\//a//s 0f J3R1CH0 杰里科城墙 [Walls of Jericho]

As with some recent posts on technology, I see my participation on the world platform as something unique. It presents me with some interesting technological, theological and ethical situations. Social media/Internet have made the world extremely small. I now have better connections via web-chat software to China through Chinese State funded platforms than I do to a vendor in Pennsylvania 30 miles away through Skype.

As a need to keep proper communication with my Chinese counterparts near Shanghai, Hangzhou, Nanjing, Zhengzhou and Xi'an I’ve needed to download WeChat to my phone. It is the Chinese equivalent of Messenger, Skype, PayPal and Facebook combined. There are over 1 billion registered users, mostly within China. Some like me are outside it. 

WeChat operates from China under Chinese law which includes censorship and interception protocols. WeChat can access and reveal texts, contact books, and location histories of its users. This is a known fact in international circles. Due to WeChat's intrusive ubiquitous use the Chinese government does data scouring to conduct mass surveillance on its people.

WeChat is owned by Tencent. In 2016 Tencent was given a 0 out of 100 score by an Amnesty International who ranked technology companies on the way they implement encryption to protect the human rights of users. The report placed Tencent last out of a total of 11 companies, including Facebook, Apple, and Google, for the lack of privacy protections. Which is to say they don't protect users at all. The report found that Tencent did not make use of end-to-end encryption, which is a system that allows only the communicating users to read the messages. It is no surprise Tencent has close ties with Chinese government.

It also found that Tencent did not recognize online threats to human rights, did not disclose foreign government requests for data, and did not publish specific data about its encryption. This is one of the reasons Google and Facebook are not allowed there. They will not give up the key to their encryption. Hence WeChat’s popularity there. Chinese people have no choice. When you live in a  company town with company stores…you get stuck buying company goods with company money.

In a September 2017 update to the platform's privacy policy detailed that log data collected by WeChat included search terms, profiles visited, and content that had been viewed within the app. Additionally, metadata related to the communications between WeChat users—including call time, duration, and location information is collected. The Chinese will know exactly what I’m doing. When I’m doing it and, with a little profiling which a state would most certainly do…they’ll extrapolate my intent and patterns in and out of country.

All this to say, to be able to use this app to do my job in China I need to relinquish all my private data here in the states by consent (as a right to do business) to the Chinese government on the other side of the world. 

Ironically, I don’t see this as an issue to me because much of my 'personal' life is already on Facebook and Instagram here. Whether we like it or not all social media platform corporations are no better. Big Tech and government are in bed with one another. Once governments become associated, by default truth and privacy becomes irrelevant. I assume they’re tracking my every move already in the US and China. Assuming...I'm important enough to be tracked.

Censorship

Starting in 2013 reports arose that Chinese language searches even outside China were being filtered and/or blocked. This occurred both on incoming traffic to China from foreign countries but also exclusively between foreign parties outside of China. China admitted it: If you use our tools, you use our rules.

There is one thing that China will not let users do within their app: Discuss political and politically sensitive topics. They will also not allow organized religious groups that can cause political dissension. While users try to send out political sensitive words, the system will automatically block keywords deemed hostile.

Censorship proliferation worldwide is where my reservations lie with this technology. Specifically, the Chinese capitalistic model is spreading to nations like the US as a cost of doing business with them. The borders of Rome are becoming more porous so-to-speak and the risk of incursion is now greatly amplified, mostly towards America. It is an erosion of sovereignty from within. In truth the borders have already been broached (as we learned with the Chinese chip incident and Apple in 2018). The irony is that I don’t’ care that they know about my life. I have nothing to hide that I’m aware of. I care that aspects of it will be censored going the other way. Walls can fall in or out as we learned by Jericho. It may prevent me from fulfilling the Great Commission. The State will not tolerate a stick in the eye. Any readers of George Orwell’s 1984 realize this.

Censorship Systems & The Gospel

But then I realize one person means little to them. Groups that are a threat to government...those groups get shutdown.The only time an individual becomes a problem is when they are overtly public in media. In other words Tiananmen Square. The good news is that I as an individual Christian...I don’t identify with an ‘organized’ religion per se. Frankly, I don't care what China does and their ideology. 

How should this affect my behavior? Well, all this surveillance means I’ll always be watched. I’ll always have a captive audience like Apostle Paul did with the Praetorian Guard. What’s a Christian to do when they know they’re under observation by the world? We’re to be exemplary examples of the One we represent. There's a tremendous opportunity here for me to be a good Christian deep in the heart of China and show how a Christian behaves over a long period of time as I’ll be making many trips over time. Time...the true test of a person’s character. Character that can be seen no matter what culture or nation I belong. I am in reality a member of the Kingdom, not of any nation on Earth. I’m just passing through here. Just like I will be in China. I should leave signposts to the Kingdom in my wake. I can go to people rarely touched by the Gospel. Factories with dirt floors. Illiterate Chinese peoples mostly seen as downtrodden. 

Just like Rome had Roman roads to carry the Gospel into the frontiers of the empire, the Internet and global social media platforms offer me the same on a more vast scale in the 21st century. Roads are usually two-way streets. I can turn swords to plowshares and behavior to witness. How? I have the advantage of meeting a lot of these people half a world away firsthand...face-to-face and directly affecting their lives for good.

How these people will be treated by their state system will be regulated by the Quality System I help implement in their plants. I can prevent overwork by direct wiring of American dollars to their accounts. I see an opportunity presented to me that is rarely presented in the Church. I understand now why I was given a leadership position in a multinational endeavor. I understand why my ministry took so long and looked the way it did. Multinational, like the Gospel. I am a singular packet of data in the system. I am the trumpet/rams horn (a symbol of power) at Jericho. By going back to the old ways...walls become gates. The old has become new again. Just like conversion by the Gospel. I love the irony and am thankful for it.

Reference:
(1) https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2019/03/28/commentary/world-commentary/worried-huawei-take-closer-look-tencent/#.XY9ZZ0ZKhPY
(2) https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/04/chinese-spy-chips-are-said-to-be-found-in-hardware-used-by-apple-amazon-apple-denies-the-bloomberg-businessweek-report.html

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