The crisis of the government’s credibility in the internet era

In a society without good institutions, what are the consequences and jeopardy of the situation in which people distrust each other? It is not difficult for us to figure out: because of the mutual distrust, not only will the mutual trade costs increase, but also the quality of people’s lives will be affected and so are their esteems. The truth has become a type of scarce resources and justice has become rare in China, such that even the simpletons start worried about it. Because the governments at all levels are so used to lying, to being arrogant and opinionated, and also inert to change their bad habits that their first move during their incumbency was to bury the truth and be a “extinguisher” of the true information by all means. The consequence produced, however, is that the government is getting extremely discredited by its people, leading to the fact that the legitimacy of the mandates and regulations is drained out and the cost of administration increased. Furthermore, it triggers the malicious cycle of mutual distrust between the people and the government, which harbors more than a disaster to the society.

Confronting the current global economic crisis, China is badly hit due to its export-driven structure, thus the government targets at exploration of the domestic consumption through galvanizing the public zeal for consuming. The government keeps chanting the slogan, claiming that they have confidence in overcoming the current hardship. What is seen by the people, however, is still the darkness of the institutions, continuation of the corruption and the fact that all the stimulus packages will only advantage the minor privileged even though some people could not share the left-over. Because of an incomplete social security system, coupled with discredit of the government’s stimulus, the people have to lead a life by tightening their already tight belt. Recently there was a piece of news about several local governments in the provinces such like He Bei, Inner Mongolia and Shan Xi etc. issuing governmental bonds, but ending up with no deal reached at all. It is, said by some scholars, because the bonds are of low rate and fluid that no people want it, which sounds really reasonable to me. The deeper reason roots in, however, that the credibility that the government owns has been overused for their lies of the past decades; it is almost impossible to have the people believe the government and purchase the bonds at all means as happened 50 years ago.

As a matter of fact, the government has been veiling the truth and burying the rightness for as long as 60 years, but why do the people start to sense its intensity nowadays? It is because of internet that brings these unrighteous and veiled actions up above the table, making more people, both practically and psychologically, aware of the truth that they are living in country of little justice. Take the case s of Deng Yujiao and Hu Bin for example. Had they happened in the era controlled by the traditional media, they would have not reached as broad as they do now; they would not draw as much attention although they might cause a small stir. Not only because of the limitation of the speed, the tunnel, and the means of the traditional media as well as their limited impacts, but also the costs of paying attention to the cases of out-of-town were high, the normal people had little concern about the lives of others.


It is different now; the costs of concerning about these cases have become relatively lower, means like surfing online, texting, blogging and BBS etc. could expedite the reaching of information. Especially, people are angry at the government’s attempts to block, mask, obscure, and “mosaicize” the relevant information. Such hindrances, however, are diluted along with the development of internet—a gleaner of the people’s will. Due to the lack of righteousness and justice, the gulfs between dissimilar classes have enlarged gradually and the whole Chinese society is going through a series of rips (tearing-apart), a collapsing risk as referred to by Prof. Sun Li Ping. The case of Hu Bin is not only a representation that the credibility of Hang Zhou government is questioned or dismissed—nor is the case of Deng Yujiao—they are indicating the universal questions and distrusts over all local and the center government. In another word, that the credibility of the government at any level is questioned or dismissed will spread out rapidly and reach to people everywhere through the internet, drastically consolidating the distrust from the people to all governments.

If previously that the people felt obligated to trust the government is because of the fooling propaganda, now many people begin realizing the government is something that should be questioned and criticized instead of being trusted. That is to say, the public distrust to the government takes place progressively, now the credibility of the government is severely depleted. It is a huge mistake to expect the same thing to happen as did fifty years ago, during which the people accepted whatever the government fooled them. Furthermore, such refusal to accept occurs not only in the area of politics but also emerges in that of economy. Why does the premier Wen repetitively accentuate to the media that the government has confidence in overcoming this economic crisis and the people should too? We must be aware of some common sense, that is, in a society with little legality and justice the things that are frequently repeated are where the cruxes lie. It is because, in a society without substantial reforms toward democracy, the major means to maintain the public credibility is through repeated admonition. Such admonition, however, has been recurring for 60 years, exhibiting a heavy blend of falsehood and an obvious credibility crisis. In turn, it also precipitates the speed of the unstoppable collapse; the prospects of China do throw the people of vision into discomposure.