he is only revealing some of the things done by the so-called "democratic and liberal" US government. In the Western ideology of ideology and politics, if it is a contract, the citizen authorizes the government to do things, and the government is the agent. But is that true? No.
So whether it is Assange or Snowden, their fate is told to everyone: the US government has done some unseemly things, and after the information is exposed, the exposers are punished.
Not only is the "democratic freedom" of the United States subject to torture, but in fact it is also torturing the entire American national system, the ideas and actual operations of the United States. The United States expressed and proclaimed in words is "two Americas" and the United States that actually operates. The Assange affair gives us a glimpse into another America.
Snowden has a bottom line, he is not arbitrarily exposing information, he is only exposing the illegal activities of the government, in addition, he is exposed through the media, he firmly believes in or superstitiously believes in the so-called "fourth right" of American news. But if you go to see "Black Mirror in the United States" written by gelman, the journalist who helped Snowden expose the "Prism Project", the reporter of the Washington Post is also facing various threats and great pressure, and the US intelligence agencies have also hacked his mailbox account.
At the time of Assange's trial, I actually thought the mirror would shine on America itself.
Controversy: Is Assange a "lone hero" or a "leaker criminal"? "My behavior is not to leak secrets, but to whistle"
Wan Xia: When I watch Assange's fate, I feel a bit like watching an American blockbuster. In many Hollywood blockbusters, there will be such a "lone hero". So is he a "hero" or a man who harms the national interest in the name of "freedom"?
Professor Sun Xingjie: The person who says he is a "hero" is not necessarily an anarchist, but at least the person who adheres to the concept of "personal value" or "freedom of information".
But if the core secrets of the state and the government, including the reports of some embassies and consulates abroad, are disclosed, then the person who exposes the information may be considered a criminal, a traitor.
Fundamentally, this involves the relationship between "modern government" and "citizenship." For example, the US government's surveillance of the world disclosed by Snowden and Assange has actually exposed that the United States has formed a "one-way flow" of information: the US government knows what people around the world are doing, it is monitoring the world, but we do not know what it is doing.
Assange has been charged with more than a dozen counts of "espionage." But for Assange and Snowden themselves, they think "I'm whistling." They argue that the One-Way Approach to Information Control in the United States is neither in line with nor in the public interest. After experiencing a lot of psychological torture, they finally decided to release the information beyond the control of the government level and let everyone know through the media and public channels.
In defending himself, Snowden said, "My behavior is not to leak secrets, but to whistle, not to threaten the U.S. government, but to maintain the constitutionalism of the United States." He wants to serve the public, not the U.S. government.
For seven years, starting in June 2012, Assange hid at the Ecuadorian Embassy in the UK until he was arrested and imprisoned by British police three years ago.
The cry of the "night watchman" makes more people perceive: the times have entered a new time and space?
Straight News Chief Writer Wan Xia: Snowden or Assange, as if he were a night watchman, they issued a shout in the dark and stepped forward, but these people themselves may face a tragic fate.
Because no country will allow activity on the Internet to disrupt the legal order. "Absolute freedom" is certainly only a yearning, and there is indeed an irreconcilable contradiction between it and the current legal order.
We're looking at Assange today, what changes do you think they've made in the world?
Professor Sun Xingjie: I think the biggest change is that without Assange and Snowden, we probably wouldn't have been able to perceive the signs of changing times so quickly. They shouted, and the era entered a new time and space, which was the greatest impact.
They suddenly woke everyone up, and it turned out that the world we were in was not the same as before! They started asking people to think a lot about it.
There are three points worth noting, the first of which is the problem of "restructuring government power". Snowden said he saw massive surveillance. Since the bombing of the Twin Towers on 9/11, the U.S. response to terrorist attacks has allowed U.S. intelligence to infinitely amplify the nation's security, including surveillance of its own citizens. This involves a very big improvement in information technology, except for what you think in your head, the government doesn't know, maybe the things you do every day, it knows. The "two-way interaction of power" between the government and citizens has been interrupted, and this is a process that needs to be reconstructed.
The second is "information capitalism." The entire system of economic development has been reconstructed by information, especially the United States. In fact, the financialization of the United States and the transformation of the industry, a very important factor is the huge investment in information capital. After 2010, it accounted for about half of the world's total, and the United States occupied the majority of the world's Internet or the basic components of the information economy. If it weren't for Assange, they would have been exposed, and everyone would have thought that they all used smartphones, as if the information obtained was the same, but in fact there was a big information gap. Not only that, but many people are controlled.
Information has been widely commercialized and has become a very important part of the economy. In this process, whoever has the space for information has the dominance or control of the economy.
From this point of view, changes in the global economic form, including the industrial chain or semiconductors that have recently been discussed, are linked to the development and restructuring of the "information capitalist system".
Finally, in terms of state relations, a geopolitics of information is taking shape, and geopolitics is reconstructed by information. Earlier I mentioned a concept called "cyber politics", "network or information space" is the space of wealth and power.
From a "geopolitical" point of view, why do countries compete for these spaces? The state itself is a reorganization of the space, and the "information space" contains the most power and wealth. In the future, there may be competition between major powers on "new frontiers" or "new space", and the stage of competition and game is in the information space.
The Great Change: The Information Space Has Surpassed land power and sea power to form a new "network power space"
Wan Xia: Since the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the United States and Western countries have launched sanctions against Russia in the field of the Internet. Russia's sanctions are so miserable, this is a very typical case of public opinion warfare.
Professor Sun Xingjie: Yes, in fact, global information has formed different spatial dimensions. The information space has surpassed the original land and sea powers and formed a new "network power space". If you are not in this space, there is no sense of existence. Between Russia and Ukraine, between Russia and the West, especially between the United States and Russia, there is a spatial competition in different dimensions, and we can see a relatively large contrast. You will find that these two forces are not in the same space and are not on the same stage.
Therefore, we reflect, do not wait until the end to find out that the opponent and the opponent are not in the same space. So how do you compete? A popular concept is called "dimensionality reduction strike", so we have to "ascend dimension", and we must be in the same space as the mainstream and frontier of the world.
After the Assange incident, more than a decade ago, everyone may have only focused on "leaking" or "not leaking". What is deeper now is actually a major change in the entire political economy, including international relations. The "great changes" proposed by China have further verified this extremely historic change.
The whole society is "migrating" to the Internet and "upgrading" has become a must
Straight News Wanxia: Can I understand that the whole society is "migrating" to the Internet? Interests and struggles have now moved to the Internet, so the rules, boundaries, and methods of competition may be completely different from in the past?
Professor Sun Xingjie: Yes, I think this change should be revolutionary.
The first great change in human society was when ancestors moved from gathering and nomadism to settling later, which some called the "agricultural revolution", which is a change in the way of survival, which we can understand as a change in space. Originally in a moving space, it later settled, which is called the "settlement revolution". The "sedentary revolution" led to changes in the entire political order, the economic model, and later the emergence of large empires and so on.
The second major revolution was the "Industrial Revolution", in which the way human beings used energy changed, originally using cattle and manpower, natural energy, and later chemical petroleum energy.
This time, we may be in a new major change, that is, the "information revolution". It is not that agriculture is not important, or that industry is not important, but that it may have to undergo a re-baptism. As for what will change, no one knows, it is an open change, a sharp change.
From this point of view, many of our concepts and constructed systems may undergo great shocks or changes.
It's the age of the internet. Especially in the era of self-media, the United States is facing a new challenge, which is more typical of Trump's use of self-media after he took office, and he used self-media and Twitter to govern the country, which directly broke the original information transmission method.
After Biden came, he began to pull back. After the emergence of the information society, interests and ideas are constantly dividing. Can the original institutional structure, power structure, including interest groups still be united?
While Biden may be on stage to discuss division and civil strife in the United States a little less than it was during the Trump era, are structural problems, shocks, and challenges gone? I don't think so. From this point of view, we are in a new period of major changes in human living methods and living conditions, which should be the dawn period.
Wan Xia, chief writer of straight news: Thank you for sharing with the teacher. Assange seems to be a night watchman, and his cries may open up a new dimension, and the world is different.
Professor Sun Xingjie: The change in Assange's personal destiny is actually the direction of the change of the times, representing the challenges faced by the entire Western world and the United States in the process of development and change. After the information revolution, the whole world will experience an impact of ideas and a revolution to a greater or lesser extent, sooner or later.
Author 丨Sun Xingjie, Deputy Director of the Institute of International Relations (CTTI Think Tank) of Jilin University, Doctoral Supervisor; Wan Xia, shenzhen satellite TV direct news chief writer
Editor 丨Li Wensi, editor-in-chief of Shenzhen Satellite TV Direct News